Title: The Wright Thing To Do
Pairing: None, references to Maya/Nick, Edgeworth/Nick
Rating: PG-ish
Summary: What exactly was it that caused Phoenix Wright to go on such a long hiatus? A case in a little known place called LazyTown helps convince him that everyone else is crazy.
Spoilers: Probably AA/JFA. Although this is set after GS3 chronologically, I haven’t played the game, so it will probably be a bit AU for those of you who have.

Part One - Part Two - Part Three

Phoenix gulped audibly as he stared at the airship floating peacefully above LazyTown. It seemed to be staying in place despite the lack of an anchor or tether, making him wonder if it had some kind of sophisticated auto-pilot.

“Ladder,” he ordered, but nothing happened.

“Ladder!” he said more firmly, this time directing his voice towards the airship.

“Ladder!” he shouted at the top of his lungs, only to be answered by an explosive pain in his nose. When the pain had dulled enough that his vision cleared, he could see that the ladder had indeed come down.

I’m supposed to climb 100 meters of this? He shook the rope and rung ladder experimentally, and watched as the whole thing swung in an elegant wave.

He grabbed a run just over his head and tentatively stepped onto the bottom. He hung, swallowing nervously until he worked up the courage to up another two feet. The ladder did not suddenly buck or twitch or otherwise try to throw him to the ground, so he slowly continued the ascent.

Contrary to his original belief, the airship wasn’t entirely stationary above the quiet town. It was being carried on the breeze that go stronger as he climbed higher. The ladder, in turn, was undulating in a gentle yet nauseating way.

Despite the churning of his stomach, Phoenix’s climb was relatively uneventful until he took a break midway up. In a move that he would later pinpoint as the direct catalyst of the resulting disaster, he glanced down at the tiny buildings and people scurrying below.

–

“And that’s how you ended up in LazyTown?” Maya asked.

“Yes,” Sportacus confirmed.

“Do you plan on going to any other town, are were you thinking of staying here?”

“I-” the above-average hero glanced down at his chest as his emblem began squawking at him.

“It looks like Stephanie will be busy today,” the Mayor remarked, “and I’m not even doing any handy-work with my power tools today.”

–

The little people on the ground were congregating around the bottom of the ladder as Phoenix let out another startled yelp. He thought he could recognize the small pink figure of Stephanie and the yellow body of the young kleptomaniac. The two, and four others, seemed to be having a conference and if he could convince himself to let up his death grip, he could have gotten a better look.

Just as he was about to move his left leg from where he had tangled it in the rope in his terror, her heard the word “catch!” called from below. He looked down just in time to receive a face full of something fist-sized and hard. Gravity took it before he could examine it.

“What are you doing?” he yelled down, but some sort of yellow boomerang came at his head. He jerked away and as it passed through the empty space between the rungs, he identified the UFO as a banana.

Fruit? Why the f- “Ow!” Another apple had collided with the side of his head. He was going to yell down for them to stop flinging produce at him but they appeared to be holding another conference.

As he watched with a growing sense of dread, four of the little figures ran off and came back with a large disk of some sort. Unfortunately, he was so busy watching the disk that he didn’t notice what the other two were doing until the ladder jerked heavily. It swung back with greater force and he realized what the kids were attempting to do.

–

“Where does Mr. Rotten live?” Maya asked over the screeching of Sportacus’s emblem.

“No one really knows,” Sportacus said. “We think his house is by the big billboard at the edge of town, but no one has ever seen it.”

“That won’t make it easy to search for clues there.”

–

Another scream escaped Phoenix’s lips as the ladder swung violently. Luckily his limbs were so stiff with fear that he was incapable of letting go even if he wanted to.

Below him, the kids ran back and forth with their trampoline, trying to judge the trajectory of his fall. Looking down while swinging gave him a horrible case of vertigo and he felt his grip slip as he swallowed a mouthful of bile. The world was whirling viciously and just then there was a particularly nasty lurch of the ladder.

Just before he came crashing onto the trampoline he heard a familiar little voice squeal, “It’s Mine!”

–

“Mr. Nick?” The blurry figure of Pearl filled his vision as he slowly opened his eyes. He was flat on his back on a small grassy patch in the center of LazyTown.

“Oh good, for a minute there I thought I’d be channeling you,” Maya said off to the side.

“Ow…” was all he could get out as every nerve in his body seemed to scream in pain.

“Anyway, I learned where Mr. Rotten’s home is,” Maya announced.

“You did?” Phoenix croaked out. Hopefully Robbie lived someplace safe, like a bubble wrap lined room completely devoid of ladders, stairs or anything else he could fall off of.

“It’s somewhere near the big billboard.”

“That’s… it?” Phoenix asked. That’s real helpful. But at least looking for Robbie’s house would probably not involve testing the laws of gravity. “Let’s go there next. I think the airship can wait.” Now where’s that little klepto. I’d like to give him a piece of my mind, and a good kick in the pants.

“Oh, I learned something too!” Pearl said suddenly.

She seemed very proud of herself, so he decided to humor her. “Okay, what did you learn?”

The next thing he knew, he was staring at her Pink Princess underpants as she performed a very wobbly headstand. “Stephanie taught me!”

“That’s…great,” he tried not to sound distressed as he stared at his shoes, Maya’s hair, the sky, anything but the Pink Princess. “Maybe you should stop doing that, you don’t want all the blood to stay in you head.”

“Pearly, maybe you should ask Stephanie if you could borrow one of her outfits if you’re going to do that.” Just as Phoenix was going to congratulate Maya on being a voice of reason for once, she added, “You don’t want to mess up your channeling costume.”

With a groan, he managed to drag himself to his feet. “Let’s just go. Please.”