'tis another idea I want to put into writing, especially since I saw that there aren't that many Punisher/Witcher crossovers. I love Netflix's depiction of the legendary gun-toting vigilante, and Jon Bernthal's portrayal of Frank Castle, so I decided to let loose on the impulse to write my own take on the character. And ya know, the world of Witcher's not exactly that bad of a deal! Of course, a disclaimer- don't own the Punisher or the Witcher franchise, just my OC's. I'll take my inspiration from Netflix's version, and only a little bit from Frank Castle MAX's take on the Punisher. ( I love that comic series, seriously, look it up )

Although I'm a little excited, I can't put a definite answer on how often I'll update this. Sure, if the impulse comes back then bam! a chapter I shall write.

Enjoy!

}!{

The moon peeked out through the safety of the darkened clouds, scared, as though what happened down there in that blackened earth could harm her.

The corpses, piles and hills of them, were scattered across the streets of that lonely, forgotten county. To the one who killed them, it didn't matter where they came from or who sent them. To the people scared shitless in their locked up shacks and houses, they knew pretty well who they were. Cartel thugs, hired killers and kingpin lieutenants- the kind that run the prostitution rings, drug traffickers and slavers.

The kind that attracts just the right kind of attention from the Punisher.

But something was wrong. Usually he walks off of this stuff, more or less intact. It should've been alright, he knew how these things went like the back of his hand.

Frank hissed as the pain flared up in his midsection. No, nothing here was alright. He made a mistake somewhere, got sloppy, or for once the scumbags got lucky and finally hurt him. And they hurt him bad. Three bullets had entered his stomach and went out his back. Armor piercing rounds, penetrated the vest and out his back too. He could feel the rounds pressing against his skin where they had exited from behind.

He was bleeding, more than what was necessary. The Punisher leaned against the cracked and shot up plaster wall, and slid down to settle among the still-warm corpses of the drug lords he had killed minutes before. Back-up wasn't coming until later, they had brought the full force of their little empire down on this town to deal with him once and for all, so their manpower's pretty exhausted after the shoot-out today. But the enemy he faced now wasn't a thug armed with a fully loaded AK-47, or a cutthroat with a shotgun.

No, just his own mortality.

Frank hung his head in defeat as he felt the blood trickle out of his battered trappings and rent clothes, pooling into a large red puddle around him. Without medical aid, he would bleed out in minutes. His hands, already weakening from his injuries, did their best to staunch the flow that he might be bought a little more time. He couldn't die here, there was too much for him to do. Too many fuckheads running around the world spreading pain and misery to the downtrodden innocents, getting off scott-free as though justice didn't exist.

Too many fuckheads that needed punishing.

"Fuck it..." Frank muttered. He was tired of it all. Thirty years he had combed the streets and outbacks of nearly every country on earth. Thirty years, and like weeds, evil men sprouted from every corner and shadow no matter how many he would pull out. He was tired, so so tired. This day, the very day he hated would come, had finally come. The chore of killing had worn him out. Someone else would pick up after me, he would lie to himself, Someone else would take the mantle of the Punisher. He wasn't like the lucky few who were immortal, even through the many encounters that should've killed him, he was still human like the rest of them. "...this day was bound to come."

Yes, someone would eventually replace him, for the world has a habit of fucking up someone in nastier ways than he'd care to count. Someone was bound to snap, and embrace that dark desire he had gone into the day his family was killed in front of him.

But if he was going to die, it wouldn't be from bleeding out in some shot-up bar in Mexico, it would be out there in the desert with a big fucking bang! The Punisher picked up his guns, twin .45 Colt pistols that had served him well through his long years as a vigilante, and staggered out of the bar to face whatever would come through the door.

It was oddly bright, that light coming through the door. Frank wondered if his wounds took a toll on his head, that he'd go hallucinating so quickly. He'd had some of those injuries before, he guessed it worked a little quicker as one gets older. Sure he was well into his fifties, didn't look like it with a very active lifestyle, but age was age. There wasn't getting around that.

Yeah, he was getting sloppy. Best to end it now while he had a little fight left in him. He could hear the rumble of a car engine and the crunching of wheels turning against dirt. They've come for him at last. He'd go out, not with a whimper, but with guns-a-blazing. A fitting end for the Punisher.

Then the light enveloped him, and Frank felt himself tumble into empty space.

The Punisher went face-first into the water, the impact slapped him awake and he fought to right himself up before the water poured into his lungs and drowned him. That kind of end would be embarrassing.

But how the hell did he get into water all of a sudden? He hadn't lost consciousness just yet, a thought that he began to doubt as he gained the water's surface. Did he black out somewhere, kept stumbling forward and fell into some river close to town? Impossible, there wasn't a single body of water in the town or anywhere for a hundred miles of it! The water was real enough, that wasn't a hallucination.

His wounds were real too. Those three holes in him hurt like hell, the cold water wasn't enough to quench the fire burning inside him. He was alive, still pulling through what should've been his last night on earth.

His mind was fogging up, and soon his body would follow. Frank made it a point to get clear of the deep end and onto whatever shore he could reach before his consciousness would fail and he'd drown. His clothes, with all that gear stuck to him, soon grew heavy as the water seeped into every fiber and pocket. It was like hauling bricks through mud, and Frank slogged onto shore, fighting to stay afloat the whole way.

Once there, he took a second to clear his head, then looked around.

All he could see and feel on under his fingers was soft green grass, no desert sands from all around, and the ruined town in Mexico was gone! It felt real, but Frank still wondered if it was a dream. "What the hell?" The world's messed up, magical beings and all that shit, Frank didn't really pay them much heed since their involvement didn't really make much of a difference with the scumbags running around the ratholes. But they existed, that bit helped him accept that these kinds of strange things happened to many people.

Things like portals. If so, he hated portals, even though this one might've saved him to fight another day.

Frank groaned and climbed the small hill, away from the river, with his guns still in his hands. He gained the hill's crest, and his eyes widened as the moonlight shed its luminance over thevillage beyond. Not the one he had just gone out of. It looked like something drawn on some artist's canvas, a picture of a medieval village complete with a wooden windmill and an open pasture filled with cows. Frank stifled a cry of agony as he hunched over, but swore under his breath just the same.

He needed help, and that town over there was his best chance of getting stitched up. He hoped there was someone close enough to doctor his wounds, and he hoped he could find someone fast. So, surmounting the punishing grip his wounds had on his weakening body, Frank staggered forward and into the pasture. He headed for the town, ignoring the lowing cows and barking sheepdogs as they moved out of the way. Frank kept his mind focused, feeling it begin to slip like sand grains through his fingers.

Just one step at a time, a steady pace or else it was a dirt nap for good.

He got into the village and leaned against a wooden post of an unfinished fence to catch his breath. A woman's muffled screams could be heard nearby, and Frank paused to listen. It was a familiar noise, one he heard too many times for him to count. A throaty laugh coming from a bad man's mouth, some excited chatter from his companion as they would go through the many ways they could hurt the young lady. The woman pleads, then yelps as a loud smack silences her cries for mercy. A dull thud, where she had fallen.

Horses stood where they were tied close, and their riders had dragged her off into the direction of a nearby barn. Nobody came to her aid, and even through all that noise that should've drawn attention...

Nobody came, and that pissed him off. It pissed him off more than he was already right then, with all those bullet holes biting against his stomach and back. His wounds would have to wait. Someone had to be taught a lesson, a permanent one.

Frank rounded the corner and stuck to the shadows. There were no lights there, for the moon hid hers and the lamps were out. Just one torch, held by one of the four men dragging the woman into the barn. The torchlight flickered, dancing over the smiling visages of the victim's would-be rapists. Like wolves licking their chops, savoring the meal to come, they loomed over the frightened woman and started undoing the belts of their trousers. They didn't see the tall, menacing figure stalking their every move from behind. Too late, Frank already got close.

They were men in full-plated armor, complete with silly-looking black helmets adorned with frills that looked like Captain America's old headgear. Frank didn't even go for his guns, as much as he would love planting a slug in their heads, and snapped the neck of the man in the farthest rear. Moving quickly, in spite of his wounds, the Punisher whipped out his combat knife and plunged it into the back of the second.

The armor made a loud scraping noise as the blade bounced off, and the soldier roughly shoved Frank back as he instantly went for his sword.

A sword? Frank thought to himself, Did I go through a time portal or something?

The soldier growled and charged forward, leaving his companion to awkwardly scramble up from the woman he had pinned down on the haystacks. The fourth one ran as soon as he saw the Punisher's first victim die, and disappeared into the night. Frank caught the wrists of the man as he closed the distance, a mistake on the soldier's part, and his knife went for his throat. The gorget plating was thin, and the knife went through to pierce flesh. A gurgling noise erupted from the wound, and the soldier's grip on his weapon went slack, dropping the sword as he clutched at the knife left in his neck.

"I'm going to fucking kill you for that!" The survivor cried out, surprising Frank with an accent thick with cockney-broguish flavor.

The Punisher's fist collided with the man's nose, soundly breaking it as the soldier moved with the economy of energy of a hibernating bear. He went down on all fours, hands covering his face as he moaned like a stuck pig. Frank picked up the sword dropped by the second man and raised it high, ignoring the biting agony in his belly as he did so.

"One batch, two batch." Frank growled, chopping through metal and into flesh. Blood spurted out like a fountain as the flesh gave way, exposing the bone to the light of the torch as its flames caught fire on the surrounding hay. Eyes in the dark gleamed as the flames ate at the haystacks, then onto the wooden beams and doors. Thevillagers had gathered to investigate, hearing the cries of the now-dead men, and now witnessing the brutal execution of another at the hands of a dark-clad stranger.

The head popped off like a cork on a wine bottle, spilling thick red blood like wine to smear across the dirt. Frank dropped the sword and stared at the mess he had made, as though proud of his work. "Penny and dime."

Then he dropped to the ground in a heap.

Dawn had risen over the village, the first rays shed light over the half-burnt barn and the bloody remains of the Nilfgaardian soldiers, and over the crowd gathering at the square to discuss the matter at hand. The stranger who had stumbled into the deed as it was being done had been brought into the house of Maleon, the village blacksmith. It was his daughter, the maiden Anaia, whom the Nilfgaardians tried to rape the night before. And it was she who took in the wounded stranger who had saved her and nursed his injuries as best as she could.

Now the only problem left to the villagers, and the one that shook them to the core, was the fact that the men the stranger killed were Nilfgaardian soldiers. The village was just trying to get by, never causing trouble for the Empire or whatever petty king tried to lord over them. They just wanted to be left alone.

Unfortunately, that also meant they turned a blind eye when the soldiers began having their way with the women of the village. It was common for men to turn into vile beasts when no one could stop them from whatever suited them, and it was more common for soldiers who had the strength of their sharpened steel and the blessing of their commanders to do as they pleased with any village they've come across on enemy soil.

The village lay near to the Great River Yaruga, and that meant it was no man's land.

"What good would killing him do?" Someone argued when the thought to do away with the wounded stranger was spoken.

"He damned this whole village for what he did to those men!" Someone argued, "Now the wrath of the Empire is upon us!"

"How can you be sure?"

"I saw four men drag Anaia into the barn! Four! He killed only three! The last one escaped!"

That last sentence drew an angry response from the blacksmith Maleon, who had emerged from his house to join the discussion. To say that he was livid about the fact that someone was watching and did nothing for his daughter would be a monumental understatement, "And you did nothing?! You watched as my daughter was about to be raped?! And now you want to kill the one man in all this village with the fucking balls to defend an innocent maiden's honor?!"

Ogen, the weasel of a man who spoke, whined. "What was I supposed to do against four Nilfgaardians? I'm a woodcutter for fuck's sake, not a swordsman!"

"Say another word to me and I'll hammer your balls up to your stomach you'd be retching your own seed!" Maleon thundered, "Begone, craven!"

"You'd best do it quick, while sane heads prevail." Someone whispered to the alarmed woodcutter, who turned tail and fled the scene, realizing where his big mouth had gotten him.

"Now then." Maleon spoke to the crowd, "I know what you're thinking, and I feel the same way. The shadow of the Empire looms over us, but we must be strong. This man who saved my daughter did the right thing, and we cannot allow foreigners to push us around just because they can! Speak no more of ill-will towards my guest."

"They will come for us, Maleon!"

"And we will be gone by then." Maleon replied, "We had dwelled in this patch of land for too long anyway. The Empire would trample on us worse than any king, for they are the kind bent on conquest. I urge you to pack up and move out within the week, for that is what I will do. I shall not stay for the wrath of Nilfgaard, for they would not hear of our side of the tale anyway if we tried. To be frank, this day was bound to come anyway. Go home, hold your families close, and flee."

"But where would we go?" A woman wailed.

"North, to where the wind blows cold and where the grass is still green." Maleon said, "That is where I will go, to plant my family's roots once more, and far from the Nilfgaardians and their wars." When he was done speaking, Maleon returned home, and the crowd dispersed. The blacksmith heaved a heavy sigh of relief as soon as he got through the door. Closing it down with a loud creak, the old man headed upstairs to where his daughter was nursing the wounded man. He passed through the open threshold and leaned against the doorpost, watching as Anaia skillfully stitched the wounds and cleaned away the encrusted red smears.

Maleon took a look at the man's belongings, piled on the table next to the bed. There was the coat, made of soft and well tanned leather, ripped and torn in some places from repeated wear and tear. A belt with pockets filled strange black bars that contained little copper-colored sticks, and two even stranger weapons sheathed into the hip portions. The stranger had a knife, one of extremely well crafted make. Maleon marveled at how symmetrical the edge had been shaped, and how well balanced it was to the hand. Most knives he had to forge himself were heavy like cleavers, but this one wasn't a butcher's tool.

It was made for killing.

He set the blade down and ran his hand over the vest he had taken off the man so his daughter could better dress the wounds. A bone-white skull glared at him as he looked the front over. Three holes had pierced through the lower part of the vest, which Maleon assumed were made either by very thin spears or arrowheads tipped with steel points.

That man was very lucky to be alive, and even more so to be able to move around like he did last night.

"No fever, or labored breathing." His daughter said as she swept a stray strand of her golden hair out of the way, "He will live to see tomorrow." Anaia looked up at her father with those kind blue eyes that resembled closely her late mother's own. "Have you talked them down, Papa?"

"It wasn't easy." The blacksmith shrugged, "Ogen had them riled up, they were ready to tear down the door and come for the man. Damned coward, he watched the whole thing last night too, and did nothing!"

"I know." Anaia said as she shook her head, "I saw him watching, even yelled out his name as they dragged me into that barn. I cannot understand how he could just stand by and let them do that to me."

"Way of the world." The man in the bed said, startling both the blacksmith and the woman next to him. "Evil men triumph, when good men do nothing."

"Ah, you're awake!" Maleon exclaimed, "I'd thought your injuries would've kept you asleep for at least a day, but I guess you're stronger than you look. How do you feel, sir?"

"Like someone took a knife and slit my chest open!" The man replied as he struggled to get out of bed. A curse exploded from his lips as his wounds bit down hard on him like a mad dog, "Fuck!"

"Now see here, sir!" Maleon gently pushed him back down, "Don't go making my daughter's work harder for her! And also, watch your mouth around a lady."

"Mnmh!" The man grunted in silent agony, "Where am I?"

"A village in the Sodden province." Anaia answered, preparing a healthy bowl of broth made of herbs and spice to help ease the pain and strengthen her savior's vitality. "Drink this, it will help."

The man gagged once, but downed the broth hungrily. "God, it tastes like an ashtray!" He wiped his lips with the back of his hand, his dark eyes looking back and forth wildly like a confused hound. "Did you say Sodden? What's Sodden?"

"The province, sir." Maleon explained, "I'm not surprised you haven't heard of us, this village is not exactly on any noteworthy part of any map. Unfortunately, though, your actions last night just reminded the Empire of Nilfgaard we actually exist."

"Nilfgaard?" The man muttered, and his eyes met the blacksmith's. "Saved the girl from a world of hurt. Those scumbags had it coming, and they weren't going to let her live after what they were going to do to her."

"Oh don't mistake my words." Maleon said, "I am grateful, as any father should. But the fact remains, we have the Nilfgaardians breathing down our necks. Now, I've convinced the whole village not to take action against you and instead pack up and leave before trouble comes for us."

"We're leaving?" Anaia gasped.

"Yes, my daughter." Maleon answered, "That's what I wanted to talk to you about before our guest was about to wake up. Set the wagon and pack up only what we need, food and supplies and some clean clothes. That will do, for the others will only burden us down." He then referred to the wounded man, "And he's coming with us."

"I can take care of myself." The man grunted.

"Not with those injuries you're not." The blacksmith declared firmly, "You are my guest, you're my responsibility now. I suggest you cooperate so everything runs smoothly from here on out. Like it or not, those wounds won't heal any faster if you force yourself. Now, all you need to do is rest and regain your strength. Is that understood?"

The man glared up at him like a petulant child, but acquiesced eventually. "Uh-huh."

"Do you have a name?"

The man turned his head to the wall. And just as Maleon thought he would have to go for a silly nickname, he answered. "It's Frank. Frank Castle."

}!{

So, to be clear, the timeline's shortly before the events of the First Nilfgaardian War against the Northern Kingdoms. Not necessarily with the events of the first Witcher game, but lore-wise anyway.