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Chapter Text

The wind whistled and blew a snowflake across the darkening streets of the neighborhood. The curious baby snowflake landed on the window of Phoenix Wright's house and peeked inside and watched how Phoenix and his friends spent Christmas Eve.

Inside, the Judge pinned Phoenix's badge back over the giant hole in Phoenix's suit he had made when he ripped it off after Phoenix's disbarment all those years ago.

"Mr. Wright," said the Judge, "for repassing the bar, and for inventing the Jurist system, I hereby officially give you your badge back!"

Phoenix smiled proudly, his arms by his side and his chest thrown out like a soldier getting a medal. All of his friends gathered around him and clapped and cheered.

"Way to go, Nick!" said Maya.

"Yeah, nice job!" said Larry. "Whoo hoo!"

"Congrats, Wright," said Edgeworth. "Perhaps we'll face each other again in court someday. But it should actually be called the Juror System and not the Jurist System, because a Jurist is a legal scholar, while a Juror is one who serves on a jury. If you were a real lawyer you'd know this."

"C'mon, give me a break already, Edgeworth," said Phoenix, rolling his eyes. "It's Christmas!" He had his arm around Lamiroirs shoulder and they were hip-to-hip. The rings on their fingers gleamed in the light from the fireplace.

"Ah, we must thank you for this wonderful Christmas present, Your Honor," said Lamiroir, smiling under her veil, her eyes crinkling.

"Ohohohoho... it was no problem at all, Madam. What better time to perform the de-disbarment of our trusty Mr. Wright than a party at your brand new home?"

"You're very thoughtful," said Lamiroir. "We will never forget you all our lives."

Trucy ducked under between Phoenix and Lamirior and popped up between them with her arms wrapped around their waists.

"Don't forget about me, either!" she said. She beamed up at them. She was very happy with her "new" mommy.

Lamiroir laughed and Phoenix smiled down at her and said: "How could we? Anyway, let's go to the dining room and open presents... I think you'll like the banquet table. Everyone has a present on their plate!"

All the guests made their way down the hall. Trucy was following Apollo down the length of the front hall and throwing popcorn that had been strung up on the Christmas tree at him.

"I know my biological mother and you don't," she singsonged. "Na na na na na na."

"Quit it," he said through gritted teeth, clenching his fists. A piece of popcorn bounced off his head.

"Filthy non-mom haver."

"Knock it off, leave him alone!" barked Phoenix. Thalassa clasped her hands and averted her gaze; they had only told Trucy so far.

"I was just teasing, gosh," she pouted. "He doesn't mind." She took the manger from the little wooden nativity scene and bopped it against Apollo's nose.

Everyone had left the room except Phoenix and Thalassa. She was clasping her hands and looked downcast.

"Hey, what's wrong?" asked Phoenix. The snowflake perked up its ears.

She averted her gaze slightly and said: "It's just... this all just feels so odd to me. I feel like I'm a stranger to my own daughter... and son. I scarcely remember them, but she's so eager to open her heart and let me into her life, tell me everything. But when we were in the kitchen, and she was prattling on, I felt like I was in a false position; that she was really talking to someone else, someone behind me maybe. I finally found my children, but I can't connect with them. 15 and 22... I've missed so much. I love them... but I don't know them."

In a surprisingly sensitive gesture for him, Phoenix took her hands in his and squeezed. "Hey. I know stepping into the light and becoming 'Thalassa' is taking some time to adjust, but it's okay. We're all going to be there for you every step of the way. Me, Trucy, and even vest boy."

"You're very sweet," she smiled. He gave her a peck on the forehead.

"I'm sure the rest of your memories will come back and fill in the blanks soon enough. And in the meantime, at least you're not blind anymore."

Thalassa nodded and smiled and blinked back tears. Not being blind anymore had been Phoenix's idea. They hugged and she let herself be led out of the room, but as they passed a mirror in the hall, Phoenix caught a glimpse of his reflection.

It was more lined now, older, and there were dark circles under the eyes. His mind suddenly flooded with everything that he had gone through since his disbarment. Eternally weighed down by empty pockets that felt like they were lined with lead. Self-alienated from his friends and family. Being forced to adopt a daughter and play the piano. Selling his body to former rival prosecutors to satisfy their sick ideas of revenge.

He shook his head violent and tightened his grip on her hand. No! That was all in the past. It was better now... he had his badge back.

Now the snowflake was looking into an empty room. Empty except for the ghost that had appeared when Phoenix and Thalassa left. But now the wind blew, the window rattled, and the snowflake went sailing away.

Gumshoe was smoking outside on the front porch when he saw the snowflake summersault pass in the air. He dropped his cigarette in the snow.

"They say every snowflake is different," he mused. "Kind of like fingerprints. I wonder where the little guy is headed on a night like this...? Doesn't it have a home of its own?"

And so as Phoenix and his family sit down to enjoy dinner in pleasant company, our narrative now follows the playful snowflake on its journey across the skies, blown by gusts of wind across the city, over the mountains, and into the desert, where the curious baby snowflake peeks through the barred window of a remote desert penitentiary, and watches how a certain lonely prisoner spent his Christmas.

Because, you see, that same Christmas night, Kristoph Gavin was sitting at the piano in his prison cell molesting the ivory. The roaring fireplace in the opposite wall illuminated his back and cast dancing shadows on the walls. The other cells in that part of the penitentiary were dark and draped in silence; the rest of the prisoners were attending the Christmas ball in the cafeteria. The only sign of life on the cellblock was the elegant music issuing forth from the piano, the product of Kristoph's adroit, practiced fingers.

A guard emerged from the darkness outside the cell and rapped on the bars. "I've got your mail here for you, Kristoph. Late arrival."

The prisoner's finger paused above the piano key midair. "Is it from my brother?" he asked eagerly. "Did he accept my invitation to dinner?"

"No, but he did send an ice sculpture of himself."

Kristoph lowered his head. "Put it in the walk-in freezer with the others."

The guard wheeled the sculpture in on a hand truck and put it in the freezer. The guard slammed the freezer shut and spun the hatch, and then he left the cell. He paused in the middle of locking up and took another glance at Kristoph. He was hunched over the piano, lifeless.

"Merry Christmas, Gavin."

Silence.

"Yeesh. I see why the other inmates beat you up." He locked the door and left.

Kristoph remained in his pathetic posture, listening until he was sure the sound of the guard's receding footsteps was gone. Then, furious, face contorted in rage, he pounced out of his seat and hurled a wine glass against the wall. It shattered, red liquid running down the wall like blood.

"Tomato juice and grape juice... no wonder we're enemies."

That glass had been sitting on the table next to the Christmas feast set out in anticipation of Klavier coming to dinner. Of course, it was all a waste of time.

Another Christmas alone.

Suddenly Kristoph spun around on his heels, the back of his jacket flapping, and sat back down at the piano, immediately breaking into a new, spontaneous song that was spilling from his heart.

I wear a suit of blue,

The one I hate wears one, too.

Wouldn't it be swell if he were dead?

Buried in sand up to his stupid head?

I would do anything for a chance to redress

The many wrongs done to me in my distress,

Unfairly stifled in my life and art,

By a man who should be shot with a dart.

Useless, weak, should be thrown from a great height;

Can you guess his name? It's Phoenix Wright.

He threw back his head as he sang, straining, veins standing out in his neck, putting a piece of his soul into every note. As he played, the shadows on the wall grew longer and took more definite form, of people and places he knew before. A pantomime played out on the wall as the shadows reenacted all the significant moments of his life: murdering Shadi Smith, getting Wright disbarred, his breakdown on the witness stand, painting his nails with Vera.

One, two, your suit is blue,

Three, four, your woman's a whore.

Five, six, let's compare dicks.

Seven, eight, wow, mine is great.

Nine, ten, I'll kill again!

His playing grew more and more frenzied, his voice more deranged, till suddenly at the climax of the song there was a explosion in the fireplace. Giant flames shot out of the fireplace and singed the ceiling. Gavin got up and faced the fireplace, placing a forearm over his face in a attempt to shield himself from the waves of heat and flying embers.

A soot-covered figure emerged from the fire, and advanced towards Kristoph, growing gradually taller and taller until he towered over him and cast his face in shadow. Kristoph slowly lowered his arm, and all his fear fell away. He broke out in a smile, eyes shining.

"I've been waiting my entire life to meet you."

Five years passed.

Chapter Text

Phoenix Wright looked out the kitchen window while sipping coffee from a mug labeled "#1 Lawyer Guy." His eyes narrowed over the rim of the cup as he watched the movers across the street lift a sofa off the truck.

"What's wrong, Phoenix?" asked Thalassa, pulling a pie out of the oven.

"Someone's moving into the old Victorian across the street," he replied without turning around.

Meanwhile, Trucy was seated at the table eating a peanut-butter-and-jelly with her nose in the newspaper.

FIVE YEARS SINCE PHOENIX WRIGHT INVENTED THE JURIST SYSTEM AND SENT KRISTOPH GAVIN TO PRISON FOR THE SECOND TIME, blared the paper in huge print. GAVIN TO APPEAL DEATH SENTENCE ONCE AGAIN.

Trucy gulped down the last of her sandwich and set the newspaper down with a rustle of the pages. She checked her wristwatch.

"Wow," she remarked, "it really has been five years. Time sure flies, huh?" She propped an elbow on the table and cupped her chin. "I was just a kid back then, an amateur, really... Now the great Trucy Gramarye has taken the stage by storm." She jabbed at the photograph of Kristoph strangling his public defender on the page. "When are they gonna finally fry this guy anyway, Dad?"

"Sorry, sweetness, daddy can't talk right now. He's looking out the window."

Thalassa put the finishing touches on a cake she was decorating and went over to join him at the window. In addition to being international singing sensation Lamiroir, and Phoenix's wife, one of her most important jobs was making him cakes and pies. Besides, their annual Halloween party was coming up, and she wanted to get a head start.

She sidled up and wrapped her arms around him. "Look, they're wheeling children's bikes down the ramp." She looked up at him, beaming, and placed his hand over her growing stomach. "I love children, don't you?"

He grunted and shook her off and sat down at the table.

"All I know is that'd they better keep away from my Halloween decorations," he said. He went cross-eyed and thick veins stood out in his neck. "Otherwise there might be an unfortunate 'accident' involving their bedroom window and a can of gasoline."

Thalassa laughed. "Oh, Phoenix, you're so silly." She picked up a pie that'd been cooling on the counter. "Let's go over and welcome them to the neighborhood."

"Great idea, mom," said Trucy, springing out of her seat. She and Thalassa made for the door.

Phoenix coughed into his fist. "Uh, Thalassa? You didn't put your veil on. You're kinda not allowed to leave the house without it."

"Of course, how silly of me," she said. It was part of her contract as Lamiroir.

"Don't worry, let me get it," said Trucy. She carefully placed the veil on her mother's face, then stood back in admiration. "You're very pretty, mommy. You don't look a day over 30, even though you're definitely approaching old hag territory." She smirked and tipped her hat. "Ha ha, just kidding!"

"Thank you, honey," Thalassa smiled.

Phoenix kicked a dead cat across the room. "Whatever. Let's just get this over with."

Presently everyone left the house and went to greet the new neighbors, leaves crunching underfoot, new ones falling overhead. Everyone, that is, except Apollo, who was currently working the Trilo Quist case, and Athena, who was finishing up her shift at the local strip club.

The new neighbors' house was three stories high, plus an attic, with white siding, lots of gables, a tower with bay windows, and a large covered porch with double doors. The lawn was surrounded by a low stone wall topped by a wrought-iron fence, with two stone lions bookending the entrance.

As they crossed the street, suddenly they saw a beautiful man float through the air on a magic piano, delicately stroking the keys and singing in a rich clear voice as flurries of leaves passed by and seemed to bear him up.

The home is where the home is,

a place where you can call house

The house is the place where there's family

a place that's also a home

A mover holding up one end of the piano looked up and grunted. "Would you get off?"

The man laughed sheepishly and climbed down. "Sorry, fellas, I guess I got a little carried away." He gestured toward the house. "I was just saw the house and had this sudden flash of artistic inspiration."

"Piano players..." the mover grunted through gritted teeth, shiny sweat streaking down his forehead. He and his partner mounted the front steps and carried the piano into the house, grunting and straining under their heavy load.

The man watched them go, sighing and running a hand through his hair.

"I thought he was good!" said Trucy from a distance, tapping her chin thoughtfully. "Better than Daddy, at least."

"Yeah, he is good," agreed Phoenix. "For some reason I feel like his playing is kind of familiar..."

The three walked over to introduce themselves to their new neighbor, who was now leaning against one of the lions with a melancholy air. He jumped a little at their approach.

"Hello!" said Thalassa. "We live across the street." She indicated their house with a twist of her shoulders, still holding the cake. "Welcome to the neighborhood. I'm Thalassa, and this is my husband Phoenix and my daughter Trucy."

The man smiled and shook Phoenix's and Trucy's hands. Then he said: "Nice to meet you. I'm Dave Seville." He took the pie from Thalassa. "Wow! This smells great. Is this apple? My favorite."

"No, it's cake." Or was it?

Phoenix had to admit his new neighbor was pretty hot. Dave had thick, wavy black hair, a strong jaw, powerful chest and arms, boyish good looks, and a plump, full ass encased in khakis. He was the archetypal all-American hunksicle. But he had sensitive eyes.

"Soooo, you have kids?" asked Trucy, eying the bikes on the lawn.

"Oh, yes, three in fact." Dave looked around his feet absentmindedly and lifted up a shoe, as if they might be hiding under it. "I guess they must be off exploring the house." He set the pie down on the edge of the lion's pedestal and called towards the house. "Boys! Get down here!"

Three anthropomorphic chipmunks children came clambering down the front porch and lined up in front of Dave. He indicated each one with a pat on the head. "This is Alvin, Simon, and Theodore. My three precious little angels."

"Oh my god!" ejaculated Phoenix. "You're the Chipmunks!"

"We all LOVE the Chipmunks!" said Thalassa. "We're such great fans of your music. We listen to it on the radio all the time."

Trucy said: "Yeah, he one about how he wants a hooly hoop for Christmas? Classic."

Dave sunk his hands into his pockets and smiled. "Well, it's always nice to meet fans. Must people nowadays only listen to thuggish music about mack daddies who pimp out their hoes and sling crack. Nice to know some people still listen to REAL music."

Phoenix chuckled. "Well, I'm not averse to the occasional crack rock myself. There's this great little crackhouse downtown- real classy place. Maybe I could take you sometime."

"Daddy," scolded Trucy. "This is no time for your jokes."

"Well, maybe I'll take you up on that someday," said Dave. He turned to Thalassa. "Of course, me and the boys know you, too. You're Lamiroir, aren't you?"

"Why, yes, I am. You know of me?"

"Of course," he nodded. "You're pretty famous. I'd recognize your outfit anywhere. And your voice... once you hear it, it's not easily forgotten."

Thalassa smiled. "Hearing that from such an accomplished musician as yourself is an an honor."

The two artists hit it off, and they soon came to an agreement to collaborate on a song sometime soon, with Thalassa proclaiming that'd it be a dream come true.

After that Alvin showed his switchblade off to Thalassa, Trucy demonstrated her Mr. Hat trick to Theodore, and Simon was ignored like usual because he's basically the "Brainy Smurf" of the Chipmunks and no one likes him. Meanwhile, Phoenix and Dave were standing a little ways off on their own.

Phoenix hooked his thumbs in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. "So, Dave, what made you decide to put down stakes here anyway?"

"Well, we used to live in the city, but the deranged libtards in charge were running it into the ground and taking away our religious freedoms and right to bodily autonomy. I knew I had to move somewhere with like-minded folk who shared our values before the loony left's liberal agenda corrupted my kids." He held out a hand. "Hi, I'm an anti-vaxxer."

Phoenix pumped the proffered arm vigorously. "We're all anti-vaxxers here," he said. "I think our neighborhood'll suit you and your boys just fine." His eyes narrowed. "Do you own a motorcycle?"

"No," said Dave, worried. "Should I?"

Phoenix nodded. "And make it a Harley," he warned. "Oh, and I'd trade that minivan in for a Dodge Ram if I were you. You don't want people getting the wrong idea."

"Thanks, Phoenix," smiled Dave. "I'm glad to have a friend here to help me get settled in."

"No problem, buddy." Phoenix smiled back.

Phoenix couldn't help but think that this was the beginning of a beautiful and sexy friendship.

Chapter Text

"[COPYRIGHTED LYRICS CENSORED] hurts, [COPYRIGHTED LYRICS CENSORED] scars, [COPYRIGHTED LYRICS CENSORED]wounds, and [COPYRIGHTED LYRICS CENSORED]..." sang the Chipmunks.

Thalassa approached the microphone and looked up towards the ceiling, as if she were entreating the heavens, and slowly rose her arms and her beautiful voice.

"[COPYRIGHTED LYRICS CENSORED] heart, [COPYRIGHTED LYRICS CENSORED] strong, [COPYRIGHTED LYRICS CENSORED] tough, [COPYRIGHTED LYRICS CENSORED]..." she sang as the Chipmunks hummed in the background.

They were collaborating on a cover of "Love Hurts", the original version performed by the Everly Brothers and written by Boudleaux Bryant, with Machi accompanying them on the piano.

"[COPYRIGHTED LYRICS ]... [COPYRIGHTED LYRICS]..."

She stared at Phoenix through the recording booth glass as she sang, and felt a strange pleasure mixed with pain. She loved him so much that just looking at him made her heart cry. She couldn't explain it. But it was a much stronger feeling than she ever felt before.

When the song was over, Dave took off his headphones and turned a knob and fiddled with some sliders on the control panel. "Great job, guys. That was just phenomenal." He let himself fall back in his chair and let out a big breath. He had the look of a man who had just gotten the best blowjob in the world. Normally he only felt like that after a Chipmunks concert. "Wow. That was..." He shook his head. "Wow. I don't want to get ahead of myself here, but I think that was the best cover, well, ever. I think we have a hit song on our hands."

Thalassa and Machi and the Chipmunks walked out of the recording booth and were greeted by Phoenix, Trucy, Apollo, and Athena, who had all been listening to the audio over the speakers and who all agreed it was great.

Just then Klavier Gavin rolled into the room on his heelies holding a big balloon that said "It's a pregnancy" in giant embossed letters. He skidded to a stop in front of Thalassa and offered it to her.

"For you, fraulein."

She smiled demurely and took it, barely parting her lips to murmur thank you.

Klavier dropped to his knees. "I see you have a little miracle in the oven." He lifted her dress up and started rubbing and making out with her big fat pregnant belly. "So Herr Wright has been jacking off into your pussy again, huh?"

"Mr. Gavin!" she cried, blushing, embarrassed but pleased.

"You know, I've always believed that babies are our future," said the German rockstar thougtfully, musing. He looked up at Phoenix. "You're a lucky man, Phoenix Wright."

"Heh, don't I know it," chuckled Phoenix, a Lucky Strike bobbing up and down in the corner of his mouth.

Klavier pulled her dress back down and smoothed it out. He kneed himself up.

"Congratulations, you two. It is always a beautiful thing when a new life comes into this world, no? I'm sure you'll be great parents."

"Thanks, Klavier," said Phoenix Wright. "We appreciate you coming all the way out here just to give us this awesome balloon."

Klavier turned his head so it was in profile, his lips curling into a vague little smile. "Oh, I was going to be in the neighborhood anyway. Working on our new album, after all..."

Trucy gasped. "'New album?' Does this mean the Gavinners are...?"

"Ah ha ha..." He threw back his head. "Yes it does. The Gavinners are back, ready to ride the airwaves once again!"

"Oh my god!" screamed Trucy. "This is such great news! I'm you guys' biggest fan! I have your posters all over my room!"

"Oh, great," grumbled Apollo. "Just what the world needs. The return of another ear-bleeding rock group. I prefer Lamiroir and the Chipmunks."

"No one cares what you think, vest boy," yawned Klavier, buffing his nails. Trucy was a little offended on Apollo's behalf, even if his vest was stupid.

"But... wait a minute!" said Athena. "I thought the Gavinners broke up when Daryan Cresend was arrested!"

"That's a good point, Trucy," said Phoenix. "How can the Gavinners make a comeback without Cresend?"

His question was answered when Daryan Cresend emerged from the shadows flashing his sharp white teeth, the sides of mouth turned up in a monstrous smile.

Apollo jumped in front of Lamiroir and Trucy and threw out his arms. "Daryan Cresend! What are you doing here!? You should be in prison!"

"Stop embarrassing yourself, Herr Douchebag," said Klavier. "Daryan here was just released on probation. They only ended up convicting him of manslaughter, after all."

Daryan explained how there had been many extenuating circumstances. He had been friends with the Chief Justice's son, and he only smuggled in the cocoon to save him, and Romein Letouse had made a pass at him before he pulled the gun, so killing him was self-defense.

"Also," said Daryan, "he was a pedophile. He only joined Interpol so he could follow little blind boys around. It was good that I killed him."

Suddenly he stuck his hand out and leered over Machi Tobaye. "No hard feelings, right, kid?"

"Ah, no, Mr. Cresend," replied Tobaye, shaking his hand with alacrity, "it is not hard at all."

"Well, I don't forgive you!" shouted Apollo. "You hit Lamirior! You're... you're totally evil!"

"Uh, I resent that," said Daryan. "I'm not evil."

"Exactly," said Klavier. "Good detective work, Daryan."

"Thanks, partner."

Trucy drew back, eying him in distaste. "I don't like this guy either."

"You'd better keep this guy in line, Gavin," warned Phoenix.

"Sure, sure." Klavier waved his hand carelessly. "You don't think I'd let him around your beautiful and sexy wife if he wasn't reformed, do you? His ankle monitor will halt any evil impulses, anyway. Heh... It is quite advanced. In any case, I'm just glad we have the real Daryan back. Our producer's attempt to replace him with a robot was a complete failure."

At those words a sleek black garbage can with metallic dick hair and blinking lightbulbs for eyes rolled into the room on treads.

"Hello, fellow bandmates," said Daryan Cresbot.

"Where's my coffee, you little shit," said Klavier, kicking it in the flank.

"Hey, don't treat him like that," objected Daryan.

Klavier rolled his eyes as Cresbot handed him his coffee with his flailing noodle arms. "Oh, spare me, Daryan." He sipped. Then he checked his watch.

"Well, I guess I'd better be going. My brother's execution is today, you know. He's finally exhausted all his appeals. It's being broadcast on TV tonight at midnight. The governor thought that would be the most fair for all his victims."

Trucy got quiet and seemed to shrink inside herself. "On TV? I'm not sure I want to watch that..." Phoenix and Thalassa immediately moved in to comfort her.

"You don't have to watch if you don't want to," said Phoenix.

Soon after that Klavier and his bandmates left, and then Dave's producer Ian showed up and listened to the song. He was a little reserved with his praise, but you could tell he was deeply moved by the song, and he immediately declared his intention to publish it as a single. A round of pats on the backs and congratulations went around, and then everyone filed out of the room to eat out, Ian's treat.

However, Apollo and Trucy hung back.

"I feel sad," said Trucy.

"Don't feel sad," said Apollo.

"Okay, I won't," said Trucy.

However, two other people were watching them from the shadows, different from the shadows that Daryan had been hiding in, because these shadows contained light.

"He's such a good big brother to her," said Thalassa. She cast her eyes down. "It is such a shame... that they... still..."

"When will you tell them?" asked Phoenix.

She was quiet for a while. Then she said: "It's been... so long. But there is no good answer. I believe in my heart that God will tell me when the time is right."

"Good idea," Phoenix nodded. "We should probably wait a decade or before or so before giving them the whole picture, you know, soften the blow. We wouldn't want to tell them TOO soon. I think one secret familial relationship reveal per decade is quite enough for everyone."

"You're right, it could be bad for their mental states. I just wish I could be a good mother to them both, and not just Trucy..." Her lips trembled and her eyes took on a wet, glossy look. He put a hand on her shoulder.

"But you are..."

Everyone left the room. But then a ghost appeared.

Chapter Text

Klavier came out of the broom closet with Daryan Cresbot following at his heels and leaking mysterious fluids.

"They sure don't make Daryan Cresend's asshole like they used to," said Klavier. He glared down at Cresbot and scowled. "Now go write me another hit song, you hunk of crap." He slipped on his cool sunglasses. "Or I'll kill you."

Klavier took the elevator down to the first floor and left the record company building and stepped into the parking lot. He went over to his cool flashy sports car, which was double parked haphazardly across the handicapped spots. He was leaning over to unlock the door when suddenly he was accosted by a guy on crutches.

"Excuse me, is this your car?" the man asked. He gestured towards it with a jerk of his head.

"Uh, the bumper stickers would seem to indicate as much, mein dude," Klavier responded. The stickers on the back read "Hunk onboard" and "This boy's holes reserved for US Marines".

The man coughed. "Well, maybe you didn't notice, but that's a handicapped parking space you're in. Spaces, actually."

Klavier lifted an eyebrow and lowered his shades. "You have a point, or you just exercising your jaw there, crutchey?"

"Well, yes, I do have a point, actually. My name is Carlad Accidentguy. I am physically handicapped. I was in a car accident a few weeks ago, and until my bones heal, I have to use these crutches."

"So?"

"So," the man said, trying to control an impatient note rising in his voice, "I think it's really rude and entitled of you to take up the handicapped parking spaces even though you're clearly not physically handicapped. You don't even have a sticker."

"Oh my god," said Klavier Gavin in disbelief. "Are you seriously talking to me right now?" He swiveled his torso around, keys jangling in his hand. "Hey, everybody! Look! This guy is talking to me!"

"Don't make a scene," the man said nervously.

"Oh, no, YOU started this," said Klavier, whirling back towards the man. People started to crowd around. "I'M entitled? You're the entitled one. I'm not the one demanding a magic sticker that lets me do whatever I want just because 'Wahhh! My legs hurt!'" He rolled his eyes and flapped his wrists around. "'Wahhh! I can't walk! I'm better than normal people!'" He leaned over the man and jabbed a finger at him. The man winced. "Get the FUCK over yourself. The physically handicapped like you make me sick."

Some other guy on crutches hobbled into view. "Yeah! I don't demand special treatment! I don't mind walking walking across the parking lot on a hot day while Klavier Gavin spits on me! I actually like the spit, it cools me off."

"You're one of the good ones," Klavier said, shaking his hand.

Most people watching were pretty disgusted by Klavier's display. He thought he was being cool, but in reality, he was just acting like an entitled prima donna. They helped the first handicapped man into the building, throwing reproving looks at Gavin over their shoulders.\

Meanwhile, Klavier was pleased. He was leafing through a thick stack of bills and paying off the second handicapped man, who threw his crutches into a bush.

"Thanks for pretending to be handicapped and making me look good back there, Daryan," said Klavier, handing his bandmate his due. "Now people will think my treatment of the differently abled is cool."

Daryan tucked his money into his underwear. "You sure about that, Gavin? People might just think you're a brainless psychopath."

"Good one," Klavier chuckled. "No, this was a calculated move. You just know there were some members of the press in that crowd. This is sure to get me some publicity and attention. Can't let the Chipmunks have all of it, now can I?"

"Isn't that bad press, though?"

"No, it's good. I'll let you in on a little secret. I'm the one who crippled Carlad Accidentguy. I did it on purpose."

Daryan sucked air through his teeth, shocked. Klavier nodded somberly, as if he expected this reaction.

"The guy's a total piece of crap. He's the husband of one of my backup singers and he beat her so hard she had a miscarriage."

"That's sick!"

Klavier nodded tersely, his eyes wet behind his glasses. "I know, Daryan. I know. That's why I crippled him. So he couldn't hurt his baby mamma ever again. The police wouldn't do anything. It... It had to be done, ja? Now she's safe. In the end, that's all that matters."

When Daryan left, he was deeply moved. Klavier Gavin wasn't all surface and glitter after all. He felt richer for having known him.

Meanwhile Klavier had gotten into his car and was speeding along the bustling streets of the city. He stopped on his way to execute his brother to get a smoothie at the local Dairy Cream. When he pulled up at the drive thru, the chick working the window lifted her shirt and flashed her giant braless tits at him. He was outraged at this whoredom and threw his smoothie at her.

"You dare show me your breasts? Me, the great Klavier Gavin? You fool!"

He pelted her with more garbage and laughed as she ran away crying. The manager popped his head out of the window and apologized for his employee's behavior. He promised to fire her right away and gave Klavier a free smoothie.

What was quite sad, Klavier reflected, roaring down the street and sipping his new smoothie, one arm dangling out the window, so he wasn't actually touching the wheel, and kept almost killing people; what was quite sad was that so many women were like that nowadays. He had become painfully acquainted with the type ever since becoming an international rocksecutor. They were quite simply whores who reduced sex, which should be something special, a way to bond with someone you truly care about, to nothing more than two animals rutting in a barn.

In the over two million times he had had sex, he had never felt a real connection with any of the women he bedded. He blamed women for this. He also blamed rap music and reality television, which obviously had deadened women to the ability to feel any finer feeling, or to inspire any in him, and which was why they were so promiscuous. There were no longer any social consequences for such behavior. In fact, promiscuity was encouraged. Klavier increasingly felt that in this day and age the only way for a woman to be normal was if she was slightly abnormal. Like if she was homeschooled, or deeply religious, or perhaps mildly mentally disabled. An autistic girlfriend would be awesome.

He sighed and shook his head. "Women are all stupid, worthless whores. I'm never getting married." But secretly, his heart panged.

Continuing on his way to kill his brother, he pulled onto the overpass and immediately got stuck in traffic. He sighed and switched on the radio, and guess what, Alvin and the Chipmunks were on!

"We're munks on a mission, we'll keep on searching, munks on a mission, whether by day or moonlight," he sang along to his favorite song, drumming his fingers on the dashboard, bobbing his head, really getting into it.

Once he got off the highway, Klavier roared into the desert, sending up huge clouds of dust behind his car. The sun was just setting and the penitentiary was dead ahead.

He pet the Dobermans on his way inside, because he's friendly with them, and then he approached the front desk. The guard looked up from his magazine and greeted him.

"How's my brother?" Klavier asked.

"He's been playing all day, sir."

Klavier could hear faint snatches of mournful piano music drifting towards them from somewhere far off.

"Kristoph..." Klavier muttered, lowering his eyes.

A guard led Klavier to his brother's cell. Inside, Kristoph abruptly stopped playing and turned around in his seat.

"So you finally came... brother..."

"Yeah." Klavier stood in the middle of the cell awkwardly. "Today's the day."

"The day my own brother stands idly by as I'm murdered, isn't that right?" Kristoph compressed his lips into a tight, humorless little smile.

Klavier averted his gaze. "No. Today is the day your sentence is carried out. It was a fair trial, Kristoph."

Kristoph suddenly sprang out of his seat and gripped his brother's jacket and shook him.

"You have to get my sentence commuted, Klavier," he hissed, his face inches from his brother and spraying him with spit. "My getting executed is simply not an option. Understand?"

"Kristoph..." Klavier let his brother manhandle him without resistance. Suddenly Kristoph let go.

"I know! We can swap clothes and you can go to be executed in my place!" He started stripping naked.

"Kristoph..."

"It'll be just like Tale of Two Cities!" he continued excitedly, throwing clothes everywhere. "And our switch will also be a Christ allegory. The sinless man will die so the other can be forgiven."

"Kristoph..!"

Kristoph got down on his knees and tugged at his brother's skinny jeans and struggled with the belt. "Damn thing," he grunted. He started using his teeth.

"Kristoph, stop it!" shouted Klavier, like a frightened child. Kristoph took his head out of his brother's crotch, startled, as if out of a reverie.

"I... I apologize." He smoothed out the pubic hair sticking out over his brother's belt and stood up shakily. "I must have gone temporarily insane."

"Temporarily?" sighed Klavier, with an exasperated shake of his head. "Kristoph, just stop this. If you were really sorry for what you've done, you'd accept your punishment."

"I see," said Kristoph. He drew himself up with dignity. "In that case, it seems I have no other choice." He flopped his cock onto the piano and started slamming the lid down on it.

Klavier's eyebrows curled up like concerned caterpillars. "Kristoph, no! Stop self-harming!"

He made a move towards his brother.

Meanwhile, the chaplain was walking down the aisle between the mostly empty cells, his head down, when suddenly there was a horrible, high pitched scream from the direction of Kristoph's cell.

"Good lord!" cried the chaplain, spilling his Bibles. He took off running. When he got there, his knees buckled and went weak. Because inside the cell, Kristoph Gavin and the guard's bodies were stacked on top of each other and skewered with a katana!

Inside the cell Klavier ran forward and gripped the bars. He was soaked in blood. And he was sobbing.

Chapter Text

Phoenix Wright walked down the sidewalk, his hands thrust into his pockets, his chin lowered into the top of his coat. An oppressive gray sky hung over the city, and there was a biting cold in the wind. The cops were interrogating people in the street and smashing windows of cars in search of the fugitive.

Suddenly a helicopter flew down and hovered over the sidewalk, the skids almost scraping the ground. Then the door flew open and a SWAT team member squatting inside with a belt of ammo draped over his arm hip-fired a machine gun into a nearby alley.

A hundred rounds later, there was a lull in the gunfire, and the man said: "I got him, sir!" His commander popped his head out and looked into the alley with binoculars.

He said: "False alarm, that wasn't Kristoph Gavin. It was just a trash can with glasses and old banana peels for hair." He addressed the pilot over his shoulder. "Take her up!"

The helicopter took off, and Phoenix watched it go, his coat flapping against the back of his legs, the whirring blades sending up dust and blowing newspapers and trash everywhere. He thought about how strange it was that he was on his way to have a secret meeting with the subject of the largest manhunt in the city's history.

Kristoph Gavin's escape had been nothing short of brilliant. After killing his brother and the guard, he switched clothes with Klavier's corpse; then he pretended to be his brother and walked out of the prison, seemingly injured, because the clothes were torn and bloodstained. He was loaded into an ambulance, and then jumped out of the back when it slowed down for a curve. The driver was too high, and Alvin and the Chipmunks was playing too loudly over the stereo, for his escape to be noticed.

Gavin then proceeded to a farmhouse under the cover of night, where he surprised a farmer pitching hay in the barn. The man was alarmed and raised his pitchfork, but Kristoph just said, "Mice to see you," and threw two mousetraps at his face which snapped shut over his eyelids and blinded him. Kristoph shoved the screaming man aside and stole a horse and galloped off towards the city. The horse was later found parked outside of a 7-11.

And that was the last trace of Kristoph Gavin.

Or so they thought.

The police were clueless, but Phoenix knew exactly where Kristoph Gavin was. Suddenly something sniffed at his heel. He turned around. It was Mike Meekins. He was crawling around with his nose to the ground like a hound dog.

"He's clean, sir!" reported Meekins. His handler jerked his leash and Meekins spun around in the air and landed on his back.

"Ya dumb mutt, I oughta slap ya," growled the detective, yanking him some more. He looked up at Phoenix. "Hey, if you knew where Kristoph Gavin was, you'd tell me, right?"

"Yes."

"Thanks, buddy, 'preciate it," he replied gruffly. "Most people aren't being very cooperative for some reason." He spat on the ground. "The guy's a freakin' cop killer!" He looked around abstractedly, his gaze passing over a stroller, then whipping back. He blinked several times. Then he got red and his moustache trembled in rage.

"That baby looks like Kristoph Gavin!" 

He did a flying dive and tackled the stroller to the ground, kicking it and laying into it with his fists. Phoenix stuck around to make sure the baby was okay, and then he went on his way. It's a good thing Mike Meekins was such a bad dog, or else he might have sniffed out the letter from Kristoph in his pocket.

Phoenix stopped outside of Dairy Cream and checked his watch. He pulled open the door, which was plastered with Kristoph Gavin wanted posters, and stepped inside.

He could immediately tell something was wrong. All the families who had come to have old fashioned ice cream fun were upset. They had reason to be. Some hookers were walking from table-to-table plying their trade. Phoenix was outraged. He battered them for awhile, spit on them, carved his initials into their skin with his knife as a warning to others, and threw them out into the cold.

He stood in the door breathing heavily, his chest heaving, his shoulders rising and falling. One of the hookers cringed in fear at his feet. The others ran around the corner as fast as their high heels would carry them.

"Don't come around here ever again," Phoenix panted, veins popping in his neck. "Someone is going to uphold societal norms and basic standards of decency around here, and it's going to be this guy." He jabbed a thumb into his chest.

"B-But-"

"SHUT UP!" he roared, lurching forward, fists clenched. She cowered. "You think that doesn't fucking mean anything?" He pointed a shaking finger at the sign on the wall, which showed a man in an ice cream suit handing ice cream to a happy family. The sign promised a fun, safe, family-friendly environment. "Well, let me tell you something, sister. It does to this guy." The patrons cheered and clapped. "Now get outta here." He kicked her one last time and slammed the door.

The manager came and thanked Phoenix, shaking his hands profusely. The prostitutes had taken advantage of the police being spread too thin to respond to non-emergency calls to solicit wherever they wanted. That is, till Phoenix Wright came to town.

"Hey, it's no problem," said Phoenix to the manager while shaking a giant ice cream cone's hand. "I come here with my daughter all the time. You think I want her seeing anything like that while we're having family fun guaranteed?"

"You're a great man," said the manager, almost weeping. He snapped a photo of Phoenix and the Dairy Cream mascot and put it on the Ice Cream Wall of Fame. The wall also had pictures of Phoenix and Trucy when she was little. They were some of his happiest memories.

Phoenix basked in the praise of the other customers for awhile, and then someone spoke in his ear.

"Still a paragon of virtue and morality, aren't you?" The voice laughed, cruel and hard. "Come sit with me."

So Phoenix followed the man to the end of the ice cream counter, away from the other customers, and they mounted the stools. The man ordered an ice cream.

"So you decided to come," said Kristoph. He was wearing a hat with a wide brim that cast his face in shadow, JNCOs, an open leather jacket, and a shirt that said "Team Cumslut". It was all he could scrounge together on short notice while disguise shopping at Goodwill. He continued: "I suppose I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, but why didn't you turn me in?"

"Two reasons. First, I'm curious. Second, your letter implied that you had a way to hurt my family if I didn't do what you said."

"I see. Well, let's get straight to business. As you know, they were going to execute me." His lips curled up in a tight, compressed little smile. "But I've found a way to circumvent the death penalty and live forever. If I keep killing people in jail and getting put on trial indefinitely, they won't be able to execute me. I'm essentially immortal."

Phoenix stared at him with something akin to horror. Kristoph gave his ice cream cone hard, firm little licks, surveying Phoenix from behind his glasses, apparently pleased with the effect he had produced.

"And now as to what I want from you," Kristoph said. "I want you to represent me in court, and I want a complete acquittal. I expect the life penalty."

"What makes you think I would help you?"

"Because you don't have any choice," explained Kristoph. "Years ago, before I was arrested for Shadi Smith's murder, I broke into Trucy's room while she was sleeping. Not because I'm a pedophile, but so I could perform open heart surgery on her in her sleep and implant a small bomb in her heart." A crooked smile spread across his face. "That bomb is my hole card. If you refuse to defend me, I will detonate it."

Phoenix stared at him. He felt like a snake was wrapping itself around his heart, squeezing. He struggled to maintain his composure.

"Y-You're bluffing!" he finally managed to blurt out. "If there were a bomb, you'd have detonated it by now!"

"I lost access to the detonator when I was arrested, but I managed to retrieve it since escaping." Kristoph took out a small black device the size of a cigarette lighter out of his pocket. He flipped the lid open and rested his thumb on the bright red button. His glasses had slid down his nose, and now he regarded Wright coolly over the lenses, a lose strand of hair lying across his face. "So you think I'm bluffing? Is that a chance you're willing you trust your daughter's life to?"

Phoenix made a grab for it. "Gimmie that, fucker!" Kristoph held it out of reach.

"Nuh uh uh, keepsies awaysies," mocked Kristoph.

"Damn it! I hate that game!"

"I'm depressing the trigger," warned Kristoph. Phoenix sat back down, defeated.

"Fine, Kristoph, you win," said Phoenix, his shoulders slouched. "I'll defend you in court."

Kristoph let the trigger spring back. "Good. Oh, and I know what you're thinking. That the police will find it when I'm returned to custody. Rest assured I have my ways." He sucked the detonator up his butt with a slurping sound. "Don't think of telling, Wright... the merest contraction of my anus will detonate the bomb in your daughter's chest. If I catch wind of so much as a hint that you've betrayed me, I will kill her."

"What's the point?" Phoenix said bitterly. "You are guilty. You admitted as much. The case against you is ironclad, and even if by some miracle I won, you're still going to get executed."

Kristoph lapped at his ice cream. "Just kidding back there. I really am innocent, you know. But I needed to provide you with the proper motivation to give me the best defense you can. The willingness to exhaust every last recourse, to use every dirty trick." Phoenix's stomach fell. "If I didn't, would you or any other lawyer even try? I'm a murderer, after all, and the case against me is very strong." He lowered his head and glared. "But I didn't kill my brother. And I won't escape, or go to the death chamber, with anyone thinking I did."

Phoenix studied Kristoph's face. He saw hate, mingled with pride, with dignity, and with something else he couldn't quite place. Even now he couldn't understand him.

"Kristoph, if you're innocent, then what really happened in your cell that day?"

"I don't know," Kristoph said simply. "After my brother arrived we had an... altercation, and then I was shoved, and my head hit the corner of the piano and I was knocked unconscious." He pushed his glasses up and they caught the light, obscuring his eyes. "When I came to, I saw both my brother and the guard, stacked on top of each other in the middle of the room, skewered with a samurai sword. The cell was locked, and the keys were in the guard's pockets. There was no sign of anyone else in the room. That was all." He waved a hand carelessly. "Of course, you know what happened next. It was all over the news."

Phoenix held his hand in his coat and clutched his magatama. There wasn't the slightest reaction. Suddenly Kristoph grabbed his sleeve and shook it urgently.

"Find the truth, Wright," he said. "Find my brother's killer. I don't know who did it, or why, or how they got into my cell, but they did."

"You're asking me to do the impossible, Kristoph," muttered Phoenix, not looking him in the eyes. Kristoph nodded rapidly.

"I know. I know. But you're the only one who can do it. Because you have the proper motivation to do the impossible. Besides, you can tell I'm not lying, can't you? It's that... power you have."

Phoenix hadn't realized his magatama powers were so famous. He assured Kristoph he would do everything he could to get him a not guilty verdict. Kristoph thanked him.

"I'm ready to turn myself in now," said Kristoph. "Oh, and it's in your best interest to make sure that I'm handed over to the police safely. If I'm killed by some overzealous idiot with an itchy trigger finger, my anal death contractions could prove fatal to your precious daughter's life."

Phoenix nodded. He took out his cellphone and called Gumshoe. He was sure Gumshoe would appreciate the opportunity to pick up Kristoph Gavin by himself and get all the glory.

"What?! Don't let him get away! I'll be there in five... no, three minutes!"

"Okay, but hurry. I'm not sure how much longer I can hold him off."

"You got it, pal! Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!" He hung up.

Kristoph frowned. "Was that really necessary? I'm not putting you in any danger."

"Just having my fun, too, Kristoph," replied Phoenix. Kristoph suddenly reached out and squeezed his hand.

"Don't forget," Gavin whispered, "we're in this together now."

The back of Phoenix's scalp tingled.

Chapter Text

"A preliminary hearing is being held today for the trial of Kristoph Gavin. Gavin was recaptured by the police and taken back into custody after escaping from his prison cell last Friday, where it is alleged he murdered both a corrections officer and his own brother, Klavier Gavin, just hours before his scheduled execution was to take place."

The news helicopter gave an aerial view of Phoenix and Kristoph mounting the steps of the courthouse under heavy police protection. The crowd behind the policetape hurled jeers and insults at them.

"Fans of the late Klavier Gavin, leader of the popular rock group the Gavinners, and a rising star in the prosecutor's office, are gathered outside the courthouse steps today, protesting what they call an avoidable tragedy."

The view from the helicopter faded away to a reporter on the ground interviewing a group of protesters, the white columned courthouse in the background towering over them, banners and signs bobbing up-and-down in the sea of protesters.

"None of this should have happened," said Daryan Crescend. Streaks of mascara mixed with tears ran down his face. "Kristoph never should have had a chance to do what he did. Why do we wait years to execute criminals? So they can live a comfy life courtesy of the taxpayers while their rat lawyers make endless appeals? So they get the chance to kill someone else?"

The other surviving band members nodded. They waved their signs in the camera man's face. Suddenly Daryan grabbed the reporter's wrist and yanked the mic up close to his face, red-faced, spittle flying from his purple lips.

"He already got the death penalty! He doesn't need another trial! Kill this fucker now!"

The crowd roared its approval. The reporter jerked the the microphone back after a brief struggle. He patted his combover back into place, panting a little, glaring, and tilted the microphone towards himself.

"You know," he said, "Kristoph maintains his innocence. He says he had a religious experience in prison that changed his life."

"So what?" shrugged Daryan. "You kidding me? Of course he says he's innocent. And religion? Please. It's easy to repent and feel sorry for yourself... later. I don't buy that bullshit for a moment. We need to start killing a whole lot more people and stop pussyfooting around when it comes to cleaning up society."

"But Mr. Crescend, aren't you a murderer?"

"Uh, yeah? And what are you, a judgemental person? Go away."

Daryan elbowed him out of the way, the rest of the band following, their signs smacking the reporter in the face. He rubbed his cheek and scowled.

The news feed cut to inside the courthouse, where the defense and prosecution were choosing the jury under the supervision of the judge. A sepia toned photograph faded onto screen. It was of Dave Seville in a pumpkin patch, crouched down with his arms wrapped around his boys' shoulders.

"The first member of the jury is Dave Seville, chosen by the defense after winning the customary coin toss. Dave Seville is a popular song writer and the manager of the megahit group the Chipmunks. He is also their biological father. He is also the neighbor and close friend of the defense attorney. It is sure to be a contested pick."

The camera zoomed in on the witness stand, where Dave, looking a little nervous, wearing his iconic blue sweater with white collar sticking out from beneath, was being grilled by Edgworth.

"How do you feel about the death penalty?"

"Well, I'm, uh, against it," gulped Dave, eyes following Edgeworth as he paced back and forth in front of the stand. Suddenly Edgeworth stopped and turned to the judge in triumph.

"See, Your Honor, Mr. Seville should be excused, because he will refuse to consider the death penalty, which the state is aiming for."

Phoenix jumped out of his seat. "Objection, Your Honor! I know Dave. He's my best friend. He wouldn't let his personal views get in the way of how he votes. If the defendant is guilty, he'll vote guilty, even if the sentence is another death penalty."

"Good argument, Mr. Wright," nodded the judge. "I'll accept that. As his closest friend, you're the best person in the world to judge whether he will be impartial. All right, Mr. Edgeworth, your turn."

Edgeworth gritted his teeth. "But he's biased toward-" He shrugged. "Hmph. Whatever." He pointed someone out in the gallery. "I choose Marvin Grossberg." Grossberg puffed himself up in pride. A respectable member of the community. Miles looked over his shoulder and lifted a wry eyebrow. "Unless Wright has any objections?"

"No, that fat idiot's presence could be beneficial to me. I choose..."

This went on until twelve jurors were selected, alternating between the defense and the prosecution, each choosing six in total.

"Right," said the judge, unfurling a scroll onto his desk. "Dave Seville! Marvin Grossberg! Angel Starr! Will Power! Ron Delite! Guy Eldoon! Professor Thomas Travell! Howard Deville! Paige Squire! Penny Nichols! Dylan Fitchar! Err..." The judge squinted at the paper. "Well, the name here is really profane and foul and ungodly... and... oh, my..." He shook his head. "I'm not sure I should even read it. How about we just call you 'The Bellboy'?"

The bellboy smiled and nodded his assent with an almost imperceptible dip of his chin.

"Very well!" The judge slammed his gavel. "You 12 will report for jury duty tomorrow at 10 AM. The trial will be held the same day. Until then, court is dismissed!"

Everyone began to file out with much chattering. Kristoph and Phoenix slapped hands under the desk. They had succeeded in putting lots of easily manipulated friends and idiots on the jury.

Edgeworth hadn't contested any of the defense's choices too hard. Perhaps he was just that confident in his case. Maybe he even felt a little sorry for Wright. Being stuck defending Kristoph was certainly not an enviable position.

This case was going to be a slam dunk.

Edgeworth was accosted by a reporter on his way out, and got a little flustered when the microphone accidentally went into his mouth like a dick. He spat it out and answered as quick as he could.

"Why Wright is defending Gavin? I don't know. Ask him. Perhaps he wants to gain notoriety for himself, because this is such a high profile, sensational crime. But since our case is airtight, and he's certain to be trounced in court, I don't think the publicity will do his reputation any good."

And he walked off to his car. The camera zoomed in close on his tight manbuns. Weird guttural noises.

Chapter Text

After the jury selection coverage was over, the video feed cut back to the newsroom. The anchorwoman shuffled her papers together on her desk.

"The memorial service for Klavier Gavin will be held at the Sunshine Coliseum," she said. "The public will be admitted. Instead of flowers, mourners are asked to bring guitars or large amounts of money. Those were his favorite. In other news," she continued brightly, "the Chipmunks are once again at the top of the charts with a new hit single: this time, a collaboration with Lamiroir!" She turned to her co-host with a smile. "Apparently Klavier got to hear it before he died. Isn't that nice, Frank?"

"I don't care about any of that, Sheila. Why won't you fuck me anymore?"

She gave him the side-eye and then shifted her gaze back to the camera. She smiled awkwardly.

"This is really NOT the time, Frank."

"No, it is the time. What is it?" He gestured. "Is it my tiny penis? The pectus excavatum? My phimosis? The bad smegma smell?"

"It's... it's more than that."

He strained toward her, clasping her hands. "What, Sheila? What?"

"You don't... feel. You're cold. Distant. Making love to you is like making love to a robot."

He let go of her and threw himself back in his chair like he'd been shot. He gasped. "How could you, Sheila? How could you accuse me of being a robot? After all the ones I genocided in the War? Why?"

"I'm sorry, Frank." She dabbed at the corner of her eye will a balled-up tissue, but her voice was firm. "It's over. I'm dedicating the rest of my life to not fucking you."

The anchorman knew he couldn't go on. He climbed onto the desk and hanged himself from the ceiling fan with his tie. He spun round and around the room and his pants fell down and his tiny penis showed. Crew members rushed out from behind the scenes and sprayed him with fire extinguishers and cut him down.

Pearl extended the remote and clicked off.

"It's such a shame!" she said. She folded her legs and settled back down into her seat, a woven matt on the floor next to the breakfast table. "I was hoping Frank and Sheda would end up together."

The soft hues of early morning light filtered through the windows of Fey Manor. Chirping birds flitted around the roof and trees outside. It was almost November and there was a chill in the air. Maya lifted a cup of tea and drank deeply.

"I totally agree," Maya nodded. "They were the perfect couple."

"It's like they were made for eachother. You know, kind of like Madame Lamiroir and Mr. Nick."

Their conversation carried to Iris's room, where she stood brushing her hair in the mirror, trying her best to ignore them and keep her lower lip from trembling.

"Pearly, did you know that Nick used to date Iris? Well, sorta."

"Oh, really! He did?"

"Yeah, a long time ago. But Iris can't compete with his current woman. Lamiroir is more famous, she has a bigger butt, and oh, yeah, she didn't deceive him and destroy his ability to trust or be in love with another woman for a long time."

Iris paused in the middle of running her brush down her hair, mouth fallen open in a silent sob, her eyes shimmering pools of tears.

Pearl's voice came from the breakfast table: "Mystic Maya, you're screaming too loud. She might hear you."

"So? It's not like she has a soul."

Iris balled up her tiny fists and stared at herself in the mirror. "I do have a soul," she whispered fiercely. "I do."

She took one of her most precious photos off the wall, one of her and Phoenix, and tore it up, slowly and methodically. It made her feel like her chest was burning, but it also steadied her heartbeat, as if this was a cleansing act, like lashing yourself, and that by ruining the picture she wouldn't feel like hating herself anymore.

Then she fixed her hair, tried to make her face look like she hadn't been crying, braced herself in the mirror, swallowed hard, and prepared to go out and meet her sister and cousin with the sweet smile she always wore.

Some doves flew through her window on a gust of magic, and they lifted her nightgown off her shoulders and helped her slip into her acolyte uniform. She said a few quick prayers over her Bible, and then she glided out of her room and down the hall.

"Here comes little miss perfect riding on her birds," muttered Maya as the cooing of the doves grew closer.

"Good morning, Mystic Iris," said Pearl after she had sat down. Iris greeted them and helped herself to breakfast.

"We were just talking about relationships," said Maya.

"Oh?" She widened her eyes in faux surprise. A little needle pricked her heart. "Really? Do share."

"Well, did you guys hear about Athena? Simon put her in the hospital again. Beat her black and blue and knocked all her teeth out. He made a necklace out of them and took a selfie with the cops. I think he managed to convince them it was self-defense or something?"

Pearl gasped. "That's horrible! You should never treat your special someone that way!"

"I know, he's such a piece of crap," said Maya. "That's why I call him Simon Badqueef."

Pearl directed her attention Iris, who had been in the middle of sipping her tea, with such abruptness that Iris almost jumped and emitted a little suppressed shriek, and her birds flew off her shoulders. "So, what about you, Iris? Who's your special someone?"

She laughed nervously. "Oh, me? Er, well, you know I'm perfectly happy here with you and my cousin and my training. I'm fine."

"What about Mr. Nick?" asked Pearl.

"I'm... very happy for him."

"I just hope they don't cancel the Halloween party because of the trial," said Maya. "I always look forward to that."

They discussed Kristoph's trial for awhile, and then the topic of conversation shifted to Iris's latent spirit channeling abilities.

"Your progress is amazing, Iris!" said Maya. "I can't believe how far you've come in such a short time. Ha ha, we should have kidnapped you from the temple a long time ago!" Iris blushed at such praise. "And you really didn't exhibit any powers at ALL when you were a kid?"

Iris gingerly lifted her cup with both hands and raised it to her lips, taking a delicate sip. She shook her head.

"No. It was a great blow to mother. Neither of her daughters would ever be master. She tried her hardest to induce some kind of spiritual powers in us, but everything she tried failed. I believe Dahlia might have refused to let anything work out of sheer spite... As for me, well, I wanted so badly to live up to her expectations, but I couldn't. The feeling of inadequacy in a mere child and being mistreated by mother only suppressed my powers further. Then, being taken away from the village to the normal world where such things are strictly forbidden as abnormal... well, it's no wonder my powers were underdeveloped."

Maya clapped her hands together. "Well, you're definitely not underdeveloped now! You're even more powerful than Pearly!"

Iris's face suffused with crimson and she smiled a little. "Oh, no, not at all... I'm just a novice."

"A novice? No, a natural! A supernatural!" gushed Pearl.

Suddenly the doorbell rang, and when Maya opened the door she saw a bald man with glasses and a soul patch who looked like David Cross. Pearl and Iris peeked around Maya and gawked at the limo parked outside of Fey Manor.

"Pardon me, ladies," he said, "sorry to bother you when you're still in those cute little pajamas, but is this the spirit channeling brothel?"

Maya sniffed and raised her nose, suspicious. "That depends, if by spirit channeling brothel you mean spirit channeling whorehouse, and if by that you mean Fey Manner, then yes."

He extended a hand and flashed a toothy grin.

"Hi, I'm Ian Hawke. JETT Records. I'm looking to buy a spirit medium."

Chapter Text

It was the day before the trial of Kristoph Gavin, and Phoenix was sitting at the writing desk in his study at home, slumped forward in his chair, paperwork spread out in front of him, an elbow propped on the desk, his chin in his hand and his brows turned down, brooding, when Thalassa walked into the room.

"Phoenix?"

He looked over his shoulder. "Oh. Hi." He turned halfway in his chair so he was sitting side saddle and nodded. "What's up?"

She bit her lip. "I just found this," she said. She held up a glossy magazine with Athena posing in a bikini on the cover, hands behind her head, chest thrust out. Phoenix gawked. "I wish you wouldn't leave it lying around. It makes me feel self-conscious about my body. It makes me feel like you don't find me attractive in my... current condition." She indicated her swelling pregnant belly with a sweep of her hand.

"Listen, you must be going insane from being pregnant or something-"

"Are you attracted to Athena Cykes?" asked Thalassa pointblank, the hurt shining in her eyes.

Phoenix almost vomited through his fingers. "Thalassa, you know I hate that whore!" he said. "I wouldn't touch her with a ten-foot pole. Except maybe to push her into an open grave or off a cliff or something."

"So, it isn't yours?" she asked.

"Of course not," replied Phoenix. He got up and took the magazine from her and looked at the cover with distaste. "Apollo must have brought it. This has his stupid hair and his failure of a vest written all over it. Normally I'd beat him to death for bringing pornography into my home, but I guess we can't be too hard on him. After all, he is a 27 year old virgin who's never kissed, held hands with, or talked to a girl before. It's only natural he'd be curious about their bodies." He sighed and flipped through the magazine. "Besides, I suppose this is relatively innocent as far as these things go." He tossed the magazine across the room and it frisbee'd into the fireplace and exploded into flames.

"I'm just relieved it's not yours," said Thalassa. She clasped her hands to her chest and averted her eyes. "You must think I'm very silly."

"No, not at all. The Bible says that when you look at another woman with lust you've already cheated in your heart. I only have eyes for you."

He stood back and admired her. She was a kind, caring woman, almost a saint, or a queen, and heart-achingly beautiful, with pale smooth skin, delicate features, and a face almost unmarred by the passage of time. She was almost as tall as Apollo, about five-five, making her and Phoenix the picture perfect couple in photos. She was wearing a shoulderless white dress that clung to her svelte figure, simple but elegant jewellery, and her hair was lying over her shoulders in huge braids like giant loaves of salami.

Phoenix couldn't help but compare Thalassa to Athena. He almost threw up again. Athena was disgustingly tall, and she had a loping, mannish stride and scraped her knuckles against the asphalt as she walked. Her hands scared people. They were like a werewolf's. Phoenix shook his head in wonder at the idea that anyone would ever choose Athena over Thalassa. She was the ideal.

On a sudden impulse he used his hands to hold her bangs away from her face and planted a kiss on her forehead.

She laughed gaily and blushed as he drew back. "I'm sorry for being so self-conscious lately. I suppose I am suffering from a bit of pregnancy induced hormonal insanity again," she admitted. "I also went a little insane when I had Apollo and Trucy. Ah, but it's very unfair of me to burden you like this, with you being so busy with the trial."

Phoenix turned his back to her and hunched up his shoulders. "Yeah..." he said bitterly through his teeth. He dug his nails into his palms. "The trial." He sunk into his chair and resumed his former brooding posture.

Thalassa pursed her lips, and the inside of her eyebrows turned up in concern. She went over and sat on the edge of the desk, which moaned and shook wildly like an elephant on stilts under the weight of her ample asscrack. She laid a hand on his shoulder.

"What's wrong?" she asked simply.

Without looking up he said: "What do you think? This hopeless trial, of course. And the fact Trucy is giving me the cold shoulder and barely talking to me."

"Try to see things from her perspective." She leaned forward and her earings danced around over his head. "You're defending the man who murdered her father. And my husband. Why are you defending him? Normally you're so selective about your cases."

Before Phoenix could respond, he had a sudden vision of Trucy holding her chest and saying "Ooogh, I don't feel so good" and then exploding. He wetted his ghost-white lips and blinked rapidly.

"Thalassa, I..."

Phoenix's voice trailed off as he noticed a fly go buzzing by, and noticed a spider crawling up the drapes. His eyes narrowed. They looked innocent enough, but the spider might actually be a microphone, and the fly buzzing around might be recording everything and sending it directly to Kristoph Gavin's eyeballs. He couldn't discount the possibility Kristoph was a cyborg.

"It's not just for... fame?" Thalassa asked. "Or for your reputation, or for money?"

"No." He raised his head and looked her in the eyes. "I have a good reason. Trust me."

"You know I'll support you no matter what."

They squeezed each other's hands and smiled warmly. Then Phoenix took out a Lucky Strike and lit up. Thalassa got off the desk and stood back.

"I'm not sure you should be smoking around the baby, Phoenix," she objected. She placed a protective hand over her stomach.

"And why not?" he asked, leaning back and blowing smoke towards the ceiling, and pressing a foot against the edge of the desk and rocking back-and-forth on the chair.

"Because smoking is bad for your health. I wish you'd stop."

"I don't see what the big deal is," he said. "It's okay for men to smoke. If you smoked, though, it'd be disgusting, and you'd get all dry and yellow and sallow and wrinkled up. Smoking is men's work." She nodded, knowing it was true. He continued: "My father smoked every day of his life and he's fine."

"Phoenix, please, forgive me," began Thalassa, "but your father... I believe he was a bad influence!"

The front legs of the chair crashed to the ground and Phoenix sat up.

"My father was..."

His voice rose sharply then fell.

"Was..."

He picked up a framed photo of his father sitting on a motorcycle in a Marlboro smoking jacket and punching a traffic cop in the face while sucking down cigarette smoke. He wore no pants.

A warm light came into Phoenix's eyes and his voice softened.

"My father... was a complicated man."

Phoenix stared poignantly out the window at a leaf, and his eyes went to a faraway place as he recalled his childhood.

Chapter Text

Phoenix's dad was in the kitchen beating up Phoenix's mom in front of baby Phoenix.

Now you know why Phoenix is so good at hitting women.

He learned from the best.

"Bitch!" growled Phoenix's father, balling a fist over his shoulder and standing menacingly over his wife. His face was beet-red under his trucker cap, and his long blond mullet was coated with grease and full of gravy. "Never be late with my morning cuppa ever again!"

"I'm sorry, dear," murmured Phoenix's mother, eyes averted and completely deadened. Her head was shaved because Phoenix's dad didn't want her to be attractive to other men.

"Sorry's not sorry enough." Phoenix's dad's moustache trembled in rage, hungry for domestic abuse. He threw a swing that cracked her head back so she was staring at the ceiling. She lowered her head robotically, mouth open, lifting a hand to feel the cut on her lip. She looked at him like a confused child, as if even after all the years she still couldn't believe the man who had said he loved her could treat her this way.

Phoenix's dad swung an arm and swept all the dishes and silverware off the table with a crash. He smirked. "Now, here comes the fun part." He climbed onto his motorcycle, which had its own place and bowl of cereal at the table, and starting chasing his wife around the room with it.

Baby Phoenix looked on in awe from his booster seat. Baby food fell out of his mouth and got all over the front of his "Future U.S. Marine and NASCAR Driver" shirt.

Eventually his mother's foot got caught up in the table cloth, and she fell forward and slammed her face into the floor. His father drove over her hand with a sickening crunch.

She screamed.

"That'll teach you." He hocked a loogie on her back and then revved the engine. "Now, if you'll excuse me, while some of us are lazing around on the floor, I actually have to go out and provide for my family."

He coasted out of the room on his bike, stopping to tussle his son's spikes, and said: "One day you'll have a Harley of your own, son. But remember, if you touch daddy's, he'll belt you." Baby Phoenix stared up in worship.

After Phoenix's dad had peeled out of the driveway whooping, Baby Phoenix climbed out of his chair and clapped his hands over his mother's prostrate body.

"It's funny when daddy hurts mommy! Baby Feenie hurt mommy too!"

He started throwing bowls and forks at her, laughing, and soon his best friend Larry Butz crawled through the doggy door and helped him, too.

She just lay there on the floor, half-propped up on a forearm, regarding her son with a dull expression. He laughed, his eyes shining. She stared into those eyes, searching, searching, but for what? Those eyes were like one-way mirrors.

He had his father's eyes.

Chapter Text

Phoenix's memories passed by in a blur, and he was 15 now, and a foreign exchange student in France. His mother had come to visit and they were in a streetside cafe. She wasn't wearing a ring.

Suddenly they heard I'd Do Anything for Love by Meat Loaf blaring from a helicopter hovering above the Eiffel Tower, and then Phoenix's dad descended from the helicopter completely nude via a rope tied around the head of his red, stretched out penis. He was flexing his muscles so he was lying flat in the air, stiff as a board and parallel to the ground.

"Oh dear god, no," his wife said. She closed her eyes and held a hand to her forehead. Cars and buses stopped in the streets and people were pointing and letting out cries of alarm.

A news crew jostled past Phoenix and his mother's table, bumping into her and making her spill her coffee. The cameraman got down on a knee and angled his camera up.

"A man is attempting to have sex with the Eiffel Tower!" cried the American reporter excitedly into his microphone. "He's... yes, he's aiming his anus directly for the tip of tower!"

"Mom, what's going on?" asked teenage Phoenix, scared.

"He followed me to Paris. He's going to have sex with the Eiffel Tower." She said this in calm, stone faced disbelief.

He would do anything for love...

But he won't do that...

The crowd screamed with one voice as the helicopter descended. Phoenix's dad opened up his anus wide and engulfed the tip of the Eiffel Tower with his anus. Then the pilot took the helicopter up-and-down rhythmically and Phoenix's dad jerked off a national landmark with his butt.

"Fuck the metric system!" yelled Phoenix's dad, flipping the bird at approaching police helicopters, the tower stretching his hole wide. "Eat my ass, pigs!"

Phoenix suddenly turned and raised a fist toward the tower. "Rock on, dad!" His dad raised a fist in return, his penis stretched as flat as a noodle and looking like it was about to snap off.

Cops leaned out of the police helicopters hovering nearby and beat him with nightsticks, but they couldn't quell his indomitable spirit; he just sucked the tower deeper into his butt until the tip was pressing up against the inside of his stomach and almost piercing the skin.

This public display of sexual prowess was supposed to be a declaration of his devotion and of his love: timeless, undying, unyielding, and shameless in its purity and intensity.

But sometimes true love isn't enough.

Phoenix's mom gathered up her coat and bags and stood up straight, face set firmly, and put her back to her son's father.

She never looked back.

Meanwhile, a clown was on his knees and crying into his hands as Phoenix's dad was pried off the tower, weeping for him and his lost love when no one else would; and Phoenix Wright looked on and learned a powerful lesson that day.

Sometimes the funny clown is the only sane man left. And sometimes his tears can wash away the sins of a nation.

Chapter Text

The years passed, and Phoenix was in college now. He was crouching outside the open window of a frat house, fingers curled over the edge of the windowsill, peering carefully over the top, his eyes wide, the whites showing above and below his irises. The moon overhead was yellow like cheese, and big. Music blared inside, and strobe lights flashed on the ceiling.

A guy inside the house danced past the window snapping his fingers.

"I love grooving my body to these funky beats!" he said.

"You would, sinner," muttered Phoenix. He was wearing the sweater and scarf his girlfriend had made him.

Meanwhile, another guy was wreathing around the floor and undulating his body satanically.

"Look! I'm a worm!"

"That's really cool, Bob," smiled a disheveled-looking hippie near the punch bowl. Phoenix shook his head in disgust. These people were spiritually sick.

The music sucked because it wasn't metal or the Chipmunks (they hadn't been born yet).

Another man with short spikey blond hair and a popped collar was standing in the middle of the room and running his hands all over a stripper's body. He was breathing heavily through his nose and his lips were parted in a sick smile. The stripper smirked.

"You like what you see?" She shook her shoulders and swayed her body around. Phoenix gagged and almost threw up from how whorishly she was dressed.

"Oh, yeah," replied the frat boy. "Now give me sex, or else."

She bit her lip and hooded her eyes. "As you wish."

"But Chad," said a concerned friend, placing a hand on his shoulder, "aren't you engaged to Mary Beth?"

Chad twisted his shoulders angrily and shook him off. "Who cares, Chip? What are you, my keeper? I love cheating on her."

Phoenix suddenly thrust his torso through the window and splashed all three of them with his trusty gas can, and then he threw a lit match at them.

They burst into flames and started burning alive, running around and spreading the fire. While everyone was panicking and trying to help them, Phoenix reached through the window and gently set a fire extinguisher and a Bible on the floor, so they could save both their skins and their souls if they so chose.

Phoenix drew back from the house and into the darkness under a nearby tree. The flames spread to the window and threw flickering orange light on the lawn.

It was one of his most devious and subtle torture devices yet. The Bible was chained to the extinguisher's pin, and it was rigged to detonate the bomb inside the Bible if you didn't read it first.

How the cheating, casual-sex having scumbags inside acted next was not Phoenix's concern. Would they selfishly try to use the fire extinguisher? Or would they read the Bible first? Phoenix had done all he could do to set these wayward souls on the right path. It was up to them now. He washed his hands of them.

Suddenly there was an explosion at his back that blew his hair and scarf around. He looked over his shoulder. More screams pierced the night.

"Looks like there won't be any more sexual impropriety today," remarked Phoenix. He walked away. "I'll pray for you."

He could tell from the screaming that they were okay, because if they were dead, they wouldn't be screaming. Besides, he had also thrown a first aid kit in after the gasoline, so they should be fine. Hopefully they learned from this.

He walked across campus back to his dorm room, where his girlfriend Dahlia Hawthorne was waiting for him.

"Hi, Feenie," she smiled. She was cradling a huge bottle of alcohol in the crook of her arm. "Look what I have." She tilted her chin and blushed. "How would you like to share it with me and have naughty funtimes?"

"Okay, sounds great," said Phoenix. "As long as it's not drugs. I don't want to do something bad and screw up my future."

"Of course not, precious," she cooed, patting his cheek. "It's just medicine that will make our lives better." Her fingers crept down his cheek and down his shirt towards the necklace, but he moved before she could grab it.

"Damnation!" she hissed, eyes burning, and a butterfly died. She quickly composed herself. "Now, why don't you excuse me while I go slip into something more appropriate for the occasion." She set the bottle on the nightstand and skipped out of the room.

"Okay, sure," Phoenix called after her. "As long as you don't try to have sex with me. I'd hate that."

As in love with her as he was, Phoenix usually slapped her hand and ran away when she tried to be intimate with him, even if it was something as innocent a kiss on the cheek or licking her tummy. He wanted to marry her first.

He lay in bed and rubbed his nipples while he waited, not for sexual reasons, but just because he thought it felt good. He gradually became aware of a tapping coming from the window, so he took his hands out from his shirt and leapt out of bed to investigate.

He threw up the sash and discovered it was his father, hunched over on the top of a ladder leaning under the window!

"Dad, what are you doing here?" asked Phoenix, standing back.

Phoenix's dad gripped the top of the ladder and sprung inside deftly.

"Phoenix, ya gotta help me," he said, sitting on the edge of the bed. He lifted his trucker hat and ran a hand through his hair. "I think I got my motorcycle pregnant."

"Dad, what, no."

"I was doing the old girl from behind in the exhaust pipe just like she likes it, and then I heard some weird noises, and also the fuel tank looks more bloated than usual."

"Dad, that's impossible."

"But my bike missed its period," insisted Phoenix's dad.

Phoenix finally snapped. "You're just spewing bullshit, Dad!"

His dad leapt to his feet and balled his up fists. He flared his nose in Phoenix's face. "Did your fancypants books tell you that?"

"Yeah, actually, they did."

"Sure, that's how it is," he nodded rapidly, as if he had expected this. "I slave away and break my body every day so my kid can go to school and tell me to my face that magic's not real." He picked up a book that said "Book" on the cover and held it over his shoulder. "I should rip this up for all the good it's done you."

"Dad, no! Not my book! I need that for my studies!"

Phoenix's dad roared. "You need to mind your father!"

Phoenix reached for the book and swatted it out of his father's hand, and then they strangled each other and tumbled around the room in a mess of wildly flailing limbs, breaking stuff, until his father's foot bumped open the closet door, which had been slightly ajar, and a bunch of bombs fell out.

The two men paused in the middle of their fight to stare.

"Aw, crud," said Phoenix from under his father on the floor. Phoenix's dad took his hands off his son's throat and went over and picked up one of the bombs.

"You're making bombs?" asked his dad.

Phoenix stood up and folded his arms high on his chest and frowned at the floor. "I only made them to scare people, not to hurt anyone," he said, sulking. He kicked at the floor. "Go ahead, yell at me for doing dangerous stuff."

"Oh, no, no," said his dad hurriedly. "I think it's really cool that you're doing this. It takes some good practical brains." He turned the bomb over in his hands, looking it over, clearly impressed. "I'm... well, I'm proud of you, son. What else you got in there?"

He bent over into the closet and rummaged around, and something fell down his pants leg. It was a book. Phoenix stooped down and picked it up.

"Hey, whatjit, give that back!" sputtered Phoenix's dad, but it was too late, Phoenix was already flipping through the book.

"Dad," said Phoenix. He sounded shocked. "What is this?"

"None of your damn business," he replied. He pulled his trucker cap down over his eyes. "Just something I wrote. It's nothing."

"Dad," Phoenix repeated, eyes scanning the pages. "This is good. This is very good."

It was the first draft of an allegorical novel about a first responder on 9/11 who sees angels rescuing people from the rubble. He later goes on to become a quarterback, and the angels, who only he can see, help carry his football throws to the endzone. Eventually he uses his Super Bowl rings to power a time machine and goes back in time to stop 9/11 by making the perfect throw and launching a football into the cockpit of the first plane, causing it to veer off course and miss the Twin Towers.

Phoenix read further and teared up at the ending, and with a little prodding he got his dad to open up and discuss the themes of the book, and the possibility of publishing it someday. Then they noticed Dahlia cowering behind the edge of the doorframe, terrified by all the shouting and destruction. They coaxed her out and explained that they were completely reconciled now.

It was late, and it was time to leave. Father and son parted on amicable terms, both proud, and with changed perceptions of each other.

"Well, good bye, son," said Phoenix's dad, poised on top of the ladder. "You're no pansy bookworm. Keep doing what you're doing. And if you don't mind me saying, your lady friend is beautiful. She's quite bangable."

Dahlia smiled and blushed and hid her face, completely charmed by this dapper older gentleman. She was wearing white lacy underwear that were designed like her clothes, with butterflies on them.

"Have a safe time home, Dad," said Phoenix. "Don't worry about your motorcycle. I'm sure everything will turn out okay. You probably just imagined all that stuff. Just use protection from now on if you're really worried. And keep working on your story! I want to read what you write!"

And then Phoenix and Dahlia were alone.

Later that night, after being plied with alcohol, Phoenix lay in bed beside "Dahlia," eyes closed, barely conscious. Not until later would he realize that this was most likely all part of Dahlia's evil plan to have Iris seduce him and then steal the necklace post-coitus.

She stretched out an arm in the darkness and her delicate fingers brushed his neck, but then the phone rang, and she withdrew her fingers with a hiss, while Phoenix blinked groggily and felt for the phone.

"Hello?" he mumbled, rolling himself onto his side.

"Hello. It's the police. I'm a policeman."

Phoenix propped himself up in bed, and Dahlia held onto his shoulder.

"Am I in trouble?" asked Phoenix. "I didn't do anything bad, did I, sir?"

"No, no, no," said the voice over the phone. "That's not what this is about. Are you Phoenix Wright?"

"Yes."

"I have bad news. Your mother is in the hospital and is currently unresponsive. She was found unconscious in her living room, badly beaten. A neighbor found her. It seems someone beat her up so good and with such expert skill that she fell into a coma. The only clue we have as to the assailant is motorcycle tracks in the carpeting. They also dropped a lot of Lynyrd Skynyrd tapes on the way out so quite probably they're really awesome... hello?"

Phoenix dropped the receiver and it fell from the nightstand and swung on its cord, lightly grazing the carpet at the bottom of its arc. He rushed into the bathroom and slammed the door.

"Hello? Hello?" came the policeman's muffled voice from the phone.

Phoenix was sitting toilet crying when Dahlia came into comfort him.

"Feenie Weenie, what's wrong?" she asked. "Who was that? Why are you crying?"

Phoenix sniffed and drew himself up the best he could, and said: "Because I know that my father just killed my mother."

She led him back to the bed by the hand, like a child, and helped him back into the bed.

"Hello?" said the phone. "Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello?"

Dahlia picked the phone up in a rage. "Stop saying hello! My poor Feenie is traumatized!"

She slammed the handset down violently and hung up. Then she climbed into bed and held his head in her lap as he shook with silent sobs, and she stroked his spikes. Her face was calm, with no feigned emotions. Suddenly he looked up at her.

"Why couldn't they just be happy?" he asked. "Why is it so hard to love each other?"

He screwed up his eyes, and wrinkled his nose, and thinned his lips, and tried to hold back his sobs. She pressed herself against him.

"It doesn't have to be..."

And he knew her again.

Chapter Text

Thalassa laid a hand on Phoenix's shoulder.

"What happened next?" she asked.

"I never saw him again after that," he replied, not looking up. "He's long gone out of my life. It's almost like he also died that night."

"But didn't the police do anything?"

"They couldn't. The tracks in the carpet didn't match my father's bike." He looked up at her suddenly, eyes red and fierce, but no tears. "But there's no doubt in my mind he did it. If he didn't, then why would he run away? Why wouldn't he talk to me?"

He turned back to his desk and Thalassa kneaded his shoulders. "My poor brave man..." she cooed into his ear. "Would it make you feel better if I made you a pie?"

A radiant smile cracked the mask of his discontent. "And brownies too?"

"Of course." She leaned in and kissed him, her hair falling over his shoulders.

He watched her as she waddled out of the room, swaying pregnantly, and marveled once again at how lucky he was to have her.

She had been drawn to him, started to rely on him, during Vera Misham's trial. She had insisted on him being the first person she saw from her hospital bed when she got her sight back instead of her ugly children. The moment she looked into his face she knew he was the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with.

He was a little worried at first about getting a 45 year old woman pregnant, because he was afraid his kid might get Down's Syndrome or something, but during a prenatal care visit the doctor used his wonderful instruments to do a looky-loo into her uterus and determined their baby was a-OK.

Before the visit Phoenix had asked Trucy to use magic on her mother's stomach to make the baby not retarded, and evidently it worked like a charm. She hadn't wanted to do it, and insisted magic didn't work that way, but Phoenix forced her to and now everything was okay.

He turned back to his desk and sighed.

"Back to work, I suppose..."

He doodled on the legal documents pertaining to Kristoph's case and made a half-hearted attempt at doing some real work, but then he got bored and checked his Scooby-Doo branded child's wristwatch. He yawned and stretched.

"Huh, guess I've done enough prep work for tomorrow's trial. Shouldn't force myself to work if I'm not feeling it. I usually do best when I just wing it, anyway." He chuckled. "Funny how that works."

Phoenix left the room and then trotted up the staircase to the second floor, fingers trailing along the handrail, and stopped in front of Trucy's room and knocked.

"Hey, Trucy," he called, "I'm going over to Dave Seville's house to hang out with the Chipmunks while I'm waiting for my pie. Want to tag along?"

No response. His heart pumped faster and he got worried that she might have exploded unnoticed earlier, so he opened the door and leaned in anxiously.

"Trucy?"

"Get out, I'm ovulating," she said from her bed.

"Whoops, sorry."

He drew back and shut the door.

"Girls are so gross," he said. "Oh well, off to play with the chipmunks."

When he descended the stairs, Apollo Justice had just arrived and was hanging up his coat. Phoenix scowled.

"What do you want?" asked Phoenix. Apollo thrust what looked like a metal briefcase into Phoenix's arms.

"There," he spat, "I've done your dirty work."

"What's this?"

"It's a prosecutor-grade laptop," explained Apollo. "I smashed Edgeworth's windshield and stole it from the passenger's seat while he was in the bathroom at Lordly Taylor for four hours."

"Wow," said Phoenix in genuine admiration. "Good work."

Apollo had been following Edgeworth around the city and staking out his house in hopes of stealing some classified evidence or documents that would give them an edge at the trial. On Mr. Wright's orders, of course.

"I'd better not get in trouble because of you, Mr. Wright," said Apollo, gritting his teeth, fists clenched and shaking at his sides.

Phoenix ignored him like usual and they went into his study and he sat down at his desk with the prosecutial laptop in front of him. He opened it.

"All right," said Phoenix, flexing his fingers over the keyboard, "let's see what evidence old Edgyboy is hiding up his sleeves."

He didn't get far before he was prompted to input a password. At first he was stumped, and brooded with his chin in has hand, but then he snapped his fingers and looked over his shoulder at Apollo excitedly.

"Hey! I got it!" he cried. Apollo leaned in. "Remember how Edgeworth always used to open mouth kiss his dad every day when he got dropped off for school?"

"No...? I wasn't alive?"

"Yeah, well, you're stupid," said Phoenix, turning back to the desk. "He also used to french kiss Manfred von Karma after every trial, not romantically, but because he was basically his adopted dad and he respected him as a mentor. But I think Von Karma was leading him on."

Apollo folded his arms and frowned. "What the heck are you talking about, Mr. Wright?"

Phoenix waved an impatient hand over his shoulder and said: "I'm talking about Edgeworth's established pattern of kissing old men. And I think I just found our password."

He typed in "dadkisser" and was granted access to Edgeworth's desktop!

"Bingo, we're in," he said.

On Edgeworth's desktop was a folder named "WRIGHT STAY OUT!11". Inside the folder were hundreds of pictures with the heads of Phoenix, Larry, and Edgeworth photoshopped onto stock models playing tennis, driving race cars, rock climbing, swimming in the ocean, playing strip poker... Basically, pictures of cool dudes having a fun time.

"Wow, Mr. Wright," said Apollo, gaping, looking from the laptop to Mr. Wright, "I think Mr. Edgeworth is in love with you."

Phoenix leaned back in his chair and laughed till tears dripped down his face. He fought to get his breath back and then flicked a tear from the corner of his eye.

"Edgeworth? In love with me?" he said, settling down. "Sorry, I think he's a little too busy diving headfirst into his vault of free prosecutor pussy every night to be that." He shook his head and smiled wide, eyes closed. "Edgeworth, gay- good one."

"Well, I've never seen him with a woman."

"He likes to keep his private life private," shrugged Phoenix. "Nothing wrong with that. Come to think of it," he mused, casting his eyes down, curling an index finger under his lip, "I don't think I've ever seen you with a girl either." He looked up from under his brows and grinned.

Apollo flushed angrily and flashed his purity ring. "I'm waiting till marriage to get a girlfriend. Besides, I'm focussing on my career." He cleared his throat. "Anyway, strip poker? Really?"

"Look," said Phoenix, "we're good friends, nothing more. He just wants to hang out, but he's a shy guy, so he lives it all out through photoshop. Normal as all hell, in my opinion. Also, with all those screaming female fans he has, I'm sure he has some lady friend we don't know about."

Phoenix got up.

"Now," he said, "you'll root around his computer and look for anything that might prove useful for tomorrow's trial. You know, stuff he'll try to hide and not bring up tomorrow if it'll hurt his case. You know Edgeworth- he's evil. Anyway, I'm going over to the chipmunk's house..."

Apollo reached into his vest and pulled out his jar of mayonnaise and spilled it everywhere.

"...BECAUSE AT LEAST... THEY'RE NOT... ANNOYING!" Phoenix screamed at him, spit flying everywhere.

He stomped out of the room, and slammed the front door hard enough to rattle the pictures on the walls.

Phoenix jogged down the front steps of his house briskly, taking the last steps jumping, the cold autumn air hitting his face like a refreshing blast of cum, and crossed the leaf-strewn lawn to the sidewalk.

Across the street the Chipmunks were leaning over the handlebars of their bikes next to the stone lions. They raised a cheer when they saw Phoenix approaching.

"Look, it's Phoenix Wright!" blubbered Theodore, flapping his hands. "Hi, Mr. Wright!"

"Look, Mr. Wright, I drew a picture of your wife giving birth!" said Simon, holding it up.

Alvin, however, played it cool. He just put his hands in his pockets and gave Phoenix a mature nod, not smiling; they were equals.

Phoenix lifted a hand in greeting, and they circled around him on their bikes, laughing and chattering away at their favorite neighbor. Just then Phoenix noticed a small boy walking down the sidewalk and cradling a Playstation 3 in his arms.

Phoenix lowered his sunglasses and frowned in disbelief. "Oh no, I don't think so."

He marched over to confront the small child. Alvin nudged his brothers and gestured toward the kid. They knew they were about to witness a cool beatdown.

"Excuse me, but what the fuck is that?" Phoenix pointed at the Playstation, the corner of his upper lip twitching in disgust.

The small boy looked up and said brightly: "I'm taking my PS3 to my friend's house. We're gonna stay up all night and play Little Big Planet 3 and we're gonna make costumes for our characters and we're gonna play all the spooky horror levels."

"Yeah, I don't think so, kid," growled Phoenix, and snatched the Playstation out of the kid's hands. The kid screamed.

"Hey, gimme my Playstation!" cried the kid, trying to jump for it.

"Next time buy an Xbox, kid." Phoenix raised the PS3 above his head and threw it on the ground. The plastic cracked open and cockroaches scurried out and ran over the kid's shoes. The kid screamed in agony and fell to his feet and stroked his dying Playstation. The Chipmunks hooted and hollered.

"That was a present from my brother!" the kid cried, salty tears streaming down his cheeks.

Phoenix leaned over the kid and jabbed his forefinger at him angrily. "We're never going to win the trade war as long as little traitors like you refuse to support American industry and keep buying this Chinese BULLSHIT!" He stooped and picked up a jagged rock and started pounding at the Playstation like a deranged caveman. The kid sobbed as sharp pieces of plastic flew up and embedded themselves in his face and cockroaches and mealworms landed in his hair.

"Way to teach that bitch his lesson, Phoenix!" said Alvin from his bike, throwing a thumbs-up.

"Fuck Playstation! The graphics suck and the games are for babies," said Simon, flipping the bird.

Phoenix stood up breathing heavily and looked down at the crying toddler. There was no mercy in his heavily lined face. He spat on the PS3 and then turned and walked towards Dave's house. The chipmunks rode their bikes over the PS3 while ringing their bells and followed him.

They lined their bikes up against the porch and stomped into the house after Phoenix. Alvin was the last in, and he looked back to the street and saw the boy was still there so he grabbed his BB gun, did a tactical summersault, and popped up over the edge of the porch like he was in a trench in World War I. He squinted down the barrel and plinked at the screaming child till he fled around the block.

Next, Alvin shot at the abandoned remains of the Playstation 3, his aim steady, working the lever-action expertly after each shot.

"That's for Master Chief," he whispered. Tink! "That's for Duke Nukem. That's for American industry. That's for the Marines. Ha! And that one was just because I don't like you."

A policeman drove by. He waved. Alvin waved back.

Alvin leaned his up gun next to the door. "Boy, I can't wait till Dave gets me a real gun." He wiped his shoes on the doormat and went inside.

The shattered remnants of the Playstation lay forlornly in the street, everything empty and quiet. Then a strange masked man in suit of high-tech robotic armor walked out of nowhere and ducked down and examined it.

He ran a gloved finger across the Playstation, gently, sensually. He paused.

Could that really be the same man he once knew? Could that really be Phoenix Wright?

Lighting struck, wind howled, the air crackled, but only around the mysterious man, as if he had his own atmosphere.

All he knew was that time was running out... and that his mind was going. Soon all he would have left was will, will, enough will to oppose the universe.

Chapter Text

The Chipmunks clattered past Phoenix's legs, laughing and shouting, and rushed across the living room and out the sliding glass door to their backyard to play.

Once the door was shut, and their boyish glee muffled by the glass, there was a distinct stillness and sexiness in the air that could only be attributed to the man sitting on the couch.

Dave Seville had one leg thrown across the other, casually, and held a steaming cup of coffee in one hand and a book about how to be a better father in the other. He wore a tight black turtleneck that seemed skintight and superglued to his abs and to the curves of his large pecs, and his paperthin khakis left nothing to the imagination.

There were other things to look at in the room, like a chair and a piece of lint, but Phoenix's gaze seemed inexorably drawn to Alvin the Chipmunk's father. He was like a black hole of eroticism that sucked in all the sexiness around him.

Suddenly Dave noticed his friend, smiled, and swung his leg off his knee so both feet were planted on the woven rug in front of the couch.

"Oh, hello, Mr. Wright," he said. He clapped the book shut in his hand and set it and his mug on the coffee table. He clasped his hands between his knees. "What's up?"

Phoenix went over and plopped down on the couch next to Dave, making himself at home. They talked about the trial tomorrow and about how Dave homeschools his kids. Phoenix approved. He would have homeschooled Trucy, too, if he had known what he knows now; thankfully she turned out okay thanks to her good home life and strong religious values.

Speak of the daughter. Just then, Trucy walked in through the front door.

"Oh," she said. "Hi, Dad. Hi, Mr. Seville."

"Oh, hello there, Trucy," said Dave, smiling. "Here to play with the boys?"

"Yeah," she said. She seemed nervous, and kept shifting her gaze around without looking at anyone.

Phoenix started to have a mental breakdown because she was wearing a bra and he was afraid that it was too tight and compressing her chest and might set off the bomb.

He lifted a fist to his mouth and coughed. "Trucy, take your bra off, please. Now."

She started and gasped. "What?"

"It's too tight. Take it off. It'll be better this way."

"In the living room?" she said. "In front of everyone?"

Phoenix wetted his lips with tip of his tongue. "Yes, daddy thinks that would be best."

The silence in the room was loud enough to blow your eardrums out. Abruptly she turned to leave. She looked over her shoulder, hair whipping around, face flush, tears hanging from the corner of her eyes.

"Ugh, you're being such a pedophile right now!"

She stomped off to the backyard to play with the Chipmunks.

Phoenix just sat there, shocked. All he was trying to do was help his family, and he gets called a pedophile, even though he did literally nothing wrong? First Trucy was mad at him, and now Trucy was still mad at him? What else could go wrong? He moaned and held his hands in his face.

"What's wrong, Phoenix?" asked Dave, concerned for his friend. "What happened just now?"

Phoenix raised his head and peaked through his fingers. He said: "Well, it has something to do with Kristoph, but I can't really say what it is."

"Oh, I get it," nodded Dave. He fanned out a hand. "Attorney-client privilege, right?"

"Something like that."

"Well, it's really none of my business, but she seemed pretty mad. Maybe you should go talk to her?"

"Nah." Phoenix shook his head. "What'll that do? I'll give her a chance to cool off. One day..." He tilted his head up and stared at the stained-glass window showing St. George slaying the dragon. "One day she'll understand that everything I do is for her."

Dave saw that his friend was in a funk, and he hated to see him like that, so he pulled him off the couch and dragged him over to the corner of the room.

"Dave, what the hell is this all about?" growled Phoenix.

"I have a surprise for you." He let go of Phoenix and took hold of the corner of a white sheet covering a piano-shaped object. "Ta-da!" He ripped it off.

Phoenix gasped and pointed. "It's one of those things I can't play!"

"That's right, Phoenix," said Dave, leaning his hip against the side of the grand piano, smiling, arms folded. "Thalassa was telling me you've always wanted to learn how to play, and I thought, well, maybe I could help you."

Phoenix ran his hand over the sleek lid. "A piano..." he said, shaking his head. "And you even covered it with a ghost dress so I wouldn't get scared and run away. Dave, you're a real friend."

Dave stood over Phoenix's shoulder, directing him, as Phoenix sat on the bench ramrod-straight, carefully picking out notes and shooting glances at the music sheet.

"Good," nodded Dave. "Now use your left hand to start adding some notes in the lower register."

Phoenix tried but quickly got flustered.

"This is too hard," he whined. "Can't I just build a robot to do it for me?"

"The fun of learning to play the piano is challenging yourself and improving. Using a robot would defeat the purpose. Besides, it would end up taking more time and money to build and maintain the robot than to just practice and do it naturally."

"I guess you're right."

"Here, let me help you."

Dave put his big musky hands over Phoenix's and directed his playing. Simple but beautiful music floated up from the piano and danced around their heads gaily.

"There you go," said Dave into his ear. "Now you're getting the hang of it."

Just then the doorbell rang. The music died and Phoenix and Dave looked over their shoulders. They could see the silhouette of a uniformed man through the frosted glass window in the front door.

"Oh my god," said Dave. He leapt off the bench and hurried over, almost tripping on the rug. Phoenix followed him, curious.

"Hello, Mr. Seville," said the policeman, after Dave yanked the door open. Phoenix watched their exchange over Dave's shoulder. "I'm here about your wife."

Dave moved his mouth soundlessly, trying to get the words out, and then managed to blurt out: "You mean you found her?!"

The man chuckled and pushed the brim of his cap up with his thumb. "Nah, just kidding."

Dave was crestfallen. His whole body seemed to sink.

"W-What?" he said blankly.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Seville, but we still haven't found any trace of your wife. This was just a training mission where I come to your house and pretend that we did. That way in the event of an event in which we do find your dead and-or missing wife, we will be able to find your new house and inform you without making any mistakes or faux passes."

Dave's face got a bunch of angry wrinkles and he leaned forward, clenching his fists. "Well, maybe you should be out doing your job instead." He was gritting his teeth. His fist was shaking and he looked about a second away from slugging the man.

The officer stuck his thumbs in his belt. "Well, I'd best be off. I'll drop by in a few years if we find anything, or if I think it'll be funny again. Bye." He turned his head and spat on the welcome mat, and then he walked down the walkway and got into his car.

Dave wilted, his anger evaporating instantly, and he lowered his eyes and sighed. He pushed the door shut, gently. He held onto to doorknob and leaned his weight against the door, the perfect picture of dejection.

Phoenix laid a hand on his shoulder. "Dave, what the heck was all that about?"

"Let me show you."

Dave went and took a thick photobook off the mantle. It said "Family Memories" in fancy curling script. He sat down on the couch with Phoenix and flipped through the pages with him.

A happy, sad smile spread across his face at some the pictures as flipped through. Most of them were of photos of Dave and the Chipmunks: birthdays, concerts, award shows.

However, in a few of the photos, Phoenix noticed a tall, elegant chipmunk woman, almost as tall as Dave. She had her hair in a permanent and wore sparkling gowns and large pearls that laid on the shelf of her bosom.

In some of the photos she was playing the piano, Dave watching her dreamily, and in others she was with the Chipmunks. In one she was kneeling in front of Simon and combing his hair for church. In another she was in a rocking chair cooing over a crying chipmunk baby in greed swadling, Dave standing by proudly with a five o'clock shadow graying his face.

She showed up in picture after picture, staying just as beautiful and kind-looking as the Chipmunks grew older and bigger and more famous. But suddenly she stopped showing up in the photographs. Phoenix's forehead scrunched up in consternation and he asked why that was.

"She was my wife, Phoenix," said Dave, not looking up. The corners of his smile caught the tears streaking down his face. "She was my wife."

"What... happened, Dave?"

Dave wordlessly pulled out a photograph in a sleeve on the inside of the back cover and handed it to Phoenix for him to examine.

The photo was of Dave and his college band. Dave was wearing his hair down to his asshole and strutting around on stage in leather bondage gear. The logo on the bassdrum read "Dave and the Sexmunks". All the other members of the band were adult-sized chipmunks with denim vests, punk hairdos, and skimpy shorts that barely covered their huge balls and bulging labias.

"Wow," said Phoenix.

Dave said the whole thing was pretty embarrassing. He was the frontman. The whole thing was such a joke. But they thought they were cool at the time. He was never into the casual sex scene or the drug scene; the very idea of hook-up culture viscerally repulsed him. He stayed a virgin. He played the gigs, threw his thong into the crowd, and then he went backstage, washed the makeup off, and went home to read his Bible.

He shook his head. "I was really wasting my talent on that junk. Bad lyrics. Bad messages. Bad everything. One day our bassist introduced me to her cousin. She was a nice church-going chipmunk. We hit it off. On our first date I was so nervous I accidentally squirted ketchup right on her dress. I was afraid that that was it, she'd throw down her napkin and storm off. But she just rubbed a fry into the ketchup and ate it. That's when..." He parted his lips a little and looked far away. "That's when I knew she was the one."

She had been a good influence on him. He had given up all that punk rock stuff, gotten into writing songs about yo-yo's and hula hoops and wholesome family-friendly material like that. They went to church every day. They got married.

"Simon was our first. Our little miracle from heaven. Less than a year later was Alvin. After that we waited two years and had our final child."

Almost as soon as they could walk they had picked up their parents' interests in music. She and Dave directed their musical education, and she taught them how to sing herself. It wasn't long before Dave and the Sexmunks had been supplanted by Alvin and the Chipmunks.

"Her voice... It was like... like... she had swallowed an angel or something... and she was keeping it trapped in her stomach and forcing it to sing like some kind of caged bird." He blinked fast and darted a glance at Phoenix then averted his eyes. "She loved them. I can't give her higher praise than that. She loved her children simply, honestly... and with her whole heart."

Suddenly he turned away painfully. "Then came the cancer diagnosis." He let out a long wavering sigh.

Thankfully, the diagnosis turned out to be wrong and she didn't actually have cancer. Then, she went blind. Then her feet fell off. Thankfully, corrective laser eye surgery restored her eyesight, and someone donated new feet through the mail.

Those were stressful times, and they made a big dent in their bank account, but they tried to keep it all away from the children. So they could grow up innocent. But that innocence wasn't to last long.

It was during a telethon to benefit dead children who had died. She was singing on stage, a gala performance, doves and majestic white stallions making love all around her, glitter and sparkle abounding, and her boys and her man all tuxed-up in the front row and clapping and cheering harder than anyone.

Then tragedy struck.

It was all supposed to be part of the show. The magicians had crafted the illusion. She was supposed to disappear in a pillar of fire, and then reappear on the overhead balcony.

But something went wrong. The entire stage went up in flames. Everyone had had to evacuate. The scenery melted and fell apart and his wife was never seen again.

He had stood there, choked by black smoke, calling for her, desperately, while they tried to pull him away, and from the engulfed stage he had heard- nothing.

He had been calling for seven years.

"They never found any trace of her in the ashes," whispered Dave. "Nothing. Not her body, not her fillings, not her wedding ring. Nothing. That's why I know... she's still out there."

Meanwhile, after Dave's story, Phoenix was still gawking at the photo of Dave's band. "I didn't know they made chipmunk pussies that big."

"God is mysterious in how he chooses to distribute his gifts, Phoenix Wright."

Dave went on to say that while his band was fun, the messages in the lyrics went against his own beliefs, and that's why he writes what he writes now. To honor his wife. And that's why he homeschools his children and why he doesn't vaccinate them.

"Wow, that's so crazy," said Phoenix.

Dave closed his eyes. "I feel her everytime I close my eyes. That. She. Is. There." He said each word slowly and with great emphasis. "Always just one blink away. Always hovering just outside the frame of my life. Watching me. Like a guardian angel. But more angelic than any angel, because this angel chose to live on Earth instead of heaven. Because she had loved just that much."

Phoenix looked down at the floor. "Dave..."

Just then Larry Butz threw the door open and almost fell over but saved himself by grasping the doorknob.

Phoenix and Dave shot out of their seats.

"Larry, what are you doing here?" demanded Phoenix angrily, reaching into his pocket and adjusting his boner.

"There's no time to explain why I'm here, Nick." Tears and boogers ran down his face. "I just checked Carlad Accidentguy's Facebook page. He's gone missing!"

They gasped.

Chapter Text

It was the day of the trial. Phoenix Wright and Kristoph Gavin arrived riding on horses, borrowed from Phoenix's good friend Jake Marshall, as the LAPD Tank Squad gave them an escort to the courthouse.

There was a massive turnout. A huge throng of spectators were crowding around the police barricades on either side of Phoenix and Kristoph and the police procession, screaming and pressing up against the police tape. They sounded like the ocean in Phoenix's ears. He felt like he was travelling through the parted Red Sea.

They climbed off their horses and tied the reins to the parking meters. Phoenix took a can of beer off his specially designed beer-belt and gulped it down. It was like a gunslinger's bullet-belt except for beer. He belched and threw the empty can over his shoulder into the crowd. His horse stomped its hooves and whinnied, looking around nervously into the hostile crowd in fear of assassins.

Phoenix patted its flank absently, and then cracked open another can of Bud and poured it into its feed bag.

"Don't worry, old girl," he said reassuringly as his horse got fucked up. "We'll make it through the trial all right."

The two men mounted the steps and began the climb to the courthouse doors. Once they reached the top of the steps, Kristoph looked over his shoulder and surveyed the screaming crowd. He gave the peace sign over his head, and the jeers and boos grew even louder. He smirked.

Phoenix watched grimmly as Kristoph, his back turned, flexed his anus through his pants, dilating and contracting threateningly.

A warning.

Phoenix grimaced.

Trucy.

All the worries and anxieties that had kept him tossing and turning in bed last night flooded his mind.

Could he get Kristoph a Not Guilty verdict? Was Kristoph innocent? Did it matter if he were? He was under duress. He had to get him off. He HAD to.

He surreptitiously fiddled with the magatama in his pocket, the soft green light emanating from it just visible through the fabric, if you looked closely enough.

No psyche locks had appeared, but what did that mean? Perhaps Kristoph only THOUGHT he hadn't done it; according to Kristoph's own testimony, he had blacked out before the murder and woken up to the dead bodies.

Isn't it possible he had gone temporarily insane and now has no memory of committing the murders?

Isn't it possible that Kristoph truly thought himself innocent, while still being guilty of killing his own brother?

What if the only way out, the only option, the only possible path to saving his daughter was impossible?

Phoenix's ruminations were interrupted when a man elbowed his way through the crowd and jumped over the caution tape and bounded up the steps.

Kristoph latched onto Phoenix and hissed, clinging to him. His eyes were wide.

"Assassin!" The cry was raised on all sides.

"Mr. Wright, Mr. Wright, please give me a quote, please, end quote!" cried Spark Brushel, skinny legs pumping, tie flapping behind his neck. He had his notepad out and his pencil poised at the top corner of the page.

"He has a toothbrush!" cried one of the guards. He raised his nightstick. "Kill him!"

He brought it down with a sickening crunch on the back of Brushel's neck. Brushel crumpled and tumbled down the stairs, breaking every single bone in his body on the way down.

"Oh no!" said Phoenix. "Spark Brushel!" Then they went inside.

Phoenix and Kristoph were escorted down the halls of the courthouse, passing by suits of armor and under stern portraits of patriarchal judges of yore.

The doors swung open, and they stepped into the courtroom. Phoenix took his place at the defense desk, and Kristoph was dragged to the defendant stand, where his hands were chained behind his back. Two guards flanked him on either side with a hand on his shoulders.

The trial began.

"Court is now in session."

"The defense is ready, Your Honor."

"The prosecution is ready, Your Honor."

"The witness is in discomfort from these handcuffs, Your Honor," said Kristoph. "Surely this isn't necessary?" He rattled his chains. "To keep me locked up like some kind of killer giraffe or penguin?"

The Judge bowed his head and closed his eyes. "Mr. Gavin... I'm sorry it's come to this. I'm sorry that a once respected defense attorney has to be kept under constant lock and key, for fear that he might kill again, even in this very courtroom."

"I see..." Kristoph smiled. "I'm sorry, too, Your Honor. Or should I say... Your Dishonor? Shall we get on with this farce of a trial?"

While this was going on, Phoenix scanned the packed courtroom. The light from the chandelier overhead glinted off the Judge's bald head. All the jurors were in a row in their seats. Dave gave a thumbs up. Phoenix nodded and smiled.

"Nick! Over here!" He whipped his head over his shoulder.

Sitting in the gallery directly behind the defense bench were all his friends. He was touched. They had all come to support him. Maya and Pearl, waving frantically and wearing T-shirts with his face on them: Larry Butz, Apollo, Jake Marshall; the Chipmunks and Machi; Athena, who was in a neck brace with a crutch tucked under her arm; Simon; Lotta Hart and Gourdy, who was real; a burn victim; Daryan Cresbot; and even more friends.

And...

Thalassa. His woman. His wife's face was veiled like he forces her to, but he could still tell she was horny for him, and supported him in defending Kristoph 100%. Because their souls were linked, their destinies dual, their spirits justice. Her pregnant gut was straining against the thin fabric of her t-shirt, showing the world just how proud she was to be carrying his child in her womb.

But there was an empty seat between her and Godot, who had a soul patch now. Phoenix felt an aching pain like a hunger. He had a magician-shaped daughter with a stupid hat-sized hole in his heart.

He sighed and turned back to his desk. He pulled a bottle of the good shit from behind his tie as the Judge blabbed and droned on in the background about some boring preliminary matters. He tipped the bottle over the rim of the tumbler.

"Daddy! Not in court!"

He jerked, sputtering and spraying bourbon everywhere. He turned to the voice in his ear.

"Trucy?" he gawked. "How did you get here? Magic?"

"No," she said. She was smiling demurely by her father's side at the desk, her hands clasped behind the small of her back. "I just decided to stand here. And now I'm still standing here."

He was touched. He put his head on one side. "You'll stand by me? Even... now?"

"Of course. Because I realized... the show must go on! Always!" The tipped her hat and dropped a wink. "Besides, you know you need me. And I know... you're always right. Y'know?! You can count on me to be the best co-counsel ever!" He smiled back. Kristoph stared at them oddly.

Thalassa beamed down at the two of them. It seemed their reconciliation was complete. Perhaps she had had a hand in her daughter's change of attitude? Just what had she said to her lovely daughter to effect such a sudden change?

"Oh," she added, "and I got you a little present in the back alley on my way in."

She did a jaunty pose and pulled up her sleeve, revealing a sick tattoo of the Gavinners logo.

"Ta-da!"

Phoenix stared down, wooden-faced. He worked his lips for a moment.

"A tattoo?" he finally managed. "What is this, some kind of sick revenge for forcing you to be my daughter?"

She burst out laughing.

"Haha! Got you, daddy!"

She rubbed the black ink into a smear across her arm with her knuckles.

"See? Fake. I'd NEVER get a tattoo. Tattoos are trashy, like being a criminal or doing heroin. I could never."

Phoenix nodded and struck up a Lucky. "That's right, Truce. Stay in school. Dare to keep kids off drugs!" He accidentally swallowed his cigarette. "Ack! Ack!" Trucy quickly cracked open a can of Bud and poured it down his mouth.

He wiped his lips with the back of his hand. "Whew, that was a close one." He stuck another cigarette in his mouth and lit up.

While the Judge was rummaging around in the golf bag the bailiff was holding, looking for the perfect gavel to officiate the trial with, Trucy squinted and shaded her eyes with a gloved hand. Her nose wrinkled.

"Who's that weird white guy?" she asked, pointing out the prosecution desk. Edgeworth was glowering at them autistically with arms ramrod straight by his side. He didn't have a co-counsel because he has no friends.

Phoenix tilted his head forward and glared. "That's Miles Edgeworth, Trucy. My greatest rival in the courtroom. He's a man who will stop nothing to get his guilty verdict. Nothing! Falsified evidence, witness intimidation, bribery..." The hate gleamed in Phoenix's eyes. "There's even a rumor he offered up his asshole to a defendant in exchange for a guilty plea once. Of course, there's no hard evidence of any wrongdoing, but that's just what makes him such a dangerous foe."

"Oh my gosh, I remember now!" cried Trucy. "He's that guy from the Christmas party! The one who saw the picture of the elevator with the dead guy in it on the wall and started crying and hugging his legs on the floor."

Phoenix nodded. "Yeah, that's all related to the DL-6 incident. Now the elevator scares him." Phoenix thrust his arm out and pointed at Edgeworth's chest. "And what's with that fruity little napkin he wears on his neck? He's not even eating lobster. He's so stupid."

"You know," said Trucy, tapping her chin and eying the corner of the ceiling thoughtfully, "I think I've also seen him spying outside your window with binoculars sometimes."

"I'm not surprised," said Phoenix. "Probably gathering intel on me and my cases."

"Is that why he was naked?"

"That's probably so people won't recognize he's a prosecutor. The red suit would be a dead giveaway."

The Judge held his selected gavel up to the light, twisting it around. He nodded in approbation.

"Very well, Mr. Edgeworth, your opening statement!" He slammed his gavel. "Let us begin!"

Chapter Text

"Ladies and gentlemen," Edgeworth began, "today the prosecution will prove, beyond a shadow of doubt, that Kristoph Gavin killed both his brother and an innocent policeman. We have hard evidence, and harder witnesses."

He called Dick Gumshoe to the stand.

"The name's Dick Gumshoe, and I'm the detective in charge of this case!"

"Very good, detective," said Edgeworth, eyes closed. "Now please relate facts of the case of for the court."

Gumshoe repeated the story that we have already heard: how Klavier and Kristoph and the prison guard had been found in the cell; Kristoph's impersonation of his brother; his subsequent escape and recapture; and all the rest.

"And this," said Gumshoe, pulling a glinting katana out of his trenchcoat with a swish, doing a Conan the Barbarian pose and drawing gasps from the gallery, "is what he did 'em in with."

The Judge blinked rapidly. "Why, what's this? A bladed object with a handle and a blade resembling a sword or blade of some sort?"

"Yup," nodded Gumshoe, "a samurai sword, or a katana, 'scientifically speaking,' pal, oh ho ho."

"Hold it!" said Phoenix. "How would a prisoner have access to a weapon like that? Katanas are really hard to come by after the California Katana Control Act was passed back in 2020."

"Hold your horses, Wright," said Edgeworth. "There's a good reason that katana was in the jail cell. Namely, that it was evidence for a case that Prosecutor Gavin was working on. Evidently he took it into the cell with him when he visited his brother."

"I see," said the Judge. "So the victim supplied the killer with his own murder weapon? How unfortunate."

"Huh..." said Trucy, thinking. "That doesn't seem right. If Prosecutor Gavin was carrying a sword, wouldn't he have used it to defend himself?"

"Perhaps the victim did try to defend himself," said Edgeworth, "but nevertheless, the defendant got a hold of it, and used it to kill both Klavier and the prison guard. The defendant's fingerprints were found on the sword, and the victims' wounds match up with the murder weapon. If anyone doesn't believe, me feel free to look under your seats. I've printed enough autopsy reports for everyone."

Everyone in the courtroom and in the gallery reached under their seats and pulled out envelopes and read them while cupping their chins and nodding, except Phoenix, who spun around in place like a dog looking for his.

"There, daddy!" Her eyes had alighted on the folder sticking out of the back of his pants. She pulled it out and handed it to him. It was specially autographed by Miles Edgeworth and had a glossy headshot of him in it.

"As you all can read," said Edgeworth, "both victims were killed at the same time with the same weapon. The time of death can be fixed fairy exactly, because the chaplain and another guard heard Klavier scream, and when they got to the cell, both victims were already dead."

Edgeworth went on to explain that the cell door had been locked, and the keys were later found inside the cell in the dead guard's pockets. The other guard had to use his own pair of keys to open the door.

"Getting the picture, Wright?" smiled Edgeworth, tapping the side of his head. "This is an open and shut case... literally. The door was open, and then shut. Ergo, only Kristoph Gavin could have committed this crime!"

"Objection!" said Phoenix. He slapped his desk like he slaps Trucy's ass (when she misbehaves and needs disclipline). "But my client says he hit his head and was knocked out when the murders happened!"

"Of course he'd SAY that, Wright," returned Edgeworth. "What are you, five years old? He's just trying to save his own skin. He was examined througouhly upon recapture... he had no wounds or bruises at all! The only blood on him was his own victims'!"

Kristoph's forehead wrinkled and he pursed his lips, staring down at the tips of his shoes.

"But my green bean thing said-" began Wright.

Edgeworth slammed his desk. "No one cares about your 'green bean thing,' Wright. This is a court of law. The only thing that matters is evidence! We don't care about 'mayatamas' or spirit channeling or any of that supernatrual nonsense! I won't have you turn this case into a circus with your usual shennagians!"

The Judge hit his desk with his gavel, not for any particular reason, but just because he liked doing it. "And nor will I, Mr. Wright."

Trucy tugged on her father's sleeve. "Daddy, do an objection or something! A smart one!"

"Objection!" said Phoenix. "What if there was a mysterious second person who had another pair of keys?"

"Hmm..." mused the Judge, eyes closed. "That is definitely possible."

Edgeworth was unperturbed and said: "No, Wright, no." He didn't bother to open his eyes.

"And why not, Fucksworth?" asked Phoenix.

"One word: keyprints."

"What? 'Keyprints'?"

"I thought you'd say that. Ha. Every key in the world leaves its own unique 'fingerprint' behind in the the lock its used on." He took out a piece of paper. "If you look at this report I recieved from the Dean of Keys at Ivy University, you'll see that keyprints are real."

In the gallery, Thalassa turned to Larry, her eyes over her veil lined with concern. "Ah, Mr. Larry, these keyprints, you have them in America?"

"I don't know," he whispered, staring ahead as chocolate sauce dripped from his beard and onto his "Google Foreskin Restoration" shirt. "I don't know..."

Edgeworth continued: "I had a sneaking suspicion that a locked room murder might occur that day, so I had every lock in the prison power washed earlier in the day prior to the murder. The only key used on the defendant's cell that day was the key found on the guard's dead body!"

The judge quelled the chatter of the excited galley with several bangs of his gavel.

"Well!" he said. "I think that ties things up nicely."

Kristoph glared at the defense bench, and bent over in his cuffs and started twerking implacably, his gaze over his shoulder never wavering, a deadly reminder of just how dangerous he truly was.

"Stop that," said the Judge sternly.

No! thought Phoenix in desperation. I can't let this trial end! His gaze whipped towards his daughter and his heart beat faster.

"Hold it!" shouted Phoenix, pointing. "I want to question the chaplain."

Edgeworth said: "I'm sorry, you can't." He pointed towards a man of the cloth curled up and snoozing in an armchair with a leather-bound Bible cradled in his arms. "After witnessing the murder he fell asleep and he's still asleep in an unbreakable slumber so you can't question him."

Trucy knotted her fists and leaned over the defense bench. "That's awfully convienent! Now we have no way to know what he saw!"

Damn it! thought Wright. I bet the murderer had this all planned from the beginning!

"However," Edgeworth continued, "by analzying his brain waves, there's a 99% possiblity that he is dreaming about Kristoph Gavin being the murderer."

"Mhmm..." murmured the Judge. "That's a good percentage."

"What about the other guard?" asked Phoenix, scratching his chin. "The one the chaplain called over?"

"Pointless," said Edgeworth. He held up a tape recorder. "I knew you would attempt to delay your inevitable defeat, so I had this recorded testimony from the guard in advance."

There was a click as he held down the button, and a voice said: "I reiterate everything that has been said, and I think that Edgeworth should win."

Edgeworth let the button go and lifted an eyebrow. "Of course, that wasn't the real witness's voice, just a paid impersonator, but it was based on his real words so it should be sufficient."

"A bit unusual," nodded the Judge, "but I'll allow it. I don't believe there's any room for misinterpretation of the facts, or any reason to prolong this trial."

"Oh, no!" said Trucy.

"W-Wait, Your Honor!" blustered Phoenix. He looked into his best friend's eyes. "Dave! Help me!"

The other jurors were ready to deliver their verdict, but Dave Seville squirmed around in the jurors' seats and shuffled his shoulders around. "I don't know- Alvin and the Chipmunks- hooly hoops- planes that loop the loop-"

"Give it up, Wright!" said Edgeworth, pointing. "All the evidence points to your client! He's clearly guilty. There are no more witnesses to call!"

"Hold it!" he replied, pointing too. "This murder took place in a prison, Edgeworth. Another inmate could've seen something."

"Fat chance, Wright," said Edgeworth.

"What's so fat about it, Edgeworth?" asked Phoenix.

"Because every other inmate was in the cafeteria taking part in the annual prisoners' ball. There was no one else on that cellblock!"

Suddenly, Thalassa's bracelet began to contract around her wrist. She wrinkled her face and put a hand over her bracelet; it was so tight, it hurt. She looked down at Miles, but his face was a blur at that height.

She leaned over the bannister, her earings jangling. "Trucy, use your perception powers!"

Trucy pointed and said: "Daddy, I just used my perception powers! I think he's lying! Try looking at the court record!"

This is it... thought Phoenix. His brain got into a racecar and raced back to earlier in the day, when Apollo had shown him what had been uncovered on Edgeworth's laptop.

Aha!

"Objection!" he cried. "Edgeworth! Isn't it true there's a ring of cannibals in the denteion center? And isn't it also true that their leader, Damon Gant, occupies the cell directly opposite Kristoph Gavin?"

Edgeworth had his eyes closed. "Yes, that's true..."

"TAKE THAT!" He presented the laptop. "Look, Your Honor, look! It's an email from the warden. It says that Damon Gant was barred from attending the prisoner's ball that day due to eating too many people!"

The crowd gasped. The Chimpunks tickled each other in a cute way.

"Why..." said the Judge, blinking rapidly, "if all that's true, then that means this Damon Gant fellow might have witnessed the murder!"

Phoenix slammed his desk. "It is the defense's belief that stupid Edgeworth was trying to hide this witness from the court so he could cheat!"

"Is this true, Mr. Edgeworth?" asked the Judge. "Did you cheat?"

"Hardly, Your Honor," replied Edgeworth. "I merely thought it would be a waste of time to call this witness when I've already proven with perfect evidence that no one could have done it except Kristoph Gavin. I am a disciple of Manfred von Karma, after all."

"But we have a duty to hear every witness, Edgeworth!" said Wright. "And I have a right to cross examine them!"

"Nothing this witness could say would change anything. Don't forget the cell was locked with only the defendant and the two victims inside of it. Unless you wish to argue with the veracity of keyprints?"

The Judge shook his head. "You don't argue with that, Mr. Wright."

"Your Honor, please!" said Wright. "As long as there's a chance, we HAVE to hear this witness. The truth, my client's innocence, is obvious. It's so obvious that a deaf, blind chimp tapping his cane around the inside of his enclosure could find it!"

Edgeworth lifted a wry eyebrow and spread out his hands. "Hmph. And what exactly is your 'truth' doing lying on the dirty floor of the monkey exhibit?"

"I put it in there to test the chimp. I also made him deaf and blind." He slammed his desk. "Because justice is blind. And sometimes it's deaf, too. But it can grasp around in the darkness to find the truth. And it can feel." He placed a hand over his suit. "In its heart."

The gallery was silent. The Judge bowed his head and frowned, eyes shut tight. After some intense thoughts, he slowly lifted his head, his lids rising dramatically like stage curtains.

"I will grant your request. Bailiff, summon Damon Gant!"

Miles spewed cum out of his mouth and all over his desk. He isn't gay, he just happened to have it in there.

"But Your Honor! This is a farce! I've already proven-"

"Mr. Wright is right. His chimp analogy was most convincing. When I closed my eyes, I could see him. Blind, glassy eyes, shaking, wearing a diaper and a trilby, barely able to stand, toothless mouth agape, almost incapable of understanding... but diligently tapping around the confines of its cage with a cane, searching for the truth. He... he reminded me of myself."

He blinked rapidly and noticed his eyes were a little wet. He dried them with his gavel.

"But Your Honor," said Edgeworth, "this is a waste of time. Stop indulging Wright's monkeyshines."

The Judge shook his head. "Sometimes the truth isn't so clear. Sometimes, we have to look beyond what we merely 'see'... and consider what we 'feel.'"

He slammed his gavel for no reason.

Kristoph squeezed Phoenix's hand under the table. He breathed into his ear.

"Wright, that was amazing! How did you-?"

"Calm down. This is almost over. I can feel this."

Kristoph had replaced Trucy at the desk at some point. Now the guards returned Phoenix's daughter to him and Kristoph was beat into submission with nightsticks and forcibly removed from his imitation Trucy dress while Damon Gant was summoned.

Chapter Text

Damon Gant's motorized wheelchair was conducted to the witness stand. He was bald and liver spotted, his face sagging with age. He was boney but still retained his powerful frame. He still had his beard, and his eyes surveyed, heard and piercing, the packed courtroom over his red half-spectacles.

The Judge said: "Will the witness please state his name and occupation for the court?"

"Ah, hello, Judge-O, no time no see-o. You're looking spruce, what's your secret? It's been a while since I've been on the old witness stand." He parted his lips a little, and trailed a gloved finger across the top of the witness stand, rubbing dust between his index finger and thumb contemplatively. "Been a while since I've been swimming, too..." He looked up with a crooked smile. "Unless you count toilet play with my fellow inmates as 'swimming...'"

"The court certainly does not," said Edgeworth. "Name and occupation."

"Oh, of course, pardon me, Worthy. The name's Damon Gant. I'm the Chief of Police. Err, well, I was, but I suppose my current occupation is 'incarcerated.' Like Krissy over there!" He waved at Kristoph, who just sniffed.

"Daddy, who is that man?" whispered Trucy out of the side of her mouth.

"That's Damon Gant, sweetness" whispered Phoenix.

"Also I eat people," added Damon.

The Judge slammed his gavel down.

"Well, Mr. Gant, I can't say I approve of cannibalism, but can you testify as to what you witnessed the day of the murder?"

He clapped his hand (just one). "Well, I'll give it the old college try!"

Gant launched into his testimony.

"Well, as I recall it, due to 'acting up' the previous day, I wasn't allowed to attend the prisoner's ball in the cafeteria with the other inmates. So, instead, to whittle away all that interminable time, I was roasting intimation child meat in the fireplace (all they let us have, sadly) and reading a Modest Proposal... which gave me a modest boner in my trousers. In the background all the while I heard the sounds of coming and goings from old Gav-Gav's cell. I heard arguing, but I didn't pay it much mind until I heard a scream... a blood curdling scream that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and do the harlem shake. I quickly wheely-o'd my chair to the bars and gripped them. I remember that the veins in my neck were standing out like thick cords. 'My goodness!' I had exclaimed. 'What devility and affront to goodness is this?' For, you see, through the bars I could clearly see none other than Kristoph Gavin standing over the corpse of his poor brother, the tip of his sword piercing the younger Gavin's neck!"

A rumble of voices like thunder emerged from the gallery. The judge banged his gavel and tried to silence them. Edgeworth was triumphant, Trucy was downcast, and Phoenix and Dave shared a manly look. Phoenix's eyes said, "Dave, ask your chipmunk children to pray for this case." Dave's said, "Phoenix, look into the gallery beyond your shoulder. They're already praying." Phoenix did. And they were, except Alvin, who was torturing an old man with ligatures.

"You old bitch!" said Phoenix. He took a shoe off and hurled it over his shoulder at the witness stand but it didn't make it halfway there. "Change your testimony! Now! Before I beat the testimony I want out of you!"

Trucy latched onto his arm. "Daddy no! Act normal!"

Gant put on a second pair of glasses over his glasses and looked innocent. "You wouldn't hit a guy with glasses, would you?"

"Mr. wright, please, there's no need for this," said the Judge soothingly. Wright ignored him and addressed Kristoph, hands planted on desk, straining forward.

"Kristoph! Is what he said true?"

Kristoph furrowed his brow. "I... I can't remember... but I didn't kill my brother. That much I'm sure of."

Edgeworth spread out his arms and arched an eyebrow. He said: "As you can see, your honor, I think we're just about done here. Such a cut and dry eyewitness account leaves little room for debate. I don't think we need subject ourselves to any more of the defense's usual trial-extending tricks."

Think, Wright! Think! There must have been a reason why Edgeworth tried to hide this witness... some reason he didn't want the court to see this "perfect" witness. Wait a minute! A light flashed in his mind, the corners of his vision went blurry, the rest of the world seemed to fade away except for the witness stand and Gant. Of course! That's it!

"Edgeworth! There's one thing about this witness you've neglected to mention! TAKE THAT!"

Phoenix opened the court record and presented gant's profile picture.

"The witness's... face?" said the Judge, blinking.

"Look closely, Your Honor! At the words next to his face! It says he's evil!"

"Why... why... it does! I didn't even notice that!"

"His profile says he is evil, which means he is evil! Ergo, part of being evil is telling lies that hurt people's feelings and deceive us. Can we really believe everything this witness tells us... or, is it all an elaborate lie to frame my client?"

Gant was sweating and clenching and unclenching his hands. "Why... what are you saying?"

"Damon Gant..." said Phoenix. "I'm accusing you of being the real murderer of Klavier Gavin!"

Trucy hugged his waist and beamed up at him. "Way to go, Daddy! I knew you were a lawyer."

"I did too, Truce. But sometimes I forget... till I find the turnabout, and make things right." He looked down into her eyes. "Because... remember... us lawyers can only smile our biggest smiles and cry our biggest cries after the bitter end." He turned to show her his profile and glared ahead. "That's what my mentor Mia taught me. I think." Her breath caught, her lower lip fell, eyes stuck, heart fluttering.

"Way to go, Nick!" said Larry from the gallery over Phoenix's head, pumping his fist. "I knew you could do it!"

"Yes! Watching you at your craft has opened another small window to my heart..." said Lamiroir. She meant to say "air vent" to her heart and not small window but she was too foreign and womanly to understand English.

"Objection!" said Edgeworth. "Sigh... I was afraid of this. This is conjecture, Wright. Just because he's evil doesn't mean he's lying. Or the killer!"

"Yes it does," said Phoenix.

"No it doesn't."

"Yes it does."

Meanwhile, Gant had recovered himself and was clapping so hard his gloves fell apart and his hands were bleeding. "Ohohoho, nice try, Wrighto, I saw Kristoph in a blue suit murdering his brother, clear as day!"

"Hmm... he IS wearing a blue suit," said the Judge sagely.

"Oh no! Gant is swaying the Judge's opinion again!" said Trucy.

Phoenix was unfazed.

"Nice try, Gant... you tried but failed. If you had really seen my client that day, the suit should have been PURPLE!"

"What?" said Kristoph. "Wright, do you really think I'd ever wear a garish suit of PURPLE?"

"Moreover, what does this have to do with anything?!" added Edgeworth.

"It has everything to do with everything," said Phoenix. "Your Honor, notice that the witness has red glasses. That tints everything he sees red. If he had TRULY seen my client that day, Gant would have thought he was wearing a PURPLE suit!" He threw out his arm and pointed his finger. "Because red plus blue make purple!"

Gant screamed like a banshee, raising his clenched fingers, and his wheelchair shot off sparks and bolts of lightning that singed and charred the wood panelling around him. The guards and bailiffs raised their arms and cowered in fear.

Phoenix said: "There's only one explanation for the blatant and unaccountable lies in your testimony, Damon Gant: the real murderer is YOU!"

Suddenly a harmonious, ethereal voice that the whole world had fallen in love with floated in and kissed their eardrums.

"Don't be so quick to jump to conclusions, Herr Wright."

Klavier appeared through the courtroom doors, draped in sunlight from the high arched windows behind the Judge's chair. The audience gasped, sharing shocked looks. There was a general rumble from the gallery.

Klavier was wearing a Jesus robe, and had long black straight hair, but his face was unmistakably his own. He crooked his finger, and a bird flew down and perched on it. Daryan came in behind him with the other members of the band in attendance.

"Is... is that?" Trucy covered her mouth.

He tilted his chin down and laughed, flipping his hair out of his eyes. "Yes, it is I. Klavier Gavin... back from the dead. Miss me, Herr fraulein?"

Kristoph made gurgling noises in the back of throat, looking like he might start frothing. Everyone was snapping off photos. Phoenix just watched, silent.

Beads of sweat rolled down Gant's forehead and he was grinding his teeth. "N-no... what kind of joke is this?" His eyes darted around the ceiling. "Where?! Where are the projectors? The wires? You're DEAD!" He pointed a shaking finger at him.

"Heh... you know what they say, herr members of the jury," said Klavier, addressing them with an impressive sweep of his robed arm. "Murder will out. Like a gay man coming out of the closet. And I think it's about time my murderer is dragged kicking and crying out of the closet like the homo he is."

"Objection!" Edgeworth slammed his fist down. "This man is an imposter! Klavier Gavin is dead!"

Klavier just lifted his finger and pecked the bird on the beak.

"Aha ha ha ha... no, I assure you, I'm the original Klavier Gavin." His face flickered and for a brief moment transformed into Iris Hawthorn's.

Chapter Text

We open with Iris lying inside a closed casket, her normally plain face marred with heavy makeup, her hands clasped over her bosom, eyes closed, like she's dead herself, wearing heavy eyeshadow and eyeliner.

There was a comfortable pillow under her head, and daisies in her clasped hands, Feenie's favorite flower, even though he didn't know what they were called.

Her cheeks were rosy red and she wore glimmering lip gloss. She was wearing a headset. Muffled sounds of a crowd came from outside of the casket, and the light from multi-colored strobe lights leaked through the cracks of the coffin lid.

Her face was forlorn, morose, resigned. She opened her eyes and stared up at the roof of the coffin. Her headset crackled and Ian told her to get ready. Outside of the coffin, she heard: "Ladies and gentleman! It's for a very special memorial show! Give it up... for the Gavinners!"

Daryan and the others broke into song. She closed her eyes again, and before her spirit left her, her mind went back to what had led her here.

. . . .

"Just sign here, Ms. Hawthorne."

She was in a fancy oak-paneled office. Ian was sitting across from her. He slid a contract across the desk.

It was on curling parchment paper, aged, with "contract" written in huge size at the top of the scroll, and then trailing off into tiny cursive script that was barely readable.

The walls were decked out with Keith Haring prints, framed records, and huge photographs of Ian with all his clients- the Gavinners, the Chipmunks, Lamiroir, Juan Corrida from his brief singing career.

"Come on." He smiled at her toothily. "This will be a help to your family, won't it? I'm happy to help."

It would. She stared down at the contract. Yes, it would. A billion dollar contract. They'd never have to worry about money again. No one in Kurain would. They'd be able to fix up the manor, to buy more old pots with dead spirits in them, to have every idle daydream come true, they could do anything.

All she had to do was sell her soul.

She lowered the pen to the line, her hard shaking.

"You know, Iris," he watched her out of the corner of his eye, stroking his framed full body portrait of Alvin the Chipmunk, "I've made a lot of stars, but I never put one back in the sky. You could do a lot. He was getting so big... almost as big as the Chipmunks. I could do a lot with a man like Klavier... but I need your help."

Channel Klavier Gavin forever. Every single day. Only allowed to expel his spirit when he was ready to sleep.

And why not? Warm, hateful tears spilled down her face. The one thing she truly wanted, the one thing she had always hoped for, she could never have. Phoenix was having a baby with HER. The man she waited for didn't want her. Her love and dedication wasn't wanted. They were mocked and rejected. Her heart was in a vise.

I hate you because I love you.

She remembered the painful scene from earlier that year, that had killed that tiny cherished hope of hers, her greatest and only treasure, the hope that he could one day love her.

She remembered their college days.

Too soon! Oh, but too soon! It didn't last long enough. Oh, god! Tears can feel like a release, these felt like a searing pain. How could those three months be her whole life, the most important thing? Why couldn't he love her? He was a cruel person. Yes, she hated him! She couldn't reproach him. These feelings were a betrayal of her true love, her true true love, and she relished, painfully, every second of self-destruction.

Yes... Good bye, Feenie. Good bye, Iris.

Good bye.

"I'll sign it," she said dully.

Ian looked up, knocking over an Alvin and the Chipmunks brand penis pump on a marble plinth. He was startled but recovered.

"Great! Great!"

She signed, with him practically salivating over her shoulder, gripping them with his claws, drooling. As she signed her name, the script momentarily flashed and turned to flame, and then the fireplace roared, sending out a hot wave of air that blew her hair back, forcing her to close her eyes, and tongues of flame shot out that licked and scorched the ceiling. The paper turned to ash and then materialized behind a glass case on the wall.

"Great!" said Ian, chuckling. "Just great. Welcome aboard, Ms. Hawthorne! Or should I say... person whose body will become a vessel for a dead rockstar?"

Chapter Text

Then, at the Sunshine Coliseum, Iris channeled Klavier.

He lay there in the coffin, confused, dazed, head empty, his own music blaring outside, but then Ian came on over his headset and told him what to do, and he immediately got into his element.

He popped out of the casket, splintering the top and sending wood fragments everywhere. He spread out his arms like a conquering champion as the crowd went wild, no one believing what they were seeing.

"Achtung! I am back!"

The casket was on top of a raised platform in the middle of the stage, surrounded by his favorite guitars and giant photographs of himself. It was covered with stacks of money and gifts from all his adoring fans, who were adoring him now, screaming and straining against each other to get closer to the stage and to their newly resurrected idol.

He moved his head slowly, tapping his foot to the music, surveying the crowd, the strobe lights tinting his face an array of colors in the darkness, lasers and smoke machines going off everywhere, the other Gavinners rocking out.

"Heh, welcome back, partner," grinned Daryan. He was shredding hot licks on his guitar, which was shaped like his hair.

"Daryan, what's going on here?" demanded Klavier, barely audible over the music and the crowd. "Why am I not dead?" He ran his hands up his slender, lithe new body and squeezed his tender breasts through the thin fabric of his acolyte uniform. He gave them a little shake. "And why are my titties so plump?"

"Dunno, man," said Daryan, lying on his back in a pile of money, sweat rolling down his forehead, "some funky business with Ian bringing you back from the dead with some spirit medium bitch." He looked up into his friend's eyes from the floor. "Glad you came back to life."

Klavier twisted his wrists around, examining his hands. He had never felt a sensation like this before, not even on his hardest drug trips with his teenage fans. An out of body experience, sure, but an in someone else's body experience?

Before he could fully freak out, his motorcycle was wheeled on stage by two bodacious babes with giant tits and leopard print thongs rapidly sinking into their buttcracks like quicksand.

"Motorcycle!" he exclaimed, jumping out of the casket and onto the stage. "Thanks, babes." He mounted his hog and revved it. One of the babes put a pair of sunglasses on him. The crowd went crazy.

"You like that?" he asked, holding a hand to his ear. They roared in response. "Oh, what's that? You want more? Okay, here you go."

He smiled complacently behind his shades and revved the engine even more cooly than before. Meanwhile, Ian watched all this from a glassed in room several stories above the stage.

"Looks like my little plan worked," he chuckled, watching Klavier do wheelies on the stage. The room was soundproof because he couldn't stand the Gavinner's music. His right-hand man, JD, brought him a laptop.

"Hmm..." Ian said, touching the screen. "Klavier Gavin stocks are up 5000% percent already. The green line is going up, almost like a rollercoaster. And this Hawke is planning to ride this coaster all the way to the top, and take wing. Now..." He cupped his chin and fell into deep musing. "How can I use this to further the Chipmunks and make them even bigger stars? Because that's all I care about. That's all I've ever cared about." He stroked his Alvin plushie. "The Chipmunks."

Back on stange, Klavier finished playing the motorcycle, one of his favorite instruments, and then he rode a custom guitar with skateboard wheels down a huge ramp, and did a cool kickflip off of it and then held the guitar behind his head midair and played a cool riff.

He returned the skatetar to its proper position under his feet and aced the landing to the cheers of the crowd.

"Achtung, baby! This is totally happenin'!"

Then then he rode his guitar like a surfboard over the cheering crowd, holding his arms out for balance. His skirt flew up and inverted and presented a perfect view of his hairless pussy.

"Surf's up, dudes! Ha ha!"

He skillfully used his toes to pick and fret the guitar, a technique he had been practicing, and played a cool guitar solo with his feet. He closed his eyes and bit his lower lip and rivulets of sweat ran down his face.

Then he crouched, throwing his arms out for balance, and tilted the neck of the guitar up and rode the wave of audience members holding him up, like he was surfing on waves.

Daryan surfed over next to him. Their guitars bobbed up and down in place like buoys. Klavier pointed off over the audience's heads into the dark recesses of the room.

"Dubiously aged babes with mondo jugs, short shorts, and no parental figures spotted at forward o'clock, Dar."

"Wow. You really are back."

They paddled over the girls and spit of them for a bit, and then eventually Klavier remembered he was dead. He grabbed Daryan by the jacket and yanked him towards his face.

"Dar, help me refresh my memory a bit here. My mind is a little hazy. I died, didn't I? Who killed me?"

Daryan drew his face back a little and gave him a look. "That no-good fruity brother of yours, of course. He's on trial right now."

"No he didn't, and I'm going to prove it."

Klavier shoved him away and made his way back to the stage and grabbed the mic.

"Thank you, everyone! You're great, but I've got to go. We may be called the Gavinners, but you're the REAL Gavinners. Seriously, we'd be nothing without our fans. We love you all!"

He raised his fist in triumph and the crowd clapped and cheered and cried. Then Klavier and the Gavinners rushed off stage, like young Greek heroes rushing into battle.

Chapter Text

The gallery murmured. Thalassa put motherly arms around the Chipmunks, and held them close. Lotta snapped off photos of the dead rock star. The Judge nodded his head wisely and with erudition.

"Ah, yes, spirit channeling. I've seen this kind of thing before. I believe in ghosts and specters so I have no choice but to believe this witness and accept their testimony into the court record."

"Wow, Pearly," leaning over to whisper to Pearl in the gallery, "so that's the big secret project Iris left the village for!"

"And that must be where we got the big check to fix the leaky roof!" she whispered back excitedly.

"Well, this is just perfect," said Phoenix. "Now you can tell everyone that Gant is the real killer and free your brother."

But Edgeworth objected. "Your Honor, there's no such thing as ghosts or spirits. This is a mockery of the legal system."

Klavier threw his head back, mouth open and eyes white, and his spirit was expelled, leaving Iris alone looking small and afraid and clutching herself.

"Err, I'm definitely a spirit medium, and I'm definitely channeling Klavier Gavin, I suppose," she said meekly, trying not to catch Phoenix's eye. Then she blushed and channeled Klavier again.

"That doesn't prove anything," said Edgeworth. "I had my eyes closed."

"Heh, stubborn as always, Edgeworth," said Phoenix. "Never could admit to ghosts gracefully, huh? If you took ghostprints surely you could determine this witness is a ghost."

The Judge nodded slowly and gravely, doing one of the three or four expression he was capable of making. "You did forget about ghostprints, Mr. Edgeworth." The Judge didn't realize this was a clever bluff and not actually a part of forensic science.

"Gurrunk!" said Edgeworth, leaning over his desk, his lips purple and vibrating.

Phoenix slammed his desk. "Edgeworth, stop making those gross dicksucking noises everytime you're flustered." He pointed. "It's gay."

Klavier stood with arms folded leaning against his bike with his ankles crossed and his band members backing him up. "Well, I think I've kept everyone in the dark long enough. It's about time we get this party started, ja?"

He uncrossed his ankles and strode forward. He slowly raised his finger.

"The person who killed me... was..."

A hushed silence fell over the courtroom. Trucy clenched her fists and and stood on her tiptoes, glaring at Gant. Gant was baring his teeth and dabbing at the back of his neck with a color-coded hankey.

"Was..."

Kristoph breathed heavily.

"...YOU!"

Klavier spun around and jabbed his finger an inch from Daryan's face. The gallery gasped, Daryan's mouth dropped, and he stumbled backwards and fell flailing his arms into the other band members.

"No!" Trucy cried, her hand over mouth. She shook her head a little, eyes wide and fearful. "He's a Gavinner! That's crazy!"

"Yeah, crazy," growled Daryan, being supported by Tommy Police and Dave Copper. "Your memory must be hazier than you thought... Klav."

Klavier shook his head, almost mournfully. "I wish I could believe that, Dar. From the moment I woke up on stage, I tried telling myself my memory was just wrong." He started snapping his fingers, a sad wistful smile on his lips. "Up till the moment I got here I got here I wasn't sure if I could bring myself to believe it. I tried telling myself that you weren't the one who killed me. But I had to face the music."

Daryan snarled and the Jury leaned their heads together and murmured amongst themselves, throwing concerned glances at the scene unfolding in the middle of the courtroom.

The Judge said: "Am... Am I understanding this correctly? Is the victim accusing Detective Crescend of being the real killer in this case?"

Klavier turned and smirked up at the Judge. "That's exactly what I'm saying, Herr Honor. My brother is as innocent as the baby Jesus." He gave his brother a thumbs up. Kristoph nodded, eyes vaguely wet.

Dave stood up. "Your Honor, if the undead spirit of Klavier Gavin says the defendant is innocent, well," he looked to his right and to his left, "I think that's good enough for the Jurist System!"

"Daddy, you did it!" squealed Trucy, clutching his arm. But Phoenix was uneasy. He had been for a while. Because Edgeworth looked completely unperturbed.

Daryan was laughing.

"Oh, man!" he laughed, hair sproinging around like a wishy-washy boner as his bandmates helped him up. "You're all just really eating up the crap he's feeding you, aren't you? I didn't do anything. He's just trying to protect his brother, even in death. I can understand that, but I never thought you'd stoop so low... 'partner.'"

"Cram it, Dar," said Klavier sternly. "Right as I felt the sword pierce my side, and just before my eyes closed forever, I saw a silhouette against the wall. Yours! It was unmistakable! I'd recognize that hairstyle anywhere!" He threw out his finger. "Achtung! You were in the prison that day!"

"Objection," said Edgeworth, breaking his silence. He was quiet and composed. "Daryan Crescend being the killer would be impossible. The moment he attempted to harm another human being, his ankle monitor would have injected him with a fast-acting poison that would have killed him within seconds."

Daryan smirked and stuck his leg out and wiggled it around. The metal band around it had a flashing red bulb that emitted a steady beeping. Everyone in the audience gawked.

Klavier frowned and ran a hair through his flowing black locks. "What the hell? Well, that's true, but..." He closed his eyes and shook his head viciously, like he was shaking off all his doubts. "No! I know what I saw! That image... it's imprinted in my mind! I saw Daryan!" Daryan just sneered.

"Huh... if that technology exists, why don't all criminals wear it?" wondered Phoenix.

"What country do you think this is, Wright?" asked Edgeworth. "We can't just put it on anyone without their consent. Daryan agreed to it as a condition of his parole. Should the courts force one on YOU to stop you from forging and bluffing?"

"That's different," said Wright.

Gant chuckled and said: "Ha ha... I guess in the end this was nothing more than a wild goose chase. Or a wild ghost chase." He clapped his hands and beamed. "I wonder who Wright-O will try to frame next? Watch out, Udgey, he might come for you next!"

"I don't understand..." said Trucy. "If it's not Gant, and it's not Daryan, who could it be?"

Klavier blurted out angrily: "I don't know, but it was NOT my brother who stabbed me. He was on the ground in front of me when I was stabbed. I'll die on that hill. He was unconscious."

"And as long as the victim himself says that, Your Honor," said Phoenix, "there's no way you can find my client guilty!"

"Objection!" cried Edgeworth. Kristoph glowered at him, his lips peeling back over his teeth. Gant frowned like the Angry Video Game Nerd, stopping the mysterious stroking motions he had been making under the blanket on his lap. Like he was thinking.

"What is it, Mr. Edgeworth?" asked the Judge.

"The defendant is clearly biased, Your Honor," said Edgeworth. "If the defense is going to use spirit channeling, it's only fair that the prosecution get to, too. We'll channel the other victim... the dead guard!"

The Judge called a short recess so Edgeworth could procure a spirit medium. Trucy looked up at her dad and said: "Chin up, daddy! Don't look so down." She favored him with her most demure smile, and put her head a little on one side. "Whatever happens, at least we'll know the truth. And the truth will set us free. That's what Martin Luther King Junior said. I learned that in school."

The truth... thought Phoenix, his lower lip falling tragically as he blinked at his daughter. Oh, sweetheart, the truth could make the bomb Kristoph Gavin put in your heart all those years ago explode you to smithereens. The truth... He swallowed painfully. The truth could set you dead.

His heart panged.

They held hands and walked out of the courtroom. Kristoph Gavin stared after them. There was something different and strange in his eyes. They were wide and burning and intense. And they kept staring a long time after they were gone.

Chapter Text

In one of the lobbies, Edgeworth gave Maya Fey a photograph of the dead guard and instructions to channel his spirit on the witness stand. She agreed eagerly, because this was finally a chance to restore the legitimacy of spirit channeling after her poor mother Misty was disgraced all those years ago.

"Now, if you'll excuse me." Edgeworth went into a special bathroom with a cravat sign and Detective Gumshoe stepped in front and stood guard. Later, Edgeworth would emerge from that room several pounds lighter.

Maya tucked the photograph into her purse and clicked her high heels down the hallway back to the courtroom. But on the way, a leather-gloved hand emerged from the shadows between two vending machines and reached into her purse...

The Judge delivered a curt rapt of his gavel.

"Court is resumed!" he said. "Does the prosecution have a spirit medium?"

"We do, Your Honor. I call Maya Fey to the to the stand."

She took her place at the witness stand and the guards help her set up some ceremonial candles and incense, and then they wheeled the giant magatama in by a rusty chain over their shoulders, grunting and straining. She wanted to make this a spectacle and drum up business for Kurain Village.

Suddenly Trucy pointed at the giant green magatama. "What's that?"

"That is the most treasured of all the Kurain Spirit Channeling artifacts," explained Maya. "It is the Big Magatama. Just being in the same room as it increases spirit channeling ability over tenfold. Perhaps even elevenfold."

"Can I play with it?"

"No," said Maya firmly. "It is a precious artifact to be put on the wall and looked at, not to be touched and played with like a mere toy."

"Wow I wasn't going to break it or anything."

Pearl raised a finger and chimed in. "It is said that the Big Magatama contains the soul of Mystic Arnie, the inventor of spirit channeling."

"Mystic Arnie?" repeated Phoenix Wright. "I thought Mystic Ami invented spirit channeling."

Maya and Pearl gasped! Pearl jumped down from the gallery like a monkey and slapped him across the face hard enough to leave a bloody handprint.

"Ow," said Phoenix. Blood dripped through his fingers. "Why?"

"Um, because what you just said was really offensive to our religion? Duh?" said Maya. "I mean, you really have to try to be that offensive. I'm pretty sure you did it on purpose?"

"Hey, how was I supposed to know about all this spirit channeling mumbo jumbo?"

Maya's eyes shined with hurt. "Well, maybe during all our years of friendship and investigating you could have stopped being a rich fancy-pants lawyer for two seconds and learned about our culture."

"Ugh, I don't understand any of this," said Klavier Gavin, running a hand through his hair. "Jack off arm extendo!"

Daryan Robocress's arm, which most closely resembled an old dryer duct with a vending machine claw attached to the end, stretched out and extended across the room up Klavier's skirt. The robot felt around under there for a while, but there was a problem- Klavier Gavin didn't hand a penis anymore!

"Well, this is just great," snapped Klavier. "How am I supposed to relieve stress now that I'm cockless?"

"I use a stress ball," said Edgeworth. "Now, if you'll kindly hold your tongue, we have a channeling to get to."

Maya called for quiet, and a hush fell over the audience. She took the photograph out of her purse and put it on the stand. She inclined her head, she put her hands together, the lights were dimmed, and she began the channeling.

"This is just like a magic show!" Trucy whispered from the darkness at the defense bench. "I'm excited."

A supernatural wind blew through the courtroom, gently at first, rustling people's clothes, and then more violently, almost blowing Phoenix's spikes off, and sending the Judge's gavel flying. Then it died down as suddenly as it began.

"Where... where am I?" came a man's voice from the witness stand. The lights came back on.

"You're dead now and you're in a court of law," said Edgeworth. "We would like to ask you a few questions regarding your death... or should I say, murder?"

"If that's all right," added the Judge kindly.

The man swallowed, looking around nervously and blinking. He had a brown, craggy tired face and heavy bags under his eyes. He held out his arms and looked at his strange garments.

"Well.. all right, I suppose. I think I understand what's happening."

"Who killed you?" Edgeworth asked, not quite pointblank, but close enough to leave powerburns.

"That's easy," the man said.

The court held its breath.

"Kristoph Gavin."

The gallery went crazy, and Phoenix banged his head against his desk and held it there, squeezing his temples. The Judge called for order.

"Preposterous horseradish!" cried Kristoph Gavin, face contorted in rage. His teeth were bared and his lips were twitching.

"I agree!" cried Klavier, extending his index finger. "Lies! That's not what happened at all! What the fuck!"

"Hmph..." Edgeworth smirked. "How about we give our witness a chance to testify? Oh, unless Wright here has any objections? No? Good."

The guard began his testimony.

"My name is Guard Goodman. Yes, I am the brother of Bruce Goodman. After he became a detective and died, I decided to become a prison guard so I could make sure criminals couldn't hurt people anymore. Anyway, I... I don't know how much time has passed, but it was the day Kristoph Gavin was going to be executed. I escorted his brother to his cell and went inside with them. I locked the cell. They got into a bizarre argument only Gavins or maybe Germans could understand, and they started stripping each other, or at least it seemed like that to me, and then Kristoph attacked Prosecutor Gavin."

He took a deep wavering breath, closed his eyes, steadied himself, and continued.

"I took a step forward to try to restrain Kristoph, but he grabbed the katana off Klavier and ran it through him. Next he turned on me, grinning in a fairly evil way, and stabbed me in the neck before I could do anything. All I remember is struggling to breathe, and gargling blood, and then the lights turning off... and that's all I remember... till now."

Klavier took a step forward the witness stand holding a guitar by the neck over his shoulder like a baseball bat. Guards gently restrained him and attempted to sooth him.

"Why! Why are you lying!" cried Klavier, eyes red and burning and wet. "Why would you say those things? I understand not!"

The guard's eyes, Maya's eyes, were dull. "Because that's what I saw, Prosecutor Gavin. Don't you remember?"

Klavier lowered the guitar, and looked around abstractedly, like he didn't know where he was. "I don't know... I don't..." He started and shook his head and glared at the guard. "But I know you're lying. My brother couldn't do that! We suckled wolf tits together in the woods and he gave me his share sometimes because I was younger and weaker! He wouldn't kill me!"

"People change, Gavin," said Edgeworth. He saw that the jurors were on his side. "No one ever thought the defendant would forge evidence, or commit murder. But he did." He smirked and took a bow. "And, evidently, he has done so again."

"Objection!" cried Phoenix. "But the witness's entire testimony completely contradicts the victim's testimony!"

"Objection!" rejoined Edgeworth. "Yes, but the witness has no reason to lie, while the victim does, and all the evidence points towards the defendant! Give it up, Wright! You lose."

Lose? And lose Trucy, too? Phoenix couldn't let that happen. He looked down into those innocent eyes of hers, and then at her chest, and it was almost like he had x-ray vision and could see through both her clothes and her skin and see the bomb inside her heart.

He imagined how her death would affect Thalassa. He imagined her funeral. He imagined what was left of her lying in a messy burnt-up heap with her hat on top in the casket. He imagined finding little bits and pieces of her all over the courtroom years in the future. Because he had no doubt that Kristoph would detonate it the minute the Judge delivered the verdict. Because that's the kind of man Kristoph Gavin was. He was cold and calculating and merciless... like a robot.

Wait a minute...

The edges of his vision went blurry.

...What if?

"Well!" said the Judge, with an air of finality. "I believe it's time for the jurors to deliberate."

"Hold it!" cried Phoenix. "Your Honor, wait!"

"What now, Mr. Wright?"

"Klavier Gavin claims he saw a silhouette on the wall right before he died. That has yet to be explained! The jury couldn't possibly deliver a verdict yet!"

"Objection!" said Edgeworth. "Wright, please. I've already told you, that shadow couldn't have been Daryan Crescend."

"That's right..." said Trucy. She held up a picture of the ankle monitor from the court record in the upper-right corner of Phoenix's vision. "The ankle monitor!"

Phoenix slammed his desk. "Wait a minute, Edgeworth. I didn't say I thought that the shadow belonged to Daryan Crescend." He put his hands on his hips and smirked. "I just said, it has yet to be explained."

"Huh? Just what are you driving at now?"

"Simple, Edgeworth. The shadow belonged to the true murderer. Someone who has stupid hair that looks like Daryan Crescend's. But it's not someone. It's something. The true killer... is Daryan Cresbot!"

The gallery gasped, Klavier's mouth fell open, and the robot Daryan shot off sparks and spun its arms around. Phoenix caught one of them and yanked it, walking backwards across the courtroom and extending it like a tape measure.

"As you can see, the robot's head is shaped liked Detective Crescend's hair, so it would cast a similar shadow against the wall..." He breathed heavily, pulling the arm out even further, everyone watching him in amazement. "And unlike the real Daryan, he doesn't have an ankle monitor, so he could have committed the murder!" He pulled the arm behind and around the witness stand, slowly, making the Guard Goodman scowl. "...And he could use his extending arm to to reach through the bars and grab the katana with his claw! That's how the door stayed locked!"

He walked backwards, hunched over, straining, and then finally let go of the arm. It whipped around and retracted into the robot.

The court was silent. Then Klavier Gavin interjected.

"What?! My little robot buddy?" He flared his nostrils and gestured widely, looking everywhere. "That's... that's..." He shook his head. "You've got to be shitting me here, Herr Wright!"

"Oh, so you believe in the robot, but not me?" scowled Daryan, folding his arms.

Edgeworth slammed his desk. "Besides, there's no proof! That is the most far-fetched theory I've ever heard! There's no way you could possibly prove that."

Klavier thinned his lips and brushed his hair out of his face, staring at the floor. He looked up at his brother. He turned to Dave Copper and whispered something. Dave nodded and handed him a remote control. Klavier straightened up and addressed the court.

"Actually... there is a way. To confirm or deny it, I mean. Your Honor? Your permission?"

Klavier pointed the remote at the robotic version of Daryan and pressed the button. Purple light shot out of the attenta and then a hologram projected out of Darbot's eyes.

Klavier explained that the robot's camera was constantly recording. He adjusted some dials and knobs on the remote and then hit a button, and the hologram changed from a video recording of their last concert to the day of Klavier's murder.

The video showed Daryan Cresbot using his robothrusters after he and Klavier left the broom closet to fly over the city and the desert to the prison. The video showed his arm extending into the cell and killing both the guard and Klavier Gavin with the katana.

Damon Gant screamed and swung his arms, bowling over the guards flanking his chair. Darbot Robocres's evil programming wore off, and, overcome with despair over having killed the only one who was ever kind to him, used his extendo arm to grab a policeman's service weapon and hold it to his head. He pulled back the hammer with a click.

"Good lord!" said the Judge. Women screamed and people got up from their seats. Klavier threw out an arm, fingertips straining towards the robot.

"Darbot! No!" he cried. "Don't!"

Oil leaked from behind his lightbulb eye sockets. The claw tightened on the trigger. Trucy cried out and Phoenix pulled her towards him and held her eyes against his chest.

"Someone restrain that robot at once!" ordered Edgeworth.

But it was too late.

"Goodbye... master..."

A shot rang out.

Phoenix winced, closing his eyes hard. There were a few more screams.

"No..."

Klavier shambled over to dead robot, barely lifting his feet off the ground, arms limp at his side, and fell to his knees, skirt bunching up over his thighs.

"No... no, I don't understand. Who will write all my music for me? Who will jack me off with a cold inhuman touch?"

He stroked its smoking ruined chassis, its arms strewn limply on the floor in a pool of oil and rusty cogs, broken, broken forever.

Tears streamed down Klavier's face, real emotion on display. "God damn it! God DAMN it!" He sobbed nakedly.

"You know I'm always there for you, Klavier." Daryan laid a hand on his shoulder. Klavier shook him off viciously.

"Cram it, Daryan! I'm talking to a dead robotic version of you!"

The Judge said: "Oh my... This is the first time a robot has committed suicide in my courtroom. But I'll allow it. One thing is certain: that video completely exonerates Kristoph Gavin! I'm... I'm shocked."

"You did it, daddy!" whispered Trucy. But Phoenix shook his head.

"Not quite, Truce. This trial isn't over yet. Isn't that right, Edgeworth?"

Edgeworth nodded, returning his steely gaze. "That's right, Wright. Because if Kristoph is innocent, and the murder was committed by a robot, then that leaves us with an obvious, concerning question. Namely... why did the spirit of the guard lie in his testimony?"

The guard Maya was channeling chuckled softly. His head was tilted forward and his eyes obscured in shadow underneath his bangs. His lips were parted and his teeth were showing in a twisted semblance of a smile.

"That's an easy one there, Edgeworth," said Phoenix. "I thought about it, and there's only one explanation. The spirit Maya Fey is channeling right now... is not Guard Goodman!"

Chapter Text

There was a pregnant silence in the courtroom as Edgeworth examined the photograph on the witness stand.

"It's as I suspected," said Edgeworth, finally. He pinched the corner of the photograph between his fingers and held it over his shoulder. "While the man in this photo bears a striking resemblance to the deceased Guard Goodman, this is NOT the photograph I gave to the spirit medium!"

"And what does that mean, Mr. Edgeworth?" asked the Judge.

"It means, Your Honor, that at some point the photograph I gave to Maya Fey was switched with another, so she would unknowingly channel the person in this picture instead of Guard Goodman."

The spirit professing to be Guard Goodman just stared ahead, his face in profile to Edgeworth, seemingly oblivious to Edgeworth's intent gaze, which never wavered.

"Err, and what does that also mean, Mr. Edgeworth?" asked the Judge, fiddling with his gavel.

"It means, Your Honor, that this witness is an imposter impersonating Guard Goodman. A phony!"

There was a pregnant silence in the courtroom. Suddenly "Guard Goodman" laughed.

"Not bad." He clapped sardonically. "You got me. But that's all right. It doesn't make a difference anymore. I'll tell you everything. My real name..."

A pause while he looked right and left, savoring the effect he produced. Phoenix clenched his teeth and set his jaw hard. Trucy squeezed his hand.

"...Is Carlad Accidentguy."

Klavier, covered in robot oil and being comforted by his band mates, almost fell off his seat. "W-What?!" His eyes bulged.

"Carlad?!" cried Phoenix. "But according to your Facebook you were just missing, not dead! And you look nothing like him!"

"That was all part of the plan," explained Carlad, fingers interlaced behind the small of his back. "To pretend not to be dead while actually being dead. You see, I was offered millions of dollars to get facial reconstruction surgery to look like Guard Goodman and then kill myself."

Gant shook the hook end of a cane angrily towards Carlad. "No! Quiet, son! Don't tell them about that! Hush!"

But Carlad just shook his head. "No, dad, our deal is over. Or should I say, Cardad Pappagetti? Because, you see, Damon Gant is my father and the true mastermind behind this crime. But when he got wind of the plan to revive Klavier, he hatched the plan for me to change my face and then kill myself." He held out the palm of his hand and flexed his fingers idly, almost bored, as Gant darted his eyes around. "They coached me exactly on what to say. Gant wanted this as insurance, so if anyone tried to channel the guard, they would channel me looking exactly like the guard instead. And then, of course, I could make sure Kristoph still took the fall for the murder."

Gant raised his fists over his head and roared. "You rotten son! You're no son of mine!" He was. "I'll kill you! I'll kill you dead! Just like I killed Klavier and Goodman with a robot! You traitor!"

Suddenly he realized what he was saying, and clasped his hands together and looked up at the Judge, simpering. "Ah, just ignore that little outburst there, Udgey. I didn't mean anything by it. Obviously I'm not the real killer."

"Objection!" cried Phoenix. "But you just said you're the real killer!"

"Ohohoho, nice try, Wrightisimo, but you have no proof of that."

Just then the chaplain started awake in his armchair, jerking his shoulders, his eyes shooting open.

"Damon Gant is the true mastermind behind this crime! God and I saw him!"

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" screamed Gant, knowing he was defeated by this decisive eyewitness testimony, and a clown car's worth of guards leapt on him.

Carlad laughed as the Judge restored order and quieted down the gallery. "Sorry, father, but you were a crappy dad. I don't mind screwing you over before I go."

"But why, Carlad?" asked Phoenix. "Why would you do all this? Killing yourself for a million dollars? Impersonating another man's ghost? Why?"

"Two reasons. The first was to get revenge on the man who crippled me... Klavier Gavin. The second was so I could be sure my family was well provided for when I was gone. As for why the sleep spell we put on the guard wore off, who can say? Perhaps... it was fate. All I know... I've gone beyond where you or the Gavins can hurt me. I don't care anymore. To my satisfaction... I've won."

He threw back his head and laughed, holding his forehead, and his spirit slowly faded away, the laugh still lingering in the air as the harsh, cruel features of Carlad Accidentguy were replaced with Maya's. Her eyes were closed, and she was physically and spiritually evenerated. Her knees buckled and she was supported by the guards.

"Well..." began the Judge, head bowed in thought. "This has been quite the turn of events."

"You know, I still don't think I really fully understand what happened," said Trucy. "So Carlad is Gant's son?"

But just then Gant screamed and overpowered the guards, propelling his wheelchair forward and taking a gun out of his underwear. Screams erupted from the gallery. He leveled the shaking gun at Klavier, his eyes red and burning, his teeth bared like an animal. Klavier scuttled backwards in his seat, cowering and trying to protect every part of his body at once.

"Even being a ghost is too good for you, Klavier!" growled Gant. "Stay dead this time!"

Kristoph screamed and lurched toward his brother, but his chains held him in place. Gant tried to shoot Iris channeling Klavier, but Daryan threw himself in front of the bullet. It struck him in the chest and he flew backwards.

"No!" cried Gant, lowering the barrel, his eyebrows jumping up. "My other son!"

"Son?!" cried everyone.

Meanwhile, Daryan was lying on his back in a mixture of pooling blood and robot oil, his hair almost touching the dead's robot. He was clutching his chest and moaning, rolling his head side-to-side, blood seeping through his fingers.

"Dar-dar!" cried Klavier in anguish, getting out of his seat and sprinting towards his dying friend, pumping his arms and legs, ignoging Gant and the gun.

Before Gant could do any more harm, Edgeworth did a flying crane kick over his desk and disarmed Gant with cool karate moves and put the gun back in Gant's pocket.

"Damn you, Edgeworth!" cried Gant. He reached into his pocket for the gun but it was gone. "W-wha...?"

Edgeworth smirked. "Looking for this?" Edgeworth reached into Damon Gant's other pocket and pulled out the gun.

"B-But how...?"

"Simple," said Edgeworth. "I suspected you might make a foolish attempt to kill me, so I put the gun back IN THE OTHER POCKET!"

"DAMN YOU EDGEWORTH!"

Meanwhile, Klavier was cradling the dying Daryan's head in his lap, sobbing, his chest hitching. "Don't die, Daryan," pleaded Klavier. "Please don't die. Please."

Suddenly, Daryan Cresbot's lightbulb eyes blinked on and off a few more times, and then emitted one last hologram. Klavier watched in horror as the hologram showed recordings of Daryan telling Gant about Iris channeling Klavier, kneeling down in front of Darbot and using a screwdriver and a wrench to reprogram him to kill Klavier, and finally Daryan paying Carlad millions of dollars to change his face and then kill himself.

The hologram turned to static and disappeared, and then Daryan Cresbot's lightbulb eyes shattered and sent tiny bits of glass flying everywhere. Klavier shook his head in disbelief, looking down at his dying friend.

No one in the court could believe what they had just seen.

"Daryan... why?" asked Klavier. He was agonized, gesturing with hands, beseeching, desperation in every line of his face. "Why would you go along with the plots of this... this madman!"

"He's... he's my father..."

"Is this true?" asked Edgeworth.

Gant looked sad. "It's possible... I've had sex with so many men. It's possible that jizzem fell out of one of their assholes and into a vagina somehow."

He shook his head long and mournfully, the scales of justice weighing heavily on his soul.

"Heh..." laughed Daryan from Klavier's lap, squinting one eye up. "Dad... I was the little sperm that could, wasn't I?" He coughed up blood.

Klavier grew alarmed. "Daryan!"

"It's okay, Klav. I deserve this. For everything I've done."

Klavier shook his head viciously. "No, Daryan, no! Don't say that, damn you!"

Trucy said: "Someone help him! Why won't anyone help him?"

Medical professionals the Judge has summoned with a special button on his chair were trying, but they kept slipping on the blood and oil and falling down. More medics with more stretchers came to help the ones who had fallen but the same thing kept happening.

Daryan began to explain how he found out Gant was his father, his chest rising and falling painfully: "We met at criminal counselling... We had to go through that before we could get a chance at parole. We found out we were related by DNA testing results of our semen samples."

Daryan explained how he and Gant happened to be making paper mache crafts at the same table when one of their counselors came over, exasperated and pushing his nerdy glasses up.

"All right, guys, who came in the Mia Fey sex doll?" he had sighed. "C'mon."

Gant had given him a stern look over his glasses. "I only did it because I was denied man ass."

"Yeah," said Daryan. "And I did it for the same reason. I mean, I'm straight. Just because my hair is shaped like a man's penis doesn't mean Klavier sucks on it; quite the contrary."

You see, the doll had been left there on a table as a test to see if they had been rehabilitated. They both failed.

The counselor blinked and stared. "What? You mean, you both came in it?" He rubbed the stubble on his chin with his palm and looked abstracted. "But... we only found semen from one person..."

For, you see, they put the semen samples under a microscope, and the sperm looked very similar, most identical. This is how Gant and Detective Crescend found out they were related. Afterwards Gant's other son Carlad joined up with them and they helped Gant with his plan for revenge against Klavier.

"But why, Daryan?" sobbed Klavier, his face contorted, sobbing. "Why would you do that to me? To the band, to our fans, to yourself? Why? Just because he was your dad?"

"That's the thing... I don't know. I wish I did." His breathing was shallow and rapid. He was losing blood fast. He gave Klavier a tiny smile. "I... I liked rocking out with you, Klavier. I'm glad I got to do it one last time."

He closed his eyes and died.

Chapter Text

"Daryan! No! No, no, no!"

Klavier let out an anguished wail, and then he pulled down Daryan's pants and started sucking on his unresponsive penis.

"C'mon, c'mon," he panted, coming up for air, "come for me, damnit!" He lowered his head and went back to gagging on Daryan's cock. He worked the shaft, played with the balls, fellating the dead rockstar desperately, trying to bring him to climax, but it was no use, no use.

Edgeworth laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. "He's gone, Klavier."

Klavier buried his face in Daryan's bloodsoaked chest and let out short, bitter sobs, beating his fist impotently against the floor. Everyone watched in pity as he cried over his lost friend. Then he looked up viciously, mascara running down his face.

"Why, you madman? Why did you do all this?"

Gant gave him a calloused smile, with wary eyes, but funny eyebrows.

He said: "Quite simple, Klavier, my boy. Ohohohoho. I wanted both of you dead. Brothers to brothers, dust to dust. You crippled me, trapped me in this wheelchair hell, and you did the same to Carlad Accidentguy."

Klavier pushed himself up into a kneeling position and glared at Gant from under a stormy brow. He narrowed his eyes and ground his teeth as Gant recounted his story.

It was many years ago. Klavier was at the prison, that same fateful prison, to prepare for an execution.

"Mr. Klavier Gavin! Sir! You can't ride your motorcycle in here!"

A guard waved his arms in front of Klavier's motorcycle, but then dived out of the way at the last second.

Klavier held a finger to his earpiece. "What? Sorry, I can't hear you. I have an earpiece in my left ear and I'm ignoring you with the right ear."

"Sir-"

He turned up his motorcycle to drown out the guard, and then continued roaring down the aisles of the cellblock, his cool shades reflecting the bars and cellmates passing by in a blur on either side.

"Ja, of course I can see you later, fraulein," he was saying into the headset. "I'm just prepping for an execution today, no biggie. What are you wearing? Jeggings?" He sipped on a slushie with one hand and steered around a corner with the other. "Pull your pants down and put that ass on the phone. I want to hear you fart."

He was too distracted to notice a morose prisoner with downturned face being escorted to his cell. Gant looked up as the roar of the motorcycle grew closer. He screamed.

Klavier pulled back into a wheelie at the last second, like a frightened horse rearing back, shades askew on his face, his headset falling off and emitting wet farting and shitting sounds as it spun to the floor. The shadow of the front wheel fell over Gant's terrified face.

Then, his shattered spectacles on the floor.

Then, his broken body lying in a heap.

Now, Gant looking ahead stonily, looking past Klavier and everyone else in the courtroom.

"You all used me... as an experiment. This chair? It's technically a part of me. It's been grafted onto my body, part of my skeleton, even my DNA."

He clenched and unclenched his hands, looking down at them, almost overcome with horror, his jaw trembling.

"Trapped... trapped forever! A victim, yes, a victim merely! A man, or a wheelchair? What was I? The line was blurred."

He held his face in his hands, his entire body shaking in his chair, and then lifted his head slowly, looking around at members of the audience with imploring eyes.

"Man? Wheelchair? Man?"

Klavier was silent. He continued to stare at Gant, his eyes smouldering, clenching a shaking fist and digging his nails into his palm. Phoenix held Trucy close, because she was scared of the bald man in the wheelchair.

"Is this all true?" asked the Judge.

"Yes..." answered Edgeworth, eyes closed. "It was part of an experiment to create a race of wheelchaired powered super soldiers for the war effort who are capable of scaling any terrain, who never grow tired, weary, or disobedient. The perfect soldier."

Gant explained to the court how this was all done against his will. He never wanted to be a wheelchair. He grew disobedient, lashing out at the scientists who visited his cell to monitor his progress, and refused to to subject himself to further testing or to take his wheelchair biofusion injections and vitamins.

He was punished.

"I was denied conjugal visits," said Damon Gant. "My wife died alone, unfucked. I... I..." His eyes shimmered with tears. "I loved that woman."

Edgeworth looked at him coldly, unmoved. "Love is not for you. That is lost to you as your punishment. You make a mistake in your thinking. You will pay, and you are you paying for your crimes. Your past happiness will be your future tortures. A criminal like you can't change, and what's more, we don't want you to change. Some crimes can't be forgiven."

"Then I choose death."

"You will die when authorized."

The Judge rapped his gavel and guards moved in on Gant, converging on him with him with handcuffs and stun guns and whips.

But then something happened.

Gant tilted his head forward, glaring with hatred. "Wheelchair powers activate."

A man stood up in the gallery and pointed. "He's activating wheelchair mode!" Scattered screams.

He began to transform. The wheels of his chair became bigger, and spikes shot out of the rims, and panels slid open and flipped over all over his chair, revealing whirring drills and tiny flamethrowers. His scalp peeled back to reveal a shiny metal skull, and a head mounted targeting scope flipped down over one of his eyes. Electrical cables like tentacles ripped through his flesh and the fabric of his clothes, shooting off sparks and whipping around everywhere, knocking the guards away.

"Do you like me?" he screamed, the head mounted laser scope firing off randomly and leaving singe marks on the wooden paneling, sending people fleeing and screaming from the courtroom. "Do you like what your so-called justice system has created? Damn you all to hell!"

Klaiver somersaulted out the way just as one the electrified whips came crashing down. It thudded and rebounded and left a deep impression in the floor. Klavier looked over his shoulder, panting, and then cartwheeled away just as gant used another of his prehensile electrical whips to fling Daryan's corpse at him.

"Mein gott!" said Klavier, hiding behind the witness stand as Daryan sailed through the air overhead, his limp penis flopping around. "This is almost crazier than a Gavinners concert!"

Meanwhile Edgeworth and Dave were waving their arms and directing people to safety and out the doors. Guards fired off rounds, but they were all deflected by the flailing whips or ricocheted against the chair's armor. Gant fired off a laser from his scope and turned a guard's head to ash.

Phoenix hooked his arms under Trucy's armpits and pulled her up from behind the defense desk, where she was cowering. "C'mon! We need to get you and your mom out of here."

"Ohohohoho, no escape-o, Wright-o!"

Gant ripped a Greek column out of the wall and threw it against the main courtroom doors, blocking access and crushing a handful of people trying to escape. Then he held up a hand, and a gun from a guard's corpse flew across the room to his hand witch a woosh,

Gant's eyes glowed and he used his telekinesis to drag Trucy Wright from across the room and onto his lap. She screeched and banged her knees against the top of the defense bench as that inexorable force emanating from Damon Gant carried her across the room.

The Judge blinked. "Gant... Gant is magic?"

"No..." said Edgeworth tensely. "The experimental wheelchair biofusion process must have given him latent telekinetic powers."

Gant pressed the cold muzzle of the gun against Trucy's temple. She whimpered.

"No!" screeched Thalassa in agony from the gallery, throwing out her arms, reaching out desperately. She almost fell over the railing, but Larry and Apollo pulled her back.

Phoenix vaulted across desk but was hit by one of the flailing electrical eel arms and sent flying backwards into the wall, leaving a Phoenix-Wright shaped hole. He slumped to the floor and moaned. His head rolled onto his shoulder.

"Mommy! Daddy! Help me!" she cried, tears shimmering in her eyes. Thalassa was in hysterics, and Apollo felt an icy dagger pierce his heart. He realized how much he cared about Trucy and Thalassa, even though he hated Mr. Wright, and realized just how worried he was. It almost shocked him. He realized he was not just a passive actor in his own story anymore. He had... ties. And not just the ones around his neck. The Wright Anything Agency was not the orphanage, and these people were definitely his family.

Suddenly Thalassa's veil flew out from under her wide, tortured eyes and sailed downard and landed in a wrinkled heap in a pool of robot oil. Just then apollo noticed a photograph of her and a chipmunk woman fall out of her pocket. Apollo's eyebrows curved upward poignantly. What?

Trucy was crying.

"Shut up, you little bitch!" snarled Gant, pressing the gun harder against her temple. She whined. "Nobody move or I'll blow her head off! I'm making my way to the roof, where I'll be commandeering Mr. Edgewordo here's personal helicopter. That should take me to the moon quite nicely." He had gone completely mad.

Thalassa screamed and dug her fingernails into her cheeks. Klavier said: "The moon? Achtung, the oxygen levels there, they are too low to support life!"

Gant's wheelchair slowly made its way across the room toward the doors, Trucy in tow. Edgeworth spoke something into a walkie, and then Gumshoe appeared on an opera balcony with a rocket launcher mounted on his shoulder.

"Not on my watch, you sick fucking cripple," said Gumshoe, taking aim.

Other detectives like Badd and Emma were there with him.

"You have to take the shot, Gumshoe," said Emma, her ass fat and fuckable from eating so many snackoos. "You're the only one with rocket launcher training."

Gumshoe flipped a switch on the side, and a laser-guided scope turned on. He squinted one eye and took careful aim.

"Gotta make this just right," he muttered, tongue peeking out.

Fire! The rocket whistled and spun obliquely downward from the balcony, leaving a thick smoke trail. It blew up Gant, in just the right way that his intestines flew everywhere and splatted against the walls. The audience was drenched with his blood, and Trucy was blown away and rolled across across the floor and banged her back hard against the prosecution desk.

"Nice... shot..." said Badd, clapping Gumshoe on the back as the audience cheered and the police took control of the situation. "This is why... we wear the badge."

But it wasn't quite over yet. Gant's brain survived the attack, and tried to squirm away from the wreckage of the wheelchair to a mousehole in the wall, squelching and leaving behind a trail of brain juice.

"Don't let him get away, Phoenix!" said Alvin the Chipmunk, pointing. "Get him!" Phoenix, still slumped up against the wall, looked up, smiled, nodded, gave Alvin a thumbs up, and sprung into action.

He dived across the room and got Gant's brain in a headlock, and started punching it and driving his knee into as it squeaked. He jumped up and tossed it with a flick of his wrist. It landed on the glinting tip of the katana, wielded by none other than Miles Edgeworth.

"Hmph..." smirked Edgeworth, as the brain slid slowly down the blade to the hilt, letting out little high-pitched screams of agony. Then it was still, and its color faded from a healthy pink to a dull and clammy grey. "Case closed."

Edgeworth put the brain into a birdcage and it was taken away to be filed as evidence and prosecuted.

"Nice work, partner," said Edgeworth. He and Wright clasped hands with a resounding clap and squeezed, their muscles bulging through their suits.

"Hell yeah, brother."

Everyone still left alive in the courtroom clapped as the Judge gave orders and as detectives and the police took charge. Thalassa and Apollo ran over to help Trucy up, and the Chipmunks, Dave, Larry, Machi, Klavier, and all their other friends joined them.

"Oh, my dear daughter, I thought I had lost you forever," Thalassa sobbed, holding her daughter's head to her chest and wetting her hair with her tears. "I'm never letting you co-counsel ever again."

"It's all right, mom," said Trucy, voice muffled. "I'm fine. Everything's okay now."

It seems that everyone had forgotten about Kristoph Gavin.

Chapter Text

Kristoph Gavin stood patiently awaiting his verdict, seemingly unperturbed by the piles of dead bodies and mangled wheelchair parts that the police were busy recovering from the wreckage of the courthouse.

"Well!" said the Judge. "I almost forgot why we were all here today. We got a bit sidetracked, didn't we? It seems like a mere formality at this point, but the Jury may now deliver its verdict!"

Finally, one by one, the jurors pressed the Not Guilty buttons.

Phoenix closed his eyes and let his entire body relax, leaning against the wall. A mammoth weight seemed to slide off his shoulders. He breathed deeply through his nose. Finally... it was all over. Trucy was safe.

The Judge slammed the "APPROVE VERDICT" button with his gavel.

"NOT GUILTY!"

Everyone left in the courtroom clapped and cheered! Confetti and glittery tinsel rained down from the ceiling! The Chipmunks clambered down from the gallery and bounced around and hung onto Phoenix, while Dave looked on with folded arms and laughed.

However, though Kristoph was innocent of this crime, he was still guilty of all his previous crimes, and had to go back to prison to await execution.

"Well, everyone," he began, shaking confetti off his shoulders, "I wish I could stay, but it's time for me to bid you all farewell and take my leave now. Or as you'd say, Klavier, auf wiedersehen."

Kristoph turned to Phoenix.

"Good job, Wright... you did just as well as I expected you to. Congratulations! You're no slouch in the courtroom... or the bedroom, so I've heard. A little birdie that requested your 'services' during your disbarment told me so. Oh, but am I embarrassing you? Apologies!"

"What?" said Thalassa, watching all this on a monitor mounted in the corner of the ceiling in the defense lobby. She was sitting on the edge of Trucy's cot, where the young woman was eating ice cream and being attended to by medics.

"You have to go to jail now, Kristoph," said Phoenix Wright. Alvin was sitting on his shoulder. "It's the law."

"No." Kristoph beamed. "How about that?"

He turned his head to judge, bangs bouncing.

"You see, I no longer recognize the legitimacy of you, 'Your Honor', or the court, or indeed, any higher power than my own. I only came back to clear this whole misunderstanding up before I begin the next great stage of my life. The journey isn't over. The summit... has not yet been reached. What comes next will completely eclipse everything that came before, and cast its shadow on everything that comes after, long after I'm gone."

"You're crazy!" cried Phoenix. "What the heck are you talking about?!"

"That's what I expected an inferior cockroach in a two dollar suit made of felt with a paper mache tie smeared in strawberry applesauce to say. My mind resides in a lofty tower, while yours lives in the sewers." His lips twitched and his face distorted. "The Jurist system? You disgust me!"

Phoenix shook his head. "You still don't get it, do you, Gavin?"

"What?"

"If it weren't for the Jurist system, if we only relied on the evidence, on rigid law and procedure... you'd have been found guilty. It's only thanks to Dave's hesitation, and the Judge's new enlightened ideas, that a verdict wasn't delivered earlier!"

"Duly noted, Wright. You want the law to be fragile and haphazard and vacillating, and to rely on bluffs and tricks and nebulous 'feelings.' I want no part of it. The law must be absolute!"

"I've had just about enough of you and your backtalk," said Phoenix. "Get your dainty ass back to jail right now. I'd beat you to within an inch of your life I could."

"That's the first respectable thing you've said to me this whole time, Wright. Unfortunately, that's not going to happen." He chuckled, and mimed pressing a button with his thumb. "You know why, of course. Don't you?"

"Objectomundo, mein bruder," said Klavier, softly. "Stop it... Just... stop!"

Kristoph turned to his brother, his eyes softening. "Klavier... I love you. Don't forget it."

The Judge slammed his gavel and ordered Kristoph to be taken away, but the handcuffed Kristoph did a backflip and kicked both of the guards flanking him in the face, and the key to the cuffs flew upwards and glinted, and then it landed in the handcuffs, upside down, mid air, and he twisted his wrists and unlocked himself, and then landed and ran really fast to the doors.

"Good lord!" cried the Judge. "Bailiffs, grab him!"

A bailiff charged toward Kristoph, but Kristoph tucked his legs into his chest and did a flip over the guard, kicked off of him, landed, and then continued running, knocking out guards left and right on his way to the door.

Just then the curtains on the other opera balcony overlooking the courtroom rustled, and a man in a green robotic mech suit appeared.

Kristoph stopped at the threshold of the courtroom, two guards in close pursuit, and looked over his shoulder.

"What the- who?"

The mysterious man, whose armor looked like a medieval suit of armor, except more futuristic and slimmer, raised a futuristic rifle attached to his bandolier and snapped off a round.

Kristoph screamed and whirled around in place, holding his hand against the bloody crater over his left eye, shards from his glasses falling like crsytaline tears and tinkling against the floor. A guard tried to lay hands on him but Kristoph ducked down and pulled a concealed shiv out of his frilly garter and drove it deep into the man's gut, twisting, and then tearing it out with a spray of blood.

The guard exhaled, eyes wide, holding his hands over his abdomen, and sunk to his knees.

Kristoph did a leg sweep, knocking the other guard to his back with a thud, and then got to his feet and ran hunched over out of the room and into the hallway, skidding on his own blood.

The doors of the courthouse flew open. Kristoph pounded down the stairs and sloshed into the street, the rain beating against the pavement, the wind howling and whistling and whipping the palm trees around.

He splashed through the darkened streets, teeth bared, holding his hand against his bloody face, his suit heavy and waterlogged. Air raid sirens sounded in the distance, the puddles reflected flashing red and blue lights from somewhere.

The man in the robotic suit looked down from dome of the courthouse, hanging onto the flagpole, the American flag wrapped around his huge pauldrons.

In the defense lobby, Phoenix appeared in the doorway, the chipmunks peeping past his legs, his suit dusty, disheveled, and in disarray. Trucy gasped and bounded off the cot.

"Daddy!"

Outside, lighting struck the flagpole, and the robotic suit lit up in the night, throwing off sparks and bolts of lightning in all directions. Kristoph looked back.

They say the legaldary bird the phoenix will always rise from the ashes...

Why did that thought suddenly occur to him? Legaldary? He shook his head viciously and ran away.

Kristoph flagged down a car, waving his arms, and then hijacked a couple at knifepoint. He threw them out into the rain and gunned it.

Edgeworth ran out of the courthouse, holding his forearm against his head. He squinted, his bangs blowing around. Thunder crashed.

As Miles jogged down the steps, Gumshoe pulled up in front of the courthouse, turning the wheel hard, hitting the tips of Miles' shoes with a spray of water.

"Hop in, sir!"

Edgeworth pulled himself through the window like a Duke boy, and they chased after Kristoph. The pursuit led them out of the city and to the rural backroads.

"He's making his way to Eagle Mountain, sir!" said Gumshoe. Kristoph threw a bottle of Samurai Soda out of window and it shattered against Gumshoe's windshield.

Suddenly a single headlight appeared in the rearview mirror, and Edgeworth narrowed his eyes and wrinkled his brow. The headlight shifted to the right, and Klavier pulled up on the passenger side of the patrol car on his motorcycle. He gave Edgeworth a terse nod.

Edgeworth put his head out the window and shouted over the storm: "Take care not to damage Ms. Hawthorne's body!"

"Believe me, a pussy this tight? I'm guarding it like it was an egg entrusted to me by a school."

Edgeworth rolled up the window so he couldn't hear Klavier and they continued the chase.

Gumshoe leaned out the window and fired at Kristoph's car with his service weapon. A tire exploded and Kristoph's car screeched and swerved all over the road, and then crashed into the bottom of Eagle Mountain.

"Nice shot, detective," said Edgeworth.

Kristoph crawled out of the ruined car and struggled up the side of the the mountain, grasping onto roots and pulling himself up. Gumshoe threw a dog at him and Gavin punched it out of the air, snarling.

"Sic 'em, boys!" said Gumshoe, throwing dogs out of a sack. Edgeworth was following close behind.

Kristoph lost them in the trees, and eventually emerged at the front of Hazakura temple. He slapped Mother Bikini off her ATV like Humpty Dumpty, and then he revved the engine and started down the path to Dusky Bridge.

Suddenly his back was bathed in light. He looked over his shoulder and stopped. Klavier screeched to a stop in a muddy puddle, grasping the katana in his hand. His robe fluttered away into the woods. Rivulets of rain ran down Iris's aclocate uniform, and his hair was wet and plastered flat over his eyes.

"Kristoooooooooooooph!" screamed Klavier.

"Klavieeeeeeeeeeeeeeer!" screamed Kristoph.

Kristoh drove off again. Klavier kicked into gear, revved up, and chased after him.

The two brothers were neck-and-neck; Klavier swiped at his brother with the katana, but Kristoph deflected with the shiv and knocked the katana out of Klavier's hand.

"Achtung!" cried Klavier. "Ja!"

He jumped off his motorcycle and it wobbled in place for a second and then swerved into a pinetree and exploded. Klavier landed on the ATV in his brother's lap and accidentally wrapped his arms around his neck and made out with him a little bit.

"Pffft! Bleh!" spat Kristoph, spitting in Klavier's mouth and trying to shake his brother off. "Get off me!"

"Never!" cried Klavier bravely, holding on tighter.

Kristoph applied the brakes, and both of them flew over the handlebars and landed in a pile on Dusky Bridge. The bridge swayed and creaked ominously. Kristoph leapt up and menaced his brother with the shiv.

"Join me, Klavier," he hissed. There was a bloody hole where his eye should've been, and his glasses were long gone. "Run away with me! We will change the world! A great restructuring is coming!"

Klavier laughed weakly and grabbed the rope of the bridge and pulled himself up to his knees.

"Achtung! Join you? Nien, my brother Kristoph! You... you are a madman!"

Kristoph slapped him across the face so hard that blood shot out of his nostrils like chocolate milk.

"You have a very strong will, Klavier..." Kristoph dabbed at the bloods platter on his face with his monogrammed handkerchief. "But wills can be broken... I know that well." He smirked. "I have broken many wills for my clients..."

Klavier threw back his head and laughed in the rain. The whole situation... being murdered by a robot, coming back to life, being held at knifepoint by his brother... it was so surreal that the only possible reaction was to laugh, or to go insane.

Kristoph yawned and threw his shiv away. He took out a paper clip and slowly began to bend it.

"You know, Klavier, I've always wondered... what would happen if one were to bend a paperclip... and then stick it up someone's nose, as far as it would go..." His eyes narrowed and he grinned. "I imagine it would be quite painful..."

Klavier began sweating and scuttled backwards. "Nien, my brother Kristoph!" he pleaded. "Do not torture me with your paperclip!"

"I tried to be gentle... Now I must show my brotherly love in a another way... with penetration."

Kristoph leapt forward and jammed the bent paperclip up Klaviar's left nostril, digging deep, twisting. Klaviar let out horrible, gun-wenching screams. Blood poured out of his nose and went all over his body.

Then there a sharp report from a pistol. Kristoph gasped, rocked on his heels, windmilled his arms, and fell head over heels off the bridge, screaming all the way.

He was swallowed by the rushing waters.

Klavier breathed heavily, and then someone helped him to his feet.

It was Miles Edgeworth.

Klavier stared into his eyes.

Uncomprehending.

Later, police searchlights played across the rushing frothing dark water, crashing against the sharp jagged rocks at the bottom of the cliffs, wilder than usual due to the storm.

Spark Brushel, who was currently concealed behind a palm tree he had planted to hide himself from the police and who was still convalescing from his fall down the stairs in a mechsuit strapped to a gurney, strongly suspected the storm was supernatartual in origin.

"It's impossible to survive." It was Edgeworth saying this. "I shot him through the heart. And if the fall doesn't kill him, the fish will eat him."

Miles stood at the edge of the cliff, looking down with his trenchcoat flapping against his thighs, Gumshoe close behind him.

"Yes, detective... I think that's the last our legal system has seen of Kristoph Gavin."

He reached into his trenchcoat and pulled out the case file. He stretched out his hand and let it sail down into the raging waters, where it was swallowed up by a whirlpool.

"This case has been closed... forever."

Chapter Text

Stu Pickles walked into the bedroom.

"Hey, Deed, I invented a new belt that sucks your dick." He wrapped it around his waist and buckled it.

"Stu, that's dangerous," said Didi.

"Deed, you never support my inventions! This is going to put Pickles Toys on the map!"

She sat down on the edge of their dusty marital bed and crossed her arms, turning up her nose.

"Stu, you're a father now," she said "Stop wasting your time on this toy nonsense and get a real job!"

"Well, Deed, maybe if SOMEONE was a little more satisfying in the bedroom, I wouldn't be forced to make a machine to suck myself."

"Honestly, Stu! You're a caveman!"

He ignored her and flipped a switch and his belt whirred to life, sputtering and backfiring and sending out rolling black smog clouds that floated up to the ceiling.

"Oh, what's that?" he asked over the deafening roar. "Sorry, I couldn't hear you over the sound of my dick sucking apparatus."

She left to sleep on the floor next to the crib in Tommy's room. Like usual. Stu was left alone in the middle of the room, his still limp penis being kneaded like dough by the complex inner workings of his belt. An owl hooted outside, and racoons rustled through the upturned garbage cans.

His belt was still going, but he was soft now, so he decided to look at some porn to help get off and relieve stress. He sat down at Didi's work computer and navigated to his favorite porn site, his jeans pooled around his ankles.

It was RUMORED that one of the videos on the front page, a homemade point-of-view video of a man pounding a woman from behind with the side of her face on the bed and her ass jutting up in the air, was actually a video of Phoenix and Thalassa.

There was no proof, and the faces weren't visible, but Lamiroir and Machi Tobaye fans from around the world freezeframed the video at various points and analyzed the roundness and fatness of the ass and the way it bounced, and compared it her concert videos. Clothed or not, it looked very similar. Also, the moans in the video sounded eerily similar to Lamiroir's singing voice in the famous Guitar's Serenade music video.

"Her moans are music to my ears," said Stu. He chuckled and rolled his eyes at the ceiling, as if God could hear him and was in on the joke. "And they're saying it's not the Siren of Sound. Get real."

He hunched forward in his seat and squinted at the dimly flickering monitor. "Nice try... Xineohp... whoever you are. But I recognize that ass anywhere. I could pick that ass out of a police line up."

It wasn't, in fact, Thalassa, as was widely thought, but merely a booty double, and she found the whole situation and the attention it drew very embarrassing and shameful. She would never do anything like that. Ian tried to capitalize and drum up controversy on the video by subtly hinting it was really her in interviews. In fact, the whole thing was causing her a lot of distress and discomfort and anxiety. Her whole body was a hormonal, pregnant, puking, shitting mess.

Stu finished getting his dick sucked by his belt and lay in bed watching TV, his hands folded over his chest and his pants bunched up around his feet. A news report pertaining to the recent trial of Kristoph Gavin was on.

"Legal scholars are calling it the deadliest trial in California history, with the highest number of recorded fatalities ever seen. Over three dozen people lost their lives, including a robot, Detective Daryan Crescend, and the defendant himself, who, though found Not Guilty, perished in the rushing waters of Eagle River."

The news feed showed an aerial view of Eagle River, and then cut to a video recorded earlier in the day of Phoenix Wright and his friends emerging through the front doors of the courthouse. The Chipmunks and Trucy waved at the cameras in a cute way.

"I'm just glad it's all over," said Phoenix into a microphone. The chyron identified him as the inventor of the Jurist System. "I think the right verdict was delivered, and I'm heartbroken over all the dead people, of course, but in the end I won."

Lotta Hart asked Thalassa if they were still planning on having their annual Halloween party next week, and she said yes, of course.

"Well, thank god for that," said Stu, eyelids heavy, reclining on the bed, sleep about to overtake him. "People need something to look forward to, to keep us going. The traditions. Nick is a good guy..."

Before his bleary eyes finally closed, he looked up at the photo on the wall of him, Phoenix, and Drew as sophomores at Ivy U.

Chapter Text

Thalassa was sleeping peacefully under the bedcovers, her pregnant stomach looking like a camel's hump. Phoenix opened one eye and looked at the alarm clock.

3:00 AM.

He rolled onto his side, towards Thalassa, and propped himself up on one arm. He watched her for a while as she slept, thinking. Then he quietly lifted the covers, swung his legs out of bed, and got up.

He tiptoed out the hall to Trucy's room. He opened the door the tiniest crack and peeped in. She was sound asleep, snuggling her Alvin the Chipmunk plushie. He closed the door.

He sidled up against the wall under a portrait of his grandparents and sunk into deep thought.

Now that Kristoph was gone, he didn't have to worry about him detonating the bomb in her chest. Evidently Kristoph's death hadn't triggered the detonator, or if it had, the detonator had been too far out of range for the signal to reach Trucy's heart.

Perhaps it really had all been a bluff. Maybe Kristoph had never sewn a bomb into his daughter's heart while she was sleeping at all. Still, he couldn't take any chances. He had to make sure. If it was still there, lying dormant, then it could go off someday, like if she ever fell in love and her heart started beating really fast.

He opened his locket and looked at her. That sweet, demure face, no longer that of a child, but of a young woman. His heart panged.

She and Thalassa were so happy now that the trial was behind them, that all of it was over, that the man who had robbed them both was gone. They had been happily bonding and putting up decorations ever since they got home. Even Apollo helped, surprisingly. How could he spoil the Halloween spirit by telling them about the bomb?

So, he got an idea. In the dark hallway outside his daughter's room, he took out his cellphone and called Big Wins Kitaki, dialing the number in a patch of blue moonlight from the window. He asked Mr. Kitaki to arrange a doctor's appointment with the famous surgeon who had operated on Wocky, so that the bomb could be removed from Trucy's heart under the guise of a routine checkup.

This way, he wouldn't get in trouble with her mom for not telling her earlier; besides, telling her would only make her panic. It would be best if he used his mafia connections to have it removed surreptitiously.

"It will be done... Mr. Wright."

"Thanks, Big Wins," Phoenix said gratefully.

"No problem. You're a family friend. But you should call me Big Oprah Winfred Kitaki now. Because I'm all about giving back to the community. Capisce?"

On the other end of the line, Phoenix heard Wocky Kitaki grab the phone.

"Yeah, we're community conscious gangsters now, bizzoy! We clean up parks and bake pies, gangsta style. It's whack, but it's good for a G's soul. And tell shorty that I caught her magic show on TV- damn, that magic was so fire, it was hot, fo sure!"

"Wocky! Stop running your mouth!"

Phoenix chucked good-naturedly. Trucy and Wocky had been a "thing" for a moment before Phoenix brought a gun to their date at Chuck E. Cheese and put a stop to that. Now, she was dating Machi.

He said good-night to the Kitakis and hung up. With that settled, his heart much lighter, he went back to his bedroom. He had already lifted the covers when he noticed the tin can with a string running through rattling on the windowsill.

He let the blankets fall and picked it up, scowling.

"Hey, Phoenix!" said Dave Seville through the can on the other end. He was standing at his bedroom window across the street, holding a pair of binoculars as he spoke into the can.

"Dave?" Phoenix screwed a knuckle into an eye and squinted out the window with the other, wearing a small frown. "It's three in the morning. Why are you on the can?"

"Well, the MILF of the year awards are on." Dave's room on the second story was dark, except for a scant flickering blue light from the TV somewhere behind him. "Do you think Lamiror will win again this year?"

"You mean the Milfies?" Phoenix shook his head. "Dave, you know she didn't enter this year because she got pregnant."

Phoenix looked out across the window at him with the piercing, unblinking gaze of an experienced defense attorney.

"Besides, I don't think you're up at the witching hour just to talk about the annual MILF awards." He put his head on one side and jerked his chin up. "Something's up."

Dave sighed into the can, rattling in Phoenix's ear.

"You're right, Phoenix. It's not even the Milfies, it's a rerun of a Halloween Christmas special I made with the boys a few years ago."

On the TV, a black and white holiday special was playing. It was shot in black and white to evoke nostalgia, and because Theodore had been enamored of old black and white TV shows at the time.

On the TV:

Dave knelt down in a a Santa suit with a fake white beard hanging off his chin. Alvin sat on his knee with a concerned expression.

"Will, will, will, will I really always remember my dead brother Tiny Theodore?" He clasped his hands to his chest and his lower lip jutted out and trembled. "Forever and ever?"

Dave smiled down at his son and said: "You will. As long as you always keep that Christmas spirit inside of you... right here." He touched his heart.

Dave was leaning on the windowsill with an elbow, sighing, as he ran a hand through his hair and spoke abstractedly into the can.

"I feel like I'm losing him," Dave said. "Like we're drifting away. We're not as close as we once were. He's not even showing up for our rehearsals anymore." He gave a short, bitter laugh. "Just saunters in at the last moment, like, he's, I don't know, God's gift to chipmunkdom or something. Well, he is, I can't deny that, but have some respect and common courtesy, darn it!"

"I forgive you, Scrooge. For stealing christmas."

Scrooge's evil moustache began to fade away. It was Manfred von Karma's cousin Wilfred von Karma playing Scrooge all along.

"He wants to release some solo work, or to take the Chipmunks in a new direction... and, I, I don't.. don't?" Dave looked around, lost, like he didn't know where he was. Phoenix watched him with deep concern and sympathy.

Wilfred von Karma jumped up and clicked his heels together. "Ha cha cha! I feel like a new man! I am no longer evil!"

"He calls me a faggot," Dave continued. "It annoys me and it hurts. I try to discipline him but I just get so flustered I end up yelling ALVIIIIIIIIN, and we're back at square one."

"I love you, Dave! And I love hula hoops and playing my harmonicorn!"

"All he wants to do is 'rap' over 'dope beats' that are 'fresh.' What even are these words? Rap? Fresh? Lettuce is fresh. Not music. That's not music. It's just pure insanity."

That reminds me of Wocky Kitaki, thought Phoenix.

Dave groaned and held his head in his hand, wrinkling his brow. "Ugh. It's just so frustrating. He's always been such a little trouble maker. But never like this. Every day feels like a battle."

Thalassa's eyes shot open, and she placed a hand over her veil and threw up in her mouth, her cheeks puffing out. Phoenix craned his neck over his shoulder as she struggled out of bed and her bare feet pattered across the hardwood floor to the bathroom. He heard her retching over the toilet.

Dave rubbed his nose against Alvin's, delicate butterfly kisses. "I love you too, Alvin."

Dave continued: "He's so distant now. And disappears on his own for hours at a time. I think he's in a gang. He wears a leather jacket and puts his shoes on the table. And he also hired a 50 piece orchestra even though it was really expensive!"

"And I'm the real Santa Claus."

"Ever since we lost her... things have been different."

"I put an orange and a pop cap gun in your stocking this year, Alvin."

"It's like I'm half a person."

"Wait... all these stockings say Alvin!"

"ALVIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN!"

(PHOENIIIIIIIIIIIIIIX!)

He started, recalled her, her, Iris, screaming his name in the darkness that night after he lost his mother. Something sexual had stirred in his mind, possibly recalled by hearing Dave scream Alviiiiiiiiiiiiin on the TV. He felt extreme guilt. Why was he thinking about that?

The credits rolled. There was complete silence over the tin cans.

Phoenix finally said: "He's growing up, Dave," thinking of Trucy. "And you can't stop them from growing up anymore than you can stop the earth from turning."

Dave sighed, deeply, like he was trying to expel all his bad feelings and misgivings. "I suppose you're right. I just hope it's just a phase, though."

"I'm sure it is," Phoenix assured him. "People change, but that change, is, well, always changing. It's not always in one direction forever. The only thing you can control is yourself. You have to stay the same Dave who's a super awesome dad, so that when he realizes he's wrong, he can come back to you. Like the prodigal son."

Phoenix thought of Trucy, again. And his unborn child.

And Iris...

And...

And duty.

"It'll be all right... I know it will."

Dave had just needed someone to talk to, and that someone was his best friend. They said their good nights, and Phoenix went to check on Thalassa, and Dave went to play at his piano. He started playing morosely, gloomily, his shoulders drooping.

"It's nice be nice..." he sang under his breath. "It's good to be good... so let's all behave like we should..."

Meanwhile, on the TV was a news report on the recent LA crime wave, with grisly scenes of the aftermath of Kristoph's trial, and of smash and grabs in malls, of bank heists, of jewelry stores being turned over, of women being assaulted and ravaged by gangs in the street, of hookers turning tricks outside the courthouse, of children gunning down their teachers in cold blood because they gave them F's or wouldn't let them go on field trips...

"Our society has become bereft of all morals," said a professor of criminology from Ivy U. Dave turned his head to the TV, still idly playing. "The crime rate is exploding. Our courts are so overwhelmed that I believe we must pass a law to have all trials last no more than one day. Crime has never existed in such a big amount before."

The dean of keys, sitting nearby in an armchair with his legs crossed and his fingers interlaced, nodded rapidly. "I believe that we as a society must come together to create a big key that can lock our doors better, so criminals can't get inside our homes."

Dave stopped playing now, transfixed.

"And what do you think is the cause for such a surge in crime?" asked the interviewer, addressing the professor.

"That's a hard question to answer. There could me many causes. Is it the economic downturn caused by the War? Have we become too soft on crime? Is it the mothers and fathers?"

Dave took his hands off the piano and let them dangle limply between his thighs. He tuned off the TV and looked up at a poster of Alvin tapdancing in a white tuxedo. How long has it been? Since the little guy had last consented to wear a tuxedo?

He climbed inside his piano which is also a piano-themed bed and lay down under the covers. He closed the lid.

Is it the mothers and fathers?

Across the street, Phoenix contemplated what kind of man he was.

Was it normal? To hold two such contradictory yet completely sincere and equally powerful feelings at once?

Unbridled lust, and unbridled love?

It was something he thought about a lot.

Meanwhile, Alvin's crying in the dark.

Chapter Text

Klavier stirred awake in his bed, golden rays of light penetrating through the canopy of his bed, slanting down from the tall, narrow windows. He smiled and shrugged his shoulders around under the covers, not yet opening his eyes. He was enjoying the feeling of complete peace and restfulness that always followed when his spirit was recalled from the afterlife.

Eventually he stretched, yawned, and got up. He found a platter of cookies with a handwritten note from Iris on the nightstand.

It read:

Good morning! I made these for you while you were sleeping in the other realm! I also tidied up your guitars and organized them alphabetically for a while until I realize what a little silly I was because all guitars start with G! So I organized them by color and other things like that. I'm sorry, I know so little about these things, having been raised in the temple all my life. I do hope it's all to your liking! I also took Vongole for a walk and polished all those wonderful statues of you in the foyer. Please take care and have a wonderful day!

His eyes softened and he smiled down at the note. The fraulein spirit medium was very thoughtful. And to think, he had never even seen her. But he had felt her unseen presence around his mansion ever since he returned from the dead. All the fine little feminine touches she added to his bachelor pad.

He grew thoughtful.

The only time she even got to use her own body anymore was when his spirit was dispelled. And even then not for very long, because she had to make sure she got enough sleep to keep up with the constant channeling. She didn't even get one day a week off, and she had to channel him 12 hours a day. For the rest of her life.

He lowered the note in his hand and furrowed his brow. He wanted to meet her, this woman, this spirit medium his manager was paying a million dollars a day to channel him. He popped a piping hot cookie into his mouth a closed his eyes in ecstasy as it melted on his tongue. Delicious.

He called Ian on his cell and they discussed the new plans for the band. Ian wanted to do a lot fan meet and greets, and for Klavier to hit the talk show circuit and discuss what it's like being dead and getting to visit heaven. He also wanted the Gavinners to play a big show on Christmas.

"Hold the phone there, Ian," frowned Klavier.

"I can't right now, Klav. I'm getting a nude back rub while my assistant holds my phone up to my face."

"That's fine, but you're forgetting one big detail, ja? How can the Gavinners play without Daryan? We can't." He pulled the hairbrush out of his hair and swung it in a katate-chop motion. "And DON'T even think about making another robot. That only ends in heartbreak for everyone involved, the humans and the robots."

"But, Klav, baby, we still have the Klavitron 2000 milling around the office. Why not gussy him up a bit, and-"

Klavier closed his eyes and shook his head, hair whipping from side to side. "I'm saying no, Ian. No. The Gavinners are artists. And art... comes from the soul. No robots need apply."

Ian considered. It might not be a good idea anyway. The small robotic country of Cyborogina had joined the War on the opposite side of the US. The country was very small, like a little tick latched onto the underside of Khurain's southern border, but it was all over the news. The US army was currently in the process of genociding all the robot inhabitants, women and childbots first, so it might not be a good idea to associate the band with anything related to robots at the moment.

"Welllll," Ian said, "how about Kevin Lawyer? He expressed interest in joining."

Klavier's upper lip twitched in annoyance.

He was a little jealous of Kevin Lawyer, who was younger than him, and who even had his own band, Lawcycle. Before Klaver's death they had had bulge-offs at the prosecutor's office to assert dominance, wearing increasingly tighter and shearer pants, and injecting their balls with syringes full of enlargening fluid every time the other one wasn't looking. Eventually it got to the point where Miles Edgeworth had to call them to his office and reprimand them.

After some thought, Klavier reluctantly agreed to consider it.

"Thank you, Klav... and... Klav?"

"Jachung?"

"You're not upset that the Chipmunks have almost overtaken the Gavinners in popularity, are you?"

Klavier smirked and snapped his fingers. "Always make way for youth... That's my motto. I was a young hotshot new to the scene once, too. And Alvin's a talented performer and musician. I'd love to rock out with him some day. Besides... I welcome the challenge."

He snapped his phone shut and went over to the mirror and checked himself out. He carefully balanced a pair of shades on his nose, smiled. He considered a few outfits, but decided the spirit medium uniform was a bold new fashion, though he did add a pair of skintight leather pants.

"Perfection," he said.

He was about to leave when he got a call from Miles Edgeworth. He listened to Edgeworth's instructions and nodded.

"Ja course, Mr. Edgeworth. Mein can come to herr office today."

"Good. Thank you, Prosecutor Gavin. I'll be summoning the others as well."

Summoning... thought Klavier. It reminded him of the knights of the round table being "summoned" to the table.

"Herr Edgeworth, just why are you calling this impromptu jam sesh?" asked Klavier.

"I'll explain at the meeting. Let's just say that the fate of our legal system may be at stake. I'm acting on orders from the Governor himself."

"Hmm, sounds heavy," replied Klavier. "Well, heh, we all have to go work once in a while. I'll be there. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go pick up my dick from the morgue."

He left his bedroom and swung on tree branches and vines across his indoor arboretum, playing with the monkeys for his daily exercise while Some Guys Have All The Luck by Robert Palmer played on his earbuds.

"No, Herr Wright," scolded Klavier, hanging upside down from a tree branch. He wagged his finger at a monkey in a blue suit trying to fuck a monkey in a cravat. "I told you, we don't do that."

He grinded down a tree branch in his soap shoes, arms thrown out for balance, a flock of flamingos taking flight behind him.

"Yabba dabba doo!" cried Klavier.

He left his arboretum and exited the west wing of his hilltop mansion, walking out onto the mezzanine and down the grand staircase to the foyer. His solitary footsteps echoed against the high walls and ceilings of his empty house.

On one side of the staircase was a giant, towering 30-foot tall nude marble statue of his brother on a plinth. The inscription on the plaque on the bottom read DEDICATED TO THE WORLD'S GREATEST BROTHER. He was holding a Law Book in one and hand and imploring an invisible jury with the other. On the other side of the staircase was a statue of himself. DEDICATED TO ME. He was holding a Guitar. Both were heavily muscled and left nothing the imagination. They dominated the entire room and kept watch over the front doors.

"I've never seen these statues so resplendent," he remarked. "She must have spent hours on this task alone! She is a very dedicated woman!"

He rode his motorcycle to the morgue and wheeled open the drawer with his dead body in it. He got outraged because his dick was small and flaccid, shriveled up from the cold.

"I clearly stipulated in my will for my penis to always be maintained at at least half chub! God, it'd be so embarrassing if someone saw it like this." He eyed the buxom nurse with the sexy cleavage over his shoulder anxiously.

He leaned over and sucked his dead corpse off to a respectable size.

"That's better."

He broke his dick off like an icicle and left.

"Your balls, sir?" asked the nurse.

He waved a careless hand over his shoulder.

"Put them in a doggy bag, doll."

This was only part one of his plan. He needed his penis back as soon as possible. It shouldn't languish in the grave while his spirit rocked the Earth.

And it won't, he thought, frowning and determined, stepping out into the street.

I swear to it on my many guitars...

Chapter Text

Later that day, Miles Edgeworth was sitting at his desk on the top floor of the prosecutor's office. The name plaque next to the inkwell with the feather drooping out identified him as Chief Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth. The room's ornately paneled walls gave the impression it was a study in a Victorian manor, and not an office in a modern high-rise. The window at his back commanded a view of the entire city. A blimp advertising Trucy's next magic show flew by in the distance and was obstructed from view by Edgeworth's head for a moment, and then reappeared against the light blue sky before disappearing behind the clouds.

Edgeworth furrowed his brow and frowned down at the papers strewn across his desk; all the papers bore the Governor's glossy embossed seal. He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose and groaned: he hadn't slept in a week. But just then Squeek the mouse walked up to his desk.

"Oh, hello there, Squeek," said Edgeworth, sitting up and folding his hands primly, smiling.

Squeek was a small chubby grey mouse with round ears. He stood on his hind legs and lived in a mousehole in Edgeworth's office. He wore a tiny cravat and had Miles's hairstyle.

Squeek gave two tiny thumbs up and smirked and wiggled his eyebrows. "Hey, Edgeworth... watch this!"

Squeek took out a tiny boombox and started playing Kesha - Tik Tok and did a cool dance, break dancing and stomping his tiny feet and twirling his tail around like a cowboy's lasso. He even used a toothpick as a cane and did a tap routine.

Miles watched with a small smile on his face, completely charmed and entranced by this adorable rodent. He was even wearing a diaper (Squeek, not Edgeworth). Miles danced around a little in his seat, shaking his fists over his head and bouncing around to the music. He thought Squeek would make an amazing mascot, far superior to the Blue Badger. Not to mention more marketable and profitable.

Squeek bounced all around the room, climbed up a bookcase full of heavy legal tomes, and then jumped onto a suit of armor in the corner and grinded down the sharp edge of the axe. Edgeworth lowered his reading glasses and parted his lips in an O-shape.

Squeek launched off the tip of the ax and flew overhead and latched onto the chandelier. He spun around for a while, and then he landed on Edgeworth's shoulder and started cabbage patching.

The music coming from the boombox was so loud that it shook the walls. In the hall outside Edgeworth's office, Winston Payne's brother Fuckston Payne danced with his mop and bumped into the mop bucket and sloshed water all over the floor.

"Fuck!"

Finally, Squeek backflipped off Edgeworth's shoulder and landed in the middle of the room. The song ended, and he stood there with knees bent and arms spread out, breathing heavily.

Edgeworth smiled widely and his eyes crinkled at the corners. He set his reading glasses down. "That's very good, Squeek."

"So, what's on the agenda today, Miles?" The mouse folded his arms and crossed his ankles and leaned against the leg of the desk.

"Well, Squeek, today I have an important meeting. It's top secret... all of the most important and experienced prosecutors in the office are coming."

"In that case I'll leave ya to it. If anyone found out you were letting me live in your office, you'd get in trouble."

"There's no need for that, Squeek," said Edgeworth. "Here, crawl inside my cravat," tapping it.

Squeek got down on all fours and turned feral and started screaming and shrieking as he scurried up Edgeworth's pants, tickling his leg. Then he crawled up Edgeworth's shirt, making a bulge in his suit as crawled up his chest and popped out of Miles's collar.

He nestled himself into Edgeworth's cravat and made himself comfortable, and gave Edgeworth a thumbs up, which Edgeworth returned. Miles held a finger to his lips, shushed, and Squeek retracted his head and hid.

Squeek, tired after his dance, fell asleep against the warmness of Edgeworth's chest. Edgeworth smiled and tilted his head as he listened to the mouse's soft breathing.

But then Edgeworth felt a cold thrill in his chest, colder than the warm mouse's body, and prayed that Squeek would never find out the dark truth behind his parentage.

Squeek's parents hadn't, as Edgeworth used to tell his young ward while putting him down to sleep in his humble matchbox bed, been simple country mice who were raptured early; and Squeek hadn't been left in his care by the stork.

Images flashed through his mind...

The poison...

The mousetrap...

The... the...

G-gorgonzola...

He hunched his shoulders and shuddered. What if Squeek found out? What if Squeek went down a dark path? What if he was consumed by the darkness, just as he, himself, Miles Edgeworth, had been?

What if he became... Mousefred von Karma?

Edgeworth shook himself out of it. No! There was no time for such idle future fears, such weak-willed anxiousness. He picked up a candid snapshot of Phoenix from his desk. Just like there was no time to wonder what had happened to that man...

A cavalcade of footsteps sounded outside his office doors. He looked up, and his eyes steeled.

There was a meeting to hold.

Chapter Text

"I thank you all for coming here on such short notice."

All the most elite and well-respected attorneys from the prosecutor's office were assembled in front of Edgeworth's desk. There was Simon Blackquill, Winston Payne, Gaspen Payne, Godot, Klavier Gavin, a brain in a bubbling jar hooked up to an IV drip, and finally there was Kevin Lawyer, who was thin air because he wasn't there yet.

"Well, except Prosecutor Lawyer," said Edgeworth. "Just where is he?" He tapped his desk calendar. "According to this, he should have been here twenty seconds ago."

"Yeah, and that was twenty seconds ago!" chimed in Gumshoe, who was standing at Edgeworth's shoulder.

"Indeed," said Edgeworth. He pointed at the stone disc on his wrist. "And my sundial only confirms this further."

"Hee hee hee..." giggled Winston. "It seems the young whelp couldn't be bothered to show up on time. Back in MY day-"

But before he could finish, Kevin Lawyer crashed through the window on his hang glider, soaring over Edgeworth's head and sending out a shower of glass that pelted the other prosecutors.

"Heh... sorry I'm late," said Kevin, climbing to his feet. He had sunglasses, a cape, spiky hair, and clothes like an outlaw biker. He had the names of defendants he had prosecuted to the death tattooed on his arms.

"Gah... what a show-off..." muttered Klavier to Godot. "He thinks just because he's the President of the Prosecutor's Hang Glider Club he's better than everyone else... News flash... he's not!"

"That's perfectly all right, Prosecutor Lawyer," said Edgeworth kindly. "Now, hang up your hang-glider so we can begin."

Edgeworth launched into an explanation.

"As you know, there is still unresolved business from the trial of Kristoph Gavin. That strange armored man who killed several guards that day... he's still out there. He has yet to be apprehended. And that armor... it isn't American issue. We believe it could be Chinese."

The lights dimmed, and Gumshoe pulled down a projection screen behind the desk. A map of Europe appeared on it. Edgeworth tapped it with a riding crop without turning around in his seat.

"This mysterious man was last spotted in Germany by Franziska von Karma. While attending the opera, she spotted him in the upper balcony. She was also in a balcony seat, but his was higher than hers, so from this we can conclude that he is better than her. Even though he was wearing a bow tie and using an opera glass, she could tell it was a mysterious man in a strange robot suit."

Franziska had kept a close eye on the mysterious man, while the other eye kept a close eye on the opera. This gave her the impression of being cross-eyed. She also started drooling because she was hungry but she was too busy watching him to go to the concession stand and get any food.

Halfway through the performance he got up to leave, and she followed him backstage and down the stairwell and out the emergency exit to the alley. She told him he was under arrest, but mechanical wings like a jet's shot out of his shoulders and he activated his rocket boots, shooting off into the night sky, leaving behind a trail of smoke and singe marks on the ground.

Franziska, mouth agape, still cross-eyed and drooling, her face frozen like that from holding the expression for too long, quickly informed her brother of what had happened via telegram, and then she and Interpol chased the mystery man across Europe by car, by train, by air balloon, by penny farthing. But eventually they lost him.

Gumshoe changed the slides in the projector and a shot of a strange flying object in the night skies appeared. He cycled through more slides.

Edgeworth said: "There have been unconfirmed reports of our mystery man being spotted over the Atlantic ocean. The last sighting was a week ago. Also, this anonymous letter was received yesterday by the prosecutor's office."

Edgeworth slipped his hand into a drawer and dropped a paper on the table. The lights came back on.

"We believe this letter was sent by the mysterious armored terrorist," said Edgeworth. "It promises a violent revolution, a complete restructuring of our legal system. It outlines his grievances against judges, prosecutors, and everyone else he deems responsible for the failings of our courts and the current rampant crime wave. I believe whoever sent this note is attempting not only to break the law, which is abhorrent on its own, but also to take over our very legal system and make us his slaves."

He stood up and turned his back to them, staring out the window. His face was set hard, his nose touching his dim reflection's in the window.

"That is what I believe."

The prosecutors shared glaces.

The letter ended very tauntingly.

My heart has been locked away from my fellows humans for a long time. You may be able to solve court cases, Miles Edgeworth, but tell me, can you solve the mystery of my locked heart?

Looking forward to playing with you,

Misery Lockedheart

Gumshoe lifted the letter to his nose. He lowered it, face concerned.

"This smells like sadness, pal."

"And trauma, detective," said Edgeworth, returning to his seat, his face stolid and his eyes inscrutable. "But trauma is no excuse to be evil."

Klavier interjected: "But Herr Edgeworth, what if that letter is just like a prank phone call? Except a letter?"

"We considered that. But rest assured this is no joke, Prosecutor Gavin. Whoever wrote this letter is carrying out his promise." He tapped the letter against his thigh. "As you know, LA is experiencing an unprecedented crime wave- as is the entire country. Employment is nosediving, we're in the middle of an unpopular war overseas, and 'unsafety' (as our tedious city papers have taken to calling it) has never existed in such a large amount. By all accounts we're a nation in decline. Crime is to be expected. But in the middle of this rash of random crime, there are, unnoticed by the general public or the press, but recognized by us who know better, coordinated attacks against our legal system."

There had been a lot of bank robberies recently, with money belonging to prosecutors and Judges being stolen, locked room murder mysteries that baffled the police till they were forced to give up, and also someone had built trap doors into the jury box so people would fell into a pit and they couldn't deliver verdicts. There were also lots of letters filled with anthrax lately.

"Or so we thought at first," said Edgeworth. "But it was actually sugar. Which turned out to be even worse. The Judge's Australian brother is diabetic, and when he started sniffing the sugar to check whether it was anthrax or not, he accidentally ingested enough sugar to fall into a diabetic coma from the likes of which he may very well never recover."

Godot sipped from his mug. "Ah... so that's why the Judge's seat was empty at my last trial and it had to be postponed... The old geezer was off dozing in coma land..."

These weren't just examples of random violence... they were deliberate attacks, clearly the work of Misery Lockedheart!

Edgeworth steepled his fingers on his desk and regarded them all sternly.

He said: "I've been authorized by the governor to establish an elite group to deal with this threat to the legal system. The Prosecutor Squad."

He named each member in turn: himself, Franziska von Karma, Gumshoe, Blackquill, Winston, Gaspen, Klavier, Kevin, and of course a brain in a jar.

"I will be leading the operations here, and Franziska will continue her own investigation in Europe. She belives there is a connection between the mysterious armored man and our Misery Lockedheart."

"But sir," said Gumshoe, "I'm not a prosecutor."

"No, but you're like our mascot. You're a skilled detective and it would be a great benefit to have your help."

Gumshoe teared up a bit.

"Wow... sir..."

Klavier said: "So what do we do?"

"It's simple," said Edgeworth. "We investigate and find clues. Then we use the secret weapon of every prosecutor, Logic, to deduce the criminal's identity and prosecute him. It won't be easy. But I have faith in all of you. You are the best of the best."

Winston puffed out his chest. Kevin Lawyer smiled.

"That is quite the most logical course of action," said the brain in a jar. The jar had a monocle on it.

"At the moment it's like we're set adrift upon a sea of coffee, black and fathomless, with not a speck of land to be seen in any direction," said Godot. He sipped. "Just coffee."

"What?" said Klavier.

"Coffee," said Godot.

Klavier smiled absently and played with his hair. "...You'll have to excuse me for repeating myself... but what?"

"The land is clues. The coffee is not having clues yet. So I'm saying we don't have any clues yet."

A muffled voice came from Edgeworth's cravat. "Then why didn't you just say so? God damn!"

"Squeek, hush!" whispered Edgeworth. Thankfully, nobody else heard Squeek. Only Edgeworth hears Squeek.

Next, everyone got their own Prosecutor Squad bracelets, all different colors. These were large but sleek electronic devices worn around their wrists. They had screens and dials and knobs and lots of useful features which would aid them in their investigations.

"Heh... nifty," said Godot, fiddling with his own.

"Now, it's time to begin our investigation," said Edgeworth.

They all left the office to split up and look for clues. Outside in the hall, Kevin Lawyer bumped Klavier's shoulder, and Klavier flared up and shoved him and then the two men started bumping their chests and head butting. Winston broke up the fight with a fatherly air and Klavier kicked the wall and went out to the parking lot and mounted his bike, fuming.

"What a punk," he muttered to himself. "He has no respect for art, or for what the Gavinners have accomplished, the trails we've blazed. I was never like that when I was his age!" He realized what he had said and groaned. God, when he was his age? That was what old people said. He was getting old! He was almost 30.

"Well, actually I'm dead, so..." he said to no one as he watched traffic go by. But the Fraulein spirit medium was 37, so if you thought about it, that made him even OLDER than he had been when he died. He got depressed and wondered what he really wanted and what he should do next. He got like this a lot recently.

His music suddenly didn't seem so important to him. Neither did being a prosecutor, or collecting guitars. So what if he had a double-necked guitar made from refurbished wood from the Mayflower? Who cared? He got so low sometimes.

He threw himself into his old pursuits harder than ever to try to fight off these feelings, but they always came back. Everything seemed so hollow and empty now. What had meaning before didn't have meaning now. Especially after that horrible trial. Everything felt different.

Dying really does change you.

But that's okay, he thought. He still had his ways to feel young. He looked at his contact list on his cell phone and licked his lips creepily.

Now it was time to get to work. He checked his Prosecutor Squad bracelet. The screen showed the other members' locations as blinking dots on a map of the city. Dr. Brainy-O and Kevin were heading to check out suspected werewolf activity in the woods, and Blackquill was going to the investigate a locked room murder mystery suspected to be orchestrated by Misery Lockedheart. Suddenly the bracelet beeped and Edgeworth's disembodied head appeared and floated over the bracelet like a low poly PS1-era Crash Bandicoot hologram.

"I'll keep you up to date," said the hologram. "Check out these locations and report back." Red icons of suspected criminal activity appeared on the map. "I'm off to dine with the governor. Watch your six out there."

The hologram disappeared and Klavier rode out of the parking lot with his phone out, scrolling through shirtless pics of Daryan Crescend in an open casket while texting Trucy at the same time.

Chapter Text

And now, our narrative takes a brief but important detour to check in on our cousins across the Atlantic. That night in London, Professor Layton and his apprentice Luke were sleeping in a big bed in Layton's office at Gressenheller University. Luke was under the covers snuggling his teddy bear, and the Professor was sprawled out still wearing his clothes with his top hat on. He was snoring and covered in student papers.

Everything was quiet, and not a creature was stirring, not even Squeek the mouse. The halls and classrooms of that venerable school were dark and deserted, and all the students and teachers had gone to bed hours ago. The night watchman was nodding off in his chair.

However, over the school, where haunting black clouds streaked across the night sky like ghostly pirate ships, the silhouette of a sputtering flying contraption flew past the full moon and landed in the bushes behind the school.

"Nyeh neh heh..." laughed a dark figure. He climbed out of the flying machine, which was made out of cogs and trash cans and umbrellas and operated by foot pedals.

"It is nyeh heh indeed, my brother," said a second dark figure, also climbing out. "But now it not the time for cackling. We don't want to let the boss down."

The two figures parted the bushes and peered through to make sure the coast was clear, and then they ran across the lawn to Layton's window.

Inside, Layton shifted in his sleep and mumbled: "Mhmmm... zzzz... a true gentleman... zzzz... another puzzle... zzzzzz..." He lifted a finger, his eyes still closed. "Luke, my boy..."

Luke lifted his finger in response, in a deep slumber. "Zzzzz... gosh, professor... your trusty apprentice... saves... zzzzz... the day... zzzz... talking to animals..."

"Mhmm, yes, zzzz..."

"Hmmm, mhmm indeed, zzzz..."

Under the blankey Layton's asshole made bubbling sounds like a witch's cauldron, and hot liquid shit shot out of his butthole and made the seat of his pants bulge like a baby's diaper. He smiled and sighed against the pillow.

But suddenly glass shattered somewhere in the darkness! Layton's eyes shot open. The room was completely black. All he could see was the blue rectangle of moonlight in the broken window. The dark figures climbed inside, one after the other, briefly framed in the window, and disappeared into the shadows of the room.

"Professor, what was that?!" cried Luke.

"Luke, crawl inside my hat," ordered Layton.

But before he could, one of the dark figures pulled Layton out of bed and starting beating him up like a little bitch. They rolled around the room knocking stuff over like a gay tumbleweed.

"Oh, no!" cried Luke. More crashing in the dark. "Professor!"

The stranger pulled Layton's underwear down and beat red welts into his ass with a bamboo cane while he sobbed and scratched at the floor with his nails and tried to crawl away.

"I say! Leave the Professor alone, you brute!" said Luke, indignant. "How dare you!"

Luke ran at them, but got knocked away when the man cocked his fist back and his elbow connected with Luke's forehead. Luke got dizzy and staggered backwards. He bumped into one of the Professor's bookshelves and an avalanche of books fell on him.

Layton tried to solve a puzzle (he reckoned it was worth at least 70 picacrats) to extricate himself from this sticky situation, but everytime he tried, the man's fist only hit his face harder, and his finger only went deeper into his butthole.

All hope seemed lost, but Rosa crashed through the door in the Layton mobile and saved the day! The stranger looked up from beating the professor and into the headlights bearing down on him and jumped out of the way at the last moment. Both the dark figures fled out the window and streaked across the lawn.

"Laytonmobile!" cried Luke, running over to hug it. Rosa climbed out and went over to the professor and bustled around him worrying. He pushed himself up and coughed.

"Oh, dear, oh dear, oh dear," she said, fluttering her hands, "are you boys all right, Professor?! I heard all that awful noise, and, oh, oh my! My poor old heart!"

"We're perfectly fine, Rosa, thanks to your timely intervention," he said, smiling. He got up to his feet and uncrumpled his flattened hat like an accordian. "We are in your debt."

She turned on the lights and fussed over Luke, bandaging his head, much to the boy's annoyance, and then she went out to make them tea, shaking.

"Whatever you do," whispered Layton, "don't tell Luke's parents about this. If they found out that he's been in danger again, they'll take him away from me. I..." He tipped his hat over his eyes. "I can't have that."

She nodded vaguely, not meeting his eyes, and left.

"Just who were those guys, Professor?" asked Luke. He picked up a broken artifact that had been on the wall. "Whoever they were, they were no gentlemen! They completely destroyed your study!" He tossed it away in disgust. "What a mess!"

Layton set down the receiver of his old timey telephone and hobbled over to Luke. He was still in just his underwear and top hat, having been stripped by his assailents, and he was covered in bruises.

"I'm not sure, Luke, but I just informed the good inspector about what happened. Scotland Yard should be here soon. However," his eyes twinkled, "there's no reason we can't conduct a little investigation of our own."

"Ah! There's that famous Professor Layton Layton-ness at work! But what should we do first, Professor?

"Ohoho, it's simple, my boy," he replied, lifting a finger, smiling. "We look for clues."

They investigated the study together. It had been almost destroyed. Books and broken glass and smashed furniture lay everywhere. Luke ducked down and pointed at something.

"Look, Professor! Footprints!"

"Ah, you're right. And what do those remind you of?"

"Feet," said Luke.

"But there's more." He lifted a finger. "Shoes."

"Ah!"

Luke solved a puzzle about shoes, worth about 10 picarats, and then they followed the footprints AKA shoeprints across the room to Layton's filing cabinets.

"Look, professor!" cried Luke. "Your files have been ransacked!"

"Indeed, Luke..." murmured the Professor. "Indeed. It appears that while I was engaged in a gentlemanly duel with one of the men-"

"That's not how I remem-"

"Hush now, Luke. Anyway, while I was lying on the floor with my pants down, the other man must have been going through my files."

Layton knelt down and investigated the filing cabinets. They had been ransacked, all right: drawers pulled open halfway, or lying on their sides on the floor, with the papers and documents relating to his studies and adventures strewn across the floor, evidently not of interest to the assailants.

"Is anything missing, Professor?" asked Luke, hovering over his shoulder.

"Hmm... yes, all my research relating to the secret Judge societies and covens of ancient California. Back when Judges were warlocks." He cupped his chin, looked down at the floor. "But why would anyone want that?"

"Warlocks? Professor, are you saying judges used to be able to do magic? Wow... that's so cool!"

Layton brightened. "Ha ha, I'm afraid not, my boy. Those are all simply local legends. But I wonder..." He fell to musing. "There was an artifact that was central to all these myths, which could very well be real. Perhaps this was what our visitors were interested in..."

Just then, the Professor noticed a photograph wedged under the foot of the filing cabinet which caught his eye. His eyes twinkled and he lifted the filing cabinet and pulled the picture out.

Luke stood over his shoulder and leaned forward with his hands on his (Luke's) upper thighs. His inquisitive boyish nature was aroused.

"Say, what's that old photo, Professor?"

Layton explained that it was part of the investigations into the ancient judges that must've been missed. It was a grainy photograph of a cave wall with a crude painting of Judge holding a gavel in one hand and a large book in the other, taken back in the 40's when the cave was first discovered in one of California's state parks. Layton explained that it was an ancient painting of an Arch Judgelock holding the Golden Gavel and the Lawcycolegalpedia.

"Golden Gavel? Say, Professor, there's no connection to the Golden Apple from our earlier adventure, is there?"

Layton smiled up at his apprentice's thoughtful face. "Haha, no, Luke, completely unrelated. It's a gavel that's said to contain the souls of a million dead judges. It is also said to be made of gold." He reverted his gaze to the photo, putting the tip of his index finger over the gavel. "It is said whoever wields the Golden Gavel will wield control over the legal system, and that his verdicts must always be obeyed."

"But that's just a legend, isn't it, Professor?"

"We can only pray, Luke. Something of that power falling into the wrong hands..." He shook his head, as if shaking off his doubts. "But it's only a myth. There's strong evidence these relics exist, but of course they don't have any magical or supernatural properties. They're just relics from an earlier time. Quite interesting relics that belong in a museum, of course!"

"But... what's that book?" asked Luke. "The Lawcycolegalpedia, was it? That's a mouthful."

"That, my boy," explained Layton, "is the very first law book in the world. Even older than the Code of Hammurabi. It was carried over to America by viking judges and continually added to, full of strange esoteric laws that California is still bound by to this day... if only the book were found and its laws invoked."

Luke took another look at the photo. There was a crude skull on the book in the picture. Luke shivered and hugged himself.

"Gosh, that's creepy, Professor!"

Layton said: "While I very much doubt the powers of the Golden Gavel, the Lawcycolegalpedia would be a very dangerous weapon in the wrong hands for the people of California."

Luke clenched his fist and there was an angry glint in his eyes. The curtains in the shattered window blew inward and the wind howled into the room, and the shards of glass on the floor caught the moonlight. His hair gently rustled under the version of his hat that he wears to bed.

"Then Phoenix and Maya might be in trouble, Professor! I'd bet anything those troublemakers are on their way to California right now to look for that book!"

Layton got up and regarded his young companion gravely.

"I think you're right, Luke. I think you're right."

Chapter Text

Godot went backstage to Trucy's dressing room at the Wunderbar. She was leaning forward in front of a heart-shaped mirror framed by concentric blinking lights and primping herself and making herself look pretty.

"Hey, kid, what's shaking?" he asked.

She gasped and swiveled around in her seat.

"Uncle Godot!"

She darted a quick glance at the lit cigarette between her fingers and jammed the tip into an ashtray and snuffed it out.

Godot recoiled. Trucy Wright? Smoking? If the Judge's Canadian brother were here, he'd say, I'm not sure how I feel aboot this. If the Judge's Australian brother weren't in a coma, he'd say, A cigarette? Pass it here for a puff, mate. And throw a Foster's on the barbie while you're at it!

However, Godot wasn't a judge, and he had bigger fish to fry.

He took out a manilla envelope. He turned it upside down and a bunch of photos fell onto her desk.

"I wrestled those away from that wanna-be cyborg Spark Brushel." He jerked his head. Her mouth was open in a big O shape. "Apparently the guy was following Klavier around. Spotted the two of you. Didn't want to give them up, but my knuckles can be very convincing."

The pictures showed her sitting with Klavier and going on a date with him.

"It was just one LITTLE date," she said, separating her thumb and the tip of her index finger to show just how little it was. "It doesn't mean anything."

But Godot didn't let up. He said: "Anyway, you're dating the Machi kid, aren't you?" He sculpted his lower face under his visor into an ugly sneer. "You're really getting around, aren't you?"

Trucy's face and nose wrinkled. She held up her hands. "That's disgusting. Can we just drop this? It's none of your business anyway," she snapped.

"Don't take that tone with me, Little Miss Trite. I don't like cheaters. That's one of my rules."

"That's not a rule. That's an opinion."

"Watch it," he warned, shooting a finger gun at her. "I don't take shit from anyone. Especially not women."

"You just don't get it, Uncle Godot!" she cried, shiny tears in her eyes. "You just don't understand what it's like to be a girl!"

"Cut the crap. You're turning 21 next month."

"Even so."

"Listen. Nothing good can come of this. You think you can shove everything bad into a closet in your mind and not think about it. Nuh uh. Sorry. I'm here to tell you that's not how it works. He's just using you like another toy. That's all women are to him. I've worked with the guy. You're not the first and you're not the last. Hell, you're probably not the only current. There's a word for people like him... it starts with pedo and ends with phile."

Godot was sure that if Klavier Gavin went to Willy Wonka's factory he would be killed by a candy machine because he was trying to steal candy and the Oompa Loompas would sing a song about him being a nasty ass pedophile who probably tries to fuck Oompa Loompas.

Yes... if you are a pedophile or a groomer you should be killed. That it my belief was well, Godot. I do not condone the creepiness of Klavier Gavin. Now, back to narrating my tale.

She looked down and fidgeted in her seat and played with the fringe of her cape.

"But Klavier said he's lonely and that he gets along with me best..." She looked up. "He likes me."

"You should know he's bisexual." He said this in sepulchral tones with a voice so grave it might well have been coated in gravy.

"Well, no," she replied, "it's a motorcycle. It's not exactly a bicycle even though it has two wheels." She set her back straight in the chair and put her fists on her hips and huffed. "He made that VERY clear, to me."

"No, Little Miss Trite. It means he's a half-homosexual... like how a wereman is half werewolf. Why do you think he was sucking off Daryan Crescend's dead body in the middle of the courtroom? For laughs? Fun and games?"

"Oh, Klav already explained that. He was just trying to breathe air into him to bring him back to life. You know, like an oxygen tube."

"The guy's bad news," warned Godot. "You're lucky I don't tell your dad."

Her eyes flashed. "Don't tell daddy."

"I won't tell Trite. You know why? Because it would break the poor sap's heart. Maybe you could do that. I can't." He took a sip of coffee. "Break it off."

It wasn't so much Trite's heart he was worried about breaking. He was more concerned about Trite going into a rage and killing Klavier. And he'd do it, too, whether it was really Iris's body or not. Because it was well known Trite had no qualms about hitting women. He had heard about him punching Lotta Hart in the face once over Maya Fey. There was no doubt he was an expert in beating women.

Godot's visor's zoom-vision zoomed in on the snapshots. He scowled.

Godot had never approved of Klavier being in the Prosecutor Squad. He was a depraved airhead psychopath. Almost as bad as Kristoph, but without the brains. Both brothers had fallen from the same tree, but one defied all the odds of gravity and rolled up the hill into law school, and the other apple rolled downhill into a guitar and then Satan played that guitar with his gnarly fingers, his forked tail keeping time to the music. And then that guitar also went to law school.

Klavier Gavin... Kevin Lawyer...

No, he didn't trust either of them. He was against their inclusion in the first place. He had wanted Trite to be on as an honorary prosecutor. Hell, he would even have vouched for Joey Lawyersfield. But Edgeworth had just shaken his head.

"The Governor was adamant," Edgeworth had said. "No defense attorneys. Also... the Governor is not happy with the Jurist System. He has a vendetta against Wright. As does the President. So, no," Miles ignored him and went back to looking at papers on his desk, "no, no, no, Wright in particular is out of the question, I'm afraid."

And he was dead, forchristsake. That Kevin Lawyer guy wasn't any good either. Godot shook his head. No, those two were bad apples. Very very bad worm-infested apples.

She just shrugged. "I'm old enough to decide what I want."

"You'll always be a kid to me. That's one of my rules."

I also like coffee, thought Godot. That's also one of my rules. He quaffed contemplatively.

Then this happened: "Ugh... my chest..." Trucy held it suddenly and bent over in her seat, wincing, her face screwed up.

"What's wrong?" asked Godot.

"It's my chest... it hurts. It like, does that sometimes now?" She grew thoughtful. "Like, it feels like it's exploding a little bit... not a not, just a little bit. Near my heart." She knocked on it with her fist. There was a rattling sound. "It's funny."

"Funny..." repeated Godot listlessly. "Keep an eye on that for me. I worry about you, kid. Always have, always will. You remind me a lot your Aunt Mia..."

He took out a snapshot of Mia and held it out in front of his face so it overlaid Trucy. They both had brown hair. That was about it.

"Aunt Mia..." she said softy, running a hand through her unbraided hair. "Daddy told me a lot about her. She means a lot to you, doesn't she?"

"Yeah. She does. I used to hate your father... but... I learned a lesson... and then I saw her living on through him... and you're living, too, so you're like a third generation Mia, in a way. I did a lot of soul-searching in jail. It wasn't time for me to retire. I feel like God spared me for a reason." He smirked, self-deprecating but sincere at the same time. "Like I'm your family's fallen guardian angel or something."

She smiled. "That's such a sweet idea. I love that. Awww."

Anyway, he saw her fingering a golden necklace around her chain.

"What's that, kid?" asked Godot.

"It came with this letter." She held up a fancy piece of parchment. "It's fan mail."

"Hmph. From the pretty boy?"

"No, it's from someone else. A secret admirer. They didn't even use their real name. It's kinda funny. Look"

He took the fan mail, looked it over, raising the coffee mug to his eager and willing mouth, his agile slimy tongue lapping up the black goodness.

It wasn't until he saw who signed it that his eyes bugged out of their sockets.

Misery Lockedheart

"Brrugh what!" Coffee sloshed out of his mouth and he slipped on it and broke all his bones.

"Oh no!" said Trucy. "Diegodot Armando!"

He lay on the floor, twitching and seizing, limbs jutting out frozen at horrible angles. Coffee pooled under him like blood.

His vision faded, faded, faded.

"Uncle Godot! Uncle Godot!"

The fields of his dreams and his eardrums flooded with One (Remastered) by Metallica.

Now that the war is through with me

I'm waking up, I cannot see

That there's not much left of me

Nothing is real but pain now

Hold my breath as I wish for death

Oh please, God, wake me

Later, he woke up in the hospital. All the lights were out. A dark figure creeped into his room and stood over his bed.

Godot tried to move, but his arms and legs felt like they weren't there at all.

The man put a strange device on his head.

"You won't remember any of this, Diego... I'm wiping your mind."

"No... no..." said Godot as he slipped away, His bracelet beeped in the dark. "Gotta... gotta tell the Prosecutor Squad..."

But it was no use... no use...

Fed through the tube that sticks in me

Just like a wartime novelty

Tied to machines that make me be

Cut this life off from me

Hold my breath as I wish for death

Oh please, God, wake me

Chapter Text

It was the night of their Halloween party.

The sounds of Trucy and Apollo and Thalassa came from downstairs. Dave and the Chipmunks were there, too. They were setting up for the party. There was a lot of good natured laughter. And yet, here he was, upstairs alone.

Sitting on the edge of the bed. Staring blankly ahead. His hands clasped between his knees. Sleeves rolled up up over his forearms. Tie loose.

Thinking.

He had been thinking about it ever since Kristoph brought it up in court.

Had it been his imagination... or had she been looking at him differently?

Was it bouncing around in her head? What Kristoph had said? Like it was bouncing around his?

A bolt of fear shot into his heart. He sat in the darkened room breathing shallowly through his nose. He held his head.

The bedroom window was a pure black pane. A bare branch, like a skeletal arm, tapped against the window. The wind whistled.

It was twelve years ago, now.

About a year into his disbarment.

While Trucy was out at one of her magic shows, he went to the Borscht Bowl Club to play piano.

The day was winding down, the customers gathering their things, and he was peaceful. He was experiencing that peaceful looseness he always felt when he finally had enough grape juice, like his limbs weighed less, and the thoughts that normally bothered him and stuck to his brain only landed on the surface of his mind for a moment, and then melted away, like too-early snowflakes landing on a hot car.

Anyway, an evil man approached him in a Dracula cape with a red inner velvet inner lining and a high collar that hid the sides of his face in shadow. Phoenix turned sideways on the piano bench to look at him.

"You play the piano quite well," the man said. He steepled his fingers. "But have you considered gay prostitution?"

The rest of the customers were gone. It was just Phoenix and this man.

Phoenix adjusted his beanie.

"No, that would be immoral," he said. "The Bible says not do to that, chum."

Phoenix went cross-eyed, and cracked a bottle against the piano. He pointed the jagged dripping end at the man.

"I'll kill you, fucker!"

The man held up his hands in a placatory gesture.

"Hold on, you didn't let me finish. I've been spying on you and your family for some time by someone who paid me to."

Phoenix lowered the bottle.

"What?"

The man took off his hat and peeled off his gloves and put on a trucker cap. It was Shelly de Killer.

"My name's John Deere."

"Shelly de Killer?" said Phoenix Wright. "What are you doing here?"

"Damnation, I took off my disguise accidentally. Oh well. My... employer... has expressed an interest in you. He takes great sorrow in the tragedy and... ahem... penury that has resulted from your disbarment. He considers it a most unfortunate circumstance. He has a business proposal for you to help you get back on your feet."

Phoenix just laughed.

"Sorry," he said, waving a hand, "but I think I know better than to go into business with a guy like you. No thanks."

"Ah, but Mr. Wright, I'm just an intermediary. My employer is most trustworthy. And if you don't trust me, perhaps you'll trust... your father?"

Phoenix started. His eyes went wide.

"My father?"

A little while later, after the owner left him to lock up, Phoenix was sitting downstairs in the Hideout at the poker table with Shelly de Killer and his father.

He hadn't seen his father since that night in college.

"I, uh, have the same employer," said Phoenix's dad, scratching his neck, looking everywhere except his son's eyes.

Phoenix's dad was a complete wreck: shaky, eyes bloodshot, trench coat looking like an old garbage bag, unshaven, mouth hanging open, skin scabby and diseased looking.

"I've been sleeping in my motorcycle."

Not with? Phoenix asked bitterly, in his mind.

"So, uh, how is your daughter?" asked Phoenix's dad. He finally met his son's eyes. They were narrowed and suspicious. "I heard you got one of 'em now."

"Fine. She's fine," said Phoenix "She does magic and she's really good at it."

They played poker, discussed how their lives had been going, and Phoenix and his dad "reconciled." Somehow, he was almost convinced by all the self-serving justifications his dad was serving up. His dad wanted to meet Trucy. Phoenix noticed his glass kept getting full again, no matter how much he drank. This vaguely annoyed him, so he kept drinking them off.

"So... this business deal..." Phoenix took a swig. "...Will help me and Trucy out? Yeah?"

"Yeah," said Phoenix's dad. "I really want you to go in with me, boy."

Phoenix turned his attention to Shelly. He leaned over the table and leered at him, gesturing with his drink and sloshing some on the table, leaving dark wet stains.

"And you were just joking about the whole gay prostitution business?"

John Deere sat up straight and folded his hands on the table.

"Why, of course."

Phoenix's dad pushed a paper and pen across the table, looked around shifty like, and said: "Like, uh, yeah, just sign here."

"Hahahaha..." Phoenix tilted his head back and smiled wide with his teeth showing. "Course, dad."

Afterwards, he got really tipsy and was lead outside, being supported, almost carried, by his dad and Shelly. They were in the dingy deserted alleyway behind the club. A cat yowled, a garbage can crashed, and gravel crunched under foot.

"Dad, you're the best," said Phoenix, burping.

Suddenly he got attacked, punched in the gut by two men with black sacks over their heads who came out of the shadows. His father and Shelly stepped back and Phoenix sunk to the ground, moaning.

"Hello," said one of the men. He pulled off his mask and swung a lead pipe at Phoenix. "My name is Richard Swellington. Richard Wellington's cousin. And if I'm not mistake, you're the third-rate attorney who sent him up the river."

Phoenix was on his knees and tied up in chains. He was covered in bruises.

"What's going on?!" he demanded.

Shelly de Killer held up the contract, dimly readable by the moonlight.

"As you can you see, you are now my employer's property. And as your owner he is allowed to do with your body as he sees fit, including pimping you out to the highest bidder."

His dad was holding up a six pack of beer and sobbing.

"Dad!" cried Phoenix from the ground, chains cutting into his wrists and making them raw and red. "You sold me into gay prostitution for a six pack of beer?"

His dad held up a magazine. "They... they also gave me this nudie mag... It's... it's the non-nude issue... I didn't know."

"Dad!" roared Phoenix. He turned away. "Dad! Look at me! Daaaaaaaaad! No! Noo! God damn it!"

Phoenix was thrown into the trunk of car. The hooded man slammed the lid down and then drove off, taking him... somewhere.

Larry was also there.

"Larry?" asked Phoenix. Their faces were inches apart in the darkness. "What are you doing here?" Larry's whiskers tickled his nose, and he could smell the warm sweetness of his own beer breath against Larry's face, but he was sober now.

"Oh, Nick! It's my girlfriend Mantilda! I met her online! She was actually a Russian man named Mikhail and she sold me into a gay prostitution ring! Oh, it's just another chapter of failure in the life of Loser Butz! Hold me, Nick!"

Phoenix growled. This is the LAST thing he needed right now. When something smelled, it was usually Larry's rank asshole. And in close quarters like these, it REALLY stunk.

They were taken to a deserted warehouse on the edge of town. Shelly and his two goons grabbed them and threw them unceremoniously out of the trunk, and they tumbled outwards onto the pavement with limbs intertwined.

The other masked man took his hood off. He grabbed them by the collars and hoisted them up. He growled. "Get up, youse two," said Bob Tigre, Furio Tigre's brother.

"Do whatever you want with me! But leave Nick alone!" cried Larry.

"Okay to da first part, no to da second."

Larry threw out a thumbs up and smiled. "Well, that's half of my demands met. I did what I could, Nick, so keep your chin up!"

"Yeah..." said Bob Tigre, smirking evilly. "Keep your chin up... or else all dat villainess breastmilk you'll be drinking will fall out of your mouth..."

"Noooooooooooooo!" cried Larry as Nick was taken away by Swellington and Shelly. "Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick!"

Bob slapped a brainwashing helmet shaped like a colander on his head. "Youse won't remember squat of dis, Butz! I'm erasin' your mind!"

Inside the dusty warehouse, bare bulbs swung from beams overhead, and Phoenix was led onto a stage like it was slave auction, hunched over in a pillory, wearing just a dirt beige rag around his waist.

He looked out from the stage into the audience. They were all there. All the minor and major villains from his past who weren't in jail, and all their family members, and anyone who has ever held a grudge against Phoenix Wright. There was an ocean of them, receding back into the darkest recesses of the room.

Shelly tapped a microphone on a stand and announced they're starting the "Win a Night With Phoenix Wright" raffle and all the evils entered. He started spinning the bingo ball thing.

Someone's watching all this through a peephole in the wall... smiling.

Viola Cadaverini entered. The con group Richard Wellington was associated with entered, too. So did a man cosplaying as the statue thinked like the shaper. Phoenix shook his head, he meant, a statue shaped like the Thinker.

"Hehehe..." said Viola. "I'm entering as revenge." She played with a lighter. "Sexy man..." she whispered.

Phoenix's blood ran cold. These evil people wanted. And wanted him bad. As in, evilly.

In the end, April May won.

"Yay!" She winked and shiny titties bounced in her tiny top.

"NO!" roared Phoenix, flexing his muscles and shattering his chains. The broken links flew out in all directions over his head and caught the light and sparkled. "Keep those massive suckable tits of Babylon away from me!"

He swung his shoulders around, smacking Shelly and Swellington with the ends of the pillory, and tried to escape but the pillory got stuck in the door frame.

"Gah!" He kicked his feet around in the air, wedged in the door. "Get me outta here!"

Rough hands laid hold on him and he was dragged into a bedroom, where April May devoured his cock like a corndog, and to make matters worse, next she let him hit it from behind for over two hours. But he couldn't even enjoy it, knowing he had been sold into sex slavery by his own father, and that his daughter must be worried sick about him. His heart sunk, even as his cock rose. Who would pick her up from her magic show?

Later, he sat at alone at the foot of the bed, butt naked with his head between his knees. Shelly came in to give him his money.

Phoenix looked up, dead inside.

"I don't understand..."

"My employer also wishes to be your benefactor, Mr. Wright," said Shelly de Killer. He jabbed a wad of bills towards him. "He feels that if you can't make it as a lawyer he must find you some form of gainful employment. But he wants you to work, of course. He knows you would be too proud to accept charity. Besides, he doesn't believe in it himself."

Phoenix took it, leafed through it, knowing he couldn't say no. He almost barked with laughter. Of course he couldn't, that damn contract. But the money... it was a lifesaver.

Later, Shelly dropped him off at his apartment complex. He pulled up in front and idled the car.

Phoenix was sitting in the back seat, huddled up in the corner with a blanket from the warehouse wrapped around his shoulders, looking down, not speaking.

Shelly rested a hand on the wheel and put the other on the head rest and looked back at Phoenix.

"Remember your contract... we'll be dropping off the client list next week. My... employer... wants you be thankful. What did he want me to say...? Oh, yes. He wants to provide a way for you to support your daughter now that you've been disbarred. And what better way to lift you out of poverty than using your body? Physical labor is what a man was meant to do."

He drove off, and in the kitchen, Miles Edgeworth was sitting at the table with a steaming cup of coffee. It was morning now, and the birds were chirping.

"Wright, Trucy called me from her magic show. I had to pick her up and also drop her off at school. Where were you?"

Then Phoenix noticed something that made his blood run cold.

Stuffed in Miles's backpocket and overflowing were thousands of tickets for the Win a Night with Phoenix Wright raffle.

Miles noticed them, and took one out. He raised an eyebrow.

"What? Is this some crude joke, Wright? Why is this in my pocket...?"

Then Phoenix noticed there was a robot in his apartment, and it was stuffing Miles's pockets. Then it ran away and dove out of the window. Miles ducked down and examined a cog it had dropped. It was engraved with the initials "KG."

"Hmmm... Wright, just what was that robot doing?"

"Trying... to make me think I couldn't trust you. But... that brief moment where I thought I couldn't... almost destroyed me."

Wright had thought Miles had secretly been there in disguise, but in reality, he hadn't, because he had had an alibi, being in court at the time, which Phoenix had actually forgotten about in his immediate horror, and because the raffle tickets had actually been placed there by a robot.

What evil mastermind was trying sow discord in his life like this?

Later that night in bed he woke up, and there was a tiny camera with steady blinking red light outside his window, like a single eye. His heart beat faster. He breathed through his mouth.

Next week the client list came. It was slipped through the mailslot. He picked it up, thanking God he had gotten to it first before Trucy or anyone else could've seen it. She was showing off her magic tricks to Aunt Maya and Pearl in the living room. All of them unaware just why he had grown so distant and cold lately.

"Bye, Truce..."

"Bye, daddy!" she said, smiling up at him, a gap in her teeth where she had just lost a tooth. She was holding a wand with a bunch of flowers sticking out of the end. "Have a good day at work!"

Phoenix climbed inside his pickup truck and He's a Whore by Cheap Trick came on over the radio.

Well, time for work. He shifted into gear. He sighed and looked at the contract again. It was unbreakable, and legally binding, unless he could buy himself out. Larry was in the same boat.

In the present, still sitting forlornly in his bedroom, his mind treated him to a montage of him prostituting himself to evil prosecutors who wanted revenge. Trucy was playing He's a Whore by Cheap Trick (the Chipmunks version) down stairs on their record player and dancing around with her mom and Apollo. The perfect compliment to his horrible memories.

First, there was Winston Payne.

"Ahaha! Now who's the top dog, rookie? The big dick? You know, rival, I've been waiting for this! Oh, I've had a stressful day! I'm going to enjoy this! How does it feel, rookie!?"

"...Who are you again?"

Payne sweated and his meager boner withered away to nothing and his pubes fell out.

Later, Franziska had him on all fours on a bed and was whipping his ass with her whip.

"Foolish fool! None of times in court counted!" She cracked her whip. "Hmph! Now, I will show you the perfect Von Karma victory!"

She put on boxing gloves and started hitting his nutsack like a speed bag.

Grah... thought Phoenix. For trucy... do it for Trucy!

Next was Diego Armando.

He was smuggled into his jail cell inside a birthday cake, not even a big one, so it was really uncomfortable and cramped.

"Just get it over with!" Phoenix said. He gritted his teeth, leg bent behind his neck, covered in frosting.

Godot shook his head. He took a sip.

"I don't swing that way, Trite. I was just lonely and I wanted some company. But," he considered, "I will pour this piping hot coffee down your urethra as punishment for letting my little kitten Miss Mia Mittens die."

Next was Wendy Oldbag. He was standing there in the room flustered, wearing a Miles Edgeworth wig.

"Okay, now put on the cravat," she said. He obliged. She smiled like a devil. "Now take it off." He groaned.

He groaned even more under the counter at Tres Bien when Jean Armstrong's rancid load splashed against his face like a banana cream pie.

"Ooh la la, ma petite Phoenix! Zis refreshing cum is perfect for la complexion! Oui oui!"

It was arranged so none of them knew he wasn't doing this completely voluntarily. Shelly's employer made sure of that.

Dee Vasquez blew smoke in his face. He had inadvertently caused a lot of bad publicity for her studio.

Her evil mafia minions appeared, dressed in Blue Badger costumes.

"All right, boys, have at him."

Phoenix was too drugged up on grape juice at this point to feel anything as they fucked him in all his holes. Three dicks in his butthole, five in his mouth, and one in each ear.

Ugh... he thought. This sucks.

At Tender Lender, Viola wanted another shot at him after losing the raffle.

"Now put on the Furio Tigre wig," she said.

He groaned.

He had her over his knee with her dress hiked up, spanking her fat ass.

"Oof," she said, her cheeks rippling. "Harder, lover," she whispered.

Phoenix looked up at the cracked ceiling of Tender Lender. A car passed by outside and the light from the headlamps traveled across the dark wall, but he stayed in shadow.

"Lord, forgive me for what I must do," he said.

He slapped that ass like it was plate of Jello and lowered his face into her buttcrack and blew a raspberrie.

With Viola, it had been different. But they were from different worlds.

The humiliation and degradation didn't end there. There were also members of the con group, circus freaks, the Judge's Australian brother, disgraced members of Bluecorp, distinguished legal scholars, and who knew who else.

Spark Brushel followed him around, taking notes. Phoenix spotted him a few times, hiding in the bushes, or darting away, catching a glimpse of his bony ankle as he fled around the corner.

But he always felt there was someone else watching him, too... The bird with the microphone taped to its neck that kept perching on the windowsill as he gay prostituted himself couldn't just be a coincidence...

Could it?

This went on for six months. Six soul crushing, spirit defiling months.

His dad showed up outside of his client's dirty apartment one day.

"It... it wasn't me, Phoenix. It was an evil robot."

"That's always your excuse, dad!"

His dad flared up and stood up on his tippy toes, looked him right in the eye.

"That's because it's always the truth!" He shoved him. "Faggot bitch!"

They got into a father and son fist fight, Phoenix breaking his dad's teeth. He pulled his fist back with a tooth embedded in it between the knuckles. Phoenix's dad banged his head against a lamp post. Phoenix staggered, breath frosting.

And then his dad handed him a check.

"You... you don't need to do that to yourself anymore, son."

It was for 250,000 dollars.

His dad shrunk into the collar of his jacket like a turtle.

"That should buy you and your friend out of ya contracts... with enough left over to support you and your kid for a while... you know, till you cheat enough at poker to get back on your feet." He shuffled his own.

"Dad..."

Phoenix's dad walked away down the blustery street with his hands in pockets.

"Don't ever say I didn't do nothing for ya, kid."

"You killed mom!" Phoenix yelled to his back. "You killed my mother! Look at me! Look at me, you bastard!"

He never looked back.

Phoenix took the money anyway.

Could it have been him?

Was Kristoph the one who had done that to him?

Now, one the edge of the bed, he held his head in hands, squeezing his temples with his his palms, crying, digging into his scalp with his fingernails.

Then.

All the bad memories fade away.

Because that's all they are... memories

As easily broken as the gossamer webs of our dreams when we awake.

And he was awaken to a new life with his loving family, and the growing life in his love's womb.

He got up and passed the threshold and joined them.

But everything I just said was wrong, all wrong, nothing but self serving lies. Because the past is real and tangible and has weight. And it can crush you and everything and everyone you love.

Stop it!

It was over ten years ago...

Just stop it!

Then a ghost appeared in the room.

Chapter Text

A few hours later and the party was in full swing. All of Phoenix and Thalassa's friends were there. Their living room was decorated with plastic bats, plastic caskets, jack-o-lanterns, and other kinds of spooky stuff. Lamiroir was dressed as a slutty version of Lamiroir this year, and Athena was dressed as a slutty firefighter. The Chipmunks and the other kids were taking turns swinging at a pinata with a baseball bat.

"Peace Sells" by Megadeth blared over the speakers as Phoenix and his friend Dave stood side-by-side in the center of the room and did a funky dance as the people around them cheered.

Lotta Hart folded her arms and said, "Damn, those white boys have moves."

If there's a new way

Oh, I'll be the first in line

But it better work this time

"Nice moves, Dave," Phoenix panted. He was dressed up as his best friend Dave Seville.

"Thanks, Phoenix," Dave replied, turning around and giving the ladies a view of his perfectly sculpted ass. He was dressed as Phoenix Wright, #1 Lawyer Guy.

Phoenix Wright's other best friend Stu Pickles was glaring coldly at his wife from across the room over his wine glass.

"You frigid cunt," he whispered. He was dressed as Dracula. He took a sip of fruit punch. "You fucking refrigerator of a wife."

Deedee looked over her shoulder and stopped chatting with her friends and marched over to him with her hands on her hips. She was dressed as a slutty version of Frankenstein.

"Stu, you had better not be wearing that horrible belt, I told you not to," she snapped.

"I didn't!"

She walked away.

He chuckled and turned away. He leaned over and pulled up his shirt, revealing his hairy belly button and his backfiring, wheezing dick-sucking apparatus. Loose screws and bolts flew out in random directions.

"Oh, but I did..." he whispered. "I most certainly did." He laughed evilly.

Meanwhile, Machi was dancing around on top of a glass-top coffee table with his size 4 woman's feet. He looked as delicate as a porcelain doll or a music box ballerina. At only 4'10, he was even shorter than Trucy.

"Ha!" said Godot, impressed. He was paraplegic and in a wheelchair hooked up to an IV drip full of coffee. "Look at him go! This kid must fuck like a tiger!"

"I'd just love to take him with me and keep him under a glass case," said Lotta Hart. "Yuh know, to keep him safe. He looks a mite fragile, like."

"Don't you think they make a cute couple?" asked Thalassa. She clasped her hands and watched Machi and her daughter. "He's such a kind boy. I'm so happy for them. Especially after all the hardship he's been through... I'm glad they have each other. Like I have you."

"I know, right?" said Phoenix. He took a sip from his jewel-encrusted wine goblet (a gift from Edgeworth). He pointed. "And look at him, the best part is he's basically like a fourth Chipmunk." Phoenix liked that he was non-threatening, like a squeak toy.

Thalassa laughed that rich, sonorous laugh of hers. You could navigate the ocean floors with that laugh. "Oh, he does, doesn't he! I have never noticed that before! Oh, dear, but don't let him hear you say that!"

Phoenix slapped her ass. "Well, you're probably just too busy dragging that giant wagon of yours around all day to notice stupid shit like that." It jiggled for thirty consecutive seconds.

There was one word that came to mind when looking at Lamiroir's backside.

Equestrian.

God.

Damn.

She blushed deeply, her face suffusing even deeper crimson than the wine had made it. She had been drinking a little too much for a pregnant woman, but not enough to go over the safe limit. And it was non-alcoholic wine.

Machi hopped off the table and said: "Ah, I am so lucky to have the American girlfriend, yes!" He kissed Trucy on the cheek while she closed her eyes and beamed under her witch's hat.

For his part, Phoenix Wright was relieved that everything was finally back to normal. Everyone was safe. Especially Trucy. Just by looking at her, you wouldn't even guess there was a bomb surgically implanted in her heart five years ago.

He was calm. She had no idea. She was going to get it removed soon. She was having fun on Halloween. They all were.

He stood with his hands on his hips and surveyed the crowd like a farmer surveying his crops. The Judge was playin pin the tail on the donkey, Edgeworth was dressed as his father Gregory Edgeworth and bobbing for apples, and Will Powers was there as the Steel Samurai and performing for the kids.

The Starchild, the Demon, the Spaceman, and the Catman from KISS were there, too. Phoenix and Thalassa knew them through Dave, who knew them because they were also signed to JETT records. They were only behind the Gavinners and the Chipmunks in popularity.

Yup... Phoenix nodded his head proudly. It looks like their fifth annual Halloween party since buying the house together was a success.

Someone wondered what their next party game should be, and Edgeworth said, "Oh, I know, let's practice giving each other CPR."

So they all gathered in the living room and sat around on couches and chairs and watched each other take turns practicing saving each other's lives.

Phoenix was pinning Mia being channeled by Maya down by her wrists when suddenly the doorbell rang.

"Where's that weird doorbell sound coming from?" asked Phoenix, pushing himself up.

Thalassa responded from the couch: "It must be a late arrival."

He kneeled himself up. "I wonder who it could be? I'll go get it."

"But I'm still dying," Mia said from the floor, trying to stay in character.

"Don't worry, we can practice CPR more later. It's a really important practical skill to know."

Edgeworth suggested that he demonstrate the technique, because he had a lot of real-life experience performing CPR on his father and Manfred von Karma in his youth, but Phoenix snapped, "Only I can do it," and made for the door.

Anyway, he opened the front door.

On that cold, spooky night, in the dim light of the porch light, there was a figure standing half-submerged in darkness. All Phoenix could see was a blue suit... folded arms... a red tie... blonde locks falling over the shoulders...  a sharp, angular lower face protruding out of the darkness... and finally, shiny perfect white teeth, like pearls,

No... it couldn't be! Phoenix gripped the doorframe and his mouth fell open. It's...!

"Hello, I'm Biscoff Gavin," said the stranger, stepping into the light. He looked exactly like Kristoph Gavin except he had a moustache. "The Third Gavin Brother."

Everyone crowded around Phoenix's shoulders, the shocked expression still on his face.

"Oh, yeah, the Third Gavin Brother, I've heard of this guy," said Larry Butz, nodding. "He's a huge opera singer over in Germany!"

"Big bro!" exclaimed Klavier, happy and excited. "What are you doing here in America? It's great to see you!"

Biscoff Gavin put his head a little on one side and smiled, twirling one end of his mustache around his index finger.

"Ah, it is good to see you, too, my youngest brother, and in the land of the living, no less. When I heard about that terrible, terrible tragedy that befell you and dear Brother Kristoph," here he closed his eyes and shook his head mournfully, "I knew it was time to come and visit." He pressed his brother's hands in his. "Mother would want us to comfort one another. Especially now that I'm the only living Gavin left."

Klavier was touched. Everyone chattered in the doorframe. Phoenix felt his heartbeat slowly return to normal. No, this couldn't be Kristoph. Kristoph had been shot in the face, drowned in Eagle River. If this was Kristoph, he'd have a bullet hole in his face. And his clothes would be wetter.

"I only arrived tonight," Biscoff explained. "I knew the hour was late, but I called upon you at your mansion. Your butler told me you were here, and, well, I couldn't help but see you and confirm with my own eyes that you were indeed alive in some fashion." He looked over Phoenix's shoulder and past his brother's eyes into Thalassa's, instinctively deferring to her as the host of the party. "I do hope I'm not intruding."

"But of course not!" she said. "It would be an honor to have you, Mr. Biscoff! Please, come inside and join us for Halloween dinner!"

Everyone went to the dining room and sat around the long table, fit for a king's feast. Biscoff was the guest of honor, of course, and sat near Phoenix and Thalassa. The serving girls Phoenix had hired passed around the Halloween feast, and Apollo got mad because Klavier kept sucking the innards of his sandwiches out every time he closed his eyes to take a bite.

Biscoff began regaling them with tales of his youth...

Chapter Text

"We three brothers were born into penury. Our father was a harsh mistress, far harsher than his own mistress, our dear young mother, who always cared for us, and tried to make life in that little one-room apartment as bearable as possible," he said. "Soon the punches and kicks and spankings of childhood grew to be too much, and I threw off my family obligations and left little Kristoph at a young age and ran off to join the opera. I could only find work as a janitor, but the owner of the opera house saw me singing into my mop handle and thrusting my hips behind the stage curtains like Elvis Presley, and he decided to let me join the opera. However, I needed to furnish my own costume, so after years of no contact, I sent a letter to my parents pleading with them to send me funds."

He continued: "However, to my shock, I learned that my mother had died giving birth to my youngest brother, dear Klavier, and that my father in his grief had died penniless. I returned to my childhood home only to find it occupied by a new family. My two brothers were nowhere to be found. I begged my master at the opera house to grant me a leave of absence while I searched for my brothers, and he reluctantly agreed."

"Geez, this guy is almost as not blind and can speak English as Machi Tobaye," whispered Phoenix to Thalassa.

Biscoff Gavin, with nothing more than a hockey stick over his shoulder and a big condom tied to the end to hold his few worldly possessions, set out to search Germany for his brothers.

"I found stinky diapers full of poo leading from our small peasant village to the forests of Bavaria," explained Biscoff. "I sniffed them and they smelled like me."

Thus, certain that his brothers were living in the forest, he set out, and eventually found a small shack in the middle of the woods with plumes of smoke curling out of the fireplace. He knocked on the door.

"Here I discovered that this was the residence of none other than Gruber Grossberg, one of the most famous and reclusive attorneys in all of Germany." Biscoff raised his long-stemmed wine glass. "And this part of the story I believe my brother can tell better."

So Klavier said: "Well, after our mom and dad died, I was only one year old, and we had, like, no money or relatives. Kristoph was only eight at the time, but he knew we could get thrown in debtor's prison because of our dad, so he took me on his back and we ran away into the forest."

Klavier explained that they had lived off moss and wolf breastmilk for a while, until Gruber Grossberg found them while hunting one day. That's how they became lawyers; this great man adopted them. Then, later, they were sent to America to learn about law, because Gruber had been disgraced and was unable to apprentice them, and Gruber put them on a big boat and waved a handkerchief at them.

The ship was called the Titanic 2. The captain stood at the bow with his hands behind his back.

"Good hat-wearing weather today," said Captain Triton Poseidon. He adjusted his giant hat like Captain Crunch's. "A fine day to sail this mighty liquid we call the ocean."

But just then an iceberg appeared!

"Sir, there's an iceberg ahead."

The Captain's gaze was steadfast.

"Deploy the anti-iceberg missiles."

The crowd watched and cheered as the iceberg was blown to smithereens and Los Angeles appeared on the horizon.

Young Klavier caught a chunk of the iceberg and showed it to Kristoph.

"Look, Krissy, I'll keep it as a souvenir to show all my new friends!"

Kristoph had smiled. "I admire your enthusiasm, brother, but it'll melt eventually."

"Oh."

"Steady on, boys, steady on!" said Captain Triton Poseidon. He pointed. "We're approaching America! The land of dreams! Here, even an iceberg can exist unmelted!"

Klavier glossed over the years and/or possible decades of rumored incest between him and Kristoph and told them all about how they had grown up together in LA, delivering newspapers, collecting bottles for spare change, and being apprenticed by the lovable Marvin Grossberg, Gruber Grossberg's cousin.

"Eventually," said Klavier, gesturing at Biscoff, "our oldest brother here figured out what happened to us. Gruber told him all about it. So he came to America to meet us. It was the first time I ever saw him," said Klavier, favoring his brother with a warm smile, "till the band hit the big time and we could tour in Germany. Heh, you remember that, Biscoff? Ah, good times, good times."

"Indeed," smiled Biscoff. "Indeed."

They had all hugged and Biscoff gave them all the money he had, saving just enough to sail back to Germany.

"I remember," recalled Biscoff, "how proud young Kristoph was even then. He knew what he was, and what he wanted to be. And I could tell he wasn't going to let anything stand in his way."

Kristoph used the money to buy a special little blue suit, one with a red tie, and age-expansion abilities so it would grow up with him as he grew up.

And he had worn it ever since.

Klavier, on the other hand, used the money to buy an electric guitar, which he played on street corners to help fund their education.

He lost his virginity to that guitar.

Knowing that his only true skill was singing in the opera and that the opera was as dead as disco in America, and that his staying with his brothers would only burden them and their caretaker Marvin Grossberg further, Biscoff Gavin sailed back to Germany with a heavy heart, not knowing how he could possibly accrue the funds to buy an opera costume now.

But the angels work in strange ways. Upon his return to Germany, on the outskirts of the peasant village where he grew up, Biscoff Gavin found a crashed cargo plane. Inside he found a box of age-expansion suits just like the one his brother had bought!

"And then it hit me," said Biscoff. "An orchestra began playing in my head. Instead of buying a elaborate opera costume, why not wear a humble blue age-expansion suit with a red tie? I could create a new type of opera, the fancy workingman's opera. It was perfect."

His only worry had been that the opera house owner wouldn't go along with it, but he had a plan; during the middle of that night's performance, he rappelled down from the ceiling on a rope, wearing what would become his iconic blue age-expansion suit. He sang so well that the owner wept. He was immediately signed on and became the star of German opera.

"And that," smiled Biscoff in the present, fanning out his hands, "is the first chapter in the life of Biscoff."

"Wow..." sighed Trucy softly, leaning forward in her chair. "That's amazing. I can't believe I'm in the presence of such an amazing professional like you..."

"C'mon..." scowled Apollo, folding his arms. "You've never even heard of this guy till now. And you hate the opera. You made fun of me for trying to get into it."

"Hush, Polly."

Everyone agreed Kristoph may have been a bad egg, but there was no doubt his elder brother was a true gentleman and a fine talker. Phoenix more than anyone else was relieved that this guy was who he claimed to be.

Stu, however, was getting bored.

"Screw this," he muttered under his breath as Deedee babbled on next to him. He reached under the table and flipped the switch on his belt. "I'm getting my dick sucked."

Then the unthinkable happened.

"Oh god, my dick!"

His dick-sucking machine started stripping its gears and mangling his penis. Blood spurted everywhere, dousing the guests and Thalassa's fine white tablecloth, and he screamed and staggered all around the house, bumping off walls and fine artwork, till he fell down the front steps and rolled around the front lawn like he was on fire. Blood and pink dick shreddings flew up and got all over the yard.

Everyone watched on the front porch.

"Oh, Stu..." said Deedee, sobbing into her brother-in-law Drew's chest.

"No!" cried Klavier. He took out his cell phone. "Stu Pickles! Oh mien gott! Herr penish ist beaning shredden!"

"Ack!" said Ace Frehley.

Blue and red lights flashed on the lawn, sirens grew closer, and Phoenix went back inside the house and into the kitchen to fix himself a drink. Biscoff followed him through the swinging kitchen doors.

"It's sad, huh, Biscoff?" asked Phoenix, not turning around from the counter. "Poor Stu. I hope he'll make it."

"Turn around."

"Hmm?"

"Turn around."

He turned around.

Biscoff ripped his mustache off with a tearing sound, and leaned forward and rushed towards Phoenix, menacing him. Phoenix's back hit the countertop and he hissed, eyes wide.

"It was me, Wright! It was me all along!"

Kris... Kristoph...

Phoenix felt his vision go blurry.

"But... but... you're dead!" cried Phoenix. He pointed vaguely at his face. "You were shot in the face!"

Kristoph chuckled. "I have a good doctor."

"But I thought... you were... Biscoff..."

"I am," smiled Kristoph. He leaned in closer, making Wright bend back further over the counter. "Or so everyone thinks. And no one will believe otherwise, Wright."

Phoenix felt a rising panic. His heart beat rapidly. He swallowed.

"F-F-Fingerprints!" Phoenix blurted out. He pointed all around the kitchen. "You've left them everywhere!"

Kristoph took a step back and peeled off skintight flesh-colored gloves with a yawn.

"Gloves with fake fingerprints..." He looked up, smirked. "One of my favorite inventions of mine."

"Why..." began Phoenix. "Why are you here? Can you tell me that, at least? Why you're torturing me? Are you sick? I did what you wanted. I held up my end of the bargain."

"I'll tell you why I'm here. I'm going to marry Trucy. I'm going to court her till she falls in love with me. And you'll walk her down the aisle for me. You, and only you, will know. After all, a famous opera singer like me... she has a thing for professionals doesn't she? It won't be hard for me to win her heart... especially with this fake mustache at my disposal." It was back on now. He twisted it. "I'll make sure both the Gavin and Wright bloodlines live on. Don't worry, Wright, I'll make sure to be gentle with her. I am a man of honor, after all."

"Gavin..." Pheonix growled. Guttural. Shoulders and face twitching. Red-faced and teeth bared like an animal. Every instinct of his was telling him to move in, to kill, to slam Kristoph's head in the freezer door, to beat his head against the floor into a paste, but one thing stopped him, one thing made him hesitate to put this man in the ground, to make him suffer.

The detonator.

He realized now why he had hesitated to tell anyone, even after Kristoph fell into the river. Till he saw the corpse for himself, a part of him would always believe he was alive, and had the power to blow up the bomb in his daughter's heart.

Just then Edgeworth walked into the kitchen and said: "Well, the fire department just came and managed to pry Stu Pickles out of his belt. He's in critical condition and is being airlifted to Our Mothers and Sisters and Aunts and Female Cousins of Mercy Hospital."

Kristoph's back was to Edgeworth. He had the detonator in his palm and halfway hidden up the sleeve of his jacket. Phoenix stared at it.

Edgeworth noticed Wright seemed distraught. He looked at him over "Biscoff's" shoulder with concerned eyes. "Is there anything you want to tell me, Wright?"

Phoenix answered in the negative. He knew he couldn't risk going to the police or Edgeworth, even in secret, because if Kristoph caught wind of it he'd activate the bomb.

Besides.

This was his own personal war with Kristoph. He was going to take him down himself.

Edgeworth said: "All right," and withdrew.

One more thing.

Phoenix took out his cellphone. "Hello? Big Wins? About that doctor's appointment for my daughter..."

Kristoph's eyes laughed. So did his mouth.

Chapter Text

Time passed since then. The days came and went like the people moving in and out of our lives. More leaves fell from the trees, and their bare boughs shivered in the cold. The pages were flying off the calendar with heedless abandon, and Phoenix Wright was helpless to stop them, chase after them and try to gather them up as he might. Now it was late November, and almost Trucy's twenty-first birthday.

Edgeworth and Klavier continued their investigations with the Prosecutor Squad, Dave and the Chipmunks were working on a rock ballad with KISS, Layton and Luke were on their way to America, and Trucy and Kristoph got closer and closer.

A sight no parent let alone a Phoenix Wright wanted to see was Trucy's door open and Kristoph Gavin sitting behind her on her bed and brushing her hair. He smiled evilly at Phoenix over her shoulder as she chattered away on the phone.

Kristoph was ingratiating himself with her more and more, always finding some excuse to visit Phoenix and Thalassa's house and bother her. He also had a way of making sure her boyfriend was never around. Even worse was Kristoph acting very chummy with Phoenix in front of her, as if they were becoming good friends, as if Phoenix was complicit in this, encouraging it.

Oh, he acted like a perfect gentleman. Trucy soon got over how closely he resembled the man who had killed her father. He invited them all to his opera shows he was playing in the small clubs, and of course Phoenix couldn't say no. Kristoph even started practicing magic, much to Trucy's delight. He made bouquets of flowers appear out of nowhere for Thalassa.

"For a lovely woman and a dutiful mother," he would say.

Thalassa blushed under her veil and took them. "Oh, my, you're such a talented man, Mr. Gavin!"

"Please... call me Biscoff. Mr. Gavin sounds so formal. And we wouldn't want to overdress our language among friends, would we?"

Phoenix scowled and looked up from the rug in front of their fireplace, where he was lying on his stomach and playing with his firetruck.

"You didn't make that," objected Phoenix. "You just got that from the dirt outside and put it in your shirt. Some magic trick."

"Daddy," frowned Trucy, putting her hands on her hips and puffing out her cheeks.

But Biscoff just smiled and said: "No, no, he's quite right. It's a paltry trick compared to the ones young Miss Wright here performs on stage. Still," he continued, looking up at the ceiling wistfully, "dirt was given to us by God, wasn't it? And such beautiful things can spring up from it. In a way it's ALL life and magic. Even such a simple trick has its charms."

"Wow..." said Trucy. "I think I get it. So you're saying it's like a celebration of life."

"Of course," said Biscoff, sneering at Phoenix out of the corner of his eye. "We all have our talents. Yours is magic, mine is the opera, and I hear my dear friend Mr. Wright here is a prodigy on the piano. Would you care to play something?"

"Sure, why not?" shrugged Phoenix, knowing full well that this was a challenge, and that he had a reputation as a portapotty, not a prodigy. And despite Trucy and Thalassa trying to stop him, he sat down at the piano bench. Kristoph grinned and waited with folded arms. Now everyone will see how pathetic he is compared to me, he thought. Humiliated in his own home. He might as well let me put the horns on him, ha ha.

But to everyone's shock, Phoenix played Twinkle Twinkle Little Star perfectly, with no mistakes! Sure, he played with only one finger, and really slowly, but he played it all the same.

"H-How... did you...?" Kristoph hissed and pressed his back against the wall. Trucy and Thalassa clapped.

Phoenix looked up at him with blank eyes. "I've been practicing, Biscoff. I'm getting better." Dave had helped him.

Biscoff narrowed his eyes. "So I see... Very good, Mr. Wright, very good..."

They stared at each other. They both knew the game was on.

Phoenix couldn't even enjoy his alone time with Thalassa anymore. Even during their daily face sitting and ass worship sessions, all he could think about was Kristoph. Maybe it was the portraits of Biscoff that Thalassa had painted and hung in the room. Some of the portraits even had him and Biscoff posing with each other, as if they were friends.

"Phoenix, dear, are you all right?" she asked, looking over her shoulder, concern showing over her veil. Besides that she was completely naked and sitting backwards in a chair. "You haven't licked my butthole even once yet."

"Ah, sorry about that," said Phoenix, glumly. He was on his knees behind her. "Let me fix that." He took a big lick and, hell, it was good. She took care of herself, she was clean, she smelled good, she was tasty, and she was a woman. He gripped her cheeks and dug in for seconds.

But even his wife's big fat ass couldn't distract him for long.

Today, Phoenix and Thalassa were decorating the baby's future room. Half the room had blue wallpaper, with fluffy white clouds, blue carpeting, a darling little crib, and all the other sweet little touches she wanted to add. The other half was pink, just in case it was a girl.

"This would be lovely, wouldn't it, Phoenix?" she asked. She held up an object, face flushed from the exertion. She was wearing a t-shirt from Borginia that said Don't talking to me, I am doing MILF things. "Phoenix? Dear?"

"Yeah. It would."

She looked sad. She said: "Are you all right? I do not wish to burden you... especially if I'm wrong... but you seem so distant lately."

"I guess I'm just busy with work," he said coldly. "I guess I just feel drained sometimes. It's nothing important."

He hated having to lie to her. Every lie made him feel more distant. Almost as if he loved her less. Another thing Kristoph was responsible for.

Then they discussed baby names.

"Well, I always liked Russel," said Phoenix.

He put his hands on her stomach and rubbed it gently. He smiled, felt that warmness and pure feeling return just when he thought it had left. He looked into her eyes.

Love her less? How could that be possible?

With their love it didn't matter... What came before didn't matter... Anything that happened outside of it didn't matter... It was a complete love.

"Russel..." she said. "I like that. Russel Sprout?"

He smiled a big smile. "Hey, I like that, too. Russel Sprout. Russel Sprout Wright. It has a good ring to it. That's a lawyer's name, all right!"

"But what if it's a girl?"

Phoenix thought for a second. "I always liked P names. Any ideas?"

"Princess?"

"Princess Wright? Nah. Trucy is already our princess. How about... Pam?"

"Pam? I adore that. Middle name?"

"Pam... Manella?"

"Pam..."

"Pam Cakes?"

Lamiroir smiled. "I love that. Russel Sprout for a boy, Pam Cakes for a girl." They held hands.

He could tell how happy she was to be having another child again. Especially so long after having her other children, which she didn't remember so well, due to the lingering effects of her amnesia.

"I love you..." he whispered. "You're everything to me. You and Trucy."

And she even believed it was true.

Chapter Text

As for the other people in Phoenix's life? Well, Miles was always busy, on some sort of secret mission. Phoenix couldn't care less. Professor Layton sent him a letter via carrier pigeon saying that he and Luke were coming to Los Angeles and warned him that that the legal system might be in trouble.

That didn't hold any interest for Phoenix Wright right now, either. He had done his part for the legal system when he invented the Jurist System. All he was concerned about now was stopping Kristoph and protecting Trucy.

Dave and the Chipmunks were having some big problems recording their new concept album with KISS. Alvin was morose and moody and acting out a lot. He kept breaking stuff on set, including the KISS members' instruments.

"ALVIIIIIIIIIIN!" said Dave.

Alvin walked out.

"Damn it!" said Starchild. "Our Gibson Guitars and Pearl Drums! We use those because we want the best!"

Gene Simmons merely roared and stuck his tongue out like he was eating pussy.

"What do you think has gotten into Alvin?" asked Simon, still plucking at a big bass.

"I don't know," said Theodore. He crooked a finger under his lower lip. "But he seems kinda sad lately."

Dave sat down and sighed, the dickey of his tuxedo sticking up. That little punk... He gritted his teeth. He's ruining everything! Why can't he be a good boy?

The 80-piece orchestra he had hired to annoy Dave started playing again. One of the orchestra members gave birth and the baby started banging on a pot, making it an 81-piece orchestra. "No, no, no, shut up!" said Dave. Dave snapped at Simon: "And stop playing that harmonica. If he doesn't want to play, fine by me. We'll practice without him. And a-one, and a-two, and a-three..."

Outside, Ian Hawke approached Alvin in a black trench coat and wide brimmed hat. Goons lurked behind his shoulder in the shadows of the alley.

"You've kept Uncle Ian waiting, little buddy." He patted his heavy leather bowling ball bag with a gloved hand. "Now, climb in."

Klavier was busy all the time, too. Including playing shows with his brother. They seemed to be bonding a lot.

But there was one thing that bothered Klavier.

One night after a duet at the Sunshine Coliseum, Biscoff took a bow and his own autobiography fell out of his jacket.

It was bookmarked at the exact spot where he had stopped telling his history at the Halloween party.

Stu Pickles? Well, he was alive. If you can call that "alive". No dick at all. They hadn't been able to save anything. It would've been like trying to put a popped balloon back together again. He had been released from the hospital and now he was recovering at home. Phoenix had been to see him a few times. Played with Tommy and his friends. Tried to ignore Didi and Stu fighting.

"You're lucky, Phoenix," said Stu, slurping down Samurai Soda with Phoenix in the backyard and watching the kids play while Didi bitched to her female friends inside. "Your penis wasn't lost in a tragic accident on Halloween night like mine was. Consider yourself lucky."

"I do, Stu."

"You can still shoot ropes of cum onto the ceiling... or play cornhole with your wife's gaped asshole from across the room. Boy, you're lucky."

"Okay, Stu."

In front of them on a folding table was a small TV with big antennas for ears. The static looked like giant ants in a snowstorm. The reception was bad but a woman's voice broke through the static.

"The President has issued a statement... Fully committed... 200,000 more troops by spring..."

The picture cleared up, and the TV showed the president standing at a podium in front of the white house, waving to a cheering crowd. The news ticker on the bottom mentioned the on-going energy crisis and the Chipmunk's upcoming album.

Phoenix and Stu leaned forward in their seats, both widening their earholes and puffing intently on their pipes as they listened to the president's speech.

When it was over, Stu leaned back and closed his eyes. "Boy, this country," he said, shaking his head. "Who voted for this clown?"

"Over half the country, apparently," said Phoenix, shaking his head too.

Michael Bludwrath was the youngest president in the country's history, only 36 years old. He had a lot of big ideas and made a lot of big campaign promises. He had inherited the War overseas from his predecessor and claimed to be finding a way to end it while simultaneously committing more and more troops at every opportunity. Also, he had a vendetta against Phoenix Wright for inventing the Jurist system, which by the time of his election last year had spread like wildfire throughout America, and was being adopted by more and more States. He blamed the Jurist System for the rising crime rates, somehow. His biggest campaign promise was to do everything in his power to support a constitutional amendment to make the Jurist System illegal.

Just then Grandpa Pickles jerked awake in his lawn chair.

"Bludwrath?" said Grandpa. "That idjit may have changed his name, but he's a Bloodwraith through and through! Devil worshipers, they are! Made a deal with Satan, they did." He looked up at the clouds overhead and stroked his chin. "I saw it myself back when I was at Ivy University, oh, some 80 odd years ago. Course, I wasn't really attending, I was just the janitor. I remember it like it was yesterday..."

Stu rolled his eyes and muttered: "Oh, boy, here we ago... another one of pop's fairy tales." Meanwhile, all the babies gathered around Grandpa and listened to his recollections of days past.

"You see, sprouts, Michael Bludwrath's great, great grandfather Lucifer Bloodwraith was the leader of one the fraternities there. Late one night I was cleaning up after a particularly wild and crazy party in the frat house. I didn't think anyone was still there, but then I heard some ritualistic chanting. I followed it to the end of a long, dark hall. The further I went down that hallway, the hotter and hotter I got, till I was sweating into my mop bucket, even though it was late November. There was a closet door there, and smoke and an eerie red light was coming out of bottom. The evil chanting was getting louder and louder."

The babies were frightened and shaking in their diapies, especially Chuckie and Phoenix Wright, but Stu scolded his father: "Really, pop, this is hardly appropriate for the kids, especially since it's all bullshit."

"This is the kind of thing my parents told me in the Grimm Fairy Tales, so hush up!" He turned his attention back to the babies. "Anyhow, this is better than a fairy tale, because it's real. Suddenly there was this great big exploding sound, and then there was an explosion from the closet! The door blew outwards but the hinges held! I was so scared I just about dropped my mop. Well, the red light went away, and so did the heat, and the doorknob started turning from the inside. I was so scared of whatever was in there that I used a shrink potion I had stolen from the University lab and hid in a mousehole. I stuck my head out and peered outside just as the door opened a great big boot stepped out." Here Grandpa leaned down further towards the babies. His shoulders sloped up and he looked from right to left, one eyebrow lifted high. "And attached to the boot was a foot. And attached to that boot was a leg. And attached to that leg was pants. And attached to pants was a body. And attached to that body was a head and shoulders. And on top of that head... were a pair of devil horns!"

The babies screamed, not because they could understand grown-up speech, but because Grandpa roared at the top of his lungs like a Viking warlord and flung the babies all around the lawn like an autistic gorilla escaped from the special needs cage at the zoo. Tommy landed in the sandbox and Spike had to dig him out, and Grandpa grabbed Chuckie by the ankles as he was trying to run away and spun him around and around like it was the hammer toss at the Olympic Games, and then he let go and Chuckie sailed across the lawn toward a tree and his head got stuck in a big hole in the trunk.

"C'mon, pop, none of that is true," said Stu. "Stop chucking the kids."

"It is true!" said Pops, sticking out his chicken chest. "And that man with devil horns was none other than Lucifer Bloodwraith! A boon companion of Manfred von Karma's, he was. And ever after he got those horns, a bunch of odd happenings began happening around campus." He waved his hands around for emphasis. "Bats in the classrooms, lava in the hallways, ritualistic killings... A young gal was stripped naked down to her skirt and covered in barbed wire and crucified to the Civil War monument. She had 'whore' carved into her chest."

"Sure, pop."

"And Lucifer Bloodwraith started getting really buff for no reason. And he got all sorts of accolades, and high grades he didn't deserve. And he wore a top hat to hide his horns."

"Whatever you say, pop."

"No wonder this country has gone to hell!" said grandpa. The babies clambered toward him and played around him. Spike put his paws on his thighs and licked his face. "It's been taken over by devil worshipers!"

He took a sip from his glass and spit it out.

"Cornflab it! Who put lemonade in my glass of air? When I was a sprout, that was all we had! And we liked it! We were just happy so long as it didn't have bugs in it!"

And then he passed out.

As for Apollo? Well, once again, he was doing Mr. Wright's dirty work, and spying on Trucy for him. Trucy was in her room with her friend Vera Misham trying to synchronize their periods.

"Did it work?" asked Vera, holding her watch up to Trucy's.

"Let's see."

They held hands and closed their eyes and rolled their heads backed and moaned in unison. Yup... they were on their periods, all right.

Biscoff leaned against the door, arms crossed, one ankle jauntily tucked behind the other. "And what are you girls up to?"

Vera got scared, because he looked so much like Kristoph.

His shoulders were almost as broad as the doorframe, and he was well over six feet tall. His bright yellow moustache looked like it was grown in fields of silken corn. There was no denying he was a handsome man.

"I'd thought I'd let myself in," he said. "After all, you know how close your father and I have gotten in recent months. I'm using my... aheem... funds and influence to open a new club downtown. For opera, for barbershop quartets, things of that nature." He spread out his hands adorned with rings like a peacock spreading its feathers. "And magic, perhaps?"

He didn't care for those disrespectful old fellas with their high-waisted plaid pants and barbershop quartets, but he was trying to seem to cool and hip.

"The grand opening is tonight. Would you care to attend?"

Trucy squealed.

"Vera, you should come! It'll be fun! You never go out! Apollo will come too!"

He was hiding in the closet.

I'll come? he thought.

Mr. Wright had him spying on her and reporting back to him. He had no idea why. Except that Mr. Wright was definitely an overprotective parent.

When Apollo reported back to him, Phoenix knew he couldn't tell Kristoph that Trucy couldn't go, and he didn't trust Apollo to protect her at the club alone, and telling Thalassa was certainly out of the question, so he called up Klavier and asked him to help chaperone her. Klavier was eager; he was flattered Herr Wright would come to him for help. Besides, he wouldn't mind seeing the fraulein, or that weird little dude in the gay vest.

Besides.

He narrowed his eyes.

His bro was hiding something from him.

He could feel it.

Chapter Text

The neon letters over the club spelled out Biscoff's Bakery. Hot buns guaranteed. They all arrived in his limo.

Biscoff couldn't help but let Trucy's boyfriend and some of her friends come, too. So this cozy little club in the city, with a mellow, dark, subdued atmosphere and lots of potted palm trees and funky patterns in the floor tiles, was where Biscoff, Trucy, Vera, Apollo, Machi, Wocky, Klavier, and the Chipmunks spent the night partying.

Phoenix soon appeared as his super hero alter ego, the Blue Phoenix.

Biscoff's eyes narrowed when Phoenix entered the club and approached the bar. He had a blue mask with a beak, a long cape, and a sleek blue leotard with yellow underpants over it.

"I am the Blue Phoenix," said Phoenix Wright, in a deeper voice than usual. "A new super hero in Los Angeles."

Biscoff sneered and took out a fingerprinting case.

"Ah, a new celebrity! I collect fingerprints, you see. My little idiosyncratic version of collecting autographs." He rattled the case a little. "Fingerprints? Surely you wouldn't refuse...?"

"I'm sorry." Phoenix held up his hands and wiggled his fingers. "Gloves. Can't take them off- part of my secret identity."

"I see... Very well played, sir." He walked backwards into the darkness. "Well played... for now."

It was obvious to Phoenix what Kristoph was trying to do; take her to this horrid den of depravity and foul lyrics and wear down her defenses so he could make her fall in love with him. Well, he wasn't going to let that happen.

The barbershop quartet on stage finished singing hello my baby, hello my darling, hello my ragtime gal, and everyone clapped and then the disco ball lowered and the Everly Brothers started playing Should We Tell Him.

"This is so cool," said Trucy, sitting at a table in the corner and kicking her legs around. "I've never been to a place like this before."

She was getting pretty wasted, because Biscoff was supplying all the booze she and her friends wanted, because he was cool like that.

"It's pretty cool, all right," said Wocky, nodding. "Cool as a cucumber, bizzoy! Righteous as rook. This Biscoff dude is an OG. I fuck with him."

"Don't drink so much, Trucy," said Apollo, concerned. "You're not 21 yet so I think it's illegal."

"I won't," said Trucy. "Don't be a wet blanket."

"Fine," said Apollo, sinking into his seat, folding his arms, frowning. "Okey dokey."

"Yokie spokie," said Trucy.

The Chipmunks were sitting with them, too.

"Gee, fellas, I hope Dave doesn't find out we came here," said Simon.

"Yeah, he'd be really mad," said Theodore.

"Don't worry, guys, he won't be finding out anything," said Alvin. He folded his arms and leaned back, smiling complacently. "I drugged him. It'll be a while before he wakes up."

Dave was, in fact, passed out in his piano at home right now in his night cap and dressing gown with several dozen needles and syringes sticking out of him.

"Whoa, that's pretty cool," said Klavier, spreading his arms around the Chipmunks. "Now, what's your poison, kids?"

Trucy downed another strawberry margarita. "I need a kiss," she said. She held out her arms for Machi. "Come here, baby."

But he was nowhere to be found.

Wocky looked under the table.

"He ain't down there, that's fo' sure. Man, he must be off crapping in the latrine. That boy sure can pinch a fat loaf for such a lil G. That [RACIAL SLUR WITH A BAD HISTORY PEOPLE LIKE WOCKY SHOULDN'T BE SAYING] be clogging my toilets, yo!"

Little did they know that Biscoff had had one of his bouncers tie Machi up and stuff him in a broom closet with a sock in his mouth.

"Whatever, at least I have Mr. Hat," said Trucy, and he popped out and she started kissing him.

"Oh, Trucy, not in public," said Apollo. "It's bad enough when you do this at home." He tried to take Mr. Hat away but she clawed at him.

"Fag," she said.

Just then Shaggy - It Wasn't Me started playing over the sound system. Trucy slammed her drink down and spilled it on the table. She put Mr. Hat away.

"Oh god, I love this song!"

She flounced out of her seat to go dance. She was wearing a very fashionable outfit. The Chipmunks followed her in a conga line, shaking their bodies in time with her.

Dear lord, thought Phoenix, hiding in a potted plant with a periscope. This isn't Alvin the Chipmunks or KISS. This is just pure insanity. What kind of horrible place is this? What in god's sweet name is this music. I can't understand what the person singing is saying.

As almost in answer to this question, Phoenix saw Biscoff open a closet. It was pitch black inside. There were two little glowing embers inside, like eyes. The stench of sulphur hit phoenix's nose.

"Yes, yes," said Biscoff into the closet, holding onto the doorframe. He kept looking over his shoulder nervously. "Of course I'll hold up my end of the bargain... don't rush me! ... I know, I know! It'll happen soon. Everything is going according to plan."

Meanwhile, Trucy was dancing in the middle of the room under the glittering disco ball, the center of attention, but in her own little drunken world. A bunch of guys were watching and were approaching her to ask for a dance.

Well, not today. It was time to chaperone.

Klavier suckered punched them and dragged their bodies into the corner and under tables, and the Blue Phoenix swung by on a rope from the ceiling and stuck hypodermic needles into their necks whenever they got too close. Apollo bit someone's ankles.

"This isn't good enough," said klavier, determined and frowning. There were still too many guys converging on her. "We need to get gayer."

Two Southern belles started twirling around the dance floor together, palms interlinked, and crashing into guys and knocking them into punch bowls and tripping them over the chipmunks.

"Damn..." said Wocky from the table. "Who're those broads? Damn!"

"Just follow my lead, Herr Forehead," whispered the taller southern belle. He looked like a very pink Little Miss Muffet. "And stop blushing."

"Grrr...!" growled Apollo, red under all his makeup. "I want to lead!"

"Ha! In your dreams!"

Biscoff watched all this, amused. He loosened his tie and threw it aside. He popped his collar and stepped forward.

"Well, it's time to get this started."

He made his way across the dance floor with long strides. He was about to ask Trucy to a dance, but when he raised his hands to grab hers, one of the belles appeared in a flash and grabbed his unknowing brother's hands.

"Oh tee hee, a dance?" twittered Klavier in disguise. "Why, of course! How could I resist?"

"You're a very attractive woman," admitted Kristoph politely, as they waltzed away from Trucy. "But I'm afraid I've already plans to dance with another..."

"Nonsense!" The belle ran his hands down Kristoph's muscular physique. "There's obviously more than enough of this sexy hunk of man meat to go around!"

Meanwhile, Apollo helped Trucy back to her seat and she collapsed.

"Whew!" she sunk deeply into her seat and her head rolled onto shoulder and she giggled. "More drinks! more!"

"No," growled apollo. "You've had enough. Enough for the rest of your life!"

He sat down with her and watched Klavier dance with Kristoph. No matter how much Kristoph tried to get away, his disguised brother refused to let go, and dug his fingernails deeper into his asscheeks.

Apollo was reading Highlights for Children but he was losing. He sighed. Something about all of this made him a little down. A little down would all he'd ever admit to, even to himself.

"I'm fine," he said into the ether.

"You don't seem fine to me, mein rival," said Klavier Gavin, taking him by surprise. Apollo jolted and looked over his shoulder.

Apollo still wasn't used to seeing Klavier in Miss Iris's body. It was... strange. He wasn't used to seeing him with breasts.

"Err, what's up? Where's Biscoff?"

"My brother excused himself to the bathroom." (No, no, I really must piss.) "As for your question, oh, busy, busy, Herr Forehead." Klavier snapped his finger. "I'm very busy with my music, of course. I'm thinking of flying solo for a while after... all the unpleasantness, you dig? And of course my secondary career as a prosecutor."

"You know, I know I'm on the other side of the courtroom, but I think being a prosecutor should take priority over your music! It's more important for society!"

"Ah, but our music contains important pro social messages that encourage good citizenship, so it's just as important. Try to cheer up, Herr Forehead. There's someone for you. Coser than you think."

Apollo jolted. "W-what?"

klavier dropped a wink and then left. Apollo was dumbfounded.

Then noticed Vera across the room in a simple unostentatious chair, actually a stool with wobbly legs (she had been unconsciously drawn to it because of that, it being the worst most humble chair in the room), doodling in a sketchpad on her lap without any regard for any of the partying going around her.

She wasn't wearing anything special, just her paint-splattered overalls, which were the only clothes she ever wore. He reflected that what with her being homeschooled and having autism, she probably didn't "get" clubbing. But she was Trucy's friend and liked Thalassa and he remembered thinking after her trial five years ago that it would be nice to get to know her, to have her as a friend.

Maybe, he thought, after five years it's finally time to make a new friend.

He ditched his southern belle disguise and walked over.

"Uh, hi," he said, hands deep in his pockets. She started, eyes wide, almost knocking her sketchpad to the floor, but then she smiled at him.

"Hello," she said. She turned her sketchpad around and held it up. "Do you like it, Apollo?"

It was a pretty sketch of a house on a lake.

"That's nice!" he said. "I like the blue."

She nodded deeply. "Blue like Mr. Wright."

"Yeah, it's blue just like daddy's I mean Mr. Wright's suit." He squinted one eye and rubbed his forehead with the palm of his hand. "Ugh, sorry, Trucy is rubbing off on me."

Vera darted her eyes left and right, and then looked over her shoulder, even though her back was to the wall, and then leaned forward and rapidly sketched something on the page with wide, deft strokes, her hair falling over the page. Then she sat up and showed it to him, her face flush.

It was a 2000-word poem professing her love for him. He was so taken aback that he took a step back with his foot, before regaining his footing and taking a step forward.

"You..." He lowered his voice and struggled to find the word and gestured with his forearms. "You... love me?"

She explained how she had had a crush on him she first saw him in the detention center, and after he saved her she fell head over heels. She went to all of his trials and showed him sketches she had done of him.

"You really love me...? But you barely know me. Don't you think that's kind of too much...?"

"But I believe in love at first sight. Don't you?"

He thought about it for a minute, and then slowly nodded his head, not looking at her. "Yeah... I do."

"I... I love your vest."

Apollo and Vera went out back and into the boiler room.

They stood there in the semi-darkness, light from the hallway seeping under the door, the muffled sounds of the partying coming from down the hall.

He felt her soft body and moved in to kiss her.

Then the door opened.

"I'm pretty sure I saw that little fucker go in here-"

Phoenix stopped dead in his tracks. They stared at him with eyes wide and with their arms on each other, the straps of her overalls hanging down.

"Apollo!" he roared. "You met her when you were 22 and she was 19! PEDOPHILE!"

He threw a punch that twisted Apollo's head around 90 degrees and crumpled his nose like paper. Apollo spun through the air and landed on the floor, instantly killed.

Vera was shaken up, but Phoenix said: "Don't worry, honey, I just pushed some shards of bone into his brain but he'll be okay. C'mon," he kicked apollo's limp body aside into a dusty corner, grabbed her shoulder and beckoned her out the door with a sweep of his arm. "There's a fun party waiting outside for you, with some guys your own age! Have fun!"

When he and Vera left the boiler room, he saw Trucy half-asleep at her table, being supported by Machi, who had escaped the closet. Biscoff was on stage, putting on a magic show she could barely comprehend at the moment.

Phoenix smiled. There was no doubt today had been a victory; he had stopped Biscoff from getting his claws into her, for now.

But further steps were needed. Kristoph wasn't going to give up that easily.

Phoenix knew he had to do something. Fast.

Chapter Text

He had an idea. Her 21st birthday was coming up.

He decided to give her his magatama as a birthday present.

She was ecstatic and thrilled by the pretty little bauble. Her eyes shone and lit up with same light that shone in it. She immediately decided to incorporate it into her costume for the big magic show she was performing on her birthday.

He didn't tell her just what the magatama could do. He knew if he told her, explained its properties, or warned her in anyway, Kristoph would know. She might tell Biscoff about it and mention that he had given it to her and then the gig would be up.

At the moment, neither Trucy nor Kristoph knew about the magatama's powers. He had never told Trucy, and Kristoph simply thought it was an innate power of his. As it stood, he was hoping that by giving it to Trucy secretly, she would think seeing the psyche locks was simply an extension of her own hereditary perception powers, which was only revealing itself now on her 21st birthday. You know, like a girl getting her period.

Okay, so it wasn't a bulletproof plan. He knew that. But he had to do something, he had to take some kind of action. He would go insane if he stood around doing nothing. it might work. She might see Kristoph's psyche locks appear and make the connection that they meant he was lying.

Taking a gamble on your daughter's life is never something you want to do, but he had always been a gambling man. And he had to play the cards he was dealt and do what he has always done best: bluff.

"I love it!" She had squeezed him. "Now I have something from both of you!"

The something from Thalassa had been her old dress and her cape, which Trucy was also going to wear at her magic show. These was in addition to all the other presents they had showered on her, of course.

But even while hugging his daughter Phoenix felt powerless and impotent. He decided to direct his rage towards something productive. He drove to the city and stalked the streets by night, beating and battering hookers and roundhouse kicking them and farting on them and carving his name into their tender flesh with his Bowie knife- his trademark. This spate of random attacks was even mentioned on the news. This drew the notice of LA's resident super hero, Ratman, AKA Phoenix's uncle Juicy, who immediately suspected his nephew. This will be explored later in a future chapter.

Phoenix felt like all the repressed violent tendencies and spurts of religious mania he used to have when he was in college were coming back. Part of him worried he might have developed a brain tumor that was bringing out all these latent impulses and he wouldn't be able to stop them anymore. Just when he needed fuller control of himself than ever. He was afraid of getting worse again.

He began carrying his trusty gas can in his briefcase with him to court. He started setting little fires by the vending machines or in the potted plants and putting them out before they spread. Sometimes when Winston Payne prattled on and on he got a dull ache of anger and wanted to splash the prosecutor desk with gasoline and set Payne on fire. The smug prick. He wanted to watch him burn, see his blackened skeleton, burn ALL of him, not just that tacky rat's nest he called a toupee. It was rumored that Winston and Gaspen pooled their pubic hairs together to make it and they took turns wearing it in public. Phoenix wouldn't be surprised.

He also started getting drunk and going to seedy brothels in the dead of night and hiring prostitutes who looked like Trucy. Not because he was a pedophile, but simply so he could sit them on the bed and hold them to his chest and stroke their hair and whisper that he would protect them from Kristoph Gavin, that they were safe. All the things that he couldn't tell his real daughter. All the little comforts he wanted to give but couldn't, because of that blasted man. The girls were weirded out and confused by the whole thing.

Kristoph watched all of these brothel visits from the air vent. He chuckled and took pictures.

Oh, we have our fun, don't we, Wright? Click. We have our fun. Click. After all, he began in his mind, quoting a recent Gavinners hit from right before Klavier's death, What do you have to lose, from a midnight rendezvous? Click. Only your reputation. Click. Haha… you thought you were through with me, weren't you? Click. You're in a pickle now, my friend. Out of the frying pan and into the pickle jar. Click. Click.

Little did he know that Spark Brushel was also in the air vent, snapping pics of Kristoph snapping pics. But you couldn't really tell it was Kristoph because both men were lying prone and Kristoph's fat cheeks only obscured the view even further.

But they weren't the only ones in that air vent. So was Marvin Grossberg. And KISS. And Wiston Payne, who was taking pictures of Spark Brushel taking pictures of Biscoff Gavin taking pictures of Phoenix Wright. Wiston thought, with the help of his glorious brain, that the Prosecutor Squad might be interested in this.

Click.

Chapter Text

Searchlight beams crisscrossed and danced across the night sky over the Gatewater Theater. The marquee said "THE GREAT TRUCY GRAMARYE" in huge letters.

A red carpet stretched out from the entrance to the street, and cameras flashed like twinkling stars in the crowds on either side of the velvet ropes. Everything was sparkling that night, like fine wine. It was a true testament to how famous she had become. This was the biggest show of her life. It was to be a true, true return to form for the celebrated Troupe Gramarye.

Famous celebrities walked down the carpet, like Will Powers, with Adrian Andrews on his arm, and Dave Seville and the Chipmunks and Miles Edgeworth too. KISS arrived but the bouncers blocked them and informed them they would have to use the back entrance.

"Management says you guys ain't exactly the kinda look they want associated with the theater."

"But..." Starchild held up a ticket, which he extricated from the tufts of chest hair sticking out of his leather bondage gear. "We were invited. We're friends of the family."

The beefy bouncer with no neck shook his head, no. He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. "Back of the building."

The guys went to the back only to find the doors bricked up.

"It looks like we'll have to find another way in," said Starchild. He lifted a manhole cover and threw it aside onto the pavement where it clattered like a coin. "C'mon, guys, it's time for another sewer adventure!"

"Yeah!" said Peter Criss.

"All right!" said Ace Frehley.

Klavier arrived in his giant limo shaped like the band's stylized G. As viewed from an arial angle, of course, so it took up both lanes of traffic and kept scraping the sides of parked cars and shooting off sparks.

His butler opened the door, and Klavier stepped out, and the crowds cheered. He stood there for a moment, basking in their adoration, and looked up at the giant sign on the side of the theater entrance.

Come see the great Trucy Gramarye! it proclaimed. Only at the Gatewater Theater! It showed Trucy surrounded by all her most famous tricks, like her magic panties and her magic vibrator (non-sexual). She was lying stretched out on a pile of magic props, propping her head up with her hand in her hair, ignoring the tigers sitting curled up next to her with an almost bored expression, completely confident and self-assured in her talents.

Klavier found her very impressive. So accomplished at such a young age, despite all the awfulness in her life. Very ambitious, and constantly striving to reach those ambitions. It was a shame what happened to her father; but at least she had been reunited with her mother, and he had to admit that Herr Wright was a good adoptive parent.

He sighed and shook his head, his heart going out to her. He reached into his pocket for the picture of himself and Kristoph playing together as children.

"You have a lot to answer for, brother," he whispered.

He was being swarmed by the press. They were all trying to jam their microphones in his mouth, but then the ground started shaking and one man stomped through clearing a path through the paparazzi.

His shadow fell over Klavier. He gulped.

"Do you have your dick back yet?"

It was Spark Brushel.

He had a tiny nerd head on top of his mechsuit body. He had made many improvements and expansions to it since breaking all his bones. He was now a seven-foot-tall semi-cyborg.

Klavier cowered a little. He said: "Aren't... aren't you going say, 'End quote?'"

"No." He stared down sternly from behind his glasses. "Razortooth" was spraypainted across his chassis.

"Look," said Klavier, "all I can say is I have my old one in my wallet, and I'm getting a penis attached to mein body soon. So stay tuned."

"Quote, 'Don't touch that remote, folks,' end quote."

He stomped off, leaving deep footprints in the concrete behind him. Lotta Hart realized he was becoming the most powerful freelance independent journalist in California. She knew she had to stop him before it was too late.

Inside, the theater was packed. Phoenix and his family and friends had front-row seats near the stage, sitting at round tables under soft light from the chandeliers over the tables, each chandelier giving off light like a miniature spotlight in the dark room.

Then the smoke canons went off, and the velvet curtains were pulled apart, revealing the stage, just like a woman spreading her sexy pussy lips to reveal the secrets of her womanhood, and Trucy's magic show began.

It was her greatest show yet. The crowd ooh'd and ahh'd at her amazing tricks. She made an elephant do math with abacus, and she floated in the air, and pulled rabbits and cartoon bombs out of her hat, which she threw into the air and which exploded like fireworks.

She was wearing one of her mother's old costumes, including the veil, which everyone thought was adorable, but instead of the brooch the was wearing the magatama. It still gave off its distinctive green glow.

She hadn't seen too many people since Phoenix gave her the magatama, so she hadn't been exposed to too many psyche locks, but she had seen five black ones on Ian Hawke, and those loud chains locking, suddenly being surrounded by that black void, scared her so much she ran away. She blamed it on nerves and sleep deprivation.

"My magatama?" said Maya. "I can't believe Nick could give that away!"

"But it looks so good with her outfit," said Pearl.

"Hmmm... you're right. I guess I can forgive him... this time."

The laser light show ended and the curtains closed for a brief interlude. Klavier (in Iris's spirit medium uniform), sitting with Phoenix and Thalassa, clapped casually, one elbow resting on the table. He caught a man go by in the corner of his eye. He turned his head partially over his shoulder.

"Hey, that looked like Biscoff." He twisted his torso around and addressed the guy at the next table. "You know, the Third Gavin Brother?"

The man nodded and turned to his wife. "Yeah, I've heard of him. He's the pedophile, right?"

Klavier frowned. "No. He has a moustache. If you don't know anything about the Gavin Brothers, then do us all a favor and shut up." He threw a balled-up napkin at him.

Trucy came back on stage but Klavier got bored and jolted back in his chair. His head went limp over the backrest, his eyes rolled up, and he transformed back into Iris.

Iris slowly came back to herself and realized where she was. It took her a second to adjust. It always did.

She shivered and her heart pounded. She was near HIM again.

She tried to talk to Phoenix but he was distracted, his mind on something else.

She saw him in profile, and she thought, he's like a statue, and he'll never look at me. She didn't quite understand. That's the part that hurt. Why? Why can't you say anything?

He barely looks at her. He used to not be able to keep eyes off her. She never used to see him, since THAT case, but now more and more they moved in the same social circles... now that her body was a conduit for a dead rockstar.

And she had to see HER. That goddess. . The one he chose over her.

The only way she could get through it was telling herself that every time it will get easier, every time it will get slightly less painful, her heart will become slightly more full of ice.

Yes, another layer of ice. Her heart becoming colder and colder, her natural loving nature deliberately killed by herself, until nothing is left but bitterness and recement, the only remnants of a once great love that touched the skies.

Deadened… because if you're dead nothing can hurt you, false hopes can't kill you again, the aches and pain become duller.

Used like a tool! Like a screwdriver or a hammer!

But even now... she still had feelings for him. Her body still yearned for his. A feeling of hopeless and despair overwhelmed her felt like sinking into lake, and she tried to channel Klavier again, because it was like her drug now, but she couldn't.

When Klavier got bored and expelled her spirit (he was getting good at that; more attune to her body) to go to heaven and talk to god, have a glass of wine with St. Peter, or play baseball with the boys, he refused to let his spirit be recalled till he was good and ready.

Though she dreaded speaking to Phoenix, letting loose a single word; despite everything she had said, all her defenses, all her reserves, part of her was so curious that she had to ask. She wondered just what this mysterious guitar playing god thought of her, that woman he was inside of. She shivered, that woman.

"Did Mr. Gavin... say anything about me?"

"Yeah," said Phoenix without looking at her. The curtains had opened again, and the magic resumed. "He said something about how simultaneously fat yet tight your pussy is."

She smiled at her reflection in the glassware, pleasantly flushed, her lips in a tight little compressed smile.

For her next trick, Trucy needed a volunteer from the audience. The lights dimmed, and the spotlight fell on Apollo. He was called up on stage.

"Don't be shy, good sir," said Trucy, with an impressive sweep of her arm.

She put him in a box and started sawing his head off. Meanwhile, sitting back in a dark corner of the room, where the lights from the stage didn't reach, Biscoff was at his own table.

He watched intently. He had a rose in his fingers.

He inclined his head, and let the petals brush against his nose, and he breathed in the fragrance. His face looked peaceful.

"Every rose... has its thorn," he whispered, barely parting his lips. "Except for the ones that don't.

He dropped the rose into darkness of a wine bottle's neck. The petal caught on the rim, holding the flower in place.

"I will cultivate you, my thornless rose. I will make you mine."

The trick ended, and Apollo's head fell off and bounced around the stage. Kristoph remained seated but clapped louder than anyone else.

"It will be my ultimate revenge..."

Then he sent her his letter, attached to a dove with a golden bracelet around its little leg, for her.

In her dressing room, later, she read the letter, and neither the letter nor the dove had any psyche locks on them.

Chapter Text

Biscoff Gavin strode down the sidewalk, whistling a merry tune. In his right hand he held a briefcase full of gold bars from his latest bank heist, and in his left hand he was gripping a newspaper clipping advertising a room for rent in Phoenix Wright's neighborhood.

It was perfect. Instead of staying at his brother's mansion, or at a fancy four-star hotel in the city, he could live only a few streets away from where the lovely Trucy Wright lived. Besides, he thought, a happy twinkle in his eye, nobody would ever suspect that Misery Lockedheart was carrying out his plans to take over the legal system from a little domestic neighborhood like this.

He got to the house. It wasn't what he was expecting at all. The lawn looked like a jungle and the walkway was full of cracks with grass and weeds growing out of them. The flag of the Rising Sun hung from the awning over the front porch, and the yard was full of political signs. "3D woman are whores," opined one, and "I want to marry anime girls' farts," said another.

This tickled Kristoph's frontal lobe. What strange people could occupy such an abode? He checked the directions. Was this the right place? Wasn't the owner an elderly widow hoping to supplement her husband's pension?

Inside, the elderly woman's son, Cody Hackins, and his best friend, Sal Manella, were lying on the floor in front of the TV sipping juice and watching the latest episode of the Zinconian Samurai. Sal was 46 years old and Cody was only 21, but that didn't stop them from being the best of friends. It all started when Cody went to a local convention and bullies beat him up for cosplaying as the Steel Samurai.

"Faggot!" said the biggest and strongest bully. "The Pink Princess is better!"

"You're a loser!" said another bully.

They beat Cody up and ripped his costume. He sat by the garbage cans near the restrooms and sobbed, bitter and angry and pitiful. Then a shadow that blocked out all the light in the world fell over him. It was like a solar eclipse. He raised his tear-stricken face, in awe. A plump hand like a surgical glove filled with mayonnaise slowly extended towards him.

"You're a loser like me," said Sal Manella. "Let's join forces."

And so the most infamous tag-team duo of friends in the cosplay and trading card circuit began.

Anyway, Cody turned the TV off and the two friends stood up in his mother's living room.

"That was one of the best episodes of all time," said Cody.

He was wearing the same clothes he had worn at seven years old and he was covered from head to toe in oozing pimples.

Sal nodded and said: "I agree, dude, but I noticed a continuity error. The Zinconian Samurai is supposed to be a friend to all children, and yet he didn't come out of your mom's television set to help me defeat the hacks at Global Studios and get my old job back. Plot hole?"

"That's not a continuity error, Sal," said Cody, smirking and rubbing his nose. "The Zinconian Samurai is just too busy fighting the nefarious Nega Ninja and his Nega Bots to help you. Besides, you made continuity errors all the time on the Steel Samurai. Remember when you forgot the Twin Princesses were dead just so you could bring them back for the stealth foot fetish episode?"

"Heh... well, you're an in-demand writer writing multiple scripts at a time, it's not a surprise that mistakes happen." He didn't want to admit it happened because he used to drop his hoagies on the scripts and render large segments of them unreadable. "The Steel Samurai is a classic, Cody, a real classic. I'll get my job back any day now. I don't care if it's been twelve years. Nothing they made has come CLOSE to my creation! The Steel Samurai!"

He lifted his arms over his head, breathing heavy. His fat white gut was spilling out of his shirt and cascading over the front of his basketball shorts, his breasts under his shirt looking like rotting pumpkins, because they're big and saggy and also because they're orange and moldy.

"Heh, I agree, Sal, I agree," said Cody. "Nobody beats the Steel Samurai! Nobody!"

Just then Cody's mother walked into the room carrying a tray of cookies. "Hello, Cody, I made cookies for you and your little friend!" she said gaily. She was an elderly woman with a friendly oval face and lots of wrinkles. "By the way, how has the job hunt gone so far? And what about getting a girlfriend? Surely there's some nice girl in your club who you could date?"

Cody got angry. "Mom, I already told you, working triggers my anxiety and restless leg syndrome. And as for girlfriends, you know that I'm married to Princess Twilight Sparkle of Equestria and that I'm pregnant with her foals."

The cookie tray fell to the floor with a crash and the old woman held her apron to her face and ran out of the room sobbing.

"Stupid fucking old bitch," said Cody wisely.

Later, when he and Sal retreated to his room, Biscoff rang the doorbell and his mother opened the door.

"But why, you're Biscoff Gavin!" she said, clasping her hands. "I have all your records!"

He smiled. "I thank you."

They negotiated the rate for the room and he signed a document.

"Are you quite sure?" she asked. "I mean, the room is so small, and you're such a big star."

"I'm used to small living quarters. Besides, it's a lovely old house," he said, looking around at the living room. His gaze returned to her. "...With a lovely old woman in it."

She was happy with the compliment.

"Why, but aren't you a charmer!"

He went upstairs and unpacked. His room was in the attic, with a low roof that almost grazed the crown of his head, nut it was comfortable and homely with a little window that looked out on the street, and he thought it very charming.

The stairs creaked and his landlord poked her head through the door.

"I hate to ask or impose on you," she began, "but could you babysit my son and his friend today? Tonight's bingo night, and, well," she looked down, "I'm getting up in years, and I'm just not sure how many bingo nights I have left." She shook her head a little.

"But of course. Anything for you, madam."

Later that night, after giving the Cody and Sal their baths (Sal was sleeping over), Kristoph ordered pizza and watched My Little Pony on the couch with the boys.

Kristoph frowned. "Why is that pony giving us that come-hither look? Those bedroom eyes are making me uncomfortable."

"That's Applejack, Mr. Gavin," explained Cody. "Is she your favorite pony?"

"I should think not." He sniffed.

Sal and Cody giggled and clapped and drooled on themselves as they watched the ponies reunite the Elements of Harmony and save the magical land of Equestia.

Anyway, Kristoph gave his thoughts on the show.

"The Earh ponies should be genocided. They serve no purpose. There's nothing they can do that the unicorns and Pegasuses can't do better. If I were in this world, I would be a noble alicorn, and I would take over Equestria and put all the male earth ponies on a conveyor belt that automatically castrates them while they cry blood-shot tears of impotent rage. Then, I'd construct a giant vat of my own semen, and I'd dunk their women into it on chains to impregnate them and create a new master race of ponies. I would also groom Fluttershy."

Cody got up and zipped his pants. "All we wanted was to watch my little pony with our cocks hanging out," he said quietly, "and you had to make it weird."

"Weird?" laughed Kristoph. He shook his head and laughed. "How's this for weird? I think incest is okay."

Cody stopped in place. Sal gasped.

"I-I-Incest?" said Sal. "Like in Japanese sex cartoons? AKA hentai? But... but... it's against God's word!"

Kristoph got up from the couch. "Ah, but weren't Abraham and Sarah half-siblings? And Isaac and Rebecca cousins? If anything, I should think your 'good lord' approves of incest! For example, if Trucy Wright and Apollo Justice were related, and were to marry, I should think your 'dear god' in heaven would smile down on them, quite pleased." He suddenly looked commanding and pointed his fingertip an inch from the boy's face. "Cody, I demand that you have sexual intercourse with your relatives."

Cody's eyes rippled hypnotically. "Yes, Mr. Biscoff, I will go forth and commit acts of incest."

Kristoph smiled evilly, pleased with his evil work.

But then...

Sal jumped up and put his bulk between Kristoph and his friend.

"Casuist!"

"There's nothing you can do," snapped Kristoph. "I'm too powerful, and my arguments are too good. You can't prove incest is wrong. Nor can you prove any of the other things I will induct you and your friend into are wrong."

Sal said: "I might not be able to, but this can!" He held up a bible, and light reflected off the shiny cross embedded in the front of book and onto Kristoph.

Kristoph hissed and reeled back. "No! Keep that monstrous thing away from me!"

Sal brandished the bible and advanced, Kristoph stepping back and darting his neck around, eying the holy book nervously, as Sal whipped it around.

Then Sal held it on its side, gripped the edges of the covers and opened it wide like the mouth of an alligator and snapped it shut on Kristoph's hand.

Kristoph screamed. Smoke billowed out of sides of the closed book. He jerked his arm back several times and finally managed to wrench it free.

He panted, held up his hand, ignored it, and stared at the two friends. The white bones of his fingers were showing, and molten blackened burning flesh was dripping down his wrist. Suddenly the skin over his skeletal fingers began to reform like a candle melting in reverse.

All the while Cody and Sal clutched each other and looked on in fear.

Kristoph flexed his fingers to show they're OK, and the black flesh on his wrist burned away into plumes of smoke. He dug his healed fingers into Sal's fleshly neck and gripped his windpipe. He lifted him clear off the floor, his little pig feet kicking in the air.

"I am immortal," whispered Kristoph. "I am a god. No one can kill me. Do as I say and serve me and my master well, OR ELSE!"

He drew his arm back and then threw Sal across the room into the wall. His big fat ass crashed through the drywall. He emerged bent over, coughing, bits of drywall flaking off his body, his head bleeding from coming into contact with a wall stud.

"Think what I said over," said Kristoph. He left.

Cody helped Sal up. They were a little scared but also thought it was kinda cool. They decided to join Biscoff and become his slaves.

And that's how Kristoph recruited the first two members of his Satanic criminal organization bent on controlling the legal system.

Chapter Text

Biscoff and Cody's mother sat at a small round table in the kitchen. They were having dinner together. The lights were turned low, and their bodies were bathed in the soft orange light from the candles distributed around the room. It was an ethereal haunting kind of night. To Cody's mother, it seemed almost like they were in some dark underwater cove, completely detached from the rest of the world, alone and safe with each other. The rain pattered against the windowpane.

Cody's elderly bitch mother was infatuated with Biscoff. She laughed at some witty observation he made, then hesitated, and asked if he had someone in his life.

He smiled. "I'm afraid I already have someone in my life," he said.

"Oh." She was crestfallen. "And are you quite in love with her?"

He sighed, and looked down at the table, draped in her finest white sheet, his features soft and vague in the dancing light. He said: "Let me ask you something." She looked up, piqued. He kept his eyes locked on the table he spoke, his voice bitter. "Have you ever hated a man named Phoenix Wright so much that you wanted to adopt a fake identity and marry his daughter just to hurt him?"

"I... I can't say I have, Biscoff." (Like the cookie.)

"No..." He smiled tightly. "You wouldn't have, would you."

His eyes softened at the thought of Trucy. He swirled his long-stemmed wine glass and looked into the depths of his tomato juice dreamily.

"I really do love her, you know. I don't know whether it happened after the fact, or if I was drawn into this scheme of mine because I already secretly felt that way, but I fell in love with her. Whenever I look at that innocent face of hers, my heart flutters, and I want to protect her and keep her safe." His face darkened. "But I also knew that if she knew the truth, who I really am, the things I've done, the thoughts that darken my mind, she would never love me. That what makes this so painful..."

He explained that it made the whole thing seem fake, that there's always the urge or drive to tell her everything and destroy himself. But...

"Then I realized something about my past. Everyone makes mistakes sometimes," said Kristoph Gavin wisely. "What matters is what kind of person you are now, in the moment. It would be needlessly cruel to both her and to myself to ruin our chance at happiness by selfishly dredging up something from the past just because I have anxiety about it, to see if she would still love me anyway. Sometimes we ALL have to practice self-care."

He took a big gulp of water to practice self-hydration.

She reached out and put her soft, wrinkled hands over his.

"You're a very smart man, Mr. Biscoff. I'm sure there's nothing untoward about your intentions."

"There is a significant age gap, but I am not a pedophile. That would be my brother... Klavier Gavin."

"You mean that delightful young hotshot rock and roller who was murdered by a robot and then came back to life?" She closed her eyes and shook her head wistfully. "He's such a nice boy."

His lower lip curled in distaste. "Yes, that one."

She lifted her glass to her lips and wet them. "You're also the brother of that Kristoph who was shot in court, aren't you?"

"Yes... Kristoph Gavin. My dear brother." His voice took on reverent tone, as though he was speaking of a crucified saint. "He was unfairly treated by the world. Perhaps, if everyone was a little nicer to him and showed him more sympathy, he wouldn't have killed people. Perhaps, if he was just shown a little kindness... I... I pity him."

"I don't know but you're right," said Cody's mother. "Our justice system can be so cruel."

She mother put her hands over Biscoff's.

"Please... spend the night with me."

The window was unlatched as if by a ghostly hand, and the curtain blew inward with dead leaves and magical sparkling dust. She temporarily transformed into herself from 50 years ago, when she was still in her youth and not yet rendered unbangable by the implacable sands of time.

"These uncertain times... the war... it's all so..."

She tears formed in the corner of her eyes like water drops at the tips of stalactites.

"All we have for comfort in each other."

He blinked, tempted, because she looked so much like-

But he composed himself, like a master musician composing an opera.

"No, no... I'm afraid... my heart belongs to another... I thank you for the dinner."

And without another word he went upstairs.

Later, he recalled a snatch of the letter he had sent to her the after the magic show.

I thought I was free, but you locked me away again, a prisoner of every chamber of my heart.

How true those words written in a heated frenzy with no reflection were! Our first impressions are usually the best. The feelings that come first. He may have escaped prison but he felt less free than he did confined in that tiny little cell with only one luxury chair, and with nary a hair salon or Whole Foods to be found. But that's all right... he wanted this. He wanted the freedom that is freedom from freedom. He wanted his soul to be linked inextricably to hers.

Because when he looked into her eyes, those innocent eyes, he could see himself reflected in them, and he finally saw himself how she saw him. He lost himself in those eyes, seeing only himself, like Narcissus looking into the pond, a person who had committed no crime and who was beautiful and worthy of loving. That person in her eyes was the real him, the real essence of his being.

They were meant for each other.

He pressed a button on the side of the revolving picture frame on his nightstand, and it switched, spinning around like a bookcase hiding a secret passage, from a picture of Trucy Wright to a picture of Phoenix.

"And there isn't a thing you can do about it, Mr. 'Blue Phoenix.'"

Chapter Text

Phoenix Wright was in court defending Larry Butz. His co-counsel was Apollo Justice. It should've been an easy case, but he was losing. He had a throbbing headache. He planted his elbow against the table with his hand splayed across his face, watching through his fingers and Winston Payne effortlessly decimated his case and listed all the reasons why Larry Butz should be hanged.

"Those are very good reasons," said the Judge, shaking his head. Larry gulped.

Phoenix's reputation had taken a bit of a hit lately. People said that he just wasn't as good as he used to be since the Kristoph Gavin trial.

Could you blame him? He wasn't getting any sleep, he wasn't eating, and he was spending every hour of every day trying to stop (the supposedly dead) Kristoph Gavin. The only reason he was taking on any trials at all was because their bank account situation was getting a little iffy, and Biscoff had cornered him at dinner (which of course he invited himself to) and asked why he wasn't defending anyone lately.

"Heh, well, Mr. Wright," said Wiston, "it looks like you lose again. This just goes to show every other time you beat me was just beginner's luck! But now you're no longer a beginner and your luck has officially run out! Ahahaha!"

"It seems there's no room for misinterpretation of the facts," said the Judge.

"Noooooo!" said Larry. "Nick, save me!"

"C'mon, Mr. Wright!" said Apollo with a fiery glare in his eye. "Your client is counting on you! I know we can beat Winston if we try!"

"I am trying, you little shit," said Phoenix. "Grow a pair and two inches while you're at it. Stop distracting me." But it was hopeless. He flipped through the court record again and again but there was nothing there.

But just then Apollo's bracelet started contracting!

"Hey..." he said. He clutched his wrist. "Mr. Wright, I think he's hiding something! I'll zoom in on his arm pits!"

His eyes bulged out of his skull and he shook and strained as he focused on the witness's sweaty armpits.

"Apollo, you're useless," said Phoenix. "If only your sister Trucy were here... her powers are way better than yours."

"My sister?" asked Apollo, his eyes snapping back into his head like rubber bands.

"Umm, uh, I was just kidding," said Phoenix. "You're not related." He tugged at his collar. (Whew, close shave! Thalassa still doesn't want to tell them yet!)

The Judge was about to dismiss the witness to the murder of Larry's landlord, but before the murderer could get away Phoenix noticed a suspicious bulge and said "Take that!" and threw his badge like a shuriken and knocked a doorknob out of his pocket!

"Fiddlesticks!" cursed Murt Dower. The doorknob bounced across the floor into the bailiff's hand.

"Why, what's this?" asked the Judge.

"Nothing," said Murt Dower.

"It's simple, Your Honor," said Phoenix Wright, holding the badge between his fingers over his shoulder, because the badge had come back like a boomerang. Finally... the Turnabout! He was in his element. "It's the doorknob to the victim's apartment. That's why it was missing... because the witness here used it to kill the victim! Not finding any other weapon available at the time, he simply used a hammer and chisel to remove the doorknob. Then, he used it as a blunt object to deliver very blunt force trauma to the victim's head! He couldn't put it back in the door because it was matted in her blood and hair, so he put it in his pocket and stole Larry's doorknob and put it in the door instead."

"Aha!" said Judge. "So that's why the defendant's fingerprints were on the doorknob!"

"And that's why my doorknob went missing!" chimed in Larry.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooo!" cried Murt Dower. He ripped his shirt open, and buttons flew everywhere and all the doorknobs from his other crimes fell out and clattered against the floor. The Doorknob Hitter had been found at last.

"Not guilty," said the Jury.

Everyone cheered, fireworks and bombs went off, the true murderer was found and spanked on his way to jail for his crimes, but Phoenix Wright wasn't happy. Not even when Larry hugged him. Not anymore. Not knowing what he knew. He reached into his pocket and took out a cravat covered in large amounts of cum. He squeezed it, like squeezing a sopping wet rag.

In the defense lobby, Larry jumped around like a beautiful ballerina, and Edgeworth approached Phoenix.

"Wright, have you seen my cravat?" He indicated his bare neck. "I took it off earlier while in the washroom, and I can't find it anywhere."

"Oh yeah... here you go." It was obviously covered in cum.

"Sniff... hmm... Thank you, Wright. Well, I must be off now. Sniff... Oh, I say..."

Kristoph Gavin had threatened to blow up the bomb in Trucy's heart unless Phoenix stole Edgeworth's cravat and used it as a cumrag. Why? To torture and humiliate him, of course. The letter hadn't said anything about keeping it in his pocket like a token from a fair maiden, or giving it back to Edgeworth, but Phoenix felt bad about stealing from his friend. And now his friend probably suspected something was awry. There was no way he hadn't noticed the massive load dripping off the cravat and on to the floor.

Later, on the drive home in Phoenix's truck, Apollo could tell that Mr. Wright was very angry, even though he remained silent. Apollo wanted to say something, but he was afraid of saying the wrong thing and making things worse.

At the dinner table, Phoenix moaned. Biscoff Gavin was eating with them. He had invited himself over again. He was sitting next to Trucy and showing her a card trick. Phoenix tried to sit down next to Thalassa but Biscoff pulled the chair out from under him with his magic powers.

"Ouch! Biscoff, what gives!"

"Food is for smart people," said Biscoff. "You're stupid, thus I'm sending you bed without dinner. Just be thankful that I'm not making you sleep in the doghouse again."

Everyone laughed, because they thought this was good natured fun between two friends, but it wasn't. Phoenix Wright cried and ran upstairs to his room as Trucy and Thalassa laughed. They still thought it was all a joke, because the two men had gotten so close lately, they were almost like brothers, after all.

Yes... brothers indeed... like Abel and Cain.

Getting to sleep was hard, because of the hunger pains, but eventually Phoenix managed to drift off to sleep...

He was woken up by the walls and ceiling jostling him!

"Ouch! Why is the room shaking!"

Then to his horror he was realized he was in a cat carrier!

Kristoph cackled as he carried Phoenix out to the car.

"Kristoph!" cried Wright. He gripped the tiny bars of his mobile prison. "Where are you taking me!"

"The place where all bad attorneys go," Kristoph Gavin replied. He threw the cat carrier into the backseat and then peeled out.

Phoenix Wright desperately tried to escape, but it was no use: he was trapped! He took out his phone and called 911.

"Help! I'm being kidnapped by Kristoph Gavin!"

"Kristoph Gavin? But he's dead."

"Fine! Biscoff! Biscoff Gavin! Just help me!"

The dispatcher laughed. "Biscoff? That guy's a saint, he would never kidnap anyone! But if he did, you probably deserve it. You're banned from 911!" His cellphone grew legs and blew a raspberry and jumped out the window.

Eventually Kristoph stopped the car and carried Phoenix into a filthy brick building. Phoenix Wright knew where this was; it's where he got Trucy a cat for her birthday!

"Kristoph, what are we doing at the pound?"

"You'll see."

Inside Phoenix Wright was carried down a dirt aisle with cells on both sides. Inside the cells were some of worst attorneys to ever live, like Winston Payne and Kumar Timalsina. Kristoph Gavin walked to the very end of the aisle and through a door marked "Euthanization Chamber."

Inside Gumshoe was sitting at a control panel in front of the window looking into the execution room.

"Gumshoe! What are you doing here?" said Phoenix. "Never mind, JUST HELP ME!"

"Oh, hi Phoenix," chuckled Gumshoe. "I always thought you might end up here. Yeah, so basically, this where the crappy attorneys like you are sent to get humanely euthanized once they're over the hill."

"Humanely?" frowned Kristoph Gavin. "I don't think so. I want him inhumanely euthanized. Can you make it so he suffers more?"

"Sure, pal," shrugged Gumshoe. He turned a knob labeled "human suffering" all the way up. "Okay, throw him in there!"

Phoenix was thrown into the chamber and the door slammed! Phoenix tried to dig his fingertips into the crack of the door and pry it open, but Kristoph spun the hatch tight.

"Kristoph!" He pounded on the door. "How could you do this to me? We were friends!"

"How could YOU let everyone down the way you did?" shot back Kristoph, the hurt showing in his eyes. Phoenix couldn't make a response; he knew he deserved this on some level. Then Gumshoe pulled some levers and giant hands came out of the walls and strapped Phoenix into the chair!

Phoenix Wright struggled, eyes darting back and forth as more hands came out of the walls with needles! They jabbed into Phoenix and injected him with all kinds of bad stuff!

Kristoph smirked as Phoenix Wright slowly and painfully died. In his last moments, Phoenix Wright hallucinated that he was back in the Borscht Bowl Club with Kristoph. He had been so happy to have a friend during those trying times. How could have it ended like this?

Then he looked down and saw his own corpse.

"Damn, guess I'm a ghost now, huh?"

Suddenly reality rippled like water and he was in a funeral parlor. Below him his body was lying in an open casket. A line of people passed by the casket and took turns spitting on him. All his friends and associates were there: Edgeworth, Larry, the Judge, Ema... even Maya and Pearl!

"Fuck you, Phoenix Blight," said Maya, and spat the biggest loogie ever on his face. "I'm glad you're dead."

Phoenix cried 1 ghost tear. The final person in line was Kristoph. He reached into the coffin and ripped off the corpse's tie. Phoenix winced, as if his own ghost tie had been ripped off as well.

"You won't need this where you're going," said Kristoph. He put on Phoenix's tie so was wearing two ties and then he jumped into the coffin and stomped on Phoenix's dead body. Everyone clapped and cheered.

However, one person was upset. Trucy was crying.

"At least one person misses me," thought Phoenix's ghost.

But Kristoph said, "Don't worry, I found a new father for you." Kristoph opened the doors and Phoenix's evil twin brother Evil Phoenix walked into the room.

"Yay! A new daddy!" said Trucy and ran over to hug him.

"NO!" cried Phoenix's ghost. He banged against the ethereal plane. "Trucy, don't! He's evil!"

Suddenly Kristoph's ears perked up and his nostrils flared angrily. "Sniff, sniff... Hold on, I smell a ghost!" He looked around and then pointed straight at the ghost! Phoenix's heart leapt! "IT'S YOUUUUU!"

Kristoph Gavin ripped his head off and threw it at the ghost! Phoenix screamed as Kristoph's head transformed into a laughing spinning skull and ate him!

Phoenix sat up in bed, breathing heavily. It was all a dream! He threw off the sweat soaked sheets and looked at the alarm clock. It was still only 2:00 AM.

Thalassa was by his side, sound asleep. Trucy was sleeping over at the Chipmunks' house, he remembered.

"There's still time, I can still stop Biscoff Gavin!" He quickly put on cat burglar clothes and a ski mask and took a tandem bicycle out of the garage. He mentally cursed that Edgeworth wasn't here to help pedal, and then a robot helped him ride the bike across the street to Dave's house. Phoenix vaulted over the wall, and then he broke a window with a lead pipe fitted with a silencer and climbed inside.

He crept around the dark house and then tiptoed up the stairs. He made his way down the hall and passed by Dave's room to where the Chipmunks were sleeping. The door was ajar. He slowly pushed it open.

There she was. In the guest bed at the end of the room.

He walked past the Chipmunks' beds, each of which had the first letter of their names carved into the headboards (A for Alvin, S for Simon, and T for Theodore). Phoenix noted how cute and adorable this was without noting it. He had other things on his mind.

He stopped at the side of her bed.

She was perfectly illuminated by the moonlight from the window. Except for her face.

He whipped out his saw and his drill.

The steel bits glinted.

"It's time to stop Kristoph Gavin once and for all," he whispered from behind his mask.

He threw the covers aside, frenzied, and performed an open-heart surgery on her. He sawed back and forth, back and forth. His battery powered drill whirled away and sent a slurry of blood and goop into the air. But wait... He straightened up. There's no bomb! Could this mean that Kristoph-?

"Look again, Wright."

The lights turned on.

Phoenix let his tools fall to the ground with a clatter. He pulled his ski mask up over his glistening sweaty lips and breathed heavily. "K-Kristoph!" Phoenix threw a glance at the sleeping Chipmunk children.

"No need to worry." Kristoph stepped further out of the closet, his hands behind his back. "They're quite drugged."

He threw three empty syringes without looking away from Phoenix into a metal waste basket, making it spin.

"You lied, you bastard," said Phoenix, gritting his teeth. "There was never a bomb!"

Kristoph sighed. "I said, look again, Wright."

Phoenix, finally catching his meaning, did look again. He looked down at the sleeping girl in the bed with her chest ripped open and her white ribs cut away to expose her still-beating heart.

It turned out it was Lauren Paups.

Phoenix was so angry, so overcome with rage, that even the bomb or the threat of Kristoph's detonator didn't scare him anymore. He stood toe-to-toe with the taller man and grabbed him by his lapels.

"Where's my daughter!" he shouted.

"Look outside, Wright."

Phoenix moved his legs over to the window, as if in a dream, as if underwater, and looked outside. Tragic music swelled in Phoenix's ears from Kristoph's phonograph as Kristoph played along with an invisible violin.

Outside over the street and above the roofs Trucy was hanging from a giant wooden cross dangling from the underside of a helicopter, fast asleep, her feet flailing around loosely in the wind from the blade.

"Don't worry, Wright, they're Velcro, not nails. She's perfectly safe."

Phoenix realized he must have subconsciously, even in his frenzied state, noticed that it wasn't his daughter in the bed, or else he would never have taken the risk of operating on her.

"Look what I had to do," accused Kristoph, pointing at his back. "I had to protect Trucy from you. You were going to kill your own daughter out of your petty sense of injured pride. Now look at what you've done. You don't deserve her. You've killed that poor girl, and you would have killed Trucy if I hadn't stopped you. That girl... she's dead."

Dead?

Phoenix turned around from the window.

"No..." he said. "No... I mean, I'm no surgeon, but I was careful. She's still breathing, and her heart's still beating."

Biscoff looked at him with sad eyes. "Is it, Wright? Is it, really?"

And suddenly, for no reason, the girl in the bed's heart stopped beating. It just sat there in the cavity in her chest, motionless in the still air.

Phoenix sunk to his knees.

He covered his face.

"No... no..."

Silence in that room, Kristoph standing above him with his arms folded, silence, silence, except for the deafening whop-whop sound from the helicopter outside. What kind of nightmare was this?

Kristoph held out a shovel.

"Well," he said, "time to clean up your mess."

They buried her in the backyard.

"Oh, and Wright," said Kristoph. Phoenix looked up from inside the grave, sweat dripping down his forehead and the bridge of his nose. "The cravat was a punishment for the little stunt you pulled at my club. But this? This is all your doing. You're the only one to blame."

Phoenix kept digging. Kristoph took out his dick and pissed on him from his higher position, laughing all the while. There was a little bit of pre-cum mixed in with the pee, but that was normal.

Later, when they had put the body in the grave and covered it up, Phoenix got down on his knees and arms and under the stars and cried.

"You killed her, Wright. Why are you crying? You're the person least deserving of crying." Kristoph shook his head. "She had a family, you know. Sorrow's tears should be saved for them. You don't really deserve them. After all..." He smiled. "You're a murderer now, just like me. And people like us... deserve no one's pity. Just to be locked up, given a swift execution, and pelted by the veritable rocks and stones of an aggrieved Jury hungry for revenge. Isn't that right? Mr. Jurist System? Because... who would spare you? Your precious Juries? No... you are more alone now than I ever was."

Kristoph let him go home before the sun rose. The helicopter hovered outside Trucy's room and swung her inside through the window, shattering the glass. She bounced across the floor and landed in bed under the covers, perfectly safe and sound, just as Kristoph promised. The only thing Phoenix had to worry about now was the repair bill.

The next day, the Chipmunks discovered the dead body when they went out to play. Dave obviously called the police, and Gumshoe gave a press conference in the backyard, surrounded by police officers and detectives. Miles Edgeworth had put him on the case because he believed it was the work of Misery Lockedheart and therefore Prosecutor Squad business.

"We think she may have been buried by a big old dog, pal," Gumshoe said into a microphone. Behind him in the background Lauren Paups's arm stuck out of the hole at a bent angle. "One who's been trained to use a shovel. Dogs like bones, pal, and humans are full of them. So it would fit a dog's MO."

Lance Armano fought his way into frame, his girly fists swinging.

"My poor Lolly Dolly!" he cried fatly. "You rotten police better find out who did it, or I'll... I'll..."

"Don't worry," said Gumshoe, "we'll get to the bottom of this awful crime, or my name isn't DICK!"

A bunch of ladies gasped.

Phoenix watched all this on the little TV on the counter in the kitchen. Trucy watched too.

"Jeez, that's so awful," she said. "It's so scary to think something like that could happen here... Right, daddy?"

But he didn't respond.

Dog. Gumshoe didn't know how Wright he was. He was just Kristoph's dog.

And he realized for the first time that Kristoph was more than a mere man, he was like a Jimmy Neutron-esque boy genius, except he was a man genius. Phoenix Wright had no cultural frame of reference outside of cartoons so that was the best comparison he could come up with.

My god, how much power did this man have over him? All of it? Everything? What was he to do now?

What he going to do?

Chapter Text

A few days later, out of nowhere, Mr. Wright left on a top-secret business trip to Kurain village.

"Remember, you're the man of the agency while I'm gone, Apollo," Phoenix said. "I trust you. Keep an eye on Trucy and her mom. And don't let Athena boss you around too much."

Apollo's lips trembled and he gave a silent, manful nod.

And then Phoenix left, carried away, wind-swept, like the leaves that followed in the train's wake.

Apollo stood there like a small child wearing mittens and waved forlornly as his hero left. He remembered clapping at the TV and newspapers whenever Mr. Wright appeared. Just like how Trucy clapped at Magnifi Gramarye's black and white magic tricks from another age when she was a kid.

Not long after Phoenix left, Klavier Gavin invited Trucy and Apollo to the world premier private screening of the Gaviners' new PSA at the studio.

The lights dimmed, and Klavier cranked the side of a projector. Trucy was sitting on the couch with Apollo. They were the only ones there.

"All right, guys," said Klavier, "get ready for this!" He jumped backwards into the middle of the couch and made a little wave in the cushions that bounced them up. He threw his long gangly arms around them.

The camera panned in on a cheap-looking children's TV show stage. Klavier Gavin (channeled by Iris, of course) was sitting on plastic log and carving a piece of wood while whistling. He looked up.

"Oh. Hi." He set down his whittling, placed his palms on his thighs, and leaned forward. "I saw you there." He pointed at the camera "Because I care. I care a lot."

He got up and jogged in place while a crackhead played the xylophone as the forest background was wheeled away by a rusty chain. A new one was pulled into place, and the Blue Badger came onto the stage and sat down on a new, different log.

Klavier looked at the camera. "Oh, look, children, it's my good friend the Blue Badger! Let's go talk to him."

He sat down and sidled up to the badger on the log. He was holding his paws between his legs and looking at the ground, sighing.

"Hi, Blue Badger, mascot of the police force. It's me, Klavier Gavin, the famous prosecutor and leader of the rock band the Gavinners. What's wrong?" He wrapped an arm around his shoulder. "You seem a little upset."

The Blue Badger looked up briefly, then back to the ground. "Aw, I don't know, it's just my body's been changin' lately."

"Oh?"

The Blue Badger looked up, gesticulating with his paws, emoting the best he could in his bulky badger suit.

"Well, my voice is changing, and I'm getting all hairy, and I feel weird when I'm with the pink badger!" He slapped his giant badger thighs in frustration. "I didn't feel like that before!"

Klavier chuckled. "You're just going through puberty. It's completely normal."

"Puberty? You mean all this weird stuff is puberty?"

He nodded. "Sure, all those changes you mentioned are just your body's way of telling you it's time to go have sex, and to NEVER use a condom, because it doesn't feel as good, despite what your teacher may say."

Klavier went on to explain that he knew this all felt strange and new to him now, but that eventually he'll get used to the anal bleeding and chafing eventually.

"Um, daddy Gavin?"

"Yes, son?"

"I don't think having having a bloody anus is part of puberty."

"Then you must not have gone through puberty with Kristoph Gavin around." He dropped a wink at the camera, and everyone behind stage laughed.

Then he got serious again. "But let's get real for a minute. You still seem a little upset. I think there's more to this than just badger puberty. Tell me what's REALLY bothering you"

The Blue Badger fidgeted around on the log. "Well, I don't want to talk about it, cuz it's really embarrassing, and makes me feel weird! And I'm not supposed ta tell!"

"You should always tell a trusted adult if something happens you that you're not comfortable with, especially if a policeman asks you to. Otherwise you could go to jail."

"Well, I was molested."

"Molested?" He lifted his eyebrows in stolid concern. "By who?"

"Well, by you."

"Me? What? No I didn't. You're lying"

"Last night, when you got drunk. It made me feel really weird, especially since I'm only two years old."

"Well, you're really being played by a 40 year old man, SCRIPT!"

An arm streched out from behind stage and handed it to him.

"Who wrote this tripe?" asked Klavier. His eyes glazed over "PROUDLY WRITTEN BY KLAVIER GAVIN."

A muffled voice came from offscreen.

"No!" shouted Klavier. He jumped up. "No retakes!" He bunched up his skirt in his fist and pulled it up and rested his hand on the butt of the gun sticking out of his lacey thong. "Fuck off."

He smoothed his skirt back into place (dressing in the spirit medium costume was part of his new post-death look) and sat back down with Bluey the Badger.

"You're very brave for coming out like this," he said. "You should always tell stuff like that to a trusted authority figure, like a policeman."

Daryan Crescend walked over, except it wasn't really Daryan, just a paid impersonator from Borgina.

The Blue Badger laughed and pointed. "His hair looks like a man's pee pee!"

Daryan scoweled but Klavier laughed good-naturedly. "It sure does. But don't mention it because it makes him mad. But," he continued, pulling the Blue Badger onto his lap, "if you can't tell a policeman, you could also tell a prosecutor like my good friend Winston Payne here."

Payne walked out onto stage waving to the invisible audience, thrilled to be there.

"My great-grandchild loves the Blue Badger!" he gushed. "This is such an honor."

Klavier coughed into his fist and pointed at a piece of paper being lowered into frame by a fishing pole.

"Oh, oh yes," said Payne adjusting his glasses. He leaned in and read it in a monotone voice. "It is a pleasure to hear your confession about being molested, the Blue Badger, and we a the prosecutor's office will definitely consider whether there's any merit to your, frankly, difficult to prove and unsubstantiated claims that Klavier Gavin could harm anyone whether here or in real life, but, oh, look, someone over there!"

"There?" Daryan swiveled his head around around. "Where there?"

Klavier leaped out of his seat and pointed. "It's Diddler Dog! And he's kidnapped a sackful of innocent woodland creatures!"

A giant dog with a phallic tail and thief cap and a black mask was trying to tiptoe away with a giant cloth sack thrown over his shoulder.

"Save us, Klavier Gavin," chirped birds and squirrels from the bag.

His expression grew firm. "I will, children. I will.

He dove across the stage and tackled Diddler Dog's legs. He started beating and kicking them.

The battle won, he heroically posed with a foot on Diddler Dog's back and emptied out the sack and robotic birds and chipmunks fell out and broke into pieces on the floor.

"All in a day's work."

The animals crawled all over him. He laughed, golden light radiating from behind his head, his hair being blown by industrial fans.

"Ahahahaha, please! There's no need to love me so much!"

Daryan AKA Hummo Bummo stood over Diddler Dog's corpse with his feet planted wide and tased him in the balls "Stop resisting!" Diddler shrieked like a little girl.

Klavier addressed the audience at home: "Anyway, I hope this little PSA in the wonderful world of Gavinland taught all you kids at home some important lessons about life. In conclusion, puberty is good, and getting molested is bad."

An instrumental version of guilty love started playing and the other band members rushed onto stage and started dancing.

The camera faded and white letters appeared on screen.

Don't get molested

Then a number appeared onscreen for an emergency hotline to buy Gavinners merch.

The lights came back on in the studio.

Trucy said: "That was... um... interesting." She tapped her chin thoughtfully. "I'm not sure it's appropriate for children, though."

He snapped his fingers and smiled. "That's just a rough cut. It'll be fixed up in post. But even in its current state, I think it makes me look pretty good."

Apollo crossed his arms and huffed. "It makes you look like a self-obsessed maniac. Why did you construct this fictional world where you're friends with the blue badger? And why is it implied you're his father?"

"I don't need to explain my art to you. Ya know, I hope you two know I'm not THAT Klavier Gavin-y in real life. It's just all part of my onstage persona. I want to, ah, live up to my fans' expectations of me, ja?"

"The whole thing was honestly creepy," Trucy shrugged. "But if you can fix it in post."

"Ah, fralueien, I will dedicate it to you."

"Wow thanks!"

Apollo got jealous. He turned to Trucy.

"I'll dedicate my trial today to you, too."

"Um. That's okay. No."

Klavier was smiling. "That's right, no thanks, Justice."

"I wasn't talking to you!" snapped Apollo. "C'mon, Truce, let's go. This was just a waste of time."

Klavier farted and laughed as they walked around the corner. After they left, his secretary with huge milkable jugs popped her head into the room.

"Mr. Gavin, you have a call from Mr. Edgeworth," she said, holding the doorframe. "He said it's urgent. I think it's prosecutor squad business."

"Thank you, Jizzony Delightful," said Klavier, and dismissed her with a wave of his hand. "Tell Herr Edgeworth I'll get back to him."

As she turned to leave her skirt flitted up and gave him a perfect view of her bare ass cheeks and her glimmering emerald buttplug.

"What?" he said to himself, recoiling. "A non-Gavinners branded buttplug? They make such things? Actchung?" He stuck a second buttplug with a stylized G up his butt next to his own and shook his hips around until it settled. ""Ah. That's better." He looked up to heaven, which was somewhere beyond the popcorn ceiling. "Daryan, just know that yours has found a good home. A forever home. Rest easy, mein brother."

Then he went to the window and placed a hand on the glass and looked out with a dreamy expression.

"After all," he ruminated, "it's all for the kids, you know? Everything is for them. Everything we've ever done."

He looked down and across the street at the Klavier and Kristoph Gavin Playground where children who looked like black specks from the great height played and laughed. He had made the park and dedicated it to himself so he could always look at children and their pure hearts.

Just then his secretary came into the room again.

"Sir, the chaplain is here to see you."

Klavier turned away from the window and knitted his brow. Dark weather clouded his face. "Again? tch, whatever. Send him."

He hadn't been able to tell from his lofty position at the top of the JETT Records building, but Dave Seville was in the playground pushing his children on the swings; and little did he know that that PSA, made out of pure selfishness with zero conviction behind it, would prove instrumental in shaping the course of a young chipmunk's life.

Later that night, Klavier was sleeping in his arboretum. He was curled up in a big nest in the tree where the monkeys lived. He was resting his cheek on his folded hands, his lower lip sticking out. Loons sang in the indoor lake at the bottom of the tree, the reflection of the moon from the skylight wavering in the water.

He got too excited to sleep and peered over the edge of the nest.

"Psst... Herr Wright? Are you awake?"

The monkey was balls deep in the cravat monkey and looked over its shoulder and screamed.

"You still think I'm cool, right?"

"Eeek!"

Klavier put his hand behind his head and resumed his previous position of lounging lassitude.

"Yeah... heh... of course I'm awesome. Of course."

His life finally had meaning again.

The penis transplant.

The new grand backdrop to his life.

Just when the stage seemed to be falling out from under him, the curtain about to fall, and the audience about to go home, a new stage was set. Golden banners unfurled behind him.

Something to look forward to.

Something to live for. Even in death.

To get back up and keep trudging.

No matter what wrinkles certain people were trying to introduce into his life. As a rockstar, he was good at concealing wrinkles.

He took his penis out of its special pouch.

"I'm going to miss you, little guy." He kissed the big purple vein.

The monkeys were all going at it. Some swung up the branches and surrounded him. They wanted to gangbang him again.

"Guys..." His voice trembled. "No? No?"

They moved in on him, some of them swinging torches, having recently discovered fire.

He put on a pith helmet.

"Back! Back, you apes!' He picked up a chair and a whip and defended himself. "Back!"

They shrieked, only growing hornier. He tossed the stool aside, kept cracking his whip, and scooched backward on his butt and felt around behind him for the remote.

He pressed the button, and a disco ball descended from the ceiling and started shooting off lasers that eviscerated the monkeys.

They fell, some into the lake, others into the lower branches with their intestines all tangled up. Klavier breathed heavily.

He hated having to cull the monkeys like this but sometimes it was necessary when they got too smart and sexually avaricious.

He was charmed and his heart was warmed by seeing that Herr Wright and Herr Monkworth had retreated into a cave to care for their adopted monkey baby with a top hat.

"That's so wholesome," remarked Klavier.

Anyway, once the monkeys settled down, he took out his phone. And started texting Trucy.

I'm getting a dick transplant with larry butz soon

um okay i don't care tee hee

haha that's funny how you said you didn't care. i liked the tee hee though, there isn't enough tee or hee on this godforsaken planet we call a globe

A short break in the texting.

you're really small and petite lol. you look really kidnappable

Silence.

okay that probably sounded weird

Five minutes.

He sent her a picture of his fursona.

She didn't respond but it didn't deter him. The future was bright. Everything had meaning again. Everything had a beautiful tint from the glorious shining future.

It's all going to change...

Meanwhile, Larry was in a bar bemoaning his lack of a functioning penis.

He was slumped over the bar burping into his tankard. He was staring down at the booze sloshing at the bottom.

Sure, he had a gigantic penis like a firehose, or a dragon's tail, but that was also his downfall. He had never been able to generate enough blood flow to get hard. That was why all his relationships with women ended with him crying on the floor kicking his legs while they packed their things. His penis was just too big.

But now, through a twist of fate, he was going to get a new penis courtesy of Klavier Gavin. And he couldn't wait.

Larry flashbacked to him and Klavier at the bar. The entire scene was amber-colored in his memory, as if he were watching it unfold through the bottom of his tankard.

"Ach, Herr Buttz, I've heard your penis, it is too large to get fully erect."

"Um... yeah... but how did you know that?"

"I was talking to Herr Wright and he told me all about it. It's why Cindy Stone left you and fell into the arms of her sugar daddy... and why your entire predicament in court came to be."

"Damn it... the old Nickster can't just keep his mouth shut, can he!"

"He's a good man, Herr Butz. Now... I have a proposal to you. One that will benefit us both."

In the present, Larry smiled. "Heh... Klavier Gavin's penis... on me. Gee... it's hard to imagine. But it won't be long now."

Meanwhile, Phoenix Wright was racing across the backroads of Kurain Village in his rental car while Kristoph Gavin pursued him in an attack helicopter outfitted with anti-Phoenix-seeking missiles and low-grade nuclear capabilities.

Chapter Text

Kristoph Gavin's helicopter finally caught up with Phoenix. His car was parked halfway over the edge of a cliff in the outskirts the Kurain Village Forest. It's a sheer fall. The car creaked and tipped forward, bobbing over the edge. Chunks of the cliff fell and tumbled down the ravine.

Kristoph Gavin watched all this from above through his telescope. He spotted the unmistakable spikes of his rival behind the wheel through the windshield. He'd recognize that terrible hairstyle anywhere.

"Hmph... folding so soon, are we, Wright?" His hair whipped around in the open helicopter door. "I expected more from you."

The car plummeted over the cliff and smashed to pieces against the rocks and blew up in a huge fireball. Kristoph smiled. His lenses turned orange and opaque in the explosion. A wheel landed on top of a pine tree and the engine landed in a bird nest.

"Well, that's the end of Phoenix Wright," said Kristoph, closing his telescope into his palm. "Carried away, rushing down on his burning funeral pyre to the place all bad attorneys go." He chuckled. "A showy, flashy, but ultimately meaningless death for an ultimately meaningless man. You won't be missed." He looked over his shoulder and jerked his head at the pilot. "Take her down."

When the helicopter blades went below the ridge, Phoenix's eyes popped out of a bush, and then the rest of him. He was unshaven and wild eyed. He took off running through the woods.

At the bottom of the cliff, Kristoph stepped out of the helicopter, the blades still whirling and sending up dust. The loose soil sifted under his cowboy boots as he made his way to the burning remains of the car. The door had been welded shut by the heat. He yanked it off and threw it over his shoulder.

Then he saw the skeleton buckled up in the driver's seat.

It had a wig on it.

"Wait a minute..."

He yanked it off.

"No..."

He inspected the price tag.

Discount Halloween wigs

"No...!"

Famous historical figures in legal history: Furio Tigre

"No, no!"

0.99 cents

"NO!" He twisted and wringed it.

Made in Borgina by slaves

"Everything okay, sir?" called the pilot. Kristoph ignored him and unbuckled the skeleton and pulled it toward him. The bones rattled and grinned at him.

He grasped the skeleton by the sternum and top of the skull and bit into it like a candy apple. He chewed on a big chunk of it for a while and spat them out.

"This isn't Phoenix Wright at all! It's the skeleton of Grandcar Deaderelli! Carlad Accidentguy's grandfather!" Wright tricked him by graverobbing.

Kristoph jumped on top of the helicopter blades and the helicopter flew back up the cliff. Kristoph's shoulders were quaking in anger.

"Look!" he said. He extended his finger to point at the cliffside, but the helicopter blades kept spinning him around so he started running really fast in place so he he could point at a bush.

"What is it, sir?"

"That bush... there are broken twigs in front of it, indicating something... or some Wright... was hiding in it. And there are footprints leading into the woods."

Kristoph jumped off.

"I'll follow on foot, you follow on air."

The helicopter dipped its nose up and down to nod and took off over tree line. Kristoph ran through the forest with superspeed on all fours like an ape, propelling himself forward with powerful thrusts of his arms.

Meanwhile, Phoenix emerged from the forest with leaves and twigs in his hair and scratches all over his face. In front of him was Kurain Village.

Finally... he thought. Triumphant music played in his head. The Wright is back.

He took off his beanie, and his spikes sproinged into action, and then he peeled off his hoodie and stepped out of his sweatpants, revealing his classic blue suit. He forgot his shoes, though, so his feet were crawling with black parasites and millipedes.

The cold grey morning was just beginning and the village was waking up. He could see the flashing neon lights that read FEY MANOR in the distance over the neighbors' roofs. Fey manner had become Fey Manor and Casino. Evidently maya had used iris's money for more than just fixing a leaky roof.

Phoenix knew there wasn't much time before Kristoph caught up.

"Feets don't fail me now," he said. He ran down the street to Fey Manner and past the Kurain bus stop and public pay phone, which he was well acquainted with from that case years ago.

He knocked on the front door and thought back to what a risk he took coming here, all the planning. Digging up the skeleton, renting the car, taking the bones out his briefcase and reassembling it on the fly like an assassin building a gun.

The door opened and Phoenix was reunited with Maya and Pearl.

"Nick!" cried Maya. "You old lovable Nick, you!"

"It's good to see you too, Maya... and you too, Pearls!"

"It's great to see you, Mr. Nick!" said Pearl. "What a pleasant surprise!"

"But... why ARE you here?" asked Maya. "Barging in at the crack of dawn? Without calling?"

"Um... and I don't mean to be rude, but you look a little rough," said Pearl. "All you alright?"

"It's a long story," said Phoenix. "Look, what I need right now is a channeling. Can you set that up for me? I need this bad right now. It's for a case."

The girls were slightly taken aback but they agreed. Phoenix and Maya went into the channeling chamber and Pearl locked the door.

"Phoenix, why did you call me?" asked Mia.

Phoenix looked around the room, nervous. "This room is soundproof, right? And there are no cameras? Microphones?"

"No," shaking her head and breasts, "my ESP would detect those."

"Whew... that's a relief."

"Phoenix, what's wrong?" she asked seriously. "You look like you haven't slept in weeks."

He looked at her with a helpless, war-torn expression, because this was war.

"I need your help, chief."

"Tell me everything."

And he did: Biscoff being Kristoph, Kristoph trying to marry Trucy, him accidentally killing Lauren Paups, and everything else that had happened.

"I... I did the one thing a defense attorney isn't supposed to do... Kill people."

"Oh, honey, it's not your fault."

"I killed her."

She comforted him in that room, held him close, enveloped in the thick incense floating on the candlelight.

"You didn't know," Mia said. "You were just trying to save your daughter. And," she shrugged her shoulders and looked around, "look. Biscoff drugged her and kidnapped her. It's just as likely that whatever he did to her killed her. Ultimately he's responsible."

He sniffed. "I guess that makes me feel a LITTLE better."

"Wright, you can't wallow in self-pity right now. Whatever happened, happened. Your priority has to be saving your daughter."

"Trucy..."

"Trucy." She nodded. "Think of it like a court case, and she's the defendant."

"But it's so hard to find to find the turnabout."

She nodded. "I know. But you can do it. You can expose the true villain in this case. Just like you always do."

"But how?"

"Looking over the court record, I see a few options."

She went over them.

One, get the detonator away from him. If he didn't have that, his source of power and control over Phoenix would be removed.

"No dice," Phoenix shook his head. "He keeps that thing shoved so far up his butt that by the time I wriggled my way up there Trucy would be a goner."

Two, remove the bomb somehow. Once it was disarmed Kristoph could be arrested.

"I already tried that," said Phoenix. "I tried making a doctor's appointment to have it removed, but Kristoph seemed to know about it somehow and made me cancel. And I tried to remove it myself, and we see how that turned out," bitterly.

"Wright, I told you, that wasn't your fault," she snapped. "And besides, I can talk to Laruen in heaven and let her know you didn't mean to kill her and it was all just a big misunderstanding."

"Really?" He brightened up. "You can do that for me? Wow, thanks, chief."

"Of course. She doesn't seem to mind that she's dead much, anyway. That girl is a bit... off. She just keeps trying to pet the cloud topiaries."

In heaven, topiaries were made out of clouds instead of bushes and stuff. And they were exotic animals like unicorns and centaurs.

"Wow..." said Phoenix. "That's actually kinda cool."

The third option was to expose him and report him to the police.

"Absolutely not," said Phoenix, shaking his head.

"I agree. Going to the police is the one thing you can't do. Not even to Miles Edgeworth. That is not a viable option at this point. So scratch that."

Four would be to get him to expose himself somehow.

"Why would he ever do that?" asked Phoenix.

"I don't know," said Mia. "We'll come back to that later."

Five: make it so he voluntarily won't use the detonator.

"If you can't get the detonator away from him, and you can't expose him without putting Trucy at risk, then make it so he WON'T use the detonator," said Mia.

"How the heck can I do that?" asked Phoenix. "Why wouldn't he?"

"You'll have to arrange things so he CAN'T use the detonator without ruining his own plans, without feeling like he's lost somehow. Trap him in his own plans. It'll be tricky. But I think that might be your best bet."

"I don't know... it sounds too hard."

"Well, throw a wrench into his plan somehow. He wants to marry her, right? That's his plan?"

"Right." His skin shivered in disgust and a wooly ball of hatred knit itself in his guts.

"If she's in love with someone else, then that would delay his plans, give you time to stop him. And he wouldn't detonate the bomb if that meant he would 'lose' to another man. Boyfriend?"

"Machi Tobaye," said Phoenix. "But he's a loser and I don't think she's in really love with him."

"Then find someone else. To keep her heart safe from Biscoff Gavin."

Phoenix was slightly disappointed and underwhelmed. He had always depended on a dead woman with big boobies to tell him what to do, but this time it seemed like even she and her large snackable tits couldn't save him. Maybe this excursion to Kurain Village was all for nothing.

"Find someone you can trust," she said. "Someone who can help you outside of the spirit world."

"Trust..." Phoenix thought of Miles.

"You'll have to do it covertly. Biscoff has become almost omnipresent... ubiquitous. And I'll say this," she added cryptically, glaring ahead. "It might take a Gavin to stop a Gavin."

A Gavin to stop a Gavin... in his mind, he saw images of the two brothers, both adopting the same pose, smiling with their arms crossed. The images moved towards each other and overlapped, and they looked exactly the same.

Maybe...

What're you thinking about, wright? they asked him at the same time, their lips moving in tandem.

Mia said: "I'll do my own investigation in heaven. See what I can scour up. I might even go down to hell and interview some of his victims that didn't make it past the pearly gates."

"Hell? Mia, that sounds dangerous."

"I can handle myself, Phoenix. And I'll take a big strong man with me if that's what you're so worried about."

"Too bad I can't go with you, chief."

"I know, Phoenix. Now come here for a kiss to make it all better."

He closed his eyes and leaned in for his kiss but he felt himself get pushed to the ground and she farted in his face with her bare ass.

"AUUGGGGGGGGGGH!" said Phoenix

He had fallen for it again just like Charlie brown falling for the old football gag from Lucy. Mia had been doing it for years and death hadn't slowed her down one bit.

"You have to do something, Phoenix," she said, her face serious and concerned. "You have to stop Biscoff. To him this all a game, but a dangerous one."

Just then there was an explosion that shook the room and made them lose their balance! Kristoph had shot a rocket at the channeling chamber door!

"Oh, Wright, where are you?" called Kristoph mockingly from outside.

"Oh, no!" said Phoenix. "He's here!"

"It's a good thing Maya reinforced the door when she got the check from Iris," said Mia.

Another rocket whistled and crashed into the door. It wouldn't hold for much longer.

"Phoenix, quick! There's one more thing," said Mia.

"What's that, chief?"

"You can't let Biscoff Gavin know why you came here. He can't think that you've let anyone else into your battle. You have to cum on my face and my big gorgeous tits to hide what you were doing in the channeling chamber."

He didn't want to betray his beloved wife so instead he took a big spiderweb out of the corner and threw it at her face, and she also spat on her exposed breasts to make them shiny. She rubbed the spit in with her palm and then she kissed her knuckles to put lipstick on them and punched him in the face a few times to leave kiss marks.

She bit her lip and looked him over.

"One more things."

She at pulled his tie and his clothes to make him look disheveled, and she also pulled her medium costume down to expose her big brown nipples and gigantic udders.

Ready, they opened the channeling chamber door and emerged, the door creaked open like ancient stone door in a jungle temple.

Kristoph was waiting there with a rocket launcher poised over his shoulder and a saber hanging from his hand and the tip touching the mats of the training hall. He wore a chilling smile.

"Hmph, bold and defiant today, aren't we?" asked Kristoph, sneering. He looked the two of them over, from head to foot. "So you've decided to cheat on your wife. Usually I'd want to expose you, but it's satisfying to watch you sink into these depths by your own doing. I applaud you."

"Mr. Biscoff."

Mia glared ahead.

"May I ask what you are doing in my ancestral home so heavily armed?"

He also had a belt full of hunting knives and bandolier loaded with grenades across his chest like a sash. He frowned at her but transformed it into another sneer.

"Hmph..." He let the rocket launcher tip back. "My apologies, Madam Fey. I was simply worried about my dear friend Mr. Wright here. And these woods... they're dangerous."

"Not really."

"I saw multiple squirrels."

He turned his attention back to Phoenix and ignored her.

He said: "You've been a busy boy. Is this why you faked your own death? To cheat on your wife?" He shook his head. "Tsk, tsk. Naughty."

"Think what you want, Biscoff," said Phoenix. Unperturbed.

Kristoph drew his head back a bit. He drew the corner upper lip up over his teeth.

"Well." A pregnant pause. He let his body relax and all his weapons clinked and rattled. "I'll accompany you back to LA. We'll take my helicopter. It would be a pity to have to use public transportation, wouldn't it? Mix in with all those undesirables?" He chuckled. "Just another benefit of being my bosom buddy, isn't it?"

But Phoenix just stared into eyes. Unfazed. This time, Kristoph's needling wasn't going to get to him.

What happened in that chamber was a locked room mystery that Kristoph couldn't solve. For once, Phoenix was the one on top.

He dimly but instinctively recognized rules to their game: there were some things he could do, and some things he couldn't do. All unspoken but understood by both men. They made about as much sense as the rules of war, where you could shoot a man but not mistreat him as a prisoner.

He realized that Kristoph wanted to watch him struggle like a mouse caught in a trap. He wanted Phoenix to try to stop him. He just wasn't allowed to tell anyone Kristoph's secret identity or expose him. This was all like a nightmare and nightmare rules of logic applied.

"I have to take a big shit before we go," said Phoenix.

"Pray let me accompany you," said Kristoph. "I believe you'll find me becoming a looming presence in your future trips to the bathroom."

"Fine by me, Biscoff."

Their eyes locked.

Daring.

And with a challenge.

Chapter Text

Thanksgiving was just around the corner. Father Christmas was busy filling the clouds with snowflakes in preparation for a white Christmas. The Easter Bunny was carefully laying his eggs for next year; and the Thanksgiving Turkey was lying on a long table basting himself to get ready to feed the hungry descendants of pilgrims all across America, like Phoenix Wright, who was currently concocting a plan to save Trucy and stop Kristoph after getting Mia's advice.

Meanwhile, the JETT Records building towered over the city on that grey afternoon, looking like an obelisk, like a monument to the rockstar gods of modern times: bigger than life: like the Chipmunks.

Dave tapped his conductor's baton.

"All right boys, this is a really pretty new song, so let's not mess it up. all right?"

He shot a warning glance that said, That means you, Alvin!

"And a-one.. and a-two... hit, it fellas!"

The electric guitar and synth machines kicked in.

Rudolph was a reindeer, he had a very pretty nose,

all the other reindeers liked him, this everybody knows

Reindeer, reindeer, reindeer,

They're all very chaste and good,

They all read their bibles,

And they never come to blows

The boys sang and bobbed their shoulders in perfect unison, clasping their hands like little angels.

This is way better than the "original", thought Dave. So what if it doesn't rhyme? Leave the rhyming to the rappers, or rapists, as Dave called them.

But Alvin ruined the song by substituting his own lyrics about Rudolph having a "red rocket' that Santa liked to ride and suck on.

Dave frowned. "Very funny, Alvin. That's very amusing. Now try to sing the actual words, will you?"

"Ohhhh-kay!"

Rudolph had a nose, it was very bright and red, I really love him, I want him to be my friend

Then Alvin said a swear word.

"ALVIIIIIIIIIIIIN!"

Just then Ian and JD were walking past the door to the recording studio.

Ian Hawke stopped and sniffed. "Uh oh. This can't be good. Dave is using capital letters again." He sighed. He shook head. "Well, I'd better straighten this out."

JD nodded. Silent as a stone. Stiff as a totem pole.

"What's the trouble?" asked Ian.

"Start taking guesses," moaned Dave. He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. "You can start and end with the first letter of the alphabet."

Ian put an arm around Dave's shoulder and walked a bit.

"Look, Seville, why don't you let me take Alvin out for ice cream?"

"Ice cream? Gosh, Mr. Hawke, that sounds like a reward."

"No, no, no... it's like the kid version of taking a friend to a bar. You know, to have a chat about the seriousness of his behavior, or rather misbehavior."

Dave's face showed consternation. He tapped his front teeth with a fingernail. "Well... I suppose that'd be okay."

"Perfect! Now, you and your two other boys practice while I take care of this A-word situation."

"All right... and by the way, where has Kiss been? They've been gone for what seems like month. And everyone's waiting on the collaboration album."

"Well, first off, it's pronounced KISS, not Kiss."

"It's pronounced differently?"

"Yeah, it's spelled louder."

Dave coughed. "Well... they do love it loud, or so I've gleaned from their... music."

"Anyway," said Ian, "we don't know. But don't worry, we'll find them. Don't worry your pretty little pants, Davey boy. Old Ian will make sure there's a KISSmas miracle this year, or I'll bet my mother's grave on it."

Ian and JD took Alvin down the elevator and into a waiting limo and drove off.

The streets were darkening, and the city's nightlife was waking up. Inside the limo, sinking into the plush interior of the seats, and crammed up uncomfortably against the limo's martini bar and a luxurious in-vehicle urinal, Alvin peered through the skylight and watched the stars appear in the night sky. He wished there was a shooting star to wish upon; but there wasn't; just blinking red lights from a jet getting ready to land.

Meanwhile, also overhead, Kristoph Gavin was using his new-found powers of flight to follow that jet. He flew with his feet and arms extended ramrod straight. His suit billowed with air and his golden locks fluttered behind his head as he pulled up beside the window of the plane.

He smirked at a little boy licking a lollipop in his seat.

The boy gasped and his propellor hat spun around. He pointed and put his hand on the window.

"Mommy! Look! There's a super hero!"

"That's nice, dear," said his mother, not taking her nose out of her magazine.

The boy waved at Kristoph, and Kristoph waved back. Then his eyes behind his glasses started to glow; first his irises changed from blue to red, and then they and the whites of his eyes became red opaque. There was an ominous hissing sound. The air between his glasses and the window began to waver, and the window grew hot. The boy snatched his hand back like it was hot stove.

"M-mommy?"

Edgeworth was sitting across the aisle, sipping tea with his headphones on, listening to the Chipmunks Sing the Steel Samurai Theme, and reading something important on his laptop. He had just got back from a special meeting at the White House and was returning home.

The something important was an anonymous email. It was troubling him. It read: "What really happened that day at the prison? Who was the true mastermind behind Klavier's death? If you can't find that out, you're doomed. I'll tell you this much more: there's a betrayer in the Prosecutor Squad. They've been feeding Misery Lockedheart all the information he wants. Don't keep your 'friends' too close if you want to live much longer."

Edgeworth frowned and knitted his brows. Then he realized his mistake and said "Yeowch!" and took the knitting needles out of his eyebrows and put them back in the scarf he was knitting for Wright. That man didn't take care of himself and might catch a cold, the damned fool.

As he knitted, he pondered the letter. A betrayer? Could that be possible? Among his handpicked group of Los Angeles's best prosecutors? And surely that ghastly business at the prison was all over and done with? There had been no loose end he could discern. Could there really be any merit to this electronic epistle? It troubled him.

He was awakened from his ruminations by loud smooching sounds. He looked up. A young couple in front of him were snuggling and sharing little kisses. He smiled indulgently over his reading glasses. He couldn't help but notice the man looked a lot like Wright from behind, and the girl looked like himself if he were a woman with large breasts. She even had a cravat. Perhaps there were some hope for the youth of this country after all.

Then lasers blasted out of his Kristoph's eyes and blew the window inward. Billowing flames filled the plane and rushed down the aisles. The boy and his mother turned to screaming, blackened skeletons, all their flesh melted off, and the plane crumpled in half and the debris fell on the city.

Kristoph floated up higher and hovered in place, the uncaring stars serving as his backdrop, as fiery pieces of the wreckage lit up the night sky and crashed into the streets below and crushed cars.

"Humph..." he said. "Such a shame..."

He took off his glasses, which had been shattered by the laser beams.

"...To ruin a perfectly good pair of glasses."

He tossed away them carelessly, and they tumbled to Earth. Lucifer's glasses. It's not like he needed them anymore.

But Biscoff did.

He took out his cellphone.

"Hello? Doctor Glasses? I appear to have misplaced my glasses."

Below, the police dug through the wreckage, barking at people to stay back. It was a fiery hell down there.

Gumshoe was in charge. "Put up more caution tape! Get that baby out of here! We need more bullhorns and tasers! Move! Move! Move!"

"Sir, w-wh-what happened?" gulped Mike Meekins.

He gripped Mike Meekins by the collar. "Don't you get it? Miles Edgeworth was on that plane, pal!" He shook him. "Miles goddamn Edgeworth!

"Then... gulp... he's...!"

"No!" roared Gumshoe. He threw him aside like a ragdoll and sprinted under a fallen traffic light leaning against a building. He dug through the wreckage of the plane with his bare hands, burning them.

"I don't believe it! No!"

Ema was on the scene too tasing people. "Gumshoe! stop it!" Her tight pants hung low and you could see her thong sticking out just beneath the crack of her fat ass that was just begging to be fucked. "He's gone!"

He ignored her, and panted like an animal, tossing the burning pieces aside, deaf to all the screaming around him.

Eventually, they found Edgeworth miraculously safe in a crater under part of the wing, calmly sipping tea in a fetal position.

"S-sir!" sputtered Gumshoe. "But how!"

"Simple." He stood up and dusted himself off. He took off all his clothes. "I was wearing an explosion proof vest. A prosecutor must be prepared for all contingencies."

"Thank god," Gumshoe sobbed. "I'm not a praying man... but lord knows I was praying the whole time for you, Mr. Edgeworth!

"Keep praying, Detective. This city will need all your prayers before this is over."

He stood in the middle of the fiery street, ashes falling on his shoulders, an abstracted look on his face as the police and medics tended to the wounded in the street.

A betrayer...

Images flashed through his mind.

Himself. Beyond reproach.

Franziska von Karma? No. Soundly.

Gumshoe. As loyal as a dog.

Blackquill. He had spent a long time in prison...

Winston? Gaspen? Had they turned evil in their old age?

Klavier Gavin? It hardly seemed likely.

Godot? He was paraplegic and could barely drink coffee anymore.

Kevin Lawyer? That man had a dark side. There were rumors swirling around him, like the rumors that had swirled around Edgeworth himself.

And, of course, a brain in a jar.

"Someone knew I was on that plane..." he whispered. Ema and Gumshoe shared a look. "And they told Misery Lockedheart the best time to strike."

Someone, someone he know, someone he trusted, someone close to him, had almost been responsible for his death.

Responsible...

A flame from a burning car flickered higher and lit up his face.

...for this.

Then they all noticed a charred lollipop stuck out of the ground, like the spear of a fallen warrior.

Misery Lockedheart... Edgeworth's face hardened and he glared forward. You will pay for this. No one gets away with murder and gets away with it.

Kristoph watched all this from the moon, where he sat in a luxury chair.

"Hmph... of course I knew you'd survive, Mr. Prosecutor Squad. I simply wanted to warn you. And, of course, to belatedly sign good old Misery Lockedheart's letter to the Prosecutor's office with a flourish- with widespread destruction and death and unrest, the means by which I will wrest control of the legal system away from you and your ilk."

He lifted his nose and sniffed disdainfully.

"My game is with your rival... not you. You hold no personal interest for me, I assure you."

One of Gumshoe's prayers floated up towards heaven and Kristoph swatted it away.

"Nasty thing." He shivered.

He felt weak; he had overexerted himself.

"It will take time to fully tap into my new powers. Hmm... what I need are more minions besides my helicopter pilot and Cody and his fat friend.

Hmmm..."

He looked towards the desert prison.

Chapter Text

On the radio, there was a news report.

"Plane blew up. Big explosion. People dead. City damaged. People are calling it '9-11 part 2.' Well, at least I'm calling it that. Chief Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth has released the following statement..."

"Geez, that's depressing," said the evil Ian Hawke. He looked over his shoulder through the rear windshield. "And I can even see the fire from here. Turn that off." The driver complied.

They drove past the ice cream parlor and left it behind. Alvin the Chipmunk had already known that wasn't where they were going. He saw his rival Sludge the Chipmunk eating ice cream with the Big Ice Cream Cone mascot, and his heart panged.

"Driver," ordered Ian, "take a detour past the homeless encampment under the overpass."

"Cheerio, sir," said Jeeves Butlerton. His original name had been long lost to history.

Night had fallen. The slick black limo glided past burn cans and the encampment of jocks and cheerleaders from high school who were out of work because Americans couldn't afford superfluous luxuries like high school football anymore now that every available resource was being diverted toward the war effort and budgeting for groceries.

The limo stopped in front of some of Ian's former schoolmates warming their hands in front of a burning varsity jacket. The cold chill blew newspapers and trash across the street, like mice coming out of hiding, boding some ill premonition.

"Heh, if isn't all the girls who wouldn't date me just because I'm bald and look like David Cross," said Ian.

He rolled the window down and addressed them and their jock boyfriends.

"Well, well, well... how the mighty have fallen. Who's the cool kid now?"

They just looked up at him with blank, lost faces, comprehending nothing, accepting everything.

Ian singled out one of the middle-aged football players. His uniform was in tatters.

"You forgot one thing about recessions, Jim..." He leaned in out the window, his breath frosting and his gums stinking. "You can't eat a football."

"You don't think I tried?" asked the ex-jock bitterly, gesturing towards the football shaped bulge in his stomach.

Ian snapped his fingers.

"JD, my pennies."

JD handed him a sack and Ian threw pennies at the homeless jock encampment and then put on Detroit Rock City as the driver peeled out and drove them to the Ian's luxury penthouse.

"Faster! Faster!"

The butler put the pedal to medal (the gold medal of driving fast and being a good butler) and sped down the empty depopulated roads.

The retracting bridge over the river was going up but there was a not quite sane glint in Ian's eyes.

"Faster! Faster! We can make it!"

The butler cracked the reigns of the limo, because this was a luxury limo with reigns for a streeting wheel, and the limo did a wheelie and jumped the bridge and soared over the river.

"Whooooooo!" said Ian with his hands over his head.

They landed on the other side and Alvin rattled around the limo and bounced off the walls like a pinball.

"Ha!" Ian clapped, "that was great!"

Later, he quipped, "Going up," as the elevator went up to his apartment. JD stood at his side and Alvin was stuffed in Ian's bowling bag.

They were going higher and higher, but Alvin knew he was getting only further and further from heaven. This is hard chapter in our saga to narrate. I struggled with whether I should share this, Alvin's tormenting trauma, but I decided his story must be told. Besides, it's integral to the fate of the other heroes of our story, such as Phoenix Wright, and that brave man named Godot. Bear with me.

Alvin tumbled out of Ian's bag and rolled across the floor. Footsteps sounded across the marble floor of the penthouse. A shadow fell over him.

"Well!" Ian bent over him and smiled. "Playtime, little buddy!"

"I don't want to be here," whispered Alvin, averting his eyes.

"Oh, oh, oh, oh... you wouldn't want me to tell Daddy Dave what we do, do you?" He closed his eyes and clicked his tongue. "He would never look at you the same way again."

The penthouse was full of toys and wonderment, but they weren't for Alvin. They were for Ian.

Ian adjusted his tie. He breathed through parted lips.

"JD, make sure we're not disturbed during our play date."

He nodded and went out to guard the door.

The door shut with a sound of finality and inevitability, and the heavy locks clicked shut.

Once they were alone, Ian dressed Alvin in a sailor suit and picked him up and played with him like a giant plushie.

"This is gay," said Alvin.

"Don't move," said Ian. "You're supposed to be a plushie. And plushies don't talk."

Ian put on overalls and a giant conductor's hat big enough to put many loaves of bread in and tied Alvin to the giant railroad tracks crisscrossing the room and used a remote control to guide the giant toy train toward him, changing the tracks at the last second right before he ran him over. This was how Alvin came to experience death, over again and again.

Later, Ian put on a Dave Seville cosplay.

"Tap dance for me! Pretend I'm your dad!"

Alvin tried to tap-dance but he kept crying and slipping on his own tears.

"I said tap-dance! Not cry!"

Ian had gone completely insane.

The room was covered in pictures of the Chipmunks through all their eras and phases. The punk era, the grunge era, the rap albums (Dave wasn't happy about those!), all the posters that adorned his walls serving as a testament to his obsession with Chipmunks. But he didn't really care about Theodore or Simon. No, most of the pictures were of Alvin.

The most prominent was one over the fireplace of Alvin dressed as the pope with a huge scepter and a disdainful regal look.

Ian gestured with his hands, struggling to find the words to communicate his almost religious fervor for all things Chipmunks.

"You guys are always evolving, always capturing the best in our culture. Wow. Just... wow."

Ian's eyes rippled hypnotically as he looked at his Chipmunks merchandise.

"Ever since the chipmunks appeared I've been your biggest fan."

The lights slowly dimmed.

"Finally. Real music."

His face in stark profile. Lifeless eyes.

"I've always wanted to control this greatness."

Lightning flashed.

"And I thought... what if... he was in my control?

His profile flipped to face the other side.

"It's fun making someone do whatever you want."

The lights went back on Ian unclasped his hands from behind his back and slowly turned to face Alvin, who was cowering on the floor.

"Now... you know I always get what I want. I'm Ian Hawke. And the early Hawke catches the chipmunk."

Alvin let himself go catatonic. He disassociated, his eyes glazing over. It was the only way he could handle it.

Ian attached him to a giant paddle ball and paddled him back and forth.

"Chippy chipmunk! Chippy chipmunk! Hahaha!"

It made Alvin's bones hurt.

Finally he had enough.

"No! Stop! Leave me alone!"

When the paddleball wire was fully extended, he cut it with his teeth to free himself and bit Ian's finger.

"Ouch!" said Ian.

Alvin turned feral and started biting and scratching him.

"No! Get away from me, you... you varmint!" He backed away from the snarling chipmunk and grabbed a fire extinguisher. "This should help you 'cool down.'" He pulled it back over his shoulder and chucked it across the room but it flew over Alvin's head and smashed a vase instead.

"Damn it!"

Ian grabbed another fire extinguisher and used it to break a glass case with another fire extinguisher inside that said "Break in case of fire extinguisher" on the glass and sprayed Alvin with it but the fire extinguisher propelled him up into the ceiling and the back of Ian's pants caught on the edge of the ceiling fan blade and he spun around and around the ceiling.

"Whoa! Whooooooa!" Ian flailed his arms around and the fire extinguisher fell to the floor and rolled away.

Alvin growled and kept jumping up to nip at Ian's ankles and falling on his back.

"JD! JD! Stop this crazy thing!"

But the room was soundproof, and he couldn't hear him.

Alvin suddenly shook himself back into his right state of mind and his fangs retracted and his fur stopped standing up. He whipped his head right to left and dashed across the room the door. He jumped up the doorknob and pulled on it desperately with his feet planted against the door, but it was locked tight. He dropped down, panting, and then rushed across the room into the bathroom. He disappeared from Ian's view.

"What are you doing?" said Ian, struggling with his pants as he spun around. "You'd better not be crapping where I can't watch you!"

In the bathroom, Alvin stood on the edge of the toilet seat and held his nose.

"Gee, I sure hope this works," he said.

He jumped into the toilet bowl and flushed himself down, spinning around and around until nothing was left but his hat floating in the rising water.

"No!" screamed Ian, shaking his fists. "NO! He's flushed himself down the toilet! He's escaping! JD! JD!"

He still couldn't escape the clutches of the ceiling fan, so he took out his cellphone and called his righthand man.

"Alvin's escaping! This isn't a drill! Get the hell in here!"

Moments later, JD walked straight through the heavy door, splintering it and sending fragments everywhere. He looked up at Ian, his face impassive, his mullet immaculate.

"Just don't stand there, you big ape!" shouted Ian. "Get the goons!"

His private SWAT-team-like unit in gasmasks and body armor assembled in the room.

"Men, go retrieve my toy!" he commanded them from the ceiling fan. They ran out the door. "And let nary a word of this reach the press! Nary a word!" He waved a finger shakily over his shoulder.

Meanwhile, Alvin was rushing along in the brown waters of the sewer, floating past big bones and alligators. He struggled to keep his chin above the water, but it kept going into his mouth. He bobbed up and down, with a drawn slack look on his face. All he could hear were the rushing torrents on either side, frothing and lapping at the moss encrusted walls.

Just then KISS floated by on an improvised barge made of barrels of medical waste tied to old planks and alligators.

Ace and Paul were kneeling down and using their guitars as oars. A skull floated by.

"Don't worry, guys, we'll find a way out of here soon!" said Paul.

"Hey! Look!" cried Ace. He spotted Alvin's head floating above the water. "It's Alvin the Chipmunk!"

Gene roared. "We have to save Alvin!"

"Uh oh, look!" said Peter Criss.

He pointed a drumstick.

Up ahead the sewer river diverged into two paths, one of which had roaring frothing rapids that descended into darkness. The sign over the rapids said "Ye olde rapids" like in Dragon's Lair.

"Hold on, guys..." warned Paul Stanley. "This is about to get bumpy! Peter, you'd better start singing Beth."

Peter started singing his hit song Beth as Alvin floated past them and rushed out of a drainpipe and into the ocean.

The tide carried him in and out to the wet sand of the beach. It was morning now. He was dull and lifeless, staring up at the seagulls overhead. Peter Criss's singing came out of the drainpipe with a haunting ethereal quality.

Alvin's phone vibrated and it floated up next to his face in the water.

The screen was clearly visible. A little icon of Dave's face popped up.

Dave: where r u?

Dave: we need 2 reherse for da big show

A seagull gulled.

The phone vibrated again.

Alvin closed his eyes and cried. The tears streaked down his face and stained his fur. He heard sloshing footsteps. A shadow fell over him again.

It's Ian Hawke.

"Hey, buddy." He smiled. "You almost got away from me."

A gull screamed like a human.

Piercing the day like a knife.

Or a pointy stick.

Humvees rolled onto the beach.

Just a few more hours
And I'll be right home to you
I think I hear them calling
Oh, Beth, what can I do?
Beth, what can I do?

Ian was so evil that he also watched snuff videos. His favorite was the leaked tape of Shelly de Killer murdering Juan Corrida, which he had bpaid hundreds of thousands of dollars for on the black market. He had, in fact, bought it at that same abandoned warehouse where the "Win A Night With Phoenix Wright" contest had been held ten years ago.

His eyes got glossy as he watched.

There was no going back now.

Keep... pushing... past every boundary. Then what?

Ian punished him in the bathroom for trying to escape. The toilet lid was down and chained up with trick locks.

"I've been waiting a long time for this, Alvin," he said. He looked down at him coldly. "Waiting... for you to give me a reason."

Alvin was sitting on the floor. His eyes were down. He was playing with the fringe of his long shirt. He had his hat back on.

Ian finally opened up to someone. "Do you know... intrusive thoughts?" He twirled finger around near his temple. "Oh, everyone has them. What if I did this, what if I did that. What if I turned my wheel right now and crashed into traffic, or what if hurt this fragile thing that's been entrusted to my care. Not because they WANT to do these things or WANT think about them, but because they DON'T want to. For most people they have them, then boom, they're gone. Not me. They're always there. I was actually almost committed in college. They got THAT bad. But I got through it and suppressed them and got my producer degree from Ivy U, and, well, the rest is history as they say."

He breathed heavily.

"But one day... at the height of my power... it was actually at Klavier's revival show."

He paced back and forth as Alvin stared at him woodenly.

"Up there, in that booth... looking down on everyone. I was on top of the world. I was powerful, I defeated death! I brought him back! Something in my head just clicked. What if I DID act on my every intrusive thought that popped up in my head? What if I did that? It thrilled me and scared me. That became the prevalent, constant thought in my head. I didn't want to do these things, but I could. If I had the impulse, I could. That sudden awakening... it... was... well, exhilarating. It was like something in me was unlocked, freed. Why not? Why not do anything?"

He looked right at Alvin.

"Why not? What makes it wrong? What makes it wrong? All those... mental efforts... no more. No more. no more self-imposed chains. No more... black psyche locks."

Alvin didn't say anything because he was too scared.

Ian took out his own magatama, which was black and evil looking.

"Oh, I know all about psyche locks. I got this little baby from Khurain Village. I snagged it when no one looking. Stupid spirit medium bitches. Now I can see what everyone is hiding. And, you know, people in the show biz have a lot to hide. Some of them are probably worse than me. Your daddy has a few locks of his own. Not to mention that whore Thalassa. And the Machi runt. And Klavier. And... many more people."

He waved it around in front of the mirror and saw his own psyche locks slowly becoming undone. They were invisible to Alvin. What was he talking about?

"I'm going to achieve the ULTIMATE freedom. From myself, from my own inhibitions. I already have all the money in the world. So this is what I want now."

He turned back to Alvin and slipped the magatama back into his pocket on its gold chain.

"And now, a little voice in my head is telling me to hurt you... so I'm gonna listen to it."

He unbuckled his belt and cracked it against the floor like a whip. Then he kicked Alvin so hard across the room that he bounced off the wall. Alvin started having seizures on the ground and foaming at the mouth.

Ian got scared he might have hurt him so he also pulled all his clothes off and took pictures of him naked as insurance. That way he could blackmail him into not telling on him for doing this to him by threatening to release the photos. That would be really embarrassing!

Ian dropped Alvin off at the hospital in a basket and ran away.

A nurse came out of the front door.

"Oh? What's this?"

She lifted the blanket and saw Alvin coughing and seizing and frothing.

"Oh dear god!"

She fluttered her hands and dropped the blanket and ran inside.

"Doctor! Doctor! HELLLLLLLLLLLLLP! HELLLLLLLLLLLLLLP! HELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLP! HELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLP!"

Chapter Text

In the hospital, Alvin was lying in a cot. He was hooked up to an IV-drip and looked weak. The doctor stood over him with a bland smile.

"Well, you gave us quite the fright there, Mr. Seville. Feeling better?"

But Alvin didn't say anything. He just turned his head on the pillow and stared at the wall. He looked so small.

Outside, Cody and Sal were sitting on the curb smoking. Ambulance after ambulance dropped off victims of 9/11 part 2 who were rushed inside.

"So, Cody, just who is this Biscoff guy, huh?" asked Sal, scratching what could charitably be called a "chin." "I mean, we're his minions, but we don't know much about him."

"Dunno, man, some famous opera singer from Germany or something. Man, my mom is one dumb bitch. The guy is obviously some kind of pedophile. It's not the Steel Samurai so I don't care about it."

"Uh, it's probably okay if we're sitting guard instead of standing guard, right?" asked Sal. "Cuz I'm more used to sitting in a gaming chair than standing, TBH. LOL."

Cody puffed on his cigarette. "It should be okay. As long as we keep in touch on the walkies."

Meanwhile, inside the hospital, Biscoff was hiding in a potted plant. He peered out and narrowed his eyes as a nurse and her male colleague walked down the hallway, matching each other's strides.

"Can you believe it?" asked the nurse, all aflutter. "Klavier Gavin! Here! In this hospital! Getting a penis transplant! Wow!"

"I know, it's crazy! And on 9/11 part 2, no less!"

"Do you think I could get his autograph?"

"I dunno... it IS 9/11 part 2. Asking him for one right now might be in bad taste or something."

Once he thought the coast was clear, Biscoff lifted his head out of the pot, wearing the palm tree like a hat.

"Who's that?" asked the nurse.

"Not sure... the palm tree repair man?"

The nurse laughed as he slapped her ass. "Oh, Darren, you're so funny!"

Biscoff bristled; Darren was NOT funny. He shot a poison dart into him when he wasn't looking that would give him cancer in twelve years, and then he emerged from the soil and brushed the dirt off and continued sneaking through the hospital.

Beep! "Cody," he whispered into his walkie talkie, hunched over, shooting furtive glances left and right, making rapid but silent strides. "I have resumed sneaking. Let me know if you see the Prosecutor Squad or Phoenix Wright trying to interfere with my plans. Over."

"Copy that, over."

He wasn't too worried about anyone catching him, though; thanks to his genius everyone would be too distracted by the plane exploding to foul up his plans of entering what was technically a restricted area for visitors, from which he would undoubtably be politely asked to leave if caught.

He cartwheeled and backflipped past an open door where the dick transplant surgery was happening. He landed in a crouch, eyes alert, and perked up his ears. He paused there in that posture. Then, in spite of himself, curious, he sidled up beside the doorframe and peered in.

Klavier and Larry were lying in hospital beds prior to the dick transplant, holding hands.

"Could you not hold hands?" asked the surgeon. "You're making this whole thing pretty gay."

"Fuck you," said Klavier Gavin bravely. Their fingers entwined, and they held on tighter. "This is our dick transplant surgery, and we'll do it how we want. Right, Larry?"

"Right."

The surgeon shrugged, checked something off on his clipboard, and walked away.

Still holding hands, Larry leaned back on the pillow, closed his eyes, sighed, and wriggled his shoulders around.

"I can't wait to wake up from my surgery with a functional penis. It'll be like waking up to a dream, except real. Y'know?"

"Ja, and I can't wait to have the world's largest novelty cock." He smiled across at Larry. "Happy penis transplant, Larry."

He smiled back. "Happy penis transplant, Klav."

As the doctors put the sleep gas masks on them, Larry's eye sparkled.

"I just a great idea for my next children's book. It's about a guy who's kinda like Cinderella... He thought his life was over, but it turned out happiness was just around the corner."

"Ahaha, you are quite the imaginative man. I see some parallels to our own situation. I will truly read your book when it's finished." He was lying.

Anyway, they were put under and the surgery began.

Biscoff closed his eyes. He held a hand against his forehead.

"Sigh... Klavier, why..."

No, he had no time for his brother's nonsense right now. They would talk about this later.

"I have to knock up some sense into that boy..." he muttered.

Biscoff had more important things to attend to right now than his brother's perverse peccadilloes; for, you see, while going over the files stolen from Professor Layton pertaining to the ancient Judge societies of California, he learned about an ancient prophecy and discovered a startling secret surrounding the circumstances of Trucy's birth. If what he learned from his subsequent investigations into the matter were true, it could change everything.

He had to go to the hospital for the final piece of the puzzle and ascertain whether his suppositions were correct, because if he were going to marry her, he felt it prudent to know as much about her background as possible. It would make it easier to groom her and mold her mind before they became one flesh. Besides, it would help him guard against the prophecy, if it were true.

After making a deal with the devil, anything seemed possible, even an outlandish ancient prophecy drawn on a cave wall.

He made his way further through the hospital and found what he was looking for. Over a door at the end of the hall was a sign that said "PREGNANCY RECORDS ROOM"

"Aha..." said Kristoph. "Bingo."

He went inside the dark room and over to the filing cabinets. 

The T section.

In a crevice between the drawer and the cabinet a picture that'd been stuck there for years fell to the floor. He ducked down and picked it up.

The photo showed pregnant Marivn Grossberg and pregnant Redd White kissing each other with soaked panties.

"Hm. Interesting. But not my cup of atroquinine. And not what I'm looking for."

He tucked it away on his person and resumed his search in the T section.

Thalassa.

Nothing.

Frustrated, he then remembered, and checked the L section instead.

"Hmph... just as I suspected..." He chuckled.

He checked the H section, and then, the F section. And G. Then the W section.

Gramarye...

"H"...

Fey...

Wright...

The mist seemed to clear and out of the haze of the past a definite image was taking shape.

"Oh my... so that's the true nature of their familial relationship. And it was right under their noses the whole time. Well, this changes things, doesn't it? I have to say, this will make marrying her that much more satisfying."

He took a bottle labeled "BABY AND MOTHER DNA SAMPLE" out of the folder and held it in his palm. He closed his hand and squeezed lightly. He could feel her... in this bottle. He shook it, and listened to the sloshing around of that strange genetic material that predisposes one to wear a top hat and perform magic and also walk around with exposed armpits in public. And to believe Wright and Thalassa didn't even know the truth... the corner of his mouth curled like a cat's tail.

"But I do."

So... young Trucy, nee "Gramarye," was really...!

Humph.

Well.

He couldn't be COMPLETELY sure yet, just from reading the files and making likely surmises. He would have to analyze the contents of the DNA sample in his secret laboratory first. Also, he would have to construct a secret lab. Preferably in a secret base. More secret than Mrs. Hackins's house. The desert would be a good place, right next to the prison. Under the rocks. That would help him spy on the prison before breaking out the prisoners to enlist more minions. Besides, under the rocks were where-

"Hello? Is someone in there?"

A figure appeared in the doorway over his shoulder.

Meanwhile, Alvin was freaking out.

"Come now, Alvin," said the doctor. "This is a matter of routine."

"No!" Alvin pushed the IV drip over. "Phoenix Wright won't get vaccinated so I won't either."

"But it's for your own good," said the doctor. "You're behind on all your shots. And your system is weak after all those seizures, I'm sure." He nodded at a pregnant nurse, who approached Alvin coaxingly with a big lollipop in one hand and a giant needle in the other.

Alvin picked up a folded metal chair.

"I'm about to make abortion legal."

He swung it and whacked the nurse in the stomach. She moaned and sunk to her knees.

The doctor raised his eyebrows. "Alvin, that's not kind."

Alvin threw the chair aside and rushed out of the room. The nurse sobbed on the floor.

The doctor sat down heavily and mopped his brow. He resettled his spectacles on his nose. "Well," he said in pleasant resignation, clapping his hands, "there's nothing you can do with them at this age. Boys will be boys."

Just then gunshots and screams came from the hallway. Over the PA a voice said: "Alvin the Chipmunk is armed with an assault rifle and is committing a mass shooting. This is not a drill."

Meanwhile, Larry woke up from his penis transplant, still groggy. With dawning realization he shook himself awake and lifted up his hospital gown.

"My god... it's finally happened. It's real. A... a... normal Johnson... a perfect pecker... just for me..."

Seven inches flaccid. Thick. Uncut. A rockstar's penis. It was big but still way smaller than the one he used to have. Heh... Used to. He smirked. Those days of having an unusable firehose for a penis seemed so long ago already.

Just then he heard gunshots and screams!

He tilted his head and lifted an eyebrow. "What the hell?"

He leaned out of bed and looked out the window at the parking lot below. He watched cops pull up to the hospital and stream into the building, and saw Gumshoe barking orders and motioning for backup. Larry's knuckles went white on the windowsill.

"Hey!" he demanded, looking back from the window. "What's going on here?!"

But the surgeon and the nurses were cowering in the corner and didn't answer him.

The booming of what sounded like automatic gunfire drew closer in the hallway outside. Larry gulped.

Klavier was still out of it, mouth agape, eyes closed, with what appeared to be a 4-foot loaf of bread making a bulge under his gown.

Larry decided to let him rest after the penis transplant. He knew it must've taken a lot out of him. He decided to investigate himself.

He peeked out of door, and immediately winced and drew back in, eyes screwed up painfully, in response to the blaring gunshots and blinding muzzle flashes in the hallway.

A gaggle of cops were blocking one end of the hallway and pointing their service weapons at Alvin the Chipmunk; some are kneeling, others aiming over their partner's shoulders.

"DROP THE GUN!" screamed Gumshoe from behind his service cannon. Another cop got excited and fired his revolver, and a huge crater appeared in the wall over Alvin's head at end of hall and obliterated one of the letters in the sign for the pregnancy archives room.

Larry ran out of his room flailing his arms. "It's a toy, you assholes! Don't fucking shoot! He's scared shitless!"

One kneeling cop cocked his head on one side. In an instant he could see how it all was.

Alvin was scared, hyperventilating, chest rising and falling heavily, eyes bulging.

He lowered his gun.

Alvin ended up sitting on the trunk of a police car in the parking lot with a blanket over his shoulders and holding a donut and hot chocolate.

"You okay, little buddy?" asked Gumshoe.

Alvin nodded, still shaking.

Gumshoe pinned a future police officer badge to his shirt and said he could join the force one day. They needed kids like him.

Gumshoe's eyes welled up and he fought back sobs. The boy on the trunk reminded him so much of his own son. Bobbie Gumshoe.

Just then Kevin Lawyer appeared out of nowhere.

Gumshoe got handcuffed!

"What the... hey, what's the big idea!"

"I hate to do it, but you're the most likely suspect."

"What?!" Gumshoe was dumbfounded. "Suspect of what?"

"A man was just found shot in the hospital... with your gun. You're under arrest for assault with a deadly weapon!"

"You've got to be yanking my leg here, doc! I mean pal!"

"You mean Mr. Kevin... worm."

Anyway, the body of dying male nurse was carried out on a stretcher by two paramedics running as fast as they could.

"We have to get this man to a hospital! STAT!"

The men carrying the stretcher stopped to look over their shoulders at the giant HOSPITAL sign.

"Oh yeah..."

They turned around and started back inside but it was too late, the man died.

"Idiots!" cursed Kevin Lawyer.

He put another pair of handcuffs on Gumshoe.

"Make that murder."

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Klavier appeared on top of the steps of hospital with his new dick hanging low against his thigh like an elephant's trunk.

"Mein gottlesnauch... a member of the prosecutor squad? Arrested? Achtung?"

He used his Prosecutor Squad bracelet. "Herr Edgeworth, you won't believe this... but... Nein! Nein, nein! I can't believe it!"

Lotta Hart tried to be the first to take a picture of Klavier Gavin rockin' his new penis in public for the first time, just as a gust of wind lifted his gown, but Spark Brushel stood in front of her and blocked her shot with his giant mechsuit body and took the first picture.

"Darnation! I've been cornswaggled!"

"Haw haw, looks like the best independent freelancer journalist has won!" boasted Spark Brushel.

"Y'all think ya can just swoop in an' steal mah scoop? Nuh uh! I don't think so!"

"'What Cotton Candy Haired Southerner Doesn't Think Could Fill Library of Congress,' end quote."

"That was way too long, you high highfalutin fool! I'll kick your ass!"

The two journalists started wrestling in front of the hospital. Her pants fell off during the fight revealing the world's worst pussy, and Spark's legs fell out of his mech suit and they were withered and limp like rubber chicken legs.

"Stop it!" roared Klavier, muting his bracelet as Edgeworth demanded explanations. "Achtung! What is wrong with you two? Have you no shame? You should be comforting Alvin the Chipmunk in his time of need! He's clearly suffered an ill of some kind." Righteous anger glinted in his eyes. "And yet all you care about is taking pictures of my massive hog! I mean... I want to be famous for my giant penis, but not like this! You press hounds are all alike! So not cool." They ceased fighting and looked ashamed. "Well, I'm sick of this world and the people in it! I'm going back to the spirit realm!"

He expelled his spirit from Iris's body and turned into a grey, legless ghost with great hair and flew towards heaven, yelling "Wah hooo! All right! Yeah, yeah!" all the way. Iris came to herself and took one look at the Frankenstein-esque monstrosity that Klavier had sewn to her body without her knowledge or consent and went grey.

"Oh... oh my..." She let out a wavering sigh and fell backwards to the ground with a thud.

Little did they know Spark was there for a bigger reason... Klavier's penis transplant was just a cover story. He was on a secret mission beyond anything Lotta Hart's puny peanut sized brain could comprehend.

Gumshoe was shoved into a cop car. He gripped the prison bars that had replaced the glass in the windows.

"Little buddy!" pleaded Gumshoe, addressing Alvin. "I'm innocent, I tell ya! Please... you gotta get me Phoenix Wright! Or Apollo Justice! I'm not that picky. Don't let me down! Tell them they owe me!"

"I'll... I'll try," said Alvin.

The cruiser peeled out, and Alvin, overcome by everything, broke down in tears.

Just then a frantic unshaven man hopped out of a Dodge Ram and ran over, pushing his way through the gathering crowd and ducking under police tape. Phoenix Wright was close behind him.

Every inch of Dave's face was lined with anguish and concern.

"Alvin! Alvin! ALVIIIIIIIIIIIIIN!"

Chapter Text

The next week on Thanksgiving Day, Sal Manella was sitting by himself in his room on his computer. His room was full of Alvin and the Chipmunk posters, mountains of My Little Pony plushes, pictures of him and Cody hanging out, and of course Steel Samurai and Pink Princess toys. He was drinking out of a sippie cup while wearing a diaper and looking at Chipettes CP on the internet.

"And they say white people have no culture," said Sal.

Just then he got an email from Cody.

"sal the trolls are up to no good. they're defiling the wiki aggain. i need backup"

He hurled his cup and it landed in the corner and bounced off the wall, but the juice didn't spill, because it's a sippie cup. His face was set and determined.

"im on my way"

He navigated to the Steel Samurai fan wiki in a dribbling rage. His fat balloon fingers kept hitting the wrong keys so he had to backspace to type the URL correctly. He crashed into the discussion like a garbage truck and debated the trolls.

"Get a life troll's" typed Sal, sweat trickling down his diaper and into the moldy area around his damp thighs. "CEASE your destructive editing. you obviusly HAVE NO LIFE so instead you choose to ruin the wiki of the best show EVER. steel suckurai? HIS NAME IS THE STEEL SAMURAI."

"i invented the steel samurai"

"LIES,, I SAL MANELLA, AM THE TRUE ORIGINAL CREATOR OF THE STEEL SAMURAI. YOU ARE NOTHING BUT A BUNCH OF FAKES AND PHONIES"

"lol the steel samurai is gay"

"FOR YOUR INFORMATION, TROLLS, HE IS STRAIGHT. HE LIKES VAGINAS, NOT PENISES. HE. IS. STRAIGHT. IF YOU WATCHED THE SHOW YOU'D KNOW THIS. YOUR NOT EVEN REAL FANS AND THE WIKI IS FOR FANS ONLY. THAT'S WHY IT'S CALLED A FAN WIKI. GET OUT OF HERE BEFORE I KILL YOU."

"you didn't even make the steel samurai"

"FOR YOUR INFORMATION YOU VILE TROLLS, I DID. I CREATED HIM WITH MY OWN BLOODY SWEAT AND TEARS BACK IN 2015. HE IS THE HERO OF NEO OLDE TOKYO AND HE ALWAYS KILLS THE EVIL MAGISTRATE. HE NEVER LOSES EVER!11 WHEN I KILLED MY PARENTS I SAID "SEE YOU IN HELL EVIL MAGISTRATE" AND HIT THEM WITH MY OFFICIAL STEEL SAMURAI SPEER AND HURT THEM"

"sal you killed your parents wtf"

"cody we'll talk about this later the trolls are still editing the wiki to say the steel samurai's favorite food is penises NO IT'S NOT IT'S POCKY"

Meanwhile, while Sal was frothing and raging at his computer, the Chipmunks were on the computer in THEIR room goading him on over the internet. Two of them, anyway. Theodore and Simon were tittering and leaning their heads in together near the monitor and typing away at the keyboard.

"Boy, is he mad!" said Simon.

More angry messages from Sal appeared on the screen and filled it from top-to-bottom.

"Hee hee hee!" laughed Theodore.

"Hey, Alvin, why don't you get in on this?" Simon looked over his shoulder and pushed up his glasses. "Alvin?"

But Alvin didn't respond. He just sat facing away from them on the edge of his bed, his face droopy, his eyes despondent. The orange-ish light from the sunset through the window lit up his face in sad, stark profile.

"Oh yeah..." said Theodore. "He doesn't want to do anything fun now 'cause something really bad happened to him..."

"Theodore, lower your voice!" whispered Simon angrily. "And we don't know for sure something bad happened to him. That's only conjecture. He still won't tell Dave how he ended up in the hospital."

Just then Dave knocked on the door and reminded them it was time for Thanksgiving dinner. All the guests had arrived.

Theodore and Simon put on their tuxedos and went downstairs, but Alvin refused to get up or even look at him. Dave was concerned. His theory after talking it over with his best friend Phoenix Wright was that Alvin had gotten into some sort of trouble with a gang, possibly one that supported vaccines, and that's how he ended up in the hospital with all those injuries. He was just thankful Miles Edgeworth had declined to prosecute Alvin for faking a mass shooting, even though the fear and trauma it caused were real. Edgeworth knew Alvin was just a rambunctious young boy. Besides, he had too many more serious issues (like Misery Lockedheart and the traitor in the Prosecutor Squad) on his plate to even consider pressing charges.

But all of that was background noise to Dave. None of that mattered.

All that mattered to Dave was his boy.

"Is... is there anything you want to talk about, Alvin?" asked Dave, hesitating in the doorway. They were alone now.

"..."

Each dot in the ellipse struck Dave like a bullet to the heart. He cringed. Oh, well, at least it was only a three-dot ellipse, and not a four-

"."

Dave clutched his heart and winced, screwing up his eyes.

"Oh god!"

He spun around on his heels a few times with his eyes closed and fell forward against the doorframe with the back of his wrist against his forehead.

"Ooooooh..."

As a piano player and an artist he had a very visual mind, so he visualized Alvin's silence as dots in his head.

He made an attempt to regain his composure. He pushed off the doorframe a bit and looked at Alvin from under his bangs.

"Well..."

No response.

He gulped.

"Well..."

But it wasn't well.

It wasn't well at all.

He turned to leave.

"I love you, Alvin..."

He got onto his motorized stair lift except it was actually a motorized piano lift mounted to the wall and he rode it downstairs while playing a mournful melody, like a bittersweet nursery rhyme tinged with nostalgia and a sense of loss.

Then Alvin was alone. His lips trembled and his face contorted and his eyes got watery.

"Me... me wuv you too, Dave..."

Just like when he was a baby chipmunk. Those had been his first, second, third, fourth, and fifth words. He hadn't said them in the right order, though. That came later, with age and experience. Of course, that hadn't stopped Dave from excitedly running from the room to tell his wife, and to grab his camcorder and try to coax Alvin into saying it again.

Alvin heard Phoenix Wright's voice from downstairs, standing out clearly from the voices of all the other guests his father had invited. He also heard Lamirior and Trucy, too. Alvin wished he could tell his hero Phoenix Wright about Ian Hawke and his evil ways, but he couldn't, he couldn't tell anyone, he couldn't... He also had a crush on Trucy and didn't want her to know what had happened to him.

He made sure he was alone and then he pulled a folder out of his pillowcase.

It was full of the naked pictures Ian had taken of him during his kick-induced seizures. There were red circles drawn around his penis and butt with arrows pointing to them. There was also a note from Ian.

ALVIN, DON'T TELL ANYONE WHAT I DID! I MEAN IT!

I HAVE A MILLION COPIES

I'LL SHOW PEOPLE AND THEY'LL LAUGH AT YOU!

Love, Ian Hawke

P.S. OR ELSE!

Alvin started crying because he didn't know what to do, but suddenly electricity crackled from somewhere and a stray bolt of lightning struck his computer and dimmed all the other lights in the room, and the computer monitor glitched out and showed a dazzling array of colors and patterns that made Alvin's head spin, and then the computer navigated to the Gavinners online homepage all by itself.

A video started auto-playing.

It was Klavier's anti-molestation PSA.

And it was then, and only then, that Alvin began to process what had happened to him... there, on that very special Thanksgiving Day, the one that would be his salvation, and the one that would end up being the precursor to Phoenix Wright's final, unforgivable mistake, and to his damnation in the eyes of society.

Chapter Text

Down the stairs and around the landing, then down more stairs, then around another landing, and down more interminable stairs; then through the ornately carved doorframe and under the chandelier to the dining room.

Everyone was there, gathered around the table. Notably absent was Gumshoe, who was still waiting to be formally charged in the detention center.

On the table in front of his empty seat was a framed photo of him crossing his arms. Under his face there was the quote "Pal," in cursive.

"Poor Mr. Gumshoe," said Trucy. "It's almost like he's still here with us." Everyone nodded sadly.

Also notably absent was the male nurse who got murdered. They didn't have a quote from him or a photo so his picture frame was empty.

Also absent, but less notably so than Gumshoe and the dead man whose name I can't remember, was Miles Edgeworth. His photograph was scowling and the quote on it said: No, Wright, no, I'm too busy to accept your invitation. I can't come. N-no! Not even as a "date"! Stop mocking me! Stop tormenting my innermost being, my soul! And get that camera out of my face! Leave me alone! Stop transcribing everything I'm saying! Nrrrrgghhh! S-Stay back! Nooooooooooooo! My cock!

Phoenix chuckled. "Good old Edgeworth. What a guy."

He was sitting at the next to Thalassa. They were holding hands, their fingers intertwined, the sharp edges of rings poking into his palm- but he didn't mind. He liked it, thought it made them feel closer. He rubbed her giant stomach. She was getting more pregnant by the second. It had been over nine months now, and the baby STILL hadn't come. God was making this baby extra special.

Dave had invited phoenix and all of his friends and his colleagues in the legal world, and beyond. Dave was sitting at the head of the table. Machi was sitting with Trucy. The Judge was sitting with the Canadian Judge. Klavier was sitting with Kristoph. And so on. Trucy's friend Vera Misham was there and Phoenix had made sure she wasn't sitting anywhere next to Apollo.

Phoenix whispered to Thalassa: "That way it won't be uncomfortable for her, and she won't have to worry about the-" here he glared at Apollo and screamed "PEDOPHILE" as everyone looked at the sweating boy- "-trying to date or her anything messed up like that."

"That is so wise and worldly of you," murmured Thalassa.

"I know."

The Chipmunks had their own special chairs with the first letters of their names carved into the backs. However, Alvin's chair was empty. Thalassa's keen perception powers made note of this.

"Ah, tell me, Mr. Seville. Young Alvin... is he in good health? I have been worried about him, in truth..." She cast her eyes down.

"Oh... thanks for caring. I'm not sure."

"Didn't Ian say what happened?" asked Phoenix.

"Well... he just said that after he took him out for ice cream he ran away. And the next time he saw him he was in the hospital."

What Dave didn't say was that Ian had also handed him a big leaf from a tree.

"This fell out of his really long shirt while he was running away," said Ian.

"Is... is that...?"

Ian had nodded grimly. "Yes, Dave, a weed leaf."

He handed it to him.

Dave took it by the stem and rotated it in his fingers, in fear and awe.

"He's not... eating these, is he?"

Ian exhaled, bared his teeth, raised his eyebrows, looked down. "Well, I wish I could tell you, Dave. But he's probably been getting high off them... that's why it's so important NOT to believe anything he tells you, because junkies can't be trusted. Believe me, I know. Consider this brotherly advice from one music guy to another."

But that was the past. In the present, everyone around the table gave thanks.

Trucy went first. "I'm thankful for mommy, daddy, God, not being vaccinated, my magic career, this fidget spinner, my good health, and I guess I'll include you, Apollo. Someone has to."

"What am I thankful for?" asked Klavier. "Let me count the ways. One, I'm thankful to be alive on some fashion, in the lovely fraulein spirit medium's body. I'm thankful for all my fans. That my brother is here with me. All that jazz. Ja, life is good! I'm also thankful for that awesome ass over that that I've cranked my hog to so many- whoops, almost said too much, haha. Someone else go."

"Umm..." said Apollo. "I'm thankful for friends, this great meal, my career, too..." He looked at Thalassa. "But most of all I'm thankful for you and your family for, well, this is embarrassing... and kind of corny, I know... but, well, basically taking in me in as one of your own." He looked around. "I really feel like I'm part of something special. Friendship really is amazing, and family isn't just who you're related to."

"Yes... you are... not related to me..." said Thalassa, not meeting his eyes.

"I know," said Apollo. "But sometimes it almost feels like we are."

"Ha ha ha... how absurd. But a heartwarming notion." She looked at him with loving eyes that barely veiled her motherly feelings. "I'm so happy you feel that way. You're a wonderful young man."

Phoenix Wright went next.

"Huh... I'm thankful for a lot of stuff. But when you get down to brass tacks, well, I guess I'm thankful for Thanksgiving. It seems like my life revolves around awesome holiday parties a lot more now. Christmas... Thanksgiving... Halloween... I never used to go to a lot of fancy dinner parties and stuff, but now I do."

He remembered back when it was just him and Trucy. Stringing up Christmas lights, putting up the tree. Nailing stockings above the space heater. As hard as those times had been, they were good memories. He remembered one Christmas while he was still in indentured gay prostitution and his stomach flip-flopped. THAT hadn't been a good time. Still, at least all the hot loads he had been getting from Winston Payne that holiday season helped pay for Trucy's Christmas present- fake plastic spaghetti with a fork in it.

Now... he wasn't alone. His hand tightened around his wife's and acknowledged her pregnant stomach out of the corner of his eye. He had all this.

Thalassa said: "That's because you're established man upon the town now. Not to mention a distinguished legal expert. I'm very proud of you."

"Well, shucks," he smiled, "I can't take all the credit. I'm sure my famous celebrity wife had something to do it with it."

Biscoff opined: "Well, Wright, it's no surprise that holidays play such a big part in your life. They give our lives structure; something to look forward to with the changing of the years and seasons. And they help bring us together as a community..." He took his brother's hand and Trucy's in his. "And as family."

"That was beautiful, Biscoff," said Dave.

"Well said, bro," said Klavier.

"…I'm thankful for grape juice."

Phoenix downed an entire bottle, then slammed it on the table with a thud, disturbing plates and silverware. The other guests shared uneasy glances amongst each other.

"Oh daddy…" said Trucy. "You drink too much grape juice. It's not good for you!"

She also thought he smoked too much. She wasn't a hypocrite. She didn't smoke, the cigarette Godot saw was a trick cigarette that was part of a trick. She snuffed it out so she wouldn't reveal her secrets, as per the magician's code. She would never do drugs like that. She was... was... like an angel.

All of which led to his false impression of her.

She felt really bad for Godot. If he had such a strong reaction to that letter that he would slip and fall on coffee for goodness' sake she didn't even want to imagine how daddy would react. He could be a little overprotective at times. Not that she minded. But she didn't want to add to his troubles.

Biscoff was amused.

"Well, we all know how old porcupine head here loves his grape juice."

Phoenix frowned and his forehead twitched.

"Don't call me that."

"Oh, my apologies, old porcupine head-"

Phoenix violently shoved a spoon over.

"I said don't CALL me that, fucker!"

Everyone stared, shocked.

Trucy was embarrassed. "Daddy..."

Biscoff looked furious. He was compressing his lips. He thrust his hand into his jacket and there was a sound like the hinge on top of a remote detonator flipping up.

"What was that... Wright?"

"I'm... I'm sorry, Biscoff."

He withdrew his hand. "That's all right. I forgive you. Though be careful, that situation almost got a little... explosive. If you catch my drift. You were a little... bombastic. You kind of... blew up on me there. Catch my drift?"

"Drift caught..." murmured Phoenix.

To defuse the situation, Stu Pickles' brother Drew Pickles' wife Charlotte Pickles commented on Trucy's dress.

"I've love what you've done with your daughter, Phoenix. Fabulous."

"Thanks, Aunt Charlotte!" said Trucy.

Thalassa was sitting with folded hands.

"Ahahaha. Doesn't my little woman look lovely?"

They've definitely gotten closer, Phoenix thought. She was Trucy's confidant for everything. They talked for hours. They were like best friends. Yes, everything these last five years had been going perfect... till HE showed up.

"Ah, yes," said Biscoff (speak of the devil), "what a lovely dress that reflects light with wavelengths between 7.9 * 10^-7 to 6.2 * 10^-7 meters... or red, as some would call it."

"Whoa, remembering all those numbers is pretty impressive," said Trucy. "I'm... well, impressed. But I have my own talents too. Obviously. Who wants to see a magic trick?"

She took a out deck of cards, that looked just like the deck of cards used in the Borscht Bowl Club, and did a trick.

Kristoph recoiled.

"T-that's... certainly a magnificent trick."

"Don't worry, there's more! Ta-da!"

Biscoff breathed through his nose sharply. They were the same as the cards in that case where his untimely reference to cards with backs wreathed in 4.5 × 10⁻⁷ m led to his downfall!

His eyes narrowed as he stared into the depths of Phoenix's.

Wright.. did you do this? Did you give her those cards on purpose? Was this a deliberate action on your part?  A subtle psychological attempt to throw me off guard, to trip up my footing in our little game? To what end? Just what are you planning?

Kristoph... Phoenix's eyes narrowed and his eyelashes mixed together. You think I didn't think you'd think stuff like that? I knew you would. I didn't bluff and cheat at poker for seven years without learning a thing or two about about stuff. I can't tell for sure what you're thinking since I'm not a mind reader but I'm guessing it's dumb and you're an idiot. Homo bitch.

Ah, Wright, Wright, Wright... I can't tell what you're thinking, because, despite my striking insight, I'm not a mind reader, but I'm guessing you're thinking about what a worthy opponent I am, and that you have a sort of begrudging respect for me. I also think you a worthy opponent... just joking. You're as worthless and uninteresting as yesterday's newspaper. Worthy only of being piddled on by untrained puppies.

He laughed in his brain.

Hmph, as if that would work. Your childish puerile plans will have no effect on me.

But despite his feigned indifference to himself it did affect him. He didn't know if wright realized how it affected him but as soon as he saw those cards and was reminded of his crime while in proximity to HER he felt rising anxious feelings. All his past crimes flooded his mind. Gah! Just when he was on the verge of finally winning her heart (of this he was sure), he felt himself once again overcome with feelings of throwing himself off the precipice and admitting everything to her, destroying himself, ruining his chances at happiness and revenge.

Kristoph remembered blowing up the plane and killing all those people, but then he thought about how he made sure only evil people were on the plane before he blew it up, and also how he used a pencil, a compass, a protractor, and another piece of paper to calculate the perfect way to blow up the plane so no one below would be killed by the debris, just maimed.

Really, I'm a good person... He settled back in his seat complacently and wetted his lips with good spirits as everyone applauded her trick (she set the deck on fire). Of course she will marry me. In fact, I plan on proposing soon...

"That was a great trick, my little magician amiga. Well done," said Godot.

Trucy smirked and bowed like Franziska.

Everyone was hungry so they dug into the turkey. It was made out of vegetables because the Chipmunks didn't eat meat.

Then, after everyone had had their fill, sparkling conversation flitted around the table.

"My favorite Alvin and the Chipmunks song is Witch Doctor," said Klavier.

"I think all the songs are good," said Trucy. "We're real fans of the Chipmunks, professionals. We don't mess around."

"Fun fact," said Dave, "it's actually just Chipmunks, not THE Chipmunks, like how it's just Ramones-"

Then Alvin comes down and made his reveal.

He took Dave to the kitchen alone and told him everything. He showed him the blackmail pictures. Dave was enraged.

He saw red.

And not just Alvin's shirt.

He got down on his knees and licked up Alvin's tears.

"Oh, no, sweetie, don't cry... Alvin, you were very brave to open up like this."

Dave immediately called Phoenix Wright in and told him everything. Phoenix was likewise appalled. They called Klavier in and decided to form a posse to storm JETT records and bring Ian to justice.

"You were right to come to me," said Klaiver. "Ian Hawke is way too powerful to go to the police... he has connections everywhere. Achtung! We'll have to go to his office and get him to confess and arrest him ourselves. As a member of the Prosecutor Squad, I have that power."

Out of respect for Alvin and so as not to ruin the party, they tried to keep things quiet. However, Theodore and Simon hid in the kitchen and heard everything, and Trucy and Apollo and Machi and Thalassa and Biscoff and Godot came in and they learned everything, too. It was decided to call Jake Marshall so everyone could ride horses there.

"And make sure to bring a cowboy hat for Alvin, ja?" said Klavier into his phone. "And spurs and a little lasso. He just experienced trauma. So I think this will make him feel better, dig?"

"Well, yippie my haw, partner, I reckon I can!"

"Good man."

Phoenix wanted Trucy to stay behind with her mom to be safe.

"No!" She balled her hands into tiny fists. "I'm coming too! We're all Chipmunks fans! So no, no matter what you say, I'm going to come and help!"

"Hmph..." Phoenix smirked. He slapped her ass. "Atta girl. You never listen to me anyway, huh?"

"Sure don't!" She smiled back. "Not when it's something important like this!"

Her hat fell to one side and a bunch of pudding cups fell onto the floor and splattered.

"Ahahahaha! Hey, Trucy, a bunch of pudding fell out of your hat!"

"Whoops! Tee hee!"

"Hahaha, you know you're only supposed to keep your bible in your hat, not your pudding!"

"Well, you'll just have to buy me more!"

"Only if you promise not put it in your hat anymore!"

"Tee hee... no promises!"

"Hahahaha!" He tickled her.

What a weird father-daughter relationship they have... thought Apollo. I can't help but think she'd have been better off raised by Mrs. Lamiroir exclusively... Ugh, not gonna lie, sometimes I wish I still worked for Mr. Gavin.

Thalassa stayed behind; she was too pregnant to be useful.

"Be careful," she said softly. She ran her hand down the top of his.

He held hand against her cheek; she leaned the weight of head into it.

"I will."

Biscoff conferred with Phoenix off to the side.

"Wright..." he said in a low voice. "I know... we are... what we are to each other. But for now, I propose a truce. I'm willing to put aside our differences to help that young boy. What do you say?"

He didn't say; he just nodded his acquiescence.

They left the Judge and Winston Payne in charge of Thanksgiving dinner while they were gone and left to bring Ian Hawke to justice.

Chapter Text

Okay... thought Apollo with his head down as he scurried down the hall amid the hustle and bustle of everyone getting ready to confront Ian Hawke. He mentally went over everything he needed.

I have my badge, my coat, my Chord of Steel DVDs, my-

But just then, as he rushed around the corner pulling his jacket on and hoisting his bag over his shoulder, he slammed into someone and their lips smushed together. Their eyes went wide, they stared at each other in shock, held there for a moment, tried to draw back a few times, tentatively, little jerks of the head backwards, but they couldn't. They leaned back in.

Guilty Love blasted from nowhere and swelled above their heads as a mysterious force blew their hair around.

Their lips were touching but at first there was plausible deniability, it's not a kiss, okay, it's just an automatic reaction due to surprise so of course their lips lingered there for a second- just from surprise.

But then too much time passed for deniability, his lips moving over theirs, theirs moving over his, and the tip of his tongue flicked against front of their teeth, and oh god it WAS a kiss, it was happening, it was STILL happening, and then-

They both drew apart, they came to their senses, and staggered backwards.

They stood a little apart, regarding each other breathlessly.

"W-w-whoops!" said Apollo. "Uh... my bad! Sorry!"

But they were just looking at him, panting, their lower lip drawn down.

His stomach was doing flip-flops, and his heart was beat boxing.

"I'm sorry!" He turned, stumbled, and cast one last look over his shoulder. "I'm sorry!"

He turned heel and ran, his face red and hot.

And they were left standing there, they (Apollo couldn't call them by their real name or any other appellation than "they," even in his head; it made it seem too real), and they hesitated for a moment. They pressed a finger to their lips, and it trembled. They looked around and then ran away, too.

The Judge and Winston Payne peaked out of the closet where they'd been hiding.

"Why..." began the Judge, "I'm... not quite sure how to process what i just saw."

Winston said: "Errr... should... should we say something?"

The Judge pondered. "No... some things are best left alone. Dragging this into the light would only make things worse, I fear. Besides, as unpleasant as witnessing that was, this is one situation where, ultimately, it is not my place to judge."

"Nor it is my place to prosecute, Your Honor."

"Though I do be a judge."

They stepped out of the closet.

"Where are Gaspen and Fuckston?" asked the Judge. "They should come into the closet with us, too."

"Errr... I'm not sure... but... Your Honor... if i may make a suggestion..."

"Yes, Mr. Payne?"

Winston held up a gizmo.

"I found this memory-erasing device in the closet. Perhaps it would be wise to erase this incident from our minds?" He gave the device a little shake. "So we don't let the cat out of the bag, by a slip of the tongue?"

"...No." The Judge shook his head. "No. You can't just erase every unpleasant memory from your mind when it's convenient. Life doesn't work like that. We can't live in a false, idealized world where nothing bad ever happens. How could I, as a Judge, hope to exercise the correct judgement and pass the right verdict if I erased my memories all the time? It's cowardly. it's intellectually dishonest." He shook his head again with finality. "It's wrong."

"W-w-well... it was just a suggestion, er, possibility. *I* don't think we should do it."

"Put that thing back in the closet. I do wonder who that strange contraption belongs to, though."

"I'm not sure. It doesn't have a name attached."

"How weird... oh, well, Mr. Seville has asked us to take over host duties while he's gone. So, I think we should be getting back to the dining room."

"Lead the way... handsome!"

"Flattery will get you nowhere, Mr. Payne," said the Judge, giving him a severe look. "I expect you to have a thoroughly well-prepared case tomorrow if you hope to win."

"Eerp... all right."

When they left to officiate the dinner, Kristoph slinked into the room.

The closet door was ajar. He pulled his machine out of the closet. It had been disturbed. His face contorted in rage.

"Who touched my mind control device?"

He turned his head.

"Was it you?"

Chapter Text

The little group galloped on their horses down the street, fanning out and taking up both lanes of traffic. The streets were almost deserted, because most people were at home celebrating Thanksgiving with their families. Cars were banned on thanksgiving as an energy saving measure by the draconian mayor, but horses were allowed.

Klavier was at the forefront. His face was set hard and his eyes were determined. He stood up in his stirrups and leaned forward, upskirting everyone behind him with "his" (Iris's) fat pussy in sheer white panties, while his new giant penis was twirled around his neck like a scarf.

"Achtung!" he said, his breath fogging. "Keep up the pace, everyone! Don't fall behind! Let my ass be your guide this hoary night!" He cracked the reins. "Yah! Yah! Mush!"

All the horses had been provided by Jake Marshall. He may only have one horse, not being able to afford more on his salary, but he DID have access to a cloning machine, which he made ample use of on this occasion. Dave was there, on his own horse, as was Machi, and the Chipmunks, and Trucy and Apollo, and Phoenix and Kristoph, who rode neck-and-neck, and finally Godot, whose wheelchair was being dragged behind a horse like a chariot with his arms and legs completely still and his mouth agape looking up at the grey sheet of monochrome sky as coffee spilled out of his mouth. His wheelchair tipped over around a sharp corner and he was dragged along on his side as his chair shock out sparks against the asphalt.

Klavier viewed all this from his horse's rearview mirror. "Dude... that's not how you ride a horse. Kinda embarrassing..." He adjusted his mirror so instead of being forced to look at a disabled person he could admire his own reflection. He made kissy faces at himself and winked.

Trucy rode side saddle like a fair maiden of yore. She said: "I don't get it. Why are we going to the record building? Shouldn't Ian be at home? You know, to celebrate Thanksgiving?"

"You'd think so, fraulein, but Ian Hawke is a man who is devoted to his work. He never takes a day off. Ever. It's a point of pride with him. Even if he's the only one in the building and there's no productive work to be done. One of the man's many admirable traits. Or so I used to think. Besides, he doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving because he doesn't believe in turkeys. He doesn't think they're real."

"But... turkeys are real. You can look at pictures of them online. And when I was a little kid daddy got me one of those wheel things that spin around and tell you what sounds the animals make."

"Ja," he nodded, his hair blowing in breeze. Light snowflakes drifted down from the grey sheet-like clouds overhead. "They go gobble gobble. But he is a man of strong faith, not so easily shaken in his beliefs. He also believes that crows are baby ravens. But that is a story for another day. We're here." He raised his finger as the JETT Records building loomed on the horizon and gradually materialized out from the mist.

Everyone got off their horses at the foot of the building. Ian's limo was parked in front. Klavier pulled on the front doors, but they were locked. He and Biscoff knocked on the doors till they caught the attention of the lone security guard in the building, an elderly old fellow with heavy moustaches. He opened the door just a crack, weary, and they explained everything to him. He agreed to take them inside up to Ian's office.

Kristoph held the door open and motioned everyone inside with a sweep of his arms as they filed past him.

"After you, Miss Wright," he said. "Although I fear this might be a dangerous undertaking... I'm not sure your father made the right judgement in allowing you to tag along."

"Heh, don't sweat it, Biscoff," said Phoenix. "My little girl can handle herself. Haven't you ever seen one of her magic shows? She can shoot Bullets."

"That's a cat, daddy," said Trucy.

"Ach, do not worry, Trucy, I will protect you," promised Machi.

"Thanks, Machi!"

With the security guard in tow, they made their way up to the top floor... where Ian's office was. The night was growing dark, and when the curious Chipmunk children looked out the windows at the cityscape far down below, the city lights looked like they were stars reflected in the waters of a lonely black lake.

"Are you sure we couldn't have just called the police?" asked Dave nervously.

"I'm afraid not, Herr Seville," said Klavier. "Ian is a rich, powerful, influential man. The police might not do anything without hard proof. Also, maybe he's bribing the Chief of Police, or banging him for preferential treatment. Besides... we have to stop him before he has time to cover-up his crime or destroy any evidence."

"I must say I agree, Klavier," said Biscoff. "Now is the time for swift action."

They caught Ian outside his office door. He got afraid when he saw what almost numbered a mob with prominent legal figures in it. He ducked inside the door and jammed a button repeatedly on the wall, frantically, first with his finger then with an open palm.

An evil robot burst out of the janitor closet just as Ian locked himself in his office. It looked like an evil version of Klavier Gavin, except with shiny metallic clothes and hair.

"What the hell?" asked Phoenix Wright. "That thing looks like you!"

"Good god!" cried the security guard.

Klavier threw out his arms. "It's the Klavitron 2000! The prototype robotic version of me! Ian must have turned it into his personal bodyguard! Everyone, stand back!"

The robot's eyes heated up like toaster coils and shot out lasers. They barely missed Phoenix and singed the fringe of his jacket and destroyed a potted plant right behind him.

"Brrzzt, KILL!" warbled Klavitron, arms stretched out like a zombie. It approached Trucy and the Chipmunks, its legs rising up perpendicular to its body at every step, like a child's tin windup toy. Apollo and Machi blocked the robot's path and threw out their arms.

"Klavitron!" cried Klavier bravely. The robot turned its head ninety degrees slowly with a whirring sound. "It's me you want! Not those beautiful young children! Come and get me, you junkyard reject!"

"Mr. Gavin! Be careful!" cried Trucy.

"Brrzt... New target acquired... beep... bloop..."

Klavier squared his shoulders and clutched his fists. Dave and Phoenix came to back him up.

"No!" said Klavier without turning around. "He's mine!"

Everyone backed off and made a circle in the hall around Klavier and the robot. Klavier tore his shirt off and threw it aside. His A cup breasts rose and fell on his muscular body as he breathed heavily. He leapt forward and placed his palms against the robot's and they pushed back and forth, struggling for dominance.

"You're no Daryan Cresbot, bitch!" growled Klavier.

"Activating KILL mode," said the Klavitron 2000.

The robot's hair started spinning like an electric drill. Klavier darted his head left and right to avoid the stabbing of his automaton imitation's electric hair. With a great effort of every muscle in his body he shoved the robot a few feet away from him. Klavier stood there, out of breath, and swayed a little on his feet. But the robot wasn't deterred for long. It bent its torso over and clanked towards him with surprising speed, the drilling hair pointed right at his head.

"Klavier! Catch!" shouted Phoenix.

He tossed him a broom. Klavier caught it deftly in both hands almost as it was a man's penis and raised it above his head. He held it up against the robot's spinning drill hair and managed to hold it off. But the drill was cutting through the wooden handle, and it wouldn't last forever.

"Grrrahh..." said Klavier through his gritted teeth. He leaned backwards as the robot pushed back against the broom handle. "Can't... keep... this... up... forever... robot... version... of self... too awesome..."

"Don't worry, guys, help has arrived!" said a very famous sounding voice.

It was...

Paul Stanley! The Starchild!

KISS appeared at the end of the hallway! They adopted fighting poses, instruments at the ready.

"Oh my gosh!" said Trucy. "It's KISS! They're back!"

"Where have you guys been?!" asked Dave. "Everyone's been worried sick about you!"

"Later, Dave," said Paul Stanley. "I think Klavier here needs our help. Wouldn't you say so, guys?"

"Agreed!" said Gene, Ace, and Peter.

Paul Stanley held his finger up to the star on his face and special effects from the 70's shot out of his eye and bounced harmlessly off the robot.

"What the?" said Paul. The robot was still kicking Klavier's ass. "There's something wrong with my powers! It's almost like they don't do anything."

Gene Simmons roared and shot flames out of his mouth, and they flared out towards the robot but the sprinkler systems activated and put the flames out.

"It was a good try, Gene," said Paul. "But it looks like it's up to Ace and Peter now."

But the Spaceman was stumbling around flailing his arms because he wasn't used to this planet's gravity, and Catman was lying on his back playing with a ball of yarn.

Meanwhile, everyone watched in horror as the last splinter of wood holding the broom handle together was about to give way. Klavier grunted, sweat pouring down his face, and in a last ditch effort he let himself fall backwards with the robot and kicked against the robot's chest. The robot went flying overhead and landed next to Trucy.

"Eeek!" Trucy slapped the robot.

"Beep... female detected. Self-destruct sequence activated."

Klavitron's head spun around and shot off sparks and the robot exploded into a steaming pile of cogs and bolts.

Trucy looked at Klavier. He played with his hair. "M-must be some kind of glitch. Anyway..."

He staggered and fell to his knees. Phoenix and Biscoff ran over to support him.

"You alright, Klavier?" asked Phoenix.

"Ja, I think so... I must have underestimated that robot... heh, it is based on me, after all."

"And, I suppose," said Biscoff, "your strength must be diminished by being in the body of a female spirit medium like Sister Iris."

"Yeah, I guess even a spirit as virile as mine as can only add so much strength to a frail little thing like her," nodded Klavier, being helped to his feet.

"Oh... and Klavier..."

"Ja, big bro?"

"Would you mind putting on a shirt?" Biscoff tried to avert his eyes from his brother's breasts. "I... I can't help but find those... things... distracting."

"Heh... what's the matter? Feeling tempted?"

"...K-Klavier!

"Just teasing ya, big bro. No need to look so flusterd, ja?" The Chipmunks handed him his jacket and he put his arms through the sleeves and shrugged it back on. "After all, you're Biscoff Gavin, and not Kristoph Gavin, so none of this teasing applies to you, haha."

"..."

Biscoff Gavin, secretly Kristoph Gavin in disguise, pushed his glasses up and they caught the light and turned opaque, exactly like Kristoph's did. Apollo shivered. This guy was WAY too similar to Kristoph Gavin. He had the exact same voice, hair style, mannerisms, and suit. If it weren't for that moustache, they would be identical. It gave him the willies. Trucy seemed to like him, though.

Klavier went over and shook Paul Stanley's hand.

"Thanks for the help, KISS," said Klavier. "But the real rockstars will take it from here. C'mon, Alvin, Simon, Theodore."

Everyone marched over to Ian's office. The guard tried to unlock the door, but Ian had changed the locks, so Phoenix and Kristoph shared a steely glance, nodded, and got a running start and slammed their shoulders against the door. After the third attempt it splintered and gave way, and everyone piled into the office.

Ian walked backward into his desk, eye bugging out in fear. The small of his back bumped into desk painfully and upset some writing implements.

"The jig is up, Ian!" said Klavier, pointing. The rest of the posse crowded around his shoulders.

"Ha! You have nothing on me, and you don't have a search warrant!" He grabbed at his tie, breathing heavily. He jerked his head toward Klavier while panting. "What kind of treatment is this, Klav? I make you a star, I bring you back to life, and this is how you repay me?"

Klavier shook his head. "You aren't the man I thought I knew. You went a step too far when you abused Alvin the Chipmunk."

"Stand down."

Klavier stared him down, drew himself up. Bravely: "No."

He also played air guitar mournfully. "Also, I became famous through my own merit. A greasy old fart stain like you had nothing to do with it."

Ian turned to Dave next.

"C'mon, Dave, you know I didn't do anything. Surely you aren't going to go along with this maddened crowd, are you?" He clasped his hands. "Come on, call them off for me, huh?"

"Ian Hawke..." began Dave. He turned his head down to the floor and closed his eyes. His forehead wrinkled and his lips thinned. "I thought you were my friend. I almost thought of you like family. But then... you did the worst thing a person could do." He opened his eyes and they flared like erupting volcanos. Ian got scared. "You used you power and position to abuse an innocent young child. You almost killed my boy. He could've died!"

"Poppycock, Seville!" Ian raised a trembling finger. "Poppycock!"

"You like poppycock?" asked Dave. "How's this for poppycock? TAKE THAT!"

He presented the blackmail photos Alvin had shown him and Ian's warning letter.

"You probably made those just to frame me! No jury in the world would convict me over that!" said Ian. He pressed a button on his desk and a flamethower came out of hidden panel and burned the evidence. The photos turned to ash in his fingers and Dave waved his smoking hands to cool them off. "Ahahahahaha! So much for your evidence. I hate you so much, Dave Seville! And by the way... your music sucks! There, I said what we were all thinking. The piano is a stupid instrument."

Dave gasped and fell back. "N-No!"

Phoenix and Klavier caught him.

"Achtung!" cried Klavier. "Herr Ian! How could you say something like that? You know how much he loves pianos! An inconsiderate statement like that could kill him! You're... you're a monster!"

"Awww. A monster? I'm all torn up. Just like your contract will be. You're fired." He waved shaky forefinger around. "All of you. Chipmunks, Gavinners, the Trucies, you're all done! You'll never work in this town again! This... this is an unforgivable violation, coming in here and... treating me like I'm so sort of criminal! Get out!"

He pressed a button on his tie and two suits of golden armor shimmered and came to life. They started swinging their morning stars overhead and clanked towards our heroes.

But then something magical happened.

They all stood shoulder-to-shoulder. In a line that spanned across the room.

Phoenix.

Klavier.

Kristoph.

Trucy.

Apollo.

Machi.

The elderly security guard.

Alvin.

Simon.

Theodore.

Dave.

Jake Marshall.

Paul Stanley.

Peter Criss.

Ace Frehley.

Gene Simmons.

Godot, who was still there, too.

All them stared ahead with burning, serious gazes.

Phoenix looked right and left.

"All right, guys, you ready? Like we practiced..."

They all extended their index fingers.

"OBJECTION!"

The sheer power of their objection, high voices mixed with low, and masculine ones with Trucy's high feminine striking above the others, caused a huge wave of invisible power to blow the suits of armor away, and they went tumbling through the air like leaves and crashed through the windows and fell apart over the city. Ian barely managed to keep himself on his feet.

"W-what's this?" Ian asked.

Dave stepped forward. "Don't you get it? It's the power of friendship. My best friend Phoenix Wright taught me something... that a lawyer is someone who always smiles no matter how bad things get." (Ian: "But none of you are smiling..." "SHUT UP!" roared Phoenix.) "And today, we're ALL lawyers. And our client? Alvin the Chipmunk. We're fighting for him, smiling for him, so he can regain the childhood innocence that you so selfishly stole, and get the justice he deserves. But you don't understand it, do you?" Here, Dave put a ringed hand over his heart. "The light that's in our hearts." He pointed an accusatory finger. "Your heart is surrounded by darkness! I can sense the evil aura that surrounds you! I just don't know why i didn't see it before!"

"He's right!" said Phoenix. "I can see it on you... the black chains and psyche locks all over you!"

Trucy piped up: "So can I! I can see them, too."

Kiristoph thought in his head, what? Black chains? Psyche locks? What it is they're seeing?

"You can't stop me, you pitiful humans!" said Ian, mad with power. He put a golden crown on his head. "I am the world's greatest producer! You're all slime! Slime, I say!"

Alvin decided to take matters into his own hands.

Alvin skateboarded around on the walls and the furniture, evading Ian's grasp.

"Hey!" Ian grabbed for him, but his arms kept closing on thin air, or he grabbed his own shoulders. "Get back here!"

"Catch me if you can, bitch."

He bumped into a table, and an urn shook and fell on floor and shattered, sending up a cloud of dust.

Ian was outraged. He tried to scoop up the ashes.

"Those were my mother's ashes!" he roared.

Alvin flipped the bird. "Well, you better pick her up before I vape her, bitch."

"C'mon, Theodore!" said Simon. "Let's help Alvin!"

They ran over and started farting on Ian. They enveloped him a giant green cloud.

"Ew!" said Ian. "This is so gross! Ugh, nasty!"

Ian pull out a pistol, but Trucy took out her gun and shot a cat at him, and while the cat was biting him, Ace used his teleportation powers to teleport over and take Ian's gun away. He teleported back and he and Trucy shared a thumbs up.

Meanwhile, while Ian was distracted, Alvin knocked a portrait of the wall. On the otherside was a wallsafe! And inside the safe, there was all the evidence they needed to get Ian arrested, with no hope of squirming his way out of it!

Knowing he was defeated, Ian gave them a full confesion, which Klavier recorded on a handheld tape recorder.

"Okay, fine," said Ian, "I admit I took those pictures and that I 'basically' molested your son, Dave, but honestly," Ian went on, while Dave marched over, "I feel like you're being kind of unfair? Like, yes, I took his clothes off, yes I physically abused him, but it wasn't primarily sexual-"

Dave drove his fist into his stomach and Ian let out all his breath and doubled over in pain. He sunk to his knees and stared at the floor like a captured prisoner of war.

"Not such a big man now, are you, you son of a bitch?" growled Phoenix.

Ian just looked at the floor while Klavier called the police.

Phoenix cracked Ian one across the face.

"LOOK AT ME WHEN I LOOK AT YOU!"

Phoenix bent over and took off his pants and sprayed liquid shit all over Ian's face. Everyone laughed and Alvin gave him a thumbs up, which Phoenix returned with a wink, his bare ass still floating in the air.

Sirens sounded outside, and red and blue lights flashed on the window. It was morning now. The battle against Ian had taken all night. An early morning grey light came through the windows.

Phoenix threw him a towel. "That will be the police. Clean up. You have doodoo on you."

Soon, the police arrived in the office. They looked over the evidence retrieved from the safe.

"I've seen this kind of thing before," said one of the cops. He narrowed his eyes at Ian and clicked his tongue reprovingly. "There's a word we call people like you."

The cops grabbed hold of him and bent him over roughly.

"No!" cried Ian. "I'm not like that! I only took those pictures for blackmail purposes! I swear!"

"Tell it to the Judge, buddy." They began to lead him out. "Because that's a really convincing argument and it might help your case. I don't know, I'm just a regular old cop."

"Abusing a national treasure like Alvin the Chipmunk, you should be ashamed!" said another cop. "How dare you destroy this child's innocence!"

Ian was put in stocks and walked down the sidewalk outside the building, bent over in shame, flanked by two officers, staring at the ground. His pants fall down and he shuffled along with his pants stretched out between his ankles.

"Look everyone! He has a small nutsack!" said Phoenix, pointing. A small crowd gathered.

Stu Pickles laughed and stopped pushing a stroller. "Oh my god, he does!"

"Stop laughing!" cried Ian. Tears sparkled in his eyes. "It's compact! Average sperm count! I'm being kidnapped, help!"

Everyone clapped as was gethrown into the squad car and taken away. Trucy showed Alvin a magic trick, and he began to smile again. Dave laughed in delight and relief. KISS played an impromptu show on the sidewalk. Jake Marshall did a wheely on his horse. Godot drank coffee and said he had a rule about something. All was right in the world.

"Well, Herr Wright, it looks like it's mission accomplished," said Klavier. "I can't help but hope I'm the one who gets to prosecute him. Heh... the trouble will be finding someone to defend him! Most people would rather kill themselves!"

Phoenix barely heard him. He was too busy looking over his shoulder at Biscoff, who was staring at him from the distance. He was a cold mastermind who never rested or relented in his goals. Mia's words ran through Phoenix's head.

A Gavin to stop a Gavin...

Phoenix knew it was time to put his plan into action.

He just hoped Trucy or any of the other people on the crowded street wouldn't see this.

"Klavier, I decided I'm gay now."

Phoenix leaned in and started making out with Klavier. Biscoff's eyes widened in shock. What he didn't know was that Phoenix was actually communicating to Klavier in a sort of morse code. By kissing him, sucking on his uvula, and tracing letters onto the roof of his mouth with his expert tongue, Phoenix told him that Biscoff Gavin was actually Kristoph Gavin. Klavier's face went through the seven stages of grief in rapid succession as he listened to Herr Wright's tale, and to his plea for help.

After fifteen minutes of expository kissing, the two men pulled apart with a wet plopping sound, thick sticky strands of saliva dangling from between their lips like the fatal rope bridge over Eagle River. They both panted and stared at each other's eyes.

Serious and intent.

And with understanding.

"Actually, I decided I'm not gay anymore," said Phoenix Wright. "Sorry about that, Klavier."

"Ja, that's totally fine, Herr Wright, I'm not gay either! I like big boobies and huge vaginas! Let's just put this little misunderstanding behind us, ja? No harm, no foul."

Biscoff just stared at them, with folded arms... unaware that Phoenix Wright had gotten the upper hand, had just exposed him to his own brother, a member of the Prosecutor Squad, in plain sight, in broad daylight, right in front of him, all without him having any idea at all.

Meanwhile, Phoenix could read the message in Klavier's eyes loud and clear.

Achtung, Herr Wright! they said. Ja will help herr defeat mein evil brother!

Then Phoenix's stomach rolled over as he realized that the lips he had been kissing were really Iris's...

Chapter Text

Klavier and Phoenix were in Klavier's sports car driving around in the woods near Gourd Lake as part of their new mission to stop Biscoff Gavin from marrying Trucy- by getting a magic love potion to make her fall in love with someone else.

Klavier was driving. The skies were grey. The wind was whistling. Pine trees passed by in a blur on either side. Phoenix sat slumped over in the passenger seat with his forehead against the glass. Klavier stared ahead over the steering wheel, eyes hard, determined.

"So... do you think my brother will try to stop us?" asked Klavier.

"No," said Phoenix. He bounced in his seat from the bumpy backroads. "He won't follow us. He's at the circus with Trucy. I let them go. No objections." Klavier did a doubletake.

"You? No objections?"

"Nope. Not even so much as a take that or a hold it. He must've thought he finally broke my spirit." He smiled at his dim reflection floating in the window.

Klavier shook his head.

"I never thought my brother would do something like this... killing people, sure, but putting a bomb in a little girl's heart? Without her consent? That's a step too far, even for him."

Silence for a moment. Klavier shifted in his seat uncomfortably.

"Look, Herr Wright, I don't mean to cast doubt on your judgement, but are you sure we shouldn't tell the police? Or at least the rest of the Prosecutor Squad?"

Phoenix also shook his head, without looking at him.

"Of course not," said Phoenix. "He'll detonate the bomb in her heart the second he thinks I've ratted him out or played stoolie. I took a big enough risk telling you."

"Do you think I should try, I don't know, reasoning with him? He is my brother, after all. Maybe he'll listen to me. Maybe I can talk him out of all..." He waved his hand vaguely. "...This."

Phoenix turned his head.

"No. Right now- things are stable. Kristoph thinks he's winning, carrying out his plan. He thinks he's in control and that he has me and Trucy under his big German thumb. Right now, I can be sure he won't blow her up. But, if the slightest thing changes, if the slightest wrinkle is introduced, he might decide the game is up and detonate the bomb." He shook head with finality. "No, anything we do we have to do covertly. No police."

Klavier nodded. "We'll play this your way, Herr Wright. You know the game."

"Yeah. I do."

"My brother sure pulled the wool over all our eyes, didn't he?"

He hit the top of the wheel with his palm.

"Damn it- if it weren't for that damned moustache!"

"The moustache that fooled the world..." said Phoenix bitterly.

"Tch- that's so like him, coming back from the dead, refusing to accept his fate." He shook his head. "At least I'm in a world-famous band with millions of fans, so me coming back is justified, ja? But my brother, he's a madman! He'll stop at nothing from getting his revenge and achieving his mad ambitions."

Klavier wondered if he could be Misery Lockedheart? The one currently waging war against the justice system? He remembered the deranged speech his brother had made on the bridge and his exhortations to "join him." It seemed possible.

"The real Biscoff Gavin must still be in Germany," mused klavier. "I just hope he's all right."

"Anyway, klavier," broke in Phoenix, "are you sure this magic love potion from a witch that lives in the forest will work?"

"Ja, of course, Herr Wright!" said Klavier. "Her magic is very effective. The prosecutors' office and the police have a very close connection to the cave witch, even though using a witch is heavily frowned upon in the legal community, even more so than using a spirit medium." He chuckled and thumbed his prosecutor squad badge. "Of course, I have a lot of leeway in how I handle things now as the interim leader of the Prosecutor Squad. You know, till Herr Edgeworth returns."

"Hmmm... yeah... till Edgeworth gets back..."

They drove in silence for a while, with Phoenix looking out the window, seemingly deep in thought, his cigarette dangling by his chin.

"I sure hope he's okay," Klavier said, staring ahead.

They both knew who they were talking about.

"I'm not worried about the old Edgester," replied Phoenix. "He'll come back. I'm just waiting."

"Ah... the bond between you two is very strong, isn't it?"

"You could say that. I believe in Edgeworth."

Klavier glanced at him, then locked his eyes back on the road, dancing shadows from the rustling leaves overhead playing across his face.

"You must really trust him."

"Sure." Nodded. "Isn't it the same with you and Apollo?"

"Ahaha... you flatter yourself, Herr Wright, but no, your protegee is not my rival. He's not quite, how should I say it, on my level?"

"I suppose that's true," he nodded. "He's still new."

"Not that new: it's been five years since his first trial."

"Heh... you're right. But he's still just an eager young kid to me. Also... for someone who's not on your level... he sure did beat you every time you faced off in court."

"...Let's not get sidetracked here, shall we? Enough with the opening act. It's time for the headliner. The venue? A deep, dark cave tucked away in the middle of Gourd Forest."

The forest was eerie at this time of day- a sort of unreal ethereal feeling hovered in the air. Anything could happen.

"We're here."

Klavier stopped outside of a cave in the middle of the forest- a big black spooky opening in a pile of rocks.

"Are you sure this is the place?" asked Phoenix. "This looks like where Yogi Bear lives."

"It's not your picnic basket you have to worry about losing here, Herr Wright." He shifted into park. "It's your soul."

In front of the entrance to the cave there was a ruined husk of a police car. Leaning up against it were skeletons clothed in the tattered remnants of their cop uniforms.

Klavier ducked down and checked their pulses and sniffed them. He looked up at Wright gravely.

"They're dead."

They went inside the cave and ventured deep within. Water dripped from stalactites and echoed in the darkness. Torches in sconces on the walls lit the way.

Klavier explained that just like how the police used to use spirit mediums before the media backlash, they also used witches too, though only in dire cases, and eventually they stopped because witches can't be trusted.

"Hold on," growled Phoenix, "so now you're telling me witches can't be trusted?"

"Ah, to keep their mouths shut in matters involving criminal trials, and not cause scandals that will reflect poorly on our police force. In a situation like this, namely, procuring a magic potion, there's nothing to fear."

"This witch better be on the up and up, Klavier. This my daughter we're talking about. I don't want her drinking any magic potions that could mess her up or poison her."

"Relax, Herr Wright, relax. You don't think I'd put that tasty little morsel of yours in danger, do I? I've been to this witch many times. I down a potion before every show to soothe my throat. Assuage your fears, mein friend."

Phoenix wondered if Manfred von Karma had used the witch and her black magic to cheat in all his trials and maintain his perfect win record. He thought the answer was, probably.

Finally they reached the center of the cave. They met a witch with green skin and long black robes and a prominent hunched back and frayed hair sticking out from under a pointed cap.

"Eeeeh heeeeh heeeh, my pretties! Of course I'll help you. A love potion, you say? For a young woman? Yes, yes, I think I have the perfect thing. Come, come, let me show you my selection."

She led them over to a racks filled with potions labeled True Love's First Kiss, True Love's First Bliss, Puppy Love, Platonic Love, Romantic Love, Lustful Love, Eternal Love, Slow Burn, Firey Passion, Forever And a Day, Marriage Potion, Love Triangle, etc.

Phoenix waved his hand.

"None of this sappy stuff. I just need a working man's magic potion. The kind of potion a 1940's guy with a granite jaw would buy at the corner store. That kind of stuff."

"Ahhhh, yes," nodded the witch. "Of course. You're not concerned with the fancy bottles, the names. That's a woman thing. You're fine with the cheap generic potions. Well, hmm, hmm, hmm, yes, yes, I do believe this will do quite nicely."

She handed him a simple looking bottle topped with a cork and full of sloshing red liquid.

Phoenix held it up to the light emanating from a candle inside a skull suspended from the ceiling via rusty chain. He squinted up one eye and looked at the skull through the bottle.

"So... this'll work?" He swirled it around a little.

"Indeed," nodded the witch. "If she drinks that, she'll fall madly in love with the first person she sees, and she won't have eyes for anyone else. She'll need to drink the WHOLE bottle, mind. One little sip won't do it. And the effects are permanent, so be careful, dearie. Love can be dangerous. It can get nasty. Being happy and being in love aren't always the same thing."

She looked at a poster on the wall of a naked Will Powers lounging on his side with his balls tastefully obscured by his massive hog and sighed.

Phoenix slipped the potion into his jacket pocket. "All right, lady, if you say so. Thanks." He looked at Klavier, jerked his head. "All right, Gavin, let's get out of here. He put his hands in pockets, looked around. "This place gives me the heebie jeebies."

"Wait, not so fast, young man." She held up a long, gnarled finger with a nail like a rotting piece of driftwood. "There's something you have to do for me first."

Phoenix thinned his lips in a humorless smile. His eyes narrowed and shot out wrinkles. "And what's that? Let me guess, collect magic ingredients?"

"Noooooo," said the witch, shaking her head.

"Clean your cave? Organize your broomsticks?"

The witch tittered.

"Guess agaiiiiin."

Phoenix Wright said this was impossible: "I give up. Just tell us what you want so we can get out of here."

She held up a potion labeled Ass Enhancer 5000. "Perhaps this will give you a clue."

She threw the bottle at Phoenix and Klavier's feet and it shattered and they were enveloped in a magic swirling pink fog that completely hid them from view. They started coughing and waving their arms around and when they emerged, their asses had both grown twenty times in size.

"What the hell?" said Phoenix, looking over his shoulder. His massive ass cheeks quaked like jello.

The witch laughed and Phoenix grabbed her by the tip of her hat in his clenched fist and lifted her clear off the ground and shook her up and down.

"What the hell did you do, you old hag?"

"It's very simple, my dear boy: if you want that magic potion, you and your hunk of a friend have to shake your asses for me."

Damn it! thought Phoenix. He set the witch down. I have no choice! I need that magic potion.

The disco ball descended from a panel in the celling and KISS- Love Gun blared over the cave's sound system.

"Are you sure about this, Gavin?" asked Phoenix as Klavier loosened his jacket and shrugged it off his shoulders.

"Don't worry, Herr Wright, this is standard police procedure. Just follow my lead."

Phoenix, embarrassed, bent over with his hands on his knees and started twerking.

"Like this...?" he murmured. His buttcheeks were like two bean bag chairs.

Klavier did it much more confidently, at his ease. His cheeks clapped together at a steady rhythm, as sure as the tides or the phases of the moon.

"Heh... this is obviously your first time visiting the cave witch, Phoenix."

You pull the trigger of my

LOVE GUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!

LOVE GUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!

LOVE GUN!

The curious woodland creatures came in to watch. Deer came in cautiously, birds flew in, squirrels sat on the shelves, all summoned from the depths of the forest by the sounds of their clapping cheeks.

Meanwhile, the witch reached into her bosom and pulled out a dazzling amulet with a red crystal inside. She nodded in approbation as the crystal absorbed all the energy waves generated by their ass clapping.

Floating inside the crystal, faintly, fading in and out, were little transparent images of all the people who had ever come to the cave and had performed the same dance. Phoenix could see Winston Payne, Manfred von Karma, and many others, all bent over and shaking their magically enhanced asses like there was no tomorrow. But perhaps no prosecutor appeared more frequently or twerked with more intensity than Miles Edgeworth, because Phoenix saw his image appear myriad times in the crystal. Edgeworth's ass cheeks looked like two pregnant women had been stuffed down the back of his pants. Phoenix was aghast.

Edgeworth must have used the cave witch all the time when he was still under Von Karma's spell, thought Phoenix. Maybe now we know where all those "updated autopsy reports" came from... perhaps the real dark age of the law was the dark magic that came from this witch.

Finally, when she was satisfied, the witch threw another potion at their feet and their asses shrunk back to normal size. Actually, Phoenix's was still 5% larger.

"And where are you young gentlemen going now?" asked the witch.

"Ask the wind, fraulein," said Klavier. "I'll be riding on it." He turned his back to her and farted as he left the cave.

As Phoenix walked back through the dark passages of the cave, a renewed sense of vigor seemed to uplift his spirits, and his heart seemed to rise higher in his chest. He walked with his head held higher, his back straight, his chest puffed out. He felt more powerful in his body and confident in his limbs, somehow.

Finally... Trucy will be safe from Kristoph Gavin. She won't get seduced by that fresh Kraut bastard. And all I gotta do is get her to quaff this magical potion.

Now... one remaining question. Who were they going to make her fall in love with?

He thought he already knew.

Anyway, after they were gone, the witch picked up the phone.

"Hello? Misery Lockedheart?"

Chapter Text

What had happened to Edgeworth was that he had fallen into a trap...

It all started the week before Phoenix and Klavier went on their mission in Gourd Woods.

Edgeworth was sitting on a couch in a waiting room. He sat primly, with his back straight, his hands folded neatly on top of his lap. His knees were pushed together and his feet were splayed apart, like a hot girl sitting on the toilet. He looked straight ahead, at nothing.

Just then he got a text from Layton. A little pixel version of Professor Layton's head popped up next to his text.

Making final preparations

Will be coming to Los Angeles soon

Bringing Luke

Miles wrinkled his brow and scrunched his mouth up to one side.

He typed:

Cool

Sent from my iPhone

Even though he didn't have an iPhone, he was just lying. Then he muted his phone and put it back in his pocket.

A woman called over from her desk: "The doctor will be ready to see you shortly, Mr. Edgeworth."

Miles nodded tersely.

"Thank you."

Meanwhile, behind one of the closed doors, Alvin the chipmunk was lying on a couch in therapy. Therapy was Dave's idea because his book on how to be a better father suggested it. He thought it would help Alvin cope with his trauma after being abused by the evil Ian Hawke. Except the therapist was Dr. Hotti.

"Ho ho ho... so, do you have any cute friends? Who are girls?"

"No. Girls are stupid. Well..."

Dr. Hotti leaned forward eagerly. "Yes?"

"Well, there's this girl," said Alvin, getting embarrassed. "Her name's Trucy. Her dad is Phoenix Wright. Who's kinda my hero. I just think she's... really cool. But I don't know if she likes chipmunks. And I don't know how to ask. And she probably would never like me now anyway, now that... that..." His furry Adam's apple bobbed up and down and his eyes sparkled. "Everyone knows what happened to me..."

"Oh ho ho yes... I understand," said Dr. Hotti, sitting back. "You have good taste, son. Hee hee. I wouldn't mind giving her a private 'therapy session' myself... if you know what I mean. Heh heh."

"No," sniffed Alvin, looking away. "I don't."

"Here's an idea. Why not ask your daddy to ask her daddy to set up a play date for you two?"

Alvin snorted.

"Ask Dave? As if. Dave is such a loser. I love fucking with him. Fucking gay loser." He spat into the chipped ashtray on the coffee table. Then he got serious. "But sometimes when she's playing over at my house I feel like our eyes get trapped in each other's for a second... or sometimes we're digging through my toy box our hands touch on the same toy... I think about maybe if she really secretly likes me back."

"Hmmm, ahem, yup." Dr. Hotti scratched himself. "Let me just check your heart with my stethoscope." He leaned over him and listened with one eye screwed up. He nodded slowly, his lower lip curling in understanding. "Yup, it's sad all right. Therapy was a good idea, little boy."

Anyway, the real therapist came in and got pissed and shook his clipboard.

"You! Get out of here, you freak!" he shouted. "Stop talking to my patients! Just because I'm forced to tolerate your presence here because of your court appointed therapy sessions... absolutely does NOT mean I want you harassing my other patients! GET OUT!"

Dr. Hotti got up to leave. He mumbled under his breath and scratched himself.

"Of course... of course... I have another patient to get to, anyway, oh ho ho..."

Dr. Hotti strolled seamlessly through a connecting door into the next office with an easy stride like he's king of the world, and that world is his oyster.

He sat down in a chair right next to Edgeworth, who was lying on a couch and looking at the ceiling with much twiddling of his thumbs.

"Dr. Tweedmore..." began Edgeworth, not looking at him. "I know this is my first therapy session in a month... and that I only started therapy half a year ago at the behest of my sister Franziska von Karma, and at the insistence of my father's ghost..."

"Mmm, hmm, yes, much progress, yes, indeed, yes."

"But!" He rolled his head on the pillow and fixed the fake therapist with a fiery gaze. "But! I can't in good conscience continue these sessions while that madman Misery Lockedheart is still on the loose! Every moment is valuable, and every moment I squander lying here talking about myself is a disservice to my office, to the citizens of Los Angeles, and to my fellow prosecutors."

He flipped around on his side and pressed his face against the couch cushions.

"So, I'm afraid, this will be my last session."

"I understand. That will be 5000 dollars."

"Of course."

At the door, Dr. Hotti riffled the thick wad of bills and asked Edgeworth for one more thing.

"Ahem... yes, yes... did you bring... that other thing I wanted?"

"I did." Edgeworth handed him a file. "Although I have to say I don't know for what purpose you could possibly want Ema Skye's and Franziska von Karma's fingerprints."

"Oh ho ho ho... Let's just say they'll keep me quite busy. Quite busy. Oh ho ho ho... and Trucy Wright's toeprints?"

"We don't keep those on file."

"Ah, slightly disappointing. Perhaps you can change that? Eh? Big guy? Make the police start taking those? I'll help."

"Hm, well, whenever it was brought up at the annual prosecutor meeting I always shot it down as superfluous... but if such an esteemed man as yourself suggests it, I'll see what I can do. After all this Misery Lockedheart business is behind us and buried."

Dr. Hotti gripped his hand. "Good luck, cap'n."

They shook hands manfully.

Outside, Edgeworth's Prosecutor Squad bracelet started beeping and flashing through the fabric of his jacket. He pulled his sleeve back.

It's Simon Blackquill!

A hologram of his head floated over the bracelet.

"Edgeworth-dono, there's been a locked room murder mystery at the desert prison."

The very same prison where Kristoph Gavin had been locked up!

Edgeworth said: "A locked room murder mystery? When did this happen?"

"Less than an hour ago. And let's just say that this piece of paper that says 'I did it signed Misery Lockedheart' might just be a clue that Misery Lockedheart might be behind this little caper," said Simon Blackquill darkly.

"I'm on my way," said Edgeworth. He was taking out his keyfob and unlocking his car. "Don't let anyone in or out. This could be our chance to catch Lockedheart! We mustn't let him slip through our fingers this time! I WIIL catch him! I swear to it on my father's legacy!"

"That is very cool, Edgeworth-dono. Also, the chief of police has assigned you a new sidekick since Gumshoe is still in jail."

Edgeworth paused getting into his car.

"A new sidekick? I hardly think that's necessary," said Edgeworth testily. "But it doesn't matter. I'll be there."

He clicked off.

He climbed into his fast prosecutor car that goes fast and zoomed as fast as he could at the speed of car to that fateful desert penitentiary. As he drove, he considered Gumshoe's plight.

Poor Gumshoe. He had offered to pay for his defense, to hire the best defense attorney money could buy, the best in the world, but Gumshoe had opted to go for Phoenix Wright instead. Hmph. He supposed it was out of some misguided sense of loyalty and friendship. And the fact that even though his salary was higher now, Gumshoe was accustomed to poverty and eating nothing but instant noodles. And Phoenix Wright was basically the instant noodles of defense attorneys.

But now Edgeworth had heart that Wright had suddenly foisted the job off on his young apprentice, Apollo Justice. Why? He detested Wright's courtroom shenanigans but he admited the man had a certain flair for bluffing and underhanded tactics that he didn't think Apollo could match. It was ludicrous to delegate Gumshoe's defense to Justice, even though he was fine young man. Unlike Phoenix Wright... who had turned into a barbarian.

Edgeworth took an ornately framed oil portrait of Phoenix out of pants.

"Wright, Wright, Wright..." he muttered darkly as he passed through a dark tunnel. Sheets of orange light kept passing over his face as he drove down the dark tunnel. "What happened to you? Sometimes, I find it hard to believe you were the same person from that class trial all those years ago... the man who saved me from the darkness."

He had heard about the women beating and fire starting, and he was gasted (he would never admit to being flabbered) that Phoenix Wright could ever do anything like that. Before forming the Prosecutor Squad and getting preoccupied by the Misery Lockedheart case, he had been gathering intel on Wright and trying to find out what had happened to his friend. Had he been switched by a body double?

"Hiya, pal!"

Edgeworth spasmed in his seat and almost had a heart attack. He did a double take at the man sitting in the passenger's seat.

"Nrrrr! You- who- how did you get in here? Explain yourself!"

"My name is Gummy Gumbo, pal! I'm Gumshoe's nephew, and I'm your new sidekick!"

The prosecutor car that goes fast emerged from the tunnel into the shearing bright light of the desert. Edgeworth closed his eyes for a second to let them adjust. When he opened them, he took a better look at his new sidekick.

"That hardly answers my question. HOW did you get into my car?"

"Well, gee, pal," Gummy Gumbo rubbed the back of his neck, "I was hiding in the glove compartment, waiting to surprise you, but I fell asleep till just now. Nice to meet ya, pal!"

Gummy Gumbo looked exactly like Gumshoe with except he was two feet tall and built like Scrappy Doo and had a bowtie instead of a regular tie. Edgeworth sighed.

"Well, Detective Gummy Gumbo, you have my condolences for your uncle's arrest. Your Uncle is one of the best on the force. Is, not was. So it will be an honor to work with you."

"Yippie! I can't wait to investigate with you! Oh boy, oh boy," he dry washed his hands, "I'm ripping and roaring to go! Let me at 'em! I'll tear up that crime scene!"

"Detective, calm yourself," reprimanded Edgeworth. "This is no light matter. I trust you've already been made aware of the details and secretive nature of our mission. The Los Angeles legal system is at stake. And the locked room murder mystery we're on our way to solve might just hold the key to catching Misery Lockedheart."

"Okay, Mr. Edgeworth!" chirped Gummy Gumshoe. "I'll take it seriously! No problem! I've read all the case files, so I'm up to date."

"Good," said Edgeworth.

"Also... there's this weird guy that's been looking at me through this little window," said Gummy Gumshoe. He pointed at himself in the mirror in the sun visor. "Is that Misery Lockedheart?"

"No... that's just a member of law enforcement who has big fat salary cut to look forward to this Christmas. Now, kindly fasten your seatbelt and hold onto your trench coat, detective."

He pushed the giant shift stick shaped like a chess piece, and flames shot of the exhaust pipe and the car rocketed towards the gray building in the middle of the desert.

If you were a cactus, and you had eyes, and perhaps a pair of binoculars, or two telescopes, you'd see that license plate of Edgeworth's car read FACTS, and where it should have said California, it said LOGIC.

One thing was certain.

Miles Edgeworth would not rest till his mission was complete.

The powers of good were gathering their forces. And so were the powers of evil, of the devil.

Which side will prevail?

And what of the ancient prophecy?

Chapter Text

Miles Edgeworth arrived at the scene of the crime.

"Give me the facts, Prosecutor Blackquill," said Edgeworth.

"Ah... it's horride, Edgeworth-dono," said Blackquill pronouncing horrid pretentiously because he's a douchebag. He pointed at the victim's smelly corpse. "The chaplain was found murdered in his quarters. He was killed approximately an hour ago. The door was locked and we had to call the janitor to unlock it. I watched him unlock the door myself, so this was definitely a locked room murder mystery. I looked on the ground and found this piece of paper."

He handed it to Edgeworth.

"Hmmm..." Edgeworth looked it over. "So Misery Lockedheart strikes again. And no one has been allowed to leave or enter the prison?"

"Correct. So whoever killed the chaplain... is still within these walls."

The thing that used to be the prison's chaplain was sprawled across an armchair. The sight was enough to churn Edgeworth's stomach like a pilgrim woman churning butter. The chaplain's head was almost completely severed, barely hanging on by a single thread of connective tissue. One touch and it'd fall off and roll across the floor. He had a bible in one hand and a bottle of orange juice in the other, so evidently, he had been murdered in the middle of bible time. He probably didn't even see it coming.

The book was open. The chaplain's fingertip was under a passage.

"Matthew 4:9..." murmured Edgeworth.

And the devil saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.

Edgeworth fell into thought.

Same prison, same chaplain. Edgeworth wondered if there was a connection between this crime and Kristoph's trial and the murder of Klavier Gavin. Especially after the email that hinted there was more to that case than met the eye.

"I fear that this case will be impossible to solve," said Simon, chewing on a piece of grass. He folded his arms. "The door was locked, after all. Should we all just give up and go home and wait for him to commit a crime that's easier to solve?" A couple of cops nodded in agreement.

"Of course not," said Edgeworth, raising his fist with a fiery glint in his eye. "I will get to the bottom of this. Detective Gumbo, let's begin our investigation."

Gummy Gumbo sprang to attention and saluted. "Yes, sir!"

Edgeworth investigated for a few hours and found a mousehole on the floor.

"Hmm, most curious," said Edgeworth. He lay down on his stomach, his asscheeks protruding like pumpkins growing in a very fertile patch, and shined his penlight into the hole and moved it back and forth like a miniature search light. He saw an empty partially opened tin of sardines, a spool without any thread on it, a thimble, and a small dirty wrinkled slip of paper curling at the edges.

He tried to jam his hand his into the hole and grab it, but his wrist got stuck. He tried to yank it out.

"Nrrrggghhh!" He violently tried to force his arm out. The last time this had happened Wright had looked at him over his shoulder and said, "Ha ha, nice one, bozo." Eventually he managed to free himself.

He shot furtive glances left and right. Then he whispered at his cravat.

"Pssst! Squeek!"

Squeek stuck his familiar furry head out.

"Hiya, Edgeworth!" He waved his paw. "What's up, big guy?"

"Could you get that piece of paper out of the mouse hole for me?" Jerked his head.

"Sure thing!"

He jumped out and ran on all fours over to paper and returned to Edgeworth.

"Nice work. Now quick, jump back in." Edgeworth tapped his cravat. "We don't want the police to know I'm letting a mouse touch the evidence."

Squeek scaled Edgeworth's leg and climbed back in. Edgeworth examined the paper. It was a receipt from a costume store for a top hat, a trench coat, a dummy's head, stilts, and a... robotic chassis? Edgeworth leaned his head back. What was this?

"It appears to be from five years ago. I wonder what significance it could hold for this case? Oh well, it's probably garbage."

He threw it on the ground and stomped on it and grinded it under his heel. He dusted off his hands and went back to investigating.

A few more hours later, he made an announcement.

"Eureka!" he said. "I've got it! This crime is impossible!"

"Ha!" said Simon.

"Oh?" said Gummy Gumbo. "Then we won't be able to catch the murderer, sir?"

Edgeworth smiled hugely. "Now now dear Gumbo, I never said that I couldn't find the culprit, merely that the crime is impossible."

"Gruhugh?"

Edgeworth called all the suspects to the room.

"It would seem that our initial assumptions were in error," said Edgeworth, pacing back and forth. "You see, we all thought that this was a locked room mystery, but in actuality the door was never locked to begin with."

"LIES!" screamed the janitor.

Simon shook his head. "The janitor is correct," he said. "I witnessed him unlocking the door myself."

"No, Prosecutor Blackquill," replied Edgeworth. "The janitor only pretended to unlock the door. That's why he asked you to come to the room with him in the first place after the chaplain failed to show up the chapel... to create a witness!"

"OBJECTION!" screamed the janitor. He was sweating hard. "This is all conjecture! The door was locked! You have no proof it wasn't."

Edgeworth grinned logically. He wagged his finger. "Oh yes I do! Because I checked the lock for keyprints! IT WAS NEVER LOCKED TODAY!"

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" screamed the janitor.

Simon took out his katana and Taka squawked. "You cur! How dare you pretend to unlock the door! Taka, peck out his pubic hairs as punishment!"

"Caw!"

Gumbo and Simon moved to arrest him, but the janitor pressed his back against the wall and held up his broom and spun it really fast like a helicopter blade to keep them back.

"You have no proof I did it!" cried the janitor. "Just because I pretended to unlock the door doesn't mean I killed the guy! If the door was unlocked, anyone could've done it!"

"That's why we have to narrow the field," said Edgeworth. He snapped his fingers. "Gumbo, dust the murder weapon for fingerprints!"

A pregnant silence as time passed...

"Aaaaaahhh the fingerprints belong to that guy!" cried Gummy Gumbo, pointing.

Everyone's eyes followed the direction of his finger, but to their shock, they found he wasn't pointing at one guy, he was actually pointing at TWO guys! Another janitor had materialized next to the first one seemingly out of nowhere!

"Hahahahah!" said Jon Itor.

"Hee hee hee!" said Jan Itor.

They were identical twins!

"Hmph... unexpected," said Simon. "So both of the janitors working here were involved. Which one do the fingerprints belong to?"

"That's just it!" cackled Jon Itor. "Since we're indentical twins..."

"...that means we also have identical fingerprints!" said Jan Itor. "And since we have identical fingerprints..."

"...you have no way to prove which of us the fingerprints belong to, so you have no choice but to let both of us go!"

"Graaah!" said Simon, recoiling.

But Edgeworth threw acid at Jon Itor's hands and burned his fingers off. "AHHHHHH my fingers NOOOOOO."

"That man has no fingerprints," said Edgeworth. "Ergo, the only one who could have murdered the victim and left behind those prints is you, Jan Itor!" He pointed dramatically.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" screamed Jan Itor as Gumbo jumped up and cuffed him. "DAMN YOU EDGEWORTH. Yes, I admit it, I killed the victim, but Jon opened the door. We were in this togetherrrrrrr!"

"YOU FOOOOOOOOL!" screamed Jon Itor.

The police lead them away.

"Good prosecuting, Edgeworth-dono," said the Simon, shaking hands. "I had bad feeling about those janitors. Do you think Misery Lockedheart put those two blackguards up this this?"

"I would say it's all but certain," said Edgeworth. "In fact, I would go so far as to say it IS certain."

"And yet we're no closer to catching him. Hmph."

Just then Gummy Gumbo interjected.

"Hey, Mr. Edgeworth, I found this clue we overlooked! It fell out of the chaplain's weird dress thing!"

Edgeworth lifted an eyebrow and his individual hair follicles undulated up and down like a like fans doing a the wave at a sporting event.

"What?" he said.

The clue was actually a journal kept by the chaplain. Edgeworth ripped it out of Gummy's hands and pursued it, his eyes darting back left from right.

"Aha! A clue!" said Simon. "The truth shines upon us like the moonlight upon a lonesome samurai performing autofellatio by the waters of a gently rushing river! Read it, Edgeworth-dono!"

I've been troubled in my mind lately. Why did all the cameras in the prison mysteriously go down that day? I talked to the repairmen... they said the wires looked as if they had been... gnawed. And normally the metal detector would have gone off and prevented the katana from being carried into the cell. Could have Gant have done this? Or Daryan? I don't think so. Neither of them had free reign of the prison. They wouldn't be able to sabotage anything. And sabotage it was. Someone, who is mysterious, prepared the prison for the murder, all while remaining in the background. Also, finally, who used the sleeping potion on me? It wasn't Kristoph... because the sleep potion was part of Gant's plan. And neither he nor Daryan nor the robot ever had a chance. So, who did it?

Edgeworth felt his hands shake as he read the journal. His breathing came quicker and shallower. He continued to read. Gumbo and Simon shared a concerned glance.

Large portions of the rest of the pages and later entries had either been ripped up or crossed out, with creepy demonic imagery drawn in the margins, as if the chaplain had been going progressively mad, leaving only fragments and parts of sentences behind.

That's the big sticking point

in the end

I went to his office

I confided my intentions to Klavier Gavin

and when I asked about the significance of that case

he seemed angry

voices lately

in my head

I believe there is an ancient prophecy

One fact that was hidden at the trial

a devilish force

it was present in the prison that day

hole

trap

demon

I think I know-

I told him because-

only he would know-

who did it-

it was-

Gavin-

It must be-

These were the only remnants that were readable. The entries started about a few months ago. The final, partial, barely legible entry was dated today.

He had confided in Klavier?

Klavier?

Was it possible?

Edgeworth felt a sharp stab of guilt.

N-no! He had been careless!

It had seemed such an obvious, open and shut case... Kristoph had seemed so obviously guilty... that... that he hadn't investigated all the angles! He hadn't done his due diligence!

The word "betrayer" echoed in his mind.

Klavier?

Edgeworth looked into a mirror hanging on wall.

He watched his mouth move in slow exaggerated motion and form words, his voice deep and slowed down in his ears.

"Miserrrrrrry LLLLLLLockedheaaaaaaartttttt..."

"Klaaaaaavvvvvieeeeer Gaaaavvvviiiinnnn..."

His image spun around in the mirror. There seemed to be cold little eyes looking over it from somewhere in the distance.

"Edgeworth!" came Blackquill's sharp voice.

The room abruptly returned to its original position. The mirror fell to the floor and shattered.

Edgeworth staggered. Gummy Gumbo and Simon rushed to support him. Gummy pushed up against his leg.

"Are you all right?" asked Simon.

"Yes... I'm fine."

He looked up at the modern-day samurai.

Simon?

He did use a katana. There was a connection, there, however tenuous. Could he possibly be the betrayer...? Or even Misery Lockedheart?

No! Gah! That made no sense! Now he was suspecting everyone.

"You gave us a scare there, Edgeworth-dono," said Simon, stepping back. "Something interesting in that journal? Want to share?"

"Nothing... j-just notes from his bible studies," said Edgeworth. "By the way... Simon... why are you wearing those heavy shackles around your wrists? You've been long exonerated of the crimes which landed you in prison."

"Oh, these?" He gave them a shake. "Heh, don't worry, they're not punishment, they're just part of a sick sexual fetish. I mix work with pleasure. It's the samurai way. Would you like to know more? Athena and I are always looking for a third."

"Simon," gently censured Edgeworth. He pointed at Gummy Gumbo. "Little Detectives have big ears."

Just then a paper airplane sailed through the open door and landed on his shoulder.

"Hmm? What's this?" asked Edgeworth. He unfolded it.

Dear Mr. Prosecutor, how did you enjoy my latest locked room masterpiece? You know, it's surprisingly easy to manipulate these wretched humans into committing my locked room mysteries. Simply give them the proper tools, or the proper motivation, and you'd be surprised at how quickly they will turn... to locked room murder.

Don't stop to breathe yet, because I'm only getting started. My next locked room murder is coming soon. Tell me, Mr. Edgeworth, can you guess who I am? You may be able to solve my locked room mysteries, but can you solve my lockedheart?

By the way, do you want to know where my next murder is taking place? I'll give you a hint, it rhymes with Derry Dig Bircus.

Edgeworth smirked as he finished reading the letter.

"Detective, gather your things."

"Sir?"

"We're heading to the Berry Big Circus."

Chapter Text

Edgeworth's fast prosecutor car that goes fast sped out of the desert and back towards the city, like a red streak of lightning, leaving clouds of dust in its wake.

Gummy Gumbo was napping in the back in a baby seat, and Edgeworth was driving while wearing cool sunglasses. KISS - Hide Your Heart blared over the radio. He glanced at the note from Misery Lockedheart lying in the passenger's seat. He narrowed his eyes behind his shades and deep lines dug into his forehead. There wasn't much time.

I just pray I'm not too late... he prayed mentally.

He passed a cactus casting a long shadow. The sun was falling, and the sky and the sands stretching out for miles in every direction had a reddish tint. He passed another cactus.

Edgeworth looked up at his Phoenix Wright air freshener, depicting him standing in his iconic standing pose with his hand on his hip. Edgeworth smiled. The air freshener slowly spun around like a baby mobile and revealed that the Phoenix freshener was actually wearing assless chaps and the bare ass was presented in prominent bas relief.

Edgeworth closed his eyes and held it to is his nose and inhaled it like it was crack cocaine. He veered all over the road and into the path of an oncoming semi-truck.

Better hide your heart, better hold on tight

Say your prayers, 'cause there's trouble tonight

When pride and love battle with desire

Hide your heart, 'cause you're playing with fire

Edgeworth let the asscheeks of the air freshener fall away after one last big sniff, and turned the wheel just as he was about to collide with the semi-truck. The trucker blew his horn angrily, but Edgeworth was too busy readjusting his Phoenix Wright air freshener to notice.

The air freshener was actually the result of a mistake at the Phoenix Wright factory. An entire batch had come out defective with big pantsless asses. Obviously they couldn't be sold. Phoenix and Thalassa had thought they were hilarious and gave them out as party favors at their Christmas party five years ago. Edgeworth had been cherishing his ever since. The toxic unsafe chemicals used at the Phoenix Wright factory ensured it would retain its aroma for years to come.

Whenever he sniffed it, he thought of Phoenix... Thalassa... Little Apollo... Little Trucy... and Little Gumshoe, too. The important things. Because nothing is more important than family and the ones we love.

"That's why," he said out loud, tilting his head forward and glowering at long road ahead, "that's why I can't Misery Lockedheart win. For the sake of all the people who are counting on me... "

He shook his head.

"But no... It's also for all the people I'M counting on, too. For them... I will fight unceasingly!"

Edgeworth drove to the Berry Big Circus and parked in the parking lot. It was crowded. He opened the driver's side door and stood up, resting his arm on top. He surveyed the entrance to the big top over the heads of the bustling crowds and their balloons. It was night now.

"Detective, we're here. Hurry! To the big top! There isn't a second to lose!"

Inside...

Max Galactica pulled a rabbit out of his hat. The crowd cheered.

"And for my next trick, I'll flyyyyyy!" and he flew through the air over the audience. When he passed over Gummy Gumbo he reached down and gave him a high-five.

"This is so amazing, pal!" said Gumbo, crying childlike tears of pure joy.

Edgeworth folded his arms impatiently. "Hmph, need I remind you, Detective, that we aren't here for recreation, but official business? Misery Lockedheart is planning on committing yet another locked room murder mystery in this very big top. We must keep an eye out for any signs of a locked room murder mystery and foil this madman's designs before he kills again."

"Yes, sir! It's just, Max Galactica is so cool..."

"Mhmm, yes, he is the greatest magician who ever lived, he won the Magician Grand Pricks, in fact, but don't let yourself become distracted and lose sight of our important mission."

They watched many more wonderful circus acts, like an elephant standing on a ball, a girl getting eaten by a lion, and a lovable puppet named Trilo who could speak like a man.

Finally it was time for the trapeze act. The two trapeze artists faced each other from across their high diving boards, and then they gripped the swinging bars and began their act. But suddenly there was a gunshot and one of the trapeze artists died.

Everyone in the audience started screaming and running away except for Edgeworth and Gummy Gumbo.

Edgeworth smiled logically. "Hmph, it seems we've stumbled upon our locked room murder mystery, Detective."

"But sir? The victim wasn't in a locked room, sir?"

"Think, Detective! The conditions of the victim's death closely mirror those a locked room mystery. You see, in a locked room mystery, the victim couldn't have been killed by anything outside of the room. In this case, the victim was killed during his trapeze act, and couldn't have been killed by anything not in the air, thus making this, in effect, a locked room murder mystery."

"Wow, you're so right, sir! Does that mean Misery Lockedheart is responsible for this guy's death too?"

"What with the letter the we received at the prison, it's all but confirmed. One thing's for sure, we are dealing with a criminal mastermind the likes of which this country has never seen. We must proceed with opens minds, and not be taken in by our first impressions, which may be faulty."

They went to the scene of the crime to investigate. The medical examiner was going over the body of the victim, Trent P. Zartizt.

"You there!" exclaimed Edgeworth. "What's wrong with the victim?"

"He's dead, sir."

"I see. What was the cause of death?"

"Well, we won't know for sure until after the autopsy, but I found this bullet in his heart, sir."

Edgeworth added to bullet to the court record.

Gummy Gumbo scratched his head. "Sir, now that I think about it, there was a gunshot right before the victim died. Do ya think that gunshot has something to do with the victim dying and the bullet being found in his body?"

"It's possible," said Edgeworth doubtfully. "But so far we have no evidence to suggest that that is the case. Detective, kindly find me all the evidence."

Gummy Gumbo round around the legs of the medical men and picked up all the evidence. "I looked on the ground and found evidence, sir."

"Only two pieces of evidence?" said Edgeworth as he accepted the evidence. "How am I expected to solve a locked room murder mystery with only two pieces of evidence?"

He added a second bullet and an empty pill bottle to the court record.

Gummy looked crestfallen. "Well, it's three evidence if you count the bullet the medical examiner found, sir..."

"Never mind, detective. I'll make do. After all, I am a disciple of Manfed von Karma, and you know what that means, it means I am PERFECT. I only need two pieces of evidence to solve a crime. Anyway, now that we've thoroughly searched the crime scene, let's interview the suspects."

The interviews were conducted in the ringmaster's quarters. The first suspect was Max Galactica.

"Mr. Galactica, did you commit the murder?" asked Edgy.

"No."

Hmmm, thought Edgeworth. For some reason, I believe him. He looks like an honest soul.

"Can I go now?" asked Max, throwing playing cards everywhere. "My sweetie must be getting worried."

"Of course, Mr. Galactica. I'm sorry for having wasted the time of such an illustrious magician as yourself."

"Ha ha!" Max stood up to leave. "You know, Mr. Prosecutor, I have heard great things about you yourself. I heard that you won the King of Prosecutors award. You're kind of like the Max Galactica of prosecutors..."

Edgeworth bowed. "I thank you. That is a title I'll wear proudly and with honor."

"Do catch the murderer soon, won't you?" said Max, stopping at the door and looking over his shoulder. "This circus has already experienced too many tragedies. My sweetie was a friend of the victim. She's quite cut up over it... Oh, by the way, I left a little surprise for you in your underwear, enjoy." He winked and left the room.

Edgeworth reached into his boxers and pulled out a headshot of Max Galactica, signed by Max Galactica. "To my favorite prosecutor, from your favorite magician MAX GALACTICA"

"Wow, that's so cool!" said Gummy Gumbo. "How does he do it, sir?"

Edgeworth slipped the autograph into his briefcase and sipped tea. "A magician never reveals his tricks, detective... and a prosecutor never reveals his LOGIC." He tapped his forehead and smirked. "At least, not until the time is ripe, and all the pieces are in place..." He steepled his fingers and looked out the window thinkingly, as if the world were a giant chessboard.

The next suspect was Moe the Clown, the current ringmaster of the circus.

"Mr. Ringmaster..."

"Moe is fine."

"Ahem, Mr. Moe, I can't help but notice that you have a gun in your hand."

"Yes."

"Why is that?"

Moe started sweating. "Because... I killed Trent! I fired the gunshot you heard and stole his life!"

"Oh boy, a confession!" said Gummy. "Haha, you're going to jail, pal, ohohoho." He took out the cuffs.

"HOLD IT!" said Miles Edgeworth. "Not so fast, detective. What did I tell you about not being taken in by our first impressions?"

"But sir, he confessed!"

Edgeworth slammed the desk. "He's lying for some reason, and I'll prove it!"

Moe said: "I confessed. What else do you want you piece of shit. I fired the bullet that killed Trent. It came from this gun. Now why don't take me in already? I did it! Not only am I a murderer, I'm a MOEderer! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha..."

"OBJECTION!" objectioned Edgeworth. "What you just said clearly contradicts the evidence!"

"WHHHHAUGHR?" said Moe.

Edgeworth presented the first bullet they had found. "The bullet found in the victim's body was a revolver bullet, but your gun is a semi-automatic. ERGO, you couldn't have shot and killed the victim. You're lying to protect someone!"

"You're right..." Moe said sadly. His carrot wilted. "I'm sorry, but I didn't have a choice. I'm really sorry..."

Edgeworth looked down at Moe sternly. "You have obstructed an official police investigation. Why this web of lies and deceit, Moe?"

"This is why." Without looking up, Moe fished a piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to Edgeworth.

"Dear Moe," the letter read, "take the gun I've included in this letter and fire it into the ground during the trapeze act tonight. If you don't do what I say, I'll kill Regina Barry with one of my guns. Signed, Misery Lockedheart."

"Hmmm, I see," said Edgeworth. "Well, I can't fault you for your actions, Mr. Moe. You were acting under duress, after all." He took the gun from Moe and slipped it into his pocket. "As for Regina, don't worry, I'll have her placed under police protection until all this is over. But to be honest, I don't think Lockedheart will come after her. You played your part in his little game, and fulfilled the conditions of the letter. I don't believe either of you are on his radar anymore."

"Ok," said Moe. He got up and left.

"Gee, sir, I thought clowns were supposed to be funny," said Gumbo. "That guy was a sad sack."

"He bears a heavy burden, detective. Bring in the next suspect murder person."

The final suspect was Trilo Quist.

"Trilo Quist, you are a puppet, correct?"

"Yeah, I'm a puppet. You want that in writing?"

"Never mind that now. Did you kill the victim, or see anything suspicious?"

"I didn't kill the victim, but I saw a monkey during the trapeze act."

"I fail to see how that's suspicious."

Gummy Gumbo chuckled. "Yeah, I mean this is a circus after all."

Trilo struck up a cigarette. "Yeah, but what was suspicious was that the monkey's act was over. He should have been in that cage over there." He pointed at a birdcage in the corner of the room.

"Detective, if you'd be so kind?"

Gummy Gumbo investigated the cage and found some pills and other stuff.

Pills added to the court record.

A pile of dead birds and other small animals added to the court record.

Missing monkey added to the court record.

Trilo was dismissed. Gummy collapsed into a chair. "Well, that's the last suspect, sir. Who did it?"

"Isn't it obvious, detective?" Edgeworth asked.

"Err...it is?"

"Of course. If you use the process of elimination...and Logic. "

Edgeworth called all the suspects back to the big top.

"I've called you all here today for one very simple reason." Edgeworth pointed at the victim's stinky corpse. "Because that man was killed. Killed in a vile locked room murder mystery." His eyes flashed in anger and he pointed at the assembled suspects. "And his killer was one of you!"

Max Galactica gulped. Moe adjusted his carrot. Trilo looked shiftily from side to side.

"Who did it!" Jacklyn Hyde, the beautiful trapeze artist, screamed. "Who killed my best friend Trent!" Max Galactica patted her on the shoulder.

"Don't worry, Jackie," he said. "Edgeworth will bring the killer to justice. Isn't that right, Edgeworth?"

But before ol' Edgy could answer, Klavier Gavin suddenly roared into the big top on his motorcycle. "Ha, still haven't cracked the case yet?" He lowered his shades. "Quite unfortunate... Your method is slow and steady, but perhaps a bit too slow, ja?"

Edgeworth folded his arms. "So, you finally managed to arrive, did you?"

"Hey, don't blame me, blame the LA traffic. I got here as fast as I could when my bracelet started yapping at me. I even cancelled a concert. But don't worry, I'm here to solve the mystery for you and catch Lockedheart."

"Oh?" Edgy scoffed. "That seems a bit premature. You haven't even investigated the crime scene or interviewed a single witness."

"Actchong, baby! But I have read the full report! And that's enough for me to nab the murderer! Check this out!"

"Actchong...?" repeated Gummy Gumbo. He perched a pair of reading glasses on his nose and flipped through his English to Klavier Gavin pocket dictionary. "Nope, that's not in here... Did he mean achtung...?"

Klavier Gavin told the small version of Gumshoe to shut up and explained his logic.

"The clown did it, obviously."

"When the victim died, a gunshot rang out. You heard it, ja?"

"A bullet was found into the victim's heart. The cause of death was clearly and quite simply, gun."

"The clown, by his own admission, was carrying a gun. That gun was obviously the murder weapon."

"So the clown must be the killer, of course. That's logic, baby!" He air guitared.

"OBJECTION!" Edgeworth presented the bullet found in the victim's body. "The clown's gun couldn't have been the murder weapon, because the ballistics markings on the bullet don't match his gun! The gun was fired, I'll grant you that, but the bullet struck the ground, not the victim!" He presented the second bullet.

Klavier started sweating. "W-well, the clown must have had a second gun! Yeah, that's it." He regained his composure. "He must have fired the first gun into the ground before the show, and then used his second gun to murder the victim. Later, he ditched the second gun but kept the first in an effort to throw you off his trail. Pretty sneaky..."

"OBJECTION! Wrong again, Klavier. BECAUSE THE BULLET FOUND IN THE VICTIM'S HEART WAS NEVER FIRED, IT HAS NO BALLISTICS MARKS!"

klavier started breakdancing. "IMPOSSSSIIBBBBBLLLEEEE AAAAAAAAAAA MOTHER OF GOD."

"Then how did it end up in the victim's body, sir?" asked Gummy Gumbo.

"Easy, detective. It was planted in the victim's heart, probably while he was sleeping, some time before the murder in an attempt to obfuscate the true cause of death."

Klavier swept his hair away from his face. "And what was the true cause of death? Do you know that, Herr Edgeworth?"

"Of course," Edgeworth grinned. He presented the pill bottle. "This emptied bottle of heart attack pills was found at the scene of the crime. It is my belief that the victim died of a heart attack as a result of swallowing these pills. That explains the bullet in the heart: to make us think the heart was destroyed by a gun, and not by pills."

"But then," began Klavier, "isn't it possible that this isn't a murder at all? That perhaps the victim took these pills himself, before the trapeze act?"

"OBJECTION!" objectioned Edgeworth. "NO. Because these pills take effect immediately, so they could only have been administered at the time of death. So that means... only someone in the locked room, AKA THE AIR, could have made him take those pills."

klavier spun around and pointed at Max. "Aha! It was you, then! BECAUSE YOU CAN FLY!"

"Nooooooo!" said Max. "You're making a mistake!"

"Confess!" screamed klavier.

"Hold, Prosecutor Gavin," said Edgeworth, raising a placating hand. "Max couldn't have done it, because his act came before the trapeze act, so he wasn't in the air at the time of the murder. So, using the process of elimination, the only other possible culprit is..."

Edgeworth pointed dramatically.

"YOU, JACKLYN HYDE! THE OTHER TRAPEZE ARTIST!" Everyone gasped.

Jacklyn started sweating and her wig kept trying to slip off. "N-nonsense! Trent was my partner... my best friend! Me, kill him? Insane! Besides..."

Jacklyn gave her testimony.

"I couldn't have killed him!"

"Yes, I was in the locked room, but..."

"The only time we were close enough for me to administer the pills..."

"...was when my hands were occupied with the trapeze bar! I couldn't have fed him any pills!"

Klavier played air guitar. "See? The fraulein couldn't have done it. Who's barking up the wrong tree now?"

"Heh..." Edgeworth laughed. "Two words, Klavier: trained murder monkey." He ripped off Jacklyn's clothes and revealed the hidden monkey corpse.

"What the fuck!" said Gavin. "That bitch has a dead monkey in her shirt!"

"I-it's not what it looks like!" said Jacklyn.

"Oh, I believe it's exactly what it looks like, Jacklyn Hyde!" Edgeworth ejaculated logically. "Before the act you let the monkey out of his cage. This is confirmed by the puppet, who saw the monkey in the big top just before the murder."

"Urgghhkk!" she said.

Edgeworth presented the loose pills and the small dead animals. "We found these pills in the monkey's cage. Obviously, someone had been training the monkey to administer the deadly pills."

"NOOO STOPPP PLLLLEASSSEEEEEE."

"A deadly pattern of logic begins to emerge. Right before the trapeze act, you stuffed the monkey down your shirt. When you met your partner in the air, the monkey stuck its hand out and poured the heart attack pills down Zartizt's throat, killing him instantly. Of course, after you committed the crime, you killed the monkey and hid it in your shirt. It was the only way to assure it couldn't testify against you."

Jacklyn Hyde screamed "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH," and her wig fell off, and she was bald. It was basically like a Jekyll and Hyde transformation.

. . .

"I..I confess...

"I killed him...

"I've always... loved him...

"But... I was... too bald..." A single sparkling tear fell to the ground.

. . .

Gummy Gumbo stood on a chair and cuffed her. "C'mon, pal," he said softly. "Let's go, nice and easy." He lead her away.

Klavier Gavin climbed onto his hog. "Well, Herr Edgeworth," he said, "I must admit I was way off track. That gunshot was quite the brilliant red herring. It was... an honor working with you."

"You know what's sad?" Max Galaxia broke in. "Trent didn't even care that she was bald. He was just gay."

Edgeworth arched an eyebrow. "Of course. I knew that from the very beginning." He sipped victory tea. But at the bottom of his cup was a piece of paper!

"The devil?" He unfolded the paper. It was another note... from Misery Lockedheart!

It looks like you were too late to stop my latest masterpiece, Miles Edgeworth. Does that upset you? You may have caught the murderer, but who really won? After all, Jacklyn Hyde was merely a pawn in our little game of murder chess. Of course, I play white, and as every true chess fiend knows, white always win because white always goes first. You, my friend, are forever stuck playing black, and will never catch up to me, because black always loses because they'll always be one piece down, one step behind, never able to catch up, always playing defensively, reactively.

Edgeworth gritted his teeth. Lockedheart... how dare he mock him with a chess analogy? Especially one so cutting and true?

Now, I'm sure you're wondering where my next Locked Room Murder Mystery is taking place, so let me give you another clue. What is made out of water, is where Gourdy the lake creature lives, has a boat rental shack, and is shaped like a gourd, and also has gourd in its name? That, my friend, is where you'll find my next victim. The clock is ticking, Miles Edgeworth, and the pendulum is swinging, so you'd better hurry. Signed, Misery Lockedheart.

"Achtung!" said Klavier, reading the letter over Edgeworth's shoulder. "I know where that it is! It's Gourd Lake!" He shook Edgeworth's shoulder and almost jumped in place in excitement. "We have to get over there! Now!"

Edgeworth was silent. He carefully and meticulously folded the letter to the size of piece of gum and put it in his pocket.

"This is no time for origami!" snapped Klavier. "Misery Lockedheart is about to kill again! We must alert the rest of the Prosecutor Squad immediately, and get as many officers over to Gourd Lake as we can!"

"You go ahead... and take little Gummy Gumbo with you. I have something else I need to investigate here at the circus... on my own. I'll regroup with you and the rest of the Prosecutor Squad soon."

Edgeworth left the German prosecutor staring at him in wonder and went alone to Acro's room on the second floor of the carnie housing complex.

Chapter Text

"Ken Dingling... or do you prefer Acro?"

"Whichever one's fine with you is fine with me, sir," said Acro.

"Ahem..." Edgeworth cleared his throat into his fist. "I can't help but notice a change in your... appearance. "

Acro smiled in a good-natured way. "Haha, it is noticeable, isn't it?"

He had a goatee now.

"I decided to grow a goatee," explained Acro. "I thought it would sort of represent the character growth I went through in prison. Plus, I saw a picture of Phoenix Wright with a goatee in the newspaper when he staged his comeback, and I thought it looked pretty nifty."

"Nifty? More like shifty," said Edgeworth. "Anyway... you've finally been released on parole. I got a memo on my desk about it, actually. Just last month. I have to wonder why you chose to return to the circus. I would have assumed that it held too many distasteful associations for you."

"Oh, what with the housing market as it is right now, I have no choice but to stay in my old room here. Mr. Curls has been very kind. But since I'm still stuck in this wheelchair, I don't get to see many of my old friends. I just sit up here by myself, alone."

Suddenly Acro's face shifted from a friendly, affable smile to a watchful glare.

"Which is why... I wonder. Why. Why do you want to interview me?"

Edgeworth said: "It is my duty to interview every possible witness... and suspect."

"But you already caught the killer." Acro closed his eyes and beamed. "Quite skillfully, I might add. I'm not a suspect."

Edgeworth smiled and raised his shoulders smugly. "Suspect, I wouldn't go so far as to say. Collaborator... accomplice... ah, now we're painting a picture."

"Mr. Edgeworth... please." Acro averted his gaze. "You know I didn't have anything to do with this. Trent was my friend. I'm just sorry I never got to tell him the funny pun name I came up with for him: Trent Poe Lean. You can't survive in the acrobat business without a pun name, and, well, I guess he didn't, because he died. Quite painfully, too. See, I figured he could legally change his name to Trent Poe Lean, and start using a trampoline into his act, and-"

"I don't care, Mr. Acro. You're stalling. Perhaps you aren't aware that I am the leader what has come to be known as 'The Prosecutor Squad.'"

"Prosecutor Squad...?" Acro's eyes grew watchful. He opened his mouth and moved his lips around soundlessly, as if testing out the feel of different words in his mouth. He swallowed and chose them with care. "Can't say I've ever heard of that..." he said slowly.

Edgeworth pressed some buttons and dialed some knobs on his prosecutor squad bracelet. A hologram projected from the bracelet and lit up the dim room and tinted Edgeworth's face green, purple, and blue as figures and metrics flashed by in a blur.

"What... what is all that?" asked Acro.

"Evidence," said Edgeworth. He looked up. His eyes stared straight ahead, stern and determined. There was anger. "On my way to the circus, I ordered Winston Payne and Dr. Brainy-O to investigate any potential connection between the Berry Big Circus and Misery Lockedheart. It turns out they found something. A connection that involves you."

A 3D hologram of Winston Payne holding a magnifying glass and examining thick banded stacks of cash spun around over the bracelet.

Acro was silent.

"What's the matter, Mr. Acro?" asked Edgeworth, smirking. "Has the lion got your tongue as well as your legs?"

"That's not very funny, Mr. Edgeworth," said Acro. "You know losing my mobility to a lion seriously damaged my self-esteem and quality of life."

"And Misery Locked has seriously damaged the legal system and safety of Los Angeles," said Edgeworth severely. "In case you didn't know, this murder wasn't an isolated incident. He's been committing locked room murders all over the city, targeting respected members of the legal community and law enforcement. And he's been robbing banks, too. In fact, the money from one of his heists showed up in an interesting place. Tell me, isn't it true you spent quite a large sum of money recently on an experimental procedure for your brother, Bat?"

"Yes..." said Acro. "It could help him wake up from his coma."

"The coma he's been stuck in for 13 years," said Edgeworth. "Of course, you had no source of income, being in prison, yet you somehow managed to afford a million-dollar operation. I'd call that suspicious, wouldn't you? The Prosecutor Squad investigated, and we discovered that your brother's operation was paid in marked bills stolen from the Judge's private vault." The hologram changed to a recording of the Judge crying inside his empty bank vault while the manager wringed his hands nearby. "Care to explain how that money came to be in your possession?"

Acro couldn't lie anymore.

"You've got me. I admit it. I met Misery Lockedheart in prison. In exchange for the money for Bat's operation, I told him everything he wanted to know about the Berry Big Circus. I also printed out untraceable letters for him with my printer." The blanket fell off his lap, revealing a whirring printer between his legs spitting out more murderous letters from Misery Lockedheart.

Edgeworth's heart rose in his chest like a victorious flag and his heartbeat had a triumphant rhythm.

Aha!

Acro continued: "But I swear to you, Mr. Edgeworth... I haven't been reading them. I just send them off to whoever he tells me to. I didn't know there would be any murders. I figured there was something illegal going on... but I wouldn't get involved in anything like that." He suddenly looked sad and introspective. "But I probably could've guessed... I just didn't want to think about it, I suppose."

Edgeworth deduced that Misery Lockedheart had used Acro to learn about all the different members of the circus and what made them tick; and Lockedheart had used this knowledge to manipulate them into committing a locked room murder mystery. In this case, though, it seemed that Jacklyn Hyde had needed only the smallest push.

"So... you've communicated with Lockedheart in person!" Edgeworth turned the bracelet hologram off. "Quick, tell me! Who is he? Of course, he's using a fake name. What does he look like?"

Acro laughed. "Well, pretty hairy, actually, and-"

Suddenly Edgeworth heard small pattering footsteps somewhere from behind him. Before he could turn around, something hit him on the back of the head, and everything went black, in an instant, like a blanket being thrown over a birdcage.

. . . .

. . . .

I was careless...

He woke up hanging from the ceiling of Acro's room by rusty chains. He was upside down. There were tight metal bands all around his body that held him rigidly in place. His arms were stretched out straight above his head and his wrists were bound so tightly together all he could move were his fingers. He had a metal mask on that covered his face entirely except for his eyes, which were behind little slats like prison bars.

Directly below him was a bubbling witch's cauldron full of lava.

I shouldn't have gotten so close to the truth behind Misery Lockedheart alone...

His neck was held in place by the metal band, but his eyes shifted to the right, and he saw Acro lying on the floor with his own wheelchair shoved up his ass.

He was dead.

There was rumbling sound that shook the room and the chains lowered Edgeworth closer to the boiling pot of lava, in one abrupt jerky movement.

I was careless.

His forehead under the hot heavy mask was damp with sweat. He twisted and turned in his restraints, but he couldn't move, he was trapped, trapped. He tried to scream but his voice was muffled from the mask and no one could hear him.

Below, lava bubbled and little balls of fire popped out and singed the carpet. He knew that any part of him that went into that cauldron was coming out a skeleton.

Think.

He looked down at his wrists and saw the blinking indicator light on his Prosecutor Squad bracelet. That was it. That was the way out. There were no other ways. He had to use. He's got to. But how? He twisted his wrists helplessly in his restraints.

His first thought was blood. If his blood, or any other blood, came in contact with the bracelet, it would automatically send out a distress signal and alert to the other prosecutors to his position.

He bit his lip. Blood oozed out and he tried to let gravity do its work so it would fall on the bracelet below, but the mask was so tight the blood couldn't drip through the bars and onto his wrists.

The room rumbled again and the chains dropped him with startling speed toward the cauldron, and jerked to a stop just as abruptly. He could feel the wavering heat rising from the cauldron.

He judged, using himself as a unit of measurement, that only two Edgeworths remained between him and the cauldron.

His mind was racing. His internal monologue was gone. He was operating on animalistic instinct but without fear.

Next attempt.

Get it wet.

If it got wet, it would short-circuit and be rendered inactive and the others would be alerted. And how to get it wet?

It was quite obvious.

Piss.

Edgeworth immediately peed himself and the warm piss traveled down his stomach, between his pecs, down his arm, and finally past the band around his wrists and out of his shirt. It trickled in a little trail down his wrist toward the bracelet.

A single droplet touched the bracelet.

BOOOOOOOOM!

WSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSHHH!

The Prosecutor Squad bracelet blew up in a fiery explosion! It singed his wrist and pieces flew everywhere.

Edgeworth swung from left to right like a pendulum, stolid and stoic. His eyes sparkled with victory.

Yes!

Heavy footsteps followed by lighter ones sounded on the steps outside Acro's room, and Klavier Gavin threw the door open. Gummy Gumbo was at his heels.

"Herr Edgeworth! Did you piss yourself? I saw your bracelet go down, and my first thought was, of course, piss, and-" He saw Edgeworth hanging from the ceiling. "Mein gott!"

Then he saw the cauldron of lava and kicked the cauldron out the way. it tipped over onto the floor and burnt a hole in the ground and dripped downstairs onto Moe's bed and into his gaped asshole.

"Mmmphmmhphmhmh!" said Edgeworth from the ceiling.

"I hear you loud and clear, Herr Edgeworth!" said Klavier. He and Gummy Gumbo found a step ladder and freed Edgeworth from his restraints.

On the ground, Edgeworth rubbed his red and raw wrists, murmuring to himself, glaring at the floor. Gummy Gumbo started crying when he saw the dead body.

"It was lucky you and the detective happened to be right outside the door, Gavin," said Edgeworth. "Why weren't you down at Gourd Lake?"

Klavier folded his arms. "We told the others to go ahead but the detective wanted to stay behind. The way you went off on your own like that left a bad taste in our mouths." He gestured around the room. "What the hell happened here?"

"Misery Lockedheart happened," said Edgeworth, glowering. "The locked room murder mystery at Gourd Lake is a red herring! A distraction! He wants to keep us on a carousel of never-ending murder, never getting any closer to the truth. When I didn't fall for his latest letter, he panicked and tried to kill me. Tell me, how long had I been gone?"

"Only twenty minutes since you left the big top, if that's what you mean," said Klavier Gavin. "Hold up, are you saying THE Misery Lockedheart was here? Not someone acting in his place? The real deal?"

Edgeworth nodded. "This wasn't a perfectly planned and premediated crime like his past murders. It was spur of the moment; an act of desperation borne from panic. He couldn't let Mr. Dingling reveal his identity. Hence the clumsiness and haphazard nature of this crime."

Klavier closed his eyes and snapped his fingers. "Ja, ja, I get you... I'm picking up what you're putting down. And that's why those restraints you were in came off so easily. They weren't actually locked. He must not have had time to lock them. Heh... rather careless. I'd expect more from our murderous 'mastermind.'"

"Exactly," said Edgeworth. "Also, he dropped his wallet in his haste to get away."

Klavier unclasped the wallet and looked inside. He pulled out a state ID belonging to Misery Lockedheart.

"Whoa, neat," said Klavier. He held it away from his face and squinted. "But his picture is too blurry to make out. He just looks like a gray shadow."

"You're missing the point," said Edgeworth. "That wallet confirms the man himself was here. And if he was here, then he must still be close by! Quickly, we give chase! We've been going about this case the wrong way. We've been trying to solve this case with logic. Well, let's try doing it the way that man does it... with blind luck and contrivance!"

"Gee, how exciting!" said Gummy Gumbo.

But just then a bomb crashed through the window and landed at their feet! Edgeworth's eyes flashed.

"Everyone get down!"

All three of them threw themselves onto the floor. But the bomb didn't explode; instead it started hissing and sending out a toxic green gas that quickly filled the room and expanded up to the ceiling.

"Poison gas! Poison gas!" cried Klavier. "Gas masks on! Gas masks on! Rockstars and babes first!"

Klavier snapped his gasmask on and ran out of the room and down the stairs.

Edgeworth tried to put his gasmask on, but it had been ripped to shreds!

"No! That's impossible! It was fine this morning!" He had left it hanging on the towel rack outside the shower yesterday and DISTICNTLY remembered strapping in on to his explosion proof vest after he got out. Who could have done this?

Gummy Gumbo looked up at him sadly, a world-weary look in his eyes. "Sir... I don't have one either. I was never issued one." He laughed humorlessly. "It looks like both of us are screwed this time, huh?"

Edgeworth coughed and spun around swinging his arms in the thickening fog.

"Nonsense!" he rasped. "We just need to find (ack, ack!)... Grahhh! The WINDOW!"

But he couldn't find the window. The gas was so thick that they had lost all sense of direction.

"Stairs!" Edgeworth gasped out. But both men knew there wouldn't be enough time to take the stairs without succumbing to the gas.

"Sir... You gotta wear my ass like a gasmask and inhale my fart gas to survive. It's only way. You have to wrap your lips around my anus, sir."

Edgeworth was aghast.

"D-Detective! Don't talk nonsense! You'd die! Cough, cough... Don't be absurd! I will NOT let you play the hero and sacrifice your life."

Gummy Gumbo stood on his tiptoes so he eye-level with Edgeworth's kneecap and pushed him.

"No! YOU don't talk nonsense, Mr. Edgeworth-pal! If you don't, BOTH of us will die! And then who would catch Misery Lockedheart and save the legal system? At least this way, one of us will survive!"

"...You speak the language of Lady Logic," admitted Edgeworth.

He didn't argue any further. He ripped the tiny man's pants off and lifted him onto his shoulders. Gummy Gumbo put Edgeworth's face between his asscheeks and shook his hips around so the seal was airtight. He started farting into Edgeworth's mouth and nose and Edgeworth ran through the poison fog as fast as he could and eventually managed to make it down the stairs and out into courtyard below.

"Thank gott!" said Klavier. "Just... just... thank gott."

Unfortunately, Gummy Gumbo had inhaled too much toxic gas and now he lay dying.

"I'm... I'm so glad I got a chance to work with you, sir," said Gummy Gumbo. His little chest rose and fell painfully, his mouth was open, and his eyes were glazed over and staring up at the night sky as sparse snowflakes twirled towards him.

Edgeworth was kneeling down by his side. Klavier stood behind him, his face non-believing.

"You did well, Little Detective," said Edgeworth.

"I... I always wanted to work with ya, pal." Gummy Gumbo closed his eyes. "My uncle always told me what a great guy you were... He looked up to you a lot, pal. In fact... he always... said... you were... his best... pal."

Edgeworth fought back tears. His lips trembled like a woman's pussy when she's horny.

"His skin is turning green from the poison..." murmured Klavier.

"I know..." said Edgeworth.

He looked down at the small, so small body of Gummy Gumbo.

"Detective... I'm going to give you a million dollar raise on your salary this year. You've earned it."

"I'm... I'm so glad... I can buy so much instant ramen... the good stuff... not the bullshit."

"Not the bullshit," smiled Edgeworth through his tears.

"We'll stop him, sir," said Gummy Gumbo. His head rolled on its side. "We'll get that ol' Lockedheart... You 'n me, pal..."

Gummy Gumbo passed away due to poison gas. He was only 13,505 days away from retirement.

Just then a car started in the darkness, and Klavier and Edgeworth heard it peel out.

"Lockedheart!" shouted Edgeworth. His chin shot up. He watched the floating taillights disappear into the darkness and around a turn. "Quickly! To my car! We won't let the detective's death be in vain!"

They threw a sheet over Gummy Gumbo's corpse and rushed to the parking lot.

"Should I alert the others?" asked Klavier, jogging easily by the other man's side.

"Huff... huff... yes, tell them to head to your bracelet's location!"

While Klavier stopped in the parking lot and tapped away on his bracelet, he heard Edgeworth go "Nrrrggghhhghhhunkkk!"

"Uh oh..." said Klavier Gavin, turning his face towards an invisible audience. "He's making that noise again. This CAN'T be good."

He walked over and saw Edgeworth kneeling down behind his car. He and stood over him with his hands on his (Iris's) bony yet feminine hips.

"You good down there, Herr Edgeworth?"

"My car... it won't start... someone stuck something up the tailpipe!"

"Someone stuck something up the tailpipe?" asked Klavier. "Like in my first trial against Justice, oh, about five years ago? What a strange coincidence."

Edgeworth pulled it out. "It's a big piece of cheese. Now what would that be doing in my tailpipe...?"

"My money's on Misery Lockedheart. In fact, I'd stake my five thousand guitars on it."

"Yes... and I'd stake my honor as a prosecutor."

"Well," said Klavier, dropping down to his stomach and peering inside the pipe with one eye screwed up, "it looks like there's an entire wheel of gorgonzola up there, too. So, unfortunately," he got up and dusted his bare knees, "your car won't being going anywhere anytime soon."

Edgeworth fell to his knees and slammed his fists into the ground. His shoulders hitched with silent sobs.

Klavier patted him on the back.

"Don't worry," said Klavier, cool as a caterpillar. "I anticipated this."

He whistled and some bushes rustled nearby and Gourdy the lake monster came out of the trees. He had a big sheriff's star pinned to his skin.

"Gourdy!" said Gourdy.

"Gourdy the lake monster?" said Edgeworth, bemused, drawing himself together. "From Gourd Lake? What are you doing here?"

"Gourdy!" said Gourdy.

Klavier said: "I thought it might be prudent to deputize him, so I did. Turned out to be a good idea, wouldn't you say? Now, enough jabbering!" He threw out his index finger. "Let's make like a rock, and roll!

They rode Gourdy and chased after the car! He was surprisingly fast on land. Quite possibly due to the roller-skates Klavier put on him.

"Faster, Gourdy!" said Klavier, hanging onto Gourdy's neck. "Don't let that car get away!"

They chased the car all the way into the scummy side of the city and down slanted, abandoned alleyways to an old warehouse. It was the same warehouse Phoenix Wright had been sold into slavery all those years ago.

"There! In that building!" shouted Edgeworth. The villain's empty sedan was still idling with the driver's side door thrown open. Next to the car was the entrance to the warehouse. The snow was falling harder now and the wind was whistling and blowing it in whirling whisps around the deserted alley. The moon was shining bright on the snow.

Gourdy lowered his head to the ground and Klavier and Edgeworth slid down it. Edgeworth took out his concealed carry weapon and racked the slide. The rest of the Prosecutor Squad hadn't shown up yet, but they couldn't wait any longer.

"Gourdy, you wait out here and stand guard," ordered Edgeworth. "We're going in."

"Gourd!" said Gourdy.

Klavier kissed Gourdy and ran a hand down its slimy flank.

"Be back soon, babe." He kissed two fingertips and pointed them towards Gourdy and dropped a wink. "Don't tell Trucy, Gourdy... please."

Miles and Klavier both went inside the warehouse but Klavier sneaked back out the side door and hopped over a chain-link fence to kiss Gourdy one more time.

"We'll do more when I get back," whispered Klavier.

He went back inside just as Edgeworth came out of the side door.

"Gourdy, I don't fully trust Klavier. If I'm not back in 24 hours, I want you to call the police."

"Gourdy...?"

"Yes," said Edgeworth, nodded, face set hard, every wrinkle caused by age and stress clearly delineated on his worn countenance. "Here." He handed Gourdy a gun. "You'd better take this."

"Gourdy gourd gourd!" said Gourdy.

It wrapped its flipper around it and let off a loose round that punched a hole in trash can.

Edgeworth nodded. "Yes, that's how you use a gun. You're a fast learner."

He went back inside just as Klavier came back out and hopped the fence again.

"You know what, that's it, we're done," said Klavier. "I've had enough of you playing around with my heart. You may have been the inspiration for thirteen songs and seven studio albums, but that doesn't mean I can't do better. If I want to cry, I'll listen to one of the Gavinners' top-charting ballads. I don't need you. We're through. Finished. Have a good life."

He turned to leave. He paused and looked back over his shoulder.

"Oh... by the way... I know you've always been jealous of Trucy. Ever since she and I first met. I know that during all these years I've been trying to get into her pants you've been subtly sabotaging me out of jealousy. But I'll be damned if I let some overgrown lake monster like you get between us." He smirked and closed his eyes. He snapped his fingers. "Oh, by the way... contrary to popular opinion, I have never fucked you. I never will fuck you. I'm not going to fuck you. I'm not attracted to you. I'm not some sort of sicko who does anything more than kiss and make out with lake monsters. And even then, it is strictly platonic." He turned his head back. "Maybe in your sick, controlling mind I fucked you, because you deluded yourself into thinking I did. Hell, maybe you even did do something to me, all the times I woke up strung out in your apartment not knowing where I was, or hell, who I was. But that's not love, Gourdy." He shook his head. "That's not love. You don't know how to love. Because you're a monster. That's all you'll ever be. A monster. A lake monster. And an abuser. Auf wiedersehen, baby. You'll be seeing me in your dreams."

Klavier went back inside, twirling his giant penis around his neck like a scarf.

"Gourdy?" said Gourdy.

Inside, Miles Edgeworth snuck around. The warehouse was dark and sparsely lit. Most of it was seas of thick inky blackness with a few small pools of light here and there from the dusty, spider web covered overhead lights. There were huge wooden crates everywhere. The place was basically a maze. Edgeworth kept hearing echoing footsteps, and creaking floorboards, and he knew Misery Lockedheart was somewhere nearby.

He wished his bracelet hadn't blown up. He wanted used to use the tracker on it to keep an eye on where Klavier was in the darkness. He was still suspicious of him in a way. Till Lockedheart was caught he'd trust no one.

Edgeworth cursed under his breath.

Where were the rest of the Prosecutor Squad? They should be here by now!

Then he had a sinking feeling in his gut. WERE they coming? He only had Klavier's word that they were...

This could be a trap.

But he went further into the darkness.

Trap or not.

Then he came across a strange machine shining and sparkling under a spotlight in the darkness. He went over to investigate and it he saw that the contraption was a sort of sleek metallic box with a lever like a slot machine and the words "TIME MACHINE" emblazoned on the side.

"I wonder what this is doing here?" wondered Edgeworth. "It looks a bit out of place."

However, then his attention was caught by a wooden crate standing on its side with its boards ripped out and hay spilling out it. He went over and dug around in the hay and found an ancient scroll wrapped around a rolling pin.

The scroll was labeled "ANCIENT PROPHECY" in old timey looking letters.

Intrigued, Edgeworth unfolded it.

The scroll had a picture on it of a city in ruins and engulfed in fire. Little crude demonic figures were depicted dancing among the skulls and bones in the streets. However, bigger than the other demons, and as big as the skyscrapers, was a heavily muscled purple demon looming over the city and against the backdrop of a fiery apocalyptic sky. The demon had long, flowing blonde locks, glasses, and in one claw a golden gavel, and in the other, a book with a skull on it.

"That's... the golden gavel the professor mentioned," he said. He gripped the handles of the scroll tighter. The sharp bones in his hands stood out in sharp relief.

He made a connection in his mind between the files stolen from Gressenheller U, the Golden Gavel and the Lawcycolegalpedia, and finally the ancient prophecy that the chaplain warned of in his journal.

Lockedheart must be searching for these treasures… and he must be the one who stole the files from Professor Layton…

Edgeworth's blood ran cold.

It was clearly Los Angeles being depicted, although an ancient medieval idea of the city and of skyscrapers, since they looked like they were made out of stones and had battlements. He could even see the prosecutor's office.

Could this really happen to LA? Destroyed? By demons? Is this what Lockedheart wants? And that girl... she looks like…

In the corner of the scroll was a girl in blue garb and blue witch's hat holding a wand and seemingly summoning rays of light out of the sky to attack the king demon.

While Edgeworth was contemplating the scroll, someone rushed out of the darkness and kicked hm in the back.

"Ugnnnhgh ooof!"

He went flying into the time machine head first. The door was slammed shut. Edgeworth scrambled up and started pounding his palms against the little glass panel in the door.

A leather-gloved hand pulled the lever and the time machine shook and there was a flash of white light and then Edgeworth was gone!

"Hmph..." said Biscoff Gavin. He smiled and peeled off his gloves. "With Miles Edgeworth in the future, I don't think he'll be bothering us much anymore. So long..." He took out a rocket launcher and blew the time machine to smithereens. "...Mr. Prosecutor Squad."

Edgeworth spun around in the time tunnel and images of grandfather clocks and math equations flashed past him as he rocketed into the future.

There was another blinding white flash and Edgeworth found himself standing on a platform above the clouds. He staggered. He turned and watched futuristic cars whiz by. Futuristic newspapers blew over and rustled against his leg.

He adopted a determined pose and his cravat blew around.

"It seems that to solve the mysteries of the past... first I must solve the mysteries of the future."

Chapter Text

Apollo felt sweat running down his forehead. He was NOT fine.

He was 28 years old. He should have the hang of this whole lawyer thing by now. He should be calm, confident, and in control.

But it was the day of Gumshoe's trial, and Apollo was NOT prepared. He had never wanted to take on this case, had never wanted to bear this responsibility, but Mr. Wright had forced him to. Why?

"I have my reasons," Phoenix had said cryptically.

"You know, you could TELL me your reasons," said Apollo. "For once."

"Heh... now where's the fun in that?" He ruffled his hair. "Now, go get Gumshoe a Not Guilty verdict, kid. He didn't do it." He turned his head and looked vaguely into the corner of the room with a faraway air. "I have some business of my own I need to attend to... Also, have Trucy be your co-counsel. She'll help you out. Trust her. And trust in your client, too. That's our job, you know."

Now here he was, standing in the defendant lobby with Trucy by his side and Gumshoe in front of him.

"I'm innocent, pal!" said Gumshoe. He was in an orange jumpsuit. "You gotta believe me!"

"We do believe you!" said Trucy.

"I'm an upstanding citizen!" said Gumshoe.

"We're well aware!" replied Trucy.

"Okay, good," said Gumshoe. "Just because the guy was killed with my gun and my fingerprints are on the gun and I was at the scene of the crime doesn't mean I killed him."

"Yeah, it doesn't mean you killed him, " said Apollo gloomily. "It just means you're the most likely suspect and the odds are stacked against us."

"Apollo!" huffed Trucy. She put her hands on her hips and put her hips a little to the side. She stuck her lower lip out and regarded him with a reproving look. "That's no way to talk to a client! You need to work on your bedside manner! I mean, courtside manner."

"You need to be more like Phoenix Wright, pal!" said Gumshoe. "That guy always believes in his clients till the bitter end! Even when they're guilty! Besides, if anything, I think there's TOO much evidence. Almost a preponderance of it. It's a bit suspicious if you ask me, pal."

"Well, maybe you're being framed!" suggested Trucy. "It IS suspicious that there's so much evidence! I can't imagine a police detective killing someone and leaving that much behind. Now, if Polly here killed someone, he'd be dropping stuff all over place on the way home from the murder. He wouldn't stand a chance."

"I wouldn't drop stuff," said Apollo, and shattered his jar of mayonnaise on the floor.

Gumshoe yawned and stretched, "Well, I'm tired, pals, so I'm gonna take a quick nap before the trial. Nighty night." He lay down on the floor and started snoring.

Just then Klavier walked into the room doing the robot while beatboxing and spinning around and signing autographs for the guards.

Trucy gasped and covered her heart. Her eyelashes fluttered.

"Prosecutor Gavin?!"

Apollo groaned.

"The one and only, fraulein". He dropped a wink.

"Oh, great..." said Apollo. "Just who I wanted to see. What are you doing in the defendant lobby?"

"I just came to wish you good luck, guys. The stage is yours. Today, I'm just another member of the audience."

"Wait, aren't you prosecuting?" asked Trucy.

Klavier fiddled with his guitar.

"Heh... oh, I wish, I wish. But I don't have that honor today, fraulein. Kevin Lawyer is prosecuting."

"Kevin Lawyer," repeated Apollo. "I've heard of him. He's new isn't he?

Klavier nodded, not looking up from his guitar. "Only eighteen years old and already a big hit in the prosecutor's office. He's on the Prosecutor Squad, too. He's dangerous, so watch your step. He's ambitious. And crushing the legendary Phoenix Wright's apprentice... well, the idea has its appeal for him, ja?"

So... first Mr. Wright was going to defend Gumshoe, but then made Apollo do it. And first Klavier was going to prosecute, and then it was switched to Kevin Lawyer at the last moment. What exactly was going on here?

He remembered pouring over the evidence in the office all night in the dark. And crying. And visiting the crime scene with Trucy earlier. There hadn't seemed to be anything the police overlooked. It looked bad for Gumshoe and the only thing they found out was that there was no connection between Gumshoe and the victim and he had no reason to kill him.

"Of course, that didn't help them much," said Apollo, in the now. "Our clients rarely have an established motive to begin with."

"I know, right?" said Trucy. "Have you ever noticed that the prosecution never has to prove a motive but we have to do it all the time? It's so unfair!"

Apollo looked discouraged so Trucy decided to cheer him up.

"Look! Mommy made us sandwiches to eat at the trial! She even took the crust off yours."

"Great!" said Apollo. "PB and J! I didn't want to eat out of the vending machine today, anyway."

"You know, I haven't seen her much lately," she mused. She looked up at the ceiling with folded arms. "She must be busy. I know she's been painting a lot. And trying to help Machi audition to be the fourth Chipmunk. Gosh, could you imagine?"

"It would be pretty cool," admitted Apollo.

"I wonder when she'll give birth? She's been pregnant for ten months now."

"Well, Mr. Wright said the doctors say that if she's pregnant for longer than a year, they'll try to induce labor. I read that longer pregnancies can happen when the mother is older like Lamiroir."

"Huh. That makes sense, I guess." Her face brightened and she flashed her teeth. "I can't wait to meet my new brother! Or sister! You know, to go along with you."

klavier guitared with his fiddle.

"Vending machines are cool," he said absently. "Anyway, bye. If you need me, fraulein, don't hesitate to call my name. You have a lovely voice. Just like Madam Lamiroir. Also... my brother Biscoff Gavin will be in the gallery today. I invited him."

"Ooh, Biscoff will be here? I like him."

"So I've heard. This is his first American trial. He's never seen the jurist system before, because the courts in Germany aren't as advanced as ours yet. So, Herr Forehead, make sure to put on a good show for my bro, ja? You are representing America. Do our country proud."

"...This isn't the Olympics. The only thing I'm representing is Detective Gumshoe."

"Yeah, and you're orange," said Trucy. "And you have arms like Crash Bandicoot."

"True enough," said Klavier Gavin. "Anyway, I'm leaving now, bye."

He pretended to leave, but he actually hid in the shadows behind a potted plant. He peeked around a big frond and gave a thumbs up at the ceiling to a mysterious figure hiding in the shadows in an air vent. Light from the openings in the grate fell on him in horizontal bars behind the grate. A tacky red tie was just visible. An attorney's badge glinted in the darkness. The figure returned the thumbs up.

Apollo looked down at his sleeping client and sighed. Gumshoe started shitting and pissing himself in his sleep and vomiting and cumming at the same time and the liquids shooting off in various directions made him spin around in the air spraying the walls and guards like an out-of-control bottle rocket. Apollo sighed again.

"Ew," said Trucy.

"Ugh, that's so disgusting," said Apollo. "And I can't help but feel like it's a bad omen."

Trucy tipped her hat and smiled cutely. "Don't worry, Polly, you have me to help you out today. Remember what daddy said?"

"Yeah... he practically insisted on you being my co-counsel today. For some mysterious reason. As per usual."

"Tee hee, it's probably because I'm better at defending than you. Haha, and I'm not even a lawyer! Haha! Jealous?"

Apollo clenched his fists. "Yeah, go ahead, make fun of me like usual. That's just what I need right now."

"C'mon, Polly, don't sell yourself short... just 'cause you're really short."

"Could you not take every opportunity to belittle me, thanks. It's starting to get old."

"Ha... be little... I get it. Because you do be little."

Apollo scowled. She always did this! She always mocked him and teased him for no reason! But part him secretly liked the teasing. Not that he would ever admit that, especially to HER. She distracted him too much sometimes. Like when they were investigating a crime scene with a dead body and looking for clues. And especially when-

No! No! I don't want to think about that! I don't want to think bad thoughts! I don't want to be a Klavier Gavin-type person!

He started punching himself in the side of the head and screaming.

"You good?" she asked.

"I'm fine." He drew himself together and adjusted his tie. "I was just practicing my chords of steel."

She seemed to sense that she had pushed him too far.

"Hey... don't worry. You know I was only teasing you." She tipped her hat. "We're partners in crime, you and I."

A guard came over. "Would you mind getting your client down?" He pointed to the tornado of bodily fluids in the air. "He's making a mess."

"I know how to get him down," said Trucy. "Ohhhhh Detective Gumshoe! Maggey Bryde is here! And she has a big lunch box filled with weenies made with love!"

Gumshoe's eyelids rolled open midair like window shades.

"Huh?"

All the liquids immediately ceased and he fell to the floor. He looked around but didn't see her. He sighed and sat crossed legged on the floor.

"You sure know how to break guy's heart, pal," said Gumshoe. He looked up like a sad old dog look.

"I'm sorry! I'm sure she'd be here if she could! But we had to get you down! The trial's about to begin any minute!"

A voice came over the PA system.

"Paging Mr. Justice... paging Mr. Justice... you have a trial in courtroom number 4... paging Mr. Justice..."

"Oh man, we're late," said Apollo. "Hurry! Let's go!"

The trio ran for the courtroom but Apollo tripped on thin air and landed on his face. His nose smushed against floor and he screwed up his face. Trucy's shadow fell over him.

"Polly, you retard," she smiled. She held out her hand. He looked up and something swirled in his chest and made him catch his breath. Some sort of heavenly light seemed to shine behind her head. The fringes of her hair blew around and danced. She was like an angel without wings or a halo or whites robes. But pearly teeth like the pearly gates. And bright sky-blue eyes that were innocent without innocence, happy without happiness, kind and caring without a hint of the hidden sadness she always carried within her. It was perhaps all the more admirable because it was her choice to be like this, always cheerful and a light in people's lives, always making other people laugh and smile, despite all the hardship and suffering she had gone through. It was a testament to what a strong person she was. She could just have easily had been broken down and withered away like a wilted flower like so many others did. Maybe it was her magician upbringing and the ethos of the stage performer that made her like this. Or maybe it was just who she was.

He found himself thinking about her differently now. He thought he must finally think of her as a sort of sister. It sure is nice to have family, he thought cheerfully!

She helped him up and they entered the courtroom.

Chapter Text

The Judge banged his gavel.

"What the fuck, Your Honor," said Apollo Justice.

"Ewwwww," said Trucy.

"Whoops, sorry, I forgot that I was in a court of law and not the broom closet," said the Judge. Then he used his gavel the proper way; he slammed it with great force into his highchair. "Court is now in session for the trial of Richard Gumshoe."

"The defense is ready, Your Honor," said Apollo.

The prosecution desk was empty.

"That's strange," said the Judge. "I suppose the prosecution must be busy today. Perhaps they died."

"Wow, so if there's no prosecutor, does that mean we automatically win?" asked Trucy.

"Ohohoho, well, why not, young lady? That sounds fair to me. First come, first serve. I find the defendant..."

The gallery waited in hushed anticipation. Silence hung in the air like physical presence.

But then.

Something happened.

C-C-CRASH!

A human-shaped figure on a hang glider shattered the skylight overhead and flew into the courtroom. It was... Kevin Lawyer!

Kevin Lawyer jumped off of the hang glider and landed behind the prostitution desk. He lifted his shades. "Heh heh," he chuckled. "Kept you waiting, huh?"

"Whoa, that was a spectacular entrance," said Trucy. "I like it. Apollo, you should do something like that. Maybe we can shoot you out of a canon?"

"Um, no." Apollo craned his neck up. "Also, since when does the courtroom have a skylight?"

"Since yesterday," replied Kevin Lawyer. "I had it put in just in case I ever needed to crash my hang glider through it. Turns out I did."

"Smart thinking, Mr. Lawyer," said the Judge. "Well, now that we're all here and one big happy family, how about giving us your opening statement?"

"Very well," said Kevin.

The case was, basically, this: that Gumshoe was accused of killing a hospital worker during Alvin's fake mass shooting: a real shooting during a fake one. The ballistics markings matched his gun. His fingerprints were on the murder weapon. Gumshoe been in jail for the almost a month. His trial kept getting delayed because of switches in defense attorneys and prosecutors, and because the Chief Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth had mysteriously disappeared.

"But now," said Kevin Lawyer, smirking, "the world's greatest prosecutor is here to make sure this detective gets the electric chair. I think I'll enjoy having a front row seat to his execution and watching him fry with my feet up. To betray the law you swore to uphold... is the worst crime of all. This case is so simple that I only need to call one witness to win. That witness? The defendant himself."

He called Gumshoe to the stand.

"It's a good thing they don't call this thing the sit, pal," chuckled Gumshoe. "'Cause you don't sit, you stand. D'ya think that's why they call it-"

"WITNESS!" said Kevin. "Name and occupation. NOW!"

"Dick Gumshoe, sir," whimpered Gumshoe. "And I'm a murderer. Allegedly."

Kevin handed him a gun. "Mr. Gumshoe, this is your gun, is it not?"

"Yes."

"I see. And is it true that this gun also fires bullets?"

"Yes."

"So, you could have easily shot the victim with this gun, correct?"

"Yes."

"So, you probably did it, right?"

"No I mean yes."

Kevin Lawyer turned to the jury and grinned wolfishly, like he had just convinced the little pigs to let him in. "As you can see, he's clearly evil. Gentlemen and gentlewomen of the jury, you may guilty him now."

"Objection!" objectioned Apollo. "What about my cross examination, Lawyer?"

"Cross examine my asscheeks, Justice," said Kevin. "Anyway, what's there to cross examine, the part where he said yes? Or maybe the other part where he said yes?" He put his head on one side and peeled his teeth back and narrowed his eyes in a lurid leer. "You must be desperate to extend the trial till you can forge some evidence."

"What the heck are you talking about?" asked Apollo Justice. "Are you seriously accusing me of forging evidence? Seriously?"

"Well, what can I say? Like mentor, like apprentice."

The gallery went "ooooooooooooh" like it was a reality TV show and the DNA test just showed Apollo was the baby daddy, and the baby was forged evidence.

"Whoa!" said Trucy. "Too far! Don't let him bully you, Apollo! Be a man!"

Apollo didn't like this. Kevin Lawyer was tainting the jury's opinion of him already and preemptively shading any objection he raised in a negative light. And he already had the Judge in the palm of his freshly manicured hand.

He didn't like this.

"And stop staring at your assistant's breasts," said Kevin, eyes closed. "It's perverted. And obvious. I don't even have to open my eyes."

"I'm not doing that," said Apollo. His jaw twitched.

"Oh, don't pretend, Justice. My spies saw you clear as day in the defendant lobby. You licked your lips and stared brazenly and said, 'I have to suck those titties by any means breastecessary.' It was sick."

The gallery murmured. Apollo didn't like this. He could feel their eyes all over him like wandering fingers as they subjected him to intense scrutiny. He tried to ignore them and Kevin's lies, but it was hard.

"Well, Mr. Justice?" asked the Judge. "Is there really a problem with the defendant's testimony, or are you just trying to cheat?"

"Well, yes, there's a problem!" said Apollo, regaining his composure. "That wasn't a testimony at all! Kevin Lawyer just asked him a bunch of yes or no questions without leaving me anything to cross examine! But there's a bigger problem. Kevin Lawyer lied! He said Gumshoe only said 'Yes' to his questions. However!" Apollo slammed his desk with his fists. "When Lawyer asked him if he was probably the murderer, he said 'No' before he said 'yes'! Ergo! That means the defendant is not sure he's the killer! He might be innocent! There's still room for reasonable doubt!"

"Objection!" Kevin threw his arm out and the chains on his jacket rattled against the human skulls hanging off them. "But the murder weapon has his fingerprints on them which is perfect proof."

"Objection!" said Apollo. "But you handed the gun to him on the witness stand! So his fingerprints could've gotten on the gun then! Besides, it's his gun! Why wouldn't his fingerprints be on it?"

"Objection! That doesn't matter. You're just stalling for time. He's still the most likely suspect. He was at the scene of the crime and it's his gun and it was found on him when he was arrested. There's no reason to continue this trial. He couldn't be guiltier if he tried. At the end of the day... it's his gun."

Was that really true?

Apollo recalled what Gumshoe had told him in the detention center.

You know, what's funny is that I had my gun on me all day that day, from the moment I woke up. It was right on my nightstand under the window. I even used it to fire a warning shot later in the day during a bank robbery. I had it out in my hands when Alvin was freaking out at the hospital, in fact. When I was arrested I still had in on me. I dunno when someone could have taken it and used it.

"This case isn't over yet!" said Trucy with balled fists. "There's some loose ends that haven't been resolved! Like what the victim's name is."

The Judge closed his eyes. "Hmmm... that's a good point. And I must admit, Mr. Justice's arguments have admitted some doubts into my mind."

Kevin Lawyer said: "Oh, so you want to know the victim's name, do you? Superfluous. But if you insist, I'll call my secret second witness now. But let me warn you... you fell into my trap. I planned to call my secret second witness all along, and now I'm doing it. Heh... kind of an Edgeworth-like thing to do, wasn't it?"

"No," said Apollo. "Because Phoenix Wright is good friends with Miles Edgeworth. He's not good friends with you. You're no Edgeworth."

The Judge called the second witness to the stand.

Meanwhile Phoenix Wright was in the air vent watching the trial with a wild look in his eyes. He threw his head back and took a swig from his flask. He put it back in his jacket and pulled out the love potion. He held the cork between his fingers like it was the pin of a live grenade and he was ready to blow everything to hell.

Chapter Text

Klavier crawled up beside Phoenix in the air vent.

"So who's winning?" asked Klavier, darting his neck around and trying to get a good view through the grate.

Phoenix didn't look at the man whose shoulder was pressed up against his in the darkness. He said: "No one right now. It's too early in the trial. I've seen a million go down. There's still a long ways to go."

Then he turned his head towards Klavier. "Klav, did you put the phosphorus on Apollo's suit and in his male makeup?"

"Ja, of course, Herr Wright. What do you take me for- a retard?"

"Good."

Phoenix turned his attention back to the trial and watched all the little people below him moving around like a dollhouse come to life. He spotted Kristoph sitting in the gallery across from the defense bench. He sat in a high-backed chair, with a complacent smile on his face, his arms folded. He was sitting under a four-poster canopy made out of a fabric with a lot frills, sort of like a giant doily, and had reserved all the seats 100 feet in every direction so he could sit by himself. He twirled his moustache idly as a bailiff fanned him with a giant leaf. He had his eyes on Trucy.

"What a fruit bowl," said Phoenix. "Who does he think he is, the pope?"

"If he does, he certainly hasn't been acting in a popely manner," said Klavier. "Not cool. And wait... that little box in his lap... that's not what I think it is, is it?"

Phoenix nodded. "It's the ring he bought her. He's planning on proposing after the trial."

"But... she would never go along with that, surely?" asked Klavier. "They've only known each other for all of three months. Well, I should say, she's only known the imposter with the moustache for three months."

"Maybe not right now," said Phoenix. "But maybe someday. She likes him. Thalassa likes him. He buys her gifts and goes to all her shows and showers her with attention and always takes her side in everything and keeps her away from her boyfriend. She's fallen under his influence and she might fall in love next. He's supposed to be a rich, talented opera singer. One of Germany's most famous. Most people would think it'd be a great match. But they don't know the monster behind the moustache. He'll never stop. He'll keep at it for years to get what he wants."

"That's my big bro, all right," said Klavier, shaking his head.

"I'm not gonna wait years with him lording over me and holding that damn bomb over my head. That's why we have to make sure she falls in love with someone else and will be immune to Kristoph's charms. And not with Machi." He shook his head. "That runt isn't worthy of my girl. Kristoph would walk all over him. She needs someone who will protect her and be loyal and strong, and who'll love her as much naturally as the love potion will make her love him."

"I'm glad you've come along to the love potion plan, Herr Wright," said Klavier. "Not to strum my own guitar... but I think it's one of the best plans ever laid by a mouse, or a man."

"It's a good plan. Thanks for all your help, Klav."

"No problem, Herr Wright. I have to say... it's been an honor working with you thus far. Perhaps once this is all over and Kristoph is back in jail and Trucy has surgery to get that bomb out I can treat your family to a Gavinners concert. I'm thinking... the Mein Brother Kristoph Ist Dead tour. "

Phoenix flashed a smile. "Hell, make that double header with the Chipmunks and I'll be there, maybe even sober."

They grinned at each other.

They got back to business.

"So, did you make sure Kristoph will be sending the refreshments?" asked Phoenix.

"Of course," said Kristoph. "It was as easy as giving candy to a baby."

Earlier, in the courthouse's lounge reserved for prosecutors and their guests, Klavier and Biscoff were sitting in the marble hot tub sunken into the floor with only their bare torsos showing over the bubbly water. Biscoff took a sip from a wine glass with a long delicate stem like a flower.

"I have to say, Klavier, I must thank you for inviting me to attend the trial today. I think it'll be interesting."

"No problem, bro. I thought you'd like to see our middle brother's apprentice of sorts at work."

The corner of Biscoff's smile twitched.

"But isn't he Phoenix Wright's apprentice? Not dear Kristoph's?"

"I mean, kind of? But he worked for our bro first. He taught him everything he knew. How to look at the court record, how to answer the Judge's questions about who the victim is, how to say hold it while cross-examining. And he personally descended on the orphanage like a hawk and picked him out of all the little boys and girls there and whisked him away into the wonderful world of practicing law. And the rest... is history, as they say."

Kristoph smiled when he remembered that. Yes, that was his good deed, taking in an underprivileged youth to be his apprentice. And Justice had been the perfect candidate. Not to be trite, but it was in the name. He remembered Apollo standing out from the crowd of depressed, sunken eyed little orphans that had crowded around his legs when he arrived in the foyer of the orphanage. He had had a cardboard badge and already knew a great deal about law from his own independent studies. Then he remembered the homemade Phoenix Wright poster the boy had shown him above his bed and frowned.

Biscoff said: "I'm sure our brother left a lasting mark on that fine young man. Perhaps our brother lives on through him in a way."

"And," added Klavier with a sly look, "I'm sure you wanted to see Trucy be his co-counsel."

"...I must admit that was the stronger inducement."

Klavier: "You know, Biscoff, you should send her a meal. In case she gets hungry or thirsty during the trial, ja? I'm sure she'd appreciate that, and think, wow, what a great guy."

"Why... great idea. Refreshments in court seems a little gauche, but, ah, anything she does immediately acquires the air of elegance. I'll follow your advice."

"You said it, bro. She's foxy little mama, eh?"

Kristoph frowned in remonstrance. "Klavier."

He tried to stand up in the hot tub, but he was stuck.

"Oh dear..." said Biscoff. "It appears our foreskins have become intertwined."

"Whoops, my bad, bro," said Klavier.

Kristoph held up his drink and peered into the water.

"Somewhat like a Chinese finger trap, it seems." Klavier's garbage bag-like foreskin had completely engulfed his own.

Klavier jammed his hands into the water and started tugging and splashed his brother. "Ugnh! Ungh!"

"Klavier, what-" began Kristoph, angry.

Klavier tugged harder, with both arms. "Okay, this isn't working. Bear with me, this is going to get worse before it goes better. I'm going in." He put on goggles and a snorkel.

"Klavier, we need to talk about this penis transplant. Why did you feel the need to do this to yourself? Aren't you taking advantage of Miss Hawthorne's position? Did you even consult her? The power imbalance at work here feels astronomical."

"I'll sort this out."

He dived into the depths of the hot tub. The water level rose and the water sloshed over the edge of the tub and spread across the white and black tiles, giving the floor a luster shiny under the brilliant lights that left no shadow. Water splashed and hit Kristoph the in face. He screwed up one eye, water dripped down his glasses, his face twitched.

Said with exasperation to the rippling water: "You can't just keep snorkeling away from your problems forever, Klavier."

He (Kristoph, not Biscoff) had been meaning to talk some sense into that boy for years. But the years had gotten away from them and then there was the rift caused by the forgery in Klavier's trial against Wright, and then him going to prison, and then his, Kristoph's, "death."

klavier popped his head out of the water with his black hair plastered to his head and as straight as curtains. Pearls of water clung to Iris's tight taut breasts like fresh drops of morning dew.

"It's good thing we don't do incest, Biscoff, because I'm inhabiting a woman's body now so even if it was gay incest I would get pregnant. I would get so mondo pregnant and it would be, like, the opposite of good, don't you think? Imagine me rocking out on stage with a huge baby bump. It just wouldn't work with the Gavinners' image."

"Of course we would never do incest. Incest is evil. What puts such strange thoughts into your mind?"

He flipped the snorkel and goggle combo back on and dived back down to work on untangling their foreskins.

Kristoph was troubled by what he perceived as a shift in his brother's tone towards him of late. Little comments that seemed out of character and designed to raise his ire. But these wiles of his brother would take too long to explain, so, he dismissed them.

Now, Phoenix put his face up to the vent with his fingers gripping the grill and breathed through his mouth as his masterplan unfolded.

A butler holding a big silver platter approached the defense bench. Apollo had his nose in a children's book while they waited for the secret second witness. Trucy was looking at her phone, likewise bored.

"It would be sad if people were looking for Waldo just to rape him," worried Apollo. He hadn't found him yet after 28 years of trying and didn't plan to today. He looked up. "Oh, hey, look, it's a butler. Neato!"

"For you, Madam," said the butler. There were sandwiches and a glass of tea on the platter.

"For me?" said Trucy. "Um, I don't think I should accept drinks from a strange butler."

"I was also instructed to give you this."

He handed her a folded origami swan. She unfolded it, and it was a note from Biscoff.

Miss Wright, I hope this note finds you well. I thought you might be famished and parched from the trial, since Master Apollo always puts so much work on your shoulders, so I decided to send some refreshments along. Forever yours, Biscoff Gavin.

She looked up and he waved from the gallery.

"Well, if it's from Biscoff Gavin, then sure!" she said.

The butler set the platter down and she helped herself to a sandwich. Before she could pick up her drink, however, Phoenix Wright stuck a giant silly straw coated in invisible ink out of the of the air vent and sucked up all of the iced tea. Then, carefully, he poured the contents of the love potion down the silly straw and the magical liquid rushed down and looped-de-looped into her glass. He carefully pulled the straw back in before anyone, especially Biscoff Gavin, could notice.

Trucy and Apollo ate the sandwiches as the butler walked backwards and disappeared into a dark corner unobtrusively.

"Wow, these are really good," said Trucy, around a mouthful of food.

"Biscoff sure is a nice guy," said Apollo.

"Yeah! Of course he is. He's one of daddy's best friends, after all!"

She dusted the crumbs off her gloves and onto the platter and reached for the glass. Phoenix's fingers twitched.

"Wait for it..." he whispered tersely in the air vent, raising a hand over his shoulder. He kept his body as rigid as metalwork.

She upturned the glass and gulped it all down; she was thirsty. When the last drop clinging to the bottom of the glass shook and fell into her mouth, Phoenix swung his hand down.

"Now!"

Klavier plugged a toaster and a blender into the outlet at the time in the ventilation system.

The lights flickered.

Crack!

The courtroom was plunged into darkness. No light was admitted from the shattered skylight, because it had been mysteriously boarded up. There were scattered cries in the gallery and people rose to their feet.

"Everyone remain calm!" ordered the Judge, from somewhere. "C-Could this be... the dark age of the law?"

Trucy couldn't see anything, except for the pulsating sickly green glow to her left. She turned and saw Apollo's face and his stupid vest illuminated in the darkness. She gasped and her mouth fell open. She put her hand over heart. A strange warm feeling seemed to manifest somewhere in her center and spread out across her body, traveling down her arms and to her fingertips, everywhere, leaving her changed.

Then the lights came back on. People sighed in relief and the bailiffs made sure the prisoner hadn't escaped.

"That was weird!" said Apollo. "Are you okay?"

"Y-Yeah... weird," said Trucy. She stared at him. "And I'm f-fine."

"Oh good," said the Judge. "The power is back on. And God said, let there be lightbulbs. And we thank him for that. Let's get back to the trial."

Chapter Text

"I apologize for the delay, Your Most Honorable," said Kevin Lawyer. "Apparently, the witness got lost in the dark. Anyone else think the defense was responsible for that? Anyway... behold! My secret second witness!"

Detective Ema Skye took the stand.

The Judge's eyes went wide in shock.

"Oh my... what's going on here? Are you spirit channeling Miss Fey?"

Her breasts and asscheeks were way bigger than usual. Her clothes were in tatters and coming apart at the seams from trying to contain her assets, and contain them they didn't, because you could see almost all of her breasts through the ripped remnants of her clothes under her labcoat. A thin strip of fabric was all that covered her nipples, and even then most of her big brown areolas were visible.

"Ha ha. Very funny," she snapped. "You're only the fifth person to make that joke today."

"Well, what happened?" asked the Judge.

"The glimmerous fop is what happened. He used the ridiculous amounts of money he has to buy the Snackoos factory and halted production until I got several breast and ass enhancement surgeries. What was a girl to do?"

"Why… why..." began the Judge. "But that's inappropriate workplace behavior!"

"You're telling me." She munched on Snackoos as everyone stared, but she seemed unbothered. "And he made me wear this, too." She indicated her ripped raiment with a sweep of her hand.

"That seems so unlike Klavier Gavin," said Apollo. "Why would he do something like that?"

"Poor Ema," said Trucy sadly. "I don't think I like Klavier much anymore right now."

"He's changed," nodded Apollo.

"Everything's seemed to have changed lately," said Trucy, pressing the tip of her finger against the soft cushion of her lips. "Society, you know? People just seem so mean and nasty now. And all that crime. Maybe you just notice this stuff more when you grow up."

And nothing, thought Apollo, leaning over his desk on his fists, glaring, was more emblematic of that change than the new prosecutor across from him with a huge undeserved ego who wore the human skulls from the defendants he prosecuted to the death on his body, and who made personal attacks and lied and didn't even pretend to play fair.

The only thing that seemed to be holding it all together was the venerable old judge and the folk wisdom of the honest jurists. Thank goodness for the Jurist System, thought Apollo.

The Judge bowed his head. Then he looked up and tilted his chin at the ceiling.

"Hmmm… oh well, the show must go on! A certain young magician taught me that."

"That's me!"

Kevin Lawyer yawned. He looked bored with a glazed film over his eyes. He didn't look at Ema, just at some interesting scratches on his desk, which he traced with his fingernail.

"Well, secret second witness, you might as well tell us your name and occupation. Lord knows I don't care, but, proper procedure and all that rot. I'm sure the loser in the vest over there will insist upon it. Ha! Pointless."

"Detective Ema Skye," she said. "I'm the detective assigned to this case."

"Witness, testify about the day of the murder!" ordered Kevin Lawyer. "And tell us about the victim, too."

She began her testimony. She presented a map of the hospital with the locations of the police officers, Gumshoe, the dead body, and Alvin the Chipmunk represented as colored circles. Alvin's was unique because it was red with a big white A.

"Ohohoho, is that meant to be Alvin?" asked the Judge. "How charming. I love the Chipmunks."

"I think everybody does!" said Trucy. "I sure do. They're awesome!"

"Anyway," said Ema. "The police were called to the hospital that day because of a mass shooting scare. As you can see from this map, the fake mass shooting occurred in this hallway. Gumshoe was... here.

"It was pretty hectic, and one of the officers got excited and fired a shot, but thankfully it missed Alvin. Thank goodness. It just punched a hole into the wall of the pregnancy records room at the end of the hallway, where no one was working at the time.

"Once they found out Alvin wasn't really committing a mass shooting, just being cute, everyone dispersed out of the hallway. About twenty minutes later, some orderlies found the victim, a hospital employee named Drake Estevas, crawling through the hallway leaving a trail of blood. He had been shot through the chest.

"The victim died about five minutes later.

"The ballistics markings on the bullet matched Gumshoe's gun. It was definitely the weapon that killed him. Gumshoe was immediately arrested."

The gallery made some noise and shook their heads back and forth.

Kevin Lawyer slammed his desk.

"What happened is obvious. Gumshoe snuck away after the fake shooting and shot that poor, poor man when no one was looking. Then he went outside and pretended to comfort Alvin, the hypocrite. Our boys in blue pushed his shit in, however. As for why he did it, I have a few theories. One, he's evil, two, he thought it would be fun, three, he's sexist and doesn't think men should be allowed to be nurses, only pigheaded detectives, and four, he's stupid and probably secretly gay. I believe that accounts for everything. Means, motive, opportunity, and defective sexuality. All leading us to one conclusive conclusion- he did it. Members of the jury, you may guilty him now."

Apollo knew there was something wrong with Ema's testimony, but he couldn't concentrate because he was distracted by Ema's huge almost breasts and gigantic ass. All the blood that would normally be flowing to his brain was flowing to his penis. He was red in the face.

Trucy got annoyed and also slightly jealous so she started holding his hand under the desk.

"N-No! What are you doing?" he whispered out of the side of his mouth. "S-Stop!" He darted his eyes around, afraid and deathly nervous someone would notice. So many thoughts flashed through his mind. Being disbarred, being arrested for public indecency, Mr. Wright finding out and killing him. But no one seemed to notice.

He felt really guilty and anxious but then he remembered his client and he decided to just relax and focus on saving Gumshoe. Also, he had to admit this was comforting and made it easier to clear his mind and focus on the testimony.

"Objection!" he said. "Detective Skye, you said that Detective Gumshoe was immediately arrested, right after the victim died. But if he were arrested immediately, there wouldn't have been time to check the ballistics markings! So tell me... how could he immediately been arrested without any evidence?!"

She just smiled. "Ah, you're right, scientifically speaking. They weren't checked later till after he was taken into custody. So you caught that. When Gumshoe was arrested, Kevin Lawyer was just bluffing at that point when he told him the ballistics matched."

"So you're telling me my client was arrested based on a bluff?!"

"I didn't quite say that. They arrested Gumshoe because there was an eyewitness at the scene of the crime who said he did it."

"An eyewitness? Why haven't we heard from them yet?"

"Well, there's the problem. You can't."

"Why not?"

"Because they're dead. The eyewitness... was the victim."

The gallery tittered and the Judge quieted them down with a few well-delivered gavel swings.

Ema continued: "As you know, the victim didn't die right away. And they heard him say a name. Very clearly. Several times."

She ate Snackoos from her bag of Snackoos.

"Gumshoe."

"GRAAAAHHHH!" Apollo recoiled.

Trucy looked at him with fierce eyes.

"Apollo! If that's true, then the trial is over!"

"You're right..." he murmured. "But I don't think we can beat testimony like that."

"Well, maybe the victim didn't mean 'Detective Gumshoe!' Maybe he meant... something else! If Gumshoe is innocent, that has to be it!"

Apollo thought hard. Something else? But what else?

"So with his dying breath the victim denounced his killer," mused the Judge. "Rarely have I seen such an open and shut case. Really, I see little need to continue at this point."

"Hold it!" shouted Apollo. "Ema, what EXACTLY did the victim say?"

"Just the name 'Gumshoe.'"

Gumshoe...

Gum... shoe...

Wait a minute...!

"Objection!" cried Apollo. "What if the victim wasn't saying the name 'Gumshoe,' but was instead talking about GUM ON THE BOTTOM OF A SHOE?"

"What?" said Kevin Lawyer above the chatter of the excited gallery. Kristoph raised an eyebrow, piqued. "That's ridiculous! Now you're really stretching! Stretching like a taffy machine!"

Apollo shook his head.

"No, sorry, Kevin, but it's not a stretch at all. It's an entirely reasonable supposition. TAKE THAT!"

He presented Gumshoe's profile.

"As you can see, the defendant's name isn't just Gumshoe, it's DICK Gumshoe! If the victim was talking about my client and not gum on a shoe, he would have included the Dick! But he didn't." He pointed his objection finger. "He just talked about gum!"

"Objection!" said Kevin Lawyer. "The man was dying! He probably didn't have time to say Dick, just Gumshoe!"

"Objection!" parried Apollo. It was like a rapid fencing match of objections now. "But Detective Skye says he said Gumshoe SEVERAL times! If he wanted to say Gumshoe killed him, he would've said his full name, or at least his title! But he didn't! He was talking about gum on a shoe!"

"All right, let's say that bullshit is true," said Kevin. "So what? It's meaningless in that case. What does gum or a shoe have to do with anything?"

"It's not meaningless!" said Apollo. "It's the key to this whole case! Your Honor, the defense requests that the body of Drake Estevas be exhumed, and the bottom of his shoes examined! We believe there is gum on the bottom of one of his shoes and that it's an important clue!"

"Objection!" said Kevin. "Your Honor! This is insane! An outrage! An insult to the world's greatest prosecutor!"

"Hmmm..." pondered the Judge. "Mr. Justice, are you sure this hypothetical piece of gum is really so important?"

"Of course it is, Your Honor! The victim directed us to it with dying breath! It's our duty to examine it before the jury delivers their verdict!"

"Very well," said the Judge. A sharp rapt of the gavel. "I will call a short recess while the grave of Drake Estevas is disinterred."

But here Kevin Lawyer interjected.

"No need, Your Honor." He took out his cell phone. "Fifteen seconds. That's all I'll need. We don't need to give the foraging forgster here an opportunity to 'find' new evidence up his butt in the defendant lobby."

The courtroom seemed to hold its breath as Kevin made the call and the heart-pounding fifteen seconds ticked by.

"I wonder what the true importance of this gum could be?" wondered the Judge.

"Beats the HELL out of me, Your Honor," said the bailiff.

"Bailiff! Watch your language. This is a court of law!"

"Sorry, Your Honor, I'm a little on edge today. My son is still suing me and my wife for ownership of the house. He also waited for me outside the bottle redemption center with a tire iron and beat me up, I could have died."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Bailey Liff."

"The terrible twos are a tough age," said the bailiff.

"Hopefully once he starts kindergarten they'll straighten him up a bit. Why, in my day-"

"The sun grows higher in the sky," broke in Kevin lawyer.

"Hmmm?" said the Judge. His gaze followed Kevin's finger to the boarded-up skylight, where a ray shone through a hole in the planks. "So it is. I didn't even notice that. My, it's late in the day. The time got away from me. Good noticing, prosecution. Here, have a reverse penalty."

"That's not fair!" said Trucy.

"Heh…" said Kevin. "All's fair in love and law. Which is an anagram for war. Now, let's get on with it. The fated fifteenth second has arrived."

A police officer with a dirty shovel over his shoulder dropped a piece of chewing gum on the witness stand.

"Aha!" said Apollo triumphantly. "So there WAS gum under his shoe!"

"Case closed, then?" sneered Kevin Lawyer. "I don't think so. This changes nothing."

Ema flipped her goggles down. "I'll be the judge of that... with forensic science."

She used a magnifying glass and some kind of power to examine the gum.

"Well?" asked the Judge.

"Is it a clue?!" shouted Apollo.

"Stop yelling at me, Apollo. This is what I found. One side of the gum has shoe treads on it. Scientific analysis concludes... that the shoeprint on the gum matches the shoe of the victim. Probably because it was on the bottom of his shoe. The other side... has a number etched into it. Probably etched with a toothpick. It looks like a badge number."

"Let me see that!" shouted Kevin. He yanked it away. "Grah... it is. I'm not sure which officer it belongs to, but it's unmistakable. Science Bitch is right."

"Science Bitch!?" fumed Ema.

Apollo slammed his desk.

"The victim wrote a badge number in the gum before he died! And hid it under his shoe so the killer wouldn't take it! Your Honor... this badge number is an extremely important clue! It might point to the real killer!"

Trucy high-fived him and she gave him a thumbs up.

Kevin Lawyer made another call. It belonged to a police officer named Michael Mercer. Who, it so happened, had been on the scene of Alvin's fake mass shooting, had fired over Alvin's head, and had driven Gumshoe to the detention center after arresting him.

"Mercer is in the courthouse now, Your Honor," said Kevin Lawyer, "so we can have him summoned to the witness stand immediately to testify about this piece of gum. But let's not forget that the murder weapon was not a piece of gum, but a gun, and more importantly, Gumshoe's gun. All right? Clear? Gumshoe did it. Let's have the testimony so we can wrap this up."

Ema was dismissed and Michael Mercer was called to the stand. They waited.

"All right, this is it," said Apollo under his breath. "The real killer. I wonder what kind of man he is?"

"Sniff... not a great guy, pal..."

Apollo jumped in his shoes and Trucy gagged.

"D-D-Detective Gumshoe!" sputtered Apollo.

Gumshoe was sitting under the desk sadly with his knees bundled up and his arms wrapped around them. He was too caught up in his own sadness to notice the handholding.

"Hiya, pal," he said softly.

"Uh, ahem, what are you doing down there, Detective Gumshoe?" asked Apollo. He shot another glance at Trucy, who was still holding his hand with gusto. She flexed her fingers and explored his palm with her fingertips.

"I'm just kinda in the dumps because Michael is the guy she left me for. You know... Maggey. They're... they're gonna get married soon." He gulped and his face trembled.

"I'm really sorry for you," said Apollo. "Really, really sorry. That's really sad. But do you mind... leaving? We're, uh, kinda busy."

"Sure, pal, I know when I'm not wanted. Which is always."

He got up and shuffled over the defendant's box. Then Michael Mercer took his place at the witness stand. He was a big man in a big uniform, clean-shaven, with wide shoulders like a circus strongman. His face was pudgy and he could be in his thirties or his forties. He shifted his weight to one foot and raised a shoulder and sneered.

"Witness, please state your name and occupation," said the Judge.

"Michael Mercer. I'm a police officer."

"I hate to do this to you, Michael," said Kevin Lawyer, eyes closed, "really I do, but there's a small matter about a piece of gum that we need you to testify on."

The man's sneer somehow got even slimier. "A piece of gum? That is pretty small. You kidding me?"

"Unfortunately, no," said Kevin Lawyer. "The idiot over there has a theory." He explained what they had found out about the gum.

"Witness, do you have any explanation for why your badge number was etched on the gum?" asked the Judge.

"Shoot, Your Honor, I don't," said Mercer. He rubbed his badge. "But I figure it could be some kind of frame-up. Yeah, planted by Gumshoe 'cause he knew I was at the hospital, too."

"Objection!" said Apollo. "The victim specifically called our attention to the gum with his dying breath! He must have written the number himself. Besides, I'm sure if it were analyzed more closely, we would find that it was his handwriting!"

Michael stared Apollo down until the man's hair drooped. The officer was intimidating.

"Oh yeah? Is that your theory? Boy, they let anyone be a lawyer these days, huh? What are you, kid, twelve?"

"I ask the witness to take a more respectful tone in my courtroom," admonished the Judge.

"Sorry, Your Honor."

"Well, since you're here, you might as well testify," said Kevin. "Again, I apologize. I won't keep you long. I know you want to be with your fiancee. Testify about the gum, why don't you, and what happened that day."

"Sure."

Chapter Text

Michael Mercer began his testimony.

"Drake? I never knew him. He's just a body to me.

"The gum means nothing. The victim could've stepped in it weeks ago.

"I couldn't have shot him that day. I was never out of sight of anyone else the whole time. Right after the Alvin thing I went outside. I have an entire squad of boys who could back me up, if it came to that.

"So... it doesn't matter what the victim wrote on the gum, if he even did that himself. It's impossible that I could've done it, whatever the cheap shyster over there says."

Kevin Lawyer laughed and threw pieces of paper at Apollo and Trucy.

"And so your pathetically stacked house of cards comes crumbling down. Ha!"

The bad guy was about to get away with it all.

"It's useless..." said Apollo. "The gum wasn't enough."

"Don't give up!" said Trucy.

"It's useless, give it up..."

She looked up at him with blazing eyes.

"A lawyer is someone who never stops smiling to the bitter end. And a co-counsel is someone who never lets her lawyer down."

She held his hand even harder than before, and they used their perception powers together, combining, becoming one. Apollo felt like he was coming home, like she was his other half separated. It was like a key fitting into a lock and opening a door, or a puzzle piece finding its match in a jigsaw. New emotions swelled in him he never felt before. He looked into her eyes and saw that everything he felt she was feeling, too, and more. It couldn't be put into words. Words would be too cheap a medium for these higher, finer feelings. She twisted his purity ring from the dollar store off his finger and it thunked on the floor and rolled under the desk.

Phoenix watched his master plan unfold. It was a subtle plan. Every action planned; every individual step painted on the map. The potion being administered, the romance, all in the open where Kristoph wouldn't suspect a thing. Like Klavier pinning Apollo against the bathroom stall earlier while Kristoph was in there shitting and forcing himself on him to make Apollo doubt his non-gayness so he wouldn't refuse the handholding later on to PROVE he was straight.

A plan of intricate subterfuge and Rube Goldberg machinations worthy of Kristoph Gavin himself. If only he could have worked in a giant mouse trap somehow, he chuckled internally.

But still, in the back of his mind, he felt like there was something wrong ... Like he was forgetting something... Something important. A nagging, niggling feeling he couldn't shake.

Biscoff still watched the trial, none the wiser. He waved to her from the gallery, she waved back, with the hand that wasn't occupied under the desk. He settled into his seat, making himself comfortable, with a tilted smile that was just a thing on his face.

Thoughts of a similar bent occurred to Apollo. Everything in the open, no one seeing, wait, he thought, maybe that's how this impossible crime was done, in the open, in front of everyone!

Apollo and Trucy used their perception powers to see his hidden guilty tick and objected at the same time.

"GOTCHA!"

"Witness!" shouted Apollo. "When you said you couldn't shoot him, your nose twitched."

"What about it?" asked Mercer.

"Yeah, fucking so?" asked Kevin.

"Think back, everyone!" said Trucy. "He said he couldn't have shot the victim... but he DID fire a shot that day! Everyone saw him."

"Oh, shut up, little girl," yawned Kevin. "It was a shot fired in the heat of the moment. Understandable mistake. It just made a hole in the wall."

Apollo slammed his desk with his free hand.

"But behind that wall was a room! The victim could've been hiding in there! There was a mass shooting going on, after all. And let's not forget that he was found crawling in the hallway connected to that room!"

Apollo threw out his arm and extended his objection finger.

"You could've shot him then and there!"

That got a rise out of the gallery. Michael Mercer glanced around with his teeth bared. He took his hat off and ran the back of his hand across his forehead, which was shiny with sweat and caught the glare from the lights.

Kevin Lawyer said: "Your Honor! That retard is slandering an officer of the law! Hit him with your gavel!"

"Hmmm... no, Mr. Lawyer, today, at least, I believe I won't," said the Judge. "The defense raises an interesting possibility."

"An impossibility!" said Kevin. "It contradicts the evidence! The murder weapon was Gumshoe's gun, not Mercer's!"

Apollo ignored Kevin and focused on Michael.

"You could've switched the guns!" said Apollo. "How are we so sure that Gumshoe HAD his gun that day? Both Mercer and Gumshoe carry the same, standard-issue model of gun. What if Michael Mercer had Gumsoe's gun at the time of the murder?"

"Objection!" said Kevin. "But both of them had their guns out at the time you say Michael could have shot the victim!"

"Right," said Apollo. "That's why the killer must have switched them... before the murder!"

"Ooh, I know!" said Trucy. "Gumshoe slept with his gun by an open window. What was stopping Michael from reaching in and switching his gun with Gumshoe's? Nothing, I say!"

The Judge's eyes fluttered.

"He kept it by an open window? Why... how negligent!"

Michael Mercer gripped the sides of the witness stand hard and leaned his bulk over it and glared. "Rotten... lying... bastard..." He clenched his jaw hard.

Kevin raised an objection. Biscoff watched all of this, very amused.

"Don't be taken in by this red devil, Your Honor! Let's not forget Gumshoe had his own gun on him at the time of his arrest!"

"Did he?" asked Apollo. "Again... the guns are identical! And WHEN was the gun examined and determined to be the murder weapon? After he was arrested, of course. And who arrested him?"

He pointed.

"Michael Mercer!"

Trucy said: "There's a possibility there! What if... there was a second switch?"

Apollo nodded.

"Just what I was thinking, Trucy. When Michael Mercer took 'Gumshoe's' gun away from him when he was arrested, which was actually his own, he simply put it back in his holster and filed the gun HE was carrying, the real murder weapon, into evidence!"

Silence for a moment. Everyone was tense. You could have heard a toothpick drop. Then Michael spoke up.

"You tell a nice story, kiddies. It wouldn't make a bestseller, but it's something. But do you have any proof at all? Because all I've heard so far is a lot of assumptions. Do you have any proof that Gumshoe was carrying my gun that day? I don't think you do."

This was it.

It was time to nail this guy.

"Gumshoe fired a warning shot at a bank heist earlier that day!" said Apollo.

"If we find that bullet..." began Trucy.

"...And examine the ballistics markings..." continued Apollo.

"Then that's proof he was carrying Mr. Mercer's gun!"

They held hands tighter under the desk, squeezing like it was their only lifeline, and pointed at Michael in unison, and shouted in one voice, as one person.

"Michael Mercer... the killer was you!"

They made their powerful dual objection and Michael threw his head back and screamed. His bulging veins stood out in thick relief on his neck, and the voices of the gallery merged together and swelled in an overpowering sound like the crashing of waves against a cliffside. Trucy and Apollo leaned on each other, panting, exhausted, spent. The truth had been found at last.

Once the Judge quieted things down and restored order, the remainder of the case was almost perfunctory. Kevin Lawyer sobbed over his lost case and refused to speak. Michael Mercer said there was no need to examine the bullet; he did it. He admitted everything.

"But why?" asked the Judge. "Why did you kill Drake? And why did you steal Gumshoe's gun?"

"Because I already knew before we got the call about the Alvin shooting that I was probably going to kill Drake that day. We had an arrangement to meet up there, at the hospital. He was blackmailing me because he knew that I wasn't the biological father of Maggey's baby... and he threatened to tell my wife... future wife." He corrected himself, and then corrected himself again. "But not anymore. Because it's over."

"But wouldn't Ms. Byrde already know that you weren't the father?" asked the Judge.

"Maggey was dating a few guys at a time, I was one of them. I tricked her into thinking that she's pregnant with my kid. It was a plum deal. She just inherited a lot of money from her grandparents. I would be living life on easy street! So I tricked her into thinking it was my kid. She'd never have married me otherwise. She's that kind of girl. Very traditional."

He scowled.

"But that damn nurse figured it out when he checked the pre-natal DNA tests on the baby. The results showed that I wasn't the father at all! He was going to ruin everything! So when I saw him duck his head out of the pregnancy records room when the shooting started... I thought a lot in that moment. That he was going to expose me no matter what I did. And that instead of playing with a blackmailer, I could shoot him right then, in front of everyone, in the middle of all the chaos of Alvin's fake shooting, and no one would be none the wiser. Of course I couldn't be sure I would hit him... but I hoped. At first I just planned to ditch the gun, but then I got lucky again and got to switch it out when I brought Gumshoe to the detention center."

He continued: "After the coast was clear I drove back to the hospital and went to the room to try and find Maggey's file. But the damn place had been ransacked. The files were all over the floor. I couldn't find it so I was going to beat it fast. But before I did, a guy in a blue suit jumped out of the shadows and slugged me and ran out of the room. I don't know who he was, but there you go, that's what happened."

Huh, a blue suit, thought Apollo. Who could that be?

"But why did you decide to frame Detective Gumshoe?" asked the Judge.

"I did it because I hate him! I've always hated him! That's why I stole the gun! So I could blame it all on you, you son of a bitch!" He pulled at his loose collar and his chest heaved as he glared at Gumshoe. "You think you're better than me? Do you? Think you're all high and mighty?"

"Well, not really, pal," said Gumshoe.

"Oh, that false modesty we all know and love! Go ahead, call me pal why don't you! It's so goddamn endearing!"

"Pal, I don't know what the heck you're talking about, pal!"

"I still don't understand. WHY do you hate him so much?" asked Trucy.

"It's because..." He glared hatefully. "She's pregnant with HIS kid!"

"She's pregnant? I thought she was just fat!" said Gumshoe. "It's okay, I'm kinda into- wait... I'M A FATHER?"

There was a pause.

"Well?" Michael Mercer raised his wrists and shook them a little. "Put the cuffs on me, already."

They did. He was taken away.

In the defendant lobby, Maggey ran into Gumshoe's arms.

"Can you forgive me?" she asked with tears in her eyes.

He laughed at that, not quite steadily. "If could think of anything you needed to be forgiven for, sure."

"So you still love me even though...? We said we'd love each other forever, but I... Michael..."

He shut her up with a kiss.

"Baby," he growled, "true love doesn't care about that! It beats out everything else. Don't even think about it!"

The Judge, Phoenix, Klavier, Biscoff, all the jurors, and everyone else cheered as he lifted her in the air by her waist and spun her around.

In the back of the crowd, Trucy held Apollo's hand.

"That went too fast back there... I don't know what came over me. Let's start from the beginning. Hi..."

"Hello..."

Chapter Text

Apollo and Trucy fell in love and went on dates. One day they were sitting at a table outside of a restaurant and having lunch. Suddenly Apollo opened a box with a ring inside.

"Trucy, will you marry me?" he asked.

"OK, Polly," Trucy replied. Then they kissed.

Meanwhile Ema Skye was holding a bundle of roses and making an ugly angry red crying face with tears running down her deep wrinkles. "No! Apollo should be with me!" she said in post-menopausal rage. "21 and 28 is creepy! It's predatory!"

Apollo Justice lol'd. "Sounds like you're just a hater and you're jealous 'cause no one wants your wrinkly old ass," he said.

Gumshoe came out of the crowd and handcuffed Ema. "Don't mind me, pal, I'm just taking out the trash." Everyone cheered as he arrested Ema and put her in jail for disorderly conduct and being a hater.

Phoenix Wright clapped Apollo on the back. "Congratulations, Apollo," he said. "I know you'll be a great husband for Trucy. Besides, I've always wanted grandchildren. With your sperm and her eggs you're sure to make a child that's a really good lawyer and also a really good magician."

"Probably," said Apollo.

Paul Stanley watched a young couple walking by in the background.

"...and that's why Music From the Elder isn't actually that bad."

"You have such good opinions on KISS albums. Fuck me."

The man groaned. "Again?"

Paul turned his head and winked.

"Hmph. You know, Starchild, I think good things are coming for those two," hmph'd Gene Simmons. He meant Trucy and Apollo.

"I agree with you there, Demon. But you'd better not be going soft on me."

"Don't ride me, Paul," said Gene Simmons. "Love and romance might be YOUR motif, but even a Demon like me can see those two were made for each other."

"And my magic eye powers can see it, too," said Paul. He used them to zoom in on Trucy's magatama. It glowed faintly and floated a bit in front of her neck on the string she had used to make it into a necklace. "I wonder if they, too, will find their own magic talismans one day... like us."

"Oh, come on! You know that in the 100,000 years we've been waiting-"

"Everyone has their talisman."

Paul's hair blew around in a sudden gust of wind that made the palm trees dance and which carried on its back the smallest hint of the cold, cold, weather that was to come.

"They just have to find it first."

Many miles away, KISS's talismans glowed in their case. The wind blew yet colder.

Chapter Text

Sunset. The park. Phoenix was watching Apollo and Trucy from a distance. They were wearing casual clothes, and he had his arm around her shoulder, his head tilted towards her ear, whispering something. Phoenix heard a strained voice behind him.

"I hope you're proud of yourself."

He looked over his shoulder. Kristoph was clutching a crumpled bent bouquet of flowers. Petals fell to the ground. He was gritting his teeth, he was trembling, his eyes were red and moist behind his glasses. His hair was lying all over his face and his mascara was running.

"I think my conduct has been irreproachable, yes," said Phoenix cooly.

"She was supposed to be mine. You stole her from me."

"I'm her father so it's up to me," snapped Phoenix.

They stared at each other from across the expanse of the park between them, while Apollo and Trucy enjoyed each other's company, unaware of what was unfolding.

"You interfered," said Biscoff, "and I think I warned you about what would happen if you interfered." He pulled out the detonator.

Phoenix remained calm. "I don't think you'll do it. Because if you did, you'd lose, wouldn't you? You've disarmed your own weapon, Kristoph. The thing you're holding over me and threatening me with is the one thing you can't bring yourself to do anymore."

He turned around fully, egging him on, "Go on, do it. I dare you. Kill my daughter."

Biscoff's thumb hovered over the trigger. It twitched. He lowered the detonator and held out his arms. He laughed, his eyes wide and wild. "You think you've won?" he said, rising hysteria in his voice. "You think you've defeated me that easily? Think again. The best man will win in the end. And I am the best man. This'll only make my victory that much sweeter when it finally arrives."

He lifted a shaking finger in his direction.

"If I don't kill you now it's because I want you to witness it and suffer when you see how powerless you really are."

Phoenix, expression unchanged, said: "I beat you once, I'll beat you again."

Kristoph swished his vampire cloak and lurched away. He bumped into Gumshoe and Maggey walking along the path and didn't say sorry. The metal tip of his cane clacked hard against the pavement with each uneven and jerky stride of his long legs.

Phoenix watched him go, eminently pleased with himself.

It was a subtle game: push him without pushing him too hard, without going too far. Eventually, he'd push him right off the damn cliff.

He turned back to Apollo and Trucy. Phoenix watched them be all lovey-dovey and sweet with his arms folded, a proud smile plastered on his face, while Apollo used his perception powers to zoom in on her sexy armpits.

But some small but disquietingly persistent voice in the back of Phoenix's head was still telling him that something was wrong.

Something was wrong.

Chapter Text

Phoenix was sitting in the kitchen at the breakfast table. There was a pile of empty grape juice bottles by his feet. They looked like a bunch of fallen bowling pins, like he had just gotten a strike. Right now, he felt like he had just bowled a perfect game. He threw back his head and chugged another bottle, his Adam's apple pistoning up and down. He finished it off in a few seconds, wiped his mouth, and added it to the pile.

He picked his phone back up and cradled it between his head and shoulder as he lit up a Lucky Strike. It was around 4 am; the room was dark. Most of the light came from the open refrigerator. It was full of grape juice, leftovers in tupperware, and Trucy's weird magic tricks that need to be refrigerated. A rectangular white oblong of light stretched across the floor and under the table.

"The plan went off without a hitch, Gavin."

The voice on the other end said something, and Phoenix nodded.

"He's rattled. Right now, he won't use the detonator, as long as things don't change. He doesn't want to lose the game of love to his apprentice, after all. We're in a deadlock. Next, we find a way to expose him or get him to expose himself. It won't be easy, but, heh, hell, when are my trials and tribulations ever? The way I figure it he's gonna do something in response to OUR actions, not the other way around, so we've got the upper hand now. We just have to keep the pressure on. Oh, I have a few ideas on how we go from here."

Just then he heard familiar footsteps on the stairs. They were ones he knew well, footsteps that he could pick out of a police lineup of gramophones. He smiled, as he always smiled when he heard them, especially when he woke up in the middle of the night and heard them coming to bed or going to the bathroom. Elegant, assured, well-placed, delicate but not dainty; a little louder and heavier than usual because of the extra weight she was carrying. It was a lot to get out of footsteps, but after five years of loving someone you love everything about them, even the little things, and you impute all the qualities you love about them into the smallest things they do.

When you really love someone, you love them exactly as they, because of who they are, and never want them to change. There's not a question of good or bad; you love the entire package.

"Nix the secret plan talk, Klav, my wife just walked in. I'll get back to you."

He hung up as she came into the kitchen angrily waving a magazine over her shoulder.

"And what is THIS?" she demanded.

His eyes lit on the cover and he immediately knew what it was.

"The magazine? You weren't supposed to find that."

It was some trashy tabloid with pictures on the cover of Trucy and Apollo from their whirlwind of romance all over town, from walking in the park to going on dates to their quick promise to get married. The editor, Lotta Hart, promised steamy pictures inside that some paparazzi had taken.

Lamiroir fumed, angry wrinkles marring her forehead over her veil.

"It was on our bed, with a note that said 'Hey, babe, make sure to read this later, it's really cool.'"

He waved a hand carelessly. "Oh, I wrote that note for myself. I wanted to review it later and make sure everything went according to my plan. Well, guess the cat's out of the bag now." He chuckled, at his ease. He crossed his ankles, leaned back in his chair, stuck a lit cigarette between his toes, and smiled, proud of himself.

She bent over him almost screaming, a pulsing vein in her forehead. "You mean you did this on purpose? You are responsible for those... these... obscene... what I have seen in this book?"

"Uh, yeah?" He barely resisted adding "Duh?"

"How could you? HOW COULD YOU."

She got in his face, her swelling stomach pushing into him.

He bent backward over the table. He showed her his palms.

"Woah, sorry for not letting you in on it, but it was a delicate operation. I was going to break it to you eventually. And I know, he's not my first choice either, but there are worse guys out there, and besides, we can make sure he treats her right. I'm sure in the end things will turn out okay."

"What are you talking about?" she screamed in his face. "They're SIBLINGS!"

His eyes got a fixed look, and she seemed to recede away from him, and the bottom of his chair seemed to give out. He felt like he was sinking, looking up at the surface of the water, getting further and further away, into the dark depths of cruel, unforeseeable misfortune.

Because there was no way he could have prevented this.

Was there?

Everything he had done exploded in his mind.

She was saying something to him but he couldn't hear her. Her voice seemed muffled. He came back to himself, the world seemed to regain its clarity, but too clear, much too clear, and he managed to get out two words.

"I... forgot."

"Forgot? FORGOT?"

"Um, that's what I just said? I forgot they were related."

"How could you forget something like that?" She folded her arms over her breasts bitchily. "He is your SON."

He was taken aback. He fell into thought. In a way, she was right. They weren't related, he didn't play any sort of familial role to him, and he didn't like him, but still she was right. Apollo was his daughter's brother, and his wife's son.

"Have you nothing to say for yourself?" She was blinking back angry tears. "To your family? To me? Now we can NEVER tell them."

Suddenly her anger was spent, and she sat down heavily. She cried with a hand over her eyes.

He reached for her and said her name.

"Thalassa..."

"Don't touch me. Why would I want you to touch me?" she said dully.

She lifted her face. Her cheeks were still wet but her tear ducts were dammed up. She was angry, then sad, now drained. She looked (to Phoenix) a different woman.

It was like something died.

It was like something went out of her in an instant.

Like someone pinched a wick between their fingers and snuffed out a flame.

Like it was never there at all.

He stared out at her from the depths of his soul. He had visions of Greek tragedies.

"I know everything now," she said, in the same posture. He didn't catch the true meaning of her words.

His eyes flared and he said: "I did it to stop Biscoff, I couldn't let him take advantage of her, he was trying to date her, that bastard, maybe you can sit back and not do anything while some scumbag ruins her life, but I can't."

"What makes that your choice? You pretend it is because you care, but you do not care. You have never cared. Where is she now? If you care so much, where is she now?"

That stopped him. He wasn't sure. He thought she might be out on a date or something, or helping Apollo with one of his cases, or hanging out with the Chipmunks. But it was pretty late for her to be staying out.

She said: "It's just because you think you know best."

"I do know best," he snapped. Words came out of his mouth like someone else was speaking and moving his lips for him. "She's more my daughter than yours. I've known her longer, I've always been there when you weren't, when you ran off. And you try to tell me I'm a bad dad? Get over yourself."

There are words, once spoken, that can never be unspoken or forgotten. Our tongues are pens dipped in permanent ink, writing on the parchment of other people's brains, the ink indelible, never to be erased, no matter how big of an eraser we use.

"When I say that I know everything now, Phoenix, I mean I know everything."

She threw a folder down on the table, and photos spilled out and slid across the table. His heart wrenched as he saw what they were. He lifted one with shaking fingers.

No... No!

"The girls in those pictures looks like our daughter," she said in a voice devoid of any feeling. Her face was in profile to him. "In bed."

"It's not her, they just look like her," he said. "And Thalassa, I swear I never did-"

"How many?"

"How many?"

"How many."

He paused. "Um, several?"

She nodded, not turning her head. Mentally he was glad he left out the "dozen" part after the "several."

"Those... are the most disgusting things I have ever seen," she said.

He felt a rising panic. He took shallow shaking breaths as the photograph tried to slip through his trembling fingers.

Biscoff. No, KRISTOPH. He had done this. He should have known.

"And yet you claim to be... a good father?" she asked.

"Thalassa, listen, I swear, I SWEAR I never did anything, my mind was just in a bad place, because of Biscoff, and I-"

She cut him off.

"I have seen the rest, as well. Everything you have done, while I have sat at home, a sad fool, believing in you."

Also on the table were photographs of him and all his clients from twelve years ago when he had been sold into gay prostitution. It had all been recorded, every encounter, every sordid act. He realized now that it was none other than his "friend," his only "friend" during those seven horrible years who had forced him to sell his body.

"This... all happened a long time ago."

They were the only two people left in the world.

"I do not wish to see you any longer."

"But we're supposed to love each other."

"I do not love you anymore. It is not a question. Now I wonder if I ever have."

Something in him broke. "No. No. Don't say that. Please say you don't mean that. Please. I'm going to pretend you didn't say that."

"I always mean everything I say."

He could feel the cold distance, the wasteland between them, across which something foul and evil-smelling blew.

He wanted to wake up, wake up, WAKE UP, none of this felt real, not the stranger dressed up like his wife, not the artificial lighting, not the horrors he had repressed for so long staring up at him naked on the table: not Winston Payne's cum dribbling down his the side of his mouth, not Redd White fisting him with his all his sharp rings, not Judge Gavelsmack decimating his balls with a gavel.

She was continuing, uncaring of his torment as he writhed inside.

"Perhaps I only loved the person I thought you were.

"When I first saw you I thought it was like a fairytale.

"Coming out of darkness for the first time.

"But it was not real or true.

"And now... I feel my blindness returning.

"I only want to be with my daughter now. I wish for you to leave, for good."

In his desperation, his brokenness, not wanting to lose what he had, he threw everything away, threw Trucy's safety away, told her everything, knowing even then what it meant, knowing what the unthinkable consequences could be if Kristoph found out, knowing that Biscoff could be listening to this, knowing that his daughter could die. He fell to his knees and he threw everything away.

"Thalassa, Biscoff Gavin is Kristoph Gavin, he isn't dead, he's wearing a fake moustache, he put a bomb in her heart, he wants to marry her to get some sort of sick revenge on me, to make me suffer, to ruin my life, so please, please, understand why I had to do what I did, everything was for her and you, everything, it always has been. Help me. We have to stop him."

"Lie, lie, lie, it is all you do now. You lie to me about this great man, slandering him for no reason. I know what I have seen, and what the truth is. Get out."

Now HE got angry. He stood up. "It's my house, you can't tell me what to do!"

"Ah, but the deed is in MY name, because I bought the house for US. Your salary was, of course, never enough."

It ended with the door being slammed in his face. The locks clicked; the tumblers fell. It was the loudest thing he ever heard. He just stood there at first. Then he slowly turned around and walked away.

A tragedy, a Greek tragedy of his own invention. He could look back and see the path he had taken, the landmarks he had passed, everything he had ever done, all leading to this. Everything lead to this. He could see the foreshadowing of his great tragedy darkening the first, the very first words.

He shuffled down the sidewalk drunkenly, dazed, staggering like a man who had just climbed out of a car wreck.

Dave Seville saw him from across the street, hosing down his car. Dave raised his hand. He was wearing short-shorts, and his baby carrot-like nipples were erect from the early morning cold and straining against the fabric of his shirt. They looked eminently suckable and the perfect place for a bird or squirrel to perch on.

He lowered the hose. "Phoenix, what's wrong?" A bluebird flew down and perched on his nipple.

Phoenix gave him a harrowed look, and then he turned his head. He held a hand to the side of his face and used his other hand to pull up his collar. He walked with quickened pace.

The bluebird chirped and cocked its head up curiously and shared a concerned look with Dave.

Phoenix was thinking that he was glad that Dave was too much of a gentleman to bother him when he clearly wanted to be left alone. He didn't think he'd have the guts to look him in the face ever again. This was it, the final thing he could never come back from.

His footsteps directed him to the last place of refuge he knew, his office.

But the Wright Anything Agency was burning. Kristoph Gavin's face formed in the smoke.

Chapter Text

That night, Biscoff Gavin sat at his desk in the attic of Cody's mom's house. The wind howled outside, shaking the windows, while slanting icy rain hit the roof. The trees outside whipped around in the wind like deranged hula dancers.

The room was freezing, the bare floorboards were cold, but he was hunched over the desk sweating, jacket thrown aside, patches of sweat under his armpits.

He made rapid movements with his arm, his shoulders stiff, sweat pouring down his forehead in rivulets, moving as if possessed.

"One more page..."

He plunged his quill into a bottle of ink and wrote in a bound volume spread out on the table. He finished with a flourish. The words shimmered on the page, growing fuzzy, then coalesced, drying immediately. The candle by his side flamed up with a roar. Thunder crashed and lightning flashed. Then the pages of the book flipped back to the first page by themselves, and the covers slammed shut.

He leaned back in his chair, panting.

He peeled his lips over his teeth and smiled.

"My hand has been forced. You couldn't help but meddle, could you, Phoenix Wright?"

He belted the name out viciously, but with some pleasure.

He let the smoking quill roll out of his hand.

"Finally... the Bible 2..."

Chapter Text

In the front hallway of a darkened house, Stu Pickles was on his knees sobbing. Didi had on her coat, a scarf, and a wide brimmed hat. She was carrying a suitcase. Light from the TV in the living room flashed through a doorway and shaded the scene in various blue flickering hues. She was leaving him, and he was begging her to stay.

"Deed, don't go, please!"

"I can't be with a man without a penis."

"It'll grow back! It'll grow back!"

"We both know that's not true, Stu. And I've been talking to Betty. She really opened my eyes. To everything. To men, and you. We're not husband and wife anymore, not really. You're a woman-hating he-man but you can't even give me the one thing a man is good for. All you do is sit around and hate the world while I slave away for you. So what, I ask you, is the point? I deserve more than this."

"That damn lesbian," growled Stu. He started simpering again when he saw Didi's upturned nose and her cold look of disgust. "Gosh, Didi, I didn't mean it like that." He puffed out his chest and raised a finger. "Stu Pickles is no bigot! I'm not homophobic, I just hate gay people, whoops," he realized his mistake, "I mean..."

"It's over, Stu."

She turned to the door and grabbed the doorknob. The little window over the door framed the moon. The silence of the streets outside was broken by a car pulling up.

"No, no, no." He scuttled after her on his knees and pulled at her dress. "What about Tommy? Huh? He needs a mom? Doesn't he?" He tugged harder and licked the back of her ankles. "Mommy? Tommy? Huh?"

Tommy and his little friend Chucky were sleeping in the living room with Grandpa in front of a rerun of the late-night Reptar Meets the Nickel Samurai TV special, blissfully unaware of what was going on.

"He's just going to grow up to be another woman hater, Stu. He has your DNA. He'll grow up just like you."

Stu got defensive. "Well, maybe he also has great toy-making DNA!"

"All boy babies are evil, Stu. I wish I had aborted him."

Stu gasped. "Deed!"

She opened the door but he threw himself on the floor and wrapped his arms around her legs and cried like a baby.

"Let go of me, Stu." She lifted a leg and took a heavy step as he tried to hold her back.

"Never!" he cried. "We made vows, Didi! Vows! Don't they mean anything to you?"

"Vows made in a patriarchal ceremony in a society constructed from the ground up to dominate and control women."

"Oh, where'd you get that crap, Deed? From Betty?" He lunged at her legs and tried to knock her over. "Ungfh! Next you're going to tell me that Dr. Lipshitz told you to divorce me, too. Ha! Ha, I say!"

"I'm not divorcing you, Stu. I'm just done with you. I wash my hands of my old life, and enter into a new life with my sisterhood."

She slid her ring off her finger and dropped it in front of his face. He gasped again. His grip on her legs loosened and she jerked free onto the doormat. He raised the ring, slowly, his lips trembling. He looked up at her. Her face was cold. No, that wasn't the right word. There was no temperature at all.

"Didi... no, no..."

"In my newly found sense of womanhood, I rebuke the institutions of men, and cast away the gilded jewels of their oppression. What you choose to do is your choice. I'm going north to join a lesbian commune."

REPTAR! roared Reptar.

I agree, Reptar, came the voice of Matt Engarde. We must team up to defeat the Strawberry Clan and save Sayo! Quick, to the World Trade Center!

Stu laughed insanely. He pushed himself up on his knees and gestured around with clawing fingers. "And the house? Huh? What about our great big house? Oh, we've lived in it for years, Deed! Oh, what a home we've made! You and me. Look at it!"

"It's over, Stu. You can have the house, and Tommy, and your freedom from me. It's everything you wanted."

Her heels clicked down the driveway to the street, where a taxi with the female symbol emblazoned on the side was waiting. Stu watched her through the open door. He crawled after her and started screaming.

"DIIIIDIIIII! I can CHAAAAAANGE, DEEEEEEEED! I CAN CHANGE! I'll do anything you want! Anything! I'll listen to everything you say! I'll do my share of the chores! I'll change diapers! I'll let you fuck other men! I'll delete all my porn! I'll get a sex change if you're still committed to lezzing out! Just don't LEEEEEEAVE MEEEEEE! DEEEEEEEEEEED!"

She paused halfway through climbing into the taxi and gave him one last passionless look.

"Stu, you made a robotic blowjob machine rather than treat me like a human being and work through our relationship problems. It ripped your dick off. Now there are no problems because there is no relationship. Goodbye."

She slammed the door.

The lesbian taxicab sailed away into the night.

He held his face to his knees and cried on the front lawn, a garden gnome with its ass hanging out his only friend, while out of the house floated the gentle sounds of the Reptar themesong and of the Nickel Samurai and Reptar destroying the World Trade Center.

It was almost Christmas.

There were no miracles.

Miracles were out of season.

Chapter Text

Gumshoe was free, but Ian Hawke was still in prison. He had been since before Gumshoe's trial. Ian's day in court had been short and swift. The sentence? Life without parole. He quickly became the most hated man in America. Families gathered around the TV and watched him paraded before the cameras like a prisoner of war, gaunt and sullen, like a captured terrorist leader who had just been pulled out of some dirty hole in the ground. Lord knows the Ian Hawke trial got more airtime than the actual wars America was currently in overseas.

Alvin, on the other hand, got boatloads of flowers and toys and well-wishes from fans all over the country. Dave piled them at his feet but the chipmunk child was unaffected. He had never cared about his fans.

The trial was blurry. All the faces in the gallery, the Judge, the prosecutor, all the evidence of his crimes that got presented. His brain couldn't process it. It didn't want to process it. He had always been able to keep it all compartmentalized before, everything in its own neat little box. His career, here, his outward facing persona, in that one, his dark obsessions in an evil looking treasure chest. Now they were real.

The droning of the prosecutor sounded like TV static. He didn't understand a word of the verdict the Judge handed down. He kept expecting to close his eyes and wake up in his Alvin and the Chipmunks bedsheets. It never happened.

It was a hard adjustment, going from a rich producer to a common prisoner. His cell was small, dirty, and cramped. He tried not to think of chipmunk assholes. At first he had it to himself, but then they built a bunkbed and shoved a new inmate into his cell. He was a big goon named Michael Mercer. A former police officer, he heard. Ian tried to be friendly but Michael Mercer just grunted and went back to whittling.

He stood there watching him work on the block of wood for a while.

"Do you think you could make me an Alvin toy for me to play with?" asked Ian.

"Gruuhnn."

"Uh, what?"

"Grrunngh!"

Ian turned away and muttered.

"Of course I get the weirdo... Ugh, spare me."

He tried to be a model prisoner. He did all his assigned work, kept his cell tidy, and was meek, humble, and happy-go-lucky. It fact, without realizing it, he reverted back to how he used to be in college.

His core personality was submerged. He lost his power, his position above others that allowed him to freely indulge in every errant thought that flickered across his brain, once again beholden to the rules and dictates of society. To him, it was a greater loss, a far greater loss, than the loss of his physical freedom. The thoughts didn't go away, but now he repressed them, unable to live in accordance with his nature.

His biggest fear was that the other prisoners would kill him for abusing Alvin the Chipmunk. When he walked into the steamy veil of the communal showers with his shower cap and his big goofy loofa he was shaking so hard his bones were rattling. But none of the prisoners seemed to care. It turned out the Chipmunks weren't really popular with Los Angeles's most hardened criminals.

Ian was shocked. Where was he? What kind of place was this? It was like a cultural wasteland.

He tried to keep his mind off things by spending time in the library.

"Ugh, no snuff books? I mean, I didn't expect pictures, but there could at least be books that record the sounds of someone being tortured. Ugh. I guess I'll read this."

He picked up a horror novel.

The Scary Car That Comes to Life

"That's not so scary," said Ian Hawke.

He moved the book aside from the stack and revealed The Scary Car That Comes to Life 2.

"Okay, now I'm getting scared, because the 2 implies it comes back."

He wrote a lot of letters to Alvin but Alvin never wrote back. It pissed him off a little. He didn't get any letters. He was at least expecting hate mail. But he didn't even get that. It was like everyone forgot about him.

In time, he fell into the groove of day-to-day prison life. He didn't like that he was getting used to it. But, he figured, a man could get used to just about anything, in time.

JD came to visit him. The visitor's center in the prison was a far cry from the luxury of personal private meetings in the detention center. It was full of other inmates sitting in front of glass partitions talking to their lawyers and families and loved ones. The room was loud and dirty and painted in graffiti. Ian sat on a stool and addressed JD through the other side of the glass.

"I was railroaded, JD, railroaded!" said Ian over the clamor of the other prisoners. He held his palm against his ear and spoke into the connecting telephone. "It's that bastard Phoenix Wright's fault! No one else would defend me. Can you believe it? I would've had to get a crappy public defender. So I got Wright." He bounced in his seat. "But! But! Wright just tanked the whole case! He handed me over! He was practically playing footsie with the prosecutor! Did you see the eyes they were making at each other? Those sons of bitches made sure I got the maximum penalty! They... what's the word? Colluded! They colluded! Life in prison? I should have at LEAST gotten parole!"

"At least you didn't get the death sentence," said JD.

"Ha! Ha!" Ian raised a finger. "Ha! That's where you're wrong! Because what I did wasn't a capital offense! You can't get the death penalty if isn't a capital offense! Ha!" He looked smug, like he had gotten one over... someone.

"Perhaps it was an error in judgment to hire the man who shit on your face," said JD. Ian didn't think he liked his bodyguard's tone.

"Listen, what I want to know is what happens to my baby, JD?" asked Ian. "What happens to JETT Records? I mean, without me, they can't-"

"What happens is that it's no longer yours," said JD. "The shareholders made Dave Seville the new president. And he's been cleaning house. He fired me, your secret militarized police force, everyone. He even redecorated your office and turned off all your robots."

"Dave? DAVE? You're shitting me! Dave Seville is a moron! He'll destroy the company! What were they thinking?!"

"Things going okay," said JD evenly. "New KISSmunks album came out. Rave reviews. Plenty of money made."

"Oh, spare me!" spat Ian. "That album was MY idea! Mine!" He jammed his fingers into his chest. "What happens after MY ideas run out? Dave will make everyone write songs about... about... hula hoops and candy and bananas! Endless riffs on public domain songs! Endless remixes of Yankee Doodle Dandy! He'll probably bankrupt the company trying to build a flying piano!"

"Well, Gavin did record an electronic dance mix of Yankee Doodle, except instead of 'and with the girls be handy,' he changed it to 'and eat her ass like candy.' And then 'eat her ass like candy' is repeated in a robot voice. So, there's a lot of Yankee Doodle and candy involved. I'll give you that. Oh, and everyone's still passing around drugs like party favors, that hasn't changed."

Ian ignored him and went on ranting.

"He'll sanitize the brand! People want edge! Who do you think made the Chipmunks cool? It sure as hell wasn't Dave! Dave's idea of a good time is a bubble bath! I'm the reason! Me! ME! I was the creative driving force behind EVERY act's image! It was my idea for Trucy Gramarye to get skimpier! That one-piece leotard get-up thing? My idea! Of course that diva BITCH Thalassa said no. I hate women. Dave will make her wear... wear... a petticoat! Whatever that is."

"Actually, she does wear that now. For her new boyfriend. So your costume saw some use."

"Well gee jolly whiz, that's just great to hear. A fat lot of good that does me in, um, I don't know, PRISON."

"Calm down," said JD.

"No."

"Calm down."

Ian took a deep breath. He held a hand against his face and planted an elbow on the table.

"Stupid," he said in a muffled voice. He lowered his hand. "Does Alvin talk about me?" He had a sudden yearning in his voice. "Does he, like, want to see me?"

"You mean your victim?"

Ian fluttered a hand over his head. "Oh, c'mon, victim? You're just as bad as everyone else! You're acting like I'm some kind of monster, man! I thought we were friends!"

"Slave," said JD. "Master."

"Whatever," said Ian. "I never did anything really wrong. It's not that big of a deal. I didn't hurt him too much. I let him live, didn't I? People should just loosen up and let these things happen. I certainly do. Worse has been done to me, but you don't see me crying. I like most of them I do it to. I've cared for them. I'm not a bad guy."

They both let the "them" ride. An inmate got rowdy somewhere in the distance and got cracked in the back of the head with a blackjack. Ignoring that.

Ian: "What I wanna know, is what are you gonna do to help?"

"What I can."

"Will you be there for me?"

"Yes."

"Good," Ian let out a long sigh. "Good. I needed that. Thanks, JD."

"I can't do much."

"As long as I know you're there for me, man."

He fist-bumped the glass.

JD agreed to advocate on his behalf to get a retrial and promised to adopt his pet cats. He also snuck in some money and contraband for Ian to make his time in prison a little easier.

Later that night, Ian lay in the bottom bunk of his cell. He was on his back with his hands folded over his stomach. Moonlight shone through the barred window and the shadows of the bars fell across him obliquely, elongated and cruelly exaggerated. He couldn't help but feel like it was subtle symbolism from god that he was in prison because prisons have prison bars most of the time.

Ian said: "You know, Michael, I was someone once. I made all the stars. You couldn't be someone in this town without going through me. I had my fingers in everyone."

His face was smooth, impassive. He looked introspective. The only sign of his unseen cellmate was a steady whittling sound and the rustle of stiff sheets.

Michael suffered a stroke on his way to prison and it affected his speech. Now, he just whittled. Whittling... whittling away the remnants of his life. But he had ears to listen.

"I guess maybe I wasn't as important as I thought I was. Maybe I wasn't the creative driving force I thought I was. I guess that's why I was replaced so easily. Most of my successes were other people's, when you think about it. But I was the guy who helped bring it all together. People don't always see the work going on in the background. I helped people find their sound and develop their images. That's worth something, I think."

Ian sighed again with a little shake of his head against the pillow.

"Oh, it's the little things, Michael. It's the little things. That's what I miss most of all. The little day-to-day freedoms we take for granted. Sigh... Do you think if I kill myself Alvin would be sad?"

He heard springs creaking and a hairy hand hung over the side of the top bunk. It was holding something.

Ian took it.

It was an Alvin the Chipmunk figurine whittled out of wood.

"Whoa, man... thank you. That's beautiful."

"Grrunnnnn."

It went a little ways towards filling the chipmunks-sized hole in his heart.

Ian blamed a lot of people for his going to prison, oh, he had a big list, but he blamed Phoenix Wright most of all. He met a lot of people in prison who shared his feelings.

"Phoenix Wright? I hate dat guy!" said Furio Tigre. "He's da reason I'm stuck in dis shithole!"

"Screwed you over too, huh?" asked Ian.

"Youse know it! If I ever get outta here I'm gonna smash his face in! Da only thing dat keeps me going is da girl I got waitin' for me on da outside. Viola."

He showed Ian a picture of her in her underwear.

"Neat," said Ian.

"Yeah, neat," growled Furio. "She's a sexy little piece, when she wants to be. She sneaks in pictures from time to time. But what kills me is I just KNOW she's messin' around wit other guys while I'm rotting away in dis hole! Da dumb broad!" But really he loved her, except not really. "Oh, believe youse meese, when I get out, I'm taking her AND dat Wright guy to pound town." He slammed his fist into his palm. "But dey will be two very different kinds of pounding. Dey won't even be in da same zip code."

"Okay, that's kinda sexy," admitted Ian. "So when youse getting out?"

"Youse? Why did youse say youse? Youse mockin' me or somethin'? Youse some kinda wise guy?"

"Oh, no, no, I'm simply trying to adopt the lingo of my fellow prisoners, big guy."

"Dey says I ain't never gettin' out, but I'm gonna find a way. Youse can't keep the Tiger caged forever! Dat's a promise!"

"Ah, so you plan on escaping?"

He nodded. "When da time is right. But I've been waitin' a long time. Too long. It's been twelve years. Twelve long stinkin' years!" He turned his head and spat. "Youse know what it's like to get old in dis place? Seein' youse reflection and youse got grey hairs? One day youse come in and da next thing, boom, youse an old man. Youse don't even see it coming. Cuz it's da same shit over and over again. It's like one long day dat lasts forever."

"You know, you look a lot like Phoenix Wright," said Ian. "Except scarier and more orangey."

"Heh heh heh," smirked Tigre with his tongue hanging out, the same tongue that had eaten Viola's ass myriad times. "I used dat to my advantage. I impersonated him in court. Fooled everyone. Almost got away wit it, too."

"I almost got away with it too..." said Ian bitterly. "If it weren't for that... that blasted...!"

"Phoenix Wright!" they finished each other's sentence.

"Wow, I feel a real connection here," said Ian. "We should be friends."

"Hell, anyone who hates dat guy is a friend of mine," said Furio. They shook hands. "Us Phoenix Wright haters gotta stick together."

The Tiger took him under his wing, gave him protection, helped him adjust to prison life. Of course, he also treated Ian like his personal bitch and made him do all his work for him, but Ian acquiesced with alacrity. He was eager to please.

Next, Furio introduced Ian to more Phoenix Wright haters.

In the cafeteria, Furio pointed over the heads of sullen prisoners hunched over their crappy prison food.

"Aw right," said Furio, "dere's some some of my buddies at dat table. Dey hate Phoenix Wright too. Now gimmie dat puddin' cup, chipmunk fucker."

"Can do!" chirped Ian. "Also, Dave is the one who fucks chipmunks, not me. His wife was a chipmunk."

"Did I ask?"

Ian sat down across from a smug-looking man with a scarf around his neck and yellow highlights in his hair, who in turn was sitting next to a guy with a long nose like Pinocchio and a magnifying glass shoved into his eye socket.

"Zvarri!" said the latter man. "You are Ian Hawke!"

"Whoa, how did you know that?" asked Ian.

"Hmph. It's elementary. Or rather, preschool. At first glance, I knew you must either be a man or a woman. Judging by your baldness, which I determined to be genetic and not a fashion statement, and by your goatee, I deduced you must be a man. Then, I remembered seeing an article with your picture in it in a magazine, and I concluded you were, in fact, Ian Hawke, Ace Producer."

He smiled and polished his monocle with cum.

"And so the truth has been elegantly elucidated."

"Okay, be honest, are you a magician?" asked Ian.

"Hardly. I do not deal in paltry parlor tricks. I dance among the stars. I am Luke Atmey, Ace Detective. I also conclude that you are an enemy of Phoenix Wright. It is an honor to meet you, my fellow ace."

Ian was all aflutter and there were stars in his eyes. "Wow, you really think I'm an ace, too? That should be my new prison nickname! Ace!"

"Shut up," growled Furio Tigre.

"Sorry, sir."

The man with the scarf introduced himself next.

"I'm Richard Wellington. Pleased to meet you. Phoenix Wright sent me to prison, too. My claim to fame around these parts is hitting him in his big, stupid head with a fire extinguisher."

"Whoa, badass," said Ian.

"That pathetic attorney got lucky. If I had been wearing my glasses... feh. You can't change fate. If it had been an even playing field, say, choosing the best college, I would have bested him easily. Ivy U? Ha... pedestrian. Just thinking about him makes my blood boil."

"Well, I'm worse off than all of you guys," said Ian. "He just accused you guys to get his clients off. But I WAS his client! And he still got me a guilty verdict on purpose!"

"Youse not the first guy he's done dat too," said Furio. "What, youse think youse special, new guy? We've seen every dirty Wright trick in da book. See dat guy?" He pointed at a guy coming toward the table. "Da same thing happened to him."

The guy was Matt Engarde. Matt fell more than sat down into the chair between Richard and Luke. He sprawled out in a slumped manner like a pile of baggy clothes. He folded his arms with a tilted frown on his face, one shoulder higher than the other, his feet spread wide apart. His lower lip jutted out petulantly.

"Bad day, Matt?" asked Richard.

"Oh, you know it, dude," said Matt. "I almost got parole again. I had to start jerking off during the hearing so they'd reconsider. If I got parole then Shelly de Killer would totally kill me!"

"That certainly wouldn't be scrumptious," said Richard. He nudged a shoulder towards Ian. "Why not tell our new friend Ian your circumstances?"

"Oh, dude, the most fucked up part is I didn't even do anything," Matt began, turning to Ian. "I'm not actually a bad guy at all, after all I only hired Shelly de Killer to murder John Corrida because he was being a hater and trying to frame me with fake suicide notes and stuff. And I never told Shelly de Killer to kidnap Maya or frame Adrian, he just did that himself, it's literally not even my fault? Oh, and I know I dumped her mentor and broke her heart and stuff, but it's not my fault, also even though I told Juan Corrida that Celeste Inpax used to be my girlfriend it's not my fault he broke up with her and then she killed himself, that's her fault for killing herself not mine, also it's mostly Juan's fault for being a jealous hater. I mean I know Adrian feels kinda bad that she's dead but look at it this way, if she hadn't killed herself Adrian never would have become my manager and I would never have gotten to become the Nickel Samurai."

"You're so right, Matt, it's not your fault at all," said Richard Wellington, then they kissed, and the power of their love was so strong that it made the scratches on Matt's face go away.

Ian thought that was kind of gay.

Matt continued: "But even though I'm basically innocent, that Wright dude sold me out to de Killer and now he's gonna follow me all the way to, like, the North Pole and kill my ass if I get out. So not only am I in prison, I'm all stressed out, too. Also Wright stole my cat Shu and gave it to his kid and now Shu likes Trucy better than me and that was the cruelest cut of all."

"You mean that stupid cat was yours?" asked Ian. He placed a hand over his balls where the cat had scratched him.

"Uh, he's not stupid, dude. He's almost as smart as me. And she changed the name to Bullets? Are you kidding me? Bullets the Magic Cat? That's dumb as hell. AND she shoots him out of a gun? She's like objectifying my cat and turning it into a stage prop."

"That's awful!" said Ian.

"So," said Luke, "as you can see, Sir Ian, we all have good reasons to hate Phoenix Wright. We are but a few of his victims. This prison houses a multitude of them. Perhaps it is time... for you to be inducted into the Phoenix Wright Hate Club."

Ian got super duper happy! Finally! He was making friends! But then his intrusive thoughts took over and his eyes locked on the plastic knife on his tray.

I could hold that up against Matt's throat...

What would happen if he did that?

He got sweaty and his heart pounded.

No! Don't think about it... Don't think about it... Ignore it and it will go away...

He looked at the crack of Furio Tigre's hairy orange ass rising out of his pants.

That is the world's greatest ass, thought Ian.

No! No! He didn't mean to think that! It just popped into his head!

That dreary evening, they all met in a dark cell. It was lit by trios of red candles in brass holders. The flames flickered and jumped in response to the swishing and swooshing of their robes. Old rugs with elaborate designs hung on the walls. There was a long table and they all sat at it. Ian was nervous and sat between Furio and Luke. A guard they were bribing stood guard at the entrance. Richard Wellington sat at the head of the table.

"Order in the club," said Richard. All the villains from Phoenix's past were there. They chattered. Richard smacked his gavel. They quieted down, and turned in their seats with expectant relaxed smiles. "The club is now in order. Matt Engarde?"

"Present," said Matt. He handed Richard Wellington a present wrapped with a bow.

"Thank you, Matthew. Okay, so is everyone here?"

"Yeah, yeah, yup, here I am, present!"

Ian noticed that there were three guys who sat apart at their own smaller table and didn't bother to announce their presence. There was an elderly aristocratic-looking man with grey hair, a guy with purple hair and a lot of rings, and a guy who looked like his name might be Frank Sahwit but he wasn't sure.

"Dose are the original haters," whispered Furio. "Dey been hating Wright since da beginning. He put dem all in prison, one after da other."

"What did they do?" whispered Ian out of the side of his mouth, still looking at them.

"Dat guy is Redd White." Furio barely lifted a curled finger over the edge of the table. White was admiring his rings. "He killed Wright's mentor wit a statue shaped like da thinker. Dey say Redd got some kinda revenge on Wright by having gay sex wit him or some shit."

"Wow," said Ian.

"And dat's Von Karma. He's like da big cheese around here. He was a bigshot prosecutor before Wright took him down. Dey say da first thing he did when he got to prison was form da Hate Club."

Finally, there was Frank Sahwit.

"Dat's Frank Sahwit 'cept we call him Frank Diddit on account of he did it. He ain't much of anything, but he's got seniority in da club."

"But who's that?" whispered Ian. He pointed at a brain sitting in a birdcage.

"Dat's the brain of Damon Gant. He was also a big wheel of cheese round here till Wright and Edgeworth teamed up and exposed him in court a second time."

"You know," said Ian, "I've heard about a prosecutor who's just a brain."

Luke nodded. "Yes, Dr. Brainy-O. His real name is Dr. Law Science. But then he went insane and lost his head and also his brain, like so many others before him. Now he prosecutes criminals as a detached brain without those pesky emotions or human feelings to hinder him in his pursuit of so-called justice. Apparently, he thought that preferable to reconciling the cruelties of our legal system with his professed ideals."

"Hold up," said Ian. "How do you know so much about him?"

"Hmph. What do you think? I am Dr. Law Science's ex-cousin."

"Ya know," said Furio, "dat was a good plan Gant had to kill Klavier and Kristoph. I never liked Gavin. Always stayed cooped up in his cell and refused to join da club. Thought he was better den everyone else. Now he's deader den dirt and I ain't sorry. Just another stinkin' defense attorney."

"There were dark rumors surrounding that man," said Luke. "Tales of deals with the devil and strange rites in his cell. They say the night before Klavier's murder, there were hundreds of mice running around everywhere through the walls." He pointed at perfectly sculpted semicircle holes in the bases of the walls. "They all seemed to be coming from the direction of Gavin's cell. But what is strange is that there we no mice afterward. They vanished as quickly as they had appeared."

"Interesting..." said Ian Hawke.

"It strikes one as rather biblical, doesn't it?" said Luke. "I am reminded of the plague of locusts."

The hollow smack of the gavel sounded again.

"The chanting will now begin," said Richard.

"We hate Phoenix Wright! We hate Phoenix Wright! Lawyer lawyer lawyer, cover him in boils! We hate Phoenix Wright! Defense attorney, defense attorney, strap him to a gurney! Take his bones, take his bones, we hate Phoenix Wright!"

Ian threw his hands above his head like he was on a rollercoaster and chanted along, though slightly behind because he didn't know the words yet. Apparently, Frank Sawhitt and Manfred von Karma and Redd White had written the chant together over a decade ago. They were kinda like the Chipmunks of prison.

"Now, the flesh of our innocent victim."

A Phoenix Wright dummy made out of burlap sacks wearing his iconic suit thumped on the table.

Ah… so they weren't a cannibal ring, it was simply symbolic! Like when people ate Jesus in church. Made sense, thought Ian.

"This red tie represents the blood of Phoenix Wright and also his tie," said Richard. "I will now eat it."

He slurped it down like a spaghetti noodle.

"Now, this jug of urine represents…"

Ian let the words of the ritual roll over him. He had found his people.

Richard said: "Now, for the news. Matthew?"

He handed him a newspaper.

Richard Wellington put his glasses on.

"Let us see." He turned to the human-interest section. "Phoenix Wright has separated from his wife, Thalassa, internationally famous singer and the world's greatest MILF, also known by her stage name, Lamiroir, the siren of sound. His daughter, Trucy Wright, the famous magician, has recently gotten engaged to his apprentice, Apollo Justice."

"Hell yeah!" said Matt. "Fuck that guy!"

"Yeah!" said Ian. "And fuck Trucy and Thalassa too! Stupid bitches!"

"Whoooooa!"

"What the hell, Ian?"

Everyone got mad at him.

"We don't hate dem!" said Furio Tigre. "We hate dat Phoenix Wright guy, bozo!"

"Yes, they're both fine specimens of womanhood," said Luke.

"My mother was a woman so I take offense to your crudities!" said Redd White.

"Women should be respected," said von Karma. "I am a feminist." He snapped his fingers. "Judge! Hold him in contempt!"

Richard smacked his gavel. "I'll just give him a warning."

"Bah!" said Von Karma. "What have the courts come to?"

Furio bunched up the fabric of Ian's shirt in his fists and shook him a bit. "Yeah, youse got that? So be respectful and don't go insulting da dames!"

"Okay, geez, don't jump down a guy's throat," whined Ian.

"Moving on..." said Richard. "Hem… I continue to read the paper now."

The newspaper went on to talk about Phoenix Wright's sudden mysterious disappearance from the world of law, complete with a photo of firefighters climbing around the smoking remains of his office, and another of Phoenix in a trench coat skulking around in the shadows of the district court, holding up the collar to hide his face. The caption: Will he rise again from the ashes, like the mythological bird the phoenix?

Everyone cheered and clinked their wine glasses together and shook hands. Redd clapped Manfred on the back but Manfred shrugged him off furiously without uncrossing his arms.

It was a great day. Any day with bad news for Phoenix Wright was. They wondered if he would try to stage another comeback. He was an attention whore so they thought, probably. Manfred expressed his wish to one day escape prison and defeat him in court as the ultimate revenge. It was the fading dream of a dying old man, one the others entertained and encouraged as Matt anointed his feet with applesauce.

Ian was just happy he had finally found a friend group. He felt like one of the "cool" kids.

"We hate Phoenix Wright! We hate Phoenix Wright! Sizz boom rah! Sizz boom rah! Down with the bird of the law!"

The next day, Ian was eating a can of beans on the toilet when suddenly there was an explosion outside his cell. The spoon paused in midair and baked beans slopped out of his mouth onto his thighs.

Kristoph held his hand through the blasted-open door. Escaped prisoners carrying weapons ran past behind him.

"Come with me if you wish to thrive."

. . .

"You know, I could do a lot with a man like you."

"A man... like me?"

"Why, of course. A man with no inhibitions, a man with a dangerous mind, a man who can do anything."

Do anything...

"You would be an ideal commander in my organization. I should say, of course, that you don't have much of a choice."

"You're right. It's either this or... prison."

Either a prisoner here, behind bars, or a prisoner of society.

Even now Ian's perspective had shifted. He was coming more and more to terms with who and what he was. Perhaps he was not mentally ill, perhaps his thought patterns were not an aberration. Perhaps he was a higher, truly freer human being than other people. He believed that this was his core dominant personality, that he WAS his intrusive thoughts, and maybe all people like him were meant to live how he wanted to live, surrendering to every fleeting thought, indulging in every impulse. Maybe, maybe some of the greatest men of the past were like him. Warmth washed over him. It wasn't surrendering to the thoughts anymore. It was opening the gate and letting them in, as friends.

He was above other people. They didn't have minds like his. They had simple, servile minds. They could not even begin to comprehend how his mind worked.

And looking at the blue devil across from him, he thought he had finally found a kindred soul. Those eyes sunk into him and knew everything about him without asking.

An organization... and eventually, an entire world... for people just like him.

He stuck out his hand.

"You have a deal. Let's fuck shit up."

Biscoff let Ian take the ends of his long, delicate fingers into his hand and his eyes glowed in a sort of dull amusement.

"I think I'll make you my righthand man. You, too, have a thirst for revenge. But perhaps 'lefthand' man would be more accurate, since we're both travelers of the lefthand path. Aren't we?"

He laughed. A cruel, ringing laugh that seemed to echo and bounce off nothing and reverberate everywhere.

"Well, Mr. Hawke... do what thou wilt."

Chapter Text

In a suburban home, not so far from where Phoenix Wright had lived with Thalassa, a family gathered around the TV and watched a news report about the recent prison break. The father sat in his armchair, puffing on his pipe, thick lines across his forehead. The mother stood behind him, drying her hands in her apron. A little boy and a little girl sat on his slippers.

"Hundreds of Los Angeles's worst criminals are still at large. Only a handful have been recaptured. The escapees seem to have disappeared without a trace, instantly absorbed into the city's criminal underworld. There have already been several large-scale terrorist attacks against our legal system since the escape, and the crime wave rocking our fair city is only getting higher, and the Surfboards of Crime are riding the crest. One can't even serve on a jury without wondering, will there be C4 in my seat? Is this rope actually part of a guillotine that is going to cut my head off? Is the Juror to my left actually Manfred von Karma in disguise? Chief Prosecutor and leader of the Prosecutor Squad, Miles Edgeworth, was unavailable to comment. Folks, I don't like to say this... but this is really scary. I'm scared. God, if you're listening, please stop me from being scared. Amen."

Manfred von Karma and Frank Sahwit hid in the bushes outside the window and snickered behind their hands.

The family dog whined and hid its muzzle in its paws. The little boy took his sucker out of his mouth.

"Daddy, is Luke Zvarri going to break into my room and sniff my feet?"

"Son... I don't know why that's such a recurring fear of yours. But no. I will protect you and your sister. And Mommy, too. And Old Rover here will bite anyone who tries to break in. You have nothing to be scared of besides scared itself. Besides..." His eyes took on a steely glint and his moustache was as hard as granite. "I believe in the Prosecutor Squad."

Winston Payne and Gaspen Payne hid outside the other window on the opposite side of the living room and gave thumbs up.

The Prosecutor Squad was working overtime catching criminals and torturing them to get confessions, but with Edgeworth gone, things looked grim, and their numbers were dwindling. There was no doubt in Godot's mind that this was the next step in Misery Lockedheart's plan.

Godot was sitting in the back of the Prosecutor Squad van out in the street. It was lined wall-to-wall with high-tech computer monitors and devices for tracking crime. He watched this all from his wheelchair, scrolling figures and flashing blips from the radars reflecting in his cool visor.

"C'mon, Gavin, where the hell are you?" he asked. Klavier still refused to answer his bracelet. "Hmph. Leave it to the pretty boy to disappear when things get rough. The only thing he's fit to lead is that awful boyband of his."

He looked out the window and saw Winston and Gaspen frolicking through the flowerbeds with their hands over their heads by moonlight. He turned his head away and felt the full weight of his useless limbs.

"This whole situation reminds me of Godot Blend #122... bitter, but also looks like a mug full of shit."

He was having caffeine withdrawals because the Paynes forgot to refill his IV drip before they got out of the van. He turned his attention back to the radar.

"Like sloshy diarrhea... like feces... Anyway, according to this radar, there should be some criminal activity around here somewhere. But where the hell, is my question."

He chaired his wheelchair over to the periscope and squinted one eye behind his visor. He looked out at Wright's former home. The windows were dark except for one window in the second-floor hallway.

"Can't believe I'm saying this, but I wish Trite was here. Maybe he could help suss things out. Like why the hell I ended up in the hospital. Like why I don't remember why I slipped on coffee. Something happened when I met her that day... I know it."

He caught of glimpse of Trucy in the window making agonized gestures with her arms before she disappeared out of frame.

"C'mon, kid... I know you know. I know YOU. You know something about all this. So why the hell don't you tell me? Hmph. I hate women. That's one of my rules. I suppose we're all seekers of the truth..."

He let that deep insight linger on the whistling winds of the night, because he couldn't think of anything else to say, and our narrative now switches to the perspective of a ghost, which flies along the driveway and then up, up the gables and over to the eaves to the chimney, where it rushes down the fireplace like Santa Claus. It goes up the stairs and watches the scene upstairs unfold.

Trucy was crying. She still wanted to marry Apollo but Thalassa wouldn't let her see him.

"I forbid it!" said Thalassa, with an angry flash over her veil.

She even took Trucy's ring away from her and put it in a box in the closet on a high shelf while Trucy cried bitterly in gasps like she was dying.

"No, no, no, no," she hiccupped between her sobs, "no, no, no..."

"What about Machi?"

"He doesn't matter! I don't care anymore. He's just..." She broke down. "Just a person..."

"How could you say that about him? After everything he has done for you? After everything you planned together? After his hardships in Borgina, sleeping under a blanket made of rats?"

"It doesn't matter! All that matters is love!"

Lamiroir felt pained. She didn't know why that sentiment should cause so much hurt but it did.

"You should give him another chance. He will forgive you. He is a kind boy."

"I DON'T CARE! I DON'T CAAAARE!" she wailed, on her knees now, face red and puffy, hair a mess. "It was bad! It was bad. I don't want a love that's like a broken clock, only right some of the time. With him it's always right."

Him. HIM. Thalassa could not believe that she was speaking of HIM that way. Dull anger stirred in her.

"He is not a good boy," snapped Thalassa. "He is too old and is only taking advantage of you in the moment of your weakness. A few weeks ago he was in love with Miss Misham. You are being blinded by a... a false appearance. Do not repeat my mistakes. He has betrayed this family and my trust. You can do far, far better."

"DON'T TALK ABOUT HIM LIKE THAT. HE'S MY HUSBAND, YOU HEARTLESS BITCH."

The silence that followed was loud. It hung over them like an overpowering physical presence, like a big piano suspended from the ceiling by a piece of floss.

"I am not heartless," said her mother quietly. "I have two hearts within me."

Her hand slid down her dress, stopping over her almost eleven-month-pregnant stomach.

"I am only doing what is best for you."

But Trucy could see the psyche locks but she didn't know they were psyche locks.

"You're lying to me! I can tell! Everyone is always lying to me!"

She stormed away and slammed the door.

Thalassa sat down.

She remembered the Christmas five years.

How much her daughter had loved her.

That innocent smile.

The new lease on everything that had been lost.

The thought that nothing would ever hurt again.

She cried.

And felt her blindness returning.

Machi peered out of the closet with his arms loaded with chocolate and flowers and stuffed animals. She dismissed him with impatient waving of her hand and he went back into the closet and left via the secret passage.

Phoenix and Thalassa's friends came to visit her. She didn't tell them exactly why she kicked him out, gave only vague hints, but they were sympathetic and didn't pry.

Even Valant Gramarye made an appearance on her doorstep.

"Queen Mommy, I have come to congratulate you on finally breaking the chains of your matrimonial thralldom, and-"

"Go away, Valant."

"Ah... Of course, the wounds are still fresh. Though I hope not indelible. I merely wished to express my hope that Madam Trucy will not be deprived of a dashing father figure in these trying times, one who has an affinity for the magical arts, one who is, perhaps, yellow-"

"I wish to be alone."

"I see. Shall I say some archaic things before I go?"

"No."

"Would it be imprudent at this juncture if I were to ask for pussy pic-"

"Yes."

"Then exeunt Valant and his trove of wonders."

He twirled his cane and accidentally hit his balls and hobbled away. But not before throwing a smoke bomb.

Drew and Charlotte came over the day after Trucy's breakdown for coffee. Charlotte was perhaps Lamiroir's closest friend left so she actually did tell them exactly what happened, right down to Phoenix's part in all of it.

In response, Charlotte did the unthinkable and turned off her ever-present cellphone. She sat down beside her like a spider and comforted her.

Drew just stood there a ways apart with his arms folded, looking around at nothing.

"Wow... that's... wow... sheesh..."

Thalassa wore yoga pants and her delicious asscheeks spread wide and overhung the sides of the chair.

"But do not tell anyone," she said.

Drew fidgeted.

"Well, maybe you SHOULD tell-"

Charlotte said: "Absolutely not, Drew. You've read the same tabloids I have. It's out of the question."

He threw up his hands and walked to the counter. "Just an idea. Geez... Ugh."

"Give it time, Thalassa," said Charlotte. "She's young. She'll get over him and you'll both get through this. But whatever you do, lie, lie, lie. That's got to be your mantra. If you think she's upset NOW, imagine her finding out that she committed incest," Thalassa's face scrunched up, "or ALMOST incest, we'll dull the point," Charlotte amended, "with her brother. Who she didn't even know was her brother! Could you imagine what that could do to her mental state? It would be like a one-two punch straight to the mental asylum. It'd be quicker than when I brokered the Global Studios-Reptar deal with Tokyo."

Drew turned to face them again.

"Charlotte, maybe LYING isn't the best-"

"Can it, Drew."

"All right."

"Thank you," said Thalassa. "Thank both of you."

Just then Angelica skipped over and tugged at Drew's leg.

"Daddy, I wanna go to the store! I want dreamboat Cynthia!"

"Sweetie, the grown-ups are talking. Now what did we say about when the grown-ups are talking?"

"Okaaaay, daddy."

"That's my little princess."

He gave her a reptar bar and she pranced off.

"La la la la la la!"

Thalassa remembered when Trucy was that young. She had looked just like Angelica Pickles. Her heart was pained.

Drew addressed Thalassa again.

"Everyone cares, you know. You're not alone. Even Didi asked about you. She goes through us now since she and my bro- nope, nope, won't make this about us. This is about you."

"Thank you."

"She's always welcome to stay with us," said Charlotte. "Getting away might be good for her."

Lamiroir was tired of saying thank you but everyone had to be thanked for their selflessness.

Even Biscoff came and talked to her.

"Ah, my dear friend." His face was all concern and his eyes were sheeny. He held his 1940's hat against his chest. "I don't presume to know the situation, but my heart goes out to you. I wish I could speak with him. In my short time in your country, I grew to consider him one of my closest friends. To think he could do anything to harm you and then simply disappear..."

"It is better that he is gone."

He clasped her hands in his.

"I am indebted to your family and the kindness you've shown me since I've come to America. If there's anything... but no, I know there's nothing I could do. It's tasteless and presumptuous to even suggest. I can only imagine what you and your dear daughter are going through. This feels as though it were a rupture in my own family. I... I apologize if I'm overly familiar."

"Of course not. You are always welcome in my home. My door will never be closed to you."

"It gives me immense joy to hear that." He checked his watch. "I'm afraid I have a meeting with my younger brother. But... perhaps tomorrow we can meet again?"

"That would be delightful, Mr. Gavin."

"Please. Call me Biscoff."

He kissed her hand.

Dave was on Phoenix's side. He was mad at Thalassa.

"He's a great guy! She should take him back! He looked so sad!"

Simon and Theodore acted cute. They also dabbed and flossed.

"That's awesome, guys," smiled Dave. "Well done."

Alvin, however, did not dab. Dave almost cried. Would his son ever dab again?

Trucy just stayed locked in her room playing her Gavinners albums really loud. Thalassa could hear the music from the living room.

Someone broke my heart, and I saw you at the scene of the crime.

Lamiroir's face trembled and her eyelids spasmed. She really must be depressed if Gavinners lyrics could get that kind of response out of her.

Perhaps she would tell them. If it came to that.

She thought about Biscoff Gavin.

A gentle man.

Not a bad man to lean on.

No, not a bad man at all, she thought.

Chapter Text

We see: an airliner soaring above the golden, purple-tinged clouds, accompanied by Steve Perry - Foolish Heart. There was a peaceful gentle atmosphere on the plain. Flight attendants went up and down the aisle serving passengers.

One man with a concerned, wrinkled brow was seated next to his obese wife snoring with upturned nose at the window seat. He kept taking glances across the aisle. He looked worried and blinked rapidly. He tugged at the sleeve of a passing flight attendant.

"Excuse me."

The flight attendant leaned down. "Yes, sir?"

The man pointed to the passengers sitting across the aisle.

"I've been watching them, and I think it's some kind of depraved English aristocrat and his abducted underage catamite. I don't know what kind of authority we should inform, but-"

The attendant just laughed. The man let his body relax, his fears allaying.

"That's just Professor Layton and his assistant Luke Triton," said the attendant, with a nod. He twirled the end of his mustache and smiled fondly at them. "He's in all the papers."

"Oh, I never heard of them."

"They're quite famous- he's a professor and archeologist who discovered Atlantis and dinosaurs."

"And the boy?"

The attendant frowned, twisted the mustache to its extreme, and let it uncoil. "No one really knows about him. He's the Professor's apprentice. But their relationship is quite above board."

The Professor was drinking a steaming cup of fragrant tea. He watched a fierce battle unfold in the in-flight movie.

"Ha! I must say, this Steel Samurai is quite the fellow," said Professor Layton. "Why, blah blah blah..."

"Uh huh, Professor," mumbled Luke, curled up in his seat. His eyes were closed. "Whatever you say..."

Suddenly the pilot's voice came over the intercom.

"Ladies and gentlemen," announced the pilot, "I'm afraid there's an iceberg up ahead. We're all going to die."

The fat wife snorted awake, flailing her limbs everywhere.

"No! I'm afraid of icebergs!"

The pilot laughed. "Just kidding, everyone. There are no icebergs in the stratosphere. We're about to touch down in Los Angeles. Buckle up!"

Luke stirred awake. He yawned, stretching one arm over his head, the other behind it. A sleepy tear dangled from the corner of one eye. He blinked away his sleepiness.

"So, Professor, what exactly ARE we going to do in LA?"

"It's quite simple, my boy. We find those artifacts before the villains who stole my research. I have no doubt that's what they're after."

"Well, I for one agree wholeheartedly, Professor! We can't let something important like that fall into the hands of crooks!"

"I'm glad you share my sentiments, my boy. Also, we'll get an opportunity to see our good friends Phoenix and Maya again. I'm sure once we inform them of the situation, they'll aid us in our investigation."

"Oh yeah, them! I can't wait to see them again. Wow, it's been years, hasn't it? He's been busy, I know that much from Maya's letters!"

"Indeed. He has played a great role in the recent improvements to California's courts. I find the Jurist System fascinating. It's a pity it hasn't been adopted in our country yet."

"And he got married, too! To Lamiroir of all people! A celebrity! Can you believe it? I always thought he'd end up with Maya. And they already have a daughter and another baby on the way!"

"Ah, yes, the siren of sound. I adore her records. Her voice... it uplifts and soothes the soul. It is more than music; it is an experience that leaves no part of you untouched. She's an extremely talented woman, and a striking one at that. I look forward to meeting her."

"Professor, get a hold of yourself."

"Ha ha ha, well, it's always a pleasure to make the acquaintance of a beautiful lady, wouldn't you say so, Luke?"

"I can't say I understand that part of being a gentleman YET, Professor."

Just then, the entire plane shook, and people were jolted about in their chairs. The man from earlier (who's bald) spilled his crackers and juice all over his fat wife.

"Ladies and gentlemen," came the captain's voice, "we're being accosted by terrorists."

Luke began to get up.

"Luke!" shouted the Professor. There was no humor or gaiety in his face. "Stay in your seat."

Luke sat down.

Luke asked him what terrorism was. He'd heard the word, of course, but he didn't really know what it meant.

"Well," Layton said, as the captain gave orders over the radio and the airway police entered the aisle with short shorts and assault rifles in slings, "they want to destroy freedom."

The Professor decided to illustrate with an example.

He lifted a finger.

"You know Big Ben?"

"Of course!" said Luke. "Every Londoner knows that. It's how we know what time it is."

Layton nodded. "Now, ask yourself, what if the terrorists flew a commercial airliner into the tower and made a big hole in the clock face?"

Luke was incensed. He clenched his fist. "No! Then people wouldn't be able to tell the time! Why, that'd cause mass inconvenience!"

"Exactly." Layton tilted his head forward and glared out the window. "That's what terrorists do. They annoy people."

Outside, a small terrorist jet emerged from the clouds below and flew alongside the airliner. It was flying the skull and crossbones, two trailing flags on either wing, and was mounted with weapons.

"What in the world...?" murmured the Professor.

A hail of gunfire broke the windows, drawing screams. People dove out of their seats. Layton clutched Luke's head to his chest and rolled around in the aisle for a while.

A sky police officer in a beret spasmed in his boots, got laden with bullets, and streamers of blood flew out of his body. He collapsed in a heap.

Layton grimaced. He pushed himself up on his forearms.

"Luke, stay down!"

He army crawled under the shootout through glass and blood, pushed corpses and stray limbs out of his way, got distracted by a bottle of germs and solved a puzzle, and made his way to the dead officer.

He pulled the rifle off the dead man and slipped on the bandolier.

Just then a terrorist, who was actually Jacques Portsman, attempted to board the plane from the wing. He pulled himself through the shattered window. He had a knife in his mouth and his were wide and bloodshot from drugs. He also had a pirate hat on.

Layton fired off a burst of automatic gunfire from the floor and splattered the unlucky terrorist's brains on some nuns.

"Go on, Layton!" cheered the mother superior, raising a fist. "Go on!"

Layton smiled from the floor, tipped his hat, then frowned in determination.

He kicked the dead man off the plane onto the wing, climbed out, and posed in the middle of the window, the bottom of his jacket fluttering in the wind, holding the rifle in one arm.

The commander of the enemy jet addressed him over a giant bullhorn on top of the fuselage.

"Professor Layton! We demand that you hand over the Golden Gavel and Lawlegalcyclopedia at once!"

Layton's eyes glinted.

"If I had them I certainly wouldn't give them to you. They belong in a museum."

A turret on the side of the plane swerved towards him and fired at him but he rolled out of the window onto the wing to dodge it and took it out with a few well-placed shots.

The windows on the terrorist jet slid open and more terrorists started shooting at him. Things looked grim but then a man in green plated armor with huge pauldrons and a cybernetic-looking spear emerged from the clouds, shooting up like a rocket and breaking them apart. He had devil horns and blinking lights all over his suit, which covered him from head to toe.

The mysterious armored man landed on top of the enemy jet and thrust the spear straight down through the cockpit and skewered the pilot. Then he backflipped off and flew alongside the plane destroying it with his spear like he was keying a car. The jet started smoking and lost altitude and sank beneath the clouds.

Layton, dazed, unthinking, walked out further onto the wing, dragging his feet and barely lifting his legs, to get a better look at their mysterious savior.

The flying armored man gave him a lingering inscrutable look from behind the dark glass in his helmet and then he, too, disappeared beneath the clouds.

Layton just stood there, his forgotten weapon dangling from the bandolier. The pilot stuck his torso out of the window with Luke on his shoulder. Luke was licking a lollypop with a band-Aid on his elbow.

The pilot threw a thumbs-up. By the way, he had an open-collared shirt with his wavy chest hair exposed, and tiny shorts, and huge aviators.

"Nice shooting, Prof. We showed those terrorists that killing 27 passengers has a price. American Flightlines fly on."

The bald fat-wifed man poked his head out: "Erm, not to interrupt, but who's flying the plane?"

"Don't worry, I set it to autopilot."

Professor Layton stared out into nothingness.

"I have the strangest feeling... that I've seen that person before."

"But where would you've seen that, Professor?" asked Luke. "I'd think you would remember someone in a get-up like that!"

"I don't know..." he murmured.

Who are you? Someone close to my heart... Claire? No, she's dead and not a robot. Don Paolo? No, there was no mustache.

Who are you, mysterious robot man of my heart?

One thing was clear: the search for the Golden Gavel was heating up. Forces larger than he had ever expected were involved and willing to kill to find it.

"Luke, we will find these treasures. I swear to on my honor as a gentleman who wears a hat."

Chapter Text

Layton and Luke disembarked, waving to the crowd that had amassed to welcome the heroes who defeated the terrorists. Police cars and ambulances parked around the plane and tended to the wounded and dead.

A TV reporter looming in the foreground introduced the professor as a mysterious hero known only as Professor Hershel Layton of Gressenheller University, London, England. He reported that the terrorist attack was believed to be the work of the same group currently waging war against our beloved legal system.

Other reporters kept shoving microphones and notepads in the duo's faces, but Professor Layton just said, "Every puzzle has an answer," and, "Ohohohoho, wonderful!" as they pushed past.

Spark Brushel forced his way to the front of the crowd and said: "Professor, Professor! 'Terrorists Drop Bombs; Freelance Journalist Drops Information Bomb In Act of Journalistic Terrorism, Upsets Powers That Be,' end quote. You? Me? We need to talk!"

Layton looked grossed out.

"Sir, you look disgusting. Is this some sort of joke? If so, I am not amused."

"Hey, guy, I just look like this."

"I hardly think that possible. No one could look so terrible unless it was on purpose. In any case, you elicit a strong feeling of revulsion in me. I hope you die. Goodbye!"

Layton and Luke pushed their way through the swarming crowd and got away from him. Spark watched the tophat streaming through the top of the crowd like a shark's fin.

"Wait! Wait! I have important information about the ancient prophecy! I- aw, they can't hear me. Shucks. Oh well. Guess I'll have to shadow them."

Once they got away, Luke said: "Professor, that was kinda rude! What about being a gentleman?"

"Luke, a gentleman is allowed to be rude on purpose. Just not accidentally."

"Ah, I get it! I'm learning a lot today."

"Besides, Luke, I knew for a fact he was Spark Brushel, one of Los Angeles's worst independent journalists. His influence extends even across the Atlantic. I elected to use strong language to let him know in no uncertain terms that we wanted nothing to do with him."

Layton had a grudge against independent journalists because it was an independent journalist who had taken the photos of Layton drunk in his underwear eating a cheeseburger on the floor in his office; and also the photo of Layton licking cum off the floor with the caption, "'A True Gentleman Leaves No Drop of Cum Undrunk', end quote." Which may be true, but he didn't want the entire world to know it. It had taken all of Dean Delmona's not inconsiderable influence to have the pictures suppressed.

"My boy," the Dean had said, "this is the last time, absolute last, you understand, time I cover for you!"

"It will not happen again," Layton had said.

"We both know that's not true, Hershall."

They had stared into each other's eyes.

Anyway, the Professor and Luke went to the baggage claim to get their luggage. Layton pulled a duffel bag off the conveyor belt and threw it AY on the floor. He unzipped it and revealed Flora! She was lying on her side, knees bent into her chest, hands folded on top of each other, eyes closed, mouth open.

"Why, it's Flora!" cried Luke, tipping his cap back in bemusement.

Layton's face became numb and he folded his lips. "She must have stowed away in an attempt to join us on our adventure."

Luke squatted down and poked her. "She's not moving professor. She must've run out of oxygen, or used it all up like a stupid girl."

Layton zipped it up and set it back on the conveyor and it was carried away. He turned to Luke, his face expressionless. "Tell no one of this, Luke."

He strode away through the terminal, staring ahead steadfastly. Luke jogged to keep up, his satchel banging against his thigh.

"But wait, Professor! Is she dead?"

"It's possible, Luke," said Layton. "Though I suppose it's also possible that a miracle happened and a little bit of oxygen got into the bag before I closed it. That oxygen could revive her. If the terrorists don't get to her first."

Luke looked up at his mentor, struggling to keep up, his face concerned. "Is that likely, Professor?"

"They're after the treasure, Luke. They'll go after anyone close to us." He suddenly stopped in his tracks, closed his eyes and nodded. Luke skidded to a stop, flailing his arms and almost falling over.

"Yes... inside that bag is the safest place in the world for her at the moment." He looked down at Luke and smiled. "Come, Luke, we can't let a little terrorism damper our spirits. We have work to do."

Luke was disconcerted but quickly composed himself. He nodded, determined. "Right, Professor!" He held his cap in place and pointed forward. "Adventure!"

After going through the TSA checkpoint several times in various disguises, to throw off the terrorists, Layton and Luke hailed a cab.

Frank Sawhit was watching them from behind a pillar under the overpass.

He was seated on a motorcycle. He lowered his binoculars. His eyes narrowed. His face was covered in stubble and his jaw was set hard. He let the binoculars dangle from the strap and spoke into a walkie-talkie, trailing the cab with his eyes.

"They've survived the terrorism, sir."

"Damn it!" came over the walkie. "How incompetent are you, Sawhit?"

"Just a little bit."

A demon claw shot out of the walkie's mouthpiece, sending splinters of plastic everywhere, and began choking him.

"Grah! Gruk!"

It retracted.

"Don't make me do that again."

Frank rubbed his neck and coughed. He slammed his leg down and started the engine and coasted down the hill, reared up a bit and made a jump. The wheels thudded against the asphalt, and he straightened the bike out and revved the engine and took off after the cab.

But it turned out Layton had put lifesize dummies of themselves in the back of the taxi. He and Luke peered out from behind a potted plant.

"Hmm, it worked. Follow me, Luke!"

It was waiting for them on the tarmac. Luke gawked.

"Wow, Professor! How did that get here!" He ran up and embraced the lovable old car, kneeling down and stroking its headlight. Layton stood by and chuckled with his arms folded.

"Why, Luke, my boy, you didn't expect me to go on an adventure without the Laytonmobile, did you?"

"But how did you get it here, Professor?"

"Simple. I had it taken apart and shipped overseas so it could be reassembled and waiting for me."

They got in the car and got onto the highway. But the traffic was bad.

"Professor, we haven't moved in hours!"

"Oh my..." said Layton. He tipped his hat over his eyes.

"I knew Los Angeles had bad traffic, but I didn't know it was THIS bad!"

"Well... we'll think of some puzzles to pass the time. I believe I have the perfect puzzle. Luke, envision a parking lot broken into a grid in your mind. Now imagine it's full of blocks, but imagine the blocks are cars, and you can move the cars around the grid by sliding them. This puzzle can be solved in as few as 178 moves."

"Oh dear god no," said Luke.

"A gentleman never takes the lord's name in vain," chided the professor. A car rear-ended them and they lurched forward. "Fuck! Damnation!"

Who was in the car that reared them? Why, Detective Dick Gumshoe!

"Sorry, pals, I was so busy chasing my dreams I didn't see you there! Say... that car looks foreign, and you two look foreign, too. What're you doing in my country?"

Professor Layton explained to the detective the purpose of their visit, and that they were on their way to see Phoenix Wright.

"You might have some trouble there, pal," said Gumshoe. "That guy basically disappeared off of the face of the earth."

Layton's eyes became cold and logical. "What? Do elaborate."

"Don't you read the papers, Prof? It's in the human-interest section." He chuckled. "'Cept they should probably rename it the Phoenix Wright, Chipmunks, and MILF section, cuz that's all they ever talk about."

He dug a newspaper out of his coat. Layton snatched it and buried his nose in it, eyes darting back and forth like ping-pong balls in a heated match. Luke read over his shoulder.

They learned all about how Phoenix Wright had left his wife, or the other way around, and how his office had burned to a crisp, and how he hadn't taken a case or made an appearance in court since. No one knew where he was.

"Oh my, this is extremely concerning," said the Professor.

"I'll say!" said Luke. "We have to help him, Professor! He must be in trouble!"

"I agree, Luke. I can't shake the feeling that this is all connected to the object of our visit. Just how, I'm not sure yet..."

The first point of business was to get off the highway because the deadlock was only getting deader.

"Don't worry, pals, any friends of Phoenix are friends of mine! I'll call the station and have you airlifted off the highway! Consider it a thank you for stopping those terrorists."

Soon a helicopter with a giant claw attached to the bottom whisked the Laytonmobile through the air towards a hotel where they could rest their weary heads. Layton sipped tea from a dainty yet not faggy saucer which was only slightly gay when suddenly he saw a billboard advertising the Bible 2, now available at Barnes and Noble.

"What in the world?" said Layton.

It looked radical, with a priest skateboarding on the cover, and cheerleaders with huge naked tits shaking their pom-poms around, and dinosaurs and dragons and football players and lots of other cool stuff calculated to appeal to the basest instincts and desires of the lowest common denominator masses.

"The Bible 2? I'm confused..." said Luke. "Professor, how could someone write a sequel to the bible?"

"I don't know, Luke. Only god can write the bible. If god didn't write it, it can't be considered canonical to the original bible. That's simple logic."

The helicopter swung by closer to the billboard, and Layton's skin crawled. Something deeper within him crawled, too, because he felt like he was in the presence of a physical, tangible manifestation of evil, something that couldn't be approached intellectually, something that responded to something deep and primal inside him, something that evoked fear and revulsion and yet at the same time a sort of dark attraction that you couldn't look away from.

"Professor, just what is going on in LA?" asked Luke.

Layton covered his apprentice's eyes so he wouldn't be exposed to the awesome breasts and cool butts of the Bible 2.

"I don't know, Luke. I don't know. But I am troubled."

He looked troubled.

He saw a procession of devil worshippers in the streets below chanting and carrying torches and the corrupted banners of their corrupted faith and looked more troubled still.

Chapter Text

Iris stepped out of the shower. First, her dainty, delicate foot was revealed, then her ankle, then her lower leg, and finally the gently upward trailing curve of her pale, small, trembling white thigh.

She did her hair up in a towel and threw on a robe and left the bathroom. Her timid bony structure glided through the halls and under the high ceilings and giant colonnades of Klavier Gavin's mansion, which always made her feel small and out of place.

She got to the bedroom door and struggled with the knob.

"They need to invent a doorknob for women," she complained.

Eventually, she opened the door and went into Klavier's room.

Inside, her gaze traveled across the room from left to right, taking in all the little things that were reminiscent of him: his half-open guitar case, his clothes strewn all over the room and over the backs of chairs, his prosecutor's badge on the tip of a lance wielded by a suit of armor. All this she took in unconsciously, while her mind was on other things.

Her eyes looked deadened and detached, her face was blank, impassive, empty, an unpainted easel, the past whited out and ready to be etched anew by the future.

She had a plan.

She thought that maybe this was her chance.

She was bitter, but she tried her hardest to sublimate that bitterness.

A thrill ran through her body.

It's possible, it's possible!

Finally... a chance to be with Feenie!

An uneasy feeling settled in the bottom of her stomach and weighed there like an anchor. She felt nauseous with anxiety. Would he still love her? As much as SHE still loved him?

And then there was a new problem... namely, Larry Butz's gigantic penis, the largest in the world, attached to her. Would Feenie be able to overlook that?

Yes, she thought, determined. He will. He will see that I always loved him and was always waiting for him. No matter what mistakes he or fate made. It won't matter. His love will come back. Because she thought it was never gone. It was like their love was playing peekaboo. It was still there, you just couldn't see it. It was like an eclipse. It was like everything and all things. It shone as brightly as perhaps two suns.

Not actually gone. Still there.

Besides, Larry was Feenie's best friend, so surely he could overlook the penis? Maybe he would even grow to like it.

She felt slightly less anxious now. She just needed to find him and talk to him. His heart was open and hurting right now, she knew it. Maybe the OTHER WOMAN could abandon him, but IRIS'S love was eternal, it shone as brightly as perhaps three suns. She would show him.

But where was he?

That was the question.

She went around the room picking stuff up. She thought about broaching the subject to Klavier, but she always faltered.

It would interfere with her channeling duties, she knew that. How could she be Phoenix's bride and Klavier's vessel? Something would have to be worked out.

But she was a weak sister. She knew that. She would always take the easiest path of least resistance and passivity. She set things aside, saying, oh, I'll do it later when I get the opportunity! While knowing she would never, ever do it.

She decided to go looking for Phoenix soon while Klavier's spirit was dispelled in heaven.

A smile suddenly crept up on her when she remembered something about how silly and innocent and loving he had been in college. She remembered eating lunch with him in college at their usual little table outside.

"Don't forget to take your Cold Killer X!" she had said.

"Haha, silly me! What would I ever do without you? Thanks, Dolly!"

The smile twitched and disappeared. It's not fair... he should've been calling her Irissy. Or Iris Hot Thorn. But no... people only ever called Dahlia Hot Thorn...

Oh, but poor, poor sis, I could never blame you... even when I know the things you did were wrong, I can't blame you. You were cruelly mistreated by fate...

She undid her robe and spread out her arms and the monkeys and gazelles and other random animals that lived in the mansion helped her put her clothes on.

"Thank you, my little friends," she said. She lifted a leg and the monkeys help her slip into her panties. The same panties, as a matter of fact, she had inherited from Dahlia after she was executed...

"Oook oook eek!"

She remembered it like it was yesterday.

"Sister Bikini, they're here!"

It had just snowed, and Hazakura temple loomed at her back. Iris didn't care that it was cold, she took off her shoes and her toes sunk into the snow and she stepped into them, her dead sister's underwear, the ones with the butterflies on them. She started crying.

"Okay... the crying is kinda weird," said the police officer who had transferred them to her. "She died wearing those, you know. That's why they're so electrocuted. She got the chair."

"God, they even smell like her. To think they were all she had left... Poor sis." She started crying harder.

The cop rubbed his mittens together and blew frosted breath.

"I should've never volunteered for dead panty duty... Christ..."

Sister Bikini said: "Wah hah hah hah! Those are very cute! Oh, I know! Maybe you could change your name to Sister Panties! Then you could have a sexy, alluring name like me!"

"Oh, no, I could never do that," replied Iris. "I could never have such a bold name... to be so forward... I... I could never! I'm afraid it wouldn't be possible for me."

"What shall we call you, then? What should be your nun name? All these years we've been calling you Sister Iris, but we never really came up with a really good nun name."

Iris tilted her head like a little bird and smiled with her eyes closed. "Well, I'm my sister's sister, so maybe we can call me Sister."

"Sounds good me! But Sister what?"

Iris got down on her knees and picked a flower from a bare patch in the snow.

"Ooh, I know what to call me! Look, it's an iris!"

Bikini's lungs bellowed with much cachinnation. "Wah hah hah hah! It's not, but let's call you Iris anyway!"

Iris smiled a full smile. "Thank you, mother! Thank you so much! Ha ha ha ha ha ha!"

Past merged with present, and she was sitting in a chair, holding the baby monkey with the top hat in her lap.

Flowers were never her strong suit... but neither were Feenie's.

"What I need to do," she said thoughtfully, running her hand through the monkey's fur, "is have him get me pregnant right away."

"Oooooh! Oooooooh!"

She hugged it tight.

"Yes, I think that's a good idea." She saw a giant orange orangutan with a veil on sitting on the bed getting a lot of attention from the monkey in the blue suit. She got jealous.

"And if HER baby died... well... but, oooooh, I shouldn't say that. It's sinful to even think something like that. But maybe it would be better if... no, that's horrible! Horrible! I'm horrible!" She hit herself in the side of the head viciously with knotted little fists and the baby monkey fell off her lap.

She started crying that she could even think something so horrible; but she also felt it didn't matter how horrible she was because she had waited so patiently and now her patience was going to be rewarded.

She regained her composure and shooed all the animals out. She stood by the door and ushered the misplaced circus cavalcade through as they sent up clouds of dust and feathers.

"It's time to go my, little friends! Thank you! Thank you all! Look at all the wonderful things you little darlings can do! It's just like the things Magnifi Gramarye did with animals on TV!"

That made her think of Trucy and Thalassa. She was intimidated by Thalassa. Maybe Trucy could be her stepdaughter, too... that would be lovely! They could bond over how wonderful Feenie was.

She had a quick meal before channeling Klavier. Her dinner was a single Ritz cracker topped with a paper-thin slice of grape tomato and three, wait, no, two shreds of cheese.

Down on the floor, a rat wearing a polka dot bowtie and a fedora was leaning up against the wall outside his mousehole. He watched in disbelief. He uncrossed his ankles and pushed himself off the wall, throwing his smoking cigar aside.

"Are you kidding me?" said Ratphonso. "That little thing is her whole dinner? That would've been a good rodent-sized pizza to go with a rodent-sized table, like an empty spindle or a sardine can. Course if it was a can, you could just open the can and eat the things inside. But that's besides the point." He slapped his knee. "She's a human but she's eating mouse-sized food! She must be dumber than a bag of bricks! I should scare the crap out of her! Okay, here I go!"

He scurried across the floor on all fours and scared Iris! He ran up her leg and inside her dress while she screamed! Underneath, in the dark tunnel over her white thighs, he snickered and rubbed his paws together as she freaked out. He pulled back the elastic band of her panties and peered inside and saw Larry Butz's monstrous penis and screamed and ran down her leg and back into his mousehole.

Meanwhile, she was scrunching up her face dancing on the chair on her tiptoes, and holding up the hem of her acolyte uniform.

"Ugghh, and just after I showered! That was NOT a good animal. That was a BAD animal."

Inside the mousehole, the rat peered out of the hole while hiding against the wall. His chest rose and fell dramatically.

"Whooo, boy, let me tell you, I was surprised by that for sure!" said Ratphonso. "Cause I'd know that cock anywhere! It's Larry Butz's! Why does she have it? You know what they say, hickory dickory dock, the mouse climbed up the cock, because he was looking for cheese," here he made an X with his arms and swung them apart, "but that was way too much cheese! Even for me! I could never eat all that! Even if it was pretty sexy. I thought this place was gonna be the Ritz, but it's a nuthouse, what with the spirit mediums, the wild animals trying to eat me, the freaking ghosts. I gotta call Squeek and tell him to get me some new digs."

Ratphonso pushed the giant (to him) telephone off the cradle and called Edgeworth's office by jumping on the buttons.

"He's not in at the moment," said a voice. "In fact, uh, we're not really sure when he'll be back..."

Ratphonso held up his claws and examined them against the glow from the Christmas lights strung across the mousehole ceiling.

"Just sorta stick the receiver into the mouse hole on the floor."

"Well… okay, sir. Shrug."

A few seconds later he was speaking with Squeek.

"Some place to hide out from the Prosecutor Squad. You didn't tell me this was his house, man."

"It's for the best, Ratphonso. No one would look there. Besides, no is lookin' for ya! It's just a precaution!"

"Hmph, hmph," grumbled Ratphonso, but mollified somewhat. He said: "Yeah, but Klavier Gavin?"

"Klavier Gavin is not someone you have to worry about. He's on his way out, I hear. Besides, you didn't even do anything wrong!"

"Yeah, but I seen something wrong. Very wrong."

"Well, if you keep your mouth shut."

A pause between the two rodents.

"I ain't gonna stay here forever, Squeek. Nobody puts Ratphonso in the corner."

"All right... all right… I'll... find somewhere else." Over the phone, Ratphonso heard Squeek pluck at his taut whiskers like a Jaw Harp. "Just give me a little more time. Time is all I need."

"Yeah, well, time is a precious commodity, my friend."

"I've treated you pretty well, Ratphonso. You should remember that."

He hung up.

Ratphonso flicked his wrist and turned his head away.

"Aw, go boil your whiskers, Squeek..."

Iris prayed at her bible and crossed herself, and then got ready to channel Klavier. She sat down in front of the mirror and thought about Phoenix some more.

The first part of her plan was to get Feenie to open a door for her. Then she would say, "Thank you, Doorknob."

He would look confused and say, "Huh?"

And she would just smile knowingly.

Oh, if only you knew... my spikey little doorknob...

Chapter Text

There was an open notebook on the dressing table. A two-way diary in front of a one-way mirror. Klavier and Iris, rapidly channeling and unchanneling, took turns writing little messages and questions to each other in the notebook. It had become a daily ritual for them. It was almost like having a pen pal.

It was strange. It felt like they were as close and as far away from each other as two people could be.

He stared into the mirror, seeing a face that was part his and part hers, imagining he could really meet her. He played her a song on his guitar, and then she dispelled his spirit and heard a lingering note in the air, and then Klavier's spirit came back after an unusually long pause and he saw smudged prints on the mirror over the reflection of his face and hands.

"Hmph." He smiled and shifted his gaze away. "Curious."

Suddenly there was a loud buzz. He looked up at the monitor mounted in the corner of the ceiling. He saw a black and white video feed of Biscoff standing outside at the mansion gates.

It was midnight. Biscoff had left the city far away behind him at the bottom of the road winding its way up to Klavier's hilltop mansion. He held his finger on the buzzer and waited to be let in. Eventually a chime played, and the gate slid open. He went inside, each slow but unfaltering step sounding an ominous note against the paved walk.

"I wonder what my bro wants with me this late?" wondered Klavier, watching his brother on the security camera. He sat there for a while, fingers pressed against his lips.

He went downstairs. At the end of a long hallway he pushed open a door, slowly, first revealing a sliver, then more, of his brother waiting by the fireplace.

Biscoff was sitting in a plush armchair, angled away from the door. He was thinking about an interaction with someone earlier. He had a playing card in his hand. The Queen of Hearts.

He was holding it by the corner, twisting it around and around and looking it over by the firelight. He paid special attention to the face under the crown. It was vague in the uncertain light, vague enough that his mind could project the features of the one he was thinking about onto the card. His lower lip fell and trembled.

A kaleidoscope of emotions played across his face under the rolling shadows from the crackling fire, frenzied, like the shadows of spirits, but spirits of what?

"Biscoff?"

The flames died down, and so did the shadows painting his face.

"Ah... my dear brother."

Klavier came and sat by his brother. They made polite greetings and engaged in desultory conversation. There was a tense undercurrent, and both seemed to be talking around something.

"How's the bakery?" asked Klavier.

"The what?"

"The club?"

"Oh. Fine. Fine. You played a show there last week."

"Ah, did I? I must've been too high on drugs to remember."

"Hmm. Yes. Rather." Biscoff sniffed one nostril really big. "I just came from Thalassa's."

"That big fat ass MILF? How's she doing?"

"Pretty cut up about the whole thing, I'm afraid. As is Trucy."

"Ah... I can imagine."

The conversation tapered off.

They were silent for a while.

Biscoff said: "So you betrayed me. Why?"

"Biscoff..."

"No, no, call me Kristoph when you betray me. Let's not beat around the bush. It's ruined my plans, for the moment. Care to explain why?"

"What choice did I have? You wouldn't listen to reason, and I knew about the bomb. Oh, you made sure I was well aware of that."

Kristoph was stern. "You conspired against me with Phoenix Wright after I trusted you. TRUSTED you, klavier. Why?"

"Because you are a madman!"

"Mad? Mad?"

Kristoph started laughing and dancing around on furniture. He swung from a chandelier cackling and kicking his legs.

"Mad? Oh no, I'm happy! Ever so happy!"

He jumped down and screamed in his brother's face.

"Especially since you RUINED MY PLANS!"

Klavier leaned back in his chair and raised his hands and showed his brother his palms, like a dog showing its belly.

"Kristoph... please... mein big bruder... n-no... a-achtung..."

Kristoph looked down at his brother with disdain.

"Oh, you played your nasty, traitorous double role well, I admit. Pretending to be surprised when Wright told you my identity, telling me his plans... and then betraying me behind my back with that little love potion stunt."

"Kristoph, please, I didn't-"

Kristoph slapped him across the face with a salmon.

"Shut up." He stood ramrod straight like a military officer with one hand behind his back. "I've had quite enough of your lies and gaslighting. What I want to know is what now? You would hand me over the police? Have me executed? Break the bonds of brotherhood? And here I thought loyalty, at least, was one of your strong suits."

"You know more than anyone I can't do that. Because of..."

"Trucy, of course. Because you love her too, don't you? If your base, insipid, vapid feelings can be called 'love.' Strutting around on stage like some sort of cockamamie rooster... grow up!"

"Nein... it's not even like that. You're my bro. I didn't WANT to betray you."

"But you did."

"But I DIDN'T. I didn't!" There was pleading in his voice. He was shrinking deeper into the armchair under the force of his brother's intense glare. "Kristoph, please. I didn't. I never wanted to help you. You... you forced me."

"You didn't have to interfere. While simultaneously LYING to me, Klavier. Honestly, I have trouble believing you did this. I was honest and open with you. I was just about to marry her, and then you had to go and ruin everything."

"But... but I was a member of the prosecutor squad." He said this as if trying to convince himself, to preserve some shred of self-worth. "I couldn't just sit by and let you lie to the fraulein, to Herr Wright, to Herr Lamiroir, to Herr Stu Pickles, hell, to Herr Me, all while you were going around committing all these fucked up crimes."

"Ah, crimes you've been an accomplice to, don't forget."

Now Klavier was angry. "No! Okay, no! You don't get to pin any of that on me! We're not playing that game, Kristoph. I never helped you with ANY of that stuff. If I ever helped you, at all, it's because I was under duress."

"But you've been helping me even before my 'death.' Like in the prison when you pretended to argue with me and refused to help me escape, in front of the guard... all while carrying a weapon for me, just like I asked you to bring."

Klavier shifted his shoulders uncomfortably. "I wasn't pretending. Everything I said was the truth. I wasn't going to help you do anything."

"Then why were you carrying the samurai sword, Klavier? Why were you carrying a weapon of the ancient warrior class of Japan? Tell me that."

"Because. Like they said in court. It was evidence for a trial. That's it. I'm always working, Kristoph. That's just how I am."

"Please. That facile explanation might work on a jury of Wright's peers, but it won't work on me. The prosecution didn't care to delve into specifics because you yourself were the victim, but you can't just waltz into a prison carrying something like that. The metal detectors would've gone off. So, obviously, you made preparations to sneak it in... and provide me a weapon to escape with and avoid execution."

Silence.

Kristoph continued: "Of course, if you hadn't already refused me previously, and had the courtesy to communicate your change of heart, I wouldn't have self-harmed with the piano, or at least not so forcefully, and I wouldn't have struggled with you and lost consciousness. Perhaps then you wouldn't have died, and that entire messy trial could have been avoided. But maybe you couldn't tell me. Maybe you were hoping I'd 'find' it on you; that way you could provide me with the weapon without feeling guilty. All while still helping me, of course, and preserving plausible deniability. Yes... you've been my ally all along, right?"

"Nein! T-that is not true! It is... a falsehood! I'd never willingly help you in your insane schemes! Never!"

"You've been my accomplice far longer than you care to admit, Klavier. Far, far longer. Every step of the way. Remember when Wright was disbarred? The phony evidence? The 'tip' I gave you? Even you must have had your suspicions then, greenhorn that you were. Maybe you didn't let yourself have suspicions or think about it too deeply... blocking out whatever was unpleasant or contradictory while still helping me. Willful cognitive dissonance, perhaps we could say?"

Kristoph smiled and shook his head a bit.

"Well, thanks for all the help."

"That's not true..." whispered Klavier. "No! I won't let you mess with my head... yours is messed up enough as it is! I don't need you infecting me with your madness!"

His head felt like a mess. His chest was hot and heavy. Things and thoughts and actions he didn't want to confront were crashing and howling like a tempest inside of him. He tried telling himself it was just the old familiar lies and manipulations, the same, the very same that had been part and parcel of his life ever since the brothers had been adopted by Gruber Grossberg.

Kristoph was annoyed.

"Hmph. If you say so. MY head has been in the right place. While you've been busy ruining well-laid plans, and getting childish penis transplants, I'VE been working to protect us. The chaplain who kept making himself a nuisance? Following you around? Taken care of." Klavier's stomach flipped like a pancake and flopped like a flapjack. "We didn't need him revealing your attempt to help me escape, or that you were in such frequent contact with me. That wouldn't have ended well. Edgeworth was growing suspicious, but we took care of him."

"You didn't have to send him to the future..." Klavier said this with downcast eyes and a tight expression.

"Didn't I? YOU put the operation in danger. YOU forced my hand. Who was it who sent him the email, hmm? Who put his guard up? Who indeed? Who warned him about the mole? Who besides YOU?"

"I had a duty to the Prosecutor Squad, Kristoph. Maybe you're right. Maybe loyalty is one of my strong suits."

"So, you decided to warn Edgeworth about... yourself? You made my job harder."

"I admit it. I sent Edgeworth the email warning him about the mole. Except... I wasn't the mole. Not really. Because you seemed to know things about the Prosecutor Squad I never told you. Things I thought it would be better to keep to myself."

Kristoph glared at him, the corners of his mouth turned down. He said nothing. Klavier just sat in the armchair, looking past him, at his apparent ease now.

"So... I figured out there really was someone besides me betraying the Prosecutor Squad. I was in the best position to know what kind of information you should have access to, what you shouldn't know. Things I didn't tell you. Who it was, I have no idea. But I thought a warning would be prudent.

"I don't know any more than you. This is the first I'm hearing of a 'second mole.'"

"What, haven't looked at your right asscheek lately?"

"Klavier."

"Kristoph."

There was another lapse in the conversation. Kristoph broke his brother's silence, like he was breaking his hymen.

"When did you first realize I was Biscoff?"

"Oh, I had my suspicions... little things... but they grew. First there was the bookmark. That's what started it."

"That was careless of me, I admit." He fanned out an equally careless hand. He let his fingers drop and curl.

"I would've turned you in if... circumstances permitted. You know... I suspected you might be Misery Lockedheart... but... I didn't KNOW. It seemed possible. After that wild speech on the bridge. But now I KNOW. I know exactly what you are. The... the atrocities you have committed. Your insane ambitions." He took a deep, steadying breath. He tilted his head up and looked at his brother head-on. "You are Misery Lockedheart."

Kristoph laughed.

"But Klavier... I'm not Misery Lockedheart. Whatever gave you that idea?"

"What?" He moved his head back, recoiled. "Of course you're Misery Lockedheart! You're doing everything you said you would in the letter to the prosecutor's office!"

Kristoph just chuckled.

"No, I'm afraid you're mistaken. Misery Lockedheart and I just so happen to share similar goals."

"Then who is Misery Lockedheart? If he's not you?"

"I haven't the faintest idea. But if you want my guess..."

He looked into the crackling fire. Orange light played across his face.

"He's the devil."

The flames in the fireplace roared. Thunder crashed and lightning flashed and the windows turned stark white and screeching bats and witches on broomsticks flew past in silhouette. A werewolf howled somewhere in the woods. Dracula jacked off in his coffin. For a split second, two little horns seemed to appear on Kristoph's head. The devil he had on his hand for no reason appeared for no reason except it made sense now kind of.

Something in Klavier seemed to break.

"Why are you doing all this? You could just... leave."

"Hmph. That would be convenient for YOU, wouldn't it? You're so selfish. You know, that's why I think you really used the love potion against me. Not from any sort of high-minded ideals. Simply because you were jealous of me."

"Well, she's engaged now, so you're shit out of luck. They posted their wedding plans on Facebook."

"It's a minor setback. Besides, I don't believe she really loves him. It's fated that I will be with her. You see, Klavier, five years ago I made a deal with the devil. I met him in my cell. He explained many things to me... and promised me many things too. He promised me her. Along with the entire world, if I want it. You'd be wise to fully join our cause while you have the chance."

This was too much for Klavier. He threw himself at his brother's feet and banged his fists on the floor.

"IT'S NOT TRUE! IT'S NOT TRUE! IT NEVER HAPPENED! IT WAS ONLY YOUR OWN INSANE VOICE ECHOING AND REVERBERATING IN YOUR MIND, CALLING BACK TO YOU AND HEIGTHENING YOUR OWN MADNESS! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

"But it is true, Klavier," said Biscoff while his brother freaked out. "Surely you've noticed it? The changes in people? In society? Ever since I got out of prison? It's my growing satanic influence that has corrupted people. You, too, have been an unknowing, but, oh, all too willing instrument in this gradual corruption and decay. Yankee Doodle Candy, anyone?"

Klavier looked up with a face wreathed in anguish, like a Christmas tree that just found out Christmas wasn't real.

"No… no! It's just an innocent song about eating ass! There's nothing satanic about it!"

"Can you honestly tell me you would have written a song like even a few years ago? Everyone in Los Angeles, their actions, their thoughts, everything, has been subtly affected by this unseen corruption. Some people less than others, but no one, not even you, has been left untouched. Perhaps only the Chipmunks are truly pure..."

"You are insane! Your words... ach, they are as false as your mustache!"

Kristoph held up the Bible 2. "How about reading my new book? Maybe it'll change your mind."

"NEVER, GAY MAN."

Deep furious wrinkles streaked across Kristoph's forehead like angry bolts of lightning.

"You know, Klavier, a good book can really 'grip' you."

He took his pants off and started slamming his cock between the covers of the book.

"Achtung! Kristoph! Stop wiedersehen!"

He jumped up and backhanded the book away and karate-chopped his brother's boner, but it sprung up like a diving board and hit Klavier in the chin and he flew away and all his clothes fell off and he landed in the buttcrack of the giant nude Kristoph Gavin statue in the corner of the room. He lay there in agony with his head jerked back like a naked guy dying in a Renaissance painting. Then he fell to the floor and Kristoph stood over him.

"Come now, Klavier," said Kristoph. He held a gentle hand against his brother's cheek. "You know you can't

(defy? contradict? go against? disobey? flashed through Klavier's mind, all the old words, there was one that was right and encapsulated them ALL, but what was? what was the word he was straining for? the one that captured his brother's hold over him? the word, the secret word?)

your brother."

Klavier looked up slowly. "No... I... know I can't..."

Kristoph favored him with a cruel smile. His eyes were bloodshot.

"I'm glad we could have this little chat tonight, Klavier," Kristoph, zipping his pants. "I think it was productive. Now, remember, don't tell anyone my identity, or else I will detonate the bomb. Right now, there's still a chance to make her mine. With Wright and Edgeworth out of the picture and the Prosecutor Squad in shambles, there are few to no barriers in my way, as long as you don't interfere."

"I love you, big bro."

"Why, I love you too, Klavier."

He left, leaving Klavier holding himself on the floor.

The light faded away.

The fireplace was cold and empty.

The predominating color was blue.

His Prosecutor Squad bracelet beeped in the darkness.

He let it beep.

Chapter Text

While things were happening in the past, things were happening the future, too.

Edgeworth was tens of thousands of feet above the surface of the Earth, far above the clouds, standing on the edge of some kind of flat disc-like platform. Flying cars whizzed by overhead and in the distance at varying heights he saw more of these platforms, all supported by poles rising out of the clouds. The poles were like stalks and the platforms and domes that topped them were like the weird, inorganic flowers of the future.

Edgeworth bitterly wished he still had his Prosecutor Squad bracelet so he could check the chronometer and ascertain his current position in time.

Behind him there was a dirty future hobo sitting on a pile of newspapers outside the bottle redemption center. He noticed Edgeworth and approached him, tipsy. He opened his arms wide and the dark liquid in his bottle sloshed around. He was slack jawed and cross-eyed and had a five o'clock shadow that looked like it was made of dirt.

He looked exactly like Gumshoe.

"Hiya, pal! The name's Ronald Rumshoe. I've been waiting for you! I'm Gumshoe's great great grandson. Welcome to the future!"

"I see... and how exactly do you know me? It's not as though we're from the same time period."

"Oh, that's easy... hold on a sec." He rummaged around in his filthy coat. "I have a letter here! My parents gave it to me when I was just a kid!"

He held out a dirty yellowed wrinkled page with his long black fingernails. Miles eyed it with distaste.

"Go on then, Mr. Edgeworth!" said Rumshoe. He was drooling like a waterfall and making a sizable puddle around his right foot. "Read the darn thing!"

Edgeworth hesitated and moved his hand back and forth and then snatched it away with the tips of his fingers. He wrinkled his nose and glared at Rumshoe and read it.

The letter said:

Dear future child... Mr. Edgeworth has gone missing, pal! Into a time machine! I hope he comes back! But if he doesn't, I want you to pass this letter down to YOUR kid, okay? So the fruit of my loins will never forget the great Miles Edgeworth! He was an honor to work with and a credit to his profession! I was proud to work with him. And I know that he's okay. Somewhere, sometime. And I know he coulda gone to the past, not the future, but if he IS in the future, I want you to help him, okay? Try to help him find a time machine and get back to his own time! And be his guide since I'm sure the future is a lot different!

All right, love you!

P.S. Edgeworth looks like this

Then there was a drawing of Edgeworth in crayon, but the ass was drawn ten times larger, and Crayon Edgeworth was squishing a tiny blue speck with his giant index finger. The speck was labeled "his rival Phoenix (bitch)"

Edgeworth lowered the note and stared past Rumshoe with a faraway look.

Hmph, that was quite prescient of the detective... he was surprised Gumshoe could demonstrate that kind of forethought. But, he took a look at Rumshoe, who wore a wide friendly smile, could he really trust this stranger? Surely genes as dysgenic as Gumshoe's couldn't produce a reliable guide? Although, Edgeworth reflected, at least this was a friendly face of someone willing to help him in a future full of strangers. It's better than nothing.

"All right, I'm in your hands," Edgeworth shrugged. "Take me to your time machine."

Chapter Text

Rumshoe chuckled.

"Whoa, hold onto your rocket boots there, Mr. Edgeworth. Time machines aren't exactly easy to come by, y'know. Even in the far-out future."

"Well, I have to find one soon," said Edgeworth. "It is imperative that I return to the past as soon as possible. But... no." He considered, eyes closed, folding his arms. "I must find out the secrets of the future. Perhaps by investigating, I can find out more about the past, and whether the ancient prophecy has any merit to it... and whether that madman Misery Lockedheart succeeded in his ambitions."

"Misery Lockedheart? Huh? Who's he, pal? Some kinda guy?"

Edgeworth ignored him and turned around and took small, tentative steps to the edge of the platform.

He looked down.

His palms get sweaty.

"Shouldn't there be a guardrail?" asked Edgeworth.

"You'd think so, pal, what with all the people falling over and all. But the king made it very clear in one of his kingly proclamations." Rumshoe lifted a finger. "No guardrails!"

Edgeworth looked up swiftly, alert. His ears wiggled like TV antennas picking up a very interesting channel.

King?

"Rumshoe... just where are we?"

Rumshoe explained they were in the year 2130- one hundred years after Edgeworth disappeared. In the future, everyone lived in the sky over where Los Angeles used to be on the ground. Now, people lived and worked together on this bustling archipelago of platforms towering above the clouds: in factories, in hospitals, in any sort of modern industry you could think of. Los Angeles was no longer part of the United States, but rather an independent kingdom in the sky ruled by a king. But it was a good kingdom; the king was fair. New advances in medicine and flying cars had almost completely eradicated cancer and non-flying cars. People lived happy, healthier, fulfilling lives.

"Well, except me," said Rumshoe. "But that's my choice."

He took out another bottle and popped the cap off with his asshole. Edgeworth got a dreamy smile on his face. He remembered when Wright used to lift up the trailing end of Thalassa's dress and bend her over with a firm hand on her lower back and use her tight asshole as a bottle opener. Edgeworth was always slightly embarrassed by the sight, to see them behave so familiarly, intimately, in front of guests, and usually averted his gaze. It was a favorite party trick of Wright's that was always a surprise and delight to her with its abruptness, and she usually reprimanded him with much playful slapping of his face and deep flushing of her cheeks, while Wright just smiled smugly with hooded eyes and a confident, self-pleased expression.

It was an echo of the past. Rumshoe himself was an echo. What other "echoes" would he find?

"Hmph," said Edgeworth, shaking off his memories, "not exactly as doom and gloom as the ancient prophecy would seem to portend. Still... I'm troubled. WHY does humanity live above the clouds?"

"Dunno, pal. You're asking the wrong guy. I just live here. I'm no historian. All I know... is no one goes below the clouds. Ever." He turned his head so it was in profile to Edgeworth. He looked serious. "'Cause it's been ingrained in us, almost. Anything under there... is death. Everyone knows that. Hell, 'know' might not be the right word. We feel it. Like it's a genetic thing."

Edgeworth had a sinking feeling in his gut. He asked: "Rumshoe, what exactly happened to the earth? What happened to Los Angeles? Why was humanity forced to seek refuge above the clouds? Pollution? Nuclear war? What? And most importantly... what of the Prosecutor Squad?"

"Beats me, pal." He threw his head back and took a swig. He staggered, shifting his weight to one foot. He steadied himself and dragged his sleeve across his lips. He raised his bloodshot eyes and looked at Miles over his arm, like he was looking out of a foxhole. "That's been lost to history. All I know... is we're cut off. This is it. We've sent out expeditions to other parts of the world, but nothing. This is all that's left."

"I wonder if the ancient prophecy came true..."

Just then Rumshoe spied something in Edgeworth's pants.

"Hey, pal, what's that big rectangle doing in your pants?"

"It's nothing."

Edgeworth's face immediately went blank, immobile, awash with autism. He patted the oil portrait deeper into his pants. Rumshoe craned his neck and tried to peer around Edgeworth's shoulder.

"Pal, I think I know a rectangle when I see one, pal!"

He reached into Edgeworth's pants and grabbed hold of it.

"Nrrrrghh! It's a quadrilateral!" It was halfway out now. He got into a tugging match with Rumshoe.

"It's obviously not, pal! You're hiding something!"

"All rectangles are quadrilaterals! You are too... too... gummish and immature to recognize that!"

Rumshoe shot back: "And you're keeping secrets from your partner, pal!" The hurt shone in his eyes. "We're supposed to be in this together, but you won't even trust me! How am I supposed to help you navigate this crazy future of ours if you won't even give me the benefit of the doubt? Open up your fucking pants!"

"I wouldn't give you the benefit of a passing glance if you were dying in the street, LET GO."

Rumshoe gave one final pull and the oil portrait flew out of Edgeworth's pants, and so did the scroll depicting the ancient prophecy. Rumshoe picked up the portrait and tilted it right and left in his hands.

"Hey... I feel like I've seen this guy before, pal."

"Impossible," said Edgeworth, dusting himself off. "That's a colleague of mine from 100 years ago. You couldn't have seen him... well, except from the drawing in the letter. Which was altogether a poor likeness."

"No, pal..." said Rumshoe earnestly, with a shake of his head, narrowing his eyes and scanning the portrait. "I've seen him somewhere in the future, I'm sure of it. But I dunno where."

Edgeworth impatiently said it was impossible and yanked the portrait away. They were all dead and gone, all of the people he knew from his time.

But he didn't really believe that. Till he met him again, he would always believe Wright was still out there somewhere, that he still existed, that their trials and experiences together weren't for naught, that 100 years ago or 1000 years ago those things mattered and were important, because they had mattered and were important to them then. No, even now, decades upon decades apart, nothing between them was dead, their bond, their mutual trust. Even if he failed in his quest and there was no one left to remember anymore, he felt their partnership would always exist somewhere, like a physical truth, a beautiful jewel, half-buried in the shifting sands on the shores of time.

Oh, yeah, and also Thalassa and Trucy and Apollo and Dave too... he supposed. He couldn't remember most of Wright's friends' names and he was tired so he stopped trying.

Anyway, next he showed the ancient scroll to Rumshoe.

"Holy hell, pal! That's freaky! what is it?

"Los Angeles... supposedly."

"D'ya think that's what happened, Edgeworth? D'ya think the first Los Angeles was destroyed by demons? D'ya?"

"First, it's Edgeworth, not Edgeward. Oh, you said that. Never mind. Second, that's just what I aim to find out."

Edgeworth had a few big questions. What effect did his forcible removal from his native time have on the future? What became of Misery Lockedheart's plans to take over the legal system? Maybe this all is was some kind of hidden dystopia.

"What's the legal system like in the future?" asked Edgeworth.

"That question must be my mom and dad, pal, 'cause it beats the hell outta me."

"What, aren't you a detective?"

"Oh no, I used to work at Mr. Cogsley's factory. Oh, it was great, pal, I was a foreman, but I drank so much on the job that they kept cutting my salary. Eventually, there nothing left to cut except my foreskin and they took that too. Now I live on the streets and drink rum."

Suddenly Rumshoe slapped his thigh. Something glinted in his eye, something akin to the first spark when a caveman discovered fire.

"Pal! I just remembered! I know where we can find a time machine!"

"Really? You know of an existing time machine? Quick! Tell me!"

Rumshoe explained that there was a big room of old recovered tech in the basement of Mr. Cogsley's factory and that one time he had seen some of the R&D guys carrying what looked like a time machine into the basement.

"The only problem is I don't have security clearance to get in anymore. Kinda comes with the territory of being fired for gross negligence. But... I think I know exactly the guy who can help us get in. He's like family to me." He shot out a finger gun. "And brother, he hates ancient prophecies too so keep that scroll in your pants at the ready, pal. We might need it."

"Aha, a lead! Lead the way."

So they hitched a ride in a passing car and flew to a nearby apartment complex. They landed on the edge of the platform and rode a conveyor belt into the building.

"Look, pal!" said Rumshoe with a sweep of his arm. "No need to tire out your feet! In the future, we let mother electricity do the walking for us. Nifty, huh?"

"Hmph. Are people really so lazy in the future that they can't even be bothered to walk into a building? Although," continued Edgeworth even handily, eyes closed, a little gruff concession, "I suppose it could be helpful for disabled people."

"It's not laziness, pal! It's just convenient! I know, think of it like a sideways elevator-"

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Edgeworth was screaming and hugging himself at Rumshoe's feet.

Rumshoe gawked.

"Pal, what the- get a hold of yourself!"

But Edgeworth couldn't. He was sobbing; his throat was hitching; he was sucking strings of snot back up his nose.

Rumshoe looked over his shoulders in embarrassment. Other pedestrians traveling the opposite way on the conveyor belt parallel to theirs were looking at them.

Rumshoe hovered over Miles with his arms spread out, trying to block him from view.

"Jesus, pal, did an elevator kill your family or something?"

Edgeworth unhinged his jaw like a toilet bowl seat unfolding. "YEEEEEAAAWWWAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHGGG!"

Rumshoe yanked him up by the collar and set him roughly on his feet. He slapped him and backhanded him a few times.

"Yeesh, I hope you weren't this much of a prima donna when you worked with great great granddad."

Edgeworth coughed, embarrassed. He pulled himself and his suit together. He smoothed out the creases.

"I'm fine," said Edgeworth. "That was just... just..."

"Time travel shock?"

Edgeworth latched onto that.

"Yes. Time travel shock. I... exactly. Thank you."

He gave Rumshoe a thankful look.

A fat man on the other conveyor belt nodded to his wife.

"Oh, that's why he was acting so freaky, he has time travel shock."

"Well, if that doesn't explain it!"

"I thought he was some kind of, well, I don't want to say it."

"Harold?"

"Well, a bad guy... or some under-clouder invading our world who should be reported to the king right away."

Rumshoe had saved the day so Edgeworth didn't look out of place and disturb the locals, which might hinder his investigations.

"Thank you," said Edgeworth simply.

"No problem. It's what guides are for. Hell, it's not like I had anything better to do."

"You know," said Edgeworth, hands clasped behind his back, chest out, chin up, taking in the marvels of the future as the conveyor belt carried them through a high-tech lobby, "the future is quite idyllic so far. Maybe Misery Lockedheart was defeated without my help."

"Could be, pal, you'd know better than me. I don't know."

"The Prosecutor Squad is made up of expert lawyers. I was so close to ferreting him out, that I wouldn't be surprised if they caught him shortly after my disappearance. And I wouldn't be surprised if that man helped."

"Prosecutor? Lawyer?" It looked like birds and bees were buzzing around in Rumshoe's head. "It's like you're speaking another language here, pal!"

"I speak the Judge's English, Rumshoe. As does Everyone from LA."

"English? What the hell is that? I speak Future English. And damn proud of it! Everyone in the Kingdom of Los Angeles does!"

Hmm... so prosecutors and lawyers don't exist in this future. At least, not under the familiar appellations. Could this be an advanced society that has eradicated crime and has no need for laws or courts? Or is it something more sinister? Dictatorship? Summary executions for petty crimes? Trials and a right to defense a foreign concept?

What was underneath all the glitter?

And what was underneath those impenetrable clouds?

The lobby itself was high-tech, with a high domed ceiling with skylights, but also with lots of artistic human touches like mechanical plants with big fronds covered in strips of blinking diodes, and doric columns with thick green cables like vines wrapped around them. The centerpiece of the lobby was a strange sculpture made out of huge jutting black spikes sticking out in every direction, like some kind of abstract porcupine.

Curious, thought Edgeworth.

Edgeworth and Rumshoe got to the right apartment and met Rumshoe's friend.

"Hi, welcome to the future!" said George Jetson. "My name is George Jetson, and welcome to the future!"

"Yeah!" said his boy, Elroy. "Welcome to the future!"

"Reah!" said the dog, Astro. "Ruture!"

George frowned. "Elroy, good children are seen, not heard. Now go to your room so I don't have to see you."

He turned back to the visitors and rubbed his chin. He put his head a little to the side.

"So, you need help getting into that slavedriver Mr. Cogsley's factory, huh? Well, I think I can be of some help there. It won't be easy, but heck, anything for a pal. Welcome to the future, Mr. Edgeworth!"

"You've said that already," said Edgeworth.

"Did I? Well, in the future, we're very welcoming. Anyway, I hate ancient prophecies, so if it's a time machine you need, it's a time machine you'll get." He thumbed his futuristic white shirt. "Just leave it to ol' George."

Just then his daughter came home with her head down and her bundle of books clutched to her chest. She tried to pass them unnoticed, but George smiled happily and exclaimed "Judy!" and pulled her toward him roughly and bent her back over his forearm and started open-mouth kissing her with lots of tongue stuff.

Everyone was shocked, of course.

George looked up in contempt, lifting his lips. "What?" he said. "Everyone greets their children like this in the future."

Then Astro started using his eyelashes to wipe his eyes like they were tiny windshield wipers, and everyone laughed, thinking it was a cute trick reminiscent of cartoons, except Rumshoe (Dick Gumshoe's descendant in the future), who's perhaps more astute than any of us had believed, who noticed that it was actually a secret code.

Don't believe his lies

Chapter Text

Rumshoe and Edgeworth stood respectfully to the side while George said farewell to his wife. 

"Be careful, dear," said Jane. She held onto him. "If you get in trouble and lose your job..." She gave her head a little shake. "Why, I don't know what our family will do."

"It'll be all right, Jane. It'll be all right, I promise." 

He gave her some shopping money to calm her down. Then George called Rosie the Robot over.

"You call, Mr. J?"

"Rosie, give Mr. Edgeworth here some breakfast. He must be starving."

"You got it, Mr. J!"

She popped out a pill and George handed it to Edgeworth.

"Okay, Mr. E, eat this pill," said George. Edgeworth looked weary so George said: "Don't worry, I'm not drugging you. I'm just giving you your nutrients for the day."

"And your calories!" added Rosie.

Edgeworth swallowed the pill but then it expanded and made a giant pill-sized bulge in his stomach.

"Whoa, pal," chuckled Rumshoe. "Looks like you need to hit the gym!"

"Yeah..." said George. "Or a woman!"

To George Jetson, hitting women was a sport.

George's tiny flying car warbled a bit on take-off and then straightened out and took off into the sky, leaving the apartments behind. Jane and Judy waved tissues at them and blew their noses.

Inside, Edgeworth sat next to George, and Rumshoe sat cramped in the back with his big shoulders hunched up and his knees touching his chin. George chattered on blithely, but Edgeworth ignored him with his back sunk deep into his seat, his mien serious, his brow knitted, his mood quiet and reflective. He rubbed his tummy idly to help expedite the digestion of the nutrient pill.

Just then a little compartment in the roof shook and Elroy and Astro spilled out in a pile of clothes at Rumshoe's feet.

"Rere I ram!" said Astro.

"What!" roared George, twisting his head and shoulders around, and the wheel, too. Horns went off as he shot across multiple lanes of skyway traffic. "You little stowaways!"

"We wanna see the time machine!" said Elroy.

"Reah, rime machine!"

"Ugh, I can never understand what that DOG is saying," said George.

Edgeworth was hiding his face behind his hands as they sped past blurs of traffic. A car honked and whooshed past and dinged George's antenna, making the entire vehicle shake and sway. "For god's sake, man, keep your eyes on the road! Or the... whatever you call it!"

"The sky, pal," said Rumshoe helpfully.

"Yeah, sure, sure," grumbled George. He turned back in his seat and got back into the right skyway. "Sorry about that... but Elroy," he glared at his son in the rearview mirror, "you shouldn't have snuck along like that! That was really irresponsible of you." 

"Gee, Dad, I'm just really worried about what I saw in that scroll! Maybe it's not over. Maybe the end of the world hasn't ended yet. Also, I could always build him a time machine."

"He wants a good one," snapped George. "Not whatever junk you build in your closet. But I guess you can tag along." He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. "But why is Rosie the robot here?"

"Because, pal," said Rumshoe, holding Rosie in his lap, "we might need her robotic abilities."

"Fair enough."

They continued on their way. Edgeworth looked out the window and saw a platform with a futuristic farm on it. Vegetables were growing in rows of artificial plastic dirt, and farmers were tending to the plants with water extracted from the clouds below via an intricate system of crisscrossing pipes. 

Edgeworth was just thinking how impressive it was when suddenly there was a horrible screeching metallic sound! The pole supporting the farm started to fall! The platform tilted like the Titanic sinking and people fell screaming over the edge! They disappeared into the clouds below. Some people tried to hang on, but then the platform snapped completely off and it, too, disappeared under the clouds.

Immense death and destruction, all happening in the span of less than a minute. Edgeworth, who had half-risen out of his seat in horror as he watched, gripping the armrest, slowly lowered himself down, his limbs taut and rigid, every nerve strained and about to snap. He took a deep wavering breath.

He was shaken up, but the others were barely fazed.  

"That's been happening more and more, pal," said Rumshoe. "Unfortunately."

"Yeah, it happened to my preschool yesterday," said Elroy. "Everyone died."

"It's a lucky thing you were at home not being molested that day, Elroy," said George. "God, an entire preschool... what a tragedy."

"So this is a common occurrence?" asked Edgeworth.

George explained that it was happening every day. It had only gotten worse in recent years. The first documented incident happened twenty years ago, but back then the government assured everyone it was just a once-in-a-lifetime unlucky tragedy, caused by modifications to the platform by unlicensed construction workers. 

However, in the last five years, more and more were falling than ever before, with almost no warning. The platforms just randomly broke and fell to Earth; and the platforms were finite because they had been constructed and raised a century ago, back when people still lived on the ground. So once a platform was gone, it was gone for good. The ones they had left were dwindling.

Why this happened, no one knew, or at least, if someone knew, they weren't telling Joe Everyman, or even George Jetson. Probably to avoid people panicking. The King had announced that they were looking into deploying new platforms powered by hot air balloons or propellors scavenged from pre-cloud propellor hats. 

But George knew those were just pipe dreams. He worked at the factory and knew better than anyone that these projects were unviable and doomed to failure. They were living on borrowed time, no time even, while the King served up self-serving lies and excuses. Geroge mentioned that they had to move twice in the last five years because their last apartments started shaking and tilting. The platforms were still standing and the government experts said the platforms had twenty years left at least, but George wasn’t going to put his family at risk.

"You seem to be a true family man," said Edgeworth.

"Of course. It’s the most important thing a man's got. Have you got a family back home, Mr. Edgeworth?"

"No… I don’t."

George awkwardly shifted his gaze back to the road.

Silence prevailed for a few minutes.

Then George broke in: "That's why I'm doing this, you know." Edgeworth looked up. George kept his eyes locked ahead. "The people here don't have a future or a past. We're cut off from time. This is probably the last generation at the rate things are going. So maybe we can finally do something about it. Create a future for our kids. Maybe a time machine is just what the doctor ordered. To finally cure the past. The past we don't know about, but we're still paying for. For whatever the dooba we did."

"You know," said Edgeworth, "something occurred to me a while ago. 100 years ago doesn't seem nearly long enough to be considered dark, unknown antiquity. In my time people still enjoy literature and music from a century ago."

"We know, pal," nodded Rumshoe. "Those of us who think about it, anyway. Like me and George. Maybe we forgot on purpose. The people who came up here. Maybe whatever's down there was too fucked up to remember. I don't know."

"What I know is that right now, all we're doing is kicking the can down the road," said George. "And we don't have much road left at all."

"Yeah!" said Rumshoe. "And kicking cans might be fun, but not when the future of our kids is at risk!"

"Yeah. So I’ll help you, Mr. Edgeworth. At the cost of my job if it comes to that."

"It won’t, George!" said Rumshoe. "We’ll sneak in like ninjas. No one will see us coming up."

"I hope you’re right, Ronald Rumshoe. I hope you're right."

Yes... as do I, thought Edgeworth thinkingly.

They finally arrived. Mr. Cogsley's factory loomed in the distance. They could hear the sounds of the cog machines. Smokestacks towered over the factory sending out sickly-looking plumes. There were loading docks with conveyor belts sticking out and a constant flow of flying trucks coming and going like busy bees.

"Here we are," said George. "The biggest employer in Los Angeles. The place where I've been I've been pressing the same button for twenty-five years. Day in, day out. I know this place the back of my hand."

The first step was getting through the outer security perimeter of the factory. It was surrounded by a barrier made out of horizontal bars of lasers that emitted a steady whirring and which would eviscerate anything that tried to fly through.

"Here. Put on the invisibility cloaks." George handed them out. "I've packed enough for all of us."

Elroy gave him a small thumbs up. "Way to go, dad!"

Everyone became invisible except George. He brought the car to a stop and hovered next to a floating security booth. The guard leaned out and checked George's ID. Everything was in order, so he pulled a switch and the laser field went down just long ago enough for George and the gang to pass.

"Okay, that's step one," said George. "Don't take off those invisibility cloaks just yet, guys, because we're sneaking in."

Instead of landing in the employee parking section, they landed next to a loading dock and got out. They took off their invisibility cloaks and lined the car with them so it wouldn't be detected (and invisibility cloaks didn't work too well inside anyway), and then they all jumped onto the conveyor belt and pushed past the rubber flaps into the factory. Edgeworth almost freaked out again because of his newfound association between conveyor belts and elevators, but this time he anticipated his panic attack and took his anti-elevator medication and was okay.

Inside, they all crouched down and snuck around the sides of the production equipment on the factory floor. The place was dirty and grimy and the never-ending din of the machinery was deafening. Workers stood in lines at conveyors belts and pistons rose and fell and huge gears turned. Supervisors buzzed around conducting the whole discordant symphony.

Rumshoe said: "Boy, if this doesn't bring back memories." He reached into his coat for a bottle but Edgeworth stayed his hand.

"No! Now is not the time! We need you sober for this!"

Rumshoe pushed the bottle back up his sleeve, regarding Edgeworth with resentful eyes.

"Fine, pal, be that way. I bet you were always getting on great great granddad about his drinking too."

Edgeworth was struck. Gumshoe? Drinking? HIS Gumshoe? Surely that wasn't right? Had he been just too clueless to notice it? The detective was a little scatterbrained, of course, but he always handled the investigations and controlled the crime scenes well enough. 

A sudden thought made his heart pulse guiltily. HE hadn't inadvertently driven the detective to drink with constant salary cuts, had he? The thought was too much... especially with the loyalty the detective had shown him over the years, even after he went to the future.

He wondered what else had been too clueless to notice. He thought about Misery Lockedheart. He thought about the Prosecutor Squad and the betrayer. He thought about Wright.

However, he didn't have time to think. When the coast was clear, George motioned over his shoulder, and they quickly crouch-walked up some stairs and into a back hallway towards the company offices.

"All right, just a little further," whispered George. "Time machine here we come!"

However, just as he was about to turn a corner, he threw himself back into Edgeworth, who fell into Rumshoe's arms. George raised a warning hand without looking back.

"Guards! Two of 'em!"

They weren't sure how to distract them, but then Rosie the robot stuck a sexy mannequin leg in fishnets around the corner.

The guards saw it and lowered their guns.

"A fake leg attached to a robot?" said one. "I wants to fuck that robot!"

"And I want that leg!"

They ran down the hall but when they neared the corner Rosie retracted the leg and Rumshoe stepped out and clobbered them both over the heads and knocked them out.

"You didn't tell me you were going to resort to violence!" said Edgeworth as George and Rumshoe shoved the bodies into a closet. "Honestly, Jetson-"

"Don't worry, Mr. Edgeworth, what they don't know won't hurt them," said George. He lit a candle on a little table in the closet to complete the romantic dinner scene. Rumshoe tucked bottles of wine under the guards' arms. "When they come to, they'll just think they were in the middle of a gay tryst that got a little out of control. They won't even remember their brains getting bashed in."

George sprinkled the unconscious men with gay love letters and arranged their hands so they were touching each other's penises. George bit his lip and briefly considered jacking the men off so cum would get everywhere and it would look more gay. He shot a glance over his shoulder. No, he decided against it. He didn't want Edgeworth to think he was gay. I'm not gay, I'm straight, thought George.

Anyway, they got to a door marked OLD WORLD RECOVERY STORAGE. Rosie used her laser vision to break the lock and they went inside and down the stairs, long winding ones that gave you the impression of traveling to the center of the earth, not tens of thousands of feet above it.

The room was small and dusty with cobwebs in every corner. There were long tables running along the walls covered in stuff from Edgeworth's own time. Rumshoe explained it was recovered from the surface of the earth by scavengers who used giant claws on chains to pick up stuff under the clouds. 

Everyone spread out. Elroy and Astro liked looking at the toys, and Rosie was fascinated by the old weapons. They all made a lot of noise, except Edgeworth, who was quiet and respectful. All of this meant something to him. On the walls he saw frayed, torn posters of the Gavinners and for Trucy's magic shows. He also saw Chipmunk plushies lying on their sides. He picked up an Alvin. The hoodie was ripped, the A hardly legible, and it was covered in cigarette burns. 

Despite everything, it was still smiling. 

He smiled, too.

He lowered it, lost in thought, and then he noticed a pile of newspapers. His eyes flashed and he grabbed for them greedily.

He felt a growing horror as he read.

No...!

Wright disappearing from the world of law? His office burning? The dissolution of Wright's family? What was this?

He threw the paper aside and grabbed more, desperately seeking more information about his friend. But he didn't find anything. Just more and more evidence of Misery Lockedheart's evil plans to take over the justice system succeeding, with the Prosecutor Squad hopeless to stop him.

His eyes scanned the pages at rapid speed, but he could barely process it all, that the situation could have gotten so much worse so fast after his disappearance. He kept seeing advertisements for "The Bible 2" and wondered what that was. One thing he noticed was that the most recently dated papers were from only a few months after his disappearance. Could this mean that there WERE no more papers, that it had happened THAT quickly, that-

He had reached the last paper.

The very last one.

The headline screamed up at him in silent black-and-white horror.

THE CHIPMUNKS BREAK UP

"No... no, no..."

DAVE SEVILLE DIES OF HEARTBREAK

He crushed the paper in his hands and pulled it down over his head like a crazy person. He stumbled backward. His heart was being stung by a million bees.

WORLD ECONOMY GRINDS TO A HALT

"No, no... please, no, dear god in heaven... NO GOD NO..."

THE CHIPPETES DON'T BREAK UP

Edgeworth vomited in distress and slipped on a skateboard and landed in a pile of chipmunks plushies. He sobbed and held them to his body like they were precious because they were. Elroy watched him sadly with his tiny little finger tucked under his lip, and Astro licked his face.

"Is this really how the world ended...?" he whispered. "Not with a bang, but with no more chipmunks? It... it can't be true... I-it must be the dream of a demon or a madman!"

Lockedheart... he gritted his teeth and shifted his jaw hard.

Edgeworth knew he was responsible for this.

His worst fears were realized. Everything HAD gone to hell when he disappeared. This world, this future... it was just the last remnants of a ruined, hopeless past.

Wright... how could you have disappeared like that? When the legal system needed you most? Surely you couldn't have just stood idly by while Lockedheart destroyed the world, could you? Or when the Chipmunks broke up? Why didn't you give Alvin the Chipmunk a hug? You knew how much the young munk idolized you... Was the darkness you fell into truly THAT dark and hopeless?

"Hey, Edgeworth! Look over here!"

Rumshoe and George had found something under a sheet in the corner.

"Either that's the tallest ghost I've ever seen, pals, or..."

He ripped it off in one deft motion, like Phoenix Wright ripping the thong off his wife's big fat juicy ass before spanking it, sucking on it, and fucking it raw.

It was a time machine!

"It looks just like the one that brought me here!" cried Edgeworth.

He hovered around it, running his hands over it like a lover and trembling in excitement.

"Well I'll be," chuckled George.

"Looks pretty good, pop!" said Elroy.

"It does, son, it does. Wow."

It was really dusty, so Edgeworth swiped his hand across the side, revealing a little plaque. He suddenly grew quiet. So did everyone else. Their spirits dampened.

REPRODUCTION

He leaned against the time machine heavily on his forearm. He held his hand against his heart. Then he absent mindedly touched his cravat. Then he stiffened.

"Squeek!" He patted his cravat and his suit all over. "He's gone!" He whirled around on his heels, looked around, lifted his feet up, as did the others. It was no use... he was gone.

"Oh, Squeek... I just pray he was left alone in the past and didn't fall out while I tumbled head over heels through a time portal. I could never forgive myself if any harm came to him through my own carelessness..."

"Who's Squeek, Mr. Edgeworth?" asked Elroy.

He explained.

"Gee, I hope he's okay."

"Reah!" said Astro. "Rope he's rokay!"

Edgeworth calmed down. He had to hope for the best and continue to carry out his duty, in whatever way he could, no matter how his affairs were situated. It's possible Squeek had returned to his mousehole before he, Edgeworth, was sent to the future... He had to continue to believe that.

Just then, a bunch of robots entered the room! They hooked their arms under Edgeworth's armpits and lifted him off the floor!

"Nrrgghhh!" He kicked his legs around in the air. "Let go of me at once!"

"Robots from the royal guard?!" said Rumshoe. They handcuffed him. "What the hell?"

Once they were all captured, Mr. Cogsley came downstairs accompanied by the captain of the royal guard.

"So, an otherworlder breaking into my factory to steal my secrets, eh?" said Cogsley. "Two of my most homosexual guards alerted me to your unwelcome intrusion here. You're off to see the king! Oh, and Jetson?"

"Gulp, yessir?"

"You're fired!"

George moaned and went limp. The robot guards flanking him lifted him off the ground and took him and the others away.

They were loaded onto a flying prison bus and taken to the royal palace. They were led through door after door after door on their way to see the king. They were all chained together like a chain gang and the robots kept poking their backs with the spears. The captain of the guard strode behind them at a distance with his hands behind his back.

George said: "Elroy, if I'm executed, I just want you to know..." His big Adam's apple vibrated like he really did have an apple in there, perhaps one filled with seeds of sorrow. "That... that... I love you, son."

"Gee, I love you too, pops. But they won't execute us."

"I know..." Then George whispered to Rumshoe, eyeing his son mournfully: "I'll get spared because of my button-pressing knowledge, but they're definitely going to kill Elroy with nitrogen gas."

They went into the king's throne room. The king was sitting there, bored, with his chin in his hand. He was wearing a blue spandex suit and a floating crown, and he had a scepter with a floating orb on top with pulsating Saturn-like rings.

He also had spikey black hair.

Edgeworth stepped forward, lifting his chained arm with a rattle, stretching his fingers out as far as he could. 

"Wright...?"

"Wright?" repeated the futuristic king, baffled, sitting up straighter. "You mean, Evil Phoenix the First?"

"Evil Phoenix..." murmured Edgeworth.

George lifted a finger and looked superior. "Of course. He's the ruler in the future."

"Oh yeah," chuckled Rumshoe. "That's where I saw the guy in that portrait. He's the king!"

"Portrait? What portrait?" snapped Evil Phoenix. "Give it here."

One of the guards extricated the portrait from Edgeworth's pants and gave it to the king. He tilted it around at various angles, changing his position in his seat, trying to get the perfect light.

"Huh... it's my brother, all right. Phoenix Wright."

"BROTHER?" shouted Edgeworth. "WRIGHT HAD A BROTHER?"

"Uh, yeah? Shut up. And be quiet. It's my court and you have to be quiet if I say so."

"I... I apologize. I just never knew. He never mentioned-!"

"Of course not. The bastard treated me like a growth on his back. He liked to pretend I didn't exist. He didn't even invite me to his wedding. Heh... course not." He laughed bitterly. He threw the portrait aside like garbage. Edgeworth cringed. "A beautiful classy woman like that? You don't introduce her to your evil twin brother. I might impersonate him and seduce her, right? Well, maybe, but I would've had the right after the way everyone treated me. But that's okay. I wouldn't have gone anyway." He looked over Edgeworth and his gaze traveled from his feet to his head and back again. "And call me crazy, but you're that prosecutor he was obsessed with, right? Michaelis Edgegirth? Or was it Mucus Sexworth?"

"No, you were wrong the first time. It's Miles Edgeworth. And, forgive me, but if you're Wright's brother, how are you possibly still alive?"

"I mean, the same way you are, I'm guessing. At least the same way I guess you are. Time travel. Well, kinda. It must've been a hundred years ago..."

King Evil Phoenix flashbacked to his childhood and told them all about it.

"My earliest memory is standing at the window watching my brother play outside with Larry Butz. Then my mom slapped me. I remember exactly what she said next: 'No, Evil Phoenix, you're not allowed to play outside. You're evil.'

"I was homeschooled for the most part. My parents didn't want to inflict my evil ways on the outside world. But they never considered whether I was truly evil, or if my name was just 'Evil Phoenix' and I was secretly good all along...

"My brother Phoenix was free to live out a normal childhood. He had friends, while I had nothing. Just my little world in the attic. Then the basement, after the neighbors saw me in the window one time. Eventually, my doctors told my parents that I should try to be reintegrated into society. 

"I was pranked a lot in college.

"Anyway I decided I was fed up with this world so I went on an expedition to the North Pole to find cavemen in the ice and extract them to sell to museums. I fell in the water and when I remerged I was bobbing up and down in a block of ice with my hands pressed up against the inside of the ice with my teeth bared because I was so cold and I had blue skin. I stayed like that for a hundred years till eventually I was thawed out by the ocean turning into lava. I saw a big chain hanging from the sky and climbed up. It turned out to be a plane from a scavenging expedition. They took me with them back here and eventually, I ran for king and I won. And that is my backstory." 

He tilted his back head regally and looked down at them, arching an eyebrow and sniffing in disdain.

"So, what, you're from the past too? Why were you breaking into my factory? Huh? What were you after? Answer me!"

Edgeworth explained it all, and also told him about the scroll and the ancient prophecy.

"Ancient prophecy?" repeated Evil Phoenix. "Huh... you'd better show me that." He clapped his hands. "Guard! Unchain them!"

"All right, all right, 'king'...," grumbled the guard, freeing them. "King of losers, maybe..."

"If I'm the king of losers and I'm the king of you then that means you're a loser, too. LEAVE!" The king stood up and threw a wine glass at the guard's back but missed.

Edgeworth climbed the steps to the throne and showed the king the ancient prophecy. He gave it a good look over, drawing his brows together.

"It's just like he said... it's only a matter of time."

"Who's he?" asked Edgeworth. "And what did he say?"

"That weird guy in the armor. He came from the past, too. Just like me. He got trapped in a fridge for 90 years but he’s still as fit as a fiddle. A guy in powered armor… refused to ever take it off, even in the shower. I’m surprised it didn’t rust. He just showed up here one day, and, well, I made him my right-hand man. He knew a lot about what was going on earth and he had a lot of ideas on how to fix things up here." 

Edgeworth felt a faint prickling sensation in his Logic bone. He had this bone where other people would have their Funny bone. Edgeworth was not funny.

"Witness! I mean, Your Highness! What was the name and occupation of this strange armored man?"

"Uh... I dunno. He never told me his name. Or took off his armor. And I'm not too good at describing stuff." He brightened and snapped his fingers. "But I DID have an official court portrait made of him!" He clapped his hands. "Advisor! Bring out the portrait!"

The advisor brought out the painting on an easel. "Here you go... you fucking idiot..."

"If I'm an idiot and I'm the king of you then what does that make you? Fuck off!"

Edgeworth examined the painting. 

It looked just like the armored man Franziska spotted in Germany!

"That's the man I'm pursuing!"

Evil Phoenix gave him a look. "You're pursuing a man? Bro..."

Edgeworth flapped a hand. "Not like that! That's Misery Lockedheart! I'm sure of it! That must be the same man who sent me to the future and who very well may be responsible for destroying the world! He must be placed under arrest at once!"

"Oh, well, there's a problem with that," said King Evil Phoenix. He flicked at the scruff on his chin with his fingernails. His eyes looked glazed over. "You see, he just took off a few months ago."

"What?"

"He killed some of my scientists working on recovered old world stuff and then escaped to Earth, probably to the catacombs under the district court. He was the one who found out the court's master computer is down there. It contains everything, all judgely knowledge, every piece of evidence ever filed into the court system, and, according to him, the secrets to the ancient prophecy."

"Catacombs?" said Edgeworth, drawing his neck back, blinking. "Under the district court?"

But before Evil Phoenix could respond, the entire room started tilting! The floor was rising to a 45-degree angle! Everyone slid across the shiny marble floor and landed against the right wall. A few robots crashed through the windows. Then the platform steadied itself and everyone shifted back to the center and picked themselves off the floor.

"Even here, pal?" asked Rumshoe in dismay. "Even here?"

"My kingdom isn't long for this world," said King Evil Phoenix, pushing his crown back into place.

He explained what he had learned from the armored man: the surface of the Earth was a wasteland, destroyed and barren, filled with fields of human bones under dark clouds through which the sun never broke, and crawling with demons and giant mutated bugs. These bugs were evil and had sharp teeth and were chewing on the poles supporting the platforms. They had been for a hundred years, and over time, by attrition, they had bitten through enough of the metal to make the platforms start collapsing. 

"And now since he's left things are getting worse," continued the King. "He was helping us finally build new platforms, but I guess it was all a trick to get what he wanted. Without his help our society is falling apart."

"I see..." said Edgeworth. "So you believe he went to the catacombs under the courthouse? To use the master computer? But why? Why did he come to the future at all?"

"That... I don't know. I don't know anything about that guy anymore. But if you want to get back to the past and save us all... this Misery Lockedheart guy and that computer are your best bet. He told me he believed if there was a real version of that repro time machine out there, the master computer would know. But I won't lie to you. It's a suicide mission. No one has ever gone under the clouds and survived."

"No... not going would be suicide. It would be accepting... death. To live... to live!"

"All right." The king nodded. "I'll have you transported there on a military jet. You're not going alone. I'm also authorizing you to create a second Prosecutor Squad." A servant walked over with a fancy piece of paper. King Evil Phoenix signed it without looking. "And I'm reinventing prosecutors. So anyone you say is a prosecutor, is."

Edgeworth turned to his friends.

"Well... everyone..."

George stepped forward and held up a hand.

"No need to ask, Miles." He raised his chin, jerked his head. Looked him dead in the eyes. "We're in."

"You'll need training first," said Evil Phoenix. He waved his scepter and a pneumatic door in the wall whoosed open. "Thata way."

In the training hall, they were given cool weapons and a soldier showed Elory and Astro how to load a a bazooka. Edgeworth shook his head at the weight training equipment. He had them bring out an antique writing desk and practiced slamming his hand on it.

Next, he hit a speed bag with his index fingers to practice pointing.

After that, he practiced yelling. "OBJECTION! HOLD IT! TAKE THAT!"

Then, he did squats to practice picking up evidence at a crime scene. 

Rumshoe and George watched him.

"Damn, pal, if I knew I was going to the pumpkin patch today I would've worn a sweater." He watched Edgeworth's butt. He took out the letter with the crayon drawing again. "God damn. Great great granddad wasn't kidding. Just artistically exaggerating. Barely. They don't make guys like that anymore."

"I'll say," said George. "For a pair of khaki cantaloupes like that, I might have to break out my catchphrase. And I'm not even gay."

Rumshoe's eyes got wide. "No way, pal, you'd hit 'em with the hooba dooba?" 

George sniffed.

"I might."

Edgeworth continued his intense training regimen while You Ain't So Tough by Heart played. He did chin-ups with a pen in his mouth and used it to sign court documents that Elroy and Astro held up for him. Then he curled forged autopsy reports like dumbbells to get big and strong. Finally, he got a brand new suit- a slick red skintight rubber suit with a bolt of white lightning emblazoned across the chest. His cravat, was, of course, present.

He took a step forward, determined. Behind him stood the rest of the Prosecutor Squad 2: Ronald Rumshoe, George Jetson, Elroy, Astro, and Rosie the robot.

Edgeworth raised a fist. Lightning flashed in his eyes.

Lovin' you was an endless fight
I was wrong and you were always right
But look what happened when I called your bluff

"Misery Lockedheart... this time you're mine."

When the truth comes out
You ain't so tough

Chapter Text

Phoenix Wright walked down the street, moving through the faceless crowd like a ghost. Or maybe they were the ghosts. The ghosts of a world that died to him. Maybe that's what the world had turned into. He walked with his head down, watching his feet, bundled up in his coat, walking endlessly against the current of the crowd. Everyone else was going in the opposite direction. The light was falling and the snow was falling.

He kept away from his friends. Everyone was worried, of course. Trucy tried to call him. Larry went looking for him. Dave had even put his picture on milk cartons. The Prosecutor Squad had a meeting. But they couldn't find him because he didn't want them to. He hadn't made a public appearance in court or anywhere else since his office burned. He just snuck in and watched the trials from the rafters, like the Phantom of the Opera, except the Phantom of the Court instead. He tried playing piano in a secret passage but someone said, "What is that racket?" so he felt bad and stopped.

He kept seeing visions of her. It was like a nightmare or a bad drug trip where everything took on a shade of hyper reality, perception magnified. He couldn't stop thinking about her. No matter what he did or where he looked, something reminded him of her. He couldn't get away from it.

He couldn't look at his hand without thinking, she used to hold it. He couldn't look down at his feet without remembering that hers used to be there too, close, very close. The most mundane thing could spark a fire that burned his heart.

It was a kind of a death in limbo, this love lost. It wouldn't end.

This mole on his arm? She touched it once. The frayed cuff of his coat? Surely she commented on it once. This street? They had been here. He turned his head and tried to forget but he soon discovered that wherever his glance fell, everything had an association with her, everything, and his consciousness was sure to drag it out and torture him.

He remembered those last words, those last looks. It had been like talking to a stranger. It was over. The unconditional had met the condition.

None of it was bittersweet. It was just bitter. What good were the happy memories if they were going to be used to build the tomb where his heart had to die?

What had everyone been up to?

Trucy was worried and didn't understand anything, but she had her own problems. She wondered why her dad had just vanished like that without seeing her. It hurt. It hurt him too.

Apollo was out of a job and went to work for Marvin Grossberg. He was seeing Vera again because Thalassa wouldn't let him see Trucy. She must've thought, well, if they were kept apart, whatever childish infatuation they had going on would die down and she would go back to Machi. Who was just a doormat and was waiting patiently. But she didn't know about the magical love potion.

The Prosecutor Squad asked KISS for their help because of their magical talisman powers. Phoenix thought these powers were cool and he also liked KISS.

He wanted to talk to Mia and ask for her help but he didn't think he could see her either. Besides, there was no point anymore.

Klavier hadn't contacted him. He was the only other person who knew that Kristoph was back. Phoenix hoped that he was still trying to stop him without his help.

The Chipmunks continued to be awesome and the best band ever.

Everyone was pretty scared about the recent prison break. There were rumblings that the Prosecutor Squad wasn't up to the task and needed to be restructured. There were rumors from Washington that the President wanted to send in a Federal Prosecutor Squad the stem the tide. There was chaos in court every day and even the new one-day trial system couldn't keep up.

As for Phoenix? He skulked. He skulked around the places and people he knew and spied on them. He knew Biscoff was a frequent visitor to Thalassa's house. He knew that. Sometimes he ran into Spark Brushel spying on people while he spied on people and it was awkward.

He couldn't look them in the face ever again. None of them.

The bomb? He had botched that too.

Who would believe him now?

Not Edgeworth. He was gone.

He ran off again. Disappeared is the word they had been using.

You choose death if you want, Edgeworth. Phoenix was done with everything. I choose life. I always will.

Was anyone going to stop Biscoff? Or was he going to get away with putting bombs in little girls' hearts and trying to marry them?

No!

Phoenix got furious.

No!

He wouldn't let him get away with it. That wasn't the Phoenix Wright way.

He wouldn't let that bastard win. They would die on top of each other with their hands around each other's necks and knives in their hearts if it came to that, their blood and sweat and mutual deaths intermingling in the way maybe they were always meant to. Maybe his old life was gone, maybe he was more alone than ever before, but he wasn't going to crawl away into a corner and lick his wounds till he died. Nuh-uh. Kristoph was going down. For Trucy's sake. And for Mia and his ideals and everything she had taught him.

You son of a bitch. I changed the entire legal system to get you. You think I won't move the moon and stars?

The first thing was to get back on his feet.

Well, he thought, at least I still have my income from the Phoenix Wright factory. He could use that to stage his legal comeback.

But when he went to the Phoenix Wright factory on the outskirts of town, it was boarded up! A construction crew was shutting it down and demolishing the smokestacks with wrecking balls!

"What the hell?" said Phoenix. "What're you bastards doing to my factory? Knock it off!" He tried grabbing the jackhammer away from a guy but he shrugged him off.

"Should I knock it off, sir?" asked a guy on a bulldozer.

"No," said the foreman, not looking up from his clipboard.

The guy shrugged. "Sorry." He went back to destroying the factory. The guy looked suspiciously like Alita Tiala and was actually a woman.

Phoenix confronted the foreman and demanded why they were destroying his factory.

"Dis place? It's a dump." He pointed with the tip of a pencil. "Look how much toxic waste is flowing out of dat pipe."

There was a lot of green goo flowing out of a pipe.

Phoenix said: "Are you kidding me? We've always followed all environmental regulations. The toxic waste from my factory has NEVER been green. Someone must be dying it green, or something. Just to ruin me."

The foreman scoffed.

"Dat's a likely story."

"It's a damn likely story! Because it's true!"

"Listen, bub, Phoenix Wright is as dead as disco. No more comebacks for youse, chump. I'm sick and tired of all these punks making comebacks. Dat pack of rats da Gavinners did it twice. Youse did it too. Now youse wanna do it again? People are sick of youse, punk. So why don't youse make like your mom, and blow."

"Who do you think you are? What gives you the authority to knock down my factory?"

And here the foreman smugly presented an official piece of paper from town hall that authorized the destruction of the factory. Wright's heart sank. It was all in order... it was a piece of paper all right. Just like the blank ones he held up and tapped in court sometimes to make people think he knew what he was doing.

Phoenix backed down.

"Okay. I think you look a lot like Furio Tigre, for the record."

"Meese? Furio Tigre? Dat's a laugh. Now get outta heres before I fix youse nose and spank dat girly little ass of yours."

Phoenix's next step for help with his legal woes was to visit the Judge. Whenever he went to court and tried to defend people now (desperate, scummy people he randomly found in the detention center) the documents requesting his defense got lost or his clients switched to other attorneys at the last second. He thought someone in the court system was trying to sabotage him.

He sat across from the Judge in his private quarters.

"Do you think you could help me, Your Honor?" asked Phoenix.

"I'm sorry, but I can't. The painting on the wall behind me is pointing a gun at me."

"Yeah..." Phoenix looked down, completely dejected. He put his hands on his thighs, lifted himself up, shoulders drooping, eying the floor. "I figured something like that might happen."

He stopped on his way out. He looked over his shoulder.

"By the way, if you find a million-dollar bill lying on the street somewhere, could you let me know? Turns out I could really use one right now."

"I... I will."

Phoenix left. The Judge pulled open a drawer in his desk and took out a million-dollar bill. Then he shook his head and put it back in.

"Sometimes... we must forge our own million dollars in life," he said sagely, his beard full of sage.

Then he went back to looking at leaked upskirt photos of Ema Skye on his computer and also the Chipmunks fandom wiki.

With no other option and his office burned to ash, Phoenix Wright decided to open a new office that was just a cardboard box on the street. He sat behind it on the sidewalk in front of a dirty alley and waited for clients, but people just walked by, or took their business to the actual glinting shiny law offices across the street.

Phoenix sighed. He got out his sharpie and changed the signage on the front of his box so it said he would work pro bono instead of for 25 cents.

But while he was doing this suddenly two scary shadows fell over him. He looked up. It was Richard Wellington and Shelly de Killer!

"Hello," smirked Richard.

He brought a baseball bat down with a smash and crushed Phoenix's box! Then they chased Phoenix down the street with pointy spears! Eventually Phoenix managed to lose them.

"Huff huff... Ugh, stupid Shelly de Killer!" said Phoenix, still running. "I hate that guy! He's always chasing me."

He slowed down, panting, and found himself in front of the ice cream parlor where he had met up with Kristoph and learned about the bomb. He went up to the window and looked inside.

It was a meetup of all the young prostitutes in the city who were Trucy lookalikes. They were all laughing and smoking together at tables. He put his hand against the glass. He wished he could tell them, "Hey prostitutes, could you tell my wife I didn't fuck any of you? I was just sad plus Kristoph was being annoying? And that maybe, just maybe, I have a heart of gold?"

But it was too late, too late. He didn't even have to spirit to roundhouse kick hookers in the womb anymore. Besides, he had no right. And he could never hurt anyone who looked so much like his daughter, even if he did probably have a brain tumor.

So his hand slid down the glass, and he turned away and continued down the street, despondent. One of the prostitutes happened to turn her head and catch a glimpse of his spikes before he left. She remembered him, how gentle his touch was, how he didn't seem to have a sexual bone in his body, how he cried and poured his heart out and said all those sweet things she guessed he had no one else to say them to.

"Hey, it's that creepy guy!"

They wanted to invite him in but he was already gone.

He went into a grape juice store for a few minutes then stumbled out. The owner came out and put up a sign that said "CLOSED FOREVER DUE TO PHOENIX WRIGHT DRINKING ALL THE GRAPE JUICE."

Phoenix wandered around in the thinning crowds as the snow fell faster and faster. He was numb to the cold and everything else. She danced before his eyes. He looked up at a billboard and the model turned into Thalassa. His eyebrows curved inward and upward and his mouth fell open. The visions of her melded with the reality around him.

He went to the mall and rode the children's train ride for hours with a dull expression. A nerdy employee walked briskly beside him on the train.

"Sir, you've been riding Lil Chugger for the last four hours, I think it's time to give the other children a turn!"

Phoenix grabbed the nerd by the tie and pulled him in close to his face. His eyes were bloodshot. "I'll get off this train when I reach where I'm headed, nerd boy." He threw the nerd onto the track and Lil Chugger rode over him.

"Oh god! My spine!"

Then there was a blur and a haze and he found himself standing on the sidewalk again. He stared into the glass in front of a dress shop. He saw himself, as a half reflection, transparent. Then he saw their wedding. And heard their wedding song, Heart - I Want You So Bad.

He saw himself staring at himself, and behind him, like apparitions, floating in the glass, he saw her in her wedding dress dancing with another him in his tuxedo.

The rest of the world darkened and faded away, and the scene in glass the coalesced, dim at the edges, like a vignette, but with a sparkling clarity in the parts that mattered.

Her dancing with him.

Leaning on him.

Slowly turning together.

When the wind blows through your hair
I want you so bad, want you so bad

The towering cake in the distance waiting to be cut.

All their friends standing around them watching.

Larry, Edgeworth, the Pickles, Klavier, Winston and Gaspen, the Judge.

Everyone.

Trucy, in that blue dress, really happy. Apollo looking awkward in a rented suit.

Even his defense desk from court was there. With a bowtie on. Maya was channeling Mia and she was proud of him.

But he mostly saw her and that person who used to be him.

And her eyes.

Her two eyes.

Looking up at him like he was her world.

If I've fallen over you
Would it be so bad, would it be so bad?

Till death do we part.

Now here comes the death part.

He was overcome, and almost collapsed, but got shocked back into reality by a familiar voice calling his name on the sidewalk. He whipped around and got a face full of snow, which had turned into a snowstorm without him noticing.

"Mr. Wright!" cried Luke. "It's us!"

"I must say, I'm relieved we finally found you," said Professor Layton. His countenance was worn with care.

Phoenix just stared at them.

"Where you've been?!" asked Luke. "Haven't you gotten our letters?"

"No..."

"There's no time to waste," said the Professor. "I believe everything happening in Los Angeles is connected to the Golden Gavel. And I believe it involves you, too. We must find it immediately before the criminal elements searching for it can use it for their own gain. I wish to discuss my theories with you and ask for your assistance in navigating the city."

Phoenix said nothing.

"Are you all right?" asked Luke, worried, raising his eyebrows. "We came here to help you, you know! The least you could do is talk to us! Don't you care about saving the legal system?"

"Now, Luke..." began Layton.

Phoenix's eyes flared. He grabbed Luke's hat.

"Hey!"

"Take off your BLUE hat you goddamn BLUE child."

He flung it away into the wind. Luke chased after it and the Professor followed after him.

"My hat! Professor! Whatever in the world's gotten into him?"

"I don't know... a gentleman never pries... and yet..."

"He's our friend and we should help if we can!"

"I agree. Perhaps we need to do a little investigatory legwork, Luke. Perhaps... you need to solve this puzzle about hats. There was once was man who wore two hats. Now, imagine one of the hats is big, and one is small. Now-"

Meanwhile, Phoenix Wright was running away into the snowstorm, running away, but you can't run away from yourself. He wandered for hours, blindly, until eventually he bumped into a wooden fence. He felt around and found a loose plank, pushed it, and stumbled into someone's backyard. He found a doghouse and went in to shelter from the storm.

He curled up inside like it was a cave or an igloo and watched the snowstorm. Fine white whisps that looked like crystalized fairy dust blew by. Visibility was limited to a few feet. It was like looking out into a white oblivion. He finally felt all the thoughts leaving his mind and he collapsed into a dreamless sleep that was also like oblivion.

Chapter Text

Phoenix woke up. It was hard. It was one of the hardest things he ever did. A great weight laid on him. Just opening his eyes and keeping them open was a struggle. Sitting up was a marathon.

He peered out of the doghouse. The snowstorm was over. The air was still, and bright sunlight pierced through the clouds. Everything was quiet, very quiet, because most people in the neighborhood hadn't woken up yet.

His body had woken up, more or less, but not his cognitive functions. He crawled out of the doghouse and saw that the name over the door said Spike. He dimly recognized that he was in Stu Pickles' backyard.

Still not thinking, he stomped towards the house through the snow, raising his knees high towards his chest at every step, red-faced, puffing. He got to the patio and to the sliding glass door. He tried it; it opened; he let himself in.

The house was very quiet. He thought there might not be anyone home. Then he noticed Tommy and Chucky on the floor. They weren't moving or making any sounds or looked like they were breathing.

He went over to investigate.

Tommy lay on his side, mouth open, eyes wide and glassy, limbs twisted in bizarre angles like a pretzel. A fly buzzed into his mouth and then flew out again.

"Tommy!" said Phoenix. He shook his shoulder. "Are you okay? Answer me!"

Then he noticed a bottle spilled over on the floor. He went prone with his cheek just above the carpet. He pressed two fingers into the sopping wet spot on the carpet and tasted them.

"Oh," said Phoenix, getting up. "They're not dead, they've just been drugged brainless to keep them calm."

He looked around the living room.

There was food and spills everywhere, trash, strips of paint hanging off the walls, and no signs of Didi's usually immaculate housekeeping anywhere.

"Can't really blame Stu and Didi," said Phoenix. "They must be going through some stuff. I'd drug my children too if I was in their shoes... probably the only peaceful moment the poor little things get."

Then his mind woke up and he started to realize something was wrong, very wrong, more than just a dirty house and drugged children.

He noticed the family photos on the walls.

Didi's head was cut out and replaced with pictures of Chaz Finster.

In all of them.

"What the hell...?"

In one of the photos Didi's head was replaced with Chuckie's instead which was kind of weird.

Then he noticed the giant dripping red words that took up the entire wall and were written in what appeared to be blood.

DIDI DIE DIE

Phoenix hunched his shoulders and took a step back. He turned his head, slowly, keeping his eyes locked on the message, almost afraid to look away, but as soon as he did he saw another bloody message.

LIFE IS PAIN

He looked up at the ceiling.

IF GOD IS IN THE HEAVENS HE'S FAILED US

He was starting to freak out and whirled around on his heels, trying to get a reprieve from this creepiness, but everywhere he looked he saw more. Blood red insanity flashed across his vison.

DENIED THE WOMANLY FLESH, I CLING TO THE ANUS OF A MAN

BLOOD TO REND, BLOOD TO MEND

BLOOD SUSTAINS THE HATE

WIFE IS BAD

HATE WIFE

HATE

HATE

THE BLOOD IS LOVE

THE BIBLE 2 WILL GUIDE US

ONLY THE BIBLE 2 IS REAL NOW

"What is this, Halloween in December?" Sweat beaded on his forehead. He wetted his lips. "If so... it's scary, all right. But it's no treat, no, no treat at all..." He was still out of it.

FUCK YOU DIDI I HATE YOU YOU NASTY BITCH. I'M NOT A LOSER YOU ARE. I'M GOOD AT BUILDING TOYS. I'M GOOD. IF YOU CAN'T SEE THAT WELL MAYBE YOU'RE THE ONE WHO NEEDS THERAPY. FINE LEAVE BE THAT WAY AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I'M STABBING MSELF WITH MY RITUAL KNIFE AHHHHHHHHH I'M SCREAMING AHHHHHH

"It's almost like it's telling me a story or something," commented Phoenix.

Then he noticed strange sounds coming from the basement. Spooky sounds. The door was open.

Phoenix peered down into the darkness with his toes overhanging the threshold. He gulped.

"If this is a horror movie... then I'm definitely dying if I go down there."

He figured his life was already a horror movie by now so he might as well press his luck. Besides, something bad was going on and Stu and Didi could be in trouble.

I can't let my friends down!

Still he was scared.

"Daddy needs grape juice," he said. He took a swig from his flask then smoked a couple cigarettes for bravery then tossed them at the sleeping kids so they'd have something to play with when they woke up, and then he mounted the steps like he was mounting his fat assed wife from behind while she was in the doggy position in bed ready and waiting for his big "gavel" (penis) to pound her "courtroom desk" (ass/pussy area). He strode forward manfully with his above average length cock with good girth thrust forward to meet all dangers.

Anyway, he went down to the basement.

By the work bench Stu was getting fucked by his Didi robot under a lamp.

Phoenix raised his fist to his mouth and coughed.

Stu jolted and looked up, knocking over a bunch of tools. They clattered onto the floor and a screwdriver rolled away in the darkness.

"Oh." Stu's hips buckled. His robotic wife backfired and black smog billowed out of her tailpipe. He pulled up his pants. "It's unfortunate you saw that."

"No, it's okay," said Phoenix. "I get it. It's cool."

Stu jerked his pants up, and his buckle jingled. He wiped his hands with a rag, then squatted down and gathered up his fallen tools. "So, what's up? I heard you forced two children to do incest."

Phoenix stared. He got very still. His blood ran cold.

"How do you know that?"

Stu saw that he was worried, so he got up and tried to placate him.

"I only know because Thalassa told Charlotte and Drew, and they told me. I don't think they're going to spread it around. I barely know anything about it myself."

Phoenix smacked his forehead and held it. "God, so many people already know."

Stu hesitated, then said: "So, are you going to tell them?"

"I don't know," said Phoenix. "How do you tell someone something like that? Imagine your dad telling you that he tricked you into doing incest with your brother. What if she hurts herself?" He looked around nervously, biting his nails. "What if she has some kind of breakdown? I mean, wouldn't you be at least a little mad?"

Stu nodded. "Yeah, if I found I had sex with Drew, I'd hate that."

"But... if I don't tell them..." He leaned against the wall, mostly talking to himself. "Then they'll keep doing stuff. They're in love now. They've already done so much and some people already know about it." He wrinkled up his forehead and turned to Stu. "How messed up would it be? If they're only half siblings?"

Stu correctly guessed he was talking about a baby. "Well," he began cautiously, "as far as I know, it's not a guarantee that it will be born with defects. The chance is definitely there. I'm not a geneticist, so I don't want to really guess."

"Well... she's keeping them apart anyway. So I guess we don't have to worry about that." But the love potion was at the back of his mind.

Phoenix slammed himself against the wall and pounded his fist.

"Oh, god, what am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do?"

It was all his fault. Because he forgot the truth. And the truth is sacrosanct, isn't it?

Isn't it?

Stu was moved. He put a hand on his shoulder.

"I wish I could tell you, Phoenix. I really do. But whatever happens, you thought you were doing a good thing, right?"

Phoenix sniffed. "Yeah."

Squeezed his shoulder. "So don't be too hard on yourself, okay?"

"How can I not be? But thanks, Stu. That shouldn't make me feel better but it does."

Stu said: "So who else have you talked to about this?"

"Just you so far."

"Why me?"

"I needed someone to talk to, someone who could understand, but I was too ashamed to show my face to Dave or Edgeworth. I mean, you and me know each other, we've shitted in each other's toilets, but we're not really 'friends,' and I don't really 'like' or 'respect' you."

Stu laughed and turned away, tears stuck in the corner of his eyes. "Yeah, I get it." He blinked rapidly.

Phoenix hooked his thumbs into his belt, looked around, kicked at a toy clown on the floor.

"Where's Chaz?"

Phoenix went on to mention he saw Chucky on the floor. Stu said Chaz was out running errands. Phoenix could sense there were some new relations between his friend and Charles Finster of 446 Braintree Lane.

"He know about this, uh, contraption?" asked Phoenix.

"Yeah... he's 'tolerant' of it." A bitter note crept into Stu's voice. "Says I'm still overcoming the effects of comphet. I guess you and me are in the same boat now."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, we're both separated. You're not staying with her anymore. It's not really a secret, is it? I mean everyone knows. Not the why, but they know."

Phoenix cast his eyes down and rubbed the back of the neck. "Yeah. Yeah, I don't think she'll ever take me back. I mean, this isn't really something you can come back from."

"At least you still have your penis." He turned away from Phoenix, looking obliquely at the floor, scowling. "I thought I could choose between wife and blowjob... and now... I have neither."

He raised his trembling upturned palms toward the ceiling, like he was begging for alms, looking up pleadingly at a lightbulb. "Sometimes I wish this cup could just be taken from my lips. But it won't, till the last sip is slurped."

To his surprise Phoenix suddenly stepped forward and hugged from behind. Stu was stiff at first, then relaxed, and closed his eyes and let his head rest on Phoenix's arm and enjoyed the warmth of his friend... who WAS a friend, no matter what he said.

Then they uncoupled.

"Can I crash here tonight?"

"Sure, welcome to the club."

Stu tapped the gauge on the side of the robot.

"Hmm, I'm running dangerously low on cum."

He patted his robotic wife's behind and flipped open a compartment.

"Oh, Spiiiiike!" he called. "Are you ready to fill up the ol' jizz compartment?"

He shifted his gaze to Phoenix's horrified face.

"Don't worry, Phoenix, Pickles Toys uses only ethically sourced dog come."

"I... hope you're not putting that inside you, Stu."

"Ew, no! What do you think I am, some kind of freak? I put a condom on my ex-wife robot to catch the dog cum."

Stu lifted a finger and raised an eyebrow and spoke archly.

"It's STRICTLY for research purposes. I have to make sure I work out all the kinks before this baby goes on the market." He slapped it and it fell apart a bit. "Then everyone can be fucked by my ex-wife..." He turned to the side and bent over, clenching his fists. "Just like I was."

"Well, that's great."

Phoenix reached into the back of his boxers and fingered the trigger of his concealed carry weapon, itching to execute Stu.

They heard crying from upstairs. Phoenix turned and looked up at the rectangle of light coming from the door.

"Oh, they must have woken up from their little druggy druggy sleepy time," said Stu. He slapped Phoenix on the back and startled him. "Hey, come on, what do you say we invite the boys over to watch the big Christmas Eve football game? Eh?"

"The boys?" Phoenix shrunk back.

"Oh, not anyone you don't want to see, just some mutual friends who won't pry into your affairs. Trust me, they're sympathetic."

"But Drew knows I'm an incest enabler."

"That's okay, it's only him. The rest don't. He knows it was just an accident. Besides, he's very open minded. He thinks it was a badass move."

Phoenix blew up on Stu.

"There's nothing funny or cool about any of this! This is a tragedy that's ruined my life!"

"Hey, its not my fault my bro is a freak. And relax, he doesn't know that you know he knows. He won't bring it up."

"Okay."

What secrets did the Pickles' household hold? Phoenix wasn't sure he wanted to find out. But he had a feeling he was going to, like it or not. Fighting Kristoph or not. And fight he would.

Chapter Text

This shouldn't all feel so normal, but it does. He was too accepting of all this, and he knew that. But just knowing that didn't help or change anything.

He woke somewhere he shouldn't be, and went somewhere he shouldn't have, and each step into that house, each moment spent there, took him further and further away from his goal.

He got lost in the storm and traveled to another world. That much he was sure of.

What was really messed up, he reflected, was all the normal stuff that was going on during all the obviously wrong stuff. Sure, Stu cleaned up the blood a LITTLE bit, but everyone was still sitting around the living room chatting about the big game like things were normal. But they weren't normal. Not at all. But he was powerless to do more than vaguely acknowledge it.

Where were Tommy and Chucky?

Phoenix thought he remembered Stu clapping his hands above his head to announce the guests had arrived and the babies had scurried on all fours into a hole in the baseboard and hid in the walls.

But no... that wasn't right. They were upstairs in their crib. Of course. Stu had filled their bottles with chocolate milk instead of regular milk, he remembered that, too. So THAT must be the truth.

Anyway, everyone was sitting around the room; the game's on!

Drew leaned forward on the couch, shaking his fists, jumping a little off the cushion.

"Yes! Yes! Go team!"

"Go ball!" said Howard, waving a little flag with a picture of a football on it.

"IT'S GOOOOOOD!" boomed the announcer on TV and the crowd roared and shimmered in the stands.

Drew and Stu jumped up and high-fived each other.

"YES!"

"The ball went really high," smiled Howard, folding his arms over his chest and sinking back into the couch. "I always cheer for the ball," he explained. "That way I always have fun, and my wife never hits me."

Phoenix sat by himself in an armchair and didn't join in on any of their cheering. He looked enervated without any spirits or guts. He just stared at the TV, almost slack-jawed, eyes red, a five o'clock shadow growing on his face.

Stu wanted to reach out to his friend, to say something, but sometimes words can only say too little. What he really wanted to convey was the entirety of his soul, of his entire being, and his tongue didn't seem the proper instrument.

Howard got up abruptly.

"May I use your bathroom to kill myself?"

"Howard, we have guests," replied Stu. There was a ding from another room. Stu stood up and wiggled his fingers. "Ooh, my biscuits are done!" He shot out of the room.

Phoenix hadn't moved an inch or changed his expression at all. He felt like he was trapped there, weighed down by invisible chains. Perhaps his shoes were invisible anchors.

This place was having some kind of effect on him.

The smell... god, the smell. It was rancid. Was it coming from the kitchen? He wasn't sure.

Images and scenes, real or otherwise, flashed through his mind like he had a fever and was lying in bed half-asleep but unable to dream.

Too much grape juice... still coming off that bender... God, he moaned internally, an entire store's worth? He had promised he wouldn't do that again. Promised Trucy...

"Daddy! Never drink so much grape juice again!"

She was wearing a cute cheerleading magician outfit because she was an attention whore. Her eyes were red and glossy.

They were at her school on the basketball court and there were several possibly dead bodies on the floor. The principal looked miffed.

"Yeah... I promise, princess. 'Kay? Daddy always keeps his promises."

Wait, was that Kristoph sitting in the bleachers? No, he should still be in prison at this point, shouldn't he? Then who was that? And why did it look like he had a boner? Maybe it was just the fabric folds, but wait, is that Edgeworth? Was he watching me too? But why? Wasn't he... in Europe? Didn't he tell me that? And why does he also have fabric folds?

"Mr. Wright, what have you done!" Apollo ran in. He looked like he wanted to slug him.

"Heh... it all has to do with the MASON system, Apollo! The MASON system, don't you get it? On a secret mission... can't talk about it!"

MASON system? Apollo was taken aback. He had heard of that before.

Apollo had a flashback to back when he was just a kid and still Kristoph's apprentice... and back when he was in Will Powers' karate class.

Kristoph was sitting with Wright in Kristoph's law office. Kristoph raised a teacup with an intricate twirling flower design around the handle and took a small sip. On the coffee table lay his briefcase. On it was a sticker that said "My legal apprentice is a future blackbelt and also a future legal apprentice."

That made Apollo a little sad. He had never become a black belt. Our lives are full of things like that. All these little things we say we're going to do but don't. All the dreams that fall by the wayside. He had become a defense attorney, sure, but nowhere on the level of Mr. Wright or Kristoph. He was never going to have his own practice. He was 27 and this was probably it. He had stagnated. He had become a sessile creature. But, lately, after Trucy fell in love with him, he felt like he could do anything, as long as he had her; and if he couldn't, that was okay too.

The younger Apollo flew across the office in karate pajamas doing a kick.

He whistled past Kristoph's head and made his hair blow around.

"Don't karate chop the evidence, Apollo," smiled Kristoph, without looking around.

A vase shattered and fragments flew up in the air behind the couch.

"Sigh…"

Kristoph shaded his brow and shook his head. That vase was valued at two million dollars.

He was good-natured about it, though. He was tolerant of his young apprentice. Indulgent towards him, in some ways, but strict in others.

"Pray pardon young Justice, Wright," said Kristoph. "When it comes to karate, he can be a little... what's the word?" He whirled a hand around. "I'm afraid I'm drawing a blank."

"Heh, better than shooting one," said Phoenix.

They grinned at each other from across the couch and showed their teeth.

"You know, Kristoph... when I look at that kid and his smooth face and round hips, I can't help but think, wow, his mom must be really sexy! I'd love to meet her."

"...If you say so, Wright. I must admit the same thoughts have occurred to me, although not with such a prurient bent. Unfortunately, as you know, the poor boy is an orphan. I merely adopted him from the orphanage to be my apprentice. His parentage is unknown."

"Oh yeah, you told me about that. That's pretty cool. It's cool they just let you take children and stuff."

"Sniff. Rather."

Kristoph took out a remote control and pressed a button and a bookshelf swung on its hinges revealing a hidden passage.

"Shall we adjourn to the usual place to watch pornography together? Without coming, of course?"

"Sorry, Kristoph. Normally I'd take you up on that, but right now I'm traveling through my memories via the MASON system to unlock the secrets of my past."

Had it been Phoenix's imagination... or did Kristoph's face twitch into a malicious grimace for a split second?

"Of course... let me know if I can do anything to help, all right?"

Or so Phoenix remembered it happening. He could have gotten some details about the cum dungeon wrong, like its very existence. It had been many, many years... and our memories like to play tricks on us... or do we like to play tricks on our memories?

Then back to the basketball court.

"Mr. Wright... you must stop killing people! You must! Where is your head at? This behavior does not behoove a defense attorney!" admonished the Judge. He was wearing basketball shorts. He dribbled a ball across the court and shouldered his Canadian brother out of the way and made a slam dunk.

The crowd cheered. Larry Butz did a little dance in the audience. The guy who looked like Kristoph and Edgeworth were getting married in the bleachers. Phoenix felt jealous for some reason.

"Yay!" said Trucy. She leaped up with her pom poms.

Now the principal was reprimanding him: "Look at the damage you've done, do you wish us to expel your daughter, look at the state of the school, the trophy state has been destroyed, I'll have you and your friends EXPELLED for this, Mr. Wright, you've been a thorn in my side for FAR too long, just because you keep getting PRANKED in college doesn't mean-"

Phoenix shook himself back to the present in the living room.

Okay, weird that Apollo had a flashback within my own flashback, he thought. Am I really going out of my flipping gourd here or what? Goddamn!

He kept seeing a strange whisp of white light pass by his peripheral vision. He kept whipping his head around trying to catch it, but it was never there when he looked.

What was that? A promise?

No more promises left to keep, now? Was that it?

Couldn't think straight! Couldn't think straight!

He glanced at the Bible 2 on the table.

He decided he didn't like looking at it, whatever it was. Just looking at it annoyed him. Everyone was talking about how cool it was. Everyone in the room. When no one was looking he took it and went to the kitchen. Whatever smell was coming from the oven was horrible.

And where's Grandpa Pickles?

"I'm not cooking him if that's what you're insinuating," said Stu defensively. "Go check his room, he's there. Even if there was a dead body in the oven doesn't mean it's my dad."

"I didn't SAY anything, Stu," said Phoenix, irritated.

While his back was turned Phoenix put the Bible 2 in the microwave.

"Let's see... sixty minutes and sixty-six seconds should be enough time to take care of you."

He sniggered as he left, burying his hands in his pockets.

After Phoenix got back to the living room and watched the end of the game, Drew looked around, then said in an undertone: "Does anyone else think it's weird that Stu is suddenly getting fucked in the ass by Chaz? I think he's taking advantage of his battered emotional state. You wouldn't know it from looking at him, but he's something of a sex mastermind."

"Talking about me, are you?"

Chaz stood in the open front door, icy rain pattering against the welcome mat, his black cloak whipping around in the violent gusts of wind that drove rain into the damp carpet.

He was decked out from head to toe in leather bondage gear and had black mascara and cold, cruel eyes behind his glasses.

He marched forward, slowly revolving his head, surveying everything. His wet boots squelched against the carpet. When his gaze passed over Phoenix, the back of our hero's scalp tingled, and he shuddered.

"Perhaps you should all stay a while longer," his words sounded like poison, "now that I'm back in my own home."

Drew stood up from the couch and patted his back pockets. "It seems I've forgotten my gun at home. I'd better go get it." He looked over his shoulder and paused at the door. "In case." He twisted the knob. "Don't bother calling. I'll probably be busy sleeping." Pause. "With my gun."

He left.

Chaz turned his attention to Howard.

"And will you be depriving us of your company too, Mr. Deville?"

Howard's eyes lit up in naked animal fear. "No, I'd better get going."

"Allow me to show you to the door." He got dangerously close.

"No, I'll take the window." He turned and sprinted across the room and dived through a window. He landed in the backyard in a pile of broken glass shining in the moonlight. He struggled up, sobbing, covered in cuts and blood, and nursed his broken leg as he hobbled towards the fence. The mists set in and the wolves howled.

Chaz walked over to the window, broken glass crunching underfoot like slow, and laid his hands on the windowsill. He looked out unwaveringly. His purple lips were crusty and frigid in the cool night air.

"He'll be lucky to survive the night."

Stu laid an oven mitt on his shoulder. "Chaz, don't say things like that."

"Of course, Stu." He turned and looked directly into Phoenix's face. "After all, we must make our guest comfortable. Welcome... to my castle."

Chapter Text

Dinner was tense.

Phoenix sat at one end of the table, and Stu and Chaz sat at the other.

Conversation was sparse, and died down as soon as it sparked up. The main sound that filled the kitchen was the disconsolate clicking of silverware against plates. Phoenix just sat there with his eyes down. He played with his food, turning it over and shifting it around the plate, not eating.

Chaz addressed him.

"Would you care for some dick?"

"What?"

Chaz steepled his fingers, not breaking eye contact.

"Would you care for some dick?"

Phoenix's body stiffened. Like prey anticipating an attack from the bushes.

"No."

Chaz sat rigid for a moment, then shrugged.

"Your loss."

Chaz and Stu dug in. Phoenix studied his food, then pushed it away. He couldn't be sure Chaz didn't put dick in it.

"What's wrong, Phoenix?" asked Stu. "You've barely touched your dick."

Phoenix pushed his chair back violently. He hurled his napkin to the ground. It floated gently to the floor. Chaz and Stu's eyes followed its descent.

Phoenix said: "I don't want dick, cock, or whatever else it is you guys are serving." He pointed a shaking finger at his hosts. "All I want is a good smoke and a good drink and an actual goddamn meal."

Stu and Chaz shared a concerned glance, then riveted their eyes back to their friend.

"Oh, geez, Phoenix," Chaz said, "I hope you don't think we were actually serving you penis."

"Yeah," nodded Stu, "we just call food dick because we're gay."

"Well, like, cool it, okay?" said Phoenix. He ran a hand through his spikes, and dropped back into his chair, from which he had half risen. He gave a lot of his attention to looking under the table, even though there wasn't a beautiful woman under there women blowing him.

Stu sat there tightlipped; his forehead had horizontal lines running across it. He looked at Chaz, but no help there. He let out a big breath to calm himself and then rang a little bell.

Tommy came into the room wearing a tuxedo and carrying an oversized bottle of grape juice in his arms. He toddled up to Phoenix.

A tight tired smile spread across the man's face.

"Thanks, kid."

Next Spike came in with a silver platter balanced on his back stacked high with more grape juice, cigarettes, illegal pictures of Lamiroir's butt taken by Spark Brushel, and other goodies.

"Good service here," remarked Phoenix. Chuckie stood on a stool and lit the cigarette Tommy was sticking into Phoenix's mouth. Stu gave Chaz a relieved look; evidently he was glad Christmas Football dinner hadn't been ruined. Phoenix continued: "I'm surprised you had grape juice. You guys aren't drinkers."

Under the table, Chaz gripped Stu's thigh. And squeezed. Hard.

Stu had weary eyes.

He looked trapped.

"Didi didn't allow it..." he mumbled.

"But," Chaz said, "we must accommodate our esteemed guest, and we know how much you love grape juice."

But you didn't know I was coming, thought Phoenix. But that was just another ephemeral thought that evaporated into the ether as soon as it was thought, like so many of his thoughts in this house, and he didn't pursue it any further.

But dimly something immediate and tangible and salient did dawn on him.

"Where's Grandpa Pickles?"

"Pardon me..." said Chaz. "Grandpa who?"

"You know... Pickles?" He jerked his shoulder at an empty chair. "Lou Pickles? The guy who spermed up your little buddy there? The one who jizzed in the late great Grandma Pickles' tight holes until a baby came out?" He leaned forward over the table and slammed it like he was in court or something. "That one, Finster?"

"Don't look in the basement," said Chaz sternly.

"But I already did."

Chaz closed his eyes. His toddler son lit a cigarette for him and he leaned back in his chair. He blew smoke up at the ceiling. He languidly opened his eyes, bored, an indolent king. He regarded Phoenix through the smokey blue haze.

"We have... two basements." More smoke directed toward the ceiling. "It is one of the first home improvements I made once I moved in with Stu."

"Oh, that's cool," said Phoenix.

He tucked his knees into his chest and Chucky and Tommy pulled Phoenix out of the room in the Reptar wagon. Stu and Chaz were left alone.

Chaz got close, his hot breath in Stu's ear.

"Don't tell him about the third basement..."

"Chaz, you're scaring me."

"There's nothing to be scared of."

He drew his penisless lover into his chest and enveloped him with his cloak. They started making out, but then the Bible 2 burst out of the microwave flapping its covers like a bat and flew around their heads. Stu pulled back, hands on Chaz's shoulders, eyes following the flying book.

"Chaz, I don't know about this whole Bible 2 stuff. I mean, is inviting all this stuff into the house really the best environment for the kids? According to Dr. Lipschitz, a child's first words shouldn't be 'Daddy, no!' or 'I'm calling CPS!'"

"Let them call," said Chaz disdainfully. "My powers know no bounds. The Bible 2..." Here he snatched it out of the air by a corner, the book flapping harder and screeching as it tried to escape. "The Bible 2 is the only guidance we need now, Stuart. As the Eleventh Commandment says, the Ten Commandments are stupid and only suggestions, and we should engage in public sex and murder as much possible to promote the free will and free love that the Bible 2 espouses. The only limits... are the ones we set for ourselves. Every man will be the master of himself. Surely you see now?"

Chaz let the Bible 2 go and it flew around his head and he laughed evilly, or perhaps goodly, Stu didn't even know, because he wasn't sure whether the flags flying from the ramparts of their love were red, green, or perhaps even grey.

He continued: "And now... see to it that our guest is well 'taken care of.'"

Stu Pickles whinnied like a horse in distress.

And centipedes fell out of his anus.

Chapter Text

Bedtime was also tense.

"Sweet dreams."

Stu leaned down and kissed Phoenix's forehead.

The scene of Stu standing over the Phoenix's crib and cooing was illuminated by green radioactive-looking light from a Reptar nightlight.

"And here's your bottle." Stu handed it to him. "I put hard liquor in it like you asked."

Phoenix took the pacifier out of his mouth.

"You don't gotta do this, Stu. I mean, hell, I appreciate the hell out of it, but I'm a grown man. I don't need a crib or all this babying."

But being in the crib was peaceful, comforting in a way, and he couldn't imagine sleeping in a big bed without Thalassa, or without Trucy or Apollo (when they had nightmares and got scared). That would have been intolerably lonely. The sheets would have stretched out on every side like unfathomable oceans, only ending in sheer drops off the edges of the bed, like the edges of his known world, into darkness and despair and single fatherhood, to be snatched up by the monsters and Kristoph Gavins underneath the bed.

"Of course you do, that's why I put you in a big diaper," said Stu. "We just want to make you feel at home on your first night. Good dreams, Phoenix."

Stu backed out on his tip toes and slowly pulled the creaking door closed, till only a crack of light from hallway was visible.

Then another creak and Stu stuck his head back in, fingertips loosely holding on to the door.

"Hey, I know you don't think so, but you deserve some pampering after all the trauma you've been through. And it's no skin off my nose."

Phoenix nodded slowly, neck stiff, said nothing.

"I know it's a bit much. I guess I just wanted to treat you." Stu turned his head so that it was in profile, and he looked down, wilting. He ran his hand down the side of the door. "I know what it's like to lose a wife. And take on something maybe you never wanted to." He darted eyes his eyes at Phoenix. He looked down. His lips compressed. "Good night."

He closed the door.

Then Phoenix was alone.

He sat up in the crib and untied the straps of his bonnet. He threw it aside, glad to be free of it. Then he took out a pack of cigarettes and shook out a Lucky Strike. He struck up, but didn't feel lucky.

He looked down at the smoking cigarette between his index and middle fingers and smiled with wry eyes.

She had always wanted him to quit. So had Trucy. Despite his macho posturing and hand waving he had always wanted to too. But now it seemed like it didn't matter. Now that it seemed like it didn't matter it seemed like it would be the easiest thing in the world. Funny how that works.

He tried not to let himself evince any feelings of despair.

He tried to disabuse himself of the notion that he could get back to where he was, because there was no chance.

Because he knew there was no getting his old life back.

The only thing left was to stop the Kristoph.

And tomorrow, he was going to throw himself at that goal with full force. Damn the torpedoes.

And then, he got a pop up on his phone. The notification lit up his face.

He sat up. What's this? A Facebook friend request from Ratphonso?

It looked like a scammer but he accepted anyway. He tried not to look at Thalassa's new profile picture which had Kristoph AKA Biscoff in it but not him.

Who are you? Some kind of rat? My name is Phoenix Wright

You are not Phoenix Wright

Wgat is that supposed to mean? I am Phoenix Write, I wear a blue suit and I love grape juice

You are not Phoenix Wright

That one stark message again. His heart beat faster. What a weird message to get when he already felt out of it and a little zany in the brainy from being cooped up in this weird house. He shook his head and then glared down at his phone and tapped away with his thumbs.

No listen here you stupid rat, my name is Phoenix Wright ace attorney at law, and I won't let you scam me or get my credit card. Unless your my wife or her big spankable butt LEAVE ME ALONE STUPID RAT.

A brief pause. And then:

You don't deserve her. Your brain tumor isn't an actual brain tumor, it's… what stops you from recognizing the reality of dis situation, from remembering the truth

What do you mean ratphonso?

Ask Miles Edgeworth. He knows what it means. Or found out.

"I can't ask him you stupid rat, he's gone missing," said Phoenix into the darkness of his crib, looking straight ahead. "He's probably on another one of his gay European business trips. Stupid Edgeworth. At least when I go to Europe I get sucked into a magical book and get to meet Professor Layton."

He picked his phone back up and saw that Ratphonso's messages were gone! So was his Facebook page!

"It's like it just disappeared," remarked Phoenix. "What the hell?"

Ratphonso had faded out of his life as quickly as he had appeared. Just what was this strange e-rodent talking about?

Phoenix tried to remember what he had forgotten.

He forgot the truth.

That's what he had to remember.

But his brain felt like it was full of TV static. Suddenly there was a flash that illuminated the night sky and the room. He looked out the window next to his crib and saw a white light falling straight down from heaven. It left behind a glittering path of scintillating stardust that lingered for a few seconds before disappearing.

"Huh... shooting star." He squinted. "Heh. Couldn't I use a wish right now. But I don't believe in that."

He let the curtain fall back.

Because... stars are just stars... and wooden boys aren't Pinnocios... they're just wood. And the Blue Fairy wasn't real.

Blue made him think of Trucy because she was blue, and of himself, because his suit was blue.

"I also have a red tie," noticed Phoenix.

Then he noticed something else next to his crib.

He climbed out, his diaper crinkling all the way.

"Grape juice?"

In the corner there was a giant wood crate full of bottles of grape juice. It had been pried open with a crowbar.

On top of the crate was a note.

Hey Phoenix, someone dropped off a few crates of grape juice off for you today. Some kind of well wisher I guess. I figured you might want some.

Cheers, Stu

Phoenix glugged down grape juice, not noticing the ghost flying around the ceiling, as visions of the Christmas football game on TV swirled around his head.

Football...

Foot...ball...

"Catch!"

The football sailed through the air like a Christmas ham, or a football, and landed in Phoenix's arms.

"Whoo hoo!"

"Nice catch!"

Stu and Drew jogged over across the grounds, breath fogging, the ends of their scarves trailing behind them. They were wearing their varsity jackets.

"Nice job catching that ball with your giant finger, Phoenix," said Drew.

"Yeah, look at that thing!" said Stu. "It's huge!"

Phoenix hid it behind his back.

"It's not that big."

"Hey, maybe you could become a lawyer and use your big finger to point at people in court," said Drew.

"Yeah!" exclaimed Stu. "You could call it your objection finger!"

"Ha ha, very funny guys. Me, a lawyer. Good one."

But what they didn't know was he was secretly studying to be a lawyer on the side. He turned his head 2 millimeters to the right and looked at a poster on the side of a campus building. The poster showed Miles Edgeworth beating up a small pathetic blue attorney.

Two wrongs don't make a Wright, said the poster. Don't be a Wright be an EDGEWORTH. Become a lawyer today!

"What do you think I'm trying to do, you stupid poster," whispered Phoenix bitterly through his teeth.

Just then, a cheerleader jumped up and shook her pom poms.

"Yay! You guys won the big game! As a reward, you can come back to my room and lick my giant pussy at the same time!"

Stu and Drew high fived.

"Hell yeah!"

"Score!"

Stu hooked a thumb over his shoulder.

"Hey, Phoenix, you wanna get in on this?"

"Sorry, guys, I have to meet Dolly," said Phoenix. "She wants to ask for my necklace back but I'm gonna say no again. Heh, girlfriends, am I right? Besides, I'd never cheat on her."

Also, he wanted to remain a virgin till he met Edgeworth again in court.

"Oh, yeah," nodded Stu vigorously, "that's like me and Didi. I'm totally loyal to her only."

"Same with Charlotte and me," said Drew.

Stu smiled. "But, I can't help but notice you haven't popped the question like me yet, Drew."

Drew smiled back. "Too busy popping cherries, little bro."

The brothers laughed and Phoenix waved at their backs as they left arm-in-arm with the cheerleader.

"Poor guy gets pranked a lot in college," remarked Drew.

"Yeah, it's funny how much he gets pranked in college," agreed Stu.

"He's a bit of a wet blanket. Oh, well, it's like everyone says. The P on that pink sweater doesn't stand for Phoenix."

"Yeah, it stands for Piss Baby."

As they disappeared from view, Drew voice's came from around the corner: "Hey, Stu, if our tongues touch while we're eating her out, is that incest?"

"Ewww! Drew, don't be gross!"

Drew sniggered.

Meanwhile, Phoenix was walking back to his dorm, when all of a sudden he heard mysterious sex sounds coming from a nearby window. Afraid someone might be having sex outside of marriage, he snuck over the window and peeped in.

Inside, a woman was on her knees and her boyfriend was standing over her with his pants around his ankles stroking his p-word. He looked like he was ready to blow, and she had her face tilted upwards in expectant expectation.

"NO!"

Phoenix banged his fists against the glass.

"He's taking advantage you! He's trying to make you give into peer pressure! Don't let him degrade you like that! You don't have to do this! Sex is bad! SEX IS BAD! Follow my Dolly Lolly's example! She's perfect and classy! NO! NO!"

He banged harder and kept screaming, but it was no use, they couldn't hear his screams over the sound of banging glass, and they couldn't hear the banging glass over him screaming. With no other choice, he kissed his crucifix, and got a running start and dived headfirst through the window.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

He flew in front of her in slow motion with his arms spread out like he was taking a bullet for the president. He caught the full force of the cumblast in his mouth and swallowed every last drop of the massive load so it wouldn't get on the innocent girl's face and corrupt her forever. Then time unslowed and he crashed into the wall and knocked over a fishbowl.

"Hey!" said the girl on the floor indignantly. She put her fists on her hips and pouted. "You stole my reward!"

Meanwhile, all the commotion caused a small crowd to gather outside the window. A professor with glasses and a ponytail and leather patches on his elbows pushed his way through.

"What's going on here? Let me through at once! Make way for the educator who invented the time machine! Out of my way!"

He pushed his way to the window and saw Phoenix slumped up against the wall inside.

"My god!" said the professor. "That boy is one of my students!"

"Ugh... I don't feel so good," groaned Phoenix, rolling his head. He burped a cum bubble.

"This man has imbibed too much cum! He needs medical attention at once!"

The professor ran through the crowd flailing his arms.

"Doctor! We need a doctor! Help! HELP!"

A horse drawn carriage carrying a young Miles Edgeworth and his mentor Manfred von Karma to court passed by, and Miles turned his head and watched this scene unfold, warming his hands in an 18th century hand muff meant for women, little knowing or thinking that the man in the pink sweater lying on a stretcher with cum falling out of his mouth was actually his grade school friend Phoenix Wright, and that one they day they would face each other in court...

"Miles," barked Manfred von Karma. "Do not look out a window. It is unbecoming."

"Yes, Father."

And so he let himself forget about the strange cum guzzling man.

The scene faded and segued into one of Dahlia in the hospital. Striding forward, determined, on her way to Phoenix's room, faceless masses of patients and visitors and hospital staff passing by on either side of her vision. Her face was emotionless. She was hiding a noose and big bottle of poison behind her back.

Iris was a weak sister. She'd get the job done.

And then she was sitting at the side of his hospital bed.

Phoenix smiled up at her from the depths of his pillows sheepishly.

"Boy, I bet you think I'm a real silly goose for ending up in here like this."

She sat stone-faced. "You could say that."

"I just couldn't let my fellow students put their relationship at risk with premarital sex, you know?"

"Oh really?" said Dahlia. She sharpened an axe on the big stone wheel hidden behind her back.

"Yeah, really!" nodded Phoenix. "Because love is supposed to be something really special, and you know, sacred! Like ours. Not something cheap! You know, Dolly, I've been meaning you ask you, do you want to go upstate to spend Christmas with my parents? Mom and dad are actually talking again, so you'll get to meet him too! She's even wearing her ring again. You know, I still hope they might get back together. Especially if they see how in love WE are. I think true love never truly dies! As long as we keep loving each other nothing bad can happen. It's all we need. It's the most important thing."

She let her mask slip and asked a very serious question of him.

"Why? Why do you believe that?"

He was chipper till then. Now his smile melted. "I dunno... I guess I have a sort of idealized sense of what love should be. Believing in it and not giving up. Even when it's hard. I guess 'cause of my parents. So I guess I want to live up to that ideal. Since they didn't."

He got serious, lying in that hospital bed, and gave her a serious sad look.

"You believe in love, don't you?"

She stared ahead, past him.

A voice that seemed to her to come from somewhere else, not her throat, sounded.

"Yes... Feenie."

She let the noose fall slack in her hands behind her back and dropped her other murder implements.

"I love you, Dolly."

She didn't answer, and retained her seemingly bored, haughty expression. She didn't protest when he took her hand and fixed her with his stupid, sincere, simpering smile.

She always detested in him. She tended to him. And didn't put poison in his IV-drip or chop his head off.

I love you

And now Phoenix's world was spiraling around while he lay in a puddle of grape juice on Stu's floor, trying to hell himself that it wasn't true... But feelings that strong don't die completely. There is always that tiny spark.

Yes... he still loved her.

The room was still spinning, and his memories were joining with the memories of the ghost endlessly flying around above him in the ether, trapped in a whirlpool of memories, a merger of so many memories, more than his own, creating a more complete picture of the past than he could have ever had on his own.

But to him, it all seemed natural, natural that he should know all this...

"Iris..."

Then the label over the word grape on the bottle of grape juice peeled off to reveal the words Biscoff Gavin Juice.

Chapter Text

Phoenix wasn’t the only one who saw the shooting star.

Matt Engarde saw it too. He saw it from the train platform, watching it from within a mass of passengers huddled up waiting for the midnight train. He watched it fall from heaven and disappear beyond the horizon;  he watched it, impassive, his breath frosting over his scarf. 

While everyone else was ooh-ing and ah-ing, Matt  turned his head two inches to the left and saw what everyone else had missed, the  words CELESTE INPAX spelled out in the stars. The stars had been talking to him a lot lately since he ran away.

Matt, this is ridiculous. Think about it. You may be a first rate actor, but this is a third-rate plan.

I don’t care, dude. I’m out of here. I don’t want de Killer to kill me.

But you’re safe here, Matt. We’re completely isolated from the outside world. Why leave?

That’s just it, dude. I’m a sitting duck here. I escaped prison with that Biscoff guy with everyone else. Of course de Killer is gonna come looking for me here. He’s part of the criminal underworld.

Hmph. And have you considered how the master might feel about this little award-winning plan of yours?

Look, I know I owe the guy for breaking me out, but I dunno about all this. Doing whatever he says and spending all day in the mines looking for dusty old shit.

Chin up, Matt. It’s all part of destroying the legal system.

Pushing minecarts all day and swinging pick axes and staring at the reflection of Alita Tialia’s terrible ass in a muddy puddle of water from a dripping stalactite while I rub my stupid boner through my cool pants isn’t exactly my idea of “destroying the legal system,” dude.

Sigh… Matt, you’re impossible.

Matt didn’t want to think about Celeste so he turned his head and his vision panned past the first group of stars and passed an empty expanse of sky to another group of stars that spelled out ADRIAN ANDREWS.

“Adrian Andrews?” said Matt Engarde.

Then he remembered how she used to be his manager and how she was  nice to him and how she  helped him put his Nickel Samurai costume on and she ate t-bone steaks with him. He wondered if the stars were telling him to go find her. His heart started beating really fast.

“But what if she doesn’t like me back?” worried Matt.

What if she was still mad at him and blamed him for Celeste’s death, even though he didn’t do anything wrong? Besides, he couldn’t go see her. He was an escaped convict, with a hitman with a vengeance on his trail. His acting career was over, all his money was gone, and even his devilish good looks had deteriorated in prison.

He looked away. There was no such thing as astrology anyway. It was all fruity bullshit. The stars bounced around sadly.

You’re impossible. Do you realize the position you’re putting me in? We’re roommates. If you leave, I’m the one who’ll be blamed. They’ll put me in the bottom of a well as punishment, and then I will, of course, become known as Richard “in a well a ton,” thus making my name an ironic pun.

Dude. Listen. LISTEN. You’re not hearing me. Shelley. De. Killer. Is. Going. To. Kill. Me. And. Fuck. My. Dead. Body. For. Putting. A. Camera. In. A. Bear. Like, what part of that do you not understand?

Hmph. Point taken. But, Matt, you can’t really think de Killer would dare to attack you here of all places? The master wouldn’t allow it, and de Killer wouldn’t compromise himself like that.

Maybe. I dunno. I have no reason why I should care or trust you. For all I know you’ve been putting de Killer’s big assassin cock in all your holes whenever I’m not looking.

Grrrr… how dare you!

I know you know him.

Matt, it’s not like that.

I told you to cut him off.

It’s not easy to just cut someone off…

Yeah. That tells me everything I needed to know. Now get out of my way. Or I’ll make you.

M-Matthew…

…

You’d think I’d care to stand in your way? Go.

Mathew… It was funny how hearing his full name sounded closer and more intimate than his nickname. 

The cold wind on the platform blew through his clothes, and lay on his skin like a deadly kiss, lingering, poisonous.

He shivered.

Now Richard was gone. So was Adrian. Just like Juan was too. Celeste.

Maybe people were only in our lives for a limited time. Maybe we live many lives within our own lives, reincarnated again and again in the same lifetime. People grow apart. They fall out of love. We don’t recognize them anymore. But we leave each other changed. Parts of us grow and fall off till we’re like ships of Theseus versions of ourselves. He felt like he was always the same old Matt, though.

The only other constant was de killer.

“No, Adrian could never like me,” said Matt. “I’m too stupid…”

A man popped up over his shoulder and pointed at the stars.

“Hey, who’s Adrian Andrews?”

“Someone… I used to know.”

Goyte - Someone I Used to Know blasted in his earbuds as he turned up the dial of his MP3 player. He got onto the train, but didn’t notice a man who looked exactly like Shelley de Killer except he had a big hat on and whose name was Shelley de Killer watching from behind eyeholes cut into a newspaper. Matt was so wrapped up in his own problems he didn’t even notice the big hat, which was really big.

The hat said John Deere.

And so the train rolled out of the station, and Matt sank into his seat, the mysterious man seated a few rows behind him; the man pulled out a long gun from his coat, and then pulled out a long silencer that tripped someone over, and then pulled out a long bullet and jammed it into the gun.

No one heard anything.

He was too silent for that.

On a train, no one can hear you die.

Anyway, Kristoph Gavin hacked into the train’s communications system and spoke to the drivers at the front of the train over the radio.

He told them that there’s a hand operated railroad cart with a bomb strapped to it on the tracks behind them. If they stop the train, the cart will catch up, and the collision will detonate the bomb.

The engineer covered the microphone and turned to the other driver and said: “We don't have to keep going forever, just until whoever's working the cart gets tired!"

But Kristoph’s disembodied voice, guessing at their thoughts, chuckled and wagged his unseen finger at them over the radio.

"And don't think you can run out the clock, as it were, on your imminent deaths. The railroad cart is manned by robots. They won't grow tired... and they will pursue you... inexorably."

They were programmed to be evil. The men gulped.

The engineer loosened his collar, took off his cap, ran a hand through his grey sweaty hair, and said: “What are you demands?"

At the evil base miles away, Kristoph leaned forward into the microphone. He smiled and parted his lips to speak.

"The only one who can stop my plans is on that train. He must be stopped."

Then, in the passenger car, Matt Engarde was told he had to kill children.

This was communicated to him by the conductor.

Matt’s face took on the pallor of cum.

"K-kill kids?"

Matt had to kill all the kids on the train to make the terrorist leader call off the robots. It was the only condition the voice over the radio would accept.

Anyway, the conductor handed him a sword.

“I can’t stay to talk, I have to go shovel coal."

Matt just stood in the aisle, staring down at the sword. By that point news of the bomb had spread to the other passengers and they were all freaking out.

“Why me?” murmured Matt.  “Why must my life be so bogus?”

He brushed back his hair.

"Fuck,” he breathed quietly. “Fuck…”

The train rushed on and Matt saw crying orphans huddled around some fat nun’s legs. Matt approached them listlessly, resigned to his fate, hiding the sword.

“Oh, are you looking to adopt a child in these trying times?” asked the nun.

“Something like that,” said Matt. 

He raised the sword and was about to cut their heads off, memories of Isaac and Abraham from Bible class with Adrian floating through his mind, but then-

“Matthew! Stop!”

Matt lowered his sword.

“That voice… it’s gay, but familiar!”

A man wearing a robe with wings sprouting out of his back strolled down the aisle strumming a bright red guitar.

It was Juan Corrida! In angel form!

“Juan? Is that really you?”

“Yes, Matthew. It’s me.”

You see, the shooting star everyone saw was actually Juan Corrida falling from heaven! Juan explained that God sent him to Earth to set Matt back on the right path.

“Dude, I don’t believe this. De Killer wasted you. And since when does the Jammin’ Ninja wear a dress?”

“I told you. I’m an angel. And I’m no longer the Jammin’ Ninja. Call me the Strumming Angel.”

Juan explained that heaven was in turmoil, and that earth was in big trouble too. An angel named Mia had even gone to hell to figure out what the hell was going on, but no one had heard from her since. Matt had an important role to play in all this, and the angels had been trying to guide him via the stars, but after that didn’t work God sent Juan Corrida to Earth to be Matt’s guardian angel.

He also related that God liked the Jammin’ Ninja better than The Nickel Samurai.

"No! You're lying!” said Matt. “You're misrepresenting God's opinions on our shows! I’m going to kill myself right now and ask God about this myself!"

Juan set his guitar down hurriedly. "Slow down, you know that suicides can't go to heaven. The only place you'd go is hell."

“Wait, hold on,  let me consult my bible.” He took out the bible 2. Juan threw it out the window.

“No, THAT is part of the problem.”  Juan got stern, but gentle. “Matt, God has a special mission for you. But you have abdicated your duty just like Jonah. You have been running away.”
“Oh, don’t start on me about God, dude. Religion is all bullshit, all of it. If God’s real, then how come I was in prison for 13 years? How come de Killer is out to get me? How come I’m about to kill little kids with a sword? How could God let such evil things happen?!" 

Matt advanced forward angrily, neck thrust forward, scowling and clenching his fists, the sword forgotten at his feet.

Juan remained calm, didn’t flinch or bat an eye. He said in all seriousness: "How could you allow it to happen?"

Matt drew back, his anger disappearing in an instant, the angel's words like a holy ray of truth and goodness breaking through the clouds and burning away the fog of his ignorance.

"Truly I see now," Matt said.

“Don’t you understand, Matt? Can’t you see?” Juan shook Matt’s shoulders. “De Killer is the symptom, not the cause! You keep running from him because you’re running from the hidden lesson inside yourself that you must learn. The lesson God wants you to learn. It’s the only way you will ever be able to live your life right and find peace.”

“What lesson, dude?”

“The one involving the people you’ve wronged, Matt. The ones in the stars. I’ve spoken to many dead people in heaven, Matt. Including Celeste Inpax.”

A wave of fear rolled over Matt akin to his fear when hearing or thinking about de Killer. Just the idea of Celeste, alive, existing somewhere terrified him. It took a great effort to control himself. His heart beat faster. Juan noticed this, and moved in.

“You can’t run away anymore, Matt. Look where it’s led you.” The Strumming angel spread out an arm, and a wing. “You were about to murder these poor young lambs. Is that right? Or wrong?”

“Wrong…”

“I don’t begrudge you anything, Matt. Our former rivalry means nothing to me. Being dead taught me something… all those samurai TV shows aren’t important. Nor are the mutual misunderstandings of the human race. For how easy would it be to love one another if we could see clearly into each other’s minds and hearts? Matthew, let be your angel and guide you.”

“I dunno. What you’re saying… it sounds bodacious, but I’m not sure.”

“Matthew… you should know. Your name… it’s from the Bible.”

“What?” Matt recoiled.  “It is?”

“Yes… the Nickel Samurai… the Bible… it’s all connected like a spider's web.”

Corrida closed his eyes piously and held his hands together like Buddha. Matt contemplated all this. But he didn’t get much of a chance to think, because there was a sudden BANG that shook the entire car and swung the lanterns overhead and bounced everyone around!

“What was that?!” asked Matt from the floor. The lights flickered and went off.

“The robots finally reached the train!” said Juan from the ceiling. He was hovering over the chaos with his wings. “We have to hurry!”

De Killer had fallen asleep from his medication but the shaking woke him up and he fired his gun! It hit Juan’s wing and he fell to the floor!

“Juan!” Matt ran and helped him up, supporting him. “You okay?”

“Yes… but now I can’t fly.” He flapped his wing weakly. There was a large hole surrounded by gunpowder. “Now the open window, from which I made my ingress, is totally worthless for serving as a point of egress…”

“Then how are we gonna get out of here?”

De Killer was already reloading his assassin's gun which only held one special assassin bullet at a time. His unsteady arthritic hands were slowing him down. 

“Ha…” laughed the Strumming Angel. “Matthew, do you believe in miracles?”

“I dunno. It’s been a long time since I had one.”

“Pray with me, Matthew.”

“Now? Jesus Christ.”

“Ah, now you’re getting the right idea.”

Matt pushed and shoved the crying orphans away, one which fell into the fat nun's mouth/throat which made her turn blue like a blueberry, and prayed on his knees with Juan. Ratphonso, with a little hat and a polka dot tie and a little matchbox suitcase, watched all this from under the seats.

“Lookit those queers. Prayin’ at a time like this? The geezer’s got a gun! Jeezum Crow. This whole situation is turning into a ratastrophe. I’m outta here!”

He scurried off past a pile of newspapers on a seat, and they all fell off, revealing… Matt’s motorcycle!

“Motorcycle!” exclaimed Matt.

The motorcycle rolled over to them, its engine purring happily.

“Motorcycle, you’re alive?” asked Matt. “But how did you buy a train ticket?”

Juan remained kneeling on the floor and opened one smiling eye. He twanged his guitar. “Ah, our prayers worked. Thank you, Jesus. Quick, we must hurry! Before the bomb detonates!”

Matt hopped onto his motorcycle and Juan hugged his hips. Matt put on his cool motorcycle gloves and revved the engine. He scooped up the sword.

“Hold on, dude!”

They took off and roared down the aisle, crashing down the door to the next passenger car, making their way to the rear of the train. De Killer slung another bullet their way, but Matt swung his sword and knocked it away.

They made it to the caboose and the train’s observation deck and Matt skidded to a stop. They looked over the railing and saw the robots in hot pursuit! 

“We have to stop them, Matt!” said Juan over the roar of the train and the rushing wind. “Innocent lives are at stake!”

They weren’t sure what to do but then the motorcycle’s tailpipe coughed exhaust and Matt’s watch fell out!

“Dude! It’s my nifty fucking watch I used to wear! Motorcycle, how did you-”

The motorcycle just revved its engine happily. Juan chuckled.

“God works in mysterious ways.”

Matt put it on and flipped up the antenna.

“Hold on, let me consult my watch.”

The watch emitted a ray that scanned the robots and analyzed the situation. It turned out the robots were controlled by evil circuit boards in their heads, so-

“-if I hit them in the head with this big piece of coal-”

“-and if I, the Strumming Angel, also throw a piece of coal-”

The robots got hit in the head and shot off sparks! Then their eyes turned even more red and evil than before and they directed their murderous bomb-exploding intentions on a new target: Matt’s motorcycle.

Next Matt did a cool wheelie off the train and landed on the rails. He hit a switch with his sword and swapped the tracks! The train got away safely, and the robots followed the motorcycle down the other track.

Eventually the track led them out of the city and away from people who could get blown up by the bomb. Matt crashed through a sign that said UNDER CONSTRUCTION and onto a railroad trestle over the Los Angeles gorge.

“Uh, Juan the Angel? What’re we supposed to do now?” He eyed the unfinished railroad ahead nervously. They were running out of track. And it was a sheer drop to the bottom.

“You have to believe, Matt.”

“But-”

“Believe.”

Matt closed his eyes.

“Believe…”

He went faster and reared up on his bike, and instead of falling off the tracks, the motorcycle rose up into the air like a majestic flying piano.

Matt opened up his eyes and looked down at the earth below, laughing in disbelief.

"Juan, we did it, what, what is-”

“It’s magic, Matt. It’s magic.”

The robots fell into the gorge and exploded into a huge mushroom cloud that bloomed up and overlapped with the moon. Fairy dust fell out of the exhaust pipe and the Strumming Angel played Pilot - Magic on his iconic red guitar, and the tiny angels on his shoulders vocalized together (Juan didn’t have a shoulder devil, just two miniature versions of himself who were in a relationship together).

“Good work, Matt. Now, fly your motorcycle back to the suburbs of Los Angeles. There’s a very special chipmunk God wants you to meet…”

Chapter Text

Trucy was in Alvin's room on the second floor, sitting on the edge of the bed and swinging her ankles around; he was sitting on the floor looking up at her with his legs crossed, chin in his hands, listening, immersed in a deep conversation about the music they're into. They had slipped away from Dave and the other chipmunks and left them behind downstairs.

It was cold and dark outside. But they were warm.

"I like everything except country and rap," said Trucy. She lifted her eyes and compressed her lips with her finger. "You know, kinda like how I like all races except white people and whatever Lotta Hart is."

Alvin breathed through his nose unevenly, his nostrils wide and his pupils dilated. His chest heaved. She didn't say anything about not fucking chipmunks!

Just then there was a whistle of wind from the open window that blew the curtains inside the room, along with a few tumbling snowflakes that they followed with their eyes, that she had to brush out of her hair, and then a newspaper flew inside and landed on her lap.

She picked it up with a rustle, tapped in on her thighs to straighten it out, and checked out the front page. Alvin peered over her arm, yellowish eyes dully glowing in anger at having his advances cockblocked by mere paper.

It was a part of an on-going series by Spark Brushel about Phoenix Wright's mysterious disappearance. There were rumors that he was hiding out in Stu Pickles' house, which had become one of the seediest spots in all of Los Angeles. There were photos of the crazy parties being thrown there every night, with people passing out on the front lawn and falling drunk out of the windows. In one window you could just make out what looked like Phoenix Wright passed out in bed under a pile of grape juice while Chaz and Chuckie stood by with their dicks out.

In real life, not the newspaper, Trucy's eyes got wet. "Daddy…" Alvin's ears perked up before he realized she wasn't addressing him. She sniffed, and wiped the corner of her eye with a gloved knuckle.

She let out a wavery sigh. Alvin looked up at her emotionally mangled face, his heart panging, wishing he could put his little chipmunk hands inside of her body and rearrange whatever organs were making her sad inside.

More and more newspapers blew through the window. There were stories about her upcoming magic show with Biscoff, which made her smile a little, and also about Stu Pickles and Chaz Finster's new rock band, the Smeg Brothers.

The other members were Cody and Sal. In the accompanying pictures they were all wearing leather jackets and diapers. The article said they had played a show at the local strip club, but had been kicked out because Stu invented a conveyor belt and put the strippers on it so he could slap their asses and beat them with chains as they danced on the belt.

"This is just stupid," Stu was quoted as saying. "I didn't get any sexual pleasure out of all of this. Like, I'm gay? Um, hello? I only did it to speed up the process of beating and dehumanizing women. That's what Pickles Toys is all about."

Trucy's eyes got sad and she shook her head a little. It's hard to imagine that the man who she'd known since she was eight years old, her adopted father's old college friend who was basically an uncle to her, who practically raised her alongside Aunt Didi while her daddy was working, could turn out like this.

But she wasn't a judgemental person. She and Alvin talked about the band for a minute, and they agreed their songs were pretty good with some deep meaningful lyrics.

Just then Dave knocked and leaned into the room.

"Hey, guys," he said, "it's almost time for dinner!" He gave Trucy a smile and a nod. "It's good to have you, Trucy. And don't forget to wash up, Alvin."

Alvin rolled his eyes. "Gargle my balls, Dave."

"Don't tempt me, Alvin," said Dave sternly, making a pistol with his fingers.

After Dave left they went back to talking. She was having Christmas Eve dinner at the Chipmunk household because she was having issues across the street with her mom.

"Besides," she said, "I came over because there's stuff I have to figure out."

"Oh yeah?" said Alvin. He turned his hat backwards and got icy cool. "You did?"

"Yeah," she said, staring at the wall.. She brushed her hair out of her face.

"And… what's that, Trucy?"

"Stuff."

A flash of a memory of her and Dave in front of the fireplace.

Alvin said: "So I guess Vesty McGee broke things off, huh?"

"I haven't seen him," she said. "He's seeing Vera again. Which is good, she's a good girl, I love her, total bestie."

"So… you're not sad?"

She smiled.

"No."

"I guess you took off the ring."

She glanced at her gloved hand, then smiled.

"Yup. It was just a silly thing, really. Besides, I don't blame him for going with Vera. She's got an underage-looking butt that won't quit in those childlike overalls," she joked, but not really, because all girls are slightly bisexual.

"What about Machi?"

Her smile turned upside down in an instant.

"I'd rather not talk about that."

"Aw, those guys were no good for you anyway," Alvin scoffed, "they didn't treat you right, they were just a bunch of losers. Apollo Justice? Jesus Christ, you might as well be dating fucking Theodore. The little butterball. You can do way better," and he went on ranting and excoriating her exes or suspected exes, like Wocky and Mr. Hat and Klavier, when-

"Alvin. Shut up."

He jolted up like from a static shot, staring at her.

"I already told you. I need to figure something out."

She brushed that pesky hair out of her face again, and their eyes locked, locking everything out besides themselves from that one moment.

That one moment.

One.

Then another newspaper flew through the window spinning around 360 degrees and landed in her face. It was one of those new experimental newspapers that had moving images and sounds, right on the page. They were called Super Newspapers.

Anyway, she saw an article about KISS and their magical talismans.

Host: Thanks for being here, KISS.

Paul Stanley: No problem, it's great to be here talking about magical Stalinism.

Host: Come again?

Paul Stanley: Sorry, I meant magical talismans.

Host: Ah, okay. What are these magical talismans anyway?

(Gene Simmons held up an ornate case lined in red velvet and opened it, revealing four sparkling talismans, each corresponding to a member of KISS and their personas.)

Host: Whoa, what the hell are those? What the fuck.

Paul Stanley the Starchild: These are our magical talismans. They're what give us our magical powers and enhance our musical abilities. Without them, we're just regular human beings.

Peter Criss: Yeah, without my talisman, I'm not a cat guy, I'm just a cat.

Gene Simmons: We keep a protective seal around the case so they can't be stolen. We can sense if our talismans are disturbed. Our talismans are part of us.

Host: Then why are you telling the newspaper about it? This isn't even news. It's more like celebrity gossip.

Gene Simmons: QUIET!

Ace Frehley: We're doing it for the fans, man. Rock and roll! Without them, we're nothing.

Peter Criss: Yeah, just clowns in makeup!

(Starchild pointed out of the newspaper, towards Trucy.)

Starchild: This interview is for the fans. Because we love them. And because we want them to find their own talismans. And find the power within themselves to make the most out of their lives. Because what is, is, and what was, was, but the future's your own to choose. All you need is a little magic.

Trucy's magatama started glowing under her shirt. She gripped it in her fist. Green light seeped through the cracks between her fingers.

"I get it now..." she whispered. "Magical talismans..."

She rushed out of the room.

"Thanks for helping me figure things out, Alvin! You're awesome! See ya!"

"Trucy, wait!" cried Alvin. "Don't go! W-We can play with my hula hoop! Or put together my Reptar puzzle! TRUCY! PLEASE!"

He shuffled forward and tripped over the cuffs of his backwards jeans, which he had put on to seduce her.

Alvin listened from the floor as she tramped down the stairs and out the front door. A tear rolled down his cheek, leaving a dark streak of fur.

Just then Juan Corrida started playing a diegetic cover of You're All I Need by White Lion outside Alvin's window. Matt Engarde peeked around the curtains and tossed more newspapers out of his satchel.

"Strumming Angel, why did you bring me here?" he asked, as his motorcycle hovered outside the second story window.

"Perhaps one day you'll know, Matthewgarde," the Strumming Angel replied, not looking up from his fingerwork.

"Is this about Adrian Andrews?"

"No..." The Strumming angel's eyes were sad. "It's a story about a chipmunk and a girl. But perhaps... in your own story, you were the young chipmunk boy."

Matt looked down, his hair drooping. "I didn't treat her right, did I?"

"You loved her," said Juan, as Alvin played the guitar solo inside the house. Matt's mouth fell open. "You just didn't know how to show that love... or tell her. But the love was always there... latent, waiting to blossom. But you were always there for each other. Until I came between you."

He looked back. His eyes were shiny. "I did you wrong, too, Matt."

"No... you're a bro... even if you did force me to have you killed." And he wrapped an arm around Juan's neck, pulling the back of his head to his chest.

"Celeste would've wanted you to be together," said Juan, snuggled up to his murderer. "You know that, right?"

"I know..." said Matt, fighting back tears. "But I... I... couldn't forgive myself... even if sometimes I pretended to be a womanizer who didn't care... dude, that's so not me in actuality... and it's mostly your fault," and he was right, and he was redeemed.

"She's forgiven you, Matt. Many a time. I've talked to her in her mansion in heaven. The love you gave her... she knows it isn't gone or dead. Your love for Andrews... it's the same love, reborn."

"Oh, dude... dude... I know... I know it is... now."

"You have to learn to love yourself again, Matt. Against all the odds... and let yourself off the hook. So you can love again and be there for yourself... and her."

"Dude..."

Matt waved at the fluttering bedroom curtain, where Alvin was finishing up the song the Strumming Angel started.

"Thanks, little guy."

The motorcycle flew off to the moon while Matt ordered a pizza on his watch.

Chapter Text

Later that night, Trucy was in her room lounging in bed wearing a bikini made out of cravats. It had been a gift from Edgeworth on her sixteenth birthday. He had included a note.

“Miss Wright,

My mentor Manfred von Karma gave this to me on my sixteenth birthday. I am now passing it on to you.

I believe this is normal due to Trauma.

Signed, 

Miles Edgeworth.”

She thought it was really creepy and didn’t  know who Edgeworth was but then she saw him at the Christmas party and her father pointed him out in court and it all clicked. He was daddy’s friend.

Now, because of the business she had planned tonight, she thought it was the perfect time to wear it.

Things had turned sour almost as soon as she had gotten home.

For the first time in five years Thalassa had cancelled the annual Christmas Eve dinner. Instead, she and Trucy were eating on the couch watching a Steel Samurai movie.

The surface of things was placid, but there was an undercurrent of stress, threatening to breach the waters.

Things turned, as they so often did now, into a fight.

“My, what a stunning actor that Will Powers is!” said Lamiroir. “It is such a joy he is still getting new roles.”

“He wouldn’t be, if daddy didn’t save him,” grumbled Trucy.

“Ah… let us not begin this again. It would be a shame to spoil dinner.”

“You call this dinner?” She pushed it away.

“Please let us enjoy the movie and the time together. It is precious.”

“Um… okay?” Trucy pulled her brown wedgie out of her crack and let it snap back. “Retard.”

“I must ask that you take a more respectful tone while addressing me.”

“Nigga I don’t care.”

“Trucy Gramarye Amadeus Wright. Do not be racist in my home.”

Trucy shot up on the couch.

Water glistened in her eyes like tears.

“I’m not being racist! It’s called rap, mom! Alvin the chipmunk showed me it!”

“Oh my Heavenly Father…”

Lamiroir puked and pissed her maternity panties in distress.

“You’re stupid!” screeched Trucy. “I hate you! You’ve ruined my life! You ruined all of our lives FOR NO REASON.”

She smacked something off the mantel.

Her mother gasped and covered her veil with her hand.

“Miserable old bag,” said Trucy.

Lamiroir looked up from the couch with bold, defiant eyes.

“I may be many things. I may be old. I may be a bag. But I am not a small window.” 

“Of course you’d say that.” 

Trucy threw her head back with a huff.

Also there was pee all over the floor and it was gross.

“Here, Miss Pissy Pants, have some more,” said Trucy, and she dumped out a glass of Gatorade and scooped up pee and tossed it at her.

Thalassa gasped, sitting there soaked, flicking piss off her fingers.

“Gasp, my darling child, h-how could-“

“EASY.”

She turned her back to mom and started to storm off through the ankle-high piss waters.

“Theodore the chipmunk would never do this,” whispered Lamiroir softly like laundry detergent.

“WELL GEE MOM I’M SORRY I’M NOT FUCKING THEODORE.”

Trucy was at the top of the stairs at this point and she also started pissing in anger and a waterfall of urine streamed down the steps.

“Trucy Wright, go to your room. You are grounded for 3000 Borginian suns, and 2000 moons.”