Chapter Text
“Look what I got with Auntie Maya!” Trucy exclaims as she bursts into the apartment. She pulls out an indigo deck of cards and fans them out. They’re the same size as playing cards, but the faces have simple geometric drawings of figures, with the lines catching the light and shimmering with iridescence.
“Hmm, they sure don’t look like your other trick cards,” Phoenix notes good naturedly. “What’s with the pictures and words on them?”
“Auntie Maya said they’re for a different kind of magic!” she grins conspiratorially.
“Oh? And what’s that?”
Maya’s jaw drops. “Whaaaaat! You’ve never seen tarot cards before?”
Phoenix rolls his eyes and sighs. “Somehow no, despite being friends with you all these years.”
“It’s for fortune telling,” Trucy waggles her fingers playfully. “Maya said it’s for asking questions and seeing secrets and all sorts of stuff!”
“Huh. Kinda sounds like the magatama,” Phoenix says. “All right, so how does it work?”
Maya claps her hands together. “Allow me to demonstrate. Nick? You want a reading?”
“Ooh yeah! I wanna see!” Trucy bounces on her feet and looks eagerly at Phoenix.
He smiles and ruffles her hair. ”Sure, if it makes Trucy happy.”
Not that he needed much convincing. It’s always a joy to see her eyes sparkle when she’s excited about something. He’s not usually one for fortune telling, but he’s curious to see where this goes.
“So uh... What do I do?”
Maya clears her throat. “Please, take a seat, sir.”
Phoenix snorts a laugh and plops onto the couch as Maya and Trucy sit on the loveseat across from him.
“First you have to think about whatever you want to ask the cards.” She takes on the same airy mysticism act Trucy did earlier. “And then you gotta shuffle the deck while you think on it.”
“Okay…” Phoenix grabs the deck Trucy offers to him.
He’s not sure what to ask. Phoenix stares into space at a coffee stain on the table. He doesn’t need to look at the cards while he shuffles. It’s practically second nature at this point. He wishes it wasn’t.
How did I get to this point?
He feels a frown forming, but finds it disappearing just as quickly. It’s not all bad, he thinks, glancing at Maya and Trucy before zoning out again.
But… How do I feel normal again? What comes next?
Maya waves her hand in his field of vision. “You in there Nick? I think it’s probably shuffled enough.”
“Huh? Oh, y-yeah probably. Uh, Now what?”
“Gimme.” She takes back the deck and places five cards, as if at the points of a star, on the coffee table.
“Okay wait, lemme…” She rifles through the other shopping bags and pulls out a matching booklet.
“What’s with the book? Shouldn’t you know all this by heart?” Phoenix teases.
“I’d like to see you try to memorize like 150 meanings and all the layout options,” she huffs. Then Maya claps her hands again in eagerness.
“Okay! Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be, I guess.”
Trucy grins and swings her legs a bit.
Maya flips over the topmost card to reveal The Devil, a minimalist Baphomet figure on a pedestal between two flames. Phoenix raises his eyebrows.
“Hm. So in this spread, the first card represents your feelings. It could be about the past or the present or someone who’s stirred up those feelings.”
“How conveniently vague.”
“Daddy! Shush!”
Trucy peeks over Maya’s shoulder as she flips to the corresponding page. She lists out a few key phrases she’s skimmed.
“Okay, so it basically represents obsession, addiction, someone who’s ‘controlling, cruel, and sadistic.’”
Manfred von Karma flashes into his mind. The walking talking billboard for all of the above. His petty malice was the first domino in a vast array of people whose lives came tumbling down as a result.
If it weren’t for Manfred, Mia and Misty would probably still be alive. Maya wouldn’t have been thrust into her master role so soon. Phoenix absentmindedly reaches into his hoodie’s pocket to gently smooth his thumb over the magatama, taking a hint of comfort in its familiarity.
He… he could’ve stayed friends with Miles the whole time. His dad wouldn’t have died, and he wouldn’t have lived that hell under von Karma’s “care”. There’s so much they could have done together back then, how they could have had more time together—
“But it also means not holding yourself back, or that you could stand to put your own needs first and stand up for yourself.” Maya’s voice and cheeky smirk snaps him back to the present. “Sound familiar?”
Phoenix narrows his eyes at her. “Just keep going.”
“As you wish. I guess I’ll make sure to leave enough Dramatic Pauses so you can have your deep heart-searching thoughts in peace.”
Phoenix smiles and shakes his head at her shenanigans.
She touches the card on the right. “This spot is for ‘influences.’”
The face of the card shows two wolves on a hillside howling at the moon.
“Ooh The Moon, I know this one. It has a lot to do with deception and moral crises.”
Phoenix snorts. “You mean my whole law career?”
“Ha, fair. But,” she continues, “there’s also stuff like depression from loss or secrets and lies being exposed.”
Phoenix gives a pensive hum and tries not to notice Trucy studying him out of the corner of her eye.
It’s no surprise how dodging those sorts of bullets landed him here. Gant, Morgan, Engarde… all those times his faith was tested after the masks came off. Back then, at least, he managed to endure it and come out of it with a better understanding of his job.
And then he fell right into a huge pitfall barely a year or two later.
“All right, next up is your emotional block.” The bottom right card is revealed —The Lovers. Underneath an arch of flowers, two long haired figures kneel before each other with their hands held up in front of them, perfect mirror images.
Before Maya can begin to explain, he thinks of Dahlia and Iris. Night and day. Bitter and sweet. A toxic duo.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Phoenix deadpans.
“Damn dude, what did you even ask the cards? And are you sure you shuffled ‘em well? I don’t know how you’ve only gotten major arcana so far. I’m pretty sure that means something huge is gonna happen soon-ish, so you better listen up!”
Phoenix squirms a bit and gestures at her to continue.
“Well, this one’s usually pretty self explanatory, but this isn’t the good kind of reversed.” Maya opts to read directly from the booklet to try to soften the blow with impersonality. “‘Separation, struggling to take ownership of the decisions you’ve made. Friends move on and abandon you.’”
He winces, trying not to think about his Feenie days or Edgeworth’s disappearing act all those years ago. It doesn’t work.
He couldn’t forget those heartbreaks even if he tried.
“‘The need to heal a relationship.’ Or should I say... foster one, hmm?” Maya raises her eyebrows with a knowing look while Trucy giggles behind her hands.
Phoenix huffs and crosses his arms. “Urgh… aNYwaY.”
“Okay so now we’re at ‘expectations.’” The lower left card is The Hermit — the telltale cloaked man holding a staff and lantern.
“I expect to go live in a cave somewhere...?”
“Don’t be silly! I mean, it does mean like isolation and ‘the search for answers to life’s problems,’” she intones with mocking formality. “But it can also mean loneliness and paranoia. ‘Cause you’re either like thinking too much and getting stuck in your head, or you’re avoiding self-reflection altogether and hiding.”
“If you say so,” Phoenix shrugs.
His thoughts meander to the Hazakura Temple case — funny how that was just a few short months before he lost his badge — and Godot’s ever-present taunts in the last leg of the trial. How Phoenix was mocked once again for being a hapless excuse for a lawyer, always saved by someone at the last second. How he could feel Godot’s eyes, even through the visor, boring into him with each word hanging like fog in his frazzled, fever-rattled mind.
“This time... you're going to have to do this by yourself.”
This isn’t the first time all these years he’s remembered that insult or the seemingly clairvoyant jab. How true it was nowadays.
He has no choice but to lie low until everything falls into place, though. He can’t risk anyone getting caught in the crossfire.
Maya puts on her angry puffer face. “But you heard the cards! Don’t think you can use this as an excuse not to hang out!”
The unspoken “like you did when this all started” hangs in the air. Phoenix deflects so Trucy doesn’t latch onto it.
He grins. “Wouldn’t dream of it, Maya.”
Trucy perks up at Phoenix’s upswing. She’s too familiar with that bitter look he gets when he’s tangled in regrets and self-doubt.
“Hang in there, we’re on the last one, which is ‘most likely outcome.’” Maya turns over the card. A classic skull-faced reaper in robes wielding a scythe stares back.
“I’m gonna DIE?!” he blurts.
“Oh My God, chill. Not literally anyway.”
“Gee, thanks. I feel so much better.”
Trucy relaxes her shoulders the tiniest bit, and Phoenix gives her a reassuring smile in return that says I’m not going anywhere kiddo, not if I have anything to say about it.
“I mean, let’s be real. You’re basically indestructible at this point.”
“Tell that to my spine,” he grumbles.
“Pfff, you old geezer. It’s actually not supposed to be a foreboding card. Like, it could mean fear of letting go or repeating negative patterns. But in this position it’s kind of a good thing: ‘transformation, rebirth or renewal. The end of an era.’”
He purses his lips thoughtfully. “Good to know.”
With where his mind was just minutes before, it’s hard not to be reminded of Kristoph’s specter looming over him. Kristoph being in jail isn’t enough; Phoenix still senses he’s being watched. He needs just a little more to prove Kristoph’s involvement in the Gramarye case. If the jurist system trial run (heh) works, it could mean the end of this 7-year nightmare. Then maybe… Phoenix can make his own comeback.
“Sooooo what do you think? Are you a believer now, after all those soul-searching truths?”
“I dunno about revelations, but I can’t say it didn’t give me something to think about I guess.” Phoenix gets up from the couch, stretching with a yawn. “Anyway, I’m glad you kids had fun today. Do you want me to go with you to the station, Maya?”
“Nah, I’m good.” Maya moves to gather her things. “Also you look like you’re about to pass out, so you better get to sleep, old man.”
“Yeah, yeah, get outta here if you’re gonna keep insulting me.” He waves Maya off, gives Trucy a kiss goodnight on the head and shuffles toward his room.
Trucy walks her to the door and latches onto her in a fierce hug. “Bye Auntie Maya! You’ll be able to make it to my show next week right?”
Maya hugs her back just as hard then pulls back to meet her twinkling eyes. “You know it! Pearly’s super excited about it, too. See you then, pumpkin.”
Phoenix smiles at what he manages to hear of their goodbyes. He tries to relax and listen to the muffled sounds of Trucy moving around and humming before she’s out of earshot and in her own bedroom.
He flops onto his bed face-first, still wearing his sweats. He’s too exhausted to change, despite spending the entire day at home doing nothing.
He turns onto his back and sighs wearily, reflexively worrying at the magatama in his pocket again. He’s surprised at how much that tarot stuff is still stuck in his brain. Each memory was another hole poked into his heart that he didn’t notice was making him sink till now. He closes his eyes and hopes he’ll be able to sleep tonight.
Unconsciousness begins to tug at Phoenix, and he’s too far along to be able to notice the magatama warming gently and glowing. In the very back of his mind, he can almost see five psychelocks appearing over the mirage-like cards, heavy chains crisscrossing to form the lines of a star.
As soon as sleep takes him, he’s jolted with a sensation of falling. He’s tumbling over and over through nothingness, with neon stars and constellations giving the only indication that he’s moving somewhere.
In the indiscernible distance, he spots darting movement. With something to focus on, Phoenix is more in control of his freefalling, and he aims his descent toward the mystery object. As he draws nearer, he’s able to make out its form. It’s a little ball of light with petals radiating around its center, and there are two familiar comma-like shapes on either side as wings.
He reaches out to touch the strange sprite, but it flits just out of his grasp.
He dives after it a few more times and snatches it out of the air.
He gently gasps as it flies out of his hands and starts swirling around Phoenix, propelling him into a rapid twirl. In its wake, a veil of bright light sweeps down him. He feels the sprite meld with his spirit or something, because a glittering intensity resonates through his very bones like an electric current. The light washes over him and his spinning slows, and the thrumming energy flows into his arm. He raises his hand and strikes his signature court pose, arm outstretched with a dramatic point of his finger.
Basking in this newfound vigor, he looks down to assess what’s different after that impromptu metamorphosis.
He’s wearing a suit. But it’s not his old suit. The jacket is missing, and his slacks are made of some much fancier material he’s never had before. He’s got a light blue waistcoat over his usual white dress shirt, the sleeves rolled past his elbows. Phoenix brings his hands to his face to feel around another addition to his get-up. A deep blue masquerade-superhero mask covers his eyes and nose, and big pink slits overlap the eyeholes like a cat’s eye.
He doesn’t get long to admire his look, much less get his bearings on what exactly is happening. The space a few feet in front of him shifts and morphs until a giant red psychelock materializes, and he’s pulled into its heart-shaped keyhole.