Chapter 12- Lion (Hollywood Undead)

(Thalia POV)

My vision swam as I came to. I sat up groaning. "Whoa, whoa!" I heard a voice beside me say, "Lay back down. You still need to rest."

I felt a hand guide me to laying back down on the hard floor. My vision started to clear and I realized it was Percy who had spoke and helped me lay back down. I blushed slightly at the contact with the son of Poseidon, but ignored it in favor of finding out what had happened. My last memory was using a new ability I seemed to have developed on instinct and then I was a sleep and waking up here.

"Where are we?" I asked.

"I found a cave a little further down the trail from where we was, so I carried you hear until you woke up." Percy smirked.

"What happened?" I questioned before groaning and trying to sit up again.

"Hold on a minute, Thals!" Percy commanded before handing me a thermos. "Here have some Nectar first."

Before I started to uncapped the container, I looked at the side of the can. It was decorated with a muscular looking guy that I recognized as Heracles beating a gold lion, which I recognized as the Nemean Lion, over the head with a Celestial Bronze Club. The Greek lettering above it proclaimed it to be a 'Heracles Bust Heads!' collectors item.

"'Heracles Busts Heads!'?" I asked giving him a disbelieving look.

He blushed. "Hermes," he said by way of explanation.

He's kind of cute when he does that, I thought. I blushed shoving away those thoughts. What was the point, he doesn't even see me when Annabeth is around. But she isn't around is she? I thought.

Suddenly, that was all I could think of. The closeness of the two of us, the absence of anyone else...

"You going to answer her other question or not?" A rough voice grunted.

I jumped at the new voice, before recognizing it as Kratos. I blushed heavily as I tried to push my self up and stand. I noticed Percy jump and blush as well, before standing and offering his hand to help me up. Normally I would refuse, but I still was kind of feeling week so I took his help.

"Thanks," I mumbled, as he helped me to my feet. Looking over to the mouth of the cave, I saw my brother a mentor standing there with a heavy scowl on his face.

"Anyways," Percy continued, "You got jumped by a couple of evil-looking Satyrs. After they knocked you unconscious, I killed them and brought you hear to rest."

With a slight smirk Kratos interrupted, "That's not all. You left out how you lost control when you saw her get hurt."

Percy blushed, "I just don't like seeing people hurt."

I was shocked to say the least. I didn't think he cared about me enough to have a violent reaction to me getting hurt. Maybe he actually does like me, I thought. I disregarded that thought quickly. Their was no way, after all, he said he just doesn't like people to get hurt. To spite myself I felt my hopes rise.

"Either way," Kratos continued, "I'm not here to coddle your wounds. You will have to continue on your way, and quickly if you want to save Nico."

Percy's eyes hardened. "Where is he?" He demanded.

Kratos glared at the Son of Poseidon, before carrying on. "He's at the bottom of the mountain, fighting the strongest monster on this whole mountain. You have less than eight hours to make it to the bottom."

"After that the Monster will kill him. Right not it is merely testing his limits and pushing him to it," Pausing to look the two of them in the eyes intensely for a moment before continuing, "However, you are not without help. I am here to offer you explanations about the red orbs that flew into your bodies when you killed an enemy."

Seeing my confused look, Percy answered my unspoken question, "You might not have noticed, hell I didn't till the fight was over, but when either of us killed a monster some red orbs of light flew from their decaying forms into our bodies."

"Yes," The Ghost of Sparta continued, annoyed at being interrupted, "Those orbs are a piece of magic from my world. Generated do to the blood magic I cast on your weapons yesterday. Whenever you kill something you will gain a few of those orbs. The amount varies depending on how strong it was and what it was. After you have gathered enough orbs you can channel them to your weapons to upgrade them or make them stronger and gain new abilities."

"I'm sure you noticed that you did some new moves in the battle with your weapons?"

We nod. "Well, that was merely from me opening your weapons up to allow them to be upgraded. Anytime you upgrade your weapons and gain a new move, the weapon itself will teach it to you by making you perform it instinctively. Also when you have enough orbs the weapons themselves will teach you how upgrading them with red orbs work. Blood magic is typical more about show and tell rather than being something that you can teach."

"One last word of advice," Kratos growled, making sure he had our attention, "This mountain has twelve levels with a different Olympian from this world representing it, however, the monsters are from my world. The son of Hades is at the bottom, the twelfth level. This is level one or Dionysus' challenge. Each level will have a main enemy or boss that refers to the Olympian it represents. The levels are not in order of power and have small rest spots in between. The hardest levels are the levels names after the Big Three. The nearest Big Three level is Poseidon's level, and contains Medusa's sister, Euryale."

At our shocked looks, he smirks, whoever defeats her will get a new and powerful, upgradeable, weapon to use. Good luck."

And with that he vanished, a slip of paper falling to the ground where he stood. Percy being the first to react, grabbed it and read it. He frowned and handed it to me.

It read:

Level 2- Hera

Level 3- Artemis

Level 4- Athena

Level 5- Poseidon

Level 6- Ares

Level 7- Apollo

Level 8- Artemis

Level 9- Hermes

Level 10- Hades

Level 11- Hephaestus

Level 12- Zeus

A little directory for the levels- K.

"Is it just me or does it seem like he is enjoying this a bit more than he should?" Percy asked.

I rolled my eyes, although on the inside I agreed with him. "Don't be a pansy. C'mon we got a job to do," As I stood I felt dizzy for a moment, but put a hand on the wall to steady myself. "Besides, this is more help than we normally have. And way more information to go on than we normally do."

Percy looked a little irritated, but sighed knowing I was right. "yeah, I guess so," He mumbled. "Come on we gotta save Nico."

With that we turned and left the cave. For better or worse.

A/N): So here is another chapter! A little bit of Perlia fluff in this chapter which was hard to write with me being a guy and all, but nonetheless I managed. Also, some pretty important explanations and Thalia and Percy are learning to fight with more powerful chapters in Three days! I feel like celebrating! Either way, I need to know before I do another chapter would you like to see what happens at all the levels or only the Big Three Levels? If more than one Person wants to see all of them I'll do it, but it will be slow going getting to the important fights, much less the Styx. As always thanks for reading and please Review! Have a good day and good bye!