On the other side of the military encampment, Blue Team members John and Frederic are setting themselves up by a doorway. It's here that they will force an entry into the prison area, and from the look of it, the pathway leads underground.
"This is Blue One to all elements, breaching in five, will be dropping off the scope."
"Copy that, Blue Leader. We will take care of the topside." Carter responded over comms.
Taking a look at Fred who has now pulled out his USP alongside a combat knife, John nods before snapping open the door like a toothpick. The sound would have been loud had they not deployed a sound suppression spell before breaching. Fred then moves in first with his pistol close to his chest plate while John covers the rear with his G1SD. Through the night vision filter that allows them to see in the dark just as well as in the daytime, they scan the archaic architecture for any hostile contact. Seeing none, Fred motions for John to stack up at a stairwell leading downward. Through their enhance hearings, they can hear multiple voices below.
"Voices, five males, and an unknown number of females." Fred reported.
"Copy that, scanning." Working out a life detector spell, John deploys it. The feedback from the spell provides him with a clearer picture below. "Seven jailers in total, twenty-one prisoners, and one of them is in a critical state. No gas, we go in hot, now." Without further words, Fred and John rush down the stair with surprising swiftness for people of their stature. After all, they're all more than two meters in height. It's down there, however, that they come to see a very distasteful sight.
In a spacious underground dungeon, its moldy brick walls lit up by oil lamps and torches, two rows of jail cells flanked a singular pathway, and down that pathway is a chamber of pure obscenity. There, four jailers are gathering around a woman, bound to a cross, naked and bleeding as her captors enjoy every single moment of torturing the life out of her in front of her daughter. These sadistic beasts force the daughter to watch as her mother takes her place on the torture cross. The mournful wails of the daughter, the pained expression of the mother, and the dreaded expression of the other captives have only served to boost their maniacal tendencies.
Just as one of the jailers, a lecherous man wearing a slanted officer cap, is about to make another cut on her profusely bleeding body, the Raven intervenes. Due to the chamber being in the direct line of sight to the stairwell they just appear from, with no obstruction in the way, John and Fred open fire at the same time. The subsonic rounds from their weapons claimed the lives of the four beasts-in-the-shape-of-men not a second later. Without the command from their brains, the corpses collapse onto the ground. Free from the confinement of the now-dead jailers, the frightful daughter leaps to her mother, now struggling to hold onto life. "Mum! Mum! Please, stay with me!" The daughter struggles to find anything to stop the bleeding to no avail. Her mother, on the other hand, managed to catch a glimpse of their rescuers. She, however, struggles to mouth the words. "P-Please, m-my daughter..."
They said that a mother is the strongest force on the planet, they are not wrong. John turns to Fred, the clock is ticking. "There were seven."
"On it, Chief." Fred then steps aside, performing his own scan to find out where the other three are. John leaves the task of killing them in Fred's good hands, he then moves to secure the dying mother.
The sight of an armored man, built like an absolute unit and armed to the teeth, either inspires a sense of hope or fails to elicit a response from the broken captives. Some are just too broken to be saved by him. At the very least, they may be able to help them once the coast is clear. Soon, John arrives next to the torturous cross, much to the shock and apprehension of the daughter who now stands bravely in front of her mother. Knowing better than to reveal his face right now, John opts to sling his rifle at his side, raising his hands in a calming gesture. Under the inquisitive look of the daughter, John removes his backpack, leaving it on the ground before opening one of its many compartments. John then pulls out, slowly, a canister with a red cross symbol and a deployable nozzle. On John's other hand, he sure hopes this won't spook them, is a medical injector. Thankfully, the daughter only maintains her stance warily while the mother is fading in and out of consciousness. Time is running out for her but if John hastens the process, a panicking lass would be the least of his concern.
Slowly coming to full height, John takes a couple of steps forward, testing the daughter's reaction. Seeing that she only flinches but is otherwise not very active, John dares to raise the canister, showing it to the girl. "Biomedical foam," He said in an accented Spanish but with clear pronunciation. "This will stop her bleeding."
At first, the girl is shocked that the armored man has spoken fluent Spanish, but that surprise is soon replaced by the former wariness. Luckily for all parties involved, the dirtied but otherwise spirited girl has a good head on her shoulders, her expression soon morphs into a hopeful one as she sidesteps, letting John approaches the bleeding lady to help her.
"Thank you, little miss...?" John posed the question as he unfolded the nozzle.
"... Clara." Said the young girl with a strong front. Her voice betrayed the anxiety in her, however.
"A beautiful name. You may call me Blue if you wish to talk." Though John offered that, he highly doubt the girl would be in a mood to talk.
True to his thinking, the girl chooses to remain silent as he starts deploying the biofoam into the wounds of her mother. This biofoam, a recent addition to the medical arsenal of the Reich, is a self-sealing, space-filling coagulant and an antimicrobial, tissue-regenerative foam polymer used as a form of medical first aid. This foam keeps damaged organs in place and helps stop bleeding and hemorrhaging. The medicinal compound is morphophetamine in a polyethyltriphosphate liquid medium dispensed with nitrous oxide. When applied, the polyethyltriphosphate and nitrous oxide mix to create a foaming effect that can encapsulate, disinfect, and numb wounds. After a short duration of time, the foam applied will set and become a semi-rigid, porous mass internally, which forms a hardened skin on regions of the body exposed to air. This helps prevent further foreign elements to exacerbate the wounds of the patient. The effects of biofoam are temporary, however, and after half a day, it simply breaks down. Though this will give this lady in front of John more than enough time to receive proper medical treatment.
Once John is done applying the biofoam, he stores away the canister and prepares his medical injector, showing it to the girl to see. "Potion, top-of-the-line medicine, will help your mother recovers from her internal trauma, lessening her suffering."
Seeing that the girl doesn't make any attempt to stop him, John locates a patch of skin on her mother that is still relatively safe from harm before slowly injecting the needle in. Very soon, he has emptied the content of the injector and the tortured lady is now breathing with much more ease than before. "This will keep her stable until help arrives."
Without another word, John then stores the medical supplies away before putting on his backpack again. Turning to the girl, Clara, John acknowledges her strong-willed in the face of such adversities. "You're a powerful young lady, Clara. It seems like you inherited the best from your mother. Stay here and look after her, help will come once the situation topside is stable enough. I will barricade the door after we leave this dungeon, whatever you do, do not open the barricade unless you see me behind it. Are we clear?"
Instead of responding, Clara looks straight at John with her red eyes before nodding. She then runs next to her mother, checking on her breathing before finding a clean blanket to cover her body. A very attentive young lass, she is.
Seeing that the matter here is left in good hands, John sets off to reconvene with Fred.
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While John has been busy making friends and saving a life, Fred is doing the exact opposite of his friend. Knocking on a door leading to the jailers resting area, Fred awaits the Sardegnians behind it to respond.
Unsuspectingly, a Sardegnian jailer opens the door, almost dead drunk, so much so that he has to blink a few times to fully registered the sight of a Raven standing 216.3 centimeters tall standing in front of him. Unwilling to hear any of his deader-than-dead enemy's spiel, Fred jams a big-ass knife into the jailer's sternum, pushing him further inside the room. There, under the stunned gaze of the other two jailers, Fred unleashes two accurate .50 cal projectiles from his USP-SOCOM on their heads. And when a part of the bunk room is decorated with brain matter and blood, Fred finishes off the half-dead-and-stabbed jailer with a shot to the head also.
Letting the body crumples down to the floor, Fred cleans his knife before stepping out of the room, his task here is done.
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Rejoining Fred, John and him barricade the dungeon by repositioning a few cabinets. Fortunately for them, they need not waste too much time convincing the prisoners to keep their calm and hunker down for now. Most of them are too exhausted to even do anything, anyway.
Ascending the flight of stairs, John receives the task completion from Fred before he reports the situation to High Command, even if Command already sees his live video feed.
"Overlord, this is Blue One. We have secured twenty-one prisoners for evac. They're in various states of injuries and sickness with one of them in critical but stabilized. The stabilized subject suffered numerous deep cuts and internal traumas. Potion and biofoam have been administered to extend the Golden Hour. We have barricaded the prison area until friendly forces arrive for extract."
"This is Actural, copy that, Blue Leader. Will have medical personnel on standby. Judging from the feeds we are receiving, Command has performed a headcount of the prisoners we have been able to identify so far. We're sitting at the count of sixty-seven, including yours. Judging from the severity of the mission, we're sending in two more MEDEVACs to facilitate the extraction. Continue with your mission, clear the area of hostile elements, and find the rest if you can. Over."
"Copy that, Actual, proceeding with the mission. Over." John responded, equipping his G1SD. "Let's go, Fred. We're burning the midnight oil."
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Hiding in the darkest of corners she can find, Natasha can't help but bemoan the Lord for the current situation she has found herself in. Currently, Natasha is scurrying in the shadow of an unmarked prisoner camp, held by the Sardegnian Army, the same one that has been besieged by an unknown party. This group, from what she can see with a hasty look, wears full-bodied armor and stands over two meters tall, armed with weapons of unrecognizable origin and the ability to freely wield magic without any drawbacks. Natasha can hazard a guess as to who this group of veteran killers belongs to but she dreads the weight behind such a guess. If her thoughts are proven to be true and the power behind this group is involved in the Spanish situation, then Sardegna will suffer.
More than that, Natasha is deeply afraid for the fate of her sisters in the coming days. Mustering all of her mana pool to fuel her camouflage spell, Natasha peaks half her head out of the alley, daring a look at the sky. While she can't really see the similarly hidden fliers, Natasha's instinct can tell that there are two pairs of eyes overwatching the entire camp. It's thanks to her instinct that she has managed to sneak this far into the camp, near its command building. Yet, Natasha sincerely doubts that she will be able to extract the evidence of war crimes here without any issue. For it seems like this unknown group is after the very same thing she has set out for. Better yet, they completed what she couldn't, rescuing the captive females here. She has managed to spy on their handiworks and is grateful for their timely rescue.
Though she is highly annoyed that they're bagging evidence left, right, and center. Much faster than what she can do under the current situation. Thus, Natasha can only pray to the Lord that there are still enough crumbs behind for her to build a case of her own against Sardegna. This is the closest she has ever gotten to finalizing her evidence collection, yet, it's bad luck she stumbles on to this group right now.
After her instinct tells her that it's now safe to move, meaning the eyes in the sky aren't looking at her location currently, Natasha stealthily sets out for the command building.
Although she wishes that her task will be completed without any mishap, Natasha highly doubts it. For all she knows, the number of unknown participants will be way higher than what she could see or sense. To aid her in accomplishing her own directive, perhaps a distraction will be much needed.
Natasha is wary about the loss of lives this may incur, however.
TFTC
The medicinal compound is morphophetamine in a polyethyltriphosphate liquid medium dispensed with nitrous oxide
dayum author, how much did you research for this part?
also question please, will there be a mech type armor in the series later on?
More than I would like lol. Brain dead whenever I researched but I persevere!
Why the hell not!?
Thanks for the chapter, defection of (at least some of) the Crusaders incoming?
Kinda
At least Natasha found somethin, Committing crimes in the name of a god and hsing it as justification is no bueno. I hope thst when the time comes, Sadegna is burned to the ground. Along with the Papacy
Thanks for the chapter!!
Sardegna will burn. Best timetable for it will be after Ustio and Erusea are pacified.
TFTC!!
Didn't expect 2 chapter in 1 day.
Posting the next one right now lol