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“Being a vampire’s familiar..” Apollo looked away from the camera, very clearly anxious from the pseudo eye contact he was making with the audience. Y’know, the one that didn’t even exist at the time of filming. His eyes searched around the room, looking anywhere but the camera. Eventually, he settled on the floor. “It sucks. It really, truly sucks. I can’t even lie to myself here.”
A muffled noise came from offscreen. Apollo’s jaw tightened in response and he made eye contact with the camera again. He mumbled an apology, barely picked up by the microphone.
Another muffled noise. “Why do I hate it? Oh, hm, let me think about it, no, this is a really hard question,” Apollo pulled out a comically long sheet of paper from his pocket, wrinkled and yellowed with age. “God, yeah, no I can’t even think of—“ He paused, listening to something. “Lay off on the sarcasm? Why-“ He nodded. “No, yeah, I can do that.”
“Why do I hate being a familiar? Well, let’s see:
My, uh, ‘master’ is the worst.”
——
The interview cut out, replaced by a scene of a blonde man with greyish-tan skin in a CVS. Voice impossibly loud and indisputably German, he called out, “Herr Forehead? Herr Forehead, we need more virgins. Where are the virgins in this See Vee Ess? You told me it had everything, and quite frankly, I’m starting to believe you lied.”
The camera then panned over to Apollo, following behind the man with an almost empty cart. He stared directly into the lens, annoyance apparent.
——
We cut back to the interview. “2. The people he lives with aren’t so great either.”
Offscreen, somebody with an impossibly suave voice called out, “CUB. CUB, WE NEED YOU TO FIX THE TELEVISION.”
Apollo cradled his head in his hands. His words are muffled, but loud enough to be heard. “I’M NOT YOUR FAMILIAR, LANG.”
‘Lang’ stuck his head into the room, visible due to the camera panning over to the doorway (that, for the record, Lang is much too large for). He pinched his nose with a soft growl. Sticking his hand out and raising his chin, he said simply, “You will fix the television for me.”
Apollo glared into the camera before turning that glare over to Lang. After a moment of tense silence, he stood up and followed Lang into the adjacent room.
——
Lang was sprawled out across the interview room (the house's hallway) couch, grinning lazily into the camera. “How do I feel about Apple? He’s good. He's good help. A bit disobedient at times but, aren’t we all?” His eyes widened as he bared his fangs into the camera, barking out laughter. The camera inched away from him slowly. He didn’t seem to notice, too caught up in his own…whatever he had going on.
The camera turned to face a very confused and visibly scared cameraman, who furrowed her brows and shrugged, looking around to her companions — who were also at a loss for words — for help.
——
Footage cutting back to Apollo’s situation, Apollo stood in front of the television, remote held in both hands. Lang was sat behind him, sprawled across the couch in a similar manner to how he was in the interview room. “So you see, it’s not turning on.”
Apollo pursed his lips before grimacing. Through his gritted teeth, he responded with, “Did you press the big red button?”
Lang looked taken aback, considering what the ‘cub’ had just said. The camera zoomed in on his face, a portrait of pure confusion. “Did I…what button?”
“The big red button in the upper righthand corner.” Apollo shoved the remote into Lang’s face, finger placed on the button in question. “This button.”
Lang curiously took the remote, the entire interaction akin to a baby wolf (Lang) seeing a human (the remote) for the first time. He pressed the big red button, eyes lighting up at the same time as the TV did. Due to how short Apollo was, Lang was able to reach and clap a hand on the other man's shoulder from his sprawled and low position. Apollo tensed up from Lang’s touch, very clearly uncomfortable. “Incredible! Thanks cub.” Lang offered a wink along with his praise, something that Apollo simply gave a curt nod to before making his great escape, which was going well until he collided face-first with what looked to be a shiny column.
As the camera panned upward, however, it was revealed that the shiny column was none other than the man who was shown in the CVS earlier, who was, according to the text on screen, ‘Klavier Gavin’. Klavier gave a guilty look to the camera as he threw Apollo over his shoulder and brought him out of the room.
Replacing Apollo and Klavier were two men, one a tall skeleton of a man, really just skin and bones, and the other one a tall vampire of a man, judging by his cravat and snarl that revealed his fangs.
The latter spoke first, “What, pray tell, was that?”
Lang, unmoving, barked out a quick, “Apple.”
——
Cutting to an interview with the deathly skinny man and the stereotypical vampire, their names were revealed. Winston Payne and Miles Edgeworth, respectively. The latter moved to the far edge of the couch, clearly desperate to get away from Winston.
“I don’t want to share an interview with him,” Miles whispered. He was the type of person who whispers obnoxiously loud, so it was less of a whisper and more of a register raspier loud comment.
Winston frowned. “I can hear you, you know.”
Voice back to normal, Miles responded with, “Maybe I wanted you to hear that.”
“Actually—“
Before Winston could launch into what seemed to be a long winded spiel, Miles’ head lolled forward, suddenly asleep. Winston smiled. “He’s an easy mark.”
Something was said off camera. Winston nodded with an all-knowing smirk. “Yeah, I’m an energy vampire. Basically what happens is I ‘feed’ off of people’s emotions, taking their energy. Miles Edgeworth here is ripe with emotions. He’s so unstable, and forgive my crudeness, but he’s a therapist’s, heh, a therapist’s wet dream.” Winston seemed proud of his remark, smirk widening.
——
We cut back to the scene in the living room. Miles sighed. “You can’t keep calling the poor kid ‘Apple’.”
“It’s a character building exercise, pretty boy! Lang Zi always says—“
“I THINK HE’S DEAD.”
Lang furrowed his brows and thought for a moment. “No, not that.”
——
The vampires, stuffed into a closet-turned-bedroom, huddled around an unconscious Apollo, who was placed on the bed that sat in the corner of the ‘room’.
Klavier nervously chewed on his nails, occasionally drawing blood due to his fangs. “I think I may have…accidentally killed him.”
Yet another muffled noise came from offscreen. Klavier turned towards the camera. “What do you mean by pulse?” He paused. “Of course I checked it. And know what it is. I did and know both of those things.”
The camera shook as it was set on a table, and the cameraman stepped forward and checked Apollo’s pulse. “He’s alive.”
Klavier clapped his hands together happily before composing himself. “I already checked his pulse, there was no need for you to do it again. This was a, uh, team-building exercise.” Lang groaned, leading the way for the vampires (with the exception of Klavier) to file out of the room. Once gone, Klavier turned to the cameraman. “Sorry about that. I need to stay smart in front of my companions as their fearless leader. Thank you for checking his ‘pulse’.”
“No problem,” she replied, walking over to the camera and picking it up, muttering a quick, “We can’t use any of this footage,” as she did so.