Athena Cykes

Athena Cykes, the newest lawyer at the Wright Anything Agency, is an energetic and spunky powerhouse of a woman, serving a frequent protagonistic and supporting role in Discordtopia. Her ability to hear the discord in the hearts of others proves an invaluable skill in the world of Discordtopia, endearing her to the hearts of many in spite of her often bizarre behavior.

## Athena Cykes

### Aliases

Thena (Juniper Woods)Princess (Aura Blackquill)

### Relatives

Metis Cykes (Adopted Mother)Unnamed Biological Mother

### Affiliation

The Wright Anything AgencyThe Yuri Cosmos Space Center

## Appearance

### Physical Appearance

Athena is an average height young woman, with a slender and muscular build. She has big bright blue eyes, a short and wide face, and bright orange hair with spiked and sideswept bangs, and fashioned into an incredibly long side ponytail on her left.

Her typical attire consists of a white low cropped undershirt with a blue tie, a bright yellow jacket with blue accents, a matching pleated skirt, dark purple leggings, and white futuristic boots. Her hair is tied up with a bright blue ribbon, she wears an assymetrical glove on her right hand, as well as a moon rock earing on her right ear. Around her neck, she sports her robot companion, widget.

### Demeanor

Athena is a very energetic and athletic person, having difficulty staying still at any given time. Even when idle she will frequently stretch, fidget, or even jog in place. She's overally very expressive both through facial expressions, and body language, with her ponytail even curling up during stressful situations as if it were a third limb.

Although very active and energetic, Athena's excitable behavior often lends to clumsiness, frequently losing her balance, running into people, or unintentionally smacking them with her ponytail upon sharply turning her head.

## Personality

### Empathetic Nature

Having an extremely traumatic past, as well as having the ability to hear the voices in the hearts of others, Athena is an extremely empathetic and caring individual, often becoming quickly invested in the lives of strangers and striving to help them resolve any of their issues, as well as being prone to mood swings based on the emotions of those around her.

Prominent examples of her kind and empathetic nature include her calming of Jinxie Tenma during her panic attack in court, and her forgiveness of Apollo Justice following his accusations against her, as she understood the motives behind his actions and still cared for him as a friend. The most prominent of all was her dedication to saving Simon Blackquill from his false convictions, dedicating her entire teens into acquiring a law career just so she could defend him.

Athena also feels advanced empathy for animals, being able to hear their emotional state just like humans. She has an overwhelming desire to be liked by them, but they often don't reciprocate her affections as they don't have the ability to hear *her* heart too. From their perspective she's just some rando that they don't recognize trying to touch them. Thankfully, Athena is up to date on her rabies shots.

Since she was raised in a robotics lab alongside robots as siblings, Athena also has much empathy for machines. Although she understands in her current age that they aren't actually alive, she can't help but feel distress upon seeing abandoned microwaves, toasters, and other mechanical devices cast out on the street. She's named them, rescued them, and given them a new home amongst the hordes of other junk at the Wright Anything Agency. She has also been shown to encourage appliances and thank them for working properly,

### Strength and Resilience

Through years of physical training and rigiorous emotional trials, Athena has made a "complete transformation" from her frail and helpless self 8 years ago. Athena has made a habit of exercising everyday, and often spontaneously, which has lent itself into her possessing comedic strength, notably enough to throw a grown man an incredible distance with not much exertion.
On top of this is her emotional resilience. Her desire to save Simon Blackquill and overcome her past has led to her having an overly optimistic outlook, and not being easily swayed by trifling matters. She had to be strong. No one was able to help her now and SHE was the one that needed to do the saving.

Although very optimistic, Athena is far from immune to being affected by peoples words. Where she differs as an adult is that rather than crying and hiding in the corner, she'll raise a fiery objection and stand up for herself or whoever/whatever she sees fit.

She also has a tendency to go on the offensive when she feels that she senses the potential of being blamed for something, comedically resulting in her becoming more suspicious of committing a crime she actually didn't commit. Athena has yet to figure out why people always find her suspicious.

### Lack of Social Awareness

Having been isolated in a space center for the majority of her informative years, and being constantly busy studying and exercising for the next seven, Athena has a very limited understanding of the conventional social landscape. She is generally friendly, but has a tendency to be unnecessarily and brutally honest at times, particularly those she is close to, such as Simon Blackquill and Apollo Justice.

She also struggles to keep herself composed in social situations and will often unintentionally break societal conventions. A prominent example of this is in the episode "The Inquisitive Visitor" where Athena gets up and starts doing situps on the floor of the Wright Anything Agency in the middle of Edgeworth talking. When questioned about this, Athena claims to still be listening, but wants to increase productivity by doing both things at once.

She's also been labeled an "eavesdropper" by hearing peoples problems with her advanced hearing, and comedically appearing out of nowhere to get herself involved, already incredibly invested in the situation. It is through this running gag that she is introduced in many Discordtopia Episodes not primarily featuring the Ace Attorney setting.

## Background

Athena was adopted by Metis Cykes as a toddler, her unique emotional sensitivity rendering her prime for study. Metis Cykes was a pyschologist and instantly took interest in her condition. Not long after Athena's adoption, Metis married Aura Blackquill, although Aura never became a parental figure for Athena. It was through this matrimony that Athena was introduced to Aura's younger brother Simon Blackquill, who became her primary source of support during her childhood.

Athena's unique abilities were much stronger when she was a child, causing her to become overwhelmed extremely easily, and to be completely averse to large crowds and hating any and all noise. Although Metis truly did love her child, Metis's awkwardness and lack of parental finesse caused Athena to feel that she was unloved throughout her childhood, only to be used for experiments.

One particular instance of this is when Metis requested that Aura build Athena a pair of headphones to suppress her sensitive hearing, although it was truly remarkable, she couldn't stand the way it hurt Athena so. And of course, because Metis is such a great parent, she failed to communicate to Athena what the function of the headphones actually were, leaving Athena to attribute all of her pain to them.

Notably in her childhood, Athena had only one friend. Juniper Woods. A sociopathic and manipluative malingerer who consistently mistreated Athena, which she was oblivious to until much later in her life. They were separated when Athena was relocated to live with Metis's older sister and their family in Europe following Metis's murder, Aura's refusal of custody, and Blackquill being. Well. A convicted murderer.

Metis was murdered by the Phantom during some convoluted story I don't hate myself enough to write down. However Athena stumbled across her mothers dead body, and assuming that she could be put back together by the robotic assembly machine, moved her body onto the assembly chair, getting herself covered in blood in the process.

Simon Blackquill, upon discovering this scene, assumed that Metis had been unconcious and Athena had misinterpreted the situtation, killing her. Not wanting his precious Athena to be punished, he forged the crime scene to implicated himself, carried Athena out of the building, and confessed to murdering Metis.

During the trial, although having blocked out all the events of that day, Athena could hear that Blackquill was lying during his confession, and protested his conviction. Unfortunately, her pleas fell upon deaf ears and Blackquill was given the death penalty, as well as several years behind bars.

After being relocated to Europe, burning with determination to right this wrong, Athena worked tirelessly to not only become a defense attorney, but to become someone capable of saving Blackquill. She exercised frequently, worked to become better in social situations, to overcome her anxieties and fears, and to have the positive determination necessary to never give up on her goals, her ultimate objective to retry Blackquill's case and prove him the innocent man she knew he was.

Upon passing the bar exam, Athena returned to America a new person, and was shocked to find out that Blackquill was now prosecuting despite being a murder convict. She immediately wanted to meet him face to face, but unfortunately, the case he was prosecuting already had an attorney. Apollo Justice. Although unwilling to give up the case, Apollo allowed Athena to assist him after some pestering. Throughout the case, their rivalry blossoms into a friendship, and Apollo invites her to apply for a job at his law firm, The Wright Anything Agency, an invitation that she accepts.

After recieving the job, Athena finally reunites with her childhood friend Juniper Woods, now attending Themis Legal Academy as a student in the Prosecutor Course. Unfortunately, Juniper is cold and cruel towards her, leading Athena to reevaluate how wonderful their friendship really was, although still staying in touch out of a sense of obligation.

Further on, Athena was accused of the murder of Clay Terran following the recovery of a specific piece of incriminating evidence by her co-worker Apollo Justice. Being left with no one to defend her, Athena had to defend herself, and with the supervision of Detective Fulbright, was allowed to investigate the scene.

Before this case could come to a conclusion however, Aura Blackquill also accused Athena of the murder of her mother, and held Trucy Wright hostage to get Blackquill's case retried the day before his execution. Because of this, Athena was tasked with not only defending Blackquill (still adamant about his guilt) but also defending herself.

Throughout Athena's defense she unlocked and had to face her past memories, fight Apollo's accusations, and face off against Chief Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth. Ultimately however, she manages to prove the true culprit was actually an international spy known as the Phantom, and although not being able to charge the culprit, managed to prove herself and Blackquill innocent, with him being released from prison right after the court hearing. Aura Blackquill however, was incarcerated.

### Athena in Discordtopia

Finally living in a period of time where she is not constantly suffering, and not having to worry about an impeding death sentence now that Blackquill is out of prison, Athena is finally free to enjoy life for once and hang out with her friends, taking on new cases, or participating in games. She is a frequently recurring character in Discordtopia and a main protagonist in AceAttopia.