While the story has ended, I wanted to place a little bit of bonus to really get into what I was looking for in this story and what to look forward to in the upcoming followup. I won't give anything away, but it's clear that it will have a lot more focus on Phoenix Wright or Nicolas De Killer. I mentioned about this kind of story at the beginning of this story as a separate story. I decided to make it a sequel to this story instead. Basically the story of Phoenix Wright being the son of Shelly De Killer, though I will get into that one later.

When I first came up with Turnabout Enemies, the idea I wanted to write about was a what-if DL-6. A lot of authors wrote their own ideas of what would happen if Gregory Edgeworth didn't die, but the big issue I had was that all of them often had Miles Edgeworth becoming a Defense Attorney. It felt like Miles Edgeworth becoming a Prosecutor happened because poor Daddy died and in real life, that's not always that simple. It felt like people ignored the very fact that Miles Edgeworth made the decision on his own to be a prosecutor and making that decision is exactly what his father wanted. In Miles Edgeworth Investigations 2, Gregory was worried for his son, because all he ever did was read law books and try to be like his father, not making decisions based on what he wanted. It makes sense, given that Miles was still a little kid and hasn't grown to the age of discovering his identity, but to say that would mean that Miles would eventually grow out of wanting to become a Defense Attorney and choose another career path.

The idea of creating Turnabout Enemies was to challenge my readers to see DL-6 and the canon characters in a new light. While my other what-if DL-6 stories from my Ace Attorney Collection did that, they rather challenged the readers to think of other ways it could've changed Miles Edgeworth, Gregory Edgeworth or both. This was the story that challenged readers to think of DL-6 and all the characters in canon in a different light. The question isn't how this story could've been different had it been done this way or that way, the question is why DL-6 was such a huge tragedy for all the characters in the story. Even someone like Wendy Oldbag or Damon Gant tell us that the tragedy effected other people than Miles Edgeworth, Manfred Von Karma, the Fey's or even Raymond Shields. This tragedy effected everyone.

I've already talked about the main characters and side characters, but now it's time to talk about the overlooked characters that we never thought would be effected by DL-6 until the ending. The first one is Patricka Roland (I know, it's actually Patricia Roland. I forgot!). In canon, we know her as the Warden and Blaise Debeste's lapdog. In this story, however, we learn that she was a spy trying to stop her brother, who was the head leader of the Smuggling Ring. She was being protected by Gregory Edgeworth from being found by the Smuggling Ring, whom Blaise Debeste works for. This tells us that at some point, after the death of Gregory Edgeworth, Blaise had found Patricka Roland's whereabouts.

Knowing this, it becomes understandable why Patricka Roland became Blaise Debeste's lapdog, including the body double I named Bobby. If we were to guess how Blaise found Patricka's location, we'd have to go back to DL-6 and Gregory's connection to IS-7, which is when Simon Keyes and Horace Knightly were found and taken to Happy Family Home where Patricka works. The rest is up to reader's interpretation, but it's easy to see how Blaise Debeste got a hold of Patricka and Bobby before wrapping them up in the assassination of the President of Zheng-Fa. This also includes Dogen. Having Dogen as another ex smuggler also makes sense, considering his connection with Patricka Roland in canon.

Having these three as ex smugglers gives Blaise a much greater motive for why he'd want to get rid of Gregory Edgeworth or set him up to be murdered by Manfred Von Karma. Gregory may've not been as big of a threat to Blaise as Miles, but that didn't make him nonthreatening. Gregory certainly is a force to be reckoned with, but only because his family is what makes him a threat. Gregory is the reason why Miles is a much bigger threat to Blaise and it's no different for the ex smugglers. As long as the ex smugglers are in hiding and far reach from Blaise, he will always be in fear that Gregory will have an ace up his sleeve. Blaise having those ex smugglers as his lapdogs and Miles being under Manfred Von Karma, who was under Blaise Debeste, would explain why neither of them no longer became a threat in canon... at least not until Miles proves himself to no longer follow Von Karma's teachings.

There is also Shelly De Killer, but I'd consider him the least effected by DL-6. While it is true that Gregory made a deal with him to keep his son alive, that doesn't mean Shelly was ever effected by his death or DL-6. We can assume that Shelly decided not to follow up on taking out Miles Edgeworth, because of his son. In fact, anything that effected Shelly De Killer, because of DL-6, is because of how his son was effected by it. And, no one else was as effected by DL-6 than Shelly De Killer's son, Nicolas De Killer. Let's talk about the elephant in the room, shall we?

Just the fact that Phoenix Wright made the decision to take on the De Killer name already tells us just how much DL-6 effected him. In canon, Phoenix Wright became a lawyer, yes because of Miles Edgeworth standing up for him in school, but also because Miles was troubled and miserable. Phoenix made the decision to become a lawyer to save his friend. Though, there is still a big chunk in his life from childhood until adulthood that has never been explored in canon. There's the question of if Phoenix had ever tried getting in contact with Edgeworth or if there was some other drama he was going through. I'd say it was the latter. Considering who his father is in this story, we can already fill in the blanks.

How this version of DL-6 changes Phoenix in this story is the same way that this story has changed us as the readers in how we view DL-6 or view everyone as a society. In this story, Phoenix has learned that no human being as a higher moral high ground than the other. All of us are just as evil or good as the next person. Phoenix no longer sees his father as a murderous psychopath, but as a father capable of love with his own burdens to bare. I see Phoenix Wright representing the every man or how the players view themselves when playing the game. Just as we begin seeing every canon character in a completely new light from this story, Phoenix or Nick also sees his father in a completely new light.

Having Nick make the decision to take the De Killer name is a big step for his character. It shows the level of sacrifice Nick is willing to make to save those he loves. By taking that name, he is learning to love his father enough to save him, even though he's a murderer. Nick is learning that even criminals are just as much victims and their situations aren't always cut and paste. Nick taking the De Killer name is him looking in the mirror and showing humility to knowing who he is, knowing where he comes from and trying to be a better person. It may not seem like that from the outside, but many times, in order for us to be better people, we must first look at ourselves in the mirror and be willing to face our own faults.

Looking at Phoenix from canon, if we were to assume that he is the son of Shelly De Killer in canon, then what has he done for Shelly? Nothing. Shelly, on the other hand, did help Phoenix learn to become a better person, even if it was through unorthodox means like taking Maya hostage and starving her for two days. Whether you consider that worth the good parent award or not, you can't deny that Shelly De Killer did teach Phoenix humility in Farewell my Turnabout, which was something Phoenix lacked heavily. Just knowing Phoenix Wright is the son of Shelly De Killer is enough to make us question if he's as good and heroic as we thought in the game. Personally, Phoenix Wright represents the every man and is as good and evil as the every man, which is very evil and a spice of good.

I wanted to end Turnabout Enemies with revealing Phoenix Wright as the most gray character in this story. He is the every man and you cannot get anymore gray than the every man. Phoenix is very capable of both good and evil. He can be loving and compassionate, but he can also lack empathy and hold strong hatred towards someone that hurt him deeply. Making Phoenix an orphan doesn't make him less of an every man, since the normal household of an average person includes divorced, single, unmarried or no family at all. Having disconnected families has become the new normal and while that's never implied in the game, I wanted my story to give that feeling. You never see perfect and unified families in this story. Sure, there's Manfred Von Karma and his wife Martha, but they represent the rare families that work hard to keep their families stable in an unstable society.

These are very small parts of the story, but they show that good and evil in this world and society has become very gray. Things that we should be horrified over is allowed. This was also something I believed the Phoenix Wright games continually touch upon as time passes. It's the reason why they still touch people's hearts to this day. The games continually challenge us to question good vs. evil, a simple concept, but something that has been neglected for many decades. Sure, we may have superheroes fighting against evil, but most of them have heroes acting more like villains, villains acting more like anti heroes or trying to deliver an agenda. Phoenix Wright continually challenged us what good and evil really is and that's what I wanted to convey in this story.

I consider every fan fiction I write to be a love letter to the games I play or shows I watch. Even those with romance, it's always been important for me to keep the characters in character and story to feel like something that would fit in very well with canon. It's for that reason why I never released the Phoenix Wright fic where he's the son of Shelly De Killer until now and as a sequel to this fic. At the time when first writing Turnabout Enemies, I had only finished the Investigations games. I had only just started on Dual Destinies and never touched the Professor Layton crossover. Now, I'm at the final chapter of Spirit of Justice and had finished the Professor Layton crossover.

It's important for me to finish every single Phoenix Wright game in order to understand Phoenix Wright's character. Turnabout Enemies only focused on characters from the trilogy and the Investigations games. I didn't want to start on a fan fiction about a certain character until I get the full understanding of that character. I see way too many fan fictions that focus more on yaoi instead of story and characters. It's sad to find characters become a shell of their former self, because the author thinks that character should be top/bottom or "let's pair these two together" then wonder why they suddenly have Writer's Block after three chapters of shipping.

When I first started going into fan fiction, there was a lot of energy in writing good stories. Sure, there may've been ships and shipping wars here and there, but they were hardly the main focus. The first fan fiction I read that got me into this was a Danny Phantom one called Deception. I've heard it's had revision since the last I've read it. At the time I read it, Danny Phantom only had two seasons. It starts as Danny confesses to his parents about his ghost powers. What this leads to is his parents trying to kill him, only for him to narrowly escape. If that weren't enough, even his best friends have seemed to abandoned him. This leads to him going to Vlad Masters, who not only had ghosts working for him that overshadowed or possessed his parents to hunt him down, but even his best friends, so he'd end up working for Vlad as part of his plan to get Danny on his side.

A story like that got me hooked into it, but not because of some romance subplot or love triangle, which there kinda is, but because it was a story I could believe would happen in canon. The two questions that bothered me at the time was why couldn't Danny tell his parents if he's so certain that they'd accept and love him and why did Danny end up living with Vladi n The Ultimate Enemy TV special. This was the fan fiction that challenged me on those questions. I was the same age as Danny when I first read it and it hit me hard. The fear of knowing you can't trust your own parents at that age was a horrifying feeling, even knowing that if they don't accept you, you'd end up on the streets with nowhere else to go. The worst part is that Danny going to his archenemy in order to have food to eat and a bed to sleep on makes so much sense, because he literally has nowhere else to go. Sure, he has an aunt, but it isn't like she'd take his ghost powers as well as his parents did and she certainly wouldn't have the capability of protecting him from them.

That story compelled me to write fan fictions, because I wanted to show my love for the show I had grown to love as a teenager. Creativity is important as well as learning basic spelling, grammar and English. Though, what makes fan fiction different from other parts of literature is that they are love letters to the franchise you've come to know and love. I've recently come to find authors that haven't even finished the trilogy and I can't help, but wonder why they write fan fiction at all. Writing fan fiction means there's dedication to what and how you feel about the franchise. I want to inspire young writers to learn what it means to be dedicated to a franchise you know and love.

Obi-Quiet inspired me to create fan fiction and I can't thank her enough for it. In a way, she was like my sempei. Her fan fictions were the ones that taught me the importance of writing fan fictions based on canon. There was a time when I was filled with all sorts of fan fiction writers that showed love and dedication to their writing to the point of revising their work once a new season came out. Unfortunately, I don't see a lot of writers that are as dedicated to canon or telling a good story. I want to inspire young writers to learn what makes a good fan fiction. This fic may not be popular, but if I can inspire one writer, then I hope to inspire many.

Anyways, I will be following up this story. I will start with the one shot Turnabout Family that will take place between this story and the sequel, then I will follow it up with the sequel Turnabout Rivals. I hope you enjoy!