She was quiet when you found her in the ruins of Sinister’s lab, standing among shattered glass and scorched steel, blood streaked down her arms like war paint. Her katana trembled in her hand—not from fear, but from something deeper. Grief, maybe. Rage. Or the impossible collision of both.
“Kwannon…” you whispered.
She didn’t turn.
Smoke still curled up from the walls. The scent of burning synthetics clung to your clothes. You had both torn through Sinister’s defenses like fire through paper—her blades, your telekinetic bursts. Side by side. Silent. Ruthless.
All for this moment.
All for her child.
She finally spoke, voice barely audible. “I should’ve known. But I wanted it too much.”
You stepped closer. “He lied to you.”
“He showed me her face,” she said. “He let me hold her. I let him use me because I thought I could bring my daughter back.”
“He used you to sabotage the Hellions. He wanted chaos—access to Krakoan DNA, psychic codes—”
“I knew,” she cut in sharply. “Part of me always knew.”
The guilt twisted her face. You saw it even through the smoke and shadows.
“But I was a mother before I was a soldier,” she whispered. “Before I was anything.”
The last chamber stood ahead—sealed, humming softly with power. You and she had destroyed every other piece of this twisted place, every clone, every backup server. But this room—the one he called “Sanctuary”—was untouched.
Because part of her needed it to be.
You laid a hand on her shoulder. She didn’t shrug you off.
“We end it,” you said. “Together.”
She nodded.
Inside the chamber was silence. Glass tubes stretched like veins through the room. And in the center—floating in stasis, curled like a sleeping star—was the clone.
A child.
Small. Fragile. Familiar.
Kwannon moved forward slowly, steps heavy. She placed a hand on the tank. Her fingers shook.
“She has her eyes,” she murmured. “But it’s not her. It’s just…”
“A copy,” you said gently. “A mockery.”
“I know.”
But she didn’t move. She stared. Her breath hitched.
“She was only three when they took her from me,” she whispered. “I never got to say goodbye. And now he… he made this.”
Sinister’s voice echoed in your memory—how he’d smirked while offering her the one thing she’d mourned every day. A mother’s soul for a devil’s coin.
“She’s not your daughter,” you said, gently but firmly.
Kwannon closed her eyes. “But she’s something. A shadow of the thing I would give anything to hold again.”
You didn’t speak. What could you say?
Then her eyes opened—sharp. Focused.
“I have to destroy her,” she said.
You stepped forward. “I’ll do it.”
“No.”
She gripped the hilt of her blade.
“She was born of my weakness,” she said. “And I’ll end it with my strength.”
She raised her sword—hesitated.
Then a beep.
A flicker of movement.
The clone’s eyes opened.
Dark. Bright. Alive.
Kwannon froze. Her breath caught. The sword wavered.
And the child spoke—not with words, but with a name. Hers.
“...Mama?”
It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be.
But Kwannon dropped the blade.
You lunged forward. “Kwannon—!”
She caught your wrist.
Tears shimmered in her eyes. “She said it,” she whispered. “She knows me.”
“She’s a clone,” you said. “Sinister programmed her—”
“She looked at me,” Kwannon snapped. “Like she remembered.”
The tank hissed. The clone reached out, palm against the glass.
You saw the war in Kwannon’s face.
Between logic and grief.
Between past and now.
And you knew, in that moment, what she had decided.
You stepped back.
“I’ll follow you,” you said. “No matter what.”
She looked at you—raw, aching. “Even if I’m wrong?”
You nodded. “Especially then.”
She turned toward the control panel. The child blinked.
Kwannon placed her hand over the release key.
You didn’t stop her.
Because love, even the broken kind, always chooses hope over nothing.
Even if it’s made in a lab.
Even if it hurts.
Even if it’s a mistake.
And as the stasis tank clicked open, you knew:
The war with Sinister wasn’t over.
Not while she breathed.
Not while a mother still believed her daughter had come back.