October 24

Gather Law Headquarters

3:15 PM

Lily Shield

I didn't know what to expect when we arrived at Gather Law, but I definitely wasn't anticipating as much activity in the lobby as there was. I winced at the sight, and I tried to push my way through the chaos to the front desk. There was no way of saying for sure if our targets for the afternoon were even there, but if we could get out of the calamity as soon as possible, the better off all of us would be. We had to get back to our agency to plan out our strategy for the next day, after all.

Neptune, Clarith, and Buddy were gathered together behind the desk, I soon found, and they were all looking through a small pile of papers. Buddy was the most paranoid of the three, pacing wildly behind the desk. Clarith was doing her best to try and calm the people gathered in front of the desk so they could have more space to work with, but there was only so much progress she could make when everyone was already beyond afraid and worried. I could assume fairly easily what they were all worried about, especially given the relative of the owners of the company.

Neptune was the first to notice we were there, and she glanced up with wide, tired eyes. I could only assume their investigation had started the previous day and had gone through most of the night given her exhaustion. "Hey, you guys," she greeted, barely seeming surprised at all that we were here. "I had a feeling you were going to show up sooner or later."

"I hope we're not interrupting anything," I said as I glanced at the rest of the crowd near the desk. "I'm under the impression we walked in on something we weren't meant to see..."

"Everything has been a bit... Chaotic since the murder at the Council of Six's headquarters," Neptune told us, though I could tell that was the understatement of a lifetime. "The head family of the company has been in and out helping with the investigation in any way they can, and that means things back here are a lot more chaotic than they ever have been. I swear, things were calmer when the murder took place here instead of over at the Council of Six's building..."

"I hope it hasn't been causing too much trouble for you," Victoria frowned. "I can only imagine you've had a lot on your plate withhe verything going on... We heard you were helping with the search for prosecutor Wood. Is that true?"

"We are," Clarith confirmed, and she shot a worried glance to Buddy. He was still pacing, but now, he was reading over a small file I could only assume was going to point him in the right direction to find her. "It's much easier said than done though."

"I almost wish there was somebody out there trying to make this a ransom situation. That sure made things a hell of a lot easier last time," Neptune sighed with a shake of her head. "But as long as you're here, I guess we could use the distraction. Buddy is going to work a massive groove in the floor if he keeps pacing like that, but neither one of us has been able to calm him down. Believe me, we've been trying."

"I don't know if we'd be the best people to distract you given that we're here for the investigation too, but we have a small tip that could help you," Yuri told her.

Buddy immediately stopped pacing, and he walked up to the desk before pressing his hands on the edge and leaning over. "What is it?" he asked hurriedly. When I looked into his eyes, I saw a panic I never would have expected from someone like him. I didn't know what about this situation was stressing him out so much considering the fact that he didn't know Prosecutor Wood other than in passing. It was odd, but I wasn't going to call attention to it so I didn't embarrass him when he was stressed out enough as it is.

"We received a phone call earlier," Victoria started. "I'm sure you've heard a thing or two about the person sending out phone calls throughout this case, right?"

"We have," Clarith confirmed with a small nod. "There's someone talking to those involved with the case over the phone, and they're pointing everybody in the right direction for some reason. They're the one who figured out the defendant should be heading there on the night of the crime."

"Exactly," I nodded. "We received a call earlier from this person, and it seems like they know where Prosecutor Wood is being kept. They said she was safe, but we weren't able to talk to her because they said she was asleep."

"Are you sure this is trustworthy information?" Buddy questioned. He pulled away from the desk when Neptune shot him a pointed look. From there, he shriveled and fell gracelessly into one of the seats behind the main desk, and when I looked closer, I could see that his hands were trembling. He ultimately hid his fingers beneath the file he had grabbed earlier, biting on his bottom lip while waiting for a response.

"It seems to be," Yuri said with a loose shrug. "I don't know how much we can trust him, but it has to be something, right?"

"He was arrested at the scene of the crime soon afterward, but he managed to escape before he could be taken back to the precinct," Deirdre went on. "The police are trying to figure out where he disappeared to, but he seemed rather firm in saying that she was safe. I don't know how much you want to take that at face value, but he claims everything is fine."

"I see," Buddy murmured. He said nothing else on the matter, instead just pressing his eyes closed and seemingly trying to wake up from the nightmare his life had become.

"We think he might be a member of the Emsthorpe family," Yuri went on. "It seems to us like he's the son that left the family behind at some point over the course of the last two years or so. His name is Balthazar Emsthorpe... Well, that's what his name is if our assumptions are correct, but that's the main option we've seen up to this point."

Buddy went tense on the spot, and Clarith grabbed at her necklace before pulling gently on the thread. "She was taken by the Emsthorpe family then?" she asked, and when we nodded back slowly, she let out a hefty sigh. "I suppose we should have expected as much given the circumstances."

"We're going to be fine," Neptune declared before anyone could get too caught up in their own fears. "We've survived this long, haven't we? Besides, we've saved someone from these exact circumstances before. We know what we're doing, and we're going to figure out how to get her back this time too. All you have to do is be patient and have faith."

"For what it's worth, he hasn't announced that he's part of the Emsthorpe family yet," I told them. "As far as we can tell, he's trying to keep it hidden for some reason or another. We're working on trying to figure out why all of this is happening, but we'll tell you as soon as we can find something new."

"I promise you that you're not the only ones searching for her," Victoria went on. "There are other people who want to bring her home too, and they're not going to give up until the truth comes out. If it means facing off against the Emsthorpe family, then so be it. We're going to find a way out of this. I promise."

Buddy nodded slowly, but I could tell by the doubtful look in his eyes that he didn't entirely believe it. Neptune was quick to chime in before he could say anything too pessimistic. "You know, if the son of the Emsthorpe family was the one who took her, then we might have an easy way out of this," she announced. "As far as we're aware, he left the family behind and decided to live on his own. He's been in hiding because of his past involvement with the family making it hard for him to enter society as a regular person, but he's probably the safest member of the family she could be stuck with. You can take that for whatever you think it's worth, but it's certainly something. At least she's not with the father of the family. If she was, then he would have already declared that he had killed her. I know it."

"I have to wonder where he's been throughout all of this," Deirdre confessed. "We've been working our way through the internal politics of the Emsthorpe family, but the father and founder of the assassin group has been nowhere to be found. It's strange, isn't it?"

"It is," I agreed with a nod. "But we shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. As long as we keep an eye open for him so we know he's not trying to sneak up behind us, we should be okay. We have a case to solve right now, and it would be in our best interests to not forget that."

Buddy started bouncing a foot rapidly on the spot, and Clarith winced at the sight of him. She looked up and to the rest of the crowd before addressing Neptune. "I'll take care of him and get some of these people out of here. You should give us a bit of space," she told her friend. It wasn't exactly a subtle way of getting us to give Buddy some space, but he clearly needed it, so none of us objected.

Neptune nodded and pulled us through the crowd and to the nearby wall. She let out a sigh and closed her eyes as she leaned against the wall, her head tilting upward. "It's been tiring," she confessed. She shook her head. "We're trying to make the most of it, but it's tough. Buddy hasn't been able to stop panicking since all of this started. He even got an excuse to step away from his Interpol work to help out with all of this. M is a kind man, or at least so I've heard, but it's still been a lot harder than any of us would have liked to admit."

"He really seems to care for Niamh," Yuri remarked. "I never realized the two of them were so close. I guess... I just didn't expect him to react like this."

Neptune was quiet for a long time at that, staring at the ceiling with an unreadable gaze I doubted anybody would ever be able to comprehend. "The two of them have something of a complicated relationship," she eventually settled on saying. "He wants to keep her safe. The two of them have been getting a bit closer since he was arrested and she first came by here as part of that case. It's been a difficult situation, but they're working on it. They're getting closer, and he doesn't want to lose her so soon."

"I didn't think they would have bonded this way," Yuri confessed with a loose shrug. "I suppose that's what I get for making assumptions though. Everybody acts a little bit out of the ordinary once in a while."

"And Buddy is being very out of the ordinary right now," Neptune finished for her. "But I'm going to keep his head on straight. He did the same for me during a similar incident to this a few years ago, and it would be wrong of me not to return the favor. Besides, I owe a lot to him and the Wood family, so I'm not going to let them down now."

After a brief silence, I took a step toward her. "You know, that's something I've been wondering about," I started. "I never would have thought you would settle down here of all places. Do you have some sort of connection with the Wood family that prompted you to end up working for them? I'm sure you would have been able to work alone as a private investigator, but... Here you are."

Neptune remained silent for a while at that, and for a few moments, I started to think she wasn't even going to respond to me at all. In the end, she just shook her head. "It's a long story, and I don't have the time to explain it right now," she finally settled on saying. "I was in a bad situation, and I found Buddy. He helped me out of it. Buddy was already affiliated with the Wood family by that point, and he was able to convince them to help me out of my situation too. After that, we met Clarith. She had nowhere to go either, and we were there to protect her. The rest is history. We've been something of a team ever since then."

I nodded slowly, though I had to admit that her explanation didn't really do much to shine a light on what we didn't understand. She had been impressively vague, though I supposed she didn't want us to know anything about what she was thinking at the moment. It was a secret for some reason as far as she was concerned, and she was determined to keep it hidden for as long as she possibly could. I didn't want to pry though, so I just let it drop there. There were probably other people who could get her to open up more, but now wasn't the time to ask about it.

"Anyways, we're going to be fine," Neptune went on, not willing to let her words sink in for any longer than was necessary. "We're working on finding out where Niamh disappeared to, and we're going to bring her back. Buddy's already helped me out with something similar to this, and even though it was hopeless for a while there, we were able to figure it out. I'm sure we'll be able to get our answers this time around too. It might not seem that simple at first, but it'll be okay. I know it."

"We're counting on you," Yuri smiled. "We know we can trust you to figure all of this out. Just try to be careful with it, okay?"

Neptune looked down at Yuri for a long moment, and something in her eyes seemed to tear itself apart before she nodded. "Yeah... You're right," she eventually agreed. She took in a slow, deliberate breath before pushing it out between her pursed lips. "We'll see you again later, I'm sure. As soon as we find Niamh, we'll catch you and everybody else up on it. If the Emsthorpe family is behind this-runaway son or otherwise-we have to get in and out as quickly as possible."

"We'll be waiting to hear from you again," Victoria smiled. She waved to Neptune, and the other woman returned the favor before starting back toward the desk. The crowd had parted as Clarith had promised it would, and that left Neptune to help her companions pack their things before heading toward the door. All the while, Neptune's expression was impossible to describe, and I made a mental note to talk to Chrysalis about her when the chance came up. I doubted Chrysalis would be able to do much to help me until the case ended, but my curiosity had been sufficiently piqued, so I would get around to it eventually, I was sure.

We headed for the door of the building from there, and when we arrived out on the street, Yuri let out a loud sigh. "Well, I guess we know what we have to do now," she declared. "We need to make sure we're all ready for the trial tomorrow. It's not going to be easy if we get distracted."

"I can't believe we're already up to the second day of the trial," Victoria admitted. "It feels like we still barely know anything about the case, but I know we have only two more trial sessions left to solve it. This isn't looking great."

"The Emsthorpe assassins are tricky ones," I agreed with a nod. "I just wish we could have gotten some answers from the man on the phone before he went missing again. If anything, the fact that he's running is only making him look more suspicious, but I feel like we all figured that out already."

"He won't be able to get away forever," Yuri announced as she pressed her hands together in front of her chest. "I'll make sure of it myself if I have to. I mean, I was able to catch him one time before now, and I'm going to figure it out again if that's what I have to do."

"I really hope it doesn't come to that," Deirdre cut in with a shake of her head. "But for the time being, we should head back to the agency and see what we can figure out. We have a lot to plan for before the trial goes back into session."

I nodded at that and started toward the car. I had an awful feeling about all of this, but just standing around feeling anxious about it wasn't going to solve anything. We had a trial to win, and if all went well, something would come up the following day to solve our problems. I didn't know if it would go as well as we were hoping, but it was something to look toward, I supposed. We were going to have to find the truth no matter what. Pieter was counting on us, and I refused to let him down now.

October 25

Defendant Lobby No. 6

9:35 AM

Lily Shield

As was to be expected, the air was tense and heavy when we arrived at the courthouse the following day. Pieter was already there, and his hand kept drifting toward his waist. I could tell he was missing the familiar sensation of Ikari, but he couldn't have the sword on his person as long as he was being suspected for the murder. Instead, he opted for tapping his foot against the floor while staring down vacantly.

We approached him carefully, and he looked up with a small frown on his face. "Hello," Pieter greeted. "I hope you were able to find something yesterday. I know this... It probably didn't go the way you were hoping."

"How much have you heard about the investigation?" Yuri asked, already preparing herself to wince for when he inevitably said that he had heard about Balthazar Emsthorpe's escape from the crime scene.

"I heard there was a suspicious party arrested at the scene, but he wasn't taken into custody in full before he vanished again," Pieter replied, and Yuri let out a hefty sigh. "Do you think he would have been the one behind the phone calls?"

"That's what we're thinking, but we've been left with way more questions than answers at this point," Victoria told him. "It seems like every fact we figure out leads to something else we understand even less than what we just uncovered. I don't know what we're supposed to do about it."

"I would explain what we found to you, but I feel like this is one thing you're going to have to wait on," I told him with a small shake of my head. "If we told you everything we found, we would just end up wasting all the time we had sitting here waiting for the trial to start."

"It was that complicated then?" Pieter asked, his eyes going wide, and we all shared an uneasy look. Our lack of a clear response was seemingly all he needed to hear, and he nodded to himself. "I guess so."

"We're going to be hearing from Chrysalis again today, it seems," Deirdre went on. "Beyond that, we have a group investigating Prosecutor Wood's disappearance, and I bet they're going to find her and bring her to the courthouse if she happens to be uncovered while we're still in there. I don't know if she would be able to help us much given that she's been held hostage for the last few days, but..."

"She must have been taken for a reason," I finished for her. "If she was taken by the assassins, then they must have been trying to obscure something about her presence at the crime scene. I can't say what the rationale was specifically, but... It was bad."

"If the Emsthorpe assassins were involved, then it's easy enough to conclude there was something else going on," Pieter nodded. He looked down at the floor once again before shaking his head. "They would have wanted something from her whether they wanted us to know it or not. I can't figure out why they would go so far as to take her hostage though. If they have such a massive grudge against her family-which it certainly seems they do-wouldn't it make more sense to just finish the job as quickly as possible?"

"That's where things get a bit more complicated," Victoria said. "As much as I would love to tell you all about this, I... I think I would rather you not hear about it until you absolutely have to. It's not going to paint a pretty picture of what happened before you got to the scene of the crime."

Pieter's eye went wide. "You... You're scaring me with the way you're talking about all of this," he confessed. "What could have possibly been so bad that you think it would be best saved for the trial? I'm going to figure it out sooner or later, so what difference is a few minutes going to make?"

Yuri opened her mouth to say something, but she was cut off by the approach of footsteps. KJ walked up to us with a weak smile on his face, and he offered us a wave. "I'm sorry to interrupt," he cut in. "We're about to head into the courtroom, and I don't want you to be too late. You know what has to be done here and all that."

"As a matter of fact, we do," I confirmed. I glanced to the rest of the group at that, and Pieter shook his head while pinching at the bridge of his nose. "Just trust me when I say that the trial isn't going to show you anything you want to hear. For better or worse, it seems like we have some sort of guardian angel looking over us this time around."

"Guardian angel?" Pieter echoed, his expression immediately twisting with confusion. "Who in the world could be watching over this case? We don't know of anyone who was there at the scene of the crime that night aside from me and the letter recipients. We barely know who the culprit was, and the victim..."

"It's complicated," Yuri told him with a shrug. "You'll see soon enough. Just trust that we don't say any of this lightly. It's not going to be easy to hear, but it's the truth. We're going to fix all of this sooner or later. I promise."

Yuri started off toward the courtroom with that, and the rest of us were quick to follow. Pieter watched us go with a frown on his face, and I could tell he was as desperate for an answer as it got, but he knew he wasn't going to be hearing anything, at least not yet. He shared a brief glance with KJ, and the purple-haired bailiff sent him a thumbs up. "I'm sure they know what they're doing," KJ tried to reassure him. "They've got their reasons for it."

Pieter turned to look at the entrance to the courtroom before nodding. "I sure hope you're right."

October 25

Courtroom No. 6

10:00 AM

Deirdre Brigit

As soon as we walked into the courtroom and settled down for the trial, Judge Diaphan reached for her gavel and brought it down. "Court is now in session once more for the trial of Pieter Fury," she announced. "Yesterday, the trial ended under rather unexpected circumstances, and I instructed both sides of the case to investigate. I can only hope you both chose to follow my advice."

"We did," Prosecutor Shield confirmed with a nod. "The victim of the case has been confirmed to be Raven Emsthorpe, though we've known her under other names over the course of the last few months. To be more specific, she has been called Raelynn Clayton and Mattie Grainge. She was involved with a few murder cases and ultimately proven to be the culprit of both. Since then, she has escaped prison as is evidenced by where her body was found, and she seems to have resumed operations with the rest of her family."

"So it seems," Judge Diaphan hummed. "What else did you come to learn about the victim over the course of the last day?"

"She has three siblings. Their names are Emmeline, Belladonna, and Balthazar," Vito went on. "The only son of the Emsthorpe family, Balthazar, went missing and seemingly left his family behind at some point within the last two years. The Emsthorpe family stopped all activity around the time of his disappearance because they were trying to cover for what he had been doing there. It's hard to say for sure why he left, but the common theory at the moment is that he decided the life of the assassin wasn't for him."

"I would have hoped he would have walked away sooner if that's the case," Judge Diaphan muttered. "I agree that him leaving his family behind is rather strange given the circumstances. The Emsthorpe ring has always been tightly-knit, and I'm not just talking about the central family. Anyone who works with them has been part of the group for the rest of their lives. This is the only time I've ever heard of someone outright leaving."

"Probably because of what happened to the last person who tried to leave years ago," Prosecutor Umber chimed in. "Augustus Emsthorpe's wife betrayed him many years ago, and she died for it. If I had to guess, I would say Balthazar vanished because he was trying to live in secret. He couldn't publicly out himself if he wanted to keep his life, so he remained in the shadows."

"What makes you so certain he's even alive at all?" Judge Diaphan questioned. "For all we know, he could have been killed for his treachery the same way his mother does. If the man behind the family wasn't above murdering his own wife for the sake of convenience, he could have easily done the same to his son."

"I would say that's a plausible theory, but we believe that we ran into him yesterday during the investigation," I replied. "As far as all of us are concerned, it seems as if the son of the family was the one responsible for the phone calls. There was a man apprehended at the scene of the crime, and he ran away before he could be taken in for an interrogation."

"We were being followed, and when we checked to see who was following us, we found him," Yuri said. "He didn't talk at all when he was being arrested so that nobody could say he was the one responsible for the phone calls. I think we can all agree that he's suspicious for it though."

"I agree that it's odd," Judge Diaphan nodded. "But him aside, what did you find over the course of your investigation? I somehow doubt he was the only strange thing you came across yesterday."

"We're going to be calling back our witness from yesterday," Prosecutor Umber started. "I believe it would be for the best if we heard what she has to say on the witness stand. We've come to quite a few strange conclusions over the course of the last day, and she would be the best person to explain it."

"That's rather ominous, isn't it?" Judge Diaphan prompted with a frown.

"That's one way of putting it, but we found a lot of evidence that points to there being something especially off about this case," Prosecutor Umber continued. "It seems to me as if the culprit of this case isn't anywhere near as cut and dry as we've been led to believe, and the testimony of our witness will help. We can't say for sure what happened on the night of the crime, but our evidence seems to point to the fact that she was in the same room where the victim was killed."

"That's certainly something important for us to cover," Judge Diaphan agreed. "In that case, please call your witness to the stand at this time, prosecution."

Chrysalis arrived at the stand a few moments later, and I could tell that she was just as anxious as she had been the day before. She was fiddling with both her gloves and the Magatama around her neck, and the latter habit was certainly new for her. Chrysalis had always played around with her gloves when she got anxious, but I could only imagine her Magatama habit had surfaced within the last day. Since it had been taken from her without her even noticing, she was trying to make sure it was always there. I could hardly blame her for it.

"Please state your name and occupation, witness," Vito instructed.

"My name is Chrysalis Starr, and I'm a legal assistant working at Morix Law Offices," Chrysalis answered. "And right now, I'm getting ready to turn everybody's understanding of this case around." She let out a dry laugh at that, and I knew immediately she was dreading this just as much as Pieter had to be. She didn't want to have to say it, and he didn't want to hear it. given the context, nobody could have blamed either one of them even if they tried.

"Then begin your testimony at this time," Judge Diaphan told her. Chrysalis took in a small breath before nodding, and with that, she started to speak.

man this case is already over wow

-Digital