Starlight Saint

The next day dawned after an intense evening of fighting. Starlight stretched as she worked off some stiff muscles with a little morning exercise. She then went to the bathroom to perform her morning rituals.

The turf war in Harrowgate last night was exhausting for Starlight and by the time she got home she was tired to the point that she passed out the moment her head hit the pillow. Now she was feeling refreshed and ready for the action to come.

Today was the day the Saints were going to push against the rival gangs. However, the general consensus among the leadership was to take out one gang at a time as it would give the other gangs the idea to let the Saints deal with their rivals and take them out when they’re exhausted.

The Saints would let them believe that while they had Starlight and Paul spearhead the attack while expending few resources.

Now came the thought about which gang they would focus on first.

Starlight already knew who she and her muscle would go after first so it was only a matter of meeting with the member in charge of dealing with them.

She soon received a text from Paul stating that he would be coming to pick her up. It made sense for Paul to take them since they would need to be incognito for this and her car was too high-profile for such a task.

The two had decided to attack the Rollerz first and take the least known player off the citywide chessboard. From what Starlight overheard from Troy, the Rollerz had some strong legal muscle that gave the members a sense of safety from the city government so she would need to find out who was protecting them on top of finding out who was leading them.

Paul soon arrived outside of Starlight’s house, the sound of the pickup giving him away. It was a vintage Betsy truck that Paul had procured for the task.

“Have fun on your little date, Starry,” Johnny teased.

Starlight rolled her eyes, “Daddy…it’s not a date! We’re going to meet up with Lin to start pushing against the Rollerz.”

“Ah, so they’re the ones who got your attention the most, huh? Well, try not to make too big of a mess.”

With that Starlight entered the vintage pickup. Paul drove them to the western side of the city, deep in Rollerz territory. “Lin said to meet her at the Ultor Dome. I texted her through an untraceable number that we were on our way. She said that some meatheads were hanging out with her and would get rid of them once we gave her a signal. Also, I have some contacts in Rollerz territory that I need to check up on so we’ll be doing that while we deal with the Rollerz.”

Paul nodded and took the highway to the arena on the western edge of town. The drive took a few minutes while they listened to whatever was on the radio. Paul’s taste in music didn’t align with hers but she put up with it since he was the driver.

The two spotted Lin hanging out with a pair of Rollerz who appeared to be ogling at her car, a white and blue Voxel with riced bumpers, race tires, spoiler, fat exhaust, hardtop and a honeycomb grill pattern.

Starlight used her magic to enhance her hearing while turning off the music so she could hear what was going on. Meanwhile, she sent Lin a text that she was certain gave nothing away as a signal.

“That’s a sweet ride Lin,” one thug said.

“Uh huh,” Lin automatically responded, not paying attention to the thug.

“Who tuned it for ya?” another thug asked.

“No one, I did it myself.” Lin paid more attention to her phone while trying to tune the others out.

“The spoiler looks like Donnie’s work,” the first thug guessed.

“No way, that underglow screams Ricky Liu,” the other argued.

“Yeah, I guess it does.”

“What is this, fuckin’ third grade?” Lin snapped.

“Whaddya mean?”

“Forget it. I’ll see ya tomorrow.”

Shrugging, the two thugs walked away with one commenting to the other about how Lin totally wanted him. Once they were out of sight, Starlight and Paul exited the truck and approached Lin who was muttering “Assholes…” about the two thugs earlier.

“Shopping around for a boyfriend, Lin?” Starlight snarked.

“Please, those dickheads couldn’t tell a carburetor from a spark plug. I ain’t interested in brain dead apes like them.” Lin rolled her eyes and shook her head before she got to the main topic. “So you’re Starlight, Johnny’s little girl? He claims you’re as smart as you’re tough. Let’s hope you got plenty of both.”

“We’ll see if I can meet your expectations soon enough. So what’s the plan?”

“Honestly, I haven’t heard much, mostly macho bullshit. Only interesting news I got was a shipment of high-performance cars coming in today. It’s not much so we need to make the best of it. Jack the truck before it completes its delivery and take it to Samson. He’ll load up the cars with a few surprises, then finish the delivery.

“Sounds like a start.”

“I also heard rumors of someone climbing the ranks fast. Some guy who said they lost his hand to a sword-wielding maniac. Know anyone like that?”

Starlight and Paul shared a knowing look, then a laugh. “So, any idea what the guy replaced his hand with? Paul’s betting on a hook.”

“No idea. Now get out of here before someone sees us.”

The two nodded and returned to the vintage truck. Since they didn’t need to be subtle now, Starlight tapped her earpiece to connect with her mechanical pet. “Laserbeak, bring the car to my location.”

Paul then drove the truck through the streets and headed east, intent on meeting Starlight’s car partway. After a few minutes they spotted the lilac Reaper moving toward them and stopping at the side of the street. Paul parked the truck nearby and the two switched vehicles.

Once inside Starlight’s car, she then took to the highway to begin the search. “Laserbeak, launch. Recon and surveillance, target any Peterliners carrying a shipment of vehicles, possible Rollerz escort.” She then switched her phone to GPS mode and awaited results. Laserbeak hacked into local car dealerships for shipping information. Within seconds the results came back and discovered that there was a shipment nearby with a single blue sedan staying near it.

“Thanks Beaky, stand by for further instructions.”

It wasn’t long before they were able to catch up with the truck. Dealing with the escort was no issue as Paul shot the driver. He then had Starlight move to the left side of the truck where he opened the car door and positioned himself for a dangerous leap. Starlight had to admit that the guy had balls to try a stunt like that.

Thankfully Paul made the jump and held onto the trailer for dear life as he then shimmied his way to the passenger side of the truck then to the cab. He punched through the window with his pistol which spooked the driver into slamming the brakes, catapulting Paul a fair distance forward.

That was when Starlight found out that the guy had a talent for ragdolling to minimize his injuries whenever he was sent flying. She had a feeling that the guy got into a number of vehicle-related incidents growing up. She kept this in mind for later.

Seeing Paul getting yeeted also had the effect of getting the driver out of the truck to check on the guy who scared him.

“Hey, buddy, you okay?” the driver asked. Paul managed to sit up, rubbing his head. He was definitely going to need to get his head checked after that.

“He seems okay. For you, on the other hand, that depends on how cooperative you are.” The driver turned around and saw Starlight pointing her revolver at him. “I have a new destination for your shipment. Play nice and you get to tell your family about the bad experience you had.”

Paul slowly and groggily got back on his feet after a few attempts. He found his gun a few feet away from him.

Having no choice, the driver let his captors into the truck while he took the wheel. It was a tight fit since the cab wasn’t designed for three people but they still managed. Starlight had Laserbeak follow behind with the car.

Rollerz reinforcements eventually came and tried shooting at the truck but Starlight had the driver ram the vehicle into them. The bulky vehicle had no problems smashing the small blue sedans into debris on the road on its way to Samson’s garage in Mission Beach.

Eventually the Rollerz gave up the chase and the truck arrived at its destination. For his cooperation, Starlight was nice enough to call the driver a cab to take him wherever he needed to go and gave him enough money to pay for the fare.

With their task complete, the two had time to spare until Lin needed them again. With that in mind, the two got into her car and headed back into Rollerz territory, specifically a themed neighborhood called Chinatown where an old friend of hers lived.

On the way, Paul pointed to the mechanical bird perched on Starlight’s shoulder, finally curious about what that thing was. “You want to know about Laserbeak? He’s an old school project. I built him with parts from the principal’s car. I continued making upgrades to him since, even giving him an AI to expand his utility.”

That had red flags raised in Paul’s mind. He had seen those movies where AI end up enslaving the human race and felt concerned that the mechanical bird might be the beginning of such.

Starlight noticed that Paul was slowly reaching for his gun and had a hunch what this was about. “I’m going to guess that you’ve watched plenty of sci-fi movies, Paul. I’ve watched my fair share of them as well. I can assure you that I’ve taken every precaution to ensure the AI doesn’t go rogue. He has plenty of failsafes in him to make sure he remains obedient to my wishes.”

Hearing that, Paul decided to let the matter go. He wasn’t sure if the failsafes would hold forever but he trusted Starlight. He still hoped that she had a contingency plan in case the AI was in a rebellious mood.

They soon entered the chinese-themed district of Stilwater. The Rollerz thugs who patrolled the area paid them no mind since they weren’t on alert at this time. Either word didn’t spread very quickly among the gang members or there was an implied rule where they didn’t mess with you as long as you didn’t mess with them in their territory.

Regardless, Starlight knew where her friend was at this time of day so she parked the car near a tea shop. Upon entering, Laserbeak flew off of Starlight’s shoulder and flew toward a table where two men of Asian descent were seated. The younger of the two wore black tunic with a red serpent dragon design on both sides of his shirt. The elder of the two wore a green tunic with black sleeves and a black serpent dragon design on both sides. He also wore glasses and a bowler hat.

The old man heard the mechanical bird coming and knew who had come to pay him a visit. He chuckled as he allowed Laserbeak to perch on his arm. He then spotted Starlight and Paul coming toward him. The younger man, his translator, left his seat and took his place standing next to his employer while Starlight bowed to her former employer in respect, prompting Paul to hastily do the same. They then took their seats across from the old man.

The elder, who Starlight knew as Mr. Wong spoke to the two of them in Mandarin Chinese so the translator had to get to work. “What a delightful surprise. My old employee comes to pay this old man a visit. And you brought someone with you, your boyfriend perhaps?” he chuckled.

“Nah, I only met him a few days ago. He makes for good muscle, which will be useful in our war against the Rollerz. I see you’ve been holding up pretty well despite them oppressing the area.”

“Ha! Those greenhorns thought they could harass me? They wouldn’t last a few seconds against the Triad. I should know, I used to be one of them. I may be retired but I can still fight almost as well as I could in my prime. So, why have you come?”

“As you may or may not know, Paul and I joined the Saints recently and we are currently on a campaign to drive the Rollerz out of Stilwater. The others will follow soon enough. I’ve come to request your assistance in boosting our reputation in Stilwater, in exchange for whatever you wish for us to do, of course.”

Wong frowned as he understood that his former employee was getting herself into trouble again. He still took comfort knowing that she had the support of one of the gangs in Stilwater behind her, even if it was the newest gang. He knew Starlight well enough that she could turn the weakest gang into the reigning power in Stilwater if she had time and resources.

The main reason he had to fire Starlight from her job before was because the task he wanted done would have made her liable for murder charges and he didn’t want to dump that burden on her. Now that she was with the Saints, the liability was greatly diminished. Because of this, he decided to give her a chance.

Wong then took out a folder that the translator noticed. Starlight noticed the shocked expression on his face before Wong spoke again, prompting the translator to continue. “This folder contains the specifics about a group of men who have wronged my family…go and speak to them, but they are not to be harmed. AARRRGH!” That was when Wong shot his translator in the leg.

While the young man was rolling on the floor clutching his bleeding leg and doing his best to remain silent so as not to anger his employer further, Wong had to finish what the translator tried to mislead the duo into doing in English. “He heard me wrong. I wish for them all to be dead. Study this list and the photos, learn everything about your targets.”

The two studied the photos and profiles while noticing that each one of them had the name of a weapon on their photos. Starlight suspected that the mentioned weapon was what Mr. Wong wanted them to use to kill their targets as proof that they committed the deed.

Going down the list, first was an emergency medical technician named Jackie who was to be killed by a VICE 9 pistol. Next came a sports fan named Alan who was to be shanked by a knife. After that there was a trucker named Jose who was to be gunned down by a T3K Urban SMG, a wealthy person named Charles to be beaten to death by a nightstick, a hippie named Roxanne to be shot by an NR4 pistol, a jogger named Juan, whose appearance left little to the imagination, to be blasted by a Tombstone shotgun, a hot dog mascot named Bucky who was to be obliterated by a hand grenade, then there was an FBI agent named Bill who was to be shot by a K6 Krukov assault rifle.

Starlight had a feeling that Mr. Wong really hated the hot dog mascot.

“We’ll get this done, Mr. Wong. We’ll just need to stop by a nearby Friendly Fire to pick up some of these weapons.”

“Do try to keep your friend in one piece, he looks like he can barely hold a weapon without shaking,” Wong chuckled. “These people can be killed at your leisure. For now, I offer you a place to sleep for the night. The sun is beginning to set and you two look like you’ve had quite the adventure today.”

“We’ll take you up on that offer,” Starlight said. “I will need to let my parents know where I’m staying tonight so they won’t worry.” Wong nodded and gave her the time she needed to send a text to her parents.

Wong politely waited for Starlight to finish before he continued, “Before we retire to my home, I felt that you should know about someone else who seems to know you who is under my protection. Her name is Laura and she says that she misses her little sword girl.”

“Laura? My old chemistry teacher? I haven’t seen her in over a year, not since she got fired for teaching us how to make crystal meth, saying there’s a good market for it in Stilwater and we could make some good money selling it.”

Paul gave Starlight an incredulous look. “Yes, Paul, she really did teach us how to make things that the FDA would frown upon. This led to her ending up on the FBI watch list. Though how she kept her place in the PTA I’ll never know. Anywho, we’ll check up on her tomorrow.”

Wong led the two to his abode where he assigned them rooms. Starlight spent the rest of the evening having dinner with Wong while going over what she learned about the Rollerz. It wasn’t much, other than she suspected that the gang had an interest in cars. Given that their symbol was a wheel that should have been obvious. On the bright side this meant that she knew where to hurt them and Lin had a good idea what that shipment of cars was going to be used for, hence the idea of trapping the cars.

Starlight was looking forward to what came next.