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The tape starts odd looking down at the back of Phoenix's spikey head. Maya screeches and cooes immediately. "Baby Nick! Baby Nick! Turn around!" she yells at the screen. "I want to see your chubby face."
Phoenix almost asserts that he had no such chubby face, but decides he's better off just watching the video.
"Look, Phoenix!" said the voice behind the camera, "It's Miles and his dad."
The camera moved from the back of Phoenix to a young Edgeworth holding his father's hand and back again. Phoenix looked around before spotting where his mom was looking, and as soon as he did, he threw his backpack off and started running. "Miiiiillllleeeeessssss!"
Miles looked in the direction of the voice and immediately threw his backpack off and took off running, too. "Niiiiiiiiick!"
"Miiiillleeesss!"
"Niiiiiickkk!"
"Miiiillllleeesss!"
They met in the middle, hugging each other and falling down on the grass, probably reenacting what they thought reunions are meant to be from cartoons and cheesy kids shows.
"This is the cutest thing I've ever seen," Maya deadpans. She glares at the grainy screen, as if the joy of it was so strong that she wrapped all the way back around to hating it. Phoenix almost wants to hide his face. A glance to the other side of the couch shows that Edgeworth already halfway is.
"Miles Miles Miles Miles Miles!" Nick calls, Miles pinned beneath him.
"What what what what what?" Miles responded in count.
"It's not fair, it's not fair," Nick despaired. "It's not fair that right when I finally get to see you again, we have to go back to school."
Miles' head thunks down, as if this terrible realization just hit him now, and it lolls morosely towards Phoenix's mom. Then, his brow furrows, he looks alert and kicks out from underneath him. "Mrs. Wright! It's illegal to film people in public without their knowledge in this state!"
When the young Miles on the screen kicks young Phoenix off of him to go confront his friend's mom, the current Miles Edgeworth let's out a loud scoff. Maya and Phoenix turn to him. "Sorry," he says, half hunched and covering his mouth. "It's just..." he taps his forehead, "I just remembered this."
"You remember this?" Phoenix doesn't, and he knows for a fact he remembers more of their childhood than Edgeworth does.
"Yes," Edgeworth says, amused. He gestures to himself on screen who somehow has the gall to try to get in Mrs. Wright's face and lecture her about the law. "I wouldn't have even... The only reason I noticed your mother was filming was because I was trying to calculate how we could make a break for it."
Phoenix chuckles through his nose. "Like just run off into the woods?"
"Exactly. I was sizing up if they would be on guard to chase us. I can't believe we got like that after only ten days apart-"
"Shh!" Maya hisses, "The next one's already started."
Miles, Nick, and Larry are behind a fold out table covered in jars, blocks, mirrors, and children's encyclopedias. Nick is holding up a jar with an occupant. "Larry Two is a bufo japonicus. Bufo japonicuses are part of the bufonidae family, making them true toads," he recites proudly. "Around here, we see toads like Larry Two everywhere, so we really take for granted that these kinds of toads are en-dam-ic only to our archipel-ick-go."
The screen blacks for only a second before it comes back with a whine and a different angle. Larry Two is now out of his prison and in Larry Original's hands. "Larry Two is super smart," Larry claims. He sets the toad down among the blocks. "We keep making obstacle courses for him, and he hops right through 'em." He nudges the frog's behind to tell him to get to it, and Larry Two hops over a block. "Aw man, I swear he usually does more. Hey, Edgy, call cut-"
"Larry Two is super smart," Larry tries again after the screen returns. "We've been recording him going through our obstacle courses all day." The camera zooms to Larry Two, who with a nudge hops over seven blocks with three turns and makes it to the other side, to much cheering.
Phoenix takes him again and puts him in their hall of borrowed makeup mirrors. "Here, you can see that Larry Two will stare at his reflection. See? He can look at himself in the mirror and know it's him, which means he's self-aware, a-and self-awareness is a form of intelligence."
The next cut is to Phoenix and Larry holding up Larry Two in his jar together. In unison they conclude: "That's why Japanese toads are important."
Maya pauses the video, freezing it on their smiling faces. "You two were so cute!" Ok now she sounds actually mad? She turns to Phoenix accusatorially. "Why did you know so much about toads?"
"I don't fully remember," Phoenix admits. "Was it for a school project?" He looks to Edgeworth. "I remember you did all the writing in exchange for us doing all the speaking."
Edgeworth's fists are clenched hard on knees. "No," he says gravely, "We mailed it to a museum."
Phoenix was taken aback. "We WHAT?"
Edgeworth nodded with the same weight. "We sent it in as academic research."
Maya cackles. "Did they send you back anything? That had to have, right? Right?"
"Did they?" Edgeworth blinks and looks to Wright, who only shrugs.
"I don't think so."
"No no museums always respond to stuff like that," Maya asserts. "Haven't you seen all those posts online about little kids sending in trash thinking they were fossils?"
"I don't know what to tell you, Maya."
"Remind me, Mr. Wright, what was the ruling of Akagi v San Fransokyo?"
"The state ruled that students can wear political symbols as long as they don't disrupt class."
"Right, so Mrs. Mahone's dress code is Unconstitutional! Therefore, Larry did nothing wrong and shouldn't have been in trouble!"
"God." This is the straw that makes Edgeowrth finally cover his face in shame. The three of them are playing courtroom again. Stands are made from cardboard boxes and stacks of books. Wright is the prosecutor, he is the defense, and Larry is acting as the defendant.
Wright isn't faring any better. The moment Maya said, "Huh. You knew more about law as a little kid than you do now," he held his head and collapsed in on himself.
"Objection!" shouts the young Phoenix. "As we said, the state ruled that students may wear political symbols as long as they don't disrupt the class. However-" He bangs on the cardboard gently so it doesn't collapse under him and then points to the defendant. "Larry went and told everyone about Love Toxin's faction without them even asking! He wouldn't stop even when the teacher said to, and because of him, we all got held in for recess."
Larry looks clearly uncomfortable. "Guys, can we do something else?"
"Who was even filming that one?" Phoenix asks, muffled in his own lap.
"Ok more important: what is the love toxin faction?"
"Love Toxin was Larry's Samurai OC. I think it had something to do with his backstory."
"Nick." Maya shakes his arm and forces him to unfold. "Nick, we gotta show these to Larry. It's not fair that only you and Edgeworth are seeing them. We'll bring it home, right?"
"No. We are deleting this," Edgeworth answers for him.
They won't, but still.
The moment the next clip begins: "No."
Oh he remembers this. His younger self in on screen with a scarf and a leaf crown, and he knows where this is going.
"Why should you think that I should woo in scorn?
Scorn and derision never come in tears."
Phoenix could not watch. He absolutely cannot watch his flowy 9-year-old self recite Shakespeare.
"Look when I vow, I weep; and vows so born,
In their nativity all truth appears."
"AUGHHHH," Maya outright screams.
"Turn it off," Pheonix agrees in a flash, but Maya instead guards the remote even closer and half lurches, ready to physically defend the VCR.
"How can these things in me seem scorn to you,
Bearing the badge of faith, to prove them true?"
Phoenix can only whimper. His verse may be over, but now there's Larry.
"To prove them true? To prove them true? Let me tell you, Lysander, you can't HANDLE the truth -"
"CUT!" young Miles calls, enraged. "Larry, those aren't your lines. Did you even read the script?"
Young Larry looks offended. "No, Edgy, I didn't. You were the one who said we're going off-book."
There's a moment of silence as it sets in what has happened, what Larry apparently believes "off book" means. And just when you think Miles is about to explode...
"AHHHHHH!" Nick drops to his knees and tugs at his hair. "Pain! All I get from being friends with you two is pain and sorrow - how great my disappointment! What outrageous fortune I attract to have but only you." He then stood up and ran away off screen.
Larry then looked directly into the camera. And said: "Great job, Edgy."
"Burn this," Phoenix demands.
Edgeworth grunts.
"But Niiick, you were so good for, for just a, for just a little guy." Maya seems to be getting overwhelmed by the intense power of watching a nine-year-old very seriously perform Shakespeare from memory.
"And Larry's improv wasn't bad, all things considered," Edgeworth butts in with a smirk.
"Shut up, Edgeworth," Phoenix grumbles. "It's over with. We never speak of this."
It's not over with. The next clip rolls.
It started blurry and distant, the audio askew, but whoever is holding the camera seems to get a handle on what they're doing well enough to show Nick and Miles whispering on a window sill seat.
"I would not wish
Any companion in the world but you;"
Nick promises, taking both of Miles' hands in his.
"Nor can imagination form a shape,
Besides yourself, to like of."
Miles fidgets and looks too awed to know how to respond. "I...I'm sorry. I don't know the next line. I-I-" He then looks at the camera and growls. "LARRY! It is ILLEGAL in this state to record people without their knowledge!"