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That day had begun like any other.
He woke up, he saw his daughters off to school, and he went to work. It was a trial day, a day where he could demonstrate his perfect case that he'd spent days preparing.
He loved the days leading up to trials, the hours and hours spent pouring over every meticulous detail. He knew that no attorney he'd face would even think of a quarter of the things he'd mull over, but it still gave him great satisfaction to know that he'd solved it, inside and out. Then once the trial finally came, he could present his well-crafted work to the court, his flawless argument that was entirely absolute.
No attorney had ever lasted as long against him as Edgeworth had.
There was something different about Edgeworth. He too, seemed like he looked into every last nook and cranny. Despite his best efforts to keep him out of the crime scene, he'd still turn up evidence that was just enough to convince the jury to prolong the proceedings yet another day.
It was horrible in the beginning; if there was one thing he'd never prepared for (at least, not since his first case), it was the notion that the defense was just as prepared as he was. Every attorney he'd met since the very beginning was sloppy, and every one of them collapsed in the face of the basic facts of the crime that were well-established from the cursory police investigation. But Edgeworth wasn't like that. Even though he had full confidence in his own argument, Edgeworth's felt just as bulletproof. Some small points were easy to discount, but others were well made and backed with solid evidence and testimony. He had never met a defense attorney with such determination, such courage to stand against him without so much as breaking a sweat.
He had trouble admitting it to himself, but then it had become exciting. The trials against Edgeworth lasted longer than ten minutes. No longer was he trying to beat his best time on how fast he could get the judge to bang his gavel and declare the defendant guilty, but he was able to actually use his entire work. He'd never known how good it would feel to present every last bit of his work, to watch the judge marvel at the words he'd written well into the night as footnotes in every margin of the case file, words that he'd once thought would never see the light of day. Edgeworth was good enough where he actually needed to think harder, push himself ever further in ways he never could before.
But now, it was worrying. It was entertaining for a month or two, but the uncertainty that followed him into the courtroom made him perpetually uneasy. Against any other attorney in the state this trial would've been over within two days at the absolute most, but now it had been an entire year. A full year of being unable to think about anything else besides 'what evidence could disprove Edgeworth's last argument?', 'where could I look tomorrow morning to find evidence denouncing Edgeworth's remark the other day?', 'which witness must I interrogate again to go against the statement made in Edgeworth's favour?' It was all Edgeworth, Edgeworth, Edgeworth. He couldn't spend time with his daughters, his colleagues, anyone, without thinking about it. It was driving him absolutely mad.
I am going to end this today, he'd resolved that morning. He had to. If this mess went into the next year, he might just kill someone.
The trial begun at ten in the morning as always, and as always with Edgeworth at the defense's bench, it stretched on well past lunch. He didn't quite understand what was going on with him that day, but he felt himself being slow on the draw. Somewhere along the line his mind had dug its feet in and declared it just couldn't think about this damned case anymore, and it was severely impacting his performance.
Then he'd really done it. He'd presented the confession he'd gotten out of the defendant, and Edgeworth had the evidence ready to prove that he'd coerced him into saying it. With the way the gallery were staring at him, eyes wide, he knew that something bad would follow. The judge had mustered up the harshest words he'd ever heard the man direct at him, and he was given a penalty.
A penalty.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he recognized that he had seen defense attorneys and even fellow prosecutors get punished with more for much less. That part of him reasoned that this was the best case scenario. But the rest of him couldn't believe what he'd just heard. A penalty? Him? But why? It wasn't like he held a gun to the defendant's head, demanding a false confession. It wasn't his fault the defendant seemed to want to send himself to prison at this point. What did it matter that the defendant was "coerced"? He'd simply facilitated the process. A criminal was a criminal, and he'd finally admitted to his crime.
His ears were ringing. His mouth worked on autopilot as he reeled from the shock. A penalty. He'd never gotten one of those before. A penalty. A penalty. That was given to lawyers who were bad at their jobs. A penalty. A penalty would be on his record forever. He'd lost. He'd lost his perfect record. Twenty-five years of absolute perfection, all down the drain. He was given a penalty. A penalty. A penalty. It would never go away, that penalty. It would be on his record forever. His perfect record was gone. He'd worked so hard, so hard to keep that perfect record, and it just got ripped away from him in a matter of seconds like it was nothing at all. Edgeworth got him that penalty. If he kept his mouth shut like every other attorney in the state, he wouldn't have a penalty. Edgeworth is the reason he has this penalty. He is the reason his perfect record had been torn to shreds. His life's work, gone, gone, gone.
It seems that wretched lawyer has also ran out of steam, because distantly he heard the judge some time later pronounce the defendant guilty. He wasn't sure the conclusion of this trial even mattered anymore. His record was shot, no number of guilty verdicts could restore it to its former glory. His cane clacked across the tile as his feet took him somewhere in the courthouse. He entered some empty room, and he stared long and hard at the wall. He'd lost. He'd lost everything. How could this have happened? He was more prepared than he had ever been in his career, and yet it all came crashing down anyway.
He blinked slowly, belatedly registering the view of the wall changing into the view of the ceiling, and the feeling of scratchy fabric beneath him. Did he fall onto the couch? Was he really that pathetic? If he really asked himself that now, at this very moment, maybe the answer was yes. Who was he if not the prosecutor with the flawless record? A von Karma was always perfect, always. But apparently not today. It was like he'd been walking on the sidewalk humming a tune, then suddenly a sewer grate collapsed beneath his feet and he'd fallen into a deep, dingy hole that he could never escape.
His back hurt. It wasn't a comfortable position, legs slung over the arm of the couch as he laid there splayed across the cushions. He wallowed for a short time—he deserved back pain after that absolutely foolish performance in court—but his body demanded he get back up.
He wobbled as he put his body weight on his cane to stand. He then paced and paced and paced, eternally stuck in a mental loop of shock, anger, and utter hopelessness. He ran through the trial again and again in his mind. He shouldn't have brought up that confession. But what if Edgeworth had accused him of something else instead? What if that confession contributed to the guilty verdict, and not bringing it up would have led to a not guilty verdict? That would have been objectively worse. Then he went back even further. Was there potential evidence he had missed? Had Edgeworth found something he hadn't? If he had found it first, would he have won months ago? Would he not have gotten a penalty? The penalty. He'd gotten a penalty. How could that have happened? How did he let that happen? Could he appeal the penalty? Was that possible?
His hands were shaking. Good lord, he was shaking. Why was he shaking? This was pathetic. He was pathetic. He took a deep breath. What time was it? The clock said it was two in the afternoon, but that couldn't be right, the trial had ended shortly after one, because that's when he'd gotten the penalty the penalty he has a penalty his record was broken the penalty his record the penalty—
He needed to get out of here.
If there was anyone in the hallway, he didn't see them. Maybe while he was being so uncharacteristically pitiful, he could take the day off tomorrow to wallow in his entirely self-made misery. He always came in on the weekends alongside the other few prosecutors who took their jobs seriously (what would they think of him now? His record was gone, the penalty the penalty he's ruined), but it wasn't unreasonable to not show up on a Saturday.
He found himself in front of one of the courthouse elevators. He idly pressed the elevator button as he continued to study the ground beneath him. But if he did take the day off tomorrow, then his daughters would know something was wrong. Oh god, they were going to find out too. They looked up to him, he was their role model, their roadmap to absolute perfection. But he wasn't that role model anymore. How could this have happened? What was he going to say to them? That the defense attorney used his cheap tricks to humiliate him? That he didn't prepare hard enough? That he didn't do well enough? His own voice rang in his head as he recalled what he'd always say to his precious daughters; that there was no excuse in the world that could excuse imperfection. There was always a way in which to be perfect in everything they did, because they were von Karmas. But now he wasn't perfect, and he couldn't even figure out where exactly he'd went wrong. How did this happen how did this happen—
A loud noise jolted him out of his thoughts, and suddenly he felt a blooming pain in his right shoulder. He reflexively clutched it with his other hand, and he must've been even more piteous than he thought because he heard himself cry out as his eyes stung with tears. It was like the universe didn't think he'd had enough today, because it was as he opened his eyes to stare at the ceiling in pain that the fluorescent lights suddenly came back on (when had they turned off?), absolutely blinding him. Another, smaller frusturated yell left him as he closed his eyes again, and it was right then he heard the elevator ring, and the doors slid open.
He blinked wearily, thinking for a moment that he was hallucinating from the stress, or maybe it was some after effect of the lights flashing him hard enough to make him stumble. Three people laid on the ground of the elevator, all three of them unmoving. One of them looked like a court bailiff. The one on the far left was a child; he looked familiar but he couldn't quite place where he'd seen him before. And then he looked to the right.
To the right was Gregory Edgeworth.
His head filled to the brim with rage just upon seeing that man. That vile, despicable man that ripped his career from him just earlier that day. A small part of him was relieved the man was unconscious; the only thing that would have made this whole situation even worse would have been to have a witness to his current state. The tears were flowing from the terrible pain in his shoulder, and with a quick glance through his blurred vision, he noticed he was bleeding. The red seeped through his coat (there was a hole in his coat, what just happened?) and through his whitened fingers. The only distraction he had from the writhing pain was the sting of his fingernails, digging into the flesh surrounding the wound.
Through the pain and the anger, his brain seemed to finally kick back on in some small capacity, because a small stream of thought made itself known underneath all of the primal emotions that he normally never gave any attention to.
There was a gun at his feet. He was initially focused on the people covering the floor of the small room and had completely missed it, but a pistol laid in the middle of the elevator floor. It looked to be the same model that the court bailiffs were issued, which explained why it was in the elevator, but it should have been in the man's holster.
He was shot, his muddled mind finally put together. That must've been the source of the loud noise and the reason for the condition of his shoulder. Someone shot at him.
Was it intentional? Was Edgeworth trying to finish what he'd started? No no, that couldn't be. But was it? Why else would these people be fighting?
The lights were out until moments ago, and these people were unconscious. There was a safety warning on the wall next to the elevator informing that the elevator had no ventilation system if it were to get stuck, so it should not be used in case of an emergency. It was possible they had gotten stuck somehow and ran out of oxygen. Were they fighting over the oxygen supply? The bailiff might have tried to kill someone to preserve more air for himself, explaining the gun being on the ground instead of in its rightful place.
His body moved on its own. It was possible all three of these people were dead if his suspicions were correct. If he were in a better mental state he likely would have been mortified, but he felt an undercurrent of glee at the idea lady karma herself may have disposed of Edgeworth so quickly.
He briefly let go of his shoulder to feel the boy's pulse. It was faint, but present. The bailiff seemed to be breathing as well. He refused to check Edgeworth, instead opting to conclude he was likely also alive based on the condition of the other two.
Well, this wasn't his problem then. They were fine, so someone else could help them when they found them. He needed to pick Franziska up from kindergarten, he was likely already late.
As he got up and turned around to leave the elevator, his shoe hit something, and he flinched as he saw the gun spinning on the ground just in front of him. He quickly grabbed it before it could misfire; getting shot twice would seriously be a bother. He saw Edgeworth out of the corner of his eye as he moved to put it back down. He was still unconscious, and the other two didn't seem like they were going to wake up any time soon.
On a whim, he checked. The gun still had ammo in it.
It would be easy. Easier than any case he's ever won, even. A quick wipe of the gun, and he would never be placed at the scene. The bailiff would likely take the fall for it, or perhaps even the boy, although that was unlikely. There were no witnesses nearby, in fact, there was no one even in the vicinity to hear a gunshot, and he could simply move down the hall and take the other elevator.
He felt a smile creep onto his face. The perfect crime, fit for the perfect prosecutor.
This was destiny.
It was tempting to shoot him once in a non-lethal area of his body first to wake him up. He could watch him writhe and beg for his life, he could watch him suffer just as he has today at his hands. That would be quite satisfying. Alas, he really shouldn't drag this out lest he get caught in the act.
No one would ever know, he resolved as his finger curled around the trigger. No one.
This ends today.