"Liar! This river is FREEZING!"

I grimaced as Pearl giggled her head off from under the waterfall. After a peaceful, perfect training session, the spirit medium in training had decided to persuade me to take my socks and shoes off and step in the river, which was not, as she had claimed, "heated by the afternoon sun."

"Aw, it's not that bad. I just stood under a rush of this water for over an hour," she insisted.

"You've been training to do that for years!" I retorted, crossing my arms. "Also, now my feet are dirty. This looks very unprofessional."

Pearl paused and studied my appearance. Even she couldn't deny that I looked a little odd; I wore my usual formal attire, but my pants were rolled up to my knees and my feet were bare and muddy from stepping into the river. I reached up a hand nervously to make sure my hair at least looked fine.

"Well, I will say you look pretty bad, but only because of that facial expression," she teased, sticking out her tongue at me. "But if you want to clean your feet, just sit on a rock and wash 'em off in the river."

"I am NOT stepping back into that freezing water," I argued defiantly.

"What choice do you really have?" Pearl pointed out.

I paused. "Well… I-I'll find a way! There's always another option, if you look for it hard enough."

"This isn't a court case, Mr. Apollo."

I sighed. "You don't happen to have any towels around here, huh?"

Pearl shook her head. "I air-dry in the sun when I finish training. Most spirit mediums do."

"Yea, I read something about that," I said. "Ugh… I certainly hope Ms. Fey isn't giving Mr. Wright as hard of a time as you're giving me." I hoped Pearl wouldn't take the comment too seriously, and thankfully, she seemed to focus on the first part of my statement rather than the second.

"Mystic Maya is no trouble at all," she laughed. "Not for Mr. Nick."

"Really?" I asked with a smirk. "I haven't really seen them together much, but from what Mr. Wright tells me, she's something of a prankster."

"Oh, her jokes are all of good intentions, and Nick thinks they're funny. He just talks like that because he's not good at admitting his feelings," she said, waving me off.

"Uh… what's that supposed to mean?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"You know, his feelings for Mystic Maya," she said, and her voice suddenly took on a dreamy tone. "He's too shy to admit it, but he's her special somebody!"

"WHAT?" I yelped, and then scoffed. "Yea, right. Where'd you get this information?"

"From observing. Like you do," she said, folding her arms. "Come on, it's obvious they're in love."

"Ew, okay, what world are you living in?" I asked. "If I was drinking something, I would've done a spit-take by now. Mr. Wright and Ms. Fey? Are you crazy?"

"Am I crazy? How about you? How are you, the master of perception, not able to see how much they love each other?" she exclaimed, taken aback.

I paused, then smirked. "I think that water's been hitting your head a little too hard. Maybe you should find a gentler waterfall to train under— AH! HEY!" I yelped as Pearl kicked water at me from where she was standing in the river.

"Serves you right." She smirked, but her eyebrows were set in confident debate mode. "Maybe you just don't know what it's like to be in love, so you can't see it." She nodded to herself. "Yes, that would make sense."

I took a step backward from the river to avoid any further cold water droplets that might be violently splashed in my direction. "Well, I will admit I've never dated before. But how about you? Do you know what it's like to be in love?"

Pearl paused in thought, then frowned. "W-well— no— b-but I've seen it in action!"

"With who?"

"Mystic Maya and Mr. Nick!"

"That's like saying you know a knife killed a victim because a knife killed the victim. You need other evidence to back up your claims," I scoffed.

"Fine. I don't have much experience with love myself. But Mr. Nick and Mystic Maya are meant to be!" she exclaimed. She then clasped her hands together and swayed slightly as she talked. "They're like a couple from a beautiful fairy tale. The brave, valiant knight who saves the beautiful princess… and then they fall in love and get married!"

I was literally so shocked by her claims that I was rendered speechless out of pure disbelief for several seconds. "You can't seriously believe what you're saying. Mr. Wright is brave and valiant, and Ms. Fey is pretty, I'll give you that, but—"

"And he's saved her. Multiple times," she added, crossing her arms. She tried to kick more water at me, but I'd already moved out of the way.

"No abusing the defense," I said. "And one person having to save the other from constant kidnappings isn't exactly my idea of an ideal relationship. If anything, Mr. Wright is more like Ms. Fey's father or something."

"OBJECTION!" Pearl cried, then giggled to herself for using my phrase. "He has a daughter. And he doesn't treat Mystic Maya anything like he treats Trucy."

"Hmm… Yea, you're right. He likes Trucy way better," I retorted, sticking up my nose.

Pearl was silent for a moment, and I thought she was actually considering my point. Then, she marched towards me, cupped a bunch of water in her hands, and splashed it on my torso before I could move out of the way.

"AAAH! COLD!" I shrieked, leaping backwards. "OBJECTION! I DEMAND A PENALTY FOR THAT!"

Without hesitation, Pearl bunched up some of her wet hair and brought it in front of her face, mimicking a beard with it. "Objection overruled!" she said, in an extremely fake-sounding judge voice. "The prosecution has perfect grounds for their actions towards the defense!" Then, after a pause, she dropped the voice and asked me, "By the way, why do you get to be the defense? Seems more like you're the one trying to prosecute the love of Mystic Maya and Mr. Nick."

"I'm the defense attorney," I shot back, showing off my badge. "And in the cases I've been in, the prosecution is usually the one who's nuts."

"Hmph.You're the one who bluffs your way out of everything."

"And I'm proud of that," I retorted. "It takes a lot of skill to bluff your way through a court case and still get to the truth!"

"Whatever," Pearl laughed, bringing back her confident smile. "When the lovebirds get back from Texas, you can observe them with the knowledge of their hidden love. Then even you won't be able to miss it."

"Uh-huh. You wanna bet on that?" I asked, smirking.

"Well, neither of us really have much money…" she pointed out. "And you have even less because of yesterday."

"True… How about this?" I asked. I took a deep breath, fully aware of what I was about to propose. "If you can prove to me— find me actual proof that Mr. Wright and Ms. Fey are dating— I'll assume you know more than I do and I'll start calling ladders stepladders."

Pearl's eyes widened in shock. "And if you find absolute proof that they aren't in love…?"

"You have to stop nitpicking every little useless detail and just call them ladders," I said triumphantly, holding out my hand. There was no way Pearl would take the bet— lively as she had been lately, her confidence was still lacking.

But to my surprise, after an initial hesitation, the girl looked up at me and set her jaw firmly in place. "Fine. It's a deal." She reached out and grabbed my hand (rather tightly), and we shook on it. There was no turning back.

The battle had begun.

—

(A/N: This chapter was so insanely fun to write XD So much stuff that could be interpreted multiple ways... XD)

(Response A/N: Haha, yup, Pearl is still a major shipper, both platonically and romantically ;D XD And as of writing this chapter, I'm actually all caught up on the AJ games [and just finished the crossover], and HOLY COW YOU ARE TOTALLY RIGHT! THAT'S AN EVEN BETTER HEADCANON THAN MINE. 100% ACCEPTED. I need to draw Layton helping Athena now.) (Oh, wow, that's amazing! :O And indeed, I love it whenever the old characters are in the new games. X3 I'M pleasantly surprised that that's actually what you were referencing! I went by Yellow on forum boards for a while, actually! :D)