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“You were meant to be watching him!” Franziska shouts, her whip cracking against his chest. “You—you foolish fool!”
Edgeworth lets out a weird strangled noise, probably one of pain. “I can't keep my eye on Gumshoe every minute of every hour, Franziska!” he exclaims. “It's literally impossible! Besides, I thought he was with you!”
“And I thought he was with you!”
He wants to argue, but he stops himself; after all, he's not the one with the whip. He sighs. “Well, no matter. We'll have to retrace our steps through this godforsaken amusement park if we want to find him.”
“If we want to, yes,” she grumbles.
Ignoring that, he glances around their surroundings. Bright lights, bright colors, bright smiles—how the hell did he let Wright convince him to come here? And where was Wright, anyway?
“Hey, there you guys are!”
Edgeworth looks to see Wright emerging like a savior from the crowd; he sighs again. Speak of the devil and he will come.
“Wright, have you seen Gumshoe?” he asks when he's stopped in front of him.
Wright blinks and says, “What? But I thought he was with you.”
Franziska yells and whips him. It's a miracle she hasn't been kicked out by security yet, really. “Then, Phoenix Wright, you shall assist us in finding that fool of a detective!” she commands.
“Okay, okay, I'll help!” Wright says, hand on his injured cheek. “Well, where was the last place you saw him?”
“I believe I last saw him at one of those obviously rigged fair games,” Edgeworth says, already bristling at the memory. “He was quite insistent about winning some stuffed monstrosity for Ms. Byrde. A horrible waste of time, in my opinion, but—”
“Franziska, what about you?” Wright asks.
“Wright, don't interrupt me—”
“Be quiet, Miles Edgeworth!” Franziska barks, cracking her whip again. She leaves him to stew in his irritation and turns back to Wright. “I left him in the haunted house.”
Edgeworth and Wright stare at her.
“You left him?” Edgeworth says in disbelief.
“In the haunted house?!” Wright adds frantically. “Oh my god, how is he supposed to survive a haunted house?!”
“D-don't be so foolish!” Franziska says defensively, the whip coming back up again. “He's a detective; he's seen worse things than some terrible special effects in claustrophobic spaces!”
“No, he hasn't,” Edgeworth says, his face paling. “We have to find him. Now.”
With a nod from Wright, the two race toward the haunted house, sprinting through crowds and knocking at least two people onto the recently rained upon ground.
“Wait! You fools!” Franziska yells as she runs after them.
“We can't!” Edgeworth calls back. “We have to go now!”
“Actually, can we wait for her?” Wright barely says, and now that Edgeworth's paying attention, he can see that Wright is struggling to breathe and might collapse at any moment. “Let's just—let's just take a short break, 'kay?”
Edgeworth groans.
They arrive at the haunted house five minutes later. Wright's still panting and lying down on the disgusting floor—which is ridiculous since they'd run less than a quarter of a mile—and Franziska's standing at the entrance to the attraction, staring down the corridor like it's an opponent.
“Wright,” Edgeworth says sternly. He's very tempted to kick him somewhere if he refuses to get up—or just because. “Get off the ground, we're going in.”
Wright wheezes. “One—one more minute, please.”
“We've been dawdling long enough! Get the hell up!”
“Oh god, fine,” Wright moans, clearly suffering, but he manages to stand up anyway.
“This is pointless,” Franziska says, scowling like usual. “There's no guarantee that foolish detective is still inside this place! We've only succeeded in wasting time and energy I could be using to ride the Cosmic Avalanche again!”
Edgeworth sighs for the third time in under ten minutes. “Please don't ride the Cosmic Avalanche again.”
Her whip smacks his legs, dropping him onto the spot on the ground Wright had been crying in. “I will ride whatever amusement park attraction I wish to ride, Miles Edgeworth!” she declares. “And if I wish to ride the Cosmic Avalanche, then I will ride the Cosmic Avalanche!”
“Fine,” Edgeworth says, standing to dust himself off. “It doesn't matter. Let's just go through the haunted house and see if Gumshoe's still there.”
“How about a bet?” Wright suddenly suggests for some reason only the gods know. “If Gumshoe's in the haunted house, I'll lose my next case.”
Edgeworth sputters. “Wright, do you want to lose your badge?!” he exclaims as Franziska says, “A dishonorable defeat by your own hand, Phoenix Wright?! Interesting…”
“But,” Wright says, grinning in a way Edgeworth dislikes immensely, “if Gumshoe's not in the haunted house, then Edgeworth will have to ride the Cosmic Avalanche with me and Franziska five times when we find him.”
“Absolutely not!” Edgeworth snaps angrily. “This is absurd—”
Franziska's whip interrupts him again. “We'll accept your bet, Phoenix Wright,” she says far too excitedly for Edgeworth's liking. “I, Franziska von Karma, vow to make Miles Edgeworth ride the Cosmic Avalanche before the night is through!”
“How is this my life,” Edgeworth mumbles to himself.
“All right!” Wright says, positively beaming. “Then let's do this!”
He marches into the haunted house, Franziska right behind him, and Edgeworth can only sigh yet again before he follows suit.
According to the teenager who mans the haunted house, she's never seen anyone complete the entire attraction so quickly. Of course, she's never seen Franziska von Karma sprint at full speed while screaming until today.
“Th—that was—oh god,” is what Franziska says when she's out, sitting on a nearby bench and shaking with her face in her hands. Wright sits next to her, patting her comfortingly on the back and saying, “There, there, it's okay, we're here.”
“That was a disaster,” Edgeworth says bitterly, glaring at the accursed haunted house. “Even if we were only in there for fewer than two minutes, Gumshoe was nowhere to be seen.” And now I have to ride the Cosmic Avalanche five times, he adds to himself. He feels his eye twitch just thinking about it.
“I will never let you talk me into going in that foolish place ever again, Phoenix Wright,” he hears Franziska mutter behind her hands. “Never.”
“Er, trust me, I won't even think about it,” Wright says.
Edgeworth looks at them, and after a moment he moves to sit at Franziska's other side, slumping onto the seat with his hands in the pockets of his overcoat. And there they sit in silence as the noises of the amusement park surround them.
“Well, now what?” Wright eventually says. He's stopped patting Franziska, but his hand's still on her back. She'll probably whip him later for that. “Should we keep looking for Gumshoe? There's the possibility that he's already left.”
“You and your possibilities, Wright,” Edgeworth says with exasperated fondness. “But, yes, it's true. He could already be back in that box he calls an apartment.”
Wright suddenly seems concerned. “Gumshoe lives in a box?”
“No, he—never mind.”
“Well, then can't we call him or something?” he asks after a pause. “I mean, he has a phone, right?”
“He does, but he'd mentioned before we arrived here that it had died and he hadn't had the chance to charge it,” Edgeworth says, shaking his head. “Typical.”
“Oh. Then… I don't know. I guess we could just wait for him to turn up or something.”
“I suppose so,” Edgeworth says, and the conversation drops off there.
They wait for a while on that bench, but when the minutes pass and no sign of Gumshoe appears, Edgeworth finally stands and turns to the other two. “It's clear that he's no longer at this park, Wright,” he says. “And I think it's about time we leave ourselves.”
Wright nods. He helps Franziska up, even though she slaps his hand away, and they begin to make their way to the exit and out of this veritable nightmare. Edgeworth is pretty sure he's had enough of amusement parks to last into his next fifteen lives.
“Look, Edgeworth, about that bet earlier…,” Wright says as they walk. “I'm not going to make you ride the Cosmic Avalanche five times. I mean, I really would've liked to see you scream for your life and whatnot, but with Franziska like this… I kinda feel like it's worthless, you know?”
“I didn't think you were actually serious about that bet in the first place,” Edgeworth says, lying; he'd been very prepared for the eventuality that he might die on the third or fourth time around, and he'd just been assembling a list of people he would want invited to his funeral. Wright was a 'maybe'. “Still, I appreciate your pseudo-apology. It was somewhat touching.”
Franziska abruptly stops. Edgeworth and Wright have to, too, or they'll run into her. They exchange glances of concern.
“Franziska, is everything all right?” Edgeworth asks.
“It's not worthless,” Franziska says.
Wright goes all, “Huh?”
“Franziska,” Edgeworth says. “What exactly are you talking about?”
She suddenly faces them, her usual glare betraying a strangely fiery determination in her eyes. “It's not worthless, Phoenix Wright!” she shouts, her whip cracking for emphasis. “Yes, I may have felt fear while running through that foolish haunted house! And yes, I may have whipped an animatronic ghost until it broke and caught fire!”
“For which we will undoubtedly be sued,” Edgeworth adds unhelpfully.
“That is true, Miles Edgeworth! However!” she exclaims, whip going at it again. “I vowed to force my foolish little brother to ride the Cosmic Avalanche no fewer than five times! And upon my family's name, that is a vow I shall not break!” She thrusts a hand out. “Miles Edgeworth! Give me your phone! We're going to find Scruffy, even if it takes us all night!”
Wright cheers and applauds. “Yeah!” he says. “Edgeworth, give her your phone!”
Edgeworth, utterly baffled, makes a few noises of protest. “What—but what is the point? His phone is dead; we aren't going to be able to reach him!”
“Fool!” Franziska yells. “If he truly is back in his box, then he should have access to a charger!”
“So if he answers, then we'll know that he actually did leave the amusement park!” Wright finishes for her. He nods, grinning. “Makes sense to me!”
“Your phone, Miles Edgeworth!” Franziska demands, and Edgeworth sighs—for the fifth time, for those of you keeping track—and hands his rose gold phone over. Franziska grimaces at the color and then at the lock screen (the Steel Samurai and the Pink Princess, of course) before entering his passcode and finding Gumshoe in his contacts.
And then they wait. She listens to the dial tone very intensely. The other two watch her. Edgeworth is quite certain that Wright's stopped breathing from the tension.
“No answer,” she finally says.
Wright gasps; Edgeworth had been right, apparently. “A-are you sure?!”
“Of course I'm sure, you fool!” Franziska says, clearly offended. “A von Karma is always sure!”
“Then we've confirmed that Gumshoe is still here,” Edgeworth concludes as she hands his phone back. He glances around at the mess and noise. “We'll have to split up to find him in this wretched hellhole.”
“We can meet back at the haunted house in ten minutes,” Wright says.
Franziska's face grows pale. “Could we meet somewhere else, perhaps?”
“We'll regroup at the bench,” Edgeworth says impatiently; they're wasting precious time and he'd like to get the Cosmic Avalanche over with as quickly as possible. “Don't get lost, Wright.”
“What?! What do you mean by that—”
“Ten minutes! No more, no less!” Franziska shouts, and she turns briskly on her heel and marches straight into the crowd.
Wright looks at him. “Seriously, Edgeworth, what did you mean by that—”
“Ten minutes, Wright!” Edgeworth says, striding in the opposite direction.
Wright groans. “Fine,” he mutters. “I guess I'll go that way, then.”
They don't even last four.
Edgeworth, in spite of his own warning, quickly finds himself lost in this cacophonous maze, doubling back through aisles he's certain he's covered before and hasn't he passed by that pumpkin three times already? Either way, it's obvious he's trapped in a prison made specifically for him; there are too many people shoving into him, there's too much noise invading his head, he'd nearly tripped over the same child twice and he thinks he'll throw up if he smells fried food again.
“I'm going to die here,” he says a bit too loudly. He ignores the judgmental looks people throw his way and glances around. About a minute ago he'd thought he saw Wright's ludicrous hair somewhere in the crowd by the Cosmic Avalanche—my coffin, he thinks darkly—but since then he's seen neither spikes nor teal hair among the heads surrounding him. “I'm going to die here—alone,” he says, correcting himself, and he decides to somehow find the bench and mope there until the ten minutes is up.
The sound of a whip cracking in the distance stops him. It can only be Franziska, he thinks eagerly; he turns to see where that telltale sound can be coming from. Then there's another crack and then another, each successively louder than the last, and he wonders what the hell she's doing until he sees Wright zoom past him.
“What,” Edgeworth says, “is happening.”
“PHOENIX WRIGHT!” Franziska's screaming when she, too, passes, chasing after Wright and repeatedly smacking her whip at him. “YOU'VE LED US INTO A DEATH TRAP!”
“Wright, Franziska--!” Edgeworth calls out, and then he notices the small gaggle of security personnel running after her.
“Drop your whip and surrender!” the apparent leader shouts through a megaphone.
“Franziska!” Edgeworth exclaims. He joins their strange procession, running to catch up to his sister, and he keeps running until Wright inevitably tires and collapses on a hay bale.
“I can't believe we got kicked out of an amusement park,” Wright says rather dejectedly. They're standing by the exit on the side opposite all the rides and food and “fun”; the most interesting thing here is the wet parking lot, which looks slick in the artificial light.
“I can,” Edgeworth says. “Franziska, what were you thinking chasing someone with a whip?!”
Franziska shrugs and says, “You make it sound as though it's unusual, Miles Edgeworth.”
“Well,” he starts, and then he thinks. She does have a point there. “Well, regardless, we're still banned from entering the park because of your actions. It's going to be even more difficult to find Gumshoe if we aren't allowed inside.”
Franziska seems to consider this, and then she holds out her hand. “Phone, Miles Edgeworth.”
“You're going to try calling him again?” Wright asks.
“I don't see why you have to use my phone to do it,” Edgeworth says, but he gives it to her nevertheless.
One phone call attempt later, Franziska practically throws the thing back at him; it hits his cravat and he nearly drops it. “That fool won't answer,” she says, crossing her arms and leaning against the fence. “He's still inside.”
Wright lets out a sigh of his own and checks the time on his ancient brick of a phone. “It's almost midnight,” he states. “The park's gonna close soon. I guess we just have to wait for everyone to leave, and then we can sneak back in and try to find him.”
“Or,” Edgeworth says, almost rolling his eyes, “we can simply wait for him to exit, and we can meet him then.”
“Oh, right,” he says after thinking about it much longer than he should've had to. “That makes more sense.” He grins when he sees Edgeworth's smoldering glare. “What? I'm tired. I was chased by a woman wielding a whip, remember?” He laughs a little and mumbles, “Well, at least that whip's gone.”
“Don't act like you've seen the last of my whip, Phoenix Wright,” Franziska says, and now both siblings are glaring at him. “You will feel its bite again—once it's released by amusement park security, of course.”
“Yay, can't wait,” Wright says flatly.
A not entirely uncomfortable silence falls among them, but something has been bothering Edgeworth for a while. “How did you know my passcode, by the way?” he asks Franziska, who smirks at him.
“I didn't,” she says.
He gawks at her. “Are you telling me that you guessed my eighteen character-long passcode?”
“It wasn't very difficult, Miles Edgeworth,” she says almost flippantly, waving a dismissive hand. “Anyone could guess it.”
“That is absolutely not true,” he snaps.
Wright looks way too interested in this. “What's his passcode, Franziska? Come on, you can tell me!”
“No she can't!” Edgeworth turns his glare on her. “No you can't! Don't you dare—”
“'I heart Phoenix Wright',” Franziska says, her smirk widening. “No spaces.”
“That's nineteen characters!”
“'I love Phoenix Wright', then.”
Edgeworth refuses to admit that his face is burning. “That's not my passcode and you know it!”
“Aww, Edgeworth,” Wright says. He's smiling in that way Edgeworth hates again. “I always knew that you cared about me.”
“I don't care about you, Wright!”
Wright raises a skeptical eyebrow. Still smiling. Jesus Christ. “I don't need my Magatama to tell me you're lying, Edgeworth,” he says.
Edgeworth makes another strangled noise and gives up. “You know what? Fine. I don't care,” he says, and as if to make his point, he sits down on the bare ground.
Franziska looks at Wright. “It's actually 'Steel Samurai lover 4'.”
Edgeworth buries his face in his hands and screams.
A steady stream of people begins to flow out of the exit, and a quick check on Wright's stone age phone confirms that closing time is rapidly approaching. Edgeworth stands, regrets sitting on wet pavement, and hides his previous humiliation with his usual glower. He notices that the hand Franziska normally holds her whip in is balled into a tight fist; she'll probably resort to punching the good detective when she sees him.
Wright voices their silent concern as they watch the stream steadily become lighter. “What if he's, you know, not here?” he says.
“What a foolish thought,” Franziska says, sounding less venomous than she typically does. Maybe her whip is the source of her energy?
“If it turns out to be the case, though,” Edgeworth says, “then we'll have to leave. I don't think security—or I—would appreciate it if we stayed in this parking lot after closing.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” Wright says.
The final person walks out soon after that, and a moment later the gate shuts and locks. Wright's looking around at the people remaining in the parking lot, making sure that they hadn't missed any sign that Gumshoe had been there; but Edgeworth knows that they hadn't, and a glance at Franziska tells him that she's come to the same conclusion.
“We tried our best, Wright,” he says. “I'm certain he'll turn up in the morning. He is an adult, after all.”
Wright nods at him, and then the three of them start making their way out of the parking lot.
“You know,” Wright says, his hands in his pockets, “I actually had fun today. I mean, even though I nearly died like three times.”
“You're welcome, Phoenix Wright,” Franziska says, but she doesn't elaborate on whether she's talking about the fact that he'd had fun or had nearly died. “I will admit that I had an enjoyable time as well, though I am disappointed that my foolish little brother never had the opportunity to ride the Cosmic Avalanche five times.”
“Yes, thank god,” Edgeworth mutters; he's cheated Death for yet another day. Then he sees Wright looking at him rather expectantly. “What? What do you want?”
“Did you have fun today, Edgeworth?” Wright asks, and Edgeworth almost groans: he should've expected this.
“No,” he replies bluntly. “No, I did not.”
Wright seems to study his face. Edgeworth feels… exposed. “Maybe it would've been better if you did ride the Cosmic Avalanche,” is apparently Wright's deduction.
“I agree,” Franziska declares. She probably would've struck her whip here. “Miles Edgeworth, once we're unbanned from this amusement park, you will ride the Cosmic Avalanche and you—will—like it!”
“We did make a bet, Edgeworth,” Wright says with a grin when he starts to protest. “And you lost.”
Edgeworth's lips twitch. “Ah,” he says, “but I haven't lost. I recall you saying that I will have to ride the Cosmic Avalanche in the event that we find Gumshoe. And—surprise, surprise—we haven't.” He smirks as realization dawns on Wright and Franziska's faces. “So you see, I actually don't have to ride the Cosmic Avalanche five times. The person who really lost… was you.”
Wright blinks. “We're not in court right now, you know.”
“This is a matter of life and death, Wright!” Edgeworth shouts. “Life and death!”
And then he hears his death knell—the gate, only so far in the distance, creaking open, and a loud, booming, and very familiar exclamation of, “Hey—Mr. Edgeworth, sir!”
Wright and Franziska stop in their tracks. Slowly they turn to smile triumphantly at each other.
No, Edgeworth thinks desperately, but Wright's already waving the detective down and calling, “Hey, Gumshoe! Glad we found you!”
Edgeworth sucks in a breath and faces him. Gumshoe, when he stops in front of them, appears happy and completely intact, his coat no more and no less ratty than usual; in his arms, however, is an unnecessarily large stuffed animal of indeterminate species.
“I was wonderin' where you guys were,” Gumshoe's saying, shifting to hold the massive thing more comfortably. “I thought you'd already gone home or something.”
“You fool!” Franziska shouts, her fists visibly tightening. “We were searching for you! All through that disgusting place! Even in that—that—that foolish haunted house!”
Gumshoe blinks at her, looking quite touched. “You were searching for me, Ms. von Karma?”
“Yeah, probably for the better part of an hour,” Wright says. “We even got kicked out and everything.”
Searching for someone and getting kicked out of an amusement park are usually two completely unrelated things, but Gumshoe doesn't seem to be bothered by that. “Well—gee, pal,” Gumshoe says, grinning bashfully. “That's… that's nice of you guys.”
Heartwarming reunion done, Edgeworth clears his throat and decides to get to the most important matter in front of them. “Detective, what exactly is that thing?” he asks, gesturing at the… elephant? The toy he's holding.
“Oh, yeah, this,” Gumshoe says, his grin practically splitting his face in half. “I spent almost all night trying to win this hedgehog”—“That's a hedgehog?” Edgeworth hears Wright whisper to Franziska, who shrugs—“for Maggey. She's a fan of hedgehogs, thinks they're cute. I dunno why she does, but I knew I had to win it for her when I saw it—and I finally did, and right before closing time, too!”
Something clicks in Edgeworth's head. “Wait,” he says seriously. “Is that the same toy you were trying to win when I was with you two hours ago?”
Gumshoe chuckles. “Yep, the one and only!”
Edgeworth scowls at him. “So when we were running around, tripping over children, and circling around that damn pumpkin—you're telling me that you were at that same pointless game the entire time?!”
“Well, yeah,” Gumshoe says, honest in a truly ballsy way. “Basically.”
“Scruffy,” Franziska says darkly. “If you value that hedgehog, you will give back the precious moments wasted in our foolish search for you!”
“Uh, guys,” Wright hastily cuts in before Gumshoe can become Glumshoe, “how about we all just calm down and plan our next trip to the amusement park instead of threatening the good detective's life?”
“What 'next trip to the amusement park'?” Edgeworth scoffs.
Franziska hums in thought; somehow she makes it sound terrifying. “I must agree with Phoenix Wright,” she says. “Miles Edgeworth is going to ride the Cosmic Avalanche five times; we need to plan accordingly.”
“No, we don't.”
“What?!” Gumshoe shouts. “Mr. Edgeworth's gonna ride the Cosmic Avalanche five times?!”
“No, I'm not!”
“Oh yes, he is,” Wright says, apparently making it his mission to see Edgeworth suffer. “We made a bet that he'd have to ride the Cosmic Avalanche five times after we found you.”
“I—I never agreed to it!” Edgeworth yells, but no one's paying any attention.
“Mr. Edgeworth's gonna ride the Cosmic Avalanche five times,” Gumshoe repeats in awe. “That's so brave of you, sir! Just one go on that thing made me throw up!”
“I truly believed I would die after I'd ridden it two consecutive times,” Franziska says, nodding.
“And I was pretty sure I actually was dead,” Wright adds.
The three of them sigh at the fond memories.
Edgeworth stares at them. “There's something terribly wrong with you people,” he says.
“And now it's your turn, Edgeworth!” Wright says with a laugh, slinging an arm around his shoulders. Edgeworth starts moving to slide out of his grip, but seeing Wright's grin, directed at him, makes him pause. He's too exhausted to bring himself to hate or be angry at him; something about that smile, seeing how bright and wide it is for him, has him reconsider.
He looks at Gumshoe. The detective seems content, the way he holds Maggey's prize tender and caring; it had been a labor of love, getting that hedgehog thing, and all for the mere possibility that the person it's intended for would enjoy it.
And Franziska… Edgeworth doesn't think he's ever seen her smile so genuinely. It's still a guarded smile, as if it's a closely kept secret, but it's the first that's been so open.
Well, they're officially unbanned from the amusement park in a week, he thinks. More than likely they're going to drag him out here, rain or shine, and shove him onto that stupid ride then.
But maybe, just maybe, he'll go along with it. Perhaps he'll even look forward to it.
If only to see these idiots and his sister happy, he will.