Starlight Saint

Starlight continued her life in high school without much issue. Although lately her father was sometimes picking her up while looking a little roughed up. She would have felt worried about him if she hadn’t noticed that he looked very energetic whenever he looked like that, as if he had done something that made him feel so alive. Given the fact that she had noticed that the gangs had paid more attention to him lately, she had a good idea why.

She later asked Johnny about this and he only gave her the truth. “I got tired of the VKs, Carnales and Rollerz uh…messin’ around in our neighborhood so I joined the up and coming gang to get rid of ‘em.” Johnny took care not to curse in front of Starlight as per his promise with Aisha.

“You’re talking about the Third Street Saints? I heard that they claimed the church as their headquarters but haven’t made any moves to take back the city yet.”

“That’s because Julius is still goin’ out recruitin’ people he thinks will be useful in taking out the other gangs. He recently picked up this know-it-all prick named Dex. Claims he has some good ideas on takin’ them out.”

“If he’s that shorthanded, maybe I should help out too,” Starlight offered.

“Can’t let ya, young lady.” Starlight looked away sadly for a brief moment before Johnny continued, “Not yet, anyway. Eesh would kill me if your grades slipped because you were spending nights helping the Saints. Julius also has a strict policy of not allowing kids going to school to be part of the Saints. The war’s not so important that we need to sacrifice our education.”

“So I can join the Saints when I graduate?”

“Yep, even though you’ll still be sixteen by then Julius didn’t think about kids who graduate early.”

Starlight quickly rushed over and gave her father a big hug which he knelt down to return. “Thanks, Daddy!”

Feeling motivated, Starlight returned to her studies and continued her high school life. Her freshman through senior years went by quickly as Starlight proved herself the top of her class in every subject, including physical education. She also took martial arts classes for her extracurricular activities, though she was actually doing that to prepare herself for her life outside of school.

Starlight was fully aware that crews from the rivaling gangs had made attempts to kidnap her over the years but her father was always nearby to give them a hard lesson about how bad that idea was, for the ones who survived, anyway.

The years passed and soon Starlight found herself standing before her graduating class as the valedictorian. There was no contest for that spot. Starlight gave a speech about how she planned to help improve the conditions of Stilwater though she never elaborated how she would do so. Everyone assumed that she would go into politics.

Soon the speech ended and everyone left high school with their hopes and dreams. Many of which would be dashed by the harshness of reality while others would rise to greatness. Some would leave Stilwater to continue their education elsewhere since the city had no universities.

Starlight, Johnny and Aisha had dinner that night at a high end restaurant on the northern island to celebrate Starlight’s graduation. Despite the way the record company was treating her, Aisha was glad that she was getting paid well so they could afford the expensive meal.

Aisha had a feeling that this would be the last time they would have such a meal for a very long time.

Starlight spent the next few days relaxing at home. Aisha gave her plenty of spending money so she went shopping for a new wardrobe. If she was going to join her father in fighting the gangs she might as well be showing the flags. What caught her eye were a pair of damaged skinny lavender jeans, an aquamarine shirt with lavender bordering, a black sleeveless jacket, a pair of black high-heeled boots and a lavender beanie with stars on it.

She bought that and whatever else that caught her attention before she drove to the nearest Friendly Fire. She had just received her driver’s license by this point so she didn’t need her father to drive her around.

After looking at the selection in the shop she decided on a .44 Shepherd revolver and a 12 Gauge shotgun. The shopkeeper didn’t bat an eye at the fact that a sixteen year old was buying guns. Stilwater was too dangerous for people to be walking around unarmed these days since the gangs didn’t care about who you were. Starlight also bought as much ammunition for her weapons as she could carry.

Starlight returned home after that and prepared herself for tomorrow when she would head to the church with her father and join the Saints.

However, Starlight was restless that night and couldn’t get any sleep. After a few attempts to do so she gave up and decided to go for a walk, bringing her weapons, including her Wado Ichimonji sword and Laserbeak, with her for protection.

During her stroll through the streets, she walked past a street vendor who was selling watches that she suspected were either stolen or cheap knockoffs of what they were modeled after. A sex trade worker considered selling her services to Starlight but quickly found out that she was still underage for such things.

She quickly hid herself when she noticed that she was about to walk into an escalating situation when she noticed a crew of Vice King thugs spray painting over a Rollerz tag, which was graffiti on a wall that displayed their gang name. A crew of Rollerz came up to them and a fight broke out. The situation worsened when a crew of Carnales drove up to them and shot at them. The initial exchange left some of the Vice Kings and Rollerz dead on the ground before the other two crews retaliated and killed most of the Carnales crew, including the driver. The dead driver had his foot pressed on the accelerator and the car ended up crashing into a wall. The surviving Carnales thug crawled out of the car only to be killed by the remaining Rollerz thug who was then shot by the remaining Vice Kings thug. However, before he could celebrate his victory, he ended up dead too.

The assailant was a brown-haired guy smoking a cigarette who wore a dark purple shirt with a white and purple horizontal stripe. He was accompanied by Julius. The two investigated the scene for a moment before the assailant convinced Julius to leave the area, “You go on ahead Julius, I gotta make sure none of this gets pinned on us.”

“Alright, Troy. Don’t linger here too long.” Julius then ran off.

Starlight then overheard the man, Troy, talking to himself where she heard some interesting info. “What a fucked up mess this is. Monroe’s bustin’ my ass to get me to keep the Saints from turning into another problem for Stilwater. As if the other three weren’t bad enough. Fuckin’ Monroe and most of the precinct is swimming in King’s bribe money so we have to turn a blind eye to the VKs. The Carnales are backed by the most powerful drug cartel in the western hemisphere so we risk retaliation if we come down on them too hard. We can’t even get at the Rollerz because they know someone who knows every loophole in the legal system so they get off with slaps on the wrist.”

Starlight found it strange that Troy knew so much about what was going on with the city police department. The way he was talking to himself implied that he was part of the police department. If he was close to Julius then he was likely undercover from a high position among the Saints.

Still, a source of information about the movements of the Stilwater Police Department is valuable so she decided to let the matter lie for now and watch herself around him.

After that she continued her stroll through the slums until she noticed another altercation. This time it was a bunch of thugs, who didn’t seem to be wearing the red, yellow or blue of the other gangs, ganging up on some guy with black hair. Starlight hid in the shadows again to assess the situation.

“You think you’re so tough, Paul?” one thug taunted. The victim, Paul, held his hands in front of him to try to assuage the thugs but it only made them more aggressive. “Oh, so now you’re too good to talk to us? We’re gonna fuck you up that the fuzz won’t identify you!”

“We take this guy out, Price will surely let us into the Rollerz,” another thug declared.

As the thugs took out their melee weapons, Starlight had enough and quickly moved in with her sword drawn and Laserbeak in attack mode, ready to use its weapons on command. The thugs didn’t see her coming one one of them ended up with her blade against his neck. “What the fuck!?” the thug called out, making the others look toward him.

“Back off!” Starlight threatened.

“Who the fuck are you, bitch?” The thug paused for a moment before he noticed her hair. “Wait, that hair! Are you with the Saints?!”

“Is that what you should be asking right now while your friend has a blade to his throat?”

One of the other thugs decided to do something foolish and pull out his gun only for Laserbeak to lock on to his action and fire a laser that scorched his hand and made him drop his weapon at Paul’s feet. “Agh, fuck!”

Another, more level-headed, thug had his friends calm down as he reminded them of something obvious. “Let’s all calm the fuck down. Remember, it’s five against two and those ain’t good odds for—” His sentence never finished as a bullet flew through his skull.

Starlight noticed that Paul had grabbed the gun and shot the guy which made her smirk. “Correction: four against two. Wait, scratch that.” She then executed the thug she held at swordpoint. “Three against two.” She then pulled out her revolver and aimed at another thug. “Soon to be two against two.”

“Let’s get out of here! These two are crazy!” cried out one of the remaining thugs. The other two agreed and the three of them ran off.

Starlight wasn’t about to let them off the hook so easily, however. As a police car moved past her and Paul, she fired a round at it which caused the driver to hit the brakes. She then used her magic to clean the revolver of her fingerprints before leaving a beacon on it then teleporting it into the thugs’ hands. She would use the beacon to reclaim her weapon later.

Paul wasn’t paying attention to Starlight’s magical antics and was sitting against the wall thinking about how he was nearly killed before he could make a name for himself. As he contemplated this, he saw the girl’s hand being extended to him. “Let’s get out of here, fast!” she implored.

Paul decided to stop thinking about what happened and listened to Starlight’s suggestion as he grabbed her hand and was pulled up. The two quickly disappeared into an alley just as the cops were starting to look around for witnesses while they interrogated the thugs.

Once they were far enough away, the two stopped running while Starlight attempted to get him to leave. “We should be safe now. Hurry home before you get jumped again.” Strangely, the man didn’t seem intent on leaving, as if he were concerned for her safety. “Don’t worry about me. The Saints’ headquarters is around the…” She trailed off for a moment as another crew of four Rollerz pulled up to them with malicious grins on their faces. “...corner.”

“Well, look who we have here, boys, Little Lady Gat.” one of the Rollerz remarked.

Noticing the troublesome situation she and Paul had just ended up in, Starlight quickly had Laserbeak fly off to get help. In the meantime she had to stall them. “Buzz off, losers. You know what will happen to you when my dad finds out you tried to attack me.”

“Yeah? Well let’s see who’s faster, him or a bullet?” He then pulled out a T3K Urban SMG and aimed it at Starlight. “Puttin’ you down will make Gat think twice about messin’ with the Rollerz.”

Paul decided then to try and be a hero by placing himself between Starlight and the Rollerz to try and protect her while aiming his pistol at them. However, the thug wasn’t intimidated. “Aw, looks like we got a hero. Now he’ll be collateral damage.

As he prepared to fill Paul full of holes, the thug’s shooting arm ended up with a bullet lodged in it and the sudden sharp pain made him lower his weapon and clench his new wound while shouting in pain.

“Steppin’ into Saints territory is bad enough. Messin’ with my daughter and her new muscle, that’s a death wish.” Johnny warned as he approached the scene.

While the Rollerz were distracted, Starlight teleported behind the SMG-armed thug and sliced off his hand holding the weapon. “Motherfucker!” he screamed. The rest of his crew hesitated which cost them their lives as Starlight pulled out her shotgun and blasted them from point blank range, filling their bodies with buckshot.

The surviving Rollerz member who was grasping onto his bleeding severed wrist ran off in a panic, but not before making one last threat, “We’ll remember this, Gat! You, your daughter, and that bitch next to her, you’re all fucked!”

Once the thug was gone, Johnny gave a proud smirk to his daughter. “Nice moves, Starry.”

“Thanks, Daddy.” She then looked at Paul, “And thank you for trying to protect me.” Paul shrugged his shoulders in response, downplaying his achievement.

“So, do you have a name or do I need to give you one? I was thinkin’ Playa.”

“It’s Paul, actually,” he responded.

“Paul?” Johnny scoffed, “Sounds boring.”

“Daddy, honestly!” Starlight scolded. “Anyway Paul, you should get home quickly before more of those motherfuckers show up.”

“Actually Star, I got a better idea. Why not let this guy join the Saints?”

“If he wants to join then he can come to the church tomorrow morning,” Starlight offered. “Anyway, I’m just excited that I will finally be able to do something about Mom’s stalker.”

“Now Starlight, we went over this. If you’re planning on taking him out, make it look like an accident or a suicide. That way it’s less likely to be traced to you.”

“Don’t worry, Daddy. I already have a plan to deal with him.”

“Atta girl!” He then looked at Paul and held his hand out to him. “So, you in?”

Paul didn’t hesitate and grasped his arm in Johnny’s hand to show his resolve to join the Saints.

“Alright, you two should head home tonight. I’ll let Julius know we have a pair of new recruits who need canonizing tomorrow morning.”

Paul broke away from the trio and headed on home while Johnny escorted Starlight back to their home.