I exited the PC and braced myself. I touched down on the floor, but before I even had the chance to stumble all over the place, two pairs of arms reached out to catch me.
"Told you he'd be back," Francis joked as he and Roxie helped me back to the bed.
"I'm just glad he's back," she grumbled as they basically forced me to lay down, "we've already had to explain enough to Luke. The last thing we needed was for him to come back to find his patient missing."
"What happened?" I moaned as all the tension in my body melted me into the bed. "Are we good?"
"Yeah we're good," Roxie sighed, "we called your family and they… didn't care that you were staying overnight here."
"Wait, they don't care I'm in the hospital?" My jaw dropped. I knew I had my issues with my family, but this was cold, even for them.
"Well it's more like, they don't know you're here," Francis elaborated, "we never told them you're staying in a clinic, or that you got hurt. We just said you were staying overnight with us and they didn't ask any more questions."
I relaxed and looked at the ceiling.
"Well I guess that's not so bad. What else did I miss?"
"Not much," Roxie admitted, "we checked over the audio the satellite recorded, and it's pretty high quality. Plus we can cut it so that you don't hear anything about digimon. We still have to keep your voice in for it to make any sense though."
"We can alter it," I groaned, "the laptop has the software for it. Anything else?"
"We started tracking down the case," Francis explained, "the faster we can find the judge who's ruling on the case, the faster we can hand over the audio file to whatever layer's defending her."
"That about covers everything. So you just rest up, and we'll deal with the rest." Roxie hovered over me and placed a finger on my forehead. "Don't worry, we have this handled. No if you need us, we need to ask Luke how to get blood out of couch cushions and jackets."
The two of them left me, making sure to turn off the light on their way out. The darkness returned and I had to wait for my eyes to get used to the low light again.
Part of me had wanted to yell out, tell them that I was going to handle it. But I just… didn't have the energy to argue with them. I'm sure that if I waited for it, the chance to get even would present itself.
I glanced down at my arm and wondered how they'd managed to miss the small object around my wrist. I wasn't sure how it'd happened, but the rebel drive had gained a new form. In addition to its flash drive and bulky wrist forms, it now had a smaller watch-like form.
At first glance, it was easy to confuse for an old black and purple digital watch with buttons on the sides. It had taken me a bit of feeling around to realize it had the same basic layout as the rebel drive when it was in its bulkier form. Way easier to carry around and use then it's flash drive form. No one cared about some guy carrying a watch on his wrist.
Being able to carry the rebel drive around would come in handy when it came time to face down blond boy again. Because that was going to happen, no matter what Roxie and Francis had to say on the matter. I had to show him he had no power to stop me from pursuing justice.
Plus, it would be a waste not to use such a good trump card right after acquiring one.
The blond boy would have sat back if the benches of the courtroom had allowed it. It'd taken a lot of pleading on his part, but he'd managed to convince his parents to take him to his older sister's trial. He wanted to be there when everything came together and she was carted off to jail.
This was it, the end result of his long campaign. When he'd first met Emma, he hadn't thought too much about her. A stranger he, his real sister and his dad would have to live with from now on. He'd figured she'd ignore him and he'd ignore her in turn.
It wasn't like the two had anything in common anyway. He was a quiet kid who liked to play music in his spare time, she liked to go out and hang out with her friends. He was polite and tried to not cause any trouble, She went out of her way to seek it out.
And then he'd gone to the digital world.
A lot of things happened on that journey over the summer. He'd made friends, including one for life. He'd explored and seen amazing sights. He'd found his strength in others and grown as a person.
But most importantly, he'd saved the digital world from evil. And in doing so he had seen the worst kind of evil. The dark abyss of hatred and despair which only caused misery to those around them.
Levimon, Barbamon and finally Daemon. Each had been a monster, irredeemable and leaving them with one option, total destruction. Which they'd only pulled off by everyone working together.
The other kids were sad to see their partner digimon's go, but he and Betamon had an understanding. They would see each other again one day. When they left each other, there'd been no tears, they hadn't been needed. When he made it back home, he'd been ready to live out the rest of his life.
And then he'd seen it. The growing darkness in Emma's heart. It was little things at first, but as time went on he could only see evil in her. The same kind which he'd seen destroy so much. When he'd learned that his real sister had gotten in trouble because of something Emma had taught her, it had been the final straw.
Emma needed to go, dealt with before it was too late. The only question was how. He spent the next year planning, both to wait for the perfect chance, and to wait for her to turn 18.
And then Faith had contacted him about the digimon coming to the real world. And about a certain 'rebel' going around using a digimon to commit crimes. Oh sure, Faith and others claimed he was a hero, but he saw him for who he truly was. A thrill seeker ignoring the law and doing whatever he wanted.
From there it all fell into place. Sure there had been a slight hiccup when it turned out his digimon wasn't as abused as he thought, and another when the vegimon he'd ripened had almost killed the rebel, but other than that the plan had worked.
The rebel would never bother anyone ever again, and now his step sister was going to jail. Everything was going to plan.
And then the defense lawyer had walked in with a cold look on his face. Their eyes met and the attorney almost looked disgusted with him. A short while later, he knew why.
"Ladies and gentlemen of the court, I present to you this audio given to me by an anonymous source." The lawyer placed a laptop down on the table and played the play button. The blond boy's eyes widened as he recognized the words playing on the speakers.
"So… was this whole thing a trap then?" The audio was distorted just enough to make the voice recognizable while staying understandable. It was the rebel, he'd managed to meddle despite his warnings. And in a way that kept him safe and sound. The blond boy hadn't been expecting the rebel to act so indirectly.
"Yeah, it was a trap, and to be fair there was someone in trouble. My older step sister and her friends are a bunch of thugs and losers. They were going to go to jail eventually. So I asked the owner of the store they always loiter in front of to help me stage a robbery so we could blame them for it."
And there it was, his own voice, unaltered and clear as ice. The whole thing was there, his plan, his threat to the rebel. He could feel the eyes of his father and his wife bearing down on him. He just stared straight ahead, trying to ignore both them and the few other people in the courtroom he knew.
The only small mercy was that the rebel had managed to cut out anything having to do with digimon.
"Now some of you may be asking yourself who the young voice in the audio is," the lawyer continued as the audio finished playing, "well I'm here to tell you that I recognized it right away. That voice belongs to none other than Emma Lemere's younger step brother, William Lemere."
William narrowed his eyes at the lawyer as he pointed him out with his arm.
"Now I was doubtful about this evidence when it first came to me. A young boy framing his older sister for a crime she didn't commit for his own ends. That was until… We received the other piece of evidence. Some of you may remember that the prosecution did not show the video of the break in itself, well we now know why."
The video played, and Willaim knew he was done. The lawyer pointed out every flaw in the video, how he'd ignored the cash, had been careful to not make a mess, and how he'd just walked in when Mr. Rosh had told the court his fake sister and her friend had broken in.
"Now between this video and the audio we had earlier, I think we can all see what happened here," here it was, the part where the sword would come down on his neck, "Mr. Rosh took advantage of sibling rivalry to falsely incriminate a group of teenagers who were guilty of nothing but hanging out in front of his store."
William blinked as the lawyer weaved a tale, blaming it all on good Mr. Rosh while leaving both him and his fake sister spotless. The old man, who'd attended the trial and was a few seats away from William, looked at him terrified. He had to fix this, bring this back to the way it was meant to be.
"What are you all doing!" he got out of his chair as his father tried to pull him back. William shrugged him off and forced his way onto the front. The judge raised her gavel, thought for a second, and then set it back down. "Why are you going after Mr. Rosh, I'm the one who came up with the plan, I'm the one who broke in, all of this was me."
"So are you saying that as far as you know, all of the evidence you've seen today was planted by yourself with the help of Mr. Rosh." The lawyer baited, but William could see the trap. He needed to make sure the only person in jail at the end of this was Emma and no one else.
"I'm saying that it doesn't matter," he looked over at the jury, "you've heard everything about Emma, you've heard what kind of person she is. You all have two options, declare her guilty and get this over with, or let her go and be back here in a few months. Is that really what you want, to wait until she eventually commits a crime. Wait until she's here for a real break in, or a worse crime?"
"Young man, that is your sister you're talking about." his father finally broke out of the stunned silence he'd been caught in.
"That ticking time bomb up there is not my sister. You may be willing to stand back and let her corrupt your real daughter, but I'm not. I'm not about to sit here and wait until her influence lands Sarah in jail or worse, a cemetery. You may have failed to protect this family dad, but I won't."
Father and son stared off for several seconds as the rest of the courtroom watched the family drama unfolding before them. The father was the first to look away and William took solace that even if everything else went wrong from here on out, he'd at least stood his ground.