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Entry tags:
lost and insecure;
Notes: Part 3/3 of the GG of the AA, prompt found here. First draft.
.part three: false god
And yet the crowd applauds below; They would not encore death – Emily Dickinson, You’ve seen balloons set, haven’t you?
And sometimes he dreamed.
And his own son, breathing and living, strong and young, bright and fierce, made him promise by the river Styx, and he loved his son, his beloved son, his precious son, there was no doubt about his heritage, and he never wanted his son to doubt his heritage, to doubt his blood, so he promised the unbreakable oath.
The world was going to ruins, and Apollo couldn’t even get out of bed. There were no cases, no clients, and there hadn’t been for a while. There was little point in going to work, especially when Mr. Wright had stopped seeking him out to talk to him.
He rolled onto his side, looking at his dusty room. Darkness had settled dankly into his hair. The curtains were pulled shut. Trucy hadn’t stopped by lately. He never knew he could feel so disappointed by his sister going to school.
His sister.
That wasn’t a lie, right? He swung his legs over the side of the bed, and rapidly shuffled to the refrigerator. Between the gifted magnets that Mr. Wright and Trucy had deigned to give him as leftovers, he found the Wright Anything Agency number. He tore it from the cold surface, squinting at the yellowed paper. For some reason, he wanted to call her, to reaffirm—to reaffirm something.
He fumbled through his small apartment, stubbing his toe on a table, before finding his cell phone on the Maplewood cabinet. He flicked the cover open, squinting through the sudden light, and began to tap the numbers in.
Both phone and paper were discarded onto the sofa a few moments later, and Apollo followed. Discontented, he flipped through his contacts list, and finding it surprisingly bare, he tossed his phone onto his table. It skidded with a loud clunk and a clatter.
Rolling onto his stomach, he found the remote control to his television, and flicked it on. The sudden array of lights hurt his eyes as the news channel came on, with the same serious news reporter in his deep baritone voice.
“The tidal waves are going strong, while millions are stranded—“
Apollo flipped the channel.
“A recent series of storms in the south-west area has left many famished and homeless,” said a woman with a crisp British accent.
Apollo flipped the channel.
He went through three more Breaking News Reports before settling on Clifford, and watched as the big red dog bounced up and down to the camera’s rumbling effects.
He wondered how Klavier was taking the news. It would be strange, he thought, to hear that when you thought you were Klavier Gavin Rock God you were actually Apollo the Greek God. Apollo felt like he had been cheated out of something, but he couldn’t quite his finger on what.
Prosecutor Gavin would probably take it with a pinch of salt, and ride off into the sunset with his guitar riff strumming behind him, and Trucy watching him with starry eyes and a respect that she’d never give Apollo. And then Mr. Wright would turn into a phoenix and fly off into the distance, leaving a bright trail of feathers behind for Apollo (him, Apollo, not Klavier-Apollo) to clean up. And then the world would be saved.
Happy end.
Feeling more depressed by his imagination, he shut off the television and opened the curtains with a flourish. All he did was stir up a small cloud of dust, and he coughed as the hazy dust particles floated in the rays of sun.
To his surprise, he saw a familiar woman, dressed in purple robes, standing outside the apartment gates. She didn’t seem to be looking at the plate, but arguing with a man on the corner, holding a map in her hand adamantly and pointing to the distance.
Apollo heaved a great sigh, and massaged his forehead. He wasn’t sure how he managed to attract those sorts of people even on his off days. Admittedly, there was a small bounce in his step as he grabbed his jacket, but really, it wasn’t because he’d be otherwise moping around his house.
When he reached the front gate, Maya was still there, except her map had been turned upside down and she was seriously contemplating it.
“Are you lost?” he asked, his breaths coming out in puffs. Despite the sun overhead, the weather had been anything but warm. His hands cold, he shoved them into his pockets and leaned over to look at her map.
“Oh, Apollo.” Maya smiled. “I would say that this is a coincidence, but there’s no such things as coincidences.”
“Uh.” There was no good response to that sort of statement. “Are you lost?”
“I haven’t been in this town for a while,” Maya admitted, showing him the map.
“Are you looking for the Wright Anything Agency?”
“What? Oh, no!” Maya clapped her hands and a smile bloomed on her face. “I know where that is! It’s where that strange smell is coming from.” Apollo could have sworn that he had taken out the trash for them.
“Then, where are you going?”
“Where’s the nearest McDonalds?” Maya leaned in, whispering loudly. “I’m hungry.” As if to emphasize her struggle, her stomach gave a loud rumble, enough to attract the attention of some elderly men sitting on the bench nearby.
“I guess I’m paying,” Apollo said weakly, feeling his thin wallet. Maya laughed.
“Wow, you really are Nick’s pupil!” She gave an affirmative nod. “You learned well, young grasshopper.”
For one thing, he wasn’t a grasshopper. And he had a second thing, but suddenly felt too tired to concoct the thought.
“If you’re really that hungry,” he said, “Eldoon’s is closer.” And better for his wallet, though the salt could only be terrible for his health. He could feel his cholesterol skyrocket with every bite of noodles.
“Then noodles it is.” She continued to chatter on while they reached the stall, where Eldoon himself came out to shake Apollo’s hand again, and welcome back his favorite customer, which only lead to a sick feeling to Apollo’s stomach and, even worse, to his wallet. But they were seated upfront and as the sun was barely falling over the black horizon, the noodle stall was lit up warmly with lanterns hung around the sides.
On her third bowl, Maya finally came up for air to talk.
“How long has it been since you ate?” Apollo asked, deferring his half-eaten bowl of noodles to Maya. Already the salt was churning in his stomach. Peacefully, the crickets seemed to sing in the nearby People Park.
“Oof ‘ors,” she said, mouth full.
Apollo waited.
“Two hours,” she said, swallowing. “I only had a middle breakfast before coming down, though.”
Apollo suddenly felt a common relationship with Mr. Wright, who had been forced to share his wallet with this ravenous beautiful beast. She took another large chomp from the salt wedge in the middle before wiping her mouth with a napkin, and turning to face Apollo.
“Had any dreams lately?”
“Uh, no.” Apollo frowned. “Not really.”
“Liar.” She pointed her chopsticks at him. “I can see it in your eyes. Besides, there’s no need to lie to me. I’m a medium. In fact, I’m a middle medium, and that’s the luckiest of all.”
“Middle medium?”
“Yeah! My older sister is Athena and my little cousin is Pearly.” She winked at him, as if allowing him in on an elaboration. Apollo failed to see the connection.
“Besides, you’re lucky,” she continued, slurping another long strand of noodle as she talked. The hot water flicked onto the counter, and Eldoon briskly wiped it up, headphones still blaring the Gavinners music.
“Lucky?”
“I don’t get many good dreams anymore,” she sighed. “It’s been like this since Mr. Edgeworth’s gone. There are more angry spirits in the village now, and it’s hard to get anything done. I’ve even started to use the Psyche-locks to keep them out.”
“Psyche—Psyche what?”
“Oh, Mr. Edgeworth didn’t know about them either,” she said, confidentially. “He’s found them to be a great deal helpful since then! After he got back his memories, of course. It always takes a while. But we Feys are here to help!”
Apollo could only nod dumbly.
“But stop going off-topic,” she scolded. “What do you dream about?”
He always felt uncomfortable talking about his dreams. Trucy mostly made fun of his dreams about beavers, though he swore up and down that the dreams were an omen and the beavers were actually dangerous, foul-mouthed creatures, awaiting for his arrival.
“Uh,” he said, clearing his throat. “I dreamt about the phoenix, once.” He felt sheepish, but only received Maya’s understanding nod in return.
“Then about a girl,” he said, “I couldn’t really remember her, but I think I got rejected in my dream.” Now that he was actually saying it out loud, he realized that his love life really had been unlucky, for even phantom girls to reject him. “So I gave her a gift of . . . of seeing into the future or something.”
“But nobody would believe her?” Maya encouraged.
“Yeah.” He watched Eldoon slowly groove to the Gavinners music, which still emitted from the tinny earphones.
“And what’s your last one?” Maya swallowed her noodles with a satisfied expression on her face. “These sorts of things come in threes.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I can’t remember it. Something about a son.”
“Ah, yes,” she said, staring wistfully into the distance. “Fitting.”
“But they aren’t my dreams anyway.”
“They aren’t?”
“The bracelet was just picking them up from the real Apollo,” he said, feeling even more cheapened by the fact that he could no longer be the Apollo.
Maya stopped eating her noodles, which made Apollo feel that the situation had taken a turn for the serious, in that peaceful noodles cart sitting on the corner of People Park and the Kitaki Mansion, where the lanterns swayed with the gentle, but cold, wind.
“Real Apollo?” she repeated. “But aren’t you the real one?”
“No, I just picked up the dreams,” he said. He showed her the bracelet half-heartedly. “Sorry for disappointing you.”
“Well.” She paused. “Well, did Nick tell you that you weren’t the real one?”
“He said maybe.” He scowled. “It’s all I’ve ever been able to get from Mr. Wright.”
“He’s never been wrong, though.” Maya wrinkled her forehead.
“But he said that he’s never seen any powers like this before,” Apollo said, holding up his bracelet to the light. In the warm glow, he could feel Maya’s presence—and that of the spirits clutching around the stand.
“How do you know?”
“He said it.”
“Did he say it to you?”
“No, probably to Lamiroir—“ He paused. He hadn’t been eavesdropping on their conversations at all, but he knew, clear as day, Mr. Wright’s words. He dropped his hands to his sides.
“A phoenix knows his king anywhere,” she said softly. “He won’t be wrong. I think Nick’s just doesn’t want you to be the one.”
“Why not?” Apollo could feel himself sweating under his collar. “Because it’s me?” He suspected because it was an Almost Too Easy sort of thing, to meet Apollo the Apollo whose name was really Apollo in his other life, too.
“Because you’ll be going to war,” she said.
“War?”
“Has Nick really not told you anything?” Maya wrinkled her brow again, pushing away her fifth bowl of noodle. Eldoon supplied a sixth bowl, but she didn’t dip into it right away, placing her chopsticks at the edge of the bowl.
“Not really.”
“I guess you don’t need to know that much,” she said. “You just need to regain your memories.” Suddenly, he felt her hand on his forehead. “But you haven’t yet.”
“Uh.” He felt that it was an awkward situation, and if Mr. Wright saw them, it was surely his head that he would go after.
“It’s a good thing your forehead is so wide,” Maya said cheerfully. “I can fit my whole hand on here!”
He made a mental list of topics he wished people wouldn’t mention: his love life, his forehead, and his mother.
“Without Mr. Edgeworth, Kristoph, and . . . Damon Gant,” she said, and there was notable disgust on the last note, “the world can’t support itself. The titans know this. They’ve become more modern with the times, too, adapting like us. Except we were dormant, until a few years ago.”
“Dormant?”
“We couldn’t remember our past lives,” she said, “and that’s how it would have remained, except.” She hesitated. “Let’s just say Dahlia Hawthorne started more things than she could finish.”
“Then why don’t I remember anything, if everybody else already did?”
“I don’t know,” she said, honestly. “Nick is suppressing Trucy’s memories, but for yours—he knows that we need you. You’re our last hope, because time is running out.” Her eyes glimmered. “We believe in you.”
“Uh.” He shook his head. “But I told you, it’s not me, it’s Klavier Gavin. He plays the guitar and everything.”
“A guitar isn’t a lyre,” she said.
“You know what I mean!”
She didn’t say anything. When Eldoon came to offer another bowl, she shook her head, and with the stack of bowls next to her, she took out her wallet and paid the bill.
“I could have—“
“You didn’t even eat,” she scolded. “You’re no fun. When Nick ate, too, I could pretend that he ate it all, so he should pay it all.” The wind whipped at her hair, and she shivered. “I guess times have changed.”
Apollo suddenly felt strange as he walked Maya to the Wright Anything Agency. Hesitantly, he glanced sideways at her, but unlike Mr. Wright, her image never changed. They walked in silence until they reached the Agency, where Apollo extracted his spare key and unlocked the door.
“Polly?” Trucy sounded surprised as she was pulling her scarf from the three-boxed closet. She held the fake saw in her other hand, apparently having pulled it from the umbrella holder. Mr. Wright also looked up from the sofa, newspaper across his lap.
“Maya,” he said, but there was a grumble of warning at the back of his throat.
“Don’t worry, Nick, I won’t stay too long. I just wanted to stay the night, like old times!” She tapped her chin. “Well, I mean, you didn’t used to live in the office.”
“No,” he said. “No, I didn’t. Maya, what are you doing with Apollo?”
“He just walked me here, that’s all,” she said defensively. Mr. Wright looked at her, and then looked at Apollo. With a grunt, he tossed away the newspaper.
“Trucy, go upstairs. We need to talk privately for a little bit.”
“Do I go upstairs too?” Apollo asked.
“No.”
“Why do I have to go?” Trucy put her hands on her hips. “Daddy, lately you’ve been excluding me from more and more conversations! Don’t I get to talk to Polly, too? We haven’t seen him for a while, and—“
“Trucy.” There was a warning note in Mr. Wright’s voice. Apollo had never seen Mr. Wright so aggressive towards his own daughter, but Trucy only slipped upstairs, a magician’s trick for the scared.
When she was finally gone, Mr. Wright showed Apollo and Maya to the seats, which had been since cleaned off from socks and scarves. Apollo sat next to Maya, and watched as Mr. Wright slowly lumbered back into his seat, sitting carefully like he had grown older, suddenly, and needed to take care of his bones.
“Nick, what’s this I hear about another Apollo?”
“It’s just a suspicion,” he said. “It was worth checking out.”
“We both know that you can’t be wrong.”
“Apollo presented some interesting evidence—“
“Nick.” Maya’s voice was sharp. “We’re running out of time.” Her eyes seemed strained, and under a better light, Apollo could see shadows under her eyes. He wondered how many sleepless nights she had to suffer through.
“I know,” he said. “But we have to take this calmly—“
“Is there a way?”
Apollo waited for the person to continue, before he realized he had spoken the words. Fumbling, and swallowing, he nervously looked from Maya and Mr. Wright’s faces.
“To . . . “ What had he wanted to say? “To get back my memories.”
“You told him?” Mr. Wright’s eyes were sharper than any of Plum Kitaki’s hidden katanas. But Maya squared off to him, her shoulders set.
“You should have,” she said. “You’re confusing your lives, Nick.”
“It must be clear for you,” he said. He turned to Apollo, his face set and unhappy. “There’s no way.”
“There is a way,” Maya said.
“There is no safe, plausible method.”
“I want to protect him, too,” Maya said, her voice strained. “But time’s running out. The full moon is less than three days away. We can’t wait any longer. Just let me try, Nick. If he’s not the one, he’s not the one. Then the world will sink into the seas and the seas will sink into the sky and the sky will sink into the underworld.”
“What’s the method?” Apollo interrupted.
Maya looked at him, not unkindly. “It’s a ceremony passed down from the Fey scrolls, the hidden ones.” Apollo had a brief image of the money-saving scrolls on the chamber walls. “It shouldn’t take more than a night. But it might be painful.” She hesitated. “It’s a mentally abrasive process.”
“Then,” he said, barely breathing from his rapidness. “Then we can ask Klavier to do it. And I’ll do it, too. To see if one of us is the real Apollo.”
“Yes,” Maya said, looking at Mr. Wright with judging eyes. “Klavier. It should be fine to do the ceremony, since he knows that he’s a candidate for Apollo.”
“. . . I never told him,” Mr. Wright said, no malice in his voice.
Apollo didn’t understand the implications of the sentence, and sat, puzzled, trying to put together the fragments that Mr. Wright had scattered along the floor.
“He’s not the one.” Mr. Wright looked away. “He’s not the Apollo. And if he’s not—“
“The sea, the sky, the underworld won’t exist.” Maya folded her hands across her lap. “Unless we use Trucy.”
“Wait—“ Apollo looked at them, bewildered. “But I thought you said Trucy is too young.”
“It’s true,” Maya agreed. “She might not have been too young in the ancient days, but in modern times, everything’s different. If we sent her out to war with her memories only half-developed . . . “
“I won’t allow it,” Mr. Wright said. “And that’s final.”
And he would sacrifice Apollo. He felt like saying something sarcastic, but the situation had left him at a loss for words, because it felt like twenty-two years ago all over again, and he couldn’t speak, but a woman soon to be forgotten by even herself gently placed him to sacrifice him for a new life.
Maya bit her thumb hesitantly. “We could do it here,” she said, “I brought some of my incense. Without the heavy atmosphere in the Kurain Village, it might be easier. Is there an empty room?”
“Not really—“ Apollo started.
“My room,” Mr. Wright interrupted. “It’s the office where we found . . . her.” Maya’s eyes darkened for a moment, but then she was suddenly bright smiles and happy laughter.
“All right,” she said. “Apollo, come with me. I know the way.” Her hand passed a shadow over her pale moon face. “I couldn’t forget, even if five hundred years went by.”
There were still a few locked rooms in the office that Apollo still didn’t know. He sometimes cleaned the hallway (another side-effect of being a defense attorney), but there were doors that kept their secrets bottled inside, behind the maple wood panels that spoke no lies. Maya slipped a key from underneath his sleeve and unlocked the door.
There was a deep silence in the room, which was mostly bare except for a stray bed and a desk. Maya began to place candles around the room, the cheap type at the local grocery store, which Apollo recognized from their kitchen drawers. He felt oddly numb. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting. But he was sick of being left out of the mysteries, and only knowing the world was going to end as he knew it.
Maya took out a legal note pad from the desk, tugging the cap off a pen with her teeth before scribbling down the intonations that he didn’t exactly understand. With a flourish, she ripped the paper and using the dusty Scotch tape, she stuck it onto Apollo’s forehead.
“Hey, wait—“
“Take off your shoes and kneel down.”
The incense had already started burning, the wafty smell pressing along the room. It was a woody scent, with a hint of an exotic spice. Apollo could feel himself relaxing against his better judgment and better wishes. Behind him, he could hear the door close, and expertly lock.
“Don’t be nervous,” she said, “I’ve done this before.”
“How’d that go?” Apollo’s voice was pitched higher than he last remembered it.
“I don’t remember,” she admitted. “It was in my past life.”
Somehow, he failed to find their conversation reassuring. But the incense had already started its work on him, and he closed his eyes behind the yellow legal pad paper, that smelled like Mr. Wright’s smoky scent, and a different waft, the luxurious perfume of a woman, prickling and haunting.
“Are you dreaming?”
His eyes were closed, but he could see the burning chariot in front of him. It was unnerving, to see his dreams in reality. When he looked down at himself, he was no longer dressed in his favorite red vests and pants, but clad in ancient garbs. In his hand was a type of polish, and the chariot was gleaming, its wheels still flaming from the sky. He had been oiling down his chariot, covering his arms and legs in splatters of oil.
“What do you see?”
But his horses were fierce, and when they whinnied, flames flared from their white teeth and red tongues. Their fur sleekly covered the firm muscles underneath, and the white of their eyes showed in their madness. Even their silky manes were painted in fire that burnt his hands and his face. But his son was always young and happy, and he could only see himself in his son, and he passed over the reins, urging his proud son to stop, to think.
“Apollo?”
His young son laughed loudly, in a voice that came from the chest. He took the reins in his young, child hands, and smiled at him, proudly. The sky was dark, ready to be torn away by the light shed by the chariot, but he still clutched at his son’s shoulder, feeling the muscles beneath it, seeing his son’s bright eyes.
“Apollo!”
Stepping upon a cloud, that felt firm underneath his heels, he could only watch as his son took away in his chariot, his horses screaming, but in a different type of scream, madness and sorrow, as they galloped upon the clouds before reaching the path in the air. The inky blackness of the night, spotted in diamonds of stars, tore away as easily as wet parchment against the chariot’s glow, and he heard his son’s laughter, and for a moment, could only hope that his son would be satisfied by their heritage.
His heart beat loudly, and he shouted something to the winds, but Zephyr had taken them away and he was left with his feathers burning and the chariot riding into the fateful sky.
He stretched out his hand to try and capture the—the something in his hand, but it always escaped his grasp. Instead, he seemed to be grabbing a fistful of hair, and when his eyes shot open at this revelation, he could see Maya’s puffed up face as he tugged her hair closer.
“W-waugh!” He rolled backwards, paper flying off his face. It landed close to a candle, which Maya quickly blew out. The sunlight was already streaming in through the window.
“Did I fall asleep?” Apollo rubbed his forehead, which was still sticky from the tape.
“You didn’t say anything all night,” Maya said unhappily. His heart skipped a beat, though from fear or excitement, he couldn’t tell.
“Then that means,” he said slowly, “I’m not Apollo?”
“Of course you’re Apollo.” Maya blew out another candle. “Apollo Justice, that is. As for Apollo from the past, I don’t know.”
“But wasn’t this whole thing to figure that out?”
“Yeah,” she said, “And most people who aren’t the gods leave the room on a hospital bed.” She quickly added, “According to the scroll.”
Apollo felt like he had managed to escape a terrible fate.
“But those who were reborn usually showed a sign of their ability.” She shrugged. “Like, fire on their hand, or something. But nothing happened with you. I have to admit, I don’t know what to do!” The last sentence was said a little too gleefully. Apollo helped her blow out the last few candles, feeling disappointed at the unsure verdict.
When the door opened, Mr. Wright peered in, a plate of burnt toast ready for the both of them. While Maya denied the plate in favor of a more healthy breakfast, Apollo found himself munching on the crisp bread reluctantly.
“Nothing, huh?” Mr. Wright asked Maya quietly.
“Even you could tell?” Maya sighed. “I don’t know what to make of it. He’s not a god, but he’s not a person. Maybe he’s really a unicorn.”
Apollo felt offended, especially because the remark was probably pointed at his forehead, which was the perfectly normal size thank you very much.
“. . . What are we to do?” Maya looked at Mr. Wright quietly, in the corner of the office from the room that held Mia’s dead body only a few years ago. “You can’t go fight, Nick. The phoenix isn’t—“
“But we can’t send either of them.” Mr. Wright cracked his neck. “I’ve lived too long, anyway.”
“That’s your human side talking.”
“No,” Mr. Wright said ruefully, “My human side hasn’t lived long enough.”
“Hey,” Apollo said, suddenly. They both turned, surprised that he was still standing there, plate of burnt crumbs in his hand, and still chewing on the hardened bread. He swallowed. “When’s the full moon?”
“A day,” Maya said.
“Apollo,” Mr. Wright said, “Whatever you’re thinking, it’s a bad idea.” Apollo was thankful for being told so upright about Mr. Wright’s true feelings. He always knew that Mr. Wright felt that way, but it was nice to be given confirmation every now and then.
“I’m not thinking about anything.” The empty room stood behind him, full of snuffed out candles and hopes, and the faint remainder of the dead body that would never leave the memories, forever captured in the tragic moment.
“Not thinking about anything,” he repeated, faintly, to himself. “Yet.”
--
Sitting alone in his room, he realized that he had never really let himself spread out. Packing up all his things into a small suitcase had been fairly easy, even as he numbly examined all the magic tricks that Trucy had left behind, and all the candy wrappers she had magically placed behind his bookshelf. It had taken him most of the morning, so it was already the afternoon when he finished.
He sat on his empty bed and pulled out his cell phone. Taking a deep breath, and reminding himself of his Chords of Steel, he dialed a number.
“Hello?” said a melodious voice.
“. . . It’s me,” he said, unable to figure out a proper introduction. There was a small intake of breath on the other line.
“Apollo . . . “
“I just wanted to talk to you,” he said. “Is this a bad time?”
“No,” she said, almost too quickly. “No, not at all.” He wondered if it was guilt that propelled her forward now. But that was his fault, too, for what he had said the last time they had sat across from each other with a blaring pink apron by his side.
“There was something I forgot to ask.” He breathed in. “Why did you name me Apollo? Why not, uh, Joe? Or John? Or—?” He couldn’t think of any other male names.
“. . . I’m not sure.” He waited. “I knew that it should be your name. It seemed like a good name. Suitable for—for my son.”
It was too early for words like those, but Apollo knew that he was out of time.
“You should tell Trucy soon,” he said.
“. . . Yes.”
“I think she’d be happy,” he said, “if you left my part of the story out. She’d be glad to have a mother.”
“She’d be glad to have a brother.”
He twisted his hair. “Yeah,” he echoed. “Uh . . . yeah. That was all I called for.”
“Should we hang up now?” she asked, and there was an honesty in her tone that hurt much worse than if she had simply slammed down the phone on him.
“I forgive you,” he blurted out. “I forgive you, and I’m sorry.”
“. . . Apollo?”
He shut his phone quickly, his heart beating in his chest. Hastily, he threw the phone under his pillow, in case it rang again, but it didn’t. Now flushed and somewhat triumphant, he paced around the room and ran the conversation over and over in his mind, like it was a silent tape reel and he could only see the actions. He sometimes mouthed the words, changing them, trying to figure out if he had accomplished all his business.
He left his apartment discontented, twisting his bracelet under his hands, when he ran into Klavier on the sidewalk, this time in sunglasses and without his hog.
“Herr Forehead,” he greeted cheerfully. “Another walk?”
“There’s nothing wrong with fresh air.” The refreshingness of a rock star never failed to irritate him. He wished that Klavier wouldn’t always be so cool. But today there seemed to be something off about the rock star. There was a particular impatience in him as he drummed his fingers along his belt.
“Something wrong?” Apollo asked, almost reluctantly.
Klavier jerked away and looked at him. “Nein, nein,” he said too quickly, “What would you make think that, Herr Forehead?”
“Just a guess,” he intoned.
“. . . I suppose if it’s you, I don’t mind,” Klavier said. “We share evidence from time to time, ja? So sharing something like this . . . “ He snapped his fingers to an invisible beat, his eyes closed for a moment behind his dark sunglasses. Apollo waited.
“Kristoph is missing,” he said, “and he has been, for a short while.”
Apollo faintly remembered Mr. Wright telling him something about that, a while back. He couldn’t exactly remember the words—nowadays, all his memories seemed to be fading. With a slight shock, he realized that he couldn’t remember his court cases very well, and his time before working at Kristoph’s office was all a blank.
“Herr Forehead?”
“Ah!” He looked up. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“. . . Indeed.” He tapped his fingers again. “I’m running late, so I can’t stay for a long. And you seem to be in a hurry, as well.”
“Just before nightfall,” he said. “And stop making judgments on me.” He hesitated. “Do you miss your brother?”
“That’s a strange question.” Klavier savored the air. “Perhaps. Why do you ask?”
“. . . I’m going to try and bring him back.”
Klavier snapped to attention. “Forehead. What do you mean by that?”
Apparently he had lost Klavier’s respect, as well as the Herr. “Uh, nothing. I just meant that one day, I’ll bring him back, and you two can—can do brotherly stuff.” He grimaced as the night drew upon the sky. “Style your hair together.”
“Nein, it is natural,” Klavier scolded, seeming to relax.
“I bet.” Apollo breathed on his hands. “I have to go now. But maybe I’ll see you in court soon. The cases are always—interesting.” Klavier laughed, and Apollo grumbled because the laugh seemed more directed by his faux coolness, and they parted ways. He shuffled down the street to the Wright Anything Agency, where the lights were already off, because it had become later than he remembered.
The door opened easily, though the house was dark.
There was something in the air that told him that the day would not be like any other day, and the night was different. When he inhaled, his very breath seemed to touch his lungs and chill him from the inside out. Almost floating, he crept up the stairs, hearing every creak of the broken boards with an electrifying sensation.
He ran his fingers down the cold rail, like he wanted to memorize the very formation, before he reached Trucy’s room. Slowly, he opened the door, and saw her sleeping form curled along the pillows. Her magic hat sat on her bed post.
He stood above her, and remembered when he first awoke from his dream, where she had been beating his apartment with a broom. He slipped off his bracelet, which had given him so much comfort and so much pain, and gently took her hand and folded her small fingers along the sides of it.
Finally, he looked at her peaceful face, eyes closed in sleep.
“Good night,” he told her, softly, and left the room, feeling more wistful than he entered. When he walked into the dark living room, he wasn’t surprised to see Mr. Wright sitting on the sofa, leaning on his knees and waiting for him.
“I told you not to do anything stupid,” Mr. Wright warned.
“I didn’t!” Apollo scowled and crossed his arms over his chest.
“. . . How are you feeling?”
“I don’t remember much anymore,” he admitted, sitting on the edge of the sofa. “It’s all going missing. I think it’s a side-effect from whatever Maya did earlier.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
Apollo wished that Mr. Wright would occasionally give him a straight answer. Then again, that might be asking for too much of a miracle.
“So what do I have to do?”
“You’re not going to fight the titans.” Mr. Wright leaned back onto the sofa. “You’re losing more memories than ever. We should just try to stop the flow.”
“No,” Apollo said firmly. “I fight for justice. That’s why I chose it as my last name.” Though he couldn’t remember the moment he chose it, or any of the events that followed it. Judging by the look Mr. Wright was giving him, his scary boss knew that, as well.
“I don’t want you to go,” he said. “You’ll die the way you are now.”
“But who else can go?”
“I can—“
“You don’t have enough power,” he said, “Your role is the rebirth. You have to survive.”
“I’ve survived long enough,” Mr. Wright said softly. “Long enough to see my friends turn into gods and fade away.” Suddenly, Mr. Wright looked lonely, sitting on the sofa all by himself.
“I’ll rescue them,” Apollo said, hastily. “And save them. And bring them back.”
“. . . I know.” Mr. Wright slowly got up, and went to the corner where Mr. Charley sat. He began to pick a branch, and then another branch, and another, and in his hands, they seemed to transform into a shimmering color of silver, slender and beautiful. He tied them firmly into a halo, which seemed to glow in the room.
“Yeah. Just watch.” Apollo felt less and less confident with every passing moment, but he also felt less and less like himself. “You can’t argue with me. I might—I might not be Apollo. The Apollo. I might just be false. But—but I’m going to try, and you can’t stop me.”
“I know.” Mr. Wright tugged on the red silk scarf under Trucy’s silk hat, and he tossed it in front of Apollo. As he watched, the red bled into the carpet, and slowly became hyacinths, flowers with a strange smell that made him feel achingly sorrowful, as the flowers began to fill the room.
And his son flew the chariot across the sky.
Apollo struggled, trying to regain the last of his memories in a last-ditch effort. Mr. Wright approached him, and up-close, Apollo could see his short stubble, and the sad look in his eyes, the bags underneath them that spoke of seven long years, and five hundred longer ones. Gently, his big hands placed the laurel wreath on Apollo’s head, and he could smell Mr. Wright.
And so the horses screamed and ran out of control, and his son screamed as well.
“To get there,” Mr. Wright said, “You just pull on existence.” His own fingers tightened together and seemed to gently yank away at the image in front of him. “And you’ll arrive at the titans.”
And there was a lightning bolt that struck the chariot, and it fell from the sky, the horses still kicking, but his son, dead.
“I’ll lead you there,” Mr. Wright said, his beanie low on his head. “But I can’t stay long. This body won’t let me.”
And he cried, screamed, for his son, his precious son, who had always been his son, who he had always been proud of, who was dead.
“I had a dream,” Apollo said, hands dropped to his sides. “I thought it was my dream, at first. I couldn’t remember it. But now I can’t remember anything else.” He chuckled, a low tone in his voice, and sheepishly ran his hand through his hair. Too late did he realize that he hadn’t gelled his hair at all that day, and his bangs fell in his face.
“Mr. Wright,” he said, lost. “That wasn’t my dream. That was yours, right?”
“. . . There are many different ways to consider a father,” Mr. Wright said, and he looked even sadder, standing in the blood-red flowers, than he had ever looked before. “Your physical father. Your godly father.”
“. . . Mr. Wright?”
“I consider you my son.” Mr. Wright drew down his beanie. “You don’t have to prove anything to me. I know that you’re Apollo Justice.”
“Mr. Wright,” he said, lost. He reached forward, and pinched the air, and felt existence, felt the world shift beneath him, felt the roar of the titans and their dripping teeth and large mouths and laughing faces and arms the size of giant trees and fists larger than boulders and harder than diamond, and he began to pull himself in, existing, not existing, entering, exiting.
“. . . Dad,” he said.
--
And sometimes he dreamt.
He dreamt that he never returned from the battle, that Miles Edgeworth and Kristoph Gavin and Damon Gant had lost their memories but the world was safe once more, that Trucy Wright wore her bracelet, and only a few people remembered Apollo Justice, but they knew better than to talk about him. And he dreamt that Trucy embraced their mother, and that Phoenix Wright looked into the sky, and when the former defense attorney and former phoenix closed his eyes, he sometimes dreamed about Apollo Justice.
.part three: false god
And yet the crowd applauds below; They would not encore death – Emily Dickinson, You’ve seen balloons set, haven’t you?
And sometimes he dreamed.
And his own son, breathing and living, strong and young, bright and fierce, made him promise by the river Styx, and he loved his son, his beloved son, his precious son, there was no doubt about his heritage, and he never wanted his son to doubt his heritage, to doubt his blood, so he promised the unbreakable oath.
The world was going to ruins, and Apollo couldn’t even get out of bed. There were no cases, no clients, and there hadn’t been for a while. There was little point in going to work, especially when Mr. Wright had stopped seeking him out to talk to him.
He rolled onto his side, looking at his dusty room. Darkness had settled dankly into his hair. The curtains were pulled shut. Trucy hadn’t stopped by lately. He never knew he could feel so disappointed by his sister going to school.
His sister.
That wasn’t a lie, right? He swung his legs over the side of the bed, and rapidly shuffled to the refrigerator. Between the gifted magnets that Mr. Wright and Trucy had deigned to give him as leftovers, he found the Wright Anything Agency number. He tore it from the cold surface, squinting at the yellowed paper. For some reason, he wanted to call her, to reaffirm—to reaffirm something.
He fumbled through his small apartment, stubbing his toe on a table, before finding his cell phone on the Maplewood cabinet. He flicked the cover open, squinting through the sudden light, and began to tap the numbers in.
Both phone and paper were discarded onto the sofa a few moments later, and Apollo followed. Discontented, he flipped through his contacts list, and finding it surprisingly bare, he tossed his phone onto his table. It skidded with a loud clunk and a clatter.
Rolling onto his stomach, he found the remote control to his television, and flicked it on. The sudden array of lights hurt his eyes as the news channel came on, with the same serious news reporter in his deep baritone voice.
“The tidal waves are going strong, while millions are stranded—“
Apollo flipped the channel.
“A recent series of storms in the south-west area has left many famished and homeless,” said a woman with a crisp British accent.
Apollo flipped the channel.
He went through three more Breaking News Reports before settling on Clifford, and watched as the big red dog bounced up and down to the camera’s rumbling effects.
He wondered how Klavier was taking the news. It would be strange, he thought, to hear that when you thought you were Klavier Gavin Rock God you were actually Apollo the Greek God. Apollo felt like he had been cheated out of something, but he couldn’t quite his finger on what.
Prosecutor Gavin would probably take it with a pinch of salt, and ride off into the sunset with his guitar riff strumming behind him, and Trucy watching him with starry eyes and a respect that she’d never give Apollo. And then Mr. Wright would turn into a phoenix and fly off into the distance, leaving a bright trail of feathers behind for Apollo (him, Apollo, not Klavier-Apollo) to clean up. And then the world would be saved.
Happy end.
Feeling more depressed by his imagination, he shut off the television and opened the curtains with a flourish. All he did was stir up a small cloud of dust, and he coughed as the hazy dust particles floated in the rays of sun.
To his surprise, he saw a familiar woman, dressed in purple robes, standing outside the apartment gates. She didn’t seem to be looking at the plate, but arguing with a man on the corner, holding a map in her hand adamantly and pointing to the distance.
Apollo heaved a great sigh, and massaged his forehead. He wasn’t sure how he managed to attract those sorts of people even on his off days. Admittedly, there was a small bounce in his step as he grabbed his jacket, but really, it wasn’t because he’d be otherwise moping around his house.
When he reached the front gate, Maya was still there, except her map had been turned upside down and she was seriously contemplating it.
“Are you lost?” he asked, his breaths coming out in puffs. Despite the sun overhead, the weather had been anything but warm. His hands cold, he shoved them into his pockets and leaned over to look at her map.
“Oh, Apollo.” Maya smiled. “I would say that this is a coincidence, but there’s no such things as coincidences.”
“Uh.” There was no good response to that sort of statement. “Are you lost?”
“I haven’t been in this town for a while,” Maya admitted, showing him the map.
“Are you looking for the Wright Anything Agency?”
“What? Oh, no!” Maya clapped her hands and a smile bloomed on her face. “I know where that is! It’s where that strange smell is coming from.” Apollo could have sworn that he had taken out the trash for them.
“Then, where are you going?”
“Where’s the nearest McDonalds?” Maya leaned in, whispering loudly. “I’m hungry.” As if to emphasize her struggle, her stomach gave a loud rumble, enough to attract the attention of some elderly men sitting on the bench nearby.
“I guess I’m paying,” Apollo said weakly, feeling his thin wallet. Maya laughed.
“Wow, you really are Nick’s pupil!” She gave an affirmative nod. “You learned well, young grasshopper.”
For one thing, he wasn’t a grasshopper. And he had a second thing, but suddenly felt too tired to concoct the thought.
“If you’re really that hungry,” he said, “Eldoon’s is closer.” And better for his wallet, though the salt could only be terrible for his health. He could feel his cholesterol skyrocket with every bite of noodles.
“Then noodles it is.” She continued to chatter on while they reached the stall, where Eldoon himself came out to shake Apollo’s hand again, and welcome back his favorite customer, which only lead to a sick feeling to Apollo’s stomach and, even worse, to his wallet. But they were seated upfront and as the sun was barely falling over the black horizon, the noodle stall was lit up warmly with lanterns hung around the sides.
On her third bowl, Maya finally came up for air to talk.
“How long has it been since you ate?” Apollo asked, deferring his half-eaten bowl of noodles to Maya. Already the salt was churning in his stomach. Peacefully, the crickets seemed to sing in the nearby People Park.
“Oof ‘ors,” she said, mouth full.
Apollo waited.
“Two hours,” she said, swallowing. “I only had a middle breakfast before coming down, though.”
Apollo suddenly felt a common relationship with Mr. Wright, who had been forced to share his wallet with this ravenous beautiful beast. She took another large chomp from the salt wedge in the middle before wiping her mouth with a napkin, and turning to face Apollo.
“Had any dreams lately?”
“Uh, no.” Apollo frowned. “Not really.”
“Liar.” She pointed her chopsticks at him. “I can see it in your eyes. Besides, there’s no need to lie to me. I’m a medium. In fact, I’m a middle medium, and that’s the luckiest of all.”
“Middle medium?”
“Yeah! My older sister is Athena and my little cousin is Pearly.” She winked at him, as if allowing him in on an elaboration. Apollo failed to see the connection.
“Besides, you’re lucky,” she continued, slurping another long strand of noodle as she talked. The hot water flicked onto the counter, and Eldoon briskly wiped it up, headphones still blaring the Gavinners music.
“Lucky?”
“I don’t get many good dreams anymore,” she sighed. “It’s been like this since Mr. Edgeworth’s gone. There are more angry spirits in the village now, and it’s hard to get anything done. I’ve even started to use the Psyche-locks to keep them out.”
“Psyche—Psyche what?”
“Oh, Mr. Edgeworth didn’t know about them either,” she said, confidentially. “He’s found them to be a great deal helpful since then! After he got back his memories, of course. It always takes a while. But we Feys are here to help!”
Apollo could only nod dumbly.
“But stop going off-topic,” she scolded. “What do you dream about?”
He always felt uncomfortable talking about his dreams. Trucy mostly made fun of his dreams about beavers, though he swore up and down that the dreams were an omen and the beavers were actually dangerous, foul-mouthed creatures, awaiting for his arrival.
“Uh,” he said, clearing his throat. “I dreamt about the phoenix, once.” He felt sheepish, but only received Maya’s understanding nod in return.
“Then about a girl,” he said, “I couldn’t really remember her, but I think I got rejected in my dream.” Now that he was actually saying it out loud, he realized that his love life really had been unlucky, for even phantom girls to reject him. “So I gave her a gift of . . . of seeing into the future or something.”
“But nobody would believe her?” Maya encouraged.
“Yeah.” He watched Eldoon slowly groove to the Gavinners music, which still emitted from the tinny earphones.
“And what’s your last one?” Maya swallowed her noodles with a satisfied expression on her face. “These sorts of things come in threes.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I can’t remember it. Something about a son.”
“Ah, yes,” she said, staring wistfully into the distance. “Fitting.”
“But they aren’t my dreams anyway.”
“They aren’t?”
“The bracelet was just picking them up from the real Apollo,” he said, feeling even more cheapened by the fact that he could no longer be the Apollo.
Maya stopped eating her noodles, which made Apollo feel that the situation had taken a turn for the serious, in that peaceful noodles cart sitting on the corner of People Park and the Kitaki Mansion, where the lanterns swayed with the gentle, but cold, wind.
“Real Apollo?” she repeated. “But aren’t you the real one?”
“No, I just picked up the dreams,” he said. He showed her the bracelet half-heartedly. “Sorry for disappointing you.”
“Well.” She paused. “Well, did Nick tell you that you weren’t the real one?”
“He said maybe.” He scowled. “It’s all I’ve ever been able to get from Mr. Wright.”
“He’s never been wrong, though.” Maya wrinkled her forehead.
“But he said that he’s never seen any powers like this before,” Apollo said, holding up his bracelet to the light. In the warm glow, he could feel Maya’s presence—and that of the spirits clutching around the stand.
“How do you know?”
“He said it.”
“Did he say it to you?”
“No, probably to Lamiroir—“ He paused. He hadn’t been eavesdropping on their conversations at all, but he knew, clear as day, Mr. Wright’s words. He dropped his hands to his sides.
“A phoenix knows his king anywhere,” she said softly. “He won’t be wrong. I think Nick’s just doesn’t want you to be the one.”
“Why not?” Apollo could feel himself sweating under his collar. “Because it’s me?” He suspected because it was an Almost Too Easy sort of thing, to meet Apollo the Apollo whose name was really Apollo in his other life, too.
“Because you’ll be going to war,” she said.
“War?”
“Has Nick really not told you anything?” Maya wrinkled her brow again, pushing away her fifth bowl of noodle. Eldoon supplied a sixth bowl, but she didn’t dip into it right away, placing her chopsticks at the edge of the bowl.
“Not really.”
“I guess you don’t need to know that much,” she said. “You just need to regain your memories.” Suddenly, he felt her hand on his forehead. “But you haven’t yet.”
“Uh.” He felt that it was an awkward situation, and if Mr. Wright saw them, it was surely his head that he would go after.
“It’s a good thing your forehead is so wide,” Maya said cheerfully. “I can fit my whole hand on here!”
He made a mental list of topics he wished people wouldn’t mention: his love life, his forehead, and his mother.
“Without Mr. Edgeworth, Kristoph, and . . . Damon Gant,” she said, and there was notable disgust on the last note, “the world can’t support itself. The titans know this. They’ve become more modern with the times, too, adapting like us. Except we were dormant, until a few years ago.”
“Dormant?”
“We couldn’t remember our past lives,” she said, “and that’s how it would have remained, except.” She hesitated. “Let’s just say Dahlia Hawthorne started more things than she could finish.”
“Then why don’t I remember anything, if everybody else already did?”
“I don’t know,” she said, honestly. “Nick is suppressing Trucy’s memories, but for yours—he knows that we need you. You’re our last hope, because time is running out.” Her eyes glimmered. “We believe in you.”
“Uh.” He shook his head. “But I told you, it’s not me, it’s Klavier Gavin. He plays the guitar and everything.”
“A guitar isn’t a lyre,” she said.
“You know what I mean!”
She didn’t say anything. When Eldoon came to offer another bowl, she shook her head, and with the stack of bowls next to her, she took out her wallet and paid the bill.
“I could have—“
“You didn’t even eat,” she scolded. “You’re no fun. When Nick ate, too, I could pretend that he ate it all, so he should pay it all.” The wind whipped at her hair, and she shivered. “I guess times have changed.”
Apollo suddenly felt strange as he walked Maya to the Wright Anything Agency. Hesitantly, he glanced sideways at her, but unlike Mr. Wright, her image never changed. They walked in silence until they reached the Agency, where Apollo extracted his spare key and unlocked the door.
“Polly?” Trucy sounded surprised as she was pulling her scarf from the three-boxed closet. She held the fake saw in her other hand, apparently having pulled it from the umbrella holder. Mr. Wright also looked up from the sofa, newspaper across his lap.
“Maya,” he said, but there was a grumble of warning at the back of his throat.
“Don’t worry, Nick, I won’t stay too long. I just wanted to stay the night, like old times!” She tapped her chin. “Well, I mean, you didn’t used to live in the office.”
“No,” he said. “No, I didn’t. Maya, what are you doing with Apollo?”
“He just walked me here, that’s all,” she said defensively. Mr. Wright looked at her, and then looked at Apollo. With a grunt, he tossed away the newspaper.
“Trucy, go upstairs. We need to talk privately for a little bit.”
“Do I go upstairs too?” Apollo asked.
“No.”
“Why do I have to go?” Trucy put her hands on her hips. “Daddy, lately you’ve been excluding me from more and more conversations! Don’t I get to talk to Polly, too? We haven’t seen him for a while, and—“
“Trucy.” There was a warning note in Mr. Wright’s voice. Apollo had never seen Mr. Wright so aggressive towards his own daughter, but Trucy only slipped upstairs, a magician’s trick for the scared.
When she was finally gone, Mr. Wright showed Apollo and Maya to the seats, which had been since cleaned off from socks and scarves. Apollo sat next to Maya, and watched as Mr. Wright slowly lumbered back into his seat, sitting carefully like he had grown older, suddenly, and needed to take care of his bones.
“Nick, what’s this I hear about another Apollo?”
“It’s just a suspicion,” he said. “It was worth checking out.”
“We both know that you can’t be wrong.”
“Apollo presented some interesting evidence—“
“Nick.” Maya’s voice was sharp. “We’re running out of time.” Her eyes seemed strained, and under a better light, Apollo could see shadows under her eyes. He wondered how many sleepless nights she had to suffer through.
“I know,” he said. “But we have to take this calmly—“
“Is there a way?”
Apollo waited for the person to continue, before he realized he had spoken the words. Fumbling, and swallowing, he nervously looked from Maya and Mr. Wright’s faces.
“To . . . “ What had he wanted to say? “To get back my memories.”
“You told him?” Mr. Wright’s eyes were sharper than any of Plum Kitaki’s hidden katanas. But Maya squared off to him, her shoulders set.
“You should have,” she said. “You’re confusing your lives, Nick.”
“It must be clear for you,” he said. He turned to Apollo, his face set and unhappy. “There’s no way.”
“There is a way,” Maya said.
“There is no safe, plausible method.”
“I want to protect him, too,” Maya said, her voice strained. “But time’s running out. The full moon is less than three days away. We can’t wait any longer. Just let me try, Nick. If he’s not the one, he’s not the one. Then the world will sink into the seas and the seas will sink into the sky and the sky will sink into the underworld.”
“What’s the method?” Apollo interrupted.
Maya looked at him, not unkindly. “It’s a ceremony passed down from the Fey scrolls, the hidden ones.” Apollo had a brief image of the money-saving scrolls on the chamber walls. “It shouldn’t take more than a night. But it might be painful.” She hesitated. “It’s a mentally abrasive process.”
“Then,” he said, barely breathing from his rapidness. “Then we can ask Klavier to do it. And I’ll do it, too. To see if one of us is the real Apollo.”
“Yes,” Maya said, looking at Mr. Wright with judging eyes. “Klavier. It should be fine to do the ceremony, since he knows that he’s a candidate for Apollo.”
“. . . I never told him,” Mr. Wright said, no malice in his voice.
Apollo didn’t understand the implications of the sentence, and sat, puzzled, trying to put together the fragments that Mr. Wright had scattered along the floor.
“He’s not the one.” Mr. Wright looked away. “He’s not the Apollo. And if he’s not—“
“The sea, the sky, the underworld won’t exist.” Maya folded her hands across her lap. “Unless we use Trucy.”
“Wait—“ Apollo looked at them, bewildered. “But I thought you said Trucy is too young.”
“It’s true,” Maya agreed. “She might not have been too young in the ancient days, but in modern times, everything’s different. If we sent her out to war with her memories only half-developed . . . “
“I won’t allow it,” Mr. Wright said. “And that’s final.”
And he would sacrifice Apollo. He felt like saying something sarcastic, but the situation had left him at a loss for words, because it felt like twenty-two years ago all over again, and he couldn’t speak, but a woman soon to be forgotten by even herself gently placed him to sacrifice him for a new life.
Maya bit her thumb hesitantly. “We could do it here,” she said, “I brought some of my incense. Without the heavy atmosphere in the Kurain Village, it might be easier. Is there an empty room?”
“Not really—“ Apollo started.
“My room,” Mr. Wright interrupted. “It’s the office where we found . . . her.” Maya’s eyes darkened for a moment, but then she was suddenly bright smiles and happy laughter.
“All right,” she said. “Apollo, come with me. I know the way.” Her hand passed a shadow over her pale moon face. “I couldn’t forget, even if five hundred years went by.”
There were still a few locked rooms in the office that Apollo still didn’t know. He sometimes cleaned the hallway (another side-effect of being a defense attorney), but there were doors that kept their secrets bottled inside, behind the maple wood panels that spoke no lies. Maya slipped a key from underneath his sleeve and unlocked the door.
There was a deep silence in the room, which was mostly bare except for a stray bed and a desk. Maya began to place candles around the room, the cheap type at the local grocery store, which Apollo recognized from their kitchen drawers. He felt oddly numb. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting. But he was sick of being left out of the mysteries, and only knowing the world was going to end as he knew it.
Maya took out a legal note pad from the desk, tugging the cap off a pen with her teeth before scribbling down the intonations that he didn’t exactly understand. With a flourish, she ripped the paper and using the dusty Scotch tape, she stuck it onto Apollo’s forehead.
“Hey, wait—“
“Take off your shoes and kneel down.”
The incense had already started burning, the wafty smell pressing along the room. It was a woody scent, with a hint of an exotic spice. Apollo could feel himself relaxing against his better judgment and better wishes. Behind him, he could hear the door close, and expertly lock.
“Don’t be nervous,” she said, “I’ve done this before.”
“How’d that go?” Apollo’s voice was pitched higher than he last remembered it.
“I don’t remember,” she admitted. “It was in my past life.”
Somehow, he failed to find their conversation reassuring. But the incense had already started its work on him, and he closed his eyes behind the yellow legal pad paper, that smelled like Mr. Wright’s smoky scent, and a different waft, the luxurious perfume of a woman, prickling and haunting.
“Are you dreaming?”
His eyes were closed, but he could see the burning chariot in front of him. It was unnerving, to see his dreams in reality. When he looked down at himself, he was no longer dressed in his favorite red vests and pants, but clad in ancient garbs. In his hand was a type of polish, and the chariot was gleaming, its wheels still flaming from the sky. He had been oiling down his chariot, covering his arms and legs in splatters of oil.
“What do you see?”
But his horses were fierce, and when they whinnied, flames flared from their white teeth and red tongues. Their fur sleekly covered the firm muscles underneath, and the white of their eyes showed in their madness. Even their silky manes were painted in fire that burnt his hands and his face. But his son was always young and happy, and he could only see himself in his son, and he passed over the reins, urging his proud son to stop, to think.
“Apollo?”
His young son laughed loudly, in a voice that came from the chest. He took the reins in his young, child hands, and smiled at him, proudly. The sky was dark, ready to be torn away by the light shed by the chariot, but he still clutched at his son’s shoulder, feeling the muscles beneath it, seeing his son’s bright eyes.
“Apollo!”
Stepping upon a cloud, that felt firm underneath his heels, he could only watch as his son took away in his chariot, his horses screaming, but in a different type of scream, madness and sorrow, as they galloped upon the clouds before reaching the path in the air. The inky blackness of the night, spotted in diamonds of stars, tore away as easily as wet parchment against the chariot’s glow, and he heard his son’s laughter, and for a moment, could only hope that his son would be satisfied by their heritage.
His heart beat loudly, and he shouted something to the winds, but Zephyr had taken them away and he was left with his feathers burning and the chariot riding into the fateful sky.
He stretched out his hand to try and capture the—the something in his hand, but it always escaped his grasp. Instead, he seemed to be grabbing a fistful of hair, and when his eyes shot open at this revelation, he could see Maya’s puffed up face as he tugged her hair closer.
“W-waugh!” He rolled backwards, paper flying off his face. It landed close to a candle, which Maya quickly blew out. The sunlight was already streaming in through the window.
“Did I fall asleep?” Apollo rubbed his forehead, which was still sticky from the tape.
“You didn’t say anything all night,” Maya said unhappily. His heart skipped a beat, though from fear or excitement, he couldn’t tell.
“Then that means,” he said slowly, “I’m not Apollo?”
“Of course you’re Apollo.” Maya blew out another candle. “Apollo Justice, that is. As for Apollo from the past, I don’t know.”
“But wasn’t this whole thing to figure that out?”
“Yeah,” she said, “And most people who aren’t the gods leave the room on a hospital bed.” She quickly added, “According to the scroll.”
Apollo felt like he had managed to escape a terrible fate.
“But those who were reborn usually showed a sign of their ability.” She shrugged. “Like, fire on their hand, or something. But nothing happened with you. I have to admit, I don’t know what to do!” The last sentence was said a little too gleefully. Apollo helped her blow out the last few candles, feeling disappointed at the unsure verdict.
When the door opened, Mr. Wright peered in, a plate of burnt toast ready for the both of them. While Maya denied the plate in favor of a more healthy breakfast, Apollo found himself munching on the crisp bread reluctantly.
“Nothing, huh?” Mr. Wright asked Maya quietly.
“Even you could tell?” Maya sighed. “I don’t know what to make of it. He’s not a god, but he’s not a person. Maybe he’s really a unicorn.”
Apollo felt offended, especially because the remark was probably pointed at his forehead, which was the perfectly normal size thank you very much.
“. . . What are we to do?” Maya looked at Mr. Wright quietly, in the corner of the office from the room that held Mia’s dead body only a few years ago. “You can’t go fight, Nick. The phoenix isn’t—“
“But we can’t send either of them.” Mr. Wright cracked his neck. “I’ve lived too long, anyway.”
“That’s your human side talking.”
“No,” Mr. Wright said ruefully, “My human side hasn’t lived long enough.”
“Hey,” Apollo said, suddenly. They both turned, surprised that he was still standing there, plate of burnt crumbs in his hand, and still chewing on the hardened bread. He swallowed. “When’s the full moon?”
“A day,” Maya said.
“Apollo,” Mr. Wright said, “Whatever you’re thinking, it’s a bad idea.” Apollo was thankful for being told so upright about Mr. Wright’s true feelings. He always knew that Mr. Wright felt that way, but it was nice to be given confirmation every now and then.
“I’m not thinking about anything.” The empty room stood behind him, full of snuffed out candles and hopes, and the faint remainder of the dead body that would never leave the memories, forever captured in the tragic moment.
“Not thinking about anything,” he repeated, faintly, to himself. “Yet.”
--
Sitting alone in his room, he realized that he had never really let himself spread out. Packing up all his things into a small suitcase had been fairly easy, even as he numbly examined all the magic tricks that Trucy had left behind, and all the candy wrappers she had magically placed behind his bookshelf. It had taken him most of the morning, so it was already the afternoon when he finished.
He sat on his empty bed and pulled out his cell phone. Taking a deep breath, and reminding himself of his Chords of Steel, he dialed a number.
“Hello?” said a melodious voice.
“. . . It’s me,” he said, unable to figure out a proper introduction. There was a small intake of breath on the other line.
“Apollo . . . “
“I just wanted to talk to you,” he said. “Is this a bad time?”
“No,” she said, almost too quickly. “No, not at all.” He wondered if it was guilt that propelled her forward now. But that was his fault, too, for what he had said the last time they had sat across from each other with a blaring pink apron by his side.
“There was something I forgot to ask.” He breathed in. “Why did you name me Apollo? Why not, uh, Joe? Or John? Or—?” He couldn’t think of any other male names.
“. . . I’m not sure.” He waited. “I knew that it should be your name. It seemed like a good name. Suitable for—for my son.”
It was too early for words like those, but Apollo knew that he was out of time.
“You should tell Trucy soon,” he said.
“. . . Yes.”
“I think she’d be happy,” he said, “if you left my part of the story out. She’d be glad to have a mother.”
“She’d be glad to have a brother.”
He twisted his hair. “Yeah,” he echoed. “Uh . . . yeah. That was all I called for.”
“Should we hang up now?” she asked, and there was an honesty in her tone that hurt much worse than if she had simply slammed down the phone on him.
“I forgive you,” he blurted out. “I forgive you, and I’m sorry.”
“. . . Apollo?”
He shut his phone quickly, his heart beating in his chest. Hastily, he threw the phone under his pillow, in case it rang again, but it didn’t. Now flushed and somewhat triumphant, he paced around the room and ran the conversation over and over in his mind, like it was a silent tape reel and he could only see the actions. He sometimes mouthed the words, changing them, trying to figure out if he had accomplished all his business.
He left his apartment discontented, twisting his bracelet under his hands, when he ran into Klavier on the sidewalk, this time in sunglasses and without his hog.
“Herr Forehead,” he greeted cheerfully. “Another walk?”
“There’s nothing wrong with fresh air.” The refreshingness of a rock star never failed to irritate him. He wished that Klavier wouldn’t always be so cool. But today there seemed to be something off about the rock star. There was a particular impatience in him as he drummed his fingers along his belt.
“Something wrong?” Apollo asked, almost reluctantly.
Klavier jerked away and looked at him. “Nein, nein,” he said too quickly, “What would you make think that, Herr Forehead?”
“Just a guess,” he intoned.
“. . . I suppose if it’s you, I don’t mind,” Klavier said. “We share evidence from time to time, ja? So sharing something like this . . . “ He snapped his fingers to an invisible beat, his eyes closed for a moment behind his dark sunglasses. Apollo waited.
“Kristoph is missing,” he said, “and he has been, for a short while.”
Apollo faintly remembered Mr. Wright telling him something about that, a while back. He couldn’t exactly remember the words—nowadays, all his memories seemed to be fading. With a slight shock, he realized that he couldn’t remember his court cases very well, and his time before working at Kristoph’s office was all a blank.
“Herr Forehead?”
“Ah!” He looked up. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“. . . Indeed.” He tapped his fingers again. “I’m running late, so I can’t stay for a long. And you seem to be in a hurry, as well.”
“Just before nightfall,” he said. “And stop making judgments on me.” He hesitated. “Do you miss your brother?”
“That’s a strange question.” Klavier savored the air. “Perhaps. Why do you ask?”
“. . . I’m going to try and bring him back.”
Klavier snapped to attention. “Forehead. What do you mean by that?”
Apparently he had lost Klavier’s respect, as well as the Herr. “Uh, nothing. I just meant that one day, I’ll bring him back, and you two can—can do brotherly stuff.” He grimaced as the night drew upon the sky. “Style your hair together.”
“Nein, it is natural,” Klavier scolded, seeming to relax.
“I bet.” Apollo breathed on his hands. “I have to go now. But maybe I’ll see you in court soon. The cases are always—interesting.” Klavier laughed, and Apollo grumbled because the laugh seemed more directed by his faux coolness, and they parted ways. He shuffled down the street to the Wright Anything Agency, where the lights were already off, because it had become later than he remembered.
The door opened easily, though the house was dark.
There was something in the air that told him that the day would not be like any other day, and the night was different. When he inhaled, his very breath seemed to touch his lungs and chill him from the inside out. Almost floating, he crept up the stairs, hearing every creak of the broken boards with an electrifying sensation.
He ran his fingers down the cold rail, like he wanted to memorize the very formation, before he reached Trucy’s room. Slowly, he opened the door, and saw her sleeping form curled along the pillows. Her magic hat sat on her bed post.
He stood above her, and remembered when he first awoke from his dream, where she had been beating his apartment with a broom. He slipped off his bracelet, which had given him so much comfort and so much pain, and gently took her hand and folded her small fingers along the sides of it.
Finally, he looked at her peaceful face, eyes closed in sleep.
“Good night,” he told her, softly, and left the room, feeling more wistful than he entered. When he walked into the dark living room, he wasn’t surprised to see Mr. Wright sitting on the sofa, leaning on his knees and waiting for him.
“I told you not to do anything stupid,” Mr. Wright warned.
“I didn’t!” Apollo scowled and crossed his arms over his chest.
“. . . How are you feeling?”
“I don’t remember much anymore,” he admitted, sitting on the edge of the sofa. “It’s all going missing. I think it’s a side-effect from whatever Maya did earlier.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
Apollo wished that Mr. Wright would occasionally give him a straight answer. Then again, that might be asking for too much of a miracle.
“So what do I have to do?”
“You’re not going to fight the titans.” Mr. Wright leaned back onto the sofa. “You’re losing more memories than ever. We should just try to stop the flow.”
“No,” Apollo said firmly. “I fight for justice. That’s why I chose it as my last name.” Though he couldn’t remember the moment he chose it, or any of the events that followed it. Judging by the look Mr. Wright was giving him, his scary boss knew that, as well.
“I don’t want you to go,” he said. “You’ll die the way you are now.”
“But who else can go?”
“I can—“
“You don’t have enough power,” he said, “Your role is the rebirth. You have to survive.”
“I’ve survived long enough,” Mr. Wright said softly. “Long enough to see my friends turn into gods and fade away.” Suddenly, Mr. Wright looked lonely, sitting on the sofa all by himself.
“I’ll rescue them,” Apollo said, hastily. “And save them. And bring them back.”
“. . . I know.” Mr. Wright slowly got up, and went to the corner where Mr. Charley sat. He began to pick a branch, and then another branch, and another, and in his hands, they seemed to transform into a shimmering color of silver, slender and beautiful. He tied them firmly into a halo, which seemed to glow in the room.
“Yeah. Just watch.” Apollo felt less and less confident with every passing moment, but he also felt less and less like himself. “You can’t argue with me. I might—I might not be Apollo. The Apollo. I might just be false. But—but I’m going to try, and you can’t stop me.”
“I know.” Mr. Wright tugged on the red silk scarf under Trucy’s silk hat, and he tossed it in front of Apollo. As he watched, the red bled into the carpet, and slowly became hyacinths, flowers with a strange smell that made him feel achingly sorrowful, as the flowers began to fill the room.
And his son flew the chariot across the sky.
Apollo struggled, trying to regain the last of his memories in a last-ditch effort. Mr. Wright approached him, and up-close, Apollo could see his short stubble, and the sad look in his eyes, the bags underneath them that spoke of seven long years, and five hundred longer ones. Gently, his big hands placed the laurel wreath on Apollo’s head, and he could smell Mr. Wright.
And so the horses screamed and ran out of control, and his son screamed as well.
“To get there,” Mr. Wright said, “You just pull on existence.” His own fingers tightened together and seemed to gently yank away at the image in front of him. “And you’ll arrive at the titans.”
And there was a lightning bolt that struck the chariot, and it fell from the sky, the horses still kicking, but his son, dead.
“I’ll lead you there,” Mr. Wright said, his beanie low on his head. “But I can’t stay long. This body won’t let me.”
And he cried, screamed, for his son, his precious son, who had always been his son, who he had always been proud of, who was dead.
“I had a dream,” Apollo said, hands dropped to his sides. “I thought it was my dream, at first. I couldn’t remember it. But now I can’t remember anything else.” He chuckled, a low tone in his voice, and sheepishly ran his hand through his hair. Too late did he realize that he hadn’t gelled his hair at all that day, and his bangs fell in his face.
“Mr. Wright,” he said, lost. “That wasn’t my dream. That was yours, right?”
“. . . There are many different ways to consider a father,” Mr. Wright said, and he looked even sadder, standing in the blood-red flowers, than he had ever looked before. “Your physical father. Your godly father.”
“. . . Mr. Wright?”
“I consider you my son.” Mr. Wright drew down his beanie. “You don’t have to prove anything to me. I know that you’re Apollo Justice.”
“Mr. Wright,” he said, lost. He reached forward, and pinched the air, and felt existence, felt the world shift beneath him, felt the roar of the titans and their dripping teeth and large mouths and laughing faces and arms the size of giant trees and fists larger than boulders and harder than diamond, and he began to pull himself in, existing, not existing, entering, exiting.
“. . . Dad,” he said.
--
And sometimes he dreamt.
He dreamt that he never returned from the battle, that Miles Edgeworth and Kristoph Gavin and Damon Gant had lost their memories but the world was safe once more, that Trucy Wright wore her bracelet, and only a few people remembered Apollo Justice, but they knew better than to talk about him. And he dreamt that Trucy embraced their mother, and that Phoenix Wright looked into the sky, and when the former defense attorney and former phoenix closed his eyes, he sometimes dreamed about Apollo Justice.