Author's Note: Just a reminder that this will not be Spirit of Justice compliant because the game wasn't out when I wrote the first draft. I'm only through the first two cases so far (being a functional adult takes so much time), so please refrain from any spoilers for the other cases.
Chapter Three: Damage Control
There's something wrong with Klavier.
Other than having been shot in the leg and bleeding everywhere, which is also a distinct problem. Sebastian's pretty sure being shot in the leg shouldn't result in near-immediate incoherency, though, which is what appears to have happened.
His first order of business had been getting them out of the line of fire, and he somehow succeeded against the odds. Or at least it feels like it was against the odds, to Sebastian. He heard another half-dozen shots or so ricocheting off the roof as he dragged Klavier toward the door, but some combination of the wind picking up around them and Sebastian's desperate, jerking progress kept any from connecting.
Leaving Sebastian in the stairwell, concrete steps leading down in a daunting, dizzying cascade, while Klavier bleeds and shivers beside him.
"...K-K-Kristoph..." Klavier's eyes are wide as he stares at a point two feet in front of them.
Sebastian tries and fails to keep a shiver from convulsing his own body. It's just shock talking. There are no ghosts lingering here, waiting to pounce on Klavier as soon as he's weak enough. "Kristoph's not here, Klavier. It's just you and me."
Klavier doesn't respond, his breathing fast and shallow as he continues to watch that same patch of empty air.
Sebastian needs to do other tasks, now. He needs to get help. He needs to report the crime.
He needs to make sure Klavier survives until help comes, and from the amount of blood pooling on the concrete beneath them that means Sebastian has to act fast.
His fingers shake as he disengages his belt from around his waist, and Sebastian wills them to be still. He can do this. He faced down his father; he can save a friend.
Klavier whimpers, a long, low sound of pain and fear.
"Klavier?" Sebastian moves so that he's in front of Klavier's gaze, reaching out to tap gingerly at Klavier's cheek. "Can—can you understand me?"
Klavier's eyes shift, staring up at Sebastian, and his mouth moves, but nothing comprehensible is said.
"It's all right, Klavier. I'm going to put a tourniquet on, to stop the bleeding, and then I'll get an ambulance here and you'll be just fine."
Klavier almost nods, his head moving in a jerky, hesitant motion.
Then his whole body arches in something that looks frighteningly like a seizure, a high-pitched whine sliding from his throat.
Sebastian doesn't waste any more time. He slides his improvised tourniquet around Klavier's leg, as high up as he can manage, draws a deep breath, and cinches it tight.
Klavier doesn't scream. He just arches again, the muscles in his neck corded with strain, and then goes very, very still and limp.
"Klavier?" Sebastian knows he shouldn't, but he can't help shaking Klavier's shoulder, trying to get a response. "Klav—!"
Klavier's phone begins buzzing, the opening theme from a science show Sebastian watched during his childhood.
"Gavin!" Ema's voice is quiet but intense, her words running practically atop one another. "Which person in the pack's hurt? Or am I wrong? I just, from what I've been able to feel it's my best hypothesis and—"
"D-detective Skye." Sebastian is glad to see that his tourniquet job seems to be working, at least. Though he suspects Klavier's wound may still be oozing, it at least doesn't seem to be bleeding nearly as quickly as it had been. "Prosecutor Gavin's been shot. We were on the roof of the Prosecutor's Office, and now we're in the stairwell, and I have a tourniquet on his leg and—"
"Klavier's been shot?" Ema's voice rises an octave and catapults up several dynamic markers. "Have you reported anything yet?"
"N-no." Sebastian's teeth chatter together, and his hands are shaking again. "I—I had to get us inside, so no one could s-shoot us again, and then I had to make him stop b-bleeding but he's unconscious and there's something really wrong and—"
"Sebastian."
Sebastian blinks, his breath catching in his throat. How long has it been since Ema called him by his first name? Though Sebastian didn't suffer quite as much from her bitter frustration when she first became a detective, Ema having decided that he is some sort of surrogate little brother given his relationship to Edgeworth, she had maintained a careful working distance between them—a distance she has just wiped away in three syllables.
Has he ever heard her this intense before? Maybe, he supposes. When there was a big-name scientist at the local university and she won free tickets, there had definitely been intensity to her voice, but that was a different sort of intensity.
"Deep breaths, Sebastian." Ema's voice is still taut with emotion, but somehow her words help him calm down. "Are you safe? You said you're in the stairwell of the Prosecutor's Office, just before the roof?"
"We're safe. I think. I'm fairly certain—" Sebastian casts a worried glance at the closed metal door. "Fairly certain the shooter was on another building, from the angle of the shots and the fact no one has followed us in here to kill us."
"All right. Stay right where you are. I'm going to report this—get people mobilized. I'll call back in just a minute."
Sebastian nods, though it occurs to him a moment too late that Ema won't be able to see him.
Someone else knows. Someone else is helping him. Somehow that makes all the difference in the world, and Sebastian scoots his way across the floor until he is sitting by Klavier's head.
Reaching out gently, Sebastian smooths sweat-darkened hair away from Klavier's face. The elastic tie that Klavier had used to bind his hair back disappeared sometime during Klavier's fall or their flight across the roof, and blond strands are stuck to the blood around Klavier's mouth.
Sebastian's left hand rises, touches gingerly at the point where Klavier apparently bit him hard enough to draw blood. A small bit of scabbing forms a crescent-moon shape beneath Sebastian's questing fingers, but the injury doesn't actually hurt as he explores it. Is it normal for people to be able to draw blood that easily? Sebastian didn't think human teeth were supposed to be that sharp, but apparently—
Klavier's phone buzzes in Sebastian's right hand, the same science-show theme, and Sebastian answers it automatically. "Prosecutor DeBeste."
"Edgeworth's on his way to your position, Sebastian." Ema's voice is clipped still, but there's less tension in it. "And we've got people canvassing the area around the office. How's Klavier doing?"
The question causes Sebastian to blink, freezing his inquiry about an ambulance in his throat. "He's... I don't know. He's unconscious. He's lost a lot of blood. And he was acting really strange, before he passed out. Stranger than someone with a gunshot wound should act? I don't know, I've never been so close to one before. But he bit me and he thought he was seeing Kristoph and—"
Cursing more violent and varied in content than Sebastian has ever heard—and he has heard a lot of swearing, from various detectives and forensics personnel at crime scenes—explodes over the phone.
The line goes dead again, and Sebastian pulls Klavier's cell away from his ear. What just happened? Did Klavier's cell battery die, or—
The phone buzzes once more, and Sebastian jumps a good half-foot into the air before answering.
"Gumshoe and Edgeworth are coming faster. Don't leave his side, all right, Sebastian? Stay right there with Gavin until one of those two arrives. And..." The sounds of other people in the background abruptly cuts away, and Sebastian wonders where Ema has gone. "Has, uh... has anything really strange happened? Anything you maybe didn't want to report or didn't want to believe? With Klavier?"
"We were just shot at. That's very strange and weird. And not something I like." Sebastian rubs his left hand across his face, swiping at the tears that are starting to gather in his eyes again. "And Klavier's been weird for weeks but I'm so scared there's something really wrong, I think—"
"...ma..."
The syllable is a weak whisper, so soft Sebastian almost misses it beneath his own panicked ranting.
A quick glance at Klavier's face shows that his eyes are open to slits, and the shallow, fast breathing from before has been replaced by deep, gasping breaths. "...E... ma...?"
"He's asking for you!" Sebastian fumbles the phone with both hands, shouting into the speaker. "He's awake, and I think he heard you—or at least your ringtone—and he's asking for you! Talk to him!"
Practically lying on the ground in an attempt to hold the phone to Klavier's ear and still hear Ema's voice himself, Sebastian waits impatiently for the sound of shoes on the stairs and the rest of the cavalry arriving.
XXX
His leg still burns, but the fire feels less immediate, more distant than before as Klavier claws his way towards the thread that caught his attention.
It was one of his pack speaking. He's certain of it, though he also knows that it wasn't Apollo. If one of his pack is here, then he can tell them what's happened—tell them what he's done. He can have them take Sebastian and explain things to him, protect him—the things Klavier should be doing but that he isn't capable of doing right now.
He can't touch Ema—it is Ema, he realizes, the voice very familiar even if scent and touch are missing. That means he has to talk, no matter how difficult it is, because he might not get another chance. "...Ema..."
"It's all right, Gavin." Ema's voice is raw, tight with fear and pain. "Help's on the way. Edgeworth's on the way, and he's got Gumshoe with him and Apollo on the phone."
"Apollo." The name tries to twist in his mouth, becoming partially the wolf's name, but Klavier thinks it's still comprehensible. "Tell... I... bit..."
He can't finish the sentence. He can't remember what he's said, or how the sentence is supposed to go, or what language he's trying to speak, even.
Sebastian's hand is a warm, heavy weight on Klavier's left shoulder, Sebastian's body solid and comforting behind Klavier as Sebastian holds a phone to Klavier's ear.
An ice-cold finger traces a symbol on Klavier's forehead, and a low humming snaps Klavier's focus forward, to where Kristoph is kneeling in front of him.
Kristoph smiles. "Soon, bruder. Very soon..."
Another symbol etched with an ice-tipped finger, this time against Klavier's right hand, and Klavier tries to scream and finds he can't.
"You're going to be fine, Klavier!" Ema's voice draws Klavier's attention back to the phone—to Sebastian, and the warmth of his friend helps to make the ghost sitting in front of him feel less real. "What would Justice want you to say? Come on, tell me!"
"F..." He can do this. How often has he done this with Apollo since he was Changed? The words should come easily to his tongue, but instead all his mouth seems to want to do is chatter his teeth together. "Fi..."
Sebastian's fingers stroke through his hair, hesitant, gentle; Sebastian's scent washes over him, pain and fear and hope and a growing hint of wolf.
Cold burns against his left hand, and Klavier finds that even the half-comprehensible half-words he was managing escape him as his blood seems to freeze in his veins.
Kristoph smiles, a tiny, arrogant expression as his fingers ghost beneath Klavier's chin—fingers that feel real, that feel abruptly more solid than Sebastian's body behind him.
"How long have you wanted to bite him?" Kristoph's voice is soft, almost gentle, the type of voice he would use when interrogating witnesses on the stand that he knew were lying.
Or that he could convince others were lying, because nothing that Kristoph did was trustworthy, and though Klavier has done his best to go through his brother's old cases looking for corruption—
A soft tsking sound from his brother, and the fingers under his chin seem to dig in deeper. "Such a stubborn man, Klavier. It was useful, once, when I could set you on the proper trail and expect you to follow it, but now it's really just getting annoying."
Klavier smiles, though he suspects that the motion is somewhat ruined by the shivering that has become a violent shuddering of his whole body—a body that can't decide if it's on fire or frozen, distant and disconnected or too agonizingly present to allow proper thought.
Kristoph leans closer. "You've infected your supposed friend, Klavier. Three days before the full moon. He'll go through what you went through, only with everyone even more concerned about his sanity, because he was bitten by the half-mad monster they should have put down when he was first created."
"Klavier?" Sebastian's voice is half-panicked.
"Gavin, you answer me right now, you understand?" Ema's voice breaks on the command.
They're scared. His pack is scared, and he needs to help them.
He needs to breathe, he realizes belatedly, and he draws in a shuddering, choked gasp that earns a sob of relief from Sebastian.
"Come with me, Klavier." Cold fingers trail across his stomach, where his shirt is artfully open, begin moving in practiced, deft strokes. "I can control you. I can keep you from hurting people unintentionally."
Gitarre howls inside him, fury and ferocity, but the fire burning in their leg keeps the wolf from actually doing anything as Kristoph's cold seeps down through their skin.
"The pack's coming, Klavier." Ema's words are a sob, and Klavier wants to touch her, to comfort her, to tell her everything will be all right, but he can't.
His pack needs him—Ema, Apollo, Sebastian, Athena, Gumshoe, Clay—and all he is apparently capable of doing is lying here.
Cold drives down like a stake through his stomach, clashing against the burning fire that is slowly eating away at his leg, and Klavier forgets, once more, how to breathe.
XXX
Clay finds his body forming half-in, half-out of the trunk of a speeding taxi, his right hand hovering by Apollo's left shoulder, his left hand accidentally planted in Trucy's head and neck.
It's not the strangest position he's wound up in when riding Apollo's thoughts back to him, but Clay hates his non-corporeal status being obvious, so he hastily drags himself forward, settling on the little cup-holder between the taxi driver and Phoenix Wright in the passenger's seat and turning so that he's facing Apollo.
Apollo is huddled on the central seat, his lips pressed together until they are a deathly white, his right hand fisted in Athena's jacket, his left clutching Trucy's left hand. Both young women are leaning against him—Trucy is petting both Apollo and Athena, Clay realizes after a moment, her right hand moving from Apollo's hair to Athena's and back as she hums an unfamiliar song.
This isn't good. Something must have happened while Clay was following Starbuck around the Space Center—something big, something that has Apollo on the verge of transforming. Clay can practically taste the energy in the air, the metal-and-electricity scent that he refers to as ozone for lack of a better word and to fit with Apollo's use of electric as a descriptor for the feel of the Change washing over him.
Apollo's eyes focus abruptly, widening as he obviously sees Clay. His right hand frees itself from Athena, grabbing at Clay's coat.
He isn't quite able to keep contact, Apollo's fingers sliding together like Clay's clothes and figure were formed from cotton candy or tissue paper, but it's far closer to the Change and touch than Apollo should be when riding in a car driven by a presumably-not-werewolf.
"Go to Klavier." Apollo's voice is low and hoarse. "Please. Help him?"
Clay glances around at the worried, frightening faces surrounding them. "Something happened to Klavier?"
"Shot." Apollo draws a deep, gulping breath. "But something's wrong."
The taxi driver casts a hesitant glance in the mirror. "You guys sure you don't want me t' take you to—"
"The Prosecutor's Office, please." Phoenix speaks calmly, his expression perfectly bland, but Clay can see the way his fingers are twined together until the places where they grasp turn white. "And Apollo, let's try not to scare the man, all right? I know you're worried about your friend, but he's in good hands."
Apollo's lips pull back from his teeth for a brief second, and Clay finds himself angling his body so that it's between Apollo and those in the front seats.
Not that it matters, because to Phoenix and the driver Clay isn't here at all.
Then Apollo closes his eyes, pulls Athena and Trucy closer to him, and nods. The scent of werewolf in the car decreases slightly, though when he opens his eyes Apollo still stares unerringly at Clay.
"I'd love to help, if I can." There is nothing Clay would like more than to be useful—than to be able to interact with the world again. (To be alive again, though he tries to be grateful for what he has, for the fact that souls do continue after death, for Apollo being able to see him—so much he has to be grateful for, and the fact that he talks and talks to Starbuck and Aura and never gets a response shouldn't matter so much.) "But even if I go, he'll only be able to see and hear me if he's close to Changing and that could be bad."
Apollo just continues to stare, his jaw set hard.
"You think there's something I can do?" Clay tilts his head to the right.
The tiniest nod, a bare motion that hopefully no one else in the car will notice.
"I'd have to be able to get there, and the fastest way might be with you guys. I can only do the whole appearing-out-of-thin-air thing if someone's thinking about me." It took him a while to notice it. When he first died, it seemed like everyone thought of him all the time—like he could go anywhere he wanted just by willing it. As time passes, though, it has become more restrictive. Apollo he can almost always get to within a few minutes of deciding that's where he wants to be; Starbuck he can usually find, especially when his mentor is at work.
It's not so bad, having to walk or ride places like a normal person (a living person). There's even a little bit of fun to be had, sometimes, in jumping on and off trains and buses and tagging along in people's cars just to see where they're going.
None of those help him with getting to Klavier and helping Apollo with his pack, though.
Please. Apollo mouths the word, the scent of werewolf increasing in intensity again. Go.
"I'll try, like I said, but I don't know why he'd be thinking about me if he got shot or what I'll be able to do."
The ghost of a smile flits across Apollo's face, and he rolls his eyes as he silently mouths his reply. Pack.
"I'm pretty sure you're the only one who thinks a ghost can be part of a werewolf pack, little wolverine." Clay closes his eyes. Reaching out one hand, he rests it against the tingling, sizzling energy that is his alpha-werewolf best friend.
If this doesn't work, Clay doesn't want to lose his place in the car.
It's frighteningly easy to ignore everything that is happening around him, to focus just on the soft currents that always seem to be moving through whatever dimension it is that he and the other ghosts inhabit. Once he has blocked everything out, it is just a matter of listening for his name—of finding that faint echo of himself that is others' memories and moving to occupy it. Apollo is blazingly obvious, but if he focuses very, very hard on Klavier—on the times he and Klavier have talked, discussing Apollo, discussing Clay, discussing music and wolves and the wonders of the world—
It is barely there, a tiny, flickering, hard-to-grasp pulse. He almost manages to catch it, to ride it back to where Klavier is, but he isn't quite strong or fast or adept enough, and when he opens his eyes he is still in the cab with Apollo.
Apollo bites his bottom lip, his eyes red and bloodshot. His shoulders slump, dejection settling hard around him.
Closing his eyes again, Clay hugs himself tight. He knows Klavier, and Klavier knows him. Klavier did think of him, even if it wasn't a very strong connection, and if he just works harder...
He almost catches it, the second time. He can feel the start of the blink that will take him from Apollo's side to Klavier's, but even as he is trying to move he can feel his connection slipping and—
Go on, Terran. The words aren't actually spoken, but Clay understands them all the same—hears the woman's voice in his head, clear and precise tones. Strength and surety flows through Clay, and he abruptly knows exactly how to get to Klavier, has no doubt in his mind that he can make it. Protect Phoenix's little pack.
It isn't the first time Mia Fey has spoken to him, but it's the first time she's actively helped him do something. Clay didn't even know it was something she could do.
He doesn't get a chance to thank her, though, his consciousness abruptly uprooted from the taxi and deposited in an unceremonious heap in a dim stairwell where two prone figures lie.
Two prone figures and one disembodied soul, and Clay feels as though all the hair on his body is abruptly trying to stand on end. Frigid power swirls through the stairwell, focused on the ghost-man kneeling in front of a bloody, barely-conscious Klavier.
They look remarkably alike. Apollo told him they did, of course, and Clay had watched the news clips the same as everyone else when the Misham trial happened, but there's something eerie about seeing the brothers side-by-side.
One a decent person, one a manipulative bastard.
One bloody and obviously in pain, one calm and collected.
One living, though Clay worries about how long that will last, and one very obviously dead.
Dead and doing something to Klavier, Kristoph's left hand cupping Klavier's cheek, the fingers of his right drawing symbols that smoke against Klavier's bare skin.
A low whine escapes Klavier's throat, and Clay throws himself at the other ghost. "What the hell are you doing?"
Kristoph disappears from his position in front of Klavier before Clay can manage to grab him, reappearing instantaneously behind the man holding Klavier—a man with a bloody shoulder and what looks suspiciously like a crescent-moon scar coming up on his neck. "This doesn't concern you, Mr. Terran. I would appreciate it if you didn't interfere."
"Doesn't concern me? You're doing something weird to my best friend's pack!" Clay stations himself between Klavier and the other ghost, trying not to stand inside of either Klavier or the unknown man as he does.
"He is my brother." Kristoph adjusts his glasses, stalking in a slow circle around Clay. "And a member of Justice's pack by accident, not design. He belongs to me."
"See, in most civilized places, people don't belong to anyone. Not unless they give themselves to that person, make a mutual happy arrangement." Kneeling down, Clay runs a brisk hand over Klavier's forehead and hands and stomach, dispersing the strange smoke that clings there. Klavier draws a deep, shivering breath as Clay does, his eyes seeming to focus a little better. "I somehow doubt that's what you did."
Kristoph crosses his arms in front of his chest, studying Clay through blue eyes that are a similar shade to Klavier's but utterly lacking in Klavier's humanity. "You have no idea what you're getting yourself involved in. No idea what's really happening, or what certain portents indicate is coming."
Clay smiles, though he dislikes the way Kristoph is talking, the certainty and smugness in his voice. "You're right. I don't know much. How about you fill me in, then?"
"I think not, little astronaut." Kristoph smiles, and Clay finds himself fascinated by how similar and yet different it is from Klavier's smile. "I prefer not to give my enemies information, especially if they're not intelligent enough to discover it for themselves."
"So we're your enemies now?" Clay arches one eyebrow. "Pretty big leap from he's my brother to you're my enemies, don't you think?"
"Not so big, when your brother ensured you'd die." Kristoph's smile vanishes as he stares down at Klavier's prone form, hatred and rage seething just beneath the surface of his words.
"You really were there." Clay takes a step toward the other ghost. "The night Klavier transformed, you really were trying to kill him."
Kristoph circles around, away from Clay, his eyes still fixed on Klavier. "That was just a bit of sport—vengeance, I suppose, though it's such a trite word. Now that I've a better idea of what's happening... he owes me, you see. I intend to collect on the debt. If you'd prefer not to be destroyed, stay out of my way."
"Or what?" Clay puts his hands on his hips. "You'll kill me?"
He can feel the flicker as his body changes, his undamaged chest becoming a blood-spattered, punctured mess. It isn't the first time it's happened; it won't be the last; and since it doesn't affect him, how he moves and feels and interacts (or doesn't) with the world now, Clay doesn't care.
"There are far worse things that can happen to a man than death." Kristoph's body changes, too, gaping wounds opening on his neck and wrists, torrenting blood down in a grisly show.
Taking a step back despite his best efforts, Clay quickly reclaims his healthy, whole form.
Kristoph's voice drops to a gentle whisper as he does the same. "And even worse things that can happen to a soul. Stay out of the way, Clay Terran."
Then Kristoph is gone, and Clay is left alone in the stairwell with Klavier and the unknown man.
Drawing a deep breath, Clay shakes his hands off, unpleasantly surprised to see that some of the dark smoke seems to have lingered. "Your brother is a piece of work, Klavier. Not that I don't think you noticed already."
"Clay..." Klavier breathes out the name, his right hand questing forward in jerky, uncoordinated motions. "...'Pol...?"
"On his way." Clay hunkers down in front of Klavier, studying both the werewolf and the man holding him closely. "You just hang on until he gets here. Who's your buddy? He's pretty cute."
"...'Bastian." A tiny smile ghosts across Klavier's face, though it fades into a frown almost immediately. "I... biessen..."
"Whatever that means, it's going to be all right." Clay forces a smile, reaching out to pat Klavier's shoulder instinctively.
His hand goes through Klavier, as it usually does with anyone except a werewolf in wolf form, but there's an odd sense of resistance. It isn't quite the resistance that he felt from Apollo when Apollo was trying to grab him in the cab, and it stings, like the prickling of static shocks against his hand.
Klavier shivers, a violent shudder, and whines low in his throat.
"It's all right, rock star." Clay resists the urge to touch the prosecutor again, hoping that his voice in concert with Bastion and what seems to be Ema on the phone will be enough to bring comfort. "Help's on the way. They'll know what to do."
Clay's not sure that's actually true, but it seems like a good thing to say, and it helps keep both of them calm until Gumshoe and Edgeworth come storming up the stairs, hopefully with a better idea of what to do next.