The Sage of the Mind

Disclaimer - The rights of the respective characters are with their respective owners. I don't mean to violate their intellectual property rights and thus, only my original characters are my IP. 

The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 115[May 2012]

Manhattan

–Frank Castle–

For years, he had known peace. Peace from the back stabbings from his unit, peace from having to worry about money, peace from having to worry about his family and their continued safety, and peace from all the things that went bump in the dark.

"Honey, Breakfast's ready,"

"Coming!" 

Years of having a nice home to come to, with a loving family with whom he had daily breakfasts, which was honestly the highlight of his day. Schooling was expensive, but the education for his kids was worth it and to be honest, he would have paid the same for even crappy education if it meant that his kids would remain in the purview of the Invisible Man at all times.

He chuckled to himself at that, endorsing who was arguably the biggest stalker in all of America and entrusting said stalker with the safety of his kids. Then again, the Invisible Man had proven his mettle for years, safeguarding Manhattan from literally everything.

From gangsters, drugs, and corruption to even literal monsters out of science fiction. Only once did the Invisible Man fail in his duties, and even then, he had some sort of backup team to help protect the city until he came back. Ofcourse, nobody could perfectly replace the Invisible Man but that small team of seven people was bulletproof, could bend steel, and was capable of cratering city blocks on their own.

So, they were an adequate deterrent until the Invisible Man came back. And then, things went back to normal.

Or so everyone thought but not him. His years of paranoia came clawing back to the forefront of his mind as he imagined the consequences of the Invisible Man just up and disappearing from the city. Then, Manhattan would turn from the safest city on the planet to a No Man's Land within days.

It would also be unsafe to transport his family out of the city during that period. So, he had taken measures.

Measures to make sure that his home remained the most defensible location in all of New York City, even more so than the police precincts, now that they had removed most of their advanced military gear, because they couldn't justify the expenses now that someone was doing their job for them, for free, and with much better efficiency than they could ever hope to achieve.

It was good that the Invisible Man was willing to cooperate with the cops, otherwise they would have had a riot from the Police Unions on their hands.

He pressed his thumb against an innocuous looking wall. Nothing happened for a few moments, then the entire wall slid inside and then to the side, revealing a walkway that led even below the basement levels.

It was one of the reasons why he had bought this building. It was a renovated old building that had multiple sub levels that he had sealed once they had moved in. After that, it was just a matter of time and effort to get it all installed.

He was going to do it all by himself but then the weirdest thing happened. The Invisible Man helped him, for everything. The basement installation, power for the entire thing.

He still didn't know where the power was coming from but the Invisible Man had brought a single industrial grade power cable from the ground and that had worked splendidly so far, even if he kept every single machine he had in the basement active at all times.

He stepped into the stairs and the door slid shut behind him, another perk of knowing the Invisible Man who built this entire installation, dismantled it, brought it in his house and then installed it for him, for free.

His vision adjusted to the sudden light when the door opened and he found himself standing right in front of what could only be called the armoury of a small military unit.

That was another thing he found odd because for every single person in all of Manhattan, they were outright forbidden to bear arms, something that infringed on the 2nd Amendment but who was going to take the Invisible Man to court? So he was allowed to stop anyone from bearing arms in Manhattan, a relatively small place compared to all of America so the political overlords let him be.

Only the cops could have guns and even they could not just use it willy nilly. He had seen, with his own eyes, a rookie being airlifted when he pulled a gun on a suspected drug dealer who was just dealing in Weed, nothing hardcore.

So, by law, Weed was illegal so if the cops found them, they could arrest them but the Invisible Man apparently did not think that weed was that harmful so he let the dealers be, as long as they didn't sell to minors, that is. He could see the logic in that, if adults could be allowed to consume alcohol and cigars in absurd amounts, things that are infinitely more damaging to the body, then why would weeds be stopped?

Still, he didn't stop the cops from doing their jobs but if anyone got trigger happy, they were punted into the air and kept there for a while, scared out of their minds as they were suspended mid air.

"Honey!" he heard Maria shout again, so he hastily shut everything down and went up to have breakfast with his family. One of the two meals that they shared everyday. The kids were mostly busy throughout the day, with their extracurriculars, academics, and their hobbies, so lunch was delivered through a special service that made perfectly curated meals that had a tie up with their school.

Dinner was once again, with the entire family. It had become a tradition of sorts and he was going to make sure that this tradition continued as long as he drew breath, or realistically, when one of his kids wants to go away for college or god forbid, marriage.

"So, I heard you had a tough math exam today?" He asked Lisa, his elder daughter.

She didn't even look up from her pancakes as she replied, "Yeah but I am prepared. I'll pass,"

And he didn't even have the heart to tell her to work hard because for him, all that mattered was that they were safe, healthy and mentally sound. Because Lord knows their daddy was not all three of them when he was their age.

Academics can come later on. Baby steps at a time.

He was about to say more when it sounded like a grenade had burst right next to him. His head throbbed, stars flashing in his vision as he tried to get up, only to stumble back.

With no other choice, he crawled and brought the kids to his side, trying to get his bearings. He saw his wife trying to do the same to his son. He looked up and saw that everything else was fine, his vision still blurry but the lights were still on and the table was still standing.

So no Earthquake.

No explosion.

Something else then?

Finally, after what felt like an eternity of his daughter shivering in his arms, he felt his head throb less. He slowly looked all around him, saw his wife and son alright, made sure that his daughter didn't have a concussion or any other injuries, and sighed in relief.

"Get up, come on, we have to go," He managed to say to his wife who was still too shaken to do anything else. He got them out of the kitchen and was about to take them to the basement when something he heard from the TV stopped him.

He gave Lisa to Maria and then stumbled towards the living room and saw what was on the news.

His blood chilled as he saw the harrowing scene. An orange wave, all around the city, breaking and going somewhere, and then, an Invasion in California, with aliens and monsters pouring in en masse.

What the fuck?

He scrambled back and got everyone into the basement and then into the secured bunker he's built, separate from the armoury bunker, another courtesy from the Invisible Man.

"Wait! When did you do this?" Marias asked him as she finally came to her senses. He looked at her tear stricken face and at his two children who were clinging to their mother and was about to stay in the Panic room with them, when his vision shifted, to the small TV installed inside the panic room.

His eyes widened as he immediately turned the TV off, and kissed Maria on her forehead, "I'll be right back,"

Pressing the emergency lock button, he turned around and ignored her desperate cries as he entered the armoury bunker.

Ignoring the rows of guns, machine guns, bombs, and more, he went straight towards the computer setup.

Logging in with his credentials, he activated the experimental sniper mode.

On the screen, a rooftop view could be seen. Suddenly, multiple tiles just slid into the floor and a huge cannon with electrified blue lights on all sides on it came out, with its barrel being over 2 meters long.

Hitting the energize button, he watched as his rooftop was suddenly filled with electrifying arcs of energy that were being drawn from the single cable that came from nowhere.

Once it was energized to the full, he looked at his locked target, "Get off my planet."

With those words, he pressed X on the keyboard, letting the small tungsten projectile loose, and watched with satisfaction as the damned space whale was bisected into two.

With that single shot, the entire Invasion force froze and then he had to suppress a shiver as he saw the entire fleet of aliens lock onto his building. 

His hand hovered above another button and then, after taking a deep breath, he slammed that button as well.

That dropped the panic room, straight down, into a safe space that the INvisible Man had built for situations just like this, with ample food, water and medical resources for thousands of people to last for months.

Even as he used the guns and technology given to him by the Invisible Man, his mind was fixated on one question and one question only.

Where the fuck was the Invisible Man?!

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