Hey everyone,
I apologize that this month is, again, a bit short on the amount of chapters. I've had a lot of personal issues that I needed to work through that took most of the month and my focus was moreso on that and on games than on writing. But this story really has my interest again and I have a good bit of an idea of what I want for it to happen, at least for the next couple of chapters. At most I can – sort of – promise 3 chapters.
That good? Good,

Venquine1990
PS. For a description of the Radiant Garden Courtroom, just imagine the Phoenix Wright courtrooms. Sorry if that's not really original, but it's the best I could come up with.


Chapter 45
The Past Aids The Present

4th of January 1996
Courtroom, Radiant Garden
Master Ansem's POV

I really don't know how to feel. It's been a few days since I found out that one of my favorite citizens has a horrible mother and a father that didn't even know he was a father. It hurt even more to find out that Isa and Lea, when they were still young, were trying to sneak into my castle instead of just requesting an audience with me. But considering that Lea's mother is known around the higher circles of society, I can understand their reasoning.
Still, if it weren't for the experience and knowledge I gained during Sora's adventures, I know I would have continuously wondered how things might have been different if the two boys had contacted me directly. It's thanks to that experience, that knowledge, that I am currently focused on the here and now, as I learned not to dwell on the mistakes of the past. However, that doesn't mean that people shouldn't pay for their past mistakes.

I am quite certain that Animea Ardoris, Lea's mother, will get a life sentence and that's just based off of Lea's testimony from a few days ago. Yet her own father seems adamant on proving us wrong. And while I don't like going up against one of my own citizens, I can't let this man leave this courtroom with these misguided thoughts and beliefs. And the fact that these beliefs are being shared with his actual son, Leopord, doesn't help.

I've based their names off of the Latin words for disgust, flame and conceit. I looked up the translations in Google Translate and then altered them a bit to become names.

But thankfully, I have Even and Ienzo on my side and my fellow blonde has come up with a brilliant, if slightly underhanded method to convince them. For the last few minutes, while Ienzo used his Illusion magic to keep Animea from hearing what was being said, Even has been talking in on Tractus and Leopord. Slowly but surely the man on my right is convincing the man on my left to question his daughter about his grandson's testimony.
"After all, if Lea really is lying you have nothing to be worried about now, do you? But if what he says is the truth wouldn't you rather hear it from the mouths of the ones you trust, such as your own daughter? Or do you not want to acknowledge Lea's statements, because you don't want to, perhaps, acknowledge your own lack as a proper grandfather and guardian? Are you refusing justice out of pride – or perhaps out of shameful guilt?"

Leopord shouts at me that I should silence the prosecution, but I reply: "Young man, your father can consider himself grateful that, while young Harry Potter accused him of emotional neglect, he didn't press charges. If he did, this would have been a two-person trial. All Prosecutor Even is doing is voicing his own opinion based on the testimony and evidence provided to this courtroom." The man growls and grumbles.
I stare him down while I hold my tongue. If I hadn't, I would have commented on the fact that, every time that Leopord has opened his mouth so far, he has insulted Even, Ienzo and everyone else in the courtroom much more. It's not without reason, after all, that there are currently two guards standing behind their defense section of the room. Yet then Leopord makes most of us roll our eyes in annoyance as he again asks:
"Where is Leonhard anyway? Don't you think he'd want to be here? His mother is about to be sentenced to prison, after all. Surely he'd want to come defend her rights and thank her for her years of caring for him?" Each time the man asks this question, he tries to come up with new reasons as to why Lea should be here, yet each time Even, Ienzo and I have kept quiet.

Ienzo, instead, wants to use this newest attempt to convince either Leopord or Tractus to just question Animea on her crimes themselves, but then the doors open. "Sorry I'm late. Did I miss the good stuff yet? I found a little unexpected something on my way here." Braig comes striding in with a huge grin on his face and a scroll in hand.
Yet there is also a young woman walking with him, which I guess is the unexpected something that the man ran into. And interestingly enough, the young woman doesn't even seem offended either. She just calmly walks in alongside Braig and seems to try not to glare at either the Defense section of the room or young Animea.

Braig put the scroll down on my desk and tells me that all it takes it my signature. I nod at him yet I turn to the young woman instead. "My apologies for coming in late, your honor. The lawyer for the defense had me locked in their lobby alongside him. It's thanks to Braig using his special powers that I am able to be here."

And this time the woman does glare at the defense table.

"We didn't tell him to do that! He was just supposed to convince you to give up on your futile efforts. And besides, with you on the prosecution, that puts us at an unfair disadvantage! We were just evening the odds." Braig rolls his good eye while I share a glance with Even and Ienzo. The blonde gently informs the man on the other side that he himself is actually a prosecutor and that Ienzo is his witness. He then reminds them of them having a lawyer as well.
"That gives us Ienzo and this young lady and gives you yourself and your father. Two witnesses each. I'd sooner say that you've had the unfair advantage up until our young friend's entrance. Plus, by the code there is no fair or unfair advantage or disadvantage. There is only evidence and witnesses. And you two – or better said your lawyer – has made yourselves guilty of obstruction of justice. It was not up to you to decide if she should testify or not."

Tractus argues that it's not up to Even and Ienzo whether or not he should question his sister and Ienzo argues that they're not telling him, but that they're encouraging him. Then, before the argument can escalate, the woman speaks up.
"And now, it's my turn. And considering that I am here only for my own sake, I don't see why either of you should have a reason to want to be against my testimony. And sorry, Animea, but I stopped caring about whatever random excuse you could come up with. You had too many chances for that in both high school and college and I am done with that."

Instantly the woman has my interest and before either side can intervene or object, she starts to talk: "First of, my name is Lynne Masterfield, though I was born as Lynne Bruns. I met Animea when we were ten years old. Back then Animea was very kind, sweet, gentle and caring. She often did things for others without asking anything in return.
However, when we got older and the hormones kicked in, she started to realize that she could ask for something in return for her aid. The problem? She took that beyond too far and started demanding more in return for her help than the help she offered. One example was that, in college, she asked for three months of lunch money – in return for one hour of help with studying with a test.

And before you try, Animea, that cannot be considered tutoring as tutoring takes more than a single hour. And our teachers explained this to us every year at the start of the year. And this happened only two weeks after said explanation.

And stop looking like that, you look more immature than your own child, who at least knows how to act his age." I know I should reprimand the woman, but the fact is that Animea is leaning back in her seat with her shoulders hunched, that she has her arms crossed and a childish pout on her face. Thus the defendant is proving the witness right.
Miss Lynna rolls her eyes and says: "Either way, even by the time we were in our final year of high school, Animea had made several enemies. People who got furious with her over her selfish desire to get more rewards than her help was ever worth.
Because of this Mr. Ardoris hired Aeleus to be Animea's personal guard. Yet he also asked me to be her vocal bodyguard, whereas Aeleus would be her physical bodyguard. At first when he started offering that he would pay me for the service, I refused as I still considered Animea my friend and just wanted to help her.

However over the time that we were in college, it just got worse. The older Animea got, the more the sweet, kind girl I knew growing up disappeared from her character. It was almost as if that side of her was dying out.
In fact, by the time my second year of college came around, I started keeping score of how often I actually saw glimpses of her old character. By the time we started our final year of college, I realized it would be a rare sight if this happened once every six weeks – for less than an hour.
Because of this, I won't deny, I decided to accept Mr. Ardoris' offer. Should I have just sat them both down and told them hey look, this isn't working out. Your daughter needs help. She doesn't seem to realize how badly she's ruining everything for herself.
Yes. Yes I should have. Yet at the same time, Mr. Ardoris should have realized that just hiring a bodyguard/scapegoat wouldn't help his daughter, that it would just stroke her ego instead. So I guess you can say that we are both guilty in this case."

While young Miss Masterfield sounds responsible and sincere, the whole Ardoris family seems to disagree on this as they are all glaring at her, as if they feel offended instead of responsible. I sigh and wonder if this trial will even go anywhere.
Lynna clears her throat and continues: "Either way, finally it was our last week before graduation. Animea and I had had a lot of talks over that year about what we wanted to do once we graduated. Or better said, I continuously had to defend myself against her desire to make me see that her dreams of traveling the world to find herself a wealthy husband was the way to go.
Instead, I felt better, more confident and comfortable with the idea of proving that I could provide for my family by taking on a professional career, one where I could set my own time schedule per week, so I could properly schedule my time between a love-life, my career and a potential family. Animea, on the other hand, made a very interesting statement that one year.

"I don't even know why I'm going to college. It's not like I need to be intelligent to find a good husband. My partner will be wealthy enough to prove his worth to my successful family and be successful enough to provide for me while I provide him an heir. Or perhaps multiple, if that's his desire, as long as he keeps working hard to provide for us."

And don't lie, Animea, you know you said these things. Aeleus can testify to the same. You know he was there that day you said this, two months before we graduated." Yet again the woman takes the same pose as before, her pout actually more pronounced this time.

Braig provides young Lynna with a glass of water and the woman takes a few sips before she continues: "Either way, the closer we got to graduation, the more I felt like I needed to sit Animea down, set her straight and make sure she understood the difference between generosity and greed as well as the difference between responsibility and pride.
I knew that our paths would split after graduation and I was even starting to look forward to never seeing the woman again. But I didn't want to leave her behind without trying to make her better herself and her future. So I decided that we'd have a girls' night out and then I would sit her down at her place and have said talk.

Destiny, it seems, had other plans. All year I had this huge crush on a guy who was in our year, but in only a few of our classes. It was in that last week of college that I got the chance to talk to him. Apparently, he also had a crush on me and saw that he and I had many similar life ambitions and goals. We even both wanted to travel the world to find a successful career.
He approached me and said: "Listen, tomorrow night is my actual graduation night and I leave the next day. But I kind of want to see if we can make things work, both here for fun and once we're out there in the real world. Would you care for a date tomorrow night?"
Now I admit, I should have said no, asked him where he'd be going first and promise that I would meet him there. But this was one of the few moments where my own hormones struck and I said yes. I simply decided that I would sit down Animea the next day and that I would show her that I too could be a nice and hopeless romantic. I just took that idea a bit too far and completely ignored her for the better part of that night.

Heh, and when I saw Braig and saw how he was caring for Animea, I misinterpreted his actions as well and believed that, if I would leave Animea alone with her potential prince charming, I might have more chance of getting through to her the next day. Do I regret ignoring my best friend on our girls' night out for the sake of my date? Yes. Do I regret abandoning Braig and Animea for that one night? Yes and no.
Yes, because I now realize that I should have never let Animea be alone with any kind of guy for their own sake, especially not while she's drunk off her high horse. But no, because it provided our world with young Lea and our universe with a savior of the Light.

The only thing I really, truly regret – is staying away once I heard that Animea had given birth. Which was apparently a year after she had given birth as she had apparently hid her pregnancy from high-society up until Lea was half a year old.
Which makes me wonder, Animea. If you really hated Lea so much that you kept him and his existence a secret for so long, if you truly believed that he was a blemish on your perfect reputation – which you never had, by the by – if you were truly convinced that Lea would ruin your chances to find a proper husband and be a good wife –

Why keep him? Why didn't you just convince your father to let Braig be the father? Why did you not talk with your dad about your actual dreams? Why did you purposely, knowingly and fully by your own will and choice, ruin the last several years of not just your own life – but that of an innocent child who's only "crime" is his birth? Why did you torture yourself like that and why did you "punish" a child for existing?

You had a perfectly good, legal and acceptable way out. And yet, instead of taking it, instead of being the selfish, immature, greedy little witch that you always were, you made things worse for yourself and lied to your father about how Lea came to be. But when your dear old daddy tried to get Braig here arrested for raping you, suddenly you were adamant he didn't?"
At this Lynna turns to Mr. Ardoris and asks: "I'm sorry, but how did you not realize from that simple act that things might not be what they seemed? That there might be something wrong with either your daughter's story or Lea's actual conception? Why did you continue to believe a beyond obvious lie for several years? And why were you so adamant to ruin both their lives?
And don't go denying it, if you truly loved your daughter, you would have accepted that she didn't want the kid and found him another home, like any responsible guardian. And the fact that, apparently, you signed a deal where you, willfully and purposely, chose to ignore your grandson throughout his life? I've heard of neglectful guardians, but you, sir, you take the cake."

Leopold angrily snarls at the woman if she's quite done and while he might try to sound intimidating, his attempt fails. Lynna stands tall and proud and says: "I am. I am done. I am done with you and your entire family. You've been deluding yourselves with your belief that you are responsible, when in reality, you're just prideful beings.
I admit that I've played a partial role in this, but you three are still responsible for your own beliefs, your own actions and your own statements. It's a shame that it took all these years for the justice system to truly take you lot up to the task, but I am glad that it's not happening and that I get to contribute to it. Some might hope that your sister will come out a better person once she's sat her sentence, but I don't feel like holding my breath for that."

Braig spares a glance my way and I nod at him. Before the trial Harry had approached the both of us with a very clever strategy on how to handle this trial and Braig being late was because he needed to take the scroll of paper that he came in with to a few friends of ours.
And now that I have it in front of me and Miss Lynna has had her say, I decide to play the strategy we discussed. "Miss Ardoris, you have two options. So far you and your family have yet to provide any definitive evidence of your innocence. If anything, the rant you were spewing when you came in here would many other judges declare you guilty off of, just based on the insults you were spewing towards your only son and the threats you were spewing out against him.
Your brother and father have also tried to obstruct this trial and earlier this morning, your father even went so far as to try and bribe me to forfeit the trial and just release you from custody. Just based on those three things alone, I have the official right, by the code of this world, to sentence the lot of you to at least ten years in prison.

SILENCE!"

And finally, after almost an hour of this trial taking place, the three look properly cowed and as if they finally realize what situation they really are in. I release a deep breath to calm myself and say: "As I said, you have two options – and now that I have met your family, I'm extending these options to the both of them as well.
After all I have been through after one of my star apprentices betrayed me, I admit myself to be tired. I will, most likely, retire from my role as leader and guardian of this world somewhere in the coming year. However, I do not wish to leave it with this problem unattended.

Here are your options. The ten years of prison, combined with whatever amount of years should be given to you as per written by the code of law. Or you three sign this here form, that already has the signature of King Mickey and Master Yen Sid, and Aeleus will personally escort you – to your new home on another world. And note that I already know what kind of mansion you grew up in and managed to find a mansion of similar estate and value."

The woman screams that I'll have her and her family banished and I coldly retort: "Either banished, but with a chance to live your old life in a new world, one that doesn't know about the atrocities you committed against your own son, or sentenced to prison. The choice is yours. However, know that signing this document is attached to both choices."
Mr. Ardoris asks what the document is and Braig answers: "Our world, like all worlds in our universe, has one universal law. If a document is signed by the King, the Master and the leader of said world, it cannot be disputed unless the dispute party is of the same statute as the three beforementioned parties. And this contract already has two of the three required signatures.
As for what it is; it's basically Lea's evidence of how much he still wants you as part of his life. It's a contract where he fully and entirely denounces himself from your side of the family." Yet while Braig explains this, while the Ardoris family gapes at him and while Animea starts to laugh at her son making himself a social outcast and a No-Name, I read.

"Braig, did you know that your son wishes to take on your family name, Dinsted, instead?" I ask the man as I read a few of the lines and this silences Animea and shocks Braig. The shock proves me that he hadn't expected that.

Then Animea starts to scream rant and rave, yet when she shouts that she refuses, Even snarls: "You can't refuse! The contract has already been signed by the King and the Master. It is already legally binding and part of both of your options. You will accept the contract whether you choose banishment or prison!"
And then Ienzo continues: "And besides, you should be proud. You're already a social outcast yourself now that the whole world knows that you abused and neglected your son. You know just fine that our trial system has been public knowledge for centuries and news travels fast. Your son is just merely protecting his own reputation by splitting it from yours, is all."

The woman is obviously unwilling to accept this, yet it seems to have garnered the respect of her father and brother. The elder of the two sighs and asks me if I will accept that he will speak in his daughter's name. And while the woman is old enough to be responsible for her own fate, I consider her behavior of the last hour or so to negate this fact. And so I accept.
"I would like to accept the banishment punishment, your honor. I don't want to see my daughter punished, even if I now see that she really does deserve it. I want to see her flourish and become the woman I – I had hoped to believe she could be. Now, while I don't want to believe that this might not be possible – forgive me, but I just want to hold onto the hope that it might be possible in another world. Perhaps this new world can help her find her footing."
The whole time the man speaks, his daughter yells that there is nothing wrong with her, that she is perfect and that anything that might be wrong with her isn't her fault. On and on the woman blames others, such as Braig, Lea, even her parents and brother, Aeleus, her teachers and myself. More and more the woman annoys me and apparently her father as well.

"Your honor, I would like to add a little something to her sentence. Considering that we will be banished alongside my daughter, I want a contract that will, once again, give me full responsibility of my daughter. Basically, I wish to once more receive the same responsibility over her until she turned eighteen, Your honor."
And while I understand the man's earlier hesitation before he stated that he had hoped to believe his daughter could be a good woman, I can't help but think: "I can only help you hope, my good sir, that this time you will do her right. That the world I sent you three to won't condemn you for your daughter's being. That she will be given the chance you hope to give her." And so, while I ignore the defendant just like her father did earlier, I accept the man's terms.

I sign the contract.
The contract that is signed by Lea Charlus Dinsted.


Lea's new name, yippee!
And to be honest, my original plan was to keep this whole thing to just the contract and then move onto the whole sentence thing. After this I was hoping to cover Draco's Re-Sorting and his first night or so in …. Wow, I almost spoiled his new House there. Yeah, I'm going to put Draco in a different House, though I am currently kind of debating on whether or not he will go into Gryffindor. I'm not sure if that's not just too cliché.
Let me know,

Venquine1990
PS. I tried to work with a different kind of paragraph/Alinea system. Let me know what you think. A better example for this can be found in the newest chapter of Darkened Light.