Day 53: Sun Room, Morning

[scarefaux]

With breakfast finished and a new acquaintance made, the Scarecrow's mind turned to his other friends. The disappearance of Depth Charge's friend had brought back memories of how he'd felt when Kaiji went missing: helpless, useless, as though he should have and could have done something more to find him. If only he had his brain, then maybe he

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[tasteoftruth]

Breakfast left matters a bit clearer. He was in some kind of loony bin, which explained why no one believed he was Tyrell Badd and why the nurses didn't listen to a single thing he said. If one of the random patients had claimed to be, say, Phoenix Wright, Badd wouldn't have believed him either. At some point he'd find an opportunity to get to a phone and call Gumshoe, security around here wasn't particularly tight, but that wasn't as important as figuring out what was going on.

Badd took up a relaxed position on one of the couches. With 'where' answered, what was left behind were the questions of how and why. It was still a gigantic slip-up to send a perfectly sane criminal to a psychiatric institute rather than just putting him back where he came from. As stupid as the pencilpushers could be, they couldn't fail this badly. Someone had done this intentionally.

...was the ring really powerful enough to put him here? And if so, what were they hoping to accomplish?

[Gant]

[gargantuanlaugh]

Gant checked the bulletin as soon as the shift changed, but nothing had been left for him, as usual. Well, he didn't blame anyone for not checking up on him. He was quite capable of keeping himself out of trouble... most of the time. Or at least keeping others from knowing the trouble he had created. But anyway, he was glad to see Lana was posting messages again, at least. That left him without doubt that she truly was okay. Not that he didn't take Harvey's word for it, but every night offered its own dangers. He would just rather she not be one to succumb to them here. She was more useful to him alive than dead, after all

[tasteoftruth]

Oh no. Of all people to be here it had to be him. Badd reluctantly turned his head towards his former boss.

"Gant," he said, voice cold as arctic winter. Gant looking well and happy, which in itself was annoying. Nobody who violated their badge so violently deserved a moment's comfort. "How'd you manage to swing an insanity defense, you old scumbag?" The man was depraved, but Badd was pretty certain he wasn't all-out crazy.

Badd hadn't been fond of Gant even before SL-9 went down. The man was far too friendly and laughed too much, and Badd didn't trust anyone who laughed at inappropriate times. After Gant's promotion he'd grown more bothersome (what with having to actually follow his orders) and after his arrest he'd lost what few positive aspects Badd thought he had. Skye hadn't deserved what she got and what he'd done to her sister was just...disgusting.

Hurting kids was one of the few things that made Badd deeply consider leaving the justice system out of the proceedings entirely.

[gargantuanlaugh]

Gant pouted at the cold reception. Everyone was so moody today. "Now that's not a very nice thing to say, Baddo! After all the years we've known one another, that's all you have to say when meeting an ally here

[tasteoftruth]

Gant didn't control his job anymore, in theory there would be minimal punishments for beating the grin off his face...no, Badd had more control than that. But he did believe Gant would try to escape justice, he wouldn't put much past anyone who abused his law enforcement position for personal gain.

Well.

Abused it to cover up murder, anyway. Justified revenge didn't count as personal.

"Shipped in this morning," Badd growled, shrugging one shoulder and turning away from Gant. "Some kind of filing error." Though come to think of it, it had been afternoon when the trial ended. Had he really slept that long or had some outside force coerced him into it? Mental note: check self for needle marks. "If this is better than death row then death row must be cushy. Even with all the crazy people I prefer it to where they used to have me."

It was tempting not to raise any kind of fuss at all and just relax until the system found him again. But that wouldn't be the right thing to do.

[gargantuanlaugh]

Wow, Badd was even more touchy than usual today. He always had been a bit of a sourpuss. Not quite to the extent as Manfred had been, but still, there was a darkness that had hung around him the last few years that surrounded him in an icy cloud. Not that Gant ever complained. All he cared about was results, and Badd did his work well despite his hard shell

[tasteoftruth]

Badd's thumb nudged at his upper lip. They didn't give him lollipops anymore but his habitual gestures hadn't gotten the memo yet and his fingers kept trying to twist an intangiable paper stick. Of course his first instinct for a Manny was Coachen (which made Gant's comment unbearably creepy before Badd reminded himself that dead people didn't generally talk) but Coachen was dead and good riddance to him. So 'Manny' was who again, not anyone in the police force, certainly not anyone...

He turned to Gant, aghast. "Manfred von Karma? I thought they stretched his neck out years ago." All right, so maybe Gant was only the second to last person Badd wanted to see here. He gave the room a quick scan, as if to make sure no other foul members of the legal system had crept in, and then settled back on the couch again. As if it mattered, anywhere that wasn't the courtroom would probably be hell to Mr. Perfect Prosecutor, but Badd would have to avoid him too. Or gloat. Actually, gloating sounded like a much better option

[gargantuanlaugh]

It seemed like his mentioning of von Karma had at least thrown the other man off. Gant took a bit of satisfaction in that. He had so often felt he was losing his touch in surprising people here. So, maybe just giving surprising information didn't completely count, but it was satisfying nonetheless!

It was Gant's turn to be surprised shortly after. Years? Really? "W-well, only about a month ago, my time." He chuckled nervously, hoping the man wasn't being literal. What a thing for an old colleague to say about another. But then again, Badd hadn't held the same relationship with Manfred as Gant had. Which reminded him, he hadn't really gotten to plan any investigations with him here yet. Last time he had saw old Manfred had been two days ago. Surely... surely the old goat hadn't been released. Hmm. Some snooping was in order.

And another surprise! "Ex-cops, you say?" As in plural? Baddo, Baddo, Baddo, what have you been doing since my time?Right, back to his question. "No one really knows for sure why we've all been

[tasteoftruth]

'My time'? Gant was making less sense than usual. Badd shook his head scornfully. "Pretty sure half the people here deserve to be here. I had to spend breakfast reassuring some teenager that his waffles were real." That didn't mean you couldn't paint a few oranges red and hide them in an apple bowl, of course. A loony bin was even better than prison for making sure your prisoner was never believed no matter what they said or how loudly they said it.

It was not a good place to hold people for ransom, of course, not when the windows weren't even barred. Gant had the same knowledge and skills Badd did, he should have tried an escape by now. von Karma, too, if he'd ever actually been here, and anyone who had both sanity and strength left. If Gant was right it was a common occurrence and a large enough group could easily overpower the nurses. So...why was Gant still here?

Heh. Badd again teased the invisible lollipop stick, this time with an air of smugness. "Yeah. Ex. Haven't you been reading the papers?"

[gargantuanlaugh]

Gant had to laugh at Badd's first few comments. He clapped his large hands together, managing to keep his giggles to a minimum. "Ho ho ho! Oh, right you are, Baddo! Some people here certainly do belong in a mental institution." He'd met a few himself, but he'd learned in time that even the crazier ones were probably saner than the Head Doctor at least. And Manny already so properly referred to him as the 'Head Lunatic.' Badd would learn that himself soon enough

[tasteoftruth]

"Amnesia. That's really your gambit." Badd was almost stunned by how outright cliche it was. He shook his head at how low his former superior was willing to crawl to get out of trouble. At least Badd had accepted his fate with dignity--embraced it, even. If retirement had been forced upon him before he'd completed his mission, he'd intended to turn himself over anyway in the hopes the information he'd gathered would be of use to someone.

If they had needed the thief of truth back during KG-8, they needed him even more after it became crippled. Between von Karma, Gant, the embassy and whatever the heck had happened with Edgeworth, it seemed like things were far worse than Faraday could have imagined. The system was rotten to the core, and the only way it seemed to be getting fixed was by tearing out the corrupt organs piece by piece.

"Sorry to say justice's been moving on without you, chief," he said, with a quirk of his lips that was almost a smirk. "Remember that thief I was chasing? The Yatagarasu

[gargantuanlaugh]

Gant almost laughed again when Badd assumed wrongly that he was faking amnesia. Almost. But not quite. He contented himself with just chuckling. Of course, it was entirely possible there was a point that Gant couldn't remember between his last day in the courthouse and his first day in the institute, but he didn't believe it was any longer than however long it had taken to transport him here. And with how their bodies ended up back in bed in an instant, even after traveling so far away from their rooms every night, who knew how long that transportation could have taken. It was immeasurable, unless you happened to be the Head Doctor no doubt

[tasteoftruth]

If Gant had still been chief Badd wouldn't have shown so much arrogance to his face. He kept up the boundaries of respect for his superiors, no matter how despicable. Now, of course, he was a free agent and didn't owe respect to anyone. If Gant wanted to play games Badd wasn't going to play along. His bile rose at the casual dismissal of Faraday's death as 'something like that', but he wasn't going to rise to the bait

[gargantuanlaugh]

Gant was only mildly surprised to hear the Yatagarasu had been a team rather than a single perpetrator. Really, it made sense given one person's mistakes could be taken care of by another if there was at least one other team memeber. But three, that was a magic number. You had not only one extra pair of eyes to scan the details, but two. No wonder the thief had never been caught... until now, it seemed.

So one of them had been Faraday. Gant could have told Badd that before, since little Kay had already supplied that information to him a few nights ago. But then the defense attorney that was suspected of the murder (and never brought to justice after, if Gant remembered right) was also a part of the team. And then, well, Badd made it sound like he was the one that had been the detective behind the Yatagarasu, but that couldn't be true. It had to be someone else. Badd wasn't one who would ever take up that kind of double-agent job

[tasteoftruth]

Badd had to chuckle along with him. He wasn't sure whether to be pleased or offended that such a...capable manipulator of the justice system was impressed by his ten years of flawless cover-ups

[gargantuanlaugh]

Badd certainly was in a confessing mood today. Maybe being arrested made them all become loose lipped and resigned. Gant had definitely been the same after Wright had caught him, though being locked up here had made him rethink going too quietly if there was a chance for escape. Why deny the world the chance to bring back one of the best crime-solving minds available? All he needed was a new start