A/N Last chapter before the weekend break. It's a long one, yes a really long one but I want to do the house of life part in one chapter. I finished Sea of Monsters and already have a few ideas on the plot, and I promise you it will be a lot more dangerous than the first time. As I told you all before the crossover was necessary to tie in the Kanes with the Percy Jackson world however Percy won't tag along the entire book.(Unless you want to.) So I created a poll on which you can vote for how long he should stay and help the Kanes. Don't like the cross over and can't wait to begin sea of monsters? Choose the first one. Funny fact I already plotted out Titan's curse before Sea of Monsters. Titan's curse is my favourite book in the series despite having two highly likable characters introduced only to be killed.

I decided to rename all the coming books to correspond to their story. Also because I like giving names, so these are the new names.

2. The Sea of Horror, (sea of monsters)

3. Defying Fate, (Titan's curse)

4. The twisting Maze, (The battle of the Labyrinth)

5. The total war, (Last Olympian)

I haven't named the HoO series yet but those are planned as well.

SpartanBoy: I liked this twist.

A: Thx, I'll try my best.

MarethyuQ: sadly, that fact is true, (SoM is not as good as the others)

(but, being a great author, you have to find a way to make it a great addition to your story) ;)

A: I know, it's not bad but it feels so boring and I have a lot of things in mind for SoM.

Lucian Naruto: Honestly... I really do not like Sadie Kane. But the chapter was great.

A: You don't? I think Sadie is the best Character The Family Kane has. Carter is so boring and flat in comparison with her.

Guest:Percy with the egyptians is a very good idea. hope he will meet the norse too.

A: Oh yes, he will. If you are smart, you can probably calculate when he will meet Magnus Chase.

Son Of A Mortal11:

Good chapter I love how Percy isn't taking shit from Zia

A: Thank you, I don't like Zia either.

Well Enjoy reading a 4300 words chapter!

Chapter 18:

Now I only have to see Asgard.

Well, that was impressive according to Carter's face. Sadie was not so impressed, and I bet Zia did not even believe me but it was true.

'When did you fight primordials?' Hemera asked.

'Remember Gaia, Tartarus and all wanted to kill me, and I outlived them all.'

'You haven't outlived me yet.' Chaos complained.

'Hey where is Nyx anyway? Shouldn't she be watching this?'

'Mom's doing something else.' Hemera answered quickly.

We all stood in the circle waiting for Selqet. A quiet sense of eeriness washed over us.

We heard the sound of scorpions before we saw them. Selqet entered the room with her army of scorpions.

From a distance she looked alright, but as she got closer I saw that Serqet's pale skin glistened like an insect shell. Her eyes were beady black. Her long, dark hair was unnaturally thick, as if made from a million bristling bug antennae. And when she opened her mouth, sideways mandibles snapped and retracted outside her regular human teeth.

What kind of dentist would she have?

The goddess stopped about twenty meters away, studying us. She focused her eyes on me.

"Stay away from the kids, Seth wants them alive."

Zia crossed her staff and wand. "I am a mistress of the elements, Scribe of the First Nome. Leave or be destroyed."

Well, I could not let her steal the show, "I am Perseus Jackson, destroyer of Gods and Translator of Dolphins. Go back to the hell from whence you came!"

'Show off.' Hemera commented.

Serqet didn't seem intimidated, though personally I found the word whence very intimidating.

"Then die!" She and her swarm of scorpions advanced, but when the first one touched the glowing lines of our protective circle, the swarm sizzled and turned to ashes.

Well, I need to get this kind of circle around Camp.

The rest of these horrible things retreated, swirling round the goddess and crawling up her legs.

I thought they were retreating, of course I was wrong.

After a few seconds, all the scorpions had disappeared into the brown folds of her clothes. The air seemed to darken behind Serqet, as if she were casting an enormous shadow. Then the darkness rose up and took the form of a massive scorpion tail, arcing over Serqet's head. It lashed down at us at blazing speed. She struck twice but Zia and I blocked it with Riptide and her magical boomerang she calls a wand.

The moment it touched her wand the sting glanced off the ivory tip with a hissing sound. Steam rolled off Zia's wand, smelling of sulfur. I slashed off the retreating tail with Riptide which made her scream in pain.

"Your days are past, magician. The House is weak. Lord Set will lay waste to this land."She hissed at Zia. I felt ignored.

"Boring!" I shouted and opened my palm to shoot a blast of fire at Selqet. engulfing her body in fire. Serqet screamed and staggered backwards, but the fire died almost instantly. It left Serqet's robes seared and smoking, but the goddess looked more enraged than hurt.

"Oh, she is fire proof." I stammered.

'Duh.' Chaos said.

"Zia!" Carter called. "The gate!"

"What about me?" I pouted shooting another useless flame at Serqet.

"Percy come on!" Sadie called glaring at Carter.

I glanced behind me and my heart almost stopped. The space between the two columns at the temple's entrance was now a vertical tunnel of sand, as if I were looking into the funnel of an enormous sideways hourglass. I could feel it tugging at me, pulling me towards it with magical gravity.

'This is gonna suck right?'

'Yep' Hemera answered.

"I'm not going in there," I insisted, but another flash of light brought my attention back to Zia.

Then Zia did something reckless: she leaped out of the magic circle—the very thing she'd warned us not to do.

I followed her of course.

"Step back." she said angrily.

"Nope."

Zia reached into her sleeve and brought out something small—something closed inside her fist.

"I'll take Serqet. You take the scorpions." Zia said and lunged as she threw her wand at Selqet as a distraction then she opened her fist and small red tendrils of cloth fluttered into the air. Colored ribbons zipped about like living things—like eels in water—and began to grow larger.

'The Seven Ribbons of Hathor they won't work.' Chaos stated.

'What?'

Zia twirled and spun with her fiery staff and everywhere she passed, she left a trail of flames burning in the air.

While she and Selqet were attacking each other, I summoned Frostsilver and set it on fire along with Riptide. The heat cooked the scorpions inside their bodies but the flames were drawing out energy fast. I made my way through the crowd of Scorpions, killing them with the heat as I saw the Ribbons.

They zipped around, orbiting Serqet, ripping through her shadow scorpion as if it were a harmless illusion. Finally, they wrapped around Serqet's body, pinning her arms and legs. She screamed as if the ribbons burned her. She dropped to her knees, and the shadow scorpion disintegrated into an inky haze.

Zia spun to a stop. She pointed her staff at the goddess's face. The ribbons began to glow, and the goddess hissed in pain, cursing in a language I didn't know.

"I bind you with the Seven Ribbons of Hathor," Zia said. "Release your host or your essence will burn forever."

"Your death will last forever!" Serqet snarled. "You have made an enemy of Seth!"

Zia twisted her staff, and Serqet fell sideways, writhing and smoking. "I will...not..." the goddess hissed. But then her black eyes turned milky white, and she lay still.

"The gate!" Carter warned. "Come on! I think it's closing!"

I thought he had a good point, but Zia was observing the goddess.

Zia approached the fallen goddess. She touched Serqet's forehead, and black smoke billowed from the goddess's mouth. Serqet transformed and shrank until we were looking at a completely different woman wrapped in red ribbons. She had pale skin and black hair, but otherwise she didn't look anything like Serqet. She looked, well, human.

I stepped forward and pulled Zia back, "They won't work, we need to run!"

"Impossible," Zia said. "The ribbons are too powerful. Serqet can't re-form unless-"

She looked up with a start. The black haze was no longer dissipating. It was getting thicker and darker again, swirling into a more solid form.

"Welcome to my world, now come on!" I said and dragged her along with Sadie into the sand tunnel.

After being suddenly teleported to Cairo airport Zia had found us an underground tunnel that was supposed to lead us to the First Nome.

Because why not?

Of course we couldn't take the front door and we had to pass a test that consisted out of a void that had to be crossed.

Carter passed the single wooden plank that spanned the void. Two knives were thrown at him but he magically managed to deflect on and dodge another without having any training. I must say I was impressed.

When he finally crossed the gap he left out a sigh of relief.

"How?" Sadie wondered.

Then, out of nowhere, came the golden ghost-like figure from the ground. Although the ghost looked a bit like a chicken. He spoke. "Pari, niswa nafeer,"

Zia gasped but did not say anything.

Carter managed to cross the plank in the end.

"That's it?" Carter asked. "What did the turkey say?"

"It's not a turkey but a Ba, a human soul. In this case, a spirit of the dead. A magician from ancient times, he came back to serve as a guardian. They watch the entrances of the House."

"What did he say?" Carter asked but Zia stayed silent.

He then asked Sadie. "Sadie what did he say?"

"He mistook you for someone else. He must have bad eyesight."

"Because?"

"Because he said, 'Go forth, good king.'"

Sadie and Zia followed without much problems. For some reason their passing went uneventful.

Which left me as the only one left.

'So will I be challenged as well?' I asked Chaos but she did not reply which basically meant yes.

I crossed the plank with Riptide in my hand, halfway through my plank made a cracking sound. My balance shifted slightly downwards.

I gasped for air and tried not to move as I knew even the slightest move would break it.

"Is this supposed to happen?" I asked looking down at the void underneath me.

Zia shrugged, "There are a lot of different challenges." She said it with a smug smile which made me suspect that she would not worry if I fell down.

I tried to move my leg but I heard the scary cracking sound and decided against it.

I considered my options, jumping would be impossible. Running? Certainly not.

Nyx was not there to Shadow Travel me and Chaos was not any help at all. (Yes I'm talking about you Chaos)

So that leaves one option. My powers.

I considered fire but anything with that would be useless. Water it was.

Slowly I began pouring water from the air and carefully let it flow over the plank where I formed it into ice. Careful not to overload the plank, a second layer of ice was forming around the plank. Encasing it with a solid layer. I tried to move and this time it did not crack. With a few careful steps I crossed the plank.

"How did you-" Zia began but the turkey man appeared in front of me and said something I could not understand.

Both Sadie and Zia palled at hearing what he said.

"What did he say?" I asked.

Sadie turned towards me, "Welcome back Creator."

How was the First Nome you ask?

Well not impressive, I could at least now take it off my bucket list of places to see.

-Tartarus, Check

-House of Night, Check

-First Nome, Check

-Olympus, Check

-Asgard,

Good, sightseeing was amazing but compared to what I've seen it was a bit dull.

Most of it just seemed to be an underground city, specialized for magicians. I did notice a lack of children, Zia told us that most of them would be shipped to the corners of the world where they were used as phones that could see the future. I was glad we Greeks had Iris Messages.

The hall of memories was sure awesome but Zia told us not to look at the pictures, JoyKill.

I was so distracted by my ADHD I didn't even realize we'd reached the end of the hall until Zia grabbed my arm.

In front of us stood a dais and on the platform an empty throne, a gilded, wooden chair with a flail and a shepherd's crook carved in the back—the ancient symbols of the pharaoh. On the step below the throne sat the oldest man I'd ever seen.

His skin was like lunch-bag paper— brown, thin, and crinkled. White linen robes hung loosely off his small frame. A leopard skin was draped around his shoulders, and his hand shakily held a big wooden staff, which I was sure he was going to drop any minute. But weirdest of all, the glowing hieroglyphs in the air seemed to be coming from him. Multi-colored symbols popped up all around him and floated away as if he were some sort of magic bubble machine.

He looked at us three with calculating eyes before saying something in a language I did not understand.

A second man stepped out of the shadows.

He had cream-colored robes and a forked beard. The bearded man glared at us like the sight of us ruined his day.

"I am Desjardins," he said with a French accent. "My master, Chief Lector Iskandar, welcomes you to the House of Life."

"Yo." I said.

He scowled at me, "And who are you?" he asked.

"I am a new recruit from the 21st Nome, Amos wanted to introduce me but he disappeared this morning, I was assigned to protect these new recruits."

I snapped my finger to apply mist, his eyes glazed before nodding.

The man at the food of the throne however only smiled like we shared a secret.

Sadie pointed at the old man.

"He's really old. Why isn't he sitting on the throne?" Desjardins' nostrils flared, but the old dude, Iskandar, just chuckled, and said something else in that other language.

Desjardins translated stiffly: "The master says thank you for noticing."

Desjardins explained us the backstory of Iskander while the man himself was staring at me.

Sadie and Carter were telling their story about their dad when I felt a new voice in my head.

'What are you doing here?' It said with a soft voice.

'Are you Iskander?' I replied, already used to hearing voices.

He nodded slowly.

'I am a Greek demigod, but I found out that these two needed my help so I helped them. I know the house of Life will kill them as soon as they find out the truth about them.' I told him.

'So you know it as well.' It was not a question.

He was not startled by the fact I was a demigod. I was afraid they might kill me on sight if they found out. Maybe they still will.

'Yes and if you even think about killing them I will make sure you regret it.'

Isklander coughed and grinned startling everyone before staring into my eyes again.

Sadie and Carter were asking Desjardins questions but it seemed that they were oblivious to the conversation I was having with Iskander.

'I will not kill them. Ruby Kane convinced me of something before she died and forced me to reconsider the choices of the house of life.' He said with regret in his voice.

'Ruby Kane?' I asked.

'The mother of these younglings you brought.' Iskander replied. 'She was convinced that the Gods were a necessary part of our world and had to be released. She died while trying to do exactly that.'

'So you finally agree that gods are a necessary part of the world.' I stated.

'Yes but I feel that I don't have much time anymore so I need you to do me a favor.'

I stepped back. 'What do you want?' I asked.

'Don't take away their choices. It's alright if you want to protect them but they have their own path and gods they need to figure out.' A small smile appeared on Iskander's lips. 'This is their quest.'

I thought about it for a second, 'but I can't let them die, they are my friends even though I just met them.'

He sighed, 'The boy, I sense he is the host of Horus. This all happened before. Osiris got killed by Seth and Horus is there to avenge him. That's how the story played out the first time, that's how it is supposed to end this time.'

'Carter has to stop Seth? Why can't I help?'

'He has his own journey. I can't force you to let things play out like they should, I can only ask you not to take away their choices.'

Then I noticed the conversation around me was ending.

"I will show you to your quarters. In the morning, your testing begins. We will see what magic you know, and how you know it." Zia said and she also looked at me.

"Why me? I already know Magic."

I didn't but I could most likely pass off my powers as magic.

"Because I want to see how powerful you are." Zia sneered.

'Busted.' Chaos commented.

"Sounds fun," Sadie ventured. "And if we fail this test?"

Zia regarded her coldly. "This is not the sort of test you fail, Sadie Kane. You pass or you die."

(Linebreak)

Unlike Sadie and Carter who both snuck out I slept like a Medusa victim.

Next morning I woke up with Zia looking angry at me, holding an empty bucket. Sadie stood next to her smiling.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"I threw four buckets of ice water and you're still sleeping!" Zia exclaimed angrily.

"Oh, sorry but water doesn't work on me."

"Why?" Sadie wondered.

"I'm so good with water magic it's my second nature." I answered.

"Then how can you use fire?" She asked suspiciously.

I shrugged. "A friend taught me."

She scowled but ignored my answer, "dress yourself and come to the library." She said that like it was a demand and then she left me.

I got up and got dressed and when I was about to leave the room I realised something.

"Where the Hades is the Library?"

I entered the library eating a hotdog I had summoned using Hestia's power of...summoning home cooked food. Not sure why this was a power but it was definitely neat to have.

Sadie and Carter looked hungrily at it which made me realise Zia had not given them anything to eat yet. My backpack, which suddenly appeared in my room last night, was slung over my shoulder. Sadie and Carter were wearing the same unusual clothing as yesterday, and I saw they had already started with their magic lesson. Carter was covered in, bird poop? Wow.

"You're late!" Zia exclaimed and I rolled my eyes.

"You did not give me any directions." I countered.

"I already taught Sadie and Carter about magic." Zia said.

"Did you give them anything to eat?"

Sadie and Carter both pouted.

I sighed and took out a few oreos out of my backpack and handed them each a roll.

"We're not supposed to eat 'till we are done." Zia scowled.

"Magic drains energy right? If we don't have energy, we can't do magic. Are you setting us up for failure?" I asked.

"Percy-" Carter began but Zia interrupted him.

"Yes and you want to know why? Because all of you three are lying."

"Lying?" Sadie asked innocently.

"Yes, I know you three are children of the Gods."

Carter raised his hand, "Whoa...we are not children of the Gods."

Sadie nodded.

"The Gods choose their hosts carefully," Zia said. "They always prefer the blood of the pharaohs. When a magician has the blood of two royal families..."

"I don't have any magical blood." I said.

Sadie exchanged looks with Carter.

"Our parents were from different royal lines," Sadie said. "Dad...he must've been descended from Narmer, the first pharaoh. I told you he looked like that picture!"

"That's not possible," Carter said. "That was five thousand years ago."

"Then the Fausts..." He turned to Zia. "Ramesses the Great built this courtyard. You're telling me our mom's family is descended from him?"

Zia sighed. "Don't tell me your parents kept this from you. Why do you think you are so dangerous to us?"

"You think we're hosting gods," Sadie said, absolutely stunned. "That's what you're worried about—just because of something our great-times-a-thousand grandparents did? That's completely daft."

"And even if they were hosting a god, why would that be their fault?" I interrupted their small discussion.

"Oh, don't you dare to start talking about hosting Gods, we both know all three of you are a host of a God."

Carter gave me a questioning glance but I gave him the I-tell-you-later look.

"You are wrong, we are not possessed." Sadie said.

"Then follow me and duel, show me how weak you all are!" she said angry and waved with her wand to create another magic gateway, which Zia summoned right on the library wall.

She ordered us to follow her into the circle of swirling sand. We popped out on the other side, covered in dust and grit, in the front of some ruins. The harsh sunlight almost blinded me.

"I hate portals," Carter muttered, brushing the sand out of his hair. Then he looked around and his eyes widened. "This is Luxor! That's, like, hundreds of miles south of Cairo."

"Get used to that stuff." I told him after getting up.

He was too busy checking out our surroundings to answer.

I suppose the ruins were all right, though once you've seen one pile of crumbly Egyptian stuff, you've seen them all, I say. We stood on a wide avenue flanked by human-headed beasties, most of which were broken. The road went on behind us as far as I could see, but in front of us it ended at a temple much bigger than the one in the New York museum.

Zia drew three circles each at a small distance from each other.

"Step into a circle," she demanded us.

"Why?" Carter asked.

"Because you three are going to duel and show me how weak you all are."

I stepped into a circle, Sadie and Carter followed and looked at each other with an unsure expression on our faces.

"I don't think this is fair, first off I am experienced and they are just new to this stuff."

"Yeah, I don't want to hurt my brother." Sadie added.

"Hey!" Carter said with mock anger as held a Khopesh in his hand. Sadie had a long staff in her hand, I had both my swords out.

I had no idea what Carter was supposed to do. Throw his sword?At least I could throw fire and water but the odds were not in his favor.

Perhaps Carter was thinking the same thing, because he'd started to sweat. "What if we do something wrong?" He asked.

"I will oversee the duel," Zia promised. "We will start slowly. The last magician to get knocked out by the others wins."

"But we haven't been trained!" Sadie protested.

"One learns by doing," Zia said. "This is not school, Sadie. You cannot learn magic by sitting at a desk and taking notes. You can only learn magic by doing magic."

"But-"

"Summon whatever power you can," Zia said. "Use whatever you have available. Begin!"

I waited curiously to see what Sadie and Carter would do. Sadie raised her staff at me and closed her eyes for a second to focus.

A small flame came to life at the end of her staff but it quickly died out.

Sadie fell to her knees in exhaustion.

"You okay?" Carter asked.

"Shut up!" she answered.

"Sadie, you must be careful," Zia called. "You drew from your own reserves, not from the staff. You can quickly deplete your magic."

"Explain." Sadie said.

"Each time you do magic," Zia continued, "you expend energy. You can draw energy from yourself, but you must know your limits. Otherwise, you could exhaust yourself, or worse."

"You could literally burn up." Carter finished.

"Magic can be drawn from many sources," Zia continued. "It can be stored in scrolls, wands, or staffs. Amulets are especially powerful. Magic can also be drawn straight from Ma'at, using the Divine Words, but this is difficult. Or-"

Zia locked eyes with me, "it can be summoned from the gods."

"Why are you looking at me?" I demanded. "I didn't summon any gods. They just seem to find me!"

"Same here." Carter coughed. "Didn't even believe they were real until the accident at the museum."

Sadie looked angrily at Zia.

"We had a life before this all happened." In her anger she threw her staff straight at Zia. It hit the ground at her heels and immediately transformed into a snarling she-lion. Zia whirled in surprise, but then everything went wrong.

The lion turned and charged at me, as if she knew I was supposed to be dueling me.

Sadie's eyes widened as the lion stormed towards me.

I raised my sword not sure how to fight this thing off without stepping out of the ring.

Was it a monster?

Would my sword even hurt him?

'We can do this.' Chaos said confidently.

Then the cat lunged at me; I felt a new kind of power rush through my veins and I rose from the ground.

My body felt weird, more powerful but also like it was covered with energy.

I looked up and saw I was surrounded by a golden holographic shell like the one Bast had used, except that his giant image transparent woman that had the cosmos as body.

The see through body looked like it was a picture taken from the night sky. I looked up and saw a female face looking down. Her hair wavered and I could see galaxies pass through her hair. She smiled at me before crushing the shocked lion with her fist.

After that I fell to the ground, exhausted from what I've done.

'That was awesome!' Hemera yelled excitedly.

Zia's face was ashen. "The cosmos. He-he summoned-"

Before she could finish, footsteps pounded on the stones. A young initiate raced into the courtyard, looking panicked. Tears streaked his dusty face. He said something to Zia in hurried Arabic. When Zia got his message, she sat down hard in the sand. She covered her face and began to tremble.

I stepped back because I knew what had happened. Call it a gut feeling.

Iskander died. Carter and Sadie were saying things, talking about the old magician I had spoken to last night.

His last words were still fresh on my mind.

'Just don't take away their choices.'

"If Iskander is dead," I thought out loud, "then that means the next guy in charge is-"

"Desjardins." Zia finished my sentence. "He ordered you three to be brought back to the first Nome."

"Desjardins will kill us," Sadie said. "He suspects we are the host of Gods already and wants our heads. Do you think that's what Iskandar had in mind?"

"Use the obelisk."

"What?" Sadie asked. "The obelisk at the entrance, fool! You have five minutes, perhaps less, before Desjardins sends orders for your execution. Flee and destroy Set. The Demon Days begin at sundown. All portals will stop working. You need to get as close as possible to Set before that happens."

I grabbed Sadie and Carter by the arm, "We need to run."

"Hold on," she said. "I meant you should come with us and help us! We can't even use an obelisk, much less destroy Set!"

"I cannot betray the House," she said. "You have four minutes now. If you can't operate the obelisk, you'll die."

That was enough for both of them to start following me.

"Sadie?" Zia called out and we all turned. Zia's eyes were full of bitterness. "Desjardins will order me to hunt you down," she warned. "Do you understand?"

Sadie and Carter nodded.

"Don't worry they'll be safe." I said. We took off to find the obelisk.

A/N So that was the chapter, I tried to wrap up the entire first nome into 4000 words. Don't forget to review and vote on how long Percy should tag along and I see you all monday!

-Moonhorse96-