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.

Should I be Concern of the Fact Percy did not Warn Me About Hearing Voices?

I sighed with relief. "This should be easy."

Granted, I had said the same thing before I fought Poseidon in hand-to-hand combat, and that had not turned out to be easy. Nevertheless, our path to Camp Half-Blood looked straightforward enough. For starters, I was pleased I could see the camp, since it was normally shielded from mortal eyes. This boded well for me getting in.

From where we stood at the top of a hill, the entire valley spread out below us: roughly three squared miles of woods, meadows, strawberry fields, and a pleasant garden bordered by Long Island Sound to the north and rolling hills on the other three sides. Just below us, the dense forest of evergreens covered the western third of the vale.

Beyond that, the buildings of Camp Half-Blood gleamed in the wintry light: the amphitheater, the sword-fighting stadium, the open-air dining pavilion with its white marble columns. A trireme floated in the canoe lake. At the beach along the shores, I noticed a lone but intimidating temple. I remember from Percy's binder that was the location set for Kymopelia monument, so I guess that was it. Even from here it looked scary and deadly, just like the goddess (well, as deadly as minor goddesses can be toward Mortals). Twenty cabins lined the central green where the communal Hestia's hearth fire glowed cheerfully.

Although most demigods tend to forget Hestia since she gave up her seat to Dionysus, I never could. She was my favorite aunts and before I met the two loves of my life, I did try to convince her to marry me. But when Hestia turned it down, saying she was just as happy sitting in the sidelines helping raise her nieces and nephews, I could not stay mad nor argue against her. She was just too kind for me to stay mad with long enough to argue.

At the edge of the strawberry fields stood the Big House: a four-story Victorian painted sky blue with white trim. My friend Chiron would be inside, probably having tea by the fireplace. I would find sanctuary at last.

My gaze rose to the far end of the valley. There, on the tallest hill, the Athena Parthenos shone in all its gold-and-alabaster glory. Once, the massive statue had graced the Parthenon in Greece. Now it presided over Camp Half-Blood, protecting the valley from intruders. Even from here I could feel its power, like the subsonic thrum of a mighty engine. Old Gray Eyes was on the lookout for threats, being her usual vigilant, no-fun, all-business self.

Personally, I would have installed a more interesting statue—of myself, for instance. Maybe next weekend I can talk Percy into having one included in his plans. Still, the panorama of Camp Half-Blood was an impressive sight. My mood always improved when I saw the place—a small reminder of the good old days when mortals knew how to build temples and do proper burnt sacrifices. Ah, everything was better in ancient Greece! Well, except or a few small improvements modern humans had made—the Internet, chocolate croissants, life expectancy.

Meg's mouth hung open. "How come I've never heard about this place? Do you need tickets?"

I chuckled. I always enjoyed the chance to enlighten a clueless mortal. "You see, Meg, magical borders camouflage the valley. From the outside, most humans would spy nothing here except boring farmland. If they approached, they would get turned around and find themselves wandering out again. Believe me, I tried to get a pizza delivered to camp once. It was quite annoying."

"You ordered a pizza?"

"Never mind," I said. "As for tickets…"

"Oh wait, Percy mention something about demigods having automatic passage across the border? If that's so it can't be that hard to join."

Dang its Percy. Did you really have to ruin things for me? I thought before saying. "Well getting across is the easy part. You still must talk to the Camp Director or Activities Director. Lucky for you, I know both."

Peaches growled. He sniffed the ground, then chomped a mouthful of dirt and spit it out.

"He doesn't like the taste of this place," Meg said.

"Yes, well," I frowned at the karpos. "Perhaps we can find him some potting soil or fertilizer when we arrive. I'll convince the demigods to let him in—"

"Percy said I'll have to talk to this Chiron guy about that," Meg said.

Oh right, I remember Percy mentioning something like that before he left. I will let that slide this once. "Well, it might be helpful too if he doesn't bite their heads off—at least not right away."

Peaches muttered something about peaches.'

"Something doesn't feel right." Meg bit her nails. "Those woods… Percy said they were wild and enchanted and stuff."

I, too, felt as if something was amiss, something either Percy forgot to mention or was not aware of. But I chalked this up to my general dislike of forests. For reasons I would rather not go into, I find them… uncomfortable places. Nevertheless, with our goal in sight, my usual optimism was returning. Besides Percy already got two on me for giving Meg good advice with me around, and I do not like being upstarted by Percy giving Meg advice when she could be turning to me for such stuff. I am the one that was a god after all.

"Don't worry," I assured Meg. "I know a lot more than Percy. After all, I'm a god."

"Ex-God with memory issues," Meg said. "Meanwhile Percy been a camper since he was seven."

"I wish you wouldn't keep harping on me being ex-god. Even without my memory I have over four thousand years of experience. That's more experience than Percy."

"But not useful if you can't remember anything from it," Meg muttered.

I tried to ignore that. "The campers are very friendly. They will welcome us with tears of joy. And wait until you see the orientation video!"

"What?"

"I directed it myself! Now, come along. The woods can't be that bad."

…

Me and my big mouth. Just because I refuse to be upstarted by an experience camper (ten-to-eleven years is an impressive record for a Greek demigod), I might have intentionally jinxed us, because the woods were that bad.

As soon as we entered their shadows, the trees seemed to crowd us. Trunks closed ranks, blocking old paths and opening new ones. Roots writhed across the forest floor, making an obstacle course of bumps, knots, and loops. It was like trying to walk across a giant bowl of spaghetti.

The thought of spaghetti made me hungry. It had only been a few hours since Sally's Jackson's seven-layer dip and sandwiches, but my mortal stomach was already clenching and squelching for food. The sounds were quite annoying, especially while walking through dark scary woods. Even the karpos Peaches was starting to smell good to me, giving me visions of cobbler and ice cream. It did not help when Meg dug through her backpack and brought out the blue chocolate chip cookies Sally Jackson pack and started sharing it with Peaches and herself—oh wait.

I took off my backpack, opened it and searched until I found my set of cookies. I took a careful bite, not knowing if it being blue is a good thing or not. The moment it touched my tongue I held back a moan of delicious flavor. Sally Jackson truly is a blessing in mortal form.

I finished up half of my cookies, deciding to save some for later. I got to say, I felt less anxious after eating those cookies. And with my mind does not focus on the strange sounds from my stomach, I remembered that Celestial Bronze gives off a golden light when out. So, I took out the Kopis and sure enough, it emitted a bronze light. Percy was right again about me still needing this thing.

Sadly, neither a full stomach nor light completely took out the anxiety in me. But I was in better moods than when we started.

As I said earlier, I was generally not a fan of the woods. I tried to convince myself that the trees were not watching me, scowling and whispering among themselves. They were just trees. Even if they had dryad spirits, those dryads could not possibly hold me responsible for what had happened thousands of years ago on a different continent.

Why not? I asked myself. You still hold yourself responsible.

I told myself to stuff a sock in it.

We hiked for hours… much longer than it should have taken to reach the Big House. Normally I could navigate by the sun—which should not be a surprise, since I spent millennia driving it across the sky—but under the canopy of trees, the only light came from my Kopis. I had hoped this sword might have some hidden magical powers to find directions or something—making it worth being wielded by an Archer-God like myself. But again nothing.

I know Greeks were not known for adding power to their weapons unless it is Ares kids or was forged by Hephaestus or his kids. But I remember the Egyptians having sorcerers of some sort that can channel their power through even their swords. I had hope maybe if this sword was somehow made through Greek-Egyptian Hybrid magic, it might have some hidden Egyptian power at least.

"What are you doing?" Meg asked looking at me like I have gone crazy.

It was then I realized I was waving the kopis around trying to unlock some magical power, which probably looked to Meg like I was fighting invisible forces.

"Nothing," I lied to her as I am starting to get the feeling that all this thing is for is sword combat.

After we passed the same boulder for the third time, I stopped and admitted the obvious. "I have no idea where we are."

Meg plopped herself down onto a fallen log. If it were not for the bronze light mixing with the green light that was present, she would look more like a dryad than ever, though tree spirits do not often wear red sneakers and hand-me-down fleece jacket.

"Don't you have any wilderness skills?" she asked. "Reading moss on the sides of trees? Following tracks?"

"That's more my sister's thing," I said. "She's more of the wilderness skilled hunter of archery, where I'm more of the artistic side of archery."

"Archery is artistic?" Meg asked.

"Of course!" I responded in appalled.

"Okay, sorry." Meg responded. "You were weaving around that sword Percy gave you. What for?"

"I thought it might possess some guiding magic or something," I admitted.

"Why?"

"Because a kopis is an Egyptian/Greek Hybrid weapon invented when Greeks took over Egypt. Egyptians were known for using magic, so I hope this sword might have some hidden magical powers," I explained.

Meg frowned. "If that's true, then how did Percy get his hands on it?"

"He wouldn't tell me," I responded. "He said he'll tell me when I become a god again."

"Well, if this sword doesn't have any magic we can't use—"

"Other than being made of celestial bronze," I stated.

"Then maybe Peaches can help." Meg turned to her karpos. "Hey, can you find us a way out of the woods?"

For the past few miles, the karpos had been muttering nervously, cutting his eyes from side to side. Now he sniffed the air, his nostrils quivering. He tilted his head.

His face flushed bright green. He emitted a distress bark, then dissolved in a swirl of leaves.

Meg shot to her feet. "Where'd he goes?"

I scanned the woods. I suspected Peaches had done the intelligent thing. He had sensed danger approaching and abandoned us. I did not want to suggest that to Meg, though. She had already become quite fond of the karpos.

Ridiculous idea of someone getting attached to dangerous creatures, but some demigods manage to do just that. Eurytion and Orthus, Medea and the Sun Dragons, Minos and the Cretan. Even Percy said he and Annabeth had a couple of dangerous monsters for pets. If they do not slaughter that beast, they somehow befriend them. That or were extremely fortunate to escape with their lives.

"Perhaps he went scouting," I suggested. "Perhaps we should—"

APOLLO.

The voice reverberated in my head, as if someone had installed Bose speakers behind my eyes. It was not the voice of my conscience (yes, even gods can have a conscience). My conscience was not female, and it was not that loud. Yet something about the woman's tone was eerily familiar.

"What's wrong?" Meg asked.

The air turned sickly sweet. The trees loomed over me like trigger hairs of a Venus flytrap.

A bead of sweat trickled down the side of my face.

"We can't stay here," I said. "Attend me, mortal."

"Excuse me?" Meg said.

"Uh, I mean come on!"

We ran, stumbling over tree roots, fleeing blindly through a maze of branches and boulders. We reached a clear stream over a bed of gravel. I barely slowed down. I waded in, sinking shin-deep into the ice-cold water.

The voice spoke again: FIND ME.

This time it was so loud, it stabbed through my forehead like a railroad spike. I stumbled, falling to my knees.

"Hey!" Meg gripped my arm. "Get up!"

"You didn't hear that?"

"Hear what?"

THE FALL OF THE SUN, the voice boomed. THE FINAL VERSE.

I collapsed face first into the stream.

"Apollo!" Meg rolled me over, her voice tight with alarm. "Come on! I can't carry you!"

Yet she tried. She dragged me across the river, scolding me and cursing until, with her help, I managed to crawl to shore.

Lay on my back, staring wildly at the forest canopy. My soaked clothes were so cold they burned. My body trembled like an open E string on an electric bass.

Meg tugged off my wet winter coat. Her own coat was much too small for me, but she draped the warm dry fleece over my shoulders. She then grabbed the Kopis that I somehow manage to keep my hands on and strapped it back to my belt. "Keep yourself together," she ordered. "Don't go crazy on me."

My own laughter sounded brittle. "But I—I heard—"

THE FIRES WILL CONSUME ME. MAKE HASTE!

The voice splintered into a chorus of angry whispers. Shadows grew longer and darker. Steam rose from my clothes, smelling like the volcanic fumes of Delphi.

Part of me wanted to curl into a ball and die. Part of me wanted to get up and run wildly after the voices—to find their source—but I suspected that if I tried, my sanity would be lost forever.

Meg was saying something. She shook my shoulders. She put her face nose-to-nose with mine, so my own derelict reflection stared back at me from the lenses of her cat-eyeglasses. She slapped me, hard, and I managed to decipher her words: "GET UP!"

Somehow, I did. Then I doubled over and retched.

I had not vomited in centuries. I had forgotten how unpleasant it was.

The next thing I knew, we were staggering along. Meg bearing most of my weight. The voices whispered and argued, tearing off little pieces of my mind and carry them away into the forest. Soon I would not have much left.

There was no point. I might as well wander off into the forest and go insane. The idea struck me as funny. I began to giggle.

Meg forced me to keep walking. I could not understand her words, but her tone was insistent and stubborn with just enough anger to outweigh her own terror.

In my fractured mental state, I thought the trees were parting for us grudgingly opening a path straight out of the woods. I saw a bonfire in the distance, and the open meadows of Camp Half-Blood.

It occurred to me that Meg was talking to the trees, telling them to get out of the way. The idea was ridiculous, and now it seemed hilarious. Judging from the steam billowing from my clothes, I guessed I was running a fever of about a hundred and six.

I was laughing hysterically as we stumbled out of the forest, straight toward the campfire where a dozen teenagers sat making s'mores. When they saw us, they rose? In their jeans and winter coats, with assorted weapons at their sides, they were the dourest bunch of marshmallow roasters I had ever seen.

I grinned. "Oh, hi! I'm Apollo!"

My eyes rolled up in my head and I passed out.