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They had only just reached their destination when they spotted a black mass hovering in the air.
It floated above them, the edges of it shifting and swirling, never seeming to lie still; it resembled the mist enveloping the area. What was worse that it looked distinctly like a cloak; its apex could easily contain a human head within it, and the rest of it, a body.
Phoenix normally thought he was imagining it, mainly because he wasn’t ready to face a powerful enemy in a planet he had originally taken to be deserted, but the shape began to speak, and Phoenix was forced to accept that it was real. He took a step back, and Edgeworth stepped closer to Phoenix, which would’ve been adorable if the thing before them wasn’t floating so eerily in the air.
The mass moved closer as it spoke, revealing itself to not actually be a thing, but a...man. A man whose face seemed to be reduced to skull, and also apparently a man who could float. His eyes passed over them as they stared.
“Welcome, Miles, son of Manfred.” He said, his eyes fixing themselves on the name’s owner, who flinched slightly at the mention of his mentor. They shifted over to Phoenix. “Phoenix, son of Eric.”
“How do you know us?” Edgeworth demanded, stepping forward. Floating Red Face Guy looked over at him.
“It is my curse to know all who seek the Stone.” He said, pausing for a moment for dramatic effect. It worked, because Phoenix was successfully creeped out. He turned around, and passed under the shadows of the great stones standing on either side. It was clear they had to follow him.
“What do we do?” Phoenix whispered to Edgeworth, who was staring after the retreating figure before them, probably wondering if the fact he could float was actually a trick. Even after all that they’d seen, Edgeworth still questioned everything. He looked around at Phoenix with an uneasy expression, contrary to his words. “We continue, of course.”
“Right.” Phoenix said, looking after the person (if they could call him that) who had stopped moving. They couldn’t go back now if they wanted to. Granted, this seemed a lot less dangerous than what the others were doing, but there was something...unsettling about this place, now that they had met its inhabitant. Which should have been apparent, seeing as how the blue-haired woman (what was her name again?) described it as a “dominion of death”, but Phoenix’s fears had been put at ease when they arrived on a seemingly barren planet. Until now.
They passed through the space beneath the towering stones, just as Guy in the Cloak had done. He seemed to have come to a stop at the edge of a cliff. A cliff that, when Phoenix looked over it, seemed to end in a thousand-foot drop, stopped by stone that stretched out endlessly. Seeing as how the rest of the place that they’d seen so far was covered in something that looked like and resembled sand, the stone looked uncanny.
“Who are you?” Edgeworth asked from behind him.
“I am the keeper of the Soul Stone.” The floating person replied. Phoenix heard the rustle of clothes as Edgeworth shifted his weight from one foot to another. “Just like you, I, too, once sought the Infinity Stones. Now I am banished, cursed to guide others to a treasure I cannot possess.”
Phoenix looked around to see an apprehensive Edgeworth. “Where is the Soul Stone?”
The man in the cloak hovered ominously, the edges of his robes shifting and blending into itself. He gazed out over the foggy horizon of Vormir when he spoke again. “In order to acquire the Soul Stone, you must lose that of which you love.”
There was a pause, then Phoenix snickered. “Well, good thing I left my attorney’s badge at home, because I sure am not ready to lose that again.”
Unexpectedly, Red Guy spoke again. “The Stone demands a sacrifice. A soul for a soul.”
The words seemed to hang in the air, and Phoenix found himself trapped in Edgeworth’s gaze as the meaning of them sunk in. Inexplicably, Edgeworth’s lips curled up in a sad smile.
“No.” Phoenix broke eye contact to look around at the keeper. “Joke’s over. Tell us how to get the Stone.”
“They deny it at first,” he said. “But I speak only of what is to be done.”
Phoenix had the Magatama, always had it on his person even when he didn’t have any clients to defend. He knew the keeper wasn’t lying. His mind ran over the words again, and he looked back at Edgeworth, who was now shaking his head slightly. Still smiling. Phoenix’s insides grew cold.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he addressed Edgeworth. “And I am not letting it happen.”
Edgeworth took a few steps closer, the smile still on his face, though his eyes had an urgent look in them. “Why not? We both know that it has to be me.”
“No.” Phoenix said loudly, stepping forward as well, determination blazing in his eyes. “No.”
Edgeworth reached out to place his hands on his shoulders, to touch his neck, his face. Phoenix’s hand reached up to grasp Edgeworth’s. “Please. Let me ask of this one last thing from you.”
A spike of pain stabbed through Phoenix’s heart. He couldn’t. He couldn’t let him. But...
Phoenix opened his mouth to utter the vilest thing that would ever pass through it. “Fine.”
Edgeworth’s eyes widened, and Phoenix took the infinitesimal window of opportunity to break away from Edgeworth, kick his legs out from under him and lunge for the cliff.
“No!” He heard Edgeworth’s shriek, felt a hand grab his ankle and tug desperately. Phoenix tripped and fell, hitting the ground with a thud. Edgeworth’s hand released its hold, and Phoenix heard him leap to his feet to run for the cliff.
Phoenix brought his hands together to do something he had done an innumerable amount of times before, but never on Edgeworth.
The air around his hands stirred visibly and folded around on top of itself until Phoenix directed it at Edgeworth. It sped towards its target, trapping Edgeworth and yanking him back from the cliff. Edgeworth fell to the ground again as the air released its hold on him, and Phoenix got to his feet, making towards the cliff once again.
The tell-tale sound of a blade cutting through the air was what alerted him, and he instinctively stepped away and whirled around, though the owner of the sword meant Phoenix no harm. Edgeworth had clearly meant to distract Phoenix, and had succeeded in doing so. He flew at Phoenix, blade in hand, pinning him to the ground.
“No,” Phoenix struggled to get out from under Edgeworth, but the tip of the blade ripped through his clothes, burying itself in the ground beneath him, trapping him there. Phoenix brought his hands forward to bend the air once more, but Edgeworth was already fast retreating. In a fit of panic, Phoenix grasped the hilt of Edgeworth’s sword and tugged it out from the ground, and, with the help of adrenaline, he jumped to his feet and reached Edgeworth under the span of a second.
Edgeworth hadn’t been expecting Phoenix to be up so fast, so it came to him as a surprise when the butt of his own sword came crashing into the side of his head, knocking him sideways, a mere yard from the edge. Phoenix thrust the blade away, making sure it was out of reach, and grasped Edgeworth’s arms, watching his eyes slide in and out of focus. He’d lost his glasses in the struggle.
It took Edgeworth a second to recover from the blow, and when he did, he was met with the sight of Phoenix’s melancholy face, more lined than he had ever seen it be in his life.
“I’m sorry.” Phoenix whispered, and leant down to give his lover one last kiss.
Tears swam unbidden in Edgeworth’s eyes when he realised what was about to happen next, but the little strength and clarity he had left was enough to stop Phoenix, he wasn’t about to—
A prick at his neck. His hand reflexively reached up to feel it. Phoenix took his hand away from the device he had allowed to attach itself there, which would do its job quite well. Athena’s invention, it was a temporary paralysis device that rendered its victim unable to move, even if it was only for a few minutes. Phoenix knew Edgeworth had the knowledge of disarming it, but he also knew he could use the few seconds it bought him to hurl himself over the cliff.
“I’m sorry.” He said again to a visibly panicked Edgeworth, taking a moment to look at the man he loved. Smiling slightly, he leapt away from him to his end.
“NO!” Edgeworth screamed once he had worked himself out of the device’s hold, scrambling to the edge only to find Phoenix fast disappearing from his life. The edge of the cliff cut into his chest as he leant over it, his vision blurry with tears that fell fast over his cheeks as he strained to make out Phoenix’s face through the haze of the ache permeating his mind, his body. Vaguely, he registered his own screaming, an inhuman, painful sound that ripped through his throat and rent the air as the ground below took Phoenix’s life. It was as if part of his own soul had been ripped away and dashed among the stones, lying broken like Phoenix lay, broken like his hopes and the world around him.
Darkness reached its tendrils out and enveloped Edgeworth’s tortured mind, lulling him into unconsciousness.
***
He awoke in shallow water, the red light of the planet’s sun scattered in the thick clouds. It took him a moment to regain his bearings, and all the events of their mission came rushing back in like a flood, washing over him, meeting with his momentarily disjointed ache and making it worse. His head throbbed, and everything was so painful that he wished he could return to the darkness and forget about it all.
He raised his arm and opened his clenched first. There lay the Soul Stone, shining on his palm, confirming the nightmare that had been today.
He knew he would never be okay again.