Chapter 205 - Glass Steps

"Princess, the young masters are back," Sir Fred announced to Venedette, who was busy setting up the communication's room for the collaboration that she and Gideon talked about earlier that day.

"Okay, tell them to go here after resting for a bit, we'll start in thirty minutes," Venedette said without looking at Sir Fred due to her attention being focused only on what she was doing as of the moment.

"Affirmative," Sir Fred said respectfully and left the newly opened and designed digital meeting room for long distance communications.

***

"What? That was it? But I thought we were supposed to be on the other side of the island?" Gem complained the moment she opened the door from the Yacht's parking lot that immediately led them to the basement's hallway under the castle.

"Maybe Venedette did something to move the parking here?" Fily said while checking the map if they were indeed in the right place after all.

"But has this hallway always been this long?" Gem asked while making traffic on the door for refusing to go out and only peeking to the very long and dark hallway full of doors.

She could still remember how the hallway looked since the first time they went there to create Petunia's gummy cloud, but only the length of the hallway was different and weird looking this time.

It was as if the hallway was a bubblegum that was stretched by a giant, except that wouldn't be possible because this was a fixed place under the palace and no other people could access it.

"You haven't been here before, have you?" Von said while flying over to overtake Gem's traffic through the door, "This is a different hallway from the one you saw with the stairs. I know because Fily gave us a tour here," he added and went back to ask Petunia for her torch wand.

"I lost it along with my old Gummy cloud," Petunia said, making Von step back and wait for someone else to start the trip instead.

"You two should go first," Von said and pushed Petunia and Gem forward slightly.

"Okay, this shouldn't be a big deal, right? It's just an empty hallway after all. We've done this before, on those crone's tunnels…" Gem said, convincing herself that everything's alright and she could do it.

"Yeah, uhh, guys? This is actually the first floor of Yvandir and we haven't been here yet. So I'm afraid we have to be careful in order to not fall down the abyss."

"What abyss?" Gem asked after hearing Fily's concerning remark.

"The ground? Underneath this floor is the void to the ground already. Look, if you stay still and feel your feet against the floor, you could actually feel the vibration and pressure coming from the air beneath this floor. We don't need to worry a lot since this floor is still thick enough to withstand our weight, but we still have to be careful and not do anything stupid so we won't fall down."

"Why are you telling us to not worry when we're literally just standing on a piece of glass?" Petunia suddenly said which made the other kids panic as well.

"Glass? What do you mean glass? Please don't scare us like that, Petunia," Gem said while keeping more cautious with her every step.

"Fily? Tell them the truth!" Petunia said and then tiptoed to the door and held it tightly as if her life depended on it.

"Fine, this is an experimental dark glass floor and we can actually type in a code to make the tint invisible," Fily said and attempted to type the code in but paused when Gem held her wrist.

"L-Later," Gem said and then walked even more cautiously to the nearest thing she could grab on to.

"Don't be scared, I didn't tell you guys on purpose because I know you'll be scared but there's really nothing to worry about. Venedette even walked out here on her own without falling-"

"She can fly so I don't think that really matters, yeah?" Lei said and jumped to grab onto something on the roof instead.

"Cowards," Fily said and then entered the code while touching the cold glass with her hands.

This made Von jump and hover in the air as they all covered their eyes from the sudden shower of light from that transparent glass.

"So it's really still daytime!" Petunia said while covering her eyes with her other hand and still clinging onto the pipe beside her even though the floor was still there, only invisible.

"Isn't this great?!" Fily asked and stood up confidently while extending her arms as if she was in heaven.

And seeing the cloud and blue sky beneath their feet, Gem could not deny that the view was indeed great, only a little bit scary due to the thought of stepping onto nothing.

But it was not like the first time they did something like this. When Halma held her departure party, there was also a pool with an invisible floor on the edge of the island, and although the water made it less intimidating to step onto, this was still not that different of an experience compared to that infinity pool.

"Come on guys, don't be scared. This is just an example of how it would feel up in the sky. I thought you wanted to be able to fly? How can you guys fly if you're that scared of heights?" Fily said while giggling to her members for being intimidated with the sudden loss of concrete ground to step onto.

"I'm not scared of heights, I just don't want to die yet!" Gem said.

"Me neither!" Petunia added which Lei agreed on too.

"Well, at least we don't need lights anymore. Did you make the whole first floor invisible or just this hallway?" Von asked while floating outside of the open door and into the hallways that looked as if it was flying on the sky with no floor.

"Just this hallway," Fily said and then walked next to him, also taking the opportunity to peek inside the closed door of the supposedly restricted first floor due to cautions of the glass steps being unstable and not a hundred percent safe yet.

"Just don't put too much weight on your bodies, so the glass won't break, alright?" Fily reminded them again before proceeding to walk further down the hallway which pressured Lei to follow after them while swinging on the pipes of the roof and Petunia using her Gummy cloud as a carpet to walk on to.

"Wait for me!" Gem said and took a deep breath before running as fast as she could to the other side of the hallway where she spotted something else to hold onto with her super sight.

"Careful!" Fily reminded her the moment she passed through them which made Gem even more nervous and desperate to reach the end of the hallway already.

But in an unexpected turn of events, instead of going to the door at the end of the hallway where Gem was already at, Fily and Von opened another door to the right and went inside of it, telling Gem that it was the right way back to the castle instead of the door where she was at which made Gem fear for her life again while stepping carefully away from the doorknob that she was holding.

"Petunia, wait for me!" she said and took a deep breath before running to Petunia and landing on her Gummy cloud just in front of the open door where Fily and the others were already at, waiting for them to arrive.

"Safe!" Gem said, while hugging Petunia.

But just as she thought they were already safe, the glass floor beneath them suddenly made a cracking sound, the crack slowly creeping to the wall beside the door making Petunia and Gem scream for their lives.

"HELP!!" Gem said and held on to the door, even hugging it with her legs while Petunia just wrapped herself inside her Gummy cloud and wished for it to fly and carry her when the glass finally breaks.

But instead of it breaking like what the two of them were expecting, Fily and the two boys just suddenly laughed out loud so hard, almost as if they were going to die from that intense laughter that the two other girls could not comprehend why.

"What's so funny?" Gem asked and looked down as she noticed the cracks from the invisible floor disappearing slowly like it was just a digital crack.

"No, you did this?!" she said in disbelief.

"I'm so sorry," Fily said while trying to suppress her laughter so hard she even had tears of joy coming out of her eyes.

"You're so dead!" Gem said and then dropped on the invisible floor confidently, stomping closer to the three who already knew the best way to avoid her was to run for their lives.

"Run faster Fily!" Von said while hovering above Fily, "She's coming to get you!" 

"Why don't you just stop teasing me and start helping me now, huh? Weren't you the one who thought that was a good idea?!" Fily growled and then glanced behind her only to laugh at Gem's angry face again.

"Fine," Von said and then reached out his arms so he could carry her just like what Petunia was doing to Gem but only discreetly by tying her Gummy cloud to her.