The Great Ball War
Everyone knows the story. Of course, the details are sketchy, and some people have disappeared since then - as people are wont to do from time to time - but those who weren't immediately traumatized by the aftermath could look back on the story and remember it fondly. Or cry, depending on the exact circumstances of their encounter, since, truthfully, People in General (Also known as PIGs), just weren't ready to see the battle of the century inside a Discovery Zone.
Admittedly, the childrens' playground was a strange place for an epic battle. Normally, the hardened killer was a bit more discerning about where he chose to take his victims, but he might have been a rush, or he could have left his brain in his other pants. Either way, it was a busy Friday afternoon that saw Sylar's arrival at the indoor park, tracking a child with the ability to speak backwards, in rhyme, without moving his lips. Sylar wasn't so sure how this power would benefit him in the long run, and he did end up making a list of pros and cons about it in the end-- only to discover that it really had no pros or cons, but it was pretty darn cool. And because he - as previously mentioned - was a cold, hardened killer, he figured that stealing a child's power would be as easy as taking candy from a baby. Which, when one thought about it, would be a fairly gruesome comparison.
As luck would have it, while Peter Petrelli wasn't saving the world, he held down a part time job in the small, albeit well-stocked medical station within the Discovery Zone, and while it wasn't his favourite place to work, at least it sort of meant he could take care of people, which was the only thing he really wanted to do all along. Well, besides fly, and save the cheerleader, get through an episode of General Hospital without crying, and other such goals. Unfortunately for the prestigious establishment, Peter grew quite tired of crawling through the network of tubes each night in order to clean up the unsanitary leavings of the children therein. It wasn't so much that he minded the cleaning, but that a grown man crawling through child-sized pipes was murder on the knees and spine, and he kind of had to save the world. And how could he save the world with bruised knees? To sum it up, Peter was handing his resignation to his boss when a scream came from the enormous playground, and without a thought to his own safety, Peter hurled the paper at the stunned management, and ran off to the rescue.
At least, he thought to himself as he noted children scattering in all directions... At least he'd managed to turn in his two weeks' notice before something went catastrophically wrong.
The kids proved hard to catch, especially with their little legs, and propensity to fit into the smallest spaces possible, all of which Sylar hadn't counted on for some reason when he chose to invade. With screaming parents running off with their children, it was all he could do to keep the target in his sights. A shoe here, a shock of blonde hair there, the inability to both keep up with the kid in the network of pipes and utilize telekinesis at the same time meant he'd have some legwork, or, rather, kneework to do before he reached the prize. As they neared the ballpit at the centre of the gigantic maze, Sylar was sure he'd have the little brat now, as he was only an arm's length away--!
"Your days of evildoing are over!" Peter said. Thankfully, he could use his teleportation powers for good, and teleported into the ballpit as soon as he sensed danger.
The kid skittered into another tube, Sylar made a pouty face, and pointed half-heartedly after the now-escaped toddler, who he desperately wanted to maul. Thusly deprived of yet another power he did not want nor would he ever use, he turned stunningly malicious eyes at his arch-enemy, the younger of the Petrelli brothers, and the very man all the fangirls fawned over. Honestly, it made Sylar ill, and, all things considered, not a lot could make Sylar ill.
Dramatically raising his hands into the air, he called forth the multi-coloured spheres from the bottom of the pit. Though plastic, and probably useless, writing dictated that they had to do something inane for a while before they really got to the bad stuff, like slicing brains open with telekinesis and the like. "Feel the wrath of my balls, Petrelli!" Sylar insisted, before flinging them at the studly destiny-clad young man across from him.
Peter, of course, was not to be outdone, and certainly had balls of his own to throw around. It wasn't long at all before the entire pit was just full of them, flying everywhere, smacking both men upside the head as they did so, and effectively creating a lot of mayhem where there was none before. Mothers screamed, fathers took bets on the victor, and the children probably made a mess of things elsewhere, which Peter would have to clean up later, after eradicating Sylar. Hopefully, it would be once and for all this time, though Peter took pity, given how embarrassing it would be to be defeated at a children's playground. Seriously, as if Sylar didn't already need years of therapy to combat the issues he already had. It was, perhaps, for that reason that Peter went light on the poor serial killer, and somehow, perhaps by camera trick, Sylar escaped quite anticlimactically.
In the end, the child was saved, and Peter teleported out of the ball pit in time to catch his falling resignation, and hand it to his boss without it having ever touched the floor. Truly, it was an awesome rescue, and Peter could pat himself on the back for a job well done.
Dedicated to the folks at HeroesMUSH.