| Turnabout Discharge - Part 5 | |
|---|---|
 ~Means, Motive, and Causation~ | |
| Date added | July 21, 2024 |
| Duration | 1:19:32 |
| Transcript | Available |
| Part of | My Little Ace Attorney: Elements of Justice |
| ⇐ Turnabout Discharge - Part 4 |
⇒ Turnabout Discharge - Part 6 |
During the recess, Sonata voices her frustration with Rainbow Dash keeping details about her arrest secret from her. In an effort to calm Sonata down, Phoenix asks about a painting in the courtroom lobby depicting a bespectacled stallion wearing armor. Sonata explains the painting is of Atticus, the previous Lawkeeper before Equity, and that he visited her a year prior while she was serving her prison sentence.
Before Sonata can go into detail, Rainbow Dash appears and voices her own frustration about Sonata's trial performance. Phoenix breaks up their argument and tells Rainbow that, while he understands why she kept silent about her relationship with Stream Line, her doing so has put him and Sonata at a severe legal disadvantage. He reminds Rainbow of the conversation they had on the night before Scootaloo and Turning Page's trial about trusting the defense team.
Rainbow Dash admits to having broken into Stream Line's locker and swapping out her juice boxes; Princess Luna had grilled her on this in an uncharacteristically hostile manner during questioning. However, she continues to maintain that she did not poison Stream Line. Sonata attempts to ask about the juice boxes Rainbow took out of Stream Line's locker, but the bailiff interrupts to announce the trial's reconvening and to take Rainbow away. Before they return to the courtroom, Phoenix tells Sonata that attorney-client trust goes both ways: Rainbow does not trust her, so she will need to earn that trust through her courtroom actions.
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Court is called back in session, and Luna calls her next witness to explain how the Grickle Grass poison was secretly smuggled into the Wonderbolt Academy from the outside: Pinkie Pie. In her typical hyperactive, comedic way, Pinkie testifies that Rainbow Dash instructed her to bring juice boxes to the Academy over a week prior and to deliver them to her covertly. However, this only explains the origin of the juice boxes Rainbow swapped into Stream Line's locker, not the poison.
Luna moves on and tells Pinkie to testify about what else she saw at the Academy, causing Pinkie to get nervous. Pinkie testifies that, while making another juice delivery to Rainbow Dash, she saw the tornado that blew through the Academy and injured Fleetfoot and a filly in a tour group. After some pressing by both Luna and Sonata, Pinkie admits that she saw the tornado being created by a Pegasus with rainbow hair, causing even more suspicion to fall upon Rainbow. Luna even goes as far to suggest Rainbow created the tornado to draw attention away from Stream Line's poisoning so that she could not receive immediate medical attention.
Sonata attempts to argue that Rainbow could not have done this given the circumstances, but Luna effortlessly shoots down her arguments, and Sonata has no evidence with which to counter. Pinkie Pie speaks up in Rainbow's defense, but Luna dismisses her as Rainbow's accomplice in Stream Line's poisoning while continuing to paint Rainbow as a heartless criminal. As arguments devolve into a full-blown shouting match, the judge attempts to restore some decorum, calling out both Pinkie and Luna for their behavior. Pinkie is dismissed from the witness stand.
In an effort to cast doubt on Luna's case, Sonata once again turns back to the alleged poisoning, pointing out that no poisons were detected in Stream Line's body or the juice boxes - as supported by the toxicology report. If this is the case, why did Rainbow Dash swap out Stream Line's juice boxes to begin with? In order to answer this, Sonata proposes having Rainbow herself testify.
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In her testimony, Rainbow Dash admits to swapping out the juice boxes in Stream Line's locker but denies having anything to do with her poisoning or the tornado. In regards to everything else, however, she exercises her right to remain silent. Before Sonata can conduct her cross-examination, Luna objects and demands that Rainbow immediately confess to her supposed guilt. She launches into a heated emotional tirade that condemns both Rainbow for failing to live up to the title of "Element of Loyalty" as well as the Wonderbolts themselves for recruiting a perceived killer into their ranks.
Infuriated by Luna's words, Rainbow Dash speaks out and declares Stream Line to be the true disgrace to the Wonderbolts, once again calling her a cheater and even saying she got what she deserved. With this declaration, Rainbow's motive for the crime is made clear to everyone in the courtroom. Luna feels she has conclusively proven Rainbow Dash's guilt, but the judge admonishes her for not only breaking proper court procedure by interrupting the cross-examination but also repeatedly attacking the defendant. He informs her that she will be receiving a penalty on her prosecutorial record for her shameful conduct after the trial.
Regardless, the judge agrees that Rainbow Dash has implicated herself with her outburst, and Sonata believes there is no way for her to win the trial now. Before the judge delivers his verdict, however, Sonata recalls the words of her mentor Lawkeeper Atticus: the prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable doubt the accused's means, motive, and causation, and the defense must show there is doubt for at least one of those things. Sonata realizes that while Rainbow's means and motive have been proven, the causation has not.
Sonata thinks back on Philo Reed's testimony on the symptoms of Grickle Grass poisoning and Spitfire's explanation of Stream Line's symptoms at the time of her collapse, particularly her mumbling "Stay, uh... so sorry..." and Spitfire's belief that she was hallucinating. Sonata cuts off the judge's verdict and reveals what she believes to be a key contradiction in Luna's case: hallucinations are not one of the symptoms of Grickle Grass poisoning, suggesting Stream Line may not have been poisoned with Grickle Grass at all.
Sonata then attempts to interpret what Stream Line's mumbled words could mean, attributing them to possibly being misheard by those tending to her health. She looks back at the letter Spike sent about Apollo's investigation of Rarity's case and finds a comment mentioning Estella Pantomimia ("Stella"). She reasons that Stream Line was actually mumbling "Stella" instead of "Stay, uh..." Luna believes Sonata is merely chasing an irrelevant dead end, but Sonata asserts that it provides a possible explanation for Stream Line's hallucinating that the poisoning does not explain. To that end, the judge orders further investigation into Stream Line's connection with Stella and whether or not it relates to Stream Line's condition, much to Sonata's relief.
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In a post-credits scene, the final moments of Estella Pantomimia's life (from her perspective) are shown in flashback. In the alleyway behind Bridleway Theater, immediately after being mortally wounded, Estella begs her attacker to check on her sister Espie; the attacker appears to flee. As Estella starts to lose consciousness, she thinks about Espie, wondering if she gave Espie the life she wanted or if Espie resented her. She expresses regret over a past action because she "wanted something different" and that she did it in order to "forget".
Several images are shown including Espie's face in a photo of her and Estella becoming stained with blood, a shot of the Mirror Pool, and an old film projector. As Estella lies dead, Overall Concept comes out of the theater building and discovers her lifeless body on the ground.