We avoid being turned into Cream of Wheat

Reader, flying is overrated.

I got airsick three times. My feet swelled up and I had to take my shoes off, which no one liked me for. I was so sick I couldn't even keep down the medicine for it. I couldn't sleep. We had turbulence bad, which made me and Grover and Annabeth worry that Zeus was going to go back on his agreement to not blast us out of the sky. By the time we'd landed, I'd sworn off planes for the rest of my life. I'd walk to America from Japan before I'd ever look at an airplane again.

We landed in Tokyo and it felt like a different timeline's version of Times Square. Just as many people, just as ridiculous to drive through. Luckily, Grover had been several times. He knew exactly where to go. So we joined hands and got on public transportation. He even knew some Japanese to chat with people who spoke to us. I assumed the conversation was the same. "Yes, just visiting. Thank you very much. No, that kid is not coming from prison. He's just got one of those looks. Have a nice day."

We took public transportation to a station where you could connect to trains or buses. Grover walked over to a cab parked at the very end of the lot. A guy rolled down his window and said something that sounded like Japanese for, "Are you back again?!"

Grover replied and then gestured to us. I imagined he said, "Yes, and hauling these two around."

The cab driver yelled at us. I looked to Annabeth, but she didn't speak Japanese either. Grover quickly explained. The cab driver sighed and gestured for us to get in.

We climbed into the back of the cab. Annabeth and I got window seats so Grover could talk to the driver. Something cool about Japanese cabs – the doors automatically open and close for you. There were screens in the back of the driver's headrest, but everything was in Japanese. It looked like the startup screen to a video game. Cool.

Grover made small talk with the driver, which meant he was unavailable to help me with the seat screen. Annabeth was so tired from the flight that she closed her eyes and slumped away against the window. Her forehead pressed against the glass. Every so often, we'd go around a curve and she'd pop away like a suction cup. Her head would bob up and down, and then she'd return to the window. Like clockwork. I would have liked to have fallen asleep too, but after my airsickness, my body wasn't in the mood.

We left the lights of the city and I started getting the feeling we were near water. I looked out the window, but couldn't see anything but the shadows of rocks and trees.

Then, the cab stuttered to a stop. Annabeth startled awake. Grover was thanking the driver. He paid with a credit card, then Annabeth's door popped open.

The smell of the ocean hit me and I didn't feel as sick anymore. I could almost taste the salt water. I felt stronger and somehow, safer.

We climbed out. It was pitch black outside. No light for miles. The door shut automatically behind us. The driver rolled the right window down. "You be good!" he called, and then began to drive away. Grover waved. "That's Jeong," he said. "He always drives me. I tell him it's a meditation trip."

"Where are we going?" I asked. I couldn't see anything. My eyes were pinching trying to adjust.

Grover sighed. "Come on," he said. The seashore is this way. Your eyes will get used to it in a moment. We need to find Eudora, your old guidance counselor. Percy and Annabeth live about twenty thousand feet down. Only a Nereid or one of Posideon's court can help someone who can't breathe underwater down."

I reached out for Grover to grab hold of him and got Annabeth instead. She was shaking a little. I couldn't tell if it was fear or cold. I let go real quick and spotted Grover's outline a little ahead. I grabbed onto him instead.

Things gradually did come into focus, but it was a moonless night and there were no lighthouses or cities or even tiny bungalows anywhere. Annabeth and I held onto Grover until our feet sank into the sand and the crashing of the waves grew louder. Then, I let go and walked toward it. I glimpsed the rolling sand banks, and some plant life here and there. But I didn't realize I'd made it to the ocean until a wave nearly swept me off my feet. Again, I felt better. Stronger. I stood in the tide for several seconds and inhaled… exhaled.

"Oh, that's cold!" Annabeth yelped when she touched the water.

"Eudora!" Grover called, not too far away. "Eudora!"

The tranquility dissolved, but oh well.

I supposed that the strength I was feeling from the ocean had something to do with Poseidon being my dad. "Hey," I realized, aloud. "I'm a forbidden kid, aren't I?"

Annabeth and Grover both paused to stare at me. I guess considering I'd already asked about the Big Three's oath to not have children, the question sounded pretty stupid. But hey, this was all new to me.

"Yes and no," Grover said. "My friend Percy disbanded the oath, so no one cares anymore… about the oath. But you are technically a forbidden kid because you were born during the period Poseidon should not have been creating demigods."

Grover came over to stand by my and kicked the ocean a bit. Then he sighed, quieted, and thought. "Eudora!" He called again. "Please come out, oh generous and beautiful Eudora! You've always been so helpful! The most generous of all the nereids!"

Annabeth joined in, trying to help. "Please, oh Eudora! Please come out!"

I got the sense something was moving in a clump of grass not too far away. I wandered over and moved the grass. A water snake dashed away frantically. I was glad it wasn't a spider. My ears still throbbed thinking of Annabeth's holler.

I was about to replace the grass when something shiny caught my eye. I picked it up. Even though it was still tough to see in the dark, I could see that it was a bright color. I could feel that it was smooth to the touch and perfectly round. "I think I found a pearl," I said. "Just here under this grass."

Grover trotted over, struggling to walk in the wet sand. Those hooves of his acted like stakes, driving straight into the sand with no resistance. He looked at the pearl with his face right next to my hand. His breath ghosted across my palm and moved the pearl a little. He then straightened back up. "Eudora," he called, "I have permission to bring these guests! You don't need to be afraid of being seen with them! Poseidon and Zeus and Hades are all aware of the situation."

"We have a note!" Annabeth added, and I heard her fumble in her pockets for it. "Zeus himself-"

I heard a sound like a toilet flushing and the ocean grew upwards in a single place about ten feet from us. The water took the shape of a woman, shaking. "Let me see that note," she said, and headed towards Annabeth cautiously. Annabeth held out the baggie-enclosed note and the woman, who I assumed was Eudora, reached out cautiously for it. She crouched low, stretching her arm out, but trying to keep her body away from Annabeth. As if she thought Annabeth might drive a dagger through her chest.

Annabeth stepped back and stretched her hand out and Eudora felt comfortable enough to snatch the note. The moment she had it, the waves swept her back about twenty feet, so she was out in the middle of the tide.

It reminded me a bit of people feeding stray cats and dogs. They never want to take it from your hand. You have to leave the bait a ways away so they feel safe.

Eudora's arm lit up a dim blue with some sort of bioluminescence. She read the note and I could see her face relax. She crept back and handed Annabeth the note back. Albeit, she continued to cower close to the ground and stretch her arm out an impossible distance.

"I'm sorry I didn't come right away," she said, sweating water in great sheets. "I was afraid, when I saw you, that if I helped you, Zeus or Poseidon would smite me."

"For helping us?" I asked, confused. Eudora flinched and cowered from me.

Grover put a hand on my arm. "These aren't the real Percy and Annabeth," he explained to Eudora. I furrowed my brow and decided I was plenty real, actually. "See, they don't feel the same. I need your help to get them – especially this one-" he gestured at Annabeth, "To the bottom of the ocean. Walker here shouldn't be a problem, but Leah can't breathe underwater and can't be exposed to the water pressure. Like me."

I blinked at Grover. "Wait, I can't breathe underwater either!"

"Yes, you can." Grover rolled his eyes. "You just haven't ever tried."

"Grover, that's crazy! I can't just-"

He shoved me and I, still not being able to completely see around me, toppled. We were standing in knee-deep water, but I fell at an angle and went under, unable to put my arms out. The waves washed over my head. My eyes screwed shut. Grover, before I could get back up, put a hand to my chest. I tried to kick him and I thrashed a bit, and then I let out the oxygen I did have in my lungs. Seawater filled my mouth and then I exhaled it again. Strangely, I didn't feel short of breath. I did this once, twice. The water filled my lungs, somehow provided oxygen, and then left again.

Grover was right. I could breathe underwater.

I put a hand above the water in a thumb's up. Grover's hand left my chest. I rolled over, not taking my face out of the water, and then got on my knees and lifted my head slowly. The water left my mouth in a stream and air replaced it. There was almost no difference between the two. "I can breathe underwater," I said, mostly to myself.

Eudora was sweating even more water. I wondered if she ever went on land, and if that was an issue when she did. "Are you sure… it's not…" She gulped. "Him?!"

"I'm sure," Grover said. "You know how they feel, when you're around them."

I got to my feet slowly. Eudora trembled and cowered from me. As if I could snap my fingers and dissolve her.

"Walker here doesn't need any special protection," Grover said. "He can go straight down. But you remember… how difficult it was for Annabeth? We need to make sure Leah is protected. The water pressure would mash her into white paste in seconds."

"Hold on," I said. "What sort of protection are we talking about? Because, er, I might also… I'm not invincible."

"The Mariana trench is deep," Grover said, sounding impatient now. "Water is heavy. Pressure increases on your body. It's why humanity can't explore so much of the ocean. Percy and Annabeth-" Eudora yelped, "-are twenty thousand feet down. That's about nine-thousand pounds per square inch of your body. You-" he thumped a finger on my chest, "-will be fine. She-" he pointed to Annabeth, who had begun shaking about as much as Eudora, "-and I would end up looking like the Titan submersible people without Eudora's help."

"The Titan submersible?" Annabeth asked. Her voice was high. Like earlier, after the spider incident. "What's that?"

"Two years ago, some folks blew themselves up trying to visit the Titanic Wreck," Grover explained. "That was only 12,000 feet down. Again, water is heavy. It can crush you at that depth. This submersible, their bodies were literally crushed into white paste – bones and all – and deposited on the ocean floor before anyone inside knew something was wrong. There was almost nothing left to collect of them. It happened in about a thousandth of a second. They became the human equivalent of Cream of Wheat."

None of this was very comforting to Annabeth. And to be honest, I didn't like it either. Just because the other Percy was apparently fine didn't mean that I would be. I'd rather not be thrown out on my own here.

I guess Grover couldn't see our faces or Annabeth's shaking, because he continued. "Humans also have to be careful to not come up too quickly if they're in the water, because you can get sick if you're not in a pressurized location. You'll get nitrogen bubbles in your blood and it can lead to paralysis or death."

"I think I'm fine to stay here," Annabeth decided. "Alive."

"We can't leave you up here," Grover said. "If any monsters come by, and realize who you are, they'll be dying to devour you. Let alone a God." He bleated. I'd heard Grover bleat nervously, but now he just seemed irritated. Like, "how dare a God intrude on my perfectly peaceful life" kind of irritated. "Besides," Grover finished, "Eudora makes it perfectly safe. I've made the trip probably two hundred times. She can create a pressurized chamber that rockets you down into a tunnel. From there, we can make it to where Percy and Annabeth have been banished."

"What about after we're down there?" I asked. "How are we… you going to breathe?"

Grover laughed as if he couldn't believe what a stupid question I had just asked. "They live in one of Poseidon's old palaces," he explained. "Just because Annabeth is a legend now doesn't mean she can breathe underwater. Poseidon and Athena worked together to make sure she wouldn't die down there."

"Poseidon and Athena?" Annabeth repeated slowly. "Working together?"

"It's true!" Eudora exclaimed. "And Hephaestus created an air filtering system… and Demeter helped get food to grow down there… anything to get Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase to leave…" she shivered.

I was really beginning to wonder what kinds of people this Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase were like.

Eudora vanished into the sea with the sound of a flush and then reappeared with what looked like two plastic kid-sized stools. She set them down in the surf. Grover had a seat. I saw him wave Annabeth over. She hobbled like her legs were frozen stiff and sat down hard, gripping the bottom of the chair. Now that she was sat, she came up to my chest. I wondered if I was going to get a chair, but Eudora didn't disappear again.

"Ladies first?" Eudora asked, drifting in front of Annabeth.

"No!" Annabeth squawked. "I mean…"

"Probably Percy," Grover recommended. "He's got the strongest scent. You'll need to rest for a bit after Annabeth and I. Percy will be easy. Send him down and then Annabeth, then me."

"Maybe you should go first," I said, nervously. "I mean… you've done this before." I really didn't want Eudora to make a mistake that would leave me Percy Paste on the bottom of the sea floor.

"It's not dangerous at all with Eudora," Grover said, though Eudora was shaking so hard I just… didn't trust her judgement. "All you need to do, Percy, is not fight it. Okay? If you try and fight the current – you specifically; Annabeth, you don't need to worry about this – then you could throw off the current Eudora uses and end up in Hawaii somewhere."

That… did not sound like a downside. But Grover said, "Do you understand?" and when you're a twelve year old kid and a thirty year old says that to you, something innate just urges you to reply.

"Yes."

"Okay," Eudora said, taking deep breaths. "Okay. We'll talk… we'll talk!"

She clapped her hands and I was flushed away.

1/4's chapter will be called "Elvis Presley Underwater."