"I thought we weren't supposed to be out patrolling," Specs said. "On lockdown what with Sylar and the Nine."
"Director Tagg says it's important for us to be seen in public," Vista said. "People are freaking out over this Slaughterhouse thing and they need to see that we're out there protecting them."
Seeing his skeptical look she said, "Besides, I can get us away if anything happens."
Vista looked at him entreatingly. She'd been stir crazy since the directive had come down for them to circle the wagons. Being a hero was important to her in a way that it had never really been for him.
Greg had always thought being a hero was cool because it would be a good way to get girls to pay attention to him. However in his fantasies he'd always had a power that mattered. He'd been a Tinker with skills like the original Hero. He'd been a male Alexandria or been the next Legend, attack people from miles away.
When the people had come to him offering superpowers, he'd felt like he'd won the lottery. He'd finally get a chance to be something more than just the one loser at school who was one step above Taylor Hebert on the totem pole.
Why he'd thought powers would make a difference he wasn't sure. He'd been a coward in school; he'd liked Taylor but he had never stood up for her. He hadn't even gone to a teacher in secret when she'd been stuffed into the locker and gone horribly quiet. She could have died in there and he would have been just as quiet as everyone else.
Greg looked down at his hands. Kid Win had given him some sort of futuristic ray gun and he'd been training him in using it, but his powers weren't exactly the kind that were helpful outside of groups.
He could see through things, but a gangster with a baseball bat could give him a very bad day. Even Vista, young as she was could shove his face into the floor without using any of her powers. Being beaten by a thirteen year old girl was a humiliation he'd never thought he'd suffer again, but it happened every day in training.
Vista was hardcore. He'd seen some of the scars she had when she'd thought he wasn't looking; it was terrifying to think that she'd been in fights with Hookwolf of all people, back when Hookwolf had been a thing. Physically she was weaker than he was, even if her power was impressive. The fact that Hookwolf had gotten close enough to give her scars and she'd still lived to tell about it was incredibly impressive.
Coming forward to join the Wards had seemed like a no brainer once Vengeance had eliminated almost all the villains in the Bay. Get a weekly salary and money for college for doing nothing more than posing for press conferences and strutting around in a costume impressing all the girls.
Nobody had told him about the insane serial killer wandering the city. The experience they'd all had with them in Headquarters the other day had been terrifying. Everyone had been so fast. Greg had still been trying to process what was happening when Sylar had put a hole in the wall and escaped.
Everything had happened in a matter of less than a minute. He'd been amazed at how fast Armsmaster and that one dead PRT guy had reacted, but Taylor had been like greased lightning.
She intimidated him now. She'd moved like nothing he'd ever seen, not even in the movies. He'd had trouble following what she was doing, for all the good it had done. She'd moved like lightning, and if she hadn't been on their side she would have been terrifying.
He still couldn't help but wonder if she didn't resent him. After all, he'd left her in the locker. He wasn't sure if he had her powers he'd have had nearly as much restraint. It'd be easy for someone like her to make people disappear, to drop them into the bottom of the Bay where no one would ever find them.
She had all the powers of the Cape who had wiped out all the other Capes in town, and a serial killer had beaten her easily.
While everyone else talked about Jack Slash and the Nine, Greg's personal boogieman was Sylar. He'd never met the others, but he'd seen what Sylar could do.
"I'm just not sure I can make much of a difference," he admitted to Vista. "I'm just a normal guy."
"Normal guys do ninety percent of the changing in the world," Vista said sympathetically. "Most of what we do is built on their backs."
When he'd been normal it had felt like norms didn't accomplish anything. The PRT had felt like buffoons, and when people had talked about the gangs it had only been the parahumans that seemed to matter. It was generally accepted that a hundred norms wouldn't matter against a single powerful parahuman.
A guy with x-ray vision who couldn't even see through metal if it was very thick was barely even a parahuman.
Greg scowled. "Fine."
He wasn't sure that Tagg really had ordered them out on patrol, although it sounded like something a bureaucrat would do. Vista was his teammate though, and she'd just keep nagging him until he agreed.
Being cooped up all this time had been stressful anyway. He needed a little fresh air himself.
If Sylar came Vista could just warp them away, or whatever she did. He hadn't really had that many chances to see her skills in action since he'd joined just before the lockdown. He'd seen it in training, of course. Some of the things she'd done with the power were amazing.
At least his costume had minor armor built in. As long as a gangster didn't shoot him in the head he ought to be all right long enough for Vista to give them a very bad day.
He followed Vista to the top of the rig, confirming his suspicions that this wasn't an officially sanctioned mission. If they were going to patrol they'd have left from the front, which would mean passing by actual PRT guards. The guards would undoubtedly report what they were doing to their superiors.
Well, Vista was his superior and if they got in trouble he'd be able to truthfully say that she'd lied to him. He'd heard that Armsmaster had some kind of lie detector in his suit; if they got in trouble it would be on Vista's head not his.
He had been looking forward to strutting around town in his new suit anyway. It was blue with shapes like eyes all over it. He'd been unsure of advertising his lack of real powers both in his name and in his costume, but marketing had insisted.
He was getting an action figure with a little gun!
The fact that the gun only stunned instead of doing any real damage wouldn't be any consolation if they met a surviving member of the Nine. Fortunately Taylor had wiped out most of them.
Vista gestured and the world suddenly warped around them taking them to the shore. It wasn't the smooth transition he would have expected from when he'd seen Vista's powers before, but maybe transporting people was different.
They started walking. Vista was uncharacteristically quiet and intent, staring at the world around them.
"So are we supposed to be doing anything?" Greg asked.
He'd hoped they'd go down to the boardwalk, where all the rich attractive girls went. They were supposed to be seen after all, but he hadn't seen anyone so far. All he saw was scenes of devastation; wrecked cars left in the street, windows that were empty of glass.
At least there was no longer glass everywhere. Taylor had apparently taken care of that this morning when she'd built some kind of freaky tower in front of the hospital.
Vista shook her head shortly. What she was looking for he wasn't sure, but she seemed like she was actively searching.
Finally she stopped. "What do you see inside that building?"
She'd stopped at a specific building, and Greg had to wonder exactly what her purpose with all of this was. The buildings were metal, but the walls were thin enough that he could see through them. He stiffened.
Inside he could see Jack Slash and Bonesaw and the Siberian, along with an older man he'd never seen before.
"We need to get out of here," he said urgently. "The Nine are in there."
His radio suddenly switched on.
"Specs!" It was Vista's voice on the radio. "Are you off base? We're still in lockdown and the new director seems like a real hardass."
He felt a sudden chill run down his spine. He turned to look at Vista, who was smirking.
A moment later the radio was ripped out of his suit and he felt himself in the grip of a force that felt like he was in a vice. He couldn't move and he couldn't breathe.
Vista gestured with her other hand and there was a booming sound against the side of the warehouse.
The Siberian exploded from the wall only to stop, staring. The sight of two Wards standing there alone probably made her suspicious.
Vista pulled out an antique looking pocket watch.
"Come out, come out wherever you are," she said in her sweet voice as she opened the watch.
Jack Slash and Bonesaw stepped through the hole.
"Two Wards come to offer themselves to us?" Jack asked. He looked around. "Where are the rest of the cannon fodder."
"It's just the two of us," Vista said, smirking. She pulled out a sheet of paper from the pouch at her belt. She glanced at it then nodded.
She shifted into Sylar's form, and Greg felt a sudden wetness in the front of his costume.
"If you would pardon me for a moment," Sylar said. "I've got something I need to do."
A moment later Greg screamed as he felt the worst pain of his life. Blood obscured his vision, but he was able to see what looked like the top of his head fall to the ground.
Sylar stepped lose to him, and Greg felt his body dropping partway to the ground. Sylar was staring at the top of his head humming under his breath. The look on his face was clinical and detached.
Everything started fading to black, and Greg felt a sudden, bitter feeling of regret. He'd never even gotten to kiss a girl much less be a hero.
Instead, like everything else in his life he'd ended up as a victim.
Everything faded to black.
The sound of clapping interrupted his satisfaction.
Feeding the hunger had always given him a deep, abiding kind of pleasure that couldn't be matched by anything else in life. Not sex, not love, not even personal achievement could match the simple pleasure of understanding things.
This, however, would be the last time that people would have to die for him to have that kind of thrill. With this ability he could gain the powers of others without the very mild guilt from having to end them.
It would still take time, of course. Examining and understanding brains was something that took a moderately extended period, not something that could be accomplished in combat for example. But given his ability to change shape it shouldn't be too hard to get close enough to people to take their powers without harming them.
He actually liked some of the Wards, for example. Vista was pleasant to be around even if Clockblocker had been an annoyance. He'd been tempted to end him simply for the quality of his jokes.
Hiding from Gallant had been the hardest part. The fact that he didn't feel anything in particular most of the time had probably helped with that, along with the fact that he'd tried to e in his presence as little as possible.
He'd tried being a good man in the past, but the call of the Hunger had always been at the back of his mind. He'd been like an alcoholic on the wagon. Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic, even if thirty years passed.
Being forced to do the things he did had been hard at first, but killing had gotten easier and easier over time. By now he only felt residual guilt, more of a feeling that he should feel guilty than actual guilt.
Still, this was a major advantage in his competition with Taylor Hebert. He'd be able to gain powers like she did, effortlessly and without a trail. He'd be able to visit other Protectorate strongholds in other cities and by the time he returned he'd be far more powerful than she what with her moral qualms and reluctance to take powers from a quarter of the parahuman population.
He wouldn't even be here if the damned paper he'd drawn hadn't said he would.
Still, gaining the powers of the remnants of the Nine would be a good start to his new life. He might even take a different form and collect the bounty on them. Taking Peter Petrelli's form would be a delicious irony.
"What a delightful way to make your application to our group," Jack said. "We've been wanting to meet you ever since we heard about your work."
"The Boogieman of Brockton Bay," Bonesaw said in her sweet, childish voice. "At least among the parahumans. The PRT didn't want the norms to hear you even existed, did they."
The Siberian didn't say anything. A close look at her and Sylar started.
"A projection?" he said. "that's why nobody has been able to beat her after all this time. I'm guessing the fellow you've got inside is the real Siberian."
She growled and stepped forward, but Sylar didn't flinch. He smirked.
"I think you both have the wrong idea about me," he said.
"Oh?" Jack asked.
"You destroy for the pleasure of destroying, hurting people for no reason at all." Sylar said.
"And you don't?"
"I hurt people because I have to," Sylar said. "Because I'm hungry and the only way to satisfy my hunger is to feed."
"Ride with us and we'll feed you more than you could ever imagine." Jack said. He smiled ingratiatingly.
"Why would I even need you?" Sylar said. "Especially now?"
He gestured at the corpse that now lay on the ground, blood pooling everywhere from the remains of his head. Bonesaw looked fascinated, as though she was anxious to get to work on the corpse.
Perhaps there was room for three more murders on his resume.
"We've got the experience," Jack said. "Decades of experience at evading the PRT, of living life like kings in a world of pawns."
They thought he was some kind of new cape. How quaint.
He'd always heard that Jack was an expert at manipulating Capes. He'd wondered if this had been part of his power that no one had noticed. Simply being able to slash people with blades at a distance hadn't seemed like enough for the man to rule over some of the worst monsters the world had ever seen for decades.
He smirked.
"I haven't come for your experience," Sylar said.
He flipped his watch open. The music from that movie started playing, echoing tinnily in the air. He'd gotten the watch originally to troll Taylor Hebert but he'd come to be quite fond of it. His father had been a watchmaker, and he found the complexity of watches to be soothing for his power. He'd sometimes stare at the inner workings of a watch to calm himself when he felt stressed or upset.
"Although you could say that I'm here to pick your brains."
Jack looked startled, as though he couldn't believe that Sylar wasn't falling for his line.
"I don't think you understand where you are standing," Jack said. "The Siberian put a hole in Alexandria."
"But I know her weakness," Sylar said. "All I have to do is get to the crunchy bits and I'll be perfectly fine."
Bonesaw threw something at him.
She stared at him intently, as though something was supposed to happen.
"I'm immune to disease and poisons," Sylar said. "A gift from an immortal girl I once knew."
She looked suddenly disappointed and stamped her foot.
"Are you sure you don't want to join?" Jack asked. "With so few of us left the trials wouldn't be all that hard."
"I'll never join a group where I'm subservient to anyone," Sylar said coldly. "If you want to step down as leader I might think about it."
He was lying of course. The Nine had everyone in the world out to kill them. For all Jack's claims of living like a king, the Nine had been on the run for decades. While they'd been successful in their random acts of terrorism there had been constant attrition in their numbers.
Having access to the PRT files on most known parahumans had been a godsend. He now knew where to go to cherry pick the parahumans with the best powers.
He knew Legend's address for example. It would be easy to pose as his personal cook, there to feed him and his husband.
Eidolon was particularly interesting. Having every power, even if only in a limited way would be the holy grail for someone like him.
"I suppose if you are determined to die that we must oblige you," Jack said.
He turned to the Siberian only to scream as blood appeared across his forehead.
The Siberian sprang into action even as Bonesaw began to drag Jack away with a surprising amount of strength for such a small child.
Sylar made a note not to underestimate little girls anytime soon. Vista had impressed him.
The battle was on.
