***Disclaimer: I don't own Gyakuten Saiban (Phoenix Wright) or any of its characters~!***
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Chapter Two: The First Night
"Yeah. No. Right in his office. She was apparently meeting with him for some reason. I don't know. Of course she didn't. No, I'm taking this one. Please. You do that. Night, kiddo."
I hung up the phone, running my fingers through my dark, spiky hair. Why was it always Maggey Byrde? And if it wasn't Maggey, it was Larry Butz. Were they just born with a natural knack for getting into compromising situations? This would make the third time Maggey Byrde was formally accused of murder, and I'd represented her in court twice before. If I could say anything about her, I'd say she was very, very unlucky.
"But there's no way she did it," I murmured to myself, reading over the brief, incomplete report Dick Gumshoe had faxed me just a few moments before. I'd get to the bottom of it. I always did—even when I wasn't a lawyer. I shuddered, feeling my heart pound as I reread the account Gumshoe had prepared from Maggey. That's right; I hadn't been a lawyer for eight long years. But once they caught the man who framed me for forgery, I started on the path to regaining my attorney's badge. Now, here I was, a week after I'd gotten it, with a case like Maggey's all lined up.
It was almost like Edgeworth knew.
Edgeworth knew? I thought to myself. That's ridiculous. And yet….
I jumped as my phone rang again. I answered it cautiously, wincing as a high-pitched, LOUD voice came back from the other end.
"Daddy! How could you tell Polly about the new case before you told me??!??!?"
I winced. "Trucy, calm down." Trucy Wright (née Trucy Enigmar) was not my biological daughter. She was the daughter of an old client who was forced into hiding, and I took her under my wing. I raised her, and eventually discovered her true roots. Now Trucy and her brother, my apprentice Apollo Justice, lived together in a flat a few blocks away from Wright & Co. Law Offices. I'd even helped them discover their mother, Thalassa Gramarye Enigmar, who had suffered a bout of amnesia and had become a Borginian legend called Lamiroir.
But Trucy had always been special. She was obsessed with two things: magic and law. I hadn't intended to tell her about this case, because of its implications with my past. I didn't want to reveal that much of myself to her, especially with her age and disposition, but I supposed I had to tell her now.
"Trucy, I'm sorry. I'm handling this case personally, and I—"
"You're hopeless." I heard the girl sigh, then giggle on the other end of the line. "You don't even have an assistant."
"Trucy, you can't—"
"Don't worry, Daddy. Not me. I looked into your days as 'Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.'" Trucy sounded proud of herself, but to me, her words were ominous.
"Did you?" I asked nonchalantly. "And what did you find?"
"Maya Fey." A long pause. Me, speechless. Trucy, waiting for me to speak. "Well, Daddy, she's just been living out in the country, at a place called Kurain Village. I sent her a telegram and I expect she'll be on the first train into town."
I didn't really know what to say. How many years had it been since Maya went back to Kurain Village with Pearls? At least eight, if not longer. After a long silence, Trucy excused herself from the phone and went to bed, sounding pretty somber for my little wildfire of a child. I felt a little chagrined as I lay in bed that night, wondering if I'd made her feel bad with my silence. I decided I'd make it up to her later (I always did) and just tried to sleep.
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In spite of myself, I went to the train station early the next morning. I was only half-expecting her to show up, but a mixture of sleep deprivation and foolish hope led me to the familiar bench in that old station. The bench had been repainted since last I bid Maya farewell, but the classic whorl of the bench's ironwork and the rust around its feet revealed it to be the same.
I unbuttoned my blue blazer as I sat, my overcoat crinkling beneath me. I sighed, feeling goose bumps erupt across my skin in the morning chill. Why was my heart beating so fast? I was sure the conductor across the way could hear it. Why was she getting to me so much? Maya was practically a kid when I last saw her—Pearls in tow, of course. Maybe that was why it was so terrifying—I had no idea how the years had changed her.
Just then, the train from Kurain pulled into the station. This was it; no more time for contemplation. I stood as people began to pour forth from the cars, scanning the crowd with my heart in my throat. When the people began to thin out and I hadn't seen her, I realized I'd been a fool.
She hadn't come.
Of course she hadn't come. Who would honor a telegram in the middle of the night from a mysterious girl claiming to be the daughter of an old friend? Especially when you know the friend to be single and childless!
Sorry, Maya, I thought to myself, turning toward the exit.
"Nick?!"
I froze. That nickname. That feminine voice. I spun on my heel to find a woman about six inches shorter than me regarding me with a contemplative expression. She looked vaguely like Maya Fey. She was still rail thin, as always, and dressed in her traditional purple and pink yukata, her sleek, black hair hanging loosely about her shoulders. She looked a little unkempt, as travellers often do, and her eyes sparkled with mist. I felt the heat of tears prick my own eyes as well. "M-Maya?"
"So it is you," she murmured. Her voice had deepened somewhat in the last several years, taking on the mystic quality befitting a spirit medium. Her shape had finally filled out as well—looking at Mia and Morgan, it had always been inconceivable to me that Maya had lacked the family curves. But she certainly didn't now. "Phoenix Wright," she said, snapping me back to reality. I blushed, hoping she hadn't caught me staring. "It's been a long time."
"I could say the same to you," I murmured, taking a step closer to her. She pulled her shawl more closely around her frame, regarding me through long, thick eyelashes. I cleared my throat. "I assume Trucy explained the case to you in the telegram?"
"She didn't say much, Nick," the medium responded, shifting her weight uneasily. "Is she really your daughter?"
"In every sense of the word," I said with confidence, as I always did. "But we can talk about my family later. Right now, we need to visit the detention center. Maggey Byrde's been accused of murder."
"Again?" Maya asked, hiding a smile behind a long sleeve. If circumstances were different, I might have smiled back. Old habits die hard.
"This one's different," I explained shortly, looking around the bustling station. I felt a pang of melancholy as I thought of the previous night. "It's…. It's Miles Edgeworth. And I'm a witness."
And so began the investigation.
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AN: And there it is. Maya Fey, back in action! Sorry that there's so much exposition, but things will begin to get action-y here soon. Looking ahead: Maggey and Gumshoe! 3 If you can't tell, I'm super-hot on this pairing. I love, love, love it! Also, Phoenix and Maya get down to bare bones in their investigation, given access to the crime scene and realizing that maybe this is all far bigger than they had anticipated.
Please Rate and Review! (Hint: It's the only way I'll know if I should continue this! If you wanna see more, Review!) A bientot,
muteSOUL