Chapter Text
When Phoenix is thirteen, Sister Mary lines up all the kids at Saint Philomena’s Home for Boys from youngest to oldest the way they always do, when someone’s coming by to check out the goods. He’s not particularly worried or anxious or even interested, really. When he had been younger and further up the line, it had been hell every time. He would sweat and shake and wonder, after, what exactly it was that had made every new parent set slide their eyes right past him and on to better things. Heck, even Larry got adopted first, the Butz couple taken by his cheeky grin and skinned knees when he was seven. It’s not like Phoenix was jonesing to be a Butz; he just kind of wanted to be anything, at that point.
Still, Larry’s family lived close and they went to the same school and they were still friends. The lowest point, really, had come when Phoenix was nine. He was only a week away from his tenth birthday, and everyone knew that after ten, nobody wants you. Ten’s practically grown up, so far as these things go. When the envelope of money went missing, everyone looked his way. He had means and opportunity; his motive was that he was an orphan and shabby and poor and so of course he’d take it. The teacher even looked sympathetic as she scolded him, and he’d cried with shame and the unfairness of it all.
And then: Miles.
After that, things were better- good- great.
So what if Phoenix wasn’t getting adopted? He has people right here and right now. He’s good with the younger kids and always willing to help out, so the sisters let him run and play and stay with his friends whose parents are kind in a way that’s a little bit pity but enough like genuine affection that Phoenix can latch on whole heartedly. He likes to draw and to act out stories and win card games, but he knows that kind of stuff doesn’t pay the bills. He’s got time to figure it all out, though- he’ll age out at eighteen and then he can go anywhere. He already knows he’s going with Miles. One of these days he’ll even tell him.
So Phoenix lines up toward the back with the older kids, wondering what’s for dinner later and hoping it’s spaghetti when the shadow falls over him. The man is very stern and very rich; Phoenix doesn’t have to be a genius to see how fancy his shoes are. Whatever kid this guy picks is going to be something, whether they like it or not.
“If, when making a purchase at a store, you are given too much change back, what would you do?” The man asks him.
“Uh. Give it back?” Phoenix says cautiously. It seems like a pretty obvious question.
“Why?” The man asks.
“Because…” Phoenix’s brow knits in thought. “If there’s less money at the end, the cashier will get in trouble. They might even get fired.”
The man nods. “And what if I were to say that in this scenario, the cashier would face no penalty. The loss would, in fact, go completely undetected. It would be a victimless crime. Would your answer change?”
Phoenix shakes his head. “I would give it back,” he says stubbornly. “It isn’t mine. It’s wrong.”
“Even without the strength of the law to back it? What a righteous young man you are,” the man says disdainfully, already moving further down the line. And that’s… rude. Phoenix doesn’t like that, and he doesn’t like the idea of any of them going with this rude guy who thinks doing the right thing is for dumb kids.
“Laws aren’t always right or wrong,” Phoenix says hotly, stepping out of line. “They just are.”
The man pauses, then retraces his steps. “Elaborate,” he requests.
“People have laws because we need them. They’re guidelines for a better world, but you can be an awful person and still follow the law. It’s how we use them, and how we look at things in court that matters.”
“By choosing what to prosecute, you mean.”
“And what to defend,” he adds, nodding.
The man makes a dismissive sound. “It’s rare to find a child who understands the concept of legal positivism, albeit crudely. Do you want to enter the profession, then?”
Phoenix shakes his head. He doesn’t want to tell this jerk about the class trial; it’s a precious, important memory. There’s no way somebody like this could understand. “My best friend is going to be a lawyer,” he says instead, and seals his fate without knowing it yet.
“Oh? Is that child here as well?” The man flicks his eyes further up the line at the older kids with mild interest.
“No,” Phoenix says. “Miles lives with his Dad. He’s a lawyer too.”
“What is his name? I’m rather well known in the field, perhaps we have met.”
“Edgeworth,” Phoenix tells him.
The man’s face goes queerly still, mouth drawing very tight into a line. Then his eyes brighten, a single, searing, mad look. Through the talks after, about patronage and opportunity Phoenix never forgets that look. They say Manfred Von Karma is taking him in because he’s a smart, sweet, hardworking boy, but Phoenix knows better. He just doesn’t know why.
“I’ll go,” Phoenix says, which is cute. It’s not like he has a choice, but it makes him feel better to say it like he does. “But if I’m going to another country, you gotta let me write. I’ll write one now to explain, and then I’ll write while I’m over there. I’m gonna write lots, but you’re rich so you can buy the stamps. Okay?”
The Sisters and Von Karma exchange an amused, indulgent look.
“Certainly,” Von Karma says. “I have business at the courthouse, if you write it now, I shall deliver it to Gregory Edgeworth personally this afternoon. We will fly out in the morning.”
Phoenix hurries off to use his special Signal Samurai writing paper, the set he got from Miles for Christmas two years ago and never uses because it’s too cool to waste on anything not important. He pours his heart out while Von Karma fills out paperwork, and stuffs four sheets of affection and promises to write and then meet again someday into the envelope clumsily.
He also pens a letter to Larry, but this one is less important. Larry won’t mind, and Phoenix only has so much time, anyway. He scribbles it off on the same nice paper because that is something Larry would get bothered about, and then gives it to one of the other big kids to hand off at school tomorrow. Usually this would be resentfully done, if at all, but no one seems jealous of Phoenix. Rich or no, Phoenix isn’t getting taken in because the man likes him and no one seems too eager to switch places. Still, it’s no big deal if it gets lost along the way- Miles can fill him in when he gets the real explanation. Larry was a Philomena kid once upon a time, so he’ll get it.
The first few months are hard. Phoenix doesn’t speak the language, the clothes are strange, and speck isn’t bacon, no matter what they say. He’s good at studying, though, because law is interesting and it reminds him of Miles and of home. His letters are full of rambling thoughts on this law and that regulation, and should it be applied like this or like that? He feels very important and grown up, being able to talk about these things with Miles for once instead of just smiling and nodding along whenever they talked about legal stuff in America.
It takes him a while to realize that Miles isn’t writing back.
First he thinks it’s the post. He was on that plane for hours and hours, who knows how long it takes letters to get where they need to go. And then, of course, Miles always takes his time with projects and homework, trying over and over to get it just right. This is probably just origami all over again, and soon Phoenix is going to get a whole telephone book’s worth of words and it’ll be great.
It’s starting to occur to him that maybe… maybe it’s more than just that, when he wins five rounds straight in Uno against Franziska Von Karma.
Usually he’s better about this kind of thing. He knows from Philomena’s that the littlest kids don’t like losing at all; there was no way Phoenix could wipe the floor with a spoiled princess like Franziska and get away with it. He just hadn’t known her mother was a witch.
A quarter witch, he’s told later. Most of the old line were, in Germany. The point is, when little Franziska points her tiny toy riding crop at him and hisses if you like winning so much, just keep on winning like the dog you are Phoenix doesn’t get that he’s been cursed. Not till he’s only half paying attention in a game of tic-tac-toe before dinner and finds himself suddenly very small and confused and fluffy, paws tangled in his own dark blue suit coat.
“Oh!” Franziska says, more delighted than he has ever heard her about anything he’s done. Then she picks him up and carries him to show her father.
It’s like this:
If Phoenix Wright loses at something, he turns into a dog. The dog varies in breed and size, as does the duration. It probably has something to do with how embarrassed he is at losing, and whether or not it was important, and how badly he wants to have thumbs again. He’s expecting Professor Von Karma to hit the roof, but he takes it surprisingly well.
“My daughter has a talent,” he says indulgently, chucking the girl under the chin as she preens. “Though it is an unfortunate malady. You know what must be done.”
“Yeah,” Phoenix says, then corrects himself quickly. “I mean, yes, professor.”
And so Phoenix stops losing.
At anything.
~~
Phoenix writes Miles for years. At first he tells himself he’ll only do it until the Signal Samurai stationary runs out, but then Franziska begins buying him very nice sets with her pocket money for his birthdays because she’s noticed him writing all the time. It seems rude not to use it. They get along pretty okay, more so now that she’s cursed him. For her birthday each year, he lets her win one game of her choosing and push dog-him around the estate in a baby carriage. It seems like a pretty small price to pay for peace.
Sometimes the letters are just a tired jumble of whatever he’s studying. He works through tricky legal terms and case reenactments and talks his way through question and answer sessions and sends them off, wondering if Miles is ever hung up on things like this, or if his brains and early start at home with his lawyer dad meant he was above this kind of thing now. Maybe that was why he didn’t write, maybe Phoenix’s stumbling attempts at analytical jurisprudence are just embarrassing to look at. Maybe Phoenix is too stupid.
For a while, after that, Phoenix only sends drawings, and quotes from movies or plays. Professor Von Karma encourages his interest in the arts, but only as a patron. He draws Franziska in the garden in pastels, having a tea party with her Steiff teddy bears. He does a miniature watercolor of his bedroom, rich but somehow empty. He shyly sketches his own face with graphite in front of the mirror. Phoenix sends Miles ticket stubs for The Tempest when he is fifteen, pasted to card stock on which he writes a piece from the ending monologue:
Now my charms are all o'erthrown,
And what strength I have's mine own,
Which is most faint: now, 'tis true,
I must be here confined by you.
It’s romantic, because everything at fifteen is romantic. He likes the idea of being held captive by his audience, the boy receiving his letters across the sea. It sounds nicer than admitting that he can’t stand his stuck up school and the stuck up kids there and the stuck up professors who credit being the Von Karma ward with every accomplishment rather than give one minute of thought to Phoenix himself as a person. He misses Miles in a lot of ways.
When these, too, elicit no response, Phoenix is seventeen and as miserable as that implies. I hate it here, he writes, feeling raw. I wish I was home, but I guess home doesn’t want me either. The Sisters have plenty of kids and you won’t even write me back. Couldn’t you spare me one sentence, one time? A postcard? Here, I’ll pay you for your time. And he encloses fifty cents, a pale imitation of the way that post-trial, he couldn’t stop crying all those years ago.
“They hate me,” he had sobbed. “It’ll happen again, next time something goes wrong.”
“And I’ll defend you then too,” Miles promised, even though they weren’t even friends yet. “You can keep me on retainer.”
“What’s that?” Phoenix asked, forgetting to keep crying.
“You pay a small sum of money and then I’m your lawyer forever. Whenever you need me, I’ll be ready to take the case,” Miles said.
“Oh, um.” Phoenix had reached into his pocket and dug deep. “How’s fifty cents?” he asked.
“Perfect,” Miles had said.
Phoenix’s strength is in his bluff. He has good instincts and a solid foundation in law, but he feels things about people. He can tell the right direction even when the evidence is piecemeal. It drives Professor Von Karma up the wall.
“This is not how you win cases!” He bellows, throwing the transcript from the latest mock trial across the room in a flurry of papers. Phoenix does not flinch or startle, even when one slices a thin, shallow cut over his cheekbone.
“I did win that case, though. Sir.”
“One day you won’t,” Professor Von Karma says darkly. “And woe betide you that day.”
Phoenix thinks privately that it won’t much matter. He’ll be a dog. You can’t yell at dogs the same way you yell at people. It isn’t nice, but it doesn’t mean quite the same thing.
Phoenix finds out about Miles Edgeworth, novice attorney, flipping through the international papers. Phoenix passed the staatsman and is a full fledged prosecutor, but at twenty he is still a rookie and his cases are petty and obvious. This, though- Miles is a real lawyer. His work getting Valerie Hawthorne acquitted is just masterful. Phoenix writes his congratulations and addresses the letter to Miles Edgeworth’s law office. Maybe he’d moved, at some point, Maybe those childhood letters were simply recipients unknown somewhere. Now, with the law office business address neatly printed in tintype, perhaps Phoenix will hear from him.
(He does not).
“I’m ready to take a real case. An American case,” Phoenix tells Professor Von Karma. He has a perfect record, but overseas and for lesser infractions. He’s bluffing, of course- he knows that his mentor will berate him for not knowing his place.
“Perhaps you are right,” he says, and for the first time Phoenix knows how powerful his bluff can be. Years of pretending he was smart enough, strong enough, good enough and now he can even fool the Professor.
And so Phoenix Von Karma makes his American debut at twenty one, and wins his cases handily. Unorthodox, they say. He seems to be making claims out of thin air, and yet every time he is pressed for proof, somehow he produces it. Forgeries, people whisper. Dirty dealings and backroom negotiations. Absolutely not. He is a Von Karma, he leads investigations and he uncovers the truth. He keeps that perfect record for three more years. He writes Miles three times in those three years: once to announce his arrival back in LA; once to clumsily offer congratulations after the Penny Nichols acquittal and invite Miles for a celebration drink; and once to apologize, after the chief prosecutor will not let him recuse himself from State v. Butz.
It’s unprofessional not to mention gut-wrenching, having to prosecute your childhood friend being defended by your other childhood friend, but Chief Prosecutor Neil Marshall said it did not warrant conflict of interest and thus Phoenix’s hands were tied.
It’s terrible because Phoenix wants so badly to see them again, in person, face to face. It’s terrible because he’s looked over the case, and Larry is going to lose.
How could that rough and tumble kid have turned out to be such a desperate loser in love? Maybe Phoenix can figure out a way to spin the argument to fit into self defense or manslaughter. He’ll talk to them before the court date. Accidentally killing his girlfriend Iris’ ex-boyfriend with a downed electrical wire during a fist fight is still a crime, and Phoenix has a job to do.
He calls, this time. Mia Fey, of Edgeworth, Fey and Edgeworth answers. She listens to him politely before penciling him in for a three fifteen.
Miles Edgeworth and Larry Butz are waiting in the shabby little office when Mia Fey walks him back. They’re standing, holding a frantic, low voiced conversation as he approaches-
“Don’t lose your head, Edgey, remember he’s the enemy!”
“It isn’t like that, both sides are just working toward the truth, this is Phoenix, he wouldn’t-”
Phoenix clears his throat uncomfortably. They stop and turn and stare.
“Hey, buddy. Long time no see,” Larry says with a too-bright grin. “I like the neck, uh, thing.”
Phoenix almost reaches up to touch the jabot at his throat, then remembers himself, squaring his shoulders. Larry looks… pretty much exactly how Phoenix had pictured him, actually. His clothes are loud and he’s tall and gangling with a hairstyle and goatee that he probably thinks makes him look daring and cool but actually comes off a little sleazy.
Miles looks great. Tired, sure, and he’s got glasses now, but he grew up nice. His suit jacket is sort of red wine colored, with a grey waistcoat and black trousers. Miles is wearing a red bowtie just like he remembered and Phoenix coughs into his black gloved hand briefly in order to hide a smile. This is a formal occasion, no time for something like that.
“I won’t waste time. The trial is tomorrow.” Phoenix says, busying himself by opening his briefcase on the table and withdrawing the slim manilla envelope. “If I’m getting these filed before that, you need to fill them out now.”
“Oh wow, you were right,” Larry says, shocked. “He is the same old Phoenix, huh?” But even as the defendant sings his praises, Miles Edgeworth’s handsome face grows dark and stormy as his eyes skim the pages.
He throws them back into Phoenix’s suitcase with emphasis. “No deal,” he snaps. “My client is innocent.”
“Deal?”
“He wants you to plea bargain for a lesser sentence. He wants you to plead guilty.”
Larry gasps, hands over his heart. Phoenix stands frozen, hands at his sides clenching into helpless fists.
“How could you think Larry would be capable of this? Did you forget after all your time away? I don’t understand.” Miles shakes his head and has the nerve to look sorry. “I thought you were going to be an artist, not someone with so little faith in the system that he’d try to force a verdict before the trial even begins!”
Phoenix flinches, stung. It hadn’t been like that at all. The terms on the paper were more than generous- much more than if Larry is found guilty in court, with the mandatory minimum sentencing in place. He had been trying to help, and Miles is flinging it back in his face. Phoenix’s face burns with humiliation. How dare Miles try to behave like this- to bring up the past like he wasn’t the one ignoring it for the past ten years!
Phoenix forces himself to relax. He lowers his shoulders and smiles, the same easy smile he always wears in court. It says trust me. It says I know, I understand. Miles eyes him uneasily.
“My bad,” Phoenix shrugs. “I thought I’d try to save you a little humiliation in a public trial, that’s all.” He clicks the suitcase shut again.
“What does that mean?” Miles demands.
“It means that I win my cases,” Phoenix says.
“Even if the person on trial is innocent?”
Phoenix shakes his head. “You can’t know that. You have to look at the evidence.” Phoenix taps the suitcase. “Have you looked at the evidence, Edgeworth?” The use of his last name makes Miles flinch. Well, good. “Prosecutors rely on that kind of thing. Not the defense so much, I guess. I’d love to have the luxury of looking at someone and just knowing. You must be a very talented, lucky person now.”
Miles flushes.
“Nick, come on! It’s me, I didn’t kill anybody,” Larry says, starting to blubber while Miles awkwardly pats him on the arm. Phoenix stares at them with distaste. To think he’d wasted all his time on this.
“I don’t even know you,” he says coldly. “See you in court.”
~~
Phoenix loses the case.
~~
He is cold and then he is hot, sweating and shivering worse than when he was in line at St. Philomena’s, waiting to get rejected. Across the room at the bench, Miles and Larry are all smiles and celebration. They’ve vanquished the great evil, Phoenix Von Karma. Phoenix thinks he’s going to be sick. He wonders if it will happen before or after he’s a dog.
Miles straightens and looks over, catching his eye. That smile fades, the eyes go dark. Disappointment, probably. Heck, he can get in line. Might as well head to the back, Phoenix is aware of how much of a disappointment Miles Edgeworth had thought Phoenix was from the start.
There’s a hard squeeze at the inside of his elbow and Phoenix winces even as he stands up straight.
“Do not embarrass yourself any further,” Professor Von Karma hisses into his ear, using the bruising grip to keep Phoenix upright. “You will hold the transformation until in private, or so help me god...”
Phoenix is too overcome to speak so he simply nods sharply once and allows Professor Von Karma to begin steering him out of the courtroom. There is a voice that calls his name once, but he has to keep moving forward with those stumbling steps and try to remember what it is like to have five toes all at the same time. His shoes are loose by the time they reach the elevators; Phoenix barely makes it to the car before he turns.