AS WE KNOW IT
CHAPTER 1
August 3, 9:47 AM
District Court
Defendant Lobby No. 2
"How are the pre-first trial jitters holding up?"
"I honestly don't know what you're talking about, Sis. I feel awesome!" Maya exclaims cheerfully, even going to the effort of clasping her hands together and jumping up from her seat on one of the benches in the Defendant's Lobby. It only takes two seconds for her to regret it as she cups her face in her hands and tries to steady herself on her feet. "Alright—who set the room to spin-mode?"
Mia chuckles at her young sister's antics before laying a hand on her shoulder, a concerned look crossing her features. "Are you sure you still want to go through with this? I mean… a murder case for your first trial…"
"Of course I do!" Maya insists, though her hands are still cradling her head, and her voice is strained in nerves. "I'm perfectly capable of handling this, and we're already here, so it's too late to back out. I'm not nervous, either. Just a little… dizzy." She finishes unconvincingly.
"It's just like you to rush into something without thinking about the consequences." Mia chides, but there is a teasing tone to her voice, and Maya sticks her tongue out at her.
Maya straightens herself, craning her neck to look around the room. "Where is he?"
"It's over! My life, everything, it's all over!" A cry breaks through her muttering, and the two siblings jump at the sudden blubbering. Maya's head snaps over to her left, spotting her client freaking out by the door. She breathes a sigh of relief at having found him, but the sight makes butterflies in her stomach she thought settled down riot again.
Mia nods over to him, asking, "Isn't that your client screaming over there?"
Maya looks at the sobbing mess of a man sympathetically. "Yeah… that's him."
"Death! Despair! Ohhhh!" The man yelps, now pacing around the lobby and chewing on his nails. "I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna die!"
"It sounds like he wants to die…" Mia notes.
"Yeah… he was like that in the detention center too. I don't get it, either. He's innocent—" The man is attempting to bash his head against the wall, and Maya bites the inside of her cheek, "—right?"
"If it makes you feel any better, there are clients like this all the time. Except, maybe just… a little calmer." Mia says in an attempt to lift Maya's spirits back up. "Besides, it's a defense attorney's job to believe in their client, even if they don't themselves."
"Yeah, you're right, Sis."
"Ms. Fey!" The man calls, apparently just having spotted her, and he rushes over to the two ladies, almost tripping on his feet.
Maya's eyes widen. "Mr. Larry Butz!" She addresses, hands going to grip the files and notes that she picked up from the bench. Her knuckles whiten as her eyes dart between the wall behind Larry and at the man himself.
Mia raises her eyebrow at the name, an amused twinkle in her eyes, but doesn't call attention to it.
"I'm so guilty! Tell them I'm guilty!" Larry cries, beginning reaching out to grab Maya's shoulders, but deciding against it. Instead, he rolls his hands into fists and scrunches his eyes shut. "Gimme the death sentence! I ain't afraid to die!"
"What!?" Maya panics, not expecting the confession—twenty minutes before the trial, of all times. Maybe choosing a murder case right off the bat was a bad idea, after all. Still, she presses, "What's wrong, Mr. Butz?"
"Oh, it's all over… I… I'm finished. Finished!" He emphasizes, throwing his hands up. Maya tries to inch away discreetly. Larry doesn't notices, and instead continues his rambling, "I can't live in a world without her! I can't! Who… who took her away from me, Ms. Fey? Who did this?! Aww, come on, ya gotta tell me! Who took my baby away!?"
Maya chews on her bottom lip, looking down at the papers she holds in her arms. If media was to be taken seriously, that would mean… Larry was the one who killed his girlfriend. But that couldn't be it. A defense attorney always believes. At least, she hopes so.
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Her name is Maya Fey, and her story is a simple one: she comes from a long line of spirit mediums who head a school for the Kurain Channeling Technique. Her mother is the Master of the village, meaning she's the one to call the shot about all the nitty gritty political issues spouting in Kurain, her hometown in the mountains. Mia, Maya's sister, is to be next in line for the position since she's the eldest daughter—and has way more control and technique up her sleeve than Maya could ever wish to have.
Except, that story's not entirely true, either. The thing is, their mom went M.I.A eleven years ago, and no one knows where she is. Instead of a Master running the show, it's a council of the most top-notch (and old—very, very old) mystics in Kurain: the Elders, who just want things ran their way instead of considering the benefits of their own people. And… Mia and Maya sort of… ran away to the city afterwards.
Mia, age eighteen, left two years after their mother's disappearance. She wanted to get an education outside of Kurain, get a big wig job, and solve the mystery of where their mother went. It was just an added bonus she wouldn't have to fight over the title of Master with her younger sister—the problem that plagued their village time and time again—once she left. Mia went to university, studied law, and became a defense attorney.
Maya, age seventeen, left four years after their mother's disappearance. She was in the middle of training at that time, but she had enough of the Elders and having to live up to expectations, so she followed in Mia's footsteps to find their mom. At least, it was partly that. She wanted to know where her mom was, sure, but she always needed a way out—and that way out was the city that she was prohibited from visiting too often. Come on, a girl's gotta have more than one fast-food outing every couple of months.
And here they were—working under Fey & Co. Law Offices, gradually working their way up to the top of attorneys, and looking into the mom-situation behind the scenes.
Maya had gotten her attorney's badge recently, having passed the bar exam at twenty-four, and was now going through her very first trial. She still visits Kurain, though; even if it felt like she wasn't welcome at times—their reputation being the two Fey girls who had left in the village's time of need.
And… she's technically just a spirit medium-in-training, considering she never finished when she let herself be whisked away into the city, but so what if she never bothered to complete her training, right? It's not like she needs the powers of the undead to get through everyday life, or anything.
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August 3, 2:32 PM
District Court
Defendant Lobby No. 2
After a relatively quick trial, Maya believes that things went rather well considering the little bumps in the road—Cindy Stone, Cinder Block, same difference, right?, and a poorly timed duck landing a greasy toupée at her face. Still, it went well, and she won her very first trial.
"Congrats, Maya! I knew you had it in you." Mia trails behind her until they stop at the same bench they were at earlier, ruffling Maya's hair a bit.
"Yeah, I guess the lawyer genes do pass down from family." Maya says, before she squints and looks at her sister's chest. "If only something else was passed down."
"Maya!" Mia hisses, making attempts to pull up her shirt and cover herself. Maya only laughs. Sighing, Mia continues, "Still, it's been a while since I've seen a trial end on such a satisfying note!"
Maya smiles at the compliment. She hasn't seen her sister this happy in months from the stress of helping Maya study for the bar and juggling her own trials—if her sister is this glad, imagine how her client must feel after being found innocent!
"My life is over…" There's a loud sob, and then a sniffle, and then another sob, and Maya spins on her heel to be face-to-face with Larry.
She knits her eyebrows together at the reaction. "What's wrong, Mr. Butz? You didn't do it—you're innocent!"
"I might be innocent, but…" Maya cocks her head, waiting for the explanation, "but my Cindy-windy's gone! Gone forever! I'm here, innocent, but at least I'm alive, you know?!"
"Congratulations, Harry!" Mia joins the conversation, apparently satisfied with the way she was able to button up her shirt. She offers her hand, to which Larry limply shakes back.
"H-Harry…?" Larry echoes, eyes slowly running up and down Mia's body. Maya resists the urge to roll her eyes.
Mia grins. "Yes, you! I can practically see the headlines now: 'Harry Butz, Innocent!'"
The transformation from a weeping mess to shy, flirty smiling happens fast, and Maya almost has to do a double-take, because it's as if Larry had forgotten about everything that happened in the last couple of minutes. "Heh… um… thanks! I really owe you one." Larry says sincerely before laying on the charm. Very heavily. "I won't forget this, ever! Let's celebrate! Dinner? Movie? My treat!"
"Oh, no," Mia quickly backs off, waving her hands as she shakes her head, "I couldn't."
"Not like I didn't get you off the hook, or anything." Maya mumbles to herself, but she considers the situation. Did she really want Larry to ask her to dinner or the movies? She makes a face. No thanks.
"Oh, hey! H-here, take this! It's a present!" Larry says, reaching into the bag he brought with him and offering the oddly shaped statue in his hand to Mia.
"A present? For me?" Mia asks disbelievingly, eyeing the gift. She narrows her eyes, "Wait… wasn't this the evidence that…"
"Actually," Larry butts in, puffing out his chest proudly, "I made this clock for her and one for me."
"Whoa! You actually made this?" Maya asks, leaning in to observe the disguised clock. She has to say, she's pretty impressed with the turn of events. Her client didn't look like one who made thoughtful gestures.
Mia takes a moment to consider his offer, before reaching out and taking the clock. It looks heavy, and Mia obviously didn't expect it to weigh so much, so she struggles with getting it into her hands for a while. "Well, thank you. I'll keep it as a memento."
"Larry!"
"Yo, Nick! You made it!" Her client beams through his tears at someone passing through the open doors to the Defendant's Lobby, to whom Mia looks at with a fond smile. Huh. Weird.
The first thing Maya notices is the hair. It's spiky and weird, and she absently wonders how much product the guy uses in the morning to shape it like that. 'Nick' is wearing an oversized navy blue hoodie, black jeans, and these silly sneakers that have the letters 'P' and 'W' imprinted on either shoe. He's also holding onto a bunch of important files and papers, which gives Maya the impression he was working for someone in the business.
"Can you believe it? I was so into that chick…" Larry is rambling again, immediately bursting into conversation with his friend.
'Nick' tries to awkwardly pat Larry's back with his elbow. "Whoa, why are you still crying? I thought you were off the hook."
"My girlfriend was playing me for a fool! Don't that make you wanna just cry?"
"Are you so sure?" Mia asks, an unreadable expression on her face. Larry stops his blubbering to look up at her, baffled. She shrugs, "I think she thought quite a lot of you, in her own way."
"Nah, you don't gotta sympathize with me, 'sokay." Larry dismisses her, doing a poor job of wiping his eyes on the sleeve of his coat.
"Oh, I'm not just sympathizing, really. Isn't that right, Maya?" Mia turns to Maya, who until then, was out of the conversation. Maya clears her throat, trying to ease her way into the loop, but confused all the same. "Don't you have something to show Harry? Something that proves how she felt about him?"
What the heck was Mia talking about?
"Um, yeah. Right." Maya lies before sifting through the court record in a desperate attempt to find something to stop Larry's incessant crying. She lands on a page that has a photo paper clipped onto it, and she immediately realizes what Mia meant.
Maya carefully pulls the photograph out of its hold, and flashes it in front of Larry's face. "Take that! Proof positive you weren't just some chump to her."
Larry takes the picture in his hands, examining it carefully. Finally, he breathes out, "Huh…? What's this have to do with anything?"
Maya goes into a tangent about how Cindy had kept the clock that he made with her all this time, even if she was gallivanting with other men, despite its heaviness and the lack of practicality. Larry just stares at her throughout the explanation, awed.
He speaks up after a moment of silence. "Hey… Maya? I could call you that, right?" Maya nods. Even though she lost that air of professionalism, it was only a matter of time before people started referring to her first name. It's tough having two 'Ms. Fey's' in the business. Larry smiles, genuinely, at her. "I'm glad you offered to be my lawyer. Really, I am. Thanks."
'Nick' clears his throat, and Maya jumps a little at the noise. She had forgotten that he was still there. "Oh, uh, yes?" She asks, still a bit shocked.
'Nick' turns to Maya, offering a polite smile instead of a handshake, considering the pile of papers he's cradling in his arms. He gestures—with the stack—over to Larry, "Thanks for defending my friend. He always finds some way to himself into trouble, but he doesn't have it in him to be a murderer. There's even this saying he has—"
"Hey!" Larry protests, but it's weak and he's still looking on at him through starry eyes, tears welling up once more. He manages to choke out, gratefully, "It's almost like you're the adult here, Nick."
"One more year." He grins, trying to run a hand through his spiky hair, but fumbling with the papers in one arm is hard enough. 'Nick' looks at the clock stationed on a wall, cursing under his breath. "Darn. It's almost 2:50. It was nice catching up with you again, Larry, Chief," He nods over at Mia, before turning to Maya, "and…?" He trails off, hoping to catch her name.
"Maya. Maya Fey. I'm Mia's younger sister."
(Maya whispers, low enough so that only Mia could hear, "'Chief'?" She echoes, amused.
"What can I say? I'm an inspiration." Mia grins.)
"Well, it's nice to meet you, Maya, but I have to go." 'Nick' says apologetically, scrambling back to the open doors in a rush while trying to keep his papers in check. "Duty calls."
Mia snorts at this, and Maya doesn't quite understand why.
"So… who was that?" Maya tries to steer the conversation again, nudging Mia in her side.
Instead of Mia answering her, however, it's Larry. "That's Nick. I've known him since I was twelve." And then, to clarify, "I used to volunteer as teacher's aide at his elementary school with my other friend. Somethin' about being good on resumés. I still don't understand what the community has ever done for me."
"He's an intern at Grossberg Law Offices—you know, where I used to work." Mia adds helpfully.
"That's cool." Maya says. "So he wants to be a defense attorney, then?"
"Seems like it." is all Mia says in response.
Larry excuses himself—something about being late for a job interview at 3:30—and after a multitude of more 'thanks,' he finally makes way towards the door.
Maya watches the retreating figure of Larry, her very first successful client, as he leaves the room. She breathes out a sigh, and straightens out her blazer. Her eye catches the shiny attorney's badge pinned to her lapel, and it's in that moment that Maya realizes the gravity of the situation—she's a lawyer! Five years of hard work and studying and catching up on all the things school in Kurain hasn't taught her—paid off. Because she's a lawyer now. She's succeeded in something, and it feels so—surreal… amazing.
It's Mia who pries her out of her reverie.
"Well, I'm off to get a Swiss roll to celebrate your win." Mia says, jutting a thumb over to the door, "Wanna come with, Maya?"
"Those six dollar rip-offs in the hallway?" Maya makes a face as Mia draws closer to the door that leads out into the hallway, before brightening up. "You know me too well, Sis."
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Brrring…
Brrrrrring…
Beep.
"Yeah, Sis? It's like… nine in the morning. This better be good."
"Morning, sleepy head. How have you been?"
"TIRED. And even more tired. And would you look at whose fault that is? Oh, I dunno, my sister calling me at nine a.m. on a Monday morning. This is exactly why I have my own apartment."
"Cute. Actually, I'm calling because I have a favor to ask."
"What is it this time? Need me to hold some more evidence for you?"
"Sharp as always! There's a lot of buzz about the upcoming trial… I just don't feel safe keeping the evidence here."
"You know, this arrangement isn't going to work out as well once I'm known for my awesome lawyer skills. But yeah, I gotcha. So, what is it this time?"
"It's a clock—"The Thinker" I got from Harry last month. It's not very practical, but it's still fun to turn its head sometimes. I thought you might like it. You always liked toys."
"Sis—I'm twenty-four! I don't have time to play with toys."
"And those Steel Samurai action figures I saw at your apartment last week?"
"Mia!"
"Joking, joking. Ah, I should probably tell you, the clock isn't talking right now."
"Huh? It's not working? That's lame! And I thought Larry was good at all that sculpting mechanical stuff."
"Who's Larry—oh. You're talking about Harry. It worked fine, I just had to take the clockwork out. Sorry. I put some papers inside it instead."
"Papers? Is that the evidence, then?"
"Not just sharp, but nosy as always! Hmm well… there's a possibility that it might turn out that way, yes."
"Hey, I take offense!"
"Can you come by the office tonight, say 9:00, to pick it up? I'll be in a pretrial meeting until then."
"Okay, Sis, but I expect dinner! Something good! Like… burgers! I could really go for a good burger."
"Okay, okay. We'll hit the usual joint."
"Alright! It's a deal!"
"Okay, Sis, see you soon!"
"Yep. I'll be waiting, Maya."
Beep.
[Conversation recorded.
September 5, 9:27 AM]
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September 5, 9:08 PM
Fey & Co. Law Offices
Bad news always goes down better with burgers and a shake. It's a patented Maya Fey motto. Well, honestly, everything goes down better with burgers and shake—but bad news especially.
Except when that bad news is walking into your sister's—usually neat and tidy, but now wrecked and frenzied—law office and spotting a seventeen year old boy sobbing over said sister's bloodied and dying body. Yeah, her appetite was gone now. Left the building and took a plane straight to Antarctica.
Maya freezes in her spot, the grip on her cell phone set to call Mia's now loose, and she barely registers the noise when it falls to the floor.
"Chief…" The boy is mumbling, and the light illuminating through the window from the Gatewater Hotel across the street reflects the tear streaks on his cheeks. "Please, wake up…"
"Is that… really…?" Maya whispers, before clambering over to the window her Mia's body was passed out under. She yells harshly, still unbelieving, "Sis! MIA!"
The boy stares up at her in fright, but she's too busy shaking her unmoving sister's body and her vision is soon blurred over with hot tears. She closes her eyes for a moment, but the image is burned into her eyelids. Maya inhales, hiccupping through her sobs.
"This isn't funny, you know! Sis—you can't do this to me—I—" She looks over at the boy, as though she only just remembered someone was there with her. Maya mumbles, apprehensively, "Who… who are you?"
He says nothing. Maya doesn't know whether it was a choice, or because he couldn't bring himself to speak, eyes brimming with tears and—pain.
And suddenly, her sister's words flash through her mind, conversation forgotten in the month's hectic schedule: "Phoenix Wright, you remember him, right? We met him in the lobby after your first trial. He's assisting Marv at the moment, but there was always something about him—sort of like, genius waiting to break through. I'm thinking of taking him in when he passes the bar in a couple of years. What do you think, Maya?"
Maya's ears are ringing, and ringing, and ringing, and she crumbles to her knees, her head in a daze.
Police. She has to call the police. Maya reaches blindly for her cell phone in the dark, fingers clasping the pink object and clearing the number already entered. She fumbles, her fingers shaking as she presses the numbers: 9-1—
The boy—Phoenix—faints before she hits the final number, and the sudden collapse makes her drop her phone again. Somewhere, Maya could hear the faint screech of sirens and high-pitched screaming of a woman. If her head was in the right place, she would have noticed that the police were already coming onto scene even though she never called. But at that moment, nothing mattered.
Maya half-crawls over to her body, holding onto Mia's hand—limp, cold, lifeless—and the warmth that once engulfed her sister's body fades. Maya's hold falters.
Mia is gone.
Maya has nothing left.
Note: So, how was it? I hope it wasn't too awful. It's a plot-bunny-turned-monster and I just HAD to get this out of my system. First thing's first: no, this will not be a rewrite of all AA cases. I'll be choosing specific scenes and cases to build this alternate universe off of, but I won't be rewriting full cases. I've changed a lot timeline wise, but most events follow canon—with the exception being the reversals. These changes will be explained in due time (a.k.a. once I figure out all the logic kinks). Role-reversal is one of my favorite tropes, and I seriously can't believe that the lawyer/assistant switch hasn't been done—from what I've seen anyways. Thank you for reading, as always, and feel free to drop a review.