Downwards Unto Heaven

by wilfred the pickle

Serial Killer AU. If things had gone only slightly differently, maybe this is where Phoenix, Maya and Edgeworth would be now; murderers, at odds with the law and the world around them. Three vignettes, three small glimpses into the lives of what might have been. [ obviously, quite au. see full warnings inside ]

Title: Downwards Unto Heaven
Author: wilfred the pickle
Fandom: Ace Attorney
Rating: M
Pairing: N/A

Warnings: Slight gore, mentions of rape, a really subtle mention of attempted suicide, strong language.
Disclaimer: I put them back once I played with them, don't worry.

Notes: Before you delve into this…depressing little story, please take note that these three vignettes do indeed take place in the same universe, as alternate and different as it may be. Thus, there are some parts that might contradict each other, but since all three are murderers, it isn't totally inconceivable that one or more of them may lie about their experiences…

Enjoy!

oOoOoOoOo

Screams are at their most beautiful when they're full of agony and torment.

Phoenix Wright has known that fun little fact for a while now, but it is really only now that it truly sinks in, watching the barely-breathing body of Frank Sahwit writhe on the stained wooden floor and release a desperate, shuddering wail. He doesn't pay attention to his cries. He never pays attention to any of their suffering. Except for that one, many years ago. His favourite.

Frank Sahwit isn't quite as special a victim as his father was.

Derek Wright; Caucasian, dark hair, blue eyes. Married Elisa Shawn (Elisa Wright, as Phoenix has known his mother all his life) in the late eighties - Phoenix could never recall the exact date. She then gave birth to Phoenix Wright on the sixth of June, 1991. He's one number off from being 666 - the number of the Beast. Instead, he's stuck with 661. Two thirds of the Beast, and then a small fraction. Not as impressive as a full 666 would have bee, but Phoenix decides that he's already got one animal motif to take after and doesn't require an extra one. The life of the Wright family was an uneventful and peaceful existence until Phoenix's eighth birthday, when Derek Wright - supposedly a loving husband and father - ran off with some tall blonde bimbo Phoenix subsequently named Gold-digging Slut.

He was the only one who liked it. It had a ring to it.

It was after that incident when he transferred away from his elementary school, leaving behind his best and only friend Larry. At first he was sad, but then he found out that Larry had lied to him about not kissing Heather Spring when he'd promised he wouldn't, so he had actually been kind of happy to leave after that. He'd been even happier to make his way back to his hometown after fifteen or so years, catch up with Larry, and then quickly slit his throat when the other man let his guard down. Larry Butz was Phoenix's first victim, but not his favourite. His father had been his favourite to kill, his screams echoing in his son's ears long after his body had stopped twitching and shuddering like the pathetic, dying animal he really was.

But before Larry and his father, there was Dahlia. Dahlia, with the sweet, demure smile and lips just begging to be kissed. It was cliché, Phoenix knew, but it was love at first sight. The two of them had been such a happy couple, and Phoenix was just starting to enjoy life again, when it was all ripped away by a certain Mia Fey. God, how he hated her for stealing Dahlia from him - only a tiny bit less than he hated Dahlia for lying to him. She had, after all, been proven guilty with no exceptions. Who was to blame Mia Fey for getting right down to the truth? If anything, he should be thanking her. But no, he felt the need to hunt her down and rip her into pieces, for taking his Dahlia away, for destroying any chance of him leading a normal life-

But as he told the police when they questioned him on suspicion of her murder, he'd been nowhere near the scene when she was discovered.

Derek Wright, Larry Butz, Dahlia Hawthorne, and the countless victims he'd taken in between were nothing but liars.

And Phoenix Wright hates liars.

He decided to swap his career in art for a career in law. The prospect of protecting the innocent, sending the guilty to suffer, being a hero - that, and the offer of a vast paycheck if he played his cards right - was enough to persuade him. At first he thought about a career in prosecution, but after a long deliberation he decided upon the path of a defense attorney instead. Then his life truly would be like the movie he had always wanted it to be; the bullied, belittled underdog that everyone underestimated would grow up to be noble and courageous, maybe even loved.

At least, that was the plan. It had all worked out for a few years; completely aware of the irony, he'd decided to train under Marvin Grossberg, though the man was still grieving the loss of his apprentice Mia Fey from before. Eventually, at twenty-four years old, he passed his bar exam and was a fully qualified defense attorney. Things went splendidly for a couple of years as Phoenix rose to fame, becoming the defense attorney of his time. And then one day, he realised…he was tired of it. Tired of the liars who stole and raped and murdered and got away with it, all because of the fucking mental law system the city put up with. So one day, after wiping Larry's blood from his face and neck, he decided he would serve out his own special judgement to those who deserved it.

And so here he is now, serving out that special judgement to a man who escaped punishment. Frank Sahwit has stopped twitching, his skin growing cold and his mouth frozen open in a perpetual scream. Phoenix smiles as he thinks of what he has become; defense attorney by day, a true hero by night. He is happy like this. He can't deny it. This is who he is.

If you asked a policeman just who a man like Phoenix Wright was, he would say 'a serial killer'. The policeman could probably add to that description a bunch of other things; 'mission-oriented', 'vigilante', 'organized' - harsh, but not entirely untrue labels.

If you asked Phoenix Wright himself who he really was, he would say 'a hero'.

Because in a sick, twisted way, he is.

oOoOoOoOo

Miles Edgeworth killed his first victim when he was nine years old, standing in front of his father's grave.

At least, it might have been then. It wasn't really Miles who did the work. The one who did the work called herself Magenta - which Miles considered a stupid name, even for a girl - but she had perfected her craft God-knows-how, and the kill she made was clean and simple. One strike of the knife to the abdomen, one slash of the knife to the throat. Miles was amazed at the speed she moved with; he stood there, eyes glazed, feeling almost detached from his own body as Magenta worked her magic. Manfred von Karma lay before them, eyes unseeing, blood spilling out unevenly from his still, pale body. Magenta told him later that this was the man that had killed his father, that he deserved to die. Honestly, Miles had thought he had been the one who had killed his father, but when he told Magenta that, he could almost feel her laughter. After a while, he began to believe it more readily.

Miles had been told by his father that he'd been an avid sleepwalker all his life; Miles wasn't quite sure if avid was the right term, but he guessed it explained why he always felt tired, even after a full night of sleep. When asked what Miles did while he sleepwalked, Gregory Edgeworth would just blush, bite his lip and change the topic. It seemed weird to Miles back then, but he gradually pieced it together throughout the years when he remembered the bruised, sore feeling he would wake up with every morning, the medication his father had told him to take when he woke up, the unexplained bruises and cuts he discovered during his morning shower - and suddenly he preferred not to know.

He and Magenta rarely spoke directly to one another. Rather, they wrote things down on Post-It Notes, or sometimes even wrote entire letters to each other. Miles enjoyed reading Magenta's letters to him - she was the only one who really understood him, even before they'd killed von Karma together. He felt indebted to Magenta; Gregory hadn't even been her real father, as she told him a few times before, but she didn't hesitate to do something on Miles' behalf anyway. She was the brave one, and he was the smarts. Together, they were an unstoppable force.

After they'd killed von Karma, they had ran away together to live on the streets. They crossed state lines so many times that Miles began to lose count. Every morning when he woke up he felt tired and sore, but there was always money in his bag when he woke up. Magenta made sure of that. The streets were undoubtedly hard, and there was always the chance that they could be arrested or even killed, but Magenta was like the mother he never had. She never let anyone do so much as look funny at him, and in return, Miles would always protect Magenta back. Not that he ever really needed to, of course - Magenta could certainly hold her own.

It was when they were sixteen that they began to kill again. Miles enjoyed the rush of power, the thrill of the chase, even when he wasn't the one who delivered the final blow. They kept their heads low, never killing too many at once, varying their M.O, always staying one step ahead of the police. Magenta was good at things like that. Even though they couldn't speak, they were always so in sync it barely mattered. They went after anyone who sparked their interest - a classmate of Miles' here, a defense attorney there, and the next day a junkie or hobo. The ones who were never missed. Magenta was surprisingly adamant that they would not kill any prostitutes though, and insisted that he should be in the same state of mind. He didn't know why, exactly. Maybe she knew them.

It was about a year ago that their relationship became…strained, of sorts.

They had just turned twenty-six, and Edgeworth had noticed a change in Magenta's style of writing. It had become more abrupt, vindictive, almost angrier. He could sense the disdain beneath her words, could almost feel them as he read her notes out loud. At first he thought he was imagining things - he already was, anyway, wasn't that what alternate personalities were? - but after six months he was in control less and less, Magenta forcing her will to be done through his body. Her body. Which one of them was the original? He couldn't say anymore. Edgeworth woke up even more bruised and sore than normal, but with even less money than he used to wake up to. She spent it all, his mind would tell him, searching for a note in his bag that he knew he wouldn't find. Magenta rarely wrote to him anymore. For once, it was like they really were two separate people in two separate bodies. Before it was always Miles and Magenta - forever a pair. But now, he felt like Magenta had stolen his body and used it for her own sick purposes, even if he did enjoy the killing he was allowed to witness. What else does she use my body for? he often wondered with a shudder of disgust. Judging by the money and the uncomfortable feeling he woke up with nearly every morning, he had a fairly good idea just what Magenta was doing with his body at night .

He doesn't want Magenta to take over him completely. That's why he has to do this now, and not later. If he does it later, he might run out of time. Edgeworth wants to die as himself, not as Magenta.

When he wakes up in hospital God-knows-how long later, there is a Post-It-Note waiting patiently beside the bed. Miles tries to ignore it the best he can and pretends there's no monster living inside of him.

oOoOoOoOo

Maya Fey is a very unique individual. Not like the "you are a very important person!" elementary school crap that she hears in books and TV shows so often, but the "there is nobody else like you" kind. The lonely kind. In her vast, beautifully terrifying world, she is alone. Nobody else knows how to enter the world she created for herself as a young child, but Maya doesn't want them there anyway. They'd probably just spoil the fun.

She was diagnosed with The Illness as a young child. How young or what illness she can't quite say - she's much too preoccupied with enjoying her life to pay attention to the important details. What she does know is that her illness, her sickness, what is wrong with her - it makes her think weird things. Makes her act differently from normal people. Some days she feels so happy she feels like she could jump all the way to the sun and be fried by the atmosphere and it would be so painful but she would still enjoy it-

-and other days she wants to take her knife and stab herself through the chest the heart, the head, the neck, anywhere she can find, really - and it would hurt so much but the pain would be sososososogood -

She exhales. Calm down, Maya, she thinks, staring into the glassy eyes of her recently-deceased mother forlornly. It's not like she was your first victim or anything.

This time, Maya is telling herself the truth. Misty Fey is not in the least bit close to her first victim. She's killed many before, and they just didn't see it coming, because she was just so sweet and innocent until they sparked a deep, primal fear deep down within her, and when they struck that chord they were destined to die. Destiny is how she justifies her actions. It was meant to happen, she tells herself after each kill. Now go and wash the blood off yourself before someone notices!

Maya thinks she knows who her first victim was, but she's not quite sure. She'd always had The Illness for as long as she could remember - her first memories are of pain in areas she couldn't quite put a name too, being that young, of hurt, of anger that someone had allowed something like this to happen to her. Her mother had carefully pulled her aside after it had happened and explained just what little Maya had been through. Your daddy, Misty had said, tears rolling down her cheeks, he did that to me too, but I ended up being pregnant with you.

Will I be pregnant too? Maya asked. Looking back on it, she realised what a ridiculous question it was, and laughed for hours and hours at her younger self.

Her mother had laughed too, despite her sadness. No, sweetie, she had sniffed, pulling Maya closer to her, you're a little too young for that.

Her mother had taught her the word for what had happened. Rape. It even sounds ugly, Maya thinks. An ugly word for an ugly act.

Then she laughs for hours and hours at her own little wordplay, barely noticing her tear-streaked face in the puddle of blood below her.

She was probably fourteen when she took her first victim. She says probably because she doesn't know for certain if she killed her own sister or not. She had been with Mia in her office playing with her old documents, and they'd gotten into a little disagreement. One thing had led to another, and Mia had been so mean and it made Maya so angry and she could practically feel The Illness taking over and Daddy's hands touching her in places she didn't even want to think about and the way his breath was hot in her air and those god-awful screams and she just got so angry-

Then with a start Maya had woken up, and Mia was lying unresponsive on the floor, her blood soaking into the carpet.

Not just the carpet; there was blood everywhere. Splattered on the desk, sprayed onto the walls, soaked into Maya's clothes and skin. She didn't cry, or scream, or even panic; she simply got up calmly, and climbed out the window onto the street. It was late at night, and nobody would be able to see the crimson liquid covering her in the darkness. The next day she saw her sister's body on the news, and said they'd taken a man Phoenix Wright in for questioning. Maybe Phoenix Wright had done it after all, her delusional mind reasoned, and I just got caught in the crossfire.

Then again, it was equally likely that she'd killed her sister as well. Sororicide.

She killed Morgan Fey, her aunt, a few months later. She wasn't terribly broken up about it. Sure, Pearly was left without a mother, but wasn't it for the better? Now Maya could take care of Pearly all by herself, like any good cousin should. That would be her penance, she decided. I'll be forgiven if I do a good thing for once!

Nevertheless, Pearly turned evil. She got the red eyes, just like the others on the street she passed. They were evil, she could tell because of their eyes! It wasn't her fault if nobody would believe her. The red eyes just wouldn't stop following her, and she needed a way to stop them from doing that because that was how you got the red eyes too. Pearly didn't just have red eyes after Maya was finished with her. No, she had red arms, legs, chest, neck, and red eye sockets where the blood from those terrible crimson irises had leaked when she ripped them out to rid Pearly of the evil. Pearly had died of course, but now her soul was going downwards unto heaven, just like in the fairytales.

Maya shakes herself out of her reverie and bends down to pick up the eyes she ripped from her own mother. Matricide. The red eyes could take anyone, so Maya couldn't take any chances.

oOoOoOoOo

Well, that was….strange. I made this piece a little confusing intentionally, because when you have three severely fractured minds like them not everything should make complete sense, right? Although I tried keeping it semi-coherent, so it was at least a little understandable.

Notes:

- The Number of the Beast, while commonly known as 666, is also known as 616. Since I made Phoenix's birth date 6/6/91, this could almost 661, which swapped around is 616.…shut up. It sounded cool when I wrote it.

- In case you didn't figure it out, Miles had disassociative identity disorder - multiple personalities. There was himself, and them there was Magenta, who identified as a girl. Magenta didn't treat herself as another personality of Miles until Miles got older, where she got tired of having Miles around and tried to take over exclusively. Multiple personalities doesn't really mean more than one person inside one body - it just means one person exhibiting more than one personality. Magenta was another side of Miles…or was Miles another side of Magenta? I never did say whether Miles did actually have the anatomy of a boy or not…

- And yes, I totally did imply that Magenta seduced Gregory Edgeworth. I also implied that he figured out that Miles had DID, and gave him the medication in the morning out of guilt. Hate me now. Also, the reason why Miles was waking up sore and tired and money kept appearing regardless, it was because Miles wasn't aware of what Magenta was doing at night, as she was working as a prostitute to earn money.

- I deliberately kept it ambiguous about who actually killed Mia Fey. Phoenix had the motive, and Maya had the means, but only Miles actually admits he killed a defense attorney - not necessarily Mia, but who's to say it wasn't?

I may continue this, but if I do, it will be in the style of an actual story, rather than little vignettes. So if you enjoyed this, review! I don't even mind if you don't have anything particularly interesting to say, just saying "good story" or even less than that is enough to make me feel happy.

Thank you for reading!