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

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.

I learn a Little More about Meg's History, and I do not Know What to Think of It

No one knew what to make of Meg.

I could not blame them.

The girl made even less sense to me now that I knew who her mother was.

I had had my suspicions, yes, but I had hoped to be proven wrong. Being right so much of the time was a terrible burden.

Why would I dread a child of Demeter?

Good question.

Over the past day, I had been doing my best to piece together my remembrances of the goddess. Once Demeter had been one of my favorite aunts along with Hestia.

That first generation of gods could be a stuffy bunch (I am looking at you, Hera, Hades, and Dad), but like Hestia, Demeter had always been a kind and loving presence—except when she was destroying mankind through pestilence and famine, but everyone has their bad days.

Then I made the mistake of dating one of her daughters. I think her name was Chrysothemis, but you will have to excuse me if I am wrong. Even when I was a god, I had trouble remembering the names of all my exes. The young woman sang a harvest song at one of my Delphic festivals. Her voice was so beautiful, I fell in love. True, I fell in love with each year's winner and the runner-up, but what can I say? I am a sucker for a melodious voice.

Demeter did not approve. Ever since her daughter Persephone was kidnapped by Hades, she had been a little touchy about her children dating gods.

At any rate, she and I had words. We reduced a few mountains to rubble. We laid waste to a few city-states. You know how family arguments can get. Finally, we settled into an uneasy truce, but ever since then I had made a point to steer clear of Demeter's children and Hestia became my only favorite aunt.

Now here I was—a servant to Meg McCaffrey, the most ragamuffin daughter of Demeter ever to swing a sickle.

I wondered who Meg's father had been to attract the attention of the goddess. Demeter rarely fell in love with mortals. Meg was unusually powerful, too. Most children of Demeter could do little more than make crops crow and keep bacterial fungi at bay. Dual-wielding golden blades and summoning Karpoi—that was top-shelf stuff.

All of this went through my mind as Chiron disperse the crowd, urging everyone to put away their weapons. Since head counselor Miranda Gardiner was missing, Chiron asked Billie Ng, the only other camper from Demeter, to escort Meg to Cabin Four. The two girls made a quick retreat, Peaches bouncing along excitedly behind them. I guess he does not mind hanging around other children of Demeter's if they do not threaten Meg or himself. Meg shot me a worried look.

Not sure what else to do, I gave her thumbs-up. "See you tomorrow!"

She seemed less than encouraged as she disappeared in the darkness.

Will Solaced tended to Sherman Yang's head injuries. Kayla and Austin stood over Connor, debating the need for hair graft. This left me alone to make my way back to the Me cabin. It was the only place I could think of to going. Most demigods were assigned to their godly parent's cabin, but I was not too keen to stay at Zeus's cabin right now. I am sure it be fine I stay at my own cabin. If my sonic whistle proves anything, I still have demigod powers of my own—except prophecies. I doubt I the blessing of prophecies that since that is tied to the Oracle of Delphi.

I lay on my sick cot in the middle of the room and stared at the ceiling beams. I thought again about what a depressingly simple, utterly mortal place this was. How did my children stand it? Why did they not keep a blazing altar, and decorate the walls with hammered gold reliefs celebrating my glory? The only thing gold about Me cabin was the outside and that is to represent me as the god of sun.

When I heard Will and the others coming back, I closed my eyes and pretend to be asleep. I could not face their questions or kindness, their attempts to make me feel at home.

As they came in the door, they got quiet.

"Is he okay?" whispered Kayla.

Austin said, "Would you be, if you were him?"

A moment of silence.

"Try to get some sleep, guys," Will advised.

"This is crazy weird," Kayla said. "He looks so… human."

"We'll watch out for him," Austin said. "We're all he's got now."

I held back a sob. I could not bear their concern. Not being able to reassure them, or even disagree with them, made me feel ridiculously small.

A blanket was draped over me.

Will said, "Sleep well, Apollo."

Perhaps it was his persuasive voice, or the fact that I was more exhausted than I had been in centuries (I came to learn later untapping demigod powers for the first time is exhausting.) Immediately, I drifted into unconsciousness.

…

Thank the remaining eleven Olympians, I had no dreams.

I woke in the morning feeling strangely refreshed. My chest no longer hurt. My nose no longer felt like a water balloon attached to my face. With the help of my offspring (cabin mates—I will call them cabin mates), I managed to master the arcane mysteries of the shower, the toilet, and the sink. The toothbrush was a shock. The last time I was mortal, there had been no such thing. And underarm deodorant—what a ghastly idea that I should need enchanted salve to keep armpit from producing stench!

When I was done with my morning ablutions and dressed in clean clothes from the camp store—sneakers, jeans, an orange Camp Half-Blood T-Shirt, and a comfy winter coat of flannel wool—I felt almost optimistic. Perhaps I could survive this demigod experience.

I perked up even more when I discovered bacon.

Oh, gods—bacon! I promised myself that once I achieved immortality again, I was assemble the Nine Muses and together we would create an ode, a hymnal to the power of bacon, which would move the heavens to tears and cause rapture across the universe.

Bacon is good.

Yes—that may be the title of the song: "Bacon Is Good."

Seating for breakfast was less formal than dinner—another changes I been told made, this time after the second Titan War. We filled our trays at a buffet line and were once again allowed to sit wherever we wish. I learned this change was made after the gods made oath to claim all their kids as instead of dealing with occasionally campers settling in, they ended up dealing with dozen at a time and Chiron finally agreed to lift the rules about sitting arrangements for breakfast and lunch, and over time they even added a buffet line. I took my tray and found Meg, who was sitting by herself on the edge of the pavilion's retaining wall, dangling her feet over the side and watching the waves at the beach.

"How are you?" I asked.

Meg nibbled a waffle, which was a notable sign of difference in behavior compare to last night. "Yeah. Great."

"You are a powerful demigod, daughter of Demeter."

"Mm-hm."

I could trust my understanding of human responses; Meg did not seem thrilled.

"Your cabin mate, Billie… Is she nice?"

"Sure. All good."

"And Peaches?"

She looked at me sideways. "Disappeared overnight. Guess he only shows up when I'm in danger."

"Well, that's an appropriate time for him to show up."

"Ap-pro-pri-ate." Meg touched a waffle square for each syllable. "Sherman Yang had to get seven stitches."

I glanced over at Sherman, who sat at a safe distance across the pavilion, glaring daggers at Meg. A nasty red zigzag ran down the side of his face."

"I wouldn't worry," I told Meg. "Ares's children like scars. They see it as trophies of war they can wear proudly. Even their dad's normal form often includes scars and gods do not normally have to deal with such stuff. Besides, Sherman wears the Frankenstein look rather well."

The corner of her mouth twitched, but her gaze remained far away. "Our cabin has a grass floor—like, green grass. There's a huge oak tree in the middle, holding up the ceiling."

"Is that bad?"

"I have allergies."

"Ah…" Although Meg did not hesitated, I got the feeling allergies was not the problem, but I did not press onto it. I tried to imagine the tree in her cabin. Once upon a time, Demeter had had a sacred grove of oaks. I remembered she had gotten quite angry when a mortal prince tried to cut it down.

A sacred grove…

Suddenly the bacon in my stomach expanded, wrapping around my organs.

Meg gripped my arm. Her voice was a distant buzz. I only heard the last, most important word: "—Apollo?"

I stirred. "What?"

"You blanked out." She scowled. "I said your name six times."

"You did?"

"Yeah. Where did you go?"

I could not explain. I felt as if I had been standing on the deck of a ship when an enormous, dark, and dangerous shape passed beneath the hull—a shape almost discernible, then simply gone.

"I—I don't know. Something about trees…"

"Trees," Meg said.

"It's probably nothing."

It was not nothing. I could not shake the image from my dreams: the crowned woman urging me to find the gates. That woman was not Demeter—at least, I did not think so. But the idea of sacred trees stirred a memory within me… something incredibly old, even by my standards.

I did not want to talk about this with Meg, not until I had had time to reflect. She had enough to worry about. Besides, after last night, my new young master made me more apprehensive than ever.

I glance at the rings on her middle fingers. "So yesterday… those swords. And don't do that thing."

Meg's eyebrows furrowed. "What thing?"

"That thing where you shut down and refuse to talk. Your face turns to cement."

She gave me a furious pout. "It does not. I have got swords. I fight with them. So what?"

"So, it might have been nice to know that earlier, when we were in combat with plague spirits."

"You said it yourself: those spirits couldn't be killed."

"You're sidestepping." I knew this because it was a tactic, I had mastered centuries ago. "The style you fight in, with two curved blades, is the style of a dimachaerus, a gladiator from the late Roman Empire. Even back then, it was rare—possibly the most difficult fighting style to master, and one of the deadliest."

Meg shrugged. It was an eloquent shrug, but it did not offer much in the way of explanation.

"Your swords are Imperial gold," I said. "That would indicate Roman training and mark you as a good prospect for Camp Jupiter. Yet your mother is Demeter, the goddess in her Greek form, not Ceres."

"How do you know?"

"Aside from the fact that I was a god? Demeter claimed you here at Camp Half-Blood. That was no accident. Also, her older Greek form is much more powerful and because of it her children tend to be stronger than Ceres' kids. You, Meg, are powerful."

Her expression turned so guarded I expected Peaches to hurtle from the sky and start pulling out chunks of my hair.

"I never met my mom," she said. "I didn't know who she was."

"That's not uncommon. Many demigods never met their godly parent before being brought here. Unless of course we find a mortal we just cannot stay away from. That's how you get demigod-siblings with the same mortal and godly parent." I spoke. "But that still doesn't explain where did you get the swords? Did you get them from your father?"

Meg tore her waffle into tiny pieces. "No… my stepdad raised me. He gave me these rings."

"Your stepfather. Your stepfather gave you rings that turn into Imperial golden swords. What sort of man—"

"A good man," she snapped.

I noted the steel in Meg's voice and let the subject rest. I sensed a great tragedy in her past. Also, I feared that if I pressed my questions, I might find those golden blades at my neck.

The problem was not that some man who have imperial gold weapons took in Meg and supply her with such weapons. The problem was that up until last summer, Roman demigods and Greek demigods could not be in the same area without causing more trouble than the two groups alone. Only exception was the Hunters of Artemis and Amazons that manage to find common grounds to work together instead of fighting each other. So, the question remained, did Meg's stepfather just take in Meg, perhaps thinking of her as nothing more than an orphaned demigod and the sickles on Meg's rings were just a coincidence, or did he realized that Meg was not a daughter of Ceres, but rather a daughter of Demeter.

"I'm sorry," I said, deciding I was not going to get any answers to my question.

"Mm-hm." Meg tossed a piece of waffle into the air. Out of nowhere, one of the camp's cleaning harpies swooped down like a two-hundred-pound kamikaze chicken, snatched up the food, and flew away.

Meg continued as if nothing had happened. "Let us just get through today. We've got the race after lunch."

A shiver ran down my neck. The last thing I wanted was to be strapped to Meg McCaffrey in the Labyrinth, but I managed to avoid screaming.

"Don't worry about the race," I said. "I have a plan for how to win it."

She raised an eyebrow. "Yeah?"

"Or rather, I will have a plan by this afternoon. All I need is a little time—"

Behind us, the conch horn blew.

"Morning boot camp!" Sherman Yang bellowed. "Let us go, your special snowflakes! I want you all in tears by lunchtime!"