FOUR
Cries and shouts filled the air. We'd landed right in the middle of a battlefield, and I only caught glimpses of people as they flowed forward, moved past us, some going too fast for my eyes to see, others scrambling up the sides of skyscrapers. Guns and steel flashed around us, and soon the sound of bullets tore through the air. Peter was trembling, shaking. Hiro disappeared.
Peter inched closer to me, snapping his head around, looking like he was trying to decide what to do.
I took his hand.
"Peter?"
"Yeah?"
I kissed him, my free hand grabbing onto the back of his head. I was kissing him not just because I wanted to, but because in that moment it felt like the right thing to do. Like we both needed it. We broke away and he smiled, leaning forward so his forehead was touching mine.
And I saw the old Peter. He looked younger, and his eyes blazed to life with the good old Petrelli determination.
"We're unstoppable," I said. "Together, Pete, we can do anything. Can't we?"
"Yeah. I…you're the only person here who doesn't hate me, Mel. And I hate the fact that you have to go back alone."
"I don't know how I can ever hate you."
He put his palm flat against my face. "You saw the way she looked at me. You'll end hating me, too."
"Maybe not. She never found you in this future, did she?"
Peter kissed my forehead. We stepped away from each other and turned to face the enemy. They'd built a barricade, military style. Some men were leaning over it, shooting into the crowd. We were far enough back that the bullets didn't reach us.
Claire appeared on the other side of Peter. In each hand she held a gun. She looked at us.
"You told me once you got called demon by a bunch of goons," she said, fixing her gaze on me. The smile she gave me was big and wild, creepy and terrifying. "I think it's time we lived up to that, don't you?"
I remembered the goons, in the tower, shooting into us. The fear on their faces when they realised bullets would not take us down.
"Let's do it," I said. The three of us charged forward.
We moved past the others, and I realised it wasn't just the people from the cavern surrounding us. I tilted my head back, spotting a few people in the sky, including Sam.
I pointed it out to Peter as we moved forward. Claire spotted and nodded.
"They have their base in the city. We came to a truce a few weeks back, agreed that if Austen sent his men in, we'd come and help."
We broke out of the main crowd. They didn't need to surge forward, not with the powers and guns. But behind the barricade, I saw Hiro, flashing in and out of existence, swinging his sword.
Peter, Claire and I kept running across the empty space, fire flaring up in my hands and in Peter's. Claire aimed her guns and began firing. Bullets tore through the air, got all three of us. But Claire's ability meant all three of us kept going. They stared at us with slack jaws and pale faces, and as I looked, I realised most of them were only a few years older than me.
"I thought Austen was using EAs?" I yelled, above the sound of gunshots.
"Hasn't sent them," Claire called back. "Probably thought there'd only be a few EAs here!" She winked at me, before sprinting ahead. I watched as she fired shot after shot, soldiers tumbling back, guns falling from their hands.
Something wasn't right.
They weren't proper soldiers. They were kids in uniform, scared and terrified, tears streaming down their faces as they fired. Ignoring the bullet that hit my shoulder, I turned and stared back at our side.
They were relentless. A mob of angry faces, shooting fire and ice and water, channelling their abilities, using our advantage to take down people so much weaker.
People scared of us.
I grabbed Peter, yanked him back.
"What's wrong?" he asked, flicking bullets away as they came towards us.
"What did we do?" I asked. "What the hell did we do when Austen came into power?"
"We fought, Mel," he said, voice low, soft. "We fought for our lives. They sent people to catch us. Any EA without the proper papers was reported to the authorities."
"How many innocent people died, Peter?"
He turned away from me, staring at the floor.
"How many?"
The sounds of fighting were beginning to die down. Peter still didn't answer.
"No wonder they call us terrorists!"
I turned away from him, feeling sick. I stared at the barricade. The soldiers were either dead or running, moving fast as they could away from the fight. Claire jogged back to us; Hiro appeared along with future me. Hiro and Peter were the only ones not smiling.
"We did it!" Claire cheered. Cries of triumph soon rose up among the crowd, and I spotted Sam flying down, right into the middle of it. Was he going to celebrate with Becky? Were all of them in there, Rin and Eddie, too?
Were they really that close?
"We did it, Mel," future me said, clasping a hand on my shoulder and squeezing. "Why don't you look happier?"
How many of those people had died because of me?
"Don't you think it was a little too easy?" I turned to her. She was me and I was her, sure, but we couldn't have been more different. Whatever she had seen, whatever she had gone through, it had separated us by more than just two years. "Like the tower. Don't you think we got through too easily?"
"You hear that?" Peter said. He wasn't looking at any of us, but he had his head angled like he was listening to something.
And I heard it, too.
A deep rumbling noise.
Sparks flew up into the air, from the other side of the barricade and the vehicles the army had left behind.
"Oh, shit," future me muttered, before turning back to the crowd. "They've sent EAs in!" she cried. "Get ready for…"
We were away from the crowd, closer to the barricade, so when the explosion hit, we were the ones to take the blunt of it.
I leaped towards Peter, following instinct and nothing else, grabbing onto him and holding him down as Claire went flying through the air, smacking into the closest of our fighters. Didn't see what happened to Hiro or future me, but super-strength on my part kept me and Peter still.
When I dared look, smoke filled my vision. Peter's arms were around me, muttering my name, over and over again.
"I'm fine," I said. "Peter, I'm fine."
Rumble was falling all around us. I focused on trying to spot the barricade, pushing Peter down when I spotted one of the vehicles flying through the air, over our heads. Screams rose up in the air, the shouts of the scared, injured and dying.
We crouched on the ground, mirroring each other's positions. Smoke and ash filled the air, made it impossible to see anything. Except each other.
"There." Peter pointed upward, and I saw someone flying above us, gripping onto the shoulders of someone else who was shooting fireballs into the crowd behind.
"Come on!"
We pushed ourselves off the ground, collided with the figures at the same time. The flyer lost his grip, tumbled in the air and righted himself before flying back behind the barricade. The other guy crashed to the floor.
"We need to get over there," Peter called, and I spotted a few figures scrambling over the vehicles. I nodded and we shot forward.
They were behind the vans and cars. The ones that could use abilities from a distance hankering down, the others moving forward to go over the barricade. Flyers were picking up different people, and it was clear we were outnumbered.
Peter stopped in mid-air, staring at a figure coming out of the smoke. Two figures. Both of them I recognised, both carrying swords.
"Nathan!" His voice was a scream, the shock on his face all too clear. I grabbed Peter, yanked him down, avoiding the other figure.
"You can't escape me again, bitch."
Sylar.
"Nathan…he's dead…" Peter said, eyes locked on his brother.
Sylar turned, twisting his body to face us. He lifted his hand, flicked it, and suddenly we were flying away from each other. Another flick of his hand and I was turned, upside-down and frozen, no way to put myself right. Something felt like it was gripping my throat, squeezing, hard.
"Peter!" I choked the word out, watching as Nathan flew towards him and raised the sword. Sylar dropped his, came towards me.
"Do you know how you kill someone immortal?"
"Help!" I screeched, though I knew the sound would be drowned out by the fighting down below. So I sent it out telepathically instead, reaching out to every single mind I could find.
Sylar. Help.
I touched on one mind very different from the others, one that stood out, and knew Hiro, my present day Hiro, was there.
I screamed Peter's name again, screamed it over and over again until I was only mouthing the word. He wasn't moving. He wasn't doing anything. Just floating there and staring at Nathan. They were inches apart, Nathan screaming something at him I couldn't hear.
I watched, unable to do anything, Sylar's laughter ringing in my ears as Nathan raised the sword.
"Chop off their head," Sylar said.
The sword swung through the air. Peter's head came clean off. Flew towards one of the nearest buildings before gravity took hold and it went down.
"And burn them." Another flick of Sylar's hand and Peter's body, now falling, was covered in flames.
Someone grabbed me from behind. Sylar screamed out, and everything dissolved.
