Chapter Text
"At long last... This nightmare is going to stop. It's going to end."
"I can't believe it... We've been waiting for so long, and they were never able to figure out what happened to him."
"I'm sure that won't last forever. Someone is going to figure out where he went, and when they do, then... Then everything is going to get better. I'm sure of it."
"I'm glad you can at least be confident in it... I really don't know what to do as long as a man like that is at large. He's going to come back one of these days, and there's nothing we can do about it."
"...We've done what we can. I think that's going to have to be enough for now."
"If you say so..."
"Oh, you truly don't know... This isn't going to be the end for me at all... But it will be the end for you."
January 13
Defendant's Lobby No. 1
8:55 AM
Felicity Amaya
Over the years, I had taken on a lot of cases. I had been involved with more murder trials than I ever cared to truly talk about, so I had gotten used to ending up caught up in mysteries that were a bit out of the reach of my expectations. It didn't matter how strange a case was as long as I could do something to solve it. That was what mattered most at the end of the day. I was a lawyer, so if I was working to uncover the truth, then that meant I was doing my part, and I could take comfort in that.
Even so... I didn't know if I had ever been caught up in a case quite as odd as this one. When I first heard what it was about, I hadn't known if I could believe it at all. It felt like it should have been some elaborate prank rather than an actual trial I was going to have to stand in court for. I supposed part of it made sense, but... It still felt strange to me. It shouldn't have been happening, and yet...
"Do you think you're going to be able to help me?"
Belladonna Emsthorpe stood in front of me, a heavy frown on her face. I had grown at least vaguely familiar with her over the course of the last few months, and I didn't think I had ever seen her looking quite this upset. Her head was bowed, and she refused to look up long enough to catch a glimpse of me for longer than a few seconds. I couldn't blame her for being agitated at all. If I had been in her shoes, I probably wouldn't have wanted anything to do with me either.
"We're going to do what we can to find out what really happened here," Sky, my twin, assured her from beside me. He was set to stand with me during the trial, and we would be working together to get to the bottom of everything that was going on. At the time, it had been just us at the office since everyone else was out on some investigation or another. That was when we got the phone call to say that something had gone horribly wrong, and we were going to have to step up and help to take care of the remainder of the case. I could only hope we would be able to get to the bottom of it in the next few hours, but...
"I hope you're right," Belladonna sighed, but I could tell she wasn't anywhere near as convinced as she wanted to be. In the few months since I had come to know Belladonna Emsthorpe by her true name, I had learned that she did her best to be confident whenever she could be. It seemed that the events of the last few days had been too much for her though, and all she wanted to do was retreat into herself and wait until this nightmare was over. It made my chest go tight with anxiety, and I hoped there was at least something I could do to help her with it.
About three months had come and gone since the trial that changed everything for me and the others at my law office. The Emsthorpe family had finally been dethroned from their positions in the criminal underworld, and we had made significant progress in stopping them from hurting people ever again... I said progress instead of stopping it entirely for a reason though. Even after the fateful trial that seemingly destroyed the Emsthorpe family once and for all, I couldn't consider them out of the picture fully. We had managed to stop all of the children from getting too deeply involved in a homicidal plan to destroy everything the people I cared about knew and loved, but there was one loose thread still hanging, and it was the reason for all of this.
Augustus Emsthorpe was still at large, and figuring out what had happened to him was still an ongoing process. I wanted to be able to say that we were going to find him, but at this point, I truly had no idea. No one knew what to expect of him, as a matter of fact. We were doing what we could to get to the bottom of his mysteries and secrets, but it was much easier said than done. Not even his children were able to fully inform us as to what he had been up to for the last three months. Belladonna, Balthazar, and Emmeline had given up all of the information they had at their disposal, and they wanted to help us figure out where he was so that he could be taken out of the picture permanently, but there wasn't much they could do now. They had told us every little detail they had access to, but... It wasn't enough. Augustus Emsthorpe was still out there, and we were left with little other choice than to do what we could to find him with very few tangible results.
At the end of the trial, the decision had been made to try and find Augustus before we made any drastic choices about what to do with the three remaining children of the family. They had thought they would be able to help us to get to the bottom of this, but it wasn't enough. The search for Augustus took ages to even get off the ground, and we still didn't know a thing about where he was or where we were supposed to look for him next. That was the reason everyone else from the office was out at the time that this call came through. Sky and I were asked to hold down the fort when we got a phone call from Aiden Hayes, a detective friend of ours, saying that something had happened while they were preparing the trial for the Emsthorpe siblings.
The time limit for finding Augustus had expired at last. We really thought we would have figured out where he was by now, but since he was gone, we were going to have to go ahead with the official trials for the Emsthrope children on our own. We wanted to be able to have him arrested at the same time, but it was seeming like that just wasn't going to happen, so our only choice was to finish up the case that had destroyed so much at last. The three trials for Belladonna, Balthazar, and Emmeline had been prepared by the people involved, but that was when tragedy struck.
"Do you really think my brother is going to be alright?" Belladonna asked, her eyes wide and anxious. "I haven't heard anything about what happened to him in ages, and if something happens to him when I'm not there, then... Then..."
"I'm sure he's going to be alright," Sky assured her with a shake of his head. "We're going to do everything we can to get to the bottom of this case. We're not going to let it all end here. I promise."
Belladonna nodded uncertainly, but before she had the chance to say anything else, the doors to the lobby opened. I turned to find none other than Elec Daegana standing there with a small frown on his face. Beside him was Anton Burke, and I couldn't help but smile at the fact that they were together. They hadn't been able to do much in regards to taking on cases together recently with everything that was going on with the search for Augustus and all the horrors he had brought upon the world, but they had seemingly jumped on the case to take on this trial when it came up. In a way, it was sweet. It also reminded me of myself and Sky. We were twins going up against another pair of twins, and we were going to have to work together if we wanted to get to the bottom of all the mysteries this case had to offer us.
Perhaps the strangest part about them being there though was that Prosecutor Daegana was not wearing his typical mask. I had come to expect it to always be on his face over the course of our time together. My entire office had been working together even more with the Prosecutor's Office in the last three months, so I knew more about Prosecutor Daegana than ever before. One of the things I knew very well about him was that he did not like to be seen without his mask. It was an anxiety inducing experience for him, so he did what he could to hide his face as much as he could. It gave him a bit more confidence to believe he was acting anonymously.
And yet, it was gone now. As such, Prosecutor Daegana looked a bit less sure of himself than usual, and Anton was walking close beside him as a result. "There you are," Prosecutor Daegana said, his shoulders relaxing into something like peace but still wasn't quite entirely there. "I was hoping we would be able to talk before the trial began."
"Of course," I agreed with a nod even though I wasn't entirely sure of who he was speaking to. "What is it?"
Prosecutor Daegana hesitated for a long moment, trying to choose his words as carefully as possible, before he let out a sigh. "I have been working on the investigation as much as I can, and I have come to think that the culprit behind all of this is... Is not someone we are going to be able to reach easily," he explained carefully. "We're going to have to proceed with the rest of the case as carefully as we can. I don't know what's going to come of this, but we have to be ready for anything."
Well, there was one thing I absolutely hated the sound of. Sky seemed to dislike it too, and his shoulders immediately got so stiff that I was afraid it was going to make him fall over in the blink of an eye. "What are you talking about?" Sky forced himself to ask. "You make it sound like you know more about this case than we do... Though I guess you probably do with how little notice we were given before we had to be here to help with the trial."
Prosecutor Daegana thought about his response for another handful of seconds, and that only made me feel worse. If he was being this cautious about what he said, then we had probably found ourselves in the middle of a massive disaster that was bigger than anything we could have ever imagined. "We're going to have to do our best to find the truth until the victim wakes up and is able to help us to get to the bottom of everything here," he explained. "I'm afraid that's simply going to be our only option here."
I nodded, trying to not scream over just how vaguely he had phrased that. I didn't know what he wanted me to say, do, or think when he wasn't even telling me what he had come to believe during this investigation. "We'll give it our all, and we'll make sure the culprit gets found!" I declared, though I wasn't sure if I was saying that more for myself, Prosecutor Daegana, or Belladonna. Everyone involved with this case was beyond anxious about the way it was going to end, and their uncertainty was hanging heavily in the air around me.
Prosecutor Daegana didn't seem entirely convinced even by my confidence, and he moved to walk toward the door. Before he had the chance to offer a farewell though, Sky took a step toward him. "I'm sorry if this is intrusive somehow, but... Why aren't you wearing your mask?" he asked. "I don't mean to make you feel bad, but you're definitely acting different from usual. You seem a bit less... Confident today."
Prosecutor Daegana hesitated and turned to look at me and Sky at that. "I... It was Anton's mother and the chief prosecutor. They thought I could use the confidence boost by taking on this trial without wearing it," he murmured. "They want to prove to me that I can lead a trial without having to hide who I am. I suppose I'm just going to have to deal with it. There's no time for me to turn back now."
"I-It's all going to be o-okay, Elec," Anton assured him, taking his brother's hand and giving it a tight squeeze. "I p-promise. I'll be right h-here with you until the trial is o-over, alright?"
Prosecutor Daegana squeezed at Elec's hand in return, and he nodded. "Thank you, Anton... We should get into the courtroom. I think we have a long, grueling trial ahead of ourselves, and it would be best if we got it over with as soon as possible."
I nodded, though I held back on saying how I hated the way he had phrased that. He was right that we were going to have to get through the trial sooner or later, but the idea of us just putting up with it didn't sit well with me. He really knew more about this case than me, and he had an awful feeling about how it was going to end. I had tried to go into this with as much confidence as I could stand, but him acting like that really wasn't making it easy for me. What a headache all of this was...
"We can do this," I muttered, trying to make myself believe it. I wasn't normally anxious and unsure like this. I knew I could take care of myself in the courtroom, and I had done it many times before. I had resolved trials that were far more challenging than this one, so I really had nothing to worry about. I was going to figure out who the culprit was, finally stop them from hurting anyone ever again, and things would be fine. I could do it. I had made it this far.
"Yeah... We can do this," Sky repeated, though he was even less sure of his words than I was. No one was really inspiring confidence in this case, were they? I could only hope that wound up changing when we made it into the courtroom proper. When it was time for us to act, we would have no choice but to set all of our fears aside and take this on. We could do that. I was sure of it.
Or so I was choosing to tell myself for now.
January 13
Courtroom No. 1
10:00 AM
Sky Amaya
Arriving in the courtroom was every bit the nerve-wracking experience I had expected it to be. I had already known going into this case that it was probably going to be a mess, but nothing could have prepared me for just how many people were in the gallery. I supposed it made sense. After all, if there was ever a case that was going to make a splash in this day and age, it was going to be one that so heavily involved the Emsthorpe crime family. Everyone wanted to learn more about the way the bloodline functioned, and a case that involved them was simply too much for people who enjoyed learning about crime to ever think of ignoring.
It was almost strange how much things had changed over the course of the last few months. The Emsthorpe family had once struck fear into the hearts of all those who knew about them, but now, it seemed like people were more morbidly curious about them than anything else. A lot of people wanted to do what they could to learn about how the family operated, and if that meant coming to trials that involved them, then so be it. I supposed it was easy to find it all interesting when you weren't directly impacted by it. I, however, had seen more than enough misery when it came to stuff like this, and I just wanted Augustus to be caught so that none of us ever had to think about him again.
"Court is now in session for the trial of Belladonna Emsthorpe," Judge Diaphan declared after silencing the gallery with a slam of her gavel. She wasn't going to tolerate anyone who tried to turn this trial into a circus, and in that way, I was glad that she was the one in charge of this case. It would certainly make the rest of my job a lot easier, and I had dealt with this mess for more than long enough to care about things like petty pride. "Are the defense and prosecution ready?"
"The defense is ready!" Felicity exclaimed with a smile on her face. She was doing her best to seem more confident in herself than she actually felt, but I knew that the constant investigation with no results was wearing on her too. It was tiring all of us out, and this case was just another point for us to remind ourselves of our own incompetence.
"The prosecution is also ready," Prosecutor Daegana announced with a nod. Just like how he had been out in the lobby, he seemed anxious, and I doubted he was happy about the fact that he was there without his mask on his face. I very rarely saw him without it, and while I was glad that he was taking a few steps to be more confident in himself, it was still odd to think about. At least it was helping him, I supposed... Or something like that. If he had really been pressured into it by other people, then 'helped' was probably kind of a loose description here.
"Good," Judge Diaphan nodded. She looked up at the rest of the people in the courtroom, and I realized that some of the onlookers had already gotten back to gossiping about everything going on. Judge Diaphan let out a thin sigh and shook her head. "If the people in the gallery are going to insist on speaking throughout the duration of the trial, then I will ask them to leave the courtroom. We are here for something very important, and I will not tolerate any distractions. If you cannot respect that, then you will be taken out. Thank you for your understanding."
Judge Diaphan's passive aggressive comments were enough to silence most of the people who had started to talk, but I knew that wasn't going to be enough to stop this forever. The Emsthorpe family was a massive subject of gossip these days, and anyone who thought they had a right to think about these things was going to want to give their opinions on the case. I just hoped they would be willing to wait until after the trial was over. The last thing I needed was to get distracted by everything that was going on around me.
"With all of that in mind... Prosecutor Daegana, would you please give the court the summary of the case?" Judge Diaphan questioned once she was certain her message had landed. She turned to look at the prosecution's bench, and I could see her confusion even through her mask. "Though I must say that it is shocking to see you without your mask. I am used to seeing you with it every time you come through these halls."
"I... I was feeling like it was time for a change of pace," Prosecutor Daegana replied even though that was far from the truth. It was the best way for him to explain himself without having to get into the details, I could only guess. Either way, he shook the thought off when Anton handed him a paper that contained his summary of the case. "The crime we are here to investigate today took place yesterday. At the time, we were preparing for a major trial that would change the fate of the legal system as we know it... The trial for the three children of the Emsthorpe family. Months ago, they were arrested for their involvement in a grand conspiracy that involved mass assassination. They were able to prevent the majority of the plot, but their roles in the family's past wrongdoings still forced them behind bars, and that is where they have been for the last three months. We were holding off on taking them to court for as long as possible though with the hope that we would be able to find the last member of their bloodline before then... The patriarch of the Emsthorpe family, Augustus Emsthrope."
The gallery began to buzz at that, and Judge Diaphan offered a strict slam of her gavel to silence those who dared to question her authority. Instantly, the crowd went quiet, having figured out that pushing her limits right now was far from the wisest thing they could have done. "But he was never found, and we still do not know where he is to this day," Judge Diaphan finished for him. "So the trial for the children was declared to go ahead before we were able to track him down and bring him to justice."
"Unfortunately, yes," Prosecutor Daegana nodded. "There are three children in the family: Balthazar, Emmeline, and Belladonna. The victim of this case is Balthazar, and he was stabbed in the stomach while waiting to enter the courtroom for his trial yesterday morning. He was alone in one of the lobbies near the courtroom for some reason, though we have yet to figure out why or how. He was found with a knife in his stomach, and then... The suspect of this case, the youngest daughter of the family, was found to be standing there in the doorway. She was arrested shortly thereafter as the suspect for the crime."
"I don't understand how he was given the chance to wander on his own," Judge Diaphan murmured with a shake of her head. "He has admitted to being involved with horrific crimes, but he was still given the chance to walk around the courthouse by himself... It doesn't make any sense."
"There were supposed to be a few bailiffs watching over him, and yet, they still don't have an explanation for how this happened," Prosecutor Daegana replied. "I've been doing what I can to investigate this as much as possible, but I'm not sure of where to start. This is hardly a standard case, and we have a long road ahead of ourselves when it comes to solving it."
"What is the state of the victim now?" I asked. I already knew what had happened to Balthazar, but I knew it would be important information for everyone involved with the case to keep in mind going forward.
"He is in the hospital at the moment. He will recover from the stab wound, but it hurt him quite significantly, and I imagine he will have to recover for quite some time," Prosecutor Daegana explained. "Needless to say, the trial for him and his sisters has been delayed. It was decided that we would get to the bottom of this investigation before we returned our attention to that case."
I nodded, though if I was being honest, I already had a feeling of how all of this was going to go. A bailiff was supposed to be watching him, but he still wound up on his own in another part of the courthouse that he never should have been in... It made no sense unless you were willing to consider the truth of how the Emsthorpe family behaved. I had become very familiar with it over the last few months, and I had a feeling it was going to be a very important detail going forward.
"It certainly seems like this case is a strange one," Judge Diaphan hummed even though strange didn't even seem to begin to cover it. Strange was one way of putting it, but I could think of a million other ways to discuss this too, and none of them were any good. "If that is all that you need to explain, Prosecutor Daegana, then I would ask that you summon your first witness to the stand at this time."
"Of course," Prosecutor Daegana nodded. "The prosecution asks Aiden Hayes to come to the stand."
I watched as Detective Hayes made his way up to the witness stand, and the first thing I noticed about him was just how tired he looked. It seemed to me like he hadn't gotten any sleep the night before, and that barely would have surprised me if it was the truth. This case was an absolute mess, and he was the one who had first told me and Felicity about it. He had been involved with uncovering the truth behind all of this, and it was wearing on him significantly. I could tell from a simple glance.
"Please state your name and occupation for the court," Prosecutor Daegana instructed, holding his shoulders as firmly as he could. He was less confident without his mask, but that wasn't going to stop him from at least trying to seem like he knew what he was doing.
"My name is Aiden Hayes, and I'm a homicide detective," Detective Hayes replied. "And... I was involved with the discovery of the crime scene here, so... I suppose I'm a witness involved with this case too."
"Then I see no reason to waste any time," Judge Diaphan said. "If you know details about the crime and how it was committed, then there's no reason to hold back. Tell us everything."
Detective Hayes nodded after a moment of hesitation, and he forced himself to speak when he could finally muster together the strength. "Yes... Of course."
~ Witness Testimony ~
~ The Case's Basic Details ~
-"I was set to be involved with the trial where the Emsthorpe siblings would be put on trial. I was going to be giving a summary of the case's details."
-"Just before the case started though, I had to take an important call... Or at least, I thought it was important. I didn't recognize the number, but they claimed to have information about the search."
-"I stepped out to take it, and I left Balthazar Emsthorpe in the hands of one of the bailiffs involved with the trial. I said I would be back in a few minutes, but..."
-"By the time I got back, he was nowhere to be found, and the bailiff said that someone else had come through to take over looking after him for some reason."
-"I knew something was wrong, so I started to search through the courthouse as soon as I could, and... And that was when I stumbled onto the crime scene."
-"The suspect of this case was standing near the victim's unconscious body, and the other witness was there too. I called for backup, an arrest was made, and... That brings us to now."
Somehow, hearing the story the second time only made it more frustrating. I had heard the basic facts of the case from Detective Hayes over the phone, but it was horrible to hear about in person too. It all felt like a perfect string of events to mess everything up, and that was one of many reasons that it was so frustrating. I would say that it took a lot of incompetence for us to reach this point, but I knew better than to think it was just a matter of incompetence. This was on purpose as far as I could tell, and I had a feeling I knew exactly who was responsible for it.
"Those are... Quite interesting case details," Judge Diaphan said slowly, but I could tell by the look on her face that she had a million other thoughts that she wanted to offer instead of trying to be polite. "Do you know what happened after the bailiff took the suspect of the other case off your hands?"
"No, I'm afraid not," Detective Hayes sighed. "I came back, and he said that another bailiff had come to relieve him of his duties. That was when I looked around for the victim, and I found him in the other defendant's lobby where the crime took place. When I called for help, the suspect was arrested, and everything else is exactly as I stated in my testimony."
"Then we have quite the bit of work cut out for ourselves to get to the bottom of this," Prosecutor Daegana announced. He looked across the courtroom to me and Felicity before casting us a nod. "I believe you know what is coming next. Go on... Let us begin."
I nodded even though this was perhaps one of the last things I wanted to do. What an absolute mess all of this was... And it was only going to get worse the longer I thought about the case. I wasn't going to let that force me to give up though. If there was something I could do to fix it, then I had to try.
That was what it meant to be a lawyer, especially when it wasn't easy.