Disclaimer: Joss Whedon is the original writer/creator of all that is Buffy, and Mutant Enemy also holds those rights. Heroes is Tim Krings brainchild and since that's not my name I sadly can not claim to own it.
The Janus-Child by Simone of the Zordiak
Chapter Two: First Moves
October 19. 2006 - New York, NY
The brush dropped to the floor, not needed any longer and the milky white film receded from Isaac's eyes as he woke out of his preconitive trance. He blinked and rubbed his hurting eyes before he took his first look. Once again the paintings showed no hint of the bomb that was going to destroy New York, but this time there were a certain, different tone to the paintings. Somehow he knew that they belonged to a different cycle. The first showed two people, a man and a boy, sleeping. He did not know the man, but the child he had seen before. Little Alexander had sometimes visited him during his time in the strange facility, had enjoyed the paints and crayons he had given him to play with. He was part of the better memories of the strange days he'd stayed there. He studied the painting of the two sleepers once more. The child was sleeping, his head resting on the chest of the unknown man and one of his hands clutching a teddy bear. The man was more or less embracing the child in a protective hold, giving the entire setting of the painting a cosy look. The second painting showed the unknown man and Alexander again, but this time there was a third person, an Indian man he'd never seen before, but who still seemed to look familiar to him. The third and fourth picture both were no help to him either, but the fifth... the fifth was worse than bad. There were corpses everywhere, mountains of corpses. In the centre of the picture there was Alexander again, sitting in a grotesque circle formed out of the dead bodies of the two men that had been in the other paintings. He was bleeding rivers out of his cut arms and in the background there were two other people: a man and a female... he couldn't call that being woman, she was too strange. The female had black hair and eyes and strange blackish veins upon her face and she was emitting greenish light out of her hands. The light hit the man and it was obviously painful, for his face was scrunched into a silent scream. The man was taller than the woman, with brown, slightly curly hair, but Isaac could not make out any more details. The green light was covering too much of his body. Isaac took one step backwards and let himself sink down to the floor and rest. It was hard, very hard for him to paint in such long sessions, but still he felt like there would... should be more paintings, like this cycle was still incomplete. He sighed. Before he could try again he would need some rest, some new canvases and paints, and food was becoming necessary too he concluded as his stomach started to grumble unhappily. Food first, he decided, then some rest, and then the supplies for his new paintings. He was not going to allow this to happen. The cheerleader was saved, and now it would be his mission to save the two men, to save Alexander.
-o-o-o-o-o-
October 22. 2006 - New York, NY
Sylar was normally not someone to oversleep or to sleep in, never. Even before he had become aware of his uniqueness, when he had been simply Gabriel, his inner clock always woke him punctually at six in the morning. So it was something like a shock when he woke, looked at the alarm clock and learned that it was already nine, that he had overslept by three hours. He tried to sit up, but something, someone was clinging to his side like a limpet. Sylar looked and couldn't suppress a smile: Alexander clung to him, almost hugging him. Carefully he slid out of his bed without waking his boy. Obviously Alexander had snuck in last night, like the night before and the other two nights before that one as well. It seemed like he was getting used to it.
He stepped into the tiny bathroom and started the shower. The last four days had been… interesting. Sylar had learned rather quickly that a young child would go nuts if locked into a car all day. Also a child's bladder was obviously smaller. A child needed to be entertained and feed in regular intervals and so he had to reschedule his stops and a journey of two, maybe three days had become a journey of four days. From Odessa, Texas he'd driven, with several rest-stops, to Hope, Arkansas. There he'd upped their wardrobe and they had slept in a small bed & breakfast, were the elderly receptionist had gushed over the cuteness of a suddenly very shy Alexander. Then the journey went on, from Hope, Arkansas to Crossville, Tennessee. On the next day he'd wanted to get to Harrisburg, but the car broke down in Roanoke, Virginia. Of course, with his ability to understand how things worked he could fix it, he just needed to "organize" a few spare parts. In Roanoke he'd bought a snow globe for his mother and a teddy bear for Alexander and not for the first time he thought if and how he could tell her that she was the grandmother of a five year old child that was created in a lab. And like all the other times he'd decided to think about it later. At the moment his biggest goal was to get to New York and he managed to achieve his goal the next day. He'd driven them to his shop and the little apartment tucked behind it.
A tiny kitchen, bath, a bed and a pullout sofa, that was all, nothing much, but when he'd been a watchmaker he'd spent many nights here, listening to the soothing noise of countless clocks ticking in perfect harmony. He'd put Alexander to sleep on the sofa-bed, which was softer and more comfortable than his old bed. But obviously Alexander had different ideas.
Sylar turned off the shower and grabbed a towel. Today was a big day for him and his boy. He wondered how the son of Chandra Suresh would react if he suddenly popped up in his apartment. Well, he had a little peacemaking gift in form of the stolen files of the company, but he had the feeling that Mohinder was stubborn and unforgiving. He had managed to find his other, his real apartment and had forced him to move out rather quickly before the police could find him.
Oh yes, from the few glimpses he'd gotten of him, he'd concluded that Mohinder was a resourceful man and he would like to meet him in a battle of wits.
He dried off his hair and glared into the mirror. He hated the fact that the company-scientists had deemed it necessary to shave off most of his hair. And he found it even worse that this haircut looked better than his old one. He sighed and stepped back into his little bedroom to dress himself. Alexander was still sleeping and he decided to let him sleep on for a little while. It was Alexander big day too after all and he wanted him to be at his best when they went to visit his other parent.
-o-o-o-o-o-
Mohinder was sleeping. The last few days he'd driven nightshift and had come home so late that it had been early again. Add to that the work he'd done decoding his father's research and you got a dead tired geneticist. So he was still in bed, still sleeping and did not hear the clicking noise of his door being opened and shut again. He didn't hear the footsteps walking through his apartment or the soft squeal of a child meeting his lizard. But he did noticed it when something started moving around in his bed. He sighed, still almost asleep. Obviously his little escape artist of a lizardy namesake had managed to escape from his tank again and was now searching for the warmest spot in his apartment. Mohinder murmured, half-asleep, trying to shoo the scaly pest away.
There was a giggling sound and then, something, no, someone poked him. And it was not his lizard. Someone was here, someone human, an intruder.
Suddenly Mohinder was wide awake, his eyes snapped open and he sat straight up. There was an indignant squeak as the child that had leaned over him was dislodged and started to tumble backwards, almost falling of his bed. Almost, for the motion suddenly stopped, as if someone had caught him, before he could fall, but there wasn't anyone, was there? A sound made him tear away his gaze from the child and then he saw the other one, an adult male, who was leaning against the wall right next to the door of his bedroom. In one angled arm he carried Mohinder the lizard, his other arm was stretched into a capturing motion and suddenly Mohinder understood. Telekinesis, the art of moving objects and obviously also falling children, with ones mind. The man before him had a power, the first one he'd ever seen with his own eyes. His father had been right all along. But why had he broken into his apartment?
Then the man smiled and it was not a very nice smile.
"Good morning, Dr Suresh. I've heard that you were looking for me."
Looking for him? Mohinder blinked, but his mind was not yet fully awake and so the man continued after a short pause.
"You and I, we have a lot to talk about. So much interesting things to talk about."
Caffeine, he really needed something to kick-start his brain, he still had no idea what the other man wanted from him and why that had been so important for him, that he'd broke into his apartment. And what about the child? It looked familiar, somehow.
"Who are you? And what do you want from me?"
The man smiled, like a Bengal Tiger about to pounce his prey.
"I am Sylar." He gestured and suddenly there were invisible fingers around Mohinder's throat. "And as I said, we have a lot to talk about."
-o-o-o-o-o-
Peter dreamed. He dreamed of death, of destruction and it was all his fault. It felt like he was caught in a vicious loop, watching, standing in a near-empty street, feeling his skin growing tighter and hotter, seeing the dangerous light under his skin growing brighter and brighter until he couldn't hold it inside any longer. Once more he watched his brother disintegrate into ashes, sees buildings crumble to the ground, only to start anew, once more standing on an deserted street, trying to find a way, a solution. His hands were already glowing again, when suddenly the vision changed. There was a boy, a small Indian boy, smiling at him as he takes his hands. And the glow vanished as if someone flipped a switch. He felt a soft breeze and noticed that the hot and tight feeling of his skin was gone too. For the first time since these dreams… nightmares started, he felt in control. It was a good feeling.
In front of him the boy was still standing, still smiling. And he was no longer alone. Behind him stood a young man, Caucasian and maybe six feet tall. He had tousled brown hair, brown eyes and a lopsided smile that screamed to trust him. The hands of the man rest comfortably on the shoulders of the boy, holding them together, connecting them. To the boys right side stood Dr. Suresh, dressed in strangely formal yet flowing white clothes. In his hands he was holding a DNA-strand formed out of flowers, plants and animals. To the boys left there was another man and Peter had to look several times to make sure that, yes, this was the man from Odessa, the one that had nearly killed the Cheerleader, killed him. He was dressed all in black and was holding a sword, made completely out of ice.
When he finally got over the shock of seeing that murderer seemingly protecting his little saviour, he turned back to the boy… and could only stare in shock. The boy was no longer smiling, he was bleeding and there was a large hole in his chest. A hole filled with light. The man behind him had a similar hole and he was bleeding too. Both the eyes of man and boy had become orbs of green light. And then they both opened their mouth and they spoke, in complete synchrony.
"It is not your time yet, Mirror of Legion. We have already sacrificed ourselves for this world before and we will continue to do so again, until it no longer needs saving. You go and find them, they will need you, father of my half-siblings."
"What?!"
There was a great flash of green and suddenly Peter sat in the grass, in the dew-wet grass of New York's Central Park and his head was still whirling from the revelation he just had. He heard laughter and turned to it, to witness two Indian boys, two different Indian boys roll around with a man he couldn't recognize right now, because of the wiggling children which were blocking his line of sight. The children were mercilessly tickling the adult and when he laughed, Peter recognized him and couldn't help but stare in disbelieve. A woman stepped on the scene, smiling and collecting the two dishevelled kids and their not much better looking father. And Peter watched as they leave the park, the mother, the children and himself. An older and much happier looking version of himself, but 100 percent himself.
"Strange, isn't it, what can happen in such a few moments of time."
The voice was jovial and friendly, but unexpected and he flinched as he turned around… to meet a man with two faces, literally two faces.
"They are sweet, aren't they?"
He could only nod.
"Then I would better start searching for them, Peter. Joycelynn will give birth to them in two weeks and if you haven't found them until then… "
The man shrugged, gestures and suddenly they were standing in a graveyard. No! No, no no this was not happening!
"Two weeks, Peter. And now it is time to Wake Up!"
And Peter woke up. He was sitting upright in his hospital bed, the heart monitor protesting as his pulse speed up.
Two weeks, that's all he had and he had no idea… wait! He had an idea where to start. He had to, he need to go to Mohinder
-End Chapter Two-
