KG-8 Incident Arc – Part One: The Birth of the Yatagarasu
An aged Judge shook his head sadly. The air in the courtroom was tense, but not because a defendant was about to be found Guilty. Rather, it was the exact opposite; this very rarely happened, but if the Prosecution did not have the means to make its case…
"… I am truly sorry, Prosecutor Faraday… but if you have no further evidence or testimony, I will be forced to announce my verdict. Under these circumstances, I cannot offer you another day to investigate."
At the Prosecutor's bench, Byrne was slouched with his fist rested on the desk, his face utterly resigned as he didn't even look up at the Judge. Only one question flitted through his mind as he stood there quietly. How could this have happened?
Tyrell Badd stood at the witness stand, leaning both of his hands on it, his jaw clenched tightly. Badd was 51, so of course had a colorful career as a Detective up until now, but this was by far one of his biggest personal failings. First he had failed Cece Yew… and now he had failed Byrne by losing that conclusive surveillance tape. That, in addition to a bloodstained card that had miraculously fallen into their lap… These two pieces of evidence would have put the final nail in Coachen's coffin, without a doubt. Thankfully, they still possessed the card...
Yet that in itself would not prove Coachen's guilt. They needed the tape to prove he had the card around the time of the murder. It had the victim's blood on it. It had the orders to murder Yew. It was even on Coachen's person when they arrested him. However, all of that amounted to nothing if figuratively he picked it up after Cece Yew's 'real murderer' dropped it.
Coachen wasn't fooling anyone related to the Police Force or the Prosecutor's Office, but without that tape, the Judge could not condemn Coachen. That might have been one of the many 'flaws' of the courts, but the Judge had no choice but to remain impartial in all cases. Badd admitted it: He screwed up. The new bullet holes in his jacket could testify to that.
"The Prosecution… cannot provide anything else, Your Honor. I rest my case." The words tasted like ash in his mouth. All of that hard work… Byrne bitterly glowered at his desk and tightened his fist in frustration. He couldn't and wouldn't blame Tyrell. He had done everything in his power to protect the evidence; they just weren't prepared for the Smuggling Ring's vicious retaliation.
Byrne marveled at the lengths that criminal scum would go to, to protect their own.
"In that case… Because the Prosecution could not provide sufficient evidence, I have no choice but to declare the defendant… Not Guilty." The Judge slammed his gavel once and stared out at the courtroom solemnly. "This court is adjourned."
Byrne and Tyrell both snapped their heads up to the gallery when they heard a woman wail. Not just them, either – the woman pretty much had the attention of everyone in the courtroom. The defendant, Manny Coachen, seemed the least affected by the unexpected display…
Byrne and Tyrell left the courthouse together half an hour later. They'd stayed behind in the lobby, neither one speaking up. What was there to be said? In that time, the victim's sister, Calisto, had approached them. She slapped Badd. Yelled at them both, anguished tears rolling down her face.
"You let my sister die, and then you allowed her killer to walk away!"
Neither Prosecutor nor Detective could offer up a defense. They took the fury she doled out, the accusations that they had utterly failed her and Cece. And in the end, Calisto had just walked away, her anger vented, but not gone. Not satisfied. Neither one of them had offered a word of apology. They hadn't offered condolences. Guilt gnawed at their core, but there was one appropriate word that summed up their situation quite nicely: Powerless. They had been powerless to protect Cece before she had given her testimony, and they had been powerless to bring her killer to justice.
How could you even possibly begin to apologize to someone you had failed so completely? Uttering the simple words, "I'm sorry," would be more like a slap in Calisto's face. Words wouldn't bring Cece back. Words without evidence wouldn't put Coachen behind bars.
So they silently suffered Calisto's fury like martyrs. It was all they could do at this point to begin to atone for their complete failure.
"Byrne…" Badd tried to find his voice as the two of them got into Badd's squad car and buckled up. "… This is all my fault… I can't even begin to…"
Byrne shook his head and cut his friend off curtly.
"You did everything in your power, Tyrell. When I heard the report, I… I was afraid that you had been wounded… or possibly even dead. If you had died at the hands of these… these monsters, I wouldn't be able to forgive myself. Don't apologize for 'failing' to protect the evidence with your life. The cost would have been too high even if you had been successful."
Tyrell's jaw clenched, but he did not try to argue… out loud, anyway. Of course he was still beating himself up. Making sure the Prosecutor had all the evidence that the investigation turned up… that was the Detective's job. It was up to the Prosecutor to present the evidence in court, but until such a time, it was the Detective's job to safeguard it.
Perhaps it would have been best to keep it in Byrne's safe back at the Prosecutor's Offices. That was the whole reason those safes were invented, after all; the tape would have been special enough to keep it there. Yet they would never know. Considering the firepower the Smuggling Ring had at its disposal, Badd was inclined to doubt that even that would have kept the tape safe. It would have just put Byrne in the Ring's crosshairs.
No, they had severely underestimated the Smuggling Ring. They had proven to be quite formidable – to the point that even the courts themselves were powerless to the lawlessness of what were essentially gangsters playing a very dangerous game.
As he drove the car, Badd shot Byrne a side glance. Byrne's face was pensive, but there was definitely a layer of determination. Like in everything else, when faced with a setback, Byrne was not inclined to just give up. … But then again, Badd could relate to that. Byrne's "burning" sense of justice was one of the great things that Badd admired about the young Prosecutor.
"You… don't intend to give up." Badd noted quietly. It wasn't a question.
"Of course not." Byrne gave his friend a shaky grin. "If the courts can't bring these bastards to justice… maybe we need to be a little unorthodox. If this trial has shown us anything, it's that there are people who cannot be brought to trial without severe repercussions. Cece lost her life to these very people. You almost lost yours."
Badd gripped the steering wheel just a little bit tighter, but he could not bring himself to argue. He had been there. He had experienced the powerlessness firsthand. It was a bitter pill to swallow… but if they were going to bring these Smugglers to justice, they would need to step out of the bounds of the law themselves. Damn the consequences.
"… Where do you suggest we start…?" Badd questioned. Byrne, knowing his friend so well, could detect the slightest hint of a conspiratorial tone to the question.
"I don't know." Byrne answered truthfully. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "But that woman… Calisto… I saw the badge on her lapel. She's an Attorney. If we're going to go after Cece's killers, we might as well see if she would be willing to lend a hand."
Badd raised a skeptical brow.
"Would she even listen to the proposal?"
Byrne could only shrug his shoulders.
"It's a risk I'm willing to take; she deserves to know about our efforts, at the very least. This whole… thing… is risky. But I will gladly risk prison to see these bastards taken down. Hell, I'll even turn myself in when this is all over and done, regardless of the results."
Badd said nothing in return… but he felt much the same way. The Smuggling Ring would answer to its crimes one way or another.
The next day, they had gotten in touch with Calisto Yew. Two weeks later, she finally agreed to help them. And soon after that, the Great Thief Yatagarasu committed 'his' very first flawless theft and became a public sensation. There was no turning back after that…
Author's Note: So I slightly changed my mind about how I would go about this fic. From now on I'll mainly be doing arcs now, to give my muse a sense of direction. If something occurs to me and it's totally unrelated to the arc, I'll publish it anyway and just make a note that it's separate from the current arc at the time.
It's just that, well… My muse has been stymied for this story for much too long, and it's about time I get to the parts I actually wanna write about. If I think of a cute childhood scene later on? I'll post it for your reading pleasure. But for now I'll get to the stuff I have actual inspiration for, even if it technically skips a year or two from Simon's adoption…
Yeah, no Simon action here, sorry guys. But he will definitely have a part to play in this arc – even if he never learns that his adoptive father is the Great Thief, his experiences in life thus far will, in my opinion, be a pretty great boon for the Faraday clan. Slightly inaccurate, this arc doesn't cover just KG-8, in case you couldn't tell already. Really, the KG-8 incident is a springboard for all the stuff that'll happen in the near future. It'll go on to cover the 'Second' KG-8 incident, which will transpire differently with Simon's presence. So look forward to that, eh?
I don't have a plan for how many chapters an arc will be, but you'll know when I end the arc. I hope to make it pretty obvious. Haha.
