Caged Turnabout - Prologue

World: Ace Attorney
Featuring: Phoenix Wright, Apollo Justice, Diego Armando

CAGED TURNABOUT
Prologue

It was a dark, cool April night. And everybody was asleep. Well, not exactly everybody...

"W-What are you going to do with that?"

"You'll see..."

"But... wait! No! Help, someo-"

         * BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG* * CLANG*

"Good riddance..."

                                             

---

"All right, I think you've got this right, Daddy. Just try it one more time!"

Phoenix Wright sighed and put his hands on the monochromatic keys once more. Trust his beloved daughter to rub it in. "Alright, Trucy, but that's the last try. I don't think the neighbors appreciate my, um... abilities."

"I don't either, but thanks for caring." Had two spikes not jutted out of a mountain of paperwork, Phoenix would have never located Apollo Justice. The young attorney was sitting at his desk, going over and signing various sheets of paper. "By the way, I'd like to know exactly when you stopped reading your mail. I mean, you received that letter two years ago, for all love!"

The young man began to ramble and Phoenix tuned him out, focusing on the piano once more.
Five hours per week, he practiced playing the forsaken instrument, but he still couldn't get the hang of it. Even easy tunes were torture! He always fumbled with the keys, he never got the right rhythm... But Trucy insisted that he learned, so he could have a "talent" that was "different from Polly's, because, we need some diversity, Daddy!"

Phoenix didn't have the heart to tell his daughter that they didn't need diversity anymore; the old "Wright & Co. Law Office" sign was back on the front door, and Phoenix was delighted to say the least. It had been three weeks since he had passed the bar exam and gotten his badge back, to his daughter's happiness. Her daddy was defending people again!

Apollo's last client, Vera Misham, had paid him quite a lot – he wasn't sure the young woman was aware of the usual fees – so they cleaned the office up and bought another desk, for Apollo's personal use. The younger lawyer was happy to have his own working area and couldn't wait for the day he would work on his next case on that very desk.

Things were looking up. They were starting anew and the past was now just what it was: the past. His reputation now intact, Phoenix was sure clients would soon come knocking again; the thrill of the courtroom was beckoning him once more. The only difference was that his old blue suit was now a bit loose, what with all those pounds he lost over the last seven years.

With that pleasant thought in mind, Phoenix hummed and tried a few notes. In the back, Apollo was still going on and on about the unattended mail.

"Look! Another one, sent in 2023! This is a shame, you know, it could be something important!" the young man said.

"When it's really important, people tend to phone," the poker champion replied absently, rubbing at a purple spot above the fingerboard. He made a mental note never to drink grape juice near the piano again.

"Well, maybe they don't have a phone? I mean, look, this letter was sent from... er, it's a bit distorted, like water fell on it or something but... Burain? No, it's a K... I've never heard of a place called Kurain, have you Mr. Wri-"

Apollo bit back a yelp of surprise when Phoenix sprang from his seat in front of the piano and lunged at the desk, snatching the letter out of the younger man's hands. He was about to growl that this wasn't the way a boss should be acting – when did I come to think of Mr. Wright as my boss? - but there was something in Phoenix's eyes that shut him up.

A feral glint. An accusation. And something Apollo had yet to see the man show...

Fear.

"Did you read it?" the porcupine-headed man asked, and while his voice was calm, it held a dangerous undertone.

He looks like Mr. Gavin with those eyes... Apollo shook his head, thus clearing his mind from the image of his former mentor and answering Phoenix's question. "No, I haven't even opened it yet," he said quickly, longing for that hard glare to settle elsewhere.

Mercifully, Phoenix's eyes softened and his shoulders relaxed. The lazy grin that Apollo had come to think of as the man's personal signature tugged at his lips as he casually shoved the envelope in a pocket. "Good," the older attorney said, and Apollo sighed in relief. For a moment, he had thought he was done for. "I'm going to go get us some lunch. Burgers sound good?"

"Daddy, that would be great!" Trucy exclaimed, jumping up and down. "We haven't had burgers in... I can't even remember! Are you really going to get burgers, Daddy?"

"Anything for my little girl," Phoenix chuckled, and Apollo wondered how the man could switch from furious to fatherly in ten seconds. Must be some weird case of schizophrenia... maybe I should tell Mr. Eldoon about him...

"Apollo, while you're snooping around in my mail, keep watch over the phone, alright? If clients call, tell them I'm busy with a detective, or attending a meeting, make it sound like I'm doing something serious, okay?" Apollo's antennae-like spikes dropped and sweat rolled down the side of his face.

"Sure, Mr. Wright." Sure, Mr. Wright, but I won't forget to add that I'm an attorney as well... because, you see, I would like to find some work, someday.

Apollo watched as Phoenix ruffled Trucy's hair before departing, and her delighted grin brought a smile to his own lips. He just couldn't stay mad at his boss, especially when the glint in his daughter's eyes revealed just how big the man's heart was.

Oh, sure, his job had many, many downsides, such as doing the boring work, cleaning the office, buying coffee for his boss and Trucy without even knowing about it – and he didn't believe the whole accident scenario one bit – or having Wright's daughter give him heart attacks with the help of Mr. Hat. But he wasn't sure he would trade it for any other post; his job felt quite unique.

After all, how many lawyers had Magic Panties waved into their faces on a daily basis?

                                            

---

Phoenix waited until he was at last two blocks away from the office to fish the crumpled letter out of his pocket.

He stared at the blue paper for a few minutes, his free hand shoved deep inside his pocket. He usually noticed when he received one of her letters, however, this one had escaped his sharp eye.

Must be because it didn't come with any Steel Samurai DVD, the attorney thought, stroking the soft surface with the pad of his thumb.

He had never opened any of her letters. He could fool himself saying that he was far too busy to take time for something that wasn't work-related, but it wasn't true; for the past seven years, he had been having an unhealthy amount of free time. The real reason slept deep within his soul, awakened a little more with each colorful package delivered to the Agency.

He didn't want to know.

What good would it do? She was the Master of Kurain and, for the past seven years at least, he had been a shabby poker player, and a poor pianist. She had nothing to do with him, it would be better if she forgot him altogether. She probably had a life of her own, anyway.

Phoenix's hand tightened on the envelope; he didn't want to read about that. Being the Master of Kurain, she must be married already. To some guy. And, God forbid, maybe she had kids too. He didn't want to hurt more than he already did.

But... I'd rather hurt than stay in the dark... Phoenix's fingers twitched hesitantly around the letter. He missed her far too much for it to be bearable. For years, he had kept a straight face for Trucy's sake, but now that everything was back to normal, that things were looking up, he had no more excuses to ignore the tugging at his heart.

Without his consent, his other hand pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. He watched the little screen, his face devoid of any expression. He didn't want to be hurt.

But if he had to be hurt, he'd rather hear it from her very mouth.

Phoenix quickly found her cell number; he had never erased it. He hoped that she hadn't, as well. Pressing the call button before his brain took control over his heart again, he brought the little device to his ear and waited, leaning against a building.

He almost chuckled when he imagined the theme song of Pink Princess echo through a room over there in Kurain. She would jump out of her skin, knocking over the bowl of popcorn she had so cautiously balanced on her legs, fumble for the remote and press the pause button - "But Nick, Evil Magistrate was gonna win this time! I would be, like, totally disoriented if I missed something like that!" - and run across the room to snatch the cell phone off of the table. She would spend a few seconds trying to slow her breathing, and then...

Click.

"Maya?"

                                            

---

Apollo leaned back in his chair with a satisfied sigh, running a hand through his damp chestnut hair. He was done sorting out Wright's mail into piles; each pile was a different sender, newest letters first. He felt pretty proud of himself.

"Wow, Polly, that's amazing!" Trucy exclaimed as she looked up from a magic book and saw the neat piles. "Congratulations!"

At least, someone who appreciates my work! "Yeah, I'd say we deserve a big glass of orange juice, don't you think?"

At Trucy's eager nod, Apollo made his way to the kitchen to retrieve two glasses and a bottle of orange juice from the fridge. He sat on the couch next to Trucy and filled the glasses. "Cheers, my dear associate," the young attorney toasted before downing the whole glass in a few big gulps.

Trucy giggled when Apollo put his glass down and sagged back into the couch. "How come it's so hot already? It's only April," he mumbled, dislodging a few damp strands from his sweaty forehead with a grimace.

The young magician shrugged. "It's always hot in the office, Daddy said he would fix the air conditioner soon." Yeah, and Ema told me she wouldn't buy Snackoos again, Apollo thought bitterly.

"Oh! We still have that old ventilator!" Trucy said, slamming her fist into her other hand as it dawned on her.

Apollo glanced over the room at the poor machinery sitting on Wright's desk; it used to be white, but years and magic practice had given it an odd, yellowish color. The blades looked like they were about to fall off, too. Was a little cool air worth the risk of having their heads chopped off? I should stop watching those shows with Trucy...

"Well, it can't hurt to try," Apollo said and the magician bounced over to the ventilator, checking the device over for a switch. The young man shook his head with a small smile as he reached for the orange juice again; Trucy could carry a human-sized chip of wood around and make it talk with ease, but she had major difficulties when it came to everyday devices.

He watched her, amused, as he brought the glass to his lips and took a measured sip of the cold beverage. But a tiny detail about the way the ventilator was positioned made him spit everything back out. "Trucy! Don't-"

"Ah ha, there it is!"

Wright's daughter found the switch and proudly turned the ventilator on. Before Apollo could help it, the thing whirred to life in front of his eyes... and effectively blew every single envelope off and away from his desk.

There was a horrible silence as Trucy and Apollo stared at the desk, the former in astonishment and the latter in morbid despair.

Wow... so that's what it feels like, losing two hours of my life...

Trucy turned to Apollo, scratching the back of her head with a sheepish smile. "Woopsie, didn't see that," she giggled nervously. She then looked at the unopened mail scattered all over the room. "Guess you have to clean up the office again, Polly."

Apollo snapped out of the trance the sight of his ruined work had thrown him into, and his brown gaze focused on Trucy. How... how dare she! She thinks I give a damn about the damn floor? The nerve! "You'd better run!" he roared as he launched himself from the couch and ran at her.

The girl yelped and ran away, the attorney chasing after her. She stepped on the letters but Apollo was past caring; he would get back at her this time.

After a few minutes of frantic chase through the office and the kitchen, Trucy jumped over the couch to find shelter in her room, losing her hat in the process; but Apollo didn't let her. He dove and caught her around the waist, pining her to the couch before the girl could escape.

"You're done for!" Apollo yelled as he grabbed two pillows from the couch and held them high over his head as a threat.

"It was an accident, I swear Polly!" Trucy squeaked, trying to wriggle free through a profusion of giggles. "I didn't mean it!"

"Garbage! Prepare to feel my wrath, cushion-style!"

Apollo proceeded to whack the younger girl all over with the pillows as she pleaded for freedom between bouts of laughter. The lawyer merrily wrestled with her, losing one of his plump weapons in the process and receiving blows in turn. The scattered mail didn't matter anymore; this was all about unwinding.

Another pillow appeared in Trucy's hand and Apollo protested. "Hey! You can't use magic, that's not fair!"

"In the courtroom and in war, everything is fair! Daddy told me so!" Trucy retorted, sticking her tongue out at him.

"Don't make me take away your Panties!"

Is it just me, or did that sound extremely wrong?

The pillow war carried on for some time, but soon ended, both of its participants overcome with exhaustion. The duo collapsed over the soft material of the couch, Trucy's head on Apollo's shoulder as they tried to catch their breath. The attorney lazily leaned his cheek down onto her hair. "I'm getting you back for this," he mumbled.

Trucy giggled and was about to say something when the phone rang. Apollo groaned and pulled himself up; his hair was in disarray and his white shirt was peeking out from under his vest, but the usually nit picky attorney made a beeline for the phone and snatched it from its cradle.

"You've reached the Wright & Co. Law Office, you made the Wright choice," Apollo said, hoping he didn't sound as dumb as he felt. The pun had been Trucy's idea of a good way to begin phone calls. "How may I help you?"

"Hey pal, been a long time uh? You can't believe how good it felt, dialing your number after all this time! So, how does it feel to be an attorney again, pal?"

"Errr, I'm sorry, this is not Phoenix Wright," Apollo said, sitting on the edge of his desk. "I'm Apollo Justice, Mr. Wright isn't here."

The man on the other end of the line gagged. "What! Wright got kicked out?"

Apollo sweat-dropped; people these days, they jumped to conclusions in less time than it took Wright to swallow a glass of grape juice. "No, he still works here, I'm his colleague. He is absent at the moment, he is... uh..." The red-wearing lawyer racked his brain for a decent excuse, looking around the office for ideas. Trucy was kneeling on the couch, making weird hand gestures and mouthing out words at him; he focused on deciphering them. "He is... having a picnic... with a client... in Chicago?"

Trucy slapped her palm over her face.

Fortunately, or astoundingly, his interlocutor was gullible enough to buy it. "Oh, really? Dang it, just my luck... I wanted to catch up a little, and I had a case for him, too."

At the word "case" Apollo's ears perked up. "Well, Mr. Wright is not here but I'm a capable attorney, I can take the case in his stead," he said in his best professional voice. Judging by Trucy's guffaws, he wasn't doing a very good job at it.

"Sorry, pal, the guy wants Wright and only Wright. Can't tell you why, though."

Apollo felt his spikes drop in disappointment. "Alright, I'll tell him you called, can you tell me your name?" The sound of the front door opening made him turn around. "Hold on, Mr. Wright just arrived, I'm putting him on."

Phoenix deposited the take out bags on the coffee table and made his way to his desk, taking the phone from Apollo after nodding his thanks. "Hello, Phoenix Wright speaking," he greeted.

"Hey pal! How was Chicago? Was the weather good?"

"Chicago?" Phoenix repeated with a puzzled look; he figured he had to play along when Trucy and Apollo began flailing wildly. "It was... alright, I guess. How have you been, detective Gumshoe?"

"It's Chief Detective now, pal." Pride was practically dripping from the receiver. "I solved a few cases with Mr. Edgeworth and Ms. Von Karma and worked overtime quite often, but I finally got promoted. You should see my office, pal, it's almost as big as yours! And it's a good thing too, I could use the extra money, with a kid on the way and everything."

Phoenix blinked. "A kid?"

"Yes, Maggey is in her seventh month, I'm going to be a Dad soon! Can you believe it?"

I'm still recovering from the fact that you somehow managed to be promoted to Chief Detective; one impossible piece of news at a time is more than enough. "That's... amazing, Gumshoe. So, you two got married or something?"

"Yep, three years ago, in August. We sent you a card but you never showed up... it's no big deal, I know you had a lot pilin' up on your plate." Gumshoe sounded sincere, but the tinge of sadness told Phoenix that his absence had been noticed.

He looked at the envelopes scattered over the floor. How many things did I miss? Another wedding? A funeral? The birth of a kid? I wouldn't know... That's pathetic. He had let everybody around him down, and had fled the hands that were reaching for him. Ignoring Gumshoe's wedding day, although unintentional, took him to fields of self-disgust he didn't even know existed.

"Speaking about things pilin' up on your plate, I've got a case for you."

"I'm all ears," Phoenix said, sitting down at his desk and grabbing a pen and a sheet of paper.

"It's a murder, pal. I don't know if you've read today's paper or not, but a man was killed yesterday, at the local prison. You remember Redd White?"

Phoenix's eyes narrowed against his consent. "How could I forget?"

Did Gumshoe really expect him to forget the face of the man who killed Mia, in this very same room? The man had been quite lucky – or unlucky, it all depends on which end of the noose you're holding. A few months after Dahlia Hawthorne's execution, the death penalty was abolished; it was officially recognized that sentencing someone to death was a risk in itself. What if the convict was, in fact, innocent? There was no going back on a procedure which ended in somebody's death.

Prisoners on death row's sentence had been changed to life imprisonment.
And those measures had been taken the morning before White's execution. Lucky bastard.

"Did he kill someone again? Well, if he thinks I'm going to defend him..."

"No, pal, he's the one who got killed."

That left Phoenix speechless; someone killed Redd White? In prison?

"They suspect another inmate, the guy who shared his cell," Gumshoe pursued, leaving no time for Phoenix to ask questions. "He's the one who asked me to call you. Honestly, pal, everything points to him, it wouldn't surprise me if he was the murderer. But this is what you love, right? Near-impossible cases and prodigious turnabouts."

Phoenix threw the pen on his desk and rubbed the bridge of his nose, sighing softly. "De- Chief Detective, I'm going to need a little bit more info than that. Such as... my potential client's name?"

"Ha, he told me you'd ask for his name!" Wright resisted the urge to tell Gumshoe that you didn't have to be a medium to know those things. If you had any kind of social life. "And he told me to tell you... uh... crap I forgot..."

"Tell me his name and that's it."

"No, I'm supposed to say his name only after you've agreed to defend him."

Phoenix smirked. "I'm not doing that, what if it's Matt Engarde who asked you to call me?"

"You think I'm dumb, pal? It's not Engarde, just Mr. Armando!... Oh crap again..."

Diego Armando. The name echoed in Phoenix's head; he hadn't seen the man in seven years, had even come to think he was dead. Just like Redd White, he had been sentenced to life imprisonment, for the murder of Misty Fey. Phoenix had never visited him; not once, in seven years. Because even though he had been the one to send Armando to jail, he wished things were different, like many other aspects of his life.

Then something clicked in his head; who had been dumb enough to put White and Armando in the same cell? Mia's murderer and her lover locked together, with Diego's thirst for revenge and nobody to hold him back? And I always thought Gumshoe was unique...

"Erm, pal... I know you don't like the guy and everything, but... he asked specifically for you. Won't you at least... meet him? Or somethin'?" Gumshoe was clearly uncomfortable; Armando had probably threatened to chug a coffee mug at him if Phoenix refused, or something similar.

But he had no reason to worry; Wright was far too curious to walk away.

"Alright, I'll meet him. I owe him that much. Which prison did you say he was in?"

Phoenix quickly jotted down the address that the detective gave him and promised to have a talk with Armando the next day.

The attorney hung up, a thoughtful look on his unshaven face. Diego Armando. A ghost from the past, coming back to haunt him. He wondered whether meeting him again after all that time would be a good thing or not.

"So, do we have a case?"

Phoenix raised his eyes, meeting Apollo's chocolate, eager gaze. The boy looked as excited as Trucy when she thought of a new magic trick. Wright smirked. "Yes, I have a case. I'm meeting my client tomorrow, in the afternoon."

Apollo's spikes lowered in disillusion. "What... you mean, we won't... I won't be..."

Phoenix put his hands behind his head and leaned back on his chair, yawning. Torturing that kid was so funny. "Well, I guess that since you don't have a case yourself... you could always tag along... watch and learn a bit."

The younger attorney frowned; he opened his mouth, with the firm intent to tell his so-called boss that he was not a student anymore, but Trucy pounced on him before he could say anything. "I'm coming too! Polly and Daddy at work together, I wouldn't miss it for the world!"

Phoenix laughed softly, ruffling his daughter's hair. "That's settled then. We'll meet our client tomorrow, in the afternoon. And after that, well... I need to go to the station."

Apollo gave him a puzzled look. "You're leaving?"

"What! No, Daddy, you can't!" Trucy squeezed her fists shut and waved them around a little, barely avoiding knocking Apollo out. "Don't leave!"

"I'm not leaving, kid," Wright smiled. "There's someone I have to pick up."