"Mystic Maya, what's wrong?"

Pearl looked up at her beloved cousin, whose face had been in a permanent frown for the past few days.

"Nothing…"

"Then why do you look so sad?"

"I'm not sad."

"Mystic Maya, if something is that matter then please tell me!" Pearl demanded, "I need to know! You are the future master of Kurain! You can't just bottle up your feelings!"

Maya's frown turned into a look of surprise. "Whoa, Pearly! Don't freak out on me like that!"

Pearl burst into tears. "I'm sorry Mystic Mayaaaaaaa! I… I just wanted to help make you feel better! Waaaah!" She ran off to her room.

"Pearly, come back!" Maya called. There was no reply, apart from a few muffled sobs from the general direction of Pearl's bedroom. She sighed; all she'd done these past few days was upset Pearl. But Maya couldn't help it – she was worried. Surely she couldn't…? But she hadn't… had she…?

She groaned, burying her face in her hands. It was hopeless. She couldn't talk to Pearl about this, but she couldn't face it alone either. If only there was someone who she could tell…

"Aha!" Maya leapt up, hurrying to Pearl's room. She flung the door open. "Hey, Pearly, do you still wanna help me?"

Pearl sat up, her eyes red with tears. "Y-yes! I'll do anything if you will be happy again, Mystic Maya!"

"Ok… can you channel Mystic Mia for me please? I really need to talk to her right now."

"Oh!" Pearl's face fell a little as she realised that Maya didn't specifically want her help. But she kept smiling, happy to be of any use to her cousin. "Alright! I'll do it!"

"Thanks Pearly, you're the best!" Maya sat on the end of Pearl's bed. She couldn't wait to get all of this off her chest.

Where Pearl had been sat buried under the duvet, Mia now appeared.

"Maya! I haven't seen you for so long!" said Mia, "Er… why am I in Pearl's bed? And why is my face wet?"

"Pearl got a bit upset," Maya explained, "Look, Mia… something's happened. Well I think it has… maybe…"

"What are you talking about?" Mia asked, "Are you ill or something? Did somebody die?"

"No, neither of those…"

"Did you get a job? Did you break your burger eating record?"

"No! And why would I get Pearly to channel you just to tell you that?"

"I don't know," Mia admitted, "But it seems like the kind of thing you would do. So anyway, why did you want me?"

Maya sighed heavily. "Well… it's kind of hard to explain…"

Mia pulled the duvet off of her legs and sat closer to Maya so they were face to face. "Maya, stop avoiding the problem. Just tell me what's happened."

"Fine," said Maya, "Well… my period was due about two weeks ago. I thought it was probably nothing when it didn't come, but… well, it's still not started."

"Okay…" Mia nodded patiently.

"And… it's never usually late. So I'm a bit worried." Maya looked up at Mia nervously.

Mia seemed to understand. "You think you might be pregnant?"

Maya nodded.

"Right." Mia bit her lip. "Well… erm… not to be rude Maya, but you do realise you can't get pregnant if you're still a virgin?"

"Hey! I never said I was still a virgin!"

"But I just assumed…" Mia trailed off, giving a little shrug.

Maya glared at her. "Well, I'm pretty sure you weren't a virgin when you were nineteen, Mia!"

"But that's different! You're a different person to me! You're…" Mia trailed off again, not sure what to say.

"I'm what? Not as attractive to guys? Thanks Mia, you're really helping."

"That's not what I meant!" Mia sighed, "OK, so who exactly have you slept with…?"

"Um… I'm not actually sure if I've ever slept with anyone, to be honest," Maya admitted, blushing, "But I got drunk about a month ago, and I think something might have happened between me and…" Maya started mumbling.

"Maya, stop muttering like that! Who did you have sex with!"

"Nick."

"Oh." Mia didn't seem surprised, but she didn't seem pleased either. "Maya… won't it be a little, y'know, weird if you're pregnant with your best friend's baby?"

"Yeah, that's what I've been thinking."

"Well, look on the bright side – you might not even be pregnant! You haven't taken a test yet, right?"

"No," said Maya, "I thought about it… but I couldn't face it! What if it came out positive?"

"Oh, Maya!" Mia pulled her sister into a warm hug, suddenly feeling a rush of emotion and pity for her. "Well, you can't put it off forever. Let's go and buy one now, OK? We can do it together."

Maya nodded. Mia was right; she had to find out sometime. If it was negative, she could just forget any of this ever happened. If it was positive… Maya shuddered at the thought.

The two sisters caught the bus to the next town over from Kurain and headed for the nearest chemist. The elderly woman at the till eyed up their spirit channelling costumes with raised eyebrows as they walked in.

"I'd like to buy a pregnancy test, please," Mia asked.

"Hmm. No wonder you got pregnant, dressed like that," the woman said, eying Mia's outfit with disgust; she barely fit into Pearl's clothes. "The youth of today…" The woman walked off, muttering, to get a test.

"What a grumpy old lady," Maya whispered, "Please don't tell her I'm the one that needs the test! She'd probably have a rant at me!"

"Haha, don't worry," Mia whispered back. The woman returned and they paid for the pregnancy test.

"Ok, back to Kurain!" said Mia as they left the shop. She turned the box in her hands and skimmed through the instructions. "Looks like it's just one of those tests you have to pee on," she said, "Sorry, I don't know a lot about these, but we'll figure it out…"

They opened up the box as soon as they were home. "Ok, you take it in to the bathroom and do the test," said Mia, "If you want, you could not look at it until you've called me in, then we can find out the results together."

"Alright," said Maya, "Fingers crossed…"

A minute later, she called Mia in to the bathroom. The pregnancy test was held behind her back.

"All done?" Mia asked. Maya nodded. "Ok, so it said on the box that if there's a blue line it's positive, and a black line means it's negative."

"Here goes…" Maya took Mia's hand and squeezed it tightly as held the pregnancy tester up in front of them.

The line was blue.

Back in the city, Phoenix was having a relaxing day in his office. He'd just finished his latest case and no work had come up; it was great just to chill out and relax. He'd managed to tidy away all the loose papers into his desk draws and the office was looking pretty clean. The suit he'd rented for Gumshoe and Maggey's wedding the next day was hanging up on the door handle.

The phone began to ring; lazily he reached across and picked it up.

"Hello? Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney - at your service!"

"Hello, Phoenix."

"Mia!" he said, "Aren't you dead?"

"I'm being channelled," she said in exasperation, "Honestly, have you forgotten that Maya and Pearl have spirit powers?"

"No…" he lied. It actually hadn't crossed his mind for a while.

"Anyway, Phoenix, Maya needs to tell you something…"

"And why exactly are you announcing it to me?" he said, confused, "How come she didn't just call me herself?"

"Er… I just thought I would talk to you first, since we haven't spoken for a while," said Mia. The truth was that Maya had refused to call Phoenix, so Mia had decided to phone him up and shove the phone at Maya.

"Yeah, it's great to talk to you too, Chief!" he said, "Do you wanna hand over the phone, then?"

"Yes, I'll just find her…" Mia held a hand over the receiver and walked to Maya's room where she was lying on her bed staring into space.

"Maya, Phoenix needs to talk to you."

"Mia! I told you I didn't want to speak to Nick! Not yet!"

"You've got to tell him, Maya!"

"Tell me what?" Phoenix's voice came out of the phone. Obviously Mia's hand hadn't been enough to block out her conversation with Maya.

Mia shoved the phone into Maya's hands.

"Oh… uh… hi Nick!" Maya said, trying to sound happy and bubbly as usual.

"Hi Maya!" said Phoenix, "So… um… Mia said you wanted to tell me something?"

"Oh yeah!" said Maya, acting as though she'd just remembered something important, "Well, I just wanted to say… don't forget to pick up your suit for tomorrow!"

"I already did," said Phoenix, "Er… is that it?"

"Yep!" Maya said, "Mia probably made out that it was something really important, right?"

"Well, yeah," said Phoenix, "I was actually expecting something bigger than that, to be honest…"

Mia was glaring at Maya. "Don't forget to tell him you're pregnant with his baby!" she hissed at Maya.

"Mia! Shut up!" Maya whispered angrily.

"Huh? Who's pregnant?" Phoenix asked.

"Um… Franziska!" said Maya, saying the first name that popped into her head, "Yeah, she's… um… expecting a baby with Edgeworth!"

Phoenix was shocked. "Seriously? I never would've guessed those two were… wow… a baby?"

"Yup," said Maya, "But don't tell her I told you, OK? It's supposed to be a big secret."

"If it's a secret, why did she tell you?" Phoenix asked suspiciously.

"Because… we're actually best friends," said Maya, "We… um… bumped into each other at a Steel Samurai convention… and we really hit it off! But we kept our friendship a secret cos she didn't want anyone to know she's a hardcore Steel Samurai fan!"

"Oh really?" said Phoenix, enjoying the gossip, "Wow, I didn't know you knew so many secrets about Franziska! But don't worry, my lips are sealed!"

"Thanks, Nick! You're the best! See ya!" Maya hung up as quickly as possible, then breathed a sigh of relief.

"Maya!" Mia groaned, "You were supposed to tell him! You can't keep a secret like this forever, you know, and making up lies about Franziska von Karma really won't help!"

"I know, but…" Maya paused, trying to think of an excuse, "I want to tell him face to face, OK? Over the phone just isn't personal enough."

"Fine," said Mia, "So when will you next see him face to face?"

"Tomorrow," said Maya, "I'm being Maggey's bridesmaid at her wedding, and Nick will be there too."

"Right," said Mia, "So you can tell him tomorrow! That's not so bad, I suppose."

"But… but I don't want to ruin the atmosphere of the wedding with bad news!"

"Maya!" Mia snapped, "Just tell him, for goodness sake! Otherwise you'll regret it when you're on your own at the abortion clinic with no one to support you."

Maya did a double take. "Abortion clinic? What are you talking about?"

"Well, you're getting rid of it, aren't you?"

"No way! I could never kill an innocent baby!" Maya gasped, "Do you mean you think I should actually have an abortion?"

"Maya, you're nineteen years old! Do you know how much this baby would mess up your life?"

"What, and killing it is the answer? I could never have an abortion, Mia, and I thought you were the same!"

"Well, maybe I'm not!" said Mia, "Maybe you don't know as much about me as you thought!"

"What are you talking about! You're not the one who's pregnant here, Mia!"

"But you can't seriously be thinking of keeping and raising a child!" Mia said, outraged, "You're barely more than a child yourself!"

"I can't kill it, end of story," said Maya angrily, "People who have abortions are nothing more than murderers."

"Fine, if you feel that way, I'll go back to where I came from!" Mia's spirit faded away, leaving Pearl in her place.

"Mystic Maya? What's going on?"

"Grr! Stupid Mia!" Maya growled, "Don't channel her again Pearly, OK?"

"Did you fall out?"

"I guess so."

"But why? I thought Mystic Mia was a good person!" said Pearl.

"Well she just went really weird on me," said Maya, "I don't know what got in to her. She wanted me to have an abortion!"

"What's a-bore-shun?" said Pearl. Maya put her hand over her mouth – how could she have let that slip so easily? Oh well, she might as well tell Pearl the whole story.

"Listen, Pearly, I need to tell you something," she began, "But promise not to tell anyone, OK? Otherwise we can't be cousins any more."

Pearl gasped. "Why? Is it something really, really bad?"

"Not bad," said Maya, "Just secret."

"I promise I won't tell!" said Pearl earnestly.

"Alright. Well… I'm going to have a baby!" There was a moment of silence; Maya wondered how Pearl would react.

"Wow! Mystic Maya, that's the best news ever! What will you call it? Is it a boy or a girl? I bet it will have great spirit powers! Can I help look after it?"

Pearl was in her element, jumping up and down with excitement.

"Of course, Pearly," said Maya, "You can play with it as much as you want. Just don't tell anybody, please?"

"But won't they notice when you get a big tummy, Mystic Maya? Because that's what happens when a baby is living inside."

"I'll tell people soon enough," said Maya, "Just keep it quiet for now."

"OK!" said Pearl, "I know, I'll go and find some of my old toys for when it's born! We can start a baby collection!" She skipped off happily.

Maya felt relieved yet a bit confused as to why Pearl hadn't asked the crucial question; wasn't she wondering who the baby's father was? Then Maya remembered how sweet and innocent Pearl was. She probably didn't even realise that babies needed to have a father.

Maya lay back on her bed and stared at the ceiling. She had been so looking forward to the wedding tomorrow, but now she was threatened with the task of telling Phoenix the biggest news of their lives. Could she really go through with this?