Hear ye! Hear Ye! Phoenix Wright, Miles Edgeworth, Maya Fey, Gregory Edgeworth and other characters are exclusively owned by Capcom and i am not affiliated with them.

KTHXBAI!

Warning: Contains violence

End game

Phoenix's head rose with the ease of a helium balloon in a vat of custard. He had been having a very refreshing sleep, not that he remembered going to sleep, nor, going to bed, actually...what was he doing?

He opened his eyes to a darkened room. Actually, judging by the smell of petrol, and the damp smell of oil, he was in a garage, or a car park or somewhere like that.

He looked around, seeing at first a light, the kind of single lights you get swinging from the ceiling of places where you needed just one light. He gazed around. Cold, --wait, my hands!

His hands were tied. Behind his back, cold against the metal of the chair. He was being held, hostage?

He looked around quickly and saw to his left, Maya was sat. Her magatama missing and her head on her shoulder, she had not recovered consciousness yet, she was sleeping, he could see her chest heave with every sleepy snore she managed. She didn't look hurt

She too looked tied, though he handcuffs looked slightly bigger for her wrists, and she was handcuffed in front of herself. Her hands lapse, if only he could wake her and get her to pull her wrists through those manacles.

Phoenix looked around again, urgently, for an escape, a window, a captor?

To his right he saw Miles.

Miles was looking perhaps the worst for wear, he had a smear of dry blood on his temple and a bruise on his other temple. He was unconscious too, and he had been handcuffed behind his back.

What was going on??!

"Miles...Miles?...EDGEWORTH?" Phoenix hissed as loudly as he dared.

Suddenly Miles made a weak sounding wheeze and coughed before opening his grey eyes. He closed his eyes suddenly as the unexpected bright light invaded his eyes before gazing around.

"Miles!" Whispered Phoenix "Don't panic, but we're being held hostage!"

Miles shook his head to rid himself of sleepy fog of being woken abruptly and looked around. His eyes grew wide with fear. His face draining of what little colour he had.

"What?...What??" Phoenix prompted.

"He hasn't seen this room for quite some time." began a familiar, aged, accented voice from one of the darker recesses of the room. "Have you Miles?"

Edgeworth swallowed deeply and looked to Phoenix.

"Von Karma." he whispered hoarsely.

"But he's--"

"Dead? Incarcerated? You really shouldn't put such faith in the judicial service. There are some very unreliable guards in the detention centre. Even some crooked ones that would do anything for the right amount of money."

A much older, somehow, rougher, and more manic looking Manfred Von Karma came into the dusty light of the room.

In the space of a few days since the end of the trial, he had aged terribly. His grey hair looked wild, the smooth skin on his lined face was replaced with taut, grey, badly shaven skin. Even his usually immaculate dress suit was rumpled, and in disarray.

It was almost as if for the last few days, apart from obviously escaping from his imminent death sentence, he had been almost busy with, perhaps, all of this. His frenzied eyes as they darted from Maya to Miles to Phoenix.

"What are you going to do to me?" asked Phoenix.

"To you?" asked Von Karma with a near-delirious flourish to his voice. "I'm not going to do anything to YOU. Well, nothing physical at least. You're going to see first hand something much more interesting than anything you've seen in that courtroom."

"What are you going to do!?" demanded Phoenix. "Why is Maya here?!"

"Miss. Fey there will follow in her mothers footsteps and resurrect Gregory Edgeworth." Von Karma began, casually caressing the sleeping Maya's hair.

"You can't force her to become possessed by someone." Phoenix snarled trying to release himself. "Its not possible." concluded Edgeworth

"Oh believe me, its just, if I know Miles right now, he's got someone on his mind, and if this magical stone thing..." he began hooking his hand into Miles' jacket pocket and pulling out Maya's magatama. "...works the way I believe it does..." he continued putting the magatama around the sleeping Maya's neck. "We'll be seeing your father very shortly."

Miles' face had paled considerably in the last few moments while his former mentor had been speaking.

Maya's face slackened, and tautened and somehow, when Maya opened her eyes. She was no longer a young girl. She was Gregory Edgeworth.

"...Son?" he began raspily as he stared at Miles, the only person he seemed to be interested in. "...Is that you Miles? Miles?"

But Miles was not looking at his father, he was looking down at the floor. Tears running down his pale face silently.

"Welcome back. Gregory." Von Karma began as he moved to stand in front of him, drawing his eye-line.

"I've brought you back for a very special performance. A one off in fact. I do hope you'll enjoy it. We've held up the show just for you."

"Von Karma, what is this?" Gregory asked.

"You've ruined my life, between you." he continued to Gregory "You, that boy, and this stupid rookie. Ruined me. But tonight, I don't care what happens, the balance will be reset."

"If you let me go-" Miles began to Manfred "-I will request that you be retried, perhaps on an insanity clause."

"Shut the fuck up!" snapped Manfred and slapped Miles hard around the face. Gregory's form tried to get up but realised that his feet were tied to the chair he sat in.

"Don't you dare touch my son!" he yelled.

Manfred's grey, greasy hair was tousled over his face as he looked back at Gregory.

"Did you know, it was I, that murdered you Edgeworth? I shot you in that lift. I saw you lying there, helpless, your son mere inches away. Why didn't I just kill you both and save myself the trouble."

"When they find you Von Karma. Which will be pretty damn soon by my reckoning, they'll-"

"I don't care if I'm executed tonight Wright!" snapped Manfred brandishing his cane at him. "I just want to even things out. A life, for a life, for a life."

"Papa Manfred-" began Edgeworth carefully, a red hand mark now staining on his pale skin. "You don't want this. Its not who you are. You want justice to be exact, not like this."

"I've got nothing to lose now, Boy." he snarled at Miles. "You have failed, just like HIM!"

Gregory looked furious.

"YOU LEAVE MY BOY ALONE!"

Von Karma leaned close to Gregory.

"...Tonight, Gregory, you will witness me beat your son to death in the way I never got to beat you to death. I had to settle for a quick and humane shot to the heart in the darkness of a lift, but tonight I will finish what I should have started."

"NO!" Shouted Phoenix as he tried to get free, he felt his wrist cut against the unusually sharp handcuffs.

"And you can pipe down you overgrown pustule of infected scum." he snapped at Phoenix, spitting in his face.

"Dad...please...don't let him do this..." Miles whimpered, tears now flowing down his cheeks freely and unashamedly.

"'Daddy, please don't let the bad man hurt me...'" Von Karma imitated in a baby voice before taking his cane and hitting him fiercely around the face.

Miles fell sideways off his seat, pulling the chair down with him.

"MILES!" Gregory shouted.

Miles spat blood out onto the floor and raised his head a little.

"...Papa...." he began weakly. "Don't do this, I served you, I learned from you, you don't want--"

Von Karma kicked him viciously in the mouth. Miles let out a muffled cry.

"STOP IT YOU FUCKING SICK BASTARD!" Phoenix cried. "UNTIE ME! I'll FUCKING POUND YOUR ASS INTO THE FLOOR!"

"I don't want YOU." snarled Von Karma as he walked away from a shaking Miles who was lying, trying to curl up on the floor. "I want HIM..." he said pointing to Gregory. "To suffer the way he should have!"

"You bastard Manfred. Let him go, untie ME. That's what you want right? You want me? Lets go one on one, I'll rip you apart!"

"Why would I do that?" Manfred smiled weakly. "I'm rather enjoying myself."

"Untie him!" Phoenix yelled "Let him stand up to you!"

"Shut up!" Manfred yelled and slapped the side of Phoenix's head.

Phoenix felt that he should be quiet in case he took it out on Edgeworth. His mind was working quickly now, he had to try to either get free, or attract attention.

"Dad..." Miles began thickly, by the sounds of it, with a broken nose. "I never-I never meant for this to happen dad. I just wanted to avenge you. And I thought that by becoming Prosec-"

"I know Miles. I know son. You have no need to be sorry. I'm sorry for leaving you."

"PATHETISCH!" Von Karma shouted and began to kick Miles in the stomach with an effort that didn't seem possible at his advanced years.

Phoenix could hear Miles grunting and crying under his breath. The sound was unbearable, the sound of shoes hitting the flesh, like someone punching a sack of meat.

"YOU SAID MILES REMEMBERED THIS PLACE!" Began Gregory, his face sweating and his eyes frantically darting from Miles to Von Karma.

Von Karma looked over his shoulder.

"I used to use this room as Miles' study room, 5 degrees Celsius at all times, freezing cold to stimulate brain activity."

Phoenix at once realised what Gregory was doing.

He was trying to figure out where they were as well as providing Miles with a break from Manfred's beatings.

"Nice place to teach your adopted son." Phoenix snorted. "I thought our common room at college was bad."

"It worked. He studied well, and nearly succeeded in becoming my successor before he fell back in with you and your betraying emotional approach to everything." he snapped at Phoenix.

Phoenix stole a glance at Miles.

He was now lying on the floor, bleeding from his left eye that was badly swollen and his mouth. He was wheezing, and whimpering quietly.

Gregory's voice remained cold and collected.

"Not good enough for your house was he?" he asked.

"Oh I wouldn't say that Gregory. After all, he ate there, slept there, always welcome, as long as he pleased me."

They were near to the house.

This would surely be where they would check first. But were they above ground? Under ground?

"How did you get it this cold?" asked Phoenix.

"Air conditioning unit." he replied carelessly as he walked back towards Miles, observing him from his full height as if he were a dying animal.

"A lot of effort to go to, to kill him eventually..." Phoenix began. "Digging some underground cellar just to hold him captive--"

"Underground. Engage your brain you pathetic slug. Wouldn't we all die of asphyxiation without the correct vents? Do you see any vents you fool?" he snapped.

"...Papa, Von Karma, never intended me to die young. Only...to live long...enough....to finally...destroy...all memory...of my father from me..." Miles weakly panted.

"Very Good." smiled Von Karma who rolled Miles onto his back with his foot and observed the battered and bruised form. "You aren't that stupid are you?" he smiled.

"I wouldn't say that...papa." Miles smiled shakily showing bloody teeth. "After all, I've taken your shit for a good...long time now, haven't I? You miserable crazy old German Bastard."

Von Karma seized Edgeworth's blood stained magenta lapels and shook him roughly.

"Are you ready for this Mr. Edgeworth? Your son's swan song is about to commence." Von Karma smiled in an almost pleasurable way as his eyes gazed over Miles' bloody features.

But Phoenix saw a flash of purple and saw Gregory, in Maya's clothes throwing Von Karma to the floor and pinning him.

Miles fell to the floor as Gregory's grey eyes flashed with fury.

There were no words to express Gregory's anger as his eyes drove into the frightened face of Manfred Von Karma.

Shaking with temper, Phoenix heard the cold, hard voice of Gregory Edgeworth hiss into Von Karma's ear.

"...I'll be seeing you...very very soon....old man..." before punching Manfred out cold and leaving him on the floor, unconscious.

"But how did you?" Phoenix began nodding to the chair and the handcuffs on the chair.

"No time to explain right now son." he began as he unclicked Phoenix's handcuffs in a relatively simple movement that made Phoenix wonder what kind of handcuffs they were that enabled the prisoner to get away so simply.

Gregory knelt beside his son and tenderly picked him up, cradling his head in his arms.

"Miles....Miles, speak to me." he began in a soft shaky voice as Phoenix fumbled with the pockets of Manfred for a mobile.

Miles opened his eye, the less swollen one, and smiled weakly at his father.

"...Dad..."

"You're going to be fine Miles. The police are coming, the ambulance is coming and you're going to be fine." he rejoiced, his voice becoming louder and more cheerful, yet shaky as he spoke.

"Ambulance, Police, Von Karma Manor. Manfred Von Karma, unconscious, one badly injured prosecutor." Phoenix quickly ordered into the phone.

"Dad...don't leave me...not again...please..."

"Hey kid, I saved you didn't I?" Gregory shakily joked.

Miles gave a weak smile and closed his eye again.

Gregory lovingly caressed his sons hair and features, as if memorizing them before looking at Phoenix who had busied himself with finding the exit.

"Its time for me to go. I can't stay here when the police come. Just keep him stable."

"But sir-" began Phoenix motioning to the chair he had escaped from and to Miles.

"You ask too many questions son." Gregory smiled weakly. "...Please look after him."

"Yes sir." Phoenix nodded firmly.

By the time the ambulance, and Detective Gumshoe with his entourage had arrived, Maya was stirring sleepily from the chair she had been sat in and wondering what had happened and why she was covered in Mr. Edgeworth's blood. Miles, on the other hand was stabilized at the scene and taken straight to hospital leaving Phoenix to explain to a very confused Gumshoe what had happened.

Somehow, explaining the Kurain technique, DL-6 and various methods of prompting used by defence attorneys to reveal the truth wasn't so easy to someone like Gumshoe.