Before Everything Changed...

==D==

I was born to be a lawyer. No voice was more insistent than Miles Edgeworth's – that is, my own. Long before I was even aware of what a lawyer's profession entailed, I can remember my eyes trailing over the spines of my father's law tomes. I would run my hands over their stiff covers and marvel upon their thickness and voluminous number of pages. So I would sit, transfixed and on the frontier of an exotic world that could only be accessed through knowledge.

I remember as a young boy endeavouring to read every single law book in Father's bookshelf. I was the sort of child who found encyclopaedias and dictionaries fascinating rather than trite and dull. I would always wonder: "If I could absorb all the knowledge contained here..." and the thought would make me shiver in anticipation as I tentatively predicted what Father's reaction would be.

The logical result was that as young as five, I was a voracious reader. I prided myself on being capable of spelling words such as "Objection" and "Evidence" when other boys and girls struggled with "cat" and "dog".

Curiously enough, in spite of my precociousness, I was not regarded as an altogether brilliant student at English. In fourth grade, I was told to write a creative story and I chose to recount a court case I thought Father had handled remarkably well. After reading the story (my transcript was conveyed across thirty-four handwritten A4 pages), my ever-suffering teacher found it her duty to inform me of a supposed lack of imagination I exhibited on my part. In order to illustrate her dubious point, she read to me a story written by another student by the name of Larry Butz: it appeared to concern a giraffe that donned a black cape and flew to the moon. The incident made me furious, and I sincerely hope Larry has forgotten every single speck of detail concerning that deplorable piece of writing he passed off as a story.

I assume my lack of patience for fiction was once again rooted in my deep desire to follow in my father's footsteps. A criminal lawyer sees the world in truths and untruths; what cannot be proven through infallible evidence must by default become an untruth. To this philosophy I have rigidly adhered to and I must admit it frustrates me when others disregard it.

One such occasion occurred, again, when I was in fourth grade. My class held a trial to accuse and punish a boy named Phoenix Wright for stealing my lunch money. That they held a trial seemed fair enough to me, however, it was but a phoney, cheap imitation of the justice system I was familiar with. Baseless accusations flew and held without discretion.

For a start, the evidence was entirely circumstantial. Thirty-eight dollars was stolen during P.E. class while Wright did not participate. It proved absolutely nothing beyond Wright's lack of an alibi, which did not in itself lend to guilt. It frustrated me how even the teacher, a grown woman, failed to perceive such a glaring flaw in the accusation's logic.

I remember telling Father about this incident, how I stood up for Wright and acted as his defence. That was when Father smiled at me and told me how I would make a good defence attorney one day. I can still remember that unabashed thrill of delight that went through me because of those words.

As a father, Gregory Edgeworth always seemed to know the right things to say. He was never patronising to me. It was to no surprise that as a boy, I held onto and dissected nearly every word he imparted to me. I have always remembered Father as a giant with kindly eyes, although photographic evidence of his corpse states a different case. Father was no giant; he was a simple, ordinary man with a similarly unassuming build. The photo shows no evidence of his personality; there, he was slumped over, indistinguishable from the countless deceased. My eyes always flit over his blemishes, and I can sense something beyond boyish adoration behind such an action. Describing my father has always been difficult because of that.

As a lawyer, Gregory Edgeworth was a brilliant man. Even I at my tender age could appreciate his composure and flair. What he lacked in physical presence, he made up for with a cool, methodical logic and a calm mind that could cut through countless webs of lies and inevitably wrap itself around the truth. Father explained his cases in a clear, concise manner understandable to children yet eloquently enough to impress adults. He made no attempt to obfuscate the court and neither did he make any attempt to hide any truths. Not all of Father's clients were found Not Guilty – perhaps the prosecution's case was too strong or the defendant was guilty all along. In those cases, Father always made a point to congratulate the prosecutor after the trial.

"Defence attorneys and prosecutors are not enemies," I remember him saying. "We are merely vessels to find the truth."

I remember not quite understanding because whenever I watched Father cross-examine a witness, it seemed like a battle of wits between him and the prosecution. An "Objection!" would be called here and an "Objection!" there and so the two of them would rally their arguments back and forth as if the courtroom was a tennis court and the Judge an umpire.

Only once can I recall when Father did not sportingly congratulate a winning prosecutor. My memory would have been rather unreliable if I could not remember that man's name: It was Manfred von Karma. I was not to know it during that fateful day in court, but the von Karma name would be one that would preside over my every action afterwards...

... and that this predicament would be one that I alone would choose.

==L==

Ever since I defended Phoenix Wright in that classroom trial, he stuck to me like an adhesive. For some reason, Larry Butz joined in to make up our quaint little trio, although to this day, I marvel upon how I was able to tolerate his presence for all those months. On retrospect, perhaps I should be grateful that it was only for a few months. Any longer and perhaps his stupidity would have proved fatally contagious.

Wright was a rather harmless boy in comparison and, as I discovered in the subsequent months, was more inclined to share than to steal. I believe I liked him because he took to my explanations of law and justice rather well, although he did make the most bizarre leaps of logic. ("If common law is set by precedent, does that mean they make uncommon law based on stuff that hasn't happened yet?")

Unsurprisingly, I was duly regarded as the brightest of the trio, and whenever Larry or Wright had a problem, they invariably approached me, with my seemingly vast array of legal knowledge at my disposal. I could never rely on them in a similar manner. If there was something I was poor at, I could never ask for help. There was an occasion, for instance, when I was hopeless at origami. Embarrassing as it is to admit, I wept bitter tears at my failure to fold a paper crane and yet refused to ask the (for once) more knowledgeable Larry for advice.

Yet in spite of my stubborn streak, my occasional need for help could not always be kept clandestine. I remember once in the playground twisting my ankle and that it was Wright who carried me to the infirmary. Despite my unmistakably indignant outburst at the very suggestion, Wright held fast to me. When I think back on it, I suppose he was always that kind of person, the type who would remain foolishly steadfast to a friend to the bitter end. He was always simple-minded like that.

I cannot recall the last time I saw my friends before I transferred. I believe there was a vague plan for a weekend get-together, although I evidently did not act on that promise.

By that time, the nightmares had started.

==6==

December 28th represents the beginning of an end for me. It was the day my dream withered and died, not from malnourish but from a shock that I could never fully recover from. The police records document and refer to the events of that day under the case name 'DL-6'. It was deemed a failure and a tragedy on all counts: the investigation and even the trial that came afterwards carried the weight of defeat and resignation. No one emerged a winner from that case.

The prelude act came in the form of a hitherto uneventful day in court. Although during the investigation, the police showed little interest in the trial Father lost to Manfred von Karma, at the time, I saw it as an epic showdown. I speak honestly when I claim that it was among the most intense court battles I have ever witnessed. Everything about von Karma was imperious: his clothing, his stature, his manner of speaking and the way he snapped his fingers. I always imagined the sound of it could subjugate rabid hounds. Yet in spite of all these attributes as well as a twenty-five year win streak as a prosecutor, von Karma was unable to intimidate the mild-mannered Gregory Edgeworth into submission. It was the first time I ever saw animosity in Father's eyes as he fought against the prosecutor's claims.

"Objection! No man has the right to manipulate the truth!" I can remember him saying with a roar. "I accuse you, Mr. von Karma, of faulty evidence!"

It was the last time I ever felt a blazing hot pride as my father's son. It did not "feel" like anything resembling finality then, of course. It never does.

Perhaps if I was a little older at the time, I would have walked away from that trial with a different impression. As a young boy, I interpreted it as von Karma's defeat because the accusation of faulty evidence held. The prosecutor walked from the courtroom with that slow, halting step that spoke of a defeated man who cannot accept his verdict.

The records speak differently. They clearly state that Gregory Edgeworth's client was found Guilty and executed.

Perhaps if I was older, I would have thought that the verdict and on whose side it favoured was what truly counted in a court of law. Maybe the pedestal I placed my father on would have crumbled eventually on its own accord.

I prefer not to think about it.