Cabinet Office Briefing Room A (also known as COBRA), Whitehall in London
"Whilst we are in contact with the regional incident command centres, we're getting largely garbled and incomplete information. A consistent theme with each command centre is that they're critically understaffed."

"Surely that's something that protocol accounts for in national emergencies, though?"

"Yes, Prime Minister, but the nature of this particular crisis has resulted in key decision-makers taking a more… hands on approach than they normally would have."

"You're saying that they've transformed too?"

"Absolutely. In fact, our analysts are saying that their psychological profiles make them the most likely to transform. Which, frankly, is making a more positive impact than they would have made in the command centres – no matter how inconvenient it is for us. Although we can't understate the role that the public is playing in this too."

"How much more positive?"

"It's perhaps easier if I show you…" The dozen or so monitors at the end of the table flicker to show multi-screened videos.

"In Liverpool, you can clearly see Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is making a significant impact against what we think is Smaug. Aided by Bananaman and the BFG."

The Prime Minister was privately impressed that the Home Secretary hadn't so much as smirked so far. "The BFG?"

"Big Friendly Giant, sir. From the Roald Dahl books?"

"Oh, yes. Carry on."

"We've identified Aslan, Danger Mouse and Dennis the Menace defending Bristol from Daleks. Manchester has reports of an Orangutan atop a luggage chest with hundreds of legs fighting Grendel by John Rylands Library. And the King has taken to battle in London."

"The King? But he should have been taken to Windsor Castle by now!"

"Not at all, sir. He's rallied the Chelsea Pensioners with what we believe to be Excalibur and has led them all out in shining armour and chargers against something with tentacles in Hyde Park. The rest of London have taken up wands, lightsabres or laser guns of some kind."

"What about the rest of the Royal family? Are they safe and under guard, at least?"

No-one spoke for a moment until an Air Marshal coughed and quietly said, "In point of fact, the Prince of Wales was last seen riding a dragon somewhere over North Wales."

The Prime Minister rubbed his eyes. "A Welsh dragon, no doubt?"

"…Yes, sir."

"Carry on, then. Anywhere else of note?"

"Nottingham has been putting up an especially spirited defence, due to the spontaneous arrival of several legions of giant super-soldiers in power armour, chanting 'For the Emperor'."

"Those would be Space Marines, sir. Adeptus Astartes account for most of the Army as well," chimed in the VCDS, a general with a double-barrelled name. "Being the most professionally trained army in the world, our lads have thought of themselves as such since at least the early-nineties."

"…Quite," added the CDS, a gaunt-looking admiral. "We have a similar situation with the Navy. Drake's drum has reportedly been sounded, and amongst other things, the Mary Rose has somehow put herself to sea."

"Other things?" the Prime Minister prompted.

"Every ship that ever sailed under the White Ensign has reappeared, sir. All of them. We also appear to have acquired Nessie and a jaunty Yellow Submarine in our impromptu armada. I'm getting more reports than we can easily process, but I understand that we've already put down Cthulu in short order."

"Air Marshal? I expect you have something to add to this, with what your branch is doing to defend the skies?"

"Oh, certainly, sir," she said. "Although we've rather lost track of which aircraft are our own by this point."

The Prime Minister was aghast. "How on earth can you lose track of the RAF?"

"Well, didn't you ever want to fly a Spitfire when you were a lad, sir? Or a spaceship? Or watched Operation Black Buck and want to be in a Vulcan Bomber? I know we don't have the centuries of history that our sister services have, but the RAF has entered a sorted of mythology in British culture, sir, and today it's come to the fore."

She tapped at her laptop and the images on the monitors switched to fleets upon fleets of assorted planes swooping through the sky, engaging monsters and nightmarish aircraft in do-or-die dogfights.

"At a rough tally, the RAF has been augmented with five or six thousand Spitfires and Hawker Hurricanes, several dozen Avro Vulcans, two to three hundred Lancaster Bombers, ten-thousand X-Wings (from those Star Wars movies, sir), and seven Sopwith Camels. According to the radio chatter, Prince William has taken command."

"With his dragon."

"With his dragon, yes sir. To be honest, from a strategic point of view, there's not much we could tell them to do different. They've got the situation well in hand."

The Prime Minister wiped a hand over his face and took a moment to gather himself. "So, would I be right in saying that in Britain's darkest hour – when all our collective nightmares have come to our proverbial doorstep – the British Government is more or less redundant because the public is already taking care of it? What about disaster relief? We're at least being seen to sort out the casualties and damaged buildings, yes?"

A nameless advisor cleared their throat and changed one of the monitors to show the relief efforts in Glasgow. The Prime Minister leaned forward.

"I must say, Thunderbird 2 is rather bigger than I thought it'd be."

Glossary:

CDS - Chief of Defence Staff, the senior-most uniformed military advisor to the government and professional head of the armed forces.

VCDS - Vice Chief of Defence Staff, the CDS' deputy - always from a different branch of the armed forces.

RAF - Royal Air Force

Prime Minister - Head of government for the United Kingdom. They used to be elected.