Everything belongs to Marvel/creators of X-Men: Evolution. That's really nothing new.

So I tried not to use big words. I don't see Lance as a big word kind of guy. So...sorry for messing that up so quickly. Deal.

This is how I see Lance trying to rationalize.

Sometimes it's easier to give in. They never mention that in the great epics. There's always a choice. Always a way out, and back into the arms of a loved one, or away to a better country. Always a way to slip through in an archaic or hidden loophole in the law and get off scot-free. It doesn't matter what you do, or where you've come from. It's all in the decisions you make.

I wonder often whether or not I made the right one. Sometimes I doubt it, as I look around the decaying rotten house we call 'home' for lack of a better word. I wonder how I managed to end up like this, a parentless, friendless villain of a teenager with so many enemies and so much reason to deserve their hatred. And then, as I walk down the street and see a bunch of bullies taunting anyone who's different- a fat girl, a crippled man, a mutant- and I remember.

That dream of Xavier's, that all mutants and humans can live together in harmony, is a load of crap. I mean, I guess it could happen, someday. Not in this lifetime. Not in the next. Maybe, if for some strange reason I ended up with grandkids who were mutants (scary concept), they would be able to walk down the street unafraid of getting hurt or lynched. But for now, no. Definitely not.

I did try, though. I attempted all the avenues I thought possible. I was a loner for awhile, when I met Kitty. Sweet, innocent, pretty Kitty. But the loner thing didn't really work out, so I tried Mystique's method of hatred, which works longer but with about as little satisfaction. Being in charge of lazy idiots is hard, and they kept stealing my Jeep and eating everything I stole as soon as it got into the pantry.

Magneto's method of hatred was the worst, but I couldn't get away from it. I was sucked in too deep, like the worst sort of sinkhole. But he's disappeared again to who knows where and I'm free.

Freedom. What a joke. Who came up with that? We're not free. Especially not those people like me, who are treated as criminals because we have gifts others don't. It's not fair, is it? But it's not fair to us either. No one seems to realize that. It's always about what THEY think, and THEIR opinions and personal beliefs. What about ours? What about mine? I'm not much to look at, but I've got a heart too.

It breaks just as easily.

That's really a different kind of death. Your heart can only break so many times before it's warped into something unrecognizable. I think that's what happened to Magneto. And Wanda, but at least she's not out to get the world. Once your heart breaks, it heals with a scar, like skin. But if it keeps breaking, or the breaks are bigger for bigger events in life, it becomes misshapen and you lose your innocence and more importantly, your hope.

Hope is the most important thing. The X-Men hope. They hope for acceptance, for love. They hope for equality and happiness and safety. And now and then they actually get it, when we're not trying to mess it up.

Mostly I just hope for my next meal.

I think that sort of death is worse than dying. Losing hope. Because once you've lost hope, you really don't have a reason to live, do you?