Hello, little creatures. Here is a chapter to whet your appetite.

I apologize for the lack of updates. I have a busy life. And this chapter is disheveled so I apologize...

Deriding your pet ferret,
Kelsey

CHAPTER 47: GEIST

Within a day, the entire world population (at least those within five feet of a television, computer, or cell phone screen) had learned two names, names that might have gone unnoticed had they been of someone who, say, flipped burgers or bagged groceries, or babysat unruly children (or even well-behaved ones!). But not even apocalyptic floods could sway the masses from wanting to know: Why had Edward Chancey II and Laura Haris tried to drown the world?

Staring at the wall clock, Professor Layton sipped grimly from his tea cup. Too much time had passed and the liquid had lost its warmth (yet had lost its flavor long before that, if it ever existed). Clock hands had never been more infuriating than they were presently.

'Two hours…'

Luke peered into the sitting room, knowing what he'd find. The Professor had made the room his base, his control center. He hardly ever retired to his sleeping area or to the little room where they ate meals (if you could call them that; the food any of them prepared was barely edible, and much less palatable or visually appealing). The man in the top hat simply sat in the musty recliner and mused, contemplated, and muttered things under his breath. The young apprentice found the man as of late to be more of a bitter old codger than the calm and wise professor he once knew.

"Professor…" the boy whispered, pointlessly. The man had hardly responded to him for the past week, why would he be conversational now? "Do you think—"

"I'm forbidden to vouch for her, so I refuse to attend." His lips almost didn't move, as if he were practicing a ventriloquist stunt. Another sip ('Bland,' he mentally spat) and he removed the hat. "I've explained this before, Luke."

"But someone has to support her! Laura, she—"

"She will be fine…"

"How will she be?!" Luke sputtered, anger rising. His face flushed carnation. "You said yourself it's beyond hope and that she'll be sentenced in some way! She at least would want her friends around!"

Layton ran his fingers through his mussed up hair. "Did I say that…? And no, frankly, I don't think she would like an audience like that."

Frustration peaking, Luke's face looked like a puffed up strawberry. "So you're letting her drag through the trial on her own. What kind of a gentleman is that?"

Luke's words were draining, and the living room somehow felt emptier than it already was. 'Well…that is the truth, I suppose…' the Professor sighed to himself. 'But what else should I do… And this place is not helping my mood any…'

They'd been living in makeshift apartment housing for weeks, the flood having stolen life as anyone knew it prior to the tsunami ravaging much of Britain. What started as living out of cramped tents slowly merged into sharing slapped together "living stadiums", large covered pavilions that at least had thin walls and doors for privacy. The government, paired with emergency aid from other nations, eventually pieced together sloppy ghetto-like apartment complexes—weary shadows of the city's former living quarters—until development had a chance to boom and attempt to replace the city's buildings. Not all was destroyed, but most residential areas required heavy renovation, or at least a lot of manpower to help clear debris from property (not to mention the cleaning of moldy floors and salt-painted walls before any place was sanitary enough to reside).

So the room where the Professor now sat (apart from his assistant's vitriol beginning to boil over) was disgustingly empty.

"What kind of a gentleman is that?" he had heard the boy fume.

And then Luke stormed off.

As soon as Laura had woken in the hospital, media cockroaches swarmed the location in (futile) hopes of addressing Britain's current plight. Doctors instead had to act as a sacrificial defense, as they several times—even bodily—had to ward off the press in order to secure the girl's health and well being. Laura, of course, was too weak to handle anything on her own, and was at the mercy of everyone to remain in one living, breathing piece.

Now, months into the investigation of Petrolite and its true agenda, and mere hours away from a shoddy trial, Laura sat in an annex to a banged up courtroom (dilapidation courtesy of the flood). She sported a bright orange prison suit and a tight set of hand cuffs that indented her wrists. A surly guard stood just outside of the washed out wooden door. Swirled salt had left several thick marks on the door and walls and Laura had outlined every single one with her roving eyes. Of course, it wasn't taking her mind off of things as she had hoped.

The whole investigative process was conducted without any of the usual, proper protocol, as it wasn't often that someone had made the world his (or her) target for revenge. Was there any sort of rule set that any one nation was to follow for the prosecution of a terrorist whose enemy was the entire world? Edward and Laura both were immediately taken into police custody after the slightest accusation had arisen concerning their involvement in the world's annihilation. The police weren't taking any chances. Questions were asked later; innocence would be proven much later.

With their guilt preceding them, Edward and Laura had been locked up and separately interrogated by police, world leaders, anyone who could potentially have a say in their just punishment. But Laura didn't know anything that Edward had done or said after he had left the drill. The last thing she'd heard from him was his crackled voice from the loudspeaker down in the drill chamber's break room. He could be running around free for all she knew, having fully placed the blame on her. Perhaps his money and smooth talking still worked, even though all the facts would have to be put in the light at some point…

She sighed heavily. The soft tinkle of the cuffs' chain was a welcome sound to break the deafening silence. Her mind had been a hurricane of emotion, memory, and projections for the future, and any distraction was a good thing.

It was all grim. It was all heavy. It was all blasphemous and rotten and depressing. Her only contact with human beings had been with authority figures demanding answers, and they didn't like hers. No welcoming faces, no kind words. She'd already been judged and sentenced, before her trial. So what was the point of drawing it out any longer?

'Just lock me away already, and get it over with,' she cried silently.

She vaguely remembered waking to a dark hospital room and watching a blurry Professor Layton mumbling some things, and that served as a happy point during all of the cacophony…but… Reality and dreams were slowly becoming a slurred mess.

'Was that a dream…?' Then there was a sudden rap on the door. 'Is this a dream? Oh dear, I think I've started inventing more favorable alternate realities…'

"Laura Haris." A statement, and a petulant one at that. "You're one lucky girl. Trial is starting on time."

Void of emotion, the bailiff led Laura out of the room, the girl attempting a taut grimace as a last effort to protect the little pride she had left.

The Wurstplatz Center of Law at Gressenheller University formerly stood proud and tall, its ivy covered walls and Gothic arches sighing with antiquity. Now the ivy was missing (although a few strangled braids hung miserably from the highest points) and the arches were covered in a salty film. It was a sad shadow of itself, but it would soon serve as the platform for the trial of the century, as recent events would have it. Inside was an actual courtroom, not merely used for mock trials for young lawyers in training, but for actual civic and criminal trials. It was decided unanimously by figures of authority that the old courtroom would serve as the setting for the trials of Edward Chancey and Laura Haris. However, it wasn't as if there were many choices as to the 'where' of the judgments. Proper housing for a trial wasn't exactly easy to come by…

Inside the room with vaulted ceiling were several long, dark, wooden pews. It had the sacred heaviness of a church. The seats were already filled, and dozens of people stood along the room's sides, in the back, and out the door, hoping to squeeze inside in the off chance that someone else would became bored and leave.

A man at the end of a pew scratched his bristled chin, smoothed out his burgundy suit pants, then returned to his chin.

"I would imagine this trial won't reveal the whole story, eh, boy?" he said in a low voice. To the man's right sat a golden haired boy with a round, pixie-like face. He gazed around the room, up to the ceiling, along the flying buttresses, and back down to his fingers tapping the seat.

"Uh, I suppose not," the child sighed. His voice was more mature than his face gave him credit for. "But the balance… The balance is off."

One stern look from the man and the child ceased his whining. "Hush. Time and space are my playing cards. I might not appear to be winning, but…"

The boy turned away from the man's twisted smile and looked on towards the judge's chair up on the elevated bench. "Hmm, yes. Classic poker face."

Then, amidst a flurry of hissing and smothered whispering, Edward Chancey, shackled and sloppy, was led into the room and to a small table next to the bench. Many in the crowd began to chatter, which only intensified when Laura Haris was brought in right behind her former employer. She was sat down at a table directly across from Edward, and tried to divert her attention to anything, anyone, anywhere to avoid his smug gaze.

'We're being tried together…? Is this even a legitimate trial?' she wondered, and her heart sank suddenly.

At that moment, the two main entrance doors slammed open and a man of great height (and girth) marched straight to the judge's seat and stood in front of it. The talk died down slightly, then ceased immediately after the giant of a man scanned the congregation briefly like an overgrown owl, grunted, pulled out a gavel, and slammed it against the sounding block.

"I will make it clear now that there will be complete order as I preside over this mockery of a trial," he boomed, his beard hairs bristling, "and it will proceed as I personally see fit. Any outbursts, oppositions, insults, and general tomfoolery will be promptly handled with appropriate force, and without warning. Do I make myself clear?"

No one moved. The statement was perfectly clear.

So was the verdict. Laura simply stared at a corner of the table, tears forming in her eyes as she felt her throat clench, justice's hold on her life gripping even tighter.

The keys jangled, then fell silent. He walked quickly, then paced. To and fro, to and fro.

Jingle jangle. Silence. Repeat. Perhaps a sigh, perhaps a grunt.

"What do I do?"

Layton sat down heavily in the otherwise quiet apartment, his car keys giving one final chime from within his trousers' pocket. Removing his hat, he stared at his most prized accessory as he turned it slowly in his hands. Its giver was most likely getting chewed up in court.

"Why is this so difficult to get over?" he grumbled miserably.

He had lost more than he liked to admit on the day they demolished Edward's plans. Although he had "regained" Laura (as he initially believed her to be dead, after she shoved him in the elevator to ascend alone), he still had lost parts of himself. His composure, his gentle conduct, his control… The way he had murderously manhandled Edward before the police intervened startled him greatly; the boiling surge of retribution was cause for alarm. Not only was it foreign, but it demonstrated a lack of control that he vowed to never lose…

He felt before that he was fighting a battle, albeit losing. Currently, any semblance of winning was most definitely slipping through his fingers.

Now, when Laura was finally being tried for her deeds, everything was coursing back into his mind. Their relationship, her choices during those ten years, the reasoning at the heart of those choices, all that he had done to forget…

Whether she was really responsible for any of the dastardly deeds was not the issue for him. He knew she had physically done things that placed her in the law's clutches. But for him, it was more about "How culpable is she, really?"

Sighing, he walked to Luke's bedroom. The boy had an uncanny ability to make him feel calm, and perhaps talking with him would help clear his mind…

'The blind faith and innocence of a child…is a remedy oft ignored…' he mused.

He knocked. "Luke? Luke, I'm sorry I upset you earlier… Can I come in?"

There was no sound.

'He must have fallen asleep…'

He entered, but after a thorough search of the place, it was obvious the boy had left the apartment through the window. It wasn't difficult, given the fact the windows were shoddily constructed, and they were on the first floor… Luke had simply undone the primitive lock and tumbled out. The window was still open, and the breeze was a welcome feeling against the Professor's warm face.

But he couldn't be angry for long. After all, it was easy for the boy to make the correct decision. And it was even easier now for the Professor to see his own error.

"Ah, my boy, how us adults get caught up in the tiniest, most trivial emotions…"

With lightning speed he started up the car and barreled out of the drive. It wasn't long before he realized the road circuit was still terribly cluttered and debris-logged. In an empty parking lot of what used to be a super market, he abandoned the Laytonmobile and took off on foot. After a few blocks, he remembered that his sloth had rendered him completely useless for any physical tasks, and he stopped a moment to catch his breath.

"Professor?"

It was Luke who had spoken, a meekly smiling Flora standing beside him. Professor Layton smiled through his heavy breathing.

"You two! …I thought you'd already arrived…"

"We left a while ago, but…it's farther than we thought," Luke explained shyly. Flora simply nodded. "Are you…going to make us go back?"

"No." He reached out and hugged them both. "We're off to do what we should have done in the first place."

"You mean…?"

He led the way without another word, knowing the route like the back of his hat. It was a path he'd often walked in his many years at the University. The building they now approached was usually a beautiful one. It wasn't the same now, but… the law school was still the law school. And its exterior didn't matter a damn.

They ascended the stone steps quickly, the children now huffing after their mentor. And without any cue, Layton grasped the bronze door handles with determined hands and pulled with a force that surprised even him. The doors slammed into the walls with the sound of a thunder crack.

"I apologize for my truancy," he stated loudly, his voice clearly echoing around the vast chamber, "but I believe I could be of service to one of the accused…"

'For that's what a gentleman does…' came the words of assurance.

END.