Reborn in Castle (TV show)

The doctors called it a miracle that Travis Wilson was alive.

Travis called it a slow, grinding punishment.

Six months have passed since the mission that ended the Ghost Unit. It was a bad extraction caused by incorrect information and a kill zone that should not have been there. The explosion took his left arm at the shoulder and severely injured his left leg. The rest of him survived out of pure stubbornness.

Now he lived in a small, forgettable apartment on the edge of the city. There were no pictures on the wall or medals to show because, to the world, he didn't exist. Next to his bed was a wheelchair, and by the door were metal crutches for the days he felt strong enough to pretend he was still whole.

He was now retired, medically discharged, and officially inside the classified files he was a legend. To the rest of the world, Travis Wilson had never existed.

Unofficially, he was just another liability.

Travis had gotten used to the silence. There was no radio noise, and his body didn't remember how to move as it used to. Still, he trained. He practiced one-arm drills and dry-fired with his right hand until it felt natural again. If someone came for him, he would not die begging.

He almost smiled at the irony when they finally did.

The knock came just after midnight.

Travis was already moving. He rolled behind the kitchen counter, gun in his right hand, back pressed against cold tile. The first man kicked the door in after a few minutes of silence, and a bullet pierced through his throat before his second step hit the floor. He grabbed his throat while gurgling blood and fell on the floor.

After that, the apartment became a warzone.

There were ten men in black masks, and from their movements, Travis could tell they were military, probably special forces, just like his unit. But they were sloppy. Instead of throwing a flashbang first, they kicked the door and entered.

'Bunch of arrogant pussies,' He thought.

Travis fired from cover, conserving every round. He used angles, shadows, and reflexes burned into him long before the injury. One went down in the hallway. Two more collapsed near the couch. Another screamed when Travis put a bullet through his knee and finished him with a head shot, before he could recover.

They underestimated him.

That was their mistake.

Seven bodies hit the floor before the room filled with smoke and shouting. Travis felt the tremor before he saw it. Something rolled across the tile, spinning lazily, almost politely, until it stopped at his feet.

Grenade.

There was no time to move the chair or to throw it back.

Travis looked at it and felt something close to relief.

So this was how it ended.

'Well, at least I got to have some fun. See you fuckers in hell.' That was his last thought before the explosion swallowed everything.

He didn't feel any pain...

Just a bright flash and... peace.

It lasted only a moment.

Travis opened his eyes.

He felt cold against his skin. A single light bulb buzzed above him, giving off weak light that illuminated concrete walls marked with old blood and rust. He was sitting up, tied to a chair. Thick plastic cuffs dug into his wrists and ankles.

He started to breathe more slowly. 'Huh?! What the fuck is going on?' He shifted his weight, with both feet on the floor, and his heart skipped a beat.

Travis looked down and saw his two legs. They were solid and whole. He wiggled his toes and felt everything. He twisted his shoulders and felt resistance behind him as his hands pulled against the restraints.

He also had two hands. His left arm was there, and he could feel the strain in the muscle and the pull in his shoulder.

He remembered the grenade and the explosion... His death.

But here he was, somehow alive and whole.

Anyone else would have panicked.

Travis Wilson did none of those things.

He closed his eyes for a brief second, breathing deep, anchoring himself. Whatever this was, panic would only get him killed faster. He needed answers. But first, he needed to get out of this place. 'Considering the condition of this body... information extraction torture. Nice.'

He looked around the room and saw a chair, a table on the right, a couple of beer bottles lying on the side of the door hinge, and a table on the left with torture equipment.

Footsteps echoed from beyond the door.

'Here they come...' Travis thought as he prepared himself.

The metal creaked open and a man stepped inside. He was tall, broad, with tattoos crawling up his neck and disappearing under a cheap leather jacket. He looked Mexican. His smile was thin and humorless.

'Cartel. Alright, in an ordinary scenario, I'd have ripped through these plastic ties and killed him first, before killing everyone in this building, and then getting out. But I'm pretty sure they got guns and I've no idea how many of them are in this place. Okay, I'll kill this panzy fuck face and use him as a meat shield. And he might have a gun. But I gotta make him talk about their numbers. Then, I'll kill him.'

The man pulled up the chair and sat across from Travis, leaning forward.

"You are a hard man to find," he said calmly. "You play a good cop."

Travis said nothing and simply kept his eyes on the man's waist area and shoes. 'Tsk. No gun. Well, whatever...'

The man shrugged. "First, you infiltrate us, become our friends, and man, we shared our drinks with you. But then, you disappear. And then seventy kilos of pure cocaine vanish from our stash."

He leaned closer, eyes cold. "So I will ask you nicely first. Where did you hide it?"

"Didn't your wife tell you?" Travis asked.

For half a second, the room froze.

The man's eyes widened just a fraction. He was surprised. "Lena?" He raised his voice. "What the fuck?" He stood up and grabbed a fistful of Travis's hair, yanking his head back. The plastic cuffs bit into Travis's wrists as his neck was forced up. "Is she an undercover cop?"

Travis laughed. It came out raw, hoarse, and completely unafraid.

"Hahaha…" He looked the man straight in the eye. "Nah. I fucked her ass till morning, and she ended up with this big gape, so I shoved that 70 kilos in her ass. Guess what? No one would even think of searching your wife's gaping asshole."

The slap came instantly.

Travis's head snapped to the side. His vision swam for a heartbeat, then settled. He was still smiling. He could taste iron in his mouth.

The man stood, breathing hard now, all pretense gone. His hands trembled with rage. "You think you are funny?" he snarled. "You think this ends with jokes?" He walked over to the table and picked up a piler and examined it. He put it back and picked up a big one. "Nah, man, nah... This ends with you giving me a name or location."

"You know what, I'm going to break out of these cuffs and kill you first, then I'll kill everyone in this place," Travis said before spitting a mouthful of blood.

He looked back at Travis. "So, you are going to break out of that cuff, somehow kill me, and then go out of this room and kill my ten boys with guns, waiting at the door? That's..." He pointed the piler and nodded with a smile. "...a nice dream, Mr. Travis. But sadly, dreams don't always come true. And soon, you'll forget all your dreams and simply beg me to kill you. Now, that if you can dream, then yes... dream does come true."

'Okay. My name is the same. So, that's good. I'm still Travis. But a cop? Weird, but... Well, I got my body parts back. So, let's not think about that. He got ten men with guns. Looks doable even with this messed-up body,' Travis thought.

"Only ten? C'mon, stop lying. You are interrogating someone about 70 fucking kilos of missing pure cocaine with only ten guards, you stupid? I can easily kill all of you," Travis said with a little chuckle. "Just wait for me to break out of these cuffs."

"Hahaha! You still got some life in you, that's good. You won't die easily. Oh, and for your information, after you tell me your location, I'll kill you, and then me and my amigos will take the stash and disappear. That's all you need to know. Now," He walked toward Travis with the big piler, ready to pluck some nails or teeth.

He stopped before Travis.

"Tell me where and this will be much more painless..."

Travis snapped the plastic ties and slammed his palms on the guy's ears, completely disorienting him. The guy dropped to the ground in a shrivelled heap. He quickly tore his ankle ties and then stood up.

He looked at his hands. 'Fuck yeah. I've no idea what's going on here, probably some kind of sick human experiment, but my hands and legs are back.' He then looked at the guy on the ground. 'No time like the present to test my new leg.' He quickly stomped his left heel on the guy's nose...

...Once... Twice... Well, by the fourth, Travis changed the map of his face.

"Alright," He quickly searched the guy for a phone or something. 'Nice." He found a phone and a car key.

Travis unlocked the phone with the dead man's thumb and dialed.

"911, what is your emergency?"

"Yeah," Travis said in a low voice. "My name is Travis Wilson. I'm a cop and I was kidnapped. I am alive. I need you to track this phone right now."

There was a pause. "Sir, can you confirm your location?"

"No," Travis replied. "That is why I am calling you. Track the signal. If you wait, I will be dead, or everyone here will be dead."

"Sir, we need you to stay on the line."

"Can't do that right now, there are ten or more men with guns just out the door. So, track this fucking number and send the cavalry."

He placed the phone on the chair and then walked over to the table with torture equipment. He picked up the knife from the table. It was heavy, chipped, and bloody. It felt good in his hand. He grabbed the dead man under the arms, lifted him with a grunt, and dragged him toward the door. The weight felt real. His legs held.

"Yeah," he muttered. "This body is definitely mine."

He opened the door and stepped out slowly, the corpse held in front of him like a shield.

The hallway was wide and poorly lit. The thugs were just down the hall. All of them froze for half a second when they saw him.

Then the shooting started.

Gunfire ripped into the dead man's back. Blood sprayed. Bullets thudded into meat and bone that no longer mattered. Travis kept walking as fast as he could, while saving his head.

They kept firing until panic set in.

"Stop shooting, pendejos," one of them yelled.

Too late.

Travis was already close enough that their angles collapsed. If they shot in such a situation, they'd probably end up hitting each other. Travis ran forward and shoved the corpse straight into them. The body slammed into one man and knocked him back into another.

Travis went to full kill mode.

The knife went up under the jaw and into the brain of a thug. He yanked it free and spun, slashing across the throat of another one. Blood hit the wall in a hot arc. Another man tried to backpedal, but his heel caught on a crate. Travis stepped in and drove the blade into his eye.

Blood sprayed out like a fucking broken faucet, painting his face and clothes.

Shots rang out again, wild and desperate. One of them clipped another thug on the shoulder. The man went down screaming.

Travis did not slow down.

He grabbed a wrist, twisted hard, and felt bone snap. The gun hit the floor. Travis buried the knife in the man's chest. He stabbed him twice before slicing his throat and shoving him aside. He kicked the fallen rifle away and closed in on the last two.

They were dead men walking and they knew it. The man... No, the monster before them was going to butcher them all, and they would do nothing because they can't do anything.

One tried to raise his gun. Travis slammed into him, headbutted his nose, and stabbed him twice in the ribs. The other hesitated for a second, and that second killed him. Travis threw the knife end over end. It sank into the man's throat and dropped him where he stood.

Silence filled the hallway, broken only by wet choking sounds that faded fast. The remaining three were frozen in their spot and the one who got shot was still squirming on the bloody floor like a worm.

Travis stood there, breathing hard, blood dripping from his face, hands and arms. He looked down at himself and laughed quietly.

"Yeah," he said. "I am definitely back."

He looked down at the thug who had been shot and smiled before taking his gun. "Take care now, bye-bye then." He emptied the clip in his chest while looking at those three goons.

One of them pissed his pants.

"Do me a favor," Travis said as he threw the empty gun toward them. "Drop your guns toward my feet, then one of you take that empty gun and one of you..." He pointed at the knife. "Take that knife, and I promise, I will kill you three as painlessly as possible. Or, you can try to kill me, but..." He opened his arms and smiled.

The three thugs did exactly what he told them to do.

The massacre they had just watched drained every last drop of fight out of them. Hands shaking, eyes wide, they dropped their guns at Travis's feet. One of them picked up the empty gun. Another bent down and grabbed the knife. The third just stood there, whispering prayers under his breath, tears running down his face.

They were not thinking about escape or revenge. They were only praying that this nightmare would end fast.

Travis did not wait.

He picked up a loaded gun from the floor, raised it, and fired three clean shots.

Pop. Pop. Pop.

Three heads snapped back. Three bodies fell.

"Well," Travis muttered as he lowered the gun. "They fought and killed each other."

Travis was no stranger to internal investigation and all that bureaucratic shits that always ends up with the cop getting blamed or ending up on the front page. If they find out what Travis did, they'd blame him for killing them all instead of taking them alive. It was too much of a headache.

He looked around the hallway. Blood covered everything: the walls, the floor, his clothes, and his hands. He sighed.

"Gotta do something about the blood."

Sirens wailed outside now.

"Time's up."

Travis glanced down the hall and then toward the windows on the left. Red and blue lights flashed. Cops were already rolling in.

He moved fast.

One of the dead thugs had a handgun tucked into his waistband. Travis pulled it free, checked the angle in his head, and pressed the barrel against his own stomach. He chose a spot away from anything vital. He pulled the trigger.

The pain hit hard and hot, but he did not scream. Just a sharp grunt escaped his teeth as he staggered back. Blood poured through his fingers immediately.

He wiped the gun clean with the thug's shirt, then shoved it into the man's hand. He dropped to the floor, rolled around, smearing himself in blood until he looked like just another victim in a butchered hallway. But the real reason was to prevent the internal affairs from questioning: How did you get their blood on your body if they fought and killed themselves?

His plan might not survive a perfect investigation, but perfect investigations needed time. Right now, he only needed confusion.

Travis started crawling, slowly through the mess.

He dragged himself toward the front door, one hand clamped over his stomach, leaving a thick red trail behind him. Each movement made his vision dim a little more. The sirens were deafening now. Doors slammed. Shouts echoed outside.

He collapsed just past the threshold, half in, half out, bleeding onto the concrete.

His vision swam.

Through the blur, he saw a woman rushing toward him with a gun raised, short brown hair. She looked really familiar. He squinted his eyes.

"Kate Beckett?" he mumbled. 'What the fuck is going on here?'

The lights overhead smeared into long streaks. The noise faded into a dull roar.

"Ah. Shit," Travis muttered weakly. "I'm done for the day."

Then everything went black.

---

What to expect?

1) Harem.

2) No-harem readers: Sorry. Skip it. And don't say it won't work and blah blah blah. I made it work with 2 Broke Girls; I can make it work with the Castle series too.

3) How big is this ff going to be? > No idea. My goal is atleast 200 chs. And it also depends on the readers and powerstones. 😎

4) I use Gramm*arly.

5) The cases: Some are from the OG series, and some are made by me.

6) Am I going to add other series? > For now, only Castle. And there'll be some mentions of the Mentalist series.

7) Since the chapters are really big, expect 3 chs/week. More if I manage to write more.

🫡 Hope you enjoy this new ff.