Enmachina sighed and turned to the cops. “They won’t stop as long as you’re here,” he said. “It might be a good time to leave.”

“We’re not leaving until the threat’s been neutralized,” the nearest officer said.

“What threat?” Enmachina asked. “The protesters? They don’t have weapons and they haven’t been attacking anything. And the first amendment guarantees them the right to protest without getting arrested. The supervillains? They’re only here because you are. Leave and they will.” They didn’t look convinced. “I’ll be here. I can handle them.” They looked especially unconvinced.

Still, apparently they realized there was nothing else they could do, so they quietly filed back into their vehicles, minus the damaged one. Echo hopped down from their perch, though continued to watch them as they left. The protesters cheered.

“Time for you two to leave,” Enmachina said. “Cops are gone, no need for you to be here.”

Couronne stepped forward. Fine, they wrote, but if they come back, so do we.

“Fair enough. Now go.”

The two looked at each other, nodded, and then flew off into the sky. Even though Enmachina was watching, he soon lost sight of them.

“Should have arrested them,” Rainbright muttered. Fortunately, she was quiet enough that the protesters didn’t hear.

“Come on. Let’s sit and watch for a while.” Enmachina flew off back to the building where they’d been waiting. When Rainbright was seated next to him, he spoke. “Do you know about the unofficial rules of heroes and villains?”

“No? I mean, I think you said a few things earlier, though.”

Enmachina counted off on his fingers. “No intentional deaths or injuries, and they need to go out of their way to prevent accidental injuries. No hospitals, schools, daycares, or retirement homes. No international crimes or widescale effects. If they find someone’s secret identity, no going after them or their families. If anyone else breaks these rules, they have to help apprehend whoever broke the rules.” He tapped his thumb. “That last is the most important. You’ve heard of the End Crisis, haven’t you?”

“Well, of course,” Rainbright said.

“My… predecessor participated. Many villains did as well. In fact, one of them saved her life when she got caught in the bell’s radius. Without them, it’s entirely possible we would have lost. Even when we’re not in a massive crisis, the Cove has way too few heroes and too many villains. And the villains are honestly more afraid of each other than of us. We have rules about not killing. So if someone follows all the rules, especially the one about catching other villains, they get a little leeway. Echo and Couronne are villains, but they stick to the rules. Mostly civil disobedience, vandalism, resisting arrest, mocking people, and the occasional bank robbery that doesn’t even give them more than a few hundred dollars. Small fry as far as supervillains go. But they’re especially good at hunting down rulebreakers and turning them in alive, so we pretty much just chase them off when they cause problems.”

“But…” Rainbright looked upset. “You’re letting villains go! And working with them! What if they hurt someone in the future? Isn’t that your fault?”

Enmachina shook his head. “What’s the alternative? They’re too powerful for us to arrest. It’s pretty much killing them or letting them go, and they haven’t done anything worth death. If we do have the chance to arrest them or if they cross a line, then we’ll deal with them. Until then, they’re at least doing something good by scaring off worse villains.”

Rainbright was silent for a while. “I just don’t know.”

“Well, when we get back, you can talk to Angelica and the other team members about it.” He wasn’t good at philosophy. All he knew was that killing was an extreme measure and anyone alive had the chance to change and do good. Teaching a rookie hero about moral relativism on her first day? Definitely not something up his alley.

He watched the protesters for a while. The cops hopefully weren’t coming back to arrest any of them. He couldn’t see Echo or Couronne anywhere, but they were probably still around.

“Was I terrible today?” Rainbright suddenly asked.

“No,” Enmachina immediately replied. That was probably too fast. “No,” he said again after a moment. “That idea you had of putting Echo in a bubble? That was brilliant. If Couronne hadn’t been there, you would definitely have won.” And then the protesters would have been illegally assaulted and arrested by the police. “Though I think you might need to work on self-defense and hand-to-hand. Getting chased around by a supervillain who’s kicking you? Not a very good look.” Oddly, she looked more relaxed after he criticized her.

“I wasn’t trying to capture them. I just wanted to keep them from screaming and so I put something around them to stop it.”

“Well, it worked. Do you think you could lift a bubble if someone was inside?”

Rainbright looked at her hands. “Maybe?”

“Well, I’ll tell Angelica about it. She’ll get you some training to help you figure out the tactics.” The protesters were starting to pack up. “Looks like we should head back. We’re done here.” And the team was likely back. If things were bad, Raph would probably be in bed recovering. That meant Nathan could spend the night with Eric instead.

As he stood up to leave, he saw firelight flickering off a nearby alley’s walls. He ignored it.