Chapter 1

Beast Boy was lonely. He hated being lonely. Throughout his life he had faced loneliness: the death of his parents, his leaving the Doom Patrol, now, he was separated from the Titans—he considered them his current family. He missed Robin's leadership, he missed Starfire's buoyancy, he missed his surrogate brother, Cyborg. Then there was Raven. On the surface, there was not much to miss: she bullied, ignored, and belittled him—on a good day. However, he missed trying to get her to smile, to come out of her shell. In short, he missed them all, very, very much.

As he sat in the cell, Beast Boy pondered what had gotten him into the mess that he was in. It all started a few months ago. The first bodies had appeared in the industrial district, home of the worst of the worst of Jump City. They were crooks and felons, people wanted for rape, murder, arson, the whole gamut. Some were shot, some were stabbed, some were strangled, some were bludgeoned, they were killed in almost any way imaginable. While the victims were scum, they were still murdered, so the police investigated. Initially, the Titans had stayed out of the affair. They usually were only involved when metahumans or supervillians committed crimes. However, Beast Boy knew that Robin had kept an eye on the case; his years in Gotham had taught him to be wary of apparently seemingly pointless killings.

After two weeks, there was no abatement in the number of homicides and the police commissioner asked the Titans to aid in the investigation. In addition, the number of killings had forced many criminals to consolidate in order to for more protection. These new gangs numbered in the hundreds, and were threatening to spill over from their usual turf of the industrial sector onto the other parts of the city. Tensions where running high, and the commissioner believed that the presence of the Titans would provide a counterweight. In response, Cyborg began to investigate the crime scenes through the Titans computer and Robin began to schedule regular patrols through the area.

Due to the high criminal concentration in the industrial sector, the more conspicuous Titans, Starfire and Cyborg, patrolled during the day. Robin, Raven, and Beast Boy, who could blend in more and avoid the dangers in the night, were given night patrol. All of them were not allowed to engage criminals if possible. Of course, they could not avoid a call for help, and there were many in the industrial sector. If they saw, the killer, they were to call for backup immediately.

Beast Boy was the first to see the killer on his twilight patrol. He heard a short scream, and ran into a dark alley. There, he saw a man in a brown trench coat and brown fedora holding a gang banger by the throat. Upon seeing Beast Boy, the trench coated man threw the man against the wall and jumped onto a fire escape and ran up to a roof. After issuing an alarm on his communicator, Beast Boy morphed into a raven and flew onto the roof. Reaching the roof, Beast Boy returned to being human and yelled out "Stop, whoever you are," to the man.

Pausing at the edge of the roof, the killer turned around, causing Beast Boy to gasp—the man wore a mask that gave him the impression of not having a face. "You may call me No Face," the man replied. With that cryptic remark, he jumped off the building. Running to the edge of the building, Beast Boy looked down to see riding on top of a delivery truck. Turning into a hawk, Beast Boy gave chase. However, after turning a corner, Beast Boy saw that No Face had left the truck.

Returning the rooftop after searching the numerous alleys around the area where No Face disappeared, Beast Boy saw the rest of the Titans.

"Where is the perp?" asked Robin.

"I lost him." "So, you wasted our time."

Beast Boy gave Raven a glance. She must have been in the middle of a meditation or a really good book. His buoyant spirit told him that he would be a bit miffed if he was called out in the middle of a video game only to find that his target had gone.

"No," Beast Boy said, "but I got his name—it's No Face."

"No Face? What a dumb name!" said Cyborg.

"Yeah, well, he wears a mask so it doesn't look like he has a face. Maybe he's just really ugly and killing people who look better than him." The rest of the Titans didn't even deign to respond to Beast Boy's bad joke.

"How horrible, who would wish to hide his face?" asked Starfire.

"Well, I'm not sure," answered Robin, "but let's return to the Tower and see if there is anything in the database. Beast Boy, you stay on patrol."