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((This isn't all about the Punisher. You can come in and start your own thing if you want, or involve yourself in what's going on here. ))


New York City. Been walking these streets for 50 odd years. Got harder as I got older. So did a lot of things... The dark figure kept a brisk pace down the street in a closed trench coat. The sun was still lingering over the horizon. The city looked different than it did, most likely because his eyes had started going just a while before he found his new lease on life. City may be sharper. City may look clearer to me now. But it's still dirty. New eyes only show me how ******** bad it is. Down the street, farther than he'd seen in a while, he spied a crew of skinheads. They were all lingering around the stoop of an apartment complex. Six. The one pacing around the stoop's got a shorter stride on his left side. He's holding. Likely at least some of them are, too. He stopped at the curb, watching them. His hands kept in his pockets and his eyes on them. He tuned out all the noise of the noise of the city, the cars and the trains. He could hear them talking. He could hear his city crying for him. <******** this, man. We've gotta do something about these degenerates." The one pacing spat as he spoke, shaking his head like he was dropped as a child. They were all obviously looking for a reason to put somebody in a grave. He found himself assessing the situation like he was planning a kill. When he died, the 'Punisher Task Force' headed almost solely by one man in the basement of the NYPD with libraries full of files on Frank's kills finally worked up the balls to raid his safe-houses. They found all but one of them, and that was the one he'd been working out of when he tried to put Norman Osborn in the grave.

He was down to one silenced M1911 Colt with four rounds.

Further down the street was a young couple. A black teenager and his light-skinned girlfriend. They were arguing about something trivial. When the skinheads saw this, they grumbled amongst themselves, egging each other on until they were climbing down off their holy white stoop and making their way to do them harm. As such, Frank started walking across the street to do them harm.

They pushed the girl away and surrounded the young one. They shoved him around and hurled slurs. Some brandished knives, making thrusts at him. He was coming up close. He could see the back of the ringleader's neck. He had a tattoo of the Roman numeral III. Three victims. I wonder what you planned to do when you got to four. Doesn't matter. You're not getting to four.

Have to do this quick and easy. They were dragging him off to an alley to make things a little more private. Not that anyone in this neighborhood would risk saying something. These weren't the only scumbag supremacists crawling around in the cesspool of Queens. He leaned against the wall outside the alley, looking in to observe. The sun had finally fallen under the horizon and darkness covered the alleys of the city. It was beautiful in its own way, but this was when the real psychos came out to play. There was nothing to smile about. They tossed the kid against he wall and took turns beating him. Frank unbuttoned his trench-coat, allowing him to move more freely. He hadn't had the time to replace his shirt. Maybe they would have had the brains to run if he had. He didn't have six bullets, after all.

While they kept beating on the kid, the one with the 'three' tattooed on his neck turned and started walking towards him. "What the ******** are you lookin' at, greaseball?" Before he finished talking, Frank pulled the handgun from the waistband of his jeans and fired three rounds into his stomach. My daughter died this way. He's going to go septic, the contents of his colon emptying into his stomach and devastating his body with infection. He'll die without attention, and his odds aren't good even with it.

Two of them rushed at him, one going at him with a knife. He grabbed his wrist, twisting his arm so that he doubled over. He aimed over his back with his gun hand, firing a round into the forehead of the other. Empty. They don't know that. He sent his knee to the face of the one he had constricted, shattering his nose and sending bone and cartilage into his brain. He dropped him to the ground and kept moving forward with his gun aimed at the three still remaining. Two backed up, one was frozen in his place. He slammed the butt of the gun into the side of his head and tossed it at the closer one, causing him to catch it. He drew his knife and drove it into his chest, piercing his heart like a water balloon, ripping it back out. The last one began running away, but he suddenly felt himself slowing down. He couldn't breathe in enough air to keep himself in check. He began coughing uncontrollably and blood poured from his mouth each time. He found himself on the ground, a knife in his back, fading into death.

This move in the never-ending chess game was closed. The entire time, his heart didn't race. His breathing wasn't out of control. He kept his head clear. His body was young again, but his mind was still that of a tempered killer. The teen sat in the corner between a dumpster and the wall, shaking and wide-eyed. "Go home." He said, looking down at the boy. He scrambled to his feet and ran. Frank proceeded to take the spoils of war. Eight-hundred seventy-two dollars, three 9mm handguns, six clips of ammunition and a belt-full of knives. And it all begins again.

Some things never change. Bad guys still kill people. New York's still dirty. The Punisher still punishes.