Dig Two Graves

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Scene Title Dig Two Graves
Synopsis When you embark on the path of revenge…
Date December 25, 2014 — October 5, 2015

Snow spreads as far as the eye can see in every direction and the sun spreads in prism radiance through wind-swept crystals of ice. The sun has not set in days, and may never yet. Being here is like being trapped inside of a snow globe, where the days blur together, where the past, present, and future seem to happen all at once.

For a young girl separated from her family, alone in a strange and dangerous new perception of reality, it has been trying at times.


Amundsen Scott Antarctic Research Station

Antarctica

December 25, 2014

Mid-Day, Local Time


The cycles of “day” and “night” are artificial constructions in Amundsen Scott. For the last month, Molly Walker has lived to the rhythm of an electric clock set on the wall of the mess hall that once served two dozen scientists and researchers living in the Antarctic base, as well as half as many Vanguard operatives executed on-premises during Arthur Petrelli’s clean sweep of the Vanguard.

Now the facility has fallen silent, save for two voices in the snowglobe.

“Alright, now,” Aria Baumgartner has taken to the role of surrogate big sister to the best of her abilities, “aim down the sights,” but without parental supervision, even the adult in the room, “and squeeze the trigger,” has her shortcomings.

She leans over Molly’s shoulder, adjusting her ear protection and straightening Molly’s protective glasses. Aria has converted the former bowling alley of Amundsen Scott into a shooting range, complete with paper targets using old FBI wanted photographs of none other than Sylar as a motivational pitch. While keeping Molly safe from detection, Aria has been teaching the young woman how to defend herself.

Today, it’s Christmas, and Aria got Molly what every young girl needs.

A gun.

Young Miss Walker pretty much hates it here. It's like being trapped in that penthouse suite in the tower in Midtown by the Company… except it's way bigger and there's.. more to do? Molly is used to living around a telepath and so that part probably took the least amount of time to get used too. Sweeping a strand of brown hair out of her eyes she looks again at those wanted posters and a glare follows. Aria knew how to motivate her that was for sure.

The clairvoyant isn't unfamiliar with firearms thanks to Matt but she's not an amazing shot. Not yet, she tells herself and the thought of Matt causes her to frown breaking her concentration. She was so in a rush to leave with Hiro, to go on an adventure. The young woman might have been having regrets.

Nevertheless Molly used what Huruma had taught her and aimed at the posters with her stance wide. She fires off rounds until the clip is spent, when she's done and the smoke is rising from the muzzle Molly’s hand doesn't shake, but her shoulders do.

“Not bad,” Aria admits in a faintly German-accented tone, gently removing her coverings and Molly’s. “I know this isn’t where you want to be, but I hope… I’m at least making it bearable.” Retrieving the gun from Molly, Aria sets it down on the nearby table next to the box of ammunition that was gift wrapped because it's Christmas.

“Mr. Nakamura just wants you to stay safe, and… he's a very smart man. We’re doing this to protect your family, too. We don't want anyone to get hurt here.” At that, Aria lets her eyes dip down to the floor, then slowly raise to the targets, looking at the wide spread of shots.

“Your aim will need some work, though.” Aria admits with a quirk of her mouth into a smirk.

“Merry,” Fucking, “Christmas,” She says softly as she follows Aria to the table and leans against it eyeing her present. Man she was suppose to go to France, Paris… all over the world. She was a adult! And here she was being led around by “very smart men”. Aria was just as caged up as Molly was in the younger woman’s opinion but Molly can't seem to wrap her head around Arthur and Pinehearst.

Molly looks over to those posters and the bullet holes around them and she beams an incendiary gaze in that direction, “Not that.. bullets will really help me with him.” she hadn't looked in on him in a little while. She was due a scrying for the man who ruined her life. The previous encounter with Eileen makes her shiver still but for now she's treating this as boot camp for the task she's given herself.

“How long have you known them?”

“The Nakamuras?” Aria raises one brow, crossing her arms over her chest and shifting her weight to one foot. “Kaito found me in 2009, I was mostly living on the street at the time. I didn't have anything — family, a job. But then Kaito, he just, he had this way about him. A certainty about things.”

Wandering away from Molly, Aria furrows her brows in thought. “He'd just lost his daughter Kimiko, Arthur killed her, and Kaito was on the run. He confessed all of this to me, let me see it in his mind so I could be sure. He told me I was so much stronger than I realized, and that with his help, I could do great things.”

A brief smile flirts across Aria’s lips. “I've been helping keep him hidden from you ever since.” With a proud smile, she taps her temple indicating her psychic ability. “Now, with you here, he doesn't need me at his side anymore.”

“So you're the reason I was never able to find them..” said thoughtfully and it is nice to know the answer to that mystery. Molly looks impressed, “That's pretty cool.” She admits, Aria must indeed be very powerful. The thought of Arthur killing someone's daughter in cold blood doesn't totally compute in Molly’s head but she frowns all the same.

“That's horrible poor guys. Losing a daughter and sister,” Molly liked her siblings, she liked being a big sister.

Aria saw the memories for herself… that makes Molly raise an eyebrow, “So it's all true. All of it.” She looks disappointed, she wishes that she could just.. not be surrounded by crazy old men with power for once. Well it seems like she got her wish with just having Aria was a “big sister” and roommate. “What is the plan exactly? Hide here until…”

“Until it's safe,” Aria admits in a hushed voice.

“Whenever that is.”


Cambria Salon and Day Spa

Upper West Side, Manhattan

New York, NY

April 2, 2015

10:12 am local time


Pleasant top-40s pop music diffuses through the air as the noise of the street is drowned out by floor to ceiling walls of tempered glass. Within the lobby of the Cambria Salon’s Upper West Side branch, the haute couture of dark marble, exposed wood, and brushed steel makes the place feel expensive and exclusive. Tall ferns flank the reception desk, where a well-manicured brunette man watches the woman coming off the street.

You must be our ten-fifteen,” he says with a charming smile, glancing at the computer. “Miss Gale, I'm Anthony,” he introduces himself as he steps around the front desk. “We have you down for a skin peel and full mani-pedi?”

“That’s right,” Gale confirms with a smile. She glances at her watch through the dark lenses of fashionable mirrored sunglasses to confirm that she’s on time, then looks back up with a renewed pleasantness. The decor is taken in with a casual interest and she seems suitably impressed.

A colorful scarf has been tied around the woman’s hair in a turban style that was typical in the fifties. It works with the aesthetic of her maxi dress. While its abstract pattern matches the scarf’s nicely, it also has the unfortunate effect of obscuring her curves. Unless, of course, that’s what she was going for.

“Fantastic, we've got one other guest for the skin peel and she's almost done, but we’ll get you situated right now.” Anthony offers Ms. Gale a fond smile and leads her around the reception desk and to a curtained door in the back. The whole way, her tall heels click loudly on the floor.

In the back spa, Ms Gale is greeted by a terraced stone fountain softly trickling with water. A slate walkway surrounds the mud bath at the base of the fountain, where a lone woman lounges back with little more than her head and neck sticking up out of the mud, face covered in an avocado colored mask, eyes shut and contentedly smiling. The wood framed, recessed mudbath beside her is empty and Anthony motions to it with one hand. “That'll be you, once we— ”

The sound of a sudden crash from glass breaking out front has Anthony jerking his attention in that direction, not noticing that Ms. Gale’s posture switched by a fraction a moment before that noise. Looking concerned, Anthony looks back at Ms. Gale and offers an apologetic. “I'm— I'm sorry I'm the only person on front desk right now, I need to check that. Please wait here Ms. Gale, I'm so sorry.”

As Anthony rushes off, the woman up to her neck in mud slowly opens one brown eye and watches him retreat. Then, she looks up to Miss Gale and raises one dark brow slowly. “Sure hope that isn't a riot or something,” she says with a careless disdain for the cause of the disruption. “People, right?”

Brows furrowed together, she rolls her eyes and looks to the ceiling. “Actually, sweetie,” the avocado-masked woman motions to her nearby purse with her chin. “Could you get me my phone, do speed dial 1 and put me on speaker? I've gotta call my nanny and make sure she'll be around tonight.”

The entitlement and expectance in that tone is staggering. But this is the person that “Ms Gale” is really here for. Not a spa trip.

Actually…” Heels click quietly on the floors as she echoes the woman in the mud bath. “I think I need you to do me a favor before I can be doing any favors in return.” Her smile is tight and cold. “I need your ability, Miss Whitney. You’re going to give me exactly what I want, or the status of your nanny is going to be the least of your concerns.”

As if to punctuate her thinly veiled threat, she nudges that purse further away with the toe of her shoe. “And don’t waste your breath calling for poor Anthony there.” One arm sweeps out and the space around them grows eerily silent - the bubbling of the fountain ceases in an instant. “I need you to find someone for me.”

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“Jesus fucking Christ,” Peyton hisses at the sudden turn of Miss Gale’s attitude from guest to terrorizing. Those big brown eyes stare up wide at the blonde, and then flick to her purse pushed further away. Lips press into a thin line, and Peyton recognizes that something strange is going on with the sound, but not what is truly happening. More clear, though, is her recognition of extortion.

Peyton swallows once, audibly, and sinks down somewhat more into the mud until the bottom of her chin touches it. Brows furrow, dark eyes fixed up at Odessa.

“Who?”


Amundsen Scott Research Facility

Antarctica

May 16, 2015

”Evening”


A thumping bass beat fills the air, carries through the walls of Amundsen Scott like a pulse. The song has no lyrics, just a shuddering bass drop that seems to go on forever. Over the last few months, Aria and Molly’s life in exile have become structured around both routine and the breaking of routine. Between Aria tutoring Molly and revealing the telepath to be a brilliant woman, to Molly ritualistically going through the facility’s collection of VHS and DVD films — though neither brave enough to watch the copy of the Thing.

Tonight is Molly’s turn to choose the evening entertainment, and the conversion of the Mess Hall into a dance floor was mandatory. While the music at the station may be relegated to early 2000’s European dance music, there's worse places to be in hiding than an Antarctic discotheque, though just barely.

Aria heralded has loosened up over the last few months, shedding her prom secretarial attitude and being more a peer to Molly than a caretaker. Their age gap precludes an even friendship, but perhaps in time that gap won't mean as much. The only real wild card in all of this has been the unexpected third party to join regularly.

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Yatta!” Hiro Nakamura appears in the middle of the lightless mess hall, where blackout curtains hide the eternal daytime and a strobe light makes everything feel more authentic. Plastic bags held in each hand, Hiro offers them up as though to appease the gods of the discotheque.

I brought Chinese takeout!” Hiro calls over the bass drop, “from Hong Kong.

One of the reassurances promised to Molly, is that Hiro would check in on her regularly, so that she didn't feel abandoned. So that she felt like any day now, it might be time to come home.

Any day now.

Laughing, Molly claps her hands at Hiro’s entrance. She's become used to it, it's funny the things you can used too. The third time Molly has had to vastly change her circumstances but then were they that different was a question Molly had been toying with since her arrival.

Their dance party interrupted and Molly slides over towards Hiro with a grin, “Mmm chow mein please… Duck.” Food of any kind of ethnic variety was her favorite. Thinking back on Momo’s mom’s cooking Molly gets a little sad and she tries to back out of that line of thinking. She was here. This was her reality. She was in danger. It was a mantra that the young woman repeated to herself daily in her mind.

Playfully crooking her finger to motion Aria over, she respects her. She is like big sister.

“Nakamura,” Aria’s voice is crystal clear the second she turns off the music, to which Hiro flashes her a rude thumbs-down. “You're two days late,” she reminds him, approaching with the stereo remote brandished at him like a weapon. “Is everything ok?”

“Better,” Hiro responds, while backpedaling over to one of the galley tables pushed up against the wall. He starts to lay out the takeout boxes one by one, setting a container aside that has marker writing in Cantonese on it. “Crispy duck curry,” Hiro asides with a motion to Molly, then looks back to Aria.

Arthur,” Hiro enunciates, “might as well be in jail right now.” The notion has Aria’s brows shooting up and her closing the distance between them. “The hit at Moab last year was priceless. We have a treasure trove of incriminating data that we’re looking for a reliable feed for. Once it's out, it'll only be a matter of time before the wolves tear Arthur apart and…” Hiro shrugs slowly, “and all this is over.”

Picking up a box of dumplings in both hands, Aria seems beside herself. She looks up from the food, staring vacantly at Hiro for a moment. “What about the Travelers?” She asks in a quieter voice, and Hiro looks momentarily troubled, but pushes it down.

“We've…” Hiro looks aside, guiltily, then back to Aria. “They'll endure. Arthur is our first threat, and he's hamstrung without Molly.” Hiro offers a look to the seer as he names her. “With any luck, you'll be going home to Parkman and Kaydence in a few months.”

So another powerful man falls, maybe they should leave it to a woman?

Molly’s thoughts are loud and clear and she hides a smile in the duck curry that Hiro so kindly brought for her. “Poor Peter.” She says aloud, he is cute. Shoving food into her mouth she hears about the Travelers. “Ruiz…” softly but the clairvoyant doesn't extend her ability to look for him. She hasn't been using her ability much… not since she found that Gabriel was no longer anywhere on this plane of existence.

It pissed her off to no end… that she didn't get to do it. Or see it. Molly would never get her chance. But Gabriel died all the same, she should be happy. Also the news of her return home should excite her but instead it makes her feel uneasy in the pit of her stomach. She's just now used to the place fully and the thought at dealing with the aftermath of the fall of Pinehearst and Arthur isn't something she's looking forward too.

Hiro and Aria both notice Molly’s disposition shifting, and as the two look at each other then swiftly break away and move to the young woman’s side. “How about,” Hiro motions to the radio, “we move from dancing after we have our dinner, to Aria’s least favorite passtime in the world.”

“Hiro no.” Aria mutters.

Hiro’s eyes glimmer with delight. “Karaoke.

Hiro. No.

“Hiro, yes.


S.S. Lost Wave

Somewhere Near the South Shetland Islands

September 7, 2015

Mid-Day


Sea spray crashes over the railing of the Lost Wave, a mid-sized deep sea fishing ship bound for General Bernardo O’Higgins base. It’s been almost two weeks since she booked passage to the end of the world, and now when land is once more in sight, Odessa Woods is faced with a growing sense of isolation and uncertainty. She sails for the most distant horizon in the hopes of finishing the impossible.

This is the one place Hiro Nakamura has consistently gone back to, the one place hard enough to reach by any means other than his godforsaken ability. It would make sense, then, that this was the site of their final confrontation.

“Miss Gale,” one of the fishermen calls out from below decks, squinting against the cold wind coming in off of the water. “We’re about an hour from port. Best get your things.”

“It would have to be here, wouldn’t it?” Odessa mutters under her breath with no shortage of contempt for the hoops she’s had to jump through to get to this point. A bottle of pills is fished out of her pocket. She rattles one out and pops it into her mouth, swallowing it dry. The bottle is replaced in her pocket. Just one more hour, then she can get off this damn boat and on to dry land.

Adjusting the drape of her fur-trimmed hood, she considers just how little she has with her. Fancy artillery isn’t really her style on a good day. Everything she needs for this journey fits inside a large backpack and a messenger tube. The latter has stayed slung across her body. The weight at her back has become familiar. She’s waited years for the chance for all of this to pay off. Now that it’s so close, she feels… Not dread, but something hollow. Not the elation that usually comes before the culmination of an assignment.

There’s no glee for what she’s about to do.

That’s odd.


Amundsen Scott Research Station

Antarctica

October 5, 2015

Evening


There are only two seasons in Antarctica: summer and winter. One long day, leading to one long night. Outside the windows of the Amundsen Scott station, the long day is finally sinking down to the horizon, casting long shadows across the pale white snow, in preparation for the coming of half a year of night.

Around the mess hall, Aria is cleaning up after dinner, carrying the pair of plates from she and Molly’s dinner into the kitchen, when a rush of air and an exhalation of panic fills the air. Hiro Nakamura normally makes graceful landings when he teleports, but that is not what happens today. Instead, Hiro comes flying through the air, teleporting mid-fall and carrying the momentum as he crashes straight through a folding table with a riotous clatter of broken wood and metal.

He skids along the tiled floor, coming to a stop against a fold-out couch pushed against the wall. Where his black-clad frame slid, he has left a long and dark streak of blood. There is a cut across his face, his hair is smoking, and a scream of fright erupts from his lips loud enough to send a chill down Aria’s spine.

We have to go!” Hiro screams, blood on his lips.

“Hiro!” Molly rushes to the time manipulator’s side and crouches on one knee ready to help him up because he said they had to go. Molly is always ready to go. Leaving at a moment’s notice has become the norm for the young woman and her eyes flash as she looks over to Aria and does what she had become so good at with Papa Matt, Emergency packs or just go? The thought projected outside of her mind, clarifying their details. They might only have minutes, seconds.

Going forward she rips off her sweater jacket and pressing it lightly against Hiro’s face to clear his face and eyes of blood. “Stay with us, who did this?” The nerves in the pit of her stomach threaten to rise from the depths but she clamps down on it. “Stay with us.” A plea from a young woman abandoned more times than she can count now.

“Please.”

Blood is pouring out of Hiro’s side in steady beats, and the sight elicits a scream from Aria when she comes bursting out of the kitchen. Though she'd become comfortable in this hideaway, the quick snap of a pistol from a holster at the small of her back is enough to remind Molly that Aria’s become something of a professional since her days on the street.

Hiro!” Rushing to the time traveler’s side, Aria takes a knee and sends a mental warning to Molly: don't leave my side. Hiro makes a coughing sound, pushing himself up onto one hand only to slip in his own blood.

Arthur,” Hiro breathlessly tries to warn, “Arthur’s— ” But the three of them have much more immediately things to worry about than Arthur Petrelli.

The door slams open and bootfalls ring out over the floor in its wake. “It’s about fucking time,” Odessa growls as she makes her stalking way forward, Kensei sword in hand. Her eyes are blazing with a hatred even Hiro has never seen on her before.

“I’m not here for you,” she tells Aria and Molly. “So you might want to start running.” There is an especially warning glare sent in the telepath’s direction. This is their one and only chance.

“Miss Woods!”

Molly’s face tightens as she sees the woman. Molly doesn't know much about her but she knows she's a wife, a dutiful employee. That she's dangerous. And very close to Arthur. Whenever she spied on this lady she was with her husband or traveling around. Never acts of murder. But she doesn't look exactly peaceful in this setting.

“Miss Woods wait, Miss Woo— Odessa.” Molly’s tone is desperate but she stays near Hiro and Aria. “Arthur has lied to you.” She doesn't know of what but she feels that truth. It resonates for Hiro and Aria hopefully that she finally believes.

“I was a lab rat. Trapped in a box, I didn't think I'd ever have my own life. Know any type of happiness… I didn't think I’d live for long to be honest..” The young woman bites her lip and looks down.

“Arthur saved me. He gave me a better life then the Company would have ever allowed. I thought he was a savior. My savior.” Voice echoing through the hall, only four souls inside and she hoped to keep fours souls alive. “It was hard to see.. to hear the truth… but..” she looks over to Hiro and Aria, her friends. “They aren't the enemy. Hiro isn't the enemy. Please, Odessa. Please!” Molly never begs, she's not above it now. The back of her mind is a whirl of distractions that she shoves away further, fear, anxiety but also the want and need to survive with her friends.

“And he can get us out of the cold a helluva a lot faster than any other way.” She doesn't smile but the humour comes out ragged.

Moving to stand between Odessa and Molly, Aria keeps her handgun firmly at her side and furrows her brows. There's a sense of vertigo that comes over Odessa, a psychic upending of her equilibrium and motor functions, as if her brain were having difficulty sending and receiving commands. Splotches of darkness bloom in her vision and she can feel a low thrumming buzz at the back of her mind. The telepath’s brow furrows, concentration steadying like an ice pick aimed at the temporal-manipulator’s autonomous functions.

But Hiro reaches up, grabs Molly’s sleeve with bloody streaks in the fabric. He turns, desperately, to Odessa as he sees the blonde wielding his sword still. After all this time, after everything, she was still hunting him.

But there were more pressing matters at hand.

Arthur is dead,” Hiro rasps breathlessly. “He died two years ago.

For a moment, Odessa hesitates. She remembers feeling like Molly felt. She remembers feeling helpless and alone in the world and like she’d always be a prisoner. She remembers the freedom Arthur gave her. And she remembers the things Richard Ray told her in another world. That Arthur lies.

But she had extended an olive branch to Hiro, and he had set the damn thing on fire.

Well, insofar as Odessa knows what an olive branch should even look like.

When things start to go strange and she feels like she’s standing on a high ledge, Odessa growls frustratedly. “I warned you.” She focuses her power on the telepath, anything to get Aria out of the equation. “This is between me and him.

She nearly pitches over to one side, the sword scraping against the floor noisily and leaving a gouge in the linoleum when Hiro’s words seem to register. “No he— isn’t!” That can’t be right. Can’t be true.

“I can check.” The idea had never entered her mind, she spied on a lot of people but Arthur seemed too powerful, she also trusted him in a sense. More than her fathers? Well she didn't spy on Matt or Momo either (except for when they didn't answer their phones after two calls of course) and the clairvoyant looks over at Aria and shakes her head, “Stop! I'm trying to get her to listen to the truth and you’re doing the whammy.” Matt liked that nickname. The young woman looks apologetic to yelling at her friend but she returns her gaze to Odessa.

Molly steps forward closer to Hiro but still closer and she lifts a finger, “If he's dead I won't be able to find him.” That's the case usually, “I don't have a reason to lie. You aren't here for me.” The clairvoyant remembers.

Closing her eyes, she casts her mind outside of herself. Arthur Petrelli.

Aria looks disoriented when Odessa concentrates on her ability and levels it in her direction, flickering like a momentary film reel missing too many frames. She clutches her head, and Odessa can feel the staccato pressure of the telepathy start and stop as Aria flickers. The telepath releases her attack on Odessa’s nervous system and stumbles to the side, then drops to one knee.

We don't,” Hiro exhales breathlessly, and Odessa can see the blood pooling under him, “we don't have time for this. He's— he's coming.” Hiro looks delirious from blood loss, trying to get to his feet and barely having the strength to try.

When Molly reaches out to find Arthur, she finds nothing.

Nothing.

Which is weird, because when she opens her eyes, Arthur Petrelli is standing in the doorway behind Odessa, silently.

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The fact that Hiro is already badly injured is finally starting to register. She didn’t do that to him. “I gave you a chance, and you responded by killing my friends!” Friends who shouldn’t have been home the night they were murdered. People Odessa should have been able to protect.

It’s when she finally gets the world fully upright again that she notices that Molly isn’t staring at her, but past her. Odessa pivots on her heel and steps backward to widen her field of view. That’s when she sees him. “What— What are you doing here?” This is her assignment. A feeling like illness builds in her stomach as she supposes he didn’t trust her to complete it.

The fury drains out from her, replaced by confusion and fear. Something isn’t right about any of this.

Blue eyes are wide and Molly backpedals as she tries to keep her heart from leaving her chest. Fuck fuck fuck. Reaching to pick Aria up by her elbow she drags her back to Hiro and looks at Odessa. “I just saw nothing. He is not Arthur, Odessa!” In this fight, Molly realizes how futile most things would be. Except for Hiro and maybe Miss Price.

Pulling both Aria and Hiro back as if that would really do much to avoid this powerful imposter. That thought dawns on her and her horror rises, someone that could kill Arthur? “We’ve gotta get out. Now!” The clairvoyant doesn't look at Arthur willing him away like a nightmare conjured from her mind but it doesn't work.

She's helpless.

This doesn't concern you,” Arthur states to Odessa a moment before telekinetically sweeping her off of her feet and throwing her a few feet to the side, sending her crashing to the tile floor and skidding a little further away. As Arthur looks from Hiro to Molly, there's a sneer of anger that spreads across his face.

“You? You betrayed me?” Indignation rises in Arthur’s eyes and he jerks his chin up, sending Molly flying backward and tumbling head over heels through the mess hall so hard one of her shoes flies off. Aria screams as Molly is ripped from her side, and bends down to snatch up her gun and fire at Arthur.

The bullets tear into Arthur, blood spraying onto the floor behind him, even as his body ripples and distorts like a television image that's gone out of focus. Odessa has seen that before, she's seen that distractionary glitch, and only ever in one person.

Candice Wilmer.

With a look to Aria, Arthur raises a hand and launches a bolt of lighting at her that strikes her in the chest. She screams, gun flying from her hand to slide across the floor to land right beside Molly. He raises his other hand, sending another burst of lightning into her. His eyes take on a wild quality, another surge of lightning, and Aria’s screams turn into hoarse wails, and then nothing as her smoking, blackened corpse hits the floor with an ashen thump.

Arthur then turns to Hiro, as Odessa and Molly are just recuperating from being thrown. “You,” Arthur says with a hook of one finger, telekinetically hauling Hiro through the air to face him. “I was content to just let you die, But now you've screwed up so much I have no choice but to go back and start again! I— ”

Arthur's words are cut out by the sudden knife in his throat. Hiro grips the matte black handle, twists it, and blood pulses between his knuckles. “No,” Hiro hisses, dragging the knife in a sawing motion through Arthur’s neck. With a gurgling croak, Arthur launches Hiro back up against the mess hall wall, and finally the illusion he'd been hiding under drops.

There is a man in a suit behind the facade, but it is not meek and mild Henry Gale that is behind the face of the Great and Terrible Oz. This man is taller, thinner, with a head full of salt and pepper gray hair and a well-manicured beard like the devil himself. His nose is prominent, brows too. He is a stranger to Molly and Hiro. Should be to Odessa as well.

But now, now, Odessa knows his face. Now she watches in horror as he pulls the knife out of his throat and the wound begins to seal itself shut. Now she understands the full horror that this situation represents, as the devil that wore Arthur’s face stalks toward Hiro, pointing two fingers at his brow and beginning to chisel through his skull with kinetic force.

Now she knows the devil’s name.

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Samson Gray.

Doesn’t concern her? This is her assignment! Before Odessa can (likely unwisely) open her mouth to protest, she’s sent from her feet and finds herself hitting the floor and rolling twice before she slides to a stop. The Kensei sword lays ahead of her, between the place where she was standing and where she lays now.

It’s Aria’s screams that bring her back to her senses. She had intended on killing the telepath after she proved not to be sensible enough to stay out of the fight, but she also intended to make it quick. She hadn’t earned what just happened to her.

Odessa pushes herself up to her knees and watches in horror as Hiro struggles with Arthur. That horror only grows when she considers the powers she’s recognized now. Why would he have taken that power? The answer becomes apparent when the illusion finally fades and the man is truly revealed.

She should leave. He’s not here for her. She should take Molly Walker and they should both leave. Instead, Odessa crawls across the floor to her sword and rises to her feet. For Molly, it’s like watching a film missing frames. Odessa seems to blink in and out of existence, reappearing ever closer to Samson and poised to strike.

“Molly, run!

Odessa swings her sword with a viciousness that surprises even her. A good cleave to the midsection ought to slow the bastard down for at least a few moments.

The young woman is thrown to the other side of the room with a thud and she lays there stunned before she finally groans and moves her head to stare into Aria’s electric eyes, covering her mouth to stop the scream doesn't help much and she's scrambling over stopping herself short from touching the livewire. Blue eyes water as she looks up at the man who is not Arthur. While she doesn't know Samson from Adam, that method of sawing open someone's head. She's only seen it with one other person.

Eyes wide the young woman crawls on the floor and goes for Aria’s discarded gun. Shaking, she gets to one knee as Odessa blinks in and out of time approaching closer.

Molly should run.

But she is tired of running and in the emotional rollercoaster that is knowing she would never getting her revenge on Gabriel and seeing a man who's been fooling them all use Sylar’s method of killing pushes her over the edge. Screaming loudly she lines up her sights and fires off as many bullets as she can at Samson. Molly is hopefully a distraction if nothing else.

Odessa has to strike.

Bullets strike Samson in the same moment as a sword stroke. The rounds tear through his chest and shoulder, spinning him around and lining him directly into Odessa’s blade, sending it plunging square into his heart between two ribs. Samson pushes himself down the sword with a wet wheeze and reaches up to grab Odessa by the throat. “I should’ve killed you when I had the chance,” is accompanied by the sudden violent thrust that sends her careening back into the wall so hard the sheet rock shatters as she falls to the floor.

Turning to Molly next, Samson waves one hand aside and casts the gun out of her hand with a telekinetic flick. Brows lowered, Samson leaves Hiro slumped on the floor and slowly approaches the young Walker girl, drawing the bloody Kensei sword from his own chest as he does. “What did you think you were going to do?” He drops the sword with a clatter to the ground, the hole in his chest already sealing shut.

“The day I killed Arthur, I learned all of his tricks. Memory manipulation, regeneration, the only things I can do…” Samson holds up a hand and lifts Molly off of her feet, then spins her around so she’s upside down and floats her toward himself, “are sitting here gift wrapped for me, because he was too weak to take them for himself.”

Raising two fingers to Molly’s brow, Samson prepares himself for what comes next, only to find his hand cut clear off by the Kensei sword. Blood covering half of his face, ashen pale, Hiro Nakamura once more stands between Molly Walker and a nightmare. Attention divided, he drops Molly, sending her crashing down onto the back of her neck on the floor and toppling over onto her side. A bolt of electricity strikes Hiro, sending him to his knees and the Kensei sword rattling to the floor.

Without so much as a word, he grips Hiro’s throat and points two fingers at his brow again. This time the telekinetic chisel finds home with a resounding crack that splits bone and sprays blood across Samson’s face. “I’ll just start all of this over again, and get it right this time.” Another resounding crack, and Hiro’s screams fill the air as Samson starts to pry his skull open with two fingers.

“Yes,” Samson hisses breathlessly, “give me eternity.

Odessa’s eyes get wide as she’s brought closer to her opponent because he impales himself further. She reaches out to claw at his face, but just as she does, she goes flying back and into the wall. The impact leaves her looking like a broken and discarded doll on the floor. The sort of retaliation she expected, but it was meant to buy Molly time.

That’s supposed to be the gift she has to give in abundance.

One ear is ringing and her vision is blurry when she finally manages to lift her head again. Molly Walker isn’t dead - hopefully - but Hiro Nakamura is about to be. One arm stretches out toward the grisly scene unfolding, palm facing in a means of concentration that she doesn’t truly need. “Never,” she grits out, pushing herself to her feet as she tries desperately to find the threads tied to Gray and pull them to a stop. Meanwhile, she makes a reach for the gun strapped to her hip. She may prefer knives, but she wasn’t so naive as to show up to this fight with only a sword.

“No!!!”

Molly howls as she’s telekinetically grabbed by Samson and he begins to draw her near upside down, brown hair swinging in the air she’s frozen in shock and fear and no matter the words of Huruma, is this what it was to face the monster? Her life is saved again by Hiro and Molly hits the ground hard, head ringing she twitches and tries to claw away, Samson’s splattered blood on her face.

The gun is out of her hands. She doesn't have anything else useful to use. Nothing else she can… a lightbulb goes out in her head and she has an idea. Looking up at the lights, her idea dashed. Odessa needs to be able to see as well. Who knows what kind of light powers that guy has. Shaking her head with blurred vision the woman staggers over to a table nearby. “You have to take his head!” Molly screams out at Odessa watching the blonde go into action. Resigned to the role of downed cheerleader the clairvoyant winces at the pain in her neck and keeps her head angled in a funny way in an effort to alleviate the pain. Until she thinks of what she can do next. And her brain is spinning with looking for a plan.

The threads of Odessa’s abilities still feel severed, absent in the presence of Rene's stolen gift. There’s only one way to escape Rene’s power, and that's distance. But in this moment, they're too slow, and too little, too late.

There is a sickening snap as Samson rips the top of Hiro’s skull clear off, sending a jagged bowl of bone and scalp clatter-slapping to the floor and exposing his bleeding brain. Samson looks over to Molly, brows raised as he smooths one hand across the creases and grooves in Hiro’s mind.

“Before I go back,” Samson says in a rasp, “I'm taking your ability, so I don't have this… Nakamura problem again.” Dark eyes turn back to the exposed brain, and Samson is enraptured by its appearance. Odessa recognizes that expression, that fascination. He's studying it, just like Sylar, and there was no one — no one — who could stop Sylar from taking an ability once he started.

Well, with one exception, according to Odessa’s knowledge.

Eden McCain.

You have to take his head! Odessa stares ahead, feeling the sickening absence deep in her bones. Her gaze is hollow, as is the quality of her voice when she responds, evenly, “I know.”

The report of the gun is deafening when it goes off. Without Samson’s attention on her, she has all the time in the world to line up her shot and pull the trigger, sending what remains of Hiro Nakamura’s head splattering all over the floor and nearby wall.

Run,” she demands of Molly again. Odessa stands her ground and waits for the beast to turn on her again, gun raised. It won’t do any good, but all Molly has to do is get away before Gray’s done tearing her apart.

There’s a sort of calm that comes over the blonde woman in this moment. It’s come to this and she can go out with one last good deed. It may not make up for all the horrible things she’s done in the name of protecting Arthur Petrelli’s golden age, but it’s something.

The moan that emits from the pit of Molly’s belly is filled with anguish at the sight of Hiro’s body. Tears roll down her cheeks and the young woman back pedals, Samson’s words echo in her mind. He was coming for her next. Watery eyes flick around as she staggers away, running for the exit.

Sliding to a halt at the door, she looks over her shoulder at the pair in the middle of the room with Aria and Hiro dead. “Run!!” She cries in reply to Odessa’s cry for Molly to run. The clairvoyant hangs on the doorframe with a wide eyed expression on her face. She does the only thing she knows she maybe give Odessa a chance at getting out alive.

Her hand goes for the light switches by the door and slams them down all at once.

The Amundsen Scott facility is thrown into darkness. Dusk shades of red flood parts of the room through the high windows, but shadows are deep and suffocating. Samson’s frustrated scream fills the darkness, followed by a concussive blast that knocks Odessa and Molly both off of their feet again. Flickering electricity sputters and gutters in the gloom, and Samson cycles through his abilities in silhouette. Turning into smoke, rising up back into a man, flickering with lightning. Nothing is perfect for this chaos.

In all the darkness, he'd never found a light.

I'll kill you all!” Samson screams, and Odessa sees his face suddenly closer, sparking with electricity. They scuffle, her fun is torn away, Samson’s hand on her throat, and he slams her down to the floor. But the sound of feet slapping on tile, Molly, running. If she fled into the arctic, died somewhere lost in the cold—

Samson drops Odessa like a bag of rocks, exploding into a hissing column of smoke and slithering across the room, following Molly out of the door, yanking her off of her feet again and slamming her down onto the tile floor so hard the wind is knocked from her lungs. “You don't get away,” Samson hisses, pinning her to the floor in the smothering darkness.

As Odessa finds her breath, struggles to move from the impact, she can feel the threads of her ability come alive again. Samson is just far enough away that she's out of his influence, but if she moves close again — if she dares — she'll be helpless.

In the dark, Molly screams, feeling a chisel of kinetic force slam into her brow, blot her vision and send colored spots where darkness should be. In her flailing, she feels something on the floor with her, touched in the darkness.

Aria’s gun.

Having taken his trophy from him, Odessa is prepared for what comes next. She doesn’t move, doesn’t look, when Molly screams for her to take her own advice and run. She’s caught off-guard when the lights go out and everything goes dark.

She starts to scramble back, eyes wide again as terror resumes its hold on her. She finds herself on her back, staring up into the darkness before she even knows what hit her, then at that horrible face that’s haunted her nightmares since she managed to escape that other world.

Odessa scrambles to her feet and tries to break away, but that hand closes on her throat and she finds herself right back where she started. A terrified whine punctuates the stillness, then footsteps. For a split second, there’s relief. The girl is running.

But then, he’s giving chase. “No!” Onto her hands and knees, she scrabbles across the floor until she can push herself up to her feet. “No! Not her!” She nearly gives chase, but then she feels it. The familiar ache of time, its embrace and promise that she can escape this horror. Odessa looks around, looking for something in the darkness. A weapon. An exit. Something.

A sign.

That gun is a sign for Molly Walker and as she closes her hand around the firearm, her face twisted in pain at the blows to her head. Echoes of her fathers, siblings, Kay, Luther and Huruma enter her mind as tears fall from her eyes mixing with the growing blood.

The last face that enters is Gabriel’s and she glares at him. She never got her shot at him. His eyes still haunt her. Even now, but she uses it as fuel.

She was taught better by Matt and by Mohinder, to do the right thing when the time came. Molly wanted to do the right thing and as she stares up at the man who she can't help but think has to be related to Gabriel in some way, if she could laugh she would. How ironic. Blue eyes are wide before her face takes on a look of fury, at how unfair her life has turned out to be. She never got to go to fucking Paris before being swept up in all of this mess.

And she never will.

Slamming the gun to her temple, “Like father like son.” Dripping with bitterness she pulls the trigger in an explosion of blood and brain matter. At least this way, Molly was finally free. Just like Eden McCain.

The scream of frustration and rage from Samson Gray accompanying the gunshot isn't from pain. It isn't from something as impermanent as a wound, it's from the loss of everything he was grasping for just as it was within reach. In the crackling electricity wreathing Samson’s body, Odessa can witness the horror of Molly’s lifeless body landing on the floor.

In the darkness, she can see electricity arcing off of Samson’s body, and she has to wonder if that once belonged to Elle — Elle who disappeared at the same time her father was arrested, Elle who wasn't there when he was tried and executed. How many people in Odessa’s life had that monster taken from her.

But this was the sign. There was nothing left here in the Arctic. Nothing but death, if that's what she wanted.

There’s a sweep of her hand at the sound of the gunshot and for a suspended moment, Odessa can see the muzzle flash and the horror of it all. She’d failed her. Failed herself. The life she knew is unravelling around her as she starts to tug at the threads the lies were woven from and the tapestry of it falls apart before her mind’s eye.

In this protracted moment, the assassin makes a decision. She gathers what’s left of her coat and makes her way to Hiro’s lifeless corpse to retrieve the sword he left with her in his haste to kill her. Maybe if he’d given her answers instead, this would have gone very differently.

Maybe if she’d done anything to earn them.

Time resumes and Molly hits the floor with an audible thump with a wet sort of quality to it. Odessa’s stomach churns. With one last glance hazarded toward the electric lights arching off Samson’s body, she runs out the emergency exit and out into the snow.

The last thing she hears as she steps into the blinding cold is Samson’s scream and the howl of the wind. Why hadn't he used Arthur’s power to just steal the abilities he wanted with a touch? How did he find them? How long had he been Arthur?

In the frigid cold, with the wind stopping as time does, Odessa is left with questions and scars, and a memory of a phrase that Arthur himself had told her when she was young:

Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.


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