Chapter 194 - Impostor

"Is she awake?" Fily asked

"Not yet," Von answered, being the one who was in charge of keeping an eye on the impostor.

"Okay, just tell me if she's already awake, I need to do something to make her forget Petunia's memories," Fily said and went back to her mind palace, configuring the copy of Petunia's stat-hut in her mind manually without her important tools which were in the Levi-yacht.

"I'm done," Gem said and walked closer to Fily to observe what she was doing.

"Okay, just leave her there for a few minutes and she will recover on her own," Fily said without opening her eyes which made Gem stand up again and went on to Von and Lei's side instead.

"Is he really on our team now?" Gem whispered to Von who answered, "He's still confused, but he'll get there."

"You know I can hear you, right?" Lei said, which garnered surprised gasps from both Gem and Von.

"Lei would usually just stay quiet in this kind of situation so he's still definitely not alright," Gem said.

"Exactly, Von followed up and even laughed a little for teasing Lei despite the heavy situation.

"It's already quarter to nine and we're still far from making progress," Gem said and sighed worriedly while sitting down between Lei and Von against the wall.

"All we have to do is get Petunia to come with us safely back to the Yacht and leave this place before midnight, what's so hard about that?" Von asked, being overly optimistic which was totally not his style if you were to ask Gem.

"This is what's hard with that… We don't even know if Petunia is still safe, we have no news from her other than this lousy impostor. We need to ask her where she is and if she's still alive because I don't know what I might do to her if she tells me that Petunia is dead and it's because she wanted to take her place in our team. It just somehow reminds me of those teenagers who shot me in the chest and almost killed Petunia earlier that day if only she was not able to escape ahead of time."

"Talking about those superhero wannabes, I don't think I've seen them yet in this whole precinct yet," Lei said.

"Well, maybe they decided to not go here today or escaped ahead of time," Gem answered.

"But still, it's already nine, don't you think it's a little bit unnatural for their father to stay at work so late? Aren't they supposed to be worried about here now and even come looking for him here if they had access to this place in the first place," Lei kept on reasoning out.

"I think I kind of understand what your point is, but what about them? What could they possibly know or do in this situation?" Gem said, breeding another interesting topic which made Lei fired up and ready for a long conversation with Gem.

But just as they were about to start the long conversation, Fily suddenly pushed Von aside and looked the two of them straight in the eyes, "Good idea, thanks for the suggestion!" she seriously said and went back to work without even following up what she meant by those words which left the three of them looking at each other with confusion etched on their faces.

"Should I ask her?" Gem asked to which Von and Lei quickly shook their heads to, "Okay then," Gem whispered and even stole a glance at Fily again who looked scarier every time she's serious about her work while smiling sadistically.

"Ah! That hurt," Venedette suddenly said and held her head while trying to stand up from that very uncomfortable frozen pose.

"Venedette!" Gem said and immediately went to hug her which kind of annoyed Von for not being able to do the same because of Fily's instructions.

"Does it still hurt?" Gem said while inspecting Venedette's said.

"A little bit here," Venedette said while pointing at her temple which Gem immediately cured with her healing slimes.

"Better?"

"Better," Venedette asked and carried Gem like a baby on one of her shoulders.

"You finally caught her! And Lei…" Venedette said while approaching Von and Lei with the impostor lying down between them.

After hearing Venedette calling Lei's name with a warning, Lei quickly looked down while facing Venedette and said his sorry for not being able to fight a manipulative spell that was cast on him.

"She was a manipulator, I think she hypnotized me with her words, Princess," Lei said and looked even further down to pay his respects for Venedette.

"Well, that's not so hard to believe now that I've been a victim of her peculiar skills, but just make sure you wouldn't do that again, no matter the threats. Teamwork is a very important value in this team and I don't want that to break with a simple misunderstanding, you understand me?" Venedette said, suddenly lecturing her subordinates who skipped their classes for this day because of the never-ending trip to the Alps which was just supposed to be a simple picnic in Venedette's head.

"Understood, Princess!" Lei said and noticed the impostor Petunia move which he then quickly notified Von to notify Fily about it.

"You do it," Von whispered to Lei while looking at him with fear in his eyes which Lei understood but still could not give in to his request because he was the one blocking the other way that this fake Petunia could escape to.

"You do it, you're closer to her," Lei said while pointing at Fily and still keeping an eye on the fake Petunia that was just about to wake up.

"If she got some of Petunia's memories while you were putting on the Stat-hut to her, then there's a chance that she might act a lot like Petunia later and confuse us. We should put a mark on her to still be able to distinguish the real one from this fake one," Venedette said after hearing a brief summary of what happened while she was gone.

"I have an idea.. Two, actually," Gem said, which intrigued Venedette and Lei while still keeping an eye on the impostor Petunia on the floor.