Chapter Text
Nervous wasn't a word that should exist in his mind right now, but yet it did. Why was Miles nervous? He had seen his father do this a million times over, as well as his mentor. He had nothing to be nervous about, he was completely and utterly prepared for this day. This had been his dream since he was a child, he was not going to chicken out now.
"Here, I brought you the autopsy report and some coffee, though in retrospect the coffee probably wasn't a great idea, you're jittery enough as it is. Ah what the hell, drink it anyway. Wouldn't want to go into your first trial unprepared." His mentor returned from her short vacation from the defendant's lobby, passing him a yellow envelope and a paper cup.
"Both are appreciated, thank you Lana." Miles bowed his head slightly in thanks and she smiled back. Her being back in the room was already starting to calm his nerves.
"So, I've been wondering. What made you decide to take on a murder case right off the bat? You know it is possible to do civil cases to start off, right?" She laughed slightly as if scolding herself for being a hypocrite.
"It's a long story, but the short version is that I unfortunately owe the defendant some favours and now seemed like the best time for me to make good on those favours, you know, seeing as Larry's accused of murder and all." With those words, as if they were a cue, his old friend appeared, sobbing his eyes out.
"My life is over Edgey! I want to die!" he sobbed, snot dripping down from his nose onto his already snot covered sleeve. Please, stay right where you are Larry. Miles did not want his snot on him, aside from the fact that it was disgusting, this was a new suit. Larry was not going to be the reason he ruined another perfectly good outfit.
"Larry, no. You don't want to die." He tried to comfort his friend, but he had never been the best at that sort of thing so he continued to cry.
"How am I supposed to live without her? She was the only woman I'll ever love!" Well that was a lie if Miles knew one. Larry always got into bad breakups and was convinced that he'd never be able to move on and yet the next day he'd already have a new girlfriend. If only he had as much luck finding a date as he did. He sighed, starting to regret taking on this case. As dear as Larry was to his heart, he was a real pain in the ass sometimes. He should've just let him rot in prison.
~~~
"You're Gregory Edgeworth's son aren't you?" Of course that would be the first question the judge would ask him.
"Yes, Your Honour, that would be correct. Miles Edgeworth."
"I see, then there is no need to ascertain whether you are capable of performing your job properly, if you're as talented as your father, then you'll do fine."
"Thank you for the compliment Your Honour but I'm nowhere near my father's level yet." And Miles wouldn't be for a long time, as much as he looked up to him. The prosecutor cleared his throat, Miles had almost forgotten he was there.
"If you don't mind, I'd like to present the murder weapon as this time." He set a statue down on the evidence bench. It seemed fairly normal, but if he knew Larry, something strange was definitely going on here. Like they said when they were in school, 'if something stinks, it's probably the Butz'. The prosecutor then summoned Larry to the stand and began to question him.
"Am I right in assuming that the victim had recently dumped you?" Wrong question Mister Payne, wrong question. You never asked Larry if someone had dumped him, but poor Mister Payne didn't know any better. If only Miles could've warned him.
"What do you mean dumped?! She didn't dump me! She just wasn't taking my calls... or seeing me..." Larry, friend, that's the dictionary definition of being dumped. You stupid idiot.
"Miss Stone had recently returned from overseas with one of her lovers, this passport is evidence of that," Mister Payne placed a passport down on the bench, opening it to the page that proved she'd recently returned from America, "she took several lovers in order to get money out of them and maintain her extravagant lifestyle." Asshole, couldn't he see that Larry was going to blow at this? Ah he saw what was going on here, that's exactly what he wanted. He was trying to find a motive to pin on Larry.
"What? OOOoo, I'll just die, we can get this sorted out in the afterlife!" Thank you for making his job even harder Larry, he was truly his best friend. He just had to be an idiot and fall right for the prosecution's trap.
~~~
"I had seen the man in the defendant's chair leaving Miss Stone's apartment at about three in the afternoon. He had left the door open behind him so I went to investigate and found that poor woman on the floor dead. I immediately ran to find a payphone to call the police."
"Pardon my asking, but why didn't you use the phone in the victim's apartment?" the judge asked the new witness. Why indeed.
"Sorry for not presenting this earlier, but it can all be explained with this blackout report. The power had been out until six that evening." The prosecution submitted its new evidence quickly, being careful not to make eye contact with Miles. He hadn't even gotten through his first trial and prosecutors were already terrified of him; what did this mean for his career?
"You may begin your cross examination Mister Edgeworth."
"Of course, Your Honour," Miles bowed my head to the judge before turning to the defendant. This was simple, no need to be nervous. I'd even already found the contradiction, "Mr Sahwit, I'd like to draw your attention to this autopsy report. It places the time of death at four o'clock, there is no way you could've found the body at three."
"Objection! The witness simply forgot the time." What a weak excuse. Clearly what his father had said about Paynes was true.
"Overruled. The witness seemed very sure of himself. Why is this Mr Sahwit?" the judge asked the witness, pounding his gavel gently to overrule Payne's objection.
"I... uh... heard the time on the television, yeah I'm sure that Miss Stone had been watching a program from earlier in the day." Well, wasn't this man full of contradictions.
"I'm sorry Mister Sahwit, but that is also impossible. We heard from the prosecution only minutes ago that there had been a blackout until six that day." Miles gently tapped the paper that the blackout report was printed on against the table, as if to illustrate his point.
"I... uh... that clock! That's what I heard the time from!" The witness was just making excuses.
"You are aware that murder weapon was a statue, not clock?" Payne cleared his throat, twisting the head of the murder weapon gently so it proclaimed the time. Why was it an hour off? Oh... it was a clock after all. But there was something here that Miles could use.
"Mister Sahwit, there is no way that you could've known that this statue is a clock without holding it in your hands. The defense hereby claims that you heard it say the time when you stuck Cindy Stone over the head with it."
"You young upstart! How dare you ruin my perfect testimony?!" Of all the things that could've happened today, he certainly wasn't expecting to get a toupee thrown at his face. He removed the thing calmly, discarding it to the ground without a second thought. Mister Frank Sahwit wouldn't need it anymore where he was going, "you don't even have any proof to back up your unreasonable claims! Show me the proof!" If he wanted proof, he'd get proof.
"When we heard the clock moments ago, the time discrepancy from the current time was exactly one hour, the same as the discrepancy in your testimony Mister Sahwit."
"Proof child! I said proof!" He wanted more? Well then, he'd get more. Miles walked over to the evidence bench, picking up the passport and smacking his hand gently against the back of it.
"This passport is the key to this case," the clock wasn't off by one hour at all, they just had to turn our thinking on its head to figure out the truth, "Miss Stone had recently returned from a trip to America. She'd brought the clock with her, setting it to New York time. The clock was indeed off, but not by one hour. It's been off for thirteen hours this whole time. She'd forgotten to set the time back to the correct time when she returned. That is the simple truth." As soon as the words left his mouth, Mister Sahwit collapsed to the ground, foaming at the mouth. They arrested him seconds after that, having found out that he was the true killer in this case. Larry was declared innocent.
~~~
"Wonderful work Miles, you hardly needed me at all! I'm shocked that you even asked me to stand as your co-counsel, you would've been fine on your own!" Lana laughed, patting Miles' shoulder gently. She was wrong, she didn't know how much it meant to him to just have her there. If she hadn't been there, he didn't think that he would've made it through that trial.
"Did... did she love me at all Edgey?" Larry sobbed, interrupting Lana and blowing his nose on Miles' tie. Good god Larry, he could have some discrepancy at the very least. Now he was going to have to spend the rest of the day with Larry's snot on his tie. Disgusting.
"Larry, here look at this," he showed him that ugly clock, sighing all the while, "this thing is bulky and extremely ugly, she wouldn't have kept it around if she didn't care about you and if you want my personal opinion, she did love you." Even if he did love Larry, he wouldn't keep that thing if he paid him.
"Right as always, you've always been so smart Edgey." Why was it that Miles couldn't even hear the word right without his thoughts flashing to that man? Phoenix Wright... his other childhood friend. It had been years since they'd seen each other last... why had he needed to change so much?
"Miles... Miles... are you listening to me?"
"Huh? Oh sorry Lana, what did you say?" Dammit Miles, he just had to let himself get distracted again.
"I asked if you wanted to go out for dinner to celebrate Larry's acquittal."
"Ah, of course. That sounds great."
"Remind me to ask about the story of how you owe Larry so many favours some other time. Over drinks maybe?" Miles nodded, he was going to have to tell her truth eventually. She'd been there on that day, but that was all in the past. For now, he would just focus on the future and meeting Phoenix again.
"Boy, isn't it just great to have friends Edgey?" Larry said, smacking him on the back. Why did he get a bad feeling from the way that he said that?
"Larry, you're going to pay me right?" Larry backed away slowly, starting to run away.
"Larry!" Ah well, it wasn't like this behaviour wasn't completely typical of Larry.
~~~
Miles never did get the chance to tell Lana about Larry and my past with Phoenix. While he hadn't known it then, a storm was coming that would shake his world out of its small proportions. That stupid clock would end up the centre of another incident... the murder of Lana Skye. The day that he first met Ema... when he reunited with Phoenix, that poor emotionless man.