Ray dropped his hand.

He watched his sons walk away with the heaviest of hearts, Tristan disappearing as Byron appeared, an exchange of muttered words, one brother to another, and then Byron disappearing, as Tristan appeared…

⊙

Number Lad #4

As the people filed into the room, Number Four scribbled the 4,444th iteration of the kanji for ‘shi’ on a piece of paper, each last one precise.

Citrine and the rest of the background capes were all present and organized as Breakthrough joined. The group sat at the front of the room, closest to the door, and Heartbroken children filed in after to sit behind Lookout.

Four’s attention was on Sveta Karelia. The ex-Case Fifty-Three. Perhaps. It was hard to say if she qualified. But he watched over the top of his glasses as the other Number Boys talked or scribbled their own notations on their pads of paper.

Others in his set looked too, timing the looks in a way that had been calculated to avoid drawing her attention. In their synchronicity, however, they drew a few weird looks. Kurt looked at them, disapproving.

She had asked, once upon a time, who she was. She, according to other Case Fifty-Threes, had killed Doctor Mother, and for everyone in his set, Doctor Mother was someone they remembered without remembering. She slipped into their heads in dreams and was easiest to see if they didn’t dwell on her.

She had once asked Number Zero who she was.

Now she had gone and reinvented herself.

Others were joining as well. Stragglers, B-listers, capes with issues.

Five thousand, two hundred and twelve parahumans had attended the final confrontation against Scion. Two-thirds of them had survived, with the majority of the losses occurring in the period after Doormaker had shut down, but before Khepri had achieved strategic control.

Of those two-thirds, roughly half had remained in Earth Gimel, stretched out over an area ranging from Maine to Boston to the old New York. Forty percent of those capes were heroes or something close enough to count, and eighty percent of the remainder had scaled down, retired, shifted priorities or sought lower-profile hero work, at least in the short term.

Advance Guard, Foresight, The Shepherds, and the Attendant had captured a lion’s share of the remainder who wanted higher-profile hero work. Taking control over jurisdictions, they managed the smaller teams while training their elite forces, often with a specialized squad or a series of squads. The Wardens had handpicked some for specialized needs or because those members were just good.

Except they’d gone silent. All zeroes on every frequency. Not that good, perhaps.

Those who gathered now weren’t necessarily the elite or the most capable. They included capes coming out of permanent or partial retirement, friends and colleagues, and those who hadn’t been able to attend due to other requirements.

Breakthrough had been in prison.

Advance Guard had a sub-team that had been handling a mission they couldn’t jeopardize.