001. [HOLO - ARRIVAL]

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"If you had just turned left when I told you, this never would have --" Elle stopped short, eyes opening mid-rant at Sylar to find that she was no longer sitting in the car, but on a raised platform that she'd never seen before. Well, that was weird. Trying to avoid becoming hysteric, she climbed to her feet, walking around, just to the edge of

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"Elle!" Mohinder was currently all bundled up (with the prerequisite colorful scarf, of course) and walking outside, grinning like an idiot. "I'm so glad you could make it. Has anyone explained this place to you? It's really very odd." He seemed as if he couldn't be more pleased about that.

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Elle was wandering the halls of the Sanctuary by then, trying to get her bearings to some extent while simultaneously just trying to explore. It was working out pretty well so far. Her expression grew visibly excited when Mohinder's face appears on her tablet, and she stopped mid-pace because multi-tasking was hard for her in order to address him

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"Oh, I do remember hearing about Gabriel," he said with a smile. "And that is the going theory at the moment, for some reason. I'm not entirely sure where the alien idea came from, but I honestly haven't been here all that long. I'm sure the other residents must have their reasons."

He'd changed direction now, heading toward the Sanctuary. Why he hasn't been using the tram was anyone's guess. "This city is called Taxon. It's a large cave with artificial weather, and as far as I'm aware, there's no way out," he added pleasantly. "Would you like me to come by and pick you up? I could give you the full tour, and perhaps we could catch up over cider." Buddy had introduced him to cider, and it was wonderful.

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There was definite effort put into her not looking too excited by the offer, but it was hard not to because he was the first normal person that she knew who she'd spoken with so far, and tormenting Mohinder had become a private hobby of hers somewhere along the way to capturing Claire.

"You want to?" She demanded excitably, wide grin spreading across her face. "Thanks, Doc! I ... don't know where I am though." Disappointment quickly replaced excitement and she chewed her lip. "That's okay, though, right? The weird girls seemed to know where I was anyway. Oooh! I could show you!" She turned the tablet to face the hallway, which was entirely unhelpful. She turned it back to face her after a moment.

"That helps, right?" Somewhere in the back of her mind she recognized that Mohinder was being much more calm and collected than she usually saw him, but she was too busy acting like a five-year-old to really consciously acknowledge it.

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"Actually," he replied with a raised eyebrow and a mischievous smirk. "The map function helps a great deal more, but that was a nice try." He rubbed his gloves together, which made it somewhat of a guess just where the tablet was recording from. "Besides, everyone starts out in the same area, it seems. You're in the center of the city right now, and I am merely a couple blocks away."

He thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. "So close, in fact, that going over the buildings is entirely unnecessary, even if it is fun. Oh!" He had just remembered something. "I'm going to have to show you what I can do now, Elle. It's really quite amazing." That would wait, though- a little, at least. "I'll be there very shortly. Feel free to wander- I'll manage to track you down regardless."

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"What you can do? I wanna know now!" There was a pouting look, but her eyes were smiling. She started walking around again since he said it didn't matter if she did, but her attention was still mostly fixed on the tablet. Laughing it off, she started trying doors in the hallway while maintaining the conversation.

"Guess I still have to master the map thingy, though. You can show me that when you get here, too, I guess. Right?" She actually knocked on the next one - lightly at first, and then more determinedly. "But, hurry up. I've been here for hours." The tone of her voice made that sound like a lifetime.

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"I'm really very close," he says, with a laugh, but it's clear he's stepped up his pace. "And of course I'll show you the map. Everything really must be demonstrated." He loved having all the answers, and it was wonderful that people were listening to them, finally. Elle, especially. He was really going to enjoy showing her around- not that he could do anything but enjoy everything, at the moment. He was particularly happy to see Elle, however.

It really did only take him a minute before Elle was in his sights. There weren't that many hallways to the Sanctuary, and he knew she'd probably be headed in the direction of the exit. He stuffed his tablet (now phone-sized) in his pocket, and walked forward to greet her with a large smile. "It's been a long time, Elle. For me, at the very least- I'm not sure if anyone's explained the time discontinuities to you yet. How have you been?"

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"Mohinder!" Looking excited to see him, Elle jumped up and down, hands tightly clenched around it because she had yet to figure out how to miniaturize it. "I kind of figured since Gabriel's been here for a while and he was just with me before I got abducted." She was really letting the alien thing catch on, as much as she didn't believe it. It made for a more interesting explanation and Elle liked making things sound more exciting than they were. "But, no one explained it." She looked rather proud of that fact.

"It's been a while for me, too. Like ... " She considered, "since before Daddy died, right?" A sad look briefly registered on her face before she gave a more forced smile. "It sucked for a while after Angela fired me," her tone hinted at a qualifier of 'that bitch', but she continued without missing a beat, "but I'm doing really great. Gabriel and I are working for Pinehearst now!"

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If he wasn't glitched, Mohinder would be connecting the dots, figuring out what may have happened during the time Primatech had switched maintainers, when Pinehearst was operational and fully under Arthur's reign, and what happened shortly after. He might have connected the fact that he didn't hear anything at all about Elle along with her working with 'Gabriel' and come to a conclusion that happened to be the correct one

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"Maybe it was the same time. Gabriel and I have been doing field work trying to get Pom Pom for something, and before that I was just locked up because my powers were short-circuiting. That sucked. But, it makes it possible we missed each other, I guess." She didn't seem to care very much, though, because she was still smiling and eagerly listening to Mohinder's explanation. Instinctively, she looped her arms around one of his, clinging. "You've gotta show me everything, Doc -- oh, like what you can do, right? How long have you been here?" She hardly breathed between her questions, let alone giving him time to answer. She was too busy being excited.

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He didn't mind the clinging one bit, it seemed. In fact, he just smiled wider. "Let's see- I've been here...oh, about two months, I'd say. As for what I can do, that's going to have to wait until we have more space. It's a tad cramped in here, don't you think?" He pulled her along with him, heading for a door to the outside.

As he traveled, the passed a hatch and he stopped suddenly, looking Elle up and down. "It's rather cold outside. You'd do well with something warmer." He put his hand up to the panel and then pulled out a fitted blue winter jacket and a rainbow scarf, which he handed to her. "I've no idea if these are your colors, but you can always make a different one. This is a hatch, and there are scads of them around this town. I imagine you'll get the hang of them very quickly."

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Elle stared in awe at the hatch, fumbling to take the coat and scarf from Mohinder as she continued staring, trying to figure out how it worked. Suddenly, she just stopped caring how it worked and looked up at him excitedly.

"That's amazing!" Stating the obvious, she started shrugging on the jacket. "I mean, I don't know why they'd have an option for tacky scarves, but still!" She put the scarf on anyway, mostly because she didn't believe that it would be that cold -- after all, she'd just been teleported from where it was plenty warm out: t-shirt weather in California.

"You know, you sound pretty chilled out for being abducted for two months," she finally observed. "I mean, we've got work to be doing back home."

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"I know," he said, honestly having found that rather odd himself. "One day I seemed to just reach an epiphany, I suppose. There wasn't much any of us can do about it, so I figured- why worry about it? I think perhaps the breakthoughs I've been making in my research may have something to do with that. And the fact that everyone else has been getting new memories as time goes on. I'm not entirely sure what that means, but it seems that we continue on, as it is." Of course, neither he nor Nathan had received any new memories, which was rather ominous as far as he was concerned, so he didn't bring it up. "Oh, and it's nearly Christmas here. I've been recently well-versed in all the holiday traditions- they've honeslty been quite fun

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Elle nodded her agreement along as he explained his zen state and allowed herself to be dragged toward the door. She shivered and crossed her arms over her chest when they stepped outside. It was pretty bad. So much for California. When Mohinder began to nonchalantly climb the wall, she took a few steps back in awe, arms falling to her sides.

"Hey, where'd you learn to do that?!" She called, pouting when she realized he was no longer in sight on the other building's roof. If he had just ditched her, Elle was going to be so mad. Her firsts curled unconsciously and sparked some.

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He appeared less than half a minute later, after a long piece of metal rebar clanked its way over the roof and down to the ground. Then he jumped over to another building, landing with precision on a small ledge. From there, he jumped the two stories left to reach the ground, landing next to Elle.

"It may not have gone so terribly well at first, but I did give myself an ability," he said, clearly enjoying being able to brag about it. "Enhanced muscular control. So I can climb buildings and also manage things like this." He picked up the piece of rebar from the ground and twisted it into a knot. It didn't appear to take any effort on his part at all.

"So, it appears I'm somewhat less of a punching bag than when you knew me before," he added, flashing a bright smile. Later, he would be mortified at his pride, but he honestly was proud of what he accomplished, despite the destruction it had ultimately caused. When he wasn't forced to bury his ability with regret, it was one of the first things on his mind

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"I never knew you could just give people abilities," she had to admit, it made her feel a little less special. Still, she appeared fascinated and stared at the rebar for a moment longer than necessary before running to catch him. "Guess your superpower's not being a punching bag after all. What a bummer, you kind of rocked the beat up look," Elle teased, looping her arms back around one of his and keeping stride with him -- it took some effort due to height difference, but Elle was determined.

"So, if we were abducted by aliens," she didn't bother trying to keep the disbelief out of her voice, "how come we're not stuck on some freaky spaceship. I mean, this looks like a regular city." Not any city she recognized, though.