A warrior’s heart

Chapter Five

Over the night, Ariella helped Nell with his work. They finished around midnight and she placed the last page down.

She stretches her arms above her head, “Finally. I think I need to train to loosen up my muscles.”

“Sound’s like a pleasant idea,” Nell says, rolling his neck, “there’s a gym the guards use. I’ll lead the way,” he gets up from his seat and Ariella follows him out of the room.

They make they’re way down the the basement and come to a set of double doors. The doors open and there was every type of workout machine there was. There was even a wrestling ring in the middle of the large room. Two guards were currently in the ring and others were scattered around the room keeping their shape.

Ariella makes her way to the ring, “I’m next.” She says with confidence.

Everyone around her stops what they were doing to look at her. Thunderous laughter broke out, except for those who survived her attack the night before, who were taking several steps away from her, as she just stood there.

“Sorry, sweetheart,” one of them says, “you’re much too small to take any of us on. And you don’t have your weapons to take us on.” He points to some of the small weights, “How about you go your pace and let the men have their fun.”

She scoffs at them, ties the t-shirt securely in a knot around her abdomen, and climbs into the ring. The men who had been wrestling stop and face her.

“Get out of there, sweetheart,” the same guard climbs in after her, grabing her wrist, “get out before you get huRT!!!”

She grabs his hand, bends his fingers back, twisted his arm behind his back and bringing him to his knees. “You were saying, ‘sweetheart’?” She says in a mocking tone.

The guard gets mad and struggles to wrench his arm away. He spins around to tackle her but she swipe kicks his side before moving away. The kick was hard enough to leave him groaning.

She allows him to get up and into a fighting stance. He lunges forward, first raised and angles to hit her square in the jaw. She moves last minute, and jabs him in the ribs and he winces.

She’s bouncing around waiting for him with an amused smile on her face. The guard starts to get angrier and wildly throws punches that she effortlessly dodges. She jumps up, wraping her legs around his neck and, using her weight as momentum, spins and brings him down on his back.

He just lay there panting for breath and groaning in pain with each one.

She stands up, “Now, tell me who got hurt again?”

The room was silent as two other guards clamor up to help the first down and out of the ring. Nell was watching, impressed by the spectacle that was his prisoner.

“Who else wants to go a round?” Ariella takes the time to secure her hair away.

A fourth guard, the biggest of them, climbs into the ring, “You just got lucky, little girl.” He starts throwing punches that she blocks. His blows held more power sure, but there’s a reason you don’t judge a person based on size alone.

She pulls out some kung fu moves on him until his arms couldn’t move on their own and she just placed her palm in his chest. The crowd was confused until, with the slightest touch, he was pushed back to the floor. Her palm was now in a fist. She had performed the inch punch that masters had trained years to perfect. She steps back and exhales a breath. "That was very refreshing." she crosses an arm and stretches.

"How do you know how to fight like that?" A guard says, they all start to gather around.

Ariella lifts the rubber railing and ducks beneath before jumping down. "I was trained since young to be a warrior. I was trained in all forms of martial arts and how to defeat enemies even bigger then him." she gestures back to the man who was slowly getting up, clutching his chest where she punched him. "'Judge not a man by his stature but by his heart'. That's what my father told me when I wasn't growing as tall as the other children."

"Why aren't you in school?" Another asks, "You can't be older then seventeen."

"I'm actually nineteen. Education was important and, being as smart as I am, I graduated quite early and finished college two years ago. Anything else about myself I'm afraid I can't answer." She starts to walk to one of the machines and the guards hurriedly move out of the way.

Nell looks at his employees. It appeared that, within the few minutes she was in the gym, Ariella had earned the respect of all of the guards. He wasn't too sure how he felt about that though. On one hand, he liked the idea that she could hold her own against such strong men. On the other, he didn't want other men getting closer to her. He wanted to keep her locked up in his room, away from the eyes of others and that friend of hers. What was his name again? Andrew? But he didn't want to keep her from doing what she wanted.

Ariella had made her way to the bench and began to place more and more weights on until there was about three-hundred pounds of weight, not including the bar. She lays down on the bench and all of the men rush over to help spot her. Fighting for that right to help her.

"Guys," she says, getting annoyed, "I don't need your help. I've benched more then this before."

She carefully puts her hands into position and lifts it up above her chest. As she starts her reps, everyone was counting how many times she was pressing. Ten, twenty, thirty. At fifty reps she places the bar back on the ledge and sits up. There was barely a sweat trail on her forehead.

Many were trying to give her their protein shake to help replenish her energy. Nell couldn't take anymore of this and pushed his way through to her. "You must be hungry for some solid food." He gives a side eye to all the guards and they back away.

"Actually," Ariella gets up, rolling her neck, "I could go for a steak or corned beef."

"I'll have the chefs cook a steak for you." They make their way out of the training room and up to Nell's room. There, he makes a call to the kitchen reguesting two steaks and potatoes. He also whispers something into the phone that Ariella couldn't hear. She sits on the couch and, with his promision, turns on the tv.

An errotic noise came from the speakers and she instantly mute it then quickly changed the channel. "And here I thought you wouldn't need pornography."

Nell can't see her face but he can see that her ears were bright red. "What are you embarased about? Beautiful girl like you," he makes his way to the couch, "Must've been with a few men, yes?"

"No. Was too busy working to save the world and training to even consider that option." she continues to surf the channels, hoping the topic would be dropped.

He looked at her surprised. "You've never had sex?"

"I believe I just said that." She settles on a news channel and curls up in her seat.

He sits down facing her, his arm draped over the back of the couch, "Not even with your friend, Carl?"

"Still not his name and why would you bring him up?," She watches the weather segment, "Not really important right now, anyway."

Before he could say another word, a knock on the door tells them that their food was there, "Enter," A maid, in proper uniform, walks in pushing a cart and places the plates of food on the table.

"Will there be anything else, sir?"

"What is the wine being acompanied with our meal this evening?"

"An 1893, red Cabernet Sauvignon."

"An excellent year."

The maid pours the glass for Nell but when she goes to pour one for Ariella, "I'm sorry but I don't drink. A glass of pomegranate juice would be a good subsitute or cranberry."

The maid looks at Nell, with his glass raised to his lips, "That sounds delightful. And I'll have a glass of that as well after this one." He takes a sip. She nods her head and makes her way out of the room, back to the kitchen. Nell turned back to Ariella, "Do you do anything for fun?"

"Probably not what you consider fun," she changes the channel to a rerun of Wheel of Fortune. She grabs her knife and fork and starts to devoure her food.

"You were very hungry it seems." he begins to eat his own food.

"I haven't really eaten in about twenty hours so, yeah," she says sarcasticly with a mouth full, "I think I am hungry. What an unusal flavor. Did they use cardamom or something?"

Before he could answer, the maid comes back a moment later with pomegranate juice. She pours a glass and gives it to Ariella. "Thank you," she says to the woman.

The maid looks up in surprise, "You're welcome, miss."

"That will be all for now." Nell says, waving the maid away. She bows and makes her way out.

Ariella takes a sip of her juice, "Mmm, that is so good." She looks up at the tv, "'It's an amazing life'"

Nell looks at the tv as well. 'It's An Amazing Life'. One of the contestants says a few minutes after she did. "That was fantastic," He turns to look at her again, "You truly are brilliant."

"You keep saying that like you haven't already known that." She takes another bite of her food.

"I suppose I should stop judging you based on how you look."

She stops before another her fork goes back into her mouth, "Are you saying I look like an idiot?" She scoffs.

He quickly back tracks, "I..I just meant... That is..." He stammers as he tries to get a cohessive sentince together. She puts her fork and plate down and crosses her arms, patiently waiting for him to respond. "I should just study medicine to learn how to get my foot out of my mouth." He laughs awkwardly.

She scoffs at him again, "Just because you're smarter then most people in the room, doesn't mean you can underestemate everyone."

She suddenly feels the presence of her companion coming back. She didn't hear him asking if she was ok and just grabs her plate and makes her way into the bedroom, shutting the door and craking the window open.

In flew Kia in beetle form before they shifted again into a cat. 'I felt what happened. Are you ok?'

'I'm fine. Unless he has one of the drugs from home, nothing he gives me will even make me drowsy.' She continues to eat her food. 'He want's something from me but I can't seem to key in on what it is'

Kia slinks their way up onto the bed and nozzles into Ariella's side. They tried to sneak a bit of steak. She cuts off a small bite and feeds it to her companion. They chomp on the steak and licks their lips, looking up, silently asking for more. 'don't even think about it' she finishes the food and puts the empty plate on the bed.

Kia makes their way over and licks the plate clean. A knock on the door draws their attention and they transform back into a beetle to hide. "Ariella," Nell says from the other side of the door. "Can I talk to you?"

Ariella looks at kia, who landed on her shoulder, then answers, "You may come in."

Nell opens the door and peaks inside, "Is everything alright? You left so suddenly I was afraid you weren't feeling well."

"No, nothing like that. I just needed to be alone for a moment," She answers as kia scuttles on her shoulder.

The movement catches his attention, "Don't move," he says softly as he slowly approaches.

He readies his hand to swipe Kia off her shoulder when, "Wait!" Ariella shouts as Kia shifts again into a panther and positions itself between her and Nell. He falls back in shock and shuffles back until he was against the door.

"Calm down, Kia," Ariella says, getting up from her spot and in front of her companion.

"What is that?!" He franticly says.

"You calm down too." she snaps at him. She starts to sooth Kia, "It's alright. He just thought you were a bug. He wasn't going to hurt me." She turns back to him, "Right?"

Kia snarls, causing him to flinch and quickly answer, "Yes! I only thought you were a bug! Please don't eat me!"

Kia huffs and shifts back into a house cat again. 'Like he would taste good.'

"Be nice," Ariella says outloud. She sits back down on the bed and Kia saunters over to her lap and lays down.

"What is that thing?" Nell carefully ventures a question. Still not approaching.

Kia lifts up her haunches, 'Thing?! Who is he calling a thing?' They start hissing at him again.

"I'm afraid you're not qualified to know that." She says petting her companion to calm them down.

"You are my prisioner and you will," He was cut off when Kia snarls at him again and he plasters himself against the door.

"I'm really not supposed to tell anyone outside my society about our secrets. You could say it's a matter of 'National Security'." She scratches beneath their chin and they start to purr.

"What CAN you tell me?"

She thought for a moment, "You are as smart as the smartest scientist in my society." A realization crossed her mind, "Do you absolutely know nothing about who your parents are?"

This surprised him, "What does that have to do with the price of pie?"

"Just answer the question."

"The only thing I know is that they left me with this," He pulls out a necklace that was hidden in his shirt. "No one knows what the writing means or it's origin."

The pendant looked familliar to Ariella, "May I give it a try?"

"You can try but I won't get my hopes up." He moves to stand up until Kia snarls for a third time. So he just tosses it to Ariella.

She turns it over in her hand. Carefully examining its surface. And with a push of a secret button, the pendant opens. Music starts to play and opening it further reveals a picture. The picture was of a lovely family. Nell was almost an exact copy of his father. But it was his mother that caught her attention. She had very similar features as Ambrose's own mother. Like sisters. Perhaps twins, "It seems this is a special locket. And the writing translates to 'To my darling baby boy, Remember that you are loved'."

Nell stands up and makes his way to grab the locket. "I-I know this song. It's a faint memory but I remeber." He looks at the writing, then to Ariella, "How were you able to read this when professionals couldn't?"

"Because this is used as a sort of ceremony. It's ingraved with a long lost language. Only known to those who are raised from that nation. From Cowasia. This means you're part Cowasian."