A/N - I am so sick of Phoenix/Edgeworth fics. I know to some people they are the way, the truth, and the light, but they are definitely not my cup of tea. So here I am, with a different explanation. If someone has done this before, I'm truly sorry. But I went trawling and didn't find it anywhere, so I think I may be alright. It's going to be a few chapters long. It's set after T&T but in the same year (so Phoenix and Miles are 26, Maya's 19, Pearl is 9).
Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to any AA/GS game, but if I did I'd be in heaven.
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Chapter 1:
A 'Truth' of Sorts
Rain fell lightly over the city. It was a warm rain, landing as softly and gently as snow on the cooling asphalt. Phoenix Wright, a blue beanie hugging his head tightly and suffocating his carefully spiked hair, barely noticed the precipitation as he walked in quick, purposeful strides. He'd spent the afternoon at the police station, having gone there to return a piece of evidence from his last case and ending up engaged in a long and rather pointless discussion about the merits of underwater basket-weaving with detective Gumshoe. He'd finally decided to call it a day after he received a frantic phone call from his assistant, Maya, worried sick about him and hungry to boot. He'd apologized profusely, promised to pick up dinner on the way home, and hit the streets.
He entered his favourite supermarket: "Bargain Barn." It was just around the corner from his office, and happened to sell decent food at illegally low prices. Child labour is good for the economy, he reminded himself, strolling through the rather dingy, unswept aisles. He grabbed a bag of what seemed to be fully prepared, frozen hamburgers. They were Maya's favourite meal, after all. And if he told her to watch T.V. while he cooked them, she would never know they'd been microwaved to life.
As he stood and waited in line, a tabloid magazine caught his eye. He stared at the covers and a picture of a very familiar face stared back with cold, dark eyes. The title above the picture was lurid purple script that proclaimed: "Demon" Prosecutor's Secrets Revealed!
Intrigued, Phoenix threw the magazine onto the conveyor belt. The clerk, a teenaged girl with enough metal in her face to build a car, raised an overly-decorated eyebrow at him, and he shrugged.
"I'm studying law," he commented, sarcastically. She obviously didn't get the joke, because she gave him a look that plainly said: "Yeah, and I'm wearing this much metal because I want to open a steel plant someday.' He snickered at his own imagination, and her sceptical look deepened. Just to frighten her further, he tugged on the edge of hisbeanie and glanced around anxiously, muttering, "They're everywhere!" She rang in his order so quickly that she gave him three extra dollars back in change. Hardly believing his luck, Phoenix grabbed the bag and skipped out of the store, humming the tune to 'I Feel Pretty', just to keep up the image.
Once outside, Phoenix stopping skipping and humming, opting instead to tug the tabloid out of the bag and then wrap the plastic handle around his wrist so that he could use both hands to read the magazine while he walked. The cover article was a ten-page ordeal, full of pictures of Miles Edgeworth that has obviously been snapped without his knowledge or consent. There was a photo of the maroon-clad prosecutor filling out a crossword at a restaurant, and another one — Phoenix actually laughed out loud when he saw it — of the 26-year-old man petting the ruffles that ran down the front of his shirt. Then Phoenix saw the headline of the article, and he remembered why he had bought the thing in the first place. He stopped walking in the middle of the sidewalk — reading and walking gave him a headache — and began to read.
Edgeworth's Past Revealed! The legendary prosecutor, Mile Edgeworth, has always been seen as somewhat of an enigma, in the courtroom and out. His past can now be exclusively revealed, from his father's brutal murder, to his mother's tragic death, to his longtime friendship with ace defense attorney, Phoenix Wright.
Phoenix glanced down the article and noticed that it was indeed divided into three sections with three headings: Gregory Edgeworth, Vanna Edgeworth, and Phoenix Wright. Though sorely tempted to know what the 'Friday Fact-or' had to say about his friendship with Miles, Phoenix had a different agenda. His eyes found a particular section, and he began to read.
Ten minutes later, he looked up from the magazine. Anyone who saw him at that moment would have run as far away as quickly as they could. His knuckles were white from how hard he was gripping the cheap paper, and his face was so angry and disgusted that even always-cheerful Maya would have been afraid of him. His lips were pressed in a tight line, and his eyes flashed like daggers.
"Fools!" he muttered to himself. "Foolishly foolish fools with a foolhardy fool's foolish ideas!" He felt like whipping something, but he settled for throwing the magazine with as much violence as he could muster onto the sidewalk. He was in shock about what he had just read. They thought they'd uncovered the truth? They'd barely scratched the surface of an elaborate lie.
He started walking again, fuming, the plastic bag on his wrist swinging with every step. Judging by the part he'd just read, he knew exactly what they would have said about him: they'd have gone into detail about the homosexual love affair the two men shared. Even last week, Maya had demanded to know whether Phoenix was in love with the prosecutor. He'd refused point-blank, of course. Maya, just like the idiots at the 'Friday Fact-or' office, had no idea.
There was only one person in the world who knew the whole truth. And Phoenix knew for a fact that he would never talk.
As Phoenix walked away, they wind suddenly picked up, turning a few pages of the discarded tabloid. The rain fell silently on a picture of Edgeworth pointing up at the sky in an eternal "Objection!"
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A/N - These chapters will all probably be rather short.