Turnabout Storm chapters 21, 22 and 23 edited and updated · 5:46pm Apr 4th, 2018
Progress is slowing on the TAS revamp as chapters lengthen, sorry. But have an excerpt of the updated part 21 so you can get some sense of what we're doing:
“Hey! YOU!”
Phoenix froze when he heard an extremely familiar voice and accent, quickly spinning around to see who was calling him. “Huh?”
“What in tarnation do you think yer’ doin’?!” His jaw dropped yet again when he saw yet another impossibly familiar person from his own world, this one an excitable young woman with an orange afro, green jacket and a white bandana who went by the name of Lotta Hart.
“No-no-no-no-NO! NOT YOU!” Phoenix yelled, stumbling backwards and nearly falling over in shock. A loudmouth with a short temper, Lotta Hart was a tabloid photographer and wannabe photojournalist who had an incredibly annoying knack of being in the wrong place at the right time and whose pictures had been at the center of several of his cases, causing him no end of grief. Alternating between shameless gold-digging and only occasionally being helpful, Phoenix generally avoided her like the plague.
“Sorry, have we met?” Lotta asked, even more caustic than usual, putting her hands on her hips and glaring at him. “Pretty sure I’d’ve remembered seeing some sorry-flanked human defense attorney ‘fore today!”
“Huh?” His vision swam again, and just as Mia had turned into Sonata, Lotta turned into an unsmiling freckle-cheeked orange earth pony mare wearing a Stetson cowboy hat. “You got some serious horse apples showing yer face ‘round these parts, Phoenix Wright! Why’ ah oughta’ knock you upside the head for what you did in court today!” she declared while glaring at Phoenix, her accent sounding uncannily like Lotta’s.
“O-oh, you’re not—” he stammered in relief, picking himself back up off the ground. It’s weird, though… she doesn’t really look like Lotta, but she sure sounds like her! he thought, trying to come up with an apology for his overreaction.
She didn’t give him a chance. “Not forgivin’ you? Well, now, guess yer finally right ‘bout something! So tell me Mister fancy-pants-who-doesn’t-study-and-lies-through-his-teeth lawyer… where do you get off accusing sweet-and-innocent-with-a-heart-o’-gold Fluttershy like that?” she berated him in her country-twanged accent, anger flashing through her brilliant green eyes. “Anypony who’s met her even once knows she don’t have a mean bone in her body!”
Phoenix was getting nervous. He’d gotten plenty of dirty looks, but no pony had actually confronted him over Fluttershy… until now. “Accusing Fluttershy? Well, uh, I know how it looks, but you see, I had to or—”
“Ferget it,” she cut him off with a wave of her hoof. “Ah already know why y’did it!”
Phoenix was flustered. “But you just said—”
“You were just tryin’ to buy Rainbow another day, weren’t ya?” she stated with surety, making him instantly raise his initial estimation of her by several notches. “Ah ain’t no lawyer, but it was obvious enough. Hay, Ah reckon that’s the only reason the entire town didn’t wanna dump ya in the Everfree afterwards!"
Phoenix could only manage a weak nod, brushing himself off. “Well, yeah… believe me, the last thing I wanted to do was go and accuse Fluttershy, but if I hadn’t… Rainbow Dash would be awaiting sentencing and looking forward to really bad suntan right now…” he said, offering up a weak joke.
“Ah know that! But lyin’ is still lyin’!” she said, pinning Phoenix with a soul-piercing glare. “Always causes a lot more trouble than it solves!”
He swallowed hard at the look she was giving him; despite his larger size she had the build of a workhorse, one strong enough to do some serious damage to him if she wanted to. And that was to say nothing of the massive russet-colored earth pony stallion standing next to her and regarding the human lawyer with a mixture of curiosity and disdain, eying him over the haystalk in his mouth. “It’s what’s called a white lie… the ones that are for good intentions?” Phoenix offered, giving the pair a leery look.
The country mare was unimpressed. “Oh, really? Well, Ah’m pretty sure Fluttershy didn’t appreciate yer ‘white lie’, Phoenix Wright,” she snapped back, making him feel ashamed and guilty over accusing her all over again. “You really think throwin’ another pony in jail just to cover up yer own sorry-flanked per-formance is okay?”
Her anger and pointed words made Phoenix cringe anew; whoever she was, she clearly had no qualms about being brutally blunt. “Ah… look, I’m really sorry I did that to her, okay? Believe me, I didn’t want to. It wasn’t even really a lie; I just proposed the possibility of questioning Fluttershy’s alibi,” he rationalized, trying to make himself feel better more than the mare scolding him.
“Ali-bi?” The orange earth pony tried to repeat the unfamiliar word while tilting her head over, only to shake it as if to clear it. “Hey! Stop usin’ yer fancy silver-tongue lawyer speak t’ confuse me!” she ordered the human attorney, looking even more annoyed with him.
He held his hands up in placation. “Look, I know I screwed up, but I swear I’m going to make everything right tomorrow. By the way, you’re Apple Bloom’s sister, right?” Phoenix observed.
Her eyeridges shot up in surprise. “Huh? How‘d’ja know that?” she asked, tilting her head at him once more.
“Take a wild guess, pard’ner.” Phoenix mimicked her Middle Tennessee accent—-he’d heard it often enough from Lotta to be able to. Or given the similarities in places’ names here to those back on Earth, should that be ‘Tenneighsee’…?
Understanding dawned on her. “Oh, right, the accent… is it really that noticeable?” she asked with a wan grin, only to be caught short. “Hey! Are ya makin’ fun of the way Ah speak?” she asked angrily, taking another step towards him. “You think that just because Ah like my countryisms, Ah ain’t smart? Well, you listen and you listen good, Phoenix Wright! Ah can talk all fancy if ya like, but it ain’t me! As far as Ah’m concerned, mah speech ain’t broke, and it don’t need fixin’!”
As always, thanks go to AJ_Aficionado, Silentwoodfire and Denim_Blue for the preread; Denim_Blue made several notable dialogue additions to parts 22 and 23 I ended up incorporating. As Always, you are invited to check out and comment on the updated chapter, and also invited to hit the proverbial tipjar by donating to my Patreon account if you like my work and appreciate my efforts.
