Hi, everyone, MarcellusMiro66 here! A month has passed since I last updated the widely popular Loud House story "Drive", and for good reason; I am currently developing the second arc that will detail the adventures of Lincoln as he becomes a feared assassin for the Stromwell Family. In the meantime, though, I have conjured up this reverse AU "Driven" starring the one and only Linka Loud.
While the two stories are essentially crime operas with superhero film elements, their subgenres are completely opposite. "Drive" is a gangster/Mafia film with spy/espionage components, while "Driven" is a Heroic Bloodshed/Yakuza crime thriller with martial arts/wuxia ingredients. They will also undergo genre shifts later on, like how Alien (1979) was a sci-fi/horror film and Aliens (1986) was a sci-fi/action film (but still kept the horror factions). Before you ask, they only exist in the same reality.
There are only a few differences with the two stories: for starters, all of the characters' genders are flipped (aside from a select medium). Sophie's counterpart (besides being British-Japanese) is not helpless, but instead a merciless assassin working for his aunt in Japan. There will be a proper meeting between our two protagonists here in the beginning. And before I forget, this story is inspired by Drunken Angel (1948), The Yakuza (1975), and Black Rain (1989).
Enjoy! If you can...
(Friday, November 18th 2016)
(12:00 N)
"The Japanese love to sacrifice themselves for stupid things."
. . .
"He tormented you, made you sick, and then deserted you like a puppy. And you still wag your tail and follow him."
Linka was violently thrown out of the girl's bathroom by a group of them. Luckily, the Principal and two more teachers found her and confronted the gruff girls, awarding them a strict speech and following five day in-school suspension. It wasn't entirely enough to reliably relive her of the persistent pain, but it would do for the time being. She went and walked home – having missed her ride home and considering it was the end of a Friday. She had hoped for this, as the bus contained two of her best fiends: Colleen McBride and Ronnie "Andy" Santiago. She couldn't stand to see them both: separate, together, or let alone in the same room as her...at least not at the moment. She wanted to be alone, and needed to keep it that way. No... Wanted to keep it that way.
"American saw cuts on a push stroke, Japanese saw cuts on a pull stroke. When an American cracks up, he opens up the window and shoots up a bunch of strangers. When a Japanese cracks up, he closes the window and kills himself. Everything is in reverse."
Linka had no friends, no family, no one left to trust in the world. Well, that wasn't totally true; she could place trust into his parents, as they seemed to be the only ones in her family (besides her grandma) who completely cared for her and weren't absolutely angry at him besides her ten brothers. Colleen and Ronnie were both different stories entirely. She was sad, she was unhappy, and she sure as hell was devastated. In fact, those three agitating adjectives of hers were accurately able to begin to cover how she was fully feeling about the malicious mistreatment she received from her peers.
"It's still there. Farmers in the countryside may watch TV from their tatami mats and you can't see Fuji through the smog, but don't let it fool you. It's still Japan and the Japanese are still Japanese."
Linka felt like she could disappear, sinking down into the snow below, or a malignant mixture of the two. Either way, she was bound to suffer a brutal demise as a result of this trauma brought down upon her. This was a day to be reckoned with.
"I was 10 when the B-29 came. My family lived underground for three days. When we came up the city was gone. Then the heat brought rain. Black rain. You made the rain black, and shoved your values down our throats. We forgot who we were. You created Sato and thousands like him. I'm paying you back."
Linka wanted to make them pay. Linka wanted to make them suffer. Linka wanted to make them dead. Dead in a coffin. Dead in a ditch. Dead in the gutter.
Dead everywhere and anywhere. The world will torment Linka Loud no longer. They will recognize and respect the name of Linka Loud.
"Perhaps you should think less of yourself and more of your group, try to work like in Japanese. I grew up with your soldiers; you were wise then. Now - music and movies are all America is good for. We make the machines, we build the future, we won the peace."
. . .
"And if there was ONE of you guys who had an original idea, you'd be so tight that you couldn't even pull it out of your ass!"
Patience was a vital virtue, so it wouldn't be necessary on her side. A contrived coincidence, however, was, and Linka needed one desperately. Linka Loud was certainly cynical at best, Linka Loud was meticulously murderous at worst.
That's Linka Loud for you.
(~****~)
At The Same Time. . .
Nagoya, Japan. The largest city in the Chubu region of Honshu, Japan's main island. Located on the Pacific Coast on central Honshu, it is the capital of Aichi Prefecture, one of Japan's major ports (alongside Tokyo, Osaka, Kobe, Yokohama, Chiba, and Kitakyushu), the center of the Chūkyō region, and also one of the 50 largest urban areas in the world. From its many types of economy and transportation such as automotive and aviation to state-run primary/secondary education and lavish culture containing museums, theatres, festivals, and cuisine among other things, it's no wonder why.
. . .
It's also a great place for a perfect murder.
DING!
("Tokyo Drifter (Main Theme)" – Hajime Kaburagi)
Scott Cromwell exited the elevator donning a black suit and tie with mask, a suppressed 3rd Generation Glock 17 in one hand...and a bloodied katana in the other. He was a boy with no nonsense and yes patience. Oh, did I say "boy"? Sorry, I meant..."boy". Indeed, this currently 11-year-old boy had been in the business for some time now and had no plans in sight that involved slowing down. Nobody (and we mean nobody) knew exactly how and/or why a child would ever enlist himself in the most feared crime syndicate in all of Japan, but they knew that's exactly what he did. No parents, no siblings, no caregivers in sight, and that was all the authorities needed to label him as trouble. However, in the court of public opinion, Scott Cromwell was nothing more than a troubled young boy with no one to call family.
This made his eventual adoption by the Cromwell Syndicate all the more heartwarming...in its own twisted way. He had caught the attention/earned the sympathy of Michelle Cromwell, the current successor to Boss Chang, who had read a news story on how the young Scott Jones had committed his first murder...or murders, in this case. The orphanage he had previously resided in was found to be run by a pair of corrupt priests with an underage prostitution ring on their agendas (he wasn't one of their victims, thank goodness). He never did like people who abused others, especially those who favored their targeting and infliction of said abuse towards the younger ones akin to his age. So it seemed rather fitting that their assaulters suffered the same fate as their victims.
Case in point...
Scott located the dreaded 13B and sheathed his katana, seeing how it would seem rather pointless for a quick and painless hit. Before he entered the apartment, he pulled out a plastic bag with a zip tie; he then slipped the gun inside and attached the bag to his wrist. Entering the special code that only applied to the target (until now), he casually strolled inside to find said target anally raping a female victim. He was very lucky that he was wearing earplugs at this very moment.
PHT, PHT, PHT!
Three shots were needed to bring the politician down. The young girl's screams, meanwhile, softened upon discovering that she had been saved...in the most brutal of methods. A masked Scott approached the dead man and fired three more shots – just to make sure. Eventually turning to the six-year-old girl, he wrote down on a piece of paper instructions for her to follow before calling in a clean-up crew for the perished politician. His ears perking up at the girl thanking him, he merely nodded and closed the door behind him as he left.
The minute he entered the elevator, Scott sighed. He held in his breath for the entire mission. It was a skill he had learned from his mother.
His true mother.
(~****~)
Oh, wait, Did I say "she walked and went home"? Scratch that. Despite this particular day being an Early Release, Linka decided to head to lunch, believing that the things that were happening today couldn't possibly get much more worse than they already were. She was dead wrong.
A small group of students followed behind her, led by two kids: one African-American, the other Mexican-American. They were the school's ultimate power couple...in their eyes, anyway.
Colleen McBride was Linka's best friend since kindergarten, having been through hell and back. She had always accompanied her through everything and anything, standing up for her while at it. Speaking of accompanying, Ronnie was Lincoln's crush/secret boyfriend...and this was before the video contest. His constant teasing was just a masquerade so no one could be suspicious. Unbeknownst to her, Colleen was secretly jealous of Linka's seemingly perfect life: The perfect family, the perfect boyfriend, the perfect everything. She wanted a taste of what she ate. So, one day, during the events during the video contest, she searched for and retrieved her best friend's videotapes. Going home and skimming through, she stopped upon the perfect piece of humiliation: a boy by the name of Chris McKinnon. So, calling up Ronnie, he saw the video the next day when Colleen invited him over; needless to say, she was definitely devastated by the revelation. His anger getting the best of him, he broke up with her via email. The nights after, each one unintentionally fell for the other in the process. Six months later...
Well, here we are...
"BOMBS AWAY!"
Linka gasped and she immediately braced for impact: the combination of spaghetti, pizza, and ice cream parfait was enough to disorient her, causing her to slip and slam her head on one of the chairs. All the while, everybody laughed. Everybody, from the people responsible for the Bombardment to the people who had absolutely no idea what exactly happened, laughed hard at the victim's unfortunate onslaught. As she remained unconscious for the duration of the laughing lunch period, some of the few non-laughing students took notice. The remnants of Lincoln's friends tended to the victim, mouths agape upon a closer inspection; they immediately began to shake her as a means to wake her from her unpleasant slumber.
"Linka? Linka, wake up! LINKA!"
(~****~)
Scott entered the penthouse and watched from the corner of his eye as his aunt attended a meeting of sorts. Making his way to his bedroom, he got undressed and field-stripped his Glock for cleaning. The fact never perturbed him...that he had been dissembling firearms at a young age, even when blindfolded. Seeing how he was exposed to the harsh realities of the real world before any other kid, he had to unfortunately mature more than most. That meant no friends, no school, and no childhood sweethearts.
. . .
Why do I get the feeling that last one's gonna hit me faster much sooner than much later?
KNOCK-KNOCK!
"What?"
"May I come in?"
"... Why not?"
That last phrase he said in a whisper as the door opened. One moment he spent it in the nude, the other he spent it in a nightgown...despite it not being nighttime yet.
"I know you wish to help people, kiddo, but it cannot be on your own terms."
"Well, that's probably why it works well. I'm a rebel in spite of my professional demeanor."
"Hmm. I suppose." Noticing the field-stripped Glock 17 on his table, Michelle frowned at Scott's aloofness. "So who was the target?"
"A politician. 45 years of age, black hair that was greying. In the process of raping a young girl, too."
"Did she see you?"
"Just the mask."
"Very well."
Michelle turned to walk away but stopped just as she reached the doorframe.
"Scott... You need a break."
"I'm sorry?"
"Yeah... Me too."
As she left, he reciprocated her earlier frown.
Damn this business. I need someone to wake me from my unpleasant slumber...
A/N: So, a review of "Siren" stated (or, rather, insisted) that I continue with "Kill Or Be Killed". My response? You can expect an update in...five days time. (LOL, I'm just kidding around with you.) I actually was considering continuing on with the story, but a nasty case of Writer's Block and an emergence of new ideas made for a bad combination. Plus, I'm pretty sure everybody's sick of No Such Luck stories by now. Regardless, I shall continue the story in...five days time.
. . .
(Not a joke now...)