AN: Sorry for the horrendously short chapter before; I didn't want to include the prologue in 'Chapter One.'

Again, this story contains character death later on. It's key to the plot – so if you don't like, don't read.

Disclaimer: I don't own Ace Attorney, but if I had enough money then I would.

Enjoy!

Phoenix, depressed, hung his head in his hands. How could he let such a simple, fatal flaw happen? How could he have been so stupid?

He'd known – well, suspected, anyway – about Prosecutor Gavin. Gavin and his whole plan, all along. And yet... and yet he, Phoenix Wright, fell for the trap, handed to him personally by that little girl – Trucy, was it? Not that she knew what it had been, what its purpose served for the trial turnabout. A totally falsified turnabout.

End result? Nothing but a famous lawyer's fall from the heights: he had been disbarred. What would she think of him now? As a failure?

He sighed deeply and sorrowfully, feeling at his collar for the nonexistent badge. His fingers itched when he touched where it ought to be, like an amputated limb.

Wriggling in his crudely upholstered chair for a more comfortable position, he gazed blindly around the late Wright and Co. Law Offices. After a few moments' contemplation, he pulled out his phone and dialed the all-too-familiar number. Regretfully he found it going to voicemail; did she know already?

Beep! "Maya, it's Nick. We need to talk." There; short and simple. He hoped it wouldn't alarm her too badly.

He felt his thoughts beginning to wander. What would Mia think..?

What would he think?

Phoenix inferred that it wouldn't be long until the prosecutors found out. Most would be relieved, he fancied, that he could no longer antagonize them (Winston Payne).

But one maroon-clad prosecutor, he knew, - or rather, hoped - would be, for the most part, disappointed in the following lack of excitement in court. Not to mention that a rookie succeeded where the veteran couldn't, but Phoenix liked to believe he was above such trivial matters as perfection now.

Phoenix sighed. Yes, he expected a visit from his best friend soon - Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth. To be followed quite uncomfortably closely by the sting of Franziska von Karma's whip and the loud, bold declaration of him being a failure at law.

"Wright."

Phoenix jumped half out of his skin, and whirled at the cold, self-assured voice. "Oh." He was disappointed; it was not the voice he had been anxiously awaiting to hear. It was the wrong kind of cold. "Hello, Kristoph." Phoenix's own demeanor, in stark contrast to that of the starched lawyer in front of him, was quite deflated. "What... are you doing here?"

"No need to look so depressed, Wright." Kristoph smirked, and Phoenix felt it rub him the wrong way. The other man looked him up and down, duly noting his unkempt state and dark rings around his eyes. Even his trademark raven-black spikes drooped sadly. "Don't you terrify your... charge… with looking so ragged all the time? Give her nightmares?"

Phoenix bristled, but years of cross-examining stubborn, insensitive witnesses and fighting snobbish prosecutors gave him enough self-control to simply turn his head away, muttering with forced lightheartedness, "That went a little far, Kristoph."

"Hmph." The defense attorney didn't apologize.

Phoenix tried again. "What do you want, Kristoph?" he asked tiredly.

Kristoph Gavin cocked his head to the right, feigning thoughtfulness. "Who ever said I wanted anything? Perhaps I only wanted to visit. Why must it continuously seem like I have an ulterior motive?"

"Because you always have an ulterior motive, Kristoph."

"Touché, Wright."

What are you getting at, Gavin? "So... what did you come for?"

The former smirked lopsidedly, and decided to beat around the bush. He sat, demurely, in one of the office easy chairs, and crossed his legs. He was silent for a while, taunting Phoenix, who continued to sit patiently, one eyebrow raised. Looking over at the side table, Kristoph finally sucked in a breath while glaring at a large picture in its wooden frame. "Who are these people?" He hesitantly lifted the frame to show Phoenix the photograph that Lotta took one day, showing Larry Butz, Franziska von Karma, Miles Edgeworth, Phoenix, Maya, Pearls, and Detective Gumshoe from the left side of the frame to the right, respectively. All wore large, silly grins - except the two prosecutors, of course, but even Edgeworth wore a soft smile. Phoenix swallowed thickly - he hadn't seen any of them in so long. A month, at least. Perhaps two. He didn't know.

"My friends," he murmured simply, with no desire to pursue the topic.

"Really now?" The defense attorney seemed genuinely interested in the miniature, photographic faces peering from the glass frame cover. After staring at it for a while, as if trying to memorize it, Kristoph set the wooden frame back down. Phoenix watched, intrigued with curiosity, as the other man fussed with the latch at the back of the frame for a little bit. As his suspicions grew, Kristoph finally quit, and turned it around to face the easy chair, away from Phoenix's line of sight.

"Well," Kristoph sighed cheerily, "I do believe I will be going now."

To be perfectly honest to himself, Phoenix was confused, but gingerly relieved. He knew that Kristoph Gavin came with a purpose; what it was still nimbly evaded him. And so, almost clueless, he led the blue-clad defense attorney to the egress. Kristoph, pushing his glasses quite forcefully up the bridge of his nose, took long strides with pride over the threshold of Phoenix's office, one hand in his pocket.

Phoenix made sure to slam the door loud enough for the other man to hear. Once it was thoroughly sealed, he rested his back against the smooth maple, eyes shut tight, and sighed.

When he opened them again, he looked over to his treasured photograph that Kristoph had positively manhandled.

All he saw was an empty frame. The picture was gone.

It was only a day later when he found a new visitor in his office.

It was that little girl, Zak Gramarye's daughter - the one who reminded him so much of Pearls.

It was strange, attempting to speak to her. She seemed much too cheerful to have just lost her father. She was adamant that he had just 'gone.' As if she was expecting him to return from hiding any time soon.

Phoenix still had no idea, by the end of that day, what had seized him to take her in as his own. Perhaps it was pity, perhaps it was intrigue... but the most likely reason, he realized, was that he was trying to have little Trucy fill in for the role of Pearl Fey. One that he missed far too much for his own good, as she was gone most of the time now, training in Kurain with Maya.

And so, Phoenix Wright earned himself an adoptive daughter.

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