#the thing with Iris and Dahlia never leaves my memory especially when look at their eyes

[petitexmagician]

I know I should be throwing out starters for Ethan because today be his bday, but I'm watching this actual lawyer play Trials and Tribulations - she's rightfully distrusting of Iris after the trial with Mia and Edgeworth's first case with Dahlia and I am waiting so hard for her to just eat her words like she did when she saw the blanket on Acro's lap.

[queen-ofsunflowers]

DadWorth AU: Part 4 (Trials & Tribulations)

Unlike the previous parts, this is mostly just shenanigans since Kay and Miles at this point are starting to work on bettering their relationship after their reunion in Farewell, My Turnabout. So it’s fun and kind of angsty times because Phoenix still falls off a bridge. Miles is present for most of the cases, excluding Stolen, but his appearances mostly take place in the background.

< Part 3 | Part 5 >

Turnabout Memories

Kay’s junior year at Themis starts and the students are given a chance to look into previous cases for a project that they have to do. Kay decides to do the one that inspired her to be an attorney. Or at least, for her to start following Mia’s career. Which if anyone remembers from part 1, was the State v. Wright 2014.

At the time of the case happening, Kay didn’t recognize the defendant’s name. But now... Now she knows who it is. So she goes directly to Phoenix to get an explanation. In front of just about everybody.

Today is Embarrass Phoenix Wright Day.

If you’re wondering, Kay is absolutely stunned by the fact that Phoenix ate the necklace. She knew it happened, but it’s only now hitting her that the defendant who swallowed the bottle and the amazing attorney who so far has been the only one to beat Miles and her semi-mentor figure are the same person.

The Stolen Turnabout

With Miles out of the country, Kay (and maybe the boys klavier and sebastian too, I’m not sure) is dragged down to Lordly Tailor by Maya, and that’s where things go from there. She’s kind of surprised that it was the urn that got stolen, picking up pretty quickly that it wasn’t worth that much in the first place. (Though this might be due to her involvement in 2-2, so she knows that it has been broken before.)

Kay stands with Phoenix on the matter of whether or not Ron actually stole the urn. According to her, the guy “couldn’t even pickpocket a blind man”. Pearl kicks her in the shin before running out of the detention center. Maya and Kay have gotten pretty close to each other because of the events of Farewell, since they were kidnapped and that’s some strong bonding there. So, Maya’s hurt by both of them believing in Ron’s innocence, but with Kay’s involvement, she quickly starts to think that they might be right sooner rather than later. Still, since it hurts, Kay takes Maya’s place temporarily on the first day of investigating.

Things that happen here are Kay starting to steal stuff herself. For example, she swipes the blackmail letter on the first visit to the DeLite’s apartment. (���kay, we’re defense attorneys. we don’t steal.” “but you take evidence all the time. how is that not the same thing?” “...moving on--”.) 

Kay can’t stand Atmey, especially when he starts rambling on the way he does. She both states that Gumshoe’s a better detective than he is (some of that being bias, but still) and calls him out when he claims that Miles has called Godot the best prosecutor in the country. Miles doesn’t even know who he is. Phoenix finds her interactions with him slightly hilarious (it’s a sixteen year old girl tearing an eccentric a-hole a new one, after all.)

Kay’s able to stand co-counsel for the entirety of this trial due to it taking place completely on a weekend. Which means she also gets to meet Godot. He’s... To her, he’s flat out weird. He’s Cyclops with a caffeine addiction. And he’s not able to avoid her snark either.

She gets really happy when they get the Not Guilty verdict on the first day, and her relationship with the Feys gets patched up, too. And then all that goes down the drain when Ron is arrested for murder. More investigation is needed.

When it’s revealed that Ron is actually Mask ☆ DeMasque, Kay feels kind of bad over the remark she made the day before since most of those thefts were kind of impressive to her after she read about them. That’s about as much as what happens during the investigation. She really gets into the whole phantom thief stuff, much to Phoenix’s dismay.

When it comes time for the trial, Kay feels so much satisfaction in catching Atmey. She hates him so much. She doesn’t, however, like the fact that Godot keeps throwing coffee at the defense team.

I should note that Kay thinks that Godot’s voice sounds familiar, but she can’t place why at this time. It’s been YEARS since the events of Beginnings, and they didn’t even interact. Kay just watched the trial and heard him speak. So, that whole mystery is still under wraps for now.

Recipe for the Turnabout

Kay, Klavier and Sebastian are at Wright & Co. when Gumshoe bursts through the door, scaring the crap out of the three of them and Maya in the process. She, much like Phoenix, is confused as heck as to what he’s talking about when he tells them about the phony trial. She can also vouch for what happened and the fake Phoenix. (I have plans for what happened there, i just need to watch/play the game there myself...) So everyone is confused, and this warrants some footwork.

Phoenix Wright ends up being followed by a group of teenagers during his investigation. This has been going on for a while. He’s accepted it. It’s part of his life now.

When it comes to Tres Bien, Maya’s not the only one who gets roped into working there. Through misunderstandings, Kay gets pulled in as well. The guys kind of just run off, leaving the girls in their unfortunate situation for now.

Phoenix is stuck with the boys for the time being, which leads to some pretty fun and interesting interactions, including their reactions to meeting Tigre for the first time. Sebastian’s just confused because Tigre is taller, older and the only thing about Phoenix that he shares is their hair style. Klavier verbally voices this, just going off on how the hell anyone could mistake the two. (and loses his shit at the cardboard badge. from a distance, yeah, but seriously?!)

When they eventually come back to the restaurant, being the stupid teenage boys that they are, Klavier and Sebastian find the situation Kay is in hilarious. Klavier takes a picture of Kay in the Tres Bien outfit because “everyone needs to see this”. (Everyone mostly being Ema, whose in Europe.) Kay tackles him to try and get him to delete the photo, but he doesn’t. It becomes Kay’s contact picture in his phone.

whether or not kay continues to work here after the case is still up in the air. her and miles’ financial situation is pretty good, but kay’s also the independent type, so i feel like she’d want to save her own money for things instead of having to ask for it.

It’s lucky that at this point the girls are saved from their forced jobs, and Phoenix brings them down to the park, where things go as they do in canon with Maya channeling Mia to get information out of Kudo. Phoenix just kind of pushes Kay behind him while Mia does her thing, because if Miles ever found out he let Kay do something like that, he would never forgive him. It does lead, however, to this interaction here:

“and what have we learned today?” “take what you got and exploit the men who think with their di--” “okay! let’s get back to the investigation, shall we?!” “...klavier, why are you looking down at your chest?” “huh? just thinking.”

listen, klavier doesn’t button up his shirt all the way for a reason, and this is why.

Kay gets a bit ticked off that the prosecutor is Godot again (something that the guys predict because she complained about her hair smelling like coffee for days after being in the splash zone of the last trial). Fortunately, she doesn’t have to be here since the trial primarily covers school days. However, the Themis Trio does help out with the investigation when they’re free, taking a look at Blue Screens while Phoenix and Maya handle Tres Bien. They regroup when its time to head to Tender Lender.

Things go pretty much the same from there until the end with the confrontation with Tigre at Tres Bien. There’s another change here since Tigre and Armstrong are outnumbered. Phoenix still gets punched, but its not Tigre who grabs the medical papers. It’s Sebastian in a moment of panic. This basically leads to them playing keep-away with the papers as they try to get out with them and get away from Tigre. It doesn’t work out, though, because eventually as the papers are returned to Phoenix and the gang goes to flee, Tigre grabs and pulls an off-guard Kay back. It’s an exchange -- the papers for the girl. (think that one situation in ablaze but without the threat of getting shot.)

But that’s not what happens because like in canon, Gumshoe comes to the rescue. And he is more pissed off than before because that’s his pseudo-niece. Phoenix and the kids run out of there as soon as they can. Later that night, Miles asks about the bruises on Kay’s arm from where Tigre had grabbed her. She’s not sure what to say.

Miles gets involved in the background of this case due to Kay’s injury, helping out Gumshoe when it comes to getting the bottle analyzed (and getting assault added to the list of crimes Tigre is charged with.) Both him and Kay are pleased when Tigre gets arrested.

Turnabout Beginnings

We already covered this case in Part 1. Kay was in the audience watching. Primarily, this is mostly skipped aside from Kay mentioning it to Phoenix very earlier on. I’m talking like... last part early during Reunion. Thinking about that while in the hospital sparks his interest in taking a look at it via Mia’s case files.

Bridge to the Turnabout

With Miles out of the country, Kay is free to kind of do whatever. Because she’s friends with Maya, Pearl drags her up to Hazakura, partially against Kay’s will because its cold and she hates the cold.

She faintly recognizes Iris because as said before, she sat in on Beginnings. She knows what Dahlia looks like. However, because it was so long ago for her, she doesn’t quite remember why. She does play into Larry’s whole artist thing, but refuses to call him Laurice. (”okay... good for you, larry.” “laurice!” “i’m not calling you that.”)

As for Elise, the most that Kay knows about her is that she’s an author. Though, unlike Maya, she does take note of how similar she looks to the painting of Misty, as well as Maya and Mia. (maya must’ve noticed some similarities herself, but why she didn’t say anything is a mystery to me.)

Kay’s starting to think that this trip might not be so bad... until everything goes to shit when she’s woken up by a scream. As a result, both she and Phoenix head out to the courtyard and discover Elise’s body. Unlike Phoenix, however, Kay has her phone on her. She’s not able to tell him this, though, because Phoenix is already running to the bridge. She gives chase, trying to catch up.

Things go on as normal. The bridge is on fire, they meet up with Larry. And Phoenix runs across the bridge. He falls. Kay screams.

Kay and Larry both find and pull Phoenix out of the river. Larry calls the police while Kay is trying to calm herself down and keep Phoenix from possibly dying. The only person she can think of to call is Miles. So yes, in this version of the story, Kay handles the phone call to Edgeworth, so things are a bit more well explained on that end. Not entirely, because Kay’s freaking the fuck out, but a bit better.

The police arrive, Iris is arrested and Phoenix is taken to the hospital with Kay riding in the ambulance as well (after some heavy persuasion.) She’s at the hospital all night, and is there when Miles arrives. He’s relieved that she’s alright, especially after the phone call he received from her last night. It’s pure luck that Phoenix survived the fall with minimal injury and a cold. Kay calls him stupid in at least seven different ways when they’re finally let into his room.

Kay is still freaked out over everything that happened the night before, so she sticks by her dad’s side. She’s there to straighten out Larry at the detention center and explain the magatama in a bit more detail than a fever-hazy Phoenix since she’s seen him use it multiple times before. Alon

Basically, Kay is the Maya to Miles’s Phoenix here. Miles doesn’t want her to be on the case with him, but she does so anyway. She claims it’s because she’s the defense attorney in training and she knows more about it than he does since she was there, too. During the investigation, Kay finds out about Pearl and Maya being on the other side of the bridge and gets worried as heck for their safety.

She’s also the one who handles getting Franziska to prosecute. Kay lies and says that Phoenix had a pretty big case on his hands that still needed a prosecutor, and Franziska took the bait. Needless to say, Fran’s a bit ticked off when she discovers the truth.

But the best part about this is father-daughter standing at the bench together. It is a lot of fun banter between them and Franziska, too. And Kay gets another Larry-Induced headache when he testifies on the stand. Though, due to what happened with Goodbyes, she trusts him to some extent and his trying to figure out what the heck actually happened.

When the trial gets out and Phoenix is back in the saddle, Kay calls him stupid again for investigating while sick. She works in tandem with both him and Miles for this part of the case. Yeah, she’s part of the investigation team.

She’s relieved when they finally find Pearl on the other side of the bridge (Kay gets a small hug from Pearls, have that visual.) She, like everyone else, is confused about why Godot is there. Unlike the others, however, Kay is incredibly close to fighting a man about twice her age when he starts going after Phoenix for his involvement in Mia’s death.

When the earthquake hits, the first thing Kay’s mind goes to is her dad. She races to find Miles first before anything else. She’s lived with him since she was ten years old. She knows about his fear of earthquakes.

After discovering the locks on the door, Kay does follow Miles out to the garden. He does get a hug from her, since she’s not sure what else to do at the time. Compared to last year, it shows that they’re doing a lot better. She’s also there when Phoenix comes by and manages to figure out the Hawthorne connection pretty quickly. She leaks the information to Phoenix, despite Miles’s protests. (”i’m not a prosecutor, so i don’t have to keep my mouth shut.”)

When it comes to the trial the next day, Kay’s in the gallery with everyone else since Phoenix claims that he has to do this alone (another thing that Kay calls him stupid for.) She’s on the edge of her seat the entire time -- watching as Phoenix unmasks and stands before the spirit of the woman who tried to kill him. And after exercising her from Maya’s body, Kay claims that she’s no longer phased by anything weird that happens in court.

Though, she is surprised when Phoenix accuses Godot of the crime. She doesn’t like the guy as much as the next person -- he’s a huge jerk -- but what? As the mystery begins to unravel, she starts to see how he got there, she’s kind of awestruck. She never expected Phoenix to come into his own like this. In the end, though, Godot confesses and things go pretty much the same way as they do in canon.

After all is said and done, Kay promises that she’ll become a defense attorney as great as both Mia Fey and the amazing Phoenix Wright. Phoenix will deny that this ever happened, but he did start to tear up a little upon hearing that. He becomes her mentor after the events of this case. It’ll become an important factor in Kay’s decisions later on that year... right around April.

And that’s it for the trilogy! There are some more parts that I want to add on, such as the ripples all this has created in the later games -- the investigation games especially.

[the-hidden-writer]

A Second Chance: Chapter 6

An Ace Attorney fanfic. Read on both AO3 and FF.net!

Summary: Miles learns the identity of his “dead” mother, and the aftermath of that revelation is a tricky one. Especially when his newfound little sister is trying to turn him into a spirit medium.

AKA Miles is a Fey. Miles also doesn’t really know how to family properly.

[Chapter 1] | [Chapter 2] | [Chapter 3] | [Chapter 4] | [Chapter 5]

Comments make my day! :D

The Cousin

“She did what?”

Maya felt like tugging her hair out as she paced around the couch, flapping her hands about as if doing so would fix all her problems. After her super abrupt phone call with Pearl, she’d practically ran to Phoenix to relay what happened. Long story short, it hadn’t gone well. 

“I don’t know, Nick! I just started telling her and then she ran off crying!”

Phoenix looked just as puzzled as she felt.

“Did you tell her gently?” He suggested, but by his accusatory tone of voice Maya was pretty sure he already knew the answer.

“I was excited, okay?!”

“Fine, fine…” Phoenix sighed, leaning back. “I get that.”

After a few seconds, Maya slumped onto the couch next to him. “No, you’re right,” she admitted, uncharacteristically quiet, “I should’ve been more sensitive.”

Phoenix opened his mouth to argue, but Maya cut him off.

“I should’ve realized it would be different for her.”

She honestly felt like she should have known, but she’d been so tied up in her own self-justified excitement that she’d failed to even think about what it would mean for Pearl, and for everyone else in general. 

“Wait,” said Phoenix, interrupting her thoughts, “why would it be different for her? She’s met Edgeworth before and she was fine with him. I know he can be a bit… intimidating, but still, I wouldn’t run away screaming.”

“Yeah, you wouldn’t.” Maya couldn’t help but laugh. 

Phoenix gave her an extremely pointed what’s-that-supposed-to-mean look.

“No, it’s just that…” Maya began awkwardly, before letting out a small sigh. It wasn’t a nice subject to talk about, but it had to be done. “Look, I’ve told you about how the village doesn’t have the best history with men, right?”

Phoenix nodded gravely. 

“Well,” she continued, trying to find the right words, “when we were young, Aunt Morgan liked to drill it into our heads that ‘all men tied to the Fey clan are evil’. If she ever caught us talking about them we’d get told off.” She paused, lost in the memories. It made sense why her aunt would think that, now that she knew about Dahlia and Iris. “Now I never really took any of her lectures to heart, but Pearly…”

“...she would cling onto those words for life.” Phoenix finished. “Yeah, I can see that.”

“I just don’t get it though!” Maya whined. “Like you said, she knows Edgeworth, it shouldn’t be such a big deal.”

Phoenix scratched his chin in thought. “Remember, she doesn’t know him as well as we do though, she’s still intimidated by him.”

“Yeah, who wouldn’t be.” She replied instinctively, before slowly turning her head to look Phoenix directly in the eyes. He gave her That Look again.

“Why not just take him over to Kurain so they can talk it out?” He suggested, after a few uncomfortable seconds. “He can get to see her properly, and Pearls can see that he’s a pretty cool dude. Kill two birds with one stone.”

“Nah, that won’t work.” Maya replied. “Aunt Morgan’s not the only one who has a thing against men, and suddenly bringing in Edgeworth and telling everyone he’s the master’s brother probably won’t end well.”

Maya noticed Phoenix’s wince but didn’t mention it. She’d paraded into Kurain Village with him by her side many times, and it’s true that some of the women had been… less than polite toward him.

“Well you can’t just leave it at that.” He said. “Miles is gonna want to speak to her eventually, and you don’t want her screaming as soon as she sees him.” “Yeah, I know, but I just don’t know how!” Maya huffed.

“I could talk to her?” He offered. 

“No way! If you do, she’ll think I sent you, and when she’s angry she will go to surprising lengths to avoid people.” Pearls had once climbed an entire mountain to avoid having a bath. It was not something to be taken lightly.

“So what you’re saying is, we have to fix this from far away. Great.” Phoenix groaned.

“Actually,” Maya jumped suddenly, her eyes lighting up, “that’s exactly what we need to do! And I have a plan of how we’re gonna do it.”

Phoenix cringed at Maya’s newfound determination. Maya’s plans tended to be quite dramatic, to say the least. They also happened to be really hard to talk her out of doing them.

“What are we going to do?” He asked unenthusiastically.

“If we want to get them to talk it out properly, we’re gonna need a secret weapon!”

“Secret weapon?” Phoenix asked, fear creeping into his voice.

Maya pushed him to one side, sprung up from the couch, darted across the room, and grabbed a notepad and pen. 

“Yeah! Trust me Nick, with this, Pearly and Edgeworth will be best friends by the end of the week!”

~._-_.~

“Hey pal! Over here!”

Detective Gumshoe waved frantically from the station platform at his target who was peeking at him behind the phone booth.

“M-Mr Detective!” Called Pearl Fey as she slowly made her way toward him, tugging at her robes.

Gumshoe noted that the poor girl’s eyes were puffy and swollen, and he guessed it was probably from rubbing them too much. Poor kid. At first he’d thought that Maya had been exaggerating about her being upset, but apparently not. 

It only made him more determined to complete his mission.

“Hey, sweetheart! A little birdie told me that you were feeling down, so you’re old pal Dick Gumshoe’s here to cheer you up!”

Pearl looked hesitant, and Gumshoe thought that he maybe shouldn’t have shouted so loud. He didn’t want to frighten her, after all.

“Are you the surprise Mystic Soma told me about?” She asked.

Gumshoe nodded with enthusiasm. “Uh huh! And I’ve planned a whole day of fun! Just you wait little missy, we’re gonna turn that frown upside down!” He demonstrated this using his own face and some strange noises to accompany them.

People had always told him he was good with kids, but he’d always replied by saying he was just doing his job as a friendly citizen. But as he watched Pearl’s nervous face crack open into a fit of giggles, before getting covered with her hands when she was overcome with embarrassment, he half-believed them.

After that, it wasn’t that hard to convince her to come with him, but they’d gone to double check with her guardians first. He already had permission but he needed an excuse to use up the time before the next train. He also managed to get a free cup of tea with it.

He was slightly concerned, when the train finally arrived, that Pearl was so confident in navigating it herself that she ran off inside without him. He was on a mission dammit, he couldn’t fail at the very start!

Truth is, when Maya and Phoenix first enlisted him for this task the day before, he hadn’t had much time to prepare and think things through. Luckily for him though, they already seemed to have things all planned out. He hadn’t hesitated in agreeing to it of course (especially once Maya so kindly offered that Phoenix could pay for the train tickets) but that didn’t mean he wasn’t nervous. There was a lot on the line.

All he could do was hope that it all worked out.

The train ride itself wasn’t anything special. He made sure to regularly ask Pearl a random question so she wouldn’t get bored, but toward the end they’d ended up bouncing up and down in their seats, singing the songs he’d taught her on the journey. The small handful of other passengers had sent them plenty of annoyed glares, but he was used to it and she didn’t seem to notice. They had fun and that was all that mattered. The fun didn’t stop there, though. 

Once they arrived, Gumshoe let Pearl sit in the passenger seat as he drove around the city. He wasn’t sure how much she’d already seen but thought a tour couldn’t hurt. 

He also didn’t have enough money to take her inside anywhere special, so a tour would have to do.

Pearl spent most of the time gazing out of the open window in awe. She was familiar with the streets around the courthouse, and the pair stopped for a moment outside to see if they could hear any heated arguments from inside. They obviously couldn’t, but it was fun nonetheless. 

He purposely avoided driving past Wright & Co Law Offices because he was supposed to be providing a distraction. 

Time passed surprisingly quickly, and it was a good few hours before he noticed Pearl start to fidget and wiggle around in her seat. Sighing, Gumshoe checked the time. 4:26pm. Almost time.

“Hey kid, wanna go to the park?”

Pearl looked up at him, brows furrowed in confusion. “What’s a park?”

It took every bit of effort in his bones to not slam down the break right then and there. Alas, this did mean that he couldn’t hide the look of abject horror on his face.

“You’ve never been to a park?” He asked incredulously. 

“I don’t think so?” Pearl replied, shuffling in her seat. “Maybe I have, but I don’t know what it is. I’m sorry.”

“Right, that’s it.” Gumshoe grit his teeth together and thrust his foot onto the gas. “We’re going to the park this second and you’re gonna get to play there if it's the last thing I do.”

He might’ve been speeding, probably was in hindsight, but whilst caught up in his determination he didn’t notice. Anyways, it was more important to let this little girl experience a park as soon as humanly possible. 

And oh, the look on Pearl’s face when they went inside the park. Her eyes shone with wonder, she jumped up to touch the leaves whenever they walked under a tree, and as soon as the play area came into view she tugged at his trenchcoat and pointed shyly.

“Can I go play there?”

“Knock yourself out!” He said instinctively, before hastily adding “I mean go play as much as you want, I’ll be over here. That’s just a way of speaking.” after Pearl’s jaw dropped in shock.

She really was a sheltered kid, huh.

He sat on the bench and watched her play for another hour. She was surprisingly agile, and she was scrambling across the jungle gyms meant for kids double her age. He almost had a heart attack when she bolted to the monkey bars and began to swing across them as good as any monkey, speeding past the other children leaving them gaping at her in amazement. Or maybe fear. He couldn’t speak for them, but he was definitely terrified of this nine-year-old.

When she eventually tired herself out, she joined him on the bench. Gumshoe thinks that in the few hours they’ve spent together, he’s just made a friend for life.

“Hey,” He leaned in close to her ear, and whispered: “wanna get some ice cream?”

“Yes please!” Pearl squealed, clapping her hands together happily; a stark contrast to the sad little girl he’d met at the station.

He bought her a vanilla cone covered top to bottom with rainbow sprinkles, and she asked him multiple times if it was actually edible and if she was the one meant to eat it. 

What he didn’t tell her was that he wasn’t going to have dinner that night, but one little girl’s happiness was well worth the price of one little meal. He was starting to get sick of instant noodles anyways.

While she was busy eating (her face scrunched up whenever she licked it because of the cold, and he found it absolutely adorable) Gumshoe kept on anxiously checking his watch. The face was cracked slightly, but he could still tell the time so it was all good. It was about 5:50pm, which meant that his target would appear any time now. He wasn’t sure where exactly, but he kept his eyes peeled.

After a heated debate with Pearl about how ice cream was made, he spotted him. He was sitting with his back to them on a bench on the other side of the playing field. He looked like any other stranger wearing a black coat from that distance, but Gumshoe’s eyes were trained to seek him out at all times. And there he was, right on schedule.

“Hey Pearl, wanna piggyback?” He asked once she’d finished her treat.

“Yeah!”

“Hop on!”

He stood up and bent down in front of the bench, which Pearl used as a boost to stand on before leaping onto his back. She was light, and even Gumshoe’s own nieces weighed twice as much as she did. He grinned.

“Ready? Here we GO!”

They ploughed through the playing field, whooping, and Pearl bounced up and down with each stride. When Gumshoe noticed their target standing up to leave, he forced himself to go even faster.

“MR EDGEWORTH SIR!”

Edgeworth’s head snapped in their direction and he dropped his briefcase in surprise. The man was positively shocked to see them, and Gumshoe felt a twinge of guilt for maybe/probably ruining his ‘much needed alone time’. 

“D-Detective?!”

“Um, Mr Gummy?” Pearl tugged at the collar of his coat. “Where are we going?”

She’d stopped cheering and now her voice sounded frightened. Gumshoe felt lucky that he couldn’t see her face right then, or he might’ve ended up abandoning the mission altogether.

“Just gonna go talk to a friend.” He replied, as cheerfully as he could. “He’s super cool, he’s the best guy I know!”

He felt the back of his collar get tugged again. “I d-don’t want to…”

Seeing as they were almost there, Gumshoe gradually slowed his pace to get his breath back.

“Don’t worry,” he huffed, “it’ll only be for a minute.”

“Detective, what are you doing here?” Edgeworth asked once they were close enough to not shout to be heard. Then his eyes settled on the young girl trying to hide behind Gumshoe’s scruffy mass of hair. 

“Pearls!” He said, eyes wide. Then, to Gumshoe in a stage whisper that sounded a lot more like a hiss of a snake: “Does she know?”

Gumshoe nodded happily. “‘Course she does! You know who Mr Edgeworth is, don’t you Pearly?” He felt her climb higher onto his back and guessed she was nodding.

Edgeworth’s eyes were unblinking and his lips were parted slightly as he stared at the girl on his back. Gumshoe had done his job, now he just had to wait and see if the mission was successful.

“Hello Pearls,” Edgeworth said hesitantly, extending every syllable. “How er-, how are you?”

Without warning, Gumshoe felt Pearl slide off his back in an instant and didn’t have time to process what was happening before she was charging toward Edgeworth, fist raised. She struck him in the stomach causing him to double over in pain.

“You abandoned Mystic Maya!” She shrieked, throwing another punch onto the already-winded Edgeworth.

“Watch out sir!” Gumshoe cried ten seconds too late.

“You left Mystic Maya all alone and she cried about her family and you didn’t help her!” Pearl shouted, still throwing punches. “And she trusted you!”

“I-I didn’t know- OOF” Edgeworth wheezed, before letting out a groan as his thigh was slapped particularly hard. Gumshoe desperately wanted to pull her off him, but wasn’t facing problems the best way to solve them? So he held back until she aimed for a nasty spot to punch, because then he hastily grabbed her and pulled her back.

Pearl was crying now. “You sh-should have been there for her!” She wailed.

“I’m sorry,” said Edgeworth while he regained his breath, “I am really sorry Pearl, but I honestly didn’t know. If I’d known then-”

He cut himself off and looked down in… shame? Gumshoe watched him in concern. He didn’t seem interested in finishing his point though and instead crouched down to her level.

“I didn’t know.” He repeated, gracefully pressing a hand against his heart. “But I promise that I’ll try to make it up to her. Will you allow me to do that?”

Pearl sniffed and rubbed her eyes. “Y-You really didn’t know?”

Edgeworth nodded slowly.

She brushed her tears away, all cried out, and grabbed onto Gumshoe’s coat. “Did your dad know?”

At first, Edgeworth huffed in disbelief, before his face softened. “Yes, I think he did. But he loved Maya, Mia and their mother very much and didn’t have a choice to leave them. He passed away when they were young, and didn’t get the chance to tell me.”

As far as Gumshoe knew, Edgeworth had no way of knowing any of what he’d just said. It also then occurred to him that he was a very good liar. Had he been lied to before without realizing it? 

They stood there in tense silence for a few moments, waiting for Pearl to react.

“You’re not lying?” She asked quietly. “No.”

Lie or not, it seemed to work, and all of a sudden she let go of her grip on his coat and darted towards Edgeworth, wrapping him tightly in a cuddle that looked like it was squeezing the life out of him.

“I-I’m sorry!” She wailed again from within his chest. “I thought you left on purpose! Mom said everyone leaves to hurt us and I thought you did as well and I’m sorry-”

As she rambled into his torso, Edgeworth was as stiff as a statue. His hands were frozen a few inches away from Pearl’s back. They were shaking, as if unsure whether to touch her or not. His eyes were pointed at Gumshoe, desperately begging for help, pleading for him to intervene and just say something, anything, but he didn’t. So he was just left to squat there awkwardly as a little girl cried into him.

Gumshoe watched on from the side, feeling a wave of pride wash over him. 

“Um, Pearl?” Said Edgeworth, once Pearl had finished her long apology. “Would you like to go and see Maya?”

Pearl shuffled away and turned to Gumshoe, who nodded gleefully. She looked back at Edgeworth and nodded.

“Right then.” He said, standing up and brushing himself off. “We’ll go to Wright’s office.”

“Mr Eh-ji-worth?”

“Yes, Pearls?”

“Please can I go with Mr Gummy in his car?”

Gumshoe smiled. Mission accomplished.

[wardencommanderrodimiss]

Miscellany about Mia in the Fae AU, simultaneously making myself sad and laughing. Who wants nearly 2000 words of assorted thoughts about Mia Fae, because you can get them here.

So at this point, we obviously know Mia to be a semi-omniscient (I know that’s kind of an oxymoron) presence lingering over the office, stopping Phoenix’s stupid ass from getting killed, and doing classic poltergeist things like breaking mirrors and throwing things but in a way that provides guidance to her people when they need a push. She is the Wise Dead Mentor, as in canon, but kicking around long past when she stops being an active figure in canon. 

But we don’t know her when she was alive. We get those snippets of dialogue of her and Phoenix to bookend his flashback chapters, and we get Phoenix telling Apollo and Vera about her. And the latter, at least, is definitely unreliable -- Phoenix isn’t trying to actually be unreliable in that moment, but his memory is colored with nostalgia and grief and loss, so the information he gives the kids is basically “she was perfect and unique and infallible and stronger than anyone”.... which I mean.... there’s a reason Vera follows up with the question that she does, because that sounds so romanticized to her, especially since the only fae she knows are herself (naive and unwitting criminal) and Kristoph (bastard). 

Mia was very very strong. But Dahlia was about her equal, I think -- which Phoenix does not want to think about -- and Mia still died and obviously was neither perfect nor immortal.

And -- this is some psuedo-canon that I’m not quite sure if I’ll ever put into the text directly, because I feel like if I say it I’ve got to work out the exact logistics of how it works, and in case you haven’t noticed, I am not worldbuilding with a hard rule-defined magic system, here. The lines are all blurry, except I am also an obsessive perfectionist, so even though I keep saying “I fudge a lot of the terms of what magic can and can’t do, I’m standardizing a few things, but most of it is whatever causes the most problems for our protagonists” I am also driven with this horrible desire that even if it never becomes relevant in-text, I need to know for my own purposes. But anyway --

Part of what I’ve got in my head is that, Dahlia was horribly strong, clearly. Vera survives being cursed -- Phoenix was dying within seconds of Dahlia’s curse. And in my head, Mia’s blessing is more than that -- it was part of her own life force. That’s why White killed her relatively easily (though she didn’t properly die); because she had already weakened herself, because she had given that up to Phoenix. She wanted to foil Dahlia, desperately, but it was also a reaction of her guilt at not having saved Diego from Dahlia. She couldn’t save him, but she can save Phoenix, and she pays a high price to do so.

And Phoenix knows this, or thinks of it in this way: Chapter 8, he says “He’s a dead man, living on time borrowed – no, stolen – from someone else.” He thinks he’s the reason that Mia is gone, and he’s not sure if he was worth her life.

(On this topic, sort of, about the one thing that Vera asks him in Chapter 15, I don’t and I never have shipped Mia and Phoenix, but I do believe that he was definitely in love with her, kind of in a “puppy love he knows is unattainable and is at least partially just loving the concept of her” way, from maybe soon after his trial until sometime after she died. Like canonically, he shifts from calling her “Chief” to calling her “Mia” at some point after her death, when they’re working together, and I see that shift as him moving on from carrying such a torch for her and them standing on equal footing. Anyway. Characterization things that don’t really have much bearing here! Now you know.)

This is all to say that Phoenix’s idealization of her when he talks about her as pretty much the strongest and best of all the fae, is a little bit of a tilted perspective.

Because when she was alive and trying to be human, she was really, really fucking weird.

Like. The fae are weird. Maya is a terrifying goblin girl who likes cheap fast food and samurai shows and contains about a hundred teeth and the entire void inside of her mouth. Mia leaned closer to human in terms of her morals -- eg if she was still alive and able to help with the Kristoph situation, Phoenix would have asked for her help instead of pushing Maya away because he knows he can’t tell her anything or else she’ll kill people -- but she still was not good at being a human being.

This is because of the two people she learned how to be human from: Lana and Diego.

Lana she met in law school, was attracted to because of her intelligence, her determination, and also the fact that she’s very very pretty. In Chapter 8, Ema and Phoenix have that conversation about souls, referencing back to Lana, and Ema clearly knows that Mia was one of the fae and knew it before she ever met Phoenix, and this is because Mia at that point was bad at pretending to be human. Lana spent time with her, Lana realizes, “oh, hey, you did not grow up here, as in here, the world as I know it”. And Mia tries to learn from Lana how people act, but she cannot learn from Lana what normal human dedication to something is, because Lana is highly driven at everything she does. Lana throws herself into everything knowing she will get it done, Lana comes out the other side of an all-nighter still pretty sharp and ready to go with the next thing, and Mia is like “ah, yes, this are ordinary human limitations” and they are not. She does realize that Lana has a more formal, restrained manner of speaking, and she does look around for other people to observe to figure out how to talk.

This, unfortunately, lands her with Diego, who’s much much more casual with everyone, except he’s still in love with bullshit metaphors and being vague as hell, and Mia is like “ah, perfect, I know how to talk like this” except nobody but them talks like this. You two are why Grossberg has a flask in his desk, you know. He day-drinks because you two are master-class at bullshitting and saying meaningful meaningless things. Diego is also not a good litmus for human caffeine consumption, but again, Mia is like “yeah, okay, this is how people are” and they aren’t. 

Also you know how there’s some incredibly hot concept art of Mia as a biker? Some time after poisoning Diego and then spiriting him into a pocket dimension (Dahlia doesn’t do things in halves, Dahlia does the human method of getting rid of someone and then the fae one, leaves the trail cold in two directions), Dahlia sends Iris to get the necklace back and flees the city, and Mia buys a motorcycle and goes chasing her down, and that’s what Mia’s absence from court in that time is about. (Mia is very confused when she catches up to Dahlia in LA again and Dahlia has apparently been there the whole time dating this college kid, because she knows Dahlia was not in LA but apparently was.) And while doing that, Mia doesn’t really need to bother too much with being a human person, she can just roll in to roadside diners and truck stops and be that weird nameless biker chick who no one will ever see again, so when she gets back and takes Phoenix under her wing, she is still, just, weird. 

She never figures out how to give direct advice, she never figures out what healthy caffeine consumption for humans is, she never figures out lots of little things that if you’re around someone long-term will make you say “hey what the fuck is wrong with you”, but since she’s associating really only with Phoenix at this point, who knows what she is, it doesn’t matter. And Phoenix, conversely, doesn’t care, because she saved his life, because she is helping him on his path to save his friend, and later, he doesn’t care because he’s mourning her and misses her and all the most important things about her to him overshadow the weirdness.

(”Mr Wright, can you ask her to stop getting my attention by throwing things at me?” Apollo says and Phoenix is like “I don’t understand the question, that’s how she is, what’s the problem?”)

The one thing Mia does learn, most importantly, and mostly from Lana, is about how humans love. The Winter Court is a place of backstabbing and deceit, among family as much as anywhere else. Misty loved her daughters and did not see them as a threat and that was odd and that is partially why Misty left; Mia and Maya loved each other and that was odd and that is partially why Mia left; Iris loved Dahlia and that was odd (Dahlia used her more as a pawn in return, which is typical). Morgan loved her daughter as a pawn but as a pawn to get Pearl power for herself, not for Morgan, which is odd. These two generations of the Winter Royals were just odd, more human in sentiment than those prior, the start of a shift, but -- Mia meets Lana, a young woman who has lost her parents, who loves her younger sister with her whole heart and is raising her and taking care of her and doing her best for her, and Mia sees this, and something fully, entirely, clicks for Mia. And she wishes she and Maya could be like that in the Court without fearing the politicking around them, without fearing others trying to play them against each other, without fear, in general. 

(You know, when Ema first meets Phoenix, she asks if he’s Mia, which is like, haha, silly girl, and we forget it because Ema obviously knows who Mia is because Mia and Lana obviously were girlfriends in school. But in this universe, Ema asks, tentatively, if he is Mia, because she does not know how much the fae cannot change forms, does not know if Mia has taken a new shape and name since Ema last saw her.)

Phoenix, meeting Ema, though, he is reminded of Mia, and Maya, and that is because Mia started patterning herself after them. And in that, Mia did succeed at seeming very, very human.

(Maya loves her sister just as much, has always, did always, knew that wasn’t normal among the fae but didn’t know it was possible for humans to just be without fighting each other for title and throne, and this Maya learns from Phoenix, and this she brings back to the Court. This is how she takes to Pearl, the way Mia was with her, and she tries to build a loving family out of them, to change the entire backstabbing culture of the Court her own damn self. And that informs how she deals with Iris, later -- she doesn’t kill Iris, doesn’t strip her of power and exile her, doesn’t lock her up in a pocket dimension or in iron. She extends an olive branch, because Phoenix forgives, because Mia loves, and because they are family, and because Iris’ greatest sin was Mia’s greatest strength, which was loving her sister.)