A (Kind of) Reluctant Matchmaker
by its all talk
Author's Note: I hope this isn't too out of character. This is what happens when I get an inkling to write fanfiction in the middle of the night after not writing any at all for 8 years.
Apollo stared at the DVDs thrown into a pile next to Phoenix's television set. They were all set in the Steel Samurai universe—a strange thing for a grown man to have just out so that people could see. Didn't Phoenix Wright have any pride? Apollo supposed not, especially after he saw the way Wright handled (or didn't) Apollo's first cases at the Wright Anything Agency.
Apollo sighed, wondering when he had been roped into cleaning duty. The last he'd checked, he was an attorney, not a housekeeper. Of course, attorneys usually did things like defend clients and go to court, neither of which happened in the weeks previous. Wright assured him this was the only way he'd be paid for any work; Apollo briefly wondered why Phoenix had any say in the way money was spent, seeing how Trucy single-handedly kept the Wright Anything Agency afloat due to her magic shows and her "assistance" during Phoenix's poker games. I wonder if he's heard of child labor laws, Apollo thought to himself as he stacked the DVDs into neat piles.
His hand brushed over a piece of cardstock sticking out of one of the cases. Curious, he opened the case proclaiming Steel Samurai Daddy in Neo Olde Tokyo with Iron Infant! and pulled out the pink index card. A small sketch of a smiling girl's head, her hair tied in a top knot, floated next a disembodied hand doing a "peace" sign. Scrawled next to it was a short note:
Hey Nick,
I hope this gets to you all right. I heard you had an accident. I can't believe you just got away with a sprained ankle after getting bounced around like that! YOU'RE SO LUCKY. I always knew that, though. When are you going to come visit me and Pearly, Nick? It's been so long! We don't care about what happened, just GET DOWN HERE. We miss you!
Love, Maya
P.S. Pearls says that it shouldn't just say "Love, Maya" but "Love, Maya and Pearly" so here it is again.
Love, Maya and Pearly.
Apollo fixated on the first letter ending. "Love, Maya." Phoenix Wright had women friends? He found that a bit hard to believe. He wondered if he should ask Trucy about these mystery female friends of Phoenix. Maybe setting his mentor up on a date would mellow the guy out a bit. He tapped the index card vacantly against his leg, trying to determine what to do with this information.
"It's not actually polite to go through people's things."
Shocked, Apollo dropped the index card onto the floor. He turned around to see Phoenix Wright leaning against the door frame.
"It just, uh... fell." Apollo sheepishly rubbed his head, his hair antennae drooping slightly, betraying his obvious lie.
"Fell right into your hand in the exact perfect position for you to read it?" Phoenix raised an eyebrow.
"I didn't mean to..."
Phoenix laughed at Apollo's obvious discomfort.
Apollo felt his cheeks grow warm under his mentor's gaze. He couldn't wait for the day when he had enough money to open up his own law firm. Which, the way things were going, would be the day after never.
"They're just old friends that like to send me silly kids' DVDs." Phoenix slipped the note back into the DVD case and snapped the case shut.
Apollo felt the bracelet at his risk vibrate slightly at Phoenix's words. His field of vision narrowed: a reflex he couldn't control. But he didn't try to perceive the lie as he watched Phoenix walk out of the room. Instead, he turned back to reorganizing the DVDs, this time opening each and every case. He justified this by telling himself that they were dusty and the dust would damage the discs. He convinced himself this was a perfectly sound use of logic, despite the absence of any convincing sound effects to confirm it.
Finally, in a DVD entitled The Nickel Samurai Rises Again after He Fell the Second Time, Apollo found what he was looking for.
Why the hell am I doing this? Apollo asked himself for quite possibly the thousandth time as he walked up the mountain path to the Kurain Village.
An girl, dressed in what looked like a purple kimono, stopped him as he was making his way to what he assumed was Fey Manor. Whoever Maya was, she was apparently very, very rich. "Can I help you, sir?" the girl asked, her large eyes peering straight into Apollo's. Her brown hair resembled the back of a wind-up toy. He briefly wondered how she managed to keep it so perfectly... gravity defiant.
She was also really, really gorgeous. He hoped she was old enough for him to be having those kinds of thoughts about her without him being a dirty... man. He wasn't old yet, was he?
"I'm looking for Maya Fey."
"Mystic Maya is currently busy," the girl answered, emphasizing the title in Maya's name. Her words were cold and clipped. Apparently, he'd just failed some kind of test.
He pulled at his blue necktie and coughed. "Your, uhm, village is really pretty."
"Who are you?"
Right. Rude to talk to someone without introducing yourself. "Apollo Justice, attorney at law, from the Wright Anything Agency."
Instantly, the girl's demeanor changed. Apollo could almost see the icicles melting from her features into warm gooey puddles. She placed her hands at her cheeks, and, if possible, her eyes got even wider. "You're Apollo Justice from Nick's law firm?" she exclaimed, a smile finding its way across her face.
"Nice to meet you?"
"I'm Pearl Fey! Mystic Maya's going to be so happy, but...," she trailed off and began biting her thumbnail, her eyebrows furrowed. "You're not bringing bad news, are you?"
"I—what?"
Tears began to well up in Pearl Fey's eyes. "Nick's not... dead is he?" Then she perked up. "I guess not. I'd probably know anyway. You know, being a spirit medium and all."
"What? What kind of ridiculous-" Apollo tried to ask Pearl what she was mumbling about, speaking as if spirit mediums were real, but she just kept talking over him.
"So Nick's not dead. Is he in trouble? If he's not in trouble, then why isn't he here?" She started pulling the sleeves of her kimono up, flexing her muscles.
"Actually, he doesn't know I came. I found this note you and Maya-"
"Mystic Maya," Pearl corrected. Then added, "She's my cousin," for no apparent reason.
"You and Mystic Maya sent him." He would have to ask about the mystic thing later. Sure, Kurain Village seemed a bit quaint, but it sure didn't seem mystical. "And I thought it might be nice if he met... you? Or her? Or I don't know, but he's always so. Grumpy."
"Nick! Grumpy!" Pearl seemed to find this hilarious. "He's the nicest man in the world."
"We are talking about Phoenix Wright, aren't we? Brooding? Doesn't listen to anyone? Does a bunch of things behind people's backs without talking to them about it?"
"Isn't that what you're doing?"
Apollo stopped mid-ramble to blush. Why was he out here and what was he doing again? He didn't have time to ponder the question. Pearl took hold of his hand and pulled him away from the front of Kurain Village toward the Fey Manor. Her hand was soft and small in his, and he blushed a little at this close contact with a pretty girl. He fervently hoped she wouldn't see.
They wound their way through the Japanese-style manor and stopped at a doorway at the far end. Pearl dropped his hands and called, "Mystic Maya!"
"Pearly? What's up?" A voice came from behind the door. It slid open, revealing a woman in an outfit almost identical to Pearls, except that hers featured an embroidered silver pattern of flowers and birds. One of the birds, a small one near the cuff of her right sleeve, seemed to be bursting out of a flower of flames.
Do good genes run in this family? Apollo thought, staring at who he supposed was Maya Fey. He shook his head, trying to keep himself from being too impolite.
"This is Apollo Justice from Nick's firm!" Pearl said, clapping her hands in excitement. "He wants us to see Nick. So when should we go?"
A smile flickered across Maya's face, but it soon disappeared. "We're not going."
"But why? It's been forever."
"That's why. It's been too long." She turned toward Apollo and smiled. "I'm sorry you came all this way. I have duties here."
"But you just sent those DVDs recently," Apollo protested. "So, I mean, don't you want to meet him?"
"Sending DVDs is very different from seeing a person."
"But then we can go eat some hamburgers with Nick! Just like before," Pearl said, grasping at Maya's hand. Pearl was taller than Maya, Apollo noticed, and not just because of her gravity-defying pretzel, but Maya seemed to dwarf Pearl somehow. Maybe it was the way that Pearl so obviously leaned on her—the way Pearl became so many years younger just in Maya's presence.
"I don't want to go," Maya said. "I'm sorry again, Mister Justice, but I just don't want to."
Apollo felt his bracelet hum against his skin, and he squinted his eyes.
"Are you okay, Apollo? You look kinda mad." Pearl said.
"Can you say that again? About not wanting to go."
"You could give me a thousand hamburgers, and I still wouldn't go."
His bracelet hummed again. He felt the tunnel vision start, and the world slowed down around him. He scanned her from top to bottom. A inkling at the back of his brain warned him that this may earn him a slap; funny how he'd never thought of that when he was cross-examining someone in the court room. Then he saw it, her left hand rubbing at the small flame bird on her right sleeve.
"Gotcha!" he yelled.
Maya and Pearl both jumped back in surprise.
"Sorry. Reflex." He blushed and rubbed the back of his head. He reminded himself that he didn't need to use the good ol' Chords of Steel when he was out of the courtroom. Unless it was to Trucy, who had just started making it a habit to pilfer his things to use them in her magic panties act. She always offered to give them back, but he let her keep them, for obvious reasons. Mostly because he found that completely creepy, but also because he was fairly sure Phoenix Wright would have no qualms about murdering him and burying the body if he knew that Apollo was anywhere near his daughter's panties. Even her magic ones.
Maya began laughing, and soon she was doubled over. "You even pointed your finger and everything," she managed between bouts of laughter. "You're definitely his apprentice."
"Don't you want to hear my long, brilliant explanation for how I deduced it?" he asked, a bit put off that he didn't get to show off his amazing perception skill.
"You probably just guessed. Nick did that all the time when he was a lawyer, and he kept guessing until he came to the right answer," Pearl said.
Apollo rubbed his forehead. How unprofessional was his predecessor anyway? "Anyway, Mystic Maya was lying."
"That wasn't brilliant or long."
"I have a special skill that helps me sees lies-"
"So does Nick."
"What are you talking about?"
Pearl frowned. "I guess he doesn't need it as much anymore, now that he's not a lawyer. He sees Psyche Locks."
Apollo narrowed his eyes at her in confusion. She obviously thought this was a perfectly sound explanation, and she wasn't going to offer any more to clarify it. And here I thought Trucy was weird, Apollo thought.
Maya had stopped laughing by now. She wiped the tears from her eyes and breathed heavily. "You're hilarious. I'll go. I'll go see him. When should I go?"
Apollo hadn't actually thought that far. "Maybe... next Friday?"
"Oh no! I'm going to be busy that day. Training. I have lots of training to do. And I may have a channeling scheduled," Pearl said, making quite a show of how extremely busy she was going to be. Apollo once again noted how this girl did not make any sense in anything she was saying.
"Pearly...," Maya started.
"I can pick another day?" Apollo offered.
"No!" the two women said in unison.
"Then Friday for dinner? But where should you go?"
"Wait a moment." Maya slipped away and came back. She handed a folded piece of paper to Apollo and smiled. "Give that to Nick."
He opened the piece of paper and read it. Yes, this family is really weird.
Phoenix checked his watch. He touched his hair, wondering if she would care that the spikiness of his hair wasn't quite so prominent. Of course she won't care. He pulled at his tie and fixed the cuffs of his suit. It had been a while since he wore it, but he still fit in it. But it didn't match him somehow—it was from a different time and a different place, when he relied heavily on the laws and rules. What would she think of him now?
He stuffed his hands in his pocket and breathed deeply. Just relax. It wasn't as if they hadn't had contact in years—they just hadn't seen each other in years. She knew about the disbarring and she knew about Trucy. She just didn't know about him, how much he'd changed.
"Nick?" a familiar voice asked from his side.
He turned and saw Maya there. "Your outfit's different."
"Your eyes are different," she noted. "But still the same."
Then they hugged. It was comfortable and intense and new, all at the same time. She was older. He was certainly older.
"I missed you," she said.
"I'm sorry."
"Shall we eat?"
He nodded, and they walked into the Burger Bistro together as if they had just finished an intense court battle and were savoring in those first sweet moments of victory.