SIRYN: Page 3 of 4

Publication Date: 17th Mar 2017
Written By: Ruth, Peter Luzifer and Gremlin.
Biography

BIOGRAPHY - Page 3

Theresa’s involved with the X-Corporation came to an end during M-Day, when about 90% of Earth’s mutant population lost their powers. Anti-mutant groups quickly seized the chance to attack the few mutants left, and the headquarters of X-Corporation Europe was blown up by terrorists. As a result, the X-Men chose to shut down the organization entirely; after all, it had already lost its purpose with there being next to no mutants left to contact. Jamie Madrox had left the X-Corporation earlier on to start his own detective agency, X-Factor Investigations in the Mutant Town area of New York City and he hired several former colleagues and friends, among them Siryn to help him run the agency. [X-Factor (3rd series) #1]

In the meantime, Siryn had developed another aspect of her power, enabling her to make people do what she wanted - a limited form of hypnotic suggestion - turning her into an actual “siren.” Initially,  Theresa was about to attack the mysterious organization Singularity and would have died during the assault, but she was saved by her new, mysterious teammate Layla Miller, who apparently foresaw this event and arranged for Siryn to take on a different case. When X-Factor managed to have Vaughan, a client of Singularity, turn himself in for murder, Singularity’s boss, Tryp Jr., took his frustration out on Siryn by hitting her with a tranq dart in the vocal chords and brutally beating her. [X-Factor (3rd series) #2-4]

To make matters worse, she wasn’t found by her teammates but by a sadistic ex-mutant doctor called Leery, who kidnapped her and tied her up. Things quickly turned uglier and Leery might have mutilated or killed her, if not for Rictor turning up having expected Theresa for breakfast. That gave Siryn the incentive and opportunity to free herself and reuse her powers. [X-Factor (3rd series) #5]

As if things weren’t bad enough, while still in recovery, Cyclops of the X-Men informed Theresa that her father, Banshee, had died in battle. Theresa’s reaction was unusual. She refused to mourn, insisting he wasn’t really dead. Given their crazy lifestyle, it was probably a ruse and he’d turn up, sooner or later again. Still, she attended Banshee’s funeral and cried at his gravesite. [X-Factor (3rd series) #7, X-Men: Deadly Genesis #6]

Using her “Siren power” Siryn managed to get the truth about M-Day out of Spider-Man, namely that it was casued by Scarlet Witch. This created a rift between X-Factor and the X-Men, who had kept the truth about the event a secret. [X-Factor (3rd series) #8-9] Not much later, when X-Factor encountered Tryp Jr. again, Siryn was prepared and wore a Kevlar collar, determined not to get beaten the same way twice. [X-Factor (3rd series) #12]

While the business side of X-Factor Investigations was doing quite well, troubles were brewing within the team. Madrox’ duplicates were acting more and more independently, each duplicate being a different manifestations of one of his personality traits, and it occurred in one night that while one Jamie was having sex with Monet, another was sleeping with Siryn. [X-Factor (3rd series) #10]

During a session with super-hero psychiatrist Dr. Leonard Samson, Theresa tried to keep up her state of denial when it came to her father’s death, though half-way through she admitted that she just tried to stay in a good mood. She reasoned that, if she gave in to feelings such as despair or anger, she would want to scream and cry as everyone other depressed person but, due to her vocal power, she could not afford to voice her emotions that way. [X-Factor (3rd series) #13]

When Jamie – advised by Dr. Sampson – came clear to Monet and Terry about his two-timing duplicates having slept with them both, the two of them were furious at both Jamie and each other. Theresa in particular gave both Jamie and Monet the silent treatment,  bottling up her true feelings in a similar fashion as she was denying her father’s death. Layla had enough of this and ordered the two women to work it out or she’d make them. They decided to go shopping in Paris together. Once there, Monet and Theresa became embroiled in anti-mutant riots and, taking a stand for their race, they arrived at some stage of mutual dislike/acceptance. [X-Factor (3rd series) #14-16] Since then, they began working together on several cases and, some time later, they both accepted Jamie’s apology, both of them understanding that it wasn’t really his fault that he couldn’t control the actions of his duplicates. [X-Factor (3rd series) #21]

Additionally, at the time, Theresa found out that she was pregnant by Madrox. Unsure what to do, Monet was the first person that Theresa confided in. In spite of Monet’s advice to have an abortion, Theresa decided to have the baby. In the days that followed, several attempts to tell Jamie about her pregnancy misfired, either because X-Factor was just in the middle of another crisis or because of mere misunderstandings between them. Eventually, though, Multiple Man pieced things together himself. [X-Factor (3rd series) #28, 33]

Arguing that X-Factor Investigations was a way too easy target in a public area, the US government, in the form of Val Cooper, ordered the team to either disband or to come to work as operatives for the Office of National Emergency. X-Factor didn’t like either option, so they made a run for it and relocated their base of operations to Detroit, where they spent the next few months. Unfortunately, Val Cooper caught up with them again and, with Siryn having reached the near end of her pregnancy, Cooper has begun to show an unnatural interest in the child.

Val was concerned for the safety of Siryn’s baby, given that the last mutant baby to be born ended up being hunted by numerous factions. Siryn, however, wasn’t in the mood to work with the government again, causing Val to inform her that Jamie had been working with them behind Siryn’s back. The discussion became heated until the stress caused Siryn’s water to break three weeks early. With Jamie out on a job, Siryn had to rely on Rictor to get her to the hospital, but they quickly realized Val and her team of agents wouldn’t let them go alone. Grabbing a gun, Rictor tried to create a distraction to allow Siryn to fly to hospital on her own, but in the ensuing gunfight Val was shot. With time suddenly becoming more of a factor, Siryn was forced to fly the gravely wounded Val to the hospital before she bled out. [X-Factor (3rd series) #34-38]

The two arrived just in time to get Val into surgery to save her life. Siryn went immediately to the maternity ward, where she was soon met by Jamie and the rest of the team. After being in labor for fifteen hours, the doctors announced there were complications and a caesarean would be needed to save its life. Before she was knocked out for the operation, Jamie proposed to Siryn and she happily accepted. After a very tense operation, Siryn gave birth to a baby boy and, after being stitched up again, was allowed to hold her son. As she had finally come to the realization her father was dead, she decided to name her son Sean in his honor. Sadly, tragedy struck moments later when Jamie held Sean for the first time and accidentally absorbed the baby into him. In that moment, everyone realized to their horror that the baby was nothing more than an infant dupe of Jamie’s. Overcome with anger and desperation Siryn leapt out of her bed and attempted in vain to claw the baby from Jamie’s body. In the commotion, her stitches ripped open and Siryn began bleeding out, causing her to be sedated so the doctors could operate on her again. After recovering from the physical trauma, she calmed down enough to realize what had happened. When Jamie visited her to apologize for the situation, she calmly and coldly broke one of his fingers and threatened to do worse if she ever saw him again. [X-Factor (3rd series) #39]

In the weeks that followed, Jamie left the team and Siryn returned home to take over its leadership. She became much more distant and refused to talk about the baby with anyone. She also decided to keep up Jamie’s contract with Val Cooper and started sending the team out on jobs for the government. On one such mission, the team ended up destroying a weapons cache that Val was hoping she could claim for the government. When she broached Siryn of the mess up, she realized how cold the woman had become since her tragedy.

As well as Val’s missions, the team also worked on their own jobs, one of which was to look into the claims that a woman called Lenore was being stalked. Siryn was dismissive of the job to begin with but, when Longshot and Darwin were attacked trying to protect Lenore, it became obvious the threats were real. As Siryn tried to deal with the situation, it was becoming apparent to those around her that she was holding on to a lot of anger and frustration, and she began to take it out on everyone else. Help came from the unlikely source of Val, who caught Siryn drinking out of a wine bottle one day. Siryn assured her it was just water and that she was hoping, if there was a God, he would turn the water into wine. The two women talked honestly and Val even confided in Siryn that she had suffered a miscarriage years before. Val also made Siryn get her head back in the game and realize that the rest of her team was in danger from the mysterious person trying to kill Lenore. [X-Factor (3rd series) #41-44]

Siryn set out to find Monet and Darwin, who were guarding Lenore, and arrived just in time to find that Monet had been possessed by a techno-organic being named Cortex. She attacked Monet in the sky over the city, but the two were interrupted by the inexplicable arrival of some Sentinels from the future. Siryn was completely confused by the situation, but her instincts made her fight the Sentinels and she proved to be a powerful adversary, destroying two of the machines herself. Unbeknownst to her, Cortex was nearby and some more of her team was taking him on themselves. When she joined them, she was shocked to discover that Cortex was a dupe of Jamie’s that had turned evil. Realizing that she could take all her frustration with Jamie out on him, she viciously attacked the man with her sonic scream. Unfortunately, he proved to be a very powerful and resilient foe, shrugging off her assault and escaping. What Siryn didn’t realize at the time was the fight with Cortex was happening on multiple fronts, with the real Jamie taking on the heart of the threat in the future period from which the Sentinels had come. After stopping Cortex and his associates in the future, Jamie teleported back to the present time to re-join X-Factor. [X-Factor (3rd series) #45-50]