Chapter 150 - Good Witch

"I-It hurts," Gem murmured while holding her chest that got shot by those ice bullets that came flying to her at an incredible speed that it even managed to travel with her to Solitude.

[Your upper area has been severely fractured, Master.] Sir Gemini announced while filling  Gem's vision with the warning sign repeatedly.

"I know, it hurts…" Gem complained again while turning her body slightly to the side in an attempt to grab the pain reliever potion that Fily and the other made for her when she was suffering from the evolution last week.

"I thought this shirt would help lessen the impact? Why do I feel like this shirt just made the pain worse?" 

[The shirt is made to block bullets from piercing through your body, Master. The impact was unavoidable.]

"I didn't even get to see who shot me, ahh! It really hurts! It's even making it harder for me to breathe! I feel so suffocated!" Gem shouted in her mind while waiting for the potion to take effect on her body.

But instead of relieving all the pain that she felt after getting shot, Gem just felt numb in her upper body's area but still had a hard time breathing due to the force that compressed her chest area a bit.

"Do you have something that could help me breathe more comfortably, Mr. Gemini?" Gem asked while shifting her body to lay it in the ground properly.

But instead of listening to Mr. Gemini's answer, Gem felt her eyelids getting heavier in an instant which made her look at the potion she grabbed from her pocket for the first time even before taking it.

"Ahh, I got the wrong one," Gem said before giving in to the sleeping potion mixed with a pain reliever that she happened to grab from her pocket instead of just the pain reliever potion.

***

"You know her? Heize?" Hodgewart aked while watching Petunia take a sip from the clean mini waterfall hidden inside a small cave in this mountain.

"Of course, she was my teacher!" Petunia said enthusiastically.

"Teacher of what?" Hodgewart followed up while wiping the bits of water that fell in Petunia's fur carefully.

"Extraction. She taught me how to properly take the good stuff from animals and use them to make potions from scratch." 

"She did that for you? That's so unfair. When I was with her all she did to me was get my spikes and cage me in a cage that lets me watch what she was doing with my spikes."

"But how come you said you liked her?" asked Petunia.

"Because she's a very good witch. And by good I meant talented. She would make potions that enabled me to talk to her or her to me sometimes which really impressed me since I've always had this dream of being able to talk with humans."

'So that's probably why I was able to talk to you,' Petunia thought to herself while staring at him.

"So why were you kicked out and not killed? That's a very uncommon and surprising act of kindness from Heize," Petunia asked while shaking the spilled water out of her furs.

"I don't know. One day she just decided to open my cage and threw me out of the window without saying anything. I was so upset that I even dreamed of ruining one of her external experiments for payback one time, but everytime I see her I just get reminded of the time that we spent the entire day just talking to each other about random things, making me stop thinking about anything negative and strive to be a better hedgehog for her to take me in again." Hodgewart overshared which Petunia really did not ask for but just decided to go with since she needed something from him.

"So where does she live? Can you bring me there?" Petunia said, getting straight to the point.

"Right now?"

"Yes, right now," Petunia said with an enthusiastic smile.

"Erm… I suggest you just go meet her on another day, she's not really friendly right now. I just saw her zap a bird out of frustration earlier today."

"So?" Petunia said after thinking that she just received a very unrelated response from Hodgewart.

"So no, I won't bring you to her. Not yet, at least. Who knows if she could recognize you and not kill you right away? There's a reason why that kind of rumor circulates this town after all, and besides, I don't want to be held responsible for your death," Hodgewart said as if he was a really good citizen of this empty winter forest.

"But I'm running out of time! I really need to see her now!" Petunia tried again but was met with another flat rejection from Hodgewart.

"No. I will bring you to her once I confirm that she's in a good mood to not kill animals in that area."

"Pfft, you're so unnecessarily kind. Why do you care if I die anyway? I already told you, I know Heize and I'm sure she'll be able to recognize me right away even if I look like a cat right now…" Petunia said which immediately made her nervous for revealing such important information.

"Trust me, she won't even bat an eye on you before zapping you to pieces. Stop being stubborn and just come with me, I'll introduce you to our animal community here. Although you don't seem like the friendly type…" Hodgewart said, which made Petunia relieved from not noticing her unintentional information spill.

'But what was that? Did he say he will introduce me to a community of animals in this forest? But what if I don't understand them like how I can understand him? This isn't good. I should refuse!' Petunia thought and panicked again.

"W-Why? I don't think I need to meet this community that you're saying. Like you said, I'm not really friendly and my attitude might cause them to misunderstand my intentions." Petunia immediately spilled her excuses which did not convince Hodgewart very much to stop what he was planning.

"I can't leave you here alone, especially after finding out you're Heize's friend. And besides, aren't you just new here? You think you can survive in this forest until tomorrow just by yourself?"