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 Rioran. 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.

The Backseat of a Prius is no Place for Me

Sally lent Meg a proper winter fleece jacket since Percy already supplied me with a hoodie. She also made sure I had a backpack to put Percy's binder in, so I do not have to carry it everywhere in my hands along with other essential demigod needs: first aid, some cookies, spare clothes, etc. She also got one for Meg too.

It was bad enough Percy did not have a bow or quiver full of arrows to supply me (I did tell him he should always plan for my needs, but he reminded me gods do not always visit demigods and normally do not need to borrow weapons), but unfortunately the Prius was the only car the Jacksons owned. They did not own a Maserati or a Lamborghini.

"Don't worry, it's safer than Thalia behind the wheel of the sun-car," Percy explained. "Ah if you see her, don't tell her I said that."

Safer was not my main concern but I cannot argue against Percy's logic. I let my demigod half-sister Thalia drive the sun-chariot and she took us on a rollercoaster of a ride.

Once we reached the Prius, Meg called shotgun, which was yet another example of my unfair existence. Gods do not ride in the back.

"What about your hellhound," I said. "I thought you have a hellhound."

"Mrs. O'Leary is with Tyson at Camp Jupiter this week," Percy said. "She really likes playing with Hannibal the Elephant."

Safety was not the problem sitting in the back seat. The problem was that I quickly became carsick. I was used to driving my sun chariot across the sky, where every lane was the fast lane. I was not used to the Long Island Expressway. Believe me, even at midday in the middle of January, there is nothing express about your expressways.

Percy braked and lurched forward. I sorely wished I could launch a fireball in front of us and melt cars to make way for our clearly more important journey.

"Doesn't your Prius have flamethrowers?" I demanded. "Lasers? At least some Hephaestian bumper blades? What sort of cheap economy vehicle is this?"

Percy glanced in the rearview mirror. "This is a mortal civilian vehicle, Apollo. Mortals don't normally drive weapon enhance vehicles unless it's meant for combat."

Meg tugged at her crescent moon rings. Again, I wondered if she had some connections to Artemis. The moon was my sister's symbol. Perhaps Artemis had sent Meg to look after me?

Yet that did not seem right. Artemis had trouble sharing anything with me—demigods, arrows, nations, birthday parties. It is a twin thing. Also, Meg McCaffrey did not strike me as one of my sister's followers. Meg had another sort of aura… one I would have been able to recognize easily if I were a god. But no. I had to rely on mortal intuition, which was like trying to pick up sewing needles while wearing oven mitts.

Meg turned and gazed out the rear windshield, probably checking for any shiny blobs pursuing us. "At least we're not being—"

"Don't say it," Percy warned.

Meg huffed. "You don't know what I was going to—"

"You were going to say, 'At least we're not being followed'," Percy said. "That'll jinx us. Immediately we will notice that we are being followed. Then we will end up in a big battle that totals my family car and probably destroys the whole freeway. Then we'll have to run all the way to camp."

Meg's eyes widened. "You can tell the future?"

"Don't need to." Percy changed lanes to one that was crawling slightly less slowly. "I just been at this since I was seven years old, and let me tell you, demigods are more vulnerable to jinxes with phrases like that than your average mortal. Fair warning, Meg, I would not go blurting out names of monsters and gods in public either as that also attracts monsters. Besides"—he shot me an accusing look— "nobody can tell the future anymore. The Oracle isn't working."

"What Oracle?" Meg asked.

Neither of us answered. For a moment, I was too stunned to speak. And believe me, I must be very stunned for that to happen.

"It still isn't working?" I said in a small voice.

"You didn't know?" Percy asked. "It happened on your watch during the second giant war."

That was unjust. I had been busy hiding from Zeus's wrath at the time, which was a perfectly legitimate excuse. How was I to know that Gaea would take advantage of the chaos of the war and raised my oldest, greatest enemy from the depths of Tartarus so he could take possession of his old lair in the cave of Delphi and cut off the source of my prophetic powers.

Oh, yes, I hear you critics out there: You are the god of prophecy, Apollo. How could you not know that would happen?

The next sound you hear will be me blowing you a giant Meg-McCaffrey-quality raspberry.

I swallowed back the taste of fear and seven-layer dip. "I just… I assumed—I hoped Chiron would send demigods to reclaim the Oracle of Delphi by now."

Percy sighed as though he probably expects it. I guess even he had hopes for that at one time himself. "Here's the thing, Apollo. For a Demigod to go on a quest, we need a prophecy—those are the rules. If there is no Oracle, there are no prophecies."

"What about your harpy friend that read a bunch of prophecies?" Meg asked.

"We lost communications with the Romans before we could check in on them," Percy admitted.

"Let me guess. Right around time all demigod communications were cut?" I asked.

"Actually, before that," Percy said. "I Iris-message Jason about it, and all he can guess is that the Camp was going through Jinx that was interfering with all communications going in and out of camp. Before I could check back on him though, that was when all demigod communications been blocked. The point is though, if there is no oracle, or at least a prophecy to go on, we're stuck in a—"

"A Catch-88," I sighed.

Meg threw a piece of lint at me. "It's a catch-22."

"No," I explained patiently. "When the Oracle is involved, it's a Catch-88, which is four times as bad."

I felt as if I were floating in a warm bath and someone had pulled out the stopper. The water swirled around me, tugging me downward. Soon I would be left shivering and exposed, or else I would be sucked down the drain into the sewers of hopelessness. (Do not laugh. That is a perfectly fine metaphor. Also, when you are a god, you can get sucked down a drain quite easily—if you are caught off guard and relaxed, and you happen to change form at the wrong moment. Once I woke up in a sewage treatment facility in Biloxi, but that is another story.)

"It could be that's the trials Zeus have set for you," Percy added. "Freeing the Oracle."

"And how am I supposed to do that in my current condition?" I asked. "You realize that means fighting my oldest enemy."

Percy shrugged. "Just a suggestion. I don't know how Zeus works any more than you do."

He had a point. What is worse, is that I think Percy was already onto something. Problem is that the Oracle was held by hostile forces. My adversary lay coiled and waiting, growing stronger every day on the magical fumes of the Delphic caverns. And I was a weak mortal bound to an untrained demigod who threw garbage and chewed her cuticles.

No. Zeus could not possibly expect me to fix this. Not in my present condition.

And yet… someone had sent those thugs to intercept me in the alley. Someone had known where I would land.

Someone had to of been able to see into the future.

"Hey, you two," Meg it us both with pieces of lint. Where was she finding this lint? "There are three shiny blobs now."

"What?" Percy asked.

She pointed behind us. "Look."

Weaving through the traffic, closing in on us rapidly, were three glittery, vaguely, humanoid apparitions—like billowing plumes from smoke grenades touched by King Midas.

"Here we go again," Percy sighed. "Everybody holds on. We're going cross-country."

…

Percy's definition of cross-country was different from mine.

I envisioned crossing an actual countryside. Instead, Percy shot down the nearest exit ramp, wove across the parking lot of a shopping mall, then blasted through the drive-through of a Mexican restaurant without even ordering anything. We swerved into an industrial area of dilapidated warehouses, the smoking apparitions still closing in behind us.

My knuckles turned white on my seat belt's shoulder strap. "Is your plan to avoid a fight by dying in a traffic accident?" I demanded.

"Ha-ha." Percy yanked the wheel to the right. We sped north, the warehouses giving way to a hodgepodge of apartment buildings and abandoned strip malls. "I'm getting us to the beach. If we can get there, I can fight better near water."

"Because of Poseidon?" Meg aske, steadying herself against the door handle.

"Yep," Percy agreed.

Meg bounced up and down with excitement, which seemed pointless to me, since we were already bouncing quite a lot.

"You're gonna be like Aquaman?" she asked. "Get the fish to fight for you?"

"I can do a lot more cooler things than Aquaman," Percy said. "I got a thermos strapped to my belt that let me summon water blast like my own personal water cannon. But my powers are a lot stronger near a body of water."

I glance out the rear window. The three glittering plumes were still gaining. One of them passed through a middle-aged man crossing the street. The mortal pedestrian instantly collapsed.

"Ah, I know these spirits!" I cried. "They are… um…" My brain clouded over. "I've forgotten! I hate being mortal! Four thousand years of knowledge, the secrets of the universe, a sea of wisdom—lost, because I can't contain it all in this teacup of a head!"

"Hold on!" Percy flew through a railroad crossing and the Prius went airborne. Meg yelped as her head hit the ceiling. Then she began giggling uncontrollably.

The landscape opened into an actual countryside—fallow fields, dormant vineyards, orchards of bare fruit trees.

"Just another mile or so to the beach," Percy said. "Plus, we're almost to the western edge of camp just have to get there."

Unfortunately, the shiny smoke clouds had other plans. One pulled a dirty trick pluming from the pavement directly in front of us.

Instinctively, Percy swerved.

The Prius went off the road, straight through a barbed wire fence and into an orchard. Percy managed to avoid hitting any of the trees, but the car skidded in the icy mud and wedged itself between two trunks. Miraculously, the air bags did not deploy.

Percy popped his seat belt. "You guys okay?"

Meg shoved against her passenger-side door. "Won't open. Get me out of here!"

Percy tried his own door. It was firmly jammed against the side of a peach tree. "Not again with the doors." He muttered.

I got the feeling this is not the first time Percy was trapped in a vehicle while being chased by a monster, which was not really reassuring.

"Back here," I said. "Climb over!"

I kicked my door open and staggered out, my legs feeling like worn shock absorbers.

"Apollo!" Percy tossed me my borrowed backpack. At first, I thought this was about my binder, but then Percy said. "Never leave any bags behind. You never know if you won't get back to it."

The three smoky figures had stopped at the edge of the orchard. Now they advance slowly, taking on solid shapes. They grew arms and legs. Their faces formed eyes and wide, hungry mouths.

I knew instinctively that I had dealt with these spirits before. I could not remember what they were, but I had dispelled them many times, swatting them into oblivion with no effort than I would a swarm of gnats.

Unfortunately, I was not a god now. I was a panicky sixteen-year-old. My palms sweated. My teeth chattered. I only coherent thought was: YIKES!

Percy was helping Meg get out of the Prius. I need to run interference for them.

"STOP!" I bellowed at the spirits. "I am the god Apollo!"

To my pleasant surprise the spirits stopped. They hovered in place about forty feet away.

I heard Meg grunt as she tumbled out of the backseat with her backpack.

I advance toward the spirits, drawing out Kopis, the frosty mud crunching under my shoes. My breath steamed in the cold air. I raised Kopis toward them.

The smoky shapes solidified into ghoulish corpses with yellow eyes. Their clothes were tattered rags, their limbs covered with gaping wounds and running sores.

"Oh, dear." My Adam's apple dropped into my chest like a billiard ball. "I remember now."

Percy and Meg stepped to either side of me. With a metallic shink, Percy's sword grew into a blade of glowing Celestial bronze. Then he hit a stop button on his wristwatch and a decent size shield spiraled out, with pictures graved into the bronze metal.

"What do you remember?" Percy asked. "Anything useful like how to stop them?"

"I remember what they are: nosoi, plague spirits." I responded.

Percy muttered in ancient Greece that would get anyone in trouble, which told me he read about them—and the fact they cannot be killed.

A/N: That issue before communications brought down was the events in the story of Cladia's journal. I'm not making a story out of it though as there wouldn't be much differences since Claudia was placed in the 4th Cohort, and most of the important Roman Demigods that could factor in changes were in the 5th Cohort or didn't make full appearance.