The click of heels on marble echoed through a vast cavernous room as a lone figure in a low-cut fitting office wear made her way down the hallway and towards a giant mahogany door at the end of it.

At her approach, the door swung open on silent hinges ushering her into a spacious slightly darkened room, dominated by a long conference table and seated around said table in plush thrones was an assortment of individuals, men and women comfortable in their skin and exuding the feeling that came from wielding great power. And from the heavy atmosphere in the room, the people in the room were making true the saying, 'Heavy is the head that wears the crown'

And the heads in this room were heavy with the crown and the problems that came with it. With the arrival of their final member, the giant mahogany door slid silently shut and the annual meeting of the heads of the various branches of the GDF began.

Seated at the head of the table was a man many people on the planet would be unfamiliar with, an oddity since he ran the group that run the world and yet he was an unknown. That was the power the man known to some as Emmet Hollaway wielded. Emmet gestured at the latest arrival and the woman stood and introduced herself to the room, “I am Joyce Dawson, the new head of the research and science division of the GDF and I'm happy to be working alongside all of you and especially the Weapons Developments division to usher mankind out of these dark times and into a prosperous future.” She nodded to the room and received nods in turn.

With her introduction done, Joyce flicked her wrist and projected an image of an engine. “This,” she began, “ is the new echoed-powered engine we've upgraded our vehicles and infrastructure with and installed on our new troop carriers. They are almost noiseless, efficient and clean, with a capacity to power multiple things at the expense of the depletion of the core within. Unfortunately, a lesser version of the engine had to be softly released when the people who worked on the engine with us got a bit loose with their tongues. Rest assured, every civilian engine is tracked and made violently resistant to tampering. ”

She continued, “I won't bore you with the logistics that hampered our development of said engines. All I can say is that the said roadblock holding the research and science division back is no more and you can expect an uptick in the release of echo-powered technology. But to make it a reality and in a shorter time frame, embedded in the files for your perusal are the R and Ds division requested budget.”

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

With that, she sat and left the holo image of the engine floating above the table and pertinent information pertaining to the manufacture and delivery of the engine for the others' perusal which they did.

A slight upturn of Joyce's lips was the only indication she had gotten her wish and with that, the image collapsed to be replaced by one of a gigantic wall.

A man in a crisp suit with one gloved hand stood and without preamble began, “The recent monster surge was a mighty wake-up call that the otherworldly threats are not over, very much the opposite. They're building in power as evidenced by the bottom feeder ratkin having enough numbers to pose a threat, even a minor one. That's unacceptable.

“It's not all bad though,” he continued, “ the threat of more monster surges has the world running scared and the bit of autonomy the city-states fought for from the GDF suddenly seems unimportant in the face of annihilation. Kowloon City came calling and we answered. As the city that houses the only operational Dragon Core power plant, the place has more echo than they know what to do with. So we tightened their lacklustre systems and directed echo to newly installed automatic defences atop the collapsible wall, and there we faced another issue. Ammunition is running low, it won't be an issue in the short term but it's a problem on the horizon.”

The words finally stirred the room causing murmuring to break out and the heaviness from earlier became apparent. The world was in a war and they were running out of bullets.

The gloved man cleared his throat, momentarily silencing the noise. “I'm sure the first thing that came to mind was how? And alternatives? To answer your first question, lead bullets are highly ineffective against the toughened hides and in most cases armour of most monsters, plus most earthen minerals just don't interact well with echo. And we've all learnt the hard way what using thermonuclear weapons does.”

The whole room shivered at the memories of an empowered dragon.

“Now there is hope though, Duranium, the metal most of what we see is made off is perfect for our needs. Too perfect in fact as we've used it to near depletion, what with the recent surge in manufacturing, the stockpiles of the metal is reducing hence our ammunition problems. To the hope I spoke about, a large deposit of the metal was found in our detailed scans of the wild lands following the ratkin incursion. Our own incursion into the wild lands to mine the metal should it be sanctioned is months possibly years away which is why I propose a temporary solution. The weapons of the ones known as hunters are made with duranium, some monetary incentive could see them giving it up, hence killing two birds with one stone. “

Everybody knew what the second bird in that saying was. The further weakening of the hunters.

The gloved man got approval for both his plans and the meeting went on. It was a simple decision for them, decisions they'd made many times before but this time, the men and women in the room, the deciders of the fates of millions had just made a mistake.