Chapter Text
“And don’t touch anything until I get back, got it?”
Thus, with an electronic beep, the last means of communication between the prisoners of the Cosmos Space Centre and the outside world were shut down. One of the Centre’s employees — a roboticist named Aura Blackquill — had taken several hostages into custody using her loyal robots, all in a desperate attempt to save her sibling Simon Blackquill from an unjust death sentence. To say the situation within this facility was dire would be an understatement. With her leverage, she forced a retrial of her brother’s case. Preparations for it were already underway.
In the Centre’s main security room, Aura gave the camera monitors in front of her the last once-over, then let out a snide cackle before turning around on a swivel chair. The person keeping her company was Trucy Wright, a budding magician, the daughter of the famous defence attorney Phoenix Wright and — most importantly as of this moment — Aura’s bargaining chip. One of the robots held her wrists in a vice grip.
“Well, little girl, it looks like your father isn’t completely useless like most of the lawyers these days. You get to live… for now.”
Trucy had shown nothing but a hard, steely gaze towards Aura. The robot was stronger than her, so she knew any more resistance would do nothing but tire her out. Now, she dared to puff out her chest in pride.
“Yup, that’s my daddy alright! The Turnabout Terror himself! He’ll solve your case blindfolded and with one arm tied behind his back… well, as long as it’s not his pointing hand! Just you wait!”
Aura couldn’t help but to sneer at the pointless bravado and the ridiculous sobriquet.
“Ha! I hope he does, mostly for your sake. Your life is on the line. Alright, get her back to the others, scrapheap.”
The robot beeped with an imposing tone and began to roughly jostle Trucy away. She winced in pain as the polymer arm dug into her back. Still, it did nothing to hinder her mettle and make remarks with great gusto.
“He will! And if you dare to lay a finger on me, he’ll find you and kick your butt! And so will I!”
Aura chortled in contempt. Should she have worn her black cloak and wielded a scythe for this? This child clearly didn’t understand the gravity of this situation. Well, if she was too subtle for this kid, maybe it was time to clarify it loud and clear.
“Wait a second, rust bucket.”
The robot stopped pushing and turned Trucy around. Aura approached her, then leaned down to look her straight into the face, just centimetres away from it. She could tell she was Phoenix Wright’s child by the defiant spark in her eye. Her father had the same one. But Aura knew all too well that loose sparks do nothing but cause electrical fires, so some extinguishing was in order. She stared at her with the coldest gaze she could produce, usually only prepared for the most stubborn of luddites and the Princess, then started to speak in a low, threatening tone.
“Know this, little girl. You are in mortal danger. If I do decide to lay my finger on you, it will be because I want to kill you. Understand?”
Trucy stood stalwart, with nary a tremble in her posture. She tried to match Aura’s timbre.
“Perfectly. And know this — if you do, my daddy will come after you. And one of my best friends is a spirit medium, so she will channel me so that I can join him in beating you up!”
Hm. What a stubborn brat. And she’s talking crazy. Great.
“What? A spirit medium? You believe in that mystical mumbo-jumbo? HA!”
“It’s not mumbo-jumbo! I’ve seen it with my own eyes! Pearl once summoned Daddy’s old mentor Mia right in our office, and she’s been dead for more than a decade now!” Trucy couldn’t sustain Aura’s tone, letting enthusiasm creep in her voice ever so slightly, summoned by memories of finally meeting the one person her daddy always spoke about with gentle summer’s warmth, regardless of how cold his own day had been.
An acidic retort sizzled on the tip of Aura’s tongue, but she changed her mind in a flash and chose to shake her head instead. This conversation brought forth a strange sense of deja vu . She wasn’t sure when, but someone had definitely talked with her about this exact topic before. There’s no need for a repeat.
“Look, I’m too busy to reason with the insane. My trial needs a bit of a setup. Get her out of here, Hunk of Junk!”
And after a short scuffle, the room fell into silence, save for the quiet whirrs of computers powering the security system.
With one last chuckle, Aura sat back down and began preparations. It mostly involved linking the monitor setup in front of her to the one at her Robotics Lab. She needed one feed from the Space Centre camera, where all of the hostages were located; another one from Clonco, so she could witness the trial; and the rest from all the other cameras scattered around the Space Centre, ensuring full coverage of the building.
All she had to do now was bide her time for Wright to finish his investigation and leave, so she could return to the lab and later witness how finally true justice will be carried out against the Princess. She could barely wait.
The retrial was underway in a courtroom just as dilapidated as the current justice system. The former had broken suddenly, in a blink of an eye and with a bang, carried out by some anonymous madman for reasons unknown. The latter had crumbled slowly, over time and with countless whimpers of innocent people wronged, abused by several well-known malefactors in the name of that most alluring of vices — greed.
One could be rebuilt easily, requiring as little as a good construction crew and a mastery of masonry. The other would take much more effort and time. But both reconstructions would start with a single brick. Aura believed this trial would be that brick.
And apparently so did that smarmy Chief Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth. He had performed a masterclass in his field by presenting Aura’s case for the Princess’ guilt, effortlessly establishing a clear motive, means and execution. He clearly was the right choice for the job. Now he just had to clinch it.
However, Aura was almost blinded by the unexpected arrival to the witness’ stand — once again a knight in shining armour had come to the Princess’ rescue. Simon had stepped up, ready to confess and take the bullet for her. And yet, Athena wouldn’t just accept his confession at face value, and was now using the Mood Matrix to analyse his statements. It provided a much needed lull in action for those in the courtroom.
Meanwhile, Aura was seething in her seat as she watched this unfold and just wanted to get this over with. When will that fool stop covering for her?
She really should’ve seen that coming. Simon was a paradox — one of the most rational people she knew, and yet, at the same time, he was prone to making the most spontaneous, ridiculous decisions, based on nothing but a gut feeling and vain hope. What’s with today? Why, on this important day, was she surrounded by such impetuous fools — Simon, Fullbright, Wright and his daughter…
Wait a second.
That line of thought finally reminded her — it was Simon who had bored her with incessant rambling about spirit mediums and channelling! It was several years ago now, but he had discussed a murder case that happened near the turn of the century. She couldn’t recall the details precisely, but the gist of it was that a spirit medium was called in to commute with the spirit of the victim. She turned out to be a fraud and the case remained unsolved at the time. Still, Simon insisted that the spirit mediums were the real deal, even after learning of their failure.
She had dismissed his nonsense at the time. It was just so ridiculous and had zero scientific basis. But she could still remember the utter conviction in his voice when defending it, and now seeing that hopeful glimmer in the eye of her hostage made her reconsider. It couldn’t hurt sparing a minute of her time for research. Everyone was waiting on the idiots behind the defence’s desk anyway.
As those two struggled to make sense out of Simon’s statements, Aura opened up a spare web browser on one of the side monitors and clicked on the search engine link.
“murder solved by spirit channelling”
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“dl6 case”
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“misty fey”
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“fey clan”
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“village of kurain”
Pale moonlight shone through the metal bars separating Aura’s new residence from the outside world. It was dull, grey and furnished rather ascetically — a metal framed bed, an austere table with an equally lavish chair, a tiny bookshelf and the basics for hygiene. Quite different to her opulent home, but now she had plenty of time to get used to it all.
At this moment, she simply laid on her bed and stared at the ceiling with an unblinking stare. However, sleep couldn’t beset her. It wasn’t just because her new bedding was much more uncomfortable than the one at her home. Rather, turmoil ravaged her mind about today’s events – Simon’s retrial and the shocking revelations about Metis’ killer. She had found purpose to her life in hating Athena and wishing to bring her to justice, but she turned out to be a victim as much as her. What was her purpose now? How was she to go on? And what should she do about Athena?
And amidst the large, life-changing dilemmas, there was a small, niggling one poking at the back of her head. She had found a very informative article about the Fey clan. It revealed that it was a small society of mystics who claim to be able to contact the spirit of dead people and channel it into their bodies, thus bringing them back to life for a limited amount of time.
Aura remained extremely sceptical. When a person dies, they are gone. One of their biological functions sustaining life irreversibly fails, and others follow shortly. In Metis’ case, it was tissue death following heavy exsanguination from her chest wound. Aura saw her corpse herself. She was gone. Nothing could bring her back.
But Simon, Trucy Wright and several reviews on that site spoke with such conviction about this technique. She couldn’t just dismiss it all. Maybe it was time to indulge a little bit of scientific curiosity. If nothing else, seeing the ridiculous rituals performed and the sheer audacity of this scam could give her a good chuckle.
With that decision and setting the bigger ponderings aside for tomorrow, she finally closed her eyes to fall into a well-deserved sleep.