A/N: Welcome back to my old readers, and hello to any new arrivals. If you aren't aware by now, I've been getting my life back on track, and one side effect of that is that I'm writing again. Acta Sanctorum in particular is a fic I regret not being able to continue after my depressive episode last year, since it was so young and there is so little like it in the Worm or Saints Row communities, so I'm happy to be posting this here. More to come!
I've also made a map of Acta Sanctorum's Brocton Bay, current as of the end of this chapter. You can find it at imgur dot com /RRHNdEj.
This chapter beta-read by Undead_Robot.
Chapter 4: Sanctuary
Saturday morning brought with it a cold mid-March downpour. For Amelia, that usually meant it was a morning for coffee and a fluffy bathrobe, watching TV until she couldn't afford to put things off any more.
Unfortunately, they had guests, which in a single stroke both made the bathrobe less than feasible and provided a very immediate problem to deal with.
"No, Gat, we can't run a gang out of the house," she said, rubbing her temples. It was too bad she couldn't alter her own neurochemistry to be a morning person. "It's too much of a risk even housing you here short-term."
Johnny took out the whiskey and poured some in an empty coffee mug. "Come on. Aisha and I don't exactly have anywhere else to go, and this isn't a bad location."
The fact that the woman upstairs was the famous- and famously dead- hip hop artist was still a bit of a shock, but that was another matter. "We live in the middle of another gang's territory!"
"Gotta start somewhere?" he said, shrugging.
"That's not the point, though it's valid," she continued. "The PRT has my address on file as a registered independent. What happens if they send someone here and see the most wanted man in the city sitting on the couch? What if the Sons see you, or any of us? Their dealers are everywhere."
"Fine, I won't stay here," he said, putting up the bottle. "But Aisha does. I already had to take her away from her home so I could leave the ABB; if you don't help her, we both leave."
After a moment, she nodded, expression softening. "We have a few spare bedrooms here, and more than enough money to spare. If she's not going to make a fuss, she's free to stay."
"Good." With that, he left. A moment later, she heard the TV come on, volume rising steadily to an uncomfortable level.
No, today was just determined to be a bad day.
By lunch, they had a map of gang territory in the Bay, drawn up by Gat based off six-month-old information and extrapolation by the other three. There were seven locations marked out in various spots around the northern half of the city, an area commonly split between the Sons of Cimiterie (Or Bastard Sons, to most residents) and the Brotherhood faction of Empire 88.
"This one," Carlos said, putting his finger to the map at one of the more reluctantly placed locations, an old cathedral on the north end of the Saint's Row district, only half a mile from Winslow High.
"That's fuckin' crazy, kid," Gat said in a warning tone. "You'll be too close to the Nazis, too close to Lung, pissing off the Sons with the asset grab, and probably pissing off the city even more. It's suicidal."
Amelia was already pulling out her phone to get floorplans for the old cathedral. She might not trust his judgment unilaterally; he was her little brother, after all, it was her prerogative to knock him down a peg sometimes; but on this, she was with him. The old cathedral might not be ideal, but if not for that location, the Sons wouldn't own that side of the Suburbs.
"It's a church, it's on Third Street, and it's a minor gang hideout," Carlos said, ticking off the points on his fingers. "You got me on the gang reactions, sure, but they're all gonna get pissed at the no-name land grab anyway. If we do this, we're declaring war on the whole city, even if they don't know it, right? So we go big, we get as much cred as we can, and we get every recruit we can while the other gangs double-take."
"We should hit some other assets first, start on the edge of town, and work our way in," Gat rebutted. "Or at least have an actual fortifiable position, not some run-down cathedral in the middle of the burbs."
Amelia cut in. "I can work with this, actually," she said, putting her phone on the table. "Run-down is a plus, with what I have in mind, and we're familiar with the area around it. Winslow would be a great recruiting ground. And according to this floorplan, the place was built on top of an old icehouse and has a cold-war-era fallout shelter under the adjacent lot, so fortification is actually not that big of an issue."
"Cut the shit, Johnny," Aisha interjected, speaking for the first time in the last half an hour. "Bold is your maiden name, this isn't like you."
Gat looked uncomfortable, his sunglasses doing little to hide the mix of emotions the comment triggered. He finally slumped in exaggerated defeat. "Fuck, Eesh. Fine. I feel like we're shitting on the old gang's memory, okay? Same street, wrong church. Same name, but barely any returning members and no assets. I know I said I was with you for this ride, but if I wanted to be a gang leader I would've done it ten years ago, y'know?"
Carlos winced, glancing at Amelia briefly as he shifted in discomfort. "Gat, don't take this the wrong way, but I wasn't gonna prop you up as leader."
"I would have put my foot down if he did," Amelia said flatly. Carlos looked at her in shock. "What? He said it himself, if he was leader material we wouldn't be talking about this. I just assumed you'd already agreed that Carlos would be in charge."
"Didn't really think about one person taking the lead," he admitted sheepishly. "I was kind of busy assaulting a courthouse."
Amelia shot him a scowl. "If you ever do something that stupid again without asking me for help, I'll get more creative than a slap, understand?"
Gat and Aisha silently watched the exchange. They shared a look, and Aisha took the initiative of reaching for the whiskey bottle.
"Well, this is in the running for either the stupidest thing I've ever done, or the craziest," Gat said as he accepted the finger of amber liquid. "But hey, It's not like we can break Châsse out, so the gang needs a leader. You want to run a church, Boss? Let's fuckin' do this. I'll make some calls, and we'll hit it tonight."
Carlos looked uncomfortable a moment longer, then grew serious. "Right. I think I'd better get out into the city, then. We're gonna need all the power I can get."
A rush of exhilarating energy, a flash of all-encompassing blue-white light, and another floating cluster of shattered crystals disappeared into his body. Two hours of collecting the things, and Carlos still wasn't sure he'd ever get used to the feeling. It felt like a hit of meth, but condensed into a single moment of manic, addictive power.
He didn't mind it too much, though; after all, the benefits spoke for themselves. He was getting stronger, jumping higher, running further and faster, the lilac-colored energy that added to his motions so effortless to use that he had to hold it back when he didn't want it. He'd only collected maybe thirty of the clusters, and already he was having trouble judging how hard to jump, wanting to just make the top of a roof without undershooting it or soaring twice its height, sometimes having to use the glowing energy to nudge himself in the right direction if he didn't aim well. So far there was no sign of the heroes, not that he'd expected it this close to Captain's Hill, but Carlos knew from experience that the benefits of keeping a low profile didn't apply solely to the authorities.
He checked his phone for the time, made a decision, and took a running leap to the next rooftop over. He'd agreed to meet Amelia at the Lord's Street Market this afternoon, and he didn't want to catch a cab or wait for a bus. He could get there faster this way, as long as he was careful. He might even get a few more of the shining fragment things, and that alone was worth the risk.
He misjudged the jump, of course, his trajectory sending him flying high over the edge of the neighboring roof. At least, he would have, if nudging his trajectory mid-flight hadn't triggered a new aspect of his powers. His upward momentum immediately turned horizontal with a feeling like kicking off a wall while underwater, and he shot forward to land on the roof at a stumbling jog.
"Hijo de puta-!"
The cathedral didn't look like much from the outside. Its weather-stained Gothic exterior was marred by graffiti and gang tags layered atop each other, one of the towers was starting to separate from the building along a thick crack in the stonework, and a section of the church buildings to the rear of the main cathedral had collapsed inward three years ago. For all that it looked run-down though, by the light of the late afternoon sun, its imposing architecture cast sharp, imposing shadows on the empty lot to the east of it.
The three current members of the Saints sat in a car on the street outside the gang asset, discussing the plan. A lull in the conversation came, and after a moment, they exited.
Carlos now wore an inexpensive leather jacket, jeans, and a violet undershirt. His helm, made by his sister just over an hour ago, was by far the most eye-catching part of the ensemble. Its material looked like varnished wood and felt by weight like wrought iron, its design based off a paintball mask he'd looked up online that had had a cross-shaped visor. His sister, ever the closet artistic type, had embellished the wooden helm with intricate fleur-de-lis at each end of the cross cutout, and somehow managed to produce both the deep violet stain that colored the wood and a silvery filigree that highlighted the 'carvings' she'd grown from the substance. Despite the weight, it sat so comfortably on his head that he almost forgot it was there, and Carlos had resolved on the spot to make it up to her somehow.
For her part, the newly christened Thorn had spent much of the time he'd spent out gathering resources. She'd drawn out thousands in cash from her savings accounts, then gone on a shopping trip across the town to gather costume supplies, stuff for the base, and biomass. All of that biomass had gone into forming the material of her new costume and his mask. She wore a wicker mask that looked like it had been taken straight from a thicket of brambles, and a breastplate, bracers, and light greaves of polished material that best resembled the shell of a pecan. According to her that was precisely what the material was; an adaptation of a tree nut, compacted and dormant nutrients contained in a thick protective shell. It was able to hold up to small arms fire surprisingly well in their brief testing, which was enough to justify her being allowed to come along with him and Gat.
Gat, who had declined to disguise himself beyond his shades and had instead obtained a generic football jacket, headed straight for the doors. Carlos jogged over, drawing his shotgun from nowhere as he caught up.
They stopped short of the front doors, Gat gesturing to them with his head. "Still time to turn back if you want," he offered. "Once we kick those in, there's no stopping till we're dead or too big to hurt."
"Way I see it, this city is dying, and we're already screwed," Carlos replied, resting the shotgun on his shoulder as he squared up to the doors. "I ain't standing by or running away anymore."
"Good answer!" Gat said, and they kicked the doors in together.
The sanctuary was a mess. A fair number of the pews had been smashed, burnt, or begun to rot from exposure, while plastic cups, plates, boxes of takeout and broken drug paraphernalia filled every corner or out-of-the-way nook. The roof was letting in a few beams of sunlight, dust spinning in them after the sudden disturbance, and there was a distinct, faint odor of rotten food, mildew, and marijuana in the air. The sound of bumping electronic music echoed from the hallway behind the altar area.
They cleared the ground floor quickly, meeting no resistance. A few junkies and squatters occupied the church offices at the Sons' pleasure, but none of the ones currently at home had been sober or willing enough to pull weapons on them. His sister, who was following behind as she spread some kind of seeds through the area, knocked out each of the half-dozen squatters with the pollen from a rose she'd grown from her armor.
"You're making sure not to make anything that could reproduce, right?" Carlos asked her as they made their way to the staircase down.
"Of course," she replied. "Feels good to finally try some of these ideas out, but risking Director Calvert's attentions like that would just be stupid."
Carlos could agree with that. Amelia had always needed to step carefully around the public perceptions of bio-tinkers and monsters like Nilbog in her work life, and the paranoia had long ago bled into her hobbies. She loved gardening, but he had uncountable memories of her commiserating the ideas she had that would never come to fruition thanks to the risks of another, less untraceable mistake. She'd always had the threat of losing her affiliate status hanging overhead, so he was happy to see her perk up at every new problem.
When they returned to the hallway off the cathedral, Carlos was in for a surprise. The cathedral floor, which had been such a mess before, was now covered in a thick matting of thin, spiderweb-like roots, which were creeping up onto the pews and support pillars as he took the room in. Thorn pushed past them, humming approvingly at the sight.
"I've got to babysit this for a bit," she said, crouching down to touch the closest roots. "You guys handle the basement, I'll have this place fixed up by the time you're done."
Carlos didn't feel entirely comfortable leaving her alone, but it was probably better than having her follow him into a gunfight without any experience with a gun. "Ring me if backup arrives?" he asked, tapping his phone where it rested in his pocket. She nodded.
The electronic music hadn't stopped coming from the stairwell to the cathedral basement, which meant the guard at the bottom of the stairs didn't hear them coming down the first flight. The moment Carlos spotted the man, he didn't bother with the second flight; a twitch of his legs sent him flying off the landing at highway speeds, a thought making the shotgun disappear from his hands, and before the guard had time to process the fact he was under attack, he had already been grabbed by the neck and chokeslammed into the painted cinderblock wall with a dull thud. The banger passed out a moment later, or at least faked it enough for his liking, and he let the man slump to the ground.
"Hey, what was that?" somebody yelled over the music. "Cut that shit out!"
A radio clicked off, leaving the place eerily quiet. Carlos drew a pair of pistols and ducked into the door, and Gat followed right behind. They walked forward slowly as a conversation continued down the hallway.
"Look, I'll go check on Karl, but you can go fuck yoursel-" A gang member walked around the corner, and Gat beat him to the punch, snapping off a shot that hit the woman in the center of her chest. She looked shocked for a moment, then collapsed.
Carlos didn't have time to worry about the death, and to be honest he didn't feel all that much about it. For years he'd sat by while shitheads like these warred over the scraps of his hometown, and he wasn't going to take it anymore. As long as he could remember, the gangs had been fighting and killing each other over every scrap of land, and if people like his mother or Milo got killed along the way, well, that was just another statistic.
The woman's comrades came out guns blazing a moment later, and he answered in kind. With his new abilities, it would have been simple to dash around them and take them out, but he had anger to work out with the Sons in particular, and Gat was enjoying himself.
They took two rooms, the Sons retreating each time with less people and ammo. During the third retreat, Carlos caught a glimpse of the leader of the group, and after a moment of confused recognition, he stopped holding back. From there his memories of the fight settled into a blur of pain and motion, half-remembered pleas and the sounds of broken things.
When Carlos finally came back to himself, Gat was pulling him off the man he'd seen, who was a bloody mess on the cratered tile floor. His eyes were wet behind the helm, and his split knuckles ached in protest before healing back to normal, the skin around them stained red.
"Boss, come on, it's over," Gat was saying. "You got him."
Carlos finally placed the man, thanks to a faded tattoo of a pair of dice on his hand. He'd been a Saint who Milo had hung out with, when Carlos was just a little kid. He couldn't remember the man's name. Gat might know, but he wasn't going to ask. He couldn't even remember why he'd beaten the guy up; had he done something in the past, or was it just the recognition?
Gat got his attention again, turning him away from the corpse. The veteran gestured to the doorway. "We've got some turncoats, you want to kick 'em out?"
Carlos's first instinct was to say yes, because they'd already made their bed. Instead, he took a long, deep breath, let it out. "Not yet. They're outside?"
"Yeah. You good?"
Carlos wasn't good. He hadn't been good for a while, and as he took in the wreckage of the storage room he was in and the broken bodies all around him, he knew that it would be a while till he was back to what he considered 'good'. He had a lot of anger to burn through right now, and if this was how it lashed out when he tried to let it off at a trickle, he wasn't going to be okay for a long, long time.
He nodded anyway. "I'm good."
Gat slapped a hand on his shoulder. "We'll make a banger of you yet, Boss. C'mon." He led the way out of the room, and Carlos followed.
Eight members of the Sons were waiting in the next room, tending to each other's wounds and talking quietly. They shut up as the two of them entered the room, clambering and helping each other to their feet. Five guys, three girls, most sporting gunshot wounds, two nursing fractures and bruises from his apparent rampage, and the guard from the foot of the stairs sporting a wrapped head and bruised neck.
Carlos wanted to feel bad about the injuries, just like he wanted to feel bad about the deaths, but all he felt was vindicated. They'd pushed people around for years, it felt oddly good to finally push back. Besides, he'd been planning to have brawling be one of the rites of canonization for his gang anyway, so really these six had already gotten past the hard part.
"You're willing to join?" he asked, locking eyes with the biggest man in the group, a Hispanic guy with a shaved head and skull gauges who sported a nasty broken nose. The man nodded, and the others followed a moment afterward.
"You'll swear loyalty to the Saints, full stop?"
All of them nodded.
"My name is Crux, and I'm gonna make sure the Saints run this town," he said, trying to project confidence. "You join and the Saints have your back, but you don't get to fuck with civilians, got it? I hear any shit about normal people getting mugged by my guys, you're fucked."
Another round of nodding, more reluctant in some than others. He took note for later.
"Welcome to the family, then," he said flatly, hoping he was making the right decision. "Gat, time to canonize; I trust you know what to do. I'll be upstairs."
The legendary banger clapped his hands together with a dark chuckle. As Crux walked away, he caught the first bit of the psychopathic lieutenant's commands.
"Alright you fuckers, you want in? You've gotta start with the grunt work first…"