Rain stood, his chair scraping, the man beside him remained seated, attention and pen on a pad of lined paper in front of him. Two women and three men sat at the end of the room. It was a fairly handsome, clean-shaven twenty-something-year-old in a suit and tie who was doing the formal stuff, it seemed. The guy put more attention into his grooming and styling his longer blond hair than anyone else at the table had put into theirs, the woman from the Wardens possibly excepted.

“Today we’ll be addressing the case of Rain F, that’s R-A-I-N, full name redacted, case number seven-seven-one-one-two to pass our desks here at the Meadows-Corona office. Rain is a minor at seventeen years of age, and his middle and last names will be redacted and abbreviated, respectively.”

Fat lot of good it would do to trim his name when it was as unique as it was.

“Our intention today is not to sentence, but to assess if the case is worthy of the court’s attention. Spoiler, there are charges of manslaughter, so it probably is. Our secondary duty today is to decide what we’ll do with the person or people in question in the time between now and when the courts can see them. Have you sought or been provided with counsel, Rain?”

“I was provided with counsel, yes.”

There was a pause. The stenographer shifted her keyboard on her desk at the side of the table and it squeaked as it moved.

“To summarize, Rain was one of many to submit himself to the custody of the Patrol block when the independent farming settlement outside of New Haven was raided. Both heroes and villains were on the scene, with members of the Patrol block supporting the heroes.”

Rain hesitated, then bent down to whisper to the lawyer that sat beside him. The men and women at the table at the far end of the room waited until Rain straightened and raised his hand.

“Yes?” The response came from a man with a gruff voice, a nice suit and white facial hair and hair in need of a bit of a trim.

“Can I clarify something?”

“Yes.”

“If we’re summarizing, I think it’s important to note that the compound was run by the Fallen. It was a cult.”

“Your statement will be noted, Rain,” was the gruff response.

“Yes, sir.”