The massive, concrete warehouse remained silent for only a second after the grenade blast. Then, the silence was shattered by the frantic, scraping sound of Jigsaw scrambling through the wreckage of shredded wood and bent metal.
Frank Castle, the Punisher, lay perfectly still behind his makeshift barrier—a massive, reinforced shipping container—his breathing low and regulated, the sound of his own blood pumping in his ears. He ignored the adrenaline surging through him. He was a machine built for this environment. He didn't need sight; he just needed sound, physics, and knowledge of his prey.
The idiot is panicking. He's going high to try and get an angle, Frank's mind calculated, the years of hunting Billy Russo providing a near-perfect predictive model.
Jigsaw, covered in wood splinters and dust, indeed tried to climb atop a precarious stack of rusted oil barrels, hoping to achieve a height advantage to spot the Punisher's skull-vest. He knew he was outgunned, out-trained, and out of luck. He had gambled on Kingpin's protection and lost everything, right down to the last bullet he'd been carrying.
"Come on out, Frankie! You can't hide forever!" Jigsaw screamed, his voice thick with maniacal desperation, the effort pulling taut the terrible, crisscrossing seams of his face. He fired another wild burst from his handgun at the container, the rounds harmlessly ricocheting off the thick metal. That was his last clip.
Frank registered the exact moment Jigsaw's gun clicked empty.
Now.
Frank didn't move immediately. Instead, he reached slowly into a hidden pouch on his vest—a pouch Kingpin's men had missed when removing his obvious knives and spare grenades—and pulled out a single, slender object: a throwing spike, finely balanced and wickedly sharp. It wasn't about the gun, or the knife. It was about the execution.
"The battle is over, Billy," Frank's voice, cold and devoid of all emotion, drifted from behind the container.
Jigsaw froze, his back to the massive steel door. "What did you say, you freak?!"
Frank stood up in one fluid, terrifying movement, his Sig Sauer P220 already leveled. But he didn't fire the pistol. He didn't even aim for the chest.
Before Jigsaw could bring his empty weapon to bear, Frank threw the spike with a silent, blinding precision. The spike wasn't intended to kill; it was intended to anchor. It buried itself deep into Jigsaw's dominant shoulder, pinning his arm to the rusted barrel, eliciting a sound from the villain that was half scream, half ragged sob.
Jigsaw, helpless and immobilized, dropped his weapon. He stared at Frank, the realization of his final, inevitable failure washing over his grotesque features. "Frank... wait... I..."
BANG!
The gunshot was deafening in the enclosed space. Frank's bullet, fired from the Sig Sauer, struck Jigsaw directly in the center of his forehead.
The force of the impact snapped Billy Russo's head back, throwing his body off the barrel and onto the concrete floor in a horrifying tableau. His stitched, patchwork face exploded in a sudden, brutal spray of red, silencing the monster forever.
Frank Castle stood over the corpse, the silence absolute once more, punctuated only by the drip of oil from a nearby barrel.
"Phew," Frank exhaled slowly, the single word carrying the weight of years of bloody vengeance. Even in his desperate situation—trapped, out of ammunition, and surrounded by an enemy he couldn't see—Frank couldn't help but feel a grim, profound satisfaction. The puzzle was finally over. The architect of his nightmare was dead.
High above the arena, in a thick, armored observation booth, Wilson Fisk began to slowly clap.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
The sound, amplified and rich, boomed down into the warehouse.
"Excellent, as expected of the famous Punisher," Kingpin's calm, oily voice carried a hint of mockery, a forced appreciation for the violence. "Truly a masterpiece of execution. I'm a little curious, Frank. How do you hide so many weapons—specifically, that throwing spike and a fully loaded sidearm—in your tactical wear without alerting my security sweep?"
Frank turned, his eye fixed on the one security camera he knew was watching him. He gently brushed his hand against his left boot and then tapped his belt. The very slight, rhythmic vibration—the pulse of the single-use homing beacon he'd hidden in the lining of his vest—confirmed his backup plan was about to bear fruit.
"So, Wilson. Are you going to open the door and let me walk out of here, or are we going to finish this little game of yours?" Frank challenged, a confident, deadly smile finally gracing his face. He knew his odds were terrible, but he had bought himself a lifeline.
"I'm truly sorry, Frank, but I deceived you," Kingpin's voice carried no remorse, only icy dismissal. "Now that the Jigsaw piece is dead, and the board has been cleared of the pawn, it's your turn to be discarded."
"Since you won't open the door for a civil departure, I'll just have to fight my way out myself," Frank replied, his smile widening—a chilling expression of a man who suddenly holds the winning hand.
"You'll fight your way out?" Kingpin scoffed, his sarcasm still thick. "The doors to this base are made of ten-inch, reinforced titanium alloy, Frank. I don't believe you're carrying a grenade with the explosive equivalent of TNT, much less a tactical nuclear device."
BOOM!
Kingpin's words were instantly, violently proven wrong. A catastrophic, controlled explosion erupted from the single heavy steel vault door. The blast didn't destroy the door, but it pulverized the surrounding concrete and peeled the titanium like a banana, blowing the heavy mechanism inward. The shockwave rattled the entire warehouse, and through the dust and wreckage, fifty figures—dark, heavily armed, and moving with terrifying, synchronized speed—poured into the arena.
Kingpin's face, visible on the monitor Frank was looking at, twisted into a mask of pure, unadulterated shock.
"What's going on?! Wesley, where are the men outside the base? Why was there no alert?" Kingpin demanded, turning his rage onto his consigliere.
James Wesley, pale and shaking slightly, stared at his console. "The surveillance cameras outside the base show nothing, sir. They show the exterior is completely calm, completely normal. Someone has hacked into our entire satellite-linked surveillance system and replaced the real feed with a seamless loop—and we haven't reacted at all! We thought we were safe."
"How did he manage to send the message out, Wesley? He was unconscious before arriving. When he woke up, he was already sealed in this base. This base blocks all outgoing signals!" Kingpin roared, slamming his fist onto the observation desk. He looked at Frank's smug smile on the monitor, his annoyance escalating into a furious, tactical headache.
"It seems their technological capabilities far surpass ours in the electronic warfare domain," Reece Fisk observed calmly, shaking his head. His mind, trained by Huang Wen to detach and analyze, was already focused on the future. "Father, in the future, technological and cyber strength will become increasingly important, and we cannot afford to neglect the cultivation of world-class talent in this area, or we will be obsolete."
"You are right, my son." Kingpin's expression quickly smoothed, the mask of control firmly back in place. He looked at Reece seriously. "I hope you can learn a lesson from this incident, Reece. Never let your guard down, even when you are absolutely certain of your security."
"Father, I will remember," Reece nodded, then looked back at Frank on the screen, who was now coordinating with the heavily armed agents. "However, this guy is still going to be a massive problem. He's alive, and he knows exactly where we are."
"Don't worry, I will send men to deal with the perimeter defenses now," Kingpin narrowed his eyes, studying the fifty fully armed agents swarming the warehouse floor, their professionalism terrifyingly apparent. "Government people? FBI? NYPD? Or perhaps the military?"
"They're too professional for street cops, too disciplined for the FBI," Wesley noted, his fingers flying across his own keyboard. "The gear, the speed… they look like a black-ops military unit, sir. Special Forces, perhaps. Frank was a Marine Captain, and even after retiring, he clearly maintained some highly classified connections."
"But they haven't used regular troops; this is some kind of private security or deep-cover team, probably operating under the direct command of some influential colonel or general," Fisk mused, his mind already spinning the political possibilities.
"There is no need to worry about that. They will be officially disavowed when they are caught. After Frank is eliminated here, the political fallout will be messy, and we'll probably need to use every connection we have to squash this without attracting the Avengers' attention."
"Kingpin, what's it going to be? Your move!" Frank, ignoring the forty-eight agents sweeping the perimeter, walked toward the surveillance camera, brandishing his gun. "If you don't make a move soon, I'm leaving. Don't worry, I'll use the same Sig Sauer that killed Jigsaw to pay you a personal visit."
"Heh, I hope you truly have the ability to stand before me, Frank. If you escape my cage, it's only because I allowed it," Kingpin sneered through the speakers. "However, don't think that just because you've had good luck this time—receiving a rescue you clearly didn't earn—you'll always be this fortunate! I am patient, Castle."
"And don't think that just because you're hiding well enough, I can't find you, Wilson," Frank sneered in return, a promise of eternal vengeance in his eyes. He gave the camera one last, lethal glare, then melted into the formation of fifty agents and moved out of the base and into the waiting darkness.
Outside the demolished base, the fifty Shadow Squad agents moved with the speed and silence of ghosts, neutralizing the outer perimeter of Kingpin's security detail. Frank Castle, their former, legendary instructor, was quickly securing the extraction zone.
"Instructor, our technical department has located Kingpin's exact location inside the observation bunker," the Shadow Squad Commander stated, his voice clipped and efficient. "If you want immediate revenge, we can breach the main structure anytime and bring him to justice."
"I already owe that bastard Director a massive favor for asking you guys for help this time. I don't need to double the debt with a political assassination," Frank shook his head, his mind already far beyond the Kingpin. "Besides, by the time we gather enough firepower to breach that main compound, Kingpin will have long since disappeared into the next state, shielded by his political puppets."
"I kindly sent fifty of my most classified agents, my highest-grade assets, to help you, and this is how you insult me behind my back? You little bitch who got arrested by the local gang leader!"
The unexpected voice—harsh, familiar, and utterly cynical—cut through the professional silence of the tactical team. Nick Fury, the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., emerged from the shadows of a nearby abandoned rail car, his single eye fixed on Frank, a mocking sneer playing on his lips.
The fifty Shadow Squad agents immediately snapped to attention, their weapons lowered but their bodies tensed.
"Let me guess, Frank," Fury continued, not waiting for a response. "Did you spend too much time in the arms of a woman—or maybe a stack of comic books—causing your reflexes to weaken and your strength to decline, which is why you were caught so easily by that fat crime lord?"
"You actually came in person, Director?" A hint of genuine surprise, a rare emotion for Frank, flashed in his eyes. "Do you have that much free time? Just to come and mock me right after I finished my primary objective?"
"Naturally, I'm here to tell you the price of saving your highly valuable hide!" Nick Fury replied, shaking his head with a cold, almost predatory smile. "If it weren't for the fact that you're an old warhorse who can still have every ounce of usefulness squeezed out of you, do you think I would have gone to such lengths to risk my only covert unit?"
Fury stepped closer, lowering his voice so only Frank could hear it. "Do not touch Kingpin yet."
Frank's face hardened. "Excuse me?!"
"A man with ambitions to unify the underworld is easier to control than a thousand rats running through the gutter, scattering the filth and making a mess," Fury explained, his eye piercing Frank's glare. "Fisk controls his territory. He manages the chaos. Until we have a strategic reason, you leave him alone."
Fury then laid out the full, agonizing price of the rescue. "Here is the cost of my debt, Frank. I want you to first train twenty batches of the Shadow Squad for me. Their strength, discipline, and lethal efficiency must be superior to the agents standing here right now, not inferior. I want absolute killers."
Frank Castle stared at the Director, his teeth grinding. "Twenty batches? You might as well just shoot me and throw me back in that warehouse, Fury! Ten batches, tops. Not a single man or woman more."
"Great! Ten batches it is!" Nick Fury smiled instantly, his single eye widening in satisfaction. He had anticipated Frank would negotiate him down from an impossible demand, and he had achieved his real goal, which was even better than he had hoped for.
"Hmph!" Frank sneered, tucking his gun away. "Aren't you afraid of raising a tiger that will eventually turn on the hand that feeds it, Nick? Kingpin is no pushover, and neither will be the ten batches of killers you've just ordered me to forge."
"It's precisely because he's no pushover that we allow him to do all this. What's so scary about a tiger that steps into the limelight, where everyone can see it?" Nick Fury shook his head with ultimate, confident certainty. "In the end, the fruits of his victory—his entire consolidated empire—can be completely controlled and inherited by the authorities, can't they? He's building a structure for us to take over."
"I hope you don't overdo it, Fury. He's going to make a lot of bloody mistakes before you get to the harvest," Frank warned, his voice dark. "However, after training your ten batches of disposable assets, I will resume my hunt. He wants to unify the dark world? We'll see if he can survive me when I finally come for him."
"Perhaps by then, we will be able to reap the rewards of both your vengeance and his ambition?" Nick Fury said meaningfully, patting Frank on the shoulder. "Let's go, my instructor. We have a lot of new killers to train."