The Phantom

"...Foolish"

- The Phantom, pretty much always

'The Phantom' is the unmistakable asshole of CaHniverse. What a jerk.

See also: Bobby Fulbright

Headcanon History
Born to the country of Cohdopia in 1988 (which would make him 39 years old when Dual Destinies ends), the individual who would later become known only as the Phantom was orphaned at a very young age and forced to survive on the streets. People had a tendency to avoid him and call him a ‘freak’ due to his lack of showing emotion. He wouldn’t seem happy when he was given money by a passerby, nor would he seem sad when he was told to get lost. He went through most of his childhood alone and it didn’t bother him in the least. By the time he was ten years old, he caught the eye of a group of international smugglers, who needed a disposable minion to do some dirty work for them. However, the boy performed his work so admirably that within a year, he was welcomed into their ranks as their little prodigy and even taught a few basics like reading, writing, hand-to-hand combat and using a gun. They also trained him to suppress and manipulate what little emotions he had, allowing him to 'leave them behind' completely. He still had no name, but it didn’t matter- they just called him whatever they liked and it made no difference to him. The older he grew, the more successful the smuggling ring became and the grander the schemes he was involved in. He even had a hand in the counterfeiting activities that crippled Zheng Fa’s economy. The need to have more of their people abroad is why the smugglers dumped a few textbooks on him and told him to ‘learn English’. So he did.

As the corrupt general Quercus Alba began to gain more control in Cohdopia, so did the country itself lose its stability. By the time the Phantom was in his early twenties, the country was divided into Allebahst and Babahl. He cared very little for politics, but as the rest of the smugglers seemed determined to support Allebahst, he did the same. Unbeknownst to him, it was the newly-appointed Ambassador Alba himself who made the decision to send him to America (Or uh, Japan. Wherever the Ace Attorney games take place) to hide certain evidence of smuggling activities and gather a variety of useful information that would help Allebahst thrive. In March 2019, Miles Edgeworth discovered that Quercus Alba was the leader of the smuggling ring and had him arrested, after which Shi-Long Lang hurried to track down the remaining ring members. However, not everyone was caught. The Phantom and a few of his allies managed to evade Interpol’s detection and seek employment from other corrupt countries. Having already wormed his way into the American system, he had ideal placement and knew exactly how to bargain with his new employers, who in turn provided him with useful gadgets. He continued various spy activities for the highest bidder until, in October 2020, he was involved in the UR-1 incident.

UR-1
On the day of the HAT-1 rocket launch, an international spy known only as "the Phantom" infiltrated the Cosmos Space Center with two aims: to sabotage the launch and to destroy a psychological report on him. His first task was easily carried out, with a bomb that he had planted on the rocket damaging many of its critical systems upon detonation. To complete his second aim, he went to the Center's robotics lab and stabbed Metis Cykes (who had created the psych report) with a katana displayed on her wall. In order to ease his planned escape, the Phantom took Cykes's GYAXA uniform jacket, using its built-in ID tag to fool the Center robots' recognition systems, and ornamental Noh mask. Athena Cykes, Metis's daughter, then arrived at the lab to find her mother lying dead on the floor.



Phantom being a creepy asshole seven years ago, just before kicking Athena Cykes in the face.

Athena grabbed a knife from a tool box and stabbed the spy in his hand, thereby causing some of his blood to splatter onto a nearby moon rock. This moment was witnessed by Ponco the robot, who misinterpreted it as Athena 'giving her mother a hug'. According to Ponco's testimony, the Phantom fell to the ground after that. Nothing else was witnessed while she went into standby mode to recharge. Presumably, the Phantom got up just fine. After knocking Athena unconscious, the Phantom was forced to escape the Cosmos Space Center before he could be discovered and had no choice to leave the bloodstained moon rock behind. The center's security measures would never allow him to remove it from the scene. That's why he hid it in the capsule meant to be placed inside the Hope Probe.



Actual footage of the Phantom flouncing like the coward he is, seven years ago.

In a childlike state of denial and not really understanding the difference between humans and robots, Athena had Ponco move Metis to the robot disassembly table, thinking the machinery would be able to "fix" her like it did the robots. At that moment, Metis's student, prosecutor Simon Blackquill, arrived. Athena, covered in blood from the ordeal, explained to him - with a "sweet smile" and a "far-out look in her eyes," as Blackquill later recalled - what she intended to do. Blackquill, thinking that Athena had killed her own mother, used the murder weapon, Metis's katana, to forcibly dismantle Ponco, before removing Athena and the pieces of the robot from the lab. By the time Athena had returned to the Center, Blackquill had been arrested for Metis's murder. Meanwhile, the moon rock was taken aboard the Hope probe and launched into space, leaving no one any wiser about Metis' assailant. For seven years the Phantom kept all hints of his involvement a secret, while Blackquill swore to hunt him down even from prison.

It’s never said what the Phantom was up to in those six and a half years between the moon rock incident and taking the identity of Bobby Fulbright.

Bootleg Bobby Fulbright
Six years after Metis' murder, police detective Bobby Fulbright died under mysterious circumstances; however, due to the extent of damage done to his body, his corpse was never identified. Taking his place, the Phantom began masquerading as Fulbright, using his authority as a detective to attempt to destroy all evidence pertaining to his true identity. He got close to Simon Blackquill, who intended to return to his prosecutor duties even while he was on death row. This charade was started in hopes of retrieving the psych profile that endangered his secret identity. Over the course of roughly nine months, he played his role admirably.

See Bobby Fulbright for more info.

Previous RPs
See: Bobby Fulbright

CAHniverse
See: Bobby Fulbright

Will O' Whisbur
'Will O' Whisbur' is the result of Tori's attempt to gradually introduce Simon Blackquill to 'the other guy'. She felt that if saving Simon from his execution were successful, he'd find out about Bobby's little identity problem either way, so it'd be best to ease him into it. Both Bobby and 'the other guy' obliged, which led to creating another persona to go with the Phantom's real face in a silly little brainstorm session.



'Will', aka the Phantom's real face, as drawn by the lovely Alana!

'Will' was introduced as one of Tori's friends from Twinklehaven (which is admittedly not a lie) and made to endure a drinking game or two. Whatever semblance of a personality the Phantom would have, it shines through in the guise of Will, just as it does whenever the Phantom drops an act. An eternal deadpan and prone to blunt honesty, Will is kind of a stick in the mud, but at least he has common sense. He speaks with an accent that is 'difficult to place', this because it's actually an amalgam of several accents mashed into one. Also, he has a good taste in anime, as Undyne may have discovered.

Assorted Info

 * He has numerous minor scars all over his body, mostly his chest and arms.
 * The Phantom was trained to use a wide variety of guns and daggers. He also specializes in hand-to-hand combat and disarming opponents.
 * The Phantom speaks English, Japanese, German, Russian, Mandarin, French, Italian, Korean, Swedish, Latin, Borginian, Cohdopian, Slovak, Dutch and whatever they speak in Zheng Fa. He can also imitate most accents and little side-branches associated with those languages, such as British, Australian and Belgian.
 * He always wears gloves when he's in public. Always.
 * He owns a gadget lighter. It turns into a .10 caliber gun.
 * His watch is also a spy gadget. It can't tell time, but it has a grappling hook and it can hack into most computer programs. The watch is connected to his aviators, as the hacking functions display on the lenses so he can see what he's doing.