AN: I've recently gotte treon account at P a treon . com (slash) TheSilverboar. I haven't gotten the payment method portion completed yet but hope to soon. I want to make writing my full-time career and this feels like a good first step.

Deadshot

Chapter 3

-Axton-

"So Twig," he asked, using the teasing name he had saddled Harry with on the first day of the train ride "you took charge pretty quick back there."

At that statement Harry winced "Sorry, force of habit from…from my home world." Narrowing his eyes the ex-DAHL soldier studied his young friend. Despite the nickname Twig, something he gave after hearing how skinny Harry was when Gaige's family had found him, he knew the kid had at least some muscle to him. Despite the baggy clothes Harry's gait was that of a predator on the prowl and given that the kid held his own arm wrestling Sal for a bit he knew Harry wasn't weak.

The kid wore dark colors, possibly to try and blend into shadows around him, and his eyes always took in his entire surroundings. He had seen that same kind of behavior before in the corp. "So, how old were you?" he asked softly, axe in hand as they walked through the wreckage and piles of scrap.

"What do you mean?" Harry questioned, looking cautious about where it this was going.

"Harry I know a Soldier when I see one." He said seriously, "The way you move, the way you carry yourself and take charge of situations, the way your eyes take in every detail of your surroundings…it's clear to me. But you're eighteen, how do you have reflexes that could only come from years of training?"

"Knew it would come out eventually." Harry sighed before explaining how he had been a child soldier in his home world, trained to take out a power-hungry maniac and trained for close to five years to be a weapon.

"Well don't worry Cap'n," Salvador grinned and gave Harry a powerful slap on the back "we got your back."

"Never understood that saying," Harry grinned mischievously but Axton could see the gratitude the sniper felt "I'd rather people have my front, that's where all the important stuff is."

Chuckling at that he gave a pause when something Salvador said sunk in, "Hey Sal, why'd you call Harry 'Captain'?"

"He ordered you around, didn't he 'sergeant'?" the tiny smart ass smirked along with Harry. In response, he shoved the tiny Gunzerker into a snowdrift as the man's stubby legs flailed in the air.

-Maya-

"You alright kid?" she asked the teenager, Gaige, as they walked through the mountains of scraps, Krieg helped her stay upright as her head still spun slightly from being blasted off the train.

"Yeah, Harry shielded me from the blast." The Mechromancer said with a grin, her laser held ready as they sifted through the wreckage for any sort of weapon or supplies.

"Is he alright from that?" she asked, despite only knowing them for a short while she knew Gaige and Harry were good kids and, more importantly, they were still kids.

Given that it was quite a shock when Gaige gave a sardonic snort of amusement, "It would take a lot more than that to keep Harry out of a fight. You should see the scars he has from real danger."

"ENGINEER HURT?!" Krieg exclaimed in his usual way "CONDUCTOR RIP THE POOP TRAIN BANDITS!"

"…I have no clue what he just said." Gaige sighed, grunting as she lifted a sheet of metal that was covering a gun.

"Me neither." She sighed "Think Harry could teach me to speak psycho like he can? And there are seriously classes on it?"

"To Harry it was too good of an opportunity not to take the class, especially since it gave him an excuse to yell at people at the school." Gaige smirked.

"Must have been interesting having a brother." She sighed wistfully, having been given up by her family at birth "What's it like?"

"It's…interesting." Gaige said after a moment's thought "Harry's my best friend but at the same time we don't like a lot of the same things. I like listening to Metal and while he doesn't dislike it he doesn't go out of his way for it like I do. I'm good with advanced robotics and AIs while Harry is good with engines and a true genius when it comes to weapon designs. I'm a bullet spraying anarchy fighter while Harry uses speed and precision. But that's part of why we get along so well, we complement each other."

"If he wasn't your brother I'd say you had a crush." She teased the younger girl who snorted "Do you have any idea how many people think Harry and I are a couple rather than siblings when they first meet us? But no, I've never seen Harry date anyone and I've yet to meet anyone who has the balls to try dating me after they meet Harry. They seem to think it would be bad for their health. Interestingly enough it happened after harry demonstrated one of his weapons for a class." Gaige's smirk was devilish as she gave the younger girl a matching grin.

"Oh, you and I are going to get along just fine."

"THE POOP TRAIN GROWS FASTER!"

-Harry-

"Alright Gaige, what you lot get?" he asked when he saw his sister's group returning, a couple of guns with them.

"We got a Jacobs sniper riffle and a Hyperion SMG." Gaige said, laying the two guns out.

"We found another Jacobs riffle, a DAHL assault rifle, and a Jacobs revolver." Axton said, laying their finds out as well.

"Axton, you get the assault rifle." Once more slipping into the habit of command from back in the magical world he started dividing up the guns "Gaige, you get the SMG. Maya and I will take the sniper rifles, and Sal, you get the pistol."

"What about Krieg?" Maya asked skeptically, raising an eyebrow at the fact that everyone had a gun but the massive psycho.

"He has his axe and I want him near you till your head stops ringing." He ordered seriously "I know that these two," he jerked a thumb at Axton and Sal who were checking their weapons "can't snipe for shit by their own admission and Gaige isn't exactly a sharp shooter."

"That makes sense I guess." Maya agreed reluctantly, "By the way, he called you a 'engineer', why is that?"

Eyes wide he turned to look at the massive Pyscho and yelled out "CONDUCTOR!" Krieg turned towards him instantly "MANY POOP TRAIN BANDITS WISH TO HURT THE PRETTY LADY! RIP THEIR FLESH AND SALT THE WOUNDS OF THE BANDITS WHO WOULD SLOW THE POOP TRAIN! PUT YOUR PAIN INTO THEIR SOUL!"

Krieg gave a massive yell at that, raising his buzzaxe into the air while the others looked confused "Um…translation please?" Axton begged, Maya giving a wincing nod in agreement.

"The poop train is a group, I.E. us." He explained with a grin "By calling himself conductor and us engineers he's…well Krieg thins he's in charge. Faster poop train means a larger group. I basically told Krieg that people wanted to kills us and therefore take away his friends and that he was to make anyone who would hurt us fear him."

"Awww, Krieg." Maya smiled and gave the big Psycho a kiss on the cheek causing the big guy to blush and give a happy little laugh.

A loud screech from Hedwig overhead drew his attention as he readied his riffle, Gaige hefted the nine tails "Contact rear!" he yelled out, "We got inbound!" as he yelled he ran up the hill of scrap and looked through the scope of his riffle, trying to find what Hedwig had spotted before letting out a sigh "It's a claptrap." He called, sliding back down the hill.

"That means we kill it, right?" Sal asked "Those things are annoying."

"No we don't kill it." He denied, "It might know how to get the hell out of here."

"Hello travelers!" an exceedingly chipper voice called out as a tiny robot with a shovel wheeled into sight "I thought I heard survivors. This is great! Now I can finally get off this glacier!" the tiny robot began circling them in excited laps "Claptrap, your metaphorical ship has finally come in. Allow me to introduce myself, I am a-"

"Claptrap." He deadpanned in tandem with the others "The important question right now is do you have what we need? We need shelter, guns, ammo, medicine, and a way out of here."

"Yes to all!" the tiny robot said in the same happy tone "And here, I have something for you!" reaching down Claptrap removed a device from several of the corpses laying in the snow, likely others who fell for the same trick they had but hadn't been as lucky "Take these ECHO communication devices that I totally didn't loot from these corpses. It comes-"

"This is the mark three!" Gaige fan-girled over the tech "It comes with a class heads up display and a mini-map!"

"Yep!" Claptrap said with a happy spin "Now come, come new friends! Let's get you inside."

Tuning out the tiny robot as they made to follow, the rut Claptrap's wheel left in the snow making it easy, he turned to the others "Who wants to be the frequency head?" he asked seriously as he attached the ECHO to his belt, everyone else finding places to put theirs as well.

"Frequency head?" Maya asked confused.

"ECHOs come with a setting that ties into our guns." He explained "Along with allowing communication and offering a map they track our health, our shields, and store our equipment. That said they also store our ammo and can make it so that bullets with the same 'frequency' as yours can't hurt you. How do you think bandits avoid killing each other accidentally when they spray bullets randomly? One person is the frequency head and can invite others to join the frequency."

"Then that's you Cap'n." Sal grinned, "You're the one in charge after all."

"Now, now, Sal," Gaige snickered "weren't you listening earlier? Harry clearly said that Krieg was in charge." This got a good round of laughs from the others as they caught up.

"Well done," Claptrap said happily "your ability to walk short distances will be handsome Jack's downfall."

"And here I thought it was my ability to pull a trigger." He sighed dramatically as Claptrap opened the door to the shelter and led them inside a rather disturbing igloo which had several Claptrap 'corpses' as bricks and human corpses as decorations.

"-Called Knuckldragger, killed everyone I know." He turned back in as Claptrap stopped in front of a furnace full of, to his amusements, cardboard versions of Handsome Jack "But we should be safe in here." at that moment, as if fate didn't like being taunted, a massive bullymong swung into the shelter through a hole in the ceiling, giving a roar as it gripped the chimney.

Ignoring the panicking Claptrap Harry raised his laser "Fire at will!" he ordered as they started trying to shoot the Bullymong, try being the imperative word. With their injuries, their aim was still terribly off as the massive Pandoran beast gave a roar before taking a prize from Claptrap, it's eye, and running off.

"T-The gun," the damaged Robot wheezed in pain "the gun in the cabinet." Walking over he opened the small cabinet as a DAHL pistol and several health vials fell out.

"Krieg!" he called out, tossing the big Psycho the gun before scooping up the medicine "Alright everyone, start healing, I don't want to miss that walking shag carpet again because we can't hold a gun straight." As he spoke he jabbed the needles in to his arms and injected the medicine, barely a wince escaping as the ECHO showed his injuries vanish as he went back to perfect shape.

"Alright seeing eye minions!" Claptrap said excitedly, either unaware or just not commenting on how the others were opening and looting every container in the shelter of its cash "Let's go! Let me know if I'm about to run into anything." Rolling his eyes, he followed the little robot that reminded him of an unholy fusion of Dobby and Colin, grabbing ammo from the crates as he went, idly turning Claptrap whenever the robot was about to hit an ice pile.

As they walked Maya moved to walk next to him, "So, you seemed pretty quick to take command back there." The Siren noted intrigued "Figured Axton would be the one to try and take charge."

"I already had this conversation with him and Sal," he told the woman that he honestly might have developed a crush on if it weren't for Krieg "I'm assuming Gaige told you as well."

"She never said anything that would explain why you took charge so quickly," Maya denied "she did say something about you never dating. Need any female advice for that?" she asked with a teasing grin.

"Careful, you'll make Krieg jealous." He shot back "And the problem was that just about every girl at my high school was Shallow, stupid, or Gaige. You can see why those three options aren't ones I'd go for."

"Maybe we can find you a nice bandit girl." Maya snickered as they got to the bottom of the hill, the others hurrying to catch up, having finished looting Claptrap's hideout.

"They would probably be smarter than the girls back home." He replied with a mock serious nod "Anyway, I don't want to get into it again. You can ask Axton or Sal if you want the full story now or just wait till we have the chance to really rest if you want to hear it from me."

"I'll wait." Maya said with a snort "I don't trust those two man children not to embellish."

"Good call." He grinned before Claptrap's panicked yell drew his attention.

"AAAAAAAAAH!" the tiny robot screamed "Bullymongs! Sick 'em Minion! Protect me Squire!" Rolling his eyes, he trained his rifle on one of the Bullymongs jumping from the cliff and caught it as it descended, nailing it in the face leaving it dead before it hit the ground. Next to him Maya copied him as they shot at the descending space apes.

"Oh come on," Axton pouted once the others caught up and saw the pile of Bullymong corpses "you didn't leave any for us." Right as the Commando spoke an ice wall broke open to reveal more Bullymongs taking fast loping strides in their direction.

"Have fun sergeant." He grinned as their four companions charged guns blazing.

"Are we the only mature ones?" he asked Maya as he watched their friends rush into battle.

"Are you really surprised?" she shot back as they walked over calmly, trusting the others to dispatch the bullymong juveniles. "Satisfied?" she asked when they approached their friends, the four grinning like lunes.

"Yep." Gaige, Sal, and Axton said in tandem while Krieg just shouted "THE WOUNDS HAVE BEEN SALTED!"

"Good. Come along then children." He smiled as he and Maya walked past them "If it weren't for Krieg I'd say that these lot really were acting like our children." He grinned at Maya who snickered.

"You're cute Harry but as you said, I'm taken." She smiled and patted Krieg's arm as the big psycho grinned happily. His laugh was interrupted by an earthquake as he fought to regain his footing, icicles falling around them from it.

"Again?!" Claptrap complained, wheeling past them "They say Handsome Jack's drilling for the vault is causing these earthquakes…that or your mom just out of bed. Zing!" the tiny robot's laugh was interrupted when he rolled off a cliff and into a snow drift.

"You didn't stop him that time?" Maya asked confused.

"He earned the fall with that joke." He said seriously "Nobody insult mom and gets away with it." Walking to the edge of the cliff he saw Claptrap's wheel sticking out of the snow and some Bullymongs leaving their nests to investigate. "Alright children," he called out "killing time!"

"STRIP THE FLESH!" Krieg yelled, jumping over the cliff and towards the snow.

"What he said!" Sal copied the Psycho.

"Bonsai!" Gaige laughed excitedly.

"Oh what the hell." Axton shrugged and leapt over as well.

Turning to look at Maya he grinned, "Shall we show them how adults do it my good lady?"

"Why of course sir." She returned the grin as they crouched down and stared sniping, often stealing the others' kills and waving cheekily when they would glare up. Finishing up he helped Maya down to the bottom where Krieg was lifting Claptrap out of the snow by his wheel.

Before he could say anything their ECHOs beeped as a picture of Handsome Jack appeared next to their Minimap, something he was still getting used to being able to see with the ECHO connected to him. "Hey Kiddo. Jack here, President of Hyperion. Lemme explain how things work here: Vault hunters show up. Vault hunters look for the new vault. Vault hunters get killed…by me. So, you seeing the problem here? You're still alive. So, if you could just do yourself a favor and off yourself, that'd be great. Thanks, Pumpkin."

"Man," he snorted as the tyrant stopped talking "Ugly Jack sure loves the sound of his own voice."

"I can still hear you!" the now irritated voice of their attempted murdered spoke up, the man's ECHO icon still there next to the map.

"I know Ugly John." He grinned as he heard a glass breaking on the other end of the line before the call ended.

"Cap'n…you got the biggest kahones I have ever seen." Sal said in awe.

"I come from a bloodline known for pissing off self-centered bastards like that one. I'm just doing my ancestors proud." He said with mock seriousness as the girls laughed and they moved to head up the hill.

"Hey, my eye switched back on!" Claptrap said excitedly "I see some tough looking minions, and an incredibly handsome robot…which means that whoever has my eye…is very close." With a roar Knuckldragger appeared at the top of the Hyperion freighter that lay partially buried in the glacier, throwing a car down where it exploded in front of them.

"Well…" Axton sighed "this is gonna hurt."

Swapping his sniper riffle for his laser he began barking out orders "Krieg, Sal! Protect Maya. Maya, provide cover fire! Gaige, Axton, let's kill this thing!" with a yell they charged the giant four-armed space gorilla, Gaige and Axton spraying bullets while he took careful aim and fired a burst of lasers at the Gorilla, getting a roar as he burned off some fur.

"Target locked." He said with a savage grin before firing nonstop, the lasers all seeking out the gorilla who struggled to fight back against all the bullets. Sadly, though it had help as Maya, Krieg, and Sal started focusing on Knuckledragger's minions leaving him, Gaige, and Axton to handle the big one.

Jumping back along with the others to avoid a lethal swing from the bullymong he wasn't able to stop Knuckldragger from leaping atop the freighter again, roaring as she started tossing down cars once more. "Maya!" he yelled, leaping aside to avoid being run over by a tire "A little help!" he didn't have time to switch weapons and a sniper riffle was the only weapon they had with the range needed.

"Patience is a virtue." Maya sing songed but took aim and shot Knuckldragger through the eye, the bullymong giving out a strangled roar before falling off the cliff and onto the ground in front of them.

"Good work Minions!" Claptrap said, bubbling with pride as if the tiny robot had been the one to do all the work "Now if you would retrieve my eye for me." Rolling his own eyes at the statement, and tuning out Claptrap's explanation of going to Liar's Berg to get repaired he sifted through what the Bullymong dropped and found the eye along with another pistol, tossing it to Sal who mentioned training to use two guns at once.

"Hah!" Claptrap sneered at the freighter door once they ascended to the top of the cliff "This door is Hyperion tech, child's play. Aaaaaaaaaand, open!"

"Intruders detected, locking door." A mechanical voice spoke up as an extra set of doors sealed the freighter tighter.

"Wow," Axton deadpanned, the Commando's tone dripping with sarcasm "that was really impressive."

It was quite a shock though when the image of a rather attractive girl appeared in front of him, surrounded by what looked to be static as she smiled, "Let me get that for you." She said kindly "Executing Phase Shift." The girl said clearly, the phrase stirring something in the back of his mind he couldn't place as the doors began to open.

"Thanks." He said to their helper who seemed surprised at that but beamed happily, the others nodding their thanks as well.

"You're welcome!" she said cheerfully "Perks of being an Artificial Intelligence. I'm networked into almost everything on this planet." Nodding he walked into the freighter, as the woman continued speaking "It's a long journey to Sanctuary, take whatever you need for the journey ahead." As she said this a weapon's crate rose out of the floor, opening to reveal a shotgun which Krieg quickly claimed with a happy grin.

"Wait," he said quickly before the pretty AI could leave "what's your name?"

"You can call me Angel." She said kindly "Stay safe out there and I'll talk to you soon."

AN: Alright, some updates to the pairings.

1. I've decided to put Tannis…with Salvador. I don't know why but this is an amusing thought to me.

2. I'm thinking about putting the other Siren from the comics (Asha) with Brick [I'd just need to find copies of those comics to learn more about her]

3. The other pairing I'm considering is Aurelia with Mr. Torgue just for the sheer amusement factor.