Protect Ya Neck (Part Three)

"Why would somebody put a bounty on you?" Was the first question I was greeted with when I returned to campus and found someone to regale with the tale of my attempted return. It just so happened to be Julian, and he was none too pleased, "If it was a real X-Man, I'd get it, but you?"

I gave him a dry look in return, "I lead the team you're on, so by saying I'm not a real X-Man, you're saying you're not a real X-Man."

He couldn't have been jealous. That someone was targeting me specifically, and not him, instead of all of us in general, was the dumbest thing to get a chip on his shoulder about.

"You know what I mean," Julian grumbled, "Well, at least nobody's gonna-."

"-Ah-ah-ah!" I interrupted him before he could tempt fate by finishing that sentence, "Don't you fucking dare. The school's been attacked twice since I've been here. Let's not try and go for a third."

The primary X-Men that we relied on for guidance and to take control when things went wrong were indeed out on a mission. Being that it was the tail-end of winter break, there were others that were still away on vacation, so it was more or less a skeleton crew of staff around. Even the student body was for the most part still absent. The only reason Julian was there was because of estranged relations with his family.

My point being, if anything happened at that moment, we lacked the manpower and command structure to deal with it. Saberwolf was still prowling around, doing security as he always was, but he was just one A.I., good at his job though he was.

Speaking of the mechanical devil, I received a call from Saberwolf not long after.

He hadn't called to welcome me back. In fact, there were no pleasantries whatsoever. He was all business, "Bellamy, the campus has been infiltrated."

I immediately jumped up from the bench I was on, set on making a beeline for wherever the trouble was occurring, "Where? I'm on the way to help you 86 some fools."

"It is one 'fool', as you so put it," Saberwolf said, as I could hear fighting and cursing in the background, "And I cannot kill this intruder."

"What? Why not? Says who?" As far as I was concerned, Saberwolf had free reign to use his own discretion when it came to security threats.

"You misunderstand, Bellamy. It is not that I am forbidden from killing this intruder. I am physically unable to kill him. I have tried," I could have been mistaken, but I swore I heard a touch of shame in his inflection, "He says he is here looking for you."

Someone had tried to sneak onto campus to find me. Someone that Wolf couldn't kill, but was apparently doing well enough against that he could stop and call me.

"...Is it Deadpool?"

"It is Deadpool."

"Goddamn it," I cursed, gesturing for an eavesdropping Julian to follow me. I put the phone on speaker so he could properly listen in, "I'm coming."

Saberwolf directed us to the northern limits of the property. Following his instructions, we passed a slew of destroyed automated defenses. Turrets and launchers had been sliced up and blown apart. There were also copious amounts of blood everywhere. Eventually, Julian and I started following that trail more than anything else.

We had both seen our share of violence by this point, though I was still more acquainted with it than Julian was. Gore and whatnot still grated on him more than it did on me, "Jesus, did somebody start a slaughterhouse in the woods as a side hustle?"

"You wish," Before long, we could hear the sounds of combat. Gunshots, metal clashing against metal, the wood of trees breaking. I gestured for Julian to keep quiet as we snuck around the battlefield.

As expected, Saberwolf was fully engaged against Deadpool. Being that I roomed with Wolf, I knew what to expect from him – acrobatics, lots of sharp pointy objects flying around with computerized precision, you know the drill.

Deadpool though, I had never seen him fight. For a guy who was a complete clown, he was seriously competent.

Still though, even in the middle of a fight, he never shut his mouth.

"Since when-!" Deadpool grunted, swinging a pair of katanas at Wolf, who parried with his chainsaw, "-Do the X-Men! Have a fucking robot chihuahua as a guard dog!"

"My design is based on a wolf," Saberwolf corrected matter-of-factly as the two continued to duel.

"Yeah, no shit, Cujo!" Deadpool snapped back before cutting the wire that comprised Wolf's manipulator arm, "Aha! Gotcha!" When he went to stab Wolf directly, he found his sword caught between reactive panels of Wolf's armor, "Goddamn it, are you made of knives?" Deadpool asked, whipping out an automatic handgun that he immediately began firing at Wolf's face.

"Yes."

"That's so metal."

"Yes, my hull is comprised of 68. 712% Vibranium."

"Heh, that rounds up to 69. Nice."

The magazine in Deadpool's gun ran dry of bullets. Wolf took a swipe at Deadpool with a massive claw, prompting the merc to nimbly handspring and flip over and around his attacks. In the meantime, Wolf had been able to reattach his manipulator arm and used it to return one of Deadpool's swords to him, pointy end first.

"YEOWCH!" Deadpool shouted as his sword buried itself four inches deep into his left butt cheek, "Hey! A few inches to the right, and you'd have gotten a hole-in-one, Fido."

*VRRRR!*

Having seen enough, I gave Julian the cue to snatch Deadpool up with his telekinesis, sword still firmly stuck in his ass.

"Hey!" I shouted as I approached, "Quit picking on my dog, bruh!"

Upon seeing me, the eyes on Deadpool's mask seemed to smile, "Oh, you are here! Cool. Just stay... right there," He started to try and struggle against Julian's telekinesis in vain, "Be right with 'ya. Just...gotta... get... fuck!"

Julian grinned smugly at Deadpool's failed attempts to escape, "Yeah, no. You're not going anywhere."

"I have not tried decapitating him yet," Wolf commented, now back in possession of his chainsaw.

"No, I did that already," I told him before gesturing to the captured Deadpool, "As you can see, he's still here. Speaking of here, how are you here?" I directed at Deadpool.

"Please," Deadpool replied, "Anyone with half a brain would know where you were going if you got out of New York."

"Anyone with half a brain wouldn't have tried breaking in alone," Julian said.

Deadpool didn't deny that, instead shifting his point of focus, "It's not about the bounty anymore. Well... it's not just about the bounty anymore. It still mostly is though. But now? It's personal."

Julian, Wolf, and I all looked at each other before looking back to Deadpool, "What the hell are you talking about?" I asked.

The eyes of Deadpool's mask narrowed, "You. Took. My. Phone," He hissed accusingly.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the offending device, "...And?" I could feel my brow furrow and the usual frown on my face grow more pronounced, "Buy another one, you broke motherfucker."

"You don't get it," Deadpool sighed, "In this modern age, stealing someone's phone is a heinous breach of personal space. Kids like you should get that. It's like walking into someone's bedroom uninvited, or reading my diary. And I have transcribed all of my diaries into word docs on that phone."

I threw said phone directly at Deadpool's face. The sound it made bouncing off of his head was fantastic, "You broke into my school to kill me, you psychopath!"

If Deadpool could have moved a muscle, I felt he would have been wagging a finger at me, "You took my phone. You're a common thief. If anything, I'm the righteous hero, fighting for good, trying to take down a dangerous criminal."

"It would have literally cost you less money to get a replacement phone than it probably cost to come all the way out here, try to sneak in, and get bodied by my wolf-bot."

"Eh, I'll reimburse myself with your bounty," Deadpool reasoned before honing in on the last part of what I'd said, "Wait, this wolf thing is yours? Holy shit. What shelter did you rescue him from?"

"An underground one."

"How much for Iron 'Man's best friend' over here? I like him."

I reached over and gave Saberwolf a hug, "My wolf's not for sale. You can't put a price on the kind of friendship we have," Wolf then lowered his still running chainsaw into my field of vision, "...And I don't own him. He's an independent entity," That was good enough to get the threat of the chainsaw taken away.

Julian growled to himself and used his powers to shake Deadpool like a bottle of orange juice, "Hey! Who cares about any of that? Why's there a bounty on Marcher?"

"Hey, yeah," I said, realizing that I'd let myself get distracted by Deadpool and his weirdness, "Tell me who put the bounty on me, or I'm gonna have my friend here take your little phone, turn it sideways, and shove it straight up your candy ass."

Julian was quick to shut that line of thinking down.

"I'm not doing that, Marcher. TK or not."

"Dude, I didn't expect you to. But you don't say that in front of the bad guy. Come on, sell the threat!"

Despite being immobilized in the air, it was clear that Deadpool didn't take any of us as a real threat to his health or safety, "Aww, you two are adorable," He taunted, "If you wanted to kill me, you should have shown up in your baby X-Men uniforms. I'd probably die from the cuteness overload."

I gave Deadpool a blank stare before suddenly pointing my index finger at his head, intent on lasering him dead in the face, "No-no, come on, Marcher," Julian said, "Don't let him get to you."

The irony of Julian Keller of all people, the guy literally named Hellion, keeping me from impulsive assault, was not lost on me. He was right though. We had Deadpool captured. If I lost my cool because of his antics, that would mean he won. I knew that, and he did too.

"He'd just live through it anyway," I muttered as I lowered my finger and offered an alternative suggestion, "Fine. Brig?"

"Yes. Locking him away in the brig seems prudent," Saberwolf co-signed.

Julian was onboard with that idea, "To the brig. Leave his ass for Wolverine or someone to interrogate."

I knew what Julian was going for. Bringing up Mister Logan had a tendency to make people wary of dealing with the X-Men. Invoking his name was an effective method of implying a threat without actually saying anything.

In this case, it had the opposite effect.

Deadpool gasped excitedly, "Do you mean it? Aw, man, I love Hugh Jackman! Or... wait... Wolverine hasn't been recast yet, has he?" He asked, completely serious, "I'm just afraid I won't like the new Logan as much as the Jack-Man. Big shoes to fill, you know?"

"What the hell is he talking about?" Julian whispered, not willing to interrupt the clearly crazy gun for hire while he was ranting to no one.

"This might be a mistake," I said worriedly.