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The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 42 [March 2010]
–Frank Castle–
“So, what do you think about the new batch that’s coming in today?” He looked up from his cleaning to see his wife, his beautiful wife, sitting on the receptionist counter, looking out the door.
“...I don’t know. It is mostly young guys this time though,” He grunted before resuming the sweeping of the Dojo.
Never in his wildest dreams had he thought that his life’s trajectory would end up leading him here, in a small dojo, teaching self defense to normal civilians. Maria was not exactly the receptionist for the Dojo, she had her own practice as a nurse at one of the private hospitals in Manhattan, fetching her a hefty salary.
The payout from the incident that changed everything in his life, was just enough for him to buy the building they were standing in. He had ownership of the building and due to the recent surge in real estate prices, he was getting more than enough rent out of the rest of the tenants in the building.
He had started this Dojo, more or less out of boredom. He had sought out one of his son’s friend’s parents who was tech savvy and had him build a website for the Dojom, considering everything was online right now.
He had not expected much if not any success at the get-go but apparently, word got out and now from the paltry batch of 2 that he had in September of 09, his Dojo had now expanded to have 2 classes of 15.
That’s 30 people in total and he knew every single one of them by their name. One of his classes had retired a week back and the new batch was going to come in today. The batch induction was done early morning, around 6 AM, so here he was, sweeping the Dojo since he couldn’t realistically ask the cleaning lady to come to clean the Dojo at 4 AM, now could he?
Maria was very sleepy, anyone could see that, and yet, she woke up to accompany him. He smiled softly at the act of love. He looked back at her to tell her to go to sleep only to pause when she was already snoring away, lost in the dreamworld.
He deadpanned at her, if she was only going to be sleeping anyway, why not do it in the bed, If she wanted to stay with him, she could take a broom as well but noo.
Women.
He shook his head as he thought of the miracle that was the continued presence of his family in his life. His countenance darkened as he thought of the day that he thought he had lost it all.
–Flashback–
He could still remember it clear as day. It was October of 2008. He had just come back from his tour and was given a couple of months off with his family.
He had taken out the kids on an outing in Central Park, mostly to visit the Congregation that prayed–okay worshipped the Invisible Man. The kids were infinitely fascinated with the idea that there was someone who was always watching over them, irrespective of who they might be, as long as they were in the areas surrounding Manhattan.
God, the world was so much simpler before then, or was he too ignorant to know the reality of the world before that?
When he first heard of the abnormality that was the Invisible Man, he had mostly shrugged it off, as rumours but then he saw the whisperings about the great deeds of the Invisible Man increase, to the point that everyone in his unit and more was continuously talking about the Invisible Man and his powers.
He had been uninterested at first but then it was confirmed by the higher ups in the military that the Invisible Man was, in fact, real and was operating out of Manhattan. He had feared that it was some sort of evil entity and their soldiers would be deployed to fight it off, losing many of them in the process.
And yet, once he had gingerly entered Manhattan, he had been amazed to find the difference. The very feeling in Manhattan was different from the rest of New York.
Roads were clean, there was no traffic, kids frolicked around the streets, void of any fear, and the tourists.
So many tourists came to Manhattan for a chance to see the Invisible Man in action. Well, they did see him in action that day.
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He was having a nice picnic in Central Park when Maria was called in by her work for an emergency, so they cut the picnic short and got into a taxi, with the idea that he would take the kids to have lunch after dropping Maria off at her job.
Now, the situation did not raise any alarm bells for him because this sort of stuff was routine for Maria. What was not routine however was the bullet that had shot his taxi driver. He had thought him dead but apparently, he was only unconscious because of the shock.
The next moment, he felt a force acting on him as the entire taxi was overturned and a hole was punched through the roof of the car, showing the road on the other side.
He could do nothing but watch as presumably, the Invisible Man dragged his unconscious kids out of the taxi and then into a manhole cover that closed itself once the kids were inside. He sighed in relief at that but the situation was still unresolved. He could hear the bullets pelting the taxi’s underbelly and it was a small miracle that the taxi was not on fire yet.
Due to the sudden jerk and probably due to shock, Maria had been knocked out as well. The taxi driver was out of commission, he did not have any weapon on him, and from the sound of it, the attackers were closing in.
He had a hunch that the Invisible Man was slowing down the bullets instead of outright stopping them for some reason, allowing the relatively fragile frame of the Taxi to survive the onslaught of bullets that had still not stopped!
He was broken out of his thoughts when the bullets momentarily stopped before the panicked shouts of people faded away. He flinched as a small explosion went off near the car, or at least the sound of one.
His hand snaked out to protect Maria as he felt movement from the hole in the roof of the taxi. His worries were unfounded however as he saw the small pistol that had landed right in front of him, followed by a combat grade knife followed by rifles, magazines, and more. More and more, as a veritable arsenal landed in front of him.
He snapped out of it as his training kicked in, snapping the knife first before cutting himself loose. He checked on Maria and after carefully cutting her out of the seatbelt, he placed her on one side before checking the conditions of the gun provided to him.
The gunfire had returned at this point with renewed intensity and he didn’t know how long the Taxi could sustain all the damage it was taking, so he did the only thing he could at that point. He leaned on his training.
He armed himself to the teeth, his face pulled back in a snarl as he looked around, trying to get a vantage point when he felt a nudge on his pants. The next second, there was a piston in his hands pointed down, only to see a small sentence formed on the road
“Maria is safe. Go - IM”
He must have looked horrible back then, to the attackers, as he was continuously changing guns as all of the arsenal that was given to him floated around him, ready to switch at a moment’s notice.
The worst thing was, he recognised some of those people and most of the equipment used as he slaughtered every last one of these bastards, with the help of the Invisible Man of course.
He had sustained no less than two broken ribs because of the slowed down bullet impacts.
But the good thing was that the kids and Maria came out unscathed from that encounter and he had found who was after his life.
If he had lost any of his family, he would have left all caution to the wind and hunted down every single one of them, down to the last corpse.
But…he still had Maria, the kids. He couldn't afford to do that. So, he had called in some of his trustworthy contacts.
It had galled him to use money acquired through illegal methods but he swallowed it all for his family. A hefty sum was used up to buy an entire building at the edge of Manhattan, nothing fancy.
The building was not fancy but it was…safe.
Yes, they were finally safe. They transferred their kids to a private school here in Manhattan, Maria joined another hospital after a few months of job search and he opened the Dojo.
All in all, a very peaceful ending to something that could have been the most violent time of his life.
“Alright, done!” He shouted the last part to Maria who flinched awake.
“What? I’m awake! I’m awake!” Maria said before she realised Frank had pranked her.
She pouted at him as he hugged her.
Yes, life was safe but more importantly, good here.
He would not trade it for the world.
“Excuse me? Is the Dojo open right now? The email said 6 so it is 5:59 right now,” Maria separated from him, drawing an annoying look from him as he looked at the man standing at the entrance.
The moment his eyes landed on the person, his entire body tensed as he looked at the smiling face of the person who was probably the most dangerous person he had ever met in his life.
His thoughts started to wander off before he remembered that he was in Manhattan and this was the territory of someone who could tell the US Military to go fuck itself.
He forcibly relaxed his body before stowing away the broom and replying,
“Yes, this is the Dojo. I am Frank Castle and I will be your instructor here. You can wait in that room there while the others join us,”
“Okay, Thank you. My name is Axle Riddle, by the way,”
He shook hands with the absolute monster before sending him away.
Well, time to see just what curveball life had thrown his way this time.
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