Finding Frank “The Punisher” Castle was a hit or miss proposition... either he was in hiding recovering from his latest crusade and/or he was preparing for another crusade against crime or he was out on a killing spree hunting down criminals, in which case follow the sounds of gun fire…
*Harlem New York City, New York USA
Frank was seated in the alley way bleeding. The a-holes had invested in Heavy Tungsten Sabot shells, and while most had gone wild, one made its way into his left kidney. If he didn’t get help soon, he would bleed out, problem was most of those who could help him would lock him up and he still had dozen more handlers to find and kill before he finished cleaning the Cartel’s local gang out.
A noise got his attention, he looked over. It was the Black Cat, except she wasn’t in her catsuit. The Cat was dressed in black goth boots, black shiny leggings, a black tee-shirt with a white outline of a cat on the chest and a black leather moto jacket. Frank noticed the black skunk streak in her otherwise white hair.
She walked up to him then squatted and took her hands out of her pocket.
*
“Oh Frankie…” the black streaked Felicia clone purred, “You are a mess. Frankie… no, wait you prefer to be called Frank, I remember. Frank you look like you are going to bleed out.”
“Not if you have a spare kidney,” Frank eyed the younger woman.
“Not exactly,” Felicia smiled, “I know that at times like this you envy Wolverine for his healing factor. Not so much for the rest of him, I mean his life is really fucked up… But you wish you could grew a new kidney right now.”
“Would be helpful,” Frank admitted.
Felicia reached over and poked Frank’s nose. Suddenly the bleeding slowed and the wound started to close up on its own, there was a clink as the blood soaked sabot fell out of his stomach. The pain subsided as the injury healed itself like he had wolverine’s healing factor.
“What the hell?” Frank said.
“Yeah, so…” Felicia stood up, “Did you ever watch Bruce Almighty?”
Frank gave her a blank stare.
“Jim Carey plays a mortal that gets divine power to warp reality?” Felicia prodded, “Oh well. Hi my name is Bruce, and today I am a god… Oh come on Wolverine, I shouldn’t be able to do that unless I can warp reality at will like a god.”
“So what do you want with me?” Frank asked.
“I don’t want you really,” Felicia shrugged, “I have my own list of people I want to play my game with. You, well you are Judge Dredd. Did you see that movie?”
“Stalone one? Yeah, years ago,” Frank admitted, “It was a mess.”
“You should watch the remake with Karl Urban. Much better,” Felicia shrugged, “Moving on, you are the bane of every scum bag on the street. Cop, Judge, Jury and executioner. Now I don’t have a place for that in my master plan here, but I do have a use for it. I want you to go hog wild.”
Frank pulled himself up and gave her a dirty look.
“In my game here, I need to get the spider and I don’t want any thugs distracting him from me,” Felicia said, “So you get to be Wolverine until ten thirty tonight.”
“Why until ten thirty?” Frank asked.
“One day only,” Felicia said, “My powers to complete warp reality at will end tonight.”
“So why bother with the Spider?” Frank asked.
“Part of the rules are if the pawns agree by their own free will to be mine, then the alterations I make are permanent, otherwise they go bye bye…”
“At ten thirty,” Frank finished, “And if I decide I want to keep the healing?”
“Well then you have to sign up as my bitch and agree to be whatever I to make out of you,” Felicia smiled, “And I think we both know that you are dying for that kind of deal. But, just in case... give me a call. There is one more string attached to this… You can’t tell anyone about my game.”
Felicia pulled an old cell phone with her number programed into it out of her jacket pocket, handed it to Frank and then turned to leave. Frank pulled a pistol from behind him. Felicia was ready to strike him down, the shot rang out, Felicia’s clothes transformed into a full body suit of armor… The gang banger dropped to the ground.
“If your divineness would mind,” Frank said, “I think that AK would be better off as not existing in this city.”
“Frank she’s fourteen,” Felicia said as she turned the gang banger’s weapon into wet newspapers.
“And she had five murder convictions already Iron Cat,” Frank said, “If you are a goddess try and convince her to be a good little girl.”
Felicia wrinkled her nose then smiled, she picked up the teenager like she was a rag doll and disappeared from sight.
*
Wolverine’s healing powers until ten thirty tonight? Frank could make pretty good use of that… But having to surrender to that twat in order to keep them? An image flashed in his mind of the pair of them naked and the Cat giving him a titty fuck. Frank shook his head and went to reload and looked at the pile of wet news papers that had been a weapon he plucked them apart so that tonight they couldn’t reform into a working gun.