Limitless Path Chapter Four Hundred Fifty-Eight

The guards didn't seem to know what to do about that, and Beth didn't wait around for them to figure it out, walking back to check the small town hall building first. If her parents weren't there, they could just stop by her childhood home and very likely find them on the back patio, considering the weather was rather warm. Unlike even the last time she was here, most people just gave them a nod, people like Blood and Sera not nearly as unusual in their experiences anymore. She thought about how that might be a little different if either of the other two took on their full forms, but she didn't think it was necessary to go causing a panic.  

The town hall had changed much more than the outer walls, and Beth did notice that some of the nearby houses had changed as well. The neighborhood had clearly been doing some building, and some rebuilding, as the case may be, and several of the houses had new walls or roofs. The town hall had been slightly expanded and rebuilt, with the ground floor built of a dark brown stone that was far different from anything Beth had seen in the neighborhood before. The windows were all new, as well, and Beth could see little markings of runes around the sills and frames, meaning that they had either been enchanted by someone from the neighborhood or they had been bought already enchanted. If they had been done by someone in the neighborhood, it would be fairly impressive work for the amount of time the person had had access to the Path.  

The town hall was already empty for the day, with Beth's key getting them through the front door but them finding the place without any occupants. Having struck out there, Beth took them up the street to her childhood home, a place she hardly ever visited these days. She hadn't really thought about it much, but she had almost naturally moved out of her parents' house some years ago without making a big deal out of it. It was still a very familiar place, with the short walk up the road and across the cul-de-sac bringing back a lot of memories. She didn't even bother going inside, her much greater senses able to pick the sound of voices coming from behind the house despite the voices not being very loud. Moving around the house, she found the old wooden gate in the fence hanging open, and further within, her parents gathered together with several others, including Zack and several of the neighborhood kids, though thinking of them as kids was a bit off now. 

"Beth!" her mother exclaimed in surprise, the first to notice them.  

"Good! We can settle this now," said James, the neighbor boy that Beth remembered having trouble with ants. 

"That's a new welcome," Beth commented, not even getting a chance to sit down before James was in front of them. 

"I bet them that I had a good chance of beating you in a fight," James declared proudly. 

Beth looked over at Sera before looking at Blood and then slowly turning and looking at James, stood confidently before her. She really tried, but she just couldn't help it; she burst into laughter, joined by the other two in a great, uproarious noise that echoed across the neighborhood. James, Beth had to give him some credit, didn't whine or rage in the face of their laughter, though he did flush a deep shade of red, whether from anger or embarrassment or both, it was hard to tell. Beth managed to get herself back under control after a minute but almost lost it again on seeing James standing there with a long face. 

"Come on, come on," Beth said, gesturing him forward. "Let's just get this over with." 

"What, just attack you?" James asked, seeming a little surprised. 

"Trust me, this is only gonna go badly for you," Beth said, waving a hand lazily. Before anyone else could protest, which it looked like several of the 'adults' were about to do, James struck, unsheathing his sword and lashing out with the blade in a viper-quick strike. 

As James swung his sword, Beth waited until it was practically touching her before teleporting behind him. She didn't stay there, but stepped back to her initial position as soon as his blade passed, making it look like she hadn't moved. At least, it would appear that way to James, but she could tell from Blood and Sera clicking their tongues and making small grunting noises that they hadn't been fooled. The look on James' face, one of total confusion, eyes wide and mouth partly open, was also a classic that had Beth on the edge of cracking up again.  

James tried a second time, swinging at her again, but even faster this time, his blade clearly whistling as it cut apart the air. Facing that swing would have been a dangerous thing for Beth…a few years ago. Now, she was able to teleport out of the way and back to her original position so quickly that nobody but her companions could even notice it. Not only that, she still had plenty of time and extra margin to play with, even dodging when the blade was touching the outer scales of her armor. James swung again as she was pondering the timing, and a fourth time, and again she teleported away from the swing and back into the path after the blade passed without anybody noticing; so fast were the teleports that the other watchers couldn't even notice her appearing behind James for that brief moment. 

"How are you doing that?!" James demanded.  

"Easily," Beth replied with a smirk. 

"I can hit you," James said with determination, which Beth gave him a bit of credit for. Of course, knowing that he was hopelessly outclassed and retreating would have been wiser, which he could have figured out just by using Identify. Then again, the thought struck her, maybe he didn't have it upgraded? If he still had the basic version of the skill, and had it at somewhere in Silver or lower, then he couldn’t see her rebirths. He might think that he was a high level than her, which might even be true, but he certainly wasn't stronger than her, just in terms of raw stats. That was setting aside her Mana Physique and crazy skills, many of which were in Gold or even Platinum. 

James swiped at her several more times, which she dodged with ease before showing him what she was doing, or attempting to. The next swing, she teleported to the side and didn’t return, but she still didn't see the look of understanding in his eyes. He tried another swing before relying on some kind of skill; Beth wasn't quite sure what it was, but it was something that made him swing faster and hit hard. She was hardly bothered, easily dodging his first attempt with the skill, though she had to give him a little more credit in that his balance wasn't thrown off by her dodging the skill. He did, however, try the skill several more times, and in the same exact way, which was a habit he was going to have to break if he wanted to fight against people, monsters, or very high level beasts which possessed greater cunning than the lower level beasts. 

"Stop moving like that," James demanded. 

"Okay," Beth said with a shrug, not dodging his next swipe.  

As his sword was about to hit her, she flicked her arm up and snapped the tip of her finger against the flat of his blade. The sword, even with a skill powering its swing, deflected far off course, James staggering just slightly from the amount of force that Beth had used, even with just one finger. Before he could return another attack against her, Beth grabbed him by the upper arm, feeling his body twist as he tried to escape. She was not only stronger than him, however, but much faster, and she lifted him from the ground and threw him out of the backyard and into the woodlot. She couldn't help but laugh again as he shouted in surprise, and maybe a little fear, as he sailed off into the trees, a shout that was cut painfully short when he contacted one of those trees. Fortunately, and Beth had checked this beforehand, he had more than enough END at his level to survive a moderate speed collision with a sturdy tree, even if he hadn't managed to right himself to a good angle before the impact.  

"Beth!" her mother exclaimed, again.  

"He's fine," Beth said, followed by a distinct crashing noise in the background. "Mostly." 

"You can't just toss people like that!" Rachel insisted. 

"I mean, I can," Beth replied with a shrug. "He's fine, he has plenty of END. And if he doesn't, it'll be a good lesson for him." 

"Still, you should be more careful," Rachel chided. 

"He should be more careful," Beth said. "Running up to somebody, even somebody you know, and challenging them to a fight is a good way to punch a one-way ticket to an early grave. He's a neighbor, and he's weak, so I don't care, but if somebody really strong just challenged me to a fight, I would view it differently." 

"Come on now, let's sit down and relax," Beth's father said then, ever the peacemaker and peacekeeper. 

Beth shrugged, saying, "I'm not the one that started that distraction." 

They sat around the tables in the backyard, Beth chuckling a little as James leapt the wall around the town and into their backyard. He clearly had a keystone of some kind, as the walls were built to prevent that very thing; they wouldn't be very good walls if someone with great power could just hop over them and attack what was behind. They were keyed to prevent anything airborne making it past, and it would take quite a bit of either power or knowledge or both to get around that preventative measure. James did it without thinking, but anybody who was observing things and knowledgeable about such matters would understand exactly what was happening. It was a good thing, then, that Sera and Blood and Beth weren't enemies of any kind and just dismissed such things.  

"I can't believe you threw me from the yard!" James huffed as he returned to the tables. 

"I can't believe you were stupid enough to challenge someone you don't know, who's strength you don't know, outside a CRA Hall," Beth retorted calmly, giving him a serious side-eye. "You want to prove yourself? Prove you’re strong now? Great. Do it at a Hall or don't do it." 

"You can't order me around," James retorted snidely. 

"Actually, I can," Beth said, flashing him her Silver Emblem. "And not for nothing, this is going to become golden in a little more than a year, and at that point, I can order just about anyone around, within limits. Or maybe you believe what you're saying; how about this, let's go ask Baelvyr whether what you did was a good idea. What do you think of that?" 

"No, no, no," James said, waving his hands rather frantically. "That's totally unnecessary. You know, I think I've had enough for today. I did a lot, after all. I'll just head in to bed." 

After saying so, he dashed from the yard and disappeared, Beth giving the people remaining at the tables a questioning look. "What was that?" 

"He had a bad run-in with some of the senior CRA people. You didn't know?" Thomas asked. 

"No, I just knew they wouldn't like him firing off on his own like that," Beth said with a shrug, making a drink appear from nowhere and starting to quaff it. "What happened?" 

"James has always been a little…eager," Thomas said slowly. "He sometimes doesn't look before he leaps, or think before he does either. Well, you can imagine that can lead to some problems; and not just a few of those problems are hasty decision related. He got a little hotheaded, he challenged some people to fights, not in CRA Halls, and it wasn't pretty. He eventually got a very stern talking to, and some punishment he doesn't want to talk about, for, and let me remember the exact wording…I believe it was, 'Participating in and running illegal, unsanctioned, unprotected, and underground fights without license or ring.' It went something like that, and the punishment wasn't exactly…pleasant." 

"You know, I really don’t mean to be an ass, but James sounds like a fucking idiot," Beth said, causing Rachel to do a spit-take.  

"Beth!" she exclaimed, though she didn't say anything else.  

"I mean, listen, he was running a fight club and doing underground fights. Why? The CRA's right there. Like, literally, he doesn't even need to pay anything for the basic fights if he's got a Copper Emblem. Why the fuck would you go around fighting people outside of that? Just for fun? That's stupid, plain and simple," Beth said, taking another big drink. 

"Well, I think he's learned his lesson," her father said calmly. 

"Really? You do? Because what I remember of the last five minutes is him challenging me to an unsanctioned fight outside the arenas and not taking a little lesson too graciously. Maybe he needs another round of punishment," Beth said cynically.  

"That's enough," her mother said. "Don't go interfering in his business." 

"Again, not just his business," Beth said, showing her mother her emblem again. "I'm not yet a Senior Enforcer, but a Silver already has more responsibilities. If he's doing shit in violation of CRA Regulations, I need to know about it and even stop it. I was also serious about making it to Gold Emblem quite soon, at which point I will be a Senior and it will be fully my responsibility, so I need to keep track of this stuff. Not good to have somebody living next door to my family running an underground fighting ring. Wouldn't look great." 

"I suppose I can see what you mean," her father said, her mother sighing in frustration.  

"Anyway, what's everyone been up to? And where is everyone?" Beth asked, redirecting the conversation.  

"Your sisters and, uh, Sabs are out right now," Thomas said. "They're not even on the planet currently, as crazy as that still is to say. In terms of the rest of us, well, we're still hanging on. In fact, we're doing quite well, I have to say, as we've got all the stuff you girls suggested last time set up and running. We're growing food, including herbs, that can feed all of us and then some, plus we have some quarters set up that we can rent out. It's no booming metropolis, not yet, but it's a very good start." 

"Guards are getting better," Zack added, not seeming up to much talking. "Still have to baby 'em, but they all know which end of the sword is pointy now, at least." 

"But enough about us; tell us what you've been doing," Thomas said. 

"Sure," Beth replied, then proceeded to describe a bit of what they had been up to, where they had been, and what they had been doing. 

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