He couldn't find Rachel Summers. Granted, he hasn't been able to get in touch with her for a while, but this was the first time he had made an actual effort to look for her
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"I know why you did what you did. And lady, no offense to you, I'm sure you were a nice person, but.. how many lives are you worth, exactly? Because Cable and his friends are going to keep coming. And as likely as not, Nate will kill them all for you. Am I wrong?"
He continues.
"And then the X-Men. Or the Avengers. Or the Fantastic Four. You'll be killing in defense of the woman you love, but they're trying to stop you to restore the one they love. How many people are you prepared to kill? Or mindwipe?"
"And Nate, you're my friend, but - how do I know that there wasn't some version of me on your world? That one day, you'll wake up and miss that guy, and decide he deserves to live more than I do?"
"I couldn't stop you if I wanted to, not physically, but.. Nate, you're the only one who can fix this situation. Your power doesn't give you the right to decide who lives and who dies, but it does come with the burden of responsibility. Make the right choice."
"If you're going to bring somebody back from the dead, see if you can find my friend, Nate Grey. He was a decent guy - impatient, and a little full of himself sometimes, but he had a good heart. And I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that that good heart is why you fell in love with him in the first place, Sonique."
The 'right' choice. There were days when he wondered if there ever was such a thing.
Today is one of those days.
He shook his head.
"Its not that simple. Its not just a matter of restoring Siryn. This can't just be undone." That much he knows.
"I guess its the one thing about most 'heroes' on this world that bothers me. They spend so much time trying to preserve the status quo, fighting to keep things the way they are, to keep things from getting worse, that they don't try to make things better."
He was straying from his point. He looked over at Terry.
"There's nothing to 'stop'. She's alive, every bit as alive as Siryn is. She's not a thing. Not an 'it'. Not a figment of my imagination. She's sentient. She's real. She has her own thoughts, dreams, wants, likes, dislikes, opinions, feelings." Feelings for him, and he for her. "They can't just take that all away.
"But they'll try to. Cable will gladly kill her to get Siryn back. He'll erase her from existence, he'll murder an innocent girl, all in the name of wiping away the 'mistake' I made. I won't allow that." In other words, yes, he will kill them all if they try.
"And then there's Siryn, who doesn't deserve the fate I've given her." Who has a father who's utterly heartbroken over what I've done to her.
"I need more options, because in the handful I can come up with, I can only see a way to save one of them, not both."
"You didn't save her, Nate, you brought her back. Cable and Banshee and the others are trying to save Siryn. There is a difference. And Miss, I'm very sorry to be talking about you this way - I don't mean any insult, it's just a kind of unusual situation for me."
"You say Cable will murder Sonique to save Siryn - is that different from what you did to Siryn to bring back Sonique? Why is it okay for you, but wrong for him?"
He sighs.
"If someone told me that by killing a single innocent person, that I could bring back Gwen - I wouldn't do it. Why? Because, among other reasons, Gwen wouldn't want me to. Human lives aren't interchangeable commodities, and we're not allowed to pick and choose the people who get to live."
"I know you were confused, Nate, but - I believe you had more options before you took Siryn's body, you just didn't see them. You've always been so focused on being a loner, you don't consider where other people might help you. The Fantastic Four faced down Galactus; I have to think Reed Richards might know a way to make a body for Sonique. Of course, now that you've put her in Siryn's body.. "
"Really?" she asks with more spirit than she's shown since they landed. "You said earlier you don't get to pick and choose who gets to live. Don't you do that whenever you are trying to save someone? When you're patrolling one part of this city, what happens to everyone else?" She gestures at the many buildings all around them and the busy streets below. "The people who die because you aren't there--do you think they care that you were off saving someone else? What about the nights when you're where it's quiet and nothing happens, because you're in the wrong place?"
"My inability to be in more than one place at a time is somehow comparable to psychically enslaving a person and installing the personality of one's dead girlfriend? Are you seriously suggesting that the two situations are similar?"
Spider-Man sounds incredulous.
"We're not talking about a situation where you and Siryn are both going to die, and he can only save one of you. You were dead. And my friend here may have effectively murdered an innocent woman to bring you back to life. Doesn't that bother you?"
"Siryn's not dead." There's a bite to his tone that wasn't there before. "I could've killed her, and the thought did cross my mind as a solution then. And now.
"I'm not an expert on telepathy, Nate - but burying someone in a fantasy world so deeply that they can't get out - they might as well be dead. But fine, we'll go with kidnapped. Or robbed. Or violated."
"One way or another, the woman's life has been stolen. They both have a right to live, Nate, I'm not arguing that, but only one of them has a right to that body."
"Cloned bodies still tend to have their own personalities." Like Maddie... Stryfe.. "Which would lead us back to where we are right now."
Not to mention that there's only one person he knows that would be proficient enough with cloning to pull this off, and there's no way in hell he'd ever go to him for help.
"A synthetic body, then. Or a mystic double. In a world where me, my clone, and my back-from-the-dead best friend had a fistfight with my evil twin and my best friend's deceased father, there are ways."
"I know why you did what you did. And lady, no offense to you, I'm sure you were a nice person, but.. how many lives are you worth, exactly? Because Cable and his friends are going to keep coming. And as likely as not, Nate will kill them all for you. Am I wrong?"
He continues.
"And then the X-Men. Or the Avengers. Or the Fantastic Four. You'll be killing in defense of the woman you love, but they're trying to stop you to restore the one they love. How many people are you prepared to kill? Or mindwipe?"
"And Nate, you're my friend, but - how do I know that there wasn't some version of me on your world? That one day, you'll wake up and miss that guy, and decide he deserves to live more than I do?"
"I couldn't stop you if I wanted to, not physically, but.. Nate, you're the only one who can fix this situation. Your power doesn't give you the right to decide who lives and who dies, but it does come with the burden of responsibility. Make the right choice."
"If you're going to bring somebody back from the dead, see if you can find my friend, Nate Grey. He was a decent guy - impatient, and a little full of himself sometimes, but he had a good heart. And I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that that good heart is why you fell in love with him in the first place, Sonique."
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Today is one of those days.
He shook his head.
"Its not that simple. Its not just a matter of restoring Siryn. This can't just be undone." That much he knows.
"I guess its the one thing about most 'heroes' on this world that bothers me. They spend so much time trying to preserve the status quo, fighting to keep things the way they are, to keep things from getting worse, that they don't try to make things better."
He was straying from his point. He looked over at Terry.
"There's nothing to 'stop'. She's alive, every bit as alive as Siryn is. She's not a thing. Not an 'it'. Not a figment of my imagination. She's sentient. She's real. She has her own thoughts, dreams, wants, likes, dislikes, opinions, feelings." Feelings for him, and he for her. "They can't just take that all away.
"But they'll try to. Cable will gladly kill her to get Siryn back. He'll erase her from existence, he'll murder an innocent girl, all in the name of wiping away the 'mistake' I made. I won't allow that." In other words, yes, he will kill them all if they try.
"And then there's Siryn, who doesn't deserve the fate I've given her." Who has a father who's utterly heartbroken over what I've done to her.
"I need more options, because in the handful I can come up with, I can only see a way to save one of them, not both."
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"You say Cable will murder Sonique to save Siryn - is that different from what you did to Siryn to bring back Sonique? Why is it okay for you, but wrong for him?"
He sighs.
"If someone told me that by killing a single innocent person, that I could bring back Gwen - I wouldn't do it. Why? Because, among other reasons, Gwen wouldn't want me to. Human lives aren't interchangeable commodities, and we're not allowed to pick and choose the people who get to live."
"I know you were confused, Nate, but - I believe you had more options before you took Siryn's body, you just didn't see them. You've always been so focused on being a loner, you don't consider where other people might help you. The Fantastic Four faced down Galactus; I have to think Reed Richards might know a way to make a body for Sonique. Of course, now that you've put her in Siryn's body.. "
Spider-Man shrugs.
"Well, I think your options are narrower now."
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"Trying to keep things from being any more confusing than they already are."
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Spider-Man sounds incredulous.
"We're not talking about a situation where you and Siryn are both going to die, and he can only save one of you. You were dead. And my friend here may have effectively murdered an innocent woman to bring you back to life. Doesn't that bother you?"
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"I need better options."
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"One way or another, the woman's life has been stolen. They both have a right to live, Nate, I'm not arguing that, but only one of them has a right to that body."
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He knew what Peter was trying to say.
"So what, then, for the one that doesn't?"
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I don't want to die again....
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"Cloned bodies still tend to have their own personalities." Like Maddie... Stryfe.. "Which would lead us back to where we are right now."
Not to mention that there's only one person he knows that would be proficient enough with cloning to pull this off, and there's no way in hell he'd ever go to him for help.
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Wait...
"You have a clone and an evil twin?"
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