STELLAR: World on Fire

Chapter 2: One People One Starlight

Kate put her helmet on as she waited for Karma to sound the bell so that she and Nightstorm could begin sparring. Nightstorm was in his blue armored suit. Kate could see her reflection in his sky blue visor. Karma rung the bell and it was on. Kate quickly lashed at Nightstorm and launched an elbow strike. Nightstorm quickly blocked it. Kate quickly followed up with a punch with her other hand. Nightstorm quickly stepped to the side and kicked her in the back. Kate quickly turned around as Nightstorm lashed out at her. Immediately, Kate hit him with a side kick to the stomach. She proceeded to then hit him with a spinning back fist but Nightstorm caught her with the leg sweep, dropping her on her back. Kate quickly got back on her feet. Nightstorm quickly threw a straight jab. Kate quickly countered it by pushing his hand to the side and quickly striking him in the abdomen with her other fist. She then followed up with another strike to his face and grabbed his arm and, using that arm, dropped him down to the ground. He quickly got back to his feet. Nightstorm then jumped and delivered several kicks to Kate who rapidly blocked his kicks by protecting her face with her hands as each foot came close to coming into contact with her face. Nightstorm attempted to hit her with a knee strike but Kate countered it with her elbow.

Before the sparring session could continue Karma rung the bell again and yelled, "And that's time!" It was at that Kate and Nightstorm stopped sparring. Kate quickly took off her helmet and threw it to the ground. She wiped the sweat from her forehead and sat down on a nearby bench. Suddenly Luna walked into the room dressed in a blue long sleeve shirt and black pants, along with a long red velvet cloak. "Sorry to interrupt your training but you have the Starlight Address to attend in a couple hours." She said. That's right, she thought, the Starlight Address was today. It was quite funny, really, how closely similar Starlight and Earth were in terms of politics. Where she came from they had something called the State of The Union Address. Starlight had the Starlight Address. The only difference between the two is that where she came from, the speech was made to congress, whereas here in Starlight the speech was made to the citizens of Starlight. "Guess we'll have to continue training another day." Nightstorm told Kate. Kate nodded and walked with Luna out of the training room.

Meanwhile, on Earth, in the African savanna, Greed, Ghost and the rest of the team of Dark Riders regrouped with the top members of The Order. It was dark and the sun had already set. They waited. It was silent. All you could hear was the cicadas buzzing loudly in the night. Momentarily several men in black hooded robes arrived. "Did you find it?" One of them asked. Greed nodded. "Good, now we can move on to phase 2 of the plan." The man said. Then, a large four winged dropship landed on the ground. Greed, Ghost, and the other Dark Riders followed the men in black robes onto the dropship. The dropship took off and proceeded to exit. Little did they know, however, that they were being watched from a few meters away. It was Allison. Allison saw the entire meeting take place. "Allison what did you see?" Ben asked through comms. Allison paused for a moment to process what she had just seen. Who were those men in black robes? Who were those other Dark Riders with Greed? Why were they meeting with Greed? She said the only thing she knew. "Greed is headed for Starlight and he's got a couple friends with him too." She told them. There was a few moments of silence then Ben came back on the air. "Acknowledged, report back to headquarters we'll have a chopper waiting for you at the rendezvous point." He replied. Allison did not know who Greed was meeting with or how he managed to break out of that prison, but she knew this, Greed was headed to Starlight and something big is about to go down.

Back on Starlight, thousands of people were gathered in front of the capitol building, waiting for Kate to come out and make her speech. The capitol building was a large building which was twelve stories high. In front of the entrance were four pillars, there were five large sets of stairs to get to the building. In front of the pillars was a lectern. That would be where Kate was to make her speech. Moments later Kate walked out from the capitol building and stepped in front of the lectern, escorted by Luna, Karma, and Nightstorm, as the crowd of people cheered and applauded. Kate waited as the crowd began to fall silent before making her speech. Everyone began to listen close and intently to what she had to say. Kate began to clear her throat. "Ladies and gentlemen we've come far. We've come far not only as a planet but as a people. I remember when I first came to this planet I had freed you from the iron grip of the Dark Riders. I remember when I stood before all of you, I saw nothing but hope in your eyes, and I thought, how are we going to rebuild this planet and restore it back to its original glory. Despite what I thought however, we did. Not only have we restored this planet and made it beautiful again, we became united as a people. We reached out to each other. we've truly made progress. So I stand, not before you, but with you, as one of you rather than a political figure. We've come so far and we still have much to accomplish and we can, and we'll do it as one people, one Starlight." Upon hearing that the crowd cheered and roared in thunderous applaud as she walked back inside the capitol building.