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Apollo wants to bang his head against the wall. Or the steel pipes. Hopefully it would kill him. But he doesn’t, because his sister is sleeping on the floor and it would most certainly wake her up.
This was supposed to be a simple mission. A burglary, get the loot back, don’t worry about the bad guys. They were supposed to be home by 11PM, maybe midnight.
The sun was rising now. He couldn’t see it, but he knew. Apollo was was god of the sun, after all.
Well, he knows that’s not true. But his mother thought it was when she named him. Maybe that’s why she named Trucy after the truth, so she’d have a good luck charm to protect her from lies. How that had worked out for her.
Apollo liked to think that his father had wanted the name because Apollo was, in fact, the god of music, but he’d never know.
They hadn’t seen or heard from anyone since they had been thrown in here, eight or so hours ago? That almost pissed off Apollo more, the fact that they were captured and not one of them seems to care, not even to laugh at them. The only noise Apollo’s heard since Trucy went to sleep was the sound of his own footsteps pacing back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and-
Shouting echos from somewhere. A single, feminine voice, receiving no response. Apollo’s footsteps finally pause. Trucy stirs, but doesn’t wake. Not just yet.
A door opens, and her shouts clearly fill the space, “-inside! We can help each other! Just let me out of here and we’ll get to the bottom of why you both feel the need to do this!”
Trucy sits up with a groan, and her brother firmly plants himself between her and the door. Just in case. The voice rounds the corner into their line of vision through the bars, a superhero in a yellow suit with a white heart on her chest, with each arm held by a generic henchmen. She struggles in their hold with all her might, but they appear unphased, dragging her with little effort towards their holding cell. A third one walks in front of them, equally as stoic. He’s the first one to approach the door, and he silently holds up a taser, looking at Apollo. Apollo puts his hands up, and he assumes Trucy does the same as he unlocks the door. The yellow hero is thrown into the cell, landing hard on her side a shoulder, her cuffed hands keeping her from catching herself.
The door is locked again, and the henchmen leave, with the yellow hero shouting after them the whole way. Apollo ends up covering his ears, the echos are so loud they hurt. She keeps yelling once their out of sight, all the way up until she hears the door the entered from closes. Her yells cover the sound the sound to Apollo, but he can make an educated guess.
Her chest rises and falls with her heavy breathing, having been shouting for at least fifteen minutes. Apollo turns to Trucy, who is taking her hands off of her ears in order to rub her eyes over her mask. He squats down to check on her, but she instead turns her attention to their new companion. “Who are you?” her groggy voice asks.
Apollo didn’t recognize the new hero when she first entered, but Apollo usually doesn’t. He don’t keep up to date with the heroes in the area, there’s so many in LA and he’s always preferred to work alone. But Trucy not recognizing her is another thing, she loves keeping up to date with all the latest superhero news. “What’s it to you, huh?!?” The new hero says, the eyes of her mask turning red.
“We’re kinda all trapped together,” Trucy says, surprisingly slow given she was interrupting Apollo before he could give an equally aggressive response. “It might be a good idea to know who each other are.”
“Oh, right,” the yellow hero says sheepishly, her eyes turning yellow. “I’m Super Heart, I just moved to LA.”
“Hand,” Trucy says, reaching her hand up towards Apollo. He takes Trucy’s hand and pulls her on to her feet. “Most people call me Little Lady, and this is Sunburst. We’re from the Troupe Gramarye.”
Apollo didn’t like introducing them as members of the Troupe Gramarye. Their family was very well known as super heroes, and (aside than the very public deaths and disappearances that most people brought up, which also wasn't great) Apollo still felt like he didn’t deserve such prestige. He had been separated from his mother at a young age, being raised by his father alone, no knowledge of her family or the fact he had a younger sister. Now, reunited with Trucy, she had insisted that he officially become a Gramayre. All that really entailed was changing his name in the super hero registry from “Sunburst” to “Sunburst Gramarye.”
Trucy deserved that spotlight, no doubt. Only sixteen years old and an incredibly skilled magician, in both the metaphysical and stage trick varieties, and most of it self-taught. A quick thinker, incredibly observant, and definitely smarter than Apollo, despite the fact she didn’t have a law degree like he did. Trucy was everything that the Gramarye’s were known for.
Apollo was still learning to use the abilities being a Gramarye gave him, under Trucy’s wing, and they were both still struggling to figure it out. His perceive was much stronger than Trucy’s, and Apollo had yet to use an ounce of magic which wasn’t making a quarter disappear. Trucy insisted that he had it in him somewhere, but he wasn’t so sure.
“Oh, uh… sorry, I don’t think I’ve heard of it,” Super Heart says, which causes Apollo to relax, just slightly, and Trucy to pout. “No offense!” She adds on quickly, “I’m kinda new to the… superhero thing.”
We can tell. He hears Trucy’s voice in his head, at the same time she says, “That’s okay, it’s not that important.”
She’s probably been doing it longer than you. Apollo thinks back, but he doesn’t know if Trucy actually hears it or not. Sometimes Trucy does the telepathy thing, she only stays “connected” (as she so cursedly phrased it) long enough to tell Apollo her thought, she doesn’t wait for his response. But sometimes she does stay and listen to his response, and Apollo has no way of telling the difference. Sometimes he’s certain she did hear him and is choosing to pretend she didn’t.
“So, how are we getting out of here?” Super Heart says, standing up with an amount of grace which was difficult when one’s hands are cuffed behind their back.
“Sunburst already tried, and he couldn’t figure anything out. But now that I’ve rested I could probably unlock the door with magic.” Trucy says, ignoring when Apollo throws his hands up in frustration.
“You didn’t think to mention that hours ago? We could have been home by now, you little…” Apollo groans into his hands. A little robotic voice laughs at him, and he glares at Super Heart. “Stop laughing, it’s not funny.”
“I’m not laughing!” She says, her eyes green. However, the little robotic voice continues, and Apollo sighs. The little voice eventually stops, she asks, “Would you mind helping me out of these handcuffs? I have a shim in my back pocket, you just have to-” and shamelessly turns her ass towards Apollo.
“I have one!” He says instead, louder than is necessary, which causes Super Heart to flinch. He fishes the little tool out of his pocket, and unlocks her handcuffs. He’s left standing with the cuffs in his hand while the yellow hero rubs her wrists, and eventually he decides to just drop them on the ground.
“Got it!” Trucy says, stepping back from the door she’s just unlocked as it swings open. Apollo rushes to catch it, but it crashes against the wall before he can, creating a loud metal on metal sound which reverberates through the wall, floor, and into their bones. They all flinch, but Super Heart the worse. Her hands fly to cover her ears, eyes squeezed shut as they all wait for the echo to stop. “Sorry,” Trucy squeaks as Super Heart slowly lowers her hands.
The journey to find an exit without getting spotted is tense, but uneventful. Super Heart’s super power is apparently super hearing, and she uses it to tell them where henchmen are to avoid them. Navigation feels like a maze, and finding an exit is impossible since this villain’s layer was out of code for not having any exit signs. Eventually, they find a staircase which appears to lead to a roof access.
Three thoughts run through Apollo’s mind as he pushes open the door. The first, was that he was right. The sun is still rising, the sky a brilliant gradient of oranges and pinks. The second, how are they going to get down from the roof? None of their abilities, unless Trucy is hiding more powers from him, as she is one to do, are suited for scaling walls. The third: Uh oh. “Uh… hey fellas.” He says, to the three henchmen on some sort of a smoke break on the roof.
“Maybe if we pretend we belong, we won’t have any issues,” Trucy says behind him.
“We’re all wearing superhero costumes,” Super Heart says.
“They’re already pulling out their guns,” Apollo says, grabbing both their arms and ducking as three bullets fly above them, where their chests just where. The girls roll away from him as he stands back up, leaving them each to take on one henchman each.
Peace of cake. He hears Trucy’s voice at the same time he thinks it. His counterpart fires another bullet at his shoulder, but he sees their finger moving and is dodging it before it ever leaves the chamber. Part of his perceive ability came with an ability to sense oncoming danger, which he had known before ever meeting Trucy. Dodging the bullets flying his way was basically nothing to him at this point, and he is quickly able to grab the gun and punch the bastard square in the jaw. The henchman falls to the ground and recovers in the time it takes Apollo to pull the magazine out of the pistol. They swing their leg under Apollo’s, and he lands on his back with a grunt.
The henchman stands over Apollo, but before they are able to do anything another henchman comes flying into them, leaving them both in a pile on the ground. “Oops…” Super Heart says, at the same time her little robotic voice says, “Awk-ward…” She runs over to Apollo and pulls him back on to his feet, with a surprising amount of strength.
“Thanks…” He says, quickly looking around to make sure Trucy’s doing alright. He’s just in time to see that henchman’s gun, surrounded by a light blue glow, fly into the henchman’s skull, knocking them out. Trucy lets the gun gently float to the ground, giggles, then turns to Apollo and Super Heart with a grin on her face. “Good,” Apollo says, giving each henchman another look over, just be sure they’re knocked out, “now how do we get down from here?”
How lucky they were, on the tallest building on the block. “Maybe there’s a fire escape?” Super Heart says, and Apollo scans the edge of the roof, but he sees no indication of one.
“Not that I can see,” He says, turning back to the girls. While he was turned around, Trucy had walked up to the edge of the roof, dangerously so. “Lady! Step away from the edge!” Apollo shouts, running to meet her over there.
“Do you trust me?” She asks as Super Heart and Apollo approach.
“Sure!” Super Heart says, her eyes green.
“Then jump,” Trucy says.
“What?” Apollo says.
“Jump!” She says again, grabbing both of them by the arms and jumping over the edge. Apollo feels himself scream, but even his cords of steel can’t beat the wind as they fall, not to a shorter building, but to the street below. At some point, he feels the buzz of Trucy’s magic surround him, and they each land on the top of a delivery truck. Super Heart is somehow able to tuck and roll. Trucy lands square on her feet. Apollo, very gracefully, lands on his back with a grunt.
“Oh, sorry, Sunny. You should have trusted me!” Trucy says, offering her hand to Apollo to help him up. He waves her hand away, staying right where he is for the time being.
“Don’t call me that,” he says breathlessly. The little robotic voice laughs again, and he resists the urge to flip Super Heart off.
Eventually, Apollo sits up, just in time for the truck to drive past the front entrance of the building they had just escaped. Trucy points at the henchmen guarding the door, who are both visibly shocked to see that the three of them had escaped. “You underestimated Little Lady Gramarye! Tell your boss we’ll be seeing them again soon!”
Apollo sighs. “You know that’s going to be all over the news before noon?”
“What do you mean?”
“’Little Lady Gramarye breaks eight year silence!’ or ‘Troupe Gramarye returns!” It’s earlier, but there are still people around. There were witnesses.”
“Maybe it’s time that Troupe Gramarye returned.”
Monday morning, when Apollo Justice walks into the agency of which he does his law practice out of, his practically unemployed boss is reading the newspaper, comically held up in front of his face. Because that’s just how he reads newspapers, definitely not because he wants Apollo to see what’s on the front cover.
Troupe Gramarye Returns? reads the headline, with a photo of Super Heart, Little Lady Gramarye, and Sunburst Gramarye directly under it. Who was even out taking photos at the time? “You seeing this, Apollo?” Mr. Wright asks, pointing to that very photo.
“I sure am. Mr. Wright.” He says, snatching the paper out Mr. Wright’s hands. “I had a feeling this would happen. Blame your daughter.”
As expected, the article is filled more with theories than with the actual information. Questions of where the Little Lady has been all this time, who this Sunburst Gramarye is, what his connection to the Troupe is exactly. The article even posits that the Little Lady could be a fake, someone new trying to take on the Gramarye name. The article is also not able to identify Super Heart, raising questions about how this yellow hero is connected to the troupe.
“The new hire in yet?” Apollo asks as he browses the article.
“Not yet, she’s still got thirty minutes. You’re an early bird. Weirdo.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
The new hire ends up coming in fifteen minutes late, led in by Trucy. “Sorry, Mr. Wright,” she says sheepishly. “I got lost.”
“Luckily she stopped and asked me for directions!” Trucy adds. Shortly after, Apollo hears Trucy’s voice, check out her necklace.
“Eh, don’t sweat it,” Mr. Wright says, and then turns to Apollo. “Apollo, this Athena Cykes. Athena, this is Apollo Justice.”
“Nice to meet you,” Apollo says, standing from the desk he was “working” at to shake her hand. She shakes it with a lot more energy than Apollo was ready for, and he resists the urge to shake out his wrist. The necklace is… something? It’s just a ball with a blue smiling face on it. It’s odd, to be sure, but Apollo doesn’t get why Trucy’s pointing it out to him.
“Apollo will show you the ropes, Athena. I’ve got other places to be. Have fun, kids.” Mr. Wright says, and leaves before Apollo can ask any follow-up questions. Instead he just sighs and sits back down. Athena finds a seat across from him and Trucy starts looking at some of her magic equipment, pretending not to listen.
“So, Athena, I hear you just passed the bar. You must be a bit younger than me.”
“That’s right. A bit younger than you might think, in fact! I’m only eighteen!”
“Eighteen? How in the world did you become a lawyer at that age?”
“I skipped a few grades, and I got my license to practice law while I was in Europe. I also studied analytical psychology! Thought it might help me be a better lawyer.”
“Analytical psychology?” Apollo says, trying hard to not sound too impressed. “How would you use that to defend a client?”
“...Um, well, for example, I can listen in a witness’s inner voice and then analyze their psychological state with the help of my trusty partner Widget! Say hi, Widget!” Athena doesn’t any indication to where Widget is, so when the necklace starts talking, it scares Apollo so bad that his yell startles Trucy.
“Hi Widget!” The little robotic voice says.
“IT TALKS?!” Apollo yells.
“Whoa, you need a volume knob! Anyway, the little guy will sometimes says what I’m feeling,” Athena laughs.
“Awk-ward…” The little robotic voice says, it’s face now yellow and expression changed to something like embarrassment. That’s the moment that Apollo understands, he’s heard that little robotic voice quite recently. Over the yellow-suited lawyer’s shoulder, he makes eye contact with his sister, who shrugs at him.
Crazy coincidence, if you ask me. He hears in his mind. But Daddy has a track record of accidentally finding superheros.
“Don’t worry,” Athena says, unaware of the conversation happening over her head, “You’ll get used to it.”
“You’re probably right,” Apollo says, resting his elbows on the desk that used to belong to a former member of the Fey Clan. He opens his mouth to speak, but Trucy shakes her head at him, and so he pivots his question. “What do you do outside of work, Athena?”