"I'm telling you this as a fact, Tails," Sonic asserted, looking his young friend dead in the eye. "That rock you painted isn't going to be there."
"Yes, it will, Sonic!" Tails argued back, subconsciously close to making fists. "It'll still be waiting there."
This was merely the middle of the bickering that bounced between the two as they anxiously paced their ways toward the specific green corner of a specifically greener park. Tails had spotted, out of the corner of his curious eye, a stone that was so suspiciously similar to a Chaos Emerald that he almost believed it could have been one with the color merely drained from it. Alas, it was later revealed through a test that it held not even a shred of magnetic energy, let alone something that could get a certain ebony hedgehog… and just about everyone else, for that matter… from one spot to another with just a duo of words. However, Tails's mind soon spawned another hypothesis. One he hoped with all his heart was absolutely wrong.
This pathetic stone had no potential of tricking anyone, right?
And alas… as the duo of buddies approached that curb, the stone's brilliant gold still stood out like a sore.
To mask the disappointment, Tails put on a mask of confidence and boasted "You will suck down the penalty, Sonic… and you will like it!"
All other questions flying out the window, Sonic asked "...What's that from?"
"Simply a name change in a quote boasted by my favorite judge," Tails smiled. "…Hey, if you think that's good, the defense attorney that's usually in the judge's cases said something like 'You're lying, dammit, and I can prove it!' once."
"What kind of courtroom is this?" asked Sonic.
Somewhere across town… nearer to an actual courtroom… a certain ebony hedgehog, glazed with the usual glaze of "What the hell even is life?", paced down an alleyway. Said alleyway was an unexpected haven of sorts… or it could have been some shade after a long stretch of sunlight. Whichever definition you want.
Whyever he was out there… and whatever was anything, for that matter, had escaped even Shadow the Hedgehog's mind… the mind of the actor himself.
What finally got him to open his eyes ever so slightly was the ever-so bright wisdom that flew from the open window!
"Our job is to find truth," a deep and solemn voice asserted to some unknown being. "No matter how painful it may be."
Later than sooner, Shadow, in short, was still in that alleyway.
Author's note: You can actually thank a fan of mine who goes by the name of Oceanic Coral for this little story's idea. She asked me what series OTHER than Mario I would write a Sonic crossover with. And it instantly dawned on me: Ace Attorney is a series that I've fallen in love with, too. As soon as I stated my answer… I knew. So… what do you think of this actually coming into being?