Chapter 88 - Army Of Fake Maids

"Did you hear that?" Petunia suddenly said, interrupting Fily's presentation about their individual tasks later.

"What?" asked Venedette. As the most focused one when it comes to saving her kid, Venedette did not appreciate Petunia's sudden interruption which was only followed by a long silence before she finally responded.

"Von and Lei, I heard their voices. They're still inside the castle's protective bubble!" Petunia said, further proving her point by showing them the trackers from Von and Lei's stat-huts getting back on track to their screens.

"Should we save them?" Petunia quickly followed after seeing the conflicted faces of everyone in the room. Fily told them to let Von and Lei be captured, let the village burn and let the picture be complete. Complete… but with substitutes. Instead of the real superhumans living in Gamora's Village, there will be palace guards and fire protective measures on the inside of every house there.

But for Von and Lei, Fily said they needed to find a substitute, which was almost as impossible as making a fish talk due to the people's knowledge of Von as the island's prince and Lei, his protector.

"Where are they?" Fily suddenly asked which sparked a light of hope in Petunia that she will allow them to save the two.

"They're running from the end of the hallway," Venedette muttered while watching the two dots on her screen moving towards their direction at full speed as if they were being chased by someone… 

"I can hear more voices." Petunia said and jumped beside the window, kicking it open so that her senses would be keener and thus would be able to catch more of what was happening on the other side of the castle where Von and Lei were.

But instead of more voices, all she could hear was a single voice of an old lady which she assumed was the Crone that kidnapped the boys. But here's the catch, although the voice was undeniably just one, there were a lot of overlapping words being uttered by the same voice at the very same time!

And then Petunia remembered Fily's words, "Contrary to everyone's belief, Crones travel in packs and pretend as one another, one by one."

This realization made Petunia shrink from her confident pose.

"Why? What's the matter?" Fily said with concern etched on her face after seeing Petunia back off from the window without any words being uttered from her mouth.

"Petunia?" Venedette said and went closer to her too, giving her a slight shake on her shoulder to bring her back to reality, which seemed to work as Petunia was now shaking her head mysteriously.

"What's wrong??" Fily said, now having a wild guess of what Petunia might have seen or heard with her supersenses.

"T-They're here," Petunia muttered in disbelief.

"And the boys are running away from them," Venedette said before flying over the window, across the fountain that was situated at the same axis as the Castle's front doors, in hopes of seeing her child once more from the shadows before she makes a riskier decision than making Von join the tournament.

But this time, it was a choice between Von or everyone else, and as a Princess, Venedette knew that her responsibilities to her people must come first before anything else.

And so she flew and saw the two being chased by a bunch of maids along the hallways.

But wait, maids? Why are they chasing them? 

Did they assume wrong about the Crones striking today?

Could the two of them have anything in their possession that could explain their sudden disappearance from the radars? 

But no matter how Venedette tries and recall anything that could help make them disappear like that, there was nothing that popped out of her mind.

"Mom!" Von shouted from the hallways after seeing her floating around.

But since Venedette was still too busy wondering if these are actually her maids or just crones in disguise, she thought it would be just better to let them go with those monsters either way.

The maids may, or may not be the Crones that also managed to break in the highest level of security that they have right now but if it's Von and Lei's destiny to be kidnapped right here, then that was it. She knew the both of them would be safe until midnight anyway so there was still time. Time to complete the Prophecy and save Von and Lei after the audience picture taking right away. 

***

"Why is she not answering? Can't she see me?" Von snickered while flying at the same speed as Lei was running away from the maids that were now following them suddenly out of nowhere.

"Shout louder!" Lei advised while still balancing his speed.

"MOM!! HELP!! We're being kidnapped!!!" Von said and flew closer to Venedette just as where the sticky ropes could take him.

"Wait, can you try that again? And carry me this time." Lei suggested while they were nearing the open walls of the castle's hallway.

"What?!" Von shouted back when he couldn't hear what Lei said because of the speed that they were running (or flying) with.

"Take me to your mom-" Lei shouted even more but then when he looked back at the bright sky beyond Von, Venedette was already gone.

"Where did she go?" Lei said to Von who only looked back now, trying not to hit his head to the pillars while looking for Venedette.

"She's gone?!" Von shouted back, his heart sinking more than ever when his mom just ignored him while they were being chased by imposer palace maids.

Maybe she thought they were just playing?

But she didn't even notice when their stat-huts suddenly getting off the radars while they were inside the invisible box with the fake Sir Fred that turned out to be the same old woman in the store last night where he got the idea of running away to the ground and living a new life there with Lei and was now trying to kidnap them along with these maids.

"Von!! Pull me up!" Lei shouted which made Von come back to his senses.

And although Von was confident that he could carry Lei with him using the sticky ropes, Von's performance was affected completely by his saddened emotions with his mother, bumping Lei to the roof of the hallway which he immediately said sorry for.

"I'm so sorry!" he said and tried pulling Lei closer to him with all of his strength.

"I'll take us to the roof and ask the others for help," Von said and took Lei to the highest point of the castle where they could always see Fily and Petunia hanging out.

[Von: HELP!!! We're being chased by an old lady and her army of fake maids! Lei is injured, amd we're here on the highest point of the castle where you guys always hang out. Please send help, hurry!] Von typed rapidly and hit sent. 

And even though he was still mad at Lei for disagreeing with him earlier that morning, no one can deny how much he still cared about him. They were best friends, and still are. Maybe it was because Von just felt very weird when Lei does something out of his character as disagreeing with him. That was actually the first time Lei disagreed with Von's idea which made Von uncomfortable enough to think that he betrayed him already.

But after seeing that the old woman who encouraged him to jump and start a new life on the ground was now trying to kidnap them, he managed to have faith in Lei again, and his intentions that were only for his good.

On the other hand, as soon as Petunia had seen the message that Von sent, she immediately jumped off the window and flew towards them even without Fily's nor Venedette's consent who had just arrived back at the meeting place where she saw both Petunia and Fily leaving in separate ways.

"What should I do now?" she asked to herself while staring blankly at the Prophecy in Sir Grand's hands.

"This will work. You've got to trust us, my Princess," he answered, feeling the need to comfort her again as if it was the only thing he could give to help her feel better.

"Where is Fily going?" she inquired after realizing that Fily was actually going the opposite way as Petunia. 

"She's told me she's going to Gem's room and give her something real quick before coming back." Sir Grand answered abruptly.

"But what about Petunia?" 

"I think she's going there to help Lei with his injury?"

"Should we tell them about all of this?" Venedette said, feeling worried now about how Von and even Lei would easily misunderstand their intentions without context or any heads up about the whole thing.

"Fily said it would be best if we don't tell them anything otherwise the whole plan could go to waste."

"What? I don't remember Fily saying something like that."

"She just said that before you came in."

"And why is that?"

"Because Von's reaction to the whole situation would change from supposedly being the victim to becoming an egoistic 'hostage' that wouldn't convince the watchers much that he was actually being abducted and not in some kind of a grand plan, according to Fily." Sir Grand explained while putting down the tablet on Venedette's table.

"Oh my gosh, Von will hate us more because of this." Venedette said and sat down quietly to her chair in front of Sir Grand.

"We need to do this, or else every one's life is going to be at stake," Sir Grand said and hugged her gently giving her the best comfort that he can give at the moment.

"Eherm, I should go and do my part now." Sir Fred coughed fakely before excusing himself from the Prince and the Princess' presence.