Recommended music: Marilyn Manson - Killing Strangers

Sin City, Inner Wall Battlements

Moor the Oerkin laughed bombastically as he sat on the pedal seat of the anti air Pow Pow Gun nicknamed by the rest. He yelled at the rest of his crew who held large metal blocks each containing 20 shells of 20 mm ammunition to hurry it up.

The support Oerkins shoved the ammo stacks upside down into the feeding well of the dual cannons and Moor pulled the bolts back to load both cannons. There was a crude wire sight, made out of two 'O's and Moor stepped on the pedals that looked similar to bicycle pedals to rotate the whole gun turret.

The turret turned with the squeak of badly oiled gears and Moor rested the 'C' shaped gun butts over his shoulders as he swung the guns upwards into the night sky that were illuminated by dozens of floating spells.

He was very proud of the fact that he was made Gunner as only a selected few were chosen and had to pass the Gunner test! He peered into the two gunsights, remembering in his training to align both 'O's together before firing and scanned the night skies.

Suddenly one of his support Oerkin yelled and pointed to the sky. A pale 't' shape could be roughly seen against the pitch black of the night as the strange flying object had its belly lit up by the illumination spells.

Distant roars of the Pow Pow Guns could be heard as they too spotted the strange flying creature. Flicks of glowing darts flew into the night skies, chasing after the creature.

Moor grinned and swung his guns towards the fast approaching creatures as the night sky appeared to glow with hundreds of glowing darts and spells. With his arms stretched out under the 20 mm cannons, he squeezed the trigger on the pistol grips and the whole Pow Pow Gun roared deafening and the recoil hammered painfully against his shoulder.

"WAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAAA!" Moor laughed as he held down the trigger, watching the huge muzzle flash spitting out from the cannon muzzles. Bolts of tracers shot out into the night sky, most of it barely even reaching anyway near the flying creatures but Moor didn't care as he was enjoying himself greatly.

Just a short several seconds later, the bolts of the cannons locked back as the magazines ran dry and the Oerkin support crew snatched away the emptied magazines and replaced with fresh mags, allowing Moor to continue blasting happily away into the night skies.

"POW POW POW!!! MUUHAHHAAHAHAHAA!!!! MORE POW POW!!!"

-----

Skies of Sin City

"Break! Break! Break!" Goldan yelled into the squadron comms, "Break up and reform up for bombing run! It's going to be a hot run!"

The three bombers split their formation and broke away from each other as fiery bolts of tracers chased them. The tracers appeared to move so slowly from the ground before flickering past the bombers who rosed their altitudes higher.

"Shit, we can't do a low level bombing run!" Goldan cursed as he left the dangerous airspace of flying lead. "Our accuracy will drop by a lot!"

"Just get me over the target and I will do the rest!" His co pilot cum bomber yelled. "You worry about keeping us afloat, I worry about the bombs!"

The three bombers surprised by the presence of AA guns had managed to escape the AA net over the city with a few torn holes in their fuselage that were caused by luck more than how accurate the Orcs shooting were.

This time, the bombers knew what the enemy has in store for them and they rosed to an altitude of 750 m above ground level before heading back into the fray.

With his eyes glued to the bomb aiming device, the co pilot of Seagull One, mentally calculated the distance and height and gauged the proper timing to release the bombs from experience gained from bombing the Goblin City.

He saw the pulsing glow of the beacon appearing on the bomb sights among all the flickers of tracers and magic spells. He adjusted the targeting cross hairs and said, "Keep the plane level and speed constant! Bombing run lock in!"

"Got it!" Goldan replied as he calmed his nerves and kept the plane as level as possible while keeping his airspeed constant. He tried to avoid watching the glows of the tracers darting up towards his plane, knowing behind those tracers were more bullets following behind that were invisible to the eye.

The plane shook slightly as a few shells punched holes through the left wing but the structure held. "Shit!" Goldan cursed as he fought the controls to keep the plane stable. "Anytime now!"

"DROP! DROP! DROP!" His co pilot suddenly yelled and flicked the bomb release switches.

Almost instant, a rolling crank could be felt throughout the bomber as the bombs in the back dropped off in series. The bomber suddenly lightened, rosed up and Goldan quickly applied power to the throttles and pulled the plane controls up, bringing his bomber out of the danger zone.

His co pilot struck his face against the side windows and waited for the fiery mushrooms to appear in the city. "Think we hit what we supposed to hit?"

"Who knows?" Goldan growled. "Let those on the ground sort them out, we delivered the package and it's time to run! We ourselves got some shit to worry too!"

He rapped the fuel pressure gauge of the left wing and said, "Those bastards have damaged our fuel lines, pray that we can make it home in one piece!"

-----

The Mk II low drag general purpose bomb spun slowly on its axis as it left the bomb racks. It has a nominal weight of 250 kg but its actual weight with the fuze was closer to 257 kg. It arced beautifully with the rest of its brothers and sisters towards the ground and just before it touched the ground, its extended-nose fuze slammed the fire runes together as it touched the ground first and ignited the 122kg of high explosive filling just before the bomb touches the ground.

Instantly the building which the bomb impacted against vapourised from the blast for the sudden explosion. The low quality concrete, wood and stone barely able to withstand even a split second of the force of the explosion.

Barely seconds later, the rest of the eleven Mk II GP bombs rained down in a vertical spread barely two hundred meters apart and everything in its path was turned to fire and ash instantly.

The six napalm canisters each holding 100 L of a mixture of liquid Dragonite fuel and bio rubber made from slimes spun wildly as the canisters were a high drag design. They shook wobbly from the shock waves of the exploding Mk II bombs before hitting the ground seconds after the explosions faded.

The thin cased canisters smashed apart and spewed a thick reddish liquid across the area before a fire rune ignited and set the whole mixture into flames, turning the surrounding area into an inferno.

This phenomenon repeated itself over two other locations, turning the inner city into a sea of fire.

-----

Screams and cries rang out from the city as slaves, merchants, residents, and Orcs ran about in panic from the sudden spread of destruction. Several parts of the inner city wall had seemingly disappeared in the sudden explosions with the mage fire that seemed to be unable to be doused with water.

Dispelling the domes of protection that everyone cast, Tyrier coughed and swept away the dusty and smoky air caused by the bombings. Thankfully none of the bombs had impacted near them or even with seven protection spells one on top of another, they properly won't be able to make it out alive.

He scanned his surroundings and other than collapsed buildings and raging flames, there wasn't anyone alive that he could see on the streets. "Let's go!"

His team gathered themselves and they sprinted off as best as they could over the shattered streets, heading towards the Palace.

The Orc guards at the main gate of the Palace were mostly suffering shock shell effects of the bombs. Tyrier and his men shot them where they stood, sat, or laid down and they advanced through the gates and into the Palace.

Climbing the large flight of steps to reach the main doors of the Palace, they shot at any Orcs that presented themselves. Damages to the Palace could be seen as the air cleared slightly from the cracked concrete steps and walls to the shattered roof tiles littering the floors.

The Orc guards barely had any chance to defend themselves as several suppressed shots put them down and the men stacked up on both sides of the double doors. Tyrier gestured to Wolf to open the doors and when the doors swung outwards, the men stormed in, covering the inside of the Palace, sweeping left and right. "Clear!"

The interior of the Palace stretched out into a long hallway, with a long red and gold trim carpet that sat in the middle, leading up to a flight of stairs that branched into two ways.

"Squad Three, check the first floor!" Tyrier ordered. "One and Two, upstairs!"

Altied and Young split from the group and they each took up one side of the hallway and proceed to clear the ground level while the rest advanced upstairs. "Take the right wing," Tyrier ordered Hitsu and Loke while his team headed to the left side of the grand stairs.

They searched room after room, finding slaves huddled under tables or beds in fear. They ignored the slaves but shot down the Orcs or slaves who rushed them without any hesitation. "Where are your masters?" Tyrier demanded from a couple of cowering slaves after securing the left wing of the Palace.

"We don't know! Don't kill us!" The slaves wearing golden collars and white robes cried out in fear.

"Damn!" Tyrier cursed. "Team, what's your situation?"

"Two, coming up to what seemed like the throne room, over."

"Three, ground level mostly cleared. No hoomans spotted, over."

"One, roger, Two hold up, Three continue sweep and hold main exit for extraction." Tyrier ordered before waving his men to where Squad Two were at.

"Three, copy that."

Tyrier and his squad backtracked to the stairs and found Hitsu and Loke at the end of a luxuriously decorated corridor with dozens of dead Orcs littering the way. All of them died with looks of surprise on their face. "Any alarm yet?" Tyrier asked.

Hitsu shook his head, "I don't think so. We managed to take them down before they made any noise, except hitting the floor."

"We found mostly offices or administration rooms here," Hitsu gave an update of their sweep of the right wing of the Palace. "That's the last room we found and we suspect it the throne room of sorts since we found over a dozen of the Orcs guarding it."

Tyrier nodded and leaned against the massive ornately carved wooden double doors and tried to listen into the other side. He managed to hear some faint and muffled voices before he stepped back. "Alright, we gonna breach, bang and clear it!"

Hitsu nodded and he swung out a sling bag and dug his hands into it, before pulling out several blocks of explosive. He handed some over to Loke and they two struck the blocks of explosive against the solid looking double doors.

Hitsu poked several fuzes into the blocks and uncoiled a roll of wire before attaching it into his hand held detonator. The rest fell back from the doors, seeking cover before Tyrier nodded and Hitsu gave the detonator a few clanks, building an electric charge and squeezed the detonator trigger, "FIRE IN THE HOLE!"

He turned away from the blast as the double doors blew inwards, kicking up bits of concrete and smoke in the corridor. "FLASH OUT!" Tyrier yelled as he and the rest each tossed a flashbang as far into the room as possible.

Flashes of eye searing light followed by loud deafening cracks echoed out from the room. "GO! GO! GO!"

The men of Claymore One charged through the smoke and into the throne room with their weapons up and ready.