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Moment of Awesome - Kevin Sydney/Changeling: Kevin, accepting responsibility for his past actions, tries to talk his former lover down from a massacre.


"Oh, Agent Sydney. I didn't think I'd be seeing you again."

A shadow uncoiled from behind an overturned refrigeration unit. It was Mary, crouched in readiness to see who had just arrived. She sounded mildly -- perhaps even pleasantly -- surprised to see him. The woman smiled and swiped the hair from her eyes, smearing blood like a wound. "Looks like I'm not the only one making a break for it."

"That's my team coming to get us. And put Sugar-Man in the ground." He looked around at the carnage, pushing back the shock. It looked like Mary. It talked with Mary's voice. But the movements, tonal inflections, even just the basic body language was a stranger. Even her more naive persona still had the seeds of the woman he knew. This one had none of that.

Even with all of that, he had to try. "It's not too late, Mary. Whatever Sugar Man did, good or bad, we can help fix the rest. You could... have a fresh start."

The woman who was not Mary laughed and clasped her hands behind her back. "This is my fresh start," she said, casually stepping over a body. "Don't worry about playing knight in shining armor -- doesn't seem like your style. Anyway, the Sugar Man held up his end of the bargain, I'm just not going to hang around for the double-cross. I've never been better." She gave him a pleasant smile that exposed bloody teeth. "Wanna see?"

She dropped low and spun, and he could see the knives in her hands: big, jagged blades a certain kind of military contractor carried for the look. They'd almost certainly never seen use before Mary had gotten her hands on them. She'd never bothered with anything like that when he'd worked with her. Now she moved like they were extensions of her arm, driving them low in an attempt to hook Kevin around the achilles tendon.

The one thing this Mary didn't know was his abilities. Kevin stood firm, accepting what would normally be a crippling injury in return for flooding his system with endorphins and catching Mary with a blow to the jaw that hit like a man three times his size. He staggered away, favouring his good leg as his body fought to repair the injured one even as Mary recovered. "No knights. No redemption, Mary. Just-" A blade missed his face by inches as he backpedaled and went over the corpse of security guard, sprawling badly.

Mary spat blood and tsked. "You're taking this so seriously," she remarked, her words thick around her swelling lip. One of the knives in her hand began to spin as she circled him lazily, a lion stalking a wounded gazelle. "You seem to think you have some sort of gleaming golden prize to offer me, as if I haven't spent our whole life carving out every comfort and victory I ever earned for myself. Hell, I'm sure you haven't even thought of Mary Walker in years. Other people are just bit-characters to you. They exist for you to act on or against, and once you leave the stage..." She touched the knife to her lips like a finger. "Poof, all gone."

"Maybe I was. And that means I deserve whatever it is you want to do to me... but Mary doesn't." Kevin didn't bother to watch the knives. It was something Mary had taught him, chiding him for relying too much on being on the right end of a scope on an enemy. Fools watch the knife. The eyes tell you where the strike is coming from. "You keep that decision from her, you're treating her no better than I did."