TWISTED: THE RIGGED TRIAL'S END:

Well," said the judge as he looked at Danny Desai; behind him, Archie, the soccer team captain, was smirking; he knew that Danny was screwed.

It was all his doing, of course: The moth balls planted in the locker room; the team members lying about Archie going in first to poison Cole's water bottle; the fake alibi. It was all to get Danny back in jail.

He was stealing his glory. That was unacceptable.

"As the evidence points to you," continued the judge, "I have no choice but to have you go back to—!"

"Objection!" called a confident, young voice. Everyone turned to see the fabled teenage supersleuth genius, Kobius Zenn, walking in. His long hair in a ponytail, he peered around with his strangely silver eyes. Walking with a strange confidence, he added, "Objection to this ruling."

"Who is this idiot?" called out Archie. Kobius turned to him and replied, "Danny Desai's salvation." As he passed him, he also whispered, "And your worst nightmare."

Archie felt himself break out in a cold sweat. This was not good.

"I would like to offer evidence that will rule Danny Desai out of this crime," boomed Kobius. "As I am investigating the Regina Crane murder, having been hired to by an unknown benefactor, I also was ordered to investigate any other crime that Danny Desai would be a part of." Putting a duffle bag on the defendant table, he continued, "I noticed that a lot of this crime was not thoroughly investigated; it was… Compelling, to say the least, that the police hadn't even done a proper investigation. Who was the officer in charge of this investigation?"

A young Hispanic officer stepped forth. "I was," he said, his hands shaking a bit.

"Your name?" inquired Kobius, noticing the slight hint of nervousness in his tone.

"Officer Ricardo Caval."

"Well, Officer Caval, you either didn't do a good job on this," commented Kobius, walking up to him and staring him straight in the eye, "or you deliberately made sure that Danny was the prime suspect. Tell me." He pulled out a bank statement. "On the day of the so-called 'crime,' you had $2,000 sent to you from a local account. Now, is that a coincidence?"

Seeing him sweat, Kobius looked around. Regina's mother, Gloria Crane, was pale, her eyes wide with terror. Smirking inwardly, he continued, "Thanks to my sources, I was able to trace the transfer back to an account held by a Mrs. Gloria Crane."

Danny's mother, Karen, snarled as the room gasped, "You little bitch; I KNEW you would do that!"

"He killed my little girl!" roared Gloria, springing out of her chair in rage. "He belongs in a cage!"

"ENOUGH!" A gunshot went off and the two women looked at the young man. Holding a handgun in his hand, he added, "May I continue?"

The women both sat down reluctantly. The room was quiet.

He turned to the officer, who was pale with horror, as he commented, "Deliberately compromising an investigation is a felony, Officer Caval. But moving on." He turned back to the crowd. "This whole investigation was hacked," he began. "Danny was definitely set up. But by whom? This was an easy thing to deduce, but I couldn't prove it without hard evidence that supported it.

"One of the first things I noticed was the lack of dusting for fingerprints on the moth balls. Come in Exhibit A," he casually said, pulling out the moth ball container. "Now, if Danny was, in fact, the perp and did indeed poison Cole, why on Earth would he leave self-incriminating evidence in plain sight? Even Danny isn't that stupid." Showing the crowd, Archie froze. The bag was covered in dust; fingerprints were clearly showing.

"Now, seeing as how the officer didn't dust this for fingerprints, I ordered the evidence locker to relinquish this piece of evidence to me. I took the liberty of dusting it myself, leading us to Exhibit B." Pulling out a sheet full of fingerprints, he showed it to the crowd.

"My benefactor gave me everything on Danny Desai, even his fingerprints. The curious thing was that nowhere on this bag were his fingerprints at all." He looked around. "I questioned a few students who were passing the men's locker room about 4-5 minutes before the crime was committed and they said that they saw two players outside the door; it looked as if they were keeping watch. But for what?"

"So the fingerprints led me to a few possible suspects. I looked at Tyler Lewis: Sure, he was messed up with those awful pranks he pulled on Danny, but talking to him, I saw that he was very genuine in his intentions to have people sympathize with him. Besides," he added, looking at Tyler, "He was with his Film Club at the time."

"So who else? Jo? Lacey?" He scoffed. "As if. They're Danny's friends; they wouldn't dare turn their backs on him."

Jo and Lacey looked at each other with the same look: Guilt. They essentially HAD turned their backs on him.

Kobius noticed that, too. He knew why they had those looks; he wasn't going to comment on that now, though. "So who else? Rico? Nah, he wouldn't do that; he doesn't have the balls for it, anyway.

"What about Sarita? Even SHE knows better than THAT.

"Scott? Well, he was one of the players that were assumingly keeping watch outside the locker room. No way it could've been him.

"So who was left? There's only one person left: Someone that has made Danny feel unwelcome since he first stepped foot out of juvie; someone that constantly brought him down; someone that would go to new lows to make Danny look like a bad guy." Looking at Archie's shaking form, he lifted up another bag with Archie's information on it. "After doing some research, I found that it was none other than the soccer team captain himself: Archie!"

The crowd gasped. Archie rushed at Kobius with a rage; he tried to tackle him to the ground.

Kobius, quick as lightning, moved out of the way and hit multiple pressure points on his back. Archie fell flat on his face; he found that his limbs were no longer working.

"So, as my evidence suggests, Your Honor," finished Kobius with an air of victory in his stance and a hint of pride in his voice, "The real perp was, in fact, Archie, not Danny. Therefore," he added, walking to the crowd, "Danny is no longer a suspect; in fact, he can't even be CONSIDERED a suspect anymore." He bowed and said, "I shall take my leave."

With that, he walked out of the courthouse.

The judge, still in shock, held his hammer up and boomed, "Danny Desai is free to go. Officer Calval, Mrs. Crane and Archie, however," he added as police officers grabbed them and handcuffed them, "are under arrest for bribery, framing another person for a crime and deliberately compromising a criminal investigation. This court is adjourned."

As the courtroom cleared out, Jo found Kobius sitting cross-legged on a nearby table. She opened her mouth, but Kobius said, "No need to thank me, Jo. Only doing my job." He turned to her with a hard look and continued, "You were pretty harsh towards Danny."

Jo flared up at once. "He was keeping-!"

"Secrets from you; yes, I know." Getting up, he added, "He's extremely vulnerable now, though. This is the perfect time to get the answers you need." With that, he walked off.

Jo immediately texted Lacey the plan. She then looked up and saw that Kobius was gone.

Smiling, she thought, Thanks, Kobius.

Thanks.

Thanks for reading this one-shot! I might be adding Kobius in THE SECRET WAR. Stay tuned!

EVER

PRG