This will be the second long fanfiction I will write for the Miles/Fran pairing. I really do adore this pairing, the first I have come to adore in fact in my course of playing the GyakuSai games. I thank very much the audience who have read and reviewed my previous stories, My Best Friend's Wedding and A Sweet, Fleeting Romance. I hope that I will receive as much reviews in this story.
-drops of jelly
Standard Disclaimer Applies
Prologue:
"... Are you still up for this, Franziska?" he panted, huffing and puffing as they went on.
"I should be the one to ask you that, Miles Edgeworth..." she had a rather hard time speaking, from where she was positioned. He was carrying her on her back.
"I'm... I'm still fine. I can go on, but you're hurt." He breathed.
"Drat... I know. I'm such an utterly foolishly foolish, useless foolhardy fool." She displayed such frustration, not noticing she had been hitting his back for quite some time.
"Ugghh..." Edgeworth swivelled carelessly aside, almost hitting a tree nearby.
"Ahh!!" Franziska braced herself, wrapping her arms tighter around his neck, and trying to hang onto his back with her legs, and her injured ankle.
In a split second, Miles Edgeworth realized that they were about to fall, he got his body to act against his will, being able to stand up straight once more.
"You fool... You're burning." She felt his hot neck as she had held onto him tighter, then touched his forehead, almost covering his eyes.
"H-hey, I can't see Franziska!" he was starting to fall again.
"Put me down Miles Edgeworth." She said as calmly as possible. She was trying to contain her frustration-covered guilt, and doing a bad job of doing it.
"No, I can still go on. Trust me this once." He muttered.
"If I trust you this once, we will both die." Her voice accelerated.
He put her down, frustrated, letting a soft grumble escape his lips.
He seated her and himself onto the grass in the forest they were in.
"You know if we idled around like this we wouldn't win." He wearily stared at her.
"If we went on like that, we would lose even more." She was serious, yet annoyed as well. Both of them were weak, she admitted. She had to get a foot injury, while her little brother had to have a temperature of slightly above 39 degrees.
"Miles Edgeworth, we made a pact with each other before this battle didn't we?" she pulled his head closer by his hair and bumped her head softly onto his hot forehead.
"Yes, I suppose we did." He said discreetly, careful of not contaminating her with his hot breath.
"Then act seriously from now on. You should know better what is best to do now." Her words were as sharp as how her whip would slash.
O-o-O
High Prosecutor's Office
June 4 8:45 pm
"I'm telling you the truth Edgeworth! You have to believe me. In all my thirty four years of living, I could never have been more serious about anything." Phoenix Wright's face grew grim from the news he had just told his friend.
"That kind of thing you are telling me is simply impossible Wright. I never believed in secret societies or dark operations defying law like that, daring us to challenge them!" he denied it, swivelling his chair aside to the window's view.
"I only discovered this happening because of a couple I used to know. It's all true, I swear it on my new badge." Phoenix gripped his red tie nervously.
"..." Edgeworth eyed him for a moment, then he recalled that Phoenix had the talent for the impossible.
"Let's get this straight; you say that you saw a couple of doctors who were kidnapped in front of your apartment. You followed the van they shoved the couple in. You saw men in white suits and guided the doctors into the pure white building and followed them to the entrance. Somehow you went on unnoticed, then you lost sight of them after they were forced into an elevator." Edgeworth began to summarize Phoenix's unbelievable tale.
"The next day, when you passed by the area on your way to work, you saw the police gathered around the area, and you saw the two corpses of those doctors?"
"Yes." Phoenix nodded.
"Now, you expect me to believe that this is the work of a maniac crime syndicate network, headed by a maniac mastermind?
"Those doctors weren't the only victims, aren't I right?" Phoenix asserted his point further.
"I can't deny that. Other professional couples were also murdered the same way." Edgeworth sighed.
"It's all too much of a coincidence! Five murder cases, the same murder method, similar types of victims! There's too much of an obvious connection between all this. Do you still deny what I'm saying?" Phoenix said.
"He's not lying, Miles Edgeworth." Franziska entered in her usual fashionable manner.
"You as well?" Edgeworth's face grew more surprised.
"You and I both handled at least one of those murder cases this fool has been talking about. I have seen and heard enough to believe it, I'm afraid." Her face grew serious as she approached his desk.
"In the middle of it all, someone else is being accused of all this too. I know this person is innocent, and I have been asked to be her defence." Phoenix Wright smiled.
"... Apparently I'm not in charge of this recent case." Edgeworth commented.
"Neither am I. We both have just returned from Germany." Franziska remarked after.
"I'm going to investigate then." Phoenix smiled confidently.
"You fool! Weren't you just yapping how dangerous those people are?" Franziska snapped her whip at him.
"Agh, but there's no other way to find out isn't there?!" he flinched.
"You can't be serious, Wright." Edgeworth turned to him.
"I have to wrap this up. I can't have them target any more people. Only God knows who could be the next victim! It could be my daughter, or Apollo!" he grew stronger thinking of his kids.
"Then leave the investigation to the police. Ema and Gumshoe are on their toes for this case all the time. You have to be there for Trucy and Apollo." Edgeworth spoke wisely as usual.
"..." Phoenix sighed with frustration. One wrong move and he could lose his family.
"Fine. I'll leave it to them. I'll do my own investigation, discreetly." He said sadly.
"For once you are making a better choice Phoenix Wright." Franziska smiled, playfully twirling a strand of her hair.
"I'll be off ahead then Edgeworth, Franziska." He smiled weakly and closed the door.
The two prosecutors heaved a sigh, and looked at each other with concern in their eyes. They couldn't wipe that matter off their mind.
A serial killing of professionals? Kidnapped? It was insane.
Edgeworth's mind and heart started to race. Any of his friends could be the next target. But, he knew Phoenix Wright could get by somehow. He had incredible luck and he was a grown man. He had confidence of being prepared in case he met with any kind of this incident, but he lacked confidence with Franziska. Yes, she is a fierce whip-wielding woman, but still, she is a woman.
"You will have to stay in my house tonight then." He suddenly blurted out without thought.
She suddenly turned to him with a rather surprised face.
He just realized the weight of his words. She must be laughing at him in the inside now.
"If you are that afraid, then fine, I will not leave you alone. I shall satisfy your cowardly needs and diminish those foolish childish fantasies of yours." She grinned.
"S-Say what you want, you're staying over." He turned away.
"You still hadn't changed a bit... No, you've grown more like your foolish kind." She laughed.
He stood up and dragged her by the wrist, on impulse. She walked hesitantly with him.
They looked rather funny, but to her, being pulled around like this again gave her a sense of nostalgia back when she was still nineteen, eight years ago.
Now, she's twenty-seven, getting to feel how it is to be a real grown-up, as Miles Edgeworth did back then. She questioned still, why he still got to drag her around back then.
Maybe she is still a child after all... But she didn't mind, not knowing exactly why. Maybe it was comfortable? Maybe it made her feel that she belonged? Maybe it made her feel loved, since none of her family was left to be there for her.
He opened the passenger door of his car and walked over to the driver's side.
"You won't need to bring anything tonight right?" he asked her.
"We'll have to drop by my house for my clothes if you want me to stay over."
"Fine. We'll drop by." He started the engine.
O-o-O
They drove along in medium speed.
How could this all be happening? These murders could actually involve each other...
He was worried, and he could settle down. He looked over at her, and noticed her bewildered state as well. She acted composed but she had her own share of insecurities as well.
Maybe staying over with him tonight could give her a night's rest.
He pulled over at her garage, then got out after shutting off the engine.
She unlocked the front door with her keys, then searched the dark room for the wall with the liht switches.
Edgeworth stood close to her the whole time. He had a bad feeling about this night.
"We have to hurry." He muttered.
"Relax Miles Edgeworth. We are rational professional beings. Chances of any of us being targeted next is 0.10 percent." She sighed annoyingly.
"I'm not being nervous for nothing. We really should pick up the pace." He climbed the stairs and went ahead to her room.
She followed and came inside. Her room was unlocked so Edgeworth went ahead and opened her bag cabinet and pulled out one of her bags so casually, as if he knew her room entirely.
He zipped it open and started to pack her back for her. He was nervous and unknowingly began to place her clothes inside.
"You're acting extra odd today Miles Edgeworth. I won't let this slide." She began to help him pack her things by preparing her girl needs and slipping them into the bag.
Not long after, he zipped it close and carried it casually.
"Let's go back." His paranoia worsened and he held her closer and walked down the stairs with her.
They went back inside the car and drove to his house.
Little did they know what would be waiting for them when they would arrive soon after.
to be continued...