fic: Nothing Is Taking Me Down, Part 7/? (Heroes)
Title: Nothing Is Taking Me Down, Part 7/?
Author: acinogan
Characters: Sylar, Elle, Peter, Angela, Matt, Mohinder, Daphne
Word Count: 1887 this bit
Rating: PG-13 this part
Summary: Elle makes a guest appearance on Sylar's latest road trip to collect on a debt. Going more and more AU by the moment.
Spoilers/Warnings: Gen. Volume 4 spoilers, up through "Exposed"
Disclaimer: I don't own Heroes characters etc.
A/N: nudged by the prompt from superkappa regarding Damien Rice songs. i actually gleaned this from "I Remember," though.
Prologue | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6
Sylar stepped out of the shower and she was already there, an impatient look on her face. He reflexively tightened his grip on the towel he'd slung carelessly around his waist.
"Nobody cares if you're clean or not. You just need to go be the big gun if Peter chokes." Her tone was disdainful, but he did notice her eyes travel down his torso, past the towel line, and back up again. Interestingly enough, he found that, just a little, he wanted her to look at him appreciatively, like she used to.
"Big gun, huh? Freudian slip, or just fond memory?" She looked like she wanted to slap him. Like she would have if she could have.
"We really don't have time for this. We've got a lot to go over before we pick up Peter." She could really be all business when it suited her purposes. He liked her better when she was playful. He would have given Luke to her to use as a toy if she'd been able to do more than drive him insane by constantly annoying him. As it was, he was infinitely glad they'd left Luke behind. The three of them in a room together for very long would most likely drive him to murder, and that would still leave him with Elle in his ear until she got bored with him.
"Do you have more plans? Haven't we gone over everything yet?"
"There's something I haven't mentioned to you yet."
"What else could there possibly be?"
"Oh, this one's pretty good, actually. I think you'll like it. Get dressed, I'll tell you in the car on the way to Peter's."
***
It was strange that he could see Elle in the rearview mirror, he thought, after Peter joined them on the drive to Building 26. There was a lot he didn't understand about her present condition, starting with how she could even be there, not to mention how she knew so many things about so many different people that she simply couldn't know unless she was exactly what she'd implied she was, a ghost of some sort.
"Did you talk to Elle?" Peter asked him, and he saw her smirk in the mirror.
"I did. She'll help us however she can long-distance. Just keep it quiet that she's Rebel, or your brother might go looking for her."
"Wow, you almost sound protective of me. Unbelieveable."
"Oh, sure, I won't tell anybody." Peter appeared to briefly consider the wisdom of his next question. "So, do you guys still talk a lot, or...?" Sylar gave him a look. "But, if you'd rather not talk about it, I understand." At least Peter was a little more perceptive than Luke.
"Be nice," Elle urged him. "He's the reason this whole thing is going to fall into place."
"You're feeling pretty comfortable with all the new powers, then?"
"Yeah, like riding a bike."
"Right."
They lapsed back into awkward silence for the rest of the drive. Once they'd reached the spot where Elle told him to park the car, the mood shifted. Elle looked ready for a fight. Sylar was pretty sure she was angry that she would be helping from the sidelines instead of being in the middle of the action, but her part as Rebel was vital. Without her manning the electronics, they wouldn't get much farther than the front door. Peter seemed resigned, like he had only let it come to this because he didn't see any other solution. What had he expected once the general public found out about them? He had been willing to kill his own father to keep that from happening in the first place, and now it looked like he was presumptively mourning however many agents and commando-types they might have to sacrifice as collateral damage in order to get his friends out. Peter better have started thinking up a good next step to implement after he got his team back together. Sylar was done after this. One little side mission inside Building 26, and then he was cutting out before it got too hairy.
"All right, we're here. Are you ready?" he asked Peter and, though Peter couldn't tell, Elle.
"Ready as I'll ever be," Peter replied with what Sylar thought was somewhat forced bravado.
"Hey, I have to go away to get to the computer stuff. Don't let him mess up. And you, keep your eyes on the prize. And do not get caught."
"Be careful," he said aloud, more to Elle, really, but Peter could certainly stand to hear it, too.
"They can't touch me," Sylar heard in stereo, one of them in each ear simultaneously. It was strange. Elle disappeared.
"Just don't touch them," he reminded Peter.
They made the short covert walk from the hidden parking spot to the door Elle had told Sylar they should enter through, then took a second to set themselves up outside the entryway, just as they'd planned earlier. So far, so good. Sylar nodded at Peter and then used his telekinesis to open the door. As predicted, just inside were two armed guards. Peter flung their guns away from them, out through the door, then lifted them up against the wall and held their arms still while Sylar entered. The absence of alarms meant that Elle had done her part and disabled the sensors on the door. They only had a few minutes at most before someone noticed that the cameras pointed at that door and hallway were inoperative and went to check it out. Peter slid the guards down several yards of wall before they hit the floor roughly enough to disorient them, then Peter and Sylar used plastic cable ties to bind their wrists and ankles and duct tape to cover their mouths. They hurried down the long hall, watching for a signal from Elle to indicate where they should go next. Blinking overhead lights at the third hallway on the right led them to their next destination.
As soon as they turned the corner, there were two more guards, and Sylar dispatched them quickly in much the same manner as Peter had the first two. The guards, now unconscious and cable-tied, had been guarding a door that had a magnetic card reader and both retinal and fingerprint scanners mounted next to it. The display screen read "Once you're in, I can keep them out." The door lock audibly released, and Peter went in first. After Peter was past where he would be able to see it, the display screen told Sylar "Get Parkman first." It was like she thought he had short-term memory problems.
Sylar stepped through the threshhold into a foyer area and the door closed and made a whooshing locking sound behind him. There was a long bank of closed circuit monitors, and visible on nearly every one was a human-shaped orange jumpsuit, some of them wearing hoods, some not; everyone whose face was visible showed the distinctive nasogastric tube taped in place, feeding through the special's nose whatever compound the government had come up with to supress powers. Sylar efficiently took care of the one person who had been unluckily assigned that monitor-watching shift and set his unconscious, cable-tied form in the corner of the room.
Elle had helpfully labelled Suresh, Parkman, and Millbrook on the screens of their respective monitors for ease of identification. The room numbers were already in place below the monitors for the people who normally sat there.
"Ready?" popped up on one of the monitors.
"Peter?" Sylar confirmed, and Peter nodded. There was a somewhat sickened expression on his face, Sylar supposed from being confronted yet again with just how far people would go to control what they didn't understand. He felt a twinge of something himself, seeing all of those powers there, helpless and captive, but he dismissed it. It was no fun if it was too easy. Unless he really needed the power. Not to mention the tongue-lashing he would get from Elle if he diverged from the mission she'd sent him on.
The electronic keypad locks clicked open for the three doors they'd targeted.
"You take Suresh and I'll take Parkman, then you help them get oriented while I get Millbrook. We'll bring them back in here until they're strong enough to walk out." Peter had no reason to argue with Sylar's all-business tone and logical reasoning, and they went ahead with the rescue.
Peter went down one short hallway off the main monitoring room toward Suresh's cell, and Sylar went to get Parkman down another hallway. Once he got to Parkman's room, he carefully pushed open the door, staying at the ready for anything he might find inside. He was pretty sure Elle would have warned him if there was an ambush waiting for him, unless she was the one who'd set it up. He wouldn't put it completely past her.
It was quiet in Parkman's cell, and Parkman himself was hooded and strapped to a utilitarian chair. Sylar approached him, still wary, and removed the hood. The tube fed into his nose as expected and Parkman was subdued, and Sylar relaxed slightly. He carefully pulled the tube out of Parkman's nose and then used his telekinesis to break through the restraints. He helped Parkman up and led him shuffling back to the monitoring room, where Peter waited with Mohinder, who was already starting to recover. A benefit of superhuman strength, Sylar guessed.
"I'll be right back with Millbrook. Still clear on your end?" he asked the ceiling, not really knowing how Elle could hear him, but wanting to make sure they would know about the situation outside of this room once it was time to leave.
"All clear, but hurry!" showed on Elle's favorite monitor.
Sylar sat Parkman down next to Mohinder and returned down the same hall to Daphne Millbrook's room, using the same caution as before, considering Elle had told him how Daphne was essentially the bait that had gotten Parkman and Mohinder captured. Alone in the room except for Daphne, he released her restraints but left her nasogastric tube in place and walked her back to the monitoring room where the three Muskateers waited, mostly coherent as the drugs quickly wore off.
"What's he doing here?" Parkman asked, shaking off the last bit of drug-induced confusion. Mohinder also looked ready to come after him at a word from Peter.
"He's helping us, him and Rebel," Peter reassured them. "He's how I got enough powers to come back in here." Parkman look unconvinced. His past as a cop and the instincts he'd picked up on the job sometimes served him well, Sylar thought.
"I'm not helping you for nothing." Sylar threw down the gauntlet without preamble. They only had limited time to accomplish what he needed to get done, and since he'd only done it one other time and that had taken a while, he had to get started right away. Before Peter could catch on, Sylar used his telekinesis to tumble Peter into Mohinder, exchanging all the powers he'd given Peter for Mohinder's power, the one in this room that Sylar could most readily negate. "Parkman, I want your power. In exchange for your girlfriend."
Author: acinogan
Characters: Sylar, Elle, Peter, Angela, Matt, Mohinder, Daphne
Word Count: 1887 this bit
Rating: PG-13 this part
Summary: Elle makes a guest appearance on Sylar's latest road trip to collect on a debt. Going more and more AU by the moment.
Spoilers/Warnings: Gen. Volume 4 spoilers, up through "Exposed"
Disclaimer: I don't own Heroes characters etc.
A/N: nudged by the prompt from superkappa regarding Damien Rice songs. i actually gleaned this from "I Remember," though.
Prologue | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6
Sylar stepped out of the shower and she was already there, an impatient look on her face. He reflexively tightened his grip on the towel he'd slung carelessly around his waist.
"Nobody cares if you're clean or not. You just need to go be the big gun if Peter chokes." Her tone was disdainful, but he did notice her eyes travel down his torso, past the towel line, and back up again. Interestingly enough, he found that, just a little, he wanted her to look at him appreciatively, like she used to.
"Big gun, huh? Freudian slip, or just fond memory?" She looked like she wanted to slap him. Like she would have if she could have.
"We really don't have time for this. We've got a lot to go over before we pick up Peter." She could really be all business when it suited her purposes. He liked her better when she was playful. He would have given Luke to her to use as a toy if she'd been able to do more than drive him insane by constantly annoying him. As it was, he was infinitely glad they'd left Luke behind. The three of them in a room together for very long would most likely drive him to murder, and that would still leave him with Elle in his ear until she got bored with him.
"Do you have more plans? Haven't we gone over everything yet?"
"There's something I haven't mentioned to you yet."
"What else could there possibly be?"
"Oh, this one's pretty good, actually. I think you'll like it. Get dressed, I'll tell you in the car on the way to Peter's."
***
It was strange that he could see Elle in the rearview mirror, he thought, after Peter joined them on the drive to Building 26. There was a lot he didn't understand about her present condition, starting with how she could even be there, not to mention how she knew so many things about so many different people that she simply couldn't know unless she was exactly what she'd implied she was, a ghost of some sort.
"Did you talk to Elle?" Peter asked him, and he saw her smirk in the mirror.
"I did. She'll help us however she can long-distance. Just keep it quiet that she's Rebel, or your brother might go looking for her."
"Wow, you almost sound protective of me. Unbelieveable."
"Oh, sure, I won't tell anybody." Peter appeared to briefly consider the wisdom of his next question. "So, do you guys still talk a lot, or...?" Sylar gave him a look. "But, if you'd rather not talk about it, I understand." At least Peter was a little more perceptive than Luke.
"Be nice," Elle urged him. "He's the reason this whole thing is going to fall into place."
"You're feeling pretty comfortable with all the new powers, then?"
"Yeah, like riding a bike."
"Right."
They lapsed back into awkward silence for the rest of the drive. Once they'd reached the spot where Elle told him to park the car, the mood shifted. Elle looked ready for a fight. Sylar was pretty sure she was angry that she would be helping from the sidelines instead of being in the middle of the action, but her part as Rebel was vital. Without her manning the electronics, they wouldn't get much farther than the front door. Peter seemed resigned, like he had only let it come to this because he didn't see any other solution. What had he expected once the general public found out about them? He had been willing to kill his own father to keep that from happening in the first place, and now it looked like he was presumptively mourning however many agents and commando-types they might have to sacrifice as collateral damage in order to get his friends out. Peter better have started thinking up a good next step to implement after he got his team back together. Sylar was done after this. One little side mission inside Building 26, and then he was cutting out before it got too hairy.
"All right, we're here. Are you ready?" he asked Peter and, though Peter couldn't tell, Elle.
"Ready as I'll ever be," Peter replied with what Sylar thought was somewhat forced bravado.
"Hey, I have to go away to get to the computer stuff. Don't let him mess up. And you, keep your eyes on the prize. And do not get caught."
"Be careful," he said aloud, more to Elle, really, but Peter could certainly stand to hear it, too.
"They can't touch me," Sylar heard in stereo, one of them in each ear simultaneously. It was strange. Elle disappeared.
"Just don't touch them," he reminded Peter.
They made the short covert walk from the hidden parking spot to the door Elle had told Sylar they should enter through, then took a second to set themselves up outside the entryway, just as they'd planned earlier. So far, so good. Sylar nodded at Peter and then used his telekinesis to open the door. As predicted, just inside were two armed guards. Peter flung their guns away from them, out through the door, then lifted them up against the wall and held their arms still while Sylar entered. The absence of alarms meant that Elle had done her part and disabled the sensors on the door. They only had a few minutes at most before someone noticed that the cameras pointed at that door and hallway were inoperative and went to check it out. Peter slid the guards down several yards of wall before they hit the floor roughly enough to disorient them, then Peter and Sylar used plastic cable ties to bind their wrists and ankles and duct tape to cover their mouths. They hurried down the long hall, watching for a signal from Elle to indicate where they should go next. Blinking overhead lights at the third hallway on the right led them to their next destination.
As soon as they turned the corner, there were two more guards, and Sylar dispatched them quickly in much the same manner as Peter had the first two. The guards, now unconscious and cable-tied, had been guarding a door that had a magnetic card reader and both retinal and fingerprint scanners mounted next to it. The display screen read "Once you're in, I can keep them out." The door lock audibly released, and Peter went in first. After Peter was past where he would be able to see it, the display screen told Sylar "Get Parkman first." It was like she thought he had short-term memory problems.
Sylar stepped through the threshhold into a foyer area and the door closed and made a whooshing locking sound behind him. There was a long bank of closed circuit monitors, and visible on nearly every one was a human-shaped orange jumpsuit, some of them wearing hoods, some not; everyone whose face was visible showed the distinctive nasogastric tube taped in place, feeding through the special's nose whatever compound the government had come up with to supress powers. Sylar efficiently took care of the one person who had been unluckily assigned that monitor-watching shift and set his unconscious, cable-tied form in the corner of the room.
Elle had helpfully labelled Suresh, Parkman, and Millbrook on the screens of their respective monitors for ease of identification. The room numbers were already in place below the monitors for the people who normally sat there.
"Ready?" popped up on one of the monitors.
"Peter?" Sylar confirmed, and Peter nodded. There was a somewhat sickened expression on his face, Sylar supposed from being confronted yet again with just how far people would go to control what they didn't understand. He felt a twinge of something himself, seeing all of those powers there, helpless and captive, but he dismissed it. It was no fun if it was too easy. Unless he really needed the power. Not to mention the tongue-lashing he would get from Elle if he diverged from the mission she'd sent him on.
The electronic keypad locks clicked open for the three doors they'd targeted.
"You take Suresh and I'll take Parkman, then you help them get oriented while I get Millbrook. We'll bring them back in here until they're strong enough to walk out." Peter had no reason to argue with Sylar's all-business tone and logical reasoning, and they went ahead with the rescue.
Peter went down one short hallway off the main monitoring room toward Suresh's cell, and Sylar went to get Parkman down another hallway. Once he got to Parkman's room, he carefully pushed open the door, staying at the ready for anything he might find inside. He was pretty sure Elle would have warned him if there was an ambush waiting for him, unless she was the one who'd set it up. He wouldn't put it completely past her.
It was quiet in Parkman's cell, and Parkman himself was hooded and strapped to a utilitarian chair. Sylar approached him, still wary, and removed the hood. The tube fed into his nose as expected and Parkman was subdued, and Sylar relaxed slightly. He carefully pulled the tube out of Parkman's nose and then used his telekinesis to break through the restraints. He helped Parkman up and led him shuffling back to the monitoring room, where Peter waited with Mohinder, who was already starting to recover. A benefit of superhuman strength, Sylar guessed.
"I'll be right back with Millbrook. Still clear on your end?" he asked the ceiling, not really knowing how Elle could hear him, but wanting to make sure they would know about the situation outside of this room once it was time to leave.
"All clear, but hurry!" showed on Elle's favorite monitor.
Sylar sat Parkman down next to Mohinder and returned down the same hall to Daphne Millbrook's room, using the same caution as before, considering Elle had told him how Daphne was essentially the bait that had gotten Parkman and Mohinder captured. Alone in the room except for Daphne, he released her restraints but left her nasogastric tube in place and walked her back to the monitoring room where the three Muskateers waited, mostly coherent as the drugs quickly wore off.
"What's he doing here?" Parkman asked, shaking off the last bit of drug-induced confusion. Mohinder also looked ready to come after him at a word from Peter.
"He's helping us, him and Rebel," Peter reassured them. "He's how I got enough powers to come back in here." Parkman look unconvinced. His past as a cop and the instincts he'd picked up on the job sometimes served him well, Sylar thought.
"I'm not helping you for nothing." Sylar threw down the gauntlet without preamble. They only had limited time to accomplish what he needed to get done, and since he'd only done it one other time and that had taken a while, he had to get started right away. Before Peter could catch on, Sylar used his telekinesis to tumble Peter into Mohinder, exchanging all the powers he'd given Peter for Mohinder's power, the one in this room that Sylar could most readily negate. "Parkman, I want your power. In exchange for your girlfriend."