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.

We Get Advice from A Poodle

We were miserable that night.

We camped out in the woods, a hundred yards from the main road, in a marshy clearing that local kids had obviously been using for parties. The ground was littered with flatten soda cans and fast-food wrappers.

We'd taken some food and blankets from Aunty Em's, but we didn't dare light a fire to dry our damp clothes. The Furies and Medusa had provided enough excitement for one day. We didn't want to attract anything else.

We decided to sleep in shifts. I volunteered to take first watch.

Annabeth curled up on the blankets and was snoring as soon as her head hit the ground. Grover fluttered with his flying shoes to the lowest bough of a tree, put his back to the trunk, and stared at the night sky.

"Go ahead and sleep," I told him. "I'll wake you if there's trouble."

He nodded, but still didn't close his eyes. "It makes me sad, Percy."

"What does? The fact that you signed up for this stupid quest?"

"No. This makes me sad." He pointed at all the garbage on the ground. "And the sky. You can't even see the stars. They polluted the sky. This is a terrible time to be a satyr."

"Oh yeah. I guess you would be one of those environmentalist."

He glared at me. "Only human wouldn't be. But I would think that since you can shapeshift into animals you would understand."

"I haven't started shapeshifting until Yancy," I reminded him.

"Well, you should be able to sympathize with wildlife now," Grover said. "You have a gift no human in thousands of years have. You get to walk in the hooves of every animal and see how humanity is clogging the world so fast with pollution and how it's affecting the wild."

I open my mouth to respond but couldn't. I never thought of my powers that way. I been able to turn into a lion, bull, bear, and snake but I never really took the time to realize the kind of power those animals gave me much less everything else. I been too busy fighting monsters or children of Ares to notice.

"I got to get a hang of my powers before I understand anything about the wild," I finally said. "So far I only been able to shapeshift in battle."

Grover was silent for a while before saying, "At this rate things are going I'll never fine Pan."

"Pam? Like the spray?"

"Pan!" he cried indignantly. "P-A-N. The great god Pan! What do you think I want my searcher's license for?"

A breeze rustle through the clearing, temporarily overpowering the stink of trash and muck. It brought the smell of berries and wildflowers and clean rainwater, things that might've once been in these woods. Suddenly I was nostalgic for something I'd never known.

"Tell me about the search," I said.

Grover looked at me cautiously, as if he were afraid I was making fun.

"The God of Wild paces disappeared two thousand years ago," he told me. "A sailor off the coast of Ephesos heard a mysterious voice crying out from the shore, 'Tell them that the great god Pan has died!' When humans heard the news, they believed it. They've been pillaging Pan's kingdom ever since. but for the satyrs, Pan was our lord and master. He protected us and the wild places of the earth. We refuse to believe that he died. In every generation, the bravest satyrs pledge their lives to finding Pan. They search the earth, exploring all the wildest places, hoping to find where he is hidden, and wake him from his sleep."

"And you want to be a searcher.""

"It's my life's dream," he said. "My father was a searcher. And my Uncle Ferdinand…the statue you saw back there—"

"Oh, right, sorry."

Grover shook his head. "Uncle Ferdinand knew the risks. So did my dad. But I'll succeed. I'll be the first searcher to return alive."

"Hang on—the first?"

Grover took his reed pipes out of his pocket. "No searcher has ever come back. Once they set out, they disappear. They're never seen alive again."

"Not once in two thousand years?"

"No."

"And your dad? You have no idea what happened to him?"

"None."

"But you still want to go," I said, amazed. "I mean, you really think you'll be the one to find Pan?"

"I have to believe that, Percy. Every searcher does. It's the only thing that keeps us from despair when we look at what humans have done to the world. I have to believe Pan can still be awakened."

I stared at the orange haze of the sky and tried to understand how Grover could pursue a dream that seemed so hopeless. Who am I kidding? I got the power to shapeshift into animals and I apparently don't even understand them. But still I can't help but shake the fact I was no better than Grover when it comes pursuing impossible dreams.

"How are we going to get into the Underworld?" I asked him. "I mean, what chance do we have against a god?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "But back at Medusa's, when you were searching her office? Annabeth was telling me—"

"Right, because she always have a plan."

"Don't be so hard on her, Percy. She had a tough life, but she's a good person. After all, she forgave me…" His voice faltered.

"What do you mean?" I asked. "Forgave you for what?"

Suddenly, Grover seemed very interested in playing notes on his pipes.

"Wait a minute," I said. "Your first keeper job was five years ago. Annabeth has been at camp five years. She wasn't… I mean, your first assignment that went wrong—"

"I can't talk about it," Grover said, and his quivering lower lip suggested he'd start crying if I pressed him. "But as I was saying, back at Medusa's, Annabeth and I agreed there's something strange going on with this quest. Something isn't what it seems."

"You mean other than I'm being blamed for stealing a thunderbolt that Hades took."

"No—well, yeah—what I mean," Grover said. "The Fur—The Kindly Ones were sort of holding back. Like Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy… why did she wait so long to try to kill you? Then on the bus, they just weren't as aggressive as they could've been."

"They seemed plenty of aggressive to me."

Grover shook his head. "They were screeching at us: 'Where is it? Where?'"

"Asking about me," I said.

"Maybe… but Annabeth and I, we both got the feeling they weren't asking about a person. They said 'Where is it? They seemed to be asking about an object?"

"Maybe you misunderstood them," I suggested.

"Or we misunderstood something about this quest, and we only have nine days to find the master bolt…" he looked at me like he was hoping for answers, but I didn't have any.

I thought back to what Medusa said about me being used by the gods and what was waiting ahead of us that is worse than petrification. "I haven't been straight with you," I told Grover. "I don't care about the master bolt. I agree to go to the Underworld so I could bring back my mother."

Grover blew a soft note on his pipes. "I know that, Percy. But are you sure that's the only reason?"

"I'm not doing it to help my father. He doesn't care about me. I don't care about him."

Grover gazed down from his branch. "Look, Percy, I'm not as smart as Annabeth. I'm not as brave as you. But I'm pretty good at reading emotions. You're glad your dad is alive. You feel good that he claimed you and blessed you with an extremely rare gift, and part of you wants to make him proud. That's why you mailed Medusa's head to Olympus. You wanted him to notice what you'd done."

"Yeah? Well maybe satyr emotions work differently than human emotions. Because you're wrong. I don't care what he thinks. As for his blessing, if he really cared enough to bless me with this power, why do I have a hard time controlling it? Why don't he just send me some helpful tips on how to control my transformations at will? It seems more like I just had a luck of the draw in having this power. Besides, for such a great gift, it doesn't help us find a way to travel west, now does it?"

Grover pulled his feet his feet up onto the branch and looked at the night sky. "How about I take first watch, huh? You get some sleep."

I wanted to protest, but he started to play Mozart, soft and sweet, and I turned away, my eyes stinging. After a few bars of Piano Concerto no. 12, I was asleep.

…

In my dreams, I stood in a dark cavern before a gaping pit. Gray mist creatures churned around me, whispering rags of smoke that I somehow knew were the spirits of the dead.

They tugged at my clothes, trying to pull me back, but I felt compelled to walk forward to the very edge of the chasm.

Looking down made me dizzy.

The pit yawned so wide and as so completely black, I knew it must be bottomless. Yet I had a feeling that something was trying to rise from the abyss, something huge and evil.

The little hero, an amused voice echoed far down in the darkness. Too young, and in experience with your powers, but perhaps you will do.

The voice felt ancient—cold and heavy. It wrapped around me like sheets of lead.

They have misled you, boy, it said. Barter with me. I will give you what you want.

A shimmering image hovered over the void: my mother, frozen at the moment she'd dissolved in a shower of gold.

Her face was distorted with pain, as if the Minotaur were still squeezing her neck. Her eyes looked directly at me, pleading: Go!

I tried to cry out, but my voice wouldn't work. Maybe if I shape shift into a something fast like a cheetah. I remembered seeing one on Animal Planet and focus.

Nope. Nothing. Dang it!

Cold laughter echoed from the chasm.

An invisible force pulled me forward. It would drag me into the pit unless I stood firm.

Help me rise, boy. The voice became hungrier. Bring me the bolt. Strike a blow against the treacherous gods!

The spirits of the dead whispered around me, No! Wake!

The image of my mother began to fade. The thing in the pit tightened its unseen grip around me

I realized it wasn't interested in pulling me in. It was using me to pull itself out.

Good, it murmured. Good.

Percy! Wake! the dead whispered. You're a cheetah.

…

Someone was shaking me.

My eyes opened, and it was daylight, and I wasn't human. I tried to look at myself and it took a bit, but I think I'm a Cheetah.

Great, so I shapeshifted in reality but I didn't in my dream. I really need to control this power. I focus in human form and manage to shapeshift back into human form.

"Well, the zombie cheetah lives," Annabeth said.

Even though I'm human now, I was trembling from the dream. I could still feel the grip of the chasm monster around my chest. "How long was I asleep?"

"Long enough for me to cook breakfast and notice you turn into a cheetah in your sleep," Annabeth tossed me a bag of nacho-flavored corn chips from Aunty Em's snack bar. "And Grover went exploring. Look, he found a friend."

My eyes had troubled focusing.

Grover was sitting cross-legged on a blanket with something fuzzy in his lap, a dirty, unnaturally pink… poodle?

It yapped at me suspiciously.

Yep, a pink poodle.

Grover said, "No, he's not."

I blinked. "Are you… talking to that thing?"

The poodle growled

"This thing," Grover warned, "is our ticket west. Be nice to him."

"You can talk to animals?"

Grover ignored the question. "Percy, meet Gladiola. Gladiola, Percy."

I stared at Annabeth, figuring she'd crack up at this practical joke they're playing on me, but she looked deadly serious.

"Okay… hello." I greeted.

Grover explained that he'd come across Gladiola in the woods and they'd struck up a conversation. The poodle had run away from a rich local family, who'd posted a $200 reward for his return. Gladiola didn't really want to back to his family, but he was willing to if it meant helping Grover.

"How does Gladiola know about the reward?" I asked.

"He read the signs," Grover said. "Duh."

"Of course." I said. "Silly me."

"So we turn in Gladiola," Annabeth explained in her best strategy voice, "we get money, and we buy tickets to Los Angles. Simple."

I thought about my dream—the whispering voices of the dead, the thing in the chasm, and my mother's face, shimmering as it dissolved into gold. All that might be waiting for me in the West.

"Not another bus," I said warily.

"No," Annabeth agreed.

She pointed downhill, toward train tracks I hadn't been able to see last night in the dark. "There's an Amtrack station half a mile that way. According to Gladiola, the westbound train leaves at noon. We can take it as long you don't get us kicked off by scaring passengers by turning into some scary animal in your sleep."

I looked at the tracks. "I'll try to control my powers in my sleep if it means a way west."

A/N: Yep, I'm back. Sorry to my readers, but I ended my polls for readers picking stories to update a month. It wasn't working out with me and I feel I was just being unfair to my readers whenever I get to work on the winning fanfiction. I still plan to try change different stories to work on every month, but I decided to work on 'The Tales of Classical Mythology' whenever I hit a writer's block.

The Tales of Classical Mythology is basically The Tales of Percy telling tales of names from Greek and Roman Mythology and any other myths connecting to them, and I'm using my Dictionary of Classical Mythology as main source of info and posting names as chapters in the order in the dictionary, only skipping names that just redirect me somewhere else in the dictionary. There are thousands of names in the dictionary some important some minor. I'm not even through with the A section in the dictionary and I'm 61 names into the dictionary. So yeah, I decided since I have so many names to go through I'll use it whenever I hit a writer's block or just need a break from the story I'm working on for the month.

I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter.