Merry Mercenary Day!

(General POV)

As soon as the spaceship touched down on Eden-6 near the Jakobs Estate, Montgomery Jakobs and his son, Wainwright came running out towards it with guns in hand.

Seeing this, Kane wondered if they just didn't know it was him, or they did it because they knew it was him.

After all, they knew he would be coming back to Eden-6 at about this time due to the promise he made with Monty, and who else but him was bold enough to simply land down in front of the Estate belonging to the CEO of one of the major Corporations of this universe?

Sure, Kane no longer had the Arcadia that stood out, but it wasn't that hard to put two and two together in this case.

When the bay doors opened up, Angel was the first to get off the ship, narrowly beating Tina to the ground, only she didn't stop there like the little girl, instead she continued on over towards Monty.

"Grandpa! Uncle Wainwright!! It's so good to see you!" Angel said happily as she embraced the old man, then Wainwright when Monty finally let her go.

"It's good to see ya too, Darlin!!" Monty agreed, smiling broadly as he looked at his granddaughter. Monty looked her over to make sure Angel was in fact whole and healthy, and it was in his observation that he noticed something.

"I see you ain't been missing any meals..." He said, saying the words before he actually thought them through. It was true, Angel did in fact have a bump on her belly, only it wasn't because she had been over-eating.

Before anyone could clarify anything, Monty was hit in the side of his head, sending him barreling into the ground.

Angel and Wainwright barely had time to look at where the blow had come from, only to see a large meaty fist retreating into what looked like a portal.

Having seen that same portal before, Angel whipped her head around behind her in time to see Brick pulling his arm out of a portal that Kane had opened up.

"Damn it, Kane!!" She shouted, not quite angry, though clearly not happy. "You too, Brick! Stop going along with whatever he says!!" Angel added as she pointed an accusatory finger at Brick then moved it to Kane.

"I don't! It was my idea!" Brick admitted plainly without a hint of remorse for what he had done.

"Ugh! Just don't do anything physical!" Angel stated, a little vexed at how overprotective Brick was, though if she was being honest with herself, she preferred this over his brutal sadistic side.

Brick wasn't overly fond of Angel, but he loved Kane like a brother, and what Kane cared for, Brick cared for in kind. Sort of.

He took his responsibility as soon-to-be-godfather to a new level, ensuring that absolutely nothing happened to the woman, much to everyone's confused delight.

Well, sometimes it turned from delight to sheer annoyance, but no one really minded too much, though Kane had a few close calls where he wanted nothing more than to strangle the man.

It was only after Brick had cock-blocked him for the eighth time that Kane had had enough, putting Brick in a time-out as it were.

Brick's argument for stopping him wasn't even that good either, saying something along the lines of, "How would you feel getting hit in the head repeatedly by some stick of meat?" and "You're gonna hurt the baby!" and the like.

How the man knew when he was trying to get it on with Angel was beyond him, but it was almost instinctual.

When Wainwright finished helping Monty to his feet, the man didn't quite look all there with his eyes half-lidded, all the while mumbling something that sounded like, "Where's the car that just hit me."

It was only after they were all seated together on couches in the sitting room that Monty looked to have gained some bit of light back in his eyes.

"What happened?" Monty asked groggily, taking notice of all the people staring at him from around the room.

"You basically called Angel fat, then got hit in the head before we dragged you inside." Kane answered, summarizing the events up until now.

"That's not what I meant, you bastard! She just clearly wasn't malnourished and was eating proper like! Ain't nothin wrong with that!!" Monty stated in self-defense.

"It's okay, Grandpa! I didn't take any offense by it. Actually, I was excited that you noticed!" Angel said, rubbing her belly with both of her hands.

It took Monty a moment, having to think back to the last time he saw a woman do that, his mind automatically thinking of his wife Maggie when she was pregnant with- "YOU'RE PREGNANT?!!" Monty shouted as he shot to his feet.

"HALLELUJAH!" Wainwright cheered a second later, having quickly registered his father's words.

Both father and son moved to embrace Angel, who seemed to latch onto their joy and return it in kind. Said joy lasted a good minute before Wainwright asked, "When's the wedding?!"

The question seemed to kill the mood, as no one had even brought up the idea of marriage before, and it was very unclear how a certain someone viewed such an idea.

"Wainwright... shut the fuck up!" Kane said, only it was more like a combination of a warning and threat, one which Wainwright did in fact not want to test out.

Kane already scared the hell out of him when he was in a good mood, so he didn't even want to find out what the man was like on a bad day.

With just those words alone, it was clear that Kane didn't want to talk about marriage, at least not right now. Angel would wait until he was in a much better mood before she decided to discuss the topic, though it wasn't because she thought she needed to get married before the baby was born, it was just because she liked the idea of having a day all about her.

It took a few minutes before the mood picked back up in the room, and it was only achieved when Monty decided to give Angel a Mercenary Day present a bit early.

The old man led Angel down the corridor with everyone else in tow until they eventually arrived at the largest room in the house.

To Kane, the room looked as though Christmas had literally vomited on every part of it. Strings of colored lights were strewn about the place, with decorations and the like.

In the very center of the room stood an evergreen tree that almost reached the ceiling, and it too, like the rest of the room, was covered in lights and ornaments. Beneath it was a bundle of wrapped presents, most of which were addressed to Angel herself, something that didn't go unnoticed.

"I love it!" Angel started happily, to the point she was almost crying tears of joy. Just as everyone was about to go look around the room, Kane disappeared from his spot before reappearing erratically around the room and disappearing again.

His figure blurred, and for a few minutes everyone waited to see what the hell he was doing. When he finally appeared back in the group, Kane had a smug grin on his face as he gestured back towards the room.

Looking around once again, everyone noticed a few additions to the room that hadn't been there before. There were stockings hanging along the wall by the fireplace with each person's name on them, a few dozen more wrapped presents under the Mercenary Day tree, candy-canes laying about, and plates of gingerbread cookies placed on random surfaces.

Hell, there was even a new table placed along one wall with a decorated gingerbread house on it, and there were noticeable empty places for more additional houses to be placed, only those would only come after everyone else built their own.

Needless to say, it was going to be a fun Mercenary Day.

"I love you, man!!" Brick almost shouted as appeared out of thin air before anyone else had reacted and held Kane in a death hug.

Having been through something like this before on more than one occasion, Kane fed a little bit of his power into his glove before touching Brick with his pointer finger, and the next second Brick jumped about 5 feet in the air, dropping Kane in the process.

"What the hell was that?!!" Brick asked, his eyes narrowed towards Kane.

"It's my new Brick repellent! Was an early Mercenary Day gift from Radar!" Kane answered, feeling rather giddy himself about how good the new device worked.

Ignoring what just happened, Angel stepped over to Kane and kissed his cheek before she headed towards a table to get a cookie, though a little ball of hyperness named Tina zipped past her and grabbed a tray of cookies for herself.

"BEST!! DAY!! EVER!!" Tina declared after her third cookie, though her statement was accepted by most everyone. It was going to be a memorable Mercenary Day for sure.

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(Axton POV)

Ever since he went AWOL from the Dahl Corporation, Axton had been hiding out on the Border planets that were out of Dahl's jurisdiction.

The idea had been not so subtly hinted to him by his now former ex-wife and commanding officer. It was true Sara had basically signed his death warrant, but she had also saved his life by insinuating he leave before morning, and to be fair, Axton figured he would have wound up dead all on his own even without her help.

Dahl had put a $5 billion dollar bounty on his head for war crimes he had committed when trying to complete some of his missions since his departure, which was kind of cool.

The bounty made him feel special in a weird sort of way, but it was a little annoying when random idiots appeared out of nowhere to try and kill him.

'This is just the price for being awesome!' He told himself, not letting the world get him down. Granted there were so many other ways to go about most of the things he did, but in his defense, it had been extremely cool, and had earned him more than one high-five.

It had been almost a year since he went AWOL, and Axton was now sitting at a bar in some desolate bandit town on Pandora.

As a bounty hunter, Axton was making more money than most people on Pandora, but things were just... too easy lately. Granted most of the people he hunted couldn't be considered anything but small fry compared to the big names that no one could actually find.

On the table in front of him, there were 12 different WANTED posters, one of them being his own, which also just so happened to be the lowest among them all. In order from the lowest bounty to the highest, it went

Axton

$5,000,000,000

War Crimes

--------

Brick-

$9,999,999,999.99

For murder and dismemberment of anything that moves.

-------

The man was basically a walking slab of meat, and looked like he could break Axton with just a look. Still, he had taken out behemoths like this Brick character before, and he might have actually considered going after him if he knew where he was, though based on rumours he had heard around town about the man, he never travelled alone, and could turn into a demon incarnate at will.

'Yeah, he's out!' Axton thought, not wanting to get tangled up in that kind of mess. With that thought, he moved on to the next poster.

----

Mordecai-

$10,000,000,000

For poaching and possession of endangered species. Another million for that annoying bird.

---

This guy didn't look overly scary compared to the first guy, but based on the information, he was extremely good at long range combat, and was damn near impossible to get close to. Not to mention the damn bird.

Axton had never personally seen this species of bird before, but he had heard rumors about them, and if even a fraction of those rumors were true, he wanted nothing to do with the man or bird.

To top it all off, the big brute of a man from the previous poster was often seen with this guy, so he would be fucked from range or up close.

'Nope, fuck this guy!' Axton stated internally, figuring it was just too much work. And besides, they didn't seem like too bad of people. He especially thought that about the next poster.

---

Roland-

$10,000,000,000

For murder, desertion, and crimes against Hyperion.

---

Honestly, Roland reminded Axton far too much about himself. They were both soldiers, only they worked for different Corporations.

Both deserted because said Corporations wanted them dead, however Roland was wanted dead because he knew things he shouldn't have, while Axton was wanted because he killed more people than he saved, more often than not using their client as bait to kill their targets.

While Axton would admit that they both used a turret, saying that Roland's was even remotely similar to his own would be an insult to his turret.

Roland's was the base model Atlas supplied their soldiers almost a decade ago, and that meant it wasn't anything special, at least to Axton. His was the top of the line Dahl model, with a few of his own custom spec additions, which had not been cheap.

Reading over Roland's wanted poster, Axton couldn't help but focus on the last line on it.

'Crimes against Hyperion...? It's not his fault he doesn't want to be walked all over by a greedy Corporation! We're just soldiers trying to make an honest living, god damn it!!' He thought, sliding Roland's poster on top of the 3 that he already looked at.

There were too many similarities between the two of them, and it was for that reason alone that he wouldn't go after him.

'I might even head over to this 'Sanctuary' place and see if he needs some help. Unless he tries to fuck me over, then I'll kill him' He thought, grabbing the next one.

----

Patricia Tannis

$25,000,000,000

Wanted ALIVE for theft of Hyperion property.

---

Looking at the poster of the woman, Axton couldn't help but think back to his time in Dahl. He remembered there being a Dahl scientist by that name, and how she was sent to Pandora a few years ago to find something.

'My guess is she found it, and that's why Hyperion wants her. Greedy bastards!' He thought, forgetting the fact that he too was a greedy bastard.

Still, the woman didn't look too bad, 'kind of hot, actually.' He mused, thinking he'd probably go for a round with her if given the chance.

It was still up for debate if he'd try and collect her bounty, so with that thought in mind, he moved on to the next one.

---

Zer0

$32,000,000,000

For political assassinations

---

There was literally only a picture of the... thing on the poster. Everything else about it was unknown. 'Yeah, I'll pass.' He thought, not the least bit interested in hunting someone like this.

---

Salvador

$99,000,000,000.99

For manslaughter, theft, arson, destruction of property, trespassing, cannibalism, public indecency, and profanity.

---

The next guy seemed so much more killable than the others, and looked like he needed to be killed. This was also the only Wanted poster that actually gave an idea of the target's whereabouts, which made things a little easier for Axton.

Putting the poster into a separate pile from the others, Axton moved on.

---

Krieg

$100,000,000,000

For escaping research facility as he belongs to Hyperion.

---

Despite the guy looking like something straight out of a horror film, Axton felt for the guy. It wasn't his fault he looked mutated to hell and lost his mind.

'He's probably so far gone, I'd be doing him a favor by killing him.' Axton thought as he put the poster on top of Salvador's.

---

Lilith

$100,000,000,000

For conspiracy, witchcraft, theft, murder, and being a Siren.

---

Honestly this next one was a little iffy in Axton's book. He had heard a little about the magic wielding women with tattoos that roamed the galaxy, and if he was being honest with himself, he wanted no part of them.

Plus it seemed like they were being hunted solely because they were Sirens, and not because they actually did anything. 'I'd murder people out to get me too!' Axton thought, fully approving of the woman on the paper, and not just her looks.

---

Maya

$720,000,000,000

For being a Siren

---

The next poster belonged to another of the magical women, only this one was worth quite a bit more than the first one.

'They're getting lazy! There's not even a crime listed!' Axton thought, wondering if the Corporations were just out to make an enemy of the woman, or if they believed she was an actual threat to them.

'She probably is now!' He thought tiredly.

---

Gaige

$820,000,000,000

For illegal experimentation.

---

"What a load of shit! Hunting an adorable little girl for building a robot?! The animals!!" Axton cursed aloud, not bothering about the rest of the patrons in the bar.

He'd rather help the little girl than turn her in, and if he happened to run across her he'd do just that. Grabbing the last poster, Axton could only sigh in annoyance.

---

Kane (A.N. Updated by Hyperion)

$1,000,000,000,000

For the murder of Corporation executives, theft, destruction of property, and land-grabbing.

---

When Axton finished reading everything that the man had supposedly done, he crumpled the paper up and threw it on the floor.

'I might have a death wish, but I'm not that insane!' He thought, not wanting to go anywhere near the thing.

Word had already circulated Pandora about him killing Handsome Jack and decimating the Hyperion Robot army, something Axton could only day dream about, and the fact that this monster did it, well, it cemented the fact that he should be left alone.

Done perusing the posters, Axton downed the mug of Rakk piss before grabbing the posters and putting them in a pouch on his waist, keeping the two belonging to Salvador and Krieg separate from the others so he could take them out easier.

Getting to his feet, Axton turned towards the bartender before shouting, "HAPPY MERCENARY DAY!!" While at the same time he brought a pistol up and shot the bartender right between the eyes.

Turning quickly towards a group of guys sitting at a table over in the corner, Axton asked, "Wasn't that shot awesome?!!"

The men sitting in the corner didn't bother answering as they all began to pull out weapons. Knowing this was going to happen, Axton threw his storage Deck unit on the ground, and a second later a very large double barreled sentry gun appeared.

"HAHA! Chew Em up, turret!!" He shouted gleefully, to which the turret must have agreed with, as it began cutting everyone in half.

Less than a minute later, everyone in the room other than himself was dead. "That was too easy." He mumbled as he put his turret away, then grabbed and moved to collect the bounties on the Hole in the Head gang.

The idiots deserved the name they had chosen for themselves, mostly because they weren't one bit quiet about who they were, or where they holed themselves up.

Not to mention the fact that they all saw Axton flipping through WANTED posters, yet didn't think he was out to get them.

"Idiots." Axton said to the corpses. Just as he was about to jump behind the bar to pull the bartender out, something big burst through the wall and smacked right into him, knocking him unconscious almost instantly.

--------------

(Salvador POV)

"Hey, Amigo! Come here!" Salvador shouted to some guy standing next to a fire barrel.

Ever since Hyperion raided his home town of Ovejas, he had been wandering around Pandora in search of any information on the Vault, but despite his best efforts, he couldn't find shit.

Each time he went to a bandit camp or some random town, he ended up killing people instead of figuring anything out, but in his defense, they were all idiots.

In his quest for the Vault, he had learned about a resistance of sorts against Hyperion, and how they were camped out in the city of Sanctuary, and given how Hyperion had tried to kill him, he decided to make his way there.

Currently he was in Three Horns Valley near a steam plant, and because he needed directions, he thought he would ask a friendly local.

When the man standing near the fire barrel saw him, a look of joy and excitement could be seen on his face as he grabbed a buzz-axe from the ground and began running towards him, all the while laughing like a maniac.

"*Sigh!* I just wanted some directions, amigo!" Salvador stated tiredly as the man neared him.

Just as the psycho jumped into the air with the buzz-axe raised above his head, Salvador brought the sawed-off shotgun from his hip up into the air and blew the man in half.

"HAHA! That was fun!" He cheered, while also thinking about how dinner wouldn't be a problem tonight.

About an hour later, Salvador was pulling the now cooked arm off the stick he had been using to cook it over a fire, then just as he was about to sink his teeth into it, a shot rang out, hitting the ground beside him.

Looking away from the cooked arm, he looked up towards a rock-face, and it was there he noticed a group of people standing near a hidden cave entrance.

Smiling widely, he put the arm down and began to slowly make his way there. 'It seems I'll get information after all!' He thought happily.

------------

(Zer0 POV)

"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT?!!" A man cried out in fear, rage, and sadness.

He had been hunted for the last 3 days by some... thing, and it was toying with him.

No longer could he continue running, and he had run out of bullets yesterday, so all he could do now was beg and hope whatever was after him would show mercy.

Looking around in dismay, he almost jumped out of his skin when a voice whispered in his ear, "For you to fight back. / Bandits like you are easy./ I want a challenge."

The man didn't get the chance to beg or plead for mercy, because his head was separated from his shoulders before he could get a word out.

It was only after the head hit the ground did a dark figure reveal itself from the shadows, a holographic Zero showing on his helmet.

Pulling out a paper from behind its back, the figure looked at a WANTED poster of the top bounty in the galaxy.

The holographic image of a Zero disappeared and was replaced by a smiley face.

"Challenge Accepted!" The figure spoke, then disappeared.

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(Gaige POV)

When she had been forced to flee the planet of Eden-5 and make her way to Pandora, Gaige was terrified out of her mind.

It had been the first time she set off from home before, and all she had with her was her trusty robot that she had built for the science fair.

Now though, it had been a few months since she had arrived on Pandora, and despite the number of times that people had tried to eat her, she was coming to really love the planet.

She had tried to find some Hyperion outpost or something so she could see about answering a Want ad for Vault Hunters, but despite everything she had heard on Eden-5, Hyperion's influence on Pandora wasn't all that great.

When word spread of Handsome Jack's demise, Gaige didn't know what to think, mostly because she idolized the man for a while, though that fantasy had ended quite a bit before he had kicked the bucket.

Still, the Vault that Hyperion had been after still wasn't claimed, which meant she could at least go look for that while she figured out what she wanted to do next, but she wasn't having the best of luck on that front.

She was hoping to find out where Sanctuary was, mostly because she figured she at least wouldn't be eaten there, but because if Hyperion wouldn't take her, then she may as well join their rivals, not that the rag tag group of people could actually be called rivals to one of the most powerful Corporations in the galaxy, but whatever.

Sanctuary was a little hard to find, so she had decided to enter a not-so-nice-looking town to see if someone there might be able to help her.

Scarcely had she gotten to the center of town that a group of people seemed to appear out of thin air, all of them looking at her like she was their next meal. At least she hoped that's what they were thinking. If it was the other thing, she'd have to hold herself back from puking.

'Why do bandits always look disgusting?!! Can't there just be a cute bandit!!' She whined internally as her robotic arm swung out, deploying her Death-Trap.

"Super Robot Violence Fun Time!!" She shouted, her tone of voice betraying the disgusted expression she had only an instant before.

What followed could only be called a massacre. While she was busy shooting people, Death-Trap was turning people into pieces of meat, or red mist, whichever. One guy was even thrown through the side of a building.

---------

(Krieg POV)

"I know what I have become... I am the inside of this world... I taste the gore, and I smell the crying... AND I WANT MORE! I want to bathe in your flesh, I want to savor your fear. I wanna live inside a castle built of your agony, AND I WANT TO CRUMBLE IT WITH AN AXE TO YOUR CAROTID ARTERY!" The maniac stated as he tried to shove a bandit's foot down his friend's throat.

"Come, come!! Don't keep him waiting!! HAHA! He wants to taste your speed!!" The maniac shouted as he pushed harder.

For 20 minutes he kept at what he had been doing before finally succeeding in mutilating both corpses to the point that not even he found them entertaining anymore.

Turning away from them, he looked towards the legless torsos trying to crawl away from him, with a sadistic smile beneath his mask.

"Over here, my sweet meats, your prince of justice and genocide has something to say: Gone are the days of the tentacle and the age of the gods and mercy is far away... We are fighters of the middle, the second act in the three-part MEAT play, AND I WILL WIN BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR!"

The statement only seemed to make the bandits on the ground start crawling faster, as if they understood what the thing had just spoken to them. Only try as they might, they could not escape from their fate. None of them could.

"Keep your chin up, SO I CAN SMASH IT WITH A HAMMER!! Oh, there's no time to cry... We have to squeeze the whimpers out of you like a smothered baby in the night... You won't make a noise now, will you, WILL YOU!! Stay quiet, OR YOU'RE DEAD! NOW AND FOREVER!!" The monster cried out to the whimpering toys that had tried to run away from him, even after they were the ones who invited him to the Mercenary Day festivities.

"I wish myself a bloody harvest, on this most pleasant of EVES!! Sing to me as I rip the SOULS of your voices from your chest BOXES!!"

What a wonderful Mercenary Day!!