}!{
"What're ya gonna do, shoot me?" - Unnamed street-kid, dead by GSW.
.:.
"Night City, hmph."
Frank spent the better part of the day wandering the streets of the dystopian metropolis. From the broken resort paradise of Pacifica to the rundown hab-blocs of Santo Domingo, the Punisher sized up Night City and observed from the shadows. Small pieces of the city, districts and subdistricts, but they were enough to confirm his preconceptions. To call it anarchy would be an understatement.
He'd seen it before, in some of the more lawless parts of America where he came from. An industrial machine, greased up by money and blood, grinding down on the same people winding it up. An overwhelmed and corrupt police force, a compromising government, a plethora of criminal organizations locked in a vicious cycle of never-ending violence. Almost felt like...
New York.
Except, Night City didn't have a corroded copper statue of false hope looming from the waterfront. It was, in itself, the false hope. Frank didn't need to live there very long to see it for what it was. A siren's call to the downtrodden masses, looking for a safe haven or a fresh start, pouring through its gates or rising up from the refuse piling up beneath it. The city gobbles them up and shits them back out where they came. The Punisher witnessed three shootouts on one main street, the perpetrators kind of blurring together. They almost looked the same, although Frank did his best to set the difference for later. They were a colorful bunch, these cyber-punks. Sporting flamboyant and eye-catching clothes that gleamed in the dim light of the sinking sun, same as the cybernetics they got plugged into their bodies. They weren't trying to hide who they were. No masks, nothing to keep people from seeing their ugly faces- like they wanted people to know who they were.
He watched them drive furiously down the lanes, exchanging fire with NCPD armored police cars. Amazingly, bystanders treated the danger as little more than a sudden downpour and moved away from the stray shots like it was a trivial thing.
Frank doesn't react, doesn't move. He's the stubborn oak tree in the middle of the storm. He observes, he plans, he calculates.
As the bullets snap and pop on the pavement, on the building behind him, the Punisher kept a mental picture of the punks tearing up the street. Then, he walked away.
There was so much more of Night City he had to see.
People talked, he listened. Neon and holo-ads popped up, he stopped to watch. There was a lot to learn just by observing the world around him, just a bit to get the lay of the land before he started working again.
Pimps, whores, hustlers and dealers. Corporate henchmen, corporate guns, corporate suits. They were all shiny in some way, chromed-up like the Night City folk said. Chrome. Cybernetics. In the world he found himself in, people had access to augmentations and implants like they were clothes. Rampant and unchecked, just like the guns flooding the streets.
Something caught Frank's eye when he rounded another corner, something that made him halt in his tracks.
Vending machines. With guns.
"The fuck?" Frank tilted his head, reading the ads on the front and sides. 'Budget-Arms. Your Johnny-on-the-spot, now 10% off.' There was even a disclaimer, a tiny one. 'Warning: Discard after use.'
Madworld.
Frank dipped his chin until it was touching his collarbone. As if on cue, it started raining. The streets quickly cleared out, leaving only the busy traffic to clog up the lanes. And just as quickly, the trail of chaos left in the wake of the shootout disappeared. Street-sweeper drones swept away the evidence after the police did a quick run through the trail, then it was business as usual.
The Punisher took one last look at the plastic abominations racked so neatly behind that glass panel, then walked away.
He wandered some more, coming up into Night City's equivalent of a shanty town in Santo Domingo. There, Frank happened on a familiar scene. A van, or rather something that looked like a van, pulled up over the sidewalk in a hurry. Four guys, big and brutish as they come, muscled their way inside a rundown building with faulty neon signs.
'Dr. Sebrovna's Cyberware and Cosmetics' A cyber-doctor's clinic, or something. Those men didn't look like they were there for a check-up.
Sure enough, Frank heard shouting and the noise of something fragile getting smashed. He could tell that people around the neighborhood could hear the commotion, but just like good ol' NYC, they simply ignored it. Frank still had his two 9mm's. He'd discarded the M60 when he spent two whole belts clearing out the apartments in that rundown resort place.
The Punisher entered the building from where the thugs came in.
A terrified nurse was cowering behind the reception desk. She glanced at Frank with a mixture of fear and desperation. She understood what he was there for when she saw him brandish his guns like he was going to war. All four of the thugs were inside the operating room, strong-arming the doctor over some perceived slight. They were a lot bigger up close. All six feet with pound after pound of synthetic muscle wrapped around alloy endoskeletons. They had so much cyberware covering their bodies in patches that they looked like Frankenstein's knock-off's.
Or probably the upgrades.
The doctor, most likely Dr. Sebrovna, stood calmly in the midst of the barking mad dogs as though she'd dealt with their kind before. She was smaller than they were, small in frame and softer in features. She didn't have any cybernetics, or at least not on the outside. Her long blonde hair was tied into a neat bun, and her captivatingly natural blue eyes held back an ocean of knowledge that undoubtedly helped a great deal in her craft. She looked like she was barely holding it together when the leader of the thugs raised his voice and started to get physical.
Steel jaw, just like in the old James Bond movies. Dumb as rocks too. One part street-smarts, two parts muscle. Enough to terrify the mooks who owed them money, but not much more.
He grabbed her arm and forced her to stretch it out over the observation table. One of his goons handed him an auto-saw, the kind doctors of the future use for cutting through bone. The doctor started to look scared, and her fear excited Steeljaw. "This'll teach ya ta fuck up a chrome-job!"
Frank squeezed the trigger and the gun jumped in his hand. The loud bark of the 9mm reverberated throughout the tiny room, its bullet made contact... and bounced?
Steeljaw's head snapped back as though a giant sledgehammer struck him across the face. Sparks flew from where the bullet ricocheted off of his subdermal plating, "Ow! What the f-"
Frank scowled, took aim, and emptied the mag into the howling pack. This time, he went for the eyes. The back of Steeljaw's head burst like a overripe tomato, sending sparks and brain matter flying into Dr. Sebrovna's horror-stricken face.
"Agh! You motherfuckin' fuck!" One of them left. Angry and shot to pieces, but with a helluva lot more fight left in him than his buddies. Moved fast too. Before Frank could even blink, the guy threw a punch so strong it should've caved his whole face in. But the Punisher wasn't made of meat. Benefits of being from another world.
He rolled with the punch, although the impact still made him see stars. Frank spun but regained his balance, then he threw one back at him. The Punisher's fist connected with RealSkinn synthetic flesh, and the alloy endoskeleton beneath it. Bones fracture and splinter, metal just bends. But beneath all that tech, the mook still had a brain made out of real flesh- and it didn't handle punches any better.
Just enough to stun him before Frank dug his fingers into his eyes.
His eyes had tech in them too, but they were soft. The matter came apart like melted cheese, then the blood started spilling out. Dr. Sebrovna watched the horrific scene with her own eyes wide open. She couldn't move, couldn't speak. Something close to fascination kept her firmly rooted in place, like most people who watched a train wreck in action.
Last thug looked like a train wreck by the time Frank was done with him. A blind, bleeding and screaming train wreck groping around in the dark while the Punisher took a moment to look for the right tool to finish him off.
The auto-saw.
"Where ya gone? Huh? Get back here, ya sonuvabitch!" The enraged and mutilated cyber-punk swung at empty air wildly. "I ain't done with ya yet!"
He froze. He heard the buzzing of the tool and pissed himself.
Frank was barely a droplet in the ocean of Night City, hadn't existed for a even a day, and he was already making some big waves. He left the ripper-doc clinic the way he usually left a scene- a bloodbath. But before he did, Frank stopped to check on the good doctor. A bit shaken, maybe in need of a shrink or a stiff drink, but she was okay.
"S-Spasibo." The woman reverted to her native tongue for a second. She steadied her shaky hands as she wiped off the gore caking her pretty face. Her next words were spoken in English, with a slight hint of the Slavic inflections. "I-I mean, thank you."
Frank felt his left cheek swell up from where the last thug hit him. The bruise would show within the day, but before it ended he would finish up what he started. "Who were these men?"
"Animals."
"Yeah, I noticed."
"No no, they are Animals. A gang." Dr. Sebrovna explained, "They... they came here because they believed I didn't do a good job installing implants. I tell them as professionally as I could- no refunds."
The fear came back as she realized her life was in danger, "Oh, they will be back! You killed their people and they'll-"
"No, they won't." Frank declared, glancing at the vehicle still parked haphazardly over the sidewalk. "Not if I give them something else to worry about."
"W-Wait, you're not going to-?" The doctor's words trailed off as she watched the Punisher walk out of her clinic.
Frank opened the back of the van and found two racks stacked with guns. Submachineguns, shotguns and pistols. Old fashioned models with a bit of modern implements. There was a rocket-launcher too, and some kind of futuristic satchel-charge. After taking a gander of his new arsenal, Frank closed the doors and familiarized himself with the driver's seat.
Steering wheel, auto gear shift, bedazzled pedals. Frank was familiar with it all, but he'll have to get to know the guns a little bit more.
Day's not over yet. He still had time to kill.
Tripple Xtreme Gym, Arroyo
Santo Domingo
Logan Garcia had a twitch in his neck. Some synth-muscle pulling at him at random times. Ever since he got that implant from that Slav chick to reinforce his spine, he's been twitching all day every day and it's been bugging him. Logan's crew might say something stupid, like it might be the juice he's been shooting up. But they won't. Better let the good doctor take the blame.
And that's exactly what he did- blame the doctor. He sent Claptrap and the others to Dr. Sebrovna's clinic, set things straight.
They should be back any minute now.
Logan got up from his couch and walked up to the glass wall separating his office from the rest of the gym. Below was what anyone would expect from a gang dedicated to pursuing the peak of human fitness. Animals loaded for bear mixed in with gonks hoisting weights four times the limit of the average man, gallons of homebrew Animal juice to amp them up stored in repurposed water jugs, and a fighting ring for Animals looking to pit themselves against each other to test the limits of their physical prowess.
The pack leader took a long drag from his cigar and shrugged off his coat. He felt like working out, the stress was starting to get to him. As he descended the stairs, Logan heard the rumble of an engine that sounded like it was getting louder. Not the kind of loud that a car was passing through the street, the kind of loud that something was heading straight for the gym.
Before anyone could react, the wall caved in and Claptrap's van flew right inside. The weight of all that steel going at 120 miles per hour, a little slow when compared to the screechers drag-racers and speed-freaks used, but it was enough to turn a half-dozen of Logan's pack into a bloody smear on the floor. The van crashed and made its final stop into the opposite wall. Out of instinct, the Animals emptied their weapons into the van assuming that it was packed with a rival gang's gunmen. They filled it full of holes, burst the tires and set the engine smoking. Then, the noise died away only to be followed by the faint clicking of empty guns. There was nobody in the driver's seat, nor the passenger's.
"Whoa! Hold up!" Logan bellowed above the noise, "Open the back and let's have a looksee!"
His goons obeyed, just as soon as they reloaded. The rear doors swung open with a horrid screech, and the Animals raised their weapons intent of hosing down the gonk who had the balls to mess with the pack. All they found was Claptrap's satchel-charge rigged to blow. In that span of a second, half of Logan's pack decorated the gym with their guts and set the alpha's ears a-ringing. The second one soaked up the Punisher's rounds as he boldly marched into the ruined building.
Frank Castle chose the gun he was most familiar with, Night City's version of the Kalash. Over the years, some of its parts changed. Forged steel was still there, but the plywood was gone. And yet the Russians managed to improve the design to keep up with Eastern competitors. It was lighter, steadier with less recoil, two extra rounds in the mag. He also chose a second, the ubiquitous Benelli, or something of the sort. Even in that unfamiliar world, there was a hint of the familiar. 20 gauge pump action, manual reload like most shotguns. With all that stopping power, it was only fair to balance things out.
Frank took whatever joys he could get. One of them was emptying the whole mag into the beast that was Logan Garcia.
The big brute took it all, the whole 32 rounds, and was still kicking. Frank rolled his eyes and slung the Kalash over his shoulder, then raised the Benelli.
"Fuckin' cunt..." Logan pushed himself off from the bloody floor and flopped to his back. His breath cut like broken glass with every wheezing word. The usual lines came trickling out of his ugly mouth, "You know who... who you're messin' with? You're fucked!"
The shells were loaded with flechettes, tiny arrow-shaped steel bolts designed to pierce armor. Not the same as slugs, flechettes had a different purpose. And when they got past the armor they bent like little nasty hooks, hooks that ripped at soft flesh on the way out. Going at that kind of speed, they made a messy mark on the unfortunate victim. But at the distance from which Frank stood from Logan Garcia, the desired effect was pretty similar to standard pellets.
And Logan would never say another word again.
Frank surveyed the ruin he'd made their gym into and realized he was in a weapons treasure trove. Animals stockpiled on guns as much as they did on supplements, drugs and other illegal merchandise. There was a script in the back of his head, a magnet's pull getting him to do what he knew he was good at doing. Stepping right into the world of Night City wasn't by chance. The mission hadn't changed.
The Punisher went through the pack's stuff and perchance activated an interactive map in one of Logan's datapads in the office. It was a map scribbled with drop-points, pack lairs and safehouses. Animals didn't have much going in the brains department, or they were just too confident that nobody would come after them so brazenly. Frank met enough of every type of scum, but this was just too easy.
}!{
