There were two women at the table: one was from the Wardens. The woman that wasn’t was Hispanic, slightly overweight, and dressed a little more casually than I’d expected for a court proctor. She offered a more gentle elaboration, “This office has more than a hundred people from that settlement to process. To avoid bias and to be as fair as possible, we’re not going to make any early conclusions about what it was or wasn’t. As we address you and your situation, we’ll hold to this idea, but we won’t hold you to it. Do you understand?”

“Yes, ma’am. I can say things as I saw it.”

“Exactly,” she said.

The second of the men went on with the formalities. “On that note, to continue the summary, Rain is one of many that this office will be sorting through in the coming days and weeks. For easier processing, most are being addressed as groups, where the circumstances are similar. Rain is a unique case.”

Hard to deny.

“Rain is unique because, point one, he has turned himself in to the authorities with respect to a case of multiple manslaughters. He expressed the intention of pleading guilty. Some of those affected are here at the office today, and will provide testimony.”

As Rain looked over his shoulder to glance at the people in the room, I followed his gaze. There were others seated, and any number of them could have been people from the mall.

“Point two, Rain admitted to the authorities that he killed a costumed villain with his own hands, known to this office as a Jonathan Seiter, in what Rain states was self defense.”

Snag. How that particular thing was addressed would impact Ashley quite a bit. Ashley wasn’t conveying much. She sat with Kenzie.

“Point three, Rain admitted to the authorities that he committed, quote, more crimes than he could count, with crimes including theft, grand theft, auto theft, vandalism, and arson. Much of this occurred before the end of the last calendar era, at what the individual claims was the behest of a villainous group.”

He’d done stuff with the Fallen between the time he was a child and the incident at the mall.

“Point four, Rain provided information and assistance during the attack on the farming settlement outside New Haven, and this information and assistance was instrumental in mitigating damage and saving lives.”

That was our contribution, in part. I’d spent the better part of a day trying to figure out how to word my letter to the court proctors. It had been a distraction from the surgery I’d had looming.

“Point five, not unique to Rain himself, but necessary to state for the record, is the fact that he and others were under varying degrees of… how did you put it, Kimberly? We didn’t write it down in the notes.”