Here in front of them both, Ryder had a choice.

It wasn't so long ago that this was all there would ever be for her. She was destined to be hollowed up, bereft of everything that she was and would be. Her mutant abilities were pared down and built up, tweaked and twisted, to suit [i]him.[/i] The ghost of a man that never truly lived a real life. Ryder never would have known the feeling of sun on her skin, the feeling of real food, if it weren't for the fact that she got astronomically lucky. And now she was back here, in the mind of the man behind it all. The fancy, idyllic head that was somehow meant to accommodate him. Whatever the old man was thinking, they weren't on the same page. 

Every telepath had a unique "Feel" about their powers. Ryder's was oppressive, it felt like a person was being rent from the inside when she looked in their head, and it was anything but subtle. Even as Xavier made attempts to soothe Umbra, it felt forced. Not because of Xavier's skill, but because Ryder was in the psychic vicinity. Her unwillingness to relent radiated off of her, and it had a way of smothering the minds of others, as the X-men had learned lately.

At the mansion, Ryder had just enough time to understand a few things. Not so much [i]internalize[/i] them, but she certainly understood certain principles. That most mutants, hated as they were, didn't experience what she had gone through. They couldn't relate to her. They didn't have it in them to really get how she felt, even though they tried. But the other half of that was the undeniable fact that Ryder couldn't relate to [i]them.[/i]

It was so tempting to eradicate Umbra right now, in the most painful way possible. An agonizing death, a hurtful, spite-fueled one. He could feel every scrap of his mind being peeled away into nothingness. He could feel it over and over again. She had more power than that, she could do [i]so much[/i] to him. But there lied the conundrum she was facing.

Ryder couldn't relate to people who lived something that resembled normalcy.

But she wanted to.

The astral form of Ryder raised a hand.

[color=00ffff]"You wanted me, you wanted to skin I'm in. You wanted to kill me so you could live."[/color]

[I]YES[/I], screamed the universe.

[color=00ffff]"You were going to hurt people to get to me. And when you were done, you'd hurt so many fucking more. I can feel it on you, you inhuman piece of [i]shit.[/i] You never learned what it's like to be alive, you never learned what it's like to [i]care.[/i] And thanks to you, neither did I."[/color]

And the memories overhead [i]quaked.[/i] Cracks formed in them, things unable to be perceived much like a nonexistent color. Fissures among thought, the gaps in knowing.

[color=00ffff]"I'm going to fucking unmake you. And then, I'm going to unmake everything you ever did to me."[/color]

She sounded so [i]cold.[/i] Ryder had more rage than a hundred people, and she wasn't expressing any of it. Those aphotic lines between the bounds of cognition widened, until cracks began to form.

In the real world, Umbra screamed.