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azuramarigold · 10 months

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A Phoenix Rises from the Ashes

After a tragic accident over a hundred years ago he had learned one thing - He can't die. Now, he adopted a new name - Phoenix - as a phoenix rises from the ashes. However, was it meant for this to happen in order to meet the people that came across his long life?

Day 2 of the AU-gust Writing Challenge 2023! - Immortals! Character: Phoenix Wright Thought of Phoenix as the first thing because of his name and the legends of the mythical bird.

AO3 DAY 1

The first time he had “died” it was the most excruciating pain he had ever experienced in his life.

The young man had been working with the other factory workers when suddenly there were told to evacuate. Everyone was in a state of panic, trampling one another, throwing each other to the ground to make sure they were ahead.

But none of them were going to escape.

Whatever project they were working on had overloaded, causing the entire factory to explode. Glass and shards of metal shot through his body like bullets. When he placed his hands on his stomach, a piece of pipe had greeted him as it had impaled him from behind.

There was no escape except to accept the embrace of death – so that was what he did.

Except… he didn’t die.

He awoke God knows how much later, the area around him decimated. A hand to his head in confusion, he simply got and began walking, not noticing the trails of ash dropping behind him.

**

Not much had changed for him in the next hundred or so years – he had decided to go with a new name: Phoenix.

After all, when a phoenix dies, they rise from the ashes, right?

Phoenix had done many things over the century. He had learned medicine and had become a doctor in different fields in different countries. The clinics he was in were quite successful for the most part.

Until random warlords came in and blew his brains out.

But, he rose again and left – the people had to believe that he was dead. How would they react to someone like him?

Phoenix at one point had become an engineer. He was part of a team that helped develop nuclear technology. It was an interesting experience to see how that technology came together.

That was until he saw it firsthand when he took a small getaway to Hiroshima, Japan and was literally blown away by the thing he helped with.

Had to scrap that life too.

Phoenix had been many things – a teacher, a construction worker, a pianist, an architect, and many odd things in-between. It wasn’t until he decided to settle in the Los Angeles area around the year 2012 that he wanted to do something different – art.

He wanted to be part of something meaningful for once. It was a good thing that he happened to look quite young despite being over a hundred years old. What Ivy University didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.

Good thing at one point in his life he was good at making documents as he was able to forge himself a very convincing birth certificate for admit into the college. He also had forge himself a vaccination record, documentation about parents and bank statements to get himself cosigners for an apartment; luckily that was paid off quickly as he had many stashed bank accounts over the years that had accumulated funds with great interest.

It was a lot of work – but getting himself into the art program at Ivy University before the first day of the new semester was a synch. No one suspected a thing and every one looked at Phoenix like he was a dumb, naïve twenty-one-year-old boy who didn’t know his head from his ass.

And that was perfect.

However, it didn’t help that Phoenix had also decided at the time after watching a court case on the television that being a type of lawyer would be interesting too – sometimes he was overzealous with his interests. After all, he was never a lawyer before either. He honestly didn’t want to wait until he was “killed” again to start that career path, so he took law as a minor.

As he was in the basement one morning of the courthouse, looking at old court files for a law assignment he was working on, a young woman rushed down the stairs. Her blood-red hair was so deep it looked as though it came from her veins themselves. Her large, youthful brown eyes were darting around wildly, her hands gripping a white laced parasol.

Then their eyes met.

For the past hundred years there was something that Phoenix could say that he had never done – he had never been with anyone. He had thought it would be too dangerous and too suspicious as he didn’t age and of course when he “died” he had to immediately skip town.

But there was something desperate in this young woman’s eyes…

And that was where the trouble had begun.

A glass heart-shaped necklace was given to him – thrusted upon him actually – as she stated that she liked him. How could that be? They had never met before!

Despite being someone over a hundred years old, what Phoenix did in that moment was the stupidest thing he had ever done.

He trusted that woman – Dahlia Hawthorne – completely.

Phoenix and her dated for eight months. There were no incidents as far as he knew. She was actually quite sweet and kind, often cooking him nice foods that he thought were cute. Occasionally he surprised her with a romantic dinner that he had cooked himself as at one point in his many years he was a chef.

By the fourth month of him dating her he had gained a new experience in his life – she was the first person he had ever made love with.

Then out of the blue a young man she had previously dated began to warn Phoenix that she was dangerous and had stolen top chemicals from the pharmacology department. In Phoenix’s experience when he was a doctor, medicine had come a long way – so the chemicals that this Doug Swallow guy listed were very unfamiliar to him.

There was an argument, and of course, being the passionate person that he was, Phoenix aggressively pushed Doug to the ground and stormed off. However, he felt guilty about potentially hurting the young man, so he had turned around to go assist him.

Only to see Dahlia crouched over the corpse of Doug.

“Oh, Feenie… this isn’t what it looks like…” she had said sweetly, but her tone seemed forced. Her smile didn’t reach her eyes.

Phoenix could add to his long list of life being on trial of accused murder though.

He doesn’t know why, even to this day, why he tried to cover her for as long as he did. Even his lawyer at the time, Mia Fey, was beginning to grow frustrated and annoyed. It was then Phoenix made mistake number two.

He consumed the necklace that Dahlia had given him the day they met… right after it was revealed to be potentially laced with deadly poison that had put an attorney in a coma eight months prior.

Either luckily or unluckily the poison didn’t kill him. Well, it did, but it didn’t. Phoenix had gone through his normal cycle in the bathroom of the courthouse where he ate the necklace behind locked doors.

The burning sensation that he always went through was never bearable, no matter how many times it happened.

When his body “dies” all his cells began to combust simultaneously into flames, leaving nothing but ashes behind him. It was starting life anew – a phoenix rising from the ashes. To be honest, he lost count how many times he had gone through this process. But it did confirm one thing to him.

Dahlia had never cared for him – she had tried to kill the lawyer eight months prior.

And the bottle of cold medicine that she had stolen from Phoenix as he was a little under the weather… she had laced it with the same poison in an attempt to kill him.

Although a dark tough did cross his mind at that point: How shocked would Dahlia would have been to see Phoenix consume the poison and “live”?

It didn’t matter in the end as Dahlia Hawthorne was arrested for the attempted murder of Diego Armando from eight months prior, the attempted murder of Phoenix Wright, the murder of Doug Swallow, and stealing highly toxic chemicals. The young woman was put in cuffs and dragged off, screaming curses to anyone who would listen.

The lawyer that had defended him, Mia Fey, offered to mentor him with his legal path from there on out. There was something about her that he knew he could trust – an energy that she emitted. So, he took her offer fully.

For three years he studied like a “normal” person and became a lawyer – he honestly could’ve done it much faster, but it would’ve been suspicious. Phoenix ended up with his own shiny Attorney’s Badge and began to work as a Junior Partner with Mia at her own firm of “Fey and Co.”.

It was a nice change of pace – no extreme dangers. Phoenix even debuted as a lawyer defended a friend he had made from one of his “odd” jobs from the pass from murder. It went like a breeze and he was able to find the true culprit in no time.

Then a couple of nights later when Mia had invited Phoenix out for some drinks, he re-learned his lesson on why he never got close to anyone.

Phoenix arrived to the office to see that his boss, his mentor, his beloved friend was slumped underneath the window. Blood was dripping from a wound on her head, already beginning to clot as she had been sitting there for a an hour.

Mia Fey had been murdered.

A small girl was sitting by Mia’s side, bawling her eyes out, her chest heaving as she gasped for breath. The girl begged at whatever god she could pray to for her sister’s life back.

Sister…?

Mia had never mentioned a sister to him before…

The girl – who he learned was Maya Fey – was then promptly arrested for the murder of Mia Fey. It was ridiculous and made no sense at that logic – Phoenix had tried to point that out multiple times. The detective in question, however, was hearing none of it as he stated the proof was because Mia left evidence of her writing the name of her killer behind.

Maya’s.

Phoenix had instantly felt connected to the young girl – he couldn’t put his finger on it. She was an odd one as she was a Spirit Medium in training. Maya was constantly wearing her acolyte robes, purple and white, and had her raven black hair in a top knot with decorative purple beads in the front holding two strands of her hair.

Seeing her behind that glass in the Detention Center – she looked so small and helpless. It was no place for her to be.

Despite Maya trying to reject his offer of being her attorney – Phoenix insisted on it. He was going to defend her. After all – Mia would’ve wanted it, right?

Odds were stacked against the two of them – a dark past unraveling that Phoenix had only heard whispers through the grapevine over the years. A dark corporation that specialized in blackmail had ruined Mia and Maya’s mother’s reputation as a Spirit Medium due to an old murder case from fifteen years prior. So, Mia was doing digging of her own to get all the evidence against the man – Redd White – to get the names of politicians, people in the high legal system, cops, and so on to finally put him away.

Mia was killed for it – but with Phoenix and Maya’s teamwork they were able to force Redd White to admit his guilt.

The two had become inseparable since that trial as Phoenix felt an extreme protectiveness over Maya. They had done a few trials together and when it came to the trial of the rival prosecutor they had faced since Mia’s murder, it was the first time Maya realized there may be something different about him.

“Hey, Nick…” Maya had asked when they two where at Gourd Lake doing their investigation for Miles Edgeworth’s trial.

“Hmm?” Phoenix had replied with a hum absently. He never really responded to a nickname for his name, but with Maya he had made an exception.

“Why aren’t you wearing a coat…?”

“Wha…?”

It was true that at that moment Phoenix wasn’t wearing a coat, just his traditional blue suit he liked to wear for court. Maya on the other hand was bundled in a winter coat with a small purple hat and gloves.

“Oh… I’m not cold…” he half-lied.

At one point in his long life, he had frozen to death. Ever since he had risen from those ashes, he no longer could feel cold or get frost bitten. He had no idea why that happened – he noticed when he was shot a few times after getting killed by bullets that they hurt like a son of bitch, but they didn’t kill him again. It was the same with stabbing. Or a broken neck.

“Nick…”

**

The trial against Miles Edgeworth ended up being acquitted – although there were a few tough calls.

One, the prosecutor for the trial was Manfred von Karma – who was Miles’ mentor. The man was evil and devious and had cornered both Phoenix and Maya in the evidence room at the police precinct. The devilish prosecutor had a high voltage taser that should have highly illegal to use and tried to strike Maya with it.

Phoenix would never let that happen – so he was struck with it instead. His body was jolted with thousands of volts of electricity until he felt that familiar burning sensation. He crumpled to the ground and von Karma had run away with the evidence he needed to have stayed hidden. Maya collapsed to the ground next to Phoenix with tears in her eyes as she tried to call desperately for help.

“No, I can’t have someone else I care about die on me again…!” Maya had sobbed. “Please don’t…!” Her hands had brushed against his hand, and she yelped when the skin flaked away in ash.

A gasp had escaped from Phoenix as though it was the first time he had ever breathed oxygen, his hand clenching to his chest.

“I guess I can scratch that off the list…” he’d murmured.

Maya had looked at him with wide eyes. “What… the HELL was that, Nick!?” she demanded.

Phoenix at the time jumped away from her, his back hitting a file cabinet. “Ah… hold on, Maya… I can explain… sort of…” he insisted meekly.

“What’s with these ashes!?” she’d nearly shrieked, her hands gesturing to the ashes that were dusting the floor and files.

“Uh… we need to clean that up…”

“This is not helping, Phoenix Wright!”

“Okay, okay!” Phoenix had then taken a deep breath. “I… sort of can’t die…?” he’d said it like a question.

Maya had given him a perplexed look. “What do you mean…?”

“It means I have been alive for over a hundred years and have never aged,” he pointed out. “I have been shot, stabbed, nuclear bombed, ate poison, died of hypothermia, starved to death, died of dehydration, and now have been electrocuted and I’m still kicking.”

Maya then blinked. “So… all my ‘Old Man’ jokes are legit…?” she had asked innocently with a coy smile.

Phoenix had gawked at her. “You just saw me die and come back and that is the first thing you think of!?” he demanded almost angrily.

Maya had merely shrugged. “Nick… I’m a damn Spirit Medium, this is probably, like, in the top five weirdest experiences I’ve ever had,” she nonchalantly said to him.

Phoenix’s secret was out – he didn’t have to keep lying to Maya about himself anymore. And it was a great weight that was lifted from his shoulders.

Once the trial had ended – Miles Edgeworth had kept eyeing Phoenix oddly. It was as though he was finally recognizing him from somewhere.

“I do want to thank you for all your work here today, Phoenix,” Miles told him, reaching his hand out for a handshake.

“Oh, yeah, the pleasure is all mine, Miles,” Phoenix sheepishly smiled. “What are friends for?”

Miles raised a gray brow. “So, you recognize me too, then?” he finally asked.

“Uh… recognize…?” Phoenix echoed curiously. “I’m sorry… I’m afraid I don’t…”

Miles gave a small shake of his head. “The factory over a hundred years ago…” he calmly recalled.

Phoenix went rigid. In all his years, he had never spoken to anyone about that.

“The one who tried to warn everybody when one of the machines overloaded…?” Miles prodded. “That was me… I was too late…” He crossed his arms in a nervous matter, his right crossing to his left and gripping tightly. “So many of the workers… they were throwing each other to the ground and hurting each other to get to safety…”

“How… how do…”

“But you didn’t do that…” Miles continued, ignoring him. “In fact, you saved me…”

Maya was invested. “So… you have the same thing as Nick, Mr. Edgeworth?” she asked softly.

Miles looked down at her. “Yes…” he replied. “I too have died many a times over the years… the burning sensation and the ashes…” He then touched his hair. “It’s happened so often that my hair has turned permanently gray.”

Phoenix raised his hands. “Whoa… wait… back up a minute here…” he insisted. “How did I save you?”

Miles gave a small smirk. “Oh… I guess I should elaborate…” he chuckled lightly. “I was the son of the owner of that factory. The workers were mining and refining some sort of fossilized meteorite from thousands of years ago…

“There was radiation, which back then many people didn’t have experience with. When one of the machines cracked a meteorite… the radiation leaked out and affect the machines and caused them to overload.” Miles took a deep breath, remembering the details. “I was close to one of the sites and noticed the machines going haywire… so, I went to try to warn the other workers.

“My father was not pleased… he wanted you all to keep working, to keep digging. I refused to let it continue. The radiation kept leaking and I warned you all to the best of my ability… my father was angry and tried to throw me against a machine – but you… you Phoenix…” Miles trailed off.

Phoenix rubbed his head, trying to recall that night. Ever since that first death, he barely had any recollection of what had happened. However, the more that Miles talked, the more the man began to feel familiar. Instead of wearing the burgundy suit that Phoenix was familiar with, he recalled Miles wearing a wine-colored waistcoat with a cotton white undershirt and a black newspaper boy-styled cap on what was once his dark brown hair.

Phoenix remembered at that instant. He remembered the machine was being overloaded with energy. Miles’ father was enraged from the young man trying to warn the workers and had tried to throw him against the machine. Phoenix, who was running one of the machines, had stopped dead in his tracks from trying to evacuate and stopped the man from doing so. It was futile as the machine still exploded.

The glass shards going through his body… the metal… the steel pipe…

“Are you implying that the radiation…?” Phoenix finally whispered.

“Gave us some sort of immortality?” Miles finished. “Yes… the meteorite was obviously not from our solar system…”

“Why us…?”

Miles shrugged. “That… I am not sure…” he honestly said. “But whatever the reason… I’m glad to have seen my friend again…”

Phoenix then felt a small hand clasp into his. He looked down to see Maya smile up at him.

“And I’m glad I got to meet you too, Nick…” she told him honestly. “I think Mia may have known something different about you… we Fey’s have this uncanny ability about this stuff.”

Phoenix blinked at her. Even though he potentially can live forever – he didn’t want to leave Maya behind at all. During his years he had never put much thought into trying to cure his immortality – but after meeting Maya and a few other people recently he rather stick around and age with them.

“You know what… I’m glad too…”

Notes:

- There will be a PART 2 of this eventually lmao... - Also, LIGHT GHOST TRICK REFERENCE WHHHHHATTTTT? MEEEEEE? If you haven't played the game yet, I'm not spoiling anything - GO PLAY IT! - Not gonna lie these AU Writings are cutting into "The Found Turnabout" and "Born to Run", even though I tried to write a few of these ahead of time. Whoops.

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