The next day

In the main room of the monsters living quarters, a sense of embarrassment was in the air. The reason: Link was busy laughing his head off as Monger told him that Susan and Dr Cockroach had come close to kissing outside last night and Link had been teasing them about it this morning. Insectosaurus and Bob were also watching, but Bob had forgotten already what they were laughing about several times, but Susan and Dr Cockroach had decided not to remind him.

"Lovebirds!" Link said in a kind of sing-song voice.

Dr Cockroach and Susan, who were sitting on the large sofa in the room, blushed a little in both embarrassment and annoyance at their friend.

"Shut up, Link!" Dr Cockroach replied.

He just kept on laughing and joking about with Monger. "So was it romantic?" he asked in a fake eager voice.

"I think it was," Monger replied. "So did you two feel hot when you were about to kiss?" he asked.

Link just burst out laughing and fell on the floor, holding his sides and kicking his legs madly. Susan and Dr Cockroach blushed a little more and tried to ignore them, though they did give each other small smiles. Even though they were on the receiving end of this joking, they did admit mentally to each other that it was quite funny at the same time.

"What are we laughing about?" Bob asked innocently, having forgotten once again what they were laughing about.

"O-o-oh, Bob," Link breathed, sitting up and taking a deep breath. "You gotta listen more, man," he told his blob friend.

"Janet wants to know as well," he said, pulling her out of nowhere and holding her up. "C'mon, she wants to know as well what we're laughing about,"

Monger rolled his eyes in an 'of course' kind of manner, expecting this from Bob. Susan and Dr Cockroach looked at each other. She was laughing a little.

"What?" he asked.

"Y-you have to admit with them, i-it is funny," she said.

"Oh, they're getting closer!" they heard Monger say. The two looked over at them to see Monger, Link, Bob and Insecto looking at them, trying not to laugh.

"Well, c'mon, doc, you gonna kiss her?" Link asked in a fake eagerly voice. "Don't let us interrupt ya,"

He went to reply but paused for a moment and then sighed. "Very funny, you lot," he said blankly, though he was starting to admit that this was quite funny.

"Right, I better go and check and see if I've received anything from head office," Monger said and he grabbed his jetpack, which he had left on the floor next to the computer screen, and put it on. As he hovered up into the air, he boomed: "See ya, monsters,"

"Yeah, see you, Monger," they replied.

"Oh, and remember," he stopped in mid-air near a corridor opening on the wall and turned back to look at Susan and Dr Cockroach. "You two play nicely," he said jokingly.

They glared at him and he had to move quick to avoid Susan throwing one of the pillows on the sofa at him. Link, however, fell onto the floor, pounding it hard as he laughed hysterically. Chuckling to himself, Monger hovered down into the corridor, which was about fifty feet long and split off into a T intersection at the end. Several doors were lined along the walls.

"Oh, I made a good comedian," he muttered to himself as he took off the jetpack and walked down the corridor to the end, turning right. There was a door with the words: General Monger written on the door. His office. He opened it and walked inside.

His office was a small rectangular-like shaped room with a desk a few feet from the end wall, a single chair behind the desk. A light with a kind of lantern shade was around the light bulb. On the left wall was a portrait of him in an army uniform, about twenty five years younger, standing in a desert-like landscape with several buildings in the background. That was a picture of him that had been taken when he had been appointed head of the desert base after the previous head had retired. Scattered over the desk were several report papers on recent activity around the world that might need the monsters' attention. An old fashioned telephone was on the desk as well and next to that was a cup of espresso coffee, always one there for him every morning.

Monger took off his jetpack and placed it on the floor in the corner of the room and walked over to his desk.

"Time to go over papers," he said as he sat down on the chair and, picking up the papers in one hand and his coffee in the other, began to go over them.

It was just the same old things. An apparent yeti sighting in Tibet, something which they had received a lot but most had turned out to be hoaxes, another apparent sighting of this El Chupacabra in Puerto Rico after it had attacked a farmer's chickens. Amongst all this was a paper with the headline: 'Global debt crisis worsening?' written across it.

"Oh dear," Monger muttered to himself as he began to read the paper. "Well…thank God they're not leaving it to the last mi-"

BANG! The door to his office flew open, making Monger jump, causing him to throw his coffee across the floor, along with the cup, which smashed loudly as it flew out of his hand to the floor. The paper flew across the desk, throwing the other reports off the desk to the floor. Standing in the doorway was Gerald, though this time his face was red from exhaustion and sweat was dripping down his forehead and he was breathing heavily.

"What the…?" Monger blurted out, shocked and angry. "Gerald, what in God's name is wrong with you!" he demanded. "Look what you made me do!"

"G-g-general," he gasped. He took a deep breath and leaned against the door panel for a moment before he had managed to regain his breath and he stepped forward into the office up to Monger's desk. "W-we-you better…come and…see this," he said.

"See what?" Monger asked, confused.

"Come and look," Gerald breathed.

Confused, Monger got up and followed Gerald out of the office and down the corridor towards the left end of the T intersection of the corridor to a door at the end. They burst through it and ran through another corridor, which was shorter than the last and had windows along the sides, giving anyone walking down it a view of the large main chamber in which to access the monsters' rooms and many platforms moving from one part to another of the chamber and people that looked like ants from this height working. At the end of the corridor was another door which opened automatically for the two, revealing a large circular shaped room, which was at the top of the tower in the middle of the main chamber, with large windows along the walls, giving a view of the chamber to the workers inside. In the middle of the room was a large cylindrical shaped tube that went down through the tower to the bottom of it. Around the room, scientists and soldiers and workers were busy at work, though some were working at a busier pace than usual as if they were alarmed about something.

"Over here, sir," Gerald said to Monger, leading him over to a computer panel with a large screen in the middle of it along the wall on the left side of the room.

"What is it you have to show me, Gerald?" Monger asked.

"Well, sir," Gerald began, typing in a code on the control panel that was connected to the computer panel screen. "D'you remember yesterday when we found that comet on the computer screen in the monster's lounge?" he asked. Monger nodded. "Well…we thought it would pass through in the usual orbital pattern a comet does," he finished typing in the code and the computer screen lit up to life. Gerald looked up at Monger worryingly. "We were wrong," he said.

Monger went a little wide-eyed. "What do you mean?" he asked in a concerned voice.

Gerald responded by pointing at the computer screen as the overview of the solar system appeared on it again. Gerald pressed a button the control panel. A green line in a kind of arc shape appeared on it, the same one Monger had seen yesterday. It was still the same, stopping right in between Jupiter and Saturn.

"This is the comet's arc when we saw it yesterday," he explained. He pressed the button several times, each time the green line continuing in It's ark between the planets and away towards the edge of the solar system.

It was when he had pressed it five times that Monger saw a change. The green line, as it was about to go past Mars, had suddenly made a U turn and moved almost back the way it had come, only this time it was coming towards Earth.

"What the Hell?" he said, aghast.

"That was it last night," Gerald said to Monger. He pressed the button again and it had moved even closer, a lot closer. "And this was it this morning when we checked about an hour ago, and there's no doubt It's been moving closer,"

Monger stared wide-eyed at the screen. The green line was now almost three quarters of the way between Mars and Earth. It must have been about 20,000, maybe 22,000 or 23,000 miles from Earth, way closer than the Earth's moon and this was an hour ago. This thing must be a lot closer now, but really stuck out in his mind was that there was almost no way this could be a meteorite.

"Have you been able to identify this thing?" he asked.

"No, sir," Gerald replied. "Our satellites have been unable to pick this thing up, but…if it is a comet, we have estimated a time of impact then we have estimated that a time of impact could be later on today, but…but we are having doubts,"

"So am I," Monger replied. "I don't think this is a meteorite. This has to be something else,"

"That's what we think, sir, but what exactly we don't know. We'll just have to wait until later on today when we can lock onto it with our satellites and then we can finally report back to you,"

"Excuse me, sir," a young worker, of about twenty three with black hair and dressed in a kind of white bodysuit all workers had to wear in the base, walked over. "Sorry, general, but you have a phone call from the president,"

Monger and Gerald looked at each other for a moment, their minds thinking of the same thing, before he nodded.

"Alright, thanks," he replied and followed the worker over to another control panel on the other side of the room.

"Says It's urgent," the worker said. Monger took the phone and held it up near his ear.

"Hey, Mr President," he said. A pause as the president began to speak. "Yeah, we've picked it up as well. We don't know what it is," another pause for a few moments. When he finished speaking, Monger went a little wide-eyed. "What you mean…?" he said, quickly trailing off. After another pause for about two seconds, he slammed his hand onto his forehead, going wide-eyed and exhaling in shock. "Good Lord,"

He almost fell over. Gerald, who had heard him speaking, looked over with worry. By the tone of his voice, this was serious and no doubt about this thing as well.

"Right, Mr President, I'm on my way," Monger said. "Yes, sir," he added and he put the phone down. "Oh, God!" he breathed, rubbing his hand down his face.

"Is everything alright, general?" Gerald asked him as he walked over.

"I wish," he replied lowly. "I've just heard from the president. This has just been upgraded to a cautious level in the Pentagon," he paused for a moment, looking around slightly as if he was lost. "I gotta go," he said to Gerald and he walked quickly over to the corridor, the door opening automatically for him.

Gerald watched him go with a worried expression on his face and looked back at the computer screen. He walked back over to it and pressed the button again. The green line shot forward a little more. Now it was a bit closer, probably about 14,000 miles above Earth and closing.

"I hope we find out what this thing is soon," he muttered under his breath.