Chapter 189 - Ghosting

"What the hell Gonder? Who are you talking to?" Karizze exclaimed and tried to pull Gonder closer to them but he only looked at them as if they were cowards.

"The ghost?" Gonder tried to answer but the moment he did, Karizze and Lorenz both covered their ears, expressing how they did not want to believe it and were scared which made little Lizzie giggle.

"I'm actually the real Petunia's friend. My name is Miss Nabi, and I'm a butterfly," Miss Nabi said and landed on top of the dusty shelf above Gonder, her black wings casting a shadow from the light bulb, catching Gonder and Lizzie's attention and mesmerizing them with her wing's exotic colors.

"Y-You're the one who kept talking to us since yesterday?" Gonder asked and scooted closer to her to observe her more.

"No? Today is actually my first time going here, well anyway, I'm here to tell you where the real Petunia is and to bring that collar back to her."

"What do you mean real Petunia? There's a fake one?" Gonder asked, even though he's not usually the one to ask questions, somehow Gonder was interested in the incident that was happening today and started acting unlike himself.

"There is, she's the reason behind all this chaos," Miss Nabi said and flew down on Gonder's eye level as a courtesy to not cause him a stiff neck.

"Pretty talking butterfly!" Little Lizzie said and scooted closer to Miss Nabi but Miss Nabi quickly prevented the worse from happening by flying above Lizzie's level where she would never be able to reach her.

"Is it gone?" Karizze said while peeking her eyes between her closed eyelids and almost had a heart attack when a butterfly suddenly landed on her nose.

"Ahhh! A bug!" Karizze shouted and quickly covered her mouth after remembering that they were still supposed to be hiding and keeping quiet to not be caught.

"Sorry," Miss Nabi said, which totally made Karizze's heart jump and almost stop if it was not for Lizzie who just suddenly ran to her and ended up hugging her sister on the floor for trying to catch the butterfly.

"Please, don't kill me," Miss Nabi pleaded and then sighed after going back to her first position earlier.

"Hey, sit down." Gonder stopped Lizzie from running after the butterfly and carried her back to Karizze's arms whose face reflected that of someone whose head was flying through the clouds.

"H-Hey," Lorenz whispered to Gonder which brought Karizze back to reality.

"Huh? What are we going to do now?" Karizze said frantically which made Lizzie giggle again and Gonder a little bit concerned about her silly side of being scared of ghosts suddenly being exposed to the open.

"Oh, and just so you know, we need to hurry! Petunia's team should be leaving right now and they can't stay in the Alps any longer, we need to help them out," Miss Nabi said, which made Gonder immediately hold on to Karizze and Lorenz's shoulders to keep them from freaking out again.

"It's not a ghost, this butterfly said she's the real Petunia's friend and she's going to help us give this collar back to its owner, just like what the commander said," Gonder said reassuringly to both of them which kind of convinced Karizze, unlike Lorenz who was still refusing to open his eyes nor listen.

"So… it's not a ghost?" Karizze said and tried to stand up with her shaking legs.

"I'm not a ghost, yes, in fact, I'm actually a human just like you- err, used to be. But I'm a butterfly now and I can still talk to humans, so yes, I'm not a ghost," Miss Nabi said and smiled before shaking her head and going back to her initial purpose, "But like I was saying, we don't have much time, so if you please?"

"Yes, lead the way miss butterfly, I'll just carry these two," Gonder said which immediately turned Karizze back into her angry state.

"I'm not going to let you carry me like a child! Carry Lizzie instead, and that coward over there," she said and pointed at Lorenz behind her using her thumbs.

"Thank goodness you're not a ghost, I would really much prefer anything else than a ghost," Karizze whispered to Miss Nabi.

"Can you please stop saying that word! Don't you know how terrified I was?! I thought we were being haunted by those people we saw at-"

"Shut up," Karizze suddenly pinched Lorenz's mouth shut and stood in front of her group proudly, "Lead us the way, Miss Butterfly who I really don't trust but whatever."

"S-Sure," Miss Nabi said with an unpleasant feeling in her gut because of the very disrespectful thing that Karizze just said to her.

"If only there's another option, ugh," Miss Nabi groaned to herself and led the way outside of the window which left Karizze and her group in sudden disbelief.

"What the-?" Karizze said with a confused shrug before peeking down at the window where Miss Nabi just flew off.

"What the hell was that?!" Karizze added and then groaned with defeated morale after thinking that Miss Nabi the butterfly just fooled them and flew away without helping at all.

But then, not even a few minutes after, Miss Nabi came back from the gap on the door and said, "All clear," which made Gonder immediately understand what just happened.

"Come on, she just went to see if there are other people outside the hallways," Gonder said and stomped in front of Karizze to get her attention, after realizing that she was having her usual debate in her mind after being annoyed by what she thought Miss Nabi did.

"Down this hallway," Miss Nabi said, leading the group away from the guards as possible and getting them close to where Petunia was currently at.

"What are we doing here? I thought this place was off-limits?" Karizze complained while catching her breath.

"Exactly! That's why the fake Petunia put the real Petunia in here so nobody could find her, although I'm not sure why but maybe because she wanted to keep her hidden? But that's not the point. We need to give her back her collar immediately."

"Why is this thing so important anyway? Is it that important for the commander to risk his life on it?" Gonder wondered and immediately regretted his words after seeing Lizzie's worried face for mentioning her father's life.

"I don't know. But based on your commander's reactions and the fake Petunia's obsession over it, I could tell that there's something important in there that should only belong to Petunia. Over here!" Miss Nabi said and turned to a corner to the end of the steam room right under the HQ's tower.

"I'm tired," Lizzie said and then jumped on Gonder's arms again while Karizze just looked at her with sorry eyes.

"Well, that was a long walk. Did you know that we went in the wrong direction several times and could have increased our speed of reaching this place if that did not happen?" Lorenz suddenly talked for the first time while fixing his glasses as if he was finally back to his senses now.

"But don't get me wrong, I know you're just trying to help everybody get along or something and I genuinely believe that what you're doing is not the work of a ghost. And besides, I could not even get where the guards were so props to you for that hard work!" Lorenz added and even attempted on giving Miss Nabi a clap, which in all actuality was his attempt to kill her especially when she's very vulnerable in her butterfly form.

"Come on guys, do you really believe she's leading us down here to save the other Petunia? Of course not! She's leading us down here to trap us!"

"That's not true!" Miss Nabi said, defending herself from Lorenz's assumptions.

"If you don't trust me then at least give Petunia a chance to prove herself before you turn your backs on her. Unless you want that fake Petunia wannabe to take the whole precinct under her control just like what she was trying to do now.

"We're warriors, not quitters miss Butterfly," Karizze said, her leader instincts finally going back to her and boosting her confidence back.

"Now where were we?" she said and looked back to Miss Nabi who was now dumbstruck from what Karizze just said.

"Right…" Miss Nabi said and returned back to her place upfront to continue leading them all down to the chamber where the fake Petunia put Petunia in.

"When you see her, just put the collar in her neck and then step back, she's kind of unstable right now-"

"Aaaaaaaaah! Meowww!" A screaming meow just suddenly rang across the stairs which alarmed Miss Nabi and caused her to dive down to the bottom of the stairs without even a word with the teens who had the collar with them.

"Hey! What was that?! Where are you going?!" Karizze shouted.

"I think that's the Petunia who she's claiming to be the real one," Gonder said and continued down the stairs which also made the rest of them follow after him automatically.

"But why did she suddenly shout?" Lorenz asked.

"No idea, let's just go down faster and find out for ourselves, shall we?" Karizze said and jumped on the railings of the spiral staircase down the emergency exit of the tower towards the bottom of the whole building.