Enjoy!

Terror 3.2

Boogeyman tore out from the shadows a few blocks away from where she had left Glory Girl contemplating her offer. She ignored the gravelly sensation underneath her feet as she turned back towards the parahuman's position. Even with her superb night vision the building was too far away to see anything but a few blurred blobs. For a moment, she considered the possibility that Glory Girl might be able to see her, but cast that thought aside.

There was no way that Glory Girl would be able to recognize her at this distance. Even with the moon providing some illumination into the dark the distance was just too great.

Lunar Tsar.

Boogeyman brought a hand up to her forehead at the sudden flash of pain, as if she had just gotten a brain freeze. The feeling faded as quickly as it had come, but for some reason she doubted that it was just a headache. As she turned her gaze towards the cratered orb in the sky she couldn't help but feel as though she was staring into Emma's face. As if something about the moon angered her. But as she stared at the moon nothing came to mind as to what could inspire such anger and she pushed the irrational feeling away.

That went better than expected, she thought with some surprise. She had been afraid that the conversation would eventually end up like it had with Jennifer, but it had gone surprisingly well. There had been a minor hiccup when Glory Girl had thought she had been threatening her sister, and she nearly had to bite her tongue off to keep herself from digging into Glory Girl's fears. But despite that minor lapse she had still planted the seeds of doubt into the parahuman's head.

In all honestly, she couldn't even say that she had lied at any point during her conversation with Glory Girl. It wasn't as thought she had made up the facts and figures that polluted the city, or that vengeful criminals didn't exist. All she had done was dredged up the fears that had been buried so deep even Glory Girl didn't consciously know that she had them.

Though her fears hadn't been the only reason that Boogeyman had chosen to meet with Glory Girl. She could have gone to half a dozen other heroes if she had let their fears be the deciding factor. There were plenty of terrified independent capes in the city that she could have picked from, and wouldn't have had to worry about possible retaliation from an entire family of capes.

Even the girl's aura was more of an afterthought. Boogeyman had tasted the fear that Glory Girl's "awe aura", as it had been named by PHO, and found it wanting. What fear it had created had been tainted by things like respect and wonder and it had tasted…bland for a lack of a better word. There was nothing personal about it, no creativity to tailor it to a specific person. There was no true substance for her to gather, it was like eating an MRE. She could live off it if she wanted to, but it wouldn't be very tasty or filling.

No, the real reason she had chosen Glory Girl had been because of her worldview. If she had to be honest the girl's view was simplistic. She wouldn't call the young parahuman stupid by any stretch of the imagination, but she didn't really put much effort into her critical thinking skills. While she had never outright said anything, posts on PHO, videos of fights and interviews had all but screamed that she thought that criminals and villains were scum of the earth. To her criminals were acceptable targets of her wrath, and judging by the fears that Boogeyman had discovered in a few gang members, she made good on those beliefs.

Boogeyman didn't fault her for thinking like that, in fact she applauded it. She had been honest with the parahuman when she said she appreciated her work. Criminals needed to learn to fear the consequences of their actions, and Glory Girl did that by pulverizing their bones into dust. Unfortunately, instead of leaving them to learn their lesson she called in her sister to heal them up and hide away any wrongdoing on her part. It was honestly amusing to see Glory Girl deny that what she was doing was different from Boogeyman, that it was okay for her to rough up the criminals as long as they were healed and hidden away.

The fact that what she was doing was in fact the complete antithesis for what her family stood for was even more amusing. Glory Girl made speeches at public events about the need for more cape accountability while at the same time completely failing to live up to the very standards that she had set for herself. All the while being completely blind to what she was doing, so self-assured of her own righteousness that she was confident that what she was doing wasn't wrong.

Boogeyman wasn't so deluded. She knew that what she was doing to the criminals was wrong, but she still chose to do it anyway. She wasn't sure if that made her a better person for recognizing her flaw, or even worse for her to acknowledge her fault while at the same time still doing it. But she supposed in the end it didn't matter so long as she got the job done and made and actual difference.

It wasn't like she had much of a choice in a city like Brockton Bay. Perhaps in New York or Los Angeles she might have been able to take a softer approach, but the villains of this city had been too free for too long to do whatever they wanted for a softer approach to work. She needed to be hard and uncompromising to drive the criminals back into the shadows where they belonged, back into her domain. The hard way of giving the criminals a chance had passed into oblivion, now was time for the easy way.

They would learn to fear her or die.

Or both, she was flexible.

Glory Girl was only a few degrees separated from her. All she had to do was convince the heroine that letting the criminals get healed and go free was counterproductive to her work and that leaving them as they were would prevent more people from being hurt. All she had done was tug on the parahuman's fears of her sister being hurt and give her an option that could prevent such a thing from occurring.

The best part of all was that she hadn't been lying to Glory Girl. She might have stretched the truth a bit, but everything that she had told the New Wave cape was based on reality. Every cape of New Wave was in constant danger of being attacked out of costume by almost literally every gang member of the city.

It was ironic that New Wave wanted to be rid of the rules that protected criminals and villains from justice while at the same time using those rules to hide behind as a shield. They clung to the illusion that their civilian identities were safe from retaliation, even with the death of Fleur haunting their memories. A senseless, pointless death because someone decided to not play by the rules.

It's all fun and games until someone decides to flip the board.

All she had really done was convince Glory Girl that those rules wouldn't protect her sister when push came to shove. And once Glory Girl had been convinced, she had presented the parahuman with another way to ensure the protection of her sister. The rest? The justifications and rationalizations- those all came from Glory Girl herself. Boogeyman didn't need to whisper such thoughts into Glory Girl's ears, all she had to do was present to her the mere idea that what she was doing could end up harming her sister if she didn't correct her errors.

It was kind of sad that a hero of Glory Girl's repute could be so easily convinced to perform such acts, but then again, it wasn't like her hands weren't already dirty. She had been honest to Glory Girl when she said that she had met a few criminals who had nightmares of her. They weren't exactly numerous, but there were enough to show a pattern of violent tendencies. It was a little surprising that something like this wasn't brought up amongst the criminals given the scandal that New Wave would face if it was aired in public. Though she supposed it made a certain amount of sense. Given that the recipients of said beatings were healed by Panacea, any proof to the wrongdoing was thrown out the window. And nobody was going to believe a commons street thug over the likes of a reputable source like Glory Girl.

Boogeyman had to hold back a snort of amusement that the one of the capes how preached about accountability was doing the exact same thing that had gotten Sophia and the Protectorate in so much trouble. The only difference was that Glory Girl confined herself to acceptable targets like criminals and villains.

She supposed that should have made her dislike the blonde parahuman, but she just couldn't work up the distaste to do so. Sophia's torment had been personal and soul shattering, and her practice of letting those who didn't fight back get hurt left a bad taste in her mouth. For all her faults Glory Girl was better than Sophia.

I suppose that's not saying much, Boogeyman thought as she mentally called Phobia to her location. A rabid dog would probably be an improvement over Sophia, because at least then you could blame the dog for being legitimately out of its mind.

For all of her hypocrisy, Boogeyman appreciated Glory Girl's desire to see criminals off the streets. She wanted to make a lasting difference to the city, even if it meant going against what her family stood for. All she needed was a little push past the line that had been drawn before her, a little encouragement that what she was doing was right.

Even if Glory Girl didn't join her, the seeds of doubt had been woven into her mind. That nagging little voice that whispered of the threats to his sister and family, real or not, would drive her to take a stronger stance against the criminals that infested this city like rats on a ship.

Either way, she would call that conversation a victory.

But as Phobia rose up beneath her with an alien grace she knew that it wasn't time to pat herself on the back. She still needed to investigate Coil.

She wanted to avoid tipping him off or making any major moves against him while she was still fighting the Empire, but spending a night looking for information wouldn't be amiss. Her lesson with the Merchants was still freshly burned into her mind. She knew all too well the risks of chagrining into something without a plan. She didn't want to go after Coil only to find out he had some sort of trick up his sleeve.

She gave a tug to Phobia's reigns as they formed in her hands and set the Nightmare off. As the personification of her former best friend's nightmares trotted underneath her, Boogeyman allowed herself to relax a little. There was no point in allowing herself to get worked up with whatever her imagination cooked up about Coil. She would simply have to wait to find out more about him.

But with her powers, finding someone who knew something about Coil wouldn't be that difficult. So long as one person had the slightest trace dread at the mention of Coil's name she would know. The sleeping mind could hold few secrets from her gaze.

She doubted the search would take that long.

Okay, now she was starting to get irritated.

Boogeyman bit back a frustrated growl as another city block turned up fruitless. Phobia shifted underneath her, but she ignored the Nightmare as she tried to solve the problem at hand. She could feel her teeth grinding against each other as yet another hour passed by with nothing to show for it.

How was it that nobody seemed to know anything about Coil?

It wasn't like she was expecting a wellspring of information from the civilians, but none of them seemed to know anything about the cape. His name held no fear over them other than a general recognition of his existence, and even that wasn't a sure thing. This was supposed to be the heart of his territory, it was almost inconceivable that no one knew anything about the man. If she had tried this in Empire of ABB territory, then she would have gotten something.

Even if the average person didn't keep track of criminal activity, they at the very least learned from their environment and other inhabitants of what to expect. They knew things about the gangs that helped them survive in the areas that they lived in, lest they encounter trouble. Minorities knew better than to walk around Empire territory during the night, or the day for that matter. Young woman learned never to walk alone near the ABB otherwise they might get taken.

But here? There was nothing. No fear that helped them survive or adapt to their surroundings, merely a general apathy towards the villain. Towards the cities' criminal enterprises in general really. This was the rich side of the city, where all the wealthy people gathered to show off their riches in a constant "I'm better than you" competition. It was somewhat revolting to see them like this when half the city was in disrepair.

But her anger towards the 1% would have to be shelved for another day when she wasn't looking for a link to a villain.

This drought of knowledge was making her even more suspicious towards Coil's intentions. Nobody hid themselves and kept information out of the public eye this thoroughly unless they had something important to hide. And given Coil's status as a criminal she was willing to bet whatever he was trying to hide wouldn't be pretty.

But none of that would matter if she couldn't find the blasted snake!

Boogeyman could feel her teeth gnashing against each other in frustration as she spurred Phobia onto the next roof. The concrete clicked underneath her steed's hooves as they passed under the shadow of a skyscraper. There were quite a few lights still on, but she doubted that anyone would be able to see her even if they bothered to look out the window. What little light the moon would have provided them was currently being blocked by a mass of dark clouds that threatened to consume the very sky.

Boogeyman really hoped that it wasn't going to rain. The last thing she needed was to be both wet and miserable. But for now, the dark rolling mass seemed content to merely darken the moon's illuminating light, which served her purposes well.

Her original intent had been to find someone who knew enough about Coil that they genuinely feared the man and work from there. Even if the man wasn't afraid of Coil himself they would be scared of Coils' enforcers and that would still eventually lead to the man himself. It was sad that most people didn't understand the principle of the six degrees of separation, or at the very least comprehend its implications. With a proper understanding of the concept you could find almost anyone.

No matter how much they tried to hide from you.

That was really the only thing keeping her going at this point, was that she knew that at the very least one person in this city knew something about Coil. It would be almost impossible for Coil to run a criminal enterprise without having contact with someone. All she had to do was find a single person who knew something about the man and she would be able to unravel the rest of his thread.

Boogeyman pulled on a few nightmares of a building's occupants as she passed overhead, providing herself some nourishment for the long night ahead. At this point she didn't care how long it was going to take, she would find someone connected to Coil in some way, because now she needed to ease her anger. Before it had been because she was curious how someone like him could survive in a city like this, but now she was going to find him for no other reason than to punish him for irritating her so much. Maybe then…

Boogeyman's head snapped up as she tugged on Phobia's reigns to pull her to a stop. The Nightmare neighed as the sand ropes tugged on her muzzle, but Boogeyman wasn't paying attention to that. No, her focus was on the mind on the very edge of her range. A mind that had a rather acute fear of Coil.

Boogeyman urged her steed with her mind and with her reigns, forcing the mockery of an equine to charge forwards into the night. The Nightmare's hooves crossed the air as if it was made of earth, rushing over the buildings with the speed of a demon. Boogeyman could feel the air buffeted her grinning face as they crossed the buildings beneath them. The lights seemed to flicker and fade as she passed over them, as if she were carrying a blanket of darkness over the streets.

"Hold," Boogeyman ordered as she pulled on Phobia's reigns. The Nightmare skidded to a stop atop the roof of a single-story house. Compared to some of the other buildings in the area it was rather quaint, but it still had a vigor that her own had lacked. Paint wasn't chipping off the side or a rotten corpse of a tree in the back yard from years of neglect.

Boogeyman dismounted from her steed and gave it a soft pat on the snout. "Stay here," Boogeyman said as she made her way to the edge of the roof. Her Nightmare snorted, but complied with her directive. She would make sure to give Phobia a nice snack before they left, but right now this needed her own personal touch.

Her body melted into liquid shadows as she crept down the side of the building as a black mass indistinguishable from the darkness that surrounded her. She slipped through the tiny crack where the window met the frame, a space so small that if she hadn't been literally heightless she wouldn't have been able to squeeze through.

Boogeyman pulled herself back into her regular form as she took stock of her surroundings. Judging by the television bolted to the wall and the couches and chairs scattered about she was in some sort of family room. But there was something about it that felt off for a lack of a better word. The walls were a dull beige with only a handful of pictures to brighten up the room. But what was odd was that none of the pictures were personal. They were all stock photographs of things like the Statue of Liberty or Mount Rushmore, as if the owner had taken the most stereotypical American things imaginable and plastered them all over the room. There was even a beer mini fridge in the corner that wasn't even plugged in. The entire room screamed of someone trying to convince the world that he was something that he really wasn't.

Boogeyman ghosted through the rest of the house, each room telling a similar story. A huge dining table that only had wear and tear on one side. Two bathrooms, but only one stocked with supplies. Everything had been set up to give the illusion that this house was owned by an average American, but as she neared the bedroom Boogeyman could tell that the man was anything but.

He was already being plagued by a minor nightmare, one of death and violence. The calm façade the man created for his sleeping form hid a much more troubled mind that what one would expect. She could feel the nightmare grow darker and more violent as a reaction to her mere presence. The man's calm face twisted into a dark frown.

Boogeyman silently guided over the floorboards as she approached the sleeping man. Her yellow eyes narrowed as the slight lump underneath his pillow which indicated a pistol of some sort jammed underneath. She didn't think that it would do him much good since she took a point blank shot from Miss Militia (and wasn't that ironic that the woman who hated children killers was so willing to become one herself) she was fairly confident that she would be able to brush the shot off.

Boogeyman loomed over the man's sleeping form. The blankets had slipped down revealing a well-muscled chest that had a huge scar running across from his shoulder blade and into his gut to where she couldn't see it. She reached out and clicked his bedside lamp on. Her eyebrow ridge raised up at the sight of a PRT officer badge laying on the nightstand.

The man's eyes squinted in protest as the sudden influx of light being shown through his eyelids. He grunted as he shifted his weight over to reach out and turn the lamp off, but as his blearily opened his eyes he came face to face with Boogeyman's wide smile.

"Hello," Boogeyman said as her teeth glinted in the lamplight.

She had to give the man credit, once he recognized the situation that he was in he moved quickly. A flash of fear overtook the man as his hand leapt out to under his pillow to grab his hidden gun even as his body started twisting to the side to get out of her range. He might have even made it had he been facing an ordinary opponent.

Boogeyman's own hand struck out with the speed of a viper and wrapped itself around the man's throat. Before the man could even recognize that her hand was clutching his throat, she lifted him off the bed and threw him to the side away from his pistol. While she as confident it wouldn't hurt her, a gunshot might be heard by the neighbors and bring more attention than she wanted right now. Especially since he was apparently a PRT agent.

She supposed that she should have felt more concern that she was invading a PRT agent's house, but her recent experiences had torn away the glittering façade of the agents just as much as the heroes. There was also the fact that the man's fear didn't immediately jump to the PRT, but rather to Coil instead. To have such an acutely developed fear of the man implied some form of familiarity with the man.

The man grunted as his body slammed against the floorboards as he tried to twist his body into a roll to escape her. Boogeyman didn't even bother giving him a chance to escape as she lunged forward and kicked the band in the gut. She felt several bones snap underneath the force of her kick and could see the man clutching his side as he came to rest against the wall.

Apparently realizing that escape wasn't an option the man relaxed a bit as he leaned against the wall. His eyes glared at her defiantly, but she could feel the dread and terror lurking behind those orbs. He had apparently seen and heard what she was capable of and felt the appropriate amount of fear.

He would have been a fool not to.

"I'm afraid I can't have you leaving just yet, Lewis," Boogeyman said as a sand sword formed in her hands. She could see a bead of sweat roll down the man's forehead at the sight of her impossibly black blade. His Adam's apple bobbed as she brought the tip a mere inch from his skin. "We need to have a talk."

"I'm not going to tell you anything," Lewis spat out through clenched teeth. It was amusing to how far the man was going to try and hide his terror. His expression was twisted into an angry snarl and the veins on his neck pulsed in anger. It might have fooled her if she was anyone but herself.

"Come now Lewis, I just want to know about Coil," Boogeyman said in a relaxed and conversational tone. There was a pulse of fear at the mention of Coil, a fear of her finding out? No, a fear of Coil finding out that she found out.

Boogeyman had to hold back a twitch of her lips. Apparently for all his dread of her the man feared Coil's retribution more. Even being put into a prison for espionage didn't stoke the latent flames of terror as much as the thought of betraying the snake. While it wasn't anything concrete, it did give her the image of a man that viewed people as expendable pawns to be discarded once their usefulness ran out.

But in Brockton Bay that might as well be the norm. She needed more information.

"Lewis, Lewis, Lewis," Boogeyman said as she shook her head in a pitying manner. "All I want is to know a little more about our resident villain. Is that really too much to ask?" Boogeyman leaned in a bit, careful not to let herself within the man's reach and mock whispered, "He'd never have to know."

"I'm not going to tell you anything," Lewis hissed through clenched teeth as his lips pulled back into a sneer that was probably meant to intimidate her. Personally, she thought his defiance was adorable, but that probably wasn't the image he was going for.

"Well then Lewis, if you won't tell be anything let me ask you this," Boogeyman said with a sigh. In a flurry of motion so fast that the man could barely make out what was happening, he found himself pinned up against the wall. Boogeyman watched as defiance mixed with fear whilst his legs ineffectually swung out in blind panic. She allowed her sword to reform into a much smaller and more jagged knife that she pressed up against his throat, just barely breaking the skin.

"Then why do I need to keep you alive?"

Boogeyman's grin stretched out a bit wider as Lewis' heart skipped a beat. She could feel the cold terror that he felt as he realized that he was a disposable asset to her.

"You can't," he managed to choke out through hitched breaths. His eyes were wide and pleading as if he could somehow force her to be merciful to him.

"No, I can, you just don't want me to," Boogeyman said. It always baffled her whenever someone said that she couldn't kill them. Did any of them honestly think that she would stop what she was doing just because they declared she couldn't? It never seemed to bother them when their victims begged them to stop. "And honestly if you're not going to give me anything I don't see the point in keeping you alive."

"T-the PRT will come after you," he said, the pitch of his voice rising as she dug her blade a little further into his throat. His argument had merit, but it wasn't as if the PRT hadn't already been eyeing her. If she hadn't released the information about what Sophia had been doing she was certain that she would have had a personal visit from Legend by the end of the day. Attacking a PRT agent out of the blue would certainly bring more ire towards her, but it wasn't as if PRT agents hadn't died before. There was probably a dozen or two dead attributed to Hookwolf alone. One more agent, and a spy at that, wouldn't mean too much to the PRT and Protectorate. She could see his skin pale dramatically as her weapon remained unmoved by his statement.

"The PRT was already going to come after me," Boogeyman said with an eye roll to demonstrate how little she thought of his threat. "And I'm willing to be you're not as good as hiding your secrets as you think you are. What do you think they would find if I carved the word 'traitor' into your chest, hmm?"

The man was practically shaking like a leaf at her threats as his defenses were torn apart like wet paper.

"He'll kill me," he whispered, barely audible even with her hearing. It was as if it was a statement of fact rather than speculation. The thought of being gunned down by a group of masked killers flittered through his mind, unassisted by her own hand. The man was afraid of Coil, she just had to make him terrified of her.

"I'd worry about me killing you," Boogeyman said as she twisted the knife a little harder. Lewis winced in protest as the treatment of his skin, but otherwise did nothing as he stared at her with his apprehensive gaze. Boogeyman could feel the fear of her and the fear of Coil's retribution warring inside his mind. The man was terrified of dying, but he had yet to decide whose death he feared more.

She should help him with that.

"Very well," Boogeyman said with an exaggerated sigh as she moved to dig the knife into this throat.

"WAIT!" he screamed, eyes bulging from their sockets in pure terror. His heart hammered against his ribcage as beads of sweat rolled down his neck. Boogeyman had to resist the urge to smirk at the man's state.

Gotcha.

"I'll…I'll tell you what I know," Lewis said in a defeated tone.

"Yes," Boogeyman replied with a hiss as she threw the man to the floor, knocking the air out of his lungs. She pinned him under her foot and reformed her knife into a much larger and longer sword. She allowed herself to loom over the man and inflate her form a little to give the appearance that she was much larger than she actually was. It took less than a second for the man's hindbrain to recognize the threat of a much larger and more powerful predator, adding to the already growing fear inside the man's psyche.

There would be no lies coming from him tonight.

"You will."

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