“Gentlemen, we have a lot of trouble on our hands”, started a middle-aged man wearing an army general’s uniform. The uniform had four badges of honor and a lot of medals. The man had short hair, a wide scar on his right cheek and a face that children would not want to look at before going to bed.

Inside the room, there were four more men and a woman. The men and woman were all wearing suits, and they had ugly expressions on their faces. It seems what had led to this discussion was not very good. These people made the president advisory council for the Tibetan president.

“Mr. President, as you can see, all the civilian settlements surrounding this mountain range have been destroyed, with no survivors! It seems the human-wildlife conflict has escalated to an unimaginable degree. We need to contain the animals!” spoke the army general, as he pointed towards a large map that was spread out on a screen in front of the table.

An old man who was sitting at the end of the table, guarded by two men wearing black suits and black shades, scratched his head as he tried to think of a solution.

One of the men sitting at the table said, “According to reports, it seems like this isn’t just an ordinary human-wildlife conflict! No ordinary wildlife would be strong enough to wipe out ten settlements within the span of four days!” The man was wearing a gray suit with a silver tie.

The old man sitting at the end of the table finally responded, “Do we have any satellite images showing what kind of threat we are dealing with?”

“Well, we just received the images now, Mr. President. Let me open them so everyone can see them”, responded the man wearing the gray suit.

He walked over to the screen and connected the tablet he was holding to the screen, which was showing the map a few minutes ago. After connecting, he navigated to the app that showed his emails and downloaded attachments from the latest email. The images were so large the tablet was having trouble rendering them.

“Can you use the computer? Your tablet is not powerful enough to the satellite images!” warned the woman. She looked a bit young, with blond hair tied neatly at the back. She had bright eyes and a watery mouth plastered with lipstick.

“Thank you for your concern, Ms. Wright”, replied the man with the gray suit. However, he ignored her and kept trying to open the images with his tablet.

The woman, called Ms. Wright, frowned upon seeing that her advice was being ignored, but she simply kept quiet. The president frowned as well, and then he turned to look at the man wearing the gray suit. “Irving, just use a darn computer, will you? We don’t have all day!” he yelled at the man in gray.

“My apologies, Mr. President”, responded Irving, who scrambled to connect the tablet to the computer. The same computer was being used to render the map on the screen earlier.

Soon after Irving had copied the images and rendering them, everyone looked at the screen. There was a green patch surrounded by a lot of black dots. Irving started zooming into the image, and as everything started becoming clearer, jaws dropped wide, and expressions turned even more unsightly. Others started to sweat, while the president shook his head.

“So that’s what we’re dealing with?” asked Ms. Wright, as she tried to recover from shock and fear.

“If that’s unleashed into the world, we’re doomed!” said one of the men who was sitting next to Ms. Wright.

“General Eizard, do you think it’s possible to contain something like this?” asked an old man sitting opposite the army general.

General Eizard’s face turned even uglier. Earlier, he had mentioned that they should just contain the animals, but based on what was on the screen, that was impossible. Depicted on the screen were three large tailed beasts. One of them was a tiger with wings, another being a large bear with human-like arms and the last one was a fox with large ears and human-like arms. If there were only those three beasts, that would have been better.

However, it turned out that the black dots that they had been seeing before zooming in, which numbered over thousands, were all mutated beasts, each ferocious and mean-looking.

“How do we deal with a threat of this magnitude?” asked the president.

“Since they have been attacking settlements around the mountain range, we can assume that they live in the mountains. Is there another settlement that hasn’t been attacked that is closer to the mountain range?” asked Ms. Wright.

Everyone turned to look at Irving, who was frowning deeply.

“Yes, so ... There is a cottage closer to the mountain range. According to reports, it hasn’t been attacked yet. A couple lives in the cabin”, responded Irving.

“So my suggestion is we set up and ambush. General Eizard, how many soldiers can you send--”

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“Thank you Ms. Wright for your suggestion, but I think we should consider this issue some more”, interrupted General Eizard, who was frowning too. He continued, “Let’s look at it this way. The--”

Before the general finished speaking, the president interrupted him, “That’s about enough from all of you! You’re still discriminating against my new secretary simply because she’s a woman? Can you people knock it off! Let her finish what she was saying!”

“With all due respect Mr. President--”

“I will not have it! We’re going to hear her suggestion, and if any of you have a better suggestion, we’ll listen to it too!”

“Yes, Mr. President”, replied everyone, except Ms. Wright.

“I was asking how many soldiers you think we can send to draw over the large, winged tiger”, spoke Ms. Wright, with a sigh.

“What’s your plan?” asked General Eizard.

“Simple. First, we set up a parameter, covering the entire mountain range. Then we draw out the winged tiger and then drop bombs on the mountain range. That way, we’ll destroy its base. After that, we deploy the Gen X robots we bought from PI Robotics, which should hold the perimeter while our soldiers escape. Finally, we destroy the perimeter, killing the monsters!” she spoke with conviction.

“That’ll never work!” yelled General Eizard.

“Is that so? And why is that?” asked the president.

“We do not have an infinite amount of manpower needed to make a perimeter that covers the entire mountain range. We only bought around five hundred Gen X robots from PI Robotics. Using these ones, we’d be sacrificing all our available manpower. What would happen if we are attacked by external entities? Remember we have conflicts with that country?” reminded general Eizard.

“So any smart ideas?” asked the president.

Everyone remained silent. Irving turned to look at the president, who appeared as if he was in deep thought. After turning, he said, “What if we use decoys?”

General Eizard’s eyes brightened as he heard this idea. It seemed as if he had thought about something at the same time!

“Please elaborate, Mr. Irving”, answered the president.

“Instead of using Gen X robots, why not use first generation robots instead? I’m sure we have a lot of those ones!”

“And this solves our problem how?” asked Ms. Wright.

“Well, we don’t need to draw them away from their base. We just need to evacuate the couple living in the cabin. They’ll attack the cabin, but no one will be hurt. And then we’ll send in the bombers! When the bombers have destroyed the beast army, our first generation robots will swoop in to take care of the remaining beasts!”

“That sounds plausible. It might actually work! This way, we save our Gen X robots, and we have a concentrated attack range instead of a wide attack range! This might actually work!” spoke general Eizard, while clapping his hands.

“Jacobs, Peterson, you two haven’t said anything ever since getting into the meeting. What are your opinions?” asked the president, looking at the two people who were sitting next to each other.

The two people smiled wryly, and it was Jacobs who spoke first, “Mr. President, inasmuch as it seems like we can win this, I think you should be careful. Something feels off about this whole situation. My advice is, kill the winged tiger first!”

Peterson spoke as well, “Hasn’t anyone noticed something is wrong about this picture? All the other animals are concentrated on the winged tiger. It’s probably the king of the jungle!”

“I’m sure I’ve already mentioned that!” glared Ms. Wright.

“Yes, I’m sure you did. Anyway, first find a method to kill the winged tiger. Otherwise we are simply wasting time discussing everything else!” answered Jacobs.

“And how do you suggest we kill the winged tiger first?” asked general Eizard.

“I don’t know. You could use long range missiles”, answered Jacobs, shrugging his shoulders. He continued, “At the end of the day, you could do as Ms. Wright had suggested. Separate the winged tiger from the rest of the pack and then kill it. I’m sure divide and conquer tactics will work coupled with the element of surprise.”

“Do we have any more suggestions? Otherwise we’re going to use Ms. Wright’s suggestion”, said the president.

Everyone remained silent, and when the president looked at everyone’s faces, they avoided his gaze.

“It’s decided then. We are going to use the divide and conquer tactic suggested by Ms. Wright. First, we are going to lure the winged tiger away from the rest of the pack. How you are going to do that is up to you. Finally, we then kill it and then send the robots after the rest of the pack”, spoke the president.

“I guess there’s no way around it now, is there?” asked Irving. He continued, “Why not just drop bombs on the beasts after evacuating the civilians? It sounds better than plotting against dumb animals!”

“I don’t think those animals are dumb”, replied Ms. Wright.

Irving glared at her and then frowned.

“Enough! Start preparing for the plan, general Eizard. You’re going to evacuate the couple today, this night! And then start setting up the perimeter.”

“Yes, Mr. President!” answered general Eizard.

********

“The preparations are complete, Your Majesty. Are you sure about this?” asked the nine-tailed bear, coming up to the summit of Mount Sun.

“You’re a tail short to question my judgement!” answered the Beast King, the ten-tailed winged tiger.

“My apologies. Just give the order and we’ll tear the camp of humans apart!”

“Now, that’s what I want to hear! We’ll attack tomorrow morning.”

“Why not attack tonight, Your Majesty?”

“I’m waiting for him to return with some information. Our attack plan is going to be based on his information, after all. I have a feeling the humans have a few tricks up their sleeves! It would be best to figure out what they are up to and then plan accordingly.”

“Are the humans that powerful though? Do you remember that the humans we have killed so far were very weak? We have the element of surprise; I don’t think we can lose no matter when we attack. However, attacking during the cover of night, we have higher chances of winning!”

“Have you considered this might be a trap? They could have deliberately leaked out their power to lure us so they could destroy us in one fell swoop! I’m not taking any chances and putting all the other animals in danger! However, as long as we have information on the humans’ movements, we can make a plan and then attack them when they least expect it!” answered the Beast King.

“He seems to be taking his time!” complained the bear.

“His ability is more suited to scouting. Only he can gather information without being found out. Just be patient, will you? We only have so much we can do before he returns.”

“Yes, Your Majesty!”

“For now, let us wait. I still have a feeling the humans have something they are planning”, spoke the Beast King, with a soft sigh.