THE (UN)KNOWN SUBJECT
A Teen Titans Fanfiction
(A/N: So I had to write this dark story as practice for another story I had to write for my fiction class. I promise I'll update Number 1 Zero soon, as soon as I'm done with my transcription jobs. I currently have 2 jobs right now and I have barely enough sleep as it is. You really have to work hard for the money. :(
Anyway on to this story, so this is going to get pretty dark but I needed to familiarize myself with a mind of a killer for yes another story that I have to do. This is mixing my knowledge or what I'm learning in my Forensics class so it's somewhat true. And from all the crime-solving shows I've watched over the years. Here's a list of the vocabulary that you'll need to know as you are reading this story.
(1) : Based this off of Hannibal. :)) (The TV series)
(2) : Unknown subject - what you call the perpetrator in an investigation, especially since you don't know who that person is yet, whether its a he/she, etc. (Hence the title =)) )
(3) : We have been taught that a killer would usually choose victims that are weaker than he/she is. So for women that usually means children or old people. If they choose to murder men (say, their husbands) they use poison, or some indirect method. The only exception to this case is Aileen Wuornos, who shot men who she thought were going to rape her.
(4) : MO- or modus operandi. Basically, how a killer kills his victims.
(5) : signature : something that a killer does that he doesn't necessarily have to do to kill the victim, but he does it anyway. Example would be how Dexter (from the TV series Dexter) collects blood samples from his victims and puts them on slides. And Red John (from The Mentalist) draws smiley faces with the victim's blood on the walls.
(6): Post-mortem : After death
(7) : Profile : Who you think the killer is, what kind of person he/she is, etc. This will help the police know what kind of suspect they are looking for.
So that's everything! Please tell me your thoughts, if this is too dark or too scary. I've finished this story already and will probably post the chapters one day at a time. (It's only 5 chapters :)) ) And please tell me if its believable or not. And yeah, the chapters are songs, not just the title of the song, but the song itself. And this was partly inspired by a story here, but if I tell you what it is, it might spoil the fun. So enough about that, on to this really creepy story! :)
Chapter 1 : Sweet Dreams
"Sweet dreams are made of this I'm gonna use you and abuse you
Who am I to disagree?
Travel the world and the seven seas
Everybody's looking for something
Some of them want to use you
Some of them want to get used by you
Some of them want to abuse you
Some of them want to be abused
I'm gonna know what's inside
Gonna use you and abuse you
I'm gonna know what's inside you"
- Marilyn Manson
"This is the tenth one this month." One of the officers glumly said, stroking his thick, brown mustache.
"And that's not counting the other bodies we didn't consider last month." The detective replied, crunching up his black brows together, deep in thought.
The group of officers was looking down a crime scene in a dark alleyway somewhere in Jump City. The man, who was later identified as Billy Henderson, or "Scarro-Bill" as he was commonly known, was sprawled on the dirty floor, head flat on the ground, with his arms flanked on the sides, and his neck in an awkward, twisted angle. He had bruises all over his body, and his face was covered in his own blood, from a head wound. Dried blood was all over his body, showing signs of that he was brutally beaten up before his death. It seemed like a bar fight gone wrong, but the police knew better than that now.
"When did you notice the pattern in the bodies?" Robin, the leader of the Teen Titans, asked the investigating officer, as he walked toward the group. He thought that the police needed the help of the superhero team, knowing that his Bat-given investigative talents could prove useful and help the clueless officers out.
"Just a couple of months ago. We've been noticing a lot of low-life thugs turning up dead in dark alleyways, but we didn't really think anything of it, just chalking it up to a bar fight gone wrong. That is, of course, until the bodies came piling up." The detective pulled out a small notebook as he talked, flipping to a specific page. "Every other night, we'd find a dead body in a dark alleyway somewhere. Every. Other. Night. The pattern was finally revealed to us, and we couldn't deny it anymore. We have a serial killer in our hands."
"Are you sure it ain't one of you costumed folks?" An older officer with white hair pointed accusingly at the Teen Titans. "Maybe one of you got tired playin' the good guy 'an started killin' off these low-lives."
"I assure you officer, none of us would ever stoop so low." Robin defended, standing right in front of the officer. "After all the help that we've done for the city, I didn't think you'd actually have the guts to point the finger at us."
"And besides, this is too cruel, man. We wouldn't beat up someone like that." Beastboy added nervously, trying to distract Robin from the murderous glare that he was giving the older policeman.
"Yes, we are good people. Even with out superpowers, we do not resort to doing these kinds of things." Starfire added, floating beside Robin and placing a hand upon his shoulder, in an attempt to calm him down.
"Oh yeah, what about your dark teammate? Isn't she like the devil or something? How do you know she had nothing to do with this? She ain't here, ain't she? Maybe you're hiding her 'cause she went berserk and did this!" the police officer continued, even thought his fellow policemen were already trying to stop his tirade.
His disrespectful statement only angered Robin even more. He roughly grabbed the officer by his shirt as he coldly told him, "Don't even talk about Raven like that. She's been in Quantico for how many months now, studying in the Behavioral Analysis Unit so she can catch killers and do your job for you." He instantly dropped the officer as he said that, sending him crashing to the ground. The other officers surrounded him and apologized to Robin, saying the older policeman was out of line. Robin simply shot them a glare and walked toward Cyborg, who was still examining the body.
"Have you noticed this Detective? There are a lot of wounds that are inconsistent with the body." Cyborg said, after doing preliminary scans on the bodies. Robin instructed him to use his scanners on the crime scene, believing that the local police would miss something vital. Apparently, he was right.
"What did you find?" he asked the cybernetic teen as he stood beside him.
"There are a lot of broken bones that are inconsistent with the other wounds. If he was just simply beaten up, well first of all, his neck and arms shouldn't be angled like that. They're not consistent with the other wounds on the body." Cyborg showed him the holographic scans from his arm, pointing out the abnormalities in the broken bones of the corpse.
"What could that mean?" the Hispanic detective thought as he stroked his chin, becoming more and more puzzled by this case.
"That means that he was thrown off that building after he was beaten up and killed." A familiar voice said from the behind the group.
They all turned around to see Raven, wearing a black polo shirt with the word "Trainee" at the back, and brown pants. (1) The Titans were shocked to say the least, seeing her like that. They rarely saw her in anything either than her uniform in the many years that they had known each other, but now they saw her as casual as she could ever be.
"Raven…" Robin breathed, instantly relaxing his tense body at the sight of the dark empath.
"I got here as soon as I received your message on my communicator." She explained as she neared the group. "I also stopped by the police station to take a look at the files on the other crime scenes that you have found in the past few months."
Despite the grim situation, Starfire, Beastboy and Cyborg all went toward Raven and welcomed her home, giving her a number of potentially-harming hugs, and telling her how much she was dearly missed.
As Robin was about to give her his own welcome, Raven went back to business, and took a closer look at the dead body sprawled on the ground. She crouched down to take a better look at the body, being careful not to touch it or to contaminate the crime scene. Everyone just watched her as she circled the dead body, wondering what she was doing. After a few moments of her inspection of the crime scene, as well as her referrals to previous case files, she began to explain her findings on the case.
"You're right, this is a serial killer, and not just any gang war. The victims aren't really connected to one another. They don't even belong to the same gang. I believe, the only reason why they were chosen was that they were just there. They were chosen based on circumstance, more than anything else."
"But why thugs and low-life criminals?" the detective asked.
"Your unsub (2) has a sense of righteousness. Despite the fact that he is murdering people, he still has a sense of justice and believes that it's part of his job to get rid of these kinds of people. Actually, the real reason why it escalates to murder is because he or she, most probably he, is very angry about something. He keeps it hidden that's why it comes out in these killings where he brutally beats up these criminals until they're dead. He doesn't want to it to end up in murder, but his uncontrollable rage drives him over the edge and he ends up killing them." She explained matter-of-factly.
"Why do you say the perpetrator is male?" the detective asked once again, taking down notes in his small notepad. He seemed to be learning so much from what Raven was saying.
"Because you'd need a pretty strong person to beat up these kinds of people. (3) And physically, women lack the strength needed for that kind of MO. (4) It can also be hypothesized that it's actually a group doing this, but the wound patterns are consistent with a single style, and not erratic, as if a mob was beating him up. Your unsub is probably a very strong man, who is adept in maybe a martial art or into wrestling. It's quite possible that he's a police officer, or anyone in law enforcement. He could also be a wrestler or a martial artist who has gone through a traumatic experience with gangs. Especially since his signature (5) requires a lot of strength as well."
The police offers were shocked with what Raven said, especially it was just moments ago when one of their own was pointing their own finger at the Titans. And now it seemed that the tables have been turned.. by the forensics expert herself.
She paid no mind to the whispers of disbelief from the officers and instead flew up toward a nearby building that was enclosing the alley. She seemed to be searching for something, and only Robin was gazing up at her intently. When she finally floated down back to the scene, the Titan leader asked her what she was doing.
"I was checking the unsub's signature." She explained in her deadpan voice. "Cyborg, I've confirmed my theories on the broken bones that you found on the victim."
Cyborg turned his attention toward the dark empath, followed by Beastboy and Starfire, who were both quite confused with everything that was happening. Only the detective was paying attention to the Titans now, the other police officers still whispering about her profile on the killer.
"The body was thrown from up there." She pointed toward the adjacent roof from the alley. "Probably with some sort of detachable pulley. The unsub tied the body to the pulley and lifted the body up to that height, only to have him crashing down to the ground, thus breaking his bones. If you can verify, you can see that his broken bones are consistent with a high-altitude fall."
Cyborg checked his scans, taking into consideration the height of the building and its distance from the ground, and he saw that it was a match. "She's right." He confirmed. "The broken bones are consistent with that high of a fall. They would also explain why they seem to be post-mortem. (6) But I don't get it, if the victim was dead already, then why did he had to make the body fall down to the ground?"
"Because that's his signature. He doesn't have to do it to kill the victim, but he has to do it for his own purposes mostly. It might be connected to the reason why he became a killer in the first place. Maybe he was pushed off a building by a thug, or maybe he watched someone he loved fall to the ground. There are a number of possibilities, but at least we know what his signature is."
"Do you think you have enough information to make a profile? (7)" The detective asked Raven, still starstruck by her prowess in processing the crime scene.
"Hmm.." she thoughtfully mused for a few moments before she finally spoke up. "I can't determine ethnicity yet, but we are looking for a male, around 20 to 30 years old, with a strong physique, maybe bulky, or lean and muscled, but definitely someone with great strength. He may be a wrestler or a skilled martial artist, working in law enforcement or someone with a vendetta against gangs and thugs. He may seem like a quiet man, but in truth he is filled with an uncontrollable rage that clouds his judgment. He's really, really, really angry about something, and we have to find out what. There seems to be a sense of loss behind the anger. He might have lost a loved one with one of the gang brawls or through a fall from a high place. You can check recent gang activity wherein civilian victims were involved. Also look into events related to deaths from high falls, or anything like that. We have to look into his signature, it might be our most important clue as to who he might be." She paused after this statement, as if she had just realized something. Her face suddenly became shocked for a moment, before she reined her emotions back to her usual blank expression. "Just be cautious since this unsub is dangerous. If he can single-handedly beat up experienced criminals to death, then he could do the same to your officers. Can you just relay this information back to them? I don't think they would want to hear my voice anytime soon."
"Of course." The detective said, still amazed at her detailed profile of the killer. "We'll start with our investigation and update you as soon as we can."
"And we'll keep an eye-out during our patrols for the killer." Robin volunteered, also gazing at Raven with a certain awe, but it was not just because of her skills as a profiler. It was something much, much more.
"So can we go now? This place gives me the creeps." Beastboy said, finally voicing out his discomfort ever since they set foot on the crime scene.
"Yes and we must celebrate Friend Raven's return after many months!" Starfire exclaimed, her hands clasped in joy.
"Yeah we can grab a pizza and Rae can tell us all about her adventures in the FBI!" Cyborg said as he wrapped a protective around Raven's smaller form.
Robin scowled at the brotherly sight as Starfire floated beside him to wrap her own arms around him and place a kiss on his cheek. "Isn't it wonderful that Friend Raven is back?" she asked enthusiastically while Robin only nodded numbly in response.
"Guys, I still have to get back tomorrow. I still have a few classes left and I just came here because you really needed help in that investigation." Raven replied, as she stepped out of Cyborg's half-embrace, while sadly gazing at the loving couple beside her. It reminded her of the very reason why she had gone to Quantico in the first place.
"And that is exactly why we have to celebrate. On to the Pizza Palace!" Cyborg announced as he led the way out of the dark alleyway, the other Titans following right behind him. They left the police at the site without even saying a word, knowing that they were still arguing about the profile that Raven gave them.
Raven was trailing behind them when she saw something on the ground that caught her eye. She went closer to the object and her eyes widened in recognition. Her previous theory was only confirmed even more in her mind,
"Raven, are you coming or what?" Beastboy called out from the T-car.
"Coming!" she shouted back, as she took the piece of evidence and hid it in her pocket, not giving the arguing investigators a chance to see it.