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in: Marvel Characters, Marvel Feature, Marvel Hero,
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X-23

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DC/Marvel: Age of Infinite Heroes
Laura
Name Laura Kinney
Codename X-23
Species Mutant Clone
Age 17
Affiliation Xavier's Institute,
Generation X (Formerly)
Powers/Abilities
  • Regenerative Healing Factor
  • Superhuman Strength
  • Superhuman Stamina
  • Superhuman Agility
  • Superhuman Reflexes
  • Superhuman Senses
  • Bone Claws (Two in each forearm, one in each foot)
  • Covered with Adamantium

Laura Kinney is a runaway girl, very little known about her and she has no reputation aware to the common public. A habit of leaving angst and clawed victims in her wake.

X-23 is the designation given to a girl created by the Weapon Plus Project where she was being raised in seclusion and mistreatment as a weapon.

Background

X-23 Early

What would be the spinoff of the ongoing Weapon Plus project would be initiated shortly after the escape of Subject Ten and the destruction of the primary laboratory and surgery complex. The issue facing the program was the need for a field unit with a healing factor, and advanced combat training for missions. However, given the scarcity of such subjects and their noted history of stubbornness and free will, and the destructive results of such, it was decided to create a subject from scratch. Train them from birth, condition them and mold them to warriors.

Under the direction of Doctor Marin Sutter, his protege Zander Rice, who's father had been a casualty of Subject Ten's escape, attempts were made to use a damaged fragment of Subject Ten's genetic code to make a healing factor. After repeated failings, the adoption of Doctor Sarah Kinney to the team brought with it a rapid change of idea. Suggesting a female clone rather than male for the greater stability of the Y Chromosome, on the twenty third attempt, a successful female was made. It was then implanted within Sarah, who was forced to be the surrogate mother to the cloned girl.

Subject Twenty Three, or Laura as she was called by her 'mother' was raised to be a weapon. Trained from birth and conditioned, beaten if she showed any semblance of humanity. Implanted within her was a condition she could not resist, to kill anyone marked with a specific scent. When she was seven, and no sign of her mutant powers having kicked in, she was given a massive overdose of radiation. This then caused her quiescent healing factor to kick in, saving her life in the process. However, the result was the triggering of her latent mutant abilities, and the growing of her claws. Unlike her progenitor, Laura had additional claws located around her ankles, an unexpected difference. They were then implanted over with adamantium in an operation without anesthetic. For reasons she would not grasp until long after, Zander Rice blamed Subject Ten for the death of his father, a blame which was transferred to the nearest subject, Laura. Thus, at every opportunity he would attempt to belittle, humiliate, and torture her, reveling in destroying anything that might be a small smidgen of hope or humanity to the girl, treating her as purely a mongrel, a wild animal that needed to be put down and muzzled.

The Weapon Plus program, with it's abrupt cancelation by the Canadian Government, was left with severe funding issues to continue it's research and training. Thus, it utilized the available personnel as expensive for hire mercenaries and put the money raised over to continuing the program. They also hired outside experts to assist in training them. Laura's 'handler' as she was deemed, was a sadistic woman called Kimura, a fiendish creature of pure spite who reveled in torturing Laura at every whim when she disappointed in her training. Among her initial training, when still a young child, Zander Rice experimented with Laura's genetically conditioned 'trigger scent' which was used on her elderly sensei, whom Laura slaughtered. Upon coming to and seeing what she had done, Laura went berserk, assaulting all who came near her, and was remediated to Kimura for 'corrective measures' as she was brutally beaten to behaving.

Laura was given missions from an early age, among them slaughtering a presidential candidate (Greg Johnson) for which SHIELD initially suspected someone of association to Wolverine due to the brutal evisceration and use of adamantium claws.

The event was enough to have them open an investigation file to begin to tie together various murders committed in association with adamantium melee weapons, which would continue to pick up material within it. And so, all of the killings continued, and with each brutal, conditioned murder, Laura lost a little more of a soul she would have stated she thought she never had if asked. Doctor Rice began to give the unready girl more and more violent, more and more difficult missions in the hope she would never come back. Whenever she did complete an assignment, she would be brutally tortured by Kimura for 'failures' she could not understand.

And yet, the one ray for the young girl was her mother. Sarah Kinney was able to, surprising even to herself, bond with the young killer she had raised. In Laura, she began to see that the girl was not 'a little puppet' and was losing her soul with each mission she did. Sarah began to wonder if she was the guilty one, for having put an innocent life in this position. She began attempting to give her daughter more affection, trying to give her warmth where she had never known it. This expanded rapidly after Sarah used Laura without permission to go searching for her runaway niece, and Laura returned her cousin to Sarah's sister, and was then in turn brutally tortured again.

X-23 costumed

At this point, Doctor Rice's insanity and hatred took over all he was. Blaming Laura for her continued crimes of mere existence, he took over the Weapon Plus project. Sending Laura to assassinate his patron and his family, Laura was somehow able to resist her conditioning and trigger scent to let his son remain alive. At this point Doctor Rice showed to Sarah Kinney his plans for the project - hundreds of clones, made from Laura's genetic material that he would raise as a legion of mercenary super soldiers to be hired to the highest bidder. Sarah had had enough. She had her daughter kill Doctor Rice, destroy the facility, and had an escape ready to give the two a normal life, and for herself a chance of redemption. But Doctor Rice had had one last trick up his sleeve, having exposed Sarah to Laura's trigger scent. As she came out of her fury and saw she had slew her mother, Laura mourned. Her mother told her, as she lay dying, to make her own way in life. And she was a person, not a weapon. And she gave Laura her name that she had always called her. And Laura ran away, trying to find something she had never known existed.

The first stop that Laura made was finding the family of her surrogate mother. They did not know her, but welcomed her as a member of their family. While there, the kidnapped niece that Laura had rescued for her mother found a degree of solace that her kidnapper had been killed. But there, Laura was found by agents of the Facility, who had taken over the remnants of the Weapon Plus project, and pursued by them. But she was able to fight them off, and fled. But knowing of her mother. Knowing that she had a family, and people who would care for her. And she took with her a treasured possession, a locket and picture of her mother to always remember her by. Knowing that she had to stay away from her family, but that they would always be there for her. At this point, Laura decided she had to track down the man whom in a sense was responsible for her. Subject Ten. The Wolverine.

Shortly after her escape, her path would begin to intersect with that of her progenitor, the Wolverine. Logan had been tracking down rumors of other test subjects of the Weapon X program, and had begun finding other victims of dismemberment by adamantium claws, anall too haunting visage for him. Logan, recognizing something of possible relation to himself, began his Hunt. Tracking down rumors from cold cases years old, and solidifying what had been forgotten, Wolverine recognized the hallmarks, and went to the one man who would have something solid. Tracking down police reports, cold cases, killings within the Eastern Seaboard that were not the work of Sabertooth, but someone smaller. Tracking down someone like himself. At this point, two separate paths, each looking for one another, merged. Logan tracked down Laura, and the two fought. Logan, holding back, was able to win rather handily against the younger girl, by now barely into her teens. There, she told him of her story, her creation. Identifying within her an origin like his own, and understanding her wishing to forge her own destiny, the elder Wolverine promised he would be there if she ever needed him, and 'Godspeed'.

The two went their separate ways, Logan occasionally checking in on her, but in general keeping her existence secret from the rest of the X-Men, respecting her wishes to remain anonymous. Laura had no information to give him on the Weapon Plus program. She had been too young, and as an experimental subject had not glimpsed any depths of it to pass along as research sources. Having killed everyone she knew was involved, and the facility that made her long since stripped bare, it was another dead end of research. She could not even say if the program continued after her escape, or she had killed everyone involved.

From there, for the next few months, Laura stayed in New York City. Not being inflicted by the Wanderlust of Wolverine, but her training keeping her mobile. Staying in the city, exploring it, encountering things. Her instinctive response to any other mutant or meta power was to flee and avoid them, whether it be a fight or a crime in progress. Laura avoided densely populated areas of the city, staying within the slums. She would not interfere in the goings on of life there. Watching how humans treating one another, she was always impressed by their capacity for hate. But also for their capacity for heroism. Even from the worst of people, she found herself unable to judge anyone. But when cornered, she would flee and lash out. She found herself unable to grasp the limits of society; why a man would be rich and treat others like scum, how the poor would try and eat one another to get out of the misery of the slums. And yet she was always so amazed by the capacity of humanity, for greatness and for vileness. Along the way, she would always move, spending place in a different place each night. Avoiding contact where she would be put at risk, seeing a different place every day. Generally stealing to survive or doing small things to get money and food. And so, here she is in the modern day, still where she was. Trying to find her place and her soul. She has become accustomed to the night life in the city, but as of the day she is still exploring and finding things. Having only been there a few months, there is much more vastness within the center of life of the Big Apple.

Updates

Once in the Big Apple, Laura first encountered the Amazing Spider-Man, forming a friendship with Peter Parker where he became sort of an older brother to her and checked in on her constantly.

In a run-in with Beast and her progenitor, Wolverine, in the city during a clash, Laura tentatively accepted an invitation back to the X-Mansion. There, she timidly interacted with the different students there, forming a close bond of attachment with the younger transient Asia, and forming a close emotional support with Scott Summers, Co-Headmaster of the School, whom she looked to for support in adapting to the school.

Starting to attend classes there, she ended up being roomed with Rachel Summers, student from a post apocalyptic future, the two each heavily emotionally stilted. After a number of Danger Room sessions, and proving her worth, she was offered and accepted a place in the Gen-X team, the trainee X-Men, and has accepted her future along at the Mansion.

After several months, it came time for break and she decided she really needed one. She had done well enough with her lessons and was making progress, but it was a source of real anxiety for her that she was so far behind everyone her age. She needed out of the mansion for a while, so she took a vacation and spent her break in Gotham.

In Gotham she made a couple good friends, running into Nightwing and Batwing while baiting muggers. She found out that she was quite good at that. Messing around with the Gotham wildlife soon found her crossing paths with Catwoman and Black Bat as well, with whom she found she had quite a lot in common.

Her stay in Gotham would not last forever however. Soon enough she'd return home, not one to quit on anything. An incident involving Kimura and her cousin Megan would provide happen immediately thereafter, the mutant psychopath having kidnapped her to try to draw her out for the latest of her attempts to capture her. This would end worse for her than most with Wolverine's help as she not only rescues her cousin, but they douse her with the very chemicals she sought to dunk Megan in.

A series of awkward encounters would eventually bring Laura into a stage of her life she never considered. First, Megan Kinney moves into the Xavier Mansion. It was decided that there she would be as safe as anywhere with the X-Men and allies looking out for each other full time. This brought about positive press for the school, the welcoming of an unpowered human. The second bit of awkwardness in her life came with the realization that she may be a lesbian. She became aware of the lack of meaningful personal relationships after a weird feeling from kissing the alien princess Starfire when she decided on a whim she wanted to learn her smattering of arabic. This has been her latest round of counseling with first Jean Grey, then Emma Frost

Megan would settle into the X-Mansion as the first non-mutant member of the Xavier School. The idea being to protect Megan with the public spotlight, and it generally works. Megan and Laura get along well, catching up and becoming friends to the occasional chagrin of the faculty. Alongside this, Laura would finally become a full fledged X-Man after a mission with Monet, Jean, and Jubilee involving a pitched battle with the Marauders.

As time progressed, Laura would establish herself as a steady albeit mostly solo member of the X-Men. Eventually, trouble struck in the most unlikely fashion however. Laura is a growing woman, her healing factor slowing this made it less noticeable to most but this would be the crux of it as it turned out her adamantium was not as well bonded as it was in her 'father'.. She would have to have her adamantium removed as it painfully restricted the growth of her claws. Soon thereafter, more drama ensued as Logan returned and Emma Frost enterred her life after returning to active status. 

Personality

X-23

She is the image of dour. Her upbringing has left her little reason to ever feel cheer, though there are the rare moments such as the accomplishment of something new that brings her a sense of commonality with her peers. She'll do anything for someone she's deemed a friend and is above deception of any sort. She doesn't understand the concept and loathes it. Philosophically, she's pragmatic. Conversationally, she's given to bluntness and seldom sees positive outcomes in most eventualities. Hope is a novel concept to her, but one she continues to strive for in spite of it all.

Girl Talk? Sorta?
"Wherever you go, there you are." - Buckaroo Banzai, Hong Kong Cavaliers






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