Starlight Saint

Starlight and Paul found themselves having some free time until they made another move against Angelo. With Victor out of the picture, the Carnales lacked the bite they used to have and it wouldn’t be long before they were only a memory like the Rollerz and the Vice Kings.

Since Julius was busy making contact with Manuel Orejuela to negotiate a deal, the two decided to watch a movie at Starlight’s house which ended up being the ‘99 remake of Animal Farm. The two discussed the comparison between the movie and the original book and noted the differences between the two.

“Weird, Napoleon ends up being almost indistinguishable from humans in the book but in the movie the animals rebel and Napoleon ends up dead,” Paul noted.

Starlight shrugged, “Very few movie producers ever stay true to the book’s contents, whether it’s because of the ever-changing standards of society, political reasons or because the directors wanted to add their own spin to the movie. Though I did hear that the CIA funded a cartoon version in ‘55.”

“Really? Why would they do that?” Paul wondered.

“Something about propaganda against the Soviets to prevent the spread of Communism. Decades of paranoia, glad I wasn’t born during that time.”

The two watched the movie to the end. Seeing Napoleon’s fate made Starlight think about bacon for some reason. “I’m suddenly getting a craving for bacon, how about you?”

Paul shrugged, “I could eat.”

However, before they could leave their seats to satisfy their cravings, Starlight’s phone rang. “What’s up?” she answered.

“Sorry to interrupt whatever you were doing,” Julius apologized. “I need you two to head to Cecil Park. Troy found another drug lab in an abandoned building that needs to be taken out. Be careful, with the Carnales in their death throes they will use everything they have to defend their holdings.”

“Alright, we’ll take care of it.” Starlight hung up.

While Paul was expecting them to head over to Cecil Park right away, he raised an eyebrow in confusion as he noticed that Starlight was dialing another number instead. “What are you up to?”

“I figured that an acquaintance of ours is looking for a way to get back at the Carnales after what happened yesterday. Since Cecil Park is only a couple of neighborhoods away from Chinatown he might be willing to help out.” Starlight’s attention was focused on her phone as she heard a couple of rings before the other end was answered.

“Yeah?” responded the person.

“Hey Joseph, want to do a little damage to the Carnales? It’s not far from where you are.”

“As much as I really want to after putting Donnie in danger yesterday, I have to stay near Mr. Wong in case the Carnales try something like that again.”

Starlight giggled, “I doubt they will be in any position to try that again any time soon. Not only did they lose their top enforcer in that failed siege, but I’m pretty sure the Carnales lost most of their numbers too. Angelo may be an idiotic hothead but he’s probably more focused on Manuel Orejuela. He’s practically living out a D-list Mexican drama.”

Price laughed loudly as he considered that thought. “Yeah, that is pretty pathetic. I’ll talk to Mr. Wong. If he agrees to let me go, where do you wanna meet?”

“There’s an abandoned building being used by the Carnales in Cecil Park as a drug lab. See you there.”

After ending the call Starlight and Paul headed straight for Cecil Park where they found the building that had some Carnales thugs guarding the area.

As they inspected the building in secret they heard someone making soft sounds to get their attention. They looked around until they found Joseph Price getting their attention from a nearby building. The two snuck over to Price without alerting the enemy thugs.

“It looks like their lab is on the upper floor,” Price informed. “Some of Mr. Wong’s men also spotted a number of rooftop snipers on the nearby buildings. With how well it’s guarded it may well be Angelo’s last drug lab.”

“It may be his best attempt to scrape up some money to continue funding his organization,” Starlight surmised. “Since I cleared out his bank accounts, Los Carnales is probably running on fumes. Since they will probably be trying desperately to hold on to this place, I can imagine they will try to call for reinforcements to stop us.”

“So what’s the plan?”

“Paul and I will head to the upper floor. Since Paul is the one with the sniper rifle, he will take out the snipers. You remain at the entrance, take out any reinforcements that show up but focus on the one leading them. I will deal with the lab and make sure the building is unusable in the future.”

“How are you gonna do that?” Paul asked.

“Take your time in dealing with the ones carrying RPGs but focus more on the ones with rifles.”

Paul raised an eyebrow but decided not to question it. Instead he focused on infiltrating the building while Price lingered behind to guard the entrance.

Once inside, the two quickly began taking out any Carnales defenders trying to keep them from the lab as they climbed the stairs to the upper floor. They then proceeded to clear out the upper level which left the place to themselves.

However, the snipers on the nearby buildings heard the commotion and began to prepare their weapons to deal with the intruders.

As ordered, Paul focused on the ones carrying sniper rifles. He had a clear view of the snipers since it was still daytime while he ignored the ones with RPGs and trusted that Starlight knew what she was doing.

One RPG carrier fired a rocket which ended up caught in Starlight’s magic and flew into the building where she froze it with time magic and left the rocket in the lab before waiting for another rocket. After a minute, Starlight had gathered five rockets and left them temporally frozen in the lab while Paul focused on the snipers. With a nod from Starlight, Paul took out the RPG carriers while Starlight gathered two additional rockets for her plan.

Meanwhile, reinforcements arrived at the base of the building where Price used a few pipe bombs and grenades to take out some of the cars. He soon noticed one thug who seemed to be barking orders to the others which left him to guess that he was the lieutenant in charge of the group so he pulled out an assault rifle and sent a shower of bullets in his direction.

The lieutenant ducked behind one of the cars which was when Price tossed a few more grenades in his direction to flush him out before the lieutenant was forced to leave his cover and fell to Price’s assault rifle.

Once he finished off the lieutenant, the rest of the thugs turned tail and ran away just as Starlight and Paul exited the building. Starlight addressed Price with a look of urgency, “Hurry, we have less than a minute to get out of here before my makeshift bomb goes off.”

Price was momentarily curious how Starlight had a bomb when he didn’t see any on her before but decided not to question it as the three fled to the safety of a nearby building moments before Starlight’s time spell wore off and the rockets flew into the lab equipment. The simultaneous explosions created one large explosion that blew up the entire top portion of the abandoned building and left a few small fires inside and near the lower level of the ruins.

“Fuck, what kind of bomb was that?” Price asked.

Starlight giggled, “I said it was a makeshift bomb. I just used what materials were given to me.”

Price chuckled, “Knowing you, it was probably made from something nobody would believe. Anyways, thanks for bringin’ me along for this one and have fun finishing off the Carnales.” He paused as he remembered something else he wanted to tell them. “Oh, and Mr. Wong also wanted me to tell you that another client of his needs help. Loreana’s brothel is nearby and she needs help getting her girls back.”

With that Price left the two to head back to Wong. Starlight called Julius to tell him the good news and to begin expanding into Cecil Park. This left only Barrio, Charlestown, Ezpata and Wardill Airport under Carnales control.

“I’ll go ahead and handle Loreana’s problem,” Paul offered. “You wanna help out?”

Starlight considered Paul’s offer but she still felt uncomfortable around sex workers. She was sure they were nice people but she wasn’t ready to deal with them just yet. However, there was still the matter of finding the last two cars that Miguel needed to complete his list. “I’ll pass, I’m going to find some cars to steal instead,” she responded.

Paul shrugged, “Suit yourself.”

“Just don’t come back with more bling like last time, you looked ridiculous,” Starlight playfully requested.

Paul gave a fake huff, “I’ll have you know that bling made a lot of ladies fawn over me.” Starlight chuckled as she rolled her eyes.

The two went their separate ways afterward. Starlight began her hunt for vehicles throughout the southern part of the city on the hunt for a Destiny sedan and a Slingshot compact. It took her a couple of hours to find the vehicles she needed and a little more time to have the Slingshot she found customized for Miguel.

Miguel decided to reward Starlight for her hard work with a coupon for a year’s worth of vehicle repairs at half price at all Rim Jobs in Stilwater. While Starlight didn’t plan to drive around damaged cars or get her Reaper wrecked, it was still good to have something to soften the financial blow in case something did happen.

Starlight waited half an hour for Paul to finish his task before he called and said he would meet her at the church. When she got there she quickly found Paul since he was wearing something that made him stand out. It took every ounce of willpower Starlight had not to facepalm.

“Really?” Starlight flatly questioned.

Much to Starlight’s annoyance, Paul was wearing a purple faux fur coat and a purple pimp hat with a stripe of leopard spots and a feather. With the jewelry he may have kept after his previous runs of trafficking sex workers, he would be easily mistaken for an actual pimp. His appearance was further accessorized with a pimp cane.

Paul proudly stuck his nose in the air with an exaggerated haughty look that greatly tempted Starlight to slap him but stayed her hand since she knew he was only messing around. “Say what you want about this but you know I look good.” Starlight failed to hold back a laugh at Paul’s acting while Paul looked at the cane in his hand. “Regardless, I’m keeping the cane. This thing has a shotgun built in.”

To demonstrate, Paul aimed his cane at the wall around the church cemetery. He pulled the trigger which unleashed a blast powerful enough to blow a small chunk out of the wall. Starlight whistled in awe of the powerful weapon. “Wow, that is useful.”

“What is going on out here?” Julius demanded as he walked out of the church.

Starlight and Paul looked at their leader apologetically before Starlight explained, “Sorry about that, Julius. Paul was just showing off his new toy.”

Seeing the cane in Paul’s hand, Julius decided to drop the matter and move on to more important things, “I see. Anyway, come inside. There’s something we need to discuss.”

The two followed Julius inside and into his office where he began briefing the two on their next task. Troy was in attendance. As it turned out, Julius had struck a deal with Manuel Orejuela where the Colombians would work with the Saints exclusively in exchange for the drugs that the cops had confiscated during the night at the docks where Paul put an end to Hector Lopez.

“Are you nuts?!” Troy questioned. “The cops probably have the drugs stashed away in their evidence locker. They’d lock the place down before you’d get anywhere.”

“Do you have an idea?” Starlight asked.

“Yeah, if you load a car up with explosives you can blow a hole right into the evidence locker. I know a guy who gave me the blueprints to the station in Barrio where the drugs are so I know where to blow the hole.”

Starlight nodded, “Good, once we blow the wall, we can have a crew loaded up into that delivery truck we stole from the Carnales a few days ago. They can go in through the hole and load the drugs into the truck and we can haul the goods back here. Problem is that the cops aren't going to be too happy with this stunt. I'd expect them to bring everything they have down on us. They will probably bring the FBI in to stop us as well.”

“Yeah, I’m not fond of the idea since it’ll mean a heavy body count. I’m hoping you got an idea on how to lower that.” Troy was really hoping that Starlight had a plan that would keep the casualties to a minimum since every dead officer would compound his guilt.

Starlight smirked, “Actually, I do.” She then proceeded to tell Paul and Troy about her plan to make the operation run more smoothly which she noticed Troy giving a sigh of relief as he heard it. She knew that Troy would like to keep the death toll as low as possible and she couldn’t blame him.

Once Troy pointed out the location of the evidence locker from the street side, Paul and Starlight headed out to steal a car to deliver to Samson to rig it to explode. Meanwhile, a crew of Saints were loading up into the delivery truck with one of the thugs at the wheel.

Once the bomb was ready and the crew was ready to go, Starlight gave a signal to Laserbeak.

At the Barrio police station, Chief Monroe was lazily looking through paperwork with a bored expression while wondering when the day would end.

As he mumbled to himself a wish for something interesting to happen, his phone rang. Not bothering to check the Caller ID, he answered, “Chief of Police Monroe speaking.”

“It’s an emergency, Monroe! City hall is under attack by the Saints! Send every man you have down here immediately!”

Monroe was quickly shaken from his stupor as he recognized the voice as none other than Alderman Richard Hughes, the man who helped him to become the Chief of Police after his predecessor retired. “Y-yes sir, Alderman! I’ll mobilize everyone I have available right away.”

“Hurry! The Saints are tearing the building–” The call was cut off as a busy signal replaced Hughes’ voice..

“Hello? Alderman Hughes? Hello!” Monroe tried calling him again but the line failed to connect. “Dammit!” He then pulled out his intercom to speak to everyone in the station and ordered everyone to mobilize immediately.

“That should buy us some time to get to the station and get out,” Starlight said.

“I have so many questions as to how that actually worked,” Paul wondered.

Starlight giggled, “Simple, I did some research on the Alderman and found that he had a hand in a number of things going on in Stilwater. Sharp funded his campaign and he was King’s connection to the city government. The only group who didn’t have a connection with Hughes was the Carnales. Obviously Monroe is Hughes’ attack dog. So, I had Laserbeak simulate his voice while using his numerous campaign ads as samples to create a near-perfect simulation. After that, it was a simple matter of filling Monroe with a sense of urgency while cutting off any communication to and from the police station to make Monroe panic.”

Paul lost focus for a few moments which led to a few near misses of other cars on the road which could have led to both of them getting blown up had Starlight not shrieked to knock Paul out of his stunned silence. “If I said it before, I’ll say it again: that drone is scary.” Paul spoke as if they hadn’t nearly been blown by a collision while driving a car rigged to explode.

“Just focus on the road, you can admire Laserbeak later,” Starlight snapped.

Thankfully, the drive to the police station went without further incident. With nearly the entire police station heading downtown toward City Hall, there were hardly any officers left in the station save the few taking calls. Paul drove up to the part of the wall designated by Troy before the two exited the vehicle and took shelter behind a building before the car exploded, blowing a hole into the police station.

As the alarms went off, the delivery truck backed into the hole in the wall where a number of Saints entered and began grabbing everything that looked like drugs, whether it belonged to the Colombians or not.

While the truck was being loaded, Starlight and Paul remained on the lookout for any cops who might try to stop them. With communications to and from the station cut off, there was little worry about the police force suddenly turning around to head back and defend their headquarters in any timely manner. The few cops who weren’t around weren’t foolish enough to try to stop them.

The drugs were loaded within a few minutes and Paul took the wheel of the truck to drive it back to the Row. A few police cars did give chase until Starlight shot their tires to force them to give up the chase. Other than that the truck was delivered with little incident.

“Well, now I can honestly say I'm not going to be accepted into the Police Academy,” Starlight cheekily stated.

“Maybe you can try for the FBI. I hear they employ hackers like you all the time,” Paul snarked.

Starlight scoffed, “Pass.”

The two didn’t bother to stick around as a group of cartel members came by to reclaim their merchandise. They instead returned to the church to spend the rest of the day watching movies.That was the plan until Julius came by to request Paul to come with him to meet with Orejuela at one of the city’s strip bars. Julius wasn’t about to ask Starlight to come with him since he’d rather not expose a minor to such a place which Starlight agreed.

Paul would later tell Starlight about what happened, which involved Julius shaking hands with Manuel to mark the beginning of their partnership and Angelo barging in by himself to try and kill Manuel for stealing his girl only to fail and flee. Manuel would give Paul the address to Angelo’s villa which wasn’t all that useful since Starlight already knew where the reckless gang leader lived.

Tomorrow, Starlight surmised, would be the day that she and Paul put the final nail in Angelo’s coffin.

When the police returned from their wild goose chase, they saw what happened but none of the officers on duty could tell Monroe what happened since they didn’t want to lose their lives trying to investigate the incident.

Enraged, Monroe ordered an investigation of the entire neighborhood to find clues only for them to find a few Carnales hang outs. The thugs were arrested which caused the Carnales to lose control of the area.

Julius knew that sending anyone to take Barrio at this time would only get them arrested so he decided to leave the area alone since the Carnales didn’t control it anymore.