Midnight Meal

After seeing the phoenix declare her loyalty to Jewels, Nemean fell to his knees and re-declared his loyalty.

"This golden lion has done you a great wrong as well. As your animal to call, this golden lion held secrets to myself and did not share with you all my truths. This golden lion has misjudged you on the words of a stranger and questioned your character causing a misunderstanding and mistrust between my human and your animal to call. It is this golden's lions fault that this golden lion will take full responsibility." Nemean said desperately.

"And how, prey tell me, how are you, my golden lion to call, how are you going to take full responsibility?" Jewels said coldly.

After what Jewels and Nemean went through, Jewels never thought that Nemean would betray her with words said from a stranger. At the very least, if he questioned her motives, he could of asked her and she would have told him. But instead he jumped to his own conclusions and held some secrets away from her, he broke their trust. Once her trust is given to someone, it is given whole hardheartedly, however once that trust is broken, it would take more than an apology for that trust to be rebuilt. And at that moment, Jewels didn't care for the bird or the cat.

Not knowing what to say to take responsibility, Nemean bows down towards Jewels, his forehead touching the ground.

"This golden lion, without a name, you, as my human, named this nameless golden lion, Nemean, a ferocious lion in one of your lives, pledges that this golden lion of yours to call will help you reach your goal of standing on top of the world and help you pay back those who wronged you with great vengeance. This lion of yours will stand by you after your goal has been reached and stand watch over you and beside you even after you are old and buried." Nemean declared.

Slightly moved by his declaration, but unwilling to give him an inch of forgiveness, Jewels gets up and leaves them kneeling there. If they follow, then they follow on their own free will. She won't force them to do anything they don't want to do. And in that moment getting out of where ever they are is more important than them declaring their undying loyalty towards her.

She walked until she reached the other side of the cavern, there were stairs the led upstairs and Jewels starts to climb them. Nemean bounced up in his lion form and told her to get on so he can take her to the top. Fenghuang rode on his back too weak and tired to climb any stairs or change into her phoenix form to fly. Looking at them menacingly, Jewels continues on her way up the stairs with out saying anything to them. She was too stubborn and willful to climb on to his back and let him help her. His betrayal hurt her too much for her to let him see how she felt so instead she would rather have him see her as mad and stubborn.

Jewels knew that people, humans, were able to betray one another, but when she and Nemean made a contract, she thought other than her Uncle and Pop pop, there was Nemean who would never betray her because he was an animal. And animals never betray their humans. At least that was what she thought at the time. Nemean leaps to the top of the stairs and leaves Fenghuang there and leaps back down to Jewels. Again when he invites her to ride his back, she ignores him and continues on her way up the steep steps. So instead of leaping back up to the top of the stairs, Nemean turns back into his human form and follows her up the stairs behind her. Not saying a word, he climbs the rest of the stairs staring at her back.

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When the three of them found a pathway out of the mountain they let Jewels lead the way. Jewels refusing to stop to let Fenghuang rest and recuperate, she kept her pace walking as Nemean carried Fenghuang out of the mountain. Even though Jewels was drenched in sweat and her muscles in her thighs burned and ached because it was overused, Jewels marched on down the pathway that led down the mountain.

It wasn't until Jewels was truly tired after walking for two hours that the scrap on her arm started to bother her. At the time of the incident, she forgot to treat herself, because she was too angry to bother to take care of her injury. Sitting down in the shade by a tree, Jewels takes off the satchel around her body and slowly peels off the cardigan she wore. The cardigan stuck on to the dry skin as she pulled it off her slowly. Sucking air into her body through her teeth, she felt the pain and saw how deep the scrape was. When she finally pulled everything off her arms, it reopened the injury and started to bleed again. Jewels held a clean part of the cardigan to the wound and tightly squeezed it, hoping to stop the bleeding. In the meantime, she wished she brought her bag of remedies and potions with her at all times, then that way, if she was ever pulled into another dimension like her current situation, she would always be ready for any situation. All she had on her when she came here was the clothes on her back and the leather bracer with two daggers and five throwing needle darts.

Nemean walks slowly up to her with the intentions of healing her wound, but when he crouched down to her and reached out to grab the cardigan out from her hands, Jewels whispered slowly to him in a tired voice.

"Don't. I don't trust you, Kitty."

Nemean's heart broke even more. His head hung low with sorrow. She called him kitty. The great name she called him no longer left her lips. Even though his heart broke with her words, he still continued to do what he came there to do. After a short struggle, Jewels finally gave into Nemean healing her wound. It would have not been so weird had Nemean turned back into his lion form and licked her wound. However Nemean stayed in his human form and with his human tongue, licked her wound until it stopped bleeding. His eyes glued on to Jewels face to gauge her emotions. However Jewels face did not move nor did it even twitch. She stared straight in front of her impassively and waited until Nemean finished.
When he finished, Jewels scooted over to the other side of the tree and closed her eye to rest.  Nemean crouched in his spot for a long time looking at Jewels back and regretted his past action in the cavern.  He couldn't blame Fenghuang, she told him what she saw, it was up to Nemean to decide what the truth was.  His time with Jewels taught him that she was a hard working person.  Even though she was tired, she still found time to meet each person in her family to make sure they were fine.  She met up with her Master and took care of him. She worked at the orphanage and played with the children there.  She and the Prince made time for each other too.  And no matter how tired she was at the end of the day, she would cultivate and train in her training room until late into the night and wake up early to train some more.   She worked hard to gain her strength and not once use her strength to bully the feeble and weak, yet he took the words of a stranger as gospel and wronged his human. 

Jewels and Fenghuang fell asleep as Nemean, although tired, refused to sleep.  Keeping watch over them to ensure they were safe while they rested.  When Jewels woke up, she looked at Nemean and his head kept tilting forward and when it did, he would wake up and stand guard again.  Feeling sorry towards his situation, Jewels through her needle dart at Nemean's temple.  The needle hit him straight on and he fell forward succumbing  into a deep sleep.  Standing up, she props him against a tree and takes the needle out from his temple.  Wiping off the needle, she replaces it back on to her leather bracer.   When she turns back around Fenghuang had been awake the whole time and watched the interaction between human and animal.  She thought that Jewels was not such the bad human she thought Jewels was when she first met her.  Jewels walks towards Fenghuang and with her hand out Jewels demands the scrolls that were promised to her.  

"My scrolls,"  Jewels demanded.

Reaching into her scared box that she carried with her at all times, she hands over all the scrolls in the box to Jewels.  Jewels holds on to the scrolls and goes back to her spot under the tree and opens the scrolls one by one.  Expecting Jewels to read the scrolls over two hours for each scroll, she was surprised to see Jewels open the scroll then close it and move on to the next scroll.  When she reached out to the last scroll, that was when Jewels grabbed her temples as if they were hurting and she silently screamed, not letting those around know how much pain she was in.  Jewels fainted back on to the tree and Fenghuang got up and retrieved the scrolls back and put them back into her box. 

Jewels went through the scrolls quickly, reading through the special fighting techniques.  All five fighting techniques were fire based.  The first scroll held secrets that taught her how to manipulate the fire energy within herself and pull it forward to make a fire ball.  The second technique taught her how to make six fireballs by extending her dantians larger and holding on to the enhanced dantians, she would be able to have enough energy to create six fireballs.  The stronger the dantians, the more fireballs she could make.  The third scroll taught her how to make a fire shield that could block any weapon attack to her body.  The fire would melt the weapon by spreading its fire all over the weapon.  The only way to stop this move would be if the opponent was a water base cultivator and had water molecules spread over their weapon as protection.  The fourth scroll taught her how to create a fire force field that protected her whole body from elemental attacks.  The fifth scroll taught her how to create a bigger fire force field so it can protect her and several people within, without burning the people inside.  

When Jewels looked at the scrolls and read through them, it was as if she understood each principle to the techniques perfectly.  The movement she had to make, how much energy that she would need to cultivate to access the technique, and how many times she could preform the special technique at her lowest, medium, and maximum power.  

The last scroll that she read pushed her mind into a state of pain and unconsciousness.  Not again, she thought before darkness consumed her. 

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Jewels opens her eyes and she is in a grey space.  Everything around her is grey.  Endless grey walls and floors.  Although the space was grey, the space was huge.  It could be compared to three times the size of Brooks Manor property.  In the grey space, Jewels could feel the purity of the energy that surrounded her.  Sitting down, she started to cultivate the energy that surrounded her.  After some time when all the energy that she cultivated pushed her dantians to the maximum and over flowed, she heard the roar of thunder, followed by a flash of lightning that hit her once.  The over flowing energy filled her once again, filling her dantians over again as she broke through to low level 7 energy cultivator.  

And as soon as she arrived to the grey space, she came back to her current reality with Fenghuang and Nemean kneeling over her, yelling out her name. Her eyes blinked a couple of times before she opened her mouth to make a snarky comment. 

"Sorry to disappoint, but I'm not exactly dead yet."  Jewels said to them.  She saw the worry in both of their eyes, but she also saw the hurt flash through Nemean's eye quickly before he hid it and replaced it with relief that she was okay. 

Turning her face away from them, she closes her eyes again and falls asleep forcing them to go back to their corners.  

When she wakes up again, she hears Fenghuang teaching Nemean how to breath fire.  Not knowing how long they've been at it, she could hear Fenghuang calmly teach Nemean, while his frustrated growls and roars could be heard through human lips.  After awhile, Jewels falls back asleep, too tired and over whelmed to care about her safety at the moment.  

When she awakes, Nemean is in front of her checking to see if she was dead or alive.  His finger hovered just below her nose.  

"Still not dead yet, Kitty."  Jewels told him with dead eyes and a monotone voice. 

Growling at Jewels, Nemean stands up and walks away.  Being mean like this to people was not her way, she never liked treating people this way for such a long time.  But to keep them at a distance away from her, she would be mean so they would leave her side.  

Down the path, they make their way for what felt like days and when they finally reached the bottom of the mountain, in front of them was another lake.  And in the middle of the lake was something that shined red and caught Jewels eyes.  

"Hot damn it." Jewels says as the red shiny object called to her soul.  Even after she said she wasn't going to go into another body of water to get shiny objects any more, she found a red shiny object that called to her and made it hard for her to look away.  Resigning herself to get the shiny red object, she starts walking towards the object and when the water meets her at her waist, she hears, Nemean and Fenghuang walk in after her.  Turning around she sees them walk towards her as if they would follow her to the ends of the earth.  Turning back to her destination, she starts to swim towards the middle of the lake and when she reaches right above the red shiny object, Jewels dives down, making her way to her treasure.  When she was a hands reach away from the red object, she could feel the dark aura come straight at her again.  Kicking her feet hard, her hand finally reached the hard red object in the sand and kicks her way upward towards the surface.  Nemean and Fenghuang watched Jewels as she swam up and when she reached them, they both took one arm and threw her up with all their might.  

Jewels flew through the water and up into the air as a water dragon follows her from the water and tries to catch her in the air.  Fenghuang and Nemean were next to fly through the water and when they reached the dragon, Nemean, changed his hands into claws and scratched the water dragon as he held on to its scale, pulling them out one by one.  Fenghuang opens her mouth and breathed fire straight into the water dragon's face, melting its whiskers and eyelashes quickly while causing a slight burn on its scales. 

Jewels who first flew up from the throw, started falling down just as quickly.  Her energy cultivation just broke through to low level 7, however she did not learn the Flying Eagle Technique yet.  With her arms flaying around and her hand squeezing the red object tightly in her hand, she took the dagger from the leather bracer and aimed herself to fall close to the water dragon.  When she was just on top of the water dragon, it was then that it noticed Jewels and turned its head towards Jewels and prepared to throw a water ball at Jewels.  But with Nemean hanging on to his scales and pulling them out from his back and Fenghuang's fireballs hitting his side and head, his water ball completely missed Jewels as she struck her dagger into his body and as she fell, the dagger dragged down the front of his body, opening him up from throat to belly.   The water dragon roared loudly once again before it's body started falling.  Jewels looked up at the dark dragon figure that would fall on top of her in the lake and dreaded the feeling of beign squished between the lake and the water dragon.  But instead of feeling that, Jewels felt Nemean's hand wrap around her and pull her towards him as he flies over the lake and headed to the shore.  

When they land, Jewels places her hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath.  Once she was calmed, she opened her hand and in her palm held a red ruby the size of her fist.  Smiling to herself she finally figured what she was holding in her hand and what lied in her bag.  She already has the Five-Star Gem, the Black Jade Leaf, the white Pearl and now the Red Ruby.  Combined together with the Green Emerald and the Sea Blue Sapphire , Jewels would have in her hands the Infinite Healing Potion, said to heal any and all ailments.  This legendary potion could only created by a master herbalist and just a drop of the potion into a barrow of water could cure a whole village. If she added the Raven's wood the healing properties in the potion would increase tenfold.  She would be able to cure Pop pop without finding what he tried to brew to heal Uncle Jude.  All she needed now was to find the Green Emerald and the Sea Blue Sapphire.  

Placing the ruby into her bag, she starts to head out.  Nemean and Fenghuang follow her without a word.  They make their way out of the forest and keep walking towards the dark landscape in front of them.  Jewels figured, when they came to this dimension, they started in darkness then came into the light which then brought them to the forest.  If they leave the forest and make their way to the light, then enter the darkness, the darkness would bring them back to their world without harm.  

When they reached the darkness, it enveloped the three of them.  A strange feeling overwhelmed them and they all lost consciousness again.  Jewels was the first to wake up in her room.  At the foot of the bed slept a gold lion and a red phoenix beside it.  Pointing her metal bracer out towards them, she pulls their sleeping bodies into the bracer and hoped to a void an awkward conversation between the three of them.  

Behind her mirror on the dresser, was Jewels safe that she built.  Opening the safe with her energy, it flips open to show her treasures.  Placing the pearl and the ruby inside she closes the door and resets the booby trap.  As an extra percussion, she infuses the lock with her fire energy so if anyone without the correct key to the lock who tries to open the safe would be burned with the fire energy. The small ball of fire energy would not only burn their hand but the fire will travel down its veins and burn them from the inside out.  It was a ruthless set up, but it would be worth it for she had four out of the six jewels to make the Infinite Healing Potion. 

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The night was late when Jewels finished getting ready for bed.  Raiden however had not made his way to her room and she wondered where he was.  Her stomach growled in protest of missing lunch and dinner.  Opening her door, Roku and Ichi still stood in their positions, watching over her door.  

"Have any of you eaten yet?"  Jewels asked. 

"No, Lady Jewels, we have not had our meals yet." Roku said. 

"How about the other guards?"

"No they have not." 

"What about Raiden?"  Jewels asked softly. 

"No, Lady Jewels, Prince Raiden has not had his meal yet either."  

She made her way into the kitchen with Roku and Ichi following her.  She opened the cabinets and fridge door to see what ingredients she could use to make a quick meal for everyone.  She decided to make salad with a light vinaigrette, fresh tomato pasta with garlic cheesy bread.  When everything was close to being finished, she asked Ichi to go call down the rest of the guards, maids and invite Prince Raiden for some midnight meal.  Roku helped Jewels set up the table and as they finished setting up the table, Raiden walks in with tired red eyes and hollowed cheeks.  Walking up to him, she places both hands over his cheeks and kisses his lips lightly before grabbing his hand and she led him to the head of the table.  Once he sat down, she invited everyone to sit down and share a meal together.  At first everyone was hesitant, but with Jewels insistence and threat of never cooking for them again and for taking offense of false praises after eating her food away from her eyes.  Did they all sit down to a midnight meal.  

Everyone praised her cooking finishing off everything on their plates as well as the extra portions in the pot that was in the kitchen.  Jewels noted that next time should she cook, she would have to make more than usual.  Raiden himself finished two bowls of pasta with four pieces of garlic cheesy bread and two servings of salad.  Jewels in her hungry state ate one bowl of pasta with four garlic cheesy bread and two servings of salad.  When the whole table was empty of food, did Jewels finally noticed that no one spoke.  Everyone just ate and ate and ate.  Laughing to herself she stands up to clear the table when Raiden pulls her into his lap and sets the bowl in her hand down on to the table. 

"Let the maids clean up," Raiden said as he looked at Jewels in wonder.  "I didn't know you could cook." 

"I can do a lot to things that no one know about!"  Jewels told him.

"Hmmm, I bet." Raiden said as he tucked her head against the side of his jaw.  She listened to his heart beat and slowly fell asleep.  

When she woke up again, she was in a comfortable bed with curtains hanging down to block the small light coming from the side of the room.  Opening the curtain, she sees Raidens sleepy body fall forward then catch itself before falling again.  Instead of watching the sad state Raiden was in, Jewels gets out of bed and grabs hold of his hand.  Raiden wakes up once their fingers touch. 

"Lets go to bed." Jewels tells him.

"I have a lot of work to do." Raiden said as he tried to gently deny her. 

"What good would it do, if you make a mistake in your sleepless state?  You're already half asleep sitting here.  Come to bed and sleep for a couple of hours if you have a lot of things to do. At least then you wouldn't be so sleepy when you look over your work and won't make any mistakes."  Jewels pleaded with puppy eyes.  

A happy feeling filled his heart as he lets her drag him away from the desk and into bed.  Once inside, Jewels closes the curtain, blocking out any light and they lay down back to front, Raiden holding her tightly against his body.  

"I'm not going to ask you if you want to talk about it right now because you deserve to sleep.  But I will be asking you tomorrow, just to let you know." Jewels warned him.  "Sleep now." 

Squeezing Jewels tighter to him, he moves her until he traps her underneath him and once his body intertwines with hers, do they finally relax and fall asleep. 

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Three chapters in one day to make up for the lack of update from the past few days.  Hope you guys enjoyed the story and again thanks for all the love and support.  -ptd