Chapter 185 - [Bonus ]Purple Collar

"What should we do with this?"

"Uhhh, give it back to its owner?"

"But daddy said we shouldn't trust just anyone!"

"Is that the thing that belongs to the talking cat?" Karizze said and swiftly grabbed the purple collar away from her little sister's trembling hands.

"It is! Daddy gave it to me before his soldiers came barging into his office and taking him away from there!"

"What?! Why are you only telling me this now?!" Karizze said and stepped away to run after her father but then her little sister stopped her.

"I don't know where they brought him, but daddy said I should give this back to the real owner no matter what."

"But that cat's missing. And besides, why should we care? Daddy's in trouble! We should save him first!" Karizze said stubbornly and shook her little sister's hands away from her.

"Let's go, Gonder, Lorenz. We're going to save that old man from his own people," Karizze said and continued walking..

But as soon as she noticed that none of them was following her, Karizze looked back and glared at her friends who were just both silent and in deep thoughts about what was happening.

"What? Why aren't you guys coming with me?" 

"What about Lizzie? Are we just going to leave her here alone?" Gonder said and pulled Karizze's little sister closer to him in a defensive manner.

"And besides, we don't even have any idea what's going on out there. We just got out from being locked in that storage room and Lizzie here looks very traumatized. This doesn't normally happen in the precinct, right Lizzie? Tell us what happened," Lorenz said and squatted in front of Lizzie whose strong grasp on her teddy bear told Lorenz about an unexpected change that happened in the precinct while they were gone and stuck inside that storage room.

"I-I saw female guards fighting with men and then locking them all up afterward. I was so scared that I hid in the vents until I saw daddy and tried to get close to him, but as soon as he gave the collar to me, Daddy put me back in the vents and he was captured by those same female soldiers that I saw fighting with the male soldiers earlier. I don't know what's happening but I don't want to let daddy down. Please help me take that back to its owner, please!" Lizzie said with a lot of determination in her voice, especially near the end which made Gonder and Lorenz both look at Karizze with pleading eyes, telling her to listen to them.

"Ughh," Karizze groaned and turned back to Lizzie and her friends with an annoyed expression on her face, "So what do we do? We don't even know where those people are. They could even be gone at this moment due to their pass only lasting until midnight."

"And what time is it now?" Gonder asked while looking at Lorenz.

"Uhhh, seven."

"We have five hours left then, I wonder what made those female guards suddenly turn against their comrades," Gonder said while glancing at Karizze who seemed very uncomfortable for choosing to stay with them and not paying a single bit of attention to what they were talking about. 

"There must be some kind of invasion going on then!" Lorenz said enthusiastically and quickly cleared his throat and dropped his smile when Gonder and Lizzie both looked at him weirdly.

"I mean, with the lady guards acting weirdly against their fellow guards with no reason at all… there must be something going on, right? Either they planned this invasion ahead of time or they just decided to do it now, they must have a leader who was at the pinnacle of it all."

"Wait, I thought we're going to bring this back to its owner?" Lizzie said and grabbed the collar back from Karizze's hands who just let her be.

"Right! Right!" Lorenz said and stood up with his hands up in the air as if surrendering, "But first, why don't we go somewhere else safer, huh? Not here in the middle of the hallway where those female guards could be scouting sooner or later."

"Okay, let's do that," Gonder said and held Lizzie's hands while leading the way back to the storage room where they just came from earlier.

***

"Found it!" Gem shouted and quickly went out of Petunia's room to deliver the message to Von excitedly.

"Okay let's fly," Von said and nodded after glancing at what Gem was holding up in the air for less than a second.

Hastily, Gem ran down the stairs and went straight to the entrance platform where she saw Von squatting and waiting for her to get on his back again.

"Let's go?" Gem asked while hugging Von from the back and fixing her hold to him as he stood up from his squatting position and walked forward for a jump.

"Let's go," Von said and jumped in a vertical position with Gem on his back which helped them cut through the air faster before Von started flying and heading back to the headquarters with the fake collar in Gem's hands.

[Gem: I got the collar, how are you doing, guys?]

[Fily: Not good.]

[Venedette: I can't find Lei!]

[Gem: Where are you, Fily?]

[Fily: In the garage… with the prisoners,]

[Gem: Is the fake Petunia there with you?]

[Fily: No, Venedette went after her and Lei.]

[Gem: What? Why? What happened to Lei? And what about the real collar? Did they find it yet?]

[Fily: Not that I know of,]

"This is bad," Gem suddenly said to Von who was focused on flying them.

"What is?" he asked.

"Venedette's running after the fake Petunia and Lei on her own around the whole precinct and Fily has been left alone in the garage with the prisoners and the male guards!" Gem exclaimed which Von thought was a sign for him to put more haste in his flight even though they were already flying at his full speed.

"So where do we go first?" Von asked.

"To Fily of course! We have what that fake Petunia wants, I'm sure she'll come to us when she hears about the collar in our hands."

"Okay, we'll do that," Von said and dived down to the garage area of the precinct's HQ tower.