Disclaimer: I don't own Elfen Lied. Everything in the Elfen Lied universe belongs to Lynn Okamoto. However, all of the original characters in this story belong to me.
Summary: Elfen Lied has ended with Lucy's death. But the story lives on so long as the Diclonius Virus spreads. This is the story of Michael Mordare, the first Diclonius born in America. And more importantly, this is the story of the first male Diclonius born outside of captivity. This is the story of Michael's descent into madness, and the beginning of Samael.
Warnings: This is rated T for bad language, drug referencing, intense dark themes, and gruesome murders.
Author's Notes: To a sociopath, everyone around him is nothing but a pawn. He feels no regret, apologizes to no one, and discards someone the moment they are no longer useful. Manipulation is his greatest weapon and obscurity is his shield. Anyone who won't bend to his whims is an enemy. A sociopath has no need for friends.
Angel of Massacre
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Raven Takes Flight
[Day Four (4) of Investigation, Case# 004210-0659 10:34PM]
There were few times in Noah's life that he could ever remember questioning himself. He's never had a problem justifying his actions as being for the greater good. It didn't matter if that "greater good" was only beneficial to him most of the time. As long as the end justified the means, Noah slept peacefully in his king-sized bed.
So why has sleep evaded Noah for so long?
The entirety of Noah's day has been spent on micromanaging the pieces of his plan. Noah has been supervising training of his new diclonius hunting squad to overseeing the AV equipment assembly to visiting his ace in the hole. From dusk 'til dawn, a never ceasing onslaught of projects that need approval and directing fell on his lap. Noah was completely immersed in his element. At the end of the day Noah received an automated message that was part of his NEWSSNIFFER program. There was new information to be seen by human eyes.
The day weighed heavily on Noah's shoulders. He stepped into his office and breathed in relief. His entire body ached, especially his feet. It was a good ache, a satisfying throbbing that you felt at the end of a long day of work. Noah hobbled to his office desk and deposited his sore body into the chair. His feet felt like they were stabbed with nails. He may have worn a hole in his socks today. There was just one last thing to tend to before taking a flight back home and spending another night staring at the ceiling. Noah was going to have to figure out why he wasn't sleeping.
Noah pinched the bridge of his nose and rubbed his eyes at the same time. The computer's screen glowed painfully bright until his eyes adjusted to it. He leaned back in his office seat and waited for NEWSSNIFFER to filter out the needless junk. Eventually the program regurgitated a number of leaked photographs related to the Overkillers case. However, almost all of the pictures were ones Noah has seen before, just re-uploaded.
Feeling a twinge of frustration, Noah briskly scoured the pictures. This wouldn't even be necessary if the police weren't being so tight-lipped. After a few minutes, he finally found the ones from the most recent murder of Robert Walker. What he found took his breath away.
The sheer amount of blood and gore put this scene in a close second to the first one. The human body has about five and a half liters of blood inside it. It looked as though Subject D-1 had carved up the victim, Robert Walker, as to extract every last drop that he could. What was worse was the message written on the walls.
WE ARE SAMAEL!
This was something that Noah had never anticipated. This wasn't just a defiant message. This was a complete refusal of identity. Taken at face value, this would seem as though Subject D-1 was merely saying "I'm not the Overkillers, I am Samael." But digging deeper, reading between the lines, Subject D-1 seems to have abandoned his Michael Mordare persona. He is no longer identifying himself as Michael Mordare. The psyche profile Noah has created over the past sixteen years has been invalidated.
This sort of thing was a coping method. Subject D-1's train of thought may have been "If Michael Mordare can't handle this situation; then I won't be Michael Mordare anymore." And so Subject D-1 reinvented himself as someone who identifies himself as Samael. The fact that he chose the name of the Grim Reaper was also very telling. The Angel of Death wouldn't be shaken by all of the traumatizing events after all.
Then Noah thought, what about the "WE ARE" part of the message? Looking closely, it became apparent that Subject D-1 had started writing the capital letter 'I' as in a singular expression of self. Why did he change it to 'WE' then? Perhaps he was exploiting the investigation's assumption that there were two killers. It would indeed be a clever misdirection, or a continuation of an unintended misdirection. But for some reason Noah couldn't accept that theory as the only reason. It was something about the sheer amount of carnage that tipped Noah off. The amount of effort that would have gone into this message was far too much just for misdirection.
What if Subject D-1 was actually identifying himself as two people? What if there were more? What if Subject D-1 had simply broken and was now suffering from multiple personality disorder? It was possible, but there were so many other possibilities. Until Noah could bring in Subject D-1 once and for all, this was all conjecture. The only thing that Noah could get out of all this was that Subject D-1 had lost his sanity. This wasn't the actions of a lucid mind; it was pure and complete insanity.
The plan was not happening the way Noah envisioned it. According to every psyche evaluation, Subject D-1 was a coward and a weakling. He was externally introverted and internally extroverted. He wanted to be loud and surrounded with friends but because of his mutation the role of a shy and quiet kid was forced upon him. He was on the outside of every social circle, looking in and wishing that he could enter. Plus all of his past traumas turned him into a social porcupine. He wanted to get close to people, but all of his problems, his quills, made him afraid of hurting someone else. It was the classic Hedgehog's Dilemma. The Subject was a runner, not a fighter. He ran from all of his problems instead of facing them. The last time he confronted his problems he put his mother in the hospital. Events like that reinforce traumas.
This made him perfect for Noah's plans, his social problems made sure he wouldn't turn to anyone for help. Subject D-1 would instead go into hiding all alone, more of a threat of a threat than anything else. And there he would wait while Noah exploited him for every iota of power available. Even tracking Subject D-1 after he went into hiding would have been no problem. Anti-diclonius technology has advanced to the point where agents could use severed diclonii brains wired to satellites to track every diclonius down to the street number. This was of course only after said diclonius reached her trigger point. The satellites couldn't track the infection itself, only the emerging diclonius. There was only one of those satellites in orbit right now and it was only recently that Noah received authorization to have it repositioned over the United States instead of Japan.
Everything had been planned sixteen years ago and all Subject D-1 had to do was survive the hit and run away. Part one of that had gone smoothly, the only threat was of suicide. But instead of running away, the Subject instead defied over a decade of habitual running and began to fight back. Instead of a threat of a threat, Subject D-1 had graduated to a genuine threat to all of mankind. Worse yet, the Subject has begun to kill civilians indiscriminately while remaining perfectly clear on the map. The trauma of losing his family hadn't weakened him further, it had made him stronger.
The act of repositioning that diclonii tracking satellite was merely to show Noah's superiors that he was actually trying to catch Subject D-1. Noah didn't have any intention of using it at this stage. Besides, Noah already knew where the Subject was. The goddamn diclonius wasn't even moving! The Director was starting to put the pressure on Noah to send in a squadron of AD soldiers to bring the Subject in. Noah was only able to alleviate the Director's pressuring by revealing a small portion of his plans. It wasn't anything involving the Subject S-148, thankfully. That card was something Noah intended to hold close to his chest.
"What if this is all part of the Subject's plan?" Noah thought. At first Noah dismissed this notion, the Subject's evaluations never revealed a master planner lurking in his psyche. Michael Mordare wasn't capable of masterminding this sort of plot. "But what about Samael?" the voice nagged. This new psyche could be so capable. For the first time in a very long time, Noah questioned himself.
Suddenly the need to act overcame Noah. He needed to do something to combat this spanner in the works. He needed a variable of his own, some random pawn in some random spot that could possibly pay off. It shouldn't be someone very competent, clearly. It should just be someone who owed Noah a favor and could remain in standby for an undetermined amount of time. And Noah knew just the right person.
Noah had two phones on his office desk. Since this location was so far underground, it was impossible for cellular phones to work. Therefore he had an office phone that lets him call anyone in the whole laboratory. The other phone was one specifically designed to be completely untraceable. He could spend an entire hour on it and nobody would have a clue where he was. Caller ID would register the phone as RESTRICTED. Noah reached for his office phone and picked it up. His secretary, Stephanie Ann, picked up the other line a second later. Noah spoke "Call this man: Nathan Raven in the FBI. Tell him that I want to speak to him and use my real name. Patch him through my untraceable phone once you've got him on the line and waiting."
Then Noah hung up and waited patiently. Two minutes passed before the little red light on the untraceable phone lit up. Noah picked it up off its cradle and held it to his ear. A smooth voice spoke nervously "He-hello?"
"Good evening Mr. Raven." Noah replied in a voice much calmer than he felt.
"Mr. Brimstrome, what a pleasure…"
"Alright, let's cut the bullshit. You owe me and you know why. Now it's time to return that favor and that cushy office job of yours will be finally had been earned."
There was silence for a second until Raven spoke up "What do you want me to do?"
"Do you know of the situation in Toledo, Ohio?"
"Which one, the local economy or the Overkillers, excuse me, Samael killers?"
"I mean the murders. I'll let you in on a secret; it isn't two humans on a killing spree. It's one diclonius."
Nathan Raven was one of the VERY FEW people outside of the organization that knew of the existence of diclonius. His reply was enough to tell Noah he understood.
"Oh shit, oh shit oh shit! Doesn't that mean the end of humankind?"
"Not if we capture him first."
"Wait, it's a guy? I thought all diclonius were girls?"
"The details aren't important. In fact, the less you know the better. I want you to fly down there and—"
"You aren't going to have to join the diclonius hunting squads, are you?"
Noah felt a cluster headache building. By now Nathan sounded panicked. His voice had gone high enough to trigger the headache. As soon as this conversation ended Noah was going to need his "medication".
"You will do whatever I say to do otherwise you and your entire family will be out naked and penniless on the streets within ten fucking minutes!" Noah raged suddenly. This was exaggeration of course. Such a task would take an hour at least.
There was more silence on the other side before a defeated voice drifted into Noah's ear. "Alright, I'll do what you tell me."
"Good. Fortunately for you, I'm not assigning you to the front lines. I want you to join the team of investigators that are covering this case."
"You mean you want me to be a detective?"
"Not quite, you will merely be a consultant from the FBI to help them in any way you can."
"So… am I really helping them?"
"No. What you're really going to do is make sure they don't interfere with my plans. Lead them away from the truth in any way you can."
"I don't get it, how could they get in the way of your plans? They all think the murderers are a couple humans. They shouldn't even have an idea of what a diclonius is."
"And you make sure that it stays that way. Keep reporting to me whatever they learn. Encourage their current theories and offer them advice wherever you can."
"So… I'm supposed to lead the blind away from the light?"
"That's the gist of it. I never said this would be a difficult assignment."
"And after this, we'll be square again? I won't hear from you again?"
"Your flight will be paid for as well as any hotel fees you acquire. This is pretty much a fuck-up proof assignment. Just make sure they don't catch Samael and report to this number every night at 10 o' clock." Then Noah rattled off one of his cell phone numbers before hanging up. Thirty seconds later and he received a text message that read "is this right #?" to which Noah replied "yes."
With the day finally behind him, Noah stepped out of his office and into his private elevator. He would take his personal jet back to his Florida mansion and spend another night staring at the ceiling. Even if he couldn't sleep he could at least rest his body. Noah briefly considered apologizing to Raven for his outburst before shooting it down. For one thing, Noah wasn't even apologetic. The only reason the thought even entered his head was because a cross person could act unpredictably. But Raven knew the risks so he wouldn't dare cross Noah. Besides, you don't get to Noah's position by saying sorry.
It took Noah ten minutes to realize that he had spoke of Subject D-1 as Samael.
End Chapter Twenty-Nine: Raven Takes Flight
I am so proud of that title that I can't even keep a straight face. Hell, the name for Nathan Raven wasn't even my idea. I just asked someone I know for a good last name and he said Raven. After that I stole his first name and thus the character became Nathan Raven.
We finally have Noah proactively tampering with the investigation. Will Jessica Hawker discover Nathan Raven's true colors? Could this lead her back to Noah himself? The story has become more complicated than I ever anticipated. This tome has reached its halfway point. Stay aboard and find out the unpredictable conclusion.
