Damned Are the Guilty

Frank heard the door that lead into his cell being opened, telling him that he was going to have to put up with one of the princesses once more. He shifted to his back and glanced at the gate that blocked off his cell, raising an eyebrow with surprise when he saw the princess of friendship staring through the transparent material at him. He couldn't read the look on her face, which was a first for him.

"Come to bother me about my past some more?" Frank asked Twilight as he sat up and grunted, his body still aching from having been slapped around by Tirek. When Twilight failed to answer he tilted his head to glance at her, finding her giving him a look that he couldn't place. It wasn't anger, more like pity or sympathy. "Or have you finally come to your senses and are ready to let me help you bring down Tirek once and for all?"

"Frank..." He hated it when someone said his name like that. It was the way Daredevil and Spider-man said his name. It was a way that meant the person, or pony, felt sorry for him, felt pity for his life. He never wanted pity. He wanted blood. From her tone alone he was tempted to just turn away from her, but he knew that she most likely wouldn't go away unless he listened.

"I've been thinking it over and talking with my friends...and we're not sure what to make of you," Twilight began with a tone filled with sympathy, but all Frank gave her in reply was a stare of ice. "You are a killer...but you're hurting. You're in pain. That much is clear to us now."

"What gave it away? When Tirek knocked me through the side of a building?" Frank replied in a dry tone. Twilight lifted her gaze to the ceiling, where a light fixture decorated with crystal and jewels hung above. Frank had spent many hours staring at the light fixture, lost in his own thoughts, but every once in a while he would wonder why his prison would have something as nice as that in it.

"No. From your story, it's clear to us now that you're a broken man, one that feels that he's lost everything," Twilight explained to Frank. He was tempted to roll his eyes at her obvious diagnosis, but he forced himself to remain emotionless. He didn't want her to think that she could get his emotions out of him unless he wanted her to. "You may be a villain, a monster...but at one point you were a good person. And my friends and I believe that we want to try and help you become that person again."

Frank stared into her eyes for a full minute to make sure that she was absolutely serious. When he had discerned that she was, he looked up at the ceiling and allowed himself to chuckle at her words. It was the most joyous that he had sounded since he had arrived in the land and the sudden mirth surprised him. But when he looked back at Twilight, he found that his laugh had creeped her out.

"Help me become the old me? You mean fix me, right?" Frank asked Twilight, cracking another smile when she nodded in reply. "Quite the optimist, aren't you? What makes you even think that I want to be helped in the first place? Maybe I like the person that I've become."

"I doubt that. If you had truly given into the person that you think you are, the Punisher, then you would have discarded the memories of your family long ago," Twilight said with conviction. "If I had to wager a guess, you hunt down and brutalize criminals to try and make up for the criminals that you failed to stop. The ones that took everything from you. But it's never enough. No matter how many you hurt, the pain never goes away, does it?"

"Well, you got some of that right, kid," Frank grunted before he sat forward and laid his hands on his knees, taking in a deep breath. "It is never enough. No matter how many of them I kill. Because I know there's more. I know that there's hundreds of thousands more out there that need to be punished. That's what keeps me going."

"It's Twilight, not kid. And I disagree. The memory of your family, their love and kindness, is what keeps you going," Twilight shot back, though her words didn't change Frank's expression. "And deep inside, I'd wager that all you want is them back."

"You a doctor now, kid?" Frank asked, glad to see that calling Twilight kid was upsetting her. "Or are you just delusional? Because I'm fairly certain I know what's wrong with me. And I bet you do too, you just don't want to admit it."

"Admit what, that you're in pain? That you're still grieving the loss of your family?"

"No. That I'm just as bad as those I kill. That I'm a monster," Frank whispered.

"I can't believe that. Not as long as I believe that there's hope for you. And I think you do as well. Or else you would have put a gun to your chin and ended it long ago. You want to be helped, but don't believe that you should be," Twilight put forward and this time got one of Frank's eyebrows to go up. "And you wouldn't be the first "monster" that I've helped. What to hear who else I've changed?"

"I bet you're going to tell me all about them."

"First there was Trixie, a mare that hated me for showing her up. So much so that she bought an alicorn amulet that gave her the powers that I now wield. And then she tried to take over my home with it. Sound pretty nasty, doesn't she?"

"Maybe if you're six."

"But I overcame her powers by outthinking her. And then, when she was at her weakest, I helped her to see the error of her ways, how hatred hadn't improved her life," Twilight said with pride, ignoring Frank's words. "And she was the first one of my foes."

"You know what else would have solved that? Bullet to the brain. Much faster, less of a fuss."

Twilight gave him a look after he said that, but continued on anyway. "Then there was Discord. Yeah, the same one that tricked you and got you captured the first time. He was a god of chaos, one that had been sealed away for a thousand years only to escape once more and tried to rain ruin and chaos upon our land. Know how we helped him?"

"I bet it involves a lot of talking and preachy shit."

"We became friends with him. All along, even with how evil he claimed to be and all the power he wielded, all Discord wanted was a true friend, somepony that actually cared about him. And that's what Fluttershy did for him. She gave him a friend," Twilight said with pride. "We didn't need to kill him, as I'm sure you would if you could. We just helped him."

"Sure you did. And yet the guards were telling me in my old prison how Discord helped Tirek become powerful the first chance he got. Seems your friendship counted for shit when it mattered," Frank shot at Twilight, who took a step back as if his words had struck her. "If you had killed him, Tirek wouldn't have gotten that power the first time and then we wouldn't be in this mess."

"Okay, so Discord is a bit of a loose cannon, but that's his nature. Starlight, my own student who will so replace me, once went back in time to erase my friends friendships so that we could never access the power to save the world!" Twilight said with some heat to Frank. "And she did all of that because she was hurt by what she saw as a betrayal by her childhood friend. We helped her overcome that."

"That sounds difficult, especially for a five year old. In fact, I helped my little girl with that same problem when she was seven and we had to move," Frank snarled with a look that made Twilight flinch. "If those are your villains, then you're words mean less to me than I originally thought. You want to know what real evil sounds like?"

"Real evil are people that steal from the weak and helpless because they can. Real evil is people that kill for fun or because they don't like what the other person says. Real evil rapes and enslaves others just for the kicks or because they know they won't get caught. Real evil tears apart a family that did nothing wrong," Frank said to Twilight, rising out of his bed and glaring into her eyes as he said this. "So tell me, Twilight, have you had to deal with real evil? Do you think you could change people like that?"

Twilight locked eyes with Frank and for a long moment she held her ground. But then she glanced down to the side and Frank saw doubt enter her eyes. He smirked the moment he saw her weakness and walked back over to his bed, leaning against the wall beside it. "See? You don't have the conviction to try and help someone like me. If they're misunderstood or lonely, sure. But the real evil, Twilight? Evil like Tirek? That is what you can't deal with. So I have to."

"Alright, so I've never dealt with anypony like that before...anypony like you. But I want you to give me a chance," Twilight demanded as the fire reignited in her eyes and she walked up to the gate of the cell, glaring up at Frank. "Give me a chance to show that you're wrong. That there is still a good person in there. A father and a husband that just wants to be with his family again. Let me help you."

'She's such a fool. She really thinks she can do it.' Frank shook his head at the pony, but then he looked around at his cell and began to weigh his options. Then he thought of the centaur, the one that had broken him and killed so many during their last encounter. And how he wanted to bring him down. Then he looked at Twilight once more and recalled how his little girl would have given everything to go on an adventure with a creature like Twilight.

"You get one chance. But only because I'm tired of staring at this ceiling," Frank finally agreed with a grunt. Twilight gave him a smirk in reply before her horn began to glow, creating a band of magic that wrapped itself around his throat. Frank poked at it and felt magic rip through his body.

"Did you really think that I would let you out without a little insurance?" Twilight asked Frank as she opened the gate for him, allowing him to step out of his cell. "That collar will give you the zapping of your life if you do ANYTHING to harm another living being or try to run off. Try it, speak it or even think it and you get zapped. We clear?"

"Am I going to get my guns back?"

"Hell no."

"Then we're clear," Punisher said, a large smile crossing his face and creeping Twilight out. "Now then, let's go see where all the pretty little ponies live. Maybe then I'll have something to really laugh about."

"You think so, but by the end of this I bet I'll be the one laughing," Twilight promised as she lead Frank out of the cell. 'That felt...too easy. I thought for sure that he'd put up more of a fight. So either he really is just in pain...or he's planning something and I need to be very, very careful.'