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The Not-So-Average Girl

When Ron got the text message from Kim about what had been happening in the school before the police cars showed up at the playing field, the only challenge had been getting away from the stadium without anyone else coming after him. His parents had chosen to stay at home rather than attend the game in the first place, so it had at least been easy enough to slip away from the Pierces and claim that the text had been from his own parents letting him know they'd come to pick him up, but that left him with a few moments of worry as he tried to work out what had happened to his friend. The police showing up at least suggested something serious was going on, but faced with waiting to try and find out after however long it would take to give them answers, or trying to get in touch with Kim to get a direct answer, it wasn't really a choice as far as Ron was concerned.

OK, so this is a hell of a lot bigger than anything KP and I have ever gotten caught up in before, but at least I know she's OK, and she wouldn't send me something like this if she didn't have a reason for it…

Frankly, Ron was relieved that Kim had sent him a message to a familiar landmark. They might not be traditional rule-breakers, but the two of them still had their own secret places since they were little, and they had found an old house a couple of streets away from the school that they used as a meeting place when they wanted to spend some time alone. They'd stopped going to it that regularly in the last couple of years as things became more difficult at school, but the address was still fixed in Ron's memory. With Rufus still in his pocket, he walked briskly from the school to the old house, where he found Kim and Claire standing anxiously around an older man in a bloodstained fawn coat, sitting at an old desk with a solemn expression.

"Who-?" the man looked up as Ron walked into the building.

"Ron, this is Peter; he helped us," Kim said, indicating the man sitting at the desk, dried blood on his face and clothes but not so much as a scratch on his body. "Peter, this is Ron Sinclair, my best friend."

"Hey," Peter nodded at Ron.

"Uh… hi," Ron responded with a brief nod of his head, lost for what else he could say to this unknown bloodstained man.

"So… you know about Claire?" Peter said, indicating Claire with a tentative nod. "Her… ability, I mean?"

"Well, there wasn't much point trying to hide anything after Kim brought me back to life while he was there," Claire observed.

"Brought you back to life?" Peter looked at Claire in surprise.

"He knows?" Ron asked in confusion.

"She had a tree branch stuck in the back of her head after she fell on it," Kim clarified, looking briefly at Claire to apologise for the blunt description. "I pulled it out, and… well, here we are."

"Ah," Peter nodded in acknowledgement, giving Claire a similarly apologetic glance even if the blonde didn't seem that bothered. "So… you don't heal if something's in the wound?"

"Apparently not," Claire said, her expression briefly haunted before she looked at Peter with new curiosity. "So now that Ron's here… what are you doing here?"

"And what was that guy doing here?" Kim asked.

"And what guy are we talking about?" Ron cut in, looking in confusion between the two girls and the stranger. "I mean, I just got a message that someone attacked you and I was going to find you here-"

"Someone killed Jackie because she was claiming to be the hero cheerleader and then he tried to kill us before Peter showed up," Claire clarified.

"Ah," Ron said, before he processed what had just been said and looked at Claire and Kim with new shock. "Hold on, someone killed Jackie?"

"Took the top of her head off with some freaky… telekinesis," Kim said grimly, before she turned her attention back to Peter. "And you still haven't explained what you meant about that whole 'save Claire to save the world' thing?"

"Right…" Peter said, looking awkwardly between the two cheerleaders for a moment before he sighed. "This is probably gonna sound nuts, but… I know a guy who can paint the future."

"Paint… the future," Kim repeated, uncertain if she should take this seriously even after witnessing what that other man was capable of.

"And I met a guy from the future-"

"You met a guy from the future?" Ron repeated with an enthusiastic grin as Kim and Claire looked between the two males in escalating confusion. "As in he had a time machine?"

"As in he had the ability to… a friend of his told me he can 'bend time and space', so this guy can basically travel in time on his own."

"Huh," Ron said, nodding slightly even as he couldn't restrain his broad grin. "I have no idea if that's more or less cool than having a time machine, but it's still cool."

"And that's where you got… that message?" Claire cut in, looking tentatively at Peter. "About saving me?"

"Well, the time-traveller told me that I had to save the cheerleader to save the world, and the paintings…" Peter sighed before he reached into his pocket, pulled out his phone and showed it to the others. "Well, look at this."

Looking at the image on the small screen, Claire, Kim and Ron winced at the image that was almost certainly meant to be Peter, lying on the ground just as the girls had seen him before he'd 'woken up' from his death.

"Ouch," Ron winced as he looked at the screen. "That had to hurt."

"Believe me, it looked worse in person," Kim said, before she turned to Peter. "So you know a guy who can paint the future and a guy who can travel in time, and you can heal yourself like Claire-"

"I can't."

"What?" Claire looked at him in surprise. "But we saw you-"

"I don't heal," Peter cut her off, before giving Claire a brief smile. "At least, not until I met you."

"Huh?" Ron asked. "Could you… clear that up?"

"I'm… I don't know how to explain it, but when I'm near someone else with abilities, I can do what they do," Peter explained, shrugging slightly as he looked between the three teenagers. "That's how I was able to hold off the guy who attacked your school; once I got close to him…"

"You copied him…" Ron nodded in understanding, an awed grin spreading across his face before he looked at Peter with a new sense of anxiety. "Uh… what could the other guy do?"

"Move things without touching them, make things blow up with a flick of his fingers, and I'm fairly sure he has some kind of freezing ability."

"Ah," Ron said, wincing at the imagery. "That… doesn't sound good."

"And you didn't see what he did to Jackie," Claire added, shivering in disgust at the memory.

"Right," Kim nodded thoughtfully as she looked at Peter. "So I take it you don't know who he actually was…?"

Peter and the three teens looked up at the sound of footsteps from outside the house, Peter quickly getting to his feet as he took up a defensive stance in front of the three teenagers. The door opened to reveal an unfamiliar dark-skinned bald man wearing a loose shirt, but any sense of relief was lost when his gaze fixed on Claire in particular.

"Hold it," Peter said, moving to stand between Claire and the new arrival as he held up one hand. "Who are you?"

"I am here for Claire Bennett," the man replied, his eyes widening slightly as he looked at Peter as though he couldn't believe he was saying this.

"Why?"

"I was sent by her father to learn what she has witnessed and erase her memory if she knew about Sylar's powers."

"Sylar?" Peter repeated.

"The man who killed the cheerleader-"

"Wait a- are you saying my dad knows about this?" Claire stared at the man incredulously.

"He shouldn't?" Peter asked, one outstretched hand still focused on the other man even as his gaze shifted to Claire.

"Kim's mom's the one who works with the police; Dad just works at a paper company!"

"Yeah!" Ron insisted. "Why does Claire's dad know anything about… all this?"

"Primatech hunts and monitors those like us to control and contain the most dangerous," the unknown man replied.

"Primatech?" Peter glanced at Claire. "That's your dad's company, right?"

"Yeah…" Claire said, looking shakily at the man. Peter waited for a moment in case Claire had anything else she wanted to say, but he soon turned his focus back to their unexpected 'prisoner'.

"Why are you telling us all this in the first place?" Peter asked, before he looked between the man and his outstretched hand with dawning understanding. "Am I… making you do this?"

"Using the power of persuasion," the man replied, now looking at Peter with escalating confusion. "But this… should be impossible; I negate powers-"

"Negate?" Kim repeated, looking urgently at the other man. "You mean you shut them down?"

"Which means… whoa," Ron looked at Peter with new awe. "You're copying him and beating him with his own power; you seriously rock, Petey!"

"That… should not be… possible," the other man said, gaze still fixed on Peter, his shoulders visibly tensing as though he was trying to fight through Peter's control.

"Clearly it is," Peter responded, his own gaze resolute as he stared at the other man. "Where can I find out more about Sylar?"

"Local police," the man said, briefly moving his mouth as though trying to bite it shut before he continued talking. "An FBI agent… is tracking Sylar… her files…"

"Got it," Kim nodded, before she walked up to the man and struck him in the face with a powerful punch.

"Hey!" Claire yelled at Kim.

"Look, he was clearly fighting to get past whatever Peter was doing to him and I don't want to think about what could happen if he pulled that off if he was telling the truth about erasing memories," Kim said urgently. "Our best bet right now is to figure out what we're dealing with, which means getting into the station and trying to find that FBI agent he mentioned who might have files on that 'Sylar' guy."

"Hold on; are you seriously suggesting that we break into-?" Ron began.

"No," Peter said firmly. "I'll go in; you three-"

"We're staying with you," Claire cut him off.

"You can't-"

"I just found out that my dad knows about superpowers being real and knew something about the existence of a superpowered serial killer; I am not going back to that house with those secrets!" Claire said firmly. "We need answers…"

She trailed off and looked apologetically at Kim and Ron. "Sorry, I just… you don't have to do-"

"You're our friend, Claire," Kim nodded at her in understanding. "Whatever's going on here… well, I'll try and let Mom and Dad know, but if you want me to stick around, I'll be here."

"And you can't count me out of this!" Ron insisted urgently. "I mean, we just met a freakin' superhero and escaped a confrontation with a real-life supervillain-!"

"Uh… I'm not-"

"Seriously, dude, you came all this way to stop someone you knew nothing about from killing a girl you'd never even met; we're definitely dealing with a supervillain, and if you're not a superhero, I don't know who is!" Ron said earnestly.

"Uh… look, if you don't want us to help-" Kim began.

"No, if you… well, I'd appreciate your help, but I don't want you to feel like you have to do anything," Peter looked at the three with a tentative smile. "I mean, this isn't exactly something you signed up for… I mean, you're just-"

"I just saw a man cut off the top of a girl's head without any kind of weapon and then try and kill me and my friend by throwing us into a wall from at least a metre away; we are way beyond being 'kids'," Kim cut in.

"And besides, you came here to save my life; if you need help, we're there," Claire said firmly, before she looked over at Kim. "So if someone was visiting the police about some big serial killer, where would we find them?"