Title: Of Powers and Pie
Summary: A super powered serial killer, a geneticist out for revenge, a dashing hero – it all spells bad news for the Pie Maker. A Pushing Daisies crossover.
Disclaimer: Heroes and Pushing Daisies are the intellectual property of Tim Kring and Bryan Fuller, respectively. Nothing but the deepest respect is intended.
Spoiler alert: This fic takes place after season 2 of Heroes and season 1 of Pushing Daisies. Lots of spoilers for Heroes, up to and including "Powerless." Not much in the way of PD spoilers aside from the basic set-up
Author's note: it was my goal to finish this story before S3 started, and I DID. It was a close call, but still. I'm ridiculously proud of myself for that. I had a lot of fun writing this and would love to know what you think, so feel free to review.
- Prologue
It was time, Mohinder decided, to catch a killer.
The facts are these: Mohinder Suresh, Indian geneticist and turncoat spy, was thirty-four years, eight months, thirteen days, and six hours old when he gave a serial killer called Sylar the blood that would heal him and restore his powers. He tried to rationalize the incident, which he had little control over, but it felt like a betrayal; to the Company that he was supposed to serve; to the cause that his father had died for; and to his ward Molly, whom he had promised to protect.
This last issue weighed most heavily on the geneticist's mind, particularly due to the temporary absence of Molly's other pseudo-father, Matthew Parkman, who was busy trying to catch the attempted assassin of former Congressman-elect Nathan Petrelli. Mohinder knew that he had to catch Sylar, who would certainly come back for Molly sooner or later, but after everything that young Molly had suffered through in the last through months, the geneticist couldn't bring himself to ask Molly to find the killer for him. He had to find Sylar on his own.
Mohinder was at a loss regarding how to do that, however, until two days, eleven hours, and forty-nine minutes after Sylar's abrupt departure. While scanning the list of identified Specials, he noticed that his computer's history indicated that this file had been opened recently – during the time that Sylar was in his apartment unsupervised. He drew an immediate conclusion; the killer, killing time awaiting Mohinder's return and the return of his abilities, had found the file and decided to start looking for his next target.
Alarmed but also excited at having found a lead, Mohinder looked at the first likely name on the list – Blaire Blakely, a sales assistant from Coeur d'Coeurs. Before his time with the Company, the geneticist had tried to get in touch with her, and had failed. Now, he knew that it was more urgent than ever to find this woman before Sylar did.
Attempts to get in touch with Miss Blakely herself led nowhere. In the end, he had to use his Company connections to find out from the police station in Coeur d'Coeurs that her brother, Blake Blakely, had reported her missing the day before.
That was why Mohinder Suresh came to possess two plane tickets. Although he wasn't certain if it was a good idea to invite his partner to come with him, he knew he didn't have much of a choice – he couldn't handle Sylar by himself. "Elle," he said, as he stood in the doorway to her office. "We're going on a trip."
Elle Bishop, evolved human with a penchant for giving people painful electrical shocks, looked up at the geneticist with enthusiasm in her eyes. "Is it Paris?" she asked coyly. "I've always wanted to go to Paris. I mean, 'City of Lights?' How awesome would that be?" Although Elle was twenty-four years, six months, ten days, and twenty-one hours old, she had not traveled much, except on business trips, due to an unstable personality and an overly controlling father.
"Sorry, not Paris," Mohinder apologized, handing the sociopath one of the tickets. She inspected it with great curiosity.
"Coeur d'Coeurs?" she asked with a smile. "That's so sweet and cheery I think I'm going to vomit."
"Elle, I really don't have time for jokes," the geneticist insisted. "I think Sylar is there. We need to leave now, if we're going to catch him before he gets away."
Elle Bishop raised an eyebrow, quizzically. "Now you must be joking," she said. "Unless you forgot how my dad grounded me for not playing nice with little bitty Claire Bennet."
"This is too important," Mohinder tried to keep his voice down. "This is about catching a dangerous criminal! Saving lives! Stopping someone from abusing his abilities – that's what the Company is all about, right?"
Mohinder Suresh was aware, dimly, that he was asking this question because he wanted badly for the answer to be "yes," but he was not entirely sure that it was. Still, he was talking to the wrong person for assurance, because all Elle did was shrug with her one good shoulder.
"I don't know," she replied. "All I know is that my dad's going to be pissed if I leave without permission again."
Her comment was supposed to deter the geneticist from pursuing the conversation any further, and it did cause him to hesitate while he considered how much her father's approval mattered to Elle. But then he remembered the last time that she had left without her father's permission and had ended up saving his life.
"Don't you see?" he asked urgently. "Your father wants to catch Sylar as much as I do," although the geneticist doubted if anyone could possibly want to catch this killer as much as he did, "And if you caught Sylar for him, he wouldn't be angry at you anymore. You'd be reminding him how valuable you are to the Company."
Mohinder felt slightly guilty about manipulating Elle when he saw the way her eyes lit up at this possibility, but he suppressed the feeling. He was getting rather good at suppressing his guilt lately, and at least this time he knew what he was doing was for a good cause.