The aquatic monster was rather surprised when light faded back in. It was still on the shore, and the daylight had faded to ruddy twilight. It blinked once, then twice, one eye irritated by the sting of even such faint brightness. It lifted its tail a little, but a shooting pain down its back axed that attempt to shift positions. Even if it could have rolled itself back into the pond, it would have just drowned in its current condition.

“Don’t move, you idgit.” Cuppy smacked its nose suddenly.

Craning its neck slightly, the bunyip could just barely make out the boy’s profile at its side, pressing his good hand against its ruined flesh. Gradually, it became aware of little pinprick sensations, but they didn’t hurt - they actually tickled a little. Cuppy was sewing the bunyip’s wound closed again.

“Frey is going to take a minute to recharge her firepower. I’m exhausted too, so I can only go this fast. Sorry.” Cuppy smiled sheepishly.

The bunyip grunted.

Cuppy broke contact to fetch the creature’s severed tusks from the pond side. “I’ve never tried to stitch ivory back together, and I can’t promise it will actually take to healing, but I can give it the old college try. Managed a brief fortification with rocks earlier to hold my pole, I guess, and I’ll have to figure out how to sew inanimate matter back together anyway if I’m going to plug up those poop holes at the bottom of the pond and cut off the beacon attracting things like you and that little green guy.”

If the bunyip could speak their language, it would have told Cuppy and Freyja that it didn’t understand what was going on. Why hadn’t they struck the killing blow? Why were they tending to its wounds while they themselves were still seriously injured, exhausted, and had only patched up their bodies enough to help the bunyip instead? It hijacked their water supply and tried to kill them, very nearly succeeding.

Its size had shrunk back down to that of a large dog by now, and the red tint highlighting stretches of its hide had reverted back to silky seal black.

“The poop coming from the bottom of the pond made you grumpy, right?” Cuppy smiled, patting the creature’s head.

‘No’, it would have said, ‘I still would have tried to kill you anyway’, but it managed only another weak grunt.

“Shush, your throat is raw.” Cuppy poked the top of the beast’s head. He smiled at the beast again. “It was a close match.”

Freyja limped into view, her dislocated shoulder in a shoddy makeshift sling. “Ordinarily I would have killed and eaten you, at least if I was still stuck as a wolf.” she glared at the bunyip before her gaze softened in the direction of Cuppy. “But for some reason, I just don’t feel like it anymore. The fight’s over, that’s good enough, I guess.”

These scrawny hairless monkeys were illogically moronic, but if they weren’t, he would be dead right now, the bunyip conceded inside the privacy of its own mind. Such charity was nonexistent in the wilderness, and the brutal indifference of natural selection’s own design.

But maybe that quirk was why they, weaker creatures, managed to bring down the bunyip.

It would never finish forming its epiphany.

All three were startled by the sudden sound of clapping, ringing out loudly in the still forest.

“Bravo.” Director Mason said, suit spotless even as his dress shoes were caked in mud.

Stolen story; please report.

Though it was nearly night now, he still wore his shades, and the feeling of anonymity they gave him.

“Who are you?” Cuppy asked, while Freyja only recoiled and froze up, petrified without knowing why.

The girl’s every instinct was screaming at her that she was in danger, that they were all in danger.

“I watched your fight.” Director Mason said, the recovered Telescope Dragonfly perchedperching on his shoulder like an obedient parrot; he stroked its tiny head like one too. “I never would have expected a couple of kids could bring down a monster like that with anything short of… well,” the Director drew out his words, thinking slowly.

Freyja’s hackles were raised. This guy was dangerous, maybe not in shape as the bunyip had been, but in mind - the vibe he gave off was cold, clinical, and devoid of an ounce of sympathy.

“- something like this.” the Director pulled a magnum out of his pocket and pressed the muzzle against the bunyip’s forehead.

The metal was cold and unforgiving against his skin. The bunyip had no fear or rage left to give, only a tired resentment that it glared at the Director from its remaining eye.

Cuppy and Freyja were too shellshocked to react even if they could still move quickly enough to do anything of note. They only sstared, quietly horrified.

The Director raised an eyebrow as it looked down at the subdued Feral.

“There was another fairytale freak that gave me the same ugly look you are now.” Mason smirked, thinking of the dearly departed unicorn he had brought before the review board for show and tell. “It’s funny,” he cocked the pitiless gun, then lowered his face to the bunyip just a few inches. “You remind me of him.”

A tremendous boom sounded out, and the birds flew out of the trees, ducking for cover into the darkening sky.

The bunyip’s head dropped for the last time, and its body already began to grow cold. It was dead before the bullet finished going through its brain and out the back of its skull.

Mason calmly wiped the barrel clean with a handy white cloth rag, and replaced them both from where they came.

“You children are playing a dangerous game.” he looked back at Cuppy and Freyja, both mortified into silence. “Little kids - and stupid old geezers too, for that matter - should hide their heads under the covers and let grownups deal with the monsters.”

Cuppy found his voice. “You’re a monster too, you jerk. That dumb seal was already beaten, he couldn’t even move.”

Mason chuckled a little. “If only our world were that simple. Someone’s sins aren’t erased just because they’re caught. Now, you run along home and forget you saw this. The grownups will take care of the loose ends.” he said.

The fog had already dispersed. The Director felt confident and strong as long as the maddening vapor was cast aside, and there were no crowds to steer clear.

Cuppy was grinding his teeth, fingers twitching, at the fringes of deciding whether or not to spit string in the suit-jerk’s dumb face.

Freyja put a hand out in front of Cuppy, gently trying to sweep him back. Her ears picked up the sounds of crackling around them, at the borders of the treelines, as leaves and twigs were stepped on.

Mason waved his hand, and men in full hazmat suits and gasmasks, flamethrower tanks strapped to their backs, stepped out from behind the trunks, converging on the bunyip’s corpse.

“Step aside, we've got junk to dispose of.” Mason said.

“You mean evidence to burn.” Cuppy glared at him with petulant child’s eyes.

Mason’s smirk fell. Then, his face regained its smooth mask of composure.

“You kids are a bit unnatural yourselves. No matter how much I replay the footage in my head, I just can’t make out how you could have come by the tricks up your sleeves. And we got reports of a big black dog running loose around town earlier. You may know things, and so do I. I think we all know who stands to lose more. I could take the both of you in too, and clean you out like the rest of the fairytale trash trying to take what’s ours. But I’m in a good mood today, so just meander back to your little squatter’s camp. You leave us be, and we’ll return the favor.” he adjusted his slipping sunglasses.

Cuppy wordlessly startedstared the Director down, never saying so much as a peep. He took Freyja, who was beginning to detach and regress into herself, lost in the bottomless depths of her own startled, vacant eyes, by the hand to lead her home. Even as they passed each other, Cuppy brushing roughly past Director Mason’s hip, his eyes never stopped glaring at the monster in the nice suit.

“Come on, Frey,” Cuppy told his traumatized companion. “Let’s leave the grownups alone.”