Athena Cykes


 * "Cykes" redirects here. You may be looking for her mother, Metis Cykes.

"Athena Cykes"

- Analytical psychology is going to revolutionize this stodgy institution!

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 Europe. Cykes has a special ability to pick up subtle emotions from witnesses' voices, and she examines these using a program called the "Mood Matrix". The Mood Matrix is linked to her AI partner Widget, who hangs around her neck, that changes color with her emotions.

Early life

 * Main articles: Turnabout for Tomorrow and UR-1 Incident

Cykes and her mother, Metis Cykes, lived at the GYAXA space center; the employees called her "princess" and she considered them family. However, as a child she was very withdrawn. Her strengthened hearing ability was so pronounced that it gave her sensory overload. Due to this, she often avoided other people and missed many days of school, just like Juniper Woods did due to her coughing fits, and the two girls got along together. Her mother required her to wear a pair of headphones that were heavy and uncomfortable as part of her research. For years Cykes incorrectly assumed that the headphones were amplifying her power; she hated them, and held some resentment toward her mother, who she thought was using her as something of a guinea pig. (Simon Blackquill revealed later that the headphones were actually sound-dampening; Cykes's ability was that sensitive.)

Cykes also became close to the robots Clonco and Ponco and she considered them part of her extended family too. However, her sheltered upbringing left her oblivious to the finer differences between humans and robots. If one of the robots suffered from a malfunction, she would try and treat it like she would a human, by wrapping it in bandages. Conversely, when Metis would repair the robots using the disassembly table located in her lab, Cykes believed it would work on humans, and often asked her mother if she could be "fixed" there too, although her requests were denied.

"Fixing" her mother
On October 7, 2020, Cykes went to see her mother in the robotics lab, to show her a drawing she had recently finished. When she arrived, however, she stumbled upon the Phantom, a mysterious international spy, dressed in Metis' Noh mask and space center jacket, and the bloody body of her recently murdered mother. In a panic, Cykes grabbed a utility knife and stabbed Phantom in the right hand. The Phantom retaliated by kicking her, knocking her unconscious, before fleeing the scene. After she came to, Cykes tried to wake her mother. In her childlike denial, she had Ponco move Metis to the robot disassembly table, thinking the machinery would be able to "fix" her just like the robots.

At that moment, Metis' student, prosecutor Simon Blackquill, arrived. Cykes, covered in blood from the ordeal, explained to him (with a "sweet smile" and a "far-out look in her eyes", as Blackquill later recalled) what she had intended to do. Blackquill, thinking that Cykes had killed her own mother, used the murder weapon (a katana, covered in blood) to dismantle Ponco, before removing the robot and Cykes from the lab. By the time Cykes had returned to the lab, Blackquill had been arrested on the charge of Metis' murder. Blackquill's trial was held soon afterwards. Cykes tried to speak up for his defense, saying that "his heart is screaming that he didn't do it," but Blackquill kept insisting that he was the murderer, and as a result, nobody listened to her. The prosecutor was soon found guilty, leaving Cykes traumatized by the ordeal and causing her to repress many of her memories.

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. She took with her two gifts her mother had given her; Widget and a small piece of moon rock made into an earring.

Meeting Wright
Cykes first met Wright when he was in Europe to study their legal systems. He told her that her psychological abilities could help people, giving Cykes the confidence she felt she needed to save Blackquill. Eventually, she finished her law studies and was invited to join the Wright Anything Agency.

First cases with the agency
"Athena Cykes"

- I. Already. Told. You! I'm a lawyer assigned to the case!


 * Main article: The Monstrous Turnabout and Turnabout Reclaimed

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 met the newly-hired Cykes at the airport but immediately rushed to Nine-Tails Vale when she heard about a murder. 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, introducing herself to him awkwardly. The two attorneys 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.

"Athena Cykes"

- Hey! Get back here, you little pipsqueak!

"Pearl Fey"

- Oh! Sorry, Rifle! But at least you seem all right.

Later, she helped investigate Phoenix Wright's first case back, in which he was defending a whale, Orla Shipley and later, her trainer Sasha Buckler. During this investigation, she met Pearl Fey for the first time.

Friendship reunited

 * Main article: Turnabout Academy

"Juniper Woods"

- Th-Thena...?

"Athena Cykes"

- Junie! It's good to hear you say that name again.

Later, Wright, Justice, and Cykes were invited to Themis Legal Academy for a school festival in which Wright and Klavier Gavin were to instruct a training seminar for the students of the academy if one of the students won the mock trial that took place during the festival. Later, Wright and Cykes found Constance Courte, a judge teacher at the academy, dead on the courtyard stage. Cykes's childhood friend and academy student council president Juniper Woods was arrested for her murder, as Justice explained that the body was found in the same place as the mock trial, following a script that Woods wrote. 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 proved that prosecutor student Robin Newman was actually a girl who was raised as a boy; during the second day, she, along with Blackquill, revealed that O'Conner was actually 25 years old, took a seven-year break from school, and worked a part-time job as a crane operator. Eventually, Cykes determined that Professor Aristotle Means was not in his balcony seat during the mock trial, leaving him without an alibi. While Means was bring cross-examined, Cykes ended up doubting herself after Means explained her mistakes, such as raising false charges against lawyer student Hugh O’Conner, and failing to defend Woods. She then went into a state of emotional trauma after visualizing events from her past, and Means taunted her. However, Justice, Woods, Blackquill, O'Conner (who thanked Cykes for exposing his wrongdoings), and Newman (who was able to live her life as a girl again) helped her think about how she helped them. Cykes then snapped out of her traumatic state and rethought the facts of the case. Then, with the assistance of Justice, she recreated the position of Courte's body and the Phoenix Wright statue to indict Means of the crime. After the trial, Gavin and Woods took part in the extended festival and put together a performance of "The Guitar's Serenade". The mock trial was reprised, and O'Conner won. O'Conner thanked Wright for the training seminar, and then asked Woods if he could be her friend again.

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. During 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. Cykes dragged Justice out of the courtroom, but just before the bomb went off, Juniper Woods, who was observing the trial from the gallery, fell and tripped. Justice was injured while rescuing her from the falling rubble, while Cykes and Blackquill safely left the courtroom. Woods was soon arrested 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 from a slight post-traumatic stress disorder as a result. After visualizing events from her mother's murder again, Payne continued to taunt her, but Phoenix Wright took over after making a dramatic entrance, causing Cykes to snap out of her traumatic state. Cykes assisted Wright in going through Woods's testimony, and managed to undermine the prosecution's case. Court was adjourned for the day, so Wright, Cykes, and Woods decided to check up on Justice, who was looking for more evidence. However, upon entering Courtroom No. 4, they found 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. The following day, Payne attempted to pin Justice's assault on Woods, but Wright and Cykes managed to prove the real criminal, bomb specialist Ted Tonate, was responsible. Following that, they showed that detective Candice Arme's death was not accidental: Tonate killed her because Arme stopped him from stealing the bomb, and her body was moved to fabricate evidence.

Accused of murder

 * Main article: Turnabout For Tomorrow



"Pearl Fey"

- What is she talking about? Athena...?!

"Athena Cykes"

- Of course... why didn't it ever occur to me before? If Prosecutor Blackquill is innocent, somebody else had to have been the true culprit. Did I...? Did I... kill my own mother...? N-No.........NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

After the acquittal of Solomon Starbuck, Cykes found herself the prime suspect in Terran's murder, and was arrested on the spot. While Wright was at the space center, a researcher ordered the robots to hold the space center staff and visitors hostage, as well as Wright's daughter Trucy, who was present at the time. The hostage taker then gave Wright one hour to prepare for the trial and hand over Cykes. If he did not hand over the "little princess", then the hostage taker would make "Hunk of Junk" kill the hostages, and Wright correctly deduced that the hostage taker was Aura Blackquill, Simon Blackquill's sister. Enlisting the help of Chief Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth who was chosen by the hostage taker, 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 came from the hostage taker, and she was about to kill Trucy. Detective Fulbright told Wright that all the courtrooms were occupied. The hostage taker, revealed to be Aura, asked Wright if he had any last words for Trucy, so Wright revealed Aura's identity and said that he was ready to start the trial. He then ordered Detective Fulbright to prepare the trial in Courtroom No. 4, the same courtroom that fell victim to the bombing incident. Wright told Aura that he was ready to defend her brother, but Aura said that he was not going to defend Blackquill. Instead, she accused Cykes of matricide, leaving Cykes in a traumatic state as she wondered if she killed her own mother; unfortunately for Wright, Cykes was blocked off by five black Psyche-Locks. Pearl Fey, with no knowledge of the black Psyche-Locks, returned to Kurain Village to study up on the Psyche-Lock types.

As the defendant, Cykes could only initially watch as Wright first undermined Detective Fulbright's testimony, then determined how the real killer had manipulated the robot Ponco, who had witnessed Metis Cykes' murder. Wright was able to get Simon Blackquill on the stand, and though he continued to confess to the murder as he had done for seven years, Cykes sensed discord in his heart and used her Mood Matrix to assist Wright in the cross-examination. Through probing his true emotions, the two were able to get the truth out of Blackquill: he had not stabbed Metis to death. Rather, he had entered the robot lab and seen a young Athena, covered in blood, saying that "Something's wrong with Mommy, so I'm taking her apart to fix her!" He believed Cykes had stabbed her own mother to death, so he took the blame in order to protect the girl.

Cykes went into shock, unable to comprehend this apparent revelation that she had killed her own mother. As memories returned, she confessed, remembering the blood running down her hands. Wright, however, used this information to show that Cykes was innocent; the murder weapon, Metis' katana, had no blood on the handle. After going over the facts of the case, Wright realized that Cykes must have stabbed the real killer with a different weapon. Apparently, this caused Cykes' black Psyche-Locks to break.

Final showdown
As the judge was about to declare Cykes innocent, Apollo Justice took the stand, accusing her of Clay Terran's murder. He admitted that he wanted to believe in Cykes' innocence, but his bracelet had reacted to her lies about not having seen the utility knife that took Terran's life. Wright pointed out that Cykes had stabbed her mother's killer with an identical knife, but Apollo went on to present his logic as to why only she could have killed Terran. Wright was able to present an alternate theory as to how someone could have committed the crime and safely escaped, and shocked both himself and the rest of the courtroom with his accusation of Detective Bobby Fulbright for both murders.

After a recess, all three attorneys took to the defense's bench to bring down Fulbright, whom Wright argued was the Phantom. The attorneys first realized that Fulbright had presented the evidence with Cykes' fingerprints on it that had led to her arrest, and a proper analysis revealed the prints were actually Terran's. After battling Fulbright, who by this time had been revealed to be an impostor, Wright revealed that the final piece of evidence, which would prove a piece of rock with Phantom's blood on it came from a certain moon rock, was Cykes' own earring, a gift from her mother seven years ago. Cykes was shocked at this development, as her mother had left her with more than just evidence, but a sign of her love for her daughter. The earring proved who Phantom really was, and after his breakdown, Cykes returned to the defendant's stand and received her Not Guilty verdict.

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. Cykes also speaks in a gratuitous manner of Spanish, French, and German, which she picked up while studying in Europe, and this often annoys Apollo Justice. However, her cheerfulness was actually a cover to hide her childhood trauma, which affected her during two of her cases.

When she is extensively ignored in court, especially when the case is going far out of her favor, Cykes is reminded of her mother's murder and begins to panic. Her eyes become blank and Widget, usually diplaying faces for emotions, shuts off.

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 Japanese 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 English 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". It is spelled with a "C" because the common spelling "Sykes" is too close to Ema and Lana Skye's surname. Also, the "C" in "Cykes" can relate to her crescent moon motif.


 * 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.
 * Cykes is the first playable female defense attorney to have a fully-designed case to herself with her own Objection! theme. Mia Fey only has the courtroom portion in both her cases and shares Phoenix Wright's Objection! theme.
 * Athena is also the first lawyer of the Wright Anything Agency whose first case included an investigation.
 * Athena bears a resemblance to Lynne from Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, another game by Capcom, also sharing personality traits, and their role in each game, the female protoganist/partner of the game, and the key to the antagonist's mystery.