January 23

Prosecution Lobby No. 3

1:30 AM

Ghastly Bespoke

"That was quite the trial," I remarked once I was out into the lobby. "I didn't expect all of that to happen. And here I thought that I might have a mellow trial for the first time in my life... Then again, the chances of that were always going to be slim, so I shouldn't have hoped for something like that."

"That was insane..." Cassidy whispered. She was holding tight to her upper arms, eyes darting around the room in fear. "I-I don't even know how I'm supposed to respond to something like that. I didn't exactly expect that Ms. Amaya was the killer, but I also didn't think that Mr. Asasm would lash out like that."

"Have you seen Venus at all since she ran out?" Cotoli asked, his hands stuffed in his pockets. "She looked pretty determined to get out with Ms. Burns. I somehow doubt that she was able to go with her if none of the bailiffs could catch her though... I have to wonder if we'll ever even see Ms. Burns again."

"I don't know as of now. If Ms. Burns really was Oracle, I doubt we'll see that face again. It'll be somebody else she's hiding as," I remarked. "I know enough about Oracle to know that there are many different identities that they take on in order to investigate different cases. It's all rather peculiar... Can one person really pull all that off on their own? Somehow, I doubt it. This is a big project, which means that there have to be accomplices helping Ms. Burns out."

"I agree. There has to be somebody helping her out," Cotoli nodded. "I can't help but wonder who it would be though. I doubt that she'd be able to go into the courtroom alone without some sort of backup hiding in the gallery. However, I doubt that any accomplice would have been able to prepare her for what happened today... Maybe it was a bailiff. That would explain a way for her to escape without anybody growing too suspicious if said bailiff helped her hide."

"I guess that we'll never know. It'll take a long time of investigating if we want to even come close to learning about Ms. Burns. Chasing her down now is likely a bad idea due to her status as Oracle. One never knows how much trouble she'll end up in due to her identity," Cassidy said, a frown on her face.

"Venus should be back soon to tell us about what happened after she left the courtroom. Maybe she'll have something to say regarding Ms. Burns and her escape. I doubt there will be much, if anything, but you can dream, you know?" Cotoli shrugged and sighed. "Today has been a straight up mess."

"Yeah. Looking back on it, everything makes sense," I frowned. "Ms. Burns knew about the gloves before it was even brought up. That was probably due to her snooping as Oracle. There isn't much else we can say on the matter though, unless we happen to get one of her accomplices, or better yet, Ms. Burns herself, in here for us to chat to, but somehow, I doubt that's going to be happening anytime soon. She'll be on higher guard after this incident."

"Now, she's been marked by the culprit of this murder. Mr. Asasm has pretty much forced her to hide her hands so nobody realizes who she is. That's already a rather large indicator of who she might be. It's unlikely for most people to wear gloves around casually like that, but there's no choice for Oracle now. Those scars are going to prove to everybody who Oracle is. This will no doubt hit the news fast, so there isn't much time for her to get them fixed up, if she even can at all," Cotoli said. He crossed his arms and shook his head. "This entire situation leaves you thinking about the Oracle, doesn't it?"

"Yeah... It does," Cassidy murmured. "I don't know if I really want to learn more after today though... Imagine how dangerous it must be. I mean, Ms. Burns could have easily been shot or stabbed in front of everyone for what happened in there. I don't even want to think about how scared she probably is right now... I could never think of Oracle as bad or evil, since from what I can tell, she only does the exposure thing to those who deserve it. So far, only corrupt and underhanded legal figures have been exposed. I don't think that she'll suddenly start targeting us random common people after what's been done already."

"You never know. I guess we'll just have to see," I sighed. "I wish I knew what got all this started. Who can say? I mean, only Ms. Burns and those close to her know... Now that she's likely gone missing, we can't hear the truth from her, which means that we'll be left speculating for quite some time."

"I have to wonder though... Hasn't Oracle exposed a few corrupt prosecutors in the past?" Cotoli asked, one hand on his chin. "I think I heard about it in the news a few weeks ago, as a matter of fact. A prosecutor was caught for forging evidence in court and Oracle told the reporters through a note left on the front door of a news office. It didn't take long for the exposed prosecutor to get kicked out, if I recall correctly. Does that sound about right to you, Ghastly?"

I nodded. "Yeah, it does. I remember it pretty well too. He was a shady guy, but I didn't ever work with him. I don't remember his name either. He walked into work one day and was called in by the current chief prosecutor. He was fired after the chief prosecutor held up the newspaper and his suspicions were confirmed. Not long after, the chief prosecutor resigned since he was sick of this happening over and over again. We still haven't decided on a replacement."

"Think about it. How would Oracle have known that there was a corrupt prosecutor in the office without some sort of insight? Oracle is either there themselves under some sort of disguise or there's another person that's working alongside Ms. Burns to give out information like that. Regardless, there's got to be an accomplice somewhere in the Prosecutor's Office," Cotoli frowned. He closed his eyes in thought. "You should be especially glad that you don't forge evidence now. Oracle would surely expose the truth if they heard anything about corruption coming from your part of the office. I doubt that Oracle would care about you if you weren't being a bother, but you might still want to be on your guard in case something happens to go wrong at some point. Be cautious."

"I will," I nodded. "I just wish that we could talk to somebody who was in on it all... Even if it was just for a few minutes, a little bit of information on the subject could go a long way. I doubt that we'd be lucky enough to run into anyone like that though. It would take ages to have that sort of luck."

"She got away."

We turned to see Venus approaching us, a dark look in her eyes. She had her hands on her hips and a frown on her lips. "Ms. Burns managed to escape. I don't know how she could have gotten away, but sure enough, she did it. I haven't the slightest clue where she could have gotten off to. I was chasing her along with around three bailiffs, and yet, she slipped away... I wasn't planning on hurting her or anything. I just wanted to talk to her," Venus told us. She let out a sigh. "Now, I guess that's not going to be happening. Ms. Burns likely won't be appearing again in public under that name. There's got to be some other person that she's able to hide as, so she'll be as good as gone until we can figure out who that person is. Until then, all we can really do is wait and be careful."

"You're right," Cotoli agreed. "We can't get into too much trouble unless we want to invite Oracle to come to us, which likely isn't a good idea. Even if they're chaotic good, I don't know if I'd want to see them unless the circumstances called for it. I guess you could say that I'm a bit scared of running into them."

"I can't help but feel the same," I sighed. "There's nothing we can do about it now though. We can just leave the subject be until it comes up again. After this trial, the news is going to be buzzing nonstop about who Oracle could be. I doubt that anybody will figure it out. If they've stayed hidden so far, they'll be able to keep up the act for a little bit longer until this all blows over and they're just another face in the crowd. Nobody will even recognize them."

"That makes me wonder... If Oracle really does have other names, then maybe one of us has met them before. I mean, there's no way Oracle can get away with just having a single name and face out there. I think there has to be more than one, all of them contributing towards the bigger picture of exposure. Maybe they switch out between them from time to time. There didn't seem to be much background on Ms. Burns, which leads me to believe that she's not the real identity. There's another one, and once we can figure out who that is, we'll know Oracle for real," Venus said. "I don't know how we'll be able to tell who's real and who's not though... I mean, we couldn't even tell that Ms. Burns was Oracle during that trial. It would take a lot of investigation before we come across anything."

"I doubt that they'd help us, but maybe we could see about any potential accomplices... There would have to be somebody in there to help expose the forging prosecutors... I don't know if it would work though. For now, all we can do is see what we can hear," Cassidy remarked. "We should probably be heading home. Mom is going to get worried if Venus and I aren't home soon. Yuri is probably already freaking out. I don't think she knows that we had a trial today."

"I certainly didn't tell her. Trying to wake her up in the morning is a chore, so I didn't bother saying that I was going to be down here at the courthouse. Cassidy's right though. We should get going. We can talk about this more another time," Venus suggested. "See you guys later."

Venus and Cassidy both waved before walking off together. I turned to Cotoli. "What do you think of this whole situation so far? Do you think you have any ideas as to who it might be?" I asked. "Anything would be helpful at this point."

"Why do you want to find out who Oracle is so much all of a sudden? You've never shown an interest before," Cotoli commented.

"I guess I just want to see if I can help out at all. They're doing good work but don't get anything for it. I know it sounds ridiculous, but then again, you know what Polly says about me," I told him. "She thinks I do a lot of ridiculous things."

Cotoli let out a laugh. "You're nothing compared to my sisters and you know it. Speaking of them, I should head home. Chrysalis will most certainly panic if she sees that I'm not yet home when she returns from her musical rehearsal," he said. "I'll see you around."

I waved as he disappeared from view before heading for the doors myself. I really was curious about all of this, but I couldn't help the feeling that something about all of this was going to get us all into deep trouble...

March 16

Morix Law Offices

10:00 AM

Chrysalis Starr

The room was quiet for a moment after Cotoli finished explaining what had happened a year ago. I was fiddling with the sleeve of my sweater, which was something of a nervous habit of mine. I didn't know exactly how to respond to the silence from Deirdre and Lily. Yuri had heard this story before, just with less detail. I knew a lot of it, mostly thanks to the fact that I was able to push details from Cotoli and Venus, so I was used to it. Hearing it again was a bit jarring each time, but I was fine with it. I was mostly concerned about how Deirdre and Lily were going to react now that it had come to a close.

"I don't know what to say," Lily remarked, as if to point out what was obvious about the tense silence. "That sounds like it was quite the case."

Cotoli let out a small laugh. "You could certainly say that. It was the largest case at the time, being all over the news constantly. People were more than a bit excited to finally have at least a little something about our mysterious Oracle. Since then, we haven't learned anything else aside from the information regarding Venus a month ago. It's almost ironic that we were thinking about talking to an accomplice of Oracle, not knowing that Venus was standing right there. I wish we'd known back then. Venus hid it amazingly well. None of us suspected a thing was wrong. Looking back on it, we should have seen it coming though."

"Yeah. I mean, she was an accomplice, so she was able to help Ms. Burns get away from the bailiffs and from Mr. Asasm. The bailiffs likely would have been unhappy due to her 'thieving habits', but I somehow doubt there's ever been any major theft involved. It's not like Oracle goes around stealing cars for a living. God forbid somebody expose a corrupt prosecutor for forging evidence in a case," I said sarcastically. "I wish she'd come to us though... I can't even imagine how hard it must have been to keep a huge secret like that. I bet it was weighing down on her a lot, but she still hid it for the sake of Oracle."

"What do you think would happen if the public ever got a hold of Oracle's identity?" Deirdre questioned. "You seem more knowledgeable on the subject than I could ever hope to be. You two have been investigating Oracle for roughly a year, since that case, if I recall correctly."

"If the public ever heard, one of three things would happen, if not a combination," Cotoli began. "First, reporters would swarm them, so they'd have to hide under another name. They wouldn't ever be able to go back to their old life or do anything that might make others suspicious as to who they really are. Second, the people that have been making death threats would go after them. If they're trained killers like those in Occisor, the ending would be tragic within a matter of hours. Finally, they could be arrested for their 'crimes against the legal community' and sent to prison, though it's still debatable if they're really doing a bad thing. If you ask me, revealing that there's a ring of dark dealings is a good thing, but others still find them to be nothing more than a criminal. It's all about perspective, it seems. If one of you is to ever learn who Oracle really is, please come to me about it, but also keep it hidden. We won't learn anything new if you go out and expose Oracle right off the bat. We just want to hear a bit more on the situation, not make their life a living hell for the rest of their days."

"I understand," I nodded. "Are there any other thoughts on the situation? Any other inklings regarding who Oracle might really be behind the mask?"

"I talked with my brother for a little while a month ago, back when the murder of Venus was being wrapped up. He said that he didn't know very much about the witness, Shayla Willows, and that her activities only seemed to start two years ago. He said that she was likely the Oracle of the Law in the flesh, but she had fooled us all with her performance. I must say, whoever this Oracle is, they do know how to keep their cover up," Lily said. "I can't really tell you much beside that. We don't have anything concrete that could point to who Oracle is behind the mask nor can we say conclusively that Ms. Willows has anything to do with it. For all we know, it could just be a coincidence that everything for her booted up about the same time as Oracle. I guess we'll never know."

I looked to Cotoli, my eyes wide in shock. He seemed to be just as surprised. I had heard a little bit about Venus' murder case, but I wasn't there to see it. I had been at home crying my eyes out over her death, too upset to even leave my room. Venus and I had been close for ages now, first meeting a few months before the factory murder where Cotoli's mother died, which supposedly started the Oracle project. I had considered her my best friend, but now that she was gone...

"You really think that Ms. Willows was Oracle?" Cotoli asked, snapping me out of my thoughts. "How is that possible? She didn't seem to be suspicious at all. Nothing she did at all gave off the signs of her being Oracle. What made him think that she was so strange? I didn't see anything off about her during the trial."

"He just said that she was bugging him for some reason. I guess it was his gut instincts. I'm not objecting though. Now that I know the truth, I can see about talking to her next time that I see her," Lily said. "I mean, I don't know what else to do with this sort of information. This is a huge revelation. I don't know how we could just leave it be, if you want the truth. It's amazing. Somebody who seemed to be normal is really just Oracle with a new name and face."

"I don't think that you should go after her," I frowned. "Oracle is dangerous. Even if they don't hurt people on their own, who knows what sort of other people are out there to come after you should you find out? This is risky. Anybody could get hurt if they learned the truth. Staying away from Oracle seems to be the best option. I know that I don't know you all very well yet, but I don't want anything to happen that could leave you hurt. You don't want that either. Oracle's involvement in Venus' life got her killed. She died because of this damn spy. I don't want anybody else to meet that same fate. If anybody suspects that you're even involved, you could be cut down. This isn't some simple game to play. I'm not going to have you all treating it as something that easy to pass off."

"I understand that it's risky, but there has to be something that we can do about this. Aren't you at least a little bit curious about Oracle and what else their project might entail?" Lily asked. "It might be dangerous, sure, but I don't want to let somebody who seems to be doing good things suffer this way."

"Let them suffer. For crying out loud, they get people killed. Mr. Blocker died for knowing about Oracle. Venus was murdered for being involved. Oracle doesn't just keep to themselves. Those around them are brought pain as well. You don't deserve a fate like that. You'll only get hurt. It's best if you just stay away. Leave Oracle be. Please." I was practically begging at this point for them to back off this. Didn't they understand? Even if they were new to the legal world, they had to comprehend the danger that came with all this. It was like inviting agony to their doorsteps, and yet, they still wanted to persist? What was wrong with them? This was nothing to joke about, but here we were. I couldn't believe I was having to persuade fully grown adults away from something like this.

"I guess that it is dangerous," Lily sighed. "But we'll be okay. We're stronger than you realize. Everything will be fine. I promise. Don't worry about us."

I let out a sigh. "If you say so," I muttered, though I knew it was clear that I wasn't happy to be letting this go. Cotoli shot me a sympathetic glance.

"I want to know about what got my sister killed," Yuri said firmly. "She didn't deserve to die. I need to know who brought this about, who made her suffer so much before her death. Keeping this in must have been killing her inside, and in the end... It cost Venus her life. I need to know the truth, Chrysalis."

"Alright... But if you see anything you feel is going to put you at risk, please come to me. I don't want you to suffer the way she did before her death. Can you at least promise me that?" I asked of her, my eyes downcast. "I won't try to stop you further, but... I do want to be there for you to talk to if you need it."

"I promise," Yuri nodded. "Don't worry about me. I'll find this Oracle and hear the truth about what happened between them and Venus. After that, I'll think over if I need to take any other form of action. If I think I do, I'll do something, but if not... I guess I can say that I'm carrying on Venus' legacy so that she can rest in peace. I don't want her tossing and turning in the afterlife because Oracle isn't doing what she would have wanted, you know? This is all for her. I'm sure that you of all people can appreciate that. I mean, we all know exactly how you felt about her. I won't go around saying anything, but..."

I felt my face go red with heat. "W-We're done having this discussion," I stammered. "We should probably get to work for the day anyways. We all have things to do. There's paperwork to fill out from yesterday's case and other things to finish up before we can continue this. Let's get to it before you say something that you're going to regret. How does that sound?"

"Fine with me," Yuri shrugged. "I'm looking forward to agency work after spending that time in the detention center. That place sucks."

March 16

Morix Law Offices

9:00 PM

Cotoli Morix

Once everybody had left the agency, I sat down on my bed in the back room where Chrysalis and I stayed. We had just gotten back from dinner after having been out late due to traffic issues. Chrysalis ended up plopping down on her bed and closing her eyes. She was sound asleep within a few minutes, not even bothering to change out of her daytime clothing. I didn't pester her about it. I knew that she could use the rest after all the work we had been doing today.

I picked up my cell phone and began to dial a number into it. I knew the number by heart, not even needing to go into my contacts to check it out. I pressed the call button and let it ring for a few moments. The ringing stopped, so I knew somebody was on the other side. "Hello?" I asked into the speaker.

"Cotoli!" Sora was on the other end, which I have to admit surprised me. I had called Ghastly, but she had been the one to pick up. In all fairness, I should have seen it coming. Sora and Ghastly had been living together for around a year now with their recently adoptive daughter, a young woman named Niamh Wood. If anybody besides Ghastly was going to be picking up his phone, it would be Sora. She was glued by the hip to him when they were at home due to her motherly tendencies. "You're here for Ghastly, aren't you? I mean, you called his phone, so you have to be wanting to talk to him... I can go get him if you want."

"Please do," I told her. "I need to tell him about what I did today. I think that he'll want to hear about it. We can talk about it a bit later though, if you want."

"Sounds good to me." Sora called out for Ghastly, her voice distant. Not long after, I heard the sound of footsteps in the background. "Okay, I have him."

"Thank you," I smiled. The phone was passed over. Once it had changed hands, I heard a small grunt from Ghastly followed by a yawn. He was tired, which was nothing new. He loved his sleep. "Hey, Ghastly. There's a little something that I think you should know about today. Do you have the time to talk?"

"Yeah, sure," Ghastly said. He yawned once again. "What's going on? I didn't expect to get a call from you this late. I thought you'd already be asleep."

"Not yet," I shrugged. "I needed to talk to you. Could you find somewhere isolated? I don't want your daughter to hear anything. This is best kept private."

Ghastly seemed to be able to sense the seriousness of the situation, so he went to another location. I assumed that he was hiding in the bathroom. He did that a lot when he was having an important conversation with me. It had only become a habit of his recently. When it had been just him and Sora, that sort of thing hadn't been necessary, but now that Niamh was around, there were a few things he needed to keep from her. She was only fourteen, so he didn't want to stress her out. Between being a prosecuting prodigy and going to school, she had enough on her mind already. "What's up?" Ghastly asked from the other end.

"I told all my new employees about the case from a year ago," I explained. "They wanted to know after the murder at the prison. The killer went on a tangent about being involved with last year's murder when Jackson Blocker was killed. I went on and explained it, but... I had to hide a few details, if you know what I mean. I don't want them to get too deeply involved with the situation. Chrysalis was near losing her cool afterwards when they said they wanted to investigate. I can tell that it's going to be for the best if we keep the truth about Oracle from them. I don't want them getting hurt in the process trying to look into it."

Ghastly was quiet for a moment. "I see," he said curtly. "You just wanted to warn me about that? You didn't want me to get all panicky if they started asking questions? That's just like you, worrying about everybody. You're too kind, thinking of me this way. What a sweet little lawyer. This is why we love you."

My face went red at his comment. "Yeah... I wanted to warn you about it. If they get too deep into this, I don't know how things will go. They may go south. I don't want that to happen. Keep your secrets close here. Venus has already died over it. I don't want to lose you too because of Oracle. We still have a few things to do. Getting taken down because of this situation won't do us any good. Remember, we still have to find-"

"I remember," Ghastly cut in. "It'll be fine. Thanks for calling me."

"No problem," I nodded. "I'll talk to you another time. See you around, Ghastly. Tell Sora goodnight for me. She'll hold it over my head forever if I don't tell you to say something to her after we talked earlier. Give your daughter my greetings as well, even if she doesn't know me quite as well.""

"Got it," Ghastly said. "See you."

I hung up and let out a sigh as my phone powered itself off. I had gone into this story thinking that everything would be fine, but now that it had been wrapped up... I couldn't help but think that this would result in disaster.

THE DISASTROUS TURNABOUT

END

Another case is done! Yay!

I'm really enjoying this so far. We're about a third of the way through the story (though it probably seems like half since there are six cases and this is the third one finished). The next two cases are as long as Turnabout Breakdown. From here on out, we won't have any other short cases like this. They'll only get longer and more intense from here on out. The plot will thicken, especially starting next case. I hope you're ready for that.

The next case is called Turnabout on the Waves. This next case has changed a really considerable amount when compared to the original. Not quite as much as case six, but still a lot. I definitely prefer this new version. It'll be nice and fun.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed! I'll see you guys next week for Evolution Adventure and the start of case four!

- Digital