Title: Of Shades and light
Disclaimer: If I owned Heroes, Elle Bishop would still be around.
Rating: PG-13 for now, R in later chapters
Pairing: Sylar/OC (Elizabeth Porter)
Summary: Elizabeth is a Level Five escapee that just want to go back to her family. Unfortunately for her, Sylar has decided she's going to be his next prey...
Spoilers: It's set during the Villains arc, from 3x03 till the finale.
Note: before this one I wrote a fic where Elizabeth and Sylar were old friends and Sylar killed Lizzie's fiancé without knowing. While I was writing the finale (I still am, actually, since I'm the queen of procrastinators) I started thinking 'what if Lizzie's never left the mental institution her mother took her to when she was a child?'. Here's the answer : )
***
When the door of her cell suddenly opened and everything went dark, Elizabeth was the only evolved human in Level Five not rejoicing. She watched the other prisoners from behind the glass going to free Echo and the other inmates with restraints, but no one worried to look at her. She didn't know if feel relieved or offended…
"What the hell are you still doing there? Get out, doll, we're leaving!" said Echo, entering her cell. He moved closer to take her arm, but suddenly he let his hand fall to his side. He didn't miss that the gesture frightened the young girl even more.
"Oh, look at her… she's dead scared," smirked Knox, watching Elizabeth from the other side of the glass. "Keep going like this, blondie, it's been a long time since I got my last fix…"
Elizabeth shot him a death glare, and almost immediately Knox's smile disappeared from his face, his happiness and excitement completely gone.
"Bitch."
Elizabeth smiled briefly, and Echo took the occasion to remind the girl it was their only occasion to get out from their personal hell. A special type of hell that in Elizabeth's case had lasted for the last twenty years, even if her prison mates ignored it. Elizabeth smiled again, and took from a hidden corner under her bed a little piece of paper. She folded it neatly and put it in her pocket.
"Let's go."
"Good girl."
"Don't overestimate yourself," hissed Flint. "Just because your cell door opened…"
"Leave her alone," said Jesse. Elizabeth shot him a curious look. Since when did Jesse, Knox's partner-in-crime, care for her? But soon Jesse was distracted by the girl lying on the floor. Elle, if she wasn't mistaken. And Jesse was worried about her wellbeing, she could feel it clearly… but it wasn't the right time to stop and think about the weird behavior of her 'friend'. They had to run away, and the faster they could, the better.
***
Elizabeth could tell that only Jesse and Echo were happy she managed to escape with them. Knox, Flint and the German felt very angry and resentful towards her… and she couldn't exactly blame them since she had messed up with their heads since day one, to dampen the evil feelings inside of them with her empathy and to stop having a panic attack every other day because of that. It was only thanks to her ability if she had discovered that other trick of her power, a type of empathy so rare and powerful that had prevented her from having a normal life since she was a child. Something that would be very useful once she went back home to Missouri.
She just have to convince Jesse and Echo, and then let them influence the others… she would boost the influence projecting positive feelings into them. Flint, the German and Knox thought of them as the leaders… they couldn't even imagine that Level Five youngest resident Elizabeth Porter could do to them, and for her own sake, she hoped they would never find out. That implied keeping a low profile until they all were far enough from New York, and closing her eyes in front of the violence perpetrated by her companions, because she needed not to be seen as a menace.
That was why she didn't say a thing (even if Jesse, for some reason, expected her to) when Knox and the others decided to rob a bank. She also didn't say a thing because the way Knox killed Echo in front of her was still vivid in her mind. Knox was a true villain; in order to survive, she had to avoid getting on his bad side— well, more than she already was, anyway, especially after she calmed down the hostages with her power. Knox felt his strength fading, and grabbed Elizabeth by the neck.
"What do you think you're doing, huh?"
Elizabeth felt like she couldn't breathe, but for different reasons. Knox's hand on her… it burned like fire. Her heart started beating faster and faster, terrified by the man that was touching her, and a few seconds later Knox let her go. Elizabeth fell on the floor, breathing heavily, and Knox smiled.
"Much better, now," he smirked, looking at the crying girl at his feet. Elizabeth raised her eyes, and saw that only Jesse was looking at her with something similar to compassion. The others were just laughing at her. God, how much she hated them… and still, she couldn't bring herself to do again what landed her in Level Five in the first place. They were villains, they deserved it… but she wasn't a killer. Her rule had just one exception, and was about the people that tortured her since she was a child. She remembered all their names, and was determined to make them suffer as much as she had at their hands.
When Knox killed the German, Elizabeth started to worry for herself. She tried to keep everyone calm, but all her good proposition went out of the window when she saw who the police was sending inside the bank to negotiate. The man with the horn-rimmed glasses. The son of a bitch that took her kicking and screaming self in Level Five two years earlier and put her in the hands of another type of torturers.
Elizabeth hid behind a desk, where a few hostages had been, and observed the fight between the Company agent, Knox and Jesse, that the agent called Peter. When the situation escalated – and Jesse stopped being a good guy, for some reason that the girl didn't understand – another guy came into play. A tall, dark-haired young man, that probably worked with Horn-rimmed Glasses. One of us, one of them… even Elizabeth knew that was the Company policy. But there was more to him than it met the eye. A inner struggle. Light and darkness, engaged in battle… and the darkness was winning. Just, no one had realized that yet, not even the dark-haired man. But he eventually did, realized Elizabeth, when he telekinetically nailed Jesse against a glass window and cut his head open. Elizabeth was frozen in fear, but noticed that Flint was slowly escaping that place, and probably praying not to be the next to die by that guy's hand.
When Elizabeth moved, unfortunately, the other agent noticed her from the other side of the glass. Probably she should've felt guilty about leaving Flint behind, but she didn't have a doubt he would've done the same to her. Plus, she had tasted freedom for the first time in twenty years; no one would convince her to renounce to it.
Elizabeth couldn't know it, but Gabriel – Sylar – had come to the same conclusions as she. He was just a killer, his mother was wrong about him. There was no point in going back to New York, not when his nature was urging him to go back killing and acquiring new abilities. And speaking of new abilities… he now had Jesse's power, but he was sure that in the bank there was at least another power worth to steal. Pity the German was dead; he would've loved magnetokinesis. Flint was already back in custody, Knox escaped him and Bennett… but what about the girl? Witnesses said that the gang was composed by four men and a blonde, young girl…
Sylar smirked.
He had just found himself another prey to hunt.