Admit it, you all thought I'd forgotten about this, didn't you?
. . . Well, I actually did for a little while. XD Sorry for the late update. I'm even sorrier for the pathetic state of this chapter. I had writer's block, but I needed to finish this soon, and, um. . . yeah. (end fail)
lazyguy90: I think you might be psychic. Both Ema and Klavier are in this chapter, and yes, I'd decided this before your review. Weird. . . XD And a lot of old characters show up in this fic, for reasons you'll see in this chapter. -nods-
LoganEcholls: Thanks. :) I find I have trouble writing the characters from Apollo Justice, so I take encouragement from your review.
WritingPurple: Cat!Phoenix is awesome. -nods- I couldn't resist adding the Charlie thing in there; it stands to reason that Maya'd be happy that he's still around, really. :) I was kinda happy myself when I saw Charlie was still around in Apollo Justice. Which is weird, really, since he's just a plant. o_o
3. Reunion
A half hour after Phoenix and Maya left, Apollo was getting suspicious.
He was sitting out in the kitchen, trying to read the newspaper. Trucy and Pearl had been in the young magician's room for the past thirty minutes, after telling Apollo sternly not to come in. It was silent except for the hum of the fridge behind him, and this worried him. Under normal circumstances, you could hear Trucy from her room as clearly as you could if she were standing right next to you, but he heard nothing.
Unnerved, Apollo set down the newspaper and went to check on them. He opened the door to Trucy's room and stuck his head inside to find Trucy lying on her bed, writing something on a piece of paper. Pearl was sitting cross-legged on the floor, her face screwed up in concentration as she said to Trucy, "Um, I can't remember."
"That's okay. We'll look in a--" Trucy, realizing that Apollo was there, clamped her mouth shut, gazing at him with reproach. Pearl turned to look and, catching sight of the young lawyer, gasped.
"What're you doing?" he asked suspiciously, opening the door wider so he could step inside. Leaning against the wall, he stared at Trucy, silently daring her to lie to him.
"N-N-Nothing," stammered Pearl, uncrossing her legs and standing up.
The bracelet that Apollo wore on his wrist suddenly tightened. Trucy sighed. "Don't lie to him," she told the spirit medium. "He can tell."
Pearl covered her hand with her mouth. "You have a magatama too, Mr. Justice?" she asked. Then her eyes widened. "You got a magatama from Mystic Maya, didn't you?"
Apollo saw her hands ball into fists. "No, no, no, I don't have a magatama!" he said quickly, taking a step backward. Pearl unballed her fists, but she still watched him suspiciously. ". . . What the hell's a magatama, anyway?"
Pearl reached for a nine-shaped bead hanging from a cord around her neck and held it up so Apollo could see it. "If you charge it with spiritual energy, you can see people's secrets," she explained. "You can tell when they lie, and you can break the Psyche-Locks that guard the secret."
He stared at her, uncomprehending what she had just told him. Trucy leaned forward, staring intently at the magatama, biting her lip.
"I think I've seen one of those before," she said slowly.
Pearl nodded. "Mr. Nick has one," she explained. "It was really Mystic Maya's."
Apollo decided to steer the conversation back on topic. "So, what were you two doing?" he asked, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall.
Trucy sighed. "We'll tell you as long as you promise not to tell Daddy."
"Or Mystic Maya," Pearl added.
Trucy was now giving him the same look he had given her not too long ago, the one that dared the other to lie. Apollo raised his right hand and said, "Fine. I promise not to tell Mr. Wright or Maya. Unless it's illegal, of course."
"It's not," Trucy assured him. She got up and handed him the piece of paper. He scanned it, raising an eyebrow at what he found.
"What exactly is this?" he asked.
"A list of phone numbers," Trucy explained. "It was Pearl's idea."
Apollo stared at her. "To make a list of phone numbers? That's what the phone book is for, you know."
"Anyway, these are all the numbers of Maya's and Daddy's old friends," Trucy continued. "We're going to call them all and invite them to the Gatewater. It'll be like a reunion for them!"
Apollo glanced at the list again. "Mr. Wright hasn't been in contact with any of them for seven years," he pointed out. "And their phone numbers may have changed. How do you know these are the right ones?"
"Mystic Maya still calls some of them. And the ones she doesn't call can be found in the phone book," Pearl told him, nodding.
"And Mr. Wright and Maya aren't supposed to know about this?"
Trucy and Pearl shook their heads. Apollo reread the list, shaking his head. "How're you going to convince them to come?" he inquired as he read. "A couple of them might be out of the country; why should they fly to America for this reunion?"
"Stop asking meaningless questions, Apollo," Trucy said with a grin.
"They're not meaningless," he retorted. "You just don't want to answer them."
"They'll come," Pearl assured him. "I know they will!"
Trucy poked him in the arm. "So, will you help?"
"Lemme guess; you need an adult to pay for everything, right?"
Trucy smiled at him ruefully. He took this for a yes and frowned. "You didsay that it was being held at the Gatewater, right?"
Pearl and Trucy nodded.
"This is the same Gatewater Hotel that Pearl and Maya are staying in, right?"
Again, the two teenagers nodded.
"And this hotel is the most expensive one in town, isn't it?"
Both of them nodded again. Apollo could already see the little money he had saved up disappear.
"I have the money," Pearl cut in. Both Trucy and Apollo looked at her.
"What?" they asked in unison.
Pearl shifted from one foot to the other. "I have the money," she repeated. "Mystic Maya makes a lot of money doing spirit channelings because she is the Master of Kurain. And Mystic Maya gives me some. I have enough to pay for it."
"That's not necessary!" Apollo said hurriedly, then cursed himself for being a nice guy. "I can pay for it all by myself."
Trucy grinned. "Nice try, but that muscle in your cheek that twitches when you lie gave you away. How about both of you pay for half?"
"And what'll you chip in?" Apollo asked her, raising an eyebrow.
The smile disappeared from her face. She dug in her pockets and produced a quarter. Handing it to Apollo, she said, "There you go! Twenty-five cents."
Apollo looked at the quarter. Then he looked at Trucy. Then he looked at the quarter again.
"A very large help," he observed sarcastically.
"Mr. Justice?" Pearl was tugging on his sleeve. He turned to look at her pleading face. "Please, let me pay for it. It was my idea. I already called before we left Kurain, to reserve Viola Hall. I checked the price with them, and I have more than enough. I was going to pay for it since the beginning."
"Really?" Trucy looked confused. Evidently, Pearl hadn't informed her about this part of the plan.
Pearl nodded and stared up at Apollo with wide brown eyes. "Don't worry about it, Mr. Justice. Okay?"
Somehow, Apollo didn't think he could win this argument. He nodded reluctantly. "Okay." Then he thought, It's a sad day where a certified lawyer can't even beat a sixteen-year-old in an argument.
Trucy attempted to push Apollo out the door. "Remember, don't tell Daddy or Maya," she reminded him. "I guess you won't have to help with this after all, so. . . bye."
Apollo didn't budge. He was looking at the list of guests, which he had kept in his hand during the whole conversation. At last, he said, still gazing at the paper, "You'll still need help. A couple of these guests are prosecutors, you know. Most prosecutors won't listen to a phone call from a sixteen- or fifteen-year-old."
"Which means. . .?" Trucy asked, raising an eyebrow suspiciously.
"We'll have to call Ema," Apollo replied, still not looking up from the list. "She's a detective; she might know where they are, and what their phone numbers are. It's worth a shot."
"That makes sense," Pearl conceded.
Trucy nodded. "There's only one problem, though. Do we know Ema's phone number?"
"Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. . ." Apollo racked his brains. He couldn't think of anything, so he added, "Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm." Then, finally, he shook his head. "No."
Trucy sighed, then went back to her bed. She lifted her pillow and threw it aside, revealing the phone book. Apollo stared at it as she picked it up and started leafing through the pages.
"You sleep with a phone book underneath your pillow?" he asked in a disbelieving voice.
Trucy shook her head. "Of course not. I hid it in here before Pearl came - she explained this all to me at the station, by the way - in case you saw me carrying the phone book to my room and wondered what I was up to."
"And look how well that plan turned out," he muttered to himself.
She ignored this. "She's probably not home, so we'll leave a message for her." Then, she added, "Found it."
Apollo took out his cell phone, checked the number in the phone book that Trucy was pointing at, and dialled it. The phone had rung twice when, to his surprise, he heard a click and a sneeze. "Ema Skye," a woman's voice said.
"Hey, Ema, it's Apollo. I have a question for you."
"If it's information about an investigation you want, I don't have it," she told him crossly. "I've been out sick for a couple of days. Go annoy Detective Gumshoe; he's in charge of any investigations going on."
"No, it's not about that!" Apollo said quickly before she could slam the receiver back in its cradle. "I want to know if you know Miles Edgeworth?"
Ema coughed. "The prosecutor? Not personally, no," she replied suspiciously. "Why? Are you facing him in court and want to know his tactics?"
Apollo gave a heavy, exasperated sigh. "Listen. I do not have any cases right now. This call has nothingto do with court. I honestly want to know if you know Mr. Edgeworth's phone number."
"Well, you could have said that earlier," Ema said. Judging by the tone of her voice, if she had been here in the room, Apollo could tell he would have been hit by a Snackoo. "No, I don't know his phone number. Why?"
It took him about five minutes to explain the situation. After a pause, Ema finally told him, "Well, I know Edgeworth's in the country right now, but I've never worked on a case with him before. I've only met him a couple of times, actually, and that was a long time ago. So, I'm afraid I can't help you."
"Do you know anyone who can help?"
Ema muttered something that Apollo didn't catch.
"Could you repeat that?" he asked, sitting down on Trucy's bed.
"The glimmerous fop, Gavin. He might know." Apollo could hear her munching on some Snackoos through the phone. "I have his number somewhere on my desk from some trial a while back. Give me a second."
Apollo rested the phone between his ear and shoulder and started turning the bracelet on his arm as he waited for Ema to pick up the phone again. Evidently, "a second" really meant "five minutes," because it took that long for her to find the number and tell it to him. After writing the number down, he thanked her and hung up.
"So, did you get it?" Trucy asked the minute he hung up.
"No." He glanced at the piece of paper he'd written the number on, then punched it into the phone. It rang twice before someone on the other end picked it up.
"Prosecutor Klavier Gavin." The voice that answered was that of a young male, and his accent sounded distinctly German.
Apollo sighed. "Hey, Klavier. Listen, I have a question for you."
"Is that you, Herr Forehead?" Klavier interrupted.
He sighed again. Being called "Herr Forehead" was starting to get old. "Yes, it's me. Now, can I ask the question or what?"
"Ja," replied the rockstar-turned-prosecutor.
"Do you know Miles Edgeworth's phone number? Or anyone else who might know it?"
There was a couple of seconds of silence on the other end. At last, Klavier said, "I think I might. Why?"
"Long story short, there's a reunion of sorts that Edgeworth's being invited to. Except we don't know how to contact him."
"I see." Apollo could hear Klavier thumbing through pages on the other end of the line. "I have a question, Herr Forehead. Why didn't you just look in the phone book?"
Apollo stared blankly ahead at the wall in front of him. At last, he said, "Damn."
Klavier snorted, then gave him Edgeworth's number and hung up. Apollo sighed and pressed the "End" button on his cell phone. "I got it," he told the two girls in front of him.
"Yay!" Trucy plopped on the bed beside him as he dialled the number Klavier had given him and watched him wait for someone on the other end to pick up. Apollo bit his lip and squirmed slightly, because he had just realized that, in a few seconds, he would be speaking to Miles Edgeworth, the Miles Edgeworth, Mr. Wright's ex-rival and famous prosecutor. Well, famous to those who cared about court, anyway.
Click!
"Uh, hi," Apollo began without letting the other person speak first. "Is this Mr. Edgeworth? I'm Apollo Justice. . ."
The invitations had (finally) begun.
I decided not to continue the conversation Maya and Phoenix were having in this chapter. I don't think I could have written it; I was stretching it just by writing this. It'll be in the next chapter, though. -nods-
So, now we know that there will be a reunion, and that Edgeworth is on the invite list. Any guesses to who else may show up will be appreciated. :) I already have the main ones that will be there picked out, but if someone comes up with a person that I hadn't thought of yet, I might add them in. It depends, though.