Chapter 149 - Suspicion

"Petunia! Where's Petunia?" Fily said out loud, trying to call for her friend that just suddenly disappeared along with Gem but Lei immediately went to stop her.

"She's fine, I think Gem accidentally took Petunia with her inside Solitude."

"Gem could do that?" Fily asked which took Lei aback for finally knowing something that Fily did not.

"I'm just assuming that's what happened," Lei followed up later on in case he got it wrong.

"But I definitely heard her footsteps earlier, or was I wrong?" Fily thought to herself with a pout which also made Lei question his thoughts about what happened.

"No one's going to talk? You really don't know where those bullets came from?" Venedette said with overflowing impatience first to the people and now to the guards who did not like her attitude at all.

"Can we bring this over to the headquarters, Princess? We shouldn't cause a commotion over here especially with all these busy people lining up to pass the checkpoint-"

"And we're not? We're also as busy as these people here, trying to pass the checkpoint too but why aren't you willing to help us? My team got shot in your area!" Venedette said, cutting off the guard's attempt at negotiation.

"That is also why we must bring this incident to the headquarters, please come with us," the guard responded with much disappointment as Venedette.

"We can't leave this place without Gem," Von suddenly interrupted while looking at his members.

"That's right, we should wait for Gem to come back first before going anywhere," Fily said, supporting Von's request for the first time.

"Wait, what do you mean by waiting for your friend? Where did your friend go anyway? Isn't she supposed to be lying down in this snow after getting shot?" the guard said which also made the crowd curious.

"Someone got shot?" someone in the crowd asked which was then immediately answered by the person closest to her.

"Yes, there was a girl holding a cat there earlier when the smokescreen happened."

"But where is she?"

"We also don't know, she suddenly disappeared."

"So?" The guard followed up after not receiving any explanation from Venedette.

"Our friend has this unique power that lets her teleport to a separate dimension when her life is in danger," Fily suddenly said even without permission from Venedette or the others that made her somewhat look like a traitor.

"What? We can't ask for their help if we won't tell them the truth," Fily added, justifying her answer.

"Excuse me what? Powers? Is there even such a thing?" the commander guard said with a confused expression which made Fily smile in annoyance.

"Yes, powers. Do I have to explain further?" Fily answered while raising her brows as if challenging the guards to a battle of wits.

The guards then look at each other as if Fily and her group were just messing with them. But with that in mind, they still decided to do what's right and that was to get these people away from the line and stop interfering with their business.

"First of all, I'm afraid that we can't let you stay here any longer because you're obstructing our duties, and second of all, I need you to come with us to the headquarters to speed things up a bit about this investigation and the unfortunate problem that happened here. So if you don't mind, please come with us," the commander said with much respect while his other people opened the door to their spaceship.

"We can't leave Gem alone here, mom," Von complained while the others also looked at Venedette, waiting for her decision.

"You can just contact her when she gets back," the commander added, which finally convinced them to go.

"Let's go," Venedette said with a stiff expression as if saying they don't have any other choice anyway.

"If only I was able to see who did that from up there," Von said regretfully while following after her mom to the spaceship that was just flying above them.

"I'm suspicious of Von," Lei whispered to Fily while they got carried by the guards wearing compressed jetpacks that enabled them to fly.

[Fily: Why?] Fily replied silently in their private messages.

[Lei: He was the only one above Gem and the bullets came from the same direction, not to mention that those were ice bullets, the same thing that Von was obsessing over since we came here.]

Fily nodded while reading Lei's response.

[Fily: So you're saying Von was the one who did that to Gem? Even though he knew Gem wouldn't die from that and would just teleport to Solitude?]

[Lei: I'm not sure. But as I've said, the bullet's angles definitely came from his position. That's not hard to miss, why would he do that?]

[Fily: It's not him.] Fily replied without any follow-ups which made Lei look at her weirdly while Von and Venedette were both sulking and thinking hard about what happened.

"I hope she's fine," Von muttered under his breath which made Lei suspicious of him again.

[Lei: It's him, I'm sure of it. Von wouldn't care so much about Gem's disappearance since he knew she would just be in Solitude anyway, but the way he's acting, it was as if he was guilty of something.] Lei sent, trying to convince Fily again but the girl looked more annoyed than usual which scared Lei a bit after taking a look at her.

[Fily: Fine, let's say Von was the one who did that to Gem, but why? I think the angle of the bullets and the mere fact that they are ice bullets are too convenient for the gunner to put the blame on someone else.]

[Lei: So you're saying it's staged and shot in a perfect angle that would make us think it was Von? But why would anyone do that? It's not like anyone knew we were coming today…]

"Or did they?" Lei thought to himself after sending the message.

[Fily: There's a lot of ways to know these kinds of details about us. These must be the people that found Gem unworthy of being a tournament representative for our country, which I totally understand since half of us aren't real citizens of Clandamascarene anyway.]