You could’ve cut the tension in their council chambers with a knife. Not some ordinary knife. A cold iron blade, a sword with a silvered edge, a weapon otherwise blessed or cursed to exploit a niche weakness of the supernatural beings assembled. That particular conversation had come up before, they had it a thousand times over or at least their forerunners had, over a thousand times.
On any of those nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine other occasions, their predecessors hashed it out, but here it was on the gilded table again. Their faces changed or sometimes not, considering the relative immortality of the parties involved. The highest-general of the werewolves, the king of vampires, the designated Earthly representative of their many fae courts, the queen of the elves, the prime-minister of dragon-kin and nearly a dozen more figure-heads of whispered humanoid species. The location of their conferences had changed over the millennia, but the concept bore repetition, every few years they’d all meet to discuss their mutual needs and desires on a planet dominated by the infinitely-weaker but infinitely-more-numerous human race. Our existence is both an opportunity and dire threat to them all. Six billion of us, two hundred thousand at most collectively on Earth. Individually we’re ants to them. But have you ever seen a swarm of bugs devour the entire corpse of a rotted cow? We are that to them as well. Cooperation is necessary.
“They’re on the verge of destroying themselves completely!” the werewolf growled. “They’re always on that verge,” the fairy twinkled, “what’s different now?” They had long ago exposed themselves to prevent us from wiping ourselves out, after all. Putting the lightning back in the bottle took the falsification of a world-wide flood in Mesopotamia once and the cover story of the invasion of “Sea Peoples” in the Mediterranean the other time. “Their technology,” an imp groused, “it’s not pointed sticks anymore. Weaponized diseases and city-incinerating bombs.”
“Why not just finally let them die?” asked a sorceress emitting beams of purest azure and gold. The vampire rubbed at the bridge of his nose and sighed. “Because most of us couldn’t survive without them. Whether it’s their worship or tribute or psychic energy,” the werewolf grunted at him, “or yes, Greg, if they’re dinner trays to be bussed, if they die, we will as well eventually.”
A new tactic was necessary to bring humanity together enough to not wipe itself out but clearly history had taught them that exposing themselves directly was a solution that would become as much a problem as the original issue. Perhaps the real boogiemen needed to manufacture some fake boogiemen to focus on, protecting themselves while still accomplishing their goal. So, the fae wove a tale of imaginary monsters, born of science instead of magic, and their sorceress set off a mortar of mithril and mana over the skies of Roswell, New Mexico to complete that hoax.
Last I checked, there are still humans alive on this factory farm called Earth, so thanks, I guess.
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