SEASON ONE Sensation & WonderPUNISHER #4
Explosions and screams rocked Frank from his slumber, and he whipped awake, arm up and pistol out. His sights trained immediately on the figure in front of him, stolen pistol pointed dead between the eyes; it was only when Frank blinked and adrenaline sharpened his vision from sleep that he realised the figure was the still-dead body of Ace, tied to the chair and slumped over from the bullet he'd already received the previous night. Blood had pooled directly beneath his head and coagulated on the carpet. Some had mixed with stray ends of hair and matted to Axel's forehead. From Frank's seat on the couch a few feet away, the smell of blood could have been overwhelming.
To Frank, it smelled like his mornings in the old days.
Another boom from outside shook the building and Frank quit reminiscing and moved carefully and quickly to the window. Pistol at the ready, he risked a peek outside.
Frank had seen a lot of carnage in his time in the military; during his tenure as Punisher he'd committed even more. What was unfolding now before his eyes on the streets of Manhattan was unlike any firefight he'd ever experienced.
Fanged, vicious-looking creatures, skin lemon-like with jaundice and foreheads painted a deep crimson, tore through the streets and alleys. Civilians fled in every direction, panicking and screaming; bodies littered the asphalt of human and alien alike, many shot down, some trampled beneath fearful feet. Somewhere in the distance, towards Times Square, Frank heard a distinctly reptilian roaring, and then high in the air came a blurred speck of bright yellow that he couldn't quite make out. No time to work it out. In the sky above Manhattan, a terrible ship loomed over the horizon, blotting out the sun; the rampaging creatures poured forth from its bowels, and havoc spread in blood and fire and smoke. Frank took a step back from the window, mind racing - his eyes drifted down towards the pistol he held firmly in his grip. The skin on his hands had never looked quite so wrinkled before.
One thing was certain: he'd need some better hardware.
Quickly he gathered what he needed; from Axel's closet he emptied a black duffel bag of coke bricks, sneering as he did so, and replaced the contents with some essentials - lighter fluid, matches, strips of t-shirts for makeshift gauze, duct-tape - Frank considered changing his clothes too, but the sticky heat of blood across his chest suited him just fine. He found the rest of Axel's stashed clips for the pistol Frank had appropriated; a fresh clip went in the gun and another in his waistband, but the remaining three tumbled into the bag. The tape that had inspired his return from retirement - awoken Frank back to his truest self - went in too, back in the clear plastic he'd found it in, and with a black marker Frank scrawled the name Axel had given him the night before across it. Prioritising was easy; but Frank wasn't the type of man to let one mission abort another.
With bag slung over his shoulder, he departed Axel's apartment, sparing one last hawk of spit at the corpse's foot, and quickly descended the building's staircase to street level. At the main doors he paused, peeking through the crack to survey the street outside. Despite distant screaming and the all-too-familiar sounds of sirens and heated battle, the way seemed eerily quiet. Footsteps echoed from a block over, but in Frank's immediate vicinity, all was still. He exited the building gun-first, eyes sharp and senses keen. An unseen foe was almost as dangerous as an unknown one. Frank's training would deal with the former. Some impromptu battlefield research would probably fix the latter.
He didn't have to go far to get it; despite his destination being only a few blocks away near the outskirts of Hell's Kitchen, Frank had only managed to pick his way across a few short streets before coming face to face with the snarling visage of Manhattan's invaders. The Dominator's 8-foot frame towered over Frank, and drool dripped from its vicious maw as it approached him, skin sickening, forehead a rich maroon, hunched over as it carried a large rifle in its long, sinewy arms. Frank was certain he could make out a sadistic smile spreading across the alien's face, and then it raised its weapon and let out some guttural, barking chortles as the rifle made the tell-tale humming whine of charging-
Frank ducked, rolling beneath the Dominator's legs, faster than it could anticipate. The beam of its disintegrator rifle charred the concrete of the sidewalk as it missed completely, but Frank was already sweeping the legs of the creature before it could turn and take another shot; as the rifle clattered to the asphalt, the alien swung with its talons, a powerful blow that could have removed Frank's head in a single swipe. Instead, Frank deftly back-stepped the strike and put a bullet in the back of its claw as the arm came past, and then another in the shoulder of the same arm. The Dominator screeched, a howl that Frank recognised both pain and fury in, and he breathed as it clambered quickly to its feet once more and advanced, swiping with the other arm. Compelled by anger and agony, its newly-spurred speed took Frank by surprise and he was unable to move out of the way; instead, he brought both arms up in a boxer's guard. The blow connected with a ferocity Frank had never experienced before, and the claws of the alien lacerated his forearms while the strike itself lifted him from his feet and knocked him several feet backwards through the air.
Somehow, Frank managed to turn his would-be rough landing into a combat roll, and he stabilised himself as the Dominator approached again. In his peripheral vision, Frank could see the discarded alien rifle a few feet to his left, but the advancing foe would quickly put itself between him and the weapon, and he could already feel his ribs aching from the single blow he'd taken. A few more of those and he wouldn't be of any use to anyone. The fight would be over.
Despite a decade of retirement, Frank wasn't ready to give up his war just yet.
He launched himself forwards, belting out a war cry that came from animalistic depths Frank had grown unfamiliar with, and as he ran he emptied the clip of his pistol towards the alien. It screeched in response, doing what it could to dodge the incoming fire, some shots still finding their marks in legs and torso; with its remaining good arm, it struck again, thrusting forward with its claws in a stab aimed for Frank's heart; it found only air as Frank dived to the left, landing poorly on his shoulder. The last bullet in the clip went into the back of the alien's neck, burying itself deep in its throat but doing little to stop it in the immediate future. The Dominator attempted a roar, but was only able to manage a garbled and wet throaty sound as the trauma caught up with it; and then the sounds of battle was punctuated with the whine of the rifle, and Frank saw the snarling visage of the Dominator twist into a facsimile of fear.
The whine turned into a zap, and a volley of bright twin beams erupted from the barrel of the rifle and placed themselves squarely center-mass of the alien; in a word, the results were explosive.
Frank picked himself up off the ground, rolling his now-sore shoulder and reloading the pistol before holstering it in his waistband and hefting the heavy rifle with both hands. Where the Dominator had once stood was instead a small blasted-clean crater, and covering both the immediate area and Frank was a thick, dark, viscous mix of alien blood and bits of flesh. Frank wiped his face clean with a hand and realised his arms were bleeding as he felt the familiar sticky warmth of blood replace the cold, lumpy alien gore. He fetched the makeshift gauze and duct-tape from his duffel as he began to move again, applying some quick warzone first-aid while he made the rest of the way to his safehouse. Behind him, Frank could hear more screeches and roars, and he knew that the battalion his foe had belonged to was close; too close. Time to retreat and regroup.
---
The safehouse had not been breeched in over a decade; even before his retirement, Frank's career often pushed him away from locking down in a singular secure location. More often than not, he needed to be on the move, chasing his next target or evading misguided law enforcement after dispatching his last one. To have a fortress, though, a reliable storage unit, somewhere to stockpile his armoury or hang on to useful contraband - Frank understood that very well. Vigilantism had never been lucrative, despite the appearances of his so-called peers, and the targets of the Punisher were often wealthy with ill-gotten gains. Repurposing for the greater good felt as just as any other judgement Frank meted out.
The metal shutter rattled loudly as Frank pulled it up. The inside of the safehouse was sparse, utilitarian. There was a wire-frame cot and a minifridge with bottled water and beef jerky; the only window was plated with double-thick bulletproof glass, and barred on the outside for good measure. Against one wall was a small bookshelf, its cheap wood racks bowing beneath the weight of the tomes it bore; against the other was a gun rack of considerably higher quality, and upon it hung both an exquisite collection of high-end firepower, and a very familiar vest. The crown jewel, however - the piece that Frank now wrapped his fingers around and welcomed the weight and the heft of it, even enjoying the dull pain that it brought to his torn forearms - was the Barret XM500 Anti-Materiel Rifle. Leaving his duffel bag behind but taking the vest and a couple boxes of ammo, Frank slammed the shutter of the safehouse closed behind him, and made his way to the building's rooftop.
Thirty minutes later and the streets in a 5-block radius around Frank's position were clear, and civilian refugees were guiding other survivors towards the safe-zone. The first few had been afraid when Frank started shooting, but when he'd thrown his vest to the ground and they'd realised who he was...Frank wouldn't call himself 'safe'; but he
would call himself reliable. And he would reliably put a
large hole through the head of any Dominator that he could see. Those fleeing sought out the area of lowest enemy concentration; naturally, when Frank made that concentration zero, they gravitated toward him. By his reckoning there were at least 50 people seeking refuge in the building below him, and scores more in the buildings surrounding.
Off in the distance, he could see Rogers flying in, bringing with him the full force of SHIELD and the Avengers to live up to their nomenclature; some great spectral fanfare erupted towards the Dominator ship, and through his scope, Frank could see distant arrows whipping through the air as well.
Fine; let those more equipped handle the major objectives. Frank was satisfied in his massacre, and protecting civilians.
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