106 Someone To Watch Over Me

Every move you make and every vow you break
Every smile you fake, every claim you stake, I’ll be watching you
Every move you make, every step you take, I’ll be watching you

I’ll be watching you
Every breath you take and every move you make
Every bond you break, every step you take (I’ll be watching you)
Every single day, every word you say
Every game you play, every night you stay (I’ll be watching you)
Every move you make, every vow you break
Every smile you fake, every claim you stake (I’ll be watching you)
Every single day, every word you say
Every game you play, every night you stay (I’ll be watching you)

Maya Fey
Governor’s Mansion, Los Angeles
February 14, 2025, 6:30 PM

It was the Who’s Who as far as swanky affairs went. All of the bigwigs across the state, and possibly even the nation, were present at the Governor’s Ball that night. Everybody from politicians to diplomats, to business professionals, even a couple of scattered celebrities. As the prestigious Master of the Kurain Channeling Technique, and despite her great reluctance Maya was also obligated to make an appearance at the politician’s LA mansion, a place so grandeur it made Fey Manor look like a shoebox in comparison.

Designs of fruit and flowers were carved into the moulding, and small, fat children with wings looked down at the guest from every angle from the 20-foot high ceiling of the luxurious great hall Maya entered. Large, crystal vases of fragrant blossoms sat atop the main hall pillars, which, while pleasing to the eye, gave off a cloying scent that made her eyes itch. She heaved a deep sigh and plastered on her most winsome smile as she handed her coat to the attentive butler standing in the foyer and headed into the main room with the festivities were being held.

Note to self, make sure I tell Nick that I have an adverse reaction to daises! I don’t even know why they chose to use an abundance of traditional funeral flowers for decoration anyway! Were they trying to go for irony here? Like, ha-ha! This party is sure to be dead, hence implied hilarity of the unfortunate floral accents?! Ugh, I sure hope this fête has good eats at least!

The room was uncomfortably large, reminding the Kurain Master of a hotel foyer, not just in the space, but in the artwork too. Her eyes scanned around for a personal touch, something that didn’t suggest a hired designer had chosen it but found none.

The floor was polished concrete, the walls white, and the furniture probably from some hard to pronounce, high-end Scandinavian designer. It was a perfect place, but cold in its tranquility. The soft music, just audible as background noise, somehow made it even less personal. Maya felt as though she had just stepped into some sort of museum, and suddenly was aching to get out of there and over to Edgeworth’s penthouse to see Phoenix as soon as it was socially acceptable for her to do so. She did not want to spend the entire duration of her Valentine’s Day evening at this complete bore of a party even if it was a prime opportunity to drum up business for Kurain! Ah, the things she did for diplomacy.

While she normally didn’t mind an opportunity to get dressed up in her finer party clothes and munch on some free fancy food, Maya loathed the pretentiousness that always seemed to accompany soirées of this magnitude! Inwardly, she was cursing the Governor for the ill timing of his annual fiesta having to be on the same night as the most romantic night of the year! Sure, the vast majority of these stodgy old farts might be too ancient to have a love life worth mentioning, but she most certainly was not!

As soon as the psychic could get out of there, she and Phoenix had a whole, blissfully romantic, clothing-optional weekend planned; one of the few when the two of them could simultaneously be free from any duties or work obligations. It pained her that she was required to be there right now, having to kiss ass and rub elbows, when she should instead be placing her lips upon her sexy boyfriend’s and rubbing her body all over his!

The Master smilingly clutched her half-consumed, secondary glass of bubbly, while murmuring bits of small talk as she made the rounds across the crowded room. She was lost in her own little dream world as she mingled, blissfully envisioning her plans that night once she could prudently make her escape, that she didn’t even see the Rubenesque, middle-aged woman step in front of her at the buffet table until she was practically on top of her.

The two women collided heavily, sending both of their purses clattering to the floor.

“Oh my goodness!” The woman’s plump hand fluttered to her throat, her armful of gold bangles colliding in an 18-carat clash as her thickly lined, Cupids bow lips formed a round-O of horror. “I am so sorry! How clumsy of me…”

“It’s OK, it was probably my fault…darn champagne bubbles go right to my head and make me all wonky!” The diviner then let out a surprised cry when she saw who was standing before her. “Rosanne Palms! How’s it going?”

“Maya Fey!” The woman let out a gleeful, high-pitched trill of recognition at the sight of the spirit medium. “Fancy seeing you here! And none of this Rosanne business, Missy! I told you before, and I’ll tell you again, please call me Rosie like everyone else does!”

Well rub an egg on my face and dip me in breadcrumbs! She may not see the humor of being called Rosie Palms but I sure as hell do! Hee!

Maya’s inner five-year-old was giggling maniacally as she made every accompanying Palmela Handerson and Angela Hansbury joke in the book in her mind, while miraculously still keeping a straight face.

“It’s so nice to see you again.” The spirit medium smiled pleasantly as she squelched the last of her internal snickering. “I imagine your husband’s around here somewhere? I’ll have to say hello before I head out.”

“Yes, Harry milling about with his cronies and colleagues, leaving me here all by my lonesome,” Rosie sulked. “That’s why I’m beyond tickled to finally see someone familiar at this crashing bore of the ball!”

Rosanne and Harold AKA Rosie and Harry Palms. Tee hee! Either a match made in heaven! I’ll bust a gut if I think too long about how the latter sounds like something a strict nun would threaten would happen to a pubescent boy if he got too much of the former!

“Hey, you said it!” The diviner snickered. “I’ve merely been thinking the same notion! Er, about what a yawn this shindig is, I mean. Not, um, you and Harry’s names or anything!”

“What’s that?” Rosie appeared genuinely puzzled. “Our names?”

“Er, nothing. I’m happy to see a friendly face, too! We can prop each other up all night!”

“I only speak the truth, my dear. What a difference it is, seeing you in regular attire, rather than your Master robes! You look stunning! Is that a new dress?”

“What, this old thing?” Maya self-consciously ran her hands down the hips of her scarlet mini, crafted from dazzling sequins on the strapless bodice, with a fitted skirt that fell over the hips and thighs, with a flourish of delicate chiffon flowers decorating the hip-length hemline of the garment. “Nah! The mail only comes to my village once a week. Therefore, I received the invitation to this party at the 11th hour, which didn’t give me much time to shop. I just threw on this dress I got ages ago, which thank goodness, still fits!”

“It’s positively resplendent, especially with your coloring. You clearly take very good care of your clothing, since it looks pretty brand spanking new to me!” The older woman’s overly made-up eyes shone with admiration. “Wherever did you get it?”

“An old friend of mine bought this as my birthday gift six years ago, at DKNY. I’ll be seeing them later tonight. Plus, it is Valentine’s Day, so I thought I’d dress for the occasion.” A rosy calescence crept upon Maya’s neck and cheeks. “I have a lot of very fond memories attached to this little number.”

“I’m sure you do!” Rosie flashed a sly wink, and the spirit medium’s blush deepened. “Well, I’m happy to hear you have other plans besides this snooze of a fiesta! It would be a total waste of that ravishing ensemble otherwise! I don’t think Harry and I are doing anything after we get out of here, so you can go live it up for the both of us!”

The raven-haired woman giggled in response, then looked down at the floor, realizing that while the two of them had been busily gabbing, they still hadn’t picked up their handbags, both of which had fallen ajar and spilled out their contents. Rosie noticed this at that same moment and bent down as well. Maya hastily scooped up the remaining items back into her clutch but not before her friend spotted the item that had been hidden within the confines of the bag’s silk lining interior. At the sight of the shiny gold locket, which had opened up from the fall, the older woman let out a gasp of appreciation.

“My goodness, that pendant is magnificent! Why on earth aren’t you wearing it?”

“Oh, I always do, underneath my Master’s robes, but I didn’t want any unnecessary attention drawn to certain parts of my anatomy, due to the provocative area where the chain falls!” She laughingly gestured towards her full cleavage. “I think I may have been a tad less modest when I was 21 than I am now! But I’m going to make sure I slip it back on when I get out of here.”

“Perchance, was the same friend who bought you that killer dress…” Rosie flashed another telltale wink. “Also the one who gave you that locket?”

The necromancer shyly dropped her eyes as she nodded bashfully and hurriedly snapped the heart shut, but it was too late – her dialogue partner had already seen the photos inside.

“The photos of everybody nearest and dearest to my heart are inside that locket.”

There was no mistaking the tenderness in Maya’s cadence as she made this small confession.

“Is that right?” The other woman smirked knowingly. “Does the handsome, spiky-haired man in that picture with you fall within the said category?”

“Maybe.” The Master bit back a coy smile, a tad too tipsy to take heed that she was being less guarded than usual – and that Rosie wasn’t the only one within listening vicinity of this conversation.

“It’s so nice to see that you young folks can still be so romantic and sentimental! Don’t ever change!” Rosie sighed enviously. “Currently, the only one with a love life worth mentioning in my household is my daughter. She just turned the ripe age of 18 – otherwise known as the perfect age to give her Mama a heart attack!”

“My little girl is 16 this fall, but luckily, thus far, she’s been an angel.”

“You just wait until she gets into boys!” Rosie warned. “My little troublemaker has some hot date tonight with some hooligan she’s wildly smitten with, but who I insist is nothing but a complete bum! You know how these young girls are! She’s completely romanticizing the concept of him being this sullen, emotive, long-haired guitarist who makes a living doing nothing but playing folksongs at her university campus coffee house.”

“You never know. He might be a very nice young man, with a pure, poetic soul, despite his lack of stature,” Maya suggested kindly, with a can’t miss grin lingering on her lips as she spoke. “I might be biased of course, but I profess to you that I’m hardly a stranger to … these brooding, musician types.”

“I see,” Rosie twittered and raised an inquisitive, pencil-thin brow. “Would you say you’ve surpassed the no stranger zone and are more so veering towards very well acquainted?”

“I plead the fifth!” Maya quipped, popping an hors d’oeuvre into her mouth as she belatedly realized she might have already revealed far too much. “Please allow me to excuse myself, Rosie, while I go say hello to your husband.”

Out of sight, but not out of earshot, every single tidbit of the women’s conversation was processed by the sinister figure lurking within the dark shadows behind the large pillar in the center of the room.

Each word he overheard only fueled the fire that burned inside of him. Every phrase further incensed him, as though it were composed of a flammable substance. His mien had become rigid, and his jaw clamped tight. Teeth grinding, his fist clenched as he pictured a certain handsome, spiky-haired man’s neck-snapping like a twig in his mind. He could vividly envision his fist smashing into the nose of his nemesis, splattering red blood on the dirty walls of that filthy bar that derelict worked in.

That low-life degenerate has crossed the wrong nabob. He needs to learn that being double-crossed makes me very, very angry. He won’t like me when I’m angry…

Party Guest
Governor’s Mansion, Los Angeles
February 14, 2025, 7:30 PM

He downed the last of his champagne and then flicked his hand lazily to signal to the server to give him another. The young woman swooped in quickly, replacing his glass with a newly poured one while retrieving his empty flute. Without even looking at her, he silently shooed her away, as though she were a pesky fly, turning his head away with a contemptuous sniff to exaggerate his dismissal of ‘the help.’

Besides, he was a man on a mission, and that belied having to make niceties with the ‘little people.’

The moment she was alone, he’d swooped in grandly upon the vapid, bubble-headed, badly aging blonde woman, who was stuffing her already fat cheeks with appetizers by the buffet table. It turned out she was the wife of one of the diplomats at the party, whose name he couldn’t be bothered recalling. While he supposed making her acquaintance could have been a potential future investment, as her spouse surely had useful connections, at that moment, he had no interest in anything except pumping her for as much information as possible about the striking, raven-haired beauty with whom he had just heard her conversing.

“You haven’t met Maya Fey yet?” Her little piggy eyes nearly bulged out of her plump face in surprise when he made the polite query. “I think she may have just left, but I’m telling you, she is the most delightful thing! So incredibly kind and sweet! She performed a spirit channeling for my husband’s dearly departed great aunt last month. Between you and me, I think my teenage son had a little crush on her – and who can blame him? She’s such a world-class beauty! She’s not married yet, but I’m positive that a woman with glowing skin like hers definitely can’t be single if you catch my drift…”

Let her feel like she’s in charge, that she earned my trust. She’s easier to steer than my new Mercedes.

He returned his arm to its resting position against the wall pillar, manicured hand dangling downward, and an affixed smile almost touching his lips to mask his ennui. The gleaming gold links of his Patek Philippe on the tanned skin of his wrist glinted in the bright overhead lights in the high ceiling. He would remain there, all genteel congeniality, until he had finished drawing information out of the blathering imbecile before him. The woman was trying too hard, laughing too easily, visibly uncomfortable in a too-tight fussy dress comprised of fabric with the gaudiest sheen. He, on the other hand, underplayed his part, coy and a little slow to warm, and ensured his placid expression was impenetrable, even though he was stewing internally, a raging storm swirling at having been a victim of such treacherous deceit, so readily and for so long.

The fusty femme continued to babble. He remained impassive and quiet and let her drone on, nodding and smiling where needed. He knew the type of female who loved to talk and this was a corpulent little fountain of knowledge who most unquestionably one of them.

Beneath his mask of calm coolness and keen listening, he was planning his next plan of action against the man who had played him for a fool and dared lie to his face.

Turning away from the conversation, at last, he idly contemplated what the lovely Master of Kurain’s fair complexion would look like if she were somehow made even more pastel white in color than she was at the present. He was certain that exquisite visage would still be equally as becoming in eternal rest, were it to become the exact shade of pallor as the graveside flowers copiously placed around the room. A pernicious smirk played upon his lips at the notion.

He didn’t even notice the champagne flute he’d been holding shattered in his clenched hand, and he was oblivious to the bright red drops oozing from his fingers.

Fires of fury and hatred were smoldering in the small narrowed eyes as he weighed the pros and cons of the various and creative means available to him for exacting revenge.

He knew he’d have to make that bindlestiff pay; make him even more of a sorry human being than he already was for this unforgivable breach of trust.

However, that would be later.

For now, he had some hobnobbing to do, and outwardly, would enjoy himself immensely in the process, even though he’d be conspiring his punishment all the while.

Plotting the perfect way to teach that inferior cretin not to mess with him.

No, Miss Piggy, I haven’t made myself acquainted with the Master of the Kurain Channeling Technique yet. A cold, baleful smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. However, that is about to change, very, very soon…

Phoenix Wright and Maya Fey
February 17, 2025, 11:55 AM

“Sorry to get back to you so late, my love.” Phoenix yanked off his beanie and ran an exhausted hand through his spikes as he flopped down onto the tiny loveseat in the downstairs office, making sure he didn’t speak too loudly in case his sleeping daughter happened to overhear the conversation from upstairs. “But Trucy needed me to help her out with some homework before she went to bed, and since she had to go to work tonight, it ended up being later than usual.” His voice turned husky. “I know I just said goodbye to you this morning, but would I be too much of a schmaltzy cheeseball to admit that I miss you already?”

“Not at all, because I miss you too, baby,” Maya sighed. “This weekend together was so ah-mazing! It felt like we were honeymooning or something. I wish we could do it more often.”

“Well, I still have the battle scars left behind on my back to remember you by until the next time we meet!” He shifted his shoulders uncomfortably and chuckled ruefully. “Hopefully within a fortnight, they will have healed and I shall be able to take off my shirt within my own home, without fear of having to give an embarrassing explanation to my innocent teenage daughter!”

“I’m sorry, Nick.” Although Maya’s tone was regretful, he could still hear a hint of mirth in her voice at the concept of having marked her man! “Next time, I’ll try to be more like you and just leave strategically placed hickeys behind on the body, where nobody but the recipient will ever know about them!”

“What can I say?” He guffawed. “We’re two of a kind since we evidently both like leaving behind evidence of a job well done! Moreover, please don’t be sorry, my love. I’ve had nearly six years to learn that you can’t bed a vixen, without expecting to be bitten – or marked! – in some manner.”

“It all seems like a delicious dream now, made all the worse by coming back to work Monday with a heaping dose of back to life, back to reality!” The diviner groaned. “And let me tell you something – reality bites!”

“Pun fully not intended?” He teased. “What’s grinding your gears, my love?”

“Well, on top of regular duties, I also had to see Sister Bikini. We had to go over the guest logs of the weekend visitors that rented cabins for Valentine’s Day, to make sure that the numbers all matched.”

Sister Bikini… Hey, that reminds me! I’ve got to tell her about Edgeworth’s email this morning regarding Iris’s upcoming release…

The pianist never got the chance to relay the news, however, as his lover’s next words stopped him cold.

“By the way Nick, you know that pretty boy, rock star prosecutor that was a big part of ruining you? What was his last name again? Gavin, right?”

“Yeah, it was.” Phoenix sat up straight on the cushions then, his heart inexplicably beginning to pound faster. “Now there’s a moniker you and I haven’t brought up in some time! What made you suddenly bring him up?”

“Welp, I guess the dual life of playing lousy, amateurish, and calculatedly narcissistic music whilst helping destroy the reputations of innocent men finally took their toll on him.” He could practically hear the spirit medium rolling her eyes. “I guess that douche canoe slithered up here to Eagle Mountain to get away from it all. I saw his name in the guest logbook. He was here all weekend, from the night of February 14 to the morning of February 17. I’m looking at his name right here. It’s under K. Gavin.”

Upon hearing the name, the ex-lawyer felt the blood beginning to roar in his ears. An invisible hand clasped over his mouth; an equally ghostly hypodermic of adrenaline pierced his heart, unloading in an instant.

“If he only checked out early Monday morning, I guess it’s a good thing it’s a two-hour train ride to come up from the city!” She tittered then, apparently not even noticing her boyfriend’s lack of response. “Funny how things work out! If my Special Someone hadn’t worn me out so badly, I wouldn’t have missed waking up for my alarm clock in time to catch the first train back to Kurain!”

He wanted to run; he needed to freeze. He could feel his ribs heaving, as if bound by ropes, straining to inflate his lungs.

“It’s kinda funny, how my sleeping in seemed to be the sole reason that I just barely missed that Arschloch by the time I got up there!” Maya obliviously continued to ramble on in the poleaxed poker champ’s ear. “Lucky for him too! I would’ve had some choice words for that jerk face, had I run into him, let me tell you!”

Phoenix felt his throat closing up as the words building up within became stuck in his throat, still not allowing him to make a response.

“If he wanted privacy and to remain anonymous, you’d think he would’ve chosen a pseudonym instead of just putting down his first initial with his real last name!” Maya continued indignantly. “It makes zero sense, don’t you agree, Nick? I mean obviously, the egomaniac wanted to let us know that he was up there, right?”

“Maya, thanks for waiting up for me as usual. It’s been great talking to you but I think I’m coming down with something.” Phoenix managed to finally croak out. “I feel kinda rundown, so I’m heading to bed now.”

“Crapballs! Must you go already?” She sounded disappointed. “Remember, I only have this week to talk to you regularly, because this Saturday, Pearly and I are going away to Bon Temps, Louisiana, just outside New Orleans, for a week. I don’t know how good the reception will be down there in the American realms of voodoo and bayous.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll definitely connect before then, my love,” he promised, while simultaneously trying not to succumb to hyperpnoea. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, OK? Goodnight. I love you.”

“I love you back, Nick.”

The moment he hung up the phone, Phoenix shut his eyes and tried to take deep breaths. His head was a carousel of fears spinning out of control, each one pushing his mind into blackness. Sounds that were suddenly near felt far away, and he felt as if he was no longer in the body that sat, paralyzed with fear, on that battered old piece of furniture.

Oh, heavenly and merciful Lord, he prayed vehemently, raising his shaking hands to his face and burying his head in them. Let me be having these visions of paranoia and this barely stifled panic attack for no reason whatsoever! Please I beg of you, let that have been Klavier who was up there this weekend whom my beloved girlfriend just barely escaped encountering…

Phoenix Wright
The Borscht Bowl Club
February 20, 2025, 10:45 PM

Since that unsettling conversation with Maya, Phoenix had never dreaded going to work as much as he did that evening. The last few days leading up to his shift that week had his nerves completely shot, which was never a good thing, considering what he did for a living! Poker players were neither supposed to be shaken nor sweaty, but that night, his fingers were so slick with nervous perspiration, they kept slipping off the keys on more than one occasion.

His jumpy disposition couldn’t have happened at a worse time, as tonight was a poker tournament, which meant his daughter would be joining him at 11:00 in The Hydeout when he was done this last set. Trucy had popped in after finishing work about half an hour ago and was idly munching some French fries at a table near his piano, smiling encouragingly at him as he hit yet another off-key in the verse.

Phoenix knew he was playing worse than usual that evening, as he was so consumed by his renewed chary apprehensions about which Gavin had gone to Eagle Mountain ever since her chilling revelation about the cabins. Rather than speaking to her on the phone, as he was afraid that his astute swain would hear the tremor in his voice, he’d taken to only texting her and leaving voicemails when he knew she would be busy. Unless his suspicions were confirmed, he saw no reason to worry the woman he loved, who already had enough on her plate with the stress of single motherhood and running a village amongst ever-disapproving elders.

The pianist’s shaky fingers hit a particularly cringe-worthy off note in his practiced melody then. Disgusted with himself, he tersely announced into the microphone that he was done for the night and loped over to his daughter, a false beam plastered on his face for her benefit.

“You’re totally having an off night on the piano, Daddy,” the magician observed, studying his weary phizog with a pensive frown. “I mean, more than usual! Are you OK?”

“I’m fine,” he lied easily, his affixed smile never wavering. “Truce, I was just thinking, about your birthday, which isn’t so far away from now. I know you’re a fan of The Gavinners and I was hoping you could look up the price of a couple of tickets. Not front row, of course, but perhaps cheaper ones, in the further back rows. Did you want to research when their next American tour dates are?”

“That would be so cool, Daddy!” Her eyes sparkled with excitement at the idea. “But I don’t need to look up the tour dates – I’ve been keeping track of them since the beginning of the year! The Gavinners have been performing in Europe since last December. Their North American tour won’t start until sometime in late summer, which may be a little bit too late for my actual birthday. Not that it matters – I’d love to see them no matter what! I would take it as a late present, no problem…”

The hobo had already tuned out the rest of her chittering the moment he’d heard the words: “in Europe since last December.”

His worst fear was officially confirmed.

Klavier wasn’t the one who was up at those cabins.

He dimly heard the magician mention going to the bathroom then, but was lost in a reverie as he sat there in the seat she’d vacated, mindlessly munching on Trucy’s leftover fries on the table.

Without warning, the temperature in the general vicinity behind him dropped by several degrees.

“Good evening, Herr Wright,” Kristoph greeted in his usual cool manner. “I hope I’ve not arrived too late to hear my favorite pianist play.”

The startled pianist nearly choked on his barely digested French fry at the impromptu appearance of the disingenuous defense attorney. He hastily grabbed his daughter’s half-finished glass of soda and downed it so he could finally answer.

“Yes, I am done for the night. I’m just taking a quick break and then in about 10 minutes, I’m off to play poker tonight. It’s just as well that you missed tonight’s performance – it was a rather rough one.” He smiled weakly. “I mean, rougher than usual, heh, heh.”

“You are way too way too modest, Herr Wright!” Kristoph laughed, the sound like an angle grinder to Phoenix’s ears. “Surely, you are much too self-critical regarding the capabilities of your talent.”

“You’re either too kind or your musical taste leaves much to be desired.” The poker champ smiled so hard, his cheek muscles hurt as he silently prayed his response came out sounding more sincere than he’d anticipated. “There’s a reason Boris and Natasha hired me for my card-playing rather than my keyboarding skills!”

“We both know this is a complete untruth.” Kristoph pushed his glasses up his nose. “In all actuality, I have quite discerning, dare I even say, refined tastes, about all things in life. While it’s disappointing that I missed the opportunity to hear you tickle those ivories tonight since you’re on break until 11:00, that still gives me just enough time to enjoy a drink with you.”

The defense attorney waved down a passing waitress and ordered a grape juice for the poker champ along with a house red for himself before taking a seat, uninvited, across from Phoenix at the table. The two men sat there and stared at one another in complete silence until the server returned with their drinks.

“Truly, it’s a small world, after all, Herr Wright,” Kristoph began casually, as though citing the reason for his visit had only just occurred to him at that moment. “I was desirous to convey information that I thought would be of particular interest to you.”

He picked up his glass of wine and took a sip.

“I was one of the privileged few to have attended the Governor’s Ball on Valentine’s Day evening. Such a splendid event. You really should have been there.”

“It sounds divine.” Phoenix lifted the grape juice bottle to his lips with unsteady fingers. “Perhaps my invitation got lost in the mail? Oh well, there’s always next year, right?”

“You’ll never believe who was in attendance this year.” Kristoph’s leer turned even more crafty, like that of a cat mercilessly toying with a mouse within its trap. “Shall I give you three chances to guess?”

Please don’t be her. Please don’t be her. Jesus Haploid Christ… anybody but her….

The overwhelming feeling of dread set his face like rigor mortis and made his teeth lock tightly together. However, unless there was a miraculous way to could turn back time, drag the sun from the sky and inject amnesia into the mind of the German fiend across from him, the disbarred lawyer knew his day of reckoning had come.

“I can’t even begin to fathom.” He swallowed heavily, somehow managing to get a word out, even though his mouth had gone as dry as the Sahara. “I was never really one to fraternize with the echelon of society even during my lawyer days…”

“The Master of the Kurain Channeling Technique.” Kristoph’s diabolical expression could now only be called an outright sneer. “She was quite the belle of the ball, you know. Everybody who was anybody wanted to get a chance to talk with her and make her acquaintance. Unfortunately, as the Governor’s domicile was so chockablock of patrons, I couldn’t get near her, even though I was most rhapsodic to do so.”

Phoenix’s stomach dropped to his feet as a wave of panic washed over him. He had thought the first time he had heard Kristoph mention his daughter’s name, many years ago, had been the worst thing imaginable. However, as usual, he’d been wrong. This was much worse.

Shit a brick and fuck me with it – this is a thousand times worse!

“I’m sorry, who?” He asked blithely, desperately hoping to convey that Maya’s name was from his long-forgotten past.

“How fickle of your memory, to have already forgotten such a ravishing temptress, Herr Wright.” Even as Kristoph smiled at him, as usual, it never touched his spectacled eyes, which were now staring at him unblinkingly. “I can’t believe you have no immediate recollection of Maya Fey, your faithful former assistant before the misfortune of that now-infamous … incident.”

The sound of Maya’s name on his adversary’s lips left made bile rise in Phoenix’s throat.

Punch me in the dick and call me squeaky. My goose is cooked.

“I was sorely disappointed that such a prime opportunity to introduce myself had escaped me.” Kristoph shook his head with mock regret. “Especially since, seeing her in the flesh, I was able to determine that the photos I have seen of her in the media have done her no justice whatsoever and that she is indeed, even more ravishing, in person.”

His oily leer deepened.

“Maya has grown into quite an astoundingly beautiful young woman. I suppose I shall have to arrange some sort of forthcoming opportunity to ensure that my path crosses with hers once more in the foreseeable future.”

Oh, dear God, NO! Maya shouldn’t even be on his radar! She’s never done anything to anybody in her entire life. This …this about him wanting to mess with my head. Most of all, it’s working! All this…it’s just one gigantic mind cluster-fuck for him!

“It’s as I told you many years ago, Kristoph. Maya Fey and I lost contact with one another a very long time ago.” Phoenix spoke through gritted teeth, hoping the other man would be convinced that this was still a sore subject for him. “While I thank you for thinking this would be of relevance to me, alas it is not. Her comings and goings are of no concern to me in the least.”

“I believe it would be my turn, then, to be the one suffering from a fickle memory, as this bit of trivia that you so long ago relayed to me had completely escaped my mind indeed.”

“Well allow me to refresh it then,” he said tightly. “Being a disbarred defense attorney due to presenting forged evidence was deemed to have been a hindrance to her political career, both by her village elders, as well as herself. Therefore, with no qualms whatsoever, Maya left me high and dry, and is part of another life now.”

He punctuated his last words with a morose sigh, as though speaking of it still pained him.

“Such a shame,” Kristoph sympathized, not looking in the least bit sorry. “The only thing worse than a feckless memory is a fickle heart, is it not? How fortunate for you to have been able to move past such gross disloyalty and no longer need to worry about a callous person such as Maya Fey continuing to be a part of your life.”

The pianist’s eyes snapped up from the label of his grape juice bottle, which he’d mindlessly been peeling away at to avert his gaze from those unnerving glacial chips of blue ice. As he met the expressionless frosty orbs now, he felt sick to his stomach.

Kristoph knew. Despite all their carefully laid efforts and disguises and discretions over the years, somehow, someway, he’d found out about Maya. Probably knew that the two of them had been together all along, and possessed as few qualms about letting Phoenix know this as he had about making his appearance at the cabins last weekend equally as apparent.

Just the thought of his vulnerable girlfriend stuck in that remote, middle of butt-fuck nowhere location, at the mercy of a deranged lunatic, made the pianist feel physically ill.

The cabins were just outside Kurain Village. Maya’s home. The single place where she should have always been safe, yet the one location where had she not been down in the city with him that weekend, instead would have had her out there at Kristoph’s whim.

Phoenix was a hair’s breadth away from completely falling to pieces right then and there when out of the clear blue sky, his daughter returned from the ladies’ room just in time to pipe up with the world’s most ill-timed question.

“Is Maya going to be your girlfriend, Daddy?” Confused cerulean eyes darted back and forth between the composed defense attorney and her nearly hyperventilating father. “Is that why you guys are talking about her?”

Jesus Haploid Christ! The former defense attorney silently screamed. You see this right here? This is the exact reason why I kept my mouth shut and my daughter in the dark about Maya for these past six years!

Phoenix couldn’t believe his godawful luck! Here he had thought/hoped/prayed that he may have, once again, successfully convinced Kristoph that he and Maya never had, nor ever would be an item and taken her off his radar of consideration! But lo and behold, right on schedule, was his completely clueless but well-meaning kid, bursting in and inquiring about contradictory information, which surely had damaged his well-planned, long played defensively denying façade.

“No, baby girl.” He forced his timbre not to waver as he swallowed back another wave of panic. “Maya was merely my assistant and when Daddy lost his badge, she and those mean old ladies in the village told her that it would be bad for her reputation to have anything to do with me. Do you remember me telling you this, now? That’s the reason why she and I are not friends anymore, which is all we ever were, a very long time ago.”

To his great relief, Trucy appeared to suddenly remember the long-ago tarradiddle from yesteryear. She then merely shrugged and smiled brightly, seeming to chalk it up as just another fake trick in the Phoenix Wright Never-Ending Magic Show, and was already prattling on about going downstairs to the poker room before darting off.

However, the poker champ didn’t mind the teen’s timing this time. At that point, he would’ve given his right arm to have escaped the German man’s unwavering stare, which was making him feel like a bug into the wall.

“It’s been great seeing you, Kristoph, b – but I need to get going,” Phoenix stammered, tearing his eyes away. “As I said, poker game at 11:00 and all.”

“Don’t worry; I’ll be back, soon enough.” Kristoph extended his hand. “I enjoy your company way too much to ever stray too far, for too long, Herr Wright. Surely, you must be aware that by now?”

“I sure am.” He nodded dumbly as he stood, moving to shake the man’s sangfroid hand.

“We must play catch up again very soon, Nick,” Kristoph said silkily. Without warning, the hairs on the back of Phoenix’s neck stood on end at the use of his nickname. “Next time, my friend, I will ensure I come here early enough to hear your delightful pianist’s skills. I have yet to hear you play my song request from many years ago. I’m still a big fan of The Police and I’m quite certain you’re familiar with their most famous song, ‘Every Breath You Take,’ are you not?”

The dual meaning of the words was not lost whatsoever, and the fear traveled in Phoenix’s veins but never made it to his facial muscles or skin. His complexion remained pale and matte but his eyes remained steady as he nodded swiftly, let out an understated sigh, then turned to leave, showing he wasn’t afraid to turn his back.

As he strode away from the table, towards the basement door, he could feel Kristoph’s eyes still burning into his retreating form. He squeezed his lids shut and willed his heart to stop hammering in his chest.

Maya.

He had to protect her, no matter what the cost.

Phoenix Wright and Iris Hawthorne
Detention Center
February 21, 2025, 2:00 PM

For nearly seven years, I have lived with the conscious fear that I’ve been subsumed by my act, that I’m really the criminal who forges evidence and calls mass murderers friends, that the person I once was with the ideals and values I once held is completely gone. However, when I’m in Maya’s arms, and she still sees through the lie that is my life, I get the sense, maybe I won’t lose myself entirely, that there still lingers a trace of the former Phoenix Wright. I could truly believe she could save me from myself; that her love would see me through this mess, and maybe even make me realize I’ve been wrong in my paranoid suspicions all along.

It turned out his first instincts about the nefarious Kristoph had been dead-on, all along. Yet somehow, to finally realize he’d been right all along, in this instance, brought him no joy whatsoever; not when it would cost him so dearly and when the said revelation was simultaneously conjoined with the cruel hand of fate. Not when finding the truth would mean losing his pillar of strength – the sole person who had kept him whole, and complete, and sane, and had given him hope he could perhaps someday, once again become the man he used to be.

Therefore, Phoenix took no solace in the fact that his preliminary instincts about the dangerous defense attorney had been right all along, and he cursed himself for ever letting those his initial gut reaction ever waiver. It was hardly comforting to know that Kristoph had not been lying when he had made those thinly veiled threats to harm him in myriad circumstances over the years and that all of his invested time and effort in maintaining the façade of the distance between himself and Maya hadn’t been for naught. Sure, he’d had the magatama to reinforce his doubts about the blond man, but even if he were to spend the rest of his life with one hand clamped firmly in his pocket, the psyche locks that he could see were nothing more than a guide, and not tangible proof of anything.

The chained locks certainly would not force a confession out of Kristoph, and even if he did manage to get that out of him, what good would it do, when it would probably be dismissed as mere hearsay and not evidence?

Besides, if Kristoph was as cold, merciless, and calculating as Phoenix suspected, he was positive that the German would either kill him or have him killed, straight after. The defense attorney was also the type of pathological liar that could undoubtedly beat a polygraph, and the most valuable nuggets of information that could be extracted from his lips would be in the rare instances that the locks were not present

The evil man’s harrowing visit to him at the bar yesterday reinforced the hobo’s faith in his past judgments that hiding his relationship with the Master of Kurain and never allowing it to become public knowledge had been the right decision.

If he recognizes me as too much of a threat, Maya would be a far more valuable informant or blackmail object than Trucy ever was. He would have no problem torturing her and/or killing her. Psychos have always sensed how much she means to me, which is why she’s always been a victim… Usually because of me. Maya has already sacrificed enough for me over the years, what with getting tasered for me, getting held in contempt of court, and was willing to die at the hands of a madman assassin to see that justice was done even if it meant risking her life! Her inclinations to sacrifice her reputation for a hobo bum like me, even though it meant complete, irreparable disgrace… must stop! NOW! I can’t do this anymore. I can’t be selfish and knowingly risk her life for another minute. If Kristoph does anything to hurt her, it would be all my fault and I’ll never forgive myself for as long as I live.

He leaned up against the building and took in a breath, trying not to regulate his breathing.

The fear sits quietly, eroding the person I was born to be. What starts as a contortion of my stomach becomes a feeling of being smothered by an invisible hand. My breathing becomes erratic, deep, then shallow. I fight it. I fight the feeling as my body writhes to be free or shut down entirely.

Phoenix had suffered a restless, sleepless night from hell, suffering from repeated nightmares that Maya had been kidnapped again, this time by Kristoph, who then proceeded to personally rape and torture her to death, ignoring all his pleas to die in her place, and he was completely drained. This visit to his ex was his one chance to make sure that his nightmares never became a reality. His brain was too fried to analyze any other option.

“Iris…” he stared up into the bright azure sky. “I wish I knew for sure what to do…”