Who:X-23, OTA What: X-23 escapes The Facility and comes to Xavier's Where: Finally in the hallway outside Xavier's office When: Thursday night
WARNING: This is an EXTREMELY long narrative. I do not expect anyone to actually read all of it, I wrote it more for my own amusement than anything lol. All you need to know is that after the Weapon X attack on The Academy, X-23 escapes The Facility. In the process, she ends up killing the head of the project, Dr. Zander Rice who exposes her to the trigger scent before dying, forcing her into a frenzy in which she kills her own mother. In her dying moments, her mother hands her an envelope containing a letter and three pictures. The pictures being of The Academy, Professor Xavier, and Wolverine. On the run, X-23 makes her way to The Academy to hopefully find someone who can help her. She sneaks in under the cover of night, knowing that being seen by anyone at the school would likely lead to a fight she doesn't want nor need at this point. She breaks in and begins making her way to Xavier's room, hoping to meet with him and explain everything that has just happened.
On the chopper back to The Facility, X-23 had plenty of time to go through the events of the night in her head. She replayed each moment vividly over and over again. She felt....remorse? It couldn't be. She was bred to kill without any emotion; it was her life for as long as she could remember. This feeling was not new to her unfortunately and she had never taken a liking to it. She knew that if she informed her superiors of this, she would be punished severely. That was always the case when she exhibited any sort of emotion. How could she hide it though? Any sort of reaction would be categorized as an emotion and lead to subsequent punishment at the hands of Kimura. She needed to see her mother as soon as they returned to The Facility. She would know what to do in the situation. There were only two people in her life that had ever truly cared about her. One being Dr. Kinney, her mother, and the other being her Sensei, who she had been forced to murder in cold blood during The Facility's experimentation with the trigger scent.
As hard as she tried, the image of the young blonde girl lying on the ground in a pool of her own blood would not leave her mind. It was ingrained in her psyche. None of her targets in the past had affected her in this way. Then again, she had never harmed anyone even remotely close to her age ever before, so this was completely new territory. "It had to be done." she said to herself over and over again, but it did not seem to help making the bitter pill any easier to swallow. What if she had died from her wounds? She assessed them quickly to be non-fatal but there are any sort of complications that could arise from stabbing such a vital area of the body. She had been bleeding quite a bit, perhaps she nicked the Pulmonary Artery when she plunged her claws into her chest. She hoped her initial assessment was true. Having the death of a girl so close to her age on her conscience would eat her up inside, even if she wasn't supposed to feel any emotion. All of these thoughts raced through her head as the chopper cleared the tree line near The Facility. Now was the time to suppress all of these feelings and be a good little soldier now. Kimura was cruel and heartless so punishment was to be avoided at all costs.
X-23 was the first out of the chopper doors when the skids touched the tarmac. The legion of white coats swarmed to her like a pack of feral dogs. They checked all of her vitals signs, looking for any sort of problem or anomaly among the data. While the doctors gave her the once over, she saw three more people a little further away, observing the scene carefully; Dr. Zander Rice was the one in charger of this whole show, Kimura was X-23's handler and in charge of keeping her on a short leash, and Dr. Sarah Kinney was responsible for everything. Kinney was the brilliant geneticist who was brought on to the project to salvage whatever she could of the wreckage caused by 22 failed attempts at cloning the Weapon X Project named "Wolverine." She also acted as X-23's surrogate mother, raising the child from birth as best as she could given the circumstances. Dr. Kinney was the only family she had. The three of them stood on the outside of the madness surrounding the young mutant until the wizards in white coats had finished their examinations. Dr. Rice whispered something to Kimura and then turned and left. Without hesitation, Kimura started toward X-23. "Let's go you little shit, we don't have all day." she called to the young girl in a forceful tone reminiscent of that you would hear from a Marine Corps Drill Instructor. X-23 looked toward her mother for help. "Don't you start looking at her to save you. You fucked up and now you're going to have to deal with the consequences of failing your mission. Now hurry up and get your ass over here before I drag you inside and beat you like you stole something." Kimura yelled at her. X-23 reluctantly obeyed her handler and started walking toward The Facility.
She really needed time to talk with her mother so she could get all of these emotions out in a safe environment. It looked like she'd have to wait a while longer for that to happen. Kimura said she had failed her mission. She didn't understand how that was possible. She had been brought along as an insurance policy in case some of the stronger mutants present at the school had decided to fight back. She had performed her duties to the best of her abilities, incapacitating the young blonde girl and forcing the boy to tend to the wounded. There was nothing else she could have done to help the mission. It was not her fault that they had failed. Apparently Dr. Rice saw things differently and had ordered her to be punished. As she walked to The Facility, all she thought of was how she wished her mom could save her from the hellish pain and agony she was about to endure at the hands of that bitch, Kimura. She needed to grin and bear it because Kimura greatly enjoyed inflicting pain and suffering on the young girl. She couldn't give Kimura the satisfaction or else it would just last longer and longer. They weaved their way through the drab, winding hallways of the underground maze that is The Facility coming to a stop at an unassuming slate coloured metal door. Kimura waved a magnetic security card over the reader on the wall next to the door. *BEEP BEEP* the door sounded before sliding quickly into its frame.
Kimura shoved X-23 into the dimly lit room. The smell itself could be considered torture to most people, never mind the things that went on behind that unassuming slate coloured door. Old blood was caked on the floors and walls, among other bodily fluids. "Get your ass in the rack now." Kimura commanded X-23. She slowly walked over to the metal rack near the far wall and stepped into the restraints at the bottom. She knew the drill very well, as Kimura punished her every single chance she got. X-23 raised her hands and put them into the restraints above her head and waited for the tension to take up. Kimura pulled a small remote out of her pocket and pressed one of the buttons. The restraints in the rack tightened around X-23's limbs and pulled her body tight in all directions. This in itself was painful, having your limbs pulled so hard that they sometimes popped out of their sockets. What came next could only be described as something out of a bad horror movie. Kimura walked over to the small metal table of tools to the right of the torture rack and settled her hand over the top of it, trying to decide which implement she wanted to use this time. She reached for a small scalpel and grasped the tiny blade delicately between her fingers. This sick bitch really enjoyed hurting X-23. She cut on the poor girl for hours and hours. Only taking breaks when her hands became cramped from holding the tiny surgical tools for extended periods of time. X-23 did her best not to show any emotion or even react in any way to Kimura's sick and twisted fantasy come true. She could only hold on for so long though before she cracked and began to whimper softly during one of Kimura's infrequent breaks. "Oh, tsk tsk little one. I thought you knew better than this." Kimura said to the blood soaked girl before her. X-23 looked up at the older woman and spit in her face. "You little shit, You're going to pay for that. You just fucked yourself over for the next week." She responded while wiping the gob of spit from her face.
The beating to follow was savage and brutal. Even considering her mutant healing factor, X-23 was still in rough shape afterward. But finally Kimura's interest in hurting the poor girl waned. She turned around and started toward the door. "Get yourself cleaned up." she called over her shoulder while releasing the restraints on the torture rack. X-23 slumped to the floor in a bloody heap. Openly sobbing now, she laid on the floor for a while before finally getting up the strength to stand. By now, all of her physical wounds and injuries had healed but it would be a long time before she would be okay mentally. She soldiered on and left the torture chamber behind her, making her way to her living quarters in The Facility. When she reached the door, she stopped and took a deep breath before entering.
She fully expected to see her mother waiting for her at the table like she usually did after one of Kimura's punishment sessions but this time the place was empty. She searched every room, finding nothing until she reached her own room. An piece of folded paper was resting on her pillow. She picked it up and opened the flaps. She read the words on the note:
It's time you ended this. Come see me.
-Mom
Putting the note down, X-23 thought for a moment. She knew exactly what her mother was asking her to do. It was clear enough to her. The young girl folded the note back up. She cleaned herself up in the shower and dressed quickly. Tucking the note inside her back pocket, she turned and left the room. In the small amount of time she had, she planned her attack. She was allowed to move freely throughout The Facility, something not every girl in her situation had the privilege of doing. The guards and white coats in the hallways thought nothing of her when they passed her in the winding corridors and hallways. Some even going so far as to throw a tentative wave in her direction or a hesitant "hello." She needed to get to the upper laboratories where her mother would be working. Ensuring her safety was paramount to the success of the sabotage. Approaching the windowed work space, she saw her mother alone in her white lab coat, peering into the microscope in front of her. Laura gently rapped on the window to draw her mother's attention.
Slightly startled from the sudden knock on the glass, Sarah turned to see who it was at the window. She was not surprised to see X-23 standing there in the hallway, she was however surprised to see her there so soon. She wondered if X-23 had found the note she left, and mentally kicked herself for not being more clear about what she'd asked her to do. Getting up from the uncomfortable stool, Dr. Kinney walked over to door, took off her lab coat and hung it on the rack with the rest of them. She waved her keycard in front of the magnetic reader on the wall and the door slid open. Walking out into the hallway, she turned to her daughter and asked "Did you see what I left for you in your bedroom sweetie?"
"Yea Mom, I did. I just need to make sure you are safe before I go through with this." the young girl responded, showing emotion that would have outed her to anyone else at The Facility. Laura looked up at her mother and said "Go back to our room and pack a bag, be ready to leave in 15 minutes. I'll handle everything else."
Sarah knew better than to argue with her daughter when she was like this. Without question, she started walking down the hallway before turning around half way before the corridor ended. "Honey..." she called out hesitantly to her daughter, who was still standing in front of the laboratory door. The young girl turned to look at her mother. "I love you...don't forget that. I'll see you in 15 minutes. Good luck." Sarah said confidently, hoping it would somehow make what Laura was about to do easier as a result. Before Laura could respond, she turned and disappeared around the corner. The clock was ticking now. Guards monitoring the security cameras would have seen and heard that little conversation so 15 minutes was all she'd have before the entire Facility Security Team would come down on Laura with Kimura in tow naturally. She'd have to move fast if she wanted to get out of this alive.
Breaking into stride, X-23 covered ground like an Olympic Sprinter. Turning down the twisting maze of corridors, she hadn't come in contact with any guards yet. Which was a bit of a blessing. That would buy her more time to complete her objective. She flashed back to a week before, when her mother shared with her information about the pods of clones The Facility was cultivating from her DNA in the lower laboratories. Her mother was adamant about destroying those clones before The Facility could animate them, creating their very own army of mutant super-assassins. Getting to the lower laboratories was not a problem. Even getting inside seemed easier than it should have been. X-23, being so focused on the mission at hand, hadn't thought anything of it.
X-23 stared upon the rows and rows of incubating pods containing genetic replicas of herself. She took a few steps toward the computer nearest to her but was interrupted by the shrill whine of the security alarm going off. They were on to her now, she needed to move faster in order to make this happen. She navigated the complex menus and screens of the computer as quickly as she could. She needed to stop the power from getting to the incubating pods and delete every file pertaining to X-23 Project. As soon as she managed to eliminate the power, the door of the laboratory burst open and four guards entered the room, pistols drawn. She'd heard the men coming and ducked below the desk, hoping to surprise them when they came to sweep the room. Their footsteps inched closer and closer to the computer desk until Laura saw the barrel of one mans gun peeking past the corner of the desk.
X-23 sprung from below the desk and unsheathed the claws in her hands and feet, making quick work of the guard closest to her. She plunged her blades into his chest, puncturing his heart and lungs, he bled out in seconds. She grabbed hold of his throat and held him up, using the man as a battering ram on the guard behind him. She slammed the lifeless body into the the column of men, forcing them back towards the doorway. Gunshots rang out from all three of the guards weapons, hoping in vain that one of their stray bullets would hit X-23 somewhere that could stop her. As the men reeled backwards, she sliced at the guard in the front. His attempt at screaming was ended prematurely as blood gurgled from his mouth, muffling any sort of sound that tried to escape. Two down, two more to go. She had to take these two out at the same time if she wanted to buy herself enough time to destroy the files on the network. She worked fast, rolling forward this time to close the short distance between the last two guards and herself. As she knelt before the black clad soldiers, she raised her hands and plunged one into each of them. Effectively taking them out at the same time.
All of this happening in the span of perhaps 10 seconds at most, it may have seemed like nothing to most of us but for Laura it was valuable time she could have used to complete her objective. She wasted no more of it and ran back to the computer. Feverishly typing now, she accessed The Facility's file system and began systematically deleting any and all files pertaining to the Weapon X Project and the X-23 Project. It was taking too long so X-23 began deleting entire banks of information, not caring about any of it in particular. If it was in The Facility's file system, it had to go. Finally after what seemed like hours, she completed her task and looked back at the rows of now darkened incubating pods. The vital signs on all of them showed no signs of life. She'd succeeded. Just to be safe, she picked a grenade off the body of one of the dead soldiers and ran out into the hallway. Guards swarmed all around her. In a blinding flash of anger and fury, she tore through the ranks of men, killing anyone standing in her way. It was time to finish this, once and for all. Winding her way through the corridors she passed The Facilities massive server farm, where all of their information was processed and stored on site. She pulled the pin from the grenade still clutched in her hand and threw it through the window between her and the huge super computers in front of her. She did not wait for the explosion, she didn't have time to admire her handy work. She had one more thing she needed to do before she could reunite with her mother and leave this horrid place forever.
For being a government facility, there weren't as many soldiers posted there as you'd think. Any resistance she met along the way was dealt with swiftly. Finally reaching the glass door marked "Dr. Zander Rice." Before entering the room, she heard someone call out from down the hallway. She turned and saw her mother there, a bag slung over her shoulder, obviously ready to leave. It wouldn't take X-23 long to deal with Rice, he was just a scientist after all. She opened the door and began to walk into the room, the chair behind the desk facing away from her like in a bad spy movie. As she was closing the door, she heard her mother saying something to her. She paid no mind, her target was in sight and she never took her eyes off him. She closed the door and lunged across the room, closing the distance between herself and the desk in no time at all. Without missing a beat, she unsheathed her claws and plunged them into the backside of the chair, piercing all the way through into the chest of the man sitting there. It was definitely Dr. Rice. She retracted her claws quickly and spun the chair around to see his face.
As the chair swung around, X-23 heard the door open behind her. The chair came to a stop in front of her and Dr. Rice sit there, unmoving. He was surely dead, X-23 had made sure of that. Something was strange though, he seemed to have a smile on his face even in death. What reason did he have to smile, everything he'd worked for had just come crashing down in a matter of twenty minutes. That's when she saw it. It was already too late to do anything about it. The vial of colourless liquid in his hand was open and releasing its pheromones throughout the entire room. Her eyesight began to tunnel, the edges becoming fuzzy and black before finally closing in entirely. It was the trigger scent.
X-23 awoke a few minutes later, blood surrounding her with her claws bared. Her vision still fuzzy, she looked around the room. The sight before her made her feel sick to her stomach. Before her lay the body of her own mother, blood pouring out of multiple slashes and stab wounds. X-23 began sobbing over her the body of the woman who'd given her life . Hating herself already for what she'd done. Sarah's breathing was really shallow, she was very close to dying at this point. Her eyes fluttered open for a moment looking up at her daughter. She mumbled something that was inaudible even to X-23's enhanced senses. "What...?" the young girl asked her dying mother. It took all her strength to get the words out. "Your name....is Laura..." Sarah barely got out. She reached up and in her hand was an envelope. She placed it in Laura's hands and looked up at her one last time. "I love you....you have to go" she tried to say, the words fading away into silence. She closed her eyes one last time. For good.
Laura managed to hear everything her mother had said. She didn't want to leave her here, she couldn't...
She tucked the envelope into the bag sitting on the floor next to her mother's body. She sat there for a few minutes before rising. If she didn't leave The Facility now, her mother's death would have been all in vain. Laura composed herself as best she could and took off. Once she killed Rice, there was nobody to command the soldiers on the base. All of them ran around like headless chickens. Her escape was simple. She stole one of the scientist's cars and drove off the base. In the confusion, nobody paid any attention to her. She slipped away and put The Facility in her rear view mirror. Along with all of her life up until that point.
After a few hours of driving. She stopped on the side of the road. Taking the letter her mother handed her out of the bag, she opened the flap and removed the folded piece of paper inside of it. Three picture fell onto the ground. Putting the letter aside for the time being, she looked at the pictures laying in front of her. She knew what the pictures were of, having been there just hours earlier. The first picture was of the Xavier Academy, while the other two were of people. She recognized one picture as being of Professor Charles Xavier, while the other was of her progenitor, the Weapon X mutant known as "Wolverine." Why was she given these pictures she wondered to herself. She focused her attention back on the letter in her hands and read the words on the page:
Please forgive me. Even as I write the words, they ring so hollow. My mistakes… No, my choices… They cannot be undone, much less forgiven. How all this came to pass… And the truth about Weapon X. Had it ended there, would I be less a monster? Or more? Would I even know the difference? Of course I don't have to tell you about monsters. Your life is defined by monsters. Replicating the mutant genome proved difficult but rebuilding Weapon X seemed all but impossible. For every enzyme, for every codon, for every sequence we repaired, or even built back from near nothingness, we seemed to be missing a million more. But I felt alive, the work the failure, the challenge. It was like a brilliant light, shining inside of me. I felt like my life had a purpose. What a fool I was. I was defiant in the face of my failures. I was determined to succeed out of spite. Weeks passed. I was working on two projects, living two lives. I was used to that. I had kept secrets before. It seems so incredible to me now, that in all that time, given everything that I knew what I was doing and what the end result would bear I didn't give it a second thought. I told myself that you weren't real. I told myself that this was science not life. I was creating a weapon not a child. I was wrong. When I was little I always believed that every thing that happened to me -- I deserved. The we all get what we deserve. Maybe I was right. No longer the experimenter, I was now part of the experiment. A vessel to be poked and prodded. To be violated. They certainly didn't care about me...not with a weapon to train. A team of Physicians, Psychologists, Nutritionists, and Military Strategists now ran my life. They watched my every move but they didn't see every thing. I ASKED for forgiveness before. Now I'm telling you don't forgive me. Don't forgive any of us for what we did. Ever. I remember everything...everything we did to you and you deserve to know why we did these things. Your training was designed to strip you of your humanity. After all, in the eyes of the program, you weren't Human, you were a weapon. A weapon I willingly conceived for them. Our orders were to keep you from gaining any sense of self. Something they said would compromise our ability to control you. We were never to treat you as a child only as a weapon but not every one followed those orders. For that I'm grateful. Sutter wanted to complete your construction but that wasn't possible while your healing factor was dormant. You would never survive the surgery so Rice was given permission to take whatever steps were necessary to activate your X-gene. He chose radiation poisoning. You nearly died that day. Unfortunately Rice was right. The radiation worked. Now nothing stood in their way, especially me. I only found out later what happened. That your claws were extracted one by one. That he sharpened and then coated them with the indestructible metal, Adamantium, outside of your body. It was never supposed to be like that. So much wasn't. I should have known what was coming not that I could have prevented it. But I would have tried. I'm sorry... so sorry. When it was time for your first field test. The target was chosen with the flip of a coin. Who it was didn't matter. As long as the target was high profile and couldn't be gotten to. Sutter needed to make a statement and you delivered it to the world. I wanted to understand why we're doing this. I told Martin I needed to understand why you had to publicly kill an innocent man, his family and so many others. So, he told me. He said, "It's simple. You can't sell anything without advertising." That's what this was all about. The buying and selling of lives for profit. Not saving the world, or taking it over. No, this was about money. A lot of it. Martin sold you or a million Dollars a pound and as you know by now, there were no shortage of buyers. Rice was right. I didn't matter. Not to them. Not to you. Not to anyone. All I could do is watch. While you were forced to kill and kill, and kill, and kill. You killed Royalty. Godfathers. Drug lords. Dictators. Assassins. Anyone...everyone...for a price. For three years, you murdered without fail. Every target they marked, you killed. Every time limit they set, you beat. Every rendezvous point they plotted, you reached except one. The one where Rice was waiting for you. When Rice came back from the mission, He told us what happened. He said you didn't make the rendezvous in time. That he had to abort the mission when the team started taking fire. And that he saw you die. I didn't want to believe him. You never told me what happened. How you survived or how you made your way back. Why didn't you tell me? For so long, I held myself above Sutter and Rice. They made you a killer. They were the ones using you. But all it took was one phone call to open my eyes and see I was just like them. They say in life that we are judged by the choices we make they are what define us. I chose to bring you into this world. I chose to stay in the program even after they stripped you of your humanity and molded you into a weapon. I'm responsible for everything that has happened for all the pain, all the death. For everything you have suffered because I had a choice when you had none. And I chose to do nothing. I always assumed it was Rice that cut you. He hurt you so many times in the past...he almost killed you twice. I never wanted to believe it was you. The damage I've done...Can I ever forgive myself? You couldn't stop what Rice made you do...but somehow you managed to save Henry and tell me the truth. Which means there is hope...You showed me we failed...You are not a weapon. You are a child. Always remember you are not to blame. You did not pick this life. We...I Forced it upon you. The blood you have spilled is on my hands, not yours. And please understand why I must ask you to kill one last time. Because tonight what you do is right. Tonight, what you serve is justice. Tonight, you take back the life we stole from you. I never wanted a family. My Father stripped me of that desire. He took my childhood, my innocence, my life, and then I took yours. I became what I hated and feared most. And you became my victim. But then you showed me hope. Not when you saved Megan, But when you saved Henry. You showed me that we can chose to be something other than what we are forced to be. That we can be something better than we believe we are. And, in that moment, you saved my life. All that matters to me now is that I save yours. I wish we could just run away without any more bloodshed. But if you don't stop them, they will never stop. They will do it again. They've already started. After tonight, we'll just keep moving and never look back. We'll start a new life. Have a future. Be a family. I'm sorry I waited so long to tell you these things. There is so much more I want to tell you, and I will but one thing that you must always remember, no matter what has happened and no matter what may come. You are a child, not a weapon. You are my child. You are my Daughter and I love you. I will always love you, Laura.
Your Mother Sarah
Every single emotion she was ever forced to suppressed came rising to the surface in a maelstrom of rage, sadness, anguish, regret, and pain. She cried and cried and cried until she didn't have tears anymore. So much pain and heartache. New feelings to her, all of them. She was never allowed to feel anything, so everything coming on at once overwhelmed the poor girl. She thought of her mother's letter again and again, letting the words wash over her like a wave on the beach. After a while of just riding the emotional rollercoaster, she focused her attention on the pictures that went along with the letter. Her mother must have been telling her something. She had to go back to the Academy in which she just participated in attacking only the night before. She felt nervous about returning. How would Xavier feel about her being back so soon? Did he even know that she was there in the first place? What about Wolverine? How would he react to seeing her? There were so many questions that she needed answers to. She needed help, thats all she knew at this point. If her mother was telling her to go the Academy and seek Xavier's help, then she had to try.
It had been a few weeks since Laura had fled The Facility. Living on the run, constantly looking over her shoulder was very stressful on her already damaged psyche. She was still very wary about going to Xavier's Academy. But she was running out of options. She had ditched the stolen car the day after the escape because she knew The Facility would be looking for it. The sooner she got to the Academy, the better off she'd be. At least that is what she was hoping. She knew that she wasn't very far from Xavier's at this point. She remembered the chopper ride from the school not taking very long. She needed to get there soon, before The Facility caught up with her.
The darkness of night would conceal Laura as she made her way into The Academy. She knew that being seen by any one would lead to unwanted bloodshed so she decided that sneaking in to see the Professor would be the best course of action. She hoped he would understand her situation and be able to help her in some way. Getting past the security was not very hard for X-23. She'd studied the layout of the entire school prior to the attack in the weeks leading up to it. She knew how to make her way inside while also avoiding detection. She made her way past the brick wall on the perimeter and covered the open ground between herself and the school in the blink of an eye. Looking around for any one on a late night stroll, she sneaked around the outside of the school, looking for a point of entry. She noticed a window in one of the classrooms had been left ajar. She slowly pried if open some more and crept into the darkened classroom. Knowing the layout of the school, she gathered she wasn't very far from the Professor's office. She had noticed the light in the window when she was making her way up to the school, he was working late that night which was in her favour.
Now inside the mansion itself, she needed to be even more careful to avoid detection. Being late at night, she hoped most of the students and faculty would be sleeping. But a few stragglers were always a possibility. She opened the door to the classroom and poked her head out into the hall, her enhanced hearing listening for any footsteps in the dimly lit corridor. Hearing nothing, the rest of her body followed out in the hallway. She moved slowly, using all of her senses to guide her.