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AN: To mention in advance to anyone who thinks that Peter's control of his powers is greater than it was in the show at this point, you have to take into account that, with the revelation of the truth about his and Claire's connection, he's regained the 'centre' that Future Sylar had been trying to deprive him of, thus resolving his inner conflict about the 'inappropriateness' of his feelings for Claire and leaving Peter with a great deal more control over his powers than he had possessed prior to this revelation (Although, of course, Sylar's greater experience means that the outcome of the fight still isn't set in stone, no matter how skilled Peter is)

Seeds of the Future

Peter Petrelli, Claire Bennet & Sylar
New Orleans, Louisiana

"P… Peter?" Claire gasped, staring in shock up at her uncle- God, she had never wished so badly to belong to another family before- as he turned to look at her, lowering his hand as he walked over to help her to her feet.

"Hey, Claire," he said, smiling warmly at her, as he crouched down slightly to take her hand. "You OK?"

"I… I'm fine…" Claire replied, still slightly dazed as Peter helped her to her feet. "Just… y'know…"

She couldn't even finish the sentence, simply waving a hand at the faint traces of blood that remained on her forehead from where Sylar had attempted to slice open her skull.

"Yeah…" Peter replied, looking briefly at it with a slightly anxious expression before he smiled softly at her, only for his expression to harden once again as he looked behind her. "Go."

"What?" Claire said, looking at him in confusion. "Go? Peter, what are you-?"

"Get down!" Peter yelled, grabbing her in his arms and diving towards the floor just as a burst of ice flew past above them.

"YOU!" Sylar roared at Peter as he got back to his feet, the former nurse's fists clenched as he stared at the man from the future who had tried to destroy his life.

If Peter hadn't been so focused on defeating Sylar before the psychopath could hurt Claire in a manner that she couldn't heal from, he might have laughed at the irony of the situation; all his life, he'd felt like he was only second-best compared to Nathan, and yet two different men from the future

"Me," he replied grimly as he stared at his enemy, his eyes narrowing as he stared at the man who, if Hiro was right- and he had no reason to doubt the Japanese man; his future self certainly hadn't steered him wrong when he'd originally told him to save Claire, after all-, had come back from the future twice for the sole purpose of ruining Peter's life. "Surprised to see me?"

Peter had to give Sylar credit; it evidently took a great deal to leave this guy flustered, even after spending the better part of the last few years- or the next few years; English really wasn't a good language for discussing time travel with- in a prison cell with his powers as good as gone. Here he was, in the past, facing the man who he'd gone to such lengths to defeat, and yet he appeared to be acting as though he'd encountered nothing more major than a minor obstacle in the road while attempting to reach his destination.

Admittedly, Peter didn't exactly like being regarded as nothing more than a minor obstacle, but if it meant Sylar's focus was on him rather than Claire, he could accept that; he knew that Claire was far from weak, but if it was a choice between her and him, he was definitely more capable of defending himself.

"You can't win," Sylar stated, a broad smile on his face as he raised his hands, glowing blue with the energy of his ice-throwing powers as he studied his enemy. "You know that, don't you?"

"Last time I checked, the future's far from being fixed; I'd say I've still got a fairly good chance of taking you out," Peter countered, raising his hands and, after a moment's focus, tapping into Sylar's ice powers himself (It wasn't that hard, really; the man already sent such a seriously disturbing chill down Peter's spine whenever he saw the guy that generating ice because of him felt almost natural). "Let's go."

Instantly, the two men thrust their hands forward, the blasts of ice that leapt from their palms almost instantly meeting in mid-air to collide, throwing small fragments of ice and snow off to either side. Quickly shifting tactics, Peter closed his eyes for a split-second, gathered his concentration- focusing his attention on remaining where and when Claire was, rather than losing focus and heading somewhere else- and then teleported to stand directly beside Sylar, following up his shift in location with a quick punch from Niki's superhuman strength, sending the ex-watchmaker staggering backwards with a rapidly-growing bruise on his cheek.

"How about that?" Peter retorted, allowing himself a slight smile as Sylar raised a hand to rub the bruise in shock. "Get the picture, Sylar; I know."

Sylar's eyes widened in rage as he looked at Peter, his eyes briefly flicking to where Claire was still located behind them (Although Peter was confident that she was back on her feet by now; aside from falling in love with him- God, now that he knew she wasn't his niece, he had no idea what he had done to deserve her- she wasn't an idiot) before settling back on Peter, realisation clearly hitting him.

"Yeah, that's it," Peter said, clenching his fists as he glared at Sylar once again, his eyes narrowing as he planned his next move. "So… ready to quit now?"

"NEVER!" Sylar roared, as he literally lifted his feet off the floor and began to charge towards Peter. For a moment, Peter nearly couldn't move in horror- had Sylar killed Nathan in his future?- but then he realised that Sylar wasn't actually flying; he seemed to just be using his telekinesis to keep himself up in the air, judging by the rigidity of his movements and the relatively slow speed that he was coming towards Peter at.

Peter didn't even hesitate; tapping into his brother's power, he rose a few inches off the ground and then charged towards Sylar at maximum speed, grabbing the killer by the waist and sending him flying into the wall opposite, instantly flying backwards a few feet to land on the ground in front of Sylar, his eyes automatically narrowing as he raced through his mental arsenal for his next likely weapon.

"You think… that can stop me?" Sylar gasped as he staggered back to his feet, glaring back at Peter with an intense glare that easily rivalled Peter's own. "Trust me… you have no idea what I'm capable of!"

Before Peter could react, Sylar waved his hand at Peter, leaving Peter suddenly feeling as though every bone in his body had suddenly decided to give up the ghost and collapse in on itself… this really didn't feel good… he felt like he'd suddenly lost all sense of gravity and was just falling…

Then, much to his surprise, he felt his bones and muscles begin to solidify, as though whatever had just been turning them to liquid had suddenly decided to reverse itself.

No… Peter realised, as he began to stagger back to his feet. It's not what caused it turning back on itself… it's something else… something warm…

Glancing over to his left, he smiled slightly as he saw Claire, still staring at him and Sylar in evident confusion at what the two men were doing fighting over her in this situation, but still clearly reluctant to leave Peter to manage by himself.

If anything, her refusal to abandon him, even if she still thought he was her uncle, meant more to Peter than he could have ever effectively expressed- and that wasn't just because her close proximity to him was helping his body to recover from whatever Sylar had tried to do to him; even if he'd been using someone else's healing power right now, he still would have been grateful for her presence.

It was like Hiro had told him; Claire was his centre, keeping him focused amid the chaos of his ever-hard-to-control powers.

"Cheating BITCH!" Sylar roared, thrusting one hand towards Claire even as the last of Peter's bones restored themselves to their original solid form, sending her flying backwards moments before Peter 'activated' his flight power and charged towards Sylar once again.

He knew that, whatever Sylar did to Claire, she'd be all right so long as he didn't try and take her brain like he had so many other victims; as much as he wanted to make sure that she was OK, right now, his main objective was keeping this guy off-balance and away from Claire until his back-up arrived.

He just hoped that it was going to be here sooner rather than later; he'd managed to keep Sylar off-balance so far because the man hadn't been expecting him to have this kind of control over his powers, but if he gave the guy enough chance to think about this fight, he might actually start using something Peter wasn't expecting.

That bit where he felt like his bones were practically melting inside him had been disturbing enough; he was not in the mood to deal with something like that happening to him again…

For a moment, Claire could barely process what had just happened; she'd been too surprised at Peter's initial appearance out of seemingly nowhere to fully process what was happening in the fight going on above her before she'd looked up to see Peter's limbs look like they'd turned into rubber, and she'd barely had enough time to move towards him to let her power heal him before Sylar had thrown her back once again.

Even as she flew through the air, Claire made a mental note to work on her awareness of her surroundings; hadn't that time when Brody Mitchum nearly broke her neck after he ran into her taught her anything about learning what was going on around her? Just because she'd heal from this didn't mean it wasn't going to put her out of action for a while at least…

Before she had even hit the wall, however, Claire suddenly felt a pair of arms wrap themselves around her, halting her mid-fall and leaving her only slightly winded and startled as she looked up at the face of a bald man with dark sin and an expression of at least mild pain on his face.

"Goddamn bullets…" he grunted as he looked at Claire, the sounds of combat between Peter and Sylar fading as the two men presued each other further into the old hotel. "Mustn't be back to my peak yet; that really hurt…"

"Wh… what?" Claire asked, staring up at the man who'd grabbed her in confusion; she vaguely recognised him from the Kirby Plaza confrontation, but she couldn't for the life of her recall his name. "Who are you?"

"D.L. Hawkins," the man replied, smiling slightly down at her as he jerked his thumb at the door Claire, Peter and Sylar had entered the room by earlier. "I'm with the back-up."

"The… the what?" Claire repeated, as she looked at the door just as a mismatched group of people came hurrying into the room, Claire instantly recognising Officer Parkman and her father (God, why did he always have to ruin things for her where Peter was concerned?), with the Japanese man and the blonde woman with them vaguely registering with her as having been present at the Kirby Plaza battle.

"Hi," Officer Parkman said, nodding slightly at her with a reassuring smile on her face, even as the way that he held one hand to his chest made it clear that he wasn't in the best shape right now. "Sorry we're a bit late; it took a while for Peter and Hiro to get everyone here."

"Wh-what?" Claire asked, looking in confusion at the gathered people around her. "What's going on here? What the hell is a future version of Sylar doing trying to kill me?"

"I ruin his plan in future; he come back to past to try and change it back!" Hiro explained, grinning enthusiastically at her as he indicated the people around them. "Sylar try to change your history; when I come back-"

A loud crash from outside the door and apparently up another level interrupted Hiro mid-sentence, prompting the new arrivals to look anxiously over at each other before Hiro nodded in resolve.

"I go up after Peter; we keep Sylar busy until you all get there," he said simply, looking back over at Matt as he spoke. "Remember; focus, and you really rock!"

"That was five years-" Matt began, only for Hiro to close his eyes, focus, and suddenly vanish from right in front of the group, leaving Claire, if possible, even more confused than she'd been before.

What could Hiro have learned in the future that would make Sylar come back in time to kill her now?

"Huh," D.L. said, blinking slightly in surprise as he looked at where the Japanese man had been standing only a few moments ago. "Wonder if you ever get used to that?"

"Him just popping in and out of your life like that?" Nathan asked, looking back at D.L. with a slight smile. "Trust me, you don't; he showed up in my life on at least three occasions without letting me know he was coming and it was always a surprise, and that was when he wasn't teleporting."

"OK, look, based on what we're hearing from down here, maybe we can save the conversations for later and see about getting up to join Peter and Hiro sooner rather than later?" Matt asked, looking over urgently at the rest of the group. "I mean, I may not really know what I can do, but after seeing what Sylar's capable of now, I really don't want a future version of him hanging around here for too long."

"Agreed," Nathan said, his old soldier instincts instantly taking over; regardless of how he might feel about his powers, right now his brother needed him to accept his abilities and the abilities of those he was with if he was going to survive. "It's pretty dark out in the alley back there, and I saw a few windows; I'll fly up and see if I can track Peter and Sylar from there. Niki, you're our strongest, you take the lead and head up the stairs, maybe you can take Sylar by surprise while he's busy with Peter; D.L., Matt, Claire, you three stay behind her and do what you can-"

"I'll stick with Niki," D.L. interjected, glaring slightly at Nathan as he stepped forward. "May not be at full health right now, but if I phase through something I can solidify enough to hurt it; should be enough to make this bastard think about what he's trying to pull."

After studying the man before him for a moment to better estimate what he might or might not be capable of, Nathan nodded.

"All right," he said, as he looked at the ex-con. "If you think that you can handle the exertion, you're with Niki; just be careful."

"Always am," D.L. replied with a slight smile (Nathan decided not to comment that clearly he hadn't been careful enough if he'd been caught; he'd promised Peter when he'd first met D.L. that he wouldn't hold the man's past against him, and he was going to stick to that).

"I don't suppose there's any possibility anyone would be willing to tell me what's going on here?" Claire asked, looking impatiently around at the rest of the group that had gathered to come to her rescue. "I mean, I'm grateful that I'm worth the effort to all of you, of course, but-"

The sound of two simultaneous yells coming from upstairs- one of them a yell of anger in a voice that sounded like Hiro's while the other seemed to be Sylar screaming in pain- broke off any further conversation for the immediate moment, as the small group of 'specials' exchanged brief glances with each other before they hurried out of the kitchen and up the stairs towards where Peter and Sylar were currently fighting.

Claire's questions would have to wait until later; at the moment, they had an empathic mimic to save and a power-stealing ex-watchmaker to take care of.