I had sent Shalimar and Brennan on a mission to the Dakota Black Hills. A rabid Ursine Feral named Michael Ward had gone berserk and was murdering innocent people. If I known the extent of his mutated disease, I would have sent Jesse in Shalimar’s place. As it was, she was stricken but overcame the fever only to have to deliver the deathblow to Ward by herself. While now recovered physically, it’s obvious Shalimar needs healing from within.
SHALIMAR: Why did you choose me, Adam?
A: For the mission?
SHALIMAR: No. For Mutant X. It was between Nikki and me to be your team Feral. She was faster, stronger, wilder…and yet, I’m the one who’s here.
A: How long have you had this on your mind?
SHALIMAR: On and off, for years.
A: And you’re just addressing it now. Why?
SHALIMAR: Because I’ve failed you all.
A: If you’re referring to Michael Ward and the situation in the woods, you did anything but. Your actions prevented untold further tragedies.
SHALIMAR: But if I’d had more control over my instincts, Clay Preston and Grady Colt would be alive. And Brennan wouldn’t have been hurt. Instead, I tried to protect Michael. The animal in me refused to see how hopeless he was.
A: You were sick with fever.
SHALIMAR: All the more reason for me to step down. But did I? No. I charged ahead. I ditched Brennan, my own teammate, and took off into the woods to prove…I don’t know.
A: Don’t you?
SHALIMAR: Damn your insights. Yes. I do. I was trying to prove Michael’s humanity…and my own.
A: Shalimar. What happened to Ward was an atrocity. He was an evil experiment gone astray. There was no way to reverse the effects. He knew that and it drove him insane. You saw the bodies he mutilated. There wasn’t enough man left in him. He would have gone on killing.
SHALIMAR: And if I still had the fever would that be my story too? Would you and the others have had to hunt me down?
A: You tell me.
SHALIMAR: I had so little control and so much rage. Everything I saw was red.
A: A side effect of the disease. But you still haven’t answered my question. Even at your worst, could you have slaughtered people like Ward did?
SHALIMAR: No. Yet, I killed him.
A: He asked you to with his last shred humanity. An out-of-control Feral could not have done that, Shalimar. It was a rational young woman who did. One who took responsibility to end senseless suffering.
SHALIMAR: I see that…but I can’t forgive myself.
A: No one is saying it will happen overnight. Living with your actions is the worst part of this job. Just remember as you sort things out, you didn’t use your powers to stop Ward. You used Colt’s weapon.
SHALIMAR: I know! My first kill and I pulled a trigger.
A: Disappointed?
SHALIMAR: Just shocked. Taking a life has been a nightmare ever since I can remember. But I always pictured it would happen when the animal half in me lost it. Not the decent one.
A: “Decent”. We talked a while back about how your two “sides” are one in the same. Don’t you see that now? Didn’t this mission make that clear?
SHALIMAR: Painfully. And Adam…I also see how all the countless hours of training and focus here at Sanctuary kept me whole. Even when seeing red.
A: That’s why it was you over Nikki.
SHALIMAR: What?
A: Within you I saw a girl with love and spirit inside to keep her strong and disciplined, Feral or not. Nikki never had that.
SHALIMAR: Strong and disciplined, huh? Then why can’t I forget Michael Ward’s eyes?
A: If you could, Shalimar, we wouldn’t be here together.
:: End of Session::
