Fiery Entrance

[powerhunger]

Flames incinerate to ashes all that is left of the body.  The tongues of fire swallow the thing alive, melting a single glass shard embedded in the skull.

The fire consumes all it touches, but it can't feed forever.  The flame runs out of fuel and burns itself to nothingness, leaving nothing but a large pile of ash, not amidst burned concrete and

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[uppermanhattan]

Since he arrived, Jon has pondered the means by which the hotel residents find themselves on the island. He is wholly aware that few others will arrive by miscalculated teleportation as he did; the genesis of a living human body out of ashes is a fascinating phenomenon.

He doesn't disturb Sylar until after he's conducted his experiment. Once the cherub's demolished, he steps onto the grass behind him, barefoot, unashamedly naked, and glowing a little even in the sunlight. "Impressive," he notes. "Are these skills of yours innate or externally acquired?"

[powerhunger]

Sylar keeps his composure despite being unsettled at having some unspeaking observer this whole time. He turns around, and his eyebrows raise just a nudge, while he tries hard not to smirk. A glowing, naked blue man walking towards him after he's resurrected from the ashes of Primatech to find himself in the midst of a beautiful garden?

"Nice try, Arthur," Sylar says. He faces the blue man. "I guess I didn't actually kill you, did I? Nice illusion you've set up here, but what kind of fool do you think I am?"

[uppermanhattan]

The measure of amused disbelief at this man's assumption actually makes Jon tilt his head slightly, high emoting for someone as stoic as he is. "There has been a misunderstanding. I can assure you, this place is physically sound although temporally anomalous. My name is not Arthur."

[powerhunger]

Nothing. Sylar's little liar-liar cue didn't go off, so whoever he was the blue man was telling the truth. Every single word of it. There were potential loopholes within the answer the blue man had given, but Sylar can eliminate those loopholes with just a couple of questions. So he does. "Are we in some elaborate deception created by Arthur Petrelli? Who are you?"

[uppermanhattan]

Jon wouldn't lie about matters as simple as location, as unorthodox as they may be. "I do not believe so. All assessments of the area and its surroundings indicate it to be a pocket reality rather than a location in a full universe. While it is possible that some sentient force has drawn us here, I have no knowledge of an Arthur Petrelli." In response to the second question, he offers the name most of his world knows him by. "I am called Dr. Manhattan."

[powerhunger]

"Dr. Manhattan," Sylar says, slowly coming to grips with the fact that all this has nothing to do with Arthur. This is something else, and even this naked blue man doesn't know exactly what it is or how they got here.

Then Sylar tries to feel for the hunger that usually comes with being around people who have powers, but it's absent, and in its place is the sense of a vast, potentially limitless source of power. Sylar stumbles back a step, gasping.

He looks up at Dr. Manhattan and gives him a twisted grin. "Nice to meet you, Dr. Manhattan. I have so many...questions."

[uppermanhattan]

"As do we all," he replies. After such a long time spent as the only being with unusual abilities, Sylar is a novelty to Jon. The sick smile settled onto the man's face is far more familiar; he's seen it on madmen before.

"Who are you? You have not answered my previous question."

[powerhunger]

Sylar doesn't see a reason not to divulge his name. Whoever this guy is, from the small source of power Sylar came into contact with...he shuddered. Dr. Manhattan could make what he did to people with abilities on a regular basis look like going five miles over the speed limit.

"I'm Sylar," he says. "And now that I've answered your question, allow me to ask another one. You have a...power, don't you?" He pauses, his pulse quickening. "And not just something like this."

He whirls around and sends three more cherubs flying up into the air, leaving them hovering nonchalantly a few dozen feet above the ground. He turns back to Dr. Manhattan, leaving the cherubs hanging.

[uppermanhattan]

Without turning to examine them, Jon lets the cherubs drift down back upon their pedestals, seeing no reason to destroy garden statuary for the purpose of exhibitionism. "It is true I possess abilities that humans do not." From Jon's perspective, Sylar's as human as they all are, powers or no.

[powerhunger]

"You know, it wouldn't have killed you to let them break," Sylar says, feeling oddly at ease around this odd man. He had never encountered an equal, much less a superior; never met someone that he couldn't take down through some cunning or display of abilities. "Everything breaks eventually." He goes back to subject at hand. "What abilities do you possess?"

[uppermanhattan]

"Yes. Why should I destroy something that will crumble of its own accord?"

Standing back, he looks Sylar over solemnly, studying him. His molecular structure suggests no physical alteration that might grant him his skills; for the time being, he assumes that they must be innate. His curiosity about Jon's is not uncommon, so he sees no reason not to answer. "Put simply, particle manipulation," he replies. "It is possible to shift structure on the atomic level."

[powerhunger]

Sylar smiles. "You mean like this?" He turns around grabs one of the cherubs again, floating it over towards him, where he grabs it with both hands. It's just about the size of his torso, but he carries the weight easily. Focusing, he enacts the power he stole from Elle's father, Bob, one which he rarely had use for.

As he watches, he feels impossibly tiny particles shift and rearrange within the cherub, until a brilliant gold glint emerges from the head. The glint morphs into a sheen that swoops down the cherub to meet with another shine crawling up.

In less than five seconds, Sylar had changed the cherub into solid gold. He holds it out to Dr. Manhattan. "You can see the atoms inside of objects, can't you? I could feel it when you looked at me. Sounds like particle manipulation isn't your only ability." He drops the cherub onto the ground with a dull thud. "Well, telekinesis isn't the only trick in my bag either."

[uppermanhattan]

Jon looks down at the golden cherub, confirming the complete transformation from base stone into higher metal. "Air into gold," he murmurs. And it had been theorized so long that alchemy was beyond man's capabilities. He turns his attention back to Sylar. "What are you capable of?"

[powerhunger]

"Like I said, a lot of tricks," Sylar says, glad that, for now at least, he seems to hold the man's attention. He still had questions. "You first, though, Dr. Manhattan."

[uppermanhattan]

Jon focuses for a moment and, with a wave of his hand, shifts the material from gold back into stone. "You are limited by time and space, by a simple linear frame you cannot step out of," he explains, using the plural "you". "My state of being is more complex. I understand." That's as simply as he can explain it.

[powerhunger]

Sylar is pretty quick, and Dr. Manhattan is interesting enough that, for once, his complex mind doesn't wrap itself around the concept right away. "Let me see if I get this straight," Sylar says. "You're not limited by time or space. I knew someone like that once." He pauses, remembering the a bit of power lust the missed opportunity that was Hiro Nakamura. "You said not linear, so you don't travel back and forth." He paused, breathing in sharply. "All moments exist as one for you, don't they?"

Sylar looks down at the stone-to-gold-to-stone cherub, sitting on the grass as if it had never been made of the precious metal.