Rainbright’s feed was covered up by flames and he heard her scream and cover herself up with an orange barrier. Once the flames died away, he saw that Echo was now out of the bubble, flying alongside Couronne. At the same time, he saw Couronne on Iris’s feed, flying close to the ground through the streets.

There couldn’t be two Couronnes. One had to be fake. “Iris, stop! You’re chasing a decoy! Get back to the others!”

Iris slowed down. Her feed was clear again. “What? Since when do they have decoys?”

“Since now, I guess. The others are at Third and Forest.”

“Got it,” she said, and the camera blurred again.

Nathan flicked off the microphone. “Can we get a bodycam for Iris that doesn’t do that?”

Angelica shook her head. “Not with normal science. I’ve already asked. Here.” She handed over a bottle of ibuprofen.

“Thanks.” Nathan took two and then focused on Rainbright and Hermes. While Rainbright was fighting Echo, Hermes had teleported up to a nearby roof to keep an eye on things. Couronne had disappeared from Echo’s side. “Hermes, what happened to Couronne?”

“Dunno. Couldn’t see them after I teleported.”

“Mildly concerning. Let me know if you--”

Couronne flew up from underneath the roof. Hermes yelped and fell off, the feed cutting out mid-fall. Nathan sighed. Even though he knew Hermes was teleporting, it still made him anxious. He glanced over at Iris, who was still a long distance away according to the tracker, and Rainbright, who had another Couronne rush at her. When Hermes reappeared, there were five Couronnes and one Echo in the sky.

“All right, we need a way to tell which is fake and which is real. Any thoughts?” Nathan asked.

“It’d be a great time for your pulse gun,” Hermes said.

“Yes, but that’s not helpful,” Nathan said. After a moment, he remembered something. “Bright, when you were practicing, could the others use their powers through your bubbles?”

“No,” Rainbright said.

“I couldn’t teleport out,” Hermes said.

“Great. Bright, put a bubble around every Couronne.”

“Got it,” she said, and then did so. One by one, they snuffed out. The last one, in the blue bubble, broke out of the bubble instead. “Found them!”

“Great. Where’s Echo?” He couldn’t see them on either Rainbright or Hermes’s feeds.

There was a suspicious silence – not even background noise – from Rainbright and Hermes. Finally, a radio clicked back on. “I don’t see them,” Hermes said.

Nathan nodded, and realized a moment later that they couldn’t see him, either. “All right, do what you can to capture Couronne. Or drive them off. Whichever.”

“Got it,” Rainbright said. Couronne made more clones, this time out of Rainbright’s range, and they scattered. Rainbright went after the original one, but that one soon snuffed out. “What?!”

What if none of them were the original? “Hermes, are there any people watching?”

“Yeah, a whole crowd.” Hermes adjusted himself so Nathan could see a park nearby, full of people watching and holding up their smartphones. That made things more difficult.

“I want you to scan the crowd, see if any of them are acting weird. If you do, try and break their concentration.”

“You think Couronne is in civvies?” Iris asked. Her tracking dot was now with the other two.

“Yeah. Iris, help him with that. Run through the crowd and draw attention. And both of you keep an eye out for Echo.”

“Will do,” Iris said. Nathan could see her doing just that through Hermes’s feed.

He turned his attention back to Rainbright, who was currently trying to capture as many of the Couronne clones as she could. Cloneronnes? Clouronnes? Courlones? Whatever. Hopefully, this shtick wouldn’t stick around long enough to need a name.

Nathan shut off the comm. “I don’t think there’s much else we can do,” he said to Angelica. “If I was out there, or Grapple, then we might have a chance, but these three won’t work very well. Hermes and Iris can’t fly and Rainbright’s light powers simply don’t work on Couronne. And none of them are fireproof.”

“I think you’re right,” Angelica said. “We should count this one a loss.”

Rainbright managed to catch up to a Couronne which was standing on a roof. When she tried to put them in a bubble, the bubble failed, but this one didn’t make a move to evade her. That was odd. Rainbright landed and pointed her finger at Couronne. “Got you!” she said, walking forward.

Once she was face-to-face with Couronne, however, the villain leaned forward. “BOO!” they screamed, the flames flying away to reveal Echo. Rainbright screamed and fell off the roof. She caught herself, but by the time she did, Echo was gone, and so were all traces of Couronne. Rainbright landed back on the roof and yelled several things about Jesus that seemed anachronistic, improbable, and religion-crossed. Nathan really hoped she wasn’t in audio recording range.

“Right,” Nathan said, “come back to base. I don’t think we’re going to get any closer to capturing them today.”

“Got it,” Hermes said. As he teleported to the other two, Nathan turned to Angelica.

“You did pretty well,” Angelica said. “The biggest problem, as you stated, was the team composition, and that really wasn’t your fault. We just happened to have junior members with powers that don’t work well against those two.”