After seeing Riven off, Patty made her way to the CSI lab, her knuckles lightly rattling on the door. The door handle clicked as the door was pulled open.
"Maria, how's it going?" Patty questioned as she stepped in.
"Ok, so get this." Closing the door, Maria walked over to the table, picking up the blood work test she had finished during the interrogation. "While there is histamine in his system, it wasn't the direct cause of death since the concentration in his blood isn't at near-fatal levels."
Patty nodded her head. Just histamine alone didn't sit right with her either. Even if the body was producing its own histamine, there still shouldn't have been enough to take out an adult male who was over two hundred pounds.
"I could run a targeted screen, but I would need to know what to look for. I could start with venoms, bees, and other Hymenoptera use." Maria said, her fingers moving rapidly across the keyboard for a list of venoms.
"Try looking for Ghost lily alkaloid," Patty suggested, remembering what Riven showed her.
Maria's eyes opened wide as she turned to look at Patty. "Wow, good call, Winters."
"Mr. Damocles mentioned it and pointed out the residue left on the victim's arm."
"Well then, I'm glad he remembered to mention it."
"Yeah, it might be really helpful."
"Oh, I have an idea," Maria suddenly said her a wide grin stretched across her face. "Why don't you ask him to be your civilian consultant while you work this case?"
"What!" Patty tossed her head left and right. "No way."
"Come on, Patty, just think about it. He has all the know-how and connections to help you. It'll be like the rich guy vigilante who works with the police. It'll be so cool."
"No," she shook her head once more. "No way, he wouldn't have the time, and I'd hate to pull him away from his family again. He's already missed sixteen years of his daughter's life, and there's no telling what will happen in the future."
"Alright. I'll… update you when the results are done."
"Ok, thanks, I'll talk to you later, Maria." Walking out of the crime lab, Patty's phone began to ring. Seeing the name, she let out a sigh. "Guess I'll have to deal with my own as well."
***
The next day, a gust of wind swept through the expansive land surrounding Rivens' mansion, its direction shifting and changing like a serpent. Everywhere it went, leaves vanished, the grass became perfectly cut, and the training grounds were cleared of any debris.
Once the gust had swept through every piece of land, its direction sharply changed, heading directly for the back of the mansion. Its speed increasing and its form condensing with every second.
From within a blurred figure became visible, its features hard to make out. Its foot stretched out as it skidded to a stop just before the pavement surrounding the mansion.
The remaining speed carried him up to the door. His hair swung back and forth before gently returning to its resting position.
Looking at the perfectly cared-for lawn, Riven smiled. "Sorry, Dutch, I know you wanted to clean the yard, but I needed to stretch a bit."
Hearing the door behind him open, Riven turned around, looking toward Aria and Nyra. "What brings you two out here?"
"Well, we heard you were cleaning up the leaves, but…" Aria looked past him at the spotless yard. "Doesn't seem like there are any leaves to clean."
"A gradual process, of course. Just finished the last part," he said with a smirk.
Walking forward, Nyra looked around to see if he had missed anything before turning back to him. "It's still amazing you did it all yourself."
"I guess that's the power of the title," He flexed his biceps, patting them.
"Even without being called our dad, you were already amazing, according to others." Riven nodded, his lips parting as he prepared to respond. "And now we're stuck dealing with unfairly high expectations for our lives."
"That's also not fair to blame Mr. Riven for," Nyra interjected, her brows creased. "It's up to us to decide how these expectations affect us. Furthermore, we're both top of our class and ahead of our peers by light-years; the only class where we aren't is Mr. Rivens, and his grades don't affect our overall one."
Aria crossed her arms. "It… still doesn't feel good to be compared to just because he's our father, when that's not even true. We already have Mom, who did borderline insane things."
"We don't know who are father is, but that's no reason to treat the only male in our life who's actively taking that role as trash just because he's close to mom. So you could try to be a bit grateful." Nyra's fist clenched tightly as she took a step closer.
"Grateful!?" Aria yelled out, clenching her fist. She walked closer to Nyra. "Our lives were suddenly uprooted and changed all at his behest!"
She pointed towards Riven, her voice full of accusation. Her face, mere inches away from Nyra's. It seemed as if a fist would fly at any moment.
"ENOUGH!!" Riven's voice ripped through the air. A dark aura surrounded him for a fraction of a second, suffocating the girls with a crushing pressure.
"From this point on, you will listen and not speak!" he growled, his eyes fiercely scanning the girls as they frantically nodded.
"There should be no reason for either of you two even to consider swinging your fists at each other. Nyra, despite being the quiet one, you're too quick to blow a fuse. Relax."
Seeing her nod, he turned his attention to Aria. "I understand you don't have a favorable opinion of me, and that's alright. At the end of the day, I'm just a passerby in your lives."
His expression softened as he continued. "I'm here now, but who knows in a few months, your mother might have enough to get you guys a place of your own. At that point, my involvement in your lives is…"
He trailed, but his point was clear. In the future, whether it be near or far, he would not be in their lives. He probably wouldn't even be in this universe, but they wouldn't know that; he'd just be gone.
Erased or blurred with events altered to not mess with the rest of their lives, and they would be none the wiser.
He let a slow, tired sigh. "For now, and as I said before, just use me as a tactical advantage to help you get closer to your dreams, and before you know it, I'll be gone."
"Alright, now you two hug it out or something. I've got some stuff to handle." With that, Riven walked inside, leaving the girls standing there, lost in thought and unsure what to say.
As he walked through the hallway, he passed Sera leaning on the wall. "I heard the whole thing," she said, causing him to halt.
He looked at her over his shoulder, his expression unreadable. "Was anything I said incorrect?"
"No," she said, pushing herself off the wall. Her arms crossed over her chest. "Far from it."
Walking closer, a small smile appeared on her face. "Thank you for saying all of that. I know it must suck for you, hurt even, those girls may be your daughters, the only ones you may ever have. And–"
"And if they want to know, they can take a DNA test in the future when they're old enough to make their own decision." He jumped in, cutting her off.
His head dropped low as he sighed before turning around to face her. "As much as it is your choice not to tell them the truth, it's also mine not to do the same. So don't worry about it; this is barely the tip of the iceberg of things I've experienced."
Turning away, Riven resumed his walk down the hall, his hand raised high in a wave. "Now, go check up on your daughters."
Sera watched him, a pained expression taking over her face. "If only you answered," she whispered with longing.
Unbeknownst to Sera and Riven, one other hand heard their conversation. Her glossy eyes were open wide in shock as she hid behind the corner.
"Mr. Riven… may be our father?" Nyra's heart raced at the thought. The man who saved them from poverty and showed them a world beyond their tiny well was possibly their father.
No, she was sure he was their father, and she would prove it no matter the cost. She thought, eyes burning with resolution, as she darted back out the back door before her mom noticed she was there.
***
"Hey Patty," Jerry called out to her as he walked over from his desk. "I've got a list of a few locations that deal in ghost lilies."
"Oh, really, that's great," Patty said with a smile as she leaned in to look at the list of places they would need to visit.
It had been two days since Mr. Damocles had pointed them on the right track, and they had gotten nowhere since. After confirming the cause of death was indeed ghost lily alkaloid or lily dust, as it's called, they then needed to prove it was homicide and not an accidental death, and they only have till the twelfth.
Hence, they were in a bit of a rush.
"The only problem is that a few of these places, you need connections and money to get into," saying that, he passed her a paper with those places. "I figured you knew someone who might be willing to help us out."
Patty fiercely glared at him. "If he's not busy."
Walking past her, he patted her on the shoulder. "Alright then, I'll see you later. Stay safe."
"You too." She responded.
Walking over to her desk, she picked up her keys and a folder of evidence, tucking the list of locations within it. She swiftly walked out of the station and got in her car, putting on a pair of shades, she adjusted the rearview mirror. "Alright, let's go retrieve a king."
With a deep, throaty growl, the engine sprang to life, unleashing a surge of power as the vehicle barreled down the street, cutting through the air with exhilarating speed.
***
While all this was going on, far off in the distant cosmos, Gilgamesh had arrived at the location he was sent to investigate.
As he walked through the area, each step spread the incarnation of strife to nearby planets and galaxies. With one more step, a massive wave of energy not originating from him was sent out.
"This must be the place." He commented, as lying before him was a massive crack in the very fabric of the multiverse.
Its edges pulsed, rippling like heated metal. Fragments of reality flaked off in luminous shards, drifting upward before evaporating into static. Each pulse sent a tremor through space, bending light into spirals that fizzled out across the distance.
Gilgamesh closed his eyes quickly, checking where the origin of the crack was. "Universe four seventy-eight in the eclipse sector. It's Vorrak's"
The omniverse was split into sectors to differentiate the different multiverses, with the eclipse sector being the main multiverse ruled over by the eclipse dragon Vorrak-Thaneir-Solkuras or Riven.
In which, from the prime universe of Eclipse Sector, this universe was number four hundred seventy-eight of the infinite number there was.
[A/N] The multiverse has an infinite number of realities, or universes, while an omniverse has an infinite number of multiverses. In which most Paragons rule over hundreds of thousands of multiverses.
Gilgamesh let out a heavy groan, a hand sliding down his face. He knew exactly what this meant: War.
And not just any war, a war against an intruding cosmology, one whose laws and gods did not belong here. And it wouldn't be pleasant.
With a single thought, his figure vanished as if it never existed. Word needed to be spread, or Doom would spread like never before.
----
This was supposed to be a mass release of ten or more chapters, but I won't have the time to write the rest, and I just really wanted to release these chapters. I'll release the rest as I finish them.
Also, zanebeal06, thank you for the power stones and your continued support.