Sylar usually avoided the more populated parts of the city, but he couldn't help but want something tastier than stolen snacks or raw meat. Maybe meeting a mutant had triggered something in him, or maybe it was the sandwich, either way, he was risking it to go diving. Sylar had done it before, whether it be after closing at restaurants, or the few hours between night and dawn when the bars were all emptied. But tonight, he'd picked a restaurant's dumpster.

It was easy enough, at times like this, he figured everybody was eating at the bars, and the restaurants would be empty if not closing for the night. And his status as a local legend kind of kept people from poking around the trash in the dark when they heard the noise. He dropped from from the side of the building and landed quite silently on the pavement. The dumpster here reeked, an odor that would knock a normal person flat on their butt.

But to Sylar's nose, it was a whole different story. He could smell how rotten something was, where just trash was, as opposed to food items. He stood up form his crouched position, and looked down into the dumpster. This wasn't entirely true though, Sylar was blind basically, instead he could see the few weak bits of heat in the trash, gathered during the day and held in there by bags packed too tightly together. He grabbed a few bags and pulled them out, dropping them to the ground and tearing them apart. Like a raccoon, he picked through them, gathering what edible food he could find and tossing everything else in a pile.

Chunks of meat, chicken or steak were the best, but he could also find appetizer items, fried food was great too, even if it'd been in there for hours, it'd be fine to eat. The taste would be awful, but that didn't matter to an animal. All he needed was a full stomach. The sounds he made as he dug in and tore apart trash bags would be easily heard outside the alley. But the question was, when the town knew about the late night Predator, who'd be foolish enough to disturb him while he ate?

Funny how some thick scales could give someone confidence. In a city where it wasn't usually advised to walk home alone, the visible mutant who, to friends and co-workers, went by 'Drake' after her dragon-like appearance, often made a habit of it. Sure, she had a motorcycle, the big black beast she called The Manticore, but she broke it out when she needed some fun and little else. Fuel was pricy enough that she was willing to take the bus or walk to save a few bucks.

It helped that she was a good five foot ten and her lustrous bronze scales covered thick muscle. Muscle no part of her mutation had given her, but that she'd worked to earn. Drake, birth name Kiva Aguillard, considered herself one tough woman.

Today, she'd been out to eat at one of her favourite little restaurants. She tended to go late when they weren't many people, and there was a waiter there who always served her, likely because he was the only one not unsettled by her presence. Sometimes she wondered if he was a mutant himself, or if he was simply just that great a guy, but she'd never asked. With a bit of her steak boxed up for later--likely to end up shared with her cat--she was strolling down the sidewalk with the intention of going home.

Instead...she heard something. She paused and tilted her head slightly as she drew near an alley. Her senses were well within the human range, her mutations all being external changes to her body, but she could still hear the ripping sound perfectly clearly. Despite herself, it piqued her curiosity a little.

Curiosity killed the cat, she told herself faintly, but whatever portion of her mind it was that had spoken up was silenced in the wake of the sound of Kiva's thick boots on pavement as she walked toward the alley the noises were coming from. Had she heard of the Predator? Of course. She didn't read those stupid tabloids, but some things trickled down to where she would hear it...

...But it was harder to be afraid of monsters when you were one.

She looked down the alley, but it was too dark to see much. She subconsciously tugged a little on her coat, sitting open to show her shirt while it simultaneously hid her wings. Wings that were starting to feel a little uncomfortable, but exposing the comparatively vulnerable, and entirely useless, limbs was likely a poor idea right now.

A rumbling sound escaped her, sounding not so much like a growl as like an attempt at clearing her throat, only at a very deep pitch. Her voice was equally baritone, downright androgynous, as she mentally searched for something to say and finally settled on a simple, "Hello, there."

Now to see if 'hello there' is an offense that's responded to by attempting to rip faces off, piped up that same voice of semi-reason, but she'd already spoken and there was no taking it back now.

Sylar had some success, a few bits of meat, fatty, but good enough for him. A few bits of veggie were still edible, but the beef and chicken bits he could find were the best. He'd reek of garbage, and his breath could probably kill a skunk, but all that mattered was the calm feeling of a full stomach. His attention focused on eating, he'd ignored his other senses a bit, mostly hearing. But a sound caught his ears, a sound that was made by a person. In the moment she spoke her simple utterance, he reacted like a frightened dog.

With a blur of movement, he slipped to the side of the dumpster, using it to hide his shape, only part of his head, shoulder, and his tail showing. He hissed from the surprise, a terrible noise, only vaguely like a snake, and far more alien than any sound a person would usually make. His senses soaked in every bit of information like a sponge. A man? No, the voice was off, but not quite manly. An older woman? A teenager? It was hard to tell, but her form looked a bit more feminine than masculine, though even that was off. Was she in heavy clothing? It was like she was wearing some kind of suit all over her body, a weird outline to her thermal image.

His head peeked out a bit more, though this wasn't to get a better look at her, since Sylar couldn't really see anyways, now it was more a curiosity. "What do you want, go on, get out of here."His voice was guttural, and blunt, only the tinged of fear getting through. Sylar wanted her to leave, he'd been spotted, and as soon as she ran, or called for help, he'd bolt up the building, at least that's what his plan was.

He remained in the dark, doing his best to conceal himself, but the silhouette he cast only made it more obvious that he wasn't human. The tail swayed back and forth, a sign of anger, a habit Sylar had similar to cats. The glinting blade at the end though was a different story. He'd been getting sloppy recently, he realized that. But for now he had to react to the situation, how to get away from this person, whom might be on the other end of the spectrum, thinking this is the scene where the monster leaps from the dark and swallows you up.

Well, she hadn't been attacked, so so far, so good. The hissing noise made Kiva instinctively shift one of her feet behind her, not quite putting her weight on it yet, but the voice made her blink and peer at the head poking out from behind the dumpster. Then her gaze flicked to the movements of what she was almost positive was a tail.

A tail that looked like it was bladed. Not that sharp objects tended to bother the dragon-mutant much, but it was certainly something to note. The way it was swaying reminded her very much of an irritated cat, and it was with that thought in mind that she proceeded with...whatever it was she was trying to do. She really wasn't sure what at this point

"Hey, relax, pal," she said, her voice pitch shifting a little in the direction of feminine, though even her most natural speaking voice was fairly deep. "I'm not going to take...whatever you found digging through that..." She couldn't help but wrinkle her nose a little. The lack of an advanced sense of smell was something of a blessing right now.

Of course, that left the question of why this person--very clearly not of the baseline, non-mutated variety, but that wasn't as much of a factor to her as it would be to some--was digging through trash in the first place. The first answer that came to mind was both the most likely and the most depressing, and she very nearly growled at the thought. Instead, she glanced at the boxed-up food she was carrying and added, "Frankly, if you're hungry, I've got some leftovers I don't mind sharing."

Well, there it was. State the lack of ill intent, offer food, and hope for a positive response. If not, well, she tried, and hopefully got to walk away from this without a fight breaking out.

If Sylar had been a normal person, he might have laughed at the idea of her stating she wouldn't take his dumpster meal, but then a normal person didn't eat out of a dumpster to begin with. So really the entire thought was just silly. He wasn't afraid of losing his meal, but being caught, or having the police called. He remained anxious, the hissing noise growing quieter, but still echoing through the slim alleyway.

She didn't look like she was gonna run, or scream, but Sylar had better senses then most. The first time he met a mutant, she had no real fear or concern, this person however, was a different story. He could hear everything so clearly, it was nearly empathetic sometimes, but it meant one thing at this point in time. She wasn't entirely unafraid of him either. The thing a cornered animal wanted most was that knowledge. To know it wasn't an unwinnable fight, or an inescapable one.

And now she was offering food? Did somebody go around telling people Sylar was a dog now? The girl had offered him food too, and though it meant a better tasting meal, he couldn't get lax and become accustomed to this. An animal used to being fed was an animal easily captured. He wanted the food sure, but he really needed to get people spooked again so they'd stop coming near him.

"I'm not a dog you know." He said aggressively, but with no aggressive movement toward Kiva. "I'm a monster, a mutant, you should drop the food and run." He was attempting to intimidate her, not knowing she was a mutant as well, at least not entirely. He couldn't see her outer appearance, but he could tell her shape was a bit out of the ordinary for a person. And after meeting another mutant, he remembered that anyone could be one.

He slowly crawled a bit from behind the dumpster, preparing to bolt forward to snatch the food if he could, but the darkness of the alley against the poor light from where she was showed a slim, starved looking silhouette of a creature unlike any other.

Kiva didn't move as the threat was issued. Drop it and run? In his little dumpster diving dreams. This was hers, and if he was going to be a jackass it'd stay hers, even if she had to fight for it. Because he'd just gone and made her mad.

She planted her feet, narrowed her eyes, then clutched the food tightly in her claws and growled at the self-proclaimed 'monster.' It was a sound some humans were technically capable of, but that she doubted the majority ever saw the need to learn. She had learned; it rumbled from her chest as if she were some sort of hellbeast, the result of years of practice.

"No, you're not a dog. A dog would be smart enough not to pick a fight with me unless he wanted some claw marks," she snarled. "Unless you really think that blade on your tail's gonna get through my scales..."

She was ready to outright charge and ram him if he made any sudden movements her way, since, judging by that silhouette, she likely greatly out-weighed him. Even if there was a chance he was stronger--with other mutants she always considered that chance--plain old weight and momentum meant that she could probably knock him to the ground if she timed it right.

Sylar inwardly cursed, people were getting too nosy lately. If he couldn't keep his status as a monster, then everybody would be after him. He'd met a mutant like he wanted, but the last thing he needed was somebody spreading the rumors about him being approachable. He listened to her words, but his instincts responded before his brain did. She posed a question, so his body answered.

Dumpsters weren't the sturdiest things, but it would suffice. As her sentence finished, he stood up, showing that he was a short man, barely 5'8", and scrawny. But his tail pulled back and whipped forward in front of him where she could see. The blade punctured the metal with a loud noise, and then he pulled his tail back out. Bits of trash and what could only be described as dumpster juice trickled out from the hole.

"I don't want a fight, but more than that I won't want the attention." He told her bluntly, no anger in his voice. Sylar wasn't aware he could insult somebody, but then his brain caught up with him. Claw marks? Scales? So she was a mutant too.

His body tensed as hers did, Sylar was cornered, and could probably fight at his best with this scenario, but a Predator didn't fight, too much risk. A predator engaged when it would 100% win, and avoided pointless endeavors.

"I didn't realize you were a mutant too." He said, his voice more steady now, holding back his aggression. Perhaps he could get out of this situation without the fight, and if she was a mutant, he could probably get away without cops being called in as well.

Oh my. Okay, yeah, that would get through her hide. Holy crap, would that get through her hide. Did that mean she was going to back down? Well, it meant that she was going to keep that blade away from her vitals if at all possible, at least. Likely by going with her initial 'plan' of trying to smash him into the pavement and knock him out if it came to that.

When he said he hadn't realized she was a mutant, she couldn't help the surprise that flickered over her scaled features for a moment. That was not a situation she tended to be in. She relaxed her posture very slightly, though she was still eying him carefully. "Okay, you didn't realize. Fair enough."

She was continuing to clutch the food protectively, and she felt her wings starting twitch a little under her jacket; being so tense was making them all the more uncomfortable. "And getting in a scrap with another mutant wasn't on my to-do list for today, either." Her eyes flicked, just for a half-moment, to the boxed-up steak without moving her head.

The thought to just retract the offer of the food entirely and walk away came to mind. Even if her current posture implied it, she hadn't explicitly said she wouldn't give it to him at all. Still...The poor guy really did look like he could use it. The fact that he was a mutant, even more visible than her in all her bronze-scaled glory, didn't influence her as much as one could think, but it was a factor all the same. As much as she always said her and all other mutants were still human...

Making her decision, she relaxed her grip and gave the box a small, underhand toss, letting it land in the alley. "Just take it," she said bluntly, though she made no move to leave just yet. "...And, for the record, if I was going to compare you to anything, it'd be a cat. You move a little like one," she added. It was an odd thing to say, but something about that 'dog' comment had bothered her beyond the threat that had followed it.

Besides, she hadn't put a leash on her mouth yet. Why start now?

Sylar's posture did not relax at all, internally he felt that a fight had been avoided, but instincts didn't turn off. At least not until every sign was there for them to calm down, and he wasn't comfortable at all in this situation. He wondered what her mutation was, she had heat just like everybody else, but her outside, maybe her skin, was different.

"Then no trouble?" He asked, still unsure of the situation. At any point a scream could put him in trouble, and send him running, but maybe she didn't know that, or didn't think he'd run from cops. His tail began to sway back and forth again, not so much from irritation, but to remove any bits of trash left on it. The last thing Sylar needed was garbage stains on his tail.

However, before he could truly clean it, she offered the food and tossed it to him. His movement would probably put her on edge again, as Sylar dashed forward, covering the half distance between them like a person in fast forward. He grabbed up the box, and immediately retreated back to the dumpster, turning form her, showing about half his back to her and leaving his tail to show up more in the light.

It was segmented, and bony, almost skeletal, but obsidian black and glinted in the light. He attacked the food, literally attacked it. Seconds passed and the box was empty. It was steak, which he'd been eating the poor bits out of the garbage, this little take out box of meat was like gourmet cuisine in his mouth. The sweet taste of meat, with no bitterness of garbage or rot to taint it. He'd have shed a tear if he still could.

He dropped the box, and crouched down, turning back to look at her a bit. He began to clean his tail, though he didn't lick it, but instead rubbed the blade back and forth against his jeans, trying to rub off any remaining residue from his little show.

She said he was like a cat, and though it didn't show, Sylar smiled a bit. "Really? I like cats." He responded, his tone a little more friendly, or as friendly as a sewer dwelling mutant with no friends could sound. "Cats are hunters, so am I." He finished bluntly.

When the other mutant went racing for the food, Kiva jerked forward slightly, her mind still partly on the 'knock him to the ground' idea and reacting automatically, but she muzzled the impulse and rocked backward again into her previous position when he grabbed the box. Holy crap. The X-gene may not have been kind to him regarding looks, but it had clearly more than made up for it in ability.

When he turned his back to her, she relaxed. Even with that tail, him showing his back made her much more at ease. His haste in devouring the meat made her frown as she wondered how long it had been since he'd had real food. His reply to her 'cat' comment distracted her from letting her mind dive too deeply into that, and she gave a little smile.

"Yeah, I can tell," she said, in response to him being a hunter. "Like I said, it's in how you move." She shifted a little, just a little, further into the alley. She wasn't consciously thinking about it, but part of her was trying not to draw attention to herself; his mention of not wanting attention had sunk in a little, though his slight shift in tone to something friendlier encouraged her to not take off just yet. "I have a cat, so it's not hard to recognize."

She wasn't trying to flatter him. It was simple observation. Flattery would be pointing out how cool his armoured tail looked. If she could trade in her useless wings for one of those, she would in a second. Unfortunately, being a mutant didn't work like that. "Name's Kiva, by the way," she said, and she finally slipped her coat off. The small wings underneath slowly stretched out to their tiny, not-even-four-feet span and then relaxed. "But most folks call me Drake...since I look like a dragon."

Sylar wasn't surprised he gave off an animal like presence, he'd spent three years as one, so it'd not like he'd still be a person in actions. "Good steak." Was his comment about the food, no thanks, or questions about it, just that it was good. He turned to face her again, though he remained crouched down and relaxed alot more than at the start of their little meeting. "I can't keep cats, but I feed them sometimes." As he spoke, he finished up with his tail, having rubbed any trash into his jeans, he sniffed the blade a few times, which must have smelled quite foul especially to a more powerful nose like the one Sylar had.

He swayed back and forth a bit, his senses registering every bit of information he could pick up. As her wings unfurled, it finally cemented her status as a mutant in his mind. Sylar had never seen a dragon, but he'd spent many years when he was younger reading, and having things taught to him. A dragon was a big lizard, a scaly creature with claws, teeth, and wings. "Drake huh?" He questioned for a moment, Sylar had never taken to the names given to him by the general populace, but Kiva had. Perhaps she enjoyed the moniker, Sylar really didn't care so long as people kept away from him. "My name's Sylar. But I guess the locals call me the Predator." However, Sylar had always felt one name fit him best of all considering his appearance and lifestyle. "And I guess I look like the Boogeyman." He finished.

Sylar wasn't sure where to go from here, he'd found another chance to talk to a mutant, but would it go as well as last time? Kiva was like him though, everyone could tell she was a mutant, shouldn't she be as afraid as he was. "You...you aren't afraid to be in public looking like a mutant?" The question might be taken offensively, but Sylar didn't really care about being polite, or a better statement would be he didn't understand being polite anymore.

The lack of a word of thanks could have bothered her, but she decided not to let it, mostly because the fact that he fed cats could more than tip the scales in favour of liking him despite the earlier rockiness in their interaction. Besides, acknowledging the offering verbally could be taken as a thanks of sorts, indirectly. She nodded a little when he told her his names, all three of them. Frankly, the reason she embraced her moniker was because she'd given it to herself. Sure, it was a guy's name, but she liked it, and she'd never been one to worry about whether or not she seemed feminine.

The incredibly blunt question made her blink, and she shifted her posture, folding her wings slightly and leaning against the wall of the alley. Of course, she got those kinds of questions all the time, and whether it bothered her depended most often on who was asking. She decided she liked Sylar, and so answered honestly. "Afraid? Not really. Don't get me wrong, if I could hide it, I would. It would save me a lot of verbal abuse and staring. But I'm not afraid."

Was he afraid? The way he'd asked, she felt he had to be. That could explain a lot. Kiva was aware that she'd been lucky, compared to some visible mutants, but she'd never had it staring her in the face how lucky. She'd never gone to any of those special mutant places, never talked to anyone who had a reason to be afraid.

Sylar was a bit confused by her response, she was an obvious mutant like he was, shouldn't she be as afraid of normal people as him? He'd convinced himself of how the public was, so hearing her response kind of shook his mental image of normal people. "They don't scare you?" He asked, not specifying what he meant, but it was obvious he meant normal people. "Not even the cops chase you?" Sylar had never realized the biggest reason the police chased him was his suspicious behavior, and habit of robbing corner stores.

As blunt as Sylar was, she'd already picked up on his fear of normal people, and his speech would show that as well. Even just uttering the word normal made him slightly tense. "I met a mutant girl, she looked like everybody else. But not us, especially me." He sort of went into a monologue,lost in his own thoughts at the moment, losing his sense of awareness for a moment. "I'm terrified of normal people, always hiding in the dark. And yet you still walk with them, how'd you earn the respect without terrifying them?" For an animal, respect was mostly earned through power and fear, to think people could come to accept differences based on logic, or communication, was incomprehensible.

A loud bang in the distance brought Sylar back from his dip into his thoughts, quickly putting him on edge again. "Too much talking, Nevermind me." His anxiety was starting to get to him, staying in one place so long was like an alarm bell for his instincts, but he wouldn't flee just yet. Another mutant like himself was an opportunity he couldn't let go without knowing a few more things, information that could keep him alive in the future.

Kiva, for a while, just listened. An oddly maternal part of her personality wanted to hug the poor guy as he went on, but she very firmly muzzled it. He moved like an animal, and she was getting the idea that he thought like one as well. Humans were the only animals that considered an embrace a comforting thing, and she wasn't sure he'd even let her get that close in the first place. A sound in the distance made one of her wings twitch slightly, but she didn't react much. She wasn't worried, not right now anyway.

"S'okay," she said quietly, when he said he was talking too much. She frowned as she tried to figure out what to answer first, and how to explain. "The thing is, Sylar, under the law, we're still human. Even if we don't look like it anymore. I'm not saying there aren't individual cops who hate mutants or mutants never get hurt by the police...but, as a whole, they're not against us."

She sighed softly. She wished she could have put that in more optimistic terms, but it was true. That web video of that poor mutant girl haunted her some. Claws, wings, and inhuman skin...just like Kiva. She pushed the images aside. "As for respect...I have two approaches, and I only use the second if I have to. The first is to..." She grasped a little for the right way to put it. "Well...people are more accepting of the mutants who still look like them for a reason. It's human instinct. I try to appeal to some of the same instincts by walking with them, treating them like they'd expect anyone else to."

That didn't mean it was easy, but she felt she didn't need to tell him that. The existence of approach number two was proof enough of that. "The other is for the ones who will always treat me like a monster, no matter what. In that case...yeah, I scare them. I make it clear that if they want to fight me, it will end badly for them." A little like they'd been doing to each other earlier, her with her snarling and bravado and him with his little display with his tail.

How long had he been hiding in the dark like this, she wondered? She eyed the other mutant as she asked, "Have you...always been like this? Or did you change, like I did?" The words spilled from her before she could stop them, but, to be honest, she didn't really try. It wasn't any more direct than the questions he'd been asking her.

Her words may have made sense to her, but to Sylar, his opinion of society had been decided long ago, even before he went underground. He understood fear, but to try and emulate normal people again, somehow it made him angry. He put his right hand before his face, it was encased with exoskeletal plating, smooth obsidian, with pockets showing the hardened skin beneath. He clinched his hand, showing off his claws. "I stopped being human years ago, I don't think laws mean much to me now." He said bluntly, though Sylar had never crossed any major lines, he had been a notorious burglar for awhile now.

Her questions touched no nerves, Sylar never showed any anger or surprise, but spoke almost like an observer, somebody who wouldn't care what happened. "No, I was normal enough outside from being blind. I started to change about 3 years ago. First the hands, and then more of my body with time." He felt oddly at peace talking to Kiva though, she wasn't so kind as Serena had been, but they both had been dealt a similar hand by fate. Both mutants, both monsters unable to hide it. "I figure I'll keep changing till my entire body is monstrous." And at the rate of his body's morphing, it'd probably only take another few years before Sylar was entirely inhuman.

"I spent alot of my life being normal, trying to be like everybody else, to fit in." He began to remember his life before his first change, his life as the blind kid nobody liked. "But I was never normal enough, I was born different, blind, so nobody ever really accepted me." He hadn't ever told this story before, but it didn't bother him, he simply stated facts. "Being blind was enough to segregate me, so the mutation just cemented that I was different." He couldn't see what his own hand actually looked like, only the heat from his body, and the cooled encasing of his armor around that heat. But he knew how different it was from a normal hand.