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When Miles Edgeworth was nine years old, still full of life and laughter and all sorts of lovely things, his favorite TV show in the entire world released a video game.
Miles isn’t exactly a gamer. No one looks at Miles, a little boy who wears bow ties and keeps his socks organized not only by color but also by fabric and weight (an organizational system that he is rather proud of, thank you very much) and thinks that he spends all his free time trying to hundred-percent The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. The only games he finds himself playing with any kind of frequency is the crossword puzzles that come in the newspaper, and, more recently, chess, because his father has been teaching him and he’s found he likes the strategy of it all.
So, no. He is not a gamer.
But when the Steel Samurai video game was announced, an open world game where you can play as your own samurai, run around fighting the Evil Magistrate’s goons and interact with the unique inhabitants of Neo Olde Tokyo (according to the TV infomercial), Miles did run to his father and beg him to preorder it for him, as any true fan of the Steel Samurai franchise would. It was simply titled Steel Samurai: The Video Game (which nine-year-old Miles didn’t think was very creative) and was destined to become one of those strange little game adaptations with no real presence in the mainstream, but a very devoted follower base.
One of said followers being Miles, of course.
Only when the game arrived did he realize that it’s a co-op game, for two samurais. There’s only one logical choice for who should be the second samurai, really. And it isn’t Larry, even though he’s hands-down the best at video games in their little motley crew (one of the very few things Larry can rightfully claim he’s best at), but Miles genuinely doesn’t think he could handle having Larry at the controller.
And so, on the day the game arrives, Miles walks a block and a half in the lazy heat of a Saturday afternoon to the house of his acquaintance/best friend/schoolmate/kind of crush with the box in his hands, unopened and unwrapped, to ask him to play it with him.
It’s a questionable decision for a few reasons, but the biggest one being this: Phoenix is terrible at playing games. Genuinely, terribly awful, where he dies about thirty times before he manages to beat even the easy bosses (and when he does beat them, it’s purely out of sheer luck and he has no idea how he accomplished the task afterwards, because he just sits there mashing buttons and screaming the entire time until someone dies, either him or the boss. It’s a chaotic experience for anyone watching). But Miles, again, isn’t going to ask Larry, and his father gets confused by controllers. So there’s only one person left.
With this logic in his brain, Miles knocks on Phoenix Wright’s door and nervously asks him to be his player two.
And Phoenix says yes, of course, though it’s unclear whether he says yes because he genuinely would like to play a co-op, open world samurai game with terrible graphics, or if he says yes simply because it’s Miles asking. But the says yes, with his pretty eyes and crooked smile and freckles dotting his cheeks like constellations in summer, and Miles, nine years old and awkward in his own skin, flushes at the sight of it, game clutched against his chest.
Phoenix pulls Miles into his house by the hand (he likes to do that, Phoenix. He likes to hold Miles’s hand whenever possible, and his fingers are always wrapped in bandaids, his knuckles always scuffed, because he’s clumsy in the way only little kids are, a trait he doesn’t grow out of). Miles waves politely at Phoenix’s mom through the doorway to the garage before he’s tugged out of sight, into the living room.
“I didn’t even know they were making a samurai game!” Phoenix gushes enthusiastically, flinging himself to the carpet as Miles sets up the console. “Do you think we’ll get to dress up our samurais and stuff?”
“I don’t know,” Miles replies, caught up in the middle of trying to figure out which cords to plug into the TV. He wishes these things were labeled.
Phoenix studies the game box, flipping it over in his hands. “I think it would be cool to have like, a fun hat. Do you think they have fun hats?”
“Maybe.” Miles doesn’t want to admit that he hadn’t looked that much into the game. If he’s being honest with himself, he hadn’t looked into it at all. He’d prefer it if Phoenix didn’t know that he only got the game because it said Steel Samurai on it. “We’ll have to see.”
After a few false starts (plugging the audio cable into the video port, or that one cord that doesn’t actually get plugged in anywhere as far as Miles can tell but he can never remember which color that cord is so he has to try various combinations of cords until the stupid thing actually starts up) the title screen loads, with a blast of familiar music.
“Isn’t that the opening theme song?” Phoenix asks, already tapping at random buttons despite the fact they have not started yet.
Miles nods, trying to tamp down his excitement. He settles down beside Phoenix on the floor, their backs against the couch - not too closely - and presses start.
The first thing they get to do is customize their samurais. Phoenix cycles through all the options at the speed of sound.
“Aw. No hats,” he says mournfully. “At least we get to pick the colors of our robes and stuff.”
Miles dares to bump his knee against Phoenix’s. “I’m sorry they don’t have hats.”
“It’s okay! I can be a cool samurai even without a fun hat,” Phoenix replies, and he mimics Miles’s gesture, bumping his knee back. Miles flushes, and turns back to the TV.
He cycles through a few options before deciding on a crimson color for the robes. He likes the preset face options the best, so he leaves them be, and types in an appropriate name to match. His angular, blocky samurai strikes a pose on the screen with his sword as the Steel Samurai music thrums in the background, ready to begin his grand adventure.
Once Phoenix is done, of course.
He takes a very long time deciding on the color of his samurai’s robes, and which of the hair options he likes best (there are only three of them), not to mention the four eye color options he has to decide between. It’s a lot of responsibility on a little nine year old boy, designing the perfect samurai.
“Do you think he should have his hair down or a top knot?” Phoenix muses, hunched over his controller as he squints at the TV. The posture looks like it’ll hurt his back later. “If I do a top knot we can match…but he looks so cool with his hair down!”
Miles shrugs, watching the way Phoenix taps his feet on the floor. His socks have ducks on them. “You might be able to change the hair later, like at a shop or something.”
This doesn’t seem to make Phoenix’s decision any easier, based on the way he groans and rapidly cycles back and forth between the two hairstyles. When he’s focused, he gnaws on his bottom lip, brows drawing together and it’s a look boyish and crooked and charming. Miles feels his cheeks heat up and he abruptly looks back to his own character on the screen, trapped in his idle animation until his adventuring partner is ready, swinging his katana around.
“Miles.”
“Yes, Phoenix?”
“You have to pick.”
“I’m not picking your character’s hairstyle for you.”
“But I can’t decide,” Phoenix whines, drawing out the last word. “I like both of them! Um…give me another minute.”
“You’ve already had five,” Miles replies, glancing at the living room clock. “That’s a really long time to pick a hairstyle.”
“Oh god, okay. Um. I’m just going to close my eyes and cycle through them and you say when to open my eyes and then whichever I land on will be the one I go with, okay? So you’re not actually picking the hair and neither am I. We’re leaving it up to destiny,” Phoenix says seriously.
“Destiny,” Miles repeats.
Phoenix nods. The look on his face is so solemn and intense that Miles nearly starts laughing. He has to turn away so Phoenix doesn’t see him smiling.
“Okay, fine. Destiny. Close your eyes and get on with it.”
Phoenix obediently shuts his eyes and begins to toggle the joystick as fast as he can. Miles lets it run for about fifteen seconds before telling him to stop.
“Ooh, hair down!” Phoenix exclaims, eyes popping open. “That’s the one I wanted.”
“If that’s the one you wanted, then why didn’t you just go with that one in the first place?”
“Well…I don’t know. I also wanted to go with the top knot.”
Miles resists the urge to roll his eyes. Phoenix has the unique ability to both be incredibly charming, but also the most frustrating and annoying person Miles has ever met. It’s almost impressive.
Almost.
“Are you ready now?” Miles asks impatiently.
Phoenix blanches. “Wait, no, I don’t know what to name my samurai! What did you name yours?”
“Red.”
“Oh, like our keychains?”
“…Yes,” Miles says, after a beat of embarrassed hesitation.
Phoenix grins at him. He’s lost one of his teeth recently, so there’s a gap there in his smile. “Okay! I’ll name mine Blue, then.”
Miles watches Phoenix type the name in carefully, only messing up once, and then they can finally, finally start.
The tutorial area is fairly simple. They’re the apprentices to a village samurai master, who’s been training them in swordplay using bamboo rods that they have to cut in different ways. Phoenix is spectacularly bad at it because he cannot figure out how to perform the spin attack, and Miles has to help him (“It isn’t hard, Phoenix, you just have to move the joystick back and forth. You were just doing it with your stupid hairstyle.”). During this exchange, they scoot closer so their knees are touching, and Miles nearly dies at the hands of the easiest enemies in the game, a bat, because he’s so distracted.
“Miles, Miles! Oh my god, please come save me, I’m being attacked by wolves,” Phoenix screeches, mere moments after they’ve left the the village on their grand quest to defeat the Evil Magistrate.
Miles glances at Phoenix’s side of the screen. “Where did you find wolves? Are you in a field?” Last time he checked, they were on a path to the mountains from a bamboo forest.
Phoenix frantically mashes the buttons on his controller, making his samurai perform a demented little dance. “I don’t know but there are wolves and I’m gonna die if you don’t come and save me right now.”
“Just hit them,” Miles says exasperatedly.
“I can’t. I don’t have a sword.”
“What do you mean, you don’t have a sword? The first items we got were swords.”
“I lost mine. Oh my god, Miles, please, the wolves.”
“Phoenix, I can see the sword in your inventory. It’s right there,” Miles says, pointing at Phoenix’s screen. “You probably just unequipped it.”
Phoenix screams again as his samurai promptly gets murdered by wolves, and Miles buries his face in his hands.
After that, things really start to go awry.
Miles, being the dutiful samurai that he is, heads straight to the next village, where apparently there have been reports of raids and general bad business, and the townsfolk are requesting a samurai to help them with the problem. Of course he would go there right away; what else does he have to do other than protect the people of Neo Olde Tokyo?
But clearly certain other people playing this game have different things in mind.
“Phoenix,” Miles says, as he kills another evil samurai entirely on his own, after killing several other evil samurais, entirely on his own. The first boss is just up the path, and he doesn’t really want to fight him entirely on his own, too.
“Yeah?” Phoenix replies, sounding distracted. His eyes are glued to the screen.
“Are you just going to pick flowers this entire time?”
Phoenix pauses, his character stilling on the screen, standing over an unidentifiable pink flower like he’s been caught in the act (like Miles can’t see exactly what he’s been up to). He’s been running around for the past ten minutes since they left the starting village, exploring the map and picking every flower he comes across, only occasionally getting attacked by wolves.
As far as Miles can tell, there isn’t a very wide variety of flowers to be picked, and he isn’t really sure what their purpose is other than selling them for a few yen, but that hasn’t stopped Phoenix.
“I mean…what if I need them?”
“For what?”
“Well, I can pick the flowers, right? So they probably have some purpose to them,” Phoenix says, fidgeting with his controller. “And…what if there’s a side quest where someone needs a flower? Like, to give to their mom or something, and then they ask me for a flower and I don’t have one and they get all sad ‘cause they don’t have a flower for their mom.”
Miles pauses the game. He turns to face Phoenix. “You’re picking flowers just in case someone asks you for one to give to their mom?”
Phoenix sticks his tongue out at him. “That was an example. Don’t be mean.”
“I’m not being mean!”
“You’re being a little mean.”
Miles huffs, turning back to the game. “Will you just come fight this boss with me? You can go pick flowers after.”
“I’m probably gonna die.”
“Well…you can distract the boss, at least.”
“Oh my god, you’re using me as bait,” Phoenix gasps, turning to face Miles with betrayal in his eyes. “I can’t believe this.”
“You’re the one who said you were probably gonna die!” Miles protests. “Are you coming or not?”
Phoenix huffs at him before turning back to the screen, looking petulant. “Okay, okay, just…let me…um.” The petulant look fades, replaced by confusion. “Hold on. Where are you?”
“The mountain pass village.”
“Right, yeah. Where…is that…?”
Miles raises a brow. “The mountains.”
Phoenix rolls his eyes. “Wow, thanks, so helpful! I’ll be there…um…whenever I can find it, I guess. Wait right there!”
So Miles waits, his character idly spinning his sword in his hand as he watches Phoenix’s samurai race all the way across the map, stopping only once when night falls and the creepy skeletons come out and start attacking him and he has to run to the nearby ranch for safety because he has no idea how to fight at all (which is really quite surprising, considering he’s been picking flowers the entire time). At this point, Miles abandons Phoenix with the game so he can go ask Phoenix’s mother for a peanut butter sandwich, resisting the urge to inform her that her son is very bad at video games because she likely already knows. By the time he gets back Phoenix still hasn’t made it to the mountain pass village.
“Are you lost?” Miles asks, sitting back down beside Phoenix.
“No,” Phoenix replies stubbornly. “I’m taking my time.”
“Is that why you’re back on the other side of the map right now?”
“…Yes.”
Miles rolls his eyes and starts to eat his sandwich.
Eventually, after a full in-game day, Phoenix makes his way to the mountain pass village. He races right up to Miles’s samurai, who has surely been bored out of his mind this whole time just standing in the middle of a town. Somehow, Phoenix has found his samurai a dumb little hat, against the odds.
“I made it!” Phoenix says proudly. He makes his samurai run in circles around Miles, then accidentally stabs Miles with his sword (luckily, there’s no damage between players. If there was, Phoenix would be dead by now).
Miles sighs. “Are you ready to go fight this boss?” He asks, watching Phoenix try and remember how to do a spin move.
“I have something for you first.”
“I wonder what it is,” Miles mutters drily, taking another bite of his sandwich. He watches as Phoenix fumbles with the buttons, speeding through his inventory, and then a prompt pops up on his side of the screen:
Do you accept the Blue Samurai’s Dandelion?
Miles blinks. He swallows his bite of sandwich. Phoenix is watching him expectantly.
“Is that for me?”
“Duh. I gave it to you, didn’t I?”
“The dandelion.”
“Yeah, the dandelion.” Phoenix cranes his head in front of Miles, between him and the screen. His eyes are bright. “I picked it for you. Do you like it?”
Miles glances at Phoenix, then at the screen. “Out of all the flowers you picked, you’re giving me a dandelion?”
“That’s the least valuable flower. It’s worth less than grass.”
“Oh, is it?” Phoenix frowns. “I didn’t know that.”
“It’s a weed.”
“Yeah, but it’s a nice weed. It’s yellow.”
“So are wasps, and they aren’t nice.”
“I can’t believe I went through all the trouble of picking a dandelion for you and you said it was like giving you a wasp.”
Miles rolls his eyes. “I didn’t say that.”
“You basically said that. It’s like that one time you called me stupid for saying my Bigfoot socks would make me climb trees better.”
“That’s because it was a stupid thing to say,” Miles replies flatly.
Phoenix makes a face at him. “Are you gonna take my dumb wasp weed or what, Miles?”
Miles picks his controller back up, toggling the joystick between yes and no.
Do you accept the Blue Samurai’s Dandelion?
“I don’t have a flower for you,” Miles says, after a beat.
Phoenix shrugs. “That’s okay. I think I picked all the flowers anyway.”
“Okay.”
“You can give me grass or something. I bet there’s a horse out there that would like some grass, so I should probably have it on hand.”
Miles feels the corners of his mouth twitching upwards into a smile. He hesitates, then, before choosing yes, and he watches as there’s a tiny animation of Phoenix’s samurai handing an invisible object to Miles’s, before the dandelion pops up in Miles’s inventory. One dandelion, the graphics so clunky that it looks like a weird little polygonal thing.
“Are you going to come fight this boss with me now?” Miles asks, resisting the urge to equip the stupid dandelion just so he can see it on his items bar.
Phoenix snorts. “No.”
“Phoenix.”
“I thought about it on the way here, and I’m pretty sure I would die like, instantly, and I don’t want to be boss bait, so… I’m gonna go pick more dandelions.”
“Why?”
“So I can give them to you,” Phoenix replies simply.
Miles blinks. “Oh,” he says, soft.
And Phoenix grins, then, a smile as bright and wide as the sun, before settling back down besides Miles. Content that his gift, a single dandelion between samurais, was well received. And as Miles steers his samurai up the mountain path, one dandelion richer, he stiffens as he feels Phoenix lean against him, dropping his head onto his shoulder. The dark tufts of his hair tickle at Miles’s jaw. Two little boys in a living room, playing a silly video game about samurais on a warm Saturday afternoon.
Miles blinks, and shifts the controller. He encounters the boss, an evil samurai draped in black robes, holding two katanas, which is arguably cooler than just one katana. The samurai with the two katanas on screen says something vaguely threatening, but Miles is no longer paying attention to his villain’s monologue. He glances over at Phoenix’s side of the TV, where his samurai, clad in blue with his silly little hat, is picking dandelions in a pixelated meadow for Miles.