Prologue - September 30, 2029

Somewhere in Maricopa County Arizona, Probably

"Hey…Hey, Nick! Wake up! We're getting burgers!"

Phoenix Wright opened his eyes, blinked a few times, and yawned. He'd apparently fallen asleep in one of those cramped, half-folded-up positions in the passenger seat of the car, and now somehow both his neck and his back were hurting.

"Ah, you're alive," muttered Chief Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth from the driver's seat, not taking his eyes off the road. "Thank goodness. Maya was right."

"Huh?" Phoenix rubbed the back of his aching neck and reflected on what a drag it was getting old. "Maya was right about what?"

"I told him you snore," said Maya.

"What?" Phoenix glared over his seatback at her. "I don't! That's a lie, I don't snore."

"You do, in fact, snore," confirmed Edgeworth. "Or…hmm, well, I would call it more of a snuffle than a snore."

"I…I don't snuffle, either." Phoenix could feel his face heating up. "Quit picking on me already. I barely got any sleep last night. I was up late…you know, working, so excuse me if I'm a little sleepy."

"Aw," murmured Maya, smiling sweetly, without a trace of remorse. "Poor baby Nicky."

Phoenix glared at her. "Anyway, uh…what's this about burgers?"

Edgeworth turned the car smoothly off the highway and onto the exit ramp. Outside the window, a cornfield rolled by. Something in the cornfield mooed.

"Ooh!" Maya mooed back. "Mooo! Look, Nick, cows!"

Cows? Phoenix stared out the window. Wait, where the heck are we? How long was I asleep?

"I guess we probably shouldn't let the cows know that we're going for burgers," murmured Maya reflectively. "Do you think these burgers are made from these cows?"

"Probably not," muttered Edgeworth. "Most of the meat from large fast food chains is imported from elsewhere in the country."

"So…there's no chance that we're, like, about to go eat these cows brothers, or something, right?" Maya frowned."

"Sisters," corrected Edgeworth, "and it's unlikely."

"Why," demanded Phoenix, "are we talking about this? I'm…suddenly not hungry for burgers. Pizza? How do you feel about pizza?"

Unfortunately, at that moment, the large yellow sign for the Roadside Burger Barn came into view. The sign featured a painted image of a very happy brown and white cow, and, for some inexplicable reason, a big, pink heart.

Maybe, thought Phoenix, I should become a vegetarian. They say red meat's no good for your heart, anyway…

Fifteen minutes later, the three of them were seated at a plastic table in the corner of the Roadside Burger Barn. Maya had a milkshake and two kids-size bacon burgers. Edgeworth had a glass of water and a lettuce wrap, and Phoenix, who didn't think he could look at cow-based meat product for another several weeks, got a veggie burger, which was…unsatisfying.

"Cheer up, guys!" Maya, powering through her second burger, beamed at them. "We'll be there in no time!"

Edgeworth sighed. "Have either of you met this woman? Is there…any reason at all to believe that this marriage is anything other than a farce?"

"I wouldn't say 'farce', exactly." Phoenix chewed thoughtfully on a bit of…veggie meat? "More like a 'fiasco.' I mean, he clearly believes they're the real deal, but uh…well, you know Larry."

"Unfortunately, I do." Edgeworth glowered into his salad.

"They do look really in love in the engagement photos!" Enthusiastically pulling a creased photo out of the folds of her robes, Maya jabbed a finger at the image of Larry Butz, starry-eyed and intensely invested, gazing down at a sweet little busty brunette, who was…picking some lint off of the edge of her blouse, apparently completely ignoring him.

Edgeworth glanced at the photo. "We could," he suggested, "still turn around and go back. It's not too late. I am willing to accept the blame for our failure to attend."

"We could say we all got heatstroke," said Phoenix.

"Food poisoning from the meat," countered Edgeworth. "It's more plausible. There's evidence to support the claim."

One of us should buy a t-shirt so that we can reference it later to prove where we got the food poisoning." Phoenix pointed at the bar, next to which was a rack of flimsy t-shirts emblazoned with the food chain's logo.

Edgeworth looked at them and scowled. "Under no circumstances am I buying a "Roadside Burger Barn" t-shirt," he said. "A few napkins should suffice as proof."

"What? But they've even got a shirt in your color." Phoenix grinned. "You'd look pretty good in that red one, Edgeworth."

"Red," snarled Edgeworth, "is not my color."

"You wear that red jacket in court all the time," Phoenix insisted.

"Objection," retorted Edgeworth. "The jacket is not red, it is maroon, which you would have noticed if you had any eye for nuance whatsoever, Wright. If you're so determined on this course of action, buy one yourself."

"Gmph!" announced Maya.

Both Phoenix and Edgeworth turned to stare at her.

Swallowing quickly, she cleared her throat and tried again. "Guys," she said, this time without the mouthful of burger, "what are you talking about? We're not skipping out on the wedding! We drove all the way out of state just to see Larry get married, there's no way we can turn back now! Larry would be so disappointed!"

"I'm quite certain he could weather the blow," muttered Edgeworth.

"Yeah, he'll be so busy with all the wedding stuff that he probably won't even notice we're not there," agreed Phoenix. "That's what happens at weddings, the bride and groom are always so busy they don't really get to spend much time with the guests."

"Oh, really?" Maya frowned at him. "I didn't think about that…wow, you must go to a lot of weddings or something, Nick."

"Uh." Phoenix shrugged. "I mean, I guess we're at that time in our lives when everybody gets married, or something." Something about that statement felt uncomfortable, so he coughed and moved on quickly. "Anyway, yeah, I get invited to weddings sometimes. You know, former clients, people I've worked with…that's pretty normal, I guess. Right, Edgeworth?"

Edgeworth was apparently fascinated by his salad again. "That hasn't been my experience, no," he said quietly. "I do not seem to be a lot of people's guest lists. Not, of course, that I'd care to be. Weddings are...stresful. I never know the right face to make."

An awkward silence stretched out between them for entirely too many seconds.

"Well, I want to go to the wedding," said Maya finally, maybe a bit more loudly than she needed to. "Iyou don't go, then I can't go, and if I can't go, then Mia can't go, and that's not really fair to Mia, is it?" Maya raised an eyebrow, and for a moment she looked a little bit too much like her older sister. "Would you really do that to Mia? Would you, Nick? Mr. Edgeworth? Huh?"

A few minutes later, they packed up Edgeworth's leftovers and headed back towards the car.

Maya ended up buying a t-shirt, which Phoenix ended up paying for.

"It's a souvenir! For the memories!" she said happily as they piled back into their too-hot, too-cramped seats.

Edgeworth just muttered something inaudible under his breath, apparently about "nonsense". Phoenix finished the last of Maya's milkshake thoughtfully and wondered if he could get Edgeworth invited to the big Thanksgiving party next month.