A/N: Takes place during the Brotherhood storyline but before the Samedi and Ronin storylines. Placement during the storyline should be obvious if you've played through it; if you haven't, it doesn't matter anyway. Also, apologies if Aisha's character is off, I haven't played through many missions involving her. Similar apologies for naming the main character, I'd liked to have kept her as simply the Boss, but it didn't work out that well when I tried.
It all started with a push back; the way things were going these days, they seemed to be doing one every time they turned their backs for even a moment. Either the Saints were slipping, or The Brotherhood was getting more vicious. Either way, Marcia wasn't impressed.
She had basically lead the Saints for a long time before her accident, but getting back into the flow wasn't easy. It was like riding a bike, she continuously told herself; you never forget. Only, this bike had square wheels. Stilwater had changed so much since she had slipped into her coma; new layout, new places, new gangs, new everything. Even most of her friends were either dead or in jail. Or worse.
And now, Carlos was dead.
'An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.' She had never exactly lived by the saying, but she realized now they were good words to live by. She had blindly struck out at Maero, for no better reason than because she was frustrated at not having any information to go after him with, and Carlos had paid the price for it. Of course, she had struck back—she would have loved to see the look on Maero's face when he opened that trunk, but that would have been too risky. And that left them at a stale mate; Jessica, dead. Carlos, dead. Maero and Marcia, still living. And pissed. So it really wasn't any surprise that The Brotherhood were fighting to reclaim their territory with an unrivalled passion; they'd had to fight off the Ronin from old territories a couple of times, and the Samedi once, but this was the eleventh Brotherhood attack that month.
She whipped an unarmed Brotherhood lieutenant over the head with her Vice 9, making him stumble in a daze and slide down the brick wall, liberally bleeding from the head and several other key areas. She grabbed him by the front of his shirt and pulled him back up, holding him so his feet were a few inches off the ground.
"You're going to take your buddies and get the fuck out of my neighbourhood, you got that?" she growled. The enemy gang member blinked a few times in a daze, so she gave him a little shake. "I said, you got that?!" she yelled. Finally tuning back into the real world and realizing what was going on, he gave her an amused grin, and laughed. "What the fuck is so funny?" she demanded.
"Even if we leave now, you think that's gonna stop Maero from coming down hard on your asses? After what you did to Jessica, he's pissed. Ain't nothin' gonna stop him from goin' after your sorry asses 'till you're dead." he said, reaching up to wipe blood that was dripping into his eye. Marcia dropped him, and he landed hard on his ass.
"Tell your boss that what I did to his little bitch of a girlfriend was payback. We're even now." she growled, tucking her gun into the pocket of her motorcycle jacket. Just as she was about to turn away, knowing even the newest of gang members could handle this guy, judging by how much blood he'd lost, he laughed and coughed up blood from one of the many wounds inflicted by the female gang leader.
"Hey, we didn't kill your lieutenant. You did." he pointed out, giving her a cocky grin. In response, she pointed her gun between his eyes, and shot. As she stuffed the gun back into her pocket, one of her gang members ran around the corner, to see her standing over the mutilated lieutenant.
"Damn, you really fucked him up." he said, his voice higher pitched than most of her members. Under the bulletproof vest and purple S.W.A.T team uniform, he also appeared lanky. He couldn't have been much older then fifteen or sixteen years old.
"I fuck up everybody who tries to mess with the Saints." Marcia replied. "Do you know where the other lieutenants are?" she asked. The young gang member looked up at her, then pointed to himself. "Yes, you. Who the fuck else would I be talking to, the corpse?" she asked.
"Uh—yeah, a couple holed themselves up in the liquor store. There's a bunch of guys over there tryin' to take 'em down, but it ain't going too well." he explained.
"Thanks, kid. Oh, and could you get rid of that guy?" she asked, nodding towards the dead lieutenant.
"Sure, Boss. How you want me to get rid of 'im?" he asked. She shrugged.
"Toss his ass in a dumpster or something. I ain't picky." she replied. He nodded and grabbed the mauled corpse under the arms, dragging him towards the dumpster at the end of the alley, while Marcia made her way back to her car (a custom Magma—Saint's purple paint job, red tinted windows, the works. It was her baby) at a leisurely pace. She was in no hurry to chase these bastards off her turf—they'd just be back tomorrow, anyway.
"Those bitches just don't give up!" Pierce yelled, slamming his fist against the wall. "That's the third Brotherhood takeover we've had to push back this week, you know that?" he exclaimed, holding up the proper amount of fingers for emphasis.
"Yeah, we all fuckin' know, Pierce. Shut up." Marcia muttered from her arm chair, fingers laced and pressed against her mouth.
"And I wonder why." Johnny muttered bitterly from the chair across from hers. She looked up and narrowed her eyes.
"You got something to say, Johnny? Then come out and say it." she said, standing.
"Okay, fine. We all wouldn't be in this mess if you'd had a little bit of common sense." Johnny said, also standing. The two had a little stare down across the fire.
"Oh, like all of your plans have been five fucking stars. Because that's obviously how you landed your sorry ass in jail." she said, pointing an accusing finger at him. "I wanted Maero to know he'd pissed me off. It was a good a plan as any."
"You weren't pissed off at Maero, you were pissed off at yourself, 'cause he was up to something and you couldn't do shit about it." he retorted, walking around the fire and poking Marcia forcefully in the collarbone area. "You didn't even let any of us know what the fuck you were doing! Instead you had to drag that kid into the whole mess, and look at where we are now. The Brotherhood is on our asses twenty-four seven, you can barely drag your sorry ass out of bed, let alone fucking lead the gang, and Carlos is dead. So clearly you deserve the five fucking stars here." She scowled at him openly.
"I was trying to send a message!" she yelled.
"What message, Marce?! You just did, you didn't think before hand. There was no message. If you'd wanted to send a fucking message to Maero, you could have just as easily snuck a bomb into his tattoo parlour instead of some stupid toxic waste." he pointed out. "And then they would have been too busy scraping up what was left of Maero and his red-headed whore to bother with Carlos, and he'd still be around!" he yelled, giving her a sturdy shove. She stumbled, but didn't fall, and pushed Johnny back.
"Shut the fuck up! You think I don't already feel like shit?! What the fuck do you know?!" she demanded. "I did what I thought was gonna show Maero and his little zombie whores who the fuck he was dealing with, and if I could change what happened to Carlos, I would, but dead is dead, and the whole thing's over with, and now all we can do is show Maero we aren't fucking around!" she yelled. "Carlos wanted to be a part of the best fucking gang in Stilwater, just like his brother, so for him, we're gonna bring the Saints back to the top. And I'll do whatever the fuck it takes to get us there. If you don't approve, you can just go back to being a prison bitch for all I care." She spat on Johnny's shoes and turned to walk out the door.
"Where the hell you think you're going?!" he demanded.
"Away from you!" The door slammed behind her, almost making Johnny cringe, and he turned towards Pierce, who was staring at him with wide eyes.
"What the fuck are you lookin' at? Don't you have work to be doin'? Ronin to be fucking up?" he mumbled. "Get the fuck out of here." Pierce nodded, and without a word, darted from the room. Johnny collapsed onto the couch and pulled out his cell, hitting speed dial one. "Hey, Aisha? You doin' anything right now? I could use some serious anger management."
"Far be it from me to put down drinking in any form, but you're one sorry ass drunk."
Marcia looked up with glassy eyes at the girl standing there, standing with one hand on her hip in a strictly not impressed way, freshly dyed dreadlocks hanging over her shoulders.
"Nice streaks." Marcia mumbled into her beer bottle, taking another sip.
"Thanks." Shaundi said. "Nice hangover." she said, nodding towards the other bottles sitting beside her.
"I don't have a hangover." Marcia replied.
"Oh, sorry, I was seeing twenty-four hours into the future." she said. "Damn, Marci—booze is supposed to make you feel good. It's not meant for sitting around and moping."
"I'm not moping, and I can drink for whatever the fuck I want." she hissed, drinking the rest of the current bottle and tossing it to Shaundi's left. It shattered quite loudly, scaring a cat in a nearby alley and causing it to yowl. Shaundi rolled her eyes.
"You've gotta stop beating yourself up over what happened. I liked you way better as a happy, violent, shoot-everything-on-the-block drunk." she said, grabbing the bottle Marcia was attempting to open from her hand.
"I ain't beating myself up over nothing." she hissed. "You and Johnny need to get your fucking heads out of your asses and see that. Sure, I'm sad Carlos ain't around anymore—he was a great kid, and he would have made a great Saint if he'd had the time—but the only person I blame for all of this is Maero and his fucking crack whore of a girlfriend. One of 'em is dead, now I just have to work on the other." she explained, grabbing the bottle from Shaundi's hand and smashing the neck, taking a drink and ignoring the way the sharp glass cut her lips. She was probably drunk far past the point of pain.
"Right. Of course you don't blame yourself, you blame Maero. That's why you're sitting here punishing your liver instead of getting out there and killing the bitch." she said. "If I'd known letting you kill Jessica would just make you beat yourself up instead of fantasizing about running her through a printing press, I would never have told you about her showing up at the bank." she muttered, shaking her head.
"Excuse me? You fuckin' deaf or something? I told you, the only thing I blame myself for is not putting a bullet between Maero's eyes when he offered me twenty percent." she said, standing and throwing the bottle directly at Shaundi. The lieutenant turned away, and it shattered against her shoulder. "Maybe if I had, Carlos would still be..." Marcia trailed off, looking to the ground and shaking her head. Ignoring the pain in her shoulder from the impact with the beer bottle, she looked up at Marcia in shock; was that admittance, after all of the talk of not blaming herself?
"Hey," she said, reaching out and touching Marcia's shoulder in a comforting gesture. "It's not your fault. I understand the novelty of payback, but that bitch went way too far, and you gave her what she deserved. Killing Maero when you and Carlos were there would have just gotten you both killed, and nobody would have wanted that. All we can do now is finish what we started, for Carlos' sake. Let's take down the Brotherhood." she said. There was a glimmer of something more uplifting in Marcia's eyes before they turned back to their hard, miserably drunken glare.
"You wanna be pulling back a stump?" she asked, swatting Shaundi's hand away. "I don't need a fucking pep talk, I need results. So unless you bring me back Maero, alive, I don't wanna fucking hear it. I'm gonna kill him, and if anyone else fucking touches him before I can finish the job the toxic waste should have done, they're gonna die, too." she explained. "I'm goin' home. You know my number if something comes up, like those whores try to take back another hood."
"Don't drive off the bridge on your way." Shaundi called after her as she walked towards her car, parked not far from the liquor store she'd found her sitting in front of. Marcia flipped her the bird over her shoulder.
"Fuck off." she called back, not even turning her head.
The drive back to her penthouse loft in the Suburbs District was surprisingly uneventful—no accidents, no shootouts, nothing. She was a surprisingly better driver when she was drunk and pissy, as opposed to sober and pissy. The moment she walked in and tossed her coat onto the floor, she was greeted by the sight of a couple of Saints getting a lap dance from one of the many strippers who felt it appropriate to invite themselves into her home.
"Get the fuck out." she said, nodding back towards the door. "You all know the way. I'm not in the fuckin' mood to deal with you." There were several loud complaints from the men sitting on the couch, but all it took was a hard glare to get them to immediately jump up and leave, following the strippers. The only person left was the pianist, who left without fuss or prompting, in the same prim manner she went everywhere with. Marcia immediately migrated to her fridge and pulled out some old Phuc Mi Phuc Yue takeout and plopped herself onto her couch, turning her home theatre over to retro cartoons. If any of her gang members had seen her like this, they would have laughed endlessly (or at least until she rid a few of them of their teeth), but it had always been her coping mechanism for any sort of sour mood—angry, bitter, depressed...
She hadn't been relaxing for long when her phone went off in her pocket, almost startling her. The caller ID identified the culprit as Shaundi, and although she really didn't want to talk to her, she answered.
"The fuck do you want?" she snapped, muting the television so Shaundi couldn't hear the cartoons playing in the background.
"Someone's in a worse mood." the free spirited woman replied. "Just wanted to let you know that Maero is visiting one of the warehouses in the Factory district. He's arranging to buy some cheap cars to replace the ones you blew up. If you—"
Marcia never got to hear the rest of what Shaundi was saying; she immediately hung up and stuffed the phone back into the pocket of her jeans, grabbing her coat off the floor on her way out. She was going to finish this, and she was going to finish it right.
"I don't know, Aish. She's not acting like herself." Johnny muttered, staring out the window. Aisha shifted on the couch behind him. "She's not the same Marce I knew. She's...changed. A year ago, hell, a month ago, she never would have walked out like that. She would have stuck around and made me see it her way." he explained.
"Well, what do you expect, Johnny? After what she had to go through, I'm not surprised." she pointed out.
"She's seen tons of members of the Saints die." he replied. "It's never done anything before, except motivate her to take down the other gangs."
"But she's never had to mercy kill them." she said. "She's upset. It's not hard to figure out."
"I don't know what to do, Aish. I can't watch her mope like this, but how the fuck am I supposed to help? This isn't exactly my area of expertise." he pointed out.
"You don't have to do anything, Johnny. Whatever she needs, it doesn't involve you." she explained. "She's tough. She can handle herself. Don't get too involved." He turned towards her and raised an eyebrow.
"Do you think there's something going on between us?" he asked. She sighed and shook her head.
"I trust you." she replied. "It's her I'm more worried about. I love Marcia as much as you do, but the two of you are so close, what if she were to fall for you?"
"She's not the type to fall for anyone." he replied. "Especially not me. We're friends, that's all. She knows the line."
"She fell for Carlos." Aisha replied. Johnny narrowed his eyes in confusion.
"...what?" he said, giving his head a little shake and blinking repeatedly. "...for Carlos? There's no way. Marce isn't the type, I told you. Did she tell you that?" he asked. Aisha shook her head.
"But I can tell. She's had to kill plenty of innocent people before, some she's even been friends with, and she never felt any remorse for it—not for very long, at least. The fact that she's so upset over what happened to Carlos means she cared about him more than anyone else she's had to kill. Besides, it wasn't that hard to see. She always was so lenient whenever he messed up, and praised him more than anyone else when he did well. And all that time she spent with him...you're telling me you never realized something was going on?" she asked, shaking her head. "You can be so oblivious sometimes."
"You really shouldn't make assumptions like—" Johnny cut off at the sound of his cell phone ringing, and he stopped to answer it without even looking at the caller ID. "What's up?" he asked, turning back towards the window.
"Johnny? Oh, god—it's Marci. I—I tried to help her, I told her Maero would be at one of the warehouses in the factory district, and..and she..." Shaundi trailed off, all but sobbing as she spoke.
"Shaundi? Slow down, what is happening with Marce?" he asked.
"She's going to drive a fucking petrol truck into the building Maero's in to get even with him!" she yelled. "I called Pierce, he's going to try and stop her, but I don't think he can do shit—and I already tried to talk her out of it, she won't listen to anyone—" She started breaking down into hiccuping sobs, and Johnny hushed her through the phone.
"What's the matter?" Aisha asked, taking him by the shoulder and noticing his frightened expression.
"It's Marce. She's going after Maero with a petrol truck. She's going to blow herself up to get him." he explained.
"Oh, god. You've got to stop her, Johnny." Aisha pleaded.
"How?" he asked.
"Just try to talk her out of it! You have her cell phone number. If anyone can do it, it's you." she replied. Johnny considered for a moment, before nodding.
"Okay, I'll try." he said. "Shaundi? I'm gonna have to let you go, I'm going to try and talk to her, see if I can talk her out of it."
"Okay. God, you've got to get her to listen, Johnny." she pleaded.
"I'll do what I can." he replied, before hanging up. He quickly dialled Marcia's number, fingers moving faster than the eye could see, and was picked up after only one ring.
"Johnny? Why the fuck are you calling me? Don't tell me Shaundi called you, too—"
"Look, Marce, I don't care what the fuck Maero did, or that Carlos is dead, you can't do this." he said. "You're throwin' your life away for shit. We can get Maero—we will get Maero—and you can kill him however the fuck you want. Drag him around town by the ankle, make him see how Carlos felt—do whatever. But don't kill yourself for this. If you die, it means the Brotherhood won. Do you want that?"
"You can't talk me out of this, Johnny. I don't give a rat's ass if the Brotherhood wins, I just want Maero dead, and I'm going to do it my way." she hissed. "Don't try to stop me! This is what I want!" she practically screamed into the phone.
"Why, Marce?! Whatever's buggin' you, it's not worth killing yourself over—we can fix it, somehow—"
"I killed him, Johnny!" she screamed. "It wasn't Maero, or Jessica, or any of his stupid ass punks! It was me! I was the one who killed Carlos! I could have helped him, if I'd just used my goddamn head—there was a mechanic nearby, they could have cut the chain, I could have gotten him to the hospital, and he'd still be alive! I killed him for nothing!"
"You were doing him a favour, Marce. He was in so much pain—his face was torn up so bad, they'd fuckin' dragged him around by the ankle. What you did was merciful. Even if you'd gotten him to the hospital before he died from the blood loss—which I doubt anyone could have—he'd never be the same again. You don't recover from something like that. This isn't—this isn't your fault." he insisted, his voice cracking momentarily.
"I held his hand, Johnny." she said, her voice similarly cracking, although certainly more than momentarily. "I held his fucking hand while he was lying there and screaming in pain. He reached out for me. He wanted me to help him. And what did I do? I killed him. I don't—I don't give a fuck what you and Shaundi and Pierce say. After doing that, I don't—I don't want to have to live knowing I did that." Johnny could hear her full out crying, trying to choke back sobs, over the highway noise in the background. "I'm almost to the warehouse. You can't stop me, Johnny. I'm going to do it."
"Don't, Marce." Johnny pleaded, biting his lower lip as his voice cracked and watching out of the corner of his eye as Aisha did the same. "Don't. Please. We need you to much. Pierce, Shaundi, the Saints—they need you too much. I need you too much. Don't do this."
"But Carlos—"
"I don't give a fuck about what you did to Carlos, Marce, I care about you!" he yelled. "If it had been me, Carlos would be telling you the same fucking thing. He cared about you too much to have ever let you do something like this—and I do too. Come back, Marce, please, and I swear to you, it'll all be alright. You did the right thing with Carlos, and we'll get Maero for everything he's done. Just come back." he pleaded. There was a pause on the other end of the line, and Marcia started crying again. There was a screeching sound as she hit the brakes a little too hard, and he bit his lower lip in anticipation. "Pierce is coming to get you. Tell him to bring you here, to Aisha's, right now." he said. Marcia let out another little hiccuping sob. He continued to repeat his promise of "It'll be alright." until he heard Pierce yelling her name, and the sound of her door opening and closing, and she hung up.
It wasn't ten minutes later (ten long minutes of waiting) that he saw Pierce's current car pull into the driveway and he literally ran outside, Marcia jumping out of the car and running up to him at the same time. She threw her arms around him and sobbed into his shoulder, and he put his arms around her in return, rubbing her back.
"It's okay, Marce, it's okay. We won't let that bastard make anyone have to go through what you and Carlos did ever again. I swear." he whispered. It took a while for him to coax her down from her hysteria, and when he managed to do so, she practically collapsed in his arms out of exhaustion. Pierce helped half drag, half carry her to the spare bedroom and lie her on top of the blankets, letting her tuck herself in. As soon as she was comfortable and the two of them were back downstairs, Johnny turned towards him. "Thanks, Pierce. You did good. Sorry for being such a hard ass, earlier. She was really gettin' to me—now I wish I'd never yelled at her." he said, shaking his head and turning away.
"Hey, I'm not the one to be thankin' here. You did all the hard work. I just picked her up. If it weren't for you, she'd just be a pile of ashes right now. You did good, man." he replied, clapping Johnny on the shoulder. He smiled.
"I try." he said. "You can go now. I'll make sure she doesn't do anything stupid. Go tell Shaundi she's okay—I'm sure she'd like to hear it from you in person." he said, and Pierce gave a quick nod.
"Whatever you say, boss." he said, giving a little mock salute before stuffing his hands in his pockets and walking straight out the door, whistling an indistinguishable tune as he went. As soon as his car pulled out of the driveway, Johnny closed and locked the door, turning around and leaning back against it. Aisha was standing there, hands on her hips, looking somewhere between worried and unimpressed.
"Pierce was right. You did a good job. I was...wrong about her not needing your help." she admitted. "She really needs you right now. But all that stuff you said—about how you care about her—"
"Yeah, you know, as a friend." Johnny replied, cutting her off. He walked forwards and smiled at her, tipping his sunglasses off. "Don't worry about it, Aish. You know I've only got eyes for you." he said. She gave an unsure smile and looked down and to the side.
"I already told you, you're not the one I'm worried about." she replied, looking up the stairs towards the guest bedroom. "Don't do anything she might take the wrong way, Johnny. She broke you out of the courthouse, she helped you build the gang back up, she's done everything for you, and now she's really going to depend on you to help get her back on her feet after what happened to Carlos. You leading her on and breaking her heart is the last thing she needs right now."
As Aisha walked away, leaving a flabbergasted Johnny standing at the bottom of the stairs, he looked up, stared for a moment, and shook his head.
"Nah. No way."