“Your predecessor was so pathetic I don’t even want to call it a fight. Try to do a bit better than him, okay?”

My taunt wiped the smirk off the Robot Master’s face. I apparently had his full attention since he had gone from looking down his nose at all of us to staring at me alone, a pretty intense glare on his face.

“You claim you fought someone with my glorious visage?” He snarled. “Impossible. I have no memory of someone like you.”

I shrugged. “Hey, if I went down in a single hit, I’d try to forget it too.”

Elecman bristled but looked to calm himself down. “I see, you merely fought a failed shadow of my glorious self and are fooling yourself that I am the same as that failed copy. Even so, I’m going to punish you for the heresy of attacking my divine form.”

“You’re just a bit of a narcissist, aren’t you?”

The whole time we were talking my Pawns were busy cleaning up the robotic minions still attacking the pinned down Protectorate heroes. Miss Militia and Shadow Stalker took their interference as a chance to pop up and take potshots of their own, bullets and crossbow bolts tearing through the disposable Metools and Sniper Joes. I did get a glimpse of Clockblocker and Aegis too. The former was going around tagging the tables they were using as cover, and probably the reason the yellow shots hadn’t torn them to pieces, while Aegis was clutching a nasty looking burn on his shoulder.

Considering the attack had started several minutes ago they were probably pretty tired from fighting what seemed like endless waves of robots with even more trickling in.

Sam, Alex, and Clover were heading their way though, so they should get a break soon. Maybe go and find what happened to Triumph.

But I pushed those thoughts out of my mind for a bit. I had the leader to deal with.

“Let’s see if you can back it up this time.”

I pointed my left hand at the Robot Master and fired off the same lightning spell that fried the first Elecman.

He didn’t even try to dodge.

“You expected this to take me down?” Elecman scoffed. “I’d be offended if it wasn’t just pathetic.” Unlike last time he didn’t seem to have any issue with absorbing the lightning even when I upped the power halfway through.

I probably should have taken that as a sign to switch things up, but the next thing I knew Elecman pointed a hand at me, there was a flash, and then I was half-buried in stuffed animals and broken shelving.

Ow.

Shoving the remains off of myself, I quickly got back to my feet and glared at Elecman.

The short interaction just now made me realize three things. One, Wily had obviously fixed the issue that caused Elecman to explode when absorbing too much electricity. Two, the Robot Master could dish out a lot more in one blast than I could. And finally, three, I had to make sure he didn’t target the girls with that kind of firepower because none of them could tank that last attack.

[BOOST!]

I flew across the destroyed store and shot towards the robot with the intention of either smashing him like a soda can or at least pushing him away from the others and then smashing him to pieces. But right before my fist connected with his face, Elecman unraveled into a stream of electricity and teleported out of the way.

Another flash of light at the corner of my vision had me twist midair and instinctually swat at whatever was heading my way with my left arm. An orb of electricity bounced off my gauntlet and blew out one of the overhead lights and made my fingers feel tingly.

“Hoh? Faster than I thought.” Elecman commented and vanished in another flash.

“Not fast enough though.” My head snapped towards the voice, my arm not far behind, only for Elecman to teleport once again.

A third flash.

I couldn’t react.

Something hit me in the back and I was sent flying once more. I caught a glimpse of red and crashed into it but this time instead of going through whatever it was, someone grunted and a pair of arms wrapped around me. I realized that someone had caught me midair.

“You okay?” Aegis grunted, not taking his eyes off of Elecman. Which was probably pretty useless since the Robot Master just revealed he could chain teleport.

“Should you be helping out a ‘Villain’?” I shot back.

“Hey, you aren’t the ones wreaking the mall.” There was a large crash and we both looked to see Clover, or Rook as I needed to remember to call her, had just thrown a Sniper Joe through a mall kiosk and utterly destroyed it.

“Well, you didn’t start it at least.” Aegis amended.

The teen hero flew the both of us behind the wall of tables I had seen him taking cover behind earlier and I was suddenly surrounded by even more heroes. That might have been concerning in any other situation, but right now it seemed we had truce going on.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

With that in mind I quickly went over what I knew about each of them and how they fought. The only adult of the group, Miss Militia, she had the ability to create mundane weapons out of some weird black green smoke, never needed to sleep, and had an eidetic memory. She generally fought from a distance thanks to her ability to create non-lethal bullets but was decent in close quarters as well. Aegis - who still hadn’t let go of me - could fly, had minor superstrength, and could adapt his biology. For instance if someone tried drowning him, he would start breathing through his skin or something. And from what I knew, only a hand to hand fighter. Clockblocker, another purely hand to hand combatant, had the ability to selectively ‘freeze’ objects he touched for a random amount of time. Anything he did turned immovable and impenetrable. And finally was Shadow Stalker. She could turn into a shadow state and phase between matter. Except for anything with electricity which caused her a lot of damage when in that state. It’s a good thing she fought with a handheld crossbow or she would’ve basically been a normal person considering who the enemy was.

It did make me wonder if she was using her normal tranquilizer bolts or if she had other options for situations like this. I did see her take out one of the minions earlier with one, but that was probably because they were super fragile. She probably only had a few left as well…

“Good job, Aegis.” Miss Militia’s voice pulled me out of my thoughts. “How’s your arm?”

“You know me, I’m good to go Ma’am.”

“I’ll say, you’ve been feeling me up since you caught me.” I ‘innocently’ added.

He really wasn’t. It was just the unfortunate angle he caught me at and the size of my…assets… that meant that he was cupping the left side of my chest rather than my ribs or under my arm.

And naturally the second I pointed it out, Aegis decided to squeeze down.

“Nngh!”

There were a lot of benefits about having the body of a devil. The incredible strength and power, magic, and functional immortality. Then there were moments like this where I wasn’t confident I wouldn’t sacrifice some of that just so certain areas weren’t so freaking sensitive!

Aegis probably couldn’t have dropped me faster if I had lit myself on fire.

“Ow!”

Right on the tailbone!

“Good one, dumbass.” Shadow Stalker’s acidic voice wasn’t pleasant to hear. “And you, did you seriously get off from him groping those stupid utters?”

I rolled my eyes at the younger teen. “Jealousy isn’t a good look on you.”

“What was that, bitch?!”

“Enough, Stalker.” Miss Militia put her foot down. “Lucifer, we appreciate the help of you and your…associates, I assume you will agree to a temporary truce?”

I guess the PRT wouldn’t be happy about three more capes joining up with the girl that embarrassed one of their biggest local heroes twice over. Militia certainly didn’t sound thrilled by it.

“Yeah, that’s fine. Just a heads up, Panacea and Glory Girl went to go help out with the civvies so if anyone’s injured they should go to the south exit.” I said, dusting myself off. “Let Rook, Knight, and Bishop know I told them to help you out and I’ll deal with Elecman over there.” I waved a finger at the Robot Master.

“Wait, is he seriously called Elecman?” Clockblocker commented.

“Are you one to talk?” Aegis asked from the side.

“Shush, no commentary from Mr Wandering-Hands.”

“You don’t want my help with the leader?” Miss Militia ignored the two boys. “And I can’t exactly just trust you to handle the situation by yourself. Even putting your legal status aside, it wouldn’t be a good look for us to leave a teenager to do everything while we run off to the sidelines. No matter how powerful she is.”

I noticed how she was only protesting her own exclusion for dealing with Elecman. She obviously didn’t want the Wards dealing with him either.

Still…

“Unless you’re going to start using a lot more firepower than what I’ve seen so far, you aren’t going to be much help.” I told her honestly. “And with him teleporting around I don’t think you want to risk missing a shot, especially because Triumph seems to be missing. So it’s better just to leave him to me. Besides, I still have some tricks up my sleeve.”

[Boost!]

“...”

She clearly didn’t like it, but she didn’t offer a better solution.

A quick countdown later, I vaulted over the little barricade they had set up and headed towards Elecman while the four heroes ran to assist my Pawns.

“All finished with your talk?” The Robot Master asked confidently, apparently having not moved since he sent me flying.

“Sorry, I would’ve been faster if I knew you were waiting for me.” I replied. “Though I didn’t expect you to be a polite one.”

“Hah, as if I needed to make a move. One of you or all of you, I’ll crush you all the same.” He stated arrogantly.

“Well, hope you don’t end up regretting it.”

[Boost!]

I didn’t try anything fancy. I blurred forward as fast as I could - so fast I destroyed my foothold - and reappeared right next to the black red and yellow robot ready to punch him into scrap. Nevertheless, he managed to teleport before I hit him again. I turned towards the second flash and fired off a mana bolt. I wasn’t expecting to hit him, but since that spell was the serious version of my training orbs and based on kinetic force, not electricity, Elecman would have to teleport again. There was a third flash as he teleported again and I repeated my tactic. I was already turning, searching for the point he reappear-

*ZAP!*

From behind?! But how-

“Just because I can teleport three times in a row doesn’t mean I have to…”

My wings flared and caught me midair. “Yeah?! Well I wasn’t thinking you would just tank a- oh, that had to have hurt.”

“Of course it did! You’re gonna pay for ruining my perfect visage!”

I hadn’t exactly aimed my spell but just like any feint, it had to actually look threatening to not be ignored. Unfortunately, I ignored the fact that Elecman was a robot and might not react to something the same way a human would. An organic would always react to something at their face or eyes, and usually try to avoid it, but the Robot Master had decided losing half of his face to my attack was worth getting his own shot in. Shiny silver metal stood in stark relief to the synthskin and materials of his helmet. An empty eye socket sparked with severed wires. And creepiest of all, the undamaged perfectly white human teeth gave the left side of his face a ghoulish grin.

And none of it slowed him down besides maybe the reduction in vision.

Elecman fired off another attack and immediately teleported and soon the both of us were locked in a vicious game of tag where he tried to zap me and flash away from my attacks while I tried to predict where he would end up and blast him before he could escape.

We were actually decently matched because even with my boosts, I wasn’t at the speed of lightning and that meant I ended up getting maybe one hit in for every ten he did, but I did have one major advantage that meant a battle of attrition would end in victory.

Elecman couldn’t damage me enough.

Yes, at the beginning his blasts could knock me around but even then they didn’t do much more than hurt a lot. The more I boosted, the less they could even do that much. But for every glancing blow on Elecman strips of steel or whatever metal he was made of were torn off his body along with his costume until there wasn’t much left behind but the metal underneath.

And now I was up to six boosts. It was just a question of how long it took before the robot slipped up that one time and ended the fight.

Unless I decided to push things a little.

[EXPLOSION!]

The world seemed to crawl to a halt and I could practically see the process the next time Elecman reformed from his lightning teleport, yellow bolts expanding out into his silhouette and eventually reforming.

And then I cut him in half with the flat of my hand.

[Reset!]

I hunched over as the strain hit me all at once, but that wasn’t enough to keep the excited smile off my face. That was it. Elecman was done.

“Gue-whew-guess that’s- that’s my win, huh?” I gasped. “Again.”

“Fool.” The shattered remains of the robot hardly resembled his previous appearance. His voice even had mechanical undertones slipping through. “Did you really believe I couldn’t have escaped whenever I wanted? Dr Wily wanted you interferers delayed as long as possible. He has already escaped and you have no chance of catching him! All thanks to my glorious efforts!”

I rolled my eyes. “That sounds like A, not my problem and B, you shifting goalposts. Mad you lost, tincan?”

There wasn’t enough left of Elecman’s face working for him to scowl, but his remaining eye narrowed into a glare. “Just you wait. This body was barely suitable for containing a fraction of my splendor. The next time we meet I will show you how far beneath me you really are.”

There was a spark, a twitch, and then both halves of his body self-destructed.

I waved away the resulting smoke with a cough and turned towards where my girls and the heroes had run off. They should be done with the minions by now right?