by Lee, TD
“Do you think you’re the reason why he died?” Grania questions curiously.
No, not at all. I mean. Maybe, maybe I do. I don’t know.
“It’s okay Ridley, it’s okay. Think some more. What are your feelings towards him?”
Sad. I feel sad. He was my best friend and I couldn’t do anything to help him. He died with so much potential, potential that I wish I had. He’s strong and amazing, he did everything he could to achieve his goals. I felt like I was holding him back because I didn’t like his talk of superheroes. Maybe I discouraged him. Maybe I was jealous that he seemed like he was always in this wonderful world. Maybe if it weren’t for me being in that park that stupid day, he would be alive.
“Keep going. What is it that happened that day?”
I was in the park. It’s fuzzy. I was there because I felt like I was forced to be. No, I know that I was forced there.
“Forced?”
Voices. There’s this voice that I hear that’s not my own. Every time I hear it, I often imagine Hiro’s dead body in front of me and I’m usually the reason why he died. It hurts my head to think about it.
“Ridley, were you mind controlled?”
Mind control? Yeah, I was mind controlled.
“How often do you hear these voices?”
Every once in a while. I don’t know why, but they just happen.
“What happens when you hear these voices?”
Sometimes my hold body will just move on its own. I’m aware of what it’s doing, but I can’t do anything to stop it. Other times, my whole body tenses up and I visualize Hiro’s dead body. I feel helpless, hopeless. I don’t know what to do. Sometimes I just give into it because I can’t do anything else to stop it. I fight against it the best I can, but my body just won’t listen to me.
“I see. I’m sorry you have to go through that.”
It’s tough. It’s so tough.
“You may think that what you know, see, or say have no meaning, but they do. There’s a barrier in your head that’s stopping you from believing that. What is it?”
The mind control making me lose any sort of control. Someone is controlling me instead. I feel, violated. Like this body isn’t even mine anymore just because at any random moment, some guy can just make me do whatever he wants. I’m useless otherwise. I only benefit some asshole.
“Keep going.”
I just, don’t understand why I would matter. My best friend is someone who was so much better than me. He actually became something he wanted to be. I just exist. It’s not fair for him to have died because he could do so much more! So much more than I could ever do! He’s wonderful, I’m not. I’m just useless to the world. I have nothing to contribute because I just feel so lost. I don’t know what it is that I could do to help anyone. I’ve never been good at anything, just some person that exists. Maybe it’s fitting for me to be mind controlled. If I can’t help anyone else, then it only makes sense for me to be some sort of pawn.
“Why are you thinking that way?”
Because there’s nothing telling me otherwise. Everyone can keep telling me I have potential, but what is it? No one told me what it is I’m good at. I’m at a lost. I don’t believe them.
A familiar voice optimistically speaks out to me, “Ridley, you’re amazing!”
What?
“C’mon bud, I know that it’s hard to believe in something that you’re not exactly sure of.” A heavy hand rests on my shoulder. “I may not have told you this enough, but you’re the reason why I was a lot more grounded. You gave me the motivation to continue. You may not have any interest in superheroes, but you’re the reason why I was able to make it to being a pilot.”
How? What did I do to help?
“You never squashed my dreams. You never thought I couldn’t. You did believe in me and you were so excited when it finally happened. You helped me more than you may have thought, especially after I became a pilot. We celebrated at Gourmet Duel and I was just so happy that day. I know Sadie told you everything, but truly, you really helped me be happier Ridley. Give yourself more credit. You’re great,” the familiar voice assures me.
Hiro is this really you?
“Of course! Who else could it be?” the voice chuckles.
Hiro, I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry that you died! It should’ve been me instead.
“Don’t say that. You’re a badass. You’re not the reason why I died. You never were and never will be the reason why I died. Please stop thinking that. You gotta believe me, you’re amazing,” the voice continues to reassure me.
I’m not though. I was so jealous of you because you had dreams and aspirations for something and you became someone amazing. I’ll never amount to that.
“Yes you will Ridley. Remember, you have to find what it is that inspires you and what it is that makes you amazing. You have a talent that I think you’ve been underplaying this whole time. It’s a lot more useful than you think it is. Give yourself more credit,” the familiar voice speaks to me soothingly. Strong arms wrap around me.
But I don’t even know what it is that I’m good at. I’m just a regular person with nothing.
“You’re no super person, yeah, but even normal people can do amazing things. Just use your eyes,”
Use my eyes?
“You’re amazing Ridley. I’ll say it as many times as I need to. You’re a lot smarter than you think. Use that brain of yours. I may not have said it as much as I should have, but just believe me alright?” the voice chuckles again. “Now, you can really help someone now. Remember you’re not alone. Bring out your inner hero and help them out! Keep that fire in your heart burning!”
“Wait Hiro!” I call out. I open my eyes and remember that I’m in a courtroom.
“Witness, why the outburst?” the judge asks.
“Oh, sorry,” I apologize quickly, embarrassed.
I look over at Grania who looks a bit exhausted. She has a tired smile on her face though. The realization hits me, Grania didn’t do that therapy on me just to help me testify better to bolster any sort of information to help our case. She helped me just to help? She’s sticking her life out on something that’s generally useless just to help me regain my sense of self? That’s absolutely ridiculous for a person in her position. Why would she do that?
“Grania,” I quietly say.
“Shh, witness,” Grania immediately says, it seems like she knows that I realized what she did for me, “I’m sure there are more important things for you to say than what you’re about to.”
“Well, witness. Is there anything you would like to testify about before I pass judgment?”
I take a deep breath. What was in that hallway, who was there?
I may have been lost in thought when I was in that hallway, but wasn’t there something that stuck out to me? There has to be. Maybe not a thing, but a person? Wait, yeah. I saw someone in that hallway. Bumped into them actually. Maybe they know something! This could be the lead we need.
“Yes, this may be a theory, but in that hallway I bumped into Lord Lux,” I say.
Everyone in the room gasps. The judge asks, “Lord Lux? He was near the crime scene?”
I nod, answering, “Yeah, I bumped into him by accident.”
The Prospector suggests loudly, “That means there was another witness we have to talk to! Can we please call in Lord Lux to testify?”
“You understand the repercussions that can happen for calling a figurehead to the stand don’t you?” the judge asks.
“Yes, yes I do! And I would like to call upon Lord Lux as a witness!” the Prospector demands.
The judge hits his gavel and orders, “Bailiffs! Please go find Lord Lux!”
“No need to find me, I am already here,” Lux’s voice comes from near the entrance doors.
“Oh, Lord Lux. Accept my apologies, I did not see you at all,” the judge says.
“It’s quite alright. I was watching amongst the crowd in secret,” Lux says as he floats on up. M
y platform floats back down next to Adele and the Prospector.
The Prospector asks the question that’s in my mind too, “What do you mean you’ve been watching in secret. You have quite the commanding presence Lord Lux.”
“Being Lord of the Sephirots, I have quite the arsenal of abilities. One includes invisibility and erasing presence detection,” Lord Lux explains. “Now, I understand this foolish man would like for me to speak in front of the court about what I saw.”
“Yes, what you may have seen can be critical to my case,” the Prospector suggests. “Do you agree with the witness that you two had encountered each other?”
“Yes, I can vouch that I had encountered the witness, they weren’t paying attention so it is more accurate that they had crashed into me instead,” Lux speaks cryptically, it’s a bit worrisome, “Yet, I must comment and disagree that I you are very, very wrong about my witness account being critical to helping your case defense.”
“What do you mean by that?” the Prospector questions.
Lux smiles a bit, it’s a bit scary to be honest, “What I saw, any my bodyguards will vouch, is that the suspect in question. Yes, that girl over there in that cage, shot and killed Kapros. I saw that with my own eyes.”
The entire room gets filled up in an uproar because of Lux’s words. He saw Grania shoot and kill Kapros? How could that be?
The judge hits his gavel several times saying, “Order! Order in my court!”
Once the audience settles down, the Prospector asks, “You saw the suspect kill the victim in front of you?”
“Yes, that is what I said, is it not?” Lux says, smirking now.
Berenices is the next person to question Lux, “Why did you not come up to the court earlier about this? This could have solved and ended the case earlier!” Huh, interesting that even Berenices didn’t know about Lux.
“I found that it was not my place,” Lux answers nonchalantly. How is it not his place? I don’t understand why he would hide what he saw, it’s not like he would’ve been endangering himself by saying he was there.
“Not your place? You claim to have seen a murder and yet you were going to refuse to testify?” Berenices asks. This guy is a lot more honorable than I thought he was. Even he’s upset at Lux, even though Lux is helping his case more.
“It would not be good for my lordly reputation to be involved in a murder would it? Even as a witness, I don’t want that to be haunting me any time soon,” Lux says. I can tell this guy has an absolute disregard for anyone else but him now.
“Even as a figurehead you should perform your duty and report on the side of justice!” the Prospector angrily says, he even slams his hand on the desk.
“Justice? Don’t make me laugh,” Lux says, suspiciously, “there’s no justice in this universe.”
“How dare you!” Berenices angrily slams his hands on the desk.
“This girl acted on her own accord, perhaps she was angry with how Kapros was treating her home planet. What foul mindset do earthlings have, resorting to murder?” Lux suggests. Oh no, this is probably what everyone in the court is going to think now.
Grania stands up and call out, “But Lord Lux, you’re the-”
Lux quickly warns Grania before she finishes her sentence, “Be careful, girl, you may not want to say what you want.”
Grania immediately slinks back down in defeat. What was that all about?
“Adele, what do we do now?” I ask her.
“We know the truth, it is just that we do not know how to convince everyone in this court otherwise. That is the difficult part and we may be in a losing battle now,” Adele speaks with defeat in her voice. In the little time that I’ve known Adele, this is the first time I’ve seen her look so worn down and defeated. This can’t be it can it?
“If no one has anything left to say, with this decisive testimony, I will finally pass down judgment,” the judge says.
Everyone is silent. No way. This can’t be it! Grania would never kill someone!
I have to think. If the Prospector can’t come up with something, neither can Adele, maybe I can. I have to. If I don’t then Grania is going to die, and Earth will be destroyed! It’s my fault that we have Lord Lux up here in the first place, so I have to think of something! Hiro’s right, I need to use my brain and find that so-called smarts he says I have.
C’mon Ridley, think! Think!
Let’s start at the beginning. Grania was going to the bathroom. On her way she looked in the meeting room for some reason. She won’t say who it was that she saw, but maybe I can figure out who it was. Kapros wasn’t dead yet so maybe she saw him? Maybe she saw him and someone else? That makes sense actually. She had to have known Kapros was in the meeting room because she immediately went there after picking up his gun! So for sure she saw Kapros was in that meeting room, maybe he was in there with someone else.
Good start, but now I need to figure out who could’ve been in the meeting room with Kapros. The possibilities are endless, but I wouldn’t imagine him seeing anyone that isn’t involved with the case before. That rules in a couple people. Berenices, but it doesn’t seem like he’s aware of the other person and he doesn’t seem to be the killer type. Lux, here maybe. That wouldn’t be too off. Maybe we can rewind the security footage way before Grania is there to see if Lux goes in at all.
“May we see the security footage again?” I ask, weakly and awkwardly since everyone is so quiet.
“If I may ask, why?” the judge asks.
“We know Grania—er, the suspect had entered the meeting room, but have we checked if anyone else has?” I ask
“No one else has!” Lux remarks suddenly.
“Let’s review the footage! It could lead to more clues,” the Prospector says, fully backing me up on this.
“I agree, we have only watched a bit of the footage,” Berenices agrees.
The screens change to the security footage. It rewinds. There’s nothing of note until Kapros is seen on camera walking into the meeting room. A couple of minutes later a surprise figure is on camera. Lux and a couple of his guards enter the same meeting room as Kapros. A few minutes pass and nothing happens. A few more minutes pass and nothing. Then we see Grania and she looks into the room. Then the usual happens, she leaves the bathroom with the gun and screams which causes everyone’ attention to be focused on the room.
“I don’t see anything out of the ordinary with the footage,” the judge says.
“I don’t either,” Berenices adds.
I’ll admit, there’s nothing particularly strange with the footage, but there’s something off about it for me. There’s something major I feel that should’ve been captured.
“Lord Lux, where were you in this footage?” Adele asks, it seems like she knows the thing that’s throwing me off.
“What do you mean? I was in the room with Kapros,” Lux answers.
“Yes, that much is clear, but you were also nowhere to be found for minutes on end. You weren’t even seen leaving the room at all minutes after the suspect’s arrest. Where were you?” Adele asks, she’s being really serious and stern. She really wants an answer.
“Why would that matter? I obviously had left the room. The footage must be broken,” Lux is obviously lying now.
“The footage is not broken,” Berenices says, “there are not breaks in the security footage at all. The defense brings up a good point, where are you?”
“I had left! That is all!” Lux raises his voice, clearly angry. “You best keep your woman in check defense.”
I immediately shoot a look over at Adele and the Prospector. The Prospector's eyes widen, he coos his lips in surprise, his entire facial expression screams worry for Lux rather than Adele. Adele clenches her first, her brows slant.
“What was that?” Adele asked.
“A woman like you best not raise your voice in front of a lord,” Lux speaks without any ounce of shame in his tone.
“I may not be a lord or any outer being, but I am
just as important as you and anyone else in this courtroom. So you best keep yourself in check,” Adele retorts the best she can. Anyone can tell that she really wants to go off on Lux, but she’s smarter than that. I’m sure Adele doesn’t want to hurt our case, so she’s keeping her anger as minimal as possible.
Lux is trying to really sell that he had just left the room without doing anything, but how was it that he remained hidden from everyone and even the security footage? That’s weird because even the footage should show something right? Or maybe.
Wait, I got it!
LORD LUX
TURNED INVISIBLE
TO HIDE
Lux turned invisible, he said that was one of his abilities. So that way he couldn’t have been seen leaving the room! Wait, if he turned invisible, then he probably planted the gun outside of the bathroom because he knew Grania was over there! That’s probably how I missed seeing him in the hall also until I bumped into him. He has such a presence that it would be hard not to see him. That has to be it!
“If there are no further questions,” the judge says, for the fiftieth time.
“Hold it!” I yell, the revelation got my adrenaline pumping so I even slam my hand on the desk.
“What is it?” the judge questions my outburst.
“I ran into Lord Lux, but you can’t see it on the tape. In fact you can’t see him at all. Isn’t that really weird?” I ask the court. “Think back to just a moment ago where Lord Lux said that one of his abilities is to turn invisible and conceal his presence.”
“That’s right he did say that,” Berenices agrees.
“That’s extremely suspect isn’t it? Why would he turn invisible as he left the room if he had nothing to do with the murder?” I ask.
The judge quickly warns me, “Do you know what you are insisting? Placing blame on a Lord can be quite severe.”
“Er, well,” I mumble.
“Then I’ll take over the argument,” the Prospector says, swooping in for the save. He’s the better person to take over the case anyway. There’s a determined look on his face though, it looks like what I said is actually going to help him out. “Ridley over here makes a very good claim. Lord Lux, why in the world would you need to turn invisible?”