"That depends very strongly on what exactly 'magic' means, here, and how it's preventing the, ah, body from becoming a person."

"The person is identical to the original, then?" asks Hero. "As in, it literally is just magic that's actively preventing them from being a person?"

"I mean, depends on the kind of person, but with humans, yeah."

"There are other species that aren't identical?"

"Materians have souls and we can't figure out how to resurrect them without getting their souls back somehow, flat Elves have a different kind of souls and you can't resurrect us from our bodies at all - though Yeerks morphed flat-Elf should work, now that I think about it - basically, that's how it works for species that run on physics."

The lower half of his face suggests some bewilderment. "I suppose magic does imply not running on physics," he manages.

"Anyway, everyone here's human so it's an atom-for-atom copy of a person that somehow isn't a mind, and if you've got anything that could do - the equivalent of what we do for Space Elves, which is writing the chip to another chip, after which it works fine -"

"We probably don't have that," Costa-Brown says, "but it's not a priori impossible. Very well, we'll send you a list of things to do, probably via Legend or Hero."

"Okay. Or via writing 'letter to Epic' on a piece of paper, that works too."

"It's more that we'd rather have someone supervise these things and run interface with other people who might not take you seriously given your appearance."

"I'm older than I look. But okay."

"Yes, and I believe you, but not everyone will, and in any case they will probably not subconsciously respect you even if they do, whereas Legend and Hero command some more respect. Eidolon would work, too, but I expect you'd prefer dealing with the two of them."

"I like Legend and Hero."

Hero grins.

And Legend smiles.

    "Very well. Thank you for your time and cooperation—if this were a story I would call you Deus Ex Machina, and not complain one bit," says Costa-Brown.

Bounce bounce. "Yeah, usually places peal too late, if there's bad stuff happening."

Costa-Brown, Guerra, and Mr. Prescott start packing up their things—folders and papers.

Legend looks at Fëanáro. "Too late how?"

"Uh, after the war or whatever has been settled decisively?"

"Ah. That's definitely not the case now." The suits start exiting the room, and Legend starts floating after them, with Hero trailing. "By the way, Epic, have you eaten?"

"...no. Should I make us - lunch? Is it lunchtime?"

"Close to that, yes." Float float—" There is a cafeteria one floor down where the other Wards and heroes—at least the one who are here—will be eating, if you'd prefer that."

"Yeah, I guess I can meet more people!" He stretches out his wings to brush against the walls of the hallway. "Will you be there?"

"Yes, we try to make a point to all show up at least lunch to touch base and get to know each other in situations other than just strictly cape business. Speaking of which," and he removes his blue mask, revealing the upper half of his rather handsome face. The mask had some hard parts and was shaped in such a way that, compounded with the glowy eyes he no longer has, his face is actually unlike what one would naively expect. "It should go without saying that our secret identities are, well, secret. You'll see several unmasked capes there, today, so please be discreet."

Off goes Hero's helmet, too. "I'm Oliver. He's James," he introduces them both, hiking a thumb at Legend.

"I'll be very discreet," he says happily, bouncing along. 

"Some heroes still prefer to keep their identities secret even here, though, so it might get confusing, keeping track of everyone's cape and real names. You get used to it, eventually."