Work of Art (open to all)

"Don't worry about it, I see you as a good judge of character and I doubt anything bad will happen from letting you know who I really am."

Just then down below a few cars would crash and screams could be heard, as well as frantic pedestrians running around .

"And you can prove to me just how good that judge of character is right now by helping me out...If you want of course. I don't want to put you in danger, but as for me..."

With that said Liz would put back on her effects and then stood up while looking down the multilevel tower towards the disturbance.

"It's time to go to work."

Liz would just nod at this point, grabbing Inoko by the waist and then free falling down the side of the sky scraper. After reaching a little past half way down she would fire a web-tendril and caught the side of a lightpole. As the web-line tehtered to the arcing fixture it would swing them across traffic towards the sidewalk where Liz would drop down and then gently place Inoko on the ground. Afterwards they would aces the situation; as they scanned the area it would appear the people running around were just running around in horror from...well..Nothing!?

(Mind)
"Ok, this is weird. Why are all these people frenzying, I don't see anything around here?"

"Inoko, you said you can use telepathy right? Can you try seeing what's going on here?"

As Spider-Girl spoke the people running in fear and crashing cars would be doing so due to illusions of their greatest fears appearing right in front of them. The entire event being caused by none other than The Hollowman! He had returned, and this time to Steel City. On a building not too far off, a tall gangly figure could be seen standing in a omunous mist or fog. Inside of it Hollowman was geting stronger, the very fears of those around him feeding his being, not to mention the full moon was augmenting his power to be a bit stronger.

"Yes, YES!! I can feel their fears nourishing me. So succulent, Mmm delicious."

Meanwhile, the people on the ground were running and screaming from anything that caused them great terror. This ranged from snakes, to goblins, to trolls, to axe murderous jumping in the path of their vehicles. Of course this was all in their head, but still the images themselves were casuing the people to mass frenzy in fear and strengthen the undead villain.

After asking Inoko to use her telepathy, from a building near by, Hollowman's rough voice could be heard in the wind. His boast about how these pedestrians were satisfying his hunger with the terror gave some sort of idea as to what was going on or at least that he was casuing it.

"Hollowman? Never heard of him, but if his powers are as bad as he looks then were in for a serious fight on her hands because this guy is UUUUGly! Really, it's like he just crawled out of his casket a few minutes ago."

The Hollowman would then turn to the two women and noticed that one was a telepath.

"Ehhhehehehehe, more children...Goood, pre-teen youth usually have the most...Asanine of fears. While an adolescent might fear the darkness or an adult the loss of his or her home. Your generation seems to loathe the thought of losing an item or having a bad social function with friends. Such easy things to replicate and torcher you with. Tell me girl, what is your fear!?"

As Hollowman spoke he would look towards Liz first, looking into her very essence as they locked eyes. The goggles she wore provided no barrier to Fredrick's piercing gaze and once he entered the windows to her soul it was laid out like a blueprint for him.

"Ahhh yes, sooo many insecurities in this one. The fear of you losing your mother or achieving your goal in this life and failing mierably at it as well. Allow me to show you that these fears aren't fears at all, but a HARSH realityyy."

Suddenly from the shadows around Spider-Girl and Inoko the old Teen Titans would arise excactly as you would imagine them. Except they were filled with rage towards Liz and approached her yelling and screaming.

"You call yourself a hero, your just a little girl with daddy issues."

"How could you ever think we would accept you."

"You don't deserve your power."

"You give a bad name to spiders everywhere, and trust me, I would know."

As Beastboy spoke last he would turn into a rather large tarantula and crawled towards Liz; who backed away in fear of what she was told by the Titans being true.

"No, please I-I I'm trying my best. Don't be like this, all I want to do is join you guys and be a revered superhero."

"You're nothing like us, and never will be."

As Raven spoke all five of them would continue to march towards Spider-Girl arming themselves. The problem was, however, that this was all in Spider-Girl's mind and was only visible to her. So to Inoko it looked like she was just talking to herself while freaking out.

As Liz struggled to run from the spider version of Beast Boy, she would hear Inoko's voice in her head telling her it isn't real, but what the heck was she talking about? They were right there in front of her. Spider-girl would then take evasive action, avoiding Beat Boy's attack and Robin's bird-a-rang plus Cyborg's sonic canon. Of course to the outside world she was just flipping around and jumping away from really...nothing. However, in her mind she was cartwheeling away from star bolts.

"Why are you doing this! I've only tried to help the people, please, STOP!!"

Meanwhile, Hollowman would look unerved as the child used her powers against him. His ability to feel the actual emotion of fear left him a long time ago; his own black heart devouring it all up, which in turn caused him to seek others. In anycase, the teen posed a real threat. As the monsters charged at him, the mist in itself would enshroud Hollowman; causing them to pounce onto the black figure, but he was no longer there? Then in the echoing of the winds his shrill voice could be heard as a whisper.

"Aluna min'kata!"

Suddenly, the the street poles and stop lights, plus signs in the area would begin to move like serpents and attempted to wrap themselves around the figures to immobilize Inoko's beasts. As this all happened, the fog would move closer towards Inoko and out of it stepped the Dark Magician clapping his hands while a sick smile remained plastered across his face.

"Child, your powers to instill fear are...Impressive to say the least. If I were only a few centuries younger, and still alive, I might've found you worthy enough to be my bride...Ahhh, the horrors we could share with the world. The terror we could instill, it would be a lucious feast!"

As Hollowman spoke, he would look at the girl. He wanted to get a good look into her eyes as well. He wanted to learn this girl's fears, then the fun would really begin...

As Inoko spoke to Hollowman, she would not realzie the entire banter was a diversionary tactic so he could get a good look at her face. After receiving the slash from her sword and her punch. The combiend sonic attacks plus the whipping wind that came from it not only tore away his 19th century old vest, but in addition caved in Hollowman's chest and sent him soaring backwards into the a vehicle; which dented as his mangled body hit it. It appeared Inoko had put him down, at least until his jaw and head would suddenly click back into place; as did the rest of his joints as he began to speak.

"Ooooh so powerful, yes a fine specimen of fear indeed, but you have a weakness child and now I know of it. Too bad, we could've been delightedly frightening together. I banish you young youth, to forever remain in the shadow realm from which your powers seem to stimulate. May you rot alone for an eternity."

Then as Hollowman stood up, suddenly the ground beneath Inoko would open up like a magical trap hole and sucked her into it. As she fell in, the last thing she would see was Liz attacking Hollowman from behind while he cackled at Inoko realizing her worst fear come to life. The next thing the girl would see was her body floating in a realm of complete darkness, similar to Azaroth but it had dark skies and was a barren wasteland with no other life then her own. It would appear that the Dark Magician had sent Inoko to a sort of pocket dimension where she would be trapped forever alone, and deserted, with no interaction from another living being. Her worst fear come to life. However, this was all just an allusion, Fredrick had lied to the girl to make her believe he had the ability or magical power to send her to such a fate. When in reality, she was just standing in the same spot while her consciousness was pre-occupied inside her own mind. Hollowman's abiltiy to make people's fear come to life had been activated for Inoko the moment he made contact with her eyes. Although, he did still take heavy damage from her attacks and was holding a spot in his chest with one hand that she had caved in. His black heart now exposed under his demolished rib cage.

Meanwhile, while inoko and Hollowman had been battling. Spider-girl had continued fighting the Teen Titans. After avoiding Starfire's green bolts she was captured by her own shadow that seemed to hold onto her like tar; thanks to Raven and her own shadow manipulating ability. As Liz struggled and the Titans approached her, she would try to understand why they were doing this, but then remembered what Inoko had said. They weren't there?

(Mind)
"Hey wait, where is Inoko and why would the Titans attack me. Maybe this really is all an allusion?"

However, even though she recognized it was indeed all an allusion, it didn't end. Just realizing that you are trapped does not free you from Fredrick's mind games of fear, you must overcome or fight off your fears to free yourself. An act that Liz unknowingly accomplsihed once she realized her freind was probably still fighting that zombie guy and most likely needed her help.

"That's it, real Titans or not! I'm sorry, but I am a HERO! I don't care what anybody says and right now, I have a friend to save. So you guys need to Back OFF!"

As Spider-Girl said this aloud she would fire a web-bullet at Raven's face causing her to release the girl and then immediately jumped up avoding Cyborg's sonic canon and landed a top his shoulders. From there she performed a wrestling manuver known as the hurricaranna and lunged the half android Titan into Robin. Immediately afterwards she would duck a pouncing attack from Beast Boy in giant tarantula form and countered by lifitng the boy up in her own mind using her spider-strength and then lunged him at the currenty airborne Starfire. Affectively defeating the Teen Titans and symbolically overcoming her fear of not being enough for them. Finally, the realization had sunk in that 'she' was enough for herself and that's all that ever mattered. After defeating her allusion, the Titans and the empty city would seem to all melt away; bringing the wall-crawler back to reality where she would find mass hysteria once mroe and Hollowman cackling at Inoko as she stood in what seemed like a trance state.

(Mind)
"Here's my chance, I'll have to take gruesome by surprise. I don't want to get caught in another one of his allusions again."

With that thought in mind, Liz would attempt to stealthy run and jump towards Hollowman in a grabbing motion. However, Hollowman had known the girl had overcome his allusion the moment her fear stopped feeding him, and as she made her attempt at a sneak attack he was whispering magic words under his breath.

"Nomir' Ferra'shka."

Suddenly in mid leap Hollowman's head would turn a full 360' degrees to face Spider-Girl and opened his mouth. Magically releasing a dozen or so bats from his withering and decayed jaws that would all fly towards Liz and blocked her vision. Thus, causing the girl to overshoot her attack and instead landed on the ground in front of him where she and the symbiote would try to fend off the blood sucking animals as much as possible.

(Mind)
"Whoa, where the heck did all these bats come from!? What the heck is this guy?"

While Inoko was stuck in her illusion Spider-girl would escape the many bats Hollowman had summoned by knocking them off of her one after another until she finally had enough room to shoot a web-line into the air. The tendril hoisting upwards until it caught the side of a tall building, then in one movement the web-head retracted herself up into the night sky. As Liz swung about she would shoot web-balls at the bats hitting nearly a half or more of the flying rodents until they retreated. Afterwards she would swing towards Hollowman, but as she did so remembered that she couldn't look at his face because that's what she was doing before when he trapped her in that illusion. So to protect herself from his gaze Liz would come in for a blind dropkick at the skeletal man. Her eyes closed comepletely as she did so. Shockingly, Hollowman did something that she hadn't predicted or even imagined that he could do. Suddenly his neck would spring forward from his shoulders like a giraffes while cackling madly and headbutted the web-slinger as she soared through the air by meeting her half-way. The impact itself knocked Spider-Girl out of the sky and flat onto her back on the hard street below; as she sat up teen hero rubbed the back of her head. While Hollowman's very loud and annoying laughter could be heard in the backround like nails on a chalkboard.

(Mind)
"Ouch! How the heck did he do that?."

Suddenly Liz's spider-senses would go off as a small pumpkin rolled by her. It would seemed to have came from his other regular size Jack-O-Lantern, but unlike normal pumpkins this one's facial expression changed and moved fluently for that matter. As it spat two more towards the heroess right after the first one, Liz would realize that she needed to get away and quickly kipped up to her feet before lunging backwards into a hand spring tuck variation. Just in time too, for a moment later the pumpkin blew up in a dazzling light show of magical fireworks.

"Pumpkin bombs!? You gotta be kidding m--"UURAGH!!"

Liz would continue to avoid the Halloween themed grenades by doing a one handed cartwheel to avoid the other, but was caught by the third explosion, somewhat, which sent her flying through the window of a linen store. Once inside her body would crash through multiple racks that all toppled over on top of her.

"Hehehe, ahhh children and their vigor. It never ceases to amuse me. Morlok' Ter'ahut!"

Spider-girl being tougher than she looked would arise from the debirs moments later. Only to have the curtains and drapes that were apparently on sale suddenly come alive and wrap her up like a mummy. The cloths themselves seemingly had a mind of their own, sort of like the magic carpet in Aladin.

(Mind)
"ARGH, is it me or is this guy getting stronger!? Wait, it's what he said earlier, our fears feed him. He is getting stronger! He's thriving on the emotions of the ones he scares like an infinite powersource."

Meanwhile, while Lizandra struggled to free herself Inoko would seem to break free of her illusion and threated to destroy the Hollowman.

"You, slay me child? I'm sorry to inform you, but a bunch of other little brats beat you to it centuries ago. I'm already dead dearest and even though you may have been able to escape your fear so quickly by utilizing your inner aggressions. Do not think you have overcome fear..."

As he spoke Inoko would unleash her ultimate technique by freeing her monsters from before, but this time they seemed to be real as breath rose form their nostrils and their nails could be heard scraping across the cement flooring. Each one following their creator's lead as they charged towards the undead magician, who's somewhat livley pumpkin was acting very peculiar as it grew in mass.

"...For you see rage is the response to fear. The reaction a being gets when it is afraid of a certain and usually inedible outcome."

With these last few words Fredrick's pumpkin would continue to grow and then engul it's master like a pacman just as Inoko had reached him. Her blade stabbing deep into the vegtable's skin. Followed up by her creatures who tore the flesh of the plant away until there was nothing left but the guts of the jack-o-lanten and Spider-Girl!? Inoko's blades seemed to have inflicted damage on the wrong individual. What was meant for an evil creature of fear instead had mortally wounded her new friend. A trickling of blood would excede from Liz's lips as she looked at Inoko with a shocked expression then dropped to the floor while gasping for air. As she lied there, the young fallen hero removed her mask and looked up at Inoko with a stare that had an obvious question behind it. One that Lizandra spoke aloud, but in a low hushed whisper.

"Whyy? I-I thought y-you were my..f-friend?"

Yet another trick of Fredrick's, he knew illusions were not the only way to induce fear. Like Inoko he too could make his illusions come to life. This time he had chose to invoke her fear by making the girl believe he had switched palces with Liz when the pumpkin had engulfed him. Therefore, tricking her into killing the girl who had just trusted Inoko with her deepest secret. It was very believable as well; for before Inoko had awoken Liz was trapped inside a store out of view. Not to mention the blood, flesh, and skin of the girl was very real and life like. However, this dieing SPider-Girl was really just The Hollowman shape shifted into the girl. The attack he had seen coming and allowed to strike his new form. It was a price worth paying just so he could get the reaction he was craving from the teen. Fear. The anxiety that followed killing a comrade, so delicious.

As Inoko charged the Hollowman, the real Liz had finally managed to rip apart the sheets that had trapped her with her super-human strength. After doing so she thought about going to help Inoko who she could see was giving it to the dark magician with everything she had, but SG realzied that physically attacking him was of no use. The people all around them were feeding him power like electricity to a lightning rod.

(Mind)
"Come on Spidey think, what could possibly beat this guy? Wait, didn't he say he was returning from Jump City? If that's the case maybe the Titans have dealt with him before."

With that said Lizandra would take out her PDA from the pouch concealed in her symbotic costume around her lower waist and found a file about the Hollowman attacking Jump City. It was revealed that he was defeated by...

"Of course, that's it!"

Spider-girl would then look about the store for the item(s) she needed; hopefully they would have something in here that she could use. Back in the streets, Inoko would hear the Hollowman feeding on her emotions in his mind; at which point her fear for her friend's life would disappear and be replaced with more rage than before! However, once again Fredrick could tell when his victims had realized what he was up to and much like Spider-girl rolled backwards and then did a handstand before flipping back onto his feet with movements that would seemingly only be performable by the web-slinger herself. His creepy voice escaping what appeared to be Liz's lips, indicating it truly was him.

"Ah yes, you are of a strong mind I give you that child. To be able to overcome your fears so quickly while most would have been paralyzed with terror in both situations."

Luckily, Inoko's powerful blast would soar towards the undead sorcerer at a speed he was unable to avoid. Especially without the help of danger-sense or web-fluid. As the sonic burst connected it would rip apart the fake arachnid female and blew pieces of bones and flesh everywhere....It would appear Inoko had finally made good on her promise and had literally torn the Dark Magician to shreds. But of course, only about a minute or two later the bones and rotting flesh would come floating back towards eachother until the zombie like corpse was reformed. At which point Hollowman would click his jaw back into place and addressed the girl in his now completely tarnished attire.

"Foolish girl, save your teenage hormonal fits of anger for someone who has not experienced the fires of hell itself. You have not the power to end my rebirth, especially when my element compels me from all around you."

Hollowman was of course referring to the people who were still freaking out on the streets.

"I fear nothing, for I am FEAR itself. I will not be stopped until all the decendents of those who took my life have paid with their very souls, and no mere mortal Wretches are going to change that."

"You sure about that!?!"

From up above, Hollowman as well as Inoko would see Spider-Girl fast approaching with something in her hand. It was a large cross; taken from some of the broken furniture in the linen store that she had forcibly broken into. As she approached she would lunge the object onto the evil villain and watched as he wreathed in pain as it stuck onto his chest right above his black heart and burned him vigourously like acid.

"AAAAARRRRRRAAAAAAAALLLLAAAAAAHHHHRRRRGH!!!"

Liz would then land on the ground in front of Inoko in a knelt position with one palm touching the ground.

"I looked him up in Jump City's database of supervillains. He's a resurrected demonic soul, so it made sense that when the Titans defeated him they had to do so using white magic and luckily for us white magic and religious items are up the same alley of goodness"

For the first time that night Hollowman would feel the closest thing he could to fear. It was a feeling of self-preservation. With the cross in direct contact with him he could no longer soak up the emotional fears of others like a sponge and was weakened to a point where he could be in danger. With that on the mind The Hollowman decided to cut his losses and make a hasty retreat.

"No, my vengeance has not been realized yet. Until next time children and when we meet again, retribution will be mine and this city, as well as it's inhabitants, will BURN!"

And with that Fredrick would become covered in the same mist from before. As it covered him nothing could be seen, but a dark silhouette. The teens may try to attack the figure within the fog, but in reality he was already gone.

"Don't be too hard on yourself, I wouldn't have expected him to be thinking of something like that anyway. I'm sure the only thing going through that sick head of his was how many more people he could frighten half to deat---Whoa, are you ok!?!"

As Liz began to reply to Inoko, she would notice the girl getting weak and caught her in her arms before she hit the ground.

"Inoko, Inoko!? Speak to me!"

(Mind)
"She's fainted from exhaustion, gotta get her to a hospital."

With that in mind, Spider-Girl would exit the area with Inoko hung over her shoulder and swang towards Minerland Hospital. As they departed, many of the terrified civilians in the area were all just breaking free of their illusions and looked at one another wondering what had just happened to them. On the way, she blamed herself for what had happened to Inoko.

(Mind)
"This is all my fault, I got her involved in this life. I can't let my only friend in this godforsaken place get hurt or worse, and who knows what could've happened if I hadn't found out about Hollowman's weakness."

Lizandra then made a hard decision that Inoko and her couldn't be friends. Afterwards leaving her in the hospital lobby so that nurses could find her and then taking off as quick as she came. As she swung off into the night sky, Spider-Girl would shed a tear. Was she really destined to be alone; and even though she no longer feared being accepted by the Teen Titans, she had to wonder if she did approach them...Would they accept her?