"What?" Tommie exclaimed.

Evan felt a chill run down his spine as he stared up at the scientist, whose face gave away nothing.  What was he hiding from them?

"Welcome back!" Ace greeted from their judge's chair as the elevator doors opened and the group spilled out into the court room. "Oh, this case was so good!  I'm excited to see how you all deal with it."

As soon as everyone was positioned at their podiums, all eyes went to Stratus.

"What did you find?" Alister demanded.

The dirty-blonde held her gaze briefly before reaching into his pocket and removing a long, thin object.  A jump rope.  It took Evan a second before he saw a few small droplets of blood decorating its smooth surface.

"I would never have known if it weren't for Amy clearly putting up a struggle.  She had scratches along her wrists from hitting and scraping them on the pool deck, and some certainly looked like cuts.  If she was getting strangled out of the water, then there's no doubt that her blood could have gotten on the jump rope as she tried to free her neck," he rasped in a low voice.

"Where did you find it?" Jax questioned.

"The boys' locker room."

"And since Amy couldn't have had access to the boys' locker room, that means her killer has to be male," Dawn realized. 

"Ooh, but what if I threw a curveball at you?" Ace interrupted. "Jax, I'm aware you went to the front hall on your little exploration.  What did you find?"

Jax's eyes widened. "I found a table with three digital handbooks.  Two didn't work, but the third was Narwhale's.  One of the others had to have been Ash's, right?"

Ace giggled. "And what if I told you that Ash had access to the boys' locker room?"

"That just seems rude to them," Alister huffed.

"Look, the building was already built like this.  What if Ash wanted to go swimming, huh?" Ace fired back. "We had to give them access to somewhere."

"But if two of them didn't work, then there's a chance that neither of them even is Ash's!" Evan looked around as he began to understand his own words.

"Everyone, turn on your digital handbooks to confirm that they belong to you," Dawn ordered.

Immediately, everyone fumbled for their handbooks.  While it wasn't helpful to see everyone holding their own handbook, this did mean...

"So the killer is Evan, Jax, or Stratus, then," Tommie said.

"Well, does anyone else have anything to share?  Anything helps." Dawn looked around expectantly as she spoke.

Tommie's eyes lit up. "Wait, I totally forgot!  I found this when Evan and I went to the trash room." 

She dug through her pocket for a moment before revealing a small scrap of singed fabric. "I have a feeling that this is important, but just to make sure... can you tell us what this is from, Alister?"

The blonde tossed the scrap to the fashionista, who caught it before observing it for a few moments, stretching it out and feeling it until she gave a nod.

"This is bathing suit material, that's for sure," Alister announced. "It smells like it's been used, too.  It must be the culprit's."

"That's not all we found in the trash room," Evan added. "There was a big pile of burnt trash next to the incinerator, which had been left on."

"...That must be what triggered the fire alarms and sprinklers," Stratus spoke. "But why do that...?  Unless..."

"Oh, he's got it.  He should just be the Ultimate Detective at this point," Alister commented.

"Set the scene for us, Stratus.  What do you think happened?" Dawn asked.

Stratus hesitated for a moment. "The time of death, according to the case file, was around eleven at night.  I personally discovered the hard way that the water in our rooms actually shuts off some time in the evening, when I tried to wash my face on the first night."

"That's correct!  The water shuts off at ten PM," Ace said.

"This means," Stratus continued, "That the killer went to go for a swim, saw Amy, and knew that this was their chance to strike.  They took the jump rope from the boys' locker room, knowing fully well that it was their only way to possibly take her down, and carefully made their way over to where she was swimming.  They, of course, had to do some swimming themself to ensure that Amy wasn't suspicious, but after a period of time, they caught Amy sitting out, removed the jump rope from a safe space, and strangled her.  She put up a fight, hitting her hands several times on the pool deck while trying to do whatever she could to fight back, which is how blood ended up on the jump rope.  After she was at least unconscious, the killer pushed her into the pool to finish her off, if she hadn't already died.  But now, even after returning the jump rope and changing back into their normal clothes, the killer had an issue.  Because the water had shut off in the rooms, they had no way of rinsing off and removing any smell of chlorine or notable change in hair texture.  They had to wait until the morning."

"But wouldn't we have noticed if someone had taken a shower?" Tommie pointed out.

"Wrong." The scientist narrowed his eyes. "The killer knew that after taking a shower, they would still have wet hair, and that would be much harder to defend once the class trial rolled around.  Given they still needed to dispose of their wet bathing suit, they got to the trash room and got an idea- build a pile of flammable materials and light it up using fire from the incinerator so that it would trigger the smoke detectors.  After setting the heap on fire and tossing the bathing suit into the incinerator, they quickly began to make their way to the other side of the building, closer to where there were other people so that when the sprinklers activated, they were right there with the rest of the group, and everyone was wet.  There would be no way of telling if anyone had showered that morning."

"So who did it, then?  Surely you know who the culprit is," Dawn insisted.

Stratus shook his head. "I'm afraid I don't know.  But given the circumstances, it must be either Jax, Evan, or myself."

"How do we narrow it down?" Alister asked worriedly. "We can't just take a shot in the dark."

"I doubt it's Stratus; that seems too obvious for someone with an obviously high level of intelligence," Dawn said. "And I don't believe that Jax has the guts to kill and not show signs of guilt.  I have been searching him for unusually high signs of anxiety, but there has been nothing unusual in addition to his normal anxious petting of his dog."

"That means... it's Evan." Immediately, all eyes shot to him, and he felt sick to his stomach.

"I didn't do it!" he argued. "I swear I didn't!  What reason would I have to kill her?  I told Tommie already- my embarrassing secret was lying about stuff on audition forms!"

"And that automatically means that you're not lying?" Alister challenged, gripping her sleeve tightly.

Dawn seemed to pick up on the behavior, thankfully directing attention away from Evan for a moment. "Are you okay, Alister?  You've been pulling at your sleeves an awful lot."

Alister stopped and gave her a weak smile. "I'm just anxious about all of this.  Finding a dead body in the pool ain't a pretty sight for someone as sensitive as me."

"Yes, but based on the patterns in your behavior that I've picked up on, I've found that you more often twirl your hair when anxious, or pull on your bracelets.  The habit of pulling on your sleeves is new.  As a psychologist, such behavior hints at an attempt to conceal something." When Alister opened her mouth to respond, Dawn held up a hand to silence her. "Before you argue, please note that hiding things right now makes you look bad.  Please pull up your sleeves."

Alister gave her a frustrated look before sighing and pulling up her sleeves.  All along her wrists were notable marks and bruises standing out against her fair skin.

"They're... they're from me," she whispered, bowing her head in shame. "I did them."

Stratus shook his head. "For a decent actor, you're still a horrible liar.  Bruises like that are very hard to inflict upon oneself, especially in those locations.  They seem to be evidence of... some kind of struggle with someone."

Alister gaped at him. "You think I killed Amy?  That's bold coming from someone whose only defense is being upset about the victim's death."

"She's right, though.  We don't have definitive proof.  Obviously she got into something because those injuries weren't there yesterday, but how could she have gotten into the boys' locker room?" Tommie agreed. "Therefore she couldn't have done it."

"That's where you may be incorrect," Dawn responded evenly.  She looked towards Alister and asked, "May I see your digital handbook?"

Alister blinked before slowly reaching into her shoulder bag and removing her handbook. "Sure, I don't know what you want to see on there."

Dawn took the handbook as it was handed to her and turned it on.  She pressed a few buttons before handing it back. "Alister is guilty."

"How?" Alister gripped her podium fiercely.

"Yeah, how could Alister have killed Amy if the murder weapon was found in the boys' locker room?" Evan asked.

"But that's just it," Dawn said slowly, as if she didn't want to say it and was forcing it out. "According to her digital handbook... Alister did have access to the boys' locker room."

Alister stood up straight, staring at Dawn with an expression so blank that it startled Evan.  The room was so quiet that Evan could hear the blood rushing through his own veins and arteries.

"Why would you do this to me?" Alister finally spoked up, eyes shining with anger. "WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS TO ME?"

The sudden rage from the nonchalant fashionista made Evan jump nearly a mile in the air.  

"Uh-oh!  Looks like someone's embarrassing secret was brought to the light!" Ace snickered.

"So then everything adds up.  Amy's killer was Alister," Stratus concluded.

"N-no!  No, this doesn't prove anything!  It still could be anyone with access to the boys' locker room!" Alister exclaimed, her face heating up. "Don't do this to me, damn it!  Don't f*cking do this to me..."

She buried her face in her arms, her shoulders heaving as she tried to keep her emotions in check.  Everyone watched her as she finally looked up and wiped at her dripping mascara.

"So that's it, huh?" she asked.  To everyone's shock, she began laughing hysterically. "So that's it then?  You embarrass me and ruin everything I've worked to protect?"

Evan stared at her, his mouth agape as she laughed like a complete psychopath.

"I did what I had to do to protect my secret.  I was the only one brave enough to make a move, and I'm the reason none of you have to face whatever you did.  You should be thanking me!" she cried, smiling despite the tears rolling down her cheeks. "I don't deserve this!  I don't deserve this!"

"Well, if you're guilty of murdering the martial artist, then you certainly do!" Ace responded. "And because I'm feeling nice, you all can now vote anonymously on your digital handbooks!  Just turn 'em on and the vote should be pulled up already!"

Evan, with shaking hands, removed his digital handbook from his pocket.  He couldn't think clearly with everything happening at once.  It felt unreal as he reached out and tapped Alister's name on his screen.  After he put his handbook away, Ace's smile seemed to widen as they checked the screen in front of them.

"It seems that you all voted for the same person, and you're correct!  The killer was Alister Somerset!" they declared.

By now, Alister was just smiling, hands on her hips.  Her rapid changes in attitude were beginning to freak Evan out.

"Well done," she said. "Well done.  I thought I'd gotten away with it, but clearly I underestimated you all.  I believe that our time together may be up.  It was a pleasure to meet you all."

"I'm glad you got your goodbyes out of the way, because I'm totally ready for your execution!  You can say that it fits an Ultimate Fashionista like yourself so well, it's sure to be trending," Ace proclaimed, pulling out their gavel and smacking the red button in front of them. "Iiiiiiit's PUNISHMENT TIME!"

***

(2073 words)

This was a long one-

I was really excited about this trial!  

And yes, Alister is like Chihiro with Celestia's personality.  

Oh dear this execution is gonna take a bit to draw-

However I brought this upon myself lol, initially AMY was gonna kill ALISTER but I switched it because of how badly I wanted to use Alister's execution.  It's my favorite one I came up with.

See ya then!