We all know how this story goes...
A boy loses his family, vowes revenge, and grows to become a super - badass.
Every overpowered protagonist's backstory ever.
Now, was Jacob Rook any different?
I dunno... let's check!
To start off - He was born on Earth, he had an average childhood, loving parents and generally a good life.
His parents were good and respectable people who never commited a crime, and he himself was a smart kid - he was getting the best grades like it was nothing for him.
In fact, he wanted to become a scientist and explore new planets and galaxies.
Oh right, I should probably mention that it was 24th century and people menaged to greatly advance their space travelling technology and colonised not one, not two, but six different galaxies!
Of course, this lead to some problems - some big corporations became so disgustingly rich from all of this they pretty much replaced any form of governments - some plantes were straight up owned by them, some were left unnatended and became big wastelands of anarchy and disorder - Pandora being a prime example.
Now, the Earth - the origin planet of all humanity started to get a little overpopulated at this point in time.
On top of that, a certain corporation called "Maliwan" got its hopes up in colonising Pandora, due to existence of "Vaults".
What are "Vaults"? Well, nobody is 100% sure, but so far it looks like they were build by Eridians - an ancient race that existed before humanity that was much more advanced than them and went extinct - and they served two purposes:
A) Be prisons to powerful monsters.
B) Contain large amounts of treasures and Eridian technology.
Like many before them, Maliwan attempted to "civilise" Pandora, after all, not only it becomes easier for them to conquer all the vaults, but also they help out with the overpopulation problem by forcefully deporting random Earthlings, win-win, right?
Out of 20 billion people on Earth Jacob's family has been randomly chosen to get that "luxury".
I mean, Maliwan even founded a small country-city there - "Genesia".
That's where they ended up in.
...
Six months...
That's how long "Genesia" existed.
Who would have known that founding a country on a lawless wasteland of a planet would be a bad idea?
Genesia got overrun by bandits that called themselves "Skullcrushers", and bit by bit, within half a year it got completely destroyed.
Jacob's family?
Murdered in front of his 12-year-old eyes.
He himself survived by a miracle - he somehow menaged to stab a bandit to death.
First kill at the age of 12...
You know, just Pandoran things.
He even somehow menaged to run away from Genesia's ruins, just to get caught by a different group of bandits... oof.
Fortunately for him God had different plans towards him - A group of mercenaries known as "Vault Hunters" saved his ass and they actually took him under their wings.
Their symbol - an upside down "V" in a circle became Jacob's symbol of hope.
Pandora outside Genesia was a violent place, filled with bandits and dangerous wildlife, Jacob had to adapt, or he would die.
And so he lived - yeah, sure, the constant battle for survival combined with what he had witnessed may have leaved him mentally scarred, but he had to get his shit together quickly - otherwise he would die, which is like, his least favourite thing to do.
He lived, he trained, he killed more and more, he went to missions with vault hunters, he travelled half of the galaxy with them, hoping to become a hero for people who needed help - as he himself got his help too late...
You have to admire his spirit - even after everything he has been through he still wanted to be the "good guy".
Heh...
Of course, as he grew bigger, he started to notice that a "Vault Hunter" was the opposite of a hero - All he did was just killing for money, money he would use to buy better guns, which he would then use to take on more difficult jobs in order to earn even more money - and the cycle continues...
He wasn't any different than bandits, or even those corporations he hated so much.
...
He had seen so much evil, he stopped believing in heroes.
He stopped believing that he could be something better.
He stopped believing it was worth to be something better.
...
So he gave up.
He stopped wanting to be a hero.
He started to care only about himself and the very few who were close to him.
After all humans are just animals, so why should he pretend he was something more?
So he just lived.
...
But deep inside, that warm-hearted 12-year-old had never truly died.
So there we go - a first chapter to my first fanfiction (hopefully not the last one as well) so what do you think about it? Good? Bad?
Anyway, this story was heavily inspired by CrazyScientist85's "A Chance to live" which sadly got discontinued (seriously go check it out, it was really good.)
This is my first fanfiction, so any feedback (positive or negative) will be appreciated,heck, almost demanded.
All in all, i hoped you liked it.
Cya.
i do not own neither Borderlands nor RWBY