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
Animorph Percy Jackson and The Heroes of Olympus: The Lost Hero
Jason: I Wake Up with No Memory
Even before I got electrocuted, I was having a rotten day.
I woke up in the backseat of a school bus, not sure where I was, holding hands with a girl I didn't know. That wasn't necessarily the rotten part. The girl was cute, but I couldn't figure out who she was or what I was doing there. I sat up and rubbed my eyes, trying to think.
A few dozen kids sprawled in the seats in front of me, listening to iPods, talking, sleeping. They all looked around my age... fifteen? Sixteen? Okay, that was scary, I don't even know my own age.
The bus rumbled along a bumpy road. Out the windows, deserts rolled by under a bright blue sky. I was pretty sure I didn't live in the desert. I tried to think back... the last thing I remember...
The girl squeezed my hand. "Jason, you okay?"
She wore faded jeans, hiking boots, and a fleece snowboarding jacket. Her chocolate brown hair was cut choppy and uneven, with thin strands braided down the side. She wore no makeup like she was trying not to draw attention to herself, but it didn't work. She was seriously pretty. Her eyes seemed to change color like a kaleidoscope-brown, blue,
Jason? Was that my name? It sounded right. So why can't I remember anything else?
I let go of her hand. "Um, I don't-"
In the front of the bus, a teacher shouted, "All right, cupcakes, listen up!"
The guy was obviously a coach. His baseball cap was pulled low over his hair, so you could just see his beady eyes. He had a wispy goatee and a sour face, like he'd eaten something moldy. His buff arms and chest pushed against a bright orange polo shirt. His nylon workout pants and Nikes were spotless white. A whistle hung from his neck, and a megaphone was clipped to his belt. He would've looked pretty scary if he hadn't been five feet zero. When he stood up in the aisle, one of the students called, "Stand up, Coach Hedge!"
"I heard that!" the coach scanned the bus for the offender. Then his eyes fixed on me, and his scowl deepened.
A jolt went down my spine. I'm sure the coach knew I didn't belong here. He was going to call me out, demand to know what I was doing on the bus-and I wouldn't have a clue what to say.
But Coach Hedge looked away and cleared his throat. "We'll arrive in five minutes! Stay with your partner. Don't lose your worksheet. And if any of you precious little cupcakes causes any trouble on this trip, I will personally send you back to campus the hard way."
He picked up a baseball bat and made like he was hitting a homer.
I looked at the girl next to me. "Can he talk to us that way?"
She shrugged. "Always does. This is the Wilderness School. 'Where kids are the animals'."
She said it like it was a joke they shared before.
"This is some kind of mistake," I decided. "I'm not supposed to be here."
The boy in front of me turned and laughed. "Yeah, right, Jason. We've all been framed! I didn't run away six times. Piper didn't steal a BMW."
The girl blushed. "I didn't steal that car, Leo!"
"Oh, I forgot, Piper. What was your story? You 'talked' the dealer into lending it to you?" He raised his eyebrows at me like, Can you believe her?
Leo looked like a Latino Santa's elf, with curly black hair, pointy ears, a cheerful, babish face, and a mischievous smile that told you right away this guy should not be trusted around matches or sharp objects. His long nimble fingers wouldn't stop moving-drumming on the seat, sweeping his hair behind his ears, fiddling with the buttons of his army fatigue jacket. Either the kid was naturally hyper or he has hopped up on enough sugar and caffeine to give a heart attack to a water buffalo.
"Anyway," Leo said. "I hope you've got your worksheet, 'cause I used mine for spit wads days ago. Why are you looking at me like that? Somebody draw on my face again.
"I don't know you," I said.
Leo gave me a crocodile grin. "Sure. I'm not your best friend. I'm his evil clone."
"Leo Valdez!" Coach Hedge yelled from the front. "Problem back there?"
Leo winked at me. "Watch this." He turned to the front. "Sorry, Coac h! I was having trouble hearing you use your megaphone, please?"
Coach Hedge grunted like he was pleased to have an excuse. He unclipped the megaphone from his belt and continued giving directions, but his voice came out like Darth Vader's. The kids cracked up. The coac h tried again, but this time the megaphone blared: "The cow says moo!"
The kids howled, and the coach slammed down the megaphone. "Valdez!"
Piper stifled a laugh. "My god, Leo. How did you do that?"
Leo slipped a tiny Phillips head screwdriver from his sleeve. I'm a special boy."
"Guys, seriously," I pleaded. "What am I doing here? Where are we going?"
Piper knit her eyebrows. "Jason, are you joking?"
"No! I have no idea-"
"Aw, yeah, he's joking," Leo said. "He's trying to get me back for that shaving cream on the Jell-O thing, aren't you?"
I stared at him blankly.
"No, I think he's serious," Piper tried to take my hand again, but I pulled it away.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I don't-I can't-"
"That's it! Coach Hedge yelled from the front. "The back row just volunteered to clean up after lunch!"
The rest of the kids cheered.
"There's a shocker," Leo muttered.
But Piper kept her eyes on me, like she couldn't decide whether to be hurt or worried. "Did you hit your head or something? You really don't know who we are?"
I shrugged helplessly. "It's worse than that. I don't know who I am."
...
The bus dropped us off in front of a big red stucco complex like a museum, just sitting in the middle of nowhere. Maybe that's what it was: the National Museum of Nowhere, I thought. A cold wind blew across the desert. I hadn't paid much attention to what I was wearing, but it wasn't nearly warm enough: jeans and sneakers, a purple T-shirt, and a thin black windbreaker.
"So, a crash course for the amnesiac," Leo said, in a helpful tone that made me think this was not going to be helpful. "We go to the 'Wilderness School'"-Leo made air quotes with his fingers-"Which means we're 'bad kids.' Your family, or the court, or whoever, decided you were too much trouble, so they shipped you off to this lovely prison-sorry, 'boarding school'-in Armpit, Nevada, where you learn valuable nature skills like running ten miles a day through the cacti and weaving daisies into hats! And for a special treat we go on 'educational' field trips with Coach Hedge, who keeps order with a baseball bat. Is it all coming back to you now?"
"No." I glanced apprehensively at the other kids: maybe twenty guys, half that many girls. None of them looked like hardened criminals, but he wondered what they'd all done to get sentenced to a school for delinquents, and I wondered why I belong with them.
Leo rolled his eyes. "You're really gonna play this out, huh? Okay, so the three of us started here together this semester. We're totally tight. You do everything I saw and give your desert and do my chores-"
"Leo!" Piper snapped.
"Fine. Ignore that last part. But we are friends. Well, Piper's a little more than your friend, the last few weeks-"
"Leo, stop it!" Piper's face turned red. I could face burning too. I thought I would remember if I'd been going out with a girl like Piper.
"He's got amnesia or something," Piper said. "We've got to tell somebody."
Leo scoffed. "Who, Coach Hedge? He'd try to fix Jason by whacking him upside of the head."
The coach was at the front of the group, barking orders and blowing his whistle to keep the kids in line; but every so often he'd glanced back at me and scowled.
Leo, Jason needs help," Piper insisted. "He got a concussion or-"
"Yo, Piper." One of the other guys dropped back to join them as the group was heading into the museum. The new guy wedged himself between Piper and me and knocked Leo down. "Don't talk to these bottom-feeders. You're my partner, remember?"
The new guy had dark hair cut Superman style, a deep tan, and teeth so white they should've come with a warning label: DO NOT STARE DIRECTLY AT TEETH. PERMANENT BLINDNESS MAY OCCUR. He wore a Dallas Cowboys jersey, Western jeans and boots, and he smiled like he was God's gift to girls everywhere. Jason hated him instantly.
"Go away, Dylan," Piper grumbled. "I didn't ask to work with you."
"Ah, that's no way to be. This is your lucy day!" Dylan hooked his arm through hers and dragged her through the museum entrance. Piper shot one last look over her shoulder like, 911.
Leo got up and brushed himself off. "I hate that guy." He offered me his arm, like we should go skipping inside together. "'I'm Dylan. I'm so cool, I want to date myself, but I can't figure out how! You want to date me instead? You're so lucky!"
"Leo," I said, "You're weird."
"Yeah, you tell me that a lot." Leo grinned. "But if you don't remember me, that means I can reuse all my old jokes. Come on!"
I figured that if this was my best friend, my life must be pretty messed up, but I followed Leo into the museum.
...
We walked through the building, stopping here and there for Coach Hedge to lecture them with his megaphone, which alternately made him sound like a Sith Lord and blared out random comments like "The pig says oink."
Leo kept pulling out nuts, bolts, and pipe cleaners. From the pockets of his army jacket and putting them together, like he had to keep his hands busy at all times.
I was too distracted to pay much attention to the exhibits, but they were about the Grand Canyon and the Hualapai tribe, which owned the museum.
Some girls kept looking over at Piper and Dylan and and snickering. I figured these girls were popular clique. They wore matching jeans and pink tops and enough makeup for a Halloween party.
One of them said, "Hey, Piper, does your tribe run this place? Do you get in free if you do a rain dance?"
The other girls laughed. Even Piper's so-called partner Dylan suppressed a smile. Piper's snowboarding jacket sleeves hid her hands, but I got the feeling she was clenching her fists.
"My dad's Cherokee," she said. "Not Hualapai. 'Course, you need a few brain cells to know the difference, Isabel."
Isabel widened her eyes in mock surprise, so that she looked like an owl with a makeup addiction. "Oh, sorry! Was your mom in this tribe? Oh, that's right. You never knew your mom."
Piper charged her, but before a fight could start, Coach Hedge barked, "Enough back there! Set a good example or I'll break out my baseball bat!"
The group shuffled on to the next exhibit, but the girl's kept calling out little comments to Piper."
"Good to be back on the rez?" one asked in a sweet voice.
"Dad's probably too drunk to work," another said with fake sympathy. "That's why she turned klepto."
Piper ignored them, but I was ready to punch them myself. I might not remember Piper, or even who I was, but I knew I hated mean kids.
Leo caught my arm. "Be cool. Piper doesn't like us fighting her battles. Besides, if those girls found out the truth about her dad, they'd be all bowing down to her screaming, 'We're not worthy!"
"Why? What about her dad?"
Leo laughed in disbelief. "You're not kidding? You really don't remember that your girlfriend's dad-"
"Look, I wish I did, but I don't even remember her, much less her dad."
Leo whistled. "Whatever. We have to talk when we get back to the dorm."
They reached the far end of the exhibit hall, where some big glass doors led out to a terrace.
"All right, cupcakes," Coach Hedge announced. "Yo u are about to see the Grand Canyon. Try to break it. The skywalk can hold the weight of seventy jumbo jets, so you featherweights should be safe out there. If possible, try to avoid pushing each other over the edge, as that would cause me extra paperwork."
The coach opened the doors, and they all stepped outside. The Grand Canyon spread before them, live in person. Extending over the edge was a horse-shoe-shaped walkway made of glass, so you could see right through it.
"Man," Leo said. "That's pretty wicked."
I had to agree. Despite m y amnesia and my feeling that I didn't belong here, I couldn't help being impressed.
The canyon was bigger and wider than you could appreciate from a picture. They were up so high that birds circled below their feet. Five hundred feet down, a river snaked along the canyon floor. Banks of storm clouds had moved overhead while they'd been inside, casting shadows like angry faces across the cliffs. As far as I could see in any direction, red and gray ravines cut through the desert like some crazy god the unmistakable feeling he was in danger.
"You all right?" Leo asked. " You're not going to throw up over the side, are you? 'Cause I should've brought my camera."
I grabbed the railing. I was shivering and sweaty, but it had nothing to do with heights. I blinked, and the pain behind my eyes subsided.
"I'm fine," I managed. "Just a headache."
"Not long though if Coach sees that," Leo said looking at the bent railing. I looked down and noticed the railing had somehow bent under my grip. I didn't even realized I grab it that hard.
Thunder rumbled overhead. A cold wind almost knocked me sideways.
"This can't be safe." Leo squinted at the clouds. "Storm's right over us, but it's clear all the way around. Weird, huh?"
I looked up and saw Leo was right. A dark circle of clouds had parked itself over the skywalk, but the rest of the sky in every direction was perfectly clear. I had a bad feeling about that.
"All right, cupcakes!" Coach Hedge yelled. He frowned at the storm like it bothered him too. "We may have to cut this short, so get to work! Remember, complete sentences!"
The storm rumbled, and my head began to hurt again. Not knowing why I did it, I reached into my jeans pocket and brought out a coin-a circle of gold the size of a half-dollar, but thicker and more uneven. Stamped on one side was a picture of a battle-ax. On the other was some guy's face wreathed in laurels. The inscription said something like IVLIVS.
"Dang, is that gold?" Leo asked. "You been holding out on me!"
I put the coin away, wondering how I'd come to have it, and wh y I had the feeling I was going to need it soon.
"It's nothing," I said. "Just a coin."
Leo shrugged. Maybe his mind had to keep moving as much as his hands. He didn't even seem so concern about the railing now. "Dare you to spit over the edge."
...
They didn't try very hard on the worksheet. For one thing, I was too distracted by the storm and my own mixed-up feelings. For another thing, I didn't have any idea how to "name three sedimentary strata you observe" or "describe two examples of erosion."
Leo was no help. He was too busy building a helicopter out of pipe cleaners.
"Check it out." He launched the copter. I figured it would plummet , but the pipe-cleaner blades actually spun. The little copter made it halfway across the canyon before it lost momentum and spiraled in to the void.
"How'd you do that?" I asked.
Leo struggled. "Would've been cooler if I had some rubber bands."
"Seriously," I said, "are we friends?"
"Last I checked."
"You sure? What was the first day we met? What did we talk about?"
"It was..." Leo frowned. "I don't recall exactly. I'm ADHD, man. You can't expect me to remember details."
"But I don't remember you at all. I don't remember anyone here. What if-"
"You're right and everyone else is wrong?" Leo asked. "You think you just appeared here this morning, and we've all got fake memories of you?"
A little voice in my head said, That's exactly what I think.
But it sounded crazy. Everybody here took me for granted. Everyone acted like I was a normal part of the class-except for Coach Hedge.
"Take the worksheet." Jason handed Leo the paper. "I'll be right back."
Before Leo could protest, I headed across the skywalk .
Our school group had the place to ourselves. Maybe it was too early in the day for tourist, or maybe the weird weather had scared them off. The Wilderness School kids had spread out in pairs across the skywalk. Most were joking around or talking. Some of the guys were dropping pennies over the side. About fifty feet away, Piper was trying to fill out her worksheet, but her stupid partner Dylan was hitting on her, putting his hand on her shoulder and giving her that blinding white smile. She kept pushing him away, and when she saw me, she gave me a look like, Throttle this guy for me.
I motion for her to hang on. I walked up to Coach Hedge, who was leaning on his baseball bat, studying the storm clouds.
"Did you do this?" the coach asked me.
I took a step back. "Do what?" He made it sound like he was asking if I made the thunderstorm. A part of me hoped he saw the railing though.
Coach Hedge glared at me, his beady little eyes glinting under the brim of his cap. "Don't play games with me, kid. What are you doing here, and why are you messing up my job?"
"You mean... you don't know me?" I said. "I'm not one of your students?"
Hedge snorted. "Never seen you before today."
I was so relieved I almost wanted to cry. At least I wasn't going insane. I was in the wrong place. "Look, sir, I don't know how I got here. I just woke up on the school bus. All I know is I'm not supposed to be here."
"Got that right," Hedge gruff voice dropped to a murmur, like he was sharing a secret. "You got a powerful way with the Mist, kid, if you can make all these people think they know you; but you can't fool me. I've been smelling monster for days now. I knew we had an infiltrator, but you don't smell like a monster. You smell like a half-blood-and a powerful one too. So-who are you, and where'd you come from?"
Most of what the coach said didn't make sense, but I decided to answer honestly. "I don't know who I am. I don't have any memories. You've got to help me."
Coach Hedge studied my face like he was trying to read my thoughts.
"Great," Hedge muttered. "You're being truthful."
"OF course I am! And what was all that about monsters and half-bloods? Are those code words or something?"
Hedge narrowed his eyes. Part of me wondered if the guy was just nuts. But the other part of me knew better, although I don't remember why.
"Look, kid," Hedge said. "I don't know who you are. I just know what you are, and it means trouble. Now I got to protect three of you rather than two. Are you the special package? Is that it?"
"What are you talking about?"
Hedge looked at the storm. The clouds were getting thicker and darker, hovering right over the skywalk.
"This morning," Hedge said, "I got a message from camp. They said an extraction team is on the way. They're coming to pick up a special package, but they wouldn't give me details. I thought to myself, Fine. The two I'm watching are pretty powerful, older than most. I know they're being stalked. I can smell a monster in the group. I figured that's why the camp is suddenly frantic to pick them up. But then you pop up out of nowhere. So, are you the special package?"
The pain behind my eyes got worse than ever. Half-bloods. Camp. Monsters. I still don't know what Hedge was talking about, but the words gave me a massive brain freeze-like my mind was trying to access information that should've been there but wasn't.
I stumbled, and Coach Hedge caught me. For a short guy, the coac h had hands of steel. "Whoa, there, cupcake. You say you got no memories, huh? Fine. I'll just have to watch you, too, until the team gets here. We'll let the director figure things out."
"What director?" I asked. "What camp?"
"Just sit tight. Reinforcements should be here soon. Hopefully nothing happens before-"
Lightning crackled overhead. The wind picked up with a vengeance. Worksheets flew into the Grand Canyon, and the entire bridge shuddered. Kids screamed, stumbling and grabbing the rails.
"I had to say something," Hedge grumbled. He bellowed into his megaphone: "Everyone inside! The cow says moo! Off the skywalk!"
"I thought you said this thing was stable!" I shouted over the wind.
"Under normal circumstances," Hedge agreed, "which these aren't. Come on!"
A/N: Keep in mind what I had Jason do to the railing as that's a foreshadow of my surprise for Jason in the Animorph Percy Jackson series. Other than that, sorry it's too much like the original. I changed it first person POV like I did with The Tales of to at least try and change things up.
