Hi, all. So I
that I was working on an Ace Attorney fanfic, and a few days ago I ran into a problem I could use some advice on. Spoilers for the first Ace Attorney game, by the way.
Prospective Chapter 2
‘A defence attorney? Aren't those the guys who chase cars to help criminals escape?
He scowled. ‘He stops innocents being unjustly convicted! He doesn't defend the guilty, he finds them in court. There’s nothing to do with ambulances.’
‘Oh, sorry.’ The other boy scuffed his shoe against the bench, head bowed. ‘So he doesn't chase cars?’
‘Of course not. He finds the truth behind crimes, and he defends the innocent!’
The other laughed, not with amusement but bashfulness. ‘Like me, right?’
‘Quite right.’ Again, laughter, and he frowned at the other boy. ‘What? What's so funny?’
‘It just... is?’ The boy’s laughter faded and he rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Sorry, it's not a good joke. My dad thinks it's funny.’
‘I'm not sure I follow.’
‘It's just a bad joke. Your dad seems really cool.’
‘He's better than cool. My father is the greatest defence attorney on the globe. He's working on a big case right now, and when he wins, everyone else will know that too.’
The boy’s eyes lit up. ‘Wow! What's the case about?’
He puffed his chest out. ‘That's confidential. For now,’ he boasted. ‘But when it's over, I'll tell you all about it.’
‘Larry too?’
He hesitated. ‘Yes? But I don't think he'll sit still long enough for me to explain.’
‘Why not? Your dad’s like a-- a superhero or something. If you talk about it right, he'll listen. I know it!’
He hmmed in disagreement, but didn't voice his thoughts.
The boy kicked the bench again. ‘Are you gonna be like your dad?’
‘Yes. I’ll take a law degree, and then I'll be part of the Edgeworth Law Offices with my father.’
‘Can I too?’
‘I don’t know. Law is very difficult,’ he warned. ‘It's hard work.’
Like stone the other boy's face schooled into stubbornness. ‘I can work hard!’ he protested.
‘I can't stop you doing what you want,’ he pointed out. ‘But if you want to be a lawyer too, you'll have to earn it, that's all.’
Grinning, the other boy stood. ‘And I will! I'll become a lawyer, just watch me! Then, we can meet in court and find the bad guys!’
‘But defence attorneys don't work together in court as attorneys, unless it's a civil case, but they aren't on the same side then,’ he said. ‘You can be my co-council.’
The boy looked puzzled. ‘Ok, I'll do that.’ The boy extended a hand to him, then added, ‘Or I'll be a lawyer first and start finding bad guys by myself.’
‘Guilty,’ he corrected, but accepted the handshake.
Both shook with the utmost gravity. The other boy started giggling first, then both broke out in little laughs.
‘Come on,’ the boy said, giving him a nudge, ‘Race you to the swings?’
‘There's chess in the library.’
‘But you always win at chess!’
‘You always win at races.’
‘...Race you to the libra-- hey! No fair!’
Miles Edgeworth, head down, made his way up the stairs to the Fey & Co Law Offices. Everyday, he didn't factor in the time it took to walk up those stairs, and everyday he was a few minutes late. It was unacceptable. Mia had asked him to go to the office, and this was how he acted?
He reached the top of the stairs. A flash of pink caught his eyes, but the elevator doors shut before Miles took a second glance.
Why did Mia ask him there? She had been vague over the phone, and he certainly hadn't the time to press for details given how short the call had been. Just a simple, come by sometime after nine, would you, and he'd been left with a dial tone.
A client would explain it, but why didn't Mia simply tell me that?
And why so late? Unless-- no, Mia wouldn't have called him over frivolously. But she had done so before… and she had told him her sister was visiting… no, she couldn't have. Ridiculous! ...But the evidence was lining up. Her tone had been quite light, for a meeting with a client. But it was too late to turn around and return home. Miles was trapped.
No matter, he'd just need to make the best of things. Miles hadn't yet met the younger Fey, so there was no harm in introducing himself.
Miles reached the door to Fey & Co. The door was ajar.
It was just a crack out of line, barely noticeable, but it was there. Strange, whoever last passed through must have been in a hurry.
Miles pushed open the door.
September 5 2016, 09:11 PM
Fey & Co Law Offices
The lights were off and it was as dim as the night outside. Lights from the hall cut a box of colour out of the dim blues, the weak electrical stars. Nobody was there. Nobody, except the ghosts of previous clients.
Miles looked at his watch. No, Mia should be here. Perhaps I mistook where to meet?
If that were true, then why was the door--?
He was moving to the lightswitch when he smelt it. Curiously metallic, almost sweet, the smell permeated the air and Miles was shocked it took him even a few seconds to notice it.
That's… blood…?
Miles left the lightswitch and stepped further into the office. He could hear something. Muffled and rising and falling, those were sobs Miles could hear.
Blood and tears and an open door…? The door to the main office was open too. Since the rest of the room was empty, that was the only possible source. Miles nudged it open. The bloody air constricted.
‘...Mia…?’
No… not again.
She was slumped underneath the window, the pale moonlight casting a ghostly sheen across her skin. The moonlight never shifted. That was because she wasn't moving. She was an object in the scene, a backdrop in the play, an actor who could no longer perform. Her clothes, they were the same as always without a point out of place. The blood was.
It was black, unnatural in her hair, and he averted his eyes. The statue -- the damn statue -- lay at her side, the same bloodstains on it as on Mia. Why…? Gold and red became blue and black in the moonlight, and Miles was standing there, eyes affixed. Mia was… she was….
‘Sis…’ he heard.
Blood drenched air was like syrup and Miles lurched forward, the floor tilting and trying to cast him to the floor. Beside Mia there was another, tears dripping down her face.
‘Are you alright?’ he asked, but he didn't look at the girl -- couldn't. His mind, his memories, they were narrowing to a single point, a single evening and a single human being who would never breathe again. Everything Miles knew about her was filled with the dead.
Mia wasn't expressionless. If anything the bowed head made her look solemn, and wasn't that a laugh?
The girl choked on her tears. ‘Sis,’ she said again.
Miles stooped and caught her before she fell, just in time, black hair swinging forward and beads hitting Mia’s-- Mia’s legs. The spell was broken. His focus divided. There was an unconscious girl in his arms, and Mia was… was… he couldn't think about that. He gathered the girl up, avoiding the crime-- it was a crime-- what happened-- stop it, stop it-- Miles pushed the door open with his shoulder and walked to the couch, laying the girl onto it. She was out cold.
Mia was cold.
Everything was cold.
He was in the doorway, he realised. Miles was pinned between the living and… the… Mia. There was symbolism there, and he stepped through to banish the thought. He had a phone in his hands. An ordinary phone, from the reception desk.
Hands moved, then raised to ears.
‘...I need to report a murder,’ Miles said. His voice was too loud, even as he rattled off the address. He was the ghost, hovering in the middle of the distorted room, a horrified witness to the absence of motion. ‘...She has a head wound, hasn't moved once during this phone call, isn't breathing or bleeding, yes I'm sure she's de--!’
His voice failed him.
It was uncanny. Books had toppled in one corner, glass in another, the potted plant in a third, and Mia, Mia, the worst of the destruction. What had happened? Miles told the phone he didn't know. He had arrived at ten past nine. He didn't know, he didn't know, he didn't know--
They told him to wait, to stay near the crime scene but do not touch anything. Do not contaminate the crime scene, but in gentler, more common words. The crime scene. Mia’s… it was hers. Her last.
Miles lowered the phone. Everything was still.
A scream split the night. Miles’s attention leapt, free falling, from the room to the night outside the window, to the opposite building where a woman in pink stood, screaming.
‘Police!? Please, come quick!’ she howled, and fled from the window.
Miles stared for a long few minutes, the office phone limp in his hand.
He was left in the crime scene. Alone.
Alone, but for Mia, and she would not speak ever again. Sirens were in the distance, crying over the muffled traffic far below and far away. It was a reminder of life. His hand tightened around the phone, then placed it in his pocket.
Someone committed murder in Mia Fey’s office.
Miles backed to the door and took out a different phone: his mobile. Clicks filled the air. The room, Mia, the statue, the glass, the books, papers scattered around the room, even Charley the pot plant, each was captured and saved, a permanent image that wouldn't fade from Miles’s memories. He could barely look at what he captured, barely even try to commit the room to memory, but it was there. Like it or not, it would feature in Miles’s dreams.
But Miles ran out of space to take, and nothing changed. He was still the ghost in the room, and no life reappeared underneath the window. Miles was captured again, staring at the lack of movement, at the stiffening blood in her hair.
He took a step backwards and found the open doorway behind him.
Miles was a child again, and the walls were small around him. Narrowing.
He turned his back to the room, and noticed that the couch was empty.
‘...Hello?’ Miles said. The front door was as Miles left it, so the girl hadn't fled. She was somewhere in the room. Somewhere. Some time ago she had been the first on the crime scene, and Miles couldn't see her.
No, false alarm, she had curled up and hidden herself beside the reception desk. Hardly the actions of a… guilty. Her clothing had spilled out from her hiding place. Was it purple, or was the moonlight fooling his eyes? Those were wooden sandals, weren't they?
Loud footsteps were difficult to engineer against carpet. Miles did his best to give the girl ample warning. He didn't want to frighten her more than she must already be. He even returned the reception phone, loudly, to where it had been before.
She didn't look up as Miles knelt before her.
‘Ms Fey?’
That got her attention. Like a doe before a gun her eyes were wide and frightened, and Miles raised his hands in a gesture he hoped was non-threatening.
‘How…?’
‘You… you called Mia your sister,’ Miles said. ‘That would make you… May, wouldn't it?’
‘Maya,’ she said softly. ‘Maya Fey.’
‘Maya,’ Miles concurred. So she is Mia’s sister. ‘If you can, do you remember what happened?’
Her arms drew together, like a shield, her knees drawn into her chest. Words failed Maya. It seemed she too was trying not to think about the other room, and its contents.
Miles waited.
‘...I came in… the room was dark… and sis….’ Grief strangled Maya’s voice out of her, and what words she pulled free faded into the night.
...She was already gone, Miles finished the thought. ‘It's alright, you don't need to tell me anything else. I--’ Miles glanced behind himself, to the door. He thought he'd heard footsteps, but it was just the creak of the building around them. Miles looked back. ‘I called the police. They'll be here soon. You need to remember as much as you can about what happened, and tell them when they ask you, as much as you can. Every detail counts.’
Her answer was a faint nod and an expression of blank horror. Miles knew he was looking in a mirror.
They sat there, in silence, and listened to the world as it churned and it churned. Outside, people were having a quiet evening, or a loud evening, but no matter the evening they were still being. Being quiet, being loud, being alive and full of motion and sound. And there they were, as still as they could be. It wasn't out of choice, nor a lack of it, Miles just couldn't. He was stuck. He was unable to move forward, to strive and find and search and comfort. He was unable to move back because the past was a foreign country, not one three hours slow but nine lives away.
But the future, no matter the distance required to fly, always became your destination.
With a bang to the wall the door flew open. Both started, Miles standing too quickly as the police poured inside. Miles wordlessly directed them to the other room, and like water they filled it. He helped Maya to her feet. Both silently stood by the other, unable to take a step and be cast out alone in the tide.
The hallway was darkened and a heavy-set man strode in. His green coat swept behind him. Suddenly he was in front of Miles, and Miles didn't register the intervening movement.
‘Alright,’ the man said, ‘I'm Detective Dick Gumshoe, pals. We received a report from the building across the way, got a person saying they saw a murder.’
Thunder should have rumbled. It didn't.
‘Anyway, I don't want either of you moving one inch, ‘kay?’ he said. He pointed at the ground for emphasis, waiting for their shaky nods. Only then did he leave.
Maya was shaking like a tree in a hurricane. Miles was looking into empty air, empty, bloody air. The smell was fading. Or rather, he was adapting to it. He was getting used to the smell of blood.
A shout came from the other room, followed by hurried chatter that Miles didn't track. He caught a few words, ask the witnesses, and then he was too caught up in that definition. He was a witness-- they both were. That was their role now, that was what they would b--
The detective loomed in the doorway, scanning the entrance room and alighting on their little group of two. He strode forward, holding up his phone.
‘Scuze me. This word “Maya” here mean anything to you?’
On the screen was a photograph, a still image of a scrap of paper that Miles had missed. Blood, so without light it was black, had printed letters upon the paper.
MAYA.
Maya had frozen, no longer shaking in the hurricane but felled by the onslaught. ‘That… that's my name…?’
The detective’s bushy eyebrows came together. ‘The victim drew this here note in her own blood, see?’
No. No that can't be right.
‘With her dying breath, she wrote down the killer’s name!’ The detective nodded sharply, and all of a sudden officers appeared. Miles stumbled back as two took to Maya’s sides.
She was shaking her head, hair beads clacking together with the force of her protests. The detective spoke over her, uncaring, like the storm that lashed the forest.
‘Case closed! You're coming down to the precinct, ma’am.’
‘W-what?!’ Maya pulled against one officer, whose gaze hardened. ‘But I'm not--’
Then she was gone.
The front door swung in her wake, and the sounds of her protests faded down the hall.
‘You too, pal,’ the detective was saying. ‘You--’
‘She isn't the murderer,’ Miles said. He tore his gaze from the door and tried to implore the detective to see reason. ‘That's her sister. Aren't these circumstances--’
With a wave of his hand, the detective cut Miles off. ‘You can tell your story at the precinct, pal. You!’ He turned to another officer and thumbed Miles’s way. ‘Take him over.’
‘Yessir!’
‘No-- wait, detective!’
But the moment was gone, the detective had turned away, the conversation had ended, and Miles furiously let the officer lead him away.
I arrived in the building at five past nine.
When I reached the office, it was ten past. I know the time because I wondered if I had been late.
The door was ajar. All the lights were off.
There were no signs of disturbance in the waiting room. I smelt blood, and I heard crying.
When I entered the room, I saw Mia Fey lying under the window, and Maya Fey crying beside her.
Maya fainted, and I carried her to the other room. I then returned and called the police. Your records should corroborate this.
After doing so, I heard a scream from the opposite building. A woman in pink was screaming for the police, then disappeared.
I recorded the crime scene, then went to check on Maya. The photos are on my phone.
Maya was awake when I returned. She could have easily escaped while I was in the other room.
I find it unthinkable that Maya Fey could have killed her older sibling.
Hours passed.
Mia Fey was dead.
Maya Fey was charged with sororicide.
Miles Edgeworth refused to leave the building.
This scene involves the discovery of a corpse and I'm not sure if I have underdone or overdone the scene. My concern is that for someone unfamiliar with canon, it might be too quick and not treated with enough
. But for someone who
familiar with canon, they know all about the scene already and may get irritated with how I'm
copy pasting dialogue and the like, and might want to just get on with things. (Which is a problem I'll have to deal with for the entire AU, because I do want to write these characters interact with the Stations of Canon but that means changing things is tricky, but never mind that).
Also, it's somewhat short for a chapter, which is irking me but it makes no sense for it to continue. I need to do a few more editing passes, but this is something I need another opinion on.
