//------------------------------// // Chapter 10: Behind the Terminator // Story: Deathstroke, Equestria's Terminator // by UltimateGunner //------------------------------// Canterlot, 3:40 PM The food fight lasted quite a bit, and when it was over, Blueblood rushed out of the room angrily with his bodyguards following. The eight ponies made a mess of the room, and they were on the floor laughing hysterically. "HA! That was awesome!" "Woo wee! Let's do that again!" "Ummm, girls..." "Blueblood sure got what he deserved!" "Girls..." "Let's have the same-" "Girls!!!" Everyone turned to Fluttershy. "What is it Flutters?" Pinkie asked enthusiastically. "He's gone!!!" "Who's gone?" Rarity asks. Suddenly, she realizes that Deathstroke is gone. "What!? Where did..." "What do we do!?" Twilight was now panicking along with Cadence and Shining Armor. "What do we do waddowedo!?" "We have to go after him! No one's leaving the castle on my watch!" Rainbow Dash shouts, and with that, they all split up to find him, Rainbow Dash being last since she was in a wheelchair. The Throne, same time Celestia was currently handling some papers at the moment with the help of her sister. A pile of papers was being levitated in front of them by Celestia. "Tia, is it wise to trust him?" "I don't know Luna, but Applejack is desperate to save her sister, I just couldn't say no." "I understand." After their small talk, they continue to file the papers, until: *SHOVE* A loud shove is heard across the room. The two princesses perk their heads up to see Deathstroke entering. "Halt!" A guard blocks his entry. "Your entrance is unauthorized!" "Neither is your stupidity." Deathstroke says as he pushes him aside. Celestia and Luna place their papers down and step down from the throne. "Give me a good reason why you can barge into the royal throne and-" "I know where they are. Are you're guards ready?" They both stand their for a bit, then answer. "They are prepared. I don't suppose you have some way of reaching those 'colleagues' of yours?" "I have a plan. Listen closely, I don't like repeating myself. Tell me, do you have a way to teleport me back here?" "I do." Celestia uses her magic to pop up a small bright ball and levitates it to him. "This works as a homing signal, this way I know where you are in means for me to reach my teleportation spell to you." "Good." Deathstroke replies as he takes the device in his palm. "Make sure your men are equipped with flares, we'll use them to signal you to get us back. Hopefully your royal guards are up to the task." "You won't be taking the Royal Guard." Luna steps in, her sister looking at her with uncertainty. "You will take the Night Guard, and I suggest you depart at night. It will help you stay unnoticed." "Good thinking." Deathstroke slightly compliments. "What is the Night Guard anyway?" "A special division a guards who patrol Equestria overnight. They are better trained and have proven to be more effective then the Royal Guard. The standard guards usually only patrol the daytime." He pondered this for a few moments. "That's odd. if the Night Guard patrol the night, how come the standard guards were patrolling Ponyville? Why were they the one's who attacked me on the train?" he asks himself in his head. "Celestia's hiding something, not only to Twilight and her friends, but even her sister." "BAM!!!" The door is once again burst open with eight ponies following behind. "THERE HE IS!!! GET 'IM!!!" a reckless Rainbow Dash shouts, but no one does so. "Good thing you're here. We're departing on our rescue mission at dusk." "What?" Shining Armor and Cadence exclaim in unison. "You know where they-" "Yes I do." "Celestia, please allow me to come." Shining Armor requests, with Celestia once again being uncertain. "Shining Armor, you are still injured from your encounter with him. I do not believe that would be wise." "Don't worry, just a minor bruise and my leg's good enough to go- AAAUUUUGGGGHH!!!" he finishes with a scream of pain as Deathstroke stabs a syringe into his leg. "What did you do!?" Cadence shouts at him, as the six other ponies look in disgust and worry. "It's an anesthetic, it'll help relieve the pain in your leg." he states as he pushes in the last drop of liquid and forcefully removes the syringe. Shining Armor stops wallowing in pain and moves his hind leg around a bit. "...It doesn't hurt anymore, uhhh thanks?" "Just get on your, hooves. we're heading to that forest." "That one?" We can take a chariot there you know." "Alright, but we're not flying. We stop at the forest and go on foot. No questions." He then turns to Celestia. "You know your role in this. Keep watch, will ya?" "I already know what to do. In the meantime, make sure you truly are prepared." "I already am." He turns to see Twilight and Cadence by Shining Armor's side as he tries to stand up. He wobbles a bit, but after a few seconds, he manages to stand like he isn't injured at all. "Huh, we should make those here!" he suggests jokingly, looking at Deathstroke. Cadence and Twilight look at him in worry. "Stay safe, will you handsome?" Cadence flirts with him. "I will, beloved." "Hey BBBFF, you'll come back right?" Her eyes implied much worry. Shining Armor looks at her for a few seconds, then replies. "I'll come back Twily. I promise." He then walks outside along with Deathstroke, who stops halfway. "Word of advice Celestia..." he starts with a high tone. "Next time you name a city, don't put a horse pun in it." Celestia is left baffled with Luna snickering, while Deathstroke merely smirked under his mask, and with that, they left the room. Three hours later In a room crowded with chariots, Deathstroke and Shining Armor were getting ready to depart. "So tell me, how exactly will we escape with Applebloom?" Deathstroke pulls out the small sphere. "You see this? This is a tracking device. When we're ready, we'll send a flare high into the air and Celestia will lock on to the signal and teleport us back." he explains. "Remind me why I'm working with you." "Don't blame me, it was your idea to come along." He states as he tosses a small bag into the chariot. "You know, you haven't actually told us your name..." "Not right now." Deathstroke replies dryly. Meanwhile, the night guards occasionally stare at him, some even giving him the stink eye. But nevertheless, they focus on their current task. "Alright, is that all?" Shining Armor asks the night guards. "Rations check, survival tools check, weapons check. I believe we're ready sir." "Good. Let's get going, the night falls soon." "Yes sir." The pegasi knights attached themselves to the two chariots they were taking. The design of their wings were very different from those of the standard pegasi, they resembled the wings of a bat. "Kinda reminds me of someone I know." Deathstroke thinks to himself. "I wonder what he'd think if he knew what I'm doing right now." "Hey." He turns to Shining Armor, who gestures him to get in the chariot. He walks over and sits in the back row with him. "How did I get stuck with you..." "Enjoy while you can." Deathstroke jokingly tells him as he lays back his hands in a relaxed position. Shining Armor only grunts in return. The chariot sped faster and faster toward the forest, almost as fast as a modern car. Almost. "Tell me, who are these guys we're dealing with?" "They're pretty powerful, remember that. Don't underestimate them, they each have their own... let's just call it magic for now. Believe me, they can make one helluva mess. Remember the attack on Ponyville?" Shining Armor thinks back to yesterday. "Yeah I remember, they called it a brain in a jar. He caused a lot of mayhem, even killed some ponies." he states as he also remembers seeing a dead body from his hospital window, and the sight makes him cringe a little. "That was just one of them. The others are the same as my species." "Which is?" "Human." "Human you say? Yeah I coulda' sworn I knew what you were, but for some reason I just couldn't get it out. Speaking of which, there's this pony in Ponyville who's way into humans. Lyra, I believe." he tells him as the chariot they're riding makes a small bump on the ground. "Probably didn't get to see you due to all the commotion caused in Ponyville, not to mention our knowledge of you and whoever we're dealing with is classified info." "Huh. Well if she does somehow find out about me, don't expect me to answer all her fan mail." They both snickered at the thought. "You know, I just realized something." Shining Armor begins. "That mask has a strange design, and it only has one eye hole. Why's that?" "Perhaps I'll tell you later. For now, we have to get to the forest and set up a rendezvous point. From there, we'll scale the location of the hostage. That's when things get heated." he explains to Shining Armor. "You know what's hard to believe? I'm sitting next to the guy who tried to attack me." "Don't think that's hard for you only. I'm still piecing together what happened yesterday." "And hopefully this ride ends soon. We need to get there before something happens with the hostage." "Indeed. It's already hard enough for the Apple family to accept that one of their family members has been abducted." he recalls. "Yeah, what do think will happen when they learn that she's been killed?" This draws the attention of two other sitting night guards, but they don't turn their heads. "They would actually do that?" Shining Armor asks worryingly. "This isn't their first time doing so. And have you forgotten that you're working with a mercenary?" "I know that, but this is a child we're talking about! Why are we even relaxing here about it?" "Abduction, terrorism, murder, I sat through all of it, even did some of it myself." The captain could only look at him with terror in his eyes. "None of it seems to even faze me anymore. I've been through it all." Twenty minutes later The two chariots skidded to a stop in front of the forest. Some guards pulled the bags out and the others stood in front of the large forest. "I hope you know what you're doing." Shining Armor tells Deathstroke. "And by the way, I still don't like you for making me go through surgery." "If you want I can make you go through it again." *Sigh* "Fine, you win. Again. Alright guards! Let's get moving." Everyone follows Deathstroke and Shining Armor into the dark forest. The foliage made it very dark, but the night guards had night vision and Deathstroke had experience in the dark. Unfortunately, Shining Armor had neither. *bump* *bump* *bump* *whump* "How are you doing back there?" Deathstroke humorously asks, implying hilarity in his tone. "Don't even ask. I'm practically blind." "Well don't blame me if you end up in the hospital again." Deathstroke remarks very jokingly, snickering at the end of his sentence. "Shut up and keep moving." They continue to trek through the black night bestowing upon them. "I really hope we won't be too late." Shining states. "Well we have to set up a rendezvous point first." "What? Why?" "I know these guys. They'd probably have something waiting for us in this forest, now that I encountered one of them." "Alright, any idea what they would be?" "Think of them of snare traps that kill you." That made him shiver for a millisecond. "Except they're not necessarily traps you lay on the ground. More like, well, it's hard to describe." "I think you've described it thorough enough." Shining Armor replies with a shiver. "By the way, where are we heading?" "Toward those mountains." "Why?" "You'll see when we get there." For another good fifteen minutes they trekked through the maze of trees. "Urggh." They turn to see one of the night guards slightly cringe. "What's wrong soldier?" another guard asks. "Nothing, I just felt something strange course through me..." he tries to use his magic, but his horn doesn't glow. "Something's not right. I can't use my magic." "You can't?" he then tries to use his, but to no avail. "I can't either. What's going on?" "Hold on." Deathstroke looks around the area, scanning the ground and some trees. He crouches down and stares at some odd device. "What is it?" Shining Armor approaches him. "Field dampeners." "Field what now?" "Field dampeners. These are used to prevent teleportation. That means our escape plan won't work out the way we wanted it to." "Dang." Shining Armor remarks. "That's not all. These must have been designed to prevent any unicorn magic, like Celestia's. Though I already mentioned her teleportation won't work inside this dampening field." "Can't we shut it down?" "If we try to disable it, it might alert the one who put them there, so we can't run that risk. I'm not sure what they're here for though, could be any of the three I just mentioned. My best guess is that they're used to keep a low profile." "I see. So what do we do now?" "This is our rendezvous point right here." Deathstroke steps outside the dampening field and creates a mark on one of the trees. "When we have the hostage, we make a fast escape outside the dampening field, and that's when we send up the flare. For now, we rest." "But why?" Shining asks. "You just like to ask questions, don't you. Haven't you learned to simply follow orders during your military training?" "Well..." "Because that's what I learned in my training." Deathstroke sits down and leans his back onto a tree. "You worked as a guard in your world?" "Yes. A soldier to be specific. Get some rest, we leave in an hour or so." The injured captain just stared at him for a few moments, then sat down to his own tree. Deathstroke gets up and walks away. "Where do think you're going?" "I won't be long." Ignoring him, he walks a good distance into the foliage, some other guards looking at him. A few minutes pass, during that time period the other guards decided to make themselves comfy while it lasted. On the other hand, Shining Armor was shuffling his hooves nervously and couldn't take it. "I should go after him." he says to himself out loud. Slowly getting up, and follows the trail Deathstroke went in. "What could he be up to?" he thinks to himself. "He better not be up to no good." Glowing his horn, he makes a bright light shine ahead of him, though not to bright. It was a relief that Deathstroke didn't head in the direction of the dampening field. He comes to a sudden stop as he sees a figure up ahead. Squinting, he sees Deathstroke up ahead, but something was... different. It seemed as though he could see the back of his head. He gasps when he sees him holding his mask in his hand. Deathstroke slowly turns, and reveals his face. He had strands of white hair sticking up from his head, and he also had a crystal white beard. An eye patch covered his right eye, and his expression, not amused. "Ya just couldn't let me go could ya." "Well sorry." Shining Armor apologizes. After a few moments of awkward silence, he starts to laugh. "What's so funny?" "Heh heh, nice eye patch gramps! Ha ha ha!" Deathstroke doesn't really understand why that's so funny. "Why do you even heh, need it?" "I was shot." Shining Armor's laughing dies down a bit. "By who?" *snicker* "My ex-wife." Now the laughing died down completely. Deathstroke had only told him about his eye patch to shut him up. He places the mask back on and heads back. "Get your ass back there. I don't know what kind of training you took, but I sure as hell don't know how you even got to call the shots." he insults him, implying much frustration in his voice. Soon, he disappeared from the captain's sight, who was just standing there baffled. *shink* *shink* *shink* *shink* The night guards could hear Deathstroke sharpening his sword with a rock. He was only doing this to get his mind running on what to do, especially since nth metal doesn't really wear out. He was sitting away from the other night guards so he could have his personal space. "Hey." He turns and secretly glares at the annoying captain under his mask. "Look, I'm sorry." "You should be." "But that's not the point I'm getting to. What happened?" "What do you mean what hap-" "You KNOW what I'm talking about. Something happened between you and your wife. What. Happened. I want to know." It seemed as if he wasn't kidding. "Well why should I tell you?" "We've already gotten straight that you're a merc n'all, but you must have been... different if you had a wife before. I'm being serious here. What were you before you put that mask on?" A few minutes of silence pass before Deathstroke speaks. "You know, few people know my story. So listen closely. And don't interrupt."Like a good soldier, he sits down beside him and listens closely, while the masked mercenary sheathed his sword. "It began when I joined the military, having lied about my age." Already he is fascinated by his story. "I rose through the ranks and became an expert in guerilla warfare. Then later on I trained under Captain Adeline Kane, who was amazed at how skilled I was." his voice was very dry and it was easy for Shining Armor to tell that he wasn't happy about sharing his story. "She fell in love." He widened his eyes as he knew part of what would happen next. "I mastered every fighting form they showed me, and I earned a high rank. I was a legendary soldier. Then later I was married with Adeline." Shining Armor looks down and thinks about himself and how similar they both were. "I was chosen for an experiment, an attempt to create super soldiers. It had nasty side effects, I went mad and attacked everyone, and it took time for me to recover. The experiment was abandoned and I was discharged from the military due to the side effects." Deathstroke thoroughly explains. "But despite everything that happened, the experiment worked, considering how I kicked your butt yesterday." He regains some of his humor and clutches his fist, while Shining Armor slightly frowns. "Since I was no longer in the military, I had no way to support my family. So I worked as an assassin without my family noticing. That's when tragedy struck." Deathstroke then looks up to the night sky. "My son was kidnapped to use as a blackmail to find out who my client was. I managed to save him, but he was rendered mute when part of his throat was slit." Shining Armor wore a look of shock on his face learning that he had a son, and more importantly how he nearly died. "Adeline found out. With a gun in her hand, she took my right eye. That's why this eye patch isn't a laughing matter bub." he gestures to the eye patch under his mask and remains silent. For the next minute of silence, Shining Armor felt guilty for bringing back his past, let alone insulting it. "So... what happened next?" "What do you think? I carried on my career as an assassin. This armor has seen countless deaths, and so far doesn't show any sign of stopping. I'm the world's greatest assassin. Very likely Equestria's too." Shining Armor only looked at him in both amazement and fear, because he could very well be a threat to even Celestia. "That's what you're known as?" he asks in a variety of emotions. "Yes. That's what I'm known as. They call me Deathstroke, the Terminator."