Considering the ABB had been constantly setting off explosions for days, none of us were particularly surprised by something suddenly blowing up. Or if someone was, they got over it pretty quick.

  Everyone was moving in different directions. Bitch basically charged ahead like originally planned, but Newter decided to grab Labyrinth and run off while Sundancer ducked further back into the alley we came from.

  That basically left me and Skitter where we started and she didn’t need to move to see what was going on. Although there was still the other groups…

  “Kaiser, what the hell just happened.” I demanded through the comms spell, and got nothing back. He was either ignoring me or had disconnected the spell entirely once he was out of sight. Arrogant prick! “Did anyone see what happened?!”

  “Initial explosion was from inside the warehouse, we can see debris shifting from here so something is alive down there and possibly fighting.” Coil’s sniper team reported. “Wait one – Oni Lee spotted. Firing.”

  A gunshot rang out and a moment later the sniper confirmed a hit followed by a curse. Guess that meant the Oni Lee that was hit was a clone.

  Obviously we weren’t getting lucky about anything tonight.

  “Lung’s also here.” Skitter said, dropping her hand away from the side of her head as a magic circle faded into inactivity. “Bitch saw him fighting Kaiser, Menja, Fenja, and an unknown in red and white causing explosions fighting but couldn’t get closer because Kaiser has blades blocking off some areas.”

  Of course he did.

  “Okay, have her pull back and regroup here.” I ordered. “Oni Lee is probably still here so she shouldn’t be on her own. I’ll join the fight with Lung, I want the rest of you to deal with Lee if you can.”

  Skitter looked like she still wanted to argue, but I didn’t have time for a long discussion right now. My wings snapped out and I took to the sky.

  The roof of the warehouse had collapsed during the explosion which gave me a pretty clear view of the three-way fight going on between the Nazis, rage dragon, and what looked like an armoured man with drills for hands.

  Instantly I felt a surge of irritation at the sight of the newcomer.

  I couldn’t remember the name off the top of my head, but from the design I could tell he was obviously another Robot Master.

  Which meant fucking Dr Wily was poking his nose into things. And since his Robot Master was fighting Kaiser’s group just as much as Lung, he probably wasn’t joining in on the truce.

  “Ready Ddraig?” I asked, Boosted gear glowing on my arm as I triggered the first boost.

  ‘Always, partner. Let’s go show this ‘Lung’ what a real dragon looks like.’ The Dragon in my soul growled.

  I folded my wings and planned to drop straight down on top of the Asian gang leader, but he either sensed me coming or moved by intuition and sidestepped enough that I ended up pulverising the concrete he had been standing on instead of his spine. My followup caught him in the gut though, and all twelve feet of him were suddenly crashing through the thin walls of a warehouse office.

  “Your help isn’t needed, Lucifer. Stand aside.”

  I could only sigh at Kaiser’s demand. It was like dealing with some entitled rich kid every time he spoke. Oh, wait. “Yeah? Didn’t look that way to me. Who’s your friend?”

  “An annoyance. Nothing more.”

  “Name’s Crashman.” Wily’s robot interjected with a sharp grin. “Demolitions extraordinaire and the one in charge of turning this building and everything in it into scrap.” He raised one of his drills at Kaiser. “Stick around and enjoy the fireworks!”

  Kaiser was already raising a wall of metal in front of himself and his bodyguards, so they weren’t hurt when Crashman’s drill detached from his wrist and shot out like an 80’s era-style rocket punch, or from the following explosion when the drill detonated.

  Unfortunately, that solidly put the Robot Master in the ‘enemy’ category for me thanks to the truce.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  …theoretically anyway. Kaiser already told me my help wasn’t needed. So I’d focus on Lun–

  My thoughts crashed to a halt as another drill shaped bomb planted itself at my feet. My eyes snapped over to Crashman, who still had the same unmoving sharp grin on his face, and I remembered what he said his orders were.

  Scrap everything inside the building…

  WILY YOU INCOMPETENT FU–!!!

  -o-

  Skitter flinched a little as two back-to-back explosions went off in the warehouse and the few bugs she had managed to attach to Lucifer died.

  She didn’t really know how to feel about that.

  On the one hand, Lucifer was a villain. Certainly not the worst the Bay had to offer, but a villain that had been willing to stretch the unwritten rules almost to the breaking point trying to potentially recruit Skitter away from the Undersiders if what Tattletale’s take on the ‘coincidental’ run in at the mall was true.

  The only reason she wasn’t panicking about a villain knowing her name and face was the fact Lucifer was apparently more adamant about upholding the Rules than most Capes. If Skitter never hinted at being a Cape as Taylor, the Peerage would give her space.

  On the other, they were currently allies. One of their heaviest hitters going down so early in the fight wasn’t a good thing. Especially since Sundancer kept refusing to actually use her power despite the duplicating assassin trying to kill them all.

  Skitter idly touched the cracked lens in her mask where Oni Lee had hit it with a throwing knife.

  Besides that, Rias and her group had been kinda okay, even if they were probably acting a bit to get her guard down. Skitter didn’t want any of them dead.

  “Bitch, you okay?”

  “Fucker stabbed me in the arm!”

  If that was all they walked away with it would be a blessing, Skitter thought, looking at the ruined eye of Brutus’s monster dog form.

  Shit, was he going to be okay?

  Skitter spread her swarm out in a large cloud around them so if Oni Lee made another appearance nearby she would know.

  It was the only thing that let her dodge what was probably another throwing knife to the back when he teleported behind them by diving to the side. She commanded the bugs that alerted her to his presence to converge and start biting and stinging.

  Oni Lee teleported away again before too many could swarm him, but Skitter noticed something odd when more bugs popped into existence nearby, close to where Sundancer, Newter, and Labyrinth were. And then she felt the original bugs perish as they exploded into ash.

  Oni Lee was taking her bugs with him when he teleported.

  She could track his movements!

  Before she could make a move though, streams of fire and lightning lit up the increasingly mangled ruins of the warehouse.

  It seemed Lucifer was still alive after all, and the fight with Lung was escalating. She couldn’t do much about that until Oni Lee was dealt with though.

  “Bitch! Over here!”

  -o-

  ‘You okay, partner?’ Ddraig asked as I dragged myself out of a pile of rubble. Not only had the Crashbomb sent me through a wall, the wall collapsed on top of me.

  Not going to lie, I was getting pretty pissed off at this whole mess.

  Kaiser had turned a simple, straightforward raid into a clusterfuck. Coil was fucking me and my peerage over in the background. Lung was just here. And to top it all off Wily not only decided to jump in and try to deal with things on his own, but was also either intentionally attacking us all or was so bad at programming his robots we were all valid targets for being ‘in the warehouse’!

  “Just peachy.” I snarled back as I glared over to the ongoing three way fight.

  Fenja and Menja were struggling to deal with an almost fifteen foot Lung despite being around eighteen feet tall themselves. I saw the one with the sword and shield move to block Lung from moving while the one with the spear jabbed at him from behind only for both of them to fall back when Lung hosed them down with a blast of fire. The shield blocked it long enough for them for Kaiser to try spearing Lung through the chest with a lance of metal that neither Nazi twin were hurt, but that was a one off trick considering the shield was glowing a dull red from the heat and quickly discarded.

  Kaiser himself was mostly stuck holding off Crashman. His projected metal either trying to trap or stab the Robot Master, but was almost always blown away before it could get close enough.

  As for Crashman…

  He was basically just bombing the whole area without regard for anyone or anything.

  Target number one acquired then.

  [Boost!]

  I burst back towards the fight in a flash, just in time to grab one of Crashman’s bombs an instant after it launched from his arm. I was glad I used my left hand though, because the drill on it almost tore through my gauntlet even with four boosts stacked on me. I didn’t want to see what it would do to my armored hand.

  Spinning a bit to bleed off its momentum, I flipped the drill around and stabbed it towards his chest.

  My plan was to take Crashman out as quickly as possible, but I guess Wily was better at combat programming than he was at general intelligence because Crashman was able to get his other arm up in front of his torso so he was only down an arm instead of destroyed.

  The crash bomb embedded halfway through his forearm didn’t detonate either, so there was either a safety feature preventing it from going off too close to the Robot Master, or Crashman could disarm them if he wanted.

  He still had a functioning weapon in his other arm though.

  I pushed the newly replaced drill away with my gauntlet and got ready to blast the Robot Master with a lightning spell. He wasn’t Elecman so it should be more—

  Once again I was interrupted. This time it was by one of the valkyrie twins crashing into both of us before I could fire off my spell. I winced as not only did one of Crashman’s drills jab me in the leg as we went tumbling, but the giant that had been thrown into us also ended up accidentally crushing me at one point.

  “Get off me.” I grumbled as I tried shoving her stupid, poorly designed boobplate out of my face.

  “Nessa, move!”

  The other valkyrie’s shout wasn’t for me, but it gave me enough warning to see what she was yelling about. Lung had decided to chase after the twin he threw and was maybe two seconds from bowling over us in a rush of fire and scales.

  Well let’s see how he liked a face full of lightning!

  The spell circle formed and fired maybe a half second after Lung sent another gout of flame at us. Fire and electricity combined and through a weird interaction of parahuman generated fire and demonic magic I didn’t understand, exploded upward.

  …that was kinda cool.

  [Boost!]

  I shook my head as another powerup surged through me. That was five total. More than enough to go head to head with Lung.

  I pushed off the ground and towards the increasingly scale covered Cape and threw a punch at his head. Scales shattered, blood flew, and teeth broke, but Lung barely staggered as he returned the hit. I brought up both arms to catch the backhand, causing a small boom where our limbs collided.

  I think I surprised him with that, honestly. Because his follow up was to tilt towards where he thought I would be smacked away, not to actually attack again. So I got a free hit in instead that sent the dragonman sprawling backwards.

  Got him!

  Lung was wide open and all I needed to do was zap him unconscious and then we won!

  So naturally, Kaiser fucked it up.

  A wall of blades shot up all around the fallen gang leader, pinning him to the floor and ‘coincidentally’ stopping me from getting closer.

  “Kaiser!”

  “I do not need your help dealing with this animal.”

  As blatantly incorrect as that statement was, I wasn’t the one to reply.

  “But you do need help in demolishing these shoddy structures!” Crashman announced his return to the fight, firing three of his crash bombs at the blade covered Lung. “Allow me to assist!”

  “Don’t you–!”

  The triple explosion did destroy Kaiser’s mound of blades. But all it seemed to do to Lung, when the Cape staggered out of the smoke and roared at us, was blow some holes in his scale armor.

  And make him mad.

  Couldn’t forget that part.