23 Breach and Clear

The group moved towards the building, the screams were still echoing throughout the alley. However, there was no one to be seen other than several citizens lying on the ground. Some of them hugging their knees, some of them hugging the person closest to them.

The man who brought them told that this area was controlled by the Ruby Merchant Group after they captured it following a battle with the Steelcrushers. After the Council of Nobles and Jack's Mercenaries united, these territories became a free for all zone as two groups were not able to come to a conclusion regarding the split of the territories.

"Commander, are we going to breach and clear?" Miles asked as they were nearing the buildings, other than some of the windows on the second floor, every window and door was closed. There was no one standing guard outside the main door of the building.

Connor stopped and facepalmed.

'Why didn't I think of this?' he said to himself inwardly, since the beginning he always rushed, not minding any kind of strategy. He grinned and turned towards Miles before nodding.

Connor raised his right arm and pointed at Miles and Irene. After the two nodded he pointed at the left side of the door.

"Stack up." he ordered with a low voice. Miles and Irene quickly moved to the left side of the door and readied their weapons, slightly leaning towards the door, seeing this Connor told Frost to take position somewhere so to have overwatch over the building, to take out any stragglers. Frost acknowledged before quickly disappearing. Connor looked left and right but was unable to locate him clearly.

'His adaptive camouflage is really good.' he thought, smiling. He looked at Evan and started moving to the right side of the door. He took the breaching stance. Behind him was Evan, preparing to kill. Connor looked at Miles and made a fist with his left hand and imitated taking out a pin with his right hand. Miles quickly took out a flashbang and pulled the pin. He started counting down from three, motioning with his left hand.

"Remember, breach and clear, no civilian casualties." Connor said.

As Miles reached zero, Connor suddenly kicked the door before Miles threw a flashbang in. A mere few seconds later a loud bang echoed through the streets and the four rushed into the building.

Moments later gunshots were heard, one after the other. The notifications filled in front of Connor's eyes. Screams of women suddenly turned into screams of men and people dropping to the ground. In the team, most active was no doubt Irene. With her P90, she was floating like a butterfly while stinging like a bee. She quickly climbed the stairs leading to the second floor of the building, kicked one of the private room's door down to see a young girl tied to a bed with a brawny man on top of her, he was busy getting up and wanting to take his gear to see what was going downstairs, this was his last thought as he was turned into a sponge shortly after by Irene's bullets.

She quickly glanced at the girl, a sound was heard from the next room, a middle-aged man hastily opened the door and left the room before seeing the hallway covered in blood, as soon as he understood what happened he ran back to the room and locked the door before jumping down from the window.

....

Rainald yelped as he fell to the ground from the second floor. He felt something snap out of its usual place. He held his right ankle before he started to skip, trying to run away from the building. This was an incident that needed to be reported immediately, someone was vying for them. He was grimacing in pain when everything suddenly turned black and he fell to the ground. A man suddenly appeared behind him, dragging him out of the streets to an alleyway.

....

Connor exhaled, it has only been a few minutes since they rushed into the building and the smell of death had already covered the rooms, he looked at several young girls hugging each other by the corner of the room he was currently in, those girls were only a year or two younger than him but they were living in a situation like this. He shook his head and turned his head towards the two gang members who looked like they were in their early adult years, their bodies were lying dead on the ground, filled with holes. He looked at his right hand with his palm open, covered in dust.

"I killed someone, again." he whispered to himself. As he was thinking, Irene came in the room Connor was in.

"Sir, all clear. However, it seems like someone escaped. One of the rooms were locked and the window was open." Irene reported, after coming in she had glanced at the girls hugging each other by the side.

Connor looked at the ceiling before making a fist with his right hand, he pointed at the girls. "Check them, are they injured?" he ordered Irene. He was still contemplating his actions. Irene quickly slung her P90 and ran over to the girls and crouched beside them to inspect their bodies, they were wearing clothes that were deliberately ripped in some parts. Other than some bruises, they appeared to be fine.

"Nothing bad, sir. What are we going to do now?" Irene asked Connor.

"How many?" Connor asked another question before the answer.

"Evan and Miles managed to find six girls downstairs, they are mostly fine physically but they would definitely require some mental treatment." Irene said with a voice lowered as she said each word near the end. "I cleared two rooms, one of them was the locked one. There was no one in it, managed to find a girl on the other one. In total, we rescued nine girls." Irene continued.

"Alright, you and Evan, go outside and try to find the girls' parents. You can also suggest them to go take refuge in Goldburn's inn for now. Their choice though." Connor said, the girls he saw were barely his age, if the other girls were the same Jeanne would definitely accept them.

"By the way, you said the window was open and the door was locked?" Connor said as he turned towards Irene, she definitely looked tired after all that running and gunning, but she was still looking like a small tiger. She looked to be about 24 years old, although her height was not that much, her skills as a soldier was excellent.

Irene nodded. "Yes, I believe someone attempted to escape by jumping through the window, however, considering the height, they should be injured." she replied.

"Where is Frost? Have you meet up with him yet?" Connor asked, Frost's duty was to stay outside and guard the exits, making sure no one would escape.

"Negative, we did not set a radio protocol so we have no contact with him unless we go outside." Irene replied. This answer caused Connor to facepalm mentally once again, a squad needed to keep in communication all the time, yet he had forgotten to have the radio system setup even though he had seen it several times in the equipment store.

"Alright, take the girls out for now. I will go with Miles to find him." Connor decided. Irene started talking to the girls to calm them down, explained who they were and that they came to rescue them because someone had asked for their help. The girls started sobbing and eventually followed Irene out.

Connor went downstairs to get Miles, he wanted to check with Frost to see if anyone had managed to escape, it was obvious that there would be even more firefight if anyone had escaped.

As he arrived on the first floor, he saw Miles talking with Frost while Evan and Irene had started heading outside. Seeing Connor coming downstairs Frost and Miles quickly turned and saluted him.

"Sir, there was one person who attempted to escape, I think that he broke his ankle so I managed to knock him unconscious and captured him." Frost reported.

"Oh, where is he now?" Connor asked, he was both happy and sad at the same time knowing that there was no one who managed to escape.

Frost pointed at one of the rooms in the first floor. "I put him in there, he is still unconscious but I can wake him up if you need him." he answered.

"He can wait for now, lets just take care of the things in our hands." Connor said as he looked towards Irene and Evan taking the girls out.