Do not try to take this chapter seriously. You'll go insane if you do.

Warning: complete and utter crack after a while. Oh, and spoilers for, like, the entire Ace Attorney franchise.

***This chapter is brought to you by the entire Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney soundtrack. Yep, not one song. The entire soundtrack***

Chapter 17

I walk into the room, a towel slung over my shoulder, and a gigantic grin on my face. I'm met instantly by looks of confusion. Of course, I can't blame them, since it's late-October and I'm in a swimsuit. And it's cold outside.

"Okay, looks like she finally lost her last marble," Jack says gruffly.

"Never had any to begin with, so…" I shrug, shaking my head. "Anyways, that's not the point." I hold up a piece of paper, the bottom of which has a mysterious brown substance covering it. But the important part of this note is still legible. "I've got a dare for everyone—even the people who are immune to them."

"Huh?" Sky narrows her eyes at me. "Don't tell me it's something bad…"

"Nope, it's anything but."

Request by: Doccy Larsson Seraphim (and his merry band of muses)

Receivers: Everyone

Dare: Since everyone has been subjected to many horrors over the past few days— "Days?! More like months!" someone shouts—everyone gets to go to the beach for some well-deserved relaxation. This includes Shimmering-Sky and Sky.

"Wait… a vacation? There has to be a trick involved," Crow says, crossing his arms.

"If there was, it's underneath this… coffee stain?" I smell the bottom part of the paper, and my nose crinkles in disgust. "Yep. Coffee stain." I don't particularly like the smell of coffee. "So yeah. No trick. Besides, I'm in such a good mood, I don't feel like torturing you guys right now."

"What made you so happy?"

"Oh, two things. One, my church's music pastor is going to be the music judge at my contest tomorrow, and two, I GET TO BE A PROSECUTOR IN MY CLASS' MOCK TRIAL! WHOOOOOOP!"

Lucy jumps to her feet. "Prosecutor?! Prosecutor?! You have to let me quote Edgey! PLEASE!"

I shrug. "Maybe."

Silence fills the room, until Leo shouts, "Well what are we waiting for? To the beach!"

XXX

It's actually fun for everyone… for the first few hours. My muses are all in the water, having a splash war. Lucy against everyone else. What else should I expect? She managed to piss them all off last week, so I'm sure this is just… anger being vented.

Everyone else has taken to tanning in the sun, building sand castles (I think Luna, Leo, and Lester are having a battle to see who can make the best one), or running along the surf with a camera, in Carly's case.

All in all, nothing bad is happening. Primo isn't trying to kill Yusei, my muses are too occupied with their own problems to cause anyone else pain; it's peaceful.

XXX

I get bored after about three hours of doing next to nothing. What to do, though? This is hardly enough to be one chapter of Shimmer. And everyone else seems to be enjoying themselves. Especially Akiza, because Yusei is sleeping on her lap.

Huh.

Ah! I know! We could play ultimate frisbee! Sure, I'm not too good at it aside from being the person who stands in the goal and waits for someone to throw it to them, but I bet they might like it! Besides, my youth group plays this game all the time. What could possibly go wrong?

XXX

Once I explain the rules of the game—that it's kind of remotely like American football except with a frisbee, no tackling, no running with the frisbee, and when the frisbee touches the ground it goes to the other team (on second thought, it'd actually be closer to soccer)—everyone actually wants to play.

"Okay… now we just have to split into two teams," I say. "I'm one of the team captains, but… who's gonna be the other?"

"Me, of course," Jack huffs.

"No way! It'll be me!" Lucy shouts, kicking the back of his knee as hard as she can, which makes him faceplant into the sand.

…Alright, that was pretty funny. I have to admit, I snickered a little. But… "Lucy, because you did that, you can't be the captain either."

"Whaaaaaaat?! Why?" she whines.

"Because I've had enough of you abusing the heck out of Jack," I reply. "It's not funny anymore." Okay, that was a lie. It's still funny. Still, I can't let her keep doing that. It'll only get progressively worse, anyways.

She crosses her arms and pouts. "Fine. But don't put me on the same team as one of them." She glares at my other muses.

"Yeah. Um. Alright."

XXX

Sky ends up being the other captain. She gets Lucy, Yusei, Akiza, Luna, Sherry, Crow, Bruno, Lester, Kalin, and Misty. I get the rest of my muses, Jack, Carly, Leo, and Primo. I hardly find it fair, since Sky picking Lucy forced me to choose all six of my remaining muses. But at least I know Jack is good at throwing things, and I'm guessing Primo's going to try really hard to beat Yusei and Lester, so… that has to outweigh Carly and Leo, right?

All is good for a couple of rounds. Nothing broken, no one injured, and it's tied, too. My team isn't sucking nearly as much as I expected it to. (How Shade is doing all of this without breaking a sweat is beyond me, because he refuses to take off his suit. In fact, he's the only one not in a swimsuit other than Rudolph and Piano, who don't wear clothes period.)

Of course, being at a tie isn't good enough for my muses.

Leave it to them to put a bet on the outcome. If my team wins, then my muses can write this Ace Attorney fic they've dubbed Turnabout Finale. If Sky's wins, however, the fic is destroyed. Permanently. Which is what Lucy wants, because that story came into existence for the sole purpose of annoying the crap out of her.

Well, that and the fact that my brain just had to find it contradictory that someone could be knocked out by the blade of a sword. (Because Ace Attorney logic.)

Anyways, after the sixth round, things kind of start going downhill. Jack steps on a seashell, which cracks and slices open his heel. Being Jack, he keeps pressing on (although with a visible limp).

Bruno accidentally trips when he catches the frisbee, and lands on Carly who had been attempting to stop the catch in the first place. The collision breaks the fledgling reporter's glasses.

Piano gets knocked out of the sky when she tries to catch the frisbee. Why did I let her play, again…? Her and Rudolph don't really belong in this game. (But Rudolph is actually doing good, so…)

The last straw is when Leo intercepts a pass from Kalin to Lester, and the youngest Emperor of Yliaster pushes him to the ground in anger.

Ugh. I asked what could go wrong before, didn't I? This seems to be it. And it's all against my team, too. Well, other than Bruno tripping, because he sprained his ankle or something to that effect.

"Time out!" I shout. "We… we need a break!"

XXX

But, just my luck, our break gets interrupted.

As in, a group of people in a speedboat just crashed onto the beach. And I don't mean from the ocean. They fall out of the sky.

At first, I think Lucy's just trying to prank everyone.

Then I see the occupants of the boat.

A ditzy blonde in a green bikini, leaning precariously over the edge of the boat. Behind her is another woman, this one a brunette, in a brown swimsuit. (I'm fairly certain that she, like Meri, is hiding some sort of weapon inside it. Maybe more than one.) The other occupants are all guys. One looks like a younger version of Professor Layton, the next is Jay (wait, actually, it's Akron), and the last one has on… a dark blue suit and polished black shoes, pale skin, sea-blue eyes, taller than Jack, two wings with black feathers, and three silver rings in his right ear?

"…and how many times have I asked you not to take the wheel when I'm the one at it?" the guy with wings shouts at J—Akron.

"Never," he replies nonchalantly.

"Doccy!" I shout. "What a nice surprise!"

"Huh?" He spins around, and a touch of confusion spreads across his face. "'Surprise'? I told you we were coming."

"You did?" I ask.

"Yeah. It was part of the dare."

I hold up the card, and nod a little. "I think that part was blocked out by this coffee stain." I shrug. "Oh well. Since you're here, do you want to play ultimate frisbee with us?"

"Sounds fun, but… uh… I don't know how to play," he says.

I quickly explain the rules to Doccy and his band of muses.

So… how am I going to put them into teams…? Hmm… Well, Leo, Piano, and Bruno all have to sit out now. I fixed Carly's glasses, but she's still clumsy as always.

Nathalie, the ditzy blonde, goes to Sky's team. It's only fair. Reginald joins that team as well. Then Akron, Doccy, and X join my team. Apparently Nathalie and Akron aren't good at throwing (Akron's lack of skill is because of Jay), so both teams get one bad player. I get two good ones. Again, it's only fair since my team was more or less at a disadvantage anyways.

XXX

Five rounds later, and it's clear that the odds are now in my team's favor. Because of these previous five rounds, Sky's team has only won once.

So we decide to take a break. Running around and throwing (or catching) a frisbee is really exhausting.

And, just my luck, the break is VERY eventful.

A bloodcurdling scream fills the air. It came from the bathroom area.

Jack, who had been lounging around, instantly jumps to his feet. "That was Carly!"

XXX

Crap.

This shouldn't be happening.

The spell I cast at the beginning of the story, and every newcomer gets applied to them, should have prevented this.

So then why the heck is Bruno sprawled out on the ground, a frozen look of horror on his face, and a knife in his chest?

And why is he not coming back to life?

…Well, I can't just stand here and think all of the answers will suddenly come to me. Something has to be done—like finding out who did this. I'd say it was one of my muses, but the only one who would just kill Bruno for no apparent reason is Lucy, and she was busy trying to build her sand fort. She was putting so much effort into it, there was no way she multitasked and did this using some of her powers.

"Alright everyone, back away from the body!" I shout. "You're contaminating the crime scene!"

"You aren't a police officer," someone says. I'm not sure who it was.

"Yeah, well I've played enough Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth and seen enough crime-solving shows to know what to do," I retort. "Besides, we can't get the actual police involved." I take this chance to glare at Lucy, who is wanted in pretty much every single country that exists and then some, and then at Meri, who is wanted in the entirety of the midwestern US, in Mexico, and in Canada. "I'd rather not have my muses get arrested."

"I can't help that my dinos ramage when I'm angry!" Meri protests.

I wave her off; I'm not getting into this right now. "Anyways, everyone needs to back off while I try to figure this out. Except you, Kalin."

"Me? Why?" the icy-blue haired man asks.

"Because you're a sheriff," I reply. "Also, out of everyone else here, Misty's the only other person who didn't really know Bruno." At least, if I'm going by what was in the anime, Kalin and Misty never met Bruno. Naturally, they would be the most indifferent about this. (Er, at least as close as one can be when someone dies.)

XXX

Half an hour of evidence-gathering later, we finally get to question Carly. It had taken her that long to be able to coherently speak. Before, all we could get out of her were sobs and squeaks. And Jack giving us a death glare to rival Lucy's.

I stare at the blonde man. "Jack, go away. I need to take Carly's statement."

He continues to glare at me. "No."

"Don't make me use the Closet of Doom on you."

"I'm not leaving."

I cross my arms. "Fine. But, if you say anything—or even so much as make a noise—you'll regret it."

"Hmph."

XXX

I look at my notepad after I think Carly's told me everything. She and Bruno had gone into their respective bathrooms at the same time… some random comments… Carly hears something crash onto the ground while washing her hands and ran outside… and that's when she found Bruno and screamed.

Whoever the killer is… they either have the ability to teleport or they can run really, really fast.

Sigh… why can't it be one of my muses for once? It would be so much easier. Of course, it wasn't one of them, and yet the culprit still has to be one of us on this island.

"Any luck with the fingerprinting kit, Kalin?" I ask, glancing over at him. I hold in a laugh; the white dust covers his legs and swim trunks. Also the fact that this is even happening right now amuses me, even though it shouldn't.

"I pulled a print… I think," he replies. "Just have to plug it into the computer and…" He swears.

"What is it?" I look at the computer screen. "Oh."

The print he pulled off of the knife… belongs to Carly.

"Wh… WHAAAAAAAAT?!"

I jerk my head around. Carly seems just as surprised as the rest of us. But… "Carly… how come your prints are on the murder weapon?"

"I… I don't… know," she replies.

"Oh, yes you do!" Lucy shouts. She jumps up from where she was—I'd put her to work on analyzing the footprints near the crime scene—and declares, "All the evidence adds up! The fingerprints, the footprints, you have no alibi—and you have a motive!"

I stare at my muse like she's gone insane (which she probably has). "Lucy… are you saying what I think you're saying?"

"Carly! You killed Bruno, didn't you?!"

"HOW DARE YOU ACCUSE HER OF SUCH A THING!" Jack roars, face bright red. "Carly would never kill someone, much less Bruno!"

"Tell that to the court," Lucy says. Then she looks at me, her eyes pleading.

"Lucy, I'm not putting her on trial."

"Please?"

"No."

"Please please please please please please please? I won't ask for anything else for… for a month! Please!"

Hmm… "Make it two months."

"Fine! Two! But you have to let me be Edgeworth!"

"Who said we were going to cosplay?"

"I. Am. Edgeworth."

I almost pull out the Everything Shield, with the power of the glare she gives me. "Okay. You're Edgeworth. Fine."

Ugh… Guess I have a trial to write now…

Besides, Carly definitely didn't do it. Even though I'd rather be a prosecutor, I think I'll be her defense attorney.

…Why do I feel like I've been playing too much Ace Attorney now?

To be continued…

Never mind the warnings, I guess. The next chapter's gonna be the utter crack/spoiler zone. I'm splitting it into two parts because, with the trial, it would be like, twice the length of the other chapters in this story.

There will also be a lot more of Doccy and his merry band of muses in the next chapter.

So yeah. Review?