A Leap of Faith (Part 3)

Chapter 413 - Kaznia Resistance Leader Brainwashed

Back in Kaznia, the fighting from the previous day has ended, and just like Talia wanted it to be, the results have been very bloody, on both sides. The resistance fighters who attacked the headquarters of the government as a diversion were absolutely slaughtered, just like the resistance knew they would be. From that attack there are only 2 survivors among the resistance, and both of them have been captured, and already charged with treason, with the official word being that they have been sentenced to death, and their public executions will be carried out within the next few days. This, of course, is just the corrupt fascist military government planning to use these members of the resistance as people they can make an example out of, so that they hopefully get more of the resistance fighters to leave the resistance due to fear. In regards to the battle at the weapon manufacturing facility though, things actually went a little better for the resistance, although not by much. From that fight at least, the resistance can clearly be said to be the winner, as even though they were surprised by a much bigger government force protecting the weapons facility than expected, due to Talia tipping off the government, the resistance was still able to put up such a good fight that they broke into the facility, and killed a large number of the government fighters. However, despite the fact the resistance was able to do this, they were not able to actually take the weapons from the government, and bring them back to the resistance headquarters like they had planned, so that they could then better arm themselves. So, the resistance fighters then had to go to plan b, which was to completely destroy the facility, and everything inside of it. The fighters were able to successfully do this, with them ultimately causing a very large explosion, which destroyed most of the facility, and killed many people. The big negative of them doing this though was that even as the explosion occurred, a lot of people were still fighting inside the facility, or around the perimeter of it, from both the resistance and government, with the end result being the explosion killing or badly injuring everyone nearby. So far, none of the resistance fighters from the weapons facility have made it back to the main resistance base yet, but from the word they have received, it looks like their casualties are very high, with only a handful of resistance fighters remaining uninjured. The only positive seems to be that the government fighters also sustained just as many causalities.

The results of these conflicts between the resistance and the Kaznia fascist dictator military government have actually been even better than what Talia could have possibly hoped for. Talia honestly thought that the resistance would basically all be killed at the weapons facility, doing little damage to the facility itself, and not really killing many of the government fighters. This would then mean that Talia would very much have to lead her Leviathan agents, embedded in the resistance, to take over from the military government in a battle. The numbers would have certainly not been on their side, but Talia is extremely confident that she and her Leviathan agents could easily squash anyone in their path, due to how skilled they are, and due to the powers Talia now processes. However, now, it actually seems like Talia and the resistance will have a much easier path to taking out the military government, due to the unexpected losses that the military government have suffered at the weapons manufacturing facility, with them also now likely being very hampered by the fact that the weapons facility was destroyed. This means that all of this is really, truly, going very well for Talia, because even though from the very beginning she believes that she and her Leviathan agents could have overthrown the dictator military government, she knows that the resistance would need to be the ones to overthrow the government so that the people of Kaznia feel like their own people have fought to overthrow their oppressors, rather than an outside force coming in and 'saving them' then putting themselves in power. This way just makes things much easier for Talia, especially now that she has had the resistance leader exposed to a significant amount of Leviathan brainwashing over the last 24 hours.

Right now Talia is standing in the command centre of the resistance headquarters, with a bunch of Leviathan agents having taken over from the resistance members who remained here at this base to coordinate things. Obviously all of those resistance members were killed in the fighting, as there could be no witnesses to what happened here, and what Talia has done to the resistance leader. This has very much meant that for the last several hours, Talia has been the one completely in control of the resistance, telling her Leviathan agents to give commands to the other resistance members around the country, and coordinating with the resistance members who are returning to the base from the fighting at the weapons manufacturing facility. However, despite this being exactly what Talia wanted to happen, she knows that she cannot remain as the person who is publicly in charge of the resistance once the resistance fighters start to return, and other resistance members just come to this base. Talia isn't stupid, she knows that the resistance fighters would very much start to ask questions about where the leader of the resistance is, and what happened to her. Then, even if Talia were able to come up with some excuse to explain the resistance leaders absence on either a temporary or permanent basis, Talia very much doubts any of the members of the resistance would allow her to get anywhere near taking charge of the resistance. Talia, and her Levaithan agents, may have gained some goodwill with the resistance fighters, and the leader of the resistance, but she also knows that the general resistance members still look on at her, and her agents, as outsides, who they are very much wary of, and Talia doesn't blame them, after all, they are actually betraying the resistance already. Talia has just prevented the resistance from actually catching on to her betrayal by making all of these plans ahead of time, and making moves in the shadows, which she has had decades of experience doing as the leader of Leviathan.