“Well, I figure while we’re here, I can take a look at your combat capabilities.” At Rainbright’s horrified look, he chuckled. “Don’t worry. These two know the rules. They don’t try to kill heroes. Oh, by the way, never shake hands with a villain. Echo is… well, we’re not entirely sure of Echo’s powers, but they appear to have something similar to Nightingale, so we don’t think they have skin contact powers. But still, don’t shake hands.”

“Oh.” Rainbright’s eyes were wide. “Nightingale? Wait, does that mean…”

Enmachina shrugged. “Powers aren’t always transmitted through families. We did investigate her just in case, but she doesn’t have any living relatives that we can trace.” Honestly, they needed to go visit her – both to ask her and in general – but it was too much of a security risk. Nursing homes might be unofficially off-limits to villains, but not everyone abided by those rules.

Then Echo and Couronne took off and Enmachina had to focus on following them. They went to a nearby abandoned parking lot with weeds stretching for the sky from the pavement cracks. Couronne stood opposite from Rainbright and Echo opposed Enmachina. Rainbright started off first, creating six pillows behind Couronne. The pillows swung forward. Even though Couronne didn’t move a muscle or even look around, the pillows disappeared the moment they hit the flames.

Echo screamed and Enmachina shut off his outside audio, though he could still feel his armor vibrating with the sheer force of it. Moments later, they slammed into him. He stumbled back, kicked his legs up and activated his pulse cannon. Echo flew back. In a few moments, they would fly and right themself. Before that could happen, Enmachina activated his flight boosters, caught up, and threw Echo into the ground. He deactivated the boosters and dropped right on top of them. Echo grabbed his leg armor, squeezed until he could feel the internal padding pressing against his leg, and shot up into the air. Enmachina tried aiming his pulse cannon at them, but it was a little hard when he was dangling in the air by his leg. He kicked out with his other leg. They dropped him and he had just enough time to activate his inertial dampeners before he hit the ground. He still felt a bone-jarring thud, but most of the blow was cushioned. At least this time, he didn’t panic and activate his flight boosters, which would have shot him into the ground even faster.

“Why isn’t this working?!” Rainbright yelled. Neither she nor Couronne had moved. She had six clones out, all trying to punch Couronne, but their arms disappeared as soon as they got near and reformed as they moved away. Her creations were hard light, so… did Couronne have light-bending abilities?

Enmachina got up and went to her side. “Let’s switch,” he said, firing his pulse cannon. Couronne finally moved, dodging to the side and conjuring up a bolas made of fire. When he threw them, Enmachina shot them with his cannon, dispersing them. Not that they would have done much – Couronne’s fire creations weren’t solid – but the less he burnt his armor the better.

Meanwhile, Echo had landed. Rainbright had immediately acted by covering them in a light bubble, and Echo was pressing against the walls. Enmachina’s eyes widened. If Echo was trapped in there, then it might be possible to actually arrest them. Unfortunately, Couronne somehow noticed it, even though they didn’t turn their head. Or they didn’t appear to turn their head, at least. Whatever the case, the bubble around Echo disappeared. Echo immediately ran forward and kicked Rainbright in her exposed shin. Rainbright yelped and ran away, and Echo gave chase.

Enmachina fired his pulse cannon again, this time straight at Couronne. He wasn’t fast enough: Couronne flew up over the blast and flung a fireball. Enmachina shot it with the pulse cannon. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much he could do at this point. Maybe if he distracted Couronne enough, Rainbright could try to seal off Echo, but Rainbright was currently running around to avoid getting kicked again. It was safe to call this one a loss, he decided, dodging another fireball.

“That is it!” Rainbright screamed. She held out her arms, and they glowed white.

What had she said? She could make hard light, but also make really bright lights to blind people? He shut his eyes and turned off his cameras. Even so, his eyelids brightened up. When that faded and Enmachina turned his sight back on, Echo and Couronne were nowhere to be found, not even in the sky. He sighed. Even if the whole fight was a bust, it would have been nice to turn them in.

“Did… did I vaporize them with my light?” Rainbright was staring down at her hands in horror.

“No, of course not. I’m still here.” Enmachina looked down. “See? Armor isn’t even scratched. They probably just ran away under cover of the light.”

Rainbright looked up at the sky. “Do you think we can catch them?”

Enmachina shrugged. “Might as well look around for them.”

They patrolled over the area for an hour or so, but there was no trace of them at the usual targets: banks, country clubs, homophobic fast food restaurants. There were no calls in, either. Enmachina was just about to head back when the comm crackled. “There’s a large protest going on outside City Hall. Requesting assistance in case of supervillain attendance.”

That was in the east side, on the opposite side of the city. Enmachina frowned. “Has a supervillain sighting been confirmed?”

“No, but they’re protesting that accident from a few weeks back. Prime target for a certain duo, don’t you think?”

Right. The “accident”. If it weren’t for the fact that a police officer had done it, they’d be calling it murder. Still, Echo and Couronne did tend to show up during police brutality protests. Wait, was that why they’d been out earlier? Had they been trying to lure any remaining heroes as far away as possible to increase reaction times? “Right. We’ll be there as soon as we can. Enmachina out.”

When they arrived at the parking lot outside City Hall, there were no supervillains there. There were no police there, either, which was pretty surprising. Enmachina sat on a nearby roof and motioned for Rainbright to do the same. “So, what are they protesting?” she asked.

“Few weeks ago, a cop shot and killed a kid who wasn’t responding to commands. Claimed the kid was a criminal. Turns out the kid was disabled and couldn’t hear the orders. The investigation’s pretty much dead now.”

“That’s horrible!” Rainbright said. A moment later, “But was the kid a criminal?”

Enmachina turned to face her. “He was ten. A neighbor called the police because they thought the kid was acting too neurodivergent and then the officer claimed the kid was potentially violent. No weapon, no violence, just non-compliance due to being unable to hear. This isn’t the officer’s first problem, either. And even if the kid was a criminal, we don’t have the death penalty here. And even if we did, the constitution guarantees us the right to a jury to sentence us, not a police officer carrying out an execution for no reason.” Not to mention how funny it was that these “accidents” tended to happen to certain demographics and not others. It could just as easily happen to Scope if the wrong officer caught him out of uniform.

“But…”

Whatever she was going to say, it was cut off by the arrival of armored trucks. Police exited trucks in full riot gear. The protesters didn’t even have any weapons. They still stood their ground, but they were looking decidedly nervous and some moved behind their signs. Enmachina fought the urge to get down there. Last time he’d tried to interfere in something like this, the police had refused to fully cooperate with the Cove Corps for a month, which had cost a few people their lives.