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Elegy of Sorrow
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Author:  Thane [ Sat Jul 06, 2013 7:14 pm ]
Post subject:  Elegy of Sorrow

Hello everyone.

So I'm not much of a writer...in fact I don't think I've ever written ANYTHING that could be called a story other than my moderately popular story called "The Hokage in the Afterlife" on fanfiction.net where I make fun of everything related to Naruto (and believe you me, that's a lot of material right there). I also don't count school projects since I was never allowed to write about whatever I wanted.

But all of a sudden I got inspired to write something, so I figured I could always try writing Ace Attorney stuff since I'm a sucker for crime stories and I really like the characters in that universe.

So here it is, an attempt at making something that could look like a story according to that illiterate kid down the street.

Spoiler:
Disclaimer: Phoenix Wright belongs to Shu Takumi and Capcom. The following is a non-profit fanbased story written for entertainment purposes only. I own nothing nor do I claim to. Please support the official release.

..

The schoolyard was empty, as it should be at this hour. The sound of the rain was almost deafening as it hit fiercely hit the ground without any signs of stopping – no man in their right mind would ever set foot outside on a night like this.

Just as planned, then.

She was not entirely sure as to why she was here – it could have simply been an empty threat from a jealous nobody, or someone’s lousy idea of a joke. Still, there were a lot of ‘ifs’ in that sentence, and as a wise man once said: better safe than sorry.

She thought she could see one lonely soul standing there in the middle of the chaotic rain, although it was nigh impossible to see who it was. She paused for a minute, and then hid behind a nearby tree. The mysterious person in question had most likely not seen her yet, so she would just have to be patience, wait for Mr. Blackmailer to slip up and reveal himself and then report him to the police, and this whole pointless little game would finally be put to an end.

The supposed blackmailer stood completely still in spite of the harsh weather, wearing a longcoat and a hat, from the looks of it. Tsk, just like out of a cheesy police film. Oh boy, why did she always have to deal with the weirdos?

Quickly running out of patience, she decided to just confront the ridiculously patient blackmailer.

“Oi!” she shouted. “Hey, creep! I’m here, just like you wanted! Now…”

*Bang*

Even the downpour could not completely silence the single gunshot that was fired. The person in the longcoat did not flee. He watched as the life slowly left his victim’s shocked eyes.

Not only until after she had left this world would a low laughter echo throughout the desolate grounds.



Earlier that day

“Ah! It is good to be home!” Maya said as she opened the door to the tiny, messy office that was their home and workplace.

Behind her was Phoenix Wright, carrying several bags and one very heavy suitcase. “Are you sure?” he asked shakily, clearly struggling with the weight of his luggage. “You just had a, what, five months vacation? I didn’t think you’d happily embrace solving mysteries and putting bad guys behind bars right off the bat.”

“Hey!” Maya said, puffing up her cheeks as she usually did whenever she was (pretending to be) annoyed. “What do you mean *I* had a vacation? What about you?”

“Well, I don’t know if you noticed this during our five months in Europe but I was STUDYING! Remember, I got a scholarship for studying a bunch of countries’ different legal systems? That was the reason why we could afford going in the first place!” Phoenix said as he got inside and threw all the bags on the nearby tiny couch. “And don’t forget that you made me go BACK to the US with Pearls after one month just because you didn’t want her to spend half a day on a plane with an elder from Kurain. Not only did it cost a fortune but I missed a very interesting lecture…” He added sourly, closing the door behind him.

“Oh Nick” Maya said as she waved her hand nonchalantly. “I’m sure neither I nor Pearly will ever forget that kind deed. Besides, we couldn’t have had her with us for the entire trip. We only let her come with us because we were going to England first where they actually speak our language.”

“Which, may I add; you didn’t know until I told you two weeks before we left.” Phoenix said teasingly.

And cue the cheek puffing. “Hey! How should I have known about that?!”

“Well I figured you’d know at least a little about history, linguistics or geography…Other than that, one would think the name ENG-LAND was a dead giveaway.”

“YOU’RE a dead giveaway, old man” Maya said as she stuck out her tongue. She picked up a few bags, went to what could be called her room and started unpacking. “So, which country did you like the best?” she asked suddenly.

Phoenix, who was in the middle of recuperating from carrying too many bags and silently cursing Maya for more or less force feeding him unhealthy food which was the only logical explanation as to why one man would be this exhausted from five minutes of excruciatingly hard labor, thought for a few seconds. “Are you talking about their legal systems or just in general?” he asked.

“Oh give me a break! Why would I care about whether or not they wear wigs to court?”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe because you’re working in a law firm? You do realize we’re more or less partners, right?” (Except that if we were actually equal, we would take turns paying for lunch, you little cheapskate)

Although Phoenix couldn’t see it, Maya appeared to be deep in thought for about five seconds before saying “just answer the question, Nick!”

Now it was Phoenix’s turn to contemplate. What countries did he like? Well they had only been to five, and he had been studying most of the time. Of course he did have time to explore and do the touristy things in the cities he had visited together with Maya. “Well, if we forget about the weather, I did enjoy London. The people were charming and had great accents, they had some of the best tea I have ever tasted and I just enjoyed the atmosphere in general.” He said after a while. “What about you?”

“I knew it! Admit that you just want an excuse to wear a wig to court!” was Maya’s answer.

“Well I never!” Phoenix said in his best attempt at sounding British. He himself heard that he failed miserably.

“BA-hahaha! Your accent is terrible! You sound like a fake Edgeworth! Oh, speaking of Edgey, do you think he wears cravats because he thinks he can’t pull of the wig look?” Maya said as she returned to the “living room”

“I think the wig issue is something that keeps him up at night.” Phoenix replied sarcastically. “Now tell me, which country did you enjoy the most?”

“Oh I liked all of them!” Maya replied quickly with a wide grin on her face. “I had no idea European food was so diverse and tasty!”

“That’s probably because there’s no such thing as ‘European food’. Remember, there are a lot of different countries there. Phoenix deadpanned.

“Pfft, technicalities!” Maya said as she waved her hand dismissively. “Well I must admit I was positively surprised by Germany. I thought we’d run into Von Karmas wherever we went, but they were surprisingly friendly. Makes you wonder what made Manfred and Franziska so depressing in the first place.”

Phoenix gave a nod. He, too, had been afraid of running into a bunch of whip wielding prosecutors on the streets but he was positively surprised they were non-existent. Instead he had a few interesting conversations with a glamorous fellow named Klavier.

“But I liked Sweden, too! Did you know that they have their own language? I was sure they spoke German up there while riding around on polar bears.” Maya said.

“Of course I knew that.” Phoenix replied with a hint of arrogance in his voice. (That wasn’t German?! I spent a month greeting people with ‘Guten Tag’! Oh man…)

“Oh well, one of these days, I’ll make Swedish meatballs!” Maya exclaimed happily.

“Woah woah woah, hold the phone, you’re offering to cook? First of all, are you actually suggesting making us BOTH food? And secondly, should I really be here when you cook? I mean, the chances of something exploding are quite high…” Phoenix teased.

Maya gave him a soft slap on the back of his head. “Ha-ha-ha, very funny.” She walked over to the door and started going through any interesting looking mail they had received while they had been away.”Hm…nothing official-looking…” she said absentmindedly. “Either everyone knew we were gone or no one has tried hiring you over mail. You suck, Nick” she continued playfully.

Phoenix stood up and feigned a hurt look and dramatically put the back of his hand against his forehead. “I will not take this kind of abuse! I’ll go and see how Charley is doing; at least he always respects me. Besides, I have to make sure Detective Gumshoe treated him properly in our absence.”

“You let ol’ Dick take care of Charley for us? How did you pull that one off?” Maya asked.

“I pretended to be Edgeworth over the phone, obviously.”

“WHAT?! THAT WORKED?!”

“Of course I didn’t do that! He did it for 50 dollars a month! Which is more or less what our clients pay us…” Phoenix said. “…You think I could have made him do it for free if I pretended to be Edgeworth?”

“You could’ve told him to jump and he would’ve ask how high!” Maya said confidently, only to quickly change the subject. “I take it from your sad tone we’re broke again? Same old same old I guess. Too bad, I enjoyed being rich for a change.”

“You were rich? It was my scholarship!” Phoenix reminded her as he made sure Gumshoe had not killed Charley in any extravagant manner which, to his mild surprise, he had not. In fact, the plant looked healthier than ever before. Who knew Gumshoe had green fingers? “Looks like Charley is okay at least. I hereby declare the Wright & Co Law Offices back in business! Now if only we had some champagne I would kindly ask for a new beginning and a better year without any kidnappings or prosecutors who have a vendetta against me.”

Maya giggled at Phoenix’s passionate little speech. “It’s July! Isn’t it a bit too late to ask for a better year?”

Phoenix sat down at his desk and turned on the computer in order to make sure he hadn’t missed a super important email or something before the jet lag hit him too hard. “I don’t see why it would be too late – we haven’t even been home since February, and I daresay we’ve had a pretty damn good year so far. No one in our immediate vicinity has died, no one has tried to kidnap you, no one has been impersonating me and we’ve been able to travel. Believe it or not but I think we’re starting to turn things around. Maybe we aren’t actually walking cans of bad luck disguised as humans after all!”

“Yeah right. Just you wait, I bet someone on our plane back here died of food poisoning and I’m their prime suspect.” Maya said as she looked at the computer screen over Phoenix’s shoulder. Seeing nothing of interest she moved over to the pile of mail and started to systematically throw away all of the advertisement that didn’t involve food or coupons. “And there’d be a bunch of witnesses saying I did it too, and they’d find fingerprints on the vial containing the poison and somehow Larry would be involved, probably as the captain…” she went on.

“And then I’d have to save you yet again.” Phoenix replied with a smirk. “You’re not getting away from doing paperwork that easily, I can assure you. God forbid I’d have to hire someone who actually didn’t need hours to print papers or business cards.”

He could hear the words along the line of “I take offense to that!” come out of the living room. He shook his head and smiled, wondering what he’d do without her. Sure she wasn’t the most efficient assistant in the world but she did actually contribute to the humble success of their company. Of course her greatest attribute was her ability to turn every day into a little adventure, and make even handling the paperwork into a somewhat pleasant chore with her constant small talk.

“So have we missed anything important?” Maya asked suddenly, bringing Phoenix back to reality.

“Nothing that requires our attention at the moment it looks like. Imagine that, we might actually be able to survive this jet lag! Although I guess we’ll have to go client searching tomorrow if we want to have somewhere to live by the end of the month.”

Maya came in to the room, giving Phoenix a handful of letters addressed to him. “You’re so dramatic, Nick! If that evil landlord comes I’m sure I could use some womanly charms on him – I’m Mia Fey’s sister. She was the master of the feminine ways, after all. I’m pretty sure I could make even Franziska back off of Larry if I used my puppy dog eyes!”

This was going to hurt, but really, it was Maya’s fault for giving him such a golden opening.
“Womanly charms? You mean your ability to utterly devour a doughnut in one bite?”

Cheek puffs!

“Say goodbye to your spikes, Nick!” Maya said as she ran up to Phoenix and started ruffling his hair fiercely.

“Nooo! Not the hair! My glorious spikes!” Phoenix cried out as his trademark hairdo was being savagely attacked by a tiny 22-year-old in hippie clothes.

“That was a low blow, Nick!” Maya said and gave him a wink, indicating she was entirely unaffected by Phoenix’s remark. “An eye for an eye as they say.”

Phoenix looked sadly into the mirror on the wall, looking as if he had lost a dear friend. “Do you have any idea how long time it takes to fix my hair in the morning? You’re lucky I’m going to bed soon anyway.”

Maya feigned a sigh. “First of all, yes, I do know how long time it takes for you to fix your precious hair – 38 minutes, usually. Not including when you mess something up and scream ‘why me?!’ and have to redo it.”

Phoenix was secretly both impressed and a bit embarrassed.

“Secondly, what would you have done if I did that during the day?” she continued, clearly curious.

“That’s easy, I would have messed up that little ball on the top of your head.”

“You wouldn’t!”

“Oh, I would. Besides, I think you’d look better with your hair down.”

“While I thank you for the backhanded compliment, that’s just not going to happen!”

“It will. You made this hairy personal! And one day I’ll make sure you try on some new clothes, too!”

“Lame pun, Nick! And who knows, maybe I should try a blue suit. I’m sure I could pull that off just as well as you. OH! You could try wearing a kilt! And a judicial wig! You’d be the most fabulous attorney ever!”

“That’s it, I’m going to bed. I’m exhausted, and I’m fairly certain thinking about me in a kilt and a British wig is going to give me nightmares. Good night now, kiddo.” Phoenix said as he tiredly moved past Maya on his way to his humble, tiny little room.

“Just one more thing Nick!” Maya suddenly said, sounding way more serious than she usually did.

“Yes?”

Maya ran up to him, stood on her toes and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. “Thanks for an amazing trip!” she said happily and started heading towards her room. “How’s that for womanly charms?” she said cheekily before closing her door for the night.

Phoenix watched as she closed the door before he started walking towards his own room again. When had little Maya become a woman? And more importantly, when did she start saying thank you? He started smiling as he pondered these questions this fine summer night of a year that had so far been absolutely flawless.


My train of thoughts/explanations

Spoiler:
I don't know much about writing, as I stated earlier, but I figured that some contrasts could work nicely in the beginning here.

I also thought that, while people already love Maya and Phoenix for the most part, if I don't try to establish MY versions of them, then the inevitable love sub plot wouldn't feel as meaningful. That's why I focused so much on them messing around.

Also, I've already got motives and stuff figured out. The biggest problem that I can see at the moment (aside from my awful English) is how I'll go about making the trial believable.

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