Chapter Text
"'Gifts we gave, but more you took,' she snarled, 'so more in turn is due.' in a blink, the girl was trapped inside a mirror..." Miles paused his story to smiled gently at the young girl whose small hands grasped at the soft fabric of his sweater, her breath was mellow and her eyes were shut. "There, she's asleep."
The sight of the two made Phoenix's heart swell. He would never tire of seeing his family in such a sweet and domestic setting. But, he couldn't help but notice the odd choice of bedtime story.
"Why did you read her such a scary story tonight?" he asked.
Miles smirked, "It's traditional. Apparently very popular among the locals." he mentioned as he slid the book onto the coffee table. "And you know Trucy likes scary stories, she seemed to enjoy it."
He frowned, "Miles, I really wanted to keep Truce away from all that stuff. Don't you remember?" Phoenix reached out to the man.
Miles suddenly faced towards Phoenix, holding eye contact. "There's nothing wrong with my memory." He spoke quickly, with an odd tone. Phoenix would have looked away if Miles didn't immidiately correct himself, softly soothing "You're just being paranoid."
Phoenix brushed it off, dismissing it as Miles not understanding tones and other social cues. "I guess I could be. But, I just want to live a nice, quiet life with you two."
"Well then go quietly take our daughter to bed."
He sighed as Miles began detaching himself from Trucy's light grasp.
Phoenix stood and scooped up his daughter, holding her close. Making sure she was comfortable and supported, he began walking her up to her bedroom.
Placing her down on the mattress as delicately as he could, he grabbed her favorite blanket and tucked her in. He smiled at the girl, his light when he believed that Miles was dead and gone.
Finding that damned note, 'Miles Edgeworth chooses death,' it read. Four words that stuck in Phoenix's head for all those years. Only to later be told that he was still alive.
It was Trucy... happy, smiling Trucy... who convinced him to try and seek Miles out. Phoenix didn't want to search again, attempting and failing to mourn his lost love. But for Trucy, he could do it.
Ah, and now he was thinking about the incident again. Phoenix wouldn't usually be bothered by his drifting thoughts, as it tended to happen often, but Miles made it clear he wanted to simply forget everything that happened in the Von Karma estate.
Phoenix wished he could convince Miles to move past it instead of trying to ignore it, but it wasn't working. Miles seems to have only gotten more and more reluctant to think about the incident as of late. It worried Phoenix.
He shook his head, attempting to change the topic in his own brain. He tried to focus on the positives, his husband was just downstairs cooking what was sure to be a nice dinner, if the smell drifting from the kitchen was anything to go off of.
Phoenix descended the stairs to finally join Miles. He waited as his husband began plating the clams he made for dinner.
"It looks really good, Edgey. What's it called?"
"Muscheln in Senfsoße, or um- steamed mussles in mustard sauce I guess you could call it." Miles glanced at Phoenix as he leaned his arms on the kitchen counter.
Phoenix smirked and tilted his head, "Another German dish, huh? You've really been enjoying making them lately."
"Yes, well- I grew up in Germany, you know this." Miles responded a bit awkwardly.
"I know, I know, I'm just teasing you. So," Phoenix gestures to the bottle of sparkling wine on the counter, "is that German too?"
Miles frowns at him, "No, actually. It's an Italian white wine. It should pair well with the mussles." He turned all of his focus onto the food.
Phoenix hummed in response and helped Miles carry the clams to the dinning table. He set his plate down along with the bottle of wine and sat across from Miles.
They sat in a peaceful silence as they ate, it was nice. Until there was a loud bang ringing in Phoenix's ears, a very familiar bang. His eyes seemed to be struggling to take in what he was seeing, because it was impossible that this was real.
Miles Edgeworth-Wright had a single bullet hole in his left shoulder.
And soon after Phoenix realized this, more gunshots came. He ducked under the table and watched as Miles fell to the floor with him. Before Phoenix could check his pulse, look him in the eyes, anything to assure him that Miles was still alive, another familiar sight stood above him.
Mia Fey, gun in hand, fired all of her rounds directly at Miles.
Phoenix couldn't believe this. It had to be a dream. This couldn't be real. There is no possible way that this is real.
He felt Mia's hand grip onto his shoulder as she forced him away from the scene. He smelled the blood in the air, blood that could only belong to one person. He heard Trucy's cries as she was being pulled by one of Mia's soldiers. He felt a wave of anger hit him.
He did not feel himself running towards the man trying to take Trucy. He did not smell the gunpowder fresh on his skin. He did not hear Mia command one of her men to stop him. He did not feel the baton hitting his head.
He did not remember falling asleep. So then why was there an alarm sounding? Phoenix opened his eyes. This wasn't his room? It wasn't a room at all.
He was laying on the dirt and snow. It wouldn't be the first time, however he doesn't remember running across a bridge.
His memories started to come back quickly and he immidiately felt a sharp pain in his head. The sound he had heard when he woke became unbearable. He struggled to reach for the source.
He got his hands on it eventually, a phone that didn't stop ringing for what felt like hours. When he answered, a voice he's never heared responded.
"Finally, I've been trying to contact you for 10 minutes. What's your location? Are Trucy and Tright safe?" the voice questioned.
Phoenix struggled to answer, "Who are you? What happened to Trucy? Where's Miles?
"Who is th- Trite? Wh-....f-..ck ha-..p-nd...-" and then silence. Phoenix checked the phone screen, no signal. He was in the middle of nowhere with no clue where Trucy was.
Phoenix slowly began to stand up. He felt a few bruises on his waist and he had a terrible headache, but he was mostly okay. He couldn't say the same for the van he most likely came in.
It had crashed, and when Phoenix looked for a driver, he found the man dead. He had to get moving, he couldn't wait here for any longer.
Phoenix followed the road for a while. It seemed to be getting more narrow and felt less like a road and more like a path.
He kept hearing noises around him as he walked. It felt like something was following him, he didn't know what, though. The thought scared him.
When he came across a weak barbed wire fense, he knew he had gone off of the road. He just hoped that this path he was walking lead to somewhere he could get help, even if all this walking felt fruitless.
The feeling of something following him increased with every step, and with every step Phoenix walked a little faster. Soon he was doing a full sprint through the trees, uncaring as they scratched his face.
Finally, he found a cabin. He knocked on the door, hoping, praying someone would answer, but no luck.
Assuming it was abandoned, he opened the door anyways. It swung open easily as he entered the dark place.
Inside held remnants of a human home. Food, furnature, sentimental belongings, and other various junk. But none of it was in any semblance of order.
The entire cabin was trashed, ruined beyond human living conditions. It looked more like an all-too familiar crime scene.
As he crawled through the once-home, it felt as if the deeper he went the more he felt like he was entering a crime scene. The familiar scent of dried blood filled the air before he spotted the source.
Blood splattered on the floor in more areas than Phoenix felt he could count. It was as if people did not choose to leave this home, they were dragged, pulled from normality and leaving something inhuman behind.
Phoenix's investigative urge was not doing him any favors as he continued to follow the blood instead of leaving the cabin immidiately and taking his chances in the bloodless woods behind him.
As luck would have it, or maybe it would be more fitting to say this was not lucky, the blood lead to a human sized hole in the wall of the cabin. Phoenix felt a sense of relief at seeing the morning rays, light at last.
He quickly exited the building, the mystery surrounding it be damned. He was not defending a client this time, so it was unnecessary. Besides, he had a bigger case to worry about: Trucy.
Phoenix continued down a path, less frightening than the previous, though that might be because of the daylight. As he emerged from what looked to be a crack in a mountain, he took in the sight.
The area around him was covered in snow and foggy in the early morning light. As he continued to look around, he started to see a shape come out of the fog.
It looked to be a huge castle, perhaps medieval? He couldn't tell. Miles is (was...?) the history nerd. Even more importantly, when Phoenix stopped staring at the magnificent castle, he noticed the small village below it. People must live there.
He started for it as quickly as he could. The mountain side was steep and he has to slide down parts of it, but soon he was level with the village.
The feeling of being watched came back, or maybe it never left? Regardless, it was strong.
He walked in between a few small homes, no noise came from any of them. Phoenix felt his hope in finding any people here dwindle with each door he passed.
He took a chance an entered one. Once again the door opened easily.
The entire house was demolished on the inside.
And yet, food was on the table, old but still intact. He looked along the bare and cracked walls, nothing.Nothing except a single photo in a frame. The man in the photo seemed to be an angel, at least from what little knowledge Phoenix had on the topic.
He soon exited the house and continued through the village, stopping occasionally to check for any sign of life.
In one house he entered, he found a knife lying on a countertop, and even more importantly, a bottle of medicine. He used that bottle on his wounds as fast as he could. They cleared up quicker than he expected, but he was happy to finally be healed none the less.
Phoenix looked around the house some more,
hoping for other useful items. The only things of interest that he could spot was a pot of ramen on the stove that was still slightly warm.
He moved past the pot and attempted to open what looked to be a curtain blocking a doorway. Instead, he was met with a gunshot sounding right next to his ear and an older looking man with a shotgun in his face.
Phoenix threw up his hands and tried to calm the man, "I'm not gonna hurt you. I'm friendly. Please don't shoot me-."
The man lowered his gun and squinted at him. Phoenix tried to speak again but the man quickly put his hand over his mouth.
Phoenix kept quiet as the man listened for something. And then something was yelling, something that wasnt human.
The both of the men's eyes widened with fear, but the elder's held a knowledge of what was coming. "Do you have a gun?" he whispered, "Please tell me you have a gun!'
The inhuman screams, howls, whatever they were became louder. Closer.
The old man searched around the room, eventually pulling out a smaller gun that Phoenix couldn't put a name to. The man threw it to him and he fumbled to catch it, trying not to accidentally pull the trigger.
The noises sounded all around the building. Phoenix and the man watched the walls and ceiling cautiously.
Phoenix watched the old man cower as he waited for whatever was coming for them.
Before Phoenix could speak again, the man was pulled through the ceiling. Phoenix rushed to grab hold of him, to do anything to keep the only friendly face he had seen safe. But the old man was ripped from the once quiet cabin.
And Phoenix was quick to follow.
When he awoke for the second time, he could smell nothing but blood. The scent was overwhelming.
It wasn't a struggle to wake up this time. Phoenix was startled awake, terrified of what he would find. Surrounding him was a sea of very human people, people who had families and lives to lead, all dead. He wondered briefly why he was the only one alive.
As he attempted to process the scene around him, be began crawling to what was hopefully an exit.
Until he heard a groan.
Phoenix snapped around, hoping it wasn't another one of those inhuman things that took him and the old man from the only place that felt normal.
Something moved in the corner of his eye. Startled, Phoenix pulled out the gun that was gifted to him.
As he shakily grew closer to the figure, he soon realized it was the old man from before. He moved towards the man, hoping to help him get out of this awful place. However the man only groaned louder as Phoenix attepted to lift his body.
"Stop, boy." The man mumbled quietly.
Phoenix looked at the man, confused, "But.. you need help! You need..."
"Listen to me right now," the man lifted his head to match Phoenix's gaze, "you take that gun I gave you. You fire it. Do not hold back. Do not hesitate. Creatures in this village will kill you, son. So if you want to survive, if you want to see your family again, you fire that fucking gun. You hear me?"
Phoenix gaped at him, glancing at the weapon that held the power to take so many lives. The weapon that hurt Miles. Phoenix felt fear rush over him.
The metal was too heavy and the smell of blood around him was too strong. A man is dying in his arms and he can't stop it. Another man is dying. Why do people always die around him?
Why?
When Phoenix drifted back from his thoughts, the man's pulse was gone, and in his hands was another corpse in the sea of the dead.
Phoenix let go of the man and began crawling as far away as possible from the death that surrounded him. He found a hole in the wall and crawled out, escaping the blood and death that nearly drowned him in its intensity.
He ran.
Phoenix ran as fast as he could. He needed something, he didn't know what. A person. His family...
He ran through each cabin and house, looking for anything, a single sign of life that wouldn't kill him. He could see shadows following him as the inhuman shouting, howling, continued. Phoenix ignored it all.
But in the distance, he caught a glimpse of a young woman with a key tucked in her hair roaming around the village. She disappeared behind a fense before Phoenix could glean any more information from her appearance.
He immidiately turned to head in her direction.
When he found her behind a gate, she was hiding her face. In her hand was a staff with several skulls hanging from it.
Phoenix attempted to look her in the eye, "He.. hello? Um... miss please can you help me? I-I'm kinda really uh... lost. I-"
"It's you," she interrupted, "the little girl's father!"
"Little girl? Do you mean Trucy? Where is she-"
The lady laughed as she revealed her face, "Trucy! Trucy Wright-Edgeworth, yes! She is in danger, Nicky-boy. Ever since Big KG brought her here this village has been plagued by nothing but death."
Her face turned a bit more serious, "Nicky-boy, find her. Please. Get her home safe."
The lady began walking towards gate.
"Wait where can I find h-" as Phoenix tried to speak up, bells sounded from the castle behind him. When he turned back to the lady she was closing the gates.
"The bells signal death, Nicky. Find the shack in the fields."
"Fine! I will! But please, at least tell me your name!" he begged.
From behind the small crack between the doors, the lady smiled, "I am the Great Thief, Yatagarasu. I'll be there for you when you need me most." She shut the gates doors and disappeared from Phoenix's view.
And once again, Phoenix was alone. Nothing but a gun in hand and promises he wished he didn't have to keep.
He began walking again, his feet felt so tired from running and his heart felt so heavy trying not to break. Someone he used to believe in told him the only time to cry was when it was all over.
His feelings may be conflicted over the woman who first told him those words, but the saying still sticks with him. Now was not the time to cry. Trucy needed him. Miles... Miles was still out there too, alive. His family needs him to stay strong, and so he will.
For them, he would do anything.