Pinkie and Kratos made their way into the Temple of Helios carefully, unsure what would await them. Kratos was relatively unsurprised to discover various monsters appearing to challenge them, although he felt Pinkie may have been a little too eager in engaging in battle. The first few groups of enemies used one of two types of attacks; they either threw explosives at them that created circles of flame when they landed, or they struck with two swords in a dance like maneuver. Neither tactic proved effective against Pinkie, as her strangely configured axe proved as effective with small projectiles as large ones. As for when they swung at her, she danced backwards between the strikes, forcing them to overextend, then lunging under the last strike, severing the extended arm at the elbow, and then using the attached blade to impale the humanoid beast.
Between that and her tendency to shoot javelins from a blowpipe to pin monsters to walls by their eyes, neither Kratos nor Pinkie had any trouble slaughtering their way through to the inside of the Temple. Kratos did blink the first time he saw the javelin-blowpipe maneuver, mostly because he couldn't figure out how it could work when the narrowest point of the javelin - barring the point - was wider than the widest point of the blowpipe.
Continuing their journey in silence - Kratos was not garrulous by nature, and Pinkie was keeping her ears open for that music they heard before - they eventually came to a locked elevator. Getting on the central platform, each of them broke one of the locks, riding the platform down deeper into the Temple, Pinkie happily bucking the monsters off the sides into deep pits with both hind hooves when she got the chance.
As the platform came to a halt, a massive armor appeared before them, possessed by a fiery spirit. As Kratos prepared to fight, however, Pinkie gasped. "Oh! That could come in handy!" She promptly yanked each piece of armor off the spirit, stuffing them into her mane. Seizing the sword, she dragged the spirit over to Kratos, pulled the Efreet out of him, and fed the fire spirit to the fire Djinn before letting him reeneter Kratos. She then stuffed the sword into her mane as well.
Kratos could only blink, staring at what just happened. While he couldn't deny that he felt the power of the Efreet stronger inside him now, that had been strange even for Pinkie's antics. He started to open his mouth to question, then shook his head, deciding - as he had many times before - that it wasn't important how Pinkie managed these things, only that they worked to aid their progress.
Eventually, they reached an area that seemed to be towards the center of the Temple, or at least was designed with a theme that resembled a hub. After pushing over a pillar to reach the central platform, Kratos and Pinkie were both startled as a statue began to speak.
"I am glad that you have come, Ghost of Sparta," the statue addressed them. "The Titan Atlas has been freed from the Pits of Tartarus, and has taken my brother, Helios, from his rightful place in the sky."
"What does Atlas want with the Sun God?" Kratos inquired, somewhat forcefully.
"Helios holds within him the power of the sun," the statue - the goddess, apparently - replied, "a power so great it can destroy the world. It cannot be trusted in the hands of a Titan."
"How come Atlas isn't effected by Morpheus?" Pinkie inquired curiously.
"Please take the sun shield from his throne," the statue continued, ignoring Pinkie's inquiry as a door opened, "walk through the gates of Olympus, and you will find me."
"Stupid recorded messages," Pinkie groused.
"Hurry Kratos," the message continued. "Even now, my brother suffers at the hand of Atlas." With that, the energy animating the statue faded.
Kratos ruffled Pinkie's mane to shake off her grumps, then pulled down another pillar with the Blades of Chaos to let them cross to the door that had opened.
The door closed behind them as they entered Helios' throne room. There, braced in the top of the throne, was the shield in question. Climbing up on the throne, Pinkie struggled to pull it free. "It's stuck!"
"The throne is only stone," Kratos informed Pinkie, drawing his blades.
Nodding, Pinkie jumped back, letting Kratos smash the throne to retrieve the shield. After acquiring it - and defeating those monsters that appeared, apparently as either a security system or what Pinkie called a 'tutorial segment' - Kratos used the Sun Shield to open up the first of what would surely be many doors.
At what lay behind the door, however, Pinkie groaned. "We just came down an elevator, and now we have to climb stairs?" She threw up her forehooves in frustration. "What next?"
"The stairs won't climb themselves, Pinkie," Kratos pointed out, heading for the stairwell.
Pinkie nodded, following him. Part way up, however, Kratos was surprised as Pinkie zipped by him on the underside of the stairwell, all four hooves braced as she skidded upward shouting, "WEEEEEE!" Shaking his head helplessly, Kratos increased his pace to catch up with her as she flipped right side up at the top level of the stairwell. "Again!" she shouted happily.
Kratos rolled his eyes as the stairwell sealed itself off. Glancing around, he saw the black fog of Morpheus had begun to encroach on the temple, and the creatures of the fog had begun to take shape, blocking their path.
"So...can that Sun Shield make sunlight?" Pinkie asked. "Cause that might help drive these guys back."
"It might," Kratos admitted, "though I have no idea how."
"So...hacky slashy?" Pinkie offered.
Kratos nodded. "Hacky-slashy," he replied, having grown used to Pinkie's childish terminology, given she was a child.
After clearing out a group of shadow beasts, Kratos used the Sun Shield to open up another stairwell downward.
"Down, up, down, up...why can't we just go straight?" Pinkie demanded. "Who designed this Temple into such a convoluted mess?"
"It was probably designed this way to hold back invaders," Kratos pointed out.
Pinkie stared at him flat eyed. "Daddy...this Temple is normally suspended in the sky, flying around the world as the sun. What sort of invaders did they expect to have?"
Unable to answer this question, Kratos merely shrugged before descending the stairwell, the grumbling equine following behind.