Obligatory legal note: I own only the words on the page. Wild Kratts belongs to Kratt Bros. Company, 9 Story Media Group, and all other affiliates. Phoenix Wright belongs to Capcom and creator Shu Takumi.
Never before have I been so intrigued by a single feather as to drop everything I was doing and make any possible effort to gain more information on it. I couldn't understand exactly what it was that irked me about something as simple as a feather, but I just had to figure out its correlation before my head split open. Within a minute I was on the phone with Aviva, trying to figure out any possible way that this random feather could relate to the case.
"Hello, this is Aviva." The tinny sound coming from the phone released me from my attentive trance.
"Hi, Aviva, it's Phoenix. I have been examining the photos I took of the crime scene, and I just noticed something strange, but I'm not sure exactly how, if at all, it could relate to the case," I explained, trying my best to not sound like a maniac. "I found a blue feather on the desk in his office. I know it's crazy, but I was wondering if you could think of any way that could relate to the case?"
"A blue feather? How big is it?" Aviva questioned, causing me to further peruse the photograph in an attempt to find some type of reference.
"Umm...It's about half-sheet of paper sized," I answered after close to thirty seconds. "Why, what does that mean?"
"Phoenix, that feather most likely came from his CPS," Aviva stated, sounding both panicked and confused simultaneously. "Zach liked to collect pieces of the suits to attempt to reverse-engineer it, but if they find that, they could trace it back to Martin and they're gonna haul him off!" Her voice was laid thick with despair and anguish; she sounded on the brink of tears.
"Look, there are ways of proving that the feather didn't come from the suit at the time of the murder. I will make sure to call for a carbon date test as soon as it's brought to the attention of the court. Trust me, one feather isn't getting him hauled off to the lockup, not on my watch. So just calm down, please…" I could hear the tears dripping down her face as she tried her damnedest and yet failed miserably to compose herself; I could tell at this point exactly why I could never keep a stable relationship.
After a good fifteen minutes of my trying desperately to console my client, we finally ended the phone call. I breathed a heavy sigh of relief as I placed the phone on the table. Almost immediately after the glass screen touched the wooden surface of the desk, a knock came from the door. At this point I was raring to go for the case, which showed greatly as I directed an energetic "Come in!" toward the door. Several seconds later, in walks the man with pain in his eyes. He saunters into the office, closing the door behind himself with a soft and supple thud, and moving his eyes to meet mine.
At this moment I understood the definition of helplessness, of being pushed past the human breaking point, and of feeling as if the entire world has turned its back on you; they all resided in the empty gaze of his unfocused eyes. I almost felt physical pain as I looked him in the eyes and asked:
"What's going on?"
He took a couple seconds for his shell-shocked brain to register the question before answering with "I wanted to tell you how important this is to me. If my brother gets convicted, I won't have anyone to help me through life…"
"But you have the rest of the team to help you out, right? They can give you the assistance you need," I replied in an attempt to get him to see the bright side of the situation.
"They can't help me the way Martin can. They're my friends and they help me, yes, but Martin is my brother. He can bring something to the table that no one else can, or ever will. If you have brothers or sisters, you would understand my situation."
Now, I felt terrible. Of course, being an only child, I had no clue what he was talking about; I never had siblings to look up to or to help through life. "Oh...I'm sorry, I'm actually an only child. I never had siblings to look up to."
"So let me guess, you looked up to your parents?" he asked me, to which I replied with a nod of my head. "Well, imagine if you had to watch your parents lose the rest of their life to an unfeeling and careless system. That's how I feel, and I know that judge and prosecution will do anything to get him behind bars. The system is screwed. Justice is dead; I would know, I helped spread the injustice with bullets."
I was shaken up by this response, but also motivated. Now it wasn't just my reputation on the line. It wasn't just the freedom of my client; now it was the freedom of everyone. It wasn't just the justice of this court case; it was justice itself. And as I shook Chris's shivering hand and watched him shamble out of my office, I felt the weight on his shoulders, and felt the need to take it off of him; I felt the pain in him and wanted nothing more than to tear it out of him and give him some form of peace. Of course, no warrior should ever have to leave the battlefield just to have to fight battles at home.
"You know," he continued, "ever since Blackquill's arrest, the system has been screwed up. Perhaps it's unfixable now. There's no way people will trust in their judges anymore. Not after they've been bona fide mafiosos for the past seven years." He sounded solemn, grim; he had the voice of a man who wanted nothing more than to have a good place to call home. "When I was in the army, I wanted the country to get better. I hoped that the courts would get their heads out of their asses and start working to fix the messes they made. But they never did; they kept digging their hole deeper. They dug their own graves."
His next words shook me to my core, and awakened a sense of pride and urgency I never remembered having before.
"But I think it's time to pull them out of the ground."
After my rousing talk with Chris, I called my coworkers and pseudo-disciples, Apollo Justice and Athena Cykes, to a meeting of minds. Apollo has been a friend of mine ever since I taught a class at the Ivy University School of Law, from where he received his juris doctorate and became certified to practice criminal law in the state of California. As soon as I saw him keep his cool in the hot seat, I took him in; at least, as soon as I re-earned my attorney's badge. We even tested the Jurist System together; even if the system was an utter failure, we grew a bond from it. Athena was a friend of Simon Blackquill whom I met when I was studying international law in Europe. I met her in England as I was collaborating in my studies with Hershel Layton, a professor of archaeology at Gressenheller University. Athena was one of the critical witnesses of the UR-1 Incident trial (even if her entire testimony was thrown out as hysteria), and one of the crucial protestors of Blackquill's conviction.
I was, at this moment, making preparations for my defensive strategy, and my plans of action for the trial, beginning tomorrow. As my two cohorts arrived into my office, it was time for the plan to come to fruition.
"Thank you guys for coming on such short notice. I need your help. I have what is probably the biggest trial of my life starting tomorrow, and I'm gonna need all the help I can get to make sure I don't screw this up for my client."
Apollo was the first to speak up. "First off, who is the client, and what happened?" Analytical as always, and to the point.
"My client is Martin Kratt. Arrested for the murder of infamous inventor and biomechanical engineer Zachary Varmitsvich-Korsakoff, commonly goes by the alias Zach Varmitech. Martin has a pretty sound alibi, but everything just feels fishy about this case. I tried to pick up his autopsy report-"
"Wait a minute. Wait a minute. THE Martin Kratt? Blue outfit, turtle ship?" Athena asked, seeming as if she was ready to spring out of her chair, through the ceiling, and into the stratosphere.
"Yes. That guy. Anyway, I try to get the autopsy report and, low and behold, I get entirely rejected by the cops. Finally, I get told they already gave it to Edgeworth."
"And there we have a problem." Apollo pulled out a newspaper. Front page headline:
MARTIN KRATT ON TRIAL FOR MURDER, PROSECUTION TEAM CHANGED LAST-MINUTE.
"The prosecution changed, Edgeworth dropped out at the request of Zach's associates. Turns out his will had a prosecution clause." Apollo looked at the other two people in the room. "In the case of his death being sent to trial, only one person is allowed to defend him."
"And who would that be?" I asked, half-curious and half-frightened. "Damnit, it better not be Franziska. I don't think I could take another whipping."
Apollo looked into my eyes with his one good eye. A single bead of sweat revealed itself upon his sun-kissed forehead, sliding down his face like a black widow crawling across the desert floor. I could feel my blood run as cold as liquid nitrogen, and a chill ran down my back and turned my spine into an icicle. I was afraid.
"Tell me, Phoenix: do you happen to remember UR-1?"
A/N: See, I pulled a sneaky on you guys. And sorry not sorry for the cliffhanger. As always, send me your ideas, and tell me how you think the deed was done. I will see you later!
