Sylar had been known by a few names in his three years as a mutant. People called him a monster, or a beast. But his more famous names were those coined by the tabloids, they called him the Scourge of Manhattan, and others called him the Predator in the dark. Tonight Sylar was living up to that name, tonight he was stalking in the park. Sylar sometimes ducked into parks at night to hunt, alot of the time all he could find was a squirrel or two, and sometimes rabbits. But today Sylar was quite happy about his luck. Because he picked up a scent that was fairly rare in New York. He smelled a Deer.

Sylar crept along, making not a sound as his mutated form moved through the park grounds, keeping to bushes or trees when he could. This was a chance he couldn't throw away or mess up, so his mind had dropped fully into his instincts, suppressing almost all normal thought in favor of his animal side. His tail was low, almost slithering along the ground behind him as he came closer. He could see the animals heat faintly in the distance, and he stopped for a moment to plan his attack. He'd have to accelerate fast, close the distance before the deer had a chance to build it's own speed. He could outrun the animal, but the less work he did, meant the more energy had for leaving the park after the kill.

He took a deep quiet breath, his senses focused on the doe before him. She was in an open space, close to a park path, grazing on the grass there. Sylar preferred the cityscape to be honest, his ability to climb one of his better skills, but on an open run like this, he could sprint faster than any normal person could hope to. His form was obscured behind a bush as he prepared his rush. He felt the stillness in the air, the doe's head rising up, perhaps having some inkling of danger in the dark. Sylar sprung, his claws hitting the dirt hard enough to tear chunks of grass and earth apart, his body moving like a big cat. The deer turned and began to run, but Sylar had a better start, more traction, he closed the distance within 20 seconds, leaping into the creature and knocking it down onto the path.

The deer let out a distressed cry, kicking its legs and struggling with all it's might. But in a brutal display of power, Sylar ended the fight. He had bitten the doe's throat as he tackled her, and now he applied force, sinking his mutant jaws into the creatures throat, while his tail rose up like a scorpions. It hung for a moment, before coming down, the knife like blade piercing the animal's body and ending it's life. Sylar felt the life drain from the deer, a brutal display of predation, but he felt no pity, no guilt. Part of Sylar wondered if he should be bothered when killing an animal only brought him satisfaction.

However during the display he'd allowed himself to grow lax in awareness of his surroundings. He heard something, footsteps maybe? Whatever it was, he quickly pulled up from the deer's body, staring into the distance. His hood had caught too much air as he ran, and came off, revealing his dirty mane of red hair, monstrous eyes, and a mouth colored in fresh blood.

Amber stretched her long neck, licking the last of the blood off of her pointed teeth. She preferred to hunt further from the city and, when in deinonychus form, usually preferred larger prey but neither of these things were always possible. Thus, she contented herself with rabbits for the time being and it was nothing more than a small pile of bones that remained in front of her. Rabbits couldn't easily hide from her exceptional hearing or sense of smell.

Having eaten her fill, Amber went in search of her hidden stash of robes in order to return home to Sanctuary. It was always with some regret that she returned to human form; it was so much weaker than her deinonychus or, for that matter, any of her other forms. Even more telling, however, was the fact that the world was so much duller to her eyes and muffled to her ears. Humans couldn't understand just how limited their senses were because they had nothing to compare them too. She understood and with that understanding, cherished the time she wasn't hampered by them.

It wasn't until Amber found herself virtually on top of her pile of discarded robes that she heard the cry of the deer and the tell tale sound of its neck breaking. She knew from first hand experience what those things sounded like and there was no disputing what she heard now. Her head swiveled around in an attempt to catch a glimpse of who or what had killed the deer and she silently cursed the darkness of the night. Her form was a daytime hunter and while the lights of the city helped enormously, here they were dimmer and her vision struggled. She could see its outline, however, and by that outline she knew it could be nothing but a mutant. Surely no natural animal had a form like that?

Amber stood frozen in place, watching the strange mutant creature and waiting for it to react. As much as she'd like to think of all mutants as kin she knew it simply wasn't true and some mutants were highly dangerous. She could take care of herself if need be, of course, but only if she remained in present form and so she would until such a time as it was proven to be safe to shift.

Sylar panned his vision, seeking any signatures large enough to register as a threat. He'd heard Amber steps, light enough to concern him, but also light enough to make it hard to find her. His tail swished back and forth behind him, nervous, but not yet scared enough to fight. Her zombified form meant Amber didn't have a heat signature, at least not one warm enough to register as living. Sylar couldn't see her, at least he couldn't quite distinguish her from the environment. But death had a very pungent smell for predators. He could smell the scent of a creature deceased, and not that of his freshly slaughtered dinner. He felt confused, unsure of what exactly had spooked him. He hissed, a hideous noise unique to Sylar, a high pitched monstrous noise meant to threaten anything that could hear it.

He remained alert, but his hands went to work on his meal, his finger's like a butcher's knife cleaved into the deer carcass, carving up steak sized chunks of muscle. He'd eat as much as he could here, there weren't any refrigerator's in his sewer lairs, so he couldn't keep fresh meat. And while normal people would vomit at the thought of consuming raw fresh meat, Sylar wasn't normal anymore, his predatory instincts adored the taste, and he'd eagerly enjoy a meal so rare. He spoke to himself, his voice soft but satisfied. "A lucky break for me, normally it's just rabbits out here."

He tore into a chunk of meat he'd cut off, causing the stench of the deer's death to stain the air around him. He'd been acting so "normal" lately with his various mutant encounters, this time giving into his predator kind of felt natural and healthy for him. Amber's form and stillness had essentially made her invisible to Sylar for the moment, though if she shifted, she'd very quickly get attention from the sewer dwelling monster.

Amber watched the large predator in front of her, her eyes catching the nervous movement of his tail. She knew enough about wild predators to know what that meant and common sense spoke of caution on her part. Through hard research and forced action she had learned the tells of a predator and had learned how to survive as one but instincts were something she had only faint echoes of. Her mind, always, was her own but when it came to feral mutants there was no telling just how feral there minds were. She was, it seemed, something of an exception.

"A lucky break for me, normally it's just rabbits out here."

So, not so feral that speech was beyond him. That was a good sign. Probably. Still, Amber wasn't quite certain she felt comfortable shifting forms just yet. As a deinonychus she could defend herself and, failing that, was fleet of foot enough to flee to safety. Human and she was a sitting duck, defenseless and weak.

Not for the first time Amber wished speech was possible while shifted. She announced her presence with a trilling chirp before taking a step closer, careful not to make any sudden moves. The smell of blood and death was pungent in the air confirming what she all ready knew: she wasn't the only one out hunting this night.

Sylar struggled with his humanity versus his inner predator, something few in the world could relate too, but when he had food, that was when the beast was sated and he was at his most human. He was still defensive and skittish, but it was these times when he was easiest to interact with. His teeth tore up his meal with no effort, his belly filling with fresh venison. He wasn't however, too distracted to pay attention to his surroundings. Amber called out, both with a vocal chirp, and a step onto the ground. The earth in the park was soft, and most people couldn't hear a thing. But Sylar could pick up the faintest of pressures, the displacement of grass as flesh took it's place.

His head shot up straight towards where the sounds had come from, his senses burning a hole into that spot. He hissed again, an alien noise like the mixture of a cat and a viper, a threat to keep away. However, this time he followed that with words, his voice hard and combative. "I hear you out there!" He bellowed, Amber's temperature in an undead form was too low to properly distinguish. He could catch bits of movement in the swathe of gray that made up the world for him, but in the park even this was nearly impossible to figure out with the natural ambient temperature. "This is my kill, I won't let you take it!" Sylar wasn't sure what Amber was, but his first thought was a thief, or scavenger after his meal.

Sylar turned his head left and right, panning the area to make sure wasn't looking for something hiding before turning back to where Amber's call had originated. "You some kind of Mutie?" He asked, agitation still present in his voice. Sylar realized if it was a mutant, some kind of invisible one, he could probably scare them off. But if he was dealing with some other animal, he'd feel pretty stupid right now barking in the dark.

"I hear you out there!This is my kill, I won't let you take it!"

Amber nodded her long neck in agreement and stopped where she was. She was closer now, close enough to get a better idea what he looked liked but she wasn't about to interfere with his feast. For the moment she was sated on the rabbit so recently consumed, but even if she weren't she knew better than to try and steal what wasn't hers; at least not if she wanted to avoid a fight.

Whoever the mutant hunter was, he appeared to be a marvel. Where Amber was a natural creature, or at least a mimic of a natural creature, the other was something entirely different. Amber might be adapted to hold her own in a fight, with deadly claws and teeth and a thick reptilian hide, this stranger took physical adaptation so much farther than she could dream of.

"You some kind of Mutie?"

Amber nodded and chirped her affirmation. Maybe it was time for her to shift back after all. Taking a few steps back to where her robes lay, she triggered her shift and felt her bones crack and reshape themselves. It was an excruciating but thankfully quick process and, she knew, highly disturbing to watch. Once human again, she calmly put her robes back on, not caring for a moment whose eyes might be upon her. Modesty was a useless human trapping she had decided to entirely discard. Once clothed, she turned to face the hunter before her.

Sylar didn't drop his guard, however he did continue to eat a bit during this odd interaction between dinosaur and monster. A normal person might see eating during conversation as rude, but Sylar wasn't a person, and Amber wasn't talking, so could manners really apply to the situation at hand? Sylar didn't think so, though he rarely cared about manners at all. His tail gleamed in the moonlight, a weapon carved from obsidian, whose purpose was clearly violent. The blade was curved, but not bulbous like a scorpion's. It was more like a sword, sleek and beautiful.

Amber's chirps were more than enough to converse with Sylar. He was an animal himself, and most animals could only communicate with noise, words were a nicety of human society, and Sylar could get by without them for long stretches of time if need be. However, Amber's shift meant they could exchange "pleasantries" soon enough. Sylar's senses became glued to her form, his ears picking up on bones breaking, and muscles tearing, a form shifting. His eyes began to pick up heat as her form returned to the world of the living. A slender form, a form Sylar could easily discern. A woman's body. Sylar apparently had a knack for bumping into girl mutants as of late. A boon for some, but to Sylar it didn't mean much, he wasn't that much of a romantic or womanizer.

Sylar could see her signature, and determine her form, but he couldn't truly appreciate a nude body. His eyes were unable to see such details, leaving him rather unimpressed or concerned as she donned her attire. "So you are a mutant. What's a girl doing out here so late." He said moving forward a bit from his meal and sitting on his heels. His nose wrinkled, sniffing the air around him, zoning in on Amber's own scent. "You hunt too?" He wasn't sure what she shifted into, but it might make sense of her to be out here if that was her purpose.

Had Amber been other than she was, she might have found the mutant's continued eating of his feast off putting or even disturbing. It was, after all, raw freshly killed meat and there were certain aspects of general politeness that were expected in human society. She was not, however, human nor did she find such a feast to be distressing in the least. Had the night gone just a little bit differently it might have been her feasting on deer rather than the mere rabbit she had managed to catch for herself.

Amber waited patiently for the curious mutant to finish his meal, watching all the while. A lack of caring for human politeness went both ways and the creature before her fascinated her. She watched, taking into her mind the way he moved; a natural born predator in every sense that she could see. To hunt and to kill was something he was plainly made for.

"So you are a mutant. What's a girl doing out here so late. You hunt too?"

"I'm a mutant," Amber agreed. The answer was just as obvious in her as it was in the stranger, but it had been more of a statement than a question anyway. She smiled faintly at the second question. "I hunt. Its important to balance one's human side with one's predator side and the predator needs to hunt." Plus, she happened to enjoy warm raw meat, at least when she was in a position to properly digest it.

Sylar picked and prodded his meal as he finished the better parts. He couldn't be too picky considering his life style, but he wasn't quite animal enough to gorge himself on organs just yet. He was entirely focused on Amber now, his hunger sated for the night. He sat on his heels, and began cleaning his claws, a process involving various motions, and a bit of licking to prevent blood from drying into them. His clothing was already a mess and would have to be ditched, but he didn't quite feel the need to leave the scene just yet.

A mutant girl, hunting in the park who changed into something else. He wondered how he'd never run into her before, but it was probably due to his own overwhelming talent for going unnoticed most of the time. His tail swayed back and forth a bit, his form somewhat reminiscent of a cat being idle. Sylar didn't make any kind of noise, or physical response to her statement. But he didn't really believe in balance either. "Balance? That's nonsense. The more you give in, the more the predator takes over." Sylar felt like his entire mutation was a monster, feasting on him, slowly taking over his body. He was still human, but for how much longer he didn't know.

"Not all of us can pass for normal and enjoy the human world." He flicked his claws a bit, bits of blood spraying off with the momentum of the movement. "It must be nice to choose when to be a mutant and when to be normal." His words may have come off as bitter or confrontational, but the tone of his voice was the exact opposite. It was mostly calm, and steady, no hints of anger or frustration, just a matter of fact monologue aimed at Amber in response to her statement.

Amber didn't mind the mutant cleaning its claws. Cleanliness, especially after a bloody feast, was something she could appreciate. As a shifter it was important and as someone who was limited to one form always she assumed it would be even more so.

"I don't know about the predator taking over," Amber answered with a shrug. The words held a disturbing hint to them if only because the idea was so foreign to her own psyche. Once again they hinted at instincts mysteriously lacking even despite being at home in the body of a predator. "Sometimes the human world gets overwhelming and the only way to deal with that is go enter the body of the beast. There's something simple about hunting for survival." Not to mention something deeply satisfying about the kill.

"Not all of us can pass for human," Amber answered, just a hint of bitterness in her voice. She forgave his assumption given the dark night sky limiting the view of her black eyes. "Maybe I look more human than you, but you need to be perfect to pass." Not to mention the fact that he probably had no problem going out during the daylight, unlike her.

With most of the blood flung from his claws, Sylar bent forward and ran the blades of his fingers slowly against his tongue, cleaning the last bits of viscera residue from them. Though his body was active in it's maintenance, his mind never strayed from the strange girl before him. Sylar had a bit of experience with mutants now, but he still found it strange to meet people not intimidated by his form or predatory nature.

Sylar was always at war with the Predator inside, depending on his instincts to survive, but afraid to give into them fully for fear of how dark his inner beast could truly be. Sylar wondered how the stress of trying to mingle with the normal world must feel, but his own lifestyle was stressful enough. "I don't mingle with the human world very often. My form is too alien for the normal people." Sometimes he wondered if he felt a bit of jealousy for those who could pass for normal, but he still preferred his safe and hidden lifestyle to trying to force his way into the light. "It sounds like you spend time as a bridge between my world and theirs. Human, but hunter as well." He inched a bit closer, his form looking like he was staring at her, though his eyes could never discern more detail of her form no matter how hard he squinted or stared.

He could hear her bitterness at his comment, perhaps she had a feature he couldn't see. "Are you not perfect?" He asked, a serious question with no hint of sarcasm or insult. Sylar never though to inform people he was blind, a feature that greatly altered how he perceived people in his life. "Your shape looks normal, you got some mutie feature?" Sylar bluntly asked the girl, no caution or tact in his voice as he inquired about what could be a sensitive subject.

Were Amber entirely human or a mutant not touched by the life of a predator, she might have been far more disturbed as the mutant licked his claws clean. As it was, cleanliness was something she appreciated and she could hardly judge given the number of times she had engaged in similar actions.

"I suppose I am a bridge between worlds," Amber agreed after a moment's thought. It wasn't quite the way she thought about it but, perhaps given the other mutant's words it made sense. "There are parts of both worlds I appreciate. I've...lost my human self before and it was a frightening experience. I have to work hard not to do so again." It was a difficult subject to talk about and not one she often mentioned. Why she was mentioning it now she wasn't certain, except that something told her the man before her mind have some small amount of understanding.

"Your shape looks normal, you got some mutie feature?"

Amber started slightly at the question and tilted her head inquisitively to the side. "You can't see them? My eyes?" While it was still very dark out, he was closer now and she felt reasonably certain he should catch some hint of their unusual nature. "My eyes aren't human. Neither is my skin, really, although that's not one people usually notice. Sunlight burns me." Perhaps her problems with daylight paled in comparison to his deformities but it was never the less something she continued to struggle with.

Sylar wanted to be disgusted as he felt the crimson fluid mesh with his taste buds, but it'd been so long since he was a regular person, that this had been replaced by the morbid enjoyment of the iron flavor on his pallet. The predator in him craved the taste, and each time he partook he wondered if he was consuming some portion of his remaining humanity as well. His weapons clean, he sat his arms to rest upon his knees as he crouched on his heels.

To Sylar, Amber was the mixture of the world he lived in once, and the one he lived in now. He couldn't embrace them both like she could, at least not as he was now. "I lose part of mine every day." Sylar said with a somber melancholy. It was a fact that his humanity and instincts struggled against one another, and the instincts won a little more ground each time he hunted. "Hold onto it tightly." He warned her, Sylar was envious that she claimed to be able to subdue her beast, while he could feel his submission of his growing fainter.

Sylar often forgot people couldn't tell a person was blind when they moved like they could see, and didn't have the obvious signs of white eyes, or a cane. He felt a slight curl on his lips, a smirk at his own social ineptitude. "Sorry, I forgot." He reached up and pointed toward his own eyes. They were inhuman, but similar somewhat towards her own. "I'm blind, was born that way." Though Sylar had evolved past that weakness. "I can't see you, but I can see something else. The body heat you give off paints a beautifully normal image for my eyes." He figured she'd understand what he meant from his words, but if she didn't he could just explain that he saw the world as blooms of heat, and wells of gray. A vision unlike any other creatures save predatory snakes and the like.

"Must not be as obvious as my own condition though. If you can move around with the normals." He turned his head looking towards the city right outside this park. To most it was just a brisk walk, for Sylar it was like observing one world from another, a place where everything was different and you couldn't fit in.