Frank Castle's life for the past months was in a constant segue flow, from one escalating event to another, and he had found that, unsurprisingly, he wholly preferred it that way. It kept the nightmares and the voices away at night, and during the day, after whatever small amount of sleep he could get, he busied himself with practicing the really strange fighting manual he had bought from a wayward barter.
He spared himself four to five hours of sleep at most and spent every waking moment by busying himself with one thing or the other. He could not afford to stop moving for various reasons.
And he was currently living that philosophy.
A casual repositioning of his shoulder made the trembling grunt's bullet sail harmlessly by. Frank remained calm even as the frightened little shit fired two more shots that were way off target. The idiot stumbled to the ground as he tried to run and began begging for his worthless life but quickly had his irritating sniveling terminated by the bullet that went into one of his eye sockets.
The effect of the mask, The Face of Fear, was a pleasant and compounding surprise even with him having read what it could do. He was never inclined to magic and other mojo chicken shit, a man who very much preferred his cold weapons and lead, so while he was fairly interested in what it could do, he was comfortably skeptical of its potency.
Fair to say that he had greatly underestimated what the gnarly piece of bone could do, or what it made people do to be specific.
He, more than most, knew the power of a solid reputation. He knew men from enemy lines who by just the utterance of their names would send cold sweat down the spines of baptized veterans.
The mask had made him that person.
All it took was two weeks of constant night sweeps and now, when the first goon from the warehouse he was raiding saw him, Frank saw clearly as whatever fighting spirit he had die a quick death. The single recognition of the mask drowned him in Despair.
The Punisher. Ghostface. The Black One. They were calling him a bunch of names, each one vividly showing the impression he'd made in the city's underbelly.
The warehouse was already a buzz of panicking activity by the time he shot down the door.
The first thing he did, besides steering clear of the hail of bullets, was to ricochet off some bullets to take out every light source in the warehouse and then use a gas round to floor the whole place.
His breathing, which was normally calm and silent, especially since he hadn't done anything strenuous, started coming out of the mask in a raspy shrill. He had found out that the more disconcerted the enemies became, the louder the breathing became that he could sometimes hear it clearly in his head over the noise of gunshots.
It had worried him that the loud horror breathing would impede his focus and make them easily track his position but not only was that not the case, the breathing somehow cleared his head and increased his natural alertness that he could sometimes pick up on a weird nauseous scent that always seemed to lead to some shivering idiot. He still had a hard time accurately tracking the scent but he was certain that he was getting better at it, as weird as that sounded.
The second thing he unintentionally discovered about the clicking-clacking breathing noise the mask produced was that the louder it became, the harder it was for them to tell his position because apparently they were hearing it from every direction. He never would have known about it if the scared gang members he took down the previous week weren't yelling about it as they huddled up back to back.
Frank had a lot of weapons in his arsenal, most prized of which were the Lawgiver and the Arbitrator, but Fear, raw Fear, was what he weaponized the most.
Criminals scared to come out at night, drugs and weapons trade being more discreet or coming to a brief pause, crime lords pulling back their goons to consolidate their power(protection): that was Fear. Fear was who he was slowly becoming.
Even now, deep in the spines of the screams and angry shouts, he could smell it bubbling. He could almost see it through the gas.
He violently cocked the Arbitrator and triggered the heat-seeking mode and held the shotgun steady in his sights. He traced the stray bullets' path and muzzled down the direction and waited for silent beep from the gun that indicated a locked target.
There was no smile on his face as his finger pulled steady on the trigger, kicking the second symphony of death into action.
The shouting increased and all it did was streamline his focus to needle-point. He repeatedly switched between the heat-seeker and the standard multi-target shell with masterful efficiency.
He did not question how he heard someone stringing the pin off a grenade on the rafters above as he simply pulled out Lawgiver and shot the grenade through the rafters.
It wasn't simply the mask; he could tell. His body was changing somehow; his senses were getting sharper, and he could only think of one other thing that could have caused it.
He ignored the overhead explosion as he focused on systemically decimating everyone involved in this gun trade.
It did not take long before the warehouse became as silent as a graveyard, save for some grunting and moaning from the two people he had purposely kept alive.
He strapped the shotgun to his back and picked up an axe from the ground, Lawgiver on the other hand, as he came to the first man who was desperately trying to crawl away from him.
He kicked the man over to his back and let the axe slip down his hand.
"Name."
He briefly wondered how exactly he sounded to man given how his face whitened. The man was already dead, they both knew that, but he could see the flicker of defiance in his eyes. The bravado of a dead man…how utterly inconsequential.
"H-heh… you're dead, Ghost. Do… know who… pissed off?"
"Name." The axe dug into the ground… straight through the arm.
"Fuck y-you." The man managed a bloody smile before he expired.
Frank remained dead calm as his head rose from the body to meet the eyes of the last survivor who froze in Terror as soon as he met his gaze.
"Please man, I only did what I was told! I don't have shit to do with any of this!" Frank was not moved by the snot and tears on the man's crying face as he moved towards him.
"Name."
"Kingpin! Kingpin!" The man shouted as the bloody axe dangled near his face. "It was a simple gun deal with the Carbone. I swear, that's all I know!"
"Why the guns?"
"I-I," the axe flexed, "some new guns hit the market, ghost marks, everyone's looking for who made 'em. Kingpin and the Carbone Family cut a deal for him to deliver some guns. I don't know what's in Carbone's end. That's everything I know man."
The mask kept staring at the man's face, draining whatever confidence had been building up.
"He…he also put out a hit on you…" he stuttered. "That's all I know, man. I swea–"
He drilled a hole into the man's head. "I know."
He sighed as a quiet wave fell on the warehouse. He looked at the crate of guns and couldn't help but feel relieved that none of them were Isaac's signature weapons. He was certain that he had killed off every direct link to Isaac's shop but he couldn't be sure.
There was no new word about anyone getting their hands on those guns as far as he was aware.
Even if the damned shopkeeper knew what people were doing with the things he sold them, Frank knew that the man/demon/whatever would not care in the slightest.
He put it at the back of his mind that the month-end deadline was just around the corner and even if he felt he had done well with the manual, he didn't put all his trust in his own perception. There was a good reason why he was steadfast in hitting trade points, warehouses and stash houses this month.
He only trusted Isaac when it came to the quality of his weapons, that was it. If he could he would have put a bullet between the smug bastard's eyes.
.
.....
Ororo Munroe was feeling quite 'under the weather' as Logan had so eloquently put it, and it had taken her a few weeks to know just under her skin it had gotten. One mistaken flair of her temper, just a slight irritation that she'd felt in a moment of tired frustration, was all it took to remind her of who she was.
Stormbringer: Magneto had called her that years ago during a particular harsh clash with his Brotherhood. She had fought the man herself and it was that fight that her respect for the man solidified.
Even though they were enemies, the words he had for her were both grounding and helpful.
"You're not like me and Charles, Ororo. We learn to keep our stronger feelings contained." He was floating under a harsh thunderstorm, not caring of drawing the dancing lightning to the horde of metals he weaved around him. "You. You make yours hang over our heads, and yet those below remain in perfect calm. What magnificent control."
Back then she had been young, headstrong and proud and his words had been one of those badges she silently carried in her heart, but she had misunderstood what he meant until years later when the government started touting about cures and regulations.
She had been hypocritical and insensitive, fighting against the notion with every mile of her strength and voice, stupidly believing that they had the moral high ground. She had made a stupid mistake; Charles had told her so, same with Logan and Scott, and same with Magneto — a mistake that would have spiraled everything into a greater disaster had her peers not rushed in to stop Magneto from wielding her mistake as his weapon.
She had learnt from it. Grown from it and was better off from it, but lately it felt like everything that happened back then was repeating itself.
She had heard some of the students whispering to themselves when they believed no one was listening, and she couldn't fault them for it.
Regardless of how good they had it compared to other mutants, most of the students just wished they could be normal and return to their families.
A chilly breeze blew up as she sighed under her breath and looked up when a drop of water touched her cheek. She took a second to make sure that it wasn't her and when she did, she discreetly used her powers to delay the building shower for a few minutes.
Ororo had been looking for something to do to clear her head when her nephew, Evan, had basically told her to check out the little pawnshop he and his friends liked to hang out in because of rare plants he was sure she'd like.
She wasn't really interested because she doubted that a pawnshop could acquire supposedly rare plants and that the shopkeeper was dutiful enough to take care of them. She hadn't seen anything of the such the one time she went there – granted she was more focused on the girls than the authenticity of what was sold there.
Ororo was hardly a judgmental or stereotypical person, that much she could say, but she also knew that reputations did not materialize from thin air. The unpleasant reputation of New York City and pawnshops was something she wholeheartedly believed.
Still she was out in the city by herself for some mental detox and had no particular destination in mind, so with no better options available, she decided to wander around and keep an eye out for that particular shop since she could hardly remember the exact directions.
Surprisingly, she did not have to aimlessly wander long because she came across the familiar road that led to the shop.
A few minutes saw her at the front door of the pawnshop so she walked in.
Right. The main reason the shop had even remained in her memory was because of the uncharacteristic fresh air inside the shop. Natural fresh air at that, she could tell.
Her gaze swerved to her side and landed on a lacquered box, making her frown a little. She could've sworn she felt a gaze from that direction. She shook her head dejectedly. This was really getting to her.
"Can I help you, miss?" She heard a voice behind her and turned to see the shopkeeper, Isaac she recalled, holding a guitar in his hands that he was going to hang up.
"Oh, sorry I didn't see you there."
"Don't sweat it." The man said as he lowered the guitar to pay more attention to her. "So, can I get you anything? Or you can go ahead and look over for anything you might like, if you want."
Well, he was polite and courteous, which was more than Ororo could say for some of the pawnbrokers she'd met. She opened her mouth to reply but something caught her attention from the corner of her eyes.
"Is that a real plant?" He followed the pointing finger and nodded. He walked towards the cabinet near the window and picked up the small flower pot that held a beautiful blue spider lily.
"Blue Spider Lily." He might have seen the skeptic look on her face because he pushed the pot to her with a smile on his face. "Here."
She took it and caressed the beautiful petals gasping softly when she felt the trickles of life inside it. She had thought it was a red lily colored blue for aesthetics but it wasn't. She also thought it was an Electric Blue Spider Lily but she dismissed it instantly because the stem and the petals were different. Even the shade of blue was perhaps the darkest and most vibrant blue she had ever seen in a flower. It was completely blue with no hint of decoloration.
"Where did you get this?" She asked with poorly hidden curiosity and interest. She had never seen or heard of a plant like this.
"From a mountain. The woman who lived there was kind enough to part with some of it for me. Apparently I was lucky because it just so happened to be the time when they were in bloom." The man explained as he picked up and before glancing back at her.
"I have some pretty weird plants if you're interested." She was interested. It was a good way to take her mind off things. "And do you mind keeping that by the window when you're done? It needs a lot of sunlight apparently."
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