Chapter 1

"Flick!' was the sound that Axton's lighter made before he sparked it into flames, then proceeding to hold it over his unlit cigar, continuously puffing until a constant ember from the rolled up tobacco stick was produced. He was sitting on the very edge of the sanctuary town, which was at this point sky-high thanks to complications from 'yours truly'.

"Fuckin' prick" he growled under his breath in a very harsh tone. The sun was finally about to set over the shithole of a planet known as Pandora, the moon cycle is very odd for this planet as the sun is up a bit longer than usual, at least, later on his home planet.

Although peace and quiet was all he needed, he could really use some company right about now.

Sal was over at Moxxi's getting into constant competitions on who can drink more booze than the latter, mostly his opponent is Mordecai, which Salvador always loses to. Nobody can beat Mordecai at drinking, that guy must had a liver made of pure titanium.

Zer0 was most likely training his new blade techniques and coming up with more clever haikus to say to make him seem more 'badass'.

But Maya, well, Axton had no clue what she was up to. Probably meditating or whatever those Sirens do. He never payed attention to how Sirens function, much to his regret, he always found their "mystical' powers bewildering at the very least, yet never payed any keen attention to them.

"I'm surprised you're not over at Moxxi's getting shitfaced with the rest of the guys" came a soft voice directly behind him.

Axton cocked his head about 45 degrees and used his peripheral vision to see that it was Maya standing behind him.

"Naw," He said, "I'm kinda enjoying this not so long night of peace and quiet,"

Maya looked at him with a strange face before saying to him "Weird, I never thought you were the type of guy to relax and kick-back so to speak."

She then took a seat right beside him and looked out to the horizon. She quickly glanced down for a second before shooting her head back up with a worried look.

"You alright?" Axton questioned, noticing her sudden jerk upwards. "Uh, I'm f-fine," Maya blurted out, causing Axton to develop a pretty big grin on his face.

"You're afraid of heights, aren't you?" Axton said jokingly.

Maya was quick to retort "No! Hell no!"

Axton shrugged his shoulders before taking a puff from his cigar (he forgot he had it in his hands) "Well alright, if you say so"

Then without Maya knowing Axton reached over her arms before saying loudly and giving a playful push "SAVED YOUR LIFE!" Causing Maya to nearly scream and latch onto Axton like a baby monkey clutching on to its mother. Axton chuckled after finding Maya's weakness.

Maya punched Axton lightly on the shoulder "Prick..." Maya said softly.

"Hey come on! It's all in good fun! Like I was gonna let you fall off Maya" Axton said defensively, yet playfully at the same time.

"Whatever..." is all that Maya said.

Silence fell between the two of them before Axton broke the silence by saying

"Nice night ain't it? It's not often we get these clear skies like this."

Maya agreed "Yeah, I guess so."

Once again another silence befell between the two. Axton stood up and flicked his spent cigar off the edge of Sanctuary

"Welp, I better go back the HQ, you comin?" Axton said offering his hand to Maya.

"Okay" she said before grabbing his hand, noticing how it was nice and warm it was and was hoisted up before the two walked back to their so-called home.

Axton was rolling around his extremely worn bed in cold sweat. "SARAH?! NATHAN!?" were the voices inside of the dream he was having, realizing it was his own voice before hearing a woman's scream and gunshots then finally hearing the faint sound that said "...Daddy?..."

Axton quickly shot up from his sleep gasping for air and dripping with cold sweat. He was having the same nightmare for the past two years.

The voices...The fucking noises won't go away... thinking to himself while clutching his wedding ring he always had around his neck.

He sat up on his bed rubbing his temples with his fingertips, checking around making sure he woke nobody else up. He slept in the entryway with Salvador and Zer0, Maya sleeping downstairs with the batshit insane doctor named Tannis, and the other four vault hunters slept near the hologram, which was switched off at night.

He sighed in relief seeing that Salvador was snoring somewhat loudly and Zer0 was still in the corner with a big "Z" hologrammed on his helmet. He stepped out of his bed then walked out to the deck of the HQ.

"Somethin' wrong, killer?" Lilith said behind him, causing Axton to shoot back and look at her,

"Um...no I'm fine, just go back to sleep, I just need some fresh air that's all, Sal kinda smells"

Lilith laughed quietly before hearing a half-asleep Gunzerker say

"No i is not...".

Lilith then said, "Well see ya in the morning I guess, pro."

"Pro?" Axton thought to himself "That's new, I guess 'killer is going out of style."

Lilith always had nicknames for people such as Tiger, Killer, Slayer, but Pro is a new one to add to the books. He silently walked back to his bed looking at a passed out Mordecai on the couch lightly snoring barely holding on to whatever he could get his hands on from Moxxi, in this case it was Bladeflower Whiskey, which was made up of 60% alcohol. It still amazes Axton how all of his brain cells aren't dead yet. He decided to not make much of a fuss about it and then collapsed on his bed again. He then closed his eyes then slowly went back to sleep.

As always Axton was the first to wake up out of everybody, Roland was the only person who woke up before him since their training discipline had practically hard-wired into their systems.

Axton's morning routine was to roll out of bed, do 100 pushups, then go to the pull-up bar that he built then do 20 pull-ups then do then do 100 inverted situps before waking everybody up. Even after leaving the military service, he still wanted to stay in peak physical form.

Roland always woke up his fellow Ex-vault hunters, which was only Lilith, because Mordecai was too hard to get up because he would always be sleeping off the hangover he had from drinking too much.

Axton wiped the sweat from his face before tapping Zer0 on the shoulder telling him to wake up, which he always did.

As for Salvador, he saved him for last because he would always come up with creative and hilarious ways to wake up Salvador, whether it would be blowing an air horn or shouting into a megaphone he borrows from Moxxi, It would always end up in laughter.

So as he was thinking of a way to wake him up, he went downstairs to go wake up Maya, as he went downstairs, he found her curled up in her bed sleeping softly. This caused Axton to look at her for a minute.

"She sure does look cute when shes sleeping" Axton thought, hell, she always did.

Axton touched her shoulder and lightly shaken her saying "Hey...time to get up"

Maya opened her eyes slowly to see that Axton was standing over her with a slight smile on his face 'Now this is a face I can get used to waking up to' she thought to herself before finally saying

"Hey" back to Axton before sitting upright

"Have you come up with a way to wake up Sal yet?" She begun

"Yeah, I think I got something," Axton replied with a slight grin on his face.

They both then walked upstairs to still see Salvador snoring in his bed. He managed to get some small firecrackers from Tiny Tina and found a metal pot while searching the waste lands. By this time Mordecai was up and waiting to see how Axton could wake Sal up.

Axton then placed the firecrackers into the pot and placed the pot near Salvador's bedside, he flicked his lighter out then lit the fuse.

In about 5 seconds there was extremely loud exploding noses coming right from Salvador's bedside as he quickly scrambled to get out of bed but ending up falling flat on his face like usual causing the entire room to burst with laughter, even Zer0 always found a kick out of these shenanigans.

"Goddammit Axton! What the Hell?!" Salvador shouted, at this point Axton was literally rolling on the floor laughing while Maya was crying from laughing so hard, same goes for Lilith, Roland and the rest of the people in the building.

"Oh Man! That never gets old! That's for putting a cat in my bed the other night!" Axton managed to say before continuing to laugh.

"Not funny Pendejo!" Salvador said in defense.

Mordecai was also laughing extremely hard, "Oh man that was hilarious!"

Roland was chuckling pretty loudly too. The laughing soon came to a close then the Vault Hunters began to settle down.

"Well that was pretty funny and all, but we best get back to work" Roland said with his usual stern voice.

"Alright then, what's the plan then?" Axton said while being lead over the holographic map that Roland uses as his way of easily navigating Pandora. "Well, we got a situation, Handsome Jack is planning to strike Overlook and use it as a secondary command post."

At that point, Axton's smile turned into a half-pissed, half frowning face. He gritted his teeth together before finally saying "Jack..."