B-Class police monster
A massacre at Vegan’s Paradise
When we got the call that a monster was wreaking havoc in Vegan's Paradise, the first thing we had to do was find out what the hell it was and where to find it. As soon as our armored van stopped and I jumped out onto the street, I felt a terrible disgust. Not only because my nose was assaulted by a mixture of smells, mostly of various smashed vegetables, but also because the place where we stopped used to be a cake shop full of stuff that could cause instant diabetes if you dropped in during happy hour or after payday. Just about a week ago, I myself launched a blitzkrieg on a giant honey cake that was staring at me so provocatively that I just couldn't help myself, accepted the pastry's challenge, and devoured it in under a minute.
And suddenly... instead of a huge stockpile of delicious sugar, there was... Vegan's Paradise, healthy food and delicacies for a healthy lifestyle. The sign still said that, although it wasn't true anymore. It was a demolished vegan restaurant with weird smells and sounds coming out of it. It sounded familiar and for a moment I couldn't place it, but then I remembered the time when I was dealing with some stuff in the Swamps and a huge and hungry Apatosarus managed to get into a sugar cane field.
There was a bunch of curious or bored civilians around, slowly moved away from the scene by the regular cops already on the scene. Generally, when the SWAT team arrives, there are sights that should be hidden from the public. Like monsters, both criminals and us.
Maybe it was some sweet-toothed monster who, like me, was enraged by what happened to a place where he could eat so many doughnuts he couldn't walk, let alone transform into a monstrous form. Theoretically, I should have led a whole team in there and solved this disturbance of the public peace.
But those sounds... and that faint smell, hiding among crushed tomatoes and worse things... I knew who was inside. So I gestured to the rest of the team to stay in the van, put my revolver back in the holster, straightened my hat, and walked into what remained of Vegan's Paradise.
I walked slowly among shards of glass from destroyed display cases, broken chairs, and assorted and mixed remains of various vegetable matter, led by a stronger scent and sounds of a monster in a feeding frenzy. I stepped over a smashed heavy door and entered the cold storage room. "As I expected," I muttered, sighing.
It looked like a place where some monsters had committed a terrible massacre. Splashes of something red and something yellow and other unidentifiable things, but it wasn't blood and gore. It was something worse.
Smashed tomatoes.
Could have been worse. It could have been ketchup.
There was a huge bulbous figure, covered in the remains of a torn suit, kneeling on the ground. The monster was using both paws to fill its scaly mouth with something green. It didn't bother to chew, it just swallowed handfuls of vegetables as fast as it could.
Yeah, as I expected. Kilp Konn was an incredibly kind and soft-hearted man, when he was a man. A bit slow in movement and thought, he was practically incapable of any aggressive behavior... as long as he kept himself under control and resisted temptation.
I yelled at him and delivered a few kicks to his scaly backside, but he ignored me. I returned to the restaurant and after a while found a strange artifact that looked like two large glass ashtrays connected by a thick steel wire.
I used a bit of good old police brutality to turn Kilp around and smack him in the face, which was a mistake because he spat a mouthful of crushed peppers at me, but I managed to put his glasses on.
Then I shook him and screamed at him: "Kilp! Look at me, you herbivorous plant-eating monstrosity! Snap out of it at once! If you don't, I'm going to have turtle soup for dinner tonight!
He squinted at me and tried to get free, but then he finally recognized me and ceased all resistance. A moment later, he began to change back into his human form.
I let him go and stepped back a little. In about a minute, a fat, hunchbacked man was kneeling in front of me. He had a huge belly that was obviously hurting. He was staring at me through his glasses with fear in his eyes and spitting pepper fragments and a string of incomprehensible apologies at me.
"Kilp, you moron. Are you brain dead, I mean more than usual? Why the hell did you walk into a vegan restaurant?"
"Sorry, so sorry, liuetenant, sir. I'm so sorry... I used to come here regularly for snacks, and I hadn't noticed that this was no longer a cake shop. I saw something tasty in the display case, so I pointed my finger and they gave it to me, and when I finally saw what it was... I thought it was some kind of pudding with some biscuits for decoration, but it was a .... A sal... a sal..."
"A salad. What the hell, Kilp? You stupid grass muncher, you should have given it back right away! You know what that stuff does to you!"
"There was... there was a raddish on the top," he explained sadly. "I thought... a radish... a radish, I can take one radish..."
But as always, this stupid wereturtle, or whatever he was, couldn't take it. One taste of a raw vegetable triggered his feeding frenzy and transformation into a herbivorous monster capable of demolishing and devouring any vegetable he could stuff into his maw.
He got a huge fine, again, because he didn't hurt anyone, but I was sure there was going to be a day when it would get much, much worse. I could just see this half-blind idiot wandering into a vegetable market one day, losing control, and smashing any of the vendors stupid or brave enough to get between their wares and hungry Kilp.
