Chapter Text
Maya’s head whipped as she surveyed the entirety of the area. Trees swayed around the perimeter like a dance circle forcing her and the few scatterings of cars in the lot to stay in place. She saw no other person in this part of the parking lot. She looked out to the open road where she was almost free, watching a lone car speed past with a satisfying zoom. No person appeared across the street like they would if this was a horror movie. Maya glanced up at the clear sky. The moon had found its place hanging amongst the startings of stars.
“Maya Fey,” the voice repeated as a barely audible rustle of a branch followed it.
In her line of sight, balancing with a single foot on the curved bar of one of the streetlights with pointed ears perked, rounded tail swaying, and white hair flowing, some hybrid between cat and woman stood silhouetted by the moonlight.
Maya started, her feet digging into the concrete as she stiffened her own body in fear of attack. She brushed a strand of hair that had been flung lopsided from her surveying, trying her best to maintain a calm composure for her surprise guest. She glanced back to the entrance of the hospital, though every atom in her body was telling her not to take her attention off the threat in front of her. The police had vanished.
Looking back up, she said with her best feigned normalcy, “Hiya.”
The cat pirouetted in place, her cream-colored, silk sleeping dress fluttering; its ends glowing from the fluorescent light of the streetlamp like it were made of magic. Without missing a beat and with the utter grace of a professional ballerina, she leaped with a single guiding foot to the ground in front of Maya, her stance showing no sign of the harshness of the distance fallen and her eyes seeming to drill deep into Maya’s.
“Franziska,” Maya whispered to the cocked smile only a yard in front of her, “Or are you not her?”
“I’m sure you know the answer to that,” the cat replied, its voice higher pitched and bouncier than anything Maya had ever heard out of Franziska’s mouth.
Maya kept calm, her hands dangling at her sides, fighting the urge to clutch the bottom on her yukata. Cat ears twitched; a cloying smile reacting to Maya’s stillness. “You can still call me by her name. I don’t think my master would care,” the cat continued.
“Master,” Maya repeated; the word hovering in the air as they slipped out of her mouth.
The cat took a step forward, turning the distance between Maya and it now unbearably close. Maya leaned back, her foot shifting to hold her up with her new center of balance. The cat looked at her foot, looked at her face— one Maya was sure was betraying her in this moment— and frowned.
“I think Master is the appropriate term for your friend, is it not?” the cat said, a smirk flashing for a moment with the word friend. “I’m simply here to, um, execute her will, I guess. That makes sense to you lawyer folk I assume.”
“And her will was to hurt a bunch of innocent people and almost murder Mr. Edgeworth?” Maya shot back.
“Well, I mean it’s a ‘I scratch your back, you scratch mine’ sort of arrangement. I feed on a few citizens, and Master gets to hurt everyone she’s wished to.”
“I don’t think Franziska would want to hurt anyone,” Maya said with furrowed brows. “I know deep down she wouldn’t want to.”
“You don’t know her very well then, Ms. Maya Fey,” the cat said with an eye roll.
Maya bit her lip. “I know her better than you,” she said with a voice weaker than she wanted. “I know she’s super duper worried right now because of what you did to Mr. Edgeworth. I know she wouldn’t truly want to kill anyone.”
“Master is her father’s daughter,” the cat said facetiously, smirking at the drop in Maya’s expression. “Yes, she seems to betray her inner desires, but at her core, Master might be more twisted than him. Beaten and battered on top of her hereditary disposition to narcissism and antisocial behaviors. Yes, Master was the correct choice between the two of you. She has som much to work with, so hurt for me to use. There is a chasm in her heart so easy to fill that you do not have, Ms. Maya Fey.
“You think you know her inner heart because you caught her smoking outside the day Miles Edgeworth was on the beaches of the River Stix? You think you of all people could understand her?” A shallow, mean laugh erupted from the cat, contorting Franziska’s face in an inhuman expression. “I should kill you as well, Maya Fey. You might actually be worse for Master than him.”
The cat took another step towards Maya, her tail flicking side to side and ears pulled back. Maya took a step back, her foot catching slightly on one of the parking plots. She stumbled and feared she may fall and never get back up. Claws digged into her arm as the cat's expression softened for a moment, something neither evil in intent like the possessing cat nor harsh in delivery like the possessed Franziska. Maya’s eyes widened as she felt the warm trickle of blood cascade to the floor.
The cat quickly let go, tsking to itself as it did. Maya felt fine despite being touched. Her arm hurt from the punctures, but she didn’t feel woozy from an energy suck. She looked down at her arm. Five streams of blood curled down like rivers between hills. She looked back up at the cat. Its expression had gone back to something unreadable. Maya didn’t say anything, fearing upsetting the cat without something saving her from its wrath. The two stared at each other as the moonlight twinkled in the cat’s stark white hair.
“Ms. Maya Fey,” the cat finally spoke. “I think I should go. I’ll see you again, no doubt. So, until that fateful meeting.”
With that the cat bounced back up onto a streetlight, its tail curving with the fluidity of the movement. Maya watched as it stood on a single toe, framed once again by the moon so large in the sky, before it bounded off into the cityscape. A few seconds after it entered the haze of the skyline, Maya collapsed onto the parking block that had almost killed her. Her breath was heavy, hurting her lungs with each deep yet quick pull in of the warm summer air.
She needed to tell Phoenix and Edgeworth, and she needed to do it quickly. Something was not right. Something was so different about this creature that stood before her and the creature in the archives of Kurain Village. She was scared; she was petrified, and the fact she knew she was the only one who might be able to save Franziska from this predicament, from herself, terrified her all the more.
After what felt like an hour but was no more than fifteen minutes, Maya stood back up, wobbling as she did. She huffed once and slapped both cheeks. If it wasn’t night and it wasn’t a more active part of the city, she would scream to find her nerve. Instead, she just marched, holding her injured arm with her other, squeezing it so no more than a small pool of blood would appear on the pavement of the parking lot, preventing any law enforcement from knowing what had happened and to whom it had happened to.