Athena Cykes

"Athena Cykes"

- I won't lose to anyone, and especially not you!

Athena Cykes is one of three defense attorneys in the Wright Anything Agency, working in this capacity alongside Phoenix Wright and Apollo Justice. She is a specialist in analytical psychology, which she studied in the United States. Cykes has a special ability to pick up subtle emotions from witnesses' voices, and she examines these using a device called the "Mood Matrix". The Mood Matrix is linked to a necklace she wears that changes color with her emotions.

Early life

 * Main article: Turnabout For Tomorrow

Cykes and her mother, Metis Cykes, lived at the GYAXA space center; the employees called her "princess" and she considered them family, including Clonco and Ponco. However, as a child she was very withdrawn. Her hearing gift was so pronounced that it gave her sensory overload, and she often avoided other people and missed many days of school. Her mother required her to wear a pair of headphones that were heavy and uncomfortable. For years Cykes incorrectly assumed that the headphones were amplifying her gift; she hated them, and held some resentment toward her mother, who she thought was using her as something of a guinea pig (Blackquill revealed later that the headphones were actually sound-dampening, Cykes's gift was that sensitive).

Seven years ago, Cykes went to see her mother in the robotics lab, where she stumbled upon the spy Phantom dressed in a mask and space center jacket, and the bloody body of her recently murdered mother. In a panic, Cykes grabbed up a knife and stabbed Phantom in the side (which Ponco witnessed). After he had fled, Cykes tried to wake her mother. In her childlike denial she had Ponco move Metis to the robot repair area, thinking it would be able to "fix" her just like the robots. It was there that Simon Blackquill found her, and, fearing that Cykes was the killer, he dismantled Ponco and confessed to the crime himself in order to protect her.

In the aftermath, Cykes was traumatized by the ordeal and repressed many of her memories. She tried to speak up in Blackquill's defense, but no one listened to her. Once she was old enough, she went into law and psychology, praying that one day she would be able to come back and free Blackquill.

First cases with the agency

 * Main article: The Monstrous Turnabout

The Wright Anything Agency was invited for a celebration at Nine-Tails Vale by Trucy Wright's friend, Jinxie Tenma. After Rex Kyubi was murdered, and Damian Tenma was arrested, Phoenix Wright sent Cykes to assist defense attorney Apollo Justice in his investigation. A police officer was standing by the scene and refused to let Cykes in, so she used her strength and threw the officer on the ground, accidentally knocking him into Justice, and the two were assisted by detective Bobby Fulbright during the investigation. Cykes explained to Justice about the Mood Matrix's overload mode during the trial, and using this technique, they were able to find the source of Jinxie's fear while she testified. Eventually, Cykes and Justice exposed Florent L'Belle as the culprit.

Friendship reunited

 * Main article: Turnabout Academy

Later, Wright, Justice, and Cykes were invited to Themis Legal Academy for a school festival in which Wright and Klavier Gavin were to participate in a mock trial. Later, when the group found Constance Courte, a judge teacher at the academy dead, Cykes's childhood friend and academy student council president Juniper Woods was arrested for her murder. Cykes decided to take the case as Woods' lawyer against convict prosecutor Simon Blackquill, and Justice and Gavin took part in a short version of the mock trial to help ascertain the facts of the case. During the trial, Cykes went into a state of fear after visualizing events from her past, and defense attorney teacher Aristotle Means taunted her while he was being cross-examined. However, Justice and Woods, as well as fellow students Hugh O’Conner and Robin Newman helped her overcome her past and, along with the assistance of Justice, was able to recreate the position of Courte's body to indict Means of the crime.

Attack on HAT-2

 * ''Main article: The Cosmic Turnabout

Cykes and Justice later took the case of Solomon Starbuck, an astronaut at the GYAXA station, who was accused of killing Justice's childhood friend, Clay Terran. At the first part of the trial, Ted Tonate warned the court that a bomb was about to go off in the courtroom, and ordered everyone to evacuate immediately. However, Blackquill and Justice were persistent in solving the case, and refused to leave. However, just when the bomb went off, Juniper Woods, who was observing the trial from the gallery, fell and tripped. Justice was injured after rescuing her from the falling rubble, Cykes and Blackquill safely left the courtroom and Woods was found as the prime suspect in the bombing.

Woods' second trial

 * ''Main article: Turnabout Countdown

Justice decided to take Woods's case after the bombing. However, before the trial, he fainted due to his injuries, so Cykes took over for him against prosecutor Gaspen Payne, brother of "Rookie Killer" Winston Payne. Payne taunted Cykes, and she suffered slight PTSD as a result. After visualizing events from the UR-1 Incident again, Payne again taunted her, then Phoenix Wright took over right after making a surprising entrance, causing Cykes to snap out of her fear state. During recess, Wright, Cykes, and Woods returned to Courtroom No. 4 to check on Justice, only to find him lying on the ground, unconscious, next to a piece of rubble with blood on the corner, As a result of her shock, Cykes let out a loud scream across the courtroom. During the latter of the trial, Wright and Cykes managed to prove that detective Candice Arme's death was not accidental: Ted Tonate killed her because he was stopped from stealing the bomb, and her body was moved to fabricate evidence.

Resolution of UR-1

 * ''Main article: Turnabout For Tomorrow

After the acquittal of Solomon Starbuck, Cykes found herself the prime suspect in the case, and was arrested on the spot. Enlisting the help of Chief Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth, Wright was able to re-open the UR-1 Incident, and give Blackquill a re-trial. At the detention center, Wright talked to Cykes about her relation to Blackquill, and later, a call came on Wright's cell phone. The call was from Aura Blackquill, Blackquill's sister, and that Trucy was held captive by Aura, in order to help her brother. Aura gave Wright one hour to prepare the trial. Detective Fulbright told Wright that all the courtrooms were occupied, so he ordered Wright to hold the trial in Courtroom No. 4, the same courtroom that fell victim to the bombing incident. After she hung up, Wright asked Cykes about what happened to her mother, but was blocked off by 5 black Psyche-Locks. Pearl Fey, with no knowledge of the black Psyche-Locks, returned to Kurain Village for an explanation.

Personality
Cykes has strong emotions and a drive to win. This can sometimes cause her to be reckless. She also likes orange juice after a good workout.

Name

 * "Kizuki" consists of kanji that can mean "rare" or "hope" (希) and "month" or "moon" (月). This can make her Japanese surname mean "rare moon", "rare month", "moon of hope", or "month of hope". Importantly, it sounds similar to kitzuki (気付き) which means "to notice", referring to her ability to notice subtle emotions from people's voices.


 * Her given name, "Kokone", consists of kanji that can mean "heart", "soul", "mind", "emotion", "sincerity", "sympathy", or "answer (as in to a riddle)" (心), and "sound" (音). Combined, they mean "(the sound of one's) heartbeat".


 * Her full Japanese name could roughly mean "a heartbeat once in a blue moon". This may be a reference to the "heart scope" ("ココ口スコ‐プ kokoro sukōpu"), the Japanese name for the Mood Matrix. If you combine the "to notice" meaning of her last name with the "mind/heart", her full name can also mean "read someone's heart/mind".


 * Her given name "Athena" comes from Athena, the goddess of (amongst other things) wisdom, courage, inspiration, law and justice, strategy, and skill in Greek mythology. This is likely meant to link her name with the given names of both Apollo Justice (named after the Greek god of the same name) and Phoenix Wright (whose first name originates from mythology).


 * "Cykes" may be a play on "psychology" or "psyched".


 * Her last name was misspelled as "Sykes" twice in a "fact sheet" for Dual Destinies ahead of E3 2013 and once in the "More Info" section of the game in the Nintendo eShop.

Other pictures

 * The main clothing color themes of Phoenix Wright, Apollo Justice and Athena Cykes are the three primary colors.
 * Though Cykes sweats when she gets nervous like Wright and Justice, she wipes it off her temple time by time.
 * Cykes, along with Simon Blackquill, is also the only attorney to have 2 ways to pull off a desk slam.
 * Cykes is also the only attorney whose special ability is incorporated with technology.