Chapter 23: Spark Brushel's Brush In, and Meanwhiles

Spark Brushel was digging through the trash behind the Borscht Bowl Club by the light of the full moon in search of food. It had been several days since he had last eaten. He reached elbow-deep into a trash can and pulled out a blackened banana peel. He sighed. These recent food shortages caused by the War were hard on everyone, even garbage cans.

"'Down-on-His-Luck Freelance Journalist Discovers Correlation Between Empty Pockets and Empty Stomach', end quote." He immediately slurped down the banana peel. It wasn't exactly an appetising meal but he had to take what he could get. His eyes darted back-and-forth as he licked his fingers hungrily.

He had waited for the cover of night to rummage through the trash because if the cops caught you doing it during the day they'd beat you up in compliance with a new city ordinance. Whatever bits of food there might be in the garbage were reserved for the mayor and his fatcat campaign contributors. Brushel couldn't help but feel that the slow slide into dystopia was now a fast slide into dystopia and that he was riding that slide and that soon the dystopia wouldn't be a future dystopia but a present dystopia.

It was not a fun slide to be on.

He threw open the lid of a dumpster and hopped inside. This was his home now. The sparse furnishings consisted of bath towel for a bed, a few notebooks and pens, a skateboard, an electric candle, and a poster of John Phoenix. Brushel was a great admirer of John Phoenix and he hoped to get the poster signed one day.

You might think Brushel would have a negative opinion of John Phoenix after getting launched into the trash. Well, his feelings had been hurt a little. But Brushel could understand John Phoenix's reaction; after all, the man must be operating under a great deal of stress, getting hounded by the press everywhere he goes. Not to mention his mother getting murdered less than a week ago and his uncle being arrested for terrorism.

Of course, Spark Brushel knew that Phoenix Wright was innocent. Phoenix was just an honest, albeit simple-minded man who loved his country.

No... the only person he held any ill will toward was Lotta Hart, the woman who had stolen everything from him. The woman who had framed him for plagiarism and gotten him fired from being a freelance journalist and blacklisted from every publication in town. She also stole his house and her goons beat him up.

"Sorry, Sparky, but your house in mine now," said Lotta Hart evilly in a flashback (it was a black-and-white flashback). "Beat him up, goons."

The goons started beating up Brushel (in black and white) as Lotta snapped pictures and laughed.

"Why, Lotta...?" asked Spark Brushel (in a black-and-white flashback). "Why are you doing this?"

"Because there's only room for one freelance journalist in this town, toothbrush boy," she said. She stole his toothbrush.

"Hey, my toothbrush!" cried Brushel (this was all happening in black and white during a flashback).

"Don't worry, y'all won't need this once my goons are done with you." She snapped the toothbrush in half. "Viola! Knock his teeth out!"

Viola Cadaverini clocked him in the jaw and knocked several teeth out. Brushel spat out blood.

"Those teeth had cavities, actually," he bluffed. "All my teeth have cavities so I don't even mind if you knock them out. That's good to me." He was trying to save his remaining teeth.

Lotta scowled. "Well, gawd, in that case we'll just hurt you in other ways!" She took a baseball bat out of her pants.

Spark Brushel tossed and turned on his bath towel as his flashbacks transitioned into bad dreams that were also flashbacks. Then gradually he was awoken by voices coming from the back door of the Borscht Bowl, which was slightly open.

"Have you channeled the targets yet?" asked a man's voice.

"No, sir," said another voice, female. "It's very strange but we haven't been able to make contact with their spirits..."

The sound of a bottle shattering.

"Don't stop trying until you get it done," growled the man. "It would be very bad for you and your sister if you didn't come through for us. After all, you wouldn't want to disappoint Buddy Johnson or our master in Khurain, now would you?"

"Absolutely not sir!" cried a different female voice. "We are completely dedicated to our master and his cause! The spirits were probably just at church. We'll channel them and complete our mission as soon as possible."

"Good... now get outta here," the man replied. "And don't return until you've fulfilled our secret plans."

The door opened fully and Iris and Pearl stepped outside. Behind them, a shadowy figure was briefly framed in the doorway. Then the door slammed shut.

"Come, sister," said Iris, turning her head towards Pearl. "Let us get inside our car. But first, let us walk down the sidewalk. That is the first step to getting inside the car."

"Yes."

The sisters walked around the building to the sidewalk. Spark Brushel lifted the lid of the dumpster and peered out.

"Hmm... I smell a scoop! 'Suspicious Women Overheard Conversing About Secret Plans with a Voice That Can Only Be Described As 'Shadowy'", end quote." He grabbed his skateboard and hopped out of the dumpster.

He skated down the sidewalk after them, sticking to the shadows. Skateboarding was his main mode of transportation nowadays because the military was confiscating bicycles and converting them into electric bicycles for the war effort.

Iris and Pearl got into a sedan. Spark squatted low and coasted to the rear of the car. He quickly jotted down the license plate, and then he held the edge of the trunk and pulled himself up and peered through the rear windshield. The lights inside the car were on.

"I can't channel her, sister," said Iris, holding her hands together in prayer except it was actually in spirit channeling. She blew hair out of her face. "How is that possible? Both their spirits have been unavailable for days!"

(Spark could hear all this because he had good ears.)

"Um, maybe someone else is channeling them?" suggested Pearl, dubiously.

"Well, we know it can't be Maya at least. After all, her dead body is rotting in the trunk right now." Brushel's fingers jerked involuntarily on the trunk.

"It was very sad that we had to kill Mystic Maya," said Pearl.

"What's this 'we' stuff, sister?" said Iris. "You're the one that shot her in the back of the head."

"But you tied her up and drugged her," shot back Pearl. "Oh, well, I loved Mystic Maya but I had to do it. After all, she was a traitor to Khurain and our cause. She was gonna tell Mr. Nick and Mr. Phoenix! That'd been sooooo bad!"

"Yes, totally right, lil sis," nodded Iris. "I'm proud of your maturity in this matter."

She and Pearl held up their terrorist training manuals and did the Khurainse Republican Army salute.

"Long live the Dragon!"

"Long live the Dragon!"

Brushel's mouth fell open in a silent gasp. These women were terrorists! And possibly foreigners as well! He had to tell someone about this! He fumbled with his camera and then took a picture of them doing the salute. But he left the flash on and they saw it!

Iris and Pearl hissed and bared their teeth in a way that was barely human. Spark ducked hurriedly and skated into the street. The driver's side door flew open and Iris spilled out, lying half in the car and half in the street, a Tommy gun cradled in her arms, and she started slinging lead at Spark. Ratta ratta ratta! Pearl leaned over her sister and plinked at Brushel with an SKS.

Brushel weaved in and out of the bullets, using a trash can lid to deflect some of them, but he knew he couldn't keep this up forever. Then he spotted a delivery truck parked parallel to the street and blocking the entrance to an alleyway and he knew what he must do. He must perform an awesome trick if he wanted to survive.

Spark rolled toward the truck as the bullets grazed him, and then at just the right moment he did a cool ollie through the passenger side window, ducking, shattering the glass, and then burst through the driver side window in slow motion, a shower of glass shards flying outward.

He held up his middle finger to the broken window. "Sit on this, terrorists!" Pearl sniped his finger tip off and he cried and sucked on the bleeding finger and skated down the alley, thinking he was in the clear, but then the sedan crashed into the truck and started pushing it toward him!

"Uh oh, how will this intrepid freelance journalist get out of this one?" asked Spark. Then he spotted a ladder hanging from a fire escape so at just the right moment he backflipped off the board and grabbed the ladder as the truck and the sedan passed under him and crashed into some barrels of explosions and blew up.

"'Terrorist Bitches Blow It', end quote," quoted Brushel badassly, and then climbed the fire escape and onto the roof and jumped across buildings to the police station. Iris and Pearl climbed out of the flaming sedan and shot at the building in frustration.

But it was no use. He was gone.

Meanwhile... in robot orphanage...

Trucy was in the dormitory writing in her diary by the window.

"Dear diary, it's been really lonely in the orphanage lately because I lost my only friend. One thing I've learned is that robots hate magic. Jinxie (her parents were killed by terrorists) did a magic trick in the cafeteria to try cheer all the kids up but the headmistress robot lady or whatever she is got peeved the heck off and took her away. I can't be sure, but I think I heard gunshots.

"Hopefully it was just my imagination and she's just in solitary confinement or something. Anyway I have to go say my prayers now, but before I go I want to say that I miss Daddy and I know he's not a terrorist because that's just crazy nonsense. I also hope Apollo gets rescued from the POW camp and that my cousin John Phoenix can solve the mystery. Okay, bye!"

She snapped her diary shut, and just then... something happened!

Meanwhile... over the ocean...

The "Edgeworth II" was flying low over the water and John Phoenix and Matt Engarde were spearing fish with their bayonets.

"Nice catch, John Phoenix," called Edgeworth from the front of the plane. "When you're ready to grill them, Shelly, just plug the hot plate into one of the outlets. I don't know about you all, but I'm feeling quite peckish."

As John Phoenix, Shelly, Matt, and Edgeworth ate (Edgeworth was steering with his knees), Merlin was staring sadly at the moon. It had been 1400 years since he last visited the moon. It was on that trip that he had proposed to Morgan le Fay, and she had broken his heart. There had been no other woman in his life since then.

Merlin's one great regret was that he had never had a son or a daughter, someone to take up his wizard robe and hat once he was gone. Because wizards don't live forever. They're only immortal for 20,000 years and then they die. And Merlin was no spring chicken. He was an old, old wizard, and probably only had 8 years or so left.

"What will God do once I'm gone?" worried Merlin in his head. "Who will perform maintenance on heaven's security system, and make new weapons?"

But just then... Merlin saw something strange in the sky! The stars... they were spelling out a message...

"S.O.S.!"

Meanwhile in heaven prison...

Godot strained against his chains.

"I've gotta escape heaven prison!" he panted.

Just then... someone entered the room!

Meanwhile... in Detention Center Prison...

Phoenix Wright was lying on his cot, illuminated by the moonlight from the barred window.

"Hey, Nick," called Larry from the darkness of the cell opposite Phoenix's. "Uh, you got any cigarettes?"

"No, Larry. I don't smoke and neither do you."

Pause. "Oh, right. I knew that." Another pause. "C'mon, man, talk to me!"

"Shut up, Larry," said Phoenix, turning on his side.

"You're not still mad that I'm actually Karl von Karma and, like, kidnapped your daughter and tried to kill you and stuff, right?"

No answer.

Larry gripped the bars and said desperately, "You can't ignore me like this, Nick! We're brothers!"

"Larry, maybe before you betrayed me with Manfred von Karma I could have said we were like brothers. Maybe."

"No, man, we're not like brothers," said Larry. "We are brothers."

"What..?"

"Fraternal twins, in fact."

Phoenix sprung up. "What!"

To be continued...

BONUS EMOJIS

️👩 Iris

👰Pearl

👤shadowy figure