Allow me to present to you this day, the first three chapters of my beloved Phoenix Wright (逆転裁判) fanfiction, A Tattered Butterfly, originally created to serve the Teagueful meme but evolved into something all my own.
Rating: R17
Contains: Violence/Abuse, Blood, Rape/Implied Rape, Sexual References, Use of Alcohol, Language
As a forenote, you will notice while reading this and many of my other stories that before each section, a character's name will appear centred, with a "~" on either side. This is an indicator of who is narrating the following section, something made necessary by my unique style of changing perspectives within chapters. Please keep this in mind, and enjoy the story.
A Tattered Butterfly
Chapter I
~Phoenix Wright~
I awoke to the sound of dozens of voices. They belonged to people who were hurt, terrified, people who felt alone even among so many others. It hurt just to listen to them, and I gritted my teeth against the horror. They were moaning, all of them, many of them sobbing, some of them chattering illegibly in their panic.
They didn’t know what was going to happen to them. Only that they had once been free, and now… Now they were bound by heavy chains, trapped underground in a long-abandoned warehouse that stunk of rust and decay. All around them, cold, dark grey walls towered like monoliths, the unfeeling guards that kept them trapped in this wretched prison.
They didn’t know what was going to happen to them… But I did.
They were going to be sold illegally as slaves. They were all young, healthy, attractive men and women, of all varieties of race, nationality, and status. Most of them were still only eighteen or nineteen, and the oldest couldn’t have been more than perhaps twenty-five, barely older than myself.
Los Angeles was a perfect harvesting ground for the bastards behind all this, with its wide selection of actors and models, and, more importantly, the easily lured young hopefuls still trying to get into the business. They were just young people whose dreams would never come true, people who had been kidnapped and taken away from their families, all to satisfy greed and sick desire.
Slowly, I lifted my heavy wrists and examined the thick steel chains that bound me to the other captives. Anger began to surface inside me, and a fire sparked in my soul. I’d get through this, somehow. I had already firmly decided that I wouldn’t let them break my spirit, no matter what happened.
I imagined it would only be a few weeks, anyway. Either I’d get out on my own, or my friends would come looking for me and these guys would be busted. No matter what happened, the slave traders weren’t going to get away with what they were doing, and these captives would not have their lives thrown away.
I lifted my head and forced myself to smile hopefully in my new resolve.
Just then, deep male voices rang out and the line of chained slaves began to move forward. We were loading up.
Chapter II
~Phoenix Wright~
I had been captured because of my investigation. A client had come to me, asking to be defended against multiple charges of kidnapping, with the possibility of murder.
While normally I stick with murder cases, in this instance I decided to make an exception. It was a strange case, because none of the victims had been related in any way, and most of them had been taken from places very distant from one another.
In the end, when I’d put the pieces of the puzzle together, I couldn’t believe what I’d come up with. The victims were being taken by a ring of modern-day slave traders who were selling the captives off, most to a few select foreign countries in which slavery was still legal, some actually within America and other free countries.
Before I could take measures to protect myself until I brought the case to court, I had been attacked in my own home in the dead of night by a large man who had ultimately pinned me down on the floor and chloroformed me.
Instead of killing me, it seemed they had decided to make me a bit more valuable. Apparently I somehow met the high standards they’d set for their sexual slaves. Gee, what an honour.
They’d taken my badge, and almost everything else I had been wearing with it, choosing to replace it while I had been unconscious with strange, black, tight-fitting clothes that felt stiff and uncomfortable against my skin. I found myself unconsciously scratching at it again and again, and wondered how much longer I could stand this disgusting attire.
Of course, that was far from my first concern.
As I considered my laundry list of problems, the ship constantly rocked slowly to and fro, lurching occasionally on the waves. The stench of seawater and rotting wood was unbearably strong, and my stomach knotted and fluttered uncomfortably, and I had to resist the overwhelming urge to vomit.
Sitting on the floor of the boat, my rear was stung and poked by wood splinters and half-secure nails sticking up from the boards. I shifted uncomfortably, only to be scraped by another nail, and I yelped loudly. No one turned to look.
I could still hear the other captives as they moaned and cried and muttered rapidly in fear and anguish. But now, their voices were joined by those of angry, sadistic guards, who roared threats and demanded silence from the terrified slaves.
The men were big and brawny, all of them armed with vicious leather whips that could easily tear through clothes and skin if cast forcefully enough. The whips cracked loudly in the air above the captives’ heads, evoking startled shrieks and screams rather than bringing silence.
“Shut up!” One of the men roared, his voice louder even than the screams.
I closed my eyes tightly and bowed my head, unable to do a thing to stop the insanity all around me. As I listened to all the horrible sounds as cracking whips and screaming humans combined, I gritted my teeth and grabbed the back of my head, my face between my elbows, grasping fistfuls of hair just to keep from crying out myself.
The whip cracked somewhere near my body, the splitting sound loud enough to hurt my ears even while they were covered by my forearms. Startled, I released my hair and uncurled from my half-ball, lifting my head quickly.
The attack apparently hadn’t been aimed at me personally, as the guard said nothing and didn’t even look in my general direction. He had just been lashing at random to try and shut up the slaves.
I sighed and shifted once more, my rear again scraped by the nails and splinters of the rough wooden floor. I wasn’t worried about myself… I was worried about the other captives. Most of them were younger than me, and all of them were quivering, weeping, filled with fear and despair…
It hurt my heart just to look at them.
I closed my eyes once more and shifted, trying to ignore the scraping, cutting pain as I leaned back against the wall in an attempt to make myself more comfortable. I tried to shut out the painful sights and sounds, tried to focus and get some sort of grasp, a handle on the situation.
Somewhere along the way, the sounds went silent and the smell of the ship faded away. Sleep came like a phantom, catching me unawares and sending me silently into a dream-world in which I was still at home with my friends…
By the time I woke up, we had arrived.
Chapter III
~Miles Edgeworth~
Four weeks.
Four weeks had gone by and not a single sign of Wright. It is not my habit to worry, but in this case I was admittedly becoming very anxious with the current situation.
Under my supervision, half the police force was out looking for him, combing every street and back alley in search of Phoenix Wright. Many scoffed and said that there was no hope, but I held firm and had them press on, determined to continue until the defense attorney was found.
I kept on trying to tell myself that he was fine, that the damn fool had just gone and gotten lost or something, but I knew inside that such a simple solution was far from correct. Even I could not suppress the fear that I felt rising up in me, growing more and more intense with every moment Phoenix remained missing.
We had only just become a couple, he and I. I had only just been able to admit my own feelings and realize that he had somehow wormed his way into my heart, and now this had happened. Now he was gone, and with every second that passed I imagined worse and worse fates befalling my beloved.
I felt sick to my stomach. All I could think about was the possibility that my men would find Phoenix dead and broken in an old dumpster somewhere, that as soon as I had finally allowed myself to love him he had been taken away forever!
The thought plagued my mind day and night and denied me the release of sleep. I was beginning to worry I might soon become addicted to sleep medication at the rate I was going, now finding it the only way I could attain the rest I sought.
But even when I found rest, every time I closed my eyes, there was Phoenix. Dead.
As a prosecutor, I had seen too much. Victims of kidnappings, rape, and murder. Children taken from their homes and never again found alive. I had seen the result of human cruelty that led one person to attack another without reason and take innocent life.
I reached over and took my glass, drinking deeply from the tea within. It was bitter as hell, but greatly helped to calm my frayed nerves, bringing wild thoughts of horrible and bloody crimes under control and helping me to concentrate.
I knew that on the outside I looked fine. The police officers working under me still rushed to obey my every whim, cringing at the sound of anger in my voice.
But on the inside… It felt like Christmas all over again.
~Phoenix Wright~
Pain tore through my body like a burning flame, and I let loose a piercing scream. I could feel fresh blood trickling down my back from a dark red mark mirroring the dozens of others that decorated my bare flesh.
“Please!” I begged pathetically, all the while feeling so deeply ashamed of myself. “Please stop, no more!”
My “master” grinned sadistically, holding the whip loosely in his hand. He was a fairly brawny man, and clearly one who had money, from his clothes and grooming. The man who had bought me from my kidnappers, he had subjected me to this torment every day for the past two weeks.
It had only been two weeks. Just two, and already my firm resolve had grown weak and frail almost to the point of breaking. I prayed so fervently every night that my friends would find me and set me free from the horrible torture I was put through every evening when my owner returned from whatever job he held. All I wanted was to have my freedom returned to me.
“Beg,” He commanded. “Beg and plead for me to stop!”
Tears stinging my eyes, I crouched before him and began to beg like a dog, crouched on my knees with my hands lifted and curled to resemble paws, bringing on bouts of sadistic laughter from the accursed man.
“Come on, you pathetic dog!” He roared. “You can do better than that! Beg!”
“P-please stop!” I begged. “Don’t hurt me anymore! Please stop whipping me, Master!”
I felt like shit. No, lower than shit! I didn’t want to have to beg this man for anything, I didn’t want to have to act like a dog at his feet, afraid of being beaten and whipped again!
“Alright,” He snickered. “Now lie down!”
I closed my eyes tightly, hesitantly doing as I was bid. This was the last thing I wanted. I didn’t want this to happen. I didn’t want to become nothing more than an object.
…And yet, I was. And I knew that I would remain an object until I was either set free…or died.