Magical evening part 4

The building that this mercenary guild of mages was bunkering down in was a sight to behold. The building was five stories high with an outer wall at thirty feet surrounding it and a large gateway that was guarded by large demonic looking dogs that had manes of fire around their heads and on their tails and along their backs.

The top of the wall was being patrolled by numerous mages that while stronger than the average mystical user, were nowhere even Constantine's level, though Peter is thinking that the man may be overestimating his skills at the moment. Peter had also made out several large figures moving in the courtyard of the fortress which Constantine identified as demons

"Hmm…this may be a bit tougher than I originally thought" Constantine said as he and Spider-man stood on a hill, cloaked by a magical enchantment, and observing their destination below them

"What makes you say that?" Peter gave the man a deadpanned stare "The dozens of mages walking around, the lion sized fire dogs at the front door or the giant ax wielding demons?"

"All of the above and then some mate" Constantine said with a frown as he studied the building "And there's without a doubt more of the buggers in there and god only knows what kinds of traps and defenses they have in there"

"So do we call in Nick and Zatanna?" Peter asked as he watched some of the mages on top of the wall entertaining themselves with some sort of game of catch with a glowing blue and green orb "Double 'W' won't be here for a while and I'm amazing and all but magic is something that I really haven't had much experience in fighting"

"Could have fooled me with how much you seem to know" Constantine said

"What can I say, being a level twenty-seven wizard in World of Warcraft is different to being a wizard in real life…also I may have flunked out of Hogwarts" Peter said the last one with a chuckle

"Bah that's alright mate, old Necro didn't even make it to platform nine and three quarters before he was expelled" Constantine joked which caused Peter to chuckle

"Wow that's pretty l-"

KAAAKOOOOOOM!

A sudden large explosion tore through the southern wall of the compound and caused the inhabitants to scatter in disarray. Peter thought it may have been Nick attacking before the sudden sound of gunfire echoed through the night time sky and Peter felt his stomach drop

'Great…Frank's here too'

"I take it that's the guy you mentioned earlier?" Constantine asked as he watched numerous mages converge on the hole in the wall only to be pushed back or killed by a hail of bullets being fried by a man decked out in Kevlar a holding what looked like an M240 with a foregrip to allow for better accuracy

"Yeah that's him" Peter said with a sigh as he cracked his neck "The guy's former spec ops and arguably insane"

"What makes you say that?" Constantine asked as he pulled out his weapon and clicked it's safety off

"The guy is attacking a fortress of homicidal mages and demons with a machine gun single handedly" Peter said before he ran towards the chaos, intent on finding out why the hell Frank was here in the first place and better yet…

Find out why he's the Punisher in his reality…

…

…Three months ago… Central Park…

Despite the fact Frank has almost a decade of experience in the United States special forces and trained to see danger around every corner and always mind his surroundings, he was completely taken by surprise when suddenly three groups of men began to open fire on each other, followed quickly by the arrival of what he thought were either DEA, NYPD or both

"DADDY!" his daughter yelled as Frank tackled her out of the way of a hail of bullets while his wife and son took cover under the bench they were eating at

Other people around them were trying to do something similar or take their chances and try to run only to be torn apart by a hail of bullets, who fired them was a mystery but right now all that mattered to Frank was getting his family out of this

He quickly crawled over to his wife while keeping his daughter shielded from the carnage raining around them "WE HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE NOW!"

"WHERE?!" his wife shouted back in fear as she tried to keep her son shielded

Frank quickly scanned the area and saw numerous bodies on the ground, either law enforcement, people who were to slow to take cover or a few of the men who started this firefight in the first place

"It was than that he saw an opening and pointed towards it "THERE, AS LONG AS WE KEEP LOW WE CAN GET OUT THAT WAY!"

His wife nodded before she and their son staying low to the ground, emerged from under the picnic table and crawled away from the fire fight that didn't seem to be letting up any time soon. The four could faintly here police cars approaching in the distance along with ambulances, but Frank could already see that a lot of these people surrounding his family were either dead or already beyond saving

He tried to ignore the sight of what looked like six year old girl lying on the ground with a large bullet buried in her forehead, her dead gaze facing the sky

"DADDY!" his daughter yelled as a stray bullet impacted in the ground next to her

Frank quickly pulled her in close and used his body to try and shield her from any of the gunfire as they neared to safety…only for several men dressed in leather jackets, chains and a wide assortment of other articles that identified them as bikers heading in their direction while trading fire with the cartel

Several of the bikers were torn down by one of the cartel members using an UZI on them. One of the bikers, the now dead leader of the Dogs of Hell was holding a MAC-10 and on reflex squeezed the trigger as he was falling, the gun pointing right at Frank and his family

Frank stared in horror and tried to shield them as best he could…until a black, white and red figure landed before them and had the bullets bounce of him or bury themselves into his frame. Frank and his family stared wide eyed as New York City's new hero, Spider-man stood up and lager at the cartel members who were shocked at the appearance of the vigilante

"Now that…" Spider-man hissed out darkly "Wasn't very nice!"

He shot the several men with a powerful dose of his venom blats, incapacitating them and leaving them to wither on the ground in pain. Spider-man than looked back over his shoulder at Fran and his dumb struck family

"Stay low and out of sight, I'll be as soon as I can" Spider-man said before he looked to see where the rest of the criminals were before shooting off towards them as it sounded like the NYPD was losing in it's fight with them

Frank watched the man go as he cradled his terrified family and couldn't help the sigh of relief from escaping him

"Thank you…"

…

'I don't get it, Frank's family didn't die that day so why the hell is he here and slaughtering people?' Peter thought as he swung through the hole in the wall in time to see Frank jam the barrel of his M60 into a downed mages eye which caused the man to howl in agony

"FRANK STOP!" Peter yelled, catching the lethal vigilante's attention

Frank's eyes narrowed at the sight of Spider-man, in a different suit, and left his weapon in the man's face as he quickly shot at Spider-man with a SMG which he dodged…only for the hail of bullets to hit a hell hound that was trying to sneak up behind him

"Now we're even" Frank said as he turned to see more mages approaching him

His eyes narrowed as he began shooting at them, many of who conjured up shields to defend themselves while the slower or unprepared ones were filled with multiple wholes. He would have kept shooting at the retreating mages if a web line didn't snag his gun out of his hands and into Spider-man's before it was crushed in his grip

"THE HELL ARE YOU DOING!?" Spider-man yelled at the man before he sent a venom blast at the ground of several mages and forced them back while he noticed Constantine dealing with a few demons and the last of the hell hounds

"Cleaning house, what's it look like webs?" Frank said as reached for the sawed off shot gun that was on his back when Spider-man appeared before him and grabbed his arm and gave him a narrowed gaze

"Well your done here, now leave" Spider-man growled out

Frank returned the glare Spider-man was giving him with one of his own "I'm not leaving here until I get the bastard that killed my family"

Spider-man's lenses widened at that 'Wait what?!'

Frank used that moment to head butt Spider-man away, while wincing in pain as it felt like hi just ran head first into a tank, and quickly drew his shot gun and blasted the vigilante in the chest at point blank range

BANG!

Spider-man stumbled back before he attacked Frank with a series of punches that the slightly surprised ex-marine was able to somewhat block before his legs were kicked out from under him. Spider-man went to web him down when he felt his spider-sense flare and he was forced to duck under a swipe from a large demon that had four horns on it's head in the shape of a crown wielding a large mace

Frank used this moment to quickly crawl away back towards his duffle bag and pulled out an SCAR-H that sported a M203 grenade launcher and a reflex scope. He quickly loaded it with an extended clip before he quickly made his way towards the main entrance of the fortress while carrying a small black cube with faint white runes on it

Spider-man would have stopped him but the large demon before him was proving to be a lot tougher than he originally thought, it shrugged off his punched and venom blasts and kept spiting hell fire at him.

He hopped over the demon and delivered a powerful kick to the back of it's head that almost caused it to stumble to the ground in pain before it brought it's mace to bear and swung it at the crouching her who effortlessly dodged it before hopping on it's shoulders and sent a series of punches into it's face, knocking several of it's pointed teeth out

"RRRRRAAAAAAHHHHHH!" the demon roared in rage as it tried to grab Spider-man only for him to leap of it's head and send a blast of his bioelectric bolts into the demon's eyes, temporarily blinding it

Peter grinned at the accomplishment before he looked over towards Frank who shot several mages guarding the main door and placed a box on the ground and began to run from the door

"That's not good" Peter said to himself as he felt his spider-sense tingling, and it was coming from the box

"SPIDER-MAN TAKE COVE-" Constantine tried to warn the hero before the box exploded

BRAAAA-BWOOOOOOOOOM!

The force of the explosion sent the wall crawler flying back, he tried to shoot a web line towards the ground but the demon he shot in the face tackled him towards the ground. Peter let out a yelp of pain as he felt a piece of shrapnel pierce through his suit's protective fibers. He tried to assess the damage but suddenly found a large cloven foot pinning him to the ground

Peter looked up to see it was the demon he was fighting and it was glaring down at him with bleeding eyes, it's mace raised over it's head

"Uh, the power of Christ compels you?" Peter said as he saw the mace come down towards him…

Only to be block by a scarlet red shield of mystical energy

Peter and the demon were both surprised by this development and before either could react, the demon had a whole blasted through it's chest by a red bolt of energy. The demon let out a small roar of surprise before it fell to the side, dead

Peter stared at it in shock before he looked towards the origin of the bolt of magical energy to Wanda Maximoff with her eyes glowing scarlet and chaos energy building in her hands. Many of the surrounding mages and demons that had recovered looked to see the new comer and prepared to attack her when she sent out a pulse of magic that sent them all flying back, the closets ones being disintegrated by the raw mystical power she possessed

Peter and Constantine gaped in shock as they watched Wanda begin to send powerful blats of magical energy at the few still fighting capable mages standing and the odd demon or two that was still alive

Constantine made his way towards Spider-man "She uh with you?"

"Honestly…I don't even know" Peter said as he watched Wanda block several blasts from a cornered mage before she sent a red ball of scarlet energy at him that sent him flying back, screaming in pain

She then stopped and turned towards Spider-man and Constantine and gave them a smile along with a small wave

"Hello…" she said with a notable Eastern European accent that he didn't remember her having

"Uh hey…" Peter gave the woman a nod before he scanned the courtyard for signs of Frank, but found none

It was then that he made out distant gunfire coming from within the building along with the sounds of mystical blasts being thrown back at him. Peter made to stand up before the shrapnel in his side shifted and caused him to his in pain

"GAH! Son of a…" Peter looked down to see it was a piece of the now destroyed door to the building and made to reach it when suddenly Wanda was at his side and quickly muttered a spell that painlessly pulled out the piece of metal and healed the damage it caused

Peter stared at the woman in slight surprise "Uh thanks…"

Wanda gave him a beautiful smile in return "Your welcome…Peter"

Peter felt his eyes widened "How do you-"

"I've…" Wanda gave him a sheepish smile "…been sorta following you and the others since you came to the Oblivion bar the other night"

"O…Kay" Peter said a bit weirded out that she was kind of stalking him while Constantine snickered

Peter was about to make his way into the building to try and stop and possibly save Frank when suddenly Zatanna and Nick appeared by way of some teleportation spell. Zatanna gave him and sympathetic look while Nick looked out right pissed

"What the hell do you two think you were doing?!" Nick yelled at both Spider-man and Constantine

"Uh trying to recover this weird mystical artifact, why what are you doing?" Peter gave the man a unimpressed look 'Could have used your help like five minutes ago!'

Nick growled at Spider-man and for a brief moment the web slinger thought the man might try and actually hit…until Wanda stepped in front of him and gave New York City's 'Most Powerful' mage a scarlet glare

"Back off Nick…" the witch muttered darkly which caused Nick to narrow his eyes at the woman

"And even better your working with the damn witch of Sokovia" Nick snarled at the woman

"Thought she looked familiar…" Constantine muttered as he examined the woman

"That a problem Nick?" Peter growled, not liking how the man spoke or is looking at Wanda

"Yeah considering this woman is every bit as unhinged as half the people in Arkham" Nick said with a look of disdain at Wanda who growled at the man in return and looked like she was about to attack him when Peter touched her shoulder

"Look, let's just get this damn artifact already and go" Peter said as he turned to approach the building that he could still hear faint gun fire from when suddenly a large demon erupted from the ground, standing three times taller than the one that Peter was fighting earlier wielding a large cleaver in it's hands "…Of course…"

"Incoming!" Zatanna yelled as she created a force field to block the demon's cleaver from killing them

The resulting collision created a shockwave that created a boom heard for almost a mile in every direction and caused the windows on the building that weren't destroyed by Frank's bomb to shatter.

Zatanna gritted her teeth under the force of the blow before a bolt of chaos magic shot out from Wanda and nailed the demon in the eye, causing it to stumble back in pain and surprise

Peter seeing this quickly shot several web lines at it's legs and with all of his strength pulled them out from under it. The demon let out a surprised roar as it fell to the ground in a heap and made to stand back up when several large magic circles appeared around it and shot out numerous chains that quickly pinned it to the ground

"Stay…" Wanda said as her eyes were glowing scarlet red "…Down"

The demon let out a roar of rage before the chains completely tore it to shreds and threw it's severed limbs and torso into the side of the building.

Peter stared at what was left of the demon before turning his gaze towards what he could already tell was a darker Wanda then he used to know "Uh…good job?"

"Thank you, now let's go see what it is these men have that's worth all this effort" Wanda said with a smile before she made her way towards the blown out doorway into the mercenary guild's main building followed by Zatanna and Nick

Constantine took a look at what was left of the demon and whistled "Man…hate to get on her bad side"

"Oh, trust me…I know" Peter said before he and the con mage followed after the group

…

Meanwhile inside the Punisher was gunning down any Mage that was either dumb enough or unlucky enough to get in his way. The man he tortured earlier mention that the inside of the building was enchanted, being far large on the inside then what the outside would lead one to believe and even reached several stories underground, where his target was hopefully located

And all that was between him and Frank were almost a hundred mages and a few dozen hell hounds and the odd demon here and there.

Frank was just moving through what looked like another foyer when several mages dropped from the ceiling and sent balls of mystical energy at him. Frank growled at the incoming projectiles and quickly took cover behind a pillar as he reloaded his rifle and took a cautious look at his enemies before pulling back as a conjured knife rushed past him and hit the wall

Frank narrowed his eyes at that before he reached for one of the specialized grenades he had with him and pulled the pin before lopping it from behind the pillar towards the confused mages

"Wait what is-"

KRABWOOOOOM!

The mages were thrown back as a blast of lightning and metal erupted from the small device and killed several of them and wounded the rest with crippling wounds. Frank emerged from the pillar and quickly approached each mage before he placed a bullet and each of their heads, even the ones who were already dead

He was just making his way towards the final one, who's legs and right arm were burned and bleeding profusely when he was suddenly knocked away and into a table

"GAH!" Frank yelled out in pain before he quickly moved out of the way of a red fist burying itself into the ground that his head was just resting moments before

Frank quickly tried to bring his gun up to bear but had it wrenched from his hands…by a web line

Frank paused and took another look at his attacker and furrowed his brow in confusion at what or better yet who he was looking at "What the hell…?"

The man was clad in a mostly red suit with a black spider on the chest that was vastly different compared to Spider-man's symbol while the head and shoulders were black. The eyes were also different, being a bit wider in appearance to Spider-man's but still being the same crimson red

"Who the hell are you supposed to be?" Frank asked the spider themed man as he slowly reached for his pistol

The unknown spider's response was shooting a greenish yellow venom blast at the shocked vigilante

"Ah shit…" Frank said as he jumped out of the way of the venom blast that collided with the wall behind him

KRAKROOOOM!