ONCE AGAIN, WE OWN NOTHING
On behalf of The Conquerors, I, Z, Extend our apologizes for the Delay.
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Reign of Terror
Chapter Two: The Nightmare Prepares
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Robin had seen many strange and gruesome things in his time as a superhero. After all, one is not raised in Gotham City without witnessing some weird things. However, he had not expected to see anything like it in Jump City, and it had been a long time since he had seen anything like what was before him.
Lashed in place on the deck of the ship was the crew. Each one had been placed to appear that they were doing their job. Only a few things threw the picture off:
First off was the fact that they were dead. Even an untrained civilian would know that. It was apparent from the lack of movement and the unnatural stiffness. Robin's trained eye ran over a nearby cadaver, gathering information from a single glance.
Rigor mortis had set in, which meant that the crew had been dead for at least six hours. The analytical side of his mind said that the bodies would be less stiff and more elastic if they had died recently.
The second problem, and the one that kept the scene from looking like an extended edition of Jurassic Park II or Dracula was the wounds. Or rather, the lack thereof.
There were no entry or exit wounds, or strangulation. Arms and legs were intact, and there were no visible bruises anywhere. There was only one visible sign of injury. The victims hands and feet were nailed to the deck and surfaces of their stations. The only evidence of blood came from pools around still feet and what had leaked out onto an otherwise clean shirt from cold hands. Ropes were placed around the waist of each corpse in order to make the bodies bend and contort in the way they would if alive.
That told Robin that rigor mortis hadn't been maximized yet, so the bodies had been dead between six and twelve hours. If rigor mortis had set in, there would be no need for ropes.
Finally, and perhaps the most chilling of all, was the expressions of terror. Each face had an identical mask of what could only be described as complete and utter horror.
The normal side of Robin, the side that was friendly and acted like a normal teenager, wanted to puke.
The analytical side, the one drilled into him by his mentor, the legendary Dark Knight himself, took over.
"Alright, lets search the ship. Raven, can you tell if anyone else is on board?" He directed this question to the most composed of his team, besides himself.
Closing her eyes for a second, Raven silently shook her head.
'Then whoever did this is not on the ship anymore.' he thought.
"Then search the rest of the ship and see if you can find anything that can help us." he ordered.
The Teen Titans split up. Beast Boy turned into a bloodhound to start sniffing for clues. Robin took note of how he steered to avoid the cold pools of what was life-giving liquid.
Starfire left the deck and took to the air to look for any damage to the ship. He knew that she was taking it the hardest out of all of them. He could tell because she was usually bright and cheerful and saw that she was having slight difficulty flying. Starfire was not smiling or happy at all.
Raven remained on deck to continue scanning the ship. She acted like she didn't care about what she saw, but Robin knew better. Under her stone-like façade was a caring person, and she was still just a teenager who was just as scarred as the rest of them were.
'And we are scarred.' he thought. Robin highly doubted there wasn't any superhero in existence who didn't have some sort of tragic past or hadn't had something horrible happen to him or her. His team was no exception. With his upbringing in Gotham City and the death of his parents, Starfire's enslavement by the Gordanians led by Trogaar and her sister, Raven's demonic father, Cyborg's accident, and Beast Boy's relationship with Terra, his team was pretty normal for heroes.
Cyborg went to plug himself into the computer and learn more about the ship and it's cargo. And as for him? He began to examine the bodies. He wasn't quite sure what it said about him that he found his task easier than comforting his team.
'Lets see, all cadavers share similar facial expressions, and all have been nailed to the deck. The nails alone were not enough to kill them, so it appears they all died from sheer terror, and at roughly around the same time, as told by the stiffness of the corpses. The nails were put in after all bodily functions a ceased, as the blood pooled around their feet instead of spurting from the wounds.'
Running through this information a few times, Robin attempted to put the crime scene together. Something was bugging him, though. This whole scenario felt REALLY familiar...
He put that thought away as Cyborg came up to him. "Anything?" he asked.
"Nah, man. All I got was that they were shipping specimens of live insects to the Jump City University. There aren't any records about anything strange that happened en route." the metal teen responded.
"Same here." Turning around, they beheld an unusually somber Beast Boy. "The... blood... has covered any scent left behind."
Cyborg lightly patted him on the shoulder, attempting to reassure both Beast Boy and himself.
Starfire landed in front of them. "Friends, the ship appears to have none of the damage. I did notice, though, that one of the boats of life is missing." she said in her garbled English.
"From what I can sense, there is no one alive on board." said a monotone voice. Looking over, they saw Raven sitting cross-legged on a box, so she could avoid the cold pools of blood.
Robin nodded. Having found what they could on deck, the next logical step would be to search the rest of the ship, a task he did not look forward to with relish.
"Alright guys, looks like we'll have to completely search the ship in order to make sure there are no surprises for the police when the boat gets towed in." Judging by the grimaces by most of his team, no one else was looking forward to it either.
Sighing, Robin led the way through the door to below decks.
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Far away on the coast, a figure watched them vanish below decks though a pair of binoculars. It waited for 20 minutes then pressed the button to a detonator held in it's hand.
'I wish I could watch the chaos unfold, but work must intrude.' the figure thought. Putting the binoculars away, he left.
He was confident his little trap would not kill the Teen Titans. It would, however, serve his purposes as a distraction.
The figure moved away as the first stars began to come out.
He had work to do.
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It Has been a Long time Coming, but here it is: Reign of Terror has Been Updated.
Happy Now?
Good. Because We are.
I, Z, wish You a Happy Halloween.
Thank You.
