Everyone waited in their last minutes for the ensuing boom. The final trial for Mina turned out to be the final trial for everyone as the mechanical parts of the detonator remote control clattered to the floor.

  There was silence as people observed the broken remote. Even Blind looked confused despite being D. Vito's second in command.

  The former prosecutor turned villain walked over to the broken parts. He picked up the big red button that was part of the center of the remote. Blind slowly moved his finger towards the button and everyone screamed.

  But when he did...his gauntlets merely poked it. "I think he crushed it completely," he said. "It's a dud now..."

  He dropped the broken button on the floor. "I can't believe I'm saying this," William Justice announced. "But my Mi-mi made him so mad he wrecked his own remote."

  D. Vito dropped to his knees as people finally relaxed. "What have I done?" he asked, looking up at Mina with a surprising amount of tears in his eyes. "I've been blinded with rage this whole time. So blinded I didn't care we all went ba-da-boom..."

  Mina glared down at the man. She absolutely loathed what he had done to her and her friends. Their friendship was completely dead, buried and finito...

  He had destroyed and brainwashed so many important people in her life. His reign has caused half her clients in the room to be on trial. He was like the Final Boss in Eagle Attorney, the power behind all the crooks, pulling their strings like some twisted puppet master.

  But as she watched the pathetic welp, curled into a ball on the floor, a weird thought crossed her mind.

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  They were once the best of friends...

  ...but...she couldn't help but recognize that twisted fact.

  Slowly, she crouched down beside the miserable monster.

  "When my boyfriends...both of them...were stolen away from me," she said softly. "I was blinded by absolute rage and sorrow too. I didn't believe I could lose people were important to me so early in life. Raven too. When he betrayed me and then sacrificed himself, it was almost too much for me."

  "But..." Vito said, sniveling through his tears. "What stopped ya? What prevented you from being on the brink of insanity?!"

  Mina looked to her friends. From Raven, to Winona and Trudy, to Ashley, to her parents, to her clients and to Blind and Divine and back to D. Vito.

  "I had people who cared for me in those times. People who acknowledged my pain. People who said 'it may not be all right' but I'm here."

  D. Vito turned his head to the shattered machine. He balled up his grubby fist. "Dats easy for you to say. You had plenty of friends and family. I had nothing. Even my son hardly cared about his own pops outside the damage he caused."

  Mina took a deep breath. She couldn't believe after all the things she had gone through with the Vito's that she was going to say this. "Denny Vito. I'm never going to forgive the absolutely horrible things you've wreaked on society, on innocent lives, even myself...but..."

  The man turned his head, showing her his fearful bloodshot eyes. Mina placed a hand on her shoulders. "You were a friend to me and I thank you for all the good times we spent together in that taxi cab. I don't know if I could have diverted your path...but at least we took a few meat-n-cheesy detours off to the deli of kindness!"

  Almost out of the blue, the Aurafather smiled. He let out a chuckle and held his love handles. "I like dat metaphor, kid. It's cheesy, but so was my favorite snack."

  The criminal leader stood up and bowed to Divine. "I'm ready now."

  Divine adjusted her classes, narrowing her magnified eyes at him. "For what?" she said, somewhat sassily after nearly being blown into a million chunks.

  D. Vito grinned. "Ta face justice. In the end, all I really needed was a friend. I can go now."

  Divine pointed to the chief Rita O'Law who handcuffed the man along with her deputy Sparky.

  As they walked out, Mina watched her former friend depart into the great unknown. She may have gotten him arrested, but by serving him the truth and justice, she set him free.