Twenty two hours and eight minutes before Sententia.

All of the Hargreeves siblings assembled in their father's old office, some less reluctantly than others. Rumor noted that Kraken and Spaceboy still seemed uncomfortable around each other. Séance on the other hand had taken out a pocket comb and started styling his hair. Letting her eyes slide over to the reason they were there she saw .05 sitting on the desk with an old blue folder in his hands.

"This is what we've been looking for," he said as he held it up, "Apparently Lenore and Hargreeves kept a correspondence, culminating in this."

Opening the folders he examined the first page and read;

".07, a.k.a Zoo, a.k.a Ryuk Cain. Sententia card: Regent, sub category: Planet. Synopsis: His power manifests itself as the ability to get animals to obey him. For this reason he keeps several animals with him at all times. He is useless though due to the fact that he believes in the idea of some sort of 'sanctity of life.' I have reason to believe that I can break him. Otherwise he'll be canon fodder."

"Harsh," said Rumor.

"You should see what Hargreeves wrote about us," snorted Kraken, "'More and more I start to think that .02 is an utter disappointment. He refuses to follow instructions even if it means that his efforts will be met with failure. His foolhardiness may one day cost his siblings their mission.' Not lives, mission. Bastard."

Space shot him a glare. Out of the corner of her eye she watched him. She'd wished that he'd said something following their kiss. She wished that there'd been some sort of signal or sign. Instead there was nothing. There was nothing for her to go off to gauge his feelings. Was it just a onetime thing, a response to her lie?

"That's what it said," Kraken shrugged, "Let me tell you yours; '.01 exhibits aggressive leadership tendencies, but seems to have trouble getting the rest of the children to follow him. Still, he is obedient.'"

Hoping to avoid another blowout Rumor quickly said;

"I don't remember any Zoo there. I think I would've remembered someone with an army of animals."

.05 smiled wanly.

"I think the clue lies in .06, Jacob Cain," he said, "You don't need to know anything else about him, the file is pretty self-explanatory."

Before Rumor could say anything .05 flipped the folder. There was a picture of a young man in his earlier teenage years with close cropped hair and a mask. She couldn't make out much else for over his picture a large 'X' had been drawn with red marker.

"Dead?" questioned Space.

"I can only assume so," said .05, "Probably the only ones we haven't seen aren't among the living anymore. But we're not concerned with them. For instance, here's our good friend Phoenix, or as this says Arkady. I'll skip all that nonsense about cards and just say that he was their .05. 'Like his card he can control flames. The only real drawback is the fact that he is not immune to fire and can still be burned by it. He generally doesn't have many peculiarities except for the fact that he likes getting out of the house. He's finding this difficult with the new locks.'"

He paused for a few seconds before going on;

".04, Alchemist or Athena. 'Anything she touches she can change into something else, as long as they at least three similar components. Her sensitivities have lessened in recent years. She is quite what I had hoped for, even going so far as to enjoy the small cruelties she commits.'"

".03, Comet or Helene. 'I once clocked her at being able to travel faster than the speed of sound when she's trying. She speaks less and less and seems to focus her life on making sure her siblings are happy and healthy. It's really fascinating. I'm getting a psycho-analyst in here. I know this sort of thing interests you."

Rumor raised her eyebrows.

"He psycho-analyzed people?" she said, repulsed.

"Frequently from some of his notes," said .05 as he flipped a page, "Apparently he even did experiments on us while we slept."

Looks of disgust passed over their faces. Slowly Séance stopped brushing his hair.

"So those dancing doughnuts weren't a dream," he said thoughtfully.

"No," said .05 firmly, "that was a dream. Moving on we come to our little color-blind friend, .02, Ghost, or Catherine. 'You always said the soul was made of sterner stuff. It appears you're right. Her soul is not exactly bound to her body, if hers wears out then she can simply get another. She can detach herself from her soul and uses it to shield the rest. Instead of being resentful about this she's surprisingly gentle. They call her Cat and indeed she's like a kitten. Don't worry; she'll be a lioness before she's sixteen."

"That explains why she seemed so far away," Séance mused.

"Because she was far away," said Kraken as he threaded his knife through his fingers, "And this bit about another body. Several dead women were discovered recently. It seemed like something had been drained out of them. Perhaps exit wounds. She's been busy."

"She's the least of our worries," said .05 as he turned to the final page, "Here we have their .01, Reaper or Neil. 'He can use a blade to sever lifelines to anything, be it synthetic or organic. Once he's done that it's useless or dead. He says that the human ones are around the heart, which might explain why most of the humans he kills simply seem to have a heart attack. He's terribly possessive of his siblings and rather obsessive about anything, such as his loathing of me. He's already tried to kill me twice but I'm always one step ahead."

"Well," said Séance, "From her recent condition it appears that she wasn't one step ahead once."

"Yes," .05 replied, "You do realize the implications of this though."

"Security cameras on the estate stopped recording at 6:44 for no reason," said Kraken, "They haven't been able to get them to work since. Looks like he could kill cameras-"

"-and the coroner says that Hargreeves died of a heart attack," finished Space.

"Did us a favor really," shrugged Kraken.

Once more Spaceboy shot him a venomous glare. Once more Rumor wished that her stupid brothers could just get over it.

"Yes," Space said, "but if you haven't noticed each of us can take one of them. Hargreeves made us for opposition to them."

"'cause that worked so well last time," snorted Kraken.

"This time we'll be on our guard," said Space sharply, "We'll know what to do. When the battle comes up we'll have a plan."

"So we're facing people with a wide range of powers," she said.

Rumor looked Space up and down with something like sadness as he talked and argued. There was a strange glint in his eye as he spoke. He wasn't Luther anymore. He wasn't her first and secret love; he wasn't even Space right now. He was .01 again. Rumor sighed in frustration. Irritably she listened while her siblings argued and plotted. Whatever had passed on the roof was just that; it had passed.