A/N: I don't own the rights to any of the Percy Jackson series or it's characters. That right goes to Rick Riordan. I also don't own the rights to Animorph including it's title.

I am, however, the person who posted 'The Tales of...' series.

This is not a crossover of the Percy Jackson series with the book/tv series Animorph, despite what you might think from the title. I just thought it be a proper name for the ability to turn into animals since that's why the tv/book series 'Animorph' was called that in the first place.

If you haven't read this yet, read:

Animorph Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief

Annabeth Listens to the Siren's Song

I had finally found something I was good at than shapeshifting into animals.

The Queen Anne's Revenge responded to my every command. I knew which ropes to hoist, which sails to raise, which direction to steer. We plowed through the waves at what I figured was about ten knots. I even understood how fast that was. For a sailing ship, pretty darn fast.

It all felt perfect—the wind in my face, the waves breaking over the prow.

But now that we were out of danger, all I could think about was how much I missed Tyson, and how worried I was about Grover.

I could not get over how badly I messed up on Circe's Island. If it had not been for Annabeth, I still be a guinea pig. That was the scary part. I could not change out of guinea pig.

I know there was a possibility the gods could permanently turn me into an animal. Ares threaten me with its last summer.

But what is worse is now I fear turning into an animal again. I am scared that if I do, I will not turn back to human.

I shake that thought out of my head. It was ridiculous. Of course, I can. What Circe did was some freaky magic. The way the potion felt in my stomach as I transformed is proof of that. When I morphed into animal form normally, I never felt that searing hot pain. That just proves that was not natural even for me.

We sailed through the night.

Annabeth tried to help me keep lookout, but sailing did not agree with her. After a few hours rocking back and forth, her face turned the color of guacamole and she went below to lie in a hammock.

I watched the horizon. More than once I spotted monsters. A plume of water as tall as a skyscraper spewed into the moonlight. A row of green spines slithered across the waves—something maybe a hundred feet long, reptilian. I did not really want to know.

Once I saw Nereids, the glowing lady spirits of the sea. I tried to wave at them, but they disappeared into the depths, leaving me unsure whether they had seen me or not.

Sometime after midnight, Annabeth came up on deck. We were just passing a smoking volcano island. The sea bubbled and steamed around the shore.

"One of the forges of Hephaestus," Annabeth said. "Where he makes his metal monsters."

"Like the bronze bulls?"

She nodded. "Go around. Far around."

I did not need to be told twice. We steered clear of the island, and soon it was just a red patch of haze behind us.

Finally, I decided to ask Annabeth the one question that still been bugging me. "What happened to you Luke and Thalia for you to hate Cyclops so much?"

It was hard to see her expression in the dark.

"I guess you deserve to know," she said finally. "The night Grover was escorting us to camp, he got confused, took some wrong turns. You remember he told you that once?"

I nodded.

"Well, the worst wrong turn was into a Cyclops' lair in Brooklyn."

"They've got Cyclopes in Brooklyn?" I asked.

"You wouldn't believe how many, but that's not the point. This Cyclops, he tricked us. He managed to split us up inside this maze of corridors in an old house in Flatbush. And he could sound like anyone, Percy. Just the way Tyson did aboard the Princess Andromeda. He lured us, one at a time. Thalia thought she was running to save Luke. Luke thought he heard me scream for help. And me… I was alone in the dark. I was seven years old. I couldn't even find the exit."

She brushed the hair out of her face. "I remember finding the main room. There were bones all over the floor. And there were Thalia and Luke and Grover, tied up and gagged, hanging from the ceiling like smoked hams. The Cyclops was starting a fire in the middle of the floor. I drew my knife, but he heard me. He turned and smiled. He spoke, and somehow, he knew my dad's voice. I guess he just plucked it out of my mind. He said, 'Now, Annabeth, don't you worry. I love you. You can stay here with me. You can stay forever.'"

I shivered. The way she told it—even now, six years later—freaked me out worse than any ghost story I had ever heard. "What did you do?"

"I stabbed him in the foot."

I stared at her. "Are you kidding? You were seven years old and you stabbed a full-grown Cyclops in the foot?"

"Oh, he would've killed me. But I surprised him. It gave me just enough time to run to Thalia and cut the ropes on her hands. She took it from there."

"Yeah, but still… that was pretty brave, Annabeth."

She shook her head. "We barely got out alive. I still have nightmares, Percy. The way that Cyclops talked in my father's voice. It was his fault we took so long getting to camp. All the monsters who had been chasing us had time to catch up. That is why Thalia died. If it had not been for that Cyclops, she'd still be alive today."

We sat on deck, watching the constellations rise in the sky.

"Go below," Annabeth told me at last. "You need some rest."

I nodded. My eyes were heavy. But when I got below and found a hammock, it took me a long time to fall asleep. I kept thinking about Annabeth's story. I wondered, if I were her, would I have had enough courage to go on this quest, to straight toward the lair of another Cyclops?

I manage to fall asleep, hoping to at least see how Grover was doing.

…

I did not dream about Grover.

Instead I found myself back in Luke's stateroom aboard the Princess Andromeda. The curtains were open. It was nighttime outside. The air swirled with shadows. Voices whispered all around me—spirits of the dead.

Beware, they whispered. Traps. Trickery.

Kronos's golden sarcophagus glowed faintly-the only source of light in the room.

A could laugh startled me. It seemed to come from miles below the ship. You cannot stop me, young one.

I knew what I had to do. I had to open that coffin.

I uncapped Riptide. Ghosts whirled around me like a tornado. Beware!

My heart pounded. I could not make my feet move, but I had to stop Kronos. I had to destroy whatever was inside that box.

Then a girl spoke right next to me: "Well, Seaweed Brain?"

I looked over, expecting to see Annabeth, but the girl was not Annabeth. She wore punk-style clothes with silver chains on her wrist. She had spiky black hair, dark eyeliner around her stormy blue eyes, and a spray of freckles across her nose. She looked familiar, but I was not sure why.

"Well?" She asked. "Are we going to stop him or not?"

I could not answer. Nor could I move.

The girl rolled her eyes. "Fine. Leave it to me and Aegis."

She tapped her wrist and her silver chains transformed—flattening and expanding into a huge shield. It was silver and bronze, with the monstrous face of Medusa protruding from the center. It looked like a death mask, as if the gorgon's real head had been pressed into the metal. I did not know if that were true, or if the shield could really petrify me, but I looked away. Just being near it made me cold with fear. I got the feeling that in a real fight, the bearer of that shield would be almost impossible to beat. Any sane enemy would turn and run.

The girl drew her sword and advanced on the sarcophagus. The shadowy ghost parted for her, scattering before the terrible aura of her shield.

"No," I tried to warn her.

But she did not listen. She marched straight up to the sarcophagus and pushed aside the golden lid.

For a moment she stood there, gazing down at whatever was in the box.

The coffin began to glow.

"No." The girl's voice trembled. "It can't be."

From the depths of the ocean, Kronos laughed so loudly the whole ship trembled.

"No!" The girl screamed as the sarcophagus engulfed her in a blast of a golden light.

"Ah!" I sat bolt upright in my hammock.

Annabeth was shaking me. "Percy, you were having a nightmare. You need to get up."

"Wh—what is it?" I rubbed my eyes. "What's wrong?"

"Land," she said grimly. "We're approaching the island of the Sirens."

…

I could barely make out the island ahead of us—just a dark spot in the mist.

"I want you to do me a favor," Annabeth said. "The Sirens… we'll be in range of their singing soon."

I remembered the stories about the Sirens. They sang so sweetly their voices enchanted sailors and lured them to their death.

"No problem," I assured her. "We can just stop up our ears. There's a big tub of candle wax below deck—"

"I want to hear them."

I blinked. "Why?"

"They say the Sirens sing the truth about what you desire. They tell you things about yourself you did not even realize. That is what so enchanting. If you survive… you become wiser. I want to hear them. How often will I get that chance?"

Coming from most people, this would have made no sense. But Annabeth being who she was—well, if she could struggle through Ancient Greek architecture books and enjoy documentaries on the History Channel, I guessed the Sirens would appeal to her, too.

She told me her plan. Reluctantly, I helped her get ready.

As soon as the rocky coastline of the island came into view, I ordered one of the ropes to wrap around Annabeth's waist, tying her to the foremast.

"Don't untie me," she said, "no matter what happens or how much I plead. I'll want to go straight over the edge and drown myself."

"Are you trying to tempt me?"

"Ha-ha."

I promised I would keep her secure. I thought of turning into a deaf animals, but I realize only squids, octopus, and cuttlefish are deaf, and all are aquatic animals and cannot survive on ships. Besides, I was still uncertain about being able to return to human form.

So, instead, I took two large wads of candle wax, kneaded them into earplugs, and stuffed my ears.

Annabeth nodded sarcastically, letting me know the earplugs were a real fashion statement. I made a face at her and turned to the pilot's wheel.

The silence was eerie. I could not hear anything but the rush of blood in my head. As we approached the island, jagged rocks loomed out of the fog. I willed the Queen Anne's Revenge to skirt around them. If we sailed any closer, those rocks would shred our hull like blender blades.

I glanced back. At first, Annabeth seemed totally normal. Then she got a puzzled look on her face. Her eyes widened.

She strained against the ropes. She called my name—I could tell just from reading her lips. Her expression was clear: She had to get out. This was life or death. I had to let her out of the ropes right now.

She seemed so miserable it was hard to cut her free.

I forced myself to look away. I urged the Queen Anne's Revenge to go faster.

I still could not see much of the island—just mist and rocks-but floating in the water were pieces of wood and fiberglass, the wreckage of old ships, even some flotation cushions from airplanes.

How could music cause so many lives to veer off course? I mean, sure, there were some Top Forty songs that made me want to take a fiery nosedive, but still… What could the Sirens possibly sing about?

For a dangerous moment, I understood Annabeth's curiosity. I was tempted to take out the earplugs, just to get a taste of the song. I could feel the Siren's voices vibrating in the timbers of the ship, pulsing along with the roar of blood in my ears.

Annabeth was pleading with me. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She strained against the ropes, as if they were holding her back from everywhere, she cared about.

How could you be so cruel? She seemed to be asking me. I thought you were my friend.

I glared at the misty island. I wanted to uncap my sword, but there was nothing to fight. How do you fight a song?

I tried hard not to look at Annabeth. I managed it for about five minutes

That was my mistake

When I could not stand it any longer, I looked back and found… a heap of cut ropes. An empty mast. Annabeth's bronze knife lay on the deck. Somehow, she had managed to wriggle it into her hand. I had totally forgotten to disarm her.

I rushed to the side of the boat and saw her, paddling madly for the island, the waves carrying her straight toward the jagged rocks.

I screamed her name, but if she heard me, it did not do any good. She was entranced, swimming toward her death.

I looked back at the pilot's wheel and yelled, "Stay!"

Then I jumped over the side. If I got into battle, I would need more than speed. I focus and my body became slick, and my teeth sharpened. My arms became fins and my feet became a tail as more fins grow in. I shapeshifted into a shortfin mako shark—the fastest shark known.

I do not care if Circe's magic still affected my powers or not. I need to stop Annabeth.

As a sailfish I sliced into the water and raced toward Annabeth.

Before I could catch up, a wave caught her, sweeping her between two razor-sharp fangs of rock.

I plunged after her. Using my slender fish body, I dove under the wreckage hull of a yacht, wove through a collection of metal floating metal balls on chains that I realized afterward were mines. I also used my powers over water to avoid getting smashed against he rocks or tangled in the nets of barbed wire strung just below the surface.

I swam between the two rock fangs and found myself in a half moon-shaped bay. The water was choked with more rocks and ship wreckage and floating mines. The beach was black volcanic sand.

Now that I was in shark form, I can sniff Annabeth out. I found her past the mines and the rocks. She was almost to the black beach.

Then the mist cleared, and I saw them—the-Sirens.

Imagine a flock of vultures the size of people—with dirty black plumage, gray talons, and wrinkled pink necks. Now imagine human heads on top of those necks, but the human heads keep changing.

Somehow the earwax was keeping me from hearing even in animal form, but I could see they were singing. As their mouths moved, their faces morphed into people I knew—my mom, Poseidon, Grover, Tyson, Chiron. All the people I most wanted to see. They smiled reassuringly, inviting me forward. But no matter what shape they took, their mouths were greasy and caked with the remnants of old meals. Like vultures, they had been eating with their faces, and it did not look like they had been feasting on Monster Donuts.

Annabeth swam toward them.

I knew I could not let her get out of the water. The sea was my only advantage. It had always protected me one way or another. I dove in and attacked the sirens. I bit through one and it scattered into dust. I attack another into dust. Soon the sirens were scattering giving me time to catch Annabeth.

I shapeshifted back to human and change form again. This time only my arms fused into my body, which seem to fuse with my head as it grew, and my legs changed shape and multiply into ten tentacles. I was now a giant squid like the one I saw Charybdis sucked up.

I wrapped one of my tentacles around Annabeth, but when I did a shock went through my body as the sirens tried to regroup. Now I was seeing them the way Annabeth must have been seeing them.

Three people sat on a picnic blanket in Central Park. A feast was spread out before them. I recognized Annabeth's dad from photos she had shown me—an athletic-looking, sandy-haired guy in his forties. He was holding hands with a beautiful woman who looked a lot like Annabeth. She was dressed casually—in blue jeans and a denim shirt and hiking boots—but something about the woman radiated power. I knew that I was looking at the goddess Athena. Next to them sat a young man… Luke.

The whole scene glowed in a warm, buttery light. The three of them were talking and laughing, and when they saw Annabeth, their faces lit up with delight. Annabeth's mom and dad held out their arms invitingly. Luke grinned and gestured for Annabeth to sit next to him-as if he had never betrayed her, as if he were still her friend.

Behind the trees of Central Park, a city skyline rose. If I were in human form, I would have caught my breath, because it was Manhattan, but not Manhattan. It had been totally rebuilt from dazzling white marble, bigger and grander than ever—with golden windows and rooftop gardens. It was better than New York. Better than Mount Olympus.

I knew immediately that Annabeth had designed it all. She was the architect for a whole new world. She had reunited her parents. She had saved Luke. She had done everything she had ever wanted.

I had to remind myself they were the same Sirens from before. I pulled Annabeth back into the surf, but she made it difficult, she was kicking and scratching at my tentacles. I pushed myself headfirst with the wave of my other tentacles into the bay while I used one to bind her. But she was not making that easy either. I had to use one tentacle to keep her above water as the rest of me swim through the water.

There must be an easier way to do this.

Then I remember something about sound. It does not travel well underwater. If I could submerge her long enough, I could break the trance of the spell of the music. But she still needs to breath.

I tried to figure this out as I push through, bubbles pushed around me as I tried to swim.

Bubbles.

It was something new. I pulled Annabeth under as I imagine all the bubbles of the sea-always churning, rising. I imagine them coming together, being pulled toward the one tentacle holding Annabeth.

The sea obeyed. There was a flurry of white, a tickling sensation all round my tentacle, and my air bubble formed around Annabeth. Only her lower body that my tentacle was around was wet. I did not know how well I can hold her if my tentacle was dry. Judging from the lack of struggle, my plan worked.

I am sure she is sobbing and need comfort, but I got to get her away from the sirens. I swam through the sea and back toward the hull of the Queen Anne's Revenge, which was maintaining a slow and steady course away from the island.

We stayed underwater, following the ship, until I judged we had moved out of earshot of the Sirens I release Annabeth so she can surface. I morphed back to human form where I noticed Annabeth's air bubble popped.

I ordered a rope ladder to drop over the side of the ship, and we climb aboard.

I kept my earplugs in, just to be sure. We sailed until the island was completely out of sight. Annabeth sat huddled in a blanket on the forward deck. Finally, she looked up, dazed and sad, and mouthed, safe.

I took out the earplugs. No singing. The afternoon was quiet except for the sound of the waves against the hulls. The fog had burned away to a blue sky, as if the island of the Sirens had never existed.

"You okay?" I asked. The moment I said it, I realized how lame that sounded. Of course, she was not okay.

"I didn't realize," she murmured.

"What?"

Her eyes were the same color as the mist over the Sirens' island. "How powerful the temptation would be."

"I didn't want to admit that I'd seen what the Sirens had promised her. I felt like a trespasser. But I figured I owed it to Annabeth.

"I saw the way you rebuilt Manhattan," I told her. "And Luke and your parents."

She blushed. "You saw that?"

"What Luke told you back on the Princess Andromeda, about starting the world from scratch… that really got you huh?"

She pulled her blanket around her. "My fatal flaw. That is what the Siren's showed me. My fatal flaw is hubris."

I blinked. "That brown stuff they spread on veggie sandwiches?"

She rolled her eyes. "No, Seaweed Brain. "That's hummus. Hubris is worse."

"What could be worse than hummus?"

"Hubris means deadly pride, Percy. Thinking you can do things better than anyone else… even the gods."

"You feel that way?"

She looked down. "Don't you ever feel like, what if the world really is messed up? What if we could do it all over again from scratch? No more war. Nobody homeless. No more summer reading homework."

"I'm listening."

"I mean, the West represents a lot of the best things mankind ever did—that's why the fire is still burning. That is why Olympus is still around. But sometimes you just see the bad stuff, you know? And you start thinking the way Luke does: 'If I could tear this all down, I would do it better.' Don't you ever feel that way? Like you could do a better job if you ran the world?"

"Um… no. Me running the world would kind of be a nightmare."

"Then you're lucky. Hubris isn't your fatal flaw."

"What is?"

"I don't know, Percy, but every hero has one. If you do not find it and learn to control it… well, they don't call it 'fatal' for nothing."

I thought about that. I did not exactly cheer me up.

I also noticed Annabeth had not said much about the personal things she would change—like getting her parents back together, or saving Luke. I understood. I did not want to admit how many times I had dreamed of getting my own parents back together.

I pictured my mom, alone in our little apartment on the Upper East Side. I tried to remember the smell of her blue waffles in the kitchen. It seemed so far away.

"So, was it worth it?" I asked Annabeth. "Do you feel… wiser?"

She gazed into the distance. "I'm not sure. But we must save the camp. If we don't stop Luke…"

She did not need to finish. If Luke's way of thinking could even tempt Annabeth, there was no telling how many other half-bloods might join him.

I thought about my dream of the girl and the golden sarcophagus. I was not sure what it meant, but I got the feeling I was missing something. Something terrible that Kronos was planning. What had the girl seen when she opened that coffin lid?

Suddenly Annabeth's eyes widened. "Percy."

I turned.

Up ahead was another blotch of land—a saddle-shaped island with forested hills and white beaches and green meadows—just like I had seen in my dreams.

My nautical senses confirmed it. 30 degrees, 31 minutes north, 75 degrees, 12 minutes west.

We reached the home of Polyphemus.

Interesting Animal facts: The short fin Mako shark is the fifth deadliest shark and the fastest shark of the sea.

Giant Squids are smaller cousin of the Colossal Squid, which is actually candidate for being the Kracken.