Read bold in this A/N for author's notes skimmers!

Note - (Starts with the mission, Where Angels Fear to Tread, then follows The Pre-Sequel)

Warning(s) - If you're concerned of what might be in this story, drop me a PM or a review for triggers and such. There probably won't be anymore warnings from now on. Also, this contains spoilers for the games, just to let you know. Also know that I think of the rating of this story as upper teen right now, so there may be a rating change in the future. Just to tack this one on here because I know this effects readership...but there will not be smut in this story!

Also, the summary has been changed. It has been changed a few times actually, but I think I'm done because I like the newest one. Hope it didn't throw anyone off.

A/N - Sorry if the dialogue is inaccurate.(Also, please let me know if there's any canon errors as I write this.) It's been a while since I've played this mission, which was one of the most depressing in the game. Anyways, if you have any questions, leave it in the reviews or kick a PM my way! :) Hope this hooks ya!

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I. The Death of an Angel

The room was large, circular and dark. The walls were lined and contained faint lights that glowed dully. Four console screens and many circuits also adorned them. In the central part, was a conduit with a large barrier cell under it, housing the siren with sad blue eyes in the vortex of purple light, flowing the slag through her and into the vault key.

Ironically, this miserable prison kept her alive.

This shadowed room was filled with short violent flashes of light and the explosions of grenades and bullets. In the middle of the chamber, the captive siren called encouragement in response to Jack's tirades of threats that were accompanied by his masked face on the screens. The vault hunters surrounding the prisoner unloaded round after round of their weapons into the angelic loaders stomping through the control core room. Jack's attempts to stop them, since it seemed the coward wouldn't come in person.

Zero's corrosive sniper exploded, coating a badass loader in punishing acid. He spun around, lashing out at another machine with his glowing sword. The robot raised it's weapon, unleashing a rain of burning bullets. The dancing Zero was undisturbed. Simultaneously, another Zero revealed himself behind the loader.

The hologram disappeared.

A quick succession of three bullets hit all of his enemy's weak points, leaving it a heap of junk metal. He shouldered his rifle, readying for more.

Salvadore laughed beside him and clutched a dual combo of two automatic rifles, one slag, the other electric. In each hand, he clutched each one. He laughed, aiming his unending attack upon the loaders approaching with raised weapons.

The short, stocky man was unreachable though, by their attacks. He tore up the enemy mercilessly with his actions, punching through their metallic bodies. A loader stomped up behind him, and he twisted around, firing straight into it at pointblank range, his shield protecting against the return until the loader gave out.

He raised his smoking weapons and cheered as the gunzerk finally ended.

Nearby, Maya phaselocked an angelic loader, slamming it into the chamber wall with a load crash. She captured two more bearing down on her at once, collapsing the phase on them and scrapping the metal with a crunch. Two loaders aimed at her and she ducked behind the shell of a broken loader as her shield took more damage than she was comfortable with. She leaned up, aiming her SMG out from her hiding place, riddling the robots in caustic bullets.

On the other side of the room, Roland's and Axton's turrets unloaded streams of bullets. They'd deployed them side by side in a display of military teamwork. The combined shields and firepower were good against the enemies approaching from the front.

Together, the ex-soldiers guarded the rear of their turrets with their assault rifles. A few loaders walked forward, firing tirelessly, backed by a badass. The group assault failed however when the turrets swiveled and the soldiers ducked. A few rockets turned the loaders into scraps of burning scrap metal.

Lilith's phasewalk sent machines flying as she appeared within a group. She took another leap and run, disappearing from view to explode her powers into the enemy again. Her tattoos glowed a fiery color, and she pushed many of her enemies back while at the same time, destroying others.

The psycho, Krieg, swung his axe, a bulky form of chaos as he rushed from one loader to the next. His buzz axe smashed metal apart, and he howled in bloodlust as oil and robot parts rained about him. He took out two badasses by himself before Maya lifted a loader away that had been about to crush him in barrage of rockets. The two took it out with their weapons.

Beside them, Deathtrap growled as it slashed at the enemy with its claws. It unleashed its bright lasers on a robot, melting its legs down so that it collapsed. Gaige cheered her Deathtrap to further carnage. It swooped forward and swiped its claws into its enemy's power core. Gaige aimed with her weapon, covering her Deathtrap from its enemies behind it.

The group was nearly invincible together. When one got into a true mess, the others bailed him or her out with efficient attacks. Without a doubt, they were some of the mightiest warriors in Pandora. The enemy forces seemed endless, but so did the group's integrity and stamina in fighting back.

"No, don't kill my little girl," pleaded Jack's voice loudly over the system as another slag tube exploded and purple fluid splashed down in a nasty, thick river. He'd long given up on his death threats and had resorted to begging.

It was apparent that he knew he was loosing.

Angel screamed in pain, her fragile voice cracking. After a moment, she seemed to regain herself, though she sounded weaker. "Don't listen to him, Vault Hunters, my life ended long ago." Angel assured. It was true...her life had ended when Jack had forced her to take the slag to charge the vault key.

No, it'd ended long before that...when she'd become the GuardianAngel 'AI'.

Finally, the last tube was destroyed through the vault hunter's efforts. The eight watched the captive siren fall weakly, released from the prison supporting her life. She leaned back, her eyes fluttering weakly.

"Angel! You don't have to do this! I'll still forgive you, baby girl! It's not too late." Jack insisted in a distraught voice.

Angel weakly looked up as her life faded slowly, remembering something painful as the vault hunters surrounded her. There was a range of concern, pity and unreadable looks on their faces. Some faces were indiscernible.

None of these piteous or concerned looks were ones she'd seen in her father's eyes. Ever.

She knew who truly gave a damn for her predicament. Not her father, but the ones she'd betrayed. Strangers she'd manipulated for her conniving father. They were good people. Well, as good as they could be in a world like theirs.

She wished she could make her father suffer the way he'd made her suffer. She saw everything that had ever happened in her mind.

"Dad," she whispered. Silence muffled everything now. She wanted to make sure he heard, wanted him to to feel pain, that she knew he would not. He was a cold, heartless monster, incapable of sorrow and loss.

"You're an asshole," she breathed her last words, going limp, the last of her life drained.

"Angel! Angel! NO!" Jack screamed.

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The vault hunters aim at the last tube of slag, unleashing the bullets.

When it explodes, the release from the machine is incredible. I'd forgotten what freedom felt like.

They did this, because I'd asked them to, all of us knowing it was the only way. I knew it was the only way to deprive Jack of his siren he needed for the vault key. I knew it was the only way to defeat his plan. But I also knew that it was the only way to escape the life of servitude that he'd subjected me to.

Everything is going so quickly, and all I'm certain of, is the terrible sound of him, saying how it wasn't too late. But it was. I'd be dead soon.

He was the man who'd ruined my life. My father.

Handsome Jack.

I tell him he's an asshole. Because he is.

This all started long ago, when I was young, just discovering the powers I'd been born with. They frightened him, so he enslaved them, enslaved me, to use as his own. He turned his fear to his advantage.

He was always a coward with a dangerous power-lust. A sick, twisted monster.

He'd screamed threats and pleas at the vault hunters as they'd taken the steps to end my life. But he hadn't said them because he cared for me. He said them because he knew he'd loose his source of power.

The slavery had reduced me to this.

But as the last of this life left me, it wasn't Handsome Jack I thought of.

It was him. I'd never forgotten him...the one that I'd wept for as the first ounce of slag was pumped into my body.

Farewell, cruel world.

I can almost feel his hand on mine, comforting.

The room and the pitying gazes dissolve into the darkness, but I remember another face. One that was so different yet similar to my father's. I want to apologize to him, and maybe I'll have the chance. Surely, I'd see him soon, there's a light at the end of this tunnel.

There has to be.

I take his hand, and he pulls me forward.

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End of chapter one.

What'd you think? Let me know if there's any errors.