Going Public

A 'Heroes' fanfiction by BenRG

Disclaimer

'Heroes' was created by Tim Kring and is the property of Universal Studios and Tailwind Productions. This is a not-for-profit fan work for free distribution through the Worldwide Web. No infringement of any trademark property or copyright is intended nor any ownership of any trademarked or copyrighted property claimed.

Author's Notes

We are all familiar with the multiple apocalyptic scenarios that have faced Peter and Hiro every time they look 'Five Years On'. Let's instead look at a slightly more hopeful future. After all, bad times come and go and no one doubts the terrible struggle that awaits the Heroes in the years to come. The fight for the future is one that, after all, cannot be won, only lost.

However, instead of dwelling on troubling times and terrible endings, let us instead see what might happen if there is something of a more positive ending. Instead of a great struggle, a willing acceptance of obscurity. As Kaito Nakamura so clearly counselled his son, sometimes the real place for a hero is not in the limelight but in the shadows, always watching, always ready.

This story was written after seeing 'Second Coming' (3x01). It may therefore be AU to the rest of Season 3.

Censor: PG – Just for safety's sake

Chapter 1 – Errand of Mercy

Niki Petrelli
Hope, Washington State, USA
8:15 AM - 3rd June 2011

Nicola 'Niki' Petrelli (née Hawkins, née Saunders) would like to believe that, despite everything, she is a fairly normal thirty-something woman. So, whilst out shopping in the centre of the small town where her extended family had finally settled, when she heard the police sirens, she instinctively found herself moving towards the disturbance.

It had been a hard, no, horrific five years. From the manifestation of her powers, the long months of living the lives of different women due to her brain chemistry disorder and that final, awful secret war that climaxed in her husband being forced to kill his long-lost brother, Gabriel, to save the world from his madness. The extended Petrelli clan of Peter, Niki herself, her son by her first marriage, Micah, Peter's niece Claire and her boyfriend David had all moved to the most out-of-the-way place they could find, the town of Hope, on the Pacific coast of Washington State.

Why? Well, it was the dream of their bubbly Japanese friend, Hiro Nakamura, that they form a crusading band of heroes to defend the weak and innocent and fight for justice. However, Peter's older brother, Nathan, had a different idea and, some reluctantly, others with a sense of relief the other 'gifted' in their band all agreed to follow this alternate path.

"What good will come from exposure?" He had asked. "If there is anything that history has taught us, it is that powerful public figures are inevitably the nucleus and focus of the forces of evil, no matter how good their intentions. It also teaches us that freely exercised power inevitably leads to corruption. If we were to do as Hiro suggests, no matter how much good we would do, we would merely crystallise and inflame the very ambitious and corrupt individuals against whom he proposes that we fight. We would also have to be constantly on guard against taking that step from being protectors to be rulers.

"Instead, we should just go our way and find our lives. I'm not saying that we should forget what we can do… that would be like trying to forget how to walk or talk. I'm saying that we shouldn't go looking for trouble, as that is a sure-fire way of finding it. Trouble will find us, my friends, and if we need to act, we will know when and we will know how.

"Instead of being policemen, we should be… guardians. Waiting in the shadows, always watching and always ready but only acting when it is needed."

Any further debate was curtailed by, of all people, Hiro. "That is what my father was trying to tell me," he announced to the startled group. "If I had not been so impatient, so eager for adventure and glory, then so much of the disasters of the past five years would have never happened." Hiro had looked down in shame for a moment before Ando put a comforting hand on his shoulder, making him look up with a grateful smile. "The hardest duty of a hero," Hiro had announced, "is to do nothing… until the day comes when he must act."

With Hiro's unhappy agreement, the alliance to stop Sylar and Arthur Petrelli had scattered to the four corners of the world. Hiro, Ando and Hiro's pretty botanomorpher girlfriend, Hideiko, went back to Japan. Adam Monroe had loudly stated his intention to spend 'a century or two' in a Buddhist monastery in Tibet 'to think about what I'm going to do next.' Nathan had gone home to New York and his family; he had since gained a Doctorate in Divinity and had become a Baptist preacher. Matt had taken Molly back to his family and, from his infrequent 'phone calls and Molly's far more frequent email and IM contacts, Micah assured his family that they were doing well.

After accompanying Niki and Micah in bearing poor Monica's body back to Nana, Peter decided to go somewhere totally new, somewhere one could disappear despite being in plain sight. Niki, thinking that this was a great idea, accompanied him, as did Claire and David, having nowhere else to go after Sylar's senseless obliteration of Costa Verde and their families. Some time over the last three years, the two of them had grown together. The deal was finally sealed when Micah had sighed and announced: "Dad wouldn't have wanted you to be alone, Mom."

So it was that the newly-married Petrellis and their young kin settled in Hope, Washington, a town large enough to offer the comforts of anonymity but small enough that little of interest ever happened there. Peter was able to get a job at the county hospital where his helpful nature and uncanny ability to sense just what people needed enabled him to quickly rise up the ranks of the nursing staff. Niki worked in a store and was quite happy to be an ordinary mom to Micah and aunt to her orphaned step-niece. For the past six months, life had been unextraordinary and settled. Until today.

As Niki approached the sound of the disturbance, she could feel something crawling in the back of her head. Over time, Peter had been teaching Niki the 'index card' method of ordering the mind that enabled him to sort through the spectacular range of powers that his empathic meta-mimicry gave him. Niki's own abilities were more problematic. Her Multiple Personality Disorder effected such violent changes in her brain chemistry that each of her 'selves' had a distinct power. Peter had taught her to remember the sensations without letting the other 'selves' take control, enabling her to manifest each of their four 'gifts' whenever she needed them.

Currently, she could 'hear' Gina, possibly the most objectionable of her 'selves'. Gina was an empath, able to sense others emotions and influence their emotions in turn, to a certain extent. It had made her a spectacularly capable prostitute but contributed to an incredibly submissive personality. Right now, Gina was whimpering in empathic discomfort and Niki wasn't surprised as she registered the tidal wave of fear, panic and pain flowing down North Street like a tidal wave.

"You okay, lady?" Niki looked up at the man who had spoken and realised that she had stopped in her tracks and fallen to her knees.

"S'okay," she replied to the Good Samaritan and stood up. "I'm just coming down with a bit of a headache." The man nodded, a peculiar expression on his face, and moved on.

Who says you don't know how to put on an act, Baby Sister? Jessi sneered in Niki's head. Niki growled and ruthlessly shoved down on the super-strong psychotic's thoughts. Jessi hadn't significantly affected her in years and she wasn't about to come back any time soon.

Niki turned the corner and, along with all the other bystanders, gaped in horror at the sight before her.

In the middle of the junction of North and Main, the central crossroads of the town, two vehicles were tangled together, surrounded by all four pursuit cruisers deployed by the Hope Sheriff's Department. A huge armoured security van was tilted over onto one side at a crazy angle, having apparently lost control and tumbled over in the middle of a tight high-speed turn. However, it was the vehicle against which the van was leaning, crumpling its front inward like it was made of paper-machae, that caught Niki's attention. It was a yellow school bus.

MICAH! All four of Niki's selves screamed the name simultaneously and it took Niki a few seconds to regain control. Carefully focussing her thoughts, she reached out with her empathy and sighed in relief when she didn't feel the distinct 'tang' of her son's emotions. Not that it would mean much if he were unconscious or… Niki cut off Tracey's grim prognosis and focussed her thoughts again. It was not the junior high school's bus, she now noted with some relief, rather the senior high school. As she watched, the Sheriff's Deputies had opened the escape door at the rear and was helping a selection of dazed and bloodied late-teen boys and girls out to a makeshift infirmary that was being set up on the road. At the other end of the disaster zone, the Sheriff's Deputies had extracted three dark-clad young men from the security van and the three were now sitting by the Sheriff's own car, handcuffed and looking miserable and fearful.

Niki looked on as the Sheriff consulted with the Fire Chief. The two were pointing at the crumpled front of the school van and she heard them say 'trapped in the wreckage'. She also 'heard' their despair and helpless fury.

Niki slowly filtered towards the back of the crowd, her mind a whirl of conflicting thoughts (all, thankfully, her own, but still confused). Empathically, she could sense at least six individuals still on the bus, all in considerable distress and pain. They need to get them out now, she realised. But who knows how long it will take to get the rescue equipment here? Hope isn't exactly Las Vegas, after all! Niki looked over the heads of the crowd at the wreckage again. I shouldn't get involved, she counselled herself. I'm no rescue expert. If I go running in there, I'll just cause trouble! I might even get people hurt…! Oh, shit. Who am I kidding?

Nathan had been right. There was a difference between looking for trouble and reacting when trouble came calling. He said that they would know when the time came. Niki wasn't sure if she had this sense of rightness about what was happening (something that Peter and Hiro seemed to have) that should tell her that it was time to act. However, she did have Peter's vague warning from his precognition, which led her to wear a certain item of apparel under her street clothes. She also knew that she would find it easier to stop breathing than to leave a bunch of kids to possibly die by not acting if she could.

With a sigh, Niki slipped away from the crowd and headed into the service alleyway behind the shops on Main Street.

The skin-tight, armoured synthetic-fibre body suit that Niki was wearing under her street clothes had been designed by the research technicians at Hiro's company, the Yamagato Corporation. It was a miracle of materials technology, allowing Niki a full range of movement whilst protecting her against edged weapons, moderate blunt-force impacts and bullets up to 9mm pistol calibre. It had also been modified in several ways to allow Niki to use her powers to the very greatest extent (Claire's was, by necessity, even more heavily customised).

Niki finished stripping out of her street clothes and tucking them into her shoulder-bag. She quickly pulled on her "super-suit's" boots (with built-up heels) and gloves and finally pulled up the face-mask that covered her neck, ears and the top of her face whilst allowing her hair to flow freely down her back. Niki looked down self-consciously at the skin-tight costume in two-tone grey with a triangular leaf-green insert over her left shoulder and breast with the white 'double-bar-f' emblem that had been a symbol of the 'gifted' for four centuries. This is stupid! I feel like a character in one of Micah's comic books! Then she felt the fading in the panic and fear from the bus. The children's strength was failing. Time was running out.

Niki reached out with the gift that was uniquely her own - magnetokinesis, the ability to manipulate metal by generating magnetic fields, and grasped the steel threads running through her suit. With an exercise of will, she was lofted up into the air to soar over the roof of the stores.

Sheriff Deke Hollins was grimly watching the Fire Department's desperate attempts to get at the school bus driver and six kids stuck in the wreckage of the school bus. He had been Sheriff of this town for over twenty years now and had, before this day, never had an attempted cash van heist. It was somehow inevitable that the pursuit through the town as the reckless thieves tried to drive their loot away would end in such a disaster.

Suddenly, he was aware of movement above him and a rippling gasp from the crowd of rubber-necking bystanders who were watching the slow, painstaking rescue process. Hollins looked around and saw something that would be imprinted on his mind for the rest of his life. As he watched, a beautiful blonde woman in a grey and green body suit gently and soundlessly wafted to the ground at his side as gently as a leaf falling from a tree during Fall.

"What's the situation, Sheriff?" the woman snapped in a tone that announced authority and confidence.

Will Donald was one of the roving reporters for Hope's NBC affiliate, WGBR-5. Normally, his work day was spent merely with reporting on traffic snarl-ups and local politics. Today was his first major crime incident and he was currently on camera, recording a report. It would definitely be the lead story on the station's evening news bulletin. Indeed, as ghoulish as it was, the plight of the children might even ensure that his report would reach the national bulletin! This could be his big chance!

"The Hope Fire Department states that everything that can be done is being done to free the seven people, including six teenage children, trapped in the wreckage of the Owen Garriott High School bus. However, sources in the department, speaking on conditions of anonymity, state that heavy equipment will be required to reach these victims and that the severity of their injuries would make further delays… Michelle, what's wrong with you? Keep the camera on me!"

Michelle Walker, his camerawoman for five years now, had let the lens of her camera droop slightly. She was looking at something in the sky, over Will's shoulder. Instinctively, and with an annoyed expression, Will looked around and saw the grey-clad blonde woman drift to the ground, her long hair streaming out behind her.

Will's mind locked up for a second before journalistic instinct cut in. "Michelle! Camera on that woman! Now! Get everything!" Will looked to where his technician was standing in the side door of their van, also staring open-mouthed at the sight. "Benny! Tell studio that we need to go live! Now!"

"What are you supposed to be?" Hollins had recovered enough of his poise and focus to look at the woman in the Halloween costume with an appropriate level of surprise and mistrust. There had been rumours flying around about people with 'freak' powers for some time now. There were stories on the Feds' 'most wanted' bulletins of 'terrorists' responsible for wide-scale damage in Los Angeles, Houston and New York accompanied by warnings of 'unusual, paranormal phenomenon'. Hollins had thought that was a lot of moon-shine from over-excitable kids and drugged-up 'witnesses'. Now he had to wonder.

Niki glared at the Sheriff, letting all of Tracey's natural authority flow out and obliterate her own nervousness and embarrassment. "Sheriff, we can stand here talking, or we can take action. I know that there are at least half a dozen people trapped in that wreckage. What I want to know is: what needs to be done?"

Hollins shrugged. What the hell? There was no harm in saying it. The kook was probably harmless. "The front two rows of seats were crushed under the weight of the security truck," he explained. "The kids are trapped under the metal and are all pretty badly hurt. The collapsed hand-rails and support columns have turned it into a damned maze of metal and, with the roof crushed in like that, we can't reach them from behind. We've called to Seattle for a heavy crane to lift the truck out of the way, but it will be at least an hour. The way some of them are bleeding…" Hollins shook his head. "Look, we are doing everything we can. Just stand back and stay out of the rescue squads'…"

Niki interrupted the Sheriff's words. "The first step has to be to get that van out of the way," she stated. "Once that is done, we need to open the wreckage of the bus to get at the victims, right?"

Hollins nodded. "Yeah, it'll be a while, though… Hey! What are you doing you crazy…?" The woman in grey had started to jog towards the wreckage with a strange and slightly alarming air of confidence. "Get away from there! That's an order!"

Niki ignored the Sheriff as she jogged over to the overturned security truck. Up close, she could see that the 'saddle' fuel tanks were intact, so there was no chance of an explosion or fire, thank God. Of course, there was no guarantee that the fuel tanks of the school bus were still in such a good state so she would have to be cautious.

Niki could hear Hollins walking towards her, blustering angrily (and doubtless pulling out some handcuffs to restrain her). She did not concern herself about such things. Instead she thought of Jessi. For all she was a slut and a murderous psychotic, Jessi had one immense asset – her confidence. She could handle any situation and face down any threat without even using her gift – superhuman strength, agility and speed. Thinking of Jessi's strength, Niki leaned down and carefully positioned herself half-way along the length of the security truck, hands either side of the drive shaft. Bracing her elbows she began to push up from her knees and hips whilst tilting the truck away from the bus.

Hollins stormed forward, furious. "Get away from there! You are asking for a night in the jail house, young… lady…! My… merciful… GOD!" Hollins looked on in amazement as the grey-clad woman braced her body and... and began to lift the truck! First tilting it away from the bus and then shifting herself underneath it, slowly straightening her body until she stood tall, holding the whole 5-ton mass over her head as effortlessly as Hollins would lift up one of his grandchildren.

Watching the balance of the heavy truck carefully, Niki gingerly stepped away from the bus. After a few yards, which felt like miles because of the effort of keeping the mass balanced, Nikki slowly bent down, lowering the truck to the ground, scooting over to one side so she could lower it onto its wheels without being caught under the chassis.

The crowd had fallen silent. All the rescuers had frozen, unable to believe what they were seeing. To one side, Will Donald looked at Michelle out of the corner of his eye. "Please, God, tell me that you got that!" Michelle managed a convulsive nod, her eyes bugging out.

Niki strode back towards the ruined front of the bus. It was hard to imagine that anything had survived that catastrophe, but her empathy could still pick up six distinct traces of terror and pain. She briefly considered the task before her and came to a decision. The structure of the roof only. Leave the chassis and the interior until you've got a good idea of what is there. Reaching out with her magnetokinesis, she grasped the steel structure of the bus. The crowd gasped in horror and amazement as the grey clad woman raised her arms as if to touch the bus and then flung them apart. The caved-in yellow steel of the vehicle's roof tore like paper with a tortured shriek, peeling back like a banana skin.

The first sight that met Niki's appalled gaze was the remains of the driver. The impact had quite literally crushed and pulped his body. Not even Claire's powers would have been able to help him. Niki covered her mouth and desperately fought down the urge to vomit. She had seen worse in the last five years. The children, think of the children!

Six kids, all bloodied and semi-conscious, had been revealed to the light. The seats and hand-bars had crumpled around them, trapping their legs and bodies. Niki leapt up onto what was once the front platform of the bus, beside the driver's position and grabbed a collapsed bulkhead holding down two kids. With a quick application of Jessi's strength, the steel bent back, revealing four mangled legs. Niki looked over her shoulder at the frozen firemen and paramedics. "Medic!" she screamed. "Get medics over here now!"

Freed from their stunned paralysis by her words, the rescuers raced forward to the stricken children.

By now, the live coverage from Main and North, Hope, Washington State was going out live on WGBR-5. From there it had been picked up by the parent network, NBC. Realising what was being shown, the feed was taken up by the other networks and by the rolling news networks, Fox and CNN. By now, everyone in the world who had access to TV was watching the woman with super powers helping rescue children, shrugging aside steel as if it were paper and lifting impossible weights with ease.

In New York City, Dr. Nathan Petrelli, DD, smiled in a relieved way at the image of his step-sister on the TV in his humble house. "God bless you, Niki," he murmured. "I knew that you would know the moment. There is a reason why we have been given these gifts."

Not that far away, in the Hampton Hills, Angela Petrelli glared at the screen in her palatial but only-too-empty mansion. "Damn that stupid girl!" she hissed. "There's no way we can control this now! Why didn't Peter listen to me?" Furious, cursing the clouding that Matt Parkman had placed on her mind that prevented her from using her precognition, she switched off the TV and began making urgent plans.

In New Orleans, Louisiana, Nana Dawson smiled at the sight of that dear child, living up to her God-given gift, just as Micah had always hoped. She smiled at the photo of Monica. "It wasn't for nothin', child," she assured the memory of her dead granddaughter.

In Los Angeles, Matt Parkman glanced at the TV playing in the entrance area of the precinct house and grinned at the sight. He knew it would be one of the Petrellis that would break first. They were too much 'believers' to remain hidden for too long. Still… it was startling that it was Niki rather than Claire or Pete. He promised to call his friends this evening; no doubt Molly would be desperate to get the 'inside dope' from Micah anyway.

In Hope County Hospital, Peter Petrelli paused in pushing around the medicine cart for the morning rounds in the medical wards and grinned at the pictures being shown on every TV set. He had been ready to make his excuses and fly off to help with the situation himself, but he was glad to see that his wife had everything under control. "Way to go, Niki," he murmured to himself, before continuing to help Dr. Collins in his rounds, the friendly, reassuring Chief Nurse Peter that all the patients trusted and loved.

"Am… Am I gonna die, Miss?"

Damn good question! Gina murmured in Niki's head as the blonde woman looked at the last and most severely-distressed of the children in the ruins of the school bus. The black-haired Hispanic girl was not suffering from particularly severe crush injuries but she had been harpooned through the groin by a falling hand-rail propelled by the immense force of the crash. As far as Niki could tell, the girl was pinned through to the chair behind and was still attached to the remains of the roof from in front.

"We'll need to get the jaws and cut her free," a fireman said from over Niki's shoulder.

"The trick will be moving her without tearing the femoral artery," a paramedic added. "Even the vibration of the jaws might cause that bar to shift and start her haemorrhaging."

Niki fought down an urge to slap the two men upside the head for discussing the poor girl's possible death in front of her. There had to be something that she could do. Trying to move the steel bar magnetically was out – the paramedic said it could tear a blood vessel in the girl's body. Similarly, the use of her super strength was out. Suddenly a half-remembered conversation with Peter came to mind.

"Hey!" Niki called. The paramedic looked over at her. "I heard that cold stops pain and slows blood flow. Is that right?"

The paramedic blinked and nodded. "That's right – it numbs the sensory nerves and causes blood vessels to contract."

"Okay," Niki said. "I'm getting her out of here now. Get a gurney ready." So total was the awe felt towards Niki at that point that the paramedic did not question her but ran off to obey. Niki looked up at the pretty girl's tear-streaked face. "Don't worry, honey," she said with a smile. "You're going to be okay."

"They… they said…!"

"They don't know," Niki said with a total confidence that she wished she actually felt. "What's your name, honey?"

"S… Sarah."

"Sarah. A pretty name for a pretty girl." That earned a slight smile. "Okay, Sarah. I need you to be brave and stay still. I'm going to get you loose but it is going to be a bit weird. Your leg will get cold and numb but that isn't anything to worry about, okay?"

Niki recalled Tracey, her most recent foray into being someone else. Tracey was a political operator par excellence. A confident woman with a natural authority and skill with people that inspired trust and confidence. She also had a gift – one that Peter called 'nanokinesis', the ability to control the motions of individual molecules, either heating or chilling substances by changing the energy of their molecular structure.

Niki called on that gift now as she gently touched the flesh where the metal tube stuck into Sarah's body. Sarah shuddered slightly as the flesh gently chilled, numbing all sensation and reducing blood flow to the area. Niki now moved her grasp to the metal bar itself, pushing Tracey's power into it to a far greater degree. Flash-chilled, the metal became as brittle as glass and shattered from a super-strong squeeze of the hand. Reaching out with her magnetokinesis, Niki peeled back the metal structure of the seat underneath Sarah, allowing her to gently lift the girl out whilst she magnetically held the treacherous metal completely still.

"Over here!" yelled a paramedic. Niki gratefully lowered Sarah onto a gurney, lying her on her side so that the remains of the metal tube remained undisturbed. "We'll take it from here, Ma'am. Nice job, by the way. She'll make it, I promise."

Niki nodded with a smile, grateful beyond belief that her ad-hoc plan had worked. As she was wheeled away to an ambulance, Sarah managed a slight wave and mouthed 'Thank you'. All around Niki, the crowd erupted into cheers and shouts of triumph; all directed at her.

Niki sighed and relaxed for a moment before tensing as she heard several people running towards her. She spun around… and had a TV camera thrust into her face. "Miss! I'm Will Donald, WGBR-5 News! Ma'am that was a spectacular display and I'm sure that I speak for the whole town in thanking you for your efforts!"

Niki focussed on the TV camera and somehow fought down a desire to blush or to just fly off.

Will was talking a mile a minute, working mostly from instinct. "Do you have a statement? What led you to assist in this situation?" He thrust his microphone in the superwoman's face (hmm… Superwoman! Nice!).

Niki sighed. There was no way of getting out of this right now and, as much as she wanted too, Tracey's instincts told her that running off wouldn't achieve anything. "I'm just a passer-by, doing her best to help," she responded with a slight smile. "I'm sure that anyone with a conscience would do the same."

That was unexpected and Will was nonplussed for a moment. In distant New York, Nathan roared with laughter at the reporter's expression. Will got it back together to ask another question: "Ma'am, if you don't mind me asking, who are you? What are you? Are you from another world?"

Niki laughed aloud. "No, I'm from Nevada," she said. "Look, I'm really no-one special. I have some gifts that either genetics, luck or destiny gave me. I'm just trying to do the right thing with them." She stepped back. It was time to go, before her nerve failed her or she let something slip that revealed her true identity to the world. "Now, if you excuse me…" She gathered the magnetic fields around her and, as everyone watched, the TV pictures fizzed with static for a moment in sympathy.

"Who are you?" Will tried again. "What should we call you?"

Niki thought about that for a moment. Definitely not 'Superwoman' or something similar (yuck!). Hmm… She found herself thinking of her dead twin sister and how it was a memory of her that, in so very many ways, started all of this for her. She also remembered Nana's love for astrology and her birth sign. Yes… Yes, that was right for her. She could feel it. "Call me 'Gemini'," she said, gathered her power and lifted effortlessly into the air, arms raised to either side like a balancing gymnast.

Michelle panned her camera up, tracking the amazing woman with her astonishing powers soaring up into the heavens, quickly lost to sight. "Gemini, ladies and gentlemen," Will narrated as she did so. "Call her 'Gemini'. I do not believe that I exaggerate when I say that this is the most significant report that I have ever made… that I ever could make. A new age, it seems, is dawning. An age of heroes."

As she soared away Niki couldn't help but grin. Damn! Hiro (and Micah) was right. You did get a buzz out of doing the 'superhero' thing! Suddenly a thought struck her – she'd left her bag and 'civvies' behind. Niki giggled slightly. She was so focussed on helping those trapped kids that she hadn't thought about how and when she could change back! She decided that she couldn't exactly go looking for them now, she'd land in the back garden of the house and hope that David was around to let her in. Then she'd change and drive back to get her stuff back.

She shook her head as she changed the angle of her flight-path so that she could double-back to her home neighbourhood. This is when it all changes, she realised. Later, we're gonna look back at this moment and think: This is when it all began.

Afterword

And that's a wrap!

I've also got chapters for Claire's 'coming out' (live on national TV) and a big final show for the entire extended Petrelli clan. Let me know if you would like to see it!

BTW – "Botanokinesis" is the ability to manipulate plant life – their shape, growth and even getting them to move. Poison Ivy in the 'Batman' cartoons is a good example of a botanokinetic.