/ea3y978ofxvjmi7lapbwnk8q46yf)
/ezsuh7xjbd2fyw4xzq2el0qp3scu)
The rain came down sideways, the kind that felt deliberate. Like it had been sent.
Frank Castle stood under a flickering streetlight three blocks south of the river, coat soaked through, skull half-hidden beneath shadow and grime. The city breathed around him, steam crawling from manholes, neon signs buzzing like dying insects, sirens echoing too far away to matter.
He checked his watch.
02:13.
Right on time.
The warehouse loomed ahead, a slab of corrugated metal and bad intentions. No sign. No windows. Just a rusted chain-link fence and a guard booth with a man inside who had stopped paying attention to the world twenty minutes ago.
Frank didn’t hurry. Hurrying was for people who believed they might make it out alive.
He crossed the street and slipped into the alley beside the fence. The guard never saw him. Never heard the suppressed round punch through the glass, never felt the back of his skull exit his face.
Frank cut the power first.
Darkness snapped across the block. Alarms chirped once, then died. Inside the warehouse, something metallic clanged, someone reacting late.
Frank climbed the fence, boots silent, and dropped on the other side.
This place was a funnel. He could feel it. A trap for the desperate, the trafficked, the disposable. Every city had them. Buildings where the law pretended not to look.
Tonight, he was looking.
He slipped inside through a side door he’d unbolted three days earlier. The smell hit first: oil, rot, chemical disinfectant. Blood covered up with bleach. A lot of blood.
Frank’s jaw tightened.
The first man came around the corner with a flashlight and a pistol held wrong, too tight, too eager. Frank stepped forward and drove the knife up under the ribs, twisted, and caught the body before it hit the floor.
The man tried to scream. He couldn’t.
Frank lowered him gently and wiped the blade on the dead man’s jacket.
One down.
He moved deeper.
The warehouse was divided into sections by hanging plastic sheets. Behind one, voices. Laughter. Men who thought themselves safe because they paid the right people.
Frank unshouldered the rifle.
The first burst tore through plastic and flesh alike. Three men went down before any of them understood what was happening. One reached for a shotgun mounted on the wall, Frank put two rounds through his chest and a third through his face for good measure.
Silence followed. Not peace. Silence.
Frank stepped in.
Cages.
Steel bars welded together in rows. Inside them, women, men, children. Bruised. Sedated.
Some awake.
Some not.
One girl met his eyes through the bars.
She didn’t speak.
Frank felt something crack behind his sternum.
He turned back toward the hall and reloaded.
There were more. There were always more.
He advanced room by room, methodical, surgical. Suppressors when possible. Loud when necessary. He didn’t rush. He didn’t enjoy it. He finished it.
A man charged him with a machete screaming something about God.
Frank shot out the man’s knee and waited until he hit the floor before stepping in close and firing point-blank into his mouth.
Another tried to hide behind a desk, sobbing, pleading about his family.
Frank pulled him out by the collar and slammed his head against the concrete until the pleading stopped sounding human.
He kept count.
By the time he reached the central office, his ammo was down to half, his coat torn, his knuckles bleeding.
The man inside the office was waiting.
Suit. Clean. Calm. The kind of man who didn’t get his hands dirty but slept just fine anyway.
“Frank Castle,” the man said. “I was hoping it was you.”
Frank closed the door behind him.
“You know,” the man continued, hands folded, “people like you are predictable. Trauma. Rage. A need for meaning...”
Frank shot him in the leg.
The man screamed and fell back.
Frank leaned over him, pistol inches from his face.
“Meaning,” Frank said, voice flat, “is something you ran out of.”
The man tried to crawl. Frank shot his other leg.
“Please,” the man sobbed. “I can tell you names..politicians, judges....”
Frank grabbed him by the hair and slammed his head into the desk.
“I already know the names.”
He dragged the man into the hall. Past the bodies. Past the cages.
He opened one.
The prisoners flinched.
Frank shoved the man inside and locked it.
“He’s yours,” Frank said. “If you want.”
The girl from before stared at him.
Frank didn’t wait to see what happened.
He walked out as sirens finally began to close in.
Two nights later, the docks burned.
A shipment came in under armed escort, military, grade weapons sold off the books, routed through shell companies. Frank watched from a crane arm fifty feet above, rain slicking his rifle barrel.
He tagged the first truck with an explosive round. The blast turned steel into confetti and men into parts.
The escorts opened fire blindly.
Frank moved, firing controlled bursts, breaking formations, forcing panic. He dropped down onto the deck mid-fight, snapped a man’s neck with his forearm, took his rifle, and used it to clear a path.
One man managed to get behind him, knife flashing.
Frank let the blade cut him shallow, then elbowed the man’s throat inward and stomped his skull until it stopped being a skull.
He planted charges along the remaining trucks.
A voice shouted from behind cover. “You don’t win, Castle! This never ends!”
Frank looked toward the voice and fired until it didn’t exist anymore.
He walked away as the dock erupted in fire, the water catching flame.
Word spread.
It always did.
The gangs closed ranks. The syndicates hired mercenaries. Old soldiers. New killers. Men who thought themselves harder than the last.
Frank welcomed them.
They came at him in a tenement stairwell. He took the first two with tripwire mines and used the third as a human shield until his screaming drew fire from his own men.
He dragged another into an apartment, broke both his arms, and waited for the others to follow the sound.
They didn’t last long.
In a church basement, they tried to ambush him during a meeting. Frank set the holy water on fire and locked the doors.
In a parking garage, they boxed him in with armored vehicles.
Frank crawled beneath one and wired it to detonate under the engine block. When it flipped, he climbed out through smoke and finished the survivors one by one.
The city whispered his name again.
The law scrambled. Task forces were assembled. Press conferences held.
None of it slowed him.
A detective found him one night.
Not chasing. Not ambushing. Just standing in the rain across from him.
“You’re burning everything down,” the detective said.
Frank checked his weapon.
“Good.”
“They’ll replace them.”
Frank met his eyes.
“I’ll replace myself too. Eventually.”
The detective swallowed.
“You ever stop?”
Frank didn’t answer.
The last job came from inside.
A former general. Private army. Underground compound beneath a decommissioned hospital. Torture labs. Experiments. Human disposal like trash.
Frank spent a week mapping it.
Then he went in alone.
The halls were narrow. Brutal. Perfect.
He used gas. Fire. Blades. His hands.
He fought until his arms shook, until his vision tunneled, until pain was just another data point.
A man stabbed him through the shoulder.
Frank broke the man’s jaw with his forehead and beat him to death with the knife still inside him.
He reached the command room bleeding, limping, breathing hard.
The general stood behind bulletproof glass.
“You’re obsolete,” the man said. “Violence like yours doesn’t fix the world.”
Frank planted the charge on the glass.
“It fixes you.”
The explosion shattered everything.
Frank crawled out hours later, half-dead, sirens screaming above.
By dawn, the city looked unchanged.
It always did.
Frank cleaned his wounds in a vacant apartment, stitched himself up with shaking hands, and stared at the skull reflected in the mirror.
Not a symbol.
A warning.
He loaded fresh magazines, pulled on his coat, and stepped back into the rain.
There were still names left.
And he had all the time in the world.
Frank Castle stood under a flickering streetlight three blocks south of the river, coat soaked through, skull half-hidden beneath shadow and grime. The city breathed around him, steam crawling from manholes, neon signs buzzing like dying insects, sirens echoing too far away to matter.
He checked his watch.
02:13.
Right on time.
The warehouse loomed ahead, a slab of corrugated metal and bad intentions. No sign. No windows. Just a rusted chain-link fence and a guard booth with a man inside who had stopped paying attention to the world twenty minutes ago.
Frank didn’t hurry. Hurrying was for people who believed they might make it out alive.
He crossed the street and slipped into the alley beside the fence. The guard never saw him. Never heard the suppressed round punch through the glass, never felt the back of his skull exit his face.
Frank cut the power first.
Darkness snapped across the block. Alarms chirped once, then died. Inside the warehouse, something metallic clanged, someone reacting late.
Frank climbed the fence, boots silent, and dropped on the other side.
This place was a funnel. He could feel it. A trap for the desperate, the trafficked, the disposable. Every city had them. Buildings where the law pretended not to look.
Tonight, he was looking.
He slipped inside through a side door he’d unbolted three days earlier. The smell hit first: oil, rot, chemical disinfectant. Blood covered up with bleach. A lot of blood.
Frank’s jaw tightened.
The first man came around the corner with a flashlight and a pistol held wrong, too tight, too eager. Frank stepped forward and drove the knife up under the ribs, twisted, and caught the body before it hit the floor.
The man tried to scream. He couldn’t.
Frank lowered him gently and wiped the blade on the dead man’s jacket.
One down.
He moved deeper.
The warehouse was divided into sections by hanging plastic sheets. Behind one, voices. Laughter. Men who thought themselves safe because they paid the right people.
Frank unshouldered the rifle.
The first burst tore through plastic and flesh alike. Three men went down before any of them understood what was happening. One reached for a shotgun mounted on the wall, Frank put two rounds through his chest and a third through his face for good measure.
Silence followed. Not peace. Silence.
Frank stepped in.
Cages.
Steel bars welded together in rows. Inside them, women, men, children. Bruised. Sedated.
Some awake.
Some not.
One girl met his eyes through the bars.
She didn’t speak.
Frank felt something crack behind his sternum.
He turned back toward the hall and reloaded.
There were more. There were always more.
He advanced room by room, methodical, surgical. Suppressors when possible. Loud when necessary. He didn’t rush. He didn’t enjoy it. He finished it.
A man charged him with a machete screaming something about God.
Frank shot out the man’s knee and waited until he hit the floor before stepping in close and firing point-blank into his mouth.
Another tried to hide behind a desk, sobbing, pleading about his family.
Frank pulled him out by the collar and slammed his head against the concrete until the pleading stopped sounding human.
He kept count.
By the time he reached the central office, his ammo was down to half, his coat torn, his knuckles bleeding.
The man inside the office was waiting.
Suit. Clean. Calm. The kind of man who didn’t get his hands dirty but slept just fine anyway.
“Frank Castle,” the man said. “I was hoping it was you.”
Frank closed the door behind him.
“You know,” the man continued, hands folded, “people like you are predictable. Trauma. Rage. A need for meaning...”
Frank shot him in the leg.
The man screamed and fell back.
Frank leaned over him, pistol inches from his face.
“Meaning,” Frank said, voice flat, “is something you ran out of.”
The man tried to crawl. Frank shot his other leg.
“Please,” the man sobbed. “I can tell you names..politicians, judges....”
Frank grabbed him by the hair and slammed his head into the desk.
“I already know the names.”
He dragged the man into the hall. Past the bodies. Past the cages.
He opened one.
The prisoners flinched.
Frank shoved the man inside and locked it.
“He’s yours,” Frank said. “If you want.”
The girl from before stared at him.
Frank didn’t wait to see what happened.
He walked out as sirens finally began to close in.
Two nights later, the docks burned.
A shipment came in under armed escort, military, grade weapons sold off the books, routed through shell companies. Frank watched from a crane arm fifty feet above, rain slicking his rifle barrel.
He tagged the first truck with an explosive round. The blast turned steel into confetti and men into parts.
The escorts opened fire blindly.
Frank moved, firing controlled bursts, breaking formations, forcing panic. He dropped down onto the deck mid-fight, snapped a man’s neck with his forearm, took his rifle, and used it to clear a path.
One man managed to get behind him, knife flashing.
Frank let the blade cut him shallow, then elbowed the man’s throat inward and stomped his skull until it stopped being a skull.
He planted charges along the remaining trucks.
A voice shouted from behind cover. “You don’t win, Castle! This never ends!”
Frank looked toward the voice and fired until it didn’t exist anymore.
He walked away as the dock erupted in fire, the water catching flame.
Word spread.
It always did.
The gangs closed ranks. The syndicates hired mercenaries. Old soldiers. New killers. Men who thought themselves harder than the last.
Frank welcomed them.
They came at him in a tenement stairwell. He took the first two with tripwire mines and used the third as a human shield until his screaming drew fire from his own men.
He dragged another into an apartment, broke both his arms, and waited for the others to follow the sound.
They didn’t last long.
In a church basement, they tried to ambush him during a meeting. Frank set the holy water on fire and locked the doors.
In a parking garage, they boxed him in with armored vehicles.
Frank crawled beneath one and wired it to detonate under the engine block. When it flipped, he climbed out through smoke and finished the survivors one by one.
The city whispered his name again.
The law scrambled. Task forces were assembled. Press conferences held.
None of it slowed him.
A detective found him one night.
Not chasing. Not ambushing. Just standing in the rain across from him.
“You’re burning everything down,” the detective said.
Frank checked his weapon.
“Good.”
“They’ll replace them.”
Frank met his eyes.
“I’ll replace myself too. Eventually.”
The detective swallowed.
“You ever stop?”
Frank didn’t answer.
The last job came from inside.
A former general. Private army. Underground compound beneath a decommissioned hospital. Torture labs. Experiments. Human disposal like trash.
Frank spent a week mapping it.
Then he went in alone.
The halls were narrow. Brutal. Perfect.
He used gas. Fire. Blades. His hands.
He fought until his arms shook, until his vision tunneled, until pain was just another data point.
A man stabbed him through the shoulder.
Frank broke the man’s jaw with his forehead and beat him to death with the knife still inside him.
He reached the command room bleeding, limping, breathing hard.
The general stood behind bulletproof glass.
“You’re obsolete,” the man said. “Violence like yours doesn’t fix the world.”
Frank planted the charge on the glass.
“It fixes you.”
The explosion shattered everything.
Frank crawled out hours later, half-dead, sirens screaming above.
By dawn, the city looked unchanged.
It always did.
Frank cleaned his wounds in a vacant apartment, stitched himself up with shaking hands, and stared at the skull reflected in the mirror.
Not a symbol.
A warning.
He loaded fresh magazines, pulled on his coat, and stepped back into the rain.
There were still names left.
And he had all the time in the world.
/j4mylynobqor32cxjw5gekk740tv)
/ozb1jwxv94uda1zjyug4ybj0ix7c)