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It's a regular caravan that shows up at Metropolis today.

Vehicle One: The Coraline, a modifies pick-up truck being driven by everyone's favourite bloodthirsty pirate, with a distinctly anti-killing ex-Robin in the passenger seat. The ghost of a teenage girl is technically sitting on the roof of the cabin, but sometimes she pokes her head in to interrupt the boys in their conversation.

Vehicle Two: A 1967 Chevrolet Impala, the only one blaring out tunes, while the driver and his blonde passenger sit in relative silence, not having much to say to each other.

Vehicle Three: A Porsche, containing one carefully prepared hunter and one blind woman who prides herself on not needing any preparation. The conversation in that one is a little more lively, even containing the occasional laugh from the girl.

It's a ridiculous procession, considering they don't really know where they're going. But Jack has all six of his senses peeled, looking for a young teenage girl of Chinese origin who isn't a young teenage girl of Chinese origin.

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And just seconds after her hits that floor, the door is kicked in hard, and Jack storms in.

"Here!" he shouts, and bears towards her. He's had time to think, and he reckons that if he wastes no time in putting the boot in, backing off, then hitting again, he can keep the body in pain and keep it from 'phasing'. At least until Sam gets here.

Contrary to appearances, he's not happy with having to beat up a pubescent girl.

When he lands, Sylar can hardly think for the pain stabbing through his hip and shoulder and head and throughout his entire body. So there's a horrible grinding noise of pain in his throat, and a sick feeling in his stomach, and they only get louder and worse when he's kicked and when his attempt to scramble away results in a sensation in his hip like being pounded with a mallet.

Come on, the guy just fell three storeys onto a hard floor.

He ain't going anywhere.

Good. Because while Sam might have been able to barrel through his broken concentration and gotten himself together again, now he has to run out the door and down the stairs with a blinding headache blurring his vision.

Oddly enough, it isn't Jubilee, but Jo that's making him rush and focus. Or at least, her words.

Meanwhile, outside:

Leah didn't stay exactly by the cars, sorry Sam. He told her a few things before, and she listened.

She's been tracking a perimeter around the building, using her cane to make sure she can keep it to her right, all the time letting a steady trickle of salt out of the bag she prepared before.

She even kept it up after the gunshot, but only picked up the pace to make it back to the cars.

That Jo manages to knock the girl down into the ground doesn't stop the concluding fact that following it Jo does a face plant into the floor once the girl goes straight through it.

The sickening smack and the swearing that followed would be just that happening.

Jo might be rethinking that part about not damaging the girl's body (a little) as she shoved her own back up into a crouch, doing her best to shut out the pain entirely.

She felt for her gun, as she glanced over at Dean, "You still alive over there?"

"Pissed off. Fine. Let's move!"

Beat.

"You okay?" As they're running for the door.

The pounding of their shoes down the hall after the other sounds loud in her ears. She did her best not to consider rubbing her face or shoulder were they sang.

"Nothing a hot shower and bullet ridden body won't solve."

Now that the mindlessness of the initial shock has worn off, Sylar is uncomfortably aware that he needs to get the hell out of here for reasons other than his current world of hurt.

Jack's boot, plus every bone and muscle down Sylar's left hand side, has other ideas.

He's not going to give them the satisfaction of crying, goddamnit, but his eyes are wet with pain and anger and willpower alone can't keep him from yelling raggedly.

It is about now that Dick swings in this window, having come down the outside way, and finds ... Jack beating up on Jubilee.

D:

No, it's Sylar. He has to remember this. Damn it.

UNHAPPY DICK IS UNHAPPY WITH THIS, JACK, AND WILL REMEMBER YOUR FACE.

It is, indeed not Jubilee in there.

Jubilee is behind Dick, floating by his shoulder, and grouching.

"Being shot really hurts."

Sam stumbles his way down the stairs at about this time and skids to a stop in front of Jack and Sylar.

-and into Jubilee, yelping with surprise at the cold. Plus side: the shock of it gets his head together long enough to plant his feet and lift his hand again.

Sylar's eyes focus for a second on Sam and his pose, and sharpen in panic.

Unfortunately, his redoubled effort to stand up only results in the further protest of his injured muscles, and he only succeeds in lifting himself slightly before rolling over and shouting in pain.

"You're not--" clenched teeth-- "taking this body."

For Jack rather than anyone else, the experience is rather like hearing a grown man's voice coming out of the mouth of a little girl. And yet at the same time, nothing like that, because it's still Jubilation's voice.

He steps towards Dick, partly to show submission to the girl's brother, and also partly so Dick then has the choice not to look at what's happening to the body in question.

"We're not," he says, smirking dryly

"You're giving it back," Dick says flatly. He nods to Jack in appreciation of the gesture, but - he still needs to see. He needs to know.

"Now."

"Yeah, go Wingman!" Jubilee punches the air. And her fist passes through Dick's shoulder.

Today? Today has not been a fun day for Sylar. He thought he'd finally gotten a grip on things, gotten some degree of control over his own life, but no; in a minute, much as it hurts him to admit it, he won't have even this injured body.

But if he could get rid of the man with the power to rip him out of it--

Wait.

Sylar's gaze snaps over towards Sam. His expression is a wide-open one of fear and surrender, but his expression is a lie.

He can take control of this situation. If he relaxes his hold on the girl's body, and braces himself not to fight against the next expelling force he's sure is coming, then the problem might just solve itself.

It's like when you're a kid, bored in class, playing with a rubber band. You stretch it and stretch it, preparing to launch it across the class room and then all of a sudden, totally on its own, it snaps from the pressure and usually hits you straight in the eye and hurts like a bitch.

That's what it's like, pulling and pulling and suddenly having a spirit snapping free.

Sam gasps and reels back but it's-- it's wrong, there's no smoke, just the sensation of pulling, and there's nothing creeping down and through the floorboards. There's no sense of elation, not even vaguely, because he has no idea what just happened and he's physically exhausted.

Jo's going to arrive about now.

And stand rather int about three-fourths of the door when she realizes whats going on, between the struggling girl, the crowd and Sam.

She's half glancing back to see Dean and make sure Dean isn't going to stop Sam as much as she eying the girl to see if his freak brain powers are actually working.

It kind of blows not getting the beat the crap outta the bad guy.

A rubber band hitting you in the eye is kind of the perfect metaphor.

Being torn from a body hurts, in some near-indefinable way that's like being scraped across mental sandpaper, and Sylar's last physical action is to close his eyes and cry out again. Then he tumbles invisibly, a swimmer dropped into the ocean and with no idea of which way is up.

For a second or two, there's nothing -- just the body's sudden deathly stillness, and Sylar's intangible struggle.

Then he tightens his grip on the hook that caught him, hanging on grimly, and follows it back to its source.

Dick springs forwards to catch the falling body of Jubilee, not entirely sure of what's going on but sure that he's not letting her hit the ground.

Dean skids around the corner, nearly slamming into Jo, just in time to watch things unfold with one hell of an angry expression.

There. Will. Be. Some. Brotherly. Discussions. Going. On.

Later, please. Possibly when Sam is doing something other than... well, what he is.

The exhaustion from using his powers before - even the forced visions - isn't anything new, and he'd certainly been expecting it. It's been dangerous occasionally, when they needed to get out fast and Sam had to be half-carried in order to get somewhere safe. But it's never been like this. When a demon was pulled, it was pulled, thrown, and killed.

The rubberband effect - because that's basically what it is - sends him reeling backward with a gasp, takes his feet right out from under him, and the mountain of a man that he is often teased of being hits the ground hard.

"Ow. Shit."

'Sam' is not quite prepared enough to turn the fall into a roll, but he picks himself up fairly promptly, breathing hard, stumbling a little from the disorientation, shaking a bit from the exhaustion.

Then he barges swiftly out of the open door, fists and elbows raised to get him past Dean and Jo.

Jo doesn't look shocked. If anything she looks torn between two things: pissed and pleased. She doesn't even hesitate to launch herself fully at Sam.

Sam who is not a teenage girl. Sam who is a hunter who can damn well take his punches and his broken bones without whining and having his big pretty brother beat her up for it.

He might be twice her size and it might be a sickening (twist in her stomach of digust and glee) thing to think about launching herself at Sam of all people -- but this time, she isn't holding back.

She knows she wouldn't want Sam to if it was her.

"Get the fuck out of him, you bastard."

Shit shit shit motherfucker shit shit --

They've fought and wrestled since they were small, but then Sammy grew into a manmountain and started winning sometimes - Dean isn't, actually, certain that he could beat a possessed-Sammy. Not without hurting him.

This just went from eh to bad.

Still, he throws himself at his brother, tackling low. If they can get him down long enough for - for --

-- for what?