2013.07.12 - Corpse Camping

Follow the money.

That's an age old motto of every detective organization on the planet. When tracking criminal interprises, the best way to find them is to follow the money. It works every bit as well for the Punisher as it does for those agencies.

After the incident at the Shanghai based laundry mat, Frank is now far better armed. Several assault rifles, enough ammunition to wage a war all across eastern China, and grenades. Not to mention cash he'd stolen from the Triad to aquire anything else he wasn't able to 'take' from them.

One of those things is a long ranged, high powered, scoped rifle. A 'tank busting' tripod sporting Barett .50 cal. Damn near an artillery piece.

Situated a few blocks down from his target in the upper levels of a skyrise, the Punisher rests behind the scope eating an MRE while collecting recon on the triad stronghold.

Follow the guy who's following the money. That's the age old motto of the lazy!

Frank Castle is probably one of the more dangerous men on the planet for someone to be stalking. The most dangerous game! And yet, Deadpool is indeed stalking Frank- or, more importantly, following Frank's leads and letting him do all the work.

Deadpool's abruptly /there/. Right next to Frank, resting on his elbows next to the Punisher's position behind his portable anti-materiel rifle. How, one might ask? Go Nina Go, baby! And he's eating... a cheeseburger.

Loudly.

"Didja know that when you're in China and you order Chinese, they just give you /food/?" he asks around a mouthful of mostly beef. "'nd tha' Big Macsh are called Super Cowboy MacBurgers?" He tears off another gross bite and swallows carelessly, gorging himself on the burger.

There's a long beat, timed to comedy perfection, and Deadpool leans the burger towards Castle. "...want some?" That's Go /Ninja/ Go, when you post this log.

Frank had... somehow missed the fact that another individual was using his leads to lead him in the same direction. Then again, China wasn't really his usual playground, so while he will be very displeased to learn this, he'll get over it fairly quickly.

Even more so when he realizes who it is. There's no way he could have ever predicted that.

There is no way he could have ever known that the Merc with a mouth would suddenly be laying next to him eating a cheeseburger waxing metaphorically about chinese food.

Punisher rolls over on his side and presses the barrel of a ginormous revolver right into Deadpool's mask where his mouth opens to 'speak' when offering Castle a bite of his burger.

"One."

He breaths the threat, and it is most certainly a threat, with cold impassive intensity.

"Hhhhhhlhllrrhk." Deadpool promptly spits an entire mouthful of mostly mushy cheeseburger into the barrel pressed into his mouth, effectively plugging the barrel. How do we eat with a mask on, anyway? One of the great mysteries of life. "Ptaagh. Gross," he says. He takes another horky bite of cheeseburger. "If you don' wan' a burger, I can go back out for Chinese food. I mean, food," he clarifies. "Or, like... I wonder if they have sushi here. You think they do sushi?" he asks Frank, completely dismissing the burger-plugged revolver being waved in his face. "I could /totally/ do sushi," he says without waiting for a response. "I mean, it's so classy. The chopsticks, the little sauce bucket things... man." He nods slowly, considering some train of thought Hint: I'm thinking about trains! while looking out the window towards where Frank's rifle is aimed. "Hey, budge over, I wanna see," he says, trying to get his head behind the optic. "Oh wow, hey baby! Didja see the rack on the chick in that apartment?! Do you need a spotter! I have my own binoculars, I can totally help spot more hotties!" He leans comically into Frank's personal space. "Asians, man. The /hotness/," he whispers theatrically, panning one hand across the cityscape below.

Frank is fighting every single inclination he has not to pull the trigger... He's not even sure it would do any good, but it would be gratifying. Gratifying in a way he hasn't really allowed himself to feel in a very long time...

But it would also give away his position. And that, he cannot allow. Instead, he grabs the Merc's head and pushes it away from his rifle. "Are you immortal?" He asks, pushing the revolver back down into the holster on his chest and rolling back into position behind his anti-material rifle. Snugging the stock back into his shoulder with his eye pressed into the scope.

"Because if you don't shut up, we're going to spend the rest of the night finding out."

"Moi name is Connor MacCloud, of th' Clan MacCloud," Deadpool says with a really, truly terrible impression of a Scottish highland brogue. "I was born in th' highlands of Scotlan' in th' yeah of our Laird, 1637. I am immortal, an' I will somethin' somethin'."

An interesting note- the Barret .50, while being extremely popular, is not the largest rifle caliber a person can shoot. That distinction belongs to the .950 JDJ cartridge, a custom-built bullet for a rifle that weighs well over thirty pounds and delivers an impact on par with a World War I anti-tank rifle.

Deadpool's got one. Also, totally ignore the guy with the grey text box. He's a gun nerd. Better than being crazy! "You're both nuts," Deadpool says aloud from behind the barrel of the rifle, which he somehow also snuck in with him. "I'm the only one who can hear you, and you guys are just chattin' away up there." He squints down the optic.

Seriously, I can't even explain how stupidly oversized this bullet is. It's insane. I've held one, and the guy writing this has held one, and it will seriously break your ribs if you shoot it wrong. "Does my inner monologue count as talking?" Deadpool asks Frank, brow furrowed. "Is it ok if I talk /with/ the colored boxes, or do I just have to, like, tune them out and pretend they aren't there, like your guy is doing right now? Man, I just /bet/ your guy wishes he had little yellow text boxes," Deadpool remarks, settling in behind his seriously, comically oversized rifle.

Turns out the .950 JDJ is a very difficult gun to get on short notice. The Barret was suitable for the Punisher's goals and a lot more readily available in China, and it was still a push under the best of circumstances. End result, Frank, while curious how the red clad merc got that damn thing in here, still only eyes it with the kind of stares at it like someone actually 'did' bring a WWI Anti-tank rifle into the skyrise.

He also doesn't do all that well with crazy. Aside from fighting the urge to shoot Deadpool to see if his brains are yellow, he's trying his very best to pretend he's not there at all. Staring down the scope at the building several blocks away. "If you make yourself useful, you can chit chat with yourself until they become rainbow text, for all I care." Swiveling his scope a few inches to look down at the heavily fortified building he's been observing for the last few hours. "See those wires running into the right most corner of the wall? They've got a generator in that room powering their equipment. Think you can fire a bullet through the wall and into the generator without bringing the whole thing down?" Even if he did bring it down, mission accomplished. Win win for Frank.

"This will put a bullet through a /tank/," Deadpool assures Frank. He puts his finger to the trigger and takes a steadying breath.

"Didja know that this one guy broke a rib shooting this?" he says, abruptly. He turns back to the optic, his breathing matching Frank's as the two line their shots up. Just as Frank's trigger finger starts to move...

"'Cause he TOTES DID," Deadpool says.

Loooong pause.

"Like, broke it."

"...you think they use real beef, or is it, like, Chinese beef?"

He gasps. "If they use Lo Mein beef in a cheeseburger, do you think that it's technically Chinese food?!"

Frank has pretty good trigger control, so each time he steadies to take his shot and Deadpool talks, he relaxes. Without pause, taking in a slow breath to calm the wobble of the rifle.. release.. until finally he stops and turns his head to look at the merc beside him.

Just sort of staring at him with the intensely empty gaze of a man whose got very little in the way of patience. "Two." He breaths, going back to his threat, before looking down his scope.

A slow, steadying, breath and he squeezes the trigger. The weapon buckles back against the tripod and then his shoulder, eating the recoil between the two. It isn't in JDJ, but it packs enough punch to do what he wants it too.

Down 'range', the bullet hits the wall and opens it up like a melon. Pieces of plaster and brick raining down in a cloud. Frank leans into the weapon, doesn't fight the recoil, but instead brings it back down into position to put another round through one of the 'trucks' the triad have parked out front. Destroying the engine, the wheel axal, and putting a hole in the ground beneath it.

That got their attention.

"Why do you keep counting? That's /really/ annoying, you know," Deadpool grouses at Frank. He squints down the optic of his weapon.

"Totally unprofessional."

When /Deadpool's/ rifle goes off, the entire room shakes. Dust flies off of every surface, and the percussive report of the round leaving the muzzlebrake hits with a thunderous fury.

The bullet flies true and hits the generator Frank had pointed out, ripping a three-foot hole through masonry, drywall, generator, masonry, and then presumably digging a hole halfway to America. Deadpool rapidly works the bolt on the rifle and, without giving Frank a moment to recover from the extraordinary report of the gunshot, fires /again/. This time, the impact of the 2400 grain bullet rips /half the engine block/ out of the truck at the rear of the convoy, effectively blockading them in place.

That was extrodinarily loud.

Frank squints his eyes and glances at the weapon when it goes off, wishing he'd brought thicker ear plugs than that he's using for the barret. Which is itself not a quiet weapon.

"Alright."

Standing up from his rifle, which he leaves laying right where it was and moving instead over to a small stack of crates where he's assembled his small arsenal of weapons. A pair of HK 45s are slipped into holster on his sides, an M4 carbine with a tactical scope is looped over his shoulder on a short strap beneath his arm and enough clips positioned around his person to keep him firing for the rest of the night.

Not to mention several frag grenades, a flashbang, and one smoke grenade on a bandoleer.

There's other weapons on the table. Just about anything a person could want for... so he waves his hand at it, but suspects Deadpool will have his own. Not like he needs any of it once he's done here. He'll just get more.

There's always more.

Deadpool turns around dramatically. Apparently, he beat Frank to all the more. Forever. He has guns strapped to every conceivable part of his person. Fully automatic pistols, a pair of ultracompact SMGs, semi-auto backup pistols, snubby shotguns, a SCAR-H, the JDJ, a rocket launcher, grenades, claymores Hang on, I have these all written down somewhere. Screw it, He's covered in weapons, to the point of it looking like a silly commentary on how video game characters go armed.

"Ok. I don't /think/ I forgot anything," Deadpool says thoughtfully. "Should I have brought more grenades? Can't go wrong with grenades. Ok, let's go a murderin'!" he declares cheerily. He dashes out the door and down the stairs, squealing "Me first!"

There's a pause, then heavy bootsteps, and Deadpool peeks back around the doorway. "Who're we un-aliving again?"

Frank watches Deadpool stand up, but over the course of this very short meeting he's learned that he doesn't really want to know the answer to some of the more important questions rattling around in his head. As it turns out, every time he gets one it just makes him want to kill the red clad killer.

And right now he's rather use him.

Seeing all those weapons, the Punisher shakes his head and tosses another bandoleer of grenades his way. Half hoping it knocks him off balance, half expecting him to pull grenade launcher out of his ass.

"Triad." He answers, moving not towards the door, but to the window. Hooking himself to a repell rope and crawling out to slide down the front of the building quickly, instead of taking the stairs.

Once on the ground, he detaches and brings his rifle up into his shoulder, moving quickly towards an alley he'd mapped out to get him to a side of the barrier wall surrounding the complex they're 'assaulting'.

"Wheemefirst!"

Deadpool just... jumps. Like, right over Frank's head, out the window, and down the multiple story descent. He mostly pulls it off, bouncing from awning to a windowsill, then sort of biffing the dismount on a fire escape and landing in a dumpster.

When Frank hits the ground, Deadpool bounds out of Dumpster, shedding trash as he goes. With a brace of automatics in his hands, Deadpool hops in a circle to the left, then to the right. "Deadpool, on the case! Deadpool, ready to go!" He abruptly puts himself into Frank's background as he does his 'Right Stuff' walk down the alleyway, weapons high. "Deadpool, Champion of Kickassery, with a Cameo Appearance by Frank "The Punisher" Castle!"

He jumps in front of Frank, aiming his guns down the alleyway. "Deadpool Issue #45, The PuniPool!"

He stops a few feet back from Frank and pulls the bandolier Frank had so thoughtfully given him off his chest. "Hey, it's these guys, right?" he asks, tossing the bandolier over the wall and spinning all the locking pins on his fingers in a jangly motion.

The more Deadpool's mouth moved, the less Frank could remember why he hadn't shot him yet. It was getting difficult and he wasn't exactly known for his impulse control to begin with. "You're getting dangerous close to damaging my calm." THe punisher force whispers as the pair of them move down the alleyway.

Dispite the fact that probably could, and has, carried on a full frontal assault against far better armed and armored goons than these triad... stealth really was what Frank was going for here... Then again, he didn't have a psychotic, resilient, and gunhappy Deadpool with him when he put the plan together.

As they near the wall and Deadpool decides those grenades should all be thrown at once, Castle just sort of stares at him then takes cover behind a wall... "You stupid son of a bitch, I rigged that wall with C-4..."

That was the diversionary wall... now it's going to blow up entirely too close to both of them. And the chinese thugs are shouting in mandarian, getting some sort of defense together on the other side of what is about to be a very large hole in the earth.

"Oh, don't be such a baby."

The blast slams Deadpool against the opposite wall as the C-4 goes off. The grenades, compared to that initial blast, are really sort of a seismic afterthought.

Deadpool comes charging out of the smoke and dust, his red and black outfit shredded in an entirely badass way. "Haha, eat death and... die, you... ....guys!"

Deadpool just goes running straight into the breach, spraying bullets into the mafia compound. There are screams in Chinese, and some return gunfire, then the report of large firearms going off. Repeatedly.

There's a lull in the gunfire and Deadpool sticks his head around the corner. "Who're these guys again?" he asks Frank quizzically. "I feel really stupid. I want to say... Triceratons. Or is that in the Savage Land? Have I been to the Savage Land?"

"Man, I am /really/ craving Lo Mein."

The Punisher watches the blast throw Deadpool and then the red clad merc come running out with nothing but tattered uniform to show for it... and shakes his head. He'd be filing this away under a failed op, no matter how it ended.

Frank Castle does not do well with crazy.

But he's good at killing. And taking advantage of a situation. Like the one created on the otherside of the wall. Coming in through the smoke created by a broken stone wall suddenly vaporized by C-4 with his M4 up snapping off controlled bursts at rushing Triad goons going for whatever cover they can find.

"Triad." He repeats, though he's starting to think it wont matter how many times he tells the merc.

Frank drops down behind a piece of construction equipment and pulls the pin on one of his grenades. The priming hammer flies off as he stands, holding it a two count before lobbing it over the top of a guide wall where a group of thugs are huddled trying to figure out whose attacking them. It's entirely too dark for them to tell and they don't have the advantage of night vision.

Tracer rounds leap out of the assault rifle, two center one skull. Never wasting any more ammo than he has to to get from one objective to the next. Professional, tactical, and probably not nearly enough to keep up with the crazy man.

Deadpool is a lovely little lollipop triple dipped in psycho, for sure, but he is killing Triad gangsters like it's going out of style.

"Oppa Gangnam Style!"

Deadpool starts doing the Gangnam Style dance. But with automatic pistols. He's a pretty good dancer, in all fairness, and his murderin' rate doesn't seem to be adversely affected.

"Is this racist? Psy's Korean, right? These guys are Chinese." He grabs a Triad gangster by the front of his shirt and shakes him violently a full times, holding the guy off the ground a few inches. "Hey. Is it racist to sing a Korean pop song here? Am I offending you?"

Deadpool starts babbling at the guy in Mandarin, and the stunned Triad says something back.

Deadpool says something else, and his yellow text box says something in Mandarin to which they both laugh. Then Deadpool shoots the guy in the head and tosses his body onto the swiftly growing pile of corpses he's standing upon.

Deadpool wipes away a fake tear, shoulders still shaking with laughter. "Men be actin' all like zombies at Tianneman Square. Classic."

Frank lets the Merc do his thing, provide the perfect distraction. Frank had known he'd have to come into this compound eventually, there was no way his target would just walk out into the yard infront of his scope... but he'd fully intended to spend at least a few more shoots taking out some of the defenses.

With Deadpool here, he doesn't have to.

He just has to get to the building. Through an opening he had the merc provide for him, Frank whips around one corner with his rifle held up close in a fashion much like a spec-op soldier clearing a corner. The sound of footsteps drawing his attention and his light adjusted eyes to the far side of the room. A press of his middle finger shines a high yield LED flash light right in their face, startling them enough to put six quick shots into four triad, before cutting it back off and moving through the hall.

The rifle drops down on its strap and one of the HK 45s comes out in both hands when he presses up against the wall leading up to a flight of stairs. Outside the sounds of Deadpool's one man battle against China still rings in his ears, draws the guards inside's attention, and leaving the Punisher a clear shot up.

Swinging out into the opening he slow walks up the stairs, 'snap snap', dropping another goon with his silenced pistol... half way to the second floor.

At the landing, he leans against a doorway and listens... waits... and snaps his forearm into a chinese throat when the goon rushes out into the hall, immediately wraps the strap of the man's own gun around his shoulders, spins him and pushes forward into the room using him as a human shield. Firing over his shoulder at the group huddled around the windows on the other side.

There's a 'crash' and a 'thump' and then a bunch of screaming in Mandarin in the room currently full of goons, Frank, and the target.

Very, very belatedly, Deadpool calls up "Frag out!"

There's another pause that's kind of iffy- grenade fuses really aren't that long. It's like when superheroes jump through the air and have their whole midair speech thing. Logan does it all the time. "God, I hear that. 'Huhh, I'm Logan, I have a contrived backstory and claw things, and I suck more than Deadpool at everything we both do', he does this ALL IN ONE JUMP. It's STUPID," Deadpool bellows. "Totally ruins the believablity of... no, wait, there's a word for it."

...

...

"Suspension of disbelief!" he yells up. "That thing! When I read comic books, I want it to be believable!"

"Except for you, you're /too/ real. I hate gritty. Gritty's no fun. Hey, did those grenades go off yet?"

BOOM.

Frag out...

Frank puts down one goon, another, searching the ground for that greande rolling across the floor as the body he's using as a shield eats bullets intended for him. Thankfully, he's got time. Time enough for Deadpool to put a whole speach in the middle of the fuse... Time enough to kick the thug off and land him square on that grenade to eat the impact meant to put a monkey wrench in things.

"Three..." The Punisher growls to himself, walking out of the room as the grenade goes off, blowing parts of a dead chinese gangster all over the place. Stepping over a groaning, shot up goon, he puts a bullet in the back of the man's head lazily and then whips his gun up and starts down the hall with the barrel pointed at the last room. Eyes intent, focused, and ready.

This is who he'd come here for.

The man on the other side shouts at the darkness in mandarian. Something that Frank doesn't understand and wouldn't care about even if he did. Offers for money, climancy, mercy, or all of the above.

Even on his best of days, he wouldn't give it... but after meeting Deadpool? Oh no... he's getting thrown in a wood chipper.

Deadpool pops up at the window.

Seriously, he just pops up into the shattered windowframe. Even for a ninja, he's moving improbably fast. With the speed of /comic timing/! Those jokes were fast as lightning! "It was a little bit frightnin', all that kung-fu fightin'!" Deadpool sings in a jangly, off-key tone.

He puts two bullets into the back of the target's head, splattering brains on Frank's combat boots.

"Kill steal!" He holds a little camera up behind him and takes a selfie, somehow also doing a thumbs-up and catching a picture of the dead Triad gangster (and what is very likely the very image of rage on Frank's face) with him also in the pic.

"Hey, it's been real, Frankie! We should do this again sometime!" He gives Frank a pair of thumbs-up (again, how?! He's hanging from a window!). "Also, I totes forgot to tell you, I put the rest of your C4 under the building last night. You /really/ should hide your stashes better. Thanks for the dakka, though! I mean, I have been /needing/ a new M240, and you just left one hidden behind that dumpster, and I'm all 'woot!' and now I think you're going to start shooting me, soooooo...."

Deadpool leaps away. "Kthxbai!"

There's no words.

There's just none in the english, or any, language to completely or accurately describe the things Frank is thinking right now. When Deadpool comes up over the window and puts a bullet in the back of the man's head... He does get a picture of what is the very definition of Punisher rage on the entirely surreal calm on the killers face, but blazing inferno of murderous desire in his eyes.

Frank moves to the window purposefully with the pistol going into a holster and his rifle coming up into his shoulder, sighting on Deadpool and wanting so bad to shoot him.

Words cannot say it accurately. There are not enough bullets to properly cover how many he wants to put into that mercenary.

And Frank brought a lot of bullets.

The Merc is probably gone, but if he's not... and Castle really hopes he isn't... he's getting lit up like a Christmas tree.