Cry Me A River

**Cry Me a River** is a case featured in *Criminal Case*. It takes place in the *The Kidnapping of Persephone* chapter of Graecita.

## Plot

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

9 months have passed and after staying at the palace for so long, Marionette was finally given her own place and she began unpacking her things. Suddenly, someone knocks on her door and hesitantly went to see who it is. The visitor turned out to be her friend- Madelina, who her that Marionette moved out of the palace, went out her way to find her new address and came to congratulate her. The girls chatted for a while and eventually Madelina expressed how happy she was that her friend finally moved far away from Kaleb and the royal family. Marionette expression became gloomy, Madelina noticed this and questioned of she’s seriously still in love with Kaleb. Marionette defended her affection to Kaleb, telling her friend that it’s months and with Yvette out of the picture, she believes Kaleb has potential of changing. Not wanting to cause an argument, the two decided to the subject and Marionette asked Madelina why she was in her beachwear. Madelina revealed that today is Mia Loukas’ 21st birthday and they’re having a party at the *HL’s Revenge* to celebrate it. Madelina kept track on the time and announced that she has to leave for the party, asking Marionette if she’s keeping any alcohol bottle by any chance. Marionette gave Madelina a champagne bottle, who then headed to the door but before she could leave, Marionette made a comment on how she is being hypocritical for shaming her for not giving up on Kaleb, while she is still desperately trying to be friends with Mia. Madelina found Marionette’s statement unreasonable, considering the things Mia has done do not even compare to Kaleb, but she chose not to point this out and simply told Marionette that she’ll “see her later”.

Meanwhile, Yoyo and Ophelia are at Jennifer Tanaka’s estate with April, trying on new swimsuits to wear for Mia’s birthday party. April found the right one easily, while Ophelia is having trouble looking for a modest swimsuit. Yoyo found a bikini that she thought was cute, but wasn’t sure if it was flattering on her body. She asked her sisters for their opinions for the zillionth time, and they kept encouraging her to go out in it. Ophelia asked the sisters if they had anymore swimsuit stock, and Gina tried to reach to a box on the top shelf, but couldn’t get to it. In the estate’s living room, her boyfriend Niilo is playing cards with her brother, Cedrick and Gina called for her boyfriend to help her get the box. Both guys have just come back from training and were pretty tired, but when Gina mentioned that she’ll sleep with Niilo if he carries her to the shelf, he quickly helped her up. Once she got the box, Niilo then began carrying her to her room and she playfully hit him to let her down while laughing. Ophelia searched the box for any modest swimsuit but failed to find one, so she gave up, wore the swimsuit that covered the most and prayed that no one would make a move on her. Yoyo also made up her mind, deciding to go out wearing the bikini she liked the most, despite her insecurities. The girls left the shop and began heading to the *HL’s Revenge*.

At the *Hamilton Laurent’s Revenge*, Zachary is setting up Mia’s birthday party with the help of Natalie, Mary and Maverick, wanting everything to be perfect for her arrival. Yoyo, Ophelia and April finally arrived. When Maverick saw what Yoyo and Ophelia were wearing, he whistled at them and flirted a little, which pissed April off. The couple began arguing and Zachary had to come in between them, reminding them that this is Mia’s day and he doesn’t want them to ruin it by quarreling. Yoyo and Ophelia spot Hasuro and Mia walking toward the ship and alert their friends, who quickly went into hiding. When Mia made it to the ship, she was confused when she say it was empty, but even more confused when she saw the decoration. Suddenly, everyone came out from their hiding spot, shouting “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” at her. This caught Mia by surprised, who was happy that her friends remembered her birthday and the celebrations started. As they were getting away from land, Zachary decides to speak with Mia privately, apologizing if she was hurt about what he and Madelina did at the theatre 9 months ago, but Mia assures him that she’s “moved on” (which is a lie), and she is happy for him, which both relieved Zachary and disappointed him. Madelina eventually shows up at the dock, but by the time she arrived, the ship was already a distance away. She tries to get the crews attention, but they don’t hear her. Frustrated, she looks for ways to get to the ship, finding a rowing boat, parked near the docks. She gets in the boat and starts rowing toward the ship and when she gets close enough for them to hear her, she stands up and yells for them to wait for her. Finally, she gains their attention and she begins rowing while still standing up. This makes the boat lose balance and she was about to fall into the water but Zachary uses his powers to catch her and brings her to the ship. When Madelina arrives, the mood shifts and everyone in the ship becomes silent, Madelina apologizes for being late and then turns to Mia, wishing her a happy birthday. Mia was still mad at Madelina for dating Zachary, but didn’t want to cause a scene so she simply smiles, thanks Madelina and then the crew decides to ignore Madelina’s presence, continuing their celebration. Everyone then begins giving Mia their gifts and Madelina’s turn comes and she gifts Mia a guitar. She explains that she’s heard Maverick ruined her guitar to get a siren’s harp fixed, so she asked Maylin (who she maintained a close relationship with, despite the fact she’s dating her ex) to make a new one for her, asking Mia if she likes it. Mia thanked Madelina for the gift, but she tells her that her old guitar is still functional, putting the gift on the side. Madelina was disappointed that Mia didn’t like the gift, but hid the pain and brought out the champagne bottle she was saving, announcing that since she’s 21 now, she can finally have her first drink. This caused everyone in the ship to laugh and when Madelina asked what was funny, they asked her if she seriously thinks any of them waited until they’re legal to drink, making her feel embarrassed. The crew decided to celebrate Mia’s “first drink” anyway, so Madelina shook the bottle for it to open. When the lid din’t pop, she shook it some more and decided to take a close look into the bottle to see why it’s still not opening and the lid ends up ejecting onto her head, making her bleed. Worried, Zachary rushed to see if she was okay and Mia glared at Madelina with envy. Madelina assures Zachary she’s fine and hands Mia the bottle, and everybody cheered as Mia has her “first sip”, when suddenly they hear Natalie screaming. Zachary quickly checks what’s happening, realizing that the ship was above a whirlpool which was sucking Natalie in. Zachary shouts for Mary to move the ship before he goes to save Natalie, managing to get her into the ship. But it was for no use, as the whirlpool ends up sucking in the whole ship anyway and everyone in the party began screaming...

An hour almost passes after the ship was swallowed by the whirlpool. Mia finds herself falling into a dark hole with no signs of her friends, on the shadows of three winged who were cackling as they’re watching her in despair. Eventually, Mia manages to find Ophelia in the drop and they hold onto each other, wondering where they’re being taken to. One of the winged women comes close to them and are about to hurt them, but a voice orders her to leave them alone. The girls turn to see who’s voice it is and they were surprised when it turned out to be their old friend, Elvira Milton. Elvira greets them with a smile, expressing how glad she is to see them again and wishing Mia a happy birthday. The girls asks Elvira if she was responsible for what’s happening to them, which she admits to and when questioned why and what she is doing to them, she tells them that she’s taking them to the underworld. Elvira reveals that the queen of the underworld, Persephone somehow got murdered and if Hades finds out, he’s going to be enraged and probably go in a wrath. So she wants the assassin to be caught before Hades comes to learn about the murder, and who better to trust in this job than the team? Elvira then informs them that her body was found in the River Styx and that she’ll be meeting them there, before disappearing and leaving her friends to fall.

At the underworld, the *HR’s Revenge* landed on a river, all its members passed out, yet completely unharmed. The crew gain their conscious back, confused about where they were and getting chills from the place. Ophelia and Mia already know where they landed, and Zachary recognizes the area, that when Natalie was about to hop into the river, he grabs her, warning her that the water here is poisonous. When asked by the crew how he knew this, he tells everyone that they are in the underworld and the ship must be floating on the River Styx, which is known for being harmful to mortals. Hearing this, the crew freak out, believing they must be dead, but Ophelia and Mia remember the reason why they were brought here, and inform the rest of their friends. Obviously, the crew were not pleased that Elvira brought them here without asking if they were okay with it, but regardless they decided to help her out. They followed the River Styx to look for Persephone’s body and they find a dead woman laying on the river, which they believed must be her.

Shortly after they found the body, the crew met with Elvira, who had been waiting for their arrival. Ophelia and Mia interrogated her, where Ophelia yelled at her for never visiting and Elvira tried excuse her being an absent friend by bringing up the fact that she’s only allowed to visit the mortal world at fall and winters, where Persephone is at the underworld. Ophelia and Mia asked Elvira questions regarding the murder and her relationship with the underworld queen before moving on to investigate the murder. The duo found reasons to suspect Charon, the underworld ferryman and from them him they learned that the last place the queen had visited was a hotel where she was seeing her lover, Adonis. While they were discussing their progress, they were then surrounded by the same winged women they’ve met earlier, who informed them that Hades would like to see them at his throne room.

Nervous, Ophelia and Mia follow the winged women into the throne room where they find an angry Hades on his throne with a worried Elvira sitting by his side. As they expected, Hades was made aware of his wife’s murder and was furious about the needs. Fortunately, he knew about Mia’s great detective skills, so instead of going on a wrath, he gave the crew a chance to look for Persephone’s killer and granted them permission to inspect her office for clues. Relieved, Ophelia and Mia went back to their investigation where they found reasons to suspect Thanatos, the Greek god if death and Hades’ righthand man. The duo also learned that Adonis used to date the goddess Aphrodite prior to his death, who he’s been exchanging love letters with against Persephone’s knowledge and that Elvira has been spying on Persephone as she felt there was something “off” about her. While they were recapping the case, Ophelia and Mia were approached by Cerberus, a hostile three-headed hellhound.

At first Ophelia and Mia were terrified when they got approached by Cerberus, but luckily Ophelia had a packet of beef jerky which she offered to the creature and it took a liking to her. After surviving the Cerberus “attack”, the duo returned to the investigation where they found out that Hades signed Persephone and himself for couple counseling, hinting at a rocky marriage. Moreover, they discovered that Persephone went into a wrath back at the mortal world, resulting in many getting killed and in order to avoid trouble with Olympus, she bribed Thanatos to cover it up and forced Charon to ferry the souls of the deceased without payment. In the end, Persephone’s killer turned out to be her paramour, Adonis.

Adonis denied the accusation by professing how much he loves Persephone and how he would never harm her, but after Ophelia and Mia showed their evidence, he confessed to the murder, claiming that the victim was not Persephone. The duo was confused and so they asked him to elaborate, but Adonis couldn’t explain how, but he knows that whoever he killed was not the queen of the underworld, and the fact he even managed to kill her should serve as proof to that. He explained that as a goddess, Persephone is immune to the dangers of River Styx and should be able to bathe in it without facing harm, so however died there is not Persephone and merely someone taking on her disguise. Still confused, the duo took Adonis to Hades for judgement and since Adonis was already dead and simply brought back to life to act as Persephone’s lover, Hades punished him by exiling him to the Fields of Punishment.

After handing Adonis over to Hades, Ophelia and Mia head back to the ship, and the team began speaking about the murder. The two brought up Adonis’ motive and the team agreed something strange is going on and were confused how the river managed to kill the queen of the underworld. Zachary then told the others that as a son of Poseidon, he has the the ability of signaling other water deities, and that they could talk with Styx herself and ask her how Persephone has died. The team agreed with this, but suddenly they heard screams from the underworld city. The screams specifically came from near the hotel Adonis had been staying at and concerned for the safety of the citizens, Natalie suggested that she and Mia go check what happened there.

Worried about what’s happening in the underworld, Natalie and Mia went to the local hotel where they noticed the windows were completely shattered. The duo asked the sexy receptionist what broke into the hotel, but she was of no help as she was more interested in drinking her tea to be bothered about the hotel affairs and had no idea what broke the windows except that it was a “wild animal”. Natalie and Mia decided to find out by their own and underneath and pile of broken bricks they found an amulet which had a strange symbol carved on it. Neither of the girls are familiar with the symbol and assuming it may be associated with witchcraft, they had Madelina examine it. Madelina was embarrassed when asked to identify the symbol as she went through an “astrology girl” phase when she was a preteen and she recognized the symbol as the constellation of “Taurus”. This left Natalie and Mia confused as they didn’t know how to relate this to the attack, but Ophelia overheard what they talked and she remembered that Elvira told her something about the constellation of Taurus. The duo decided to go with Ophelia to pay Elvira a visit and they asked her about the amulet. Elvira recognized the amulet and says it belongs to a bull called Cerus. Cerus was a wild bull known for destroying anything that was in his sight, until Persephone tamed him and made him her pet, and the constellation of Taurus was created to honor their bond. With Persephone dead, Cerus must’ve went back to his old ways and he was the one attacking the people of the underworld. Elvira thanked the team for alerting her about and went to warn Hades about Cerus’ rampage.

Looking for answers regarding Persephone’s “death”, Mia joined Zachary to the River Styx. Zachary used his powers to send a signal to the goddess and she appeared, visibly annoyed. Styx demanded to know why they had called her, and nervously, Zachary told her that they have questions about Persephone. He explained that from his knowledge, he knows that if a mortal swam into her river he/she is either killed or is rewarded a gift of immortality. But if a god(dess) swan in the river, they’re supposed to come out unharmed, so they are wondering how she killed Persephone after she was pushed into the river. The goddess broke a laugh, and she asked them if they considered the possibility the woman Adonis pushed into her river was not a god. Zachary thought this impossible, reminding her of who Persephone is, but Styx dismissed this, claiming if Persephone was truly a “goddess” she would have survived. Zachary and Mia eventually came to the realization that whoever Adonis killed may not actually be Persephone and they asked Styx to confirm this. Styx agreed this may be the case but couldn’t tell for sure, so Zachary and Mia decided to consult the god of death himself, Thanatos. Thanatos couldn’t give them the answers they were looking for, but he gave them permission to look into his for the “recently deceased” list to verify whether Persephone was actually killed or not. Zachary and Mia went to his workplace and found his laptop and after unlocking it, they send it to Yoyo so she could go through the list of the deceased. Shocked, Yoyo told them that she went into the files of every creature that passed today and she couldn’t find Persephone’s name anywhere. However, there was one person in the list who died in the underworld- A mint plant nymph by the name of Minthe and when they saw her profile picture, she looked somewhat like the victim except her she had green hair and skin. Zachary and Mia guessed that Minthe must’ve been their actual victim and went to speak with Hasuro to let them look at “Persephone’s” body and spot any signs of “glamour”. Zachary noticed the necklace the corpse is swearing and ripped it out of her and suddenly “Persephone” turned from pink to green, revealing that she was indeed Minthe all along...

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

After learning the truth about “Persephone’s” death, the crew head to the throne room to talk with Hades. When told that the woman Adonis actually killed was Minthe, he was shocked, revealing that he used to date Minthe before he met Persephone and recounted the story where Persephone turned her into a mint plant after Minthe claimed herself to be “better” than the goddess. Hades was delighted to know that his wife was still alive, but at the same time was furious since he knew something else happened to her that prevented her from coming to the underworld. He decided that Demeter must have something to do with this and swore that he’ll make her pay. He was about to go and confront her, but Elvira restrained him and calmed him down, telling him that he shouldn’t jump to conclusions. Eventually Hades began chilling out and he turned to the crew, revealing that he has a quest for them. Some of the crew members groaned, but realizing they probably had no other choice, they agreed to listen. Hades told them that he’ll transport them to Mount Olympus and that right down the mountain they would find Demeter’s realms. Hades still suspects Demeter had be responsible for Persephone’s absence, but doesn’t want to act without being completely sure and wants to avoid as much bloodshed as possible. So he tells the team that he wants them to go there and see whether Demeter is hiding anything and if they find any signs of Persephone being trapped in the realm, he wants them to report to him immediately. Before the crew could say anything, the ground behind them starts cracking and they fall into another drop.

Just like the previous drop, the crew passed out from that one and woke up finding themselves in the dark at a mountainous city and they guessed they must have arrived at Mount Olympus. The crew remembered Hades’ quest for them, but as it was nighttime, they decided to have a rest and wait until the morning to look for Demeter’s realms. Unfortunately, they didn’t have a place to stay at, especially as they left the ship at the underworld with Mary, so they began walking, hoping to find an inn where they could sleep at. Suddenly, someone calls out Madelina’s name and when they turned to see who it was, they saw that the voice came from one of the houses and Artemis sticking out from one of its windows. Artemis questions the team what they were doing out in the dark and invites them into her home. Artemis lets the girls inside but when it came to the boys, she blocks their way, observes them and hesitates as she lets them in. When the team enter her house, they realize she wasn’t alone. Sitting on her couch were three gods- Two blond guys who could pass as frat boys and a fat, pink-haired man who was wearing an adult diaper. The crew instantly recognized Apollo and Hermes, and as for the fat dude, they guesses it must be Eros, the god of love from his white wings. The three gods were playing video games on Artemis’ TV and when they notice who the new visitors are, Apollo and Hermes spawn two extra controllers and invite their sons to play with them. While the boys are playing, the girls have a talk with Artemis while she is cleaning dishes and she asks them what brings them to Olympus. When she hears that they are looking for Persephone, she drops a plate and asks them what has happened to her. When they tell her the full story, Artemis becomes worried and she reveals that she’s very close to Persephone and that they used to be housemates before she moved to the underworld. Hoping that she could help find her, Artemis promises the girls that once morning comes, she will take them to Demeter’s realm and tells them that they should get some sleep. Meanwhile, Apollo rages while he is playing video games and throws his controller into the TV- smashing it. Furious, Artemis goes off at Apollo and scolds him about what he’s done and the crew walk away.

## Summary

### Victim

* **Queen Persephone** (Pushed into River Styx)

## Killer’s Profile

* The killer eats pickled human remains.
* The killer uses *Eternal Youth* moisturizer.
* The killer has a pet hellhound.
* The killer weighs over 170 pounds.
* The killer has a scar.