The explosion from my hammer formed from energy devastated the indoor water park, causing water from the pool to rain down like a meteor shower. I would've hid underneath the slides if it weren’t for the fact that my attack had obliterated those structures as well, reducing them to purple and red shards on the ground. The only thing I could do was curl up in a ball while my body slowly melted. I didn’t see a drop of blood fall down, so I assumed the shark was reduced to ash upon being hit.

  Thankfully, Dante’s forcefield came just in time to save my ass, creating a dome around my body. Absorbing parts of the barrier with my hand, my melted body was able to heal in a couple of seconds, which allowed me to sit back up.

  “That would've went way faster if you didn’t go batshit crazy on that shark earlier, Dante,” I said, watching him float down to me on his forcefield. “Especially since it only took one blow from my new move to take him out.”

  “Yeah, yeah, keep rubbing salt on the wound,” he sighed, smoothing his hair. “Go ahead and forget all the help I gave you in those last five minutes. In fact, don’t even thank me for it. I’ll find it offensive.”

  “I wasn’t gonna thank you anyway. Don’t know if you remember, but that reckless fighting earlier was probably why we lost the energy stored in that guy’s head. You know, the whole reason we came here?”

  The artificial rain finally stopped, and Dante deactivated both of the present forcefields. Then, he pulled out a mini forcefield from his chest pocket. “Maybe if you stopped going to conclusions so quickly, you’d realize that I would’ve already found a way to fix that mistake of mine.” Geremiah’s head popped out of the forcefield and landed in my hands, the eyes glowing a fierce green.

  “Woah, when did you fix this? I thought we specifically needed that nuclear pool to reactivate his powers.”

  Dante smiled condescendingly. “Since you’re not too smart, I’ll dumb it down just for you. Me. Use. Energy. From. Big. Boom boom. Head. Glow. Bri-”

  I shot an energy bullet near his face which shut him up pretty quickly. “So it isn’t just energy from that pool. Any kind of big mass of energy would have worked, huh? If that was the case, then why couldn’t I just hit it with a beam attack or something?”

  “Because hitting it directly would’ve destroyed it, obviously. What this head needed at that moment was the strong residue your energy hammer was leaving behind once you created it. I’m guessing your energy constructs retain the power and ferocity they would have if they were just your regular blasts, but since you’re not immediately releasing it, that residue is constantly filling the area. It’s almost like a… pressure maybe.”

  I looked at my hand and made a fist. “I don’t think I was trying to make it explode, but using it in those five seconds made me realize just how weak my control of energy is right now. I know you said there was a specific time limit I had before it would detonate, and yet part of me was debating just slamming it onto that shark’s head instantly. It took a lot just to reshape that thing. It’s gonna take a whole lot more to not only morph it into other objects, but to keep it from exploding too. I mean, imagine if Sunshine was near me while I used that move. She’d be dust on the floor.”

  Dante placed his hands in his pockets. “You’re not going to get better at it if you don’t at least try to use it in the heat of battle. But if you’re so damn worried about that, why didn’t you just end the battle quickly by transforming into that form you used when you fought my father. Or that planty one.”

  “I couldn’t even if I wanted to. Believe me, I tried. Apparently, I have a limit to how many times I can use my transformations in a day.” I held one finger to Dante. “That’s the limit, and I wasted the ones for both before that fight with the shark. I’m not gonna blame myself for the one with Daemon, but what the hell was I thinking using the Nature Version against you…? I didn’t even need… want to use it.”

  Dante groaned. “Yeah, yeah, you’re a little stronger than me. I already understood that the first three times.”

  I put my hand down and looked at the destroyed area. “No, it’s not that. I just can’t really bring myself to use that form. It gives me… pain and other bad feelings whenever I try or actually do use it. I think I felt it the first time I used it too, but Jason distracted me from confronting them fully.”

  “You want to know what's good for pain? Painkillers. Used to help me a lot when I woke up like this,” he replied, pointing at his scarred half. “You know what? Forget I said that. I know how you feel about painkillers considering your kid is… I’ll just stop talking.”

  “It’s not physical pain, man. It’s like emotional shit constantly banging in my head. I know I tried my best to make that kid understand why I did what I did and the full story behind it. I know I shouldn’t blame myself constantly for someone else’s misunderstandings. But at the same time, doing a whole bunch of good doesn’t cancel out the bad. Especially when the good I think I did after that was at the cost of another person’s happiness.”

  “Yeah… I get what you mean.” That was one of the few times I could hear genuine sympathy in the man’s voice. The long pause before his next sentence made me realize that.

  I chuckled softly. “It’s kinda funny. I remember my daughter was using some innocent little analogy to forget all the bad I’ve done and move on. However, I think doing that is making me a bad person. I want to do good by my daughter without that good being bad for other people. Like innocent kids or parents.”

  Dante walked toward me and sat down a couple feet away. “Well, you’re already failing at that considering that Sunvirus is out there running wild. Then again, it’s in your instinct as a zombie to only care about and do what you desire the most, so there’s nothing wrong with continuing to do your own personal good. I do it all the time and I ended up just fine.”

  I ran my thumb across the ooze on my palm. “You say that, and yet I’m pretty much breaking all the rules when it comes to zombies. I don’t eat humans for food or for fun. I can think for myself and feel some kind of regret for my actions. Most importantly, I still love my daughter. If I didn't, then I would've eaten her already.”

  Dante glanced at me. “Listen, you can either be the guy who helps your kid or the guy who helps everyone else. You can't do both. Unlimited options don't exist. That's why ‘choices’ were invented. As for me, I’ll choose the side that I believe will win in the end. If the side I'm on starts to lose, then I'll begin to make some changes.”

  Unlimited options don't exist…? If my memory serves me right, Saveer told me the same thing. Then again, Rosalina's plant clone told me the exact opposite. Maybe believing that more than a few choices existed helped me save her daughter, but that didn't matter when the choice to kill Daemon or Jason wasn't something I could do.

  Not to mention, all the innocent lives I risk by letting Sunshine’s disease continue to fester.

  I intended to keep her alive no matter what, though I did not want to be the reason a child became an orphan or a parent became childless.

  I clasped my hands together and placed my chin on top of them. “Are you really sure that a cure for this ‘Sunvirus' doesn't exist? I've been told there might be somewhere in Philadelphia that might have answers, though I don’t know if the source I got it from was all that reliable.”

  Dante rubbed his chin as though that would help him find an answer. “The only thing I know Philadelphia’s known for is it being Corleone's current base of operations. Nothing about a cure. There was a fight between his group and some crazy doctor though. Ended in a lot of deaths. Guy kept screaming the sun that illuminates the Earth from the darkness that was trying to destroy it.”

  “What’s the point of that last part? That doesn’t have anything to do with a cure.”

  “Hey, I’m just taking specific words and matching them with your problem. ‘Sun that illuminates the Earth’. Your kid’s name is Sunshine and has the Sunvirus. And the guy’s a doctor. Might be a coincidence, but who knows unless you seek him out.”

  I was never really a Philadelphia lover, and yet all this information was beginning to change my mind…

  “Ah, I remember that fight, yooo. I tore that man limb from limb, yooo.”

  The ominous voice reverberated across the indoor pool, causing not only the floor to vibrate, but our bodies too. We turned around, the sight of a man floating in the air and staring daggers at us confusing me immensely. He wasn’t just floating. He had his legs crossed, sitting down as if the air was his personal seat.

  I shook my head in disbelief, quickly standing up. “Before you say another word, I'm gonna guess you're here to fight me or something, right?”

  The man floated down, and I was surprised by how… big he was. The guy had to be at least ten feet tall—possibly higher. It was hard to believe he could find clothes his size in our world, and yet he proved me wrong. He had a black trenchcoat on that was decorated with a bunch of zippers from top to bottom along with a zipper where his mouth should've been.

  His mouth literally unzipped as he revealed a wide, toothy smile. “Fight you, yooo? No, I’m here to inform you of your new predicament, yooo.”

  “Is that ‘yooo’ thing gonna be permanent?” I asked tiredly. “Is speaking normally something you can do?”

  His smile disappeared, replacing it with confusion. “Oh, you don't like it? I guess I can stop doing it while I’m talking to you.”

  I stepped a bit closer to the floating zipper man. “Great. Now tell me what info you wanna inform me with.”

  “Well, it’s quite easy to understand. If you already didn’t know, I’m a member of the Corleone Family—leaders of the Slavelands. Our ‘business’ relies on the hard work, sweat, and blood of our generous people lucky enough to fall into our grasp to make us money. But you and your daughter’s existence threatens to put an end to that. I’m sure you understand where I’m getting at here.”

  Another thought didn’t need to enter my brain before I quickly got into a fighter’s stance. “Why can’t you people just sum up your goals with ‘I want to kill your nine year old kid because child murder is perfectly fine with me’?”

  The zipper man chuckled. “Child wouldn’t be the word I call her. That girl is the devil.”

  I scoffed. “You literally enslave people. Your whole organization is full of devils.”

  My fists tightened, and I was about to launch myself towards the hypocrite until I was stopped by Dante’s hand on my shoulder. His grip was unusually tight, his hand shaking. “You… can’t fight him. He’s way out of your league, Jerome.” He spoke in a whispered tone.

  “Who the hell is he?”

  Dante’s breaths became ragged. “I know you're a zombie, so you probably don't feel this right now, but this guy’s aura is off the charts. It feels like I'm standing on an entirely different planet right now.”

  “I survived a fight against your dad, and I just took down a talking radioactive chainsaw shark guy. Some guy with a bad sense of fashion doesn’t look like trouble.”

  Sweat ran down Dante’s face. “My father didn’t want to kill you, and I don’t think you heard him correctly, but he doesn’t just want to kill your kid. He wants to kill you too.”

  “I’m a zombie who’s practically immortal. He can’t really ‘kill’ me, Dante.”

  “That’s until he blows your head off with his fist and I can’t heal you because I’m just a corpse on the ground. If you’re gonna fight this dude, at least use all the other options in our arsenal before we can. He specifically said he didn’t want to fight us, remember?”

  “Fine. Do whatever you want,” I conceded, my body remaining tense. “But the moment shit goes south, I’m jumping in fists first.”

  Dante turned his attention back to the zipper man and cautiously asked, “If you're so worried about those two fucking up your business, then why don't you wanna kill him right now?”

  The zipper man descended a couple more meters down. “Mr. Corleone doesn’t find it in his benefit to have him completely terminated just yet. In fact, even Jason Zoorhees understands that having you on our side could temporarily change the tides of our lives. As for the child-”

  “Hold on,” I interrupted, unintentionally shoving Dante out the way. “You’ve been talking to Jason!?”

  “Talking to? Type Two, I’m working with that man. A temporary team up made in the hopes of taking control of you and killing everyone currently affiliated with your selfish cause. Including your daughter.”

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  Surges of energy filled with fury coursed through my limbs, urging me to engage in another tough battle that could mean life or death. However, Dante jumped in front of me, gesturing for me to stop.

  Dante’s head shifted back to the man. “If you’re working with Jason, then you’re aware that he can’t currently leave Hallowsville, correct?”

  “Yes. Although, I was the only one out of my group to understand Jason when he said it.”

  “Group? There’s more than you and Jason?” I asked.

  “Two others. Ricky Saints and Roddy Richman. They’re… almost as strong as I am.” If he was lying, then he certainly didn’t sound like it. Considering how little I know of this “Corleone Family”, I thought it was right to assume their member count wasn’t too big.

  “And you are?” I said suspiciously. I made an effort to sound more interrogative as the conversation so far was strangely more casual from the zipper man’s side than I thought it’d be.

  The man extended his hands horizontally as if he was standing in the rain and letting it splash into him. “I am Consequences Of Your Actions Jackson. My friends call me Conny. You two will call me Consequences.”

  There was no way that was his actual name… If it was, where did his first name end and where did his last name begin?

  “Ok… ‘Consequences’,” said Dante, scratching his head. “We understand that you want to fight us, but when do you want to do that? And where?”

  “First of all, who even are you?”

  “I’ll give you a hint. My father, Daemon, wouldn’t appreciate the Family making moves like this behind his back.”

  The man grinned. “Nice joke, but I know you’re not Dante Williams. That guy has long hair, a pretty face, and a nice, feminine body. You don’t match that description at all.”

  Dante’s face turned into a mixture of confusion and disgust. “Wh-What? Are you talking about my goddamn sister? I’m Dante, and I do not look like some fucking broad. I don’t know what kind of games you’re playi-”

  “Oh, I love games,” he interrupted. “And I had a couple games in mind that I wanted to play if I ever came across that guy.”

  Dante smiled nervously. “Got him,” he whispered.

  Consequences finally decided to let his shoes hit the floor, and my earlier assumptions about his height were quickly proven right. “Jason was very adamant on an all out brawl in Hallowsville, but we convinced him that waiting until Jerome became stronger worked to the Corleone Family’s benefit much better. Obviously, he didn't argue further since he knows Mr. Corleone can give him exactly what he wants.”

  I flexed my body a bit and chuckled. “Well, I'd say I've gotten strong enough for you assholes to consider fighting me now.”

  Dante looked at me like I said something stupid and shook his head slowly.

  Consequences’ silver eyes were already wide, however, my earlier statement seemed to make them even wider. “No, no, no, Jerome. You've barely scratched the surface of what a Type Two Radion is capable of. Unlike other zombies, you monsters retain your emotional intelligence and the ability to feel in general. That means a strong emotional feeling will increase your strength exponentially just like with any other Radius Ability user.”

  Once again, his voice and tonality didn't suggest he was lying. And the way he stood there confidently in front of us like a statue made me believe him more.

  Dante pulled out an orb from his chest pocket, his face sweating even more than before. I had just now realized that Geremiah’s head was gone, so he must've placed it in there without me noticing. If he was preparing to release that thing, then this zipper freak was definitely about to do something.

  Energy surged in my fists. “What are you trying to say, man?”

  The smile that crept up his face sent chills down my spine, and it was at that moment where I understood why Dante was so worried. “In the next thirty minutes, your daughter will die.”

  Consequences said it with the sliding, cold horror of a scalpel slicing through my limbs during a surgery I wasn't allowed to be given anesthesia for. He said it with the bubbling thickness of blood laced with lava filling my insides until it erupted out of my mouth. His words erased every single positive possibility I believed could come out of this and replaced it with everything else that shouldn't have entered my mind in the first place.

  I knew he wasn't lying.

  Upon that realization, energy blasted out of my feet, launching me upwards as balls of green erupted out of my palms. Unfortunately for Dante, his safety wasn't my priority anymore. I had to make sure that man’s words wouldn't become a reality.

  “Counter!”

  Suddenly, a devastating force slammed into my back, knocking me off balance. My rocket feet dispersed, and my body hit the floor. I pushed myself off the ground slightly. Something heavy prevented that, stomping onto my back. I felt like a watermelon under the feet of an elephant.

  “Jerome,” grunted Consequences, glaring wildly at me. “Your daughter is going to die in thirty minutes.”

  “No she won’t!” I growled, feeling a burst of strength in my arms. It was that same burst that allowed me to shove myself off the ground, causing the man to stumble backwards off of me.

  His exposed chest was my first target, becoming the victim to an aggressive punch that knocked him down. I tried to get away once more, but Consequences grabbed my leg and pulled me to where he was.

  “Thirty minutes, Jerome!” His voice grew crazier.

  “I said no!”

  I ripped his arm off my leg, pieces of my bone and ooze sticking to his fingernails. Then, I punched his face into the floor a couple of times till he stopped reminding me of how short my time limit was. Seeing that he wasn’t moving, I took the chance to actually finish the job before he could try and stop me again. I aimed my fingers at his bruised face and fired an energy bullet.

  “Counter!”

  Instead of the man’s skull, the bullet struck mine. Pain jolted through me as I staggered back, my fingers instinctively tracing the dent on my forehead. Consequences took advantage of my daze, drenching my legs in water. My focus snapped to my melting limbs—but the zipper man had no patience for the process.

  With a swift kick, he scattered them completely. I yelped, my head hitting the floor first.

  “I saaaaid thirty minutes.” Consequences checked his wrist, pretending he has a watch. “Now it’s twenty-nine minutes. If you try to escape again, I’ll make sure to make a call and have that time subtracted by twenty-eight.”

  Dante appeared behind the man, a swarm of small arrows hovering above us. “You know, I really hoped you wouldn’t have forgotten about little old me, Conny.”

  Consequences turned back a little. “I have no idea who you are, ugly, but you’re not my friend. Don’t call me Conny.”

  I gestured for Dante to heal me, and even though he noticed, the prick continued his time-wasting convo.

  “We wouldn't say that we're ugly, so don't call us ugly.”

  Conny raised his thin eyebrows. “If you're not ugly, then what the hell are you?”

  “I'm a freak,” Dante said with a surprising amount of confidence.

  “What's the difference?”

  Dante held an orb to his face. “The difference is that freaks aren’t born. They’re created, and events that create them make them exponentially stronger.”

  The orb split open in a flash of light, and as I predicted, the head was inside. What I didn’t predict was for Consequence’s expression to slowly turn into a look of horror.

  “Brother… Gerry.”

  “Also, thanks for making this so much easier for me.”

  The second the zipper man said those words, Dante aimed at the head upwards and surrounded himself in a forcefield.

  “Let’s Play a Game of Tag. Jerome, you're It.”

  Before either one of us could react, Consequences blitzed out of sight and reappeared right in front of Dante. His fist drove forward, shattering the forcefield with a single strike. Energy splintered apart like glass, and Dante barely had time to move before Consequences’ attack tore into him, carving a small section off his hip.

  Dante seethed, clutching his hip. However, his groans filled with pain paled in comparison to how loud the zipper man’s next sentence was.

  “You… monsters killed my brother!”

  The arrows rained down on my body which allowed me to heal my lower half upon absorbing them. Once again, I left Dante alone to fend for himself in order to get back to Sunshine, but Consequences didn't allow that. He grabbed my head and sent me back down.

  That thing he was saying before about how a strong increase in emotion can strengthen Radius Ability users was clearly right considering I couldn't even escape from his grip this time.

  What I assumed to be his saliva dripped onto my cheek. “You have the nerve to think I'm a horrible person for the things I've done when all you and that little bitch do is take, take, take from others. You two kill survivors by just existing, and when you're not doing it passively, you kill people actively whenever they disagree with your ideals!”

  “Get off of m-”

  “You think you're the only one with a family they love, a family they want to keep alive? How egotistical do you have to be to think like that? You are not the main fucking character!”

  “I said… get the fuck off of me!”

  His grip grew stronger. “No! Not until you understand the consequences of your actions, Jerome. Why do you think my momma named me like this? For a laugh? She gave birth to me when she was only fifteen years old. My deadbeat father left her ass to take care of me herself, and she named me ‘Consequences Of Your Actions’ as a constant reminder of her mistake.”

  “I'm not gonna say it again…”

  “Don't you understand, Jerome!? I am the Consequences Of Your Actions! And Consequences are going to kill you and what's left of your murdering family. Your biggest mistake was making this personal.”

  “Hey! What did I say about forgetting me, asswipe!” I heard something large crash into Consequences’ back, loosening his grip on my skull only slightly.

  “You!” Consequences’ focus fortunately shifted back to Dante, though after everything he said back there, I couldn't stop myself from striking him from behind. He didn't move an inch, but a sickening crack echoed across the area.

  “Jerome, you win! You may now choose Player Two’s punishment!”

  “Jerome,” Consequences growled, preparing to attack me again. However, a bubble from Dante was able to protect me.

  My attacker’s eyebrows raised. “Why can't I break it like I did before?”

  “Because using your power for others can go a long way,” Dante grunted, shooting a large energy missile at the enemy.

  Consequences quickly pointed his palm at the attack.

  “Counter!”

  The moment the missile hit his meaty palm, it bounced back as though the man was a living trampoline. Its speed increased, and Dante became victim to his own attack.

  It blasted him backwards, his body rolling like a lifeless ragdoll. Even though I couldn't blink, Consequences still escaped from my sight as though I just did. Like before, my judgement screamed at me to leave Dante by himself and finally get the hell out of here. That was something I was about to do until I heard the sound of flesh being torn apart.

  My fingers twitched and a bad feeling weighed on my mind. I turned and saw that the two men were just standing there, both breathing heavily like they just ran up all the stairs in a ten story building non-stop. The better option was to use the distraction to leave. I… did the exact opposite.

  I rushed over to them with a gaped mouth, and the realization struck me like lightning. Consequences had stabbed through Dante’s torso with just his hand, green liquid spilling from the two-face’s wound.

  Why did it look like… zombie blood?

  “Jesus Christ, Dante,” I said with shock. “Why the hell would save me if this was gonna hap-”

  “What the… fuck are you… doing here!?” he tried to shout, coughing up blood between words. “You won the game… of tag. Now pick a punishment already… and leave!”

  Consequences turned his head to me with the quickness of an owl. “You’re not going anywhere!”

  At that moment, a large forcefield formed around the two just as my attempted killer uncaringly pulled his hand out of Dante. Punch after punch after punch, but the barrier wouldn't even crack.

  Dante snickered, and I could tell he was trying his best to remain standing. “And here I thought you Corleone Family members… were supposed to be loyal to that… prick. I don't think he'll like you going into business for yourself.”

  “That's enough out of you!” The man clasped his hands together and brought them down on Dante's head, however, the two-face was able to protect himself with another barrier.

  “Don't act so damn surprised,” he chuckled, looking at me. “This is what you always wanted, so just cherish the moment like a normal person already.” He pointed to something behind me. “I left that afro asswipe’s head back there. Take it and get the hell out of here.”

  I gritted my teeth, my fists hardening. “I don't like you at all, Dante. Why would you go and die for me?”

  “It's because you don't like me at all, man. I think I just wanted to do something my mother would've wanted me to. I promise on the life of your kid… that this fucker isn't leaving this forcefield. And if he does, just know he'll be damaged beyond repair.”

  “No… No!” roared Consequences, jumping to the wall of the forcefield that faced me. “You can't leave after what you did! Even if you did, there’s no way you’ll make it back there in the twenty-five minutes you have left. You’d need what I used to teleport to your location to-”

  “Hey, catch!” Dante tossed me a status board he stole out of Consequences’ trench coat pocket which I caught. “If the girl still has a tracker in her body, then you can find a way to teleport to her with that. That’s what… we used to… find you.”

  Upon noticing that, the giant launched a barrage of fists at the wall, saliva continuing to drip from his mouth. “Jerooooome! You’re deeeaaad!”

  It was in that instant where I said words I never thought I’d say. Words I didn’t think I’d say to a man like him.

  “Th… Thank you, Dante.” Out of all the punishments I could've thought of, one that involved Consequences dying somehow would've been ideal. Although, I recalled what he said about him being stronger than the members of his little group. I knew what mattered more in the long run.

  "Make me stronger than Consequences until the death of Jason Zoorhees and make Consequences weaker than me until that same outcome!"