“Aaaand she’s not here. Perfect.”

Shaking his head to himself, Apollo Justice drew a cell phone from his pocket, briefly wondering if he might have missed a message of explanation from his absent co-worker, but nothing appeared on the screen. He sighed, stowing the phone away again.

It was quite warm outside today, and he didn’t feel any special inclination to hang around out in the sunlight, so he stepped inside the front doors of the familiar police precinct alone. Inside, he approached the desk sergeant, who appeared focused on her computer screen. She raised a hand for him to stop, still occupied.

“What’s your-…” She looked up, and her expression changed. “Oh, it’s you, Justice.” she said, her hand moving to gesture back over her shoulder instead. “Alright, you don’t need my help. You know where to find her.”

“Thanks.” Apollo replied. He moved past the front desk, the sliding door to its right letting off a small beep as it opened for him.

“Hey,” the desk sergeant added, Apollo halting in the doorway to listen to her, “No one’s with you today? Wright’s kid? Or the redhead?”

Apollo looked back at the doors for a moment. “Well, Athena will be here at… some point.” he said, shrugging. He still saw no sign of his co-worker outside.

“Hm. If you say so.” the desk sergeant replied. “I’ll wave her through. Later, Justice.”

Apollo nodded, and stepped through the sliding door.

A few years ago, Apollo would have walked through the precinct nervously, twitching slightly at every glance he received from any of the many officers present, and trying to move to his destination by as efficient a path as possible, so as to avoid any chance of being stopped, or asked questions. It wasn’t as if he’d ever had much reason to worry, but his struggles with first impressions had always been something that made him nervous whenever he needed to come here. Today, on the other hand, he moved comfortably, familiar with the station and many of its usual occupants. He wasn’t certain of how common it really was for a defence attorney to visit this precinct or any other, but his presence seemed to be accepted by this point.

He passed by a familiar office, which would have been his stop in the past. Now, however, things had changed. He left the vicinity of the offices used by the many detectives present, heading instead for the short hallway that led to both the evidence room and the forensics lab, the latter being his destination.

He raised a hand and knocked on the door once he arrived.

“Yeah, yeah, two seconds…” a muffled voice sounded from the other side. As he waited, Apollo smiled at the name plate attached to the window immediately next to the door. Footsteps could be heard a moment later.

The door swung open, revealing the lab’s familiar occupant.

“Hey, Ema.” Apollo said, offering a smile.

Ema Skye, former homicide detective turned-forensics division head for the precinct smiled in response to the greeting, though she didn’t look entirely happy.

“Yeah, hey, Apollo.” she said. Glancing past him, she added, “What, no Athena?”

Apollo shrugged. “She’s late, I guess. Wouldn’t stop hounding me about getting here on time, too…”

Ema smirked, stepping aside to let Apollo enter the lab.

Apollo had been inside this lab a small handful of times before. It was a much better workplace for Ema than the cramped office she’d previously occupied in this precinct, back when she’d been a detective in the homicide division. It wasn’t a secret that forensics had always been her passion, and Apollo had been thrilled for his friend when he learned that she’d finally secured her current position as the head of the precinct’s forensics division instead.

“So, you didn’t trip over any new clients on the bus ride over?” Ema asked, closing the door and passing by his side.

“No, not today, anyway.” Apollo answered. “But hey, who knows? Maybe Athena passed by a murder scene.”

“That would explain why she’s late.” Ema said with a shrug of her own. “Anyway, I’ve got a copy of everything you need on my…” she trailed off, looking at her desk. “Wasn’t it just…”

“Something wrong?” Apollo asked, watching as Ema stopped at her desk, shuffling through the mess of papers and equipment covering its surface.

“I just… ugh, where the hell are you…?” Ema leaned forward, reaching for the back of the pile of clutter.

Apollo waited, watching Ema’s search. She appeared to have lost the documents he’d come by to pick up. His gaze drifted a bit, and he felt his face heating up a little. Ema’s posture, leaning across her desk, was causing her to unwittingly stick her backside in his general direction quite noticeably. Even wearing her usual white lab coat over her stylish outfit, Apollo couldn’t help but find Ema’s rear rather hard to ignore. Her shamelessly tight pants did nothing to help his bad habits.

He wasn’t staring, he was just…

Fidgeting uncomfortably, he forced himself to look away, very pointedly avoiding the view any longer. Instead, he looked over at the table near the centre of the lab. There was a device of some kind resting on its top, which he thought he recognized. He stepped over toward it, still hearing Ema rummaging through her papers in the meantime.

He was almost certain that he recognized this device now, but he didn’t have the faintest idea of what it was. It was about the same size as the average desktop printer. A slight layer of dust was visible on its exterior, roughly a third of which was covered by various metal plates. Traces of marks left in the dust by Ema’s gloves could be seen scattered across the plates, indicating her previous work in examining the device, whatever it was.

It took him a few seconds, but recognition finally hit Apollo. He did remember this machine; it had been resting on a workbench in another building that last time he’d seen it.

Two days prior, Apollo and his co-worker Athena Cykes had brought an end to a trial surrounding the apparent disappearance of a noted researcher who lived within the city. Dr. Levi Loft was a 38 year-old man whose brilliant mind was tempered by his unfortunate tendency to lose focus in his research and experimentation, often spending quite a lot of his time and resources on aimless endeavours that spiraled away from what he was actually paid to work on. Still, he was capable and reliable enough for his work to afford him a modest apartment and a fairly large building to use as a personal laboratory. A few weeks before the trial, Dr. Loft had gone missing, which was eventually reported by his colleague and on-and-off work partner, Dr. Verity Stager. The initial investigation had progressed slowly, but eventually led to Dr. Stager herself being arrested for her colleague’s apparent murder. Stager had contacted Apollo’s workplace, the Wright Anything Agency, requesting their services in her defence in the coming trial.

Apollo, Athena, and their employer, Phoenix Wright, had met with Dr. Stager, the trio agreeing that she seemed quite genuine in her story. She had firmly denied killing Dr. Loft, insisting that they had always been on good terms, and that she had reported his disappearance solely out of concern for his well-being. The motive described by the police and prosecution on the case had been an alleged grudge Dr. Stager had against her colleague, following an incident from two years before the disappearance, when the two had both aimed to secure a contract from the same firm, with Dr. Loft ultimately being the victor. Dr. Stager admitted that she had spent a short time angry over her own failure, but she hadn’t blamed it on Dr. Loft, and had instead offered to join him in his research, caring more about the success of the project than her own notoriety.

Ultimately, no culprit was found in the ensuing trial, but Apollo and Athena had succeeded in clearing the charges placed against Dr. Stager, at the very least. They hadn’t seen her since the end of the trial, leaving Apollo to occasionally wonder if she was still being considered a relevant witness in the continuing investigation into Dr. Loft’s disappearance.

His reminiscence concluded, Apollo took a step around the table, still looking over the strange device with interest. He hadn’t gone near it back when he and Athena had investigated Dr. Loft’s lab for themselves. The device appeared unfinished, and it lacked any clear identifying features. The inside was a mess of electronics he had no interest in messing with, and the exterior was mostly loose metal plates, with an inactive LCD panel, a row of unmarked buttons and lights, and a small port that looked somewhat like a camera lens.

“Mind not touching that?”

Apollo jerked in surprise as Ema appeared, raising an arm to place it between him and the device.

“I wasn’t!” he said defensively, taking half a step back. Ema frowned.

“You were thinking about it.” she said, gesturing for him to step away properly.

(No, I wasn’t!)

Even so, Apollo obeyed, giving the device plenty of clearance. Ema lowered her arm, letting out a sigh.

“I can’t find the copy I made.” she said. “Sorry. I must have switched it with something else by mistake right after I brought it in here.”

“Oh.” Apollo said. Ema moved, starting to examine the device on the table for herself. “So, what is that thing, anyway?” he inquired, curious.

“Good friggin’ question.” Ema said, sounding slightly bitter. “That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out all day.”

She glanced back over her shoulder, noticing that Apollo had leaned forward again, still somewhat interested in the device.

“Can’t take ‘no’ for an answer, huh?” she jibed. “Fine. Here, look at the display.”

Apollo circled around to the table’s other side. Ema was pointing to the LCD screen attached to what he assumed to be the device’s front.

“I can get the thing to power on, but that’s it.” Ema said. “I don’t have any idea what any of the code that comes up on the display means.”

She tapped two buttons, and the LCD lit up. Apollo looked on as a jumbled wall of text appeared, scrolling along too quickly for him to read it, much less make sense of it. When it stopped, the screen was displaying only a placeholder interface of some kind, with unlabeled buttons and unidentified symbols.

“Whatever it’s supposed to do, I don’t think its functions are fully set up yet.” Ema went on. “The mad scientist who programmed it could probably tell me, but since he disappeared….”

“Hmm.” Apollo continued to watch as Ema tapped a few of the buttons beneath the LCD, which caused the display to change slightly, but didn’t appear to do anything else. “You think it could help you with figuring out what really happened to Dr. Loft?” he asked. Ema nodded, but didn’t say anything.

He moved back around to Ema’s other side, looking at the small lens installed on the device’s opposite side. To his surprise, he thought he saw a light flashing from the space that held the lens, but when he looked closely, nothing seemed to be happening.

“OK, satisfied?” Ema asked him. He nodded. “Good. I’m gonna go and make you a new copy. Get comfy; I’ll be a few minutes.”

“Got it.” Apollo agreed, nodding again. He dropped into a cushioned chair, and Ema circled around the table to leave the lab again.

“Don’t touch the Amazing Whatever Machine, OK?” she requested. Apollo nodded again, and Ema opened the door, leaving the room.

Twenty seconds passed. Apollo sat in silence in the chair, drumming his fingertips against its armrest. He could still hear the rumble of voices from the precinct’s population, muffled by the walls of Ema’s lab. He idly wondered what could possibly be keeping Athena for so long. She had been planning to meet with him here so they could pick up a number of documents related to Dr. Stager’s trial, which Ema had prepared for them. Apollo had been over at the courthouse, with Athena back at the Wright Anything Agency. The trip to the precinct wasn’t that much shorter from where he’d started, so he had no idea why Athena would be taking so long to arrive.

Another sound met his ears, making him blink in surprise. It was a soft hum, like an old television might have made. He glanced around, listening as the humming grew slightly louder. It seemed to be coming from the unidentified device on the table.

“Uhh…” he mumbled, somewhat concerned. Ema had said she couldn’t get the device working, so what was it doing now? He sat back, hoping to just ignore the little worry in his mind, but as the hum from the machine continued to grow louder, he couldn’t help himself anymore. Getting to his feet, he stepped back over to the device. Drawing closer, he picked up another sound, this one a faint rattling noise, like there was a loose part shaking around in the device’s frame somewhere.

He didn’t want to upset Ema by messing with the device, but if it was going to explode or something, he really didn’t want to just leave it be and continue sitting here.

Apollo couldn’t see it from his position, but on the device’s LCD screen, a list of information was being produced, detailing the results of a scan of some kind.

Trying to track the origin of the rattling sound, Apollo leaned over the device, one hand flat to the tabletop, careful not to touch the machine itself. He thought he had found the general area the noise was coming from; a small, circular component was shuddering slightly in a compartment near the bottom of the device. Just before he could properly examine it, two things happened at once. A brief hiss sounded, and a brilliant flash of light filled the room. Apollo flinched, making a surprised sound. He moved a hand to cover his eyes out of reflex, his vision blocked out by the blinding flash.

He suddenly felt strange. Air was rushing forcefully against him, like he was standing in a wind tunnel. He jerked in place, his vision starting to clear up.

He was falling.

The air could be felt rushing over him again, a blur of colours filling his view. What in the world was going on? He was airborne, his body totally removed from the solid floor he’d been standing on. He struggled to take in a breath, the air in his lungs being ripped away as he opened his mouth. He only just retained enough of his breath to gasp in shock as he spotted the ground rushing up toward him at a terrifying speed.

-WHAM-

…

Pain struck. He’d come down on his front, a solid surface meeting him as he hit the ground, his fall instantly halted. He gasped, air flooding back into his lungs. What was going on…? He rolled onto his back and sat up, blinking at the strange sights around him.

As this was happening, the rattling noise he’d been hearing finally stopped. Something could be heard clattering to the ground and starting to roll for a moment. The device’s hum ceased as well, near-silence returning to Apollo’s surroundings.

Regulating his breaths again, Apollo took in his environment. Everything had been normal fifteen seconds ago, but now…? Now, he found himself sitting on the ground, in the middle of some wide-open space, with strange objects rising into the air overhead all around him. A wall surrounded this space, several feet taller than him, by the look of it.

“Wh-what’s… where is this…?” he wondered aloud, turning around on the spot. A large structure appeared in his view, and he staggered back, feeling stunned. “N-no way…”

He was looking at the very same device he’d just been examining, but it was no longer sitting on a table before him. Instead, it rose something like two hundred feet into the air, towering over him like a city building. Staring in disbelief, Apollo felt a creeping realization settling in over his mind.

The device hadn’t moved; he’d simply joined it, up on the table. But if that was the case, then it meant…

(Did… did I just shrink…?)

Taking another look at his surroundings, Apollo felt a chill all across his body. It appeared he was right; he was looking at the top of Ema’s work table, but everything on it seemed to have grown in size tremendously. Or, rather, he had been greatly reduced in size…

Shaking out of his frozen state of disbelief, Apollo started to move. He ran forward, heading for the wall that surrounded the area. Ema’s work table had a ridge running around its outer edge, to prevent anything falling to the floor. He’d just been seeing it from a normal view a minute ago, and it had only been around an inch in height. Slightly less, he guessed. But, if that was right…

He stopped, placing a hand against the wall surrounding the tabletop. It was over three times his height, looking to be more than fifteen feet high.

“I’m... oh my God…”

His body felt normal, and his clothes were all intact, but by his best estimate, he couldn’t have been much more than half a centimetre in height now. Not even a quarter of an inch… Whatever the exact number was, he was absolutely tiny…

He turned back again, looking up at the device. It seemed to have gone inactive, just silently sitting there again. Was it responsible for this? Had it caused him to shrink, somehow?

He spotted something strange; a slight trail of steam or smoke was rising from an open port of some kind on the device’s underside, drifting into the air. He couldn’t tell the cause, but it looked to be the same place he’d seen the rattling component he’d been hearing from his chair. The component itself was missing, like it had popped loose and fallen somewhere.

This entire situation was so hard to take in that Apollo could barely think straight. He checked his whole body over, pinching himself and shaking his head, trying anything he could in the hopes that he might wake up and find himself lying in bed, with everything perfectly normal again. To his dismay, however, nothing changed, no matter what he did.

He jumped at the sound of a distant noise, echoing through the vast space around him. It sounded like a door handle.

Another chill ran up his spine. He spun around just in time to see the door leading out of the lab swinging open again. He took in the astounding sight of Ema, standing there in the doorway, visible only from just below the chest and up from his position. She almost looked normal, but taking in the sheer, unbelievable scale of her body, Apollo could feel only amazement. Sure, Ema was two or three inches taller than he was normally, but this was something entirely different.