I swore under my breath as the order came through: Respond to a monster sighting in Kholakel. Really, did no-one else see this coming? Despite the nearby forest having the greatest monster density in the country, it was managed solely by the city, and they refused military assistance. They treated it as entertainment, and not the serious threat that it was. It had always been nothing more than a matter of time before something like this happened.
A monster inside a city was a worst case scenario; the scope for civilian casualties and collateral damage was immense. This one was only a harpy, which at least could be brought down with conventional hand-held firearms, so things could be worse, but it was still a situation I did not relish.
The tactical monster response unit was a thousand men strong, equipped with heavy armaments and vehicles, with even a couple of options of last resort. Destroying a city to take out a single monster was not an option to take lightly, but given the accounts of three hundred years ago, there was the possibility that we might one day be left with no choice.
Despite how anal Kholakel's mayor was about the misty woods, he had no right to refuse us entrance to the city itself, so our unit gathered and moved to the vicinity. Alas, rather than wait for us to arrive, the city launched its own assault, driving the harpy out and into the misty woods. That was conflicting. By the agreements the city had with national governance, we couldn't enter, meaning the harpy was left at large. It could re-enter the city at any time. On the other hand, it would have taken us some amount of time to arrive, and driving the harpy out had at least saved the lives that would have been lost in that time.
I chose to continue to the city anyway, albeit at a more sedate pace, and set up a temporary encampment outside. If it did come back, I wanted to ensure we were in position to act immediately. And I was glad that I did, because the very same week, the harpy returned to the city, killing the mayor of all people.
That was... improbable. No way in hell did I believe it was a random attack. That man enjoyed his blood sports far too much, and a few quick calls unsurprisingly indicated that the mayor had been travelling as part of a group to hunt the harpy at the time of his demise. Either we were lied to about the harpy's location, with him trying to keep the 'sport' of hunting it to himself even though it remained within the city, or we were lied to about it the location of the attack, and the mayor had actually been in the woods at the time and failed in his hunt.
And then the video footage turned up, which showed the harpy dropping from the sky, picking out the mayor's car from the middle of a motorcade and flying off with it. That certainly ruled out the second option, but that was the least of my worries. Seeing the attack set off all of my alarm bells ever. It had picked up a car. Not just a small one either, but a proper luxury model. That should be way beyond the capabilities of a harpy. Furthermore, no-one had done anything to provoke it at the time, they'd just been driving, and yet it had picked the one car out of the group. A monster had launched something that looked to my eyes like a targetted attack.
How that was even possible, I had no idea, but I immediately recategorised the situation well away from my original 'only a harpy'. We needed to end this now, at any cost. Worst case scenario, this monster had regained intelligence, and we did not want a repeat of three hundred years ago. I immediately scrambled half of our helicopters to chase it down, while the rest of us relocated our camp closer to the city.
Our search found a scene of devastation. Forces from Kholakel had obviously arrived first, but had been decimated, with corpses strewn everywhere. Disturbingly, a lot of the damage seemed to have been inflicted by a rocket attack, which implied human involvement on the other side of the fight. Was someone controlling this harpy, somehow? I knew that slavery brain implants were available for sale on the black market, but would they work on monsters? Regardless, it did nothing more than confirm the importance of solving this case. I ordered the deployment of spy drones across the whole city. If a fly moved within the perimeter, I would know.
Two agonising days went by without any trace of our harpy, or its potential human controller. I could be patient, but it wasn't as if our camp was hidden. All the patience in the world wouldn't help if our target had simply left. Still, with no other leads, there was nothing to do but continue to wait.
Our wait paid off. I watched the drone footage in utter disbelief as the harpy landed in someone's backyard, then with a foot took a key out of a bag tied at its waist and with a surprising feat of dexterity, let itself in through the back door. I actually opened my mouth to accuse the lieutenant making the report of playing a prank, but I let the accusation die in my throat. No-one would joke about this.
I decided to throw everything at it. We needed that monster gone. I even ordered in a tank. While the squads were making their preparation and travelling, we pulled up the details of that house and its occupants. A perfectly ordinary couple, with one young child. Until recently they'd had a much older daughter, but she had been raped and murdered by a member of the local police force. If they blamed the mayor for that, it was perfectly plausible they'd have a desire for revenge. I ordered the whole family brought in alive for questioning; if there was some group around with the ability to control monsters, we needed to crush it immediately.
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It took far too long for my men to get there; a city-wide water contamination incident had snarled up the roads. In retrospect, the tank may have been overkill, and we should have just used whoever we could fit in the choppers, but everyone was in place now and were ready to make their move. With the house locked down tight enough to stop a mouse from escaping, they knocked. The father answered, and was promptly incapacitated. I watched on video link as a couple of men moved to retrieve him, while half a dozen more moved in to search the premises.
They'd only taken a few steps when a shout of 'target sighted' came over the radio, along with the sounds of gunfire. I waited with bated breath, smashing my fist into the desk when the next update came back 'weapons ineffective'.
The guns they had should be more than enough for a harpy, so the fact that they weren't added to my unease, and underlined the need to get rid of the monster right now. We already had the father secured, so while I hesitated to call the mother and son expendable, they certainly weren't vital. It was more important to take down the harpy. I nodded at the operator, who relaid my permission to use explosives.
The next update was utterly horrifying. "Target unconfirmed. We have a harpy queen here, not a regular harpy. It's intelligent, talking, and apparently defending the residents of this house."
The monster that had been spotted by drone was certainly a regular harpy, not a queen. The horn configuration of the queens was distinctive. Any thought that the soldier making the report had been mistaken was wiped away when the video link showed lightning lancing out of the doorway, instantly killing the men who were in the process of retrieving the father. The harpy stepped out, picked him up, then gently put him back down indoors. And then casually walked out into the middle of the street and goaded everyone into attacking.
Then where was the original harpy? How many were there in total? Was there a whole flock hiding away in this city? And it really did appear to be protecting the family. Why? Was it really being controlled? But it could talk, and from what I'd heard of the slavery implants, they turned their victims practically into zombies. They certainly couldn't talk afterwards. Nothing made sense.
Thankfully casualties were light. Apart from imminent threats to the household, the queen had refrained from attacking, seemingly just standing there and tanking the hits. When it casually knocked away a tank shell with one wing, its feet not budging a millimetre, the floor dropped out of my stomach. If it can do that, do we have anything that could kill it?
With a heavy heart, I made the call to ready an option of last resort; a cruise missile strike. The civilian casualties would be immense, but we could not let this thing live. If there were a flock of them here, it could be enough to end the country. By the time I turned my attention back to the action, it was over. At some point the harpy had started fighting back. We still had a video feed from a spy drone, from which I determined that the chances of survivors was slim.
"We have incoming!" came a shout, and I realised that the queen was coming here. It may have destroyed an attack squad, but did it really think that it could fight the whole base? I glanced again at the image on the screen, and decided that the answer was very probably yes.
Moments later I heard the gunfire and explosions outside as it started tearing through man and machine alike. I stared on with incredulity as the whole encampment was decimated piece by piece. We were all dead. I'd redirected the missile here, but it was an open question if we could live long enough for it to arrive. At the rate it was tearing through my men, I determined the answer would be no. I needed to delay it long enough for the missile to finish it. It was intelligent... maybe it would talk?
"Cease fire! Cease fire!" I shouted into a microphone, hoping it would stop to talk, and that I could buy enough time. I heard the sounds outside grow quieter, then stepped outside myself, shuddering involuntarily as I set eyes on the one who had caused this devastation. It descended slowly, its expression practically demonic.
"You invaded my home," it said, its voice a high pitched screech, "attacked my father, traumatised my mother, almost blew up my brother. Why? Dad politely opened the door to your men. Yet they didn't even let him finish his sentence before forcing their way in."
"Because a monster was sighted entering the property. It's our job to..." I stopped... I'm used to explaining myself, but I'm not used to explaining myself to monsters. I need to keep it talking, not spur it into killing me.
Luckily, it was quite prepared to talk, spinning a fanciful tale about how it used to be human, about how all the monsters appearing in Lecolie had once been human. If true, it would be utterly horrific, but the monster refused to offer up any evidence to support its claims. We already knew it was hostile towards the city governance, given the death of the mayor, and driving a wedge between them and the larger country would be one way of hurting them further. On balance, I decided the whole story was a lie.
Fortunately, the time it spent in telling its tale was more than enough for our 'last resort' to arrive. The explosion would destroy the camp and everyone in it, but as long as we could take this thing out, it would have been worth it. More people would need to be called in to deal with the lesser harpy and the human collaborators, but they should be far softer targets than this bulletproof queen.
I heard the roar of the missile, and looked down at my microphone as the harpy queen turned to face its doom. The green light was still flashing. Good, this whole conversation will have been broadcast back to base, along with the information I'd sent earlier, so at least the next team won't be going in as blind as we had.
I saw the poorly aimed lightning arc out from the queen, practically grazing the missile, but a miss nonetheless. It must finally be panicked. From this close range, I wouldn't even feel it. I would just... go away. I closed my eyes and smiled, safe in the knowledge that the monster was even closer to the blast than I was. For the safety of Lecolie!