Beacon 8.5

 is the fifth chapter of Beacon. Sveta talks about her relationship with Weld, Capricorn, Tress, and Antares help part of Advance Guard fight Trial and Error at Mayday’s request. Prancer has made a return.

Plot
The chapter opens at eight o'clock at night with Victoria flying along on patrol reading texts from Mayday on her phone, who laments about his current situation. A compliment of Breakthrough will be meeting up with part of Advance guard who are currently perusing some villains. There is no sign of anything yet though so the team hangs out at the construction site that will be in the path.

As the team waits Victoria is able to talk to Sveta while the Case 53 touches up part of her puppet chassis. Capricorn stands of to the side talking with workers and gazing out over the evening traffic stop. The two women talk about the traffic below and what could be done for the them, even if it was impractical like serving a meal. The need for a sense of community care.

This segues into a talk about Sveta worrying that she is being selfish with her time, and by extension her boyfriend Weld. Sveta wonders what she can do for him when he has so few physical needs. Victoria shares her perspective but is interrupted by the arrival of the criminal caravan, the women decide to talk about their issues later after dealing with the objective. Flapper, Shortcut, and Spright come into view and Antares turns a convenient spotlight on the heros' quarry. This includes two trucks, and eighteen wheeler and what looks like a blurry human-sized hamster wheel that is barreling through obstacles; like dividers and other vehicles as they come down the muddy road.

ANtares talks to flapper who fills her in on the situation: Trial and Error have robbed a farm to get important foodstuffs and farm breeding stock material. Antares fills her in on the layout. They decide to stop the villains there.

[...]

Tress's carapace is damaged and Antares helps evacuate her for repairs. After checking everything she returns to the fight. Antares tries to Parse Error's power, with Tress the two are able to capture the supervillainess but this makes Trial only threaten to escalate further.

They decide to let the villains leave with most of their booty, but some are left for interogation. Shortcut peruses to harass them further but Victoria proposes to Spright an alliance deal this violation of the rules. Prancer is revealed to still be active.

{|class="mw-collapsible wikitable"

Characters
! scope="col" |

Breakthrough

 * Antares
 * Capricorn
 * Cryptid
 * Lookout
 * Sveta

Advance Guard

 * Mayday
 * ReSound
 * Spright
 * Flapper
 * Shortcut

Villains

 * Trial
 * Error
 * Getaway drivers

Mentions

 * Weld
 * Natalie
 * Prancer
 * }

Trivia

 * Sveta is still the only one who knows about Victoria's 'wretch'.
 * The phone is pretty advanced given typical standards of 2015.