When Beast Boy and Raven finally came to the site of the Aurora Runway Show, it appears a massive dark orange cloud had taken up the entire inside of the building. They came through about 15 feet of cloud when they found not a runway stage as they had both expected, but décor that remind them of the haunted houses from the cheap horror movie marathons the Titans watched each Halloween weekend. Specifically, they appeared to be in the middle of a hallway with six massive doors. To complete the cliché, there was complete and total silence.
"OK," advised Beast Boy, "If I know my horror movies, we should pick two doors for which nothing happens, and then at the third door we'll get a jump…"
Then Robin came crashing through one of the doors, followed by living hallucinations of Two-Face, Riddler, Penguin, Mad Hatter, and Killer Croc. The Two-Face and Riddler ones pinned him to the ground, while the Penguin forced him to read Nicholas Sparks.
"Go on, little boy!" he mocked. "Cry for the Bat to come save you!"
Then Cyborg immediately came bursting out of another room, covered in spider webbing. The teacher monster tore down the rest of the doorway and dragged Cyborg back towards him, sticking his hands to a piano and forcing to play "All Those Endearing Young Charms" on a repeating exploding piano. Starfire spilled out her room along with the tentacled mass, struggling to break free from the perpetual tickling. A fourth door had Jinx breaking through, struggling to keep up in her fight against Cheshire, and was also trying to shake off snakes growing out of her body.
Finally, Scarecrow and Donna Troy came crashing through the ceiling, both enveloped by fire. Donna lay beaten on the ground, her skin having multiple burns and needle stabs, and struggling to stand back up, her resolve not yet broken. Scarecrow was still dancing without a care in the world.
"Is this the best that Themyscira has to offer?" he mocked. "At least try to give me a little bit of a fright!"
He was then startled by a very angry Raven rising behind him, eyes glowing, arms stretched out, and her cape rising. Scarecrow was more than thrilled at this sight, and took off his fedora in preparation.
Raven started to give her battle cry – "Nobody hurts my friends" – but couldn't as Scarecrow quickly pull out Dr. Light's photon gun from his fedora, and with it blasted Raven with a huge beam of light knocking her backwards.
Raven got up and was shocked to see the villain walking towards her with a murderous smile.
"If you're going to attack someone, attack! Don't talk."
Scarecrow was then immediately caught off guard by Beast Boy, slithering around him as snake constricting him so that he was tied up in the shapeshifter's coils. Donna was finally managing to stand up when Scarecrow managed to shoot some fear toxin from his staff into Beast Boy's face, forcing him to revert into human form.
As Beast Boy recovered, he saw his worst nightmare materialize in front of him:
Rednecks.
Or at least, what someone who had absolutely no exposure to redneck or hillbilly culture thought they would be like. Along with plaid shirts and overalls, they all grew buck teeth, were holding rusty hunting rifles that had been modified to double as banjos, and spoke incoherent sentences about screwing their sisters in between slave beatings and gay burnings.
This terrified Beast Boy, and he was soon running around the room while the three questionably offensive stereotypes hunted him down while arguing about how to count to 10.
Scarecrow thought nothing of this, but was delighted to see Raven flying towards him again. Using his newly-obtained magic skills to bend the light from the photon gun, he put up a fight that ended with Raven being tied by beams of light as though she was being forced to lay on an examination coach. With his guard down, Donna tried to punch Scarecrow, but he easily grabbed her arm, thrust her onto the ground, and sat on her like a chair. Having lost all her strength to the fear toxin, Donna finally succumbed to her fear of being too weak to never give up.
"So, Miss Raven," started Scarecrow, "how are we feeling today?"
"Not good, you son of a bitch!" growled Raven, breaking free from the light beams. Scarecrow activated two other light weapons on his wrists, which shot at light beams that extended like swords. He leaped and attacked Raven, who countered with swords of her own constructed from her dark magic.
"Hey, that's not a very nice thing to say! Especially after I came all this way just to see you! I mean, how would you feel if you got this treatment from Batman?"
A started Raven briefly lost her footing, but managed to regain it as she continued to repel Scarecrow's attack. "So, what if that were to happen?" she asked rather bashfully.
"Oh, it's obvious that he was your biggest inspiration. I mean, just look at your costume: tight black outfit, belt around the waist, long dark cape, chest emblem with the image of your animal namesake, head covering that only shows your eyes and mouth, and you never, ever smile. Not to mention your name, a dark creature of the night associated with horror. In layman's terms, that's some major fangirling!"
Raven did not appreciate a total sadistic stranger getting that deep into her psyche. Nobody could get into her mind unless she allowed it! "What are you getting at?" she demanded.
"Oh, it's just that I know a lot about you, so I can see how you would look up to the Bat as a type of role model. But the biggest similarity is that you both share the same fear!"
"Fear of what?"
"The fear of becoming a monster. You exist in this world, protect this world, limit your potential in this world, simply for the sake of your friends. They love you for who and what you are, something you could never do on your own! Loving them is your only true purpose, just like how the Bat loves everyone who looks up to him. But this means for both of you, your greatest fear disregarding the emotions of all those who matter to you in favor of your own petty selfish desires!"
"Shut up! If you knew me, you'd know I've already defeated my greatest nightmare!"
"Is that so? Well, let me explain this scenario. You see, my fear toxin coupled with my new magic brings my patients' greatest fears to life. As we both know, your greatest fear is to become a monster, and the worst monster is one who sacrifices her friends for her own personal enjoyment. In that way, the worst way to lose your friends would be if they endured their own greatest nightmares, and you refused to help them because their suffering amused you!"
"I would never…"
"One more thing – normally, my fear toxin just skims the surface of the subconscious to bring out the fear, but thanks to your presence and your black magic mind working as an amplifier, my toxin has grown much stronger, digging deep into the psyche to upgrade the hallucinations from nightmares to night terrors. So, by now, all your friends should be seeing their own minds completely conquered by fear. Go ahead and see if I'm wrong. I think you'll like it!"
Then Raven suddenly realized that she hadn't used her empathic abilities since she had arrived in the building. It was also right then that she could feel the absolute terror of each of her friends:
Robin helplessly watched the Joker club everyone he ever loved to death, all the while the clown mocked him for never killing him even though he had a gun in his hand.
Starfire had to endure Silkie spitting on her face, jumping out of her arms, and happily accepting Blackfire as his new master. Her evil sister then put on a monocle and stroked Silkie like a cat while lowering Starfire into a pit inhabited by a monstrous Chryssalid Eater, and Silkie stuck out his tongue while wagging his worm-butt.
Cyborg was stuck playing the same piano tune, but instead of exploding, the piano opened to reveal the corpse of his mother, which Gizmo forced him to look at.
Instead of Cheshire, Jinx now saw her boyfriend Kid Flash, who then stabbed her and the poison from her blades made her fall unconscious. Beast Boy was no longer being chased by rednecks, but instead being roasted over a fire pit while they drank beer and sang bluegrass. Donna still saw mythological monsters in the fire, but she also saw the face of Wonder Woman, scolding her for giving up.
After it all, Raven her a voice inside her say:
"Such beautiful screams. Their agony is my joy."
As soon as she had heard that, Raven screamed out, "Azarath Metrion Zinthos!" create a huge blast of black energy that sent Scarecrow across the room, knocking him off his feet. Then she grabbed Scarecrow's staff and hat, flew with them up to the ceiling, and shouted her three magic words again.
The staff and hat were encompassed in a black ball of dark magic, which exploded and destroyed its contents, ridding all hallucinations from the room, so that everyone and everything appeared normal once again.
Raven repeated her magic words, but this time more gently, and black rays of magic streamed out from her chakra and into the heads of her fellow Titans (and Donna), removing them of all mental anguish. Once that was over, Raven opened her eyes and stared angrily down at Scarecrow, who simply responded with a slow clap.
"Very impressive," he complimented. "Although with your records, I was expecting a lot more in terms of property damage."
He then felt Donna grab one of his arms with both hands, and then throw him onto the floor.
"Was that frightening enough for you?" she asked angrily while ripping his mask off.
Donna had little time to be shocked at what she saw – a computerized disk over Scarecrow's left eye like a monocle. A wire ran from this monocle, under his shirt, underneath his left sleeve, and connected to the scope on a dart gun. Immediately, Scarecrow fired at Beast Boy, hitting him right on the left shoulder. Raven rushed down to him and yanked the dart out, but realized that its effects were already taking their toll.
"Mom, Dad? Is that you? Robotman, Elastigirl? Mento, Cyborg, Robin, Raven! Terra! Star … no! No please, no! Come back! NO!"
"A special dose, that I made just for the green one!" bragged Scarecrow. "Five times the normal concentration! Or was it 50 times?"
After a gasp for air, Beast Boy fell silent. Cradling him in her arms, Raven could feel his heartbeat, but she knew that his mind was gone. As she looked back towards Scarecrow, she gritted her teeth together and her eyes glowed red.
Robin sensed the untamable wrath about to be unleashed, and ordered for everyone to leave. The remaining villains left the way they came, and Cyborg ran for cover while Robin and Starfire carried Donna and Jinx respectively to safe hiding places.
All the while, a darkness stretched from underneath Raven's cloak and filled the room, covering Scarecrow in a cocoon much to his delight. Waving black tentacles came out from Raven's body as she appeared to grow taller, all the while repeating what she had said before…
"Nobody
Hurts
My
FRIENDS!"
After a flash of black light, Cyborg, Robin and Starfire peered into the room to see it covered with what appeared to be decomposing black vines. Scarecrow was trapped in a black cocoon, and Raven was still cradling Beast Boy, her chakra pressed against his forehead while begging for a response. When he couldn't provide one, Raven enveloped herself and her friend in her soul self, and the two flew away through the ceiling.
The remaining Titans leaned against the wall to recollect what had just happened.
"Hey, Donna," Robin finally acknowledging the fellow sidekick in his arms.
"Oh, hey Robin", she replied while blushing.
"Ooo, Wonder Girl?" asked Cyborg, holding out his hand for a shake. "I'm a big fan of your momma!"
"Thanks, I get that a lot."
As they shook hands, Robin placed Donna down and as Cyborg helped her to stand up, Robin went over to check on Starfire, holding a still knocked-out Jinx while pulling pieces of broken-off blades from her arm.
"I will be OK, Robin. My people's wounds heal quickly, but I did not think there was anything on this world that could cut me."
Then Cyborg informed them of an incoming transmission from Kid Flash, the audio of which he played, where the speedster sounded very exhausted:
"OK, Robin I … went to Gotham … got the antid- … right outside Auror- … gonna faint now."