Time to put up chapters 3-5 so you can get the rest of the story. Kudos to those who spot the homage to Homer in this chapter.

Chapter 3 – The Sea

When I returned to my cabin that night to sleep, I had trouble relaxing enough to get any rest. For one thing, my stupid headache refused to go away. I figured a good night's sleep would help with that but I kept turning over the events of the day in my head. I was nervous about talking to my dad, excited about heading off on a new quest, thrilled that Annabeth had said yes, and way too wired to sleep. I lay in my bunk for a while, tossing and turning waiting for sleep to claim me. Before long my confrontation with my dad was all I could think about. Confrontation? I frowned at my use of the word. It shouldn't be a confrontation, just a talk. You're being silly, Percy, I told myself. Poseidon loves you and he's always been nice to you…everything will be fine.

Even as I reassured myself I felt the pain begin to grow between my eyes. I groaned, more in frustration than pain. I got up and soaked a rag in the fountain I kept in the corner of the cabin. It did not look as impressive as the one that used to be there, which had been a gift from my dad, but I thought it was nice. Besides, it was handy to have a little rainbow in the room when I needed to send Iris messages. I laid back down and put the cool, damp rag on my forehead. I closed my eyes and felt the pain in my head subside a little bit. It felt like I had only just lain down when I opened my eyes and saw the first rosy fingers of the dawn peeking over the hills.

I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and ambled to the window, enjoying the sunrise. I thought about the journey that lay ahead of me and I began to plan how I was going to take Annabeth down into the depths of the ocean. Making sure she had air was the easy part; there was lots of air in the water and I knew I could bring it all together into a bubble without any trouble. What worried me was the pressure. I knew that the pressure at the depths of Poseidon's palace was so great that a normal human would be crushed and compacted to the size of a soda can without some form of protection. As I was debating how I could best keep the pressure constant I was overcome with concern.

What was I thinking? I was risking the life of the woman I loved. There had to be a better way than this. Along with my worry I felt a familiar pain blossoming behind my forehead. My headache was already back with a vengeance; it was no longer a dull ache but a rather sharp pain focused right between my eyes. I put aside my concerns long enough to go down to the meeting tent for a quick breakfast of bread and dried fruit. My headache was not as bad when I could get my mind off of what I had to do. I figured it must be a stress headache.

After breakfast I grabbed my pack from cabin 3 and went down to the shore and met Annabeth, who was already geared up and ready to go. Like me she did not carry much since we did not expect to be gone very long. We each had a bit of food as well as some bandages and a bit of nectar and ambrosia. We were not bringing the medical supplies because we expected any trouble but we had learned it was foolish to leave camp without them. Annabeth smiled when she saw me coming.

"Ready to go, seaweed brain?" she asked when I got to where she was waiting. I nodded and tried to look confident but she knew me too well. "What's wrong?"

"I'm just worried about you. I've never tried to carry anyone on such a long trip or take them so deep before." I massaged the bridge of my nose. "And this stupid headache won't go away. Whenever I try to concentrate it only gets worse."

Annabeth stood on tiptoe and gently kissed the bridge of my nose. "We could wait. We don't have to do this now."

"No," I said, "Let's go. Getting out and doing something will help get my mind off the headache."

"All right, then." She shouldered her pack and we waded out into the ocean. I felt the familiar surge of strength that the ocean always gave me. My headache even began to ebb a little as the power of the ocean surged through me. I put my arm around Annabeth's shoulder and drew her close. The ocean must have been freezing, although it felt fine to me. As the water grew deeper we stopped wading and began to swim until we were far out from shore.

I touched Annabeth's arm. "This is far enough." She stopped swimming and started to tread water. I came around in front of her and took her hands in mine. "Ready?" I asked. "Last chance to change your mind."

"Ready." Her tone of voice told me that she wasn't going to change her mind. Her steely determination couldn't help but remind me of her mother and for a moment I was dumbstruck that such an awesome girl could like me. She stopped treading water and took a deep breath. I came out of my reverie and concentrated on the water as we slowly began to sink. I drew all the air in the surrounding water to me and as we sank into the water a sphere of breathable air formed around us. The water closed over us, a few inches above our heads. As long as I held on to Annabeth I could keep her with me right in the centre of the bubble.

I looked at Annabeth. "So far, so good. Are your feet going to be okay? We've got quite a trip ahead of us." Our feet were dangling just outside of the bubble of air and I was afraid that such a long exposure to the cold water might be painful for her.

"I thought ahead," she told me with a smile. "Daughter of the goddess of wisdom and strategy, you know." She lifted up the bottom of her T-shirt and I saw that she was wearing a wetsuit underneath.

I laughed. "I should have known better than to doubt you." I concentrated on the ocean currents and collected them around the bubble. We began to move. Pretty soon we were zipping along at a fast clip, headed out to sea. I wished that Annabeth could breathe underwater like I could so she could have felt the water rushing past as we ploughed through the ocean. As it was, inside the bubble there was hardly any sensation of motion.

While we travelled, I explained my plan to Annabeth. "I'm not taking us too deep right now, just deep enough to avoid being noticed by any commercial ships we might run near. Once we get above my dad's palace, I hope we can just let gravity pull us right down. That way I can concentrate solely on keeping the pressure inside the bubble steady without worrying about what direction we're going. Once we start dropping, I'm going to need you to tell me if the pressure starts to get too much."

"How are you going to keep the pressure down?"

"As we descend, the water is going to press the bubble smaller and smaller. I'll try to push out the bubble without adding any more air to it."

Annabeth nodded her understanding. "If you can keep the bubble the same size all the way down, then the pressure inside will stay constant."

"Right."

"Percy," Annabeth said with a worried frown, "Can you do that? I mean, you've never tried to control that much water before have you?"

"No, that's why I need you to tell me when the pressure gets too high. I don't want to push the bubble any more than I have to. Even so, we may not be able to get all the way to the bottom. If you start to have trouble breathing, I'll bring us back up to the surface. It's the only plan I have, though. If it doesn't work, then we'll have to put our heads together and see if we can come up with something else." With our course of action set, we watched the ocean life pass around us.

"Percy, have you thought about what you're going to say to your dad?"

I grimaced a little. "There's really no easy way to bring it up. I figure I'll just tell him what Athena wants and hope he's willing to apologize. I mean, after two thousand years, you'd think he'd be tired of the argument anyways."

"Don't be so sure. If I've learned anything about the immortals it's that they really like to hold their grudges."

"You don't need to remind me," I pointed out, "Remember Ares?"

"Right. All I'm saying is that maybe you could put a spin on it that would make your dad a little more willing to give in."

"Like what?"

"Well, even if they won't admit it, it IS easier for all the gods when they get along but both our parents are too proud to apologize." I smiled, remembering the days when it was only Poseidon who she would have accused of being stubborn. Things had changed. "But our wedding is an excuse for Poseidon to acquiesce to my mom without losing face. See, Percy, he'd be doing it for us not Athena. Get it?"

I had to admit it did sort of make sense. "Hestia was right," I said.

"What? When did you talk to Hestia?"

"Last night at the campfire. I didn't think I should tell you about your mom's condition but Hestia convinced me otherwise."

"Perseus Jackson, I can't believe you weren't going to tell me!" Annabeth's voice was mock-angry but her expression looked more like she found my ineptness funny. I wasn't sure what to say so I just said I was sorry. "Well I'm glad someone talked some sense into you," Annabeth replied.

With the ocean carrying us along, we soon arrived at the spot more than a mile directly above my dad's underwater palace. There was nothing special about the spot, no landmarks, no land for that matter, to be seen anywhere but I knew exactly where we were. I stopped the currents around us and the bubble came to a stop. I looked at Annabeth and she looked back at me and smiled encouragingly. "I trust you, seaweed brain."

"And I love you, wise girl." I turned my attention back to the air surrounding us in the bubble and got ready to start the descent. "Tell me if you start to feel any pain in your ears." We started to sink and gradually I noticed the bubble beginning to shrink around us.

Annabeth worked her jaw like she was trying to pop her ears. "I don't think I can take much more pressure, Percy."

I gathered my strength and got ready to push back the water. Before I could try to expand the bubble, pain blossomed between my eyes. I cried out in pain. It felt like someone was trying to drill right into my skull. I couldn't bear it. Suddenly all I could think about was everything that could go wrong. I saw all the horrible scenarios played out vividly in my mind's eye. Annabeth is crushed by the weight of the ocean. Annabeth suffocates deep beneath the water's surface. Annabeth bleeds to death because I let the pressure get too high. Over and over again I saw her die and the pain in my head kept growing worse and worse. The harder I tried to push the terrible images from my mind the more my head hurt. I was aware that Annabeth was trying to calm me down but I could not focus through the haze of pain and panic to answer her. I felt my control of the bubble slipping away from me and tried to keep it intact around us. It was too much for me. I grabbed my head in hands and screamed. Even as I did it I realized it was the worst thing I could have done.

When I let go of Annabeth, she dropped out of the bubble. Desperately I grabbed for her but it was too late. I let go of the air and the bubble disappeared from around me. The threat to Annabeth was enough to break through the haze and I looked around frantically for Annabeth but she was no where to be seen. How far were we from the surface? Could she swim to the surface before she ran out of breath? Above I spied the shadow of a small boat on the surface. A boat? It looked like a large-ish personal craft. We were more than a hundred miles out from the nearest island and even further away from any significant land mass—what was a boat like that doing out here?

I hoped with all my heart that Annabeth had been able to get to the surface in time. I shot up to the surface and looked around. The boat, it was a nice-looking yacht, was close by and I swam over to it, hoping that they had picked up Annabeth. I tried to read the boat's name but it was in a fancy cursive writing that did not help my dyslexia. It looked something like "Scone Fair" but I knew that couldn't be right. When I got to the yacht, two men on board, threw me a rope and helped me into the boat. They looked like they were just a little bit older than me, in their early twenties.

"Thanks," I said, a bit out of breath. "Did you pick up anyone else? A girl my age?" I looked around the deck but I didn't see Annabeth. My heart sank. I was too late.

"Sorry," said one of them, "but you're the only one we saw." He laughed like a twisted little child. I was furious, how could he laugh when Annabeth had drowned? I looked at them and realized they were twins. The one who had spoken was still giggling maniacally but the other one was sneering at me. That was when I realized why there was a yacht in the middle of nowhere and why they weren't surprised to see someone suddenly pop up out of the water. I had seen that sneer before. I had seen a sneer exactly like that on Ares' face. With a flash of insight I figured out the name of the boat: "Scion of Ares."

"You're sons of Ares," I accused. "You just killed my…my…" I couldn't say it. My love, I finished in my head. As the realization of what had happened set in my confidence and my bluster disappeared and I fell to the floor of the boat, numb to everything around me.

"Awww," said the one who was still giggling, "we've hurt him. Isn't that terrible of us?"

"Father will be proud," said the other. The first one had a silly, high voice and sounded like a spoiled child but this one had his father's voice. Low and cruel.

"Very proud," agreed the first who had managed to get his giggling under control. "But where are our manners? Introductions: I'm Phobos."

"And I am his twin brother, Deimos," said the second. "But you probably know us better as Fear and Terror."

My anger flared up white hot inside of me. "How could you!" I yelled in their faces. I felt hot tears on my face but I could not keep them back. "How could you! It's me Ares hates, not her!" Neither of the twins answered me. Phobos simply reached out and touched my forehead. Pain shot through my skull. I was aware of nothing but the searing, unending pain in every corner of my mind. I doubled over and retched over the side of the ship but the pain did not go away. I stumbled forward trying to draw Riptide, my sword disguised as a ballpoint pen, from my pocket but there was nothing I could do. I lost my balance and stumbled over the side of the ship. As I fell into the water my vision narrowed, blackening at the edges.

At least, I thought as my vision narrowed to a pinpoint, I won't feel the pain anymore. Then I had no thoughts at all.