Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth/The Kidnapped Turnabout/Part 3-5 - End 2

Looks like all hope is lost. Mr. Amano has denied us permission to investigate the Haunted House. Ms. Paups will be arrested while Lance will get away with murder. The truth will be lost to us all. It's the end...or is it? Kay reminds us that she still has the Little Thief! That way we can recreate the scene at the Haunted House based on its blueprints.

The first thing we should recreate is the moment Edgeworth was ambushed. When he was dropping off the ransom, we saw a badger mannequin lying at the other end of the corridor. Once Edgeworth turns his back, he is struck from behind. As the hallway is a dead end, that can only mean that the assailant was waiting to attack him at point B! The costumed attacker lay in wait disguised as an unsuspicious prop at the end of the corridor, then ambushed Edgeworth as he turned to leave. Lance claims that he never went into the Haunted House, just waited outside, so that means that the victim, who was wearing the Bad Badger costume, is Edgeworth's attacker. As the Bad Badger had a model gun attached to its right hand, the weapon must have been held in the left hand.

Investigation: Haunted House Re-creation
First, examine the mirrors. There's a lot of mirrors in here, some of them are already broken, so it isn't surprising that there was some shards found in the victim's costume. You will get the Mirror shards logic. Kay will note that the mirror shards here are thicker and have some sort of design at the back. Mirror Fragments will be updated in your organizer.

Now examine the Bad Badger behind Edgeworth. Edgeworth doesn't know what weapon was used to hit him, though he remembers getting hit at the right side of his head. There could be a weapon in the hallway that the assailant could have used to knock out Edgeworth. Present the Broken Prop Sword. The attacker could have used it to attack Edgeworth, then took it to the hideout to hide the evidence, which is why it's found there. We can run one test to determine whether it was used to attack Edgeworth. The attacker couldn't have left any prints as he was a costumed kidnapper, so you should Test with Luminol. Edgeworth's wound bled slightly after he was struck, so there could be some blood on the sword. After testing, there is a small patch of blood on the left side. Broken Prop Sword will be updated in your organizer. The re-creation will also be updated to include the sword.

Deduce the sword and present the Broken Prop Sword. If the sword was held in the left hand, it will hit at the right side, so the bloodied left side could only have resulted from a right-handed swing. Kay will changed the re-creation to reflect this new fact, but it's obvious that there will be another contradiction. Present the Missing Model Gun or the Blue Badger Bible. There is already a model gun attached to the Bad Badger's right hand, so the Bad Badger couldn't have been the attacker. This leaves Lance as the culprit, and he will confess to it. Even though he's left-handed, he used his right hand on purpose to pin it on the Mr. Devorae.

Now the re-creation will be updated once again, with Proto Badger as the attacker, which matches the opening cinematic of this case quite well. However, Agent Lang will interrupt us before we can investigate. He will reveal that the Haunted House had a trick called the disappearing badger. A Blue Badger doll was placed at that very end of the corridor as the disappearing badger, so the attacker couldn't have been hiding there! The Gatewater Land Pamphlet will be updated in your organizer. The re-creation will be updated once again. There is something blatantly wrong about the scene, as the Blue Badger simply turns into a Proto Badger.

Examine the Blue Badger doll at the end of the hallway. There's something peculiar about it. Deduce the belt and present the Blue Badger Bible or Badger Photo Rally. The belt seems to be mirrored from the actual Blue Badger costume, but Kay says that it was an exact re-creation of the picture in the pamphlet. Why is the Blue Badger dressed up like that? You will get the Blue Badger in reverse logic.

Go into Logic Mode and connect Mirror shards with Blue Badger in reverse. The Blue Badger doll Edgeworth saw was actually a mirrored image. The corridor is not actually straight, it forms an L-shape at the end of the hallway, where the real doll lies. It is reflected by the mirror at the bend of the hallway. As the house is dark, the trick is concealed perfectly. There could be one reason why the park built the house in this way. Present the Gatewater Land Pamphlet. The disappearing badger is one of the seven wonders of the attraction, but Edgeworth had no trouble seeing the badger. There is a trick that the someone could have used to make the doll disappear, and that is to Move the mirror-wall. When the badger doll is visible, the mirror is at its normal location. When the doll disappears, the mirror wall simply moves to close the end with the badger doll, revealing an empty corridor behind it. That is why the mirror fragments had a pattern behind them, to blend in with the wall.

It also presents a new hiding place for the attacker. Present the corridor behind the mirror. The assailant only had to wait behind the mirror where Edgeworth couldn't see him, then strike be moving the mirror away. However, since we have some of the mirror fragments, the mirror wall must be broken in the real Haunted House. As they're found in the victim's costume, it means the victim was there when the mirror broke. Edgeworth will also recall the sound of glass breaking as soon as the phone call with one of the kidnappers ended.

Kay will recreate the scene with the mirror wall. Before Edgeworth entered the dining room, the kidnappers were hiding behind the mirror wall. After he entered the dining room, the wall broke, and the kidnapper's hideout was revealed. The kidnapper then had to hide himself at the end of the hallway with the doll. There is another contradiction here. Present the empty straight corridor. When Edgeworth went out of the dining room, he still saw a badger at the end of the corridor, when there shouldn't be anything there. Present the Victim's Costume or Mr. Deacon's Murder Notes. That badger could be the dead body of the victim! Edgeworth didn't hear the gunshot itself because there was a bunch of other sound effects playing in the house at the time.

Lance will finally confess to the murder. He says that the victim suddenly turned on him and straddled him to the ground. Lance stole the gun from the victim and shot him, breaking the mirror wall. Agent Lang will now call for the arrest of Lance and his father. He reveals that he came to the country to investigate Ernest Amano, whose company scandal, an internal smuggling ring, triggered the KG-8 incident. The mastermind that was arrested was Mr. Colin Devorae, the victim! Agent Lang suspects that Mr. Amano was the real ringleader, but placed the blame on Devorae, so after Devorae escaped he chose to hide him from the police in exchange for Devorae's silence about the true ringleader. However, he is interrupted by Mr. Portsman, the prosecutor for the case.

The two are still arrested, and Agent Lang will reveal that he suspected that Edgeworth was the corrupt prosecutor that worked for Mr. Amano. After leaving, his assistant Shih-na will reveal that Agent Lang belonged to the House of Lang in Zheng Fa. They were revered and held high positions among the police force in Zheng Fa. However, a prosecutor once tampered with the evidence a Lang detective found, ruining their credibility and honor, which is why Agent Lang hates prosecutors. Jacques Portsman will also leave with his partner, leading to the first case of the game.

What REALLY Happened
Seven years ago, the Amano Group was revealed to have an internal smuggling ring, which caused the KG-8 incident. The group's secretary, Colin Devorae, was arrested as the ringleader, but some agents suspected that it was Ernest Amano pinning the crime on Devorae. Colin Devorae soon broke out of jail, bringing with him one of the guard's gun. He took on the alias Oliver Deacon and went back to his former employer to seek hiding. Ernest Amano promised to hide him as long as Colin remains silent about the true ringleader.

Lance Amano knew about the relationship between Oliver Deacon and Lauren Paups, so he used Paups as a hostage to force Deacon to cooperate in his staged kidnapping. As Oliver was still a felon, he couldn't reveal that his identity to his daughter. All three of them staged the kidnapping together, pretending to hold Lance hostage in Gatewater Land. Edgeworth is asked by Ernest Amano to drop the ransom that saves his son. After arriving, Edgeworth is requested by one of the kidnappers to drop the ransom money at the Haunted House. The kidnappers have already made their way there after stealing the park's badger costumes, Lance as the Proto Badger and Oliver as the Bad Badger. They hid behind the mirror-wall that was used to create an illusion as part of the attraction. As Edgeworth was dropping off the ransom in the dining room, Oliver turned on Lance to make him leave his daughter out of the crime. Lance was straddled to the ground, but managed to take Oliver's gun and fire a lethal shot that past straight through Oliver's body and broke the mirror-wall behind them.

Having accidentally committed murder, Lance needed to pin the crime on someone else. First he used Oliver's dead body to create the illusion that the badger Edgeworth saw was still there, while he himself hid in a separate corridor hidden from view. As Edgeworth turns to leave, Lance slowly sneaks up behind him, grabbing a prop sword in the Haunted House and striking Edgeworth, knocking him out. Lance then had Edgeworth tied to a pole and put the Bad Badger costume on him.

Lance moved the dead body with the Proto Badgermobile and hid it in the garage while moving an unconscious Edgeworth to the Isolation Room. He had Lauren Paups look at Edgeworth and made her believe that Edgeworth is Oliver Deacon to fake the time of the murder. He also tore off a model gun from another Bad Badger costume to give to Paups to defend herself.

Lance made Lauren escape early in a Blue Badger costume before taking the badger head off of Edgeworth for himself. He lied to Lauren that Oliver has escaped and put on the Bad Badger head on. He jammed the door with the prop sword he attacked Edgeworth with and escaped through the underground tunnels. He pretended to be Oliver walking on the stage, having its shadow obscure the details of his costume. Once he sees Lauren, he aimed at Lauren with his gun. Lauren, thinking that Oliver was going to shoot her, fired a blank at Lance. Lance pretended to collapse, and Lauren ran away in fright.

Epilogue
After all that has happened, Kay is still annoyed that neither Edgeworth nor Gumshoe remembers her. She will present a white cloth which jogs both of their memories. Just when you think we're done with flashbacks, we get one more, this time taking us back seven years to the time Edgeworth first met Gumshoe and Kay.