#............................................who knows maybe he believed kristoph not to be a murderer but a guy who gave him wrong info | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

wardencommanderrodimiss · 4 years

Text

Witches, Chapter 28: Themis school festival, redux. Nobody dies but everyone is depressed, up to and including yours truly, the author.

[Seelie of Kurain Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

[Witches Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

----

“I guess I should’ve learned my lesson the other day about your sense of timing,” Apollo says.

“You could’ve paid for a taxi,” Athena says. “Like you did the other day. You had options! You chose to accept a ride from me!”

“You could’ve learned your lesson from the other day, too, and not been late,” Apollo says.

“Hey, it’s not late unless the trial starts without me, or I get to the office after a client or Mr Wright has shown up.”

“Is that what we’ve expanded the rules to be now?” Apollo asks.

Themis stands quiet and empty, and cold besides. Even the campus itself seems more battered and worn than it was a few days ago; the wind has torn loose or knocked down a number of the posters and signs planted along walkways and on building walls, and no one has bothered to gather any of them. Athena picks up a crumpled, out-of-date advertisement for the mock trial and shoves it in her pocket until they find a garbage can.

“You wanna just wander around?” she asks. “We’ll find everyone after the mock trial and see who won.”

She had been so insistent on wanting to watch the mock trial the other day, but they’ve wrung every last surprise out of Juniper’s script and Apollo, at least, has no particular desire to head into the lecture hall and relieve some of the most stressful bits of their past two days in court. The photograph of Courte posed as the body for the mock trial autopsy report, and days later a victim for real. The arrow stabbed into her side, not merely held there by her own hand. “Sure.”

On the sidewalk out toward the dining hall, some enterprising student with colorful chalk scrawled INVESTIGATE ALL ADMINISTRATION NOW. “I guess Mr Wright was right,” Athena says. “They won’t be able to bury this scandal this time.”

“Gonna be a hell of a school year from here on out,” Apollo says.

“I wonder how Hugh’s doing,” Athena says. “I believe he didn’t know his grades were bought, of course, but I’m not sure all his classmates are going to believe him. And I bet some of them are gonna be pretty angry about it, and take it out on him.”

“Yeah.” Though Hugh’s attitude probably hasn’t made him many friends already, besides Robin and Juniper. He might be used to disdain from his classmates, not that it will make it any easier. High schoolers are cruel. And adults can be just as petty, so there’s not really ever any reprieve. Hopefully he can come back from this; hopefully he tells his parents to go to hell for it, and hopefully Robin and Juniper stick by him.

Chalk writing in another corner of campus reads WHO ELSE IS LYING? “I guess it’s probably equally possible that Means was or wasn’t the only person at the school involved,” Apollo says. “Like Mr Wright said, it depends on how the process of changing grades works.”

“It’s funny,” Athena says. “When he gets talking like that and it’s all - just seems disjointed and irrelevant, but then there’s actually buried in there that’s important.” She goes quiet, watching the trees bend in the wind, and she skips forward and stomps on a leaf blowing across her path. “When I first met Mr Wright I had no idea who he was - like, I knew all about Phoenix Wright, but I had no way of connecting this guy I’d just met who was like, weirdly chill about me being a kid who wanted to investigate crime scenes, to, y’know, the famous Phoenix Wright.” Apollo nods numbly, remembering his first time meeting Phoenix, and all of the twists and turns his opinion of the man took in one day. “He wasn’t what I expected. He’s still not what I expect.”

“He’s got a way of surprising you,” Apollo says. It’s the kindest, most truly honest thing he can say. He likes Phoenix, really, he does - he admires him still, sometimes. He’s also one of the most frustrating people Apollo has ever had the misfortune of knowing.

Athena laughs suddenly. “Man, can you imagine if Hugh wins the mock trial?” she asks. “I would love to be able to sit in on the lecture that Mr Wright is supposed to give. He’ll probably say something bonkers two minutes in and then get stuck having to explain all of his extremely niche life advice.”

“I shouldn’t be here,” Hugh says.

The classroom is a small one, on the second floor of the main building; Phoenix had no instructions on where his lecture is to take place, and no one seemed to be around to ask, so with Hugh trailing silently behind him Phoenix poked his head into every other room they passed until he found one with chairs that look comfortable enough.

“The terms are that the winner of the mock trial gets a special lecture.” Phoenix seats himself in a chair and drags another one over to kick his feet up into. Special lectures are probably better if they’re informal. “So unless it was your doppelganger who won the mock trial, here you are, the winner, and here I am, the…”

The teacher. God, why did he ever agree? Why did he ever think he could teach anyone anything?

Hugh flinches. Great start, Phoenix: mock the kid you’re teaching. “That was - that was so stupid of me,” Hugh says, “stupid like me, as stupid as everything else that I—” He puts his head in his hands. One of them is still bandaged heavily. “That I said that the People of the Hills are - creatures, and criminals, and I was just saying things but Juniper is one of them and I - she just has so many reasons to hate me now because of all the stupid things I’ve done!”

“You don’t believe what you said there, about the fae?” Phoenix asks.

Hugh jerks his head up, wild-eyed. “I was just saying things,” Hugh repeats, clutching the side of his neck. “I just wanted to say something that would convince Prosecutor Blackquill, and I figured, if he’s not one of them he’s close to it and he’s a criminal, so - I’m just afraid that Juniper might think that, if I had known this about her - that she’d think if I’d known she wasn’t human then I wouldn’t have wanted to protect her. And that’s not true at all. She’s my friend. She and Robin are both - I mean I’m surprised, sure, but they’re still Juniper and Robin.”

Phoenix nods. “Then you tell them that. You tell Juniper this doesn’t change anything. Tell Robin the same, too, just to make sure she knows. But you’re still wearing your friendship band, and they still are too. You made it through suspicions of murder with that friendship intact - this is just smaller stuff you’ve gotta work out now.”

“Thank you,” Hugh says quietly. His head sinks again. “But I still shouldn’t be here. The mock trial is for the students at the top of the class, and I’m not. It should have been someone else, not me! They should have figured out who and let them participate, not me! And I only won because I watched your two lawyers win and I borrowed all their strategies and theories! I basically cheated! Just like I tried to cheat by looking at the script and—” He waves his bandaged hand before grabbing at his hair with it again. “I shouldn’t ever have been in this mock trial!”

“Perhaps not,” Phoenix says. “Or maybe, if you didn’t think you were good to go, getting unearned hundreds, you could’ve been buckling down and learning and learning how to study better.” Hugh shifts his hands so that he can look at Phoenix, while still hanging his head like a kicked puppy. “If you weren’t coasting through on confidence, and maybe with your determination - because I can see you are determined to become a lawyer, just like a lot of kids I’ve known, don’t try and object to that - maybe you could’ve been best in your class if you knew your failings and knew to work with them and around them. We’ll never know now, but it could have been possible.”

“No it wouldn’t,” Hugh mumbles. “I’m an idiot, and I shouldn’t be here, and you don’t understand that.”

Phoenix laughs. He can’t help it. He doesn’t mean to - this is the side of him that he tries to keep from the public eye now, tries to keep from Athena, wishes he could’ve kept from Apollo - but he laughs anyway. Hugh’s not wrong that he’s a bit of an idiot. He’s just coming to the wrong verdict from that fact. “Hugh, I’m giving you permission to forgive yourself for all the stupid things you’ve said this week, because that is the stupidest thing you ever could’ve said.”

“Huh?” His bitter laugh, and his sudden sharp words, have startled Hugh into sitting bolt upright. “What do you even think you’re talking about?”

“I’m Phoenix Wright, nice to meet you,” Phoenix says, extending his hand, and unsurprisingly, not getting a handshake in return from Hugh, who appears even more confused. His eyes dart toward the door, considering whether to run, whether Phoenix is crazy and even worth talking to. “Tell me what you know about me, Phoenix Wright.”

Hugh shakes his head. “You’re a brilliant lawyer. You’ve had a lot of celebrity clients - Will Powers, Max Galactica, Matt Engarde. You’ve defended famous legal figures - Lana Skye, the Miles Edgeworth. You - you’re a genius, you’re a legend. Professor Means had us study so many of your cases and your strategies, how you pulled off every crazy victory. I can’t even - begin to - to compare, or to—”

“Stop circling around it and tell me what you know about me,” Phoenix says. “The thing everyone knows about me and avoids bringing up around me.”

Hugh blinks. He doesn’t say anything. He scratches his neck. He adjusts the bandage on his hand. Phoenix brings his feet to the floor and leans forward, staring Hugh in the eyes. “I was disbarred for double the years that I’ve been an active lawyer. Half of the legal world of Los Angeles is still convinced that I framed Kristoph Gavin twice. That is the first thing you think of when you think of Phoenix Wright, isn’t it?” Hugh freezes, sitting there like a statue. “Whether or not Means told you that was something to admire about me, using forged evidence, that’s still the first thing you think about me.”

Finally, Hugh nods. “He said it was a lesson about how you have to be careful,” he says. “How dirty prosecutors will use any tricks they can to trap you.”

“Yeah, that’s kinda what I figured,” Phoenix says. “Wrong lesson, as I’m sure you’ve guessed. I did use falsified evidence, but I wasn’t the one that falsified it. Actually, the lesson is still about being careful, honestly.”

“Like when Professor Means gave me the audio tape that he made,” Hugh says glumly.

“Exactly like that,” Phoenix says. Hugh stares at the floor. Phoenix sits back and drops his head against the back of the chair. “In all honesty, Hugh, I can’t tell you if you should or shouldn’t be here. That decision is yours, whether you want to stay or go. It’s not going to be easy - not, I’m not talking about - okay, the Bar isn’t easy. I’ve taken it twice, I know. But everything you do - this bribery scandal, your grades, most people aren’t going to care whether you knew or didn’t know, if it was your parents or you. They really won’t care. This is going to be attached to you for the rest of your life - wherever you go from here, whatever your career becomes, whatever you do. You will always have this blemish on your name. You will never get away from it.”

Phoenix Wright, attorney, asterisk.

Hugh’s shoulders slump even lower.

“It has to be your decision, whether being a lawyer is something you want strongly enough to spend your career fighting past this perception of you. I can’t decide that for you.”

“You decided that for you, then,” Hugh says. “You decided it was more important than everything that people say about you.”

Phoenix hesitates. Did he? Or did Edgeworth decide that for him - or did Phoenix decide that Edgeworth was more important than everything that people say about Phoenix? “What I can tell you is that you’re not the only person struggling with - you’re not the only one who’s got to live with past mistakes defining you, however you’ve grown past that. And I’m not your only company, either.”

Is this a damning indictment of the state of their legal system, or just a statement of the very bad luck of everyone Phoenix and Edgeworth have ever met?

“Like Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth - if you know anything about the trials in which I defended him and Prosecutor Skye, you know what his reputation was. I know two brilliant prosecutors forever marred by sharing a name with a father who committed unforgivable crimes.” And Sebastian shares this exact schooling situation with Hugh, too. “And of course, there’s another brilliant prosecutor who’s here at this school today who has to share his name with all the wrongs his brother did.”

And share a face, too. Doppelgangers.

Hugh stares back down at his feet, his hands tightly gripping his neck, his elbows pulled together in front of his chest. “I think,” he says weakly, just barely peering up at Phoenix over his glasses. “I think - I still want to be an attorney. Even if I have to start over. Even if this is the first thing everyone thinks of when they hear my name.” Dropping his arms, he sits up straighter. “Juniper and Robin and I all promised that we were going to help make the legal system better. I still have to help them. And I want to be able to be like Ms Cykes and Mr Justice, winning honestly and finding the truth. I want to be as good as they are.”

A lump rises in Phoenix’s throat. Pride, and shame. They’re damn good kids, and what is he? Setting them loose because if he keeps away he might not repeat that laundry list of mistakes he made with Apollo with Athena. (Might. No guarantees. Will probably screw up in new terrible ways instead.) Keeping secrets from them, carefully skirting around the edges of lies.

“I’m glad,” Phoenix says. “Face it head-on. It won’t be easy, but I hope you’ll find it’s worth it.”

“So Hugh won, then,” Athena says.

When the crowd starts spilling out of the main building, they determine the mock trial has ended and force their way upstream through the students back to the lecture hall, where they find Robin and Myriam have lingered. “He did!” Robin says, without a shred of disappointment. She’s practically bouncing as she said it. “I can tell he learned a lot from you, man! And how much ass you kicked yesterday! And I mean,” she continues, giggling, “I can’t quite pull off Prosecutor Blackquill’s thing. I’ve gotta learn to be scary!”

“I don’t think you need to do that,” Apollo says. “I think you should stick with your strengths.” Whatever those are. Pottery, and loud shouting. Apollo doesn’t know about the former, but the latter is a valid, tried-and-true tactic and a proud tradition.

“Oh! Thena! Hi!” Juniper emerges from the audio booth, her arms full of the blue and white fabrics of her costume. “You made it! I have to run now though. Since he doesn’t have to teach a lecture to Robin, Prosecutor Gavin thought it would be good to use the time for extra practice.” Hefting her costume up further in her arms, her voice lowers and she reluctantly adds, “Which is good because I didn’t practice last night even knowing I’d have to sing today.”

“Understandable,” Apollo says. “I was exhausted last night, and I wasn’t the one on trial.”

“But you and Thena were doing all the work.”

“Don’t worry so much,” Athena says to Juniper. “You’re gonna do great, I know it!”

“Oh, and if Prosecutor Gavin starts to get snippy with you, don’t worry about it being your fault,” Apollo says. “That’s just how he gets when it comes to performances. Turns into a prissy diva, but don’t let it get to you.”

“O-oh, okay.”

Apollo very suddenly gains a certain clarity that tells him that his warning is only going to stress Juniper out more. Well, shit.

“Prosecutor Gavin, really?” Robin asks, watching Juniper scurry off and the last stragglers empty out of the lecture hall. “He seems so calm cool and collected!”

“Yeah, Trucy and I once thought that, too,” Apollo says, mostly to Athena, who was absently nodding along with Robin’s statement. “And then we learned better.”

Myriam pulls one arm back within her box and produces a notepad and pen, which she begins scribbling on. Does she have a storage pouch within there for her journalistic tools? “Are you writing that down?” Apollo asks. “Don’t write that down.”

“You can do so much better than being a trashy tabloid reporter!” Robin says.

Myriam hisses like a disgruntled cat. “But it’sss what I’m good at!”

“So I guess it’s just us for the moment, then?” Athena asks. “Where are we headed next? What’s there to do at a school festival, anyway?”

“You’ve never been to one?” Robin asks. She marches off toward the doors and waves for everyone to follow her. “There’s lots of food, for one, and I am starving, so I think that should be our first priority.”

“I skipped high school,” Athena says. “Or - I guess I sort of speed through it. I didn’t take the time to do much but study law and psychology.”

“Really?” Robin asks. “I figured you went to some other school like ours! Not just went on your own like - wasn’t that lonely? Or boring? Forget what my parents want, if I’d been trying to do this all alone without Juniper and Hugh, I for sure would’ve quit already!”

“Lonely?” Athena repeats, frowning and then twisting her mouth to the side. “No, I guess I never really felt lonely, since I was - I knew this was something that I wanted to do and I needed to do and I wasn’t going to let anything stop me. It never really crossed my mind, that I was doing it alone.” She smiles, a little sadly. “And then eventually I met Mr Wright, and Prosecutor Edgeworth, and then I knew I definitely wasn’t alone anymore. I had people I could ask all my important questions of!”

Envy coils tight in Apollo’s chest and he tries to strangle it. Just be glad for Athena, he tells himself. Be glad for her that she’s not had an intimidating boss she was afraid to ask too many questions of, who turned out to be a murderer. Be glad for her that she’s had Apollo also here to help, instead of just relying on a fifteen-year-old with no legal aspirations.

“You’re so lucky,” Robin sighs. “Not a single one of the prosecutor teachers here has any force of personality what-so-ever. That’s why we got sucked into the Courte-slash-Means cults of personality too. What are we gonna do, care at all about our own professors? Puh-lease!”

“Maybe going forward you shouldn’t go making cults of personality around people who might be fallible,” Apollo says.

Myriam hisses. “Ss-seems unlikely. It’s-sss how people are.”

“But being aware, you can definitely change it, right?” Athena asks.

“No,” Myriam says. Athena’s mouth flaps in abject confusion. So much for expecting some wisdom or a moment of self-reflection out of these kids.

Myriam has begun to explain to Robin that she doesn’t actually know who any of the prosecution course’s professors are.

Even now that it is filled with activity, the campus still holds a subdued energy. Athena’s head swivels in every direction, toward every conversing group they pass. The emotions must be overwhelming to hear, and when they stop for a moment here and there, Apollo can properly people-watch, and even only hearing small snippets of the conversation, flickers of red flare up across his vision. A hand clutching a phone tightly while arguing with a classmate, a bouncing knee or a fingernail chewed, Apollo isn’t listening and doesn’t want to listen - he doesn’t want to hear anyone say that Means was framed or Juniper isn’t innocent, doesn’t know if it will happen but wants to take himself as far away from the chances of it as he can - and still. Still he notices. Is he getting better at this? A stronger sight? He doesn’t want to be better at it. He doesn’t want to know if he isn’t watching for it.

He wants to be normal when the case is over, but that doesn’t happen. Not at the Wright Anything Agency.

Hugh carries himself differently now. Even with the mock trial win under his belt, the arrogance he held himself with is gone. The realization that he wasn’t a genius clearly hit hard - a gut-punch of an attitude adjustment - but Apollo hopes he can learn humility from this. Maybe there’s a certain relief in no longer pretending. Everyone knows. Everything about all three of them - Hugh, Robin, Juniper - is out in the open now.

(And then there’s still Myriam, within the box, and Phoenix’s blue eyes piercing through the cardboard shell.)

“Trucy called, said she’ll be coming around soon.” Phoenix leans up against the side of the building, his suit jacket folded over one arm. “I’ll probably catch up with you kids later, but I won’t hang around now and cramp your style, don’t worry.” He reaches out and grasps Hugh’s shoulder. “Hugh, very nice to meet you. Good luck.”

“Yeah,” Hugh says. “Thanks for - er.” He looks at everyone else standing there. “Um. Thanks.”

“Now go have some fun,” Phoenix says, waving them off. “You all deserve it, now shoo. And oh, Apollo, if I don’t get the chance, tell Klavier I say hi, when you see him.”

Apollo waits for him to toss the magatama over, but he doesn’t. Maybe he forgot it, or maybe he figures that since he’s got a performance, a whole crowd to be watching, this is one time that Klavier won’t disappear.

As the late afternoon wears into evening, heavy clouds gather, the bright hues of the sunset reaching out from behind their dark masses paint the exposed sky. The chill in the air drops to cold, and Apollo wonders if he’s the only one who notices, the only one whose teeth are chattering - shit, he’s thinking about Means’ teeth again, and if in the long run this haunts him more than an actual fucking yokai trying to kill him that’s gonna be some sad sort of funny. (Ask Athena about the psychology of that.) No one else says anything about being cold. Too excited to notice, and Apollo, at a frankly normal level of anticipation, is the only one shivering. The only one with an issue for any reason with the decision to camp out a spot not far from the stage, long before the concert starts.

Trucy finds them there, and tells them she would have forced them to stake their claim if they hadn’t - Apollo negotiated their location out from under the scaffold-mounted speakers, and that’s more kindness to his ears than he expected they’d be willing to give. The stage lights rise, the screaming begins, and Apollo braces himself.

The show is shorter, and much less flashy, than at Sunshine Coliseum, and that suits him perfectly. Out in the open air, the sound dispersed easily, and even at its peaks the music is a tolerable volume. Phoenix only shows up during the penultimate song. The friendly hand he has extended to Klavier does not reach his band, or his music. Apollo can’t blame him - he still isn’t a fan. Sure, some of it - a lot of it - is catchy, but that doesn’t make it suddenly to his tastes. Or even good. Gavin is talented at what he does, which is making entertaining songs, though again, fine art they are not.

(Trucy always tells him he protests too much. Apollo tells her she has no idea what she’s talking about, shut up.)

When the rest of the Gavineers disappear offstage, silence hangs suspended over the crowd, the briefest breath of respite, the last echoes of screams and applause bouncing faintly off of the surrounding buildings. Klavier remains alone under the spotlights, radiant in the blinding white lights, and stepping away from the microphone, he waves Juniper up beside him. In her stage gown, she practically glows, the luminescent exterior of her cloak shining as the fabric swirls with her every movement. Trucy gasps and smacks Apollo’s arm. Phoenix glances over at them and his mouth turns up in a wry smile.

Juniper doesn’t sound like Lamiroir, and in Apollo’s not-very-musically-inclined opinion, she doesn’t sound like she’s trying to sound like Lamiroir either. That seems the better choice: no one else can ever sound like Lamiroir, so there’s no reason to invite the comparison more than necessary. Without a piano backing, right from the start the song already has such a different feel that it further dissuades the comparison. One thing for certain: the shy girl they met earlier this week has a hell of a voice, when she gets to using it. And Apollo joins as enthusiastically in the raucous applause as everyone else.

When the last notes fade out into the dusk, Juniper ducks her head for an immediate retreat. Klavier doesn’t let her; he springs up and catches her hand before she goes far, swinging his arm up and raising hers high. He waves to the crowd, motioning upward, and the cacophony swells with him. “Themis!” he shouts, leaning into the microphone, his voice still barely rising over the cheers. “One more time for your very own Juniper Woods!”

Athena and Robin are definitely trying to outdo each other as the loudest, most supportive friend. After a moment, Hugh drops his veneer of sophistication and joins in. Trucy slaps Apollo on the arm again, grinning wickedly, and starts a countdown on her fingers for the two of them to show up their friends. Athena, laughing as she does, claps her hands over her ears and yells something back at them that is drowned out in the rest of the noise. She shoves Trucy, and Trucy hits Apollo in the back, trying to use them as a wedge to shove their way up through the crowd to the stage. This maneuver sees limited success. Instead they are forced, as is everyone else, to wait, slowly shuffling to the stage for autographs or to scream love confessions or whatever fans of bands do, Apollo doesn’t know. The only other concert he’s ever been to had a murder at it.

“Junie!” Athena squishes herself up against the side of the stage, stretching herself up to her friend, who crouches down to take Athena’s hand. “That was amazing! You were amazing!”

Juniper laughs nervously. Her face is pink, and that might be embarrassed anticipation of the compliments that her friends are going to lavish upon her head, and it might also be the exhilaration and the hot stage lights. “Thank you, Thena.”

“Your voice!” Robin gushes. “You have the most wonderful voice, Juniper! I can’t believe it! Except of course I totally can, because it’s you!”

Juniper ducks her head into her knees, her hood falling entirely over her face. She mumbles something, muffled by the fabric and all the other excited clamor. “Ah, look at you, lucky Fräulein, and your little gang of groupies out to support you.” Klavier leans over her shoulder, grinning down at them, his hair tumbling in messy sweaty curls around his face. Apollo hates him just on principle, just for the sake of it. “I see everyone made it.” He sweeps his hand back through his hair, pushing away all of the loose stray hairs stuck to his forehead.

“Groupies?” Juniper echoes in confusion, lifting her head.

“Groupies!” Athena repeats happily. “Junie’s groupies!”

“Ah,” Juniper says, and she tumbles backwards out of her crouch to sit on the stage, looking up at Klavier. “Do - do you need help? Is there anything I can do to get everything put away?”

Klavier shakes his head. “No need, but thank you. We have a system.” He straightens back up, looking over the stage, and his bandmates also assailed by the crowd. “Short a man, now,” he adds darkly, “but easier to do it ourselves than try to bring someone in. And besides, with this crowd, it will be quite a while before we’re even able to break away from the greeting to do anything else. You go spend some time with your friends, Fräulein. Get some rest - it’s been quite the week.”

Juniper inches to the edge of the stage and Athena offers a hand to her to help her down. “It was very nice to get to sing with you, Prosecutor Gavin,” she says. “Maybe we’ll run into each other again in better circumstances.”

“One hopes,” Klavier replies. “Until then!” He steps back, with a jaunty wave and a wink. “The rest of my fans await me, ja?”

He bounds back across the stage, leaving Apollo without the chance for a word. “He’s kind of a douchebag, isn’t he?” Hugh says. That’s rich, coming from him.

Juniper shakes her head. “He’s actually kind of sweet,” she says. “Though he is also a bit…” She trails off, glancing to Apollo for help, obviously remembering the warning he gave her earlier.

“Of a diva?” Trucy chimes in. “High-strung? Perfectionist? High-strung perfectionist diva?”

“Er,” Juniper says, eyeing Trucy in puzzlement. “Yes? But um, I’m sorry - who are you?”

Juniper is something of a celebrity among her classmates now, for the good and the bad - the group of them with her in tow can barely make it one step before someone else assails her with a question about what being a defendant was like, or compliments on her singing. Making their way free of the stage area, away to somewhere quieter where they’ll all have room to breath, is a long, laborious process, and all the more difficult when Juniper’s glowing robe lights her up even between the scattered pools of lamplight. Myriam is the first to come up with an idea; she helps Juniper shrug off the cloak and bundles it up into a tight ball and brings it under her box with her, freeing them to escape under cover of darkness.

“So how long do we have to be friends before we get to see your face?” Robin asks Myriam. They’ve commandeered a picnic table on the edge of campus, piled with all the foodstuffs that Athena and Robin and Trucy managed to snatch from wherever they passed. “I bet you’re really pretty!”

The crunching beneath the cardboard box abruptly stops. Myriam had relinquished her hold on Juniper’s cloak, not wanting to get crumbs on it, and Athena currently wears it inside-out to accentuate her usual yellow style with some extra, luminescent, yellow. “No,” Myriam says. “I’m - I’m not. You don’t want to sssssee.”

Does she go to class with a box over her head, too? Or does Robin just not have any classes with her? “Myriam, look,” Juniper says. In the dark, next to Athena, she looks yellow, but she stretches out her hand over the table and asks, “Does someone have a light?”

Apollo is the first to get his phone out; under white light, Juniper’s skin is clearly green, a light, soft green, healthier than the other shades she showed in the detention center. Her fingers don’t have claws but her nails are white, like they were polished, and particularly shiny. In her white ruffled gown, her shoulders bare - she isn’t cold, of course she isn’t, Klavier doesn’t get cold either - and her wavy hair loose, she appears to Apollo how he might imagine a nymph of Greek myth. A tree spirit. (Juniper Woods - what a name.)

“We’re all a bit—” Juniper shrugs and touches the pointed tip of her ear. “It’s okay. Even if you don’t want to, or whenever you do.”

Myriam hisses wordlessly, but nothing about it sounds like a threat or maliciousness. Just an acknowledgement that Juniper is speaking to her. “We’re all a biiiiit weird,” Robin adds cheerily. “Maybe not these lawyers” - she waves a disapproving finger at Apollo and Athena - “but us Themis kids! And that is cool, I will have us know!”

If she had any idea of how fundamentally weird and fae the Wright Anything Agency actually is—

“Ah, um, Juniper,” Hugh says. He has been silent most of the day, alternating between intently watching the conversation go by, and zoning out so far that Robin kept count of how many times she could say his name before he would react. (Record: eight.) “There was something that I’ve been meaning to say to you.”

“Huh?” Juniper must at least suspect what is coming, with that fearful look in her wide red eyes. She’d heard that rumor too, and Myriam starts upright with a soft thwap as her hand hits the inside of her cardboard box.

“Juniper, can - can we still be friends? Best friends, the way we all were?”

“Huh?” Athena asks.

“That’sss not—”

“Hugh?” Juniper asks.

“When I won,” he says, “I was going to tell you that I’m not a genius at all, and that I’m actually sort of twenty-five, but that all came out at the trial, so I just have to ask now if - if we can still be friends, if you still even want to be friends, or if there’s all these stupid things I’ve said, and done, not knowing, and that’s why you never told us this about yourself—”

“Sort of?” Widget echoes and Athena snarls something unintelligible at it and closes a hand around it like she’s going to strangle it. She does, however, when the momentary anger at her interrupting machine passes, still look very confused.

“Hugh,” Juniper says sternly. “And Robin too.” She folds her hands together, fingers intertwined, and clenches them tightly. “I wanted to tell you both, so badly, and I just couldn’t figure out how. I was scared - it wasn’t anything you said or did. I always was just going to be afraid. And I - I understand, completely, the things you’ve said. The Gentry are terrible,” she adds. “And cruel. I know that too. That side of my family was cast out. My parents are dead and my grandmother turned into a tree.”

Athena’s mouth opens with a soft pop and hangs open, her jaw moving back and forth as she searches for words that she ultimately can’t find. Apollo can’t put together a question either, and if he could he wouldn’t ask now. He sees on Juniper’s face that this, however strange, almost laughably strange, it sounds, that this is raw, painful, and she’s opening up her heart for six people to hear. However much detail she wants to give is up to her, and he won’t be the one to press for more.

(But he’s definitely going to ask Athena later, if she ever finds out more from Juniper.)

After several seconds of silence, Hugh says, “I thought I could just - get in and out. Just wander back out. And then when I didn’t I thought it was - a couple years. Two or three maybe.”

“Time passes differently there,” Apollo says. Trucy nods solemnly.

“Time in—” Athena looks from her to Hugh, and then to Apollo. “You mean in - in Faeryland?”

“Yeah,” Apollo says.

Hugh folds his arms. “You were the one that asked that question in court, after the prosecutor mentioned my age,” he says, in a slightly accusatory manner. “Whether I was actually twenty-five or had spent a time - elsewhere.” Apollo has no idea what he’s being accused of, but it doesn’t sound good.

“Hugh,” Juniper says. “Robin’s right. We’re all weird.” Her eyes dart nervously over at Apollo, waiting to see if he takes offense to that. He nods. He’s weird. He knows that. He’s weirder than anyone knows. He’s weirder than he himself knew. “And some of us are going to know weird things. It’s going to happen. It doesn’t mean anything bad.”

What was Hugh’s first impulse - expecting that Apollo is fae? That he’s been involved with spiriting humans away? Can Hugh not tell that Apollo is human - does spending seven years there not grant someone the Sight? There’s nothing about Hugh that Apollo would describe as even vaguely charismatic or glamorous - does stumbling in as a teenager not change a person the way that Klavier was? Apollo should ask Klavier if he knows.

Juniper’s defense doesn’t do much to lessen Hugh’s suspicious glare, and Athena still looks deeply curious, resting her chin on her hand and staring at Apollo. He sighs. “I know someone who was taken and explained that to me,” he says.

Athena nods, satisfied, but now Trucy is the one with the intent, piercing stare. Apollo glances away. She’s not going to let that go easily.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t properly answer your question,” Juniper says suddenly. “Hugh. Of course we’ll still be friends, but I don’t want it to be like we used to be. How we argued, and all the secrets we had from each other.” Her eyes turn down to her hands, and the friendship bracelet on her wrist. “I don’t want any more secrets. And I want us to work together - Myriam too - so we can make a better legal system, where we’re fighting for the truth and not victory. And we’re not trying to justify our methods by our end results.”

She’s taken particular care to avoid that particular “ends justify the means” phrasing. “Hell yeah, I’m in!” Robin says. She holds out her hand, and Juniper reaches out and takes it. Hugh clasps his over theirs, and after a moment of hesitation, Myriam tentatively places her hand on the pile.

“We’ll make Professor Courte proud,” Juniper says. She doesn’t draw her hand back right away, leaving her open palm facing upward on the table, and then she slowly curls her fingers closed. “Prosecutor Gavin mentioned the memorial for her. I’d like to head over there.”

Themis has begun to empty; they still pass other groups of students, but those tend to be smaller and quieter, more subdued as the night has gone on. The stage is empty when they pass, the crowd long scattered. Trucy grabs Apollo’s elbow and drags him far behind their small procession. “I didn’t know you knew someone like that,” she says in a low voice. “Someone like my mother was.”

Her mother: stolen as a child, her soul stripped from her, and now - what is a soul without a body? Something close to death - something that wishes it could be dead? An unfortunate life that was to lead. “Believe it or not,” Apollo says, “I have a life where things happen to me and I speak with people while you aren’t around.”

Trucy grins. “I don’t believe that, no,” she says, and she lapses into silence, clearly receiving the message that Apollo isn’t going to tell her who. But as they amble on she seems deep in thought, tapping her chin, surely going over the list of everyone she knows Apollo knows - as if he doesn’t know anyone not of her mutual acquaintance - and wondering who could fit. Surely she’ll come up with Klavier as a plausible contender.

If she knows any of the traits that stolen children like him and her mother have - if she even remembers anything of her mother at all.

The memorial for Courte has expanded. Flowers spill out over the walkway, laying in bunches around the framed photograph of the professor that is itself nearly obscured by notes taped to it and stuck on it. Some of those notes are elaborate, tiny writing covering their faces; others are just a few words or a simple drawn heart. Someone moved one of Courte’s abstract sculptures here from the art room to sit behind her photograph. Almost buried in the midst of everything is the same photo of the professor and Juniper in the art room that became contentious evidence on the first day of the trial - hell, judging by the way the top edge of the photo is punctured and crumpled, it might actually be the printout that the prosecution used. He wonders who brought it here, if it was another piece of evidence that Klavier or Vongole repossessed. Or maybe Blackquill had heart enough to send his hawk out on a last errand for this case.

Juniper kneels down and sweeps up a dozen flower stems in her hands - some tulips and carnations, a large sunflower, all begun to wilt and wither at the edges of their petals. Apollo thinks suddenly about the flowers of faery rings, wonders if they ever wilt or if they remain, unnaturally enduring, until someone comes along with a matchbox and a past to lay to rest. Busy thinking, he nearly misses it when Juniper starts humming softly and the flowers cupped in her hands emanate a faint glow, all the colors of their petals, and like time rewinding the shriveling edges pull back together and the wrinkled surfaces smooth. Juniper sways and slumps to the side, dropping the flowers to catch herself with one hand. “I’ve never been very good at that,” she says. “But I wanted to try.”

She picks the flowers back up from her lap and lays them neatly at the base of the picture frame, sweeping aside a few other dead petals and leaves. Something clatters against the pavement and frowning, Juniper reaches out and picks up a simple metal ring. She holds it between her thumb and forefinger and stares through the center for a moment before, seeming to decide something, she sets it back down with the flowers she revived.

“Well, I think that was pretty good,” Athena says, offering Juniper her hand to help her back to her feet. “I’ve never seen anything like that!”

Juniper brushes off her skirt. “You probably haven’t seen much magic, have you?” she asks.

“Other than the time a bird-demon yokai tried to kill us - I mean, I didn’t actually see much of that, it was trying more to eat Apollo and Trucy.”

Was that metal ring iron? Is being half human enough to make one immune? She can’t be immune - the detention center affected her, and badly. Maybe she’s just human enough that the effects of iron aren’t so dramatically painful, and scarring. Like it did to—

Apollo wonders who that ring belonged to, anyway. Thinks back to the empty dark stage. Trucy gives Apollo a nudge, jarring him to go back over what was said after everyone decided there was far too much to unpack in Athena’s statement. Robin said that there was an exhibition set up of all of Courte’s latest works that never got the chance to be unveiled, along with some of the Fine Arts Club student members’ art pieces. Hugh suggested that be where they go next. “You all go ahead,” Apollo says, conscious of all of the eyes on him, and in particular the unnatural fae red of Juniper’s, and Myriam’s reflecting any faint bit of light. “I’m gonna - gonna go see if Prosecutor Gavin’s still around somewhere.”

“Sure thing,” Athena says, before anyone else, and Apollo wonders for not the first or last time what she’s heard, from him, from Klavier, if, someone holding the magatama excepted, Athena is the only person Klavier’s glamours can’t truly hide him from. (Her assertion that her ears aren’t magic is one Apollo thinks he could come to believe - if nothing else, for the fact that Blackquill doesn’t seem to be able to disrupt her. Or maybe he thinks the psychological analysis that Athena pairs with it valid enough to let her get away with it.)

“Just lemme know if you’ll need a lift home or not,” she adds.

“Sure thing,” Apollo says, and Trucy sticks her elbow straight into into his side as she passes him by. It’s like primary school. This is the productive way that primary schoolers engage with each other in regards to crushes. Apollo in his personal and professional lives is surrounded by children. This isn’t even a revelation.

And then he’s alone in the dark, and part of him wishes that he’d asked Trucy to come with him instead, because while there’s a lot she doesn’t know, there’s plenty that she does, and she’s better at people. Klavier’s her friend too, and she didn’t even get to say hi earlier. They could’ve just gone to check up on their friend together, and Apollo wouldn’t be second-guessing his every decision now.

He doesn’t even have any guarantee that Klavier didn’t take off and flee as soon as the crowd thinned.

He could just text him. If he knew what to say. Which he doesn’t. And while it’s also painfully awkward to not know what to say in person, he also figures that the principle of the thing is that, at least he’s there.

The stage’s dozens of grand lights have all gone dark by the time Apollo circles back. The outer lights on the main academic building faintly illuminate it, the little that there is to see. The banner overhead on the scaffolding proclaiming this to be Themis’ sixty-seventh school festival has detached at one side and flaps noisily in the breeze, and Apollo remembers several other colorful tapestries hanging off of the side of the building that have already disappeared. The huge speakers and the scaffolding itself wait to be deconstructed another day.

Apollo looks at the stage and finds himself looking everywhere around the stage.

He could laugh, remembering what Phoenix said once: Trucy had tried to distract him with a will o’ the wisp enough times that he knows when a glamour like Klavier’s is trying to fool him. He might still laugh later, because it could in some way be funny, how he’s been caught up enough in this to know.

But right now, staring at the ground to find his way to the stairs to ascend to the stage, it’s not really funny at all. His eyes won’t focus and he feels dizzy, wobbly, and off-balance forcing them in a direction they want to drift away from. If it gets any worse he might vomit, and he’s going for Klavier’s shoes if he does.

A moment after that thought passes through his head, the sensation starts to fade. He blinks a few times and presses a hand to his forehead, trying to shake himself back to normal. His eyes no longer roll, unwillingly, in directions other than where he aims them.

“I should have expected,” Klavier says.

Apollo looks down at Klavier, lying on his side behind the stage’s witness stand, where the microphone stood during the concert, his arm folded beneath his head, his hair loose and splayed about. Apollo remembers the crime scene photos, remembers that Courte’s body was here, behind the witness stand, on her side. Almost the same. But there isn’t any blood, and Klavier’s eyes are open, staring up at him through the dark.

“That he would—” Klavier stops and props himself up on his elbow, squinting at Apollo. “You don’t have it.”

“What?” Apollo asks.

“The magatama,” Klavier says. “He didn’t give it to you?”

“Oh,” Apollo says. “No.” He remembers that Phoenix told him to say hi to Klavier, and decides right now it might be better not to. Second pass in silence; he waits for Klavier to ask him how he found him, then, or why. Klavier’s arm slides out from supporting him, to rest his head on it again, and his eyes fall from Apollo’s face to the surface of the stage, vacant and empty. Maybe picturing Courte’s body there, or the banners soaking up her blood. He looks tired - so terribly, impossibly tired. After a moment, he rolls over onto his back, staring up at the sky.

Apollo sits cross-legged on the stage.

The sky is dark, devoid of light, and Apollo studies the starry backdrop of the stage. Whoever painted it didn’t concern themselves with making any real constellations. He doesn’t remember if Juniper, on her costume, had random patterns or did some research. It’s not like it matters, but it’s something Apollo takes note of anyway - a sign of how long he’s known Clay more than anything else. All the strange and sometimes stupid ways that chance meetings change people.

He looks at Klavier, whose eyes remained fixed on the sky.

Funny that, chance meetings.

Apollo spins his bracelet on his wrist, feeling the familiar grooves carved into the metal. Waiting for when Klavier decides he’ll say something.

The sky actually has the slightest bit of variation to it - the darkness of the sky, and the darkness of the clouds, two different shades, and the clouds shifting and parting with the cold wind. Winter, the fae’s horrible winter, is close on its way. Apollo shivers. Nothing about the prospect makes him happy.

“Means told me something interesting the other day.” Apollo doesn’t like the tone of voice that Klavier uses to say interesting. Not bitter, but promising nothing good, either. Apollo looks at him. He isn’t looking back at Apollo, has his face turned to the sky but doesn’t quite seem to be really looking at anything at all.

He waits, but Klavier doesn’t go on. “The second evening we were investigating?” Apollo prompts.

“So Herr Wright told you, then?”

“N-no, he didn’t - he wouldn’t say anything.” There’s something so dark in Klavier’s voice that makes Apollo nervous, leaves him scrambling to defend Phoenix with an urgency he usually doesn’t feel when it comes to Phoenix and his myriad recorded failings. Phoenix telling Apollo something is not a concern that Klavier needs to have. “Athena and I were at the detention center, talking to Juniper, and Means was there - still thinking maybe he could get the case from us, I guess. But Mr Wright showed up, asked to talk to Means - when Athena and I left, we heard them arguing. Neither of them named any names but Mr Wright was accusing Means of having - threatened someone, or - or trying to discourage them from investigating by - something he said. But when we asked Mr Wright about it, he wouldn’t say who they were talking about, or what was said.”

Klavier finally turns his head, enough to arch a doubtful eyebrow at Apollo. “What, you think Mr Wright ever says anything instead of just being a cryptic bastard about it?” Apollo asks, and that gets a snort from Klavier, blowing some strands of hair up off of his face. But he does look like he believes Apollo now. “But he - Mr Wright - he was furious. At Means, for whatever - whatever it was that he said.”

Klavier stares back at the sky, his lips pressed tightly together, pondering that. “A threat,” he muses. “I didn’t think it - well. I was not imagining Means a murderer either, so I was wrong in my understanding in several ways, I must imagine.”

“What did he say?” Apollo’s voice sticks in his throat, emerging a weakened squeak.

“That it was foolish and selfish of me to have returned here - that it is my fault that Frau Professor is dead - I suppose that must have been what your boss considered an attempt to—” He waves a hand above his head and even in the faint light Apollo notices as he gestures that there isn’t a single ring on any of his long fingers. “Fortunately I am far too stupid to even understand that his message was to make me - give up, or accept that my involvement in this case did more harm than good. I figured it to be some expression of grief, a lashing out, over his coworker’s death - but knowing that he killed her, and now that you mention it—”

Tell Klavier that Courte’s death is on him, and watch him break - the way Klavier broke when Juniper mentioned her after the trial. Crumble his resolve so that he doesn’t keep going and get that audio recording examined; as far as gambits go for the covering up of murder, this one is a stretch, but Means probably still got some satisfaction out of being able to hurt someone who was being an extra thorn in his side, one that never should have been there because he’s a goddamn prosecutor, and not the one prosecuting the case.

But there’s a lot Apollo still doesn’t understand, even as rising dread reaches out to stifle his next question. He almost doesn’t want to ask for clarification. He knows he has to. Closing a hand around his wrist, he digs his nails into his arm. “But - why would he say that? How could it have been your fault?”

“Oh, it’s very funny.” Klavier talks like Apollo isn’t there, like he’s talking to himself, tossing thoughts into the air and seeing what comes of them. “That when we first met that I should have tried so hard to warn you away from your office, that Herr Wright is cursed and should make it so much more likely to damn you to an early death - and that I sitting there telling you that am after all no better, or safer a person to be around. That I can see all around but in a mirror.”

Apollo thinks he knows what he means - he can’t mean anything else. But he isn’t quite saying it, either - would Athena call that a defense mechanism, some last moments of clinging to some sort of denial rather than saying the words directly - and much as Apollo doesn’t want to drag it out of him like this, he also wants to be sure. And whenever Klavier and Phoenix talk around a point, Apollo is never sure that it isn’t really actually some new fae magic thing he hasn’t been introduced to yet.

“You’re cursed?” Apollo asks. Klavier blinks his eyes closed and keeps them closed, and then he nods. Apollo swallows. His nails in his skin hurt. “By - b-but - who?”

A ragged laugh croaks from Klavier’s lips. “You know who,” he rasps. “Who else? Surely not the man who’s done this before!” There’s a near-hysterical edge to his voice that Apollo has never heard before. “He’s cursed people and killed people for their petty slights to his pride, and I am - stupid enough to assume that he could not hate me enough to treat me the same as he has everyone else who has had the misfortune to—”

“You’re not stupid,” Apollo interrupts.

“Blind,” Klavier says, “and naive.”

“That’s not—”

“When he didn’t end lives he ruined them, and I helped him do it!” Klavier pushes himself upright, his hair a mess and a wild glint in his eyes. “I was so proud, truly I was, to have played a hand in exposing the corruption of such a prolific defense attorney! To tell my professor that I was living up to her ideals and teachings - I was wrong!” He curls his head toward his knees, and digs his hands into his hair. Both of them, Apollo sees now, are bare of rings. “How could I come back here and face her when I was so wrong?”

Apollo shifts forward. He wishes he had a single word to say, that he knew would help, or even would just not make it worse. “Why should she forgive me?” Klavier asks. “Why should he—” He lifts his head up, and all the mania has bled from his face, leaving him nothing but distraught. “Why did he forgive me?”

Apollo doesn’t say anything, and even if he had anything to say he’s not sure that he could. All else aside, he thinks, Phoenix means well - he just never channels that into normal human words or actions. Klavier’s hands slowly uncurl from his head. He’s shaking. He laughs, sick and nervous and just as shaky. “Why am I - why didn’t this just kill me, instead?”

The lump in his throat is too big to swallow. Apollo shakes his head. He expects, for a moment, that Klavier will lash back out at him for his silence, for not having an answer to impossible questions. But Klavier doesn’t say anything more, or glance away again, just rests his arms on top of his knees and stares at Apollo over them, looking at him like Apollo’s done anything more than sit here stupidly quiet, growing sicker to his stomach and closer to sympathetic tears with every moment had he lets this digest. A bad question comes to mind, born of false hope that he’s sure Klavier would have already explored, and unable to stop himself from wondering and hoping anyway, Apollo asks softly, “Are - are we sure he wasn’t bluffing? Professor Means, I mean? Making it up to…?”

Means gleefully found Athena’s weak point and repeatedly jabbed her there until even Blackquill, master of the art of cruel underhanded cuts, offered Athena a hand to get her back on her feet rather than let Means win. Apollo wouldn’t put this past him either.

“I did wonder,” Klavier says. “Thought then perhaps it was just a lie he made lashing out in grief, which is why your boss heard of this.” He gives a small, dismissive wave. “I went and asked him. If it was true. If I’m cursed.” Shaking his head, he adds, “Even if he’d said nothing, the look on his face was all the answer I needed, ja?”

“Oh,” Apollo says. He has a little trouble picturing it, honestly - Phoenix, the poker king, ever careful to not let slip any expression he doesn’t want seen. “I - I’m sorry.”

A small sad smile twitches onto Klavier’s face, and Apollo kicks himself for not having been smart enough to say that much sooner. Silently, they watch the wispy clouds drift across the dark sky. “I expected,” Klavier says quietly, “for a moment when I saw you, that he told you what happened, and gave you that magatama for that purpose.”

He’s not quite wrong to suspect that Phoenix would be particularly - what’s the best word here? Nosy? Micromanaging? Or the other way to look at it, concerned? Phoenix has had that habit before. “No,” Apollo says. “But you explained to me how your disappearing act works, and when I noticed something not seeming quite right, I figured it was you.” Klavier snorts. “And we - me and Athena and Trucy and the Themis kids - Juniper wanted to go to the little memorial for Courte. She was kinda arranging the flowers left there and she found a - a ring like—”

“Like this?” Klavier says, lifting one hand and spreading out his bare fingers for Apollo to see. Apollo rolls his eyes with an exaggerated sigh and Klavier chuckles; the grin lingers for a few seconds before it slowly falls, and Klavier’s eyes turn downcast again. “Ja, well, I have little else to offer her memory, and what point lies in it for me when I am already cursed?”

“Stop yourself from being cursed again by someone else?” Apollo suggests. “I mean, I think Mr Wright - he’s been - multiple—” He remembers Phoenix once talking about how different curses land against each other, in the way he talks when he’s pretending not to be referring to himself.

“Ja,” Klavier says. “He told me my brother was not the first to hate him so.”

That’s surprisingly direct of Phoenix. Like Apollo is the only one he doesn’t say things to. “Well, there’s your point,” Apollo says. “For it to not get any worse.” He slides the ring from his finger and offers it back to Klavier, who, staring at his hands, doesn’t see him right away.

“Difficult as it is to imagine this getting any worse,” Klavier says darkly, but when he raises his eyes he notices what Apollo is doing and laughs sharply. “Nein, Herr Forehead, no need for that. I have not had the rest melted down for scrap, just left them at my apartment. You keep that. Keep yourself in one piece for me, ja? You’ve got no need to worry after me.”

Apollo remains unconvinced. He’s still going to worry. He’ll continue to worry, and he’ll press on that later, but a new thought has begun to eat at him, sinking teeth into his stomach and twisting until it hurts, nausea and anxiety and a sick nervous pain. And the anger, this same anger that he’s felt again and again, ever single goddamned time this happens. “Wouldn’t - wouldn’t Mr Wright have known about this? Before you asked? He could’ve Seen - he should’ve Seen—”

“We’ve crossed paths twice since I last saw my brother,” Klavier says. “Yes. He undoubtedly knew before I.”

“He should’ve told you,” Apollo says.

Klavier shrugs. “To what end?” Now he sounds casual, too casual, almost like the lack of care isn’t quite feigned, like all of Apollo’s justified bitterness and anger was leeched away from Klavier and leaving him with nothing at all to just shrug. Phoenix knew because Phoenix knows everything and Klavier knows that he knew and didn’t tell him and Klavier shrugs at it.

“The truth?” Apollo asks. The truth, because that’s what they’ve always been after, together, since they met. Since before they properly knew each other, since before they knew what the other was about, they were still chasing that same goal.

“And what of it? Justice was already served. Kris is already in prison, for the rest of his life, however short the state cuts it, for what he has done. I know that. What difference more does knowing this make?”

Apollo gapes at him. His head spins. He thinks about Klavier taking this stance with any other person, any other crime, and he can’t make this thought work. “This doesn’t sound like you,” he says, lacking anything else to say. This isn’t right, and he doesn’t know how to fix it.

“And who am I?” Klavier snaps back. “You think you know? You think I am to want to know that my brother hates me, ja? Just because that is the truth? I knew that! I know that!” He stands up, unfolding himself but only to assume a different defensive posture, arms folded and tightly clutching them, drawing himself up in a way that Apollo wonders if it’s a conscious choice or not, to mimic Kristoph. Apollo scrambles to his feet after him, searching his face for Kristoph’s and finding that it’s only pain that twists and contorts his expression. “‘Ignorance is bliss’ is not a mantra for our profession,” Klavier continues, “but I will tell you that it most assuredly is when it comes to them and their curses.”

“Right,” Apollo says irritably. He wants to scream, but not necessarily at Klavier - just scream, at nothing, at the world, at the great cosmic and fae injustices heaped on their shoulders. “Which is of course why you didn’t warn me about anything and let me blindly and ignorantly wander in way over my head.”

Professor Means didn’t accomplish what he meant to - he didn’t stop Klavier from investigating. He didn’t stop Klavier from helping to put him behind bars. But if he also meant to hurt him for daring to stick his nose where he didn’t belong, taunt him the way he taunted Athena, he succeeded. He still broke something in him. Maybe he’d done that as soon as he killed Courte.

Klavier works his jaw, a scowl etched deep into his face and brow. “Or is that somehow different?” Apollo asks. Another of Klavier’s particular and almost superstitious - if usually excusable - hangups about the fae? “Like—”

“Shut up!”

Apollo recoils, hitting his back against the stage witness stand. Even Klavier looks for a moment shocked at his outburst, but if it wasn’t what he meant to say he doesn’t apologize or backtrack. “You aren’t - of course it is different!” he snarls. “You had a chance to get out before worse happened, is why I told you! But this - listen to me, Herr Forehead - in everything I have ever been through, I have not heard even a whisper of a way to break a curse.”

Athena drives him home.

She’s wise enough not to ask specifics, and so for that matter is Trucy. “How’s Prosecutor Gavin?” is all she says when it’s the three of them in her car, Apollo relegated to the backseat because Trucy called shotgun and he has to respect her authority as the most senior member of the Wright Anything Agency.

“Not good,” Apollo says, and Athena frowns into the rearview, and Trucy turns and peers over the back of her seat, and that’s all there is on that topic. Out the window, Apollo watches the lights of the city blur by, rewinds the conversation in his head to play back every question that he shouldn’t have asked that led to what can’t have been the inevitable outcome. This could have gone any way if it weren’t for stupid Apollo, treating everything like a cross-examination to gather as much information as possible, no matter how the witness being questioned feels about those questions.

Surprise of the century, that it isn’t a great way to deal with upset acquaintances.

He stands in the lobby of his apartment building, phone in hand, finger hovering over the name in his contacts list. He already sent a text to Klavier - I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have pushed - and he wants to say more but he doesn’t know what and he’s trying not to shove his own foot deeper down his throat. Either he’ll figure it out himself, or he’ll swallow his pride and relay to Clay the gist of what happened to ask for advice.

(Klavier more-or-less stormed off while Apollo was still reeling, disappearing into the darkness and leaving Apollo to think that he should chase him down, not let him go off on his own in this state, but Apollo’s already made everything so much worse. He stood there on the stage alone, waiting while knowing that Klavier wasn’t going to come back, until Vongole loped up out of the dark up to him. She stood there with her shoulders hunched up and her head low, ears pressed back, like someone just kicked her. Her eyes as empty red as they are, she can’t do the puppy-dog eyes look, but Apollo would have sworn that was what she was going for, and he had no idea what she wanted or what he was supposed to do. After a few moments of that, she had seemed to shrink even further before his eyes and she turned, head drooping even lower, and slunk away. If she showed up trying to make Apollo feeling guiltier, than she damn well succeeded.)

And then there’s the other problem of the night.

Heart pounding shallowly in his throat, he presses his thumb to the screen and lifts his phone to his ear.

“Hello? Apollo?” Phoenix sounds - confused. Apollo wonders if Trucy told him the very little that Apollo told her. If maybe he’s guessed why Klavier is not doing well. “What’s up?”

“There’s something I want to talk to you about,” Apollo says. His heart is in his mouth now, too big and choking him. “In person, preferably.” So that he won’t try to lie. So that if he does, he can’t get away with it.

“I was planning to head into the office tomorrow morning to put together some stuff. Swing by sometime before noon and we’ll talk, all right?”

He doesn’t ask what it is that Apollo needs to talk about. Does he think he knows? Or, well, he probably does know. Or he doesn’t really care enough to ask in advance.

“Okay. I’ll see you then.”

His hands are shaking when he hangs up. He isn’t quite sure why - he’s asked questions of Phoenix about the fae before. He’s broached these topics before, confronted Phoenix about information he’s hidden before. This is just that, again. Same old, same old: Apollo drags every new fact about the fae out of Phoenix with more difficulty than he drags confessions out of murderers.

But if anyone knows the fae better than Klavier, if anyone could ever know a way to break a curse - it’s Phoenix.

#roddy fanfics #fic: the witches of los angeles #i've left the house twice in eight weeks and am finally being smacked about by The Depression over it #and work from home makes my back hurt bc there are no good chairs for it. i am so tired. i wanna take a nap with my dog.

7 notes · View notes

hotel-japanifornia · 4 years

Note

If Phoenix or Maya died instead of Mia, that would be a very sad AU to the entire series as a whole. Who knows what that would have done to her.

Well, I did write an AU where Maya got murdered by Redd White. I’m not going to act like my fic is the definitive of how Turnabout Sisters would have gone if Maya was the victim but I do think that it isn’t out of the realm of possibility that things would have gone that way. Mia for sure would have figured out that Redd White was the murderer and would have gone after him, and do anything in her power to take him down.

As for what happens to Mia after The Reversal of Sisters, well, here’s how the rest of the franchise would have gone at least in my view:

Mia finds out that Will Powers, the actor of the Steel Samurai was arrested for murder. Recognizing that name as the show that Maya loved so much, she takes the case because she knows that’s what Maya would want her to do.

Phoenix insists on tackling Turnabout Goodbyes on his own as he desperately wants to help his friend out. He loses because Maya isn’t around to call Lotta out on the validity of her testimony, and Edgeworth is found “Guilty” of murder. As a side note, Von Karma disappears and is never heard from again. Afterwards, Phoenix slips into a deep depression and Mia consoles him, the two comforting each other due to them both losing someone they care about deeply.

Mia ends up defending Lana at the request of Ema Skye. Lana is much more open to the idea of having Mia as her lawyer but still acts similarly cold and distant towards her as she did Phoenix. Mia, with Ema’s help, manages to defend Lana successfully, though she still goes to jail. At the end, Lana and Mia promise to stay in touch during the former’s prison sentence through writing letters.

The Kurain case never happens as there’s no Maya for Morgan to plot to get rid of. Instead, Dr. Grey goes nuts and tries to murder Mimi Miney who is disguised as Ini. He is arrested for attempted murder. The reason I think Grey would go after “Ini” is because he would want to take vengeance upon the sister of the woman who had in a sense, ruined his business. I also don’t think Mimi would have gone after Grey had he not suggested the channeling honestly.

The Lost Turnabout and Turnabout Big Top would have been taken by Mia. She offers both cases to Phoenix, but he’s still depressed after losing Edgeworth. She does manage to convince him to stand in with her during trial.

Mia would have no reason to take Farewell, My Turnabout. In actuality, I think that Matt Engarde’s case would have been taken by a public defender as everyone else is convinced of his guilt. The public defender loses the case and Engarde is found “Guilty. And as an added bonus, the public defender’s body is found the next day but nobody knows if their death was a murder or a suicide. You could argue that maybe Mia would have taken Matt’s case, but I’m not so sure. Engarde looked rather “Guilty” from the onset and if it wasn’t for DeKiller, I’m not so sure Phoenix would have taken it either…without coercion from Maya.

Diego wakes up in August 2018. Mia, scared of losing him again, proposes to him very soon after he wakes up. The two of them marry and Phoenix is the man of honor.

Soon afterwards, Diego joins the Fey & Co. Law Offices as a third lawyer.

Phoenix, inspired by Diego’s return to law, starts taking cases again, but starts off slow with simple hit-and-run and assault cases. He doesn’t take up the case revolving around the murder at KB security (Diego does), but does take up the murder at Tres Bien which goes much differently than it does in canon. This is because he isn’t as popular in this universe so Furio Tigre can’t impersonate him to get Maggey convicted of murder.

Diego is Phoenix’s aide during the Gramarye trial and tells him to watch out for that forged diary page. With his help, Phoenix is able to avoid being disbarred. However, Zak still disappears after the conclusion of the trial (because why wouldn’t he honestly?) and Phoenix still adopts lil’ Trucy.

As a side note, because AAI and AAI2 require the presence of Edgeworth, the smuggling ring and the Mastermind are never caught for their crimes. Actually come to think of it, the Mastermind actually WOULD be put in jail, but for a murder they never actually committed.

Turnabout Visitors ends up going differently since it requires Edgeworth to have the room he has in canon. If Jacques was able to get Edgeworth’s room, he might not end up needing to murder Buddy after all. On the other hand, Rhoda would be accused of murdering Akbey, Lauren would be accused of murdering her father, and Kay would be accused of murdering Coachen. I don’t know who would have been accused of murdering Ka-Shi-Nou though.

The fake president is never discovered and SS-5 is never resolved. Blaise, Patricia, and Di-Jun-Huang never face retribution for their crimes.

The UR-1 trial goes a bit differently than it does in canon. Since a Fey & Co. defense attorney may have taken young Simon’s case, it’s possible that they’re able to prove his innocence and demonstrate the existence of a “phantom” killer. He would have still been arrested on tampering with the crime scene but on a lighter sentence due to trying to protect a young Athena. Make no mistake though, Simon totally adopts Athena once he gets out of the slammer. Whether or not she becomes a defense attorney still is up in the air but I think it’s likely. She might get inspired by watching Simon in court and want to face off against him in court.

Because the UR-1 trial goes differently than it does in canon and Phoenix is never disbarred, the dark age of the law never truly starts.

Apollo ends up working for the Fey & Co. Law Offices instead of Kristoph. I’m not sure how exactly AJ would have gone down. I think Kristoph would still have murdered Shadi and Turnabout Corner and Turnabout Serenade may gone down like in canon. Whether or not Kristoph is caught for murdering Shadi…is a different story.

Ema also doesn’t grow up to be a grumpy bear detective but probably is still bitter about not getting her dream job.

For DD, I can see 5-2, 5-3, and 5-DLC going the same just with Simon acting in a different manner since he was never convicted of Metis’ murder and as such, doesn’t have the lingering threat of death hanging over his head. I don’t think that Bobby and Simon knew each other before the latter got convicted so it’s probably a different detective working those cases. Unless the Phantom kills that guy and somehow manages to manipulate Simon into thinking the other detective just simply quit…

The Khu’rain cases in SOJ likely don’t happen because none of the Fey & Co. defense attorneys have any real reason to travel there. 6-2, 6-4, and 6-DLC might still happen but with different lawyers working those cases.

As for the sibling reveal, well, like in canon, it still hasn’t happened yet. That’s mainly because it’s really not up to any of the lawyers to decide when Lamiroir will let Trucy and Apollo know of their heritage, Although, it might be a bit sooner since Apollo doesn’t go to Khu’rain in this version.

Phoenix never finds out the truth about Dahlia. As a result, he probably stays single for the rest of his life. He almost definitely would have trust issues if he ever got into a relationship again.

Lastly, Morgan receives a call from Mia about Maya’s murder. She decides to use Maya’s death to her advantage and tells Pearl a couple hours later that Mystic Maya had contacted her personally and told her that she never wanted to see her or Pearl ever again. Pearl is inconsolable at first and refuses to believe that her beloved cousin would ever do or say such a thing. However, over time, as Pearl grows older and Maya never returns, she begins to take Morgan’s word for it. Meanwhile, Morgan does her part to ensure that Pearl never finds out the truth and murders anyone who threatens to try.

Pearl becomes Master as a result in 2021, she doesn’t receive the Master’s Talisman from Misty and is instead given a new one upon courtesy of her mother (I don’t think we ever learn if new Master’s Talismans are made when a person becomes Master. I’m pretty sure they aren’t passed down though). By the time she’s 18, she’s blocked the memory of her cousins out of hatred towards them for leaving the family. Misty never goes out of hiding out of fear that her sister might kill her if she tries to reach out to Pearl. She and Larry are still master and student though.

Pearl does go for training in Khu’rain but it’s unknown if she stays with the Inmees like Maya does in canon.

This at least, is an outline of how it could have gone. Things almost certainly would have been very different if Phoenix had been murdered. He would never have been the lawyer he is today, etc. Maya and Mia probably would be working together to try to put Redd away, so that’s a fun thought for an AU.

#ace attorney #the reversal of sisters #ah shit i spoiled the reversal of sisters expanded universe #eh i'll still write it #long post #sorry i get passionate when i think of my au #ask

8 notes · View notes

flight-of-the-sacred-eagle · 4 years

Text

Found Out

This is very angsty and could be taken as abusive so if anything close to familial abuse is triggering to you, read at your own digression.

“So, how does it feel to actually win a case?” Apollo asked as he looked at Klavier, grin on his face.

“You say that as if it is a rare occurrence,” Klavier said as he made his way over to Apollo. Apollo chuckled as he walked over to Klavier.

“This is the first time you’ve ever won against me,” he pointed out as he smiled up at his boyfriend. “You were absolutely amazing, you know that?” He asked as he wrapped his arms Klavier.

“Not as amazing as you were,” Klavier mumbled as he hugged Apollo back. “It’s a shame you lost,” he said.

“The guy was guilty,” Apollo said with a shrug. “It’s only natural that he got caught,” he said as they quickly pulled away. “Besides, by the end of that, I just kind of wanted it to end,” he admitted. Klavier snorted.

“You and me both, schatzi,” he said as he shook his head. “That was… quite the case,” he said.

“You said it,” Apollo mumbled. “But that doesn’t diminish how amazing you were in there,” he said as he quickly grabbed Klavier’s necklace. “We’ll celebrate your win tonight,” he whispered before he pulled Klavier down by his necklace, pulling him into a quick kiss.

“Apollo?!”

Apollo froze, eyes going wide as he quickly pulled away from Klavier, letting go of his necklace as he turned to face his boss. “Hey, Mr. Wright,” he said weakly as he shuffled away from Klavier, face heating up.

“Don’t you ‘hey, Mr. Wright’ me!” Phoenix exclaimed as he marched over to the two, his tone causing Apollo to flinch. He had never seen Phoenix this angry before. “What the hell are you doing?!” He asked.

“U-um, let me expla-“

“He’s working for a murderer!” Phoenix continued, causing Klavier to wince. “You know what a horrible person he is!” He exclaimed. Apollo’s eyes narrowed.

‘Oh, you did not just say that,’ he thought. “Excuse me?!” He exclaimed, anger bubbling up in him. “You have know idea what kind of person Klav is!” He exclaimed. Phoenix snorted.

“He works for a murderer!” He exclaimed. “You can’t exactly be a good person and do that,” he said.

“Hey! Nothing was ever proven!” Apollo snapped. “And Mr. Gavin is his only family- so of course Klavier will want to stay close to him!” He exclaimed.

“Kristoph is his only family?” Phoenix asked. “Well that explains a lot,” he said.

“What is that supposed to mean?!” Apollo asked as he crossed his arms.

“It means that it explains why Prosecutor Gavin over there is a manipulative asshole like Kristoph,” Phoenix said.

“DON’T YOU DARE TALK TO MY BOYFRIEND LIKE THAT!” Apollo exclaimed, anger blazing in his eyes. “HE IS NOT MANIPULATIVE!” He cried, not even bothering to control how loud he got.

“Obviously he is!” Phoenix exclaimed. “You’re a hell of a lot smarter than this!” He exclaimed. “I mean, trusting a prosecutor who would get rid of everyone who stands in his way just so he can win?!” He asked. “That’s almost as insane as getting someone disbarred over a damn mistake!” Apollo rolled his eyes.

“It’s not his fault that you didn’t have enough common sense to question where the hell the diary page came from!” He spat. “I mean seriously- why the hell do you think I refused to take the card Trucy gave me?!” He asked.

“DON’T YOU DARE PUT THAT ON ME!” Phoenix snapped eyes blazing with anger. “YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I’VE GONE THROUGH BECAUSE OF YOUR BOYFRIEND!” He cried. “DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY TIMES TRUCY AND I ALMOST LOST THE OFFICE?! YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT HAPPENED!” He yelled. “HE DESTROYED TRUCY AND I’S LIVES!” He exclaimed.

“YOU DID THAT!” Apollo snapped. “YOU DIDN’T EVEN BOTHER LOOKING FOR A BETTER JOB, DID YOU?! YOU JUST DECIDED TO RELY ON YOUR EIGHT YEAR OLD DAUGHTER FOR EVERYTHING!” He exclaimed.

“DON’T YOU BRING HER INTO IT!” Phoenix exclaimed. “SHE HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE FACT THAT YOU’RE DATING A FUCKING GAVIN!” He exclaimed.

“He’s dating a what?” Kristoph asked as he stepped into the lobby, the glare on his glasses completely obscuring his eyes as he stalked forwards. The room went completely silent as he paused right in front of Klavier. “Is that true? Are you dating Mr. Justice?” He asked, voice causing both Apollo and Klavier to gulp.

“Y-yes...” Klavier squeaked out as Apollo grabbed his hand. Kristoph frowned.

“I thought you were smarter than that,” he said, voice cold. “Trusting anyone from that group of idiots pretending to be an agency will get you thrown in prison,” he said, eyes shifting towards Phoenix. “And they aren’t above forging evidence to get what they want,” he said.

“Oh yes, because I totally ordered the forged diary page,” Phoenix said sarcastically. “Drop the act Gavin, you and I both know you and Prosecutor Gavin ordered it and planted it on me,” he said. “And then you tried to frame me for a murder you committed,” he said.

“I had nothing to do with the diary page!” Klavier exclaimed.

“I was completely acquitted of the murder of Shadi Smith,” Kristoph said. “And Klavier was just doing his job,” he said. “Although, it seems your protégée is trying to get him to abandon his job,” he said before smirking. “Frankly I’m surprised he didn’t tried to get Klavier convicted of murder,” he said.

“Hey! Apollo would never do that!” Klavier exclaimed, squeezing Apollo’s hand tighter. Apollo just squeezed his eyes shut.

“No he wouldn’t,” Phoenix agreed. “Because unlike you and your brother, he actually knows what being a lawyer is all about,” he said.

“HEY! KLAV KNOWS EXACTLY WHAT BEING A LAWYER IS ABOUT!” Apollo exclaimed, eyes flying open.

“That’s rich coming from a traitor and a forger,” Kristoph said with a snort. “Do either of you know anything besides how to bluff and accuse those close to you of murder?” He asked.

“Apollo is an amazing lawyer!” Klavier exclaimed. “He can find out lies just by reading body language!” He exclaimed.

“You are a murderer!” Phoenix cried at the same time. “And frankly, I’d be surprised if being a murderer wasn’t a trait that ran in the family,” he spat.

“Are you accusing my brother of murder?!” Kristoph exclaimed, raising his voice for the first time. “Are you really-“

“THAT’S ENOUGH!” Apollo screamed, invoking his chords of steel and yelling with enough force that both Kristoph and Phoenix slapped their hands against their ears.

“Liebling?” Klavier asked as Apollo panted in rage.

“I’m done,” Apollo spat as he glared at both Phoenix and Kristoph, who were both slowly uncovering their ears. “I’m done dealing with your shit,” he said. “I’m done having everything projected onto me,” he said. “You two are acting like fucking toddlers!” He exclaimed. “You keep saying it’s for the greater good, but neither of you care about that!” He cried. “All you care about is fighting!” He exclaimed. “It took us months to work up the courage to date each other because you two are too damn stubborn to believe that maybe you’re wrong!” He exclaimed.

“Apollo, please, you’re overreact-“

“Is he?” Klavier asked, voice cold as he draped an arm around Apollo. “Or are you just upset because he’s right?” He asked. “You two have absolutely no idea what either of us are like, yet you shove the idea that one of us is a terrible person down the other’s throat,” he hissed. “You use us as your pawns to fight the other, and I’m sick of it,” he said.

“Klavier, you have no idea what you’re talking about,” Kristoph hissed. “I’d recommend you be quiet before you say something you regret,” he said.

“Why? You afraid he’s going to reveal that you’re an actual murderer and forger?” Phoenix asked.

“Oh, shut up,” Apollo snarled as he glared at the two of them. “I hate you two. And you know what?” He said as he reached up and unpinned his badge, looked up at Klavier and nodding. “I refuse to be a part of this any longer. I quit.” And with that, he tossed his badge at Phoenix.

“Find yourself a new pawn, Kristoph,” Klavier spat as he grabbed his badge from his pocket and threw it at Kristoph. “Come on, schatzi. We’re leaving.” He said.

Apollo felt Klavier grab his hand as they stormed out, leaving a speechless Phoenix and Kristoph behind them. Ignoring the fans and reporters, they quickly made their way to the garage.

“You know they’re going to try to pull us back in, right?” Klavier asked as Apollo climbed onto Klavier’s motorcycle.

“I know,” Apollo said. “If we actually want a chance to escape everything, we can’t stay here,” he said. Klavier nodded.

“We can’t exactly stay in California,” he said before sighing. “Or the states,” he added as the sounds of screaming fans started to fill their ears. “I’m too famous- I’d be recognized instantly,” he said before frowning. “Actually... I don’t think we can go to a lot of countries... between the Internet and how many tours I’ve done, there aren’t many places I could even go to,” he said. Apollo just smiled.

“Why don’t I take you back to my home?” He asked. “My actual home,” he added.

“What do you mean?” Klavier asked. “Where exactly are you from?”

“Have you ever heard of Khura’in?”

#tw parental figure abuse #tw arguing #klapollo #klavier gavin #bad idea au #apollo justice #phoenix wright #kristoph gavin

15 notes · View notes

thedyingmoon · 5 years

Text

***

May 28, Sunday

Kristoph Sutherland was humming to himself while staring at the ceiling above him.

Tomorrow would be a big day for him. He was deciding whether to reveal the names of his supporters or not when the cell doors clanked open, revealing a very tall man wearing a dark bowler hat and a perfectly tailored suit.

The guard, which he didn't really recognize ( maybe someone on a different shift? ), glared at him and left immediately.

He looked back at the man who sat right in front of him.

"Well, what brings you here, Kenny?"

The man called Kenny looked at him, a grin apparent on his face. He just shrugged and leaned on the chair comfortably.

"Just paying an old friend a visit." he said with his deep voice, his dull, steel blue eyes not leaving Kristoph's muddy ones.

"You must've done that a bit earlier!" complained Kristoph, wincing at the wounds caused by the Military Police's torture on him. "They're quite relentless. Really wanting me to spill out the beans and expose you, guys."

"Oh, is that so?" Kenny said, an eyebrow raised. "Forgive me, then. Good job on the silence."

"Yeah, you must give me higher compensation for that."

"Why would I? I'm not your employer."

"Then, tell Fritz! I didn't come here to get punished. I came here to end the Ackermans!"

Kenny just laughed at what he just said, earning himself an angry look from Kristoph.

"My friend, I believe you got the wrong idea." Kenny drawled lazily. "He didn't tell you to kill them."

"And what about the serum we developed? Isn't it to kill those demons?"

"You developed it, not us. Only you assumed that role upon yourselves, not us."

"But, the deal! The Ackermans are to vanish. The King promised me to - "

"What? There are no promises made, Kristoph. Tell me,..." Kenny leaned closer to Kristoph. "You want the Ackermans killed so no one would protect the King when you ambush him and steal his property, am I correct?"

Kristoph clicked his tongue in annoyance and looked away. "And what do you care if it's the truth?"

Kenny laughed once more. "Oh my goodness, how far you've fallen from the truth."

"What did you say?"

Blue murderous eyes snapped back at Kristoph. "First of all, Fritz is not the true ruler."

Kristoph looked confused. "What in the - ?"

"You heard me. Second, it was a noble named Rod Reiss who truly ruled this country. You know, the one you bullied that one evening during the Winter Season. The fat maniac, as you have called him. Well, he was also the one who bailed you out of jail."

"You're lying, aren't you, Kenny?" Kristoph just laughed at what he just heard.

"And lastly, Reiss' true intention for hunting down the Ackermans in the past was because he feared them."

"Feared them?"

"Yeah, don't you know a thing about the Coordinate? You know, the power which was passed down from one Reiss to another. The power used to control and manipulate people's minds. He wanted the Ackermans killed because the Coordinate never works on them. So, we made a pact, Yuri and I."

"Yuri? Who is this Yuri?!"

"I would follow him and his family to the ends of the world and protect them at all costs, and he would lessen the sentence from execution to just exile. You know the ones who were exiled to the Underground years ago? Those were the remaining Ackermans, and they are powerless."

"I don't know what to say right now, Kenny. This is downright hilarious and unbelievable,..."

"That serum was supposedly the bane to take away any Ackerman's power. It was to prevent them from having their revenge against the Reiss family. Yuri was no longer persecuting them, but you did. That's an unforgivable breach of contract."

"Well, if this power truly exists, I could do lots of wonderful things with it! I could almost imagine the world at the tip of my fingers."

"Ah, yeah. Unfortunately, you have to, first, be a injected with the Titan serum. Then, you must swallow the Reiss who currently owns the Coordinate. You will become a shifter who'll only live for thirteen years, but that's not half as bad, right? You'll have the Coordinate, anyways."

"Then, what are we waiting for? Get me out of this hellhole and let's get down to business!"

"Uhh, you won't get out of here alive, Kristoph."

Kristoph stared dumbly at him. "What did you - ?"

Before he could even finish the sentence, Kenny was already on his feet, his left hand covering his mouth and his right pointing a very sharp knife at his throat.

"You know what, you've been a total ass, Kristoph. I never really considered you as my friend in the first place. We're just using you."

Kristoph struggled, but his actions were fruitless. Kenny was way too strong.

"And you know too much, so, you'll have to go, okay? Rod's orders. Nothing personal."

Kenny was about to slash his throat when he said one more thing to him.

"Oh yeah, I'm an Ackerman, as well."

Kristoph was so shocked of what he just heard. He was about to lash out at him when he felt an object gliding through his exposed throat. He felt lightheaded and saw darkness.

A few seconds later, Kristoph was down on the floor, his body limp and unmoving.

Kenny grinned.

"Another happy customer."

TO BE CONTINUED

***

💚 See Me Now 💚

***

~ @levi4mikasa , @yepps , @shewolfofficial , @unhappysap , @clovemcpandas , @shortbty14 , @super-peace-fangirl , @fangurl-ontgeside , @emilyackerman78 , and @nerdyphantomlady . 💚

***

Yup, a huge surprise is coming your way, this I promise. 💜

***

💚💚💚

***

#attack on titan #shingeki no kyojin #levi ackerman #captain levi #see me now #levi x reader #levi x you #snk kenny

30 notes · View notes

guilty-love · 4 years

Text

Shelter

Part 2 of my Secret Santa present for @apodictic-twinkle! Hope you like it <3

April 20th 2026, 05:47 PM Apollo Justice’s apartment

He had never expected his first trial to end like this.

It has already been devastating to Apollo to find his former idol to play the part of the defendant in a trial, to be called a murderer. He could not believe it that Phoenix Wright of all people would murder an innocent traveler, someone he simply played poker with. Killing him over something trivial like a lost game of cards…

But that hadn’t even been the worst part of the trial. His mentor, Kristoph Gavin, had been there, to support Apollo when he needed support, to whisper words in his ear when he felt like losing track of the whole trial. But having Kristoph Gavin around in the courtroom had made things worse and turned everything upside down.

When Apollo has walked out of the courtroom that day he hadn’t known what had happened. How had it ended up with Kristoph Gavin being the culprit? How had it happened that, all of a sudden, he had lost his job?

Of course, those were silly questions. Apollo knew the answers to them. It was thanks to his drive to seek justice that he has uncovered the truth behind the crime, about the dark deeds his boss had done and, as it has to be, he had made sure Kristoph Gavin got what he deserved.

But that didn’t make Apollo feel any better at all.

Even when his idol, Phoenix Wright, stepped over to him to thank him, even when Phoenix offered him a job in his agency – Wright Talent Agency? Really? – Apollo couldn’t bring himself to smile. In the aftermath he didn’t remember anymore what exactly he had said to Phoenix Wright. The only thing he remembered was the feeling of needing to get out of this place, as fast as possible.

He was back in his apartment about two hours after the trial had ended. Usually Apollo tried to be careful with his suit, because as a lawyer you need to look your best when you meet your clients. But after this catastrophe of a first trial all he could think of was getting rid of the stuffy clothes. Especially the jacket which held his attorney’s badge.

He threw it into the corner of his bedroom, not paying any attention to it.

He picked some comfortable clothes from his closet, just a comfy pair of cargo pants and a white shirt. Pulling it over his head ruined his perfectly styled trademark bangs but he couldn’t care less, really. He needed to get his mind off of things, needed to distract himself from what has happened today. He didn’t want to think about it any longer.

He only managed to hit the power-button on his computer to boot it when his phone started ringing, notifying the lawyer that yes, he had received a text message. He really wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone – he had talked enough already in the courtroom – but when he read the name ‘Daichi’ on the screen Apollo quickly fumbled with the phone to open the message.

[Daichi:] Hey! Hey hey hey! How is it going, Mister Lawyer?! How was your first trial?!

Apollo sighed. Of course his best friend would want to know how it had been going. He had apologized so many times for not making it, but the current project he was working on at Cosmos Space Center had made it impossible for him.

He really didn’t feel in the mood to talk about things. But he couldn’t just ignore Daichi’s text message now, couldn’t he?

[Apollo:] I won.

He dropped the phone on the surface on the desk again and turned his attention towards his computer, opening the folder that contained all his music. He needed something to take his mind off of things now, something to keep him busy enough to not have him think about this terrible day.

But of course, receiving only a two words message would not satisfy Daichi.

[Daichi:] You won?! That’s amazing! I told you you would be fine, Apollo!

[Daichi:] But then again, you didn’t really answer my question. How was your first trial despite the fact that you have won?

The lawyer groaned. He really really didn’t want to talk about it, but he knew Daichi wouldn’t let go if he didn’t get an honest answer. He’d be worried about Apollo and pester him until he finally got the truth out of him.

[Apollo:] You want to know how it went? It was terrible!

[Apollo:] Not only did I have to defend my idol who was blamed as a murderer in the trial, no.

[Apollo:] Turned out that my boss was the actual culprit! And now they arrested him and I have lost my job!

[Apollo:] And on top of that, I get the feeling that my idol’s daughter has handed me forged evidence, which I can’t proof for certain, but Mister Gavin’s reaction was quite suspicious.

[Apollo:] So yeah, I won, but that victory came with a price I didn’t want to pay.

[Apollo:] And I really don’t want to think about it anymore or talk about it. I just need some time for myself…

Apollo knew he was being unfair. He was angry and hurt and scared and he had held it together so well until now. Had managed to appear brave and strong in front of Phoenix Wright, when he had offered him a job, had even managed to crack a smile when people had talked to him. He had kept it together on his way home but being home, in his own apartment, all by himself he couldn’t keep up the façade any longer.

He knew that he was being unfair to Daichi, who wasn’t even around, to get Apollo’s bad mood shoved into his face. But the lawyer couldn’t help it.

He sobbed, pressing the phone against his chest, squeezing his eyes shut. He just needed time to think. Needed time to breathe. He had been so happy about his job as a lawyer, so happy to finally earn his own money, to be successful in something he loved. And now that happiness lay in pieces in front of him.

Daichi did not write back that day and Apollo was grateful but also sad about that.

April 21st 2026, 10:59 AM Apollo Justice’s apartment

The next day, Apollo slept in. He needed the rest, feeling exhausted from the day before like he had been running a marathon, only to collapse once he reached the goal. He didn’t manage to move once he woke up, just stayed under the warm blankets, staring at the ceiling. Usually his mind would be racing, would be working nonstop, letting him think about all the things he had to get done that day, the appointments that were due.

But that morning, Apollo’s mind drew a blank.

He took his phone after a while to look at the time. It was already quite late and he should get up eventually, to have some breakfast. Or brunch. It was definitely no longer time for breakfast. He noticed, with a mild surprise, that Daichi hadn’t written him. Of course, Apollo had asked for some time for himself but Daichi usually wasn’t the kind of person who would simply accept that and let it go.

Maybe work kept him busy?

Apollo sighed and lowered his phone again, going back to staring at the ceiling, forcing his mind to do what it always did. Thinking about the next steps.

He had no job. Which was bad. He needed a job to earn money, to keep his small apartment. To buy food and things he needed to live. To upgrade his music equipment. But at least he had his attorney’s badge and he won his first case. So he got something good to put in his survey. On the other hand, his former boss and mentor had turned out to be a criminal. That was bad. Terribly bad.

It could mess up everything he had worked towards so hard, could ruin his whole career.

He couldn’t let that stop him. But at the same time, Apollo felt drained. He needed a break. He needed help. But he hated asking for help. He didn’t even know who he could ask for help.

The ringing of the doorbell woke him from his trance. At first, he thought he had only imagined the sound. When the doorbell rang again he knew that no, he hadn’t just imagined things. Someone wanted to see him.

It took Apollo two more rings to get out of bed and walk over to the door to open up. He was amazed how stubborn the person outside was. As if they knew exactly that Apollo was home. He wondered who it would be. The post man? Nah, that guy usually left after trying once. Sometimes he tried twice, but never more than that. A neighbor who needed something from him? But what could they need? Sugar? He hadn’t taken a package for anyone lately, so no, that couldn’t be it.

In the end, the only way to find out who it was was for him to open the door.

“Daichi?”

Apollo cursed himself for sounding surprised. He really should have expected his best friend to show up at the steps of his door. After all, Daichi was that kind of person. He would leave you alone if you asked for it for a few hours only to crash at your place the next day, his arms loaded with bags of-

“…what do you have in those bags?”

“Breakfast, of course!”

Daichi didn’t wait for Apollo to ask him inside. He simply shoved his best friend aside gently, by nudging him with his shoulder, and walked into the living room without asking. There, on the small coffee table he dropped the groceries he had brought – bagels and croissants and sandwiches and cookies and, most important, two steaming cups of coffee.

“You didn’t tell me that you’d come over”, Apollo noted, his voice still exhausted from the day before. He closed the front door and followed Daichi into the living room, sinking onto the floor in front of the coffee table that was loaded with a mountain of food.

“Yeah, cuz you wouldn’t have let me in if I did.”

It was a bold statement but Apollo ducked slightly. Daichi knew that he was right about his guess and Apollo knew it too. If Daichi would have announced himself Apollo would have told him to stay away and probably even wouldn’t have opened the door at all.

Still, the smell of the feast Daichi has brought and the steaming cup of coffee made Apollo’s stomach growl. He hadn’t eaten anything the day before either, because he had felt sick to the stomach. Now his body started to crave food – and even more important, caffeine.

“We don’t need to talk”, Daichi suddenly announced, which surprised Apollo. “I read the newspaper. Guess I have a certain idea of what was going on. Heavy stuff, really. But that’s why I am here. You need some good distraction and I brought something help you getting distracted.”

Apollo glanced at Daichi, wondering what his friend had brought over that was supposed to help him feeling better. He reached out to take on of the steaming cups, warming his cool fingers on it. He took a sip, slowly because the drink was still hot, before he finally asked.

“And what exactly did you bring?”

Daichi pulled a little device from the pocket of his jacket, grinning happily. It wasn’t big, only about two and a half inches long, fully silver and with the logo of GYAXA on it. It took Apollo a moment to recognize what it was, but when he did he frowned in confusion: “A flash drive?”

“It’s a new song I have been working on!”

Apollo lowered his cup, frowning even more. He knew very well what Daichi meant when he said he had been working on a song. And he probably brought it to make another collaboration, like they had in the past, before he had become Kristoph Gavin’s pupil.

“Daichi, you know that I have no time for music…”

“Why not?” Apollo’s mouth shut when Daichi suddenly interrupted him. He stared at his best friend, confused. Why not? Did he really ask why not?

Before Apollo could answer, Daichi continued talking: “Listen, I know that you are in a shitty situation. And I know that you are not fine. I can see it in your face.” Apollo lowered his gaze, feeling called out. “But that’s okay. What had happened yesterday was terrible! Neither of us thought that your first trial would be so… so difficult! Chaotic! Hey, and if you feel like crying, cry! If you feel like yelling, yell! But let me try to help you. You need to get your mind off of things first before you can start feeling better. So let’s work on this song together, okay? I really need you. I have been working on this for weeks but it’s still not the way I want it to be. Because I can’t do this alone. I need my partner for this. I need Otoroki.”

Apollo let out a deep sigh, which turned into a soft chuckle.

“You always know how to get me, huh?” He shook his head. His body felt still weak, from the exhaustion and the lack of food, but his mind started to buzz again. He could feel the excitement coming back, the eagerness to create something, not alone but together with Daichi.

“Fine then. Let’s finish that new song of yours. But first –breakfast!”

June 15th 2016, 08:58 AM Wright & Co. Law Office

Apollo swallowed. He stood in front of the door to the Wright Talent Agency and knew that he should be knocking. In fact, he had been standing in front of the door for the last thirty minutes, but whenever he raised his hand to knock fear washed over him.

For the fourth time now Apollo lowered his hand again and took a deep, slow breath.

“I’m Apollo Justice and I’m fine.” He muttered. “I’m Apollo Justice and I’m fine.”

He raised his hand, but this time not because he wanted to knock on the door. He pulled out his phone, unlocking it and checking his text messages. There weren’t really any interesting messages, nothing new that could help him distract himself a little longer from stepping inside that office – or agency – and announce that yes, he was willing to take up the offer Phoenix Wright had proposed to him.

He wanted to put the phone back into the pocket again when his eyes caught sight of Daichi’s message he had sent that morning. He had read it already several times and whenever he did it brought a smile to his lips.

He clicked onto the message to read it, one last time.

[Daichi:] Heads up, Apollo! You can do it! You are Apollo Justice and you are fine! Now go and get that new job of yours! Trust me, it will be worth the trip!

His enthusiasm was contagious, it always had been. Daichi had been a good friend, since the first day they had met. But especially during the last two months, after losing his job and losing the will to go on it had been thanks to Daichi that Apollo had managed to get out of his slump.

They had hung out together, spent a lot of time together. Daichi and Apollo. Terranica and Otoroki.

Apollo took another deep breath and put the phone back into the pocket. He straightened his back and tensed his shoulders before raising his hand and stepping inside the office, towards a new and unknown future.

#Ace Attorney Utaite AU #ace attorney #ace attorney fanficition #apollo justice #clay terran #apodictic-twinkle #apodictictwinkle #ooc #secret santa

3 notes · View notes

vonlipvig · 5 years

Text

Ok, I’m in the mood to rant about some AA stuff, specifically some of the Big Baddies. Not an angry rant, by any means. I;m just full of AA Love right now.

(Spoilers for all games except both DGSs!)

Under a readmore cause it got LONG

Ok, so I’m replaying AAI2 right now, and I’m playing through case 4, and I honestly had forgotten how MUCH i hated Blaise Debeste (hate as in “You’re so fucking despicable”, not in the “I hate him as a character” way, I delight in hating him, as we all do, I suppose). And I guess that set me thinking about all of the Big Villains of AA, and how exactly I feel about them.

So I asked myself, “who are the scariest AA villains?”, and I think the answer to that--at least for me, of course--is Damon Gant and Blaise Debeste, with Quercus Alba nipping at their heels.

Now, hold your horses, let me explain. I think those three--but those two to a more certain degree--are the most terrifying antagonists in the games, and that’s because of one thing: power. These guys have the institutional power they need to do whatever it is they want, and that’s really fucking scary. And yes, you can have power and not use it for your own, selfish needs, but these guys do exactly that, and to perfection. Gant, for one, is terrifying just from his appearance, cause everything from his stance, to his stare just says “do not dare cross me” and that’s spine-chilling. I guess what’s also very scary about him is that somewhere in his mind, at the very beginning of his career, maybe he did want to do good? But I think his own selfishness overtook that from the moment of the Darke and Marshall murders. I don’t think he cared at all that he was killing an innocent person. he just cared about his own reputation.

And Blaise...god, talking about Blaise makes my skin crawl. just as Gant, Blaise also has a LOT of power (and I’m talking a LOT, this man has affected the lives of so many others), and he sees people as mere objects to use and discard as he pleases (I’m replaying AAI2 so my memory is not that fresh, but like, he made people disappear, even his wife I think). And what’s even scarier than Gant is that he truly looks as if he enjoys tormenting others, so it’s not just that he sees others as things, he just truly delights in causing others pain. AND SPEAKING OF CAUSING OTHERS PAIN, he also straight up abuses Sebastian, his own son. He fucking went so far as to ORDER HIS SON KIDNAPPED. I’m about to cry cause I just HATE HIM SO MUCH, OH MY GOD.

Ok, like the AAI stan that I am, I have to say that I also really enjoy Quercus Alba. I don’t know, I think he’s not as developed or as interesting as these others, in a way, but to me at least he seems like a really cool and really scary villain as well. Selfish, uncaring, and almost unbearably proud (GOD THOSE GODDAMN EXTRATERRITORIAL RIGHTS), I really loved the whole smuggling ring plot point from AAI, so I guess your enjoyment of him hinges on if you liked that or not. I did. Oh, and I just love his sprites, what a fucking tree bastard.

So I gotta talk about our friend Manny von Karma now, oh boy. THE OG bad boy. The thing with Manfred is that his “evilness” kiiiinda pales a bit once you know the events of AAI2. He got vital information kept away from him during the IS-7, courtesy of Blaise, so you get that sense of “oh, there was someone above him in the command chain”, and yeah, there was. But the man was still ruthless, and he was still not above forging and cheating to get what he wanted. In that respect, very much like the other guys. But what separates him from the others is that his big crime--the murder of Gregory Edgeworth--was much more passional than anything the other guys ever did. He didn’t murder Gregory because of money, or to keep his mouth shut, and it wasn’t even something he planned. The opportunity presented itself, and he was so full of rage for his wounded pride that he murdered him. In a way that makes him less scary to me, because I understand emotions, but I can’t understand cold, psychopathic calculation (ok, but he gains a lot more Evil Points with the whole “adopting the child of my enemy and raising it to be all that he despised” thing, YAKNOW?).

Morgan Fey, too, is another villain that is very passionate yet still cold and calculating. Her pride is everything to her, and the blow that was dealt to her by being cast aside as a “branch” member of the clan was devastating to her, and made her into the woman she is. What’s really interesting about Morgan is that we see the character of the doting mother at first in her with how she treats Pearl, but then we see that that could not be further from the truth. I think maybe she tries to convince herself that what she does, she does for her love of Pearl, but that’s not true at all. It’s great to see this side of the “mother” archetype.

BUT ENOUGH ABOUT THAT. None of them are actually my favorite villain. The one who I believe is the most compelling, entertaining, thought-provoking of all the AA killers is Simon Keyes. I mean, what does it tell you, that when I’m talking about a manipulative murderer the first that comes to mind is sadness because he got dealt a very bad hand in life? This is not me justifying his actions, because none of the things he did were justifiable in the slightest. But this man, this kid, had no-one (He had Dogen, actually, but hey, a great role model to have, right?). He felt betrayed by the ones who were supposed to be his closest protectors and friends, and that turned him sour. He’s as cold and calculating as the other baddies, but his story just shatters your heart, especially because it is paralleled so well by other AAI2 characters, in Sebastian, in Miles, in Kate Hall, etc. Basically, AAI2 best game.

And I could add Dahlia in the same category as Simon, I think. it’s...not the same, granted, but Dahlia’s background are incredibly interesting to mull about. She was born in the Fey Clan, so from the day she was born she carried an enormous burden on her shoulders. The whole thing with Misty and Morgan, which ended with her father taking her with him, left her very jaded and hateful (and betrayed, I believe, deep inside), and that set her on the path she would then take. Then she gets foiled my Mia, and that absolutely devastates her, and driver her to seek revenge. I think not only revenge because Mia managed to finally expose her crimes, but Mia also represents that “Main Branch” of the family, that which had been taken from her, and that which caused her so much pain. I really love Dahlia, I think she’s a bit more over the top than Simon, but I really enjoy her character.

An then there’s...well, the Phantom. I don’t know what to say about them, they really don’t have the depth that other villains have, as we don’t know anything about them except the “feels no emotions” thing. And I don’t know if I like that, as a character train. I don’t mean to say I don’t like characters that feel no emotions, cause hey, see the guys up top, but to make it such a gimmick was...meh. Oh, but I will say, that part where Aura says that one phrase and then you feel a deep chill in your spine because “oh my god i know who the phantom is”? Very good.

We also have Kristoph and Matt, and.......come on, I love them to bits, Farewell My Turnabout is one of my all time fave cases, and I think Turnabout Trump is SO GOOD for a first case, but...these guys are absolute clowns, they’re so fucking stupid, ok? At least von Karma was just like “OH HE’S UNCONSCIOUS THIS IS MY CHANCE”, these dudes went back to their sad lairs and concocted some dumbass plans. Ridiculous djfdhfjdhf.

And then there’s Ga’ran and I gotta say I don’t remember a single thing about her, The End.

#BOY I TYPED A LOT OF BS #you're all welcome to give your opinions this is just for fun #ace attorney #juli's mundane life

17 notes · View notes

justicedefended · 6 years

Text

⚖ | @wrightrpagency !

He doesn’t want to go back to work right away, but he can’t afford to not go back to work right away.

It’s only been a couple weeks since the conclusion of the The Jurist System’s experimental trial that declared Vera Misham not guilty of her father’s murder, and to say Apollo is upset would be an understatement. The dark grooves forming under his eyes speak of his sleeplessness all on their own and exhaustion is abuzz under his skin, making him feel jittery and out of phase with the world around him.

I didn’t become a lawyer to have this action packed a life.

Or as unstable a career.

At least I’ve doing the right thing, so far.

He doesn’t trust himself on his bike, which is as sad as it is unfortunate because the district courthouse is only a few blocks away from his apartment, and the weather is fair enough to not spend the toll he does on the bus to get there and get all his ducks in a row for another rapid - fire trial he's only half - prepared for document - wise and absolutely not ready for mentally.

Without Trucy, his first day back behind the bench passes by cruelly and unusually slow. His voice lacks its usual volume, but worse so is the absence of conviction; tone veers on the side of an uncharacteristic monotone and the prosecution slyly berates him at one point for it, but even he can't find it in himself to put a lot of stock in anything Prosecutor Payne has to say about how he presents himself in court.

An old memory of a younger him grounds out a ‘fuck off’ between clenched teeth, but the Apollo now lets the comments roll off his shoulders.He hasn’t the energy to raise personal objections alongside today’s professional ones.

After enough turnabout and unwelcome reach around, court concludes for the day with the verdict still up in the air, and Apollo books it to the lobby area. More so in spirit than literally, because dragging his feet while still fussing with the clasp on his over - packed briefcase doesn’t make for a very fast escape.

Whether because it’s broken or he’s really just that inept at the simplest of tasks when tired doesn’t really matter, but he’s back outside in the light of the day, people coming and going, when his briefcase swings open and its contents scatter to the pavement. His mythical bad luck leaves him staring, too transfixed by his own incompetence ( should have seen this one coming, Justice ) to do anything but that for a solid second.

The vulgar and rare for him ‘fuck off’ he’d thought earlier resurfaces as an aptly rephrased ‘fuck me’ as he drops to a crouch to collect his paperwork in front of the steps that lead into the courthouse. Once they’re all back in his possession, he springs right back up — just in time to full - body slam someone who probably shouldn’t have been standing so close to him and his isolated incident of self - imposed irritation.

I’m going home, and I’m slamming back a bottle of melatonin.

“ I’m — I’m so sorry, are you...? “ With the size he is, he’s probably the one more dazed, but apologizing is a knee - jerk reaction; a learned thing. Apollo remains stooped, squinting, briefcase hugged to his chest to avoid further issue — when he realizes who it is he’s knocked into, nearly knocking himself out, and this eyes are blown wide open. “ Klav— Prosecutor Gavin? “ Another expletive passes through his over - anxious mind, Apollo not quite believing what he’s seeing.

Surely, Klavier Gavin can afford some time off. Some much needed time off, after everything, far away from court, the district, the state— “ You’re... here. “ Apollo starts and finishes just as lame, fidgeting his way to a proper stand but quick to avert his gaze to a nearby hedge. Whoever trimmed it should be real proud of their handiwork. “ I thought... umm... “ I thought I’d be able to make it home without running into anyone I know. I thought you’d be hiding out somewhere in Europe. I thought—

“ ...were you heading in? If— “ An impulse suddenly overtakes him, and all fantasies of a drug - induced sleep until the next day are all but gone. Only a small voice ( belonging to his better sense ) is holding out, still mouthing off: what are you doing, Justice? You’re not you when you’re tired. Or hungry. Or about to vomit from nerves.The guy’s busy. And, and he probably doesn’t want to look at you. He probably associates your face with their convictions... Kristoph’s, Crescend’s... His heart plummets with that last thought, darker and rawer than the ones before. It’s shut him up before he could even finish, but the words finally come, strained as they are, “ —if you’re on your way out, m-maybe we could... talk? “

#.............anyway don't feel obligated to reply with so much #and if this is too... assumptive or s/t pls tell me and i'll change it sdjnkjn #idk what's gotten into me but maybe i need to turn to fic writing to burn off some this apollo steam #wrightrpagency #post - aa4 as DISCUSSED.

13 notes · View notes

orbemnews · 3 years

Link

How a beekeeper helped Akron police find the suspect in a Lyft driver's death AKRON, Ohio — A beekeeper for a dozen years, Sarah Smithers was tending to some of her honey bees around 5 p.m. Sunday when she was startled by the sound of gunshots on East Buchtel Avenue in Akron. ‘It was like, ‘What the hell?'” Smithers said. “I saw a dude with a gun shooting.” What Smithers didn’t realize at the time was that the gunfire killed 48-year-old Kristopher Roukey, a Lyft driver and a married father of two from Hudson. Courtesy of family. Kristopher Roukey Smithers, who was wearing half of her white bee suit, stood out and feared she could become the next shooting victim so she quickly took steps to protect herself. “I backed the hell up,” she said. Bob Jones / News 5 Sarah Smithers recounts how she heard shots fired and took photos of a murder suspect in Akron. Smithers took cover behind some trees and then grabbed her cell phone. She took four pictures of the suspect as he walked down the street. “There was a lot of adrenaline. I will say that much. I didn’t know if he was gonna shoot me too, so I’m taking pictures as fast as I can and backing up,” Smithers told News 5. “Shoot somebody in broad daylight and just walk away? I mean, get him!” Bob Jones / News 5 Sarah Smithers took four pictures of what would turn out to be the suspect in the murder of a Lyft Driver in Akron. Smithers then called 911 and in a calm voice detailed what she witnessed. “I just saw a guy shoot at a car as he walked down the street and then he just put it in his pocket and just kept walking. I got a picture of him,” she told the operator. She also told the operator that the man was wearing a blue hoodie and a blue mask and was heading west on Buchtel. “Then I noticed all the cops coming around so I flagged one down and showed them the pictures on my phone just to get a better description so they’d know exactly what they were looking at,” Smithers explained. Sarah Smithers One of the photos Sarah Smithers took of the murder suspect. The next day, police arrested their suspect, 23-year-old Kahlyl Powe, in the same neighborhood. Police said Powe was a passenger in Roukey’s car and shot the driver after getting of the vehicle. Detectives have not mentioned a motive. RELATED: 23-year-old arrested in connection to Sunday shooting in Akron Powe has pleaded not guilty to murder and is being held in the Summit County Jail on a $1 million bond. RELATED: Bond set at $1 million for suspect in shooting death of ride-share driver from Hudson Akron police said the efforts of the beekeeper-turned-witness made a big difference in the early stages of the investigation. Lt. Michael Miller believes Powe is the man Smithers photographed. “I think it’s immeasurable from the standpoint it really dictated the momentum, the early momentum that the investigation took,” Miller said. Miller said the department intends to talk to Summit County Crimestoppers to discuss the possibility of giving Smithers a reward for her role in helping police solve the high-profile murder. “Undeniably, her information did assist us greatly,” Miller said. Smithers appreciates the reward consideration but stressed that’s not the point of what she did. “I just wanted to make sure the cops had every information I could think of to find him as fast as they could,” she said. With the suspect locked up, Smithers said her thoughts are with Roukey and getting justice for his family. “It makes me really happy to know that maybe I had something in getting the guy who did this,” she said. window.fbAsyncInit = function() FB.init( appId : '117981068372285', xfbml : true, version : 'v2.9' ); ; (function(d, s, id) var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js"; js.async = true; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); (document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); Source link Orbem News #akron #beekeeper #Death #Drivers #Find #Helped #Lyft #Police #Suspect

0 notes

n0verias · 6 years

Text

This is for @nyappykid, I was your Ace Attorney Secret Santa! I hope you like it!

Title: Christmas in Khura’in Pairing: Klavier/Apollo Rating: T Warnings: Mentions of crimes/murders, mentions of death Additional Tags: Made-up Khura’inese words, Apollo is a lovestruck fool AO3 Link

December 22, 2028 Justice Law Office

“Horned Head! I command you to help me this instant!” Rayfa shouted as she attempted, with little success, to hold up a huge stream of prayer flags. Her small frame was barely visible with how much she was holding, and Apollo was actually quite impressed.

“I got it.” Apollo lessened the load for Rayfa by taking half the pile in his arms. “I honestly didn’t think Christmas was celebrated here.”

Rayfa let out a pronounced ‘hmph’. “Is that what you call it in America? Here, we call it Khu’khurist. It’s an ancient tradition brought upon by the Holy Mother herself as a means to celebrate all that we are thankful for. And while you selfish Americans demand gift offerings, we hold a giant festival for all to enjoy.”

“And on the day of the 25th, we conclude by lighting the candles of prayer around the giant hal’abad tree.”

Apollo and Rayfa turned to see Nahyuta entering the Justice Law Office with a box of decorations. “And while we generally don’t hand out gifts as Rayfa said, it is not uncommon for couples to exchange a small token of their love for each other.” Nahyuta chuckled as he set down the box. Apollo took a peek and saw that there were a bunch of unlit candles, as well as holly, a wreath, and…oh god, was that what Apollo thought it was?

“Ah, and I did some research on American customs as well. Apparently, Americans hang some kind of plant called ‘mistletoe’ in a doorway, and whoever ends up under it has to kiss someone.” Nahyuta held up the mistletoe in his fingers and tried to find a perfect spot for it. “I thought it would make Apollo feel more at home.”

Apollo grimaced. So it WAS what he thought. “I don’t think something like that is necessary.” Besides, there is literally no one here who he would want to kiss, and he’ll be damned if he had to kiss someone like…Datz. He shuddered at the thought.

Rayfa crossed her arms. “How barbaric. So this is what America is like during the holidays?”

“NO.” Apollo shouted a lot louder than he intended. “Putting something like that up in the office is just asking for bad luck to happen!”

And as if things couldn’t get any worse, Datz Are’bal burst through the door and almost tripped over the rug. He managed to catch his balance as he skidded to a halt right in front of them. “Did you guys hear?! They managed to get some hot shot musician to sing at the festival!”

Nahyuta and Apollo stared at Datz as if he grew a second head. Rayfa in contrast smirked.

“Ah that’s right! I heard from Mother…I—I mean Queen Amara…” Rayfa blushed at her blunder. “That she sought to find a form of American entertainment, since this would be Horned Head’s first Khu’khurist with us.”

Why did Apollo feel so uneasy? “Dare I ask who this musician is?”

Rayfa pondered the thought. “Uh…I believe it was Klavier Gavin…?”

Apollo was stunned into silence. He hadn’t heard from or spoken to Klavier for more than a year…not since that incident at Themis Legal Academy. And if he were to be completely honest, he thought that Khura’in would be the LAST place he would ever run into the fop. Did this mean that Klavier was reviving his musical career? He recalled last time they spoke that Klavier was going to focus more on his prosecuting, especially after Daryan Crescend was convicted of murder and the Gavinners were disbanded. He recalled that to be a dark time for Klavier, and no matter how much the man showed off a smile, it was clear that underneath it was sorrow. Of course, a lot can change within the course of a year. He wondered how Klavier was doing…he didn’t even think that Klavier knew that he was in Khura’in.

“Earth to Apollo!”

Apollo was snapped out of his thoughts by Datz waving his hand ferociously in front of his face. Apollo slapped the hand away with mild annoyance. “Sorry…just that hearing the name Klavier Gavin brings back old memories.”

“Do you know him?” Nahyuta questioned, to which Apollo nodded.

“After a fashion. He’s actually a prosecutor who I fought against on many occasions.”

Rayfa tilted her head. “So he’s a friend? Maybe it’s a good thing he’ll be the one performing, then.”

Could Apollo consider Klavier a friend? Sure they were on good terms both outside the courtroom and inside, but it’s not like they ever took time out of their busy schedules to have a chat over coffee. Apollo sighed. “When’s he supposed to arrive?”

“Actually, he might already be here. His plane landed yesterday and should be staying at Tehm-pul Temple—” Before Rayfa could finish her sentence, Apollo dashed out of the office, leaving behind stunned and mildly amused expressions.

“Something tells me this will be an interesting Khu’khurist indeed.” Nahyuta chuckled.

Apollo panted and wheezed as he stopped in front of the temple. He hadn’t run that fast in a while, it felt like; but his exhaustion soon wore off when he caught sight of the familiar silhouette of someone he hadn’t seen in a long while. The purple jacket, those rings…that platinum blond hair.”

“K-Klavier?!”

Said figure turned around, revealing crystal blue eyes peeking out from behind black shades. The look of shock on Klavier’s face was very apparent.

“H-Herr Forehead?” Klavier rushed to Apollo. “Mein gott, why are you here?”

Oh, that’s right. He…never told Klavier that his new residence was in Khura’in. “I’ve been living here for a few months now, actually.” Apollo explained awkwardly. “It’s a long story…”

“Oh? So you’re no longer employed under Herr Wright? What did you do that caused him to fire you?” Klavier chuckled.

If there’s one thing he didn’t miss, it was Klavier’s sharp tongue. “That’s not what happened! I told you it was a long story.”

Klavier grinned. “Well, we have plenty of time to catch up. Maybe over drinks?”

Apollo wanted to protest, but a part of him couldn’t bring himself to refuse. It was probably that smile. That annoying, pretty boy smile. He didn’t like talking about the events that transpired earlier in the year, but he supposed he owed Klavier an explanation for disappearing from the courtrooms in Los Angeles.

They managed to find a small café that sold different Khura’inese pastries and drinks, which they sat down and caught up. Klavier told him about how he visited Germany for a couple of weeks, and how his music was still very popular there much to his surprise. His prosecuting career is still as successful as ever, making sure that no one was falsely convicted and that only the true criminal was brought to justice. That was one thing he and Apollo had in common, and something that Apollo was grateful of. On a more somber note…Klavier also told him of Kristoph’s execution. Kristoph Gavin, Klavier’s brother and Apollo’s former boss, was finally executed via lethal injection about a month ago. Klavier was present, and while Kristoph had no last words, their eyes locked one last time before the deed was done.

And as if things couldn’t get more depressing, Apollo decided to tell Klavier about his adoptive father, Dhurke Sahdmadhi, and the events that sparked a revolution here in the Kingdom of Khura’in. Which, of course, included the details surrounding Dhurke’s death, as well as his biological father’s murder at the hands of the former Queen of Khura’in. It was still rather difficult to retell the events that haunted his memories, but he knew that he would have to get over it eventually.

“I’m really sorry to hear about Kristoph.” Apollo looked at Klavier with sympathy. “Regardless of what he’s done, I’m sure it must’ve been hard for you.”

Klavier sighed. “The past is past. I can’t waste time feeling sorry for myself.” He smiled sadly. “It’s strange, really…he had done some cruel things that ruined him, and I pitied him. But as his brother, I couldn’t help but feel sad. He wasn’t even a supportive brother to begin with.”

“That’s only human nature.” Apollo took a sip of his herbal tea. “To me, he was just my boss; but to you, he was family.”

Klavier chuckled. “How about we change the subject to something more…cheerful.” He rested his chin on his hands and smiled. “So am I to understand that you inherited your adopted father’s law office? You sure are making a name for yourself, Herr Forehead.”

Apollo laughed awkwardly and scratched his cheek a little. “Something like that. I wanted Dhurke’s dream to live on, so I made the tough decision to stay here…at least until the justice system in this country gets revived.”

Klavier hummed. “Do you still keep in contact with Fräulein Magician and Fräulein Cykes? And what happened to Fräulein Detective? I haven’t seen her in quite some time.”

“Ever the romantic, aren’t you.” Apollo rolled his eyes. Ema was probably over the moon over not having to work side-by-side with Klavier. “It’s pretty expensive to talk over the phone, but I send them letters whenever I’m able to. Trucy apparently promoted Athena to her magical assistant.” Apollo thanked the stars that he no longer had that position. “As for Ema…I think she’s here in Khura’in, actually.”

That earned him a raised eyebrow, so Apollo explained further. “The prosecutor in this country has taken a liking to her, so she’s here for as long as I have helping us with cases.”

“I’m amazed that someone could tolerate the detective for too long without stepping on her toes.” Klavier chuckled.

Apollo shot him a deadpanned expression. “I’m sure she was only like that because she had to deal with you on a daily basis.”

Klavier feigned hurt. “Way to strike me where it hurts, Herr Forehead.”

Of course, Apollo knew that the real reason behind Ema’s sour attitude back then was due to her having failed the forensics exam. Now that she was a certified forensic scientist, she was in much higher spirits.

They spent a few more minutes of small chatter before leaving the café. And who should they run into but Nahyuta and Rayfa carrying more supplies, no doubt in preparation for the festival.

“So you must be the musician that will be performing in a few days?” Nahyuta questioned, to which Klavier nodded. Nahyuta smiled. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance. Any friend of Apollo is a friend of mine.”

Apollo crossed his arms. “Klavier, this is Nahyuta Sahdmadhi. He’s the prosecutor for this country. And the girl next to him is Rayfa Padma Khura’in…crowned princess of Khura’in, as well as a holy priestess.”

Klavier whistled. “You sure have friends in high places, Herr Forehead.”

“Herr…Forehead…?” Nahyuta chuckled, and Rayfa smirked.

“I see that Horned Head has many titles.”

Klavier bowed to Rayfa, took her hand in his, and kissed it. “It’s an honor to meet the princess of this country.”

Rayfa’s face turned a dark shade of red and Apollo thought for a moment that she had short-circuited. And as expected, Rayfa hastily pulled her hand away and pouted. “You will cease this inappropriate behavior at once!” Her voice slightly cracked at the end, which didn’t help her case at all.

“I see you’re still an insufferable charmer.” Apollo rolled his eyes, to which Klavier chuckled.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Klavier then took Apollo’s hand and did the same thing. “Unless it’s working, of course.”

Apollo stood there, frozen like a statue. “N-Now you’re just trying to be annoying.” However, the fact that he hesitated to pull his hand away caused Nahyuta to chuckle. Thankfully, Klavier didn’t notice as he stood up.

“Well, I think I will head back to my room. I think jet lag is finally catching up with me.” Klavier smiled. “Good to see you again, Herr Forehead. Maybe we’ll see each other tomorrow. My number is still the same.” And with a wink, Klavier walked back in the direction of Tehm’pul Temple without looking back.

After a few minutes of saying nothing, Nahyuta cleared his throat. “So…just a friend, you said?”

Apollo snapped out of his trance. “Uh…what?”

“You and Klavier Gavin seemed very close.”

Apollo was silent for a short moment, before looking to the side. “He and I have known each other for a while. And while I hate to admit it, he’s helped me out with my first few cases as an attorney.”

Nahyuta nodded in understanding. “So your relationship is strictly professional?”

“…What are you implying?”

“You reacted the same way that Rayfa did when Mr. Gavin kissed your hand.” Nahyuta smiled sweetly. “And unlike her, you’re not a small child vulnerable to precocious crushes.”

“Hey!” Rayfa pouted next to Nahyuta, but he ignored her.

“Hm…maybe that mistletoe will come in handy, after all.”

Apollo wasn’t impressed in the slightest. “You’re just imagining things, Nahyuta.” However, that did nothing to stop his heart from racing at an unnatural pace. He desperately wanted the subject to change. “So if you two are here, who’s watching the office?”

Rayfa crossed her arms. “Datz, of course.”

The color from Apollo’s face drained away and he rushed back in the direction of his office, all while grateful for that embarrassing conversation to end.

“Whoa, you must be in deep trouble if you’re willing to pay for a long distance phone call, Polly!” Trucy’s voice chimed through Apollo’s cell phone. “You’re not in trouble with the law again, are you?”

Apollo frowned. “No, nothing like that…and what do you mean ‘again’?!” He huffed. “If you must know, Klavier is here in Khura’in. To perform for the Christmas festival.”

He could practically feel the amount of glee seeping through Trucy’s voice. “Oooooh, so that’s where he went! We’re actually babysitting his dog for him while he’s away. I wanted to tell you, but by the time the letter would reach you it’d probably be too late.”

Well, he appreciated the thought, he supposed. Though that still did nothing to calm his heart down. It felt like it was about to explode, and there was no way in hell he would ever admit to the reason for it. “I wonder how Ema would react to seeing him here. She’s been so busy with work that I doubt she even knows about the festival.”

Trucy giggled. “It’s just like you to change the subject like that, Polly.”

“I admit nothing.”

“Well, I’m sure Ema won’t be as grumpy as she used to be, now that she can legally take people’s fingerprints!” Trucy’s voice faltered all of a sudden, and soon after there was a loud crashing noise in the background.

“Are you alright, Trucy?!” Apollo began to worry.

Trucy’s voice sounded distant for a moment, before it came back to the phone. “Sorry about that, I’m practicing a new magic trick but Athena keeps messing up her part. She’s enthusiastic, but she doesn’t have the same charm that you did.”

“And I don’t miss those days for a moment.” Apollo deadpanned. “I hope Athena isn’t bleeding to death right now, otherwise Mr. Wright will not only have to find a new attorney, but also deal with Mr. Blackquill’s wrath on top of that.”

“No no she’s fine! For the most part…” Trucy’s voice trailed off. “Might have gotten a few paper cuts but nothing serious! Besides, Pearl is helping out too. She’s our resident first-aid kit for Athena.”

Apollo sighed. “Stop bringing other people into your convoluted magic tricks.”

“I can’t hear you, Polly!” Trucy sing-songed. “So back to your reason for calling. I think your situation desperately calls for some Christmas magic. Like a clear starry night…or mistletoe!”

“Enough with the mistletoe!” Apollo’s chords of steel made its appearance in the form of a grating shout. “It’s not like that.”

“Are you sure about tha—”

Apollo could hear a commotion on the other end, followed by some protests from Trucy. Seconds later, a new voice popped up.

“Okay listen up, Apollo, I was listening to the entire conversation!”

Apollo scowled. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s impolite to eavesdrop, Athena?”

Athena scoffed. “Whatever, just listen. You can’t keep your feelings inside you for so long. I’m practically on the other side of the world and I can still feel your emotions loud and clear! And if you think I’m not willing to give you a therapy session over the phone, you’re sorely mistaken.”

“Alright, alright I get it. So what are your ears picking up, exactly? Because I have no idea.”

It sounded like Athena grabbed something from the other end. “Glad you asked! Now, as your resident therapist, I suggest you first admit your feelings for Klavier—”

“Wait wait what, WHAT?!” Apollo practically screamed.

“Oh please, Apollo, it was obvious to me since you made that huge tangent about those roses Klavier sent Trucy earlier in the year.” Athena’s voice was flat, and Apollo could just about picture her eyes rolling. “You don’t have to tell the man, but admitting to yourself that you have feelings for him will definitely ease the tight feeling in your chest.”

“………..Goodbye, Athena. Tell Trucy I said goodbye, and if she asks, you are the reason I’m cutting this conversation short.”

Before Athena could protest, Apollo hung up his phone and let out a loud, drawn out sigh. He lied back on his bed and stared up at the ceiling.

(Feelings for Klavier, huh…)

December 22, 2028 Wright Anything Agency

“I can’t believe you, Athena!” Trucy huffed with her hands on her hips. “I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye to him!”

Athena felt only slightly guilty. “It’s not MY fault he refuses to admit his feelings for Klavier!”

Trucy crossed her arms. “Polly’s a boy, Athena! They don’t admit things like that so easily, if at all!”

Athena frowned. “I would think he would have outgrown that behavior by now, he’s in his mid-twenties!”

“Umm…guys?”

Both Trucy and Athena looked in the direction of the voice to see Pearl standing there with an apologetic smile. “Sorry to interrupt, but I just got off the phone with Bonny. She was wondering if you wanted her to get Mr. Hat ready for tomorrow’s Christmas show…”

“Oh!” Trucy ran to grab her notes that were sitting on the coffee table. “Yeah, if she’s able to!”

Athena toyed with her earring. “…Didn’t Bonny mess up Mr. Hat’s positioning during that one case…?”

“Yeah, but I trust her! Besides, Betty is there too to supervise.” Trucy went back to practicing her magic trick, and Athena grimaced.

(Wasn’t Betty actively trying to sabotage you, too?!)

December 25, 2028 Justice Law Office

It was finally time for the festival, and Apollo was absolutely floored by how beautiful the bazaar was. Candles illuminated every corner of each store; people selling small candies colored in silver and gold. Khura’in even had their own version of Santa Claus, although it was an overly long name that Apollo couldn’t even try to pronounce if he wanted to. Apparently this version of Santa Claus was a holy priest who dedicated his life to making children happy; he awarded those who practiced his religion with devout faith, and punished those by sending them to a dark abyss where they would face eternal suffering. A bit excessive, Apollo thought, but he can’t say he was surprised.

He hadn’t seen Klavier since the other day. He didn’t want to pull Klavier away from his rehearsals for later tonight. Klavier did however text him that he would be performing ‘The Guitar’s Serenade’ after the candles are lit on the hal’abad tree. It was customary for an hour sermon to be recited during the lighting, followed by up to three hours of prayer. Apollo was grateful that he wouldn’t have to participate in that; he wasn’t sure if his back can handle being in a hunched position like that for three whole hours.

He walked through the bazaar, admiring the lights and little trinkets hanging from the rafters with a carefree expression. It wasn’t often that he can enjoy something like this without thinking about a case in the back of his mind. Ever since the abolishment of the Defense Culpability Act, his office has heard no end to cases involving wrongful convictions; and while he was more than happy to right the wrongs done by a twisted government, it was nice to have some time to himself.

His eyes fell upon Nahyuta and Ema by a fruit stand. Ema had a very confused expression on her face while Nahyuta was holding up a bizarre-looking fruit with pink skin and purple splotches, all while making a gesture with his hand. Surely he was giving Ema some kind of lecture about the significance of that particular fruit, and Apollo couldn’t help but shake his head and chuckle at the scene. He walked a little further and noticed Datz selling some…were those lizards? Surely not the same lizards that he had hanging in the office at some point?! Apollo couldn’t walk fast enough when he saw that Datz noticed him and egged him to come over.

When he finally made it to Tehm’pul Temple, he stared in awe at the huge hal’abad tree with what looked like thousands of candles on each branch. This seemed like a fire hazard, but who was he to question a sacred Khura’inese holiday? As he walked closer, he noticed Rayfa standing in front of the tree looking at a piece of parchment. He wondered if Rayfa also had an important part in the ceremony; it made sense, her being the royal priestess and all.

A quick glance to his left, and his gaze landed on that of Klavier Gavin, clad in his normal wear and going over some of the vocals for his song. He even had a guitar in hand. Apollo couldn’t help but think about the conversation he had with Trucy a few days ago, and he immediately felt tense. Is this how witnesses felt whenever he perceived them? It was such an uneasy feeling, and it sent a chill down his spine.

Klavier must’ve noticed him staring, for he called him over with a smile and wave. Apollo feigned a scoff and walked over.

“I’m still surprised they decided to get a foreign performer for such an important day.” Apollo commented, to which Klavier chuckled.

“Believe me when I almost refused the offer…until the queen herself asked, and well, who can say no to royalty?”

Apollo shot him a small smile. “Understandable.” His gaze drifted towards the sky, where a bunch of stars danced in the night. “…You know, we’ve known each other for a while, and while I hate to admit it…” He sighed. “…You were part of the reason for me lasting this long as an attorney. Going against you has taught me many things, and…I guess I’m saying I’m thankful.”

Klavier had a dumbfounded expression on his face for a split second, but quickly recovered. “While I appreciate the sentiment, Herr Forehead, that was entirely your doing. I just pushed you in the right direction.” He smiled. “We were both aiming towards the same truth, were we not?” He looked up at the sky as well. “Ach, I do have to say that I miss our days in the courtroom. It’s just not the same without you on the other side.”

Apollo’s heart made an involuntary leap and for a second, he thought he would faint. “Uh…r-right. And here I thought you only saw me as a naïve greenhorn who needed to be spoon-fed evidence.”

The light laugh that escaped Klavier’s throat was intoxicating. “Of course I thought that at first, but that was before I got to know you. I always wondered what kind of attorney you were, after you bested my bro in court…and I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised.”

“…Of what?”

Klavier looked back at Apollo. “Everything, I guess. But most of all, that determination you had to find the truth, and undying faith towards your client. Despite being your boss, you turned out to be nothing like Kristoph.”

He hated to admit it, but he was starting to feeling butterflies in his stomach. He hated it when Athena was right, especially about something like this. “…Listen, Gav—uh, Klavier…”

Klavier raised an eyebrow, and it was then that Apollo realized that this was the first time he ever referred to Klavier by his first name. And upon realizing this, it became much more difficult to form the correct words—

“Hey, Horned Head. I’m unsure of where to put this, but Nahyuta handed it to me and now I’m stuck with it. What are the customs for this in America, again?”

Apollo turned his head up behind him and saw Rayfa standing there, a blunt expression on her face...holding a bundle of mistletoe in her fingers and dangling it above where he and Klavier were sitting. He was mortified. He dared to glance at Klavier, who was merely chuckling, his chin propped up by his hand and staring at him.

“The fräulein wants to know what people do under the mistletoe. Would you like to help me show her, Herr Forehead?” Klavier smiled, and Apollo couldn’t take it anymore. He grabbed hold of the front of Klavier’s shirt and pulled him in closer, giving him a forceful kiss that couldn’t have lasted more than a few seconds. When he pulled away, Apollo got up from his seat and stormed off, not even bothering to look back. Why did he do that?! He was such an idiot, and the worst part was he couldn’t tell which part he regretted more, the kiss or leaving right after. It wasn’t until he heard someone shouting his name that he came to a halt and turned around.

“You know it’s bad taste to leave without a word after kissing someone, ja?” Klavier panted a little. He must have ran after him shortly after what happened.

Honestly speaking, Apollo acted on impulse. It was a spur of the moment decision brought about by everyone taunting him; first Nahyuta, then Trucy and Athena…he let out a frustrated sigh as he turned his head to look back at Klavier, who was running his fingers through his hair.

“I…I just did what people normally do under mistletoe. It’s what everyone wanted of me, right?” Apollo bit out.

Klavier tilted his head with a mildly concerned expression. “I was just humoring the young fräulein—”

“What do you want from me, Gavin?” Apollo cut Klavier off.

Klavier took a step toward Apollo. “I should be the one asking you that.” Klavier reached out with the intent to rest his hand on Apollo’s shoulder, but stopped when he saw how the other man recoiled. “Is there something bothering you? Ach, did I do something to offend you in any way?” He grew more concerned by the minute. “Please talk to me.”

Apollo hesitated. His gaze darted back and forth between Klavier’s face and the hand that was ever so slightly reaching out to him. There is no turning back once he speaks the words he desperately wants to get out. But really, why would someone as famous as Klavier, the rock star prosecutor himself, even think about reciprocating his feelings? Sure he was making a name for himself in Khura’in, but back in the States he was just a defense attorney working under the legendary Phoenix Wright. Hell, Klavier witnessed Apollo’s very first cases as a defense attorney, and all the embarrassments that came with being a greenhorn.

He never could take rejection very well; his mind was already settling on the worst possible outcome before anything even happened.

“Apollo?”

Apollo was dragged out of his thoughts by Klavier’s voice, and when his eyes focused in front of him, he realized that Klavier’s face was much closer to his own than before. He could feel his own face getting hotter and hotter, despite his efforts to stop it.

“…What do you think of me, Gav…Klavier.” Apollo’s voice broke a little. “Please, I need to know.”

Klavier stared at Apollo for what felt like an eternity, before he finally answered. “Words cannot even begin to describe how I feel about you, Apollo.” His expression was somber as he glanced around at the lit candles illuminating the bazaar. “You remember when we first met?”

Apollo slowly nodded. “I could never forget that case…” Although he would be more than happy to forget about stolen panties. “Trucy noticed you standing in front of your motorcycle, waving to a bunch of your fans.” He let out a chuckle. “You were the one who made it possible for me to investigate the crime scene.”

Klavier smiled. “I probably didn’t look like it to you, but I was…suffering back then. Emotionally, and mentally.”

“…Was it because of Kristoph?” Apollo already knew the answer, but wanted confirmation.

Klavier nodded. “My bro was certainly one of a kind. But behind closed doors, he was just as manipulative and scheming as how he was in the courtroom. Every waking hour growing up with him felt like there was a noose around my neck, and he was the judge, jury, and executioner.” He let out a sigh. “And then…that case happened. Kristoph set me up to destroy Phoenix Wright’s career. I had my suspicions of course, but with all my heart I really wanted to believe that there was no way my own brother could do something that cruel. And then you came along and pulled the covers from my eyes. And thanks to you, I was finally able to confront Klavier on equal footing; I was no longer afraid of him.”

Apollo didn’t know what to say, but Klavier continued. “What I’m trying to say is that, in a way, you saved me back then. Without you there to accuse Kristoph and bring him into the courtroom once more, I don’t think I would have ever been able to face my demons.” Klavier looked at Apollo and smiled. “You mean a lot to me, Apollo…more than I’m sure you can even begin to imagine.”

A small breath escaped Apollo’s mouth as he was rendered speechless.

(C’mon, say something, damnit!)

“I would like to know what you think of me, too…if that’s alright.” Klavier asked thoughtfully. He just gave Apollo an opening, one that he decided to take.

Apollo let out a breath of air. “…If it weren’t for you, I don’t think I ever would have made it this far as an attorney.”

Klavier was about to say something, but Apollo held a hand up to stop him. “Before you tell me how that’s not true, just listen for a second. I was a novice, my former boss was sent to prison on murder charges…I had nowhere to go until the Wright Anything Agency phoned me. And the last thing I expected was to be immediately thrust into investigating a murder from stolen noodle carts and panties.”

Klavier chuckled, which Apollo responded with a chuckle of his own. “…Was it your intention to give me all those hints? When we were in court, it felt like you were guiding me along to finding the answer…I might have gotten a Not Guilty verdict, but at the time, it still didn’t feel like a victory to me.”

“I’m sure you’re already well-aware of this, Apollo, but the most important thing for me was to find the truth…it wasn’t about winning or losing, or a personal battle between attorney and prosecutor. And as a rookie defense attorney, I was positive that you probably wouldn’t have understood that.” Klavier explained, to which Apollo nodded.

“You were right, of course.” Apollo glanced away. “Back then, I didn’t know what it meant to find the truth. I didn’t know what it meant for an attorney to be working together with a prosecutor and share evidence. But you helped me see that the way I was brought up was wrong.” He hesitated to bring up the next thoughts on his mind, but it was now or never. He had to do it.

“…I-I know I always acted like you were the most annoying person on the planet, but I want you to know that I never thought of you in that way.”

(Breathe, Apollo. You can do this.)

When his eyes met Klavier’s, he saw the light shining from the candles reflect on Klavier’s pupils. It was beautiful.

“You mean a lot to me, more than you probably realize.”

Klavier smiled. “You repeated what I told you—”

“I’m not finished.” Apollo bit his lip, and stepped closer to Klavier until they were mere inches apart. Klavier’s eyes widened, but Apollo paid no mind as he stood on his toes and pressed his lips softly onto Klavier’s. It didn’t last long, but he just wanted to get the message across.

You…mean a lot to me. More than you probably realize.”

Klavier just stared at Apollo with his mouth slightly agape, before he finally snapped out of it.

“Apollo…how long?”

Apollo shook his head. “Honestly, I probably couldn’t tell you that. But if I had to guess, it probably started developing around the time you invited Trucy and I to your concert.”

“And you never told me?”

Apollo grew frustrated once more. “It’s not that easy, okay?! For someone like you who has people confessing their love to you on a daily basis, maybe. But for someone like me…”

Klavier watched quietly as Apollo tried to stop his body from shaking. When a few minutes had passed, Klavier took the opportunity to pull Apollo in closer. Apollo’s eyes widened.

“Those people who you say confess their love for me? They’re just fans. They probably say the same thing to their other favorite celebrities. Contrary to popular belief, I’ve never even had a girlfriend or boyfriend.” Klavier smiled as Apollo huffed.

“I don’t believe it. Not even when you were starting out as a rock star?”

Klavier shook his head. “Kind of hard to trust people, you know? Are they dating me because they love me, or are they dating me because I’m famous? Trust is one of the most important factors in a relationship…to me, anyway.”

Apollo looked down. “I see…”

He felt a slight pressure on the top of his head; it took him a moment to realize that Klavier had kissed his head very softly.

“I trust you, Apollo.”

“…What are you saying?” Apollo glanced back up at Klavier, who tilted his head and smiled.

“I’m saying that I feel the same way about you…if you’ll have me.”

Apollo didn’t hear anything else; didn’t see anything else. All of his focus was on Klavier. He wasted no time pulling the other man in and kissing him under the candlelight, just as the snow was beginning to fall once more.

“Happi’raki Khu’khurist!”

A chorus of shouts and cheers as the people of Khura’in witnessed the lighting of the hal’abad tree, welcoming Christmas with open arms and many prayers. The concert was a big hit, with many of the younger citizens practically begging Klavier to visit again, which he was more than happy to oblige…although it was probably mostly due to his new boyfriend being the revolutionary defense attorney in this country.

Rayfa was overseeing the festival of prayers, where everyone knelt down in prayer for hours on end until the candles on the hal’abad tree burn out. It was mildly amusing seeing how serious Rayfa was while looking over everyone, but every now and then she would glance at the children with their parents enjoying themselves and huff. Apollo decided maybe he’ll buy her a festive pastry later.

Nahyuta was helping Rayfa with her duties whenever possible, but for the most part he was done with the festivities and decided to go back to Justice Law Office to rest up. He wasn’t alone, however, as Ema, Ahlbi, and Datz were also enjoying themselves in the warmth of the office. Didn’t Khura’inists enjoy the cold? Or maybe they were just enjoying each other’s company, which Apollo thought was far more plausible.

All in all, the festival was a success. His first Christmas in Khura’in…Apollo now had more memories to share with Trucy and Athena, and everyone else back home in the States. And of course, more memories to come with Klavier.

“So just out of curiosity, Herr Forehead…what did you REALLY think of me when you first saw me up on stage…?”

“OBJECTION! No comment.”

#nyappykid #aass2017 #ace attorney #klapollo #apollo justice #klavier gavin #my writing

56 notes · View notes

pinksweatergettingbetter · 7 years

Text

warning, the following has mainly snarky (and possibly furious) opinions on Spirit of Justice. Reader discretion is advised.

Trucy, you don’t need to take sides. There’s one side. The truth. And both Apollo and Phoenix are on that side.

They’re not at the same bench but they’re on the same team. It’s gonna be ok.

“I’m sorry too, little lady! this is all my fault..”

Oh so trucy gets an apology, but not Apollo? cool cool whatever

Trucy, if Phoenix and Apollo become bitter enemies over a property dispute then they weren’t really all that close to begin with.

Dhurke: invalides trucy’s feelings while simultaneously spouting more of his Manly Man shit

“one minute we’re trading blows, and the next, we’re having drinks together”

well if that’s his mentality i can see why he thinks its ok do be an utter fuckwad to everyone

“We’re simple creatures at heart! Hah-hahahaha!”

yes... men are so simple at heart... they’re just a bunch of neanderthals... thanks Dhurke, truly you are the way to the future.

To be honest, I am glad that this is a civil case. When I first saw the publicity I was sure they’d made Phoenix a prosecutor for no reason and I was furious.

I’m not super glad at the way things turned out but at least the bullshit counter didn’t go into the red and explode.

Phew. I’m actually sighing in relief here. Maybe I can pretend what follows is all a friendly game or something.

Aww; poor Judgey’s confused :(

...they seriously don’t need to have a falling out to be on the opposite side of a courtroom. Lawyers face each other all the time.

They don’t have to hate each other, they just have to keep things professional, otherwise they’d cause a conflict of interest. Like... it’s not ideal but tbh it’s more a danger to their clients than each other.

Y’know, I’m gonna dare to be optimistic here; as much as I hate this storyline and most people in it, this is actually an interesting and character-developing scenario.

Apollo has to face off against his mentor, the guy who... well I’d say Kristoph taught him all his tricks, but Phoenix was a sort of moral guiding force, I guess. Apollo standing up and holding his own against a superior is a legitimate way to show that he’s come into his own. Plus, since it’s not framed in a negative light (or at least, it shouldn’t be) it’s more impactful than phoenix being straight up evil since that would make it easy to take him down. This is a contest between two people who simply happen to be on opposite sides of the chess board. Again, it’s a pretty legit way to show Apollo’s growth.

...that said, I just wish it wasn’t happening after zero character build up and a heaping serving of bullshit. :T

Oh well. At least they got something right.

it is pretty hilarious how much they’re trying to up the drama though. it’s not that deep, guys

I guess Atishon just doesn’t have legs

[snerk] his shitty speeches are actually kinda funny. ...if a little cliché.

...he’s standing... but I'm still not ruling out that he’s legless...

Tbh, even though Atishon is clearly lying, the fact that Datz basically threatened the orb out of Buff does make this kind of in their favour.

...Apollo, don’t overcomplicate the case. All you have to do is prove that it’s not the crystal and you can have it.

Reasons Apollo would make a good rebel: He doesn’t blab his rebelness all over the place for no reason.

SEXY PAN UP SHOT FOR MS. SKYE

nice ankles, ms skye.

“Ema..?”

“Use some manners, we’re in court”

thats not the way you acted the last time you were called as his witness :/

whoa seriously whats with the sudden crazy 180 for Ema? Yeah, she’s grumpy, but suddenly she’s acting like Apollo’s some rude little shit off the street. Why is she upset that he’s going up against Phoenix? Why does he need to apologize? JUST BEING ON OPPOSITE ENDS OF THE COUTROOM DOESN’T MAKE YOU ENEMIES.

or did the SOJ team forget the lessons we learned in the trilo–– oh who am i kidding they’ve never even laid eyes on those.

“You’ll never get the job done with that attitude. Take it from someone who’s been there” Been where???? Been where, Ema?????? what the fuck are you talking about what is going on

haha the fey statue and the urn were ‘stolen’, huh? yeah. stolen from a better game.

pfft. So Buff’s some Kaitou Kid type, huh?

y’know ive been neglecting to mention it but have you noticed how much they skimp on animation compared to DD? DD had like 20 tiny animated cutscenes, and SOJ has one lame one at the beginning of each case to set it up. I can’t believe they even slashed the animation budget.

has anyone noticed how unfocused 3D phoenix looks. he looks like he’s just. staring out into space.

i love they don’t use gendered pronouns to refer to Buff’s kid. Remember the last time they did that? Mr. Andrews......

“I was shocked to see the urn that came from Kurain in Kurain”

anyway quit referencing actually good games, SOJ. Back to the shame corner for you.

oh COME ON. How do you steal a fucking wall relief?!

and he really couldn’t just get a fucking permit? what the fuck is this

“but good intentions are no get-out-of-jail-free-card”

they are a sentence-lightening card, though! either way, this is one of the things i like most about AA. No matter how good your intentions were you still dont get away with cold-blooded murder.

OR KIDNAPPING, AURA. HAVE FUN IN JAIL YOU SHITTY EXCUSE FOR LESBIAN REPRESENTATION.

every single theft of an artifact can be attributed to Dr. Buff. every single one.

alright, so we’re back to that whole ‘missing object report’. Thing is, unless there really IS a Crystal of Ami Fey, this wouldn’t work out. Atishon has to provide evidence that he owned the item, or that it existed in the first place. If this crystal turns out to be made up I’m gonna pitch a fuckin fit.

Don’t disappoint me, SOJ.

“Wimperson”

ah, SOJ, with all the comedic genius of a third-grader.

...to be fair i could say the same about Larry but i like larry and AA1. and it also plays into his phrase-thingy!

seriously. gimme pics of the crystal or we’re gonna have some serious problems.

“So how do you know this item is the thing he’s looking for”

“he said so”

THATS. NOT EVIDENCE.

oh judge, your oldness never ceases to be to be enjoyable

(that wasn’t sarcasm btw i love that dumb running gag)

seeing phoenix scream from the opposite side of the table is very enjoyable. just because i love seeing phoenix scream but also like having that scream not mean something bad for my case.

i get to have my cake and eat it too! <3

um i dont think you can put dashes in email addresses.

“Don’t tell me!”

“Oh, but I will anyway.”

I love Apollo so, so much.

so you looked far enough into this that you tried to hack his computer but you’ll accept “its mine cause i said so” as concrete proof of something??

“Maybe the recipient of the email was a dog lover!”

he might be on the other side with the kid gloves off but phoenix is still Phoenix “a baseball also has stitches” Wright.

fuck. he walks to the bench. he cant not have legs.

...but maybe........

what the fuck

Atishon has the same birthday as my dad

DISGUSTING

oh my god, seeing phoenix /sweating/ on the other side is even more surreal

i also love that everyones making ‘politicians are gross’ jokes willynilly but they all forget that they’re Criminal Defence Lawyers

“This is... Quite... a thing... you’ve said”

I'm wheezing

this is turning out to be way funnier than i expected

please SOJ I'm having fun don’t stop me now

i mean he has a point. if Atishon leant the item to Bluff to study that still means that Atishon owned it in the first place.

HOWEVER, WHERE THE FUCK IS THE PROOF OF THE ORIGINAL ITEM IN ANY WAY RESEMBLING WHAT WE’VE GOT HERE.

its so weird to see phoenix on the wrong side of the bench that i keep getting his voice wrong when i read him out loud. i keep making him sound deep and authoritative instead of... well, how he usually sounds.

“Well, grandchildren ARE meant to be spoiled... I mean, that’s what grandfathers are for!”

judgeyyyyyyyyy

im crying

ema: can i fuck off now

“lets get more info on the crystal”

FINALLY. thank you, athena.

NO, NOT ITS HISTORY, DAMNIT

PROVE THAT IT EXISTS AND YOU OWNED IT.

“back in the old country”

...england..?

pft i though his testimony said “The Hilarious History” instead of illustrious history and i was so ready

“he protected the spirit mediums, a minority back then, from the rest of the locals”

well thats a big fat lie because

A) Kurain village is build on mediums

B) no way the Fey clan would allow a male ruler

we could reaaaaaaaallly use some photo evidence, Atishon.

“One Ives Shineto”

ok what the FUCK. where the hell are all the women?! HEY. SOJ TEAM. DID YOU EVEN GLANCE AT THE oh of course you didnt fuck meeeeeeeeee

also whats that pun

FFFF PHOENIX YA LIL SHIT

“The transformation the mediums underwent when channeling spirits frightened the locals”

i am glad to know changing your entire bone structure is as scary looking as it sounds. of course, i doubt people would be frightened for too long when they were talking to deceased loved ones.

i must say they did do a good job writing Atishon’s lines.

“The Kurain channeling technique is known to have originated from Kooraheen, and Ami was said to travel there to train”

No, Ami invented the technique, and according to your backstory, she lived there first. Can you even keep your own facts straight?

I mean, apart from all this being bullshit and i hate it.

i legit cant believe it took THAT LONG for phoenix to point out the fact that the handover agreement was signed under duress.

that'd be like, the first thing i pointed out.

...ah, there it is. I knew this couldn't stay a happy little civil case for long. Here comes the murder.

Also, really Phoenix? You didn’t bring up the fact that he might have been killed any earlier too?

Now that theyre bringing up the pile of books, I realize how ridiculous it is that there were so many of them on the ground. Pulling out one book might dislodge one or two next to it, but not the entire shelf. For the books to have fallen like that, they would have needed to have been shoved from the other side, or for the shelf to have listed forwards. neither of those things are possible. and nobody noticed this?!

i mean the only reason i didnt think about it was because i knew this was murder from the start.

Man, Phoenix, with all your “with respect for the dead” talk, it sure did take you a while to bring up the fact that you knew he was murdered and the police should probably be getting on that right now.

>edit: Actually I just realized how despicable that is; keeping the fact that this was murder secret just to use it later on as a quick bargaining chip in your civil case.

Hey capcom? You can screw up the series all you like but FUCK you for making Phoenix a skeezy piece of shit on par with the likes of von Karma. Because you know who else withholds information that sensitive for such a petty reason? MANFRED VON KARMA.

Fuck you, capcom, fuck you, fuck you, FUCK you.

“Did you forget who you were up against, Mr. Justice?”

All I do is hurl baseless accusations!!

wow the second this turned into murder i just got tired of this case. Also, Phoenix, you better back your butt back to your seat. Being a murder case, this requires a prosecutor... something that you are not.

theres AN AUTOPSY REPORT. WHY ISNT THIS A SEPARATE TRIAL. THIS SHOULD BE A SEPARATE TRIAL; THIS SHOULD BE BEING... TRIAL-ED IN ANOTHER COURTROOM. you can reference it, and use it as evidence, BUT YOU CAN’T JUST COMBINE THEM.

Damnit, Capcom, I TOLD YOU NOT TO DISAPPOINT ME.

BUT YA JUST COULDN’T HELP IT, COULD YOU.

...Datz is in the gallery... But he was just in jai–– fuck it whatever

ok now that this is a murder trial Atishon’s non-answers aren’t funny anymore, theyre ANNOYING. I WANT THIS SHIT TO BE OVER AS FAST AS POSSIBLE. YAP ME A CONTRADICTION OR I’LL CRAM YOUR BELOVED PLAQUE UP YOUR POLITICALLY INEPT ASS.

“Try me, o lord of plebs”

its been a long time since any meme-y type person has called someone else a pleb... please try to keep up, SOJ.

i love that phoenix, at the end of each statement, politely states “get the fuck on with it, asshat”

why the fuck did he

fall asleep what

OOO THE JUDGE YELL

AW YEA

“What did I ever do to deserve this?”

you existed in the first place, Apollo. I’m sorry.

No.............

I do not like that Phoenix used the phrase, “Witness, I think it’s time for you to come clean.”

You know who uses phrases like that.

Assholes.

“You should know I always come fully prepared, Justice!”

( buy it, buy it, buy it, buy it––)

...Right, so Phoenix isn’t a prosecutor but he sure as hell has been doing a lot of prosecutorial things. Calling all the witnesses, explaining the case, etc.

Oh and he and and Atishon still didn’t tell anybody that Buff was most likely murdered right off the bat so ffffffuck you capcom

Fuck you, Datz. Stop laughing and fucking focus on the fact that you’ve been accused of murder and it’s kinda tough on your ol’ pal Apoll– oh wait silly me i forgot none of you give a rats ass about him. All you do is laugh and eat and sit around waiting for Sadmad to come home.

“Better brace yourself, son”

Hey guess what Dad warranty expires if you haven’t made or tried to make contact in 20 years so get that word out of your nasty mouth, Dhurke.

“Worried this might make a rift between you two...

...and that you might then leave the agency”

haha

“Hahaha. She has an active imagination”

hahahah

hahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahhAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHA

“...Nothing a little persuasion couldn’t handle.”

Capcom. If it was something douchey. I will tear you in half.

SEXY PAN UP SHOT FOR

robot guy

i remember when i used to be excited for each new case. now I'm just scared what new horrors the next will bring.

hang on why does the drone not have a special sound font? if it didnt disguise the operator’s voice it would be kind of obvious who they were...

HOLY SHIT MISSILES

SO... THE WHOLE “BOMBS IN THE COURTROOM ARE HORRIFIC THING” FROM DD IS JUST FORGOTTEN, HUH??

hang on.

“Capitalist pig; I’ll turn you into pork stroganoff”

is “Sarge” legit Russian, then? That explains the “Komandir” thing. Shit, I have to change my voice.

ok so Sarge is written with an American Sargent phonetic accent, but uses Russian rankings and seems to be communist. What am I missing???

“I guess he does dress like he’s in the military...”

hes a paratrooper!!! why dont you know that? i thought you grew up with him.

“That’s true. Papa didn’t keep our house locked up.”

...the... archeologist... with a house full of priceless treasures... didn’t lock his fucking doors.

hey congrats for trusting the mediums and all but guess what? thats irresponsible as fuck and incredibly stupid for a supposed thief so I'm kinda surprised it took you this long to be discovered/bumped off.

those have got to be nerf bullets cause firing a GUN in court is just fucking ridiculous. like too far for Ace Attorney. Melee weapons, ok. Long range firearms? No.

...Though... Note to self... Next time, when creating parody prosecutor, you now have legit grounds to just give him a fucking gun........

“Sorry, but I’m afraid lawyers are missile-proof.”

Note to self. Upgrade gag prosecutor to missile launcher.

ooh, i see this drone is in the same vein as the Assassin’s Radio.

“Courtroom warriors don’t use guns or missiles, because evidence is our weapon of choice!”

Ahah! THATS why prosecutors are so violent. They never have any evidence to back up their assertions so they just fuckin ASSAULT people.

i... had a little chuckle at ‘truth bomb’

“What’s with him and Siberia of all places?”

Well context wise it seems he's some kind of... Defected-to-communist American?

Huh. Athena’s powers must be based purely on sound waves then. Interesting.

Anyway, it’s mood matrix time! Hooray!!! I’ve warmed a lot to the Mood Matrix to be honest. I like the glowy lights.

I’m gonna make a guess right now that something was on fire. Cause thats some PTSD shit right there.

pfft the gallery was so on board with their new judge overlord. Also thank goodness this is Ace Attorney and this shit is allowed to fly, cause you’d get your ass handed to you if you tried this in real court, pal.

Um, I wouldn’t dig any deeper if sarge is still in such a state. It’s not... safe. Either that or you best hope that thing’s bottomless magazine has run out. Plus, I love that whoever’s watching over the actual Sarge in the Lobby hasn’t tried to stop them when they noticed them SCREAMING AND PRESSING THE ‘FIRE’ BUTTON REPEATEDLY.

Or they’ve left Sarge unattended and the Dark Age of the law isn't over because it was an omnipresent thing to begin with...

its ok, game. contrary to what you think, you did write Sarge’s backstory in a memorable enough way for me to remember it up until now.

Huh.

HUH.

So... the person involved in writing Ace Attorney Investigations... Has written a sequence in which we must burn evidence to prove a point, huh?

DONT YOU HINT AT ME, GAME

that solemn moment of reflection doesn’t include Phoenix cause he’s over behind his desk bawling his eyes out

“I’LL BE YOUR NEW PAPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA”

actually Athena’s got a point. Her tragic backstory is much more similar to Sarge’s than Apollo’s. She can properly relate to losing one’s last family member in a horrific way.

S––

Well, considering her age, Cutesie Pan-up shot for Armie.

Apollo’s having serious Robin Newman flashbacks right about now

ahhhhhhhhhh. her mom was Russian. It all makes sense. Tbh just for now, forgetting everything else, this kind of does feel like an old case. I’m at peace... for now.

i guess it’s less of an orb and more of some kind of lantern then. Cause you can’t really burn a crystal

unless its

whitcrystal

hahah

hahahahahahahhaha

so far I'm ranking the cases from best to worst: Magical, This part of Revolution, Foreign, Rite and Storyteller.

sgsjgsjsjjs athena’s INTENSE LOOK OF HUNGER as Apollo burns the orb

“I wanna see me some sweet mama goddess”

damn shit thats her face

thats uh

ohhhh

oh i see. I was wondering what the ‘great power’ the orb could bestow upon people was, and now I realize that since it depicts her face, if someone knows her name, they could channel her. And since she's basically an actual goddess that would bestow some serious power.

not bad, not bad at all.

i know i highly dislike Kooraheen but i legit feel kinda blessed

“The issue is crystal clear”

*seals phoenix’s fate with a fucking pun*

dont keep saying “did we just win” before the verdict is handed down, you'll jinx it.

oh hey, blackmail. its like a perfect reenactment of Capcom getting Phoenix to sign onto this sequel.

Phoenix: According to the legend, once the founder returned... She would bestow spiritual power onto the person who solved the riddle.

Apollo: ...Y-youre kidding, right?!

[Apollo looks flummoxed, the gallery whispers. We cut back to Phoenix’s smirk, and then––”

???: Phoenix... Just give it up.

[Phoenix screams in shock. We pan back to Apollo......... Who now has D-Cup breasts and a very familiar face.]

/...i wish.

legit tho i cant believe he's trying to pull this. I'm cackling

this is the lawyeriest lawyer ploy ive ever seen

“What’s gotten into him?”

bad writing.

sdsgsdhjafhgj EVEN THE JUDGE IS CALLING BULLSHIT IM CRYI

(sigh) i guess we’re really gonna have to finish this, aren’t we. oh well. on we go! let’s forge ahead!

y’know i just remembered that Pearl appeared like, once in this. Was that her only part? I guess she just existed to remind us that Kurain village used to have girls in it.

noooooooo fuuuuuuuuuuck

i really hope the contradiction doesn’t require pressing because i aint sitting thru this fuck’s antics again.

it has rounded corners.

and its huge.

phoenix and apollo’s objections are too similar, i can never tell who’s screaming.

“There haven't been many murders there, I take it”

well........ not “many”

i love that Atishon pledges to banish murdeer from Kurain village and Apollo is all “yea good luck with that” like Murder is inevitable, even in a tiny village like Kurain.

Thats. kinda terrifying.

...though considering the way Kurain is...

i cant tell phoenix and apollo’s voices apart (sigh)

i never know whose objecting

Phoenix: my client couldn't have viewed the murder directly from where he said he was, but the fact remains that he had inside knowledge of said crime!

...phoenix, you’re just trying to help apollo along, right? you didnt seriously believe that that sounded positive to your case, instead of Shady as Fuck, right??

“You talk big, Mr. Justice, but do you have what it takes?”

he just finished telling Phoenix he was about to put what Phoenix taught him into practice. Phoenix should be swallowing a lump in his throat and trying not to cry of pride right now.

“that suitcase could be a weapon anyone could use!”

yeah... yeah! even someone in a wheelchair!! oh wait wrong case.

..........but we still have someone in a wheelchair

a 3D crimscene view

haven't seen that shit since AAAJ

‘THAT SHITSTAIN ON THE BOOK PROVES HE WAS HAVIN THE COFFEE SQUIRTS, CASE CLOSED BOYS”

sorry i just felt like being vulgar

“and there it is, the final excuse cornered killers are so fond of”

holy shit

i love apollo

phoenix shut up please, just shut up

let it end

let me rest

oh wait

ah here we go.

“hes a bright young politician with a future ahead of him, its in our nations best interests to avoid burdening him with the taint of scandal”

hey, uh Enshiro

ill never forgive you for putting those words in Phoenix Wright’s mouth

“Lawyer! Do something! Or a bad thing will happen to ‘her’!”

no? nobody else heard that incredibly obvious threat? nobodys gonna

“whats he talking about? well, i can ponder that later. for now...”

FUCK

YOU

DO YOU HAVE A BRAIN THAT IS CONNECTED TO YOUR FUCKING EARS?!

HOW THICK HEADED DO YOU HAVE TO FFUCKING BE TO NOT RECOGNIZE A GODDAMN THREAT WHEN YOU HEAR ONE YOU

YOU

YOU PUTRID PICKLED RED PEPPER?!?!??!?!

Athena: oh yeah i also heard Atishon making blatant threats at Phoenix but meh, phoenix made me pinky swear not to tell.

I’m not shitting a lung in fury, I’m just getting rid of an organ i dont need through the nearest available passage. I’m perfectly calm and not cursing this game, Eshiro and his entire team to the pits of their own stupid made up hell.

“I had no idea. This must’ve been excruciating for him.”

i wanted to write a sarcastic jingle but i had trouble coming up with rhymes, so the blunt bottom line is:

when you’re not good at writing, simply steal clever and impactful plots from previous iterations so that you’ll seem clever and exciting

i mean

nobody even remembers Farewell my Turnabout anymore, right????

what the fuck is his deal with being king

OH SHUT UP DURKE

GO FUCK YOURSELF

think youre gonna steal Franziska and Mia’s thunder????????????? no

you aren’t a fucking fraction of an inch as cool as either of them.

“he’s saved my neck so many times”

when

“where there’s a will, there’s a way”

how about where theres a whip, theres a better game?

“wait................... maybe we can summon the founder now that we can see her face??”

aww. you got there in the end, didnt you apollo.

...that doesnt automatically spare Maya’s life. Pearl is also a spirit medium. And i’m fairly certain there are other–– oh wait SOJ retconned that neverMIND

anyway, Atishon could still bump Maya off and then force Pearl to channel Mamma Kooraheen

OH MY GOD HE JUST BROUGHT UP PEARL

WHY PEOPLE ARE SO STUPID

WIMPERSON BROUGHT UP PEARL

THE IDIOT VILLAIN BROUGHT UP THE FLAW IN YOUR BRILLIANT PLAN

GSEGFISGUILSGIULSGUI;SRHG

“pearl wouldn't help you if anything happened to maya”

um. you morons think he’d politely ask her to help??? he's already kidnapped someone and threatened their death?? he and his founder aren't above torture or blackmail????????????

you FUCKING MORONS

why even bother resigning? just do what you did before and let him go to jail.

...this’d better just be a lead up to his breakdown animation

YOU COCKSUCKING FUCKSTAINS JUST END IT ALREADY

END IT END IT END IT EDN TI EDNEI HDFI HSRLG SIHFLIHIR HF;LIVHLSIRHIGHISRHOVGLORIH’WI’HSGOI’WSGZIHSI

“if only you'd been smart enough to kill the girl, too...”

wow

...what the fuck

well that was... interesting.

i cant even celebrate Phoenix congratulating Apollo, I'm just so tired

there are like 85 sarcastic remarks i could make but I'm just so exhausted

yay we got the orb

dootdootdoot dootdootdoot

even the judge doesnt want to have anything more to do with this.

im right there with ya judgey

“All I can say is, thats my boy!”

NO, YOU DONT GET TO CLAIM PARENTAL PRIDE OF THIS KID

HES NOT YOUR BOY

YOU BARELY RAISED HIM

GO HOME AND DO YOUR SHITTY COUP

“Still, its kinda nice to be appreciated”

if only you actually were, Apollo

yeah, thought so... ill bet they dont even channel her. cop out.

“tsk, thats no fun” indeed, trucy

i love how nobodys like “OK WHERE’S MAYA??? IS SHE OK???”

its fine her whereabouts are unknown and the last info on her was just that her life was in danger

pfffff

its alright, Armie has a place at the WAO

"i knew if i admitted i could walk, id have to leave the house”

uh honey newsflash: you can leave the house in a wheelchair too. I'm pretty sure your dad would let you stay inside anyway

christ how fucking corny can you get. I CAN WALK AGAIN. why dont we just have Tiny Tim in here throwing away his crutch and dancing a fucking jig

see, there we are. Maya’s still in danger you fuck wits.

and part one is over, folks! i am pooped. and furious.

till next time.

#sulking over SOJ #im so.... i #this fucking game good christ this fucking game

4 notes · View notes

wardencommanderrodimiss · 6 years

Text

Spinning Out

on ao3

He finds out from the news. It isn’t even him who sees it first; they’re in a hotel somewhere in Canada, not far off the Atlantic Ocean, all still overstimulated from the concert that afternoon which ended an hour ago. The last vestiges of caffeine have yet to work themselves out of Klavier’s system and he’s doing laps around the room while Daryan throws things at him when in a voice unusually subdued his best friend says, “Hey, Klav, have you checked the news?”

“Early this morning; what about?” he asks, and that was the last moment that his life was normal, inasmuch as his life was ever normal, which it wasn’t. But this – this was the second before he hit the ground. Icarus, golden child, a cliche; he flew away from a cage to chase the light but the only thing there to catch him were the broiling waves.

Daryan puts his tablet into his hands and the body of text blurs as he scrolls back up to the headline. He catches Gavin in the text, wonders what he’s done; when he reaches the top he sees that it’s a local Los Angeles paper that isn’t a tabloid. The other Gavin, then, doing as he does, and Klavier doesn’t need his friends pushing his brother’s shadow back down on him.

The headlining act, bold letters: Defense Attorney Kristoph Gavin Arrested for Murder.

Klavier sits down on the floor.

A damning lede: Kristoph Gavin was arrested at the district courthouse this morning on charges of committing murder in the early hours of the morning Friday, and the details, always the devil in the details, it goes on, it continues, like a sick joke taken just too far to be funny. Mr. Gavin, 32, was at the courthouse to assist as co-counsel to the lead defense attorney for the case, Apollo Justice, 22, a junior partner at Mr. Gavin’s firm. Over the course of the trial, the details which came to light pointed to the innocence of their client, but a far more likely culprit in the defense attorney himself.

He closes his eyes. Did Kristoph keep his frightening calm even as the jaws of the law closed in around him? Was he calm when he murdered another person, too, or was it spur-of-the-moment, a most dire expression of the rage that Klavier has always believed his brother harbors within him.

The court record suggests that Mr. Justice’s position as the lead defense was a last-minute switch as requested by the defendant, Phoenix Wright…

The tablet slips from his hands and he thinks to just leave it on the floor and himself leave, run away from it all, but he can’t ignore the growing sick feeling in his stomach, nor that name.

Mr. Wright, 33, was formerly known as a defense attorney of some renown before his disgrace almost exactly seven years ago, in which he was found guilty of presenting forged evidence in a trial and was subsequently disbarred.

They don’t mention that it was Kristoph Gavin’s own brother who caught Wright in the act of such. And no one knows that it was Kris who had that information to begin with. Did Wright find that out and frame him as revenge?

Still becoming public is what exactly is the evidence which placed such suspicion on Mr. Gavin.

Why wasn’t his first thought that Kris was framed? Why wasn’t his first thought denial? Why, until he saw Wright’s name, was he willing to accept it?

Further details about the victim as well are not yet known; the police gave his name as Shadi Smith, of unknown age.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

“I have to go back,” Klavier says, eyes closed again so he can’t see the look that Daryan must be giving him, pity and concern and now disappointment, surely, as he goes on to drag him out of the sky with him. He drops the tablet on the floor and stands, pressing his hand over his eyes, suddenly feeling the crash from the caffeine. “I need to go.”

“Right now?” Daryan asks. “Seriously, dude?”

“Now, or tomorrow, I have to – tickets, tickets, cancel everything, refunds, I won’t be mad if you and the guys find a singer and go as the Gavinners Without Gavin but we’re not fucking charging people for that, I’m bailing I’m sorry—”

“Why don’t you not do anything until later, or tomorrow?” Daryan says, which is a good idea, which means that in this exact moment Klavier does not want to hear it. “Because you’re seriously just going to drop us, and everything, because—”

“Because my own brother fucking murdered a man, yes, I am!” He believes it. Why does he believe it? Wright is involved; it can’t be legitimate. Wright isn’t allowed to be legitimate because that only fucks up everything more than it already is. “Because I’m a prosecutor and my brother is a defense attorney and murdered a man!”

“At least wait for the evidence, dumbass,” Daryan says, and Klavier stops at the door, realizing he’s right, wondering if the two in the room next door have already heard him yelling.

“I – you’re right, technically, but—”

“No, just stop there.” Klavier turns around, back against the door, watching as Daryan retrieves his tablet and sets it on the table. “I’m right, no technicalities. Wait.”

“I can’t wait.” Tomorrow, the trial is going to be tomorrow, won’t it? Planes back to LA aren’t in short supply, and he’ll gain back four hours crossing time zones. He could be there for a 10 am trial start. “If he’s being falsely accused, framed, I have to go help him. If he – if he—”

“If he really fucking just went and ganked some rando—”

“Then I – then my brother’s a murderer and I can’t just go on like nothing happened—”

Like the world hasn’t fallen out from beneath his feet.

“Sure you can,” Daryan says, far too blaise, and Klavier wants to scream at him. “When’s the last time you talked to Kris? What’s he done for you lately?”

When was the last time he talked to Kris? He doesn’t know – he doesn’t know. They don’t keep in touch; he doesn’t keep Kristoph updated on where in the world he is traveling now. They used to text daily while Klavier was studying in Germany. Kris was the first person who heard that Klavier had passed the bar and gotten his badge. They’re brothers but they were friends. It was why he didn’t question the information he got about the Gramarye trial. It was from Kristoph; of course Kristoph is a reliable source.

After, though – after, the lack of verdict haunting him, that was when he started to wonder. Of course Wright forged the evidence; unquestionable. That has to be true. Klavier needs it to be true. But why, how, did Kristoph know? And it was like he read Klavier’s mind, knew his doubts – and that old bridge between them he thought so sturdy burned instead. Which one of them struck the match?

“He’s still my brother,” Klavier says. He slides back down to the floor. Daryan is flopped on one of the beds, hanging half over the edge, looking over to Klavier.

“What’re you gonna do? You’re a prosecutor. You’re not just gonna march in there and demand to prosecute your own brother?”

“No; I wouldn’t make it back in time.”

“And, oh, maybe a billion other reasons why that’s not gonna work,” Daryan says.

He’s right, again. No one would trust Klavier not to have some sort of bias if he went in and insisted on prosecuting Kristoph’s case. If he was assigned, fine; he could try and be objective. But to actively seek that out -- no, they would think one way or another, he wanted to tilt the verdict.

“I… I just have to go back.” He doesn’t have a good reason. It’s a flight of fancy to think there is anything he could do, but in his heart he knows he needs to go back. “I need to. I’m going.”

Daryan seems to realize that he’s talking to a wall. “Sure, but two things. First, wait for some fuckin’ evidence before you start making calls, and two, you’re on your own when you do.”

“What?” Maybe if his head weren’t spinning he could figure out what Daryan was referring to.

“I mean, telling the other guys, telling the fans, fucking up everything – I’m not taking the heat for you on this one.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to.” They’re both silent. Sometimes they can say things in the silence but right now Klavier feels like he is looking at his best friend through a haze. “I’m sorry,” he adds. Daryan says nothing. “I’m sorry, but I—”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t start the self-flagellation.” Daryan rolls over so that he’s staring at Klavier upside-down. “I’m pissed at you but I’ll get over it. Save it for everyone else.”

“He’s my brother. I have to go.”

“Dude.” Daryan’s hands start moving around, patting the bed, like he’s looking for something to throw. “I said, save it. We’re not cool but we will be.

“Thanks.”

It feels weak, given the situation, but he doesn’t know what more to add. Daryan topples off the bed, grabs a pillow that was on the floor, and hurls it at Klavier. When Klavier gets it out of his face, he is grinning. “So if I got arrested you’d drop everything and come running too, right?”

Klavier rolls his eyes and tosses the pillow back. It does not reach Daryan. “You won’t because where are you that I’m not there to stop you doing dumb shit?”

“Well, maybe while the rest of you are hoofing it across the pond for some leg of a tour—”

“Nobody says ‘across the pond’.”

“Oh, you’re one to talk about people ‘saying things’, you fake Eurotrash piece of shit.”

Klavier laughs, and Daryan does as well, and for the briefest of moments, he can forget. Daryan is the one who sobers first. “It’s like, a week left this part of the tour. Wait that long, at least.”

He’ll still have to cancel everything down the line, starting with June, but just a week is –

— enough time for a sentencing.

“I don’t know.” Klavier pushes himself back onto his feet. “I… we should probably talk about this as a whole band.”

“Group meeting about what to do about Gavin’s douchebag brother!” Daryan yells at the wall. Klavier steps forward and grabs the pillow and swings.

He agrees to stick out the week, faced with the full pressure of the rest of his bandmates, which he starts to regret as the news articles updates and the evidence against Kristoph reads thin, even for an article for the layman concerned more with informing the public that he did it than explaining in depth how that conclusion was reached. He drafts an email to the Chief Prosecutor and then tables it. He drafts an email to the band’s manager and publicist and tables it, then sends it ten minutes later. He writes, rewrites, and rewrites again a tweet before deleting it. Daryan watches him, faintly bemused.

“Dude,” he says, “you don’t gotta… rehearse and re-rehearse every single fucking little thing. You’re so…” He trails off, searching for a word.

“Don’t you dare say ‘anal’.”

“Real mature, Prosecutor Gavin.”

“You happen to be laughing as well, Detective Crescend.”

“Perfectionist,” Daryan says, throwing a pen at Klavier. He has no idea where that pen came from. “Micromanaging stick-in-the-mud.”

“Maybe I should make it a video announcement,” Klavier says. “More personal, more genuine an apology. Family emergency, gotta put the breaks on the tour—”

“Family emergency, my brother’s a headass.”

“—because my brother’s a tire fire and I have to go back to LA—”

“An absolute shithead.”

“Quite the douchenozzle. Quite the nozzle of a douche.”

“I can’t believe you write our lyrics.”

It makes him feel a little better, for a moment, like he’s trying to stop the rush of blood from a bullet hole with a cork. It’s not going to work but it’s the right shape to give him the impression of helping. His heart is hemorrhaging on the floor of some shitty Russian dive and calling his brother an asshole is an asprin for the internal bleeding.

He doesn’t even know what the fuck borscht is.

He googles it.

Wait, he does, actually. He had it or something like it in Borginia.

“Get a grip, Gavin,” Daryan says, leaning over his shoulder and looking at what the laptop screen now displays.

“I have a grip.” And he does, but in a way that his life is spinning out of control so fast that rather than breaking free of his hands it has pulled him, clinging to the last vestiges of control, along into the vortex. He goes back to his email. It’s been seven minutes since he emailed his manager. That’s enough of a warning before he puts in a call. “I’ll do the video,” Klavier says. The Gavinners have a social media manager as well, but Klavier has always liked taking pictures and video and dumping them online himself. He should probably at least put in a warning before he does this time. “Once I make these calls.” He made a list. He’s already misplaced the paper.

“You want me to start drafting your note cards?” Daryan asks, ducking under the desk and retrieving for Klavier the sheet.

“I’m not writing fucking note cards. I can speak off-the-cuff.” He wouldn’t be a prosecutor if he couldn’t.

Daryan raises an eyebrow. “Shit, dude, you’re not gonna meticulously overplan your big public apology? You’re more fucked up right now than I thought.”

Klavier flips him off as he leaves for an empty conference room. He shuts himself inside to put in the calls, one by one, to everyone who keep the wheels greased, everyone behind the scenes who are about to find themselves in free-fall – and while he’s on the phone having hard conversations he could make one more. He’s a prosecutor. He wouldn’t have to pull many strings to get through to—

No, no. He’ll wait for him to call.

(Kris never does.)

#ace attorney #klavier gavin #ace attorney bullshit tag #SURPRISE IT'S A FIC NO ONE ASKED FOR #roddy fanfics

27 notes · View notes

worstzombiehunter-ever-blog · 7 years

Photo

[400 Things You Probably Never Wanted to Know About Kris]

1. Name: Kristoph Willhem Becket 2. Nickname(s): Kris 3. Birthday: August 13th, 1993 4. That makes you (age): 24 5. Where were you born (city): Funny story; my family lived in a different area of Florida at the time but mom was supposed to see a specialist in Miami before I was born, but I ended up being premature because she had me on the way there in the car, in traffic. Even back then I guess I had decided I wanted to be in the city, heh. 6. Location right now (planet ): Astoria, Oregon 7. Shoe size: 9 8. How many piercings?: Septum, left eyebrow, tongue, 5 in right ear, 4 in the left 9. Tattoos?: Twelve total; full left hand (skeletal/bone. Lilly), four on the same arm, (stars, skulls, human heart,music notes), right hip socket (solid black star), left ribcage (German text), back of the neck (black star), collarbone (stars}, right forearm (black cross), left forearm (Dates -his siblings birthdays, his parents’ anniversary, the date of the outbreak}, 10. When you wake up you're: Dead to the world, not a morning person 11. When you're about to sleep you're: Paranoid as hell 12. Zodiac sign: Leo 13. Chinese sign: Rooster 14. Righty or Lefty: Right 15. Innie or Outie:The former 16. School: College dropout

Section Two: Looks

17. Nationality: German/Finnish 18. Hair colour: Very blonde 20. Weight: 130lbs 21. Height: 6'0 22. Braces? Nope 23. Glasses? No

Section Three: Private Life

24. Do you have a boy/girlfriend? No 25. If so, who? 26. If not, do you have a crush on someone? Not at this point 27. Who has a crush on you? Nobody? 28. Ever cheated on your bf/gf? No 29. Who was your first kiss: Right out of high school, some guy at a club. Not overly memorable. 30. Who was your last kiss: Marcus 31. Are you a virgin? HA. no. 32. Ever had a threesome before? No; one person is enough to deal with generally. 33. NQ- Every been swarmed by ladybugs?: ...no? Is this some sex-related thing I don't know about? ...now I sort of want to know. 34. Have you ever been in love? Yes, very much so. 35. Broken any hearts? Probably; doesn't everybody? But I never meant to. 36. Got your heart broken? Yeah, a few times. The big one though, he didn't mean to. 37. Ever liked a friend? Yeah? 38. What happened? We nearly got married until the world went to hell.

Section Four: Past Relationships

39. How many relationships have you been in? Dated a lot? Actual relationships; a handful or so. 40. How many were serious enough to count: Two or three really 41. Who were those serious ones: Nick, Angelo, and Marcus; in that order. 42. NQ- Who used to be your best friend: ...Marcus 43. What made them different: Everything. Just everything. 44. What happened: He died and came back, I wasn't there. I still don't know if I would have wanted to be or not. 45. Best boy/girlfriend: Marcus 46. Worst boy/girlfriend: Angie was a jerk, but he was a hot jerk. 47. Ever been kissed: Yeah? 48. Who do you want back: ....a lot of people. Relationship-wise? Marc. 49. Who do you regret: Oh, I could give you a laundry list but...whatever. 50. Why?: I'm good at bad decisions.

Section Five: Favourites

51. Song: I love classical music; it's relaxing. 52. Movie: Donnie Darko amuses me way too much. 53. Food: God I miss really good veggie burgers - but being vegan doesn't work when you're starving. 54. Drink: Dr.Pepper...or any soda really; I need the caffeine. 55. Store: uh? hell if I know 56. Television show: ...I used to really like Twilight Zone..now it seems ironic somehow. 57. Holiday: Halloween 58. Book: Most anything by Neil Gaiman 59. Ice cream: I don't really like it 60. Sweets: Oreos...I would do so much for some Oreos 61. Crisps: Never ate much of those 62. Type of music: Classical 63. Artist: Salvador Dali 64. Word: 'Hell', usually used muttered under my breath, yeah 65. Time of day: Midday 66. Dressing: Like...the stuff you put on a salad? I don't use those. 67. Alcoholic drink: Anything sugary 68. Colour(s): Bright colors, specifically purple and blue. 69. Piece of clothing: These days my boots 70. Character: ?? I don't even know 71. Smell: The ocean 72. Shampoo: Any time I have shampoo and can wash my hair I don't even care what it is. 73. Soap: See the above answer. 74. Smiley: >_> 75. Board game: Battleship 76. Sport: ...not a sports person. 77. Number: 0 78. Quote: "No great artist ever see things as they are" - Edgar Degas 79. Animal: Dogs 80. Actor: I had a really bad crush on Ewan Mcgregor when I was younger 82. Vegetable: Anything; I'm not picky. 83. Fruit: Pineapple 84. Place to be: Anywhere safe 85. Thing in your room: My notebook 86. Gum: Minty stuff, doesn't matter what kind; the fruit flavored stuff is gross. 87. Shape: ? uh...stars? I have a few of them tattoed on me so I guess it counts 88. Country: Here, I guess; I never got to see Germany or Finnland. 89. Mall: Back home in Miami there were a few, wasn't ever much for wandering around them. 90. Car: I miss my car; it's dead now. 91. Boy's name: I like mine? 92. Girl's name: My mom's name is nice; Cammilla 93. Family member: Seriously? Uh...I guess I got along the best with my younger brother. 94. Restaurant: Trying to think about it just makes me hungry 95. Movie place: Don't like theaters 96. Person to go to the movies with: Marc 97. Noise: Crickets; they're so calming, or people breathing when they sleep. 98. Brand of shoe: I don't think I have one. 99. Brand of clothing: Again, no preference. 100. Body part of a chicken: ...their creepy little eyes? 101. Swear word: Fuck 102. Month: August 103. Possession: My notebook 104. Team: Not a sports person 105. Season: Summer 106. Radio station: Right now any of them that work 107. Magazine: Used to read the trashy tabloid ones 108. Favorite grade: I liked my first year in college, it went downhill from there. 109. Least favorite grade: 9th, that was a mess. 110. Teacher: My high school art teacher 111. Least favorite teacher: ...10th grade geometry; Ms. Allen. Urgh. 112. Subject: Art 113. Subject to talk about: People

Section Six: Family

114. Who's your mum?: Cammilla Becket; otherwise known as the ruler of the family. 115. Who's your dad?: Felix Becket; walking encyclopedia of every old story known to man 116. Any step-parents?: No 117. Any brothers?: Yes; Jorge, Andrew, and Fillip 118. Any Sisters?: Annalee 120. Coolest: Me, of course. 121. Loudest: Easily Jorge 122. Best relative: My aunt Lydia; she's hilarious and bakes cookies. 123. Worse relative: ...uncle Gustoph; that man is terrifying 124. Do you get along with your parents? I confused them a lot, I wish...things had been better. 125. With your siblings? With Jorge and Anna, yeah, my older brothers were disappointed in me I think. 126. Does anyone understand you? I don't even understand me sometimes 127. Do you have any pets?: Not anymore 128. If so, what kind and name? I used to have a cat named Chester 129. If not, what do you want as a pet?: I'd like to have a dog again; makes things less lonely.

Section Seven: School

131. Are you still in school? No 132. Did you drop out?: Yeah, from college 133. Your current GPA: ...don't have one. 134. Do you buy or bring lunch?: None of these apply. 135. ABC's?: What? I know what those are. 136. Favorite class: Art theory or art history was fun too. 137. Play any sports at school?: Nope 138. Are you popular? I was, I guess, I had friends. 139. Favorite memory: From school? It's all a blur. 140. Most humiliating moment: Most of my high school days. So many of them. 141. Most funniest moment: ....falling down the steps freshman year; it's hilarious now, was mortifying then. 142. Most scared moment: Nearly getting myself murdered by a really unpleasant guy on the football team.

Section Eight: What do you think of when you hear

145. Chicken: ....nothing? 146. Dog: Warm and fluffy. 147. Christina Aguilera: Radios played her music way too much. 148. Ricky Martin: Ahem. Well he did look really good in leather pants. 149. 50 cent: My neighbors were obsessed with blaring this all night. 150. Poop: ...those emoji things 151. Beach: I miss it so much. 152. Desert: What the world is turning into 153. Water: Necessity 154. Osama: A name? 155. Love: ...lonely. 156. Your little brother: I hope he's still around. 157. Butt: I don't have any overwhelming opinions here. 158. Clowns: Mildly scary. 159. Wonder: Better than giving up. 16o. Brown: Mom's eyes. 161. Banana: Food, or those gross smoothies back home. 162. Sex: Fun, but absent from my life anymore. 163. Parents: Regrets I wish I could change now. 164. Homosexuals: The subtext to my sexuality. 165. God: Gave up on things around here I'm pretty sure.

Section Nine: Do you believe in

166. God: Maybe, but I don't think they're around much anymore. 167. Heaven: I hope it's real, some people I've lost deserve to be there. 168. Devil: I guess you have to have that one around for the other to be real. 169. Hell: ...I've seen a few places that could almost count as that. 170: Boogy man: Things that creep around in the dark and attack you? Sounds too much like Walkers. 171. Closet Monsters: Those at least stopped bothering me in grade school. 172. Fortune tellings: Maybe, but I don't want to know the future. 173. Magic: Sure, why not. 174. Love at first sight: I want to. 175. Ghosts: I feel haunted a lot so, yeah, I do. 176. Voo-doo dolls: Never gave that one much thought, I guess? 177. Reincarnation: In this world? I almost hope not. 178. Yourself: ...at times.

Section Ten: Do you

179. Smoke: Yeah. 180. Do drugs: No 181. Drink alcohol: Used to, not much anymore. 182. Cuss: Far too much. 183. Sing in the shower: Showers are too quick for that now. 184. Like school: I didn't mind parts of it. 185. Want to get married: ....I did at one point. 186. Type with all of your fingers: Yeah 187. Think you're attractive: I have my good points. 188. Drink and drive: Nah 189. Snore: Probably 190. Sleep walk: No 191. Like watching sunrises and sunsets: I used to; sunsets make me uneasy now.

Section Eleven: Have you ever

192. Flashed someone: Maybe when I was drunk. 193. Gotten so drunk til you threw up everywhere: Oh yeah. 194. Told that person how you felt: What person? -That- person? Yeah. 195. Been arrested: No, surprisingly. 196. Gone to jail or juve: Nope. 197. Skateboarded: Too clumsy. 198. Skinny dipped: Yes 199. Rock climbed: I don't have a deathwish. 200. Killed someone: God no; I've never even killed one of the already dead ones. 201. Watched porn: ...who hasn't? 202. Gone on a road trip: A few. 203. Went out of the country: No 204. Talked back to an adult: Ha..yeah. 205. Broken a law: Sure, not any big ones though. 206. Got pulled over: A couple of times. 208: Cried to get out of trouble: ...that was my main go-to as a kid. 209. Let a friend cry on your shoulder: Yeah, sometimes it's all I knew to do. 210. Kissed a brother's or sister's friend: No 211. Kissed a friend's brother or sister: No 212. Dropped something on the floor and let someone eat it anyways: I would say gross but..things change; these days that doesn't even matter. 213. Moon someone: Maybe? Again, if it happened I was drunk. 214. Shop-lifted: No 215. Worked at McDonald's: No 216. Eaten a dog: No, but that's not to say that I wouldn't if I had to. 217. Give money to a homeless person: Yeah. 218. Glued your hand to yourself: Surprisingly no. 219. Kissed someone of the same sex: ...yes, on many occasions. 220. Had a one night stand: A few 221. Smoked: Yes 222. Done drugs: Not really. 223. Lose a friend because of your ex: Yeah, but they weren't worth keeping 224. Slap someone for being stupid: No, but I maybe should have. 225. Had cyber sex: I could have actual sex, so no. 226. Wish you were the opposite sex: ...ah...difficult one, since I don't consider myself one or the other when it comes to gender, or just one or the other, rather. 227. Caught someone doing something: I have a younger brother, so of course, 228. Played a game that removes clothing: Yes, and generally lost. 229. Cried during a movie: A few; damn Disney movies 230. Cried over someone: So many people 231. Wanted to hook up with a friend: On occasion 232. Hooked up with someone you barely met: I can't say I haven't. 233. Ran away from home: Nah, not until I was an adult. 234. Cheated on a test: I should have in a few classes.

Section Twelve: Would you

235. Bungee jump: I don't think there are any planes left around. 236. Sky dive: Again, above answer. 237. Swim with dolphins: I've done that before. 238. Steal a friend's bf or gf: Not on purpose. 239. Try to be the opposite sex: ....I mean; I go back and forth and in the gray between all the time. 240. Lie to the police: Probably. 241. Run from the police: Maybe. 242. Lie to your parents: I had on occasion. 243. Backstab a friend for your own well being: No 244. Be an exotic dancer: ...sure, why not. But I would blind people with how pale I am so I wouldn't make much. 245. NQ- Kill the president: Pretty sure he's already dead.

Section Thirteen: Are you

246. Shy: Only when I'm anxious. 247. Loud: When I'm upset 248. Nice: I like to think so 249: Outgoing: For the most part 250: Quiet: When I want to be left alone. 251. Mean: Nah 252. Emotional: God yes. 253. Sensitive: Very. 254. Gay: Yesss 255. Strong: Physically? Not so much. 256. Weak: I don't like to admit it if I am. 257. Caring: I try to be 258. Dangerous: Only when my brain is being weird. 259. Crazy: ...potentially. 260. Spontaneous: Yes. 261. Funny: I'm hilarious. 262. Sweet: Maybe? 263. Sharing: Yeah. 264. Responsible: Not so much. 265. Trustworthy: Of course. 266. Open-minded: Very. 267. Creative: Yes! 268. Cute: Well..I think I am. 269. Slick: Not by any means. 270. Smart: As much as anybody. 271. Dumb: I don't think so. 272. Evil: No? 273. Ghetto: No 274. Classy: Not really. 275. Photogenic: Ha, I don't even know. 276. Dependable: I try to be. 277. Greedy: Nah 278. Ugly: No 279. Messy: Basically, yes. 280. Neat: Not so great at that. 281. Perverted: No? 282. Silly: I have my moments. 283. A B****: Ha, probably at times. 284. A Good Listener: I like to listen, so hopefully? 285. A Fighter: ....no 286. A Party Animal: Used to be 287. A Game Freak: Nah 288. A Computer Freak: Not really.

Section Fourteen: Future

289. Dream job: ...before the world ended I wanted to work in comic books. 290. Dream house: I liked where I was in Miami. 291. Husband/Wife: ....they're gone now. 292. Kids: Nah. 293. Names: what? I like my name. 294. Pets: I still want a dog 295. Car: At this point, anything that runs 296. Age you would want to get married: ...I thought I already would be. 297. Best Man/Bride's Maid: My brothers 298. Honeymoon: Europe

Section Fifteen: Your friends

this is too depressing; I'm just going to not. do this one. 299. Best friend: 300. Known the longest: 301. Craziest: 302. Loudest: 303. Shyest: 304. Best hair: 305. Best eyes: 306. Best body: 307. Most Athletic: 308. Hot-Tempered: 309. Most impatient: 310. Shortest: 311. Tallest: 312. Skinniest: 313. Best singer: 314. Funniest: 315. Can always make you laugh: 316. Wish you talked to more: 317. Wish you saw more: 318. Who drives you insane after a while: 319. Who you can stay around forever and never get sick of: 320. Ever lose a friend because you took it to the 'next level': 321. Whose always been there when you need them: 322. Who is like your family: 323. How many friends do you have?: 324. How many are really close?

Section Sixteen: The last

325. Thing you ate: Yesterday. 326. Thing you drank: A few hours ago, water. 327. Thing you wore: Clothes I'm wearing now? 328. Thing you did: Walked back to town. 329. Place you went: The edge of town, was restless. 330. Thing you got pierced or tattooed: My right arm 331. Person you saw: Some guy working on a car that's busted. 332. Person you hugged: ...it's been a while. 333. Person you kissed: Been even longer on that one. 334. NQ- Person you beat to a juicy pulp: Yeah, I'm not so good at that. 335. Person you talked to online: The net has been dead for a long time. 336. Person you talked to on the phone: So have phones. 337. Song you heard: Months ago, some old gas station had a busted CD player with batteries but it didn't last long; some old 80s music. 338. Show you saw: I don't even remember. 339. Time you fought with your parents: ....before the outbreak, last time I saw them. 340. Time you fought with a friend: ...probably right before I left River Bend. 341. Words you said: 'Hn'

Section Seventeen: Now

343. What are you eating: Nothing 344. What are you drinking: Nothing 345. What are you thinking: The usual bouncy, weird thoughts. 346. What are you wearing: Clothes? 347. What are you doing: Nothing really, sitting here? I get nervous sleeping at night so I stay up a lot. 349. Hair: Is a fluffy mess. 350. Mood: Tired 351. Listening to: The wind outside. 352. Talking to anyone: No 353. Watching anything: No

Section Eighteen: Yes or No

354. Are you a vegetarian: Yes 355. Are you a carnivore: No 356. Are you heterosexual: No 357. Do you like penguins: Yes 358. Do you write poetry: No 359. Do you see stupid people: Yes 360. You + Me: No 361. Do you like the Osbournes: Yes 362. Can you see flying pigs: No 363. Do you sleep with stuffed animals on your bed: No 364. Are you from Afghanistan: No 365. Is Christina Aguilera ugly: No 366. Are you a zombie: NO 367. Am I annoying you: No 368. Do you bite your nails: Yes 369. Can you cross your eyes: Yes 370. Do you make your bed in the morning: No 371. Have you touched someone's private part: Yes

Section Nineteen: This or That

372. Winter or Summer: Summer 373. Spring or Autumn: Spring 374. Shakira or Britney: Shakira 375. MTV or VH1: VH1 376. Black or White: ? Black I guess? 377. Yellow or Pink: Yellow. 378. Football or Basketball: uhh...basketball. 379. Mobile Phone or Pager: Phone 380. Pen or Pencil: Pencil 381. Cold or Hot: Hot 382. Tattoos or Piercings: oh..hard one. Tattoos. 383. Inside or Outside: Inside. 384. Weed or Alcohol: Weed 385. Coke or Pepsi: Coke 386. Tape or Glue: Tape 387. McDonald's or In-n-Out: Neither, gross.

Section Twenty: Opinions

388. What do you think about classical music: Ha. I really like it. 389. About boy bands: Some of them were amusing. 390. About suicide: ...this world is bad but giving up? I couldn't do it. 391. About people who try to force their opinions on you: They're exhausting, and far too many of them exist. 392. About teen pregnancy: I don't personally have to worry about that, heh. But it's not my business if it's not my body. 393. Where do you think you'll be in 10 years: Alive I hope. 394. Who do you think you'll still be friends with in 5 years: I should probably make some friends. 395. About gay men: I mean, obviously, I like them.

Section Twenty-One:

396. Do you have a website: No 397. Current weather right now: Hot as hell 398. Current time: It's late. Dark. 399. Any shout outs: no? 400. Last thoughts: ...'last thoughts' sounds so ominous.

#ooc #character development #EERIE:TASK

2 notes · View notes