Sylar wasn't invincible. He had one weakness. A big one.
He really, really liked to google himself.
But then whenever he did, it made him so angry he could barely muster up the focus to toy psychologically with his victims.
The wikipedia page was the worst.
But Sylar kept checking it.
According to his most recent wikipedia entry, "Sylar, aka Gabriel Gray, is a wanted serial killer. Little is known about him except that he has an unexplainable ability to defeat large numbers of armed and trained officers and to escape almost any prison.
Sylar is known to be quite sociable and charming when he wants to be. He has had long-term relationships with several girlfriends, and according to several sources, they included women named Elle and Maya. He is currently enamored with a college student named Claire and hopes to marry her in the distant future, providing her father's objections can be addressed.
Sylar has admitted that eating brains is "disgusting." However, it remains uncertain whether he partakes in this particular behavior. No one has ever proven that Sylar has never eaten a brain with a side of fava beans.
Sylar is a gleeful power-mad murderer, but he is also full of regret and has a desperate need for redemption. It is uncertain whether he is undergoing woobification. However, Sylar has also been criticized for several of his life choices (besides murder). Given the chance to kill a mortal enemy, he will usually brag and snark and mess with his victims' head until he manages to find the one way to fail in his mission. He likes to talk about Darwinian evolution but seems to lack a basic understanding of its mechanisms beyond the misleadingly simplistic but highly publicized slogan of "survival of the fittest." He has a special ability to see how things work, but can't seem to apply it to anything that would change his life for the better.
He is also capable of existing in disembodied form in a mindreader's head. Which is totally logical.
Sylar once pretended to be friends with noted figures such as Mohinder Suresh and Peter Petrelli. He was only using them for information, however, and those relationships were strictly platonic. Sylar is very straight.
In Sylar's spare time, he likes to save the lives of wayward teens and trick his enemies into committing domestic abuse. Recently, he may or may not have decided to run off with the circus. His current whereabouts, however, are unknown, but most experts agree that he is probably dead and/or trapped in someone else's mind and/or trapped in someone else's body and/or competely reformed. He is no threat to anyone at all, and rumor has it that he has taken up knitting."
Sylar screamed in frustration as he resisted the urge to slice the top off of the computer. "Where do they get this crap!!! A large portion of this entry is partially untrue!! And who told them about my knitting?"
Angrily, Sylar called up his ex, Peter. "Hey, it's me."
"Sylar! What nefarious thing are you planning!?"
"Nothing, I just have a question about the computer."
"Oh. Cool, then."
"So... who writes this crap on wikipedia?!"
"Whoever wants to."
"What!?!?!"
"It's collaborative. Anyone who registers can edit wikipedia entries."
"But the entry on me!! It's full of ridiculous nonsensical character assassinations!"
"That's canon for you."
"What?"
"Nothing, please continue," Peter said quickly, not wanting to provoke a jealous power-hungry rage in Sylar by explaining to him that he recently acquired the power to break the fourth wall.
Sylar continued complaining about wikipedia, "This crap isn't true, though! I mean, a lot of it SEEMS like it would be true. But it's not! It's more like... the delusion of authenticity that's insidiously replacing an actual craving for truth!!!!!!"
"Yeah, it's called 'truthiness.' It's like truth. But it's not. I heard the word on Colbert."
"But where's the hunger for real truth!?? The HUNGER?!! THE HUNGERRRRRR????"
"It's been replaced by wikiality," Peter answered.
"I hate everyone."
"Welcome to the future of knowledge," Peter said.
"No wonder I keep trying to destroy the future," Sylar muttered.
"What was that?" Peter said, alarmed.
"Nothing. Thanks for the tip, Peter. Kisses, 'bye."
Peter sighed as he heard the dial tone. Sylar really didn't adjust well to the digital age.
But then, what can you expect from a watchmaker?
Author's note: This was originally written for comment_fic on livejournal, a multi-fandom prompting comm
The prompt was Sylar, truthiness