The dragon's harem

Stepping out of the burning rift, Arlo felt the frigid cold biting his face, and when he looked forward, he could see it, feel it, and smell it. The snow was endless, as far as the eye could see. It was freezing beneath his feet, and he was already unable to process what he was seeing.

”Arlo! Look, it’s cold, and it tastes....” The orc behind him knelt down and licked the snow, quickly screaming. ”IT’S SWEET!”

They weren’t the only ones freaking out, everyone else was the same, millions of orcs who had just marched out of the massive rift into the frozen Arctic North.

Arlo looked back at his team... which consisted of five more orcs, three women, and two guys, not including him.

The first woman was called Samantha, and she carried a massive sniper rifle on her back and several packs of overcharged solid batteries at her waist. Unlike most of the orcs, she couldn’t really fight directly, but her aim was deadly, and her mechanical skills were far superior to most, so her team almost worshipped her. Without her, their weapons, vehicles, and powered suits would just fail.

The second one was far smaller than the rest, standing at a regular human height, and unlike the rest, she looked horrified and hid behind Arlo’s leg, shivering from both cold and terror. Her kind was rare among the orcs, and was the result of an orc playing with their food a bit too much. She is a half-orc, born to an orc woman and an elvish man they captured in some other world. Thanks to that, her talent for magic was off the chart and far above what the other orcs could even dream of.

Her name was Beatrice, and the orcs pronounced it BEAT RIZE. While to the human it meant blessed one, to the orc, it meant one touched by the alien, the ones blessed with the food. While that had caused her many problems, here on the battlefield, all that mattered was her skill with magic, and no one could complain about that.

”Hey, Beat. Stop clinging to my leg.” Arlo mumbled, and she almost bit him. ”One hit and I’ll die, then let’s see who’ll fuel your suits with magic. Do you really want to breathe this world’s air without me filtering it?”

He looked at her for a second. ”Yeah, the air is too thin here, and the gravity is far too weak... like we’re on the moon.” He then smiled, watching as hundreds of thousands of orcs rushed forward, tearing the endless snow apart.

As they stood there, a large, armored red tank stopped behind them. It was long, thick like a caterpillar, and painted bloody red from front to back, with not a single piece of glass on its shell.

ATTR, Armored Traversal Tank Rover, there were only a few of them ever made, and Arlo’s special team got one issued due to their importance. It ran on Beatrice’s magic, floated a few inches above the ground by reflecting the planet’s magnetic field, and even harvested it for power; it could even generate electricity for Samantha to charge her rifle with. But the best part about the tank was that it served as their living space, exploration lab, and survival hub.

”Get inside! We’re moving before the storm hits us.” From the driver’s seat, the third woman on their team shouted. She, wall, taller than any of them, had beautiful blue eyes, and her sole job was to drive the ATTR, which she had spent years of her life training for.

The ATTR’s door burst open, and from the inside, two massive orcs glared at Arlo, Samantha, and Beatrice. ”Hurry, the storm already swallowed thousands at the front lines. The commanders are rushing in to stop it. If we’re to slip through, this is our chance.”

The driver was named Lapis, and the two orcs were Rex, the team’s shield, and Arr, the one who dances with lightning to move fast and cut everything apart.

Arlo’s team had a very important task, one that could determine the future of their entire planet. Yes, the orcs were separated over twelve solar systems, and each planet had its own colony with different cultures, levels of advancement, and goals. Some just wanted to eat, some wanted to live, and the mission of Arlo’s team was to scout for a potential new world to colonize.

Arlo’s team’s main mission was to escape the Arctic North, hide in the world, and keep sending information back to their world so they could plan for the real invasion. They were a reconnaissance team, and this entire Arctic attack was just to mask their entrance.

As they all jumped into the ATTR and launched in the opposite direction the army was advancing two, they could see a massive storm brewing behind them. ”That magic...” Beatrice gasped, ”It’s... terrifying.”

”Don’t fucking tell me...” Arlo growled, and she looked at him with wide open eyes. ”It’s a Super class alien, two of them. They are the source of the storm.”

They all locked back as Lapis turned on the ATTR’s camouflage system and blended into the white snow. ”Come on, my lovely can of steel. Millions are dying so we can slip in; don’t fail on us, okay?” She tapped the steering wheel as they bolted away, watching as Isdis’s storm swallowed half of their marching army in seconds.

At the heart of the raging blizzard, Isdis flew on Kory’s back, glaring down at the frozen orc army with burning blue eyes. Tens of thousands have already died, yet many still stood strong; the strange black suits they wore kept them warm.

”A Super class right off the bat? And two of them at that?” The commander growled, panting as he glared up at Isdis, standing atop a mountain of corpses. ”What a nasty luck we got.”

Isdis couldn’t understand a single word of what he was saying, and to her, they just gibberish growls, and even if they bore meaning, she had no intention of trying to talk with those who see her as food. She was certain that orcs aren’t just mindless and savage beasts, but that doesn’t mean anything when their goal is clear.

The commander clenched his fist, held his spear tight, and then roared, jumping as hard as he could into the sky, shattering the mountain of corpses that was beneath him. In the blink of an eye, he had already reached Kory, who flew four hundred meters above the ground, and swung his spear at her chest.

Kory stopped flapping one of her wings, and her entire body twisted to the side, dodging the commander’s thrust by an inch, and as the orc gasped in surprise as the strange agile movement of the titanic reptile, she smacked him back to the ground with her tail.

He hit the ground like a meteor, and could feel his back almost snapping. If not for the armored suit, that would’ve killed him, but he still immediately got back to his feet. A commander of the orcs shall not fall this easily.

But in that fraction of a second, from the edge of his tearful eyes, he could see her, Isdis diving down after him with her rapier unsheathed. A blade that looked to be made for stabbing, yet she was coming with an obvious downward slash.

He didn’t have time to dodge, and even if he did, his legs and lower back were still numb from the impact, so the best he could do was groan and lift his spear above his head to take her attack head-on, and he knew that it was a bad idea.

Isdis’s sword hit his spear like a lightning strike, and the metal groaned like a crashing ship, sending a massive shockwave that washed away all the snow around them. The commander could clearly feel them, his joints cracking under the terrifying might of this Super alien.

His bones cracked, his elbows exploded, and his ankles shattered, but his suit still held his body apart, and he screamed, roaring the last bit of his life away. He was an orc, a proud commander, and he refused to die like this.

Putting his all into blocking, and with a pained cry, he could barely deflect Isdis’s strike aside. And immediately, his right arm moved on its own, and even though it was injured, it was his pride that made it attack. His bloodied fist hit Isdis’s armored stomach and sent her flying back with a loud shockwave.

He did it, he managed to block the strike of a Super alien and even countered. Even though that Super alien looked unharmed as she landed on her feet with grace, she glared at him with a cold glare devoid of all emotions.

It was then that the commander realised that he was already dead. His left arm was severed by Isdis’s sword, his intestines were spilling on the cold ice from between his legs, and the right arm that he punched with had already frozen solid up to his armpits.

Where are the other commanders? That question itself was stupid, if this woman was here, then her mount was out there killing the others. This battalion of millions was already wiped out minutes after they invaded, and he could only hope that Arlo’s team made it.

Dying, the commander had one thing to say, and it was a world he learned in previous campaigns. He didn’t know what it meant, but it seemed to make the alien mad, so it was most likely an insult. Looking at Isdis with a smug dying face, he mumbled, ”Mommy.”

Hearing him, Isdis’s face twisted into a raging frown as she cut him in half with a single slash.

”Monster... mimicking the words of your victims.”