My first time writing an Ace Attorney fanfiction, so I'm going to apologise if any characters are OOC. I'm still learning them.

Also, this is based in an AU so...yeah, enjoy.

Chapter 1:

The Aura of Flames

"Hey Kitten, what's gotten you so interested?" Diego smiled as he wrapped his arms around Mia and pulled her close. He watched as Mia's face turned bright red from embarrassment and clutched the case file close. The pair of them had just finished a case and were making sure that all the documents were filed correctly. "I can tell that it isn't the case anymore as that's over." He let her go but smiled when his coffee scent lingered on Mia for just that little bit longer. Mia let a smile form on her face before she placed a finger on her lips as if telling him to shush.

She gestured towards the main room of the office and simply pointed toward the sofa. There, wrapped up in a blanket on the sofa was a small child. Said child was wrapped up in a blanket, fast asleep on the sofa with one of the cushions used as a pillow. Diego tilted his head; he wasn't sure why there was a child sleeping but from seeing the expression on Mia's face he was sure to get the answer soon to his silent question. He slowly approached and crouched down to the level of the sleeping child. The child's face looked content in their sleep, a tiny fist was curled up on the cushion showing, a spot of black powder could be seen on the child's nose, the hairstyle was rather strange though, it was like the child had stood in front of a giant wind machine and let the wind style their hair. The child looked like a little hedgehog with hair like that. He turned away from the child and back at Mia.

"I can see you're not impressed, he's a personal mystery of mine." Mia spoke quietly as she approached Diego and held out a magatama. The magatama was a pale orange colour, cool to the touch and yet pulsing with some form of energy. He looked at the gem before looking up at Mia once again. He was aware of the abilities of the Fey family but had never experienced it himself. Mia didn't like talking about her personal life back then and Diego had respected her decision and never pried. Their friendship was built up on trust and if Mia wanted to tell him then she would, if she didn't then it wasn't his business.

"Personal mystery?" He questioned his partner, a smile on his face. He had noticed when she wasn't working on a case that she was working on something else. Maybe now she felt confident enough to show him the fruits of her hard work. He reached for the magatama and felt…strange. He glanced at Mia and noticed that she had a faint aura around her, mostly contained with a few sparks of golden light emitting from her. "What…am I seeing?"

"I passed spiritual energy into that magatama, allowing the one who holds it to see auras. I won't go into full detail about that but now look at the child." Diego saw the glint in Mia's eyes. That was the spark that she had found something exciting. He found it rather adorable when she got fired up over something. It was the same when she stood in the court room and was about to pull a witness' testimony to pieces and pull out all the contradictions until the truth came out. Without waiting any longer, he turned his attention towards the child and his eyes widened in shock.

While Mia's aura was contained with only a few specks of her aura shining though, this child's aura was completely different. It wasn't contained at all (he wasn't sure why he's surprised) and took the form of fire. It was blazing around the child and shifting in appearance, the aura shifted between a raging fire to that of a bird that soared around the child before morphing back into wildfire.

"W-what…?" That was all he could say.

"It's interesting, isn't it?" Mia asked him. Diego put the orange magatama down and the sight of auras fizzled out of existence.

"I don't understand."

"It's not a technique that's taught anymore. It isn't deemed worthy enough to learn. Spirit Channelling doesn't require to know an aura but just the soul of the person who you're trying to channel. I don't know how long the magatama will hold the energy though but seeing an aura like that!"

"Reminds you of a phoenix, doesn't it?"

Ace Attorney – Chapter 1: Aura of Flames

"Mr. Armando, can you help me with my homework?" Diego glanced over to see Phoenix (he picked his own name) looking over at him from the office table. Diego had noticed how rapidly the child had grown up but was sure himself that time hadn't flown by quickly. Phoenix didn't seem to notice either how rapidly he had been developing, whenever they brought up the question Phoenix just shrugged it off as something that happened naturally and dropped the topic completely. It was a further reminder that Phoenix wasn't 'normal' when it came to certain things. When Diego had first met Phoenix, he didn't remember much of anything. Didn't remember his name, age, parents, school…anything important seemed to have been forgotten.

"Sure kiddo, what's troubling you?" Diego asked Phoenix, who beamed up at him and sprang up from the chair to move closer to the adult. Mia had decided to home-school him whenever possible as "protection" she called it, Diego just wondered if this was so she could keep an eye on him and investigate whenever she could. Their jobs kept them busy after all and raising a child wasn't part of it.

"It's maths…" Phoenix groaned as he pulled up a chair next to Diego and pushed him maths book towards him. Ah maths…few would call it their favourite subject but that didn't stop Diego from turning his nose up and refusing to help. Himself and Mia were Phoenix's guardians after all. Diego knew that maths wasn't Phoenix's favourite subject either.

"Well, let's see how far we can go before we need Mia to correct us both," Diego smiled and Phoenix laughed. They both settled down to tackle the homework.

"I hope this never changes, then when I've started my art degree maybe my art skills can come in handy with your investigations?" Phoenix asked, hope burning in his eyes which made Diego smile. He ruffled Phoenix's hair.

"We shall see."

None of them expected Dahlia Hawthorne to enter their lives and throw a spanner in the works.

Thank you for reading. I've written chapter 3 but I'll be holding off from publishing them.