Disclaimer: I do not own Ace Attorney or any of its properties.

Notes: This was written forever ago and posted to Tumblr. In an attempt to update this account with some things, I decided to post it here.

Holding Out For a Hero

Riding in the back of a pickup truck down a dusty dirt road with his wrists and ankles bound was not the way Apollo would have chosen to spend his evening.

His head ached above his right eye where he'd been struck with the pistol, and his wrists were already feeling sore and chafed in his attempts to get his hands out of the bonds. He wasn't sure if it was because of the sweltering summer heat, the blow to the head, or the speed at which everything had happened, but even as he struggled to sit up in the back of the pickup, he had a hard time putting together just what, exactly, the hell had happened. Being an attorney was risky business—the fact that the first case he worked at the Wright Anything Agency dealt with the mafia told him that much—but this investigation shouldn't have been dangerous at all. It wasn't like they were investigating a rogue doctor's office or a corrupt loan shark. They were investigating a horse ranch. A horse ranch!

And yet, after Athena had gone up to the house in an attempt to get cell phone service, he'd been jumped and subdued before he even had a chance to shout for help. A pistol whip to the head, two guys wrestling him to the ground and securing his wrists and ankles, and then an unceremonious toss into the back of the pick-up. Really, it was just a wonder he'd managed to spit the gag out; they hadn't tied it very tight.

It was no use. He couldn't get the tape off his wrists. Apollo slumped back against the back of the truck, half lying on the bed, and stared out at the dusty road behind them. With any luck, Athena saw what happened and called the police. Maybe they'd be able to find his body before the murderers had a chance to get away.

It was a nice life, he thought, and he looked down at his bracelet, the duct tape wrapped sloppily around it. If they mess me up too badly, maybe the cops can identify me with this. Shifting a little so he was sitting back up against the back of the truck, he turned his eyes back up to the road behind the truck … and his heart seized in his test as though it had been tazed.

"A-Athena?!"

It was impossible. There was no way. It was the heat, or the head injury, or … or something but there was no way his eyes—as sharp as his vision was—were telling him the truth.

Athena, apparently, had learned how to ride horseback in Europe. She had also, apparently, left all pretenses about stealing horses there, because unless he was hallucinating (and he was willing to bet that he was—he had to be), she was currently riding a stolen thoroughbred from the ranch they'd just left. And either the old pick-up was very slow or the horse was very fast, but she was gaining on them in short order. As he watched, jaw slack, she dug her heels into the horse's sides, and it whinnied as it put on speed.

"Hold tight, Apollo!" she shouted, and while her Chords of Steel may not have been able to match his own, he could still just barely make out her voice over the grinding of tires on dirt and the stomping of the horse's hooves. "We're coming to get you! Get ready to jump!"

"You're going too—did you steal that horse?!" he demanded, and he crawled across the bed of the truck, nearly slamming his face into it as the truck went over a particularly rough patch in the road. Athena grinned, and fished something out of her jacket pocket before she threw it to him.

"I'm just borrowing him! I'll return him later. Here, use that to get your hands free!"

Apollo looked down to the truck bed, where the object Athena had thrown him fell. It was a tiny silver lipstick tube, the cap still on, and he looked up at her with a flat expression.

"What am I supposed to do with lipstick?"

"Don't be stupid, it's a knife! Simon gave it to me! Take the cap off and use it!"

Still feeling skeptical, but willing to try anything at this point, Apollo picked up the lipstick tube as best he could and pried the cap off with his teeth. Sure enough, instead of make-up, a small silver blade resembling a katana was hidden beneath the cap. Feeling slightly suspicious of where Simon Blackquill managed to procure such a thing, Apollo flipped it around so that he could hold the "hilt" between his teeth, and stabbed the blade through the duct tape keeping his wrists bound. Whether it was due to the sharpness of the mini katana or his desperation to get the tape off, it only took him a few minutes to tear through it enough so that he could wrench his wrists apart. The remaining tape on his wrists could stay for the moment; taking the knife from his mouth, he severed the tape binding his ankles together. That completed, he replaced the cap on the knife and stuffed it into his pocket. If he made it out of this alive, he was going to personally write Simon Blackquill a thank you note.

By this point, Athena and her "borrowed" steed had managed to all but make it up to the bed of the truck. Athena urged the horse to run faster, and just as Apollo opened his mouth to thank Athena for the knife and ask her if she called the police, she turned to him and offered her hand.

"Apollo! Jump!"

"Wha—are you crazy?!" Apollo's voice carried easily over the wheezing engine and the thundering hooves on the dirt, and Athena frowned at him. "I am not jumping from this truck to that horse, Athena! I'll crack my head open!"

"You won't crack your head open if you make the jump!" she protested, and laughed, short and incredulous. "What other choice do you have? Do you want to stay a hostage forever?"

"No, I—"

It was at that point that Apollo's kidnappers seemed to realize they had a crazy girl on a horse pursuing them, for the truck suddenly swerved, the back-end nearly ramming into the side of Athena's horse. The horse let out a cry of alarm as Athena tugged on the reins in a hasty attempt to get out of the way, and—hanging onto the side of the truck bed for dear life to avoid being thrown flat on his back—Apollo leaned over to glare at the passenger door window.

"Do you mind?! You nearly threw her off!"

"I think that was probably the point!" With what appeared to be difficulty due to the horse's reluctance to get too near the truck again, Athena urged the horse forward, nearly parallel to the truck bed. "It's now or never Apollo! You have to jump!"

"There's no way I'll make it!" The driver put on more gas, the truck pulling ahead, and Athena dug her heels into the sides of the thoroughbred. Apollo was no expert on horses, but he could tell Athena's steed was struggling; even as he pulled up level to the truck again, he wouldn't last long. "Just call the police! I'll—"

"Don't you trust me?"

Her question caught him off-guard, and he felt a surge of indignation run through him. "Of course I do! This has nothing to do with that!"

"It has everything to do with that!" Athena reached out her hand to him once more, and she was close enough so that he was sure he could reach out and grab it. "Come on!"

His bracelet squeezed tighter on his arm, and everything seemed to slow. He could see, in perfect detail, the marks on the ground between the truck tires and horse's hooves. He could make out the individual lines on Athena's palm, the nails she kept short but neatly filed, the freckles on her wrist. He could see the individual hairs in the horse's mane as they jostled due to the speed at which he was running, and out of the corner of his eye he could see just enough in the truck's sideview mirror to see that the second kidnapper was reaching for something that was probably a gun. For one heartbeat, the concentration afforded him by his bracelet made him privy to all of this, and that was all he needed. Bracing his left hand against the side of the truck bed so he could pull one foot onto it, Apollo reached out and grabbed Athena's hand with his right. She gave a sharp tug just as he pushed off the truck bed, and with enough force to knock the air from his lungs he landed chest-down on her lap, the horse rearing to a stop at the sudden addition of a second rider. Yet as clumsy as his landing had been, Athena seemed to be in control; she pulled back on the reins to get the horse under control, and with her arms on either side of him, there was no way he was falling off, even as he shifted to a seated position.

"Hang tight, Apollo!" she said, as the sound of squealing tires split the air. Apollo sat up in time to see the truck swerving to turn back around, the pistol flashing through the windshield. "We're going off-road! Hiyah!"

True to her word, Athena turned the thoroughbred off the dirt road, taking them straight through the tall grass. It wasn't easy for the horse to get through, Apollo didn't think, and as far as he was concerned, riding side-saddle was no easier. But the truck couldn't follow them through the grass, and though several bullets shot through the air, none of them connected. They were free—they had made it—Athena had saved him. With the adrenaline and panic starting to wear off, melting into a sort of dazed relief, Apollo turned to look at Athena.

"I feel like a rescued princess right about now," he said, and Athena met his eyes with a cheeky grin.

"Just consider me your knight in a shining yellow jacket."