Chapter Text
The first thing Phoenix ever remembered was being unbearably cold. Too cold to do much more than curl up tightly in a ball and shiver violently. Any tears shed would freeze, even with her face pressed protectively against her arms. The first thing Phoenix knew was being alone and afraid. Any memory of how she got there and any person she may have a connection to simply didn’t exist.
Phoenix didn’t know how long her life was like that. Her little underdeveloped mind was convinced that it would be forever. She had no concept of death to reference, no idea that there could ever be an end at all. Just the sensation of her body freezing in a ruthlessly silent white world.
“Stay awake Phoenix,” A soft warm voice melted through the night's solid ice, a gentle weight settled on her shoulders, and finally the brutal cold began to release its grip on her body. A burning hand met her tearstained cheek, their fingertips were slightly callused but their touch was so so gentle.
“Open your eyes,” a worried plea, not a demand. The frost that froze her eyelashes together splintered into shards as her eyelids parted slightly.
A young man had knelt down in front of her, he had big brown eyes and short ruffled hair, and despite being in the snowy mountains and not dressing particularly appropriately for the weather, he didn’t seem cold at all. He tightly bound her in a dark blanket and started to rub the cold from her weak limbs.
She would forget his words but she remembered how he spoke. He had a funny accent, it would take her years and years to identify what mixture it was. She really liked his voice, it was calm and steady, it made her feel safe. She liked the way his chest rumbled when her head rested against it as he lifted her off of the ground. She would remember being confused when he started to sing, she couldn’t identify any of the words.
They took shelter in a shrine that seemed to be built around the entrance of a cave. A large lantern hung in the center of the room and glowed with a strange blue light, though Phoenix didn’t remember anyone lighting it. It flickered like flame but she couldn’t see its origin.
She fell asleep warm and safe with the knowledge that she wasn’t alone. His thigh had made an excellent makeshift pillow and it was so easy to relax with his fingers absentmindedly combing through her hair.
In the morning, the nice man had disappeared, leaving only the old cloak on her shoulders as proof that he was even there at all. The blue flame glowed orange now and when she peeked outside, no footprints were leading towards the little room, even though it clearly hadn’t snowed since.
She would meet a round woman who lived up there in the snowy mountains and ask her about the man, but she would just laugh and tell her that there was no way anyone alive was up there. That she was lucky to have found the training hall before she froze herself solid. Phoenix would sip her stew and wonder for years and years if she had really been saved by a ghost.
***
Phoenix wandered a familiar path through her most recent neighborhood. Her foster parents wouldn’t let her back into the house until sunset and as usual, she couldn’t find much to do, so she strolled through tall grass of undeveloped land towards the small cluster of trees that held the little touch of nature that she could reach.
Most children her age had plenty of friends to spend the time with, kids from school who just happened to live nearby at the very least but Phoenix was still new to the area. She preferred to indulge in her own imagination anyway. She hummed to fill the silence as she looked for her favorite tree, the one that had branches low enough for her to try to climb.
She was suddenly distracted by the holy grail of forest debris, a perfectly sized, relatively straight, stick. Just lying there on the ground among the gnarled roots and grasses. All thoughts of climbing were abandoned as she grabbed her prize, holding the end between the knots like it was a sword.
Her game of pretend, once consisting of being shipwrecked on an island shifted to make room for her new prop. Perhaps she could be a pirate and her new favorite tree could be her crow's nest, or she could be a great warrior banished from the kingdom in search of a magical treasure.
Phoenix swung her sword recklessly at the nearest tree, which bounced off harmlessly, nearly sending it flying out of her hand. With a huff and renewed grip, she swung again, slicing through the air before hitting the tree with a slightly more satisfying ‘whap’. This time the force made her lose her footing and stumble to the ground. Oh, her foster mom isn’t going to like her coming back covered in dirt…
“You need to widen your stance.” A voice suggested from behind her. She looked around in shock, convinced that she would’ve noticed anyone approaching her. The voice itself was new to her but the accent, a blend she still couldn’t place, was very familiar.
A young man in an odd white suit strolled up to her, his black hair was cropped in stiff straight lines like he had used a knife to cut it in haphazard bunches. His smile was bright and Phoenix could instantly tell that there was something off about him. Not in a bad way, but deep in her soul she felt something weird in the air once he had entered it.
He knelt and held out his gloved hand towards her -who wore gloves in the spring?- She took it a little timidly before he pulled her to her feet. For some reason, she was surprised that he was solid in front of her, did she expect her hand to pass right through his?
“Are you a knight?” She looked up at him in wonder.
“I have trained in the way of the Samurai, little dragon. I was about your age when I began my journey with the blade.”
“Woah, but if you’re a samurai, where’s your helmet?” Her thumb and index finger rested against her chin as she fell into her thinking pose. She missed the way the man’s expression shifted in amusement.
“Modern samurai don’t wear helmets, they make it hard to look around.” He replied simply.
“But… all the samurai on TV have helmets…” Phoenix pouted.
“It isn’t the helmet that makes the samurai, it’s the sword that harbors their soul. So Ryu-chan, would you like to know how to hold a blade?” The man picked up Phoenix’s little stick from where it fell out of her little hands. She took it the moment it was offered to her with a wide smile.
“You bet I do Sensei!” She bowed with a little too much enthusiasm and made herself dizzy for a moment when she whipped her head back up.
She would arrive back at her foster home a little after sunset with a grin that refused to fade. Her tale of her new imaginary friend added to the list of ‘weird things Phoenix talks about’, but she didn’t mind. Even if her foster parents cared enough to wonder why she was talking to a strange man, the neighbor whose backyard she had technically infiltrated would be able to confirm that she had just been talking to herself and swinging a stick around.
Sometimes even Phoenix believed that the man was a figment of her admittedly active imagination, but then she remembered how he picked her up off of the ground, how he handed her the stick, how he gently adjusted her grip on it, and tapped her leg to help her into a more stable stance. In some way, he was real.
Thankfully, that wouldn’t be her last time associating with the dead, not even close.
***
Over time, Phoenix learned to be careful when talking to her ‘imaginary friends’. After her foster siblings made fun of her for talking to herself and locked her out of the house while their parents were out for the night. They whispered about her when she spent her recesses at school sitting under a tree and pretending that someone was there.
Phoenix didn’t think she was crazy, but talking to ghosts made everyone else think that there was something wrong with her, they usually weren’t very nice about bringing it up. Surprising to no one, this distanced her more from her peers. She didn’t really mind much, she liked the Samurai and the cloak boy and being left alone to fill her sketchbook.
Then she got a cold which led to meeting her first friends. She missed PE with her class, got accused of stealing a boy’s lunch money, and for once, felt as though it wasn’t just her against the world. Even against the whole class, even the teacher, there was someone who would stand up for her. No one had ever really done that for her before.
Ever since she met Miles Edgeworth and Larry Butz, she didn’t need the company of ghosts as much. They got harder to see, she had to close her eyes to find their image lighting up the darkness. She could hear them more than see them most days, a gentle hum, friendly arguing that usually ended in laughter, sometimes she could feel a soft hand rubbing her back or brushing through her hair.
The first time she walked home from Miles’ house when she didn’t quite know how to find her way back home, she followed a gray and white cat until she realized it had led her to the foster family's house. She remembered the markings on the feline’s forehead and the red ribbon around its neck before it slunk away behind a neighbor's fence. She couldn’t prove it, but she knew that the Samurai had brought her home.
At one point she was nearly in tears when she lost her signal samurai keychain, she searched every corner of her section of the room, her path to school, and even the lost and found box at the front office. She had nearly given up and resigned herself to confronting her friends about her carelessness when a quiet noise echoed through the silent halls. A mixture of tapping plastic and jingling metal against tile. She had sat against the brick in defeat before the sound caught her attention.
A little white mouse dragged a blue object behind it, with a gasp, Phoenix realized what it was. It leaped into her outstretched hand with her keychain in tow. It had big round ears with spots resembling a flower and a face that somehow looked far too pleased with itself. She thanked it with a smile and knew that she had probably watched too many Disney movies if she forgot to react to a loose mouse like a normal person. If asked to defend herself, she would’ve claimed that the tiny rodent was cute.
Despite their spirits fading from her sight, they were not gone. The cape boy and the Samurai, the mouse and the cat, Ryunosuke and Kazuma, they would make sure she wasn’t left alone.
***
By the time Phoenix got into college, she had long since gotten used to being mildly haunted. The pacing footsteps around her empty dorm and the subtle shifting of objects with no discernible cause were normal. In the darkness, she could almost see the silhouettes of the unaging young men passing by a barely lit window. It had never scared her, sometimes she even forgot it was happening.
The activity was reduced to little indications that they lingered, she rarely spoke to them, and they rarely spoke to her. It was her life, it was normal.
That was, until she came across a certain newspaper article. She swiped it from the outside of her rare morning visit to a local bakery and frantically pedaled to her dorm as fast as she could manage. All she saw was that picture, that middle parted silver hair and smug smile… she didn’t even read the headline before she knew that something was deeply wrong.
Her old friend, whose face she had nearly forgotten, had changed so fundamentally that she was certain that something had to have happened. She felt it so strongly within her chest, an impulsivity that she thought she had left behind in high school with Larry Butz. A sudden need to do… something. She needed to talk to Miles Edgeworth, She needed to face the newly dubbed ‘demon prosecutor’.
Mile’s was different, not completely in a bad way. Phoenix couldn’t help but notice her beauty before realizing that something was so off about her. Beyond long lashes were cold steely eyes and past dark painted lips was something more like a sneer. She was the little boy Phoenix had grown up with, there was no doubt about it, but gone was that belief her father had instilled within her. Wherever it went, whatever had killed that brave little defense attorney, Phoenix would find it.
The air in her room was abuzz as a half-formed plan developed within her mind. She booted up her second-hand monster of a laptop to see what Ivy’s pre-law program was like, the paper from her current art projects fluttered without the presence of a breeze. A pencil spun at a moderate speed only to come to a rest, pointing at a blue mask-shaped keychain.
Phoenix barely picked up her school bag before rushing out the door. It was clear what her ghosts thought about her nearly thoughtless decision. That handful of minutes contained more activity than she had seen from them in months. They were excited.
She hoped her counselor took walk-ins, she had a few classes to add to her schedule.
***
Phoenix closed her eyes for a moment, focusing on the darkness and giving her aching mind a break from staring at her several pound’s worth of study material for the bar exam. The quiet of Fey & Co. was a balm for her headache, she had a feeling that any sound louder than Mia’s pen against her notepad or the click-clacking of her keyboard would send her into a full migraine.
A deep breath in… and out… She had to be missing some tiny detail. She wracked through the shitty filing cabinet in her brain that held all her recently acquired law knowledge that seemed to dissolve into blurry mush as her exhaustion grew. There was probably some weird Latin law word she was forced to memorize that would help her, but she always did better in real-world situations than wordy problems that relied on rereading the same agonizing block of text over and over again.
The sun was setting but both occupants of the office had been too entranced in their work to turn the lights on, relying on the natural light from the windows all day. Though it would probably be only a few minutes until it would be too dark to see the words that were currently tormenting her. She indulged in a few more moments of rest for her eyes, a dangerous gamble, the break from that damn textbook felt too good. The chances of falling asleep at her desk were only getting higher.
Her head started to droop from where it rested heavily atop her fist. Shit, she didn’t even realize how stiff her neck was. She wondered briefly if Mia would mind if she laid on the couch before she had to bike all the way back to Ivy…
Light suddenly bled through her eyelids, making her wince. She managed to squint one of them open, expecting to see Mia at the light switch with an unamused eyebrow raised. But there was no one there. Phoenix groaned quietly, which meant it was probably Kazuma. She could almost see him through her closed eye, his smile was almost too wide to be smug but she knew that look in his eye. She was almost annoyed enough to ignore how tired she was. Almost.
Phoenix straightened in her seat and forced her eyes open with a barely restrained grumble. Ryunosuke would’ve let her sleep… at least for a few minutes. She would wake up after fifteen minutes with a sudden drop in temperature and a different mixture of regrets, but at least while she was asleep she couldn’t notice how badly her head hurt.
“Did you turn on the light?” Mia asked from the room over, ah, there was that raised eyebrow. But it conveyed confusion rather than a silent ‘Can you at least try not to fall asleep on your desk, you’re getting drool on your study guide.’
“Uh, yeah.” Phoenix pretended that she was slightly more awake than she felt.
“Hmmm, I didn’t see you get up,” Ms. Fey muttered to herself before going back to work.
It took entirely too much effort not to glare at the empty space by the light switch, so she did. Just because she was being haunted didn’t mean everyone around her would be as normal about it. Mia was naturally pretty logical but she would probably find an exorcist if her intern's ghosts got too bold. She didn’t love distractions.
Phoenix took one more deep breath before rolling her neck. The day was almost done, Ms. Fey probably wouldn’t make her stay for much longer. Just a few more minutes.
***
Phoenix knew how quickly life could become unstabilized, one day her best friend could be by her side, confidently pulling out complicated words that she was pretty sure neither of them understood, to the next when he had vanished from the face of the planet with no explanation. One day she could be reading through her girlfriend's poems and the next with blood in her teeth and a broken heart, or spending the night in a cell.
She had come here to meet Ms. Fey’s little sister. They had a burger place in mind, one that would make the idea of biking back to her apartment sound like torture and she was really looking forward to everything before that point. Not just because Mia was typically nice enough to foot the bill for these kinds of things.
The sick feeling that settled in her stomach when she noticed all the lights off chased away any thoughts of hunger, even more so when the familiar scent of blood reached her nose.
Well, now she could say that she had met Mia’s sister, just not in the way she had expected.
Phoenix was in shock as she picked the unconscious girl from the ground, her eyes avoided the scene inches away from them. She set the teenager down on the couch they used for clients. She was breathing, her pulse seemed normal, she must’ve just passed out. Phoenix finally forced herself to be drawn towards the window.
“Chief…” Her voice was hollow, just on the edge of a whisper. It was too late, even an idiot would recognize that, just barely too late. There was too much blood to convince herself otherwise. Her dark hair was drenched in it, barely covering the fatal wound. Phoenix’s trembling hand met the side of the other woman’s throat, the last of her hopes were abandoned as she searched for any sign of life. Her skin was still warm, but Phoenix could feel it cooling under her touch.
What if she had gotten here a few minutes early? What if she had biked a little bit faster or… no. She couldn’t let herself think like that. She’d save it for later.
Phoenix was pretty familiar with death, she was comfortable with the knowledge that there was an afterlife, but that didn’t matter much when faced with something that resembled a nightmare after watching a horror movie more than reality. Mia Fey was dead, no, she was killed. She was murdered and there was only one other person in the room, but the thought of that sobbing girl being the one to kill Mia… it felt so wrong.
Phoenix was a criminal defense attorney, she had gone to crime scenes with Mia and visited the morgue to collect an autopsy report or two, she had studied gruesome murder scenes and become desensitized to pictures of dead bodies but it was different when it was Her she was looking at.
“You cannot falter little dragon, all you can give her now is justice,” A voice she hadn’t heard clearly in years resonated in the empty air.
“It’s okay Phoenix, we’ll take care of her,” A different, gentler, familiar voice echoed in her head, and she fought off the wave of grief that threatened to drown her.
Phoenix stood unsteadily as her instincts kicked in. She would rarely get the chance to investigate before the cops arrived at a crime scene, she took a breath of blood-soaked air, and locked away the part of her that just wanted to hold Mia in her arms and cry. She was an attorney, this was her job. This was just the start of another case, and if she knew anything, it was that she couldn’t cry until it was all over.
***
“Ms. Wright? Are you giving up?” The judge asked from his artificial pedestal. Phoenix almost snarled in response. She was on a direct line to being executed for Mia’s murder and all she could feel was righteous rage.
White was going to get away with it all, the man had so much blood on his gaudily decorated hands, though he had cleaned off the bit of her own from the day before. Her cheek throbbed every time she looked at him. She wasn’t one to easily resort to violence but she felt like it would be borderline therapy to remove all of that man's sparkling teeth with a baseball bat.
But she didn’t have anything else. With the aid of her childhood friend that she hadn’t seen in fifteen years, her execution was inevitable. Every part of this trial had been impossible, Edgeworth had never been beaten, White had everyone in his pocket, and Phoenix… She had only officially been an attorney for one other case.
She hesitated to admit her defeat, it would be as if her own words were the last thing left to sign her death warrant. It would be like admitting that every moment up to now had been a waste, she would never get to find out what happened to Miles, she would never get the chance to fix it. The moment she opened her mouth would be the moment she was to be sent to death.
All eyes were on her, she would have to confront her loss sooner rather than later. With a slow inhale through her nose, she prepared her noose. At least she had saved Maya from this fate, that had to be worth all her effort to get here.
“Phoenix!” A voice, as clear as day tore through the silence. Not a single other person reacted, not a single other person had to. They hadn’t heard it. It was Mia’s voice.
“You can’t give up now, you have everything you need,” She closed her eyes for a moment, it was as if she was standing right beside her. “The note… It wasn’t just written on scrap paper… it’s the key to exposing the prosecution's lies!”
In the silent room, Phoenix smiled.
“Objection! Why would I give up, when the witness is lying before the court?”
With one inconsistent date, Phoenix proved White's entire testimony false, but it wasn’t enough for Edgeworth, who was all too willing to allow that vile man to slip through the fingers of justice and back to the towering office he lounged in.
Thankfully, Mia had one last gift to give. A whisper in her ear, filled with venom for her to spit out of her own mouth.
“There’s nowhere else to run Mr. White. Killing Mia Fey won’t protect you from the consequences of the knowledge she gathered. No destruction of evidence, no blackmail, no higher power you claim to control can save you now. I’m not scared of you and no one else in this court should be either.”
“Something we’ve had yet to discuss is a motive for the crime. At the same time that Mia was killed, evidence was stolen from a secret compartment in a clock made to look like a statue. This evidence was a list of names of the people Redd White has been blackmailing, some to the point of committing suicide, all to do his bidding. While those papers have in all likelihood been destroyed, the information they contained remains.” Phoenix started to repeat the names Mia presented. Important names, widely recognized names.
A shriek stopped her in her tracks for a moment. It took one last push for the confession to spill out, after all, admitting to one murder was better than revealing the scope of his crimes to the press. If anything, she could rely on him taking the coward's way out, caring about his reputation above all else.
For the second time in her life, Phoenix Wright was pronounced ‘Not Guilty’, and she was once again left with more questions and the intense need to have a good cry.
“Thank the Holy Mother, I was just about to try forcing my way into getting Maya to channel me…” Mia sighed. The cheering from the spectators washed away the Phoenix’s stunned exclamation of ‘What!’
From then on, Phoenix’s ghosts seemed to have made a friend, one that was way more talkative and very helpful during trials. It was a good thing she didn’t mind being haunted.
***
Ever since Maya had learned that Phoenix was ‘spiritually sensitive’, whatever that meant, she had been relentless in trying to get them to ‘train’ together. This seemed to mean getting pushed into a shower at its coldest setting and meditating after lighting a hundred candles. Both of which were activities that Phoenix would rather avoid. She hated the cold and being forced to sit still for more than five minutes. She was not meant to be a spirit medium, she hoped they got a nice murder case before Maya actually found a freezing waterfall.
One time she had even managed to get her to try on Mia’s old medium robes, matching what Maya wore on a daily basis but made for someone taller. Phoenix couldn’t manage it for long before she burst into tears, the cloth still smelled like her, her favorite perfume mixed with a lightly scented laundry detergent. Usually, she only caught a hint of the scent when the chief hugged her or let her borrow a piece of clothing when Phoenix’s clumsy ass ruined what she was wearing.
It was hard just to look at anything she had owned, which was getting harder as half of her belongings were now in her former junior partner's custody, resting in boxes taking up space in her own little apartment.
She had officially transferred into the main office. It looked as if nothing had happened but her eyes kept wandering towards the window, expecting something to be beneath it. There never was. She kept expecting to come in and smell blood, but every time it was nothing but a memory.
At least learning how to meditate had proved useful when her thoughts started to race and her paranoia got the best of her. It forced her to be mindful of the reality around her, which was why she was sat at Mia’s desk focused only on her breathing. It took a toll on her to work every day in the room where someone's life had ended.
A loud thump ripped her away from her practice, it made her jump out of Mia’s chair and whip her head around in case she needed to defend herself. Her worries were eased the moment she spotted what had startled her. One of Mia’s thick law books had fallen off of its shelf. Most would find the occurrence strange, but Phoenix had lived with ghosts that loved to bother her for her entire life.
The heavy volume seemed to be part of a series of books labeled ‘The International History of Law’, a subject she didn’t exactly need to know about when studying to be an attorney, nor one that really interested her much. But that changed when she saw the page it had miraculously opened on.
‘The Life of Naruhodo Ryunosuke and the Introduction of Jury Trials in Japan’, paired with a sepia-toned photograph of a very familiar young man. Why the hell would one of her ghosts be in a book about famous figures in law? She only had to read through a few paragraphs before she burst into laughter. All of her ghosts were former lawyers, no wonder they got so excited when she changed her major.
Well, after twenty-three years it was probably about time she learned a bit about the ghosts that haunted her. It was much more fascinating than solitaire on Mia’s computer was bound to be. Maybe they would have more in common than their careers.
***
Phoenix absentmindedly fidgeted with the tiny evidence bag that Maya had managed to save, the bullet taken right out of the heart of Gregory Edgeworth. The file in her hand was sparse, but perhaps that was for the best. She only had five minutes to get her case ready. There was no crime scene to investigate, no witnesses to interrogate, no miraculous saves from Larry. She would have to figure this out on her own.
Whatever conversation Gumshoe and Edgeworth were having faded into background noise as she laser-focused on the pages in front of her. There was one thing she knew for certain, Miles Edgeworth did not kill her father, dreams did not dictate reality. Nightmares of a traumatic event did not count as admissible evidence, not in the courts, and not to Phoenix. She just had to prove it.
“Nick…What are you doing?” Maya’s voice interrupted her third reread of the evidence list.
“Huh- Oh, I’m getting my case ready,” She replied simply, glancing back at the papers for another moment.
“Your case?” The young medium’s eyes widened.
“Isn’t it obvious? I’m going to prove Miles Edgeworth innocent,” This whole week her voice had wavered, and her nerves often got the better of her but now, her tone was firm and unshakable. This wasn’t just the demon prosecutor she was defending, this was the kid she knew, the one she had written a hundred letters to. That was who Miles thought killed her own father and that was even more ridiculous to imagine than Maya killing her sister.
“What are you talking about, pal! She just admitted to it, she confessed to it! In court!” Gumshoe exclaimed in a panic.
For the first time since the confession, Phoenix looked directly at Edgeworth. Her old friend seemed resigned to her fate, there was a certain sad peacefulness to her expression. Since the defense attorney had first shown up at the detention center she had been begging them not to get involved, to leave her behind so they wouldn’t get caught up in the crossfire, to let her die like she thought she deserved.
One look at those tired gray eyes attempting to hide behind lightly tousled silver bangs reignited her resolve. Blue and brown eyes remained aflame and steady against their steely counterparts, Phoenix was not going to give up on her friend. She didn’t when the little boy disappeared, not when her face was printed and literally demonized in newspapers, not even when she had tried to get her in jail for her mentor's murder. Even when Miles was desperate to drown, Phoenix would fight to keep them afloat.
“I don’t believe in your nightmare,” She remained steadfast within Edgeworths growing shocked gaze.
“What?” Her rival's voice was weak, almost breaking.
“Have you ever tried to prove a client guilty with the contents of a dream? Of course not, they’re unreliable and not in tune with reality. You can’t claim you killed your father when the only evidence you have to prove it is circumstantial and based on a nightmare. In any case, the real fight is just beginning, I’ll prove you’re innocent. Trust me.” Phoenix smiled, she didn’t even have to force it.
Phoenix gripped the plastic-enclosed bullet, the tiny piece of metal at the center of this hurricane. She wondered if she held it tight enough and closed her eyes, she would be able to see the man it killed attending his own murder trial. She wondered if he could see them, two of the kids that played in his backyard and kept matching keychains, she wondered if he wanted to know the truth as much as she did.
She did know one thing, he wouldn’t want his daughter taking the blame. It amused her to spare a brief thought of another dead lawyer joining her behind the bench.
It had been a joke to help her feel less like she was fighting an army all on her own. It wasn’t as funny anymore.
There had to be a second bullet… Miles still didn’t believe her, she had confessed again. They didn’t find the second bullet, they had no proof it was fired that day… In desperation, Phoenix objected.
All the lights in the courthouse flickered. All the doors were closed and yet, she still felt a breeze playing with the hair that had fallen loose from her braid.
‘It must exist’ Mia’s voice echoed her protegee's defiance. ‘The second bullet…’
‘Someone took it’
Phoenix’s eyes widened, that wasn’t Mia. It wasn’t any of her other ghosts either. His voice was low and steady and lacked the European influences that his daughter had developed. She had been a child since she had last heard it but she didn’t doubt who it belonged to for a moment.
Why else would a bullet be missing from the crime scene… it must’ve hit something or someone. Someone took it… the murderer took it with them.
Phoenix’s mouth stumbled through claims, just to keep noise in the air so she could think, she barely paid attention to what she was saying other than it was in response to the judge. Why would the murderer take the bullet…
‘Had to take it’ Mia’s voice returned. ‘Don’t think why the bullet was taken, think why the bullet HAD to be taken’
“What if… the missing bullet hit the murderer? That would take it from the scene,” Phoenix suggested after a few more long moments of verbal flailing. At that point she had just been talking out of her ass, thinking out loud to keep the trial from ending. The resulting silence should’ve been awkward if not for the realization that the situation she presented wasn’t just possible, but perfectly applicable.
One of the bullets broke the glass in the door of the elevator, implying that whatever it hit was outside of the doomed box. Miles’ accidental shot hit someone, but not anyone in the elevator. But who else was there?
It wasn’t Phoenix who made the connection, nor any of her ghosts, unless they just didn’t feel like telling her. It wasn’t the first time even just during this case that she was thanking the goddess of law for Maya Fey, and she was sure it wouldn’t be the last.
There was one man who was present at the courthouse that day, who had just been scorned by the victim of the crime, who took the impossibly rare vacation right after the incident, who conveniently stood opposite her at that very moment.
Her accusation was solidified with the rapid beeps of a metal detector in a room shocked into silence. Her smile only grew when she held up the evidence Maya had saved the day before, the final blow that Von Karma was unable to retaliate against. Phoenix knew the truth and that was truly the most satisfying weapon to use against a man like Von Karma.
With a terrible scream, the case closed. Edgeworth was cut free from the guilt that had haunted her for so many years and Manfred was left a rabid shadow of the man she had spent the last few days being afraid of. There was no more calm control seized by the snap of his fingers, only outraged slamming of his forehead into the wall behind him. So much for the pursuit of perfection, it didn’t seem to do him much good now.
It was over, and she kept smiling. Phoenix caught Miles’ astonished gaze as she was pronounced ‘not guilty’. She hoped she conveyed ‘I told you to trust me’ well enough with just her jagged eyebrows and proud grin. She would have to make sure to convey the message later regardless.
Maybe now things would be different between them, maybe she could work to get her old friend back.
She couldn’t stop herself from hoping.
***
It hadn’t been enough.
Years of studying for one of the hardest fields, countless all-nighters reading until she got a migraine, multiple stunts in the defendant's chair that wouldn’t have happened if she was just a student of the arts, multiple instances where she was threatened or physically attacked, all that fighting amounted to nothing when she saw that damn note.
Somehow… she hadn’t done enough to save Miles Edgeworth. So proud up until the very end, choosing to die rather than simply ask for help. Just like her mentor she just couldn’t handle losing, in that way Phoenix could argue that she had a hand in her friend's demise. Would she have ever been enough?
Edgeworth must’ve not had many other friends if Phoenix was who they called when the note was discovered, or maybe she was the only friend Gumshoe knew how to find. A pang shot through her heart at the thought. Did she really not have anyone to turn to? Were her closest friends a detective whose salary she abused and the Defense Attorney she had reunited with only a few months ago?
Phoenix’s hands shook as she held the note, one word echoing loudly inside her skull over and over until the detective was able to say her name loud enough to catch her attention.
‘Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth Chooses Death’
‘Death’
Death, death, death, she should be used to that word by now. She seemed to attract it like having a sandwich on a beach attracts seagulls. Constantly circling and vaguely threatening with those soulless black eyes waiting for a crumb to drop before swarming. It didn’t matter that there was no body, the word was right there. Miles had never been one to talk in vague metaphor, unless it was to make fun of her in court.
Phoenix’s connection to the dead had been comforting, helpful, sometimes annoying, but she had never really felt the need to strengthen that bond. Now she had someone that she needed to talk to, someone who wouldn’t say a damn thing in life unless it was dragged out of her kicking and screaming.
Unfortunately, Phoenix was just as skilled at asking for help as her rival, but that didn’t stop her from trying something she knew nothing about. She just wasn’t sure how long it would be until she was ready to even tell Maya about what had happened. She would want to know why the lawyer was suddenly so interested in her ‘spiritual power’ and even thinking about having that conversation made her sick to her stomach.
Wearing Mia’s acolyte robes hurt in a way that compounded upon the reason why she wore them. It wasn’t as if she wore them in front of her junior partner ever but in some unexplainable way, they felt like her. It made her loss more fresh, especially without Maya around to channel her.
Phoenix didn’t have any candles to light, sunlight peeked through her blinds no matter how tightly she closed them, and no matter how cold the water was in her shower it never approached the level of a ‘freezing waterfall, especially when it came to water pressure. Still, Phoenix knelt in her living room, after moving her meager coffee table out of the way.
She resisted the urge to rock in place and readjust her hands, she had a single-minded focus that would not let her go unless she was forced to. She just needed to speak to Miles Edgeworth. She pictured the woman's image in her mind, preparing what to say to her, considering if she would call the ghost a coward or just start crying.
Time passed, she refused to acknowledge how much. It could’ve been anywhere from a sluggish fifteen minutes to several hours. She ignored hunger pains and the way her eyes burned when she failed at the whole ‘keeping your mind blank’ part of meditating.
For once the world was still, no matter how tightly she closed her eyes there were no spirits to keep her company. It was only when her back ached relentlessly and her legs had gone numb that she gave up. Just like with Edgeworth, she had failed.
At that moment she was grateful for being alone, she felt no embarrassment letting out the loud wailing that always coupled with her tears as she collapsed with her back against the couch with her trembling bloodless legs bent up in front of her chest. In the end, she couldn’t manage to be completely angry with Miles, just with herself. She could’ve tried harder and she knew she would live to regret it.
She tried again the next day, but for longer, she forgot to eat. She tried again the next week, wasting her water bill on a long cold shower that wouldn’t be cold enough to make a difference, it only served to make her miserable. She bought candles and tried again, she scoured through Mia’s old notes from when she was communicating with the dead to gain insight on Redd White. One of them had to have some information mentioning what the hell she was supposed to do.
Day after day she was left with silence. Maybe she had driven away her spirits just like she had driven everyone else away. Maybe everyone was just waiting for her to get attached before they left her behind too. What could she do, she couldn’t force anyone to stay, even if she desperately needed them to. They shouldn’t have to be trapped with her.
Miles Edgeworth was dead and it didn’t matter that Phoenix could talk to spirits, she had revealed the truth about DL-6 and it wasn’t enough. She had failed in every way that mattered.
It took months to put it all behind her, to distract herself enough with cases and paperwork to stop herself from thinking about it. She tried her best to not think of Miles Edgeworth at all, cringing away if even her name came up. It hurt too much and she was so sick of hurting so much.
Miles Edgeworth was dead, and she didn’t even have the decency to haunt her about it.
***
When Phoenix was given a Magatama like the ones all the Feys wore, she was told it would allow her to see into people's hearts and see their lies. She was not told that it would help her see spirits again, just as strongly as before her age hit double digits.
It was as if they had never died at all, at least until she looked close enough and saw how their forms faded in varying degrees down their legs, or until she noticed how they followed a certain person around or seemed reluctant to speak as they knew they wouldn’t be heard.
The world was so much more populated when the spirits that haunted it were visible, at least while she took to nervously gripping the smooth stone in her pocket. When she let go to focus on interviewing a witness or to do paperwork without distractions, the ghosts disappeared, and the world got emptier.
Mia tended to hang around Maya more, though she wasn’t against hijacking either her sisters or her little cousin's bodies to help with a case. Especially since it was hard for Phoenix to hold the magatama and frantically sort through evidence and stacks of files at the same time. She also had to have a free hand to point with, which was very important in her line of work.
Seeing Ryunosuke and Kazuma for the first time in years had been nice but the former kept trying to bring up the name of a person Phoenix really didn’t want to think about. The first time she dropped the magatama when the conversation started to steer itself in that direction had been an accident, every following time, it had been intentional.
Even with the magatama, her rival refused to return, at this point, Phoenix wouldn’t know what to do if she did. She refused to think about it, it was easier that way. But it did nothing to prepare her for when it actually happened.
Phoenix was barely keeping it together, the only reason she hadn’t completely fallen apart was because of the little girl tucked against her side, refusing to be left alone, even during a murder investigation. Phoenix obliged, not because she wanted the kid in the middle of everything, but if she was honest, she was afraid to let Pearl out of her sight like she had done with Maya.
The tiny girl found her way into Phoenix’s arms several times during the long investigations, whether that be due to her exhaustion or because she needed to cling to the only person she had left. She never complained, even as her arms ached badly enough to tremble, though that also could be from the caffeine she used to supplement the sleepless night when Maya wasn’t by her side.
Phoenix had only just put down the little spirit medium to talk to Gumshoe when she heard a voice she had tried to forget. Her head whipped around and locked onto the one ghost she had sworn never wanted to see her again.
Miles Edgeworth looked so solid, so close to being alive and for a moment, she forgot how to breathe. The flood of indescribable emotions took over her body so thoroughly that she couldn’t hear what the prosecutors were talking about. She could only stare and hold onto Pearl's hand a little too tightly.
Franziska had left with Gumshoe in tow and Phoenix made a vital realization. Miles had been speaking to her sister, a living person with no spiritual connection, and Phoenix was not holding the magatama. All evidence pointed towards one conclusion.
Edgeworth was alive.
Edgeworth made her think she was dead through a criminally short suicide note and felt no need to contact her for a full year. Maya was kidnapped by an assassin and being used as blackmail against Phoenix and Miles Edgeworth just waltzed in with a teasing comment towards her sister and a painfully familiar smirk on her lips.
Phoenix moved before her mind caught up with her actions. She just had to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating, that she wasn’t just desperate to grab onto any slim thread of hope.
A tentative hand met the formerly dead prosecutor's cheek, it was met with warmth and widening gray eyes. Phoenix ignored how the backs of her eyes burned at the confirmation.
“I thought you were dead,” She broke the silence with a whisper, “I-I never wanted to see you again,” Her voice broke even through the snarl her mouth had formed.
“Not the warm welcome I expected from someone I haven’t seen in a year,” Edgeworth deadpanned, and while she didn’t flinch away from Phoenix’s touch or slap her hand away, she didn’t lean into it either. The defense attorney backed away cautiously, even though she desperately wanted to stay within Edgeworth's orbit.
Phoenix’s teeth clenched to keep a cruel remark behind them. It was so much easier to be angry, it was so much steadier than the terror that followed her ever since that damn transceiver was placed in her hand. She felt less breakable when her rage was at the forefront of her mind. She made no effort to hide it.
“Your hatred for me is quite unhealthy, not to mention one-sided. I do hope you will be able to put it aside, for your own sake if nothing else. I can help you with this case as I am not the assigned prosecutor. We can only find the truth if we work together.” Her voice was so steady while it took every last bit of effort Phoenix had not to lash out. She wasn’t sure if she could rely on her usual self-control in this situation.
Phoenix took a deep breath, the criminal affairs department was the stupidest place to get into a physical altercation, and while she was not known for making the most intelligent decisions, she was smart enough not to get an assault charge, even if it would be so cathartic.
“What do you have for me?” She asked more steadily than she felt. A firmness in her voice that was just as cold as it was low, forced beyond an exhausted whisper by the fury that helped her ignore her fear.
What mattered was getting Maya back safe, then, if she wasn’t completely emotionally wrung out, she could still let Miles know exactly how much she had fucked up.
One problem at a time.