Chapter Text
December 30
4:48 PM
366 days after
"Hold it!" Phoenix calls. His voice echoes in the polished main lobby of the courthouse. Near the glass-paneled double doors separating court from the rest of the world, Franziska von Karma turns toward him, already crossing her arms, her whip dangling from her left hand, and rearranging her expression into one of extreme displeasure.
"What do you want, Mr. Phoenix Wright? To mock my defeat? To throw my once-perfect record into my face?"
I mean, yeah, kinda, he thinks. It would serve you right for trying to get Maya convicted of murder. And for whipping me. Repeatedly.
But Phoenix is on a mission, one for which he -- unfortunately -- very unfortunately -- needs Franziska von Karma's help. Ordinarily that alone would be a disqualifying factor. But this is no ordinary mission.
Franziska taps the toe of her black boot, clicking it sharply against the smooth tiled floor. "Then what? I do not have all day."
"Did you mean what you said yesterday?"
"I will spare your foolish brain the need to be more specific. I never say things I do not mean."
"Then I'm coming with you."
The clicking of her boot stops abruptly, and Franziska narrows her eyes at him, pursing her lips. Her left hand twitches, and Phoenix flinches back instinctively as that tiny twitch makes the whole length of the whip undulate like a rattlesnake about to strike. He stops short of actually holding up his hands in surrender, shoving them deep into the pockets of his trousers to compensate.
To her credit, Franziska doesn't make him elaborate. Instead, when understanding dawns on her face, unknitting her eyebrows and widening her eyes, she shakes her head in two sharp movements. "Absolutely not."
"von Karma, please," Phoenix says. "If there's a chance -- any chance at all -- that he's alive out there somewhere, then I need to find him."
"You have had a year and done nothing of the sort."
"Yeah, because I thought he was dead! But if you're right --"
"Of course I am right."
"-- then I need to see him again. I need to talk to him." Phoenix squares his shoulders and sets his jaw, hoping he looks confident and assertive as he meets Franziska's glare, her grey eyes flashing with brilliant malice. Just like -- which Greek goddess was that again?
"You seem desperate, Mr. Phoenix Wright."
Phoenix grimaces. I need her help, I need her help. "I, uh -- I mean, I don't know if 'desperate' is the word I would use, but --"
"Why?"
"Um. Because I just think it's a little bit too strong of an adjective for --"
"No, you fool!" The whip slithers. Phoenix braces himself. But no strike comes, unless you count Franziska's voice, which Phoenix feels rather inclined to do, actually. "What is it that makes you so need to see my little brother again?"
"That's... that's personal. And none of your business. And not important! I just -- I just do, okay?"
Franziska shrugs airily, the puffed sleeves of her blouse like clouds. "Suit yourself. You give me no reason to help you, and plenty of very good reasons not to. I would say 'find him on your own,' but I doubt if you possess the intellectual capacity to find the defense table without the help of Maya Fey. Or her late sister, for that matter."
"Don't drag Maya into this."
"Don't drag me into what?"
Somehow, despite the fact that she's wearing thick-heeled sandals in an echoey, tiled foyer, Phoenix doesn't hear Maya's approach until she pops up beside his shoulder. Evidently Franziska hadn't noticed her either, too busy staring daggers at Phoenix, because she jumps at Maya's sudden entrance into the conversation, then tightens her grip on the handle of her whip like it's personally affronted her.
"I am not dragging you into anything Phoenix Wright has not already dragged you into first," Franziska says with a brief nod in Maya's direction.
"If anything, I'm usually the one dragging him places. What's going on?"
"Nothing," Phoenix grumbles. "It was stupid of me to ask."
"Indeed it was," Franziska agrees. "Goodbye, Mr. Phoenix Wright."
"Just wait a second. Why now? You've been here for almost a year, too. Why didn't you go looking?" Phoenix crosses his arms, matching Franziska's pose. "What changed?"
"I find it difficult to believe you are foolish enough to ask me that question."
She stares him down, and Phoenix stares back, and finally she scoffs and says, "You! You are what changed! Five years of nothing but perfect victories until you ruin my career and drag my family name through the mud. I admit, I did not know what his note meant at first. But now, I know exactly how he feels. He was always the type to run from his problems rather than face them, but I will find him and knock some sense into his head if it is the last thing I do, and we will come back and destroy you together!"
A pale pink flush has crept into her cheeks over the course of this monologue. She presses her lips together and exhales a long breath through her nose.
"Wait, are we talking about Mr. Edgeworth?" Maya asks, glancing back and forth between Phoenix and Franziska like they're playing the tennis match of the century. "Is that what's happening right now?"
"Yeah," Phoenix says.
"But I thought I wasn't supposed to talk about him."
"Yeah, but --"
"I thought you told me never to say his name in front of you again."
"Maya, come on --"
"Because every time someone says his name you get this weird faraway look in your eyes like you're about to cry --"
"Maya!"
Maya giggles, and Franziska lifts a hand to her mouth, not doing very much to conceal the gleefully vicious smile that has appeared there. Phoenix shakes his head and shoves his hands even deeper into his pockets. What did I do to deserve this?
"Now this is very interesting," Franziska says, angling her body so she's very clearly just addressing Maya, even though Phoenix is still standing right here. "Phoenix Wright crying over my baby brother?"
"Not actually crying," Maya says, jumping to Phoenix's defense as if she wasn't just teasing him five seconds ago (and notably also talking about him as if he's not about three inches to her right). "I don't really know what happened between the two of them before Mr. Edgeworth disappeared, but it must have been bad to make Nick react like that. He never wanted to talk about it, so I kinda figured it was none of my business."
"It's none of hers, either!" Phoenix says.
"It is if you want my help," Franziska retorts, her smile infuriatingly smug, her eyes flashing back and forth between Phoenix and Maya.
"Help doing what?"
Phoenix sighs. "I need to find Edgeworth. And she's going to find Edgeworth. And maybe I could do it alone, and maybe I couldn't, but I know it's going to go a lot faster if we're working together." He turns from Maya back to Franziska, pulls his hands from his pockets, opens them -- palms up -- in a plea. "Look, von Karma. Just let me help you. You may think I'm an idiot, but you know I'm good enough at chasing down leads and finding evidence to beat you. Twice now."
"Gloating will get you nowhere, Phoenix Wright."
"And I may think you're a terrifying harpy, but I can still tell that once you set your mind to something, you never give up until you've seen it through. You and Edgeworth can kick my butt the second we find him if that's what you really want, but just... let me help. Please."
Slowly, her movements so precise that it seems unfathomable that they could be unconscious, yet so practiced and absent of thought that they can't possibly be conscious either, Franziska winds her whip around her fist, head cocked, eyes locked on Phoenix, deep in thought. He notices for the first time that she's got a little birthmark beneath the corner of her left eye. Weirdly, it makes him want to smile -- perfect Franziska von Karma, with her perfect arguments and perfect curtsies, is asymmetrical.
"I will allow you to help me find Miles Edgeworth," Franziska announces. "On one condition."
"Anything," Phoenix says, immediately regretting his eagerness. Anything? Seriously, Wright? I mean, yeah, I would do anything to see Edgeworth again, but von Karma doesn't need to know that! What if she wants me to quit practicing law, or never face her in court again, or --
"Maya Fey comes with us."
Phoenix sputters, and Maya lets out a bright laugh and loops her arm through his. "Joke's on you, Franziska," she says. "I'm coming whether Nick wants me to or not."
"Of course I want you to, Maya. I just -- that's your one condition? Seriously?"
"Obviously," Franziska says. "You are useless without her help. And besides, if we are to be -- ugh -- working together, we will require a buffer so as not to kill each other with our bare hands."
"That's... actually a fair point. So we have a deal?"
Franziska sticks out her right hand, keeping her whip wrapped around her left fist. "We have a deal."
Phoenix clasps her gloved hand in his own, realizes just how petite she actually is. Despite the vise grip, she's got bird bones. Her hands remind him a lot of Maya's, actually, and when she releases his hand and shakes Maya's, the two of them fit together perfectly -- identical puzzle pieces.
"So what now?" Maya asks.
"You have delayed me here long enough," Franziska says. "I will contact you when I have a lead. In the meantime, you can try to make yourselves useful and gather information about the last time he was seen here. Goodbye."
"Bye, Franziska!"
When the glass-paneled doors of the courthouse swing shut behind her, Maya turns to Phoenix and sticks out her right hand.
"Huh?"
"We got two out of three handshakes already," Maya says. "It feels weird not to complete the triangle."
And only when Phoenix shakes his head and chuckles and pumps Maya's hand up and down in his own, once, twice, does it really, properly sink in that he's doing this. He's going to ally himself -- and Maya -- with a terrifying, perfection-obsessed teenage prosecutor on the shadow of a fraction of a chance that she's right, that Edgeworth is alive, that he's out there somewhere in the real world with a body and a voice, that Phoenix can talk to him, demand an explanation for what happened that night. And he knows he should be panicking, wondering what the hell he's just gotten himself into, kicking himself for coming up with this plan in the first place -- but he's not.
He's thinking, thank God. Let's get to work.
December 28
9:55 PM
1 day before
The detention center is even more forbidding at night. Dim yellow light slants in from the streetlamps outside, casting dull grey shadows over dull grey walls and dull grey floors. Technically the place is supposed to be closed right now, and visiting hours are very much over, but Phoenix knows most of the guards and their shifts, considering how much time he spends here, trying to persuade his clients to give him enough useful information to save their lives, and the guy on duty tonight, Penton Cherry, is cool. He's the kind of guy Phoenix might even like to be friends with if they didn't work on opposite sides of the law.
Although I guess that's not really true anymore, Phoenix thinks as he buzzes the intercom at the gate. I'm finally friends with Edgeworth again, and he's still a prosecutor. Either of us could have ended up in the other's place pretty easily, if only things had been a little different.
If only things had been a little different, a lot of things might have changed with the two of us.
"Who's there?" comes the tinny voice through the intercom.
"Hey, Pen, it's me. Phoenix Wright. I'm here to see Miles Edgeworth, if he's still in detention."
A crackling pause. "Oh -- yep, looks like his paperwork is still being processed. I'll buzz you in."
The gate makes a loud, resonant ker-chunk as the lock disengages, and even though Phoenix has heard that ker-chunk every time he's visited the detention center, it still makes him jump. He swings the gate open and enters the scruffy little yard that surrounds the building. Penton is waiting by the door to unlock it, stoop-shouldered and black-hatted, walkie-talkie on his hip.
"How's it going, Mr. Wright?" he asks as he ushers Phoenix inside and locks the door behind him.
"Not bad. You?"
Penton sidles down the hall to the cell where Edgeworth's still being detained, Phoenix falling into step beside him. "Not too bad myself. Heard you won again today. I guess processing that von Karma guy was a real nightmare."
Phoenix chuckles. "Yeah, I can imagine. Please tell me you guys had to taze him."
"Nah, but I guess he yelled at Don Johns about, uh, improper handcuff technique? Something like that."
"That sounds like von Karma, all right."
They reach the locked door behind which, judging by the fact that Penton stops beside it, Edgeworth is being kept. Penton reaches for the ring of keys hanging from his belt and says, "Technically I guess I should put you guys into the visitation room, but since he's innocent and it's just a matter of paperwork, I'll let you in. But keep this between us, okay?"
"I will," Phoenix replies, and mimes a lips-zipped-locked-up-and-throw-away-the-key motion, never mind that zippers generally don't have locks on them. It's the thought that counts.
"Great. I'll come get you as soon as I hear that he's free to go. Nice to see you, Mr. Wright."
"You too, Pen. Have a safe night."
Penton unlocks the door, but he doesn't open it. He just returns the keys to his belt and slouches away down the hall to continue his rounds of the detention center. Phoenix is left standing before an unlocked grey door, hand hovering a few inches from the handle, palms suddenly clammy with sweat. Although it's stuffy in here, with skinny, inoperable bulletproof windows and the heat cranked up against December outside, Phoenix shivers.
Calm down, Phoenix admonishes himself. It's just Edgeworth. Just the guy who convinced me to become a lawyer. Just the guy I ditched my own celebration for. Poor guy's been sitting in here all evening. He'll be glad to see a friendly face, I bet. It'll be fine. I'm fine. Calm down.
Phoenix takes a deep breath and opens the door.