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"I really can't thank you enough for defending me, Mr. Wright," his client said in the lobby, tucking a lock of hair shyly behind her ear. Then she reached into her pocket and offered him a small chocolate bar that was obviously homemade: "I don't have much, but I can pay you in sweets! They're delicious, I promise."
"There's no need," Phoenix said, despite Maya clapping her hands and nodding eagerly next to him. He wasn't actually a fan of chocolate in general, and that looked like milk, which was his least favorite variety. "I mean - I haven't won just yet, Miss Mann. It's a tough case, you might not need to pay me."
This earned him shocked, teary eyes from the client, and a harsh glare from Maya. "He means thank you! Don't you, Nick?"
"Um, yeah, sure!" Phoenix said, and snatched up the chocolate bar. Grimacing, he quickly gulped it down. "Mmm! This will fuel me through the trial!"
Candi smiled tremblingly at him. "Thanks," she said softly. "That recipe is actually my own invention. I never gave it to anyone before."
Phoenix's stomach gurgled ominously.
"I've got a perfect puzzle for you," sneered the small man standing on a box behind the witness stand.
"No puzzles, just answer the question in plain English. What did you see when you entered the factory that morning?" Edgeworth hissed, clearly fed up with his uncooperative witness as usual. Wasn't he supposed to prep them or something? Why did this keep happening? Normally Phoenix might find it amusing, but his stomach was still gurgling, and he really just wanted this trial to end so he could go drink some ginger ale or something.
Why he'd accepted homemade chocolate from a teenage girl accused of poisoning her own foster father via chocolate, when he didn't even like sweets in the first place, was the real puzzle here.
"Oh, doom-pa-dee-do," the witness said, his spray-on tan glowing a heavy orange in the lights of the courtroom as he waved his hands around mockingly and grimaced in Edgeworth's direction. "If you were wise, you'd listen to me."
Phoenix's stomach was starting to hurt.
"Seriously," he said, trying to subtly press a hand against his gut. It felt like it was expanding, christ. What the hell had Candi put in that stuff? "Could you just move it along, pleas-huh?!"
He gasped at a sharp pain in his middle, followed immediately by a soft plink! as a button snapped off the front of his suit and rolled down onto the floor.
"Hah!" snorted the witness. "That's what you get when you guzzle down sweets!"
"I don't guzz- it was just one-" Phoenix protested, only to stop and stare down his front in disbelief as his remaining two buttons popped off, one after the other. It hurt less now, oddly, but - was that round thing his stomach?
"Eating like elephants, the lot of them," huffed the disgruntled witness. "And now look at you - what are you doing, getting terribly fat right now? What do you think that's gonna get you?"
"I'm - excuse me," Phoenix stuttered indignantly, but he could feel his shirt getting tight too now, buttons straining, could see his stomach growing in front of his very eyes, and his protests came to a horrified halt.
"Uh, Wright, are you... okay?" Edgeworth asked slowly.
"Clearly I'm not!" Phoenix squeaked in terror, as his shirt burst open with a rapidfire round of plink! plink! plink! plink! "Candi, what the hell?!"
"Just like your father," grumbled the worker on the stand, "always testing unfinished products, always gobbling them down, never following safety standards..."
"I - I'm sorry!" Candi shouted, throwing her hands up over her face. "I didn't know it would do that!"
Phoenix grunted as the force of his rapidly-expanding middle region pushed him back from the desk. His arms were starting to lift involuntarily, pushed out by his new girth. Maya was watching with her mouth open, eyes wide. Edgeworth was frozen behind his own desk. Candi was sobbing hysterically now.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" she screamed. "I never meant to do it! I didn't know my chocolate would make Mr. Wright blow up! I never even knew Charlie had been in the gum room! I didn't mean to kill anybody, just make sweets!"
Phoenix's pants burst open, hanging down in tatters much like his shirt and jacket. He'd mourn the loss of his suit, or the display of his lucky gavel underpants, or even fear for his life, if his client hadn't just confessed. Great, now they could die together.
"Wait a second," Maya muttered. "Something seems off about that. 'Gum room'..."
"S-so, you admit it...!" Edgeworth attempted to take advantage of the moment, but his eyes kept straying back to Phoenix, now wobbling entirely off his feet. Maya had to reach out and steady him to keep him from literally rolling away. "Um, Your Honor?"
"Hm? Ah! Yes, well, that does sound like an admission of guilt to me," the Judge said absently, himself staring at Phoenix. Still, he rallied, and banged his gavel on his desk. "Well then, I declare Candi Mann Guilt-!"
"O-OBJECTION!" Phoenix shouted, and attempted to throw out his pointer finger. All he accomplished was waggling his arm ineffectively, and also rolling out from the bench away from Maya. She caught him by the foot and reeled him back upright.
"OBJECTION!" he said again, shaken but not enough to let his client go to prison. "There is a contradiction in Miss Mann's testimony! She just said the gum room, did she not?"
"OBJECTION!" Edgeworth shouted, clearly seeing where Phoenix was going with this. "Is your own current state not proof that the defendant's concoctions are deadly?! The mere mention of gum is not enough to-"
"Ehh, just press a bit, and all that gas'll come out," interjected the witness. "Blowing up's not a big deal, we get it all the time at the factory."
"HOLD IT," shouted Phoenix, "Are you serious? Please say you're serious about that!"
"Oomph, I said it, didn't I? What, are you calling me a liar?" The little man tugged angrily at his green hair.
"N-not at all!" Phoenix breathed in relief. "In fact, thank you for the information, Mr. Loompa. Thank you for confirming that, not only is my client completely unaware that Mr. Bucket was killed via poisoned chocolate, not gum, but her own chocolates aren't even permanently harmful! Clearly, she could not have been the one to make the deadly chocolates!"
"Hold it!" Edgeworth demanded, waggling a finger at Phoenix. "If she didn't make the chocolates, who are you suggesting did? They were made in her personal restricted workstation, there's clear evidence of that from the dishes in the sink. Until you present me with a valid alternative, I can't accept that she isn't responsible!"
Phoenix fumbled, unable to give an answer, and nearly rolled across the room again when Maya let go of him for a moment to put her hand up to her chin thoughtfully. He squawked, and she reached out to catch him again.
The Judge banged his gavel. "Mr. Wright! You've raised some very interesting questions.... and disturbing mysteries," he said, peering down at Phoenix's nearly-entirely-round form. "Let's postpone this trial until tomorrow - I want you both to go out and investigate: who could have had access to Miss Mann's workstation? And if not to inherit the factory, what was the murderer's motivation? And... see about that pressing thing as well, would you."
"Uhm, straight away, Your Honor," Phoenix promised.
"Excellent. Court dismissed!" With a final bang of the gavel, the courtroom's occupants began to disperse.
"Okay. Uh. Maya, can you... roll me to the door? W-watch the face!" Phoenix said. He felt like he'd stopped swelling at least, and he'd managed to buy some time. But before he could do any investigating, he'd need to take care of... whatever this was. "Mr. Loompa, can you, um-?"
"I'm not on the clock," grumbled the factory worker, even as he hopped down from the stand and took a stance on Phoenix's other side to help Maya roll him towards the large courtroom doors. "Shouldn't have to be pressing greedy idiots on my days off... This would never have happened back when Wonka was in charge..."