DISCLAIMER: Phoenix Wright/Gyakuten Saiban is the property of Capcom. This is a non-profit tribute to the games we've come to love.

A/N: It's perhaps a little late to point this out, but chances are you guys have already noticed. Something in the formatting does to stories causes question marks and exclamation marks to disappear when they are next to each other. It's not that big of a deal, but I think something as simple can take away a lot of dramatic power behind some of the lines the characters say.

Onto today's chapter! What do we have here this time? We have another one of those scenes where, much for the chagrin of our heroes, they will be faced with a moral dilemma. We also get to see the always enthusiastic, passionate and fiery Apollo shake loose some of his PG-13 limitations. After all, being so young and so gung-ho about your job can only mean you will take some things very much to heart.

We also see some more character development for Ned Munny! Hmm…

The title of the fic has changed now to be a little more grammatically correct.

Please review and enjoy. I hope you have as much fun reading it as I did writing it!

This ain't no place for no hero,

This ain't no place for no better man.

This ain't no place for no hero

to call home.

No Place for a Hero

Chapter 11 – Ned's Regret and Denial

May 5th, 2:03 PM

Detention Center

Visitor's Room B

"Detective Skye has the pictures of the Great City Bank heist! Seriously?"

Apollo Justice couldn't believe his ears. He was on the phone with Phoenix Wright. Just that morning, they had talked about this same crime. The coincidence was overwhelming.

It's obvious that Apollo and Trucy would have opted to talk to the older attorney personally, but each party had business to take care of. Just as Phoenix was about to wrap up with Lotta Hart, Team Apollo was about to take another shot at speaking with Ned Munny.

"Yeah." Phoenix chuckled from the other side of the line. "But we'll talk later. You have a client to meet, don't you? Don't let him get away this time!"

Apollo laughed. "I won't. Count on it."

"Alright. So let's meet at the Wunder Bar for dinner. We can watch Trucy's show while we eat."

"Sure thing, boss."

Phoenix hummed a little bit. "Eight sounds good?

"Yup! Be seeing you then."

Apollo closed his cellphone in an almost dramatic fashion and walked back to Trucy's side. There was a big grin on his face. It was close to looking goofy.

"Can you believe that?" he asked. "Wow. The coincidences you find in this line of work! They make you wonder if we're all part of a video game, or a book or something."

Trucy giggled, but Apollo noticed immediately that there was something forced, artificial about it. The magician attempted to guide his eyes towards the other side of the room twice before he finally caught on. The sight the attorney met was surprising.

"—Mr. Munny! What the heck happened to you?"

Ned tried to smile. A big shiner and a swollen lip made it tough, however.

Apollo felt like an idiot, although he had nothing to blame himself for; Phoenix had called him right as he was entering the visitor's room.

"They don't like you pulling any funny business here, so they made sure I stayed put like a good boy." said Ned. Was he trying to comfort Apollo? "Don't think too much of it. I've had worse."

In truth, the young attorney had plenty of other things to worry about in the first place, like how this second meeting was nothing short of a miracle. Klavier Gavin had to pull a lot of strings to make it happen; his reason for helping was, as it always had been, to give the defense "a fair fight".

But Apollo didn't fall for that excuse. He knew that Klavier was as interested as he was in Ned Munny's testimony. And if the guards in the detention center already taught the suspect a lesson in manners, he was sure to cooperate now, correct?

Apollo was eager to find out.

"Alright." the attorney finally said, eager to move on. "The reason we called you here a second time is pretty simple, Mr. Munny."

"-yeah. You wanted to talk to me, right?" Ned interrupted. "Sorry for giving you a hard time earlier today, kid. I was a douche."

Apollo smiled politely. He wasn't sure if he should agree with that assessment or not.

"Don't worry about it. But I'm afraid things aren't as simple anymore." he paused just to make sure his next sentence came out rolling clear off his tongue. "We just came back from the Tender Lender offices, Mr. Munny. It's the place where they found the gun with your fingerprints. I'm sure you know that by now."

The way Ned curled his fingers that instant was like a manifestation of how he was shrinking and shriveling up inside. The attorney exchanged a confident glance with Trucy and began playing with the bracelet around his wrist.

"Do you happen to know anything specific about this office?"

"—I…"

"Let me tell you what its specialty is:" Apollo said, taking away his client's chance to reply. "Loans. The Tender Lender is a loan office!"

Ned gritted his teeth. "Hrk.."

"I guess you can't miss it with a name like that." mused Trucy.

"…Anyhow." continued the attorney. "What's a gun with your fingerprints doing in a loan office, a loan office that's run by the mob of all people? It makes no sense if you try to fit the facts together."

Ned went through a number of emotions in a fraction of a second, unaware that all these fluctuations were registered by Apollo's incredible power: anger, frustration, panic, fear. Unfortunately for him, he remained unaware that his attorney had the power to see through lies. Therefore he tried to keep a poker face because, for all he knew, this spiky kid hadn't done his homework at all.

"I guess so."

"But then we went through Viola Cadaverini's records, and we found this loan contract."

The client balled his fingers into tight, cream white fists.

"What the hell kind of game are we playing here, kid?" Ned snarled, momentarily refusing to look Apollo in the eye. "If you got something to tell me, man up and say it to my face."

Apollo allowed himself to have a couple seconds of silence. Whether he was ordering his thoughts, waiting for a cue or simply torturing Ned, it was impossible to know.

"It's about being your attorney moreso than being a man, Mr. Munny." Apollo said. His following explanation was plain, sticking to the impact and truth of the facts: "The gun itself wouldn't have been enough for many judges to sign an arrest warrant against you, considering your background in security; however, the loan you took out from this office is a more than solid proof of your link to the victim. That's why you have been indicted.

"I understand I was in no position to know this when we first met. You were so… distraught, after all."

Ned's injuries weren't stinging anymore. Being pressed like this was in some ways far more painful.

"So what do you want?" Ned asked, his tone that of surrender.

"The truth." Apollo answered immediately, holding Ned's contract in his hand. "If you look coldly at the facts, the prosecution has a strong reason to believe –and clearly try to prove- that you indeed killed Ms. Cadaverini. You don't need to look any further than this. You see… the prosecutor's job is to find you guilty; mine is to believe in you and get you an acquittal."

Ned looked away.

"Mr. Munny. Ned. I can't do that if you lie to me. You're only headed straight for the slammer if you keep withholding information from me. Now's your chance to talk and clear things up."

Apollo attempted to make eye contact with the security guard until he succeeded.

"It's Ahnette." Ned confessed.

Apollo narrowed his eyes. He didn't want to make a mistake and jump to conclusions just yet.

"I'm listening." was all that he answered.

He was going to let Ned finish. It proved to be a wise decision.

"I had to take the loan out for Ahnette's sake." Ned said with a steady voice. "But I didn't kill Viola. I hated her, yeah, but I hated her just about as I hated myself for running to her in the first place. Do you understand? She made me do things, things I will regret for the rest of my life, that put my job, my health and my marriage in danger. So I'm happy to see her dead!"

Something akin to relief ran over the suspect's body. He pretended to wash his hands.

"There."

There was so much information to process in that last statement that Apollo had no idea where to begin. He touched his temples and mulled in silence. Meanwhile, Trucy had started nervously rubbing at her wrists.

"You said the loan was taken out for Ahnette's sake." Apollo met his client's gaze.

Ned crossed his arms, and nodded. "So it looks like she didn't tell you. I can't blame her." his lips formed a sad frown. "She thinks she's been a burden to me ever since."

And thus the sad story of the Munny Family became known.

It turned out that Ned and Ahnette did want to expand the family and bring a baby into this world, but fate hadn't been so kind. It was quite the contrary. Ahnette had been unable to conceive, her first and second attempts at pregnancy ending in miscarriages, the last decidedly more harmful to her frail health. Due to Ned's relatively low position in his security agency, his insurance did not cover all of the medical expenses, instead paying a measly ten percent of the entire hospital bill; he was forced thus to cover the rest of it by taking Viola Cadaverini's hand.

"I even set my wedding ring and car down as collateral, along with some other things, so that there didn't have to be a co-signer. I didn't want anyone to know what a stupid, dangerous thing I was doing." Ned mentioned as he rolled the mentioned ring around his finger. "But I knew she wasn't going to stop there if I missed a payment."

"I'm so sorry, Mr. Munny..." Trucy mumbled, her hands gripping handfuls of her cape. "…It must've been so hard."

"Don't worry, honey." Ned replied courteously. His next words were clear, straight to the point. "But that's it. I held a big grudge against Viola. I wanted to see her go to Hell for what she did to me and my family… but I couldn't have killed her. Come on, kid. You think they are going to let a down on his luck client walk to her desk and just smoke her dead? They have people taking care of both the business and the lady. They would've killed me just for thinking about hurting her, assuming that somehow I even made it through them with a piece."

"And you have your alibi to boot:" Apollo asserted. "Your wife."

" Yeah." Ned answered, the faintest smile already on his face.

There was no time for celebration yet. The defense's case was solid, but there was another matter to look into and settle.

"We have to move onto the rest of your testimony now, Mr. Munny." Apollo reclined on his chair. "You said Viola blackmailed you into doing favors for her? Or that's what I gathered. With all this material and this testimony of yours certainly we can—"

"—excuse me?" Ned abruptly leaned forward and looked at Apollo with a quirked, menacing eyebrow. "What am I being charged for again?"

"What? It's murder, Mr. Munny. But—"

"Nothing." Ned pointed a finger right at Apollo's face. "It won't come to anything else in the trial. You'll tell them there's no way I was there, and you'll tell them there's no way I could've done it anyhow."

"But-"

"What are you? Deaf or slow or something? Stupid?" the client asked rhetorically, growing increasingly hostile. "I said I'm not testifying about anything else outside of what happened last night. Hey. Attorney-client privilege, right?"

Apollo gritted his teeth and slammed the sides of his fist on the table. He spoke fast, loud and clear so that he wouldn't be interrupted anymore.

"The prosecution will try to link you to the murder by exposing this in court! The judge will see it, the jurists will see it…"

"Screw the jurists and the judge. I don't see how they will see anything past the tip of their noses. I haven't said anything in questioning, remember?"

"They will see it, Ned." Apollo said forcefully. "This loan contract? They have a copy of it too. They'll realize that the collateral doesn't add up to the money you owe, and they'll want answers for that."

Ned was now growing red in the face.

"Then I guess I can call you whenever they decide to try me for that shit, if they ever do." he said, speaking every word with wide-eyed, devilishly-toned defiance. "Do your job and get me off the freaking hook for killing Viola!"

Trucy shot glances between Ned and Apollo. Both men were no different from bulls. They were ready to explode, huffing like an overheated, overworked engine.

The magician's wrinkled brow faithfully expressed her disbelief. Weren't they the good guys? Wasn't Ned innocent? She thought she had a clear answer, but watching things unfold this way wracked her with doubt.

Intentionally or not, Trucy chose to remain silent. Apollo couldn't, not due to a lack of trying. For all he cared, he would leave another shiner on his client's face if they let him.

"We'll make sure you have a fair trial." was the best promise he could make Ned, spoken in hissed syllables and through clenched teeth. He turned to Trucy, trying to soften the expression on his face. He whispered: "Let's go."

"O..okay."

Apollo gathered his things, stood up and led Trucy to the door; nonetheless, the magician wasn't expecting him to close it behind her. It was in this instant of confusion that the young attorney held the door knob tight, faced Ned Munny through the two slits he now had for eyes and spoke loud and clear.

"Jagoff."

"What the fuck did you call me!"

He didn't stay to see his client's reaction, immediately exiting the room and closing the door for good this time. But even through the door, he could hear Ned's ensuing cries of pain. The guards were earning their salaries again; Apollo ruefully enjoyed the sound of the violence they were inflicting upon the man he was supposed to defend.

When Apollo came out of the visitor's room, Trucy saw him and that blank expression of his, the type that only appears on those who face a moral conflict greater than they could ever hope to understand.

"Polly?"

Apollo blinked and recovered the color on his face at once.

"—Huh? What?"

The magician hit Apollo right in the middle of his forehead with the knuckle of her middle finger.

"Don't space out, dummy! We have places to go! Like the Wunder Bar? Remember?"

Was it over like that? How? Apollo looked at his assistant, marveling at whatever it was –a light, some kind of spiritual fortitude, maturity- that existed in her heart, that something which helped her bear with such tense and chaotic moments.

"About what just happened in there…" he tried to explain.

"Nuh uh!" Trucy giggled and bounced on her feet, pressing a gloved finger on Apollo's lips. "Don't say a word, okay? All this running around, looking for clues, dealing with a rough client… You've had a long day. Your work's done, so what's next is to play and relax a little! How about some magic? Here." she stretched her arm a little to reach for her partner's ear, making a deliberately silly and cute straining noise in the process. "Hang on to this for tomorrow."

Trucy showed Apollo what she had in her hand and he broke into a short fit of laughter as a result. It was his attorney badge, shining proud like a war medal.

Before he knew it, Apollo was hugging her in a warm, relieved embrace.

"Thanks, Trucy." he said, turning to plant a kiss on her cheek.

The young magician giggled in embarrassment and fixed her hat; in the suddenness of the moment, it had almost fallen off her head.

"Don't worry, Polly." she replied in a warming voice. "I'll always be here."

"Always?" Apollo asked in a begrudging tone.

Trucy let her arms wrap around the attorney's midsection.

"Mhm!"

Then their embrace became much tighter, exuding a special kind of radiance that made all the lights of the hallway look dim in comparison.

And things keep getting complicated for our favorite attorneys' cases and personal lives.

Next time, "No Place for a Hero" makes a turn for the unexpected! Get ready for the turning point of this story!

Next chapter: Turnabout Bloodshed, Turnabout Heartbreak!