This is a small experiment on my part. It's taking place with heavy–too heavy, maybe?–emphasis on Phoenix's past desire to be a Shakespearian actor. Throw that in with my English studies (which are unremarkable) and my past experience with theater (one year), and you have one choppy piece about Phoenix and Miles.
But I was aiming for it to be choppy. It's snippets and pieces of their lives and their relationship (I'm aiming for hints at romantic, but you may take it whatever way you please); with no time-line to tie it together. Even though this is all one entry, each act is meant to be read alone and totally devoid of any information given in the others.
Fleeting, I suppose is what you'd call it. Tiny breaths of the two lawyers put in an entry on a whim by myself. And, I'll be damned if I'm not proud of this.
So, with a reminder that this game in not my intellectual property, I present "Quick Edit".
Enjoy, darlings!
)(Act I: Annotation)(
He had asked to look at Edgeworth's old case files. "To learn," he had explained to the brow-raised prosecutor, because he hadn't gone to such a prestigious law school.
Because he wanted to see.
And, with a heavy sigh, Miles had agreed to his request. Five old files were delivered to Wright and Co. Law Offices later that same afternoon by a trembling Meekins. Phoenix would never know how Edgeworth had gotten a cop to bring legal files to a defense attorney. But he had ideas.
They were unremarkable cases, except for the fact that Edgeworth had won them all with less that two hours of court proceedings. Basic things: State Vs. Johnson for aggravated assault on a police officer. McNiel Vs. 2nd Street Highschool for sexual harassment of a teacher by the principal. Oh-ho. Juicy, Phoenix grinned as he picked up the file and began to read.
The case had been ended in an hour and seven minutes; and Edgeworth's file was organized. A clean copy of the court proceedings, followed by a small legal pad of notes in that spidery script that was unmistakably the prosecutor's made up the inside of the manilla envelope. That was all he had needed, he supposed.
Phoenix held up the proceeding script to his desk lamp with a frown. It was...professional. Cold.. Almost missing the lawyer that had rightfully won the case. That wasn't right.
When the lawyer had pressed the envelopes and a separate folder, labeled "Edgeworth" into the cravat-wearing man's hands before court the next morning, Miles had raised his eyebrow again. Phoenix just said "Read it!" and was drug off into Courtroom Three by the black-haired girl.
Edgeworth had paused before opening the folder. There were strange markings across the copies of the old transactions in a blue pen, with neat capital letters marking certain things.
A curving line, going upwards over his opening statement on two, down on three. Infliction was written with an arrow pointing to the top of the paper on the first and last words on everything he said in the cases. Slashes on and between words and syllables crucial to the point he was arguing, assertion by what that point was. Omission marks, their ends trailing, through testimony he had revealed to be false.
Miles Edgeworth sighed again and looked to the judge. "The prosecution is ready, Your Honor. And may I remind the defense that the courtroom is not a theater?"
From across the room, Phoenix Wright grinned.
)(Act Two: Tragic Flaw)(
"Hey, Miles. Ready to go to that seminar?". The man in question waved his hand over a group of papers in a shooing motion.
"No, Wright. I still don't see how I missed the implications of Von Karma's guilt." He grumbled, pushing the previously waving hand through his bangs in frustration. "And I've been through this four times."
"...Um..."
"Tell me," Miles said, turning to look at the blue-suited attorney in his doorframe, "How I missed everything about the bastard that killed my father. I am...the best prosecutor in the city. I am the son of Gregory Edgeworth. And I have more experience in law that you do. So how is it," He choked, fist clenching with an unbearable tightness, "That you–a novice, unskilled man–can see what I, a trained and serious lawyer, could not."
It's just his Hubris, Phoenix thought.
And Edgeworth's thoughts were dark.
They both missed the seminar that night.
)(Act Three: From Memory)(
It was exciting, being able to collaborate on a case like this. They both had been hired by a wealthy man to serve as a legal team to prosecute the art thief that had murdered his daughter mid-robbery.
"What the...? Wright, look at this." Looking up from the floor map of the manor, Phoenix shot his dark eyes over to the pictures that Edgeworth held. "What is this from?"
And he didn't know how Edegworth knew or recalled that he would be the one to know. But he liked the fact that Edgeworth did know that about him.
"Hmm...'Get me some poison, Iago; this night'...the rest is: 'I'll not expostulate with her, lest her body and beauty unprovide my mind again: this night, Iago'..." He paused, glancing to his partner. "From Othello. It's when they were planning to kill De–um, Othello's wife for assumed adultery."
"...You assume that I know nothing about Shakespeare, Phoenix. His wife's name is Desdemona. But...from a scene and a play concerned with such sexual context, could some sort of tryst be a possible motive on the thief's part?"
And he didn't know why hearing the other say that name made him smile.
)(Close Curtain)(