Chapter Text
August 31, 2001
“Phoenix...! Slow down!” His friend was already at the top of this never ending hill. Phoenix had always been the fast one, and well...there was a reason Miles preferred golf instead.
“C’mon, Miles! We’re almost at the top!” And Phoenix simply ran ahead without him. Or at least he thinks so, because his vision started to turn a little fuzzy and he couldn’t really make out anything anymore. Nonetheless, his friend was counting on him, so he pushed onward. Time became a blur of grass and sunshine just up until he could take a step forward without the urge to fall to the ground.
Miles huffed a couple times in exhaustion. “…is this the end of it?” Phoenix responded in the affirmative. This was a tree. Right. Phoenix wanted to show him something here, so they ran up this hill. With that knowledge, Miles let go of his inhibitions and flopped ungracefully onto the grass.
“Woah, Miles! Are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine. Just...tired.” Miles was probably being dramatic, but whatever. The shade never felt this good.
Phoenix thankfully left it at that and joined him cross legged on the grass. “Weeeell, I hope you’re not too tired for...Signal Samurai!”, Phoenix finished with a flourish. “Remember you said you didn’t like how they did the fight between Signal Red and Blue last season?”
He did, and it was an absolutely disappointing ending to the fifth season. From the painfully forced conflict to the lackluster acting to the budget set design, the entire episode was hardly Eco Lye’s best work. Even the battle scenes weren’t that great. “Mhm, but is that related to why we’re here?”
“Yeah! Check this out!” Phoenix was waving a camcorder up in the air. “It’s my new cam-rah!”
Miles shook his head with a small smile. “It’s cam-er-a, not cam-rah.”
“Yeah, that’s what I said! Cam-rah!” Miles considered pressing the point, but Phoenix was grinning at him with so much excitement that he thought better of it. “Anyways, I thought we could fix it ourselves. We have Signal Blue and Signal Red,” he pointed between the two of them here, “aaaaand our very own Signal Hub!” Phoenix patted the trunk of the old elm tree with his free hand. Now that his friend made the comparison, the wiry limbs outstretched in all directions did bear a resemblance to the transport network introduced in season three.
“Do you think we can? Aren’t there copyright laws to prevent this sort of thing?”
“I knew you would say that, so I went to the library!” Phoenix produced a book with gold letters reading “Copyright Law 101” on the cover. Come to think of it, he isn’t sure how Phoenix managed to carry so many items all the way up here. “It says here: ‘parodies of cuh, copyrighted works are not considered…’ Miles, what does this word say?”
“Infringement.”
“‘Infringement!—under federal law.’ So take that!”
Miles chuckled lightheartedly. “You would make an excellent lawyer, Phoenix.” The boy next to him shook his head adamantly and stuck out his tongue.
“Nuh uh! I’d never be as good as you!” The determination in his friend’s voice was enough to convince Miles of its sincerity. The sun must have gotten warmer on his face, or something like that. “So? Are you in or not?”
“Alright, alright. I’m in. We should start by…” Since Miles had the better memory of the season finale, he did most of the directing and camerawork—Phoenix spent ten minutes puzzling out how to set it to recording mode before Miles stepped in. In turn, Phoenix was the one with the artistic vision. He’d somehow assembled a collection of surprisingly accurate costumes that even Miles found no fault with. In any case, Miles placed a moratorium on any kind of craft art after the origami incident and was more than happy to let Phoenix have this one.
“Miles, is it recording? Oh okay, hi there! This is take one of the Neo Olde Traffic Safety: Signal Samurai, season five episode thirty scene thirteen. Starring me, Phoenix Wright, as Signal Blue! And Miles Edgeworth—stand in front of the camera!—as Signal Red! From Wright-Edgeworth Productions, copyright 2001 all rights reserved! Lights—yeah, I know we don’t have any lights but it’s part of the line,—camera, action!” They scurried to their positions and slipped into character. Miles made sure his foam armor was in order.
“Argh! You have disgraced the name of the Signal Samurai!” Phoenix wielded and waved his plastic katana through the air. It was as if Phoenix’s heterochromatic gaze sharpened the (fake) steel in his hand. “If you betray the Signal Samurai like a Dark Rōnin, then fight me like a Dark Rōnin!”
“How naive,” Miles tapped a finger to his temple, like they’d practiced, “The Signal Samurai blindly protect those too weak to stand on their own.” He mimicked creating the Blinding Mist from his hands. They could add that in later. “The Ronin maintain order by force, and by force it must be!”
Phoenix dodged every single blast with ease. “Signal Red! Reiki! I know this isn’t you!” He swung his katana, which Miles blocked by unsheathing his own spear. Even though Phoenix substituted the metal blade for cardboard, the heft of the wooden stick still added considerable weight to the prop. He stumbled slightly before regaining his balance.
“And how do you know that? How do you know I wasn’t always this twisted, even back then?”
“Because! You…you taught me all those things, how to protect ourselves and the weak by the power of traffic safety. And you said we would always–”
“Silence!” Miles imagined unleashing a flurry of smoke and darkness, crystal stalagmites tinged with the slightest hint of crimson. Phoenix fell to the ground, wounded. “Silence. Please, not another word.”
His adversary considered the katana for a moment before laying it on top of the grass untouched. “Reiki…you can still be good. We can fix this together.” Miles tightened his grip on the spear, knuckles turning white from the sheer anguish. Furrowed brows and quivering lips added to the effect. “You betrayed the Signal Samurai, but a true samurai can forgive, if you allow me to help you.”
And just like that, Signal Red’s resolve returned, now knowing what he must do. Miles approached while Signal Blue was nursing his wound and raised the spear above his head. “Your pity is not— woah!” Miles might have been reeling from the long trek up the hill, or perhaps his arms grew weary wielding the heavy mock weapon. In any case, the spear fell from his hands as he too lost balance and began to fall, right as he stood above Phoenix. Phoenix yelped and shielded himself with his arms. He thought of Father, and what he’d think if his only son died like this. Out of instinct or maybe the will to live, Miles caught himself with his knees smushed into the grass and hands on either side of Phoenix’s head. Thankfully, he hadn’t hurt his friend, and they got to live another day.
“M-Miles! Are you hurt?” Phoenix reached up to touch his face with a mud stained hand. The proximity was palpable; they couldn’t have been more than a few inches away from each other. “Oh gosh, what’ll your dad say if you’re hurt? Do you think you’ll get in trouble? Or maybe he won’t let us play anymore?” Phoenix didn’t seem injured, but there was a curious smattering of something spanning across his friend’s cheeks, speckled like brown dots on a robin’s egg. It occurred to him that these were likely freckles, though he’d never seen them on anyone else before. They were endearing and suited him, he decided. “Miles, say something!” The interjection temporarily brought Miles out of his musings, where Phoenix was anxiously waiting for his response. But Miles was nothing if not thorough, and so his gaze wandered to the toasted brown of Phoenix’s left eye, bold, robust, and flecked with golden sparks like a crackling hearth. Warm. And to the cloudless azure of the other, a constant and bottomless mirrored sea. Yet while so different, they shared the same frightened energy of a boy wondering whether he’d broken his friend beyond repair.
In the end, he could only manage a single unbidden sentence for his thoughts. “You have really pretty eyes.” No, wait. Maybe Miles would die here after all. Heat rapidly bloomed on his face; he was now certain it wasn’t because of the summer sun. “I mean, I’m fine! Obviously.”
Phoenix, who looked so much different from here, from this close, blinked twice up at Miles and laughed, the sound clear as a bell. And his friend laughed so hard that Miles was seriously worried about his lung capacity, laughing as if the sunlight had no other place to go but outwards. This was ridiculous. He was, after all, only a boy sprawled over the grass beside his very cool new best friend, toothy grin and untameable spikes and all. Yet even lying on the grass staring straight up at the tangled branches above, Miles felt his heart, in spite of all logic, soar.
///
In the tepid evening, long after Phoenix packed up all his things and set off for home, Miles would recount the entire day’s events to his father in breathless detail. The corner of Gregory Edgeworth’s lips turned upwards watching his son talk himself to sleep about his best friend, and he wondered if Phoenix Wright would ask for his blessing when the time came.