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twentydaysofdrabbles · 8 months

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The Concierge Returns (Part 44)

"Thank you for waiting, Mister Sans, Mister Papyrus," you greet them as you enter.

Sans tips his drink at you from where he lounges against the counter, his legs splayed wide and his suit jacket flung over another barstool. "wasn't too long of a wait, sweetheart. any news?"

Papyrus just stares out the window, his back to you.

Hmm.

Electing not to comment on Papyrus' sudden stand-offishness, you close the door securely and return to your place behind the bar. "Yes. Were you aware of the contents of the Harbinger's letter, Mister Sans?"

His sockets narrow and he swivels on his seat to plant his elbows on the counter, hunching over his drink. "nup. asgore didn't show it ta me." Papyrus, by this point, had stirred from his stoic staring and draws closer, his arms now held akimbo as he stares you down silently.

By this point, any form of intimidation does very little to rattle you. From friend and foe alike. With steady hands, you swap out Papyrus' nearly empty drink for a fresh one, gesturing for him to sit. "It seems the Marquis de Gramont has summoned the King to France. He is to answer that summons in a week's time."

"AND WHO IS THIS MARQUIS?" Papyrus furrows his brow. "I WAS UNDER THE IMPRESSION THAT FRANCE HAS NO MONARCHY." Considering they were all put to the guillotine some centuries ago, Papyrus would be right.

"There is still an aristocracy, for all that there is no king or queen any longer." You tip your head in his direction. "You're very well read, Mister Papyrus."

A furious blush erupts on Papyrus' ivory skull and he has to growl at Sans who snickers at him. "OF COURSE, BECAUSE WHO ELSE COULD YOU COMPARE ME TO? THIS LAZY SACK OF BONES?"

"hey, street smarts over book smarts."

In saying that, through your intelligence network you know that Sans has a degree in finance and another in mechanical engineering. For all that he espouses street smarts over book smarts, the older brother is no slouch in that department either.

Papyrus puffs up, as if to throw back a retort, and you immediately step in to avoid another long and drawn out argument. "I have received information that the Marquis de Gramont has been, or will be, appointed Imperator by the High Table."

That seems to stop them in their tracks.

"EXPLAIN." Papyrus mirrors his brother's stance over his drink, completely ignoring it in favour of scowling at you. Hm, this close, you can see the thin claw marks over his left socket.

"The Imperator is an individual who, by agreement of all members of the High Table, is granted ultimate authority for a period of time. In colloquial terms, the judge, jury, and executioner. Normally only appointed in times of political strife and great need." You pour Sans another glass of whiskey and replace his nearly finished mustard bottle with another, to which he smiles and blows a kiss at you.

"guessin' the 'political strife and great need' is the hullabaloo going on in new york?" Sans squirts a bit of mustard into his mouth, chasing it with whiskey. Papyrus grimaces at the sight.

"Yes," you nod. "Mr Wick is...a force of nature. Many have tried and failed to end his crusade for freedom."

"AND SO THEY ARE USING THEIR TRUMP CARD," Papyrus growls under his breath once he gets over the disgust of seeing Sans mix mustard with whiskey. "BUT THAT DOES NOT EXPLAIN WHY HIS ORDER MADE ITS WAY TO KING ASGORE."

Your dead eyes rove from Papyrus to Sans, who suddenly is clenching his teeth hard. Hard enough that for a brief moment, you think you see the cracks surrounding his golden tooth widen.

"it does," Sans hisses.

Papyrus narrows his eyes. Thinks. Then they widen. "HE WOULDN'T BE SO FOOLISH. THIS IS OUR KING WE'RE TALKING ABOUT!" Papyrus gets to his feet and narrowly avoids tipping his drink over with his elbow in his haste. "HE HAS LED US THROUGH GREAT TRAGEDY AND UNREST! HE IS WISE, AND CARING, AND...AND..."

"ain't sayin' he isn't," Sans says over his shoulder. "but ya know the ol' sayin' 'the road ta hell is paved with good intentions'? yeah, sounds like our king alright."

Papyrus looks like he's about to rip his non-existent hair out. "HE HAS NEVER MET WITH THIS-THIS MARQUIS. I AM CERTAIN OF IT." He taps his teeth as he thinks, pacing and growling under his breath. Caged tiger indeed. "I MIGHT HAVE FALLEN OUT OF FAVOUR WITH ASGORE IN RECENT TIMES, BUT BEFORE THAT, I WAS FAVOURED! SECOND ONLY TO UNDYNE, MY OLDEST RIVAL."

"b'fore or after the debacle with tori?" Sans drawls, taking a sip of his whiskey.

Papyrus goes quiet.

Sans looks at you, gesturing with a finger towards Papyrus while still holding his glass. "boss told asgore it wasn't a good idea to bother tori. all tori wanted was ta be left alone, see?"

Ah, you knew the latter. But that loyal Papyrus would speak up against his King? How interesting. That says a lot about the tall skeleton monster's moral compass. Which is more than can be said for Sans'. Or yours, for that matter.

"IT WASN'T RIGHT..." Papyrus snarls under his breath. "I CANNOT BOAST TO BE CLOSE WITH TORIEL BUT EVEN I KNOW THAT CAGING SOMEONE LIKE A...LIKE AN ANIMAL ISN'T RIGHT."

Sans grinds his teeth, his grin turning into a snarl of his own. It seems he doesn't approve of the King's decision either. He looks up at you then from over his glass, red pips for eyes burning like embers in the darkness. "didja know what he did ta her?"

You only look back at him evenly. The ligature marks on her neck and the way she flinched and hid when you found her gives you an idea; though you know that the Manager is the only one outside of the Monster Family that has a full picture.

Of his own volition, without any prompting, Sans explains. "he had alphys keep 'er in his home. 'by any means necessary'. alphys is a sadistic bitch at the best o' times, doesn't help that them anime shows give her ideas." Sans sneers, looks as if he's about to spit to the side but thinks better of it. "chained to a wall, she was. drugged the rest of the time. tori's a force to be reckoned with, her fire magic's second ta none...well, maybe except fer grillbz."

"She is physically strong as well," you comment, thinking back to the way she shattered the skull of a massive human assassin with a single punch. Willing to kill without hesitation.

"YES. THE QUEEN--AH, THE FORMER QUEEN WAS ABLE TO STAND TOE TO TOE--"

"ya mean hoof ta hoof."

"--SHUT UP, SANS. STAND TOE TO TOE WITH KING ASGORE IN A FIGHT. WERE IT NOT FOR THE FACT THAT THEY WOULD BRING THE KINGDOM DOWN AROUND THEIR EARS, I IMAGINE TORIEL WOULD HAVE WON." Papyrus doesn't look the least bit prideful or boastful as he recounts this. As though it were fact.

You had heard similar from Grillby that day. How their legendary clash had sparked from the death of their child and the human youngling they had taken in, from the disagreement on how they would free their people. You're not surprised that Toriel is more powerful than she looks, but perhaps time and complacency had made her vulnerable, resulting in her captivity.

The question then is how she was able to escape.

Sans reads the question in your eyes as only he can. He grins, licking his teeth. "asgore got distracted." The Meeting. "took his best out with him." Undyne, Papyrus, Sans. "and tori's a lot more cunning than we give her credit for. bet she regrets not dustin' alphys though."

An inside job, then. Hence the strife within the Family.

"UNDYNE WOULD ACTUALLY DUST THE QUEEN, OR DUST TRYING," Papyrus scoffs, pacing back to the bar with his arms crossed over his chest, his back straight, head held high. "THERE IS NO ONE ON THIS EARTH THAT UNDYNE TREASURES MORE THAN ALPHYS. EVEN IF ALPHYS IS FUCKING UNHINGED."

Sans looks like the cat that caught the canary. "ya swore!" You get the impression that Papyrus isn't the sort to swear around Sans when there are more colourful words to be used. Which then begs the question of why he chose to do so around you earlier, when it was just the two of you. A question for another day, when none of you are preoccupied with discussing the crumbling upper structure of a crime family.

"YOU WATCH THOSE STARS AWFUL CARTOONS SHE WATCHES AND YOU TELL ME THAT SHE ISN'T UNHINGED!" Papyrus rants, his finger flying towards Sans' chest. "DO YOU KNOW HOW OFTEN I HAVE HAD TO SIT THROUGH AN INANE DISCUSSION ON WHICH TYPE OF YANDERE IS THE BEST TYPE OF YANDERE AND WHY THEY LIKE IT SO MUCH AND WHAT KIND OF EQUIPMENT--"

Alright, that's a little too much information. You don't know what a 'yandere' is and you're not sure you want to, if it can be used to describe Alphys.

"stalker, obsessive type, 'if i ain't gonna have ya, no one else can'," Sans explains which summarily ignoring Papyrus who has gone on his own rant to no one in particular. "real good at kidnapping and keepin' someone ta themselves. not the kinda person ya wanna be a prisoner of."

You can imagine. There is the temptation to let them both ramble on and go off on this tangent; it's always useful to know one's enemies. But you can't stay in the Lounge forever. "I see," you nod, "Is she not liked amongst the Family, then?"

"NO."

"nah."

Their answers come at the same time, both with equally disturbed expressions on their faces.

"i hate ta say it, but i reckon tori should come back and knock some sense inta him," Sans mutters. "i knew her when she was still queen; she never let asgore get away with half of his shit."

"I'VE NEVER SERVED UNDER TORIEL, BUT I AM GIVEN TO UNDERSTAND THE SAME," Papyrus has his hands on his hips, his weight on one leg. "PERHAPS WE SHOULD APPEAL TO HER..."

At your intrigued look, Papyrus furrows his brows. "WHAT."

You blink at him slowly. "Is there a large age gap between you and Mister Sans?"

It's not a question that's come up before; you never needed to know how old they are. After all, monsters age differently. Grillby himself is older than the barrier that trapped the monsters Underground.

"kinda," Sans flicks his wrist in a blase motion. "didn't really bother countin' but i was outta mah stripes when boss was still a babybones."

You know that to be out of 'stripes' is to be considered an adult. A considerable age gap, then.

"IN THE REALM OF OVER TEN YEARS." Papyrus, of course, has a concrete number. Then he narrows his sockets at you, as though expecting a negative response. "DOES THAT BOTHER YOU?"

You get the feeling that there is an undertone to Papyrus' question, but for the life of you, you can't place it. So you simply tilt your head, answering with your own question, "Should it?"

"depends. how old are ya?" Sans winks at you.

Truth be told, you never kept count after twenty. Not much point when it didn't really matter in the end. Your scars were more of a yardstick of your life than any number could be. So you let a little smile cross your lips and you press a gloved index finger to it in a universal symbol of secrecy. "Old enough."

Though Sans only smiles back at you, Papyrus blushes quietly from where he stands. It's a cute look on him, you think, as you look at him from the corner of your eye. But you'll spare him this time.

"Is there anything further that you need of me, Mister Sans, Mister Papyrus?" you ask, dropping your hands back to fold over your belly.

The grin on Sans' face turns lascivious. "yeah, ya free tonigh--"

"KEEP YOUR ECTO IN YOUR PANTS," Papyrus growls, looking for all the world like a stern mother. "WE HAVE WORK TO DO."

Sans shrugs. "nothin' we can't do tomorrow."

"I WILL NOT ABIDE BY YOUR LAZINESS ANY LONGER--" Papyrus reaches out as if to snag his brother by the scruff of his shirt. Something that Sans allows, interestingly.

The shorter, stouter skeleton waves to you as he is forced to abandon his drink on the counter, though he manages to snag the mustard bottle and his suit jacket. "call me, sweetheart," he purrs at you, licking his teeth as he is hauled out by his taller, angrier brother. "don't forget, ya owe me a second meeting~"

The corners of your lips twitch upwards and you incline your head, trailing out after them. "Of course. I shall see you soon." You don't miss the slight blush on Papyrus' face, or forget that you offered to discuss his 'high standards' at a later date.

Perhaps you shall see both brothers again soon, you think as you watch them both round the corner and disappear, their voices carrying down the halls. But first, you must confer with the Manager. So many things to do, so little time to do it in.

#undertale fics #mafiafell au #mafiafell sans x reader #mafiafell sans #sans x reader #mafiafell papyrus #mafiafell papyrus x reader #the concierge #ficlet #reader insert #drabble #vive la revolution

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oneiriad · 1 year

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I just saw your post on juror enrollment. Huh, guess I'm one of today's lucky 10,000. would you be willing to elaborate on the system used? in my nation its literally voter rolls randomly picked. #i was picked twice in college (which is an excused profession so I just got a form and didn't have to show up, but since then when it would be interesting to do and my profession isn't excused service automatically, I've never been called

Denmark does not have juror rolls. For that matter, technically, we don't have pure jury trials. I say juror, but the Danish word is lægdommer, a lay judge, and you serve alongside at least one legally educated judge in the actual trials.

You serve as a juror for a period of four years. When the juror list opens, each municipality has to submit a list of citizens. Back in the day they used to be selected from local members of the political parties, but these days that's either entirely done away with or only used in part. Instead, anybody can - within a limited period of time - submit an application to become a juror.

I say anybody, but of course there are restrictions. Citizenship, age, sound of mind, have not committed serious crimes, and there's a number of excluded professions, mostly any that deal with any aspect of the legal system themselves. Well, and priests of any religion - not sure why that one.

Anyway, you apply and the municipality makes a list of x number of potential jurors (I believe these days they try to match to demographics, so if you are of a demographic less likely to apply (young people, for instance), it increases your chances to get on the list). Once the list is done, they submit it to the court system. The courts then take the lists and do a random draw - well, two draws. One draw to pick the jurors for the municipal courts (which usually cover several municipalities) and one for the two appeal courts that share the country between them.

If you didn't make it on the list or your name is not drawn, you'll receive a polite letter saying thank you, but you didn't get in. I got one of those last time, when I tried to apply.

If you did get drawn, congratulations, for the next four years you are a juror. You will be asked to on average serve four trials a year, most of which take a day. Some trials take longer - the case against the submarine murder asshole was set to 12 days, I think - but most last a day. You are legally obliged at this point to show up when summoned, unless you notify the courts upon receiving the summons that you've got a scheduling conflict, like exams or literally not being in the country on the day. Work is not a scheduling conflict, your employer has to give you time off for this. They don't have to pay you - some do, some don't. The courts pay a daily stipend - not huge, but is it ever?

#denmark #I think I'll apply again

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ailtrahq · 7 months

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A U.S. security researcher is warning of a chilling effect after he was detained on arrival at a U.S. airport, his phone was searched, and was ordered to testify to a grand jury, only to have prosecutors reverse course and drop the investigation later. On Wednesday, Sam Curry, a security engineer at blockchain technology company Yuga Labs, said in a series of posts on X, formerly Twitter, that he was taken into secondary inspection by U.S. federal agents on September 15 after returning from a trip to Japan. Curry said agents with the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) unit and the Department of Homeland Security questioned him at Dulles International Airport in Washington DC about a “high profile phishing campaign,” searched his unlocked phone, and served him with a grand jury subpoena to testify in New York the week after. According to a photo of the subpoena that Curry posted, the grand jury was investigating wire fraud and money laundering. But Curry said he later received confirmation that the copy of his device data was deleted and the grand jury subpoena was canceled once prosecutors realized that Curry was investigating the theft of crypto, and not involved in it. In a post, Curry said that in December 2022 he discovered that scammers had inadvertently exposed their Ethereum private key in the source code of a phishing website that had stolen millions of dollars worth of crypto. Curry said he imported the key to his own crypto wallet to see if there was anything left in the alleged scammers’ wallet, but that he found the key “five minutes too late and the stolen assets were gone.” Curry said he was “on my home IP address and obviously not attempting to conceal my identity as I was simply investigating this.” “We normally take this approach where it’s seeing if there’s anything we can do to help. And then if we can’t, obviously we can’t. It’s tricky, because there are so many of these phishing campaigns,” Curry told TechCrunch in a phone call. Curry said that the feds had requested the authorization logs from crypto marketplace OpenSea, which Curry used to check the contents of the scammers’ wallet. Those logs included Curry’s home IP address. Curry accused the feds of using his arrival to the U.S. “as an excuse to ask for my device and summon me to a grand jury, rather than just email me or something.” “I’m sharing this because I think it’s something people should be aware of if they’re doing similar work. It was widely shared that the private key was leaked and my background as a security researcher wasn’t enough to dissuade using immigrations and a grand jury to intimidate me,” Curry said in his post. Curry is a widely known security researcher, whose work has helped to discover flaws in airline rewards programs, connected vehicles, and helped to uncover security weaknesses at Apple, and Starbucks. Curry said was flying into Washington DC to attend an election security research forum set up by U.S. cybersecurity agency CISA to audit U.S. voting machines. After he was released from the airport, he spoke to his attorney, who told the federal investigators that Curry was investigating the incident as part of routine work as a security researcher. Upon my return to the United States from a trip to Japan, I was directed to a secondary inspection room where I was presented with a Grand Jury subpoena by officers from the IRS-CI and DHS. The subpoena required me to appear in New York to provide testimony for wire fraud. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/VrxiKZpfgS — Sam Curry (@samwcyo) September 27, 2023 In a call, Curry told TechCrunch he understood why the feds were investigating the incident, but criticized their approach. “The thing I will give credit for is if in any other circumstance somebody has the private key, someone who’s obviously done a multimillion dollar phishing scam, and use that private key to sign in to OpenSea, yeah, I think it is a little suspicious and that’s like definitely something to investigate,” said Curry.

“They had a manila folder with my photo and my Twitter and all my social media, and I would have assumed that they would have looked into it a little bit,” said Curry. “Even just a brief read — just who I am and what I do — I feel it would have cleared things up a lot.” While he believes the legal demand is resolved, Curry said that he “felt dirty” when the feds handed back his phone after searching its contents. U.S. authorities can search a person’s phone at the border without a warrant, including Americans, though the law is less clear on whether a person must comply. Only U.S. citizens cannot be denied entry for not complying, but they can have their devices seized indefinitely. Nicholas Biase, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, where the grand jury subpoena was filed, declined to comment when reached Wednesday. Terry Lemons, a spokesperson for the IRS-CI, the criminal investigative arm of the U.S. tax authority known for probing crypto thefts, did not return a request for comment. It’s not unheard of for U.S. authorities to target security researchers or journalists with threats of prosecution or other kinds of legal process to compel testimony, like grand juries, which convene in secret to determine if formal criminal charges should be brought against a person. The relationship between U.S. authorities and the security community has largely improved in recent years as both attitudes towards good-faith hackers and the legal landscape for security researchers have changed for the better. But instances like this threaten to weaken the trust built in recent years by disincentivizing researchers from engaging in security defense and remediation if they think their actions could be prosecuted. In the last few years, security researchers have taken matters into their own hands during thefts and hacking campaigns that target and steal cryptocurrencies. In the crypto world, this is called “white hatting,” a term that refers to the traditional distinction between black hats, cybercriminals or hackers who hack with malicious or illegal intent, and white hats, researchers and hackers who operate with no criminal or ill intent. But accessing a victim’s wallet — even a scammer’s wallet — in an attempt to recover funds falls in “a real gray area” of the law, former prosecutor Elizabeth Roper told Motherboard last year. “If it ends up saving everyone, every user on the platform and a bunch of money and the person who did it kind of immediately discloses it,” Roper said, “maybe we wouldn’t use our resources to prosecute that person, but again it depends on the specific case.” Source

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colorisbyshe · 2 years

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how old are y’all and how many times have you received summons for jury duty? have you actually ever served?

cause i’m 28 and i just got my fifth jury summons and i’ve only actually been called in once and didn’t actually serve. this feels excessive.

#two of my summons were for vermont #and i had to be like WRONG STATE MY DUDES I JUST WENT THERE FOR COLLEGE

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ouyangzizhensdad · 4 years

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I'm reading through some of your meta and in the one about WWX possibly weaponizing MXY being gay you mention how MXY being a molester was fabricated. I agree with this but I always thought that this was a personal headcanon and didn't realize that it was supported by canon. If you're up to it, please may you point me to where it might say this?

Hi anon,

I’m sad to report that there isn’t a scene where JGY admits before a jury that yes, it was I, I fabricated the claims against Mo Xuanyu, who was a hapless victim all along! which would be convenient for winning arguments quickly and easily. But, I promise you, so long as we read between the lines, it is undeniable that we are meant to understand by the end of the novel that the accusations leveled against Mo Xuanyu were baseless and that he was another victim of JGY’s (and NHS’s!) machinations.

Beyond a purely thematic reading of the novel, which would therefore highlight that the theme around how public opinion is willing to believe accusations and condemn without material or sensible proof (particularly so when it comes to people who do not hold a lot of power within society, those who are the Other) is one that is repeated across many characters, the narrative reveal of JGY’s true personality and actions indicates that the accusations against MXY were just another ploy of JGY’s.

At the very beginning of the novel, when WWX looks through Mo Xuanyu’s things, he’s able to piece out together that Mo Xuanyu’s “lunacy” seemed rooted in a deep and paranoiac fear of.... something. MXY didn’t just get thrown out of the Sect in disgrace--something clearly happened to him, or he clearly witnessed something that scared him out of his senses.

“after he returned, he seemed to have gone completely mad—although no one could tell what kind of shock he’d suffered. He had good days and bad ones. It was as if he had been scared witless.” [Chapter 1]

Further into the novel, it is revealed that MXY didn’t actually harass his “peers” but actually only one person: Jin Guangyao. Right after this reveal, we also learn that MXY used to treat JGY with the utmost respect and deference. While Jin Ling seems to misunderstand this past deification of JGY as a side-effect of MXY’s presumed feelings for him, as readers we can see how it actually raises doubts into the claims leveraged against MXY, as it would then seem very out of character for MXY to disrespect JGY by harassing him (especially if one considers that the risks of harassing his powerful half-brother definitely would not outweigh the benefits....).

“Don’t listen to [JGY],” said Wei Wuxian. “Let me tell you—when you grow older, you’ll find out that there are more and more people you want to beat up, but you’ll have to force yourself to get along with them nicely. So, since you’re still young, go beat up all the people you want. At such an age, if you don’t have a few proper fights, your life won’t be complete.”

Jin Ling’s face betrayed faint yearning, yet he still sounded contemptuous, “What are you talking about? Shushu’s advice is for my own good.”

After he spoke, he suddenly remembered that the past Mo Xuanyu had always regarded Jin Guangyao as a deity. He definitely would not have disagreed with Jin Guangyao in any way. Yet, now he was saying not to listen to him. Was it that he really did not hold any improper thoughts toward Jin Guangyao anymore?

(we also learn that Zewu-jun never knew about what supposedly happened, or even who MXY was, which again.....fishy.... JGY what are you hiding...... not mentioning someone harassed you to your bff is one thing, but not introducing him to your half-bro?.... )

Then! Almost right after we learn all this new information, it is also revealed through WWX’s paperman adventures and NMJ’s adventures that JGY is not who he has presented himself to be: he is a master manipulator, who has lied and continues to lie to preserve his position and to eliminate people he perceives as threatening the place he carved for himself in sweat and tears and blood.

At this point, the deal is pretty much sealed: we have an unreliable witness in the man we now know to be able to do incredibly scary and cruel things (a knowledge that will only be reinforced by the end of the novel once NHS’ plan is completed). What actually happened, how MXY went from someone who deified JGY to someone who would need to be sent away in disgrace and scared into silence and compliance, all this is not told to us by the novel. It is possible that JGY might have seen MXY as a potential accomplice to his deeds (like he did his other half-brother, XY) (EDIT: I DREAMED UP THAT XY was one of JGS’s bastard children, please disregard it), or that he might have seen MXY as a potential threat to his position because of they shared a father--honestly, I can see many possibilities here!

Also, it is important to consider that even the claim of MXY’s “lunacy” is pretty fraught and ambiguous. The novel ends up setting up the idea that MXY’s erratic behaviour was related to him being scared (as we see in the and frustrated at the injustice he received at the hands of both the Jin Sect and his family (for example, this piece of shino meta)

Finally, it’s a good time to remember that even MXY’s sacrifice was not a decision he made on his own: he was once again the victim of a mastermind with much more power and influence than he could ever dream to have. After all, the novel takes pain to explain to us that NHS’s schemes for revenge depended on MXY sacrificing himself (passage under the cut because this post is getting long!)

“Nie-zongzhu,” Wei Wuxian asked again. “I heard that you often travel between the Gusu Lan sect and the Lanling Jin sect, am I right?”

“That’s right.”

“Then did you really not recognize Mo Xuanyu?”

“Ah?” Nie Huaisang’s face twitched slightly.

“I remember that the first time I met you after my soul had been offered into his body, you acted as if you did not recognize me, and even asked Hanguang-jun who I was. Mo Xuanyu was then entangled anyhow with Jin Guangyao during that time* and was able to access even his secret collections, and you often went to find Jin-zongzhu to complain. Even if you and Mo Xuanyu were not familiar with each other, did you really not see him before at all?”

Nie Huaisang scratched his head, saying, “Wei-xiong, Jinlintai is so huge, I can’t possibly recognize everyone, even if I’ve seen them, I can’t remember. Moreover…”

Looking rather awkward, he continued, “You know about Mo Xuanyu’s identity back then, it’s slightly…...the Lanling Jin sect had tried their best to hide it, so it wouldn’t have been surprising if I had never met him before. Even Xichen-ge may not have met him before.”

“Oh, that’s true. Zewu-jun did not know who Mo Xuanyu was either.”

“Right! And what I don’t understand is, even if I had seen Mo Xuanyu before, why would I pretend not to recognize him? Was there such a need?”

Wei Wuxian laughed and replied, “Nothing much, I just thought it strange and was casually asking.

However, he thought, He was simply trying to see whether the ‘Mo Xuanyu’ he met was the real one.

For someone who was said to have been cowardly and weak, where would have Mo Xuanyu gotten the courage to sacrifice himself and offer his soul?

And as for Chifeng-zun’s left hand, why was it discarded? It could not be that Jin Guangyao would accidentally lose it.

Moreover, why was it that it happened to appear right at the Mo family residence, just when Wei Wuxian had been reincarnated, but not somewhere else?

If Chifeng-zun’s body had been buried by the QingheNie sect, would Nie Huaisang, who had always respected his older brother, not notice that his body had disappeared all these years?

Wei Wuxian was inclined to believe an alternative situation.

[...]

As such, [NHS] thought of another person; Mo Xuanyu, who had just been kicked out of the Golden Pavilion.

Perhaps in order to let Mo Xuanyu listen to him, Nie Huaisang had already spoken to him before and heard from an upset and anguished Mo Xuanyu that he had seen one of Jin Guangyao’s scrolls of forbidden spells recording a certain ancient demonic spell. He then took advantage of the Mo Xuanyu, who was then humiliated and bullied by his clan, to persuade him to perform the spell as revenge**.

And which fierce corpse would he summon?

Naturally, he would summon the Yiling Patriarch.

Unable to bear the days of humiliation any longer, Mo Xuanyu finally drew the array, and Nie Huaisang also took the chance to throw out the hot potato that was burning his hand: ChiFeng-Zun’s left arm.

From there on, his plan had begun and he no longer had to spend his own time and energy to find Nie Mingjue’s remaining body, leaving the dangerous and troublesome job to Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji. All he had to do was watch their actions closely. [Chapter 109]

*I changed the translation here, which originally said that “Mo Xuanyu was harassing Jin Guangyao” since I find (at least with my limited linguistic skills lmao) that the original is much more ambivalent. The clause is 莫玄羽当年好歹也纠缠过金光瑶, and the use of 好歹 signals to me toward ambivalence, which is further compounded by the fact that the verb 纠缠 does not necessarily translate to harassment. So I doubt that the original intent was to suggest that WWX was saying to NHS: shouldn’t you have known the dude who was harassing JGY? Anyone who knows Chinese more than I do is free to come and correct me if I am completely wrong in my assessment.

**Okay I changed the translation here again because the translation I was working with made it seem as if MXY was motivated by shame? but the original Chinese says 他便怂恿当时饱受族人欺辱的莫玄羽 which to me clearly points to his treatment by the Mo family/clan and to the fact that it was something being done unto him, not a state of mind he had.

#anon ask #mdzs meta #mo xuanyu #mxy #jgy #jin guangyao #nhs #nie huaisang #meta post follow-up #Anonymous

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summonerscenarios · 4 years

Note

What if some major property damage happened during the night, and the evidence suggests that the Mc did it. The teachers punish them, despite the Mc going on about how they didn't do it. How would the teachers react to all this going on, and after a week after said punishments were finished, it's revealed that the Mc was in fact, actually innocent. Hope this was an ok ask

Well I do believe it’s been a hot second since the MC has suffered so let’s change that lmao. Honestly this scenario had me SO TORN writing it up because I legit couldn’t see any good way for this turning out okay - like how do you come back from this??? Just. So many emotions. So many.

-----

The whole thing was a mess - within the course of a single night there’s been significant damage to school property, to the point where the authorities had to be called in in case there was another attack coming. Rumors flood the school like wildfire, and every eye is trained onto the damaged site with either concern or a desperation for answers, nothing but questions on everyone’s lips for the foreseeable future. What happened? Who was responsible? Is it going to happen again? If so, when? By the time that the school is updated on the situation they’re notified that the culprit is clearly one of the students - there’s evidence left behind which suggests that someone was on the property right around the time the damage was done, in that exact same spot not even a few hours before it was discovered.

That student? Is you.

Mononobe, technically being labelled as your legal guardian, is the first to be approached with the issue, and he almost doesn’t believe it. Yes, you may be jokingly referred to as a ‘problem child’ for the trouble that you seem to attract, but going out of your way to destroy something for no discernible reason? He’s insistent that they lay out all the evidence gathered, to look over it, and look over it again till there’s another explanation for the damage. But everything investigators have managed to dig up points right back at you being responsible, and once that sinks in . He takes the situation seriously, and offers to be the one to call you out from class and bring you in; he’s hoping that seeing a familiar face will put you more at ease rather than being dragged out by strangers. But the entire walk to your classroom feels heavy - he knows that he’s bringing you in for a confession, and a part of him is still hoping that you aren’t responsible even as he knocks on the door and slides it open.

He tries to offer a reassuring smile as he asks to see you for a moment, but Ms. Ziz, who’s responsible for your lessons today, realizes that something isn’t right when she turns to greet him. Her expression flashes to concern for a brief moment, but she replaces it with a reassuring smile before turning back to the class and giving you the go-ahead to leave with Mr. Mononobe. You’re confused, but don’t seem to realize anything’s wrong as you join him out in the hallway, following in step as he motions for you to follow. The walk there is spent with him making small talk, asking you about how you’re settling in with new classes and inquiring how your friends are doing - the whole time you’re relaxed and smiling, even chuckling as you joke about the latest spat between Kengo and Shiro.

But then he stops at a door, and without thinking you open it, only to find what could only be described as a small jury waiting inside. It’s a mix between the officers responsible for the investigation and teachers not currently teaching classes - with some of the notable people being Mr. Triton and Mr. Jinn. Their expressions are grim but serious to reflect the gravity of the situation, and confused you turn to look back at Mr. Mononobe, that confusion turning into one of realization once everything clicks into place.

They think it’s you who did it - they all think that it’s you.

You deny the accusations almost immediately, growing increasingly more distressed and frustrated when they keep bringing up evidence that suggests you were responsible. Yes, you had been at the school after classes ended - but that was to pick up your bag that you’d left behind - your friends could vouch for that because you told them where you were going! You have an explanation for everything, but your denial only seems to make things worse - Jinn tries to comfort you by saying that if you tell the truth they’ll be able to figure something out but you just snap that you are telling the truth! Do they seriously not believe you?!

By the end of the meeting it’s clear they see you as guilty. You feel your eyes burning as you stare down at the floor, and your throat feels hoarse from the yelling, but you know that saying anything else will just make things worse, so you go quiet, only piping up to once again declare your innocence only for it to fall of deaf ears. They inform you that with the damage being on school grounds it’s up to the faculty to discern what punishment you’ll receive; the authorities aren’t going to get involved, but you still have to face consequences for ‘your’ actions. The teachers see you physically deflate when you’re informed that whilst you won’t be suspended, you’ll be excluded from all notable foreseeable school events until the damage is repaired - on top of this, you’ll be escorted to and from classes by a faculty member whilst on the school premises until it’s clear that an event like this won’t happen again effective immediately. It’s only then that the meeting is adjourned and you’re allowed to either return to your class or stay until the bell rings.

The moment that the Summoner’s catch wind of what’s happened there’s an uproar - Kengo comes barging into the staff room the minute that the last class bell rings, practically seething as he demands to know what the hell’s going on - are they serious?! Do they really think it was you?! This is followed by Shiro who steps forward to intervene, asking Mr. Mononobe to please explain what made them all agree that it was you who was responsible for the damage. Even Toji steps forward on your behalf, corroborating your story about returning to the school for your belongings. It’s at this point that thing’s really start to feel wrong, but the teachers have to rely on the evidence they’ve been given, not to mention you took the trip alone - there was no saying what actually happened besides the information that they do have. Once it’s clear there’s no way to appeal your accusations the group leaves, all the while defending the fact that you were being punished for something you didn’t do.

The next week is heavy with a tense atmosphere - even without the news getting around, the fact that you were on constant watch was enough for people to catch on to what happened. Naturally your friends are there to support you, each one coming forward to either offer you words of encouragement and comfort, or to approach the teachers directly for some kind of answer. You try to keep your spirits up in the face of your friends, but around the teachers you don’t say a word.

Mr. Triton tries to strike up a conversation while he escorts you from one class to the next, only to be met by a blank stare before you focus back ahead without even a sound. Mr. Jinn is there to greet you as you enter the school grounds, and watches as the smile on your face as you talk with your friends drops into an impassive look by the time you approach him. Ms. Ziz tries to comfort you on multiple occasions, confiding that she honestly believes that you didn’t do it - but even that feels hollow compared to the people who have already deemed you guilty. Everyone sees it - there’s hurt and anger in your eyes, and Mononobe can make it out clearly every time he catches your gaze. You feel betrayed in a way, and you have every right to feel that way given your innocence, but no one else is aware of that fact.

Until the following week.

Things come to a head once the week is over - the majority of the property damage is rebuilt and there’s talk about making an exception to your punishment since there’s been no further incident and it looks like things could be going back to normal. But then there’s a knock at the staff room door and Mr. Triton is the closest one to answer it. The moment he opens the door a student comes rushing in, practically sobbing and apologizing over and over as she clutches something in her hand. Mr. Mononobe steps in to calm her down, trying to reassure her that everything’s okay until he’s finally able to make out what she’s saying.

The student knew who did it - who really did it. She had been on the school grounds the night of the incident, noticed the damage but was too scared to confront the culprits so she’d taken a video, planning to turn the video in the next morning until she heard that the person responsible had already been caught and punished. It wasn’t until much later that she’d heard that it had been you who took the fall, and the guilt of knowing the truth just ate away at her until she knew she had to tell the truth. Saying this, the student hands over her phone to Mr. Mononobe, and sure enough there’s the video of the real culprits right before his eyes - clear evidence that you’d been innocent all this time.

Everyone in the room realizes at that moment that this entire week you’d spend miserable, restricted and punished, was for a crime you didn’t even commit - and now that they know the guilt is palpable. This time when Mononobe goes to collect you it feels as though he can’t get there fast enough, and the second he opens the door the class goes silent. The last time he’d done this was when you were accused, so the moment you see him he can see you tense in your seat, apprehensive and hesitant when he asks you to step out of the classroom. Every eye is on you and you feel them burning into the back of your head as you stand up and head over to the door. Kengo almost gets up to follow you, but you shoot him a strained smile and tell him that you’ll be fine and he reluctantly slumps back into his seat.

Mononobe tries to comfort you by assuring that you’re not in trouble, but unsurprisingly you’re still doubtful, and keep looking anxiously at every door that you pass as though waiting for something to happen. You once again come to stop outside of the staff room but you don’t budge, instead turning to stare up at Mononobe in a silent refusal to open the door - but you don’t need to. The door swings open and Triton and Jinn burst out, mid discussion about checking on what’s taking you so long when they freeze and spot you and Mr. Mononobe. Almost immediately you feel panic wash over you, clearly taking their words the wrong way and you start walking back until Mononobe intervenes and tells you that it's best to explain things once you’re inside.

There’s a notable tension in your posture - you’re terrified that they’re going to tell you some other bad news - that you’ll be suspended, or expelled, or worse, even as they explain to you the new information that’s come to light regarding the property damage. The moment the word ‘innocent’ leaves his mouth you straighten up in your seat, eyes wide processing what he’d just said before anger lights up in your eyes. A week's worth of disappointment and stress come bubbling up to the surface as you seethe about how you’d been telling them that for days, only to get ignored and punished for something you never did - and they let it happen. You were innocent, and they didn’t believe you. Eventually, your voice pipes down, your anger simmering into something more melancholic and you bury your face into your hands, eyes scrunched shut trying to muster up enough strength to keep being angry, to keep yelling until everyone understands how bad it hurts. But you’re just exhausted, upset and just plain tired of the whole ordeal.

There’s a hand on your shoulder and you look up to see Mr. Mononobe kneeling down to your height, his expression remorseful as he apologizes to you. He knows that apologize will do nothing to take back everything that you’ve been subjected to this past week, but apologies are the only thing that he can offer you, alongside promises of making things right - you don’t have to believe his words right now, but he wants you to at least know that he will do his best to make good on his word. The only thing you can do is take a deep breath to steel your nerves and explain that you need some time before heading back to class - they don’t argue and you spend the rest of the lesson in the staff room, coming to terms with everything that’s just happened.

Things are incredibly awkward for a while after the incident. Your relationship with the teachers is noticeably more strained - you don’t confide in them nearly as much as you used to, and conversations between you and the teachers often ends with uncomfortable periods of silence. They clearly feel guilty about accusing you, and whilst you understand that they had to rely only on the evidence they were given it doesn’t make it any easier. You want to trust them, really you do, but it’s going to take time - and until then you keep your distance, and never go alone around school alone if you can help it for a while afterwards.

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project-ohagi · 4 years

Text

Dabi x Reader

Buy me a coffee!! <3

Greyromantic: Can experience romantic attraction, but weakly or infrequently; feeling alienated from romance; only feeling attraction in specific circumstances.

Asexual: Having little/no sexual attraction or interest in sexual activities.

Questioning: Process of exploration regarding gender, sexual orientation, sexual identity.

----

The phenomenon of love is a complex, chemical concoction that has long been weaved into the fabric of our society. It is presented as a requirement, with those who find the concept either too challenging to thoroughly comprehend, or lacking in appeal, branded as anomalies. In its pursuit of normality, it quickly alienated those whose hearts just couldn't conform. In a different society, one not quite so dominated by this 'normality' of romantic and sexual interests...you might be forgiven for your limited knowledge. But this one...it seems to blanch at the very idea that happiness can be attained in the absence of romantic attraction.

As such, those identifying along the Aromantic or Asexual spectrums are often overlooked - even shunned. But, the greatest truth of it all is a lot simpler than you may expect: an emotion as profound as joy cannot be induced solely by succumbing to carnal desires, or tasting the lips of another. No...it is through self-acceptance, and the acceptance from those for whom your heart beats - parents, siblings, friends...and perhaps in this manner, the meaning is amplified.

But...what happens when you are forced into complacency, into setting aside your own interests, to 'further evolution', or to 'finally be normal'?

You were still trying to figure this out.

Who were you...really? Why couldn't you summon an emotion as free and universal as love?...Romantic love? Why did it seem so incomprehensible, so...intangible? These were the thoughts you battled with, every waking moment. They burrowed deep into your mind, so that you could never pull them out. They were elusive, yet...constant, nagging.

Why am I so different? Everyone else has crushes...even Toga likes that one UA boy! Ah, yeah...she asked me if I have someone I love. I just said "No". Saying: "I don't even know what 'love' is" seems a bit...she'd definitely call me weird. Then the others would probably laugh at me...

You felt...incomplete, like a jigsaw puzzle with only half the pieces. You felt the isolation, suffocating you. It hadn't been a conscious decision. You didn't awaken one morning and think 'You know what? This whole 'love' thing? It just isn't for me! ' You craved a connection, a bond of some kind - holding hands...a hug at most. Anything more was frightening to imagine. What if someone...pressured you? Or stole a kiss, as an offhanded action? You couldn't bear it...not even the mere thought. It was likely the main contributor to your chronic anxiety and paranoia. Your treatment at the hands of society, the ridicule and the fear of phrases such as "It's just a phase!" or, "You need to find the right person!"...they fuelled the flickering spark of villainy in your eyes.

After all, outcasts and monsters are interchangeable to most common folk.

But you didn't want those labels. You were a lost lamb, wandering aimlessly - what you really needed was guidance...someone who would listen and advise, someone who would accept you and every burden you carried, without question or quandary. But you said nothing...so you got nothing in return. Dabi was the closest to a...a source of strength? Motivation?...Potential love interest? But...how would you ever truly know? How could you discern the romantic from the platonic? It seemed impossible - simply a waste of time. Still, you never fully resigned to this fate of...loneliness.

You wanted to cherish, and to be cherished.

You wanted to love, and to be loved.

Perhaps it was the unyielding voice of fear, of desperation and pain, but...you just didn't know! You didn't know...and, it was difficult. You studied Dabi's face, and while nothing immediately heated your cheeks, he wasn't...unattractive. Aha! Maybe that was love? Alas, you discovered it to be more aesthetic attraction. It was a little disappointing, but perseverance should've been the key, right...?

Why? Why do I feel so little? Dabi is there for me, right? So surely if anyone, I should love him!...Do I love him? How can I tell? Is there some sort of test? How would a test even be administered? What kind of questions would I have to answer? I don't think I could answer them, even with study. If I'm struggling so much now...

And anyway...Dabi was a dominant male, whose sexuality was unclear. Even if you managed to settle on a definition of 'love', and figure out what role it played in your life...there was no guarantee that Dabi would want you. The jury was still out, on your gender - 'questioning' was your placeholder for the moment. But, you usually dressed masculine...would he be okay with someone so indecisive? Someone who might be neither male nor female? And, what if...what if he wasn't the one?

Say I can find love, and I start to understand it...who's to say that the person I love will be Dabi? It could be anyone! Maybe they were right, and I just haven't met the right person...but, I kind of want it to be Dabi? Is that...bad? Oh god, it sounds so selfish! He'll just be tied down, and if we find out that I don't actually love him...what would he do? At the very least, he'd be angry...

Dabi...the more you recalled his honey-laced voice, all the flirting you failed to notice until it was pointed out (clearly, he was doing that in jest), and those blue eyes (steely from years on the run, that probably depleted the pools of guilt and regret often accompanying mass killings, thievery and other criminal acts), the more confusion festered. You just didn't understand! Was it love? Or was it conversion? Were you trying to become 'normal'? Well, as normal as a villain could be...? Or did Dabi really mean something...something greater than you believed? Something...beyond what you currently knew?

This journey of self-discovery had approached a torturous junction.

Why were relationships so sought after, so expected? Even you desired one. How else could you ever hope to form a deep bond, or receive that fabled 'feeling of ecstasy' from holding hands or hugging? If there was no romance, mainstream media would lead you to the conclusion that there isn't a 'proper' or 'deep enough' connection - there can't be. You wanted to experience these things with Dabi. No-one else. You couldn't explain why. He was...an unusual character, mysterious and with perhaps a similar level of complexity as the daunting questions you were asking yourself. But mentioning your plight to him simply wasn't an option. Villains were responsible for themselves; the League was nothing more than a safety net.

Besides, Dabi was heartless.

...Or so he liked to be portrayed.

Urghhh...why is this so complicated? How am I supposed to know if I love him? The signs are...increased heart rate and blood to the face, right...? That seems unhealthy...is that actually supposed to be a good thing??

"Hey, you stopped spacing out yet, (V/n)?"

Shit! No, no, no! I haven't finished spacing out!

Sheepishly, you turned in the direction of the voice. Why did Dabi always seem to materialise out of thin air, whenever you thought about him? Did you magic him here, by accident? Subconsciously? However you managed that...you hated it. Your existential crisis really didn't need a spectator. Break out the popcorn, why don't you?

Can't I have a break down in peace? Wait...am I even in my room?...Did I seriously question my entire existence right here in the bar? It's a good thing there's no-one else here...I don't need more people telling me that I'm crazy...

You sighed. "...Yeah."

His brows furrowed - this was unfamiliar territory. Helping people had never been his speciality, especially given his own trauma . But for you...it was certainly worth a shot. "What's up? You on your man-period or something?"

Off to a spectacularly dreadful start. "I - I don't know if I'm a man, though...how could I-"

"Relax, it was a joke. Your pronouns are they/them, right? I'm not gonna call you a man just for the sake of argument. Nah...Hey, scoot over." A for effort.

"You could sit literally anywhere else."

He smirked. "You gonna stop me, sweet-cheeks?"

Sweet...?

"Thought not. Anyway, what's going on? You've been all doom-and-gloom for the past...two hours." He motioned over to the clock.

Had you honestly spent so long in contemplation? Gods, you could've unlocked the secrets of the universe, but no. "I've...kinda been asking myself that."

"Oh?" It was obviously a prompt, but talk of your romantic inclination (or lack thereof) would likely be regarded in the realm of 'stupid' and 'childish', so...could really you trust him?

I've always been too nervous to take risks...Guess now's as good a time as any to change that.

You swallowed down the uncertainties, the anxiety and everything in-between. They didn't help - they only hindered. And...you did need to release this burden, that weighed you down so heavily.

"Um...it's - it's...confusing. Really...confusing. I guess, I simple terms: I don't know what 'love' is. I know it probably sounds really dumb to you, and I feel stupid for even saying it, but...I've never...never had a crush, never been in love. I don't...I don't feel anything romantic towards, well...anyone!"

"Not even a bit?" He asked, blank-faced.

"I - I don't know. I really want to, though. I'm just...I'm scared. There's always this underlying fear of...what if - what if someone forces me? Y'know? What if...I date someone, and they can't accept that I'm different...that I might never feel anything for them? I don't want to be lonely forever, Dabi! I want someone, I really do! I say I've never been in love, but...the truth is, I just don't know! I know that I don't need to kiss someone. That's what I...what I don't want, but...I - I still want to hold hands with someone! I'd still like a hug, every once in a while...I don't know what I'm doing, or really...who I am."

For a few moments, he was silent beside you, just drinking in the flood of information. He refrained from reaching out, or gazing too intently. It took time to settle on an appropriate response. "You're looking at it as an issue, though - something you've gotta resolve, before you can move on. I'm not the best with advice, trust me...but I can tell you that it's a journey. It'll continue and evolve, as long as it needs to. You'll...probably know when you're ready, or...something. All that sappy crap. You don't have to force yourself to understand it all now."

I'll know...?

"When I'm...ready?" You repeated, eyes tracing the lines on your palm.

"Yeah...probably."

Just before you lost all coherency, a single thought fluttered to the forefront of your mind: My heart...just...skipped a beat?!

[Word Count: 1775]

#bnha dabi #my hero academia x reader #mha dabi #dabi is a todoroki #dabi x reader #pride #greyromantic #asexual #questioning #honestly same #bnha x reader

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hookedonapirate · 4 years

Text

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

Summary: Detective Killian Jones took an indefinite leave of absence from SBPD after his brother was murdered in the Line of Duty. Bitter and broken, he resides in a cottage on the beach when his brother's former partner, David Nolan brings him a case he knows the vengeful detective won’t be able to resist. A case involving Liam's killer.

Dr. Emma Swan makes all of her decisions like she operates on her patients—with care, competence and compassion. But when her colleague, Graham Humbert, is murdered in cold blood by the man who was freed because of a decision she made as a juror, she starts second-guessing herself. To make matters worse, her squeaky clean reputation is being questioned when she becomes a suspect for Graham’s murder.

There is one detective who believes she’s innocent, and he has a plan to protect Emma and find his brother's killer at the same time. When Killian finds himself caught between his duties to the SBPD and his need for vengeance, matters are only complicated by the feelings he develops for the woman he's supposed to protect.

He's impulsive and hot-tempered, and she's methodical and cool under pressure. Despite their differences, can they work together to bring the murderer to justice, or will the murderer get to them first?

A/N: I decided to post this earlier than I had planned. Thanks for all of your responses so far! Some trigger warnings I forgot to add but don't happen until this and future chapters anyway are inappropriate and unwanted infatuation. There will probably be more tw's as we move along.

Many thanks go to @ultraluckycatnd for her wonderful beta-ing skills and @onceuponaprincessworld as always for her encouragement and letting me bounce ideas off of her.

Rated: Explicit due to mature language, character death, violence, murder and smut. The scenes won’t be too graphic, but I’d rather overrate than underrate it.

Catch up: Prologue

Chapter 1

“Hey.”

The sound of Graham’s voice pulls Emma from her thoughts as she stares blankly into the full margarita glass in her hand. “Hey.”

“There aren’t any hard feelings, right?”

She can hear the concern in his thick, Irish accent as he claims the stool next to her and sets his beer tumbler on the bar top.

Swiveling her head to look at him, she knits her brows in confusion. “Why would there be?”

He shrugs. “Because I know how much you wanted the promotion.”

Right. That.

Emma’s been so consumed by the trial she actually forgot why she was here at the bar—to celebrate Graham’s promotion. The hospital board of directors appointed Graham to Chief of Surgery a week ago, and though the news was a major blow to her at first, she’s thrilled for him; she really is. Yes, she’d wanted the position, and ever since the predecessor announced his retirement, she and Graham had been the leading contenders. She’s proven time and time again she’s more than capable of overtaking the extra responsibilities the job entails, but Graham deserves the title as well.

“You're qualified and capable and you deserved it,” Graham says empathetically with an expression meant to convey his reluctance to say what he wants to say. Averting his eyes from hers, he cradles the back of his neck with his palm, his cheeks reddening as he adds, “Probably more qualified than I am.”

Emma tilts her head from side to side and offers a slight smirk. “Not probably. I am,” she teases playfully, making him chuckle. His left hand rests on the bar top between them as she places her hand over his, her smirk transforming into a sincere smile. “I’m happy for you, Graham, I really am. I’m sorry if I seem…” she pauses, debating which adjective best describes her recent behavior before settling on, “distant.” Distant isn’t really the adequate term, but it’s the best word to convey her mood without putting a damper on his.

Graham swivels toward her on his stool to cover her hand with his other one. “That trial really rattled you, didn’t it?”

Emma drags her hand away to bring the margarita glass to her lips, and mumbles, “In more ways than one,” before taking a sip. Not only does she constantly question her decision, but the visions of the defendant’s eyes watching her keep flittering through her mind. He'd made her feel very uncomfortable in the courtroom. Every time she'd look his way, he was staring. And she knew he wasn’t merely staring aimlessly into space or at someone next to her. No, he was staring directly at her. She kept trying to discourage his attention by scowling at him or looking away, but her attempts only seemed to encourage him. Every time she saw that creepy grin on his face, the hair on the back of her neck stood on end; it was like slimy worms were crawling up her skin. She felt like she were in an episode of Fear Factor.

“Don’t beat yourself up, Em. He could actually be innocent,” Graham says with a spirited grin as he playfully nudges her elbow with his. “And if he is, you saved an innocent man’s life.”

Emma smiles faintly at him, appreciating his optimism. “I didn't. The jury saved him.”

“Oh, come on, where’s that confident surgeon I know? I would’ve thought you’d return from the trial gloating about being picked as a forewoman when I said you wouldn’t even be chosen as a juror.”

Emma laughs. “You have a valid point, I should be brandishing my bragging rights at your celebration party instead of sulking at the bar all by my lonesome.” She takes another sip of her drink.

When she moaned and groaned to Graham in the doctors’ lounge about receiving the jury summons, he was quick to point out she wouldn’t be chosen because she’s too opinionated, too analytical and too bossy. Emma just smirked and took his remarks as compliments. “Guess you were wrong.”

He shrugs indifferently. “Oh well, you win some, you lose some. I can’t expect to win all our battles.”

Emma nods in agreement. “What would be the fun in winning all the time?”

Graham winks at her. “Exactly.”

He chugs the rest of his beer down before asking Emma to play darts with him. She groans, but when he takes her hand in his and pulls her from the barstool, she doesn’t argue.

After she beats him at darts, she chats with other colleagues and switches to water after one margarita, since she has to drive home. Robin Locklsey is the owner of the bar, but his wife, Regina, is one of the doctors celebrating with them tonight, so he joins them at the table to socialize and later, plays a couple rounds of pool with Graham and Regina.

Emma is the first among her colleagues to announce she’s ready to leave because she has to work an early shift in the morning. After saying good night to everyone, she is escorted to her car by Graham.

“Thanks for coming tonight,” he says sincerely as they turn to face each other in front of her car.

“Thanks for inviting me.” Emma gnaws on her bottom lip, wondering if he really knows how happy she is for him, and not bitter in any way. Of course, she’d take the promotion in a heartbeat, but she’s glad it went to him and not someone else. “Congratulations, Graham. I‘m really proud of you,” Emma says with a genuine smile. Then she opens her arms, and he follows suit, pulling her into a hug. “If someone other than me had to get the promotion, I’m glad it was you,” she murmurs into his ear, resting her chin on his shoulder.

“Thank you,” he whispers, holding her tight.

The hug is longer than she expects, and as soon as she realizes other colleagues could filter out at any second and think something else is happening between the two doctors who are famously known around the hospital as rival surgeons, Emma pulls away. “Have a good night, Graham.” She’s about to turn around and walk away, but he does something else she doesn’t expect.

He leans in and kisses her cheek. “Goodnight, Emma.”

She offers a faint smile. “Goodbye, Graham.”

She walks away from him, not sure what to think or how else to respond to what just happened. They’ve known each other since they were both residents and never once has he kissed her on the cheek, which is actually kind of strange if she thinks about it. They’ve always been too busy poking fun at one another to engage in long hugs and kisses on the cheek.

Once Emma’s inside her car, she places her hand on her cheek as she watches him head back into the bar. The kiss meant nothing. It was just a cheek kiss. They’re friends. They should be able to exchange cheek kisses without it meaning anything.

Yes, it was just a friendly kiss, Emma surmises as she pulls her hand away from her cheek to start her trusty bug. When the engine roars to life, she pulls away from the curb, breathing unsteadily as she drives home. She knows it was only a friendly kiss, but did he? Could he have feelings for her that went beyond the friendly relationship they had established?

If so, she has to put a stop to it now. She can't get romantically involved with a colleague. She doesn't get romantically involved with anyone, and certainly not with anyone she works with. What they have now is good and she doesn't want that to change.

The entire way home, she wonders if the kiss had meant something more than friendship. It's 10:17 pm when she pulls into her garage and decides to ask him about the kiss tomorrow and tell him they can't be anything more than friends.

~*~

Four hours later…

The smoke rings float through the pleasantly cool, Texas air before slowly evaporating into the blackness. The soothing sound of a trumpet from his favorite Frank Sinatra song plays through the audio speakers as he stares at the photo in the Storybrooke Telegram. It’s a glowing article about Storybrooke General’s new Chief of Surgery and confirmation of what his sweet Tamara told him yesterday. It’s not that he didn’t believe her, but he needed proof so he would know without a shadow of a doubt his efforts will not be wasted. It’s not every day he takes a life for his own personal agenda. And truth be told, he doesn’t trust anyone. Not even the pretty nurse who’s been his second pair of eyes and ears since he met her at the strip club six months ago. Two out of the three days a week Tamara’s not working at the hospital, she’s pole dancing to pay off her college debts.

Tossing the paper aside, he brings the cigar between his lips and gently inhales, savoring the warm cherry-flavored smoke before exhaling slowly, blowing the smoke toward the direction where Storybrooke General stands tall. The excitement dancing inside his belly is almost unbearable.

Not guilty.

Since the moment those two delightful words rang through the courtroom, he’d been contemplating ways to thank the beautiful blonde juror who so passionately argued for his acquittal.

And he’s thought of the perfect way to show his gratitude.

His lips expand into a menacing grin. He grows hard just thinking about her and how flushed she got when he stared at her lustfully in the courtroom. Such an exquisite creature she is. She wore those soft, silk blouses and tight black skirts which showed off her long, sexy legs and made her ass look so nice, you could melt ice cubes on it. She looked good enough to eat.

He groans and palms his erection, but the ringing of his phone interrupts his pleasant thoughts. If only he had enough time to finish himself off while fantasizing about her. But not tonight.

With a frustrated grunt, he removes his hand from his crotch and pauses the music with the remote control before accepting the call from the unknown number. He says nothing into the phone, only waits for the caller to speak.

“He’s pulling out of his driveway now.”

He ends the call and slips the phone into his pocket, doing his best to contain his excitement. He reaches over and extinguishes the butt of his cigar with the photo of the chief surgeon’s face, taking immense pleasure in watching the cigar blacken and burn a hole into the thin paper.

Rising from his chair, he leers lasciviously over the city from the vantage point of his penthouse balcony.

He carries the Storybrooke Telegram inside and tosses it into the fireplace, watching it disintegrate into ash before he leaves his condo with a knife hidden in his ankle holster. He descends several floors in the elevator and leaves the building, sashaying down the sidewalk as he lifts his hood over his head before shoving his hands into the pockets of his hoodie. Walking to Storybrooke General takes all of ten minutes, giving him plenty of time to arrive before the Chief Surgeon pulls into the doctor’s parking lot, according to how long it took him to drive from the man’s house to the hospital yesterday morning after he’d followed the doctor home.

Dressed in all black, he’s able to slink around in the night like a black panther. Unlike his father, he always leaves a crime scene like a ghost—invisible and untraceable. He’d burned off his fingerprints long ago and always leaves the weapon at the scene of the crime. It’s too bad his father wasn’t as smart. He may have been cunning and evil, his heart black as night, but there is a reason he’s rotting in prison while his son enjoys a life of luxury as a contract killer, and yet has never been convicted of a crime. No, he’s nothing like his father. He doesn’t have an evil bone in his body. He doesn’t kill people with malice intent; he performs a service—a job—and he does so with a straight face, his eyes devoid of emotion. He’s had nothing against anyone he’s ever murdered.

Well, until tonight.

Tonight, he will be the one wielding the power, tonight he will be the one deciding someone’s fate.

Because tonight he’s doing it for her.

Dr. Emma Swan.

Tagging some people who have shown interest so far. If you would like to be tagged or untagged, please let me know.

@nikkiemms @teamhook @xhookswenchx @nikkiemms @xsajx @julesep3026 @hookedmom @biefaless @cluttermind @yasbio2015 @kmomof4 @lfh1226-linda @harshini01 @noensnaringnet @xarandomdreamx @onceuponaprincessworld @annastasiarinaldiva @royalswan @brustudyblog @officerrogers @gingerchangeling @melly326 @singersdd @mzbossyboots @unworried-corsair @iamemmaswanjones @authorarsinoe @kingofmyheart14 @nightskylover @jamif @resident-of-storybrooke @iam2307 @winterbaby89 @xhookswenchx @chinawoodfan @mormonkryptonite @ultraluckycatnd @captainswan-shipper88 @killianswanjones @bethdacattfm @andiirivera

#cs ff #captain swan #beyond a reasonable doubt #my fic

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llucy-san · 4 years

Text

Powerful

CHAPTER 8 A3O

“Objection, Your honour!” Hayley cut short her opponent in his riotous monolog after hoisting herself from her seat.

“The defendant is simply flailing with more unsubstantiated proofs.” She fumbled with perfectly written records while her eyes kept gazing at the judge of the case.

“Unsubstantiated facts?!” Mr Hamilton's attorney, who had long been an admirable counsel, scoffed at young challenger, yet Hayley carried on.

“My client is the rightful owner of both the real estates, the apartment on Hampton Street here in Atlanta and also an old villa in Malibu.” She rounded slowly her desk and proceeded toward the judge.

“I would like to add legally verified certificates regarding possessions proceedings during the marriage where only the claimant is registered as the owner.” Hayley looked over her shoulder but still addressing to the judge, “i.e. Mrs Hamilton.”

Judge Jenkins ran her eyes over the document and nodded. “Mr Murphy, do you have any more questions for Mrs Hamilton?”

“No your honour.” The counsellor replied with his ears down like a dog who was denied his favourite toy.

“And you, counsellor Moore?” Judge summoned once her eyes settled at a young woman who was acting perfectly during the course of the trial.

“Yes, I do your honour.”

“In that case, the witness is all yours.” She fluttered her hand and took a seat and continued watching the act while scripting more of her notes.

A soft smile blossomed on Hayley's lips as she set off, step by step, to the jury sitting on her right-side whilst aiming her questions to her client.

“Mrs Hamilton, do you remember when you bought both of uttered properties?”

Claire smiled cheerfully at the same time as she hoisted her head higher. “YES, I do. It was a few months after we got married. We both agree to leave both residences written in my name because Mason wasn't involved in such things before."

“And did Mr Hamilton bestow any financial part to the estates?” Hayley pushed further, her goal of wiping her opponent in this duel was slowly heading where she wanted.

“No. The only thing Mr Hamilton ever did,” Claire fixated at her future ex-husband, who was sitting hushed in a hot chair next to his public prosecutor, “was him dragging any whores he saw from streets straight into my house!

“Madam appellant!” The judge rumbled. “Weigh your words!”

“My apologise.” Claire cleared her throat and fixed her dress after calming down. “I meant women with whom he took. . .pleasures in my property.”

“Objection!” Mr Mason's lawyer barked. “Mrs Hamilton has no evidence that my client has ever been unfaithful to her.”

Hayley peered at Malcolm, wanting to cut him short for a second time with his pathetic defence, however, Claire couldn't hold her anger any longer.

“I have not?! Oh, I do have. Tons and tons of evidence of my husband's betrayal! And one of those proves is sitting right here in this courtroom!”

The judge instructed Hayley to carry on with her questioning after planting the wrathful lawyer back on his seat and hushing the racket in the courtroom with her judge mallet.

“Mrs Hamilton, has the defendant, Mr Hamilton, ever been involved in the renovation?” Hayley pointed briefly at the said man, sitting in a well-dressed suit. From first glimpse an attractive-looking man but it was easy to read from his eyes the apprehensiveness of each Hayley’s blow. All this time he's been twitching in his seat like a restless child who wants to go out.

All eyes were on the ashen blond woman, placed in the witness chair. A brief hush filled the courtroom as the witness bend forward over the microphone to draw attention to her reply as she sank her eyes into her future ex-husband. “Not even a dollar.”

“Objection,” Malcolm roared as he rose from his hot seat yet again. The pure determination coloured his face, the will power to win this duel at all costs. “Both spouses acquire property during the marriage, regardless of who and how much money they contributed. Maybe counsellor Moore should go back to school and clarify the basics of the law again.”

“Counsellor Moore, where are you going with your question?” The judge pulled her thick-framed glasses to the bridge of her nose, tilting her head to the side.

“My goal is, your honour, to show that Mrs Hamilton's family was the landlord of these properties before she married Mr Hamilton. Thus, the property to which Mr Hamilton claims as a share in the divorce isn't his but still the property of the Mitchell family. The only thing he's entitled to is a car and a few valuables he received as a gift.”

The mutter of various voices voting for and against filled the courtroom resembling a nest full of bees. Judge Jenkin's law mallet, however, silenced the buzz time again. “Silence in the courtroom!” She cried out. “Counsellor Moore, you have some more questions for Mrs Hamilton?”

“Not your honour.”

Judge Jenkins nodded. “I can hereby declare the evidence closed. I ask the jury to announce their final evaluation.”

Everyone in the courtroom rose up whilst the Judge rose from her throne and uttered her final words aloud.

Claire couldn't wipe off her huge smile of her face after the words she'd longed for so long. FREE. She's finally free, and she hasn't lost anything her ex-husband tried so hard to take over. The ashen blond woman thanked Hayley briefly for excellent job, but before she left, she added that if she needed a lawyer in the future, Hayley would be the one she was looking for.

“Congratulations, miss.” Hayley turned toward the cold, ironic voice. “It's not every day you see something like this. . .” The man paused, looking for the right words to define Hayley's performance, staring at his without doubt thousand-dollar shoes before lifting them back into her olive eyes. “You know, a greenhorn like you.”

The brunette smiled gently at the corner of her lips at the lawyer, holding out his hand to her. “I would hardly call it "luck" rather thoroughly processed case but thank you.” She shook her rival's hand gently, gazing into his cold and calculating brown eyes.

“And why do you think I’m. . .” The man didn't even let her finish as he expressed his amusement. “Oh, please sweetheart, I would definitely remember such a pretty face like yours and I've been here a while.” His voice carried undertone that Hayley didn't like with every passing second, his gaze made her trivial, but she tried to hide her discontent behind a veil of self-confidence.

“Anyhow.” The man cleared his throat and rolled his shoulders, fixing his elegant, tailored jacket. “You were lucky today, but next time you won't be.” Hayley furrowed at this but the self-assured lawyer carried on with his monolog. “Let's just say the life of a young lawyer in a big city like Atlanta is very. . . difficult to assert themselves. But you.” He took a step closer, his elbow planted on his briefcase on the table and his face cocked closer to hers to emphasize his next words. “Oh, I'm sure John will arrange that for you.” His peppermint breath puffed on her cheeks as his blond hair fell to his eyes. “You know what they say, sometimes everyone needs to let go of steam and occupied themselves with something else.”

“Excuse me?!” Hayley knit her brow. The nerve of him.

But before Malcolm could utter another word, he was interrupted by a voice pleasant to ears as well as a hand on his shoulder pulling the defeated defender back a few steps. Nearly dropping him to the floor.

“All right, mate, that's enough. Leave the lady alone and go about your business.”

Kyle filled the gap between Hayley and Malcolm. Her knight in shining armour was a head taller than Malcolm, and it always raised respect. Not only at school but also outside. No one dared stand up to Kyle Peters because they knew it wouldn't end well for them, not to mention that the Petersons were respected family in Atlanta.

Men of Malcolm Murphy calibre, charismatic, wealthy and thriving may be known in the law community as well as in the Atlanta's elite, but he's certainly not stupid and he knows when to back off. With a quick move, he straightened his jacket o'er, playful smile played on his arrogant lips pretending as if nothing had happened.

“Everything's fine, there's no need to make a fuss, boy. I was just giving advice to this lady; however, I still have places to be.” He reached for his briefcase and straightened up. “Give my regards to John.”

Kyle didn't take his eyes off the man until he disappeared behind the corner of the courtroom. After turning his face to Hayley's, he flashed his boyish smile, a smile that made all the girls buckle to their knees.

“Hi.”

“Hi.” Hayley repeated, a tender smile blossomed on her face after their lips met in a chaste kiss. His fingers wrapped around her loose brown lock and brush it behind her ear. “Nicely done, baby boo,” His lips grazed hers in the softest of touches, “you were amazing.”

“Thank you.”

Kyle knit his brow and raised his head a little higher, enveloping her in a strong embrace. “For what?”

Hayley beamed at his behaviour; she leaned forward into his warm embrace to steady herself, her hands slid from his shoulders to his chest while gazing up at his stunning sky like eyes. “Oh, what would I do without my knight in shining armour?” She mused out loud making Kyle chuckled with shake with his head.

“Anytime.” Kyle breathed, kissing Hayley again, practically pulling her into his lap and kissing her hard.

~×~

A city full of hustle and attainment has immersed in night time liberty and entertainment. The clubs glimmered with hues, club music flowed from every corner and the dance floor was teeming with bodies.

“You kidding, right?” Nadia pooh-poohed after finishing off the rest of her champagne - the rest of the champagne bottle to be exact. The same bottle they opened to cheer Hayley's victory. “Did you at least kick his ass?” The redhead stared between her two friends waiting for them to answer her.

Hayley giggled at the rim of her bubbly drink. “No, we didn’t, but-” her lips were pressed together in a tight line to keep from grinning.

“BUZZ-KILL!!” Nadia groaned as she slumped back into her fauteuil and threw her hands in the air, looking down from the VIP salon to the dance floor full of colours and the bodies flocking into one rhythm. The bartenders worked at lightning speed from opening of her bar. One order followed another. The Blue Note is Nadia’s pride and joy. Once she had gotten enough resources, which did not take long, she built her dream bar. The whole bar had industrial look that matched perfectly with the warehouse district. The redhead took another draw of breath into her lungs and peeked at a couple of her longest and best friends, sitting across from her and whispering sweet nonsense like teenage lovebirds. She laid her head in her hand propped against armrest of her easy chair, a gentle smile played on her lips.

“Aren't you two an adorable pair?”

Both Kyle’s and Hayley’s eyes shifted to Nadia, who was watching them with her big smile that didn't bode well, a smile that meant she was up to something, or planning it.

“Okay,” Hayley sighed, ready for what Nadia has to say. “What’s that look for, Nad?”

The redhead grinned like a Cheshire cat as she peeled away from her seat, leaning her hands on her thighs. “I know I’m a strong independent woman, but right now, I could use a little help. I know shocker!” She repositioned in her armchair. “So, I wonder if you could, in that mooshie-gooshie Kyle loving heart,” there was a slight drawl in her voice as she dragged her index finger along the rim of the glass, arrange me meeting with Prince Charming?”

Hayley’s eyes widened and Kyle let out humouring laugh. “A What? Prince Charming?”

“Why?”

Nadia smirked, amused by the way Hayley’s eyes widened at the mention of her boss. “Well. . . You know. . .”

The brunet wrinkled her nose. “Okay, I’m too sober for this.” Hayley leapt from her seat and crossed Kyle's legs. She made a small turn on her heels and set her eyes on her associates. “What else do you want me to bring?”

“Bring something harder, we'll have the night of our lives tonight!” Her best friend yelled over the pulsing music, the alcohol already coursing through her veins, but she still wasn't drunk enough. Hayley nod and leaned over Kyle. She placed her palms flat on his wide shoulders and kissed him lightly on the cheek. “AND what should I bring you?” Her lips brushed across his lobe; her hands glided down his chest in an obvious tease.

“I'll have what you're having, Bam-bam.” Kyle leaned closer and pressed his lips against hers in sweet peck on the lips.

“Okay, I'll be right back.” She kissed him again and straightened up. “Just keep an eye on her for me.”

The club was packed. Again. The red top and black tight leather pants that Nadia had borrowed her felt like a poor choice of clothing, however, her wingman/partner in crime promised her that this outfit was essential for tonight. Walking to the direction of the nearest bar was hard work, but after a moment of pushing and shoving through several layers of people, she finally got to the bar and scanned it through an open gap between people’s heads until she found a bartender and made a hand-order on the house. Having a nightclub owner as a friend pays off.

“Busted!!”

Upon hearing the well-known voice, Hayley’s heart skipped a beat the moment she spun her head toward the source. There he stood; her boss, the colourful strobe lighting strikes of club lights were bouncing off his exquisitely carved face as he stood a good six feet before her, a glass of liquor already in hand. This time, however, wasn’t dressed in one of his posh suits but simple Henley shirt, a pair of dark jeans, an expensive-looking leather jacket appearing particularly divine. His chestnut hair, always slicked back, was now falling into his face, the ends were turning into small curls. Her olive eyes hungrily took in the sight of him, feeling the pull in her chest every time she saw this man. AND there it was again. SHOCKER! The longer he was around, the more she had this feeling.

“John.” Hayley breathed. The nostalgia was settling in and she began to feel a lump in her throat that she failed to clear.

"Hey, Miss avoiding me for three days." His velvet voice was smooth as ever and beat over the pulsating music that seemed to be dying into the background. His enticing cologne filled her common sense and her heartbeat a mile a minute.

“What. . .?” She stopped dead; her brain kept spilling nonsense; her mind didn't want to cooperate with her in what way she wanted to. Not to mention the alcohol still running through her system. “No. I wasn't.” She shook her head, avoiding his gaze. “I wasn't avoiding you.” SHE WAS!!

John arched an amused brow. “Yes you were.” His pearly white teeth showed in one of his charismatic smiles as his eyes gazed over his shoulder. “Darling, I've hardly seen you at the firm these past few days.” He angled his head to one side to make his point. “You've been avoiding me.” He stated.

Hayley blushed, returning to the task at hand. Drinks. Where the hell is that bartender who's got her order?

“I. . .” Hayley couldn't form a single sentence, it’s like this was the only monosyllabic word she could manage. Why does this have to happen around him?

John’s eyes trailed over her; taking in every inch of her person. She could see the hunger clouding his eyes, as he became distracted by the dress she had on.

“I heard about your success today.” Thank God sighed Hayley. Change of the topic. With a gentle nod, she spun back to the bar, where she finally caught sight of the bartender with her drinks. She planted her hands, palms flat on the wooden surface of a bar that was already wet with alcohol and other liquid stuff. Ugh.

“Yeah, it went okay.” She admitted, trying her luck to look him in the eyes but failed, utterly, those eyes and that confident smile are taking her breath away. He's like a hunter who doesn't take his eyes off his prey, and she’s the PREY.

“Claire was over the moon.” John took sip from his drink and turned his whole attention toward Hayley.” Oh, My Lord, Help Me! Hayley mused, taking a lungful breath into her lungs. “She called me as soon as the trial was over and said, and now I quote: “that girl was unstoppable. Everyone in the room was overwhelmed by her performance and even shamed that idiotic lawyer my fucking ex hired.”

Hayley smiled then, her cheeks red, scattered with some kind of dust. A smile he thought he might die to earn again.

“She really said that?” She searched John’s eyes, not realizing how close he was to her. He gave her thoughtful hum before hoisting his drink close to his lips and finished it with a final gulp. The glass banged against the surface of the bar and he straightened.

“Well,” he muttered to himself before seeking for the bartender in the sea of lights, calling him for another round. “Tell me what should I order you. We have to drink your victory somehow, don't we?” Hayley's body tensed at the feeling of his hand rubbing soothingly her back as he whispered his words in her ear.

“I don’t, uh-“ Hayley managed to spill, she wasn’t that much drunk, yet, this was the everything she could string together. It seemed her mouth and her brain weren’t on the same page tonight.

“Nuh-uh, love, no, isn’t answer for me.” His hot breath hit Hayley’s skin as he leaned in close to her ear, his lips brushed against her ear creating rather an intimate step, chills went down her spine.

Swallowing nervously and hoping John hadn’t noticed her irregular heartbeat. She shot him a genuine smile as she brought her eyes up at him. “Yeah,” she replied, her cheeks flushed in embarrassment, or maybe it was the alcohol? She seemed like she wanted to say something, and then backtracked. Her eyes snapped to the source of the new sound before stepping away.

“Gotcha!” Victoria Chase - tall, gorgeous blonde in killer heels, always perpetually flawless with her clothes and makeup whom Hayley can hardly compare with threw her arms around her partner in a bear hug and pressed drunken kiss against his cheek.

The blond eyed Hayley up and down, trying to focus on who is in front of her, an impressed expression mixed with the shock widened at Victoria’s face moment later at Hayley and her outfit.

“Hayley?” She asked in awe. “My goodness, look at you.”

The brunet quickly looked down at what she was wearing. Hang on. Did she just compliment her outfit? She brought her eyes back up and beamed up at Victoria. “Do you like it?”

“I love it!” Victoria smirked into John ear, snuggling to the crook of his neck.

“Thanks.” Hayley muttered before trailing off. She then suddenly remembered why she came here in the first place. “Perhaps you’d care to join us at our table?” Hayley asked, pointing up to the balcony above. She assumed it would be rude not to invite them.

“Marvellous!” Victoria chirped; her gaze flicked from VIP loggia back to Hayley. “Lead the way.”

“Good.” Hayley muttered, hesitantly turning toward the bar and taking the drinks. She yelled back a short thanks to the bartender though she doubted he heard her. She turned to look at the gorgeous pair, John hadn’t moved his eyes off Hayley, and she had the feeling that he was five steps ahead of her on a game she didn’t know she was playing. And as for Victoria, she was grinning like the Cheshire cat.

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@fromathelastoveritaserum @dieguzguz @ja-crispea @nightwingshero @pd3 @v3ryvelvet @tommymillers @tomexraider @faithchel @risenlucifer @deathvalleyqueen @starsandskies @f0xyboxes @xbaebsae @goodboiboomer-fc5 @smithandrogers @shelliechen @strafethesesinners

#powerful #hayley moore #kyle peters #nadia philips #john duncan #victoria chase #my writting #fc5 writting #pre-cult universe #fc5 #fc5 fanfic #fc5 fanfiction

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fuwafuwamedb · 4 years

Text

A Case of Bureaucracy Pt 2 (Siduri, Hakuno)

Thus Far: 1

___

“Are you ready?”

Hakuno glanced over at Rin and Gudako, nodding.

Today was the day she was going to get her patents and her inventions were going to be safe from corporate theft. She had to manage it today. Waiting, even for a week longer, would mean that the patents would be saved by the company that she had worked for before. She’d seen the similar composition. She knew they bore her signature, but the company would be faster getting through the process. BB had been intent on luring her back to Moon Cell.

Mounting the steps, Hakuno took a deep breath, preparing herself for the process at hand.

A few cameramen were stationed outside for some reason. There were a few others that were lingering, signs in hand.

There must have been a civil case going on that was spurring them to congregate.

Weird, but it wasn’t her business.

No, instead, she needed to save her creations.

Rin and Gudako followed her up to the doorway, standing just outside as she proceeded alone. She mounted the steps inside to the second floor, taking the stairwell to the left after she passed through the metal detectors.

“Thank you, gentlemen.” A woman was saying down the hallway. “I’m sure that my employer will greatly appreciate what you’ve done for him and his wife. Newlyweds are so enamored with one another, you know.”

Hakuno glanced at her phone.

Seven in the morning sharp in room three o’ five.

She glanced around at the hallway markers over the doors, noting that the woman who was chatting with some of the men in the doorway were in front of the door that she needed to enter.

They really pushed cases back to back, didn’t they?

Well, it didn’t matter.

Hakuno brushed her skirts off, giving her best confident stride towards the doorway.

“Ms. King!” The woman paused from her conversation, laughing a little. “Here I had thought you would be busy with your husband.”

“Wha-“

“Gentlemen,” the stranger grabbed her arm, pulling her over to them. “I’m sure you are at least somewhat aware of the former Miss Hakuno Kishinami. Her patents we’ve finalized and reserved the rights for are unique and deserve to remain with their owner.”

Hold on- hold on.

Why was she a former Miss Hakuno Kishinami?! What was this woman talking about her patents for? What was the last name King about?

The woman didn’t even dare to explain, merely turning her in a hurry and throwing a bright smile to the men.

“I think we’ve ruined her husband’s surprise. If you’ll excuse us.”

“Miss,” Hakuno hissed.

“Keep your head down, hold these papers, don’t speak.”

In a matter of a second, the jovial tone was gone. The papers- her creations’ patents- were thrown into her hands, signed and ratified as hers.

In the matter of a minute, her entire career’s worth of work was safely in her hands once again, but she felt no sense of pride or joy. No, not when she looked closer at the documents in the elevator.

Hakuno King (maiden name: Kishinami)

“What is this?”

“You’ll need these,” the woman next to her murmured, handing her a scarf and a pair of sunglasses. “We’ll be leaving through the back of the building, but that doesn’t mean much. The hounds will be all around the building-“

“Why do these say King on them? My last name hasn’t-“

“You were at the courthouse last week, were you not?”

Hakuno paused, glancing to the woman.

“Weren’t you?”

“Yeah. I was summoned for Jury Duty. I was excused because I told the lawyers that I thought government was a big conspiracy where the man wanted to keep smart people from gathering in one place too much. Those in power kept those with brilliant minds down, blah blah- I didn’t want to be sitting around in that court room for weeks on end while someone stole my creations.”

“And you remember signing the documents you had, don’t you?”

“How could I possibly remember that?” The elevator paused on the main floor, the back door opening so they could leave. “There was this absolutely arrogant asshole there that was having the loudest phone call I’ve ever heard. The other end of the line was screaming and he just laughed and laughed until finally the priest nearby threatened to swap out his paperwork.”

“I was wondering how such documents could have been swapped. Nondisclosure papers look a lot different from the paperwork that was signed.”

Hakuno continued to follow, only to be stopped as the woman fixed the scarf around her face and fixed the sunglasses upon her face.

“Did you sign any other paperwork? Did you leave your paperwork for even a moment?”

“The guy that was yelling on the phone lost one of his precious rings underneath the bench we were on and didn’t want to grab it because of a spider web.”

“Yeah, he’s special.”

He was something. The look of disgust that the man had held had only made her roll her eyes, opting to say nothing as the priest moved around paperwork next to that idiot.

But still-

“We need to get my name fixed on these documents,” Hakuno told the woman. “I haven’t married anyone. I still have my maiden name.”

“Temporarily.” The woman opened the door, glancing around a moment before she looked back at her. “We don’t have much time before the paparazzi realize that Gilgamesh King’s newfound bride is here. You’re not necessarily dressed for receiving attention and you aren’t accustomed to public relations so please. Spare me some trouble.”

“Gilgamesh… What?”

She took a step back.

She’d thought that idiot had looked familiar, but for him to be that multi-branded socialite from VideoTube?

“Miss Kishinami,” the woman before her sighed loudly. “I don’t understand all the details of what happened, but you and Gilgamesh King now share all assets. Both his wealth and notoriety and your mysterious patents that you applied for here.”

No…

Of all the things, he couldn’t have these.

These were organic compounds and mixtures that would do away with so many common problems. Severe skin conditions, allergic reactions, certain aging responses in the skin; she had delved deeper into resolving these problems after having finding so many people suffering. These were creations that would allow people to save money and get what they needed to be happy.

For someone- especially someone of such materialism- to hold these…

Access to products for personal happiness is more important than money.

“Ms. King.” The devil of a woman before her held out her hand. “We don’t have time for you to have this response right now. Forgive the rudeness, but you can have your breakdown in the car on the way home. Your husband is… of a similar state of mixed emotions.”

“He can’t have these.”

The devil simply smiled. “I think you’ll find that he feels very similar about some of his things as well. Come along, Ms. King.”

She rushed straight into the private, running car destined to traverse straight to hell.

Her companion, meanwhile, looked comfortable.

#drabble #drabbles

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the-digimon-tamer · 4 years

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Chapter 35 - New Plan, Do We Have One? is out now on FanFiction.Net and ArchiveOfOurOwn! Check them out with the links or find it after the break!

Title: The Tamer v2.0 - In HIs Name

Fandom: Digimon

Rating: T

Synopsis: In the next adventure of the Digimon Tamer, the lives of Juri, Rika, and Henry change forever when digimon begin crossing over into the human world. But it’s all just a story, right? Just a book series by an author no one has seen in a long time. Why are they here and can they save their world before something worse follows the digimon?

Kenta kept his eye on Juri anxiously, wondering what could be going through her head in light of seeing everyone return safely with their digimon. Well, mostly everyone. Kazu and Guardromon were still out cold from whatever had happened. The others were also being oddly quiet about what happened, apparently not willing to recall what had happened with perfect clarity. Whatever had spooked them had been bad.

“More information needed. Continue observation. Raising threat level of all targets. Exercise caution,” she said. Kenta jumped at the sound of her monotonous voice and alarmed phrase, “Juri?”

“It’s not Juri,” Calumon whimpered quietly, “She’s not okay! She’s not! She’s really not!”

Kenta raised an eyebrow at the little digimon, unsure of what to make of the little digimon’s panicked expression. He’d always been a little anxious but this was ridiculous. He was treating Juri like she was one of the Devas. What was there to be afraid of? It wasn’t like she was staring with cold, dead eyes at them like she was planning on killing everyone. At least, that’s what he tried to tell himself as she continued to stare at him unblinkingly, “Um, Juri. How are you holding up?”

“Query received. Compiling response. Response compiled. Answer: I am fine. Query: What is your basic chemical composition?”

“My what?” Kenta asked, dumbfounded by the question. That was when Ryo pulled him back by tugging on his ear, “Give her some space, Kenta. She’s been through a lot.”

“Sorry, she‘s just acting weird and it’s freaking me out,” Kenta answered defensively, allowing himself to get dragged along by Kenta until they rejoined Sakuyamon and the Sovereigns. He took a deep breath at the sight of her, still processing what he’d been told. She had reached the next form of digivolution and become something in between human and digimon. It was like some kinda hybrid. He sighed, wishing he could have a digimon partner of his own already.

“Hey! We’re back!” Tamerkato’s voice called out. They looked up and saw him and WarGrowlmon riding atop a large mechanical version of Terriermon wearing Rapidmon’s armor soaring through the air. It touched down just beside them and revealed how large it truly was when standing beside the other digimon - about the size of the other Sovereigns. That was something. Hell, it could probably even dwarf Megidramon - not that Kenta wanted to find out. But there was someone’s else with them: Henry’s little sister and a chocolate version of Terriermon with three horns instead of the usual one.

“Wow! You’re all okay! How was the Digital World!?” Henry’s sister greeted, “Everything is all so big! Wow! So Pretty! It’s a flying snake, and a glowing tiger, and fire bird, and a two headed turtle! I bet they argue a lot.”

“Wait, aren’t you Henry’s sister? What are you doing here?” Kenta pointed at her in disbelief, “How did you get here? And where’s Henry!?”

“Well it all started when there was a noise in daddy’s computer, and then there was a pretty light, and then a giant bunny and then,” she paused, “Oh no! The bunny! Is she okay?”

She hurried back to the chocolate Terriermon and examined its unconscious form. It jolted awake at her touch, and shook its head in disbelief, “Ow! That hurt…wait…you got taller.”

“I didn’t get taller, you got smaller!” Xiaochun said happily, pointing at her body. As the bunny took a moment to examine herself, Xiaochun squealed in delight, “Ooh! You’re so cute like this! I love it! I just want to give you a great big hug!”

“Don’t you dare!” she tried to protest but it was too late. Xiaochun was already holding the bunny in her arms and squeezing her as hard as she could. As the bunny tried to protest, a small light appeared in Xiaochun’s pocket and the girl dropped the bunny in surprise, “Hm? What’s that? Oh! Hello, what’s this? Henry! Look! Look! I got a digivice too!”

She held up a pink digivice and showed it to the big green mecha that sighed in frustration. Then Azulongmon remarked, “Would you look at that - a Deva chosen as a partner to a human girl. You must’ve done something truly spectacular to earn that, Antylamon. Or should I say Lopmon?”

“It doesn’t really feel spectacular,” the rabbit frowned. Kenta had no idea what the hell was going on and looked at the others from some explanation, “So is someone going to translate any of that?”

“We’re just as confused as you are,” the giant robot dog said. Sakuyamon came over to join him, “Alright, Henry. So what’s this big guy called?”

“MegaGargomon and I feel like a freaking Gundam,” he answered sheepishly, “Watch where you’re standing guys. I feel like I’m going to step on someone just because I adjust my feet. It’s really weird.”

“Where are our Devas? Caturamon and Antylamon?” Zhuqiaomon roared at the top of his lungs. MegaGargomon gestured down at the chocolate bunny, “We couldn’t find Caturamon. As for Antylamon, she’s right there. But we have a problem. That thing, the D-Reaper, just appeared over in that part of the Digital World! It was all we could do to get away before it got to us!”

Alarm spread through the remaining Devas and Sovereigns as they realized time had run out for them. Kenta could see it plain as day on their faces - they looked like they’d been told the world was going to end. Whatever thing was the cause of this mess was loose in the Digital World now and it was only a matter of time before they’d be able to do anything about it. Azulongmon turned to Calumon, “Little one. You must understand, you must release the power held within you now. For the sake of the Digital World. For the sake of all worlds!”

“I don’t know if I can,” he whimpered quietly, shying away from the massive flying sovereign.

That was when Tamerkato picked him up, “Don’t worry. I think I can help you there. It might sting, but it’s better than the alternative.”

“Pardon me there laddie but what do you think you’re doing with the Catalyst?” Ebonwumon’s first head asked, as it guided itself over to him. Once both heads were close enough to examine him, the second head asked, “And who exactly do you think you are that you can figure out what we can’t?”

Tamerkato thumbed at his goggles, “You know who I am.”

“Who do you think you are to talk to us that way, human!?” Zhuqiaomon snapped angrily. Calumon cowed under Zhuqiaomon’s voice, shaking in terror until Tamerkato started patting his head, “Who do you think you are to call me human? See, I can be mean too. Not a lot of fun is it? Come on already Zhuqiaomon, you’re smarter than this. Put it together already.”

Zhuqiaomon stared at him silently until his four eyes widened. Even his voice carried a mix of surprise and disappointment as he answered, “No.”

“Yup,” Tamerkato nodded. Zhuqiaomon blinked repeatedly, as if to confirm what he was looking at. Kenta couldn’t blame him - it was very hard to believe in itself. Zhuqiaomon remarked, “But...you’re so pathetic looking. I recall a warrior’s eyes last time we met.”

“Times change. So do people,” Tamerkato answered, looking from him to the other Sovereigns, “All of you. It’s been a while.”

“Hang on a tick, who is this whelp and why are we listenin’ ya his demands?” Ebonwumon’s other head demanded. Zhuqiaomon roared, “It’s The Digimon Tamer, you idiot.”

“It is?” Ebonwumon eyed Tamerkato quietly. Azulongmon and Baihumon came in closer to better examine the boy but neither seemed to impressed with what they saw. Azulongmon nodded, “It’s he’s a while Digimon Tamer. I don’t like the new look. It’s very dopey.”

“Yeah, I get that a lot,” Tamerkato crowned before gesturing at the Sovereigns, “Can you do that thing where you call all the digimon here?”

Each of the Sovereigns looked at each other quietly, Ebonwumon’s second head asking, “Are you sure?”

Tamerkato nodded quietly and Baihumon sighed, “Okay then. This will take time.”

The four sovereigns ascended skyward to just above the crevice and came aglow with light. Kenta had to crane his neck back just to get a good look at them before covering his eyes from the blinding light, “What are they doing?”

“Summoning the digimon. Every digimon,” Tamerkato answered quietly. MegaGargomon looked from the dazzling display above their heads and asked, “Why would they do that?”

“Because we’re going to need more than the Sovereigns to fight back against this thing. We need everyone,” Tamerkato answered bitterly. Sakuyamon looked to him, “You mean an army?”

Tamerkato didn’t answer.

…

“I think I’ve got it right. I’m forwarding my copy of the code to you now. Hopefully it works well with what you guys are working,” Zhenyu said as he finished the last few lines of code.

“Okay, that just leaves Curly and Babel. Go ahead and drop it in the shared network folder,” Dolphin remarked.

“Already done!” Zhenyu answered with a big smile. He missed this - when all of them were together, they worked with a speed and efficiency that few could match. Except for maybe the Ichijoujis and Izumi, “Where are you at Curly? Babel?”

“On its way.”

“Just dropped my part of the code in the computer.”

The room was alight with the clicks of keys and whirring of fans trying to cool a powerhouse of processors. Dolphin took a deep breath and copied their code, “Okay, compiling now. We’ll be ready to test once its done. It should only take a couple of minutes with all this processing power at our disposal.”

“Do you think it will work?” Sora asked, having watched from across the room with the other digidestined who couldn’t help because of their lack of any programming or computer knowledge. Dolphin shrugged, “No idea. We’re working from scratch in a poorly understood field. Or…unknown field makes more sense. I say we have a ten percent chance of it working.”

“And the other ninety?” Sora asked, her tone becoming more serious and worrisome after that. The many Monster Makers looked at each other anxiously, “We overload the power supply and blow ourselves up. And possibly the kids with it.”

“Maybe I’ll lose my other leg and even myself out,” Izumi remarked dryly, snickering at his joke until his wife slapped the back of his head, “Don’t joke about that, Koushi!”

“Sorry, I think the pain meds are still messing with me,” he chuckled while massaging the sore spot on his head, “I’ll review the code and see if it works.”

“Koushi?” Zhenyu heard the school teacher repeat stupidly, “Wow, Izzy. Never figured you two for pet names.”

“What exactly are we doing again?” Motomiya complained from a swivel chair that he’d been using to spin in place while balancing a pencil on his nose. Daisy, ever the energetic member of their team, snapped her fingers and raced over to a wall with a marker, “Oh, I got this! So, we’ve modified the Juggernaut’s code to force open a gate between worlds without sucking in all digital life that it detects. We then used that same code to create a new program that we’re calling ‘Ark’. It’s a modified version of the rudimentary life program that we created way back when we first made the digimon. Only the ‘Ark’ is modified to act as transport with room for all the kids and their digimon to come home.”

Her explanation didn’t really need a visual aid but it didn’t stop her from drawing on the wall. And when she was done, she happily presented a crude drawing of a space ship that resembled on the new digivices but with wings. She seemed proud of it too until Yamaki groaned and dragged her away, “Please don’t draw on our walls.”

“I’ve got coffee and snacks,” Tally announced as she walked back into the office with Riley. Both women held carriers filled with coffees and handily started passing them around to the different members of the digidestined. The group collectively cheered and thanked the women for making a coffee run just as the time came for them to sit back and watch the code compile in front of them.

Just as the anticipation was about to kill them, Ken Ichijouji returned with Matt Ishida lugging a laptop and a power cord under his arm. Matt slammed the laptop down hard, manhandling it as he hooked up the power cord while Izumi complained, “I see you still treat computers rougher than you treat Tamer.”

“I’m anxious,” Matt answered, “The key to finding Takeru could be on here. And Ken probably just figured out the password. I need to know.”

Ken retrieved the laptop before he could damage it any further and declared, “I understand where you’re coming from. No one will ever get that more than me. But those clues are going to go up in flames if you don’t start treating these electronics with a little more delicacy.”

“What’s the deal with this anyway?” Zhenyu asked, “Takeru’s your brother and he’s missing. I’ve gathered that much. But what exactly makes you think there could be clues on that laptop?”

Ichijouji was too busy setting up the laptop to answer the question so it fell on Ishida to provide the answer for him, “Before Takeru disappeared, he became really withdrawn and paranoid. Kept talking about not knowing who was listening. We could just be hanging out at our apartment and he’d begin worrying about being watched. I guess now we know why.”

He shot a deathly angry look over at Yamaki. The government agent adjusted his tie and pretended to not notice, “Don’t be so naive to think we were the only ones watching you. There were others watching well before we were. If it wasn’t us, it would’ve been Burnt Leaf, the Central Intelligence Agency, MI6, the Ministry of State Security, or any of the other intelligence agencies out there in the world. You painted huge targets on your backs when you were kids because of the stuff you pulled in the Odaiba Incident.”

“Kids? Hang on, the Odaiba Incident was...like...two years ago. They’re adults!” Curly protested.

“Getting back on track,” Ishida cleated his throat, “We thought it was just jitters from his next book. Digimon Adventure 02. He’d been stressing about it forever because of the details he changed while he was working on it. Most of it was because he wasn’t comfortable with lying or covering up the truth. Then he disappeared and our digimon vanished with him. I hired Ken here to investigate for me and figure out what the hell happened to my brother.”

“Oh cool, your brother wrote those awesome books!” Daisy said excitedly.

“Moving on. My investigation turned up some scary things. He started renting a lot of properties, moving from place to place at the drop of a hat, and rigged every place he stayed with booby traps. It was like he expected to be attacked,” Ichijouji answered as he typed on the keyboard, “We found this laptop in one of those properties, also booby trapped. It’s password protected and set to automatically delete the hard drive if we put in the wrong password too many times. We couldn’t get in. And the only hint was nonsense. But now I’m starting to wonder if the answer was right under our noses.”

“What are you thinking honey?” his wife asked, joining him to inspect the laptop’s screen. Ichijouji looked up with the biggest pleased with himself smile possible, “Something that was kind of a theme in Takeru’s books. Hell, call it the theme of our fucking lives if you want to believe it. The password! It’s DESTINY.”

He pressed enter as he finished typing and the computer moved onto the desktop which had a file directory open. Matt cheered and slapped Ken’s back “You’re my hero right now. I hope you know that. What have you got?”

Ken began scrolling through the different folders and subdirectories, “Let’s find out. It looks like he kept everything very well organized. There’s saved copies of news articles, this folder looks like drafts of his book at different stages of writing. Here’s a folder with a lot of pictures. Hey, Yamaki. Looks like Takeru was on to you.”

He turned the laptop to show a selfie of Takeru holding up a peace sign with his fingers. Just behind him was Yamaki pretending to read a newspaper - a sight that made his own subordinates snicker. Riley remarked, “You were always awful at field operations.”

“Is that code almost done compiling?” Yamaki tried to divert the subject but was answered with a sharp no from Dolphin still watching his monitor, “I’ll let you all know if anything changes. Please continue. I like hearing about how a novelist was outsmarting a bunch of government agents.”

“It becomes a lot less amusing when you realize that there were lives at stake,” Yamaki pointed out seriously, “This might just be a game to some of you-”

He looked right at the Monster Makers when he said that and added, “-or a childhood adventure-”

He looked at the digidestined, “But this is a national security matter. Monsters from another world invaded ours. You better believe every single government out there wants to be the first to use them as weapons and tip the global power scale. Quite frankly, it all comes down to who you think would be better off in control of the situation. And you better believe that everyone has different ideas of what to do with them.”

“And what’s your plan for them?” the doctor asked calmly, finally saying something for the first time since they arrived. Yamaki turned on the man, taking a moment to cool before calmly asking, “What are you implying?”

“I’ve worked with Doctors Without Borders for years. I’ve been to a lot of parts of the world. Everyone is always after something. So what’s your game Yamaki? What makes the Japanese government any better than say the Americans? Or the Chinese? Hell, what makes you think that we would help you just to let you have any kind of control over the digimon?” Doctor Kido stated matter of factly with a finger pointed so close to the government agent that they were pretty sure he was going to jab his eye out.

Yamaki sighed, “Don’t be so naive. Everyone has blood on their hands. Even you, Doctor Kido. Or do you believe we don’t know about the wild ones you killed? The ones who showed up when you were just a teenager.”

“That was two years ago and that man is in his twenties!” another of the Monster Makers shouted out of annoyance.

“We were trying to save the world,” Kido stood his ground on the matter.

“Good job with that. You’ve totally saved the world and made it better for everyone. It’s not like we have monsters regularly appearing in our streets and attacking people,” Yamaki fired back angrily. There was moment of pause until Kari Kamiya came forward and slapped them both across the back of the head with a textbook, “Focus! We’re here to save the kids, not bicker over whose morality dick is bigger.”

The computer made a beep and Zhenyu announced, “The program works. Let’s give it a run and see if it can enter the Digital World. If this works, then we can go save our kids!”

“But how do we know if it works?” Miss Izumi asked. Dolphin smiled, “We’ve taken care of that. The Ark will go to the Digital World and acquire a sample of Digital Life. Not anything sentient, but definitely something alive. If it comes here in one piece, then we know it works. If it doesn’t, back to the drawing board!”

“And where exactly will the ark be appearing?” Yamaki folded his arms and leered. Dolphin laughed at his attempt at intimidation, “Don’t worry. We have it landing on top of the Metropolitan Building.”

...

Rika marveled as the digimon gathered - filling the sky and crowding the ground with their numbers. And they all came so quickly and without warning that she barely had time to process the fact that it happened. There were more among their number than could ever be counted and Rika was unsure of what to do with them, “Renamon, how are they all here?”

“Even I don’t know that,” Renamon answered quietly, “Although I wish I did.”

“That is the power of the Sovereigns,” Tamerkato answered, still cradling Calumon in his hands, “And we’re going to need everyone to fight the D-Reaper.”

“You keep saying that. Who’s the D-Reaper?” Kenta asked aloud. Tamerkato snapped his fingers, “You remember that camp fire story? The monster who only wanted to devour. I wasn’t making that up. The D-Reaper is real and it existed.”

“Wait, seriously?” Henry or MegaGargomon or whatever he was calling himself stammered out, “So that thing we were just fighting is the all powerful monster from your campfire story?”

“Anyone care to fill me in?” Rika finally demanded grumpily, tapping her foot impatiently as she awaited the others’ explanation of the recent turn of events. Kenta pushed his fingers together quietly, “We went on a camping trip for school not too long ago and told ghost stories. Taka…Tamer told this weird story about a monster that ate everything it came across and got stronger as it did. In the end, it was so strong that no one could defeat it. They just did the next best thing: they buried it.”

“And it looks like all that did was buy time,” Tamerkato remarked wearily from where he was, still petting Calumon’s head. The poor little digimon seemed to shrink and shy away in his arms, eyes welling up with tears as begged, “Can we please stop talking about the scary stuff! I don’t like this! I want to leave! Can we go now!? Please, I want to go now!”

“Just a little bit longer,” Tamerkato said, stroking the little digimon’s head until he calmed down. Rika couldn’t believe what she was hearing, “Are you kidding me? So you mean we’re up against a something that can’t be killed? That thing down there? That’s what all this is about? What are we supposed to do to beat it? How did it even get out?”

Tamerkato laughed, “The Digital World has been through a lot of trauma over the years. It’s been weakened from attacks from outside reality, had its life force sapped by evil forces, and now its merged with another version of itself. We’ll be lucky if that monster is the only thing we have to worry about.”

“What do you mean the only thing we have to worry about goggle head?” Rika demanded of Tamerkato. He sighed, “There’s a part of that story that Kenta left out. Honestly, it’s one of the most forgettable parts of the story. They sent another monster to fight it - hoping the two of them would kill each other. When they realized it wasn’t going to happen, then they decided to burry it under the Digital World. We already have one monster coming back up. What will we do if there’s two? What will we do if they’re working together?”

Her heart seemed to freeze when the thought of something equally as powerful as that thing down there came to mind. The thing he was talking about was directly under them and it was so strong that the Sovereigns - all powerful beings who took Megidramon down - ran away in fear. And now Tamerkato was talking about two of them? They were screwed if even a word of that was true. She took another moment to steel herself enough to talk, “We’ll worry about that when it happens. What are we going to do about that thing now?”

“Not we. Us. Well, us excluding you guys,” Tamerkato answered matter of factly. That part stunned Rika. She hadn’t come all this way to get removed from the big fight. She wasn’t going to turn tail and run now.

“Where are we going?” Kazu asked, finally stirring from his unconscious state. Just what Rika needed - headaches on top of her fear. Suddenly, he jumped up to his feet upon seeing all the digimon present, “Whoa! Check out that digimon! Who’s she?”

“It’s Sakuyamon to you,” Rika answered grumpily, stamping the ground with her staff and leering at Tamerkato, “And how can you just send us home now after everything that’s happened?”

“This isn’t your fight. And quite frankly, you shouldn’t be putting your lives at risk for this,” Tamerkato answered sternly.

“I agree,” Ryo added grumpily. Rika gasped, “RYO!?”

“He’s right. This isn’t our fight. And to be honest, I’ve been wanting to go home since this entire thing started. All I’ve wanted was to go home,” Ryo said bitterly, “I’ve fought enough world ending monsters. I don’t want to fight one more.”

Rika was stunned and at a loss for words. She knew the Digital World had changed Ryo, she knew that he desperately wanted to go home. But abandoning an entire world to a horrible fate, “That’s selfish Ryo.”

“You’re one to talk, Rika,” Renamon’s words echoed in her mind. Yes, she was selfish before. She was trying to be better. Before she could get another word in, Ryo answered, “Rika, it’s been twenty years since I’ve seen my parents. My family. Twenty years of non stop fighting and violence and sleeping with one eye open so I don’t get eaten in the middle of the night by some random monster digimon. Twenty years, Rika. All I want right now is to see them again. Is that selfish too?”

His words were pleading, almost desperate. She couldn’t argue with him, feeling only guilt when she thought about forcing him to stay in the Digital World longer to save a world he didn’t want anything to do with. She needed to apologize. To let him know she was sorry but was stopped by a beeping in her backpack. It was the D-Terminal with a message from their parents. It had been a while since they’d heard from them and she read aloud the message they’d received, “To whoever gets this. This is Henry’s dad. Is Henry’s sister in the Digital World with you?”

She tried typing her response but realized her fingers were too big to touch the buttons properly. Embarrassed, she passed the device to Ryo, “Do you mind? My hands are too big.”

“Sure,” he began typing a message into the screen, “Yes. She showed up a little while ago and she’s got a rabbit with her.”

Ryo paused, looking at the little girl, “I guess your family noticed she was missing too. I wonder what my parents think?”

Rika was hit with another bout of guilt, wondering now if her mother and father were just as worried about her. She didn’t want to agree to heading back, but she couldn’t deny that going home would be nice.

“It’s alright to want to go home Rika. I understand completely,” Renamon’s voice echoed. Did she though? Renamon had done a lot for her world and here she was ready to abandon the Digital World. It was stupid to feel this way though since Renamon would just hear thoughts, a fact she was more than keen to remind her of, “Yes. I’m quite sure. And yes, it is stupid. The Digital World has some of the most powerful digimon overseeing its safety. We can afford for you to return to your family for a small while.”

“But goggle head wanted to kick us out of the fight,” Rika admitted quietly.

“Then you must be stupid if you think for one second that I believe you’re going to listen to him long enough to heed his word. We’ll find our own way back if we have to,” Renamon’s voice answered. That was a relief. At least she knew Renamon didn’t want out of this fight.

Tamerkato strolled up to the center of the group and stroked Calumon again, “It’s time buddy. This may sting a little. I’ll need to release the energy inside of you.”

Calumon’s ear shrank away further and it seemed like he wanted to run away from Tamerkato, only staying because the boy’s grip was apparently stronger than he’d ever let on. He traced patterns onto the little guy’s head with his finger, calming the little digimon with each pattern until he finally closed his eyes. He came aglow with soft light, and Tamerkato released the little digimon so he could float gently up into the air.

Calumon’s mouth moved, but anything he said was completely inaudible to them. Not that it mattered, since he suddenly erupted into a dazzling display of light that spread out in all direction. Beams of light struck every digimon it could and they all gave out a momentous cry of digivolution. It would’ve been beautiful and Rika would’ve loved to admire it if they didn’t have to worry about the fact the danger that was just below them. But this was a sight they had never seen before: countless mega level digimon hovering just above them unlike anything they’d ever seen before. Even from the books and the shows, she could only think of maybe five or six mega level digimon appearing at any one time. There were as many mega digimon here as there were stars in the sky. And only a few she could properly identify.

WarGreymon. MetalGarurumon. Pukumon. MetalSeadramon. Those were the ones she could identify. There were more present than she’d ever seen before. And many that she’d never seen in the show, or the card game, or anything else related to digimon.

The light faded and Calumon fell back into Tamerkato’s arms with his eyes closed. He stroked the little digimon’s head gently and smiled calmly, “Good job, Calumon.”

“Is Calumon sleepy?” WarGrowlmon asked.

“To think we sent that to the Human World. We should’ve guarded it here for our own use,” Zhuqiaomon declared, still taking in the sight of hundreds of fresh mega level digimon all around him. Tamerkato took a step back and pulled Calumon away from the Sovereign, “Not on your life. The Catalyst isn’t just a power source anymore. It’s a living, breathing, being with thoughts, feelings, wants and needs. I have no idea how you managed to even do that. It shouldn’t be possible. But it is apparently. And you’re not using him as a weapon.”

“Then what did you just do?” Zhuqiaomon demanded. Tamerkato gestured around them, “I gave you guys a way to defend yourselves against a beast crawling its way back out of the heart of the Digital World.”

“And that’s the only reason you gave us this power?” Zhuqiaomon eyed him seriously. Tamerkato didn’t hesitate to answer, “Why, did you plan on using it for something else?”

Rika wasn’t in the mood to hear them bicker - not after what they’d all just gone through - and cleared her throat to get their attention, “Look, I don’t want to interrupt whatever this is but what now? I mean, is there even a plan here? If brute force was going to be enough, then wouldn’t the Sovereigns have been enough? What exactly will more Mega level digimon do that four of the strongest digimon couldn’t?”

“It’s to buy time while we come up with another plan. Unless you guys have another one besides attack,” Tamerkato stated bluntly, looking at the Sovereigns with a bit more hope in his eyes than he probably should’ve had. The four Sovereign digimon exchanged glances before Azulongmon answered, “Our hope was that you would have one when you reappeared.”

Tamerkato nodded quietly, “Then yeah, buy time while we come up with a plan. But first, take these guys home.”

It was as good a plan as any until Kazu roared up to Tamerkato in a huff, “Hold on! We just got here and you better believe I’m not running away with my tail between my legs! We’re going back down there and we’re going to-”

The ground began to rumble and gave way just beneath his feet. Rika acted on instinct and leapt into the air, hovering there as the ground crumbled away for the red mass underneath to get loose. MegaGargomon did the same - grabbing hold of Xiaochun, Lopmon, and the unconscious Guardromon. Cybderdramon was quick to grab Ryo and Kazu before the ground gave way under them. The rest weren’t so lucky - screaming as they fell to what must’ve been certain doom.

“Rika!” Renamon’s voice echoed.

“I’m on it,” she dove down towards the ground to grab them, going for the closest one: Juri. The girl was still staring blankly ahead of her. Did she even realize she was in any danger? No, of course not. She was still hung up on Leomon. She grabbed a hold of her and darted towards the next person she could see. Kenta. But he was too far. And so were Tamerkato and WarGrowlmon. She wasn’t going to make it in time. They were going to be eaten by that thing.

…

“It’s arrived on the rooftop. Haz Team is investigating it now,” Yamaki said over the radio.

“Test run worked,” Zhenyu declared with a sigh of relief. Now it was just a question of what the Ark had brought back and if it survived the process. That was the part that worried him and it made the seconds drag like hours. After a moment, Yamaki’s voice rang back, “They’re saying it’s a plant. Like rosemary but blue. They’re securing it now.”

It worked. They knew it worked. That was all he cared about. And now they could send something to rescue the kids.

“Test looks good Zhenyu. Your team really pulled through this time. Okay, send a message to the kids and tell them to get ready for an extraction!” Yamaki said again into the radio, “Let’s get them out of here.”

Zhenyu didn’t need telling twice. He and the rest of the team went back to the computers, ready for maiden voyage of their new machine.

…

“Kahuna Waves!”

Blue heart shaped bubbles descended from the sky and wrapped around them - stopping them just inches before they fell into the red mass. The red mass lurched in protest, belching up a small wave to try and reach them. Thankfully, the bubbles started to pull them away out of reach of the red mass which belched in violent protest.

Rika looked upward for their rescuer and was surprised to see a familiar pink seal with a big red heart on its chest cooing at them. She’d seen it only in the card game and was surprised that anything in its particularly weak digivolution line survived - MarineAngemon, the aquatic holy digimon. It raced down to them and cooed happily as it helped to lift them up to safety, leaving Kenta wondering aloud, “Wpw. Did you save us? Thanks little guy. But who are you?”

“MarineAngemon. It’s a pleasure to meet you human,” the little digimon greeted playfully, to Kenta’s surprise, “I’m glad to see you’re alright.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Kenta nodded graciously, offering a hand to the creature but realizing one second too late that it had no hand to shake. Still it offered its flipper anyway as a show of gratitude. On contact, a glow of light appeared where their ‘hands’ met and it jumped into Kenta’s pocket. Rika could easily guess what it was and sighed - another digivice.

Until she noticed the light didn’t subside - it was now coming from over their heads, and Rika looked upward, “What’s that?”

All eyes turned skyward as something else joined them - a comically large vessel shaped like one of their digivices appeared over head and hovered there in the air just above them. Both Zhuqiaomon and Azulongmon encircled it, readying to attack it if needed. Their display seemed more for effect than anything else, since they were the only ones stopping all the new digivolved mega digimon from attacking it themselves. Azulongmon asked, “What is this? Is this one of yours, Tamer?”

This didn’t stop Kazu from elbowing Kenta in the arm, “You may not have got the coolest partner, but it looks like you got the coolest digivice. That thing is huge, dude.”

“Very funny Kazu. My digivice is right here,” Kenta lifted his up with a big toothy grin.

“I have no idea what that is but I could hazard a guess,” he answered knowingly, looking to the others with a smile. Then a new message came from Rika’s D-Terminal. Ryo read the message aloud, “It’s from your parents. Get on the ship. It will take everyone home.”

“Perfect timing, too,” Tamerkato remarked with a big smile, “MarineAngemon, do you mind bringing us on board?”

“Of course!” the little digimon waved its fin and the heart shaped bubbles ascended towards the digivice shaped vessel. Ryo patted Cyberdramon and two darted ahead, getting aboard that ship before any one else had. Rika hesitated just long enough for Renamon to notice, “Rika?”

“Are you sure you’re okay with not staying?” Rika thought quietly. Her partner’s voice was calm but agreeable, “I understand why you’re concerned and appreciate it. We will come back. First, we should go see your parents again.”

“Okay,” Rika agreed, kicking off against the digital World and flying off into the sky. She landed gently inside the machine and felt a sudden fatigue wash over her. She looked down at her arms and saw two regular human hands, “Huh, we’re not Sakuyamon anymore.”

“So it would seem,” Renamon said from behind her, making her jump in surprise, “Geez! Give me some warning why don’t you?”

“Forgive me, Rika. I didn’t mean to alarm you,” her partner said half apologetically, half with an uncharacteristic smile that made her uneasy. MegaGargomon tapped the ship and asked, “Huh, how do I get-”

As soon as he put his hand through the entrance, MegaGargomon appeared to lurch forward until both Henry and Terriermon were standing in front of them, “Whoa. That was trippy.”

“Wonder how that worked?” Terriermon asked.

“How does this ship work? There’s no controls!” Tamerkato remarked from further inside. Now that Rika was able to get a better look, she realized he was right. The ship consisted of nothing more than a large empty room - no seats, no safety measures, just an open door that probably was a safety hazard if the ship jolted too fast. Ryo returned Rika’s D-Terminal, “Here, you can tell your parents we’re on our way back. Hopefully calm them down.”

She took it back with a quiet nod and typed into it, “We’re all on board. How do we fly this ship?”

It took a moment longer for her to get a reply, “It’s on autopilot. Hang on.”

Suddenly, the ship lurched ahead. Tamerkato was ecstatic at the activity, “Oh that is just awesome.”

He darted back towards the opening, “We’ll be back, Azulongmon. You have my word!”

“We’ll be waiting, Tamer,” the Sovereign digimon said. Not a second longer, the fire lurched and the creature below attacked. The Digital World was now a battlefield.

#The Digimon Tamer #Fanfiction #archive of our own #Chapter 35 #Digimon Tamers

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antoine-roquentin · 5 years

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Perfect equipoise: a perfect fantasy. A more realistic American tableau was unfolding in Chicago, where the conspiracy trial was at its entropic height.

During jury selection, the questions the defense wanted the pool to be asked included “Do you know who Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix are?” and “If your children are female, do they wear brassieres all the time?” In a pretrial hearing Judge Hoffman described the “intent” standard by which the defendants were to be judged: “The substance of the crime was a state of mind.” (That was just the way Time had defined Middle America: a state of mind.) To that standard, the defense was glad to accede. When the twelve jurors turned out to be middle-class and middle-aged, except for two girls in their early twenties, Leonard Weinglass, the lead defense attorney, moved for a mistrial, claiming his clients weren’t being judged by a jury of their peers—which would have to be chosen also from people not drawn from the voter rolls, because blacks, the young, dropouts, and misfits were not well-enough represented on them.

The government had selectively indicted to display a cross-section of the monstrous personages rending the good order of American civilization: the older guru (David Dellinger); two long-haired freaks (Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin); the by-any-means-necessary Negro (Bobby Seale); two SDS militants (Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis); two radical young faculty members (a chemistry professor, John Froines, and a sociology professor, Lee Weiner, who were supposed to have planned a bombing). The prosecutors warned on TV that the defendants might walk into court the first day naked.

That didn’t happen, though when court adjourned on New Year’s Eve defendant Froines and his girlfriend did pass out autographed nude posters of themselves.

The jury was sequestered every minute they were outside the Federal Building: if states of minds were on trial, even the cultural air was prejudicial (some stories they missed: the Mobilization, the Silent Majority speech, the Moratorium, the rise of Spiro Agnew, the second moon shot, the My Lai massacre). They received a respite from cabin fever the day after Christmas when they were treated to a Disney on Parade show. But even that was prejudicial: the monkeys in the Jungle Book number were go-go girls. Alice in Wonderland was done up in psychedelic patterns.

Jerry Rubin called his indictment “the Academy Award for protest.” Judge Julius Hoffman seemed to relish the notion. “Tell me something,” he asked New York Times reporter Tony Lukas, who had called up to ask for press credentials. “Do you think this is going to be the trial of the century?”

Outside, trial marshals confiscated spoons, books, compacts, nail clippers, attaché cases—and two pistols. Defense sympathizers waited half the night in line for a spot in the gallery; the judge gave seats instead to Chicago socialites (one hippie who survived the gauntlet leapt up in the spectators’ gallery during a defense argument to cry “Right on!” and was swarmed so badly a witness thought marshals might have broken some bones). When Bobby Seale’s family managed to get seats, Judge Julius Hoffman summoned a marshal and had these strange people with bushy Afros removed. The jury wouldn’t be able to watch his child’s and wife’s reactions when Seale was bound and gagged like a slave. They weren’t there on November 5, 1969, either, when Judge Hoffman sentenced Seale to an unprecedented four years in prison for sixteen counts of contempt of court and severed his case from the rest, turning the Chicago 8 into the Chicago 7. Reporters made a mad dash for the phones. The courtroom marshals unpinned their badges, put them into their pockets, and scoured the jammed courtroom for anything else sharp, fearing an outbreak of hand-to-hand combat.

The next day a defense lawyer argued the four-year sentence was illegal and asked the judge to explain himself. Judge Hoffman replied, “I have known literally thousands of what we used to call Negro people and who are now referred to as black people, and I have never heard that kind of language emanate from the lips of any of them.” That was the day Bob Hope sent out his letter to senators “FOR A WEEK OF NATIONAL UNITY.”

Judge Julius J. Hoffman was a strutting, little bantam cock of a man. On the first day of jury selection he read out the indictment to the jury pool like a nineteenth-century thespian. Defense lawyer William Kunstler objected. Judge Hoffman boomed, “Motion denied!” and said he’d never apologize for “the vocal facilities the Lord hath given me.” When one of his young law clerks was told to prepare a denial of the defendants’ motion to see the wiretap logs and replied, “But, Judge, that’s not fair,” citing the plain letter of the law, the old man flew into a rage that awed his clerk—who was told not to return to work after his vacation.

Federal judge selection was supposed to be random. But in Chicago, the fix was always in. In big mob cases, the state always angled to argue before Judge Hoffman: he always decided against the defendant and made the prosecuting attorneys look like heroes. He “is the bane of do-gooders who would give every bum a second chance, and a third and a fourth and a fifth,” Chicago’s American said. He was also a self-hating Jew who took willful pleasure in mispronouncing his fellow Jews’ names (Weinglass: “Fineglass,” “Weintraub,” “Weinruss,” “Weinrob”) and wouldn’t let one witness wear a yarmulke in court (“Take off your hat, sir”). He popped a vein when Abbie Hoffman called himself his “illegitimate son,” but hated David Dellinger (“Derringer,” “Dillinger”) most of all: he was a WASP who’d surrendered privileges the judge so dearly wished to possess. Hoffman was especially taken aback when one of the defendants informed him that the plaque for the Northwestern Law School classroom named after him had been ripped from the wall.

“The plaque?”

“Apparently while the board of trustees feels affection for you, the student body does not.”

The defense was determined to put the war on trial and the defendants’ lifestyle on proud display (the Boston 5 had “sat like good little boys called into the principal’s office,” Dr. Spock had pointed out, and were railroaded nonetheless). The Chicago defendants were determined to show why their state of mind was morally superior. The seventy-four-year-old they called Mr. Magoo was a hanging judge, hired to grease the rails for a conviction that would only be overturned on appeal. It was a show trial. So why not put on a show?

The prosecution presented its case first. Their witnesses were undercover infiltrators. Once, when a witness was called just as one of the defendants exited a side door, the rest of the Chicago 7 braced themselves: was one of their own a police spy? (Actually, he was just going to the bathroom.)

One prosecution witness was simultaneously a member of the executive committee of Veterans for Peace, the Chicago Peace Council, the New Mobilization Committee to End the War—and the Chicago Police Department Red Squad. The people most useful in the movement, radicals often learned too late, were the ones later revealed to be spies; being paid for their time by the government, they were the most avid “volunteers.” Another had enrolled in the Northeastern Illinois State College SDS and had led a group that pushed Northeastern’s president off a speaker’s platform. (The most militant activists, radicals also discovered too late, were often police-agent provocateurs.) He testified that Rennie Davis said their plan to recruit for Chicago was to “lure them here with music and sex”; at the meeting where he claimed he heard that, he himself had suggested disabling army jeeps with grappling hooks. A third prosecution witness was a college newspaper reporter hired as a spy by the Chicago’s American columnist Jack Mabley. A fourth had worked as Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin’s dirtbag motorcycle-gang “bodyguard.” A fifth was a policewoman who’d dressed for her work in Lincoln Park every day in white hippie bell-bottoms carrying a .38 Colt in her bag.

This witness, Officer Barbara Callender, testified blushingly, “Every other word was that F-word.”

Cross-examination: “Haven’t you ever heard that word in the station house?”

The government objected to the line of questioning. The objection was sustained. Part of the prosecution’s strategy was to establish that the defendants were obscene. Ten days later, when another Red Squad member testified, he said he’d told a newsman “to turn the censored cameras around because of that civilian brutality.” His side believed it was obscenity to say [censored] without blushing; the other believed it was obscenity during an evil war to save your shame for mere words: the war was the obscenity. (A joke going around the New Left: a policeman tells a protester to come back after she has removed the obscenity from her FUCK THE WAR placard and she returns with one reading FUCK THE.)

The prosecutors, U.S. Attorneys Richard Schultz and Thomas Aquinas Foran, were perfectly cast. Schultz was so ploddingly literal-minded he could call the most obvious Yippie put-ons devious incitements to riot. Foran was a Democrat who said he had been a closer friend of the late Bobby Kennedy’s than Tom Hayden had been. In his summation he spoke of his empathy for the kids, who “feel that the lights have gone out in Camelot.” But “these guys take advantage of them. They take advantage of it personally, intentionally, evilly, and to corrupt those kids, they use them, and they use them for their purposes and for their intents. And you know what are their purposes and intents?…This is in their own words: to ‘disrupt.’ To ‘pin delegates in the Convention hall.’ To ‘clog streets.’ To force the use of troops. To have actions so militant the Guard will have to be used…. ‘Tear this city apart.’ ‘Fuck up this convention.’…‘We’ll lure the McCarthy kids and other young people with music and sex and try to hold the park.’”

The prosecution’s aim was to reduce a complex stew of motives, interests, approaches, and personalities to a concentrated, unified plot. They said David Dellinger, the Gandhian who had little direct role in Chicago, was only pretending to be a pacifist and was really the rioting’s “chief architect” (“Oh, bullshit. That is a complete lie,” Dellinger shouted. “Did you get that, Miss Reporter?” Judge Hoffman replied, and revoked Dellinger’s bail). Prosecutors said the ham-handed self-defense training in Lincoln Park was combat training. Patrolman Frapolly described a meeting in which he claimed he heard plans to throw burning flares at the cops.

Mr. Foran: “Were any of the defendants present?”

The Witness: “Yes. Weiner and Froines were at this meeting. So was Abbie Hoffman.”

Mr. Foran: “Do you see Mr. Hoffman here in the courtroom?”

The Witness: “Yes, I do.”

Mr. Foran: “Would you step down and point him out, please.”

The Witness: “Mr. Hoffman is sitting with the leather vest on, the shirt—he just shot me with his finger. His hair is very unkempt.”

The hippies’ hippie-ness was on trial; style was a battleground. Abbie Hoffman, asked why they lured innocent youth to Chicago with sex and rock bands, replied, “Rock musicians are the real leaders of the revolution.” Posture was a battleground. When Judge Hoffman admonished William Kunstler not to slouch on the lectern designed by the Federal Building’s distinguished architect Mies van der Rohe, Abbie replied, “Mies van der Rohe was a Kraut.” He added that the courtroom was a “neon oven”—thus deploying his Madison Avenue brilliance in the service of the defendants’ pet theory that America was becoming Nazi Germany. Pencils, even, became a battleground: “primly squared off and neatly sharpened beside a few neatly stacked memos on the prosecution table,” the Evergreen Review’s John Schultz wrote; “askew and gnawed and maybe encrusted with a sliver of earwax,” a proud part of the “unholy clutter,” on the defense table. (When Abbie Hoffman, a very hard worker, took the stand, he said, “Work is a dirty word instead of fuck is a dirty word.”)

Humor was a battleground most of all.

The judge fancied himself a rapier wit. But when the defense table laughed at him, or with the defense—as when Abbie and Jerry showed up in judicial robes—he made sure the court reporter got it in the record, for in the courtroom laughter wasn’t appropriate. Which jurymen laughed when was how both sides kept score.

Based on that calculus, when the prosecution rested on December 9, the day after the Nixon press conference that earned him a snap 81 percent approval rating, movement sympathizers predicted a hung jury. That prediction led to a debate in the defense camp. Tom Hayden said that, since they weren’t going to be convicted, they could best get on with the revolution if they rested their case without mounting a defense, ending the affair in a mistrial. Others—Abbie, Jerry—said the trial was the revolution. The Yippies won: they would use their defense to introduce “Woodstock Nation”—the title of Abbie’s new book—to America. They would fight through the jungles of TV.

They spoke at colleges, women’s clubs, and churches to raise money for their defense, to warm receptions. At a tony synagogue in suburban Highland Park, Illinois, fourteen hundred turned out to hear them. At universities they were treated like the Beatles. At a University of Chicago rally, Rennie Davis announced he would continue fighting the way he was fighting even if they put a pistol to his head: “How can you be a young person and have any other position?”

Thomas Aquinas Foran would have said the same thing, if asked about his own position.

It seemed an auspicious week to indict an Establishment gone mad. As Wednesday night, December 3, 1969, became Thursday morning, December 4, what the Chicago Tribune had called the “wild gun battle” at Black Panther headquarters in a West Side apartment building left two Panthers, twenty-one-year-old leader Fred Hampton and lieutenant Mark Clark, twenty-two, dead. Lewis Koch, the young New Left producer for the local NBC affiliate, smelled a rat in the cops’ claim they were met with “a shotgun volley.” He’d seen film of the cops leaving the building: smiling, embracing, exulting as if they’d won a football game—not the behavior of men who had just survived an ambush. He put Panther Bobby Rush on the afternoon news the next day, who called it cold-blooded murder and invited viewers to the apartment to see for themselves. The Chicago Daily News columnist Mike Royko took him up on his offer. The morning that the conspiracy-trial prosecution rested its case, Royko published a column called “The Hampton Bullet Holes.” According to the police account, Royko wrote, “miracles occurred. The Panthers’ bullets must have dissolved in the air before they hit anybody or anything. Either that or the Panthers were shooting in the wrong direction—namely, at themselves.” Royko had examined the building with a ballistics expert, who identified at least seventy-six bullets coming in, including twenty-four in the wall near Hampton’s bed—and not a single one coming out.

Chicago cops failed to secure the crime scene. People lined up around the block to tour the open-and-shut evidence. Years later it came out that the FBI COINTELPRO had provided Chicago cops with the floor plans of the apartment, and an FBI infiltrator had slipped secobarbital in Fred Hampton’s drink the previous evening to make it easier to murder him in his bed. Such revelations would only have confirmed what the Chicago 7 defense already knew: the “justice system” wasn’t a system of justice, “law and order” was a cover for state-sponsored crime.

Those same days the last cop indicted for crimes during convention week was on trial. The jury absolved him of beating a twenty-year-old hitchhiker after only an hour of deliberation. The prosecution was so convincing, the defense so obviously false, the shocked judge implored of the foreman, “Are you certain, not guilty?”

The Silent Majority was practicing jury nullification, just as the Chicago 7 opened their defense.

The first defense witness was a supervisor at a candy factory. He displayed slides he had taken of police chopping their way through a crowd, kicking kids when they were down—without provocation, he said. The next day he was fired from his job. And any pretense to a straight defense was abandoned. The prosecution said the Chicago 7 had lured lambs to slaughter with music and sex. So the Chicago 7’s defense would be…music and sex.

Jacques Levy, director of Oh! Calcutta! (the off-Broadway play where the cast took off their clothes), Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsberg, Country Joe McDonald were all called to the stand. (“Dr. Leary, what is your present occupation?” “I am the Democratic candidate for governor in California.” “Doctor, can you explain what a psychedelic drug is?”) Judy Collins broke out into a chorus of “Where have all the flowers gone?” (Judge Hoffman: “We don’t allow singing in this court.”) William Kunstler presented folksinger Phil Ochs with exhibit D-147, the guitar he’d used to perform “I Ain’t Marching Any More” at the Festival of Life. He, too, tried and failed to sing.

The following colloquy ensued: Abbie Hoffman had “led the crowd in a chant of ‘Fuck LBJ,’ didn’t he?”

“Yes, I think he did….”

“Now, in your plans for Chicago, did you plan for public fornication in the park?”

Allen Ginsberg had been in Chicago helping calm things with his Buddhist chants. Judge Hoffman had once been an ally of Ginsberg’s. He’d ruled in 1960 that the avant-garde Chicago literary magazine Big Table wasn’t obscene, noting that William S. Burroughs’s Naked Lunch was intended “to shock the contemporary society in order perhaps to better point out its flaws and weaknesses,” quoting the Ulysses decision on the subversive necessity of art. But that was a different age, when such nuances were possible. Now everyone had to choose a side.

One day a clerk at Barbara’s Bookstore in Old Town saw a middle-aged man pacing around. A member of the prosecution team, he asked, “Do you have any of Allen Ginsberg’s books?” She went to hunt some down. He said, “Could you hurry up? The future of the country may depend on this.”

Later that day, on the stand, Ginsberg explained, “I was chanting a mantra called the Mala Mantra, the great mantra of preservation of that aspect of the Indian religion called Vishnu the Preserver.”

Thomas Aquinas Foran leafed through one of his newfound literary treasures.

Mr. Foran: “In The Empty Mirror, there is a poem called ‘The Night Apple’?”

The Witness: “Yes.”

Mr. Foran: “Would you recite it for the jury?”

The Witness:

THE NIGHT APPLE

Last night I dreamed

of one I loved

for seven long years,

but I saw no face,

only the familiar

presence of the body;

sweat skin eyes

feces urine sperm

saliva all one

odor and mortal taste.

Foran, sarcastically: “Could you explain to the jury what the religious significance of that poem is?”

Ginsberg, earnestly: “If you could take a wet dream as a religious experience, I could. It is a description of a wet dream, sir.”

Defense witness Linda Hager Morse was a pretty Quaker girl from Philadelphia who had won the Kiwanis Decency Award and first marched for peace on New York’s Fifth Avenue in 1965. She was now a revolutionary. The defense wanted her to talk about why it was necessary to overthrow capitalism. The judge ruled that out of order. The prosecution, however, was glad to pick up the thread in cross-examination, and the judge was glad to let them. What Morse said encapsulated the strangeness of the last four years of American history. One part sounded quite like Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society speech: “My ultimate goal is to create a society where everyone is fed, where everyone is educated, where everyone has a job, where everyone has a chance to express himself artistically or politically, or spiritually, or religiously�� (Johnson: “a society of success without squalor, beauty without barrenness, works of genius without the wretchedness of poverty”). The other part couldn’t have been further afield from Johnson’s consensus bromides. Assistant DA Schultz posed the question: “You practice shooting an M1 yourself, don’t you?”

The Witness: “Yes, I do.”

Mr. Schultz: “You also practice karate, don’t you?”

The Witness: “Yes, I do.”

Mr. Schultz: “That is for the revolution, isn’t it?”

The Witness: “After Chicago I changed from being a pacifist to the realization that we had to defend ourselves. A nonviolent revolution was impossible. I desperately wish it was possible.”

Rennie Davis thought this was the defense’s most effective witness with the jury. He asked a reporter what he had thought of Morse’s testimony. The reporter’s answer spoke to the polarization: “It certainly was a disaster for you. Now you’ve really had it.”

Could your daughter kill?

The defendants had intended to win the sympathy of the big jury out there, the general public. Their message was seen through a glass darkly. “What did go on in Judge Julius Hoffman’s courtroom?” asked the back cover of one of the many paperback books that appeared later reproducing court transcripts. With no cameras to record it, it was hard to know. Afterward a friend asked Tony Lukas of the Times which of the defendants had defecated in the aisle of the courtroom.

Most newspaper coverage came from secondhand wire reports, built from a written record that the judge made sure reflected every defense outrage and whitewashed every prosecution one. The Times’s Lukas paid careful attention to such unfairness, but his editors pruned him ruthlessly: Abbie Hoffman always “shouted”; Judge Hoffman always “said” (even if it was really the other way around). To much of the public, the presumption was that the defecation was nonstop.

William Kunstler offered his summation to the jury on February 13, 1970: “I think if this case does nothing else, perhaps it will bring into focus that again we are in a moment of history when a courtroom becomes the proving ground of whether we do live free or whether we do die free…. Perhaps if you do what is right, perhaps Allen Ginsberg will never have to write again as he did in ‘Howl,’ ‘I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness,’ perhaps Judy Collins will never have to stand in any courtroom again and say, as she did, ‘When will they ever learn?’”

Thomas Foran offered his summation: “At the beginning of this case they were calling them all by diminutive names, Rennie and Abbie and Jerry, trying to pretend they were young kids. They are not kids…. They are highly sophisticated, educated men, and they are evil men.”

The jury returned their verdict after five days. All seven were acquitted on the conspiracy count. Froines and Weiner were acquitted of the charge they’d constructed an incendiary device. But Dellinger, Davis, Hayden, Hoffman, and Rubin were found guilty on the indictment’s counts two through six, which cited Title 18, United States Code, Section 201—the provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, passed to honor the martyr Martin Luther King, outlawing the “travel in interstate commerce…with intent to incite, organize, promote, and encourage a riot” and to “speak to assemblages of persons for the purposes of inciting, organizing, promoting, and encouraging a riot.”

The liberal editorialists praised the jury’s ruling as judicious and well considered, a complex split decision: the system worked. Spiro Agnew called it an “American verdict.” It was indeed an American verdict: almost as soon as the trial began, the jury had split into polarized camps. One believed the defendants were not guilty on all accounts. The other believed they were guilty on all counts. Only three jurors actually agreed with the decision as rendered.

They had socialized apart, eaten apart—and, when together, spent most of their time in the jury room debating child-rearing philosophy. One of the convict-on-all-accounts jurors talked about the time she took her willful daughter to see a shrink who said she just needed “love and patience”—and how she stalked out saying of her daughter that she needed to have something “shoved down her throat.” They voiced their fears that their children would end up hippies, said things like “They are evil” and “This is like Nazi Germany—hippies want to take over the country” and “They had no right to come into your living room.” The liberal jurors argued that slovenliness wasn’t a crime, the prosecution was corrupt, and that for the first time they were afraid the government might be spying on them. They wondered whether the antiriot statute was constitutional. At that, the conservative side wondered, if the law didn’t protect decent people from this, then what did it protect them from?

A journalist later observed the sociology that divided the two groups. “The convict-on-all-counts jurors tended to be people who had moved recently from the city of Chicago itself to the suburbs. They were the hard-line we-worked-hard-and-won-our-way-according-to-the-standard-rules-of-social-mobility-people…. The acquittal jurors tended to be those who had been longer situated in the suburbs or outlying parts of the city, and were easier in their attitudes about raising children.”

Franklins and Orthogonians: they hated each other too much to agree on anything. They sent out notes to the judge that they were a hung jury. The judge refused to accept them: “Keep deliberating!” A juror finally brokered the split-verdict compromise. Judge Hoffman still was not satisfied. So he exercised his discretionary power. Over two long days, he called each defendant and each defense lawyer before the bench and delivered contempt specifications for each act of schoolboy naughtiness, sometimes reading out long stretches from the record: “Specification 1: On September 26, during the opening statement by the Government, defendant Hoffman rose and blew a kiss to the jurors. Official Transcript, Chapter One.”

Abbie Hoffman got a day in jail for that. He got six days for calling the judge, in Yiddish, shanda für di goyim. (The judge read the phrase, which meant “a Jew who shames Jews in front of the gentiles,” from the transcript haltingly and pronounced, “I can’t understand the following words.”) David Dellinger had insisted, on Moratorium Day, on reading a list of the war dead. For that, he got six months.

The law had spoken. John Lindsay responded, “The blunt, hard fact is that we in this nation appear headed for a new period of repression—more dangerous than at any time in years.” Foran, at a booster club rally at a parochial high school, said, “We’ve lost our kids to the freaking fag revolution.” Rennie Davis said that when he got out of jail, “I intend to move next door to Tom Foran and bring his sons and daughters into the revolution” and “turn the sons and daughters of the ruling class into Vietcong.” Jerry Rubin signed his new book—Do It!—to “Judge Hoffman, top Yippie, who radicalized more young Americans than we ever could.” And Tom Hayden said, “Our jury now is being heard from.”

In Ann Arbor, five thousand students and hangers-on marched to city hall busting windows and wrecking cars. The FBI put a “White Panther” on the ten most wanted list, who wrote from exile in the Michigan woods, “I don’t want to make it sound like all you got to do is kill people, kill pigs, to bring about revolution,” but “it is up to us to educate the people to the fact that it is war, and a righteous revolutionary war.” In Madison a student stole an Air Force ROTC training plane and tried to bomb an army ammunition plant (just as a student radical stole a plane in the newly released Zabriskie Point).

The preliminaries in the trial of the “Manson Family” were all over the news: Manson had hoped, it turned out, to foment a race war. Weatherman Bernardine Dohrn said of the murders, “Dig it, first they killed the pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, then they even shoved a fork into a victim’s stomach! Wild!” On February 17, what appeared to be a copycat crime emerged, a hideous attack on a military family: a Green Beret captain, Jeffrey MacDonald, reported regaining consciousness from a knife attack to find his wife and two children, Kristen and Kimberly, dead. He remembered what one of the intruders, a woman wearing a “floppy hat” and carrying a burning taper, chanted: “Acid is groovy, kill the pigs.”

In St. Louis, at 2 a.m. on February 23, the Quonset hut housing Washington University’s Army ROTC program was burned to the ground. In frigid Buffalo, on February 24, the president of the State University of New York campus summoned cops to control the threatened disruption of a basketball game. The next night, forty students stormed his office. A police squad chased them into the student union. Eight hundred students attacked the police. At the precinct house, amid the Jewish-looking haul, one arrestee heard a cop say that America “should have let Hitler win, he’d have known how to take care of these fuckers.”

That same day, William Kunstler, facing two years in jail for contempt of Judge Hoffman’s court, gave a speech at the UC–Santa Barbara stadium. Ten years earlier he had dropped out of the executive-training program at R. H. Macy’s; how things had changed. “I have never thought that [the] breaking of windows and sporadic, picayune violence is a good tactic,” he now said. “But on the other hand, I cannot bring myself to become bitter and condemn young people who engage in it.” Students whistled and cheered. Hundreds strolled to a rally in the adjacent town of Isla Vista. One of them idly swung around a bottle of wine. The cops, thinking it a Molotov cocktail, arrested him. Violence broke out. Kids burned down a Bank of America branch. Ronald Reagan ordered his attorney general to look into charging Kunstler with crossing state lines to incite a riot.

On March 6 a mysterious explosion collapsed an entire town house in Greenwich Village. Cops searching through the rubble pulled out three dead bodies and enough live-wired dynamite bombs to blow up the entire block if detonated at once. The house had been a bomb factory, and one of the bombs was intended to slaughter attendees at an upcoming dance at Fort Dix. One decapitated body was identified by a print taken from the severed little finger of the right hand: Diana Oughton, a Weatherman. Another was a leader of the 1968 Columbia University strike. The third was a Weatherman based at Kent State University, in Ohio.

On March 11 a bomb gashed a chunk out of the corner of the Dorchester County Courthouse in Maryland, site of pretrial hearings for H. Rap Brown for inciting the burning of the schoolhouse in Cambridge in 1967.

The next night, in Buffalo, hundreds of students fought a running battle with police, throwing Molotov cocktails at the faculty peace monitors trying to keep the two sides apart.

Three days later Judge Hoffman received an enthusiastic clap on the shoulder from Richard Nixon. He was a special guest at the president’s weekly Christian service in the East Room, where the Reverend Billy Graham preached that America’s “differences could melt in the heat of a religious revival.”

In New York City one day in March, fifteen thousand people were evacuated from office buildings from three hundred separate bomb threats. On April 4, Governor Reagan, in a reelection campaign speech to the Council of California Growers, said of government’s dilemma of beating back the mounting violence, “If there is to be a bloodbath, let it be now.” That America was in the middle of a civil war had once been but a metaphor. How soon before it became real?

- Rick Perlstein, Nixonland

#a real classic

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missymwac · 5 years

Text

Call of Jury Duty

“Am I in the right place?”

That was the question I asked a very stressed out security person as I reported for jury duty early this morning. Yes, the dreaded “Day of Duty” had arrived and I was not looking forward to it. I was trying my best to remain upbeat and positive about the whole thing, citing my “civic duty” and all, even trying to harness my inner Stanley Hudson from The Office:

But truthfully, I wasn’t feeling it. As I made my way downtown, I was unsure of everything, especially where to park. Turns out, they have many signs for jurors to follow-and they all lead to a parking garage. I don’t like parking garages. I have nothing against them-they serve a purpose. It’s just, well, I suck at parking. The only thing worse than a parking garage to me is parallel parking. If someone said, “Listen, woman, you either parallel park this Jeep Wrangler or live in exile, wandering the woods in a pair of leggings with little cameras printed on them and eating kale for every meal,” then I would have no other choice than to wave goodbye to the regular world and shove my bloated farty stomach into a pair of customized leggings made in China.

Now, this is my first jury summons, so I had no idea what to expect. I knew that I had to be there at 8:30. I knew that unless I had planned ahead and received special permission (which I hadn’t) I was not allowed to bring in my phone. I knew that the attorneys for the plaintiff and the defendant would ask us questions, but that was about it. What I didn’t know was, where, exactly, I was to report. See, in our town there are three courthouses and they are all clustered together on a corner. And yes, I did have a map, but following directions on a map falls right under “Parking Garage” on the List of Things I Don’t Do Well.

I was running a bit behind schedule (see parking garage above) so when I was informed that no, I was not in the right place, I started to frazzle. The summons said 8:30. What if I was late and got into trouble?I had left in plenty of time, and yet, here I was running down the sidewalk. It was like the dream I have that I am back in high school and can’t remember my locker combination and I’m standing there trying every combination I know and my books are falling on the ground and OMG, I FORGOT TO DO MY HOMEWORK.

I ran across the street and up the steps to the OTHER courthouse, waited in line, walked through a metal detector, and then waited some more while security had to “take a look at my keys,” which I thought odd, as other than my plastic Jesus flashlight, there is nothing powerful on that lanyard. I suspect they wanted to get a good look at flashlight Jesus but didn’t want to ask.

Security complete, I made my way back to the jury room and checked in with a very very nice woman who asked my name.

“Do you need to see my summons?” “No.” “Do you need my photo ID?” “No, sweetheart, you’re fine.”

Had I known that they weren’t going to verify my identity, I could have put an ad on Craigslist: “Jury Duty Proxy. Must be female or identify as female. Must be willing to be bored out of your mind for 4 hours. Script will be provided. $15 an hour.”

Soda, coffee, and water was available while we waited, but thanks to my walnut-sized bladder, I passed on all three. I noticed the clock on the wall as I went to take my seat—8:30am exactly. Booyah. Take THAT, parking garage! And then I continued to glance up at the clock: 8:45. 9:00. 9:20. 9:45… I felt brain cells start to die off with each tick of the second hand.

Finally, a bailiff and judge’s assistant came to get us. I’m not sure if “judge’s assistant” is the correct term, but it’s what I remember he was. And if you happen be an assistant to a judge, I mean no disrespect; I don’t know legal terms. But whatever your name is, really, waiting almost an hour and a half? We need to do something about that.

They issued us all Juror numbers and made us stand in several rows. My number was 33, which pleased me, as my favorite number is 3. Yes, it’s a stupid thing to be happy about, but when you wait 1.5 thirsty hours in a large room with nothing but a 2014 Real Simple magazine to keep you company, you find joy where you can.

Numbers in hand, our band of possible jurors tromped out to the elevators and up to the 7th floor, where we were put into yet another order to make entering the courtroom easier. I commented to the woman next to me that in the time it took to arrange us, we could have already been in there. She agreed AND had a British accent, so she also made me happy. I was grasping at Happiness Straws, people!

Into the courtroom we go where the attorneys and their clients were waiting. We all sat down and counsel made introductions. I tried to figure out who, exactly, were the defendant and plaintiff, cause there seemed to be an awful lot of people on one side of the room. Turns out, the plaintiff had an attorney, another attorney, another woman who isn’t an attorney but serves some purpose, the plaintiff and the plaintiff’s brother. The plaintiff’s side really needed a bigger table.

The judge enters and we all rise. It’s the first time I’ve been in a courtroom and the first time I’ve ever risen for a judge. I mean, I’ve watched Judge Judy, but I don’t rise for her. Sorry, Judy. The judge was nothing but kind, thanking us all for giving of our time to be there and be a part of this very important judicial process. He asked if anyone had a reason that they felt made them unable to serve on a jury and oh, did the hands go up. He addressed each possible juror, row by row.

Now, I’ll be honest-I was going to raise my hand. I went in there knowing that I was going to raise my hand. I have pre-paid sessions on my books and being selected for a trial is going to be a pain and possibly cost me money, as I will have to reschedule those appointments and hope that everyone is okay with the rescheduling and if not, I will have to refund hundreds of dollars. I had my speech all prepared as to why I could not serve on a 2-3 day trial and then…I heard the reasons others were giving:

“My dad has Alzheimer’s and we are in the process of moving him into a long term care facility. It’s just me and my brother taking care of him and we take turns, because we both have to work.”

“I am budgeted down the dollar and can’t afford the $7.50 an hour stipend the court issues. I need my work hours or I won’t be able to pay my rent.”

“I take care of my dad and my grandmother. Both are in a wheelchair and my dad just had a pacemaker installed, so he can’t do any sort of heavy lifting. As for my grandma, I cook for her and help bathe her and take both she and my dad to their doctor appointments.”

Yeah, THESE are true hardships. And having heard them, I kept my mouth shut.

The process continued with counsel asking open questions to all of us. If we had something we felt relevant to the question, then we were to raise our hand. And many did…including me.

See, the case going to trial was a civil case involving a very elderly lady (plaintiff) and a young woman in her 20’s (defendant) I don’t know the details, but it involved a car accident in 2015 wherein the plaintiff was claiming negligence on the part of the defendant. The plaintiff claimed the results of the auto accident left her with lingering back and neck issues.

The attorney for the plaintiff went first. He was an older man who was very hard of hearing, which resulted in him speaking quietly. So quietly, in fact, that the woman sitting in front of me raised her hand and suggested he use the microphone.

The questions included things like:

“Has anyone been injured in a car accident?” “Do any of you have family members working in the medical field.” “Do any of you have any knowledge or relationship with either counsel, the defendant or the plaintiff?” “Do any of you have issues with believing the assessment of a physician?” “Do any of you believe an individual should not be reasonably compensated for injuries.”

And there it was. The question that caused my hand to shoot up.

I stood, introduced myself as we were instructed to do, and said that I have a question. I really wanted to say, “Let me answer your question with a question,” as I’ve always wanted to use that line in a serious conversation, but felt that a courtroom setting might be pushing it.

Me: “I obviously don’t know the details of this case, but this is all over an auto accident, correct?”

Attorney: “Yes.”

Me: “And this case is a LAWSUIT over the auto accident, correct?”

Attorney: “Yes.”

Me: “Okay, then I think I do have issue with the term “reasonably compensated.”

Attorney: “What do you mean by that?”

Me: “Well, my daughter was recently in accident, just a little over a year go. She was sitting at a red light and a truck ran the red. It hit a car in the intersection which pushed another car into my daughter’s vehicle, pushing it up onto the sidewalk, totaling the car. 12 inches more and she would have been carried away in an ambulance. She was injured, both her back and her neck, but never once did she consider suing the guy who ran the red. She was thankful she was alive. The driver of the truck was simply in a hurry and made a bad call. No one died. Life was going to go on. But again, a lawsuit never entered her mind. Or ours.”

Attorney: “Okay, then, but let me ask you-don’t you think that if an individual is injured in an automobile accident that they are entitled to reasonable compensation for those injuries.”

Me: “Define “reasonable compensation.”

Attorney: <silence>

Me: Because what’s reasonable to some people certainly isn’t reasonable to others. And furthermore, isn’t that the reason we HAVE auto insurance? I mean, by law, we have to carry it. And doesn’t most auto insurance pay out medical when these things happen? And let’s face it, life stuff DOES happen. To all of us.

Attorney: “So you don’t think reasonable compensation due to negligence is required.”

Me: “I never said that. I said that I don’t know the details of the case, so I could be wrong, but if insurance covered the medical needs following the accident, then a lawsuit seems rather a waste of the court’s time. A lawsuit, at least to me, is a pretty big deal. I mean, let’s face it, we’re a litigious happy society, are we not? And there are big issues that demand that course of action. Giant, life shattering events. But this? Again, I don’t know the details, but from what you’ve shared with us thus far, I just don’t see it.”

I sat down and glanced at the counsel tables. The plaintiff was shooting daggers at me with her eyes and the attorney for the defense was looking down at his notes, but I swear I saw a hint of a smile.

But then, it started to snowball. Another hand shot up.

“Yeah, I can’t remember her name over there, but I agree with her. I served as foreman on a case where someone had already been compensated but sued anyway. I just think we sue over everything now.”

Another hand.

And another hand, all echoing that sentiment.

Jiminy Christmas. Would this help or hinder my chances of getting picked? I had no idea.

In the end, I didn’t get picked for the trial, and that’s okay. I was actually kind of invested in it at that point and would have liked to have been picked, but I was glad to at least have spoken my thoughts to the room as instructed and if they gave someone a different perspective, then good.

After the jury announcement was made, I said a little sadly under my breath, “Oh, I didn’t get picked.” The guy in front of me turned around and said, “Hah! Did you think you would after that? It was great, by the way. You practically made the case for the defense right there.”

I have nothing further. Juror #33 rests, your honor.

xoxo

#jury duty #the office #stanley hudson #missymwac coffee starbucks lawsuits hotcoffeeishot #frivolous #jury selection #courthouse #backinjuries #autoaccident #judge #attorney

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lilacmoon83 · 5 years

Text

Finding You Always

Also on Fanfiction.net and A03

Chapter 179: Begin the Reckoning

Chad looked through the documents that he had spread out on the conference table and then looked up at his client.

"The FBI is involved now...this changes everything," he told him.

"Then fix it...that's what I'm paying you for!" Clayton growled.

"I don't have a magic wand that I can just wave and make this go away!" Chad countered. Clayton clenched his teeth. It was almost funny that he mentioned magic, for he knew of an object that could fix everything for him. And he was tired of being denied what he believed should be his.

"The FBI has your daughter on camera smuggling missing artifacts stolen from Mayan cultural sites in Central America. There's not much I can do to spin a positive on this. They're out for your head," Chad told him. Clayton clenched his fists and knew trial would go very badly for him the next day, which meant that he needed to do something drastic. And he had to do it tonight. With that, he prepared to leave.

"Where are you going? This is a problem," Chad stated.

"And you're my lawyer...so fix it! My Rare Treasures exhibit premieres tonight and that's where I need to be," Clayton replied.

"Your exhibit it suspect by the FBI of having illegally obtained and stolen items! Shining more press on yourself is the last thing we need," Chad argued.

"Those two idiots aren't going to ruin this for me too...fix it," Clayton growled, as he stormed out of the courthouse and dialed a number on his cell phone.

"What do you want?" Samdi answered.

"We have a problem...we need to accelerate the plan to obtain the Chalice and it has to happen tonight," Clayton stated.

"You sound desperate...which means your trial must not be going well. Tell me why I should help you when you going to jail could only benefit me," Samdi said.

"The only reason they haven't arrested you in connection with your late grandson is because they have no tangible evidence of your involvement. You refuse to help me and I have to only press a button that will send proof that you facilitated Franklin's efforts to keep Snow locked up," Clayton warned.

"You have no proof," Samdi refuted.

"Oh...but I do. I'm very thorough when it comes to knowing my enemies. One click of the send button my e-mail and Weaver will have squad cars showing up at your residence," Clayton threatened. There was a pause.

"What do you want?" Samdi growled.

"This can still work for both of us in regards to the chalice and eliminate Snow and Charming at the same time. And they're all going to be at Summer's little recital this evening," Clayton explained.

"And what do you want from me?" Samdi asked shortly.

"You have your ways. You can lure one of their brats away and make sure they get to my museum. Snow and Charming will come running and then we'll finally take the chalice. Once my dragon staff is recharged, you can have it for your own purposes," Clayton replied.

"Fine...but if you even think of crossing me, I will use my ways, as you put it, to make you suffer. If you cross me...I'll have you begging for death," Samdi warned. Clayton smirked.

"Duly noted," the Collector replied nonchalantly, as he hung up the phone.

"Time for the final reckoning, Charmings...and this time, I'll get what I want and send you both to Underworld," he stated darkly.

~*~

David parked the car and they got out, joining hands and making their way to the school. Despite everything, they were looking forward to seeing their daughter's recital and were excited to see Regina, Emma, Leo, Elsa, and Eva were waiting for them at the doors with Bobby. And while it seemed that reporters had overlooked that the recital was starring their daughter, it was not lost on the faculty, other parents, and students.

As they walked into the auditorium, there were many eyes on them and whispers.

"Well, this won't be uncomfortable or anything," Leo commented.

"It will...but we're not going to let it keep us from seeing Summer," Snow admonished, as they pushed past some of the gawking and took their seats. The lights fell and the recital began, eliciting huge smiles from all of them, as Summer shined and they were able to drown out all the nonsense around them to watch her do what she loved and was very good at.

~*~

Chad sighed, as he entered Roni's bar and Kelly looked up from her spot behind the counter.

"Hey...I didn't think I'd see you for a while," she said, though she was pleasantly surprised to see him.

"Yeah...I needed a break, cause I'm gonna be up all night with this case," he lamented.

"It took a bad turn?" Kelly asked. He smirked.

"Yes, but you already knew that. Your sister was probably celebrating that," he teased. She smiled.

"She was, but she wouldn't tell me what happened, if she even knew," she replied.

"The FBI is poised to press charges against my client and are in the process of trying to get a warrant for his museum," he told her.

"The FBI is involved now?" Kelly asked. He nodded.

"Apparently, they have Mr. Stavros' daughter on camera during a suspected heist of ancient artifacts," he replied.

"And they're connecting it to him?" she asked. He nodded.

"They're trying and I don't know how this Detective Weaver did it, but somehow, he's got two FBI agents that are going to testify against my client tomorrow. Without the warrant at this point, it's still circumstantial, but it's not going to look good to the jury. I can already feel them pulling away from my client as it is," Chad explained. She snorted.

"Well, Roni says he's a real piece of work," she said. He chuckled.

"That's true...I really know how to pick 'em," he said, with a sigh.

"So you're pretty sure he's guilty," Kelly surmised.

"Oh guilty as sin...but it's my job to try and sell his innocence. But your sister's friend Detective Nolan pretty much had the jury in the palm of his hand today. They're definitely enamored by his love story with his wife. He could do anything and they'd see it as him doing it for love," Chad said. Kelly rolled her eyes.

"Yes, Roni has certainly made some interesting friends for sure. But you've got this, right?" she asked. He sighed.

"I don't know, Kel. With the FBI involved, a victory might be a pipe dream. I guess I can't win them all," he replied.

"Well, the good news is that, regardless, we'll be going home soon it sounds like," she said, as she took his hand. He smiled, just as someone came into the bar.

"Can I help you?" Kelly asked.

"Oh, I think you can," the blonde woman said, as she approached the bar.

"What can I get you?" Kelly asked, as she turned to the drinks, but this woman pulled a gun and pointed it at them.

"I'm looking for something...and you're going to help me find it," she said. They put their hands up and Chad moved behind the bar with Kelly.

"Whoa...whatever you want. Just take the money," he said, thinking this was a robbery.

"Oh, I'm not after money...but what I am looking for is surely here somewhere," the woman replied.

"Who are you?" Kelly demanded to know.

"Here in this world...they call me Eloise Gardener. But I prefer the name...Mother Gothel," she said, as she reached into her pocket and pulled out a vial of grayish liquid.

"Pour yourself a drink, Kelly West," she ordered. Kelly swallowed thickly and did as she asked. They watched the woman pop the cork on the vial and add it to the glass.

"Drink it," she ordered. Kelly hesitated and Gothel pointed the gun at Chad.

"Drink it or I shoot him," she ordered. Without further hesitation, Kelly downed the amber liquid in the glass. She fully expected to pass out or something from the drugged liquid, but suddenly flashes of another life played in her mind like an old film. She shuddered and gripped the bar, as Chad put his hands on her arms.

"Kelly…" he uttered in concern, as her green eyes were wide and she looked up at Gothel in disbelief. Her expression quickly changed from shock to rage and she cursed, for there was no magic here to summon.

"Welcome back...Zelena," Gothel stated. Chad looked utterly confused, as his fiance continued to glare at the other woman.

"You know what I require, so you're going to find it for me and hand it over. If you don't...he dies," Gothel warned.

"Kelly...what the hell is going on?" he asked. Zelena didn't answer though, as her head was still reeling from everything and she led Gothel into the backroom. She knew what she wanted and where it was, but knew that she had to act like she didn't.

"Where is it?" Gothel asked.

"Where is what?" Chad questioned, but received no answer.

"I don't know...I made sure it was hidden so that no one, not even I could find it," Zelena lied.

"Then start looking," Gothel ordered, as she held them at gunpoint, while Zelena began to search and Chad looked lost…

~*~

Summer performed the final routine, leading the other dancers through it and as usual, her family, especially her parents, were completely enamored by their little girl and her talent.

"Oh David...look at her," Snow gushed to her husband. He beamed and squeezed her shoulder.

"I know...she's amazing. I'm so proud of her," he gushed in return.

The final routine finished and applause ensued. It had Summer's entire family on their feet, clapping and cheering the loudest. The curtains fell and the people began to file out of the auditorium. They followed last, hanging back a bit, and Snow rolled her eyes, as she saw one woman, Ms. McGowen, she recalled, that had once picked Summer up, looking over at her and then whispering to the other mothers. Snow was definitely being seen by them as someone that didn't belong and imagined that they were discussing all the rumors and gossip surrounding her and her husband.

Snow could see it in their eyes. She was no stranger to adversity. Maybe not scrutiny like this, but there were other mothers and parents in Storybrooke that had always kept their distance with her and Charming. It wasn't as common, but there were some that regarded them with a bit of celebrity type status, even though neither of them had ever acted or insisted they were above anyone else. Still, for the most part, she had always been welcome around the other mothers when attending school events for her children. But these mothers were being very clear in their message. She was not one of them. She could almost hear their whispering and she knew words like crazy and even bad mom were probably being tossed around. And the way Ms. McGowen was looking at her, considering she had seen Snow answer the door wearing David's shirt and nothing else, was telling the other mothers all about it.

"Hey...you okay?" David asked, as he put his arm around her waist. She looked up at him and nodded.

"I should be used to being a pariah by now," she mentioned and he followed her gaze, which just made him roll his eyes.

"How many of them hit on you?" Snow asked playfully and she giggled, as he pulled her closer.

"Snow…" he admonished.

"I'm just curious...it doesn't bother me. I just think it's kind of funny that right now, those women over there are discussing why any of them would be far better with you than Iris' crazy mother that may think she's Snow White and talking about how to rescue you from my wily ways," she teased, as he pulled her close and they swayed a bit together.

"If that's really what they're talking about, then they're the crazy ones. Because it is so incredibly obvious how in love I am with you," he responded.

"Oh, but I seduced you...you're under my spell…" she teased, as she nuzzled her nose against his. He smirked and gave her his best smolder, which made her knees weak, so she could only imagine the effect it was having on the gaggle of gossiping hens ten feet away. And she wasn't surprised when he kissed her passionately and more heat than was appropriate in public, but then that was nothing new with them anyway. Their lips parted and Snow stared up at him with a dreamy expression, though she quickly noticed that their kiss was like they had just tossed a steak to a hungry pack of wolves and was furiously being discussed. He shrugged.

"Might as well give them something to talk about," he said slyly. She bit her bottom lip and caressed his face, as they noticed the girls started to come out from backstage.

"Let's get Summer and take everyone to the diner," he suggested. She nodded and they waited for their daughter to appear, but she didn't. Snow didn't get too concerned though. Sometimes Summer had a tendency to lag behind or take her time.

"I'll go see what's taking her so long," she said, as she went backstage in search of their daughter.

"Iris?" she called, using her curse name, as she looked around backstage.

"Sweetheart?" Snow called, as she turned a corner and spotted her daughter standing still and looking straight ahead. The hair on the back of her neck stood up, as she approached and stood in front of her. But her daughter's eyes were glazed and it was clear that she wasn't seeing her.

"Summer…" she said, as she shook her daughter's arms.

"She's not hearing you," a voice said and she turned to find Baron Samdi, standing there with a doll in his hand that she knew represented her daughter. Snow opened her mouth to scream for her husband, but the pin he held up stalled her.

"One sound and this pin goes into this doll...and she dies," he warned. She closed her mouth and glared at him.

"What do you think you're doing?" she questioned. He smirked.

"Getting my happy ending and that involves obtaining the necessary power to turn back the hands of time," he responded.

"Time travel is too risky. Do you realize that you could destroy this realm or many others by dabbling in it?" Snow tried to reason.

"Yes...I am aware of what the sciences warn about time travel, but magic is superior and I have seen what the magic you and your husband have can do. I think I'll take my chances," Samdi said, as he produced another doll and Snow felt her airway constrict, as he pinched the neck of the doll. Snow collapsed to the floor and she looked up drowsily at him.

"He'll find us," she murmured.

"Oh, we're counting on it," Samdi stated, as Snow finally lost consciousness.

~*~

David waited for his wife to return with their daughter and the hair on the back of his neck and he looked toward the stage.

"Dad?" Emma asked, recognizing that look and Regina recognized it too.

"Snow…" he uttered.

"Stay with Bobby," she told Eva, as she, Emma, and Leo followed David, who was already running backstage. He stopped and stared at the floor, before he knelt down and picked up a tarot card.

"Samdi…" Regina uttered.

"He took them?" Emma asked.

"That's risky...even for him. How does he expect to get away with that?" Leo wondered. David clenched his teeth.

"I don't know...but I think I know where he took them," David said, as he stormed off. They followed just as eagerly.

~*~

Zelena feigned an exasperated sigh.

"We've looked everywhere. It's not here anymore...I don't know what happened to it," she lied.

"You're the one that hid it...and you expect me to believe that it's just disappeared?" Gothel questioned.

"It's been two years since then...obviously someone else found it and took it," Zelena claimed. Gothel smirked.

"That's a pity," she said, as she held up a barb that looked like it came from one of her nightmarish plants.

"Owe!" Chad exclaimed, as she stuck him in the neck with the thorned barb.

"This is a barb from one of my venomous Venus flytraps and this…" Gothel said, as she held up a vial of bluish liquid.

"Is the antidote. You have sixty seconds to give me the amulet. If you refuse, I smash this vial and he's dead in ten minutes," she threatened. Zelena swallowed thickly and looked at the old dusty sign that read "Roni and Kelly's. She picked it up and tossed it to the ground, shattering the glass into a million pieces. Chad looked confused and horrified by the whole situation, as he watched Kelly carefully extract something from the wreckage. It glowed mysteriously and she held it out.

"The antidote," Zelena demanded, as they exchanged items. Gothel smirked evilly and waltzed out of the bar, while Zelena hurried over to her fiance.

"Kelly...what the hell is going on?" he asked.

"Later...drink this," she insisted. He looked at it skeptically, but did as she asked and felt the pain where he had been jabbed subside.

"I need to find Roni…" she said, as she called her.

"Dammit...straight to voice mail," she cursed, as she hung up.

"Kelly...what the hell is going on?" he repeated. She sighed, as she turned to him.

"I'll tell you everything in the car, but we need to find my sister and her idiot family," she said, as she stormed out of the bar with him following and flipped the closed sign, before locking up.

~*~

Clayton led the press and many elite, distinguished members of society through his museum. In his two years in Seattle, he had made a lot of valuable and lucrative connections that were responsible for the fantastic museum he had built. He had many things from other realms, but he had not wasted the opportunity in this realm to acquire artifacts that were considered priceless in this realm. Jade statues that dated back to the Mayan and Olmec civilizations, real Incan quipus, artifacts belonging to ancient Pharaohs, and some incredible hand painted vases he had smuggled out of South Korea that were hundreds of years old. His collection had become the envy of the world and his online presence was growing everyday with his museum quickly becoming a must see place to visit in Seattle. And if everything went according to plan, he would soon re-energize the Dragon staff and re-create Atlantis right here. Then he would become infamous when he not only proved Atlantis was real, but magic was real, as were people and items that were thought to be fairy tales and myths. And at the same time, he would ultimately have his revenge on the two that had ruined him in the first place.

"As you can see, my collection is quite extensive, but I am about to introduce you to a piece of it that is the crown jewel of it all," he said, as he pushed the gold painted double doors open and revealed the expansive new addition to his museum that had just been finished.

"Welcome to the my Mystical Wonders of the Realms exhibit," he said, as the press and his guests filed through the doors.

"And what mystical wonder is this representative of, Mr. Stavros?" one reporter asked.

"This is what I believe the grand Kingdom of Atlantis once looked like," he said, as he took them around the re-creation of his prized and lost world. The ceiling represented the once massive crystal dome and a large fountain had been built to his exact description of the once accessible fountain of youth. It was a pale copy to what he had originally built, but if everything went according to plan, he would soon realize his dreams again. They moved further through the exhibit and came upon the re-creation of the magical reserve, with realistic models of the mythical creatures that had once occupied his reserve. The real creatures were now in Storybrooke, of course, but once he possessed the Chalice, re-creating Atlantis and integrating Storybrooke into would then be possible. This time, the whole world would know it and they would become the spectacle, while he charged admission.

His guests observed the exhibit from the fabricated grassy knoll and elaborate terrain that made all of them feel like they were really in a vast meadow, complete with rocky hills, a small lake, and even caves with more wildlife exhibits.

"This is quite impressive, Mr. Stavros," a reporter offered. He smirked smugly.

"Thank you…" he said, as he noticed his new head of security that he had recently hired approach in the doorway and he nodded to him, indicating that he had what he wanted. Which meant it was time.

"Please feel free to explore and marvel at the wonders of my collection. I have some quick business to attend to and then our tour will resume," he announced, as he followed his head of security into the back. He was led to a room, where Samdi waited outside.

"I have done my part...you had better do yours or very bad things may happen to you...Collector," Samdi warned, as he waved a doll resembling him in front of him. But Clayton only smirked smugly.

"You'll get what's coming to you, Doctor," he said, as he went into the room and saw the bait he had captured on the bed in the room. Snow and Summer each had a gag between their teeth and their wrists were bound with rope to the headboard. Snow struggled and screamed at him through the gag, as the his lead security brute tied Snow's legs down. He smirked, as he noticed a couple of the guards were nursing minor wounds.

"You have to be careful with this one, boys...she's feral," he leered, as he lifted her chin and forced her to look at him. Her emerald eyes were lit with fire and fury for this man.

"I wonder how long it took him to realize that something was wrong," Clayton goaded.

"I bet he's almost here already. Which means it's time for the show to begin," he said, as she shrugged his hand off her face with revulsion. She knew Charming was on his way; she could feel it in her heart and she loathed that, once again, this evil man was going to use her and their daughter to force him to do what he wanted. Clayton then grabbed Summer's arm after untying her and started pulling her toward the door. Snow screamed through the gag and thrashed with her ropes, as he took her daughter away.

"Don't worry, beautiful...you'll be seeing your husband soon, when I have him on his knees, begging me to spare the lives his precious little peanut and his beautiful, darling Snow," he mocked, as he tugged Summer along, who was already crying. Tears began to slip down Snow's cheeks too, for she feared for her husband and children.

"Move her to the loading dock and secure her as I instructed earlier. And do not, under any circumstances, untie her. Do not underestimate her," Clayton ordered, as he dragged Summer away. Snow screamed through the gag, as the brute undid the ropes from the bed posts and slung her form over his shoulder. She beat her bound hands on his back, but he showed no sign that it was affecting him any and carried her off, as instructed.

~*~

"I can't believe this…" David hissed, as he berated himself.

"David…" Regina admonished, as she followed him up the steps of Clayton's museum. At this point, they were all practically running to keep up with his purposeful and rapid strides.

"He took her from me once...why the hell did I let it happen again!" he growled.

"You didn't let it happen, Dad...you know that," Emma scolded gently. He sighed and they got to the entrance, finding two people they recognized easily loitering outside.

"Hey...you guys are here," Emma said.

"Long time no see," Nick replied.

"We just got in...and we're waiting for the warrant to come through. Your boss is supposedly meeting the Judge we have dirt on right now," Angela said.

"There's no time for a warrant. He took Snow and Summer!" David exclaimed, as he stormed into the museum. Regina sighed.

"Cameras and bystanders are the last thing we need when this thing explodes between Clayton and your father," Regina mentioned.

"On it...I have an idea," Leo said, as and Elsa slipped inside the museum. A few seconds later, the fire alarm sounded.

"Let's go...you two coming?" Emma asked. The two agents nodded, as there was obvious criminal activity going on here and also a need for discretion, so they followed them into the museum, while Clayton's guests filed out. They were about to go in when someone called out to them.

"Regina!" Zelena called, as she rushed up the stairs, with a decidedly shell shocked looking Chad following her. The brunette whipped around with wide eyes.

"Zelena?" she asked suspiciously.

"You remember?" she asked.

"Yes...and we have a problem," the redhead added.

"You have no idea," Emma commented.

"No...the reason I remember is the witch had a potion and used it to wake me up," Zelena explained.

"Why would Gothel want to wake you up?" Leo questioned.

"You didn't…" Regina uttered.

"She threatened to kill my fiance...don't tell me you wouldn't have done anything to save Robin!" she snapped and Regina had to concede to that.

"What is she talking about?" Elsa asked wearily.

"The amulet...Zelena was the only one that knew where it was," Regina answered.

"Wait...are you saying that Gothel has the amulet?!" Emma exclaimed.

"I'm sorry...but I love him and I couldn't lose him," the redhead said, delivering probably the only sincere apology they had ever heard from her.

"If she had the amulet..and they're trying to get the chalice…" Emma said.

"Then we're in the end game now," Regina finished. And with that statement, they ignored the fire truck sirens and rushed into the building.

#Snowing #SnowxCharming #Charming family #OC Charmings #season 7 #AU #Hyperion Heights #Roni #Kelly West #romance #adventure #family #finding you always #the epic continues

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flwrpotts · 6 years

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hey thot, me again. 9 and 37 for varchie

hi thnx for being the Angstiest!!! warnings for: discussion of legal emancipation, brief mention of eating disorders, discussion of underage drinking, discussion of drug use/overdose. stay safe kiddos!

9. “Don’t ask me that.”

37. “Do you think they ever could have loved me?”

As it turns out, the road to emancipation is not quite as easy as Cheryl made it out to be.

Veronica files the paperwork to legally separate herself from her parents three months to the day after she struck the deal with her father, renouncing herself as the heir to the Lodge fortune. Jughead and Betty helped her move her things out of the Pembroke and into Thornhill the morning after the deal was struck, and she hasn’t spoken to her parents since.

“New York emancipation law,” she reads to Archie as they sprawl on the king sized bed in her room at Thornhill. “The emancipated child must be over the age of sixteen, not live with either parent, not receive money from either parent, have a main source of income, and not be in the foster system or under court supervision. If a child is in the military or married, the child is emancipated.”

Veronica pushes her glasses up on her nose, and glances down at Archie, who’s flopped facedown on the bed with his face pressed into her side. “Want to get married to help me to become legally emancipated?”

Archie opens his eyes sleepily and blinks a grin at her. “Nah. When I marry you, I want it to be because we’re ready, not because your parents are forcing our hand.”

Veronica tries to hide the silly, lovestruck grin that threatens to crack open on her face. “I’ll keep that in mind, Archiekins.”

“It shouldn’t even be a big deal,” she tells Betty later, as they hunt down a bottle of champagne that Cheryl wants from the Blossom’s labyrinthine wine cellar. “My parents won’t risk a media scandal this late in election season.”

But Veronica miscalculates, in the way she only seems to do when it comes to her parents.

Within hours of Sierra McCoy faxing over the emancipation papers, Veronica receives a summons to court. They’re bringing the emancipation case to trial, yanking family drama out into the open for everyone to cast their opinion onto.

It’s the sort of effective brutality that Veronica’s seen her parents execute a hundred times. But never like this. Never to her.

The news breaks in hours, and suddenly she’s living inside a media circus, the hottest scandal to hit Riverdale since Hal Cooper’s arrest. Reporters come down from New York City to cover the affair, camping out in front of Thornhill just to snap a picture of her, and classmates start selling stories about her for cash. Whether the gossip is true or false doesn’t matter, only that the story sells. Veronica got the star of the football team kicked out. Veronica fucked Archie Andrews in the boys locker room. Veronica ran for class president and dropped out to get a nose job.

Those beautiful Lodges, people used to say, as Veronica walked between her parents to some charity event or gala. Beautiful. Untouchable. So rich that the money practically dripped off of them, slick piles of bills that stacked up into castles.

“It’s hardly a new story,” Cheryl says, bored, as the four girls eat ice cream and drink screwdrivers in their pajamas, watching the reporters from one of the turrets in Thornhill. “The only thing the press likes more than putting people on a pedestal is knocking them off of it.” “Yes, well,” Veronica says, uncharacteristically ineloquent. “I banked on them caring about their image more than they did destroying mine.”

“Who says the two things are mutually exclusive?” Toni drawls, finishing her drink.

There’s no good response to that, so Betty takes Veronica’s hand in her own and squeezes. “You’ll be fine, V,” she says. “All the evidence is on your side.”

The day of the trial is the most golden day of summer, so perfect out that it seems like a crime to miss it. Veronica’s designer dress prickles at her with anxiety when Archie zips it up for her.

Everyone sees her off before she and Archie have to leave, like some sort of twisted going away party.

“We’ll be watching the whole time,” Betty says, hugging her tight enough to almost hurt. “I’ll have my phone on, call if you need absolutely anything.”

Much to her surprise, Jughead hugs her too, looking a little unsure of himself. “Give ‘em hell,” he tells her, and Veronica laughs, even as the urge to cry pounds at her eyelids.

There’s only one court building nearby, in Greendale, and the media is already swarming the steps by the time the car pulls up. News vans and anchors litter the lawn, and Veronica sucks in a sharp breath when she sees her parents, giving a tearful interview on the front steps. She laces Archie’s hand through her own, trying to settle the anxiety agitating through her veins.

“Did our trial get bumped for O.J’s?” she snarks under her breath, watching as the paparazzi’s cameras flash like strobe lights.

“They’re trying to sway public opinion,” says Sierra McCoy, calmly watching the spectacle unfold. “Frame the case as their troubled daughter playing the wild card.”

Her phone rings a moment later, and she picks it up, talking in low tones designed for them not to be able to overhear. Veronica turns to Archie.

“Well, the joke’s on them,” she says quietly, an edge of venom creeping into her voice. “If I lose, they’re going to have to drag me out kicking and screaming. Watch them try to spin that.”

“You’re not going to lose,” Archie says firmly, squeezing their interlocked hands. Veronica puts a miraculous amount of effort into believing him. The Lodges never lose she wants to say to him. And I’m no longer a Lodge.

Sierra turns to them and snaps her phone shut, all business. “We’ve cleared a path for you to enter around back,” she says. “Are you ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” Veronica replies dryly, sliding her oversized, blacked out sunglasses up her nose.

The spectator box is already filled up by the time that Veronica walks in, people snapping photos and shouting questions at her- whether she has a drug problem, whether she’s pregnant, whether she married that boy she’s with.

She tunes all of it out, focused intently on watching her parents at the front of the room. Hiram and Hermione are as beautiful and elegant as always, just uncomposed enough to look bereft. Veronica watches her mother dab at her eyes with a monogrammed handkerchief and resists the urge to laugh.

Panic is a slippery, dangerous thing, fishing around her lungs and making her hands shake, heartbeat so loud that she can hear it in her ears, like sex, or a gunshot. Archie traces patterns on her hand with his thumb, but Veronica can barely feel it, too busy groping with her own terror. She wants a cigarette as badly as she’s ever wanted anything, minute tremors running through her fingers.

Their parents use the same lawyer that they always have, since she was a little kid. Michael Patterson. Clever as the devil, and with about the same morals. He used to buy Veronica a charm for her Tiffany’s bracelet each year for Christmas.

The trial starts in a slurry of legal jargon, too quick for Veronica to follow in her early stages of panic attack. Hiram takes the stand, and then Hermione, both pleading in faux-earnestness for Veronica to come back to them, before espousing on her history as a troubled youth.

“Ronnie, please come home,” says her mother at one point, eyes teary, and Veronica swallows hard at the bile that rises up in her throat.

“Plaintiff, please rise and call your next witness,” intones the judge, and Patterson grins like a shark as he turns to face Veronica.

“Yes, your Honor,” he drawls, voice slimy with flattery. “I call Veronica Lodge to the stand.”

Veronica fumbles with the latch on the box, wobbling a little on her heels as she makes her way to the front of the room. Her expression is icy, all tilted up chin and hard eyes, and she tucks her hands underneath the podium so that no once can see them shaking.

“Now, Ms. Lodge- is it alright if I call you Veronica?” asks Patterson, playing at friendly. She bites her tongue hard enough to draw blood.

“Veronica is fine,” she says tightly.

“Great. Now, Veronica- your parents provided everything for you growing up, didn’t they? Private school, designer clothes, luxury vacations- the works. Is that the case?”

“Yes,” she says, but her tongue has always been sharper than her fear, and she cannot help but add, “Having no morals has paid off well for the Lodges, historically.”

In the box, Archie grins something fierce, and Veronica feels a sort of pride rip through her chest, like popped stitches.

Patterson smiles thinly, unamused. “Right. But besides all of this, you were not a very happy child, correct?”

“Objection,” starts Ms. McCoy, looking livid. “This is irrelevant to the case.”

“I assure you, Your Honor, it is not,” interjects Patterson, unfazed. The ancient judge looks deeply unimpressed.

“You may continue. But make it quick.”

“Thank you, Your Honor. As I was saying- Veronica, is it true that you were not an exceedingly content child?” “I suppose it depends on how you define happy,” says Veronica slowly, trying to work out what Patterson is trying to make her admit to. “Wealth doesn’t work as a shield against every negative emotion.”

“Of course, Ms. Lodge. But when you were thirteen years old, your parents got you a psychiatrist, as they were concerned about your mental health after your mother found you throwing up your dinner. Is this the case?”

And this, this, is the worst that her parents have ever done to her, crueler than every lie and insult and deception put together. It seems impossible, that this isn’t considered a crime, that the jury does not watch a lawyer peel back her skin to expose what’s underneath and call it violence.

She’s too terrified to glance at the defendant’s box, to watch Archie’s reaction roll across his face.

“It was hardly that dire,” she says easily, aiming for casual. “However, my parents were concerned about me tainting the family image. They had a psychiatrist come to the house each Wednesday through the servant’s corridors.”

“But they did pay for your mental health services, did they not?”

It’s like playing fastball, like trying to drive a car with both hands tied behind your back and a cliff right in front of you. There’s no time to think, no time to work out the traps before she’s stepping into them.

“They did,” she says, because there’s no other possible answer.

“Thank you, Veronica. Now, moving on. Can you please tell the court when it was that you befriended Nick St. Clair?”

Oh, God. Veronica fights to suppress the nausea that bottoms out her stomach. Distantly, she wonders if Cheryl’s watching.

“We met when I was seven and he was nine.”

“Right. The two of you spent quite a lot of time together, did you not?” A hundred memories pulse behind Veronica’s eyelids- flashing club lights and private school uniforms and bruised knees, bruised wrists, bruised mouths, Nick’s clenched fists and sharp smiles.

“Our families ran in similar circles,” she says coolly. “We attended many of the same events.”

“That is certainly the case. But you became quite close after you started sharing your Ritalin prescription with him, correct?” It’s like every reporter in the room can see what’s inside of her, muscle and nerve and viscera, cameras live streaming straight into her soul. Her brain shuffles through possible answers, anything she can say to shatter the narrative Patterson keeps battering her into.

“Some would call it a redistribution of wealth,” she says archly. “A concept my parents have never been exceedingly fond of.”

“But you did share your prescription with Nick, is that correct?” Patterson asks again, sniffing for blood.

“It is,” she says, mouth numb.

“And in turn, Mr. St. Clair shared other, more illicit substances with you. Alcohol. Cocaine. A fake I.D, so that the two of you could go to clubs together. Is that the case, Veronica?”

She catches Archie’s gaze in the crowd, and tears burn insistently at her throat. Archie looks terrified and furious, dead pale and about as nauseous as she feels. She wonders if he’ll ever speak to her again, after this. She sinks her nails into her palm, looking for the salvation that Betty always seems to find in the jagged pain,

“Nick and I were very good friends,” she says carefully. “He lived a very…reckless lifestyle. It was inevitable that I was exposed to some of that.”

“Thank you, Veronica. Now, we only have a few more questions for you today. Can you tell the court how old were you when you were sent to the hospital for an overdose on MDMA?”

This time, she can’t help but look at her parents. You swore we would never talk about this ever again, she wants to scream. You made me promise to never say anything.

It’s one betrayal stacked on top of all the other, and yet this one is the sharpest ache, the dagger she didn’t expect to slide straight between her ribs.

It was back in the New York days, of course, the days when she’d take anything Nick gave to her in line for the club, gross amounts of coke or candy colored pills that fizzed through her flutes of champagne. The days where she’d wake up in some stranger’s townhouse with no underwear and bruises she couldn’t quite remember getting.

One minute she had been dancing, shoes gone and someone pressed up too close to her, and the next the world had gone too blurry, all dark rooms and spinning heads, nausea that riled through her empty stomach. Everything had gone to black before she could do anything, say anything.

She had stirred into consciousness in the sterile, too bright light of the emergency room, somehow freezing cold and burning up at the same time, legs and arms constricted by the cot she had been strapped down to.

“Can you tell us how much you’ve had to drink?” a disembodied female voice had asked, soothing, and Veronica had twisted to throw up over the side of the cot, stomach bile burning her throat. A hand had rubbed her back, comforting, and then there was someone pulling up her eyelid, shining a light into her pupils.

“Have you taken any drugs?” the woman’s cool voice had asked, but Veronica didn’t answer, just let herself slide back down into a dark, rabbit hole sort of sleep that threatened to never let her go.

Her parents didn’t come until the next morning.

“Mija, thank goodness you’re okay,” her mother had exclaimed, drawing Veronica into a hug tight enough to hurt her tender body. She had pulled back and readjusted her hair a moment later, composed even in moments of sincerity. Her father had said nothing.

“Now, we’ve already explained the situation,” Hermione had said. “Everyone knows that the antibiotic from your flu last week had a negative reaction that made you sick.”

“Antibiotic? Mom, I didn’t have the flu, I took-”

“Veronica,” her father had said. “That’s enough. Let’s let the doctors give the diagnoses.”

“Exactly,” her mother had agreed. “Now, darling, I know you aren’t feeling your best, but we’re attending the St. Clair’s annual gala this evening, and it’s important that you be there to show your support.”

“I- what?” Veronica had said, her headache like a spike lodged through the back of her skull.

Her phone was on the plastic side table, and she picked it up, scrolling through the dozens of missed texts and snapchats. There was only one from Nick. u officially win lightweight of the year.

i od’d, she had replied, fingers shaking nearly too bad to type. spent the night at the hospital.

Her mother had pressed one last kiss to her forehead. “Come on, I’m sure a hot shower will make you feel better. I already had Martin drop off your dress for tonight.”

“Alright,” Veronica had replied, hollowed out by the tears stinging at her raw, inflamed throat. Her phone dinged.

text from nick: lol sucks. u coming out tonight?

She had gone out, and she had smiled and small talked and played the role of darling young socialite, and never said a word about the incident to anyone else ever again.

The memories swirl up into her brain, unbidden, and Veronica presses her palms flat against the bottom of her chair, trying desperately to steady herself. It feels like some sort of nightmare, this entire thing, all of her past dragged up and put out on display, every secret turned out for the world to watch.

She can hardly remember the question. “The incident happened a few weeks after I turned fifteen.”

“And your parents took care of you, did they not? Paid your hospital bills and ensured that you kept up with your schoolwork and extracurriculars?”

Anger fizzes its way through her body. “My parents instructed me to keep my mouth shut and avoid tarnishing the Lodge reputation,” she snaps, tired of playing games. “That is all that has ever mattered to them. My parents raised me to be the perfect heir, to take over the family business and turn over a profit. Everything else was secondary.” There’s a beat of silence.

“Thank you for your candor, Ms. Lodge,” says Patterson. “You are dismissed.”

Veronica stumbles out of her seat, and barely hears Ms. McCoy request a thirty minute recess. She gets back into the box, and the fear that Archie is going to look at her with fear, or disgust, is so blistering that for a moment she wishes she were back on the stand.

But Archie wraps her up in a hug, so tight that she nearly forgets where they are, the events that have just transpired.

“You were so brave, Ronnie,” he says, pressing a kiss to her temple.

The tears she’s been wrangling with finally spill over, and she presses her face into the side of his neck, breathing in the smell of him and the warm weight of his arms around her.

“I need to get out of here, for a minute,” she says, and he nods, grabbing her hand in his own.

The hallway is shockingly cool compared to the stifling heat of the courtroom, and Veronica breathes in the clean, sterile air, the silence that echoes around her.

“Here, there’s an empty room in here,” Archie says, swinging open the door to what looks like a hollowed out supply closet.

Veronica steps in and immediately shuts the door behind them. The room is a little dim from the naked overhead bulb, and dust swirls around them from the door swinging open. It’s perfect.

She sinks to the floor, kicking off her stiff, expensive shoes, and Archie follows her, loosening his tie with a sigh of relief.

“Do you think they ever loved me?” she asks quietly, studiously avoiding eye contact. “Or do you think I was only ever some kind of pawn to them?”

“Don’t ask me that,” Archie says, voice insistent. “Whatever’s happened now, that doesn’t change the memories you have of them when they were good, Ronnie. And you know, it doesn’t matter if they did or didn’t. Because you have so many people who do love you. Me and Betty and Cheryl and Toni, and even Jughead. All of us would go to bat for you, every time.”

“Thanks, Archiekins,” she murmurs, tipping her head so that it rests on her shoulder. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you- about everything. It’s just that-”

“Ronnie, I meant what I said at your confirmation. There is nothing you can do or say that would make me stop loving you any less,” he says.

His eyes are wide with earnestness, and Veronica can’t help but kiss him, half sprawled in his lap with her arms looped tight around his neck. He is so warm and she’s always so freezing, and somehow he manages to melt down all the nightmares in her head into something a little more bearable.

“I love you,” she says, voice quiet so he knows that she means it. “So much, Arch.”

“I love you, too,” he replies, easy, and then his phone beeps loud. “Are you ready to go back in?”

“It’ll be fine,” she says with more conviction than she’s had in a long time. “As long as you’re there.”

Archie opens the door, and light streams in. They both step out, and round the corner to run into Ms. McCoy.

“There you are,” she says with a sharp, determined gleam in her eye. “Come on. We have a trial to win.”

#I crave angst the way children crave candy #bad for you but worth it #thornhill's home for troubled teenage girls #varchie #archie x veronica #veronica lodge #archie andrews #mine #prompt

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