Etienne and Nairobi stared at the three bound criminals leaning against a building. Melpo was awake and stared at the two heroes silently, while Thalia and Eli lay knocked out.
"Once again, great job, Ninjaman. I do want to ask, though, what made you go by yourself?"
Etienne put a hand on his chin, "Being honest with you, my experience dealing with metahumans is very minimal, so I thought I'd take this moment to practice. Even though I'm strong, I tend to get caught up in their gimmicks. Thanks for indulging me."
Etienne leaned in and whispered in Nairobi's ear, "By the way, what's your hero name? I don't think you've told me yet."
Thunder rumbled far off in the distance. Nairobi giggled and leaned in, "It's Hardware."
Etienne crossed his arms and leaned against his car. Nairobi paced around in front of the criminals and tapped away at her phone. A light rain began to fall, too light to even be seen.
"What are we waiting on?" Etienne asked.
"We need to exfil metahumans in a specific way. We can't just toss them in the trunk and drop them at the police station; they would be able to break out easily. They have to be extracted by a hero or by INHO agents. According to the system…" Nairobi tapped her phone a few more times, "Mechaboy should be here in 12 minutes."
Lightning flashed across the sky, and the rain began to pick up, beating against the hood of the car.
"Should we check the buildings for survivors?"
Nairobi shook her head, "Portland was evacuated a few hours ago after the explosion in the apartment building. The city government thought it was a large-scale terrorist attack."
Etienne held his head low, "They may not have been wrong. What's the death toll, do you know?"
Nairobi bit her lip and looked around, "At least 50. Mostly cops. Seems our exploding friend has a vendetta against the police. They investigated a call at his ex-girlfriend's house, and they found her father dead. When the officers attempted to arrest him, he blew them up. Then he came down and set their cars on fire."
Etienne looked over at him, still knocked out, "Now he gets to sleep peacefully and get transported to some air-conditioned meta-human holding cell, while those officers' families can never see them again."
Nairobi pulled a cigarette out of her pocket and attempted to light it in the heavy downpour.
She turned to Etienne, "Since you captured them, I'll sit outside and babysit them until the INHO comes. You get in the car, avoid the rain."
Etienne looked up in the sky and put his hand out, "Hold on a second, Hardware. Something strange is going on. The weather report didn't say anything about rain in the entire state, never mind torrential rain like this."
Etienne looked over at Nairobi and recoiled, "What's going on with your hand? Is that one of your abilities?"
Lightning flashed in the sky, illuminating the whole area. Nairobi looked down and saw that the fingers holding her cigarette had a grey, stony texture, and it was spreading across her entire hand.
"We're under attack!" She screamed out before the stone texture spread across her arm.
Etienne reached out to her but was snatched off his feet by an unseen figure. Something metallic gripped Etienne's throat tight. He attempted to fight and bash it to no avail.
Lightning flashed once again, revealing an older dark-skinned woman with an intricate bronze metal arm. There were dials, gauges, and clocks placed sporadically on the arm, and in a vial around her wrist contained a bolt of lightning jumping around erratically.
The woman held him by the neck high above the buildings. The rain cut his face, and the lightning came dangerously close to striking him.
"You are a threat to our operation. I've taken it upon myself to eliminate you before you can cause more damage," The woman spoke robotically.
"To whose operation? The Black Company?"
The woman let out a condescending chuckle, "I can assure you, whatever tall tales you've heard about us, don't begin to approach the scale and violence of our operation. We are far too powerful and far too dangerous for a mere Ninjaman like yourself to contest with."
Etienne laughed aloud as thunder continued to roar behind him,
The woman was unamused, "What's funny, Ninjaman?"
Etienne smiled at her, "You know who I am? Am I on the Black Company's radar already?"
She finally broke out into a smile, "Yes, Ninjaman, we do know who you are. We know quite a bit about you, actually. And despite what you may think about my occupation, I do believe in fairness and honesty. So I will inform you of my name as well. You may call me Ms. Friendly. But I want you to remember I'm anything but. I'll continue to monitor you, as I have been since your short career started, to see what type of hero you turn out to be."
Ms. Friendly let go of his neck and floated backwards. Etienne was still completely restrained.
"Will you become a diva who does the bare minimum and treats heroing like a shitty job. Or will you become someone capable of challenging us? It will be my personal honor to determine which you are."
Etienne quickly began to fall to the ground. He heard Ms. Friendly call out, "One more thing, I almost forgot! GoGo sends his regards."
Ms. Friendly watched on as Etienne hurtled toward the ground. He fell slowly at first before quickly picking up speed.
He slammed into the ground and left a giant crater in his wake. He peeled himself off the ground slowly, groaning and grabbing his joints along the way.
Etienne stared through the mist as a mountain of a man, well over 8 feet tall, slung Melpo and Thalia over his shoulders. A woman with snakes dancing through her long braided hair, hoisted Dirty Bomb into the air. Her hair coiled and wrapped around him while she kept her hands on her hips.
The woman called out, "We need to go, Ms. Friendly! The heroes are two minutes out!"
The woman with snakes in her hair stood next to a petrified Nairobi.
The woman pointed at her, "Should Big Country pick her up to?"
Ms. Friendly floated down to the ground leisurely, "I don't think so, Medusa. We don't want to have more problems with the heroes than we already do. Go ahead and unfreeze her, too. Let's head out."
A bright flash of lightning struck near the three of them, and once it faded, they were gone. The rain ceased immediately, and only a few grey clouds remained.
Etienne got up and ran over to Nairobi, barely catching her before she fell. Nairobi jumped up quickly and dusted herself off.
"Thank you Ninjaman. I can't believe there are metahumans on that level completely unaccounted for. I've never seen any of their names in the INHO database before."
Etienne remained solemn, and he looked up toward the sky, "I caught some of their names earlier. Hopefully, my friend can help me find something on them."
Nairobi, still slightly dazed, made her way to the passenger side of the car. She pulled out her phone and put it away quickly. She shouted out, "We need to hurry! The heroes are on their way, and if they see we're here without the villains…"
Nairobi looked over at Etienne and noticed him staring directly in the sky, completely still.
She looked up and saw him — a young man in baggy jeans and a flannel shirt sitting on a sleek, futuristic hoverboard. The young man sat with one leg up and the other dangling off the side. His gaze was sharp.
Nairobi leaned back over to Etienne, "It's Mechaboy. Remember how I said the INHO is after you? Well, Mechaboy here is one of the heads of that investigation. Get in the car and drive. I'll put up a barrier, and I'll take the blame for losing the criminals. Just get out of here!"
Nairobi stomped her foot, and a few giant brown nails rose up from the ground, creating a barrier. Etienne jumped into the car and sped back across the bridge.
Nairobi reached into her back pocket for more nails. Before she could grab them, she was jumped back as her barrier began to melt to the ground.
Mechaboy stood in the fiery destruction, his appearance completely changed. His hoverboard was gone, and his sleek armor now covered his entire body. His head resembled an old translucent desktop computer with its internals completely visible.
"You strike me as someone who does their research," A mechanical voice buzzed from Mechaboy's body. "Are you sure you want to fight me?"
"You don't know anything about me kid," Nairobi grabbed a handful of metal acorn nuts out of her back pocket and threw them at Mechaboy. Their speed increased exponentially every second they were in the air.
Mechaboy flew toward Nairobi with rocket-propelled boots and barely reacted as the nuts bounced off his armor.
"Sure I do. You are Nairobi Camp, correct?" His mechanized voice echoed off the walls.
Nairobi was frozen for a second, but snapped out of it quickly. Screws rose up out of the ground, and she used them like stepping stones to run around Mechaboy.
"Yeah, I like to keep tabs on all the new heroes who come to Oregon, contract heroes included," Mechaboy fired a missile in Nairobi's direction.
Nairobi swiftly dodged it as she jumped between screws rising from the ground.
"I had a blast reading your file! They treated you like a local legend and an urban myth out in NorCal. What were you, rank 220? That's incredible!"
Mechaboy's missile exploded into foam on a building behind Nairobi. Mechaboy shot off a few more missiles.
"And you traded that fame, that fortune, and that prestige in for what? To be some criminal's sidekick? Or his girlfriend? That's disappointing."
Nairobi held a handful of bolts. She threw them up in the air, and they remained suspended in the same position.
"You can say whatever you want about me, but don't insult Ninjaman. You wouldn't understand. He's more than strong; he's special. I think he's going to save this state, and he might just be the one to push us into the next age of heroism. He might just be the next—"
Mechaboy stopped suddenly and faced Nairobi, "Don't finish that sentence, Hardware. I won't let you disrespect Star or Speed by comparing them to him. Did you know your reckless vigilante savior killed somebody while attempting to stop GoGo?"
Nairobi finally stood still, "And how many people has he saved by successfully stopping GoGo, something you and your master couldn't do?"
Mechaboy's armor turned from white to a light pink. He growled out, "Don't insult my master!"
Nairobi pointed at Mechaboy and the bolts suspended in the air homed onto him at supersonic speeds.
Mechaboy opened up his jaw and unleashed a controlled torrent of alme at Nairobi.
Nairobi easily dodged it, but slipped off a screw and landed in the street. Mechaboy's armor turned back to white.
Nairobi stood up and rubbed her back. She smilied, saying, "One day you'll come to believe in something that matters more than your life. And then you'll understand why I'm doing this. I believe in the power of power. The philosophy of strength. And my philosophy is telling me Ninjaman will lead us to prosperity."
Mechaboy's armor turned to light pink again, and he opened up his jaw. He let out another torrent of flame, directly onto Nairobi. However, when the smoke and the fire completely cleared, Nairobi was gone without a trace.