Sentry for Hire

by daOtterGuy

Letter Of Offer

Flash kicked open his apartment door, threw his helmet and bat onto their designated pegs, and then slammed the door behind him with a foot. He stripped off his suit until he was down to his white undershirt and shorts then flopped onto the couch.

His apartment was a single bedroom. One corner was dominated by a hammock with his guitar and sheet music encircling it, and another was taken over by a massive workbench filled with the needed equipment and parts for his combat suit. Gym equipment and clothing littered the space from a general uncaring attitude towards putting stuff away, but the home itself was mostly clean in terms of dust and crumbs.

Taking out his phone, Flash opened the Minion-For-Hire app and navigated to the finances tab. He confirmed that Sombra’s final pay had gone through and been deposited into his private bank account. It was more than enough to afford college, which meant he probably needed to start thinking about where exactly he was going to attend it. Eventually.

He idly scrolled through past payments and grimaced harder with each one he saw. There was Vignette Valencia, which had been a pain for how much of an ego she had and her insistence on him wearing head-to-toe glitter on his combat suit.

Juniper Montage had been sort of fun with the mandatory classic movie watching (he’d gotten a lot of new favourites from that job) and using film quotes to taunt the Rainbooms. But she had been petty, absent-minded, and a micro-manager, which were all combined to be one of the worst bosses he had, and he’d worked for Chrysalis.

Wallflower had been different. More of an espionage mission with Flash ensuring memory wipes were consistent by removing any contradictory objects, and information. She’d been meticulous, and well within the scope of what she could pull off. Much better than most villains. Of course, that was until she’d let Sunset get under her skin and then the entire scheme fell apart.

The list stopped at his first clients: the Dazzlings (magic hadn’t been the only thing keeping people riled up). That was a bit inaccurate, though, as the Dazzlings had only been his first paid venture.

Sunset Shimmer had been his actual first.

And first for a lot . They’d dated, and with it came some events that usually happened when you went out with someone. More importantly, it was also his initial taste of the villain life. She’d been ruthless, manipulative, and an expert at getting exactly what she wanted. It was amazing .

For a wannabe cool guy like himself, she was the ideal . He’d bent over backward for her when they were together, feeding her blackmail material from those she couldn’t reach all the while staying as the ‘oblivious and innocent’ Flash Sentry.

It was addictive, intoxicating , until it wasn’t. Sunset decided only after a year that all she needed were brainless minions and not a partner in crime. She’d broken up with him then, even worse , made him out to be the victim. Any reputation he could have tried to muster on his own was destroyed as no one would take the timid and vulnerable Flash Sentry seriously. He couldn’t even be mad because of how expert a play it was.

Though, he was still mad enough to help Twilight Sparkle take her down. It hadn’t even been hard, since Sunset had gotten lazy and easily exploitable in the time since their heyday.

After that, he joined Minion-For-Hire. Over time, he’d become highly rated, competent, and very well paid. He’d managed to create an alter ego for himself to keep his identity secret and done well for himself under a variety of supervillains. But, as much as he enjoyed the rush… he was nearing the end of his stint in the business.

A notification popped up in his feed notifying him that he’d received a new private message. He tapped the icon. It was a job from some new guy on the scene: Timberjack.

Skimming the contents, he got a quick feel for the guy. It was a job, a vague one at that, with a paltry offer in terms of pay, and a generic message that meant he’d spam sent to most of the locals on the app. Flash easily surmised that this Timberjack was wholly new to the scene, and had no idea what they were doing.

Flash rolled his eyes as he put his phone into sleep mode. Getting up, he made his way to the kitchen and began to make himself a light salad. His mind wandered as he chopped up the ingredients. He really had reached his goal money-wise and could readily leave the business behind.

He didn’t have a real reason to stay. The whole ordeal had become… stale. Villains were, on average, ineffectual with absurd plots that were always beaten by their massive egos before the heroes had a chance to do anything about it. He’d been chasing the rush he’d felt with Sunset for a few years now, and, well, no one really measured up to Sunset Shimmer . He was in his senior year at Canterlot High and had no interest in becoming a full-time villain.

Turning his phone back on, Flash looked over the message from Timberjack again.

Another read-through caused Flash to groan. This guy was going to be exactly like or worse than some of the most terrible villains he’d worked for. But, he needed to stop chasing after this useless feeling Sunset had cursed him with.

This guy wasn’t good enough. He was going to flub. Hard. Further research showed the guy had only joined the app a week ago, had zero background in the business, and no connections to any existing villain or organization. He was a blank slate with no experience jumping head first into a field he had no right being in.

… It might finally be enough to convince Flash to let this part of his life go and move on.

Against his better judgment, Flash replied to the message with a confirmation, noted the location, plugged it into his phone’s calendar, then began to eat his food.

---

Trees whipped past Flash as he rode his bike along the dirt path heading toward Camp Everfree. He was outfitted in his Warden gear and kept an eye out for the sign that would lead him to his designated meeting spot with Timberjack. All the while, he tried to calm himself down from the events of the day.

Normally, after a night of work, the Rainbooms would spend the next day at lunch complaining about him (or rather, his alter ego). It would be some mild ribbing, maybe a few pointed insults, then they would move on.

That day, for whatever reason, the Rainbooms (excluding Applejack since she respected him enough to not run his name through the dirt) had decided to cuss him out for the entire day. Even worse, it wasn’t the usual deluge of insults, they were jabs against his work ethic . Claims of laziness, general ineptitude, and being a dumb brute. That was bad enough, but then they had to get the other students in on it including Flash himself (who felt weird calling his other self an idiot since it was just him in a suit).

The group had embellished and outright lied about what happened (Rainbow had never once beat Flash in a fight due to how predictable she fought unlike the twenty or so times she claimed she’d done so) to the point that it had taken all of Flash’s willpower to not clap back at them.

This all accumulated into a joking barb from Sunset to him about how Warden makes Flash almost seem capable in comparison. The cutesy wink following had done nothing to sand off the hard edge of that remark. It also, frustratingly , had set his heart all aflutter because it reminded him of the old days.

That didn’t stop him from considering how much he cared for the consequences of anonymously uploading pictures of Sunset’s first few weeks in the human world.

Noticing a crudely carved arrow in a nearby tree, Flash pulled over. He took the time to hide his bike in the foliage. He then began the trek into the woods, following arrow after arrow as he headed deeper in.

As he walked, he took a moment to calm himself down and let the annoyance of the day ebb from his mind. Despite how new this Timberjack was, Flash still had a veneer of professionalism to keep, and taking his personal frustrations out on a new employer was the height of unprofessionalism.

Flash soon found himself in a grove. There was a log cabin, a fire pit, and several colourful flags hung amongst the outer layer of trees. The potential owner, presumably Timberjack (whom Flash was beginning to have a solid idea of who they were), was nowhere to be found.

“Hello?” Flash called out. “Timberjack? I’m here about the job.”

The door of the cabin burst open revealing a shirtless Timber Spruce. Tan skin, a tangled mess of green hair, and the countenance of a guy who frequently put his clothes on backward. Bandages were wrapped loosely around him like he’d flubbed a mummy Halloween costume and did nothing to hide the massive red bite mark around the left side of his chest.

“... Do you need any help with that?” Flash asked.

“Uhhhhhhh…” Timber looked down at his injury and then back up at Flash, his face bright red. “One moment.”

Slamming the door shut, several crashes followed before the door reopened with Timber fully clothed and the bandages wrapped correctly based on the white cloth peeking through Timber’s shirt collar.

“Come on in!” Timber said.

Flash took the invitation and entered the cabin noting that Timber did in fact have his shirt on inside-out. He walked over to a long table, leaned against it with his arms crossed, and took in the sparse furniture and camping gear that was spread across the room.

“So!” Timber started, a wide uncomfortable grin slapped on his face. “You’re here for the job?”

“Yep,” Flash answered.

“Cool, awesome! It’s not like you’re a legendary adversary of the Rainbooms or something, which definitely doesn’t put a ton of pressure on me to impress you or anything.” Timber laughed uncomfortably. “Well, anyways, to get to the point, I need money and a lot of it.”

“Alright. Do you have anywhere in mind that you want to rob?”

“You’re not gonna ask why?”

“I don’t really care.”

“Oh, yeah, I guess you’re not new to this like I am, so you’ve probably heard something similar to my story a hundred times before.” Another nervous laugh. “I’m just desperate since Glory keeps overspending so much on the camp and we’re having trouble paying the bills.”

“Again, I don’t really care.”

“Right, you just told me that!” Timber rubbed the back of his head. “Sorry, I just—”

“What do you want to rob?” Flash interrupted.

“A bank!” Timber answered quickly, startled. “I was thinking of a bank since, you know, that’s what everyone else does.”

“You said you have no experience in the business?”

“None.”

“... And you want to start with robbing a bank?”

“I dunno, the villains on tv make it look easy and some of them are super dumb.”

A memory of Tuna man who had just hip-checked his way through security came unbidden to Flash’s mind.

“...You aren’t wrong.”

“Yeah, and I mean I’m not super stupid and have werewolf powers, so I was thinking this job would be—”

“You have what now?”

“Werewolf powers,” Timber repeated.

“... How?”

“I got bit by a wolf, which was… totally awesome and not at all bad.” Timber chuckled haphazardly, hitting several different pitches at once. “I mean it's a thing that just kind of happens to people you know?”

“I mean, it does,” Flash relented. “But it's not super common or anything.”

“Yeah, so, I guess you wanna see?”

“Since I do need to know of your capabilities, yeah, if you don’t mind.”

Timber nodded then reared his head back, howling. Bark formed across his skin as he grew nearly twice his prior size. His clothes threatened to rip but held against the bark that poked through the cloth material. His face elongated, morphing into a wolfish face with a maw of sharp teeth, his green human eyes still the same on his animalistic head.

Once his transformation was complete, he hunched in on himself, kneading his hands together as he awaited Flash’s judgment.

“This’ll work,” Flash remarked. “I presume you have the usual super strength and hyper-regenerative traits?”

“Yeah,” Timber replied in a gravelly voice. “Is that common?”

“Most werewolf types have the super strength and, considering you’re part plant, I just made the assumption you had regeneration since that’s what most plant-themed villains seem to have.

“Now, considering your lack of experience, I think we should wait on robbing the bank first.”

“Okay, but then what should we rob?” Timber asked.

“We’ll do what all the small-time crooks start off with,” Flash replied. “A convenience store.”

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