Starlight Saint

A few hours had gone by since Starlight’s cyber caper. Evening had given way to night time and it was time for Johnny, Paul and Starlight to head home for the night.

Starlight was certain that she had turned Monroe’s fury on the Vice Kings after leading him to believe that King had taken back his kickback money. Given how apathetic the cops usually were, she was certain that Monroe wasn’t going to question what happened and would turn his attention to Benjamin King.

Warren Williams was also considered doomed at this point after her other cyber caper. If what Paul had told her about those two was true, the rapper’s career would soon meet an abrupt and tragic end. This only left King and Tanya to deal with.

“Ready to go, sweetie?” Johnny asked.

“Yeah, just need to put Laserbeak into sleep mode and we’ll be on our way,” Starlight replied.

However, as if the winds of misfortune had blown their way, they soon found that their night was not over yet. Julius entered the office with a grim look on his face as he hurried over to the three. “Saddle up you three, I need you to head back downtown.”

The three raised their eyebrows at their leader as they wondered why he needed them back out on the streets so urgently. “I take it that this can’t wait until tomorrow?” Starlight asked.

“No,” Julius replied. “This is an emergency, King just called me, seems one of his boys got a big head and tried to take him out. He’s pinned down at the park in Amberbrook and needs some help.”

“You do realize that he’s the leader of the enemy gang we’ve spent the past few days dismantling, right? Isn’t it a good thing for him to be taken out of the game? I’m pretty sure Tanya will be easy to deal with once he’s gone.”

Julius frowned, “I know he and I haven’t seen eye to eye in years, not since he turned the Vice Kings into another problem for Stilwater. But at the end of the day, he’s still my homie and I ain’t gonna let him eat it if I can help it. He and I built the Vice Kings together when the Carnales were in control of Stilwater. Now I want you three to go out there and bring King back to me safe and sound. I ain’t playin’ around here, you feel me?”

Realizing that Julius was willing to pull the boss card if it meant getting what he wanted, Starlight acquiesced to Julius’ demands, to which she turned to her drone. “Laserbeak, head to Amberbrook and provide cover fire for Benjamin King. Change target designation to friendly.”

With a chirp, Laserbeak flew out of a window and north to Amberbrook which stood at the northeastern corner of the city. With a sigh, Starlight looked to her father and friend. “Alright, let’s get going.”

The three took Starlight’s car as she drove them to Amberbrook park. Truthfully, Starlight was not looking forward to this as some of the feelings she had toward Warren, for his part in her mother’s contractual captivity, bled over toward King as well for being his boss. Even if King had no idea of the conditions his subordinate had subjected her mother to, this was still a failing on King’s part for not noticing what his underlings were doing and this made him just as guilty in Starlight’s eyes.

By the time they arrived, the park was in chaos as an army of Vice King thugs were in positions using the architecture as cover while they attempted to surround and kill a man in a black suit with a yellow shirt and black tie. However, they weren’t as focused on King as they could have been as Laserbeak had taken out a few of the thugs before Starlight’s group arrived.

With the chaos caused by the drone, Starlight found that they had the element of surprise on their side so Johnny readied his shotgun, Paul pulled out a pair of SMGs and Starlight readied her sword. The three cut a swath through the encirclement and took the thugs by surprise. By the time they readied themselves for the Saints’ assault, nearly half of their number were wiped out.

This allowed them to reach the center of the park where they found Benjamin King holed up. He took out a few more thugs before he noticed the Saints. “You’re the ones Julius sent? Aren’t you two the ones who ran around wearing my gang’s colors?”

“Yep, had the time of our lives makin’ your boys look bad,” Johnny quipped.

Ben ignored the comment before he watched the drone blast a few more thugs with its laser. “The hell is that thing?”

“That’s my Laserbeak,” Starlight answered. “Now let’s get out of here before I change my mind about saving your ass.”

Ben noticed the hostility in Starlight’s tone. He had been around long enough to tell when somebody was upset. He determined that there were some personal feelings behind her words, as if he had done something to her in the past, though he knew that he had never met her before. Still, this wasn’t the time to be breaching that topic as there was something he needed done first. “My car is nearby, it’s the yellow Mag.”

Instead of protesting which car they would take, the group decided to go with it and lead Ben to his car while she had Laserbeak take her car and follow behind them. A few VK patrol cars tried to interfere with their escape but Paul still had some explosive ammo left over from their earlier joyride so he pulled out an RPG and blasted the cars before they got too close.

Once inside the car, Paul took the wheel where he began driving toward the church. However, Ben had other plans. “Warren has to be around here somewhere…” he mused.

“Don’t worry about him,” Starlight said. “I’ve already signed his death warrant. He will be dead by this time tomorrow.”

“What do you mean?”

“Let’s just say that ‘Warren’ took out a massive ‘loan’ from some people you really don’t want to owe money to.” Starlight cryptically stated.

“Why would Warren borrow money from…” Ben paused, interpreting the meaning behind the words that Starlight put an emphasis on. “You make it sound like you had something to do with it. Did you somehow make it look like Warren stole money from a loan shark? Wait, was it you who stole the money I gave to Monroe?”

“Yes to both,” Starlight answered. Her tone then grew cold enough that everyone in the car could feel the chill, “What do you plan to do about it?”

There it was again, the hostility that implied that he had done something to her and she was holding herself back from carrying out some sort of revenge plot. “Look, since we aren’t going after Warren, can you at least tell me why you are being so hostile to me. I can tell that this goes beyond the fact that I’m an enemy gang leader.”

“Fine, since we are having that conversation now, this pretty much has to do with what you subjected my mother to. I believe you are familiar with Aisha.”

Ben was taken aback by the name the girl dropped. As far as the records showed, Aisha had died in the explosion that demolished the studio. “I had nothing to do with that explosion, young lady. It was the Saints who blew up my studio and took your mother from you.”

“You think my mother’s dead? Seems that plan worked like a charm.”

“What do you mean?” Ben asked.

“My mother is still alive, she just faked her death to get out of the contract. What I’m mad about is what your subordinate did to force her to stay signed on to your company. She suffered years of misery under Warren’s emotional blackmail so you could keep using her to generate your income.”

“I see, you blame me for not keeping Warren in line.” Ben sighed. “I suppose I should take part of the blame for not knowing what Warren and Tanya were up to. I knew that they were too ambitious for their own good. I even suspected that they did things I didn’t want them to do behind my back. They never liked that I wanted to run a legitimate enterprise to help keep order in Stilwater. They wanted more; consumed by their greed. They don’t care how dangerous it is to allow their ambitions to run rampant and I should have dealt with them a long time ago.“ He paused. “Take me to Julius.”

Despite how Starlight felt about the guy, there was a part of her who was glad that he was willing to accept some responsibility for his underlings’ actions. It didn’t change anything between them, but Starlight was willing to let go of her anger for the time being.

After Ben was dropped off at the church, Starlight Paul and Johnny switched to Starlight’s car and dropped Paul off at his house before heading home to get some rest.

The massacre at Amberbrook allowed the Saints to move in and claim the area from the Vice Kings.

The next day, Starlight got up and got ready to head out. As she was getting dressed, she received a call from Wong who told her that the madam of the brothel on Bavogian Plaza was seeking assistance.

“I’ll pass that along to Paul. I’d rather not deal with sex workers, they make me uncomfortable.”

Wong chuckled, “Yes, you are still a little young for that sort of experience. Perhaps you may desensitize yourself after a few years. Strange things happen in this city and they will get stranger with time.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Starlight bid her friend farewell before she called her other friend to let him know that someone needed his assistance. She gave him the address to the brothel before she ended that call.

Not long after, she received another call, this one from her father to which she answered.

“Hey sweetie, looks like Julius is waitin’ for King to recover before we plan our next move. Seems you have a free day today. I’ll call you if there are any interesting targets that you can take out.”

“Alright, bye daddy.” Starlight hung up before thinking about what she was going to do today.

Suddenly, Starlight remembered that Marcel’s friend’s trial was tomorrow so she needed to get rid of the last three witnesses today. She had Laserbeak look at the list and scan the faces of the last three targets before the drone chirped and flew off. Starlight was a little annoyed with herself for delaying the witness hunt for so long and counted herself lucky that she had a free day to hunt them.

Laserbeak soon relayed the locations of the three and Starlight was surprised to find two of them near each other. She then got in her car and hurried over to the location.

Once she got there, she spotted Richard, the businessman, getting into what appeared to be a Nelson luxury car. Starlight rushed over to the man’s side window before he could leave and knocked on the glass. Richard lowered his window slightly and looked at her with a raised eyebrow. “That better not have left a mark on my window,” Richard warned.

“Sorry to bother you sir, but I am a volunteer from the courthouse going around looking for the witnesses to a case.”

“You mean that trial that’s supposed to take place tomorrow? If this is their way of getting me to attend it, they are gonna have to do better than that. I have better things to do than waste my time and money talking about what some no-named punk did.”

Starlight was taken aback by that. Indeed, this guy had already decided not to attend the trial and that made things much easier for her. However, while that issue was resolved easily, she also wanted to try to talk the man out of his car since Samson needed one.

Fortune favored Starlight that moment as Richard suddenly spotted a tough-looking man walking down the sidewalk looking slumped over as if something bad had happened to him. The tycoon looked between the man, who Starlight recognized as Dick the bouncer, and Starlight.

“Young lady, can you talk to him and see if he’s looking for a job? I could use some hired muscle after what I heard about yesterday’s gang-related mayhem.”

Hearing that, Starlight quickly formed an idea about how to kill two birds with one stone. She feigned a thoughtful expression as she put a hand to her chin and hummed. “Hmm, If you give me your car I can sweet talk him into accepting your job offer.”

“You mean this luxury vehicle that I have ten more of in my underground parking garage at home?”

“Uhh, yes?”

“Deal!”

Starlight rolled her eyes while Richard wasn’t looking. It annoyed her to hear rich folks talk about owning a bunch of things they didn’t really need for the sake of flexing their wealth. Still, a deal was a deal so she walked over to Dick and gave him a concerned look. “What’s wrong, mister?”

“Huh? Oh, it’s nothing someone like you should be concerned about,” Dick responded in a sad tone.

“I’m willing to lend you an ear if it’ll help you feel better.”

It took a little more coaxing, but Starlight was able to get the story from the former bouncer. Apparently, the night club he worked at wasn’t doing so well so the manager had to lay him off. He had bills coming up and he couldn’t afford to pay them.

This worked out perfectly for Starlight as she presented Richard’s job offer for a bodyguard and pointed out that the guy was loaded so she figured he paid well. She pointed to Richard to show him his new employer. Dick, who wasn’t about to turn down a good offer, walked over to Richard before the two went into a discussion about the terms.

With the terms of the deal fulfilled, Richard left his car and allowed Starlight to enter it.

Before she could leave, Dick asked if there was anything he could do to repay her for helping him get a new job, to which Starlight asked him not to attend tomorrow’s trial and they would call it even. Dick agreed and Starlight left with the car.

“So, how are we getting around town then? Unless you are up for walking?” Dick asked.

“Oh, heavens no! I’ll just call up one of my employees and they will bring a car around,” Richard answered.

After Starlight got the Nelson customized and turned over to Samson, which completed the list of cars he wanted, She began her hunt for her final target on Marcel’s list. According to what information she could gather, Billy Bob was a cowboy visiting from Texas and he had a plane to catch the day after the trial. Starlight wasn’t sure why the man wanted to visit Stilwater of all places because it was a dump, but she could only consider that people have their own tastes.

Once she found the man, she discovered that he was annoyed by the fact that his last day in Stilwater would be in a courtroom. However, when he met Starlight, who gave him the same spiel about her being a volunteer at the courthouse, she informed him that all of the other witnesses had dropped out of attending the trial which encouraged Billy Bob to follow suit so he could enjoy his last day in Stilwater doing what he wanted instead.

Once Billy Bob left in excitement, Starlight crossed the name off and called Marcel to let him know that the prosecutor no longer had witnesses to call on. Marcel then asked her to meet him at the bar again so he can give her something as thanks for helping his homie.

At the bar, the two sat next to each other before Marcel pulled out an SMG and handed it to her. It looked like a T3K Urban but it was shinier than the usual variant. “It’s a special custom-made model my homie gave me as a token of our brotherhood. I want you to have it, and I’m sure he would want you to have it too. It packs more of a punch than any other SMG you’d find in this city and has better range and clip size. Downside is that the ammo for it is harder to come by.”

“Thanks, I’ll take good care of it.” Starlight then left the bar to look for something else to do.

However, she soon found herself wandering town and found nothing worth noting. She saw some Saints thugs spray painting the Saints logo on walls where the rival gangs once had them. The Rollerz weren’t going to protest since they disbanded and the influence of the Vice Kings had almost completely vanished from Stilwater.

Of course, some former Rollerz decided to wear purple and experienced the ritual of canonizing. Starlight wondered how many Vice Kings they could get to convert once that gang was history.

Starlight finally decided to return to the church where she found Paul who was wearing more jewelry than the last time she saw him. “What’s with people giving you necklaces and medallions lately?”

Paul stuck his tongue out at Starlight, “It’s called bling and it makes me feel amazing.”

Starlight rolled her eyes, “You want to go around looking like a pimp, be my guest. But the moment someone comments about me being your property, I’m chucking your chains into the lake.”

Paul shrugged, “Fair.”

“Ah, just the two I needed to see,” Johnny said as he spotted them. “Seems Julius found something we can do while we wait for King. Apparently the remaining Kings on the southern island have been hidin’ out at the waterfront in Rebadeaux. I gotta go check on Eesh so you two can go crash their rooftop party. Come back home when you’re done.”

“Sure thing, daddy.”

With that, Starlight and Paul took her car and headed for the waterfront. While Johnny wasn’t specific about which building the VK were hiding in, Rebadeaux was a small neighborhood of four blocks. There wasn’t much to it other than a middle market clothing store, a tattoo parlor and a movie theater that only played R rated movies since Rebadeaux was in the red light district.

They soon located a residential building that Paul noticed a VK thug enter. They quickly followed after the thug and found that they were in a stairwell which would serve Starlight well as she drew her sword and cut down the thug just behind the door. Starlight charged up the stairs and took out more of them while Paul followed behind. He knew that he wasn’t going to get much action in close quarters with his friend in front of him.

The trail led them up several floors before Starlight entered a hallway on the second from the top floor. She remembered that there was a fire escape that didn’t reach the ground level and she could only access it from that floor.

The two tried every door in the hallway until they found one that Paul could kick open where they ran inside and dealt with any thugs within. They then slipped through an open window and onto the fire escape to climb the stairs to the roof.

With plenty of open space to work with, Starlight pulled out her shotgun while Paul pulled out an assault rifle. The thugs had plenty of places to take cover but Paul was ready for that with a few hand grenades to force the thugs out of hiding. One thug didn’t see the explosive and was sent flying off the roof.

“You can’t seem to leave home without a few explosives anymore, can’t you?” Starlight commented.

“They work so why shouldn’t I?” Paul quipped.

Starlight looked toward the street once the rooftop was cleared. What she saw made her chuckle as she realized that Paul’s demolition skills were going to come in handy here. “Looks like a good time to test your RPG aiming skills. The Kings have some patrols in the area.”

Paul took his position near the edge where he pulled out an RPG and took aim at the yellow cars coming in their direction.

The problem with RPGs was that their travel time was a little slow and could only move straight so hitting a moving target was a bit of a challenge as Paul missed his first three shots, instead hitting a pedestrian, a street light and a yellow car that didn’t belong to the Vice Kings. The fourth shot would have hit a VK patrol car except they swerved and the rocket somehow ended up hitting a police patrol car instead.

“Are you trying to hit everything that’s not a gang vehicle?” Starlight groused. “Try again.”

Paul grunted as he fired another rocket. However, Starlight wasn’t taking any more chances as Paul was wasting ammo on the attempts and they didn’t have unlimited ammo. She began to grab the rockets in her magic and guided them to the gang vehicles to make sure that they hit their intended targets.

After a few more VK cars were blown up, they didn’t see any more thug partols. They waited a few more minutes to make sure they were in the clear before Starlight called Julius to tell him that they could move in on Rebadeaux.

“Guess I need to work on my aiming at fast moving targets,” Paul figured.

“I’d suggest some time at the shooting games at the arcade,” Starlight offered. “Let’s head home and get some good rest, I have a feeling that tomorrow is going to be quite exciting.”

Meanwhile in King’s former office, Warren Williams was kicking back in the chair that Ben used to sit in, feeling like he was on top of the world.

Tanya Winters was just outside the room looking irritated as she expected the Saints to try something to finish off Warren so she could claim complete ownership of the Vice Kings. Unfortunately, taking him out was too risky for her and she wasn’t much of a fighter. She would have to find some way to serve him up to the Saints on a silver platter.

Warren took this time to check his bank account to see if he had the funds to redecorate the penthouse in his image. While he knew he had about fifty million in his account, he was not expecting to see that it had jumped to nearly a billion. He had no idea where the cash came from but he didn’t care as he was more concerned with the lucrative expenses he was about to incur.

This excitement would soon turn to sheer terror as a nearby window shattered. Before Warren could figure out what was going on, he soon found himself caught in a net with a line coming in from the window. Looking out the window, he spotted a helicopter with the First Born Loans logo on it. “What the fuck?!” he shouted before he found himself being pulled toward the window. “Tanya, help me out!”

Tanya looked in the room and spotted what was happening. While she never imagined this happening to Warren, this was a fortunate thing for her so she decided to pretend that nothing was wrong and walked away from the door.

Warren screamed in terror as he and his chair were dragged out the window where he fell a few feet from the top of a ten story building before the line went taut, leaving him hanging from the helicopter while holding onto the net for dear life.

While Warren was screaming for his life, Mike looked down and called out to him, “Thank you for choosing First Born Loans for your liquid needs. Unfortunately, you have failed to pay back the loan you took from us on time so now we are allowed to seize what you took from us with interest. We also need to have you pay a fee for taking that money from us without our permission.”

“Permission? I didn’t take no money from you!” Warren protested.

“Doesn’t matter, whether it was you or a third party, we don’t care. By the way, are you an organ donor? That was a rhetorical question, by the way.”

Nobody knew what happened after the helicopter flew off. One thing was certain: Warren Williams was never seen nor heard from again.