Pearl Saves the Future

It was late at night, and Phoenix and Maya were alone on the couch in his apartment.

Phoenix thought they wouldn't have their usual Friday Night Movie this week after the whole business with Dahlia, but Maya insisted that she needed it, so they had to rush out and get a movie at the last minute.

Maya snuggled up close to Phoenix under the blanket and rested her head on his shoulder.

"Maya..." Phoenix said, feeling a little awkward at how close she was. "You know, if Pearl ever saw us like this, she'd never let it go."

"I don't care," Maya said sleepily, closing her eyes and hugging his side. "After all that happened this week, I just want to relax with my movie and my Nick..."

My Nick? Phoenix wondered. When did I become one of her possessions?

But he patted Maya on the head nonetheless. She had had a hard week, after all. They all had.

The nice moment was spoiled when someone knocked on the door rather insistently.

"I'll get that!" Phoenix said, getting up and pausing the movie.

"Aw..." Maya said.

Phoenix went to the door and opened to see who was knocking. It was a girl with brown hair and a top knot. She looked like a college student.

"Ema?" Phoenix asked.

But even as he said it, he knew that wasn't Ema Skye. She was wearing different clothing. Her clothes were more similar to Maya's than Ema's.

"Mr. Nick!" the girl said. "Are you still a lawyer?"

Phoenix was taken aback at that question. "Um...yes. Do you need legal help?"

"Thank God!" the girl said, hugging him. "I'm not too late! I'm not too late!"

"Who is it?" Maya called from the couch. "Is it Edgeworth?"

"No," Phoenix called back to Maya. Then he turned to the strange girl. "Who are you?"

"Don't you recognize me?" the girl asked. "Well...I suppose you wouldn't. I'm Pearl, Pearl Fey. I came here from the future."

"The future?"

"The future is horrible!" Pearl cried. "Nick, you get disbarred and become a hobo! And worst of all, you never talk to me or Maya ever again!"

"What?"

"I know! It's been eight years since I last saw you! I heard that you run an illegal poker gambling operation while posing as a piano player! And your daughter puts on public performances, doing tricks with her panties! It's—"

"Listen, I don't know who you are or why you're doing this," Phoenix said. "But you're ruining my night off with my legal assistant. Please leave now."

Pearl's eyes lit up. "You and Mystic Maya are spending the night together? I knew it! Even when I was a little girl, I knew it!"

"Out!" Phoenix demanded, shoving the obviously crazy-or-drunk girl out of his apartment.

Phoenix went back to the couch and sat down next to Maya.

"Who was it?" Maya asked.

"Some crazy person pretending to be Pearl from the future."

"Really? That's..."

"Weird, I know. Maybe Larry's trying to play a joke on us. Want to get back to the movie?"

"Sure."

Phoenix forgot about the crazy girl until the next day, when he left the apartment with Maya. The girl was still there, as if she hadn't left the hallway all night.

"Mr. Nick! Mystic Maya!" Pearl cried. "Wow, you look so young!"

"Thanks!" Maya said. "Who are you?"

"I'm Pearl from the future! I'm here to warn you about—"

"Please leave us alone," Phoenix said.

"I'm telling the truth! You have to believe me!" Pearl begged. "Look, I know it sounds crazy, but I can prove it! I have evidence! Take that!"

Pearl took an old newspaper out of a small bag she had with her. The date on the newspaper was still a few months away.

"So you faked the date on a newspaper," Phoenix said dismissively. "Big deal."

"Nick...look at the headline," Maya said.

..

Prominent Lawyer Disbarred for Falsifying Evidence

Ace Attorney Phoenix Wright had his lawyer's badge taken away yesterday when it was proven that he was using false evidence in an attempt to gain victory for his client at any cost. An anonymous source tipped off the prosecution that Wright could be using illegal tactics to support his cause, and because of this, they were able to catch him in the act.

"I always had my suspicions about Phoenix Wright," said Prosecutor Franziska von Karma in a statement to the press. "The man is a foolish fool, and I found it highly unlikely that he could win a single case. Now that it has been revealed he uses illegal evidence, the reasons for his winning streak have become clear."

Phoenix's friends, however, insist that he is still innocent. "I'll never believe Nick would break the law," said Maya Fey, the legal assistant at Wright & Co. Law Offices. "Never never never. As soon as he comes back from wherever he is, we're going to prove that he's innocent."

..

"We never saw him again after that," Pearl said, sadly. "That's why I came here from the future! I have to stop this from happening!"

"Okay," Phoenix said. "So you have a newspaper. This doesn't prove you're from the future. This could still be all a trick!"

"I've got more proof!" Pearl said. "Look!"

She reached into the bag again and pulled out a Magatama.

"This is your Magatama," Pearl said. "The one Mystic Maya gave you. You left it behind when you disappeared from our lives. You'd never give it up unless you stopped being a lawyer, right? That proves you did get disbarred!"

"Well...I...it looks just like any other Magatama!" Phoenix said. "Maya, what do you think?"

"I'm sorry," Maya said. "This is just too hard to believe. Nick wouldn't break the law and abandon his friends."

"I'm not giving up," Pearl promised. "I'll go back and get all the stuff I left in my room. The only other thing I have with me here now is...well, it's not evidence, but when Mystic Maya heard I was going to the past, she insisted that I give this to her younger self."

It was the Steel Samurai Seasons Eight Through Twelve DVD Box Set.

"But they haven't even finished making Season Six yet!" Maya cried. "Nick, this proves it! She is from the future!"

"What?" Phoenix asked.

"Pearl! You're all grown up!" Maya said, hugging her cousin. "And you've got a fabulous new hairdo! That top knot looks great on you!"

"You like it? I wanted it to look like the one you used to have," Pearl said.

"It's great! Why did I change my hairdo?"

"Once you became the Master of Kurain, you decided—"

"Excuse me!" Phoenix interrupted. "When did we decide that this girl is Pearl from the future and not just some crazy person?"

"There's no way she could have these things unless she's from the future," Maya said. "I say we trust her."

"What if these things are as fake as the evidence she's accusing me of presenting?" Phoenix asked. "This could still be some kind of trick."

"Ask her something only Pearl would know," Maya suggested.

"Like what?" Phoenix said.

"I know!" Pearl said. "You and I have a secret! When you first came to Kurain, you found out that I broke Mystic Ami's vase with a rubber ball and tried to fix it with glue. I never told anyone about that."

"You did what?" Maya asked. "Pearl!"

Phoenix scratched his head. He never told anybody about that either. Well, he may have alluded to it in court during Ron DeLite's trial, but...

"Okay, fine. Let's hear her out," he said.

Many hours (and a few phone calls to the real Pearl) later, Phoenix was convinced. This woman was either Pearl from the future, or a very talented con artist with a weird agenda.

"So how do I avoid becoming a piano bum?" Phoenix asked.

"Don't take the Zak Gramarye case," Pearl said. "Kristoph Gavin gets mad when you get the case instead of him, which is why he framed you."

"Okay, I promise I won't have anything to do with Zak Gramarye or Kristoph Gavin. What else?"

"Actually, we should probably tell the police about Gavin's plot to kill the Mishams, too..." Pearl said, tapping her bottom lip with her finger.

"But is that everything?"

Maya screamed.

"What is it?" Phoenix asked, alarmed.

"Look!" Maya said, pointing at the newspaper article Pearl had brought. "It changed! Just like in that movie we saw!"

..

Prominent Lawyer Disbarred for Falsified Evidence

Attorney Kristoph Gavin had his lawyer's badge taken away yesterday when it was proven that he was using false evidence in an attempt to gain victory for his client at any cost. An anonymous source tipped off the prosecution that Gavin could be using illegal tactics to support his cause, and because of this, they were able to catch him in the act.

The source further implicated Gavin in the attempted murder of artist Vera Misham, who provided Gavin with the false evidence, not knowing he intended to use it in court. Police reports confirmed that poison was found in the Mishams' apartment and it was safely removed. Police reports also suggest the investigation and subsequent trial could be completed within a month.

Meanwhile, the High Prosecutor's Office has yet to confirm a date for the re-trial of Zak Gramayre.

..

"YES!" Pearl cried. "I did it! I saved the future!"

Pearl stayed with Phoenix and Maya after these events. She was a big help around the office because she was a third-year law student, and one day they went to Kurain where she became great friends with her younger self.

After a week, however, Phoenix felt he had to ask Pearl why she didn't return to her own timeline.

"I can't," Pearl said. "I changed the future, so that means I can't go back to the future I came from. Right?"

"I don't know how time travel works," Phoenix said.

"I do!" Maya said. "That was the premise of Steel Samurai Season Four, when Mirai Trunks came to warn about the upcoming zombie skeleton attack!"

"I don't think the Steel Samurai is going to help us here," Phoenix said.

Maya looked disappointed.

"Well, the newspaper from the future changed," Pearl said. "My laptop changed, too—it's got a bunch of files I didn't have before. I'm pretty sure that if I went ten years in the future, I'd go back to the new future of this time, not the time I came from."

"Well, if the future changed, what are you going to do now?" Phoenix asked.

"I was actually thinking of staying here, if that's okay. Maybe I could take the bar exam and get a job here at the office."

"That'd be perfect!" Maya said.

Phoenix agreed, and he immediately offered Pearl a job. At that time, he didn't realize that having two Pearls around would be hazardous to his love life, but that's another story.