( No Title )
In Justice We Trust (29492 words) by thesavagesabretooth
With Simon Blackquill and Athena Cykes assigned as their psychologists, the Phantom and Fulbright must grapple with their identity, their deeds, their future, and their love for the twisted samurai whom they betrayed.
All the while, Edgeworth and Wright find their relationship tested as they walk the narrow path between pursuing real justice, and the dark age of the law.
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December 22, 11:00 am
No-one was glad when the big, grizzled older man came into his hospital room, and distracted him from his circular conversation with Bobby. On the other hand, he was less than pleased with the sheer number of different people who’d come to see him in the last few days.
“Is there actually security on this room, or can anyone just walk in?” he asked the stranger, blandly. There was that cold sting of fear at the back of his neck that this man was here to end his life– but it seemed unlikely. He was a very large man, which was difficult to impersonate, if nothing else.
“I’m with interpol,” he explained gruffly. He leaned on the wall by the door with his arms crossed, and No-one could feel his gaze sweep over them, intense and penetrating. “Agent Tyrell Badd.”
Once he introduced himself, No-one recognized him. They’d never met in person, but Tyrell Badd’s paperwork was everywhere in the deep files of the LAPD cases. Curious about who such a prolific detective might have been, No-one had looked at his file.
This wasn’t the man’s first brush with espionage– that much was certain.
“What happened to agent Lang?”
“Lang’s busy coordinating an op. He sent me to get you up to speed.”
Bobby rushed forward with a smile. “Really? That’s very kind of him.”
Badd snorted, seemingly unconcerned with the sudden shift in attitude. “Less kind, more we might need more of your input on this thing. We staked out your apartment last night. Got there good and ahead of a little visitor who came to wish you well.”
“A visitor?” Bobby cocked his head curiously.
He’s being sarcastic, Bobby. He means an asset was sent to destroy the evidence.
“And what became of this visitor, Agent Badd?” No-one asked.
Badd took something out of his pocket slowly, and No-one felt a sting of nerves until he saw that it was a lollypop. He watched the agent slowly unwrap it, and stick it in his mouth like a cigarette.
“He left you a little package, and went on his merry way,” Badd drawled.
“I think I can guess what the contents of this package might have been.”
“Yeah? No shit. It was a bomb. But we cleared it out, no problem. Not that you’d care.”
I’d care, Bobby whimpered. Tell him…
No-one sighed. “I’m pleased to hear there weren’t any casualties. What about the visitor?”
I’m glad there weren’t any casualties– also all our stuff was in there…
You’re so attached to things.
Still, No-one had to admit there were a few things he’d prefer not be destroyed by an explosion. His suits were one of them. Since he had been moving to LA, where no one had known Bobby Fulbright, No-one hadn’t seen a reason to stick strictly to the style represented by the dead cops wardrobe. The flashy suits had been the first clothing he’d picked for himself.
So much for me being the only one attached to things, Bobby teased. I mean I liked the suits you picked, too. I just wouldn’t have thought about it.
“Hah, pleased. Sure,” Badd smirked at him, and sucked on his candy. “We’re in hot pursuit of your guy. He’s en route to Cauli right now, would you happen to know anything about that?”
“Cauli…” No-one turned it over in his mind. A beautiful little coastal peninsula in south east asia, near the country of Zheng-fa. Largely rural, but with pockets of industry that had turned into mega metropolises in the last few decades. “I’ve landed there for check in several times. I’m pretty certain one of the organization’s major outposts is in the area.”
“No shit? Maybe your information’s good after all, Mr– what did Edgeworth say you wanted on your papers? Halick?”
“Halblicht,” they corrected.
“Sure,” Badd nodded. “Speaking of paperwork, I hear that’s almost processed. Guess you’ll be a new man when you get out of here.”
“I suppose so.” No-one felt their heart rate increase at the man’s aggressive tone. He was sure the cop turned interpol agent was about to issue some dire ultimatum about his behavior.
He popped the lollypop out of his mouth. “Not many of your type are lucky enough to get something like that. Most spies end up in jail, or dead in a ditch somewhere.”
“I’m aware, Agent Badd…”
“Good.” He pointed the lollypop at him. “So don’t fucking waste it. If there’s people you hurt, make it right. Do your best to live like a man, and not a snake slinking around in the darkness.”
“Yes, sir!” Their cuff clinked, as Bobby went to salute. No-one sighed. “It sounds as if you have a personal stake in this. Or history.”
“History. Hah. That’s one way to put it,” he nodded. “Got my heart ripped out by a spy once. Girl of many faces, just like you.”
“Is that so? And what became of this spy?"
No-one knew who he was talking about. He’d seen it in the files. A woman who had infiltrated both the prosecutors department, and interpol, under different identities. A woman mixed up with something known as the ‘yatagarsu affair’. She must have been with a different organization than his.
As far as the paper trail was concerned, the spy had been imprisoned. There was no paperwork on her after that.
"Maybe she got a second chance,” Badd said, leveling his gaze at them. “Maybe she made the best of it.”
“And your heart, Agent Badd?” Bobby asked, wide eyed.
The agent thumped his fist on his chest.
“Got it right here.”
There was a silence between them for a moment, and No-one had to force himself back to the surface before Bobby started sobbing everywhere.
“Thank you for sharing your thoughts, Agent Badd,” No-one said softly. “Is there anything else I can help you with right now?”
“Nah.” He shook his head. “But I might be able to help you, depending on the request. Lang says your good info gets a favor– a small one.”
“Really? Another kindness, I suppose,” No-one murmured, echoing Bobby’s opinion from earlier in the conversation. He couldn’t understand why he was being treated this way. It didn’t make sense.
“Yep,” Badd nodded. “How about it? Anything I can bring you in here? This place seems pretty dull.”
“It sure is,” Bobby sniffled, wiping his eyes with the back of their arm. There were tears beaded at the edge of them, despite No-one’s efforts. “Could you bring my sunglasses? And some magazines, maybe?”
“Heh,” Badd huffed. “Yeah, sure. No problem.”
After the agent had left, the two of them slumped back against the raised pillows of the medical cot, and stared at the ceiling.
“Did you hear what he said?” Bobby asked in the back of their mind. “About the spy who cut out his heart?”
“I heard it, Bobby.”
“Maybe there’s hope with Simon after all.”
“I don’t believe in hope.”
“I do.”
“I know, Bobby.”
December 22, 11:05 am
Phoenix and Apollo were both absent from the office when Simon dropped Athena there, after the first therapy session.
Instead, she found Pearl and Trucy sitting next to each other on the couch, as Trucy demonstrated card tricks.
Athena had…admittedly, quietly wished that the office would be empty to give her the time to work through everything that had happened in that short, confusing therapy session and calm her spiraling thoughts into something sensible.
But she’d never be rude to Pearl or Trucy. She flashed them a big smile before they had a chance to see the crease of worry and anxiety in her features, and waved.
“Hey Pearly! Truce! Guessing the boss isn’t in?”
Pearl waved back happily. “He said he was gonna go see Mr. Miles. He should be back soon, I think.”
Trucy smiled at her too. “You look a little tired, Athena– want us to give you some space?”
“No, it’s alright. Just had a rough…” she paused for a moment to fiddle with the long strands of her ponytail, “meeting. It’s just paperwork and stuff from the other day.”
She hopped over the couch and landed on the cushions with a huff. “…so Truce, is this a new trick? Or are you giving Pearl the tutorial?”
“She’s showing me how to the really basic ones,” Pearl said with a grin. “You know, so I can spot that kind of thing.”
“Oho!” Athena grinned , Widget flashing the bright yellow of joy on her throat “not every day a magician shows their tricks. Hope I’m not interrupting you two.”
“It’s okay! I can show you, too if you–”
Trucy and the rest of them were interrupted as the door opened and Phoenix walked in. As he smiled at the collection of girls, Athena could tell he was just as exhausted and rung out as she was.
It was probably not a stretch to imagine it stemmed from the same source.
She sat up with a wave and a cheery smile “Hey boss, I got back a little early.”
He raised his hand in greeting. “And I got back a little late. Wanna grab a work lunch with me? We can bring back some takeout for the girls.”
Trucy and Pearl beamed at him, and looked hopefully between him and Athena.
Athena laughed as she pushed herself off the couch with her hands up.
“I can never say no to a free lunch, boss!” She stretched with a tilt of her head .“you two want Eldoons or something else?”
December 22, 11: 40 am
Athena and Phoenix ended up eating bowls of noodles on the stools in front of Eldoon’s noodle cart. They didn’t say much for the first bowl, but then Phoenix offered to buy her a second portion.
“Awfully generous today, huh boss?” She asked with a quiet chuckle.
She didn’t say no.
He bought her the noodles, and got another drink for himself. She watched him lean his elbow against the noodle counter. She probably could have told that he was troubled even without her level of empathy.
“Wanna tell me how it went?” he asked softly.
“Not well.” Athena replied in a low murmur, Widget flashed a blue that reflected in the salty broth as she stirred her noodles. “Not…the worst. I think we made some progress. But Simon was…struggling during it. His emotions were strong enough to disrupt my mood matrix while I was working with the patient.”
Not that her own emotions were all that great during it either. “Not only that, but the patient said some…concerning things that lined up with some of the scattered emotional responses we picked up.”
Phoenix cocked his head at her, and she could feel his confusion.
“You’re gonna have to explain that to me. Sorry, Athena.” He gave her his old ‘I’m just some guy’ smile, even over his troubled interior.
“I think something horrible happened to the pha–Bobby, he wants to be called Bobby…” she slurped her noodles as her brow furrowed. “someone made him into the person that killed my mother. ‘Obedient’…that’s how he described his persona when he wasn’t someone else. It paints a picture, which his relationship to his emotions sort of verifies. I have a lot of data to go over but…”
She hiccuped, widget pulsed blue and she closed her eyes “but…”
He put a hand on her shoulder and looked at her with sympathy. She could feel his sadness and frustration.
“Hey. It’s okay. You don’t need to push yourself…”
“It’s really hard, sir.” she tried not to cry, it’d only make the noodles saltier than they already were.
“I mean…he said he was sorry. Can you believe that? But he still acts like the detective we made friends with, even if he’s the man who killed mom…but he’s clearly being used by whoever sent him…and they left severe scars on his heart that I could notice only one session in.”
She took a hesitant bite of the noodles.
“And Simon’s emotions…” She had theories, thoughts on that. The heavy stings of anger and sadness were understandable…the surprise and hope less obvious. Pictures painted in her mind of what it could all mean, but she didn’t dare ask. Not now. “I’m hoping the next session will be more fruitful.”
Phoenix whistled.
“Well, it sounds like you got a lot out of this one. I donno what it’s supposed to mean, but it’s a lot.” Phoenix was trying to stay upbeat, but he was clearly struggling with his feelings. After a moment he said, “Mr. Edgeworth is going to want to hear from you later today, I’m sure.”
“I know. I’ll have to spend the next few hours going over my notes and recordings for him, I think.” She smiled tiredly at him, doing her best to project her usual upbeat attitude. “Wouldn’t want to let the chief prosecutor down.”
“No, I agree,” Phoenix chuckled. “Sometimes I kinda want to throw him off a bridge though.”
“Ahh, but did you know? That’s a sign of affection. Bridge-throwability’s a metric.” She teased lightly, taking a bite of her noodles.
“Oh is that so? I’m happy to hear more about it,” he teased. That was typical of Phoenix, goofing around whenever the mood got too heavy.
“Oh absolutely. I hear sometimes the more throwable a person is, the better match you are.” She laughed, widget glowing yellow as her mood started to rise.
It was typical of her boss– but it often worked.
“So that’s what it is,” he chuckled. “What if one person is very throwable, and the other person isn’t?”
“Depends, what’s the other person?” Athena asked “there’s a dynamic there, if things are spun the right way…but boss, if you’re talking about you, you’re very throwable.”
Phoenix laughed and brushed his fingers across his gelled hair with a flustered look.
“Oh I’m throawble, huh? Not afraid to say that to your boss?”
“You know me, boss, I’m never afraid to say anything!” She snickered with a stir of her noodles “plus, I read the case files. Didn’t you fall off a bridge once?”
“Well, uh, yeah, but I wasn’t thrown off! I was trying to rescue Maya and I fell. The bridge was also on fire at the time.”
“…oh wow, that’s brave as hell , sir…” Athena whistled , impressed, before she added “but it means the bridge found you throwable.”
Phoenix laughed. “Okay, you know what, I’ll accept that. That bridge always had it out for me.”
December 22, 2:00 pm
Athena had worked as she walked, the entire way through the bus stop, and through her jog towards the Prosecutor’s Office after they’d delivered the takeout to the appreciative Pearl and Trucy and she’d retreated to the main office to compile and study.
She still had no idea the broad strokes, and a number of questions still plagued her mind about Bobby…the phantom…and of Simon and his reactions to the tumultuous session…but she had enough to report for a first session.
Coming to a stop before it’s great glass doors, she looked up at the huge building with a furrow of her brow. It really was massive, housing so many of the district’s prosecutors inside it, each in more opulent offices than the last. It made the Wright Anything Agency feel cramped…but downright homey by comparison.
Steeling her nerves and activating Widget, she pushed her way through the front door and past the social obligation of check-in with the resolve to do the best report she could. She was told almost immediately that chief prosecutor Edgeworth was waiting for her, and that she could come right in.
When she did, he looked almost as busy as she was, carefully reviewing paperwork over the spectacles low on his nose.
“Ah, Miss Cykes– thank you so much for coming.”
“Hello, Mr. Edgeworth,” she waved to him as the door closed, trotting to his desk. Her eyes fell on the Steel Samurai model for a brief moment with a smile before she diverted her attention to the man himself.
“Can I offer you something to drink?” he asked, waving for her to sit down in the chair across from his. He still seemed distracted by the paperwork, but as she sat down, he put it down, folded his hands, and took a breath, focusing.
She took a seat with a bright and cheerful smile. “that ah…that’d be really nice of you, sir!”
“My pleasure,” he nodded, standing. “Coffee? Water? Something else?”
“Coffee, actually. It’s been a heck of a day.” she laughed cheerfully, even as she felt the weight of her exhaustion on her shoulders.
“I can more than sympathize,” he agreed. He buzzed his secretary for coffee, and continued to chat as they waited. “I didn’t sleep last night, myself.”
Athena leaned forward in her seat, “it’s not healthy to go too long without sleep, Mr. Edgeworth! I..I imagine everything you’d been up to with our patient’s been a heavy weight on you…”
He sighed and nodded to his secretary with a mumbled thanks as she bustled into the room with a coffee tray and bustled out again before Athena barely had time to acknowledge her presence.
“In more ways than one. It was a busy night last night following up on some leads he gave us during interrogation. There was a bomb involved. Sugar?” He offered the little packets to her.
Athena winced. “…There was a bomb involved?” she asked with widening eyes. “Was anyone hurt? I – oh yes please. Absolutely”
She took the little sugar packets and tore them open with shaking hands. She couldn’t help but remember the aftermath of the explosions in the Cosmos center…and the bomb detonator planted on poor Starbuck.
“They really seem to love their explosives in this group of his, huh?”
“Explosives are very good at erasing evidence,” he agreed, pouring cream into his coffee and taking a long sip. “However, no, this time we were prepared. There was no explosion, and our men are in pursuit of the bomber.”
“Good.” A bright smile lit up her face as she stirred sugar into her drive.,“from the things I saw and heard in today’s session, I think the sooner we find the people who’d been giving Bobby orders, the better…”
“I can say so from the things that came up in interrogation as well.” He looked at her with a serious, steady expression, and she could feel his concern. “How did the first session go? I know I’m asking a lot of you.”
“You are.” She said it without hesitation, sipping her slightly too hot coffee with her eyes closed.
“It didn’t go very smoothly–but it didn’t end in violence, so at least we can thank our lucky stars there! It’s…hard…looking at him. Especially because he acts so much like he used to…” She trailed off for a moment and stared into space before focusing again. “…it’s easy to blink and imagine him goofing around a crime scene again, yelling about justice and offering to help us because ‘it’s the Just thing to do’…at least until he shifts, and his emotions get very quiet and hard to read. Then I can’t help but wonder what’s going on behind his eyes.”
Miles nodded, and sipped his coffee. “Ah, so he presented that way to you too, did he? I wondered if he would. Can you tell me– professionally speaking– what you make of it?”
“He absolutely did…he even apologized.” Her fingers tightened on her cup. She felt the hot flush of …not quite anger, but the flush at the corners of her eyes that spoke to barely restrained tears.
“In my professional opinion , it’s very …interesting. I took a lot of notes, and reviewed his emotional reactions during that part of the session a few times since then. It feels genuine…there’s a marked difference between the way his emotions operate when in ‘Bobby’ mode, and then in the other mode…you can almost see where they abruptly switch!”
She tapped her finger on the mug as she took another sip.
“He said that the personality was sticky, and given that his description of his base persona…without any assumed identities– was simply ‘obedient’ , I can see why. We could be looking at a trauma-based schism of personality. DID or some other dissociative disorder perhaps–.
“A result of his training. A man who has been told he’s not allowed to have a personality takes one on for a job, and gets attached, maybe? In that case…it may linger with larger significance upon his identity as a whole, while not quite melding with what he was told he had to be, leading to a mental schism and the issue with rapid swapping of persona…”
She swallowed another long sip of coffee, and continued. “…either way, it’s clear he needs our help…and whatever is going on there is going to need to be a major part of our therapy going forward.”
"An identity schism.” The chief prosecutor wound his fingers together and peered over them thoughtfully. “He is a master manipulator of course. One has to wonder if this is some sort of ploy as well. But if you say his reactions seem genuine– there’s no one as expert as you, Ms. Cykes. And you certainly have no personal stake in vouching for him.”
“No, it’d be easier for me not to, honestly,” she said with a quiet laugh. “…I need more data to be 100% sure of course…but I got a sense of how he ‘spoofs’ my emotional reads, and this doesn’t seem the same. There’s something going on there…we just have to keep pressing to bring it out. And if it turns out to be a manipulation–.I’ll be able to tell.”
Miles gave her a gentle smile, and she could again feel the concern behind it.
“I’m glad. And again, I appreciate it. You and Simon are the only ones I trust with this task. I know it isn’t fair. But you’re already doing a fantastic job. Better than anyone else could.”
Athena gave him a tentative smile in return, nodding her head.
“I know you do, sir. And I promise…I’ll be doing everything I can to live up to your trust in us. It’s…hard…”
Admittedly hard was an understatement. “but if you think we’re doing a great job, then I’m inspired to keep going till we have a breakthrough!”
She pumped her fist, coffee sloshing in her cup.
“I’m very glad to hear it,” he nodded. “Let me know if there’s anything you need in pursuit of it. Beyond that– are there any more notes or anything you’d like to bring up with me after this first session?”
Athena hesitated for a long moment, brushing her thumb over the outside of the mug. She wouldn’t say anything about Simon’s flaring anger and tumultuous emotions– not yet. Not unless it became a serious problem for his mental health.
But wasn’t that the thing? Their mental health was being put on the sideline for the greater good. They were each putting themselves into the fire, so that they might fulfill Prosecutor Edgeworth’s bargain of treatment and rehabilitation.
Or maybe it was partially for hope?
Hope that someone wasn’t all bad, despite the terrible things they’d done, that there was some truth to the apologies spouted throughout the session.
“He got hesitant when I brought up his past. I think I’m going to need to poke deeper at that. If you have any information to share with me, I’ll study it so I can bring it up and use it in the next session.” she said instead.
“I trust you implicitly, Ms. Cykes– if you’d like, while you’re here you can review the transcripts or the video from the interrogations last night.”
“Please actually. If it’s a video I can probably still read emotions from his voice…even if it won’t be as good as face to face.” she perked up. “…thank you, sir. I mean it when I say we won’t let you down.”
Chief prosecutor Edgeworth stood and put his hand on her shoulder.
“I know you won’t, Ms. Cykes.” The tone of his voice told her that he hoped that he didn’t let her down either.
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