Vault Hunters [Borderlands, Zer0/Handsome Jack X OC]

Chapter 2 ~ Jack's Wife [New]

The tale I have to tell you starts long before Handsome Jack was Handsome Jack. Even villains have a beginning- oh, I've told you his tale already.

What I left out was the woman.

She met Jack as a low-level Hyperion code monkey. When he was defending the station and had hired a Vault Hunter, she had been assisting in every way she could, enamored with Jack and wanting nothing more than to help. In her eyes, he had been a hero. What she could not see was his descent into darkness...

Ah, yes, love was in the air. Even tyrants like Handsome Jack fall in love.

But our story gets more interesting years later... many years.

Six years after the birth of their child, Jack became even more of a tyrant than he had been. She saw his cruel and unforgiving nature, realizing that it would only get worse and drop her into further darkness. Deciding she didn't want to be dragged down into the fate she saw coming for herself, a fate she had already been subjected to over and over, she made her decision. The final straw came the night of their anniversary, when Jack had come home with another woman... and so she left. Nobody 'saw' her leave and if anyone did, it was clear nobody was talking. 

Now, if you think Jack's reaction to being dumped by Moxxii was bad, wait until you hear this one. This was the love of Jack's life, someone with a will to match his own and a telltale forgiving heart. Her support didn't mean nothing to him, after all- it was simply that Jack had become someone else along the trials and tribulations of their marriage. 

Now, this woman was gorgeous. One of the most beautiful women in the galaxy. Plenty of men would fall in love with her just by looking at her, not just for her beauty, not just for her grace- she looked like a supermodel, but her personality was that of a queen. 

Jack was livid. He searched for her aggressively, tortured anyone who had been on duty that night who would have seen her come and go, but he couldn't find any information. He assumed that she had been kidnapped, or worse yet, murdered. This was the trigger for Jack's inhumane change. He became even more unstable, as he had lost his anchor- someone who forgave his behavior, someone he could trust. Several search parties were dispatched within the course of then until now, each and every one unsuccessful, finding nothing. Even Jack took it upon himself to chase fleeting rumors of a beautiful woman roaming around solar systems...

The descent into his madness had been gradual up until this point, but with his wife gone, Jack snapped. Life was no longer worth anything in his eyes. He had been ruthless before, but now, everyone and everything was a tool. Nothing retained humanity in his eyes... not even his daughter, who was nothing more than a key. 

Many people suffered because of his wife's betrayal. Some, such as sleeping sirens in gilded cages, might hold grudges. Others, those who knew her, who saw the before and after of her disappearance, came to hate her. 

What nobody expected was years later, that Handsome Jack's wife would return.