Name: Laura Sarah Kinney
Alias: X-23
Side: Walking-the-Line
Age: 16 years old
Appearance: Laura is 5'3 and probably still growing. She has shoulder-blade length dark hair and usually cold hazel eyes. They can look greenish in sunlight. She has a healthy, athletic build and is usually seen wearing combat boots and lots of black.
Superhero/villain Origins:
To start with Laura's story, it is best to start with her mother, Sarah Kinney. A scientist working for the latest incarnation of Weapon X, she was tasked with creating a clone of their arguably most powerful invention - Wolverine. This time, however, they wanted him controllable. Seeking to take the project in a new direction, the project's director, Doctor Martin Sutter, recruited renowned mutant geneticist Doctor Sarah Kinney and tasked her with creating a clone. The cloning process failed, over and over again, until Sarah noticed one thing happening when the clone was attempted - the Y chromosomes were interacting poorly with the process. When that chromosome was removed entirely from the process, it succeeded. That marked her 23rd try. But they needed a human to carry the cloned fetus. Sarah Kinney volunteered, and carried X-23 to term.Without the Y chromosome, however, the new clone was born a female, named with the designation of 'X-23'. Her early life was far, far different than most. She was treated as an animal. By the time she could talk, she was bombarded with languages and schooling, and from the time she could walk, taught how to fight. Most of her martial arts training was under a man known only as 'Sensei'. When she wasn't being trained, exercised, or fed, she was kept in a featureless metal room, and those around her were ordered not to interact with her.
That wasn't to say people didn't bend the rules somewhat. Sarah, having a bit of conflicting motherly feelings for the girl, would often sneak in and read bedtime stories to the girl, and X-23's Sensei taught, and spoke to her only in Japanese, and would generally, through language alone, treat her like a human being instead of the cold, impersonal language he was ordered to use.The Company did not approve. But their disapproval would wait for later. Once X-23 was around eight years of age, in fact, they grew impatient of waiting for their 'new weapon'. So Doctor Zander Rice had X-23 subjected to radiation poisoning in order to accelerate the activation of her mutant gene to see if she did follow in her 'father's' footsteps. Sarah viciously disapproved, but it was done anyway.
Luckily for X-23 and Sarah, Laura survived the process, following along with her genetic donor's powerset to gain regeneration, and claws. The feminine aspect to her genetic manipulation made for an odd setting of claws, however - one in each foot, and only two in each hand. All the while, Weapon X was developing a 'trigger scent' to infuriate the girl, using associative psychological techniques to let the scent spark a rage in her.The first trial of it was on her Sensei. Having known that he was disobeying their orders to treat her like a thing, they had her kill him, then brought in a new trainer/handler. Kimura. An invincible woman, she could not be cut by Laura's claws. Her training continued.When she was far too young for such things, about 12 years old, they started sending her upon missions. Her first was the assassination of a high-profile politician. Greg Johnson. That was just the start. Sending her on increasingly higher and higher risk missions, members of the project started seeing the ability to use X-23 for their own monetary gain. Rice manipulated her the most. Subjecting her to the adamantium process at the age of eleven. He wanted to torment and torture the young girl, and when Sarah realized that Rice was starting to use the trigger scent to send X-23 to kill his higher-ups so that he could take charge of the project, she panicked.
Rice even abandoned X-23 on a particularly dangerous mission, but she survived against overwhelming odds and managed to return to the facility. Ultimately, Rice persuaded Sutter to hand over control of the program to him, then secretly ordered X-23 to kill Sutter and his family. Later, Rice revealed to Sarah Kinney a chamber with dozens of incubation pods containing female clones before he fired her. Before fleeing the facility with X-23, Kinney gave her one last mission - destroy the pods and kill Rice. She succeeded, but Rice was able to exact revenge on Kinney from beyond the grave. X-23 discovered, too late, that the trigger scent had been used on Sarah - she was the next target. Flying into a rage, she murdered her mother figure. Another little piece of her died. Searching Sarah's body, she discovered a letter to her that gave her a name. Laura.
X-23 surfaced in New York City two years later and was found living on the streets by a pimp named Zebra Daddy, who took her in and employed her as a prostitute. During her time as a prostitute, X-23 seemed to suffer from a self-mutilating disorder. She superficially cut herself with her own claws whenever she was alone and in emotional distress. She also seemed to suffer some personality issues which left her mostly mute and unable to free herself from the grip of Zebra Daddy. X-23 started to come to her senses after she met Kiden Nixon, a young mutant with the ability to freeze time when in danger, and together with Kiden's teacher, they rescued another young mutant, the feral Catiana, from an angry mob. Zebra Daddy tracked X-23 down, but with the aid of her new friends and the mutant named Felon, Zebra Daddy's thugs were defeated. X-23 then killed him to save the lives of her friends. After her mutant friends left together to find a safer place away from New York, X-23 later took a job at the mutant-themed Wannabees nightclub in New York.
Powers:
- Regeneration: Sharing in her "father's" ability, Laura has enhanced regeneration. It works fairly fast, with minor cuts clotting and closing up in seconds. More major cuts and flesh wounds heal in minutes, and things like broken bones mend themselves in about 10 minutes depending on the injuries.
- Foreign Chemical Immunity: X-23's natural healing also gives her the virtual immunity to poisons and most drugs.
- Disease Immunity: Due to her highly efficient immune system, X-23 is immune to all Earthly diseases and infections.
- Superhuman Acute Senses: X-23 possesses incredibly enhanced senses that are comparable to those of certain animals. She is able to see at much farther distances, and with near perfect clarity, than an ordinary human. She retains this same level of clarity in almost complete darkness. Her sense of hearing is enhanced in a similar manner, allowing her to both hear sounds that ordinary human's can't and to hear sounds that ordinary humans can, but at much greater distances. X-23 is able to use her highly developed sense of smell to track targets by scent with an impressive degree of success, even if the scent has been eroded by natural factors, such as the weather.
- Superhuman Stamina: X-23's muscles produce a considerably less amount of fatigue toxins during physical activity than the muscles of an average human. She can exert herself at peak capacity for about 24 hours before fatigue begins to set in.
- Superhuman Agility and Reflexes: X-23's agility, reflexes, balance, and bodily coordination are enhanced to levels that are beyond the natural physical limits of even the most accomplished human athlete.
- Enhanced Strength: Laura enjoys the blessing of enhanced strength. While not nearly as powerful as Wolverine, she is getting stronger and stronger as she grows older. This helps her to jump higher, run a fair bit faster, and lift far more weight than her build and gender would suggest. If she wanted to push the limits of her ability, she could bench press about 500 pounds - but would feel far more comfortable carrying and pushing about 350.
- Claws: A pair claws in each hand, and a one in each foot. The claws are about eight inches in length in her hands, and about six to seven inches in her feet, curved at one end, and retractable, going back into or out of her arms or feet as she needs them. They've been coated in Adamantium, something the rest of her skeleton hasn't been subjected to. Let's hope they never get a chance to finish the job.
Weaknesses:
- Broken bones can set in the wrong place. For example, if she has broken ribs that have been moved or jarred around, they will heal themselves too quickly and may end up crooked or in the wrong place. In that case, she would have to re-break them and set them appropriately so they can heal again. Her regenerative power can be overloaded, perhaps by being shot many, many times in a short period of time. When that happens, she loses consciousness, and drops into a fugue until her body stabilizes itself, and heals any major organ damage that occurs. The drawbacks to this power aren't too many, but she does tend to eat a heck of a lot more than your average person, particularly if this system was given a workout.
- She can be affected by some drugs, such as tranquilizers, if she is exposed to an extremely large dose.
5. If her stamina is used to the max for more than 24 hours and she does not collapse out of exhaustion, her muscles will most likely be very sore byt he time she sleeps and wakes again.
8. Because of these razor-sharp claws, getting through metal detectors at airports and the like is a real pain, and each time they cut through her skin when she 'draws' them, it stings.
9. Also, because of the adamantium in her hands and feet, she cannot swim very well at all. But she can sink. Not good.
Induced Berserker Rage: She has also been subjected to conditioning in which a specific "trigger scent" has been used to send her into a berserker rage, killing anything in sight. This can be seen as a strength or a weakness, depending on what side of things you're on. Very few things short of knocking her out can snap her out of this state while the scent is around, so she can hardly control herself and is not conscious of her actions. As a result, she is usually bombarded by intense feelings of guilt after this rage wears off.
Abilities:
- Can speak English French and Japanese, fluently. May be able to speak others, but with much less mastery.
- X-23 is an expert tracker. Because of her enhanced sense of smell she can track almost anything and anyone, and has memorized many different scents.
- Raised in captivity, due to her extensive training as a top-secret operative, X-23 has been trained to become a living weapon. She is highly trained in the use of long range weapons and explosives, and is an expert in assassination techniques.
- She is excellent at hand to hand combatant, with intensive training in numerous armed and unarmed martial arts techniques.
