You know that feeling you get when you try to stop a demon from being summoned but accidentally help summon it? It definitely takes the shine off your scales.

When Az climbed through the flowstone, most monsters in the crowd thought it was part of the show. They cheered at the battle to come. When Az started smashing holes in the walls of the battle arena, the cheers turned to screams. After that, everything was a mess.

As Az stomped around the arena, smashing the walls and tearing down pillars, monsters of all sizes scrambled for the exits.

We watched the destruction unfold through the window overlooking the arena. I was mad, but mostly at myself. Rufus was the Codex. He wasn’t planning to summon the demon. He was trying to stop the demon from being summoned.

“Why didn’t you just warn the mayor?” I said.

“I did!” Rufus snapped. “I told him over and over again. Do you think he’d listen to me? No way! What did I know? I’m just a dumb goblin.”

“A goblin who knows his history,” Tank said.

“Exactly,” Rufus said. He stomped away from the window and picked up the piece of equipment I had knocked from his hands when I tackled him. He turned it over, checking it for damage. “No one cares about history, so we are doomed to repeat it. Our ancestors used the flowstones to banish the demons. Now, all the tech-loving monsters don’t even believe flowstones are real!”

“I believe they are real,” I said.

Rufus looked up from the circuit board.

“It’s a little late,” he said. “I invented the Codex to get the mayor’s attention. Even then, the big oaf wouldn’t listen. He was more interested in building a big shiny sports stadium with SlurpCo’s money.”

Slurp Stadium was no longer shiny. Az the demon was seeing to that. Another crash of falling rocks echoed across the stadium.

Tank was right. In the whole stadium, there wasn’t a single Slick City police officer. It was as if Detective Hordish’s whole department had decided to take a bathroom break. Talk about bad timing.

Rufus laughed at Tank’s question. He worked at the circuit board with a pair of small pliers, trying to bend it back into shape.

“The police aren’t even allowed in the stadium,” he said. “SlurpCo insisted its own bots run security for these events.”

“That’s why we couldn’t find them!” I said.

“Why would the police agree to being kept out of the stadium?” Aleetha said.

“They didn’t,” Rufus said. “Mayor Grimlock ordered them to stay out.”

Aleetha wasn’t convinced. “Why would he do that?”

“Because Sanzin from SlurpCo told him to,” Rufus said. “Mayor Grimlock does whatever that troll tells him to.”

“If the SlurpCo security bots are in charge, why aren’t they stopping Az?” I said.

Rufus shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe they’re waiting for orders?”

“We don’t have time to wait,” I said. “We have to do something.”

I had no idea what that something should be, but I knew it had to be done.

“I am doing something,” Rufus said. “I’m learning that you broke my remote bot compiler when you tackled me.”

“Remote what?” I said.

Rufus held up a twisted circuit board with crooked wires dangling off one side.

“The remote bot compiler. It was the key to stopping Az from eating Slick City. Then you decided to jump on me like we were playing mudball.” He tossed the compiler to the ground. “Now it will make a fine paperweight.”

I didn’t think I could feel any worse. Slick City was going to be destroyed, and it was all my fault. I wanted to jump through the flowstone and never come back.

“It’s hopeless,” I said.

“Pretty much,” Rufus said.

“That doesn’t mean we stop trying.” Aleetha stood by the window, watching as Az smashed the stadium below.

“It’s no use. Once Az is out of the stadium, he’ll tear up Slick City,” I said. “It will take all the wizards in the Shadow Tower to stop him. If they even can.”

“Or maybe just a few brave monsters,” Rufus said.

“What are you talking about?” I said.

“You destroyed the remote bot compiler, but that doesn’t mean you can’t compile the bots manually.”

“Me?” I said. “I don’t even know what any of that means.”

“You don’t have to,” Rufus said. “You just have to find that Rawlins brat and his battle bot. Inside that machine is the manual bot compiler. Turn it on and we have a chance.”

Tank’s ears perked up at the mention of Rizzo Rawlins.

“Why does Rizzo have a manual bot compiler in his battle bot?” she said.

“He doesn’t know that’s what he has.” Rufus’s tail wagged back and forth faster than a sugared-up zip lizard. “The switch is buried inside the battle-bot processor unit the Codex gave him.”

“The one he fished from the garbage earlier this week?” Tank said.

“The very one,” Rufus said.

“I knew Rizzo was cheating!” I said.

I jumped to high-five Tank’s waiting hand. Finally, we had proof that Rizzo had the Codex’s processor in his battle bot. Another roar from Az erupted from the arena floor and cut our celebration short.

More screams from fleeing monsters followed the roar, but I wasn’t scared anymore. We were right about Rizzo cheating. We had tracked down the Codex. If the cops and SlurpCo guards weren’t going to stop the demon, then we would do that too. Somehow.

“All right, I’ll do it,” I said. “Tell us what we have to do.”

Rufus laid out his plan. We didn’t like any of it. Not a single word.

But it didn’t matter what we thought. If we wanted to save Slick City, we were going to have to get real close to Az the demon.

We crept along the stadium seats, high above Az and his wall smashing.

“He’s nearly through the wall,” Tank said. “If we don’t get down to the arena floor soon, we’ll never stop him from destroying the city.”

“The stairs aren’t far,” Aleetha said. “Keep moving.”

Ahead of us, a narrow set of stairs ran all the way down to the front-row seats. The plan was to hurry down those, hop over the fence, and save the day. It was a little light on details, but it’s hard to plan when there’s a demon hammering the walls around you.

The stadium shook with another smash from Az. Only a few more strikes and he would be through that wall and free to take the carnage on the road. All the action was down on the arena floor, but something small and shiny above us caught my attention.