Chapter 158 - Chest Plate

"Ahh, that hurts- huh? Ehhhh?" Gem muttered to herself while holding her chest after waking up and feeling completely fine despite her last memories that told her she got shot and she's not okay.

"What happened?" she asked around, looking for something different inside Solitude but the place was still the familiar empty white space that she knew.

"What happened, Mr. Gemini?" Gem finally asked the only other companion she could think of after a few minutes of wondering what happened and what was up.

She felt something new inside Solitude but she couldn't figure out what it was. 

[Good afternoon, master.] Mr. Gemini only said, not answering her question at all.

"What happened? The last memory I have is that I got shot in the chest, even though I knew it didn't pass through the protective gear, I could still remember that feeling of contraction in my chest as if I was getting smashed by an unknown force. But why do I feel so light now? Did I just got miraculously cured while I was sleeping?"

Gem held her chest and still couldn't believe it. How did she get better all of a sudden just by sleeping? It's not like her wounds could just heal over time without her energy slimes…

"I slept… oh my gosh! How long was I here?! Mr. Gemini! What time is it?"

[6 pm, master.]

"6 pm?! I slept for two hours?! Two hours… we'll that's not too bad. Considering that I miraculously managed to survive that bullet and its effect on my body while I was sleeping… But still! I need to go out! We have a meeting later at nine!" Gem said in panic mode before taking a deep breath to calm herself down.

"Mr. Gemini, please take me back to the real world."

[Roger that, Master.] Mr. Gemini said and immediately teleported Gem back to the real world.

***

"Mom! I found it!" Von shouted to his mom who was just staring blankly at the hail storm while flying above them.

"Mom!" 

"What?"

"I found it!"

"What?!" 

"I said I-" Von suddenly stopped talking when he realized something while holding Petunia's collar in his hands.

"Does this mean Petunia is not actually inside Solitude and Gem could be hurt on her own over there?!" 

And just as he finished his sentence, the air started twirling around him with the debris of what seemed to be broken crystal shards that came out of nowhere. From that, Gem suddenly appeared and almost lost her balance because Von was standing on her supposed landing spot.

"W-Whoa!" Von said while using twice of his brainpower while contemplating whether to catch Gem or not while she was in that very unstable position in front of him.

And when he finally decided to hold her for support, despite still having the collar in his hands, Von was already too late and Gem couldn't manage her balance either, as a result, the both of them collapsed on the snow with Gem's back lying down on Von who was the unlucky one that got buried in the snow.

"Ouch, watch your head," Von complained and immediately placed his hands above Gem's head that almost hit his chin after seeing her complaining about it silently.

"Sorry," Gem said and rolled to the side to remove the pressure on Von's body but Von still held on to her nape using his left arm that was also rolled out on the floor along with Gem.

"Gem!" Venedette shouted from the sky after seeing the two of them seemingly cuddling in the snow.

But despite the weird pose that she accidentally saw the two early on, she quickly flew over to Gem and checked her every single angle, looking for bruises, shots, or any kind of indication of pain which seemed to be weirdly unexistent in her who only came from Solitude after being shot.

"What took you so long?! Do you know how worried we were? Are you okay? Did you get hurt anywhere? I thought you were gone! I was so scared!" Venedette cried while removing the slightly curled hair that was sticking on Gem's face and covering her important features before hugging her cautiously.

"I'm fine, I don't know what happened but after I woke up from that sleep, I was completely healed," Gem said, glossing over everything because of the overflowing emotions she had in mind which made it hard for Venedette and Von to understand her.

"Let's just talk in the HQ, alright? I'm sure you had a hard time suffering on your own."

"Did you really got shot?" Von asked after not seeing any signs of blood or disfunction in Gem's clothes and body.

"I did, but this chest plate saved me from it." Gem pointed at her white inner clothes which were made of the strongest materials for clothing in their city, serving as their outermost layer protection from these kinds of things.

"Oh, and by the way, Petunia's missing," Von announced which was then followed by Venedette saying;

"She left her Stat-hut over here to make us think that she was with us, but then you disappeared and we thought you were with her inside Solitude all along," Venedette said while carrying Gem across the snowy weather and into the checkpoint's headquarters where they left Lei and Fily with the guards and the people who shot Gem.

"What?! Petunia's gone?! What about Fily and Lei? What happened to them?"

"Lei is watching over Fily over there," Von answered before landing on the headquarters ' tower.

When Gem finally met up with Fily and the others behind the interrogation room, she told them about what happened to her and they told her about what happened to them and how they were able to capture those people who shot her.

"That's them?" Gem asked while looking over Karizze, Lanzo, and Gunter who were all just silent while facing each other inside the interrogation room where Gem and the rest of her team were watching from.

"Since Gem came back just fine, I'll give them pardon for causing us trouble. But the next time they cause trouble either to us or to anybody else, I need you to give them the rightful punishment for their games so they could learn not to do those kinds of things ever again, you understand me?" Venedette's voice could still be heard inside the interrogation's backroom coming from the outside while she was talking to the commander and all the other commanders involved in this situation while Gem and the others were also just silent inside the backroom.

"Why did they do that?" Gem asked, breaking the silence that was made because of the challenges that they were facing consecutively today.

"They said they were jealous of us for being able to join the tournament," Von said which was then followed by Lei's sigh.

"If only they knew how scary the tournament actually is."

"They wanted to join the tournament? But us joining doesn't even affect their team if ever they decided to join. So I still don't understand why they did it." said Gem.

"They got discouraged because a team of elites like us is participating, try thinking about the situation again, but this time using their perspective so you could understand them better," Fily said despite being asleep. Or at least her eyes were all closed while her mouth was running.

"Fair enough," Gem said, seemingly dropping the topic altogether while thinking about Petunia who could have been wandering in the forest by this time, all on her own.

"Why did Petunia do that? Didn't we promise to look for that shop together? Why would she lie to us and leave us on our own? Even leaving her Stat-hut under the snow just to hide the fact that she's leaving…" Gem said, sounding very upset about Petunia's betrayal.

"I'm sure she had her reasons why she did that," Fily said and used her arms to cover her eyes from the bright lights inside the interrogation room and the backroom.

"Who told you to shoot her down?! Didn't Lanzo already fixed your aim so we could just scare them away? What if the citizens were the ones who got shot? Will you also take responsibility for that? Huh?" Karizze with the black and pink highlights said while pointing aggressively at Gonder who was still pleading the fifth (keeping silent).

"And you! Aren't you going to say something about your aim? Are you sure it's not your fault that Gonder's aim became so perfect when I told you both to scatter the bullets around them?!" Karizze shouted at Lanzo.

"I really didn't mean it Karizze, I'm sorry," Lanzo said and even went on his knees before being grabbed by Karizze in the collar just to throw him back to his seat.

"This won't do-"

"Why don't we just apologize to them? They said we got lucky because the girl we almost killed had a hidden power of disappearing when in danger."

"T-That's… that's a good idea, okay you guys lead the apology. This is so embarrassing…" Karizze said which touched the heart of Gem who still couldn't believe that these were the same people that almost killed her.

"They're so sweet… I hope we could've met in another situation instead," she said before heading out to talk to them.