<div class="floatleft">(https://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/a/a0/Punisher-Warzone-Icon1.jpg)</div><hr/><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>Name:</strong> Frank Castle / Punisher<br/><strong>Location:</strong> Safehouse located somewhere in the New York subway system<br/><strong>Time:</strong> 13:45 to 14:22<br/><strong>Taggings:</strong> Open <br/><strong>Wearing:</strong> Strapping on his Kevlar vest, which carries that iconic Punisher skull<br/><br/></span></span><hr/><br/>Clockwork thirteen fourty-five hundred hours it began.<br/><br/>There was a small television set Frank had set up in the corner of his underground safehouse. It was an old, banged up tube TV set he'd salvaged from a scrapheap. Its purpose was not entertainment, as with pretty much anything the vigilante known as Punisher did, but rather to keep on top of current local events via the news. It was still one of the best sources when it came to crime and criminals and anything that was happening many yards above him, in the city of New York.<br/><br/>Suddenly, the female reporter who had been speaking about a the robbery of a jewelry store was silenced, causing the middle-aged man to look up from his work. Laying down the gun in his hands, he slowly circled around the workbench, approaching the TV. A metallic, robotic voice spoke.<strong>"The world you knew is over. The age of man is over, the age of flesh and bone is over. Now we enter my age, the age of ULTRON!"</strong>It said with the typical self-important sense of grandeur that most criminals and "super" villians seemed to suffer from.<strong>"My attempts in the past to overthrow you have been foiled by the Avengers and others like them... But now they are no more significant to me then the smartest termite and as such they shall be eradicated. Most of you shall not survive the culling but those that do have one option. To submit, submit or die their is no other alternative."</strong><br/><br/>And then the transmition cut out, returning back the regular broadcasting. It showed the main anchors of the newsprogram, all displaying the same expression of shock, confusion and even a little terror. He'd seen it often enough on the faces of innocents and criminals alike. It was the sort of expression one would have when faced with something uncertain and unknown, but at the same time obviously dangerous.<br/><br/>Just moments later the ground, the walls and ceiling all shook violently. This was no earthquake though, but rumbling caused by explosions above. Frank Castle did not know who the strange robot had been that had sent out the arrogant message, but one thing was certain: it wasn't messing around. When the news switched to live images of the events going on in the streets of New York, he could see clearly the siege the city now found itself under. Machine upon machine dashed through the airspace, raining down death and destruction, innocent civilians scattering left and right in terror, many cut down without a chance. At first he had thought this Ultron to be a fool to simply reveal himself like that, with such blatant arrogance, but a mere fool would not have such firepower under his control.<br/><br/><div class="floatright">(https://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/1/18/FrankCastle_Armor.jpg)</div>Dashing back to his equipment lockers and gunracks, Frank moved with urgency and haste to put on his usual Kevlar armor and began arming himself to the teeth. There was no moment to spare, no moment to stop and think. It had been a long time since he had last seen an actual war<del>   </del>the one he was waging with the criminals in this city not withstanding<del>   </del>up close, but what was happening above had all the signs. Now was not the time to lay out a carefully crafted plan. Now was the time to act, to save as many innocent civilians as he could.<br/><br/>Holstering a pistol, Frank reached for an assault rifle when a loud, metallic bang echoed through the safehouse. Pausing with weapon in hand, his head slowly turned towards the only entrance: a narrow passage that lead into one of the many subway tunnels beneath the city. Then, another bang. Something was attempting to knock down the three inches thick steel door and, by the sound of it, it wasn't going to hold much longer!<br/><br/><strong>"Shit!"</strong>Cursing under his breath he scrambled to take position, crouching down behind his workbench, raising the assault rifle in his hands to aim towards the entrance passage. His hand moved with haste, flipping the safety off and preparing the weapon for combat.<br/><div class="floatleft">(https://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/2/2d/FrankCastle_WithRifle.jpg)</div><br/>Punisher's safehouse was then breached, the heavy metal door designed to withstand even a bomb explosion flung into the main chamber with ridiculous force, sailing past his head and embedding itself into the concrete wall on the far side of the room. Frank did not flinch, keeping his aim steady and directed on the dark corridor. An experienced war veteran and vigilante with nerves of steel, he willed himself to remain calm and alert. The flight part of his fight or flight instinct had long ago been shown the door and told to move out. He would no longer allow himself to be the victim of fear. Instead, he taught those he'd punish the meaning of the word.<br/><br/>Slow, heavy steps resonated in the silence. They were metallic in nature, so it came to no surprise when a man-sized machine painted a bright gold colour stepped into view. It stopped when spotting Frank, who didn't wait to ask questions and immediately opened fire. Bullets flew rapidly from the barrel of his assault rifle, hitting the metal man squire in the chest and head, but to little effect, as they did little more then scratch the thing's damn paintjob. Its ruby eyes flashing, the drone raised its arm, pointing palm towards him. When Frank saw a bright red light growing rapidly there, he knew he had to get the hell out of dodge.<br/><br/>Punisher leaped backwards in a nick of time, a bright red laserbeam speeding towards his previous location, destroying most of his workbench in one hit. Stumbling back against one of the gunracks, Frank quickly discarded the rifle in his hands, its ammo spent with no other clips readily at hand to reload, and grabbed whatever was closest to him just before he was forced to leap out of his enemies range of fire again, the second beam burning a huge hole through the rack, rendering most weapons it held completely useless.<br/><br/>Rolling into a crouching position, Frank flipped the safety off the Heckler & Koch MP5 he had managed to save and returned fire. Much like before though, the bullets seemed to have little effect. He might as well have been tossing paper spit balls at it!<br/><br/>The drone fired once more, burning a straight line into the concrete floor as its target dashed between the rows of gun and equipment lockers. It slowly walked forward, seemingly in no hurry to kill Frank off, walking at a casual pace with arm still raised, shooting beam upon deadly red beam in the general direction of where the middle-aged human male leaped back and forth to evade fire. While Punisher was indeed in a bad position, he found himself having one advantage: the thing was underestimating him severely. It wasn't the first to do so, and Frank would be damned if it was the last!<br/><br/>This safehouse was a lair of his own design. He knew every nook and cranny, knew every locker and rack he had placed there, knew all their contents, right down to the number of clips and bullets. Slowly but surely he managed to leap and roll himself to the one he wanted to reach, narrowly avoiding red hot death each time.<br/><br/>The latest beam sent the locker he wished to reach tumbling over, spilling its explosive contents across the floor. Down flat on his stomach, Punisher quickly lunged forward, grabbing hold of his gambit: a belt with a row of grenades hanging from it. His fingers worked without a moment's hesitation, pulling pin after pin from all six grenades. Rising up to his feet, he came face to face with his foe, who stood ten to twelve yards away.<strong>"Catch!"</strong>Frank yelled out just as the drone turned its arm to aim its palm laser at him once more, tossing the belt at the machine's feet. Apparently not the brightest bulb out of the robot factory, the drone decided to simply look down, the explosion happening just a moment after.<br/><br/>Frank had crouched behind the lockers for cover, raising his head again tentatively as dust and shaking had subsided<del>   </del>though faint shaking could still be heard and felt coming from above. Taking the pistol out of its holster, he slowly approached the drone's last known location, finding only most of its upper body, minus half an arm, remaining. It lightly spazzed, the lights behind the red eyes flickering and jolts of electricity spilling from exposed wires. It attempted to raise its remaining hand at Frank, but had suffered too much damage from the explosion to actually activate the laser.<br/><br/><strong>"Tsk..."</strong>Crouching down, Punisher placed the deadly end of his pistol against one of the robots eyes, finger on the trigger.<strong>"Punk,"</strong>was all he said before unloading the entire clip, one bullet at a time, into the drone's metallic skull, finishing it off.<br/><br/>Looking around, he could now see precisely how much damage that one drone had inflicted upon his safehouse. Gunracks and lockers were melted down, metal still bright orange and red from the heat, with burn marks of the machine's laser present on walls, floor and ceiling as well. It was miracle none of the explosives had been hit and bullets were instantly vaporized by the heat, otherwise Frank might have gotten hit or killed by them, rather then the drone.<br/><br/>No time to thank God or whatever though. There were still innocent people in need of saving!<br/><br/>Punisher set about salvaging whatever he could, arming himself with a military grade assault rifle with custom scope, grenades and explosives, and even a rocket launcher. Of course, he also took plenty of ammunition, slipping clips into pouches and onto belts. Strapping the rocket launcher to his back, he set out into the subway system, jogging towards the nearest subway station, which took him a good ten minutes. No other drones were spotted along the way, but once he arrived at the station, he found many civilians running around in complete disarray. Ascending the staircase leading to the streets of downtown New York, he had to push past many screaming and panicing people, all of them rushing down into the subway system.<br/><br/><strong>"Punisher!"</strong>A cop in bright blue uniform hailed him halfway up, pistol in hand and ready to fight, but visibly shaking with fear as much as the civilians passing by them.<strong>"It's hell out there!"</strong><br/><br/><strong>"Lead people off the streets. Make them take shelter in the subway. It's not perfect, but it's a hell of a lot saver then up there!"</strong>Punisher told the cop, cocking assault rifle as he began climbing the staircase again. The cop nodded, yelling and gesturing for people to move down into the subway.<br/><br/>Reaching the top, Frank was met by warzone. Death and destruction were everywhere, with drones racing through the skies, picking people off like ants, deadly red laserbeams turning anyone and anything into ashes. Taking cover by a streetcorner, he peeked around and began opening fire with his rifle, aiming at the bright yellow robots flying down the streets, naturally funneled by the buildings. Again, whatever shots did hit, only scratched them, at best.<br/><br/><strong>"I'm gonna need a bigger gun,"</strong>he muttered to himself as slipped a fresh clip of ammo into his weapon.