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- Inbox. 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

Piper: I Finally Tell My Friends About My Dad's Situation

I woke up cold and shivering,

I'd had the worst dream about an old guy with donkey ears chasing me around and shouting, You're it!

"Oh, god." My teeth chattered. "He turned me to gold!"

"You're okay now." Jason leaned over and tucked a warm blanket around me, but I still felt as cold as a Boread.

I blinked, trying to figure out where we were. Next to me, a campfire blazed, turning the air sharp with smoke. Firelight flickered against rock walls. We were in a shallow cave, but it didn't offer much protection. Outside, the wind howled. Snow blew sideways. It might've been day or night. The storm made it too dark to tell.

"L-L-Leo?" I managed.

"Present and un-gold-ified," Leo was wrapped in blankets. He didn't look great, but better than I felt. "I got the precious metal treatment too," he said. "But I came out of it faster. Dunno why. We had to dunk you in the river to get you back completely. Tried to dry you off, but... it's really, really cold."

"You've got hypothermia," Jason said. "We risked as much nectar as we could. Coach Hedge did a little nature magic-"

"Sports medicine," the coach's ugly face loomed over me. "Kinda of a hobby of mine. One of few nature magic I'm good at. Your breath might smell like wild mushrooms and Gatorade for a few days, but it'll pass. You probably won't die. Probably."

"Thanks." I said weakly. "How did you beat Midas?"

Jason told me the story, putting most of it down to a mixture of luck and strength of Heracles.

The coach snorted. "Kid's being modest. You should've seen him. Hi-yah! Boom with the lightning!"

"Coach, you didn't even see it," Jason said. "You were outside eating lawn."

But the satyr was just warming up. "Then I came in with my club, and we dominated that room. Afterward, I told him, 'Kid, I'm proud of you!"

"Coach!" said Jason.

"Yeah?"

"Shut up, please."

"Sure." The coach sat down at the fire and started eating his cudgel.

Jason put his hand on my forehead and checked my temperature. "Leo, can you stoke the fire?"

"On it," Leo summoned a baseball size clump of flames and lobbed it into the campfire.

"Do I look that bad?" Piper shivered.

"Nah," Jason said.

"You're a terrible liar," I said. "Where are we?"

"Pikes Peak,' Jason said. "Colorado."

"But that's, what-five hundred miles from Omaha?"

"Something like that," Jason agreed. "I ended up having to harness the storm spirits on the way here as the winds started fighting against me again and they got us this far. They didn't like it-went a little faster than I wanted, almost crashed us into the mountainside before I could get them back in the bag. I'm not going to be trying that again."

Considering how bad the storm was, and remembering our landing in detroit which was just with me and Leo, added too now including Coach Hedge, I can see why Jason had no other choice but use the storm spirits.

"Why are we here?"

Leo sniffed. "That's what I asked him."

Jason gazed into the storm as if watching for something. "That glittery wind trail I saw yesterday? It was still in the sky, though it had faded a lot. I followed it until I couldn't see it anymore. Then-honestly I'm not sure. I just felt like this was the right place to stop."

"Course it is." Coach Hedge spit out some cudgel splinters. "Aeolus' floating palace should be anchored above us, right at the peak. This is one of his favorite spots to dock."

"Maybe that was it." Jason knit his eyebrows. "I don't know. Something else, too..."

"The Hunters were heading west," I remembered. "Do you think they're around here?"

Jason rubbed his forearm as if the tattoos were bothering him. "I don't see how anyone could survive on the mountain right now. The storm's pretty bad. It's already the evening before the solstice, but we didn't have much choice except to wait out the storm here. We had to give you some time to rest before we tried moving."

He didn't need to convince me as I couldn't stop shivering.

"We have to get you warm," Jason sat next to me and held out his arms a little awkwardly. "Uh, you mind if I..."

"I suppose." I tried to sound nonchalant.

He put his arms around me and held me. We scooted closer to the fire. Coach hedge chewed on his club and spit splinters into the fire.

Leo broke out some cooking supplies and started frying burger patties on an iron skillet. "So, guys, long as you're cuddled up for story time... something I've been meaning to tell you. On the way to Omaha, I had this dream. Kinda hard to understand with the static and the Wheel of Fortune breaking in-"

"Wheel of Fortune?" I assumed Leo was kidding, but when he looked up from his burgers, his expression was deadly serious. Leo may joke around alot, but you can tell when he's serious at times.

"The thing is," he said, "my dad Hephaestus talked to me."

Leo told us about his dream. In the firelight, with the wind howling, the storm was even creepier. I could imagine the static-filled voice of the god warning about the giants were the sons of Tartarus, and about Leo losing some friends along the way.

The idea that there were two giants that didn't take part in the first Giant War made me feel better until Hedge spoke up

"I wouldn't hold your breath on the two giants that were neutral in the last giant war being neutral this time around," Hedge broke the news. "There were Titans that were neutral during the First Titan War that sided with Kronos in the second."

"Great, thanks for the heads up," Jason said.

"Just telling the truth. A lot can happen in three thousand years to cause old allies and neutral parties to turn against the gods," Hedge said. "It would be too easy if truces stayed the same in every war, but the fact of the matter is, even the gods can find reasons to turn against each other if given the chance."

I decided to try to concentrate on something good. Jason's arms around me, the warmth slowly spreading into my body, but I was terrified. "I don't understand. If demigods and gods have to work together to kill the giants, why would the gods stay silent? If they need us-"

"Ha," said Coach Hedge. "The gods hate needing humans. They like to be needed by humans, but not the other way around. Things will have to get a whole lot worse before Zeus admits me made a mistake closing Olympus, council vote or not.:

"Coach," I said, "that was almost an intelligent comment."

Hedge huffed. "What? I'm intelligent! I'm not surprise you cupcakes haven't heard of the Giant War. The gods don't like to talk about it. Bad PR to admit you needed mortals to help beat an enemy. That just embarrassing."

"There's more, though," Jason said. "When I dreamed about Hera in her cage, she said Zeus was acting unusually paranoid. And Hera-she said she went to those ruins because a voice had been speaking in her head. What if someone's influencing the gods, like Medea influence us?"

I shuddered. I'd had a similar thought-that some force we couldn't see was manipulating things behind the scenes, helping the giants. Maybe the same force was keeping Enceladus informed about our movements, and had even knocked our dragon out of the sky over Detroit. Perhaps Leo's sleeping Dirt Woman, or another servant of hers...

Leo set hamburger buns on the skillet to toast. "Yeah, Hephaestus said something similar, like Zeus was acting weirder than usual. But he seems confident that enough Olympians disagree with Zeus to vote to overrule his order. But what bothered me was the stuff my dad didn't say. Like a couple of times he was talking about the demigods, and how he had so many kids and all. I don't know. He acted like getting the greatest demigods together was going to be almost impossible-like Hera was trying, but it was a really stupid thing to do, and there was some secret Hephaestus wasn't suppose to tell me."

Jason shifted. I could feel the tension in his arms.

"Chiron was the same way back at camp," he said. "He mentioned a sacred oath not to discuss-something. Coach, you know anything about that?"

"Nah. I'm just a satyr. They don't tell us juicy stuff. Especially an old-" he stopped himself.

"An old guy like you?" I asked. "But you're not that old, are you?"

"Hundred and six," the coach muttered.

Leo coughed. "Say what?"

"Don't catch your panties on fire, Valdez. That's just fifty-three in human years. Still, yeah, I made some enemies on the Council of Cloven Elders. I've been a protector a long time. I choose to be a protector as I get to see more action. But they started saying I was getting unpredictable. Too violent. Can you imagine?"

"Wow," I tried not to look at my friends. "That's hard to believe."

Coach scowled. "Yeah, then finally we get a good war going with the Titans, and do they put me on the front lines? No! They send me as far away as possible-the Canadian frontier, can you believe it? Then after the war, they put me out to pasture. The Wilderness School. Bah! Like I'm too old to be helpful just because I like playing offense. All those flower-pickers on the Council-talking about nature."

"I thought satyrs like nature," I ventured.

"Shoot, I love nature," Hedge said. "Nature means big things killing and eating little things. And when you're a-you-know-vertically challenge satyr like me, you get in god shape, you carry a big stick, and you don't take nothing from no one! That's nature." Hedge snorted indignantly. "I would think they would appreciate my way of doing things after what happened to Pan, as we were tasked to protect what's left of the wild ourselves. But I guess that was asking too much from a bunch of flower pickers. Anyway, I hope you got something vegetarian cooking, Valdez. I may like violence, but I still won't eat meat."

"Yeah, Coach. Don't eat your cudgel. I got some tofu patties here. Piper's a vegetarian too. I'll throw them on in a second."

The smell of frying burgers filled the air. I usually hated the smell of cooking meat, but my stomach rumbled like it wanted to mutiny.

I'm losing it, I thought. Think broccoli. Carrots. Lentils.

My stomach wasn't the only thing rebelling. Lying by the fire, with Jason holding me, my conscious felt like a hot bullet slowly working its way toward my heart. All the guilt I'd been holding in for the last week, since the giant Enceladus had first sent me a dream, was about to kill me.

My friends wanted to help me. Jason even said he'd walked into a trap to save my dad. And I had shut them out.

For all I knew, I already doomed my father when I attacked Medea.

I choked back a sob. Maybe I'd done the right thing in Chicago by saving my friends, but I'd only delay my problem. I could never betray my friends, but the tiniest part of me was desperate enough to think, What if I did?

I tried to imagine what my dad would say. Hey, Dad, if you were ever chained up by a cannibal giant and I had to betray a couple of friends to save youm what should I do?

Funny, that never acme up when we did Any Three Questions. My dad would never take the question seriously, of course. He'd probably tell me one of Grandpa Tom's old stories-something with glowing hedgehogs and talking birds-and then laugh about it as if the advice was silly.

I wished I remember my grandpa better but he died of cancer when I was too young to remember. That's actually how I know we weren't always rich as Dad blamed himself for being to poor to get Grandpa Tom the treatment he needed at the time. Sometimes I dreamed about that little two-room house in Oklahoma. I wondered what it would've been like to grow up there.

My dad would think that was nuts/ He had spent his whole life running away from that place, distancing himself from the rez, playing any role except Native American. He'd always told me how lucky I was to grow up rich and well cared-for, in a nice house in California.

I'd learned to be vaguely uncomfortable about my ancestry-like Dad's old pictures from the eighties, when he had feathered hair and crazy clothes. Can you believe I ever looked like that? He'd say. Being Cherokee was the same way for him-something funny and mildly embarrassing. But I guess it couldn't been that bad if he attracted Aphrodite's attention before he was even rich.

But what else were there? Dad didn't seem to know. Aphrodite may have broke his heart leaving him with me, but that wouldn't explain him ignoring his heritage. Maybe that's why he was always so unhappy, changing roles. Maybe that's why I started steeling things, looking for something my dad couldn't give me.

Leo put the tofu patties on the skillet. The wind kept raging. I thought of an old story my dad told me.. One that maybe did answer some of my questions.

...

One day in second grade I'd come home in tears and demanded why my father had named me Piper. The kids were making fun of me because Piper Cherokee was a kind of airplane.

My dad laughed, as if that never occurred to him. "No, Pipes. Fine airplane. That's not how I named you. Grandpa Tom picked out your name. First time he heard you cry, he said you had a powerful voice-better than any reed flute piper. He said you'd learn to sing the hardest Cherokee songs, even the snake song."

"The snake song?"

Dad told me the legend-how one day a Cherokee woman had seen a snake playing too near her children and killed it with a rock, not realizing it was the king of rattlesnakes. The snakes prepared for war on the humans, but the woman's husband tried to make peace. He promised he'd do anything to repay the rattlesnakes. The snakes held him to his word. They told him to send his wife to the well so the snakes could bite her and take her life in exchange. The man was heartbroken, but he did what they asked. Afterward, the snakes were impressed that the man had given up so much and kept his promise. They taught him the snake song so all the Cherokee to use. From that point on, if any Cherokee met a snake and sang that song, the snake would recognize the Cherokee as a friend, and would not bite.

"THat's awful," Piper had said. "He let his wife die?"

Her dad spread his hands. "It was a hard sacrifice. But one life brought generations of peace between snakes and Cherokee. Grandpa Tom believed that Cherokee music could solve almost any problem. He thought you'd know lots of songs, and be the greatest musician of the family. That's why we named you Piper."

A hard sacrifice. Had my grandfather foreseen something about me, even when I was a baby? Had he sensed I was a child of Aphrodite? My dad would probably tell me that was crazy, Grandpa Tom was no oracle.

But still... I'd made a promise to help on this quest. My friends were counting on me. They'd saved me when Midas had turned me to gold. They'd brought me back to life. I couldn't repay them with lies.

...

Gradually, I started to feel warmer. I stopped shivering and settled against Jason's chest. Leo handed out the food. I didn't want to move, talk, or do anything to disrupt the moment. But I had to.

"We need to talk." I sat up so I could face Jason. "I don't want to hide anything from you guys anymore."

They looked at me with their mouths full of burger. Too late to change my mind now.

"Three nights before the Grand Canyon trip," I said. "I had a dream vision-a giant, telling me my father had been taken hostage. He told me I had to cooperate,o or my dad would be killed."

The flames crackled.

Finally Jason said, "Enceladus? You mention that name before."

Coach Hedge whistled. "Big giant. Bane of Athena. Breaths fire. Not somebody I'd want barbecuing my daddy goat."

Jason gave him a shut up look. "Piper, go on. What happened next?"

"I-I tried to reach my dad, but all I got was his personal assistant, and she told me not to worry."

"Jane?" Leo remembered. "Didn't Medea say something about controlling her?"

I nodded. "To get my dad back, I had to sabotage this quest. I didn't realized it would be the three of us. Then after we started this quest, Enceladus sent me another warning. He told me he wanted you two dead. He wants me to lead you to a mountain. I don't know exactly which one, but it's in the Bay Area-I could see the Golden Gate Bridge from the summit. I have to be there by noon of the solstice, tomorrow. An exchange. But if I had Medea kill you guys back at the department store she said she would throw in the healing potion to take with me to Enceladus to heal my dad."

I couldn't meet my friends' eyes. I waited for them to yell at me, or turn their backs, or kick me out into the snowstorm.

Instead, Jason scooted next to me and put his arm around me again. "God, Piper. I'm sorry."

Leo nodded. "No kidding. You've been carrying this around for a week? Piper, we could help you."

I glared at them. "Why don't you yell at me or something? I was ordered to kill you!"

"Aw, come on," Jason said. "You've saved us both on this quest. I'd put my life in your hands any day."

"Same," Leo said. "Can I have a hug too?"

"You don't get it!" Piper said. "I've probably just killed my dad, telling you this."

"I doubt it," Coach Hedge belched. He was eating his tofu burger folded inside the paper plate, chewing it all like a taco. "Like I told you, he's a the bane of Athena. He was born to be wiser than the goddess of wisdom in order to destroy her. He can still use your dad to get what he wants. He'll wait until the deadline passes, see if you show up. I'm guessing he your loyalty is your fatal flaw."

"Fatal Flaw?" Leo asked.

"A flaw in one's personality that can impact their decision making and ability to think and at times fight. All heroes have one," Coach said. "Loyalty may not seem like a fatal flaw, but trust me, some of the worse decisions was because someone had to choose between loyalty and something life changing. That's what the giant is hoping for. He wants you to divert the quest to this mountain, right?"

I nodded uncertainly.

"So that means Hera is being kept somewhere else," Hedge reasoned. "And she has to be saved by the same day. SO you have to choose-rescue your dad, or rescue Hera. If you go after Hera, then Enceladus takes care of your dad. Besides, Enceladus would never let you go even if you cooperated. You're obviously one of the seven in the Great Prophecy. Medea must have realized this too and was lying to get you to betray your friends."

One of the seven. I'd talked about this before with Jason and Leo, and I supposed it must be true, but I still had trouble believing it. I didn't feel that important. Even with my charmspeaking powers, which is greater than the strength of Heracles (considering what Medea could do with it), but I'm not the only one with the power as I came to learn since being claimed.

"So we have no choice," I said miserably. "We have to save Hera, or the giant king gets unleashed. That's our quest. The world depends on it. And Enceladus seems to have ways of watching me. As you said, he was born to oppose Athena, so he's not stupid. He'll know if we change course and go the wrong way. He'll kill my dad."

"He's not going to kill your dad," Leo said. "We'll save him."

"We don't have time!" I cried. "Besides, it's a trap."

"We're your friends, beauty queen," Leo said. "We're not going to let your dad die. We just gotta figure out a plan."

"Midas said Bianca used the shadows to get her Thalia and the Hunters out of there, making his security system useless," Jason said,

"Shadow travel," Hedge said. "I heard of the power. It's a power of Hades. Good for quick escapes or traveling long distances quickly. That's probably why Hera wanted you to seek Bianca out as well. If anyone can get you to both locations in a short amount of time it's a child of Hades. Only problem is we don't even know where this mountain was. Maybe Aeolus can tell you that. The Bay Area has a bad reputation for demigods. Old home of the Titans, Mount Othrys, sits over Mount Tam, where Atlas holds up the sky. But I heard Bianca's kid brother Nico had been able to sneak around there gathering info during the last Titan War so maybe..."

"No, I don't think it's the mountain from my dream," I said, as I tried to remember my dream. "This was inland."

Jason frowned at the fire, like he was trying to remember something.

"Bad reputation... that doesn't seem right. The Bay Area..."

"You think you've been there?" I asked.

"I..." He looked like he was almost on the edge of a breakthrough. Then the anguish came back into his eyes. I don't know. Hedge, what happened to Mount Othrys?"

Hedge took another bite of paper and burger. "Well, Kronos built a new palace there two winters ago. Big nasty place, was going to be the headquarters for his new kingdom and all. Weren't any battles there, though. Kronos marched on Manhattan, tried to take Olympus. If I remember right, he left some other Titans in charge of his palace, but after Kronos was defeated in Manhattan, the whole palace crumbled on its own."

"No," Jason said.

We all looked at him.

"What do you mean, 'No?'" Leo asked.

"That's not what happened. I-" He tensed, looking toward the cave entrance. "Did you hear that?"

For a second, nothing. Then I heard it: howls piercing the night.

A/N: And with this chapter, I explain why I think Piper's dad wasn't rich or famous when he met Aphrodite. It is known one of the reasons Piper's dad started acting to make money because he wasn't able to afford Grandpa Tom's treatment when he died of Cancer. And yet Grandpa Tom saw Piper as a baby. So Tristan couldn't have been rich or famous when he met Aphrodite. But as we know, Aphrodite also can be shallow when it comes to how others look as well as herself (Her marriage to Hephaestus and affair with Ares being biggest indicator of it). Combine that with Tristan's personality I'm sure he manage to snag Aphrodite's attention rich/famous or not.