77 Ain’t No Mountain High Enough

 Listen baby, ain’t no mountain high
Ain’t no valley low, ain’t no river wide enough baby
If you need me call me no matter where you are
No matter how far don’t worry baby
Just call my name I’ll be there in a hurry
You don’t have to worry

‘Cause baby there ain’t no mountain high enough
Ain’t no valley low enough
Ain’t no river wide enough
To keep me from getting to you babe

Remember the day I set you free
I told you you could always count on me darling
From that day on, I made a vow
I’ll be there when you want me
Some way, some how

‘Cause baby there ain’t no mountain high enough
Ain’t no valley low enough
Ain’t no river wide enough
To keep me from getting to you babe

Oh no darling
No wind, no rain
Or winters cold can stop me baby, na na baby
‘Cause you are my goal
If you’re ever in trouble
I’ll be there on the double
Just send for me, oh baby, ha

My love is alive
Way down in my heart
Although we are miles apart
If you ever need a helping hand
I’ll be there on the double
Just as fast as I can
Don’t you know that there

Ain’t no mountain high enough
Ain’t no valley low enough
Ain’t no river wide enough
To keep me from getting to you babe

Don’tcha know that there
Ain’t no mountain high enough
Ain’t no valley low enough
Ain’t no river wide enough
Ain’t mountain high enough
Ain’t no valley low enough

Maya Fey 
Fey Manor, Kurain Village
June 15, 2017, 11:55 AM

“You look sad, Mystic Maya,” Pearl observed, watching her kinswoman brush her long, raven hair before her dresser mirror so that it hung in more a tidy manner down her shoulders and back. The elder Fey was headed out to meet with a prospective client in a few moments and wanted to look nice and neat. “What’s the matter?”

The former legal assistant sighed and set her hairbrush back down, casting one last forlorn glance at the Pink Princess-themed birthday card her erstwhile boss had sent her, where she’d kept it propped up so she could look at it daily, before turning to face her little cousin.

“Oh, I guess…when I heard that this client I’m meeting was coming up from LA, it made me think of Nick because that’s where he is right now,” she sighed. “I kinda wish it was him coming up to see me instead.”

“You really miss him, don’t you?”

“Of course I do, Pearly,” Maya replied, feeling her cheeks grow pink under the little girl’s knowing gaze. “He is my friend, after all.”

“But he’s more than your friend, isn’t he, Mystic Maya?” The child prompted, putting her hands to her cheeks and going starry-eyed. “You told me he’s your hero, and that he’s so handsome and brave and strong…”

Good grief, I’ve seriously been bending her ear about Nick, haven’t I? The teen realized, her face flaming now. I gotta remember to ease down on that a bit – the last thing I need is her blurting out to Nick that she knows we’re a couple because of my incessant, infatuated ramblings!

“Um, he is all that Pearly, but what I mostly feel for him is gratitude, you know? I mean, he saved me when I was in trouble, and he’s super generous, like buying me burgers and taking me to some wicked cool places, like Global Studios …you know the Pink Princess was inspired by me, right?” The spirit medium added, eager to change the subject away from her former employer/not-so-secret crush.

The pretzel-haired tot studied the animated image on the front of the birthday card, the inner inscription which read:

To Maya,

I may not be with you to celebrate this special day, but near or far, I always wish you all the best in the world.

Best wishes,
Nick

Maya had analyzed that message about a million times in the past few months, desperately trying to read some sort of deeper, hidden meaning into the familiar chicken scratch, but alas, could find none. It was simply exactly what it seemed. A perfectly friendly, slightly more than a merely perfunctory handwritten message, on a personalized card that he’d known she’d like. If Phoenix felt anything beyond what was in the written or came even close to missing her the way she missed him in the time that they’d been apart, this card had given zero indication, much to her absurd disappointment.

So much for absence making the heart grow fonder, she lamented gloomily. The only one that the adage applies to is me! This time away from Nick has made me realize that what I’m feeling for him belies just a mere passing crush…

“I guess Pink Princess does kind of look like you,” the youngster agreed, looking back up at her cousin and then at the card again. “Except they gave her boobies that look more like Mystic Mia’s than yours.”

“Right…” Maya muttered, self-consciously folding her arms across her less-than-ample chest. If the Good Lord had ever intended to give her any bosom, He sure was taking his sweet time in doing so!

“Oh, don’t feel bad, Mystic Maya!” Pear’s smile brightened then, an angelic smile crossing her cherubic face. “I’m sure your Special Someone, Mr. Nick, loves you just the way you are, even if your chest isn’t big because he cares more about what’s inside your robes!”

The Burger Queen gulped and prayed for the earth to open up and swallow her.

“He cares about the part inside that he can’t see, but he knows only beats for him – your heart!”

Maya was sure at this point a marshmallow could have been roasted against her face! She had to get out of there!

Mystic Ami help me, I’m about to die of mortification! From the mouths of babes indeed!

“Um, yeah, Pearly, I’ve gotta go, I’m going to be late meeting with Dr. Grey,” she said quickly and hastily exited the room before Pearl could think of yet another embarrassing comment to remind her just how much ardor-fueled rambling she’d been doing about the object of her affection!

When she entered the doors of the Meeting Hall and quickly sat across from the stern-faced man already seated at the table, he pointedly looked at his watch, even though Maya had been merely two minutes late, and then cut right to the chase.

“Ms. Fey, I will try to make this quick. I have no desire to lollygag or extend this meeting longer than necessary as it’s a two-hour drive back home and while it doesn’t look like rain may fall, I cannot afford to be caught in rush hour traffic if it does, and as it is, I forgot my umbrella at the office so if it does rain, I’m ill-prepared for it even if only walking a short distance, and the weather girl is never right about these things anyway, as you know.”

She simply gawked at him, her eyes the size of saucers.

Aunt Morgan set up a business meeting with Wendy Oldbag’s twin brother, it appears! He hasn’t even taken one breath during that entire, asinine monologue! All that’s required now to prove the evidence behind my claim is for him to call me a whippersnapper!

“Your aunt says that you’re a spirit medium in training so your services are only half price, as a full-fledged medium costs extra.” The brown-suited man pushed his wire-rimmed glasses up his nose as his sharp eyes raked her impatiently in anticipation of her answer. “So, are you going to help me or not?”

The spirit medium gnawed at her lip nervously, while was surprised that little Pearl, who had more spiritual power in her tiny pinky finger than she possessed in her whole body, hadn’t been asked to do the spirit channeling for the plastic surgeon instead. After all, the child’s mother took particular relish in reminding her niece of her skillful shortcomings in comparison to the 8-year-old constantly! Perhaps Maya had been underestimating her own capabilities, and her aunt saw some further progress in her that the diviner had missed – although quick to ridicule or criticize, Morgan was always slow to bestow praise of any sort – and was hence using this opportunity to finally be able to put all these months of preparing in the icy mountains of the village into practice.

This would be her first, real, legitimate, spirit-channeling. The true test of whether or not her swift departure from the city, and away from Phoenix, whom she missed even more dreadfully as the days went by, had been in vain. True, the training rituals Aunt Morgan had subjected her to had been grueling, borderline torture. But it was all for the greater good. And how else could she prove that her powers were strong enough to be of value unless she fulfilled the request of this strange, weather-obsessed man her aunt had suddenly sprung upon her?

Dr. Turner Grey’s request was for her to channel the spirit of the dead nurse, Mimi Miney, who’d been employed at his practice in Los Angeles.

Los Angeles … the city… Phoenix…

Maya’s earlier, innocuous remark to Pearl came rushing back to mind.

I kinda wish it was him coming up to see me instead…

An impish grin tugged at the spirit medium’s lips as an idea manifested in her mind. If Mohomet couldn’t go to the mountain, why couldn’t the mountain come to Mohomet?

“I will be delighted to help you, Dr. Grey,” Maya told him cheerfully, clasping her hands to her chest. “But before I do, there is something you must do for me first.”

Grey listened with an arched eyebrow as she cited her stipulation.

“I see, and where can I find this Phoenix Wright, without whom you shall refuse to assist me if I return here without him by my side?” He conceded grumpily.

She beamed and told him the address and phone number for the Wright & Co. Law Offices.

“Most interesting, this request of yours, Ms. Fey,” Grey remarked, looking at her thoughtfully. “Exactly who is this man to you, who is of such relevance that you’re willing to halt business proceedings for this village, whose reputation Morgan told me you’re all so desperately trying to re-establish? Is he your lover?”

“N – Nick? My l –lover?” The teenager spluttered, feeling her cheeks redden at the unexpected bluntness of the unanticipated query.  

Only in my every waking fantasy! Would that count?!

She cleared her throat and reached for a glass of water, pausing to swallow while searching for a satisfactory answer to the unseemly question.

“Phoenix Wright is a prominent defense attorney of untarnished repute,” Maya replied at last, with as much dignity as she could muster, while realizing in hindsight she hadn’t refuted the statement of him being her lover at all.  “He was the protégé of my late sister and a man with whom I established a business partnership last year, and I am most privileged to call my friend and associate. I have had to temporarily halt affairs between us as my duties here took precedence. Subsequently, I wish to assure him firsthand that I have now achieved a new level of skills that he will find most greatly will benefit the practice.”

“You established the partnership?” Grey inquired, rubbing his chin thoughtfully as he eyed her with newfound respect. “Most impressive for a girl your age to have a successful lawyer be working under you. You can’t be more than what, 14? 15?”

The necromancer was so irritated by the inaccuracy of the age guess that she didn’t even pay mind to the equally incorrect assumption that had preceded it. OK, she realized she looked young – five foot nothing in coltish stature, with unruly bangs that hid her eyes like a sheepdog most of the time, added to the fact that she had the physique of a 13-year-old boy, to boot.

Darn you, Mia, for hogging all of the big boobs genes in our family, thence leaving none left over for your baby sister!

Nevertheless – Maya was of legal age now, for heaven’s sake! A woman! Hell, it would no longer be illegal if Nick were to look at her that way now! Not that he ever would in a million years, but still, she would no longer be a teenage fantasy that would land him in prison if it ever came to fruition!

And this fart-pick seriously thinks I’m still in the early stages of puberty?!

Puffing out her cheeks, the spirit medium threw her shoulders back to make her marginally augmented chest more pronounced (curse these baggy, overly concealing acolyte robes – she may as well have been in a  burqa!)and completely forgot about her attempted efforts at eloquence and maturity from a moment ago as she glared at the man.

“Good sir, it would befit you to get your vision checked out when you return to the city and fetch Nick,” Maya returned crisply. She rose from her seat, indicating the meeting was over. “For your kind information, I’ll have you know that I turned 18 two months ago.”

“Oh, did you?” He at least had the propriety to blush. “Well, um … my apologies then. Trust me, by the time you’re my age, it will be considered a compliment to have people round down, rather than up when guessing your age.”

“Better get moving, Dr. Grey,” she grinned, thoroughly enjoying his discomfort. “The faster you head to the city, the faster you’ll be back with Nick, and the faster I can tend to matters of importance to you.”

“This Phoenix … he sounds very important to you,” Grey noted, at last mimicking her actions and getting up from his chair as well. “You sound most eager to make his acquaintance again.”

“Well, I’m sure it’s the same for him too,” Maya quipped. “That man’s gone far too long without me around as well, and is probably wasting away from loneliness even as we speak!”

Hey, a girl can dream, right?

Phoenix Wright
Wright & Co. Law Offices
June 16, 2017, 3:34 PM

Life had consisted of a dreary routine of bottomless cups of coffee and reading the paper for Phoenix since the Lana Skye murder acquittal back in February. For one thing, the cravat-wearing legist, shortly after receiving the King of Prosecutors Award, had left a cryptic note behind, stating “Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth chooses death,” as his final swan song.

Six words on a scratch of paper, without even the courtesy of addressing it with the blue attorney’s name.

That was all Miles Edgeworth had left behind for his childhood friend/defense lawyer. The very same man who had twice gotten the former acquitted for crimes he’d never committed. The one who had made it his life’s ambition to become a defense attorney because the barrister had so inspired him at the tender age of nine.

Ultimately, a terse, impersonal letter was my big, fat thanks for everything I’ve done to keep that ungrateful son of a bitch alive! To say I am somewhat embittered would be the understatement of the century! That’d be like saying that Wendy Oldbag and her unrequited crush on Edgy-Poo were only mildly inappropriate, rather than scary beyond all reason!

Between losing his mentor, his office assistant turned best friend, and now the man who had influenced his career path, life as Phoenix knew was total bummer balls.

He hadn’t bothered with another case for the past quarter year – mercifully, he’d been paid fairly well from the Will Powers case, as well as the Skye trial, so for once, he wasn’t exactly hurting for money.

This was why he could afford to be apathetically loafing in his office, coffee mug in hand and idly perusing the comic section of the daily newspaper when he suddenly got an unforeseen visitor.

Plastic surgeon Turner Grey, to date, had to be the most pompous, aggravating, and nerve-grinding human being the spiky-haired man had ever encountered.

This was an impressive feat indeed, seeing as how the last witness he’d dealt with during his last trial before Maya had left had been an unruly, nameless, narcoleptic man with a disgusting, continuously inflating, and deflating snot bubble!

Completely enamored with the sound of his own voice, Grey proceeded to venture on a mindless monologue, first about the weather, then about his befallen woes at the hands of his incompetent former employee, which had brought him to the Wright Law Offices.

At this point, Phoenix had ceased pretending they were having a two-way conversation and had switched to polite nodding and uh-huhs and hmmms, all the while continuously sipping from his coffee mug to stay awake throughout the senseless droning. Somehow, he just barely resisted the urge to flip through his paper during the oration. The spectacled one was so full of inflated self-importance that he probably wouldn’t have even noticed!

Eventually, Grey paused in his endless lamenting about his unjust fate of dwindled patient loads since the previous year’s malpractice suit.

The legist was finally able to get a word in edgewise and mildly inquire why the doctor had come to see a defense attorney when it sounded like he was more in need of a private investigator.

“No, this is something only you can do,” the arrogant windbag insisted. “Maya Fey, you know this girl, do you not?”

Maya! The other man had Phoenix’s full attention now. Why does this man know Maya?

“I heard you were working under her for a little while?” Grey pushed his glasses up his nose for the millionth time.

“Well…yes…” He stammered, still stunned at the mention of his friend, who had crossed his mind more times that day than he cared to count. “I mean – hey! Wait for a second here! I worked under her?!”

I can’t tell if he’s trying to be tongue in cheek or not here but…I’m not sure this insufferable egomaniac even has a sense of humor!

“Yes,” the doctor replied simply, not understanding the inappropriate context whatsoever. “Am I wrong? She told me as much, so I’m not quite sure if…?”

She was only 17 years old, you perverted freak of human nature!

“Well, we did work a few trials together… But she went back to her hometown to undergo more training.”

“Ah, yes, I heard,” Grey smirked. “It must be lonely for you.”

Phoenix’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head.

“Wh-What!? Wait… I’m not…!”

What exactly has Maya been telling Dr. Grey?!

“She must be an extraordinary girl to handle such rigid training,” Grey remarked, oblivious to his dialogue partner’s dumbfounded expression. He went on to explain how an acquaintance of his had introduced him to the young spirit medium and had enlightened him to the mystical world of spirits, prompting Phoenix to wonder how he’d never realized how famous and acclaimed his friend was.

Was she just excessively modest or is this blowhard…blowing smoke? Ah. Maya, I’ve missed her. Wonder what she’s up to right now?

“When I made this appointment, I was notified that I’m her first client for spirit channeling,” the doctor went on. “Ergo, she gave me one condition before accepting my request.”

“A condition…?” The lawyer echoed blankly.

“The condition is you, Mr. Wright.” Grey pushed up his glasses again. “Miss Fey was adamant that she wouldn’t do the channeling without first seeing you again.”

Phoenix was completely gobsmacked at this news – as well as a teeny bit touched.

Maybe she’s missed me as much as I’ve missed her after all…

“So I need you, don’t you see?” Grey asked impatiently, at last noticing his dialogue partner hadn’t spoken. “And that is why I’ve searched you out! You want to see her too, don’t you!?”

The lawyer took a deep breath, trying to calm his nerves and the sudden jolt that went through him at the prospect of finally being reunited with his erstwhile assistant again, and nodded in affirmation.

“Yes, I do.”

More than anything in the world…

Marvin Gaye- Ain’t No Mountain High Enough