You know, when I woke up this morning, I didn't expect I'd have to spend my Halloween evening trying to keep a woman from clawing her own eyes out, because "they were full of spiders" that only she could see.
The woman, a dark skinned girl dressed in a now rather disleved Princess costume, the plastic crown lying broken in half a few feet away, trashes against the light bonds I've locked around her arms to keep her hands away from her face, screaming in terror.
"LET ME GO!! THEY'RE EVERYWHERE!!"
Things had started to turn ugly shortly after me and Thor had dropped by Greenwich Village after I'd suggested we check out what the beatnik community was doing with the holiday. Hopefully, we can find out next year, because we'd been in the neighborhood for all of 10 minutes, before suddenly all hell broke loose. A man threw himself through the store front window of a coffee shop as we passed by, a few kids who had been trick or treating came bolting out of an apartment building like Satan himself was after them, a street vendor grabbed ahold of the customer looking over the shirts he was selling and tried to bash his head open against the pavement, and it just got worse from there.
"For gods sake, Thor, what the hell is going on?!" I yell over at Thor, who's restraining a police officer, wresting away his gun that he was just about to fire into the panicking crowd "Why did everyone flip their shit all of a sudden?!"
"'Tis Magic most Foul, my friend! I recognize it from my brother Loki's use of sorcery!" Thor responds as he manages to disable the officer with his own handcuffs to keep him from hurting anyone "The very air itself feels thick with it! Some black-hearted fiend has unleashed fear magic on the people of the Village! They're seeing their worst nightmares come to life!"
"Then why-" I cut myself off as I dodge a brick thrown from one of the rooftops "Then why aren't we affected? I'm not seeing anything crazy like these people, not more than I usually do anyway!"
"My Asgardian nature protects me, friend!" Thor says as he pulls a man in a torn Dracula costume off a woman in zombie paint, tossing the man away, who quickly scrambles down the street and disappear in the panicking crowd "As for thee, I fear it may only be a matter of time, we only just arrived in this place, these people have been slowly poisoned all night!"
"Okay, time is of the essence, got it. I'd really rather not have to actually see all the things crawling around in my subconscious, so sooner would be better than later. And I don't think it'd be a good idea if someone with superpowers start trying to blast things that aren't really there. You see anything out of the ordinary?" I yell at him over the screaming crowd as I bind a man dressed in a cheap-looking Spider-Man costume to a lamp post with my light bonds "I mean, aside from the rather obvious?"
"Nay, Sunshine, I-" he stops talking as he leans closer to the woman he just saved. "Madam? What is it?"
She's moving her mouth in a whisper as she hangs limply in his arms, and I move closer in a burst of light so I can hear what she's trying to say. "What's going on, what's she saying?"
"I do not know, her voice is weak and strained. Madam, please, what do you require of us?"
The womans head rolls listlessly from side to side, her eyes staring unseeingly toward the sky "Saw him... I saw him... it was him..."
"Wait, you saw who did this? Who? Who was it?"
The woman gapes silently for a moment before she croaks out a whisper "Black wings... he came with black wings... the Boogeyman.... It was The Boogeyman..." She gasps and her head falls backwards.
"Is she...?"
Thor shakes his head "Nay, not yet, merely senseless. I fear her ordeal was too much for her" Thor says as he gently places the unconscious woman in the doorway of one of the buildings to keep her from being trampled.
I look around at the chaos surrounding us "Well, that wasn't much help. We need to cut this off at the source, but The Boogeyman? Tonight that could describe literally anyone in the city. And if you're right about the time issue, we can't run around all night looking for him either."
"You could simply leave the area and avoid the fates of these unfortunates. While it would be more difficult, I'm certain I could apprehend the foul villain responsible myself!"
"Sure, that might work, if the effect was going to STAY inside Greenwich Village, which I highly doubt. Unless whoevers doing this has a particular grudge against coffee shops and freeform poetry. What if it infects the rest of the city? Do you want to see what happens if BRUCE gets fear-magicked?!"
Thor actually winces at the thought "Thou has a point, Sunshine. But the problem persists, we are but two warriors, and time is short. How are we to find this... Boogeyman?"
"What was that other thing she said? Something about black wings? Maybe the guy is wearing a costume with wings, or..." I look around, trying to spot anyone who could fit the description, when movement above us catches my eye.
High above the street, lining the rooftops, the telephone wires, even the lampposts, sits dozens, maybe hundreds of crows, their black shapes barely visible against the cloudy, darkening sky, their beady eyes reflecting the lights from the city below them, silently observing the chaos.
"...hey Thor, I know I'm new to New York, but this isn't normal bird behavior around here, is it?"
.....
"I have begun your work, master! And it is a glory to behold!"
Ebenezer Laughton, now known as The Scarecrow, a twisted grin showing through the ragged holes in his mask as he observed the carnage he had wrought to the city, all thanks to his master. Men and women tearing eachother to shreds, trying to destroy the things they feared in the deepest part of themselves, their terror spreading like a toxin through the streets on the wings of his beloved birds. Around his neck, the silver mirror glowed with unearthly power, and a voice only he could hear spoke.
"Yes, my Scarecrow. This is the power of Nightmare, manifest in your world. Once my power has taken hold in this small part, even Strange won't be able to break my hold again!"
"But master, if this sorceror is such a dangerous foe, will he not detect your hand at work tonight as well?"
"OF COURSE, YOU FOOL! It is Samhain, Strange would have expected me to make a move against him tonight, which is exactly what I did! While he battles my diversion in the Dream Dimension, YOU are enacting my true plan outside! By the time he makes it back to reality, it will be too late for him to stop us!"
"Brilliant, master! It is an honor to serve your purpose!" Scarecrow said as he walked down the street, two of his crows perched on his shoulders. The madmen around him ran screaming as they glimpsed him in the throes of their nightmares, giving him a wide berth even in the middle of the normally crowded road. A car swerved to the left in a panic, smashing through the front of a grocery store, smashing through the produce lined up outside. The door fell off, the terrified driver crawling out of the ruined vehicle, clutching a maimed arm.
Truly, to be the servant of Lord Nightmare made him untouchable
.....
"Okay, so I'm guessing that guy in the scarecrow costume is probably the Boogeyman, right?"
The crows ignore us as we made our way across the rooftops, they almost seemed to be in a trance, or maybe just really focused on however they're doing all of this. Pretty much every rooftop edge for blocks around is lined with birds, to the point that we have to nudge some of them aside to give us a better look below.
The gaunt, ragged figure waltzing down the middle of the road with two birds on his shoulders is pretty hard to miss from this high up.
I only vaguely remember that Marvel even HAD a villain named Scarecrow, and he did have a bunch of trained birds, but as far as I remember, this whole Halloween thing is a bit above his weight class.
"I mean, he's the only one down there not freaking out about invisible spiders or shadow monsters, so he seems like a good place to start."
"Aye, it does seem probable."
"Groovy, let's go kick his ass!"580