Memory 07: Sympathy for the Devil
Central Prison
Visitors’ Waiting Room
Phoenix wished the air conditioner wasn’t turned up so high. He huddled into his hoodie and adjusted his cap lower over his ears, clasping an open book between his knees. The cover and pages he had already read flopped over his thigh.
“Stop fidgeting. You keep blasting me with static.”
“It’s cold in here,” he muttered, seemingly to himself.
“You’re going to draw attention to yourself.”
Phoenix looked around the waiting room. He was utterly alone, save for a guard lounging behind his desk with his feet up and a laptop in his lap. Phoenix was almost positive he had seen a second of a porn website before the guard had minimized the window and straightened to allow him through security.
Passing through the metal detector was nerve-wracking. Ema had assured him that the camera wires coiled under the upfolded hem of his hat and the camera itself set behind the button she had given him so many years ago were amply shielded so long as he turned off the transmitter for that duration. He kept the hat pulled low over his ears as he passed through, hiding the bug in his right ear. He had taken to calling it the ‘cricket’, as the imagery from Fahrenheit 451 had rooted itself into his psyche. Every time Edgeworth spoke so far back into his ear it felt as though the voice was in his brain, whispering calm and rooted, logical things, anchoring him while submerged in a twilight world that was either void of logic, or taken so far in the direction of cold, imperical thought as to come full circle into the realm of madness.
Central Prison was one of the last places Phoenix had ever wanted to go. For all that it was only a state penitentiary, a long car ride north to the ass middle-of-nowhere Lancaster, there were more than enough lunatics here, many of whom Edgeworth or Phoenix had helped put away. He felt guilty, exposed, knowing lives had ended here in a stunningly barbaric and archaic fashion at the gallows, and that some of these convictions had been guided by his hand. When face-to-face with the fate of the condemned he felt the worm of doubt stir and gnaw at his gut, and he wondered if maybe, maybe, he had helped to send an innocent person to a hideous death.
The controversy surrounding lethal injection had come to a head while Phoenix was finishing law school. Following on the heels of the abolition of trial by jury in California—an agonizing, grueling road transferring the powers of the Sixth Amendment to state-level delegation worthy of its own bevy of scholarly tomes and studies— hanging had been reinstated as the method of execution in California. That had made absolutely no sense to Phoenix. Hanging was notoriously a hideous death, designed with the intent to inflict maximum torture to the victim before the body finally lost consciousness, but new, highly-contested studies some suspected were underwritten by government agents indicated that if performed properly the snapping of the neck would ensure that the condemned lost consciousness without pain. He recalled reading historical documentation of hangings in his History of Capital Punishment class in which the condemned would be strangled slowly and repeatedly lowered back to the ground when they started to lose consciousness to be revived, to be able to experience the agony of slow oxygen deprivation fully conscious. They would beg, spectators said, hardened criminals blubbering for mercy, screaming, screeching when they had the chance, those moments when their feet touched the ground. In their final spasms they voided their bowels, wet themselves, and hung limp and rotting in the wind with death-erections, putrid and bloated, defiled and shamed in their last days as a physical entity.
That was the cruelty inflicted in bygone days, thousands of years of human malice reduced to a single focal point, a rotting body twisting in the wind.
The modern procedure was clinical, a sterile pantomime of the noose’s heritage. The condemned was weighted down with masses calculated to provide the proper force from freefall acceleration to snap the neck instantly, and the noose was fitted, adjusted to concentrate pressure at the second and third cervical vertebrae. The gallows were tall, ensuring acceleration to a force necessary to snap the neck, but not to decapitate the prisoner, as had happened in some unfortunate earlier experiments with the ‘long drop’ hanging execution method. The public was assured it was a clean death, painless and dignified. Phoenix’s mouth curled upward ironically at the memory of a pedantic professor, a champion of the government’s new system, trying to feed the class the party line with all the patience and conviction of a priest assuring his parishioners the worst atrocities imaginable to mankind are part of the greater good orchestrated by a loving God.
As part of a state policy that criminal law students should view an execution to fully understand the gravity with which they were entrusted, the law school arranged for all those concentrating in criminal law to make a trip to the Central Prison to witness an execution firsthand. It was a harrowing parody of a field trip. The students were filed onto a charter bus, shuttled out of LA into blinding California sunlight and desert, and filed into a sterile, white viewing room, glowing with harsh halogen light, in which a few rows of benches staggered stadium-style faced a large window onto the gallows. It was like all those old courtroom reality TV shows Phoenix’s mother watched, except instead of a gurney with spread-eagled arms awaiting the condemned, a tall, stainless-steel gallows adorned the center of the execution floor. The tile floor had a large drain set into its center, efficient and sloped to easily wash away the fluids inherent in human demise should things not go according to plan. It was supposed to be a packaged deal with minimal clean-up, but as the professor pointed out with rueful good humor, things do not always go according to plan.
The man whose execution they were to view had no family, no next of kin to be horrified at the prospect of his last and most vulnerable moments being viewed by a gaggle of law students. His death was attended only by Phoenix’s class, the press, and representatives of the California justice system. The man was lead out in handcuffs, blinded by the dark hood over his head, and was read his sentence. He stood, head bowed, shoulders tensed, as a chaplain in worn clothing read him his last rites, and asked him if he wanted one last chance to ask Jesus Christ to be his lord and savior. Though his sins may have been as scarlet, the blood of Jesus would wash him as clean as snow. The condemned man was silent. The preacher backed away and bowed his head, mouth moving rapidly in prayer for this lost soul, the only person in the entire room showing mercy and sympathy to this condemned man. The executioner asked the condemned if he had any last words. The man remained silent.
It was quick after that. The noose was lowered over his head, tugged securely so the knot would break his neck immediately, and his feet were strapped into sizable weights resting on the trap door. The last human to touch this man alive stepped off the platform, and there he stood, alone, head bowed, strapped to the masses that would drop him to his death.
He trembled.
There was a loud, mechanical snap, and Phoenix buried his head in his hands, realizing that he had been holding his breath in horror this entire time. Silence. He felt some of the students around him shift uncomfortably. He clutched his hair, twisting it around his fingers, and hissed. In his mind’s eye he saw a beautiful, lithe figure, long legs dangling in the sunset, a shadow, a silhouette in a sundress with flowing red hair and eyes like glass twisting, twisting in the wind, rotting.
In death, all became equal.
He knew he had touched that body—in retrospect he could see when he had been with Iris and when he had been with Dahlia—had felt the softness of her thighs beneath nervous, young hands, the smooth hollow of her stomach, the curves of her hips, even when she looked away from him in cold disgust, when she flipped her hair over her shoulder in distain before recomposing herself and giving him that sweet, hypnotic smile, edged with disgust he now realized she had felt for him all along. The realization that he had touched a woman repulsed by his attentions made him feel disgusting, ugly, lecherous, accentuated his clumsiness and angular, harry body next to her relative perfection. He thought tenderness and enthusiasm could compensate for his relative lack of skill at that point, but Dahlia had seen none of that.
It was the first and only time he had sex with her.
He had finished too soon. They had only been going for five minutes or so, and despite his best efforts he came, silent and fast, deep inside her. He collapsed back against the pillows, gasping, and noticed that she had stopped moving. The pressure of her hands on his chest lifted, and he opened his eyes to see her crossing her arms and glaring sidelong at the wall of his dorm room, displeased. He sat up and considered stroking her face, but the scowl stayed his hand.
“Dollie, I’m sorry. I, uh…” He sat up and reached under her labia where they were connected, feeling through slickness for her clit. “Here …”
She smacked his hand away. He stared, wide-eyed with horror and shame curling in his stomach, as she lifted herself off him with a wet squelch and moved to sit on the end of the bed, fingers playing over her forearm, staring out the window with an incomprehensible expression. He coughed, still fighting that damned nasty cold he had gotten a few days ago, and pulled the full condom off his softening dick, tying it off and tossing it into the trash. He scooted to the end of the bed and touched her shoulder, covering his mouth with his other hand as he coughed.
“Dollie…” Cough, cough. She had been so sticky-sweet and seductive despite his repeated protests that he did not want to get her sick, this embodiment of sweet and dirty all at the same time and damn it drove him insane— “I’m really sorry. It’s, uh, been a while, actually since high school, and, uh…” He trailed his fingers over her arm, down over the curve of her breast, brushed her deep auburn hair over her shoulder, and wrapped his arms around her waist, kissing up the back of her neck. “Let me take care of you.”
His fingers trailed down her stomach, dipping low in promise of pleasure he wanted to give her, and his kisses against her shoulders got more heated, wetter, in parallel promise of the pleasures he could also provide with his mouth.
She shoved him off roughly and stood, pulling on her discarded thong and sundress as Phoenix stared in horror. He felt as though he was going to be sick. She smoothed out her hair, shoulders tense, and found her sandals. Picked up her parasol and purse. Started toward the door.
“Dollie, please…”
It came out sounding more desperate than he had intended. She stopped, tensed, and turned around, smiling that radiant, sweet smile he had fallen in love with.
“Sorry, Feenie, but I have a lot to take care of before class.”
Phoenix’s tongue was dry. She gave him a little wave and left, closing the door firmly behind her. He stared at his closed door, at the tattered and creased Zeppelin poster he had tacked there, and collapsed back onto the bed. The room still smelled of sex and Dahlia’s perfume. He picked up a pillow and shoved it onto his face, coughing, hard.
For the first time since they had met, she had not asked for him to return the necklace she had given him at the courthouse.
He skipped class for the rest of the day.
The next day, Doug Swallow was electrocuted.
The condemned man’s body hung limply from the prison gallows. Minimal blood, no mess, clean and according to plan. Blood leaked from his ears. His death-erection pressed against his pants. He showed none of the signs of death from asphyxiation, which, the professor pointed out, meant he had not suffered. It was a clean, propaganda-worthy execution, and the professor seemed glad things had gone according to plan with his students in attendance. The doctor pronounced the convict dead, and he was unceremoniously cut down and removed from the room. The cadaver would go to a medical school.
In death, all became equal.
The image became juxtaposed with his image of Dahlia’s body swinging in the sunset, and haunted his nightmares for years to come.
“Our bodies break down, sometimes when we're ninety, sometimes before we're even born, but it always happens and there's never any dignity in it. I don't care if you can walk, see, wipe your own ass. It's always ugly - always! We can live with dignity - we can't die with it.”
It was something all criminal lawyers had to reconcile, or go mad. The same way doctors had to reconcile that some of their patients would die, whether of their own mistakes or not, it was possible that a lawyer’s misplaced trust or convictions would help condemn the innocent. Each lawyer is ultimately a human, and in the long, morally-ambiguous twilight of their career they walk the razor’s edge of truth and illusion, trust and skepticism, intuition and hard logic. It is a statistical inevitability a misstep will occur. But humans are flawed, and humans are the only maintainers the system has at the moment. Humans stand in judgment of other humans. And it’s better than the alternatives, and so, they endure, for the sake of the net effect of good. But tell that to the people who were wronged.
This is the mantra Phoenix had inscribed in his consciousness; it was the only alternative to lobotomizing his empathy as so many criminal lawyers had done, or going mad.
“—nix. Phoenix.” Phoenix snapped out of his reverie, and the immediacy of being in the waiting room returned to him. The cricket in his ear was chirping. He rested his chin in his hands, staring off into space. The book was still clasped between his knees.
“Yes?”
“Are you okay?”
“Hmm.”
He considered picking up the book just to show Edgeworth he was doing okay, but found it difficult to stir himself out of the rut of uneasy waiting into which he had entrenched himself. He wanted to click open his locket to look at the pictures of eight-year-old Trucy and nine-year-old Edgeworth—a comforting reminder of why he carried on in any tough situation—but he knew he would never live it down given that Edgeworth could see everything he saw at the moment. He stared at the opposite wall, sifting through fragmented memories linked by the strange, intuitive web of the mind, until a guard came to collect him and lead him to the solitary cell block. He marked his page and shoved the book into his hoodie pocket, adjusting the button on his cap until Edgeworth whispered that the focus was clear. Henceforth his conversation with Edgeworth was going to be one-sided.
The guard was far too chatty for Phoenix’s comfort. She was surprised that he—no offence; she didn’t mean anything by it—was close enough with Prosecutor Edgeworth to have him demand a visit with Mr. Gavin, and it was such a shame such a nice man as Mr. Gavin was in jail, as he was so nice and such a gentleman and remembered her husband’s and kids’ names and always asked after her and her family with the utmost courtesy. She unlocked the door to Solitary Cell 13 and bowed Phoenix through, reminding him that she would be waiting whenever he was done, and closed the door behind him. Now he was in the lion’s den.
It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the poor light. The only source was from a barred window hewn high into the brick wall, but aside from the lack of illumination, the solitary cell was damn near palatial. Kristoph Gavin was lounging in a plush, purple chair centered in the window’s light, reading a handsome leather-bound book. The desk near the door had a glass vase with red roses and a glass bottle shaped like a fine, feminine hand, fingers splayed as though showing off the nails. The wood bookshelf against the back wall was filled with hardbound books stamped with gold gilt, the sort of books that smacked of ‘collector’s edition’ or being as much a decorative statement as a show of intellectual prowess or good breeding. He wondered if Gavin could play that violin propped up against some of the books.
“Well, well, isn’t this an unexpected surprise?”
Please allow me to introduce myself
I'm a man of wealth and taste
I've been around for a long, long years
Stole many a man's soul and faith
Kristoph finally closed his book with a contented sigh and set it behind him on the chair as he stood, smiling with poison saccharine. He looked as immaculate as ever in a tailored, pressed suit, hair carefully styled and swept out of his face.
“What errand brings you down to my cramped confines?
“Congratulations, Wright,” Edgeworth murmured dryly in his ear. “You officially look more unkempt than a convict.”
“Gavin…”
“Is… this your idea of revenge, Phoenix Wright? Revenge for the events that took away your attorney’s badge seven years ago?”
And I was 'round when Jesus Christ
Had his moment of doubt and pain
Made damn sure that Pilate
Washed his hands and sealed his fate
“My past is like my logic, straight and true. Nothing’s changed.” He smirked. “All I did was point the finger of justice in the right direction.”
Miles groaned into his ear. Gavin narrowed his eyes, the implication of what Phoenix had said clearly not lost on him, and pushed his glasses up his eyes in a vague attempt to hide his wounded pride.
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name
“…fine.” He smiled cuttingly. “I’m glad we could have this little tête-à-tête, Wright.” He looked Phoenix up and down slowly, eyes unfathomable, and pushed his glasses up his nose. Finally, he exhaled quietly.
But what's puzzling you
Is the nature of my game
“You look well, Phoenix Wright.”
“You too… Gavin.”
------------------------------------------
“Because you’re an evil human being”, huh, Gavin. Bullshit.
Edgeworth was stretched out in the front seat of his car with his laptop on his thighs and his cane propped beside him, seat scooted back as far as it could go and air conditioner running with the car plugged into the electrical port just outside the prison. The sun was setting right into his eyes, and he pulled the visor down over his seat. Phoenix had finished his interview with Gavin, and the camera on his hat was filming a walk through the prison’s hallways toward the front door. Edgeworth sighed and saved another copy of the entire movie onto his hard drive, saved another copy onto his flash drive, and was burning a hard copy onto a disc when Phoenix exited the prison’s front doors with his hands shoved in his hoodie pockets, head bowed in thought. Edgeworth unlocked the car doors and moved his briefcase into the back seat as Phoenix opened the passenger door and sat down, slamming the door behind him. He pulled his cap off and ran his fingers through his hair.
“We have to get ahold of that letter.”
“Well, at least you got some nail polish.”
Phoenix pulled the hand-shaped bottle of Ariadoney out of his pocket and turned it over in his hands, brows furrowed.
“Is it still called ‘nail polish’ when it’s clear?”
“Probably. Why?”
“I thought you would know. It kind of goes with the foppish territory.”
Edgeworth shook his head and rolled his eyes as he closed his laptop and slid it back into his briefcase.
“Right, didn’t see that coming.”
“I know I’ve seen this somewhere before.”
“It wasn’t in the grocery store?”
“I don’t shop for cosmetics.”
“Trucy hasn’t dragged you back there?”
“A few times. I honestly wasn’t paying attention.”
“Hm.”
Edgeworth slid out of the car to unplug it, still slightly hobbling on his good leg, and when he got back in, Phoenix had slid the nail polish back into his pocket and was turning his magatama over in his hands. Edgeworth started the car and switched into reverse, looking over his shoulder as he pulled out of the parking space, and shifted into gear to begin the slow crawl out of the prison grounds.
Phoenix was silent a good portion of the drive back to LA. He had curled up in the passenger seat like a teenager and was staring out the window at the passing desert. The shadows grew long in the setting sun, and cars began to turn their headlights on. They finally turned back onto the 134 and gridlocked in traffic as the sun sank below the horizon.
The silence did not bother Edgeworth. They were well beyond the stage of being bothered by extended silences, and he gave Phoenix the space he needed, interrupting only to ask if he minded if he turned on the radio, to which Phoenix mumbled consent. They were through the Bach section of Miles’ mp3 player and beginning the recordings of Beethoven when Phoenix shifted, and Miles felt his attention shift from his inner world back to the present. He turned around and sat up.
“So, Gavin had five black psyche-locks around his motive for murdering Enigmar.”
Miles tapped his finger on the steering wheel.
“…really. Black.”
“Yeah.”
“You’ve never seen that before?”
“Never.”
“And you’ve interviewed quite a few nasty people with your magatama, haven’t you.”
“Yup.”
Miles glanced over at Phoenix. He was staring straight out the windshield, brows furrowed in thought.
“Do you have any idea why?”
“It’s difficult to explain.” Phoenix ran his fingers through his hair again and dropped his hand. “…it felt so dark and cold. I mean, even moreso than other times I’ve tried to pry into people’s darkest secrets. I really can’t explain it.” He paused. “It’s almost like the manifestation of the most primordial source of human cruelty. You know, like the devil in everybody.”
I stuck around St. Petersburg
When I saw it was a time for a change
Killed the czar and his ministers
Anastasia screamed in vain
“Spoken like a true Judeo-Christian Westerner.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I do, as did every human culture in existence. Can you break them?”
“…I don’t know.” He paused for a moment. “I had the feeling that if I tried, the energy they released when they broke could be deadly. It was like my soul was in danger of being ripped from my body. Like, that would be the price I’d have to pay to shatter those.”
“Well, we certainly don’t want that.”
Phoenix turned and glared, eyes hard. Edgeworth sighed.
“Phoenix, you know I don’t take much stock in the supernatural, but I’ve used the magatama before. I know by whatever mechanism, it works. And I trust you know what you’re talking about.” He paused and pushed his glasses up his nose. “Don’t risk it.”
His voice had come out quieter than he expected.
I rode a tank
Held a general's rank
When the Blitzkrieg raged
And the bodies stank
“I wonder if everybody has the capacity to harbor so much hate for so long. I mean, I’ve seen people hold grudges and hate in their hearts, and it’s rotted them from the inside out, but this—this is insane.”
Miles’ grip on the steering wheel tightened.
He reminded him constantly that the values of the world were at odds with the values of perfection. The voice was punctuated with sharp, bloody lashes of the switch whenever Miles showed emotion or screwed something up. The voice that lashed him from without seeped in through his myriad wounds, and instilled itself in his consciousness.
The voice was small, still, and at utter odds with his gut and heart, but powerful. It was ancient, timeless, the voice of a legacy of self-destruction permeating mankind. It told him that he did not need people, that emotion would only cloud his judgment. It rendered him an incomplete human being by severing his mind from the rest of his consciousness, and eliminating the emergent, complex, intuitive consciousness inherent in well-balanced people. The isolation from others left him with nothing but his own mind and memories, churning, churning. It prevented him from re-gaining perspective. It encouraged him to shield his heart from the sunshine of the world, to allow it to atrophy and rot. His intellect became unparalleled, but his heart and his intuition lay dormant, and his potential to improve with those limitations intact hit its limit. He sensed that.
The voice called it ‘despair’. The voice suddenly made him acutely aware of the dearth of his heart, and made him think it was dead. The voice told him to choose physical death. The voice told him there was no other way out. The voice told him death was what he deserved.
Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth chose death, and the devil that flowed to him through Manfred von Karma and through every human atrocity and cruelty ever committed laughed as he left his mark on the brow of humanity. Nothing ever changed. And that mark was as old as human consciousness. That perpetuation of that mark had been insured the moment the first human was able to say “I am”, and was in that self-realization forced from Eden.
“I didn’t have the magatama when I was dealing with Dahlia or von Karma,” said Phoenix. “It kind of makes me wonder…”
Miles smiled sardonically to himself. His knuckles were white.
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name
“You’d be surprised.”
Ah, what's puzzling you
Is the nature of my game
----------------------------------------------------
“We’ve got it.”
Edgeworth slapped a paper down onto the kitchen table, smirking triumphantly. Phoenix looked up from the meticulous notes he was taking on constitutional law and rubbed his eyes, then picked it up and scanned it.
“The referendum to try the reformed Jurist System in a real trial is going to be presented in state legislature next week. Constitutional lawyers who objected to the abolition of the Sixth Amendment are lining up and salivating over this. We’ve got all the help we could ever hope to have.” Edgeworth sat down, seeming more jubilant that Phoenix had seen him in ages. “This is our best shot. We couldn’t have been dealt a better hand.”
“It’s going to the state legislature next week?”
“It’s being ushered in as top priority.”
“But, I’m not—” Phoenix looked at his scattered notes despairingly. “—I’m not ready to present this.” “You’re not, and even I don’t think even you could manage to wing it in front of politicians. I’ve got several lawyers from the DA’s office who were happy to collect colleagues who could speak elegantly on our behalf. Politicians don’t want to hear logic. They want to hear a pitch they can spin to their constituents. It will be almost sinfully easy. Placing the power back in the hands of the people and out of the hands of judges with government interests, play up some paranoid sensibilities and conspiracy theories—the legislators are not idiots. They know they can look like champions of the people reclaiming power on their behalf. Any counterarguments to the effect that the people are idiots who cannot be trusted to make deductive decisions will be met with howls of rage from the public. No legislator can risk taking that stance. Besides, this is California, for Christ’s sake.”
“It was abolished once.”
“Under the sovereign powers enacted under the Second Patriot Act. As far as many people are concerned—and many of them are now on our side—the abolition of the Sixth Amendment was illegal, and the right to a trial by jury still stands. The American public gave silent consent to this abuse of power. They’re as much to blame as politicians. They let blind fear and hysteria stay their hands. But that doesn’t make it right that this has gone on for so long.”
I watched with glee
While your kings and queens
Fought for ten decades
For the Gods they made
It was a speech Phoenix had heard many times before. In 2011, when he was just a freshman in college, Islamic militants bombed the U.S. Capitol Building and brought about a refreshed wave of vehement nationalism and fear just as post-9/11 paranoia was finally starting to clear the country’s system. That day was vivid in his memory; though for the most part Ivy University students handled the crisis very well, the television showed nonstop footage of the carnage and resulting violent backlash against Muslims around the country. He was only nine years old on September 11, 2001; he had not been able to appreciate the secondary, more subtle horror unfolding on television that entire day, beneath the clouds of smoke and bloodied bodies. His mom had kept him home from school that day, as much as he wanted to talk to Miles and Larry about what had happened, and the television in the living room stayed on CNN. She sat upright on their couch fingering her rosary nervously, intermittently praying quietly in Spanish and bowing her head. Phoenix asked her cautiously why she was crying.
“When things like this happen, it is us immigrants that get blamed.”
That did not make any sense. Mama was Mexican, and he was born in America; the news said that the people who attacked the World Trade Center were Muslim. Mama smiled sadly when he pointed that out and said that he would see soon enough what she meant.
That conversation was vivid in his mind as he watched the same hysteria envelop the country ten years later. But now he was old enough to see the far-reaching implications. He knew now that people who were afraid would consent to the revocation of rights in the guise of increased safety. They had proven that before. They would prove it again. They did prove it again.
I shouted out
"Who killed the Kennedys?"
When after all
It was you and me
Conservative politicians rallied in a collective stance that amounted to “I told you so”, mostly in response to allowing the original Patriot Act to expire. “If only we had maintained due vigilance, this never would have happened,” they bleated, again, again, to the footage of bodies being dug from the wreckage. It was a refrain of the months after September 11, additionally punctuated by the fact that this was a repeat, no longer seeming an anomaly. Opponents were said to value privacy for selfish reasons over the safety of the American people, and, as they were frequently asked, if they were doing nothing wrong, why had they anything to fear from surveillance? Conservatives called liberals paranoid, liberals called conservatives paranoid, and either side remained convinced the paranoia and baseless fear of the other side would contribute to the downfall of America and Democracy and Freedom.
Fifteen years later, of course, nothing had changed.
“But how are they going to account for all the people tried since the Court Reformation? Or executed?”
“Nobody said it would be neat and easy. This still needs to be done.”
“I can’t believe you’re placing trust in the average citizen to judge a court case.”
Miles smirked.
“What the hell foolish reformation are you trying to instigate, Miles Edgeworth?”
Edgeworth sighed heavily and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Not for the first time, he dearly wished Franziska was not nearly as connected as she was.
“Franziska…”
“I honestly thought the foolish backwards American legal system was progressing with the abolition of the antiquated, foolish jury system, but instead of furthering progress and abolishing capital punishment you foolishly deem it a good idea to regress back to a system that relies on the wisdom and insight of easily-manipulated, blue-collar fools.”
“We have to reverse this trend before it gets worse.”
“The slippery slope argument? Really, Miles Edgeworth, I would have expected you to have an argument of better quality than that.”
“You’re not the only one.”
--------------------------------
They worked feverishly through the next month. To surprisingly little fanfare their proposal was approved by the state legislature, and the Los Angeles County District Court was designated the trial’s location. The exhaustive logistics for setting up a jury trial system distracted Phoenix from his case against Gavin; he could work on securing his innocence once the jury system was underway. He quit playing poker to focus full-time on the jury system, as much as it hurt his pride to rely on Miles financially even if only for a short while.
Miles’ recovery continued; the physical therapist finally cleared him to walk without a cane some weeks after he had gone back to work, though he would have a slight limp the rest of his life, and the scars across his body faded to white. His joints ached when rain approached, and seeing him stop writing to wince and rub at his wrists and dislocated elbow, or wince slightly as he walked, on overcast days cut through Phoenix like a knife. Both he and Trucy had taken to making Miles more pots of tea than he knew what to do with on those days, until he told them both that they just burned and over-or-under-seeped the tea every damn time, which was a considerable talent, and to waste their efforts elsewhere. So he started getting more warm washcloths and ice packs along with massages and dogs hanging all over his knee giving him the puppy eyes. No matter how much he sputtered, it was painfully obvious to both Wrights that he was touched. For some reason Trucy was convinced that the reverse-color PaPa hat she had made for Miles would make him feel better if he would just wear it, for all his excuses that hats drove him insane and messed up his hair and just made his head feel hot. He still could not bring himself to wake up and take it off when he was roused out of a drugged doze by Trucy jamming it firmly over his head. He knew she and Phoenix got some strange kick out of seeing him wear it, and wearing it in sleep allowed him to preserve his protests and their feelings when he was awake.
The first time after the accident Phoenix saw Miles naked Miles was horridly self-conscious, which he, as per usual, hid poorly with curt gruffness and cynical faux-indifference. Of course Miles was still beautiful as he ever had been, but the scars knotted guilt in Phoenix’s gut, and served as a constant reminder for every reason his revenge against Kristoph Gavin was not complete. He mapped every scar with his fingertips and his lips, slowly, lingeringly, savoring every pulse and barely-audible moan and every indescribable awareness that Miles was alive. He integrated the new imperfections into his mental map of his lover’s body. He kissed slowly, repeatedly, every shattered bone with the vague hope that he could direct love and tenderness into their healing. He knew all of it was a painfully cliché gesture, and despite Miles’ dry comment to that effect it was obvious that it melted him nonetheless. Phoenix kissed his hideously-scarred palms and fingertips that had lost so much sensation, and Miles said that he wished he could feel that as vividly as he had before. It was then that he teared up for the first time since the accident, and as much as Phoenix hated to see Miles upset it was a relief to see him get it all out. He so seldom indulged in that release. Of course, it was not long before Phoenix started crying too and apologizing profusely about what had happened, and they had an intensely manly night of cuddling, nuzzling, and kissing, though Miles said dryly that even if he were up to fucking like men—which he wasn’t, so don’t get any ideas—he would rather stay like this. Phoenix chalked that up to the painkillers, and Miles whacked him in the face with a pillow when he said that he was starting to like the doped-up, uninhibited Miles better than his sober evil twin.
Miles had been well enough for sex for a couple of months now, and Phoenix had quickly learned how to avoid jarring or hurting his body, had quickly learned his limits and how to sense when they had expanded and where to stop by listening to the catches in Miles’ breath and the sudden clenching of hands around his wrists. For all that Miles was still sore he was insatiable, and he had admitted to Phoenix that in some ways his close call had reignited in him a lust to live each day to the fullest, which when they had the time and privacy meant wearing themselves out in every way they could think of that would not make Miles yelp in pain. In one early encounter Phoenix had overbalanced and smashed Miles’ dislocated elbow, which had made the latter man howl in agony and curl up in a ball as spasms shot up his arm for quite a while after. Phoenix, of course, felt like an absolute monster and cradled Miles and apologized profusely on the brink of tears until Miles was the one comforting him. It was going to be intensely vanilla for a while, which was perfectly fine with both parties. They had a mutually-beneficial agreement that while experimentation was fun, just being able to make love to one another in some way or another was more than enough. Whether he was giving or receiving Miles was invariably lying or sitting on the bed, as balancing for any protracted time on his wrists or elbows was still extremely painful. By virtue this meant Phoenix was doing most of the work, but he usually had more than enough enthusiasm for the both of them anyway, and he had a working tally of all the times Miles would owe him the fucking of his life once he was fully healed.
It was originally quite difficult to convince the court to give the chair of the Jurist System Simulated Court Committee to a disbarred attorney of some notoriety, but they consented under the condition that Miles Edgeworth oversee the operation. All executions were put on hold until the establishment of the new court system, which gave Phoenix more time to investigate Gavin once this job was done. There was no rush.
He was going to leave it on the backburner. That was his full intention.
He did not anticipate that Drew Misham would die of atroquinine poisoning in the beginning of October.
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October 7, 2026, 12:30 PM
District Attorney’s Office
Miles Edgeworth’s Office
“Miles! We have a trial!”
Edgeworth looked up from his paperwork and arched his eyebrows. Phoenix had bolted to the district attorney’s office as fast as his scrap-heap of a bike could carry him, and he was still panting slightly from running through the entrance and up the stairs. At least Edgeworth’s office was only on the second floor; he utterly refused to place himself in a position where elevators would become necessary. He had managed to maintain his nonchalant, confident persona in front of Apollo and Trucy, as much for his own benefit as theirs, but now that he was out of their presence the panicked realization that the damn trial was tomorrow and he was not ready had smacked him. Hard.
“We have to put that multimedia presentation together. Now.”
Edgeworth sighed and checked his watch. “Why? Can it wait until tomorrow?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Drew Misham died last night. Atroquinine poisoning.”
Phoenix slapped down the copy of the autopsy report Ema Skye had been kind enough to email him—thoroughly against her superior’s orders, of course. Edgeworth pushed his glasses up his nose and picked it up, looked it over. He looked up at Phoenix. Stared for a moment.
“No.”
“His daughter, Vera, is being tried tomorrow as the murderer. There are no other suspects.”
“No, Phoenix.”
“It’s too late.” Phoenix slapped another paper down on the desk, which Edgeworth snatched. “I’ve already assigned Justice to the case. They’re investigating as we speak.”
“…you idiot.”
“…what?”
Miles waved the declaration that the Jury System trial would be given during State v. Misham. “This! You idiot! Do you know what you’ve done?”
“…I… no?”
“We can’t try Gavin in the first Jury System trial. There’s too much vested interest, and everybody knows it. Our opponents will have our necks on this. Unbiased circumstances, my arse!”
“It’s not like this was my idea.”
“Oh, it wasn’t? You’re sure you didn’t persuade the judge to agree to this?”
“Well… I may have suggested it. Lightly. In passing.”
Miles slammed the paper down on his desk. A pencil rattled onto the floor.
“It’s the best example I can think of,” Phoenix said quietly. “Miles, you know the evidence as well as I do. The case fits the criteria for the trial run of the Jurist System perfectly—”
“Was this really your plan all along? To nail Gavin?” Miles stood up and gestured wildly at Phoenix. It had been a long time since he had seen Miles this worked up. “God, Phoenix, we’ve already got him for one murder. Why do we have to do this? Would you really risk everything we’ve worked for just to get your revenge on that bastard? Are you that small a person?”
Phoenix clenched his fists by his sides.
“No.”
“No, you’re right, of course. You wouldn’t think that far ahead.” Miles crossed his arms and started pacing angrily. “You just jump into situations where you think you have a chance in hell without considering the far-reaching consequences of your actions. Politics will not smile favorably upon your courtroom theatrics.”
“I never said I wanted to be a politician.”
“Well, like it or not, you’ve become one for now.”
“Well, like it or not, as Jurist System Simulated Court Committee chair I recognize that this case has the perfect setup to emphasize the power and necessity of a trial by jury, and this is the last chance I have to nail Gavin and clear my name, and I’m going to take it.” He crossed his arms and smirked, triumphantly. “It’s too late to turn back now, anyway. The paperwork’s already been filed. The judge agrees this is a good case for this.”
“Yes. What a convenient excuse. It is better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission, isn’t it, Wright?”
“I accept full responsibility for this trial. I promise I can make sure he’s found guilty for his crimes, and I can get that poor girl off the hook.” He paused. “Miles, you know he’s dangerous. He tried to kill you. God, he almost succeeded. He’s trying to send a blameless girl to the gallows for murdering her own father. He deprived Trucy of her real father. I have more than enough reason to want to rip his throat out. Don’t you see how much self-control it’s taken to wait this long?”
“I assure you that I lack no faith in your abilities. That isn’t what I’m afraid of.”
Phoenix waited for Miles to continue. Miles turned around and sighed heavily, arms still crossed.
“Do you want everybody to think that you set up this entire system just for your own revenge? And there’s a lot more than just your reputation at stake. This—everything we’ve worked for—could be set ablaze. Thrown into an unfavorable light. Be portrayed as an abuse of power.”
“You know that was never my intention.”
“I know that. Who else does?” He paused. “And while you may only content yourself with the approval of those close to you—an admirable trait, to be sure—there’s more at stake right now than just your reputation.”
Phoenix was silent for a long time. Miles sighed and stepped behind him—still favoring his right leg, as Dr. Mask said he probably always would—and clasped his shoulders. Miles was actually two centimeters taller than Phoenix, and the height difference was even more pronounced when he was in dress shoes and Phoenix in sandals, but the way he stood now with his right leg slightly bent to take the weight off his left leg lowered him to Phoenix’s height. It was minute; Phoenix only noticed because he was looking for it and was so intimately related with every aspect of Miles’ physiology, including his usual impeccable posture, and the manifestation of even the slightest trace of the injury felt like a punch to the face.
“Phoenix…”
“…please, Miles,” he finally said. “We have the evidence. You’ve seen it. I know I can pull this off. I know I’ll be able to emphasize the importance of this system and everything we’ve fought for. This trial is perfect for that, and you know it damn well, my biases and involvement aside.” He sighed and paused, shoving his hands into his pockets. “It would be unprofessional to allow my qualms about my own reputation to make me shy away from this. Please. Trust me. I can turn this around.”
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They were up all night frantically weaving the collected video footage and the evidence Trucy leaked from Apollo’s evidence file of the day’s investigation into a semi-interactive multimedia presentation. After several cans of energy drinks and a nerve-wracking computer crash from which their presentation was salvaged, some awkward fiddling with the web camera and an argument about what to call the whole damn thing (Edgeworth refused to call it GLaDOS, and Phoenix had shot back that maybe they should call it something pretentious like “MASON System”—which is exactly what it remained), they stumbled into the courthouse one hour before the trial was set to begin and jammed the disc into the multimedia system. They clambered up the stairs and slid into a dark balcony overlooking all of the juror’s separate rooms through one-way glass ceilings, a strange parody of the Panopticon.
“Oh Jesus Christ,” Phoenix groaned. It was painful to watch himself talk against that idiotic pseudo-technological green-screen background they had settled upon as the lesser of all evils last night. He kept the same smug, aloof expression the entire time, which was mostly a sarcastic response to Edgeworth’s order to ‘look more professional’—it was the ironic, deadpan demeanor he adopted in situations he found absurd—but in a twisted sort of retort Edgeworth kept those takes. And the monologue was this painfully-vapid drivel Phoenix had written on scrap paper at six in the morning after they had realized all of a sudden the entire presentation needed some form of narration. It reminded him painfully of being back in law school and having to pretend to take his own half-ironic pretentious bullshit seriously. In front of an audience.
There was still something more painful about having to face himself played-back over a six screens and a speaker system. He buried his head in Edgeworth’s shoulder.
“This is painful.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Edgeworth grumbled. For all that he was exhausted, Phoenix had to admit Miles looked amazingly good unkempt like this. He had fair stubble on his chin, his hair was awry and falling flat, and he was wearing the same white shirt and black vest from last night with the sleeves rolled up and the collar open. “Couldn’t you have at least put on a suit to make this video?”
“I’m supposed to look like I’m speaking for the common people, as the common people.”
“You can still represent the ‘common people’ and not look like a hobo!”
Phoenix smirked and rubbed his stubbly chin against Edgeworth’s neck. “You know you love it.”
“Egh. You didn’t brush your teeth this morning, did you?”
“No. Why? Does my breath smell bad?”
“Yes it does—WRIGHT.” Edgeworth batted Phoenix away as he breathed directly into his nose, lifting his weight off one hip to pull something out of his pocket. “Geh. If you insist on hanging all over me, at least take one of these.”
He pressed a small plastic tab of breath-freshener strips into Phoenix’s palm. Phoenix laughed and slid one out with his thumb, then pressed it onto his tongue and waggled it in Edgeworth’s face. He rolled his eyes and shoved Phoenix’s face away with a splayed hand.
“Hey.” Phoenix caught his wrist and forced his hand down by his side. “You should talk. You haven’t shaved in a while either. It actually looks pretty good.”
“Unlike you, I do not insist upon stubble as some sort of badge of rebellion against the establishment. That probably helps the overall appeal.”
“It’s very virile.”
“Thank you.”
They stared at each other for a moment, Phoenix still pinning Miles’ wrist down next to him on the bench. He grinned impishly and pulled Miles into him, leveraging himself back against the carpeted wall, and kissed him, hard, clumsily cramming his tongue into his mouth. Miles pushed him back slightly and renewed the kiss more softly, dallying, lapping at his lips. They were giddy with exhaustion and the high of imminent victory, and, in Phoenix’s case, strung out on God-knows-how many energy drinks. He finally overbalanced, perched sideways on the narrow bench bolted along the semi-circular wall, and dragged Miles to the ground on top of him. He cracked the back of the head and yelped in pain, vividly reminded there was concrete beneath the thin carpet. Miles smirked and shook his head, and cradled the back of Phoenix’s head.
“You’re an idiot.”
“And you love it.”
Phoenix closed his eyes and allowed the throbbing to subside, resting his head back against Edgeworth’s hand as the latter pulled off his hat and threw it onto the bench, then ran his fingers through his hair, kneading the scalp over the rising bump.
“You need to wash your hair.”
Phoenix did not bother to open his eyes, though he was melting under the ministrations. “I washed it less than two days ago.”
“Your hair is so insanely thick that’s too long.”
“Is it really that bad?”
“No, but it’s so nice when it’s clean.”
Phoenix smiled, leaning further into Edgeworth’s hand.
“Well, when we’re old and senile maybe I’ll still have hair.”
“The Edgeworths gray early, but we do not go bald, thank you very much.”
“You had gray hair in fourth grade.”
“It was brown, thank you very much.”
“It was gray.”
Edgeworth twisted Phoenix’s hair around his knuckles, hard. Phoenix hissed in pain and pulled away a little.
“I didn’t say it was bad! It was actually quite endearing!”
Edgeworth loosened his grip. “Uh-huh.”
“Fine.” Phoenix opened his eyes, smiling crookedly. “I’ll tell you what. We’ll sit through this, however the hell long it takes, go home, take a nice, long, hot shower… and sleep for the next twelve hours. How does that sound?”
Edgeworth groaned and collapsed on top of Phoenix, fingers still tangled loosely in his hair.
“That sounds orgasmic.”
“I don’t have the energy for that.”
“Well, that’s a first.”
Phoenix snorted softly and threaded his hand through Edgeworth’s hair, now just long enough to tie back in a tail (with a lavender ribbon, as though Edgeworth were not already foppish enough), and undid the ribbon, something he was getting more adept at doing with one hand. He pulled off the hair-tie beneath and smoothed his fingers through his hair, and Miles purred low in his throat, felt more than heard, pulled off his glasses, and shifted so that his head rested in the crook of Phoenix’s neck.
They drifted in and out of a semi-conscious sleep like that for what felt like hours, but was only moments—somehow his mind dropped far enough out of consciousness for time to collapse in on itself. Though the floor was hard it was strangely comfortable, even with Edgeworth’s heavy weight resting on him; something in the way he lay helped to stretch out his spine and align his back. It was a strange, paradoxical blessing that something so comfortable and rewarding would seem to last longer than it actually was, and not the other way around.
They were rudely awakened during the trial recess when a runner was sent to ask them how they were doing and if the trial was proceeding satisfactorily from their vantage point. Miles was fairly disgruntled at being found sleeping on a courthouse floor with his lover, by a college intern no less, but Phoenix laughed it off and asked the runner if they could have some coffee. A lot of it, actually. The whole pot would be nice.
It was inevitable when the trial proceeded that it would come to this. Phoenix and Miles knew full well Vera Misham’s connection to the old State v. Gramarye case, so when Klavier Gavin finally made the connection and utterly lost his composure, it did not shock them in the least. Through it all Vera stared intently, almost hypnotized, at him, as she had been the whole trial, though now she looked like she was on the verge of a panic attack. She kept chewing at her thumbnail and looking down when Klavier demanded that she answer him.
“Objection!”
Apollo slammed his hands onto his desk. “Prosecutor Gavin! The defendant is answering all of your questions! Stop badgering her!”
Klavier paused for a long time, staring hard at Apollo, disheveled and with his back to the wall—literally. He had a custom of banging the wall with his fist when he was cornered, and now it looked like the only thing holding him up. Sweat was beading on his brow.
“He’s told you nothing, has he? Your soiled, sullied mentor. Nothing?”
Phoenix felt a sickening knot tighten in his stomach. He knew damn well what was coming. He had gotten used to it in the past seven years and had gotten damn good at hiding behind an indifferent mask. None of that stopped the nausea he felt every time somebody cut deeper.
“Sullied…” Apollo looked genuinely confused. “…who?”
“Phoenix Wright! Who else?”
That name. His name, being spit like an insult, like something distasteful, sliced through his gut. He stared at the screen, back straight, though he knew full well nobody but Edgeworth could see him right now.
He would never again hide in shame. No matter how much it hurt.
“…Daddy?”
Trucy’s voice cut through his heart. It was not venomous, but had a pain all its own, sharper and cleaner. His hand shook around his Styrofoam coffee cup.
“He never told you about the trial, seven years ago? About how he came to lose his attorney’s badge?”
Apollo stayed silent.
“It was a certain piece of evidence that decided his fate, you know. A certain diary. On the back, it bore the mark of a silk hat.”
He closed his eyes, waiting for the inevitable outburst from Apollo, which was not long in coming. He did not realize he was shaking so badly until coffee sloshed from the cup and scalded the back of his hand.
The familiar smash of hands on a desk.
Edgeworth’s fingers interlaced with his free hand and gripped, hard.
“Vera! You must tell us! The evidence you made was used in a trial seven years ago. Who asked ‘Drew Misham’, you, to forge that evidence?”
Phoenix squeezed back.
“…For all of our sakes, who was it?”
Vera gnawed on her thumbnail. She could not tear her gaze from Klavier. She stared at him as though he were a ghost.
“…we… met only once.”
Her voice was barely a whisper, but the courtroom was so silent it carried to the microphones. Apollo stared, even more intent.
“You… you met the client? Well, who was it?”
Vera kept staring at the demon she saw in Klavier. The color was progressively draining from her face.
“…it was…” she whispered, barely audible. “…it was…”
Trucy leaned over to whisper something to Apollo. Klavier looked like absolute hell.
“Yes, what? Is there something about me?”
She chewed. Her hand was staring to shake.
“…I remember clearly… I remember who gave me the book… the diary…”
She paused. Apollo barked, “Who was it?”
Vera stared at him for a moment, and suddenly made an anguished, strangled noise. She clutched at her throat. Her face was chalk-white.
Whatever demon was chasing her in Klavier’s guise finally caught her, and her pupils contracted in terror.
“Ve…Vera!”
The whisper should not have been audible. Somehow, Phoenix was certain of what she said as she crashed to the ground.
“The… De… vil…”
-------------------------------------------
The report from the hospital was bleak. Vera was suffering from atroquinine poisoning, of which there were no known survivors to date, yet was somehow still holding onto life in the ICU. The doctors were doing everything they could. Nobody had any idea how she had gotten the poison—it was relatively fast-acting, with a fifteen-minute kill time, and she had been under the direct custody of the court the entire morning. She had even been on the witness stand, in plain sight of God and country, longer than the toxicology would permit her to have been poisoned before taking the stand.
Atroquinine was an oral poison. Though it had a vanishingly low lethal dose at 0.002 mg for an adult human, not a drop of liquid, nor a crumb of food, had touched her lips the entire time, not even court-provided water.
After receiving the report on Vera’s status, Phoenix rushed to the green-screen camera setup along the curved balcony he and Edgeworth had inhabited and managed a rather smooth segue from Vera’s collapse to the footage of the trial from seven years ago and the investigations involved therein. He was shocked at how smoothly and confidently he managed to sound; he wondered if anybody watching was fooled into thinking that he had everything planned out—even this recent catasterfuck. Ten years ago he would have been transparently rattled. Once they had set the tapes to air the rest of the footage they had compiled so far—hell, they had the jurists until 5 PM, and they might as well make use of their time as the trial was suspended for the duration of the day—they rushed into the courtroom lobby where Phoenix met with Apollo and Trucy while Edgeworth collapsed onto one of the benches and rested his head back against the wall.
“This is insane,” Edgeworth mumbled when Phoenix collapsed onto the bench beside him.
“No shit?”
“Nothing but her own nails touched her lips the entire time. This doesn’t make sense—”
They both stopped cold and stared at each other. Their eyes widened in mutual realization.
“Miles, you’re brilliant.”
Phoenix kissed Miles—hard and fast, just on the lips—to an annoying catcall from across the lobby that sounded suspiciously like Trucy, and stood up, bouncing on the balls of his feet.
“We have to go to Drew Studio and the Prison. Now.”
“…now?”
“That yellow envelope.” Phoenix started pacing. “Bushel was sure he saw it. I know it’s the one that was in Gavin’s cell. I know it. We have to get it.” He paused for a moment. “Yeah. I’d bet anything Bushel’s at Drew Studio trying to dig something up. He was practically creaming himself on the witness stand over this story. We have to talk to him. The bastard knows far more than he’s letting on.”
“Don’t you think that will be obvious when the jurors see that he was involved with Zak Gramarye?”
“Exactly.” Phoenix was getting giddy with excitement. “It’s all linked. Miles, everything is going to come together, and that nail polish is the last piece of the puzzle. Past, present, everything.” He snapped, suddenly remembering something. “We need to talk to Valant Gramarye. We need to go by Sunshine Coliseum.”
Miles sighed heavily and drew his hand over his eyes. Good God, here he goes. I wish he wasn’t always so damn right so I did not have to indulge him.
“Phoenix, I haven’t slept in thirty-six hours. I don’t think I can survive the drive downtown, let alone to Lancaster.”
“Then… well… shit, who else drives?”
“Most people over the age of sixteen drive.”
“Yeah, I’ll get my license when this is all over, but who the hell can we get to drive us all the way out there?”
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Detective Gumshoe had finally been roped into driving them across Los Angeles and halfway to hell in his rusted clap-trap of a Japanese car. He had originally wanted to take one of the police cruisers so he could blare the siren and push the speedometer to its limits the entire time, but given that he was planning on leaving Los Angeles he could not take the car out of its jurisdiction, and when he asked to borrow a car from Highway Patrol, he was laughed at.
Gumshoe was every bit as annoying as Edgeworth had feared he was going to be. He babbled ceaselessly the entire time about how impressed he was with their jury system, sir, and how much he was sure it was going to help the police department and the justice system at large, and how did he figure that poor girl had gotten poisoned, and what kind of monster would want to poison such a sweet little thing, etc. The idiot did not even take frosty silence as an answer to his incessant questions as a hint, though Phoenix, being too polite as usual, would indulge him in conversation and encourage him. Originally Gumshoe had insisted on taking an active role in the investigation, offering any and all services he could possibly think of in a manner that reminded Miles of Pess when she wanted the opportunity to do something good to get a treat. He finally gave it up when Edgeworth snapped that his presence would compromise the integrity of the investigation, as these men would talk to Wright and Wright alone, so sit down, shut up, and stay in the car.
The drive to Drew Studio was short and sweet, and Gumshoe had the audacity to remain silent while Edgeworth was recording Wright’s video footage, huddled up with his laptop in the back seat, until Phoenix emerged from the studio flushed but determined. He was daintily sipping a rather atrocious hot tea Gumshoe had insisted on getting for him from the 7-Eleven down the street, along with various other high-fructose corn-syrup semi-edible atrocities he had procured as a makeshift lunch. As unpalatable as it was, Edgeworth could not bring himself to chuck the cup out the window, especially not when he kept catching Gumshoe watching him, satisfied, out of the corners of his eyes. Phoenix tore thankfully into one of the packaged cherry pies with genuine gusto as they started driving to Sunshine Coliseum, mumbling that he hadn’t eaten since yesterday. Gumshoe offered Edgeworth a Nutella bar, saying that he knew Mr. Edgeworth had European sensibilities and Nutella was European and all, and well, he just put two and two together. Edgeworth mumbled a ‘thank you’, which seemed enough to make Gumshoe beam until they were done with Valant and well out of the LA area.
That was the easy part. The two-hour drive to the State Prison was hell. Phoenix sat up front with Gumshoe and chatted as much as his tired brain would allow, though it was obvious he was lost in thought most of the time. His silences were punctuated by various seventies rock bands from his mp3 player, often played too damn loud. Edgeworth had stretched out in the back-seat with his laptop and was frantically splicing and organizing the evidence and footage Phoenix had collected at Drew Studio. Under normal circumstances this would not have taken so long, but his fatigued brain ran at half-speed at best, and his eyes were getting bleary from staring at the screen. They finally pulled past the security checkpoint a mile out from the prison and parked in front of the solitary block, in the same damn parking space Edgeworth had taken up just about a month ago. It was just as well; he was getting to the point that if Gumshoe made one more goddamn joke every time he saw directions to Phoenix at freeway intersections, he was going to gut him.
The sun had just set; there was still a purplish glow on the desert horizon, and the day’s warmth was still radiating from the ground. Phoenix straightened his hat and made a cursory check of his video equipment before kissing Edgeworth quickly and stumbling into the prison.
This was their last chance. Everybody in the car knew it.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Sorry, sir. Prisoner Kristoph Gavin is currently ‘occupied’.”
Phoenix’s stomach dropped in sheer excitement. He thought he heard—more felt, somehow—Edgeworth’s breath catch from across the air. He faintly heard Gumshoe yell “Score, pal!” before shushing immediately in a way that suggested Edgeworth had given him the Demon Prosecutor glare.
“I see...” He managed to keep his expression nonchalant. “Do you know when he’ll be finished?”
The guard—the same woman who had chatted Phoenix up earlier—scratched the back of her head uncomfortably.
“Ah, erm. Well…”
“Could you go find out?”
“Ah…” The guard shrugged. “Certainly, sir. Please wait here a moment.”
She should have known better than to leave him unattended in Gavin’s cell. By all rights he should not have been allowed to go through Gavin’s things. He chalked it up to his insane luck—it was either excellent or terrible, but never much in-between.
Everything was the same as it had been the last time he was there, save for a yellow envelope on Gavin’s writing desk. Phoenix made a beeline for it and checked the sender. Drew Misham.
“If this is the last letter that Drew Misham wrote…” He spoke more for the benefit of the camera in his hat than for himself. “…then there’s something I need to do. The last thing I need to do, in fact.” He took a deep breath and fished a small spray bottle out of his hoodie pocket. “Here goes! Let’s see if this atroquinine spray finds anything…”
He sprayed the envelope. A volatile, acrid smell filled his nose, and the bottle got cold. The edges of the stamp glowed vivid, ice-blue.
“So this was Drew Misham’s ‘messenger of death’. It was this stamp alright! No mistaking it! And his last letter… was sent to Kristoph Gavin.”
He opened the letter and read it over carefully, giving the camera plenty of time to soak in every word. Edgeworth mumbled that he had captured a clear still of the image. His lips curled into a satisfied, vengeful smile.
“Gotcha,” he whispered. “Finally… decisive evidence!”
“What’s this? A burglar… in jail?”
“…Gavin!”
Though he had been expecting that voice, it still made his stomach drop out. But it didn’t matter anymore. He had everything he needed. Nothing Gavin could do now would stop that.
He slowly folded the letter, slid it back into its envelope, and turned around, the letter still in his hand. Gavin was smiling at him coldly, as sticky-sweet and poisonous as ever. His hair looked slightly damp, and Phoenix could smell soap on him.
“I didn’t know you moonlighted in larceny, Wright.”
“Gavin… there’s something I have to ask you.”
“ ‘Can I steal your stuff?’ The answer is ‘no’.”
Kristoph’s eyes were glued to the envelope. Though there was no need to keep the original now, Phoenix’s hand tightened slightly around it. He felt as though somebody had written ‘My hat is a camera’ in Sharpie on his forehead, and it suddenly felt clunky and conspicuous. The hat seemed to be the last thing on Kristoph’s mind, though.
“My apologies,” he finally said, straightening and pushing his glasses up his nose, “but there’s not much I care to discuss.”
This may be the last time he was alone with this man, or even in the same room with him. There were countless things he wanted to say—that Miles Edgeworth had survived his cowardly attack and was helping to orchestrate the final blow to his plan, that he could scarcely imagine the scum who would murder two fathers to save his own arse, that tomorrow his adoring younger brother would see the full extent of his true colors, as would the entire court.
“Vera Misham hasn’t received her verdict yet,” he finally said. He stared, hard. “You follow me, Gavin?”
Gavin’s mouth twisted into a sickening, relaxed smile.
Just as every cop is a criminal
And all the sinners, saints
As heads is tails
Just call me Lucifer
'Cause I'm in need of some restraint
“There are no known survivors of atroquinine poisoning. But, it never hurts to hope.”
It took every ounce of willpower Phoenix possessed not to punch Gavin in the face. He clenched his fists inside his hoodie pockets and stared, hard. Gavin stared back, still smiling, though the corners of his mouth were curling in distaste.
“…okay.” Phoenix turned on his heel. “I’ll be leaving now, then.”
“Wright. Wait.”
Phoenix froze.
“Would you mind leaving that letter? It’s private.”
Phoenix paused for a long time before turning. Kristoph was holding out his hand, still smiling, though the longer Phoenix merely stared at him, the more his eye started to twitch. Phoenix turned fully and slapped the envelope into his palm, smiling himself.
It was a genuine smile.
So if you meet me
Have some courtesy
Have some sympathy, and some taste
Use all your well-learned politesse
Or I'll lay your soul to waste
As soon as he got to the car, after copious hoots and being swung around in a bear hug by Detective Gumshoe and an intensely satisfied, proud smile from Edgeworth, he called Apollo Justice and asked him to watch his inbox for a rather large video file.
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And the rest of the trial is well-documented history. Once the identities of those first six jurists became declassified, many studies had been made of how Phoenix Wright’s selection of those six particular people may have affected the fate of the right to a trial by a jury of one’s peers in the state of California. As of October 10, 2026, nobody could be denied that right any longer. Klavier Gavin’s words at the end of that trial, “The law isn’t absolute. It’s filled with contradictions,” became a mainstay party-line for pro-jury activists, young and old, rebellious and conservative alike. The courage and purity he displayed in being able to face his elder brother’s crimes earned him a near-iconic status. He became a paragon of street-wise justice, a rebel for free love and rock and roll with a pure heart, and his cult following grew even after the disbandment of the Gavineers.
Though the inclusion of Thalassa Gramarye, nee Lamiroir, as a jurist was considered by some a gross conflict of interests, others concluded that since she had no connection to the Misham family her inclusion was warranted, even brilliant, given that her memory was restored and she was eventually reunited with her two children, Apollo Justice and Trucy Wright. Apollo was a legal adult by the time this came to light, and though Trucy was still a minor Thalassa’s ten-year disappearance meant that she had long-since been deemed legally dead, so as far as the courts were concerned, Phoenix Wright and Miles Edgeworth were still Trucy’s legal guardians unless they wanted to relinquish custody. Thalassa would need intensive therapy for quite some time, so she left her daughter in the care of the two men though she spent a great deal of time catching up with her children. Her psychotherapist said that her condition and outlook improved greatly every time she got to see them, though she was pained by the fact that she had missed both of her children growing up. She was proud of what honest, strong, and resourceful adults they were becoming, and every time Apollo defended an innocent or Trucy wowed crowds with her magic, she would gush proudly to anybody who cared to listen.
The Wright-Edgeworth patchwork family became even larger and stranger. Though Apollo was too close to Phoenix’s age to really consider Phoenix a surrogate father he found himself spending more and more time with his half-sister and her strange, adoptive father, who had finally gained his trust and respect. That was expected. Even Vera Misham’s frequent visits for dinner given that she was now also alone were not unexpected, nor was the way Apollo grew increasingly flustered in her presence, nor the way Trucy ever let him off the hook for that.
The sudden and frequent inclusion of Klavier Gavin was not expected, but no less welcome. And the resulting obvious conflict Apollo felt concerning him and Vera left the poor kid deeply confused and made Phoenix laugh at him. Regularly.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“You realize you’re going to re-take your Bar now.”
“Hmm.”
Phoenix looked across the courtroom lobby to where Apollo and Trucy were being interviewed by a crowd of reporters, foremost and most pushy of whom was Bushel. Klavier Gavin, who had won even Edgeworth’s grudging respect over the course of the morning, was surrounded by his own knot of reporters. Had he less experience with paparazzi Phoenix would have expected him to have a meltdown right there on live television, but he handled their questions with shocking grace and poise. Even the judge was accosted on the way out of the courtroom, and he glowed under the attention.
In an effort to avoid the same treatment, Phoenix and Edgeworth were watching the proceedings from behind the glass walls of the balcony around the lobby. A few reporters had turned to take pictures of them, though they were blissfully kept from proceeding up the stairs by security. Phoenix grasped Miles’ hand and waved when another reporter pointed her camera at them, and Miles pulled out of his grasp.
“Phoenix, we are on camera.”
“Exactly. Smile, or they’ll think we’re having a lover’s spat.”
“I fail to see how it’s any of their damn business whether or not we’re having a lover’s spat.”
Phoenix laughed. “Are we?”
“Stop changing the subject. You’re re-taking your Bar.”
“I’m a bit rusty for that.”
“You’ll study. I’ll make you study.”
“I was considering maybe really learning how to play piano now that I have more time on my hands.” He paused. “Besides, I’ve been a piano player longer than I’ve been a lawyer now.”
“Oh, shut up. You never stopped being a lawyer. You can learn all the piano you want, as far as I’m concerned. You’re still going to re-take your Bar.”
A familiar voice inside Phoenix’s head said ‘He’s right, you know.’ And Phoenix turned.
The hallway was empty. Phoenix felt—strongly—that there was somebody there, watching him, nonetheless. The presence was overwhelming. His heart started pounding.
“Phoenix? What’s wrong?”
“Shhh.”
He held up his hand for silence and stared harder. Maybe something in the quality of the air changed, fluctuated, but he still saw nothing.
And then, as though something else had reached down through his nerves, he grabbed the magatama in his pocket.
The breath caught in his throat. He gasped.
Mia Fey was watching him with her arms loosely crossed, dressed in the skirt suit and scarf she always wore in court. Diego Armando stood behind her with his hands in his pockets, hair dark and wild and dressed in the red shirt he used to wear as a defense attorney. He was giving Phoenix a rueful, but begrudgingly proud smile.
They both looked happy. Phoenix could feel the closeness between them. Their smiles were infectious; they tugged at the corners of his mouth.
“Phoenix?”
Phoenix grabbed Miles’ hand, and Miles gasped. His pupils fixated on where the ghosts stood, and they contracted in shock. His breath caught.
Mia giggled behind her hand at Miles’ reaction. Diego placed his hand on her shoulder and leaned down to whisper in her ear, and she laughed even harder.
“Hey—” The confusion dissipated from Edgeworth’s face quickly. “What did you say to her?”
The ghosts started laughing harder, and Phoenix was now cracking up as well. Miles rolled his eyes and shoved his free hand in his pocket.
“What do they want, then?”
The ghosts disappeared. Miles’ jaw dropped again. He stuttered.
“Would you calm down?”
Phoenix was still laughing. It had been a long, long time since Edgeworth had seen him so thoroughly happy and uninhibited.
“I think they just wanted to say that they’re proud of us.”
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“Phoenix.”
Phoenix and Clockwork looked up at the door. Professor Edgeworth was standing there, arms crossed, leaning against the doorframe. He had an unfathomable expression, tinged with nostalgia and the weight of memory, though the corners of his mouth were slightly upturning, and the smile had already reached his eyes. Phoenix wondered how long he had been standing outside the door eavesdropping.
“I was wondering why I was not being assailed by your infernal noise.”
“You’re damn right it’s infernal.”
Phoenix stuck out his tongue and gave Miles the devil horns. Clockwork started laughing and gathered up Clover, who curled up, kneading her skin like any normal cat, and fell asleep in her palm.
“Right.” Miles rolled his eyes. “I was under the impression I was married to a man in his fifties, not committing statutory rape.”
“Oh, Miles, this is Victoria Clockwork; she’s a PhD candidate in, uh, history of, uh—”
“History of evolution of social systems.” She stood and held her hand out to Edgeworth, who took it. “You’re Professor Edgeworth, aren’t you?”
“Yes. You have an appointment with me tomorrow, if I recall correctly.”
“Oh, good. I can get your side of the story and see how it compares to Professor Wright’s.”
“Oh God,” Phoenix mumbled.
“Oh, I’d be glad to give my side of the story.”
“Excellent. Thank you, sir.”
She turned to Phoenix, having just spent what became an intensely frank and intimate afternoon, and held out her hand, which he took warmly.
“Thank you so much for all of your time, sir. This—what you’ve told me is absolutely perfect. Just what I was looking for.”
“No problem.”
She excused herself and left, leaving the two men alone in Phoenix’s office. Phoenix sighed and sat back, taking a deep drink from his water bottle.
“We’re late to dinner.”
Phoenix thought for a moment, looked at his desk clock, and sputtered when he realized that it was already almost seven. Miles pulled his coat off the hook on his door and threw it at him.
“You’re going to be the one to explain to Maggey why we’re late.”
“You wouldn’t do that to me.”
“Wouldn’t I?”
“I’ll leave you to fend for yourself with Gumshoe the entire night. I don’t care how much he’s had to drink.”
--------------------------------------------------
“What do you think, Kitten? Do you think that could have been you had you still been alive?”
In the physical plane, in Phoenix’s office, Miles sputtered indignantly and said that Phoenix would not dare do that to him. Though their physical manifestations were only necessary for the sake of communicating with those still-living, even in metaphysical space Mia was doing the equivalent of laughing behind her hand.
“Hm? I’m sorry, what?”
“Revolutionizing the court system, returning power to the hands of the people?”
His consciousness merged with hers, caressed it, in a way that was equivalent to kissing slowly up her neck. In death they found themselves in a state of perpetual loving euphoria akin to a lazy Sunday morning after a mind-blowing Saturday night, though they could easily phase into an orgasmic sort of union should they so desire.
“There’s really no way of knowing if I would have been in the right position at the right time to do that. Life’s strange like that. But I do think the fact that he never wanted to be in that position means it was quite fortunate that he was.”
