CHAPTER 7
Franziska had seen Miles very infrequently over the next few years of her life; once when she was 13, and once the previous year when she was 18, but not a day in her life went by that she didn't think of him. With most people she hadn't seen in a while, she forget how they looked or how their voice sounded, but not with him. Everyone except him that had taken part in her upbringing was now dead; and she was all alone in a vast von Karma manor in Germany now. The house she had been brought up in was now a desolate, barren, ghost of a house that only provided sad memories she wish she could let go of. She walked up the staircase to her old bedroom; all the lights in the house were turned off, and she kneeled down beside her bed to pull out a box that she looked at everyday in the dark von Karma manor. She pulled out a Captain America flashlight and turned it on, shining it like a spotlight in a room she had left purposely dark.
She continued doing this as she lay down on the floor beside her bed. She thought about what Miles was doing now over in America, and about all the times she had gone to his room just to hear him speak; about all the times the had sat together at the dining room table for school; just about the warmth and caring he had provided for her in a time when no one else did. She smiled to herself as she sat back up to place the flashlight back into it's box. She closed it and saw Miles' handwriting on the top. She once again smiled as she picked up the box to carry it downstairs with her, to put with the rest of her belongings.
Her new butler greeted her; he wasn't as fun as she remembered Alfred to be, but death is inevitable for everyone, unfortunately. "Hello, Ms. Franziska. Are you ready for your trip to the airport?" Franziska simply nodded her head. "No. I have one more thing I must take care of." She went down towards the side of the manor that she never ventured into under any circumstances; her father's.
She opened the unlocked door to his study to find a demonically dark room that she felt fit the circumstances of her first time entering her papa's favorite room. Everything had been left as it was the last time he left the manor, which resulted in him being charged with the murder for Miles' father and promptly executed. She picked up a picture frame containing a newspaper article about his 40-year winning streak. She looked at it for a little bit, and then slammed the frame onto the ground with all of her might, shattering the glass that protected the article.
She walked back to the living room for to help move her things into her car. The butler tried making polite conversation as they did this, but it just didn't feel right to have someone besides Alfred moving with her to the von Karma estate in America; she stopped him mid-sentence.
"You're not coming with me."
The butler tried pleading his case, but it fell on deaf ears. CRACK! "See to it that this house gets sold and 90% of the profits are to be transferred to my bank account in America, and the other 10% is for your retirement." The butler nodded in understanding, realizing he'll never have to work again with the money he'll receive from this transaction. With that, Franziska got into her car and drove to the airport for her one-way flight to America.
She decided to make this move because she felt that Germany had nothing left to offer her, and she had a few things she needed to reconcile in America; a defense attorney to defeat, and someone very important to her to reunite with. She knew she loved Miles Edgeworth, and not just like a brother. She had always known this, ever since the first time she remembered meeting him. She can remember how happy she was when she found out he wasn't her biological brother from Alfred, and so she felt safe going to his room to talk to him after that, but she never knew what to say at first, so she just hit him with her riding crop instead (which she had traded in for a whip when she turned 16) until she saw him crying in there one day.
She remembered him crying because of something she'd never heard of; he missed his friends back home. She could picture in her mind what she said when he told her that; "Fr-eiund? What is that?" and he told her everything he and two boys from America had done together. She missed those days, when she had him to talk to, but those days were long gone.
She watched the airport crew load her luggage into the cargo hold of the airplane from her seat in first class; she had only brought 3 things with her up onto the airplane, although first class passengers were allowed as many things as they could fit into their personal space. She'd brought her trusty whip, just in case anyone annoyed her; a teaset she received from Alfred on his deathbed, depicting several German cultural traditions. The plane began to take off into a gray, cloudy sky as she opened up her third possession she had brought aboard and began reading it to herself over a cup of tea; The Call of the Wild, Chapter 1...
