Chapter 188 - Terrified

"N-Nothing! I said I'm glad that they're here with the things that I need in this super coup," Heize said and looked at Lei with her big eyes, "I'm just glad that they're finally here, you know?" 

Lei did not even know what to say as his mind became foggy just by looking at Heize's big eyes. It was as if there's a whole universe in there and his thoughts just became irrelevant all of a sudden.

That was Heize's pre-glamour, the reason why most of those female guards believed that she's actually Petunia and followed every word she said. All she had to do was hypnotize them into drinking her potion to secure her glamour but in Von and Venedette's case, her hypnotization needed more than just a few blinking and making eye contact with them.

It's no surprise why these people were chosen to be the representatives for the upcoming tournament, Heize thought.

But she did not start this one-man invasion without a plan either.

Upon hypnotizing Lei, Gem and Von were finally able to catch them due to the distraction that happened in Lei's mind, ultimately making him stop just around the corner to focus on Petunia's hypnotizing eyes.

"Hey! Careful!" Gem suddenly shouted when she saw the wall in front of them, which she was sure that Von would hit again with his very poor stop practice.

"Hold on!" Von shouted and turned himself around so his feet would be the ones making contact with the wall instead of bumping into it head-on before rolling on the floor and crashing with Gem in the middle of the hallway.

And upon hearing his friend's words and seeing what just happened, Lei finally came back to his consciousness and forgot about everything that he and the fake Petunia had been talking about just a minute ago, thanks to the pre-glamour. 

"You're here!" Lei greeted them with a big smile, Petunia still in his arms, pressured and relieved at the same time for seeing Gem and Von with her necklace and Petunia's collar.

"Uhhh, yeah we're here. Hi Petunia!" Gem said while fixing her clothes and standing up from that embarrassing moment with Von.

"We got your collar," Von said while pushing himself up from the floor and trying hard to pretend that nothing embarrassing just happened back there.

"Wait, you also believe that this is Petunia?" Lei asked and even pointed at the poor cat whose energy had been draining more quickly than she thought because of trying to glamour these three strong-willed kids at the same time.

"Yes?" Gem answered while turning around and looking at Von with an expression saying 'just go along with it' before facing Lei and Petunia and smiling at them again.

"Great! Because you know, Fily and Venedette didn't believe her and kept on telling me she's a fake when she's obviously real, right? The other cat couldn't even talk according to the guys whose cell was beside hers," Lei said as if complaining to his parents about some people refusing to believe him.

"The other cat who claimed to be Petunia couldn't talk? How did she come here and even claim that she's Petunia when she couldn't talk? That's horrifying. I'm so sorry for the delay, Petunia," Gem said and caressed Petunia's fur aggressively with a wide smile on her face.

"Right, how about we give you your collar now to make up for being late? We needed to grab it from the Yacht so we could give it back to you. I was told that you have your memories in here, but thank goodness they're still intact in your brain, right?" Von said while hanging the collar in front of Petunia but just a little few inches away from her reach.

"Thank you, I was really worried that my memories would be gone forever if I held up longer without wearing my collar. I don't know what I was thinking when I did that, but hey, at least I found what I've been looking for and even learned a few tricks from her," Heize said, putting her shoes in Petunias and talking about the fake expedition that happened to her while looking for none other than herself.

"Her? Who's her?" Gem asked while moving closer to Petunia.

"Yeah, and where did you put the other fake cat anyway? We should kill her now for pretending to be you," Von said which made Heize a little bit scared of him.

But then she remembered, Von is a royal and royals were the same heartless creatures that killed her family so she should not be surprised by it anymore.

And yet here she was, standing in front of her greatest enemy but not being able to do anything about it… yet.

"I don't know. She ran away earlier when I told the guards to gather up all the people in the garage," Petunia said and then jumped at Von's arms.

"Can you put it on me now?" Heize said and swallowed her pride while rubbing her back on Von's arms.

"So this was why I couldn't find it no matter how hard I looked, huh?" Heize thought to herself while examining the collar.

Somehow, the collar that Von was holding seemed cleaner than the other one that Heize was only able to glance at for a little while with the commander holding it in front of them.

"I should have just grabbed it right there and then," Heize thought to herself and shook her head to keep the negative thoughts away from spoiling her gig right now. "Well, at least these two naive kids have brought it back to me, nevertheless," Heize added to her thoughts and took a deep breath to calm herself down.

"Uhmmm," Von hesitated and looked at Gem as if there was something wrong with what was happening.

"What?" Gem mouthed to him which he immediately replied to using his stat-hut.

[Von: This isn't Petunia. Petunia never rubs her back on us, nor let us carry her.]

[Gem: Exactly, that's why we're giving her the fake collar.]

[Von: About that…] Von trailed off and shut his eyes tightly to gather his courage of telling Gem something he was not so confident about.

[Gem: What is it?]

[Von: So… I'm not a hundred percent sure if this collar is a fake because think about it, why would Petunia bring around a fake collar with her if it doesn't have any purpose at all?]

[Gem: What?! Why are you telling me this now?!]

"Hello? Are you there?" Petunia waved her head to the side to catch Von's attention who looked like he was out of it for a whole minute there.

"Uhh yes, here," Von said and gave the fake Petunia back to Lei's hands so he could put the collar on her properly.

[Gem: Just tell me if you don't want to give it to her, I'll make up an excuse to stop it this instant.]

"Von? Are you okay?" Lei asked, noticing the deep regret and uncertainty in Von's eyes after spacing out for too long.

"Yes! Yes, I'm fine. Here we go," Von said and took a deep breath before putting the collar in Heize's neck.

***

"Hey! Hey! Wait for me!"

"Did you hear that?" Karizze whispered to her friends who were also hiding at the storage room with her.

"That's the same voice we heard earlier, right?" Gonder said.

"What if it's a ghost?" Lizzie said which made the three of them look at her with mixed fear and disbelief in their eyes.

"Why would you say such a thing, Lizzie?" Gonder said and pushed Lizzie closer to her sister.

"But for real! You all heard that right? Who was it?!" Karizze said and immediately accused her friends of messing around with her.

"Shh! There are people outside! Quiet down!" Gonder said and looked at Lorenz who was just silent the whole time instead of talking about nerdy stuff such as how ghosts don't actually exist because they don't have bodies or something.

"What's wrong?" Gonder asked him.

"Huh? Oh sorry, I was just thinking about something," Lorenz said and fixed his posture to have a more comfortable position but Karizze's angry whisper just suddenly made him crash on the hard floor, bottom first.

"Ahah! It's you, isn't it? Quit it Lorenz, you're not scaring anyone with your poor ghost acting stuff!"

"Hey! Can't you hear me?" the female voice talked again which made Karizze silent and crawl back to her corner where she grabbed Lizzie and hugged her like a teddy bear for being too terrified of that unknown voice, that was definitely not her, nor her sister, nor the two guys with her which were the only people at this room as of the moment.

"I'm Nabi and I need your help, please," the voice said which terrified Karizze even more, to the point where she had to cover her ears and pray even though she's not a religious person, and the same could be said to Lorenz who was just as terrified as her.

"Tell me more," Gonder said, surprisingly being the only one interested and not scared of this voice that they immediately assumed was from a ghost.