December 1

Morix Law Offices

5:40 PM

Chrysalis Starr

As soon as I was able to move past my shock, I practically threw myself off the couch, all thoughts of my injured leg shoved to the wayside in the blink of an eye. "Pieter! You're really here!" I cried out in surprise. My arms found a home around his body, and I felt him return the embrace. I had been waiting for this moment for so long that I practically didn't know what to do with myself, and it felt as if the world itself had stopped just to honor this moment. It didn't even feel real, if I was being honest. Was this all some type of cruel prank perhaps brought on by my injured state? I didn't want to believe that, but it had been upwards of four years since I last saw Pieter, and I really didn't know what to do with him finally back.

"Yeah... I am," Pieter whispered to me, a light smile on his face. He sounded just as I remembered him, though there was an added note of brightness to his tone. He pulled away from our embrace slowly before meeting my eyes with another smile. "I've missed you... I'm glad to see that you're alright."

"Where have you been?" Cotoli questioned as he rose to his feet. His voice was laced with concern, not that I could blame him in the slightest. After all, we had been led to believe for so many years that Pieter was gone, and suddenly seeing him again alive and well was beyond shocking. I hadn't wanted to believe that something awful could have happened to him, but holding onto faith for that long was difficult. I knew that he wasn't dead since I had tried many times to channel him under the pretense of trying to eliminate all possible outcomes, but his exact location had evaded me for far too long as far as I was concerned.

"With me," Victoria finally replied. All eyes turned to her, and I remembered what she had said when introducing Pieter to us a few moments prior. "He's been staying with me and my mother. We've... We've been more than happy to have him around. He told me that he knew some of you at one point, but he never wanted to fully explain it. I'm glad that he's finally willing to be back here with all of you though. I've been trying to encourage him for what feels like ages, but he never quite found himself ready to follow through."

The emotion that rose in my chest at her words was impossible to describe. "You knew?" I questioned of her quietly. I doubted that Victoria was fully aware of the true depth of the connection between myself and Pieter, but it was still a shock that came like a rough punch to the stomach. Why did it feel like everything was falling apart so suddenly? What in the world did I do to deserve this?

"It's a long story," Pieter sighed with a shake of his head. He guided me back to the couch, and we sat down next to each other. I remained pressed closely against him, halfway convinced that he would turn to nothing more than dust if I turned away for even a split second. That was what had happened the first time, and I would never forget how awful everything had been when he was gone. Hope had been difficult to come by in the first place, but this was an added level of despair and pessimism.

"Uh... If you don't mind my asking, just who is Pieter?" Felicity chimed in, raising one hand above her head as if she was a student asking a question of a teacher in the middle of a lecture. "I don't think that I've ever heard about him, but the way that you guys are talking about him certainly makes it sound like he's pretty important."

"He's our brother," Sora explained, and Felicity's eyes just about fell out of her head in her endless shock. "He's been gone for a long time though... In fact, this is our first time seeing him in more than four years. Isn't that right, Piet? It's been a super long time since you last came around here. We thought that you had abandoned us for a while there, if I'm being honest. Isn't that just so quirky?'

Pieter winced at her words, but he didn't openly protest at first. I could tell that Sora's emotions on the matter were complicated. She was glad that Pieter was back at home where all of us could keep an eye on him, but that didn't change the fact that she was likely feeling incredible stress as well. After all, Pieter's departure had caused quite a bit of emotional fallout among the other members of our family, and given how easily influenced Sora was by the feelings of others, it was bound to have a large impact on her. She had been there for me in the aftermath of Pieter's disappearance, but there was still a lot that she couldn't do to help no matter how hard she tried. It seemed that she wouldn't be able to forget about that no matter how much she wanted to.

"I would like an explanation as well," Elec remarked, a frown forming on his face. When Felicity and Sky nodded along, I realized that this conversation was going to be a long one. After all, the story involving Pieter was one that required quite the large amount of exposition, and somebody was going to have to get into all of the details for the newcomers unfamiliar with the events that had transpired in the past.

"In that case, why don't we just start by talking about everything that led up to us meeting Pieter?" Cotoli questioned. "There's quite a bit that contributes to this, and I believe that it's key that we cover all of our bases before we go any further. How does that sound?" When others nodded along, I bit down on my lip. It was fitting that we were having this discussion so soon after the explanation had taken place with Felicity and Sky about Oracle and all that was involved with that disaster.

"That sounds like a plan to me," Felicity commented. She leaned back, tucking her arms up behind her head as she grinned wildly. I could tell that this was bound to be a story that she enjoyed. At the very least, she was going to make sure that it seemed as if she was having fun. This wasn't exactly a pleasant tale, but I was glad that Felicity at least had the strength to project such an aura of confidence right off the bat.

Cotoli looked down at his hands, and I knew where this was going. The story of how we had met Pieter was coincidentally also the tale of how we had discovered the existence of Occisor, and it also described the events that led up to the creation of the Oracle project. To put it simply, there was a lot that played in with this story, and it wasn't going to be a pretty one for those who were unaware of what was to come. That wasn't going to stop us from going into detail since that was clearly what they wanted to hear, but we were going to have to tread carefully, as if we were walking atop eggshells rather than pavement.

"Alright," Cotoli finally forced himself to say through tense lips. "The story begins about four years ago now. This was two years before Deirdre and Lily came to start working at the agency. We begin our tale in March... The first time that we ever crossed paths with Venus Rinko."

March 11

Blackgate Ice Center

9:35 AM

Chrysalis Starr

As soon as Cotoli and I walked into the ice rink, I let out a gasp. This place truly was incredible. I couldn't believe that we had been lucky enough to be given the chance to actually see the upcoming show being put on at the rink! It was an incredible stroke of fate on our part, but I wasn't complaining about it in the slightest. After all, this was a good thing, and we had to enjoy it while we had the chance.

It hadn't been long since Cotoli finally passed the bar exam and was given the chance to become a full-fledged attorney. We had been wrapped up in cases before, but this was something different. We were actually going to have the authority to solve things this time around, and I would be pitching in as his assistant. After all, I was his younger sister, and given that he was the one with custody over me, that meant that he had an obligation to make sure that I was doing well at all times. What better way was there for him to check on me than me working alongside him? He could use the help, and I could use the extra distraction outside of school hours.

In celebration of Cotoli managing to become a full-on defense attorney, we decided to see what we could do as a reward for ourselves, him as the one who had passed and myself as his study partner. The solution had wound up being discounted tickets to a local ice skating show that was being put on at a famous performance hall in the area. This show was set to start in our city before moving on and traveling across the country for many others to see.

This was meant to be the opening show, and I had to admit that I was excited. After all the work that Cotoli had put in, we deserved this break. Cotoli had yet to be hired by a full-on law firm, but I was sure that we would be able to work that out soon enough. For the time being, we both deserved the chance to enjoy ourselves, and this seemed to be the perfect way for us to start doing that.

"I didn't realize that this hall would be so nice," Cotoli murmured. He looked down at his watch and let out a sigh. "The performance doesn't start until eleven, so I believe that we have a bit of time to wander around and see what we can find in the way of refreshments. The food here isn't going to be cheap, but we can at least get some of it before the lines get to be too long."

I nodded my agreement and started to walk towards the doors leading to the skating rink itself. "Maybe we can see where our seats are first. That would make things much easier for us when we have to come back, wouldn't it?" I pointed out.

Cotoli nodded, a gentle smile spreading across his face. I hadn't seen him this relaxed and happy since before he started studying for the bar exam, and I was glad that he was finally being given the chance to take a step back and enjoy himself. I hated seeing him stressed, after all, and this was a perfect way for him to start to decompress.

I pushed the door open and began to glance around. There were countless chairs bolted to the ground, most of them the type where the seat segment was folded up until someone sat down. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the ticket that I had needed to get inside. We were in the fifth row. We truly were lucky to be able to get such cheap seats as far as I could tell. Perhaps there had been a cancelation at the last minute to give us the chance. I didn't think that it mattered, but I was silently awestruck regardless.

There was someone skating on the ice as we made our way down to our seats, and I noticed upon closer examination that it was a girl with tanned skin that seemed to practically glow under the overhead lights. Her hair was primarily dark brown in color in thick curls that followed her every movement effortlessly. Pink streaks could be seen on either side of her face, wrapped around in a pair of braids before coming together at the back of her head. A single clip held her hair in place, and it was a bright blue crystal design that resembled a snowflake.

The girl wore a blue and pink skating outfit with a pink bodice and matching sleeves. The skirt was pale blue and flowed around her knees perfectly. She wore tights to match her skin tone along with skates of a bright white color. The girl kicked off the ice into a spinning motion before landing a few moments later, one leg stretched behind her in a grand gesture. She forced her skates off to the side when she was finished, and her arms fell gracefully back to her sides.

She was stunning.

I felt my jaw grow slack as I realized that the girl was likely around my age. She turned to face me, and I saw how beautiful her deep brown eyes were as we met gazes. I felt as if I had been turned into a statue as I stared at her, noticing the winged eyeliner and pink eyeshadow that marked her features. If I was being honest, she looked like a goddess that had descended from the heavens for the sole purpose of putting on a good show.

I barely had the chance to process that the girl was coming closer before she came to lean forward on the partition separating the audience from the ice rink. Her elbows were pressed against the cement as her lower arms hung loosely and simply. "I didn't realize I had visitors," she remarked. She gestured for Cotoli and me to come closer, and I moved without a moment of hesitation. I could hear Cotoli chuckling to himself under his breath, but I couldn't bring myself to care. This gorgeous angel of a girl wanted to speak with me.

"We're... We're... Um..." I could feel heat rising in my cheeks, and speaking suddenly became impossible. I would have been lying if I said that I was used to speaking with others in a social environment, and that gap in my functioning skills seemed apparent as could be as the girl waited for a response.

"We're here to see the show," Cotoli explained with a light smile to take the attention away from me. I was glad for that display of intervention, and I hoped that the skater girl would be willing to blame my flushed cheeks on the cold of the rink rather than the fact that I was already in love with her perfect appearance. Cotoli stuck his hand out in her direction in case she wanted to shake it. "My name is Cotoli, and this is my younger sister, Chrysalis. It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss...?"

"Rinko," the girl replied. "Venus Rinko. It's nice to meet you too." She responded by shaking Cotoli's hand with a smile as bright as the sun itself, and her gaze shifted to me. "You must be awfully cold over there. It doesn't surprise me. Not everybody is prepared for the chill of the ice rink when they come in."

I couldn't tell if I was grateful for her cluelessness or cursing how oblivious she was when I replied. "Yeah... Super cold in here," I muttered. Super cold, unlike you, apparently. Venus simply laughed at my words, and I looked down as the pink in my cheeks became even more prominent.

"Well, if you're going to be seeing the show, you might want to get to your seats soon. Maybe not right now since there's still a lot of time before the actual skating starts, but... You know how quickly lines can get long at a performance like this," Venus commented. She looked over to me once again, and I felt like the sun itself was trying to push me to say something in response. Was her smile always that bright, or was my embarrassment just getting worse as the seconds passed by?

"Thank you for talking to us," Cotoli told Venus with a gentle smile of his own. "I'm sure that you're going to do great during this performance. Chrysalis, wouldn't you agree?" He nudged at me gently, and I could tell that this was his way of trying to pull me out of my embarrassed turtling. I appreciated it, but the gleam in his eyes most certainly seemed to double as him teasing me for so suddenly finding this girl to be adorable and sweet.

"Yeah... You did a really great job on that jump just a minute ago, so I bet that the show itself is going to be even better," I replied, finally managing to get something close to a grip on the mess that was swirling through my mind. "How long have you been skating? You seem to be about my age, and... I don't think that I could ever be that good at something so young."

Venus shrugged and shook her head. "I don't know if I would go that far... I'm just trying my best to become better. That's what all of us want, isn't it? We want to become as good as we can at the things that we love, for both our personal satisfaction and the joy of those around us," she explained. "I've been skating ever since I was six though. I used to do it a lot with my younger sisters, but they weren't ever quite as... Let's just say that they didn't enjoy it quite as much as I did." She laughed once again, and the sound reminded me a surprising amount of what I suspected angels would sound like if they were ever made real and descended onto the surface of this fair Earth.

"How old are you anyways?" I questioned. It was a dumb thing to ask as far as I could tell, but my eyes were wide as could be as I tried to figure out how to respond to her words. Venus' talent was incredible, and I wasn't quite sure of how I was meant to articulate that in my overly flustered state.

Venus shook her head, seeming to not mind at all that I was bringing this up in the first place. "I'm seventeen. I got lucky when I auditioned for this group of performance. We're supposed to go on a tour all over the country over the next few months, but we're starting out here since this is where most of us live," she explained. "I'm glad that we decided to stick around here. You certainly seem to be a sweet girl, Chrysalis."

I could have sworn that my brain blanked out at those words, and I probably looked like I had suddenly become a human computer before managing to short-circuit. Cotoli looked over at me with a confused yet fond gaze, and I forced my eyes down to the floor to make myself look like at least a little bit less of an idiot than I usually did. It had to count for something, didn't it?

When I finally brought myself back down to Earth, I realized that Venus was only two years older than I was. I was fifteen while she was seventeen. There was an aura of maturity to her, likely because of the makeup, that made her seem older than that, but it didn't change how incredible she looked. I didn't think that anything would ever be able to alter such a fact. I had to actively force myself to keep from staring, and that was certainly saying something given that I was hardly prone to random crushes this way. Was it even considered a crush? I just thought that she was pretty and sweet and charming and talented and... Yeah, okay, that's probably a crush.

A whistle pierced the air, and my thought process was shattered. Venus winced in response before shaking her head. "Damn... It looks to me like I'm going to have to get back to the backstage area," she explained. "I'm technically not even supposed to be skating around when there are people here, but I had to get in a little bit of practice on that trick you saw earlier. It can be on the hard side if you aren't prepared, and I wouldn't want to disappoint a live audience, you know?" She winked in my direction, and I was practically convinced that my face was the same color as a cherry by this point. How could she do all of this so effortlessly? She didn't bat an eyelash at all of the embarrassing that she was doing, and I didn't know how she was so fine with it. If I had said anything like this, or even thought about saying it, I probably would have started stammering until I could barely form a coherent thought.

"Thank you for letting us see you practice," I finally managed to spit out, though it came with great difficulty. "We... We'll be looking forward to seeing you perform. I'm sure that you'll do great." I smiled and gave her a thumbs-up, immediately cursing how awkward I was. I had resisted the urge to say that I was looking forward to seeing her skate, and Cotoli seemed to be able to tell. This was going to merit a discussion between the two of us as soon as Venus left to go back to work.

"I'll try to find you in the crowd," Venus told me. She gave me one final grin and wave as she turned around and skated away. I found myself enthralled by the way that her brown hair swayed in her wake, and I knew that I was standing there slack-jawed, but I couldn't do much of anything to stop myself.

It wasn't until after Venus had disappeared from sight that Cotoli looked down to me with a devilish smirk on his face. "Someone has a crush," he commented. "I didn't think that you were prone to the whims of romance. If I recall correctly, you haven't ever liked someone like that."

"Yeah," I muttered to myself, refusing to meet his gaze. I had given Cotoli trouble over the years when he found himself looking at someone with admiration, but he had never been able to reciprocate the action because of how detached I had been from romance up to that point. Venus truly had to be incredible if she had that much of an impact on me, and all I could do was pray that I would be able to talk to her again after the show ended.

"She seems to like talking with us," Cotoli told me. "Maybe there's hope for you yet, Miss Hopeless Romantic." When I flushed even further at his words, he laughed and held out one hand towards me. "Come on. We should go and get some refreshments before other people start showing up. That's bound to make everything a lot easier on us later, wouldn't you say?"

I nodded, glad to have the distraction. I wanted to keep thinking about Venus, but I also didn't want to look like an absolute idiot, and one of those desires won out over the other. I followed Cotoli out of the theater and up to the surrounding area where the refreshment stations could be found. All thoughts about us finding our seats had been tossed to the wayside, and I was desperate to focus on locating some snacks for us. After all, if I was focusing on food, I wouldn't be able to think about how utterly embarrassing I had been when talking with Venus. She had to know that I thought she was pretty, right?

At the same time, I didn't know for sure if she had caught on. Venus was charming as all hell, but I couldn't tell if that was part of her natural demeanor or something related to my behavior towards her. If she hadn't noticed the way that I was acting, then she had to be really oblivious, but I wasn't going to criticize her for that. After all, that's just how some people are, and I'm not here to judge or anything.

Cotoli started walking with me towards one of the refreshment stations, and he began to muse to himself about the food that we were going to be getting from this particular spot. I watched him for a moment before focusing on the menu. He would probably be able to figure out what I wanted even if I didn't say anything given how I can be a bit of a picky eater, especially since we spend so much time together.

He was on the verge of getting ready to call for the worker running the station so that he could order when a sudden loud noise pierced the air. I threw my hands over my ears in a belated effort to try and stifle the overwhelming reaction from my mind. "What was that?!" I yelped in surprise as I looked up at Cotoli. He hesitated before shaking his head and shrugging, a clear sign that he didn't know. Of course he didn't know. There was nothing of note in the area, and we weren't exactly able to see what it was that had caused such a loud noise.

The seconds that followed were filled with screams, and I found myself backing away from the stand to run in the direction of the yelling. That couldn't be a good thing in the slightest. When was yelling in terror ever something positive? I wasn't sure what the cause of this could have been, but I had an awful feeling in my stomach that I was going to be finding out soon enough regardless of if I wanted to or not.

I heard footfall from beside me, and I knew that Cotoli had managed to catch up with me. His legs were much longer because of the massive height difference between us, so it made sense that he could find me easily. He didn't ask me why I had run off, likely because such a fact was obvious as all hell. Everything seemed like it was falling apart, so what other reason would we have for running away like that?

When I finally saw what it was that had pulled my attention away from the food stand, my hand clapped over my mouth. The smell of the area was so overwhelming that it made me gag, and part of me was convinced that I was going to be sick. I hated the stench of blood, I really did, and this area was absolutely covered in it.

There was a woman standing nearby wearing a blue and silver outfit for an ice skater similar to what Venus had been wearing. Her hair was a bright blue color with hints of turquoise, and it was tied into the same style as Venus' lengthy tresses had been. She was pointing into a nearby storage closet with one hand, and her finger was trembling so madly that I could have sworn that she was about to pass out from pure shock.

That was when I saw it.

There was a body leaning out of the closet, and I realized that the corpse falling over had likely caused the initial loud noise that freaked me out when we were getting ready to order our food. The victim in question was a woman who seemed to be in her mid-thirties, and she was clearly unmoving on the ground below.

The worst part had to be the injury on her head. To put it simply, it was something straight out of a horror movie. There was a tan ice skate lodged into her skull, the skate segment creating a giant cut in the back of her head near the base of her neck. It was enough to make me feel like I was going to be sick, and it felt like the ground was going to rush up to meet me if I wasn't careful enough to keep my balance before it was too late.

"What in the..." Cotoli whispered from beside me. He placed his hands on my shoulders and pulled me backwards a step, his overprotective big brother instincts finally starting to kick in. He didn't say anything after that, but I knew what he was thinking. In fact, it was what was racing through my mind as well, and the same likely applied to the blue-haired girl standing nearby.

There's been a murder. Someone was killed here at the skating rink. There's a killer on the loose who murdered this woman.

"What's all of the noise about?"

A familiar voice reached my ears, but I didn't look up to see Venus even after she began to walk around the corner, her skates using the carpet below as grip to make sure that she didn't completely fall over. "Fiora, are you-" Venus fell silent as soon as she saw the body, and her brown eyes grew haunted, losing all of their warmth and joy in the blink of an eye, so quickly that it made me feel nauseous on top of everything else.

"We have to call the police," Cotoli muttered as he reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. I was distantly aware of him talking into the receiver, but I didn't fully process a word that he was saying. My eyes were focused squarely on the body, and I knew that tears were streaming down my face from shock, fear, and horror.

Somebody's been killed. There's a murderer here at the ice rink. The killer is on the loose, and we don't know who it was.

Today was an absolute disaster.

Hell yeah fourth book time! Happy sixth birthday, Morix!

-Digital