Reich Marshal of the Belkan Reich

RM Vol 4: War – Chapter 52: Case Yellow (Day 13 – Knocking on Doors the Reaper’s Way)

It's a bird~! It's a plane~! Oh, nyo~! It's a Raven falling from the sky!!!

Raven A239, Emile, crashes through the tiled roofing of a school building. In between the flying bits of concrete and bricks, Emile brings out his most preferred weapons. They're the usual, an S-8G shotgun and a USP-S machine pistol, but more than enough to burst some heads with. Hoisting his 8-gauge shotty with his right hand, while his left is holding his .50 caliber pistol, Emile swiftly takes aim and fires blasts of pellets and bullets. The Erusean soldiers, ill-equipped physically and mentally for a breaching action from above, are caught off-guard and are showered with supersonic projectiles, losing chunks of their bodies in the process. Even before the Eruseans in this particular classroom can finish screaming their death throes, Emile already performs a superhero landing. He has one knee on the ground with another bend and is rechambering another shell for his shotgun with a one-handed maneuver. Meanwhile, Emile swings horizontally, pulling the trigger of his USP-S repeatedly and cutting down a group of startled Eruseans in the school's hallway through the opened door. The worst thing that registers on his Mjolnir power armor is just concrete dust coating its Flecktarn appearance. Yet, Emile has killed a Squad of infantry already.

The man is violently efficient.

With a cold harrumph beneath his skeleton visor, Emile stands up, pressing the magazine release button on his USP to discard the spent magazine. After that, he slams the butt of his pistol grip on a spare magazine attached to his utility belt, thus pulling the magazine out of its storage and loading it into the pistol. Emile doesn't need to press the slide release for his USP because there's still a 12.7x40 mm cartridge left in the chamber. Locked and loaded, Emile steps out of the ruined classroom with a confident swagger. Stepping out into the hallway littered with multiple corpses and injured Eruseans, Emile raises his weapons to the left and right respectively.

BOOM BANG BANG BANG

With an ease that speaks for his well of experience, Emile swiftly dispatches the droves of Erusean soldiers running at him from both sides of the hallway. On his right, a singular blast of 8-gauge buckshot tears through multiple enemies who are just about to raise their rifles. Their lack of modern body armor proves to be their downfall against supersonic pellets. To Emile's left, a team of Eruseans falls to precise shots from his USP-S. They either perish to a headshot or a 9 mm bullet puncturing their hearts. These unlucky soldiers haven't even managed to get a shot off before being sent on their way to the afterlife.

BANG CLINK

Correction, one of them manages to get a shot off, only for the bullet to shatter harmlessly against Emile's barrier spell. Turning his skull visor to the left, Emile sees an Erusean Private struggling to work the bolt on his Lee-Enfield rifle. That young Erusean lad there, despite the obvious bullet hole where his heart should have been, is still trying to kill the demonic being who just murdered most of his unit. Whether this is out of desperation or sheer bloody will, Emile doesn't know, nor does he care.

"So your heart beats on the right." Emile comments in Erusean, his voice is carried over to the grievously wounded soldier. " Still surprised that you survive a .50 caliber SAP-HE though. What a pity..."

Before the Private can even work through the jamming of his rifle, Emile fires his pistol.

BANG

This time around, the young man truly stays dead, one of his hands is clutching the bolt of his Lee-Endfield. Emile turns around, walking down the hallway without sparing another glance at the carnage he just unleashed. Stepping over the corpses, Emile traverses the hallway, knocking on one door after another like the Grim Reaper himself. Only instead of a scythe, he is carrying big fucking guns like the cold-blooded badass he is. Bashing a door to his right, a shotgun blast. Kicking another door to his left, a full-auto burst from the pistol. If the enemy is dug in, a grenade is enough to flush them dead.

A smart Erusean, hiding behind a corner, blindly tosses a grenade of his own in Emile's direction. Unfortunately for him, Emile is a Raven that is well-equipped to do the unthinkable. Tracking the grenade midair, Emile aligns his USP on the incoming grenade's trajectory and fires. The large-diameter bullet speeds through the air before hitting the grenade dead center, detonating the thing before it can get dangerously close to Emile. Some of the fragmentations from the explosion splash harmlessly against the Raven's magic barrier. As for the Erusean that tossed the grenade, well, he ain't that lucky.

Stunned by being too close to the blast radius, he fails to notice Emile who has dashed and closed the ten meters distance in the blink of an eye. It's only when the Raven stabs a large kukri through his torso that the Erusean finally registers that he has fucked up. The price for such a transgression shall be his life. After extracting his toil, the Grim Reaper resumes his journey, leaving behind a profusely bleeding corpse as it slowly crumples against the wall. Tasked with clearing out this commandeered elementary school building, Emile will slaughter the rest of the occupants, and nothing can stop the Raven.

After more gunshots, both big and small, the Raven Assault Specialist comes across the last den of resistance in the school proper. Thanks to his enhanced hearing, Emile can make out what the enemy soldiers are saying.

"Bloody Hell, just detonate it so we can go!"

"We can't! If we blow it too early, we will achieve nothing! The enemy tank can just sidestep the rubble!"

"If we wait till the tanks arrive beneath the arch, we'll all be killed by whatever is causing all the ruckus in here!"

"THEN LOCK DOWN THAT DOORWAY AND FIGHT, YOU FOOLS!"

Then comes some more commotions and shouting, but the overall meaning of what's going on behind the door to the Principal's Office is perfectly understood by Emile. So, knowing that they must have a fair bit of guns trained behind the double wooden doorframe, Emile starts prepping. That's right, for even the Grim Reaper must do his job only after ample preparation. If anything, Emile has a spotless record to uphold, and he doesn't wanna be the one to drag the rest of Noble Team down on the Raven Teams' Leaderboard back home. So, Emile flips out an empty magazine in his pistol before loading it with a full one. He then holsters the USP before bringing up the S-8G. Pulling back the pump, Emile ejects a spent shell. The Raven takes out one of the special shot shells, attached to a bandolier wrapped around the buttstock, before loading it into the chamber of the shotgun. Pushing the pump back home and thus loading the special shot, Emile continues to pack the gun with additional buckshot shells.

KA-CLICK KA-CLICK KA-CLICK KA-CLICK

After that, well, game on.

Emile's armored footfalls bring him a mere five-step run away from the door to the Principal's Office. Leveling his S-8G in a hip-fire position, Emile pulls the trigger. The shotgun makes a loud bang as the special projectile is sent careening out the barrel. The special shot proceeds to punch through the thick wooden door, splintering wood fragments, before detonating in the middle of the fortified room with a white and loud flash.

KA-DUNK

The special shot was an 8-gauge flashbang breaching shot. Perfect to handle CQC situations like the one Emile is having. Utilizing the time when the occupants of the Principal's Office are stunned, Emile dashes to and beyond the double door, all the while chambering a perfectly standard buckshot.

CRASH

Smashing the wooden doorway into bits, Emile uses his superior sensory system to swiftly count the enemy in the room. Just a Squad of infantry, no trouble at all. However, the subject of interest is the obvious detonator that is wired to something outside of the school. That detonator is probably meant to be the surprise for the nearby Belkan Marine detachment, judging from what Emile heard earlier. Fortunately, Emile chose to be dropped by an Osprey back then. Had he gone by ground, he might have missed this and someone else would have been hurt. Either way, priority targets will be the pair of Erusean stumbling by the detonation device.

Raising his shotgun, Emile blasts the Erusean hiding behind a wooden desk, blowing away the poor sod's upper body. Faster than the normal eye can see clearly, Emile pumps another buckshot into the chamber and kills the last soldier that is the nearest to the detonator. Emile then crouches, dodging a blind shot coming from his left while pumping the shotgun. In a flurry of movement, he turns the muzzle of his shotgun on the Erusean transgressor and fires away, all the while pulling out his pistol to aim at another target to his right. Pulling the trigger once, Emile down another Erusean by shooting him in the head. While the two corpses are still falling Emile already stands and repositions the direction of his weapons. His USP-S pointing to the left while the S-8G is aiming to the right after Emile performs a one-handed pump action. Once again, Emile starts pulling the triggers constantly. Semi-constantly with his shotgun, of course, but the devastating blasts of 8-gauge buckshot are more than enough to make up for the lack of fire rate. The Eruseans, being on the receiving ends of two different kinds of big-game calibers, find themselves unable to withstand, much less retaliate against Emile.

Hiding behind covers like bookshelves or couches, the .50 caliber bullets straight up ignore it before exploding in Erusean chest cavities. Trying to mob Emile in with bayonets and buttstocks, double-ought buckshot will shower them with many, many new breathing apertures. The only way to win this skewed match-up is, quite frankly, not to play at all. Yet, in the surprisingly spacious Principal's Office for this particular elementary school, the Eruseans unfortunately haven't grasped that fact, at least not yet.

By the time Emile is finished with his interior decoration job, the office is a scene straight out of Hell. Bone fragments, brain matter, and pulverized intestines have painted the once scholarly room whole. Bookshelves lay broken, and their prized material of knowledge is seeped in blood. Shot-up corpses are all over the floor, with one of them resting their palm on a bible, marred in red, in a last attempt for peace, and potentially deliverance from the Grim Reaper. Emile, with not even a new scratch on his Mjolnir, calmly reloads his weapons once more. The Raven then looks to his right where a young survivor is curling against the corner of the office in terror. He's an Erusean Territorial, one that has been swift enough to drop his weapon in fright, thus making him a non-hostile. Seeing the fear in the teen's face, Emile scoffs audibly before gesturing his head outside the office. Frightened as he may be, the Erusean catches the Grim Reaper's meaning and scurries away on all four, ultimately leaving the elementary school altogether. Whether the young soldier survives long enough to reach the humanitarian corridor is none of Emile's business, however.

Holstering his handgun, Emile moves to the detonator, crouching to start working on disabling the contraption. Unlike the prior bouts of excitement, the Raven's current task is accomplished in relative silence, barring the sounds of combat from afar. With a soft click and the sound of sheathing kukri, Emile disconnects the detonator from the explosives by the arch outside and above a road.

A soft but noticeable ping is heard inside Emile's helmet, denoting an inbound comms request. Very soon, the voice of Raven A259, Carter, can be heard.

"Noble Four, SITREP."

"Just finished over here, boss." Emile replies in a gruff, mildly disinterested tone. "It's not even a proper challenge, going solo against these poor sods. The school is clear, and I've defused a booby trap right in the way of your Marine friends."@@novelbin@@

Carter acknowledges Emile's report.

"Good to hear that, Noble. Captain Donovan over here will appreciate the support. Now get over here and form up. We will make one last push to the EEF's headquarters with a combined Marine-Army force. With any luck, you may find an interesting obstacle there. Noble One out."

Emile scoffs. "I won't count on that..."

The Raven then vacates the school building, now a lifeless foundation of knowledge. As Emile has anticipated, the final act of Dunkirk will end on an anticlimactic note. Lord Gort, after learning of the Belkan's revitalized assault, is swift to start flying the white flag over his HQ. Stubborn as the Erusean leadership may be, they have finally come to accept it's time to surrender.

Having more than 300000 men defending it, the port city of Dunkirk still falls in less than a day.