A/N- okay, I know I've been gone forever and everyone probably thought this story was dead, but I swear it's not. Don't worry guys, I'm going to finish this. Maybe slower than I originally thought since I'm in college now, but it can be done ;-; I'm going to skip the thank yous right now, just so you guys can get right to the story. If you're sticking with me, though, I'd like to give you a major thank you right now. THANK YOUU! 3
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, coarse language, and mild sexual content.
Chapter Sixteen: Pride and Prejudice
"I think it's time we went after Asha." Matt says in place of a greeting after walking in on me brushing my teeth in the communal bathroom I really wish could be locked. I spit what's left of the frothy toothpaste in my mouth into the sink, making sure my back is to him when I do so. From what I know, spitting isn't really an attractive quality in a girl. Not that I care if Matt Miller finds me attractive, because I definitely don't.
"Why do you say that?" I ask him, wiping my mouth with my handtowel. I've already decided that I'm going get Asha back for him, but I'd rather keep him on the hook than have him think I'll just roll over and do whatever he asks me to. When I turn around to face him, I'm not surprised to see he looks more than a little annoyed.
"You've rescued Shaundi, Pierce, and Mr. King," he begins to plead his case, "It can't be that hard to help Asha too. We could really use her."
I'd never admit this to anyone, but I've always been a little jealous of Asha's relationship with Matt. Even though they were never really together, he admires her the way he once admired me. Again, not that I care what Matt thinks about anyone.
"Sure thing," I grin, moving forward until we're nearly nose to nose, "I guess, since I'm a superhero and all, I could do this one thing for you."
Our lack of distance clearly turns Matt into a nervous wreck, something I enjoy seeing in any situation, and he gulps, his gaze darting from my eyes to my mouth and back again.
"Thank you?" he forces out before looking away from me again. I let out a short burst of laughter and step back, leaving the bathroom to head for the hub room. Matt is right on my heels when I go and he stops me as I'm preparing to climb into my usual simulation pod.
"We're doing this now?" he seems worried, "Without Kinzie? Weren't you just about to go to sleep?"
"What's the matter, Matty? Can't handle it on your own?"
He narrows his eyes, but his grip on my wrist loosens enough for me to finish what I started. By the time I'm firmly secured in my pod he's halfway into the one beside it.
"What are you doing?" I demand at once, confused. He flicks his hair out of his eyes and reclines in his own pod before answering me. We really need to hire some sort of barber or we'll have one spaceship full of seven Chewbaccas before long.
"I'll go with you. The least I could do is keep the Zin off you on the way to the Broken Shillelagh."
"What about CID?"
"I'll contact him from inside the simulation," Matt assures me, "It's not like he ever sleeps anyway."
I soon discover that getting anywhere in simulated Steelport is a hell of a lot harder with a pedestrian like Matt in tow. I'll have to get Kinzie to look into getting the rest of the crew the same powers I have. CID is ready and waiting when we get to the Broken Shillelagh and I don't waste a second heading for the entrance.
"You're making it out to seem worse than it is," I say, referring to the inner workings of Asha's mind. Matt keeps up with my brisk pace easily and I'm reminded yet again that he's not the same scrawny kid he was when we first met.
"And you're drastically underestimating how dangerous the mind of a super spy can be."
I feel another wave of envy rearing its ugly head at his words. Why does he have such a strong influence on me? It's really fucking annoying. I stop in my tracks and turn to face him.
"'Super spy'?" I repeat, scoffing, "Jesus Matt, I get that you wanna fuck her but you don't have to build her a pedestal."
All I really want from him right now is a denial so I'm not surprised to find, when he becomes visibly flustered, that the pain of jealousy is very sharp and extremely real. There's no way this is all in my head.
"Th-that's beside the point," he stutters out, and the pain in my chest intensifies. The smirk slides right off my face and I spin around to get back to retrieving the woman Matt seems to have replaced me with so easily.
"Whatever," I say tonelessly, "Catch you later."
He doesn't reply and I don't stick around to see if that'll change.
Surprisingly, it seems as if Asha's worst nightmare is nothing more than a regular dive bar. I head for the counter immediately, knowing that it'll be easier to keep an eye out from there, but seeing my reflection in the mirror behind the bar brings me to an abrupt stop.
"What the fuck did you do to my face, Matt?!" I screech, ignoring the sideways glances the sound garners from the other virtual patrons. My handler chuckles nervously before answering.
"Asha has very specific problems with your appearance," his voice rings out in my ear as I move closer to the mirror. Everything about me is different, from the color and cut of my hair to the shape of my nose. My own face, the one I usually wear, is just barely discernible beneath this new cover of blah.
"What's that supposed to mean?" I snap, a little hurt. What's wrong with my face?
Asha chooses this exact moment to burst through a door on my left, shoving an armored man onto the floor ahead of her. Her foot is on his neck before I have time to blink.
"Where is she?" she demands, clearly furious. For a moment I can see what exactly it is about her that Matt has taken to so well. She sort of reminds me of...me. The man underneath her takes advantage of Asha's momentary reprieve and rolls away, pulling a gun on her as he pushes himself into a standing position. She expertly wrenches the firearm away from him and throws him down onto a pool table.
"Last chance." she warns, sticking the gun to his head.
"Fuck you, slut."
I'm not surprised when she pulls the trigger. What does surprise me, however, is the cold, unfeeling look in her eyes as she does so. She may be even more like me than I expected. I decide to approach her then, plastering a wide smile on my face as I go. Nobody else is gonna know about my jealousy but me.
"You're like Johnny with better hair," I joke, forcing myself back into my usual demeanor. This statement only seems to make her angrier.
"I'm nothing like Johnny Gat." she says, turning to face me. I find that the way she says this ticks me off a little.
"Fair enough," I admit, going on the offensive, "He was never self righteous."
What ensues from my comment is a brief argument that culminates in me saying the phrase 'puckish rogue' at least twice and us discovering the entrance to the secret lair of whoever Asha is looking for. Eventually I decide I need to know who that is before we go on.
"She's your evil twin." Asha reveals with a wry grin. I suck in a breath, startled, and then start to choke. Overall it's very embarrassing and I'm hoping Matt isn't watching us too closely right now. Within my evil twin's inner sanctum, I question Asha further about why exactly I turned out so evil in this universe, but all she can tell me is what her virtual superiors told her. Knowing that this is all a construct of her worst fears, I begin to put together that she likes me even less than Matt let on.
"Do you think you can get through this without drawing the attention of everyone in here?" Asha requests as she hacks the controls to a set of steel doors in our way. I grimace, remembering that she specializes in covert ops.
"It's your nightmare." I allow, crouching down and following her into the next room, "I'll try doing it your way."
Throughout the simulation Asha coaches me in her line of work, insisting that I shoot out lights before killing my enemies and that we hide under boxes instead of just killing our way through the compound the way I would do on my own. As we go, Asha's issues with my personality become more and more obvious. The one good quality she allows me is my sense of loyalty, although, she remarks, I wasn't very loyal to Matt when I broke his heart six years ago. Matt for some reason seems to have nothing to say about this so I refrain from commenting too. Discovering that evil me is growing evil followers in evil-looking test pods doesn't really allow much time for small talk anyway. After crawling through one last air duct we land in a room with a very large monitor hanging on the wall. Seeing my own face pop on that screen wearing an eyepatch and sporting a wicked goatee is easily the second most shocking thing that's happened to me this year, after that alien invasion and the destruction of my home planet, of course.
"Why would I hide," evil me says happily, "When I can kill your friends right in front of you?"
Asha stays fixed in place but I have enough sense to back into the shadows where my evil twin won't spot me. I'd like to have the element of surprise here if I can. The image on the screen flickers and the camera pans over to reveal two of my evil twin's goons dragging in...Matt?
"Say hello, Matt." a sly smile creeps across evil me's face. I put two and two together faster than I'd like to and my heartbeat pounds in my ears as I realize that she means to kill Matt. This can't happen, it can't.
Virtual Matt is slumped over, but he straightens up upon hearing my evil twin's voice. His eyes look dead, empty. Not a single trace of the Matt I know remains in them.
"Asha, I-" he starts to say, but is abruptly cut off by a bullet to the head. When he drops to the floor I can feel my heart falling with him. Asha cringes, but still refuses to move as the camera pans back over to evil me.
"Wow, you're cold. Johnny cried like a little bitch when his girlfriend got killed."
At this I forget that this is a simulation, that Matt isn't really dead and that the version of me that exists here is not my worst nightmare, but Asha's. I've never wanted to kill myself more than I do in this moment.
"I AM GOING TO RIP YOUR THROAT OUT!" I scream, stepping out in front of Asha and pointing my gun at the screen. Evil me doesn't have enough time to say anything more than "you" before I've shot the screen out. I keep shooting even after she's gone, desperate and half-crazed and unsure if I'm even real or not.
"Boss," Asha says from behind me, "Boss? Boss, stop!"
Her hand is on my wrist without any warning and I wrench away from her, dropping my gun in the process. I'm shaking so much that it's a little hard to breathe. Asha approaches me carefully and places a wary hand on my arm.
"This isn't real." she tries to remind me, "We both know that."
"I just-" I stop, trying to get a better grip on reality, "She's supposed to be me! How could any version of me do that?"
Asha's expression softens at this and I can tell that, at least for this moment, she doesn't hate me all that much. She picks my gun up off the floor and presses it into my hand.
"It doesn't matter. Come on, you'll feel a lot better after getting revenge."
She's right. I follow her through a few more hallways filled with guards and tanks of what Asha informs me are clones of myself before we reach the final room. It's a wide atrium stocked with shipping crates and my evil twin churns out unimpressive insults the second we show up. She sends out another battalion of armed lackeys and decides to imitate Matt's accent over the speakers while Asha and I kill every last one of them. I, in return, decide that I hate this bitch almost as much as I hate Zinyak.
"I still can't believe evil me is your version of hell," I remark, kicking one of our enemies in the groin as I go, "It's kind of hurtful, to be honest."
"This isn't about you, believe it or not." Asha quips. I put a bullet through the last of the goons and double back to guard her as she reloads her gun.
"C'mon, you're fighting an evil me."
She looks up from her gun with a scowl on her face. I'm not sure what I said to set her off.
"That's what you're taking away from this? Your starring role?"
"Well…" I begin, but I allow my words to drift off into nothing when I realize that she's genuinely bothered by this. She clicks the chamber of her gun back into place and presses a palm to her forehead.
"I keep failing. Over and over again, I keep failing at my job." she stops to let out a shaky breath, "It doesn't matter who my adversary is. When the fate of the world rests on your shoulders, you can't afford failure. That...that is my hell."
I feel like we've reached some sort of turning point here, some mutual understanding, but I don't have time to ask her to clarify before two of Zinyak's murderbots burst through the entry and start unloading on us.
"I'm sorry." I say. She nods, and we go back to war. It turns out evil me isn't nearly as good a fighter as the real me, luckily, and Asha and I destroy her without much effort. She enjoys this victory much more than I do, because for once I don't want revenge. Matt hasn't spoken a word to me since the beginning of the mission and I find that I can't think straight until I see him again. I need reassurance that he's okay. When I'm back in simulated Steelport I head straight for the closest portal home. If I'm lucky, Matt hasn't left to go rescue Asha in the physical world just yet.
The first things I see when I wake up are two surprisingly blue and unnecessarily close irises peering into mine. A look of relief spreads across Matt's face when I hope out of my simulation pod and throw my arms around him. When I bring my lips crashing down on his, he doesn't stop me. He just kisses me, as ravenous as I am, until I calm down enough to realize what I'm doing. I wrench my mouth away before covering it with my hands, my eyes wide with shock. He seems equally startled.
"My liege?" he forces out my old nickname weakly. Shit. Shit! I fucked up.
"Oh God," I say under my breath, "Um, I have to go. Yeah. So sorry about...that thing I just did."
I stumble past him, wanting nothing more than to hole up in my room for the next couple of years, when I remember something else. What's he even doing here?
"Shouldn't you be going after Asha right about now?"
He blinks twice, still not quite recovered from our kiss. Despite everything else, it's nice to know I have that effect on him after all this time.
"I asked Shaundi and Pierce to go." he admits, "You seemed so shaken up after that last mission that I...I had to stay and make sure you were alright."
He chose me over Asha. My heart does a happy little flip in my chest before I flash him one final grin and rush away, knowing now more than ever that I'm not over him, not in the least.
Fuck me.