Ace Attorney Investigations: Virtual Despair

Chapter 3: PokéMaster's Anguish - Part 1 (Daily Life)

~ Ultimate Investigator Niamh Wood's POV ~

*DING DONG BANG BONG*

"Goooooood morning, everyone! It is now 7am. Let's get up and get ready for another beeeeeeee-autiful day!"

With a sigh, I rose from my bed and left my cottage, heading straight for the restaurant. Akari and Susumu were already there, happily huddling together in a corner. Susumu smiled and waved in my direction while Akari simply nodded. "Hey, come to think of it, a new island should be open today." Susumu said. "I mean, we cleared another class trial."

"We should wait until everyone else gets here." I suggested. "Then we can explore the island together."

We waited until eventually everyone had arrived before setting out for the third island. This island definitely had a darker theme to it; green lights shone in multiple directions and several small buildings lay scattered everywhere. Directly in front of me was a large building with shining letters reading 'TITTY TYPHOON'.

"I-Is that really an appropriate name for a building...?" I asked.

"Sounds fine to me." Jordan smirked. I rolled my eyes in response and pushed open the door to the building. It turned out to be a music live house, with a large stage being the main focus point. To the side was a small staff room. "If only one of us was an Ultimate Musician..." Kazashi sighed. "They could totally use this spot for some rocking concerts!"

"Even without an Ultimate Musician, will an Ultimate Composer suffice?" Botan asked.

"Meh, close enough!" Kazashi shrugged. "You can make us some music and Venisa can dance to it! All we need is the appropriate instruments..."

"Y-You do that..." I replied with a thumbs up. I left Kazashi to her weird plan and prepared to move on to look at someplace else, but seeing Venisa stopped me. She was stood next to a pile of... something. It was a crushed machine, by the looks of things. "Hey, Venisa." I called out. "You okay? What is that?"

"Look closely." the Ultimate Geisha instructed. "This is a plane. Do you recognise it?"

I kept my eyes on the plane, taking in all of the details before gasping, my eyes widening. "I-Isn't this the floatplane that was used to... execute Octavio?"

"The very same." Venisa nodded, unfurling her fan and slowly fanning herself, making a few loose strands of her black hair sway. "It must have landed here, whereupon it killed him. Even after the event, that bear did not bother to clear away the mess, most likely to give us... how do you say... despair?"

I frowned. Despair. That word had constantly been popping up throughout this train wreck of a school trip. "Yeah," I replied. "That's probably it." I paused for a moment, considering my words. "Hey, Venisa... uh... do you think that there's... anything I could do to prevent any more murders? I mean... I am the investigator of the group, so it's my responsibility to make sure that nobody else is hurt..."

"Oh my..." Venisa whispered, shaking her head. "You are placing too much stress upon yourself. Stopping potential future killers on your own? No, impossible. You can rely on other people to help, you know. We are all in this dangerous situation."

"That's exactly what worries me!" I exclaimed. "I don't want someone like you or Zach or Akari to be killed next! I don't know what I'd do!"

"Niamh." Venisa began. "There is a way to find hope again. Tell me: in the outside world, who is the person you most want to see right now?"

"Huh?" I frowned. "W-Well... that would be my aunt. Why?"

"For me, it would be..." Venisa continued, although abruptly trailing off mid-sentence. "Never mind. Think about that important person. Make it out alive, and you can see her again, no? Does that not inspire you to work hard to escape?"

"Yes, but... I don't want to kill anyone for it." I shook my head.

"I know." Venisa smiled. "You don't seem like the killing kind to me, and I know many. Now then, shall we continue exploring?"

I was a little concerned at Venisa's 'I know many killers' line, but I ignored it and agreed to her proposition. Upon further investigation, we discovered a hospital. We ran into Akari and Susumu, who had apparently paired up to look around. "There's this main room, multiple rooms for the sick to stay in, an on-call room and also a meeting room up on the second floor." Akari explained. "Me and Susumu already looked around."

"That was... surprisingly fast." I commented.

"What can I say? We're a great team!" Susumu grinned, wrapping an arm around Akari's shoulders. The latter blushed and buried her face into the comedian's scarf. If the place had already been searched, then I didn't see much point in hanging around, so I left to look somewhere else. I came across what looked like a motel, where I saw Orno and Angelica together. "I've never been to a motel before." Orno said. "But if this is what they're like, then no way am I going near one any time soon."

He was right; the paint on the walls was peeling off slightly and the room was overall really small. Think of a cardboard box and imagine yourself being a kitten or a puppy sat inside the box. That kind of small. I'm probably exaggerating, but that's the best comparison I could come up with.

"Why even give us a motel anyway?" Angelica wondered. "We already have a hotel and our own cottages back on the first island. Why would we feel the need to stay here?"

"I wouldn't be surprised if something happened which meant we couldn't go to our cottages." I sighed. "This is Monokuma we're talking about here."

"I like my own cottage, thank you very much. No way am I stepping foot into this place again." Angelica huffed, crossing her arms.

Next up was some kind of small settlement called 'Electric Town'. Electronic products such as laptops, televisions and cell phones lay scattered all over the place. I saw Zach taking a closer look, and went over to him. "Hey." I said. "What even is this place?"

"I'm not sure, but all kinds of broken electrics are stored here." Zach replied. "I might be able to fix some of them, but I'm not sure yet. Some of these things look broken beyond repair."

"Do you think we might be able to use these to escape?" I asked.

"I'll give it my best shot." Zach responded with a smile. "So, if I remember rightly, we have one more place to look into, right?"

"Right!" I nodded. The last construction on the third island was a cinema, and a surprisingly good one at that. There was a stall for snacks like hot dogs and three different kinds of popcorn. The viewing room itself almost made me gasp with the large screen. I mean, I know that cinemas need to have large screens, but it still blew me away every time.

"Well, looks like we've explored everywhere on this new island." Zach sighed. "Where's everyone else?"

"Scattered around." I replied with a shrug. "But that search took us the whole day, so we should go to bed. All this searching has made me tired."

I walked back to the cottages with Zach and waved goodbye to him as I entered my own room, locking the door behind me. We were unable to keep Toshiaki, Octavio, Ichiro and Trucy with us... but I'm going to make sure that nobody else is murdered!

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