Chapter 57: Frank Castle

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The next day, Edward's soul returned to his body as he released a breath of turbid Chi. Although his soul had left his body, it was still breathing as normal, meaning he was cultivating.

He now had several hundred drops of liquid Chi in his Lower Dantian, and his body had been strengthened greatly, although he hadn't reached the limit yet.

Edward unlocked his phone, and noticed it was nearly 4pm, so he quickly dressed up before creating a portal to Lisa's house. It wasn't the first time Donna had a sleepover at her friend's house, so he knew where to go.

He appeared in a nearby alley, and walked out when he was sure there wasn't anyone around. He quickly reached the Castle family's doorstep, and rung the bell.

A few seconds later, the door was opened by a tall, imposing man. Edward could feel great strength from the man, almost at the level of the Bronze Tiger, Ben. It was an impressive feat.

Despite his stature, the man seemed friendly as he smiled and extended his hand, "Edward, right? I don't believe we met. I'm Frank, Lisa's father."

Edward shook Frank's hand, and replied, "Nice to meet you."

Frank signed to his back and offered, "The girls are playing, you want a beer?"

Edward shrugged, "Why not?"

He wasn't really into alcohol, but it would be awkward to refuse, and it was a great way to socialize, as his years in college attested.

The two men sat in the kitchen, Frank having grabbed a pack in the fridge, and the later asked as they sat, "I heard about what you did, your serum… I'll be honest, I don't understand much about science, but I heard you cured dementia, and that's crazy."

Edward smiled, and teased, "Thank you. Lisa told us quite a few things about her super daddy too."

This elicited a pleased grunt from Frank, so Edward continued, "Marine Corps, right?"

Frank was about to reply when a loud bark was heard from behind. Turning around, Edward saw a large dog staring at him. Frank frowned across the table and ordered, "Calm down Max!"

The dog, Max, only growled a little deeper at the order, and looked ready to jump at Edward. Edward merely smiled at that, dogs really had sharp senses.

Releasing a bit of his Royal Will, Edward didn't try to overwhelm Max's will, but instead showed he meant no harm. Animals were not capable of speech, but that did not meant they weren't intelligent.

Edward could display his emotions through his Royal Will, and any living being could understand that, it was something that went beyond language.

As expected, Max immediately stopped growling, and carefully approached Edward, who stuck out his hand, and Max began licking his hand.

Across the table, Frank looked at this with astonishment. Max was a guard dog he had saved in the past, and thus it could be quite ferocious. Still, he had tamed it in the past few years, and it would be friendly to most people, and only growl at people it thought was dangerous.

Max growling at Edward wasn't much of a surprise to him either, he could see with his experienced eye that not only was Edward's body strong, he also looked ready to parry a strike at any moment, moving in a manner only someone who trained in martial arts would.

But it was the first time he saw someone tame Max so quickly, making it accept their presence. Oblivious to the Marine's well hidden astonishment, Edward complimented, "You have a nice dog."

Frank nodded slowly, a little fazed by what happened, "Sure, a good companion."

Edward continued, "I had a dog when I was a child, well my parents did, a golden retriever called Sam. He was a nice dog too, but he died of old age…" a smile came to Edward's lips as he reminisced the past, "I cried for a week when he died."

Frank nodded slightly, "It hurts, but they have to go one day."

Silence reigned as the two men drunk their beer, but the forlorn atmosphere was thankfully quickly destroyed when Maria, Frank's wife, came in and exclaimed, "Edward! I didn't hear you coming! How are you doing?"

Maria was much more passionate than her husband, and although they had only talked to each other a few times when Edward came to fetch Donna or she was doing the opposite, they had quickly become friends.

Noticing her wet hair, Edward assumed she was in the shower, explaining why she didn't hear him come. So he smiled and waved at her in greetings, "Fine, nothing really out of the ordinary, thanks for asking. What about you?"

Maria grinned and sat on Frank's lap and kissed his cheek, "Frank is on leave, so naturally it's great. You have no idea how worried I am for him everytime he is working…"

Maria was really a great talker, and seeing Frank look embarrassed made Edward smile. The tough marine had a soft spot to him it seemed.

After some time, Donna and Lisa appeared, alongside a smaller boy, who looked a few years longer. This was Lisa's younger brother, Frank Junior. Unlike his sister, who had her mother's blond hair, he had his father dark hair.

Donna smiled when she saw Edward and approached him, waving, "You're here old man!"

Edward rolled his eyes at her, and said, "Go pack your bag, and try learning some respect on the way."

Donna snorted and ran off with Lisa, while Frank Junior ran after them, wanting to stay with the older kids…

Before long, Edward and Donna left the Castle house, and walked past a few streets before going into an alley and opening a portal back home.

Seeing Donna about to go to his X-box, Edward grunted, "Go do your homework before playing."

Donna looked at Edward with great injustice, but he merely said, "No compromise. Go finish your homework."

Donna angrily kicked a nearby table, but only ended hurting her foot, making Edward grin. Ever since the incident with Barbara attacking Diana and destroying the floor and implicating Edward, the Ancient One himself had set up a few reinforcing arrays onto the flat, making it hard enough so that even Donna, with her Amazon strength, couldn't destroy it.

While Donna got in her room to do her homework, Edward was about to start the X-Box to play himself when he suddenly felt something tingle his mind.

Scanning the signal, the location was… Breakstone Lake?

Although he probably wouldn't ever use the array again, Edward had decided to keep it intact because the energy he provided it made his Chi accumulation faster.

Back then, the array didn't just serve the purpose of attacking, but there was also a locating function, so the Eldritch formations would know who to attack.

Since it was near a lake, it was bound for some animals to enter too, so he had set it so only people with a certain quantity of Chi could be felt through the array, so there was no doubt it was a human that entered the array.

Curious as to who it was, Edward focused on the signal, and sent a thread of Chi Sense. He was surprised to recognized the speedster he had fought!

This puzzled Edward, was he provoking him? Or was there something important? Edward wanted to ignore this, but he didn't want to miss anything important.

After all, the Ancient One himself had told him those mutants were particularly important for the future, so if something happened to them… What a pain.

With a sigh, Edward dressed into Serenity before opening a portal. In an instant, he reached his desired location.

As expected, he saw the speedster from before standing there, looking at him in astonishment. It was understandable, after all his group hadn't seen him make any portals.

Looking at the young silver haired man, Edward asked impassively, "You need me?"

The young man gaped, but quickly exclaimed, "Aren't you supposed to be some guardian or something? Then come and do your job!"

Edward frowned, but before he could ask what happened he felt himself move at extreme speed. The young man had appeared behind him, and was holding him as he ran.

He was displeased, and almost made a move, but not only would it be unwise to attack the person holding him at such speed, the young man looked hurried too, and Edward did not feel malice from him, so there was probably something important going on.

Less than a second later, they stopped, and Edward saw a rather large mansion, as well as Breakstone Lake.

The high speed travel was quite disorienting, but his powerful physique allowed him to ignore the after effects and observe his surroundings right as he arrived.

The first thing he felt was through his Chi Sense, and it was the aura of spacetime. It was abnormally strong here, as if someone had just time travelled here. But if that were the case, Kamar-Taj should have felt it…

As Edward looked around, he saw the mutants from before, all of them were here. But there were also a few more people, and they were reeking of the spacetime aura, which formed a theory in Edward's mind.

The first mutants to come to this time seemed to have come here against their will, and another group arrived barely a day after them.

Maybe the second group were the ones at the origin of all this time travel, and they knew they would be noticed if they simply came, so they first sent the first group of mutants, disrupting spacetime in the area, before coming themselves.

Before of the disturbed spacetime, they managed to get right under the radar and come into this time unnoticed.

Edward couldn't help but sigh, things were always getting more and more complicated…

Of the original two group of mutants, the ones led by the man in red armor had been defeated, including their leader as his helmet had been stolen by the attackers. The speedster was the only one still safe.

Speaking of which, as they arrived, the speedster quickly informed him, "The cringe guys dressed in yellow and green are the X-Men, a bunch of fools. My group is the Brotherhood of the Mutants, totally awesome, and the ones attacking us are the Hellfire Club.

"The Hellfire Club intruded upon your time as much as we did, I would say even more, and they are much worse than us and threaten a whole lot of people, so as a guardian you are bound to stop them. We cool? We cool. Let's go! Quicksilver is here to beat your ass!"

The speedster spoke very fast, and drew the attention of everyone to them before disappearing. Edward felt speechless, it was hard to even understand what Quicksilver told him with how fast he spoke, and his words were… Why was he surrounded by kids?

Edward decided to give up understanding what Quicksilver was telling him, and said to the Hellfire Club, "You are intruding upon our time…"

"Noisy."

Edward was in the midst of warning them like he did with the other two groups when their leader, who had stolen the helmet interrupted him and extended his hand toward Edward, sending a powerful burst of energy his way.

Edward easily dodged the blow, but felt quite shocked as he saw the huge trench created on the ground. He slightly shook his head and rushed toward the group.

The leader of the Hellfire Club looked surprised Edward had dodged his blow, but not really bothered as he fired multiple bursts of energy.

Edward was too far from the man to feel his intention with his Chi Sense, but his speed and reaction time were more than enough to dodge those attacks, and thus he quickly arrived next to the man.

It was rather unnerving to see none of the members of the group panic, nor the leader himself, but he decided not to bother himself with them, and punched the man with a Chi-covered fist.

The man did not even try dodging as the fist hit him in the cheek, and… he grunted in pain. That was it. A full powered punch resulted… in a grunt.

Yay.