Balancing four warm takeout bowls of noodles while also opening an office door was something Athena felt she didn’t receive nearly enough credit for doing. Even with the bowls divided into twin stacks of two, it was seriously difficult.

Easing the door inward with her shoulder, taking great care not to let any of the bowls topple over, she re-entered the Wright Anything Agency, trying to brace for any suspicions about why her lunch trip had taken considerably longer than normal.

The first person she saw was her employer and mentor, Phoenix Wright.

“H-hey, Boss!” she said, grinning. “Got everything!”

Phoenix paused very slightly, seeming for a fraction of a second like he suspected something, but then just smiled. “Thanks, Athena. Trucy’s just upstairs a minute. I’ll go and tell her that lunch is here.”

Athena awkwardly gave a thumbs-up with her right hand, her arms still supporting the noodle bowls. Phoenix stepped past her to shut the door, then turned and crossed the office, heading for the door that led to the apartment on the top floor.

Moving forward, Athena set the bowls down on the glass table near the middle of the office.

“Took your time, hey, Athena?”

She looked up. Apollo was seated at his desk, one arm resting on the back of his chair as he turned to look over at her.

“Uh…”

“Some new client flag you down halfway over there?” Apollo joked. “That would’ve been a pretty slow lunch run for Mr. Wright, much less you.”

Athena just crossed her arms, ready to counter. “Are you always so impatient when you’re hungry, Apollo? Sorry to take the scenic route, then – I didn’t know you’d be suffering so much.”

Apollo just rolled his eyes, smiling. “Yeah, yeah, whatever.” he laughed, getting up from his chair. “As long as the noodles aren’t cold, I think I’ll manage.”

Athena grinned, teetering on her feet a bit. She wanted to see if Apollo would react to her increase in size. So far, however, he seemed too focused on his lunch. Sitting down opposite his position, Athena grabbed her own bowl, popping its plastic lid off and savouring the smell wafting up from it.

Still carefully watching her friend as they began to eat, Athena’s thoughts drifted around the memory of Apollo’s own shrinking incident, three weeks ago. If it hadn’t been such an obviously terrifying experience for him, she might have enjoyed the idea of shrinking him down again to play around with him a bit.

There was something else occupying her mind about the incident, as well. When she’d discovered Apollo, following his long effort to draw her attention after shrinking, he had been clinging to a lock of her red hair, dangling in front of her face while she sat at her desk, here in the office. There was the obvious question of how, exactly, Apollo had ended up on top of her head. This mystery was particularly worrying, given that the last thing she’d been doing before heading to her desk on that day had been taking a shower in the bathroom of the Wrights’ apartment, upstairs from the office.  She hadn’t pressed on the issue, but it still lingered in the back of her mind.

 Based on her experiences in this empty lab, Ema had come to one concrete, scientific conclusion. Dr. Levi Loft might have been a brilliant scientific mind, but he absolutely could not keep house.

The late inventor’s lab was a disaster, if Ema was honest. She could sometimes find her office at work a bit cluttered, but her own messes were nothing compared to what she was wading through here.

(We never did actually find his body. With this mess, he could still be in here somewhere…)

She’d been searching for quite a while, and finally, she came across what she was after.

“Oh, score…!”

She’d been expecting to find a scarce few of Dr. Loft’s unique power cells at best. Upon opening a heavy cabinet surrounded by multiple fire code violations’ worth of stacked papers, however, she found herself looking over what had to be at least several dozen of them, all sorted into an uncharacteristically orderly collection of holding units. Maybe the number was closer to a hundred?

A wide smile on her face, she retrieved a single cell from the cabinet and fixed it into her handheld device. That would settle things for a few more tests.

She was just gathering more of the cells into her bag when a thought occurred to her. Despite exhaustive efforts by her division, the police force’s investigation of Dr. Loft’s lab and home had been totally unable to uncover any useful evidence that might have helped to locate him, following his disappearance. Knowing what she did now, however, Ema found herself wondering if, perhaps, the size-changing device she’d spent so much time examining might have been the answer the investigation had been seeking.

“He… really might still be in here…”

She suddenly became extremely conscious of her heeled shoes on the lab’s floor, and of all the steps she’d taken since coming in here. Her heart rate began to accelerate a bit, her thoughts rolling backward to the crowded investigation she had headed up in this very same lab, weeks ago. It had been well over a month since Dr. Loft’s disappearance now, but…

(… Wait, no. That’s right.)

Dr. Loft’s size-altering device couldn’t scan a target of any kind unless there was a person standing at the controls to set it up, as she’d apparently accidentally done when Apollo had visited her back at the precinct. Without the extra operator on hand, the doctor couldn’t have accidentally caused himself to shrink.

Ema sighed, relieved to have reasoned her way out of the concern. She didn’t at all like the idea of Dr. Loft having inadvertently shrunk, nor of the situation such an incident would have left him in, likely stranded on the floor of his lab. It had been over a month since he vanished, after all.

Finishing up with gathering a generous number of the power cells into her bag, the detective turned on her heel and headed for the door. The lab was still locked down, though very few investigators were set to examine it at the moment. At least a few people had to have been inside within the last week, but the scene had clearly still been left fairly close to intact.

… Maybe it wasn’t particularly professional of her to effectively loot the place, but she needed to experiment. There would be plenty more to do once she returned to her own lab in the precinct, too.

(And I’ve got tomorrow off…)

She smiled, making a mental note to herself. Tomorrow, a Friday, she was going to pay a visit to her friends at the Wright Anything Agency.

 Close to noon the following day, Ema exited her car a short distance from the familiar law office turned talent agency. Hefting her shoulder bag upward more securely, she headed toward the front of the office.

She was still wearing her ever-present lab coat, but had traded in her work attire for a more comfortable tank top and a rather tight pair of jeans, as well as her favourite old set of laced boots from her university days.

The front door was unlocked, so Ema headed straight in. The entry level was as empty as she was used to seeing. She briefly peered around the stairs, but saw no one in the ground floor’s small storage area, which was padlocked shut, as usual. She headed up the stairs, her boots a bit heavy on the landing.

She knocked on the office’s door once she’d reached it, and could hear a few muted voices pausing in their conversation on the other side.

“Oh! Hi, Ema!”

Ema smiled at the cheery face of the magician standing at the door when it opened.

“Hey, Trucy.” she replied. Over Trucy’s shoulder, she could see a certain pair of lawyers in the office, as well.

“Hey, Ema!” Athena called out.

“Hey...!” Apollo sounded a bit less enthusiastic, compared to the other two.

“What’s going on?” Trucy inquired, bobbing on her feet a bit. “Need something?”

“Just here to see Athena.” Ema said, gesturing past Trucy. “It’s my day off, and I wanted to talk to her about something.”

“Oh, OK!”

Trucy stepped aside, letting Ema enter the Wright Anything Agency proper. She heard the door closing behind her as she strode through the cluttered office room.

“Your dad around?” she asked over her shoulder. Trucy nodded.

“Cleaning the toilet. Again. I’m kinda concerned, actually.”

Ema smirked, approaching Athena’s desk. She was about to speak up again when Apollo suddenly moved in front of her.

“Uh…” She looked at him curiously. Apollo seemed anxious.

“E-Ema, can you just help me with something, for a second…?”

She blinked. “… Sure? What’s up?”

“Thank you.” Apollo said, with the air of a relieved sigh. “Athena, stand up again.”

Athena did so, rising from her chair and circling around her desk.

Immediately, Apollo seemed to freeze up, his mouth slightly open. Ema heard a snicker from Athena.

“Something bugging you?” she asked, trying not to laugh as well.

Apollo’s eyes were rapidly shifting between the pair of them.

“B-but… she…”

He froze again.

“… Wait. E-Ema, did you…”

Ema was pretty confident that she knew what her stuttering friend was so worked up over. It seemed that the slight boost in size she’d given to Athena hadn’t gone unnoticed.

“Yeah, it was me.” she said plainly, waving a hand in a casual gesture. Apollo immediately slumped on the spot, looking frustrated.

“And what, you’ve just been messing with me…!?”

Athena finally cracked up laughing, dropping back into her chair.

“Messing with you is pretty fun, Apollo.” Ema said, smirking at his exasperated expression. She reached into her bag, pulling out the device she’d stowed away for the trip to the office. “See this? It’s what I’ve been working on for the last three weeks, or so. Fully-functional, handmade version of a certain missing doctor’s size-changing device.”

“Yeah, and in her infinite creativity, she named it ‘the Skye Device’.” Athena said, nudging Apollo with her elbow.

[Pretty cool, but pretty lame!]

Ema briefly shot the talkative little computer device dangling from Athena’s neck a dirty look.

“What’s that thing?” another voice suddenly interjected. Ema winced; she’d forgotten that Trucy was still in the room. The magician approached, looking curious. “… And hey, Ema? Polly’s been freaking out all morning about... how tall Athena is? I thought she was just wearing taller boots or something, but…”

Ema made a decision in her head. One more person knowing about the device was acceptable, she supposed, particularly if it was Trucy. She was trustworthy enough.

“Ema, you aren’t here to… to shrink me again, right…?” Apollo asked, sounding even more anxious now.

“Shrink you?” Trucy repeated, her eyebrows disappearing into her brown hair.

Ema laughed, shaking her head. She addressed Apollo first.

“Nah, you’ve been through more than enough already. How mean d’you think I am?”

She reached up with her free hand, flipping her pink-tinted glasses down over her eyes.

“I would never shrink you on purpose, without your consent. Of course, if you change your mind, and want to have some fun sometime, you’re welcome to drop by and help me experiment some more.” she said.

“What do you mean by ‘shrink’?” Trucy asked again, hands on her hips and a frown replacing her curious expression. “… Wait, it’s not something gross, is it?”

Ema laughed, noticing Apollo’s face reddening a little. She might not feel inclined to say so out loud, but he was really cute whenever he got flustered, and making Apollo feel flustered wasn’t exactly difficult to accomplish.

“No, it’s not anything like… y’know, that.”

She held up the device in front of Trucy, letting her examine it.

“This,” she said, “Is something I built based on an invention I’ve been studying from a case. The Skye Device. I can scan anything – or anyone – I want, and then use this to change their size to however big or small I want! … Within reason.”

The shocked expression that overtook Trucy’s face was surprisingly satisfying.

“Wh-whoa, really…? E-Ema, that’s amazing…!”

“Try ‘terrifying’…” Apollo muttered from behind Ema.

“Can I see?” Trucy asked within just a second or two. “Please?”

Ema moved the device to her side.

“On one condition. Adding you to the list, the only other people who know about the Skye Device are me, Apollo, and Athena.” she said. “I’ll give you a demonstration, as long as you promise me that you absolutely will not tell anyone else about it without getting the all-clear from me, first.”

“Oh, that’s all?” Trucy replied, sounding surprised. “I was expecting a harder condition than that. You’ve got my word, Ema! On Trucy Wright’s honour as a professional magician, I promise that this stays a complete secret!” She gave a cute little salute, her eyes practically glowing with eagerness. “So can I see it now?”

Ema nodded, jabbing a thumb backward over her shoulder.

“Can we head upstairs? I don’t want Mr. Wright suddenly popping out of the bathroom and interrupting the test.”

Trucy nodded back, then darted past Ema, heading for the stairs that led to the apartment on the building’s top floor.