I don't own Ace Attorney and the characters of Manfred von Karma and Franziska von Karma, they're property of Capcom.
The characters of Helen Meyer and Veronika von Karma are, instead, my intellectual property (at least in their characterization).

Doomed Lives of Six

December 28, 2001, 8:00 PM

Los Angeles

Von Karma's mansion

It was a cold night in Los Angeles, the harsh rain flowing down the buildings and hitting the streets, with no one in sight. An earthquake had struck the city that very afternoon, causing several problems to the public infrastructure; not even Christmas lights were lit up during that night, making the atmosphere more dark and sinister.
Even if there was no one walking all around, the roads were loaded with vehicles stuck in the traffic, prolonging the sufferings of prosecutor Manfred von Karma, who was on his way home. Every single time he had to stop at a traffic light, he brought his left hand to the bleeding shoulder, tightening the grip to find some comfort.
That was the cause of his tardiness.

Helen von Karma, dutiful wife of the man, was holding her two-years-old daughter Franziska and tickling her chin, making her laugh, when she heard the front door opening.
With a light gasp, she quickly put her down in the crib, rushing to the door and closing it behind her. Holding her gown, she ran down the stairs at a sustained pace, trying to adjust her long cinnamon hair in a bun to be more suitable for her husband's presence.

She met him in the middle of the large hallway, his back leaning against the wall.
- Manfred, are yo… - but she suddenly interrupted herself, noticing he didn't turn on the lights. She pressed the switch, revealing his trench coat soaked with blood, the stain running from the right shoulder to the chest. Her eyes widened in horror, her hands on her mouth.
- Manfred, what the he…? - but this time she was interrupted by the man himself walking past her and pushing her aside.

She followed him to the living room, remaining silent yet concerned. He abandoned himself on the brown leather coach, trying to take off that trench between grunts, while Helen hurried herself to find the first aid kit stored in a desk's drawer.
He remained silent, breathing heavily due to the pain, his eyes half-closed. Helen didn't want to take the risk of calling the servants for something she knew he rather would have kept private, so she just took some bandages and a disinfectant to help him.
She approached him, kneeling, the bandages in her hand. He opened his eyes and snatched them before she could have done something.

- Leave - he grumbled, starting to unbutton his jacket and shirt. His chest, now half bare, revealed the wound which he began plugging with the bandages in order to stop the bleeding.
Helen stood up. She could have thought of anything but that, the realisation it was a bullet that injured him struck her.
- You have been shot - she continued, now terrified - what happened to you, for heaven's sake?
- I told you - Manfred replied with a higher, stern tone - to leave. Now!
- This is not something you can handle alone! - she raised her voice too, but almost in panic. - You need it removed!
- And you can rest assured it will be done.
- I mean via surgery!
- There is no need for that!
- I'm calling an ambulance…
- You are not calling the ambulance.

The man was watching his wife in the eyes with a piercing glare; she noticed he had reached for her wrist, his grip painfully tight.
And suddenly, another realisation hit her like a train. If he didn't want the bullet removed, there was probably a good reason for it, and possibly not one that most would consider morally acceptable. She knew her husband was no saint; after thirteen years of marriage she had learnt just how dangerous and ruthless he could be, both in prosecuting and in his private life, often using illegal and immoral methods to reach his sole goal in life: absolute perfection. But what was the story behind that wound?

- You better tell me, Manfred - she said with a deep breath, freeing her wrist - what is going on this time.
- That is none of your business, woman! - he yelled.
- How is this not my business, Manfred?! - Helen spat almost hysterically. - What are you hiding this time? Was it not enough for you to blackmail people? Forging evidence? Or concealing it? Brainwashing witnesses? Did you get involved in a shoot-out during the trial or what?
- Enough of your nosense, woman! - he suddenly stood up, slapping her hard across the face.

Helen brought her right hand to her cheek, now burning with a sharp pain partially irradiating from her bottom lip which, as she discovered by touching it, now had a small bleeding cut. He never hit neither her nor their eldest daughter this way; he always had his subtle ways of punishing them mentally or indirectly, of humiliating them, something that would have been hard to denounce, even if she had the opportunity or the will to do so.
The living room spun around her, her balance almost lost. After thirteen years of abuse, she knew it would come a time when she couldn't handle that situation anymore.

- It's over, Manfred - she said glaring at him, rage building up inside of her. - This life has become a living hell for me, for Veronika… and so it will be for Franziska. I don't want anything to do with you anymore, I am tired of your obsession… your psychosis for perfection! You crushed your own daughter's childhood, you crushed me, you crushed your whole family! I do not care if I am going to soil my name with this, but I will not allow you to kill the innocence of two children with your criminal behaviour!
The woman was loudly yelling now, tears running down her cheeks from her eyes.
- After all I did for you… - Manfred returned the look with hatred - I saved your family's name from ruin, I supported you and that spoiled brat of our child, I gave you all the benefits of a wealthy life and this is what I get in return? Are you kidding me?

He was raising his left hand again, preparing to another strike, but suddenly a little girl around twelve years old with golden-caramel hair burst into the room, holding her crying little sister in her arms.
- Papa, please, stop it! - she begged, but freezing at the sight of blood on his father's shoulder.
- Veronika! You are not allowed to hold your sister, you little fool! - he turned against her with the same rage.
- She was crying - the girl stated, lowering her head a bit - I couldn't do anything to help.
- You both know she must be left alone if not to be fed or changed! I don't want her to be raised to be as spoiled as you.
- This is madness and you know it! - Helen cried, picking an inconsolable Franziska from her daughter's arms and lightly shaking her. - We are leaving, Manfred, back to Germany.

The veteran prosecutor changed his look, a mocking, evil grin dancing upon his face.
- Oh, really? - he said with a sneer, his hand moving for a while to his covered wound. - And what makes you think I will let you do so?
Helen watched him with an incredulous face, her body subconsciously distancing her baby from him. Veronika remained speechless, the events she was witnessing that night were overwhelming her, more than any other.

- You are in my house - he continued calmly - under my protection, with my money and my daughters. Why should I give you any of these?
- I want a divorce - she stated, this time hesitant - and I will tell everything about your schemes if you do not…
- Everything about who? About what? - he asked, always smiling wickedly, pointing his index finger towards her. - Don't you remember who I am? Do you think to have any power against me? I need but a few words for you to never be allowed to see your daughters again, and that's not even talking about money. A single word, to ruin your whole family. None at all - and he pointed to the girls - and who knows what will happen to them without their protective mother? Who knows what will happen... to you?

Helen started panting, a sweat drop ran down her temple.
His own daughters… how can he? What kind of monster is he?

- Y-you can't be serious - she muttered in disbelief.
- Oh, I am dead serious, dear Helen. Let me explain you your current situation: you are leaving this house no matter what, rest assured. You are a traitor to me. You are unworthy of The Von Karma name. But, since I am not as cruel a man as you paint me, but instead a man of honor and law, I will grant you some priviledges… a small estate in Germany with a sufficient sum of money to continue your miserable life in return for you to disappear from mine and your daughters'.
- I cannot leave the…
- Did I not tell you? - he interrupted her. - You have no choice.
She quickly turned back, as if she was looking for a way out of that dead end.
- And do not believe you can just run out in the rain and cold with a toddler, a preteen and no money - he added, almost amused. - You may be faster than me in my… actual state, but I can assure you I will find you wherever you decide to go and it would only worsen the situation.

Helen closed her eyes, tears continuing to fall. The room had become silent so suddenly, even Franziska had stopped her crying. He was right, she had no choice. As long as he wasn't going to harm the girls, no more than he already did, she couldn't refuse.

- Fine, then - she almost whispered with a shattered look in her face.
- NO, MOTHER! - Veronika suddenly threw her arms around Helen's waist. - Don't leave me with him… Don't do this! I don't wanna live with this monster of a father, let's escape with Franziska, we'll hide from him somehow!

Manfred burst into a brief, scornful laugh, holding again his wound which had started to clot, his nose curling. That statement, spoken by his eldest daughter was, for him, both foolhardy and dishonorable.
- Do you want to leave too? You are welcome to do so, you have chosen your own path. In my house there is no place for fools who despise the Von Karma's creed and as long as you have decided… you are not my daughter anymore.
- Fine, then! - Veronika said, mimicking her mom in a prouder way, earning a nasty look from the one she once called father.

She had always been out of his control, in a certain way, almost a rebel, the greatest lack of perfection in his family. Manfred was a man who always obtained what he desired… and he had no desire in having a black sheep; putting so much effort in trying to change that stubborn mind of hers would have only turned into a waste of his time. What easier way to solve the problem than pretending she wasn't a real Von Karma?
Helen looked with surprise at how those words didn't affect Veronika in the least, not apparently anyway. She firmly grabbed a hem of her gown but just as they were about to leave the living room, Manfred spoke once again.

- Franziska stays.

Helen turned back to glare at him with contempt and sorrow. She knew she couldn't plead, but she couldn't give up on her youngest child.
- Manfred… - she started.
- You have no choice - he hissed, this time angrily and approaching her. - I am already giving you too much, more than you would even deserve, you wench. You can keep that puny traitor of her own blood with you, but the other child is my heir. I will make her a prodigy amongst prosecutors, a genius just like her father. You will one day hear her name with the knowing it was me raising her, that you had no place, no role in her life.

The woman hoped her glare could burn him right there. For a brief moment she wished the bullet had hit him right in the heart, or in that empty space where it should have been.
She turned her look to Franziska, who had fallen asleep in her embrace. She would have never remembered her mother's face, she would have never known there were two people, in the world, who loved her with their whole hearts. Was she going to be well or was she going to succumb to that insane man she would have called father?

She caressed her face for the last time, moving a silver-blue lock away from her forehead.
- Goodbye, Franziska… - those words died away in her throat when she put her daughter onto the prosecutor's sound arm.
Manfred gave her another devilish grin, turning back to call the nurse for his daughter with a bell. The woman arrived promptly and took the baby away.

The words Helen would have said to him were countless, as if they had been piled up in her mind for all those years, but she knew he would have won anyway. He already won.

The lingering regret of having been unable to save one of her daughters from that man always tormented her, eating away at her soul. In order to save her eldest's life and her own as well, she had failed to protect her youngest creature.
She had no choice.
But does it really matter anymore?

Hi, everyone! Thanks a lot for reading, I hope you enjoyed my story.

This one-shot was originally meant to be the prologue of another bigger story I'm about to write settled during/right after the events of SoJ and focusing on Franziska. But, even if the universe is the same and both follow my headcanon, I realized it sounded a bit out of context for a variety of reasons.
Manfred von Karma travelled back to Germany in 1988 to marry Helen Mayer, a woman from an aristocratic family in ruin (an arranged marriage) but with great acquaintances in the world of law. They had Veronika between 1989 and 1990, before the family returned to Los Angeles in 1992.

The name Veronika was choosen because it matches perfectly (yeah, let's use this adjective) with Franziska and it means "she who brings victory".

Since neither in Miles nor in Franziska's childhood references is mentioned the presence of a mother and an elder sister (and since, knowing Manfred, the girl surely would have been raised to be another genius prosecutor of international fame), the idea of divorce with the family splitting in two seemed to me the most reasonable one. Plus, it is known Manfred was able to kill Gregory Edgeworth, but because he had the chance to do so; aside from this event (and the lone backhanded slap he gave to Helen), he's more person to use psychological violence to reach his goals (and we can state it from the looks of awe and devotion Franziska and Miles gave him).

The title is a reference to the DL-6 incident, with the six people whose lives were changed forever by Manfred being Helen, Veronika, Franziska, Miles, Gregory and Manfred himself.

Reviews are very appreciated!