Heeey, so y'all remember the post I put up a while back how I was getting a commission of my FF14 character, whose appearance Noa uses?
Any of you notice the new icon as opposed to the old one?
Well, before you get to see the full thing, some notes on the brainstorming session!
This fic's idea initially started life as a redo, then a revamp, and finally a spiritual successor of my first SI fic on SpaceBattles, Through the Mists. It was, in hindsight... not very good, bland, derivative, and right as it was about to get to something possibly different, I wrote myself into too high of a bar for me to clear at the time. However, I liked the original idea, and figured that I was older, wiser, had more experience with this particular genre of fic, and could take a stab at it again!
Problems. One, the power level of Young Justice is absurdly low compared to the eventual power level that such an SI would end up at. Two, Young Justice's third season was... nooooot great. And three, there is a real problem with having too much versatility. That problem... is that you get so caught up in wanting to bring out cool new stuff that you lose some of the focus, plan too big, and end up with plans so far in the future you can't reasonably get to them in between bringing out all the other cool stuff. (See: a large part of the reason I've had trouble going back to Lamarckian or Sympathy for the Devils...)
So, I decided to go the other direction: limit the power. And the first way I thought of doing that: take something where even I don't know all of what it's supposed to be capable of. The initial starting point for this was, again, looking back at my major gaming addiction: Final Fantasy XIV. The game is getting a new healer in its next expansion... but we don't know the gimmicks of the job. It has lasers, it has hard light shields, it has heals, but... we don't know how all it's supposed to work.
That was the starting point. But then I realized: I'm focusing too hard on the powers, and not enough on the PLOT. From there, the idea pivoted into Noa's powers being... more of an afterthought, really. A necessary consequence of her being in a particular minority (mutants), and even in a smaller subset of that one (mutants with nonhuman appearances), and into an even smaller subset of that one (mutants with nonhuman appearances who can nonetheless pass as human with their powers), which is meant to open up plot hooks and options that wouldn't have otherwise existed.
So, while FFXIV's Sage got used as the inspiration, and is the base idea for what Noa's powerset became, it's just the inspiration.
The artwork is of my actual FF14 character as the new Sage job, whose weapons are four identical floating magic foci. Now, why does that sound familiar?...
The four ornate 'pens', which had previously been clipped to the front of her briefcase, floated into the air and took formation in a steady circle around her.
My thoughts drifted to the tools I had available to me: pepper spray, my powers — my magic. The magic I couldn't use properly without a focus.
A focus, of which I had four, all sitting on a shelf in my closet, collecting dust. And this because I'd been told that if I kept using them the way I had been, I would forever be limiting my capacity to shape and focus my abilities in the mystic arts.
No, Noa's magic foci are not cool magitek-ish floating crystalline monoliths. They are something far more mundane and far more personal... and if you use the hints about Noa's heritage and the shape of the foci mentioned, you may be able to piece together what Noa is using as foci, and more importantly, what she can make into a focus.
Now all of this being said?
Meet, in full color this time, Ms. Noa Schaefer, Esquire.
Just... ignore the floaties.
EDIT: as for how this fic wound up being set in 80's-90'a X-Men?
"Is the prosecution ready to call its next witness?" Judge Andrews asked as everybody finished filing back into the courtroom.
"Your Honor," Lou Young started as he stood. "In light of his friend's testimony, Mr. James Boothe has refused to testify. As the majority of his substantive testimony has already been entered into the record, the prosecution sees no reason to not grant this request. We ask that Mr. Boothe be removed from the witness list, and that court be adjourned, as our other witnesses are expert witnesses whose schedules do not have the flexibility to let us call them this afternoon."
I felt a wave of contentment at this pronouncement. The DA had all but announced to the jury that he wasn't sure how much of what he'd been told by his witnesses was true. Rather than risk letting me tear strips out of the other man's hide, Lou Young had apparently decided to cut his losses.
"Any objections?"
"None, your Honor," I told the judge, standing as I answered.
"Very well. We shall resume once more at ten am tomorrow; I shall entertain any new motions and housekeeping in chambers at nine. Court is adjourned."
Judge Andrews' gavel came down, and much like yesterday, the gallery was the first to stand and leave, and I noted several interesting personages watching us, including one of the tallest men I had ever seen in my life. He had to be, what, almost seven feet tall? And he was probably about half again as broad as the average man. Oddly enough, despite appearing to be my age at the oldest, he wore a suit that resembled the one I'd seen Erik in for Rosh Hashanah services last year, which spoke to some interesting fashion sensibilities. I couldn't get a good look at him, given the hat he pulled down low over his eyes, so I put him out of mind.
As for the rest of the gallery, the media filed out of the courtroom as quickly as they could, and I wagered they were all retreating to the phone rooms to call their editors and let them know what had happened. I shuddered a bit at the thought, and realized I'd need to have Matthew join the Allerdyces on their way out the back, to keep them away from the media circus. That much I would face alone; it wasn't my first time fielding reporters, and it wouldn't be the last.
"So what happens now?" Linda Allerdyce asked the moment the door closed behind us in the courthouse conference room. Jonathan and St. John were hugging each other, manic smiles on both of their faces at what had happened in the courtroom. "That has to be it, right? There's no bloody way anybody would keep trying to put my boy away when that cretin clearly lied about everything!"
"See?" I overheard the elder Allerdyce whisper. "I told you, I told you it would work out!"
The optimism was plain to see: they were assured that that was it, that we'd just won. The light at the end of the tunnel was in front of them now, and this whole nightmare would be over. But unfortunately, while they saw a light, I saw an oncoming train. So did Matt, by the tension in his posture, and the way I could tell he was trying to hide his frown.
And this made the next things I had to say all the more painful.
"Now, we keep going," I said, "and pray to whichever God you prefer that that was enough. But odds are, it wasn't."
The Allerdyces, all three of them, turned to look at me. Matt, despite not being the focus of their attention, shuffled.
"But, but that can't be right!" St. John burst out. "The whole thing was built on a lie, and we proved it! There's nothing else they can even do, right!?"
"If only it worked that way," I said with a wistful sigh. "St. John. Real court isn't like 'Matlock'. What you saw in court today, with a witness getting caught in a lie and basically imploding on the stand?"
I set my briefcase down on the conference room table, and turned to face my young client.
"First of all? That is rare. I've been practicing law for eight years, and go to trial multiple times a year. This is only the second time I've seen it, and even when it did happen, the trial kept going because that is how things go. And second? Even something as big as this, which you would think completely kneecaps the prosecution's case? All it does is muddy the waters a bit. Take things from 'definitely' to 'maybe'."
"But he was lying to the judge!" St. John protested, arms practically flailing in his disbelief. "He lied to the jury! A-and, plus, this means you can put me up there and I can tell them my side of things, wouldn't that be it? I mean, they'd have to know I was telling the truth!"
"No, they do not," I corrected. "All the jury knows is that, for whatever reason, Micah Samuelson felt the need to wildly exaggerate his account of what actually happened in that alleyway. They do not know how much of what he said was true, and how much was false. All they know is that those parts that were false painted him in a bad enough light that both he and the prosecution would rather not speak any further on it. With any luck, that is all they need to know, but we are not going to hedge our bets on that. And lastly," I added at the end, "it will be a cold day in hell before I feel so backed into a corner that I need to put a teenage defendant on the stand."
"But what about—"
"No, St. John," I interrupted him. "None of this changes what I've said multiple times now. I am not putting you on that stand. You could be hooked up to a polygraph, and half of that jury would completely ignore everything you said because you're a mutant. That, and because I have zero doubts that if I did, the DA would waste no time in making you out to be the most vile monster this side of the Mississippi. Believe me, this is an area where experience and treachery win out against your youth and enthusiasm."
"So, what's that mean?" St. John asked, hands clenched now. "I don't get to tell my side of the story?"
"Your side of the story will have its day, St. John," I reassured him, pulling aside the screen so he could step behind it and get ready for the corrections officer to take him back to juvie for the night. "It may not be from the horse's mouth, but they will know what it is you said about what happened there."
"Please, St. John," Matt said, face pointed in the young mutant's relative direction. "We've been putting in a lot of work to make sure your story can get heard. You will get past this," he assured the teen. "You just need to have faith."
"Yeah, well," St. John scoffed from his side of the screen. He draped his suit over the top, at which point Linda took the clothes and put them on hangers. "Faith's in a bit of short supply right now."
I couldn't help but agree with St. John's sentiment. If it had been me in his shoes, I would absolutely have been feeling the same way.
By the time we finished up in the conference room, and the corrections officer had taken custody of St. John to return him to juvie for the night, the press corps had managed to array itself out on the courthouse steps in truly absurd numbers. I counted no less than thirty reporters there, and even as I walked up to the exit (Matt and the Allerdyces had, thankfully, taken my suggestion to go out the back without any real prodding), the clamour grew louder.
I didn't see Lou Young anywhere nearby, which was… entertaining, to say the least. The man was a fan of the spotlight, and I would have expected him to be soaking up the attention from the media.
Then I remembered that he had been utterly eviscerated in court today, and was likely still on the phone with his campaign staff and PR people, trying to figure out how he'd spin all of this to not come out shit-stained and smelling of rotten eggs.
What this meant, though, is that I would need to brave the crowd of reporters without any kind of buffer. They had questions, I (maybe) had answers… and to be completely honest? I wanted them to put my take in the headlines.
Jurors aren't supposed to read the paper, no… but they generally do anyway. And if they happened to see a headline that swayed their opinions towards mine… all the better.
And so, I descended the courthouse steps, making sure to stop while I was still high enough above the reporters that I could actually look most of them in the eye. A single raised hand was enough to get the clamour to quiet down a little bit, even as twenty-odd dictaphones and microphones were all shoved far closer to my face than I was comfortable with.
"I understand that all of you are incredibly curious to ask about my client's case," I said, the press corps all murmuring in assent. "As I mentioned yesterday, there are myriad details that I am quite simply not allowed to talk about. However, I will take this time to answer a few questions, so long as you people don't try to shout them all at me," I threw in at the end, raising my voice to get over the clamour.
Reporters, I swear. You think a dog with a bone is persistent? A reporter with a question is several dozen times worse.
"If you have a question, raise a hand with a pen, dictaphone, something, and I'll make some selections from the crowd." An instant later, two dozen hands all went up, most bearing dictaphones, but three or four with pens or pencils… which instantly swayed me towards them. "You, with the fountain pen," I said, pointing at the writing implement in question.
The man, seeing his opportunity, stepped forward out of the crowd, and I got a good look at him.
The man wore a nondescript grey three(!)-button suit, a modern choice that immediately made my impression of him tick upwards. Most of his personal grooming was clearly saved for his face, as he had a perfectly sculpted mustache, an utterly expert coiffure, and a set of aviator sunglasses that were too large for his face… which sort of ruined the rest of the work he did on his appearance.
"Ms. Schaefer," he said, fountain pen and notepad at the ready. "Louis Jensen, from Pacific Monthly. In light of recent trends towards harsher penalties for young offenders, and commentary from the White House during this past week, do you feel your client's situation has been unfairly politicized because of his minority status? And additionally," Mr. Jensen continued, cutting off my attempt to answer, "would you support legislation to prevent gratuitous removal of juvenile mutant defendants to adult courts?"
"I am going to give you the classic lawyer's answer to this one," I started, even as I thought through my answer.
This was a question that covered a very wide range of issues — and truth be told, there were a fair few cases where juveniles did need to be tried as adults. The biggest issue here, though, was twofold: who was making that decision, and the reasoning behind the eventual choice they made.
"It depends on a number of factors," I continued, speaking as vaguely as I could about a very sensitive topic. "Any such legislation would, in my opinion, need substantial enough carve-outs for those times where one truly should try a minor as an adult. But it also needs to be careful that those carve-outs aren't abused to completely gut the purpose of such legislation. And so that you have me on record as actually answering the question," I remembered to add at the end, "my answer regarding such legislation is a conditional yes.
"Now, next question?"
Thankfully, the reporter was gracious enough to recognize that he had been dismissed, which left me to select yet another reporter.
"Let's see," I said, searching the crowd. "You, in the blue and the glasses."
For the next question, I settled on a tall, muscular man in a blue suit, who was possibly the only one in the crowd not jockeying for position. He had round glasses, black hair that clearly wanted to curl, and a shockingly unremarkable face. The one thing I did pick up was a familiar accent; this man was also from somewhere in the Midwest, though I couldn't quite place where. Kansas City, maybe?
"Ms. Schaefer," he said, his meek, almost shy voice still somehow projecting for everybody to hear, "Clark Kent, with the Daily Star. What do you have to say about allegations that the case against Mr. Allerdyce is just a sham, and that he's facing trumped up charges meant to trample on the civil liberties of a section of the populace?"
"Keep in mind that there is a lot I'm not allowed to share here, especially with regards to your specific question," I started, looking the man straight in the eye. "However, I will say that if those allegations are accurate, then it would hardly be a first, even for Manhattan. I'm sure many present remember the ridiculous pretenses under which the police assaulted the Stonewall Inn."
Ah yes, the Stonewall Riots. There was a major difference between the ones that happened in my original timeline, and those that occurred here. In my original timeline, the fighting at the Stonewall broke out when a woman, who was being escorted out in handcuffs, yelled to the crowd, "Why don't you guys do something?", stirring the crowd.
In this world's history, she said something else, about ten seconds later: "Well if you won't, I will."
Though the police were keen to scrub the name of Stormé DeLarverie from history, those of us in the know remember her as the mutant whose sacrifice meant everybody else went free that night. Because of her, the Stonewall remained standing to this day, never changing hands, never losing its status as a safe haven to just be who you were.
Those events also helped serve my narrative – because once again, we had a person that nobody knew was a mutant until they had to defend themselves.
Ah, but look at me on my soapbox. I had best answer a few more questions before losing the spotlight.
"Next question," I said, looking out at the crowd. "You, over there."
The man I'd pointed at pushed his way forward out of the crowd. And once I got a closer look at him, the only thing I could think of was that he looked like a dead ringer for an overweight Don Draper.
"Miss Schaefer," he started, and I couldn't help the slight frown at the way he said it. "Jack Joyce, Dartmouth Review. Depending on the outcome, what do you think are the potential… ramifications of this trial's verdict?"
Oh, I didn't like this man already.
"In all honesty, that depends on whether the people of New York City deserve their reputation, or if I have to appeal," I told him, not bothering to elaborate any further. Let him take whatever meaning he wanted to from it, because from that question alone, I could tell that there was nothing I could say or do that would ever win points with him.
That, and the last time I saw anything from the Dartmouth Review, it was proudly advertising the merits of conversion therapy.
"Next question," I said, searching for someone visibly different from the last few reporters. My eyes stumbled upon a head of long blonde hair, and I pointed at her. "You."
Once the rest of the reporters parted to let her through, however, I began to regret that decision.
"Sarah Sampson, New York Magazine." The woman who said this wore something that I wouldn't be caught dead in, even if I was specifically going for a Saturday on the town. Her dress had a deep, plunging neckline, and cut off far too high above her knees for my taste. Sheer hose and heels that she visibly tottered on completed an ensemble that just screamed 'I'll wear anything for the ratings'. "How do you feel about accusations that you're using your feminine wiles to influence the judge and jury in this case?"
Oh yes. Instant regret.
"Whoever made those accusations should turn off their television, go down to the local Blockbuster, and go to the section behind the curtain," I answered, before immediately blocking her out of my mind. "Next question… you."
Ugh. Right as I pointed at a perfectly presentable middle-aged woman in formal wear, a weasely-looking man in an unkempt suit slid in front of her. By the outrage on her face, this was very much not something that had been planned, so I readied to ask the man to step aside—
"Marvin Mackert with the Villager!" Unfortunately, the weasel started speaking and inserted himself into the center of attention before I had the opportunity. "Given the highly lethal mutant powers of the defendant and what he's already done, how can you not worry for your own safety while in the mutant's presence?"
Ugh. Well, if ever I needed a signal to cut things off, this was it.
"Rather easily, actually: I just treat my fellow person with common dignity and respect, because that's what anyone should do anyway," I snapped at the reporter, who I saw turn off his dictaphone before I could finish speaking, of course. "Now, given these last few questions, I can tell I've overstayed my welcome, so if you will excuse me—"
"Just gonna walk away before I can get a shot, huh? And right when somebody finally gets what I've been saying about the web-head this whole time! That's cold of you, Schaefer."
The crowd of reporters went almost dead silent before parting like the Red Sea. There, standing five steps below the rest of us, was John Jonah Jameson, Jr. Editor-in-Chief for the Daily Bugle, winner of seventeen Pulitzer Prizes, possibly the best investigative journalist in the entire country… and the man whose love of his job meant that I had spent a good five months being utterly miserable at mine.
"Mr. Jameson," I said, blanking out my expression as best I could. "Here to smear my name on your front page again?"
"Oh come now, it was never like that and you know it, Schaefer. Like I told you last time we met," JJJ said, walking up the steps, dictaphone in his hand, "it was just business."
"And I suppose your particular brand of purple prose was purely for the purpose of pushing papers?" I asked with an arched eyebrow, the hand not holding my briefcase now resting squarely on my hip.
"Ha!" JJJ barked a laugh, and gave a grand smile. "Alliterating like a reporter yourself, I see."
"Just ask your question and get on with it," I told him, unable to hold back my scowl any longer.
"If you insist," he said, and flicked on his dictaphone with the press of a button. "John Jonah Jameson, with the Daily Bugle. So, Schaefer. I read you people's ethics rules on my way down here. Couldn't help but see this interesting little bit, says you're supposed to step down if you think you can't be professional, or give them good, unbiased lawyering."
JJJ had just massively paraphrased one of the New York Rules of Professional Conduct at me, so much so that I'd had to look it up later to see how badly he'd butchered it. Rule 1.7, the conflict of interest rule, has a carve-out in it for ideological conflicts and personal beliefs, such as religion or politics. It could be a hard rule of conduct to sue or cite an attorney under, given how hard it was to prove improper assistance of counsel on an ideological basis.
That being said, I'd heard from Lieberman that it happened back in the 60's… with an idiot Jewish lawyer who didn't step back from representing a Nazi sympathizer.
"And your point?" I asked, staring JJJ straight in the eye. Though I was mildly irked that I still had to look up ever so slightly to meet his gaze, even with his having stopped two steps below me on the court's front steps.
"Well, Schaefer. Why haven't you stepped down from the case?"
Silence. I had to admit, I was utterly gobsmacked. The sheer, utter gall it took to walk up to somebody and accuse them, to their face, of being incapable of maintaining a professional demeanor? I knew that if anybody had it, John Jonah Jameson did, yes.
But it's one thing to know it, and another entirely to be on the receiving end.
"That boy in there?" JJJ nodded at the courthouse behind us, taking advantage of my silence to keep talking. "He deserves a fair shake, a good, proper fighting chance. What makes you think you can give him that?"
I took a deep breath to compose myself, making sure I didn't answer while angry. There were many things I could accidentally let slip if I answered this question while I was riled up, and none of those boded well for my future, personal or professional.
"I know I can give him that," I said, keeping my voice at a steady, talking volume. "Any attorney's personal beliefs factor into whether they can adequately represent a client, you are correct on that front. So believe me when I tell you that everything I stand for, everything I believe in, stands behind Mr. Allerdyce. And quite frankly?" I added, leaning into his dictaphone. "I am genuinely offended that you felt the need to imply otherwise, Mr. Jameson. I'd thought better of a consummate professional like you."
For a moment, JJJ just looked at me. Then, with a click, he stopped the recording, and offered me a smile.
"Now, if you'll excuse me," I said, walking around him. At the same time, DA Young took his chance to start down the courthouse steps, hoping that John Jonah Jameson and I had drawn enough attention that he could slip by unmolested.
But there was blood in the water, and the media does so adore a feeding frenzy. So of course, the throng of reporters moved on from me in an instant, and descended upon the okay-lawyer-turned-scummy-politician like a pod of orcas on a shark's liver.
"Schaefer! Before you go." I paused as I was one step down from JJJ (who had not yet joined the rest of his peers in accosting the utterly-deserving District Attorney), closed my eyes, and took a deep breath. I was not going to snap at J. Jonah Jameson, I repeated in my head as a mantra. I was not going to snap at J. Jonah Jameson. "One last question. Off the record."
Wait. Off the record? That was… odd, for a reporter of his caliber and dedication.
I blinked in surprise before turning, and saw JJJ with an unusually somber expression on his face. The handheld tape recorder he'd had in his hand just a moment ago had probably been put away into his jacket pocket. In its place he held a cigar, the other retrieving a cigar cutter from his pants pocket, and a moment later his hands went through the clearly familiar motions of prepping his tobacco, all without watching.
"Off the record," I said in agreement, having to raise my voice slightly to be heard over the yelling behind us.
"How's the kid holding up?" JJJ asked, trading his cigar cutter for a box of matches. "I know how I would be handling things, and how my boy would be doing, but we're not mutants. We don't have to suffer the kind of ridiculous bullshit that young man of yours is dealing with."
Oh, John Jonah Jameson, if only you knew… the field day I could see you having with that revelation was part of the reason I kept it under wraps.
"He's…" I trailed off with a sigh, thinking over what I want to say. "No matter how things end up here, St. John is going to have problems trusting governmental authority. He has me backing him up, but he – and mutants in general," I added, "could use more people in their corner."
"Hmm…"
JJJ hummed in thought as he lit up his cigar, extricating a single match, closing the matchbox, and igniting it in one smooth motion before he brought the flame to his cigar's freshly-cut tip. A couple of puffs got the thing going, and I wrinkled my nose at the unpleasant stink of burning tobacco (though, in fairness, it was less harsh than cigarette smoke).
"I can give you this much: mutants deserve a fair shake, and we need to give it to them. From all of us, to all of them. I'll see what I can do with the Bugle, but at the end of the day?" He waved his cigar around, gesturing behind us and towards the throngs of reporters who'd descended on Lou Young, smelling a story on his lips. "No matter how loud I yell it from the rooftops, it's gonna be up to the people to get their heads out of their asses about this."
"So it is," I agreed with a nod. "Have a good day, Mr. Jameson. And please," I added, "don't put me on the cover just for validating your opinion in court. My boss would have conniptions."
"Don't worry!" John Jonah Jameson yelled after me as I resumed walking down the courthouse steps. "I'll send your boss a nice cognac before I do!"
"Given the utter lunacy that has surrounded this case so far," Judge Andrews began, leaning back in his chair, "I figure it would be best to start off the day with any additional housekeeping matters. DA Young, do I need to order a continuance so you can interview and prepare another witness, now that one of yours has oh so graciously bowed out?"
This next day of court was to start off with even more of a bang than the morning headlines, it seemed. The last time I'd heard Judge Andrews take that kind of tone, it had been when he threatened me with contempt of court, adjourned for the day, and publicly stated that he expected me to leave the monologuing at home or else. It was honestly nice to not be on the receiving end, for once.
That said, Judge Andrews had a very good reason for his current unpleasantness. The headlines may not have included the judge, but articles were quick to point out that this case could be over if the judge so wished.
Lou Young, however… oh, boy had JJJ come through on this one.
YOUNG IS RECKLESS: UNHINGED DA BULLIES TEEN ARTIST
My copy of the Daily Bugle was still sitting on my dining table in my condo, ready to be cut, framed, and hung on my wall.
As for the headline itself, and the accompanying article? Perhaps it was a bit of a stretch to class St. John as an artist just for doing lighting design on high school theater productions. But the play on 'young and reckless' was something that would stick in peoples' minds quickly, and not come unstuck without some serious shenanigans to overwrite it.
Regardless, it was glorious.
Which brought us to today: I stood alongside Matt on the left side of Judge Andrews' desk, while Lou Young took position on the right. The court reporter sat at the desk, stenotype machine with its absurd quantity of paper poised and ready to take down every word said in here.
"No continuance will be necessary, your Honor," Lou Young said, answering Judge Andrews' question about witnesses. "We intend to carry on with the rest of our case; even with the, ahem, slight unrest caused by Mr. Samuelson's testimony, the prosecution still believes it has a strong enough case to meet the burden of proof."
Well, one: slight my left buttock. And two, the lack of specificity regarding the actual burden of proof worried me a bit.
"Well in that case," the judge turned to me. "Does the defense have anything to offer?"
"Your Honor," I said, reaching into my briefcase and pulling out a neatly-typed motion. "At this time, the Defense moves for a mistrial."
"On what grounds?" Judge Andrews asked, raising a hand to keep Lou Young from blurting out some inanity for the court reporter to have to try and take down at the same time as the judge spoke.
"The prosecution's star witness and alleged victim of the greater charge of first degree assault clearly offering perjured testimony to the court casts serious doubts as to the merits of this case, and to the overall question of whether an act or action that merits bringing such charges against my client occurred in the first place," I said.
Because if you are bringing charges of assault in the first degree, and there wasn't even an assault in the first place, then how exactly are you supposed to be able to prove that case at all? You can't just magic up evidence out of thin air and expect it to not be exposed as such in court.
"We know that Mr. Samuelson lied about the order of events, and there is a genuine question whether any of his wounds were actually caused-in-fact by my client, as opposed to the victims' own haste. Given that, combined with everything else we've seen and other evidence already on the record, the defense moves to declare this case a mistrial, so that the prosecution can reexamine whether there even is a case to begin with."
"Hmm…"
The judge picked up my motion and read it. Then he flipped back to the start and read it again, frowning.
"You raise a decent enough argument. Personally, however, I see no reason to declare a mistrial here," Judge Andrews said, removing his reading glasses as he let my motion drop to his desk. "If your client is convicted despite everything that the jury has already seen, no amount of Mulligans and mistrials was going to help him."
Somehow, I knew that this was going to be the expected result. Both Andrews and Young had enough political eggs in this basket that they couldn't just toss it out on its ear. Even if a mistrial were granted, Lou would just bring the charges again, even if there was no way to guarantee that he'd go before a favorable judge.
That, or he would just burn political favors to ensure that he got a judge that was sympathetic to his cause, or more willing to listen to him as opposed to anyone else.
This being said, though, the biggest indicator that a mistrial motion wasn't going to actually work is that the campaign season for local elections was coming soon. Both of them needed this case.
The mistrial motion was just so that it was in the record, and preserved the issue for appeal. I knew it, Lou Young knew it, Judge Andrews knew it… heck, even Matt had figured that out, and he was just a rising 2L.
Welcome to the legal profession: even if you know something isn't going to work, you still occasionally have to try it just so you could say you did.
"Your Honor," I started, but cut myself off, acting as though I was gathering my thoughts before I resumed speaking. I somewhat doubted it would work, but there was always the chance that the DA would actually believe I was banking on the mistrial going through, and get cocky with how he handled the rest of his case-in-chief. "Nevermind, your Honor. My apologies for speaking out of turn." Even if I knew it was a lost cause, there was still some theater here… and I was never one for ignoring a good show.
"It's about time you displayed a little common courtesy and respect, Ms. Schaefer," Judge Andrews said, and this time I couldn't hide the frown. That was a bridge too far from him, in my opinion… and would be noted for the future. "I'd prefer to see more of it, but something tells me that this is once in a blue moon."
Well, I thought to myself, if that's how you're going to react to it, then it damn well would be.
"Now, let's all return to the courtroom. Lou, I assume your witnesses are both ready and waiting."
"We'll have the good doctor in the afternoon," DA Young said, putting away a pocket watch into his jacket pocket. "He's doing follow-ups on his surgical cases in the morning. Let's get the detective done and back out on the beat first."
"Understood." Judge Andrews pushed himself up from his chair, and retrieved the black robe from a hook just off to his left. "Now, shall we?"
And so we all left chambers, to return to the courtroom proper. Because when a judge asks if you shall, you shall.
The trial continued with the Prosecution's initially-third, now-second witness: Detective Vincent Ruscoli, a long-time veteran with the NYPD. Detective Ruscoli looked… well, about as stereotypical as you'd expect. Large, more than a little overweight, graying at the temples… if the dictionary had visual aides, Vinny Ruscoli could be found under 'new Italian-American Grandpa'.
His history spoke for itself: twenty-five years with the NYPD, and even after becoming a detective, he continued earning certifications in everything he could think of. The most recent one was getting certified as an arson investigator, which suddenly made sense of why he'd been assigned to this case.
His testimony was fairly cookie-cutter: he detailed his background, work history, credentials, etcetera, then Lou Young impaneled him as an expert witness in the fields of criminal investigation, criminal assault, and arson. He testified as to how he found St. John: he talked to Mr. de Soto asking about the neighborhood kid who regularly bought a coke at his bodega), got a picture, used that picture to ID St. John… at which point he got an arrest warrant and broke down the Allerdyce's door on a Sunday night.
At no point in his testimony did he mention investigating any part of the crime scene save for the alleyway. And that would be my opening.
But before that, I had to wait for his testimony to finish… and ready the objection I just knew I would need to make.
"Detective Ruscoli, the defendant in this case claims he acted in self-defense. In your capacity as an expert on criminal assault, could you give the court your professional opinion as to the validity of this claim?"
"Truth be told?" Detective Ruscoli wiped at his forehead with a handkerchief, which he returned to his inside jacket pocket a moment later. "Over the fifteen years I've been a detective, I've seen probably a thousand perps claiming self-defense, and gotten a feel for when it really is just 'fighting back' or not. Most of the time I tell whichever prosecutor's on my case to not even bother looking further if it's cut-and-dry self-defense. This?"
The detective shook his head.
"The big thing to remember is you gotta keep things proportional." The detective raised his hands, keeping them flat, like the pans of a scale. "They hit, you can hit back. They shoot, you can shoot back. But in fifteen years, I ain't seen nothing," he raised one hand, pointer finger extended, to punctuate his point, "that makes lighting the whole damn alleyway on fire proportional."
"Objection!" I almost yelled, rising to my feet. "The witness's offering of his opinion exceeds the bounds of allowed testimony, your Honor."
"Your Honor," Lou said, facing Judge Andrews. "Detective Ruscoli is offering his professional opinion here, born from fifteen years as a police detective, during which time he's seen hundreds of self-defense cases. The opinion he's offered here was put forth solely under his purview as an expert on criminal assault and self-defense."
"Your Honor, while the witness has been impaneled an expert in criminal assault, he is not an expert in assault with the sort of weapon alleged to have been used here," I fired back. "Were we talking about a gun, or a knife, or a beer bottle to the head," I snuck in at the end, mainly to keep that detail fresh in the jury's mind, "then perhaps the detective's opinion would have full merit. But he does not have the knowledge necessary to conclude that the manner in which my client used his abilities was not proportional. The only people who can make that conclusion are those who intimately know the abilities' full extent, and the detective is not one of them, nor did the course of his investigation ever so much as consider trying to learn this information."
"In this matter, I'm going to have to side with the defense," Judge Andrews said. "While Detective Ruscoli is an expert in the use of all standard implements that one could use in a criminal assault case, the fact remains that in the case at hand, the defendant is alleged to have used a very much nonstandard weapon. The question and its answer shall be stricken from the record, and the jury shall disregard."
No they won't, I thought bitterly. The moment he told the jury to disregard the answer, that sealed it in their minds forevermore.
I could only hope that what I had to say next stuck around more strongly.
"Thank you for your time, Detective Ruscoli," Lou Young said. "No further questions."
"At this time, does the defense wish to cross-examine this witness?" Judge Andrews asked.
"It would, your Honor," I said, standing up. "Permission to approach?"
"Granted."
With that, I moved around the table and into the well, turning over my options as I went. There was very little about the detective's actual legwork that I could attack. His i's were dotted, his t's were crossed, his adherence to chain of custody was sacrosanct, and his respect for procedure was plain to see. Moreover, Detective Ruscoli wasn't actually present in the alleyway until several hours after things happened, which was after the first set of rains came and started washing away evidence.
There was really only one area in which I could attack his actual methodology, and it was thankfully the one I had prepared. However, my argument was more than a little repetitive and would fall back on some of the same points I had made yesterday, if by necessity.
Which meant I would be running the very real chance of beating a dead horse with a jury.
So I had to make it quick… and make it memorable.
"Detective Ruscoli," I started, staying well away from the witness stand. "Are you familiar with Defense Exhibit A, marked as 'Stained Beer Bottle with Micah R. Samuelson's Fingerprints'?"
"I am," he confirmed. "I was here in the courtroom yesterday when you entered it into evidence."
"Excellent," I said. "Now, are you aware that the bottle was discovered in the construction site across the street from the alleyway?"
"Yeah, I am," the detective answered. "Not sure if you saw it, but my name's on the chain o' custody form."
Ah, trying to phrase things such that it seemed I was ignorant of a basic fact. Classic.
"I saw it," I replied. "Which you would know, since my name was both above and below yours on the chain of custody document. But moving on: to confirm for the jury, you, the lead detective involved in this case, did not find this piece of evidence."
"No, I didn't," he admitted.
"You did not search the construction site across the street from the alleyway," I said, beginning to walk closer to the witness stand.
"Well, it weren't the scene of the crime, so no," Detective Ruscoli said.
"You did not search beyond the alleyway." I continued in this vein, even as I took another slow step towards the stand.
"Well like I said," the detective reiterated, "the alleyway was the scene of the crime, so there wasn't much reason to search elsewhere."
"Even though in his interview, Mr. Samuelson mentioned having fallen into a construction site?"
"He also didn't say nothing to me about holding a bottle," the detective revealed to the court; I knew this, of course, because I'd read the transcript of his interview with Mick Samuelson, but the jury didn't. "And I don't blame him; if I just fell thirty feet, I think I'd have more important things to worry about."
"And you only became aware of the bottle's existence over a week after you had already declared your investigation complete."
"Bit embarrassing when you put it that way, but that's the long and short of it, yeah."
"Thank you, detective. One last question." I stalked towards the witness stand, plastering on the fakest pleasant smile I could manage. "When taking a minor into custody, do you always have a full SWAT break down their door and drag them out at gunpoint?"
"Objection!" Lou Young shouted, stomping as he rose.
"Sustained!" Judge Andrews agreed with a shout of his own.
"My deepest apologies, your Honor," I said. "Nothing further for this witness."
"At this time, the prosecution calls David James McConnell, M.D."
Dr. David McConnell, a ginger man with short-cut red hair and a smattering of freckles across his face and hands, stood from the gallery of the court and was brought before the bar. This man's testimony was overall… not very important to my case anymore, if I'm being honest. I had the records from Mick Samuelson's stay in the hospital, and I had the doctor's dictated notes.
There was nothing here that I would be able to learn that wasn't in there. All he had to do was tell the jury that Mick fell thirty feet, broke his leg in three places, required surgery to repair the leg, and even post-recovery he would likely walk with a limp for the rest of his life just due to the nature of the damage.
Which meant that my one job was to obstruct, object, stall, and overall make a nuisance of myself as much as possible. Rule number one of opposing counsel's expert testimony: you want to interrupt it early, and interrupt it often. Experts tend to be educated persons who consider their time to be quite valuable. If you 'waste' that time, and make them spend longer on the stand, they become easier to fluster and slip things past.
And so, when Lou Young finished with his direct of the doctor, Matt was able to confirm for me that the man was getting annoyed with this whole thing.
Thankfully, my cross would be easy.
"Permission to enter the well?" I asked, once it was my turn with the witness.
"Granted," Judge Andrews said, and I was off.
"Dr. McConnell," I started, holding my copy of the medical records that had been entered into evidence as Prosecution Exhibit 4. "On page three of Mr. Samuelson's chart, you note that when the patient arrived at the hospital, he was not wearing any trousers, correct?"
"He was not, correct," the doctor agreed.
"During the entirety of his hospital stay," I continued, staying near counsel's table, "Mr. Samuelson did not volunteer any explanation for what happened to his trousers, did he?"
"No," Dr. McConnell said.
"But you are aware of Mr. Samuelson's testimony in court yesterday, that he removed his trousers prior to or during the fall that broke his leg, because they were on fire," I pressed.
"I am, yes," the doctor said.
"Excellent. Now, I'm looking through his file here," I said, flipping through the pages one by one as I walked closer to the doctor. "And forgive me, but can you point me to where you treated Mr. Samuelson's burns?"
"I can't."
"You can't?" I asked, looking up in (mock) surprise.
"Objection!" Lou Young said, rising to his feet. "Asked and answered, your Honor."
"Sustained," Judge Andrews said. "Strike the question, counsel will rephrase."
"Of course, your Honor," I said. "Now, Dr. McConnell, would the reason you cannot point me to where you treated Mr. Samuelson's burns happen to be because he had no burns?"
"When the patient presented to the hospital, the only injury of note was the compound fracture of his right leg," Dr. McConnel said. "There were no lacerations, no contusions, and no burns."
"And this is despite having, as Mr. Samuelson said yesterday, on-fire trousers directly touching his skin?" I asked.
"Objection!" Lou Young rose. "The question is outside the scope of direct, and the question is argumentative.
"I will withdraw the question," I said, preempting the judge's sustaining the objection. "Nothing further for this witness, your Honor."
"Thank you," the judge said. "Does the prosecution wish to redirect the witness at this time?"
"No, your Honor," Lou Young said. "The prosecution has no further questions for this witness."
"In that case; Dr. McConnell, the court thanks you for your time and excuses you." Dr. McConnell stood from the witness stand and let the bailiff escort him from the courtroom, a scowl on his face the whole time he walked out. "Does the prosecution intend to call any more witnesses?"
"No your Honor," the DA said. "The prosecution rests."
Which meant that tomorrow, it was game time. Mr. de Soto was ready, and the forensic tech from the private lab we used was practically chomping at the bit to testify. And if Lou could get two days for his case-in-chief, I could probably swing having Katherine's and Dr. Michaleson's testimonies on Friday as the last word before we went into closing arguments on Monday.
Hopefully those would be enough to drown out that proportionality answer Detective Ruscoli gave from the jury's mind, given that it wasn't on the transcript anymore for them to remember. The weekend was going to be crucial here, especially if I got lucky with continuing helping hands from the news cycle.
It all depended on if I could slow things down, spread them out, and make sure not to rush through my case. I had the stronger fact pattern here, I knew it. I just needed to present it in a way that it was the lion's share of what the jury saw and paid attention to when it came time for deliberations.
"Very well," Judge Andrews said, taking his gavel in hand. "The defense shall begin its case-in-chief tomorrow morning at ten in the morning. Court is adjourned."
The gavel came down, and with it, the ball landed on my side of the Court.
The following timeline encompasses Pound the Table's complete timeline through the first six arcs. This timeline is an accurate, if not complete, representation of relevant events that have occurred within this story's timeline. Spoiler-heavy information has been redacted in its entirety.
Furthermore, the timeline is being shared in image form to prevent clever readers from simply going in, highlighting text, and picking out what lay behind the redactions.
NOTE: The first footnote of the timeline states that it is only valid through the beginning of Arc 5, although the timeline goes to Arc 6. This is because, as further stipulated in the footnote, this timeline does not account for temporal manipulations, such as time travelers or the TVA. You may make of this note what you will.
DOUBLE POST!?... yes. It's announcement time. So… without further ado…
ANNOUNCEMENTS
I have three announcements to make. One of them you can find by just scrolling up, one is a good thing, and the third is…
Well, it's a little bit controversial, I'm not going to lie. It will probably result in a few of you rolling your eyes, scrolling to the top of the page, clicking "Unwatch Thread", and leaving. But that's a risk I'm going to take, loathe as I am to do so.
ONE
As you can see above, a timeline for Pound the Table has been posted! A solid timeline and key dramatis personae are in place for the first six arcs of the fic, with the next four coming along nicely.
Furthermore, for those interested, many of the finer details of how this fic will tackle the dreaded Civil War arc have been firmed up. It will also be happening in a way that almost completely lacks the blatantly, insanely unconstitutional provisions from the canon Super Human Registration Act, and also deviates entirely from the MCU's Sokovia Accords.
The only major thing that's left to be determined is who is on which side of the conflict.
And for those interested… Iron Man and Captain America will be on the same side.
TWO
Chapter Ten's expected posting date is the evening (EST) of September 10, 2021. For people wondering why that specific date… I'm going on a five hour plane ride that day.
My repeat readers know exactly what that tends to mean.
Furthermore, Arc 1, the Trial of St. John Allerdyce, will be complete as of Chapter Twelve. After this, there will be a few chapters to take care of in-between events before Arc 2 begins in earnest, though the background events of Arc 2 will be occurring even before the arc actually starts.
Which brings us to… the dreaded…
THREE
As many of you have been made aware by reading the thread, I am a recent law school graduate, and sat the July 2021 Bar Exam.
What many of you are not aware of is that (1) I sat the District of Columbia Bar Exam, which (2) had numerous technical difficulties during the exam itself, which is going to delay grading and scoring.
Furthermore, COVID did a number on the legal job market. My graduating class is currently competing for jobs with people from the 2020 crop of law school grads, who are all (a) licensed by now, and (b) have largely gotten experience, whether as a law clerk or a contract attorney. And more than that, the overwhelming majority of positions available require you to be licensed and have 1-2 years of experience. Which is, quite simply, impossible for me at this current time.
What this means is that I am stuck in a financial pickle. Which led to this glorious conversation:
enter stage left said:
My Mother: "So, just a thought, but while you're searching for jobs, is there any way for you to… I don't know, make money from your writing?"
Me: "Well, I have been doing some brainstorming and storyboarding for a work of original fiction. I guess I can do more on that, I've been meaning to spend more time on it anyways."
My Mother: "Well, what about your other stuff? I know it's fanfiction, but is it possible to monetize it, at all?"
And then I continued to hear about this. Again and again. For the past. Several. Days.
I'm sure you can guess what happened next. Because when a Jewish mother (who also happens to be a tax attorney and a CPA) gets something in her head… you are not getting away from it.
As a result of this, though I am loathe to do so… I have set up a page on Ko-fi to act as a tip jar, of sorts. Largely to keep the yenta off my back about this, but also because much as I hate to admit it, she has a point: I do have bills to pay, and any amount, however small, could be helpful.
(Also it helps keep the yenta from asking when I'm gonna settle down with a nice Jewish girl and give her a granddaughter to spoil…)
DISCLAIMER: The Ko-fi mentioned in this post will only be accepting tips until such time as I am (1) gainfully employed, and (2) past whatever probational period may exist when I do manage to find a job.
NOTE: At this time, there is absolutely ZERO CONTENT gated behind a timewall or paywall. There is absolutely nothing to be gained from tipping even a single dollar of your hard-earned money to me. All you get is a profound "thank-you" as your brain emits the goodie-goodie chemicals.
Thank you for your time and attention, everybody.
And to any fellow Jews in the readership, a slightly belated Shana Tova to you.
An omake has been posted by a reader over on SpaceBattles. Please find it HERE, or read it in the spoiler box below:
It is the domain of the lion to prowl the plains, of the eagle to roam the skies, and of the shark to predate the black depths of Neptune's enduring mysteries. Supreme though they might be in their native environments, these predators dare not step, soar, or swim out of bounds, lest they be crushed by nature's furious rebuke of their specialization.
DOOM is not so limited, and there is no domain that is not his to wander as he wills! So, though he might fly through the heavens, master the peaks of Mt. Olympus, or make war upon Atlantis herself, today it amuses him to wander the streets of New York City. As the internationally recognized sovereign of Latveria, he has elected to exercise his newly granted diplomatic immunity by touring Manhattan on foot, as to enact his kingly whims. (And to rub Richards' dumb smooshy face in it, not that his treacherous rival would dare confront him with anything more than an insufficiently subtle aerial drone that DOOM has graciously decided to ignore.)
This has caused a stir.
In lesser cities, men and women would clear the way before him, prostrating themselves to beg DOOM's abundant mercy. In lesser cities, there would be runners up ahead, to warn all and sundry of DOOM's approach. Doors and windows would be shut in futile acts of fear, as the cowardly retreat as if burrowing rodents, or thrown open, raining confetti and singing songs to his glory, in hope that celebration would better suit his moods. In New York City, oncoming pedestrians barely offered DOOM a glance as they navigate the circuits of paparazzi following DOOM like vultures in his march from the United Nations to the World Trade Center.
It is a four mile journey. Even at DOOM's brisk pace, that is more than enough time for something to go wrong, even with the Kingpin out of town, Spider-Man cramming for finals, and Richards secluded in his lab, staring at a panel of security monitors with unblinking, bloodshot eyes.
It is not DOOM's plan that goes wrong, of course, because DOOM's plans are perfection and elegance. It is not DOOM's body or mind that fails him. No, the capricious whims of fate seize upon that of DOOM's very nature which he refuses to abandon, for though his existence has evolved beyond man, encompasses and surpasses the limits of human imagination, it sprung like a mighty oak from the acorn of human ambition. Something in that seed remains, and the urge to conquest is not one that DOOM will deny.
Halfway through his journey, an advertisement catches DOOM's eye: "TEN SCOOP DOUBLE FUDGE CHALLENGE! FINISH IT AND IT'S FREE!"
None may challenge DOOM without being humbled, not even an ice cream shop!
So it is that DOOM diverts from his planned course to cross the street in defiance of his own plan, his mastery of the New York City civic infrastructure rendered meaningless before the demands of his own cruel whims. He strides through the cameras and gaping onlookers like a lion through grass and crosses the street just as the truck barrels through the green light DOOM so casually disregards.
There is a collision, an impact, an a great shuddering boom! Steel is shredded, women scream, and men cry out in horror and dismay. But it is not DOOM who is smote. No! If something as trivial as a speeding automotive could so much as move the sovereign of Latveria, he would not deserve the title DOOM!
So it is that out of the ruins of their collision, he steps uninjured, his billowing green cape glowing ever so slightly to those with eyes attuned to the arcane. Like a vengeful wraith out of the black smoke he emerges, looming over the meager man, the pitiful human vessel vacant of all sense and comprehension, the dazed and concussed driver who so thoughtlessly drove his truck to its DOOM!
He stares down, his eyes blazing through the narrow slits of his iron mask, at this offender, and intones:
"THAT... was RECKLESS."
---
"No."
She wasn't a divorce lawyer, but the look on Schmoel Lieberman's face looked like an anguished marriage between pleading and outrage. Noa Schaefer hadn't seen him like this before, not even during the last high profile disaster, and that set off enough alarms in her head that she resolved right then and there that her answer was No and it wasn't going to change from No, no matter what he said next.
"We'll make you partner," was his immediate reply. This was a lawyer and a good one, and he threw this out as a follow-up offer without even a little bit of leading or needling on her part.
"Partner," she said, in the tone of a question that wasn't really a question, in the tone of an entire tirade compressed into two short syllables. She could have left it at that, but she didn't. "After the Allerdyce disaster, this case, this mystery case that everyone's too scared to speak of at any more than a whisper... this is the case that makes me partner?"
Not that their discretion had availed them. For better or worse, the draconic bone plates attached to her skull gave Noa superlative hearing, and she knew before even walking into his office that she was not going to represent in court the man who hit Victor von fucking Doom with a truck. Not for all the partnerships in the world.
"Partner," he repeated through dry lips, "and significant compensation."
"Forget compensation! Schmoel, if I'm putting myself in Doctor Doom's personal crosshairs, I want your office, your house, your wife, and a casket to bury us all in afterwards! Why would the firm even think of taking this case?!"
Any fewer years in court and Lieberman's fingers might have trembled as he pushed the paper on his desk slowly in her direction. It was face down, and when she picked it up, Noa saw three things. A boilerplate contract, a defendant's signature, and a fee.
Strange noises escaped her throat that she could probably pass off as human, at the sight of that fee. As soon as her composure returned, she lowered the contract and looked Schmoel in the eye.
"I get seventy-five percent."
"Deal," he immediately agreed, and her eyes widened in instantaneous surprise and regret.
"Deal?! Schmoel, what the hell? Where does a trucking company get this kind of money, and who's the judge? Who's the prosecutor?!"
---
There are benefits to being reincarnated in the past, so long as that past even vaguely resembles your own. You can make millions with preternaturally wise investments, you can catch Freddy Mercury in concert, and you can even help spearhead the civil rights movements that will define a generation with insights and strategies that would evade anyone trapped in their own era like a fly in amber.
But there was one dreadful downside to practicing law in New York in the eighties, and that was that Kampfer v. Vonderheidewas fifteen years in the increasingly uncertain future. This trial was an anomaly, and in front of 2002's supreme court, would have been declared a constitutional violation for sure. But here and now, in the courtroom that mattered, in front of all the press that mattered, Noa Schafer was confronted with one indescribably cruel fact:
Private prosecution of criminal law was legal in the state of New York.
Two indescribably cruel facts, actually.
Private prosecution of criminal law was legal in the state of New York, and Doctor Victor von Doom could apparently pass the bar exam with a half hour of study time.
A seven foot titan of world-conquering iron and green silk rose with the rest of the courtroom as the judge made her entrance. As the preliminaries of the coming trial passed her by with absurd banality, Noa prepared to defend her client in what was destined to become a landmark case. The State of New York versus Kun Trucking, with Dr. Victor von Doom, esquire, prosecuting.
If you enjoyed the omake, and have a SpaceBattles account, please consider hopping over to that site and giving the author of the original omake a like, for I only had but one to give.
The first omake... got a follow-up already... oh dear god my sides. Find it HERE, and reproduced in the spoiler box below.
Yes, the name was silly. That's the first thing anyone reasonable pointed out when they stopped looking over their shoulder in paranoia (or, more likely, reached the bottom of a bottle.) The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants was named with deliberate intent to garner a number of reactions, and that was one of them. People who already thought that mutants were evil hardly required further (or any) justification, people who didn't dismissed them as obviously insane or incompetent, and people in the middle snickered and moved on with their lives. It was actually an effective deflection from the truth, from what Erik wasn't saying. The Brotherhood wasn't one of Evil Mutants; there were, thankfully, very few of those. It was a Brotherhood of Mutant Hypocrites, of which there were plenty. And now, at last, Noa was ready to join their ranks. She'd done a lot of things in her career that were less than savory. No one had the privilege of only defending innocent clients, and only fools let scruples stand in the way of an effective defense of the ones that were innocent.
But this next move of hers, it rankled. It was a betrayal of the principles, in abstract, that she fought to protect for mutants both professionally and clandestinely. It wasn't one to one, of course, it wasn't precisely the same thing, but it was close enough that she paused before entering the judge's chamber.
"Doctor," she said, and the surprisingly quiet footfalls of iron upon wood came to a pause. The man in front of her, the prosecutor in this case, the tyrant of Latveria turned to face her and glared down at her through those narrow eye slits that so poorly concealed his unblinking gaze.
"You would address DOOM?!" The building's hallways were actually quite spartan, narrow in construction and sparsely appointed. His voice ought not to have echoed, but somehow it did.
It didn't faze her. Noa was already in courtroom mode, anticipating the show she was about to put on. So, she held that gaze, staring down the unflinching eyes of a hunter who would predate the whole of the world. "Yes. I want to state in advance, what I'm about to try isn't personal. To the contrary, it flies in the face of my principles, but professional ethics compel me to attempt any legal recourse in pursuit of my client's defense. I don't expect your forgiveness, but you have my apology. I'm sorry, Doctor Doom."
He laughed, not a gloating thing, but a bark of mixed surprise and gloating. "You dare?! Once, an elderly Latverian approached me upon one of my prosperous nation's many festival days. He, upon the twilight of his final years, dared to say much the same. He apologized for what the world had done, 'to make a monster such as me,' and prayed for the redemption of my soul in plain sight of my wiser subjects. For the audacity, I smote him upon the spot, reducing his body to its component atoms! Rejoice for DOOM's unmatched perception, counsel, for I sense no trace of pity in your words. Your regret is recognized--and discarded. Instead know that whatever futile ploy you attempt will be crushed, just as I have crushed all other obstacles before DOOM's path! Your humiliation in defeat will be apology enough!"
She held her poker face, if only barely, as the two of them proceeded into the judge's chambers. Kaye Hedman was a fair and scrupulous woman, beyond reproach in her conduct in most trials, but this one had tested her resolve. Despite drama after unfolding drama, she had yet to crack, and Noa had to admit that the woman lived up to the title Honorable. This probably wasn't going to work, but even a ten percent chance was better than the odds her client was facing so far, because Doctor Doom was right. He really was crushing her out there in the courtroom.
So, she got right to it. "I'm going to move for a mistrial."
The Honorable Kaye Hedman immediately groaned and buried her head in her hands. "Not again."
"The statutes allowing private pros--"
"You tried this already, counsel, and did not get a mistrial. The absolute mockery of an expert witness cross-examination did not get a mistrial. For heavens sake, Schaefer, seven of the prospective jurors in jury selection were Reed Richards in disguise--"
And here the judge cut off, the glare she levelled at Noa melting into a look of commiseration as the two women weathered together, in silence, the unavoidable response. DOOM raised his fist to the heavens and cursed the name, with a loud roar of, "RICHAAAAARDS!" that should have split the very sky! Once he was done, the judge continued.
"--and that didn't get you your mistrial. I have been over these statues with a fine toothed comb, as you well know! The prosecutor has a law degree, several law degrees in fact, granted by far too many domestic universities for me to dismiss.
Now DOOM's unflinching eyes smiled behind his mask, for this was true. An honorary degree was still a degree, and he need only ask for the plebeians of a hundred nations to heap endless awards upon him.
"He passed the bar.
A trivial exercise, hardly deserving the title 'examination'! What is there to examine in DOOM, if not unmatched excellence!
"If only barely.
And DOOM's hands curled into fists of righteous anger, but he did not protest the point.
"Most importantly, he has the DA's approval. He has the press's approval. The President of the United States called me on the telephone, not about the case, officially, because that might actually warrant a mistrial. No, the President of the United States called me on the telephone to send his condolences and well wishes for my health, which is as close to approval as I think he's allowed to give, counsel. And any person with sufficient qualifications and the district attorney's approval may prosecute a case in the state of New York."
Noa's smile was a slim and pointed thing, a rapier prepared to strike. Theater was for juries. Judges required facts. This called for a little bit of both, so she simply nodded, at first. "Yes. Any sufficiently qualified person may prosecute a case in the state of New York...
And now she let it all out, she turned, she pointed, she accused! "... but this, your honor, is a robot!"
As a second stunned silence fell over the judge's chambers, Noa buried her regrets and held to her pretended outrage. In her heart of hearts, she knew she had to do what she could for her client... but she hoped, at the end of all this, that she wouldn't accidentally achieve citizenship for Sentinels.
---
Despite the velocity at which he entered the law's--and DOOM's--crosshairs, Noa's client wasn't considered much of a flight risk. Teruk Kun of Kun Trucking was a middle aged man with thin hair and a portly, though not obese, figure, a strange accent that Noa couldn't quite place, and a kind smile. No criminal history, no trace of violence in his demeanor, and no explanation for the millions of dollars he inexplicably had on hand to pay her fees. He ought to have been the perfect client.
That was why, when she got the request, she agreed immediately. She called him up right away and escorted her client to "a prospective lead" at 177A Bleecker Street.
It might be awkward, if the good Doctor was merely being strange, but the moment the door opened and the Sorcerer Supreme of Earth appeared before them, he was already incanting.
"By the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak, be you bound, demon!" Dextrous fingers flew through gestures almost too fast for her eyes to track as the sorcerer called upon the ancient magics. Bright red bands of incomprehensible force, force enough to bind dark gods or even the Incredible Hulk, wound around the body of her poor truck driver, as Noa dove to the side and put herself on guard.
With her hearing, she was aware, far too easily aware, of the fact that the crowds on the street outside Doctor Strange's downtown office were passing by without even noticing the display. Some ward of convenience was keeping their eyes away, which was definitely for the best, because it was generally poor practice for a lawyer to get their client banished to a hell dimension by their own magic tutors.
"Just what do you mean by demon?" she demanded in what she thought was a very calm voice. There was only a little shrieking.
"This," the sorcerer spoke, even as he incanted further spells, runes and mystical circles alighting all around him in the air, "is Teruk Kun, the Abductor of Souls. Those he slays are never seen again, given to a true and final death beyond normal mortal ending."
And the sweet old man, the clumsy driver with pictures of his kids in his wallet and spare tire around his middle, laughed. It was an awful, echoing thing with a strange reverberation like the rumbling of an engine. Where his eyes ought to be, there was cold and endless light, shining into the Sorcerer's apartment as yellow beams. "Not quite, good Doctor. It is true that I claim souls, but only to deliver them elsewhere. Mine is reincarnation of a different sort, not anything so unwholesome as a demon's appetites."
And, honestly, Noa had expected something like this. It was just stupid enough to fit with the rest of her week. So she didn't ask any of the obvious, stupid questions,, like what he meant by "different sort of reincarnation," or when her life had become a bad anime crossover. No, she cut to the heart of a matter, as a good cross-examination should.
"But of all possible people, WHY Doctor Doom?!" she demanded of her client.
Even within the inexorable grasp of the Crimson Bands, her client, the demon, shrugged. "Even I take contract work sometimes. Reed Richards has deep pockets, and it was an interesting proposal, anyway. It's not every day I try to claim a robot with a soul."
And at that revelation, their unseen, unheard audience finally announced himself. What his antagonists had claimed through sheer accident and cosmic coincidence, DOOM had perfected with science and sorcery. Unlike the so-called Invisible Woman, he had rendered himself undetectable in truth, removed from the world and all of man's senses and devices. At this, though, at this new discovery, his concentration failed him and he melted into existence before all three of them.
His fist did not rise to the sky in righteous anger, nor did his imperious gaze fall upon any of them. No, DOOM looked upon his own gloved hands, as if seeing them for the first time.
"This Doombot... has a soul?!"
---
After weeks of fighting, after twists and turns and endless betrayals from the press, Noa had to confess that she was losing. The evidence was against her client, who was now wanted on a dozen far more serious charges after apparently fleeing the country. Though not unwilling, she proved incapable of proving to the judge's satisfaction that her client had been banished to another dimension, and any hope of a mistrial were squashed under DOOM's ruthless mastery of legal minutiae. In absentia, things were not going well on any front.
An ordinary lawyer, a sensible lawyer, quite possibly even a good lawyer would have called it quits by now. When you're beat, there's only two things to do. You can surrender, or you can escalate, and escalation in this case came at a heavy cost.
It was a cost she could see measured, as if by a finely tuned instrument, in the disbelieving stare of her partner, Schmoel Lieberman.
"You're serious?"
"Yes, she's the one." She answered without a second's hesitation, and Schmoel ran his hands through his hair in a mix of concern and dismay.
The silence stretched for an awkward moment, as he thought over his next few words with care.
"Listen, Noa... Noa, I know a shrink, she's a good one, very discreet. It doesn't have to interfere with the case, and I think you should see her." That sort of offer said a lot, given the stigma towards mental health in the eighties. Maybe it would've warned her off, two weeks ago. Maybe it should ward her off now.
The smile she offered in response probably showed too many teeth, because he visibly recoiled in the face of it.
"That won't be necessary."
"Listen, Noa," he said, his tone outright plaintive, "calling in Murdock, that was a good move. He's bright for a 1L, beyond bright, I think you've got a superstar lawyer or maybe the world's most successful DA on your hands there. You did well, even if it didn't exactly shake out."
Frankly speaking, it was an act of genius on her part and she wouldn't accept anything less than unqualified praise. If anyone could outmaneuver Dr. Doom in the courtroom, it was their nascent tag team of Matt Murdock and his mentor, Noa freaking Schaefer. They had him, they would have had him, if Matt hadn't woken up one day with miraculously perfect eyesight. The first thing his new perfect eyes ever read was the greeting card on his night stand, which read "YOU'RE WELCOME" and "Printed in Latveria." He recused himself after that.
"This is a Hail Mary," Noa said, her tone edging just slightly out of her normal calm. There was something in her eyes, something that scared Schmoel, something manic. "I admit that."
"A Hail Mary... A Hail Mary?! Noa, I'm pretty sure Mary was older than twelve when she popped out someone else's messiah, and that's what you have out there! That's not co-counsel, that's a twelve-year-old girl!"
"Send her in, Schmoel," she instructed, dismissing his concerns entirely. "Send her in, and give us some privacy."
Her partner retreated, because there was nothing else left to do, and in his wake appeared a twelve-year-old girl who didn't look the slightest bit nervous to be in a fancy lawyer's office. There was nothing in her expression but unabashed curiosity, her head on a swivel taking in the details of the bookshelves, the degrees, the pictures, the knick-knacks and memorabilia lining the walls on her way to Noa's desk. With a bright, buck-toothed smile, she greeted Noa with a guileless, "Hi!"
"Hello!" Noa said back, and even before she asked the question, she could taste something like victory on the tip of her tongue. "My name's Noa. I want to ask you a question. Is there any chance... you can talk to squirrels?"
And that happy smile broadened. Doreen Green's eyes, like bright brown saucers, met her own with jubilation and pride and the doom of DOOMs.
So, minor bit of background: a week or so ago, a SpaceBattles user approached me asking me my policy on fan contributions such as omake and sidestories. I said it's perfectly fine, go hog wild... and then I got pitched the idea.
And I realized... this could be canon with a few minor adjustments.
Therefore, I am pleased to announce that Pound the Table has gotten its first CANON omake, courtesy of user JonBerry over on SpaceBattles. You can find it [HERE], or reproduced in its entirety in the spoiler box below. Once again though, I humbly ask that if you have a SpaceBattles account, please go offer JonBerry the likes and upvotes that he so richly deserves.
September, 1987
For the Mutant Mastermind Magneto, the work he was about to perform was so sensitive, so requiring a delicate touch, that he had to oversee it personally. He would have sent Mystique by herself, but while she spoke a little of the language, what he needed to do required flawless mastery, something that could only come from a native speaker. Of course, he would bring her along too, as it would be foolish to go alone. Bringing Sabertooth or heavens forbid, Toad would have been too implausible.
And so it was, that Erik and Raven entered into the small New York deli in one of the Jewish sections of the city. Erik was dressed well, his suit straight, and his hat doffed as he crossed the threshold of the shop. Behind him, Mystique was in a less formal dress, something European in style. Behind the counter, the elderly woman looked up at the two new strangers, and her eyes narrowed at the sight of the two strangers.
"How may I help you?" she asked in unaccented English.
"You came recommended," Erik replied in proper Yiddish as they were outside of Israel. "And I was in town on other business, so I came to assure myself that I had not been misled." He smiled as she relaxed at his use of their mutual tongue. "Of course, having seen your beauty for myself, I know that all that has been revealed to me is truth." He laid the compliment on a bit thick, but his honest smile matched hers.
"Sit! Sit!" the woman replied. "I will see what's available," she told them. "I am Rebbecca Kaplan," she introduced herself, "and don't let my husband hear you. He might get jealous!"
"I am Erik, and this is Raven," he introduced himself and Mystique as they took a booth for themselves. "And I have no fear of your husband, for he should be proud of his marriage to you."
"You flatter me!" Kaplan cried out in mock annoyance, slapping the door frame she was about to pass through with a towel that seemed omni-present. "Wait right there," she said as she looped around to approach them properly. "What can I get for you?" she asked, holding a pen to her notepad.
"We'll have whatever you like," Raven spoke, not as fluently as Erik, but well enough. They had been together long enough that she could muddle her way through some conversations.
Rebecca's eyes narrowed at her, judgmental as only a grandmother could be. And she shared that Judgment with Erik, proclaiming his guilt in not teaching Raven properly. He could only accept it. "I agree," he said in Yiddish. "Whatever you choose to serve, be proud of." he pulled out his wallet and passed her far too much for two people. "And share with those less fortunate, if it pleases you."
All sins forgiven, Rebbecca smiled again. "Wait right here," she asked of them. "I'll have your order shortly."
She left, and Mystique gave Erik the stinkeye. "You never said anything about this," she muttered. "I would have dressed more appropriately."
"If you knew, it wouldn't have changed anything," Erik pointed out. "Besides, this is for the best. Keeps you on your toes."
Mystique wasn't buying for a moment. "And so your contact?"
"About to be made," Erik said as Rebbecca returned with a small salad to get them started. "Thank you," he and Raven said at the same time.
"It'll be a couple minutes before the meal is ready," she said, then turned on the trait of all grandmothers everywhere. She started prying. "What brings you here?"
"Ah, I was checking up on a person I met recently," Erik took a bite of the salad, and found it to his taste. He glanced at Raven, who was tucking it away with aplomb. It was good. "She lives in the area, and I find myself curious as to her ... disposition," he carefully chose his words to avoid giving the game away too soon.
"Oh?" Mrs Kaplan was instantly on alert, as while they shared religion and language, Erik was obviously an outsider.
"Yes, a quite well read young woman. Noa Schaefer, I think her name was. Petite."
Mrs Kaplan huffed. "And what would you want with her?" she asked, taking to her task of gatekeeper with gusto.
Now, this was the dangerous part. There were some things that whole communities would band together around, and Erik was about to invoke it on a stranger. "Ah, you see, my vision of loveliness, I... track down men of ill repute," and there were some things you never spoke aloud of. He casually rolled up his sleeves just a little. To the unaware, he was moving his clothes away from the food, lest they get dirty. But to the old Jewish woman, she recognized what he showed her. "The young Schaefer and I happened to be in the same place at the same time, and we cooperated."
She didn't respond, instead turning around and walking away in a huff, the silence as thick as the worst of fogs. "You messed up," Raven told him.
"I did not," Erik replied, confident. "She just went to get our main meal."
True to his word, Kaplan returned with two plates with properly prepared matzo ball soup and a pair of knishes. She set them down between the two of them. "I don't know what you're talking about," she said. "And little Noa would never do such a thing."
"Oh, of that I am quite certain. She is quite studious," he said by way of a compliment. "And your soup is excellent," he told her honestly. "No, she has connections that I do not, and she was able to use them to help me find the man I was looking for."
He could see the gears turning in her head, putting together the pieces that he had laid out for her. "And so I came to see what her nature was like, outside of this despicable business."
"She's good," Kaplan said, obviously struggling to process what she had just learned. "Good girl. Likes her books."
Erik smiled again. "So I heard. But with your vouching for her, I can be sure of her good will then."
"I told you, you should have brought Mortimer," Raven muttered. "I didn't need to be here."
"Neither does he," Erik countered quietly. He wondered what possessed her to mention Toad, only for it to click when Rebbecca decided to make her own conclusions.
"Mortimer?" she asked. "Tell me, Erik, she used his name with emphasis, "A man like you with a daughter like her, and you didn't bring your son?"
Erik stared daggers at Raven, who simply smiled innocently. "Well, he has his own duties to attend to, I assure you." He would deal with this impertinence later, but for now, he was on the back foot, and he intended to regain it. "It would be wrong of me to pull him away from those," not that he had any, the miscreant, "just to have lunch at a fine diner such as this."
But the woman who served them saw through his ruse. "You should bring him next time. Poor Noa, all skin and bones. I try to feed her, to help her along, but she refuses to learn!" she lamented with all the skill of a Shakespearean thespian. "And trying to find a good Jewish boy for her, don't get me started, won't even give them a second look! Maybe a son of yours will have a better chance."
Raven had a perfectly straight face, refusing to so much as hint at a smile, though Erik saw something unreadable behind her eyes. "Well, you can understand why we would want to come ourselves first," she said in English. "Sorry," she apologized for the language.
"You don't be sorry!" Kaplan turned on her. "You practice more!" She turned to Erik. "You bring this Mortimer next time, and I will see him myself. Then, I will think about introductions. Do you understand?"
"I do!" Erik agreed instantly. That could have gone better. "Now, if you'll excuse us, I think we should be finishing our lunch, then be on our way."
"Yes, yes! Oh, my poor heart. You scared me!" The proprietor walked away, back to her job. "Making me think that she was a hunter of all things!"
Magneto glared at Mystique. "Hmm. Think maybe I'd look good in a tux?" she suggested.
"Perhaps I should speak of this to Destiny," he warned.
"Go ahead," Mystique said around a bite of her knish.
Furthermore, while I have a captive audience, let me give JonBerry a further shoutout by plugging Avenging Class, his Fate/Grand Order x MCU crossover fic — wherein Mysterious Heroine XX, who is NOT a Saber or Saberface, thank you very much, arrives on MCU Earth during the Chitauri invasion… and then can't leave. Oops.
It is of my absolute favorite fics on SpaceBattles — funny, consistently entertaining, contorts canon into knots while still seeming 100% believable at all times…
… oh, and it's also one of THE best instances of 1) genre savvy and 2) a consistently unreliable narrator I've ever read.
If you're looking for a good way to kill some time (and for a comic relief character to take center stage in a big way), give Avenging Class a try. If the reactions from a few friends of mine are any indication, you will have a rolicking good time with it.
Day three of the trial (or four, if you counted jury selection) began, and with it, so too did my opportunity to show our side of things.
"Would the defense like to begin its case-in-chief at this time?" Judge Andrews asked, once the usual perfunctory business had been handled.
"We would, your Honor," I said, standing. "At this time, the defense would like to call to the stand Mr. Alejandro de Soto as witness for the defense."
Behind me, in the front row of the gallery, Alejandro de Soto stood. He was a wiry Cuban man, probably in his late fifties to early sixties, with close-cropped curly black hair and the makings of a handlebar mustache that he simply didn't have time to properly cultivate. Mr. de Soto wore relatively casual clothing, as opposed to a suit: a well-worn polo shirt, khakis, and somewhat scuffed brown leather wingtips. I'd asked him to present himself as a more down-to-earth person with his dress, which had the added benefit of letting him dress more comfortably.
It is blatantly obvious when somebody in a suit isn't comfortable wearing one, and it doesn't reflect well on the jury.
Once Mr. de Soto was sworn in, I got down to business: introduce him to the jury, tell them what he does for a living, and how he's relevant to the case at hand. Simply put: Mr. de Soto's bodega was the spark that set this whole thing off. If St. John hadn't gone to the bodega to buy a Coke on his way home from school, he may not have drawn attention from Mick and his fellow thugs. If he hadn't drawn their attention, he wouldn't have had to defend himself.
And if he hadn't had to defend himself… well, there was little point in focusing on that.
Instead, I had to handle the important bits. So I set the scene: the day of the incident, the afternoon, and St. John ducked in to get himself a soda on the way home. This was where the crucial information started coming into play.
"How long did it take St. John to buy the coke from your bodega?" I asked.
"Well, it don't take too long, never does," Mr. de Soto started, his accent thick enough to be noticeable, but not so heavy that he was incomprehensible. "He walks in, grabs a bottle, drops a buck on the counter, and goes. Thirty seconds, tops?"
It had taken three hours of practice to get the strength of his accent just right. Generally, accents are a problem to work around… except in certain cases. Here, Mr. de Soto came off as an immigrant, yes, but an honest and hard-working one. Wearing what was ostensibly just a newer set of work clothes, when paired with an obvious accent, made him salt of the earth.
"And how often would St. John do this quick in-and-out for a coke?" I continued, positioned near the top of the jury box.
"Oh, once a week easy," my witness said with a smile. "And when it's theater season, he bring his friends, they all do the same. Always in, grab coke, drop dollar, and out."
"So this is a common occurrence, then," I added, though it was more a statement than a question.
"Objection!" DA Young stood, and from what I was hearing he didn't even bother to button his suit jacket. "Leading."
"Sustained," Judge Andrews said. "Rephrase the question, counselor."
"Apologies; I'll withdraw the question," I said.
It had been on purpose anyway; fishing for the objection interrupted that line of questioning, and put a better capstone on it than anything else I could have done. It let me pivot to a new point without having to find the segue myself.
"Moving on. Mr. de Soto, do you know the alleged victims in this case — Micah Samuelson, James Boothe, Theodore Nielsen, and Patrick MacEahern?"
"Objection," Young said. "Leading, again."
"Question is foundational, your Honor," I said. "I'm simply establishing that the witness was aware of these four individuals prior to the events that brought us here today."
"Overruled," Judge Andrews said.
I asked the question again, and this time received an answer without being interrupted.
"I know those boys, si," Mr. de Soto said. "Known who they are for four years now."
"Now, you're a small business owner in the area," I began, walking a little closer to the witness stand, parallel to the jury box. "What sort of reputation do those four have among folks like you?"
"Objection!" Lou Young yelled out. "Defense counsel is attempting to elicit improper character evidence!"
"Your Honor, the defense is raising self-defense as an affirmative defense to the charges brought by the State," I answered, not missing a beat. "Character evidence against an alleged victim is admissible to suggest the state of mind that a defendant might reasonably have had when confronted by them."
"Again," I asked, "what sort of reputation did Samuelson, Boothe, Nielsen, and MacEahern have in the area?"
"Oh, they're some scary hombres," Mr. de Soto answered, just as planned. "Always quick to throw a punch or break a window. I watch 'em real close when they're in the bodega ever since I heard from senor Chang."
"What did you hear from Mr. Chang?" I asked, and readied myself for the objection.
"Well senor Chang told me how he caught them putting cans in their pockets, won't let them in the store no more."
"Objection!" DA Young stood, almost bellowing. "Specific acts are improper character evidence, and the witness is offering the court hearsay."
"Sustained," Judge Andrews said. "Strike the witness's last answer from the record; the jury shall disregard." No they won't, I thought to myself. They never do.
"One more question," I said, stepping towards the front of the jury box as I wound up. "Mr. de Soto, knowing what you do of the alleged victims' reputations, what advice would you offer me if I found myself cornered in an alley by those four!"
"Objection! Again, improper character evidence, and calls for speculation!"
"Your Honor, the question goes directly to the alleged victims' reputations, and how that reputation would inform a the actions of a reasonable person who was aware of such."
"I'll reserve the right to strike the answer once I hear it," Judge Andrews said. "The witness will answer the question."
"Well," Mr. de Soto said, "I'd tell you to toss your wallet to 'em, and hope they was okay with just that."
"Your Honor—"
Judge Andrews held up a hand to stop Young from renewing his objection. A hand came up to his chin as he looked between the witness stand and the jury, and eventually he came to a conclusion.
"Strike the question and the witness's answer from the record," he ordered he stenographer, who dutifully pulled out a pen and did so. "The jury shall disregard what was just said. Counselor, you may continue."
"Actually, that was it," I said, giving Mr. de Soto the barest of nods. "Nothing further for this witness."
Lou Young took his chance to stand up once I'd seated myself, received permission to enter the well, and began his cross-examination.
It was nothing particularly special. He tried to poke a bit of doubt in how well Mr. de Soto knew what St. John did in the store (which he got a bit of, but only if you squinted for it). Lou attempted to confuse the issue of how bad Mick's and company's reputations were… and pretty much failed.
But then came the pivot.
"One more thing," Lou said, pacing directly in front of where I was seated. "In the wake of the incident in the alley, did you make any changes to your business practices?"
Fuck. I'd been hoping he wouldn't ask this question.
Alright, then. Plan A it was.
"Objection your Honor," I said, rising. "Mr. de Soto's business practices have no relevance to the matter at hand. Furthermore, such information's probative value is substantially outweighed by the prejudice it could cause."
"Your Honor, the witness's store is the spark that lit the fuse!" Lou Young said, forcing his eyes open so widely that he looked manic. "Its relevance is obvious, and its probity is equivalent!"
"If you mean equivalent to zero, then—"
"Objection overruled," Judge Andrews interrupted, offering me a small glare. "The witness will answer the question."
Damn, I thought as I sat. I had a feeling I'd lose that one, but it would've been nice not to — and I knew a few judges who would've given it to me on that basis, so it clearly wasn't a baseless argument. Instead, I just had to trust in my witness's prep.
"I mean, I changed one or two things, sure," Mr. de Soto said.
"And one of those changes was moving lighters behind the counter, wasn't it?" Lou asked.
"Objection," I said, standing. "Given the facts of the case, the answer to this question would be substantially more prejudicial than probative."
"I'm pretty sure I already ruled on this very objection, Ms. Schaefer," Judge Andrews said. "So once again, overruled."
Ugh.
"I'll repeat the question," Lou Young said. "One of the changes in business practice that you made was moving lighters to behind the counter, wasn't it?"
"It was, sure," de Soto agreed.
"You moved lighters behind the counter after the alley got scorched by a mutant," Lou Young said, the smirk on his face visible from where I sat… oh, wiping that off his face would be great. "Nothing further, your Honor."
Once Lou Young sat, I stood.
"Redirect, your Honor?" I asked.
"Go ahead. You have permission to enter the well," the judge said, and so I stood, then walked all the way until I was in front of the jury.
"Mr. de Soto, why did you move lighters behind the counter?" I asked.
"Objection!" Lou Young said standing. "Counsel is—"
"Overruled," Judge Andrews said, a small smirk at the timing of his interruption just barely becoming visible on his face before his expression went stony again. "You do not get to have your cake and eat it too, District Attorney. If you asked about moving the lighters, the defense gets to ask why."
"Thank you, your Honor," I said. "I apologize for the interruption, Mr. de Soto. I'll ask again: why did you move lighters behind the counter?"
"Because they was the most shoplifted thing I got in the store!" Alejandro de Soto answered. "Some pendejo comes in the bodega, I turn around for fifteen seconds, there goes another lighter or two! I was having to restock them six times a month!" Then, a sly look came over de Soto's face. "I keep 'em with the tobacco now. Do you know how easy it is to upsell a lighter with a pack of smokes?"
Perfect. Just like we'd practiced.
"And when did you make this change?" I asked.
"Right around mid-June," he answered. "Fourth of July fireworks always meant I was gonna lose lighters."
"Smart move," I said with a smile. "Nothing further, your Honor."
Excellent. Now I just had to hope the jury listened to the redirect instead of the cross.
One witness down, three more to go.
My second witness of the day, and for whom I'd reserved the afternoon, was forensic scientist David Grissom. He was one of the analysts with the private forensic company we contracted out for litigation purposes, and who I'd had the distinct pleasure of working with on more than one occasion. That wasn't sarcasm, either: Dave is an absolute delight to have on your side in a courtroom.
The main reason for this was that Dave… well, he had a very low tolerance for bullshit. Most of the other litigators at LL&L, Lieberman himself included, could not stand having Dave testify for them for this exact reason. A lot of defense work is throwing mud, casting shade, sowing doubt, and the like. Basically, we peddled in bullshit like our lives depended on it, and Dave couldn't stand that.
And then six years ago here I came along, this dainty little thing mincing into his lab in heels and a skirt, and asked him if he could help me prove that a plaintiff was tossing out some seriously schlocky shit. Those exact words.
I may have been good at the shitslinging that fills defense work, but I always preferred muckraking. And oh, was Dave good at that. But even better?
He liked to share his work. This made him a particularly good witness, and I'd made use of that many times over the years.
Getting him to go over the bloodstain was easy. The fingerprints were easier still, especially since Dave went and made a demonstrative for me: clear plastic sheets with magnified printings of both the bottle fingerprints and Mick's sample fingerprints, which he slid directly atop one another for the jury to see.
But now that I'd gotten the shorts back out of evidence, admitted photographic evidence of several sample pairs we'd expensed for this case, and presented all of that evidence to Dave, we could go for the last major point.
"Mr. Grissom, how did you conduct your analysis of these shorts?" I asked after I'd handed the plastic evidence bag to Dave.
"Well, I did a few things," he started. "First, I cut off a few bits of fiber from the shorts: three strands from the burned section, three strands from right around it, and three from another part of the shorts. Then I went out and got three more pairs of identical shorts from the same brand, and took samples from those for comparison."
"What did you find?" I asked.
"Well, the burnt ones were burnt, obviously," Dave said. "But it's the samples from near the burn that were most telling. There was a trace of some chemical on them, one that wasn't present on the sample far from the burn or the store-bought samples. So I ran a few tests to figure out what it was."
"And what was the chemical?"
"Hairspray," Dave revealed at my prompting, and held up the bag. "There were traces of hairspray on these shorts, right around the burn, and nowhere else. Once I had that, I took my sample shorts, and did a few more tests."
"And what were these tests?" I asked. Dave was all too willing to space out his statement; it let him hammer every single individual point home, one at a time.
"Well, I took some sources of flame to approximate St. John's powers, and tried to recreate the burn pattern on the evidence shorts."
"And did you manage to do that?" I asked.
"Objection!" Lou Young stood. "Leading the witness, your Honor."
"Sustained," the judge said.
"Apologies," I said, "I'll rephrase. Mr. Grissom, what sort of results did your experiment produce?"
"Some very compelling ones," he said. "I tried welding torches, bunsen burners, and other types of directed flame that could approximate a non-napalm flamethrower, and couldn't get anything close. But! Then I remembered the hairspray, and tried to use a lighter and hairspray as a makeshift flamethrower."
"And what kind of results did that produce?" I asked.
"Pretty much an identical burn pattern," Dave said. "I even tested the fibers around the burn, and found an almost identical concentration of hairspray in those fibers as in the evidence shorts.
Perfect. Exactly what I'd wanted him to say. Which meant it was time to go in for the kill.
"Mr. Grissom. Given all of the evidence, and in your expert opinion as a forensic scientist, what is your conclusion as to the events in the alleyway and beyond?" I asked, my position making my witness face the jury directly.
"Well," David began, ticking off his fingers the same way I did. "Firstly, given that St. John Allerdyce's blood type is O+, and O+ blood is staining the label of the bottle, I would conclude that he was struck by the bottle. Second, given matching fingerprints between Micah Samuelson and the pattern of matching, upside-down fingerprints on the neck of the bottle, I would conclude that Mr. Samuelson is the one who swung said bottle at Mr. Allerdcye. And thirdly, given both the patchy burn patterns and the hairspray on Mr. Samuelson's trousers, it is unlikely that Mr. Allerdyce's mutant power was responsible for that burn, at least in the capacity that Mr. Samuelson described his use thereof."
"Thank you, Mr. Grissom," I said, offering a calculated frown at prosecution's table as I turned to exit the well of the court. "Nothing further, your Honor."
Once I sat, Lou Young stood, and walked directly in front of the judge's spot on the bench. He knew there was no real point in contesting the bottle or the fingerprints, not after Mick's own testimony put that bottle against St. John's head and in Mick's hand when that happened, so I had to wonder what he was going to try.
"Mister Grissom, you stated during your testimony that you found traces of hairspray on the victim's shorts," DA Young started.
"I did," Dave agreed, "right around where the burn was, and nowhere else."
"And you also said that your test found identical concentrations of hairspray on a sample," Young continued.
"That's correct," Dave agreed.
"So the concentration from a sample you tested weeks after the fact was indistinguishable from a fresh sample, then!" Young exclaimed.
Oh. That's what he was going for, wasn't it? My guess was he wanted to insinuate that the hairspray could've been there for however long it wanted before the burn, wasn't he?
"Yes," Dave said.
"So per your own testimony, if I were to give you two pairs of shorts, both burnt, you couldn't tell me if one had hairspray on it before it got burnt, and one didn't, could you?"
"While I'd have to wonder how and when the hairspray got on there in the first place without being used to help cause the burn, I suppose not, no," Dave answered, and I resolved to add a nice bottle of wine to his 'thank you for testifying' basket for slipping all of that in before the yes-or-no.
"So then you're saying it's possible the hairspray was already on the victim's shorts before they got burnt, is that it?" Lou Young asked.
"If it helps you sleep at night, then sure, it's possible," Dave replied.
As far as introducing doubt went, this had been, thankfully, a pretty weak source.
"Nothing further, your Honor," Lou Young said, turning to the jury and giving a nod before he reseated himself.
But given the frowns on two jurors' faces, I couldn't be sure that it didn't find its mark regardless.
Court may have adjourned for the day at three in the afternoon, but I didn't even leave the courthouse until five, nor back home until after seven. I closed the front door to my condo behind me, kicked off my heels at the entrance, set my briefcase down on the side table near the door, and retreated straight to the bedroom to slip into something more comfortable, shattering my glamour into shards of rainbow and fuzz as I went.
Off went my skirt suit. Off went the blouse. Off went the hosiery. Off went the bra.
Instead of business attire, I put on comfy sweatpants that rode low enough to not bother my tail, a tank top, and fuzzy slippers.
Once that was done, I left the bedroom, went back out into my living room, clicked on the TV, and put it to the evening news. Then, it was to the kitchen, because I was hungry and—
The refrigerator closed.
I shrieked. It wasn't a very long shriek, because I quickly brought my hands up to my mouth, but for the love of God my heart skipped a beat.
"You… you…"
Erik fucking Lehnsherr idly flicked one finger, and the cap on the lager he'd taken from my fridge flattened, crumpled into a ball, and flew over to my trash drawer… which also opened on its own.
"What is it with lawyers and working late?" Erik asked.
"Y-you, you, you ridiculous meshuggeneh!" I yelled at him, hand over my heart to try and get it to stop beating a mile a minute. "What the hell, Erik! I told you last time to at least put a damn note on the door!"
Erik paused with the beer most of the way to his lips and looked up, as if remembering something. "Ah. Yes you did. My deepest apologies Noa, it shan't happen again."
"Uh-huh," I said, arms crossed over my chest, tail thrashing angrily behind me. "Erik, of all the times to drop in—"
"Ah, I nearly forgot." Erik opened my fridge (without touching it, mind) and reached in to procure something. When he brought his arm out (and closed the fridge, good), he held an enameled casserole dish identical to my own… but that I know I didn't use, because I could smell an actual casserole in there, and I don't make casseroles. "This was at your door."
He set it down on the counter, and I walked over to see what it was. A note lay atop the casserole dish's lid, in an envelope with handwriting I recognized. Curious, I opened up the note and read it. I couldn't help but smile, with a bit of both happiness and dismay, and felt my shoulders loosen up a bit.
"Who is it from?" Erik asked.
"Rachel Rosen," I said, putting the note back in the envelope and then into a drawer before taking the lid off the casserole dish. "Ex-girlfriend. Dated for about six months. It ended on what I thought were good enough terms, but this is the first time I'm hearing from her in almost a year," I said, looking at the turkey and sweet potato casserole. I wasn't much for most casseroles, but this one was tasty.
Probably because it was basically thanksgiving dinner in casserole form, minus the cranberry sauce that goes completely untouched at the end of the night.
"… ah," Erik said, and thankfully he stopped asking. For a man of his generation, Erik was surprisingly good about gays and lesbians, which I chalked up to… several things, not the least of which was, well, sharing space with them in Auschwitz.
That said, even if he'd decided to ask, I was not about to explain how I broke off a relationship because I was… uncomfortable with a third person in my bed.
At least it wasn't a messy breakup. Not as bad as when Michelle and I broke up, but… eh.
"Yes," I said for him. "Ah." With that, I grabbed a pair of plates and silverware sets, carved off a chunk of casserole, and set that in the microwave. "You can have some if you'd like."
"I already ate," he said, waving me off.
"Fair," I said, pulling down a wine glass. "Grab the open bottle of white from the fridge for me, would you?"
Erik obliged. A few minutes later, we were at my coffee table in front of the TV, him with his beer, me with my casserole and Chardonnay.
"So," I asked after taking a bite. "Not that I don't appreciate the company, but…" I trailed off, leaving space for him to fill in.
"I simply find that for all that you are an even hand at handling the press's inquisitions," he said, gesturing at the television, "I prefer to hear your unvarnished opinion, and not the one that you have carefully crafted for the public."
Sure enough, the news was covering the case. Complete with a brief rerun of the last round of questioning I'd handled on the courthouse temps.
"Good afternoon Ma'am," I heard the reporter's recorded voice saying.
I turned to give Erik a look. "Did you actually use up one of the five blank VHS tapes I keep around? And for this?"
"You realize I can simply blank the tape with a wave of my hand," he said, at which I blinked. "Regardless, the press. Your impressions, if you would?"
Caught flat-footed as I was, I didn't actually pay much more attention to what he'd said, and just… looked at the TV.
"Uh… I mean, he was a polite enough one?" I murmured. "Actually paid attention."
"—when questioning the witness, Mr. Micah Samuelson, regarding the particulars of his account, what was it exactly that prompted you to regard his actions as vigilantism? And seeing as we're on the subject, what are your thoughts on vigilantism in general, the actions of our very own Spider-Man in particular, and how it overall reflects the current state of society?"
Erik muted the television, and gave me a pointed look.
"What?" I asked.
"We both know you were not viewing it as vigilantism," Erik said. "I will admit to wondering why you chose that angle myself."
"I knew it wasn't, and the thug knew it wasn't," I said. "But by taking that tack, it threw him off balance, and got him to say what I wanted. Which was, if you recall, lying in court," I finished with a grin.
"And the masked boy hero?" Erik added.
"What's there to say?" I asked, finishing up my bit of casserole. "Most of what Spider-Man does would classify as a citizen's arrest if it went to court. The problem is that he's still liable for property damage, and I guarantee he wasn't correct one hundred percent of the time."
"Hmm," Erik hummed. Either way, he flicked his fingers, and the TV unmuted itself.
"—respond to allegations that you are aiding and abetting mutant terrorism by using legal sophistry to shield your clients from the consequences of your actions?"
I couldn't help but laugh this time.
"Oh my god," I said around my giggles, "do you have any idea how hard it was to keep a straight face? I was this close to just laughing at her, this close!" I held two fingers up close to each other, barely a millimeter apart.
"I suppose that's reason enough to not watch channel two when I'm in New York," Erik murmured. "But truly, to call your defense sophistry?"
"I think she just pulled out a thesaurus, found the word, and wanted to use it," I said, then took a sip of my wine before continuing. "Plus, I don't think she even knows the dictionary definition of terrorism, much less the legal one."
"Perhaps not," Erik agreed. "But truly, of all the questions—ah, I must have missed a few," he said, looking back to the television.
"Two," I agreed.
"Sam Noble, with AM New York," the reporter's televised recording said. "How do you respond to the view that the sensationalisation of this trial by pro-mutant sympathisers may possibly pressure the families of the victims into letting go of charges in the face of terrorism from radical extremists? Extremists like this so-called 'Magneto' who was sighted just last month in south Jersey?"
I stared at Erik, who now looked decidedly uncomfortable.
"Say, Erik," I asked, voice all sweetness. "When you told me you flew through a tornado, like an utter idiot, where did you say that was again?"
"I don't believe I said," Erik replied, unable to meet my eyes.
"It wouldn't happen to have been southern New Jersey, would it now?" I asked. At the lack of response, I scoffed. "Erik. I told you this the last time you told me about your 'hypothetical mutant rights activist'. Tone things down. Public opinion does not look kindly upon random acts of wanton property damage, regardless of your reasoning. This 'Magneto', wherever he may be," I said, in a way that neither of us could have ever believed was genuine, "may have had a perfectly valid reason, sure. But unless that reason was immediately obvious to anybody who was looking, all it looks like is a crazy terrorist."
"And yet sometimes the destruction is the only method available," Erik pressed. "Manhunter I may be, but there are limits to my ability to infiltrate. And if—" he cut himself off. "No. Perhaps I would have been opposed regardless of whether my aim was known."
"Ahem," I prompted.
"Fine," Erik said. "There are limits to my ability to assist Magneto. And perhaps he would have been opposed regardless of the nobility of his aim."
"Better," I said. "You need to censor yourself better."
"Arguable," he said. "Regardless—"
"We interrupt this broadcast with breaking news!" The quiet of our conversation and the sudden pivot from the evening news to an emergency alert drew both of our attention. "We're receiving reports that the supervillain Sandman is currently in conflict with the criminal superhuman group, the Wrecking Crew, in front of the New York Stock Exchange!"
"The stock exchange?" Erik murmured. "A bank would have—aah. I see."
"Sources on site say that both the Crew and the Sandman arrived outside the Exchange fifteen minutes ago, and began fighting over the contents of the Wall Street building," the news anchor continued. "Spider-Man has been sighted in the area, along with Thor, one of the Avengers. Anybody in the area should evacuate immediately—"
I shut off the TV with a huff of disgust.
"Idiots," I couldn't help but mutter. "There's nothing to steal at Wall Street, the stock exchange closed four hours ago, it's just desks and pens and maybe two to five computers."
"And yet, I would not expect the average person to know this," Erik answered back after taking a sip of beer, still frowning at the now-darkened television. "Regardless, Noa. The press's questioning can only probe so deeply. Tell me, and be honest: how fares the trial?"
"It…" I trailed off, and looked down at the glass of chardonnay in my hands as I mulled the question. "Whatever Young's trying to do with his case, it can't survive an appeal. The whole thing is built on a house of cards, and that's something anyone with even a semester of law school could tell you. If this was just decided on the law and the facts, it would have been over already, and the charges dismissed. I wouldn't have had to call even a single witness."
"And what does it mean that you have called two today, and will have two more tomorrow?" Erik asked. He drained his beer with one last pull, and set it down on the coffee table. "And bear in mind, I do not know the intricacies of the courtroom. I have never so much as set foot within a courthouse."
The beer bottle he'd put down was, thankfully, on a coaster. Unlike the last time Erik deigned to stop by…
"I think he's trying to give the jury an excuse," I said, turning the whole thing over in my head. "The way his opening statement completely ignored burden of proof, made no mention of proving things beyond a reasonable doubt… that, and with how he's acting to just… throw a fog over what should be clear and consistent facts?"
I drained the rest of my half-glass of wine before I answered, enjoying the barest traces of a pleasant buzz that I could allow myself before a court day. A full glass of wine, even though it really wasn't that much alcohol, would have probably been enough to push me past tipsy and into the earliest levels of drunk. Knowing myself the way I did, that was enough to give me a hangover. Even with just this, I'd have to stay awake for at least another hour before I felt safe enough to go to sleep without risking a blinding headache in the morning.
"It's utterly despicable, but what I'm getting is he wants a conviction, no matter how dirty, so that he can campaign on it," I said to finally answer Erik, now that I'd wrapped my head around the whole thing. "It doesn't matter if the whole thing gets overturned on appeal. He'll have gotten elected already, and can work to minimize the impact of this case, even going so far as to select a patsy in the DA's office to offload most of the blame onto. He may have been lead attorney, but I know he's not the only one to work this case."
"And so another politician would rise to power on the broken backs of people like us." Erik gave a harsh exhale, and an uncomfortably large amount of objects in my apartment shook when he did.
"Erik," I warned with a glare.
"My apologies," he said. "I shan't do it again."
He did 'it' again barely three minutes later, at which point I kicked him out, and waited another ten minutes. Then, and only then, did I break out the ice cream.
Mint chip ice cream was not safe around Erik.
He could smell it.
Day four began as day three ended: with expert testimony. Which would normally have been a detriment. Why was that?
Well… let me explain.
Expert testimony is, on average, usually very hard to get a jury to pay attention to, as Dave Grissom and I had had to work around the day prior, by breaking it into bite-sized chunks. Experts tend to be very dry, technical, and difficult to understand. Worse than that, they have a tendency to drone.
All of this combines to make jurors lose interest at a record pace, which makes an expert witness's testimony a race against time to get what you want into the jury's memory before they zone out completely.
There is an exception to this, however.
"At this time, the defense would like to call Dr. Harry Michaelson to the stand," I said, and was pleased by the excited muttering of the courtroom. That muttering grew as the doctor seated himself on the stand, only to be silenced by a single slam of Judge Andrews' gavel as the doctor was sworn in. Once that was done, I got started.
The exception to losing jurors to expert testimony was, in my experience, the testimony of ER doctors. Cardiologists? Snore. Urologists? Ick. Gynecologists? Fastest way to lose about half of your jury, depending on how many males were sat.
But when you're impaneling your expert, and you mention that they're an ER doc? Well by that point, all you had to do was pace yourself properly, mind your word choice, and the jury would hang off of every word your witness said. So long as nobody was dead, juries loved the gory, gruesome details. The more talk you could get of blood and bone (and without mention of any other bodily fluid), the better.
So it was no surprise to me that even I could hear how much faster the jury's breathing came as the doctor spoke. They were riveted.
Which meant it was time to drive the point home.
"Dr. Michaelson," I said, pacing in front of the jury box. "We've been over your account of treating St. John in the emergency room, and heard your impressions. Now, given all of that information, I would like to ask: in your expert opinion, what conclusion would you draw about the nature of the attack that sent my client into your care?"
"Well—"
"Objection!" DA Young rose to his feet. "Counsel is clearly leading the witness!"
"Your Honor," I spoke, voice level, "leading questions are, to a limited extent, allowed on direct testimony of an expert testimony. One of those classic questions is asking what conclusion an expert witness would draw from available information, as the District Attorney did himself yesterday."
Both of us knew this objection was just to break up the flow between learning about two things: one, how badly hurt St. John was when he entered the emergency room; and two, what a doctor could guess as to what put them in that condition. The two logically flow from one to another: X is hurt a certain way, Y could cause it, therefore Z evidence that I already know about did cause it.
But sometimes, something so small as dropping an objection in the middle of things was enough to completely disrupt that chain of logic. I had to hope that this wouldn't be the case, otherwise hours of prep and over an hour of testimony was all moot.
"As I was going to say," Dr. Michaelson said, with a put-upon frustration that I only wish I'd coached him into doing, "I would conclude that the threat Mr. Allerdyce faced was nothing less than a threat to his life."
I let that statement hang for about two seconds, during which I could hear significant murmuring in the gallery. I did not turn to look at the jury behind me; that was a rookie move, and would speak to a severe lack of confidence in what I was trying to prove.
"What led you to characterize this as a threat to St. John's life?" I asked.
"It's largely the location of the injury," Dr. Michaelson said. "As I mentioned, St. John was struck at the very left edge of his forehead." The doctor raised his index finger to point where the wound would be on his own head, just above his left eyebrow. "Now, if I move that back an inch towards the side of the head," he continued, moving his finger as he spoke, "we wind up at the temple."
"And why is that significant?" I asked, my own left hand having followed the doctor as he gestured. From what I was hearing, and the picture that sound made for me, at least four members of the jury had followed suit, and had their own index fingers tapping at their temples.
"It's significant because the temple is one of the thinnest parts of the skull," Dr. Michaelson explained. "A blow to the forehead is actually one of the safest to take, just because of how sturdy the front of your skull is. But the temple?" He shook his head, and let his hand fall. "I've seen wounds to the temple that killed a grown man."
"If that's the case, let's take St. John's wound and shift it to his temple" I started. "Given your expertise as a trauma surgeon, if St. John had been struck just that one inch further back, what kind of result would we be looking at?"
"Objection!" DA Young roared to his feet again. "Calls for speculation on the part of the witness!"
"The good doctor is offering a conclusion drawn from his expert opinion," Judge Andrews said. "Objection overruled. Continue, Doctor."
"Thank you," Dr. Michaelson said. "If we take St. John's wound, and move it to the temple…" The doctor sighed, and raised his hands in a half-hearted gesture. "I see three outcomes. One, he's in the hospital with a traumatic brain injury. Two, he's in a persistent vegetative state. Or three… St. John never makes it to a hospital because he dies in that alleyway, right then and there."
"So… dead, braindead, or crippled," I said. "Thank you for your time, Dr. Michaelson. Nothing further for this witness."
I sat down, and Lou Young stood. I readied myself to take notes here, because however he tried to cross-examine Dr. Michaelson, I'd have to be ready to address that in closing, or even redirect here and now.
"Dr. Michaelson," Lou Young started, buttoning his coat with one hand as he spoke. "When you treated the defendant at the ER, were you aware that he is a mutant?"
"Objection," I said, standing. "Your Honor, whether a trauma surgeon knew about an imperceptible genetic difference is irrelevant to the matter at hand."
"Your Honor, it's a key part of medical history," Lou Young said. "Just like a doctor wouldn't ignore a club foot, they wouldn't ignore mutantness."
"I find myself agreeing with the District Attorney here," Judge Andrews said. "Objection overruled. The witness will answer the question."
"No," Dr. Michaelson said, not allowing Lou to reinforce his question by repeating it. "At the time of treatment, I did not know that Mr. Allerdyce is a mutant, nor did it ever become relevant to my assessment or his treatment."
Good, I thought. That was a good answer, and would hopefully preempt whatever Lou wanted to ask.
"Had you known that the defendant was a mutant when you treated him," Lou Young said, pacing towards the witness stand, "you would have treated him differently, wouldn't you have?"
Or maybe it wouldn't.
"Objection," I said as I stood. "Question calls for speculation on the part of the witness."
"What speculation?" Lou asked. "I'm merely suggesting he would have needed to treat his patient differently if he knew he was a mutant!"
"Your Honor, the DA may as well have just explicitly said that he was asking the witness to speculate."
"Be that as it may, I allowed you some leeway on this earlier," Judge Andrews said, "and so I'm going to allow the same here. Objection overruled, the witness will answer the question."
"Well, doctor?" Lou Young asked, voice almost smarmy. "You would have treated him differently, wouldn't you?"
I looked to my witness in worry. Dr. Michaelson's expression was… well, it was getting close to apopleptic, is what I would say. From the way his elbows were, I could tell his hands were flat on the witness stand, and his suit jacket was stretched taut across his shoulders.
"I don't know what kind of ethics you lawyers may follow," he started, "but in my profession, and at my emergency department, we take an oath that says we treat everyone, and we treat them fairly."
Dr. Michaelson punctuated his points with thumps of the flat of his right hand down onto the witness stand, drawing winces from the jury with every hit.
"Regardless of race, sex, or mutant status. Frankly, Mr. district attorney, I am insulted that you thought otherwise of me long enough to ask that question! You, sir, have just lost my vote this fall, and the votes of anyone else at my hospital who's willing to listen!"
Shit. Welcome to one of the greatest risks of trial lawyering: once a witness is up on the stand, you lose all control over them. I'd prepared Dr. Michaelson as best I could, but even I didn't think the DA would be so gauche as to ask the doctor if he'd betray the Hippocratic Oath.
I looked to Lou Young, worried that he was about to use this outburst to try and strike large swathes of the doctor's testimony, only to pause. I… why was he laughing?
"My apologies, doctor, my apologies! You seem to have misunderstood the question!" Lou collected himself after pacing back and forth in the well. "Let me rephrase. If you had known the defendant was a mutant, that would have changed the standard of care you had to use, wouldn't it have?"
Uh-oh. Of all the tacks that the DA could have taken, this was the one most likely to sway any bigots.
"I'm afraid I don't quite follow," Dr. Michaelson said. "Mutant or not, the standard of care for patients at the ER doesn't change."
"Ah, but some mutants' bodies are very different from normal peoples', in ways that change how you have to treat them, aren't they?" Lou asked… and damn him, but he had a point.
"Objection," I said, standing.
"Overruled," Judge Andrews said, before I could even offer a reason. Granted, there was no valid objection here… but it meant my interruption was minimized.
After all, I was literally a walking example of exactly what he was suggesting. Not that he knew that, of course, but still.
"I can't deny that, no," Dr. Michaelson said.
"And not all of these differences are immediately apparent to the naked eye, are they?" Lou pressed.
"Not necessarily, no," the doctor answered.
"Dr. Michaelson." Lou set himself in front of the judge's position on the bench. "You did not perform the type of comprehensive imaging that would have revealed if the defendant's physiology grossly differed from the human baseline."
"No," he agreed.
"Then, you cannot say that the defendant's mutation didn't also give him an altered physiology that would make a wound to the head substantially less dangerous than it would for an average person, can you?"
"Objection!" I yelled it this time as I rose. "Counsel is asking a question beyond the scope of the direct examination! Furthermore, counsel's question assumes facts not in evidence!"
"Your Honor, the defendant's treating physician states that he—"
"I don't care what the justification for your question is, DA Young," Judge Andrews interrupted. "The fact remains that the defense is correct, and it was an improper question. Strike it from the record, and the jury shall disregard that it was asked."
No, I thought bitterly, no they wouldn't.
"In that case," Lou said, "nothing further for this witness, your Honor."
"Does the defense wish to redirect?" Judge Andrews asked.
"Yes, your Honor," I said. "Permission to approach?"
"Granted."
I stepped into the well of the court, and stood between Dr. Michaelson and the jury.
"Dr. Michaelson," I asked, "in your experience, what level of apparent physical differences would prompt a changed standard of care for a mutant?"
"Just off the top of my head?" Dr. Michaelson hummed, drumming his fingers on the witness stand as he thought. "Additional limbs, irregular heartbeat, visibly irregular skin and organs."
"And according to your observation, which of these traits did St. John Allerdyce possess?" I asked.
"None of them," he answered. "If I hadn't been told after the fact that my patient is a mutant, I would never have been able to tell. Apart from his mutant power, he is physically indistinguishable from any regular old human off the street."
"Thank you for your time, Dr. Michaelson," I said, glad that I'd gotten the answer I did. "Nothing further for this witness, your Honor."
"Very well," Judge Andrews said. "Dr. Michaelson, the Court would like to thank you for your time in coming down here today. You are excused." Once the doctor stepped down from the stand, the judge addressed the courtroom again. "We shall now recess for lunch; court will resume in an hour and a half, at one in the afternoon."
The gavel came down, and we were on the home stretch.
I stood up from my chair, reached into my briefcase to get my wallet, and passed a hundred to Jonathan Allerdyce to go run out and grab lunch for everyone as the gallery filed out of the courtroom. We'd retreat to the conference room for the duration of the court's recess; there we would eat, get some last minute prep in, and I'd pump Matt for his impressions of the jury. With that, we'd be able to make modifications to the last bit we had left, pinpoint our target audience.
Regardless, the whole affair was almost done. We'd put on our case as best we could, and it was one hell of a case. The facts were in our favor, and while the law was still iffy, I felt like there was a chance it would come down on our side. We just had the last little bit to go.
One more witness. And, with a bit of luck, our chance to get St. John's side of the story into the record, ready for me to run with during closing arguments.
I hope you're ready for your turn at bat, Katherine. I'll pitch it to you straight down the center.
You just need to knock it out of the park.
Once again, the airplane chapter has landed! This one's length got away from me a little bit; it was only supposed to be about five thousand words, but sometimes you just… keep going.
Next chapter is the full testimony, direct and cross, of Katherine "Kitty" Pryde. Will she keep a level head, and show up strong on the stand? Or will she let herself slip, as it were?
Y'all will just have to wait for next chapter to find out, I suppose.
That said, before we go: a couple of housekeeping matters.
ONE:
Having just been the recipient of one, I figure I should probably take the time to do some shout-outs to other fics while I have the time, so I'll be doing that for two other fics here.
The first fic I want to shout out is Dial, by DesertChocolate. Dial is an MCU SI, in which the SI gets unceremoniously plunked down into post-Avengers 1 MCU with nothing but the clothes on his back… oh. And the Omnitrix from Ben 10.
This fic weaves in elements from the movies, Agents of SHIELD, and the comics, weaving a web that culminates into a very, very satisfying tapestry of storylines, all of it with the panache of someone who well and truly loves the source material. Furthermore, I can assuage any worries about power scaling getting out of control — while you don't have to worry about the bad guys getting a Death Star, you do need to concern yourself with pesky little nuisances like Infinity Stones.
Dial has also just completed its first thread, which goes all the way through the end of Phase 2 of the Dial MCU's timeline. There is a brief hiatus while DesChoc plans what comes next… but rest assured, this isn't the last you've seen of Dial.
Even if there's a chance you see him somewhere else first before thread 2 starts
Dial can be found and read on SpaceBattles, Sufficient Velocity, Fanfiction.net, and… Royalroad? Really man? Even I don't go there, and I have an account on Questionable Questing!… oh, whatever.
The second one is For Love of Evil, by my friend @AshlingWaltzes. For Love of Evil is a DC Comics SI, wherein the SI is reincarnated as… the daughter of Darkseid. It is a fic where narrative conventions — tropes, cliches, archetypes, etc — are an actual and acknowledged fact of life, and can have a very real impact on the plot.
Furthermore, it is, in one particular manner, similar to Pound the Table, if for the complete opposite reason: power level is utterly irrelevant in For Love of Evil. However, whereas its irrelevance in Pound the Table comes from Noa being rock-bottom on the scale, in For Love of Evil, Ash is so far above the power scale that it ceases to apply.
(Foolish narrative. There are men, there are Kryptonians, there is the Narrative… and there is DARKSEID.)
For Love of Evil can be found and read on SpaceBattles.
TWO:
Well, time to MCU shill a little bit. if any of y'all haven't gone to see Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings yet… you are doing yourselves a disservice. This movie dethroned my previous favorite two Marvel solo films, Winter Soldier and Thor: Ragnarok, and pushed them to a very distant second and third favorite, respectively.
The choreography is impeccable, the story is excellent, and all of the actors and actresses involved just completely knocked it out of the park on this one. Best fight scenes in the MCU, best debut movie in the MCU, best solo film in the MCU. You will not regret seeing this.
THREE:
So, as seen in the announcement from a couple days ago, I started up a Ko-fi page to help with bills and expenses until such time as I find stable employment. And um…
… well, I did NOT expect the kind of response that received. At. Fuckin'. All.
As a sort of "thank you" to everybody who decided I was worth their hard-earned cash… as seen in the thread, Pound the Table has gotten its first three omake, one of which is its first canon omake.
Now, keep in mind there are seven and a half years of a legal career (December 1981 to May 1989) that haven't been filled in, during which stuff can and does happen. Furthermore, there is a LOT of open, unfilled space in the timeline, during which so many different things could have occurred.
And I figure it's best to give y'all the opportunity to say if there's any spot you want to know more about.
So to the tippers, if you would like to, please send me a PM with the following:
1: proof that you donated to my Ko-fi before the date that this chapter was posted.
2: an omake prompt — whether it be an idea, a question, a musing, etc.
Before Chapter 11 goes up, I will take my top three favorite prompts from that list and put them to all three threads (SB, SV, QQ) for a vote. The top prompt will get an omake based on that prompt added to the thread after the conclusion of Arc 1. And, depending on the nature of the prompt in question, it may or may not be canon, I cannot comment on that either way at this point.
Again, to everybody who tipped, you have the most sincere, heartfelt thanks I can offer.
I hope everybody enjoyed the chapter, I look forward to seeing what y'all thought of it, and I'll be happy to answer… most questions. Within reason.
Alright, SO! Brief update on things, plus... well, exactly what it says on the tin.
So let me just say this: to everybody who decided to drop a tip in the Ko-fi tip jar: holy damn, thank you people so much. Holy crap. I'd expected the actual result of that to be... well, somewhere in between "everybody ignored the link" and "welp the fic lost all follows because of that".
Instead, well... the results speak for themselves, I suppose. Money is set aside now to handle utilities for the next three months, with a little bit left over to, unfortunately, handle one of the annoying realities of finding a job: the #1 job board for the legal profession has a $40 monthly membership fee.
Pain.
Additionally, secondary Ko-fi related update in the spoiler box, so folks who don't want to know can just skip it and get to the meat of the post.
So, much as I am hesitant to do so, I have turned on the monthly tip jar option on my Ko-fi page. I highly doubt any results will match that initial outpouring of support, and it would be wrong of me to expect it to do so. But bills are bills, October's bills are looking a little hefty (haha name pun classic comedy) because the doggo's dental cleaning is on October 19, and that's gonna hurt a bit. I love my dog, but she has a few negative proclivities and tendencies that are still around even eight years post rescue... such as not allowing me to clip her nails or clean her teeth without getting dangerously bite-happy (even to me!), so she needs the expensive version.
(Also her breath stinks a bit... and her favorite sleeping position is her head on my other pillow, facing me...)
Once again: the Ko-fi page will only be accepting tips until such time as I have stable employment. But with the job market as it is... I'm hoping it doesn't last too much longer, and my fingers are crossed on a few job openings that looked particularly fitting for my experience and educational focus, but I've gotta be realistic here.
Thank you again, folks. Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming.
ANYWAYS. Onto the main topic, and the reason this is going in Voting threadmarks.
At the bottom of last chapter, I mentioned that anybody who had dropped a tip in the Ko-fi tip jar could send in omake prompts, which would then be voted on. Well we have some prompts, so it's time to vote!
Please only vote for ONE (1) of the following prompts by copy/pasting or quoting the below options, and putting an "x" between the brackets of the option you wish to see.
PROMPTS
[] Grudge Match: Noa Schaefer v. That One Rat in the New York Subway System
[] CANON – The Trials and Tribulations of Law School
[] CANON – What put Noa on the front page: the tragic(?) Noodle Incident
[] CANON – Magneto the Mint Chip Bandit
[] Jewish Vampires in the Midwest, ft. Blade
[] What If?... ep1: What if Noa Schaefer had been a lawyer in DC instead of Marvel?
Voting will be open until... let's go with two weeks from today, so September 28, 2021. Results will be tallied from all three forums this fic is hosted on, and depending on which ones are chosen, either the top choice or the top 2 will get omakes written.
So, with the benefit of hindsight, doing voting in the thread itself was not the best idea. However, it did tell me one thing: there was a single very clear front-runner even within the first three hours.
That front-runner has already been written in full, and will be dropped later today.
However, that doesn't mean voting is over. Voting is still going... but will be continued through a medium that doesn't clog the thread.
Please [CLICK HERE] for the new voting form, to select the second (and possibly—probably—third) prompts to be developed into fully written omake.
