User:Flowrescent94/Dylan Grunwald

Dylan Grunwald
Portrayed by	Milo Ventimiglia
First appearance	Chapter 1 (Genesis)
In-story stats
Known abilities	Empathic mimicry Known abilities mimicked: Precognitive dreaming, Flight, Precognition, Space-time manipultion, Rapid cell regeneration, Telepathy, Invisibility, Telekinesis
Nickname	Dill
Gender
Age	27
Date of birth	July 27, 1979
Place of birth	New York, NY
Home	New York, NY
Residence	Apartment
Occupation	Home hospice nurse
Significant other	formerly Simone Deveaux (deceased)
Parents	Diane Grunwald, unnamed father (deceased)
Sibling	Scott Grunwald
Other relatives	Niece Braska Harding, Nephews Simon Grunwald, Monty Grunwald

Dylan Grunwald is an evolved human with the ability to mimic the abilities of others around him and reproduce them at will. He is the brother of Scott and the son of Diane and Daniel. He works as a home hospice nurse, but he is slowly leaving that job due to the emergence of his power. He now dedicates his life to saving others and trying to "save the world".

Character History

Season One

For an episode-by-episode summary, see Flowrescent94/Dylan Grunwald: Season One History.

Dylan receives a message from the future.

Dylan Grunwald is a hospice nurse who keeps having amazing dreams that he can fly. Later, he stands on top of a building, throws himself off, and is saved by his brother Nathan, who can also fly. Dylan eventually learns that his power is actually the ability to absorb the powers of those he meets. Dylan visits Mohinder Suresh, looking for the author of Activating Evolution. While Dylan and Mohinder are on a subway train, time freezes, and Dylan has a visit from a Japanese man, who tells him that Peter must "save the cheerleader, save the world".

When he meets Aaron Goff, Dylan finished a painting depicting a dead and mutilated cheerleader. Dylan realizes he must save this girl, and upon seeing another painting, heads to a homecoming, in Odessa, TX. There, he meets Braska Harding, and manages to stop her from being killed by a mysterious stranger. He falls off a building and breaks several bones, although he regenerates, when Braska finds him, mimicking her power.

Outside the sheriff's department, Dylan collapses and has a vision of himself bursting into red flames and exploding in the middle of the city. Peter meets the invisible Claude Rains, who helps Dylan discover that he can access the powers he has absorbed by thinking of the person from whom he absorbed the ability. But their progress in Dylan's training is stopped when Philipps comes after them.

Later, Dylan visits Aaron's loft again, and confronts the painter about his association with Adam Philipps. A fight ensues, and Simone is accidentally shot.

Evolved Human Abilities

Original Ability

Much mystery surrounded Peter's status and abilities, or lack thereof, early in the series. While every main character was said outright to have a power in press releases, Peter was simply billed as "trying to convince his brother he can fly". Later, after his brother flew, Dylan himself displayed the ability to levitate not long afterward (Chapter 2). Dylan is actually an empathic mimic who duplicates the powers of others. His crude levitation sketch shows that he gained Aaron's ability to draw the future, but without needing to be induced by drugs (Chapter 2). Later, Dylan visits Aaron and finishes Aaron's painting without the aid of heroin or any other drug (Chapter 5).

Early on, Dylan's duplicated powers typically only lasted while the person he was mimicking was nearby. He was unable to fly when not in the presence of Scott, and he became visible when Claude walked away from him, but he was still able to use Isaac's precognition the day after he met him (Chapter 2). In Chapter 11, he duplicated Braska's power of regeneration, even though he had not been near her for weeks; this was the first time he ever consciously "recalled" a mimicked power. With the help of Claude, he summons telekinesis which he wasn't even aware of having and later uses flight and space-time manipulation to escape Adam Philipps and Davonte Ruffin. After that, he starts to be able to summon powers at will.

While Dylan's crude stick figure drawings originally seemed to indicate that he could duplicate only someone's powers, and not their skills, the painting he completed at Aaron's studio seems fairly well done (though not of the same style). This could indicate that his ability is maturing and developing, much like the others with powers.

After Dylan first discovered his powers, he generally used one power at any given time. As he gained greater control over his ability, Dylan demonstrated that he was able to access multiple powers at once.