Ashes Remain (A Man Named Terran #2)

Trial Interrupted

December 16, 2027

10:00am

District Courtroom Number Four

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"Hey, Hey!" A man in a bulletproof police uniform rushed the stand. "There's a live bomb! The bomb's been reactivated!"

Pandemonium flooded the courtroom as the gallery fled the courtroom.

"Apollo!" The red-vested lawyer's young co-worker pulled his arm. Her eyes darted around in terror, and her personal AI glitched around her neck. "Come on, Apollo!"

"No! I can't let it end like this!"

"Stay with me, Apollo!" Her brute strength overcame his reluctance, and they began to move.

He heard a scream, and yanked away from her. "Keep going! I'm right behind you!"

That was the last thing Athena remembered before pain blazed through the sides of her head, then stabbed the back, and her vision went black.

~~~~

December 16th, 2027

11:00am

Central Japanifornia High School English Department.

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It was family week at CJHS. Normally, such celebrations were reserved for the lower level schools, but the week-long celebration of family relationships was part of a greater study on the effects family had on the societal state of the youth.

Big words aside, it was a study to see if certain types of mental and physical states were directly connected to the presence, or lack of presence, of the student's family.

Trucy Wright had narrowly escaped being auto-sorted into the 'suspected personality issues' group. The study had already suggested imbalances with orphans, especially when the individual aged out of the foster system. She already knew this because her brother, or she called him her brother, Apollo Justice, was called on to be tested for the Aged-Out group. His special someone (as her best friend Pearl always designated), Athena Cykes, was also an orphan. She was pulled for two different groups. One was orphans who moved in with relatives instead of being surrendered to the foster system. Athena wouldn't talk about the other. At least not around her. Daddy knew, and she guessed Apollo knew too, but Athena kept very tight lips.

This made sense, as Athena was legally insane. She knew she'd be a bad mark for orphans. She was sweet as Pearl's rice cakes from her hometown of Kurain Village, but that designation would follow her the rest of her life.

Apollo wasn't the greatest advocate for orphans in the study either. Her brother in spirit had severe attachment issues. He was cynical, sarcastic and experienced episodes of heightened anxiety whenever suddenly separated from one of the three of them. He reacted the most when separated from Athena, which made her dad, the legendary Phoenix Wright, designate them as an official legal team so the court would automatically assign them both to every case they worked on. Justice n' Cykes, the Wright Anything Agency's shining stars in the darkness of the law.

No one explained exactly to Trucy what the Dark Age was, just that it caused her to lose her real daddy, Apollo, to become naturally distrustful, and traumatized Athena to the point she eventually moved in with Apollo to find respite from her nightmares.