Hired Gun and Nothing More

Slade hadn’t slept well the previous night. Then again, Slade almost never slept well. Not from a guiltily conscious, he had crushed that cricket years ago, but due to a slightly concern about being attacked in his sleep. From what he had seen of the princesses so far he knew that they didn’t seem like the types that would attack another living being in his sleep. Another knock against them.

So instead he had spent the night adding new information about what he had learned to the collapsible laptop that he had brought with him. As much as he wanted to put in what incompetent failures Celestia and Luna were, he was still a professional, and as such he refrained from adding his opinion to the documents.

Yet as the morning rolled in and the sun began its daily ascent across the sky, he was interrupted rom his work by a sharp knock at the door. Assuming that the ponies had found a new problem to confront him with, he rose and opened the door to find Princess Cadence standing before him.

“Cadence. What brings you to my chambers at such an early hour?” he asked the princess before moving to the side to allow her inside. Cadence walked by him without saying a word and walked to the only table in the room, the very same one that Slade had his laptop on. For a brief moment he was interested to see if Cadence would take a look at it, but aside from a quick glance she paid it no mind. Instead, she reached into a portal of magic before drawing out a pouch of coins, which she then tossed onto the table.

“Your pay,” was all Cadence said. Slade raised an eyebrow under his mask before he walked to the bag, picking it off of the table. To his disappointment he found it to be rather light on contents, but when he pulled the drawstrings back and opened the bag his eye widened beneath the eye cover. In the bag was twenty coins all of which were made out of solid gold. And Slade knew it was gold because, aside from his years of experience selling the stuff, the scanner within his helmet identified the coins as gold the moment he laid eye on them.

“You are paying me in solid gold?” Slade asked in a casual tone, careful not to let any emotion be let out.

“Gold is common place in Equestria and it is what we use as our currency. What you have there is an honest weeks-worth for any of my royal guards,” Cadence revealed to Slade. “While you did stop that fanatic, any royal guard could have done that. Still, I am a mare of my word, so I figured I should pay you for doing their job.” The tone in her voice was telling Slade that he was supposed to be getting stiffed some of his pay and that Cadence still wasn’t happy with him. Yet Slade found himself smiling beneath his helmet. What was a mere weeks-worth of pay in Equestria was a small fortune on Earth. And Cadence had no idea. But he couldn’t let her know that yet.

“Very well, I thank you for you “generous” heart,” Slade replied with a scowl. Cadence smirked at him in reply and Slade knew that he had gotten the intended thoughts out of her. She truly believed that he found the guards pay to be lacking, when on Earth it would be worth far more than she would believe.

“Later today my husband and I will be heading down to Ponyville to speak with Princess Twilight. You will be coming with us as protection,” Cadence informed Slade, but there was something off about her voice. A hint of…uncertainty.

“There is something in this Ponyville that concerns you, isn’t there?” Slade asked Cadence, who narrowed her eyes in response, telling Slade he had guessed right. “And it has nothing to do with the fanatics, for you would simply tell me if you had concerns about them. No, there is something else there, something else that you do not feel safe around without me there. What kind of dangerous beast be this?”

“All I know about it is what Twilight has told me in her letters,” Cadence replied with a worried voice. “She says that there is a new kind of creature in Ponyville, one that-“

Whatever that creature was Slade would have to wait to find out, for at that moment a flash of magical light went off above the heads of the two. The flash of light was followed by the sounds of a foal’s laughter and Flurry Heart came plummeting down towards the both of them. By the time Cadence’s eyes had widened in realization that her baby was falling towards the ground, Slade had already kicked off the table, leapt into the air and snatched the foal out of her free fall.

Cadence shook her head and blinked a few times as she tried to catch up with Slade’s movements, before her eyes filled with horror as Slade tucked Flurry Heart into his arms and stared down at the foal. Her mane was a mix of her mothers and fathers, while her coat was a lighter version of Cadence’s. She too was an alicorn and Slade’s sensors showed that she had a good deal of magical power despite being so young. But what interested Slade the most was that as Flurry Heart looked up into his red eye and masked face, she continued to smile before reaching up to grab at his mask.

“Slade. I will only say this once,” Cadence said in a voice that told Slade she was about five seconds from ripping him apart into bloody pieces. “Put my daughter down or so help me Faust I will-“

“You have no reason to fear, Cadence,” Slade replied in a calm tone before he began to dangle his armored fingers just out of reach of Flurry’s hooves, prompting the young foal to reach up and try to grab them. “You have hired me to protect your daughter from harm. And that is exactly what I shall do. I am not working for you so that I can get close enough to stab you in the back. I seek to be paid. You are paying me to protect your daughter. That is all I need to know.”

Slade then cast a glance at Cadence, whose rage had seemed to dissipate and she was looking at the way Slade was playing with her daughter in a curious way. After a few minutes Slade walked over to Cadence and handed her foal back to her, before returning to the laptop and shutting it down. Cadence looked from the mercenary to her daughter, who was still giggling and reaching out for the armored hands of Slade.

“You really did have a child, didn’t you?” Cadence asked Slade, who glanced over his shoulder. “From the way you held her to how you played with her…it’s exactly like how a father would hold their child. She’s not even afraid of you in the slightest.”

“She’s young. Give her time,” Slade responded, but all his words did was gain him a look from Cadence. “But to answer your question, yes, I did have a child. Two in fact. And before you ask what happened to them it is simple. I made a lot of enemies on this job. Enemies who sought to get back at me. And they took everything from me.”

“I’m sorry to hear that Slade, I really am,” Cadence replied and Slade knew that she spoke the truth.

“Save your sympathy, I do not wish for it. Nor do I want your compassion. All compassion does is compromise missions,” Slade replied in a cold tone. “We will never be friends. I am your hired gun and nothing more. That is what is best for you, for your family, but most importantly, for me. Let us leave it at that.”

“…very well Slade, I will respect your wishes,” Cadence replied deadpan. “Keep doing your job and I shall keep paying you. Thank you for catching my daughter and…dealing with the fanatic. I hope that this business deal continues to be beneficial to the both of us.”

Cadence then placed her daughter onto her back and walked towards the exit. As she opened the door and began to walk out, Flurry Heart looked back at Slade and waved at him with a smile on her face. Slade raised a single hand to wave goodbye before the two were gone. He allowed himself to smile for a moment at how young and innocent Flurry Heart was, before he sat back down, turned back on his laptop and got back to work.

(D|p)

Pinkie hummed away happily to herself as she rolled a giant piece of dough in the back of Sugarcube Corners. The song she was humming was a song she had heard Wade singing when he took a shower at her house the other night, but due to the lyrics and the fact that there were young foals around meant that Pinkie could only hum it.

She didn’t know where Wade had gone the previous night, only that when he got back he smelled an awful lot like smoke and charred flesh. But what she had noticed that was despite the third degree burns that had covered his body, he wore a smile on his face the lies of which Pinkie hadn’t seen since she had first met Wade.

“I got a lead on my job. That’s all you need to know. That and Spike’s a prick.”

‘I’m glad to see him finally starting to act happier though,’ Pinkie thought to herself as she squeezed icing out of a tube and onto the tops of numerous cupcakes. She then flipped those cupcakes onto a tray and tossed them into the oven, before taking off her hair net and walking towards the sweet shops main room.

Yet the moment the door opened and she walked out into the main area she heard a crashing sound coming from upstairs, followed by a copious amount of cursing. She glanced at the cashier area to see Mr. and Mrs. Cake looking up at the foal’s door with nervous looks, before they glanced over at Pinkie. Mrs. Cake waved Pinkie over before she glanced up as another crashing sound could be heard.

“Pinkie dear, you’ve worked for my husband and I for years now and we can safely say that we consider you a part of our family,” she began with a nervous chuckle before the sound of Deadpool screaming could be heard overhead. “But I honestly don’t know how I feel about this complete stranger looking after our foal’s. He seems kind of dangerous.”

“Don’t worry Mrs. Cake, I had Wade leave all of his weapons and firearms at my place. There is nothing he is carrying that the foals could get their hooves on,” Pinkie promised with a confident smile. The Cake’s smiled weakly in reply as a loud thud emanated from upstairs. “And besides, I’m certain that your foal’s will be safe with Wade! After all, he’s immortal, so nothing they do can keep him down. And how many foalsitters have you had that can say that?”

“Well…” the Cakes began before another crashing sound could be heard, this time followed by Wade’s voice.

“That’s a very bad Pegasus! You should be thankful that I don’t have any of my toys or else you would…hey wait a second, get out of there! Even I know that foals aren’t supposed to go in there. Hey wait a second Pumpkin, put that down! Where did you even get that, that is not a toy! No wait! Pumpkin! Don’t stick that in there!”

A massive explosion of magic detonated on the second floor that was powerful enough to blow open all of the doors up top. A smoking body flopped down onto one of the tables where some ponies had been eating, getting them to screaming with horror as Wade’s body became their main course. Wade let out a groan as he picked himself off of the table, before turning his head back towards the foal’s room and raising a fist.

“Do not believe for a moment that this war is over! I will have the two of you in bed yet!” Wade roared at the foals, whose heads peaked out of their room. They both giggled and clapped at Wade before Pumpkins horn began to glow. A moment later the crib was flung out of their room and right on top of Wade, who let out a girlish scream before he was crushed by the crib.

“Oh heavens, are you okay?!” the Cakes asked Deadpool as the both of them pulled the crib off of Wade.

“Perfectly fine. Couldn’t be better. Your foals are little angels,” Wade grunted before he snapped his arm back into place. He had just started trying to get his legs to face forward once again before the door to the shop was opened and Princess Twilight walked inside. It took her only a moment to scan the room and find Wade laying burned and broken on the table, getting her to sigh.

“Why is it whenever I find you anywhere you’re either bothering other ponies, getting into a pointless fight or are on fire?” Twilight asked as she gazed over Wade’s still smoking body.

“It’s a gift, Twilight.”

“Well get up and make yourself look decent, if you can, because I need your help,” Twilight forced through her teeth, like she couldn’t believe the words that were coming out of her mouth. “My sister is coming to Ponyville later today and I want you to be there with me when I greet her.”

“Wow, you really hate your sister so much that you would force her to meet with me? What did she ever do to you?”

“Shut up and listen. It’s not my sister that you’ll be there to keep an eye on. I’ve been exchanging letters with her and it seems she’s hired a mercenary to keep her and her family safe from this group of fanatics that are constantly after us princesses.”

“Your welcome by the way.”

“For what?”

“For the other night.”

“No idea what you’re talking about, as usual. What I’m trying to say is I want you to be there so that you can keep an eye on her mercenary, to make sure that he doesn’t try anything while we’re talking,” Twilight explained for Deadpool. “Do you think you can handle all of that without messing it up?”

“Wait a moment, if I’ve got what you’re saying down, that means that you want my help. But I don’t help others for free. Which can only mean that…”

“Yes Wade, you’ve figured out my grand plan. I want to hire you.”