Things get cRaZy in here folks. You're all going to be like, 'someone stop him!' and 'WTF is he doing?' and such. Ah, it'll be a fun time…

I've been thinking about it and I hope to spend three chapters on the courtroom drama (I hope). This chapter doesn't count. At the most it'll be five but I'm aiming for three. But there's going to be one or two more chapters before then. Gawd I feel like this story is going SO slow even though that's how I planned it to be. Then there's that big unearthly chunk I plan for the middle of the story. In other words, this story is right on track. :)

Lastly, I messed up. I really did. I said last chapter that TJ was 13 and he is. However that would mean that he should be in the seventh or eighth grade and he's not. He's still in the sixth. So for that little mistake I have to improvise. For this story let's just say that the middle school was incredibly overcrowded so they added an extension of that middle school to the elementary school that goes up to the eighth grade and the gang is in….let's say eighth grade. You all can imagine it to be seventh if you'd like. I just want to be accurate. It's kinda how my old school was set up with the grades running through Kindergarten to eighth grade. Problem solved. :)

The first part here is kind of boring 'cause court proceedings are boring but pull through! It gets better! And Prickly's a hero so there's that to look forward to.

Read on!

After having to be taken in by the police for interrogation, and learning of the charges being pressed against him, TJ caught on that he wasn't going to have much time for himself for a while. The trial might take god know how long, and he wasn't one for sitting down in courtroom, watching people talk about a bunch of stuff he didn't care about all day. This belief was reassured the following Monday when the preliminary hearing was scheduled. Although most of the conversation would be between his lawyer, Mr. Wilson, the lawyer on the side that wanted to prosecute him, and his parents, he was required to come along as well because he was the one being charged.

He didn't understand why he had to come along. He didn't care about what went on between the two sides and he wanted to do other things. Having to go to the trial was bad enough but having to endure what went on behind the scene was too much. Not only that, but he had to wear a suit and comb his hair in order to look decent in front of the judge. Now he was waiting in a room at the courthouse, sitting at a long table with himself, his lawyer, and parents on one side and a few representatives for the School Board and their lawyer on the other. To lessen the frustration he felt for being there, TJ brought a handheld game. Normally his parents would've taken it away from him, but since it was keeping him quiet and from doing anything that could be destructive they let him have it.

The tension in the room was alleviated when the door opened and the judge came in. She sat at the head of the table gaining the attention of everyone in the room. From what TJ gathered in the last few days her name was Judge Caffery.

"Alright," Judge Caffery said starting the conversation. "Who is charging what against whom?"

"We are the one's pressing charges," Said the lawyer on the opposite side of the table. "For arson against the child sitting across of us."

"Him?" The judge asked pointing to TJ. "You're saying that this child sitting right here set the fire?"

"That's right."

"Okay," Judge Caffery said with a sigh. "What do you want to do and how much do you have to back it up, Ms. Gabor?"

"We were hoping to charge him as an adult—"

"An adult? Who has the police report?" Both lawyer on each side handed her the report. After taking both of them the judge carefully read the reports, bringing back the silence that was in the room before. One side hoped that they would be able to do what they wanted with the trial, and the other side hoped for the opposite. "It can't be done. For him to be tried as an adult someone would have to have died in the fire. No one died. It even said in the news yesterday that those who were burned left the hospital the same day with first and second degree burns. Now, what evident do you have?"

"We managed to find the child record which shows his extensive history of causing mayhem at the school," Said Ms. Gabor, sitting a large thick yellow folder on the table. "We are able to get testimonials of the students who go to the same school as him, including some of his friends—"

"That's all fine and dandy," The judge said interrupting her. "But where's the evidence? The prosecution needs evidence, Ms. Gabor."

"Right. The investigators found a few things where the fire started that belongs to the child," She said. "When they took him in for questioning he even said that they belonged to him. They found his backpack, a notebook, and a few other items that are his. Those were the only things found around the area where the fire started." The judge sighed before speaking again.

"If you were to charge him as an adult you wouldn't have a case," Judge Caffery told the two sides. "But since you can only charge him as a juvenile, this is enough evidence. Is there anything else you folks want to add?"

"We would like to request that the child be taken in for a court mandated psychiatric evaluation before the trial takes place," Said Ms. Gabor.

"Request granted. You all have to go down stairs and go into room 365 to set up an appointment. You can either bring him I or have one of the more 'active' psychiatrist follow him around throughout the day. Now, I'm not the judge you all are going to present your case in front of. Keep in mind the judge you're going in front of is very strict. The case is scheduled Monday two weeks from now. If that's all then this meeting is dismissed."

~*~IN THE CAR~*~

'I gotta deal with this bullshit for two more weeks? What the hell is wrong with everybody?' instead of his problems ending once the preliminary hearing was over, TJ found that it was only beginning. Not only were the courts going through with the case but for the next two weeks he had to be followed around by some psychologist. It was bad enough he had to take time out of his day and get dressed up to go to the meeting but he couldn't get any time alone until the case, and even then he had to be in some courtroom filled with a bunch of people who wanted to see him put behind bars.

Out of anger he punched the back door of the car. He punched it again and again, stopping only to trade those punches for kicks. The courthouse was twenty minutes away from home, and for each of those twenty minutes he planned to let his parents know just how angry he was.

While TJ deal with the anger he felt the best way he knew how, his parents were at a loss at what to do. His lawyer had asked them to make sure that he stayed out of trouble to help their side win the case. But before they even made it out to their car they knew it was going to be an impossible task. Their son hadn't listen to a word they had said for the last eighteen months, how were they going to get him to listen all of a sudden for two weeks? Discipline had no effect on his behavior; in fact, it seemed to make things worse. They were hoping that he knew and understood the seriousness of the situation and that he would calm down on his own from that knowledge; however that didn't appear to be working at all. While they waited to create an arrangement with the psychologist, they started to wonder if there was a greater problem at hand that they couldn't handle. Maybe there was something going on in their son's head that they didn't know about and it was making him act this way. Whatever the reason was for his behavior, they hoped that this would give them some insight.

As they arrived home TJ gave one last punch to the car door, only stopping his assault on the vehicle due to his hand starting to hurt. Once the car stopped in the driveway he got out and sat on the curb of the sidewalk, seething with anger at the situation. All he wanted was a moment of peace but that didn't look like that was going to happen. The psychologist was going to start following him around tomorrow until the trial, limiting the time he had to himself. All of this upset him, and now he had to deal with the urge he had to hit something. It didn't really matter what he hit was, he just didn't want it to hurt. It had to be something he felt good hitting.

"Hey look, it's the fire starter." Looking up from his seat on the ground, TJ saw a smug looking Gordy standing in front of him. "What's the big idea, Detweiler? You trying to kill us?" This was it. This was what he needed to relieve the tension he was feeling. With a crooked smile on his face he stood up and faced the kid in front of him. Before Gordy had a chance to ask TJ what he was doing, he found himself on the ground with a pain in his jaw. Again, he wasn't able to react because within seconds TJ was on top of him sending punch after punch to his face. This action caught the attention of people passing by. The commotion coming from outside brought TJ parents outside and once they saw what their son was doing they pulled him off the battered boy below him. As Gordy ran for his life, Mr. Detweiler held his son back from running after him. Even though he was being held back, TJ continued to try and pull away. Once he was able to get free he ran down the street in the opposite direction that Gordy ran down.

While his parents yelled and shouted for him to come back, TJ continued to run down the street. He could clearly hear his parents calling after him, but at the same time he couldn't. The words were reaching his ears and he knew what they were saying, but they didn't stay in his head so to speak. It was as if what they were saying literally went in one ear and out the other. It would've been a strange feeling if it had never happened before, but it had and the feeling was normal.

He didn't understand that, and he also didn't understand why he was beating the crap out of Gus. He had found him as well as the rest of his former friends and starting throwing punches at the smaller boy. After a few fast and hard punches he was drawing blood. The others pulled him off and were yelling at him for doing what he did. This time he saw their mouths moving and making words but couldn't hear them at all. All he could hear was the sound of his own racing heartbeat in his ears. Not only has his heart beating a mile a minute, but his thoughts were as well. He couldn't keep up with his own thoughts, if that was possible to even understand. Before he knew it he was running down the street to find someone else to hit and beat up, still keeping the crooked smile on his face.

After pummeling what seemed to be five other boys from his class, TJ was still going on and wasn't losing any steam. He was currently punching another kid from his class on someone's lawn. Whoever he was hitting was trying to throw a few punches to defend himself, but TJ didn't feel them, not even the ones that were to his face. In another attempt at defending himself the boy under him screamed for help and that screaming got the attention of the owner of the house whose lawn the fight was taking place on.

"Detweiler, what are you doing?" Principal Prickly said coming outside of his house and seeing what was going on. Instead of responding to his question, TJ continued to throw punches. Seeing that trying to talk him to stop hitting the student on the ground was not going to work, the principal pulled TJ off the now black eyed boy allowing him to run away and escape. Like before TJ tried to pull out of his grasp to keep running, but unlike before it wasn't easy to break free. He could hear his principal telling him to calm down, but paid no mind to it has he struggled against him. Only the growing amount of exhaustion made him slow down and catch him breath, periodically making attempts to pull away as he grew tired. Suddenly everything because blurry, dark, and started to fade way. Closing his eyes he was forced into a reluctant sleep.

When the struggling finally stopped, Prickly looked at the boy he was holding back to find that he was asleep. Not questioning how TJ could even fall asleep so quickly (because after this he didn't want to think about what just happened) he carried him inside the house, laid him on the couch in the living room, and went to go call his parents.

~*~LATER~*~

The sound of people talking greeted TJ as he began to wake up. At first he thought that he was in his room but looking around dismissed that idea. Sitting up he listened to the voices that were coming from another room and recognized the voices that were talking: both of his parents and Principal Prickly. Coping with the massive headache he had he walked close enough to the doorway see what was going on. Unfortunately his parent saw him as he walked over and wasted no time going over and talking to him about what he had done. That, along with the headache caused TJ to not say anything until they brought something up.

"What fighting?" He asked his parents. "I didn't fight anyone."

"Yes you did! You fought someone in front of our house, and then you ran down the street and fought more people," His father told him. "You ended up fighting in front of your principal's house and that's how you ended up here!"

"Did I do that, Principal Prickly?" TJ asked.

"Yeah, you did," The principal Said. "There's a big pothole in my front yard from the fight. I was planning on relaxing today but now I have to think about fixing that."

"I don't remember doing that," He mumbled. "Sorry about that, but I don't remember. Can we go home now? I have a headache…" After his parents said thank you to his Principal for not calling the police on their son, Mr. and Mrs. Detweiler took their son home, but with something that stood out in their minds: for a few minutes their son behaved. It was only for a few minutes but they were more than aware that his temperment was completely different from the defiant one he held at home. He even apologised! That was something they haven't seen him do in a long time. Still, they shrugged it off as it being due to him just waking up and contined their way home.

….I watched Beyond Scared straight while writing this. It's kind of eerie.

RandalXSpinelli:…..that is crazy :D and really out there. I know how it feels to like two completely different things and then find yourself trying to merge the two. I used to think that when he grew up Vince would have the voice of Chris Rock. :) I also used to think that TJ was the antichrist. Like the literal antichrist with the 666 birthmark somewhere on his head where he couldn't see it and that something would set him off.

Donna nnov: Hope you got that homework done. Homework is always important, even if it doesn't make any sense (or so I've heard). ;)

Reviews are highly appreciated!