Hello and welcome back, even if I greet only one person with that (most of my reviewers seem to have abandoned me, but maybe they are just too lazy to write the reviews I was hoping for; thinking that helps me to believe that it wasn´t the story that scared them away). Anyway. To all of you who are back with me (if silent or not) here we are again, starting the ... *one, two, three* … forth story. Wow. Not bad. How did this happen? I have no idea. But here we are and I hope you´ll enjoy it as much as you enjoyed the stories before that.

Last but not least the disclaimer of course: I own nothing of this.

And now enjoy.

Nobody

Stanley stumbled backwards after the hard push he´d received from the mad man before him. His right foot got caught behind his left one. Stanley fell and landed on his butt.

„Please. I didn´t mean to …"

„Shut up, stupid." the other man talked over him and grabbed his collar to lift him up. When Stanley was at his eye level again, he took his throat in his hand and pressed him against the wall. „I´m disappointed in you, Stan." he said. „I came all the way here from Boulder because you called me."

„I know, I …"

„Shut up already. I came here because I believed that you knew what you were talking about. I was actually even glad when you called me, because I actually believed that the man you promised me that he was here, would actually be here when I arrived. But what happened instead? I come here … and he is not here. Why is he not here, Stan?"

„I dunno." Stan whined, desperately trying to breath under the other man´s grip. „I was busy with … things."

„Things."

„But he was here." Stan hurried to go on. „I´m sure ´bout that. I heard them talk about him and there is no way that they meant someone else. He was here."

„Was. But the question I hope you can answer me is: Where is he now?"

„I dunno. But I can find out. My pal in the registration office will find him for me. For you, I mean."

„What´s his name?"

„What?"

„Your pal in the registration office. What´s his name?"

„Billy Donovan." Stan answered and then the other one smiled at him in a strange way.

Stan believed he´d never been so scared his entire life. And in this moment he wished he´d never called this guy to tell him his information. Why the hell had he thought he would gain anything from that? No one had ever gained anything from working for that guy. Okay maybe the one or the other had, but only if they´d gotten away before the cops had gotten too close. If this guy hadn´t killed them himself that was, something that happened from time to time too.

It was a mystery to Stan why anyone was still brave enough to work with him. But the fact that this guy had never been caught and that he didn´t seem to care about the police and their guns or anything, had probably something to do with it. A guy that not even the FBI could catch had to have a secret and who wouldn´t want to have a share of that if he could? But right now Stanley would be happy to go without it.

„I´ll call Billy the first thing in the morning." Stan said, trying not to let his voice sound too pleading.

Of course he failed pathetically. The other man just shook his head. Stanley realized for the first time that he didn´t know his name. Strange that he had needed that long to realize that. Okay it wasn´t that he didn´t know how to call him. He had even several names that he could call him. But he was pretty sure that none of them was his real given name. All the sudden Stanley wondered if he even had a given name.

He´d known this man for three years and had worked for him since then, always giving information and making connections for him if requested. That had been the reason why he´d done this insanely stupid thing to call him when he´d overheard that talk between those two detectives at the station. He´d known that this guy – his Boss – was interested in the guy they were talking about and he´d considered it his duty to report what he´d heard. But now … Damn how could he work for this guy for three years and never noticed that he didn´t know his name? And why the hell was that so important right now?

„I could call him right now." Stan blurred out when he realized that his Boss was not pleased with his first suggestion. „I wake him up. Bill will go to work right away."

„Shut your stupid mouth." the other man said. „I´ll go to see him myself."

„But … why not letting me call him? I mean …"

„You know, Stanley. I kinda grew to appreciate you over the years. You never failed me so far, like most other people do. I don´t appreciate it when someone is wasting my time with false information."

„Please. I didn´t lie. He was here. I know that."

„You know that." the other one repeated. „Is that so?" he leaned in a little closer. „Can you look me in the eye and swear that? Scouts honor? Can you?"

Stanley looked into this mad man´s eyes and couldn´t say anything. The man whose name he didn´t know, smiled.

„I didn´t think so." he said.

...

Detective Carlton Lassiter scowled when he walked into the crime scene. He hated it when the victim was someone he knew. It had the tendency to make his work so much more complicated, especially when the person was one that he´d known from the station and not from his private life. But to be honest, sometimes he didn´t know which version was worrying him more. If it was someone he knew privately, there was always the possibility, that their death was a warning for him of some sorts.

If it was someone he knew from work … well, practically the same. But at least this time, it was only the caretaker. He knew him because he knew everybody who worked for the S.B.P.D. the one way or the other. But he was not in a special way connected to that man. So there was room for hope that his death was coincidence.

Lassiter took his notepad and took on a professional posture.

„All right." he said, reading off the pad. „Body, male, severally mutilated probably by a club or something similar."

„I wouldn´t be so sure about that, detective." a thin voice replied even before Lassiter had a chance to ask O´Hara for more information. The two of them swirled around to look at the person this voice belonged to.

„Lightly." Lassiter cried when he saw him. „What the hell are you doing here?"

Mary Lightly, FBI profiler extraordinaire, approached them slowly and almost sneaking, his shoulders crouched and his hands in his pockets.

„Sorry that I walked into your crime scene before you got here, detective." he said. „But I needed to know if it was him."

„Who?"

Mary looked at the dead man before them for a moment. „He has many names." he told them. „Probably because he never claimed one for himself. The papers called him Superman. Others just call him Boss or The Ghost because he comes and goes like one. In some scenes they called him steelchest."

Juliet shook her head. „I´m sorry." she said a little lost. „Are you talking about our caretaker?"

„I´m talking about the man who killed your caretaker, detective." Mary explained.

„So you want to say you know who did this?" Lassiter asked, pointing at the dead man. But before he could get an answer from Lightly, he noticed two figures at the crime scene tape, that attempted to enter the place. „Spencer, stay right there." he called at once. If there should be any problems regarding jurisdiction about this case, he wanted them to be solved before the fake psychic started to touch, sniff or even lick everything at the crime scene.

Shawn and Gus halted in surprise at the call. But then they´d spotted the profiler.

„Mary?" Shawn cried startled. „I … sensed that you were here." he claimed the next second, his hand hovering at the level of his temple.

Lassiter ignored him and faced the profiler again. „So what is this, Lightly?" he demanded to know. „Is this an FBI case or what?"

Mary Lightly threw another sad look at the dead caretaker and sighed. „I believe it is." he said.

...

It was barely an hour later, when Shawn and Gus were sitting on the edge of Lassiter´s desk at the Santa Barbara Police Department. They were not amused as they would be under any other circumstances that provided them with the opportunity to sit on the head detective´s desk like that, knowing that he would chase them off as soon as he saw them there. No, this time they felt like running off on their own. All they could see in the moment was the open bullpen and the projector that suddenly seemed to fill the room all on its own. People were gathering around it one by one. They were preparing for the show.

„I don´t like this, Shawn." Gus told his best friend without looking at him. His eyes were fixed on the bullpen. „I have a weird kind of déjà vu. I tell you. That´s some bad Juju."

„Tell me about it, dude." Shawn agreed, his eyes never leaving the bullpen just like Gus. „This damn projector." he murmured and bit his knuckle.

„Do you remember?" Gus asked. „That´s exactly how it started. First we found Mina and then Mary came in to tell us …"

Shawn nodded. „… about a serial killer that could change his form." he finished the sentence.

„Right."

„Man."

They both sighed heavily. The whole time none of them had taken his eyes off the doomsaying projector.

„I´ve got goosebumps, Shawn." Gus now revealed. „I can´t do this."

„No." Shawn agreed.

„Let´s get out of here." Gus suggested urgently.

„Yes." Shawn agreed again and they were already getting up to leave before it was to late to turn back. Shawn had just finished his turn, when he faced a whiteness that was framed by a dark shoulder holster. Shawn almost ran into it but stopped just an inch before his nose collided with this only too well known chest.

„Where are you guys going?" Lassiter demanded to know. „We´re going to start the briefing."

„We know." Shawn claimed looking up into the stern face. „We just … thought there was enough time for a snack from the vending machine."

„There´s not." Lassiter replied. „Take your place and shut your mouths."

The two consultants exchanged a helpless glance and obeyed. There was nothing they could do and they knew it. As it seemed they were damned to stand by and listen to the doomsayer and his evil projector.

Chief Vick came out of her office, the little doomsayer right at her heels. She and Mary took their positions on each side of the projector. Just like the day when they all had learned about Sylar, Shawn thought again and fought against the sick feeling in his stomach. Gus was right. That really was some bad Juju. Really bad Juju.

„All right, everybody listen up." chief Vick cried. „It seems our latest case is an ongoing investigation of the FBI, so we will be fully cooperating with Mary Lightly once again. He will give us all a short briefing on the situation. Mr. Lightly."

„Thank you, chief." Mary said and switched on the projector.

Dammit, Shawn thought to himself. As if they recycled this text every time when a situation like that came around. Maybe they did.

„The man, we´re seeking is a notorious criminal." Mary started his speech. „He did everything from stealing to murder. His identity is unknown, he could never be identified."

„Are you kidding?" Lassiter asked.

„No, detective." Mary replied. „Since we were never able to arrest him, there was no way of trying to identify him. No DNA samples, no matches on photos or fingerprints. He´s not registered anywhere, so that either means he´s not born in America or he was just never registered."

„Or arrested."

„Right."

On the wall there was the picture of the man they were talking about, obviously shot by a surveillance camera. It showed a man standing before a bank. He was in his mid thirties or maybe around forty. It was hard to tell. His face was only seen halfway and he had long dark hair hanging in his forehead. He was wearing a long coat and he was obviously holding a loaded gun.

„Is that a Kalashnikov he´s holding?" Lassiter asked.

„Indeed it is." Mary affirmed. „We learned over the years that he has a thing for big guns. Especially shotguns and MPs and such weapons. The more destruction one shot can cause the better he likes them. On one occasion he got his hands on a Bazuka and blew up half a building with it."

„Why did he do that?" Juliet asked shocked.

„No one knows for sure. Nobody doesn´t necessarily need a reason to do certain things. Sometimes he just does it, because he feels like it."

„Nobody?" Lassiter repeated.

„That´s how we call him. He has no name and no known identity. He´s like someone that technically cannot exist."

„Oh, he exists." the detective replied. „If this Nobody is the man who killed our caretaker …"

„I´m pretty positive that it was him." Mary stated convinced.

„Then you can ask him who he is and where he came from as soon as we have him." Lassiter finished his sentence.

„I have to warn you about this man, detective." Mary went on. „He´s extremely dangerous and there is a reason why he was never arrested so far. It is not that it hasn´t been tried. There were actually quiet a few encounters local police had had with this man. They all ended with dead police men and women and Nobody who just walked away freely."

„How?" Juliet asked, her eyes big and almost scared off the answer.

„He seems to be immune to any kind of gunfire, our men could come up with." Mary told them. „Every time he resisted the arrest and they opened fire on him, he was just not responding to the bullets."

„What do you want to say with that?" Lassiter demanded to know. „Is he wearing a vest?"

„If that would be so, the colleagues would have aimed for the arms and legs, but even if they did that, it didn´t show any result."

Everybody in the room exchanged glances with each other after that. It was not necessary for anyone to say something to make clear that they were all thinking the same.

„Mr. Lightly." chief Vick spoke up at last, trying to sound polite. „Considering what you told us last time when you came here to hunt a serial killer … I feel inclined to stop you, before this briefing takes on a … how do I say that? A ridiculous colour."

„I didn´t try to indicate anything, chief." Mary assured her. „But I find it quiet extraordinary that this man was never arrested and as it seems never even wounded in any of these tries. He acts totally fearless when it comes to forces that move against him."

„Maybe he´s just really good in avoiding to be shot." Shawn guessed.

„Or he just doesn´r care if he dies." Gus supported him. „Some criminals are like that."

„There is a surveillance video about one of these attempts to arrest him." Mary replied. „I brought it with me. May I?"

„Go ahead." chief Vick made an inviting gesture and Mary switched from the picture to the video.

From the angle of the video it was pretty clear that it had been shot from a camera that was installed on the roof of a building. There were police men that surround a bank that was obviously currently robbed. Three men were just in the process of leaving this very bank, when the police cars stopped and the officers jumped out, aiming their guns at the culprits. One of the three men was Mary Lightly´s Nobody.

There was no tone to that tape but everybody in the room knew that the police men had yelled for the culprits to stop only a second after they´d jumped out of their cars. Still Nobody didn´t stop. His two companions flinched at the shouting cops. But what made them really jump was the shots their Boss suddenly fired at the cops.

The two criminals hit the ground, while Nobody shot at the cops and hit at least two of them instantly. The others shot back at him but he didn´t seem to care at all. He didn´t try to take cover, only kept shooting. A few times he jerked as if hit by bullets but he remained standing. He opened his mouth and shouted at his guys on the ground. The two of them got up and hurried over to their car, running bowed over to avoid being hit. This tactic helped only one of them to escape. The second one was hit and fell to the ground. Nobody didn´t look back, just jumped in the car and drove off, leaving his man behind.

After the video was finished, everybody in the room was quiet. Lassiter looked around in deep thought. This video was indeed disturbing. But was it a proof for anything the little profiler had indicated earlier? He wasn´t sure. It looked suspicious but was it any kind of proof? What were the odds for two superhuman serial killers to come to Santa Barbara in such a short time?

„Quick question." he spoke up, his knuckle still resting on his chin. „Is the fact that he killed someone from our station´s staff an indication that he wants to challenge the police in general?"

„So far there is no clue that would indicate anything, detective." Mary replied. „This is the aspect of Nobody that makes this man really dangerous. He´s totally unpredictable. He seems to need no motive at all to kill someone. That he killed your caretaker could indeed mean something." he gave him that much. „But it could also be a complete coincidence."

„Then how can we catch this man?" chief Vick wanted to know.

„To answer that question, or at least to try to, I´d like to go a little deeper into the profile of Nobody now." Mary said. He switched the projector again to show them some statistics that had been calculated over the years and years the FBI was working Nobody´s case now. And then he started to explain the twisted and obviously deeply disturbed psychology of this man.

Lassiter was listening to all of this but he was also thinking. He was thinking about calling Bennet. A part of him wanted nothing more than to run to the next phone and call the Company man and ask him for his help. But another part of him was more than just uncertain. It was the proud part of him, the part that was afraid of embarrassing himself. This sick bastard Nobody could have been wearing a vest.

All right, Lightly had a point when he said that the colleagues had aimed for the arms and legs too, but one could never be sure. Maybe this sick bastard had somehow gotten his hands on a bulletproof vest that had sleeves. Things like that were not common but it was not unthinkable either. One never knew.

If he would call Noah now just because Lightly claimed to have another suspect that had superhuman powers, he would make himself completely ridiculous. It would be like crying wolf just because he saw a shadow. He wouldn´t do something like that. Not at the first sight. Not without real proof.

This guy Nobody could as well be a completely normal sick bastard that was running loose in his town and if that was the case, Lassiter knew very well how to treat him. Catching him or killing him. For him it didn´t matter why this guy had chosen Santa Barbara from all the places in the world. But he would regret it that he´d come here. Lassiter would see to that.

...

The table with the heaps and heaps of old and partly useless paper, got pushed back when its owner fell against it. Billy had planned to clean it up for a while now, to get rid of the garbage and to arrange the still important stuff into a folder or something. He was working in an office where order was like air to breath but at home he was living in a constant mess. Each time he passed his desk, he made a mental note that he wanted, needed, to clean it up. And immediately after that mental note he made another one that said: It´s on the list. As soon as he found the time he would do it, and until then it was on the list. It had been on his list for weeks now. Or was it months? Didn´t matter anymore. Now the papers were flying around in a big cloud of chaos. Cleaning up the desk was not an issue anymore. Now it would be about cleaning up the appartement.

His hand tried to get a grip on the edge of the table but he slipped and suddenly the edge of the table was not under his butt anymore. He landed on the floor and only a second after that he heard his pens, he had stored in an old jello glass, land on the very same floor, only a few inches to his right. They splattered and rolled around like marbles. One of them rolled before Billy and then a foot stepped on it and crushed the poor thing. Billy skipped back a little.

„What do you want?" he asked defensively. „I told you I can´t do anything as long as I don´t get my hands on the keys to the file room."

„That´s very pity." the other guy replied leaning down to him.

„I will find him." Billy assured him. „Don´t worry. I always find my guys. Ask Stanley. He´ll tell you. I never disappointed him or any of the others."

„Well, but Stanley is not the one you disappointed here." was the response.

„I won´t disappoint you." Billy assured. „I just need some more time. Tomorrow morning I´ll try to get my hands on the keys and then …"

„Trying is not enough."

„I always get the keys. Ask Stan."

„Stan is dead." was the annoyed answer.

Billy´s face felt very cold all the sudden. „What?" he breathed. That couldn´t be. Stan dead? But …

„He disappointed me too." this crazy guy told him. „And I´m sick of getting disappointed. This was the last time. From now on I´ll take things into my own hands."

And as if to underline that statement he reached out his hand for this stupid insect to crush it.

It screamed. Of course, they always did. Sometimes that made him even angrier. Yeah, all the sudden they were small and humble where they had been arrogant and the centre of the universe before. Oh, how much he hated them. All of them. These pitiful assholes that were walking around on this planet as if they had rented the right to look down on others, on people like him who were nobodies to them. Well, in his case they were right. He was Nobody. He´d always been Nobody.

He´d never gotten a name – not a real one at least and the one he´d had once was long forgotten after so many years of living this shitty life in this shitty world. But being a nobody had his advantages. He didn´t need to be on the same level as these insects that thought of themselves as the masters of this world. He had the advantage of being his own master and to live following his own law only. There was no one that could keep him from that anyway. This time Nobody was coming back to haunt these arrogant suckers and teach them a lesson.

He was doing this for years now. And now he would do it again. But this time he would raise the bar. He had to. Because that was the only way to find the only person in this world, he considered to be better than the rest of them. The one person he´d never meet before but he´d heard so many wonderful things about. The one that hated this world and the humans that crouched around in it as much as he did. The one person that was like him, even better.

When Stanley had called him to tell him that he was in Santa Barbara, Nobody had almost not believed him. But then he´d seen the news and he´d known that it was his fate to meet him here in this city. So he´d come here to meet his fate, but Stanley had to mess up. And if that wasn´t enough this idiot Billy had messed up too. It was truly a shame that there were no good people to find anymore. So there was indeed no other way than to take it into his own hands.

Nobody straightened and turned away from the dead asshole on the ground. He felt his heart still racing and his head spinning. The warm blood on his hands was dropping to the ground, each drop sounding like a drum in Nobody´s ears. The rushing blood eased down a little. Slowly breathing was the trick. A rush like this one was nothing new to him. He had them once in a while, especially when he was dealing with something as degenerated as this shitface. But now it was over. He had let it out again and now he was calming down.

Yes, he would do it himself. He would find a way to find him. And looking down on the dead guy before him he even had an idea already how to do it. This one was no good for that anymore. His head was smashed and the brain was leaking out. That was no good anymore. He would take better care to not to smash the skull like that with the next one. And he would take good care that everybody would see what was missing afterwards. What better way to express his respect for this god amongst insects, than to perform an homage to his work? As soon as he would see the news he would know that someone was here in Santa Barbara, someone that was just like him.

Nobody smiled when he left the appartement. Yes, that was the way he would do it. That way he would finally meet up with Sylar. The one person in the world that was just like him. A predator that didn´t take orders from those worthless creatures that called themselves the top of the food chain. The one person beside himself that was just better than all of the others. A week, he guessed. Just a week and he would meet him. Face to face.

Thinking of that Nobody ran down the stairs like an excited little kid.

You may leave a comment, people. I would really appreciate it.

And thanks for reading.