"Is that…?"
Black Tom had a headset on and was staring at the footage being recorded from the leader of the mercenary group he had hired. He was able to pull some strings on some incredibly wealthy people and was able to get this group on short notice.
They had tracked Deadpool down in short order, but it wasn't that failure of a human being that caught his attention. It was the woman he was with. The hair. The red hair brought him back to a life that was long since buried.
She had grown, obviously. No longer was there the innocence of a child when he looked into those eyes, but a fiery determination. Her smooth, rounded face had become sharp and hardened. She'd grown up. And now, she was allied with Deadpool?
He knew she'd joined the X-Men. Tom had been following her career from a distance. But what was she doing with this creature? He immediately pressed the button to open a communication channel to the team.
"Attention, Commander," he said into the mic. "Effective immediately, no one attacks Deadpool without first removin' the X-Man Siryn from the crossfire. God pity the soldier that harms. One. Single! HAIR! ON HER HEAD!"
The Leader lowered his hand from his headset. "Affirmative, sir. Get her out of here!"
The group totaled ten men. Deadpool and Siryn were only two.
Hmm, the math does check out.
Yeah, these don't look like too good of odds.
For them.
"Dibs on the guy with the ponytail!" Deadpool shouted, pulling out a katana and leaping into the group.
Siryn grimaced before leaping in as well. In close quarters like this, she wasn't able to use her scream, for fear of rupturing Deadpool's own eardrums. Sure, they would heal, but she'd already slammed him against a wall with no warning. She figured he wouldn't forgive her if she did the same twice.
She hovered as high as she could in this cramped space before flying forward and grabbing ahold one of the men. She continued on her path out of the container before flying further up and dropping him. The fall wouldn't kill him, but it would certainly wind him enough for Siryn to focus on another merc.
Deadpool was swinging wildly in the center of the men.
It's a goddamn cuddle pile!
"Yeah, and I can't wait to get more intimate with these guys!" Deadpool shouted, bringing his sword down on one of the soldier's shoulder, slicing the arm off cleaning.
To the guy's credit, he didn't really react, just pulled out another knife and started stabbing.
Deadpool pulled out a pistol and started firing, but the guys were armored enough that they only would leave some minor bruises.
Maybe jumping into the middle of a heavily armed group wasn't the best idea.
"Nope, t'was not," he agreed, struggling to break free of the soldier's grips. They were surprisingly strong. He was able to grip one of the shotguns strapped to himself and just pulled the trigger. It tore through one of his legs, but it also did the same for the guy behind him. He was sent to the ground screaming.
It seemed Armless's commitment was above and beyond the rest.
He laughed as they backed off. "Deadpool!" Taken by surprise, Deadpool was gripped from below his shoulders and carried off by Siryn. "We need to get going!"
"Hey, I didn't ask for your help," he said, trying to shake himself free. "Let go of me!"
"What're you-?! Deadpool!"
"I said, 'LET GO!'"
He wrestled himself free, plummeting a good twenty feet to the ground. He fell on some of the scrap lying around, skewering him in multiple place. "Oooh, that's going to leave a mark," he complained.
"There he is!" Leader called out. "After him!"
Two of the soldiers rushed forward but were immediately put down by a sonic scream. Siryn descended between the men and Deadpool, who was currently peeling himself off some wreckage.
As she got ready for another attack, Leader threw a small, metallic sphere at her. It was quick, and she had no time to react other than putting her hands up. She heard Deadpool call out, "Red!"
Fortunately, their worst fear wasn't realized. Instead of the explosion of air and shrapnel from a frag grenade, something else was released. Unfortunately, when the sphere opened, a black goo was flung at her. It clung to her like glue.
Strangely, she wasn't suffocating. It was slightly more difficult to breathe than before, but oxygen was getting to her lungs. But she was completely silenced. No matter how hard she tugged and pulled at her face, the substance just wouldn't come off.
"Son of a bitch," Deadpool gritted out as he rushed forward. "You know, there really isn't a party if you take away the music!"
"Our apologies," Leader replied. "Men, give him something to sing to!"
The remaining soldiers got to their knees and opened fire.
Hey, that one was actually pretty good.
Deadpool shoved Siryn to the ground out of the firing line but was unable to move away himself before the bullets tore through his form. He stumbled back as the ammo continued to pour into him and a string of expletives came tumbling out of his mouth.
I'm detecting a slight problem here.
As the bullet storm came to a halt, he fell forward to the ground and wheezed. "I'm pretty sure the problems just tore through my lungs."
Also, they're getting after the Irish babe!
Deadpool's gaze trailed to the men grabbing ahold of Siryn and dragging her off. "Fuck," he breath out getting to his knees. He reached to the knife in his boot and pulled it out. He heard Leader chuckled.
"A knife to a gun fight?" he said. "Tom was right. You are pretty stupid."
Instead of replying, he just threw the knife as hard and as precise as he could. All of the soldiers easily dodged the maneuver. Leader barked out a laugh. "You missed."
"Wasn't aiming for you," Deadpool replied.
The knife went past Leader, slicing across Siryn's forehead. It wasn't a deep cut, but it was enough to tear apart the black goop holding her voice back. She ripped off the substance and quickly shot up into the sky, with two of the soldiers still holding onto her.
Siryn spun in the air fast enough to shake off them off, causing to plummet to the ground. When they landed, the air was knocked out of their lungs, but they were still alive. She shot back down, and as she was speeding towards the group, she let out a massive scream. The shockwaves sent the remainder of the group to the ground.
She landed in the middle of the soldiers and began engaging them in hand to hand combat as they staggered to their feet. She avoided a punch from Armless but used his momentum to throw him into another. She followed it up with a straight kick to the throat of another goon. He choked and gagged as he fell to his knees, Siryn delivered a roundhouse kick across his face.
Deadpool, meanwhile, was watching on with fascination.
Wow, look at her go.
Quite impressive.
"I get the feeling if I had her with me, Tom would've been crying for mommy," Deadpool replied, smiling under his mask.
In only a minute, Siryn had been able to dispatch the last of the soldiers, with Leader being the only one who was semi-conscious. She surveyed the scene before jogging over to Deadpool. "Are ye alright?"
"Just fine," Deadpool replied, struggling to stay on his feet. His leg was healing, but not incredibly fast, and there was also the small, almost trivial matter of his punctured lungs. Those were healing a bit faster, but it was still a struggle to stay conscious.
He looked at Siryn. "Y'know, I like it when your accent slips through."
"W-What?" she stuttered, caught off guard by the comment.
"Never mind," he said, limping towards Leader. "I need to have a talk with our pal over there."
Leader, for his part, was trying to crawl away. Siryn had taken him down last with a pretty sweet armbar maneuver, dislocating his shoulder joint. It gave Deadpool no small amount of pleasure to watch both the act, and the image of Leader crawling away.
But he was able to catch up to him, and once he did, he rolled him over to onto his back. "Hey, bud," Deadpool greeted, dropping down to a knee. "I just need to borrow something."
He gently took the headset Leader was wearing and shoved him down to the ground. Deadpool held the mic up to his mouth. "Tom. You failed. I'm coming for you next." He gave the microphone a squeeze, crushing it.
Black Tom stared at the video of Deadpool clumsily getting to his feet. A smile crossed his lips.
Siryn helped Deadpool get to his feet, but he shrugged her off. "Okay, Soldier Boy, there's one way you get out of this with something resembling life, and that's telling me where Tom is."
"Go to Hell," Leader shot back, holding his broken arm.
Deadpool shrugged his shoulders. "Fine by me. We'll find him some other way." He pulled out his pistol and was about ready to fire, but Siryn grabbed his forearm. "Red?"
"You don't have to do that," she said calmly. "Look at him. He's beaten. Let him go."
The merc looked between his partner and Leader. After a moment of deliberation, he replaced the pistol in his hip holster and gave Leader a good kick across the face. Siryn gave him a withering look. "What? He'll live," Deadpool said. "Besides, we have a few more pressing matters to attend to."
"Like?" Siryn asked.
"Like how you screamed at me so hard, I made a Looney Tunes hole in the wall," he replied. "That's a pretty strong reaction to hearing Tom's name."
"So is trying to kill him," she shot back.
"Not if you knew what he did to me."
"What exactly did he do to you?"
Deadpool went silent, narrowing his eyes. A few seconds passed before he answered. "You don't want to know."
"But I do, Deadpool!" she pleaded, reaching out for him. "I want to know you."
He slapped her hand out of the way. "No, you don't. Trust me, Red, everyone who knows me either ends up dead or worse." He shook his head in disappointment. "I don't even know why I agreed to work together. It's better if we just go our—"
"Theresa Rourke Cassidy."
Deadpool stopped at the interruption. He looked back at Siryn. "What?"
"My name is Theresa Rourke Cassidy," she repeated more firmly. "You wanted to know why I overreacted. And I'm willing to tell you. But you need to let me in, Deadpool."
"I… I don't…" Deadpool looked around the scrapyard, for anyway out of this conversation. Finally, he relented. "Fine, but not here. I'd rather not have a heart to heart with all these dead and/or unconscious people."
Siryn nodded. "I'm sure there's some rooftops we can go to."
She walked over to him and grabbed hold of him under his shoulders. "Deep breath," she said, and they took off.
They settled down a few blocks away on a multi-level building. It was nondescript enough that no one would notice unless they were really looking. And, at the moment, no one was.
Siryn gently let Deadpool go, allowing him to drop onto his feet, and then set herself down in front of him. He dusted himself off and took a seat on a nearby air conditioning unit. "Man, I gotta admit, you've got quite the eye for views. Actually, I think I can see my apartment from here."
"Deadpool."
He turned around and saw Siryn's expectant look. After a moment of silence, he said, "Wade."
Siryn raised an eyebrow. "What?"
"My name is Wade," Deadpool reiterated. "Wade Wilson."
"'Wade'," Siryn repeated, feeling how the sound felt on her tounge. She nodded. "Well, Wade, nice to finally meet you."
He motioned across from him to another unit, inviting her to take a seat, which she gladly took.
"So…" Deadpool trailed off. "I show you mine, you show me yours?"
Siryn could hear the grin in his voice. She tried not to give him the satisfaction, but she couldn't help but let out a small chuckle as she shook her head. She asked, "How about you start at the beginning?"
Oh, is this going to be a super-hero origin?
Only partly, we can't give the reader everything yet.
Why not?
Well we need to give them a reason to keep reading.