Chương 600: Limitless Path Chapter Six Hundred Twenty

The team kept Dean surrounded the whole time they carried him back to the CRA Hall, though each one of them would have been more than enough to keep him locked down, not even mentioning that Beth could disrupt teleports and keep him from disappearing. They didn't stop at the Hall for longer than the amount of time it took for Beth to get the Hall Master's attention and explain the situation in a few short, sharp sentences.

They were immediately on the teleporter and moving, as this wasn't just a person that was going to be dumped in a local jail or local Hall and left alone. No, Dean was wanted on Arbitus Prime, a few teleports and a few minutes of marching bringing the psychopath to a holding cell where he would not be escaping even if he still had his teleporting artifact, which he did not.

"Almost done," Val sighed, once they had confirmed the drop off and turned in a report.

"For now, at least," Beth said, shaking her head.

"One mission each," Blood added.

"You guys still need help?" Andrea asked, looking around at the rest of the group.

"You have big plans or something?" Beth asked, quirking a brow.

"Big plans for some big drinking," Andrea replied smartly.

"Don't let us keep you," Val told the short brawler, waving a hand at her idly.

"Cool. Call me if you need me," Andrea said, making a calling motion before disappearing. It would have been a surprise for others, but she wasn't really at a Mortaine level, let alone a Zane level, so the others could clearly see how she left.

"Last one?" Sera asked, already looking through the mission details for their fifth Platinum mission.

"Nothing else we can take?" asked Beth.

"No. Already asked," Sera replied, finishing reading the briefing.

"Platinum missions aren't so common that we can just get one whenever," Val said, shaking her head.

"We have been out for a few weeks now. You'd figure something would come up," Beth said.

"It might have, though Platinum missions aren't that common," Val said, leading the group to the teleporter. They had shed all the members apart from the group pursuing Platinum Emblems after the last mission and it was back to the five of them.

"You do have to remember, we aren't the only ones competing for missions. Not only will Gold Emblems be trying to advance, just like we are, but Platinum Emblems with be doing the same missions. We aren't exactly the first priority when it comes to assigning missions right now, so keep in mind this is going to be a very long process. We need fourteen more missions, each, and that's going to be years of work."

"Shit, we'll hit Ascended before we get Platinum," Beth muttered as they showed their Emblems and teleported again.

"At the rate this group pushes, yes," Bjorn added, mostly a silent presence in these discussions.

"Speaking of that," Sera added.

"About time for our next one."

"Do we have everything?" Beth asked, her alone showing her Emblem enough to get them through their next check.

"Almost everything," Sera said, checking something on her communicator.

"We have all but two things. Andrea is trying to secure something, and Neph needs something. We can't do it until they have those items, but they're working on it."

"We have plenty of money," Beth said.

"Availability is the issue," Sera said.

"We might need to get Neph's items ourselves."

"We can work on it after this," Beth said, the group continuing the last few teleports in silence. Beth wasn't sure what she had expected for this last mission, considering it was supposed to be some kind of bandit or rebel group, in many similar to the group she and Sera had watched Tazeen kill with a couple sword swings, but she hadn't been prepared for the Hall to be in chaos.

They weren't checked when they arrived at their destination because there was nobody to do the checking, the whole place like a kicked beehive, with people running around everywhere in a panic. Beth exchanged a confused glance with the rest of the team, but they quickly started moving, trying to tap into the local Net and finding the connection scrambled and the whole thing close to inoperable.

Beth led the way up to the lobby of the Hall, trying to get information from people they passed, but everyone was in a full-blown panic and not wiling to stop and chatter. The lobby was in just as much confusion, if not even more, and there wounded people walking, or being carried, in through the front doors as they watched, the situation clearly very dire.

Eventually, after a couple minutes of trying, they managed to corner a haggard worker that explained that the problem they were there for, though the worker didn't know it was Beth's group assigned the mission, had spiraled totally out of control.

It was an almost perfect mix of the wrong things happening at the wrong time, at least for the CRA and the planetary government, but the rebel group, whose numbers had swelled considerably in recent month, had planned and timed a set of attacks that were almost perfect, not necessarily in execution, but the timing and locations couldn't have been better.

Several key figures, including one of the Hall Masters, were off-world right now, and that left the defenses, which should have been enough to stop what was happening, weak in critical areas. The attacks had turned into a push for total control, and Beth's group had basically now walked into the middle of a total war. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

"That wasn't the mission brief," Sera said as they let the harried woman get back to what she had been working on.

"Same song, different day," Beth said with a shrug.

"We were sent to stop the rebels, we stop the rebels. That there's a big fight happening isn't really that crazy and shouldn't really mean much to us. I doubt this is going to be all that big a problem for us."

"Way to jinx it," Val said, sighing and covering her eyes.

"You couldn't just tell us to get to work? Had to throw in something about how easy and simple this was going to be?"

"I'm sure it'll be fine," Beth replied while rolling her eyes. It was not fine. The issue was really scope, as Sera had been trying to indicate. What their brief had been about was a small group of malcontents that they were supposed to arrest or, barring any other effective actions, kill when they found them. Now, the situation was basically a total civil war, with both sides embroiled in a massive conflict that was difficult to parse and harder to navigate.

One of the biggest problems was that they didn't want to attack their own side, or the side that represented both the local government and CRA, and they had a lot of trouble navigating that. People didn't recognize them, trust them, or want anything to do with them, which was all on top of everybody being too willing to attack anybody they didn't know at the drop of a hat.

"This place is a fucking madhouse," Beth complained a day later when they were still no closer to the goal.

"We need to rethink our strategy," Val said.

"What strategy?" asked Sera.

"Exactly!" Val replied, pointing at Sera for emphasis.

"We need to figure out who it is we're even after and then go after them, not all these random civilians that think they're some kind of freedom fighter."

"Are we even on the right side?" Blood asked.

"I don't give a shit about their politics in general, but they did attack the CRA and CRA members when they kicked this off," Beth said.

"I would care less about getting involved in this if they hadn't done that, but attacking the Association first was a really bad call on their part. We find and capture or eliminate anybody who was involved in the planning and attacks against the CRA. If that doesn't somehow get all the ringleaders, then we'll figure out where to go from there."

"And these civilians that are going nuts?" Val asked.

"Knock 'em out and tie 'em up or just get them out of the way, but we don't sacrifice our safety for theirs. Most of these people know exactly what they're doing and just what the consequences are. If you need to take them out, do it and don't feel bad about it," Beth said.

"I largely don't want to get involved, or make the CRA look bad, but we didn't start this shit. We're sure as hell going to end it, however."

"Understood," Val said. That was pretty much it for the strategizing and planning, as well as the rules of engagement, and now they were just tracking down the leaders of this little not-so-civil unrest. It wasn't the groups specialty, but they also weren't talking about going after powerful Ascended with all kinds of skills for hiding and preventing detection. No, they were going after one Enlightened, a few Empowered, and some Awoken, none of whom were rated particularly highly as fighters or warriors.

The hardest part was going to be separating the wheat from the chaff, as everybody involved in this was already so weak as compared to Beth and her group that it was a little hard to tell who were the figures the rebels were gathering around. The only good clue they had to go on was where the whole thing had kicked off, though that wasn't a guarantee that it would provide any real clues.

The place could have been specifically chosen as somewhere far away from the roots, but somewhere to start was better than nowhere. Wading through the fighters, though Beth thought it was being rather generous calling them that, from both sides proved to be very tedious, as Beth's group were outsiders that were treated with suspicion and hostility by everyone.

It was a bit better with the local forces that answered to the planetary governor, but even they were on a hair trigger and were all too happy to shoot first and ask questions later, which was rather unfortunate for them. Beth had to just stop attacking altogether, as she was having a lot of trouble not just killing people with a single hit, finding almost everyone involved in this stupid war so damn weak that it was genuinely difficult for her to pull her punches that much.

That didn't remain true forever, however, as they did get to the town the whole had kicked off in and started investing therein, finding that there were many people here who were much stronger than the average, or even the top end they had seen. The place had a large group of rebels beyond five rebirths, though they didn't encounter anyone who had built a Mana Physique just yet, making the fights still rather trivial.

Having Bjorn lumber down the street at a group of rebels, arrows, bullets, bolts, spells, and the occasional throwing weapon bouncing off him with no real change to show for it, made quite the impression, though not always enough to get people talking rather than fighting. That was fine with Beth; they only needed a few of them alive, anyway, and the rebels were almost entirely in the wrong here, according to her thinking, and she didn't mind cleaning the place up a little.

It was a little bit, she could admit, one of those more thorny issues, where the planetary government hadn't been acting in a way that comported with good governance and respectful treatment of their own citizens. That might have been putting a bit of a PR spin on the thing, but just because the local government was harsh wasn't a reason to go insane.

The fighting against the government she could understand, of course, it was just the attacking of all foreign business interests and the CRA that had her shaking her head in scorn and not feeling too bad about plowing through groups of high-minded rebels. Fighting other sapient beings really wasn't profitable, or all that enjoyable, not when they were so weak, but they had a job to do, so Beth and her team would just have to grin and bear it.

The town where it all kicked off was a better spot than she had first assumed, especially after they got there and encountered strong resistance. The more important bit were all the documents they found in two of the buildings; real incriminating stuff, things that the rebels absolutely wouldn't want seeing the light of day, but she didn't really care about all that.

What she did care about where the names and locations, some of which would already have been shuffled or changed for fear of them being compromised, but it gave them way more to work on than just the vague ideas they had had only a few hours before.

"What's the plan?" was Sera's question once they had spent thirty or forty minutes on going through most of the documents and ledgers.

"Divide and conquer," Beth said with a shrug.

"We don't want to hit one location and have people realize what's up and run away. That'll still happen, but if we take a list each and start at five different locations at once and move fast, we might be able to get more of them than they would want. There's nothing in here about the one or two, if the records are correct, Enlightened that are the core leadership, but if we do enough damage to their command structure, they might just reveal themselves."

"Any big dangers?" Blood growled out, glancing around.

"The Enlightened should be the only real threats, and I'm not impressed by what the reports indicate," said Beth.

"Don't get too cocky," Val warned, thinking back to many encounters while leading the Young Scions that got away from them.

"I'll try not to, but there's not supposed to be an Ascended or such here. As crazy as it is to say, without someone at that weight class, I don't think we'll have any trouble," Beth said.

"I'm not too sure about that," Sera said, examining something.

"What does that mean?" Beth asked.

"Well, the timing from their side is very convenient, almost too convenient," Sera explained.

"The real thing, though, is that they have been way too effective way too fast. I'm not sure that's to do with rallying a big chunk of the population, either, but instead I think there are some deeper factors here. All I'm saying is just be careful; they could actually have an Ascended or a really strong backer, based on what we've found so far. I wouldn't rule them out just because they seem weak and incompetent."

"I guess that's possible, but even then, it would have to be someone pretty impressive. Not to mention the whole group, even just one of us could fight most early Ascended to a standstill; I'm still not all that worried," Beth said with a casual shrug.

"Hopefully, if there are stronger people backing this, I find them first; I'd love an actual fight that challenges us and not just a hundred cleanup operations."

"I'd rather it just went smoothly and we could turn the job in tomorrow," Val huffed, rolling her eyes at Beth's enthusiasm for battle.

"Let's split the target list and get to work," Sera interjected, getting nods from the other four.