"ICE BUCKET" BUTCHERY (BY THE PUNISHER'S PROGENY)

By Quillon42

SOMETIME IN 2014 UNDER THE STREETS OF BAY VILLAGE, OHIO

For the longest time it was only the offspring of the vigilante himself, and not that of said antihero's quarry, who would dwell in the depths of the drippy and dreary sewers. Just as in the mainstream 616 milieu of the Machine, here too there was a pugilistic Punisher…but in this author-invented reality—one which not unlike an Ultimate one or a NOW one, which recycled tropes and other concepts blathered out by the Bullpen over the course of a half century now (under the name Marvel, anyway)—said Punisher was one renovated and rebooted for a new audience.

Or really, in this case, for a new and very special occasion.

See, within the past few days in the reader's reality, an unscrupulous few feceses wearing merely the costumed identities of human beings brought it upon themselves to deceive a poor, unassuming autistic youth into believing that he would be undertaking the terribly overplayed endeavor of the Ice Bucket Challenge—an ordeal of endurance which was originally designed to support sufferers of ALS, but whose participant population has since, just over the past several weeks, devolved in certain part to the level of selfie-harvesting narcissists. When this particular child was showered not with cold water, but rather with cruel waste of scatological and other origins, the result was national outrage (one which might, with faith in humanity, might actually surpass that in recent days of the leaked nude photos of ever-so-sympathetic starlets in Hollywood who completely didn't have it coming to them).

As with reportings of various other criminal atrocities against the person in the Machine's Manhattan, which eventually fell upon the ears of one vicious skull-shirted vigilante, with brutal payback to ensue by his hand…here too the word of the heinous shower of gold, brown, and other colors considered terrible in a human fluids context, it all came to the attention of an illegitimate child of Frank Castle and Kathryn O'Brien—the latter of whom was once the urban soldier's squeeze, and a pretty tough cookie herself.

And he knew that he was the son of a gun known as the Punisher (all puns intended)…this teenage boy could feel the urge within to seek and obtain vengeance for others…Avenge, Avenge them in a way that no regularly-Assembling recruit of Steven Rogers or Tony Stark ever could.

To so many people on the thirteen-mile stretch of misery known as Manhattan, the boy had answered to Fulvio Castle.

Upon his own invention and insistence…he dubbed himself the Castigator, in reference and respect to the identity his own father assumed. The moniker derived not only from the dubbing of his dad as Punisher, but also from the fact that the surname Castle was an Americanization of Castiglione…such that Fulvio's taking on the trying mantle was a way to acknowledge both his rearing and his role in the capers he undertook in this neck of New York.

As the waste-pelting perpetrators would soon find, consequently…the Castigator would be a real chip off the chopping block regarding his father's murderous modus operandi.

Indeed, it was only about thirty hours trailing the autist-victimizing "Ice Bucket" expose that came to the attention of the adolescent executioner…that the culprits found themselves entrenched in a trough of similar foul liquids, through which each would have to tread and trudge under the wanton weaponry of one crime-crushing Castigator.

Fisk was first in all of this…one Williard Fisk, teenage son of a corpulent Kingpin in this reality, one sired here in addition to the Rose that was Richard Fisk. In a cesspool of spit and shit and piss, Williard here was actually only up to his ankles, shackled by his feet and his hands to the place he stood in a shallow section of the slough. The crime capo's child wondered as he lingered in this ditch of droppings (and loitered there all drugged up to boot, courtesy of once again the Castigator) why he wasn't in quite as deep as his two accomplices—a query airing anxiety within him, to be quelled most definitively by his captor quite soon.

Next was Ninuzzo Cavella, the snarky spawn of a more obscure mobster named Nicky of the same surname. Nicky Cavella's sole claim to fame, at least as far as this author knew, was literally unearthing and urinating upon the skeletal remains of Maria Castle and the other Punisher kids slaughtered so long ago in Central Park. At this Frank became a slight iota more than irritated, and with the assistance of the abovementioned Miss O'Brien, the vicious vigilante trashed that human waste who went all Number One over his departed kin. As it was now, Ninuzzo was being literally laid to waste himself…the boy struggling all he could to get at least on his hands and knees, but slipping continuously nonetheless in the yellow urethra output pulsing all around him.

Last, and certainly least in terms of morality and humanity overall, was Branford Costa, son of one Bruno. The latter was one of the very aforesaid Central Park guns who foisted the fusillade upon the Castle family, wiping out all but one, quite vicious veteran. Bruno himself was brought down eventually, not by Frank but by a hussy named Audrey who was also an assassin (and who was moreover put out of her own misery by the Punisher in turn). Just as Bruno then was one of the main perpetrators behind the Castle slayings…here Branford was the mind behind the alleged "Ice Bucket" that barraged a poor challenged, child-minded teenager with all sorts of inhuman fluids. Fittingly, the brash young "man" himself was now lying helplessly on his back in the toxic, viscous stuff he visited upon his victim.

A haunting, harsh voice piped up from the shadows, and the three pissants in the puddles craned their necks around all at once at the sound.

"It was in Latin America, starting in oh, perhaps a few decades back," the firm, cold voice etched out into the humid air, as these three terrible teenagers twitched about in their excremental circumstances. "They came up with what was probably the most disgusting sort of torture one could ever begin to imagine.

"Come to think of it, I believe it was Chile that started it." After this line the bodily-fluid-deluged trio could behold their captor in full, the young man sporting midnight black hair slicked back and ebony leather from throat to foot, with exception of the phosphorescent death's head grinning out from the middle of the man's torso.

"The name for it was perfect, too. They called it…the submarine."

Little Fisk wriggled, the smaller Cavella writhed, and the most insignificant Costa wrestled with his constraints all he could. None of these brats could break from the wrath of the underworld ombudsman in obsidian who held them there.

"You pieces of vomit can all rest assured," the younger, Castigating Castle went on as he walked about the edge of the pool of poo and other unpleasant items, "the prisoners under Pinochet, they likely had it far worse. Well…at least they had it worse than you all do right now, for the moment, anyway.

"For them in the submarine, true to the torture's name, those pathetic souls were completely put under at times—two hundred fifty liters of seawater, ammonia…and of course, excrement. For you, you're not diving in deep…you all are just at the shallow end. For now.

"In any case, like those prisoners in Chile…I'm sure that poor, autistic boy felt pretty goddamned submerged, under that shower of shit and spit and piss and discarded cigarettes. He probably felt pretty damn immersed…even if it were only for a matter of a couple of seconds.

"And, oh yes…all that's gonna add up to an understatement of how the three of you turds're gonna feel, real fuckin' soon."

Castle Junior paced around the perimeter of the three crime-boss-clutching cesspools for a few more moments, letting the dread and apprehension permeate each of his targets in a way that no sewer slime ever could.

He then changed course in midwalk and approached the first of his victims…the firstborn of the fatman, in this reality anyway…the one only up to his ankles, yet still held in check by fetters and deadening depressants.

"Williard Fisk…the Princepin of Crime, presumptively. Everyone's aware of how much of a fiend your father is, in so many ways…

"…not the least of which is that he's a cigar fiend in particular." Young Castle circled slowly around Little Fisk, the latter unable to mark the other's position around his corpulent circumference, as weighed down as he was by bondage and barbiturates.

"Now I'm not really quite sure if Daddy's broken you into stogies just yet…"

Then Fulvio whipped abruptly in front of Fisk and brought a boot's sole hard upon the other man's shin, stunning his enemy.

As the Castigator fished out and crammed a long, red, sparking baton into Williard's startled, open mouth: "…but I've got a reeeeeaaaaalll choice smoke right here."

Castle whisked behind his victim even as Fisk continued to choke on the lit flare wedged into his maw all the way to the back of his throat. Then kicked at the back of the big child's knee, so that the Princepin plopped down pruriently into the pool of poop and flammable fluids posthaste. Leapt away well enough in advance so that when the supine Williard turned his head reflexively in his throes of strangulation, and unwittingly dipped the ignited end of his "cigar" into the liquid all around his head…

[BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM]

...the ensuing, brutal blast would be many harmless meters behind the hero.

"I know he was the one who was the least involved in your little endeavor…so he gets off the easiest."

With a spring in his step and without missing a beat at all, the Castigator chose to fall upon Victim the Second, young Ninuzzo Cavella. "Don't know if you've been scoping out the surroundings, 'specially right above your head…"

At this Ninuzzo stopped staggering in his hollow of evacuative human doings, and shot a glance upward to see a greenish rectangle, suspended by bolts several meters over him.

"Of you three throwaways of human decency…you're the one who's gonna be lucky enough to be closest to feeling the sensation of what that poor boy felt," said Fulvio, as he took a couple of steps back from Cavella and whipped out a small garage-opener-looking device. "The sensation of so much sewage falling down upon his head and shoulders, and him with his hands behind his back, unable to do positively anything about it.

"I'm not sure if you know too much about wartime ordnance—fact, I'm sure you know nothing of it, as much the peckerhead playboy you were, all the time in your prime. You probably know what land mines are, anyway.

"Ever hear of the Claymore Mine?"

By now Castle Junior was several meters away from the second pool. "Way it works, you just press a button from a distance, and then BOOM, all the shrapnel, or metal balls contained within the mine…kind of like the buckshot in a shotgun blast…it all flies straight toward enemy personnel, with the activator safely in the distance.

"Don't worry, Ninuzzo Cavella…there's no shotgun barrage in the device, several feet above your head. There's just…well, here."

[SHHHCK]

[BOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMM] [SPPPLLLAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHH]

Amidst the AAARRRGGGHHHHHs of the second victim, the Castigator, pacing around Cavella's pool: "It's a surprise! Just like the one you and Fisk and Costa pulled on that boy. How does it feel now, with the egg on your face? With the egg here comprised from the yolk of my own urine, and the glair—that's egg white, for your troglodyte mind to process in your last moments—the glair of my own seed? I guess you could call it…a Cummore Mine, really.

Then

[SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS…]

As the unheralded steam began to rise as well…

"Oh, and—by the way? That corrosive sensation you're feeling besides…that's some good old plain old HCl mixed in. I might be tough, but my bodily fluids aren't really that acidic in pH content."

This all broken down to Cavella Junior as the latter's body proceeded to break down itself, with the skin searing, the limbs liquefying, the motherfucker melting otherwise. Castle chuffed out a sardonic laugh.

"I guess there's no skeleton left for me to piss on now…ah well, 's why I did it sort of in advance, with the great yellowish-whitish explosion from above."

What lay in the third puddle was last and best for the evening. Bran Costa couldn't begin to lift himself up out of the shit—but that was okay, because in this instance the Castigator didn't mind at all that a man was lying down on his job.

Fulvio allowed one of his boots to rest at the lip of the hollow as he looked at the gangster frothing with fecal matter all over. "You're all about the dirty business, you Costas…and so many crapolas just like you. Before you join your scat-slathered coconspirators, I'll fill you in on the dirty business you're dealing in now…literally whose 'business,' whose 'dirt' that you're delving in now.

"It was a dirty, disgusting job indeed…but I've gotta imagine…from your position, you probably have a really unique and particular appreciation for the superhuman shit you're literally lying in. I mean, you're dealing in the doody of, let's see in this reality…the (He)-Thing, the She-Thing, the Man-Thing." Fulvio counted on fingers as he went; didn't bother in this dank, though, to take off his boots to count toes. "The Green Hulk, the Gray Hulk, the Red Hulk, the Blue Hulk, the Orange Hulk, the Plaid Hulk…"

Branford's face registered retch all over as the Castigator continued on. "The Striped Hulk, the Tartan Hulk, the Green She-Hulk, the Red She-Hulk, the Pink She-Hulk, the Tangerine She-Hulk, the Cookie Dough She-Hulk…"

The itemization echoed, warbled against the dingy walls as the Castigator began to climb to a loftier berth in the sewer, with a very long and effective kind of firearm.

"AGH!" cried out Costa, in desperation, the "man" mewling out all kinds of waste from his mouth as he tried to speak. "WAIT! I…"

"Oh, yes, wait! You're right. That sweet-smelling patch you might have wrinkled your nose across…that's Logan James Howlett's doses of Numero Dos. Of course, everyone knows that, in any realitry, with his level of poopy popularity, his shit always has the odor of orchids at the fucking Vernal Equinox…"

"WAIT! CAST…CASTIG…"

"No. No fuckin' way. You and your shit siblings here, you all made your bed of beige bodywaste the second you dumped that bucket on that kid. For that, you've volunteered…for the Ass Suck-It Challenge. And I'm the one administering it.

"Did I tell you that superhuman scat's a pretty explosive substance, by the way? It's used as plastique in third-world countries."

More of the basest brownness ensued from Costa's craw as he attempted to speak. "CA…CAN'T WE JUST…"

"No deals, Costa. Your own feces of a father killed my would-be brothers and sisters. You're on the receiving end of the kin-curtailing now. All your life, you've been holding aces…

"…and now you're ending up with nothing but deuces."

As the Castigator took aim with his sniper rifle, Costa one last time, from his place in the poops:

"CA-CAN'T WE TALK?! CAN'T WE TALK ABOUT THIS AT ALL?!"

"Oh, believe me…" as Fulvio flicked on his CSI Miami night-vision goggles and took aim through the scope. "I have every intention…

"Of shooting the shit."

[BLAAAMMMMMM]

And then the David Caruso that was the Castigator might have allowed a Daltreyesque Won't Get Fooled Again scream from Branford Costa, but for

[YeeeeeaaaaarrrrrggggghhhhhBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM]

the blast that busted through the cavern of the city's undercarriage, the radius consuming the entire chamber…

…a radius evacuated ever most efficiently via the sewer's ceiling by one Castle's son, the pustules of people he targeted now having had the crap Castigated out of them, the poop Punished out of them, the best Bucket Challenge ever administered indeed upon them...all in the name of the now-avenged autist.