Everything hurt. Getting smashed and thrown through the air by a demon will do that to you, I guess.

I crash-landed on the arena floor and lay there for what felt like a very long time. Eventually, things came into focus.

The floor was covered in busted battle-bot parts and smashed pieces of the stadium. There was no sign of Tank or Aleetha. My scales burned at the thought of them being under one of those piles of stone. I wanted to run and search for them, but Az had beaten me to it. The demon picked through the rubble near the spot he had just smashed. He was looking for survivors, but he wasn’t planning on kissing their boo-boos better. If Tank and Aleetha were under that pile, I had to find another way to help them.

Not far from my landing spot lay the crushed frame of the Rawlins Reaper. Rizzo’s battle bot had not survived Az’s attack. Next to the destroyed battle bot lay an equally crushed snarkdog vendor’s cart. The cart’s colorful awning was spread across the ground like a picnic blanket. A furry and familiar tail stuck out from under the awning.

I scrambled to my feet and ran for the cart. All the pain from my fall vanished at the opportunity lying in front of me. I threw back the awning.

“Get out from under there, Rizzo,” I said.

The kobold jumped when he saw me.

“Is it gone? Don’t let it get me!” Rizzo’s fur stood on end, and his snout was covered in tears.

The big bully was crying. Normally, I’d take a bit of pleasure in this, as payback for all the noogies, wedgies and scale-scrapes he had given me. Right now, there wasn’t time. I got down to business.

“Open your bot, Rizzo. I need to see what’s underneath.”

Even with the tears, the whimpering and the demon smashing up the place, Rizzo was defiant.

“No way, Fizzle!” he barked. “That’s my bot. Only I can open it. Besides, I ain’t running any illegal equipment.”

Do bullies ever take a day off? Something inside me snapped. Maybe it was the guardian in the library, or my flying off Mayor Grimlock’s balcony on Tank’s spybot. Or maybe it was the fact that Tank and Aleetha could be smushed for all I knew. Whatever it was, I’d had enough of schoolyard bullies like Rizzo Rawlins.

I grabbed Rizzo by his tail and dragged him out from under the awning.

“Listen here, Rizzo,” I snarled. “I know you took equipment from the Codex. I know that equipment is inside this battle bot. I know it makes your bot move faster than any other bot in the competition. I know you cheated. But I also know that doesn’t matter anymore. What matters is that we stop that demon. Open this battle bot. Right now!”

Rizzo gulped. His ears flattened against his head.

“Okay, Fizz. Calm down. You only had to ask.”

He pawed his access code into the bot’s case. A hatch popped open with a faint hiss to reveal the circuitry underneath. I didn’t understand half of it, but it looked impressive.

I searched the wires and circuits for the button Rufus had told me about. I found it quickly. The manual bot compiler. I had no idea what it did. But Rufus insisted it was our only chance, and I wasn’t too picky at this point.

“What are you doing?” Rizzo whined.

“I’m saving your furry behind.”

I reached out to press the button.

And was yanked back by my tail.

“Finish him!” Sanzin shouted.

Immediately, Az stopped searching the rubble and turned to face me. The demon responded to Sanzin’s command and stomped closer. The arena shook with every step.

“I will enjoy watching you play with my demon,” Sanzin called down from the safety of the SlurpCo box seats. “But don’t take too long. I still have to help Mayor Grimlock spin this ‘demon on a rampage’ disaster into a triumph for rebuilding Slick City. With help from the SlurpCo construction company, of course.”

“You’re destroying Slick City just so your construction company can rebuild it?” I struggled against the security bot’s tight grip, but it was no use.

“Pretty much,” Sanzin said. “And there’s the whole ‘having a demon at your command’ thing. That will come in handy, when SlurpCo Industries expands beyond Slick City.”

With Az only a few demon steps away, the security bot let me go and hurried away to safety. The demon stomped closer. He raised one massive foot into the air above me. I scrambled away just as the foot smashed into the spot where I had stood only a second before. The ground exploded in a spray of rock and battle-bot pieces. I flew with them. For the second time in the longest day of my life, I crashed to the ground with a painful splat.

Az might be a good smasher and stomper, but he had terrible eyesight. After crushing the ground into rock salad, the demon stomped around the arena looking for me. He tossed aside broken chunks of stadium and bent battle-bot pieces as he looked for his little goblin playmate.

Az was playing the fist-smashing game, but I was playing hide-and-seek. And I was a good hider. When you’re the size of a toadstool and have a bully like Rizzo Rawlins for a classmate, hiding becomes one of those must-have skills. The dented chest piece of a battle bot kept me out of sight and gave me time to think.

This was all Rizzo’s fault. If that stubborn kobold hadn’t argued with me, I would have had plenty of time to press the manual bot-compiler button before Sanzin’s security bots nabbed me.

I wished Tank and Aleetha were with me. I hadn’t seen them since Az’s first fist-smash into the stadium seats. Were they under one of the piles of rubble? My scales tightened at the thought of them injured or worse. My whole body ached from my falls.

It was over. I was alone, trapped and hunted by a near-sighted but big-fisted demon. It was no use. I might as well give myself up and hope that Sanzin would just let me go back home. He could destroy Slick City if he wanted to. What did I care? Without my friends, the city meant nothing to me.

I peered out from under the dented chest piece. I couldn’t see Az, but I could see the Rawlins Reaper lying on the ground not too far away. The bot’s case had cracked open. The manual bot-compiler button was visible, screaming to be pushed.

The button also screamed of hope. Hope that Rufus’s plan might work. Hope that Az could be stopped by the Codex’s Army.

I shook aside my own misery and ran for Reaper.

The ground flew under my feet. I had never moved so fast. Visions of me trying out for the track team ran through my head. Weird, I know. But I had been knocked around a lot, so I blamed it on that. The button was within reach. Maybe I could do this. I dove through the air, my arm outstretched, ready to hit the bot-compiler button.

If I hadn’t actually been there, dangling by my tail above that no-good kobold, I wouldn’t have believed what I saw.

Rizzo Rawlins ran through the legs of the startled demon and into the middle of the arena.

“What are you doing?” I shouted.

“The thing you couldn’t do, Fizzle!”

The kobold dove onto his busted battle bot and slammed his paw down on the bot-compiler button.

At first nothing happened. Then everything happened at once.

Pieces of Rizzo’s broken battle bot began to glow bright purple. The glowing pieces floated into the air. So did the pieces of the Reaper’s former opponent, the snake-head bot. Energy pulsed between the pieces of the broken battle bots. They floated closer and snapped together with a satisfying click.

More battle bot pieces floated into the arena, as if they were pulled by a powerful magnet. Each piece had the same purple glow and drifted toward the Reaper’s chest piece. I recognized part of the Troll Patrol’s Thrasher as it tumbled past and snapped onto the Reaper.

Az the demon was as confused as I was. Even Sanzin, filled with bravado only seconds earlier, was stunned into silence. Battle bots from every competitor flew into the arena, all zooming to the same spot: the manual compiler button on Rizzo’s battle bot. The battle bot pieces locked together in a rumble of crackly code. Was this the Codex’s plan?