146 Alien vs Alien

The existence of reptilians was practically as good as proven. Most people dismissed it as a simple conspiracy theory, but the lizards from outer space had long since blended into everyday life. If you dug into it, a few famous politicians would probably turn out to be reptilians.

It wasn't mere speculation. They were actually being culled.

The Bureau didn't exist for nothing. On a regular basis, they examined politicians and celebrities, dealing with anything inhuman pretending to be human. Reptilians were no exception.

Maybe because of that, these days they apparently didn't even pose as celebrities anymore and instead went around wearing ordinary people's skins... Honestly, though, there wasn't much reason to care. Compared to their reputation, they weren't all that strong.

Their physical abilities were fairly impressive, but only up to a point. Their shapeshifting ability was troublesome, but it didn't allow for a perfect disguise. If you tried, you could still see through it. Their physical prowess also wasn't particularly outstanding compared to other Mysteries. In terms of raw destructive power, the Eight-Foot Ghost would probably do better.

No matter how you looked at it, they weren't the kind of creatures that could rule a planet. Even if they rose up, the Bureau or some other organization would probably put them down.

But if this were a world where reptilians were the only Mystery and nothing else existed at all, that would be a different story.

I might have described them a little mockingly, but reptilians were quite resilient.

Bullets? They didn't penetrate easily because of their tough scales. If you wanted to kill them, you'd have to target the abdomen, and reptilians knew that weakness well, so they rarely exposed their bellies. Some even wore protective gear over just that area.

Bombs? They were basically heat-resistant and blast-resistant, so all that did was throw their balance off a bit. Oddly enough, their abdomen was immune to explosions too...