[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/kpf9iFQ.png[/img][/center][indent][sub][color=white][b]SEASON ONE[/b][/color][color=A9A9A9] Sensation & Wonder[/color][/sub][sup][right][b][color=white]PUNISHER #3[/color][/b][/right][/sup][/indent][indent][indent][indent][hr][/indent][/indent][/indent][indent][color=white][sub][b]Featuring [@John Table] as NYPD Officers Clemmons and Bolt[/b][/sub][/color][/indent]

Blood was still warm on his face when Frank left the pit. Videotape clutched in one hand, he ascended the stairs like he was climbing the shore of the river Jordan. He kept walking until he was out of the building, and then breathed deep of the fresh air. It smelt like it had always smelt; like work unfinished. Pete Castiglione was behind him now, dead in the factory down in that pit, the invisible fourth corpse. No one would mourn him. Frank wouldn't miss him. Pete had been a walking cadaver ever since Frank put down his vest over ten years ago; he'd just finally put the corpse to rest. His body screamed - he'd gotten complacent in 'retirement', and now his bones and joints ached, muscle memory working on old presumptions. But rather than resisting or ignoring the pain, he embraced it. Pain drove you. Pain meant you were alive. And Frank felt [i]very[/i] alive.

He looked at the VHS tape still in its plastic bag, clutched in his hands. Both were splattered with blood; Frank looked back up and absentmindedly wiped his palms on his jacket. [i]Ace[/i]. Ace had sent those men, those animals, to collect whatever [i]filth[/i] this was. The photos were damning enough; Frank hesitated to discover what was on this tape. 
[i]Something that someone didn't want to be found. Ace?[/i] 
Not Ace. Ace was stupid, and a thug, and undoubtedly possessed some unsavoury chapters of his life, but he was a middleman. He was so essentially a middleman that he had made a living of it with his security firm, being the middleman between jobs that needed muscle and muscle that needed jobs. The three men had been more muscle; the tape was just another job.

Ace lived across town, deep in the hive of Hell's Kitchen. It wouldn't be a long walk. 

[center]-[/center]

Ace's block was quiet as Frank approached, the night still dark as he arrived. He stood on the street below the building, craning his neck to look up at the windows. There was only one light on, and as Frank watched he saw a figure moving within; as it approached the window, Frank flattened against the wall as Ace slid open the window and leant out, searching up and down the street. Searching for his muscle no doubt. There was a phone pressed up against his ear. Frank had to focus to listen - but his ears were sharp. 

[sup]"Nah, they ain't back yet. I told you I'd call when I had it."[/sup] A pause. [sup]"Well shit, if it was that important you coulda got it yourself."[/sup] Another pause. [sup]"No sir. I understand sir. I apologise. The men I got were solid men, sir. I trust them to get the job done."[/sup]

Ace moved away from the window and Frank lost the conversation. Instead, he stepped away from the wall and made his way to the building's entrance. The door was locked, but Ace's buzzer rang true; he didn't even question who it was. Stupid, just like Frank knew he was. The elevator was out, but 7 flights of stairs went by quickly as Frank found himself darkly eager to visit his justice upon a man he loathed. As he reached Ace's floor, Frank's heart pounded and he had to clench and unclench his fists to keep the adrenaline at bay. As Frank pounded forcefully on the apartment door with one hand, the other went to his belt, unclipping the large, heavy torch that hung there.

Frank heard the sounds of locks being un-locked and chains being un-chained; he poised himself, stanced and ready to spring forwards on the balls of his feet. The door opened an inch - maybe two - and then Frank launched forward, crashing into the door shoulder-first and bursting it open. There was the crunch of wood-on-bone and Ace was already stumbling back, reeling as he clutched a newly-broken nose in one hand and put his other in front of him to ward Frank off. Frank kicked the door slam-shut behind him and advanced, torch held high. Ace's skin paled as he recovered and recognised his attacker; there was a brief exchange of words:

"P-Pete?!"

"Not anymore."

And then Frank brought the torch down, and Ace's world went dark.

[hr][sup]The next morning.[/sup]
NYPD Detective Oscar Clemmons watched the rain roll off the windshield of the car in steady streams. A feeling of foreboding was forming in his chest, and it grew stronger the further away from downtown Manhattan they drove. Clemmons was a housecat these days. He worked Narcotics as the esteemed warrant and affidavit processor. It was his job to overlook every scrap of paper detectives filed on drug raids and make sure all the I's were dotted and T's were crossed. He went in at nine and left at six every day, Monday through Friday. He hadn’t been on the street in a long time. And he hated every minute of it. And he knew that was just what the bosses wanted.

So… why now? Why was he being summoned to Queens?

“What do you think is going on?" Bolt asked.

Walter Bolt was the closest Clemmons had to a partner these days. The much younger detective also worked the administrative desk for Narcotics. His tour of duty was a punishment instead of a semi-retirement. The goof had ‘accidentally’ shot up his squad car one night. If not for the fact his uncle was a captain he would have already be out of the NYPD and working mall security in New Jersey. Bolt would get another chance, though, thought Clemmons. He was too young, too ambitious, too well-connected to just linger at a desk like Clemmons did. For Bolt, the position was a waystation. For Clemmons it was purgatory until he finally pulled the pin.

“I have no idea but I don’t like it,” said Clemmons. “We get called up by a captain, no less, to come out to the scene. No details given. Something is up... I just don’t like what it could mean.”

“Think this is our shot to get back into real police work?” Bolt asked, his eyebrows raised. “Getting called up to the the Show, Ozzie!”

“You’re adorable,” replied Clemmons. “But the NYPD doesn’t work like a farm league, Walt. It’s an animal. It chews you up and spits you out after a certain time. It’s still chewing you… and it spat me out a long time ago and moved on to stronger prey.”

They passed over the Queensboro Bridge and to Clemmons it felt like they were passing over some invisible point of no return. Maybe Bolt was right. This seemed heavy. Seemed important. Whatever was waiting for them in Queens, it would end his days shuffling papers in a downtown cubicle. 

[center]-[/center]

“Where the fuck is his head?” The crime tech asked the other.

"It's all over the fucking place."

Clemmons could feel the hairs standing up on the back of his neck. He looked over the gruesome crime scene in the bottom of this little cellar and felt déjà vu. He was suddenly back in Brooklyn in 2008. A group of human traffickers had been operating out of a Russian nightclub in Brighton Beach. They’d done awful stuff to the girls they imported from Eastern Europe, regardless if they were willing or not. A man went in with guns and a machete and turned the place into a goddamn abattoir. Clemmons was one of the first detectives on the scene that day. He remembered the blood and bodies and the flames… along with the skull.

His skull.

And here it was again. Just like before it was drawn in the blood of his victims. Clemmons, for the first time in nearly twenty years, craved a cigarette. Something to do with his hands and mouth. He knew his hands were shaking. He was at least holding up better than Walt. The kid had to excuse himself almost as soon as they went down into the little hidden room. Clemmons had no doubt he was puking his guts out somewhere far away from this mess.

The flash of a crime tech’s camera snapped Clemmons out of it. He shook his head slightly and observed his surroundings. Three dead men, brutally killed… one headless. The pulp and blood spray around the neck stump indicated his head had been pulverized by some blunt object. A scattered collection of photographs that were… lurid by themselves. One of the dead bodies had the misfortune of having a crowbar shoved inside of it. It stuck out of the dead man’s rectum like a flagpole. Clemmons assumed the weapon that had caved the headless body’s skull in would be the crowbar.

Clemmons took a deep breath and tried to compose himself. Two homicide detective and a white shirt looked at him sideways. The white shirt was no doubt the local precinct commander. It would only be a matter of time before more members of command made their way down to the scene

“It’s him,” Clemmons finally said, swallowing hard. “The brutality of the murders, the fact that he left jewellery, the seemingly suspicious and criminal connections of the victims, and most importantly… that….”

[center][img]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/270596687540518915/879792350413586452/Punisher_Logo_Red_50.png[/img][/center]

“Make no mistake... Frank Castle is back.”

[hr][sup]The same morning.[/sup]
Axel 'Ace' Munez woke slowly, groggily, and with a throbbing headache. His face felt sticky and warm, but it was only when he attempted to move his hand that he realised his wrists and ankles were bound by thick rope, tying him securely to the wooden chair he was sat on. Panic began to set in, and his shaky gaze whipped around his apartment looking for escape. Instead, his eyes settled on the large TV that had been moved from his front room to sit right in front of him. As his vision focused, he could make out his reflection; and then the reflection of Frank stood behind him. Ace opened his mouth to yell, but was suddenly struck on the back of the head, rocking him forward and dazing him once again; Frank moved around Ace to stand in front of him, and then wrenched his back back roughly and stuffed a tea-towel into his mouth. He followed it up with a punch to the stomach, and Ace folded over again, groaning and wheezing through the towel.

Frank stood and took a long look at Ace's beaten, bloodied frame, tied tautly to the cheap chair. Then he spat, and turned around to fiddle with the TV.
"Little surprised you still had a VCR, Axel." Frank said, sliding the tape through the flap of the machine and hitting PLAY; the flat-screen 4K TV comically burst to life with assorted static reminiscent of the 90's, before an image became clear through the pixels and scanlines. Frank moved to stand behind Ace again, who whimpered slightly as what was contained within the video became clear. 

It was that pit again, except this time not abandoned, instead almost bustling with figures crammed in. Mattresses were shared by two or three bodies each, and others sat in foetal balls on un-occupied areas of floor. There was a layer of grime that touched everything, and even in the dim light the skin of the captive girls glistened with sweat and grease. The video moved through this lake of woe, wading through suffering that ranged from wailing to catatonic; then a large hand stretched out in front of the camera, ghostly and surreal in its perspective, and roughly seized one of the trafficked women. She was young. One of the youngest there. 

The video cut sharply. Out of the pit now; instead, somewhere outside in the dark, the ground dirt and dust. Off in the background some rippling whites made the suggestion of the moon reflected upon the water. The chosen girl was being manhandled by two men, and a sneering laugh could be heard from behind the camera, a derisive callousness lingering hauntingly. 

The men began to assault the girl, and Axel turned his head. Frank seized it in a steel grip, forcing Axel to bear witness.
"No. I want you to watch. I want you to see what these men did to those girls."
Axel watched. By the time the TV cut out to a merciful inky blackness, tears were rolling down his face. It took little more convincing from Castle for the details of his 'employers' to be handed over. All that was left was the bullet.

Axel almost welcomed it.