THE HOUSE OF HADES

Chapter 2: The giant, flying Lion

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN THESE AWESOME BOOKS AND CHARACTERS SADLY...... IF I COULD I WOULD, BUT SADLY I'M NOT AS AWESOME AS RICK RIORDAN..... :(

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To say that Nico felt useless would be the understatement of the century, he felt absolutely, undoubtably, utterly uselessly weak and idiotic. The horrible fate of Annabeth and Percy had cast a dreadful, heavy shadow of depression on everybody, but especially Nico.

While everybody was out saving the world and risking their lives, he had been sleeping in a giant jar eating pomegranate seeds. Then when his friends turned up and put everything on the line to save him, he just lay on the ground as useless as Prometheus tied to a rock. Then he just sat back and watched his two best friends and the two strongest demigods get dragged into a stupid, bottomless cavern by a spider when he could've saved them.

Percy had told him to lead the remaining 5 heroes to the House of Hades, and instead he was lying in his bed doing nothing but sleeping, eating and making rodent skeletons come alive. Everyone kept on telling him that, "it wasn't your fault, it was Gaea!" and "you just have to rest and recover!" He guessed they were right in a way, he was still drained from the jar encounter and he still questioned his sanity sometimes after his little freebee holiday in Tartarus. But that didn't give him an excuse to just lie around and let the others do all the work!

At that point Hazel walked in. She smiled at Nico and sat on the end of his bed. She looked confident and strong on the outside, but on the inside, Nico knew that his sister was a wreck on the inside. "Hey, how you doing?" she asked, her voice had a little edge of wariness in it. "Terrible, I can't get over that Percy and Annabeth are... are..." he mentally slapped myself for choking up. Normally he would've said he was fine, he had it all under control, but Hazel was his sister and he shared everything with her.

"I know, we're all in pain, but we just have to..." Whatever they had to do, Nico never found out for they were interrupted by a large shudder that rocked the whole ship. Leo's voice blasted through the loudspeakers: "Good Morning my wonderful crew! This is your super-awesome supreme commander Leo! I would just like to inform you that we are serving bagels in the mess room and that a giant, flying lion just boarded the ship! And its growling at me sooooo.... LEO OUT!" Nico and Hazel exchanged looks. Hazel's golden eyes widened a little and she bolted out the door, drawing her Imperial gold Cavalier sword from it's scabbord as she went.

Nico was close behind her. He could only stumble fast, although constantly cared for with a maximum amount of ambrosia, it had only been 1 day since the Tartarus chapter. That meant only 1 day since Nico had almost suffocated in the clutches of 2 stupid giants. He was still recovering and had lost a lot of fitness.

By the time he got onto the main deck, the 7 were already in a fighting semi-circle around a giant lioness. Although she was about to rip apart his friends, Nico couldn't help but admire how beautiful she was. She was about the size of an elephant, with sharp, steel-like teeth and claws. Her eyes were strong and a stunning caramel colour. Muscles rippled underneath her golden coat, which sparkled in the rays of sunlight. Only later did Nico realize that the 'sunlight' was actually an aura of power around this spectacular beast.

He didn't have much time to stop and stare however, as Frank was flung across the deck by a huge swipe of the lioness's paw. Luckily, he seemed only dazed and wasn't severely injured. Nico rushed forward to help the 7, comming up next to Hazel with his Styorgin Iron sword drawn. Hazel glanced behind her with a concerned expression at Frank, but, seeing he was in no immediate danger, concentrated once again on the raging animal infront of her.

The lioness let out an ear-splitting roar that shook the whole ship. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a rather large, German Bretzel shoot out of Piper's cornucopia. It was a painful projectile and caused the creature to roar in pain as it hit her shoulder. Jason sent a small bolt of electricity to the lioness's face, but it was a mere static shock for her and she went on rampaging as if nothing had happened. Jason was still weak from his fight with the giants and fending off hoards of flying monsters constantly, and couldn't manage anything more than that.

Leo was ablaze, literally, throwing random tools from his belt at the beast. He kept yelling out strange, Leo-like things like: "Burn kitty, Burn!" and "I eat Simba for breakfast!" At one point, Coach Hedge ran in, probably just hearing the commotion over his sport's channel, swinging his club like crazy. The lioness looked down at him, straight in the eye and let out a deep, throaty growl. The Coach stopped in his tracks and backed away yelling, "go get'm cupcackes! I'll stand back be your backup!"

Both Nico and Hazel took this distraction as an oppertunity and darted in to stab at the feline. Hazel was as quick as a snake, darting around the lion's back paws and jabbing at its heels, drawing a little blood and causing the lion to stumble. Nico, being weak as he was, was a little slower and went for a less reckless attack. He attacked its side, stabbing his sword into its leg. The lioness roared in pain and almost knocked Nico to the ground. Breathing heavily, he backed up into the semi-circle just as Hazel withdrew, sporting a few painful bruises.

The lioness was on a rampage. It was causing crates and roped to fly and break around the ship, tipping rations overboard into the Italian hillside below. The 7 were tiering, Nico could see it in their eyes and stances, the loss of Annabeth and Percy had its toll, and they were not in fighting shape.

Nico saw Frank slowly rising, swaying a bit but then charging into battle, shifting into a massive black bear in the process. Standing on his powerful hind legs, the Bear-Frank let out a roar that was almost as loud as the lioness's. He bared his massive fangs and swiped warningly at the lion with his terrifying claws. Everyone, including the feline, stopped and stared at Frank. The lioness and the black bear faced off. Nico was expecting to see the cat ponce and then bye bye Frank Zhang. But instead the most unexpected thing happened. The Lioness bowed.

If a bear could look stunned, then Frank did. The feline's peircing caramel eyes flickered up to Frank's furry face and she let of a low purr. Frank-Bear backed up a pace, going down onto all-fours, watching the lion with caution. All the 7, including Nico and Coach Hedge gaped at the scene that fell out before them. Suddenly, something even more unexpected happened, the lioness spoke.

Her voice was deep, yet feminine, with a light grumble added to it. She sat back on her haunches, surveying the warriors, goats and bears that stood before her. Without opening her mouth her voice radiated throughout the entire ship. "I am Atalanta, and this mighty one," she indicated to Frank, "Is my father."

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HA HA HA!!! WERN'T EXPECTING THAT ONE WERE U?????!!!!!!

I AM SOOOOO SORRY FOR THE SLOW UPDATE, BUT I'M ONLY HUMAN! I NEED TO RELAX JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE ON THE HOLIDAYS!!!!

:( SCHOOL TOMORROW........... ME NOT HAPPY

PLEASE COMMENT AND VOTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THIS IS DEDICATED TOO.......   PercyBeth122 CAUSE THEY WERE THE ONLY PERSON (or something else....) THAT COMMENTED ON MY LAST CHAPTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

QUESTION: SHOULD MY NEXT CHAPTER BE ANNABETH'S POV, OR FRANK'S POV, OR LEO'S POV?

THANKS FOR READING!

KEEP WRITING!!!!

-TashWharton88