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
The Tales of Trials of Apollo: The Hidden Oracle

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.


Magical Train Station-Grand Hall Hideout

Leo Calypso and I followed Emmie to the big ornate building at the plaza south end. As I suspected, it was a railroad depot at some point. Carved in granite under the rose window were the words UNION STATION.

Emmie ignored the main entrance. She veered right and stopped in front of the wall. She ran her finger between the brick, tracing the shape of a doorway. Mortar cracked and dissolved. A newly cut door swung inward, revealing a narrow chute like a chimney with metal rungs leading up.

"Nice trick," Leo said, "But can we have something with a ramp? Festus is too heavy to carried up."

Emmie knit her eyebrows. "Very well," She faced the doorway. "Waystation, can we have a ramp, please?"

The metal rungs vanished. With a soft rumble, the chute's interior wall slanted backward, the bricks rearranging themselves into a gentle upward slope.

"Whoa," said Leo. "Did you just talk to the building?"

A smile tugged at the corner of Emmie's mouth. "The Waystation is more than a building."

Suddenly, I did not fancy the look of that ramp. "This is a living structure? Like the Labyrinth? And you expect us to go inside?"

Emmie's glance was definitely the look of a Hunter. Only my sister's followers would dare to give me such a malodorous stink-eye. "The Waystation is no work of Daedalus, Lord Apollo. It's perfectly safe... as long as you remain our guest."

Her tone suggested that my welcome was probationary. Behind us, the emergency sirens grew louder. I decided we didn't have much choice. We followed Emmie into the building, pushing/pulling Festus with us.

Lighting appeared along the walls⎯warm yellow candles flickering in bronze sconces.

Inside, sunlight filtered through pink lace curtains onto the hardwood floor of a child's room. A cozy bed was piled with fluffy comforters, pillows, and stuffed animals. The eggshell-colored walls had been used as a canvas for crayon art⎯stick-figure people, trees, houses, frolicking animals that might have been dogs or horses or llamas. On the left hand wall, opposite of the bed, a crayon sun smiled down on a field of happy crayon flowers. In the center, a stick-figure girl stood between two larger parental stick figures⎯all three of them holding hands.

The wall art reminded me of Rachel Elizabeth Dare's caver of prophecy at Camp Half-Blood. My Delphic Oracle had delighted in painting her cave with things she'd seen in her visions... before her oracular power ceased to work, that is. (Totally not my fault. You can blame that overgrown rat snake, Python).

Most of the drawings in this room seemed typical for a child about seven or eight. But in the farthest corner of the back wall, the young artist had decided to inflict a nightmarish plague upon her crayon world. A scribbly black storm was brewing. Frowning stick figures threatened the llamas with triangular knives. Dark curlicues blotted out a primary-colored rainbow. Scratched over the field of green grass was a huge inky sphere like a black pond... or the entrance of a cave.

"Did this room just appeared here?" Calypso asked

Emmie looked sad and depressed as if the room brought depressing memories. "No. Well, yes. It's always here, but... ithe Waystation makes it easier to find a room when needed. For whatever reason, it wants to show you this room."

Leo nodded thoughtfully. "You think the Waystation could organize my sock drawer?"

A brick fell from the ceiling and clunk at Leo's feet.

"That's a no," Emmie interpreted. "Now come. We don't have much farther."

None of us argued as we continued. I wondered why the Waystation had decided to show us that room. Who lived here? Or more accurately... who had lived here? Despite the cheerful pink curtains and pile of stuffed animals on the carefully made bed, the bedroom felt abandoned, preserved like a museum exhibit.

Finally, we reached the top of the ramp, which was good because Festus started to feel heavier by the minute as we lugged it up the ramp. We emerged into a cathedral-like hall. Overhead curved a barreled ceiling of wood carvings, with glowing stained-glass pannels in the center creating green and gold geometric designs. At the far end of the room, the rose window I'd seen outside cast dartboard-line shadows across the painted cement floor. To our left and right, there were raised walkways with wrought-iron railings, and elegant Victorian lampposts lined the walls. Behind the railings, rows of doorways led into the other rooms. Half a dozen ladders stretched up to the ornate molding at the base of the ceiling, where the ledges were stuffed with hay-like roosts for very large chickens. The whole place had a faint animal scent... though it reminded me more of a dog kennel than a henhouse.

In one corner of the main room gleamed a chef's kitchen big enough to host several celebrity cook-offs at once. Sets of sofas and comfy chairs were clustered here and there. At the center of the hall stood a massive dining table of rough hewn redwood with seating for twenty.

Under the rose window, the contents of several different workshops seemed to have een disgorged at random: table saws, drills, lathes, kilns, forges, anvils, 3-D printers, sewing machines, cauldrons, and several other industrial appliances I couldn't name. (Don't judge me. I'm not Hephaestus.)

Hunched over a welding station, throwing sparks from her torch as she worked on a sheet of metal, was a muscular woman in a metal visor, leather apron, and gloves.

I took a shot and asked, "Jo?"

The woman looked in our direction, shut off her torch, then lifted her visor.

"I'll be hexed!" She barked out a laugh. "Is that Apollo?"

Jo tugged her safety gear and lumbered over. Like Emmie, the woman was in her sixties, but whereas Emmie had the physique of a former gymnast, this woman was built for brawling. Her broad shoulders and dark, well sculpted arms stretched against the confines of a faded pink polo shirt. Wrenches and screwdrivers sagged from the pockets of her denim overalls. Against the umber skin of her scalp, her buzz-cut gray hair shimmered like frost. Needless to say, for someone that's supposed to be Alabaster's half sister, she doesn't look like she could be related to the son of Hecate.

"I got to say, I'm amaze you remember me," Jo said.

"I don't," I admitted, "Alabaster Torrington told us about this place and referred you to us."

"Alabaster, huh? So that half-brother of mine survived being hunted down by the Lamia. Good for him," Jo said. She thrust her hand. "I'm Jo. Or Josie. Or Josephine. Whichever."

With each version of her name, she squeezed my hand tighter. I would not have challenged her to an arm-wrestling contest (though with her meaty fingers I doubt she could play guitar as well as I do, so ha). Her square jawed face would;ve been quite intimidating except for her cheerful, twinling eyes. Her mouth twitched as if she were exerting a great effort not to bust out laughing.

I'm starting feel like my brand was being diluted due to all these people's names ending in o⎯Jo, Leo, Calypso, Apollo. I thanked the gods were not in Ohio and our dragon was not named Festo.

"I think I'll call you Josephine. May i introduce Leo and Calypso?"

She greeted them with the hand shake as me. "Calypso, it's a pleasure to meet you. I take it that suitcase is your dragon Festus."

"How can you tell?" Leo asked.

Josephine tapped her left temple. "Waystation tells me stuff."

"Oooh," Leo's eyes widened. "That's cool."

I wasn't so sure. Normally, when someone said that a building was talking to them, I got away from them as quickly as possible. Sadly, I believed Josephine. I also had the feeling we would be needing hers and Emmie's hospitality.

"They had encountered our neighbors," Emmie told Josephine.

The sparkle dimmed in Josephine's eyes as Emmie said that.

"Do you often have problems with the Blemmyae?" I asked. I imagined they stop by to borrow a socket wrench, or take an order for Girl Scout cookies, or murder someone.

"Didn't use to." Josephine sighed. "But we are safe here. By themselves, blemmyae are pretty harmless, as long as you're polite to them. They don't have enough imagination to organize an assault. The Waystation isn't easy to find unless we invite you in."

"That would explain why Alabaster told us to ask for you," I said.

"Right," Emmie agreed.

"Huh." Leo tapped the floor with his foot. "Did you design this place? 'Cause it's pretty awesome."

Josephine and Emmie chuckled as Josephine said, "We wish. A demigod architect with way more talent than either of us did that. Built the Waystation back in the 1880s, early days of the transcontinental railroad. It was meant as a refuge for demigods, satyrs, Hunters⎯pretty much anyone who needed one here in the middle of the country. Emmie and I are just lucky enough to be the present caretakers."

"I've never even heard of this place before Alabaster told me," I said grumpily.

"We... ah, keep a low profile. Lady Artemis' orders Need-to-know basis." Emmie explained, "We told Alabaster to keep it a secret⎯not on the styx though just incase he comes across someone who might need to hide out here."

As a god, I was the very definition of need-to know, but it was typical of Artemis to keep something like this to herself. She was such a doomsday prepper, always hiding things from the other gods, like stashes of supplies, emergency bunkers, and small nation-states. But I can see why they didn't have Alabaster swear on the styx. If he had, he wouldn't have told me about this place.

"Well, Alabaster wasn't wrong to tell us about this place. Especially after what we saw," I said.

"I assume this place isn't a train station anymore," Calypso added. "What do they think it is?"

Josephine grinned. "Waystation, transparent floor please."

Beneath our feet, the stained cement disappeared. I leaped back as if standing on a hot skillet, but the floor was not actually gone. It had simply turned see-through. Around us, the rugs, furniture, and workshop equipment seemed to hover two stories over the actual ground floor of the hall, where twenty or thirty banquet tables had been set up for some of event.

"Our living space occupies the top of the grand hall," Josephine said. "That area below us was once the main concourse for the station. Now the mortals rent it out for weddings and parties and whatnot. If they look up⎯"

"Adaptive camouflage," Leo guessed. "They see an image of the ceiling, but they don't see you. Nice!"

Josephine nodded, obviously pleased.

"mMost of the time it's quiet around here," Emmie said, "but it gets noisy on weekends."

"If I have to hear 'Thinking Out Loud' from one more wedding cover band, I may have to drop an anvil," Josephine grumbled. She pointed to the floor which immediately turned back to opaque cement. "Now if you guys don't mind, I need to finish a section of a project I'm working on. Don't want the metal plates to cool without propper welding. When I'm done I can help you fix the dragon."

"A child of Hecate that knows their way around the forges," Leo whistled with amazement.

Josephine shrugged. "My dad, my mortal dad, was a mechanic. So I was raised around machines. Magical construction is my specialty."

"Nice!" Leo said. "My mom was a mechanic."

"Go ahead Josephine. I'll show them to their guest rooms and get Leo here some clothing," Emmie said. "THese days, we've got plenty of vacancies."

"Let me guess," I said. "Indianapolis has a new emperor and he got something to do with it."

Anger washed over Josephine face, giving me a glimpse of what it would be like to get on Josephine's bad side. (Hint: It involves pain.)

"Did I say something wrong?" I asked.

Emmie took a shaky breath, "It's not you Apollo. It's just⎯we'll tell you later, after you three are settled."

"Right," Josephine agreed. "Hemithea and I can tell you then."

"Hemithea?" The name hit me like one of the Waystation's bricks. My face felt as if it were slipping down the center of my chest, blemmyae style. I looked at Emmie, now realizing why she looked familiar."The Hemithea?""

"Took you long enough to realize it," Emmie said. "Not that I could blame you. I'm not as young as I use too, much less look like the Greek Princess you made immortal."