Earth 28-7:35 PM

In the depths of a hidden bunker just outside of Metropolis, a man who looked to be in his early 30s despite the chalk white hair and short beard wearing a black bodysuit and a stylized black eyepatch over his right eye opened a metal wardrobe to reveal a suit of black, grey, and orange armor with several holsters, pouches,and sheaths on it. On a shelf above the armor was a metallic black and orange helmet, with only a single red eye piece on the left side.

Slade Wilson donned the suit of armor and slid the helmet over his head before grabbing a pair of handguns, a machine gun with a scope and a grenade launcher built in, twin katanas and a large broadsword, his Remote Claw, his custom-made bo-staff, and several dozen spare ammo clips, grenades, shuriken, and heavy reel ammo rounds for his Remote Claw.

His equipment gathered and his armor assembled, Deathstroke stopped to pick up a battered old photo. It was a picture of himself, his wife, and their three young children, back during happier times.

Before the night he’d returned home and found his wife murdered and his children missing. In fact, it was only the fact that he needed money to keep his guns loaded and his stomach fed and watered that prevented him from declining this job and moving earth and sky in order to find his children and cut pieces off of whomever had taken them and killed his wife.

Deathstroke made his way out of his bunker and climbed into an inconspicuous looking pickup truck and took off his helmet, placing it on the seat beside him. Slade then proceeded to drive to an abandoned airstripe, where he waited for the better part of an hour before a helicopter appeared in the skyline. Putting his helmet back on, Deathstroke climbed out of the vehicle.

Once the chopper landed, a young man with shoulder-length red hair wearing a black suit and tie climbed out, a woman with short black hair wearing black thick-rimmed glasses and an outfit that would not look out of place on a secretary right behind him.

“Ah! Slade Joseph Wilson! Just the man I wanted to see!” said Lex Luthor cheerfully as he walked up to Deathstroke, Mercy following right behind him. “I appreciate you agreeing to talk business with me, I know it’s a bad time for you, with everything that’s going on with your wife and kids-”

”Talk. Now,”said Deathstroke, irritation evident in his voice.

Both Lex and Mercy gulped audibly. “Well, then, let’s get down to business,” Lex said, starting to sweat nervously. “Ahem! It has come to my attention that Wayne Enterprises has a prototype teleportation system stored in one of its warehouses in Gotham City. That being said, I would like you to help some of my men retrieve it for me, just in case they run into a little bat trouble, you know.”

"Hmm… bat trouble… well, if that’s the case, it’ll cost you something extra. Won’t be cheap, either. You’d better be able to pay up,”said Deathstroke.

“Have I never not been able to?”

”...fair enough. It’ll be double my usual fee once the job is done, plus an extra $50 million for dealing with the Bat and his sidekick beforehand.”

“Agreed. Mercy,” said Lex.

Mercy rolled her eyes before doing the transaction, holding up the phone to show Slade that the transaction was going through. Once it was completed, Deathstroke chuckled.

”A pleasure doing business with you once again, Mr. Luthor.”

…

Gotham City-Three Hours Later

Deathstroke watched as Luthor’s security contractors loaded the last piece of the teleportation device onto the truck. He couldn’t help but chuckle. The job was almost done, and there was no sign of the Bat or his new sidekick. This job was the easist money he’d made since he’d killed that one politician who’d been deaf in one ear and half-blind in both eyes back in Italy.

But, like always when it came to the Batman, his car came crashing through the wall just when things were getting too easy. The security contractors Slade was with almost instantly started shooting at the Batmobile with their military-grade assault weapons while Deathstroke, using speed born from his augmentations, deflected Batman’s rubber bullets with almost effortless ease.

"You’re gonna have to try harder than that,” said Deathstroke before something caught his attention.

Thanks to his enhanced hearing abilities, Slade heard the distinct sound keys turning in an ignition. A quick glance at the truck saw that was getting ready to make a run for it. However, it seemed the Batman wasn’t having any of that. A missile launched from the Batmobile drew Deathstroke’s full attention as it soared towards the truck.

Slade ran after the missile, knowing that if anything happened to the device, his payday would go right down the shitter. Unfortunately for Deathstroke, while he was able to nearly beat it, the missile made full contact with its target, causing the truck to flip over no more than twice.

Within the truck’s storage unit, however, something worse than Deathstroke losing a payday was about to happen. The impact from the missile and rolling over had caused the teleportation device to turn on, and worse, the impacts had caused it to go haywire.

The next moment, Deathstroke, who had turned around to go take out his immense anger on Batman, was seemingly obliterated by the energy blast caused by the teleportation device.

Except, he wasn’t.

…

Equestria-The Previous Night

“ARRGH!” screamed Deathstroke as he materialized out of seemingly thin air within Canterlot Castle’s main hallways. Looking around wildly, Deathstroke realized that he wasn’t in the warehouse anymore. In fact, it seemed as though he wasn’t even in Gotham City anymore.

What the fuck happened? Where the Hell am I? thought Deathstroke angrily, trying make sense of what had just happened.

The best that he could come up with was that something had happened with the teleportation device, causing it go haywire and send him off to who-knew-where… more than likely forever seperating him from his lost children.

”No… No…!”muttered the profoundly grief-stricken Deathstroke as he fell to his knees, tears running down his face from his sole remaining eye. But, before he could scream in pain or agony or do anything further, something caught Deathstroke’s attention. A group of voices, muttering.

-MURDER A PRINCESS-”

"Shut up, Gallant! Do you want to get us arrested? Besides, we’ve got the one thing that can make our troubles that much easier.”

“Is that… is that really-”

“Orichalum. The boss man had this thing forged just for this sole purpose… something about getting some lady drunk enough that she wasn’t even able to stand on her own two feet or something like that. Anyways, this is our room.”

”Heh, good thing you and Gallant were posted there.”

Deathstroke, upon hearing what was about to transpire and having a severe distaste for assassinating someone in their sleep, pulled himself up off the ground, and followed the voices to where they sounded like they were coming from.

…

Equestria-Now

Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, and the keeper of the dungeons looked through the cell door at Deathstroke, who was still in his mask and armor but had been disarmed of all his weapons, and who was currently using the chains he was shackled by his wrists from to do pull ups.

“What’s he doing? Is he trying to break the chains?” asked Celestia.

“Actually, sister, I believe he is using them to do pull-ups. A rather creative conversion of them, I must say,” said Princess Luna.

“Why is he still in his uniform? Can’t you get it off him? What if he’s carrying some sort of lockpick within it?” asked Princess Celestia.

“I’m afraid we haven’t been able to, Your Highness. His armor and mask are made of some kind of metal that I’ve never seen before. But, that’s nothing compared to the weapons he had on him. Come and have a look,” said the keeper, leading the Princesses over to a table.

Celestia’s eyes widened and her jaw dropped like a sack of potatoes when she saw what was on the table. Three different swords, a machine gun with a scope and grenade launcher built in, two handguns, a strange device with a claw-like attachment at the end, and a small pile of bullets, knives, and shuriken.

“Sweet Faust in Elysium… you could outfit a small squad of soldiers with this many weapons,” said Celestia.

Luna, meanwhile, puzzled over the claw device. “What, pray tell, is that thing?” she asked the dungeon keeper, who suddenly turned beet red.

“Umm…”

…

Two Hours Earlier…

The keeper of the dungeons and a member of the Lunar Guard were busy examining Deathstroke’s weapons.

“Heh, always wanted one of these things,” the Lunar Guardsman said, picking up the machine gun. “How do I look?”

“20% cooler,” said the dungeon keeper, who then noticed the Remote Claw. “What’s that thing?”

“No idea,” said the Lunar Guardsman, picking up the Remote Claw and looking at it.

“Hey! Slackers!” yelled Evening Glory, a Night Flier who had become Captain of the Guard following Shining Armor’s departure. “Stop fooling around with the prisoner’s weapons and-”

Before Evening could finish speaking, the guardsman pressed the trigger on the Remote Claw, causing the claw attachment to launch, latch itself onto Evening, before the other end attached itself to a nearby fire extinguisher and pulled said extinguisher towards Evening, knocking the new Captain out cold and filling the entire room with smoke.

…

“That is a very dangerous weapon in the wrong hands,” said the dungeon keeper.

Luna put the Remote Claw down carefully as Celestia looked back at the room where the man was being held.

“Bring him to the interrogation room. Let’s see what he’s got to say for himself,” said Celestia.

“Yes, my Princess.”

…

Deathstroke stopped using his chains as exercise equipment at the sound of a key turning in the lock of his cell door. A group of guards entered the room and removed the chains that held Deathstroke and allowed him to fall to the ground. A pair of guards picked up Deathstroke by his arms and half-carried, half-dragged him past several other cells, from which, the occupants were speaking.

"You foolish little ponies sleep tight, because you'll never know when the Pegasus Device will reawaken, hungry again."

"Anchovy pizza! Something, something Italian sounding!"

"It’s not guns that kill people, it’s these little hard thangs!”

"IT WASN'T ME! IT WAS THE ONE-ARMED MAN!"

"Oh, Celestia, why can't I free your doubtful mind, and melt your cold, cold heart?"

As Slade was led past these various cells, he began to wonder where these soldiers were taking him to. It wasn't long, however, before he got his answer: the interrogation room.

"If anyone so much as THINKS about trying to waterboard me, then I give you my word that there will be bloodshed and broken bones," warned Deathstroke, his voice void of emotion.

"Shut up and get in there!" snapped one of the guards as he opened the door and gave Deathstroke a rough shove into the room.

As the door shut behind him, Slade took a moment to look about the room. It looked pretty much like your standard interrogation room: small with dim lighting and reflective side of a one-way window facing the door, and a table with two chairs on each side. On the left hand wall, there was a small, sickeningly adorable cat hanging from a tree with the words Hang in there baby! written on it.

Hmph, idiots. If you’re going to hide a camera, at least make an effort to make it unoticeable, thought Deathstroke before he saw who else was in the room.

Sitting on the other side of the empty seat was what seemed to be a woman with long green, blue, and pink hair as well as what seemed to be white feathered wings wearing a golden dress with matching heels and a crown with a purple jewel embedded in it, making her look like some kind of Princess.

"Welcome," said the winged woman. "Have a seat."

Not really seeing any other option, Slade took the seat adjacent to the woman, an almost blank expression hidden behind his mask.

“I know what you’re going to try and do.”

“Oh? And what would that be?”

“The classic good cop-bad cop routine. You act nice and polite while someone-”

Whatever Slade was about to say next was silenced as someone beside him grabbed the back of his head and slammed it into the table, where it left a shallow dent in the shape of Deathstroke’s mask but caused no apparent pain to Slade himself.

“Huh. Tis’ most bizarre. Usually when that happens it causes a bit more pain to the one whose head smashed against the table, not the table itself,” said a female voice that more than likely belonged to the person who had just slammed Deathstroke’s head into the table. She had feathered wings like the one sitting across from Slade, except her wings were midnight blue, a shimmering navy blue mane of hair that looked like the night sky itself, and wore a wore a navy blue dress with a protrusion in the back, black heels, and a small black crown atop her head.

“Perks of having a combat suit and mask made out of Nth Metal,” replied Deathstroke in the same emotionless voice.

“Well, then, seeing as slamming your head into things will not yield answers, let us try the direct approach. Do you know who I am?” asked the white winged woman.

“Lady, I don’t even know where the Hell I am, so why would I know who you are?” said Slade..

The white winged woman nodded curtly. “True, we haven’t introduced ourselves. I am Princess Celestia, ruler of Equestria and Princess of The Day. This is my younger sister, Luna, Princess of The Night,” said Celestia.

”I see… let me guess, you two want to know about me. Where I came from and who I am. Is that right?”

“Very astute observations, Mister…?”

”Wilson. Slade Wilson. But, back home they call me Deathstroke.”

“Where is thy home, exactly?” asked Princess Luna.

”In another universe. You see, I was brought here after I got caught in an explosion from this experimental device that I was hired to help retrieve.”

“Hired?” asked Celestia, intrigued. “Judging by the small arsenal of weapons and equipment our Guards found on you, I take that to mean you are some sort of mercenary.”

”I prefer the term soldier of fortune. Back home, they called me the World’s Deadliest Assassin. Of course, the augmentations I received as a part of Project: Mirakuru certainly helped with establishing that reputation.”

“Augmentations? Project: Mirakuru? What on Equis are you talking about?” asked Celestia.

Deathstroke chuckled. ”That’s for me to know and for you to never find out. After all, why should I trust someone I just met today?”

I could say the same thing to you, assassin, thought Celestia as she glared at Slade. Although, the fact that these killers had an Orichalum dagger is troubling. Perhaps there are Traditionalists who ordered the hit on Twilight…

“Why did thee slay Twilight’s assassins?” asked Luna.

“I needed to vent. That, and I don’t take kindly to cowards who would kill someone in their sleep.”

“Very well, then, Mr. Wilson. I am prepared to strike a deal,” said Celestia.

“And, this deal is?”

“Help us find those responsible for Twilight’s murder. I am fairly certain her assassins were acting under orders from someone else. In exchange, we will do everything we possibly can to help you find a way to get you back home to your world and your life as a… soldier of fortune.”

Slade chuckled humorlessly. ”This Twilight girl must’ve been very special to you if you’re willing to hire a near stranger for help hunting down those who were pulling the strings behind her murder. Fortunately for you, I was able to get some names out of that one assassin I spared. That being said, if you want my help or those names, it won’t be cheap. I’ll need money, supplies, and resources if I’m gonna do this for you.”

“That will not be a problem. Do we have a deal?” asked Celestia.

Slade thought it over for a moment. “Very well then, Princess Celestia. You’ve got yourself an assassin,” he said before shaking Celestia’s hand.

“Excellent. Well, Luna, if you’ll help our new friend get settled, I’ll meet up with you two later, as I have an emergency meeting of the Equestrian Parliament to attend.”

“But, sister, what doth thou mean, an emergency meeting of Parliament?” asked Luna.

“The one I’m going to call for tonight, dear sister.”

…

Later that evening…

Lady Sundancer, who was Spellcaster woman with sleek orange and yellow hair, with narrow-rimmed glasses, a crisp suit and skirt, and black heels made her way out of the Parliament Building with an almost enraged look on her face. The usurper had been dealt with, Celestia was safe from being overthrown, and all was well again.

Until that meeting she was just in. Celestia had informed the whole of Parliament that she was taking Executive Action, in that every last one of Twilight’s reforms would be made the law of the land, stating that her death would not be in vain.

“How… how dare she… after seeing how pointless her plans were she still… UGH!” Sundancer growled as she stomped back to her home. “That ungrateful bitch! She doesn’t see the damage that wretched girl’s plans will cause… But she will. She has to… this will not have been pointless.”

As she arrived at her manor house, grunting and groaning all the way there, and opened the door, she went to turn on her lights.

Only to discover that they wouldn’t turn on.

Suspicious, Sundancer made her way over to a nearby stand, opened it with one hand, and pulled out a small pistol. She cocked it and got ready to fire as she cautiously made her way through her house looking for the intruder she suspected was inside.

“Who’s there? I promise that you will regret breaking in today.” Sundancer growled. “I’ve had a really bad day and am not in the mood.”

“We all had a bad day at that meeting.”A deep, dark, menacing filtered voice said, startling Sundancer who jumped and fired her gun, the bullet nearly piercing the speaker’s head.

“Are you crazy?! I could’ve killed you!” said Sundancer.

“My apologies. I didn’t mean to take you by surprise, my dear. But, nonetheless, we have another problem that needs to be dealt with outside of that merry band of fools who think themselves national heroes,” the speaker said.

“Problem? What kind of problem?”

“It seems all but one of the guards we hired to put an end to Twilight Sparkle’s reforms have been met with a rather violent end of their own by someone in a suit of black, grey, and orange armor comprised of an unknown metal, and, if my contact is to be believed, is said to not only be armed to the teeth with swords, guns, and other weapons, but to hail from another world entirely, where he acted as a mercenary called Deathstroke.”

“Ooh, scary,” said Sundancer, sounding as though she wasn’t concerned in the slightest. “Deathstroke sounds way more intimidating than your alias, Heretic.”

”...that is neither here nor there, Sundancer,”The Heretic said, a note of menace in his voice. ”There’s more. According to my contact, Deathstroke got a certain mole to talk, naming names. Including yours and my son. We need to step up our plans if we are to put an end to these so-called heroes before the Princesses’ new lapdog comes to visit you and the rest of our associates. You and the others need to disappear, because make no mistake, Sundancer. There is little to no chance that you’ll be walking away from an encounter with this mercenary alive.”

“And what are we going to do about this Deathstroke problem while we’re supposed to be laying low?” Sundancer asked.

”I’ll take care of that. All you and the others need to worry about is disappearing. Good night, Lady Sundancer.”

There was a bright flash of light that nearly blinded Sundancer. Once her eyes had cleared up, the lights were on and the speaker was nowhere to be found. And there was a bullet hole in the wall.

Author's Note

Well, hopefully this new-and-improved version of the chapter will do much better than the original version. Anyways, if you'd be so kind, be sure to like, fave, follow, and comment as it really gives me the drive I need to keep doing what I do. See you next time!