For Eden AND Sylar
Eden's house is larger than Sylar's.
(She had Mohinder, after all. He mourned.)
On the whole this is not much of a recommendation, but being Eight-Hour's does wonders for your furnishing capabilities, and she's had every opportunity to make it habitable.
(She had Mohinder, after all. He mourned.)
On the whole this is not much of a recommendation, but being Eight-Hour's does wonders for your furnishing capabilities, and she's had every opportunity to make it habitable.
Eden went to the bar earlier today. (Old habits don't die when the body does.) She worked off her buzz in the library, staring at Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart. (Old habits don't die.) She thought about how far she's sliding back into who she was - drinking, ignoring people, seeing them only for what she can get from them. She should stop it. She should make more friends. But it's so much energy. She barely has enough energy to feel fear and worry.
With a nod to the librarian, she left, intending to read Things Fall Apart at home. A young Indian man stopped her and gave her an amber bracelet - Eden is used to people stopping her. She's Eights' gal. (The booze didn't dull missing Mohinder. She's a selfish bitch for wanting him here ( ... )
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But there isn't even time to find out whether or not it worked before her self-made torch triggers at last. Fire rushes over her, destroying and recreating her every fibre, every cell - and this is a pain she cannot be commanded to dislike. Nanoseconds pass like centuries in the infinitesmal gap between departure and arrival; the sword falls from fingers that are no longer there, but travels mere millimetres before they reform around it.
With a sadistic grin Eight-Hour brings in her outflung hand, blade heading point-first for Sylar's neck.
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It takes twenty seconds for her body to actually come back. Important things have been going on during that time, surely!
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He throws out a burst of telekinesis that makes the sword skitter away, inches from his face, before wrenching it from her hands to his. (Its shape is all too reminiscent of Hiro Nakamura's, he realises with a jolt that he wishes he didn't feel; the blade goes flashing angrily into the wall and buries there, quivering, deep enough for the point to be seen on the far side.)
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And in her line of work, you pick up some interesting tidbits. Sylar went after Eden; she wants to make him suffer for that, and if she has to do it with her bare hands, she can and will. She reaches, snarling, for his throat.
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His hurried "Stop!" is eaten up by the flames as easily as if it were a normal, powerless, ordinary word. And though her heart is broken down and rebuilt in the space of a moment, the fury pounding in it is still clearly audible as her hands shoot out. His own hands meet her wrists, automatically, struggling, but right now she has the upper hand and he's forced backwards and down under her crushing grip. The next second he's cursing himself -- he acted like an ordinary human, like a cornered prey -- and gathers together yet another wall of telekinesis that rips her off and over him as he loses his balance.
From the hard floor -- she got him on the floor; how? How did the situation turn around so quickly? How could she have even touched him? -- he scrambles like a cockroach on its back, curses lost in coughing, and hauls himself to his feet.
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Using her powers to save her life isn't new at all. After two seconds of blinking stupidly at Eights and Sylar, she shouts, "NOBODY USE ANY POWERS!", gets to her feet and frantically searches for her gun.
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After finishing her latest torch, Eights walks to the wall, grabs hold of the handle of her sword, and heaves.
A few more like that should do the trick, and then she'll at least be armed. Provided, of course, Sylar doesn't interrupt her in the process of sword retrieval.
She finds it unlikely that he wouldn't.
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His eyes widen in horror as the invisible threads fall away from him, no matter how frantically he gropes for them. As the symphony of noise around him shuts off so suddenly that he thinks for a few seconds that he's completely deaf. As he's blind again. Just like in the cell at Primatech-- blind, insensible, the world's workings closed to him like a door that's slammed shut.
"NO!" he half-shouts, his voice hoarse and wild and disbelieving.
His glare snaps about to Eden-- she did this to him, and he is going to tear her apart, with his bare hands if he has to. The muscles of a watchmaker don't carry any great strength, but they do have speed, and desperation, and uncontrolled fury behind them as he goes to beat and tear at any part of her he can reach. "Give them BACK!"
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Not the first mistaken Eden has ever made.
The young woman from Utah is no fighter. She stumbles to the side but not fast enough. It's five seconds before Eden works past the fear (and pain, because Sylar has her and he's so good at bringing pain, he's a master at it) and shouts, "Stop!"
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This is good, as she's finally got that last, promising grip on the handle of her borrowed (stolen) sword. With a sharp yank she tugs it free of the wall and turns to face Sylar.
Two things keep her from decapitating him on the spot: the fact that Eden's order preventing his use of telekinesis would be nullified by the torch, and the fact that the sword has just punched through a wall at ridiculous speeds and really isn't in condition to decapitate anyone.
That doesn't mean she can't inflict lesser wounds, however. Eight-Hour takes a moment to consider which part of him she ought to stab first, idly twirling the sword in her hands as she does so.
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The loss of Dale Smither's power hasn't made him deaf, though, and Eight-Hour's sword does not come quietly. Sylar is still mobile enough to look around at the noise of it finally being wrestled from the wall, and to turn all the way to face her, tensely, his eyes darting from the weapon to Eden to Eights like a cornered animal. He can't deal with the sword so easily, now, and he has nothing to counter it with, not even a stick to turn into a makeshift bludgeon. He's never been completely defenseless before.
When he sees Eight-Hour's expression, he breaks the promise he made to himself to never be afraid of another person.
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Eden wants to speak and tell Sylar to slice his own skin open, one cut for every person he killed, normal or powered. Wants to tell him to put his hands on his own throat and squeeze. Wants to watch his face when his heart bursts in his chest. For Chandra. For the ones whose names she never knew.
She stands still, beginning to shake, and grinds her teeth together.
She doesn't do anything, yet. But it would be so easy to start....
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Calmly: "He's yours, honey. What do you want to do with him?"
She can be sorry she didn't arrive in time later. She can behead the son of a bitch on the floor in front of her later, if Eden permits. She can ask what the fuck is up with the both of them having that voice later.
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He can only watch as they discuss his fate like a couple of poachers with a trapped animal, and as his heart beats the same staccatto rhythm that he's heard from countless victims before (but why is it coming from him?).
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She stares at Sylar, forcing a breath in and out. She's closed off stronger emotions, and reaches desperately for the control she had during her time in L.A.
"Tell me how Chandra Suresh died."
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