Rapid cell regeneration

Rapid cell regeneration
Claire watches her toe grow back.
Originally held by:	Claire Bennet, Takezo Kensei
Absorbed by:	Peter Petrelli, Sylar (possible future)
Ability to:	Rapidly regenerate cells
Examples of rapid cell regeneration

Rapid cell regeneration is the ability to regenerate cells at an increased rate, resulting in physical injuries healing in a matter of seconds or minutes.

Characters

• Claire Bennet is the first character to demonstrate this ability.
• Takezo Kensei is the first character (chronologically) to demonstrate this ability. (Lizards)
• Peter Petrelli mimicked this power (Homecoming); it is the first he was able to access outside the original "owner's" presence. (Distractions)
• A future incarnation of Sylar kills Claire and obtains her ability in an alternate timeline. (Five Years Gone)

Limits

This ability does not move displaced parts of the body back into the correct location. After filming the videotape, Claire had to manually re-insert her displaced ribs before the flesh on her ribcage would heal (Genesis), and Peter Petrelli had to manually rotate his broken foot to the correct orientation before it would heal while he was mimicking Claire's power. (Homecoming)

Claire's regeneration will not work correctly if a foreign object obstructs the wound. This is especially true of foreign objects lodged in the brain. After Brody "killed" Claire, she did not begin to regenerate until the coroner removed the tree branch lodged in her brain. Peter experienced a similar situation with a piece of glass in the back of his head (.07%). This limitation is presumably related to the importance of the brain in the nature of evolved humans, as theorized by Chandra Suresh (One Giant Leap). A more graphic example of this is future Claire's presumed death at the hands of Sylar (Five Years Gone); when Sylar removes her brain after slicing her head open, she presumably dies afterwards. Despite this limitation, Claire's power can expel small objects (such as a bullet) lodged in her body as long as they are not disrupting her brain functions (Company Man).

Typically, Claire's blood does not return to its place in her body when an associated wound heals, although it can if the wound is small and her blood has not spread far from it (the only example being when her brother stapled her hand). She is consistently covered with blood following a serious injury; Mr. Muggles even ingested some.

As demonstrated for the first time in Lizards, Claire is able to regrow body parts that have been removed. She experimented with this for the first time by cutting off her little toe with a pair of scissors, then watching it grow back with much surprise. The limits of her ability to regrow amputated body parts are not known.

Claire certainly feels her injuries--she cried out from having a staple put into her hand and winced in pain at other times--but the pain does not incapacitate her in the way it would an ordinary person. Instead, Claire seems to feel relatively little pain from even severe injuries, such as third-degree burns and compound fractures. Because Claire hardly even winces when she undergoes such trauma as having her neck completely broken, the pain she appears to feel could in fact be only the pressure exerted on her body (or the shock, like when she is stapled by her brother).

Selected Examples

• Claire and Zach record a videotape of herself being seriously injured, and recovering from the injuries every time. (Genesis)
• Claire casually replaces her exposed ribs, and the wound heals instantly. (Genesis)
• Claire is accidentally tackled by a football player, snapping her neck. (Don't Look Back)
• Claire awakens on the autopsy table after a tree branch was removed from her brain, effectively having regenerated back to life. (One Giant Leap)
• Both Claire and Peter completely regenerate from injuries inflicted by Sylar. (Homecoming)
• Claire's hand accidentally crashes through a plate of glass and heals completely shortly thereafter. (Six Months Ago)
• Claire jumps off the platform at the abandoned refinery again; she heals on camera, and pushes her collarbone back in place. (Godsend)
• Claire demonstrates her abilities to her birth mother by slicing her arm with a butcher knife. (Distractions)
• Claire heals a gunshot wound, a small radiation burn on her neck, and massive radiation burns. She is able to approach and sedate Ted Sprague while exposed to radiation intense enough to set the walls and furniture on fire. (Company Man, Family Man)
• Takezo Kensei is killed by three arrows, one to the chest, but once the arrow is removed, the wounds begin to heal and Takezo comes back to life. (Lizards)
• Claire cuts off her toe, which then grows back, much to Claire's surprise. (Lizards)
• To get back on Debbie, Claire and West come up with a plan. A masked West scoups Claire up from the ground in front of Debbie's eyes, and then dropping her from mid-air causing several injuries to Claire. After regenerating without Debbie around, Claire walks up to Debbie completely healed. (The Line)

Memorable Quotes

"I have busted, like, every bone in my body, stabbed myself in the chest, I've shoved a two-foot steel rod through my neck, and I don't have a scratch on me!"

- Claire (Genesis)

"I think I died."

"I've died before. It's no big deal."

- Peter, Claire (Fallout)

"You threw me. Off of a 30-story building! If I didn't regenerate, I'd be dead!"

- Peter (to Claude) (Distractions)

"No way!"

- Claire (Lizards)

"Lazarus risen!"

- Takezo Kensei (Kindred)

Notes

• In Claire & the Cat, a promotional Flash animation, a much younger Claire is hit by a truck, and then able to walk away.
• The Genesis files contain a folder labeled "Rapid Cellular Regeneration". (Genesis)
• Claire and her mother mention an incident at the dog park in which a "big dog was gonna chew [Claire's] hand off." Claire says that "it looked worse than it was." (Better Halves)
• According to Chandra's journal, a young Swedish man "potentially" had this this power. (Seven Minutes to Midnight)
• After healing, Claire coughs up the bullet that Matt shoots at her. This is unusual, in that she usually has to remove the foreign body before healing (Company Man). However, after Peter Petrelli is shot in the chest with two bullets, one of the bullets is shown to be regurgitated out of the wound before the wound itself heals (Kindred).
• Claire tells West that she fells pain, but gets over it. (Kindred)

Gallery

• 
  Claire watches as her hand regenerates before her very eyes.
• 
  Even a full autopsy could not stop Claire from regenerating.
• 
  Sylar forcefully tosses the cheerleader against the locker room wall, but with no lasting effect.
• 
  After a severe accident with a glass door, Claire's lacerated hand healed itself.
• 
  Claire demonstrates her regeneration for Meredith by cutting herself.
• 
  Claire begins to regenerate after suffering massive radiation burns.
• 
  Sylar's best efforts are no match for Peter.
• 
  Arrows to the heart cannot kill Takezo Kensei.

Evolved Human Abilities edit
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See Also: Extension:DynamicPageList3 (DPL3), version 3.6.1: Error: MediaWiki\Extension\DynamicPageList3\Query::buildAndSelect: The DynamicPageList3 extension (version 3.6.1) produced a SQL statement which led to a Database error.<br/>The reason may be an internal error of DynamicPageList3 or an error that you made; especially when using parameters like 'categoryregexp' or 'titleregexp'. Usage of non-greedy <code>*?</code> matching patterns are not supported.<br/>The error message was:<br/><code></code> • Examples of rapid cell regeneration