"Hi, I'm here to see the commissioner. He has an appointment with me. He may not know about it yet though."

The terrified receptionist pointed at a lift. "T... Top floor. Room 501."

"Thanks. Have a nice day."

I was actually impressed she'd managed to speak. Unlike my phone buying experience, no-one had complimented me on the quality of my costume this time. Three people had pissed themselves when they saw me, and several more had fled out of the back. No-one had outright collapsed, which was nice, given that I didn't actually intend them harm. Equally nice was that no-one had shot me. In fact, about half of the remaining people kept stealing glances at me, looking rather conflicted about whether they should run or welcome me. That was a little weird, but I guess I am something of a local celebrity now. Maybe they were the few uncorrupted cops?

One far calmer person had snuck off into a side room, but alas x-ray vision was not among my abilities, and I had no idea what he was up to. My assumption would be phoning up a warning, which meant I should hurry before my target ran away. I ignored the lift for the stairs next door, flying up them far faster than an elevator would manage. As the receptionist had pointed out, the doors were helpfully labelled, so I found the one marked 501 and gave it a good kick.

I stepped into the room and was welcomed by a familiar roar, followed by what felt like a punch to the gut, a louder bang, a lot of sudden sunshine and the personal attention of gravity. Apparently he had used the warning to prepare to fight, rather than to run away. How impolite...

I caught myself in mid-air, facing the me-shaped hole that had abruptly appeared in the side of the police station, but I suddenly found myself distracted from my prey. My mouth was salivating; I smelt something tasty in that room. That was unexpected. Does that mean there is something in the world I can eat?

I flew back through the hole, slightly enlarging it in the process, and this time I got a good view of the police commissioner, wielding the same sort of disintegrator that the mayor had. Last time, one shot had robbed me of two limbs, but this time it just threw me backwards. My fur was a little scorched, but I hadn't taken anything I'd consider an injury.

He fired again, but this time I was ready for it and dodged the blast, which massively enlarged the hole in the wall and spoilt the humorous neat harpy shape. I heard brickwork and parts of the roof falling off into the street below, and on the basis that I probably shouldn't let him fire that thing too many times, given that I had more business here once I was done with him, I chopped his head off. It wasn't as if he'd seemed interested in talking, and even if he was, I should stop indulging people. After my chat with the general, I was starting to worry I was developing some sort of supervillain necessity to always explain myself.

With one freshly made corpse, it was time to find out what smelt so nice. At first I thought it was the commissioner himself, but closer investigation revealed it was actually coming from his weapon. Metal? There was plenty of that elsewhere. I started chopping it up and found it was actually the batteries. Well, I could shoot lightning, so it wasn't out of the question for me to have some method of absorbing it, but why wasn't I being attracted to every plug socket?

I sliced one in half, and it was no battery. The inside contained a spherical translucent blue lump surrounded by electronics and miniaturised equipment. And from the cut I'd just made in the orb, blue mist was leaking, the air shimmering around it. Very tasty blue mist. I held a claw over it, and following an instinct I didn't even know I had, I drew it all into myself, my hunger abating and the orb darkening to a dull grey.

Seeing that, my best theory was that the reason the military didn't have these weapons was because they had been born from monster research. That blue mist was something not of this world. Alas, I'd already killed most of the people who might know what it was, and how to get more. Drat. I'd have to go back to the monster production facilities once I was done here and see what I could find. Hopefully, they hadn't been completely scrubbed.

For now, I had another task to do. Taking the head of the commissioner, I made my way back to reception, hastening my journey by dropping out of the new hole in the wall and going back through the front entrance.

"Hello again," I said to to the empty space where the receptionist had been standing a few minutes earlier. "Please stop hiding behind your desk. I'm not going to hurt you."

"H... How can I help you?" came a stuttering voice, the receptionist's head poking cautiously up into view.

"I have an appointment with the rest of the corrupt cops, in two hours' time, right here, but I suspect they might not know about it either. Could you inform them all, please? Just the ones who were doing cover-ups for the mayor. Particularly the kidnapping of me and the other children, and the framing of the guy who tried to rescue us. Justin, I think his name was. I don't care where they are, or if they're on vacation. Just get them all here. If I find any missing, I'm liable to start burning down buildings trying to find them."

The receptionist just stood there gaping, but it wasn't like I was really expecting her to be able to do that. I was hoping that the other people in the room would spread the word, and I'd get a decent crop, even if not everyone. In fact, all the people who had been looking at me earlier snapped to attention the moment I started to give my instructions, and once I'd finished, there was a chorus of 'at once', 'right away' and 'yes my queen'. That last one in particular was strange...

And then one of them turned to me on the way out, blushed lightly, and whispered, "your eyes are beautiful," before turning back and running away. Ah, so these are people who drank the poisoned water? Apparently, despite me attempting to kill off the mutation before it even got going, they still saw me as their queen. Great. Adding to the rest of my ridiculous abilities, I apparently now ruled a sizeable chunk of the city. A flock of my very own. If I do manage to find a new food supply, I am definitely running for mayor.