(no subject)

[watchmakers_son]

Sylar hasn't eaten anything, ordered by himself or not, since walking into Milliways a few days ago and finding it teeming with animals that didn't (tICk) quite sound like (ttticK) animals.

Sometimes, however, precaution only goes so far. Especially if it's precaution in the wrong direction.

During one particular long and barren stretch of highway in rural Ohio, Mohinder, with the passion of a true professor, spent fifteen minutes describing in a rapid-fire cadence how the cockroach was the pinnacle of the evolutionary ladder. Strangely enough, Sylar isn't deriving much comfort from that at the moment.

What he's doing instead is perching on a chair back, motionless save the wary twitching of his antennae, as he struggles to interpret his new senses.


[ooc: eep! I love you all, but please no more new threads. *drowns*]

Comments

[gone_byebye]

New and extremely bizarre senses? Ray's had to deal with those before! He's just heading back towards the Bar after dealing with things with Captain Ryan when he spots something moving on one of the chairs, and stops.

"Okay," he says after a bit. "I don't think I've ever seen one of your species here before except for the one with the typewriter. I'm going to take a chance here and-" He shifts into deliberately using the amulet. "Attempt communication in your native language. Can you understand me?"

[watchmakers_son]

Cockroaches can't hear, per se. They sense vibrations -- in the ground, the air -- and react accordingly.

There are a lot of those, and a lot of movements across his line of sight. Sylar's beginning to notice that when objects stop moving, it's more difficult to see them; cautiously, he's just beginning to edge down the back of the chair when he hears -- actually hears, as clearly as if he were human -- a voice.

He pauses. After a moment, the twitching of his antennae picks up as he tries to approximate a nod.

[gone_byebye]

Ray smiles a little and pulls up a chair. "You seem to have been affected by the same problem that a lot of people in the Bar have been having," he says. "Unless, of course, you were hatched a cockroach."

[watchmakers_son]

Conveying a yes or no answer is relatively easy.

Conveying a "no" with the particular brand of vehement anger Sylar would normally be placing behind the word, however, is much trickier.

His wings snap open and resettle, fluttering in agitation, as he shakes the front third of his body back and forth.

[gone_byebye]

"My apologies," Ray says. "If it helps at all, I have reason to believe we should be able to undo the transformation sometime tomorrow. I'm a parapsychologist. I study this sort of thing for a living, and get rid of it when it causes people trouble."

That's the simplest place to start, he figures.

[waylostandfound.livejournal.com]

(ooc: *hands Sylar a copy of Kafka's Metamorphosis and hands you an internet for ultimate WIN*)

[watchmakers_son]

[ooc: :D!

*and solemnly* Sometimes, there is only so much you can do to resist.]

[kayip.livejournal.com]

Demon bunnies? Still not great. Which is why - if one could really tell - a wolf stalks moodily through the Bar area, walking among quite a few animals he's not allowed to hunt. Some of them Behrooz recognizes, which helps reinforce this against the wolf instincts.

But one, off at it is, makes him glance around sharply, though he doesn't take too long to settle. If anyone could tell, the wolf has become considerably less moody, and calmly settles on the floor under Sylar's chair.

[watchmakers_son]

[ooc: Bwah! <3]

It's another big shape in a sea of big shapes, shaking the floor directly under him. Sylar dashes across the top of the chair back as the instinct to run takes over, then forcibly stops, testing the wood with a few strangely delicate motions of one leg.

Slower, he begins to crawl down the chair, edging closer to the shape.

[kayip.livejournal.com]

Behrooz watches the insect's progress interestedly.

Some curious inkling may stir at the back of his mind, but instinct is otherwise silent - even living off demon bunnies, this just isn't worth it.

And there's a moment where he considers it, and then speaks, as he'd always been able to - "That - must be intolerable for you."

[watchmakers_son]

He freezes midway down the chair back.





"You."

[sanguimmuno.livejournal.com]

The cockroach is being eyed hungrily. Surely Bar had sense enough to not turn anyone into an insect?

[watchmakers_son]

Someone opens the front door, and the air currents, dispersed as they are by the time they reach him, catch the cerci on Sylar's back.

It's enough to make him jump and skitter forward down the chair at top speed.

[sanguimmuno.livejournal.com]

Whether or not Sylar gets too far away is entirely up to Sylar himself, however, Salazar does decide, at some point, to slither to the ground (now that he has worked out how to cling to things).

[watchmakers_son]

He hits the floor at the same time Salazar reaches it. There's another quick pause as he lowers his antennae to touch the ground -- it's easier to "see," that way -- and, when he feels the strange susurrus of vibrations that almost sounds like something being dragged, he takes off toward another table.

[grandsuccess.livejournal.com]

Allie had walked back in during the evening, to return to Bar her books on Russian warfare, when was distracted from walking back to her room by the sense of that man.

Distinctly not looking like 'that man'.

Cue nine year old, big blue eyed, interested look at a creature type she'd never paid much attention to before.

[watchmakers_son]

With the cockroach's panic at being exposed to so much movement and light mounting, Sylar's only able to stay atop the chair for another handful of seconds before darting down its back, angling for the floor.

More accurately, the space underneath the table, where he's less likely to be trampled.

[grandsuccess.livejournal.com]

Allie felt sorry for him, for the panic that seemed to unlined everything about him now. It was so very different. She moved back of reaction, as cockroaches were icky, but she crouched down so she could still see him.

"You don't look so good."

It was an obvious thing, but a true one.

[watchmakers_son]

Sylar's antennae still, then twitch upward. It almost gives the impression of him looking up.

Voices have a peculiar frequency of vibration all their own. It isn't hearing, but he's beginning to figure out a rudimentary way of understanding them.

Or parts of them, at least.

He edges back a step.

[joiningyousoon.livejournal.com]

When Maya Antares steps into the bar tonight, it has been a long day. She moves first to the back door, long greatcoat snapping behind her as she walks -- but it is raining, she sees when she wrenches the door open, and she releases the door and walks back toward the Bar.

Once she has a bowl of soup and hunk of bread in her hands, she heads for the first out-of-the-way table that she can find, neatly sidestepping a running dog, and staring after it, nonplussed and not pleased. The encounter doesn't hold her attention, though, as she takes a seat at the table, setting down the bowl.

She looks up sharply when she has two fingers out of the first glove. For a second, for a second, she would have sworn-- The barest brush of an unfamiliar feeling, there and gone before she even make an attempt to decipher what it could possibly be.

After a moment's staring into nothing, Maya shakes her head to herself and goes on stripping off her gloves.

[watchmakers_son]

She's sat down in the same chair Sylar's occupying. The proximity of movement and the stronger rush of air, plus the thud of vibrations almost like an earthquake when she sits --

Sylar takes off, winding his way down the chair back at top speed.

[joiningyousoon.livejournal.com]

As luck would have it, Maya had just turned to glance over her shoulder, considering heading bar to the Bar for a drink. The flurry of movement, small as it is, catches her eye, and at the sight of the scurrying insect, she's out of her chair in a hurry. It is a considered hurry, the calculated scramble of a soldier accustomed to seeing such creatures -- but it is a hurry just the same.

The chair rocks with the sudden exit of its occupant, but Maya steadies it, keeping it from toppling over.

She has always had something of a soft spot for creatures, even the creepy-crawly kind.

[watchmakers_son]

Picture a human stuck in a tree as a tornado rushes in, and how they might throw all their limbs around the trunk in an effort to stay in place.

That's much the same way Sylar scrambles to grab hold of the chair as it rocks, his body flattened against it and antennae lowered almost flush with the wood.

"Do you mind?" he snarls, some of the iciness to his tone carried through on the translation spell.

[creator_raven]

Raven is, it must be said, not so easily fooled by shape-changes.

It is a thing.

This may explain why, as he passes the chair Sylar is perched on, he reaches out and quite casually attempts to flick the cockroach across the room.

Oops?

[watchmakers_son]

Reflexes kick in, and Sylar's already scuttling sideways as fast as he can when Raven reaches for him.

Not fast enough, unfortunately.

The flick catches him under two legs and catapults him across the room; his wings snap open as he tumbles end over end in a vain effort to steer and right himself.

It doesn't do much to cushion him when he lands with a cockroach-sized thump.