May 31

Defendant Lobby No. 6

12:00 PM

Cotoli Morix

When we got back in the defendant lobby, we were met with smiling faces immediately. Chrysalis, Yuri, Lily, and Deirdre were already there and waiting for Victoria and me. Lily was the first one to speak, a wide, bright smile on her face. "It all worked out in the end after all! I'm so proud of you guys!" she declared, throwing her arms around Victoria.

"I think this certainly merits a group hug! After all, this is the least that we deserve after suffering so much at the hands of Cormous!" Yuri exclaimed. She joined in on the embrace as well, bringing me into it from behind. I stumbled for a moment before falling into the hug, recognizing that I wasn't going to be getting out of this.

"I'm so glad to have him out of our lives permanently," Chrysalis sighed with a shake of her head. She seemed to be planning on staying out of the group hug, but a gentle nudge from Deirdre had her approaching the rest of us a few seconds later. "I'm so sick of him and all the stuff that he pulled. I'm glad he's gone."

"Normally, it's frowned upon to wish death on anyone. No person deserves to die and all that," Deirdre began to say as she joined in as the last person in the embrace. "However, I feel like we can make an exception for an assassin who took at least three lives in less than six months of his extensive career. He was doing this for at least twelve years, though if I had to guess, it was probably much longer than that in actuality."

"It was known by his family that he always managed to have money despite not having an official job. He was probably taking jobs for illegal work to get money a long time before the Emsthorpe crime ring burst into the limelight. Given how quickly he jumped to murder in all of the cases we discussed today, it wouldn't surprise me if he had been killing people for much longer than any of us could have expected. With that said, this was probably coming to him inevitably, and swift justice was delivered in the form of Nevada," I remarked.

"We should probably talk to her about what happened at some point... Then again, that's assuming that we'll ever be able to drag her out of the mind again. She hasn't shown up since Cormous' trial, and even if she did appear, I doubt she would want to discuss the case where she was forced to reveal herself due to being accused of murder," Chrysalis sighed with a shake of her head. "I can't blame her, but at the same time, she truly is fascinating. I would love to hear more from her on the matter."

"Sounds like she's very interesting to you... Does little Chrysalis have a crush?" Yuri teased. She pulled away from the hug at long last to nudge Chrysalis gently.

Chrysalis rolled her eyes and let out an aggravated sigh. "Yuri, I don't think I've spoken to her at all. I don't think it's possible to have a crush on somebody you've never spoken to, or at the very least, it isn't possible for me. I can be curious in something without having ulterior motives," she told Yuri, clearly not taking very kindly to the teasing.

"I was only kidding... You're the one who took it seriously. You should know by now that it's best to take everything that comes out of my mouth as a joke," Yuri said next with a loose shrug. "This one is on you, dear Chrysalis. Try to relax every once in a while, yeah?"

Chrysalis stared at Yuri for a few seconds before sighing and shaking her head. It was becoming increasingly clear who was the older one in the relationship. "Okay, yes, I recognize my mistake. Taking you seriously was the real issue, and that's on me. Moving on from that though, we have some other business to take care of before we can rest. The case might be dealt with, but there are still minor extraneous issues that are begging for our attention. For one, we have to talk to Polly. After that, there are a few people who we should try and speak with. After that, we should return to the agency, because there's something I want to talk to Victoria about," she declared.

That part took me by surprise, to be honest. She wanted to talk to Victoria about something? That 'something' was incredibly clear to me. She had to be talking about Oracle, and if that was the case, something must have changed in her during the trial. Chrysalis had been immensely resistant to talking about Oracle with the greater agency ever since the traitor came up during the prison murder. She didn't want to take any risks by discussing her true purpose when there could be people out there to betray her. However, that had clearly changed if she was up for discussing the truth with Victoria, somebody who didn't know the truth. She was going to explain why she was working at the agency to somebody who didn't know, a step she hadn't taken before.

In the past, the project was kept quiet, and those who did find out either forced it out of her or heard from somebody else who was involved. Yuri, Lily, and Deirdre all heard about it from me while Chrysalis was out of commission due to an outside incident. They had to hear the truth, and I explained it to them, even if I wished that Chrysalis had been able to do such herself. She had been initially upset that she hadn't been able to explain the truth to them, though I doubt she would have done it for quite a while. She simply wasn't the type to be open about Oracle, and she was justified in not doing so as far as I was concerned.

If she was moving to tell Victoria though, that meant that she was starting to trust people more. Chrysalis had always hesitated before placing her faith in others since she knew the danger that could come with trusting people wrongfully. However, she must have realized that Victoria was as trustworthy as they came if she was considering opening up in the first place. Even if she didn't follow through with it, this first step was important for her, and I was happy to see that she was thinking about going forward with talking about Oracle again.

"Why would you want to talk to me?"

Victoria's voice snapped me out of my thoughts. I tried not to look too rattled, but it was hard to hide my surprise. I did my best to regardless, and I looked at her with a mostly passive expression.

"I suppose I just decided that there's something you should know. I would say that you've officially earned your spot in the agency, and if you're going to be part of the gang for the foreseeable future, then I might as well start by opening up to you about what you're getting into. Think of it as an initiation of sorts. This is the first step of the rest of your career, and what you choose to do from here is completely up to you," Chrysalis said, keeping her voice solemn yet relaxed as she explained.

Victoria stared at Chrysalis in pure confusion, tilting her head to one side. "I don't understand... I thought I was part of the agency already. You're acting like there's something I don't know," she said. There was a blend of surprise and fear on her face, and I couldn't quite place where it came from. If it was because she didn't trust Chrysalis, that was going to have to change sooner rather than later. There was a lot Victoria was getting into, but it would only work out well if she trusted in my younger sister. The Oracle project was dangerous, and if Victoria was unsure of what was happening, bad things were probably going to happen. It was all a matter of trust at this point.

The irony of that was that Victoria had been brought in to be one of the people we trusted, but it had taken so long to get to that point. Cormous had greatly slowed down the process, and it felt like it had been years since we took on Victoria to be one of the members of the team. Regardless, the time had finally come to tell her all about what she had gotten into by volunteering to be part of the agency. She hadn't known what she was involved with when she signed up for the job, but that was about to change. As soon as we got back to the agency, Victoria's mind was going to be blown.

"You'll see what she means soon enough. We have an intense discussion with each new member of the agency after they've been working with us for a while. It's nothing you need to be scared of, but it's important that you listen up when the time comes to talk about it. Once we get back to the agency, I'll tell you all that you need to know," I assured her, noticing her nervousness.

"Well, Chrysalis will tell you. The rest of us will pipe in here and there with our knowledge on the matter," Yuri corrected. "You'll be fine. If you've come this far, it means that you're going to turn out alright. After all, once you've gotten to hear about this, then you've made it as a member of the agency."

Victoria was only growing more confused as the seconds passed by. She looked frantically in between me and the rest of the members of the group, but when she realized everyone was relaxed, the tension in her shoulders melted away slightly. She shook her head and looked down. "I have no idea what you guys are talking about, but I do trust you with whatever is going on. I have no reason not to, after all. If there's something you kept from me, there must have been a reason, and I trust that it was a good one," Victoria said, though I got the feeling she was saying it more to herself than any of us. Despite our efforts to calm her down, she wanted to hear herself say that it would be alright to ease her fears.

"You'll figure it out soon enough. Until then, take a deep breath. It really isn't anything to worry yourself over. If it was, you would already know about it," Chrysalis told her, though all of us knew that she was lying through her teeth to try and keep from making a scene in public. This matter could only be discussed in private, and if we worked up Victoria now, there would be more problems caused than solved. If she could hold on for just a while longer as we tied up loose ends, we could tell her everything we needed to know. It was just a matter of time.

Victoria looked at her for a moment before nodding slowly, finally deciding to accept Chrysalis' words as fact. "Okay... I still don't know what's going on here, but I'll hopefully figure it out soon enough. Is there anything I should be concerned about? Be honest. I don't want to be freaking myself out and giving myself a stomachache while we're doing other things because I'm so concerned about how this is going to go," she said. Her words only grew faster in pace the longer she was talking, and I could tell that anxiety was still brewing beneath the surface despite her efforts to calm her down. I figured it wouldn't be that easy, and I was quickly being proven correct, as much as I hated to admit it.

"Nothing to worry about at all. You'll figure out what's happening in a matter of time," Chrysalis assured her. "Now, we should stop talking about this. After all, we have a victory to celebrate, and there's a certain someone who wants to celebrate with us."

Chrysalis pointed over my shoulder, and I turned to see what she was gesturing to. A smile broke out on my face when I saw Polly standing in the doorway. I walked over to her before wrapping my arms around her, pulling her into a tight embrace. "I'm so glad to see that you're alright," I told her softly.

"It's all thanks to you. I don't think you should be so surprised when you're the one who helped me to get out of that tough scrape in the first place," Polly snorted, remaining sarcastic despite having narrowly escaped murder accusations not long before. That was just like her, and I couldn't say that I was surprised.

"Still, I'm relieved to see that the detention center didn't do too much to hurt your mental state. I've been there enough times to see how exhausting it can be on its prisoners. Staying there for too long is bound to hurt anyone no matter how much they try to stay safe," I told her, cringing at the thought of the detention center as a whole. It was easily one of the most unpleasant places to be, and I was glad that she didn't have to deal with it anymore.

"A stupid building isn't going to break me. I'm not that soft," Polly scoffed with a roll of her eyes. "Now, we have some other business to attend to, don't we? Ghastly was in charge of this case, and that means that things probably went wrong somewhere down the line. I'll probably have to clean up his messes again now that I'm able to go to work. How did Anton do while I was gone? I know he tends to lose it if I'm not there for too long. Plus, Prosecutor Wood was on this case, and she scares Anton. I don't want to have to deal with all of those big problems so soon after I come back."

"Relax," I told her, a small smile appearing on my face. "It's nothing you need to worry about. Seriously. Ghastly handled the case fine. As for Anton, he stayed with Ghastly, and I think it went well. He didn't cry at all today during the trial, which a step above what I expected from him. He did fine. Regarding Prosecutor Wood, Anton didn't seem too scared of her. If there was fear present, he hid it incredibly well. You don't have anything to worry about. The world doesn't fall apart when you have to step away for a while, Polly. The rest of us know how to handle the circus that is existing without you leaning over our shoulders to tell us what to do."

Polly looked at me for a while as if I was completely crazy before letting out a heavy sigh and shaking her head. "I guess you're right... I've been worrying a lot about that stuff ever since being forced to stay in the detention center. After all, it's easy to freak out about what's happening outside the walls of the detention center when you're stuck inside it for a while. That's all I've been doing these past few days aside from hating existence," she said with grumble. "I should probably learn to calm down every once in a while."

"Just maybe," Chrysalis joked dryly with a small roll of her eyes. When Polly gave her another sigh in response, Chrysalis smirked and chuckled to herself. "I don't mean to cause any problems, Polly. Take a deep breath. You're finally able to leave the detention center. This should be a happy moment. Why worry when you should be having fun with your freedom?"

"I suppose you make a good point," Polly murmured. "Where's Anton and Ghastly? I'll think about having fun after I've seen them and made sure that they're both okay. If Ghastly managed to survive this time where I was unable to help him out, I might have to give him an award. Things didn't seem to be going up in smoke when I spoke to him, but I'm not entirely sure if he's holding up an act or something. I want to be sure it's all fine."

"You don't seem like you have much faith in him. I know he can mess up on his work every once in a while, but you should try and believe that he can get things done every once in a while. He's not exactly a baby, and he shouldn't be treated as such," Chrysalis told Polly with a frown. "Ghastly is perfectly capable of doing some things on his own, and if we baby him forever, then he's never going to get any further. You needed this break, though I really wish that you didn't have to take a break because you got accused of murder. Maybe you should go out for a spa day soon. That would probably clear your head and get you ready for another case."

"I suppose I should let him do what he needs to in order to get by... I'll have to think about how to rework my methods in the future," Polly murmured. "You know what? We can discuss this later. We have other things to take care of first. How do you feel about what happened in the courtroom? We certainly learned a lot about the killer of this case. What an obnoxious man."

"I'm just glad that we were able to take care of everything to do with him... Well, we did what we could do for now. That's what matters most," Victoria pointed out. "And we were able to get you out of the detention center! You can go back home at last!"

"I do hope that Anton didn't get too lonely while I was out... I know how much being alone in crucial moments can work him up, and I don't want to be the one to cause his suffering," Polly murmured. "Do you know if Ghastly was a good caretaker? It wouldn't surprise me if he managed to mess it up somehow."

"He's your friend. You know his habits. He's not a child, and you really don't need to treat him as such. He knows what he's doing," I assured her. "Plus, he has a child of his own. Prosecutor Wood is being raised by him, for crying out loud. He knows how to help a child grow up. I don't think he would have any issues with Anton if he's so used to living with her."

"Still, I don't know if this really went all that well... What if-" Polly began, still not able to take in what we were saying and accept it as fact. The detention center clearly hadn't been great on her mental health, and she was starting to worry about a million and one things she didn't need to cast a second thought to before she was arrested.

She was used to having to work with Ghastly, but she hadn't ever doubted his credentials to this extent before. While she was stuck in the detention center, she worked herself up into a panic thinking that he wasn't able to handle any of this. I knew the detention center could have negative effects on people like this, but I hadn't expected to see Polly slip so much. It was strange to see her like this, and while I should have seen it coming, I was too focused on the case to bother thinking of the negative effects the detention center could have had on her mind. I couldn't help but feel guilty for it, even if there was no way I could have known at the time.

"Calm down," I told her, placing one hand on her shoulder. "Take a deep breath. Everything is okay. You can go and talk to them as soon as you're ready to do so. They're probably in the prosecution lobby. If I had to guess, they'll be heading our way soon. They wouldn't just want to leave you, especially not so soon after you got out of the detention center."

Polly stared at me for a moment before letting out a sigh, finally realizing that I was right. "You have a point. I've been overreacting. Anton is fine. I saw him during the trial, and he seemed okay," she murmured.

"Don't beat yourself up for worrying about him though," Yuri piped up. "It shows that you care about him, and that's what matters most at the end of the day."

"Yeah. You wouldn't be so concerned if you didn't love him a lot. I think it's sweet to see," Lily assured Polly, a small smile spreading on her lips. Her gaze shifted to look past Polly all of a sudden, and a giggle forced its way out of her lips. "It doesn't look like you'll need to wait all that long to see Anton though. You might want to direct your attention to the door of the lobby."

Polly looked at Lily in confusion for a moment before turning around to see what Lily was looking at. I looked at what had caught her attention as well, smiling upon realizing who the newcomers were. Lily had been right, and this would hopefully help to calm Polly down again.

"Anton!" Polly exclaimed with a gasp. She went to the door quickly, throwing her arms around the smallest figure out of the three. She came close to hiding Anton from view completely, showing off how small he truly was. She smiled widely as she held him as close as she could.

Anton returned the gesture of hugging Polly, smiling to her in return. He happily held her close in return, and I saw a few tears prickling at the corners of his eyes when I looked closely. Anton bounced up and down in place as Polly moved back to look at him properly. "I missed you!" Anton exclaimed. "I-I was really worried about y-you... I-I was worried you w-would never come back h-home, but-"

"I'm okay. You see that. I'm right here, and I'm okay," Polly assured him, placing her hands on either one of his shoulders. She pulled him into another hug a few seconds later, as if she couldn't keep herself away from him in her excitement.

While Polly and Anton were clinging onto each other, Ghastly and Prosecutor Wood walked over to us. I could see Sora peeking over from behind them, and I assumed that she had come to watch the trial to support the people involved. I was surprised I hadn't seen her sitting up in the gallery, but chances were I had simply missed her in the chaos of everything else going on. Sora was incredibly hard to miss when one was looking for her, but given how distracted I had been while working on the case, me not seeing her didn't exactly come as a grand surprise.

"I'm glad to see Anton back to his old self," Ghastly smiled as he approached me. "You would not believe how worried he was these past few days. Those two really do need each other."

"I was happy to look after him while Polly was out of commission, but I think that they're both happy to have each other again after being forced apart," Sora remarked, walking up to us as well. She pulled Prosecutor Wood into a small hug not long afterwards. "Now, I can focus fully on taking care of my baby. I have a lot of celebrating to do if I'm going to properly congratulate my boyfriend and baby on a job well done. They both did a great job in helping to bring the truth to light, wouldn't you say?"

"I would agree for sure," Yuri grinned. "We couldn't have pulled this off if not for the help of the prosecution, and they wouldn't have worked with us if they didn't believe that Prosecutor Burke was innocent. It all came down to working with somebody who wasn't corrupt, and since they were happy to help us out, then we were able to get to the truth. I'd say that's pretty helpful."

"I really didn't do that much," murmured Prosecutor Wood, her face flushing pink from the sudden attention. She rocked back and forth on her feet, still avoiding our gazes. "Besides, we have other things to do now. There's a lot of investigating that's still ahead of us. We need to find out more about what Marcus Moore did while he was alive. We know he was responsible for a lot of bad things, but we have to find out exactly what if we're going to get all of the paperwork updated."

"That's just like you. Even after finishing up a huge case and accomplishing a lot, you're getting ready to go off and do the next thing. I'm already really proud of you. If you're trying to impress people, you can stop now, and nobody will judge you in the slightest," Sora told her. "If you really want to go out there and learn more, then that's alright though. Everybody will do what they can to support you along the way. It's the very least we can do for you at this point."

"I don't want to bother anybody," Prosecutor Wood murmured. "I can probably find it on my own."

"You aren't bothering anybody. All of the people at the Prosecutor's Office would be happy to support you. We're like a big family over there, and we're glad to help you," Sora assured her. She seemed to be intentionally ignoring the idea of the corrupted figures that had caused so many issues in the past, which was probably for the best as she was trying to tell Prosecutor Wood that she wasn't alone. The corruption talk could wait for another time when she wasn't trying to cheer up a young girl struggling under the weight of her own insecurities.

"I'll keep that in mind," Prosecutor Wood said softly. She shifted uncomfortably under the attention she was getting, swallowing nervously as she looked down at the floor. "Can we move on? I'm sure there are other important things that we should be talking about first."

"I suppose there are a few things we should cover," Ghastly remarked with a yawn. "I don't know though. Honestly, the main thing I want to do at the moment is take a long nap and block out the rest of the world. However, it seems like the world doesn't ever want to let us rest, so we've probably got to take care of other business before we can take a breather."

I thought for a moment, trying to figure out if there was anything else we should take care of before laying this case to rest. I was just as ready as the rest of them to be done with all of this, but I wanted to be as thorough as possible to make sure that we wouldn't have to come back to this subject later on.

Suddenly, it hit me like a slap to the face, and I snapped my fingers as I turned to Polly and Anton. "There's one thing that I think you two should know about. I learned something recently that you'll find rather interesting, to say the least. I'm not sure exactly how you'll react, but I feel like it's something you should hear about. You have a right to know this secret."

Polly stared at me in confusion for a moment. "You seem like you've found something important, but... What is it? Don't hold out on us now. We aren't in the courtroom anymore, so we don't need to put up any nice false images for the sake of the public," she told me.

"There is one thing I have to tell you about, but I feel like this would be best addressed down at the Prosecutor's Office," I explained. I looked over to Victoria to see if she had caught onto what I was talking about. She stared at me in confusion for a while before letting out a gasp as it hit her once again. She nodded her agreement once she understood.

"What are you on about?" Polly asked, her voice growing more intense the longer she didn't understand.

"We found something that you'll really want to know about," I explained. I looked over to the rest of the members of my agency. "Chrysalis, you should come with me. As for the rest of you, I'll leave it up to you if you want to come along and see this or stay at the agency. When we get back, we'll have another important discussion on our hands, so it's alright if you want to rest before we start that up."

"I'll take everybody back," Deirdre replied. "We don't want to intrude on this moment for you, whatever it's about."

"I'm going to take these two little rascals back home too," Sora announced, gesturing to Ghastly and Prosecutor Wood. "I'll see you guys later on. Be sure to tell me what happens in there, alright?"

I nodded to her as the rest of our small crowd streamed out of the defendant lobby. I turned my attention to Polly, Anton, and Chrysalis. "Alright. We should get going. I hope that he's still there, because he's got a lot of explaining to do," I told them quietly.

"Where are we even going?" Polly questioned, starting to get particularly antsy now.

"We're going to talk to Prosecutor Daegana," I replied simply. I gestured for them to follow me before heading for the door. The truth was going to come out to the people who needed to hear it most, and I was ready for it.


So much stuff is closing oh my

-Digital