Heroes: Ability Replication

Ability replication is the ability to absorb the abilities of other evolved humans through physical contact. The ability donor neither loses their ability, nor feels anything when their abilities are replicated.

Characters

 * Peter Petrelli was granted this ability synthetically.
 * Draph acquired this ability from an unknown source.

Peter Petrelli
By injecting himself with the genetic modification formula, Peter acquired an ability which allows him to replicate the abilities of other evolved humans by physically touching them. He first demonstrated the ability when he grabbed and flew his brother Nathan from the burning Pinehearst facility. He has mimicked Mohinder Suresh's enhanced strength by touching him on the Flight 195 aircraft. He later did the same thing with Tracy Strauss. Soon thereafter, he suddenly manifested her ability, causing the side of the plane to freeze of, taking down the plane.

His ability has been shown to work through clothing (as with Nathan's shirt and Matt's jacket).

Peter has been shown to manifest abilities by accident (as with Tracy and Emma) and with intent (as with Mohinder).

Peter can replicate an ability more than once, as shown by the fact that he's replicated flight six times, thrice from Nathan, twice from Sylar and once from West Rosen. This was also proven by how he replicated Mohinder's enhanced strength twice and Matt Parkman's telepathy twice. He only needs to touch the person each time if he has replicated another ability in between uses.

Peter can currently only hold one ability at a time, losing access to his previous ability once he absorbs a new one. He also appears to know the limitations of his ability. He has been shown to replicate abilities with ease and in an extremely short aount of time, as shown when he quickly absorbed Nathan's flight and flew off within seconds and when he took Hiro Nakamura's space-time manipulation and teleported a short time after to Washington, DC, although his teleportation was a little off due to being out of pratice, through he seemed to quickly fix that problem. Also, when Peter replicated telepathy from Matt, both times he showed more advanced control over it than when he initialy had it with his old powers: he is able to use it as a form of persuasion the first time and the second time use it to enter Sylar's mind in an attempt to free him. While Peter had displayd the persuasion part of the power once after Matt tried to use it on him when he initialy had it before his father stole his powers, Peter never displayed the ability to enter others' minds before.

This ability seems to be dependent on his hands, and he seems to be able to take only one ability at a time even with someone with multiple abilities like Sylar. Peter has repiated shape shifting and flight from Sylar on separate occasions, but discarded them both without showing signs of other replicated abilities. However, by the time Peter replicated flight, he could control which ability he took from Sylar.

Peter has learned to control his ability since A Clear and Present Danger, as he chose not to replicate telepathy from Matt when he saved him from Danko's team as that would result in flight being lost. It has been said that "Peter's gotten better at his touch. He can now pick and choose who he gets it from. It just took some time and effort to get it under control." He also demonstrated this when he flew Angela multiple times and didn't replicate her ability.

He later replicates telepathy in order to have two telepaths enter Building 26, but noticeably loses flight. When he falls off the building, the only reason he survives is because Nathan flies in and saves him and he later takes flight as his power again by hugging Nathan. He held onto that power for some time as it seemed to be his preferred one as a fugitive. He later used shape shifting and posed as the President in order to capture Sylar. It's unknown if Peter replicated all of Sylar's abilities, or just shape shifting, but it seems likely that it was the only one he got as he discarded it.

At some point between An Invisible Thread and Orientation, Peter replicates enhanced strength from Mohinder Suresh again and used it to save lives. He showed great control over it, using it to increase his jumping distance and rip off the door of a truck to rescue captured people.

In Jump, Push, Fall, Peter replicates super speed from a man named Edgar and displays considerable control over the power immediately. He shows enough control to speed-battle Edgar and win, which is something he was unable to do with Future Daphne the last tim ehe had it. He reveals the only reason he helped Noah was because he wanted that power in order to help save more lives. He is able to run to Boston and back with food that's still warm when he partner eats it. He is also able to run across New York City in seconds to reach a call which turns out to be a badly injured Noah Bennet.

Later, when Peter rescued Emma from an oncoming bus, he accidentally replicated her ability. It happened when he saved her or when he kept grabbing her to gain her attention, but like with Trayc, he didn't do it on purpose. Peter later used it to play a song on a piano with Emma.

When Peter decided to look for a healer for Hiro, he replicated space-time manipulation in order to get where he needed to go quickly. Peter was then able to teleport to Noah's apartment, but sinche hadn't teleported in a while, Peter ended up in the bathroom by mistake. He was then able to teleport himself and Noah to Georgia to find Jeremy Greer, teleporting without any problems this time and ending up right in front of Jeremy's house while only using the address to guide him. Peter was also able to teleport directly in between Noah and Jeremy, displaying precise control of the teleportation aspect and was able to stop time when a startled Jeremy shot at him. Unfortunately he was hitanyway (he was at point-blank range), but it broke his concentration causing time to resume and allowing Jeremy to heal him. Later, Peter takes Jeremy's abiity, losing space-time manipulation, and thus his ability to teleport, forcing him to return home via plane.

Peter begins using his new ability in his job as a paramedic, however, while he is able to put it to good use, using it so much exhausts him, especially after using it to mostly heal serious injuries caused by a train crash. He apparently doesn't heal them all the way, probably to avoid suspicion, but he heals the most serious injuries, such as one man's paralysis (while not healing a minor head wound) and most of the man's burns, which stabilizes his very unstable condition. He is also later able to heal Matt of his gunshot wounds, saving his life and later replicates flight fro mSylar (who is posed as Nathan) to keep up with him in case he runs. Sylar (as Nathan) flies away to Peter's apartment and Peter uses flight to follow him there.

In order to chase down Sylar, Peter replicates mental manipulation from Rene in order to face him. He fights Sylar who catches him off guard at first by shape shifting into Nurse Hammer, but Peter catches him by surprise by using mental manipulation to block Sylar's powers as he didn't expect that, allowing Peter to beat him in a physical fight. He pins Sylar to the table with a nail gun and uses the power to help Nathan regain control over Sylar's body. However, Nathan can't hold control forever and after saying his goobyes, throws himself off a roof and turns back into Sylar as he fals. Sylar regenerates as he's far enough from Peter not to be blocked and leaves. Peter later displays the rendering unconscious part of this ability which he uses to render unconscious a police officer and likely a gunman. He also inadvertently blocks Claire when she cuts herself and offers to "shut off" mental manipulation so she can heal, but Claire has him keep blocking her so she can actually feel pain and be injured (albeit a minor cut) for the first time in a long time.

After being shot, Peter convinces Claire to let him take her ability and she finally does. Afterward, he regenerates from his gunshot wound and initially decides to keep the ability, but later has Claire call West Rosen over and Peter replicates flight again from West and later flies off the roof of his apartment.

After learning of Angela's dream where Emma is responsible for the deaths of thousands of people and Peter can't help her but someone she won't identify can, Peter replicates precognitive dreaming from her, discarding flight in the process in order to see what she means for himself. Later that night, Peter has a dream in which Emma is sitting in the Carnival's House of Mirrors playing her cello while crying and clearly upset with people screaming in the background. Sylar suddenly arrives and offers his help, which causes Emma to smile as the dream ends. As a result of this dream, Peter destroys Emma's cello in an attempt to change the future. Peter later has a similar dream, which causes him to seek out Sylar to save Emma. This dream shows people running from the effects of what Emma is doing and it also shows Eric Doyle in close proximity to Emma, controlling her actions. This results fro mthe changes Peter made when he got the first dream: due to his warning, Emma no longer willingly goes along with Samuel's plans and is thus controlled as shown in the second dream while this wasn't shown in the first.

Peter visits Matt Parkamn as he learns from his mother that Sylar is at Matt's home. Once there, Peter shakes hands with Matt and replicates telepathy again from him, discarding precognitive dreaming in the process. Peter immediately reads Matt's mind, a feat he is able to do as Matt isn't aware of his actions and thus doesn't block him, and learns that Sylar is at the house. After learning that Sylar has been trapped in his own nightmare, Peter goes to Sylar's prison in Matt's basement and, against Matt's pleas and warnings that he might get trapped in Sylar's mind too, uses telepathy to enter Sylar's mind to try and free him from the nightmare. In Sylar's mind, Peter finds him and eventually convinces him of the truth before trying to pull them out, but is unable to succeed. After a month trapped in Sylar's nightmare, the two find a wall that's exactly the same as the one in Matt's basement and realize they have to break through it to free themselves. Peter spends a long time trying to break through by himself, but the wall proves impenetrable and Sylar eventually joins him. Despite their best efforts for years, the two fail to break through until Peter finally accepts that Sylar has changed. When this happens, the wall immediately crumbles under the sledgehammer blows and Peter and Sylar finally free themselves from the nightmare. Once free, the two learn that while it seemed they were trapped in Sylar's mind for years, it was only half a day at most in reality. Later, Peter is able to use telepathy to read an unconscious Eli's mind and learn Samuel's plans to kill thousands of people in Central Park.

Peter later replicates flight again from Sylar and uses it to tackle Samuel after which he replicates terrakinesis from Samuel in order to battle him. Peter and Samuel hold a terrakinetic battle in which Peter holds his own against Samuel until Hiro teleports the carnies away, stripping Samuel of all of his extra power. Before that happens, the two are evenly matched and fight to a draw. Peter also displayed the extra power Samuel had when surrounded by people with abiities when battling Samuel and loses that extra power too.

Draph
Draph used several of his abilities acquired through ability replication to protect the Davis brothers and Chris. In that fight, Draph demonstrated telekinesis, telepathy, and phoenix mimicry. However, Draph did not demonstrate his ability replication itself during the brawl. Interestingly, Draph's type of ability replication seems to be different from Peter's. While Peter can hold on to only one ability at a time, Draph had demonstrated using three different abilities in chapter 6 of Slow Burn.

Abilities Used

 * Peter is known to have manifested the following abilities:
 * Flight from Nathan Petrelli, Sylar and West Rosen
 * Enhanced strength from Mohinder Suresh
 * Freezing from Tracy Strauss
 * Telepathy from Matt Parkman
 * Shape shifting from Sylar
 * Super speed from Edgar
 * Enhanced synesthesia from Emma Coolidge
 * Space-time manipulation from Hiro Nakamura
 * Healing touch from Jeremy Greer
 * Mental manipulation from Rene
 * Rapid cell regeneration from Claire Bennet
 * Precognitive dreaming from Angela Petrelli
 * Terrakinesis from Samuel Sullivan

Current Ability

 * Peter's current replicated ability is terrakinesis from Samuel Sullivan.

Draph

 * Draph has currently displayed the replicated abilities of telepathy, telekinesis, and phoenix mimicry.