Elora Stone and The Box of Punishments: The Cage of Strife

Chapter Ⅲ

It had been a month later and Elora had already made good friends. Percy was one of her best friends—they had a lot of time to get to know each other after he returned from his quest in December—and Leo was probably closer to her than anyone (other than Will). A bunch of campers had gone home to their families. Will, Elora and Leo had all stayed at camp year-round. Currently Elora and Leo were working on fixing the heater in the Hermes cabin since it was empty at the moment.

"What do you mean? I'm totally good looking,"

Elora laughed, "And I'm not denying it but I think there are other things you wanna do other than try to impress girls,"

Leo just shrugged, "Nah, you're right—"

"Like always," Elora smiled,

"But I've always wanted to have my own machine shop in Texas," Leo smiled to himself, "That's my dream,"

"Really? But you'll be away from me," Elora fake whined.

"Then I'll take you with me," Leo laughed,

Elora's smile quickly faded when she heard something outside, "Something's going on outside. Come on!"

The two quickly ran out of the cabin and saw a group of campers fighting. They reached the crowd and saw a kid from the Dionysus cabin and a camper from the Demeter cabin arguing about something. Leo helped Elora push through the crowd to stop the two.

"Hey! Hey! Cut it out!" Elora held Katie while Leo did the same for Pollux.

"What's going on?" Leo asked sternly.

Katie tried to lunge at Pollux, "Pollux here is talking trash about my mom,"

"Her own daughter went to live with the God of the Underworld," Pollux yelled aloud, Katie tried to lunge again.

"Stop it! Stop it both of you!" Elora yelled. The two campers went silent and still. Elora looked between the two, " Look at yourselves! What is going on with you two? Leo and I leave for ten minutes and you guys act like toddlers," Elora yelled again. Katie and Pollux both look down at the ground, "Pollux, there are many things I could say about your dad that you wouldn't like, but I don't because I don't do that to my friends,"

Leo came and placed an arm around Elora, "Katie, sometimes we just have to deal with the truth, even if we don't like it. But, Persephone's choices were not because of Demeter Pollux," Leo looked at the two of them, they both nodded.

"Go, no more fighting, please," Elora shooed them away. She leaned her head on Leo's shoulder, "That's the tenth fight today, why is everyone acting so strange?"

"I have no clue," Leo sighed in defeat, "Wanna go into town with me to go get some stuff?"

Elora nodded slightly, "Let's go tell Chiron we're leaving," they walked to the big house together, "Hey Chiron?"

The centaur was in his wheelchair in the main room, "Ah, Elora, Leo what do you need?"

"We were just wanting to go into town to get some stuff for whatever Leo needs," Elora smiled

"Alright remember not to bring too much attention to yourselves," Chiron waved them off,

"Alrighty then, let's go," Leo said cheerfully,

Once they had made it into the busy part of Manhattan, Elora was anxious from all the people. They were just exiting the store when they heard a scream. Elora rushed over towards the sound, she saw a girl struggling to get out of the grip of a buff guy, "Let go of me!" the girl screamed again. The man was dragging her towards the side of the road, the busy traffic zooming past them. The girl screamed again as the man threw her out into the road, making her fall to the ground, right in front of an incoming bus. Elora and Leo dropped their things and split up, Elora sprinted over to the road and grabbed her at the last second pulling her back to safety, Leo had gone up to the dude and started fighting him. She had come to the conclusion that the guy was a monster because his eyes were glowing and his hands looked like claws. "Leo duck!" Elora knocked an invisible arrow and shot the monster down, turning the creature into gold dust. Her and Leo brought the girl into an alley so they wouldn't be seen.