A/N- And here begins the story of Saints Row IV. I'm starting this part off with a Matt POV chapter that I really hope y'all enjoy! ZorraVixen: I'm glad you liked it :) Taserqueen (aka Darcy): I'm happy you found your log in, if you ever write a Saints Row fanfic I'd be excited to read it! BlackOutBlind: thank you for reviewing :D Mondlichtvogel: it's so great to be told encouragements like those, I am very proud that you think so highly of this story. FeistyGreenSnake: Saintly chaos is definitely on its way! And I do hold the belief that the Boss believes in the saying "Go hard or go home." ^^ Remi: thank you so much, I'm happy that it's fulfilling your expectations! Ace: I watch Supernatural too! I hope the waiting isn't too difficult :( StopTalkingToMe: It's wonderful that you think so :D thank you! DemoiselleGothique: I also wanted to make the Boss younger, but the Saints Row timeline is so whacked out that the only thing I wanted to include in the story of it was that the Boss went to college for a year. Of course, that's not true for every Boss and a younger Boss is definitely a good choice. 3rdStreetSaint: thank you, it's very difficult for me to find a good balance so I'm happy to hear I'm doing well.
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 Eleven: Invaded
If anyone had told me six years ago that I'd be walking into the White House today with a file folder tucked under my arm that contained evidence of every single instance that proved that an alien fleet was targeting Earth for God knows what reason, I'd have assumed they smoked loa dust regularly. As it happens the event I just described became not only true, but also the most precarious situation I've ever been in in all my life.
After the premiere of Gangstas in Space a certain Queen of the Saints had pulled me to her and kissed the living daylights out of me directly in front of a gossip magazine photographer. I'd expected that her doing this would have some sort of legal repercussion, but it did not. She was too frightening to prosecute and, as Legal Lee explained it, no one could say that the situation was technically illegal unless we slept together. Pretty soon, we were sleeping together but that wasn't something I wanted to share with the general public. Losing my virginity was less ceremonial than I imagined it would be, but twice as amazing (despite Pierce's insistence that the first time wouldn't be that great) due to the fact that the Boss had enough experience to make up for my lack of it. We fell into an easy rhythm, spending our days and nights together like most people in a relationship would do. She even held my hand and bought me a birthday presents, but the one thing she never did was fall in love with me. She liked me, of course, but I always felt that she didn't want to fall in love with me. She refused to put a label on our relationship. At the age of nineteen I realized that being with her in such an ambiguous way was beginning to depress me. I received an email from MI6 in that same year, offering me a pay raise and the option to put my skill with a computer to good use again in exchange for joining them. I was torn. Half of me realized that I'd been living in a fairytale and that it was necessary for me to find a life outside of the Saints Queen, but all of me was in love with her. I don't think I'd have left if she hadn't ended up finding out about the email (thanks to that slag, Kensington). We fought that day, the worst fight we'd ever had and it became obvious that it was time for me to leave, so I did. We did not speak again for an entire year.
Being a part of MI6 was, all in all, perfect for me. I could not easily wrap my head around working for the government rather than against it, but using my talents for the greater good became a force of habit before too long. My partner, Asha Odekar, did not like me very much in those first few weeks, nor I her. However, after I got her out of a particularly sticky situation in Moscow, we began to form a strong bond. Before long we were getting drinks together after work and going over to each other's homes for Christmas and birthdays. I had not been that close to a woman in a platonic way since leaving Kirsten back in Steelport, where she had been promoted to the head of the Deckers.
One drunken night I let slip to Asha that I used to have a relationship with the Queen during my time in America, and that leaving her had broken me. I suppose it was that, in the end, that solidified her opinion of the Saints as a menace to society. When we were informed that she'd be working with them on a top-secret mission that involved terrorists and Cyrus Temple, I was terrified. I was sure that seeing the woman I was in love with again would shatter my heart into even more pieces instead of mending it like Asha suggested might happen. The mission culminated in, as any idiot with access to a newspaper should know, the Queen saving the United States. Despite my teary plea that she not sacrifice herself to save the capitol, she'd gone ahead and done it anyway. And she survived. Perhaps I should have expected it by then, but I was not yet certain of the idea that she is invincible.
The Queen used the momentum from her act of national heroism to propel herself into position as a candidate in the next presidential election, overruling the ageist laws on presidency without much difficulty. Despite the fact that she had murdered countless people, ran the most infamous gang in the U.S, and that she had once dated a minor, she won by a landslide. The next time I saw her was at her inauguration party, decked out in a purple suit/skirt combo in the lobby of the White House. She and I made amends there, in a way, at least to the point that we began emailing each other from time to time about our experiences and matters of national security. I watched her on the news as much as I was able and under her rule America flourished in an unprecedented way. The barriers that had held other presidents in check seemed to somehow fall down around her and she single-handedly wrote and submitted to Congress three bills that revamped the very nature of all things American. By her second year, the economy of the United States had experienced a boom that refused to end. Border control was tightened and she somehow, during face-to-face meetings, frightened the leaders of more than a few uncooperative countries into submission. Congress did not approve of her methods and the faith of America's people in such a hot-headed leader was shaky at best, but what could they do? It's impossible to stand in the way of the Queen.
With the resources I'd been granted at MI6 it became my job (although I was not doing it alone) to cast my protective gaze over everything earthly and anything in England's airspace. It was in doing so that I one day noticed a small blip on a heat-signature map positioned directly over Big Ben. This one blip reappeared again and again around the country and, I noticed when I did an expanded search, around the world until I began to suspect terrorist activity. I tried for weeks to hack into the servers of the small aircrafts I'd discovered before I got any sort of result and when I did, my world fell apart around me. I'd always suspected that aliens existed somewhere, but having proof on my computer that they were so close to Earth was pretty devastating. It became even more terrifying when I discovered a formulaic plan they had stashed away on an encrypted drive that detailed a process by which the best and brightest of a planet's residents were abducted and collected as if they were mere trophies. I cursed the deities for allowing such a weighty responsibility to fall upon me and revealed my discoveries to Asha. I was overjoyed when she believed me, but desperate when no one else did. We had no choice left other than taking the information to the leader of another country.
"While I can't honestly say I'm happy to see you," Shaundi says to me as we move into her office, "It's good that you're here. Kinzie's found something I think you need to know about."
Asha and I exchange a knowing look before I hand my folder over to the director of the Secret Service. She picks up a mug of what I assume is coffee from her desk and takes a sip of it as she flips through the folder.
"Is it the aliens?" my partner says bluntly. Shaundi abruptly begins to choke on said coffee, but recovers very quickly. Impressive.
"You've heard?" Shaundi asks, her voice a little hoarse.
"I've seen." I reply. She shakes her head and places the folder back down on her desk.
"You don't need to prove anything to me, I already believe you." she tells us, "Unfortunately, the President doesn't."
This doesn't come as a surprise to me. A person as certain as she is in her own strength would be doubtful of anything that might threaten it unless provided with proper evidence.
"I'll make her." is all I say. Shaundi slips up and gives me an appraising look before moving around from behind her desk and towards the office door.
"You're different than I remember." she states this as if it is a fact, "Stronger. Maybe it was good that you left."
She disappears at this and, without warning, my knees give way underneath me. I collapse into one of the armchairs in front of Shaundi's excessively large workspace and cover my face with my hands.
"Are you alright?" Asha is quick to pick up on my distress. She puts a hand on my shoulder in an attempt to comfort me and I press the heels of my palms into my eye sockets so hard I begin to see stars. So much of me wishes that things would again be what they were six years ago.
"I don't know if I can do this." I admit quietly, "Being this close to the President is difficult enough without the threat of extraterrestrials hanging over our heads."
Her grip on my back tightens as she lowers herself into the seat beside mine.
"Keep it together, Matt. This is bigger than you and me and whatever opinions we may have of the President."
"My opinion is-" I break off abruptly, not wanting to offend, "I don't hate her. I know you do, but I can't. Even if she had done something to deserve it, hating her is something I'm incapable of."
"It doesn't matter." Asha is relentless, "Put it out of your mind, would you?"
She's right, as usual. Asha and the Queen are, I discovered over the years, alike in quite a few ways. Despite this I've found that the two are not interchangeable; my desire to be near the Saint will not weaken as I spend time with the MI6 agent. I look up at her and cast her a wan smile, certain that no matter what I feel I can fake professionalism. I've been trained for this, after all. I'm just about to reassure her of my status when the walls come crashing down around me. Literally.
The first thing I hear is an eardrum shattering rumble and crash that can only be described as the sound of two jets smashing into each other in midair. The ground shakes beneath my feet and I reach instinctively for Asha, trying desperately to both protect her and to keep myself anchored. She's much more put together than I am, as usual, and she urges me to pull my gun from its place in my jacket. There is a very large and gaping crack in the ceiling over Shaundi's desk and I am so thankful that the hole happened to appear there instead of over our heads.
It's not long before I put together what's happening, and it's not long before the first of the alien invaders appear at the doorway. Their backs are to us as they're presumably fighting an unseen force, but I can tell what they are from any point of view. They are nearly bare skinned, discounting the armoring over their privates, and they appear to be a more hairless, veiny version of ourselves. I respond to Asha's cue and put a bullet through the head of the alien nearest me, but unfortunately, this has the added effect of drawing the attention of the one beside him. The only thing that saves me from his unearthly wrath is the ground quaking beneath us yet again and throwing him off balance. Asha takes the shot and hits him squarely in the chest. We are safe for the moment.
"I can't believe this is happening!" I exclaim, my voice dripping with terror. Asha doesn't answer, doesn't move. She is a perfect, vigilant statue that is determined to protect until the very end. Sadly, statues can't move very quickly in case of emergency. When my feet are swept out from under me by some invisible force I automatically reach out for her hand. If she had been able to get to me faster, perhaps she would have gotten a better grip.
There aren't many thoughts in my mind as I'm being abducted, but foremost among them is the realization that I can't hold on to Asha's fingers forever. We didn't get here fast enough. We cost an entire planet's worth of people their lives. Despite all this, my biggest regret is the thing that would have mattered least to any sane person: I wanted to see her again. If I'm going to die at the hands of some alien race, my one wish is that I get to see the Queen one last time.
"Matt!" a voice I know too well shrieks from somewhere beyond my thoughts. I look down to Asha, whose so very close to losing me, only to find that it wasn't her. I then turn my gaze on the doorway and she's there, the President of the United States in all her barefoot, tattered glory. She looks like she's literally ran through hell to reach me and even so she's still the most beautiful person I've ever seen.
My wish is granted and the grief in her bright eyes is the last thing I see before I'm torn away.