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"Sir," Simon Blackquill said hesitantly, as Klavier began to take deep breaths and warble quiet vowel sounds, "why is this meeting taking place on a hill in the middle of nowhere?"
The Chief Prosecutor blinked at him for a moment. "Ah yes, I forgot you were imprisoned before getting the chance to attend one of these training sessions. ...The location is chosen for privacy and the view."
Simon frowned, glancing around himself. The field was private, yes, but other than an expanse of grass and some trees a little way off, there was very little view to speak of. But then, perhaps to someone who rarely left the city, even this would count as 'a view', so he politely chose not to comment.
Instead, he asked, "Training session?"
"Yes," Miles Edgeworth said matter-of-factly, "In order to train ourselves to be the best possible prosecutors, we will stand here for the next several hours and scream at the sun."
There was a long silence, only broken by Klavier quietly singing "mimimimimiiii" in the background.
"...Did you say scream at the sun?" Simon asked his legal mentor. His legal mentor who had always seemed so sane.
"Yes, for hours at a time. Don't worry, I've some water and throat lozenges in the car." Edgeworth's voice was still disturbingly calm. Not even so much as a hint of a chuckle when he seriously warned: "Sunglasses are forbidden. Blink as little as you can, no one will judge you for any tears."
"I- wh..." Only his great respect for the man who had believed in him when no one else had, not to mention helped free him from wrongful execution, stayed Simon's tongue. Probably a good thing, as the words that wanted to come out of it were rather explicit and this was his boss. Instead, he edited his thoughts down to, "You can't be serious!"
"But I am. It is a technique I learned from my mentor, and while many of his... other methods, were unsavory and immoral, this particular training is both harmless and effective." Edgeworth shrugged. "I myself practice it at least twice per week, on my own time."
"H-harmless?!" Simon spluttered, latching onto the first easy contradiction. "Isn't this habit the reason you have to wear glasses now?"
".....Even if that were the case, my slightly decreased vision is hardly a terrible price to pay for perfecting my craft," Edgeworth said, adjusting his glasses in a defensive sort of way.
"There's no relation between the two! This is insane!" Simon objected, flinging his arms up in the air so vigorously that Taka was startled off his shoulder and took refuge on the Chief Prosecutor's head. Of all places.
However, the man seemed as unfazed by the bird of prey in his hair as he was by the accusation of insanity: not at all. "I must admit I too had trouble believing in the validity of this training at first," he mused nostalgically. "But eventually I came to see that even if I could not understand the logical link, my abilities as a prosecutor are indeed improved by this training. Some things," he said wisely, as Taka began to groom his feathers, "are beyond analytic comprehension. That doesn't make them any less true."
"Ja, Herr Samurai," Klavier said from so close behind him that prison reflexes caused Simon to whirl to face him with his sword drawn. The rockstar raised an eyebrow; he sheepishly resheathed. "I believe the saying is, 'don't fix what ain't broke'?"
He grinned cockily and Simon felt so repulsed he physically backed away from the crazy before him. "You - but, you of all people, wouldn't you want to protect your voice?"
"The law is my highest priority," Klavier Gavin claimed grandly, as though he was well aware of the sacrifice he might be making and expected no shortage of praise for it. "I've worked things out with my voice coach."
"I- but- ...you've gotta be fuc-"
"Conflicting schedules resulted in a low turnout today," Edgeworth interrupted with frankly perfect timing, "But despite my strong recommendation, this training is entirely optional. You may wait for us in the car if you wish. You'll be in the minority at the office of course... the prosecutors Payne are the only others not to follow this practice... but I'm sure that doesn't mean much."
And without further ado, he turned round to face the sun, opened his mouth, and began to scream, a loud, wordless, "AAAAAAAAAAAAA." Taka abandoned his perch, flying back home to Simon's shoulder with distinctly ruffled feathers.
Simon stared openmouthed. Beside him, Klavier cleared his throat once more, before making as if to step up beside the Chief Prosecutor - but Simon reached out and held him back with a tight grip on his arm.
"Wait," he said - then, helplessly, "everyone really does this?"
"Except the Paynes," Klavier replied, then shook his arm free and stepped up to join his boss. Their combined voices increased the sound to an "AAAAAAAAAAAAA."
"This is crazy," Simon muttered, but he couldn't get that sarcastic little I'm sure that doesn't mean much out of his head, couldn't suppress his desire not to be linked in any way with the disgraceful Payne brothers. And... Edgeworth was pretty legendary, both as a successful prosecutor and for his logical mind. He wouldn't abandon logic for something that didn't actually work, right?
...He'd never steered Simon wrong yet.
With a final, dubious sigh, Simon stepped up next to his coworkers (Taka giving up on the group entirely and flying off towards the woods in disgust), tilted his head up to gaze at the great orb in the sky, and began to yell.
Far across the field, the sound of training prosecutors drifted: "AAAAAAAAAAAAA..."