A/N- Sorry for the late update guys! Senior year is terrible in terms of free time, but this is not a dead story, I promise I'm still updating. Thanks for reading and please review and criticize me if you have any ideas because I can always use it! This is a Matt POV chapter by the way.

Disclaimer: I do not, nor will I ever own Saints Row or any of its characters. The content of this story was not meant to insult anyone in any way, shape or form. Rated T for violence and coarse language.

Chapter Four: Change of Heart

I fucked up.

She wasn't supposed to know I was watching her and up until last night I'm sure she'd been completely unaware, but I just had to send her that text didn't I? I'm supposed to be a gang leader for goodness's sake and I can't even watch a girl moping around in her room without feeling like I have to send her some kind of semi-comforting text. If Killbane ever finds out about this, he'll kill me.

I pull myself out of my reverie long enough to admire the brand-new NEMO (Neurological Electro Magnetic Onieroscope) chair before me, a sparkling testimony to technology at its finest. The Deckers around me all sing their praises of the beautiful device but I'm too far gone to hear any of them. My mind is fixated on two very different subjects: using the NEMO chair to kill the Saints Queen and using the NEMO chair to save the Saints Queen. Once the STAG initiative is deployed in Steelport I'm not sure her little gang will be around for much longer, but I could theoretically use this chair to hack into the STAG usernet and delay their advances a bit.

"Matt." Kirsten waves a gloved hand in front of my face, "Earth to Matt?"

"W-what?"

My right-hand girl looks slightly annoyed as she evaluates the look of confusion on my face. Why do women always get so touchy when you don't hear what they've said? It's not like it would kill them to say it again.

"I was just saying," she begins in a somewhat irritated tone, "If that slag, Kensington, finds out we have the chair she'll send her dog after us."

"Her dog?" I ask, thinking of the very large and frightening Oleg.

"Yeah, the Saints boss."

I feel a twitch of anger at her words, at the comparison of that girl and a creature that can be tamed, commanded. There is no similarity. In my sixteen years I have never met someone who was harder to anticipate or control than she.

"You shouldn't underestimate our enemies." I say, moving forward to run my hand over the chair before us. The thing is beautiful and it will reinvent the Decker usernet entirely. I can now expand the virtual space in which my gang and I answer to no one but ourselves.

"It's not like our enemy is very smart in this case." Kirsten replies and, as sad as it may be to admit this, I can't find it in myself to disagree with her. The Saints Queen may be pretty to look at and unusually strong for her size, but it's been obvious from day one that she's no thinker. Her failure to plan ahead has been her undoing as often as it's let her get ahead of us.

I circle around the NEMO chair, thinking of what it will mean to the Deckers once I get it working. We now have access to basically every server in the country and nobody knows it but us and that Kensington witch. I can delete the electronic existence of anyone I choose. Maybe, if worse comes to worst, I can stick the cops on Killbane. The fact that he basically owns me bothers me more than almost anything else.

"Did you see that?" a young female Decker trills from behind Kirsten and me. She's leaning towards the computer screen at her desk and I surmise that her words were directed at Ben, who is sitting beside her. On good days I try to memorize the names of all of my people.

"What is it?" Kirsten moves over to the desk they're seated at and moves Ben out of the way to get a good view. He rolls a few feet in his office chair before stopping the motion with his foot.

"It looks like something's flying in our airspace." he announces, scooting back up. Kirsten looks up at me and the fear in her eyes is nearly tangible.

"She's coming."

Those two words are whispered at first, then repeated like an echo until every Decker in the room is shouting it as they reach for whatever weapon is closest to them. I'm about to grab an SMG when Kirsten stays my hand.

"No. You don't fight."

I look around, bemused, as my Deckers get prepared for war around me. What am I supposed to do, stand here and get shot at?

"What?" I reply.

"I'm getting you out of here," her fingers wrap around my wrist and pull me towards the back door, "Your safety is our priority."

I'm about to argue when I realize that I'm absolutely no good with killing things and that I very much want to live. If it really is her, though, I'm going to lose a lot of the Deckers tonight along with that NEMO chair. I hate this.

I hear what sounds like a parachute opening as I run for the door, but I don't turn back. I hear screams and gunshots and the sound of bodies hitting the floor but I keep my eyes on my friend sprinting ahead of me, my thoughts on the pace of my feet as I follow her through the crowd. We've reached the door, Kirsten and I, but I feel like I have to turn back and take one last look around the room. She's there. Rows and rows of my Deckers are obstructing my view but I can see her there in the thick of it, weaving in and out of them like a snake through tall grass. She's quick to shoot and moves faster than I thought she would and my soldiers are falling down like dominos all around her. My heart twists in my chest because I want to save them, but what can I do? I can't stop her, Kirsten can't stop her. Nothing can stand up to the Queen. By now I understand that she must have dropped down through one of the smokestacks into the building from that plane or helicopter that had flown overhead.

This time, though she's still beautiful, I see that which is terrible in her too. She doesn't flinch as she takes life after human life and the blood that is splattered all over her clothes and her hair doesn't seem to phase her one bit. She's all alone; no one else is helping her in this slaughter. Her eyes keep flicking between the battlefield and the NEMO chair in the center of the room, untouched and pristine. I want to save its purity from her tainted touch.

"What are you doing?!" Kirsten demands, tugging at my sleeve with all the strength she possesses, "We need to get out of here!"

I can't respond, or maybe I just don't want to. My eyes are glued onto the Saints boss as she moves throughout the room as if dancing, her feet barely touching the ground. Maybe war is like a dance to her. Maybe killing is just a hobby. I've been staring at her for so long that I've forgotten that I'm not invisible. It's not long before she sees me too. Her eyes meet mine for a brief second, fathomless and calculating, before moving on. I was unarmed and not much of a threat to her. I am of no import.

"Matt!" Kirsten shrieks, and this time I hear her. I whirl around, grabbing her hand as the two of us hurtle towards the back exit together. I'm a king with no castle and the majority of my populace is going to die tonight. I am powerless to stop it.

"I've failed." I say bluntly. I'm speaking to myself, but Kirsten decides to answer anyway.

"It's not your fault."

Her words are so cliché they're almost patronizing. It's not your fault. It is my fault. I won't mope over that fact, but I honestly should have planned for this situation better. If I hadn't been so fixated on the Saints Queen, maybe I'd have realized that she was already coming for the chair. I've escaped with my sanity and not much else. From now on I must focus on only one truth.

The Saints must be destroyed.