Diana, Rize, Manama, Titanyana, and the Captain were seated together in the middle of a bland and disinteresting room. Collectively, their mood could be described as foul, though their range was vast.
Rize, as could be expected, was fuming. He did not believe their treatment up to this point to be so unjust.
Manama, his mother, most represented his anger. Her concerns were more focused on her tavern, however. She loved her husband to death, but she did not trust him one bit to hold down the fort alone. Who knows what he might do with some alcohol in his system.
The Captain was merely irritated. He wouldn't lash out, that would be unbecoming of him, but he did make it very clear to anyone he could that this form of treatment was not conforming to the Sanctum's standards. Business and full schedules were not valid excuses for deviations from protocol this egregious.
Titanyana restrained herself from pacing about through shear force of will. By all accounts, and she meant all accounts, she was the combatant to be attacked first. Every reading of the Sanctum's laws, be they loose or strict, made it very clear that she had the right to subdue her assailant. The only reason she could allow herself to be held back like this was because she did not want to reflect poorly on Diana.
Diana was by far the least concerned of those in her presence, to the point where she bordered on apathy. She had a dog in the fight of course, but this matchup was like a Pitbull facing a Pug; they outclassed their opponent in every way that mattered. In fact, Diana was so amused by the thought of that (now hatefully resented) Lord Kelly being compared to a pug that she allowed a smile to creep onto her face. They really were similar, what with their roll riddled faces and heavy breathing.
However, Diana soon wiped away those thoughts. Lord Kelly could never compare to a pug! Just as most dogs on Earth were, Pugs were often loyal and friendly companions. They could, perhaps, get nasty at times, but rarely ever more so than the common man. It helped that they tended to have understandable reasons as well.
If another dog steals your bone, you aren't just going to stand by and let it happen now are you?
"Why are you laughing, Lady Diana?" Rize noticed her moment of amusement, his curiosity driving him to find the cause. "Did we do something?"
Diana giggled a little bit more. "Oh it's nothing special Rize, I'm just reflecting at the absurdity of this whole situation. To imagine it hasn't even been a day and already he's managed to make a convincing enough argument that it requires our detainment. Honestly, we should all consider ourselves lucky it wasn't Donovan who had gone to pick you up."
"Why is that?"
"Well," Diana sighed, unenthusiastic about explaining her reasoning, "Don's just a little unpredictable sometimes. He isn't what you might call 'politically minded' either, so I would reckon there was a fifty-fifty chance of him either socking Kelly in the face once he understood what was happening, or would have ordered Titanyana to just kill him on the spot."
Titanyana shivered a little, understanding what the consequences of at least one of those actions could have meant for her.
"At the same time though, I could very easily see him deescalating the situation in ways I just couldn't have. I'm sure you noticed but he's quite a bit more physically capable than you, Rize, so him just restraining Lord Kelly might have been possible if he could keep his temper in check."
The Captain scrunched his face up in confusion. Donovan did not seem like that sort of person to him. "You say that like you've never seen him angry before."
Diana shrugged. "That's because I haven't. He's been irritated before, and maybe a little mad about circumstances he had no control over, but I have never actually seen him furious at another person."
"Then how can you be certain he would resort to violence?"
"I can't, I only have a feeling and the word of my grandfather. He seemed paranoid that one wrong move might set him off." Diana leaned on the armrest and looked out an imaginary window. "I have to say I agree. You might have picked up on it a bit, but he places an incredible emphasis on overall combat capacity. I mean, that shouldn't be surprising given our situation, but he might be taking it a bit overboard."
"Combat capacity?" Rize didn't understand her meaning. Of those present, he was the one least familiar with military matters. His mother was married to a prospective admiral and close friends with the Captain, who was a high ranking officer. Titanyana might not understand high level stratagems, logistics, and production, but she was intimately familiar with the duty of a military. Diana would normally be considered the least educated in this field given her focuses, but her interactions with Donovan and ARC meant she had a rudimentary understanding of just what Donovan was doing.
Perhaps the biggest reason Rize didn't understand what Diana was talking about was because he lived a life sheltered from exposure to conflict.
The Captain took it upon himself to answer his nephew's question seeing as he was best equipped. "There are a plethora of ways that it can be measured, but for simplicity's sake you may think of it as the ability of a fighting force to engage in combat. In most cases it refers to how large of a battle you can fight in."
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"Hmm, I don't think that is enough to describe what Donovan is planning. Obviously I can't share all of our plans with you, but he boiled it down to logistics, manpower, and industry. I think you have the manpower explanation down? Maybe? I wouldn't be able to do it justice." Diana stopped before she made a fool of herself. "Just try to understand its far more complicated than you could probably ever imagine, Captain, not that I believe you to be ignorant."
Rize was taken aback by this. Of the people he knew, his Uncle Shi was the second most familiar with military protocol. He might be able to forgive minor assumptions of ignorance on the grounds that he could not possibly know everything, but not the implication that he was outclassed.
"Then I will take you at your word, Lady Diana. I assume that this is a similar situation to that 'Gunpowder' you were so cautious around?"
"Not quite, but close enough. It's honestly more the case that I don't fully understand it myself. I'm sure Donovan would explain the basics to you if you asked him."
"I will think about it."
The readiness with which Rize's Uncle Shi accepted the fact that he was outclassed only caused him more confusion. Perceptive enough to understand there must be a good reason, Rize decided he would wait until later to ask Uncle Shi about this matter.
A knock on the door precipitated the end of their conversation. A masked man opened the door, his appearance similar to the one who had assisted them at the tavern. "I would like to ask Madame Manama, her son Rize, and their Sanctum Representative to follow me to the podium."
- - - - -
Titanyana and Diana had spent quite some time alone together in the room, neither wanting to break the silence. They were in an awkward situation, socially speaking, as both believed they were responsible for getting the other into this mess.
Diana obviously thought she was in the wrong here as she was the one who ordered Titanyana to act. Even under their old Terran laws, Titanyana's actions could easily be construed as assault or even attempted murder.
Titanyana was under the impression that she overdid it. She lost her temper and injured someone she didn't have to. She wasn't overly familiar with the Sanctum's rules regarding such encounters, but it was easy for her to imagine that she could have done damage beyond a certain threshold to Bije.
"I'd like to ask you something, if you don't mind." Diana found such a silence unbearable, and planned to utilize their momentary privacy to discuss something that had been resting in the back of her mind for some time.
"Mm?" A slight head tilt and a raised ear facing her direction, Diana assumed this to mean she could go ahead and ask.
"Before we moved in to the Barracks, we had a talk with the Arboreal Maiden that covered a plethora of subjects. I'll spare you the details, but among the topics discussed a problem you were having came up. Now, she didn't tell us exactly what ails you owing to her responsibilities, but she did mention that we are likely the only people capable of providing meaningful assistance."
Almost immediately, Titanyana's ears and tail drooped and she made a conscious effort to avert her eyes. "Can we talk about it later?"
"Is it a sensitive subject?"
Titanyana nodded. "Maybe when Donovan is also present..."
"Is it . . . something you don't want to say in my presence?" Diana considered that might be a reason for her reservation aside from the obvious fact she was embarrassed about it.
"Not really, it's just something you should probably decide on together, I think."
"We can still do that if you tell me now, you know?"
"I, I just-"
Another knock on the door.
- - - - -
As far as Diana was concerned, the state of the courtroom was nothing but a joke. The judge, judiciary, whatever the Sanctum's equivalent was, struggled to maintain order. Given how young he looked, roughly Diana's age, he was definitely inexperienced, and had no clue how he should handle the side of the room opposite of Diana. Her party remained calm at the very least, listening to the justice as best they could, while Lord Kelly and his posse constantly made accusations, claims, and objections while the judge tried to work.
Honestly speaking, the most irritating part of this was the fact that the justice was bound by duty to hear each of these objections and claims out as if they were fact. Diana could not stand having to wait her turn while these imbeciles wasted her time. Much worse was the fact that it seemed to be working.
The jury, if that was indeed what they were called, were growing tired of this farce. More and more they moved to Kelly's side as their patience wore thin, the Captain explaining that it was a silent yet visible method of displaying their stance on the matter. Clearly this filibustering was intended to make the jury vote in order to stop this whole mess instead of actually pursue the enforcement of law.
It was so bad that Diana could hardly get a word out before one of them accused her of something.
"What a fucking disgrace." The words slipped out of her mouth, her patience having been completely used up. In immediate hindsight, she regretted it, but the suddenness of it bought her a moment of time.
Oh well, nothing to be lost by capitalizing on it now.
"What sort of circus do you think you are running here? This isn't some bully pulpit for you to spew rancid bullshit and lies about those you have victimized." One of Kelly's goons attempted to interject. "Zip it ass face, it's my turn." Diana would have to admit her creativity when it came to insults was not the greatest. "You lot will not be permitted to lecture me on such elegant topics as court mannerisms and proper courtesy, you have demonstrated a rampant disregard to the justice's authority among other things. I have seen nothing but the most vile behavior I could have possibly imagined from you men who are supposedly the zenith of courtesy." Diana pointed an accusing finger at the judge. "And you! Is it not your job to keep brainless mongrels like these in line?"
"I have been tryi-"
"That wasn't a question for you to answer, sir." She emphasized the 'sir' to demonstrate her waning confidence in his capabilities. "That was something we would call a rhetorical question, one that has an obvious answer that need not be stated. Regardless, you are overly hesitant to use the tools at your disposal to do your job. You have enforcers, here, no? Don't think that you should let him get away with his blatant disregard for the law just because he is an influential noble. Need I remind you that you are backed by the Sanctum?"
"Don't you dare think you can tell me how to do my job!"
PAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNGGGGGGG
The sound of a staff making a devastating impact with the stone tiling echoed throughout the room. A slight jingling following as it died down.
"She would not have to tell you how to do your job if you were actually doing it." A tired feminine voice that carried a great deal authority with it retorted the young justice's defensive outburst.