A/N (I recommend reading this): I'm going to MAKE THIS CLEAR. Just like I mention on my bio page about every other fanfiction I done: I DON'T OWN THE PERCY JACKSON AND THE OLYMPIAN SERIES or AND THE KANE CHRONICLES OR IT'S CHARACTERS as the rights goes to Rick Riordan. Also I suggest you guys start paying attention to the Author notes and my warnings that I left on EVERY chapter of EVERY story.

Sorry if this chapter is too much like the book.

This is a The Tales of version of the Percy Jackson and Kane Chronicles crossover and takes place after 'The Tales of the Heroes of Olympus part of the series. So if you haven't read them yet read before reading this story as stuff that happened in them will be mentioned:

The Tales of the Son of Poseidon: the Early Adventures
The Tales of the Son of Poseidon: The Lightning Thief
The Tales of the Son of Poseidon: The Sea of Monsters
The Tales of the Son of Poseidon: The Titan's Curse
The Tales of the Son of Poseidon: The Magical Labyrinth
The Tales of the Son of Poseidon: the Stolen Chariot
The Tales of the Son of Poseidon: the Sword of Hades
The Tales of the Son of Poseidon: the Bronze Dragon
The Tales of the Son of Poseidon: The Last Olympian
The Tales of the Son of Poseidon: the Staff of Hermes
The Tales of the Heroes of Olympus: The Lost Hero
The Tales of the Heroes of Olympus: The Quest for Buford
The Tales of the Heroes of Olympus: The Son of Neptune
The Tales of the Heroes of Olympus: The Mark of Athena
The Tales of the Heroes of Olympus: The House of Hades
The Tales of the Heroes of Olympus: The Blood of Olympus
The Tales of Magicians and Demigods: The Son of Sobek
The Tales of Magicians and Demigods: The Staff of Serapis
The Tales of Magicians and Demigods: The Crown of Ptolemy

Also if you haven't got the chance feel free to read:

The Tales of Classical Mythology

A crossover with The Tales of series with my dictionary on Greek/Roman Mythology where The Tales of Percy Jackson tells his version of stories behind famous names in Greek and Roman Mythology.

And if you are a fan of Stephen King:

The Tales of the Heroes of the Stand

Which is basically a crossover of The Tales of series with one of Stephen King's best novels The Stand.

Lastly, any one who wants to do a Demigods and Olympian reads story using 'The Tales of the Son of Poseidon' is allowed as long as you inform me about it.

Broken Oaths to a Geyser God Means Quicker Death than one to the River Styx

I stumbled through the glade, shouting Meg's name. I knew it was pointless but yelling felt good. I looked for signs of broken branches or trampled ground. Surely two tank-size ants would leave a trail I could follow. But I was not Artemis; I did not have my sister's skill with tracking. I had no idea which direction they had taken my friend.

I retrieved Meg's swords from the mud. Instantly, they changed into gold rings—so small, so easily lost, like a mortal life. I may have cried. I tried to break my ridiculous combat ukulele, but the Celestial bronze instrument defied my attempts. Finally, I yanked off the A string, thread it through Meg's rings, and tied them around my neck.

"Meg, I will find you," I muttered.

Her abduction was my fault. I was sure of this. I used my sonic whistle to save myself.

Some of you may wonder how using my sonic whistle could be breaking my oath on the river styx on not using musical powers?

Honestly, it is only because of a technicality. See, Sonic Whistles is an audiokinesis power or powers involving sound, and sound is involved in making music, which is in my domain as god of music, so I guess in the styx's mind, sonic whistle counts as musical powers.

This may shock you: but god's and even monsters love using technicalities. Especially when it comes to oaths.

I have protested many times that just because you cannot make music without sound, does not mean every sound you make can count as music. That it takes the right harmony of the right tune to make music. But it just ended up falling on deaf ears.

Anyways, because of it, instead of punishing me directly, Zeus or the Fates or all the gods together had visited their wrath upon Meg McCaffrey.

How could I have been so foolish? Whenever I angered the other gods, those closest to me were struck down. I had lost Daphne because of one careless comment to Eros. I had lost the beautiful Hyacinthus because of a quarrel with Zephyros. Now my broken oath would cost Meg her life.

No, I told myself. I will not allow it.

I was so nauseous; I could barely walk. Someone seemed to be inflating a balloon inside my brain. I took a piece of ambrosia and ate it, which reminded me of Sally Jackson's seven-layer dip. Sure, enough the balloon started deflating and the nauseous faded.

I managed to stumble to the rim of Pete's geyser.

"Pete!" I shouted. "Show yourself, you cowardly telemarketer!"

Water shot skyward with a sound like the blast of an organ's lowest pipe. In the swirling steam, the palikos appeared, his mud-gray face hardening with anger.

"You call me a TELEMARKETER?" he demanded. "We run a full-service PR firm!"

"I need to find Meg." I spoke. "What would the myrmekes do with her?"

"I don't know!"

"Tell me or I will not complete your customer service survey."

Pete gasped. "That's terrible! Your feedback is important!"

"I don't care!" I yelled. "Where is the myrmekes' nest?"

Pete wrung his steamy hands. "Well, that's what we were talking about earlier. That is where Paulie went. The nest is the only entrance into the Grove of Dodona."

My stomach solidified into a pack of ice. "The ant nest… is the way to the grove? How the next leads to the grove?"

Pete's face turned yellow. "Paulie didn't tell me everything. There is this thicket of woods that is grown so dense, nobody can get in. I mean, even from above, the branches are like…" he laced his muddy fingers, then caused them to liquefy and melt into one another, which made his point quite well.

"Anyway"—he pulled his hands part— "the grove is in there. It could have been slumbering for centuries. Nobody on the board of directors even knew about it. Then, all the sudden, the trees started whispering. Paulie figured those darned ants must have burrowed into the grove from underneath, and that's what woke it up."

I tried to make sense of that. "Which way is the nest?"

"North of here," Pete said. "Half a mile. But your friend should have time. If they carried her off in one piece, that means she's not dead yet."

"She will be soon enough!"

"Nah. Before Paulie… before he disappeared, he went into that nest a few times looking for the tunnel to the grove. He told me those myrmekes goop up their victims and let them, um, ripen until they're soft enough for hatchlings to eat."

I made an un-godlike squeak. "How long does she have?"

"Twenty-four hours, give or take. Then she will start to… um, soften."

It was difficult to imagine Meg McCaffrey softening under any circumstances, but I pictured her alone and scared, encase in insect, goop tucked in some larder of carcasses in the ants' nest. For a girl who hated buys—Oh, Demeter had been right to hate me and keep her children away from me. I was a terrible god!"

"Look, you are in no condition to go into the nest. It looks like you are recovering from a head injury, but you will need to be fully recovered before you go in. Get some help," Pete urged. "The Apollo cabin can heal you up completely. I suggest you get some myrmekes gunk while you're at it."

"That gunk won't scare off those ants," I said.

"No, but it'll masked your scent," Pete said. "Myrmekes will ignore you if you go in wearing it as you'll smell like your den.

Huh, I did not think about that.

"Why do you care what happens to us?"

The geyser god looked offended. "Visitors satisfaction is always our top priority! Besides, if you find Paulie while you're in there…"

I tried to stay angry at the palikos, but the loneliness and worry on his face mirrored my own feelings. "Did Paulie explained anything else on how to navigate the ants' nest?"

Pete shook his head. "Like I said, he didn't want me to follow him. The myrmekes are dangerous enough. And if those other guys are still wandering around—"

"Other guys?"

Pete frowned. "Didn't I mention that? Yes. Paulie saw three humans, heavily armed. They were looking for the grove too."

My left leg started thumping nervously, as if it missed its three-legged race partner. "How did Paulie know what they were looking for?"

"He heard them talking in Latin."

"Latin? Were they campers?"

Pete spread his hands. "I—I don't think so. Paulie described them like they were adults. He said one of them was the leader. The other two addressed him as imperator."

The entire planet seemed to tilt. "Imperator."

"Yeah, you know, like in Rome—"

"Yes, I know." Suddenly, too many things made sense. Pieces of the puzzle flew together, forming one huge picture that smacked me in the face. The Beast… Triumbirate Holdings… adult demigods completely off the radar.

It was all I could do to avoid pitching forward into the geyser. Meg needed me more than ever. But I would have to do this right. I would have to be careful—even more careful than when I gave the fiery horses of the sun their yearly vaccinations.

"Pete," I said. "do you still oversee sacred oaths?"

"Well, yes, but—"

"Then hear my solemn oath!"

"Uh, the thing is, you got this aura around you like you just broke a sacred oath, maybe one you swore on the River Styx? And if you break another oath with me—"

"I only broke it because you hid instead of helping, so you owe me this much," I said. "I swear that I will save Meg McCaffrey. I will use every means at my disposal to bring her safely from the ants' lair, and this oath supersedes any earlier oath I have made. This I swear upon your sacred and extremely hot waters!"

Pete winced. "Well, okay. It is done now. But keep in mind that if you do not keep that oath, if Meg dies, even if it's not your fault… you'll face the consequences."

"I'm already cursed for breaking my earlier oath being forced to use my sonic whistle. What does it matter?"

"Yeah, but see, those River Styx oaths can take years to destroy you. They are like cancer. My oaths…" Pete shrugged. "If you break it, there's nothing I can do to stop your punishment. Wherever you are, a geyser will instantly blast through the ground at your feet and boil you alive."

"Ah…" I tried to stop my knees from knocking. "Yes, of course I knew that."

"If it makes you feel better, Paulie and I decided to advise against making oaths to us—especially if they already have an aura of broken oaths," Pete said. "Immediate death of customers over broken oaths is bad for business after all."

"That's very sensible of you." I agreed. "I'll still stand by my oath."

"You got no choice now."

"Right. I think I'll—I'll get healed completely." I am going to need it.

I staggered off."

"Camp is the other direction," Pete said.

I change course.

"Remember to complete our survey online!" Pete called after me. "Just curious, on a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your overall satisfaction with the Woods at Camp Half-Blood?"

I did not reply. I stumbled into the darkness. All though the ambrosia was slowly healing me, I knew it was only temporary compare to the pain I might have to endure soon.

…

Even with the ambrosia healing me, I was still exhausted from using my powers earlier. My defenses were at level zero. The smallest hellhound or dragon could have easily made a meal of the great Apollo. If an irritated badger had taken issue with me, I would have been too tired to fight it off.

I leaned against a tree to rest a bit, only for the tree to push me away, whispering in a voice I remembered so well: Keep moving, Apollo. You cannot rest here.

"I loved you," I muttered.

Part of me knew I was delirious from my exhaustion—but I swore I could see the face of my beloved Daphne rising from each tree trunk I passed, her features floating under the bark like a mirage of wood—her slightly crooked nose, her offset green eyes, those lips I had never kissed but never stopped dreaming of.

You loved every pretty girl, she scolded. And every pretty boy, for that matter.

"Not like you," I cried. "You were my first true love. Oh, Daphne!"

Wear my crown, she said. And repent.

I remembered chasing her—her lilac scent on the breeze, her lithe form flitting through the dappled light of the forest. I pursued her for what seemed like years. It was.

For centuries afterward, I blamed Eros.

In a moment of recklessness, I had ridiculed Eros's archery skills. Out of spite, he struck me with a golden arrow. He bent all my love toward the beautiful Daphne, but that was not worst of it. He also struck Daphne's heart with a lead arrow, leeching all affection she might have had for me.

What people do not understand: Eros's arrows cannot summon emotions from nothing. They can only cultivate potential that is already there. Daphne and I could have been a perfect pair. She was my true love. She could have loved me back. Yet thanks to Eros, my-love-o-meter was cranked to one hundred percent, while Daphne's feelings turned to pure hate (which is, of course, the only other side of love). Nothing is more tragic than loving someone to the depths of your soul and knowing they cannot and will not ever love you back.

The stories say I chased her on a whim, that she was just another pretty dress. The stories are wrong. When she begged Gaea to turn her into a laurel tree to escape me, part of my heart hardened into bark as well. I invented the laurel wreath to commemorate my failure—to punish myself for the fate of my greatest love. Every time some hero wins the laurels, I am reminded of the girl I can never win.

After Daphne, I swore I would never marry. Sometimes I claimed that was because I could not decide between the Nine Muses. A convenient story. The Nine Muses were my constant companions, all of them beautiful in their own way. But they never owned my heart like Daphne. Only one other person ever affected me so deeply—the perfect Hyacinthus—and he, too, was taken from me.

All these thoughts rambled through my brain. I staggered from tree to tree leaning against them, grabbing their lowest branches like handrails.

You have work to do, Daphne whispered. You made an oath.

Yes, my oath. Meg needed me. I had to…

I fell face forward in the icy mulch from exhaustion.

How long I lay there, I am not sure.

A warm snout breath in my ear. A rough tongue lapped my face. Then it pushed me on my back. Dark tree of the forest laced the sky. The golden visage of a lion appeared above me, his amber eyes beautiful was deadly. He licked my face, trying to decide if I would make a good supper.

"Ptfh." I spit mane fur out of my mouth.

"Wake up," said a woman's voice, somewhere to my right. It was not Daphne, but it was vaguely familiar.

I raised my head. Nearby, a second lion sat at the feet of a woman with tinted glasses and a silver-and-gold tiara in her braided hair. Her batik dress swirled with images of fern fronds. Her arms and hands were covered in henna tattoos. She looked different than she had in my dream, but I recognized her.

"Rhea," I croaked.

She inclined her head. "Peace, Apollo. I don't want to bum you out, but we need to talk."

A/N: Merry Christmas to all my readers that celebrates Christmas, and for those who don't but I'm sure is celebrating some form of holiday: Happy Holidays!