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AN: As always, certain events from canon, such as Future Matt's confrontation with Future Bennett and Claire's subsequent capture, won't be depicted here directly as they were basically the same as in canon, but I like to think I've added a few changes to the equation that I hope you'll all enjoy.

The Not-So-Average Girl

The more Mohinder Suresh looked at his work over the last few years, the more he wondered how he had come to this point. He'd come to America with the relatively vague idea of continuing his father's research and investigating the circumstances of his death in the process, and now here he was, five years later, acting as the personal advisor to the President on a secret government project.

If it wasn't for the fact that he was experimenting on living people, he would have been immensely proud of his accomplishment; as it was, he was never sure if he should be fascinated at his current scientific accomplishments or hate what he had become.

"How's the work coming along?"

"Ah, Henry," Mohinder looked over at the large man who served as his main security during his research. "Just… testing the new samples…"

"Do you need a new test subject?"

"Your brothers provided enough-"

"Once again, Doctor Suresh, I respect your consideration, but those are not my brothers," Henry said firmly. "Wendell and Wallace are safely contained; you have studied their clones and nothing more."

The way he drew that kind of line had always worried Mohinder; as much as he appreciated the practical benefits of Henry Gough's assistance, he was never sure how to react to the way he treated his brother's duplicates. He could recognise where the other man was coming from with his declaration that the clones weren't his 'real' brothers, considering that there was a definite difference on the cellular level to confirm which ones had just been generated versus which ones were actually 'real', but the way he just dismissed them like that…

"Getting back to the original point, how is your research coming along?"

"…Tricky," Mohinder observed; as long as he had someone willing to listen, he might as well take the opportunity to talk it out. "Your DNA is so fundamentally different it's like you're essentially a different species; we can't simply… remove that without killing the subjects anyway. We can contain the spread of the species, but if we're going to ensure that there's never going to be another Sylar, we need something else…"

"Then it's a good thing you've got a limitless supply of expendable test subject."

"You… really feel that way?" Mohinder looked at Henry, curious despite the grim nature of this topic. "Considering your own use of your abilities-?"

"I have seen enough to know that I was one of the fortunate few who are capable of using his gifts properly," Henry replied. "Even many of my own siblings chose to indulge rather than dedicate themselves to service; humanity as a whole is not ready to use these gifts appropriately. If the few must suffer to prevent the majority abusing power they should never have possessed, it is all for the greater good."

Somehow the intensity of Henry's words made it all the more disturbing. Nathan Petrelli was so focused on his goal that Mohinder could at least believe that the older Petrelli brother genuinely wanted to keep people safe and just wasn't the best at showing it, but the fanaticism in the other man's words…

I started this because I wanted to protect people from those who didn't know how to use their abilities safely; how did I reach a point where I'm taking active part in planning genocide?

He'd put up with this for so long by telling himself that he was protecting people, but if he was right about how Hiro's power actually worked, was it possible there was another way he could deal with this mess?

"DL can phase inside the buildings and Candice's illusions can distract the guards," the older Hiro explained as he paced around the small room where they were currently waiting. Lost for anything better to do with himself, Ando could only look uncertainly at the files and equipment around them, wondering if anything there might be useful, while Kim stood in a corner with a contemplative expression on her face. "With Kim to help us trace the safest route through the facility, this can work…"

"What about me?"

"You'll help-"

"But if you're asking about your future, we can't tell you that."

"Why not?" Ando looked at Kim in surprise. "You tell me about you-"

"Because I trust you to help the younger me avoid those issues when you get back," Kim clarified, looking at Ando with a brief smile before her expression became more serious. "It's easier to talk about the future when it's at least one degree distant; if we start talking about your future, you're more emotionally invested, and you might end up distracting yourself at a crucial moment…"

"That is… an excuse," the older Hiro put in, looking grimly over at Ando. "I must tell you-"

He was cut off as a stun gun electrode suddenly struck him in the chest, prompting an agonised scream from Hiro before he fell to the ground. Ando could only look around in a panic as the room filled with various uniformed and armed officers, Kim shifting into a combat stance beside him as a large man walked up to the fallen Hiro to look at him incredulously.

"We already caught you," the man said, walking up to stand over the fallen future Hiro. "Two Hiros… son of a bitch! He really can-!"

The large man was interrupted from finishing that sentence when something barged into him from the side, knocking him to the ground and throwing him into one of his own men before he could properly react to the attack. As the attacker stood up, Ando jumped back in shock at the sight of a man with shaggy blond hair and long nails, putting Ando in mind of some sketches of Sabretooth except not quite as muscled as the evil mutant. He was almost prepared to assume that he was just looking at someone who bore a striking resemblance to his new friend, but that idea was dashed when he saw a pink thing in what looked for all the world like blue armour, a couple of feet tall, dash in after the first figure and take out another couple of guards.

"Hey, KP," the feral-looking man said, looking at Kim with a ruthless grin.

"Hi, Ron," Kim replied, nodding back at the feral man before she glanced over with a wistful smile. "I see Rufus is… coming along?"

"Rufus?" Ando repeated, following Kim's gaze towards the pink creature now standing on the back of a fallen guard. Like his initial glance had confirmed, it was indeed a pink creature a couple of feet tall with some kind of blue armour on its chest and arms, but when he got a proper look at it, he could see that it was indeed a larger form of Ron Sinclair's unusual pet. "What-?"

Ando never had the chance to finish his sentence as Ron and Rufus lashed out in a display of violence that left Ando reminded of how he'd always imagined Wolverine would move if the comics were real (Jackman was good but he was very brutal and direct). The pink thing in blue that had once just been Ron's pet moved with a quickness and precision that surprised him given its comparative bulk, leaping around the walls to strike its targets, moving on to the next one before the last had even finished falling down, while Ron lashed out with such force that everyone he hit ended up falling into someone else. They moved with such speed and efficiency that Ando felt as though he had only just processed what he was looking at before the fight had ended, Ron and Rufus standing over their fallen foes while Kim smiled in approval at the new arrivals.

"Good job," she nodded.

"I've been practising," Ron replied as the blue-and-pink thing walked over to stand beside him.

"So… you… powers?" Ando looked at the older Ron in surprise. "And… Rufus?"

"From what I heard about when you're from, I haven't realised I've got my powers yet in your time, but I have them," Ron nodded. "If it helps, I've been compared to Vixen from DC Comics; I can copy the natural strengths and abilities of any animals in my vicinity."

"And as for Rufus, what happened to him is basically a side-effect of Ron's ability," Kim explained, looking at the naked mole rat with a wistful smile. "Before he started working for the government, Doctor Suresh speculated that Ron spent so much of his time synced up to Rufus that Rufus ended up taking on some of Ron's… what was the term he used?"

"Human-ness," Ron answered with a smile as Rufus moved over to stand beside Ron. "Always annoyed the doc that he couldn't think of something better."

"That is one theory, certainly," the creature in blue said-

"He talks?" Ando yelled, so stunned he didn't realise that he had spoken in Japanese until he saw Kim and Ron looking uncertainly at him.

"Uh… yeah, Rufus can talk," Ron nodded at Ando, before he turned to look at Kim. "Sorry I wasn't here sooner. Agent Hanson received your message, but when I got here there was some concern from the local birds about why so many people with weapons were hanging around this building, so I figured it would be best to wait off to the side until they made their own move."

"Birds… worried?" Ando looked uncertainly at Ron, suddenly wondering just how self-aware animals could be.

"Not in the sense that they knew what they were looking at and why it might be dangerous to them, but… well, my ability taps into something a bit deeper than the animals' conscious thoughts," the other man explained, indicating Rufus with a grin. "They can't always articulate it, but when I reach out just right… it's complicated to explain, but I'm aware enough of what they've seen that that I can reinterpret it into something I canunderstand."

"Which is one reason I don't tap into Ron's power beyond the surface benefits," Peter Petrelli said as he appeared in the middle of the room, nodding at the other man even as Ando clasped a hand to his head to try and stop the sense that his brain was about to explode from all this new information. "The additional sensory input is… complicated."

The next moment Ando felt a sense of disorientation as Peter was suddenly standing in the middle of the group, crouched down to take hold of the older Hiro. Ando was lost for what had just happened, but his other new friends seemed to understand what had happened, Rufus scampering over to take hold of Ron's leg while Ron and Kim reached out to place a hand on each of Peter's shoulders.

If Ando was asked to measure it, it felt as though the current transition was a moment slower than it had been when he made this kind of 'trip' with Hiro, but it was still a surprise to find himself moving from some unknown basement room to what looked like the back of the club he had originally met this older Kim and Peter in the first place.

It was particularly surprising when he realised that there were two new faces standing on either side of the large room, looking at the new arrivals with a nonchalance that suggested to Ando they had been expecting the teleportation. One of them was a woman who seemed to be a few years older than Kim, with dark hair and wearing a green jacket, and the other was a man seemingly a little older than the girl wearing a dark suit that actually seemed to be purple in the right light.

"You got 'em, huh?" the woman in green said with an edge to her voice Ando wasn't sure how to define.

"All but the young ones," Kim replied as she moved Future Hiro to a nearby chair. "Hiro will need to sleep it off, but once he's back up, we're going in to get them out."

"Is he really needed?" the unknown man asked.

"You know how it works, Mike," the scar-faced Peter Petrelli looked over at the other man. "Even with Ron giving me a boost, for something like this I'd prefer to have Hiro fully conscious so that he can actively assist; with these stakes, the last thing I want is to risk missing my target."

"Uh… who you?" Ando indicated the two new faces uncertainly.

"Sheila Gogh, and this is my brother Michael," the woman in green replied. "Bit cocky at times, but at least he didn't stab our brothers in the back like Henry did…"

"Yeah, do you have to keep bringing that up?" Michael looked at her in exasperation. "He betrayed all of us and we weren't exactly friendly before that shit happened; we don't need you rubbing our faces in how you hate his guts to keep hating him ourselves."

"Can I help it if he's easy to dislike these days?" Sheila shrugged.

"Still no need to go on about it," Kim pointed out before she smiled at the two. "Good to see you, by the way."

"Did you have any doubts?" Michael asked with a cool smile.

"The odds are getting steep and they already captured young Hiro and Ron; I'm allowed to be paranoid with these kind of stakes."

"Which is why having our Sinclair on site is a good call," Sheila indicated Ron. "Helps the big guy toughen up, after all."

"Oh, so I'm just Peter's booster pack to you?"

"Booster pack?" Ando asked, hoping he'd picked up enough active English over the last few weeks that he was interpreting this correctly.

In response, the other people in the room exchanged foreboding glances with each other for a few seconds, before the scarred Peter Petrelli (how could he have that scar if he had the cheerleader's healing ability?) looked at Ron with an inquiring expression that was met with a polite nod.

"Basically," the scarred man said as he looked at Ando, "since Ron can mimic abilities as well, even if his own focus on animals rather than other people, when I copy him the most obvious advantage I get from it is that his abilities basically enhances my own by default."

"Enhances?"

"We worked out the hard way over the years that Double P here is never stronger than the person he's copying, and even that's only when he's in their presence," Sheila took up the explanation with her own bitter smile. "Most of the time he has to know someone really well to copy their little gift to the owner's level when he's not within proximity of the original party. Even then, no matter how well he knows the other party, the only exceptions to that rule occur when he's tapping Sinclair's power as well."

"If I'm focusing on Ron and someone else at the same time, I can at least match what that person was capable of if not outright surpass it," Peter continued, even as he gave Ron an appreciative smile. "It's a bit rough at times, particularly if I get the power without the control the other person's developed, but it's a useful edge when we really need it."

For a moment Peter just smiled wistfully at his friend before he turned back to the woman in green. "You spoke with Audrey?"

"She gave us the plans for the area where they're most likely to be keeping the younger ones," Sheila said, before looking more cautiously at him. "You sure you want to do this? We go in like that, it's all or nothing…"

"If we can pull this off, we have a very good chance of averting all the damage of the last five years; I'd say that's worth the risk," Peter said, before he turned back to Ando. "And to answer what's probably your most significant question right now, just so we can get it out of the way; you're dead."

"Dead?" Ando repeated, more disturbed at the nonchalance of the tone than anything else.

"You died in the explosion," Peter said, in a tone that Ando could only think of as bitter. "I think that was what really changed Hiro to make him so… grim these days; he's become what he feels he has to be so that he can find some way to save you."

Ando had no idea what was the appropriate response to a declaration like that. It was almost a relief when Niki Sanders walked into the room and saw the rest of the people standing around talking with Peter. There was still some tension in the room after Peter left to talk with her, but no more than the kind of tension Ando was used to feeling when he was in a room with other people and had no idea what to say to everyone else.

Despite the knowledge of his potential death back in his own time, as he looked around the room, for the first time since Hiro and Ron were left behind in Isaac's loft, Ando felt that his 'new' allies might genuinely have a chance at pulling this off…