I was in my hiding spot. Waiting. I was killing time by watching an old children’s cartoon about the intrepid adventures of a group of babies and toddlers. The art style was a bit… ‘unique’, but the story was usually pretty charming.

The leader-baby’s mean older cousin was just walking in to announce yet again that the babies were in fact “stupid babies” when I noticed something out of place. Using my mental and magical senses, I could perceive a group moving into the action area while wearing strange equipment.

It was magitech. Constructed and enchanted for stealth. The equipment rendered the group invisible to the naked eye and the sensors that the city’s law enforcement had set up in the area.

After dithering over whether to let it pass or call it in, I decided to call it in. Patching myself into the radio network that the heroes and the local Prospero Police Department had set up.

“Hey, you might want to be extra careful out there, guys. I’m seeing some people sneaking in some strange things.”

“It’s fine.” said the slightly raspy voice of Sly Cheshire.

“We’ve got this. People are always bringing strange things in. No offense, but we know what we’re doing.” said Math Moth.

I couldn’t help frowning, wondering if I hadn’t gotten my point across.

“Are you sure, because this looks like it might be a third-...”

“It’s fine. Not to be rude, but we kind of need the channel clear in case something happens.” said Sly Cheshire.

“...Very well.” I said. Extracting myself from the network and returning to my show with a shrug.

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Gilbert Cunningham was a former member of the Inoue family’s Yuro Gang. The Inoue family’s main force in the criminal world.

He grew up rough. Fell in with some bad friends. He ran with a low-level group of hoodlums before joining the Yuro gang. Then after ten years of diligent work and keeping his head down, he was promoted into the Akarui Group, the clan’s forces in the gray industry.

The Akarui senior members were known to the world as Inoue Corp. If everything that was going down tonight happened as planned, then Inoue Corp would soon be able to step out of the underground into the world of light.

This meant that if everything happened as planned Gilbert would be in line for a moderately cushy gig as a salaryman in a legitimate company.

Thus as he and five others slipped into the warehouse district under the cover of night, he couldn’t help wondering what the hell he was doing there. He was very clear that everything he was about to do was against his own interests.

Unfortunately, that was the nature of the life he was living in. He’d sworn a magically binding oath to follow the clan’s orders on pain of death. So if he didn’t want to die he had to come out here. Wandering through streets covered in glowing mist.

The oath that stole away his will had made him into a pawn in the Inoue Clan’s intra-family drama.

With his heart filled with regrets and countless grievances, all poor Gilbert and all his fellows in stealth-armor could say about their current situation was that this was what happened when the right hand and the left hand disregarded each other.

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Two fleets of ten cars filed into a massive warehouse. Parking parallel to each in twin lines of gleaming black.

From each fleet emerged roughly thirty men. With the drivers remaining in the cars in case the groups needed to make a quick getaway.

The last people to alight from their vehicles were the four to five representatives. Two from the Albani family, three from the Inoue Clan.

Four out of the five of the gray industry gangsters eyed their counterparts. Their gazes were calculating. Their expressions were full of pride and disdain. The men behind them stood stock still like soldiers. Emanating a quietly oppressive energy as they gathered together to stare down their opposition.

Henrietta Albani tilted her chin upwards to gaze at the full breadth of the warehouse she was standing in. She turned her attention to her counterpart Rokuro Inoue and nodded in greeting.

“Good evening, Mr. Inoue. I hope I find you in good health.” said Henrietta.

“I am well, thank you. And a good evening to you as well, Ms. Albani.”

“I do hope you’ve brought the materials that were discussed..” said Henrietta.

“Yes. I have indeed. I hope you’ve brought the agreed-upon payment.” said Rokuro.

The two pointedly ignored the aids who stood by the side. The two younger men making faces at one another as if daring the other to start something. Their youthful impetuousness barely held at bay by a sensible understanding that neither of their families would gain anything from a feud with the other’s clan.

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After all that build-up. After weeks of planning on the part of the heroes’ guild, the Inoue clan, and the Albani family. Ideally, this was where things were supposed to end.

Henrietta would signal that her aid would hand over the storage device, no different in form or scale than your average memory stick, holding the items that would serve as the Inoue clan’s payment.

Rokuro would hand over a similar storage device holding the ligaments that the Albani family needed to make their mechs.

Both sides would check that everyone had gotten what was agreed upon and then everyone would get in their cars and go home.

The ultimate outcome of everyone’s planning being an exchange so mundane and simple in performance that if the stakes to each party weren’t so high, one might wonder why they didn’t just have their men handle things without the family representatives.

Alas, just as the handoff was about to happen, one of the walls of the warehouse crumbled and in burst a team of gleaming gray mechs. They smashed through the brick and concrete of the warehouse used the used their shock and awe entry to immediately target the Inoue clan’s side.

The mech’s fired on the crowd of magic-wielding gangsters. Bodies were torn apart, limbs and heads were all but aerosolized as the mech’s high caliber rounds hit them.

“What is the meaning of this?!” growled Rokuro Inoue. Coughing up blood.

He stood in front of his younger cousin. His eyes filled with the flames the color of the sky as he drew on his magic to summon an aetheric shield.

Henrietta could only gape. Before she could manage an explanation and let Rokuro know that the people in the mechs weren’t Albani men, the Inoue people recovered enough to counterattack.

The fifteen or so surviving mages and magic-warriors lashed out at the mechs and at the Albani’s across from them.

A one-armed Melle led the charge. His eyes blazing blue as he used his remaining hand to staunch the flow of blood pouring out of the stump that had once been his right arm.

“Eastern sky, the twelve heavens, speak the name that should not be spoken!” chanted Melle. Ending his words with a stomp that shook the entire district and released great beams of blood-red light.

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While the families went to war, the heroes jumped into action. Their job was to calm things down before the fighting blew up to scale for the local civilians to get caught up.

A pain in the ass task that reminded me of every reason I almost never dabbled in hero work over the passing eons. Being a hero often meant standing ankle-deep in other people’s shit.

Math Moth was the closest of the three heroes, so she got into the midst of the fighting first. Leaping down from the rafters where she’d been hiding. She dropped down and started things off with a bang. Driving her knee through the chassis of one of the five mechs that had started this whole fiasco.

Math Moth wasn’t just your standard brute. Her actual power a type of sophisticated force manipulation ability that allowed her to essentially have super strength, near-invulnerability, and jumping powers nearly identical to flight.

So long as she could calculate the forces at play and the required modifications for those forces she could do nearly anything.

Unfortunately, human brains were built more for pattern recognition than arithmetic. Thus even with the goggles that aided her calculative ability by doing most of the math for her Math Moth’s strength still ended up being quite limited because the more dramatic the change the more complex the equation she needed to do.

I couldn’t help sighing as I watched her punch a second mech into a third mech and make them both explode. It was an impressive display, but I knew that she was capable of so much more.

Sly Cheshire appeared behind his sister, he triggered some traps he’d setup in the warehouse beforehand. The array of wall-mounted, knock-out, grenades taking about a third of the fighting Inoues and Albanis within the warehouse.

The brother and sister fought back to fight displaying an impressive amount of martial prowess. Cloudy Midnight stayed on the roof and didn’t get involved because he had the all-important job of using his illusion manipulation powers to keep late-night joggers and drivers from wandering into the field of battle.

“Peppino!” cried Henrietta. Watching in horror as her younger cousin lost his head to Rokuro Inoue’s magical animated scythe.

“You bastards! You want a feud then you fucking have a feud!” roared Henrietta. Pounding her fist into her chest and activating the armored vest she’d been wearing beneath her clothing.

The vest extruded a large number of metal plates. The metal plates appeared one after the other forming into metal bands that eventually took the form of a mech that was even bigger and more heavily armed than the ones that had started this brouhaha.

“A fucking Platinum Crown!? You brought a city killer to this fight!?” bellowed Rokuro. Sounding appalled and a little afraid.

“Did you forget my fucking last name?! I’m an Albani, fucker...We don’t do our shit halfway!” said Henrietta. Cackling as the mech pulled her inside its cockpit and then stood upright. Tearing through the roof of the warehouse and towering over most of the city’s other buildings.

“This fucking bitch...Roko I think its time to use that secret weapon of yours!” said Melle. Turning to his cousin as he head-butt an Albani goon into the next life. Melle’s body augmenting magics not only preserved his life but also made him a formidable threat in the fight, despite his missing arm.

Rokuro flew backwards, riding his scythe-like a witch’s broom. Then he turned to his ‘guest’. Aware that while everything was falling apart, they’d been standing apart from the fight. Watching everything happen like it had nothing to do with them.

“Now, Ms. Three-Eyes. I and my Inoue clansmen are calling in our third and final favor!” said Rokuro.

With those words, the figure began to move. The robes that covered them fell to the floor revealing a dark purple costume similar to something you’d see out of the golden age of comics.

The Inoue clan’s guest was dressed in what looked like a stylized air force jumpsuit. Her dark, dusty-blue, hair flowed over her shoulders. She wore a purple and gold mask that covered the upper half of her face. In the center of the mask was a hole made for a third, vertically set, eye.

A gleaming dark blue eye that remained closed till Rokuro called the woman into the fight. Then the eye opened and the woman’s aura was revealed.

Her aura released a pants shittingly intense wave of terror that put an end to most of the conflict as it knocked out the weaker combatants. Leaving only the heroes, Rokuro, Melle, Henrietta, a handful of goons, and myself standing.

“Kill them all, Three-Eyed Queen!” said Rokuro.

The three-eyed woman did as she was commanded and proceeded to tear apart everything that stood in her way. Killing Albanis and Inoues alike. Tearing apart magical warriors and men in powered-armors like it was nothing.

She reached the center of the fight and was just about to knock Math Moth’s head off of her shoulders. That was the point I decided to step out of my hiding place. Catching the blow with my palm and finding that it was strong enough to blow through my protections and break my arm.

“Well, damn. Looks like I might be able to get a decent fight out of this after all.” I said. Smiling despite the pain. Eyeing the three-eyed, female super with a look of appreciation, as I healed the loose meat that had once been my arm.