Rules.
Professionals always had rules.
And Weiss was a professional, or at least she was now. She had been doing this for almost a year. The Punisher, after leaving more than a few calling cards the media finally started to use the title she had chosen for herself, for her other self.
Rule number one: Never in the house.
The home she shared with her wife was sacred, no guns, no plans, nothing to do with it happened in the house. She kept her attire in a duffel bag in the trunk of a car she purchased from a seedy car lot under a false name. She did all of her planning in an abandoned S.D.C. warehouse scheduled for demolition, fitting. Finally, the guns, kept in a storage container she, again, purchased under a false name, albeit a separate one from the car.
She had taken to it like a fish to water. All of it, the sneaking about, the excuses, the shady deals with shady people.
In a way, it was her using what her father had taught her to undo what he had done.
Or at least at first it was.
At first, it was about cleaning up the S.D.C. Stopping years of corporate corruption and discrimination. However, now it was about cleaning up Atlas as a whole. Everywhere Weiss looked she saw nothing but pain and misery. The strong trampling the weak. So she used her skills to do something about it.
It was no longer just businessmen and politicians she stalked.
It was any who preyed on the weak and helpless, drug runners, biker gangs, loan sharks, gang bangers, it didn't matter to her anymore.
The media had made her a legend. Crime rates plummeted all around the city. Every big name in talk had to share their opinion on the vigilante. Some appreciated the work she did, rooting out criminals and removing them from the equation. However, not everyone agreed. While she was a champion of justice to some, she was a paragon of injustice to others. One person acting as judge, jury, and executioner. The criminals she took down never stood trial, never got to serve time.
Of course, some would argue that a person breaking the system to fix it was a sign the system had failed. Murderers and rapists walked freely on the streets thanks to both corruption and a flawed system.
If the justice system was a hammer.
The Punisher was a scalpel.
"I want these crates loaded as soon as possible, we're packing up shop, now move!" Barked the head honcho, his underlings scrambling about to load the crates of illegal weapons into the backs of several taxis. Another gang on the run. Lots of them had tried it, to pack up shop and leave Atlas.
One of the gang members slipped, dropping a crate of goods and breaking it open.
"Goddamn it Marv, fuck, forget it, we need to go now!"
None of them ever seemed to make it though, they would always pack up and be ready to move, but…
The whole building went dark as the power was cut, the boss muttering a curse.
"Alright boys, that creep is here, you know what to do."
The gangsters steeled themselves and pulled their night vision goggles down over their eyes. The Punisher wasn't going to get the better of them, they had prepared for this. They clicked the safeties off of their weapons, scanning the taxi depot for any movement.
A cylindrical object slid into the middle of the large room, between the majority of the gangsters. They instinctively looked down at it, using the high tech goggles to identify it.
It was a road flare.
They had no time to brace themselves as potassium nitrate mixed with aluminum powder.
Blinding white light overloading the very goggles they had donned to defend themselves. The gangsters reeled and tore off the goggles, blinded by the intense overload of their corneas.
They never saw her coming. She stepped out from behind a pillar, two shots, two bodies hit the floor. The gangsters began to panic, to fire blindly or try to run. Weiss was ready.
A runner, two to the back.
She counted her shots.
Two more, panicking. One receives a slug through the skull, the other takes three to the chest.
She continues to move forward, her Beretta nine millimeter dealing death to those around her.
Eight shots…
Twelve shots…
Fifteen, mag.
She drops the detachable box from the gun, slamming another in to replace it as soon as it was clear. The clean slide and click of her hand cannon erotic in her ears.
Her breathing is calm and even, suspend your emotions.
Blindsided from the left, looks like this one recovered faster than the others, submachine gun, here it comes.She turns towards the gunman as he fires upon her, he isn't aiming, just spraying. She takes a glance to the mask, two to the chest, vest catches them. She hears the click, he's out. She quickly levels her handgun right between his eyes and squeezes.
Another one down. Only a few left, like burning ants with a magnifying glass.
The kingpin falls on his ass, scrambling backward until his back hits the door of a taxi. His men being cut down one by one as he watches, as The Punisher calmly walks towards him.
The last lieutenant hits the floor in a pool of his own blood.
Panic.The boss reaches for his 38. special, leveling it at the demon as it approaches.
His hands are trembling as he tries to aim.
A bullet through the shoulder cuts that idea short.
"Ahhhhggg!" He cries out. No one is listening.
The incarnation of death looms over him, crouching down, the memento mori of its mask just inches from his trembling face.
He can hear the steady breathing, how calm this reaper is. He can see beyond the mask, a face behind the destruction. It's feminine, ice blue eyes gleam like fine crystal. Soft, white skin around them, ivory hair just above the deep pools of light blue. The human personification of the pearly gates he would soon see. An angel, here to send him on. His fear somehow begins to fade. His breathing regulates, peace in his final moment, somehow brought about by the very thing that will end him.
He closes his eyes, he doesn't hear the gunshot, doesn't feel the pain as the bullet tears through his being, sending him to the abyss. The transition is seamless and tranquil.
Weiss straightens herself up, looking down at her latest victim, his essence scattered over the door of the taxi. She pulls out an old burner cellphone, calling a number, the power flicks back on. She closes the flip phone up and stashes it in her trench coat.
She begins to retrace her walk through the valley of death, picking up casings and empty magazines as she goes.
However as she bent down to pick up the spent flare, she heard a click from behind her, her first thought that not every gangster was as dead as they should have been. She reaches for her pistol, ready to spin around and put a round through the noise in a blink.
"Freeze!" Comes a familiar voice to Weiss, resonating through the dead silence like the roar of a dragon.
Weiss raises her hands slowly, clicking the voice modulator in her mask on along the way.
"Turn around… slowly."
Weiss nods, turning to face the source, she smiles underneath her mask...
"Hello, agent Xiao-Long… it is so nice to meet you..."