Sorry about the very long wait, but college and work has taken over my entire life, but thankfully I've some time to get back at it. As always, I don't any of these randoms or whatever they're called. The Devourer is the only character that is original, and so is the plot. So, don't sue me, because I am making no profit from this, and I'm not giving you the last five dollars in my pocket. Special thanks to my beta, who stuck with me through all my finicky nit-picking over my story.
On with the story.
hr/ The bright, hot sun glinted off of the blue-gray water of the Atlantic Ocean, the refracting rays lost in the subtle waves that made for the platform upon which the First stood.
Ever since the day it had used that little Hallibitch to look upon the face of Nothingness, the First knew that its grasp on the universe was going to slip. Why was this? Because it knew, in its infinite wisdom that comprised all of the knowledge of the universe, that the side of the Light was going to rise up, en masse, against a perceived universal apocalypse.
Which, indeed, was what it could very well turn out to be. Everything, sucked into oblivion: all matter, all energy, everything. Even the First. Destroy the First and you destroy the universe. It had no way to be sure, but it had a pretty good notion that the reverse also worked as well. After all, the reason the first statement worked was because the universe was tied into the very essence of the First. Take away a part of it, and the whole house of cards would come tumbling down.
And so it needed the Good Guys to win this one. Not to save all the puppy dogs and kittens and all the cute little babies, but because their victory ensured the First's continued existence. It could care less about all that other bullshit (except for the kittens—it wasn't sure why, but kittens were just delectable to the lesser demons, and so kept up morale for the Dark Side). It would have done something else-ianything/i else, for that matter—had it not known that its greatest enemies would be the only ones with the ability to even challenge the Devourer. It would have sent its own powerful minions, but they just seemed. . . stupid compared to some of the heroes on the other side of the fence.
iSome,/i not including the Andrew creature, though that didn't really count since he had originally been a pawn of the First, so that might as well cancel the good in him out. But. . .
Maybe some fresh blood would help the First's cause. It had been influencing the path of a new player, and was just about to put him into play—
An internal signal snapped the First out of its private musings as it was alerted that the target was in the optimum position for a special transfer. Causing the appropriate void in certain laws of physics and adding the extra to the spot it needed, the First teleported the subject of its interest to a spot directly in front of it.
There was a great flash and a boom, a sickening ipop/i, and Gabriel Gray was standing in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean in front of the First of All Evil.
To Be was a burden. It hated that it existed more than the insignificant specks of matter and energy did. The one speck, it had hurt this raging beast of Nothingness. It had gazed upon its dark warrens and opened a doorway to a place that was rife with energy and life. Chaos, illuminating the night like so many gnats swarming in one's nose. Oh, how it hated It All.
But it could now think on a cogent level, though not in a way that beings of Life could. It thought of how wonderful it would be if it could make the universe like it used to be, before It All. Before it became conscious of the universe around it and shivered in monstrous pain. It wanted It All to stop.
And so the Devourer, driven with a hunger for only peace and unbeing, formed a plan. And with rapture, it reveled in the thought of devouring It All.
Gabriel didn't think. He didn't have to. Being teleported away from his next mark just as he was about to move? To the middle of the ocean? No, it was obvious what was about to happen. So he acted.
He flung out his hand, bolts of lightening cracking the air as it sizzled to its target. And kept going. Gabriel was just a bit surprised that his first attack didn't work, but only a little. He'd seen enough of the world and its freaks of nature to know that nothing was impossible. Like avoiding his next assault.
Again, his hands flew out, though this time they were directed at the water around the girl. Almost instantly, the water around her rose up dozens of feet high, and came crashing down on her. When all the spray cleared, she wasn't even wet. This was starting to get on his nerves.
Now he had to think. He didn't have any mental abilities that could work any mojo on an obviously incorporeal person (iweird!/i), so there was only one thing he could try next: use his original ability to figure her out. After all, he could, from the very beginning, always figure out what made people tick.
And. . . he got nothing. Not even the empathy ability he'd stolen could register any emotions coming from her. It was like she wasn't even there. Except that she spoke to him.
"Are you done yet? I could do this all day," the pretty little blonde finally said.
iGetting sassy, now, are we?/i he thought to himself. iWe'll see if she's as badass as she thinks she is./i "You obviously don't know who you're dealing with, little girl," he replied, the threat evident in his rough voice.
To his surprise, she just laughed at him. "And you obviously don't know who I am, Sylar." Okay, not that big of a surprise, knowing who he was. She ihad/i teleported him out into the ass-end of nowhere.
"Okay, then. Who are you?"
The pretty little smile that graced her lips for the few seconds before she answered chilled Gabriel to the bone. "I'm more of an idea, really, than a person. I'm like what Freddy Krueger would be like if he was a god and not just a dream demon. As a matter of fact, I invented him. He's a little pet project of mine. I've corrupted many souls with his character. . ."
It took all of two seconds to figure out what this petite—though rather attractive—girl with astonishingly beautiful green eyes was getting at. "So, what? You're the Devil?" She just stood there, her eyes daring him to refute it. "Let me get this straight: the Devil's a blonde?"
The First was starting to lose patience. "You have no idea of your potential, Sylar. If you become my Champion, I can help you become so much more than you are right now. Don't tell me you don't hunger for it still." The First inched forward, stepping lightly on the ever-increasing choppy spray of the Atlantic Ocean. A storm was coming, and it needed to be ready for it.
Not many things scared Gabriel Gray, but the icy-cold grin coming from this pretty little blonde's cute little mouth gave him the chills. Sizing her up, he didn't know what creeped him out the most about her. She was a fairly attractive blonde with superpowers (much like a certain cheerleader he knew), whose eyes threatened to pierce his soul and hang him above the eternal fires of Torment (which was absolutely nothing like a certain cheerleader he knew).
He'd never put much stock in religion. Not because he didn't believe in a higher power or anything, but because he never really saw himself as the worshipping type. He let God or whoever be whoever They wanted to be, and he'd be Gabriel. Or Sylar. It depended a little on which side of the fence he was feeling for the day. Up until now, however, he'd honestly thought that the Devil was just the evil inside you, and not some powerful being.
"Actually, I'm both."
This startled him back into the present, focusing his thoughts once again on this girl claiming to be the Devil. "Explain." It irked him that he couldn't read her. He could read anybody, anyithing/i, and understand it completely. Except her.
"I am everywhere, Sylar. I am in ieverything/i. I am the evil in your heart, and I am this avatar you see before you. You can't read me because even though I'm ihere,/i I'm also ithere/i as well. To understand me is to understand the universe itself, and no mortal can comprehend the vast complexity that is ibME/b/i. I hold the secrets of the universe, and I burn with the First Lie!"
"You've used that before, haven't you?"
Finally, he'd caught her off guard! "Excuse me?"
"There's no excuse for using dated material, Devil. You just told me that you were all-powerful, and you use a line that you've used before? Tsk, tsk. You don't think I warrant you're A-game? Now, I'm just a little offended."
"What? How did you—"
Gabriel couldn't help but to grin. "While you were talking about how great you are, I noticed some psychic waves emanating from a part of you that I could get a fix on, and as you probably know, I stole this interesting ability a while back. I think it's called—"
"Clairsentience, yes, I know. I've been following your moves since the beginning, Sylar. That's why you've caught my eye. You've become very powerful."
"Very true," Gabriel grudgingly replied. Gesturing to their surroundings, he asked an obvious question. "So why are we here? Let me guess: you want to go fishing, but being a great and powerful being, you forget to bring a boat, right?"
The First smirked, but otherwise ignored his petulance. "We are above your training grounds. Directly below your feet is Atlantis." He was about to say something about the absurdity of an ancient city under millions of tons of water being his training ground when the Devil did something crazy. She lifted her arms, gave him that pretty yet terrifying smile, and said, "Arise."
Directly under him, bubbles started to rise to the surface, great sulfurous gas pockets roiling to the top of the ocean that had held an entire continent for sixteen thousand years. The waves around him started leaping up, dozens of feet high, getting higher by the second. Just when Gabriel thought they'd be overtaken by a thunderous wave, the water beneath the two of them started to swirl, picking up speed until it became a whirlpool.
Gabriel and the pixie-looking blonde girl he was beginning to believe was the Devil didn't move from their spot, however. When the water started to funnel beneath them they seemed to stand upon solid air. All of this happened so fast that Gabriel hardly had time to comprehend it, though his mind was racing at full-speed. He knew what was going on. The land was shifting beneath them, and the water was moving out of its way to accommodate them. Only it wasn't happening like it should be. It was going way too fast.
Deep inside his own thoughts, he almost missed the great darkness that spread out beneath him, a shadow from below that was moving at unnatural speeds. Before he could register the fact that the shadow was moving towards them, a glistening spire burst through the surface of the water half a mile off to his right, and then another one off in the distance that he was facing. A mountain peak shot up, amazingly after five extremely tall towers revealed themselves all around him, marking the center of an incredibly huge pentagram. Tops of buildings revealed themselves, in a pattern that very much reminded him of Venice. Trees shot up, foliage intact and brimming with green, and finally long, rolling hills all about him. Even the fields surrounding him shot up past them, until they were finally standing on solid ground, in a depression carved into a hill like an ancient theater.
After all of this, the Devil, with her arms still raised, looked at him and asked expectantly, "Well?"
Gabriel fought for his bearings. This was all just too much for him. He'd started off his day well enough, stalking a man with the ability to be in more than one place at once, and now suddenly he was in Atlantis, raised from the ocean by the Devil who had abilities that made Samuel and his own pale in comparison. But he wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of letting his being overwhelmed expressed to her. Let her read his thoughts for that. "I used to know a guy who could do that."
It wasn't the Devil's scowl that caught him made him jump, but the unexpected voice coming from behind him. "iThis/i is what you brought me, First? Doesn't look like much to me."
Gabriel whirled around to face the strange voice, finding a tall man with shoulder-length raven black hair, large gold hoop earrings, black leather pants, and some sort of leather patchwork vest over bare skin. He looked like some sort of leather-clad grunge bass player. Except for the sword strapped to his side. Even the hilt and scabbard told Gabriel that this strange man was dangerous, and he had no doubt that the blade hidden there was wickedly sharp. Gabriel, who was never one to let his immediate fear cloud his judgment, decided that he'd had enough.
And he let them know it. His hand dashed out, clutching at air, and used his powers to explode the arrogant son-of-a-bitch's heart right out of his chest.
Except, it didn't exactly work.
One moment he was reaching out with his mind, and the next it was like he'd hit the psychic equivalent of a brick wall, head first. He wheeled back in pain, clutching his head in a wrenching scream that died in his throat. He couldn't think straight, it hurt so much. There was light, red and glaring inside his skull, and the feeling that his brain was being ripped to pieces by a wolverine. And then, in the midst of all that agony and confusion, his original power—his ifirst/i power—kicked in, and he understood.
Struggling to bring his hands up above his head under the psychic assault, he let out a blood-curdling cry, siphoning off the destructive energies into the atmosphere. When his sight cleared, he could see the other man looking at him appreciatively. He was saying something, but to Gabriel's burning ears, it just sounded like muffled amusement.
He laughed in delight as the puny human recovered from his telepathic onslaught. "You know, I clearly underestimated this mortal, Dahak. He's got spirit, I'll give him that. And talent to boot," he added, looking up from the Gabriel Gray creature and into Dahak's gorgeous green eyes.
"You know I hate it when you call me that," she replied haughtily. "My daughter called me that, my followers called me that, and the Pantheon gods called me that. It's like calling me Satan. That's not my real name. Hope knew that, but she thought it sounded snazzier than 'The First.' Said nobody would get it."
"Oh, I get it, but it's not a proper name, and I've known you as Dahak since—"
The mortal's voice must have come back to him just then, because he was interrupted by its croaking groan, "Who. . . are you?"
The looming immortal turned back to the Gabriel Gray creature and announced with a wicked grin, "I guess I haven't properly introduced myself. I'm Ares, God of War."
A flicker of confusion crossed Gabriel's face before the light of recognition lit his eyes. "The Greek god, Ares? Like in Xena?"
Anger flared in Ares' eyes as he took a step forward, his hand blazing with an un-thrown plasma bolt. "How do you know about Xena?" he raged. "That was thousands of years before your time!"
To his utter surprise, the mortal worm broke out in ragged laughter, grabbing his sides as his body urged itself to heal. Ares' power had done a number on his own abilities. "Don't you ever watch TV?" he chortled in pain.
Ares stopped, his brain moving at full-speed as he made thousands of years' worth of connect-the-dots. Finally, it came to him. . . "Fucking scrolls!" he screamed to the empty sky.
Gabriel didn't have any clue what Ares was talking about, so he changed the subject. "What do you want with me?" he finally asked, looking back to the First.
"Sylar, Ares is going to be training you."
"Training me for what?" he asked warily, looking at the ancient deity.
Ares grinned, drawing his sword and tossing it to Gabriel. "What else? To be a god."
Please review! Let me know what you like, and what you think needs work! I'm open to constructive criticism!