Heyo!

Genre: Action/Drama with some hints of comedy at the very end

Characters: The Second Gen Vault Hunters

Enjoy!

Six Men Enter, One Man Leaves

"What the hell?" Axton questioned as he opened his eyes and looked around. Something was off. He was some sort of large room, there were concrete slabs spread throughout it, and the ceiling and walls appeared to be frozen solid. The other Vault Hunters were inside too, spread all over the room.

"Where the hell are we?" He heard Gaige ask from somewhere to his right.

"Hey kiddos!" A voice came out from several speakers placed in the room. "Handsome Jack here. Now you may have noticed that you're inside what you bandits like to call the Circle of Slaughter. You may have also noticed that the door is locked shut. Now, that door is programmed to only open when there's only a certain amount of people left living in this room. In this case it's one. I've also decided that in order for one of you to leave you'll have to kill all the others. Six men enter, one man leaves. So you kiddos have fun with that ok?"

"You're kidding right?" Salvador asked.

"No." Handsome Jack answered. "Either you all kill each other for my viewing amusement, or I'll just press this button and you're all dead."

"Go to hell Jack!" Maya yelled.

Handsome Jack sighed. "Look. I can either kill you all, or one of you can live to try and stop me. The choice is yours. Oh, and if you don't start within the next minute I'll just kill you all. And laugh. I'll also do lots of laughing."

The Vault Hunters stood in silence as the news sunk in.

"So, what do we do then?" Gaige asked.

"We can't just let Jack kill us all and win." Maya said.

"But are we really gonna kill each other?" Axton asked.

"We can't just kill each other!" Gaige said. "We're friends, and we're better than him! Right?"

"I don't think we have any options Gaige..." Axton said.

"But... But we can't just kill each other. We're not just going to sink to his level are we? Maya back me up here." She said turning to the siren.

"It doesn't look like we have a choice." Maya said sadly and avoiding eye contact.

"You have ten seconds left before I pull the kill switch." Handsome Jack's voice announced.

"So we're just going to kill each other in cold blood? You're all ok with killing the only people on the planet who you trust? This is Jack we're talking about, he could be bluffing! Maybe he just wants us to think we have to kill each other."

"3, 2, and-"

Jack's voice was cut short by the sound of rifle shot. The Vault Hunters looked to see Zer0 holding a gun, the barrel still smoking. The followed his line of sight until they saw Salvador, shot through the chest.

"Shit." He said looking at the wound. Then he collapsed to the ground dead.

"That's more like it." Handsome Jack said.

"Y-you killed him." Gaige stuttered.

"There was not a choice/I do not think it's a bluff/We shall have to fight." Zer0 responded coldly.

"B-but... You..."

"We weren't done arguing about it Zer0." Maya said.

"Time was running out/There was not much of it left/I do what I must."

"I guess we're fighting it out then..." Axton said drawing his gun. The others did the same. "Sorry guys." He added quietly.

Axton quickly threw his turret and took cover behind one of the concrete slabs. The other Vault Hunters all jumped for cover too, except Zer0, who just seemed to be standing there in the crossfire. That's when Axton put two and two together and realized why Zer0 hadn't run for cover; it was a hologram. He quickly spun around, just in time to duck out of the way of the real Zer0's digistruct katana. While he was getting ready for another attack, Axton swung his rifle around and fired. Zer0 dropped to the ground in a pool of blood.

Meanwhile Krieg, who had remained silent through the moral debate, moved his way behind cover looking for a target. That's when he saw Maya hiding behind a section of wall. He immediately ran towards the siren and he got within a few feet before she noticed him. She raised her SMG to shoot at the charging psycho but he knocked it out of her hands with his buzzax. He raised his ax above his head, intent on killing the siren. Then he heard a voice.

"Stop. I said we would never kill an innocent person."

"GET OUT OF MY HEAD!" He screamed.

Maya looked at the psycho, unsure of what to do.

"If you touch her I'll kill both of us."

"BUT I MUST FEAST ON THE JUICY ENTRAILS OF HATE!"

"I said no."

Krieg grabbed his head as if he was trying to shake something out of it. Meanwhile, Maya slowly reached the Maliwan that he had knocked out of her hand.

Krieg slammed a foot down on her hand as she reached for it and the bones in her wrist snapped.

"Damn it!" She screamed.

"Let her go."

"NEVER LET THE DANGER GAME FREE!"

"I said let her go."

Krieg swung his buzzax into his face as if it could make the voice stop.

Seizing the opportunity, Maya phaselocked the psycho and he was suddenly suspended in mid-air.

"LET ME DOWN PRETTY WITCH!"

"Shut up." She muttered.

She closed her tattooed hand into a fist and the phaselock collapsed itself in on Krieg, crushing him.

His body dropped to the floor, limp and unmoving.

"Thank you." He mumbled quietly.

She grabbed her gun and fired a quick burst into the psycho.

Even with the gunfight happening around her Maya couldn't take her eyes of the psycho that she had just killed. Even if he had just tried to kill her, he had saved her life and without that she wouldn't even be here. Tears began to form in her eyes and she swore to herself that if she was the one to make it out, she would make sure Handsome Jack suffered for this.

On the other half of the room Deathtrap and Axton's turret had managed to destroy each other and now Gaige and Axton were engaged in a brutal gunfight. Gaige had already been hit once in the shoulder and Axton had grenade shrapnel lodged deep in his leg which severely limited his movement.

Gaige leaped over the low wall she was using as cover and wove her way past Axton's gunfire, or most of it anyway. When she was almost in front of the commando she got hit directly in the leg, and she fell to the floor right in front of the concrete slab that Axton was using for cover. He still had his gun aimed, straight at Gaige's head, and they locked eyes for a moment. Gaige looked up at Axton with a look that begged him not to finish her.

"Please Axton..." She pleaded. "Don-". A gunshot interrupted her final words and Gaige slumped to the ground a rifle round straight though her heart.

Then Axton heard a click behind him, and felt the muzzle of a pistol press against the back of his head. He dropped his gun to the floor, put his heads up, and slowly turned around. Behind him was Maya, pointing the gun directly at his face.

"I'm sorry it had to end this way Axton." She said quietly.

"I'm sorry too Maya." He said almost inaudibly.

"What are you sorry for?" She asked confused at the commando's words.

"This!" He yelled, swinging his arm and plunging his tomahawk into the side of her neck.

Maya's face turned to horror as she registered what had happened and she slumped to the ground as blood poured from the wound.

Axton looked around at the other dead Vault Hunters, five in all.

"Are you fucking happy now Jack?! Well are you?! Are you not entertained?!" He screamed angrily at the top of his lungs.

"Eh." Came the reply. "Could have been more interesting."

"You son of a bitch." Axton said to himself as Jack went on.

"But a deal is a deal. I'll let you out now."

And with that the door to the Circle of Slaughter opened and Axton limped slowly towards the exit, thinking of all the ways he could kill Handsome Jack. As he made his way out he heard a familiar voice.

"You son of a bitch. I can't believe you killed me."

Axton looked up to see Gaige looking at him with a disapproving look.

"Y-y-you're alive?!" He stuttered.

"Yeah. We all are." Another voice came from behind him, this time belonging to Maya.

"But how?!"

"New-U Station." All of the Vault Hunters said in unison.

"Oh yeah. Forgot about those." Axton said sheepishly. "So... What do we do now?"

"Simply" Maya answered. "We kill bandits, get paid, blow shit up, fuck bitches, and drive fast cars. Then we kill Jack for being the biggest jackass on Pandora."

"Works for me." Said Axton.

"Same." Gaige added.

"Oh. This'll be fun!" Salvador chimed in.

"Sounds like a good plan/Jack should pay for what he did/He is a jackass"

"STRIP THE FLESH! SALT THE WOUND!"

Author's Note: I edited this so that Krieg and Maya's scene is quite different. Originally it made Krieg look much more sympathetic but I decided that that also made it pretty unrealistic as far as Krieg's character goes. So, it's different now. Such is life. Also I through in a Gladiator reference because I just could not resist.