Hello, everybody; ModernDayBard here, with my latest full-length fic. This one is a sort-of crossover of the Percy Jackson and Kane Chronicles worlds. (I say 'sort of' because it has been established by the author that the two worlds are one and the same, and he himself has written at least two 'crossover stories' already—in my mind, it's a viable, self-contained world, not a cross-over. Not really.)
Anyhow, I don't own either series, or the characters/places associated therewith.

Patricia Atalanta Williams, or 'Cia' as she preferred to be called, was a bit of a mystery to her adoptive family, despite having been with them since she was six months old. They didn't mind the mystery, though (being magicians in the DC Nome, they were used to strange things). Still, when she started asking questions about why she couldn't work magic as well as the few other children in the Nome, why she could only cast spells with the help of potions, amulets, scrolls and the like, they were forced to tell their young daughter just how much they didn't know about her origins.

The first things they knew about her was what the adoption agency had told them: that a strange man had brought a days-old infant girl into the offices, handed her to a startled secretary, told the frightened woman that the girl's name was Patricia Atalanta and that she needed a home, then vanished before anyone could ask him anything.

"The woman he handed you to thought he might be your biological father or maybe an uncle, as she said your eyes were the same, but she never knew for sure," Mrs. Williams told the girl whenever Cia asked for the story (which happened occasionally over the years). "Meanwhile, we were looking for a little girl to adopt, since we couldn't have children, and six months later, we saw you and knew you were the one for us. It doesn't matter if magic comes easy to you or doesn't: you're our daughter, and we love you."

There weren't many other children in their Nome, but there Cia did have one close friend, Maxwell Kalyon, the son of the head of the Nome, who was a year older than her. Magic came much easier to the boy, but he never lauded it over his friend, instead, doing his best to train her and help her learn. His efforts did help her with the concepts and theories, but nothing seemed to help her actually do magic. Now having learned of her (likely) non-Egyptian heritage, Cia simply accepted that magic was not in her blood and would always be a struggle for her.

As idyllic (if unusual) as her early years may have been, trouble loomed on the horizon. One December, shortly before she turned sixteen, she overheard her parents and the other adults grumbling about an 'embarrassment' at the Washington Monument. Later that year, an audio tape came out after the new Chief Lector had died, purporting to explain recent events.

After much debate, the DC Nome decided to side with Brooklyn House and Amos Kane, the youngest magicians (the ones least set in their ways) opting to begin learning the path of the gods. Cia, of course, was the one exception. Her parents insisted that the teen would be putting herself in danger if she tried, given her current difficulty with magic. Thus, she was relegated to observer and encourager, especially of Maxwell, who was studying the path of Sobek.

Even this wouldn't have been a harbinger of disaster, had it not been for Sarah Jacobi and her rebels. As the serpent and the rebels increased the frequency and fervor of their attacks on the Nomes that followed the Kanes, the Kalyons and Williams urged the young magicians to practice the path of the gods in secret, and made plans to send the youngest members of their Nome to Brooklyn House to help out and keep them safe. The night before the relocation, Sarah Jacobi arrived, with a hoard of blood-thirsty magicians at her back.

It was an absolute slaughter.

The DC magicians were mostly a family-oriented, non-combative group, and Jacobi's group was experienced at such butchery. Cia, normally no coward, found herself trying to hide behind a tapestry in an alcove, when one of the rebels found her.

The woman grinned maliciously at the frightened girl in front of her, raising her wand in preparation.

"NO!" Mrs. Williams's piercing scream cut through the battle as she raced towards her daughter, wand raised. The enemy magician froze the older woman with a spell, the smirked in a cruel taunt.

"You want your little squirt to live? You want me to spare her?" Cia, wide-eyed, watched her mother nod, a sob caught in her throat.

The enemy magician took another step towards Mrs. Williams. "Then beg. Beg me to spare the little—"

"Please!" Mrs. Williams cut in as soon as her mouth was unfrozen. "She's not a threat to you—she doesn't study the path of the gods—she's adopted, any magic is hard for her—you don't have to kill her!"

Ordinarily, Cia would have been embarrassed and hurt to hear her mother spill out her secrets and shortcomings in front of anyone, much less a hostile force. But she knew that it was meant as a protection, as an appeal to whatever pity or mercy the foe may have had. Please, don't hurt my mom—don't take her away from me!

"A life for a life then? Willing to make that trade?"

No—Mom, don't!

"Yes, please! Just don't hurt my baby!"

The other woman laughed at the mother's distress. "Oh, you just bargained for her life—you don't have any leverage to keep me from hurting her."

Before Cia or her mother could protest or fight back, their attacker turned her wand on Cia again, and the girl could hear the magician's voice in her head, whispering over and over: "A cat. A weak, poor, defenseless kitty cat who can't stop her world from falling apart—that's what you are!"

To that chorus, Cia felt herself being pinched, pulled, and shrunk against her will into a form that was not her own. She cried out in the pain of it, but halfway through, it was a cat's screech. She heard her mother cry out, but before her mind could adjust to her new eyes, someone ran up behind her and scooped up the small tabby form, running away from the battle.

Reacting instinctively, she hissed and lashed out with her claws, but she was too small, unable to stop whoever it was from carrying her out into the night.

So yeah. Just FYI to people put off by the style of this chapter: other chapters will be more descriptive and less of an overview, as this was the prologue I felt the need to give character background and necessary information to set up the rest of the story and establish time period (the next chapter will take place during the last KC book, and the rest of the story will take place after the end of that book and Blood of Olympus).
Speaking of other books, the subsequent chapters will be first person, as a nod to both original series. There will be alternating narrators, so look for character names to differentiate who is speaking.
I think that's all that needs to be established at this point in time. If you saw something you like, or something you think I can fix/improve on next time, don't hesitate to leave a review to let me know!