Lil-miss-harkness and X X Ringo X X wrote this together in response to a competition in a writing magazine because we thought that all the other people in it were rubbish and we needed to show them how to write. We own Izzie, Jude and Zach, who is here but is currently asleep.

Thanks to the wonderful Milo Ventimiglia (l-m-h) and Shalim Ortiz (Ringo) for inspiring us. This was originally a dream that Ringo had (we love her subconscious).

Be a Hero

It was Christmas Eve, and, clichéd as it sounds, my friend Izzie and I were shopping in the Trafford Centre for last minute presents for our family. At least, we were supposed to be. Actually, we were in HMV looking at Heroes posters.

"Peter…" Izzie giggled, and I continued flipping furiously through the posters.

"They don't have one of Alejandro!!"

"Ha-ha ha-ha ha! Peter's better than Alejandro."

"No he's not!!"

"Yeah he is. Alejandro doesn't even have a poster!"

"It's sooooooooooo unfair!" Worryingly enough, I was seriously distressed by the lack of said Alejandro poster.

Izzie rolled her eyes "Jude! What is it with your obsession with Alejandro anyway?! He doesn't even speak English!"

I frowned, searching for a retort "Well… Hablo español!"

"Huh… yeah"

I turned away, for some reason really annoyed, and realised the lighting seemed to have changed to suit my mood, and that I was now bathed in red light. Nodding, I made a 'humph' noise, as if to say 'so there' and turned to look at CDs. A very worried voice came from behind me.

"Um… Jude…. What the fuck…?!"

"WHAT?!" I spun around, frustrated at being deterred from my CD search, to see a scared looking Izzie backing away fast, very fast. "What…?"

"I… you… how… wha-? You're RED!"

"Yes, I'm ANNOYED!"

"No… seriously, what the hell are you doing?! You're actually red!"

I looked down, and looked again. I was glowing… red.

"Oh my god! I'm RED!"

She nodded exasperatedly "Yeah!"

"OH MY GOD!! I'M RED!" By now I was totally freaking out, and could feel my previous anger turning into confusion and amazement. As I stared down at myself the colour began to fade, until I was normal again.

"Wooooooooah…" Izzie looked around to check no one had seen, but the store was empty apart from the shop assistant sleeping behind his desk. "HOW THE FUCKING HELL DID YOU DO THAT?!"

"I don't bloody know! It just happened!"

"Let's go… quickly…."

"Yeah…."

"Wait! I need my Peter poster!"

I rolled my eyes "After what just happened, all you can think about is your bloody PETER POSTER??"

"Well, y'know… and if it was an Alejandro one-"

"Yeah yeah, alright. Just buy the damn poster and let's go."

We headed over to the sleeping shop assistant, and Izzie, being the height of mature, poked him with the end of her Peter poster.

"What…?" He frowned sleepily "Alright, alright, I'm awake!"

Smiling sweetly, Izzie handed him the poster, and he scanned it and then looked at her in disgust. "You woke me up to buy a Peter Petrelli poster?!"

Izzie blinked innocently "Just helping you to do your job."

The shop assistant, whose badge informed me that he was called Zach, grunted, looking utterly unimpressed and handed over the poster, watched as we left the store and then promptly went back to sleep.

We looked around as we trudged towards 'i-gadgets' to get my sister a new iPod case, and noted the distinct absense of people.

"It's really quiet for a Saturday night." I observed.

"Yeah, it's weird"

I nodded, thinking it over. "Still, it is Christmas Eve"

"But I've never seen it like this. It's wrong, there should be someone other than us here." Izzie glanced around nervously "It's so quiet"

"Maybe it closed while you were drooling over Peter."

Izzie scowled at me. "Or maybe it was when you- um... well, yeah..."

I nodded, and we both dropped into silence, remembering the strange instance in HMV. After a while of not seeing anyone else, we reached 'i-gadgets' to find it deserted.

"Woah..." I looked around "There's no one here. Not even a shop assistant..."

Izzie shifted uncomfortably "Please can we go... ? I'm getting really freaked out here"

I nodded, turning. "We should go find Zach... see if he knows what's going on. Though I doubt it."

"Who the hell is Zach!?"

"The guy you poked in HMV!"

"You know his name... what, did you get his phone number too?!"

"NO! He was like... old. I'm 15!"

"And Alejandro's TWENTY-SEVEN!"

"So's Peter!"

"No he's not!! He's twenty-six!"

"Oooh. Wow. Such a big difference." I was about to continue to say how much better Alejandro was than Peter, and why, but I never got the chance, because at that moment Izzie utterly out of the blue flew right into a metal display board. Unsurprisingly, I was more than a little shocked, and so was she.

"Um. I- I'm kinda stuck..."

"Yeah... no kidding."

"No! SERIOUSLY! My arm will not come off this bloody metal!"

"Wow... this just isn't our day, is it?"

Our next few minutes were taken up with trying to remove Izzie from the metal board, and just as I took an especially hard tug, she fell off the board. This resulted in us landing in a heap on the floor. We stared at each other for a split second, and then burst out laughing.

"What the hell?!" Izzie giggled.

"I don't know! I think you're magnetic!" I laughed back, and the corridor suddenly flooded with a soft pink light. Neither of us had to look to know it was coming from me. Izzie began to laugh even harder.

"What?" I asked, slightly hurt.

"You- you'r- you're tickled pink!" She managed to gasp, and promptly collapsed into giggles again. I joined her, and we laughed for a good 5 minutes before calming down enough for the pink to fade. I was just about to suggest that we set out to look for Zach again, when a noise came from the depths of the Trafford Centre. Someone, somewhere, had slammed a door. Suddenly, all the lights went out.

"Oh shit..." I muttered, and somewhere from my left a voice whispered.

"Okay... I could really do with you to glow right now... and I don't fucking care what colour!"

I could tell from her voice that she was really scared, so was I. I frowned, concentrating hard, and after a minute, a gentle yellow glow spread out for about a metre around me. I could see Izzie leaning against the board behind her, and I smiled weakly.

"Well... at least it's useful for something..."

"Yeah." She nodded, and suddenly we could hear footsteps, getting nearer and faster with every step. "Oh God. We have to go..."

"Why?" I frowned. "It might be someone coming to help us."

Izzie shook her head. "I can just tell alright... that is not a friend. I think we really need to go!"

I hesitated, and then nodded, jumping up and extending my hand to Izzie. "Come on then."

"Oh fuck."

"What?!" I was getting increasingly uncomfortable, now sharing her feeling of unease, and wondered why she wasn't moving.

"Oh Shit. Ohshitohshitohshitohshitohshit."

"WHAT?!"

"I. Can't. Fucking. Move." She wriggled, trying depserately to unstick herself from the board. "How do you control your glowy thing?!"

"Um..." I hesitated. "Actually, if you're stuck I should probably turn this off..." The footsteps got louder "...now." I concentrated, and suddenly we were plunged into blackness as I managed to get control over it. Stumbling forward to help Izzie, I let out a yelp as I tripped over nothing other than the Peter poster.

"THAT FUCKING POSTER!" Silence... "Oh...crap." The footsteps had stopped.

I waited for my eyes to adjust to the dark, found Izzie, and dropped down beside her.

"Oh my god... we're gonna die!" she whispered, and I noticed that she was now clutching the Peter poster tightly in her hand.

"What's that for?" I whispered back "You gonna hit the guy with it? Wake him up like you did Zach?!"

She looked over my shoulder at the stationary shape in the corner "I think he's already awake..."

I turned sharply and as I saw the person-shaped shadow stood before me, bright yellow light beamed out, lighting the stranger stood before us, a murderous smile stretched across his face.

"Hmm." His smirk widened and he stepped forward, hand outstretched "Illumination and magnetism... I like it."

As he advanced slowly towards us, we said in unison "Oh my god... Sylar..."

If we owned Heores, this would have happened by now...Caitlin would not exisit and the world would have Alejandro posters...and Sylar would have taken us to dinner, not killed us :D

Please review...reviewers get Heroes posters ;P