Your support gives me strength! Power Stones are cool, but your follow hits different—it keeps me going! XD
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Chapter Twenty-Two — The Punisher Showdown
A mouth curled into a short smile, his hand drawing the pistol alongside his chest — all quick motions, but the chi in Daniel's body was quicker.
The sound of a shot split the air: the first bullet tore through with a sharp shriek.
Daniel felt a wave extend along the line the bullet had taken, a thin string vibrating.
He bent to the left at the exact moment the round passed — its sound like a slice of air over his ear.
In his honed, new body, it was not mere evasion: it was a complete coordination between muscle and chi-sense.
Daniel ducked behind a massive concrete pillar before returning to probe the corners.
Frank did not hesitate.
He saw the shadow moving behind the pillar and grabbed a short fuse grenade, dragging it from beneath the table and throwing it.
Frank decided the place had lost its value once he'd been detected — so he chose the blast: destroy the space and give himself cover.
He assumed Daniel was one of Fisk's followers and would not mind the lot being blown up.
The grenade launched with a harsh rhythm, an explosion detonated with a boom and a short arc of flame headed for the corner that hid Daniel.
Daniel felt the impulse before he saw the flame; the pulses of air rebounded around his body, and he sensed the mingling of flows.
He lunged again to the right, moving deep into the shadow, a concrete barrier between him and the blast.
Shards of glass and debris flipped in the air as if in a dance.
A stinging heat bit him, but he remained on his feet.
Frank laughed harshly, convinced the fire would force him out.
The direct fight began when Frank closed in with his pistol raised.
He fired a series of shots, trying to cover his approach, but Daniel was superior at avoiding danger; his movements were not random but measured by chi and refined.
He pivoted, advanced, and Frank heard a cry he'd never heard before: not mere complaint, but a warning shout from a body that knew how combat should shape itself.
Frank moved to engage him physically as his ammunition ran low — a cold brawl.
The pistol was now a heavy burden in his hand; his grip on the weapon had never been trained for close-quarters fighting.
Frank's strikes were mechanically competent: a quick swing here, a shove there, an attempt to kick the knee and topple his opponent.
But Daniel, with Lee Sin's fighting memory in his head, left no openings.
Daniel balanced defense and offense: he absorbed a shoulder strike, then replied with a punch aimed at Frank's ribs, tightening the man's chest and disrupting his breathing.
Frank tried to counter with intermittent blows, but Daniel's timing — the timing of chi — made him look slow.
At one point Frank managed to seize Daniel's arm and attempted to drag him toward the glass; Daniel curled in, spun, and used the momentum to shove Frank with a grounded force that sent him stumbling.
He used the oil-slicked floor to spin, kicked a metal bottle toward Frank's leg to unbalance him for a moment, employed a hanging column as a channel to parry a kick, and shoved a plank of wood to fall before Frank's foot so he'd pause to regain his balance — every moment was calculated.
Frank answered with a savage strike using the pistol's butt against the side of Daniel's head; it was the strongest instant when things might have tipped.
The blow sent sparks of pain through him and Daniel's head wobbled for a beat — but the chi caught his skull like an internal net, blunting the hurt, and he returned to center faster than Frank expected.
As the fight progressed, it became clear that Frank's firepower alone would not win; his reliance on spraying bullets and killing from a distance had been neutralized now that the engagement was intimate, where hands and mind decide.
Daniel, mixing chi and stored combat techniques, outmatched him in endurance and skill.
The blows came in a grinding succession, aimed not merely to injure but to break the opponent's balance and render the pistol — now low on rounds — useless.
Daniel paused, taking advantage of a brief hitch in Frank's breathing.
He placed his right hand half-open toward Frank's chest — a symbolic yet charged gesture.
Chi pooled into his palm as if poured into a luminous vessel; it was not a light visible to everyone but an internal wave of sensation.
Frank felt an odd tightening in his chest; his eyes widened for a fraction of a second as if glimpsing something incomprehensible.
The first stage of the Q ability: the Chi Grasp.
It issued from Daniel's hand — not a fist so much as a compacted sensation — a touch like grasping emptiness and screams within the muscles.
The semi-visible grasp struck Frank's chest more than it pressed his body; Frank's heart began to falter under its influence, stopping and starting in jagged beats.
The effect was not mere pain but a scramble of energetic balance within him; Frank writhed, searching for a center he could no longer find.
Daniel exploited the disruption.
His other arm surged forward, a savage grin splitting his features as he gathered the remaining charge of chi within him.
This time it was not a sensing pulse but an actual thrust — a Resonating Strike — a lethal attack that fuses dash and precision.
He executed his plan: drive weight into short, controlled steps, anchor on the ground's firmness, and launch himself at Frank like a conical projectile of energy.
The air changed — not in color but in sharp sensation; every mote of dust bore witness to the astonishing speed.
He crashed into Frank with a force concentrated on the chest then higher, converting momentum into an internal blow — not merely collision but a discharge of focused chi directed at Frank's centers of balance.
A muffled, terrible cry rose and a repressed inhale broke free, then silence.
Daniel's true fist — the closed hand reinforced by chi — struck Frank's face with a brief but decisive blow.
Frank pitched backward, his eyes rolling, blood flecking his lip, a ringing in his ears.
Before he could fall entirely, he tried to resist, but consciousness slipped.
He collapsed to the floor nearly motionless, his body crumpling onto the dust-streaked ground, his pistol skittering uselessly aside.
Daniel breathed slowly; his chest rose and fell in a new rhythm.
He stood over the shadows, his awareness still alert to every pulse in the place: distant sounds, sparks from damaged equipment, the lingering smell of gunpowder — and Frank lying unconscious.
It was not a happy ending, but it achieved its aim: Frank Castle could no longer move.
Daniel, with his lightness and caution, did not waste time; he stepped forward, took Frank's wrist to check the pulse, then bent to inspect his face quickly.
No noise, no whisper — only Daniel's calm breaths and the rusted building murmuring behind them.
Then the screen in front of him lit up with Luna's voice: [Congratulations — you have defeated Frank Castle (The Punisher) and earned 30 gems and 350 gold coins.] [Lucian template and Graves template have been unlocked.]