6 Watergate 2.0

Phoenix Wright and Miles Edgeworth
Edgeworth’s Penthouse, Los Angeles

“Wright!” Edgeworth thundered, famous courtroom finger fully extended so that it was nearly poking Phoenix in the nose. “I demand an answer to my question, this instant!”

The blue attorney gave his friend a sickly grin and assumed his most innocuous expression. Had he not been holding Ace in his arms at that moment as a human shield against his friend’s wrath, he would’ve been scratching the back of his neck to further exemplify the perfect picture of innocent obtuseness personified.

“Err… I’m guessing you would like an explanation for the brown paint on your walls?” He asked feebly.

“I would also like to know why my bathroom is now a wading pool!” The prosecutor’s mien was identical in shade to his suit, such was his rage. “And your imbecilic self seems to be dodging the $64,000 question, which was, and I pray you will tell me that my eyes are deceiving me: Did your son take a deuce in my bidet?!”

The defense attorney forced himself to smile weakly, even as he withered underneath the Chief Prosecutor’s ferocious glare.

“Um, yeah, about that…” Phoenix cleared his throat nervously. “Ah, you see, Edgy, Maya, and I have been working on potty training Ace for the longest time now. And, er, I guess the toilet was too high for him to reach, plus it may have been a trifle unusable seeing as how he did …kind of fill it with toilet paper. And then, um, flushed. Which is the reason the floors are a wee bit wet right now…”

Edgeworth’s incensed eyes were nearly bulging out of his sockets. The blue attorney had never seen his normally composed friend so unraveled.

“You call this…a wee bit wet?!” He gestured to the ankle-deep water on the bathroom floor, which Ace had been wading in. “Your asinine simian countenance alludes that this fetid stench has annulled the anthropoid ape species diversity if you genuinely believe those are the words that best suitably describe this catastrophic disarray of monumental proportions, which is now my facilities!”

“Hey! I’m not the one who did this! Must you be so gosh darn mean?” Phoenix flushed at the insult and scowled at his friend. “Look I’m sorry, but you got here faster than I thought you would! I’d sent Mia out to the kitchen to get me a mop and then get me some towels…” Suddenly a panicked look came into his eye. “Oh my God, she’s been gone a while now! I need to go check on her!”

“Oh no, you don’t! I don’t think so! There is no way you’re going to get out of this one that easily Wright!” Edgeworth bellowed. He clamped a firm hand on the other man’s shoulder as he made a move to dodge by and rush out the door, Ace already tucked under his arm like a football. “What do you plan on doing about this predicament, Wright? I’ll be lucky Watergate 2.0 hasn’t already leaked downstairs through the neighbor’s ceiling!”

“Send me the plumbing bill later, Edgeworth!” Phoenix shoved past him and was already booking it down the hall. “I need to check on my little girl!”

“Fine, but this time, I shall come with you! I am sick and tired of you leaving me to fend for myself while you play this cockamamie game of hide and go seek with your crotch goblins!”

Edgeworth followed the defense attorney in hot pursuit towards the kitchen, just as they heard the four-year-old’s tiny voice call out helplessly to them.

“Daddy! Uncle Miles! Help! I’m stuck!”

Phoenix’s jaw hit the ground as he found his daughter exactly where he’d asked her to be; standing in front of the utility closet in the Edgeworths’ kitchen. She smiled in relief when she saw him and then gestured to the floor by her stockinged feet, which were surrounded by a clumpy stickiness of sorts, along with a mysterious fine white dust?!

“Hi, Daddy.” Mia smiled sheepishly through the white power that was still on her face, which unless her father’s panicked eyes were deceiving him, now looked even whiter somehow?! “Um…could I get a little help here, please?”

In shock, Phoenix set down Ace onto the ground with a plunk, and clapped a hand against his forehead – yet again forgetting his self-inflicted remote injury – and winced in pain momentarily, before his face morphed into one of pure dismay.

Edgeworth looked completely aghast as he took in the enigmatic glue substance which seem to cover a good chunk of the oak wood kitchen tiles. Ankle deep in the muck was his best friend’s daughter, who up until that point, had been the sole child that night who hadn’t been guilty of causing any sort of naughty mischief!

“Mia, what in God’s name happened here?” The prodigy prosecutor croaked, his puce face now completely ashen.

“Princess…” Phoenix gulped as he gawked at his offspring’s feet, which seemed to be cemented to the ground. “I remember I asked you to try to get me the mop so I could clean up Uncle Miles’ bathroom…”

“And that’s just what I tried to do, Daddy!” Mia’s amber eyes were wide with sincerity as she nodded her head vigorously. “The thing is, the mop was wedged into that little pantry closet off to the side by the fridge, and it was jammed next to this heavy plastic bin, with this white powdery stuff inside of it. So when I tried to yank the mop, the container fell over and a lot of the stuff fell to the floor, and onto me! Well, I didn’t want to make another mess on top of the one Ace already made in the bathroom … after all, you always say we should try to clean up after our own messes, don’t you?”

The Turnabout Terror gave a strained smile and focused all his attention on his daughter while trying to ignore the death glare the toddler’s last statement earned him from the chess lover.

“OK, go on, Mia…”

“So anyway, I got on the stepladder that Uncle Miles keeps off to the side…”

Phoenix coughed. “I think you mean step stool, not ladder, honey.”

“Seriously, Wright?” Edgeworth’s glare in his direction intensified ten-fold. “NOW of all times?!”

“Reflex action.” Phoenix reddened. “My bad.”

“Hello!” Mia waved her hands to get their attention again. “Can I please get back to my story?!”

“Sorry.” The two men muttered sheepishly.

“Well, anyway, I grabbed the nozzle hose thing next to the kitchen sink faucet, dragged it over, and shot some water onto the floor, and then I tried to mop it up. But the stuff just kept getting stickier and harder the more water I put on it… And then… the mop got stuck in it! As I stepped on it, my feet got glued down and I’ve been stuck here waiting for someone to come find me ever since… ”

Edgeworth looked over at the spilled contents and then at the tipped-over bin on the floor and groaned.

“She knocked over the flour bin!” He yanked at his hair. “Hendricks made black forest cake for dessert tonight, and then was probably in a haste to hurry up and give us our privacy, so he just stuck the mop there temporarily, because that’s not normally where it goes…”

“And it seems that flour and water turn into a heavy glue substance when mixed in copious amounts,” Phoenix finished, as understanding dawned upon him. “Ugh, it all sounds like a bad chemistry lab experiment going boink!”

“Yes, whoever would have known that adding liquids to powder could make a sticky mess?” Sarcasm was positively dripping off the cravat-wearer’s tongue as he glowered at his courtroom rival. “It absolutely tugs at my heartstrings, Wright, that you and your house apes are getting an educational lesson in science, while my house gets destroyed piece by piece!”

“I’m so sorry, Uncle Miles!” Mia wailed. Her lower lip trembled. “I was only trying to help Daddy!”

“You crotchety, cantankerous, curmudgeon!” Now it was Phoenix’s turn to do the glaring. “I can’t believe you, Edgeworth! It’s one thing when you’re mean and nasty to me; I’m a big boy and I can handle that forked tongue of yours, which could open a corked wine bottle! But are you seriously giving H –E-double hockey sticks to a four-year-old right now, you … God-awful brute?!”

Edgeworth had the decency to appear genuinely shamefaced at the reprimand, and looked away guiltily; he was so rarely on the receiving end of them!

“You’re absolutely correct, Wright. About everything.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “Mia, please pardon me. I am not angry with you … I -I am just frustrated with the situation. I know you meant no harm.”

Eager to make amends, Edgeworth walked over to his goddaughter and swiftly lifted the sniffling child off the floor. However, he found that the girl’s stockings were refusing to part ways with her! They remained firmly cemented to the ground, even as he struggled to pull harder to free her. Nevertheless, while Mia’s tights stretched like gooey cheese strings on a pizza, they still refused to unstick from the tiles!

“Good gracious,” he mumbled, setting her back down and glancing over at Phoenix with a troubled expression. “She genuinely is stuck, Wright!”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, Uncle Miles!” Mia sounded way more exasperated than any four-year-old should ever be allowed to be. “I tried to yank my feet free but didn’t want to rip and ruin my tights, because Daddy says everything costs money!”

Of all the times for her to start quoting me and listening to me, she just had to choose now…

Phoenix sighed and strode over to his daughter.

“I hope your mother didn’t spend a lot of money on these things,” he muttered. “Because I don’t think I can save them, Princess.”

He pointed to the string mop, which was pasted upright in the gunk.

“I think these tights are as much a goner as that mop over there.” As he busied himself lifting Mia’s skirt and then unrolling the stockings from the waist down, he peered over at his friend with a concerned frown.

“Apologies, Edgeworth, amidst this latest calamity, I only just now noticed that we seem to be down two…no… three kids!”  The defense lawyer exclaimed, as he at last successfully rolled down his daughter’s leg covers and lifted her off the floor. The result was Mia finally becoming free, but with her tights left behind as a casualty on the glue-ridden tiles. “Good Lord where are yours?”

“Oh no!” She gasped, her wide eyes scanning the room. “Daddy, where’s Ace?!”

“I left the twins in Mila’s room and told them to try to clean up that mess in there before I came to find you,” Edgeworth replied, looking very apprehensive all of a sudden. “However, they’ve been way too quiet for my comfort ever since, which can never be a good thing, especially since your semen demon seems to be running amok yet again!”

“I only put him down a few minutes ago, so he can’t have gone too far or done anything too bad already!” Phoenix panted as he raced on the hall after his friend towards the bedroom, Mia in tow.

Edgeworth shot a disgruntled look over his shoulder as he flung open Mila’s door.

“Your obtuseness never ceases to amaze me! How is it you’re still underestimating your son, Wright? Need I remind you that he turned our bathroom into Niagara Falls, after being out of your sight for less than five minutes?!”

Phoenix didn’t even bother replying to that statement, as he, Mia, and Edgeworth now all took in the latest sight before them.

Sitting on the floor, red-faced and sheepish looking, were Mila and Gregory, angelic smiles on both their faces as they peered up at their father.

“Hi, Daddy,” they chorused in unison.

Edgeworth looked around the room. While nothing had been cleared, no further damage had occurred since he’d left. Of course, the mystery of why the twins had been unable to do any cleaning was answered as his horrified eyes cast a downward glance.

Mila’s right ankle was handcuffed to her brother’s left ankle! With what appeared to be real handcuffs!

“Mila! Gregory!” Edgeworth cried in disbelief. “What have you done?”

Mila glared at her brother.

“Ask fart-face Dummkopf over here! It was his idea!”

“Objection!” Gregory shrieked. “We still wouldn’t be like this if we had the keys!”

Phoenix was almost afraid to ask.

“Objection! We wouldn’t be in the situation in the first place if you hadn’t decided to try to play Houdini with the handcuffs! So take that!”

“Hold it!” Mia cried, holding up her little hands in a T-formation like a referee calling a timeout. “As Daddy would say, we can play the blame game later. That’s not what’s important right now!”

“Thank you, Princess!” Phoenix swallowed back an amused chuckle, then turned back to the twins. “Are you telling me that you two don’t have the key? I’m not sure I even want to know how you two even got your hands on a pair of those very real-looking handcuffs, so instead, I’ll inquire: how on earth did you two lose the keys?”

Gregory’s gaze fell to the ground.

“Well, I hate to be a tattletale, Uncle Phoenix…”

“Oh, shut up and stop lying!” Mila fumed, crossing her arms across her chest and scowling at her twin. “You know you love it, you lying, crybaby snitch!”

“Okay fine, poo face!” The little boy glowered at his sister. “Make me rat on our cousin then, why don’t you?”

He swung his guilty eyes at his godfather.

“Um, Ace took off with the keys, Uncle Phoenix.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Edgeworth eyed his chum stonily. “Are you sure your son wasn’t born with a pointed tail, Wright? Do those spikes of his mask the hidden horns on his head?”

“Save the finger-pointing and sanctimonious act already, Edgeworth!” Phoenix snapped. “I’m sorry Ace is so devilish compared to your oh-so-angelic children by comparison, who have been much better examples of model good behavior! I noticed that it has already conveniently escaped your memory that your offspring have managed to not only get their hands on sharp objects this evening but now adults’ handcuffs as well! Forget asking the twins, shouldn’t I be asking you how they got their hands on those, Mr. Prostitutor?!”

Edgeworth’s face reddened at the rebuttal, although this time it appeared to be more from embarrassment than anger.

“I’m going to go try to find the keys. You and Mila try to find Ace,” he said abruptly. “For once, I can leave Trouble 1 and Trouble 2 alone without worry, because I know they can’t do a whole lot in their current state!”

With that, he bolted out the door.

“Uncle Phoenix?” Gregory mumbled uncomfortably, peeking up at his godfather with a pained expression.

“Yes, Gregory?” Phoenix asked tiredly.

The little boy smiled awkwardly.

“Um… I need to go to the bathroom.”

Phoenix groaned inwardly.

Of course, you do…

“Eweth!” Mila exclaimed, wrinkling her little nose distastefully. “I don’t want to be there and have to watch my brother tinkle!”

“As it stands right now, I can’t see how you have much of a choice!” Phoenix replied firmly. “You’ll just have to close your eyes and not look! I’ll take you; don’t try to walk… the last thing I need is the two of you falling on your faces!”

“We tried,” Gregory admitted, gesturing to the red rug burn mark on his bare knee. “It didn’t go so well. My sister and I will not be doing any three-legged races anytime soon!”

Phoenix sighed soundlessly as he scooped up the twins in his arms and carried them towards the master bedroom, as the bathroom there was still untainted, as far as he knew!

He glanced back at his barefoot daughter over his shoulder.

“Princess, can I please assign you the task of trying to find your brother?”

“OK, Daddy!” Mia affirmed and then raced out of the room.

Phoenix deposited the twins into the master bathroom right in front of the toilet and closed the door partially to give them some privacy, instructing Gregory to call for him or their father whenever he was finished. He walked back into the bedroom to find Edgeworth frantically rummaging through his night table drawer.

“They’ve got to be here!” He grumbled to himself as he rummaged through the contents. “Dammit, the keys truly are missing!”

“How can you tell in that jumbled mess?” Phoenix peeked over his friend’s shoulder… and then immediately wished he hadn’t.

Batteries, lube, a few vibrators…pretty standard stuff for Mr. Chief Prostitutor…Good grief…a ball gag?!  Nipple clamps?! Restraint system?! However and wherever do they fit that toadstool sized – oh damn, is that a butt plug?! ?! Gah! And that’s a strap-on?! OK, I am officially scarred for life now…

Edgeworth shot up then, blushing furiously, and slammed the damning evidence drawer shut. His eyes were wild.

“Wright!” He cried, looking panicked. “Not only are the keys not in here … there are other  items that are missing as well!”

“Oh, really? However, can you tell?” Phoenix tried to keep his tone neutral so that his friend would never know that he had unwittingly peeked into his Little Shop of Horrors. He was also trying to squelch the harrowing images in his mind of his innocent baby boy running around with some crazy, magenta-colored, spiky, double-headed instrument for God only knew what – or whose! – bodily orifices!

“I just can! I know these contents like the back of my hand…”

“Oh no! Ace! Stop!”

Both men started and looked at each other with identical expressions of panic at Mia’s sudden cry.

“Ack!Ace! What are you doing?!”  Mia’s startled shriek was even louder this time.

“To the kitchen!” The fathers shouted in unison and ran out the door.

The lawyers skidded to a halt and immediately realized the cause of the little girl’s distressed cries.

Standing there over the mess of glue, staring at an empty bottle on the floor, stood Mia, eyes round with horror and a hand clapped against her little mouth.  There before her stood Ace, still naked waist down, with his dark hair looking strangely wet and greasy, while feathers rained all around him and floated to the floor!

Before his descendant could claim that he, too, was stuck, Phoenix hurriedly raced over and scooped up the little troublemaker in his arms. As he did, a strangely syrupy and fruity scent from the floor assaulted his nostrils.

“Ace!” He moaned, gawking down at his son, who emanated the same sickly sweet, pungent odor, for some reason! “What have you done now?!”

Edgeworth rushed over and stared down at the black discarded bottle on the ground, which was labeled as divine nectar raspberry lime body glide. A nearly plucked feathered contraption, with a leather handle, was stuck beside the mop on the floor, next to a whole bunch of scattered white feathers. It looked like a barnyard of chickens had been mottled and de-feathered!

“I helping clean, Daddy!” Ace squealed, pointing at the bottle and smiling proudly. But then, as he noticed both Phoenix and Edgeworth’s somber expressions, the toddler suddenly looked worried.

“Not soap?” He asked hesitantly.

His father shook his head solemnly.

Ace pointed to the feathered handle contraption and then looked at his godfather, his lower lip now quivering.

“Not mop?”

Edgeworth swallowed heavily, looking somewhat nauseous and incapable of speech, but he somehow managed to shake his head in response to his godson’s question.

“What I want to know,” Mia piped up in the background. “Is how he got that oily stuff in his hair?! Ace were you trying to clean the floor with your spikes!?”

Ace stared sadly at the additional mess he had created and pointed to his hair, which was glistening with the fragrant oil, then looked at first his sister, then father and uncle with earnest navy eyes.

“I open cap and not soap go sploosh!”

Well, that mystery at least, has been explained! Phoenix thought wryly. My walking disaster but well-intentioned son tried to remove the cap to this hedonist, odorous, body lube, which he mistook for soap, to try to help clean up this mess.  In doing so, some of it exploded onto his hair and face and clothes from the looks of it! Then, I’m guessing, he thought he’d use this weird looking… feathery thingie to try to ‘mop up’ things, only to make it worse! Some mysteries are best left unsolved…I’m perfectly fine with not asking exactly what that not mop Ace undoubtedly found in Edgy’s fun time drawer actually was…I already need some sort of brain bleach because of what I already did see in there!

As much as the explanation was satisfactory for Phoenix, Edgeworth looked like he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“Wright!” He groaned, dragging a hand down his face. “What in the name of Satan’s jockstrap am I going to do about this state of emergency disaster area that has become my house?!”

Phoenix viewed him helplessly.

“I don’t suppose this qualifies as enough of a catastrophe to call the National Guard?” He asked hopefully.

Edgeworth’s eyes suddenly brightened.

“No, it probably does not,” he answered slowly. “However I just might have access to the cavalry we need to potentially save us from this situation, without being tarred and feathered, or winding up in court, as divorce defendants!”

That would be a best-case scenario, Phoenix thought dryly. If our wives ever got wind of this, being tarred and feathered would be merciful!  He’s conveniently forgotten the very high possibility of us appearing in court posthumously, like assault, battery, or homicide victims, and not even necessarily in that order!

Edgeworth was suddenly in take-charge mode.

“Wright, go get my progeny and set them down on the couch along with Mia and Ace,” he instructed. “I want to make sure all four children are within our sights, and then I will call in the reinforcements!”

“Roger that!” Phoenix grinned and gave a mock salute before rushing down the hallway into the bathroom, where both twins were patiently sitting on the floor, which was where he had last left them.

“Come on, kids!”  He announced, scooping them up into his arms. “We’re going to the living room!”

“Thank heavens you’re back, Uncle Phoenix!” Mila exclaimed. “We thought you’d forgotten about us!”

“Yeah, thanks, Uncle Phoenix,” Gregory smiled with relief, and then let out a little sneeze. “That bathroom tile was getting really cold on my heinie!”

Phoenix looked down at his partially shorn godson, and realized that the poor kid, whose bare glistening upper body was as oily as Ace’s hair, was still wearing nothing but his underwear!

Great, the last thing I need is him catching a cold on top of everything else! However, because they’re handcuffed at the ankle, I can’t put a pair of pants on him! Looks like I have to get creative…

Five minutes later, the defense attorney returned to the living room with a scowling Mila and an embarrassed-looking Gregory in his arms. He plopped them down on the sofa next to Ace, who was under strict watch by Edgeworth, and Mia.

The prosecutor, who was on the phone at the time, did a double-take at the sight of his son.

“Wright, why in the name of all that is holy is my son wearing his sister’s best Sunday church dress?”

“I told you I look like a big sissy in pink, Uncle Phoenix!” Gregory sulked.

Edgeworth paused his phone conversation long enough to frown at his son.

“Gregory that dress is not pink, it’s magenta!”

“Seriously, Edgeworth?” Phoenix stared at his friend incredulously. “Now, of all times?!”

Edgeworth’s cheeks turned the color of the dress and he grinned ruefully.

“Er, you’re right, Wright. Reflex action.  Anyhow,  I’m on the phone…”

“It’s my favorite dress too, Daddy!” Mila scowled, folding her arms across her chest. “I tried to tell Uncle Phoenix that, but he didn’t care!”

His brow furrowing, the prosecutor turned his back to them then and tried to resume his call, sounding agitated beyond recognition as he relayed the situation to the other party, and waved a hand at them to pipe down over his shoulder.

“OK guys, let’s take it down a notch, your Daddy is on the phone. Now, Mila, again, I’m very sorry, but I didn’t really have time to rummage through your clothes for you to find the least desirable attire in your wardrobe to lend your twin in this emergency!” Phoenix was exasperated. “Your poor brother was shivering! Would you rather he catches his death with a cold if I had let him just stay in his underwear?!”

Mila honestly seemed to be seriously contemplating this question as she scrunched up her face and appeared to be in deep thought.

“I guess not,” she pouted. “But it still would have served him right! Can I just go on record and state, for the hundredth time, that everything tonight was my booger-brained brother’s fault?”

“Yes, please come posthaste,” Edgeworth was saying into his cell now. “And do make sure you bring the items I advised. We’ll see you soon.”

Hanging up the phone, he turned to look at the twins with a raised eyebrow.

“What’s that I heard, Mila? Are you lot finally ready to tell us what really happened tonight?”

Gregory folded his arms across his chest.

“What I was about to tell you, Daddy is that your daughter is the dirtiest, rotten liar since Pinocchio for trying to blame this whole thing on me…”

“I am not lying, you wee-wee-head!” Mila shouted.

“Oh please, you big fat fibber!” Gregory glared at his twin. “I can’t believe your nose hasn’t grown leaves yet!”

Suddenly Phoenix’s phone went off, and both lawyers stiffened at the familiar sound of the Steel Samurai ringtone.

“Hold that thought, guys!” Now it was Phoenix’s turn to hold up his hand as he hastily answered the cell, assuming it was Maya checking in on them.

Taking took a deep breath, the defense attorney affected his most calm tone, despite the wild hammering of his heart.

“H-hello?”