See In Scarlet

**See In Scarlet** is a case featured in *Criminal Case*. It takes place in *The Kidnapping of Persephone* chapter of Graecita.

## Plot

***You are experiencing the story in third-person view.***

On the Mediterranean sea, two days have passed since Zachary and Mia left for Spain and Demeter’s anger grew each day Persephone remained unfound, that the winter has extended to the oceans. It was now nighttime and Hasuro, Madelina and April are seen trying to warm up in the dining room by wearing several layers of clothes and heating up the furnace. Suddenly, Mary and Maverick both enter inside, shivering and when April sees her boyfriend in this condition, she immediately grabs him to cuddle with him and warm them up. Hasuro begins serving hot chocolate to everyone and they all drink it to get their throats warm, except Madelina who was sitting alone and quiet. Maverick whistles for her to come and she does, reluctantly and she gets asked what was bothering her. She tells them that she wants to go home, to which Maverick sarcastically replied with “Don’t we all?”, but Madelina responded by telling him that he doesn’t understand how she’s feeling because at least he has people in the ship to keep him distracted. Hasuro puts his had on Madelina’s and assures her that Zachary will come back, to which Madelina remained silent until Yoyo and Ophelia came to the dining room. They were both covering themselves with blankets to keep themselves warm and when they stepped in, Madelina tries to avoid giving them eye-contact while Hasuro served them with hot chocolate. The two begin conversing with the others before they turned to Madelina and sympathetically asked her how she was feeling. Madelina becomes pissed off and gets up from her chair, about to go back to her cabin. Yoyo and Ophelia stop her, asking her what was her problem and she finally snaps and tells them that she’s tired of putting up with fake bitches like them. The two were shocked by Madelina’s remark and they asked her to clarify and she calls them out for ghosting her for nine months and points how that they are only interested in talking to her when something happens that makes them feel bad for her or when Mia is not around, and its clear they don’t truly see her as “one of them”. Yoyo and Ophelia deny this and assure her that she is on their team, so Madelina looks them in the eye and asks them why they’ve been blackballing her all these months then. But the two try to gaslight her so she simply sighs and tells them that when Hades put them on this quest, she felt excited thinking they would finally settle their differences and get close, but now, she cant wait until their back to Graecita so she could pack her bags and leave the island, because clearly no one wants her around. She then heads to the cabin, leaving Yoyo and Ophelia feeling guilty about they’ve been treating her the past year.

Morning came in Barcelona. Zachary and Mia are both sleeping on Pegasus’ back, with Mia’s arms wrapped around Zachary’s waist and resting her head next to his. Pegasus makes a loud neighing sound, waking them up from this awkward position and he tells them that they made it to Barcelona. The two look down and they admire the beautiful, romantic landscape. However, they notice a certain area which was being blocked by police forces, the area consisted of pedestrian passages surrounded by buildings- Homes, shops, etc. When they saw this, they guessed this most be where Cerus is unleashing his terror. Pegasus asks them where should he land and they point at the region, but they tell him to drop them by an alley so that the police wouldn’t spot them. The horse does what they told him and he waits in the alley as they began exploring the area. The place was empty and they guessed that people have either flocked the city or are trapping themselves in their homes for protection. They try to look for the bull but there was now sign of him, but they could tell he was here through all the broken signs and outdoor furniture on the roads. However, as they walked the passages, they find a naked man laying on the street, injured and unconscious. When the duo saw him, they felt concerned and rushed to aid him, but he turned out dead.

***You are now playing as Mia Loukas.***

Zachary and Mia observe the corpse and determined that he must’ve been attacked by Cerus and that the bull caused the man to get castrated, which made Zachary clutch onto his balls, imagining the pain. But then they notice a word carved to his chest: “CERDO” which meant “pig” in Spanish and this made them figure out that this wasn’t just a bull attack and they were dealing with a murder. As they were talking, they get approached by a cloud nymph they recognized: Hyale, who was speaking to viewers through a camera and asked the duo if she could interview them. This caught them off-guard but they agreed and Hyale asked them about the progress on their search for Persephone and what they were doing in Spain. After the interview was done, it was their turn to question Hyale and they asked her why she was in Spain. She tells them that she was sent to provide updates on the situation with Cerus and from her, they learn the identity of the victim: Carmelo Fandino, a matador who was hired with several others to kill Cerus. Once they’ve gotten this information, they decided to visit “La Monumental”, a bullring in Barcelona and they found reasons to suspect a Gitana florist by the name of Lala Antuñez and American tourist, Marigold Carson, who Mia has met during their missions in South France and Pompeii. While they were recapping the case, Hyale approaches them and tells them that she has information that may help them with their investigation.

Hyale explains that she’s been digging information about the victim and found out that he was last spotted in a restaurant by the name of “La Puta de la Mar”. Zachary and Mia went there and found out that the victim had a reservation with his wife, María-Luisa Fandino, who they decided to inform of her husband’s wife. They also found out that Madelina’s mother, Michelle Alonzo was in the restaurant and they decided to meet her, learning that the Alonzo’s have settled in a cheap apartment infested with bugs and rats. After talking with Michelle and giving her updates on her daughter’s wellbeing, they turned their focus back to the investigation where they learned that Hyale was sabotaging the Spanish governments’ attempts to hunt down Cerus and that the victim trashed Lala’s flower stall and attacked her for being a Gitana. Zachary and Mia decided to take a seat in “La Puta de la Mar” and have a lunch break, only to be disrupted by Cerus who began trashing the place.

Customers began screaming and the people sitting outside rushed to the inside to hide from the bull. Zachary and Mia remained outside and tried to calm the bull down, but failed and went to charge at them. They dodged and suddenly the police showed up and Cerus escaped. Once the bull was gone, the duo checked on the customers before returning to the investigation and discovered that Michelle used to be engaged to the victim but fell in love with Amad Alonzo when she was in Mexico, eloped with him and proceeded to ghost Carmelo. Additionally, they learned that Carmelo was cheating on his wife with several tourists, including Marigold Carson and that María-Luisa tried to file for divorce but the victim managed to “talk her out of it”. Ultimately, the Carmelo’s wife María-Luisa Fandino turned out to be his killer.

María went ballistic when accused of the murder, calling herself the easiest person they could “pin the murder on”, but once she calmed down, she admitted that she killed her husband and that he deserved it. Zachary asked her if she killed him because of his unfaithfulness, but María swore it had more to do with that. María explained that the first years being married to Carmelo were magical but overtime he began exposing her to his “true self”. As the eyes passed, Carmelo started becoming aggressive towards her, at first it was just shouting matches but soon, it became physical. Every night, he would come home drunk and would find any excuse to yell at her or hit her that she became anxious whenever he was home. María couldn’t handle this environment any longer so she filed for divorce but when she confronted him with the documents, he got really angry at her and decided to “remind her of how much she loved him”. Zachary was horrified when she got to that detail, and María cried as she talked about it, expressing how she couldn’t believe he would do that to her and it made her feel disgusted, angry and scared, knowing there was no way she could escape from Carmelo. María then told the duo that last night, when they were in “La Puta de la Mar”, Carmelo got really drunk, to the point that he was unfunctional and needed help walking. As they were walking along the passages, María sees Cerus and at first she felt scared but then looked at her husband and decided this way the perfect time to have her revenge. She stripped Carmelo and using his sword she carved the word “CERDO” on his chest. After that, she took her cigarette out of her mouth and burned his scrotum caused him to let out a scream that attracted the bull. When the bull looked at their direction, she used her husband’s red cape to trigger the bull and when he charged, she got out of the way and watched as Cerus castrated Carmelo. After hearing her motive, Zachary and Mia felt bad for her but took her to the Spanish police to be charged for the murder.

Once María-Luisa was handed over to the police, Zachary and Mia began talking about the real reason why they came to Spain- To capture Cerus before he hurts more civilians or gets killed by the Spanish authorities. Seeing that the Alonzo’s are highly-connected to the Ancient Greek realm, they decided to go speak with Michelle Alonzo, hoping she might be able to give them tips on how to handle Cerus. However, when they went to their apartment, they so that she was not present and the only person insider were her and Amad’s ten-year-old daughter, Hermosa Alonzo. Hermosa was reluctant when opening the door as she was advised not to open it for strangers but when Zachary mentioned that they are friends of Madelina, she opened it and they asked her where her parents were as they wanted to talk to them. Hermosa tells them that her parents are heading to a restaurant that they took her and her younger brother, Tony to last night, but she’s forgotten what it’s called. However, Zachary and Mia already knew what restaurant she was talking about and head to “La Puta de la Mar” to look for Mr. and Mrs. Alonzo.

Zachary and Mia went to “La Puta de la Mar”, where they found Madelina’s parents arguing with the restaurant manager. Curious, Zachary asked what was going on and the couple accused the restaurant of overcharging them with their meals. They pointed out that they received a message from their bank, claiming that they’ve spent 1300 euros last night, when they didn’t even order that much food and they demanded that the manager give their money back. The manager refused, telling the couple that unless they have a receipt proving they’ve been cheated, they are not getting a single penny out of the restaurant. Amad and Michelle were getting frustrated and Zachary decided that before they ask them for anything, he and Mia must help them first so they decided to inspect the restaurant and after digging through a bin, they found a receipt that had Amad Alonzo’s name on, but the prices were faded off. So they recovered them using their dusting kits and they notice that the meal costed 1300 euros, however when they added up the prices of the food it gave a sum of 130 euros, so clearly a mistake was made when paying the bill. The duo brought the receipt to the couple, who handed out to the manager to prove that they were overcharged. After looking at the receipt, the manager gives the couple a fake smile and apologizes for the mistake, offering their money back to them. After this was dealt with, the couple thank Zachary and Mia for their help and asked how they could possibly return the favor and they responded by asking them if they knew how they could capture Cerus.

**You are now experiencing the story in third-person view.**

Amad and Michelle Alonzo brought Zachary and Mia with them back to their apartment. There, they sat on the dining table with Amad while Michelle was looking through the bookshelves for something that could help them. Zachary and Mia observe the horrible condition of the apartment and Zachary decides to ask Amad how he and his family ended up like this. Amad explains that his family used to own a large oil business back in New Concordia and as long as it was running, the family was able to live comfortably for the rest of their lives. However, they made the mistake of getting into the Italian mafia’s bad side and when Nicoletta Marconi and her gang escaped prison, they started an arson in their oil reservoirs. Fearing for their lives, the Alonzo’s fled to Spain but because their oil reservoirs have burn to the ground, they were unable to make money out of their business and could no longer afford living comfortably. Mia asks if Madelina knows any of this but Amad shakes his head and so Zachary asks if they sent her to Graecita to protect her from knowing the truth of their situation. Hearing this question, Amad stays silent and they catch Michelle glaring at her husband. Amad sighs and he tells them that this isn’t the complete reason and that the reason he sent Madelina away was because she was “too expensive” to have around. He goes on to tell them that Madelina was always careless with their money and would spend so much of it on superficial things like clothes, makeup and cosmetics. He feared that she would be unable to adapt to their new lifestyle and would land them deeper into poverty, which is why they sent her to Graecita. Although Amad didn’t directly say that, it was clear he was calling Madelina a “burden” and for once, Mia gets offended on her behalf. She blows up at Amad for “getting rid of his daughter” and asked her if he even considered how this would have affected her relationship with her friends and other family members. Amad tries to excuse what he did by pointing out that he left her money on her debit card, hoping she’d spend it wisely, but as he expected she spent most of the money in just the first month. When Amad brings this up, Mia claps back of it and told him that Madelina didn’t spend all that money on superficial things and what actually happened is that they needed weapons to fight against Lykaon and this is what she spent most of the money on. Zachary steps in and appeases the situation, before turning to Michelle and asked her if she found anything that’ll help them against Cerus. Michelle asks them how much they know about zodiac signs which confuses Zachary and Mia, so she goes on to explain that Cerus represents the constellation of Taurus and whatever information they know about people of this star sign, it aligns with him. She then tells them that since Cerus is close to Persephone, the goddess of spring, he naturally has a love for flowers and it’s the best thing to tame him with. However, they can’t just use any flower and call it a day, instead they should use a flower that represents the Taurus star sign. She then demonstrates which flower each zodiac signs represents and reveals that the flower they are looking for are lilies. Once they’ve gotten this information, Zachary and Mia went to Lala Antuñez to buy lilies from her, but to their surprise she was sold out with flowers. Lala excitedly tells them about a “kind, pink-haired lady” who crossed her stall and bought all her flowers. She explains that the lady then went around giving away the flowers for free and filming people’s reaction in QikQok. Zachary and Mia figure out that the “pink-haired lady” was Marigold and they decide to go talk to her and asked if she still has some lilies from her. Unfortunately, she tells them that there was only one bouquet of lilies and she’s given it to some guy who “looked like Mr Monopoly”. The duo were bummed, but they didn’t give up and hoped that the man in question would be kind enough to give them his flowers, so they searched “La Monumental” for anything that give them the identity of the man and they find a wallet that had an ID of a banker by the name of Archibald Gilchrist who matched the description of the man Marigold spoke about. They also found out that he’s staying in the Mennagio Barcelona hotel and so they decided to pay him a visit to give him back his wallet and steal the lilies from him. However, he catches Mia try and steal the lilies while Zachary was distracting and this makes him believe that the lilies must be a rare species which makes them valuable and he tries to fight for them. He uses his cane to charge at them and block them from leaving the hotel room with the lilies, but Zachary uses his water bending ability to control the water of one of the sinks to dispense at Archibald. This causes a distraction that allows them to escape, but Archibald gets very angry and tells the guards to chase them. They manage to leave the hotel, but then they were faced with a police chase. However, they manage to lose the police by breaking into a random apartment building, landing in a room where they cockblock a young couple who were doing the deed. They leave the apartment and enter another one and jump out of its window, leaving the building. This way, they got the police off their tracks.

Once they’ve gotten the lilies, Zachary and Mia head to the alleyed region of Barcelona where they found Hyale waiting for them with her camera crew. Hyale approaches them and asks them where they were and tells them that there are matadors in the alleys here to kill Cerus. Hearing this, the duo quickly entered the alleys to save the bull, fighting their way through the cops and walking quietly to not scare off Cerus. They manage to find Cerus, standing on a road calmly and thought this was the perfect opportunity to approach him, but they realize they weren’t alone: There were matadors ready to ambush the bull. When the matadors got close, they yell for the bull to watch out and when he sees the bullfighters, he freaks out and goes wild again. The bull starts running and the matadors follow him until they have him trapped in the town square. Cerus gets furious and he starts charging at the matadors, knocking out each one of them and Zachary helped him by controlling the water of the fountain to attack the bullfighters. Once the area was cleared of the matadors, Cerus notices Zachary and Mia and he charges at them. They dodge him and Zachary starts defending himself from the bull using the water from the fountain. Mia watches as the two fight and on her hand she had the lilies they stole from Archibald Gilchrist. She sees a pebble and she throws it at the bull’s bum to get his attention. Cerus turns to her and he charges at her. Zachary was horrified and was about to go and protect Mia, but as the bull gets closer to her, she offers the lilies to him and he suddenly stops. Mia was closing her eyes from fear but when she realizes the bull didn’t hit her, she opens them and looks him into the eyes. Cerus was now calm, and Mia has successfully tamed him.

Once Cerus was calmed down, the residents, restaurant owners and shop keepers of the alleys got out of their buildings and started to celebrate. They felt the alleys with decorations, opened the place for tourists and in the sunset, they started playing music to uplift the mood. Zachary and Mia however were sitting near the fountain with the bull, waiting for someone from the underworld to come and take him. During their wait, they got approached by children offering flowers to the bull and enjoyed the atmosphere of the place. Finally, two guards from the underworld called Maetheron and Helmaer show up and they take the bull from them, opening a portal which they both jumped in with Cerus. After the demons were gone with the bull, Zachary and Mia were ready to go back to their crew, but then the band in the square start playing slow music and the people around each took a partner to dance with. Zachary touches Mia’s arm and asks if she wants to dance with him and she shyly accepts. They began slow dancing, and at first Mia tries to avoid eye contact but then looks him in the eyes and starts feeling the romance in the air. She could not contain her feelings any longer and caught him by surprise with a kiss on the lips. She quickly pulls away, embarrassed, and runs into a corridor between two buildings. Zachary runs after her and when they both became alone, Mia starts crying. She pulls herself together and looks at Zachary, and she tells him that she lied when she said she’s “moved on” from him and that she’s so in love with him to the point that it’s embarrassing. She tells him that she tried to be okay with remaining friends with him, but she couldn’t continue this friendship any longer when deep down she wants something more. Getting tearful, Mia tells Zachary that he has a choice: Either her or Madelina and while she’s sure Madelina is a wonderful partner, she tells him that she loves him a lot and begs him to “Pick her, choose her, love her”. This causes an awkward silence between them until Pegasus finally shows up and asks them if they are ready to leave now. Zachary and Mia silently mount Pegasus’ back and he starts flying them back to the *Hamilton Laurent’s Revenge*.

After two days of awkward silence, Pegasus finally lands on the *Hamilton Laurent’s Revenge* with Zachary and Mia. Maverick was on the deck with Mary and he helps them get down from Pegasus. Before they go inside the ship, Zachary asks Pegasus if he wants to come inside and warm up before he leaves but Pegasus turns down the offer and gives them his farewells before flying away. When Zachary and Mia enter the ship, they are surrounded with the rest of the crew who wanted to check on them. Mia turns to Yoyo and Ophelia, and tells them she wants to talk to them in private but she was approached by an angry Madelina. At first, Mia panicked inside, wondering if Madelina somehow learned about her kiss with Zachary but instead Madelina was mad at Mia for “being rude to her parents”. Mia was confused so Madelina goes on to explain that her parents phoned her and they complained about Mia’s “disrespectful attitude”. Madelina confronts her about this, telling Mia that she understands if she doesn’t like her but she won’t put up with her giving her family the same horrible treatment she’s giving her. Mia rolls her eyes and tells Yoyo and Ophelia to follow her to her cabin and Madelina cusses her out as they left the wreck room. Zachary catches Madelina shouting at Mia and asks her what was she doing that for, but Madelina was just as mad at him for “allowing Mia to harass her parents”. Zachary questions what she meant and when she told him about the phone call, he reveals that her parents have misled her. He explains that what actually happened is that her father have said horrible stuff about her (Madelina) and the only thing Mia did was talk back at him and defend her. After giving the explanation, Zachary went to the deck to help Mary and Maverick handle the ship, leaving Madelina feeling guilty for lashing out at Mia and she decided she must go and apologize to her.

Meanwhile inside Mia’s cabin, Mia tells both Yoyo and Ophelia to sit on her bed. They obey her and ask what was wrong and after a short pause, Mia nervously tells them that she kissed Zachary. Yoyo reacted silently, but Ophelia freaked out when she heard this and she asks Mia what was she thinking. Mia tells her that everything just happened so suddenly and she couldn’t hide her feelings any longer from him, explaining to her and Yoyo what happened in detail. Yoyo remained silent, Ophelia also stopped talking for a few seconds before she asked Mia what happened afterwards. This is when she told them about the ultimatum that she gave him, which made both gasp and Ophelia started yelling and criticizing Mia. What the girls didn’t know was that Madelina was outside the door and heard every single thing they talked about, including the kiss. She could not believe what she heard and tears started rolling down her cheeks. She wanted to barge into the room and throw hands at Mia, but she was feeling unwell so instead she walked away from the door and went to the dining room. There, April was making dinner for the crew but notices Madelina and asks her how she was. Suddenly, Madelina faints and April starts freaking out, yelling for everyone to come to the dining room.

Meanwhile in Graecita, Vicci Soprano is hanging out with Captain, Tyrees and Cedrick at the nightclub, while Niilo is clubbing with his girlfriend Gina. Outside, Marionette and Shirley have just arrived to the club through a carriage and Shirley was nervous as not only was this first time going to the club, but she has also “borrowed” some clothes from the queen and the six-inch heels she was wearing were making her feel uncomfortable. When she enters the club, Tyrees (who recently broke up with his girlfriend) asked his buddies if Marionette was “Kaleb’s whore”. The others nodded their heads and Tyrees commented that she looks “super hot” and whistled to get her attention. Marionette approaches them and he compliments her, asking her about how things were going with Kaleb. Marionette rolls his eyes and tells him that the two of them are “on a break” at the moment and right now she’s looking to have fun until she decides if she wants to be in a relationship with Kaleb or not. She then grins at Tyrees and asks him if he wants to hang out with her and he responds with a grin and joins her to the dancefloor. When the two left, Vicci looks at his wife Shirley, surprised to see her here. Shirley notices him and quickly turns away from him and walks away. Vicci sighs and excuses himself from his friends, leaving the nightclub and heading to the boot camp where he entered the stables to feed a winged horse by the name of Naunaeon. While feeding the horse, he things about Shirley and he wonders why she’s been ghosting him lately and if he did something that angered her. He hears someone coming from behind him and he draws his sword at the person. The person was Niilo and he starts screaming, begging Vicci to put the sword down. Vicci glares at him and asks what he’s doing here and Niilo blushes, explaining that he saw him leave the nightclub and wondered what’s wrong. Vicci rolls his eyes and simply tells him that he didn’t feel like partying. Once he was done feeding Naunaeon, he walks away from the stable but then feels someone poking him and he turns to see Niilo drawing his sword, saying he won’t let him walk away until he tells him what’s the problem. Vicci rolls his eyes and chuckles before drawing his sword too and the two started play fighting. But they get distracted when an envelope falls at Niilo’s head and they see that it came from a drove that flew away. Niilo looks at the letter and realizes that it is addressed to Vicci and gives it to him. Vicci opens the envelope and reads the letter. Once he finishes reading, he excuses himself from Niilo and begins running to look for someone.

## Summary

### Victim

* **Carmelo Fandino** (Found naked and castrated with the word “CERDO” carved on his chest)

## Suspects

HyaleLala AntuñezMarigold CarsonMichelle AlonzoMaría-Luisa Fandino
## Quasi-suspects

Hermosa AlonzoAmad AlonzoArchibald GilchristCerusMaetheron & HelmaerZachary RileyMia LoukasMadelina AlonzoMarionette PatrickVicci Soprano
## Killer’s Profile

* The killer smokes cigarettes.
* The killer drinks sangria.
* The killer is a photographer.
* The killer wears pink.
* The killer has a bandage on.