Fandom A Friday in Arcane

[MidwayLives]

'Jason....Jason, my special special boy. Don't you remember your gift?"


The words from his dear mother rang out in his head, little by little.


'No matter what they do to you. You can never die.'


Jason glanced down as his body was quickly becoming ethereal and the ice under his feet was crumbling.


Blood which was colored as black as the night sky oozed out of the various wounds on his body. With a wound that'd tore halfway across his chest, staining his t-shirt and his jacket, he gnashed his teeth and reached out towards the source of his current condition. The man who'd orchestrated this dreadful night in the first place. The dreamslayer himself, Freddy Krueger, had managed to get his hands on the Necronomicon by manipulating the simple-minded undead brute. With the dark magic seeping from the text that lined the tome's cursed pages, Freddy had managed to ascend beyond merely being the terror of just a town.


With the Necronomicon's power, he'd become a worldwide menace.


As for Jason, well, Freddy put it rather simply.


"Guess what, hockey puck? I don't need you anymore..."


Reciting an incantation from within the book, Jason began disappearing from the frozen woodlands outside his makeshift cabin that he'd been keeping Freddy's severed head alongside his mother's after their original battle. Raising his right arm which had been lopped off at the wrist by a certain chosen one's chainsaw, Jason roughly implanted his machete into the stump, causing black blood and viscera to spill across the blade and stain the ice below. He took his swipe and just as the blade was inches away from hitting it's mark, Jason was gone. Closing the book and throwing his head back in perceived victory, Freddy cackled. "AHAHAHA! ONE DOWN, ONE MORE TO GO! YOU'RE NEXT, WILLIAMS!"


Clinging to Ash's jacket, terrified and understandably so at Freddy's new power, Bree-Ash's latest partner in crime and the only one he'd been able to save throughout Freddy and Jason's rampage-watched as Jason simply disappeared into thin air. "A-Ash, where did he go?? Where did Freddy send him??"


"Babe? I've been screwed over more times than I can count by that damn book. Wherever it sent Wayne Deadski, it's not gonna be kittens and rainbows I can tell you that much..."


"..."


Jason had never been the brightest one in the room. His peers often made sure to remind him of that fact. Back when he was a little boy, harmless to everyone, and still himself. Still alive and human. But as a sort of thanks for retrieving the Necronomicon for him, the book's magic reanimated whatever portions of Jason's brain had simply ceased working after his initial death at the hands of Tommy Jarvis back in 1984. He was certainly no genius but he knew enough to know when Ash and friends were attempting to lead him into a trap or when Freddy no longer saw a need to keep the hulking zombie around.


Still, he wasn't even close to being smart enough to perceive and understand just what exactly had happened to him. The last thing he could recall was facing down both Freddy and Williams-the one who'd tricked him and the one who'd hurt him. The grapefruit sized hole in Jason's sternum and the massive chunk taken out of his side, not to mention his impromptu and unwanted amputation were all a result of his skirmishes with Ash. This place, this new location, it didn't look or even feel anything like Crystal Lake. He was surrounded by all kinds of unfamiliar faces and voices. The only thing he recognized were the burnt remains of his hockey mask that'd been pulled along with him. But the weirdest thing of all?


He....He couldn't hear his mother's voice in his head anymore. Or at least not as strongly. It sounded muffled as though she were far away.


"Claggor, get us an exit already-Look out!" A young pink-haired teen yelled out, while resting against a door which seemed to be holding back quite the force as the steel it was made out buckled and shook. A heavier-set teenager wielding some kind of pipe glanced over with a look of growing horror spreading across his features at the new occupant in this room. "W-What the hell is this?!" The one the pinkhaired girl had called out to as Claggor yelled. Dealing with Silco and his men had been bad enough. But then out of nowhere this...thing appeared in front of them. It towered over everyone in the room except maybe for Vander, it's skin looked bloated and grey as though they were looking at a walking corpse. The torn flesh in the back exposing the spinal cord and the hole in the center of the chest that they could see the view through also didn't help paint a pretty picture.


Situated in the center of the room appeared to be the only adult in the room. Restrained down in a chair, the man could only blink in utter disbelief as this foul-smelling goliath appeared with a wave of mist. Had this been Silco's doing? No, it couldn't have been. If he had something like whatever this nightmare was, he'd have unleashed it right from the get-go. But it didn't matter who or what was behind this monster. The blood smeared on the blade wedged deeply in the bleeding stump on this creature's left arm didn't lend itself to this stranger being friendly. "Mylo, hurry!" Vander ordered and the teenager forced himself to tear his gaze away from their new 'guest' and to continue working at Vander's restraints.


"...." Normally, children as young as those in the room would have been safe from Jason's wrath. Despite his own torturous upbringing with his peers at the time of his youth, he held no ill will for children as a whole. His death at the hands of a young Tommy Jarvis only cemented it. Children were innocent and undeserving of the fate that the sinners who often swarmed Crystal Lake's grounds got. Clutching his only hand at the side of his head, Jason staggered. Whether it was the lingering effects of the Necronomicon's magic having an unforeseen effect in this different space or something else entirely, the undead manchild simply didn't feel right. Understandably not trusting that whatever this thing was supposed to be was on their side, Claggor gulped and hesitantly raised his weapon and let out a yell as he struck Jason across the back with it. The blow wasn't anything that Jason couldn't handle. But it succeeded in getting his attention.


His eyes narrowed and his bright brown eyes burned holes into Claggor's. He lashed out and cracked the youth in the face. With his supernatural strength, Claggor's goggles flew off as his head turned and popped with a sickening twist as a morbid finish. The weapon fell from the boy's hands right as his body hit the floor. "C-Claggor...?" Mylo meekly called out but no matter what he said or did, the deed was done. His friend and brother by all means was dead.


"NO!" Vander and Vi cried out in unison as a loved one died right before their eyes. Noticing just how close Claggor's murderer was, Mylo grabbed his fallen sibling's weapon and thrust it towards Jason which ripped straight through the bloodsoaked fabric of the undead's t-shirt and into his putrid flesh. Blood seeped down the pipe in slow sticky trails, but it didn't seem to have any kind of stopping effect on the usually masked murderer. Shaking his head from side to side, Jason grabbed Mylo's forearm and held the struggling teen in place as he reared back his machete and shunted it straight through Mylo's chest, pushing it out the back and into the wall behind Mylo. "Agk...." Mylo coughed up a wad of blood as Vander finally ripped himself free from the last of his restraints. The sight of whoever this abomination was killing the children he'd taken under his care was just a sight too far. Ripping his machete free and letting Mylo slump to the floor, the wall became unsteady and it was all Mylo could do to reach out towards Vi as the debris began to fall.


He didn't get a chance to call out her name.


Both him and Claggor's body were left buried and crushed under the fallen wall.


Were he in whatever constituted as the 'right mind' for an entity like him, Jason might have paused after realizing he'd just killed two children. But the uneasy feeling he'd gotten since arriving wherever he was only seemed to be getting worse, leading into something of a headache. Clacking his machete against what remained of the exterior wall, Jason's exposed jawbones grinded together as he tried to concentrate on the pain wracking his head. His mother's voice sounding so distant.


'Jason....Jason....JASON!'


"MURDERER!"


*thwack*


It wasn't often that a mere punch had enough force behind it to warrant Jason's concern. This latest example seemed to be an exception to the rule. Nearly losing his footing, Jason fell against the wall after the vicious left hook from the enraged man he'd last seen stuck in the chair. Blow after blow was rained upon Jason. Pain was something that Jason struggled to comprehend after returning to the mortal world as an undead. His body was so decomposed that whatever nerves he may have had either didn't work anymore or needed a MUCH bigger 'kick' than most of his would be-victims were physically capable of giving him. This man wasn't a frightened teenager however. He knew exactly what he was doing.


The zombie was left poised against the wall as Vander bellowed. His bruises were left nearly masked by the splatters of dark blood spraying from Jason's face as Vander unleashed every bit of his wrath upon him. Gripping Jason's left arm, he also removed the killer's favored weapon from the equation by pinning it to the wall. "A lot tougher than children aren't I, you BASTARD!" The scream that followed seemed more like a vicious howl as Jason said nothing in response-obviously-and was merely left to absorb the blows successively landed upon his form.

Children...?

Before Jason could ponder the weight of Vander's words, or Vi was allowed to grieve over the crushed remains of her brothers, an explosion tore through the building. One that ripped the door straight off it's hinges and hurled Vi, Vander, and Jason across the room. Burying the zombie under the debris that soon followed. Throwing it off himself would have been a simple enough task on it's own but the heat of the explosions tore at Jason's wretched flesh and scattered the zombie to the winds. All while unknown to the room's surviving occupiers, the one behind the powerful explosions was sent flying by them herself. Her eyes full of wonder as the winds kicked up by the force sailed through her bright blue hair.


'They worked! They actually worked!'


As the smoke began to clear and the last bit of debris fell, the one who'd been making all that racket on the space where a door formerly once stood, stumbled to his feet. "*cough* *cough* Kill them...." A voice called out from the end of the smoke-coated walkway. Gripping onto the railing, the owner of the voice and the building in general grimaced. There had been screams in that room before Deckard had even finished breaking in. Before these explosions came out of nowhere. What had happened in there? Whatever the reason was for the booms, a brute like Deckard was severely lacking in the cognization to piece it together right now. Knocking aside the debris that'd gotten in the way of the doorframe, two of his fellow thugs followed on either side of him into the room. Which by all means looked absolutely demolished. Mylo's hand sticking out of the rubble, Claggor's bloodstained goggles laying cracked on the floor, and Jason's hockey mask laying on the floor beside his very own pile he was buried under.


"....Hey. Was that mask always there?" One of the grunts asked.


"Dunno. Does it matter?"


"No, guess not." Noticing that Vi was still alive but struggling underneath the chunk of wall that was threatening to crush her just as it done to Mylo, one of the grunts grinned and began heading over towards her. "Better get to it...If Silco wants you lot dead? Well..." As he pulled back his fist to presumably pummel Vi to death, a massive hand eclipsed his own. "Vander!" Having ripped himself free from the storm of rubble that'd been thrown around by the explosions, Vander was in no mood to let anymore lives be lost on his watch. Smashing the poor grunt in the face, Vander struck hard enough to feel the nose cave in under his strike and send him flying over the nearby railing of the walkaway.


"H-Holy crap!!" The other grunt not wanting to share in his fellow's fate stumbled back into Deckard. "Grrrr...." Cracking his neck from side to side, Deckard gripped the shoulder of the remaining not-Shimmerfied henchman-and roughly half-shoved/half-threw him at Vander who promptly clotheslined the guy. Before he fell to the ground entirely however, Vander grabbed him by the face and smashed him down, hard into the tiled floor under the man's head. The man didn't move anymore after that. Which left one big, drugged up obstacle for Vander to face in the form of Deckard-

*BOOM*

Jason emerged from his 'burial site' with gusto. Chunks of shattered wall soared through the air. Rebar poked out here and there in Jason's torso and shoulder, each end of the metal coated in the same foul-smelling liquid that made up Jason's coagulated blood.

Okay. Make that TWO obstacles that Vander had to deal with.

"Hang on, Vi...."

~~~



In life, Deckard had never been anybody special. Just a two bit thug who happened to know the right people. But when he was on the drug known as 'Shimmer'? He felt like he could take on the entire world. He didn't know where this hideous freakshow with the blade for an arm came from but y'know what? It didn't matter one bit. If he got in Deckard's way, he'd go down all the same. As Jason came in for an attempted stab, Deckard grabbed the arm where Jason had firmly planted the machete deep into it's bleeding stump and smashed his free hand right into the undead ghoul's face. Teeth were sent flying every which way and normally, Jason would have been sent flying by the force of something so powerful striking him at such close range. But Deckard was high on his own supply. He wanted to flaunt the strength and power that only using Shimmer would allow him to posses. Jason quietly coughed as his nose was caved in to the point of looking like an indent on the center of his face. Black blood oozing down and leaving slimy trails across his exposed jawbones. No matter how hard he budged, he couldn't free himself from this one's grip.


It felt like a foreign concept to Jason. Pain was something that one really REALLY needed to go the extra mile for with him and even then, he'd never cry out. But these blows were different than the ones that man had landed upon him just moments prior before an explosion had engulfed the room. These ones actually hurt. Whatever semblance of feeling Jason still had in his rotting frame, they were on full blast as Deckard lifted the zombie up by his arm and smashed him into the floor hard enough to cave it in. The arm that Deckard had been holding onto went limp in his grasp before falling down to Jason's side. He lay unmoving in the mini-crater that Deckard had left him in. Still completely out of the loop as to who or what Jason was-aside from the fact that he'd coldly murdered two of his children-Vander knew right from that brief display between the murderer and Deckard that the latter simply wouldn't allow him enough time to rescue Vi and try to leave. He had to fight and not only that.


He had to win.


"RRRRRAAAAAAAH!!" Vander shouted as he charged across the room towards Deckard who was just finishing up giving Jason a sharp kick in the head. Just to make sure that whoever this was stayed down. Turning his head and noticing Vander too late to avoid getting a pair of nasty bodyblows that sent him skidding back across the floor, the soles of his boots kicking up dust as he went. Knowing the gap of strength between them might as well have been a chasm, Vander knew it'd spell failure if he let up for even a second. It just wasn't an option. Right hook, left hook, bodyshots. Whatever it took to keep this hulking beast down, he'd do it. For as strong as Vander was however, and you didn't get to stand where he did in the order of things in the Lanes if you couldn't pull your weight, Deckard was beyond even that. Reaching out and grabbing Vander's latest blow as it came in, Deckard yanked him in close and left his footing unsteady as he careened a punch right into the side of Vander's face. Spittle and blood danced across the air before splattering on the floor with a wet smack. Wrapping his left hand around Vander's throat, Deckard sneered as he picked the other man off the ground. Though given the mutations inflicted upon Deckard's body as a result of the Shimmer he'd taken, one might have been hardpressed to refer to him as just a 'man.' An abomination was probably more accurate at this stage.


How fitting then that there was another abomination in the room with him. Deckard dropped Vander and shrieked out in pain as Jason pushed himself up to a knee and stabbed him right in the side with his machete. This was a feeling that felt right at home for Jason. The killing implement-whatever it might have been at the time, Jason was never picky, more creative than anything else-meeting flesh and piercing right through it. Grabbing Jason off the ground and using his other hand to yank the blade out from where Jason had managed to shove it in, Deckard began to pull on the arm housing the blade...


*SHRRRRRRRRRRRIIIIP*

Deckard got a fresh coating of sickly warm blood across his chest as his arm was ripped from his body, splitting his shoulder in twain as it went. Dropping the severed arm, Deckard gave it a sharp kick across the room where it landed near Vi who was still pinned under the rubble. Blood spurted up from Jason's mouth and Deckard wasn't done just yet. Closing his hand around Jason's head, he moved with some resistance on Jason's part and....

*CRACK*

Jason's body went limp and Deckard flung Jason across the room, smashing the zombie into the wall as he slid down with a sickening crunch. His eyes rested half-lidded and his jaw was left ajar as was his neck. All while blood continued to squirt out of the fresh wound where an arm once stood. Had there been any time to stop and think, one might have wondered how and why this stranger was able to incur such grievous looking wounds and yet continue to rise. But surprisingly, Deckard wasn't going to afford anyone that chance. Wiping off Jason's blood off his face, Deckard looked towards Vander who huffed and puffed, but still just as willing to fight for what he cherished.

"Come on." Clenching his hands into fists, Deckard threw his hands up and let out an inhuman bellow as he barreled towards Vander. The doorframe was absolutely demolished as Vander was railroaded through it with Deckard's mutated frame busting and snapping the frame where the door once stood. Silco watched from the end of the walkway, gripping onto the railing. "Watch your destruction, you idiot! You'll destroy whatever's left!" He didn't know what had happened to cause this mess or what had caused all the noise in that room before Deckard had broken in but the sooner this came to a close, the better.

While Vander was overwhelmed by Deckard's monstrous strength, Jason hadn't gotten up where Deckard had launched him. He couldn't die. His mother had told him so and she'd never lie to him. So, why...Why did she sound so far away from him? She wouldn't leave her little boy like this. Digging his fingers against the floor, Jason slowly sat himself up with his neck bent in completely the wrong angle. As though that weren't the only wound that should have killed scattered across his body. Vi could see the wall behind him through the hole in his sternum after all. It also dawned on her that she was alone with this monster. Gently patting the side of his head, Jason gripped onto his head and gave it a rough yank. The bone snapped and Jason's head was situated where it should have been. Reaching down, he gripped his bottom jaw and snapped it back into place as well. He was still down an arm and was gratuitously bleeding all over himself and the floor around him but it seemed he just wouldn't stay down.


"..."


There it was again. That throbbing pain in his head. Had it anything to do with Freddy using that strange book to make him smarter? Was it this place? Whatever the reason was, Jason wanted to know, and he wanted this feeling to stop. As Jason struggled to push himself onto his feet, he didn't notice the droplets of Shimmer that'd secreted into his body through the fresh stump where Deckard had removed what was left of his mutilated arm. Between whatever force that kept Jason's weathered form going and the faint traces of magic ebbing off his person from the Necronomicon, the Shimmer reacted with his body and seemed to fog up his thoughts, however few they may have been.

"....!" His eyes shot open and he clutched tightly enough on the side of his head that his cracked and disgusting fingernails poked through the tips of his glove and dug tracks into his head, peeling away at the waterlogged flesh. His mind felt completely empty. His mother had already sounded distant when he'd gotten here but now he just...Couldn't hear her at all. Looking over the destroyed room, Jason seemed to finally realize the extent of what he'd done since being dumped here by Krueger. The bodies of those buried in the debris. They looked like.... children.

While Jason certainly wasn't above giving any children he encountered a scare or two, he'd never raise a hand against them. In his confused state it'd appeared as though he'd butchered two of them in much the same manner that he did any of the sinners who roamed his home grounds. As Jason stared at the corpses, Vi of course couldn't be aware of the ghoul's realization at what he'd done, Jason didn't speak after all. With the rubble pressing down on one of her arms, she reached out and attempted to scratch and claw her way towards grabbing Jason's arm that Deckard had carelessly tossed over.

"c'mon...c'mon! just a bit closer...."

She'd have to rip the blade out of the arm but whatever. Couldn't be picky when your life was on the line.

She'd already lost so much....

Her efforts weren't in vain and she finally managed to snag the sleeve of the arm. "Gotcha!" She exclaimed, pained as it was, only to glance up and see Jason staring down at her and his arm. It would have been child's play for this guy to do her in like he'd done to...to Mylo and Claggor. But she wouldn't give him the satisfaction of seeing her afraid. She spat on his boots and glared defiantly up at him.

"Fuck. You-"

Making an effort to grab the blade, Jason reached down towards Vi.


*BOOM*

Another explosion rocked the building, tearing the interior asunder and filling the nearby alleyways with billows of smoke. Both Jason and Vi were left engulfed in a wave of smoke. The walls imploded behind them and watching this almost artisan display of explosions from outside, Powder watched with her eyes full of awe. The power behind those balls was out of this world! There was no doubt in her mind! She had to have saved Vi and everyone! Clasping her hands together, she saw a figure standing amidst the flames. Only their silhouette illuminated by the roaring fire surrounding them.

"V-Vander?? Vander, I'm so SO glad you're okay! My bombs worked! They finally worked-" Powder exclaimed with all the exuberance she could muster. But as the figure finally stepped past the flames, all the joy fell from her features. Limping forward with a bone erupting from his left leg, Jason's jacket had been completely incinerated in the massive explosion, with only smatterings of his black undershirt burned into his flesh. That same flesh which gave off a wretched odor as though someone were attempting to cook rancid meat. With the majority of his upper torso exposed, Powder could have partially seen Jason's ribcage through the tear in his side that Ash's chainsaw had left and the shotgun-fueled hole in his chest. His glove had been burned away revealing the skeletal hand underneath and the muscle/sinew resting atop it. He peered down at Powder who jumped back at his gruesome visage.

Jason at his best was often seen as 'uncomfortable' to look at. The only one who could stomach it was his mother. To her, Jason was utterly perfect. The killer was her cherished son. As the flames danced along his blackened skin, his chest heaved up and down as flakes of burned flesh fell to the ground around him. Half of his head had been semi-burned by the explosion exposing a majority of his skull. One eyesocket and a lone curious eye gazing upon the frightened child.

Was this...This one of Silco's beasts? Or the one who'd captured Vander?

However horrible Jason may have looked, Powder noticed the figure tucked under his arm. The only one had as his empty sleeve fluttered in the wind. The pink hair was a dead giveaway. "VI!!!" Powder yelped as she raced towards Jason and began beating on the zombie's leg. "LethergolethergoLETHER GO!!!" Jason tilted his head to the side, his expression unreadable. Whether that was due to his lack of speaking or most of his skull being on display, one could hardly give a definite answer. This child clearly seemed attached to the one he'd saved. This girl had also spoken of bombs. Was she the one behind all those explosions?

"..."

Jason laid Vi at Powder's feet and reached out towards the young girl. "No! S-Stay back!!" She didn't know what this monster wanted from her and she didn't have any way to defend herself! She threw up her hands and tried to prepare herself for whatever came next, her eyes closed tightly. But...Nothing ever came. After a moment or two of hesitation, she cracked one eye open and saw the creature had picked up what looked like the remnants of some kind of mask. The bottom half of the mask was charred and covered in ashes. The creature quietly slid the mask over it's head and leaned against a wall.


How could it be alive with wounds like that? It looked like something that just shouldn't have been. Why had it saved Vi? There were so many questions that Powder had on her mind but it was probably for the best that whatever this thing was took their attention off the sisters for now. "Ugh...." Vi groaned as she squirmed. "Vi! Are you ok???" Powder whimpered as she placed her hands delicately on her sister's side. "P-Powder...Why..." Vi squinted as she looked up at her little sister. "Why are you here...?"


Powder gulped. "I came to save you...I....I..wanted to..." She noticed that Mylo, Claggor, and Vander hadn't departed the burning building like Vi and the masked man had. "Where is everyone else....?" Powder asked innocently and despite the immense amount of pain Vi was in, that question hit her like a ton of bricks. Powder was here and she said she'd wanted to help which could have only meant one thing. Someone had to be behind all those explosions. The last one had separated her from Vander before she could find out what happened to him. If he was okay or not. As for the other two...


"son of a..." Vi growled as she tried to sit up. All while glaring daggers at the nearby zombie. Who'd popped into her life at the worst time and slaughtered her loved ones in cold blood. One of her arms had been fractured by the rubble falling upon it. But she still had a good one and ignoring Powder's pleas to stop moving, she grasped the hilt of the machete from where it'd fallen in the aftermath of the explosion. "Vi! Stop!" The tears couldn't feel like they were something Powder could stop from flooding. Everything just seemed so wrong! Where were the others? Why hadn't they come out yet?


" Violet! Please! Where are Mylo and Claggor-"


"They're DEAD, Powder." Vi snapped, a moment she would have later regretted, all while never taking her eyes off Jason. "He killed both of them.... Without even a second thought..." She staggered towards Jason who hadn't seemed to notice her approach. This thing didn't look as though anything would be able to keep him down for long. Hell, half of his head was missing, and he was still moving around, even if weakly. She raised the machete.


Jason still felt uneasy. The sensation of being unable to hear his mother guiding him was uncomfortable and strange to him. She always stuck with him even after he'd punished the woman who'd taken his mother from him. Who'd cut his mother's head from her shoulders while he watched. The stump where the shimmer had dripped in glowed purple as Jason's exposed spine rippled with energy. Retrieving his mask as damaged as it may have been comforting. To hide his face from those who'd judge him. They'd all judge him. But where had his blade gone to-

*SHUNK*

Jason's jaw clenched as he looked over his shoulder and saw Vi furiously plunging the machete into and through his back and out his stomach. The blade made easy work of Jason's decomposing flesh. Slamming her heel into Jason's injured leg, the zombie toppled over, splashing into a puddle of filthy water that'd run down from the nearby gutters. His blood clouded the water and he went still once more. His own foul-smelling blood staining the cold worn steel of his machete.

Vi was sure she could have stabbed him a dozen more times and it still wouldn't have been enough to make up for what he'd done. What he'd taken from her. Powder watched the brutal reprisal with her hands clutching at the ground and her eyes as wide as an owl's own. Mylo and Claggor were dead? That didn't make any sense. She was supposed to have saved everyone. It... It wouldn't make sense if not all of them went home together. No, that wasn't fair! It just wasn't fair! Snot dribbled down from her nostrils as tears escaped from her eyes.

Vi would have liked nothing more than to comfort her sister. But as she looked away from Jason's currently unmoving body, she eyed the storm of flames which had moved to overtake the entire building.

"VANDER!!!!!!"

nocchi