While planning a trip back home, to the home of her family out of town, to the place she grew up, Maria had come to consider how different her life could have been. As she wrote letters to childhood friends, informing them that she'd be making her brief pilgrimage back, she considered their lives now. Schoolteachers, lawyers, bankers, store clerks. A few of the guys that she'd grown up with had signed up to the military. A good number worked in one of the local factories. She loved her life in Chicago, but she couldn't help but wonder how things might have turned out if her brother had himself stayed in that world. If she'd said no herself. If she'd ducked her head down and gone about her small town life. 

She sat out on one of the wooden tables outside her favorite coffee shop in Chicago, enjoying a nice cup of tea, when she felt the need to share what had been on her mind. Knowing that those interested would find themselves drawn over, she began to speak. 

Have any of you ever wondered what you might be, if you weren't part of this world? Have you ever wondered the things you might have done otherwise? The jobs you may have worked, the families you may have had, whether or not you might've gone to college, joined the military, worked on a farm somewhere? Have you ever made a visit back home and wondered what your part in it might be?

When my brother died and I was called to this way of life, I left a job I'd recently started as a secretary for a local building firm. I like to think that had I not traveled first to New York, and then to Chicago, and fallen in love with this way of life so much, that I might've scraped together the money at some point to go to college one day. I'd have studied English, or History, or something like that, and I think I might've liked to have become a writer or a journalist eventually. I don't think I would've been as happy as I am living the life I do, though.

Sit down, take a moment. What might you have done with your life, had you not chosen this life?

Nidoking sits and ponders the question, it is something that always comes to his mind and now, finally someone else has asked the same thing. However, Nidoking always comes back to one answer and that is that any other life would not suit him.  Eventually he builds the courage to speak.

I always think back to my early life, the relatively wealthy upbringing that I had and the hope that my family had in me that I would finally be the first to move onto further education. I had aspirations of becoming a Doctor. It always was a dream job to me and I was constantly told that I had the knowledge to move onto such a thing. I had the desire of helping people in need and saving the lives of the dying. However, I traded this fancy job and position in life for a much different one. And I believe it to be the only position in life for me.

I then think about today, after joining this life of crime, and how I have no connections with these people that so once dearly loved me. All I have now is this new, "Family." They treat me right and they respect me. If I never joined this life, I would have never known them. Even though I constantly live in fear, never knowing when a crime could go wrong and I could be in jail for the rest of my life. Or when a more powerful crew sees fit to end the life of Philadelphia. Even when I think of these possibilities and how if I would of taken the normal road, these threats would disappear. I don't regret a thing. I traded a life where I would automatically gain respect from everyday citizens, for a life in which I need to earn respect among the most powerful men in our country. Soon my dream for saving lives turned into ending lives. Even if I could go back. I wouldn't. All the connections I have made, they mean to much to me

"Wondering 'what if' is a waste of energy. Yeah, you can contemplate on how different paths you take in life would have ended, but if it happened all over again this is still the one you would be on. You are here for a reason. Who's to say what really comes into play when one chooses life altering decisions, whether it be a higher power or your own form of destiny. Each of us is here for better or worse. Instead of dwelling on what could have been, maybe start spending your time on what is and building on that. "

As Ox finishes throwing his two cents out there, he glances around the crowd anticipating another opinion to be voiced.