Chapter Text
A strange figure stands on the sidewalk, almost a little too close to the road. The twilight sky was coming to an end as the night sky swallowed it up, accompanied by dark, stormy clouds rumbling in the near distance. He appears to be a rather tall man, or rather a dog that opted to stand on his hind legs that somehow operated as any other human legs. His nose was held up to the sky, contemplating on the world beyond. He stands though as if he has lost something, or someone perhaps. Whatever it was, you can hear the pain it’s bringing him through the low, soft whimpers. It’s a pitiful sight of a dog becoming devastated with each more passing second.
A red car of the luxury sort comes rolling by. There was hardly any traffic on this road. The man driving thought of it as rather strange, particularly for the city he was in. Nevertheless, he did not mind since it meant that there was less likely a chance for people to pry him about his work. He had just finished a case and wanted nothing more than to get away from the chaos that ensued in his field. It was then when he spotted a figure standing in the distance. He looks strangely like a lost puppy , he thought to himself. He slowed a bit to inspect the figure further. Normally, he wouldn’t be one to stop and investigate a stranger, especially when it’s outside his field and unrelated to anything he was working on. Yet, here in this instance, something was telling him he needed to investigate. As all logical reasoning that could have told him to move on, it’s not his business and had other matters to attend to, he chooses to ignore them for the time being and slows her car down to a crawl. What he saw rather confused him, the figure was a dog, standing on two legs. He seemed to be rather tall, maybe around his height even. He was wearing a rather faded blue suit, with his jacket exposing his button shirt and a long black and blue stripe tie hanging down. He also wore a strange hat; he couldn’t quite figure out the style since it seemed to be altered to fit the head of this dog human person (at this point he wasn’t sure if this was just a person in a costume or some anthropomorphic creature). Nevertheless, he could not help but see the despair in the dog’s features. He decided to take some form of pity and stopped the car. He got out and greeted the dog,
“Sir, is everything alright here?”
The dog turned his head towards the man, where he could see the features of the dog better. He tried to hide his bewilderment looking at the dog. He had rather small eyes, and his teeth lined up in his mouth like saw blades that came to a point at the end of his mouth. It couldn’t have been healthy with his teeth situated in his mouth like that. He stops this line of thinking and focuses more on the dog’s well being.
The dog begins to speak, “Well my little buddy has a rock sock on himself and now our office is more messy than an overzealous monkey after a long day at the barber shop.”
The man raised an eyebrow at his sentence. That was… an interesting choice of words, He thought. He hesitated for a second before asking his next line of questions.
“And what is the name of your ‘little buddy’?”
“Max.”
“Last name?”
“Uhh… Not sure, he’s a psychotic rabbit with an unfulfilled appetite for rage and questionable diet that would make any overweight geek feel healthy.”
“Right…” The man was starting to regret his decision to help the dog. He had some feeling nagging at him that this was going to become bad real fast. At the same time though, he hasn’t found a reason to walk away and abandon the dog. He was the one who initiated the conversation. It would be rather rude of him to back away now. Seeing him distraught over his friend continued to supply some sympathy towards him that granted him the strength to continue questioning.
“What does this Max look like?”
“Well, he’s white, got long ears, big feet, and a grin that make a great white shark even more frightened than a human scooping its fins out for an afternoon lunch on the sandy beaches of Wakanoli”
Was that even a real place? No, he can’t entertain those wild descriptions. He must focus on the real matter at hand.
“So, tell me. What exactly happened that made your friend ‘disappear’?”
“It all started when we had just gotten back from our last case…”
Case, huh? The man thought. He didn’t take the dog to be a detective type, but he has to continue reserving his judgment, even though the few statements spoken to him have already left an interesting impression on him to say the least.
“…we were just too sacked out from wrestling with Loch Ness Nelly and his quenching for moth sucking honeysuckle leaves when we decided to watch one of some reruns on the TV. I was about to leave when some strange men barged through the door. I try to aim but my fingers were slipping, and the figures were able to knock me out. When I came, I was met with an even bigger heaping chaotic mess of a frat boy party within our own office, and my buddy was nowhere to be seen.”
He remained silent, half of him trying to decipher through the strange and vivid comparisons in his language.
“So… what you are saying is that you came back from a ‘case’, and someone attacked you from behind and you had little chance to fight back?”
“Yep, that about sums it up. After that, I felt this longing pain for Max, but with nothing to help me find the little guy, I am stuck on this side of the road like a teenager’s worst depression episode.”
“Yes, that is rather… depressing.” He can feel himself lacking the words to react to the dog’s unique language. He was really feeling the urge to walk away and now would be a perfect moment to tell him that he needs to take this to the proper authorities. So, following this logic, he opted to offer this option. “Why don’t you take this to say, the police department? I’m sure they would be able to handle this case.”
“Considering the police have already banned us from using their buildings after we sent an overzealous robot to break out the delusional store clerk from the store right next to our office, I’m not so sure if I would be allowed back in. Besides, they seemed to have disrespect for our profession.”
“……and what is Max and your profession to be exact?”
“Freelance Police.”
This was unraveling faster than a cat with a ball of thread. What even was that profession? It’s no wonder that the justice department was struggling if there’s people like him providing their “service” to the people. He felt he had lost his chance to walk away from this nonsense. He let out a sigh, “Was there anything of importance? Any sort of evidence that they left behind in your disheveled office?”
“Well, I supposed there was this frilly love letter that was left behind Max’s little desk…” He pulled one side of his jacket open and grabbed a pink letter from within. He handed it over to him and he began to inspect the letter. It was an insulting shade of pink, no wonder he must have thought it was a love letter. He turned it over to see a wax seal with a rose imprinted onto it. He carefully opened the envelope and read the contents.
“If you do not deliver the goods, your little friend will be eliminated swiftly.” -M
“Sweet holy twinkly off a motherboard overload! It must have been those *insert another organization name here*, should have known from that sickly Axe smell that only straight over jacked men find attractive!”
“Yes, this is rather concerning…” He had some gossip about the organizations, but he did not bother himself getting involved in such conversations. Yet now he has someone that seemed to have some run-ins with them. “Listen, I believe we need to start investigating, but I still don’t think you can handle this on your own.”
“You’re right. And since the DeSoto is out of commission, I might as well travel with you.”
Before he could blurt out a rejection, he already was headed towards his car. He seemed to have no choice but to let the dog travel with him. He then proceeds to his own car and gets in. “I think I’m going to have to go to someone else, someone who would be more capable of handling your situation.”
“And who that might be?” The dog asks.
“You’ll see.” He turns on the ignition and drives off to a man who he deemed to be more capable of handling this dog’s absurdity since he’s the closest person knows that is on a similar level of absurdity.
“Oh, by the way, I’m Sam!”
“…Edgeworth.” He answered.
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It only took him thirty minutes to get to the infamous law firm. He parked a little further from the doors, trying to not draw attention to him or this odd talking dog. It was more likely because he didn’t want to be seen with him. He figured that he would let this lawyer take over his situation and he wouldn’t have to concern himself with it since he had more pressing matters and not enough time to entertain it. He and the dog walked into the building. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, at first. It was until they walked further into the office when they walked into another layer of disaster waiting for them. Objects were everywhere, papers were all over the place, from the floor to the ceiling. The office chair, lamp, and that small coffee table were knocked over.
“Well, it doesn't look any worse than our office.”
“He doesn’t keep in this horrific state, usually. Something must have happened.” After saying that, a striking thought came: He had only just seen him this afternoon, after his trial ended with him. He decided to call him up, hoping that it was just merely that someone decided to ransack his place and was nothing more.
Ring, ring, ring…
No answer.
He tries one more time, but it’s futile. He doesn’t answer. This furthers his pain in his stomach that has been growing since he met Sam. Edgeworth was in for a bad day.
“Seems like for now, we should have a look around, find any clues that the culprit left behind.”
“You got it, boss!” Sam replied a little too cheery for the situation.
Sam started around the coffee table and Edgeworth towards the desk. He knows he doesn’t have time to examine every little sheet of paper sprawled around the office space. He starts with the bookshelves. Maybe there was some important material that the culprit was searching for. Further inspection led him to conclude that it likely wasn’t the case, as the books were tossed either on the floor or haphazardly back on the shelf. Most of the books were likely to be not what they were looking for, Edgeworth thought. Surely, I mustn't have ransacked the place for no reason. He decided to direct his attention towards his desk. Again, it was in a similar fashion as just about everything else in the room: Cluttered, everything thrown around, and all misplaced. The drawers that were left ajar only showed evidence that someone seemed to be searching for something frantically. However, this could all be a ruse to get him distracted from something else. It was all too early to tell. He needed something. Probably an actual team to dust around and look for evidence not caught by the eye, such as fingerprints. But as of right now, he had to solely rely on his sights and his logical thinking powers to get through this. He turned to the knocked over lamp and noticed some marks. Could it be a sign of struggle? Edgeworth walked closer and inspected the pole of the lamp. There were certainly dark streaks, of what they could be or from is also hard to tell. At least it was something.
He decided to regroup with Sam and see what he has found. So, he heads to where Sam was situated in the office.
“It’s a rather comfortable and inoffensively looking couch.” He comments. He then walks over to the coffee table.
“Looks like another table bites the dust.”
“This plant looks like it’s in better shape than Hubert. Then again, Hubert wasn’t artificially produced to look like a decent office plant for standard video games.”
Sam continued on commenting at every little thing he saw, not providing any sort of clue to the current situation.
Edgeworth stepped in and decided it might be better to ask him rather than listen to him.
“Um… Sam?”
“Yes, Edgeworth?”
“Anything to report?”
“Well, I found this megalomaniac looking steel doll on the cover on one of those magazines.”
Of course, it was some weekly magazine with the Steel Samurai on the front cover. They always had to be an instant where he doesn’t seem to not run into that TV show. No matter what he’s doing, no matter where he goes, just that man had to be slapped into almost everything. It’s like an inescapable anomaly. Not that he minds though, and as much as he wants to reach out and grab what edition was it, he had to remind himself he had more pressing matters than indulge in his secret obsessions. He still grabs it anyway and shoves it under his arm.
“Anything that is actually useful?”
Sam pulls out his gun and points it around the office, then back to him.
“P-put that away!” Edgeworth stammered at the sight of his gun.
Sam proceeds to put it back in his blazer.
“What even made you do that!?”
“I just felt the urge to drag it out and shoot at randomly non-offense objects for the heck of it. Just an impulse I have.”
Edgeworth was not pleased to say the least. He folds his arms and taps it in an annoyed manner.
“Please tell me you actually found something that doesn’t include a weapon of violence.”
“Oh, I guess I found this letter that looks similar to the one I found in my office.” He hands him over the letter. It’s a faded blue, but more saturated than the dog’s suit. It also had a wax seal, but instead of a rose, it had laurel leaves. He proceeds to open the letter.
“Do not get too close to the fire. Otherwise, it may be more than just you getting burned.” -M
The message, while vague, still indicates a rather threatening underlying tone to it. This was getting rather concerning. “Hmm…”
“What’s going on in that head of yours?”
“So, you said you found your office in the same state as this one?”
“Well, we were never really one for keeping the place clean, but it certainly looked like a tornado ripped through the gutters of the paper mills.”
“Right… and both of these letters were found here too. Something’s not adding up. Why was yours and his office targeted?”
“Could be that we both have a people in our lives that have a tendency to be absurdly dashing but bewildering to those who cannot comprehend their actions.”
“Well, I suppose I cannot deny that this lawyer I was going to suggest to you does seem to fit that odd description of words of yours quite nicely, but I have a feeling there is more to it than just that. There surely must be another reason for targeting yours and his office.”
Edgeworth knew if he wanted to figure out what was going on, he needed to take this to the analysis experts. He needed more evidence and he needed to go beyond the offices. It was time to get out of this place.
“Let’s go. I think we found all we that can for now.”