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
The Tales of Trials of Apollo: The Hidden Oracle

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 Tales of the Trials of Apollo: The Dark Prophecy

Caution: The Monsters of Indiana Are Polite but Dangerous

When our dragon declared war on Indiana, I knew it was going to be a difficult day.

We had been traveling west for six weeks, and Festus had never shown such hostility toward a state. New Jersey, he ignored. Pennsylvania, he seemed to enjoy, despite our battle with the Cyclopes of Pittsburgh. Ohio, he tolerated, even after our encounter with Potina, the Roman goddess of childhood drinks, who pursued us in the form of a giant red pitcher emblazoned with a smiley face Leo called the Kool-Aid Man—a mortal child mascot for a popular drink these days. Since Calypso and I never had the modern mortal experience before (well I had a two mortal experiences before but back in ancient times and neither time I was a child) we took his word for it.

Yet for some reason, Festus decided he did not like Indiana. Unfortunately for Festus, from what we can guess from the prophecy Grove of Dodona gave us, Indiana was our best shot in finding the next Oracle. He landed on the cupola of the Indiana Statehouse, flapped his metallic wings, and blew a cone of fire that incinerated the state flag off the flagpole.

"Whoa, buddy!" Leo Valdez pulled the dragon's reins. "We've talked about this. No blowtorching public monuments!"

Behind him on the dragon's spine, Calypso gripped Festus's scales for balance. "Could we please get to the ground? Gently this time?"

For a formerly immortal sorceress who once controlled air spirits, Calypso was not a fan of flying unless it was on a flying ship (long story). She also was not a fan of crash landing, which I learn a lot of it was brought on by her time shadow traveling with Nico Reyna and Coach Hedge the Athena Parthenos from the House of Hades to North America. Anyways, chilly wind blew her chestnut hair into my face, making me blink and spit.

That is right, dear reader.

I, the most important passenger, the youth who had once been the glorious god Apollo, was forced to sit in the back of the dragon. Originally, I would complain about the indignities I had suffered since Zeus stripped me of my divine powers! How it was not enough that I was now a sixteen-year-old mortal with ghastly alias Lester Papadopoulos. How it was not enough that I had to toil upon the earth doing heroic quest until I could find a way back into my father's good graces, or that I had a case of acne which simply would not respond to over-the-counter zit medication. How despite my New York State junior driver's license, Leo did not trust me to run his aerial bronze steed!

What was my point again?

Oh right. The fact I am riding in the back.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time I was forced to the back of anything since I was made mortal. I already had to ride in the back of a Prius, on a pegasus (while having to shoot a plague arrow into a hundred-foot-tall Celestial Bronze Statue), and now on a dragon.

Festus's claws scrabbled for a hold on the green copper dome, which was much too small for a dragon his size. I had a flashback to the time I installed a life-size statue of the muse Calliope on my sun chariot and the extra weight of the hood ornament made me nosedive into China and create the Gobi Desert.

Leo glanced back, his face streaked with soot. "Apollo, you sense anything?"

"Why is it my doing to sense things? Just because I used to be a god of prophecy—"

"You're the one who's been having visions," Calypso reminded me. "You said your friend Meg would be here."

Just hearing Meg's name gave me a twinge of pain. "That doesn't mean I can pinpoint her location with my mind! Zeus has revoked my access to GPS!"

"GPS?" Calypso asked.

"Godly Positioning Systems."

"That's not a real thing!"

"Guys, cool it." Leo patted the dragon's neck. "Apollo, just try, will you? Does this look like the city you dreamed about or not?"

I scanned the horizon.

My dreams were another reason we decided to go to Indiana. I had heard my old enemy Nero give orders to Meg: Go west. Capture Apollo before he can find the next Oracle. If you cannot bring him to me alive, kill him.

Okay, Nero did not say Indiana exactly. But all we can do is hope the answer is here. If not, we have one more place to look for clues. Something Alabaster told us before we left.

There is a secret demigod location in Indianapolis. I visited there once when I was on the run. One of women in charge is a half-sister of mine and you might know her and her partner, Apollo, so that might help. Alabaster told us, you will not find it on your own but look for a big ornate building at plaza's south end and ask for the daughter of Hecate name Jo. That alone should at least catch her or her partner's attention.

Normally I laughed at that last statement. I was the god Apollo, I assume everyone knows me. But the way Alabaster said it sound as if he meant I might know the people there in person. Which is a different story. The names did not sound familiar, but since becoming mortal any memory from my immortal life been hazy.

Indiana was flat country—highways crisscrossing scrubby brown plains, shadows of winter clouds floating above urban sprawl. Around us rose a meager cluster of downtown high-rises—stacks of stone and glass like layered wedges of black and white licorice. (Not the delicious kind of licorice, either; the nasty variety that sits for eons in your stepmother's candy bowl on the coffee table. And, no, Hera, why would I be talking about you?).

After falling to earth in New York City, Indianapolis desolate and uninspiring, as if one proper New York neighborhood—Midtown—had been stretched out to encompass the entire area of Manhattan, then relieved of two-thirds of its population and vigorously power-washed.

I could understand why a demigod hideout be found here. Perfect for them to hide out while blend in with the rest of the area, like Long Island Sound for Camp Half-Blood or Oakland Hills of San Francisco for Camp Jupiter.

But why would an evil triumvirate of an ancient Roman empire would take interest in such a location. It made less sense to why Meg McCaffrey would be sent here to capture me. Yet my visions had been clear. I had seen this skyline in it.

The terribly sad thing about this? Meg was one of my better friends. She also happened to be my demigod master, thanks to Zeus's twisted sense of humor. If I remained mortal, Meg could order me to do anything, even kill myself… No. Better not to think of such possibilities.

I shifted in my metal seat. After so many weeks of travel, I was tired and saddle sore. I wanted to find this Demigod hideout and rest. And yet something about the landscape below made me as restless as Festus.

Alas, I was sure this was where we were meant to be. Despite the danger, if I had a chance of seeing Meg McCaffrey again, of prying her away from her villainous stepfather's grasp, I had to try.

"This is the spot," I said. "Before this dome collapses under us, I suggest we get to the ground."

Calypso grumbled in ancient Minoan, "I already said that."

"Well, excuse me, sorceress!" I replied in the same language. "Perhaps if you had helpful visions, I'd listen to you more often!"

Calypso called me a few names that reminded me how colorful the Minoan language had been before it went extinct.

"Hey, you two," Leo said. "No ancient dialects. Spanish or English, please. Or Machine."

Festus creaked in agreement.

"It's okay, boy," Leo said. "I'm sure they didn't mean to exclude us. Now let us fly down to street level, huh?"

Festus's ruby eyes glowed. His metal teeth spun like drill bits. I imagine him thinking, Illinois is sounding good right about now.

But he flapped his wings and leaped from the dome. We hurtled downward, landing in front of the statehouse with enough force to crack the sidewalk. My eyeballs jiggled like water balloons.

Festus whipped his head from side to side, steam curling from his nostrils.

I saw no immediate threats. Cars drove leisurely down West Washington Street. Pedestrians strolled by a middle-aged woman in flowery dress, a heavyset policeman carrying a paper coffee cup labeled CAFÉ PATACHOU, a clean-cut man in a blue seersucker suit.

The man in blue waved politely as he passed. "Morning."

"Sup, dude," Leo called.

Calypso tilted her head. "Why was he so friendly? Does he not see that we're sitting atop a fifty-ton metal dragon?"

Leo grinned. "It's the Mist, babe—messes with mortal eyes. Makes monsters look like stray dogs. Makes swords look like umbrellas. Makes me look even more handsome than usual!"

Calypso jabbed her thumbs into Leo's kidneys.

"Ow!" he complained.

"I know what the Mist is, Leonidas—"

"Hey, I told you never to call me that."

"—but the Mist must be extraordinarily strong here if it can hide a monster of Festus's size at such close range. Apollo, don't you find that a little odd?"

I studied the passing pedestrians.

True, I had seen places where the Mist was particularly heavy. At Troy, the sky above the battlefield had been so thick with gods you could not turn your chariot without running into another deity, yet the Trojans and Greeks saw only hints of our presence. At Three Mile Island in 1979, the mortals somehow did not realize that their partial nuclear meltdown was caused by an epic chainsaw fight between Ares and Hephaestus (as I recall, Hephaestus had insulted Ares's bell-bottom jeans.)

Still, I did not think heavy Mist was the problem here. Something about these locals bothered me. Their faces were too placid. Their dazed smiles reminded me of ancient Athenians just before the Dionysus Festival—everyone in a good mood, distracted, thinking about the drunken riots and debauchery to come.

"We should get out of the public eye," I suggested. "Perhaps—"

Festus stumbled, shaking like a wet dog. From inside his chest came a noise like a loose bicycle chain.

"Aw, not again," Leo said. "Everybody off!"

Calypso and I quickly dismounted.

Leo ran in front of Festus and held out his arms in a classic dragon-wrangler's stance. "Hey, buddy, it's fine! I am just going to switch you off for a while, okay? A little downtime to—"

Festus projectile-vomited a column of flames that engulfed Leo. Fortunately, Valdez was fireproof. His clothes were not. From what Leo had told me, he could prevent his outfits from burning up simply by concentrating. If he were caught by surprise, however, it did not always work.

When the flames dissipated, Leo stood before us wearing nothing but his asbestos boxer shorts, his magical tool belt, and a pair of smoking, partially melted sneakers.

"Dang it!" he complained. "Festus, it's cold out here!"

The dragon stumbled. Leo lunged and flipped the lever behind the dragon's left foreleg. Festus began to collapse. His wings, limbs, neck, and tail contracted into his body, his bronze plates overlapping and folding inward. In a matter of seconds, our robotic friend had been reduced to a large bronze suitcase.

That should have been physically impossible, of course, but like any decent god, demigod, or engineer, Leo Valdez refused to be stopped by the laws of physics.

He scowled at his new piece of luggage. "Man… I thought I fixed his gyro-capacitor. Guess we're stuck here until I can find a machine shop."

"Maybe the demigod hideout Alabaster told us about has a shop or forge," I said.

Calypso grimaced. Her pink ski jacket glistened to condensation from our flight through the clouds. "And if we find such a shop, how long will it take to repair Festus?"

Leo shrugged. "Twelve hours? Fifteen?" He pushed a button on the side of the suitcase. A handle popped up. "I hope this hide out has clothes to spare."

Then, from the direction of the sidewalk, a voice called, "Hello!"

The woman in the flowery dress had returned. At least she looked like the same woman. Either that or lots of ladies in Indianapolis wore purple-and-yellow honeysuckle-pattern dresses and had 1950s bouffant hairstyles.

She smiled vacantly. "Beautiful morning!"

It was in fact a miserable morning—cold and cloudy with a smell of impending snow—but I felt it would be rude to ignore her completely.

I gave her a little parade wave—the sort of gesture I used to give my worshippers when they came to grovel at my altar. To me, the message was clear enough: I see you, puny mortal; now run along. The gods are talking.

The woman did not take the hint. She strolled forward and planted herself in front of us. She was not particularly large, but something about her proportions seemed off. Her shoulders were too wide for her head. Her chest and belly protrude in a lumpy mass, as if she had stuffed a sack of mangos down the front of her dress. With her spindly arms and legs, she reminded me of some giant beetle. If she ever tipped over, I doubted she could easily get back up.

"Oh, my!" She gripped her purse with both hands. "Aren't you children cute!"

Her lipstick and eye shadow were both a violent shade of purple. I wondered if she was getting enough oxygen to her brain.

"Madam," I said, "we are not children." I could have added that I was over four thousand years old, and Calypso was even older, but I decided not to get into that. "Now, if you'll excuse us, we have a suitcase to repair and my friend is in dire need of a pair of pants."

I tried to step around her. She blocked my path.

"You can't go yet, dear! We haven't welcome you to Indiana!" From her purse, she drew a smart phone. The screen glowed as if a call were already in process.

"It's him, all right," she said into the phone. "Everybody comes on over. Apollo is here!"

My lungs shriveled in my chest.

In the old days, I would have expected to be recognized as soon as I arrived in town. Of course, the locals would rush to welcome me. They would sing and dance and throw flowers. They would at once begin constructing a new temple.

But as Lester Papadopoulos, I did not call for such treatment. I looked nothing like my former glorious self. The idea that the Indianans might recognize me despite my tangled hair, acne, and flab was both insulting and terrifying. What if they erected a statue of me in my present form—a giant golden Lester in the center of their city? The other gods would never let me hear the end of it!

"Madam," I said, "I'm afraid you had mistaken me—"

"Don't be modest!" The woman tossed her phone and purse aside. She grabbed my forearm with the strength of a weightlifter. "Our master will be delighted to have you in custody. And please call me Nanette."

I have no time for this. I took a deep breath and let out a sonic whistle like sound from my lips.

Nanette released me and grabbed her sides—which was odd. Most mortals covered their ears at the sound of the sonic whistle. I drew out a curve sword known as Kopis that I got from Percy. Normally I do not prefer swords, but in this case, I think I can handle a simple head strike.

Sure, enough I sliced through the neck. Nanette's head slid backward. She released me to try and grab her own face, but it was too late. Her head toppled off her shoulders. It clanged against the pavement and rolled sideways, the eyes still blinking, purple lips twitching. Its base was smooth stainless steel. Attached to it were ragged strips of duct tape stuck with hair and bobby pins.

"Holy Hephaestus!" Leo responded. "What are you, an automaton?"

"No, dear," said the decapitated Nanette. Her muffled voice did not come from the stainless-steel head on the sidewalk. It emanated from somewhere inside her dress. Just above her collar, where her neck used to be, an outcropping of fine blond hair was tangled with bobby pins. "And I must say, decapitating me wasn't very polite."

Belatedly, I realized the metal head had been a disguise, just as satyrs covered their hooves with human shoes, this creature passed for mortal by pretending to have a human face. Its voice came from its gut area, which meant…

My knees trembled.

"A blemmyae," I said.

Nanette chuckled. Her bulging midsection writhed under the honeysuckle cloth. She ripped open her blouse—something a polite Midwesterner would never think of doing—and revealed her true face.

Where a woman's brassiere would have been, two enormous bulging eyes blinked at me. From her sternum protruded a large shiny nose. Across her abdomen curled a hideous mouth—glistening orange lips, teeth like a spread of blank white playing cards.

"Yes, dear," the face said. "And I'm arresting you in the name of the Triumvirate!"

Up and down Washington Street, pleasant-looking pedestrians turned and began marching in our direction.

A/N: Here you go, the first chapter of the second story 'The Tales of the Trials of Apollo: The Dark Prophecy. I hoped you enjoyed.