ace attorney: the aphotic age

[a/n: post AA5 so spoilers, duh. MA for dark/morbid humor, some swearing. later chapters have alcohol/drug use, sexual innuendo, violence, adult themes in general/etc. at the very bottom is another a/n about the few small changes to canon material…but it won't affect how you read this fic very much. I own nothing related to the Ace Attorney franchise so…]

[scene 1: help wanted (11:50 PM)]

The noodle celebration had lasted far longer than Phoenix expected. His in-court reunion with Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth had drawn more followers than he had realized. Somehow they had managed to accidentally start a Wright-fan-club-reunion. Everywhere he turned another familiar face popped up. He had been hugged, patted on the back, kissed (chastely), hand-shook-to-pieces, and even fist-bumped over and over all night until he was socially exhausted. Although he did not show it, the strain of the bombing then trial/hostage situation had worn him out. But somehow the combined efforts of Trucy and Pearl managed to convince him to stay well past his expiration date.

Now the three of them were silently enjoying one another's company on the practically empty train ride home, with Athena making four. Trucy was adamant that Athena should not have to stay alone after such a horrible ordeal, and Junnie had left hours earlier to get back up to her grandmother's mountain house before it got to late; so she just HAD to stay at the Wright's place. To her credit, Athena tried to argue out of the invitation but Trucy had become too crafty for her own good (not to mention all the poor souls under her command.) Really it was the right thing to do, he guessed. It was not like it was a big deal since all four looked like they were on a straight path towards immediate bedtime.

Wright's longings for sleep were interrupted by Pearl's soft voice.

"Mr. Nick?"

"Yeah? How can I help you Pearls?"

"Oh it's nothing…"

Phoenix fake scowled, pointing an accusatory finger at her. "Out with it."

"Oh it's just that I was wondering…no, it's fine." She shook her head, covering her face with her hands. Phoenix felt his stomach drop in a sudden jab of anxiety. The way Pearls was acting…it was a bad sign.

"C'mon just ask. I know you will eventually, so, please, go ahead."

Pearls blushed; Phoenix felt his throat close. Uh-oh. If she was blushing too, this was going to be awful. He silently prayed to the Gods of Justice that it was not a sex related question. For whatever reason Pearls seemed to think he had answers to those kinds of things. He had a nagging suspicion Trucy talked her into asking him awkward things just to watch him squirm. He had trained his daughter too well.

"Umm..It's just…That tall, grumpy man, he…lived in jail for awhile right? Like my mother? But like…Where do people like that stay when they, you know…get out?"

Phoenix sighed in relief. "Good question, Pearls, but I don't really know. I guess most people who've served their time find someone to stay with. I'd never really thought about what happens to the folks who don't have anybody or any money…Hmm…Maybe the state puts them up for a night in a motel, though I doubt it; so I guess they become homeless, worse case scenario. But, like I said, I'm not really sure about that one."

Pearl nodded her head sagely as if his guess was some kind of wisdom. "Oh…So that tall grumpy person has a family to stay with?"

Out of the corner of his eye Phoenix saw Athena visibly tense. "Yeah, kinda. Prosecutor Blackquill's got a sister— you know the robot lady who tried to kill Trucy today?"

"She did not try to kill me, daddy, I was acting! Because she asked me too and the other hostages weren't up to par performance-wise," Trucy cut in with a tilt of her top hat.

"Yeah, right, ok."

"No seriously! She was really nice! Well under all the tough-bitter-dangerous vibe she was so desperately trying to pull off. Like, she didn't even have a real gun. And she let us do our nails! Because I was bored and she said magic was too distracting."

Phoenix sighed deeply. Although not related by blood, Phoenix often found himself wondering how Trucy wound out being so oddly similar to him. Especially when it came to the department of getting into Trouble.

"Oh so he'll stay at the nice robot-lady's house?"

Phoenix once again noticed the sudden tension radiating off of his junior partner. He decided to ignore it by pressing Pearls further, asking,"Why are you so interested in Prosecutor Blackquill all of a sudden?"

"I dunno…" She blushed again. "He just seemed nice but …lonely."

"Never. Say something like that to his face, young lady, NEVER."

Pearls and Trucy giggled. "Leave her alone, daddy, she's just being nosy!"

"Yeah, nosy! Gimme the details!" Pearls said in her serious voice, rolling up her sleeves to show how ready she was for business.

Phoenix sighed again. "That's about it, really, girls. Edgeworth said he was staying at his sister's apartment until he can find someplace else. She'll be locked up for awhile anyway, so."

He watched as Athena crumpled into a little ball and started sobbing out of nowhere. Before he could even process what was happening the other two girls were wrapped around either side of her, rubbing her back, asking what was wrong, and trying to get all the hair out of her face. What had he said?! What had he just accidentally unleashed?!

Instead of responding, the energetic woman jumped up out of her seat, still sobbing. In another instant she was clawing at the doors of a moving train to get out. It took all three of them pushing and shoving to get her away from the door and back into a seat. Thrashing, wailing, kicking, her eyes darted all around, out of focus and control, weeping. She was a lot stronger than Phoenix had realized. If only his other junior partner had told him how easy it was for Athena to throw a man, he might have avoided several direct punches to the face. But instead, Phoenix predicted, the other three were going to come out covered in bruises tomorrow.

All they could get out of her were desperate cries along the lines of "I have to go," "let me go," "he can't," "I have to—."

Finally she was subdued by Phoenix's strong grip around her body in his lap with Trucy on Athena's lap and Pearls wrapped around all of their legs. Trucy's magic panties covered Athena's entire head. Trucy's logic was that this worked for her magic birds when they got too excited. He could only hope there were no security cameras or bystanders because boy he was not ready to go to jail on accusations of odd sexual harassment or minor abuse or…whatever the hell this was. Luckily theirs was the next stop.

He ended up having to carry the now-limp Athena all the way to their house, Pearl still holding the distraught woman's legs closed, and Trucy handling the arms. She was surprisingly heavy. He had clearly underestimated the amount of muscle she had. Phoenix thanked whatever fate existed that in this particular neighborhood, this scene was somehow not out of place, particularly where Trucy was involved. Hopefully if any neighbors saw they would assume this was some new kind of black humor magic.

The group stumbled through the door. Pearls ran and got a blanket which they wrapped Athena in tightly so she could not move. She was shaking and still obviously crying, but she had stopped trying to fight and was no longer screaming, so Phoenix thought she must be calming down. He hastily retreated to make tea and hot chocolates for everyone hoping that this was a girls-only kind of discussion that would be handled by the time he got back.

First he changed into his casual wear, then he moved to the kitchen. Just as his heart rate had slowed to a comfortable pace, Trucy and Pearls barged in, tackling him in unison and crying into his chest.

"What happened?! What's going on?! Wha—?" He tried to keep the panic out of his voice but he failed. Three overwhelmed women were too many for him to handle at once.

"Plllease dadddyyy you have to help him! Pllleeeaassee!"

" , plllleeeeaassee! Mr. Niiiiiick!"

"What?! What?! How am I helping?! What's happening?!"

"PLLEEEAAASSSEE!" When the two combined wailing, he felt that in that moment, he would do anything to fix whatever the problem was. Anything.

"Whatwhatwhat?! I can't do anything if you don't tell me! Tellmewhattodo! Help?! I'm the one who needs help?! What? Is? Happening?"

The girls both tried to explain between sobs at the same time.

"STOP! Just. Stop. One. At a. Time. Please! For me! Let me help you! I don't understand! At all!"

Pearls answered first. "It's not us who-oh-oh neeeed heeelp. Mmmmhhhmmmuh it's-it's-it's-waaahh."

Trucy picked up, "Mr. Siiimmmooonn! He's he's you let him go-oooo. Huhfuhhhuu."

Just then he heard what sounded like someone trying to body slam through a door. The three ran back to the entry way to see Athena-the-blanket-burrito hopping forward and slamming into the door. The two girls sprang into action, once again, before Phoenix could even grasp the situation. They tackled her to the ground and sat on her, still crying, and apologizing.

Phoenix rubbed his temples, sighing deeply as he approached the catastrophic puddle in his doorway. He squatted down to the floor level.

"Ok. Whatever THIS is has got to STOP. Like NOW. Somebody has to explain CLEARLY to ME what is going on and how I can go fix it or I swear I will go lock myself in my room after duck taping you into your beds! Wait, that didn't sound quite right…Point being I will make sure NO ONE leaves this house tonight, ok? No one!"

Oddly enough, of the three Athena was now the most calm. Unfortunately for Phoenix it was the determined, lethal calm of someone ready to go to any means necessary, even crashing through a window and high-tailing it away while confined in a blanket straight-jacket, for example. Her swollen blood-red eyes looked ready to fight.

"Let me go, boss. I have to go now."

Damn she was more intimidating than he ever imagined. This was some Blackquill plus all three VonKarmas -level kind of stare down. He was so ready to run and hide under his bed. So ready. Thus he turned to his only skill: bluffing.

"Sure, alright, you can go anytime. That is anytime after you explain what this—," he gestured at the pile of crying girls, "is all about. Because I am sure as hell not letting you go anywhere on your own after whatever the hell just happened."

"Daddy!" Trucy hissed.

"Language Mr. Nick!" Pearls pouted.

He mumbled a sorry, but was clearly focused on Athena at the moment.

She cleared her throat before beginning, although her words still sounded stuffy after all the tears. "You said that Mr. Edgeworth said that Simon was staying at Aura's apartment…"

Phoenix blanked. He had had a feeling it had something to do with Blackquill, and yet…nope he still did not understand. "…yes?"

"That's at the space center."

"Right….Wait, what?!" Phoenix balked.

"Aura's apartment. Is in the space center. Where I used to live. Where all…that happened." She finally stopped staring down her boss, looking aside her eyes filled with tears yet again. Annoyed she wiped them off on her shoulder.

"He can't stay there. Not today anyway. But his stupid pride probably stopped him from even thinking of asking for help from somebody else. He thinks he can handle it but he can't, not yet."

Phoenix sighed. "Ok, I understand the concern. He probably did not include that detail or Edgeworth would have offered something else, maybe…But he's a big boy, you know? Very strong. It's not like any of us can tell him what to do…"

She was staring him down again. He felt the sudden urge to yell "objection!"

Trucy's voice cut in, "But daaddy, what if what if Polllly shows upp? They could get hurt!"

"What? Now I'm totally lost; what does Apollo have to do with this?"

Now it was Pearl's turn to contribute. "Mr. B haaates him!"

"He does not." Athena's voice came out a little two sharp. "Sorry. But he doesn't. He respects Apollo, he really does but it's just…It's hard to explain. Like Apollo always gets to be the nice guy and Simon has to act like such an ass even when he doesn't want to and ugh. It's almost like…jealousy or something. Like he resents Apollo for getting to be on my side and support me, or something like that while he…Or like when the bomb went off, he was super pissed that Detec—I mean the phantom— like dragged him out before we got out. Like I ended up dragging Apollo out and Simon…I guess that was somehow cowardly or something like he thought that that was so selfish of Apollo and I…He was getting a lot better about it! Because at first I think he straight up wanted to physically fight Apollo or something, like it was all aggressive and angry and bitter and ugh…He's really been trying, though! Like I can tell, he like wants to be nice or at least, like, normal. Ish. But then when Apollo kind of accused me out of the blue…and after going through all that catharsis and being so vulnerable in front of all those strangers it's like…I dunno almost like he became irrational all of a sudden, like not in control of himself at all and he like…It might have been dangerous. And I'm afraid he'll be unstable like that as long as he's there. Because he's not ready to deal with more of all that. And Apollo's all out-of-sorts too, today, and what if he goes back? To visit Clay there? Like I trust both of them to not do something stupid like fight, but…with both of them so crazy right now I… I just don't want him to be alone right now…"

She finally trailed off, a few stray tears escaping. The others had remained dead silent throughout her jumbled explanation, but now both of the other girls started crying in sympathy. This was immediately followed up by three fierce pouty-eyed stares.

"Daddy, please let m-me t-tak-ke her. I-I have my per-r-mi-it."

"Yeah but those only count when you have an adult who has a license. And a car for that matter."

"Details! T-this is im-mp-portant! Ms. Mariko next door would lend me her car! It's an emergency!"

"It's almost one o'clock in the morning and as nice as our neighbor is, I don't think this kind of emergency would stop her being incredibly angry about being woken up about this."

"Then we don't have to tell her! I know where her keys are! Right next to the back door she never locks and is easy to pick when she does remember to lock it! She'll never know! Please."

"Please!" Pearl chimed in.

Athena just continued to hard core cold stare him down as if to say, "fuck licenses and cars I'll get there someway regardless of your laws, traffic laws, the laws of thermodynamics, any and all of them laws—they all mean shit to me."

Dear lord, how did these people always find him? What about him attracted such strong personalities?!

He groaned loudly, covering his face with his hands. "Ok I have one condition— I'll go but all of you have to stay here. And go to bed. And Trucy you have to get the keys because frankly that's a tad illegal."

She tipped her hat, finally forcing a smile "That's what I do best!"

"That is NOT the kind of thing a father wants to hear."

"He won't go with you," Athena cut in. "He's not going to suddenly trust you and humbly accept the help he needs; that's weak."

Phoenix gave his best courtroom bluff smile. "Ms. Cykes. Are you honestly questioning my persuasive abilities right now?"

She continued in her attempt to stare him down, only this time he had no reason to look away. He could have sworn she actually growled at him, but he was not about to confront her about it.

"Look. You showing up at the same location as all the traumatic stuff might just push him over this edge you've been alluding to. Right? You don't want to spook the poor boy do you? Alternatively, seeing you might just make him want to be stronger or whatever. Stupid male pride stuff, you know?"

That finally got her to break her death stare.

He clapped his hands and rubbed them together, standing up. "Right, that's settled then. Trucy let's go get some keys. Ladies I expect all of you to be asleep when I get back, or at least, for my sake, pretending to be asleep, m'k? Oh, and don't let Athena out of her…blanket until I've been gone for at least fifteen minutes."

Pearls bowed, finally tear-free, shyly smiling. "Ok ."

Trucy tipped her hat, "Right-o daddy-o!"

"Athena?"

"Mmmnnm."

"Well that's close enough I guess. No more crying either! Anyway, bye!" Phoenix waved, setting out on what turned out to be quite a harrowing adventure.

[Pearls, Trucy- 13ish/middle school (b/c they grew up too fast!)] [Athena-20] [Simon-26][Phoenix- 31]

[a/n: several minor changes to canon-ish material— 1. disregard the extra post-credit cut scene thing. 2. housing. all the characters probably live in apartments downtown…but for the sake of this fic Phoenix and Trucy live in the suburbs. just wait- it will make so much sense. 3. ages (biggest change)— let's face it, aging in these games make NO sense, like no one looks their age. so at end of each ch i'll include relative ages of ppl involved in each ch. these are mostly non-canon ages, so…? 4. Cykesquill timeline: so during the HAT-1 incident Athena was 11 (she looked like 8 tbh) and Simon 21? so add 7 years in prison and they're 18 and 28 during the game (but they sure don't look it )…let's put him in jail for 10 years and decrease the difference in their age just a little bit so she was 10, and he was 16. That's not too far-fetched since Fransizka became a prosecutor at 13 and Klavier at age 17 b/c LAW…?…that gives Athena more time to completely change her personality and become a peppy lawyer; and makes Simon miss the huge chunk of time when people learn how to be an adult. whoops.]

[then whole Themis academy would also be more logical…like the whole program is 6 years—the first two as "high school," last four as "law school"…b/c where can you get prepare for a bar exam in high school? apparently Europe acc these silly games]