A/N- I'm alive! and so is this story! two things I'd like to mention before you guys read this chapter 1. I'm quite aware that Johnny wasn't there when the Boss was saved by the Saints in SR1 but for the purposes of this story, I changed that. 2. It looks like this story will end at 21 chapters instead of 20 (i miscalculated) but it is definitely still being updated even though its like more than a month in between. I'm really sorry about that but im just gonna come out and say that I'm reallly lazy and not used to the fast pace of college life ;-; but i wont leave you guys hanging, i promise.
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 Seventeen: That One Tragic Backstory Chapter
I can't keep going on like this.
After that talk with Keith David, and then several follow-up conversations with Shaundi, I'd vowed to stop loving her. I forced my feet to carry me out of every room she entered. I forced my eyes to stop staring at her on-screen as she ran about in the simulation. Despite my determination, however, I could not stop myself from thinking about her no matter how much distance I had put between us. It was so overwhelming that I found myself obsessing over her as I created my own training programs until they were no longer mine, but hers. I'd replaced the usual zin enemies with hoards of zombies, remembering how much she enjoyed the post-apocalyptic genre of video games. Instead of the generic rooftop arena Kinzie had created to help the Boss explore her powers I chose the 3 Count Casino in homage to her love for Las Vegas. In the end the only thing I kept purely because I wanted to was Nyte Blayde. I couldn't get rid of him.
It turned out that none of my efforts to avoid her were of any use when she sprang out of that simulation pod and kissed me.
I was shocked, beyond shocked, as I watched her fall apart after that evil version of her shot the virtual version of me in the head. Everyone from Kinzie to Keith motherfucking David was well-aware that I would give up everything to save her, but no one (least of all me) thought that my death could have that sort of impact on her. After that I lost any desire I'd had to pick up Asha in the physical world, and when she kissed me I realized that it wasn't over. It still isn't over.
We shared a week of silence after that moment, me focusing on tracking Zinyak and creating training programs and the Boss training the rest of the Saints on how to use the superpowers Kinzie was upgrading them with one-by-one. I know it's too much to hope that she would train me as well (she can barely look at me) so it is with a heavy heart that I approach her room now, imagining different scenarios of her rejecting my training program in my head. I raise my right hand to knock four times and lower it just as often, terrified to make a move. This is too important to mess up.
Before I can do anything else the door opens and smacks me right in the face.
"Bloody hell!" I exclaim, clutching at my forehead with my eyes screwed shut. Someone gasps from nearby and I feel a cool hand drop onto my shoulder.
"Jesus Christ, Matt, I'm sorry!" the Boss squeaks out, "What the fuck were you lurking outside my door for?!"
Typical Boss, mixing in the apology with an accusation like that.
"I wasn't lurking," I deny, still in pain, "Why do you insist on slamming every door open like it's your worst enemy?"
"Don't you try to pin this on me." she says, "Answer my question."
I let out a breathy sigh before straightening up and whipping out one of the data tablets the Zin had stowed away on this ship. They remind me a bit of the iPad, a useless invention from the Apple company that is now obsolete along with everything else on Earth, but they've actually come in handy. I bring up a video runthrough of my training program (minus the Nyte Blayde, I'll break that to her later) and show it to her.
"I've created a training simulation that I desperately need tested and I was wondering, if you're free, would you like to run through it with me?"
She raises her eyebrows, indicating confusion, and turns away from me.
"No offense, Matt, but you're not much of an asset in battle. Why don't you take Asha with you instead?"
I frown, insulted by her comment, but follow her as she begins walking in the general direction of the kitchens. I'm not giving up that easily.
"It was designed with your strengths and weaknesses in mind, it has no purpose-"
"I don't have weaknesses!" she snaps, stopping in her tracks. I fight back the urge to laugh, knowing she'll just punch me in the gut if I do, and hurry to correct myself.
"No, of course not. However, if you do decide to test it out I might just upgrade your HUB interface for you. Make it easier to use?"
I've got her now. She's been complaining about that thing for months and, judging by the look in her eyes right now, she wants it even more than she's letting on. She shrugs nonchalantly, an act, before taking the tablet from me and changing her course to head for the simulation pod room instead.
"Fine, I'll do it." she gives in at last, "Why don't you walk me through it?"
"You know, this is actually kind of interesting." the Queen admits after several minutes of me summarizing the entirety of the Nyte Blayde TV show, "It's got love, action, even a little bit of the supernatural."
"And you liked the zombies." I remind her.
"Loved the zombies."
"So you're having fun," I'm nervous as I ask this, "Right?"
She's quiet for a moment and I'm aware of nothing but the sound of the car's engine responding to my attempts to accelerate. We'd fought off a hoard of zombies at the casino (after which I'd spazzed out quite embarrassingly when Nyte Blayde showed up) and an entire squad of Nyte Blayde's enemies and now we're back here, following him through the streets of Steelport as he searches for the ultimate evil. While I'm absolutely ecstatic to be meeting virtual Nyte Blayde in person, I've somehow found that I enjoy conversing with the Boss even more.
"Yeah," she finally says, "For the first time in a long time, actually."
I'm touched by this, and astoundingly glad that I'm the one who's made her feel this way.
"You know," I begin, wanting to keep the conversation going, "I've told you almost everything about me."
I wonder if she knows where I'm going with this? If she does, there's a good chance she'll open the passenger side door while we're still moving and roll right out to get away from me. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to take that chance.
"It's unfair how little information you've offered about yourself."
Her response is not what I expected. She merely brushes her hair back and away from her face with both hands, looking, for all the world, quite at peace.
"Nobody ever really asks."
I suppose this is true, but not for the reason she might think.
"I'm afraid of how you'll react if I do."
She takes this, to nobody's surprise, as a challenge. In another moment she's all heated about my insinuation and demanding retribution.
"Fine, go ahead and ask me!" she's almost out of her seat in an effort to get in my face, "I'm an open book."
I ignore her, trying to focus on my driving, but inwardly I'm considering the endless list of questions I have about her, the list I always assumed would go unanswered. There are many things I'd like to know, like what her parents were like and why she kissed me last week but then refused to talk about it, but there's one question that stands out among the others. She's just starting to get annoyed with my silence when I decide to voice it.
"Why did you join the Saints?"
In an instant all her confidence and bravado has fallen away. She settles back down in the passenger's seat, quite subdued.
"Why should I tell you?" she says then, a slight grin on her face, "Why do you get to know when no one else does?"
I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I'd been considering this same question myself for a very long time. I can't tell her that it was because we'd once had something between us, that subject was still taboo even after our last kiss, but the fact remains that my devotion to her is a permanent thing.
"Because I'm the only one you can ever completely trust." I mutter, spinning the steering wheel after seeing NyteBlayde go around a corner, "No matter what happens, no matter what you do, I will always be on your side."
Her expression softens momentarily and I can see that I've gotten to her. She may not have loved me all those years ago but she was on her way there.
"Only you," she mutters, almost like she's talking to herself, "Maybe it's time somebody knew."
She leans back in the passenger seat and drapes her arm over the headrest, leaning on it so she can look at me while she talks. Her expression is serious, something I'm not used to seeing even after almost nine years of knowing her.
"Matt, I joined the Saints to destroy them."
I fight the urge to express my shock, knowing that the slightest mistake could make her decide to not reveal the rest of this secret.
"You love the Saints."
"I didn't always." she says, "I used to hate them. I used to hate all the gangs in Stilwater."
"Why?"
"I had an older brother once. He was a total genius and such a great guy, everyone in my family expected that he'd end up in the White House or something. I was always stuck in his shadow but I loved him so much I didn't give a shit."
It's a bit amusing to think that her brother was the one who was expected to be president when she actually made it there, but then I realize that she's speaking of him in the past tense. And not in a "Zinyak blew up Earth" sort of past tense, this must go back even further than that.
"What happened to him?"
She sniffs, seeming to be annoyed by the memory, or maybe saddened. It's always hard to tell with her.
"He was walking home from Stilwater U one day when he went down the wrong street. Some Carnales guys killed him right away and set his body out on the sidewalk like a fucking warning," she breaks off momentarily before resuming, "He'd been speaking out against gang violence publicly and he had a lot of supporters. I guess they didn't like that. When I found out...I don't know. It was like every angry feeling I'd ever had came up all at once until there was nothing else in me. I changed."
I could see it now, the Boss hearing this terrible news and, as her parents crumbled from the sadness of it, becoming enraged. It's a little comforting, knowing that she had always been this way. Unique. Where other people are reduced to crawling away from the ruins, she rises from the ashes ready to strike back. I guess it's this quality that makes us all so willing to follow her into hell itself.
"What happened then?" I ask, more to let her know I'm still listening than anything else. She glances back out the windshield, her eyes following the taillights of Nyte Blayde's motorcycle, and takes her time answering me.
"I wanted revenge and I walked right into a fucking gang fight looking for it." she pauses here, an unbidden smile spreading across her face, "Johnny saved my life. Well, him, Julius, and Troy, but Johnny was the one who got me out.
I feel a twinge of jealousy, ignore it, and encourage her to continue.
"When they said I should join them, I made up this whole plan to use them to take out every other gang in Stilwater and then destroy the Saints from within," the former-president seems quite excited as she recalls this, "But the more time I spent with them the more I realized...I didn't want to destroy them. The Saints became mine and it felt like that's what they'd always been so when the other gangs were gone, I was okay just letting them be. Of course that's when Julius tried to blow me up, but you already know about that."
She's right, I do already know about that particular event. Pierce (despite the fact that he wasn't even there for this part of the Boss's life) recounted it to Kinzie and me just a few days ago as we poured over information regarding the possible whereabouts of one Johnny Gat. The Boss doesn't know that we're close to finding him just yet, however, and I refuse to be the one who tells her.
"So what do you think?" she asks me, a knowing grin on her face, "I'm a total psycho, right?'
I don't even stop to think before denying this claim.
"You're amazing. Everyone is always telling you you can't do things, yet you prove them wrong at every turn."
I immediately regret my words as I watch the smile slip right off the Saints Queen's face. I really need to start thinking about these things before I say them out loud.
"Okay, now I'm pretty sure you're insane." she says, shaking her head. I ignore the sting of pain that comes along with this insult and slow the car to a stop, following Nyte Blayde's lead in front of us.
"But," she starts again, her hand already on the passenger-side door handle, "Maybe that's why we went together so well."
My heart drops down to my stomach, but I don't have a chance to address this before she's gone.
"You looked good out there, Miller." Kinzie greets me as I basically roll out of my pod. The Boss, unlike me, decided to stay in the simulation even after she'd argued with Zinyak, defeated Nyte Blayde (that one's still raw), and then allowed his powers to transfer over to me. As glad as I am to be able to fight properly within the simulation now (plus I now legally own the Nyte Blayde franchise), I still wish we hadn't had to kill my hero to get here. Seriously, fuck Zinyak. I spare the Boss's sleeping form a wistful look before moving towards the hub in the center of the room.
"You've been a lot nicer to me recently, you know that?" I point out as I take a seat in front of the computer next to her. She smiles wryly, her hands basically floating over her keyboard.
"Being a bitch is hard work." she continues to type for a moment, but then her smile is slowly replaced by a scowl. I turn on the screen in front of me and give her a moment to explain her sudden change in emotion. When she stays silent, I decide to take the initiative and ask.
"What's wrong?"
She removes her hands from her keyboard and spins around in her seat to face me, but her eyes don't meet mine. I'm almost scared to hear what she has to say.
"Matt, I-" she breaks off, afraid, "I found Johnny Gat.
"Strange that Zinyak didn't hide Gat in the bar like everyone else." the Boss says as Kinzie helps her out of her simulation pod. Pierce glances up from the poker game the rest of the crew started while waiting for the Boss to show up and puts in his two cents.
"You could always name the ship The Broken Shilelagh."
"Not funny." Kinzie quips. I shoot her a questioning glance but her returning gaze is a warning for me not to speak. The Boss notices the exchange between us and seems confused.
"Kinzie I know you worry about me on almost a daily basis, but I'm gonna be fine." she's smiling as she hops out of her pod. She has no idea how much danger we're all going to be in in just a few minutes. Kinzie moves over to me and begins punching in the code to Gat's location.
"You have to say something." I tell my hacking partner under my breath. The Boss, with her bat-like hearing, zeroes in on this immediately.
"What aren't you telling me?"
"Thanks, Matt." Kinzie hisses.
"Kinzie?" the Boss's tone is quickly taking on a tinge of annoyance. I have to tell her before it's too late.
"It's not you she's worried about, it's everyone else," I stop to gesture towards the group at large.
"This is going to get real exciting," Asha is quick to throw down her cards and turn towards us. After a moment the rest follow her lead. I automatically take note of the fact that it looks like Shaundi had the best hand.
"It doesn't matter." Kinzie says weakly, still turned towards the computer screen.
"I have a feeling we're about to disagree." Pierce looks a bit angry too. I glance between him and the Boss before taking a deep breath and starting to say my piece.
"Saving Gat is a terrible idea."
This one sentence is as far as I get. The Boss has a manic look in her eyes as she moves towards me, her arm already pulled back, her fingers already tucked away into a threatening-looking fist. I see the punch coming before I feel it, but this doesn't make any of it less painful. I'm on the floor in a second and she straddles me before I can even think of moving, her knuckles slamming into my face again and again until someone pulls her back. I can't think. This is the first time she's ever physically hurt me in the real world and I find that while the pain in my jaw is quite all-consuming, it's the breaking of my heart that I'm sure I won't be able to overcome. I stay there on the ground watching as the rest of the crew turn on each other one by one, but I don't really process any of it. Everything is a daze to me until Kinzie's shouts slow the others down.
"He's right, okay? It's a terrible idea! Look in order to save Johnny we have to tap directly from our ship into his mind and that means Zinyak's going to know exactly where we are. You're asking Matt and I to paint a target on humanity's last chance so that you can go rescue someone we've never even met!"
By this point, Pierce and the others seem pretty guilty about what they've just done, but I can only see the Boss. She refuses to meet my gaze, and I spot that her lower lip is quivering just enough to be noticeable. Whether that's out of fury or shame, I'm too afraid to ask. I turn my head to the side and spit out an ugly mixture of blood and bile before pushing myself up onto my elbow.
"That guy you just beat the shit out of," Kinzie snarls, turning towards the Boss, "Is risking everything to save your friend, and you wanna know why? Because we can't save ours anymore. Oleg is dead. Viola is dead. Earth is dead. So why don't you stop being a fucking asshole and say thank you for giving you the hope we'll never have."
The Boss screws her eyes shut, her hands still balled into fists, and I can see how much this dilemma actually means to her. She'd acted out in a fit of rage out of loyalty to her best friend, but in doing so she'd inflicted injuries upon the only person she'd decided to trust with all of her past. Before this moment I was so sure we were moving major steps towards restoring our former relationship and now I'm not so sure. I can forgive the Boss for this lapse in judgement, but she might not be able to forgive me for my lapse in mine. I can't make sense of any of this newfound information before the Boss is moving towards me with her hand outstretched and a dead look in her eyes. I don't like this.
"I'm sorry."
I slip my fingers into hers and allow her to haul me up, always so surprisingly strong for her size.
"I understand," I try to soothe her inner turmoil with a soft smile, "Nothing has changed."
The rest of the Saints probably can't make sense of any of this, but the Boss's expression switches over to one of vulnerability and she seems as if she's about to hug me before abruptly changing her mind and patting me on the shoulder instead.
"Okay then," Kinzie says, breaking up the moment, "Get in the chair."
I nod at the Boss and she turns to enter the simulation, exchanging a few words with Pierce before she does. I can't hear any of them. There's a buzz in my mind that's blocking out nearly everything except for this terrible feeling that things are going to go really bad really fast after Johnny Gat returns, and I don't know what to do about it. Unlike the others I choose to turn away as the Saints Queen runs through Gat's side scroller version of hell, but I find that I can't stop myself from watching on the screens as she and her mech race off to retrieve him physically. When he's finally in front of her, fully nude and entirely unashamed, she throws her arms around him. It becomes obvious to me that while she may have had fun "for the first time in a long time" earlier today with me, she was not truly happy until she had run into Johnny Gat's arms. I ignore Asha's attempts to comfort me and break away from the group, fully intent on drinking myself into a non-feeling stupor before the night is done. If I don't, I just might fall apart.