1. Prologue
Foreword
Some time ago it just popped up in my mind: what if I mix my two favorite TV shows in order to get a superhero John Connor.
Although this story is strictly speaking a crossover between TSCC and Heroes, it is, in fact, a Terminator story merged with some elements from the Heroes Universe. That means characters from Heroes won't appear in the storyline physically. Only John will be able to communicate with them... well in a mysterious way. I will attempt to sum up everything that should be known about the Heroes line so my story could be followed by those as well who are not at all familiar with Heroes.
A warning to everyone who would expect a FanFic keeping a closer connection with the original storyline: this one will not. The characters will be quite A.U. after some development. Quite a few characters will emerge who are the creatures solely of my imagination. Lots of elements will be kept, however, from the original show just to run some kind of simulation what could have happened with a superhero John Connor. Otherwise, this story will be sort of a reboot to Season 2.
Also, those who can't stand Jameron stories: this one will definitely be not for them. Fluffy scenes can sometimes be expected which are kinda surprising because I'm not at all a romantic guy. :)
On the other hand, I'm going to make some attempts to tie up loose ends and correct inconsistencies which occurred in the show. There are a lot of them.
I need to emphasize that English is not my first language and I have no previous experience with writing stories like this. So please remain calm ( ;) ) if a make some mistakes or my dialogues are not as polished as they are for native and/or experienced writers. Beta readers/reviewers are highly welcome, nonetheless!
Now the obligatory disclaimer: I own neither "Terminator - The Sarah Connor Chronicles", nor "Heroes", nor "The 4400", nor any other TV Shows, nor the Terminator or Star Wars movies. Although no reference will be given to the Firefly/Serenity universe, I don't own them either, of course. :)
Now let's get started with the story.
Wednesday, November 14th, 2007, West Hollywood, 0230 hours local
John Connor was dreaming. Or at least he believed he was.
He had a tough day before, he was exhausted like hell when he went to bed. Still, he could not fell asleep as his mind was racing heavily on all of the events of the day. When Sarkissian held a gun to his head and how his uncle shot boldly into the gangster's forehead. He could hear the bullet flying very near to his head, he could feel its draft and could hear the impact. And in the next moment, he was in the arms of his mother. He felt again the confusion when he suddenly needed to adapt to the situation when leaving the museum with Morris. Although he tried to disguise his embarrassment, he felt a bit dizzy when he rode shotgun in the Mercedes of the goon, while Cameron was driving.
Cameron.
In the past two months, he was constantly thinking about his relationship with his beautiful cyborg protector. He was desperately trying to deny, even from himself, the incredibly strong attraction he felt. The strongest attraction he was experienced in his entire life towards a girl. He couldn't get out of his head those lovely eyes, that angelic face, and the sweet voice when they first met back in Red Valley, New Mexico.
"What is your name?"
"John."
"Cameron."
But unfortunately, or fortunately, the moment of truth had come and she had not used her infiltration protocol anymore as it was no longer necessary for her mission. Sometimes, however, she could surprise him. Her voice, when she noticed how "effective" Vick was when he touched Barbara's lips... Almost as she was pleading for being touched the same way by John. And deep inside he wanted not only to touch her lips but test with his owns how soft they were. Pull her in a tight embrace, inhaling the sweet scent of her hair, then kissing her, first her lips then her neck going down slowly towards her shoulders, enjoying the touch of her beautiful skin...
He had no idea how she would react, though. Worst, he knew exactly how his mother and uncle would react. And the other resistance fighters, after J-Day, when they would learn that the leader of Humanity is in love with a terminator, a creation of Skynet. No, he can't let that happen. He needs to suppress his continuously increasing desire for Cameron.
As he was in his dream, he found himself somewhere in downtown LA. The place was somewhat familiar for him, but he couldn't pinpoint the location. He could see nobody in the streets, and that was very weird. He was walking for a while and still saw nobody around, the entire city seemed deserted. As walking from streets to streets he shouted if someone was around but nobody answered. "The bastards," he thought "They dropped the bombs, eventually". But all buildings were intact, something was odd.
Suddenly he sighted a group of people who started walking towards him and eventually surrounded him. At first, he felt threatened, but all of them were smiling and waved to him. Men and women, white, black, and Asian — to all appearances he found no obvious connection between them.
"John Connor!" a tall man with horn-rimmed glasses addressed him, "it's a pleasure to meet you."
"What the Hell," John grumbled, feeling threatened again.
"Don't worry," a friendly faced Japanese guy with glasses said smiling. "We are not here to harm you. In fact, we are here to help you."
"Help me?" John asked sheepishly.
"Yes. For your fight. Against Skynet."
"You know about Skynet? Who are you, people?"
"We are from an alternate timeline," the Japanese guy said. "For you now it looks like a dream. In fact, it isn't," he assured him, answering John's unspoken thought. "It is now a crossing point between your timeline and ours," he added. "Let me introduce myself. I am Hiro Nakamura," he made a slight and quick bow. "Almost all of us you see around have a special ability. Mine is to manipulate the space-time continuum."
"You mean... time travel and teleportation?"
"Yes. And stopping time. And without the need of a TDE."
"Awesome," John said. "But is it possible? I mean I time traveled once, but that equipment required a lot of energy and we only could travel to a different time, but to the same place... And we arrived naked," he smiled with a hint of embarrassment.
Hiro suddenly disappeared from him and reappeared behind John.
"See? It is that simple and I have all my clothes," he smiled.
"I wish I had this ability," John sighed.
"You will. That's why we are here," a black haired guy said. "My name is Peter Petrelli, by the way. My ability is to absorb other abilities. I lost all of them once, but they were restored recently by Matt's son," he pointed to a very cop-like man. "To make the long story short: we were exposed to the entire world and the consequences were not so nice," he grimaced. "So we figured out that we could end up our timeline, or more precisely, merge into yours. Our powers would be transferred to you, and we would return back to our normal lives. Not without your consent, of course."
"What are those powers, anyway?" John asked with a sudden excitement.
"Well, I can do time travel as well. And I can go through walls, and other hard objects, I can manipulate electricity, that is, generate electric bolts. I can heal, I can dream and paint the future, I can be invisible. I can fly. And what I'd acquired from Hiro's father will be probably not unknown for General Connor: the ability to study situations and predict the outcome."
John couldn't say anything just stared at him with wide eyes.
"I'm Charlie Andrews," an old lady said who stood beside Hiro hooking on him. "What I do is superlearning. I have an advanced enhanced memory, and I can very quickly understand what I memorize. It started with a blood clot in my brain, but I was healed by him," she laughed shortly and pointed to a tall unshaven man.
"My name is Gabriel," the unshaven guy with piercing eyes said. "I'm also known as Sylar, but I don't like that name anymore as it reminds me of my dark past. I was evil, I did horrible things most of the others here haven't forgiven me. But I realized it's much better to save the world than to destroy it. This is also a warning for you, John. Never become too thirsty with your powers and never lose control over yourself."
"I... I understand," John said. "And what are those dangerous powers of yours?"
"My first one was intuitive aptitude. That means I can instantly learn and understand how things work. Even very complex things. Then telekinesis followed."
"Wow!"
"Yeah, that'll be handy when you fight with hostile cyborgs. They'll be no match for you," he smirked. "Superhearing is also pretty useful. When I concentrate I can hear the heartbeat of other people from quite a distance. The side effect of this ability is another ability: lie detecting. I can manipulate matter in different ways: I can melt it, I can do disintegration but the most interesting ability in this regard is the one to do the change in subatomic level. That means alchemy," he said with a smirk.
"You're also gonna like this one," he continued in John's voice, while he took John's appearance and after a few seconds morphed back.
"Wow, that seemed like what the T1000 did," John said.
"Not quite," Gabriel answered. "It was only an illusion. I made your mind believe that you saw yourself."
"Now, this is what a T1000'd do," he continued and while his face reflected pain he transferred again, this time to a tall girl. "If security cameras recorded me you'd see this girl and you'd hear this girl's voice."
"And who is this girl, anyway?" John asked.
"My girlfriend," a blond girl answered. "Gosh, you show so strong resemblance to an old friend of mine. He was called Zach." She gave him a warm smile. "My name is Claire. Claire Bennet."
John smiled as well. "Nice to meet you, Claire... And what is your specialty?"
"Rapid cell regeneration. That means physical injuries heal in a matter of seconds for me."
"God, that sounds good," John said.
"Once I cut down my toe just as a test. It grew back in less than ten seconds."
No one said anything for a few seconds. John could hardly absorb what he'd just heard. Eventually, a tall black man broke the silence.
"I'm René. Also known as 'The Haitian'. I can block other people's abilities and also erase memories... That's a dangerous ability," he warned John. "Use it with great care."
"That actually goes for most of these abilities," the cop-like guy said. "My name is Matt Parkman. I have the ability of telepathy. But there is one I inherited from my father. I can implant thoughts into other people's minds."
"That's a lot to take in," John said a little frightened.
"Sure, we can understand. Take your time, you'll need to practice a lot to master all of these abilities. And of course the others we haven't mentioned yet."
"There are more?" John asked.
"You're gonna like this one," a black boy said smiling. "I'm Micah Sanders, and what I do is called technopathy. Meaning to control and manipulate electronics."
"How does that work?" John asked excitedly. "You control electronics by touching them?"
"Actually it also works remotely. For example, I can switch traffic signals just by concentrating them and asking. Once I even hacked into government systems bypassing the strongest firewalls with ease."
"Does it mean...?"
"Yes. You'll be able to reprogram terminators remotely. Even without physical contact or removing their chips."
"I can hardly believe it," John said shaking his head.
"I know that feeling," a pretty black girl said smiling who was holding Micah's hand. "I was flabbergasted first when I saw what Micah could do. Or when I realized what I could do. I'm Monica Dawson, by the way."
"Pleasure to meet you, Monica," John smiled. "And what is you're capable of?"
"It's called adoptive muscle memory. It's the ability to copy any physical movement I see. As long as it doesn't require a special ability."
"You mean you can turn into a martial artist just by watching TV?"
"Precisely. First I noticed this ability when I saw wrestling on TV and later I kicked a robber the same way without realizing what I was doing."
"Cool," John smiled sheepishly.
"My name is Tracy Strauss," a tall blonde said who was standing near Monica. "I can manipulate water with my mind."
"What do you mean?"
"I can control water flow, collect water from elsewhere, and I can survive in water without the need to breathe," she said.
"That's awesome, too," John answered excited, then looked to an Indian guy, who was smiling to him.
"I'm Mohinder Suresh," the Indian man said with English accent. "I'm a genetics professor and did a lot of research on superhuman abilities. I developed a way to obtain abilities and tested it on myself. As a result, I have enhanced strength."
"I also gained my ability synthetically," the other Japanese guy said. "I'm Ando Masahashi and what I do is supercharging. That means amplifying other people's abilities. In your case only your abilities, because in your timeline you will be the only one with special powers, there will be no other evolved humans. And I can generate a lightning-like red burst of energy also."
"My name is Molly Walker," a little girl said. "I was held captive by the mysterious organization called the Company and was referred to as the Tracking System. That's what I can do, track people, find their locations just by concentrating on them."
"That's a very useful ability too," John nodded. "And how about you," he asked a muscular man, who hasn't said anything so far.
"I'm Edgar, I'm from Scotland," he answered. "My power is super speed. I'm so fast I can dodge multiple bullets at point-blank range. And I feel no fatigue even after running very long distance at superhuman speed."
"Yeah, he made me curse a few times, but eventually joined us to the good side," the man with horn-rimmed glasses said smiling. "My name is Noah Bennet, and I'm the only one here who has no special ability. On the other hand, I know everything about the abilities. I worked for the Company for quite long. I give you one of those emblematic guns the Company had used," he said and gave John an expensively looking .45 handgun which resembled the M1911, but in a much more polished and high-quality style.
"Now, son, you know everything about your powers which you will master soon," he continued. "They won't work in an instant, though. You'll need the determination to use all of these. A vocation to be the one who employs them to save mankind. But we know you are already determined to that. After all, you are John Connor. But you need practice. A lot of practice, actually. Now, have you got any questions?"
"I don't know," John said sheepishly. "Perhaps, to you, Peter. How does the healing power work?"
"Well, the self-healing is almost automatic. You can mentally slow down the process, though, if you want to, say, avoid raising suspicions. If you want to heal others, then you should put your hands over the injured area and concentrate. Everything then will be a matter of seconds."
"Your blood will have an incredibly strong healing power too," Claire added. "It is even possible to resurrect the dead within a certain time frame."
"How long is that time frame?" John asked.
"We don't know that exactly," Mohinder answered. "A couple of hours for sure. I only used Claire's blood once for resurrection."
"To resurrect me, to be more specific," Noah Bennet said with a smirk. "Just after you'd been so kind to shoot me in the head."
"You provoked that," Mohinder shrugged, "and I knew that Claire's blood would work."
"I... I just can't find words to express how excited I am," John said. "But I can't think of any more questions. Oh, maybe one more. The memory removal. Is it permanent?"
"As far as I know, it is," the Haitian answered.
"We did some experiments," Bennet said. When René erased someone's memories, then it was final. Those memories never came back, no hypnosis helped on that."
"We know of one exception, though," René added. "Once I scrubbed Peter's memories, but they were restored. Probably because of his self-healing abilities."
"If you want a temporary memory erase then use Matt's manipulation's technique. That way you can also plant false memories in someone's mind."
"Okay, I won't forget that," John said.
"This is definitely not the last time we met," Hiro said. "You can find us again if you have questions. Just go into a meditative state and concentrate heavily on this particular place where we are now. And yes, practice a lot. I also advise you to train the concentration. When you use these powers you need to exclude every disturbing thought from your mind. Just one thought can remain: what you are doing, the ability you are using."
"And use these powers with caution," he continued. "I know you will be excited about time travel. But it could be quite dangerous, it's a personal experience. I strongly advise you not to mess too much with the time."
"All right, I understand that," John said. "I'll do the best I can. And thank you, all of you for everything and for the trust you place in me."
He looked down into his hand holding the Company gun and while he was fixating it the dream started to dissolve and soon he fell into a deep dreamless sleep.
He woke up with the urge of taking a leak. Went to the bathroom and he was constantly thinking of the strange dream. The dream was very vivid and he almost felt the weight of the 'Company gun' in his hand. "What if it was all true? What if I had all the power which appeared in the dream?" he thought. "That'd be so damn great."
While washing his hands he fixated the towel and stretched his arm towards it. "Let's give it a try," he murmured hoping to utilize some telekinetic power.
The towel didn't move any closer. With a sigh, he gave up and went back to his room. Although he saw all the Star Wars movies and was familiar with the entire story, he failed to remember Yoda's most cited quote.
"Do... or do not. There is no try."
Author's notes: So this is it for the first chapter. Again, any help with proofreading/beta reading would be highly appreciated.