After dropping Luke off back in Hell's Kitchen, Agent Coulson—the ultimate workaholic—immediately drove off to handle his next assignment.
Standing on the quiet street, Luke pondered what to do next. He didn't exactly have any evening plans.
Suddenly, a red laser dot danced across his chest.
Assuming the Kingpin had already sent another sniper after him, Luke instantly cloaked himself in dark energy. He melted into the shadows and rapidly scaled the side of the building, tracing the laser back to its source.
Emerging on the rooftop, he was surprised by who he found holding the laser pointer.
It wasn't a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent or a mob hitman. It was Frank Castle.
Their first encounter hadn't exactly been friendly, so Luke had no idea why the Punisher was seeking him out.
"I hear you're giving Fisk a lot of trouble," Frank said, clicking off the laser. He didn't seem the least bit surprised that Luke had just teleported directly behind him.
"Yeah, he blew up my apartment and incinerated my stash of cash, so I figured I'd collect some compensation," Luke replied, casually taking a seat on the edge of the roof parapet.
He wasn't surprised that Frank knew about his feud with the Kingpin. After his blatant assault on Fisk Tower the previous night—where he hadn't even bothered wearing a mask—every gang in Hell's Kitchen probably knew the face behind the "Shadowkhan" by now.
Frank's motive for seeking him out was also pretty obvious. Frank had lost his entire family to mob violence after stumbling across a gang execution, nearly dying himself. Since then, he had embarked on a one-man crusade to exterminate every criminal in the city. As the undisputed Emperor of the Underworld, Wilson Fisk was naturally at the very top of Frank's hit list.
"Want to team up?" Frank offered. "Fisk has a massive shipment of product coming into the docks tonight. We hit it, we hit his wallet. It'll make him bleed for a while."
Frank laid out the details of the upcoming deal. If this joint operation went smoothly, he was open to a longer-term alliance to dismantle the Kingpin's empire.
Luke thought it over for a second and nodded. "Count me in."
Frank reached into his tactical vest and tossed Luke a black balaclava. "Put that on. You're a bit of a celebrity in Hell's Kitchen right now."
Luke caught the mask. He personally felt that wearing a ski mask made him look even more suspicious, but he pulled it over his head anyway. Then again, while his face might draw attention, his reputation was what truly terrified people.
He followed Frank to one of his hidden safehouses. Walking inside, Luke couldn't help but click his tongue in awe at the sheer volume of military-grade weaponry lining the walls.
For an ordinary human like Frank, punishing the wicked required a massive arsenal. Luke didn't technically need any of it; a single punch reinforced with dark energy hit with the kinetic force of a tank shell. Unless Frank was offering him a literal cruise missile, his bare hands were far more efficient.
Still, what guy didn't love mechs, heavy machinery, and giant guns? Luke's eyes gravitated toward a beautifully maintained Barrett anti-materiel sniper rifle, practically drooling over it.
"Want to give it a try?" Frank asked, noticing Luke's burning gaze.
Luke's eyes lit up. He immediately pulled the massive Barrett off the rack. Cradling it in his arms, the heavy, cold steel made him incredibly excited.
Frank led him to a soundproofed underground shooting range. Luke eagerly dropped to the floor, adopting a terribly awkward prone stance, and jammed his eye against the scope.
He aimed downrange and squeezed the trigger.
BOOM!
The deafening roar shook the floorboards, a violent shockwave erupting from the muzzle.
The massive recoil slammed into Luke's shoulder like a sledgehammer. Wincing, he pulled back from the scope to check his target.
The paper silhouette was completely untouched. However, there was a massive, smoking crater in the concrete wall about three feet to the left.
"Well," Luke laughed awkwardly. "It definitely packs a punch."
'Can't hit a damn thing, though,' Frank criticized silently.
Without a word, Frank picked up a lightweight sniper rifle, stood perfectly upright, and fired downrange in rapid succession.
Luke looked at the far targets. Every single shot was a flawless bullseye.
'Damn. To slaughter that many gangs as a normal guy, you really have to be built different,' Luke marveled.
Determined to improve, Luke dropped back down and kept shooting. The two of them spent the entire afternoon at the range.
There was an old saying that men forged the absolute strongest bonds through four things: fighting in the trenches, suffering through school, splitting loot, and hitting the red-light district. After an entire afternoon of firing high-caliber weapons together, Luke and Frank had definitely checked off the first box. Their working relationship had improved significantly.
As dusk fell, Frank and Luke crouched on a grassy ridge overlooking a sprawling shipping port.
Frank peered through a pair of high-powered binoculars, scanning the perimeter. Heavily armed patrols marched between the shipping containers, while several snipers were perched on the towering crane gantries.
"Fisk has some serious connections if he can get his hands on this many military-grade sniper rifles," Luke noted, looking through his own binoculars with genuine curiosity.
"The Kingpin's empire is massive, yet the general public barely knows he exists. It's all because corrupt politicians and dirty cops cover for him. Absolute human garbage," Frank cursed under his breath, continuing his reconnaissance.
"So, what's the play?" Luke asked. "How are we doing this?"
Frank lowered his binoculars and glanced at him. "We improvise. The security here isn't even as tight as the guys you butchered last night. You charge in and break their lines. I'll provide overwatch and pick off anyone trying to run."
Luke shrugged. "Works for me."
Honestly, after surviving Kamar-Taj and staring down the Sorcerer Supreme, a bunch of mobsters with rifles barely even registered as a threat anymore.
Seeing that the sun had fully set, Frank gave him the signal.
Luke nodded. One by one, Shadow Ninjas melted out of the darkness around him. Using the cover of night, they effortlessly infiltrated the port.
Wanting to make a good impression on his first co-op mission with the Punisher, Luke opened his System and spent his reserves, summoning 50 more ninjas and dropping his available energy cap back down to double digits.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
Through his scope, Frank watched the silent invasion. The ninjas moved with terrifying coordination, systematically executing the outer patrols and slowly tightening a perimeter around the core of the port.
Eventually, a guard stumbled across a body and started screaming.
Gunfire erupted, shattering the quiet night.
"I'm going in to see the fun. You stay up here," Luke told Frank, instantly dissolving into shadows.
In the dead of night, a single shifting shadow wouldn't catch anyone's attention.
Luke traveled flawlessly through the darkness, bypassing the chaotic firefight entirely to reach the center of the port. Watching the frantic mobsters blind-firing into the gloom at his elusive ninjas, he decided to escalate things. He summoned the Razor Claws.
Far faster and more agile than the standard ninjas, the Razor Claws leaped into the fray with a terrifying, high-pitched whistle. Their conical steel feet shattered the concrete as they landed, and their razor-sharp spiked fingers tore through the mobsters like wet paper.
In terms of sheer lethality, the Razor Claws were devastating. The only downside was the mess they left behind—every step they took punched deep craters into the asphalt. But Luke didn't care. If he needed stealth, he'd just use the regular ninjas.
With the Razor Claws leading the charge, the central defenders were quickly slaughtered.
Walking past the carnage, Luke approached the massive shipping containers, eagerly instructing a ninja to slice open the heavy steel locks.
The moment the heavy doors swung open, Luke's danger sense violently flared.
'Wait—'
Up on the ridge, Frank watched the gunfire inside the port die down. Knowing the battle was over, he stood up, preparing to head down and inspect the loot.
KA-BOOM!
A catastrophic explosion instantly vaporized the center of the port. A blinding pillar of fire roared into the night sky, illuminating the entire coastline.
"What the hell?!" Frank cursed.
Headlights suddenly flooded the perimeter. Convoys of armored SUVs came screeching to a halt outside the port fences, disgorging waves of heavily armed mercenaries that completely surrounded the burning ruins.
"Dammit, we walked right into a trap! It was a setup to kill you! Luke, are you alive?!" Frank yelled into his earpiece.
"Stop yelling, I'm right next to you," a voice sighed.
Frank nearly jumped out of his skin. He spun around to find Luke standing right beside him in the grass.
"Your teleportation ability is genuinely unfair," Frank admitted, a rare hint of envy in his voice. To a lone wolf like him, a power that allowed instantaneous, untraceable escapes was an absolute dream.
Luke just chuckled darkly, his eyes fixed on the mercenaries swarming the docks below.
As his dark energy grew stronger, so did his natural intuition for danger. The second that container opened, his instincts had screamed at him, and he instantly retreated into the Shadow Dimension.
He had to admit, he had yet to find a single counter to his shadow-stepping. It was the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card, and it had just saved his life yet again.
Staring at the heavily armed hit squad that had tried to blow him to kingdom come, Luke's eyes burned with genuine malice. If he had been a fraction of a second slower, his soul would have been permanently evicted from the physical world.
He didn't bother hiding anymore. Dozens of ninjas materialized on the ridge beside him.
Frank racked the bolt of his sniper rifle, a grim smile playing on his lips. "How do you want to play this?"
Luke smiled coldly and pointed down the hill. Every single ninja surged forward.
Down in the port, the mercenaries slowly advanced toward the blazing crater, confident that absolutely nothing could have survived that blast.
Suddenly, a deadly rain of shurikens flew out from the darkness, dropping the entire frontline of mercenaries.
The survivors frantically whipped their rifles around, only to freeze in utter shock. Charging out of the shadows was a literal army of ninjas.
The mercenaries opened fire, but the ninjas moved in perfect synchronization. Their katanas became a blur of steel, flawlessly deflecting the hail of bullets.
The mercenaries' eyes widened in sheer disbelief. 'What is this, the Matrix?! How are they cutting bullets out of the air?!'
While the frontline ninjas formed an impenetrable wall of blades, the ones behind them returned fire, hurling volleys of throwing stars that silently harvested the gunmen.
Snapping out of their shock, the gunners mounted on the armored SUVs finally opened fire. The heavy, .50 caliber machine guns roared, unleashing a storm of lead that tore through the ninja vanguard, shredding several of them into black smoke.
But before the mercenaries could even cheer, a massive second wave of ninjas materialized from the surrounding darkness.
Using the night as their cloak, the shadows fanned out, completely encircling the strike team. Cold, gleaming blades flashed from the darkness, perfectly slitting throat after throat.
Luke stood atop the ridge, continuously summoning fresh reinforcements that poured down the hill to join the slaughter. Watching the arrogant mercenaries drop one by one, his foul mood rapidly began to clear.
Under the relentless, suffocating pressure of the Shadowkhan, the remaining mercenaries wised up. They huddled behind the heavy armor of the SUVs, blindly spraying automatic fire into the pitch-black night.
Against the heavily armored vehicles and the mounted machine guns, the ninjas' advance temporarily stalled.
But Luke wasn't fighting alone. He had Frank Castle on overwatch.
Through his thermal scope, Frank systematically locked onto the exposed machine gunners. His finger squeezed the trigger in a slow, rhythmic cadence.
Crack. Crack. Crack.
One by one, the heavy gunners' heads snapped back as their lives were abruptly ended.
With Frank flawlessly neutralizing the heavy suppressive fire, the Shadowkhan rapidly closed the remaining distance.
Range wasn't the Shadowkhan's specialty anyway.
Close-quarters combat was where the ninjas truly thrived.
The moment the first ninja vaulted over the SUVs and landed in the center of the mercenary formation, the battle was officially over. Katanas sliced through the air, carving through flesh and bone as the flames of the burning port illuminated the bloody slaughter.