Rise from the Ashes

Episode 5: Rise from the Ashes is an episode that was created exclusively for the Nintendo DS version of Gyakuten Saiban. As such, it is the final episode of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. This episode features touchscreen-oriented gameplay that allows the player to examine evidence from any angle, spray luminol fluid to see bloodstains, and dust for fingerprints.

Rise from the Ashes is set two months after Turnabout Goodbyes. This episode is also the longest in the Ace Attorney series to date, spanning ten chapters (three investigation and seven trial).

No episode picture is unlocked from beating Rise from the Ashes.

Prologue
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Investigation
It was about 10 AM at the Wright & Co. Law Offices and Phoenix Wright pondered why he returned to the office everyday, despite the fact he had no desire to defend anyone. Despite offers, he hadn't taken any case since Miles Edgeworth's. On this day, however, a girl showed up asking for Mia Fey.

Wright told her Fey no longer "work[ed] here". The girl then recognized Wright and pleaded for his services for her sister, accused of murder, in court tomorrow. Reminded of Maya Fey by the girl's appearance, Wright decided to hear her out. The girl introduced herself as Ema Skye, a junior in high school and an aspiring scientific investigator. Wright learned from her that her older sister had gone to the same law school as his late mentor Fey had, a few years above her.

Wright and Skye went to the detention center to meet the client, Lana Skye. Lana revealed herself as the district's Chief Prosecutor, a fact Wright was unaware of. Stuck in another case of two sisters, Wright heard her story, but Lana confessed to the crime. She told Wright that the murder had occurred the previous day at 5:15 PM in the underground parking lot at the prosecutor's office. The victim had been fatally stabbed in the stomach; she had accidentally cut herself after stabbing the victim. The body had been found in the trunk of a co-worker's car and someone had witnessed the crime. To make matters worse, the victim was a detective, meaning the police would prosecute to the fullest extent of the law.

Lana also talked about Mia Fey. Fey had audited Lana's class during Lana's third year. Lana had been at the top of her class, and she admired Fey for her determination to become a lawyer and they had shared an intellectual attraction.

Lana accepted Wright's offer to represent her, but she reminded him that there was no case to investigate, as she had already confessed. Ema insisted that Lana was innocent and she did not want to lose her only family. Nevertheless, Lana ended the conversation.

Ema explained that Lana had once been quite a likable person, but she had suddenly become cold one day.

Ema accompanied Wright to the crime scene. Wright commented that he didn't think his first visit to the prosecutor's office would end up this way. They met Jake Marshall, a "cowboy" in charge of the scene who blocked them from investigating the car. Looking around, they found the wallet of the victim and the ID inside told them his name: Bruce Goodman. They pocket it and asked Marshall who owned the car. He directed them to the High Prosecutor's Office on the 12th floor. Wright and Ema bumped into Angel Starr, a traveling lunch seller who was visiting her boyfriend in Security. She revealed herself as the witness but apparently had a grudge against prosecutors.

Wright and Ema headed up to the 12th floor into the High Prosecutor's Office. Ema concluded from the fancy decor that the owner was a stuck-up jerk, but then Edgeworth entered the room. The office and the red car with the body inside of it belonged to him. Edgeworth told Wright about his troubles. He was to be the prosecutor tomorrow, but rumors of dirty tactics in court still shadowed him and his knife, hidden in his trunk's toolbox, was the murder weapon. Edgeworth also told them he had received the King of Prosecutors trophy the previous day at the police department and only got back to his office at 5:12, three minutes before the murder. He gave them a parking stub as proof. Officer Mike Meekins then arrived and tried to give Edgeworth a file relating to another case, but an irritated Edgeworth merely shooed him away.

Trial
Moments before the trial began, Wright was still confused about the case; there were "a lot of gray areas." Lana resigned herself to her fate, and told Wright that he should never "believe" in his clients. Wright commented that Lana was a lot like Mia Fey, with one decisive difference: "You're not a defense attorney."

Wright entered the courtroom with no Fey family member to help him for the first time. Edgeworth commented that he would choose the judgments he believed were right, regardless of what others told him, and then he gave his opening statement summarizing the accusations against Lana. He then called Starr to the stand. Starr handed out some lunches to Wright and the judge; an annoyed Edgeworth insisted they proceed with the trial. The judge commented that a member of the police department usually testifies first, but Edgeworth revealed that Starr was once a fairly well-known homicide detective. Now remembering the "Cough-up Queen", the judge told Starr to proceed.

While Starr's testimony initially seemed solid, Wright pointed out some inconsistencies in her story, which indicated that she had witnessed the crime from the opposite end of the parking garage. It turned out that Starr was in the garage's security room when she first saw Lana attacking Goodman, and that it took five minutes for her to get down to where Lana was and to apprehend her. As Wright pointed out, no killer would wait around at the scene of the crime for five minutes. The judge agreed that this was too much of a contradiction for Angel's testimony to convict Lana, and prepared to suspend the trial for the day.

Before he could do so, however, Angel suddenly produced another piece of evidence: one of Goodman's shoes, which was covered in blood. Edgeworth refused to accept the shoe, pointing out that it was illegal evidence due to the fact that it had not been registered by him or anyone at the police department. However, Angel revealed that one of her former colleagues had in fact carried out all the required paperwork, making it valid evidence. Wright pointed out a large bloodstain underneath the shoe, which would indicate that Goodman stepped on a large amount of blood, yet there was no corresponding bloodstain at the scene. This worked against him, however, as Angel revealed that there were bloodstains originally at the scene, but that Lana tipped over a drum full of water to wash them away. Upon hearing this, the judge decided that the shoe and her actions in knocking over the water drum were decisive evidence and prepared to declare Lana guilty.

Wright had one last objection, pointing out that Lana had mentioned something about a "muffler" in a brief phone conversation with Ema before she was arrested, despite the fact that she wasn't wearing a muffler. Therefore, the muffler she was talking about must have been the exhaust muffler of Edgeworth's car. Edgeworth claimed that this was irrelevant, but the judge agreed that they should at least check the muffler before declaring a verdict.

Latter session
The chief of police, Damon Gant, unexpectedly entered the courtroom after the recess, carrying what had been discovered in Edgeworth's exhaust muffler: a switchblade knife, which was tagged as being part of the "SL-9 case". He also informed the court that another detective was killed in the evidence room at the police department, at the same time, on the same day, and using the ID number provided by Gant, Wright deduced that the murdered detective was also Bruce Goodman. Edgeworth demanded to know why no one had told him about this, only for Gant to reveal that the file Mike Meekins was trying to give him the previous day would have informed him about the "other" murder. The judge suspended the trial for another day so that things could be investigated.

Investigation
Returning to the parking garage, Wright and Ema tested the area with some luminol spray and discovered that there had indeed been some blood washed away at the scene. Edgeworth also gave Ema a fingerprinting set while they were at the prosecutor's office. Afterwards, they met up with Mike Meekins and discovered that he was being accused of the other murder of Goodman.

Wright and Ema were granted access to the scene of the second crime, one of the evidence rooms at the Police HQ. Jake Marshall was the room's guard, and Gumshoe was in charge of the investigation in the evidence room, which was full of lockers, each of which could only be accessed its owner via a fingerprint lock. Some investigation revealed a broken pot that they reassembled to find that a piece was missing, a rubber glove, and a bloody (but fingerprint-less) handprint on Gumshoe's locker.

Marshall gave them a list of everyone who had accessed the room on that day, identified by their police ID numbers - Goodman, Meekins, Edgeworth, and a fourth, unidentified person. Meekins had entered he room twice, first to stash the Dancing Blue Badger in the room while the award ceremony was taking place, and then to retrieve him later on (when he confronted "Goodman"). Before Wright and Ema left, they discovered another bloody handprint on a different locker, and this one did have fingerprints on it, belonging to Marshall.

Trial
Meekins was first to testify. He revealed that when he went to move the Blue Badger out of the room, he was confronted by a man who was apparently Goodman. Meekins had requested to see the man's ID out of protocol, but found himself being attacked, then was injured by a knife carried by "Goodman" and finally knocked out. Meekins then presented a video of what went on, and it corroborated his story. However, the face of "Goodman" was not visible, making it unclear whether the real Goodman was in the evidence room or in the parking garage with Lana. Moreover, the video in fact showed that the rubber glove had become trapped in the door lock, deactivating the fingerprint sensor and meaning that it wasn't necessarily Goodman who had opened the locker. Wright asked to question Jake Marshall, saying that they should hear from him as he was the person in charge of the evidence room, and Edgeworth agreed to the request.

Marshall told the court he had entrusted the room to the security devices and had been at a "street-side saloon" (a restaurant, where he was supposedly eating spaghetti). However, Wright presented to the court a print of bloody fingerprints on Marshall's locker belonging to him. Marshall denied this had anything to do with the case. It was his locker so his fingerprints would be all over it and, "One of them just happened to be at the same place as the bloodstained handprint." Wright hit him back by examining the security tape and pointing out the white coat sleeve Marshall had left hanging out of his locker.

Marshall called Wright's "bluff" and said the murderer could have put that in. Then Wright told him about the fingerprint sensors and proceeded to pick apart his testimony. Marshall spilled out the truth about what had happened inside the evidence room three days ago; he had disguised himself as Goodman to steal some evidence from his locker. It turned out that Goodman was in charge of the "SL-9 case", a series of murders, the last victim of which was Marshall's younger brother Neil. Jake had been unsatisfied about the outcome of the case, and had still wanted to investigate while there was still time.

Wright was initially pleased to have uncovered the truth behind what happened in the evidence room that day... until Edgeworth pointed out that Wright had just indirectly proven Lana guilty of Goodman's murder, since it was now obvious that there was no murder in the evidence room. Again, Wright managed to turn things around by pointing to the bloody handprint on Gumshoe's locker. As Wright pointed out, if Jake had left the handprint it should have been on the Blue Badger, not on Gumshoe's locker, which was behind the Badger and out of reach. Wright pointed to the unidentified fourth person that went in the evidence room and indicted them as the true killer, since Goodman could not have accessed the evidence room by himself (Jake having stolen his badge) and the amount of blood in there was far too much for what could have resulted from Meekins' injury. Edgeworth replied that they couldn't investigate the holder of that badge however, owing to the individual's high rank.

At the end of the proceedings, Jake Marshall asked Lana Skye to look him in the eye and tell him she didn't intentionally present falsified evidence during the trial of Joe Darke. She replied that she had, and this started a riot in the courtroom that forced proceedings to be suspended again.

Investigation
Back at the Wright & Co Law Offices, Ema revealed that Neil Marshall had died saving her from Darke, leaving the evidence necessary to convict the killer and that it was her own testimony that had helped to seal Darke's fate.

References to other cases

 * Miles Edgeworth was asked to transfer a blue screwdriver that was evidence in an incident labeled "AI-16". In Turnabout Sisters, Phoenix Wright found a blue screwdriver in April May's hotel room. They may have been the same screwdriver.


 * The evidence room contained the metal detector and fishing pole from Turnabout Goodbyes as well as the radiolocator that Franziska von Karma used to track Dick Gumshoe's movements in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Justice For All.


 * Edgeworth's office contains the suit Edgeworth wore in his court debut inside a glass case.


 * Damon Gant's safe was a product of KB Security, a company that appeared in The Stolen Turnabout.


 * After the trial, Wright and his friends went to a new restaurant called Trés Bien, which would eventually fall on hard times and become a crime scene in Recipe for Turnabout.

Misc

 * The name of this episode is a reference to Phoenix Wright's name, a bird that rises from its own ashes.


 * This is the only episode in the entire series that does not have the word "Turnabout" in its name. However, the Japanese name is Yomigaeru Gyakuten, which does have "Gyakuten" (the Japanese equivalent of "Turnabout") in it.


 * Being the longest trial in the series to date, this case also results in the largest amount of evidence being carried by the player, comprising four pages of evidence in the Court Record.


 * The front cover of the evidence law book given to Wright by Lana appears to have a chick (as in a young chicken) sitting at a desk wearing what almost seems to be a deerstalker hat and holding a large pipe (as in the type that is smoked). The back cover has another chick on it wearing a mortarboard, holding a stack of books and welding a pointer of some sort. The text below it seems to read "C piyo", c in a circle, making it stand for "copyright".


 * Ema is handed a book that seems to be made by the same people as it too has a chick on the cover. However, it is about forensic investigation and the chick appears to be using a magnifying glass to examine something while still wearing the deerstalker. There is a fingerprinting set beside it. It is red as opposed to the blue evidence law book. This was the first book that Lana ever bought. It has a picture in an envelope inside it of Lana as a detective and a younger Ema (wearing her sister's hat) both saluting in front of the Police Department.


 * In Turnabout Corner, when Apollo Justice and Trucy Wright are investigating the car in the Meraktis Clinic garage, Apollo makes a quote that he read that one of Phoenix's cases involved a murder weapon found in the muffler of a car. Strangely enough, Trucy's prop panties are found in the car's muffler.