A/N In the first chapter, I said I'd be doing Shi-Long Lang's, Trucy Wright's, Klavier Gavin's, Diego Armando's and Godot's fears, but I realized that I didn't include Franziska von Karma (who is AWESOME), and that I don't know how to write Trucy. So, instead of Trucy, I'll be writing Franziska von Karma. Got it memorized? So this chapter will have Shi-Long Lang, Franziska von Karma, Klavier Gavin, Diego Armando and Godot. There will be Miego (Mia/Diego) for Diego Armando's part, though Mia doesn't make an appearance. (And Godot's.)
Disclaimer: I own Capcom and all its characters, including Ace Attorney. …Wait a minute. Eh heh heh. You do know what sarcasm is, right?
Shi-Long Lang
History has a way of repeating itself.
Past incidents find the strength in themselves to force their way through the tangled web of Time. Who'd waste effort in doing that anyway? But nevertheless, it is a fact.
History has a way of repeating itself.
And there is one very unfortunate incident that has occurred far back in the generations of Lang that Shi-Long Lang never, of all things, wants to recur. Of course, it is this very fear that makes the past all the more eager to reoccur. Thus is the way of life; to play out in the most unfortunate way when one wants it to go the other.
With this in mind, Interpol agent Shi-Long Lang makes it a point to stop mulling on about it—but he has never been good at that sort of thing. His mind turns against itself.
Just one investigation, gone wrong—years and years of faithful service rendered to smithereens. Whenever Lang thought about the perpetrator, thought about whoever had caused the whole mess, his blood boiled and his lips pulled back in a growl that revealed sharp canines. Someone along the line had rigged the Lang family up for a fall…
This is his fear.
He tries not to think about it. But he does.
Lang Zi says: The utmost pinnacle of control is the control of one's mind.
Looks like he hasn't reached that level yet. But Shi-Long will try, because it is the only thing he can do. His family has fallen and he is a lone wolf, the only one who can restore its name.
But once restored, it may fall once more. Again, his mind returns to the subject matter, unfailingly, betraying itself with such thoughts. Perhaps it is foolish to think that once the thought is borne upon the winds of consciousness, it is more liable to come true, but Shi-Long refuses to take any chances.
As the years go by, he gains more and more confidence in achieving his goal, and he places more and more trust into the people under him. The foundations of a strong wall. His subordinates. Is he making the same mistake that the Lang family made so many years ago? Was it wrong to place so much faith into his underlings? He would always protect them, yes—but was it truly wise to not meticulously check every single piece of evidence? Because it was perhaps borne from this trust that contributed to the downfall of his house.
And Shih-na… he had trusted her. She turned out to be a mole, a spy sent by that smuggling group. He sure knew how to pick 'em. Then, stupidly, he protected her once again, taking the bullet meant for the white-haired woman into his own leg. An idiot, that's what Lang is. This ridiculous farce of a bond between superior and subordinate—all toppings and no cake.
But he can't help but be the idiot that he is and, even after an incident like that, put his faith into his underlings.
He snorts to himself. Fine, if that's how it is, that's how it is. This fallacy that simultaneously has the potential to hinder or further his goal, and to make history repeat once again.
Bring it, he thinks.
Franziska von Karma
Perfection.
She was perfection. No more, no less.
No one could contest that the whip-wielding prosecutor was anything but a prodigy, a perfect prodigy. No one in the pool of people she had met could honestly profess that they were not even a little afraid of her. No one could admit that they didn't envy or admire her, even if it were just a tiny bit.
Because she was perfect.
Franziska von Karma was raised to be perfect, in a household of perfection, with a father of perfection, with an education of perfection. And no one should contest that. No one should have the right to take that away from her, tear apart her strong foundations, her connections, and then run away with a goofy smile on their stupid little imperfect faces. They shouldn't be given the liberty to shame her and her history, her family, then melt her little brother to soft toffee of imperfection and put her perfect father behind the bars of a ridiculous prison for murder, even staining his perfect win record. Because perfection does not need to cheat; perfection does not need to murder; perfection does not conceded to lucky idiots on the defence bench.
Seeing that this was her line of thinking, you might be inclined to think that her fear was that she was not perfect.
This is false. It is a lie, and you are a fool to believe it.
Franziska von Karma had no illusions.
(Franziska von Karma has no illusions.)
She was not afraid of losing her perfection, because she was perfect and would always be perfect. It didn't matter what happened.
(She is afraid. Not fearful that she is not perfect, but that others may find out her imperfections. Frightened that others may look past her cold yet fiery exterior and peer into her not so perfect self.)
Foolishly foolish fools with foolish follies and foolishly hung around with foolhardy foolishly foolish fools were a nuisance. Soon, the only people she was surrounded by were fools. Her little brother was turned even more foolish with his foolishly foolhardy fool of a friend of a defence attorney of his childhood. She detested such people, who had the cheek to cross her, to shame her.
(Around her are people either too scared of her to talk, or smart-alecks that fear her whip but still persist in annoying her. Miles Edgeworth is one of these people, and of him she is afraid. Because in her current state, he is the closest friend she has, and family bonds persists when she tries to discard him like a dirty rag. Because one day, she may break and then they will know she isn't so perfect after all. And on that day, there should be no one around to see her imperfections. Except that there will be because he is her brother.)
She was fearless, and would tear at anything with the whip that Manfred von Karma had gifted her on her fifteenth birthday. Every other day, she would go and visit the State Penitentiary and when she returned to Germany, she would write letters. It was ridiculous, putting her father in prison. He was the same as always, strict and formidable, and she would promise him that she would avenge him, follow in his footsteps as faithfully as a dog.
(The whip she holds as a reminder and a habit. A reminder of her father. She visits him often; it is expected of her, and still she is tied down by family bonds, unable to tear away from the formal man that raised her. There, she keeps a façade, knowing that he, too, keeps her at an arm's length, watching her with those inscrutable eyes, assessing her. Finding her weaknesses. And she pretends to obey him, following in his footsteps as loyally as a dumb dog.)
No, Franziska von Karma had no fears.
(No, Franziska von Karma is not the fearless, lashing woman that almost everyone sees. One day, alone in a corner perhaps, she will look into the mirror, past the icy blue eyes and into the imperfections that lie within; into the foolish human that she is born into.)
Klavier Gavin
What he longed for was the truth. He longed for a lot of other things, though; things that could not be bought by wealth or brought by charm.
He also feared many things. But what he feared was not what others might have thought. Perhaps, one of the more shallow ones thought he feared loss of love by his fans, or the loss of his wealth. Others more well informed may have thought he feared more of his close ones leaving his side—leaving because the law snatched them away, because they had erred in a flight of greed or passion. There were others, still, that thought he feared becoming what so many he had loved had become; monsters, uncaring and selfish, cold with the unforgivable crimes they had committed heavy on their souls.
Naturally, they were wrong.
He did not fear indifference of fans or bankruptcy (though it would admittedly be inconvenient) because he had made a rock band not for popularity, but for love of music, and money was overvalued anyway, as naively idealistic as that sounded. He didn't fear others turning to the ugly side of humanity (perhaps he did, a little, but he knew he should not), but he felt pity for them because if they had faulted, they had faulted and that was that. Nothing could redeem them. He perhaps feared turning into a demon of murder and heartlessness, but not much because he thought that despite the corruption around him, he would not fall prey. And if he did, he would be rightfully brought to justice. Society would be safe.
What Klavier Gavin, god of rock, prosecuting prodigy and glimmerous fop, feared above all was helplessness.
At the sidelines, unable to retaliate as a criminal walks free, as the judge bangs his gavel down with an irrefutable 'Not Guilty', as he gropes around in his case files for just one more point to smash the defence down and bring justice.
Or the other way round: maybe as he wins his case, all the while knowing that the defendant was innocent, and he wants to just destroy his own case, smash it into bits and pieces, but he can't. Because neither he nor the defence has the stupid, damned last piece of decisive evidence.
Either way, the criminal would be let off, like a slippery fish freeing itself from a fishing hook.
This was exactly why he became a prosecutor—to bring justice. But sometimes the truth stays just out of reach. Sometimes you can't do anything but watch and hate yourself for it. Sometimes you just have to sit in your office, staring at the cases of guitars along the walls, unseeing, and just wonder why the world is arrange in such a way that the guilty can go scot-free.
Klavier did not understand the mindsets of some people, no matter how much he tried. Like… like his brother. Or anyone that just did their job like a robot, no emotions and no regrets. And executed it for the sake of just going through the motion, or worse, for a perfect win record.
A 'perfect win record'.
Klavier always scoffed at the phrase and reeled inwardly in disgust.
It doesn't matter if he's innocent.
I have a record to maintain.
You're too idealistic for you own good. Look into the real world, kid. Guilty or innocent… it's all the same to me.
Blatant. Harsh. Stupid.
His fear happened everyday. And everyday he was forced to crack a smile, as if the everything was fine. Because it was his job.
And everyday, someone walks free…
Everyday, an innocent is hanged…
Everyday, Klavier Gavin curls up in his king-sized bed and feels something cold settle in his stomach.
Because he can do nothing about it all.
Diego Armando
Sipping his coffee, Diego Armando sprawled himself over the office couch, looking up at the ceiling. It was late at night and he was probably the only one left at the office. All in a day's work, though—mysterious client calls him mid-afternoon for a trial that started the very next day at 9 in the morning: yup, just the usual. And it was kind of sad that the previous thought wasn't sarcasm. Diego sighed, flipping through the stack of clipped papers that he held in his free hand, taking another chug of coffee.
No good. Nothing would go into his head, not even with the mug filled to the brim with heaven clutched in his hand.
Diego hit his head with the papers, as if he hoped the type would be absorbed into his brain and through his dark mane of hair. Well, he would just have to wing it in court.
One reason he couldn't seem to remember anything was the late hour and the tiny, miniscule writing on the sheets of research. The other was a certain person that had been occupying his thoughts for the past hour. (Well, the past few hours, but he had still managed to concentrate on the task at hand.)
No prizes for guessing whom that was.
Everyone at the office knew; it wasn't like his flirting was reserved only when the two of them were there. She knew, obviously. And she was driving him crazy. It was funny, almost, how the two loves of his life conflicted. Coffee was hot and bitter (well, proper coffee was, anyway), and each taste was heavy with the black magic. She was sweet, yet cold, and each time he teased her or flirted with her, she would rarely let out a blush; when she did, it was a light one that gently gave her cheeks some much needed colour.
Mia Fey was amazing.
He loved her.
Sure, she pushed him away, but persistence pays off. It always did. Diego didn't know how much he had been missing out in life before he met Mia Fey. This wasn't overstating it—it was true. Colour flooded into his life when she came—no, definition flooded into his life. Everything came into a brilliant focus, making room, edging away from her. And so she became the centre of it all.
Diego was convinced that he had not been living before she stepped in.
Oh, there were brief moments of clarity with Mia Fey's absence. In court, for example, with an impossible case and adrenaline surging through him as he struggled for that one piece of evidence. Or when he made an exceptional new blend, pouring it into his favourite mug and taking a sip of that amazing brew. But it was a kaleidoscope around Mia, and each pattern sucked his vision in to focus on her.
So, if he had been dead before she came… then he would die when she left, harder than ever.
The thought made him choke on the coffee he was drinking and twist his gut into unsolvable knots. He could feel it; the grey that would cloud in, settle into his mind, choke his wits and bring him down like a deadweight. Diego knew this was a shadow of what would happen if she… well, in a job linked with law, surrounding by suspects, criminals… it was dangerous.
It took Diego a while to realized that he had dropped his coffee mug on the carpet, the liquid spilling out like light from a window.
He didn't pick it up.
Shakily, he tried to laugh off his suddenly morbid thoughts. The combination, he thought, of the desperate sleepiness and the blackest of coffees had got him thinking about the unthinkable. It wasn't relevant; it couldn't be, because the probability of something as dramatically dreadful as that taking place was as low as him giving up coffee. Diego wouldn't let it happen if he could help it. And he could help it.
Slowly, slowly, the pessimist in him was lifted and thrown into the winds of sleep as slumber overtook his mind.
In the short, dim moments betwixt a slight drowse and heavy sleep, he smiled slightly to himself.
Because such a thing as ridiculously impossible as what he had been pondering simply could not occur.
Godot
There is nothing to say.
He has nothing left.
He is nothing.
Not even a broken, empty shell of himself—he is oblivion.
Because everything he has feared has come to pass.
A/N And that's it for this twoshot. Although, if you want me to write about a specific character I may add a bonus chapter or something if I'm interested. My favourite was… Godot's. The shortness is absolutely addicting. Okay, okay, I'm lazy… Franziska's was fun to write as well, though. Klavier's felt like a mix between Edgeworth's and Kay's…? It was a bit of an odd mishmash of present and past tense, though. Hope it was okay. Lang was an interesting new look at things, and Diego was just pure Diego with coffee and Mia. The irony right at the end was… grr… frustrating. Because Mia died. And Godot was born. Argh. Why, oh why, did such a sad story have to occur? Well, I suppose it wouldn't have been so endearing if it went any other way, but still… Alright, back to business. First order of business for you guys is to drop a review. Go ahead and click that button—you know you want to.