The few months after the destruction of Alderman Hughes’ yacht were hard on Starlight as her worry for Paul had led to several sleepless nights for her. It got to the point where Aisha had to use medicine to help her fall asleep. Johnny had offered to get some marijuana since that could help calm her down but Aisha quickly shot down that idea as she didn’t want to risk Starlight getting addicted to it, not to mention the fact that the substance was illegal.

A few days after the incident, the report came in and Troy personally called Starlight to let her know that Paul was still alive but he was in a comatose state so there was no telling when he would wake up. He also mentioned that Alderman Hughes and his guards had perished in the explosion which gave Starlight a small feeling of satisfaction as she didn’t want the politician to mess with her peaceful life.

With Richard Hughes dead, his wife, Monica, took over the campaign. However she still lost to Marshall Winslow as the public was still against the idea of displacing the population of the Row since it would mean homeless people would flood the city. Monica would later run for City Manager and win before helping Ultor establish themselves in Stilwater in order to fulfill her husband’s legacy; an action that she would quickly come to regret.

While Starlight was relieved to know that Paul was still alive and hopeful that he would wake up at some point, she was also saddened to learn that the Saints had fallen apart. With Julius having disappeared, Paul in a coma and Johnny having agreed to leave in accordance to his daughter’s wishes, there was none left to lead the Saints so the members left one by one until the church was abandoned and the thugs returned to their everyday lives.

Starlight resolved herself to continue moving forward with her life as she made her preparations to head to college, including acquiring the plane tickets to Pittsburgh as well as the books and other educational material that she would need for her college experience as well as considering what personal items she would need for her time there. She also made sure to read up on the school’s history and traditions as well to make sure she didn’t commit any unspoken faux pas.

Before she knew it, she was a week away from the start of her first semester of college. Her parents accompanied her to Wardill Airport. Aisha gave Starlight a long hug that came close to being awkward to show how much she was going to miss her. Johnny told her that if she ever got into trouble that he would mow down anyone and anything that got in his way of getting to her. Starlight made a note not to cause too much trouble since the last thing she needed was Johnny burning down half of Michigan getting to her, and she had a feeling that he actually would.

After bidding her parents goodbye she boarded her plane and flew to Pittsburgh. The flight was a few hours long so the attendant offered her a snack before she took a small nap.

Once the plane landed, Starlight claimed her luggage and headed over to the hotel she had booked for a few days before moving into the dorms. During that week, Starlight took in the sights of Pittsburgh and visited a couple of museums, buying souvenirs to send back to her parents.

When the week ended, Starlight had moved into the quality dorms since she could afford it thanks to the money she had acquired from her former enemies.

As she explored campus on the day before her classes started, she heard someone calling for her. The stranger in question had an average build with an inverted triangular face. He had brown hair and blue eyes and wore a pair of glasses.

The man quickly approached Starlight and gave her a quick glance. “Are you Starlight Gat?”

“Uh, yeah?” Starlight responded, uncertain of the man’s motives.

“It’s nice to finally meet you. I’m Alberto, Alberto Falcone. I could have identified you by your unique hair color but I couldn’t be certain since some people dye their hair purple all the time.”

“So you’re the one your father wanted me to meet?” Starlight asked.

Alberto nodded, “Yeah, my father wants me to make a good impression on you so that the Saints and the Roman Empire might forge a good relationship between our two families.”

“Unfortunately, the Saints fell apart shortly after they won the war.”

“I know, but my father believes that the Saints will return one day as long as their most important members are still around.”

“But what about you? Don’t you have your own dreams to chase instead of being a puppet for your father? Did you even want to attend Carnegie Mellon?”

Alberto’s eye twitched as she mentioned him being a puppet but he did his best to keep his composure. “Well, I originally intended to attend Harvard to impress my father, but he insisted I come here instead. He said that he originally intended to send my brother, Mario, to meet you but he noticed that I do good work tuning cars so he sent me instead, insisting that I get a degree in auto mechanics. Though to be honest, it feels sort of right to be pursuing this degree.”

Starlight hummed, “Well, if you want to pursue your auto mechanics degree because you want to, then all the power to you.”

Alberto smiled, “Thanks! So, what are you here for?”

“Computer science and robotics.”

“A double major, nice!”

“I suppose I should thank your father for saving me the tuition fees with that scholarship offer.”

“You would have probably gotten one whether it was from my father or not with the grades you had,” Alberto chuckled.

Starlight raised an eyebrow, “You looked up my grades?”

“More like my father took an interest in the person who led numerous daring attacks against three powerful organized gangs and brought them to their knees, alongside her partner, Paul Hanksaw. He wanted to know everything he could about you, who helped to elevate the Saints to becoming the dominant force in Stilwater…for a couple of days before some unforeseen circumstances caused everything to collapse.”

Starlight was silent for a few moments, thinking about Paul and his fate. It had been several months and Paul showed no sign of waking up anytime soon. She stowed those thoughts away in a box in her mind before returning her attention to Alberto. “Is Stilwater really that famous?”

Alberto scoffed as if Starlight had just asked if the sky was blue, “Of course it is, why do you think so many gangs move into that city. My father makes sure to keep an eye on places with strong underground markets. The Colombian Drug Cartel sought their claim to Stilwater’s drug market for crying out loud. The lax police force there makes the crime rate rival Gotham’s crime rate.”

“So why is your father still interested in me?” Starlight asked. “The Saints fell apart.”

“He’s interested in your connection with the Chinese Triad.”

“That’s a bit of a stretch considering that my connection was through a member who I worked under who had been retired for a long time now.”

“Well, regardless of my father, you certainly left an impression on me. We should hang out more,” Alberto offered.

Starlight shrugged, “Sure, I don’t mind.”

The school year began and time marched on. Starlight didn’t slack off on her schoolwork. She made sure to pay attention to her professors’ every word and took plenty of notes for her to study. Her hard work and dedication to pursuing her double major in robotics and computer science had earned her the top grades of her classes in her first year. Starlight and Alberto continued hanging out with each other as friends.

While the first year went without incident. When the second year began, Starlight soon found herself attracting trouble.

One day as she was heading back to her dorm after classes, she was accosted by a group of goths, given the black clothes and black makeup they had on. Strangely, their black clothes were also lined with blue neon lights. One among them was also wearing roller skates that also had a neon glow.

Starlight tried walking around the group as she didn’t want to cause them problems. However, the goths appeared to be looking for trouble as they continued getting in her way. “Where do you think you’re going, Gat?” the one with the skates asked mockingly.

“Back to my dorm,” Starlight answered. “What’s it to you?”

“Oh, we just came here to introduce ourselves and to put a certain big-headed little girl in her place. You think you’re a big shot because you took down a few street gangs? Puh-lease! All you did was take out a baby gang, a gang led by a man with no ambition and a bunch of Mexicans who were nothing without the cartel helping them.” The woman pounded her hand with her fist. “We’re not afraid to beat down privileged little princesses on campus and we have ways of making the lesson stick.”

This was not how Starlight was seeing her day going. Sure, she made sure to keep up her magic practice while she was alone, but she really didn’t want to reveal that to the goths before her. She also left most of her weapons back home in Stilwater with the exception of her katana which she couldn’t carry around as that would have been a good way to get thrown off campus.

Starlight kept a defensive stance to prepare herself for a brawl as the goths approached menacingly. Despite her lack of weapons she still had her self defense skills to fall back on.

However, that proved unnecessary as the woman with the skates suddenly felt a wave of air pressure by her left cheek as if an object just barely avoided scratching her face. The woman turned around to find a gold-colored knife sticking in the ground.

“Over there!” one of the woman’s cronies pointed out.

Looking in the indicated direction, they noticed a blonde woman with parts of her hair done up like a pair of antennae. She wore a white shirt with a black tie along with a black skirt and aqua jacket. Her boots matched her jacket. She also appeared to be wielding gold knives between her fingers like they were a set of claws. She also had an intense presence with a posture that underlied sadistic tendencies.

“Get lost, emo freaks!” The newcomer ordered.

“Looks like someone’s got a death wish if they’re bringing weapons in on this,” the goth woman said as she pulled out a pair of SMGs. “I’ll be happy to oblige!” She then paused as she realized something, “And we’re not emo, we’re goths!”

Before she could properly aim her weapons and while the others were drawing their weapons, several knives flew at them and nailed the weapons out of their hands. “Does it look like I care? You look emo so I’ll call you emo. Now, take a hike, Grace!” the blonde said while pulling out more knives. “The next ones will be much more painful.”

The goths growled before picking up their weapons and turning around to retreat. “Tch! I’ll remember this! Let’s get out of here.” The woman on skates, Grace, fled at speeds that didn’t seem possible on normal roller skates. She moved as if she was a speedster from a comic.

Looking away from the fleeing goths, Starlight turned her attention to the blonde. “Thanks for that, I was a bit concerned that I was about to do something that would get me in hot water with the school.”

“Don’t sweat it, not sure what you did to get on Grace’s radar, but you better watch her back around her. She’s part of some cyberterrorism group called The Deckers. She was probably testing out those prototype combat skates for her boss. WIthout them she’s just another bitch with a gun.”

“I see. Well, that aside, I’m Starlight Gat.”

“Gat? I think I heard about you. Weren’t you the one who racked up quite a kill count with a sword?”

“That’s me,” Starlight admitted.

“Wow, you’re pretty hardcore. I’m Elrena Xavier, but I also like to go by Larxene.”

“Larxene?” Starlight asked. “Wait, isn’t that your name anagrammed with the first letter of your last name thrown in?”

“You know, you’re actually the first person to figure that out. Impressive! You wanna hang out? There’s this bitchin’ nightclub downtown.”

Starlight smiled, “I’m in!”

By the time Starlight’s third year at Carnegie Mellon came around, she had another encounter with Grace who was accompanied by two more individuals. One was a bald man with a crimson overcoat and black pants. He also wore sunglasses with a red shade. Starlight had to wonder if he was trying to emulate a certain character from The Matrix. Grace introduced the man as Norman. The other man was a muscular Latino who wore a traditional luchador mask over his head with his gray hair in the style of a mohawk. Grace introduced him as El Jose.

Grace thought she had the upper hand this time since she had two of her allies with her. Even with Alberto and Larxene with her, Starlight didn’t like their chances if they ended up having to fight El Jose.

To their surprise, a muscular man came up to El Jose from behind and quickly grabbed his left arm, kicked both of his legs from behind to drop him on his knees, then bent his arm at a weird angle, all before the luchador had a chance to react.

The wrestler’s cries of pain got the attention of Grace and Norman. This gave Alberto the opportunity to wrap his arm around Norman’s neck and pull him to the ground in a stranglehold until he lost consciousness.

Before Grace could react, she found several knives pointed at her chin with Larxene inches from her face. “Just so you know, the only reason you’re not dead right now is because I would like to graduate. After that, we play for keeps.” Larxene gave Grace a wicked grin that promised untold suffering.

“You four think you’re a bunch of big shots? You’re nothing compared to the Syndicate. You have no idea what a real criminal empire is. Come to Steelport and we will show you just how insignificant you truly are,” Grace threatened.

Starlight sauntered over to Grace with a devious look on her face. “Maybe at some point. If fate finds us meeting each other again then we shall see. For now, I think it’s time for you three to make your final exit from this campus. My friends had their fun, now it’s my turn.”

The muscular man who attacked El Jose wasn’t sure what was happening but he had a feeling that something was about to happen so he let go of the luchador who began nursing his broken arm. As that happened, Starlight’s hands glowed and the heads of her three victims did the same. In seconds, the three had blank expressions on their faces as their pupils grew wide.

In the next few moments after Starlight issued a command to them, the three completely stripped themselves into their birthday suits and began running all over campus babbling like they were high on drugs. Campus police eventually came and apprehended the three but not before El Jose injured some of them.

The public display of nudity didn’t affect Starlight nearly as much as it used to. She was eighteen at this point, soon to be nineteen. It also helped that the internet had desensitized her somewhat.

“Did you plant the evidence?” Starlight asked.

“Yep, I left plenty of illegal substances in their rooms and spilled some to make it look like they took more than they should have,” Alberto replied.

“I dealt with the security cameras so Alberto wasn’t caught on film,” Larxene added.

“Good, that should make the rest of our college days go by smoothly.” Starlight nodded in satisfaction. She then turned her attention to other matters, “Now, let’s address the new guy.”

The muscular man pointed at himself questioningly to which Starlight nodded. Looking at him closer, the man had dark skin with spiky black hair. He wore a gray shirt that barely contained his rippling muscles as well as black pants. “What do you want from me?” he asked.

“First, I want to say that was an impressive display of strength you showed and I quite enjoyed how you savagely broke that guy’s arm.”

“He looked like a problem, so I fixed it.”

“I like the way you work. I’m Starlight Gat.”

“Samuel Ravenswood. Ironic to what you said, my friends gave me the nickname Savage, based on the fact that I can be brutal at times, but also because of my Aboriginal heritage. It hurt at first but my friends helped me to see how awesome the nickname was so I decided to own it.”

“Savage huh? I had one friend back home call me a savage nymph because of how I am,” Larxene said. “I actually had to look up what a nymph was before I decided whether or not to pound him. I decided against it since I saw how beautiful they were.”

Starlight, Alberto and Larxene got to know Samuel, or Savage as he liked to be called, and the four began to hang out more. Starlight was also forced to explain her magic and made them promise not to utter a word about it to anyone else.

With the troublesome factors of her college life taken care of, Starlight focused on her studies, keeping her spot at the top of her classes in the fields of computer science and robotics. The knowledge she had gained had given her some insight on how to improve Laserbeak and build a version of Ravage that Paul would jump for joy over once he woke up.

Alberto, Larxene and Savage each contributed their own knowledge into the improvements with Alberto coming up with weapons ideas, Larxene, who was pursuing a degree in electrical engineering, improved the circuit designs and optimized power generation, and Savage, who pursued a degree in mechanical engineering, ensured that both robots had as much freedom of movement as possible with their mechanical systems. Starlight made improvements to Laserbeak’s AI while developing Ravage’s AI.

By their senior year at Carnegie Mellon, Starlight was finally ready to begin performance testing the improved drones. “Okay Laserbeak, time to wake up and see your new body,” she said as she reactivated her drone.

Once activated, Laserbeak began observing its surroundings, seeing Starlight and three others that had been registered as friendlies in its database. It then ran a self diagnostic of its systems to find that its body had been completely overhauled with sophisticated parts and an outer casing with countless tiny fibrous threads made to simulate fuzz and feathers. From a distance, it was hard to tell whether or not it was a machine. Laserbeak chirped in approval.

“I’m glad you approve. Now, let’s test your transformation function.” On command, Laserbeak transformed into a music player with earbuds which had been incorporated in a small compartment in its systems. In its transformation, the fibers receded into itself so that its user didn’t need to feel the fuzzy texture. Though that didn’t mean that the fivers couldn’t deploy again to add texture to its form.

Starlight gave the music player a thorough examination using a handheld scanner while making a few micro adjustments for optimal performance. Once finished, she nodded in satisfaction. She then inserted one of her music CDs into the player and listened to one of the tracks through her earbuds. She smiled as she listened for a few seconds, “Excellent! High quality sound too.” She then looked at the readouts that she took with the scanner. “Molecular compensation system is working perfectly. Security system is still working. Looks like your new body is working perfectly. Next will be the weapon system.”

After performing the same scans for Ravage, who she had to program a temporary virtual intelligence until Paul woke up so she could register his profile, Starlight took both drones to a weapons testing facility on campus. When Starlight tested Laserbeak’s laser on a target, she was a little shocked when she saw that the target had been turned to ash. She made a note to reduce the power output for the weapons because she wanted the weapon to injure, not utterly annihilate. Testing Ravage’s weapons went just as well, given that it was made to be an assault model. Starlight noted to make sure not to tell Paul about its full arsenal until she was sure he could use Ravage responsibly.

Throughout her time in college, Starlight had occasionally called her mother to tell them how things were going while she received news about what was happening in Stilwater. It was drawing close to five years since Paul fell into a coma. Almost half of that time her father spent some time in prison because he found out that Troy betrayed the Saints and tried to attack him. Starlight could only groan at how much of a loveable idiot her father was sometimes.

While Troy kept Starlight up to date on Paul’s condition, he also informed her that he had to have him placed in a prison that was built offshore from the main city since the hospitals didn’t want to keep him on life support indefinitely. Starlight sighed as she realized that she may have to help him bust out if that was the case.

Other than that, what happened to Stilwater was just as Starlight had predicted, though hearing that Ultor had set up over where the Row used to be was not entirely expected. She suspected that the company found a way to worm its way into completing Richard Hughes’ plans without Marshall Winslow’s permission. There was also the fact that three more gangs had established themselves in Stilwater, leading to the city being as it was before the gang war.

The first gang was an offshoot of the Japanese Yakuza known as the Ronin. Their symbol was an Asian dragon in the clouds of a yellow background. From what Starlight knew, the Yakuza and the Triad had a bitter rivalry so it stood to reason that Mr. Wong was not happy about the Ronin’s presence in Stilwater. At all.

The second gang was a Haitian gang called the Sons of Samedi. From what Starlight heard, they were a Caribbean Drug Cartel who took over Stilwater’s drug market when the Colombians were forced to abandon their plans for the city. Their symbol was a green skull with white markings. Troy informed her that the leadership were followers of the Afro-Haitian religion of Voodoo. This told Starlight that she may have to brace herself to deal with dark magics when she faced them. After all, if she could use magic, why not others?

The third gang was composed of the displaced and abused dregs of the slums who had been displaced by Ultor, forming their own gang of brutes and bullies who take what they want and strongarm those who resist. They were known as The Brotherhood with the symbol of a dark red wolf. She heard that Lin and Donnie joined them to get info on them from Mr. Wong’s request.

Starlight couldn’t hide her concerns from the others who had completed their own projects. Alberto had suped up his car with a number of gadgets and weapons to create something that one would usually see in movies. Larxene had created a special pair of electrified gloves that discharged taser levels of electricity and modified her knives to carry the charge. She also added a magnetic feature that would allow her to retrieve her knives from a distance. Savage developed a small fusion cutter powered by a crystal that produced a short beam of plasma energy. It wasn’t like the lightsaber from the Star Wars franchise that he dreamed of making, but it was a step in the right direction.

“Something on your mind?” Larxene asked, noticing the look on Starlight’s face.

Starlight bitterly chuckled, “That obvious huh? My hometown has problems again. I warned Police Chief Troy that more gangs would take over the city once the Saints were gone and it happened. On the brighter side, Troy told me that he saw the occasional twitch from Paul’s body which I’m hoping means that he will wake up soon. I know this is a lot to ask, but can I ask for your help in reclaiming Stilwater?”

Alberto, Larxene and Savage looked at each other for a few moments before they grinned and shared a chuckle. Starlight looked at them in confusion. “About time you offered,” Alberto said. “I’ve been looking for an excuse to get away from my hometown. Too much rain.”

“Same here, I’d prefer to be away from the losers I know back home. They all whine about some kid who likes to key up their cars,” Larxene added. “I swear, they act like old grandpas.”

“I’d like to come as well,” Savage said. “You helped me to see that my dream is possible. One day I will build an actual lightsaber.”

“Thanks everyone,” Starlight said with gratitude. “When we graduate tomorrow, we’re heading for Stilwater. The first thing we need to do is make sure Paul escapes from the island prison then we need to break my daddy out of his predicament.”

“Your daddy’s Johnny Gat, right?” Alberto asked. Starlight nodded. “I heard that he racked up 434 murder charges.”

“47 and a half of those were because of some huge misunderstanding with a birthday clown on my fifth birthday. It’s a long story, but the paramedics said the clown would survive.”

Alberto nodded numbly and gulped, “What about the other 387?”

“A quarter of them were probably from the gang war. Another quarter were more people trying to kidnap me and the rest were from that one time he attended a rave that turned into a massacre when someone spiked the punch which got him really drunk. One survivor was a Latino guy who lost one of his legs. He didn't have the money for a prosthetic so it was replaced with a peg leg.”

“He’s definitely getting the death penalty for sure if we don’t help,” Savage said.

Starlight nodded grimly before she gave everyone a determined look. “Since we are all in agreement, let’s get ready. Alberto, have your dad prepare a plane for us to take to Stilwater. If necessary, let him know that I will see about helping his family make that connection with the Chinese Triad.”

Alberto nodded and made the call.

Starlight blankly stared in the direction she guessed was where Stilwater was and silently prayed for the safety of her friend and her father. “Hang on you two, I’m coming home.”

Author's Note

Because this story seems to be throwing in characters from other franchises, I'm throwing in the Random tag just to be safe.