A/N: The title of this story comes from the amazing Three Days Grace song, "Give Me a Reason," which I have unofficially officially decreed as Leo's theme song. These events take place right after Lost Hero, I believe. During the whole Argo-building phase kind of.
I don't own any of these characters, they belong to Rick Riordan and whatnot.
Leo stared, unblinking, at his current target. He was fighting a losing battle, and he knew it. This was one foe he'd never been able to defeat. He could dodge this enemy for a little while, but it always managed to beat him in the end. No amount of sword-fighting or fire-blasting could help Leo now.
He was nearing the end of this battle - he could feel it.
And it would end as every other skirmish Leo had had with this particular foe had ended before - with Curiosity conquering what little Logic Leo had hidden away somewhere.
Logic: It says, "Under no circumstance should this chest ever be opened." I'm thinking this qualifies as a circumstance. And I'm also thinking that whoever carved that into the wood of this box had a very good reason to do so. Do not open this box.
Curiosity: Open it.
Curiosity always had such good arguments, Leo thought as he stared at the medium-sized chest in front of him. It was a fairly normal-looking chest - wooden, with no special inlays of gold or anything. The only decorations that adorned the box were a heavy, metal padlock with no keyhole and the sentence that had been carved deep into the side: "Under no circumstance should this chest ever be opened."
Leo knew a challenge when he heard one.
And goodness forbid he ever back down from one.
Logic was beginning to sound surly, as though it knew this battle was already lost. There's not even a keyhole in the padlock. Someone really didn't want this to be opened. Can you just, I don't know, be reasonable for once?
But of course, the ever-faithful Curiosity countered with, Open it.
And it's not like anyone else would know. He was alone in Bunker 9, as he had been when he'd stumbled upon this lovely treasure trove of mystery ten minutes ago. He'd come in here to work on the designs for the ship and had gotten a tad distracted. The chest with the tantalizing dare (because that's definitely what it was, Leo knew) had been stored at the back of a large wardrobe he hadn't explored until today. It had briefly occurred to him to tell someone about his recent discovery, but an almost (definitely) childish thought had stopped him. What if someone else got to see what was inside before he did? He found it - he should be the first to view its contents.
Leo grasped the padlock in his hand.
Logic's voice was quiet in warning. Leo. . . .
Leo hesitated.
Open it.
Flames erupted across his fingers until the padlock was white-hot. Then, with a swift twist, he snapped the soft metal.
He stared at the chest, excitement blooming in his rib cage. This was it. He was about to lay eyes on something that no one had seen for decades, going by the amount of dust layered on top of the box. "Oh yeah, who's the man, Leo's the man," Leo chanted quietly to himself as he reached for the chest.
With a quick flip of his wrist, he threw the lid of the chest back.
Curiosity shriveled in disappointment. Logic sighed in relief.
There was nothing in the chest. Nothing at all. Not even an indent in the wood to hint at whatever might have been stored there eons ago.
Leo looked at the chest in disgust. Aw man, that was so lame.
Then he inwardly shrugged, shut the lid, and went back to the table at the center of the room, promptly forgetting about the insignificant chest with the inane warning on the side.
His second mistake.