Thank you. I appreciate it, I do. I freely admit I come from a crappy world, but at the same time...only one I've got, y'know? Or did have. Dimensional travel makes certain phrases weird.
I understand that it gives me a clean slate physically, yeah. There aren't any Sentinels or Weapon Xs or anything here. And I recognize that the choice is there, and that's a nice feeling, it really is.
But here's the thing. You keep saying I'm young. And physically, yeah, I'm young. Mentally...not so much. Sure, I still like talking shit while I play Halo, eating way too much pizza, and reading comics. But I'm not a kid anymore. In a lot of really important ways, I had to grow up really, really fast, because between society condemning mutants and the crazy mutants condemning society, my choices were either grow up or die.
Honestly, Sam, in some ways I'm really kind of old. I try to keep up the happy smiley kid thing because I've heard it helps the rest of the team to see that sort of thing, but sometimes when nobody is looking and I think the professor and Jean aren't doing any mindscans, I just feel so old. Especially after Weapon X kidnapped us. How am I supposed to talk to normal kids? "Oh, when you were fifteen you won the state championship for your little league team? Yeah, that's cool. Oh, what did I do? I was forced into doing dirty deeds for a secret black ops military installation that liked to enforce loyalty by implanting bombs in people's heads and telling them that one of their friends will detonate if they misbehave. Oh, yeah, I guess that is sort of scary, hey where are you going?" I can't relate to normal kids anymore, because normal kids can't ever understand this stuff and honestly I wouldn't ever want them to.
I know I'm not going to save everyone. I learned that lesson in my second mission with the X-Men. I believe that you don't stop trying just because you aren't going to save everyone. You do the best you can, and at the end of the day, you have to be thankful for the ones you did save.
I think maybe you guys might have the impression that we're not scared. I can't speak for anyone else but man, I'm terrified. But that doesn't mean I'm going to let that fear stop me from doing what I think is right. I had to learn that lesson the hard way, too.
For me, what it comes down to is this. I know this is dangerous. I know that if I actually want to do this, it's going to call for sacrifices. I probably don't know even half the sacrifices that are going to be required, but I know enough to make an informed choice. And maybe if I make these sacrifices, maybe someone, some day, won't have to. It's why I get up every day and go on X-Men missions, and it's why I probably will go out there and try to do some good in this world, once I've learned how.