#the price i pay to draw ema again..

[monochromeblend]

another ema

[wardencommanderrodimiss]

Chapter Eight: these are not valid investigative procedures, Phoenix, what the fuck

last of the Phoenix POV chapters for now. This took so long to post because I’d been fighting with revisions to Ch 6 as well, but maybe we can get this rolling again now!

[Beginning] [Chapter Masterlist]

He tracked down Valant the night before the trial, after Apollo worriedly mentioned his reaction to the mystery envelope. The kid has decent instincts, even though Valant isn’t dangerous, not the way Magnifi was, not the way that Zak could be, only in the way that any witch could be dangerous, and particularly the way of certain witches Phoenix has known -- dangerous mostly to themselves. A fool in over his head, for purpose, for love, for power -- it’s an old story. So often the stories just repeat themselves.

“And that is it, then,” Valant says, staring up at the looming shadow of the coliseum in the darkness, where Phoenix found him prowling around its edges, searching for something that he never had a chance of finding. “My last chance, gone; Fate, toying with me, taunting me, and my life, lived in thrall to the dead.”

A witch’s power might fade with the death of a fae patron, and the chains might no longer be visible -- but something remains. Something always remains.

“I know how that feels,” Phoenix says. Valant turns his eyes over Phoenix, black glinting blue, and in nearly the same moment that the color changes, he recoils in horror, gripping his staff as though about to strike.

“You do not jest, Mr Attorney.”

-

Its relevance undeniable after the first day of Vera’s trial, Phoenix tells Apollo the most condensed summary as he can about the trial of Zak Gramarye and all of the magic and enchantments swirling about it. He never had the chance to make any notes on his conversation with Valant the prior night, so that, too, he must cut down to size -- Magnifi’s suicide, Zak’s false confession to clear Valant’s name, Valant’s own guilt for tampering with the scene of the suicide. What is in the envelope he leaves for another day -- it’s more a distraction than relevant to the case, and Trucy will have her chance soon to chase down the remainder of the Gramarye magic and undoubtedly drag Apollo along for the search. When they finish talking, he leaves Apollo with the court transcript and video of that last case to review again and the notes he made speaking with Valant and the Mishams during the course of his investigation seven years ago. There is more, there is still so much more -- he has not mentioned all of the curses marking each one of them, or Maya, and certainly not the picture that Zak gave him the last night of his life, showing Thalassa and her heirloom bracelets.

He had thought that Apollo’s aura seemed familiar, the first time he saw him at Kristoph’s office, and the reason for that is one of the truths that he does not yet intend to hand out.

Thalassa needs to know first.

(When Valant, murmuring to himself, said that they never saw a body, that she may still walk this earth -- Phoenix did not tell him what he already knew.)

There are several things that Thalassa needs to know, first.

Giving Apollo the transcript feels risky -- at the end of it he might decide that Klavier is the more trustworthy one. The prosecutor seems to have him charmed, magically or not (probably not), and Phoenix knows he hasn’t made a good impression on anyone since Mia. (No, not even Mia, but perhaps Ema.) And he certainly didn’t do a good job of defending himself in that trial -- Klavier was prepared (too prepared) and Phoenix too dazed and dazzled by enchantments and confused by who and how to know how to put up a fight.

He would have just told Apollo that Klavier was unusually prepared, beyond what a supposedly simple anonymous tip should have been able to get him, but he thinks that might just turn Apollo against him further, make him seem more to be playing Apollo against Klavier. He knows he can seem manipulative -- he knows he can be manipulative -- and this can’t be one of those times. Too much is at stake for Apollo not to believe him -- he needs Apollo to reach on his own the conclusion that Klavier knew too much. And if he accepts that, then he might be willing to accept what Phoenix knows about Kristoph and hasn’t yet divulged.

There’s just two last things he has to check before he can lay on Apollo the final answer of who killed the Mishams?

(No -- Vera isn’t dead, not yet. No one can lay down death so quickly like the royal women of Kurain.)

-

“I’ve a question for you, if I may, Valant,” Phoenix says. Valant is still staring at him, eyes bright in the dark, somewhere between suspicion and fear. “Zak’s Sight -- he was already losing it when I met him. It was part of his contract with Magnifi, and ended with his death.”

Valant nods, slowly, his blue eyes narrowing now, more suspicion than anything else. “Yet you, after all this time, can still See,” Phoenix continues.

“There is no question in your words, Mr Attorney,” Valant says.

“I think you can understand the question implicit,” Phoenix replies. Valant’s choice of a point of contention is a clear signal that this is not something he wants to discuss, but if Phoenix knew how to take a hint, he probably wouldn’t have ever become a lawyer in the first place.

“And I should imagine that a man so adjacent to the Fair Folk as yourself should understand the value of exact words.”

Fae-adjacent. That’s one way to describe it -- one way to point out that Phoenix should know to be careful in speech, not because he was a lawyer, but because of how he has tangled with magic. Not because of the path in life he chose, the purpose he worked toward, but because of what he stumbled into, this life equally blessed and cursed. His life, shaped by others, in thrall to death and the dead.

“You decided after Magnifi you still wanted a window to the Twilight Realm?” Phoenix asks. If Mia’s death had freed him -- what would he have done?

Valant slowly shakes his head. “Do you think that I before Magnifi went, never once prior having stepped forth from the world of the mundane? You must know that, as Zak Gramarye was not his, Valant Gramarye is not by birth my name.”

Phoenix nods. This still has about a hundred directions it could take. “And what I once was called I can no longer say, for that I traded away for the Sight. And from Magnifi I sought both power and a new self.”

“Your name for the Sight?” Phoenix repeats. He knows of of names taken, like Magnifi’s stripped from him entirely upon his banishment or Godot’s claimed by Dahlia in her victory, or given, has heard folktales of dead names erased or names that are otherwise not true tossed away in a dangerous trick to screw the fae in a deal – but to give away one’s self, plainly, in trade, is only a few steps down from selling one’s soul. How long did Valant spend nameless, without self, drifting unacknowledged until he became Valant? And no wonder he has been so determined to reacquire power, to be Magnifi’s heir, to be someone of import, someone known, if he knew what it was to not be named. “That seems a steep price for something so small.”

“Small? Mr Attorney, to have eyes that can See is no small thing. How many with even magic in their blood cannot See – how many who can See do not know how to interpret their vision? You were a lawyer, were you not – knowledge and truth are power over the Fair Folk. What price did you pay for clarity of vision?”

“It was a gift,” Phoenix says. From Maya, after Mia’s death, so that in that sole regard they could stand on equal footing, so that Maya could have an ally rather than a student.

Valant winces. “My condolences,” he says, and it sounds like he really does mean it. “In the long run, it is a far greater cost paid by you than I. For you to be close enough to one of the Folk that they chose to award you with a gift…” He taps his staff against the ground. “Zak and dear Thalassa were Magnifi’s favorites, and see where it left them. See the yoke you wear about your neck.”

-

“Hey, Mr Wright, you don’t think you can give me an advance warning next time when you decide that I’m working a critically important case for the future of our legal system?”

“Good to see you too, Ema.”

She flicks a chocolate snack at his face and turns back to the table where the evidence is laid out. “This is everything that Vera had on her when she collapsed,” she says. “Rest of the case evidence is elsewhere, but Mr Edgeworth said this is what you wanted to see.”

Phoenix nods. There is a pencil, its point worn down dull, the eraser flaking apart, and a sketchbook open to a page showing a wide sketch of the courtroom. She had given too much attention to shading in the columns behind the judge and the panels of the doors to have a promising career as a courtroom sketch artist, and while the drawing otherwise looks finished -- there, the judge’s shiny head, and there, Trucy with the wisp at her shoulder that is never hidden to the eye of a fae -- but the place where Klavier should be is a furiously scribbled cloud, some of the lines pressed so deeply into the page that the imprints must be visible on the next.

So she didn’t know what to make of what she saw. He files that fact away and turns his attention to what his real concern is, the glittering crystalline bottle of nail polish.

“From what the arresting officers said,” Ema says, “she wouldn’t be dragged out of the house without having those with her, just wailing and screaming -- said she couldn’t go outside without her good luck charm. Don’t know if that’s the sketchbook or the nail polish.”

“The polish,” Phoenix answers, automatically, ignoring Ema’s darkening expression at the fact that he is so immediately sure of such. “Have you--”

“Detective Skye, you were to wait for accompaniment before you allowed him in to look at the evidence. Wright. We talked about this.”

“Gumshoe and Faraday weren’t around, you weren’t here yet, and I trust him more than I trust anyone else around here,” Ema says. She doesn’t throw snacks at him, but munches forcefully.

“You really shouldn’t be eating in the evidence room,” Edgeworth says. “Both for the chance that you might contaminate the evidence, and because some of that evidence is poisoned.”

“Death comes for us all,” Ema says dryly. “Let me have my fucking Snackoos.”

Edgeworth furrows his brow and turns his glare on Phoenix, like he expects Phoenix to know how to deal with her, like they’re fellow members of the Bitter Cynics With Trust Issues Club -- which, well, they are, her of the mundane chapter and him of the magical. “This is all because I’m not trusted to not tamper with evidence?” Phoenix asks, knowing perfectly well that is the answer, because no matter how many strings Edgeworth has pulled to get him into this position on the committee, no matter how he and Franziska and every other connection Edgeworth has have fought for this chance, the reputation of the last seven years has all but obliterated the reputation he gained as the defense attorney who stood up to von Karma and Gant.

(And his association with Mia hasn’t helped, since it was revealed what she was, just two months before he was disbarred. Forger is one insult; witch is a name of a different sort, an even higher hurdle to jump, a description of him that almost isn’t wrong.)

“Yes; and building on that, there’s been concern -- not from me, mind -- that Detective Skye is a bit too friendly toward you.”

“Who’s saying I’m friendly?” Ema asks. “How have I gotten that reputation?” She scowls when Phoenix laughs. “Was it the glimmerous fop who was concerned? Mr Wright hasn’t touched anything, if you’re worried.”

“It doesn’t matter who it was,” Edgeworth says, which is not a no and thus makes this a matter that Ema will probably not drop so easily, even though Phoenix agrees with his sentiment. It could be anyone. It probably was Klavier. It doesn’t matter. They have bigger concerns. “I said that I wasn’t worried, Detective.”

“Ema,” Phoenix says, forestalling what he expects to be a continuation of the argument, “have you touched any of that evidence without gloves?”

She shakes her head. “Of course I haven’t. I do know what protocol is.” Edgeworth snorts. “Plus, you said to check it for poison. I’m not stupid. It’s atroquinine, specifically -- we just let the hospital know, because apparently they hadn’t figured it out--”

Phoenix gestures at the bottle of nail polish. “It would be easier to determine from that. Poisons don’t always react the same way in the fae.”

Ema freezes with a chocolate halfway to her mouth. She slowly lowers it back into the bag. “Ms Misham was one of the Fair Folk?” she asks. Phoenix nods. “That’s, uh -- shit. Why didn’t we know that one?”

“Prosecutor Gavin didn’t tell you?” He has heard -- from Ema, from Edgeworth, from Trucy, from Apollo -- that the working relationship between detective and prosecutor is a rocky one, but still, that is information that would be useful for her to know, that they might think could help determine a motive. That is information that, if not widely disseminated, should at least be passed to someone else on the investigative team, to have up their sleeve if the defense made it relevant -- or didn’t know. And Gavin is thorough -- it’s a surprise that he would have kept that one close to his chest.

Unless he was willing to sacrifice part of his case to avoid the question that inevitably is coming.

“How would he know?” Ema demands.

“So he didn’t tell you.”

“Wright,” Edgeworth says, voice low and dangerous, a growl but not a hiss. “How would he know?”

“I may have left out some facts about the Gavin brothers from everything I’ve said about them the last seven years,” Phoenix says. “The short of it is that Klavier has the Sight.”

“Wright…” The snarl is already gone from his voice; Edgeworth’s sigh is one of empty resignation, now. He knows Phoenix better than any other human, and he knows it is Phoenix’s nature to not show his cards until the last possible second. It pisses Edgeworth off, Phoenix knows it, but he prefers a frustrated Edgeworth to a worrying one, and his response to Phoenix telling him about Dahlia’s curse was enough for Phoenix to decide not to burden him with more. He hates to worry him.

And Apollo -- Phoenix doesn’t want to scare him. He doesn’t know what Apollo has been told by Klavier, but if he didn’t even point out to the detectives that the defendant is a fae for fear of questioning -- Apollo probably doesn’t know much more than that he can See. Not why, not anything about Kristoph -- and Phoenix needs Apollo to stare the two of them down, and he doesn’t know how much the boy would balk were he warned in advance. He’s not as stupid as Phoenix was.

“He’s human?” Ema asks. It sounds like a question not meant to be answered, and she follows it up a moment later with, “I thought so, because that fucking accent absolutely, unequivocally, counts as a lie.”

Edgeworth fails to stifle a laugh, but he blanches when he looks back at Phoenix and sees his eyes. “What are you looking for?” he asks. Ema’s attention turns immediately to Phoenix as well.

“Confirmation of my suspicions,” Phoenix answers, gesturing for them both to step back from the evidence table. If being in the vicinity of it is enough, it’s already too late, but he doesn’t see death marked on Ema the way it was on Vera.

The bottle looks different through eyes that aren’t human. (Vera should have seen this, Vera should have known, how could she have known, how many changelings don’t know what they are.) The crystal edges still catch the light, but inside the liquid looks like thick red mold, something rotten, curdling inside and straining to get out like it is something alive, an amorphous beast all its own. Phoenix glances about and crosses the room to the box of rubber gloves on the far shelf, snapping two onto his hands as he returns to the bottle. He unscrews the cap and pulls the brush forth, not so far that any of the polish will drip, but enough that there could be flow of air from the bottle to the outside.

The leaking wisps of something like smoke that he expects to see don’t come.

Huh. Strange. He didn’t think he’d win this time when he called its bluff -- unless --

“Wright, what the hell are you doing?”

Phoenix tosses each of the gloves in turn toward the waste bin and misses both shots. “I know it’s cursed, but I can’t figure out how to activate it.”

“Most people don’t want to activate cursed objects, Mr Wright,” Ema says.

“I’m already cursed,” he says. “There’s not much this particular thing can do to me.”

Phoenix picks up the bottle and Edgeworth inhales sharply. There’s a wild look to his eyes, one of fear, the one that Phoenix has been trying to avoid all of these years. “Your fingerprints on that bottle certainly will be able to do something to you,” he says stiffly, a valiant but futile attempt at masking what it is about this that truly concerns him.

“I should hope that any fingerprints were collected and analyzed already,” Phoenix says. The bottle doesn’t tremble in his hand or feel anything like the excess of energy that should be contained within it. He closes his fingers around it, finding himself reaching for something that isn’t there, and draws the brush from the bottle, wiping off the excess on the edges and squinting at it. The curse doesn’t look or feel any stronger now. The temptation to touch the polish on his skin is nearly overwhelming. “I don’t think I can activate it,” he says. “Not without licking it, and--”

Edgeworth has his wrist in a vicelike grip before Phoenix can finish his sentence. “--and that still won’t give us an accurate reading on the situation,” he continues, turning a glare on Edgeworth, whose expression doesn’t change, and he doesn’t release Phoenix’s wrist. “Because I’ll be poisoned.”

“So we wouldn’t know if it’s poison or the curse affecting you, and it won’t affect you, a human, the way it did Vera,” Ema adds. “There’s too many variables to make it a good experiment.”

“Also, the fact that he would be poisoned,” Edgeworth says.

“Hey, it takes about half an hour to kick in, right?” Phoenix asks. “There should be enough time for me to put together some data points.”

Edgeworth makes a strangled sound from the back of his throat. “I do have a question about that,” Ema says. “What’s the point of poisoning and cursing the bottle? I mean, if we’re trying to go about assessing this scientifically, why not just one or the other? Is the redundancy necessary?”

“Yes, and no,” Phoenix says. He tries and fails to elbow Edgeworth away, but Ema, having abandoned her Snackoos to grab gloves, plucks the bottle up from his hand and sets it back down on the table. It takes several seconds for Edgeworth to finally let him go. “There’s a couple different possibilities for why one would -- or wouldn’t do that.”

“We’re gonna be here for a while, aren’t we?” Ema grumbles, but she still looks intrigued, her eyes fixed on Phoenix and slowing to take her gloves off like she’s forgotten that she meant to be doing that.

“You wanted the scientific assessment.” Phoenix finds a wall to lean against. “Poison is the option to leave less of a trail -- I know that sounds odd, with forensics, but if you clean that up well enough” -- he gestures at the bottle -- “like so, then you’re clear. Magic always leaves an impression -- curses are especially distinct. Someone who has the Sight will be able to recognize what curses have come from the same person, and maybe even match that imprint up with the person themselves. So a killer who knows there’s others with the Sight tangled up in her webs is going to poison her victim so as to not leave that obvious beacon to follow.”

“Her?” Ema asks. “You don’t mean Vera?”

She is frowning, her lips pressed together in concentration, but Edgeworth just looks sad. “No, I don’t -- Ms Misham hasn’t poisoned anyone,” Phoenix says. “I was thinking of… someone else.”

He keeps being surprised to have Zak’s locket there when he touches his neck, but even when he isn’t wearing it, he can still feel a cold chain shifting against his skin. “Curses,” he says, clearing his throat, and it doesn’t help, he can still feel the sharp scrape of glass and metal down his throat, and then something less solid but even more suffocating cinching tight around his neck and lungs and heart, “are for if you want to baffle the humans investigating your case, and you’re sure that no one with the Sight is going to be looking at the corpse.” He can’t make himself take any breaths deeper than short gasps. “Or if you need someone dead in a hurry. If you don’t care that you’ll be Seen. Just as long as you can shut them up before they can say more.”

He’s a dead man, living on time borrowed -- no, stolen -- from someone else.

Ema pretends she doesn’t hear his discomfort, that she doesn’t see Edgeworth touch a hand to his arm for the briefest of moments. “So wait,” she says, “how is she even alive after all of this, the curse and the poison -- and still, why? That’s just asking to be caught both ways. More stupid than thorough.”

“You’re right,” Phoenix says. “It is odd, but speaking logically, it tells me a few things.” The crease between Edgeworth’s eyes deepens. “Hey, I know how to think logically, too!”

“Did I say you didn’t?”

“It tells me that the killer knew she was a changeling — he couldn’t count on solely the atroquinine to kill her, like he could for Drew.”

“Wait,” Edgeworth interrupts. “Do we know for sure that Mr Misham wasn’t cursed?”

Phoenix slaps the magatama into his palm. “I suspect he wasn’t, but also suspect I might not be allowed into the morgue, and have somewhere to be after this anyway--”

Edgeworth keeps glaring at him. “So no, I can’t say for certain yet that the stamp wasn’t cursed, or Drew directly,” Phoenix continues, “but I can be pretty sure, because he was only human, and thus likely to fall to atroquinine. Vera, on the other hand -- there’s no way to predict what toxins will do to the fae -- even iron and metals, it all depends -- and the killer couldn’t use atroquinine alone and be sure she would die.”

“But why not just the curse?” Ema repeats.

Because he didn’t think he was strong enough,” Phoenix answers. “He didn’t think his magic was enough to kill her, even with a curse of death. So then,” he continues, catching himself rapping his knuckles against empty air like he would were he holding a paper in front of him, “the catalyst would be the same thing. Vera chews her nails when she is anxious -- she gets anxious when she goes outside. She is called on to testify about who the client is, she’s on the witness stand, gets nervous, chews her nails -- the nail polish is cursed and poisoned. Together, maybe that’s enough.”

Maybe tomorrow, or tonight, but for now Vera still clings to life, and -- god, Phoenix hopes it isn’t enough. Guilt has chewed him apart enough over curses and death -- he should have known that mysterious “good luck charm” would haunt them, he should have found some way to force her to show it to him, how could he have known he should have known -- and please not Vera’s life on his conscience too.

“Then what’s death do if a person can walk around living with it?” Ema asks.

Edgeworth looks at Phoenix. Phoenix looks anywhere but at Ema. The strongest curse is cleanest: a swift end to one sole person. The power behind her curse would have been the most kindness Dahlia did for him -- but a weakened curse? Death, not like a gunshot but a dull, serrated blade, messy and painful and lingering, and Phoenix wishes that were an accurate analogy. He wishes that death marked on his chest left him the only one hurting, the only one dying. No, he lives, and that, life, was Mia’s gift. Life, for him, breathing room between his throat and Dahlia’s noose; life, for him, and everything around him dies.

He can’t force himself to look back at Edgeworth either.

“If he hadn’t been poisoned, Drew Misham likely wouldn’t have lived to be old,” Phoenix says, and Ema is silent, and he thinks that means she understands.

Or maybe he always would have been poisoned, no matter how long the stamp was saved, maybe he was just doomed in that way. Maybe there was never an if he hadn’t been poisoned; maybe there is only the curse, reshaping reality, and to parse any other circumstances out from it is a hopeless case, a circular argument, and he is the serpent eating his own tail as he in vain tries to understand what could have been otherwise. There is no otherwise.

Edgeworth hasn’t pressed the magatama back into Phoenix’s hands but has been giving it a wary look for the duration of the time he has been speaking. Slowly he holds it up to one eye, to examine the nail polish bottle. He can’t hide the disgust and horror, in equal measure, that crosses his face.

“One last thing,” Phoenix says. Ema has retrieved her snack bag and tosses a chocolate at him. He catches it, seriously considers it for a moment, and decides that even if there probably aren’t any traces of poison on his hands, and that probably he could survive atroquinine poisoning, it’s not worth it. He misses the trash can again. “I know you don’t deal with curses around here, but do you have some way of recording what’s up with that bottle -- to on-the-record get that information to Prosecutor Gavin, without him having to come down here to take a look.”

“The glimmerous fop can drag himself over here,” Ema grumbles. She seems to be throwing more chocolates at Phoenix than she is eating. “Especially if he has the Sight. Especially since that means he should be able to see who did it. Why should I bother filling out something for him?”

Klavier already knows who the murderer is. Klavier has known for a while -- of that, Phoenix is certain. Whatever fight he has put up, whatever fight he will put up tomorrow, the way that the curse swallowed up Vera was unmistakable, and that is far from the only clue. He will hardly need to come down here to look at the nail polish again to confirm the facts, and it might be safer if he were to stay away from it.

But Apollo and Trucy must have been in close proximity to it as well, waiting with their client in the lobby, and they were as fine as ever.

“If he does want to see it, don’t let him touch it,” Phoenix says. “Gloves or no. Even if Edgeworth is going to have to straighten out your salary or employment at the end of it, don’t let him touch it.”

“But you touched it,” Ema points out, aggressively crunching down on another Snackoo. “And I did. Unless” -- her eyes narrow -- “you’re worried about him being able to tamper with the -- the curses?”

“That’s not the part I’m worried about with him and curses,” Phoenix says.

“Fine, keep your secrets.” Ema throws another chocolate at him. “If he fires me, I’m hitting you up to pay my bills.”

“Me? When we have Edgeworth right here?”

“I’m not paying your rent, Wright.”

Phoenix laughs. Edgeworth’s stony expression does not change. “For once,” he adds, “you could stand to tell me things as you learn them.”

“I’m sorry,” Phoenix lies, because he’d drag this hell out another seven years if he had to, damn himself for all eternity in a second if the alternative had the merest chance of putting Edgeworth in reach of Kristoph’s claws. His is one life Phoenix cannot gamble.

He can’t live with that again.

“There’s one thing I have left to do, and then I’ll be able to tell Apollo, with certainty, everything he needs to know to start tomorrow’s trial.” And the rest won’t take long to follow. “Is Trucy still at your office, or did she go back to the agency?”

“I dropped her off at your office on my way here,” Edgeworth says. “Am I to suppose you’re keeping secrets from her, and that’s the reason you sent her off to me?”

She handed him the diary page that ruined his life; either her father or her uncle shot and killed her mother; Kristoph killed her father six months ago, when he reappeared sure that enough time had passed to make one same return and then a clean break forever. She’ll have to find out the last of those at some point, likely soon, too soon, soon enough that he should just tell her -- but the rest? On that, he swore Apollo to silence.

Edgeworth knows him too well. “Yes. I’ve already told Apollo everything I didn’t want her hearing.”

They make for the door, to leave Ema behind, but she stops them with a word. “Hey. Mr Wright.”

The door closes on Edgeworth’s shoulder, keeping it propped open for Phoenix. “Can you tell how someone acquired the Sight?” she asks. “Like, can you see it? Do you know?”

“Is this about Klavier?” he asks.

“If he did something really fucked up for it, like selling his soul, you’d tell us, right?”

“Ema, I picked him to be the prosecutor for this case. Do you really think I’d do that if I didn’t think he had integrity?”

She snorts. “Him, integrity, that’s – hah. You’re still not answering the question, anyway.”

Edgeworth raises an eyebrow and inclines his head at Ema, like he agrees that yes, Phoenix did dodge that question. “No, I wouldn’t tell you, but I wouldn’t have picked him for this, either,” Phoenix says.

Ema gives him that doubtful look again. “Mr Wright,” she says, “you didn’t answer my first question, either. If there’s a way you can tell.”

The answer, like most things with Phoenix and magic, is situational, dependent on a hundred other factors. Witches are easy to tell. Klavier – after seven years, Phoenix finally has a guess at what Klavier is, but it’s still just a guess.

“Because I’m not entirely stupid about magic things,” Ema adds. She tried to quantify magic, assess it scientifically, when she could; Phoenix explained to her about his eyes, a decade ago, and she directed him to sit on the floor and grabbed a magnifying glass and stared at his eyes like somewhere in there something had shifted that even she could see. That passion burned itself out. Phoenix knows how that feels. “I know there’s something fucked-up about the glimmerous fop.”

“I’m inclined to be suspicious about anyone who has the Sight,” Edgeworth says. Phoenix claps a hand over his chest and feigns offense; Edgeworth ignores him. “There’s no good way of acquiring it; and even if I were to trust the person, I will not feel the same about the circumstances that got them that…gift” – his mouth twists. Phoenix has used that word to describe the Sight and other blessings, too, but he has never felt it to be quite right – “nor the reasons they might have felt it was necessary to have. No one will simply think that it might help them in investigative procedures.”

Ema’s face falls. The snack bag crumples noisily in her hands and she tosses it to the trash. “My sister thought about doing that,” she says quietly, so softly that Phoenix barely hears her, and Edgeworth steps closer. “But that – that wasn’t just, simply. Didn’t wake up one day and figure cutting a deal for the Sight would just be a fun little thing. I keep remembering now, one of the times she brought the case home, and the whole team -- I remember sitting in the hall and listening to her and Jake argue, I think everyone else had gone home, and they were arguing, that yeah maybe the case doesn’t have anything to do with magic but if it does, she can’t just pass that up, she can’t just not follow that lead, even for…” She glances down at her hands, like she expects to find a new bag of Snackoos in them, like she doesn’t know what to do if she doesn’t have that nervous habit to lean on. “She said she’d sell her soul to convict Joe Darke, if she had to.”

“In a way, she did,” Phoenix says.

Ema nods. “In a way.”

Edgeworth closes his eyes and turns his head away.

In the way that people like him and Lana and Phoenix sell their souls, the mundane way, piece by piece, lie by lie, until there’s nothing left but that cold hollow where something human once resided.

“But that was why,” she adds, even softer, and Phoenix has to lean down further to hear, and Edgeworth doesn’t come closer this time, “I was going to -- to your… to Mia. Like sure she’s a defense attorney, but I thought, then, that -- that if it came to it, I would sell my soul to her for my sister back. For her soul back.”

She looks away. “And I found you, just a human.”

“Only human.” And too well aware of it, that even soulless, he is just human.

“But you still won it back for her.”

Phoenix doesn’t know what to say to that. Edgeworth is looking at him now, too. The volume of their conversation has slightly risen again; he probably heard the last sentence or two. “For whatever it’s worth, which is about nothing at this point,” Phoenix says, trying to deflect, trying not to think about how his own is the one soul he hasn’t managed to get back, realizing that Ema spoke so quietly because she wanted only Phoenix to hear and dropping his voice back down low, “I don’t think Mia would have taken you up on your deal.”

Ema is wringing her hands again, glances away and then stalks back toward the evidence. “So if the fop made a trade for the sake of his case, it had to be some fucked-up case.” Her suspicious glare settles again on the bottle of nail polish.

Edgeworth’s brow furrows. Doubtlessly he is thinking of a certain fucked-up case that Klavier was assigned to. Phoenix doesn’t know if he should dissuade that line of thinking, if Edgeworth assuming that Klavier thought that the Sight was necessary to take on Phoenix is a less charitable assumption than any other that he could make.

“And again, I do trust Klavier,” Phoenix says. Ema and Edgeworth’s arched eyebrows are almost mirrors of each other. “So trust my judgment, and the truth will come to light tomorrow.”

Somehow, impossibly, Ema’s eyebrow raises higher. She stood at the bench with Phoenix; she knows how his judgment can be. He decides that her semi-justified lack of total faith in him is close to warranted, and that he can deal with it another day. “See you around, Ema,” he says, taking the door from Edgeworth. Together they start down the hall.

“And where are you going now, Wright?”

“There’s someone I have to see. Maybe I can pry a motive out of him.”

-

The lock are black.

Phoenix has never seen them like that before.

[pendulumprince]

Episode 30, or: didn’t anyone ever tell you not to fuck around in the dark web?

So Playmaker kicks Faust’s ass, Ai is acting pretty sus, Faust Dies™

Now, onto THIS episode

Here’s Link Vrains lookin all green and shit

BUT IN THE UNDERGROUND

Omg why does this look like an actual sewer

So down some long corridor

THERE’S THAT HENTAI LOOKIN HAIRBALL FROM THE PREVIEW LAST WEEK

Holy shit is it alive…?

ONE OF THE TENTACLES MOVES

YUSAKU AND AI FEEL THAT SHIT

AW DAMN

Okay after the opening

Back at SOL Tech, Kita’s meeting with Bishop

FINALLY TIME TO FACE THE MUSIC, YOU CHEAP SACK OF SHIT—

“My AI Duelist Squad purged the three Knights of Hanoi from Link Vrains >:3”

Lmaoooo you fuCKING LIAR

“Well done, Kitamura.”

Bishop PLS don’t tell me you’re that fucking dumb

“But if something like this happens again… you know the consequences.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve already taken steps."

So Kita’s got his AI goons marching the streets, taking out KoH mooks

“I’ll pursue the ignis again and accomplish what Zaizen was too incompetent to do!"

YOU’VE DONE NOTHING KITA

“I’m counting on you~”

“Today will be a great day for SOL Technologies… and I’ll get my promotion >:33”

I have never seen a character so turned on by promotions before

But that's one hell of an evil face you’ve got there, Kita

Do we need to have a talk…?

Anyway, he walks into his throne room or whatever

Pfffft one of the workers just call him Kitamura-chan…?

But she sounds distressed

BUT APPERANTLY THE AI DUELISTS ARE DISAPPEARING EN MASSE

THEY’RE BEING DELETED

“… my promotion is going away…”

IS HE LITERALLY ABOUT TO PASS OUT

Okay he doesn't but I wouldn’t put it past him

Back at the hotdog truck

MYSTERY MAN IS THERE, BUYING A HOTDOG

“Thanks as usual. Please come again.”

“This’ll be my last time.”

“Oh? Are you moving?”

“… something like that”

WAY TO BE SUS, MY GUY

Shoichi tells him he also goes to the Public Viewing Plaza, and to catch him there sometime

So, I’m guessing episode 21’s spot…

According to Ai, Shoichi loses customers pretty often? Lmao

So he offers to be Cafe Nagi’s mascot, but Shoichi thinks that’s lame

WATCH, WHEN AI GOES NUTS AND TRIES TO DESTROY THE WORLD

IT’LL BE BECAUSE YOU SHUT DOWN HIS LIFELONG DREAM OF BEING A FAST FOOD MASCOT

So according to Yusaku, the KoH mooks have disappeared from Link Vrains

But Rev is still out there

So in lInk Vrains, the tentacles move around again

Yusaku and Ai ~feel the force~

Yusaku wants to go into Link Vrains to check it out

By the bridge

Akira and Ema are hanging out by some flowers, talking about Link Vrains and shit

“Currently, Link Vrains is completely normal. Officially announced that the Knights of Hanoi left.”

“You called just to tell me this?” lmao oh Ema

Yeah, it’s cause Akira thinks they’re lying

“The Knights of Hanoi wouldn’t retreat so easily. And Revolver is still hiding."

“I see. Something is happening when nothing seems to be happening. The perfect time to find treasure.”

“Is that the cyber treasure hunter’s credo?”

“Exactly! If I acquire it, I’ll let you have it. For a price.”

“You’re only getting it thanks to my info. How about a discount?”

“We’ll see.”

I’m glad these two fucks are getting… a bit? Friendlier with each other??

Back in Link Vrains

IT’S REV AND SPEC

They’re in front of Genome, Vyra and Faust’s ‘corpses’.

“Losing these three was a serious blow. I lost them because I was focused on Playmaker. But I have no time for sentimentality. They’ve become the foundation to fulfill our plan.”

Wait wait wait

So Rev’s gonna lowkey use their “deaths” to further the plan?

Damn mijo, that’s cold

Specter reminds Revolver that they still don’t know Playmakers identity; he asks if that’s okay.

“This plan must succeed, even if it costs me my life. I’ll eliminate anyone who interferes, no matter who!”

Wow, look at edgelord over here

Back at the hotdog truck, they’re by the water again

Shoichi launches some program to search for abnormalities in Link Vrains

THE TENTACLE MOVED AGAIN

And… apperently it’s fucking with Link Vrains’ infrastructure program

Yusaku gets up, Ai has a bad feeling about this lol

He literally tells Yusaku to “change the course of this conversation”; not that Yusaku’s gonna pay him much mind.

Things are different than before:

“1 Revolver always acted in public, but he hasn’t shown himself.

 I’m sensing that something will happen in Link Vrains.

If Revolver won’t make a move, I’ll track him down!"

So he does into Link Vrains

Is as extra about it as always

So in Link Vrains, Ghost Girl is there, too!

Everything looks normal

But…this background music says otherwise

She sends out a program

Monitors where it runs off to

Playmaker’s in LV now, too

Ai is still casually freaking out

“There’s something weird going on. Seriously, I feel we’re in danger. Let’s go home! It’s dangerous!”

“We have to find the cause.”

“But not today.”

FUCK, WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN TODAY

The tentacle moves yet again

Symbolically flicks Playmaker in the eye, he almost falls off his d-biard

“THAT WAS REALLY STRONG!”

“Yeah.”

“Just ‘yeah’?! Let’s return another time!”

“Something is happening in Link Vrains.”

Omgggg Playmaker (/Yusaku) deadass doesn’t have any sense of self-preservation

Okay so he notices the program Ghost Girl sent out

Playmaker decides to follow it

Thinks it’s super sus

Gets off his d-board, follows it on foot

Okat the program is hovering over something

Ghost Girl is right behind them, tells them to leave her fireflies alone lol

Playmaker tells her to log out, since it’s dangerous?? But she’s not about to let this wily teenager steal her treasure

Ai tells Playmaker to just let her handle it, but Playmaker isn’t down for that; her goals and his goals are different

So they follow her in

Playmaker sounds mildly surprised that there’s a sewer in Link Vrains; GG says it’s for unnecessary data

So Ai says the data/programs are running to a processing plant…? Kk

And ofc, the road splits up ahead

GG goes where her program says the treasure is

She asks Playmaker which way he wants to go

Ai wants to play a game to settle it, GG thinks that’s a great idea!

“That’s why you’re Playmaker’s AI-chan~!"

(lmao I love how sly she is)

“I like receiving praise, but I have a name. Ai.”

It’ll never NOT warm my heart to hear how much Ai loves his name

“What a cute name! Is it Ai because you’re an AI?”

“T-t-that’s too simple a reason!” THAT’S THE EXACT REASON, THOUGH

“How about whoever draws the lovelier card rom my deck gets to choose the path?"

“Fine! I’m super confident in my drawing skills! … but maybe you’re going to cheat."

What do you mean maybe, bro? She’s definitely gonna cheat."

“... don’t be silly, what’s the benefit of doing that?”

She shuffles her deck!

Playmaker’s watching her with a borderline-creepy look on his face

AI GOES IN FOR THE DRAW

HE’S GLOWING??

“My right arm is yearning to draw. It whispers to me that it wants a card. Your deck will respond to this thirst, this feeling, this desire! THIS IS MY SPECIAL DESTINY DRAW!”

AI YOU’RE EXTRA AF

He… draws a card and…

IT’S A LITERAL GOBLIN TRAP CARD

UGLY, VERY UGLY

NOT LOVELY AT ALL.

“It’s so bad I don’t even have to draw! I’ll go right. You go left.”

“I can’t believe I drew that card…”

“That deck was full of bad cards.”

“… … ….. SHE CHEATED?!”

“Yeah. Using the simplest trick.”

“She tricked me. For the third time.”

“But it doesn’t make a difference in running into danger. Our goal is to find the cause of the abnormalities."

So GG follows her program…

And Playmaker walks along in the sewer

… AND THEY’RE BEING FOLLOWED BY A DIGITAL SEA MONSTER

“Did you see that?”

“Yeah.”

“I think it went away…”

HAHA BITCH YOU THOUGHT

IT SPRINGS UP OUT OF THE WATER

TRIES TO GRAB PLAYMAKER, GE DODGES IT

RUNS PAST IT

“I TOLD YOU IT WAS DANGEROUS!”

“BE QUIET.”

RUN FORREST, RUN.

… back to GG

She makes it to this glowy pink wall, which she guesses it be the processing plant

She tries to get in, can’t (?)

SO SHE PULLS OUT HER KNIFE

AND LITERALLY HACKS HER WAY THROUGH

So she’s in “the core of Link Vrains’s reprocessing system"

AND RIGHT THERE BEFORE HER IS THE HANTAI TENTACLE HAIRBALL

PLAYMAKER FEELS IT AGAIN

T R I P S

BACK IN CAFE NAGI, SHOICHI KNOWS SOME SHIT IS GOING DOWN

… back in Link Vrains, GG sends her program to gather the data

So she analyzes the hairballs data

Meanwhile, PLAYMAKER’S JUST DOING HIS FUCKING BEST

“The shocks are getting stronger!”

If he weren’t an AI, I bet Ai would be throwing up rn

“Is a great danger coming?”

Um, yes? Don’t you know what show you’re in?

Back to GG, SOMETHING GOES WRONG

“This amount of energy is crazy […] why is this happening?”

Okay so her program redirects to some corridor

GG follows them, and—

“Ghost Girl, I didn’t expect to meet you here.”

AW. SHIT.

IT’S REVOLVER.

“You’re snooping again.”

“No, I just got lost.”

She offers to leave, but—!

“Since you’ve seen this place, I can’t let you leave.”

“… as expected!”

She tries to go back the way she came, but Rev blocks off that exit, too

“What will you do after you capture me?”

“You want to leave that badly?”

“Because if I stay with you, I think I’m in trouble."

I mean. Yeah.

“You’ll help me tune my deck >:3”

OH FUCK OFF REVOLVER

He continues, “if you win the duel, I’ll let you go.”

“I see. Not a bad offer…. but I’ll pass.”

She gets on her d-board and tries to log out, but can’t

All the exits are blocked off, so she’s gotta duel him

THEY START

GHOST GIRL TAKES FIRST TURN

SUMMONS A 1600 ATK MONSTER

SETS A FACEDOWN

AND ANOTHER

BACK TO LAYNAKER, HE’S STILL RUNNING FROM THE MONSTER

THE FUCK IS THAT THING

ALRIGHT ALRIGHT ALRIGHT, THAT’S A WRAP

Preview time!

PLAYMAKER’S STILL ON THE RUN

GG AND REV CONTINUE THEIR DUEL

SHOICHI WATCHES ON

AND THAT’S IT

*forms a prayer circle for Ghost Girl*