User:"The Listener"/Water and ice manipulation

Water and ice manipulation
Tracy's arms dissolve into water.
Originally held by:	Tracy Strauss (synthetic)
Absorbed by:	Peter Petrelli (lost)
Ability to:	Mimic, generate and manipulate water as well as cause objects to freeze

Water and ice manipulation is the ability to manipulate, generate and mimic water as well as rapidly lower the temperature of objects, causing them to freeze.

Characters

• Tracy Strauss has this ability (The Butterfly Effect), though it was granted synthetically (I Am Become Death).
• Peter Petrelli has replicated this ability from Tracy Strauss (A Clear and Present Danger), but later discarded it in favor of flight. (Trust and Blood)

Limits

Tracy Strauss

Tracy was able to completely freeze an adult human in seconds, causing his body to shatter when he fell to the ground. She can similarly freeze flowers and leather straps to the point that they become brittle and shatter under their own weight or with little to no effort on her part. In Dying of the Light, Tracy begins to demonstrate more control over her abilities: she is able to freeze the outside of a glass container without causing it to shatter; she also can induce extreme cold in human being without actually freezing him. Tracy does not appear to suffer any ill effects from being in contact with objects that she has frozen with her ability. Nathan noticed that when she freezes things, her hands don't even get cold.

Thick, insulated clothing provides protection against Tracy's ability. Danko believed she could only channel her ability through her hands, as he blocked her by placing heavily insulated gloves on them (A Clear and Present Danger), although she was able to eventually shatter the gloves (Building 26). She has since honed her ability to the point she can cause the pinpoint freezing of objects (Ice Queen, Part 1) and create simple ice constructs, such as the spikes with which she killed a former Building 26 agent (Ice Queen, Part 2). She also froze Claire Bennet after Claire touched her arm, and the freezing continued after she removed her hand.

Tracy's ability can be suppressed or countered by keeping her exposed to intense heat (Building 26).

Ambient humidity apparently increases the effect of her ability, as noted by her freezing part of a parking garage when the sprinklers were turned on (Cold Snap). In accomplishing this feat, however, she froze her own body in the process; she subsequently shattered when Danko shot her. However, after being washed out into the river, she managed to somehow reform herself on the shore, albeit naked. (Ice Queen, Part 1)

After Tracy was shot by Danko (Cold Snap), her abilities seemed to change or evolve from simply freezing objects to becoming able to manipulate water. Upon being shot, Tracy shattered into a thousands of pieces of ice, though Tracy retained consciousness, even winking her eye. The ice seemed to melt, and Tracy soon thereafter formed back into her natural self (Ice Queen, Part 1). Since then, Tracy seems to be able to take the form of water and ice (Prodigals, Part 1), being able to form back into herself at will, and to control herself while in those forms, capable of assuming different forms and shapes. Tracy has demonstrated great control over this new aspect of her ability, though she occasionally loses control when stressed and upset, involuntarily turning into water (Acceptance) and freezing things without meaning to (Brother's Keeper).

Should she be attacked, Tracy's body can change into water to prevent damage by knives and bullets, although she has stated that her ability reacted instinctivly to these situations and she involunterrily turned her body into water (Jump, Push, Fall). In her liquid form, Tracy can quickly travel by depositing herself in a body of water, and then moving through it. (Prodigals, Part 1) as well as retain some form of manipulation over outer bodies of water, such as geysers (Prodigals, Part 3).

Peter Petrelli

After coming into physical contact with Tracy and unknowingly replicating her power, Peter accidentally froze Flight 195's fuselage, opening a hole in it. (A Clear and Present Danger)

Selected Examples

• 

  In her rage, Tracy unintentionally freezes the reporter Jim McCann.
  (The Butterfly Effect)

• 

  Tracy freezes Knox, causing him to shatter under his own weight.
  (Dual)

• 

  Peter Petrelli freezes the wall of a plane.
  (A Clear and Present Danger)

• 

  Tracy unleashes her "cold snap".
  (Cold Snap)

• 

  Tracy makes a watery return. (An Invisible Thread)

• 

  Tracy shows her powers to Jeremy Greer.
  (Strange Attractors)

• 

  Tracy freezes a coffee mug...
  

• 

  ...and later freezes Claire Bennet.
  (Brother's Keeper)

See Also

• For the similar ability to freeze objects, see Freezing
• For the similar ability to mimic and generate water, see Water mimicry