AN: Finished for the WIPBigBang 2018 challenge on Livejournal.
Chapter Thirteen
The moment Peter opened his eyes inside the trance, he felt the crack of hand across his right cheek.
"You idiot, what do you think you're doing meditating at a time like this?" came the harsh scolding words from Rena Slade. Peter looked into her furious expression, noticing that her hand was pulled back for another slap depending upon his next words.
"Rena," he said in a relieved breath, nursing his sore cheek. Even in this meditative state, he could still feel her slap as if it had been in the physical world. Rena Slade's intentions were clear; she was not happy to see him. She glared angrily at him as he noticed that he was not with Claire and Mohinder anymore. He was seeing Rena finally in an endless, misty white space. He felt somewhat at peace here, but Rena's ire offset his true calm.
He pleaded with her. "I need your help with these powers. Sylar is going out of control; tell me what you would do. Please." Rena's hand fell by her side. She narrowed her eyes at him.
"Peter, you needn't bother with me. There is nothing left I can teach you. You have to take care of your friends," she said.
"That's just it," he said. "I need to control these powers at full capacity. I need to go up against Sylar, and I need some kind of safeguard that I can use these powers and keep control. I can't risk it, especially after I lost control of Ted's powers. I can't hurt more people, but I also need to stop Sylar."
Rena sighed and shook her head. "I'm not sure there's anything more I can tell you that I haven't said already," she said. "These powers are unpredictable and dangerous, and they will take a toll on your life force as they did with mine. I don't know, maybe I never controlled them or learned. Whatever I changed, Peter, even small, there were consequences. You have changed the entire world, and I have never done anything to that magnitude. You have gone beyond anything I have ever done, so I don't know if I can teach you anything."
"Just suggestions then, anything. I may need to turn this world back. I'm willing to do that," Peter said, and in a pause hepause, he swallowed, closing his eyes and feeling the pang in his heart. He knew he could lose Claire - this happiness and love that he'd found with her - it could all go back to being how it was, where she was untouchable and only his niece. His stomach lurched slightly, and he knew that Rena could sense his thoughts and understand his pain.
Rena placed a comforting hand on Peter's shoulder.
"There is one thing you must remember about these powers, Peter," she said. "I have changed reality here and there in my young life, but there was always something about the change that I could see, layers of an onion like a veneer of my changes over the truth. When I changed something, there was still something original at the core, something I couldn't touch. I could manipulate things around it, but I could never change the core."
"What does that mean?" Peter asked.
"It means that whatever you have done to this world, time and space will find a way to bring it back to the original shape in some ways. I believed as I used my powers more that deep in my intuition, I knew how the world should be and could not fully change it." she said. "Some elements will come back to the start and reset themselves, and as time moved forward, the new reality will eventually start to resemble the old one."
"So that means that the people that I have saved from the old reality should be dead. That whoever Sylar has killed or will kill will eventually happen and now the universe is righting itself against my power? But does that also mean…?" Peter hesitated. "These powers can't completely be controlled. They can't really change reality. Somehow the real, original world heals itself and comes back."
"That's the limitation of this power, Peter. We are only enhanced humans, but we are not gods. Yes, I made small changes and little consequences were met with it, but anything on a larger scale carried a heavier price. You can use the power - at full capacity even against Sylar, but when you do use them, please know that there is a balance. You must be prepared for the consequences, and also… you must be prepared to give all your lifeforce for the amount of power you intend to use to make these changes."
She stepped back from him and Peter noticed she was starting to fade in the white space. "It's a give and take, Peter. You can't just take and take and not expect something to give. If anythinganything, this should give you one clue on how to go against Sylar. You can at least know from the previous world what his pattern are."
Peter nodded in understanding, and he watched Rena fade before his eyes. In the ether he could hear her voice, "I wish you strength, Peter."
Suddenly, he felt like he was floating, as if the ground was a carpet pulled from under him. When he looked down, he fell into white.
Peter opened his eyes widely and sucked in a deep breath. Claire was there to stabilize him as he pitched forward, coming out of his trance. He took a moment to realize where he was and gain his balance, still standing in the open lawn area of Matt and Audrey's house. He felt a sharp, quick joltpain in his gut when he remembered that his friends were still brutally murdered inside their home.
"Well? Did you find her?" Mohinder asked immediately.
Peter sighed, feeling like he should catch his breath. "Yeah." They stared at him for more details. He shot Claire an apologetic look and frowned. "There wasn't much she could help me with. Most of it will be of no surprise. This world that I changed is righting itself to the way it originally was. That's the limitation of the power. It's a give and take. Sylar is the balance to the world. I gave people what they wanted, but I also took away just as much from Sylar, as twisted as that is."
"Sylar craves abilities, and you brought him back to square one," Claire said.
Mohinder nodded. "And he's starting from scratch all over again." Mohinder paused in a thought and then his attention toward to Claire. "He'll be after you again… He wants the cheerleader!"
Peter bit his lip, knowing that Mohinder was right. "Yeah, ultimately he'll come for Claire."
"So does that mean he's coming after me now?" Claire asked, and Peter saw her visibly shudder, unprepared to meet Sylar again like she had met him on that Homecoming night.
Peter shook his head. "I think if he wanted to come after you he would be here. No, Sylar is aiming for something else; he wants abilities, but he also wants power."
"What person could he get more power from than Claire?" Mohinder asked. "She is literally indestructible…"
"I'm not saying he doesn't want her powers. He knows that we'll protect Claire and that she's with us, but he also has other dangerous powers that can fool us. No, he has a different strategy in mind. He wants ultimate power and at the end of that Claire is his prize," Peter said, tapping his thin thoughtfully.
Claire rested her fists on her hips and frowned. "Hey, stop talking about me like I'm not here. I'm really scared, you know."
"Yes, I know," Peter said, pacing back and forth on the lawn, but his thoughts were clearly occupied. He tried to understand the weight of Rena's advice, focusing on the Sylar they had come up against in the original world, and what his pattern would be here.
Peter looked up in the sky and wished his brother was here. Nathan always had a way of grounding him and showing him a different point of view. Sure, his brother could be cold sometimes, even calculated and manipulative, yet he understood the nature of people - good and bad. He admired that about his brother and knew that was why Nathan could rise to the top so quickly, regardless if it was the original world or the one Peter had helped create.
Peter stopped pacing and a sense of dread washed over him like ice water. "Nathan."
"Are you okay? You went super pale," Claire asked with worry, and Peter turned and clutched her outstretched hand.
"No. This is bad. I think I know where Sylar is going next and who's power he's going to target," Peter said. It made him sick to his stomach to even think it, but he knew deep in his gut that he was right.
"We have to go to New Jersey and find my brother. He's in more danger than I originally thought," Peter said, and Claire and Mohinder gaped at him.
"Of course, he's after the President," Mohinder said. "That's the ultimate power he craves, not just abilities. He'd have control over pretty much anything." Mohinder paused. "But taking over as president isn't that easy. He'd actually have to become him, and I gather he can't do that without a shape-shifting power."
Peter gasped as he realized something out of Mohinder's words. "Didn't we hear a report just recently as one of the specials that had been killed was some kind of shapeshifter?"
"A woman named Candice Wilmer, but she wasn't a shapeshifter. She was a master of illusion, and I'm betting that Sylar had killed her in the original reality too, or will at some point," Mohinder said grimly. He met Peter's eyes. "I believe your intuition is right about Sylar going after your brother as his next step."
"I'm betting Sylar knows that targeting Nathan will hurt you too, Peter," Claire added.
Peter held out his hand to both of them. "Come on, we can't waste time. We need to get to Nathan fast! We have to fly."
Mohinder stepped back and looked at him with skepticism. "Are you sure you can handle both our weights and fly at the same time? We couldn't do this before."
"I can now," Peter said with a determined look. Mohinder looked down at Peter's hands as they made fists. Peter closed his eyes for a moment and then let out a light exhale. Mohinder assumed Peter was using those reality powers again. "Now I'm super strong as well."
"You used those unstable powers again, didn't you?" Claire asked with a frown, and Peter turned to Mohinder but did not smile. He looked worried, not so much for the continued use of Rena' power, but for his brother and Mohinder could sense that the younger Petrelli didn't want to waste any more time.
"Come on, let's go!" he said, and after pulling them both tightly and securely againstsecurely against his body, he jumped into the sky and flew high and fast, an explosion of sound left behind them.