This was what Slade lived for. The job. The hunt. Being given a task that would make a regular man question his own abilities and then making it look like it was the easiest thing in the world to accomplish. Slade lived for the thrill of being a mercenary.

The mercenary raced through the streets of Canterlot with seed and purpose, dodging and weaving his way past the citizens who were shocked to see a man in orange and black race past them. Each of his strides was long and calculated, while his eye scanned each face he sprinted past in search of the summoner of the Lurker. While he may have only been around ponies for a short time, telling when somebody was evil or not was easy for him. He just looked for someone that had eyes like his.

Some of the royal guard had tried to come with him, but with his agility and skill he had left them in the dust. Which he preferred, as the guard would most likely get in his way then be of any help whatsoever. He also suspected that Cadence and Shining Armor wouldn’t try to follow him either. Their first concern would have been their foal, so Deathstroke assumed that’s where they were heading at the moment.

‘As they should be. If this assassin is after Cadence’s family, then I highly doubt their daughter is safe either,’ Deathstroke assumed. As he himself had used child captives before to get to people in positions of power in the past, he figured that his assumption was accurate.

His thoughts of kidnapping and extortion were sidelined for the moment as his eye picked up something in a large crowd of ponies in a park that didn’t belong. One of the ponies was wearing a black cloak with golden highlights upon it…while in the center of a circle of magical energy. As if that wasn’t suspicious enough, the ponies that were close to the cloaked being all had white eyes and drool dripping from their slack jaws. Of course, Slade realized that could be the ponies regular expression, but he was willing to bet that they were being mind-controlled.

“Brethren! Behold, the being that is here to deceive and destroy you!” the cloaked being said in a raspy voice. His words caused all the mindless drones to look at Deathstroke, who knew what was about to happen. “And if he does so, none of you will be able to find your way to paradise! Destroy him, before he takes everything you love and cherish!”

The drones let out a wail and began to lumber towards Deathstroke, but the mercenary wasn’t going to give any of them the chance to do anything. The first thought to cross his mind was to gun down the ponies and claim that he was defending himself. However, he figured that wouldn’t go over with Cadence, nor the thousands of guards she would send after him. Also, he was being paid for non-lethal from two parties now. He was going to have to be careful not to kill any of them, so he left his firearms holstered and drew his staff from it magnetic holding.

The first of the mindless drones he reached to took the end of the staff right between the eyes, dropping them without a sound. The next two he raced by had their legs knocked out from under them in a single swing, allowing Deathstroke to keep his full sprint towards the cloaked pony. While only the pony’s lower jaw was visible, Deathstroke could see that the pony was starting to panic, the fear seeping in as Deathstroke ran through his henchmen with no effort at all.

Deathstroke twirled over a pair of drones before sweeping their legs with his own, before he drove the point of his staff into the chest of one of the bigger stallions. He pressed a hidden button on the staff, which caused a burst of energy to erupt at the end of the staff and send the massive stallion hurtling backwards.

“You would be wise to surrender,” Slade advised the cloaked pony. But instead of surrendering, the pony let out a malicious cackle before raising his hooves over his head. Dark lightning shot from the hooves and into the sky, summoning black clouds that swirled overhead like a whirlpool.

“Surrender? I do not know the meaning of the word! All I know is that the princesses shall be consumed by the same dark forces that they have allowed to rain upon this land!” the being roared in reply. The clouds began to spit blue lightning onto the land below and the wind howled with such rage that it sounded like a living being. “But before this darkness consumes the royal bloodlines, first it shall strike you from the land of the living and cast you into an eternal-“

BLAM!

The cloaked being screamed with pain as a geyser of blood erupted from his left arm, while the force of the bullet spun him to the side. Deathstroke holstered his gun and walked over to the fanatic, noticing that with the pony down none of the drones could so much as blink properly. Deathstroke found the fanatic laying in a pool of his own blood, muttering something to himself as his eyes stared off into eternity.

“Who are you and why are you trying to kill the princesses?” Deathstroke asked in a cold voice. When the pony didn’t answer, choosing instead to just murmur to himself, Deathstroke took his boot and placed it on the bullet wound. “I will ask nicely only once. Who are you and why are you trying to kill the princesses? And I do not want to hear anything about some unleashed darkness or death from the heavens, are we clear?”

“I would ask how you can be so blind, but it is clear that you do not have you only see half of what we with vision truly see,” the fanatic replied in a pained gasp. Slade narrowed that one eye before pressing down with his foot, getting the pony in the cloak to scream with agony. But after a moment of screaming, the pony began to laugh. “Y-you poor fool. You think that by serving the princesses that they will allow you into their light. But that light is for them alone and they shall leave you to be consumed by the darkness where they have sent so many! Repent, before you too are-“

A right hook to the face sent the pony into the land of dreams, silencing him and his lunatic ramblings. Slade shook his head at the fanatic’s words before he glanced around at the drones. With the pony unconscious, the drones were beginning to be freed from their imprisonment within their own minds. The ponies were blinking, shaking their heads and trying to figure out how they got where they were or why they felt like they had been on the receiving end of a metal bat.

Deathstroke then glanced down at the fanatic, who, despite having taken quite the concussion, was still mumbling about the coming darkness. Slade then glanced at his bleeding left arm, figuring that the pony would bleed out in a little over and hour. He knew that Cadence wanted the pony brought to her alive.

But she never said how he should be alive after he was brought to her.

{D0|0P}

“Y’know, when I found out I was coming to a land of magical ponies that were all the colors of the rainbow, I thought that maybe, just maybe, I would be able to get through it without pissing any of you off or getting myself into trouble,” Deadpool said to the pair of princesses. He then glanced up at the magical chains that Celestia and Luna had summoned to keep his limbs pulled out, leaving him dangling in the air. “But, as I can clearly see now, my charms are simply far too much-“

“Silence,” Celestia said in her royal voice before using her magic to seal Wade’s mouth shut. Deadpool raised an eyebrow under his mask, but before he could say anything witty in retort, at that moment Pinkie raced out of the sweet shop to see what was going on.

“Princess Luna! Princess Celestia! What are you two doing?” she asked with confusion.

“They’re starting my Friday off right,” Deadpool replied before another strip of magic wrapped itself around his mouth. Pinkie looked from the gagged Deadpool to the clearly troubled princesses, waiting for one of them to answer her question.

“Pinkie, we have received numerous letters from princess Twilight about a new being in the land of Equestria. One that is, how did she put it, a pain in the ass,” Luna informed Pinkie. “She told us that the being was crass, rude, did whatever it wanted with no regard for the consequences and was an unkillable force of insanity. Also that he wore bright red spandex that concealed nothing.”

“That’s…all pretty much true,” Pinkie admitted before shaking her head. “But that’s only because Twilight and the others have only hung out with Wade for a few minutes at most! Just because they’ve only seen the crazy side of him doesn’t mean that he should be chained up!”

“Don’t ruin this for me Pinkie. Normally I’ve got to pay women to do this to me,” Deadpool added on, only for magic to clamp his mouth shut once more.

“Let us talk about your other friends, because my sister and I have received letters from them as well,” Celestia continued. “And all of them said the same thing about Wade. That he was crazy. That he was a menace. And that he seemed like the kind of guy that is on the edge of snapping. That Pinkie, combined with the immortality Twilight mentioned, makes him a very dangerous individual.”

“Well, all of the letters except for Rarity’s. All hers said was that another being had come into her life and dumped her, leaving her alone,” Luna added with a smirk. “Of course, that’s what I could make out since her tears ruined most of the words. Honestly, her letters are better than afternoon dramas.”

“My point being that Deadpool here is a very dangerous individual, one who I am not sure we can trust at the moment…or every,” Celestia added with a sideways glance at Wade. “Not to mention he tried to burn down both Twilight’s castle and Rarity’s boutique. Those acts alone should get him ten years in a dungeon.”

“Okay, but he’s…still new to this land. He doesn’t know or rules or how things work,” Pinkie tried to argue for Wade.

“No, they’re right Pinkie. I’ve been a very naughty Deadpool. I deserve to be whipped.”

“Sister, this is getting weird.”

“Come on Princess, we’re the land of second chances and friendship! Yet so far I seem to be the only pony willing to give Wade here a chance!” Pinkie put forward. Celestia frowned at Pinkie’s words before lowering her head to think. “Maybe the reason he acts like this is because nopony wants to be his friend or only sees him for what you all see him as. A crazy, unkillable monster that may be a threat.”

“It’s true. I’m desperately lonely. Even the voices in my head left me.”

Celestia considered Pinkie’s words. ‘On one hoof, she is right in saying that we are the land of friendship and chances. And while Wade does appear to be nuts, Pinkie seems to be getting along just fine with him. Not to mention that I don’t want a foe that can’t be killed against us…’

“Very well Pinkie, I shall leave our…guest in your care,” Celestia agreed at last, getting Pinkie to gasp with excitement. “However, I will not tolerate any more of his attempts at arson or mentally scaring my ponies. Are we clear on that?”

“You can count on me, Princess. I promise that I will be the bestest guardian that you have ever seen!” Pinkie promised the two. Then she glanced over at the still chained up Deadpool, who had managed to get one of the chains around his neck and was now suffocating, before glancing back up at the princess. “Um, can you let him go now? Ponies are starting to stare.”

Celestia’s horn flashed and a moment later Deadpool was face down/ass up on the ground. He picked himself out of the dirt a moment later, but the expression his mask wore was anything less than amused. “Hey, how come you guys just let me go? You can’t just chain me up without whipping me. That’s not how this BDSM thing works. Hang on, I’ll show you how it’s done.”

“Honestly, I’m kinda glad that we’re leaving him to Pinkie,” Luna whispered to her sister who nodded in agreement.

“Well, now that we know who will be monitoring-I mean, showing you around, there is the matter of accommodations,” Celestia quickly corrected. “Pinkie, would you be alright with Wade staying with you for the time being?”

“Well, normally I would love to have a new best friend to come to my place to have sleepovers with, but somehow the foals I look after managed to get ahold of my party cannon and now the place is covered in frosting. It’s…going to take a while to clean out.”

“Ah. Well then Wade, is there any place that you would like to stay during your…visit to Equestria? Preferably not at the castle with my sister and me.”

“Oh please, no need to be so formal. I can sleep anywhere.”

“Please, do not be modest.”

“I’m not being modest. I literally will sleep anywhere. Condemned buildings, park benches, murder scenes…when you’re me, you can’t really be too picky in where you get lucky enough to lay your head down for the night,” Deadpool replied with a shrug.

“What about your friends? Do they let you stay with them?”

“As long as they don’t find out I snuck in, I can stay as long as I like!”

Celestia was about to make a comment about that statement, but before she could a piece of parchment appeared before her in a puff of magic. She unrolled it with her magic and scanned the contents of the letter, her eyes narrowing into slits.

“Come sister, there has been another attempt on Princess Cadence, this time in the very streets of Canterlot,” Ceslestia told her sister, whose eyes widened in shock. “She says that she and her family are fine, but also that they’ve caught one of the ponies who is behind the attack.”

“But everytime we’ve tried to catch one of them they take their own lives. How did she manage to catch this one?”

“According to her letter, a mercenary she hired is responsible for the capture. They have the prisoner in the dungeon, but he’s weak from blood loss. If we wish to speak with him, we will have to do it soon,” Celestia advised before looking back at the other merc. “Pinkie, please keep an eye on this one until we can figure out what to do with him. I am trusting you here.”

“Don’t worry princess, you can count on me!” Pinkie said before saluting. Celestia and Luna nodded before they both vanished in a flash of light. Pinkie then lowered her arm before giving Wade a look. “So that other mercenary Celestia mentioned…”’

“Yep, it’s probably dad.”

“So Celestia and Luna…”

“Yep. They’re fucked.”