Colleagues. Teammates. The occasional lover. Byron had even made a respectful appearance at the funeral of The Mirage, a longtime nemesis. He had been in the hero business for a long time, and had done a lot of these.
But before today, Byron had never buried a sidekick. He glanced down from the pulpit, surveying the entire cathedral. It was an impressive showing below. They were all there. Superion. Oceanna. Corona. Sequoia. Oz. Destiny.
The Order.
The Seven Pillars of Freedom.
Seven counting himself, of course. He wasn't seated with the rest of the team, having been chosen to deliver the eulogy. After all, Kid Dynamite had been his sidekick, not theirs.
Byron took a deep breath, calming himself. His shoulders ached, the cape wrapped around them suddenly too heavy to bear. He gripped the edges of the lectern, smoothed his notes in front of him.
"So we'll go no more a-roving, so late into the night," he began, evoking his namesake, Lord Byron, so beloved by his parents all those years ago. "Though the heart be still as loving, and the moon be still as bright."
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