"WOWP: Everything's Rosie in Court"
Justin didn't think his life could get any worse. The fact that he wasn't even nominated for the 'Wizard of the Year' award, despite all his hard work, was bad enough. But now, to add injury to insult, the award had been given to Alex, allowing her to once more qualify for the family's wizard-competition, and leaving her older brother as the only sibling who was still ineligible. Further, Justin figured that the wizard council would never let him be reinstated now that they had seen the video of him trash-talking his sister.
As he walked through the living room, he could see Alex sitting alone on the terrace crying over her recent breakup with Mason. Under other conditions, Justin would have tried to comfort her like a supportive and loving big brother is supposed to; but given the circumstances, he figured he'd be the last person she would want to have around right now.
"How could things get any worse?" he asked himself as he continued to pace around aimlessly.
Suddenly, a magic portal appeared momentarily in the middle of the room and spewed out a small envelop with Justin's name on it. Justin opened it, being pretty certain of what was inside. He was correct: It was a letter from the wizard council requiring his presence at wizard-court first thing the following morning. They wanted to discuss disciplinary action for his earlier behaviour at the award banquet.
There was nothing else Justin could do that night but run to his room and cry himself to sleep. For he knew that, in all probability, he was going to have his powers drained the next day and forced to become a mere mortal.
After a nearly sleepless night, Justin arrived in the wizard world's courthouse the next morning and was escorted to the same room where Professor Crumbs had previously demoted him and Alex back to Level One in their competition status. There, sitting as the judges, were the three members of the wizard council who had been at the banquet the previous night and had seen the angry video he had made. As they motioned Justin to approach, the one in the middle begin to speak:
"Mr. Russo, you know why we have called you here this morning, so let's get down to business. Given your recent history, notably the demotion of your competition-status and your more distressing theft of the Moral Compass, we feel that your most recent incident at last night's banquet cannot be dismissed. Hence, unless you can convince us otherwise, we must recommend that you be drained of your powers immediately and expelled forever from the wizard world."
Justin tried in hardest to hold back his tears, knowing that crying and pleading wouldn't sway his judges.
"Your honours," he replied, "I have no excuse for my behaviour other than to say that I let my emotions get the better of me. And I am truly, sincerely sorry for whatever embarrassment I may have caused my family and especially my sister."
"We're afraid 'sorry' isn't going to cut it," said the judge who had spoken before. "And losing control of your emotions is not a good enough excuse. It is therefore the decision of this court that. . . ."
"Wait!" shouted a woman's voice from behind. Justin spun around to see Rosie the Angel standing at the courtroom's entrance with her bright, white angel wings stretched out wide.
"Rosie?" Justin exclaimed, "What are you doing here?"
"What does it look like I'm doing?" she replied. "I'm saving your butt. Now sit down and let me do me job."
Justin sat as Rosie approached the bench.
"You can't discipline this fine and remarkable young man," she insisted to the wizard council. "Not until you hear the evidence that I have to offer."
Before Rosie had burst in so abruptly, the judges had already made up their minds to expel Justin. But since this was the first time an angel had ever appeared in Wizard Court to defend someone, their minds were suddenly open to another possible outcome.
"If you don't know who I am," she continued, "My name is Rosie and I am the former angel of darkness who originally persuaded Justin to steal the Moral Compass. With your permission, I would like to recall for the court how I became an angel of darkness in the first place and how, thanks to Justin, I was restored to my former glorified state. By telling my story, it is my intention to prove that Justin is not only equally responsible, if not more responsible than his sister Alex for saving the world, but that under the circumstances, his emotional outburst the other night was more than justified."
"Very well," said the middle judge after momentarily discussing the matter with the other two. "Please proceed."
"Several years ago," Rosie began, "before I met this wonderful man whom you have unfairly dragged into court today, I had fallen for another man, a mortal, whom I was assigned to help reform. This other man had been a womanizer who constantly seduced innocent women and then abandoned them after having his way with them. My assignment was to show him the error of his ways and to persuade him to take responsibility for his actions. But very quickly after I came into his life, the man cleverly managed to convince me that it was the women who were the ones seducing him. Soon, I was not only confident that he was the true victim, but I also found myself falling in love with him. As a result, I wound up resigning my commission as a Guardian Angel and fell to earth to become a mortal so I could be with him. But after he had his way with me too, he abandoned me just like he did with those other women, and I realised only too late what a fool I had been. It was then that I lost my faith in humanity and was approached by Gorog, the chief Angel of Darkness. Gorog made me promises: Not only would he physically destroy the man who destroyed my good faith, but he would also make me an angel again. The condition of course was that I become an angel of darkness so that I could make the rest of the world feel my pain."
Rosie took a dramatic pause for a brief second and then resumed her story:
"It was some time thereafter that Gorog set his sights on Justin and assigned me to corrupt him. Gorog had persuaded me that seducing and abusing an innocent man would make me feel the same kind of power that the womanizer felt when he seduced and abused me. The reason Gorog specifically chose Justin was not just because he was a most powerful wizard, but because he was also one of the most righteous. Corrupting truly a righteous soul gave Gorog a sick sense of pleasure. So if Justin had been any less of a good person, Gorog might have set his sights somewhere else entirely. But both Gorog and I underestimated just how good and righteous Justin really was. And was because of that misjudgment that our plan ultimately failed and the world was saved."
The three judges were now listening more intently than before as Rosie continued her narrative:
"The only reason Justin allowed himself to fall from grace and into the dark realm is because he had developed genuine feelings for me and wanted us to be together. It was no different than when I fell to Earth to be with the man whom I thought had feelings for me - nor was it any different than when Justin's father gave up his full-wizard powers to marry a mortal woman. But along the way, Justin's love for me, and the righteousness that I still saw buried deep inside him, made my love for him become just as real. It was for that reason that I was able to return to the good side and became capable of instilling some goodness back into his sister as well."
The soft tone of Rosie's voice started to become firmer:
"Alex would not even have tried to save the Moral Compass, let alone succeeded, if Justin's goodness and love hadn't first saved me. Further, if you had bothered to read the official angel-report that I had written about the whole incident, you would have learned that even though Alex was the one who actually returned the Compass back to its rightful place, it was Justin who actually set it back to 'Good' and handed it to his sister. Does Alex deserve partial credit for saving the world? Of course. All of it? No! The fact you completely overlooked Justin's role in all this when deciding on nominees for your silly 'Wizard of the Year' award is completely absurd! When adding to that the fact that Justin has done so much more to deserve wizardry, I think anyone can agree that his angry display of emotion was perfectly understandable and perhaps even warranted!"
"Are you finished, Ms. Rosie?" asked the middle judge, sounding slightly annoyed by the sudden shift in the angel's tone.
"No, your honour, I am not!" Rosie affirmed. "I would now like to call a witness to the stand."
Rosie motioned everyone to look toward the courtroom doors. No one was more surprised than Justin to see Alex enter the room and approach the bench. When Justin had received his subpoena the previous night, he didn't tell any member of his family about it because he feared Alex would show up and make things worse - and he wouldn't have blamed her if she did. But as she walked by and looked at her brother, her body language and facial expression clearly showed that she was there to help.
"Honoured members of the wizard council," she began, "Rosie asked me to come here this morning to speak on my brother's behalf. It's no secret that he and I haven't always gotten along or seen eye to eye on certain issues, but everything that Rosie has said today is true. Justin is much more worthy of wizardry than I am, and he is just as responsible, in fact more so, than I am for saving the world. And what Rosie hasn't told you yet is how insensitive my bother Max and I were toward Justin's feelings when I was reinstated in the wizard-competition. Although he tried to deny the pain he was in, we could tell it was burning him inside and all we did was feed the flame. Combining that with everything else was more than enough to make anybody have a ballistic breakdown. In short, even though I do not condone my brother's behaviour in any way, and even though I still feel a sense of embarrassment because of it, I forgive it completely and I implore that you will too."
Alex then backed away from the bench and went to sit beside her brother who felt too humble to say a word, but whose eyes were filled with gratitude. The judges turned again toward Rosie.
"Are you finished now, Ms. Rosie?" the judge asked again.
"I just have one more argument, your honour" she replied. "If you would examine the progress that Justin has been making with his class of delinquent wizard students, you'll find that not only are his students improving vastly with their magic skills, but they are also becoming more well-behaved with their social skills too. Hence, Justin's goodness not only rubbed off on me, but it clearly also has an effect on everyone else around him as well. Expelling him from the wizard world would therefore not only be tragic for his current students, but also for any number of other individuals who he may encounter. I therefore implore this court to dismiss all charges against this wonderful man immediately. That is all, your honours."
The three judges huddled for a few moments as Rosie walked over to Justin and sat beside him on the opposite side as Alex. The judges then emerged from their huddled and addressed the defendant.
"I believe we have reached a decision," said the middle judge. "Please stand."
Justin, Rosie, and Alex arose to hear the court's ruling.
"Considering the testimony of your sister and your rather 'angelic' friend," began the judge, "it is the decision of this court that the charge against you be dropped immediately."
Justin breathed a huge sigh of relief as Alex and Rosie hugged him from opposite sides.
The judge continued speaking: "However, in order for this council to save face, we hope you'll understand that we cannot publicly admit that we were possibly mistaken in not giving you the credit you deserved. Hence, for that reason, and because your behaviour actually did produce a noticeable level of embarrassment for a number of people, we hope you will not object to your sister remaining the official Wizard of the Year for 2011."
"Of course not, your honour," replied Justin as he looked into his sister's eyes. "In fact, after seeing her come here this morning to help me even after the awful things I said, I believe that perhaps she actually does deserve it after all."
Alex blushed because she knew her brother sincerely meant it.
"Good," replied the judge. "And we trust that you will also understand that we still cannot reinstate you into your family's wizard-competition until you successfully graduate your delinquent students back to WizTech."
"Yes, your honour, I understand" said Justin.
"Then I believe we are just about done here," said the judge. "And for what it's worth, I think I can safely speak for my two colleagues here when I say that we wish you the best of luck on your continued road to redemption. Court is adjourned."
The three judges then whipped out their wands and vanished in a flash of light. Justin then turned to the two ladies who had just saved his skin:
"I don't know which of you to thank first," he said, "or even how."
"I'll tell you what," said Alex, "you can thank me at home by doing my share of the household chores for a week. I'll let you two have a moment alone now."
Alex then flashed her wand and vanished just like the judges had. Rosie then turned to Justin:
"Well," she began in a half-joking manner, "I told you I'd come visit you if you did something a little bad, didn't I?"
"That you did," Justin agreed. "I just hope I won't have to do anything quite so extreme in the future to warrant another visit from you."
"I'm sure we can work something out," she replied. "Why don't we go out for a drink to celebrate and we can brainstorm some ideas. I know this great little coffee shop in the angel realm we can visit."
"It's a date," said Justin, extending his arm. "Shall we go?"
Justin and Rosie linked elbows walked out the courtroom doors together. As they travelled through the portals to the next realm, Justin began to realise just how fitting Rosie's name actually was. For that word ("rosie") perfectly described how everything seemed to feel whenever she was around.
THE END