He did not remember how he escaped.
It was probably for the best, because being poured onto the floor amongst his predecessor's ashes was not the nicest way of coming into the world. It was also not the nicest for the first face for one to see to be twisted in disappointment. One would hope that whoever greeted them first would be smiling welcomingly or wet with tears of love, but the creature was not what Azuki Kozo had been looking for.
In fact, if Azuki had seen the creature within the pile of dust, he almost certainly would have crushed it under his foot in disgust.
The man had considered taking the box that had held the ashes along with the gold he had come for. It was made out of some kind of ivory and carved with intricate designs and symbols, some he understood but more he did not, and the inside was lined with a velvet of deepest crimson. But the bullion was already as wide as Azoki's arms. He would have little to no grasp for the box, and besides, its value, no matter its beauty, was little more than nothing compared to the gold. So he left it and the ashes and the creature behind, leaving the heavy doors to the chamber ajar.
No one in the Vale would dare enter, not even to investigate the mystery of the unlocked latch, for fear of the creature that lived inside.
The creature had waited, as its instincts demanded, for a brush of warmth or the smell of food, something to suggest that it had been found by its carer. When no such thing came, its instincts shifted and it lifted its head, wriggling out of the ashes as it did so. With limbs as small and weak as twigs, it crawled beneath the statue of it had once been, neither knowing or caring about this, and pulled its unfinished body across the floor of the chamber. It took some time, but it found the gap in the doors and made its way into the sitting room outside of the chamber.
By then the creature had been on the move for hours and it was exhausted.
It rested.
It was woken by the shrieks of the people of the house when they found the open doors.
The cries were of fear and distress, the feelings so similar to the creature's own that it wondered if perhaps it had at last found its keeper. It reached out with its instincts, probing and testing, reading the minds and blood of these animals that could be the difference between ending the hunger in its tiny belly or ending its tiny life. The process took time and it was itchy and uncomfortable, and then the beak became a nose and mouth and the wings became arms and hands and the small voice box and lungs made for chirping grew and stretched until they were able to fill with air and release a clear, shrilling wail.
"Good God! It's a child!"
XXX
The phoenix was flying.
The sky moved around him, the earth passed beneath him, and the clouds faded away in his presence.
He didn't know where he was going or what he was looking for. He didn't care. It is hard to care about such things when one has eternity to explore and experience.
Perhaps he would find a good piece of prey, a bear or a moose, and would feast before preening and sleeping with his head tucked under his wing.
Perhaps he would find a mate.
Perhaps he would nest and fill his home with the cries of hatchlings.
The idea brought thoughts of smoke, scales the shade of blood scales and the blue glow of the hottest fire. He turned into the heat, into promise of mating and tenderness and…
This was not a dream.
This was not a dream, it was a trick, and now there were fangs in his throat, sinking through his feathers and tearing off his flesh, and he felt his blood run down from his ruined neck and then he was falling into death, into nothingness.
He was falling.
He was falling.
He landed on the floor of his office with a thump!
XXX
"And I've fallen for yoooooou…
"I know you've fallen for meeeeee…
"Our love is a law…
"Real as gravityyyyyyy…."
Phoenix blinked up at the ceiling of his office.
It took him a moment to realize that's what it was, that's where he was, because the memory of air and feathers and falling was so sharp and encompassing in his head. He felt the stabbing pinpricks in his arms being pushed further in by the floor and sat up so quickly the movement made him dizzy.
They were getting worse.
It took a sickening amount of concentration - Trucy's playlist certainly wasn't helping - to pull the quills under his skin and dissolve them beneath. His body protested and the closed up holes where they had been trying to grow itched and burned. He forced the fire down, back into the deepest well of himself, but not without a pang of his own longing.
Something was coming. Either that, or it was already here. But that was hardly out of the ordinary for him.
Phoenix stood with a groan, feeling his nearly forty-year-old joints creak angrily as he equally as angrily reached for his laptop and closed out of the music app. Trucy was always hacking into his computer and leaving pranks for him. Sometimes it was some trendy video game, other times one of those "meme" sites she was always talking about. It wasn't the first time she had set her music to an alarm but it was the first time the alarm had actually served its purpose.
Phoenix must be getting old if he was falling asleep at his desk.
It was a quarter to three. This time a year ago, he would be heading out to pick up his daughter from school. That tradition had ended when Trucy had graduated and started college. She was still in town, still living at her father's apartment - living in such an overpopulated city like Los Angelas had its perks sometimes - but her class schedule was no longer what it had been.
That and "I'm an adult now, Daddy, you can't help me with school anymore."
Phoenix had tried to protest, but as in most things, Trucy won.
He wondered if the alarm had been set intentionally to make him nostalgic or if Trucy had simply been acting out of habit.
Phoenix sighed and sat back down in his chair, clicking on the open documents on his laptop to try to find out what he'd been working on when he'd fallen asleep.
Phoenix still hated computers. It was one thing when it came to his Nokia and his iPod. They were small and simple and straight to the point. When all the devices were smashed into one, finding the thing he needed became a maze and getting it to work became a game of chess.
Phoenix hated chess almost as much as he hated computers.
But Trucy and Miles had insisted, Trucy offering to teach him how to use it and Miles buying it and lecturing him on how there was no way he would "never be able to keep up with the modern workload without the modern equipment" and so like most decisions, this one was decided for him.
He found the will he'd been drafting when he'd dozed off. No wonder he'd fallen asleep.
Phoenix rubbed at his eyes and stood up, deciding to make himself a pot of coffee despite the lateness of the day. He hadn't been sleeping well and when he had been sleeping, he'd been dreaming about his wings and the sky and… other things. The dreams always ended with him falling.
He told himself they were dreams.
He told himself if he kept telling himself, it would be true.
Phoenix didn't get the chance to reach the coffee station. The knock at the door told him his caller wasn't Trucy. She didn't knock if she had a key. For a moment, he hoped it might be Miles, then remembered that it was before dinner. Edgeworth never got off work until the evening. It couldn't be Maya or Pearl. Pearl never came by herself and Phoenix always knew when Maya was coming to visit a good five minutes before she arrived. The girl was her own welcoming committee and she never hesitated to welcome herself into Phoenix's presence. Not that Phoenix minded. Maya and Pearl were always as welcome as Trucy.
This, of course, meant that the person at the door was a prospective client. Phoenix let himself sigh and changed his trajectory. He wished Athena was here so he could put the visitor in her (mostly) capable hands, but she was out today, helping Detective Gumshoe on a case of her own. Phoenix couldn't put how much he envied her into words. Criminal cases were always so much more interesting than civilian affairs.
The person at the door had raised his arm to knock a second time when Phoenix answered. The young man smiled and lowered his hand. His eyes were slanted and his nose was tapered in a way that made him look somewhere between exotic and devilish, and his leathery outfit complete with a large, brimmed hat gave away that he was one of those self-proclaimed world travelers.
He was odd, which was completely normal.
"Hello," Phoenix said, forcing a smile full of energy he didn't have onto his face. "How may I help you?"
The man spoke in a high-pitched whining voice that reminded Phoenix of an untuned harmonica. The sound was like nails against a chalkboard and it sent a flash of angry fire surge from the base of his spine and down his limbs. Phoenix could have sworn his teeth shivered in his gums.
"Good afternoon. I take it this is the Wright Anything Agency? Such an interesting name, I have to say."
"Thank you. It was my daughter's idea. Would you like to come in?"
"Of course, thank you." The stranger brushed passed Phoenix as he entered and Phoenix felt his fingers try to uncurl from the doorknob and straighten out. A ball of fear hardened above the well of fire inside him.
Something was here.
Phoenix knew he was not going to like whatever work this man had for him, but he had a daughter to feed and tuition to pay. He had never been able to be choosy about his work and this would not, could not, be an exception.
Phoenix sat down at his desk. The man sat in the chair opposite him.
"So, Mister…"
"Hunter. Just Hunter is fine."
The man's slanted green eyes felt like mosquito bites.
"All right… Mister Hunter. How can I help you?"
Mister Hunter answered by procuring a bottle out of seemingly nowhere.
Phoenix wondered if he was still dreaming.
The bottle was unlabeled its glass was opaque. For all intents and purposes, it looked like a wine bottle.
"Um…"
"From my employers. A taste," Hunter's slender eyebrows wriggled like snakes on his face, "of what is to come if you can be of use to us."
"Oh… thank you."
Phoenix picked up the bottle, thinking that this Hunter character was perfectly, normally odd and maybe his insomnia was just getting to him, and moved to place the bottle on the floor behind his desk. As soon as the bottle was off the desk, Hunter slid two small tumblers in its place.
Phoenix stared at them.
"Um…"
"Please, my employer insists," Hunter very nearly hissed through his grinning teeth. "If the drink is not to your liking, I am under orders to replace it with one of a more preferable flavor. My employer insists."
Phoenix's mouth went dry. He remembered the last time he'd held a bottle like this, upside down and watching the contents stream into the storm drain, Miles watching with arms crossed like a disappointed parent. He'd been smiling when Phoenix had turned to him, taking the then empty bottle from Phoenix's hands and holding it like the torch for a funeral pyre.
"No more of this. It is behind you now, with everything else."
Phoenix hadn't touched a drop of alcohol since.
To say the silent seconds of the present were awkward would have been an understatement. When Phoenix found his voice, it was clipped, his growing dislike of Hunter, even if unfair, beginning to rise higher than Phoenix could stifle it.
"It's a bit early for drinking -"
Hunter dismissed his protest with a wave of his long-fingered hand. Everything about him seemed to be slanted and long in some way.
"That potion is more sprits than spirits, my good man. You're likely to find a higher percentage in your bath water than in this. It is a gesture of goodwill from my employer to you. Please, my employer insists."
Phoenix decided he hated Hunter's employer as much as he hated Hunter himself.
But Phoenix had a lot of practice with working with people he hated.
He reached down and lifted the bottle from the floor. He would take a single swallow to appease this weasel-man, then as soon as he was gone, give the rest to Charley. He knew Mia would kill him if she ever caught him giving the office plant anything other than water. The thought sent a familiar spike of grief into his heart.
Hunter took the bottle for him and uncorked it easily with a finger that looked more like a clawed talon. The contents fizzled and the room filled with the smell of something that Phoenix could only describe, as strange as it was, as sunshine. The golden liquid bubbled as Hunter poured a drink for each of them. When Phoenix took a glass, that something inside him that would not shut up raised his head with a grimness that was almost nauseating.
Something is here.
Thank you, lord of redundancy, Phoenix thought as he shoved the something's head back with as much irritation as practice. He is here and if I just indulge him for five minutes, he'll go away.
It wasn't just the something that was indulged. As soon as the drink touched his tongue, the something's head shot back up, this time with its mouth open like a baby sparrow. The yellow stuff was delicious. With a silent apology to Edgeworth, Phoenix took a second, larger swallow. It tasted like flowers and summer heat and a cold soda on the beach.
Hunter was smiling, but his face looked much less weasely. The slanting lines were more curved and the malice had melted away. Phoenix wondered if it was the effects of the drink or if he had simply misjudged the man.
"What is this?" he asked, all his subtlety suddenly out the window.
"A specialty brew. A family secret. My employer will give you as much as you like if your efforts prove satisfactory."
Phoenix answered with a "hmm" as he pulled a third drink from the glass. "Speaking of which…"
"Yes, of course. You see, my employer has lost something very important to them."
Phoenix felt his head tilt to the side. Whether it was out of confusion or the sudden urge to lay his head on his desk, he wasn't sure.
"Hmm? That's… I'm a lawyer. I mean…"
Where had his words gone?
Hunter smiled gently, like he was speaking to a child.
"Precisely. We have managed to locate the item in question, but due to the amount of time it has been absent, the one who currently possesses it claims it now belongs to them."
"Hm-mm." Phoenix nodded, his eyes having closed without his consent. "Yeah, I can see how you might need an attorney for that."
"Yes, exactly."
"All right," Phoenix forced his eyes open and finished off his glass. "Do you have any information on this person? Whoever found the whatever-it-is and says it's theirs, I mean. How long as this thing been missing?"
"Of course. It's been missing for a quite a while, I'm afraid. Most likely for longer than you've been on this earth."
Phoenix's eyes were suddenly wide open.
"That's… what is this thing?"
"A family heirloom. My employer believed this inheritance of theirs to be lost to them, but now that's been found, they want what is rightfully theirs. You understand, don't you?"
Phoenix was reminded of the time Trucy had lost her cape at the airport when was traveling for one of her magic shows. They had found it in the plane's luggage, but in that interim, she had been inconsolable with grief. It was one of the few happy things she had received from her birth father.
"Yes, I understand. All right, well, if you give me a few details and a way to contact this person, I'll see what I can do."
Hunter said nothing for a while. He seemed to be analyzing Phoenix, studying him like he was a pie baking in an oven.
"Mister Attorney, would it trouble you if I told you a story?"
Phoenix realized, somewhat abstractly, that he was sweating.
"Um… all right, if you want."
"Once upon a time, there was a valley with a peaceful village within it."
Phoenix nearly laughed at Hunter's choice of words but found he didn't want to. The slanted man's voice seemed to have mellowed, taking on an almost sing-song tone. The cadence was like a lullaby. Phoenix's eyes slipped closed again.
"One day, a terrible monster came to the valley - some say it was a tengu from the East, some say it was more a firebird. The bird monster wreaked havoc on the peaceful village, stealing the people's livestock and sometimes their children. The villagers were helpless against the creature.
"Hearing their cries of despair, another creature arrived at the valley to save the villagers. It was a great fox spirit - a kitsune, as they call them in the East. The fox spirit fought the evil firebird and defeated it, sealing the monster away forever."
"The tale of Nine-Tails Vale." The words came out slurred and Phoenix hadn't realized he had spoken them until they were out of his mouth. Hunter's blurry face smiled genially.
"You're familiar with the local folklore. Good.
"The leaders of the village built a chamber to contain the firebird. The people of the valley were resourceful. They made full use of the treasure the fox spirit had gifted to them. The leaders would collect the firebird's tears and feathers and would trade them for gold and jewels. People came from all across the land for the healing tears and feathers that warded off evil spirits and liars."
Phoenix's forehead began to ache, like he was trying to puzzle out a particularly difficult problem on little to no sleep. Something was here and it was trying to force itself into his mind.
Darkness, cramped and cold…
Bursts of light bright enough to hurt his disused eyes, the hope of a drink or a bite of food making his eyes water and his face wet…
Falling into deepest of sleeps, dissolving into nothing, then reawakening in the same nothingness…
Phoenix stood up.
His body swayed violently and his chair fell over backwards and he had to grab his desk to keep himself from falling. His palms were slick with sweat and his skin was itching fiercely, like he'd just been attacked by a swarm of mosquitos. If Hunter reacted to any of this, Phoenix didn't see. His eyes seemed to have decided to stop working.
"But then, disaster! Modern medicine spread throughout the world, simpler and more exact than the firebird's tears. The valley's greatest treasure had become less than worthless and the villagers soon forgot about it, some even doubting it had ever existed at all. To make matters worse, a thief came to the village and stole the treasures that were still of value. The leaders of the village were so distraught over the theft of the precious metals and stones that none of them noticed or cared that, in breaking into the chamber for the riches, the thief had unknowingly broken the seal on the firebird, setting the monster free.
"All except for one, that is."
"No."
Hunter cocked his head at Phoenix's protest, confused, until he saw the expression buried beneath the red, blistering, sweat-covered skin of Phoenix's face.
"Ah. I see the soma has entered your blood properly now. Does this mean you remember me, friend?"
"No!"
It was another protest rather than a negation and Hunter threw back his head and laughed. The sound was horrendously close to barking and a visceral, instinctual fear rose in Phoenix's throat. His body tried to run, to save himself in the most basic way. Instead, he fell, landing on his chest and face, the blisters under his clothes tearing an agonized moan from him.
Something was here and Phoenix, the fool he was, had welcomed it and stupidly let himself fall into its trap.
The ripping of skin, the snap of feathers, his mouth filling with blood as the rushing darkness burned him away…
Phoenix started to crawl. Hunter laughed again, another harsh, barking laugh.
"Where do you think you're going? The story isn't finished yet.
"The fox spirit had made its home in the valley with the villagers, offering protection to the people in exchange for food and a warm place to sleep."
"Liar."
The word was spit rather than spoken, as Phoenix's teeth no longer seemed content to stay in his mouth. This just made Hunter laugh harder than ever.
"Oh, of course, I forgot, you can see through lies when your like this. Yes, it's true. The people worshipped me. I had, after all, saved them from certain death, not to mention gifted them the key to eternal health and immunity from deceit."
Phoenix had made it to the door of his office when his knees sided with whatever Hunter had started. He landed on his chest again. The pain was different, the blisters having broken. Now it was like landing on a bed of spikes.
"More importantly, I made a promise. I promised the villagers of the vale to protect them always from powers greater than themselves… and to keep the firebird sealed inside its chamber."
Phoenix's fingers wouldn't bend, the bones had fused and become inflexible. His clothes had gone from wet with sweat to steaming as his body adjusted to his rising internal temperature. Soon they would burn. Phoenix found this thought extremely annoying. This was one of his better suits.
In his panic and confusion of the new instincts that had gripped his mind and demanded that he escape from this natural predator, it hadn't crossed him to stop the change. He forced himself to focus on his surroundings rather than what was inside him, since it was quite obvious to him that reversing the process through will alone was not going to work. Sluggishly, he managed to put together the past hour's events and came to what would normally be the clear and logical conclusion: Hunter had poisoned him.
A hand with nails far too sharp and hard to be human grabbed the back of his suit and yanked him up and held him there. When Hunter saw the tears running down Phoenix's face, he barked so hard his whole body shook, and Phoenix along with him.
"Oh, little bird, that won't work. The body doesn't recognize the soma as a toxin. Quite the opposite, in fact."
He barked again, this time in pain when the inevitable finally happened and the room filled with the smell of burning fabric.
"Still fighting it, I see. Impressive. It won't do you any good. I designed it perfectly. It would be so much easier if you just let go."
Phoenix's hands and teeth were gone, but they had been replaced with something far sharper and stronger. Hunter yelped and hopped away like a cat, a freshly bleeding slice in his leg.
"That's more like it!"
Phoenix heard the sound of ripping cloth and felt the press of fangs around his neck.
He let go.
XXX
Miles Edgeworth was quite adept with fountain pens. It was this skill that kept him from spilling ink all over his papers when Detective Dick Gumshoe burst into his office.
"Sir! Sir, you gotta see this! It's -"
"Gumshoe! What have I told you about knocking?!"
Gumshoe skidded to a halt, which was quite a feat for someone as broad as him, especially on a carpeted floor. Dick haphazardly turned around, ran to the door, closed it, knocked, opened the door, and ran back across Miles's office.
"Sir! Sir, you gotta see this! It's -"
Miles silenced and halted him with one of his frostiest glares. Gumshoe stopped beside Miles's desk, panting like a bellows.
"It's beautiful, sir! There are so many colors! Blue… red… blue and red -"
"What are you on about, Detective?"
"The light show. There's a light show down by the harbor! Gosh, it's so pretty, you need to see it! Come on, you can see it from the roof!"
Before Miles could ask the detective what he'd been doing on the roof, the absurdity of a light show being held in the middle of the day occurred to him, and with the absurdity came realization. Miles leapt from his desk with a spryness that took Gumshoe off guard nearly as much as his discovery from the room.
He nearly forgot all about the light show when the prosecutor shook himself out of his jacket and let it crumple to the floor.
"Um… sir -"
"Take care of my habiliments, Detective. I'll contact you soon."
"What -"
Miles had gotten himself out of his shirt when he disappeared around the corner of the open door. Gumshoe started to follow him, remembered his instructions, picked up and folded the abandoned jacket and shirt and placed them on the sofa.
He reached the roof of the prosecutors' building in time to see Miles Edgeworth, wearing nothing but his small clothes, jump into empty air.
XXX
He hadn't done this in a while.
He swerved when he first caught a draft, the reflected sun from the pavement below lifting him like a punch towards the sky, having forgotten about the discomfort of the change and the delicate balance of his weight between his wings and the wind. For a terrible moment, he thought he was going to crash into the scenic highway in the shadow of the famous white letters everyone came to see. The last flicker of his human mind pointed out that if the people in their cars below could see the Hollywood sign, they could most certainly see him in all his winged and taloned glory. The thought was only there for a second before it was replaced by disgust at the stench of car exhaust and rotting garbage.
And the sound of a fight.
With a flex of the new muscles in his shoulders, he pushed himself forward above the rooftops and between the taller buildings, heading for the smell of salt and water, fire and feathers.
And blood.
Rage rose in his throat as hot as the fire in his belly. With instinct as his guide, he opened his toothy maw and roared his challenge.
XXX
The fox couldn't fly.
It stared at him from the beach, pacing back and forth by the waves, yipping in frustration and its puffy tails streaming behind it.
He screamed at it defiantly, stretching his wings as far as out as he could, letting the sun catch off his feathers and his beak. He circled over the water, taunting the predator that had tricked him once, long ago, at the end of a life he was not supposed to remember. He lost his hold for a moment, nearly splashing into the sea but catching himself with his wings so that only his claws got wet. The water he touched bubbled and boiled.
He was not supposed to know who the fox was.
The memories were supposed to die with each life, save for the fewest and dearest, but surely he was not meant to remember such details as a face or a voice or a smell…
The smell of the sea, the rocking of the boat, the hunger in his belly as he hid in the dark…
He was trapped with his hunger and his thirst and his most painful loneliness, he was going to die here, without ever having seen anything except darkness and feeling nothing but the lining of his prison…
He was so hungry, the bullies had taken his food again, but one day he would be bigger and stronger than them and he would beat them up and leave the home and he would be an adult…
The splash of water reminded him of the present.
His claws scraped the sand of the bank as he flapped his wings desperately, trying to regain altitude before -
He felt feathers tear from his neck as the fox took its chance and leapt for his throat. He threw his head back, throwing the fox off and ripping more quills out of his skin. The fox landed with a splash and a shriek of fury. His talons had properly sunk into the wet sand, the water boiling as the sand crystallized into opaque glass. He pounded the sand and the air with his wings, trying to rise but anchored to the ground by the glass encasing his feet. The fox had reoriented itself, its fur slick against its body, making its head look comically small. The fox's lips pulled back in a snarl, showing its blistered gums and bloody teeth. He crowed at it tauntingly and slashed the space between them with his beak, lacking the heat of his skin but compensating fully in its sharpened predatory tip. The fox leaped nimbly out of the way, chittering amusedly, like they were playing a silly game and it was winning.
It deftly dodged beneath his beak when he swooped his head lower to stab at the sand where the fox had been a heartbeat before. The flying grains turned to drops of glass and he reared backwards, a shrill cry of pain, anger, and fear bursting from him as he felt the gristle in his throat crunch beneath teeth.
Drowned in soma and burning in his fire, his human brain, the part of him that cared about the millions of people living and vacationing in the city next to them, was as silent as still as if the fox had killed it first. Without that part to stop himself from using his most deadly weapon. He opened his beak wide and sucked in what air he could bring in with fangs pinching his wind pipe.
Something slammed into him with enough force to break the glass trapping him to the earth.
The world spun for a moment, drops of blood whirling around him, and then he landed in deeper water, crabs and small fish dying in an instant as his body cooked them. The salt stinging his eyes and the water sluicing down his ruined throat jarred him, the coolness of the sea dampening his flames just enough that the part of him that was burning in silence woke slightly, granting him enough clarity to realize what he'd been about to do and what the result of it would have been. Then claws were digging into his feathers and hooking into his skin and he was being pulled into upwards, vomiting water and blinking tears from his eyes. The tears that trailed between his quills and touched the wounds in his throat coaxed the torn flesh to reform with a distant tickling sensation. The little bit of pain and water disappearing from his helped him refocus and he realized there was more than one hunter pursuing him - and catching him, judging by the fact that this other hunter was carrying him away above the waves, albeit lowly. He tried to turn his head around to see what had a hold of him.
He caught a glimpse of crimson scales and smelled oily smoke.
His scream was of outrage rather than fear.
He began flapping his wings in earnest, unbalancing the dragon's hold on the air and simultaneously pushing them both further skyward with the extra heat. The dragon roared and dug its claws in deeper, keening as the hide beneath its scales began to char. It was the increasing burning more than the precarious tipping and swerving that made the dragon let go, far out past shelf of the land, and he fell for a confusing moment before he caught himself and wheeled about to face the dragon, which was snapping its jaws in a combination of agony and frustration.
He screamed out a war cry and threw himself towards the dragon, talons open and beak poised, aiming for its silver underbelly.
XXX
The move was so stupid that it was the deciding factor in whether or not Wright was at all in control of himself. If he'd been properly comprehending what was going on, instinct alone should have been enough to compel him to do anything other than that. But Wright was not in control of himself, and whatever or whoever was was urging him to fight and kill like the bird of prey he was in this shape.
Miles didn't have time to spare the fox on the beach a glance before Wright slammed into him, full of heat and tearing and pain, but Miles knew he was there, watching, waiting, knowing that whoever killed the other, he had won from the beginning. He had smelled the fox's cloying scent as he passed over and saw the four tails whipping against each other. He knew who had caused this.
Phoenix had been terrified of this day for as long as Miles had known him.
But neither of them had ever thought that the kitsune patiently waiting for one of them to become corpse would have the power to do this.
Miles would not leave him here, at the mercy of his natural enemy, even if that meant letting his deranged, murderous, dearest friend slice his belly open and roasting his innards from the outside.
The dragon let the firebird plunge his beak into the dragon's ribs and wrapped his legs, wings, and tail around his friend, dropping them both out of the air and into the ocean together.
XXX
The water was cold and dark, tasting of blood and salt, and pouring into his lungs, choking him and killing the fire burning in his body and his soul and his mind…
The coldest he'd ever been in this life, the icy river freezing the inside of his nose and mouth, making his eyes numb in his head…
The coldest he'd ever been in that life, the fog so thick he couldn't see his hand in front of his face, laughing in disbelief as he realized at how right his friend had been and then crying because his friend was gone…
Mother was gone, where did she go, he needed food, the den was cold and lonely and he was only a cub, his paws too small to hunt and his mouth too small to eat…
Who was he?
Where was he?
What was he?!
He tried to breathe and his chest filled with water.
Well, whatever he was, he was certainly not a fish.
Which meant he was drowning.
And people died when they drowned.
…
People die when they drown.
Phoenix started flailing his sore, exhausted, mostly human limbs, trying to find the air, not remembering nor caring how he had lost it in the first place. His arms slapped against something wrapped around his middle and then he was being pulled upward with such suddenness and speed that he was sure that this was it, he'd died, finally well and truly died, and was being pulled into Heaven…
Phoenix swallowed air, vomited water, swallowed air, coughed up more water, swallowed air…
He was being carried around his stomach with clumsy, lurching drops and swoops, and he vomited again for a reason other than choking. His fingers had loosened and he used them to grasp at whatever was holding him aloft and felt the sharp edges of scales and the heat radiating from the body above. Whatever it was roared, the inflection of the voice sounding suspiciously like a question.
Are you awake, Wright?
"Edgeworth." The name was no more than a whisper but the dragon must have heard it because he loosened his talons, if only slightly.
Stay awake.
The words were buried under growls, whistles, and clicks, and Phoenix knew he could only hear them because he knew what to look for. To anyone else, it would probably sound like the dragon was burping in between vicious bouts of hiccups. The thought made him laugh, which made him cough, which made him breathe, which brought the fire back, slowly but surely, like embers being brought to life by a bellows. Phoenix tried to stop it, tried to fight it, but the fire and feathers and need to fly, burn, and kill kept rising up inside him, as inevitable and as unstoppable as the vomiting had been.
"Edge - Miles. Miles, help -"
And then his teeth and nose were fusing again and his worlds were gone.
The words he'd managed to say must have been enough because Miles let his wings go limp and they dropped back into the water.
He had to hold on, had to remember what he was, who he was, he promised Trucy he wouldn't leave her, he promised…
He promise they would do this together, had sworn on his sword, he'd promised, and now he was gone…
He was gone again and now he was back and now he was gone and now he was going to starve again, here in the dark, without ever knowing anything else, and he was gone again…
He was pulled out of the water, gasping and coughing, grasping a hot, scaly talon with his flexing, human fingers. Then the moment was gone and his fingers were straightening, bones burst in from the tips.
He fell into the sea.
He had pulled up the fire, as involuntary as it was willed, to keep himself from freezing from the inside out. His claws had caught the stones of the river and he had grabbed and yanked himself to the bank, the worst kind of pain seizing through his legs when the current pulled him loose and nearly wrenching the sharpened nails out of his feet. The ice from the river killed the fire as was quickly as he brought it to life. He hadn't had time to pull his wings out, hadn't needed to in so long that he couldn't remember how…
Up.
Breathe.
Burn.
Down.
He'd been found by a cat, of all things. A great cat, with spots and teeth like knives, strong enough and large enough to bring down the elk that migrated through the mountains, but still a cat with paws and fur and purring. If his past self could see him now…
Up.
Breathe.
He couldn't do this for much longer, losing himself and finding himself. Soon, he would fall away completely.
"Stop it… stop it…"
Stay with me, Wright.
Back down again.
XXX
Miles had to stop.
He couldn't bear the sound of the Phoenix's babbling, even if he couldn't make out single word of it, couldn't bear the ache in his wings from constantly falling and rising with more than his own weight, but most of all, he was loosing too many layers of flesh in the talon holding Phoenix. The pain from his smoldering hide was enough to make his sight blurry, with the addition of the salt from the sea, tears of his own were streaming beneath his scales and evaporating when they reached his hide, the fire under his skin not nearly as hot as Wright's but warm enough to dry his drenched legs and underbelly in minutes.
California was famous for the islands off its coast, especially towards the south, he just had to keep his going west, keep moving away from the mainland, away from the fox -
Phoenix's body burst into feathers.
Miles's talon burst with agony.
They fell and did not rise.
XXX
Phoenix knew they would probably laugh about this later.
Give it a few days.
Or months.
All right, maybe more like years, but soon, this would be hilarious story they could talk about when they were alone, perhaps during one of their business trips in Europe or after dinner while Trucy was sleeping or working on her homework in her room.
Absolutely rib-breaking.
In the present, Phoenix was a little too preoccupied with keeping his friend from drowning.
Edgeworth's hand was in ruins. The man lay on the sea-cooled feathers of his back, draped across him like a corpse from a shipwreck, his head above the water while his blackened, tattered hand trailed beneath like a half-eaten fish.
Miles's mouth and teeth had been protected by the dragon's natural internal resistance, but the limbs were far from the mouth or lungs. The dragon's talons were never near that heat and so didn't need such immunity.
A firebird, on the other hand, far surpassed any temperature a dragon could ever attempt to produce or defend from.
Yes, they would laugh about this.
He just had to get them to the lumpy shape on the horizon without losing himself for too long, heal Miles's hand, and then get himself far enough away from everyone and everything that he could let whatever he'd been medicated with pass through his system.
Or die, the voice that never let him pretend he had the advantage in a trial when he didn't helpfully reminded could die and dissolve into a puff of dust and smoke and scatter over the sea. He couldn't help but wonder if his remains being in different places would prevent him from coming back.
For a horrible, selfish moment, he entertained the idea.
Then Trucy, her face beginning to puff up with college fat and her sky blue eyes shining at him so lovingly, so full of trust and hope, flashed through his mind like a lightning strike.
He had promised her.
He had promised, her and Miles and Maya and Pearl, all of them, that he would always come back.
You're life will never belong to you.
The Promise could not be broken.
Phoenix shoved his head under the waves, denying himself air and forcing his body to cool, if only slightly, and pushed against the water with his steaming wings.
XXX
To anyone else, it would have looked as if Phoenix was weeping over the battered corpse of his friend, the idyllic scenery making up for the bizarre progression of his mourning, as if he was grieving each part of Miles's body in turn. He spent a particularly long while holding Miles's ruined fingers to his face, wiping the tears off onto the flesh that was quickly turning red to pink to the whiteness of skin that had never seen the sun.
Edgeworth woke up slowly, not trusting his surroundings enough to open his eyes right away.
The first things he noticed were the smell of the sea, the sound of water and wet sighing, and the feelings of what felt like uncut nails scratching the back of his hand and sand sticking to his wet body.
The first thing he realized was that he was naked.
The first thing he did was throw one of his still present wings over his torso.
The sighing turned to laughing, then painful gasping, then a sudden heat and the rustling of disturbed sand before a large splash.
The first thing he saw was a pair of sky-colored wings capped with a mop of black hair rolling around in the shallows.
Miles watched, blinking in the blinding sunlight, and sat up with the slowness of waking from a long sleep. His spine popped and wriggled, reminding him of the tail being crushed beneath his legs. Phoenix's wings had receded, the feathers withering and falling away like bits of ash, and began making his way back to where Miles was now sitting upright, his own leathery wings encompassing him like a robe and his tail scaly tail brushing an angel's wing in the sand behind him.
They stared at each other, each sizing the other up.
"You look awful."
It was Miles's turn to laugh.
"And you look like you have a deadly case of the measles."
Phoenix's body was covered in angry looking pustules, tiny ones cresting his forehead and atrociously large ones spotting his arms in a noticeable pattern. He smiled ruefully.
"You looked like some deli pulled pork before I uncooked your medium rare parts. Now you look more like a boiled lobster."
Miles flexed the bat-like sprouting from his shoulders.
"Yes, a specimen of the incredibly rare winged lobster."
Phoenix opened his mouth for his responding retort which dissolved into a hiss and bulging eyes as the blisters popped, ivory specks blooming in their centers as the quills burst through. Miles felt bile rise in his throat and only just managed to swallow it down.
"Does… does that hurt?"
It was a stupid question and Phoenix's raised, swollen brow commented as much. Then his face smoothed as he decided on his serious answer.
"It actually feels a little better now that I don't have to hold them in as much."
"When did this start?"
Phoenix frowned at his fingers, which had forcefully splayed out by the bones that had fused in preparation for feathers.
"He said he needed legal help reclaiming a misplaced family heirloom. Then he offered me a drink as an act of good faith."
Edgeworth's face loosened with disappointment.
"Wright -"
"I only had one - to be polite!" Phoenix defended, Miles's disapproval stinging more than the eruption of feathers. "I think… he called it 'soma.'"
Miles mouthed the word, as if the taste might bring forth some inner knowledge.
"Perhaps a type of ambrosia - a stimulant made by a djinn or the gods, according to legend. It was said to grant long life and good health to mortals."
The choice of words brought old, anguished thoughts into Phoenix's head, which pulled something else along with them, and then Phoenix's mouth and nose went numb as his jaw ripped his face open. Miles was unable to stop himself from crying out in disgust and horror and Phoenix tried to cover the the beak that did not fit his head with his suddenly very feathered arms, then turned and ran to the ocean, throwing himself into the shallows face-down. Miles didn't know what to do so he did nothing and watched and waited, and just when he was starting to wonder if he should intervene, Phoenix thrashed his now bare arms until he was able to turn around in the water and crawl back to the dry sand. Now that the panic had worn off, he had started laughing at the absurdity of the situation, his replaced teeth flashing in his smile.
Nothing about their predicament was the least bit funny, but Miles still found himself fighting the corners of his mouth, a fight he inevitably lost, and then they were both laughing, Phoenix's feathers bursting through his skin and his legs drying and cracking into scales. The process was unbearably itchy and so he found himself rolling in the sand, scrabbling at his shins with locked fingers while Miles threw his head back in resignation. It wasn't until Phoenix quite literally exploded into shimmering feathers and slashing beak that the laughter stopped, mostly because Phoenix voice had turned into a hawk-like shriek and Miles had to shield himself from the wild heat coming off Phoenix with his own wings.
"So… how long do you think before this stuff wears off?" Phoenix asked, having gotten his body to shrink down to where he had a human face and torso while the rest of him remained awkwardly avian. The sight reminded Edgeworth uncomfortably of a painting of an angel one might find on the ceiling of a cathedral.
"Based on your lack of control, I'd guess not for some time. However, you've regained your mind, so you might be through the worst of it - or at least discovered a way to manage it until it stops," Miles said, refusing to comment when Phoenix's face peppered with down and he waddled on his clawed feet back to the shallows. "We will probably be here for quite awhile. We'll need to send a message to Gumshoe so he doesn't devolve into hysterics - though it's likely far too late for that."
"Trucy," Phoenix gasped, panting, dripping, and steaming from marinading himself in deeper water. "We need to… to tell Trucy."
"Wright, she's an adult, she'll be fine."
Phoenix's eyes flared with something unrelated to his current condition.
"She's only eighteen -"
"Making her an adult."
"LA is a dangerous city -"
"Oh, please, Wright, your daughter's been navigating the streets since she was eight. Ten years of experience is due some credit."
Hurt twisted Phoenix's human features and it took Miles a moment to realize it wasn't because of his rebellious quills.
"Wright… Phoenix, you know I didn't mean it that way."
"It doesn't make it any less true."
"Yes, and you would know all about that, wouldn't you?"
Phoenix's face turned white and his feathers flared, shifting from smooth softness to the least deadliest of swords. He whirled with a distinctively inhuman clicking sound, his beak pulling the last bit of firebird out into the open. Miles couldn't tell if the surrender was intentional or not, but it mattered little. Either way led him to shifting with a speed he didn't know he had and throwing himself in front of Phoenix within the same movement.
The kitsune bared his fangs when Miles quite literally leaping into the dragon, though not out of fear or admiration. The fox was smiling at the display of smoke billowing from between tapered teeth as if it were all some kind of personal joke.
Which, for him at least, it most certainly was.
"The demon prosecutor bears his horns for me," the fox chittered, his high-pitched, warbling voice as icy as the dragon's internal fire was slagging. "I'm honored."
"We have done nothing to you. Leave us be."
The fox danced around the sand, barking with laughter and lashing his tails behind him like banners.
"Oh, my cub, this has nothing to do with what who has done to whom," he said once he'd calmed enough to speak. "This is simple nature. It is a vulpine's purpose to hunt the feathered ones. I cannot be blamed for what I cannot choose."
From behind him, Miles heard Phoenix make a scratching, trilling sound. He didn't dare take his eyes off the spot of fur in the sand. The fox may have been only the size of one of the dragon's talons, but the number of tails sprouting from his haunches gave away the real danger the dragon and firebird could be in at any moment - or could very well already have fallen into.
"That world is over and has been before any of us were born. We live as humans, nothing less, nothing more. Leave us."
The fox titled his head to the side, flicking the risen ear.
"And yet I see no humans on this beach."
Miles let the dragon snarl, a deep rumble that burst through a widened mouth. Clouds of smoke streamed passed his eyes.
"By your own doing. If that is your motivation, you have no one to blame but yourself."
The kitsune snapped his jaws.
"Humans are mortal animals. The creature behind you is, by its nature, unable to die. It is not human and will never be human and so is exempt from your logic."
"Then you have exempted yourself."
The fox sneered in a way that was eerily man-like.
"And so it is shown to be true."
The edges of Miles's vision suddenly blurred, as if his eyes had suddenly filled with tears and the strangers pressure shoved itself between his horns. He swung his head to and fro and pawed at his face, scratching at the scales with his claws. He heard a squawk of outrage and a bark of triumph, then a shriek of pain and rage.
"Stop resisting! Let yourself burn!"
Miles's vision came back into focus to see the firebird tripping about himself, trying to concentrate on not giving fully into the soma, trying to not get caught in the glass that kept forming around his feet, and avoiding the kitsune's leaping form. The fox kept springing about, clamping his jaws whenever he came close to any part of Phoenix's flailing body. Phoenix was trying to fly out of the fox's reach, would realize that flying made it harder to keep himself from losing control, and then would drop back on the beach and sink into crystallizing sand.
The dragon wasted no time in lunging at the fox, his own serrated teeth snapping shut on the fur at the end of Hunter's tails before the fox could dodge completely. Hunter released a howl of pain and rage and whirled around, sand spinning away from him.
"Wright! Go!" was the only warning Miles gave before before he freed the molten fire in his belly. It bubbled up his throat and wrenched his maw open as it exploded into a cloud of flame when it touched the air.
Edgeworth had forgotten how the brightness of the fire blinded him, how the dragon's inner eyelids would slide down to protect his sight from his own power, dousing everything into blurry shades of blue and purple. He had forgotten how the force of the heat might cause him to stumble and how he couldn't stop the stream until his internal furnace emptied.
Hunter had not.
Phoenix watched, wings flapping involuntarily as he fought for consciousness, as the kitsune danced around the spikes of glass and flying shards of baked sand while desperately trying to outmaneuver the jet of flame that followed him as he ran. He watched first with hopefulness as the fox's panic became more and more evident, and then with horror when Hunter finished his circle and reached Miles's side. The fox ducked beneath the dragon's outstretched wing to his softer underbelly.
Phoenix heard Miles's roar of pain beneath the roar of fire.
It was the last thing Phoenix heard before he surrendered to the firebird.
XXX
Abandoning his quest for self-control, Phoenix beat his wings, scattering sand and disturbing the tide as he propelled himself towards the dragon, not knowing or caring how his feathers seared the hide beneath the scales as he collided into Miles, barreling the dragon onto his side. The firebreath vanished as the dragon's jaws were forced together as he fell, revealing the kitsune that had burrowed its snout in his belly like a tick. The fox scrabbled for purchase on the smooth scales and gnawed at the soft skin beneath, trying to break a vein big enough to cause bleeding. The firebird's beak pinched down on Hunter's lithe body like tweezers and the fox let go of the dragon's flesh, his muzzle stained with steaming blood and his jaws parted in a cry of agony as the firebird's tongue brushed his spine, leaving singed fur and blistered skin behind.
Tiny morsel.
The firebird threw its head back out of instinct, trying to drop the prey-sized creature in its beak down its throat.
Only to have its meal snatched from above its open mouth.
With a scream of outrage, the firebird pushed itself off the beach with a beat of its wings, eyes and fury focused on the crimson and silver dragon that now carried its meal in its talon. The dragon turned his head and studied is pursuer with a baleful gray eye, as if making sure he was being followed, then shoved off the air with his wings and flew as if his life depended on it.
The firebird warbled low in its throat as it sped up to match. If it had its way, the dragon's assumption would be correct.
XXX
Hunter sank his teeth into the dragon's hide, blood searing his tongue and scales cracking around his teeth. The dragon had not saved him, despite what the soma-crazed phoenix may have thought - if it was capable of such a feat without its human mind. Edgeworth had saved his friend from his own murderous stupidity: if Phoenix had swallowed him, Hunter would have had a simple matter of tearing the firebird's throat open from the inside out. How the dragon knew, the fox didn't know and the lack of knowing made him bite down harder. Edgeworth huffed a stifled growl of pain but didn't open his talon.
If he could get the stupid lizard to drop him, whether intentionally or not, he knew Phoenix would dive after him out of reflex. As if reading his mind, which Hunter knew he couldn't really have done because dragons weren't known for their telepathy, Edgeworth lowered his serpentine neck just low enough so the fox could hear the words grumbled in his chest.
"If I let you go, it will be because my claw will have pierced your heart."
Hunter pulled his lips from his teeth in a snarl.
"You've never taken a life, child. You're not about to start now."
A choking puff of smoke plumed from the dragon's snout.
"Don't test me, little one. You have no one to save you if I lose my patience."
Hunter let out a chittering laugh.
"Your ignorance shows your youth."
A ripple of confusion and panic passed through the dragon's body, setting his wings juttering. If either of them was going to say anything else, neither got the chance. In his preoccupation, Miles hadn't realized his flight had slowed, allowing the firebird to catch up.
Catch up and catch him off guard, ramming into him in a blurring whirl of shimmering feathers and ripping claws. Fox and dragon fell into the sea with a foamy splash and a pinwheeling of wings.
XXX
He was dropped unceremoniously onto the sand.
The spot of blistered skin and missing fur felt sizzling with the salt from the sea soaking into it. His eyes were equally blurred from tears as from water. He shook out his fur out of reflex, realizing his forelegs had become arms, the paws returning to hands and the toes into fingers. The deprivation of air had forced his body to shift towards his human shape.
"Is this all the great monster slayer has to offer? I'm disappointed."
He managed to stop his tails from fluffing completely, but he knew it would be hard not to notice the risen hairs on all four.
The voice was thin and strong and as cold as the ice atop a frozen lake, the blue eyes reflecting its frosty sharpness.
"Not every hunt ends in a kill."
His own voice seemed meek in comparison. He tried to remind himself that the creature before him was an infant compared to him, that he had lived several lifetimes while the beast in front of him hadn't even lived one.
It was a beast, despite the shape of the eyes. There was no humanity in those chips of ice.
"Not every mating does, either. If it must, let us hope it is not yours."
He didn't bother to hide his shudder.
"I will capture him, make no mistake."
I cannot choose otherwise.
The creature's wings flared, drops of water reflecting light like the scales on its limbs; black at first but shifting between green and gold as the sun flashed off them. Its arms were crossed as if considering a delinquent youngling.
"Do not forget our bargain. He is mine before he is your master's."
Bile rose in his throat, making his mouth taste sour and hot.
"I would never go back on a contract."
The eyes shifted, moving from the sodden fox-man to the specks of red and blue fading into the distant horizon.
"I hope that you do, if your sake. It will be a shame if I have saved your miserable pelt for nothing."
And so it begins!
For my FMA readers, never fear, this should not disrupt TSSOS or COS as I have, unfortunately, been planning this for awhile.
The popcorn store closed I'm so ANGRY