Work Text:
There was no time to waste. As soon as Trucy returned to the office, she immediately got to work.
The coffee table was covered in that night’s English homework, and so she stuffed it into her backpack to make room. (There was no point in trying to finish it anyway when she wasn’t going to be at school tomorrow.) She instead spread an old newspaper across the table to keep it from getting dirty, leaving only a paintbrush from her pencil case on top.
Next, she rummaged through her magic props until she found the spare deck of cards she was looking for – thankfully, her Dad had bought them in bulk to save money and so it had the exact card back design she needed – and removed all of the aces. She technically only needed the one, but when it was so important she got this art project exactly right, it was only logical that she practiced the design on the others first.
The last item she needed was hidden away in one of the cubby holes of her magic box. Trucy had bought the fake blood packet for a trick her Dad had instantly forbade her from performing, but she had a good use for it now. She took it into their tiny kitchenette, punctured a hole into the side with a pair of scissors, and squeezed every last drop into a teacup. Mr. Edgeworth would be annoyed that she stained it, but she would have bigger things to worry about if she didn’t follow the plan to the letter.
With all the necessary tools gathered, Trucy sat cross-legged at the coffee table, googled pictures of realistic blood splatter on her phone, and carefully started to paint.
Sitting in the detention centre and peering at her Dad through the thick glass, Trucy could feel herself split into two, past and present.
“I need you to do me a favour,” Zak had said before he disappeared from her life forever. It didn’t bode well that Phoenix was echoing those same words back to her now.
Two different favours for two different fathers who had unwittingly found themselves blamed for two different crimes.
Déjà vu, she thought to herself.
But this wasn’t going to end the same way the last one did. She was going to keep Phoenix safe even if she had to commit a crime to do it.
When Trucy was eight years old, her grandfather was shot in the forehead. This incident impacted her life less than everything that had come after.
Even at that age, Trucy was no stranger to loss. Her mother had died in that awful accident only a few years prior, and no amount of magic words or puffs of smoke would ever bring her back. She was here one second, gone the next – her death a tragic disappearing act with no resolution and no curtain call.
Trucy had survived that period of her life thanks to the Troupe Gramarye creed:
A true entertainer always keeps a smile on their face!
She kept that creed in mind as her father outlined exactly what he needed her to do.
“You’re going to wait in the hallway outside the defendant’s lobby with Mr. Hat. When you see me running out of the courtroom and give you the signal,” he tipped his hat in demonstration, “then you’ll hide yourself in the last room on the right so only Mr. Hat is outside. He’s going to be my body double, you see – so anyone watching will think it’s me standing at the end of the hall.”
Trucy nodded. She had studied this trick before. “Like Mommy and Uncle Valant’s disappearing act!”
“Right. Like Mommy and Uncle Valant.” Zak smirked. If he was aggrieved by the mention of his deceased wife, he didn’t let it show. “I’m going to hide in the room next door. When you hear the door shut,” he clicked his tongue to mimic the sound, “you’ll count to two, and pull Mr. Hat into the room with you, thus drawing the audience to follow him instead of me.”
“Misdirection!”
“Bingo. And then, when he’s out of sight, you’ll hide Mr. Hat under your cape, and Abracadra! Alakazam! Zak Gramarye will have disappeared!”
He ended his explanation with a pair of jazz hands, and Trucy applauded, ever the willing participant. Looking back, she wondered if she still would have cheered if she had fully understood the implications of what that statement meant.
“Now, it’s really important you get this routine exactly right, sweetheart, so repeat all the steps back to me.”
“Wait in the hall with Mr. Hat. At your signal, hide in the room at the very end. When you shut the door, count to two, pull Mr. Hat into the room, and then put him away.” She threw her arms into the air. “Abracadabra!”
Zak flashed her a grin, all teeth. She couldn’t recall a time where he looked prouder.
“That’s my girl.”
There was less showmanship in Phoenix’s instructions, more gravity. He knew what he was asking from her was unfair, and didn’t try to convince her otherwise.
“You know those cards I gave you way back when I first started working at the Borscht Bowl Club?”
“The ones with the red backs?”
Phoenix nodded. “Right. Those. I need you to take the ace of spades, and paint a red drop right on the front. It needs to look like it was splattered on, so you’ll have to put a dab of paint on a brush and flick it. Don’t worry if it’s a little messy. Messy will look good.”
Trucy knew exactly what he was asking her to do, even if he had to be vague – both so the guard in the room wouldn’t catch on, and so that she had plausible deniability if they got caught.
It was highly illegal what they were doing. Phoenix had already lost his badge for this once. She dreaded to think what the authorities would do if they caught him forging evidence for real this time – even if she was sure Phoenix would find a way to spin it so that this gambit was technically within the letter of the law.
Fortunately, she was an excellent liar.
“I can do that. And then what?”
“Then, you’ll give it to the lawyer during the recess of tomorrow’s trial. I’ll give you a message to pass on, but honestly, as long as you don’t tell him what it is or where it came from, then it doesn’t matter what you say. He’ll know what to do from there.”
Again, plausible deniability. Figures Phoenix would try to protect him too.
“I’ll show him my best card trick. He won’t know what hit him!”
“Thanks.” Phoenix smiled – Zak had never thanked her, she noted absently – but it didn’t stay on his face for long. “Trucy…. I’m really sorry about this. I wouldn’t ask if I had any other choice, but I promise, whatever happens, I won’t let this splash back on you.”
Zak had never apologised either.
Truthfully, Trucy didn’t care if she got in trouble for this. It was just nice to be able to do something to keep a father in her life for once instead of sending one away.
“Don’t worry, Daddy. I understand.” Trucy beamed. A true entertainer always keeps a smile on their face! “But it’s not going to come to that anyhow. This is The Magical Girl Trucy Wright you’re talking to, remember? All it takes is a little showmanship, and the audience won’t notice a thing.” She tipped her hat and winked.
Phoenix smiled weakly. Its usual brightness was tinged with guilt, but she would take the victory where she could get it. “That’s my girl.”
Two fathers. Two favours. One willing pawn.
But it wasn’t just them that had pulled her into their schemes, was it? There was the man in the cape and the mask too – the one who had handed her the piece of paper that had torn her first family apart.
“Give it to the old boy in the blue suit with the spiky hair,” he had said.
Young and innocent, Trucy didn’t question it and did exactly what she was told.
She wasn’t young and innocent anymore.
Long after the trial, when she was sleeping in the apartment of a man she barely knew, it had finally hit her what she’d done – what part she had played in her old father’s disappearance and in her new father’s disbarment. It was the first time she became truly aware of the cruelty of selfish men, and how little they cared for the people they used along the way.
The real world was a little too much like a magic show, Trucy thought. When you peeked behind the curtain, you saw the hidden mechanisms that controlled every prop, every performer, every set piece. Behind the flair, there were smoking guns, and bullet wounds, and a bloodstain in the floorboards that wouldn’t come out no matter how hard the stagehand scrubbed.
She was no different than Mr. Hat in that way. When her strings were pulled, she danced too.
Trucy didn’t want to be a puppet anymore. She would be smarter from now on, less gullible. Never again would she be a cog in her own family’s downfall. Never again would she lose someone important to her because of the designs of selfish men. If she participated in a plot like that again, it would be because she chose to do it with her eyes wide open – because she wanted to manipulate the outcome in her favour.
A good magician never fell for the same trick twice, and Trucy was the best of the best.
Apollo Justice was muttering incoherently to himself as he paced the defendant’s lobby. He was sweating through his waistcoat so bad that Trucy was half-worried he would have a full blown mental breakdown if he was left alone with his thoughts a second longer.
He didn’t look like much of a lawyer. He wasn’t as in control as Mr. Edgeworth, or as intimidating as Ms. von Karma. Hell, even Aunt Maya might have conducted the trial with more confidence than this greenhorn, and she had less interest in law than Trucy herself had. Trucy didn’t like that her Dad’s life was in the hands of a babyfaced rookie, but if the choice was between him or unsettling Mr. Gavin, then she would take her chances with the new kid every time.
Besides, Phoenix was the only person in the whole world that she unconditionally trusted. If he believed Apollo Justice could help him, then Trucy would believe it too.
She tucked the bloodied ace behind her back, donned her best performer’s smile, and swept into the room.
Showtime.