Disclaimer:
12. Please discuss the following areas; attach additional sheets if necessary
Discuss your educational and career goals.
List and describe your achievements, honors, and awards
Describe your complete and total lack of ownership of anything Ace Attorney.
State that, since this story barely has anything to do with Ace Attorney, you do in fact, own all of it, and will sue if movie rights are procured without permission. You know you've thought about it. Hollywood jerk.
Pre-Fic Author conversation: Hey everybody! Have we all made our guesses? To refresh your memory, the two questions were: 1) What/where is the contradiction and 2) Which character (other than Chance) spots it, if any at all? The answers to these questions will be presented almost immediately, so without further ado…
Turnabout of the Ancient Mariner
(Trial, Part 3)
Pardon me!
"But…" Benvolio said, a hand behind his head in embarrassment. "I believe that… there is a contradiction in that statement somewhere…"
BOЗPAЖEHИE!
"Contradiction? What contradiction?" Tanya slammed the wall behind her with all her might, and screamed:
"THERE IS NO CONTRADICTION HERE!!!!!!!!!!"
Ben smiled awkwardly. "Ms. Krasivaya… while that was a valiant attempt to shake my confidence, and probably would have worked in other cases… I actually have quite more fortitude than one would first think… now granted, I am not saying that by thinking that, you are a bad judge of a person's character, or that you are narrow-minded, on the contrary I think…"
"ORDER UP!" yelled Scotty, exasperated. "If you would get on with it, Mr. Paraclete?" He looked pleadingly at Chancellor. Their eyes met, and Scotty seemed to say, without words: I miss you. Chancellor caught on to this, and his eyes said, also without words: I'm sorry, but I have to stay away from you for now. Also, this conversation is kind of sketchy. Scotty nodded, and his eyes said, again without words: True enough. Just remember; I'm married.
"Ahem" Ben cleared his throat. "Yes, the contradiction. Mademoiselle Aegis, you stated that you and Mr. Culligan talked on the deck of the ship, yes?"
"Yup, that's right. You've always been a good listener, Ben."
Ben flushed red. "Thank you, Mademoiselle Aegis. But you see, it is that good hearing that has disturbed me…" He cleared his throat. "Because you see, you also claimed that you were able to see Mademoiselle Noble as she walked on the upper deck… well, balcony I think you called it, but anyway… that is impossible."
BOЗPAЖEHИE!
"Mr.… Parasol? Was it?" Tanya asked.
"Paraclete" Benvolio corrected patiently.
"Very well. Mr. Pair of Cleats!" Tanya said, shaking her head. "Do you mean to bring the witness' eyesight into question? I'll have you know we've done thorough background checks, and Ms. Aegis has perfect, 20/20 vision!"
"But she was not wearing sunglasses" Ben said softly.
This threw Tanya, both because of the complete randomness of the statement and because of how softly and unimposing it had been said. "Wh… what do you exactly mean by that?"
"Well you see; Monsieur Noble" Ben explained, "had recently installed a brand-new, high-powered chandelier, hanging from the balcony." He took out pictures from the party to prove this point. "The chandelier shone so brightly that, as many of the guests pointed out, trying to look at the upper deck would be impossible… you would go blind if you tried." He gave a slight bow. "Therefore I hold that it is impossible for Mademoiselle Aegis to have seen Mademoiselle Noble walking the upper deck, and that either she is lying about this fact, or she received such information from another source."
Scotty felt a tear come to his eye. "That… was the most logical thought process I've heard in ages…" He stifled back a sob. "Seriously, you don't know how long… ever since he showed up…" He shook his head towards Chancellor. "Well… it's just…" He sobbed once, a bit overdramatically. "You don't know how nice it is to have someone halfway normal in here!"
Aegis shook her head, pulled a tissue out from her pocket, and handed it to Scotty. He took it gratefully, but was surprised to see her bring out an entire package and place it next to him. "Wha…" Scotty asked. "I'm not crying that much…"
"But you will be" she said seriously. She flashed a huge smile. "Ben hit the nail on the head over there… I'll admit it; I didn't actually see Mrs. Noble walking around on the deck…" She blushed. "My… my boyfriend did."
"WHAT?" exclaimed Chance, Ben, Morage, Jack, and DuClaw simultaneously.
"Mademoiselle Aegis?" Ben gaped. "You have a…"
"Since when has she…" Morage grumbled.
"Go TripleA!" Chance yelled. "It's never too late, after all!" SMACK! Rang the dictionary as it caved in Chancellor's head.
"I wish that I had Jesse's girl!" commented Jack, delirious.
"What's the big deal?" Aegis asked, turning red as she realized how many eyes were riveted on her. "Yes, I have a boyfriend. So what? I happen to think I'm rather easy to look at!" She huffed. She looked up sympathetically at Scotty. "And the reason I gave you all those tissues, Scotty dear, is because if abnormality upsets you… then having my boyfriend testify will bring you to tears instantly."
"I've got a bad, yet strangely familiar feeling about this…" Cassie commented.
-Five minutes later.
Ben's mouth stood open. When he finally regained control of his tongue, he let out a strained whisper: "he did it. Sacra Bleu, he did it! There is no doubt in my mind."
"For once, I agree, concur, correspond, and see eye to eye" Alexis nodded. "Though if we're judging solely on appearance, that DuClaw is pretty suspicious too…"
"Guys" Chance groaned, titling his chair back in utter disbelief. "It's a million times Moore likely that I killed Mrs. Noble than the man sitting at the witness stand right now."
"Why, Mr.…. Moore…" Andre` Ne` Chrome warbled. "It's nice to… know… that you trust me… so." He chuckled eerily. "Mother…while she was still alive…" He chuckled again, and a young child in the audience began to wail. "She always said… that the people who… trust you… are the only one's worth… bothering with." He peered at his jagged, uncut fingernails with a look that would be classified as menacing if given by anyone but him. "As for all the others…" his voice trailed off, and a large muscular man with a 'Born to Kill' tattoo and a ripped leather jacket excused himself, as he had just wet his pants.
"Athena?" Morage whispered, leaning towards Aegis, who had recently taken a seat next to him. "If it's not too bold to ask… and I'll try to put this as nicely as possible…what the hell?"
Aegis simply smiled. "Be nice, Grumbles," she said sweetly, "he's actually a very interesting and compassionate man on the inside… even if he does, quite literally, look like death."
"You always did have a 'weird' fetish," Morage grumbled to himself.
"Which is probably why I joined this firm, right Grumbles?" Aegis smiled, ignoring the fact that the comment was meant to be insulting.
"Ahem" Tanya cleared her throat. "Well, Mr. Ne` Chrome, I must say I'm quite surprised to see you again…" She lowered her voice. "No hard feelings about last time, right?"
"But of course… not…" he said softly. His right eye bulged out slightly, as he looked closely at Tanya. "Though I must… say… I am quite surprised… that you are asking such a… question…" He smiled, and sent shivers down an old woman's spine. "You seem a bit Moore… outgoing… less… reserved…Moore…friendly… less…"
"Well, all I have to say to that is that the Moore you see in life, the Moore you change" Tanya interrupted quickly. "And that as you see Moore, the other people around you begin to realize you're not as unapproachable as you seem." Her eyes flew open, as if she only just realized what she had actually said. "Or well… I mean to say that as you see Moore and Moore, you begin to see that the… other people… er…" She shook her head furiously. "Testify! NOW!"
In his cozy, homely prison cell, Jaden Friday sensed a breakthrough.
"You don't have to… be so mean…" Ne` Chrome whimpered, his bottom lip trembling. "I don't… have to…take…" His eyes narrowed, but for him, this was a gesture of acceptance, not of threat. "Very well, I'll testify about that night…at the party… where no one… noticed… I was there…"
"My bad" Chancellor admitted. "I should have known; my past-acquaintance-senses were tingling all the time."
"Is that synonymous with 'womanly intuition'?" Alexis teased.
Chance gripped his tire chain, fully prepared to swing it, but looked down only to hear his reflection say Don't you DARE use this thing for evil, you hear me Chancy? "Fine…" He muttered to himself, settled back into his chair, and listened to Andre's testimony.
"I was… coming… up from the bar… getting my Athena a drink. I happened to look up… at the balcony… and that's when, I saw her… the dead woman, Mrs. Noble." He chuckled slightly. "Well, she wasn't dead then, but…" He peered at his nails. "You understand… … yes?"
"Completely, utterly, eerily, spookily" Alexis nodded. "Do you have anything to add?"
"Well… no!" He said with a slight chuckle. "What else… would I… have… to say?"
"It's just…" Alexis said, crossing her arms and pressing them tightly against her chest. "Your testimony is so short, so brief, so epigrammatic." She winked once. "Are you sure that's all you have to say? Did you perhaps, go up to the balcony at any point?"
Where 85% (99.9% if it were Tanya) of men would have said something Moore, even if they had nothing to say, Ne` Chrome shook his head once, slowly and wearily.
"No… nothing at all…" He smiled, showing teeth a sickly yellow color. "Isn't that… really all that needs… to be said… anyway?"
PRONOUNCEMENT!
"If you have nothing else to say…" Alexis yelled, tensing up. "The how is testimony any better than Ms. Aegis'? If you never went up to the balcony, there is still no way you could have seen Ms. Aegis!"
"In order to have seen Ms. Aegis, you would have had to gone up to the second floor!"
BOЗPAЖEHИE!
"First of all, I'd like to congratulate you, Ms. Aegis" Tanya said, smiling condescendingly. "Do you realize that you have actually caused me to object for the first time in this trial?" She stretched slowly, letting out a soft, shuddering sigh. "To be frank, getting me to utter those four syllables means that you're the cream of the crop… about as common among lawyers as a black peppered moth was in England before the Industrial Revolution."
"Yeah, yeah, that's nice, grand, striking…" Alexis shrugged off, while the three men standing behind her whimpered softly and leaned forward. "But I'd like to know just what you find objectionable about my interruption of conversation, Ms. Krasivaya."
"Very true, Ms. Krasivaya" Scotty agreed, secretly glad that he had a loose fitting robe on, "what exactly is wrong with Ms. Lexington's statement."
"The sheer and utter ignorance required to make it, your honor" Tanya said coolly. "While I have not been to the ship personally, many pictures were taken by the police, and I studied the blueprints quite thoroughly." She held up a finger in an almost scolding manner. "Let's review the layout of the ship, shall we?"
"Probably a good idea, yes" Scotty nodded.
"Now, the chandelier, if I'm not mistaken… and I'm not" Tanya explained, "hung from the edge of the balcony, bathing the lower deck with light. The chandelier, because of the edge it was hung on, illuminated both in front of the balcony and beside the balcony, making it impossible for either side to look at the balcony directly."
"It probably would have been helpful if someone had explained that earlier…" Chance mused; staring accusingly sat no one in particular.
"However, the entrance to the bar" Tanya continued. "Opened up from beneath the ship on the side perpendicular to that on which the chandelier hung! Basically" she explained, holding up a sheet of paper vertically, " if the chandelier was at this corner here," she pointed to the upper right-hand corner, on the longer side, "then the entrance to the bar was here" she pointed to the bottom of the paper. "Thus, Mr. Ne` Chrome, if he looked up, could see along the length of the balcony in it's entirety, without being so close to the light as to blind him!"
"Flawless logic" Scotty nodded. "If not somewhat confusing until the very end. The defense's objection is overruled!"
Alexis stood for a minute, and then sat down softly in a chair. "Ben?" She asked. "Could you handle this cross-examination from here on out? I need coffee, stimulant, a pick-me-up…"
"Strawberry?" offered Chancellor. "They're loaded with sugar."
"Ugh…" Alexis muttered. "I hate those things…" She reached for a cup of coffee she had brought earlier, and then settled down to listen to Ben's cross-examination.
"Monsieur Ne` Chrome…" Ben began. "Can I just clear one thing up for a moment?"
"Of course…" The man said, seeming somewhat Moore comfortable with his examiner.
Ben cleared his throat and continued. "You are absolutely sure that the person you saw was Mademoiselle Noble, yes?"
Ne` Chrome smiled and nodded. "I'm…. sure…"
"You hesitated!" Ben cried, somewhat relieved. "You are not sure are you?"
"No… I'm… sure." Ne` Chrome flashed another sickly smile. "It's just… if you haven't noticed… well…"
"Move on, progress, change the subject!" Alexis ordered. "I'm pretty sure that's just the way he talks."
"Very well then…" Ben said, shifting his focus. "Another thing I was wondering about… the staircase from the lower level lies directly below the balcony. You would have to turn around to get a decent look, correct?"
"Yes… that's right…"
"If you were getting Mademoiselle Aegis a drink, why did you stop and turn around?" Ben smiled. "Not that I would know the state of mind of a man getting something for his loved one, mind you, I would just think that you would want to return right away, correct?"
"Ah, well, about that…" Ne` Chrome garbled. "I did… want to get back… as soon as possible… but…" He scratched his ear. "I heard an unusual sound… how to put it…" He thought for a minute, tapping his rough nails on the desk. "An instrument was off."
Ben gave Ne` Chrome a curious look. "An instrument was off? What do you mean by that, monsieur?"
"What I mean… is what I mean…" Ne` Chrome replied, giving Ben an equally curious look. "The band… that was playing the lovely background music on the deck…" He tapped the side of his head. "One of them… was playing… something completely…different." He nodded his head. "There was… a sudden squealing sound… a loud thump… and then…" Ne` Chrome was silent. "And then it continued to play… something different… like a lullaby… but rushed and harsh…"
"It's meaningless, hollow, futile," Alexis whispered. "Go on to something else."
Chancellor leaned back in his chair, shaking his head from side to side.
"WHAT?" yelled Alexis. "What's with the sudden look of contempt, huh?"
"It's just…" Chance cracked his neck. "Well, I won't say anything specifically but… you guys think way too literally." He shook his head. "Not that's not quite the word… what I mean to say is, you guys just glaze over everything you think is trivial… what would you call that?"
"Wisdom" Alexis defined caustically.
"Not in my book." He laughed. Then again…" Chance stretched. "I'm not in charge here… I mean what would I know, right?" He looked over at Ben. "Think nothing of it, Benjamin."
"Benvolio" is what Ben would have corrected, patiently of course, but he was lost in thought. He thought over Andre's testimony for a minute, and his eyes snapped open.
Pardon me!
"But…" Ben said, finger outstretched. "You said that you turned around… because an instrument was playing something different?"
"Yes…" Ne` Chrome said, shifting uncomfortably.
"Why?" Ben asked rhetorically. "Correct me if I am wrong but… the band was playing on the deck! You even said so yourself!"
"Why would an instrument making a mistake on the deck cause you to look at the balcony?"
The audience murmured in thought.
Ne` Chrome nodded his head in the same such thought. "It is odd… I'll admit, but… that's where it sounded… like it was coming…from…"
"It could very well have been a trick of the air," Tanya explained quickly. "Besides, while sight is always reliable, hearing is not such the case… particularly in a crowded environment!"
Ben nodded slightly. "This is true…"
OPPOSITION!
"Even so!" Alexis yelled, picking up on where this was going, "what Mr. Ne` Chrome heard still doesn't make sense! Why would a player in an ensemble, after making a mistake, start to play something completely different?"
"MR. NE` CHROME'S EXCUSE IS A SHAM! HE'S HIDING SOMETHING!"
"Wha…what…" Ne` Chrome's bottom lip began to tremble. "Lying… I'm not… Mommy always said…"
RETRACTION! Yelled Chancellor. "We're… going to take that last statement back, Scotty."
"You are?" Scotty asked.
"WE ARE?" Alexis yelled.
"We are… We are… on the cruuuuuuuuuuuuise!" sang Jack from the gallery. "WE ARE!"
"You're thinking too wisely again," Chancellor explained. "Come on think, I know you can do this."
-
But can you? Do you know what the contradiction means? If not, we highly suggest looking back in earlier chapters… and since this thing is kind of long, we'll even give you some guiding questions. I'm sorry for splitting this up in so many pieces…
What kind of band was playing that night?
What does that say about that sound Andre` heard?
Why/Who/When/What does that implicate?
And just because I can… no extras for you! HA!
I apologize for the shortness of this chapter.