Rated M-MA. Started originally by
Starts here: http://www.comicvine.com/forums/fan-fic/8/marvel-iron-age-the-punisher-prologue/650484/
http://www.comicvine.com/forums/fan-fic/8/marvel-iron-age-the-punisher-1/676160/
http://www.comicvine.com/forums/fan-fic/8/marvel-iron-age-the-punisher-2/681191/
http://www.comicvine.com/forums/fan-fic/8/marvel-iron-age-the-punisher-3/744104/
All characters, likenesses etc are owned by Marvel, it's my idea with their toys.
**
For eight long, dark, wet months I have laid here in this sewer, hovering between life and death. My wounds from the Iron Soldiers weren’t severe, but the filth in the East River got into them and nearly killed me. It was like appendicitis, diarrhea, a back spasm, two migraines and a kick in the groin had an orgy in every cell of my body. But like that old say “Whatever does not kill me, can only make me angry!” And by stark am I angry!
Living like some sort of animal under the city in a semi-functioning state, I’m lucky I haven’t grown an extra hand due to stark in the river. And I’m on the lookout for the urban legends of giant rats, but so far only alligators inhabit the sewers.
I want to march into Chicago and put a bullet through the roof of the mouth of the Supreme Commander, but for that I’m going to need a plan and to get out of this starking sewer and more than this sharpened stick I’ve been using to stab and hunt gator. I need some hardware! Spending so long in the tunnels I know the undercity like the back of my grime encrusted hand. With enough explosives I could put the entire island into the sea…but that’d get a whole bunch of people killed who don’t deserve it. I’m here to kill Ferrum, the Iron Army, The Chairman, The Supreme Commander, that starking son of a stark Stevenson and his two lapdogs Conway and Ardu!
I emerge from the sewers and into the sunlight for the first time, the sun burns my eyes. I see my skin for the first time in daylight; it’s got a sickly grey hue to it…that is the parts that aren’t covered in dirt, faeces and muck. I’ve still got some pus-filled sores on my arms and my feet look like I stepped on a meat grinder. I think I’m in Hoboken; I can work it out from the crumbling high-rise towers. I turn to see an Iron Soldier leaning against a building, visor up smoking. My sore eyes now burn with rage. I grip my gator stick and shamble towards him. He sees me coming; he doesn’t seem particularly worried…big mistake!
“Hold it right there smelly!” he holds his hand up “You can turn around and crawl back into the sewer you just came out of. Stark you stink!”
“Or what?” my voice cracks, it’s the first time I’ve spoken in months.
“Or I’ll shove that stick up your starkhole!” he growled as he dropped his cigarette and stepped towards me. I lower my gaze and slump my shoulders in submission. “Yeah you better…”
I ram my gator stick into his open mouth and shove it so far up it makes a tunk sound on the inside of his helmet. He pants and gasps like a caught fish, flailing but unable to do anything. I keep the pressure up and twist the stick, it’s not a pretty kill, he takes a few minutes to die as he stares into my cold dark eyes. I can almost feel the question in his mind...
“But why?” he’d ask
“Because you all deserve to be punished!” I snarl as the stick finally breaks and he hits the floor, dead before he gets there. I stomp my foot on his face just to make sure he’s dead, he is but I’m angry! I then drag his carcass back into the sewer and strip him down to what I need and what I can use.
Ferrum, Brooklyn Heights
Dolph Stevenson stood looking out his office window watching the city across the river seemingly attack itself. He smiled as he watched Ferrum New York quake and shake.
“Just a matter of time Desmond” he sniggered into his drink before he caught sight of his face in the reflection of the glass. His once near perfect features ruined months ago by some upstart…Jack Payden! Even though he worked for the premier scientific agency on the planet, little could be done to restore his face without a complete reconstruction and the only person he trusted to do that procedure was Dr Nathaniel Essex and he was busy, then missing and now declared traitor. So for now his scarred face of purple jigsawed welts remained. With a roar he smashed the glass into the floor in disgust.
“Patch me through to The Chairman,” Stevenson ordered his robo-valet “Best offer my services, before he makes me offer my services”
**
I ransack his body like thief. I’m not proud but he’s scum, a cog in the scum machine that powers this age of sorrow. A machine I helped build, defend and sustain…but no more! I patch into his feed and see what has happened in the world. Seems the world went starking crazier! The city of Kenosha wiped off the map, a terrorist group called the Avengers attacking New York; some weird thing going on in San Fran, a woman is in Doom’s place in New Latveria, a city in Europe protected by a force field…madness! I toss his body into the putrid water for the gators and make off with parts; no point taking the whole suit because it doesn’t fit me and it won’t be enough. I…what the stark is that?
I spot this small skull insignia on a brick in the tunnel. It may have been white a hundred years ago but it’s faded. It reminds me of the New German front where the New Latverian’s would place same curios and trinkets for us to find and when touched, a landmine or IED would explode. I gingerly poke it with my broken gator stick.
Ch-chlick!
A small piece of the wall jarred open slightly and a hissing sound. I step back but nothing, seems whatever was there has evaporated. I pry open the wall and step inside. Some ancient fluro lights activate making the small room glow eerie green showing a portcullis separates me from another room beyond. The gates rusted shut and there’s no key insight, so a repulsor blast gains me entry. I look at the next door and something isn’t right, the wood…isn’t. I scratch it with the stick and the paint peels away to reveal several sections made of TNT. A repulsor blast would’ve blown me to stark and brought down a tunnel on me to bury me. Whoever’s bolt hole this is, was a tad paranoid.
I put some of my military training to good use and I manage to pick the lock after an hour of trying. I open the door and step in to hear the ominous sound of a bullet loading into a chamber. I look down at the pressure plate I’ve activated…starking idiot! My guess is it’s aiming for centre mass, so I put on the chest plate I stole along with the repulsor gloves and step off.
BOOM!
The shotgun blast sends me flying backwards. I’m alive, a few pellets in my thigh and forearms but small arms fire against Iron Soldier armour is like rocks against tanks. I dust myself off and carefully step into the room. The lights flicker on and a room of ancient weapons lies before me, along with a mannequin wearing a black costume with a white skull on the chest.
“What the stark?”
***
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