A/N: I don't own the rights to any of the Percy Jackson series or it's characters. That right gaoes 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.
Also, ever since I got my latest Laptop I been stuck using Google Docs and Copy and paste my chapters and for some reason when I save what I paste any formats I made is turn to normal format. I even have to bold the chapter titles, but as I'm sure you noticed sometimes I forget to do that. So anything I normally itallilize like thoughts come out normal text. A/N at the beginning and end of each keep the format changes because I add them without copying and pasting from google doc.
If you haven't read this yet, read:
Animorph Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief
Animorph Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Sea of Monsters
Animorph Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Titan's Curse
Animorph Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Battle of the Labyrinth
Animorph Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Stolen Chariot
Animorph Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Sword of Hades
Animorph Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Bronze Dragon
Animorph Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Last Olympian
Animorph Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Staff of Hermes
Animorph Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Singer of Apollo
Leo: I Meet My New Siblings
"So do all demigods get scholarships to college?" I asked.
"Not all," Jeffrey said as he moved ahead. "Those who inherit skills that help them in school do. But others try to get more training in before starting college."
"Do all demigods live long enough to go to college?" I asked.
"No. Many died before reaching that point. Especially last summer. Many died then fighting bad Titans and mean monsters," Jeffrey said.
"So why Jake was made head counsellor?"
"He was oldest and had seniority," Jeffrey said. "Most cabins decide by age. Except War god cabin"-Jeffrey pointed to a bright red cabin with barb wire. "Only the strongest leads that cabin."
"Okay."
"Jake tried his best to lead, but he prefers building than leading," Jeffrey said.
"Yeah, I understand that part," I said. "So have you met Beckendorf?"
"Yeah. I was lucky. I came to camp a week before Beckendorf left for college," Jeffrey said. "He was awesome and nice to us Cyclopes. Tyson knew him best though. Beckendorf was the first one who first taught Tyson how to build."
"Sounds like a nice guy," I agreed
"Here we are," Jeffrey said with enthusiasm.
The forge looked like a steam powered locomotive had smashed into the Greek Parthenon and they had fused together. White marble columns lined the soot stained walls. Chimneys pumped smoke over an elaborated gable carved with a bunch of godsend monsters. The building sat at the edge of a stream, with several waterwheels turning a series of bronze gears. I heard machinery grinding inside, fires roaring, and hammers ringing on anvils.
We stepped through the doorway, and a dozen guys and girls and twice as many more cyclopes, who'd been working on various projects all froze. The noise died down to the roar of the forge and the click-click-click of gears and levers.
"Friends!" Jeffrey hollered. "I brought you a new brother, Leo-um, what's your last name?"
"Valdez." I looked around at the other campers. The cyclopes weren't hard to identify with their single big eye each, but was I really related to the rest of them? My cousins came from some big families, but I'd always just had my mom-until she died.
Kids and cyclopes came up and started shaking hands and introducing themselves. Their names blurred together: Shane, Christopher, Nyssa, Harley (yeah, like the motorcycle). I knew I'd never keep everybody straight. Too many of them too overwhelming.
None of the demigods looked like one another-all different face types, skin tones, hair color, height. You'd never think, Hey, look, it's the Hephaestus bunch! But they all had powerful hands, rough with calluses and stained with engine grease. Even little Harley, who couldn't have been more than eight, looked like he could go six rounds with Chuck Norris without breaking a sweat.
I later not all the cyclopes greeting me wasn't sibling, but just want to meet their new friend, but there were few that indeed were kids of Hephaestus, but many of them were children of Poseidon like Jeffrey.
"Welcome to Cabin Nine, Leo," said one of the girls, Nyssa I remembered. She wore camo pants a tank top that showed off her buff arms, and red bandanna over a mop of dark hair. She looked like one of those female action heroes, like any second she was going to grab a machine gun and start mowing down evil aliens.
"Thanks," I said. "I always wanted a sister who could beat me up."
Nyssa didn't smile. "Come on, joker boy. I'll show you around."
...
I was no stranger to workshops. I'd grown up around grease monkeys and power tools. My mom used to joke that my first pacifier was a huge wrench. But I'd never seen any place like the camp forge.
One guy was working on a battle-ax. He kept testing the blade on a slab of concrete. Each time he swung, the ax cut into the slab like it was warm cheese, but the guy looked unsatisfied and went back to honing the edge.
"What's he planning to kill with that thing?" I asked Nyssa. "A battle-ship?"
"You never know. Even with Celestial bronze-"
"That's the metal?"
She nodded. "Mined from Mount Olympus itself. Extremely rare. Anyway, it usually disintegrate monsters on contact, but big powerful ones have notoriously tough hides. Drakons, for instances=="
"You mean dragons?"
"Similar species. You'll learn the difference in monster fighting class."
"Monster-fighting class. Yeah, I already got my black belt in that."
She didn't crack a smile. I hoped she wasn't this serious all the time. My dad's side of the family had to have some sense of humor, right?
"That reminds me, Jeffrey, we're going to need your help if we ever catch that dragon again," Nyssa said.
"What dragon?" I hoped she was talking about a miniature dragon, maybe one that killed cockroaches, but I got the feeling I wasn't going to be so lucky.
"Make things go BOOM?" Jeffrey asked.
"We'll see, big guy. But like I said, we got to catch the dragon."
Nyssa took me over to a big wall map that a couple of girls were studying. The map showed the campo-a semicircle of land with Long Island Sound on the north shore, the woods to the west, the cabins to the east, and a ring of hills to the south.
"It got to be in the hills," the first girl said.
"We looked in the hills," the second argued. "The woods are a better hiding place."
But we already set traps-"
"Hold up," I said. "You guys lost a dragon? A real full size dragon?"
"It's a bronze dragon," Nyssa said. "But yes, it's a life-size automaton. Hephaestus cabin built it years ago. Then it was lost in the woods until a few summers back, when Beckendorf Percy Annabeth and Silena found it in pieces and rebuilt it. Beckendorf got it working and it was a life savior last summer, but some hyperboreans manage to flash freeze it's circuits and it been unpredictable once more."
"Unpredictable?" I asked.
"It goes haywire and smashes down cabins, set people on fire, tries to eat satyrs."
"That's pretty unpredictable."
Nyssa nodded. "Beckendorf was the only one who can control it. But when he left for college-well it wasn't so bad at first, but slowly it started short circuiting again and gotten worse. Finally it went berserk and ran off. Occasionally it shows up, demolishes something, and runs away again. Last time Jake got close to talk to it and...well you saw how how that work out."
I thought about Jake, wrapped in a body cast, lying alone in one of the wall bunks.
"Let's try more traps in the woods-here, here, and here," Nyssa told the other girls. Bait them with thirty weight motor oil."
"The dragon drinks that?" I asked.
"Yeah." Nyssa sighed. "He used to like it with a little tabasco sauce right before bed. If he springs a trap we can direct Jeffrey to find the control panel and shut it off until we can figure what to do with it."
"Can't one of you get close to it?" I asked.
"No. The thing breathes fire. We can't even get close," one said.
Fire, I thought. Oh, man, the things I could tell them about fire... but I had to be careful, even if these were my brothers and sisters. Especially if I had to live with them.
"But Hepheastus is the god of fire, right? So don't any of you have fire resistance or something?"
"Only Cyclopes have that ability," Jeffrey grunted. "Demigods don't."
My shoulders slumped. "Oh."
A guy in the back said, "Well, a long time ago-"
"Yeah, okay," Nyssa conceded. "A long time ago some children of Hephaestus were born with power over fire. A rare blessing of cabin nine they say. But that ability was very, very rare. And always dangerous. No demigod like that has been born in centuries. The last one..." she looked at one of the other kids for help.
"Sixteen sixty-six," the girl offered. "Guy named Thomas Faynor. He started the Great Fire of London, destroyed most of the city."
"Right," Nyssa said. "When a demigod child of Hephaestus like that appears, it usually means something catastrophic is about to happen. And we don't need any more catastrophes."
I tried to keep my face clear of emotion, which wasn't my strong suit. "I guess I see your point. Good thing we have Cyclopes then."
"Yeah thanks to Percy Jackson," Nyssa said. "He was the one who made it possible for more cyclopes to attend camp."
"We first learn to appreciate life by living on streets, then go to camp to learn how to forge and fight, then we work for the gods." Jeffrey said cheerfully. "Just like Tyson!"
"Yeah!" the other cyclopes cheered.
I got the idea this Tyson guy-probably another cyclopes-was as big deal to these guys as Annabeth's boyfriend.
A conch horn blew in the distance. Campers started putting up their tools and projects. I didn't even realized it was getting late, but I looked through the windows and saw the sun going down. My ADHD did that to me sometimes. If I was bored, a fifty minute class seemed like six hours. If I was interested in something, like touring a demigod camp, hours slipped away and bam-the day was over.
"Dinner," Nyssa said. "Come on, Leo."
"Up at the pavilion, right?" I asked.
She nodded.
"You guys go ahead," I said. "Can you... give me a second?"
Nyssa hesitated. Then her expression softened. "Sure. It's a lot to process. I remember my first day. Come up when you're ready. Just don't touch anything. Almost every project in here can kill you if you're not careful."
"No touching," I promised.
My cabinmates filed out of the forge with the rest of the Cyclopes. Soon I was alone with the sounds of the bellows, the waterwheels, and small machines clicking and whirling.
I stared at the map of the camp-the locations where my newfound siblings were going to put traps to catch a dragon to make it easier to shut down-hopefully so it can be fixed.
Very rare. I thought. And always dangerous.
I held out my hand and studied my fingers. They were long and thin, not callused like the other Hephaestus campers'. I had never been the biggest or the strongest kid. I survived in tough neighborhoods, tough schools, tough foster homes by using my wits. I was the class clown, the court jester, because I'd learned early that if you cracked jokes and pretended I wasn't scared, I usually didn't get beat up. Even the baddest gangster kids would tolerate me, kept me around for laughs. Plus, humor was a good way to hide the pain. And if that didn't work, there was always Plan B. Run away. Over and over.
There was a Plan C, but I'd promised myself never used it again.
I felt an urge to try it now-howthing I hadn't done since the accident, since my mom's death.
I extended my fingers and felt them tingle, like they were walking up-pins and needles. Then flames flickered to life, curls of red hot fire dancing across my palm.
