Post by x23 on Jun 19, 2007 23:39:38 GMT -4
Given Name:
Laura Kinney
Codename:
X-23, Laura X
Age:
16
Detailed Description of Powers:
X-23 has an advanced healing factor that makes her immune to most poisons and drugs, and allows her to heal almost instantly that would be fatal to most. She is even able to attach severed limbs (as shown in the Target X series, when she cuts off her own hand to escape restraints). Her healing factor was revealed to be even faster, and perhaps more versatile, than that of Wolverine. This is due to the lower levels of adamantium in her system; a much smaller portion of her power is devoted to combatting the poisonous effects of the metal. Had she not escaped before her entire skeleton was enhanced, her healing would have slowed as well.
X-23 also possesses the same superhuman abilities as Wolverine, including enhanced strength, agility and stamina, as well as heightened senses comparable to animals. Thanks to her stamina, she can operate at peak condition for 24 straight hours before fatigue sets in. However, her strength is limited by the stresses her skeleton can withstand, being only bone and not metal like her counterpart.
Lastly, X-23 has the same adamantium-coated claws as Wolverine. However, due to the process that made her female, she has two claws in each hand, rather than three, and one claw in each foot.
Originally From:
Engineered, raised and trained in a place only known as the Facility.
Known Family:
Wolverine (genetic template)
Dr. Sarah Kinney (mother, deceased)
Debbie Kinney (aunt, deceased)
Megan Kinney (cousin, deceased)
Physical Description:
X-23 is thin and a bit short, but for her petite build, she is incredibly tough, all muscle, and extremely athletic. She has long black hair, green eyes, and a range of expression from angry at worst to blank at best. A smile is almost impossible to find gracing her features. Her usual mode of dress is either militaristic, like the uniforms issued to her, or goth-inspired. She wears tank tops and corsets, tight pants or miniskirts and thigh highs, always combined with a well worn pair of boots issued to her before she left the Facility.
Personality:
X-23 is angry, depressed, and emotionally stunted. For the majority of her young life, she was abused and treated as a thing to strip her of her free will and humanity. The Facility wanted a weapon, not a young girl. It worked quite well, with the exception of, Dr. Sarah Kinney and her sensei. Her mother would read her Pinocchio when she was supposed to learn battle tactics, and her sensei was respectful and encouraging, treating her as a child. These were the only glimpses of humanity and affection X-23 received. They meant a lot, but they didn't matter much in her development of emotion, as her own efforts to show any affection were rejected. And so, she stopped trying. She gave up on such positive emotions almost entirely, and kept the negative ones bottled inside. She best learned anger, ruthlessness and hate from Dr. Rice. She was the target of his hatred and vengeance against the original Weapon X, torturing and almost killing her on several occasions, then making her kill the few people she cared for. It only made her work harder to hide the pain, as well. She expressed one thing covertly, her own anger and depression through self-harm, though it did little with her healing factor. She didn't see any happiness until her escape, daring to be happy while living with her aunt and cousin, but when she was forced to kill them as well, she shut down once again.
Other:
X-23 was trained to be the perfect weapon, and expert assasin. She is familiar with weapons and explosives, and is an incredibly skilled close-combat fighter. She uses her skills and agility frequently in combat to make use of the claws in her feet and is as comfortable fighting with her feet, upside-down, as she is at hand-to-hand. Also, she is fluent in English and Japanese, not that she ever talks much anyway.
Bio:
((This follows the canon storyline from the X-23: Innocence Lost and Target X series, up until the very end.))
It began many years ago.
The Weapon X project seemed a success, an indestructible super-soldier had been created. It was perfect, enviable, but underestimated. The project went haywire when the weapon began killing all the wrong people as it escaped. Among them was Dr. Dale Rice. He went to steal a sample of the weapon's DNA, and succeeded, but the efforts cost him his life. His son Zander, a child at the time, became determined from that day forth to complete the project his father gave his life for.
Years later, the young Dr. Rice was head of a new project, to recreate the Weapon X project for his own covert Facility. However, one attempt after another was a failure. His experiments died one after another, and worse, the DNA sample of the original was badly damaged. Higher ups decided the best course of action was to bring in an expert mutant geneticist, Dr. Sarah Kinney. From the start, Rice didn't like her, taking help as a slight against his abilities. Kinney proposed the best course of action was to stop trying to repair the damaged Y-chromosome of the sample and use the more-intact X-chromosome twice. The only side effect would be a female result, a modified clone of the original. The idea was shot down, but Kinney went ahead in secret, while also trying to repair the perfect clone. When her plan worked and she had created a viable female embryo, she came clean about her secret experiments. Despite Rice's protests, she was allowed to continue work with the female embryo. All she had to do was find a surrogate. Because she'd gone against him, Rice forced Sarah to be the mother to her own experiment. After nine months of proding and monitoring, she gave birth to a little girl. After 22 failed experiments, this one worked, and the infant was dubbed simply "X-23."
From birth, the girl was shown nothing but abuse and clinical attention. No affection, no concern, she was a weapon, not a person in any way. Starting at a young age, the training and brutal experiments began. She trained in multiple forms of fighting and weapon mastery. The torture began in the name of creating a trigger scent that would send her into a murderous frenzy. If she were ever to question her masters, they could override her easily. Rice made her abuse worse for his own purposes, hating her for Weapon X's murder of his father.
As the years passed, the little weapon excelled. Kinney read to her the tactics of war and she took it in. She also read to her the story of Pinnochio over and over, but the little girl didn't understand why. Her sensei encouraged her as her training became more advanced. He was respectful, and it was odd to the girl to receive such consideration. Rice, in the meantime, was eager to begin her enhancements. He decided not to wait for puberty to activate her mutant abilities. He controlled her environment to speed her development, and finally, subected her to high radiation to activate the latent gene. She nearly died, but the trick worked. Her claws extended and her healing factor kicked in immediately. He could finally proceed. The adamantium would stunt her growth, but her claws grew fast and they were long enough. With no anesthesia, Rice removed her claws, sharpened them, coated them with adamantium, and finally put them back in. It was a terrible ordeal, and Kinney was aghast, but the young girl was fine the next day. At least, fine physically. She showed no emotion from the abuse.
After her enhancement, Rice finally decided the trigger scent was ready. Subject to years of torture while exposed to the scent, X-23 finally responded instinctively to it with brutality and murderous rage. The first real trial was her sensei. He pulled a sword as part of their training, the handle tainted with the scent. Unaware of her own action, X-23 attacked and murdered him easily. Only once he was dead did she come out of her stupor and couldn't believe what she had done. Her sensei was dead for the kindness he had shown her. To Rice, it was a success. It was time for her to earn her keep.
They sent her in to slaughter a presidential candidate, his family, and everyone in attendance at the rally. It was purposeless; they all died for the sake of advertising abilities. From then on, she was sold for $55 million a hit. Her abilities were among the best in the world, and she excelled at every mission. She beat the strictest time limits and made the rendezvous points, no matter how far away. She was too perfect, until one day she didn't make it. Or so Rice claimed. He left her behind to her death, but she survived. It was the perfect chance to escape, but she fought her way back to the Facility. It was the only life she knew, so despite the torment, she came back.
Shortly after that, Dr. Kinney learned that her niece, Megan, had been kidnapped. She smuggled X-23 from the Facility in order to save her. X-23 succeeded in tracking down the kidnapper and killed him, freeing Megan before returning to the Facility once more. However, they were not unaware of the stunt Dr. Kinney had pulled. For the infraction, she was fired and ordered to leave. In the meantime, Rice sent X-23 on one last mission to kill Sutter and his family, the man in charge of the Facility. X-23 returns as Kinney must go, but before she left, she gave X-23 one last mission: Kill Rice, destroy the Facility and all the other clones in the making. Like every goal set for her, X-23 succeeded and met her other to leave, only to pick up the trigger scent on the doctor. She couldn't help it and attacked her mother before recovering from the scent's effects. Before she died, however, Kinney told her daughter her real name and gave her a letter explaining everything, as well as pictures of Charles Xavier, Wolverine, and the Xavier Institute.
Left on her own, X-23--now Laura Kinney--didn't go to the Institute, but rather she headed to the San Francisco, seeking out her aunt Debbie and cousin Megan. She introduced herself as Sarah's daughter and moved in with them, becoming fast friends with her cousin, or at least the closest thing to friendship she's ever experienced. Megan takes her out and tries to make jokes, but Laura doesn't have any sense of humor. She is however, content for the first time. It didn't last long.
Aunt Debbie's boyfriend, Desmond, was actually an agent for the Facility, trying to make Laura kill her new family. He spiked the tea he served to Debbie with the trigger scent, but when Megan spilled in on him, Laura attacked him instead. His death was not the end of her frenzy, however and she turned quickly on Megan next, then to her aunt in her bedroom. It wasn't until they were all dead that she broke from the trigger and saw what she had done. With more blood on her hands, she turned sour again and fled to New York.
And in the Interview:
Why did you chose our site?: Because this site was my first and (tied for) favorite.
What about this character do you like?: I've liked X-23 since her debut. She's incredibly angry, young, and emotionally unbalanced. I, like most of us here, love the angst factor, and X-23 has a lot of angst potential, which I feel I messed up the first time I played her. Also, if you're familiar with XMR, I have a good time playing violent characters as well. Plus, now that we're beginning the new plot, I would like to introduce her and see what happens. I had a revamped plot and bio conjured up within fifteen minutes of the big reveal, but it is the decision of the mods to revamp her as you guys see fit, and to keep me on my toes.
Have you ever RPed before? Where?: Here, many times as many people, including X-23 in the past, currently Dazzler, on the oh-so-violent XMR as an OC, and on Pyromane, playing Gambit and Berzerker. See the thread "Willing to Fight to Be Free" for my old work as X-23. I'd have a link here, but everything is all crazy now and I don't know where to find it. I think it was in the America section, if that helps.
Please write a sample post for the character you want below:
Megan and Laura Kinney walked along the San Francisco boardwalk as the sun slowly set. As the day was winding gown, the two girls spent their time window shopping in the warm air, under the pink-and-orange sky. It was beautiful, peaceful, and so very...mundane. A rare smile played on the features of the teenaged former assassin. It took some adjusting when she first moved in with her cousin, but she had come to cherish this normal, boring life. What most considered boring was new to her, and she loved going home to people that cared about her. The loving environment was foreign, but she could get used to it in time.
Beside her, Megan was distracted by her cellphone. Laura's attention was focused on the news playing in the shop window. A story about the X-Men played on the television. The men from the pictures her mother had given her... Absently, she placed a hand on the glass before Megan snapped her out of the reverie.
"We have to grab some stuff for mom, come on."
Startled by the voice, she stepped back from the glass and mumbled an apology. Megan was broke, and all of Laura's funds were back at the house, so the cousins headed home early and empty-handed. Pulling up to the house in her aunt's red sedan, Megan ran ahead into the house as Laura turned the car around in the driveway, expecting to grab money and leave again to get medicine. Throwing the car into park, Laura got out of the car in time to hear a dull crash and a quick apology. She didn't expect anything as she walked up the steps and through the front door. She didn't think anything.
That smell...
No...
The thought was quickly far from her mind. The moment the scent hit her nostrils, Laura's green eyes grew red. Desmond and Megan looked up with horror from the floor as she extended her claws with an audible *SNIKT.*
Enemy. Pain. DIE!
She no longer recognized the familiar faces in front of her. As she lashed out, her actions were instinctive, her thoughts incoherent and afraid.
Desmond was covered in the tainted tea, so moved for him first. The enemy before her scrambled and ran down the hall, but she was faster, stronger. She was upon him in no time. Kicking, slashing, blood all over and all around her. She didn't do like she was trained, strike once to kill and move on. No, she raged against him, punching him again and again, drawing claws in and out. She fought viscerally until she slowly realized she no longer had an opponent underneath her striking fists, only a body that was barely recognizeable as human. Stopping her hand mid-strike over what was left of his face, she began to note her surroundings once more. There was whimpering behind her. No...it was screaming.
"LAURA! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"
Megan screamed from the other end of the hall. She should have run.
Laura didn't hear her words, just the sound. Someone else was here... That scent still hanging in her senses. Enemy. More enemies, she had to dispose of them. As she turned to face the sound, her eyes were still red. She moved in a flash against the hapless girl. She tried to run, but X-23 was faster. She leapt at her opponent and raised her claws high, striking her down in a fatal blow. She could hear the pounding heartbeat slow and quickly stop at her feet. Absently, she sniffed the air again. The trigger was now strongest upstairs, mingled with the scent of another person. Her aunt came rushing to the top of the stairs, and it was the same scenario again.
Screaming.
Motion.
Then silence again.
Hunched over the form of her dead aunt, X-23 sniffed the air again, trying to discern scents beyond the warm and pungent blood. She stopped, listened, but could discern no other life. There was no one there but her. The scent in her nose told her of fear and pain, but there was no one left to attack her. Her own heartbeat slowed from the rapid thumping in her chest and she slowly became herself again. When she did, she was horrified.
Laura jumped back quickly from the body at her feet, clamping her hand over her mouth, tears threatening to form in her eyes.
N-no... No. Oh god, please not again...
The heavy stench of blood hung in the air. Slowly, she moved down the staircase again and surveyed her handiwork. Debbie was slashed furiously all over. Megan was stabbed in the back, lined up perfectly over her heart, and Desmond was little more than a bloody pulp in the hallway carpet. The last people she had left to care about were dead, again because of her. She...she was poison.
Sliding down the wall to a crouch, Laura screamed her frustration as her hands tore into her hair.
She shouted to the lifeless house and broke into an angry sob. Surveying the death around her, she forced herself to her feet again. Her claws still extended she moved toward her room, slashing angrily into the walls along the way. As quick as she could, she stripped herself of the bloody clothes and found herself crumpling again. Falling onto the bed, she now stabbed angrily at herself.
This is all my fault! I should never have come here, never tried to have a normal life. I'm not Pinocchio, I don't get to be real. I'm just a weapon. A thing. A thing that should be destroyed...
For all the wounds she inflicted upon herself, they were sealed again by the time she struck her next mark. She couldn't even distinguish her own blood among that of her victims. Screaming her frustration once more that she couldn't even stop herself, she made herself move again. She turned on the shower, not waiting for heat, and washed the blood away. She dressed again quickly, threw clothes and money into a duffle bag on the bed, and turned to run for the door. Emerging from her room, she stopped at the sight of her dead aunt once more. They deserved more respect than that. Turning back, she ripped the sheets from her bed, and left one lying over Debbie and Megan. She ignored Desmond as she picked up the house phone and dialed 911. She said nothing, but put the handset on the counter. They'd come and investigate. When she headed out the door, the sedan was still running. It was just supposed to be a short errand...
After getting in the car, she drove. She drove for hours, aimlessly.
Maybe she'd go to New York... She wasn't the only weapon out there. If she was capable of such cold murder, so was he. And if so, they both had to be destroyed...
Laura Kinney
Codename:
X-23, Laura X
Age:
16
Detailed Description of Powers:
X-23 has an advanced healing factor that makes her immune to most poisons and drugs, and allows her to heal almost instantly that would be fatal to most. She is even able to attach severed limbs (as shown in the Target X series, when she cuts off her own hand to escape restraints). Her healing factor was revealed to be even faster, and perhaps more versatile, than that of Wolverine. This is due to the lower levels of adamantium in her system; a much smaller portion of her power is devoted to combatting the poisonous effects of the metal. Had she not escaped before her entire skeleton was enhanced, her healing would have slowed as well.
X-23 also possesses the same superhuman abilities as Wolverine, including enhanced strength, agility and stamina, as well as heightened senses comparable to animals. Thanks to her stamina, she can operate at peak condition for 24 straight hours before fatigue sets in. However, her strength is limited by the stresses her skeleton can withstand, being only bone and not metal like her counterpart.
Lastly, X-23 has the same adamantium-coated claws as Wolverine. However, due to the process that made her female, she has two claws in each hand, rather than three, and one claw in each foot.
Originally From:
Engineered, raised and trained in a place only known as the Facility.
Known Family:
Wolverine (genetic template)
Dr. Sarah Kinney (mother, deceased)
Debbie Kinney (aunt, deceased)
Megan Kinney (cousin, deceased)
Physical Description:
X-23 is thin and a bit short, but for her petite build, she is incredibly tough, all muscle, and extremely athletic. She has long black hair, green eyes, and a range of expression from angry at worst to blank at best. A smile is almost impossible to find gracing her features. Her usual mode of dress is either militaristic, like the uniforms issued to her, or goth-inspired. She wears tank tops and corsets, tight pants or miniskirts and thigh highs, always combined with a well worn pair of boots issued to her before she left the Facility.
Personality:
X-23 is angry, depressed, and emotionally stunted. For the majority of her young life, she was abused and treated as a thing to strip her of her free will and humanity. The Facility wanted a weapon, not a young girl. It worked quite well, with the exception of, Dr. Sarah Kinney and her sensei. Her mother would read her Pinocchio when she was supposed to learn battle tactics, and her sensei was respectful and encouraging, treating her as a child. These were the only glimpses of humanity and affection X-23 received. They meant a lot, but they didn't matter much in her development of emotion, as her own efforts to show any affection were rejected. And so, she stopped trying. She gave up on such positive emotions almost entirely, and kept the negative ones bottled inside. She best learned anger, ruthlessness and hate from Dr. Rice. She was the target of his hatred and vengeance against the original Weapon X, torturing and almost killing her on several occasions, then making her kill the few people she cared for. It only made her work harder to hide the pain, as well. She expressed one thing covertly, her own anger and depression through self-harm, though it did little with her healing factor. She didn't see any happiness until her escape, daring to be happy while living with her aunt and cousin, but when she was forced to kill them as well, she shut down once again.
Other:
X-23 was trained to be the perfect weapon, and expert assasin. She is familiar with weapons and explosives, and is an incredibly skilled close-combat fighter. She uses her skills and agility frequently in combat to make use of the claws in her feet and is as comfortable fighting with her feet, upside-down, as she is at hand-to-hand. Also, she is fluent in English and Japanese, not that she ever talks much anyway.
Bio:
((This follows the canon storyline from the X-23: Innocence Lost and Target X series, up until the very end.))
It began many years ago.
The Weapon X project seemed a success, an indestructible super-soldier had been created. It was perfect, enviable, but underestimated. The project went haywire when the weapon began killing all the wrong people as it escaped. Among them was Dr. Dale Rice. He went to steal a sample of the weapon's DNA, and succeeded, but the efforts cost him his life. His son Zander, a child at the time, became determined from that day forth to complete the project his father gave his life for.
Years later, the young Dr. Rice was head of a new project, to recreate the Weapon X project for his own covert Facility. However, one attempt after another was a failure. His experiments died one after another, and worse, the DNA sample of the original was badly damaged. Higher ups decided the best course of action was to bring in an expert mutant geneticist, Dr. Sarah Kinney. From the start, Rice didn't like her, taking help as a slight against his abilities. Kinney proposed the best course of action was to stop trying to repair the damaged Y-chromosome of the sample and use the more-intact X-chromosome twice. The only side effect would be a female result, a modified clone of the original. The idea was shot down, but Kinney went ahead in secret, while also trying to repair the perfect clone. When her plan worked and she had created a viable female embryo, she came clean about her secret experiments. Despite Rice's protests, she was allowed to continue work with the female embryo. All she had to do was find a surrogate. Because she'd gone against him, Rice forced Sarah to be the mother to her own experiment. After nine months of proding and monitoring, she gave birth to a little girl. After 22 failed experiments, this one worked, and the infant was dubbed simply "X-23."
From birth, the girl was shown nothing but abuse and clinical attention. No affection, no concern, she was a weapon, not a person in any way. Starting at a young age, the training and brutal experiments began. She trained in multiple forms of fighting and weapon mastery. The torture began in the name of creating a trigger scent that would send her into a murderous frenzy. If she were ever to question her masters, they could override her easily. Rice made her abuse worse for his own purposes, hating her for Weapon X's murder of his father.
As the years passed, the little weapon excelled. Kinney read to her the tactics of war and she took it in. She also read to her the story of Pinnochio over and over, but the little girl didn't understand why. Her sensei encouraged her as her training became more advanced. He was respectful, and it was odd to the girl to receive such consideration. Rice, in the meantime, was eager to begin her enhancements. He decided not to wait for puberty to activate her mutant abilities. He controlled her environment to speed her development, and finally, subected her to high radiation to activate the latent gene. She nearly died, but the trick worked. Her claws extended and her healing factor kicked in immediately. He could finally proceed. The adamantium would stunt her growth, but her claws grew fast and they were long enough. With no anesthesia, Rice removed her claws, sharpened them, coated them with adamantium, and finally put them back in. It was a terrible ordeal, and Kinney was aghast, but the young girl was fine the next day. At least, fine physically. She showed no emotion from the abuse.
After her enhancement, Rice finally decided the trigger scent was ready. Subject to years of torture while exposed to the scent, X-23 finally responded instinctively to it with brutality and murderous rage. The first real trial was her sensei. He pulled a sword as part of their training, the handle tainted with the scent. Unaware of her own action, X-23 attacked and murdered him easily. Only once he was dead did she come out of her stupor and couldn't believe what she had done. Her sensei was dead for the kindness he had shown her. To Rice, it was a success. It was time for her to earn her keep.
They sent her in to slaughter a presidential candidate, his family, and everyone in attendance at the rally. It was purposeless; they all died for the sake of advertising abilities. From then on, she was sold for $55 million a hit. Her abilities were among the best in the world, and she excelled at every mission. She beat the strictest time limits and made the rendezvous points, no matter how far away. She was too perfect, until one day she didn't make it. Or so Rice claimed. He left her behind to her death, but she survived. It was the perfect chance to escape, but she fought her way back to the Facility. It was the only life she knew, so despite the torment, she came back.
Shortly after that, Dr. Kinney learned that her niece, Megan, had been kidnapped. She smuggled X-23 from the Facility in order to save her. X-23 succeeded in tracking down the kidnapper and killed him, freeing Megan before returning to the Facility once more. However, they were not unaware of the stunt Dr. Kinney had pulled. For the infraction, she was fired and ordered to leave. In the meantime, Rice sent X-23 on one last mission to kill Sutter and his family, the man in charge of the Facility. X-23 returns as Kinney must go, but before she left, she gave X-23 one last mission: Kill Rice, destroy the Facility and all the other clones in the making. Like every goal set for her, X-23 succeeded and met her other to leave, only to pick up the trigger scent on the doctor. She couldn't help it and attacked her mother before recovering from the scent's effects. Before she died, however, Kinney told her daughter her real name and gave her a letter explaining everything, as well as pictures of Charles Xavier, Wolverine, and the Xavier Institute.
Left on her own, X-23--now Laura Kinney--didn't go to the Institute, but rather she headed to the San Francisco, seeking out her aunt Debbie and cousin Megan. She introduced herself as Sarah's daughter and moved in with them, becoming fast friends with her cousin, or at least the closest thing to friendship she's ever experienced. Megan takes her out and tries to make jokes, but Laura doesn't have any sense of humor. She is however, content for the first time. It didn't last long.
Aunt Debbie's boyfriend, Desmond, was actually an agent for the Facility, trying to make Laura kill her new family. He spiked the tea he served to Debbie with the trigger scent, but when Megan spilled in on him, Laura attacked him instead. His death was not the end of her frenzy, however and she turned quickly on Megan next, then to her aunt in her bedroom. It wasn't until they were all dead that she broke from the trigger and saw what she had done. With more blood on her hands, she turned sour again and fled to New York.
And in the Interview:
Why did you chose our site?: Because this site was my first and (tied for) favorite.
What about this character do you like?: I've liked X-23 since her debut. She's incredibly angry, young, and emotionally unbalanced. I, like most of us here, love the angst factor, and X-23 has a lot of angst potential, which I feel I messed up the first time I played her. Also, if you're familiar with XMR, I have a good time playing violent characters as well. Plus, now that we're beginning the new plot, I would like to introduce her and see what happens. I had a revamped plot and bio conjured up within fifteen minutes of the big reveal, but it is the decision of the mods to revamp her as you guys see fit, and to keep me on my toes.
Have you ever RPed before? Where?: Here, many times as many people, including X-23 in the past, currently Dazzler, on the oh-so-violent XMR as an OC, and on Pyromane, playing Gambit and Berzerker. See the thread "Willing to Fight to Be Free" for my old work as X-23. I'd have a link here, but everything is all crazy now and I don't know where to find it. I think it was in the America section, if that helps.
Please write a sample post for the character you want below:
Megan and Laura Kinney walked along the San Francisco boardwalk as the sun slowly set. As the day was winding gown, the two girls spent their time window shopping in the warm air, under the pink-and-orange sky. It was beautiful, peaceful, and so very...mundane. A rare smile played on the features of the teenaged former assassin. It took some adjusting when she first moved in with her cousin, but she had come to cherish this normal, boring life. What most considered boring was new to her, and she loved going home to people that cared about her. The loving environment was foreign, but she could get used to it in time.
Beside her, Megan was distracted by her cellphone. Laura's attention was focused on the news playing in the shop window. A story about the X-Men played on the television. The men from the pictures her mother had given her... Absently, she placed a hand on the glass before Megan snapped her out of the reverie.
"We have to grab some stuff for mom, come on."
Startled by the voice, she stepped back from the glass and mumbled an apology. Megan was broke, and all of Laura's funds were back at the house, so the cousins headed home early and empty-handed. Pulling up to the house in her aunt's red sedan, Megan ran ahead into the house as Laura turned the car around in the driveway, expecting to grab money and leave again to get medicine. Throwing the car into park, Laura got out of the car in time to hear a dull crash and a quick apology. She didn't expect anything as she walked up the steps and through the front door. She didn't think anything.
That smell...
No...
The thought was quickly far from her mind. The moment the scent hit her nostrils, Laura's green eyes grew red. Desmond and Megan looked up with horror from the floor as she extended her claws with an audible *SNIKT.*
Enemy. Pain. DIE!
She no longer recognized the familiar faces in front of her. As she lashed out, her actions were instinctive, her thoughts incoherent and afraid.
Desmond was covered in the tainted tea, so moved for him first. The enemy before her scrambled and ran down the hall, but she was faster, stronger. She was upon him in no time. Kicking, slashing, blood all over and all around her. She didn't do like she was trained, strike once to kill and move on. No, she raged against him, punching him again and again, drawing claws in and out. She fought viscerally until she slowly realized she no longer had an opponent underneath her striking fists, only a body that was barely recognizeable as human. Stopping her hand mid-strike over what was left of his face, she began to note her surroundings once more. There was whimpering behind her. No...it was screaming.
"LAURA! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"
Megan screamed from the other end of the hall. She should have run.
Laura didn't hear her words, just the sound. Someone else was here... That scent still hanging in her senses. Enemy. More enemies, she had to dispose of them. As she turned to face the sound, her eyes were still red. She moved in a flash against the hapless girl. She tried to run, but X-23 was faster. She leapt at her opponent and raised her claws high, striking her down in a fatal blow. She could hear the pounding heartbeat slow and quickly stop at her feet. Absently, she sniffed the air again. The trigger was now strongest upstairs, mingled with the scent of another person. Her aunt came rushing to the top of the stairs, and it was the same scenario again.
Screaming.
Motion.
Then silence again.
Hunched over the form of her dead aunt, X-23 sniffed the air again, trying to discern scents beyond the warm and pungent blood. She stopped, listened, but could discern no other life. There was no one there but her. The scent in her nose told her of fear and pain, but there was no one left to attack her. Her own heartbeat slowed from the rapid thumping in her chest and she slowly became herself again. When she did, she was horrified.
Laura jumped back quickly from the body at her feet, clamping her hand over her mouth, tears threatening to form in her eyes.
N-no... No. Oh god, please not again...
The heavy stench of blood hung in the air. Slowly, she moved down the staircase again and surveyed her handiwork. Debbie was slashed furiously all over. Megan was stabbed in the back, lined up perfectly over her heart, and Desmond was little more than a bloody pulp in the hallway carpet. The last people she had left to care about were dead, again because of her. She...she was poison.
Sliding down the wall to a crouch, Laura screamed her frustration as her hands tore into her hair.
She shouted to the lifeless house and broke into an angry sob. Surveying the death around her, she forced herself to her feet again. Her claws still extended she moved toward her room, slashing angrily into the walls along the way. As quick as she could, she stripped herself of the bloody clothes and found herself crumpling again. Falling onto the bed, she now stabbed angrily at herself.
This is all my fault! I should never have come here, never tried to have a normal life. I'm not Pinocchio, I don't get to be real. I'm just a weapon. A thing. A thing that should be destroyed...
For all the wounds she inflicted upon herself, they were sealed again by the time she struck her next mark. She couldn't even distinguish her own blood among that of her victims. Screaming her frustration once more that she couldn't even stop herself, she made herself move again. She turned on the shower, not waiting for heat, and washed the blood away. She dressed again quickly, threw clothes and money into a duffle bag on the bed, and turned to run for the door. Emerging from her room, she stopped at the sight of her dead aunt once more. They deserved more respect than that. Turning back, she ripped the sheets from her bed, and left one lying over Debbie and Megan. She ignored Desmond as she picked up the house phone and dialed 911. She said nothing, but put the handset on the counter. They'd come and investigate. When she headed out the door, the sedan was still running. It was just supposed to be a short errand...
After getting in the car, she drove. She drove for hours, aimlessly.
Maybe she'd go to New York... She wasn't the only weapon out there. If she was capable of such cold murder, so was he. And if so, they both had to be destroyed...
