The night was thick with a silence that seemed to press against Jon's ears as he walked, the chain in his hand clinking softly with each step. The deserted Elm Street lay before him, bathed in the eerie glow of the streetlights, casting long, sinister shadows that danced with his solitary figure.
"Hahahahahahaha…!"
The laughter, sudden and chilling, sliced through the quiet like a knife, reverberating off the walls of the sleeping houses. Jon's pace didn't falter; his grip on the chain merely tightened, a silent challenge to the darkness.
As if summoned by the sound, a large cloud of green smoke billowed up from the ground, swirling and churning. Jon watched, an unspoken anticipation in his stance, as the smoke cleared to reveal the nightmare that had haunted so many: Freddy Krueger.
The man stood there, a grotesque parody of a human, his brownish-black top hat sitting atop a head marred by burn scars. The red and green stripes of his sweater seemed to mock the very idea of cheer, and the iron claw glinted menacingly in the dim light.
"Ah, the disfigured face Freddy is here~" Jon's voice was steady, his eyes locked onto the figure before him. There was no fear there, only a steely resolve.
Freddy's own eyes narrowed, a flicker of surprise passing over his gruesome features. This was new. This was different. The children he tormented were supposed to tremble, to beg, to run. But not Jon.
"Welcome to Wonderland, Alice!" Freddy's voice was a twisted sing-song, his movements a macabre dance. "How do you like the service today, huh?... brave lad, I just love this kind of stubborn souls!"
Jon's smile was a flash in the darkness, a silent acknowledgment of the twisted game they were about to play. "It seems we do have something in common, Freddy~!"
In an instant, the chains Jon held erupted in hellfire, a blazing serpent that lunged for Freddy with a hunger for destruction.
"I also eat naughty souls, you trash~!"
Clang!
Clang!
The sound of metal on metal rang out as Freddy parried with his claw, sparks flying. "Oh, what a naughty Alice, do you want to play with fire?!"
Freddy's tone was mocking, but there was a new wariness in his eyes. He had seen the powers of those who fought back in their dreams, but none had ever truly threatened him. He was the master of this realm, the demon of their nightmares.
Jon's voice cut through the tension, a calm amidst the storm. "Stop showing off and take a look at your claw~"
Freddy's gaze dropped to his weapon, and his blood ran cold. For the first time in his reign of terror, fear gripped him.
"What the…?!"
Freddy's shock was palpable as the flames engulfed his claw, a fire that defied all his attempts to quell it. Panic, an emotion he was unaccustomed to, crept into his being as he patted desperately at the flames, only to find them crawling up his arm like a living thing.
"Ah, damn it!" The curse was torn from his throat, a growl of frustration and anger.
With a grotesque resolve that only a creature of the dream world could muster, Freddy did the unthinkable—he severed his own arm. The limb fell to the ground, consumed by the relentless fire, but the horror did not end there. Before the eyes of both combatants, two new arms sprouted from Freddy's shoulder, a grotesque display of his nightmarish resilience. The iron claw reformed, as menacing as ever, as if mocking Jon's attempt to disarm him.
"It seems you have a power I've never seen before!" Freddy's voice was a cold hiss, the humor gone, replaced by a chilling edge. "In that case, you must not be spared!"
With a malicious flourish, Freddy's claw morphed, expanding into a monstrous hand that dwarfed Jon, casting a shadow over him that seemed to threaten oblivion. But Jon was undeterred. With a swift motion, he produced the Elder Wand, the legendary instrument of magic, and aimed it squarely at the looming figure.
"Expelliarmus!"
The spell hit its mark with a force that sent the iron claw spiraling out of Freddy's grasp. As it flew, it shrank back to its original size, clattering to the ground with a metallic ring. Freddy's eyes widened in disbelief, a rare moment where the hunter experienced the vulnerability of the hunted.
"How can this be?!" he exclaimed, his voice a mix of rage and confusion.
With a thought, Freddy summoned the claw back to his arm, his telekinetic powers snapping it back into place. He glared in the direction where Jon had stood, ready to unleash his fury, but found nothing. The street was empty, a void where his adversary had been.
"Where did that bastard go?!" Freddy's voice echoed in the silence, his eyes darting around in search of Jon.
The answer came not in sight, but in sound—the unmistakable clatter of chains. Freddy spun around, his heart pounding with a primal fear he hadn't felt in eons. From every direction, chains shot towards him, as if commanded by an unseen force.
Dozens of them wrapped around his limbs with a speed and precision that left no room for escape. The chains constricted, binding him tighter with every passing second.
"Got you~"
Jon's voice, laced with a newfound power, echoed from the shadows, a harbinger of Freddy's impending doom. The spectral figure of the Ghost Rider emerged, flames licking at his form, a stark contrast to the darkness of the dream world.
Freddy, the master of nightmares, writhed against the chains, his usual arsenal of dream manipulation rendered useless. His telekinesis failed to even twitch the hellfire-infused links, and his attempts to teleport dissolved into nothingness.
"What... what's happening?!" Panic clawed at Freddy's voice, a sound foreign to the streets of Elm.
The Ghost Rider approached, the fiery glow of his skeletal visage casting an otherworldly light. "You can control everything in the dream, but..." His voice was a dark, gravelly whisper, the sound of vengeance itself. His hand trailed along the chains, and they blazed with an intensity that even the dream world could not contain.
"Not my hellfire! Hahaha~" The Ghost Rider's laugh was devoid of humor, a simple statement of fact.
The chains, forged in the depths of perdition and imbued with hellfire, were beyond Freddy's dominion. They were anathema to his powers, a poison in his realm.
"On the contrary, this fire can also burn your nasty dream world itself!" The Ghost Rider's words were a soft hiss, a promise of obliteration.
Jon had bided his time in human form, a strategic move to catch Freddy off guard. A premature transformation would have sent the demon fleeing, but now, there was no escape.
The dream world ignited, a conflagration that consumed ground, buildings, and the screaming form of Freddy Krueger. The very fabric of the nightmare was unraveling, incinerated by the relentless hellfire.
"It's over..." The Ghost Rider's declaration was almost a whisper, an epitaph for the chaos that Freddy had wrought.
But then, reality intruded.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
"Mr. Vinson, are you there?"
The mundane knocking, a sound so ordinary, yet so jarringly out of place, began to pierce the veil of the dream.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
"Mr. Vinson, your car is not parked properly!"
The voice, insistent and oblivious to the battle within, signaled the end of the dream. The Ghost Rider's head snapped up, his fiery gaze searching the dissolving landscape.
Freddy's laughter, maniacal and triumphant, cut through the confusion. "Hahaha, it seems God doesn't want me dead yet~!"
The dream was collapsing, the real world seeping in, a lifeline thrown to a drowning man. Freddy knew that once Jon was roused, the nightmare would shatter, and he would slip away into the ether, untouchable once more.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
"Mr. Jon Vinson, sorry to disturb you, but could you please come out?"
The persistent knocking shattered the last remnants of the dream. Jon's eyes snapped open, the rage within them burning as fiercely as the hellfire he had wielded moments before. He rose from his bed, the echo of the chains and Freddy's laughter still ringing in his ears.
Outside, the knocking continued, oblivious to the fact that it had just saved the most notorious nightmare horror from his fiery demise. Freddy had escaped, and Jon was left with the cold comfort of the waking world, and the infuriating interruption that had cost him his victory.
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