52: Francis Castle: Come Back Even Stronger

Fanfic

Francis Castle, known to most people as 'Frank' or 'The Punisher', was a man who knew how bad life was. A US Spec-Ops soldier well-known for several high-profile missions taking out terrorists and enemy installations, turned law enforcement officer know for bringing down multiple organized crime families. Sadly, he crossed the wrong guy. The Kingpin. His family, his WHOLE, EXTENDED family paid the price. He was the sole survivor. Not even his children survived.

He was crushed. When he found out dirty cops were the cause of his downfall, he was enraged. When, just thirteen days after the massacre, he found out that those same cops became dirty because they were jealous of his record?

He woke up from his grief, and went homicidal.

He slew his way through the underworld, bringing down corrupt man after corrupt man, syndicate after syndicate, but Kingpin kept one step ahead the whole way. It wasn't until twenty murderous, disastrous years of hunting, building allies, striking at Kingpin, losing everything, and hunting again that he finally got a lead by torturing a martial arts school owner who was a recruitment point for one of Kingpin's allies. As it turned out, the Kingpin had a solid deal with The Hand, a devil-worshiping death cult of assassins. Young, idealistic martial artists went it, and soulless killers came out. The Hand had five Fingers, the leadership, each of which was more than two hundred years old, that were kept alive, and even occasionally revived, by their demon overlord, a weird, runty little guy known only as The Beast.

But not even hell could stop his vengeance. Armed with blessed weapons, holy water, and silver blades, he slew his way though each of the Fingers, then the main Hand base. Sadly, the Fingers were waiting for him there, alive once again. Thankfully, they were far easier to kill the second time. Sadly, he didn't come out of it unscathed. Impaled in his torso, two of his limbs, and ass were multiple throwing blades, a couple of katanas (one of which was VERY cursed), a handful of lead and arrowheads, and one spearhead. But he made it. the deepest part of their temple. In front of him was a large arm on a pedestal with blood leaking from the end, only its occasional twitching and angry motions proving it was alive. Behind that was a portal.

Frank sighed. He knew he was dying. The Kingpin would never fall by his hands. But the Beast could.

Reaching into his mostly empty ammo pouch, he pulled out two hand grenades that had holy water it them, a handful of minor relics of various anti-demon saints, a Buddhist demon-expelling sutra, an M-19 Claymore mine, and a bunch of silver ball bearing. Stuffing the grenades in the arm, he taped everything else to the mine, which he attached to his own chest and covered with a kerchief, right on the forehead of the skull on his chest, and walked through the portal.

Shortly thereafter, a massive BOOM resounded from inside the portal, followed by a ghastly cry of pain. Bit by bit, the portal collapsed, and Frank Castle finished his last tour of duty in Hell.

Oh, chosen one, well have you completed this labor of yours.

Take with you your boons, and walk forward once more!

Frank Castle woke with a start, just twelve days after his family got massacred, breaking out of his fugue. He didn't know why, but he knew a few things. First, his strength and skills seemed to have jumped forward almost twenty years, though his body was just as spry and sharp as it had been the day before. Second, he felt like his limits had been expanded to DOUBLE what they were before. Twice as fast, twice as strong, and more. Moreover, he felt sure there was no way he could die as easily. It would take much more than a demon-led cult to kill him, though he wasn't quite sure if they were actually a thing. It just kinda felt right to say, ya know? Third, he had a tattoo on both of his forearms. His left forearm just had a single slash mark on it (running across the wrist), while the other had a hand with a line diagonally through it. Somehow, he knew that he had slaughtered the patron of ancient assassin organization known as the Hand, killing every true member. But how, he didn't know. He had been in a funk for the last week-and-a-half!

Still, he knew what he had to do. Pulling together a set of gear up to his (oddly advanced) requirements, he set out to punish the guilty! All he needed was a symbol to strike fear into their hearts.

Maybe a golden cat skull? Seems… natural, somehow!

(Frankie gets a variant of Heracles's Twelve Labors power, which grants him the ability to revive twelve times in the past, each one a day closer to the massacre [and yes, in the end, he gets to prevent it]. Each completed labor gives him a power-up [The Hand boosted his reaction time, made him a natural demon-bane, and made him highly resistant to demon-type magic]. Each re-life, his peak is double his highest level his last life, he keeps his combat skills, and each time he dies, he becomes immune to whatever killed him before and he becomes twice as hard to kill. As long as the death of the target of the labor occurs, in some way, in a dimensional shunt [and this includes any kills related to Infinity Stones or other, similar artifacts, time travelers, alternate dimension targets, sub- or hell-dimension kills, etc.] they stay dead, and just 'die mysteriously' when Frankie revives. Planned labors include Thanos (duh), Galactus (maybe), Mr. Sinister (perma-death), Apocalypse (perma-death), Hela (I like her, but she would make a dope labor), Dark Phoenix (it'd be a hell of an upgrade, but I hate that whole plotline)… maybe Ultron? Eh, TBD. Could be any of them, could be none. Dealer's choice!)