Beetlejuice

Season 2: The Sleeper Saga

Episode 23: The Truth

The day of the trial was a long one. Dragging on until it about drove poor Lydia insane. Instructions to describe in detail how the event took place and to try and not leave anything open for cross examination, the lady who was the prosecuting lawyer, Susan Meilin, acted as if this was a murder trial, taking the assault seriously. Ben made sure to be there for Lydia in the audience with Bertha, Prudence and Claire. "All rise." The bailiff said to the entire courtroom. The moment the words left his mouth, everyone in the courtroom rose to their feet as the bailiff continued, "The honorable Judge Marshal presiding." As he spoke a large Samoan man in his late twenties and wearing a black judge's robe entered from a door in the back of the courtroom. He sat in a plush black chair and turned his gaze out to the room. The courtroom had a set of fancy double doors near the back from where the judge sat and directly in front of that was a small seating area for onlookers to observe. About six rows of benches on either side with a pathway located down the direct middle for witnesses and members of the trial to make their way to the front where two desks that were separated by a podium obviously for witness testimonies. A microphone located on the podium assisted the audience in hearing the testimonies. The entire room looked as if it was carved from an entire forest of light colored cedar, the white paint on the walls and gold trim only served to make the place all the more blinding. Lydia stood next to the prosecutor, Susan, to await her turn as a witness to Adrian's assault on her. She sat diligently listening to the words of the bailiff and following instructions.

Something continued to cause Ben's spine to shiver as he gazed around the courtroom to fine the source of the uneasy feeling. After the judge sat down in his chair, the bailiff announced, "You may be seated", and the remainder of the courtroom sat where they were. And thus the proceedings began. The judge spoke into his microphone and said, "Order, please. The trial of Adrian Ruitman will come to order." He then turned his gaze toward Adrian's defense lawyer and asked, "Is the defense ready?" "Defense is ready your honor." The thin graying sixty year old man stated in his cracked smoker's voice. Earlier Lydia learned that the defense layer's name was Laurence Cadrian and that he had a reputation for being a flake in cases like these. "Is the prosecution ready?" The judge asked turning over to Susan. "The prosecution is ready, your honor." She answered. "Please give us your opening statement." The judge asked. And with that, Susan proceeded toward the judge and spoke to both him and those watching from the benches.

Ben listened intently to Susan's opening statement about how Adrian had done this to not just Lydia, but harassed other girls as well, and how she was going to present proof and witness statements about the particular event. That is until another shiver was sent from his skull and down his spine. A shiver similar to the one he felt the first time Grimnak showed up from behind his projection gate. The persistence of the shiver told him that it wasn't in his head, Grimnak was somewhere nearby. He was confused about how he was able to know that the shiver was Grimnak in the first place but he wasn't willing to take any chances, so he stood up and quietly left the courtroom to investigate. As he exited the courtroom, he was confronted by a security guard who took him by the right arm. "You need to come with me. We have witnesses that state that you were involved in a recent robbery." He stated flatly. "What?!" Ben blurted out in shock as the guard took him away somewhere that he could keep him in custody.

As Claire, Bertha and Prudence listened to the defense attorney's opening statement they were surprised when they were suddenly grabbed by the arm and escorted out by three other security guards and escorted out of the courtroom with claims to have ties to a robbery. Once they were completely out of the room, the entire courtroom stood still as statues as if time itself had stopped. "What do you think of my little trap?" Lydia could hear a familiar and unwelcome voice come from behind the judge. "Lydia, who is that, and what is going on?" Lydia was startled when she heard Susan speak to her. "What, why aren't you effected by his spell?" Lydia spouted in slight confusion. Susan, herself was even more confused but was unable to ask any questions before Grimnak piped in, "Yes that is an interesting question. How are you unaffected by my control spell?" Susan was beginning to get flustered at this strange turn of events and never in her life had she believed in magic or spiritual phenomena. ""What are you talking about? There is no such thing as 'magic' or..." Her sentence was cut off as she gazed at Lydia who looked to have a red poncho phase in and out of existence. "What the hell is that?" she asked in a mild panic, pointing to Lydia's clothes. Lydia looked down at herself until she found what Susan was pointing at. The spider silk phased in and out once again before her eyes. "The spider silk. That's what's protecting us. So how come you had to escort Beetlejuice and the others out of the courtroom?" Lydia began to question Grimnak . "Beetle-who? Who is this guy?" Susan asked panicking more and more with every moment that passed by. "His name is Grimnak and he's the guy who's going to destroy you for making me look bad." Lydia heard Adrian's voice say from the defense stand. "He came to me yesterday with a proposition. I team up with him and he gets rid of you and your sorry friends for good." He grinned at them with malicious intent. "Who knew that there were more worlds out there?"

Suddenly, his eyes glossed over and he simply stood where he was in place like all of the others. "Foolish boy. Why would I let a mortal like you become my equal? I only needed you to lead me to the girl." He then turned his gaze back to Lydia and spoke, "However, I never imagined that you would be carrying the spider silk. I've only ever seen you in the outer world where it doesn't often reveal itself unless your life is in danger." Lydia was slightly taken back with his statement. "How do you know so much about the spider silk?" She asked in her shock. Grimnak giggled to himself maliciously from her question and soon began belting out laughing. "I was there when its creator vanished off of the face of the Neitherworld." He then settled the conversation by saying, "but enough about me, the spider silk doesn't protect you from harm unless your life would be in mortal danger from its immediate effect. So I can take you within an inch of your life and let nature do the rest."

Ben found himself being escorted by a guard to a lobby area where he was watched not only by other guards but by staff members, witnesses for other cases and even by convicted felons fresh out of their trials, all under mind control. He was about to morph until he noticed Claire, Bertha and Prudence being brought in at gun point by three other guards. "Mr. Beetlejuice, I wouldn't even dream of trying anything funny until the master comes out and gives us further orders." The guard escorting Ben said to him in a monotone voice.

Lydia ducked and dodged as Grimnak threw various singular spells at her. She kept Susan as close to her as possible, continuing to dodge and weave from bench to bench until Grimnak began laughing aloud. "Do you actually believe that I would let myself be fooled by a simple tactic as luring my fire to the doors?" He belted out. Lydia suddenly found that he could move stealthily as he seemingly appeared out of nowhere in front of her and grabbed her by the collar and tossed her toward the judge's desk. She hurled through the air and crashed into the wooden furnishings stopping her flight short. Susan hurried to keep up with Lydia but the moment that the seventeen year old girl flew out of arm's length, Susan fell under Grimnak's mind control spell and simply stopped running. Winded and struggling to rise to her feet, Lydia did the only thing to come to mind, "Beetlejuice" She called. "Your guardian can't help you now. If he so much as moves my mind controlled minions blow your friend's heads off." Grimnak shouted to her with a sickening grin. "She never faltered in her plan, "Beetlejuice" "I already told you, he can't help you now! Surrender to your destruction!" Grimnak shouted back to her. With sorrow and regret weighing her heart down, Lydia screamed the last of her guardian's name aloud tears of apology streaming down her cheeks, "BEETLEJUICE!" And with the last syllable escaping her lips, Lydia vanished to the Neitherworld by herself.

She arrived in one of the rooms of the Road House which was still being refurbished by Sierra and dropped to her knees thinking that she had just killed all three of her friends. Tears of apology turned to tears of guilt as she screamed at the top of her lungs. Images of her mother flew through her head at light speed as she continued screaming, thoughts turning back to her and asking, 'what would you do in this situation?' She soon found herself yearning for her presence until she heard a knock at one of the doors with a familiar voice saying, "Hello, who's there? We're not quite open yet, but I'm sure that I can fit you in a week or so." It was Sierra, the southern belle Atlantian princess that Beetlejuice introduced her to from the diner when she first arrived in the Neitherworld. Lydia instantly ran over to the apartment door, unlocked it, threw the door open and threw herself into Sierra's bosom to release her tears. "Lydia!? Well, I haven't seen y'all in months. What's wrong there, sugar?" The only thing Lydia could do was bawl her eyes out and say, "Their dead, Sierra! I killed them. My friends are dead!" Taken back by Lydia's words Sierra shot her eyes open but remembered the kind of person she knew Lydia to be. "Simmer down there sugar." She said trying to calm the poor goth girl down. Once Lydia calmed down enough to speak to, Sierra looked her in the eyes and said, "Now, tell me what happened."

Lydia told her story to her Atlantian friend beginning from the opening of the trial and even filling in the blanks of who Grimnak was and what Merlin told them during her birthday. "So how come the others weren't taken over by his so-called spell?" Sierra asked offhand. "Maybe the spider silk protected them. It appeared briefly in the outer world to protect me." Lydia guessed. "No, then your little friend would have been protected long after she left yer side when y'all were thrown across the room. Oh if Aldar were here, he's have an answer." Sierra said those words and closed her eyes thinking of her lover who was sent to the underworld in battle against his sister Naria. "Either way, ah don't think that yer friends have been killed or they would have come here by now with the wounds that killed em. And ol BJ won't let that happen ta them anyway. Too bad ya can't jus warp back, take their hands and warp back here for a rescue. Or simply wait it out." A light bulb went on in Lydia's head when Sierra finished her sentence, "That's right, Grimnak only has about a half of an hour to use his gates. And he has to stay within eyesight of it or the doppelganger get's destroyed." Her confidence renewed, Lydia looked at the Atlantian princess and said, "That' means that Grimnak can't leave the room." She then thought of a problem, her friends, if not killed already, were being held at gunpoint and could be killed if she made a wrong move and Bertha was the best strategist and weighting him out seemed too risky, even if she estimated about twenty minutes till the projection gate automatically closed.

Back in the courthouse Ben had morphed back into Beetlejuice and gathered the girls around to discuss what options they had. "We need to see if Lydia is still alright in there." Claire said clearly worried. "She's fine, Claire. If she died I wouldn't exist anymore and I haven't felt too much pain from her ever since I stopped feeling her presence." Beetlejuice answered. "Maybe that means that she made it back to the Neitherworld." Bertha added. It made logical sense to the rest of the group and they all agreed that a tactical retreat was not abandonment. But now it left them with their own problem. "How about your powers of literal translation?" Prudence asked. "No good. What would I say to get us to out of here anyway? It needs to be a figure of speech in order to work." Beetlejuice responded until Claire whispered something in his ear. His eyes widened and he flatly responded, "You've gotta be kidding me." She slowly shook her head to tell him that she wasn't and he sighed and said, "Hang onto me everyone." Claire, Bertha and Prudence all grabbed hold of his coat and he then closed his eyes, clicked his heels together and said, "There's no place like home." In that instance they all vanished and found themselves in their own beds similar to how Dorothy found herself in her bed at the end of "The Wizard of OZ".

In the Neitherworld, Lydia felt as if she was running out of time with the thinking and planning and decided to move onto her house to find out what to do. "Although I know I should be weary, still I venture someplace scary. Ghostly hauntings, I turn loose Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice." She chanted and soon found herself in the stone room that served as a nexus between her closet and the Neitherworld. Remembering that her parents were among those that were taken by Grimnak's spell, Lydia made her way through her house along with Sierra freely. Lydia opened the front door to her house and was startled when she saw Beetlejuice standing there on the other side. "Ah." She shrieked while he simply chuckled. "Check this out Babes, I can transport myself anywhere by concentrating on the memory of it and picturing myself there." Gripping her heart to attempt it from beating itself right out of her chest, Lydia asked her guardian ghost, "But what about the others?" "I can only assume that they made it back to their respective houses as well. We used my power over literal translation to escape." Beetlejuice answered her. Lydia took two deep breaths and barged past Beetlejuice to attempt to hurry back to the courthouse. "Hey where are you going?" He asked her as Sierra followed Lydia. "To make sure my parents are alright." Lydia huffed with determination adding haste to her step.

She was soon stopped by a mob of town's folk led by Delia and Charles. "He has the whole town under his mind control." Sierra exclaimed, stating the obvious. Slightly panicking and nervous about having to possibly fight her parents, Lydia retorted, "I noticed, Sierra" through her teeth. "Lydia, come with us. Master Grimnak needs to see you and your friends." Delia said in a monotone voice as the mob advanced on the three of them. Sierra placed herself in between the mob and her friends with and arrow drawn on her bow. "No" Lydia pleaded with her friend, "Don't shoot them, they're living people. We need to take out the source." Beetlejuice then thought fast and grabbed both of their arms and shouted, "I'm taking you two ta court." The trio vanished from the mob's sight and reappeared in the courtroom in front of Grimnak. "Oh, good. I was running out of time." He stated and then chuckled. "It doesn't matter anyway. As long as my doppelganger isn't destroyed, I can utilize the same space over and over, creating as many projection gates as I need to get the job done." He then focused his gaze on Lydia and said, "Now where were we?"

Beetlejuice stomped his right foot to place himself in front of Lydia and said, "Not until you get past me, bub." His hands then lit ablaze as he stated, "And I'm all fired up!" Grimnak simply shook the frst finger of his right hand at the guardian ghost and tisked him, "I wouldn't do anything rash, unless you don't mind killing living humans that might happen to get in the line of fire. Sins in life may be forgiven upon death, but there is no redemption for a lost soul to take the life of a living being. That was what the sand worms were for." His glare gaining malice by the minute. Beetlejuice looked around the courtroom and noticed that there were seven people alive in the courtroom, including Adrian, the judge, and Susan, all placed exactly where they were the moment Grimnak cast his spell.

As a last ditch effort, Lydia instinctively ran for Susan to at least try and get her out of the battle zone, but Grimnak shot a kind of impact force spell from his left palm and struck her in the stomach and sending her sprawling into the courtroom doors. Beetlejuice, feeling both impacts felt himself cornered until Sierra pulled her arrow back on the string. Grimnak hurried to place himself behind the judge and use him as a safety shield. "Go ahead and try you sick Atlantian scum. Your people deserved to die out when they..." Sierra never allowed him to finish his sentence. There was a window of opportunity as he lifted his head above the judge's and that was the moment she fired the arrow. A path straight and true, the arrow struck Grimnak in the forehead and he found himself dumbfounded. The doppelganger then burst into what looked like sand and everyone that was affected by his spell collapsed to the ground unconscious. "You could have killed the judge." Lydia exclaimed. Sierra looked at the girl with a cocky and confident look and told her, "He gave me enough space for error. I practice for at least two hours each morning." "Please try not to do that again." Lydia pleaded. She then remembered a certain part of Grimnak's rant, "What happens to a lost soul if they murder a living soul?" Sierra looked down at the floor of the courtroom and solemnly answered with longing in her voice, "Immediate sentence to the Underworld. Where I'll be with him." Suddenly, Sierra felt Lydia's right hand and palm connect to her left cheek. She reeled back but kept her balance and then placed her left hand on the sore spot on the cheek. "Is that what you were shooting for? You're going to give up everything to be trapped in the Underworld with no guarantee that you would even be told whether or not he is around?" Lydia held a definite focus and determination in her eyes. "I had depression when I was young and I used to cut my wrists, but I was once told that life is more precious than anything and a friend who would rather you kill yourself in despair than live your life in real joy and happiness is no friend at all. The coward's way never leads to real happiness. Ever since I left Oregon, I've never even gave killing myself a thought. 'No matter how far I fall, there is always the opportunity to climb back up' was how he said it. He also said that every step was worth the smiles, but then again he said a lot of other corny, yet true things." Tears were now beginning to stream down Sierra's face as she began crying out her sadness that she kept back since after the battle.

The gang took time to send Sierra back to the Neitherworld and to make sure that nobody saw her. Apparently those who were affected by Grimnak's spell couldn't remember anything since they awoke that morning. The remainder of the day, the trial went without another hitch and now Lydia knew that there was no more threat to the courthouse because of The Black Mage's rant about how he couldn't utilize the same space if his doppelganger was destroyed before time ran out. She was, however still worried about her Atlantian friend. Knowing firsthand the things depression could cause a person to do and Sierra with her finding love in a soldier that faded away in her arms. She could only imagine what something like that does to a person. She was in such deep thought that she didn't even notice Ben walk up behind her after the trial, "So," he began to say when she nearly jumped out of her shoes from being startled. "Ah!" She gasped, "Are you trying to give me a heart attack?" She snapped at him. "Sorry Lyds. I just wanted to know who told you all of those corny things back there." Lydia smiled at some of the memories she had while at school with this guy. "A soldier that I met in Oregon. At least, he's a soldier now. I hope that he's still alive." "Lydia" Delia squeaked. "It's time to go back home. Does Ben need a ride?" Lydia looked back to her friend and he simply smiled back. "Yah, sure mam." She called back to Delia. "You know you can call me 'mom' right?" Delia tried to make her point clear to Lydia. "Not, yet." Lydia kindly responded, "But you're getting closer."

End of Season 2 Episode 3