Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognise; you know what to expect from this site.

Feedback: Always appreciated.

AN: Again, I confirm that scenes that wouldn't be affected by Kim and Ron's presence, such as a confrontation between a certain waitress and the President or said President's later speech at the site of New York, have happened the same as they did originally; I just choose to focus on what I did change instead.

The Not-So-Average Girl

If Mohinder had been feeling conflicted about his work since the explosion the day before, the revelation about the full extent of Hiro Nakamura's powers made him feel even worse about his choices. Working with President Nathan Petrelli had given him access to the research materials and resources he needed to gain a better understanding of the genetics of the superhumans emerging across the world, but what had he actually done with that knowledge apart from try to take that power away from people and experiment on living test subjects?

Oh, Henry Gough had tried to justify it as he was only experimenting on 'expendable' clones rather than the originals, but that suddenly made it even worse; what right did any of them have to define what made a person human?

The human race had experienced a terrible tragedy when New York City was destroyed, but did that mean that the most remarkable evolutionary step made in all of recorded history should be constantly suppressed like it was only something to fear? There could have been so much potential if those with abilities had been allowed to come out at their own pace, but after the destruction of New York, people were searching for answers, and then…

Can I even remember how it all started?

That was the terrible thing about such devastating events; you could always remember where you were when it happened (much like so many people had said they could remember where they were when President Kennedy was assassinated), but sometimes it was hard to trace how you could end up making the decisions you made afterwards.

Somehow, the idea that things could be traced back to some particular moments had become more intriguing to him since he found Hiro Nakamura's complex timeline in what had once been Isaac Mendez's loft. He wasn't entirely sure how to follow the chain of events depicted there, and wondered if the arrangement only made sense to Hiro because of his abilities, but the central concept was fascinating in its own right.

Unfortunately, with Parkman so focused on 'fixing' things in the present that he couldn't even bring himself to look at the past, Bennett likewise caught up in trying to control things now rather than thinking about a wider issue… and President Petrelli so determined to basically deny that he even had abilities…

Mohinder had spent years hearing reports about how Hiro and his friends were essentially terrorists lashing out against the government, but the earnest way the Hiro in their custody had talked about taking risks to save millions of lives… on top of Ron Sinclair's urgent rejection of the idea that he could even be capable of some of his more extreme actions, Mohinder had to admit that he actually liked their attitude. He had spent so long working with people who seemed to feel that the only solution was to put things back to the way they were by containing or eliminating the evolved humans on a large scale. The idea of going back and erasing it all might be a significant leap, but it wasn't as though anything good had happened in these last five years that anyone would actually want to preserve.

God, in his position as one of the president's advisors, Mohinder had even noticed a fall in birth rates across America; it was as though couples didn't want to risk bringing a new Sylar into the world until they could be sure there wouldn't be a risk of their children manifesting such powers.

Even with the implications of such power, the thing that disturbed him the most was the way President Petrelli had dismissed his idea so easily to focus on the present. The way Nathan had talked about it as though nothing mattered but the world he had essentially created, and then been so easy to fall back on the idea of actual genocide as a solution when literally anything else should have been the first option…

Mohinder didn't know how the man he thought he'd been working for at the start of this presidential run could have fallen this far, but he knew that he couldn't continue to go along with this latest plan. If the proposed 'cure' was going to be distributed knowing that it would kill everyone who used it, then this whole world had reached a point where he couldn't condone what he was a part of.

He didn't know what would happen if he helped the younger Hiro escape into the past. He had read some superhero comics to get a different perspective on his father's research, so he was aware of at least the concept of alternate timelines, but the idea that he could be erased from history if he did this…

It doesn't matter.

Even if he considered the notion of changing history as a real possibility, the last five years had been so increasingly grim that he couldn't help but think that if he had to erase them from history, it wouldn't be that great of a loss…

When his phone began to ring, Mohinder answered it on automatic, only to be shocked when he heard a voice on the other end that he hadn't heard for years.

"Doctor Suresh," ex-agent Audrey Hanson's voice said firmly, "I was told to call you on behalf of Peter Petrelli, and tell you to do what you know is right if you want to save the world."

"How did you-?"

"He drew it, apparently," Hanson replied with a resigned edge to her voice that Mohinder had come to expect of this strange new world. "He's getting a team together to mount an assault, but it apparently doesn't work if you do what the president wants you to do."

"And… if I do this?" Mohinder asked.

"The world gets another shot."

Temporal mechanics aside, Mohinder knew that there was only one choice to make in that situation.

He'd already been making tentative plans to get the young Hiro and Ron to safety, but if Peter and his associates could actually help get these two young men back to the past…

Standing on the edge of the club, part way between the stage and the dressing rooms, Kim allowed herself a smile as she pondered the contrast between the current actions of her allies. She was never sure if it was a matter of simple training or some subtle effect of her own ability, but her hearing had become noticeably sharper over the years since she learnt exactly what she could do, and right now what she was hearing raised some subtle concerns about what they would do in this upcoming assault. In a booth in the club, Hiro was talking with Ando about how he hadn't truly been able to enjoy being a hero without Ando there to share it with him, while Sheila and Michael checked their equipment in preparation for the upcoming attack on the bar, and down in the changing room…

"…is gone," Peter was saying with a bitter edge to his voice. "You have to accept your loss."

"Jessica was right all along," Nikki said, sounding like she was on the verge of angry tears. Kim could picture her sitting in front of her dressing mirror, brushes and pictures all around it. "Look out for yourself; don't get attached."

"I don't buy it," Peter replied. The simplicity of that statement was enough to assure Kim that she was right to still have faith in him; no matter what had happened to him over the last few years, at his core Peter's first goal was to help people.

"Then why are you in such a hurry to leave me?" Nikki asked, her voice now clearly displaying a desperate attempt to suppress tears.

"My own reasons, and I'm not leaving anything," Peter retorted. "I'll be back."

"What reasons?" Nikki asked, a slight sound suggesting that she had stood up to address Peter more directly. "What makes you think that you are so important that you have to fix everything?"

"Because I do," Peter replied, a similar sound suggesting that he was now standing up as well.

"Why?" Nikki yelled, her voice becoming more 'screechy' as Kim heard a hand slamming against something else (probably Peter himself). "Why does it fall on your shoulders to save everyone?"

"Because it was me!" Peter yelled. "The bomb? It was me! I killed all those people. I killed Micah."

Kim had only heard about Nikki's son after the fact, apart from some comments that Peter had copied Micah's ability at some point before his death, but she knew that the whole subject of his death was still a sensitive issue for Nikki at best. Just the idea that the man she had been involved with would have been responsible for her son's death must be the most devastating news Nikki had ever heard since Micah had been lost…

By the time Kim realised that Peter had left the room and was heading towards the door, she didn't have time to move out of the way before Peter would see her and realise that she had been listening to it all. Resigned to the situation, she looked past him to see Nikki's back as she stood in the middle of her dressing room.

"You walk out that door, you don't come back," Nikki called after him.

Peter only paused for a moment before he kept on walking, nodding in acknowledgement at Kim as he paused on the edge of the corridor before he would enter the club itself.

"You know you probably won't come back either way, right?" Kim kept her voice low as Peter looked at her.

"Like I said," the most powerful man on the planet replied grimly, "this is my mess to undo."

Kim had nothing better to say to that, so she just nodded as the rest of the group began to gather around the scar-faced man.

She didn't like that her friend blamed himself for something that was still fundamentally an accident, no matter how devastating an accident it had actually been, but how could she criticise him for that when she could never stop herself wondering if she could have made a difference on that last day? If she'd been there to help him fight Sylar… if she hadn't gone off to try and meet up with Ron when he called to tell her his group had found Hiro's sword…

Hopefully if Hiro can get them back to New York just after they left the past, they can avoid that little detour…

Ron wasn't sure what it said about his personal priorities that he would have felt more comfortable in this situation if Kim had been his companion rather than Hiro. He liked the Japanese man well enough, and they'd had some interesting chats as they were travelling to Vegas, but something about Kim just always made Ron feel more confident…

Then again, maybe it was the idea that he had a power that was really giving Ron trouble at the moment. The idea that Kim Pierce had an ability almost seemed natural- Kim was so incredible at everything she tried that he wasn't surprised she was an actual superhero- but the thought that he was somehow one as well just left him wondering if the universe had screwed up somewhere. He was the goofy sidekick or plucky comic relief, guys like him didn't have powers!

They also don't get stuck in a post-apocalyptic future where they're seen as terrorists…

"You ever feel like we're in the wrong genre?"

"Wrong genre?" Hiro looked curiously at Ron.

"Like we're meant to be in a cheerier story than this?" Ron waved his hands at the room around them. "Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to be some idiot who's denying the problem in the hope that everything's going to go away, but this whole thing… I feel like we got dropped into something way darker than we were ever meant to deal with…"

"…Maybe," Hiro nodded thoughtfully before he gave Ron a more encouraging smile. "But maybe that good thing?"

"Huh?"

"Maybe we here to remind others what they have to be?" Hiro suggested, looking at Ron with that strange optimism that had seemingly never faltered since the two of them had met. "Where others deal with world letting them down, we remind them to enjoy being heroes?"

"That…" Ron began before he stopped himself with a thoughtful nod. "That could actually work… lot of responsibility, maybe, but we can work with that…"

"We must," Hiro nodded. "If Peter Petrelli Superman and Kim Pierce Batman, we must be Jimmy and Robin."

"Batman?" Ron repeated in surprise.

"She do with ability what Batman do with training; she still has cool ability."

When Hiro put it that way, Ron could kind of see his point. Maybe Kim would never have Batman's gadgets or Bruce Wayne's money, but wasn't Batman so popular these days because he could plan his way out of a fight with any foe if he had enough time? With Kim's powers, she could basically save time on research and just let her instincts take control when she was facing a big enough threat…

When the door opened and the Haitian walked into the room, Ron's already-tentative good mood faltered even further. He and Hiro were each fairly sure that there was something here stopping Hiro just teleporting them out of here, even if whatever his ability was still seemed to be keeping up whatever his link was to Rufus, but if this guy was actually in the room with them, there was definitely some reason they wanted to keep him weak…

The sound of battle being waged further down in this building was so intense Kim wondered if they had gone too far. As much as she resented the way Nathan Petrelli's laws had manipulated so many of them into turning against each other, the man didn't exactly recruit idiots, and if he was truly concerned about the consequences of letting Hiro change history, he was going to pull out all the stops to make sure their history remained intact.

Sometimes Kim still wondered how the man who had just wanted to protect his brother had reached the point where he was basically mounting a genocidal campaign against his own kind, but she had long ago decided to focus on the situation in front of them rather than question the motives of all involved parties. Right now, that situation was Peter, Hiro, and Sheila drawing most of the building's available security teams to the main entrance while she, Ron and Michael got inside through a vent on an upper level near the rear end of the building. It was a bit of a jump from the nearest building to that one, but with Ron's enhancements and Kim's own skills all Michael had to do was stay small and hold on to them as they made the jump.

Strictly speaking, getting inside via the vent hadn't been hard once Peter managed to 'instruct' the security system to ignore any alerts around that particular area, but she knew from past missions with Peter that he sometimes had trouble controlling that particular talent. Knowing what she now knew about its source, she wondered if that had anything to do with his guilt over Micah's death, but that wasn't an issue right now. Peter could keep the security system down long enough for her team to get through, and after that Ron's feral instincts, Michael's shrinking, and Kim's own enhanced instincts could help them evade any internal security systems.

Kim still wasn't entirely comfortable about leaving Ando with the more public team, considering he was the only one without any powers, but she had to concede that it would have been too risky to let him come with them this way. Add in that anyone who knew the truth about Hiro and Ron probably knew about Ando right now, and it really made sense for him to join the frontal assault so that their enemy would think they were throwing everything into one attack.

Glancing at her phone, Kim nodded as she compared a number on the vent wall to the map on her screen.

"We're almost there," she said, keeping her voice low as she glanced back at her partners. "Ron, get ready to move; Mike, take a look."

"Check," Michael Gough replied, the small man running briskly past her, looking for all the world like a living action figure, before he jumped towards a nearby vent and vanished through the slits. Kim was still surprised that Michael could do that without worrying about being hurt, but apparently his power also gave him some degree of control of his density so that he could make himself strong enough to withstand any impacts he might sustain, whether from jumping down or being potentially stepped on. He couldn't entirely explain how his body could do all that, but Kim supposed Michael was one of those people who didn't care that much how his body could do all this strange stuff so long as he wasn't being hurt by it.

For the next few moments, Kim and Ron simply squatted in the vent, anxiously waiting for Michael to get back. Kim wanted to believe that they were just silent because talking in this situation might draw the attention of someone else in the building, but she couldn't make herself forget how the two had drifted apart over the years. As much as they both understood how the other had reached this point, it was still hard to know how to talk together like they had when they were both at school…

A slight knocking at the vent was the only advance notice the two had when Michael returned, his small form climbing back into the vent with casual ease.

"How are you?" Kim asked.

"All right," Michael replied, still looking more like an action figure than a real human being even as he shrugged his shoulders and stretched. "Climbing those walls is always rough…"

"What are we dealing with?" Ron asked.

"About a dozen SWAT officers led by Matt Parkman, lined up opposite the elevator."

"Parkman… he's the telepath, right?" Kim asked. She tried to keep track of all potential threats in the government's anti-superhuman programs, but it was hard to keep track of everyone when she had spent so long trying to be discreet.

"Bingo," Michael nodded. "I think he missed me because he's focusing on what's in front of him right now, but we have a whole SWAT team ready to take on whoever comes up to this level and I'm fairly sure he mentioned the Haitian's in the area too…"

"Which means it's time for me to get into the mood," Ron said, looking grimly up at her. "Move forward."

Kim nodded in understanding, once again fighting down the brief pain she felt at the implications. What Ron was attempting had always been a risk, but the idea that he still resented her enough that he had to tell her to get out of his way…

Once she had moved far enough away from her old friend, Kim could only watch as Ron's face twisted and his body tensed, drawing on the memories of rage and pain that Kim doubted he had ever shared with anyone. As much as she wished she could help Ron with whatever had caused these issues, another part of Kim had always stopped herself from daring to ask the question, not wanting to know what could have made Ron so mad.

It seemed like hours as Kim watched, Michael and Rufus pressed anxiously against her arms, before Ron let out a loud roar, putting her in mind of The Lion King, as he literally punched the vent open and leapt out of it. Kim allowed herself a brief glimpse through the hole to watch as Ron charged towards the SWAT team, striking the group before the large man Kim now recognised as Matt Parkman could turn around to face the attacker.

Kim turned away when she saw the first spurt of blood from his initial target, listening for a few moments as she heard claws tearing through flesh and something cracking that she at least strongly suspected was bone. After a few moments of violence and brief moments of gunfire, the sound of violence faded, leaving Kim to exchange glances with the shrunken Michael before he jumped back through the hole. A call of confirmation from the other side was enough of a cue for Kim to jump down after him, looking up ahead to see Ron standing in the middle of the fallen SWAT officers, Parkman lying off to the side with a few distinct scars on his face and chest. Ron turned to look at Kim and Michael as the Gough sibling returned to regular height, but her friend was suddenly struck from the side by a punch from a man in a blue suit.

"Hey!" Kim yelled, shifting urgently into a combat stance.

"Oh," the man said, turning from the downed Ron to look at Kim before his eyes widened as he took in her companion. "Michael?"

"Henry," Michael responded, fists clenched as he glared at the other man. "You just keep finding new ways to annoy us all, don't you?"

"You know him?" Kim asked.

"He's my brother," Michael clarified, before he looked bitterly at Henry. "Or he was before he sold us out."

"Sold you out?" Henry countered with a raised eyebrow. "I'm the only one who's actually still trying to do the right thing; is it my fault that you can't take the greater good into account?"

"Greater good- you think all this crap is you doing the right thing?" Michael repeated incredulously.

"It's become all too clear that the world isn't ready for us; I'm only doing the sensible thing by helping to ensure the worst of us can't do any damage-"

"Which means helping the government exterminate us?" Kim asked indignantly. "I didn't realise we were in Nazi Germany!"

"It won't be like that," Henry said with the kind of cool certainty that Kim almost hated more than an outright fanatic. "They will only keep the more dangerous of us contained; anyone with lesser powers will be moved to a secure location and kept under observation-"

"And if you believe that you really do have muscles for brains," another voice said. Henry had barely turned in the direction of the voice when a familiar green figure lunged forwards, fist glowing with green energy as it struck Henry in the face. The impact sent Henry flying before he hit the floor with a pained thud, Sheila Gough standing over him and Peter Petrelli, the older Hiro and Ando standing behind her.

"Sheila?" Henry looked up at his sister, actually looking disappointed to see her. "I thought that you would-"

"Decide to sell out and help the guys trying to wipe us out?" Sheila shook her head even as she held out an arm to help Ron get back to his feet. "No, because unlike you, I actually have some common sense."

"I was doing what's right; we're dangerous-!"

"Let me guess, the government told you that and you just believed it?" Ron snorted dismissively at the other man while rubbing his bruised face. "That is exactly why government-sponsored heroes never worked in the comics; if they weren't the freakin' Suicide Squad, it always comes down to their supervisors telling them who they should consider the bad guys, and most of the time the only real problem is that the other guys just don't play by government rules."

"These people are elected officials; they've earned our trust-"

"And everyone has their own agenda," Kim affirmed. "Maybe some people out there in Washington genuinely just want to do the right thing, but this is the kind of area where we shouldn't have to compromise, so it's best not to put ourselves in that position in the first place."

"Yeah, that's always been Hank's problem," Sheila waved a dismissive hand as Peter and the older Hiro looked grimly at the man in blue. "He wants to do the 'right' thing, but he's too trusting that just because someone's a public figure they're automatically trustworthy. Seriously, if they sold it the right way someone could convince him that basically anything can be the 'right thing', even all this crap we've been dealing with lately."

"New York was destroyed because one of us lost control; I am trying to help-!"

"By treating your own kind like experiments?" Sheila glared at him. "You can't exactly say that you've got the moral high ground when you let these assholes torture our brothers-"

"It's always the copies-"

Shelia let out a snort of disgust as she punched Henry firmly in the face once again.

"They still remember being your brothers, you bastard," she said scathingly to the unconscious body before she turned back to the others. "C'mon, let's find Beast Boy and Little Clock and get them outta here."

"You know the first one's copyright," Ron observed with a brief grin.

"Who cares?" Sheila replied with her own smirk. "We're about to change history; legality isn't a big deal."

"Let's just-" Kim began, before a door down the corridor opened and the young Hiro and Ron hurried out, followed by an Indian man in glasses with a thick black beard, wearing a brown suit that gave Kim the impression it was naturally dirty in some way, who looked at the assembled group in surprise.

"Peter?" the Indian man said at last, his gaze focused on the scarred man.

"Mohinder," Peter replied with a brief nod.

"Hiro!" Ando yelled, running past Peter to hug the younger Hiro.

"Gang's all here!" Ron grinned as he looked at the new arrivals, Rufus perched on his shoulder, before he looked past Kim and his jaw dropped. "Holy…"

"Yeah, I know," the older Ron commented with a dark grin as he exchanged glances with his younger self. "Foreboding look, right?"

"Uh… I have no idea what you're trying for there, buddy…" Ron said at last, waving a hand at him. "I mean, I'm getting a bit of a Sabretooth vibe, but I really hope it's meant to be more feral Wolverine…"

"I stopped thinking about that kind of thing a long time ago; this is who I am and I accept it," future Ron shrugged. "I take it they told you about your ability?"

"Copying animals?" Ron nodded, Rufus imitating the gesture from Ron's shoulder. "Oh yeah; any advice?"

"Be careful about how long you spend tapping into certain animals; relying on it can be dangerous to your psychological state," the older Ron observed with a brief grim smile. "Frankly, if you're going to learn anything from me… don't be me."

"…It's that kind of future, huh?"

"I may have just killed my own brother because he's been killing clones of our other brothers for the last few years; what do you think?" Sheila asked the younger Ron.

"What?" Hiro looked at the woman in green in shock. "Your brother?"

"That's not really-" Kim began, before she suddenly felt a strong sense of dread in the back of her skull, looking anxiously down the corridor. "What the-?"

She would never know what had prompted it, but suddenly the older Hiro was standing in front of her only to be struck in the back by something that left a sharp protrusion sticking out of his chest. Ron and Ando yelled in shock while Hiro could only stare at his future self in silent shock, while the others shifted into a combat stance to look at the figure now standing at the other end of the corridor with an outstretched hand.

"Nathan?" Peter looked at his brother in surprise.

"Peter," Nathan nodded as he lowered his arm.

"How did you even know we were here, Mr President?" Michael asked scathingly.

"Oh, Henry Gough was a loyal employee who kept me up-to-date with events down here," Nathan replied with a shrug. "He alerted me to the attack on this facility, and I flew here as soon as I got the news; I can't exactly allow you all to ruin the world I've created here, can I?"

"You've created?" Sheila repeated.

"Oh God…" Kim said, eyes widening in horror as the final piece fell into place.

Her instincts had always been able to pick up things she wouldn't have known consciously… and right now, even if it probably was dangerous to be face-to-face with the president who had basically made it illegal for people like her to exist, there was only one person who had ever inspired the level of fear she was experiencing right now.

"Sylar?"

The shocked glances she received from the rest of her allies might have made Kim doubt herself if she'd been paying attention to them, but all her attention was on the man in front of her, as Nathan Pretelli seemed to warp into the long-missing form of Sylar, wearing black jacket, shirt and trousers with a mess of dark hair at odds with Nathan's perfectly manicured appearance.

"Too bad you couldn't believe it was me for a few more moments," the serial killer observed as he looked at Peter. "I was looking forward to making a Biblical analogy."

"Oh, you absolute bastard," Sheila said, her hands glowing green once again. "What was all this; one massive ego trip?"

"Just making sure the unworthy can be cleared out," Sylar grinned mockingly at the young woman before he turned to Peter. "It's actually been rather amusing, really; everyone thinks of me as a monster when I never committed my greatest crime-"

"What Peter did was a tragic accident he'd do anything to undo; you did all this to the world on purpose, you sick fuck," Ron spat at the killer.

"You're going to pay for all that," Peter said, his hands raised and glowing with red fire. "Especially what you did to Nathan."

"What I did?" Sylar retorted, his hands glowing with blue energy that made Kim think of ice. "When I killed Nathan, he had already turned against his own kind."

"Liar!" Peter yelled, his feet lifting off the ground as he charged at Sylar, the technical president (Kim strongly doubted this guy could have won a campaign on his own even if he'd been disguised as Nathan at the time) only just managing to get his own feet off the ground before Peter hit him.

As the two men wrestled in the air in a manner that briefly made Kim think of that bit in the third Matrix film, her instincts drew her attention back to where the three time-displaced young men were still watching the fight in horror, as well as Hiro's corpse. Letting her instincts drive her actions, Kim quickly examined Hiro's body and found a bloodstained, slightly damp comic that she handed to Hiro.

"You'll need this," she said, her attention focused on the three time-travellers as Sheila and the older Ron began to run towards the battle behind her. "Get back there, and make sure I'm with Peter until you catch Sylar."

"KP-!" Ron began, even as Mohinder and Michael grabbed the three and hurried them back towards the room they'd been held in earlier. Kim didn't question the decision; Michael's power would just make him potential collateral damage if he tried to get involved right now, but making sure Ron and the others were safe was the only way this was ever going to end well.

Even as she saw them enter the room, Kim turned back to look at the fight being waged in front of her, Sylar back on his feet as he created a sharp wall covered in icicles between him and his enemies. When another pair of Sylars appeared in the air above them, Kim felt a new sense of terror, only to be given a new sense of hope as Sheila let out a roar of rage and launched herself into the air to take down one Sylar with a powerful kick to the head. Quickly taking in her surroundings, Kim jumped up to kick herself off a wall and push herself towards the other airborne Sylar, knocking him down to the ground with such force that the flying Sylar was left dazed.

As Kim hit the ground with a roll, she glanced back to confirm that Peter was currently wrestling with Sylar directly, each man holding the other by a wrist as they struggled. Satisfied that the main Sylar wasn't a threat, Kim turned back to her own downed Sylar and slammed her foot into his chest with such force that she felt a few ribs crack. The Sylar she had just kicked glowed red and vanished from view, but she didn't have time to analyse that before a sudden burst of energy from Peter and Sylar sent her flying down the corridor. She looked up in time to see Ron hit the wall further down the other side of the fight with a particularly loud crack, but then Rufus was jumping towards Sylar with a loud shriek of rage- Sheila was charging another blast of green fire- everything was fading-

Everything was fading.

Kim didn't know exactly what was happening, but for the first time in years, she felt as though she was able to relax when faced with danger.

If we're fading now… they did it then…

That thought was the last thing to cross her mind before this timeline ceased to exist.

AN 2: To clarify, the multiple Sylars during the last fight are because Sylar copied at least one of the 'Wegos' at some point; with that many duplicates being created for experimentation, Sylar could have easily analysed one of them at his leisure, recognising the advantages of having short-term allies when he's facing particularly challenging foes.

For Ron's fight with Matt, I was inspired by a Wolverine storyline where he fought the villain Mister X, who is a telepath who sadistically enjoys sensing peoples' thoughts as he kills them. X's main advantage as a fighter is that he can read his opponents' minds and predict what they're going to do next, so Wolverine's only defeated Mister X in direct combat by provoking himself into a feral rage where even he doesn't know what he's doing beyond trying to beat the other guy.