Claire Bennet
Outside Lake Tahoe, Nevada
Gavin and Claire stepped from the teleporting arms of Hiro into the chaos of a battlefield. Peter was there; she could see him engaged with a number of soldiers just outside the massive walls of the camp. A woman was behind him, letting out arcs of electricity.
Hiro was gone, off into the fray. Gavin brought down some of the dark to obscure them from the enemy, and then he grabbed Claire and held on. She fought, eager to get to Peter. She needed to help him and damn Gavin for stopping her.
"Shh!" a woman's voice said, calling to Claire and Gavin. "They haven't seen you yet."
Claire turned her head, and saw the strangest thing she'd seen in a while; the dark haired head of a young woman sticking out of the wall. "Who are you?" Claire asked.
"Noel," she said reaching a hand out for them to take. "Now hurry up, the others are waiting for you two!" Gavin took her hand, finding it solid, and then the both of them were yanked into the concentration camp.
"The hell?" she heard Gavin shout as the cold of the wall rippled through them.
Claire looked up, seeing a number of people staring at her. Matt, Sakura, Noel; they turned to her now to lead them, because she couldn't get hurt. Very well, she thought. I wanted to be here. I fought to be here.
"What?" she asked. "Are we going to do this?"
Parkman nodded, and Claire could feel his mind touch hers as he expanded his awareness. That was one person who was ready. Lead on, little one, he thought.
It was strange, all of them being connected, especially with Sakura thinking in Japanese.
On they went through the low hallways, finding no one alive; only the empty remains of a number of people who looked like they got a hasty execution. One bullet in the back of the head. Claire held her head up, so she wouldn't have to look at their bodies.
"Claire, look!" Noel shouted, forgetting the mental connection. "It's Kate and Smokey!"
Indeed it was them, contained with in a cell that they couldn't open. If only one of them had thought of breaking in to get them out. Then, Noel slipped through the bars, easily enough. She wrapped her arms around Kate's neck.
From somewhere deep in the shadows, a gun went off, twice. Smokey and Kate feel to the ground, blood pouring from the back of their heads. A third bullet went through Noel and into the back wall. Noel was back through bars, double quick.
Sakura gathered what light there was and turned it into a spotlight, shining as far back as the cell went. There, seated on the cots, was the grinning face of Senator Fred Armstrong. He was shackled back there, grinning like a madman. "I see you, Claire-bear!" he said in a little sing-song-y voice that made her sick. "I'll never stop looking for you! I love you, you know! You're ever so much fun! I wish we could do it again!"
Armstrong pointed his gun at Claire and pulled the trigger again and again, only getting a dry click. He laughed madly. "Come on, this guys nuts," she said, leading the others off.
Peter Petrelli
Outside Lake Tahoe, Nevada
He was all to aware of the battle going on around him. To his left, Hiro stood with his sword, keeping off the soldiers with his sword. To his right, the Agent Tisdale was using sharp bones jutting from her forearms. Behind him, he could hear the crackle of electric arcs being thrown by Elle. Little Elle, she shouldn't be here, either.
Peter forced his attention back to the matter at hand. The soldiers were getting closer, and they were cut off from the other agents. He decided to try out Ashe's power, bringing his own bones from his arms and cutting through those that stood in front of him.
The crowd around him started to thin, and thinking that Hiro, Ashe, and Elle could handle the soldiers, he took flight, loosing his own arcs of electricity from the air.
The sound wasn't that of a gun-shot; it was so much more. Peter looked down to see a rocket being blasted at him. He threw up a force field and let the rocket explode on it. Then, he punished the offender with a well placed arc to the forehead. All around him, the sounds of agony and pain filled his mind. It was beyond him to think he was killing people, so he tried his best to put it out of his mind.
Near the far end of the battlefield, Peter spotted Ortega and Ridge, more than holding their own. Ridge lifted up a truck of soldiers, shook them out, and used the truck as a weapon. It was a hell of a sight to see, with the added effect of Ortega's own personal fireworks. Where was the other Agent, though? Frost?
Kit Frost
Outside Lake Tahoe, Nevada
There was a great stench in the air, and it brought it all back; the insurgents in Iraq, the bombings, the senseless killings. It was all there in his mind. Frost knew every death on the field; it was his talent, what he once believed to be precognition, he couldn't shut if off. It was, as Ashe described it, clairsentience, the ability to see the past, present, and future of an object. Every time a soldier feel, he knew.
There was a deep sense of dread in the pit of his stomach, like those when his troop convoy was ambushed. He knew that someone was going to die, if he didn't act quickly. He brought up one of the soldiers guns, opening fire over the heads of those still standing and screamed. Everyone of them moved farther away.
In his mind, he tried to follow the string of events leading to the death of one his men, and couldn't. There were too many. He did the best he could, making his way over to the wall of the camp. It was stronger here.
One of the soldiers lunged at him, and instead of firing, he slammed the butt of the stolen weapon into his face, hearing the sound of bone snapping, like dry twigs. The soldier feel, but he would live. Frost moved on.
Claire Bennet
Outside Lake Tahoe, Nevada
"Are there no survivors?" she asked in desperation. They had just traveled through the bleak hallways of the concentration camp, finding a number of rooms were grisly experiments had happened and still held the gore that remained when one of the test subjects died.
Matt shook his head. "I can't feel anything alive, here. Nothing but that nut job back there."
Noel sighed. "Back to the fight then, I guess." As she said that, the wall next to the group shimmered, and Noel nodded. "I guess not. Alright, Claire. You first."
She reached for Claire, but Claire jerked away. "Don't touch me. I'm going back to help Peter."
Matt nodded to Gavin, and his arms came around Claire and locked in like a clamp. He lifted her up and ran through the shimmering wall. She found herself in what looked a common square from a medieval village. There he was, the little boy, Alphonse. She struggled, kicking and swinging what ever she could to try and get free. She knew there was no chance, but she wasn't giving up hope. Peter needed her there, to help. She had to go back. Gavin spun around, nearly losing his balance, and Claire got a good view of the inside of the camp. Sakura and Matt were coming through after her, but Noel was going back.
"What gives you the right?" Claire screamed, hoping Noel could hear her. "What gives you the right to fight and not me? Why?" She went limp, surrendering to those around her. Gavin let her go, and she collapsed. She would get no answer, and didn't expect one. So when Alphonse leaned in close, smelling of mint, she figured he was going to tell her what she needed to do otherwise.
"You have every right to fight," he said. "But, Peter is your uncle, and he has every right to deny you that. Noel, on the other hand, has lost both her father and her uncle. She has no one to look out for you. Her uncle was there, in that camp."
Claire looked up into what looked like eight year old eyes, but could see back through time so far that she knew a true and deep fear. Alphonse knew all the sorrow one could know. Two thousand years of it. How is it possible?
Ashe Tisdale
Outside Lake Tahoe, Nevada
She fought like the devil was in her, slaying anyone who came within stabbing reach. She was tired of fighting for this or for that, and not ever really knowing why. This time, she knew. She didn't have to go into the building to know what was in there. How could sane people do this to other human beings? They must not be human, and therefore, she was doing the world a favor.
She heard him scream out, not realizing what was going on. She spun, feeling as if she was suddenly immersed in mud or jelly or oil, something was slowing her down. Everything else moved with deadly speed, but she couldn't muster up the force to turn around.
Frost was in midair, leaping between her and the gunman. Something was wrong. Why was Frost in the air? Why was someone pointing a gun at her? What the hell was going on?
Then, the world snapped back, and she was at Frost's side as he lay bleeding on the ground. He couldn't breathe. The bulled had pierced his left breast, and she knew what was behind that. In a moment's time, he was gone.
Ashe was being moved, but she didn't know why. It wasn't over. Frost needed to be avenged. She turned her head; Ortega was pushing her towards the wall of the camp. Further back, Ridge was carrying Frost, and Elle and Peter were keeping their escape open with bolts of lightening.
She felt like crying, but she couldn't. Then, cold rippled through her body and she passed through the wall. That was it. She was a ghost. This was all a dream or she died and not Frost. No one should have died. This wasn't right. She wanted to shout, to scream, to turn around and tell Ortega that they needed to go back.
She did nothing, but let them led her through the portal and out of the battle.
Luca Popov
Warsaw, Poland
It was a slow day, made worse by the face that he could the work of twenty men alone. Nothing he did seemed to have purpose. There had to be a reason he could do what he did. All he could do today was go out into the country side and lift a tractor. Twenty copies of himself, that was all it took. He could do so much more. He was his own army, but why didn't the real army call on him?
Luca stood out behind his house, watching the sun coming up. He knew the shadows of this land well, even though it wasn't his homeland. No, he came from Moscow, and his family had been chased out, disgraced for being a democracy supporter back during the Cold War.
There was something wrong this morning. There was a man shaped shadow hanging partially out of an alleyway, not two blocks away. If it was a drunk, he was a long way off from the bars. The cops really should have handled this, already.
Instead of calling the cops, Luca went to go see if he could do anything. It was a slow day, or night rather, and he needed a bit of excitement. The man was well dressed, almost completely in a suit. The only thing he was missing was his coat. The rest of his clothing was heavily damaged with small burn marks made not by fire, but by something else. Luca thought it was nuclear.
Luca knelt down over the man. He was breathing. He was not an unattractive man for someone his age. He still had his own hair, thick and dark, even through his forehead was growing. It was a noble forehead, high and mighty. His face was filled with hard lines, but a few days scruff covered them. Luca was sure he had the square jaw of a hero.
He went fishing in the man's back pocket, pulling out his wallet. Luca flipped it open and nearly dropped it. American? They hardly ever come in this part of town. There was nothing to see here. Something told him to just walk away, that this man was in danger and to help would be to invite trouble on himself, but Luca didn't care. He spit himself into three people, all looking just like him, and the two copies lifted the fallen man up, while Luca the original read the man's ID card over and over again.
When they got back to his house, his copies carried him to the couch and laid him down. With one last look at the ID card of the American, Luca looked at the fallen man in the face, seeing the resemblance with the picture on the card. His copies rejoined him.
Luca asked, more to himself than to the fallen man, "What are you doing so far from him, Nathan Petrelli?"