Too Much Turnabout :: An Accompanying Story to The Fatal Turnabout
A Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Story
All characters are property of CAPCOM, plot influenced by Hudson Soft. We don't own much of this, but we do own the crazy ideas in this one. Pretty much all of the crazy ideas in this one.
FULL SUMMARY :: Companion Piece to The Fatal Turnabout. Our heroes might have conquered Dahlia's spirit world, but that doesn't mean that they're completely free of it yet. Some might relive their nightmares, some may panic over what could have been, but with the help of group therapy, they're determined to beat the evil Hawthorne sister's plot once and for all.
Rated T for intense situations, violence, suicide, death, general horror, and this time, bad humor.
Author's Note :: Sorry that this took so long, guys! We've got a few chapters almost ready for your general consumption, but here's the first! As a warning, this piece is all us; very little of it has been taken from the original games. Some of it will be light and humorous, some of it is darker than the original story, and some of it is plain crack that we probably thought of after too much alcohol and sugar.
Once again, Shikola and I are sharing these. She'll be writing the Extra Scenes, which are a canon part of the original fanfiction. These have been worked and reworked so that the timeline works, they just couldn't be written in because we couldn't fit everyone's experiences into the original piece. My parts are the Alternate Scenarios, which is what could have happened in the original fanfiction and didn't. I'll leave a chapter reference in case you want to reread what did happen, but, as a mild spoiler, they probably lived through it in the original. Just in case you were trying to guess what these are about. Finally, we'll have chapters of General Craziness, which both Shikola and I will write, which is the weird stuff that we talked about happening but couldn't figure out how to make it realistic. It'll be fun.
Thanks for joining us again on this, and hopefully, you'll enjoy these!
First up, Shikola with what happened to Athena in the abyss.
A/N :: Suicide trigger warning.
Extra Scene :: The Tragedy
Athena had been really excited to get everyone together. She'd only had one chance to meet Maya before and it was hardly the fun, casual meeting she'd wanted. This was the woman that her boss still needed to marry, after all! And while the strange text message had been creepy, it only inspired Athena to go all out and make a big party out of Maya's arrival. That being said, a party needed guests, so with all the courage that she could muster, she dialed the number and hit send. It rang twice before he answered.
"What do you need?"
Athena bit her lip and mumbled, "Well, I don't really need anything. I just. . . I was hoping that. . . Well you know how. . . Um. . ." She had wanted to invite Simon since the party was first established, but her nerves were getting the better of her, so she went out to rent the horror movies first in order to work up the courage. Now that she had him on the phone, however, all of that confidence was gone.
"If you don't need anything, I have better things to do, Cykes-dono."
His response cut her like his blade would have. Disheartened, she sighed and told him. "It's nothing important, I guess. It's just that Maya's going to be in town this weekend so I thought that. . . maybe. . ."
"Out with it, woman, I'm busy!"
"You know what? Never mind. It's no big deal anyways. I guess I'll see you in court next time." She hung up before he could say anything else and leaned against the bus stop in defeat.
It didn't make any sense. When it came to a case, she could do more than just talk to him! She could turn the whole situation around on him and unhinge what few facts he would depend on as she presented evidence that he hadn't considered as closely as he thought he had. And yet, when it came to asking him to do anything outside of the courtroom, she always found herself completely tongue-tied.
Was it because he was her mother's apprentice?
She figured that had to be it. She had dedicated the majority of her life to becoming strong enough to save him from taking the blame for her mother's murder, so she must have put him on a pedestal or something. She couldn't think of any other explanation.
It was only when the bus arrived that she realized she'd used all of her money for bus fare on popcorn and movies. She begrudgingly waved the driver off and picked up her bags. "I can always use a good run!" she assured herself. "Heads up, bus! I'll beat you there with time to spare!"
She sprinted after it, her arms pumping as her legs sent her flying along the sidewalk. No matter how fast she ran, the bus was still too far ahead of her. Fueled by determination and pure adrenaline, she decided to take a few shortcuts. Sneaking through narrow alleys and a couple residential neighborhoods, she managed to reach the building where the agency was located just as the bus pulled away from the stop.
"It was a good race!" she yelled when she caught her breath. "But next time I'll definitely beat you!"
"What are you trying to beat this time?"
Athena was so caught up in her own little world that she hadn't even noticed who the bus had left behind. "Maya! You're here!" Athena threw her arms around the startled spirit medium and her bags slammed into Maya's back. "Oops! Sorry!"
"SUCH A KLUTZ. . ."
"Gah! Widget!" Athena hastily stifled her necklace but Maya was already laughing.
"You sure seem lively." The spirit medium took a second to rub her back before asking, "What did you have in those bags anyways, bricks?"
Athena lifted the bags up higher with ease and explained, "I live at a small apartment so I didn't have anything fancy, but I remembered that you liked hamburgers, and I know there's a little grill that Mr. Wright has buried somewhere . . . "
Maya's eyes sparkled and her mouth watered slightly—an odd look for a grown woman in such old fashioned clothes—as she muttered, "Buuuuuuurgeeeeeeeers!"
Athena smiled, glad to know that she had done right by her mentor's old assistant, and added, "I also bought a ton of popcorn and rented a few scary movies since the creepy text message really put me in the mood for a night of terrors!"
"Always ready to take on evil, aren't you, Athena?" Maya asked with a wink. Athena recognized the slightly fanatic look in her eye as she said, "Just like the Steel Samurai! That's who I want to be like when I grow up."
"Maya, you do realize you're a grown woman, right?" Phoenix had come down to the main entrance of the building, giving them a puzzled look as soon as he saw them. "Shouldn't you be setting an example for kids like Athena?"
"I am not some snot-nosed kid!" Athena barked.
"Are you calling me immature?" Maya puffed up her cheeks as she scowled at Phoenix.
"Whoa, whoa! Don't shoot the messenger! I just came down to let you guys in!" His eyes found Athena's bags and his shoulders slumped. "Athena, you know I said small get-together, right? This isn't a party."
Trucy squeezed around her father and exclaimed, "Oh good, you brought snacks with the movies! Larry and I were starting to worry that we'd be stuck with the junk Daddy keeps in the pantry."
Phoenix sighed and led the girls up to to his agency/apartment. Inside, they found Larry showing off a strange black bead to Apollo. "Oh good, you're already here!"
"Yeah. I'm here." Apollo didn't seem nearly as excited as Trucy and Larry were.
"Polly was the chaperone for my class field trip today!" Trucy explained. "We got to go to Nine-Tails Vale and watch a match between Mister Tenma as Tenma-Taro and Polly as the Nine Tailed Fox."
Athena gasped. "You've got to send me pictures!"
Trucy happily sent a picture of Apollo's legendary match with her phone and Athena thought that it was so funny, she just had to set it as her background.
"Oh, by the way, I brought movies, popcorn, and—"
"BURGEEERS!" Maya cheered happily. "Can we make them, Nick? Please please please please!"
Phoenix sighed, certain that something would go wrong, but told her, "If you guys can find the grill, then I guess you can make some near an open window."
"Oh, thank god! We were starting to worry that we'd be stuck with Nick's empty cupboards!" Larry exclaimed.
"Hey, I wasn't planning a party!" Phoenix reminded him.
Apollo took Athena's bags only to notice her movie selection. He pulled out the first DVD he saw and brought up, "One Missed Call? Seriously? Are you sure that's a good idea with the weird text message? I don't think we'll be able to sleep tonight if we get much more on freaky phone stuff."
"Who needs sleep?" Athena exclaimed as she tucked away her phone. "And don't worry! I'll fight off any ghosts that think to come this way!"
Apollo shook his head and mumbled, "You've really got it all figured out, don't you?"
"Absolutely!" She put her left hand on her right bicep as she winked at him. "You can leave everything to me! Now where's that little grill?"
After unearthing the smallest grill anyone had ever seen, the disgruntled defense attorney allowed his guests to attempt to cook burgers by an open window. First, Maya burned a few patties, and then Athena managed to create a small fireball that singed the curtains. When Phoenix wasn't paying attention, Larry got around to the little grill and managed to burn his eyebrows off. Finally, Apollo was put on grill duty and burgers patties came off two at a time. Unfortunately, with Maya's appetite, she could eat two patties at a time.
When everyone was good and full, Athena still chose to make plenty of popcorn. Phoenix had chickened out and decided to retire early after that. Once he was gone and everyone had claimed their spots around the common room, Athena put in One Missed Call and sat back down in the smaller chair that she had valiantly won in a staring contest against Apollo (who now sat next to it in defeat). She hit the play button on the remote and the opening credits started.
Athena checked her phone briefly and saw that she had, coincidentally, missed a call from Blackquill. Part of her wanted to quickly listen to the message and call him back, but the other part of her was upset with him for having been so rude earlier, so she decided to ignore her phone and just go on enjoying the party.
All of the sudden, she felt inexplicably tired. It was like a sudden dizzy spell kicked in and she just couldn't shake it. She tried to look at the others to alert them to her ailment, but Apollo's body just collapsed against the chair, Larry's face hit the floor like a rock, and Maya was sprawled out on the couch already asleep. Just what's happening to me? she wondered as she quickly lost consciousness.
Athena woke up on a cold metal table in a very dark place, dazed and confused. "Must have been out for a while," she mumbled as she pulled out her cell phone to check the time. The clock read 0:01 which meant that it was just after midnight. That at least explained the darkness, but not the table.
She swung her legs over the side and stood up only to feel disoriented since she couldn't see much of anything around her. "Creepy much?" Without much to go on, Athena turned on her phone again and used it as a makeshift flashlight. From what she could tell, she was in a room much like the one where her mother used to work, though there weren't as many mechanical things, so it might not have been for robots. Still, being in a room that resembled the place where her mother had been killed was extremely unsettling.
"Oh! Simon!" Athena had almost forgotten that he had left her a message, but thinking about her mother brought him to mind. She looked at her phone and found that there was still one missed call from him and one message waiting for her. She opened her answering machine and held her phone to her ear to listen to what he had to say.
"Hello, Miss Cykes."
It wasn't Blackquill's voice that came through the line, but Bobby Fulbright's—or at least the man she had once thought was Bobby Fulbright. Just hearing it made her heart race.
"I am calling, regrettably, because Blackquill wanted his last message to be given to you."
That couldn't be right. Why on earth would it be his last message? And why would Fulbright be giving it to her?
"He wanted me to say thank you for trying to help him and sorry for causing you so much trouble over the years. I can only assume that he meant to apologize for killing your mother."
"No. He didn't do it," she muttered though it was only a message. "His heart was screaming out in agony when he confessed to that! He didn't kill her!"
"His seven year sentence was up and his execution was carried out at nine this morning. I'm sorry for not being able to deliver the message to you in person but justice called and I had to answer. I'll be seeing you soon, Miss Cykes." CLICK.
Athena's phone slipped from her hand and landed on the table face down, leaving her in the darkness again. She didn't feel like she had the strength to pick it up. "No," she muttered so quietly that she wasn't even certain she'd spoken aloud. "This is a dream. It has to be! Just some horrible nightmare!" She pinched her arm so hard that her nails broke skin and the spot started to bleed. "Come on! You've got to wake up!"
As she stood there pinching her bloody arm, she heard a door slide open and a light flashed right in her face. She shielded her eyes, squinting into the brightness.
"Athena? What are you doing here?"
"Boss?" The light was redirected to her feet and she was able to see the familiar bird-like hair of the famed defense attorney. "Boss!" She threw her arms around him and whimpered. "I don't know what's going on! This can't be real, right? He's alive, right?"
"Slow down, Athena. Who's alive? What happened?"
Athena let go of Phoenix and took a deep breath. "I—I don't know what happened. I don't know how I got here or where here even is. But I had a voice-message on my phone and it was Detective Fulbright telling me that Blackquill was. . . He said that Simon was. . ."
Phoenix put a hand on her shoulder to steady her and assured her, "It's okay. I don't want to alarm you, but we seem to be trapped in some sort of dark spirit world."
Athena stared at him incredulously and he held up his hands. "Hey, I'm just as skeptical as you! But there is one way that I can think of that something like this might be possible, and I'm afraid I already encountered the person behind it all once."
"Sir, you're making less sense than usual," Athena said.
Phoenix slapped his forehead and groaned before saying, "Okay, hear me out. Almost twenty years ago I dated this girl named Dahlia Hawthorne. . ." The old man went on to relay a long and complicated tale of betrayal, murder, family ties, and devious plots that shook Athena to her core. Having said all that he could on the matter, he finally explained, "I think this is all her doing. Remember my magatama?"
"You mean that green bead you start rubbing when you start asking really personal questions?"
Phoenix's eyes went wide for a moment as he muttered, "That's what I look like to other people?" He shook his head and got back on topic. "Erm, yes. It actually holds very strong spiritual power. Larry somehow got his hands on a black magatama, which must have been full of dark spiritual power." He examined Athena and noticed that while her face seemed stoic and attentive, her necklace looked confused. "You're not even following me a little bit, are you?"
Athena shrugged and mumbled, "I'm trying, but it's just so crazy, even for you! I mean, are you even listening to yourself? Spirits? Vengeful ghosts? Men with glowing red visors?"
"Hey, whether or not you believe the spirit stuff, Godot is a real person," he argued. "Look. I want to get out of here just as much as you do. So why don't we just ignore the details and help each other out?"
"Sounds good to me!" Athena decided, determined to help in any way that she could. "Anything to wake up from this! So what's the plan, Boss-man?"
The disgruntled defense attorney sighed, already feeling exhausted by his assistant's enthusiasm. "It's hard to say that there is a plan," he confessed. "I've seen such terrifying things in this abyss and the hospital seems to be the worst of it."
"HOSPITAL? ABYSS? HE'S GONE CUCKOO!" Widget exclaimed in place of Athena.
"I guess you just woke up then," he noted, completely unfazed by Widget's remark. "And you don't have any light so it only makes sense that you don't know. The room that we're in now is the operating room at a creepy abandoned hospital. The rest of the hospital is just as dark and eerie as this room. I'd leave if I could, but I don't have a phone."
Athena tilted her head and brought up, "I have my phone, but I don't see how that helps us get anywhere." She looked behind herself at what was apparently the operating table where she had awakened, and stared at the phone for a moment before reluctantly picking it up. She showed it to him and his jaw dropped in amazement.
"You have your own phone? Did you call it and wind up here? Does it work? Are you sure it's really yours and not just a replica or something?" The questions just kept flying out of his mouth until she couldn't take it anymore.
"I don't know what you're talking about! It's my phone and I have it because I keep it on me!" she snapped, shutting him up. "Why is that so strange?"
Phoenix rubbed the back of his head awkwardly and apologized for being so pesky. "I know that none of this makes any sense, so just go on thinking that it's all a dream, okay?" he suggested. "And since it's a dream, anything should be possible, even the weird stuff that I say, right?"
Athena nodded hesitantly.
"Okay. Well, in this abyss there are two ways to get around. You can either explore the location that you're at by just wandering around, or you can transport to another location by calling a cell phone. Don't just call any number though!" He stopped her just in time since she'd already started dialing. "Geez. You could have let me finish!" He cleared his throat and added, "I highly doubt that two people will be able to transport with same phone at the same time, so if you made a call right now you'd be on your own again. We need to pick a phone number that we both know so that we can follow each other."
"Okay, so why don't we just call Apollo?" she asked.
Phoenix shook his head and explained, "Some numbers are no good here. You'll either not be able to get a hold of them at all or something else might answer and attack you. I've found a few numbers lying around that lead to different places, so we should look for a number in the hospital to avoid any unknown circumstances. Another thing to note is that your phone won't transport with you so you'll have to find the phone that you called or another phone entirely in order to transport again."
"I think I get it," Athena said. "So, let's go looking around for a phone number then!" Athena trudged ahead and Phoenix had little choice but to hurry after her.
"Wait up! There's more to this place that you need to be careful of!" He chased her out to the hall and ran smack into her back. "Athena?"
She could hardly believe what she saw. There was a man at the far end of the hall wearing her mother's old museum jacket and a creepy opera mask over his face. She clenched her hands into fists and bit her lip.
"Athena! You're bleeding!"
Surprised by his statement, she glanced down at the part of her arm that she had pinched before and was shocked to see blood still gushing out. "Oh. I must have pinched a nerve," she told him. She looked back at where the man had been and it was like he had never been there at all. "Did you see that?"
He followed her line of sight down the hall and pointed his flashlight in the same direction but there was nothing unusual. "That's what I was trying to tell you. There are other people around here. Most of them aren't friendly."
Athena nodded slowly and took a step in the direction that the mysterious man had gone only to have her mentor grab her wrist and pull her back into the operating room. "Wait! Shouldn't we be going out and exploring?"
"Not until after I treat that wound," he said adamantly. "You didn't pinch a nerve, you severed a vein!" He searched the cupboards until he found some bandage and gauze.
She begrudgingly let him wrap her wound while complaining, "If this is just a dream, why does this even matter? We could be wasting time here!"
"Athena!" When he finally snapped at her, she flinched and looked him in the eyes. "You need to slow down for once! I know you don't want to believe it, and I don't want to either, but there is an all-too-real possibility that what's happening here is more real than we know! I mean, if this was just a dream, why haven't we woken up yet? I've been through all sorts of terrifying situations and I'm still here."
"But you're just a part of my dream," she muttered. "Your rules don't apply to me."
Phoenix sighed and nodded. "Okay, fine. If that's the case then just think of me as a good guy in your nightmare. Sticking with the good guy is the smart thing to do, right?"
Athena wasn't sure what to believe about what she had seen, but Phoenix at least seemed to be looking out for her. "Okay. I'm sorry. I'll be more careful from now on." He finished dressing her wound and she moved her arm around, amazed by the fact that it actually stung. "So ,we're going to look for a phone number to transport." She tried hard to accept that fact. "Where exactly are we trying to go?"
Phoenix shook his head. "Honestly, I'm not sure yet. I've figured out quite a few things about this abyss, but I have yet to find a way out of it entirely. It's been a game of cat and mouse this whole time and I've barely managed to escape the traps that I've already come across."
She tried hard to pay attention to her boss as he went on and on about rules, but the phone message kept coming to mind and it made her heart race. Finally, she felt like she could take no more standing still, so she insisted that they go out number hunting, if only to get moving again. In the end, only one thing he said really stuck with her, and that was that there were ghosts here who had attacked him. He didn't say anything about fighting back though, and Athena was determined to fight off anything that tried to get in her way.
When they reached the nurse's station on the third floor, she looked at her phone again and mumbled, "Do you think we should try calling Simon's phone?"
Phoenix continued to search around the room while telling her, "I don't think that's a good idea. Whatever happened to Blackquill in this abyss sounds a bit darker than we're prepared to face. And I'm not certain that we want to be just calling anyone's phones. I don't know if what we do in here affects things in the real world."
Athena still couldn't bring herself to believe that the so-called "abyss" was anything more than a horrible nightmare, but she had given up on arguing with Phoenix.
"Hey, check this out!" He held up a document and she took it to examine, only to find herself extremely confused.
NURSE CONTACT INFORMATION:
EMA SKYE: XXX-X63-214
AURA BLACKQUILL: XXX-X38-922
ADRIAN ANDREWS: XXX-X16-286
ATHENA CYKES: XXX-X21-884
PLUM KITAKI: XXX-X55-364
FURTHER RECORDS AVAILABLE IN THE BASEMENT.
"Since when were you a nurse?" Phoenix muttered as he examined the contact sheet.
Athena rolled her eyes and punched him in the arm. "I've never even gone to med school, dummy. But look at the other names. Aura's on here too." She pulled out her cell phone and checked through the contacts to find that the numbers shown were, in fact, the end of Aura's actual phone number. She knew for a fact that the numbers for her were accurate as well. "What the heck does this mean?"
Phoenix found a slip of paper and a pen and started to scribble out a little note. Athena read over his shoulder as he wrote it. "Check basement? Is that a little reminder for yourself?"
"I hope so. But I can't deny the possibility that there are others like us stuck in this world as well. If I leave little messages about the things that I've discovered, maybe I can help them out a bit." He looked at the contact list again and decided, "Your phone's actually in this world, that much we know for sure. Why don't we write out the whole number in case someone else needs to transport to us or maybe even contact us?"
Still a bit uncertain of the whole situation, Athena nodded and wrote out her number on the scrap of paper along with her name. "Who else do you think could be here?" she wondered as she wrote the last three digits. She thought of the man in the mask and bit her lip.
"You're the only other person I've run into who hasn't acted like a ghost, so I think it's safe to assume it was just the people at the agency earlier," he told her.
"So then Apollo, Larry, Maya, and maybe even Trucy?"
Phoenix flinched at the mention of his daughter. "Yeah. That's why we have to find a way out of here."
This all seemed like a bit much for Athena's imagination to come up with, so she decided that, dream or not, she should take Phoenix at his word and pretend that this was all real. Besides, even in nightmares, Trucy was simply off-limits.
"Then let's get going! Should we try calling Aura? I've got the rest of her number in my phone," Athena offered.
Phoenix shrugged and told her, "Honestly, I've never checked the contacts already in the phones before. I wonder if going off a partial number will be safe." He held out his hand and decided, "Let me try it first. You know how to work your phone better, so if you went first, I might not be able to figure out how to use it once you're gone." Athena nodded and pulled up the number before handing him the phone. Phoenix hesitated. "Look, I don't want you to follow me right away. I could be walking into danger. I should be able to find the phone that I called pretty quickly, so when I do, I'll call your phone, understood? If you answer, I don't think I'll transport back. I'll let you know if we're in the clear."
She didn't like letting him play the martyr, but his plan was sound. He gave her a reassuring nod before hitting send and putting it up to his ear. Athena watched in amazement as he just faded out of existence. When Phoenix was completely gone, her phone dropped to the floor.
It was then that she realized she didn't have a flashlight like he did. The office seemed much creepier in the impenetrable darkness. It took her a moment to find her phone on the floor, then she turned on her video camera and the constant flash worked as a great flashlight. "Sure hope batteries don't run out in this place," she muttered to herself.
She waited a couple minutes for Phoenix's call, but it never came. She knew that he would have to search for the phone that he'd called, but how long could that take? Feeling both worried and anxious, she decided to keep looking around the hospital a bit. Maybe she would find something that he'd missed along the way. She made her way back out to the hall and saw the man in the opera mask again. She knew the man. How could she forget him?
He was the one who killed her mother.
He turned away and ran for the stairwell. "Wait!" He was the Fulbright that she knew. He was the cause of all the pain in her life. There was no way that she was going to let him get away.
Not after he let Simon take the fall.
Not after he let Simon die.
She sprinted after the man with more adrenaline pumping through her than when she raced the bus. She couldn't let him get away—he wouldn't! Dream or no, he had caused her too much pain.
As she rounded the corner to the third floor hallway, she almost ran smack into a young woman. "Whoa! S-sorry! I'm, uh, looking for someone. Tall guy, freaky mask. You haven't seen him, have you?"
The girl wasn't familiar to Athena, but her presence was somewhat calming. She looked dainty, and she moved with a sort of grace that made Athena jealous. Her red hair framed her pale face and two symmetrical braids crowned her head. She wore a pretty little white dress and carried a white parasol. All in all, she seemed to be out of place in such a dark, run down hospital.
The girl gave a slight giggle and tilted her head towards her parasol. Athena tried to imagine what she would look like if she tried something like that. It wasn't nearly as dainty or beautiful as the mysterious girl. "You must be Athena." She extended a soft hand and said, "I'm Dahlia. I used to date your employer."
Dahlia. Phoenix had mentioned her back when Athena was only half paying attention. She was supposed to be bad news, so Athena chose not to shake her hand. "Right. Look, I'm just trying to find the guy who came up here. If you didn't see him-"
Dahlia smiled and said in her sing-song voice, "You're an amazing woman, aren't you? Strong and confident. It's so terrible that you weren't strong enough to save him."
"Shut up." Athena was shocked by her own reply Why was she being so curt with this girl? "I did save him. I became an attorney. I faced my past!" Something was wrong. Athena took a step back and asked, "How do you even know about Simon?"
Dahlia's lovely mask seemed to fall. She ran her hand through her hair and let it fall to her shoulder as she looked about indifferently and said, "Oh, please." Suddenly she lunged at Athena, and when they were face to face she grinned darkly and whispered, "The dead are quite familiar with the dead."
Dahlia passed right through Athena and the frazzled attorney dropped to one knee with her hand clenching her chest. It felt like death itself had gone through her. Her whole body was cold and rigid and her breaths came in scattered gasps. More than anything, she was scared. The dream was becoming too real for her. She was losing sight of reality. Was this the dream? Was the world she had come to know a dream? She understood psychology well. Was it possible that, in order to protect herself from the cruel truth, she had created a reality of her own where she had succeeded when she had actually failed?
Then she saw him again.
The man with the mask actually seemed to notice her this time, and he reacted by running into the operating room where she had first woken up.
With a newfound need to understand the truth, Athena got up and chased after him. He wasn't in the first part of the operating room, but there was a katana sitting neatly on a shelf. Without thinking, she picked it up and removed its sheath. Then she went to the door to the inner room. She tucked her phone under her left arm and slowly opened it as she held the sword in her right hand. Then she used the light to illuminate the room.
The man with the mask was standing by the operating table with his back turned to her. He was still wearing her mother's coat. She approached him slowly, hoping to sneak up on him, when her cell phone started ringing. He turned to look at her and she dropped the phone to grab his arm and sling him over her shoulder with all her might. He landed hard on the cold metal table and gave a grunt. The phone landed face up, so she was still able to see, and it kept ringing. The more it rang, the angrier she felt. She thought of the message she had received earlier. She thought of how Simon must have suffered.
Something in her finally snapped and hot tears burned her eyes as a smile peeled across her face. "It's not my fault," she muttered as she raised the katana over the man's chest. "I did everything that I could."
As the phone continued to ring, Phoenix materialized. He barely got his bearings when he saw the horrible scene. Athena was standing over a man with a sword at the ready, and just behind her was Dahlia.
"ATHENA, NO!"
But he was too late. She plunged the katana deep into the man's chest. Phoenix's heart sank. The whole thing looked just like the scene of her mother's murder.
Athena's hands stayed firmly grasped on the handle of the katana as she began to laugh. Tears streaked her face, but her lips were curled up into an almost unnatural smile. "He got what he deserved," she said between giggles. "He killed Mom. . . He killed Simon. . . Now he's gone. He can't hurt me anymore." She drew the bloody sword out and as the body moved, the mask fell off, revealing Simon Blackquill's face.
"Wh—what?" Athena stumbled backwards and Dahlia went through her again. This time, the shock and chill made her drop the katana and collapse to her knees. The horrible smile was still plastered on her face. "No. That's. . . That's not right."
"What's not right?" Dahlia walked around the operating table and ran her hand over Simon's head. "You killed the man in the mask. Wasn't that what you wanted?"
Phoenix shook his head and looked away. "Athena, what have you done?"
Tears continued to flood from Athena's eyes as she stared at Simon's hand in disbelief. "No. . . He didn't. . . He couldn't. . ."
Dahlia raked her hand through Simon's long hair and pulled out the tie that kept it up, letting long, dark strands fall through her fingers as she said, "No, maybe he couldn't. But you certainly could. There was no hesitation. No time for remorse." She walked back over to Athena and carefully crouched to get a better look at her face. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you enjoyed it."
"Leave her alone!" Phoenix took a hesitant step forward and Dahlia's attention turned to him.
"Or what, Feenie? You'll kill me?"
Kill. Die. Athena couldn't stop laughing or crying. Widget remained silent around her neck. Her feelings were conflicting too much. She couldn't take the pain. She wanted it to stop. She had to make it stop.
Her eyes fell on the katana at her side.
"Please, Dahlia! You don't even know her! She's not a part of any of this! Why can't you just leave her alone?" Phoenix begged.
Dahlia scoffed at him and looked away indifferently. "She's with you. That's enough for me. You should all suffer."
Phoenix shouldn't have looked away from Athena. She retrieved the katana and thrust it into her own stomach. He looked back at her when he heard her laughter broken by gurgling. Blood spilled from her smile as the color drained from her face. "No. Oh god, Athena. How could I let this happen?"
Dahlia pulled the sword from Athena and it vanished in her hand. Athena no longer had any color. She looked as dead as the other ghosts that Phoenix had encountered. Dahlia then snapped her fingers and Athena's clothes changed from her usual yellow suit to a nurse's scrubs. "There. Now she fits her role better," she remarked, satisfied with her work. "Now, on your feet."
Athena rose up and looked right at Phoenix with her dead eyes. She was still conscious. She didn't feel better, she felt worse. It felt like she was constantly suffering. She felt cold, but still on fire. And, for some reason, she still couldn't keep herself from laughing. "I. . . I'll fix him," she said between breaths. "I'll. . . I'll put him back together!" She thought of the sight of her mother from her childhood and let that image fill her mind. She didn't want to think anymore. She just wanted to let go.
"What have you done to her?" Phoenix asked, a tremble apparent in his voice.
"I only helped her to better fit in in this world," she said innocently. "What she does from here is all her. Of course, her mind seemed to be pretty shattered when she died. That doesn't get fixed here." She turned away from him and glanced over her shoulder as she said, "I've got another little friend of yours to attend to. Bye bye, Feenie." She vanished, leaving Phoenix alone with Athena.
"Athena?" Phoenix took one step towards her and she rushed him, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him while laughing in his face. All she could think of was how fragile he felt and how easy it would be to break him.
She could break him just like she broke Simon.
"ARGH!" Phoenix forced her off and it was like she had come to realize what she was doing. What she had done. All the pain came rushing back at once, and it made her angry. How dare he make her go through it again. It was easier to just laugh and lash out.
Phoenix hastily grabbed her castaway cell phone and fumbled around with it. He was going to leave her. How could he leave her alone like this?
No, he should leave her. She might hurt him. She didn't really want to hurt him, did she?
Athena's head was a mess. Her hesitation gave Phoenix just enough time to dial a number and she laughed as she watched him vanish.
She looked at the operating table to find that not a trace of Simon remained there. She was glad for that. She couldn't handle seeing him like that any longer. She just wanted the pain to stop.
It felt like she had been alone forever when a man with a strange piece of head-wear stepped into the OR. She had been so lonely that she couldn't help herself. She needed to do something. Needed to be active. And he was so old and breakable. She hated him for being alive while she wasn't. She hated him for crying out to others when no one helped her. But when she came close to killing him, she stopped herself. That wasn't who she was. She let him go. He had places to be.
When Edgeworth showed up, it was a different story. She knew him. She didn't always like him, but he wasn't a bad man. She tried to tell him about her pain, but every time she looked at him, she felt a seething hatred, yet again to the fact that he hadn't ended up like her. The desire to kill him was strong, but so was the desire to cry out for help. So, even when she let him go, she still felt the need to see him.
So, she finally went out of the operating room. She no longer felt the need to walk. It was pointless. Unnecessary. As were all of the walls and doors. They were just like air. She followed Edgeworth until she saw him going into the nurse's station where Phoenix had first left her. She felt anger burn through her again and couldn't help but lash out at him. She wanted him out of there. So, she attacked him again, but once he got out the door she just slammed it behind him and locked it. She couldn't understand why she could touch the door, she just knew that she was glad she had. But, once it was locked, she found that even she didn't seem to be able to get out of the room. A little part of her decided that that was for the best. She would continue to suffer, but she would just have to suffer alone.
Time was no longer a concept that Athena could fathom, but after a while someone did join her in the nurse's station. It was a woman who almost seemed familiar. Unlike the colorless form that Athena had, this woman seemed to radiate light. At her side stood a black cat with a red bandanna.
Because the woman was also dead, Athena harbored no ill will towards her. She had no reason to acknowledge her at all. She just wanted to be left alone.
"No more. . ." Athena mumbled. Her smile was still stuck on her face, but she wasn't laughing now. "Please. . ."
The woman gave a genuine smile and the cat said, "It's going to be okay. This time, you're going to wake up."
Wake up? This time? Why was a cat talking? Athena shrank away from the woman, but the cat slowly walked over to her. "Just close your eyes. It's time to leave this place."
Athena wasn't sure why she was listening to a cat, but nothing seemed to make sense anymore. So she closed her eyes tightly, wishing with all her heart that things hadn't happened the way they did.
When Athena opened her eyes, she was face to face with a dark-eyed monster.
"AAAAIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEE!"
The monster cringed and backed away. "Gah! Should have seen that coming."
That's when she realized that the monster wasn't a monster at all, but Simon Blackquill. He turned to look at Phoenix and Edgeworth as they walked into the room and she saw how his long hair draped over his shoulder. It wasn't tied back. Like when Dahlia raked her hand through it.
"Y—y—you're alive?" she tried to confirm, getting him to look back at her. "You're r—r—really alive?" Her whole body was shaking. She wasn't ready to lose him. Not again.
Blackquill stood upright and helped her to her feet. "Of course I am."
She couldn't contain her relief. "You're alive!" She tackled him right back down to the floor and kept her arms wrapped around his neck. "Thank god! I thought that they. . . I thought that you. . . I thought that I. . ." She started crying and Blackquill awkwardly rubbed her back to calm her down.
"It was simply a nightmare," he assured her.
"Some nightmare," Apollo mumbled. "I mean, I had one too." Before he could elaborate, Trucy was hanging on him. It took him time to better explain what he meant. "Actually, a part of me was kind of scared that I wouldn't wake up." A nervous hand went to his chest as he added, "That Dahlia girl killed me, but I was still trapped in that awful place."
Athena finally let go of Blackquill and looked at Apollo. Their eyes met and she saw in his the same sadness that she had felt. She could hardly believe what he'd said. "She got to me too! It was so awful. She. . ." Athena trailed off and Widget's face changed from happy to scared as she recalled her own death. She ended up lying to Apollo. Dahlia didn't kill her. . .
"Hang on. Just what's going on here?" Apollo stood up and pointed at Athena. "Your dream sounds really similar to mine. Did you see Phoenix too?"
Now it really was getting weird. "Yeah! He tried to calm me down and explain that it wasn't really a dream!"
The duo looked to their mentor, who waved his hands in front of himself defensively. "I was just trying to help!" Phoenix straightened out and smiled. "It's so good to see you alive, though. . . When did Blackquill get here?"
Blackquill found a rubber band in his pocket and used it to tie his hair back. "I realized that I said some harsh things to Cykes-dono yesterday, so I stopped by to make amends. You can imagine my surprise when I found the little Wright crying as she let me in. You were all out cold. We tried to wake you, but nothing seemed to work. I was. . . worried."
Athena had all but forgotten his curt phone call
"UUUWAAAAAAAAAHHHH!"
Everyone jumped when Larry snapped awake screaming. He immediately went back to being his usual oafish self, so Athena wasn't too worried about him until he described the dream that he had had. It was so similar to hers that it was uncanny.
"You too?" She looked back at Apollo when his voice echoed hers.
"Whoa. Have you guys been practicing that?" Larry asked, looking between them.
It wasn't long after that that they realized Maya was missing. Everybody looked about frantically until Edgeworth tried calling her. He got through to her, but he seemed really shaken up the entire time they spoke, then he got cut off. How could they lose that girl? She stuck out like a sore thumb!
Thankfully, the neighbor of the Anything Agency—the groovy inspector Cabanela (whom Athena had bumped into a few times during his stair-walk-dances)—stopped by and mentioned crossing paths with Maya. After that, the doorbell buzzed, so everybody went running downstairs only to find that Pearl was the one trying to get in.
"Pearly? Please tell me you've seen Maya." Trucy cupped the little spirit medium's hand in hers, but Pearl didn't understand why everyone looked so frantic.
"That's why I'm here," she reminded them. "I'm her to visit—" She looked up without thinking pulled away from Trucy's hands to cover her mouth as she screamed.
"AAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEE!"
Everybody's eyes shot up and they saw Maya at the edge of the roof, just as she went too far. Hearts stopped as they all started to register just what was happening. Maya was going to fall. The thought was too horrible.
Then they noticed the blue sleeve as a hand reached out and pulled her back just in time. A sigh of relief fell over everybody.
"What the HELL is going on here?" It was the most upset anyone had ever heard Pearl. Trucy quickly ushered her into the building and tried to explain what she experienced while Larry unhelpfully filled in the details on the other end. The others quickly followed them in, but Athena hung back for a moment. When she thought that no one was paying attention, she let her legs finally give out.
She did not realize, however, that one other person stayed back with her until a pair of arms caught her as she fell. "Cykes-dono?"
Athena tensed and quickly stood on her own two feet, pulling away from him. "W-what? I'm fine! Are you fine? No problems here!"
Simon clearly didn't buy it. "Cykes—" He stopped himself and shook his head. "Athena-dono, what did you see in your dream? Why are you so shaken up?"
Hot tears burned at her eyes, but she fought them back with all that she had and instead smiled. "Nothing that an ace defense attorney like me couldn't handle!"
"SO AWFUL!"
Athena almost squeaked when Widget betrayed her true feelings again. It made containing her emotions even more difficult.
But, what really pushed her over was when Simon pulled her to his chest and just hugged her. It was clearly awkward for him. Hell, it was awkward for her. But in that deep, certain voice of his, he told her, "It's okay. I know how strong you are. You don't have to always smile."
That did it. Tears started falling and her frown peeled away. She gripped his back tightly and just cried into his chest. He continued to hold her until she was satisfied, then she wiped her eyes and slapped her cheeks to return some color to her face. "Feel better?"
Athena took a few deep breaths and nodded. "Yeah. Thanks. . . I guess I needed that." She gave a genuine smile and said, "We should hurry up and join everybody. Make sure Maya's okay."
Simon just nodded and followed her back inside.
It seemed like things were still settling down when they reached the agency. Pearl was somewhere between screaming at Maya and crying as everyone was still trying to make sense of what had happened. Nobody seemed to notice that Athena and Simon had just joined them.
After a little while Phoenix started to give a better explanation and with quite a bit of discussion and some help from a spirit (whom Athena recognized as the woman with the cat in her dream), they started to grasp what had happened. The danger was real. They very well could have died. The thought was enough to make Athena nervous again, but Simon noticed and put a hand on her shoulder to let her know that he was there if she needed him. She knew that she had no reason to worry now. He was alive. They all were alive. They were going to be okay.
Maya's stomach kicked off the fun that was supposed to happen the night before. They needed burgers for a prison visit. The whole thing sounded a bit questionable to Athena until Simon assured her, "Godot-dono is an honorable man. I think you will like him."
For now, as long as Simon was there, Athena felt ready to face anything. "I'm sure I will. After all, you and Maya were both accused of murder and I love you guys, don't I?"
Simon just gave a slight smile, but it was more than enough.
"Thank you," she murumured, and her hand brushed against his for just a moment.
"For what?"
She shook her head and didn't say anything else to him before hurrying over to Apollo. "Come on, Apollo! Let's go get some burgers!"
A/N ::
Shikola Krasno::
I've been wanting to write this accompanying piece for a while, but it could never really be completed until we solidified the end of the actual story. The fact of the matter is: Phoenix, Maya, Edgeworth, and Larry weren't the only ones affected by the black magatama. Thankfully, snatching Phoenix's magatama protected Trucy, and Blackquill only really showed up at the end (on a whim, I might add, because I think he's scary looking no matter what), so they weren't a part of the issue. But Athena and Apollo were both in the Mnemonic Abyss, and clearly both of them were killed.
I will formally apologize for what I made Athena do to herself (and Blackquill) in this chapter. I needed her to go crazy because, well, she was freaking crazy when Edgy and Godot encountered her! I will also confess to being a huge supporter of the Athena/Simon shipping, but I tried to keep that out of things as much as possible because our story is all about plausibility (the Edgeworth and Phoenix thing was just a horrible coincidence). But that doesn't mean I can't have a cute scene here and there (I was also very happy that Melody thought I didn't add enough)! All honesty, I think Athena's experience is going to be ranked as the worst of the group. I mean, she not only died, she killed herself after killing the man she so desperately wanted to save! That's harsh! Although, it was Apollo's that made me the most distraught, so you'll just have to wait and decide for yourself.
This is it for her story, but there will be a bit more with her in Apollo's—not as a ghost—so if you want more closure read his when I finally finish it. It will also be dark, but not quite as awful as Athena's circumstances. . . I think. . . He at least won't be killing himself, that's for sure. . .
Hope you enjoyed this! Just keep reminding yourself that everything worked out fine, right?
Melody Canta ::
Athena's story reminds me of Romeo and Juliet for some reason. I'll admit to being a Simon/Thena shipper too, although I'm nowhere near the level Shikola is. Ironically, I added a tiny bit of it in this chapter at the end because I didn't think it was enough.
I'll admit to being more excited for Polly's. I think everyone knows by this point that I have a soft spot for Apollo. Besides, Shikola has the burden of dealing with the far more logical Apollo. I'm just along for the ride.