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.

Meg gets a Friend, Percy gets a Head Cold, and I got Nothing

I will not say my life passed before my eyes.

I wish it had. That would have taken several months, giving me time to figure out an escape plan.

Instead, my regrets passed before my eyes. Despite being a gloriously perfect being, I do have a few regrets. I remembered that day at Abbey Road Studios when my envy led me to set rancor in the hearts of John and Paul and break up the Beatles. I remembered Achilles falling on the plains of Troy, cut down by an unworthy archer because of my wrath. I remembered having to curse Halcyon Green with silence and monsters to mimic his voice just for saving a girl's life with his power of prophecies.

I saw Hyacinthus, his bronze shoulders and dark ringlets gleaming in the sunlight. Standing on the sideline of the discus field, he gave me a brilliant smile. Even you cannot throw that far, he teased.

Watch me, I said. I threw the discus, then stared in horror as a gust of wind made it veer, inexplicably, toward Hyacinthus' handsome face.

And of course, I saw her—the other love of my life—her fair skin transforming into bark, her hair sprouting green leaves, her eyes hardening into rivulets of sap.

Those memories brought back so much pain, you might think I would welcome the glittering plague mist descending overcome me.

Yet my new mortal self-rebelled. I was too young to die! Plus, if I am being honest, all gods fear death, even when we are not encased in mortal forms.

That may seem silly. We are immortal. But as you have seen, immortality can be taken away. (In my case, three stinking times.)

Gods know about fading. They know about being forgotten over the centuries. The idea of ceasing to exist altogether terrifies us. In fact—well, Zeus would not like me sharing this information, and if you tell anyone, I will deny it—but the truth is we gods are a little in awe of your mortals. You spend your whole lives knowing you will die. No matter how many friends and relatives you have, your puny existence will be quickly forgotten. How do you cope with it? Why are you not running around constantly screaming and pulling your hair out? Your bravery, I must admit, is quite admirable.

Now, where was I?

Right. I was dying.

Or at least I was when a blast of water shot out and slammed into the plague spirit and washing away the smoke once more.

I roll away and gasped fresh air as I was holding my breath. To my left I see Percy gasping for air himself, holding onto his thermos.

Of course, he would use that on the plague spirits again. It stopped them the first time.

At that moment, Meg yelled. "GET DOWN!"

I found this inconsiderate since I had only just gotten up. All around the orchard, the frozen blackened remnants of the harvest were beginning to levitate.

Believe me, in four thousand years I have seen some strange things. I have seen the dreaming face of Ouranos etched in stars across the heavens, and the full fury of Typhon as he raged across the earth. I have seen men turn into snakes, ants turn into men, and otherwise rational people dance the macarena.

But never had I seen an uprising of frozen fruit.

Percy and I hit the ground as peaches shot around the orchard ricocheting off trees like eight balls, ripping through the reforming nosoi's cadaverous bodies. If I had been standing up, I would have been killed, but Meg simply stood there, unfazed and unhurt, as frozen dead fruit zinged around her.

All three collapsed, riddled with holes. Every piece of fruit dropped to the ground.

Percy looked up, his eyes red and puffy but unharmed. Although with the Achilles Curse those peaches might have not killed him, I had no doubt they would hurt hitting him at the speed they were flying. Achilles Curse makes your body 99% impenetrable, but it does not make you immune to pain if you are hit hard enough. "Whah jus happened?"

He sounded congested, which meant he had not completely escaped the effect of the plague cloud. That is another thing Mortals fail to understand about the Achilles Curse, it makes your skin impenetrable, but if something gets in your body through any natural openings like mouth the mouth, it can still enter your body and do damage as the Achilles Curse only makes your skin invulnerable. Still, Percy was not dead, so that was a good sign.

"I don't know," I admitted. "Meg, is it safe?"

She was staring in amazement at the carnage of fruit, mangled corpses, and broken tree limbs. "I—I'm not sure. I do not know how I even did that. I just knew it would happen."

"Mus be your demigod powers," Percy sniffled. "But I neveh seen one like thah before."

Although my memory still not the greatest, I got the feeling I have, and it is not a good sign for me.

One of the cadavers began to stir. It got up, wobbling on its heavily perforated legs.

"Yooou are strong, child," the spirit growled.

The other two corpses rose.

"Not strong enough," said the second nosos. "We will finish you now."

The third spirit bared his rotten teeth. "Your guardian would be sooooo disappointed."

Guardian? Perhaps the spirit meant me. When in doubt, I usually assumed the conversation was about me.

Meg looked as if she had been punched in the gut. Her face paled. Her arms trembled. She stamped her foot and yelled, "NO!"

More peaches swirled into the air. This time the fruit blurred together in a fructose dust devil, until standing in front of Meg was a creature like a pudgy human toddler wearing only a linen diaper. Protruding from his back were wings made of leafy branches. His babyish face might have been cute except for the glowing green eyes and pointy fangs. The creature snarled and snapped at the air.

"No, no, no, no! Not them again," Percy shook his head. "Not Karpoi. Anything but them."

The three nosoi also did not look pleased. They edged away from the snarling baby.

"Wh-what is it?" Meg asked.

I stared at her in disbelief. She had to be the cause of this fruit-based strangeness, but she looked as shock as we were. Unfortunately, if Meg did not know how she summoned this creature, she would not know how to make it go away. I was not a fan of Karpoi.

"It's a grain spirit," I said, trying to keep the panic out of my voice. "I've never seen a peach karpos before, but it's as vicious as other types…"

I was about to say, we are doom, but that seemed both obvious and depressing.

The peach baby turned toward the nosoi. For a moment, I feared he would make some h- alliance—an axis of evil between illnesses and fruits.

The middle corpse inched backward. "Do not interfere," he warned the karpos. "We will not allooow—"

The peach baby launched himself at the nosos and bit his head off.

That is not a figure of speech. The karpos's fanged mouth unhinged, expanding to an unbelievable circumference, then closed around the cadaver's head, and chomped it off in one bite.

In a matter of seconds, the nosos had been torn to shreds and devoured.

Understandably, the other two nosoi retreated, but the karpos crouched and sprang. He landed on the second corpse and proceeded to rip it into plague-flavored Cream of Wheat.

The last spirit dissolved into glittering smoke and tried to fly away, but the peach baby spread his leafy wings and launched himself in pursuit. He opened his mouth and inhaled the sickness, snapping and swallowing until every wisp of smoke was gone.

He landed in front of Meg and belched. His green eyes gleamed. He did not appear even slightly sick, which I suppose was not surprising, since human disease do not infect fruit trees. Instead, even after eating three nosoi, the little fellow looked hungry.

He howled and beat his small chest. "Peaches!"

To my shock, Meg put her hand on the creature's curly head. "You saved us," she told the karpos. "Thank you."

Too Percy and mine surprise, the peach baby hugged Meg's leg and glared at us if daring us to approach.

I do not know how, but Meg had summoned him. And I am starting to realize her godly parentage. I do have questions about to interrogate her about the guardian with a karpos around her.

"I think it's safe to say that thing won't hurt Meg," Percy sneezed as he capped his thermos. "Maybe it won't hurt us if we don't threaten her or it."

"How can you be sure?" I asked.

"I'm not. But I have a cyclops for an adopted half-brother, a hellhound the size of a tank, and last, I check my girlfriend is somewhere in Boston with an undead Kitten that can turn into a zombified Saber-Tooth-Spactus-Tiger that I help take care of when they are home, so I am not exactly one to judge Meg for befriending a karpos," Percy explained.

I remember seeing an undead kitten that could transform into an undead Sabretooth Tiger with Annabeth at the Acropolis, so I see his point.

"Well, whatever the case," I said, "we owe the karpos our lives. This recall an expression I coined ages ago: A peach a day keeps the plague spirits away."

"Mortals have a similar saying just with apples and doctors," Percy said. "But for now, I'll take peaches."

"Peaches," said the Karpos.

Percy wiped his nose. "Not to criticize, but why is he saying only peaches over and over. Last time I fo—met karpos they were able to use complete sentences."

"It varies with species," I said. "But most karpos does seem to have a very… targeted vocabulary."

"Maybe Peaches is his name." Meg stroke the karpos' curly brown hair, which elicited a demon purring from the creature's throat. "That's what I'll call him."

"Great, now she's adopting thah—" Percy sneezed with such force, an irrigation pipe exploded behind him, sending up a row of tiny geysers. "Ugh. Sick."

"You're lucky," I said. "Because you use your thermos, you diluted the spirit's power. Instead of getting a deadly illness, you got a head cold."

"I hate head cold. Not to mention last time I had one, the camp's bathrooms exploded," Percy complained. "Back then Hephaestus Cabin only had three campers at camp so they had to work overtime just so we could have our showers back."

I noticed Percy's green irises look like they were sinking in a sea of blood shot. "So, did you two get sick?" He asked.

Meg shook her head.

"I have an excellent constitution," I said. "No doubt that's what saved me."

"And the fact thah I hosed the smoke off you," Percy said.

"Well, yes."

Percy stared at me for an awkward moment but shrugged it off. I think he expected some gratitude for it which for any god be odd for us to give to a mortal much less a demigod.

"Can we go now?" Meg asked.

"An excellent idea," I said. "Though I'm afraid Percy is no condition—"

"I can still drive you the rest of the way. Besides, Chiron has the best remedies for head colds that will get me home safely," Percy explained. "We just got to get my car out from between those trees…" He glanced in that direction and his expression turned even more miserable. "Aw, H- no…"

A police cruiser was pulling over on the side of the road. I imagined the officer's eyes tracing the tire ruts int the mud, which led to the plowed down fence and continued to the blue Toyota Prius wedged between two peach trees. The cruiser's roof lights flashed on.

"Great. Now I got to use the Mist to keep that officer from towing the Prius," Percy complained. "My mom and Paul need thah car."

"Go work your magic on the officers," I said. "You won't be any use to us anyways in your current state."

"Yeah, we'll be fine," Meg said. "You said the camp is right over those hills?"

"Yeah, but…" Percy scowled, probably trying to think straight through the effects of his cold. "The western boulder is the most dangerous entrance into camp. It is extremely enchanted so even if you try to enter from there you can get lost. That's why most campers enter from the east."

The police car's door opened.

"Just go," I urged Percy. "We'll find our way through the woods. You use the Mist to explain your situation. Maybe use how sick you are to be convincing."

"Yeah, thah could work," Percy said. "Meg, can I talk to you a bit."

Meg hesitated a bit but walked over to Percy. He leaned down and whisper something in her ear. Whatever he said Meg's eyes widened.

"It's not normally used by someone who just entered the camp for the first time, but if it works it should get Peaches… and maybe Apollo if he has any trouble… through," Percy said. "Just be sure to let Chiron know Peaches doesn't mean any harm when you meet him."

Meg nodded. I got the feeling Percy just told Meg who to let someone who cannot pass through the boarders into Camp Half-Blood. It normally used to summon monsters for practice fights or pranks, but even I must admit that was clever.

"Just try and survive until the weekend. I should have Mrs. O'Leary back by then and will be able to visit you," Percy said.

"Wait Percy, take this back," I handed out the Kopis.

"Keep it. It might come in handy entering the western boulder—CHOOO!" Percy sneezed hard.

I did not like it, but I strapped it back on my belt.

Muttering unhappily, Percy touched his shield which spiraled back to wristwatch form. Percy made sure his thermos was back on its lid and then trudged down the hill, sneezing and sniffling.

Meg turned to me. "Ready?"

I was soaking wet and shivering. The only weapon I have is a sword I am not even good with. I was having the worst day in the history of days. I was stuck with a scary girl and even scarier peach baby. I was by no means ready for anything. But I also desperately wanted to reach camp. I might find some friendly faces there—perhaps jubilant worshippers who would bring me peeled grapes, Oreos, and other holy offerings.

"Sure," I shouldered my backpack. "Let's go."

Peaches the karpos grunted. He gestured for us to follow, then scampered toward the hills. Meg skipped after him with her backpack on her shoulder, as she swings from tree branches and cartwheeling through the mud as the mood took her. You might have thought we had just finished a nice picnic rather than a battle with plague ridden cadavers.

I turned my face to the sky. "Are you sure, Zeus? It is not too late to tell me this was an elaborate prank and recall me to Olympus. I have learned my lesson. I promise."

The gray winter clouds did not respond. With a sigh, I jogged after Meg and her homicidal new minion.