I don't own Transformers or the Riordanverse; they belong to their owners.

Chapter 9: Forging a Bond.

Sleeping under a proper roof was a strange experience for the three kids, Luke and Thalia in particular. No one was complaining, though.

The next morning, Hound went to check on the Autobots new charges, only to find Luke wasn't sleeping with Thalia and Annabeth.

He found Luke outside swinging that club thing he used during the fight with the Decepticons at a nearby tree.

"You're up early," Hound noted.

"When you have to move all over the place, you get used to it," Luke grunted. He whacked the club against the tree trunk. "Right now, I'm just getting some practice in."

Hound observed Luke's movements. They seemed bulky and inelegant, like he was struggling with the weight.

"Looks like you still need some work," Hound noted.

Luke sighed and stopped swinging. "It's not like a baseball bat is my weapon of choice," he admitted. "I used to have a sword, but it got melted in acid. I had to make do with a golf club a few weeks ago until that got destroyed too."

"Maybe we could get you a new sword," Hound suggested.

"I doubt it." Luke lamented. "See, I need a really specific kind of metal for my sword, and getting ahold of that metal isn't exactly easy."

"I could help." Hound offered. "We've got some special equipment designed to locate specific ores and minerals."

Luke averted his gaze and frowned.

"Is something wrong?" Hound asked

"I'm just... not used to this," Luke explained as he sat down.

"Used to what? Aliens?"

"No." Luke muttered bitterly, "Having people I can depend on..."

"It's just been me on my own for over five years now." He continued.

"What about Thalia? And Annabeth?" Hound asked.

"I met Thalia a few months ago inside a drag—" Luke paused. "—inside a cave, and we only just met Annabeth last week. Before that, it was just me all by myself."

"You didn't try reaching out to anyone?" Hound asked.

"Why should I?" Luke asked bitterly. "If I had, they would have sent me home to mom."

"Why's that so bad?" Hound asked.

Luke was silent for a bit before he stood up. "Okay. If you're serious about helping me find that metal, sure, let's do it.".

Thalia woke up to find Luke standing by Hound as he was looking over some monitors.

"Morning Luke..."Thalia yawned.

"Hey Thalia," Luke said. "I got some good news. Hound said he can help me get some Celestial Bronze so I can make a new sword."

Thalia looked confused. "I thought the only place to get Celestial Bronze was on Olympus," she pointed out.

"Yeah, but with the right mixture of minerals, you can create a close enough aprox-" Luke was interrupted when his stomach started growling.

"Luke? Have you eaten anything since yesterday?" Thalia asked.

Luke gave a nervous laugh.

"Yeah, we need to sort out our supplies situation." Thalia murmured. "I'll go talk with the other Autobots about it."

"Thanks, Thalia," Luke said.

"Alright!" Hound exclaimed. "I think I got something. The Ark-27's scanners picked up a small residue of those ores you wanted me to find. Just a few miles from here. Let's get going!" As he finished speaking, Hound transformed into his jeep mode.

Luke hopped into the front seat and looked back at Thalia. "I'll be back soon," Luke said assuringly.

"You better be. Or else you'll starve to death." Thalia joked.

Luke laughed as Hound revved off into the wooded mountains.

When Thalia broached the subject of food to the other Autobots, they gave blank stares at her.

"I warned you," said Sunstreaker smugly.

"Shut it, Sunstreaker," Brawn muttered.

"Well, we kinda need food to survive, so... you're gonna have to come up with something." Thalia pointed out.

The Autobots were silent as they thought it over.

"I might have something." Ratchet spoke up.

"Yes?" Optimus asked.

"Well. Teletraan One has pretty advanced hacking software." Ratchet explained. "With it, I can probably make a false bank account and give it the appearance of always being there, and with that account, we can-"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Prowl interrupted, "Are you suggesting we commit bank fraud, Ratchet?"

"Well, erm, yeah," Ratchet admitted sheepishly.

"Well, I guess we don't have much choice if we want to ensure our human friends are taken care of," Optimus admitted.

"No different than what we've been doing before now...'" Thalia sighed.

"Alright. I'll get the fake account up and running." Ratchet said, and he turned away to get to work.

"Come on, Thalia." Hot Rod said. "Let's go shopping," he said, transforming into his Dodge Viper vehicle mode.

Thalia looked skeptical. "Wait a minute," she said. "Isn't it going to look suspicious if you have no driver?"

"Taken care of." Hot Rod said, and on the driver's side seat of the Viper, a human male with slick-backed hair and a red leather jacket appeared.

Thalia gasped. "Who's that!?" she exclaimed.

"It's me, Thalia." The human male laughed with Hot Rod's voice.

"Huh?"

"It's a hologram, Thalia." Hot Rod explained. "Like you said, being in a car with no driver would look pretty weird."

"Cool..." Thalia remarked, smiling, as she got into the passenger seat.

"Be back soon, guys!" Hot Rod hollered as he raced off.

After Hot Rod left, the other Autobots began to disperse and get to their duties.

Luke was silent as he rode in Hound's Jeep mode. They rumbled through the bumpy mountain road. Hound's scanners were hard at work looking for the copper he'd picked up earlier.

"So Luke..." Hound opened. "You said your mom was crazy?"

Luke continued his silence. "I'm not sure how much I should tell you," he muttered.

"Why not?"

"It's just..." Luke's voice went quiet. "Every time I tried talking to someone about it, they didn't get it. They thought my life was some sort of game or didn't believe me."

"Try me," Hound offered.

Luke sighed. "Why not? You'll probably find out sooner or later." He tried to pick his next words carefully. "Do you know what a god is?" he asked.

"Of course," Hound replied. "Us Cybertronians believe in Primus, the one who gave life to metal millions of years ago."

"Yeah, well, we humans have gods too." Luke explained. "And one of them is my dad."

Hound braked to a sudden stop. Luke lurched forward and banged his head on Hounds's steering wheel. "Hey, careful!"

"Sorry." Hound apologized "But...you're the son of a god!?"

"So you get how big a deal it is," Luke remarked, relieved.

"I think so," Hound said as he started moving again.

"Anyways," Luke continued, "my dad is Hermes. He's the Greek god of thieves, travelers, and messages."

"What's he like?" Hound asked.

Luke scowled. "He's a jerk. I've never met him."

"So how do you-"

"My mom talked about him a lot." Luke explained. "In between all the ranting, I don't know the full story, but apparently she tried to become the oracle or something-"

"Oracle?" Hound asked, confused.

Luke sighed. "It's complicated. Basically, it's this woman who gives out prophecies. Anyway, Mom tried to become the new one, but something went wrong, and it made her insane. She'd go off into ranting fits and scare me so much I'd have to lock myself in the closet..."

As Luke talked, his voice began to rise more and more, the anger and resentment in his voice building up.

"And where was Dad during all this? When his son needed his help? When my mom needed his help? Gone. I called and prayed for help every day, and he didn't do anything!"

Luke slammed his fists on Hound's steering wheel, causing the horn to go off.

"Whoa, easy!" Hound called, swerving around.

"...Sorry." Luke mumbled. "Here's the thing. When your dad's a god, life can be tough. I haven't even met him, and if I do, it'll be too soon."

"Hey, you're not alone now. Remember that." Hound says assuringly.

Luke gave a weak smile. "Thanks.".

At that moment, Hound's sensors started going off like crazy.

"What's that?" Luke asked.

"We're here," Hound said, making a sudden stop by a rock wall. "Once again, you might want to get out for this next bit.".

Luke hopped out of Hound, and the Autobot transformed into his robot mode.

"Alright, Luke. Let's get digging." Hound said, and he started digging into the rock wall.

Annabeth was disappointed when she woke up and found that Thalia and Luke had already gone. It was the first time since she'd met them that she'd been apart from one or the other.

She wandered through the halls of the Autobot ship, taking everything in and not really sure what to do. For the first time in her life, she didn't have to worry about monsters, her parents, or anything.

She finally found herself walking past a room where Prowl was sitting down with a lot of computer monitors. Prowl was talking with another Autobot with a black head and blue visor. Prowl didn't seem quite happy with the way the conversation was going.

"But Jazz, there's gotta be something I can do!" Prowl insisted.

"I'm sorry, Prowl, but we've got everything under control on Cybertron right now," Jazz explained. "We're rock solid."

"I highly doubt it without my input," Prowl stated arrogantly.

Jazz groaned. "Look, you're on another planet right now; why don't you take some time to relax and have fun?" he suggested.

"This isn't a vacation, Jazz," Prowl replied. "It's an important mission for the fate of our race!"

"Don't mean you can't enjoy yourself." Jazz pointed out.

"Jazz-"

"Oop, sorry, Decepticons hit the communications tower. Gotta go." and with that, the communication was cut.

Prowl groaned and slammed his head down on the desk.

"Are you okay, Prowl?" Annabeth asked.

Prowl turned to the human. "Uh... Annabeth, right?" he asked.

"That's me," Annabeth chirped.

"What do you want?" Prowl asked, annoyed.

"Do you wanna play?" Annabeth asked.

"No," Prowl stated bluntly.

"Come on. That friend of yours suggested-"

"I don't care what Jazz suggested!" Prowl spit back.

"But-"

"Leave me alone and get out!" Prowl ordered; he pointed toward the doorway for emphasis.

Annabeth started tearing up. She ran outside the room just as Chromia was walking in.

"Prowl..." she said.

Prowl didn't say anything. He just turned back to the monitors and stared at them dejectedly.

"You don't get it, do you?" Chromia asked.

"Get what?" Prowl muttered.

"You saved that girl's life."

"So?"

Chromia sighed. "You're probably her hero, and right now you just told her to get lost."

Prowl crossed his arms. "I'm nobody's hero," he muttered.

"Prowl..."

Prowl was silent.

"Would it really kill you if you took a few minutes to do something besides work?" Chromia asked.

Prowl groaned. "Fine," he said. He got up from his chair and then went looking for Annabeth. He found her crying in a side room.

He forced a smile. "Hey, Annabeth." He said awkwardly. "Do you want to play a game?"

Annabeth beamed, even if her eyes were still a bit red. "Yes!" she said.

"What do you organic- humans do for fun?" Prowl asked.

"Well...we could play a strategy game like chess," Annabeth suggested. "I keep trying to get Thalia and Luke to play it, but they suck at it."

"Very well," Prowl said, still forcing a smile. "I'll look it up..."

Thalia got the sense the bank teller was a little suspicious of the account full of money that had just opened out of nowhere and was being claimed by a twelve-year-old girl in a leather jacket and her "older brother". Nonetheless, Thalia and Hot Rod were able to obtain the money they needed for human supplies.

Sure, they'd probably be looking over their shoulders a bit from now on, but that was nothing new for Thalia.

Right now, she and Hot Rod had just finished shopping, buying supplies at a local Walmart, and were now heading to one of the kids old safe houses to pick up the last bit of supplies.

"Gotta admit. It feels a little weird to buy supplies instead of stealing them." Thalia admitted as she looked outside Hot Rod's window. "Riding in a car is new too."

"If you want to be technically correct, we bought the supplies with stolen money." Hot Rod laughed.

Thalia laughed back. "Oh yeah. You're right!".

"So Thalia." Hot Rod said. "I have a question."

"Shoot."

"How did you revive me back there? After I had crashed and I was low on Energon?"

Thalia thought about it. "Well, do you know what gods are?"

"Yeah," Hot Rod said warily.

"Well, my dad is Zeus; he's the god of the sky, lightning, and all that," Thalia explained.

"Whoa, your dad's a god!?" Hot Rod exclaimed.

"Yeah. It's... it's a whole thing." Thalia admitted. "Anyway, I have power over lightning because of that, so I summoned it to recharge you."

"That's wicked." Hot Rod said in awe. "It must be awesome having that kind of power."

Thalia looked blankly out the window again.

"What?" Hot Rod asked.

"I mean, yeah, it's cool being able to control lightning, but I don't think it's worth it," Thalia murmured.

"Why not?" Hot Rod asked.

"Being a kid of the gods like me Luke and Annabeth isn't fun," Thalia admitted. "In addition to all the problems with not having one parent in your life, you gotta deal with monsters attacking you because you smell good to them."

"Monsters?"

"Complicated," Thalia said. "Anyway, the worst part is that gods don't stick around... Luke hasn't even met his dad, and Annabeth hasn't met her mom..."

"Have you?" Hot Rod asked.

Thalia hesitated. "Yeah I- I haven't told Luke or Annabeth this, but for a while, my dad came to live with me and mom when I was seven."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, and it was good... until he left again," Thalia muttered.

Hot Rod got the sense there was more to the story, but if there was, Thalia wasn't telling it.

"What about your... mom, right?" Hot Rod asked.

"Yeah, and she was always a bit out there," Thalia explained. "She was an actress, and she was always doing all these crazy stunts to get attention. She also knew dad was Zeus, and..." Thalia trailed off.

"What?" Hot Rod asked.

"Some people just can't handle the truth, and it just made her worse." Thalia continued. "After Dad left, she kept trying to get his attention again, and she started acting out and ignoring me. She blamed ME for all the bad stuff that was happening to us. She even gave Ja-" Thalia stopped. "It was bad," she finished.

"That's why you ran away?" Hot Rod asked.

"Yeah," Thalia murmured. "Ran and never looked back. I hopped on a train to the east coast and ran into Luke one day."

"I'm sorry..." Hot Rod said.

Thalia looked out the window. "Stop!" she said.

Hot Rod braked to a halt.

"This is where it is," Thalia said.

Hot Rod looked around. It was an old, abandoned building.

Thalia got out of Hot Rod and walked into the place. She returned a few minutes later with some extra camping gear and a kerosene lamp.

"You have a lot of these hideouts?" Hot Rod asked as Thalia put the supplies in his trunk along with the groceries they had bought earlier.

"Yeah. Luke had already made a couple of makeshift safe houses when he was on his own, and I helped him make more. Annabeth even helped us create one in Virginia." Thalia explained.

"You're some pretty clever kids." Hot Rod said.

Thalia smiled as she got back in Hot Rod's passenger seat. "Thanks."

Thalia and Hot Rod got back to the Ark-27 at the same time that Hound and Luke did. Hound was carrying a huge load of metals in the back of his Jeep.

"Hey, you got the stuff!" Thalia said.

"It'll be nice to finally have a proper sword again." Luke agreed.

"Yeah, then you can finally keep up with me again." Thalia teased.

"Hah hah, very funny," Luke said, getting out before Hound transformed into his robot mode, now carrying the metals in his arms.

Thalia got out of Hot Rod and unloaded all the supplies from his trunk before he transformed and carried the rest.

The four walked in to find Optimus waiting for them. "Good, you're back," he said. "Once you get sorted out, we need you all in the briefing room," he pointed at Thalia and Luke. "And that includes you two."

"Really?" asked Luke.

"You said you wanted to be a part of this, didn't you?" Hound laughed.

"Hey...where's Annabeth?" Thalia asked.

Prowl gaped in shock at the holographic chess board he had set up for him and Annabeth.

"I win again!" Annabeth cheered.

"Impossible!" Prowl exclaimed, "I have one of the fastest processing speeds among the Autobots! I am single-handedly responsible for several victories-"

"And I just beat you again!" Annabeth laughed.

Prowl scowled. "I'm still getting used to-"

Just then Thalia and Hot Rod walked in, "Hey, uh, Prowl, Prime wants us in the briefing room-" Hot Rod looked at the scene in front of him. "Did we miss something?"

"This girl is getting to be a real pain in my tailpipe," Prowl muttered.

"I beat him five times," Annabeth said proudly.

"Oh, you did, did you?" Thalia laughed.

Hot Rod laughed as well. "Prowl? Losing to a little girl!?" he asked.

"Hey, I beat her five times too!" Prowl insisted sheepishly.

"Wanna break the tie?" Annabeth asked.

Prowl shot a determined look at Annabeth, "Gladly."

"Save it for later." Hot Rod said. "Optimus said he wants everyone in the briefing room.".

The briefing room onboard the Ark-27 was a medium-sized area (for a Transformer) with chairs lined up in rows facing a holomatter display.

Hot Rod, Sunstreaker, Hound, Chromia, Brawn, and Prowl took their chosen seats, with Thalia standing by Hot Rod, Luke by Hound, and Annabeth with Prowl. Optimus stood in front of everyone, alongside Ratchet.

"Alright, Autobots," Optimus started, putting his hands behind his back. "First order of business: have we been successful in making proper accommodations for our new native allies?"

"Got all the supplies we need," Thalia reported.

"Just give me the time, and I'll have a proper weapon," Luke answered.

"I kicked Prowl's butt," laughed Annabeth.

Prowl huffed, "I beat-"

"Good." Optimus interrupted. "Now onto the main order of business," he turned to Ratchet. "Ratchet, have you figured out the symbol on human Annabeth's shirt?"

"Yes, Prime," Ratchet confirmed. "And it's exactly what I suspected." Ratchet pressed a few buttons on a datapad, and the symbol that was on Annabeth's shirt appeared on the hologram display. "This symbol is one of the many on the Allspark."

"The Allspark? What's that?" Luke asked.

"It's the thing we came here to find," Hound explained.

"What is it exactly?"

"It's the sacred relic that gave us all life and kept our planet alive for over millions of years," Ratchet explained. "It's basically an unlimited source of energy and life. For generations, it was the law that the Allspark must never be touched or removed from its place in Cybertron's core."

"So why is it here?" Thalia asked.

"Megatron tried to break that law," Optimus replied. His voice began to drift as he remembered that day that happened so long ago. "He lost patience and decided violating our sacred traditions was worth it if it meant victory."

"I couldn't let that stand, so I ordered the Allspark sent away onboard an ancient, decommissioned space bridge to a random world."

"This world..."

Annabeth was silent. Lost in thought.

Prowl turned to Annabeth. "Annabeth. Where did you get the shirt?"

"It was something that belonged to my dad," she said quietly. "I stole it right before I ran away. I remembered him mentioning he and some classmates made it during a course on Atlantis or something..."

"What's Atlantis?" Chromia asked.

"It's this ancient Greek legend..." Luke explained. "Some kind of utopian society that destroyed itself."

"Do you think this "Atlantis" has some connection to the Allspark?" Sunstreaker asked.

"It's possible..." Ratchet remarked.

"Let's go find it then." Brawn suggested, "Where is it?"

"That's the thing..." Thalia muttered, "No one knows where it is. No one is even sure if it was real or not."

"Yeah, surprisingly, even knowing the Greek gods exist, some things are still a mystery," Luke muttered.

"Wait? Greek gods? What?" asked Prowl.

"We'll explain later," Thalia said.

"So I guess that's our first order of business," Hound said. "See if we can find this Atlantis."

"Where do we even start with something like that?" Hot Rod asked.

"I don't know, "Optimus admitted. "But I do know this: our mission to find the Allspark begins now."

Everyone nodded in approval.

"Now, friends." Optimus declared. "Join me in the Autobot pledge."

"Pledge?" Luke asked, but he was ignored as all the Autobots stood up and saluted. Optimus began speaking, and all the other Autobots repeated what he said.

"We will fight for the freedom of all sentient beings, on Cybertron and in the whole universe. We are the Autobots, and we will never give up. No battle is unwinnable, and no foe is unbreakable. Wherever we go, hope follows. By this creed we are bound, until that day, until all are one!" As the Autobots finished, they raised their fists in the air.

"Whoa..." Thalia said in awe.

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