Surprise! New story out of the blue. However this story is important because it will explain events in a future story of mine to be released alongside the final case in "Rise of the Ace Attorney" (more on that later). This is basically a simple three-chapter story that tells of alternate events in the Ace Attorney universe and how they affect the overall plot. Fans will know these characters, so I shouldn't have to describe them, at least not in this story. Disclaimer: I don't own Ace Attorney.
Chapter 1: Faraday, Wright, Butz, and Von Karma
Byrne Faraday waited in his office for his old friend, Homicide Detective Tyrell Badd, to return with an important piece of evidence for an upcoming murder case. With it, he could not only successfully convict the defendant, but blow open the entire smuggling ring the defendant was supposedly tied to. Soon enough, a knock came on his door. "Come in," he said. Inside walked a uniformed officer. "I have good news and bad news Mr. Faraday," the officer said, "The bad news is that Detective Badd has recently been hospitalized for multiple gunshot wounds. Doctors say he'll live, in spite of the amount of blood he lost."
Faraday closed his eyes. Somehow he had the feeling the smuggling ring was behind it. As he opened his eyes, he said, "And the good news?" The officer handed him a VHS tape, used to record security footage. Faraday smiled. Badd had pulled it off yet again. Dismissing the officer from his office, Faraday popped the tape into his VCR and played the footage. It clearly showed the defendant, Manny Coachen, holding the murder weapon and well as certain documents. As Faraday continued watching, he spotted something a limousine that passed in the background. Rewinding the tape and pausing it, he looked closer. What he saw made his jaw drop.
After the trial, not only was Manny Coachen arrested for murder, it also led to the arrest of many other individuals, all of whom had ties to the smuggling ring. This included the head Amano Group, but also an up and coming prosecutor, a young woman working for an airline company, even the woman who had pretended to be the victim's sister. But the biggest shock was when a prominent general of the Cohdopian military was revealed to be the head of the operation. He apparently had plans to become an ambassador for his country, thus giving him diplomatic immunity in case his crimes were ever revealed. Instead, he found himself court-martialed and imprisoned.
"It's still hard to believe... That it ended so soon and easily," Badd said a few days later. Faraday nodded. "Without that crucial piece of evidence, we'd have been at this for years," Faraday said, "Who knows what lengths we'd have had to go to." As he opened the door to his house, he felt the impact of his daughter, Kay, running up to him and hugging his leg. "Daddy!," she said excitedly, "Welcome home." Byrne smiled and kneeled down to her. "Good to be home Kay."
Iris felt nervous. She don't know what made her decide to come to the court house. For whatever reason, her twin sister Dahlia had decided to call her telling her something had went wrong. For the last six months, Iris had pretending to be her sister to get something important from the young man it had been given to. However the young man, Phoenix Wright, had been so sweet and kind, the Iris found herself falling for him. Dahlia must have noticed, because apparently she had made plans to go ahead and kill Phoenix without telling Iris. Instead, Dahlia had wound up killing her ex-boyfriend Doug Swallow. Her only way out was to try and frame Phoenix.
Why Dahlia had decided to call Iris to tell her this afterward was unknown, but Iris decided to come down to the courthouse anyway. The first thing she saw surprised her. It was her cousin, Mia Fey, who apparently was acting as Phoenix's defense attorney. She had heard that Mia had made plans to leave Kurain Village in order to avoid fighting with her younger sister Maya, but she never expected her to get into law. Did this have anything to do with Misty Fey's disappearance? As Iris watched the trial continue, Iris saw her sister come to the stand. At first she pretended to try and defend Phoenix, but soon enough her true colors were revealed. When the truth about Dahlia's actions came out, Iris felt a tear go down her cheek.
As she prepared to leave the courthouse, she saw Phoenix in the lobby. Reminded of the feelings she had for him, something inside her made her call out to him. "Feenie..." Phoenix turned to around and his eyes went wide. "You...," he said in shock, "Who are you? And... Why do you look like Dollie?" Iris sighed. "I'm Dahlia's twin sister, Iris. And... We need to talk. About a lot of things." She took him to a nearby cafe where she told him the whole story. She half expected him to reject her, but instead he simply smiled. "Something inside me told me that Dahlia was a fake, but I guess I didn't the whole story behind it." He looked at her. "Listen, I know it seems sudden, but... Why don't we try picking up where we left off?" Iris smiled brightly and nodded.
As Larry Butz walked to the apartment of his current girlfriend, Cindy Stone, he spotted a strange individual knocking on the doors of the other apartments. When he saw him stop at one, knock, wait a second or two, carefully look around, then take out a lockpick kit, Larry got out his cell phone and called the police. The police quickly found the would-be burglar, who had been posing as a newspaper salesman for his M.O. As Larry watched the cops take away the burglar, he heard Cindy say behind him, "Hey Larry, I didn't know you were visiting." Larry turned to see the love of his life smiling at him.
As she led him inside the apartment, he saw the Thinker clock he had made for her. When he sounded it, it said, "I think it is 1:00." Larry raised an eyebrow. "Hey Cindy, why's this clock off by three hours." "Oh that," Cindy said, "I took it with me when I went to Paris. I guess I forgot to reset it." Larry chuckled. "If you really needed a clock for your trip, there are lighter ones out there." Cindy walked over to him and kissed him on the cheek. "Maybe, but I also needed a reminder of the love I was coming home to." Larry blushed, then kissed her right back.
Manfred von Karma awoke in darkness. Several hours ago, he had received his first penalty for presenting forged evidence in the course of a murder investigation. He was in such a daze that he had passed out in the evidence locker. He thought he had felt some sort of vibration just before passing out. Looking around him in the darkness, he carefully moved around. Clearly, there had been some sort of earthquake that knocked out the power in the courthouse. As he turned to steady himself against what felt like a metal door, a shot rang out, and von Karma felt a sharp pain in his shoulder. It was so sudden that he cried out in agony.
At that moment, the lights came back on. Von Karma saw he was in front of an elevator. The bullet hole in the door told him the shot had come from there. As the door opened, he saw three people inside, all passed out, likely from oxygen deprivation. One of them was a court bailiff, one was a small child, and the third was von Karma's rival Gregory Edgeworth. Von Karma growled. It had been because of Gregory that von Karma had received that penalty on his record. He had always striven for perfection in his career, and now that perfection was ruined. When he saw the still smoking gun not far from where Gregory lay, he smiled and reached down for it.
But just as he was about to pick it up, a thought crossed his mind. The evidence he had presented, an autopsy repot, was proven forged since they didn't even have proof that the victim was dead. His body had never been found. The more von Karma thought it, the more he realized a simple, important fact... No one had told him there was no body. Not even his own superior had mentioned it. von Karma had simply been handed the autopsy report and been told it was important evidence. Leaving the gun where it lay, von Karma stood up. Someone else was responsible for ruining his perfect record, not Gregory. And more importantly, the case they had just been on was still open for investigation.
Shortly after this, rescue teams came into the building and revived the three people. The young boy, apparently Gregory's son, hugged his father. Apparently the boy, names Miles, had thought he had accidentally shot his father. von Karma smirked, realizing the boy had heard him scream. After that day, von Karma had the bullet removed and decided to take a vacation, not only to recover but also to clear his head about matters. He later learned that a spirit medium had been contacted to help with the current investigation, but events surrounding the contact caused her to disappear from public view. "I sense a corruption of the criminal justice system behind these events," von Karma said, "I'll have to end my vacation early."
Stay tuned, there's another chapter coming soon.