Warning: there's a bit of cursing in here! YE HAVE BEEN WARNED

Chapter 4: The Boogeyman

Technically, it wasn't Aeola's fault. She didn't know how destructive her powers were and how connected they were to her emotions. But she couldn't help but to blame herself for killing - murdering - over 20 residents of Oklahoma with a tornado that she accidentally created.

It was late May when Aeola decided to check up on her family. She felt guilty that she had not thought of them too much ever since she became a spirit and (she didn't know it) she missed them a lot. So Aeola went to visit her family in a little city in the outskirts of LA. Her mood was surprisingly happy and optimistic, the best she's felt in the past two months. But it all went away when she arrived at her house.

Aeola could hear the shouting from a few blocks away. One of the windows near the living room was open so she looked through it to see her whole family fighting with each other. It was ridiculous. The argument went from "Who left crumbs on the carpet?" to "What have I done to you to deserve this?" and "Why can't you be more like [insert friend's name here]?" along with "you never behave and you always do this to me!" and "you're the worst mom/dad/son/brother in the whole world and I hate you!" Aeola rolled her eyes. She had thought that her family would become a normal family after she died, but they became even worse now that she was gone.

But then the fighting took a horrible turn. Suddenly, Aeola heard her name, the name that her parents had given to her when she was born as a mortal. Then that name was followed by harsh words about her. Aeola waited for someone to defend her, but they said nothing. instead, her whole family had something hurtful and terrible to say about their deceased daughter and sister. It went on and on until the wind spirit could no longer take it. She growled and a strong blast of wind caused the screen for the window to break and a glass cup on the coffee table to fall and shatter. The wind picked up and carried Aeola away and dropped her off in a large area covered with tall grass. She didn't really pay attention to where she went, as long as it wasn't near anywhere her dreadful family.

Tears welled up in her eyes. Aeola curled up in the soft grass and sobbed rather loudly. She hated crying like this. It made her feel weak, but she couldn't really help it. Every time she tried to force herself to stop crying, it only made her cry even more, so she eventually gave up. Dark clouds covered up the afternoon sky and jets of cold and warm air were mixing with each other, but Aeola did not notice.

After a while, rage replaced her sadness. The wind blew stronger as she stood up, trembling. The clouds above her seemed to be spinning slowly and forming a funnel. She took out her bow and violently slammed it on the ground repeatedly. Every time the bow hit the ground, the wind blew harder and the funnel of clouds grew bigger and spun faster and touched the ground a few hundred feet away from her. Aeola didn't notice the clouds and didn't care about the strong wind. Finally she threw her bow to the ground and let out a scream. This continued until her throat hurt. Aeola fell to her knees, still trembling with rage. Everything felt numb and strange, like she just woke up from a deep sleep. What brought her back into the real world were several leaves whizzing passed her head and a large piece of wood flying in the air. She suddenly noticed the deafening howl of the wind and turned around and saw her creation.

A tornado. A very large and wide tornado that was already tearing up a barn and making it's way to a small city. Aeola's heart raced as she realized that this was her doing. Panicking, she picked up her bow and quickly flew over to the tornado, but stayed far enough away from it so that she wouldn't get sucked in. But she didn't do anything. Aeola had no idea how to stop this storm, which only caused her to panic more, which caused the storm to move faster and become bigger. Then she made the mistake of coming too close to the tornado and she was sucked in.

For Aeola, it felt like she was flying like she normally does, except she had no control over herself and she felt like the gales were trying to rip her flesh open. Desperately, she tried to push herself out of the storm with her powers. After what seemed like forever, the tornado flung her out and onto the torn up grass. Aeola felt dazed but got her senses back when she saw the tornado rip out a bridge from the ground and scattered it's rubble onto a freeway. She began to panic again, causing the tornado to widen rapidly. As it tore up a farm and several houses, Aeola flew over to it and used her powers to make a strong wind that pushed against the tornado, canceling out the forces. It seemed to be working, but she began to grow fatigued and she stopped.

But over the howl of the wind, Aeola heard screaming. She looked down and watched in horror as the tornado began to destroy an elementary school. She closed her eyes and used her powers to try to get rid of the tornado again, but she was much weaker and she stopped again. her vision was blurring and she felt dizzy. The storm continued it's path of destruction for a while until the wind spirit tried to stop it again. This continued on for about an hour until Aeola finally stopped the tornado and passed out from exhaustion.

When Aeola woke up, it was already nighttime. She didn't know where she was. She was lying down on some dirt near a bunch of rubble. Her head was hurting, but otherwise she was alright. The wind spirit flew up above the area she was in, but then her heart sank when she looked down.

Everything was reduced to rubble. Scraps of wood were lying everywhere. There was a car that was in a place where a house used to be. people walked around the damage, searching for anything that survived. Nearby, firefighters tried to put out a house that was in flames. A woman began to weep when she found the body of her dog crushed under a lamp post. Everything was grim.

Aeola flew over to the elementary school and cringed when she saw a team of firefighters and police officers dig through the rubble. Families were near by, some holding their children and some anxiously waiting for their's to be found. paramedics struggled to pull in a gurney with an unconscious boy into an ambulance. His face was red from crying and his right arm was in a splint. But what broke Aeola was the boy's Avengers shirt that had blood on Captain America's shield. Augustus had the same shirt. As the ambulance drove the boy off to the hospital, Aeola had flown off to the edge of the town in the shadows.

The realization of what she had done suddenly hit her and questions spun around in her head. Houses were destroyed. Where would the people who used to live in them stay now? The people looking through the remains of their houses...what valuable things did I destroy? The house on fire...was anybody in it? Did they survive? And that poor dog... Aeola's thoughts quickly switched to the memory of the state of the school. There were children in there. Are they still alive? Or did they not survive? What if they're...dead? What if that little boy's dead? Aeola remembered the shirt he wore and thought of Augustus. She fell to her knees, clutching her head with her hands.

He's probably dead, she thought. Augustus is dead. He is dead, oh GOD he is definitely dead. Augustus is dead, dead, dead. Then Aeola took a deep shaky breath. No. That little boy was not Augustus. Augustus is safe and sound back at the house in Santa Monica. But that little boy in the ambulance...he is still a human being. A child. Who is probably dead. All because of me. Everyone who got hurt and everyone who died...it was all because of my tornado. I created it.

It's all my fault.

Aeola crumbled to the ground, but no tears came out. She had cried herself out earlier, so all she could do now was hyperventilate and pull the grass out of the ground. She was a bit angry with herself for not controlling her emotions. Nature had told her about that, but Aeola had forgotten about her warning. Now she was paying for it big time. Other conflicting emotions began to corrupt her. Guilt weighed down her heart. Stress made her head feel stuffy. Anger made her body tremble. There was a bit of sadness that made her feel weak. But there was something else deep inside the wind spirit. Something that made her want to crawl into a hole and hide forever.

It was fear.

"Delicious!" Pitch exclaimed. "Absolutely delicious!"

The Boogeyman closed his eyes and smiled, taking everything in. He felt wonderful, the best he's felt in quite a while. Pitch looked down from his floating cloud of black sand. There were families huddled together around the hospital waiting for any kind of good news about their loved ones. Children clung to their parents, crying. Pitch could feel the fear in the air. It was like walking outside and feeling the sun warm your cheeks after a cold winter. It filled him with energy, but it was not enough. He needed more.

It has been over a year since the Guardians defeated him and destroyed his plans. Ever since then, Pitch's been trying to recover and gain enough power to cover the world in darkness and nightmares and fear. But now, people and children aren't as scared as they used to be, which is making his job even harder than before. So he's been going around the world scrapping up as much fear as he could obtain. But this tornado...it created a fear buffet for the nightmare king. This was the best thing that has happened to him in a long time, so he took his time enjoying it.

Pitch flew down to the ground and hid in the shadows of a half destroyed house. A little three year-old girl wandered away from her parents to look around what remained of her house. Suddenly the light from the lamp post went out (courtesy of Pitch) and everything around her went dark. The girl began to whimper, which amused Pitch. Then the girl turned around and saw a pair of yellow eyes staring down at her. She fell to the ground and screamed hysterically, crying for her mother to take her away from this nightmare. The parents and some police officers with flashlights came to her rescue and Pitch watched as the girl was taken into her mother's arms.

"M-mommy!" she sobbed. "There was...I s-saw a m-monster! It...it got all dark a-and...and it was really really scary and I saw a monster!"

As the parents spoke comforting words to their daughter, Pitch walked away laughing. Oh, how easy and enjoyable it was to scare children! They jump at the slightest noise and scream at anything that seems abnormal to them. They give off more fear than teenagers and adults do, which was why Pitch loves to frighten them. If only the Guardians weren't there for them, then more children would fear him longer...

Pitch suddenly stopped. he had heard someone crying, but it was not the child. He walked to the back of the house and found a young teenage girl curled up at the base of a tree. There was power radiating off of her, and Pitch knew that she was some kind of god or spirit. Along with that power, he could sense something else.

Fear.

The nightmare king's lips stretched into a smile and he spoke, "What's a spirit like you doing in such a place like this?"

The girl gasped and looked up, only to see darkness. "Who said that? Where are you?"

Pitch laughed. "Oh, where am I? I am everywhere. Under your bed, in your closet, in your basement...wherever the shadows are, I am there, my dear. Do you not know who I am?"

"No." The girl got up, reaching for her bow. "I don't."

"Do you happen to be a new spirit?"

The girl hesitated. "Yes. My name is Aeola. Two months ago, Mother Nature chose me as the new wind spirit. Now, who the fuck are you?"

"Oh she did, did she?" Pitch growled. Hearing about his daughter angered him. He had not seen or talked to her in a very long time. "Well, how nice." He walked out of the shadows and into the light. "My name is Pitch Black, but I am most commonly known as the Boogeyman. I am the king of nightmares. I am the reason why you are afraid of the dark and the reason why you have nightmares when you sleep. I am everything that you fear."

Aeola frowned. "Oh, so it's you? I've seen your face before."

"So you have?" Pitch melted into the darkness and his shadow appeared in the tree behind her. "How have you seen me before? I have never seen you until today."

"Yes you have," Aeola said, not even looking behind her. "When I was a mortal. I saw you when I was in kindergarten and some fourth graders locked me in a classroom and left me there overnight. You were there when some people from my school beat me up at the back of the school after the 6th grade dance and left me out there with a broken wrist and a bruised face. I've seen you in plenty of other situations that i was stuck in. And I see you now. But you aren't here because of me, aren't you?"

Pitch disappeared from the tree and walked out of the shadows in front of Aeola. "Ah, yes. I vaguely remember those. And you are right, I am not here for you." He waved his hand towards the sound of the shouting and sirens. "I came here for these people. Something that you must know: I do not create fear. It is my source of power and I can make others fear, but I cannot create it. Only the individuals can do that, and then I feed off of it. Which is why I came here. A tornado recently passed through this place, and it created such a large amount of fear that I couldn't resist coming over here." The wind spirit looked down. "You did not answer my question earlier."

"Hm? What question?"

"What is a spirit like you doing in this place?"

"Who the hell did you think caused the damn tornado?" Aeola snapped at him.

Pitch raised an eyebrow. "You...did all of this?" He looked around. "You are quite destructive."

'Shut up."

He walked towards her. "Now, now, there is no need to b-"

"Don't!" Aeola shouted.

Just when Pitch was about five feet away from her, Aeola had taken out her bow and was pointing an arrow at the nightmare king. She growled, "If you come any closer to me I swear I will shoot off your fucking balls and string 'em up on this tree."

Pitch chuckled and crossed his arms. "My goodness. Such vulgar language and...ah, interesting threats. I only wish to speak with you. It's been a while since I actually talked to someone. And I do believe that you haven't talked with anyone in quite some time, either. Don't you want to have a friend?"

Aeola scowled. "No. I don't want a friend. And I especially don't want to be friends with someone like you!"

"And why is that, my dear?"

"Dude, you don't get it!"

"...'Dude?'"

Aeola groaned. "You said it yourself. You're the king of nightmares. I don't need to be around someone who likes to freak out people for a living. And I don't need friends. I'm...perfectly fine on my own." Her voice faltered, which made Pitch pity her. Aeola slung her bow behind her back and turned around. "Oh, and one more thing. Don't go around calling kids 'my dear.' It's creepy as fuck, man. Later."

The wind spirit flew off, getting away from her mistakes and from the boogeyman. The emotions that were boiling inside her were still there, but there was a part of her that regretted not talking to Pitch longer. He wasn't trying to hurt her or anything, and he seemed okay. But Aeola shook it off.

Pitch looked up at the sky, thinking about the young spirit. He liked talking to her, and he felt like they could relate to each other in a way. But there was one thing that was bothering him. Something that she said to him that made him think.

What kind of name is 'dude'?

What's up guys?

Alright, this chapter took me a while to write because I had a terrible case of writer's block...and I have summer school and summer homework and family stuff and I was watching a walkthrough for The Last of Us (since i can't actually get the game) and I played The Walking Dead: 400 Days a few days ago. They were pretty awesome. But here's the chapter. I apologize for it taking so long!

I figured that there had to be at least ONE chapter with Aeola not being able to control her powers. I mean, she is an elemental spirit, like Jack. They sometimes have those moments, but this one was pretty traumatizing for her since it was the first time that this kind of stuff happened to the poor thing.

Also some headcannons for Pitch. Since he never has a chance to really talk to anyone, you can't really blame him for blabbering to Aeola about himself. Also, i don't think Pitch actually creates fear. Only people can (in a way) do that and he just sucks it all in like a sponge.

YES MOTHER NATURE IS PITCH'S DAUGHTER, APPARENTLY. I read about that on the wiki page and i was like "whaaaaaaaaaaaaat". But yeah. It says so in the books and it was a bit of a shocker. The more ya know!

the last bit was for comedic purposes. This chapter was all serious and angsty and sad so I had to throw that in. :3

NOTE: What happened in Oklahoma was terrible and I'm praying that everyone will recover from the tornado. Let's hope that they'll be alright!

Anyways, review, follow, and favorite! Next chapter will be up soon (maybe xP). Enjoy your summer and all that!

-psychochirpingmistress