Starlight and Johnny headed to the church for another day of taking down the Vice Kings. However, after everything they had done to the gang, they decided that today was the day that they would deal the finishing blow to Tanya and end the gang once and for all.

“I hope King is ready for this, I’m gettin’ tired of waitin’ on him,” Johnny said.

“I know he’s Julius’ friend, but if he tries anything, I’ll end him anyway,” Starlight promised. “I still don’t know if we can trust him.”

“Doesn’t matter whether we do or not, what we do to King will be Julius’ call. He’s the boss, after all.”

“Yeah, I just hope this doesn’t come back to bite us.”

“You and me both, pumpkin.”

By the time the two arrived, they noticed that Paul was waiting for them before they entered the church. One of the members told them to head to Julius’ office for a meeting.

In the office they found Julius but no sign of Benjamin King. However, once the three took their seats, the door opened to reveal Ben entering the room.

“Lookin’ good, Ben,” Julius greeted.

“Been a long time, Jules,” Ben responded.

“Sorry ‘bout Anthony.”

“That was business, let it go,” Ben assured, before chuckling. “Never expected him to get crushed by floating furniture though.”

While the two leaders conversed, Starlight kept a wary glance at Ben.

“So what’s the plan?” Johnny asked, wanting to get the actual meeting started.

“We kill Tanya and I get back to business,” Ben proposed. “If what that girl said the night before was true, Warren’s probably dead by now.”

“For the record, my name is Starlight.”

Ben nodded, “Noted.”

“Given that Starlight pissed off First Born Loans to deal with him, Warren’s definitely dead by now unless he’s a badass,” Paul remarked. “I borrowed a few grand from them a while back and they hunted me down like bloodhounds until I paid them back. I had a few close calls where I was surprised I survived.”

“Well I can assure you Warren’s no badass,” Ben said.

“Warren’s fate aside,” Julius interjected, attempting to get the conversation back on track. “I gotta give it to you straight, Ben, I had them save your ass so we’re straight. The Vice Kings, they’re through.”

Ben scowled, “Then why are you wasting my time? Just kill me and get it over with.”

Starlight kept her hand near her sword in case Julius gave the word.

Julius continued, “You have a choice. You can keep your fuckin’ pride and die here, or you can be a man and walk away.”

Ben was taken aback by what Julius said. He never expected his old friend to talk to him like that, let alone consider killing him. He could only chuckle, “When did you get the balls, Jules?”

“What’s it gonna be?” Julius pressed.

Ben nodded resolutely, “I ain’t walking away until Tanya’s dead. If I do so now, it’ll be as if I was running from her with my tail between my legs. No way in hell I’m letting her get away with this.”

“Understandable,” Starlight shrugged.

Julius gave Ben a friendly smirk, “My brutha.”

“If I may, since I already agreed to do this, I’d like to ensure the safety of the few who are still loyal to me,” Ben requested. “They are at the headquarters keeping an eye on Tanya and relaying what info they can to me.”

“Very well, but we’re finishing the rest off.”

Once Ben and Julius agreed to the terms, Ben began the strategic part of the meeting. “Alright, I know where all them fools hang. The cops have set up ambush points in Brighton. We roll in, get their attention and lure them to the ambush.”

“And you’re sure the cops are actively hunting Vice Kings?” Paul asked.

“They definitely are, just before the coup I got a call from Monroe and he was pissed. No doubt in my mind that whatever deal I had with them was broken thanks to Starlight.”

Starlight gave an innocent look while feeling quite proud of herself on the inside.

Johnny laughed, “She’s gonna make one hell of a cyber terrorist one day.”

“Daddy!” Starlight admonished.

“Not that I would condone that or anything,” Johnny hastily corrected. “Anyways, you and Paul take King and do his plan. I gotta get ready for the big finale.”

“Hope you two are ready for this,” Ben warned.

“It’s good to have you back, Ben,” Julius said, patting Ben on the shoulder.

The three agreed to take a car stolen by Paul since this operation put Starlight’s car at too much risk since they needed to be chased while getting constantly shot at while Ben’s car was liable to get attacked by the police ambush just as much as the other Vice King vehicles. Paul found a four-door vehicle for them to take before he drove to the Brighton neighborhood.

On the way, Ben decided to try at some small conversation with the two. “So does Julius ever talk about growing up in Sunnyvale?”

“Sometimes, though he never goes into detail about it,” Starlight replied.

“Yeah, things were simpler back then. This city used to be something better, before the Carnales rolled in. After that, Stilwater gradually turned into a cesspool of debauchery. The drug market opened the way for other illegal markets to open. The cops were overwhelmed by this and started becoming apathetic, turning a blind eye to the smaller things like traffic violations. The law enforcement couldn’t act against the Carnales for fear that they would anger the largest drug cartel in South America.”

“What do you know about the Carnales? You know we’ll be gunning for them once we’re done with your former gang.”

“Ain’t much to know beyond what you may have heard already. Los Carnales used to own this city until I grew tired of them oppressing Sunnyvale. Me and Jules formed the Vice Kings together and took the city from them, though we never could drive them out. We may have killed the former leader, Alejandro Lopez, but his sons are more tenacious than he was, especially their enforcer, Victor Rodriguez. Even Anthony would have struggled in a fight against that guy.

“Hector Lopez runs the gang now while his brother Angelo is his second. Hector is the level headed of the two while Angelo is brash and reckless. If you’re planning to go after the Carnales, my advice is to take out Hector as soon as possible. It’ll make their movements more predictable with Angelo leading them.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Starlight noted.

They soon entered Brighton where they drove around and noted a number of police cars on the sides of the road with a large number of cops looking well armed. “Alright, let’s get started, I’ll lead you to them and you two piss them off and lead them to the ambush,” Ben instructed.

Ben directed the two to four locations around Brighton where groups of Vice King thugs hanged out. In one location Starlight shot one thug in the head with her revolver before Paul led them to the ambush where the cops unleashed their arsenal to disable the gang vehicle and arrest the crew.

The remaining locations were done in a similar fashion, though Starlight tried out her new Platinum T3K Urban SMG and sprayed the thugs with bullets. Two fell to the barrage while the other two were lured to the ambush.

After they took out the four hangouts, Starlight, Paul and Ben noticed the cops leaving with the surviving thugs in their cars since they couldn’t arrest any more thugs with the numbers they had.

Once the cops were gone, Starlight placed a call to Julius to inform him of the success of the mission and that the Saints could move in on Brighton, leaving Adept Way as the only territory of the Vice Kings remaining.

The three returned to the church where Starlight and Paul chatted with the thugs for a time while Ben and Johnny had their own conversation. Since there wasn’t much else to do at this point, all Starlight and Paul could do was wait for a new development.

A few hours later, the two were called to Johnny’s office where he went over what he learned. “I’ve been chattin’ with King, and it looks like Tanya’s takeover didn’t sit well with everyone. The Vice Kings are fighting amongst themselves. Seems you were right, Starlight, takin' Tanya out will be easy without Warren helping her.”

“Let’s just make sure I get my shot at her, I still need to make her pay for kidnapping Aunt Delilah. She is the ringleader of the kidnapping ring, after all.”

“Can we expect help from King’s loyalists?” Paul asked.

“Maybe, King said his homies are in the penthouse where Tanya’s at, waitin’ for King to get there before they come out. Still, let’s hope he hasn’t gone soft after not being in the field for a long time.”

Just then, Ben entered the room with a shotgun primed and ready. “Don’t you worry ‘bout me, boy, ‘cause I’m gonna handle mine.”

“Guess we’re about to find out if you’re as badass as daddy said you were, gramps,” Starlight giggled.

“Aight, let’s roll,” Johnny ordered before they headed for Ben’s car.

As they got in, Ben let them know of a place he wanted to go first, “Our headquarters is in a penthouse suite on Adept Way. Tanya's probably changed the elevator code by now. But I do know where we might find out where we can get the new code. Head to the Impressions store on Nob Hill.”

“What's over there that has the code?” Johnny asked.

“Not ‘what,’ ‘who.’ Tanya has a fashion consultant she tells everything to; some Eurotrash muthafucka named Stefan. He shouldn't be too hard to break.”

“Hate him already.”

“What’s Eurotrash?” Starlight asked.

“Rich European people with a weird way of talking and actin’ like they’re better than everyone around them.”

“Ugh, I can’t stand people who flex their superiority like that. Mind if I try getting the password from him my way?”

Johnny chuckled, “Normally I’d say let me handle it, but I think this situation calls for your touch.”

They arrived at the uptown clothing store and headed inside where they found a tanned man with a circle beard and wearing black slacks and a pink button-up shirt. The man gave an indignant look to the group coming in and dramatically walked over to them. “Who do you think you are, barging into Stefan's boutique? Especially you, the girl with yesterday's hairstyle.
That color looks so ugly on you and who are you trying to fool with that teal stripe? Go back to the '90s where you belong.”

Starlight frowned, she had expected an obnoxious person when she met Stefan, but even her father’s description didn’t prepare her for how aggravating he was. After walking up to her and insulting her looks, any thought about showing mercy to the man had vanished.

Starlight put on her most charming smile that concealed the promise of torment to the European before she spoke, “You must be Stefan.”

Stefan frowned, insulted that the girl had never heard of him before. Though he probably should have expected such a lowly peasant girl to not hear of him. “Are you blind? Of course I am Stefan, now go.”

“Before I do so, I wanted to tell you that you just talked your way into being the test dummy of my latest trick. Wanna see? That was rhetorical, by the way.”

Starlight snapped her fingers before Stefan felt a painful sensation for a moment before he felt something leave his body and float over to Starlight. Stefan took a moment to see that an icon was floating in Starlight’s right hand. The icon looked like a pair of sparkling crystal scissors.

The next surprise for Stefan was that for the first time in a long time, his mind drew a blank on ideas for fashion and hairstyles. He looked around his beautiful store in desperation but he couldn’t think of any of the many ideas that were usually flying around in his mind. “Wha-what have you done to Stefan? Stefan can no longer see beauty!” The next thing he did was look around for a mirror to see if the girl had messed up his looks and to his horror, he spotted something he found truly ugly: a black equal sign under his right eye.

Stefan shrieked as he saw the blemish on his looks, “AHH! You have made Stefan look asymmetrical! Stefan looks like a piece of modern art, the ugliest art there is!”

Stefan soon found himself curled up on the floor crying his eyes out until Starlight walked over to him with a look of disgust on her face. “I can undo what I did to you for two things: the passcode to Tanya Winters’ penthouse elevator and an apology for criticizing my natural hair.”

Stefan looked at Starlight with shock, “What? You were born with that hair color? Stripe and all? Stefan feels so sorry for you being born that way.”

Starlight’s smile became strained as she was now extremely tempted to destroy the icon which she suspected was tied to the man’s talents for fashion. By sheer will, she managed to resist that urge. “I have this condition where I compulsively crush things in my hands and this icon,
which I suspect is the source of your fashion talents, looks very fragile. Right now I am holding it back by sheer will alone but I don’t think I can hold it back any longer.”

“Okay okay okay! The code is 3131 and Stefan is sorry for insulting your natural looks now please spare Stefan the life of a peasant.”

Despite the apology, Starlight was still feeling spiteful. While she did return his talent to him, she decided on a special punishment to make him think twice before insulting her looks again. With a snap of her fingers, Stefan’s punishment began. “That will wear off in a week, have fun.”

Dreading what happened to him, Stefan looked in a mirror again and shrieked. His skin was a deep purple. He couldn’t show his face like that in public as that would obliterate his reputation. Instead, he did the one thing a man like him could do in his situation: he passed out.

“Y’know, I think it’s a major improvement,” Johnny commented.

After that display, Ben would know better than to mess with Starlight from that point onward. He then put a pin on that thought and led the group back to his car. “Let’s go, it’s time to deal with Tanya.”

The group got into Ben’s car and headed to the VK HQ on Adept Way. Once they arrived, Johnny asked Ben what the plan was for this operation to which he simply stated that they would head in, kill everyone who got in their way to the elevator and kill Tanya. Johnny smiled as Ben’s plan was his favorite kind of plan.

Once inside, all hell broke loose as the four ended up in a fight against an army of VK thugs who were spread out all over the foyer. Starlight and Johnny went after the thugs on the lower floor while Paul and Ben went after the ones on the upper level.

Starlight avoided as much gunfire as she could while moving in to decapitate her prey with her sword while using her platinum SMG to deal with distant enemies to support her father.

On the other side of the room, Johnny used his combat instincts to know when to take cover from enemy gunfire and when to start blasting with his assault rifle.

Paul was above Starlight with a pair of SMGs showering thugs with bullets while using pipe bombs to scare hiding thugs into the open. He didn’t want to use grenades or molotovs as they could risk causing unwanted structural damage or start a fire.

Ben was slowly awakening to his old self back when it was his people and the Carnales decades ago. Despite his cushy lifestyle dulling his instincts somewhat, he never truly forgot the badass he used to be as he advanced on the nervous thugs and blasted them with buckshot.

Once the thugs in the foyer were wiped out, the four headed to the elevator on the upper level while Ben inputted the new passcode to get them to the penthouse.

Of course, the four would have to endure the long awkward silence of an elevator ride before they could reach the penthouse. Ben was fine with that since he could use this time to temper his nerves before the final confrontation. Paul just stood and waited patiently for the ride to end.

Johnny, however, couldn’t take the awkward silence for long so he spoke his intentions, “I’m gonna skull fuck that bitch.” This comment put a disgusted look on Starlight’s face.

Paul was the one to respond to that, “Hope you don’t mind hepatitis.”

Starlight’s disgusted look soon gave way to a devious smirk as she decided to tease her father a little, “Should I tell mom you cheated on her before or after she finds out?”

Johnny was shocked by what seemed like a threat to rat him out to Aisha so he had to quickly salvage the mess he put himself in. “Ah, hey! C'mon, it was a joke, just some light humor for the elevator ride.”

“Mom said to rat you out if you ever considered cheating on her. But I can easily forget about that for an advance on my allowance and you doing my chores.”

“Are you kiddin' me? You robbed Sharp for everything he's worth, stole Monroe's kickback money and now you want an advance on your allowance? King, help me out here.”

Ben chuckled, “You're on your own for that one, son.”

Johnny could only groan as his joke backfired spectacularly and now he had to worry about being in the doghouse later. Still, that was a matter for Future Johnny to deal with. For now, he checked his ammo and made sure his weapons were fully loaded. The others checked their weapons too.

“When did I raise such a greedy daughter?” Johnny muttered.

“I heard that!” Starlight admonished.

Once the doors opened, the three walked out of the elevator and engaged anyone in yellow. They soon spotted a few of the penthouse occupants who weren’t wearing yellow which came as a shock to the yellow wearers. At first they assumed that they were dropping their flags all of a sudden but when they started attacking them, the thugs soon realized that they had some traitors.

The traitors dealt with the thugs and walked up to Ben with their weapons lowered, showing themselves as the loyalists. “We’ve been waitin’ for you, boss.” one of them said.

“Good to see all of you,” Ben replied. “Now, let’s go kill Tanya.”

Once all of the enemies in the penthouse had been taken out, Ben led the group through an office room with cubicles and toward the main office.

Opening the door to the main office revealed Tanya all by herself with her feet on a desk and a smug look on her face, something that caused Starlight to have a strange image of a lilac horse with her hairstyle flash through her mind for a brief moment before she lost it and focused on the woman in front of her.

“Some guys just never get enough of me,” Tanya quipped.

“I’ve had more than my fill of you, bitch,” Johnny growled.

“It’s over, girl,” Ben declared. “You’re not gonna fuck your way out of this one.”

“That’s cute, sweetie.” Tanya then put her feet on the floor as she began to pull out an assault rifle. That’s just–”

In that moment, two things happened. First, Starlight, not wanting to give Tanya any chance at resisting her fate, teleported right next to her with her sword coming down. The second, Tanya’s hands and assault rifle fell to the floor with the woman’s arms now ending in bloody stumps.

“So much for a handjob,” Johnny quipped.

It took a few moments for Tanya’s brain to register what happened before she started screaming in agony as the pain finally registered. However, things didn’t end there as she found herself being levitated off the floor and her back pressed against the window behind her.

Tanya realized the horror of her situation and lost all of her composure in that instant. “No, please don’t! It…it hurts!”

Ben, not caring about the magical feat going on right now, walked over to Tanya with a grim look on his face and pressed the barrel of his shotgun against her stomach. “Oh Tanya, do yourself a favor and die with some dignity.”

Ben pulled the trigger and turned Tanya’s insides to a pulp which also shattered the window behind her. Starlight, to make sure she was dead, hurled her out the window. Given that they were many stories up, Tanya’s body flew a long distance across several blocks and possibly a couple of neighborhoods before she finally landed in a busy street. If the shotgun and the fall didn’t kill Tanya, the cars running her over probably would.

“That was for my aunt!” Starlight called out.

“Well, that takes care of that,” Johnny congratulated. “We’d best get out of here, the cops will be here soon.”

Ben spent a few moments looking out the window before he turned to the exit. “That is some crazy-ass powers you got there, girl. Though I suppose you're gonna need them if you're planning to go after the Lopez brothers. Since you took my boys down, I believe you have a chance against them. Just remember my advice and you should be fine.”

“Right,” Starlight responded. “Just be sure to take care of your people and try to keep them from turning into another Warren.”

Ben chuckled, “I will, though we won't be sticking around Stilwater for much longer. Some will probably stay, but the rest of us will probably go traveling for a while. I'd like to find something else to do with my life.”

Johnny sighed, a little sad that the campaign against the Vice Kings was finally over. “I gotta get home to Aisha and tell her the good news. Unfortunately, I probably won't be much help against the Carnales since Eesh will probably have me on full moving duty for a while. Try not to kill Dex, I know you two haven't seen eye to eye since a few days ago.”

“I’ll try not to,” Starlight replied. “No promises though.”

Once Starlight delivered the news to Julius, the Saints moved in on Adept Way which officially meant that the Saints had taken over the entire northern island. Tomorrow, the Saints would turn their attention to the south and begin the final phase of the gang war that would determine the fate of Stilwater.

Author's Note

Those of you who could spot the irony in that final scene, well done. As for the rest of you, look at this and tell me you don't see the irony.