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

Chapter 56: Goodbye Part 2

Hot Rod rolled back into Camp Half-Blood, where the other Autobots were waiting for him. Prowl and Hound were off to the side with Annabeth and Luke, and Chiron was talking to Optimus. Everyone else was either absent-mindedly looking around the camp or sitting down.

Nightprowler was the first to notice Hot Rod's arrival as the young Autobot transformed back to robot mode. "Hot Rod. You have returned," he noted.

"Yeah… I'm here…" Hot Rod remarked.

"Where'd you get the neat sword?" Sideswipe asked.

"That's something for me to know." Hot Rod said warily.

"Come on, you gotta tell us." Sideswipe insisted.

"Sideswipe, I'm feeling better, but..." Hot Rod sighed. "I'm still not in the mood for this…"

Sideswipe gave a reluctant shrug.

Hot Rod walked over to where Hound, Prowl, Annabeth, and Luke were sitting by Thalia's tree. "Welcome back, buddy." Hound greeted.

"Thanks…" Hot Rod said, sitting down next to them. He looked over at Annabeth and Luke. Luke didn't look as angry anymore, but he still seemed on edge, and Annabeth was still crying, and Prowl was trying to comfort her.

"Prowl?" Annabeth finally asked.

"Yeah?"

"Does it get easier? This pain?"

Prowl was silent. "No. It doesn't," he finally said.

Annabeth finally started crying again, and Prowl just held her awkwardly, unsure of what to say and taking care not to hurt her broken and casted leg. Hound and Luke both gave sympathetic glances at the two. Hot Rod just looked mournfully at Thalia's tree.

At last, after several more minutes, Optimus and Chiron came walking up to the hill. "Attention, please." Optimus requested. At Optimus's request, all the Autobots started gathering at the base of the hill.

"So…" Sunstreaker started. "Let's recap: The Allspark is gone, Thalia's gone, Brawn's gone, and Megatron's getting ready to launch an all-out war on this planet... We're not in a good spot here."

"So what do we do?" asked Chromia.

"We prepare and get ready." Optimus said. "We're down but not out. Now's the time to move into action."

"And me and Annabeth?" Luke asked.

Optimus and Chiron both gave the two human kids a sad expression. "Me and erm... Optimus have been discussing you two," Chiron began, "and we both agree it would be best if you two stayed here."

"What!?" asked Luke.

"Luke please…" Optimus said. "We're going to be very busy organizing future efforts on Earth, and I think this latest incident proves we can't always be there to protect you from the monsters."

Hot Rod hung his head in shame.

"But we're a part of this now!" Luke protested. "You can't just throw us under the bus like this!"

"We're not," assured Optimus. "We just think it'd be best for you to have a stable place to live and train and not be dragged into our messes all the time."

"And it's not like it's goodbye forever." Hound said softly. "I'm sure we can come and visit you. Right?" he asked.

Chiron nodded in agreement. "I must admit though," he added, "it's rare for any outsiders to be welcome to Camp Half-Blood; you are the first aliens to come here. But you have proven yourselves worthy allies for all that you've done for Thalia, Luke, and Annabeth."

Luke took in the kind words from everyone around him. He put his hands in the pockets of his jeans, looked down at the ground, and sighed. He didn't want to say it out loud, but they all had some pretty good points. He looked at Annabeth. "Annabeth, what do you think?" he asked.

Annabeth looked up at everyone, her eyes still red from crying.

"Annabeth?" asked Prowl.

After another few moments, Annabeth finally spoke up; she looked right at Luke. "Luke I really like Prowl and the Autobots, but... I'm tired," she said. "I don't wanna stop going on adventures, but... I think I need to just..."

"Take a break?" finished Prowl.

"Yeah," continued Annabeth. "I wanna talk to my dad again... I wanna stop running from the monsters. I want my leg to get better. I just want to stop for a bit."

Luke sighed. "Yeah. Okay… I'll stay. For Annabeth and Thalia, not for Dad."

Luke half expected Chiron to look disappointed in the badmouthing of his father, but he just gave a kind nod to the two. Maybe he understood why Luke was upset...

"Now. Let's get you sorted into your cabins," he said.

Chiron started to lead the two kids off with him, and Hound, Hot Rod, and Prowl went with them.

"Autobots." Optimus said. "Let's get the Ark-27 ready to go."

"Yes, sir!" Chromia, Ratchet, Nightprowler, Sunstreaker, and Sideswipe answered, and they soon started following him back to the ship.

"We'll meet up with you in a bit." Prowl assured them as he kept walking into camp; Optimus gave Prowl a thumbs up.

Hound suddenly realized someone was missing from the conversation. "Hey, Mr. Chiron?"

Chiron stopped walking and turned his head toward Hound. "It's just Chiron," he insisted.

"Yeah, sure… Where's Grover?" Hound asked.

Chiron gave a sad glance. "He's reporting to the Council of Cloven Elders, the heads of all Satyrs; they are very unhappy with his performance and are upset about Thalia's fate."

"So they're turning him into a scapegoat…" Annabeth muttered.

"Scapegoat would imply he's innocent." Luke muttered.

"That's not fair!" Hot Rod protested. "He got Luke and Annabeth to safety, and it was Thalia's choice to come back and save me!"

"Yes," said Chiron, "but Thalia was an extremely high-profile demigod on account of her father, and Luke's account has made it clear he didn't do the best job leading you back to Camp. There's also the fact he needed to have assistance from... erm...abominations is the term they used."

Hot Rod, Prowl, and Hound all looked awkwardly at each other.

"I'm sorry, but there's not much I can do." Chiron said.

"Come on," said Prowl. "Let's just get to work..."

A few hours passed as Luke and Annabeth were sorted into the cabins for the children of Hermes and Athena, respectively. The Autobots helped unload the belongings of the two kids from the Ark-27, which was parked a few minutes away from camp.

But at last, it was time to say goodbye. When that time finally came, Luke and Annabeth were sitting outside the ship with Hound, Prowl, and Hot Rod, watching the horizon. All the other Autobots had gone inside to get the final preparations for launch in place while giving Hound, Prowl, and Hot Rod a chance to say farewell to their human friends.

"I can't believe it's over." Luke muttered.

"Me either..." Hound said. "I'm going to miss this... just traveling around the planet, taking the sights in with you guys."

"I'm gonna miss movie night..." Hot Rod murmured mournfully.

"I'm gonna miss kicking Prowl's butt at chess." Annabeth laughed.

"I've beaten you plenty of times!" Prowl argued.

"Yeah, but I've got more victories than you now." Annabeth teased.

"Then I'll just have to win next time." Prowl, said determinedly.

"Hey guys!" hollered Ratchet from the Ark-27's main hatch. "It's been thirty cycles! It's time to go!"

The five friends each gave sad looks to each other. "Promise me." Luke begged to Hound. "Promise me you'll visit."

"I promise," Hound said.

Luke smiled. "You're the best friend I ever had, Hound."

"Likewise."

"Oh, before we go." Prowl pulled something out of a wrist storage unit and handed it to Annabeth.

"What's this?" Annabeth asked, taking it in her hands.

"A comm line. To me." Prowl said. "In case you ever need to talk."

Annabeth smiled the biggest smile ever. "Thanks."

But with that, it was time to leave. Hound, Hot Rod, and Prowl got on board the Ark-27's boarding hatch and looked back at Luke and Annabeth.

As the door started to close, the two kids and the three Autobots kept their eyes locked on each other until they finished closing.

Then the Ark-27's engines roared, and the ship took off. Luke and Annabeth watched as the ship that had been their home for over half a year now fly into the sky before vanishing as it went into stealth mode.

Finally, the two kids were left alone.

"Welp," Luke said. "Back to camp."

Hound, Hot Rod, and Prowl walked to the briefing room where all the other Autobots had assembled with Optimus in front of everyone.

The three Autobots found their seats and sat down. Things were quiet for a few moments as everyone seemed to acknowledge everything they'd gone through over the past few Earth months.

"So," Prowl began. "What's the next course of action?"

Starscream and Skywarp flew across the skies of New Mexico in their jet modes, where the Nemesis was waiting for them.

Megatron stood on the outside of the ship, waiting for the return of his two seekers. At last, the Decepticon duo transformed into their robot modes and walked up to Megatron.

"So, how did it go?" Megatron asked warily.

Skywarp gave a big grin. "Went great, boss! Not exactly the way we expected, but that human girl is gone for good."

Starscream nodded. "While we didn't strike any major blow against the Autobots, I can't imagine losing one of their friends on this planet will be good for morale."

Megatron just glanced at the two with a blank expression. "How did you accomplish this without any backup from us?" he asked.

"We just found someone willing to help us who had a score to settle with the girl too," Starscream explained.

Megatron got the feeling there was more to the story, but it didn't matter right now.

"Hey, uh… how's TC?" Skywarp asked.

"Unchanged." Megatron answered grimly.

Skywarp hung his head.

"So what now?" Starscream asked.

Megatron started walking back inside the Nemesis and gestured to the two. "Come inside," he said. "It's time to start planning…"

We have one more chapter to go, and then we're moving onto a series of epilogues setting up future stories in this universe.

I feel a bit bad I didn't give any of the Autobots outside of Hound, Hot Rod and Prowl much stuff to do in these two chapters. It's just hard to come up with stuff when the bulk of the character drama is focused on those three. I hope I at least gave them decent screen prescence.

As always, thanks for reading, and don't forget to leave a review!