Write to Rank 2: Shadow City Under Fire

Round 3: Dialogue between Good and Evil

"They've made it to the bridge, Lady Shadow," Cyber.Red reported, addressing her link to the overhead drones. Her electric blue hair blew in the wind.

"Then we have no choice, girls." Lady Shadow was a tall woman clad in white steel and peacock feathers. "Charge!"

The vanguard of Shadow City sang out their battle cry and rushed forward.

Hundreds of orcs came over the horizon. Gray skinned brutes in filthy hide armor loping across the wide cobblestone bridge. Their army had burned down everything between the ocean and the Broken Fields. Shadow City stood between them and the desolation of the north. The vanguard stood between the orcs and the city.

Cyber.Red drew two pistols, her cybernetics targeting a dozen of the approaching monsters. She fired a volley of bullets, killing four orcs in an instant. A whip of black psychic lightning lashed across the army's front line, tearing through flesh as if it were tissue paper. Asha, the Mind Witch, called back her power, reshaping it into a scythe of mental energy. Syster pounced on an orc, tearing out his throat with her fangs. She broke another's neck with her bare hands and tossed the body into the crowd. Becoming mist, she pulled back and joined her companions.

The vanguard formed a line midway across the bridge, killing any orcs who dared draw near. At their head stood Lady Shadow, a symbol of her city's resolve. In her hand was the mystic greatsword, Blackblade.

The orcs pressed the attack, hoping their numbers could succeed where many other armies had failed. Shadow City had never fallen. Cyber.Red's arm opened and ejected a long thin blade. She snatched it out of the air, stabbing an axe-wielding orc in the gut. A spear came for her exposed flank, but was deflected by a barrier of black and purple thought. Ravenous bats fell upon the enemy as Lady Shadow cleaved through orcs two and three at a time. She crushed the skull of an opponent  with the pommel of her sword then cut down one of their commanders.

"Be gone from here, foul creatures! For none of you will survive this battle," she shouted.

They were but four against hundreds, but the orcs halted their advance.

"Guess they can see reason," the Mind Witch quipped.

A roar split the heavens and a massive spiked dragon descended from the clouds. The orcs cheered as the monstrosity swept across the riverside of the city, bathing the buildings and piers in flame. In an instant Shadow Bay was burning.

The dragon circled the bridge then swept down to land in the space before the vanguard. The orcs fell silent as the spiked scales shrank in upon themselves. The leathery bat wings became robes, the horns adorning it's head becoming a crown. The dragon became a half-orc abomination. He called himself Urg'khan, King of Ashes. His subjects bowed in reverence.

"So the tyrant finally shows himself," Lady Shadow said, shaking the blood from her blade.

"Ah, the rabble queen who stands between me and conquest." His voice rumbled like tumbling stones.

"Shadow City will not fall to your hordes."

Urg'khan looked towards the burning port and smirked.

"The burning has already started. You only postpone the inevitable." He swept his eyes over the women. "Take a knee, swear your allegiance, and my men will merely use your bodies." The evil despot licked his lips. "You don't all need to die."

Asha spit at his feet. "We'd rather die than bow to the likes of you."

"You will, as will all of your people. This city will be reduced to ash and your names forgotten."

"Unless we surrender?" The bats swirled and became the vampire known as Syster Von Svedyn.

"Yes." Urg'khan gathered his robes and paced before his army of beast men. "You warriors bow to your Lady Shadow. You can bow to me."

"Loyalty, you pig-faced bastard." Cyber.Red snarled. One of her air drones landed on her shoulder. "We follow her out of loyalty."

The King of Ashes laughed, a condescending sound that filled the air, and his brutes joined.

"Loyalty is fleeting, fear is eternal."

Lady Shadow stood obstinate, back straight, chin turned up.

"As long as I live, no one need fear monsters like you," she declared.

A shot rang out, a smoking barrel grasped in Urg'khan's hand. A bloody hole blossomed in Lady Shadow's chest.

"Then it is war," the half-orc abomination snarled.

To be continued...