Laura Kinney (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
notaweapon) wrote2010-10-10 02:46 pm
notaweapon) wrote2010-10-10 02:46 pm
Entry tags:
Background
Laura's story actually begins with Logan's story. Logan, also known as Wolverine, was the original Weapon X. Weapon X was a government project that took mutants and humans and attempted to create the perfect weapon. Weapon X would capture mutants and enhance their abilities, often using torturous and unethical procedures to do so, in order to create the perfect living weapon. The Weapon X program was also responsible for the creation of the adamantium bonding process, a process that bonded the nearly unbreakable metal known as adamantium to the skeleton of a human being. Wolverine was the most successful of these weapons, but the scientists involved with the Weapon X didn't realize that their experiments on Logan would cause him to go on a rampage. This rampage lead to his escape and the deaths of many of the scientists, including Dale Rice. The Weapon X program was shut down, but was eventually reinstated as a program referred to as the Facility.
The Facility planned to recreate the original Weapon X, unfortunately they couldn't find a subject that could survive the adamantium bonding process. The project was headed by Doctor Martin Sutter and his protege Doctor Zander Rice, the son of Doctor Dale Rice who was murdered by Weapon X during the first program. After realizing that they couldn't get a subject that would be able to survive the bonding process, Dr. Sutter decided to contacted the world renowned geneticist, Dr. Sarah Kinney. Kinney was asked to create a clone of Wolverine, unfortunately the only bit of genetic sample they had from Wolverine was damaged and Kinney couldn't salvage the Y chromosome. Both an X and a Y chromosome are required to create a male child, with only an X chromosome it was only possible to create a female child. Realizing this, Kinney suggested that they create a female clone, Sutter however, had no interest in creating anything but an exact match to the original, so he denied her request.
Kinney believed that her idea was the only viable option they had, so she secretly went ahead with her plan. She failed at creating a stable embryo twenty-two times before she finally created a healthy embryo that could produce a female clone. She took her findings to Sutter, who at first, was furious with her for disobeying his orders, but Kinney explained that they would have to wait years for her to be able to create a viable male embryo. Sutter realized that this was an opportunity that he couldn't afford to pass by, they had a viable embryo and with it they could go ahead with his project. Dr. Rice strongly opposed the idea of going ahead with the project, but Sutter gave Kinney the go ahead. He told her and Rice to begin the search for a surrogate mother. Furious with the decision, Dr. Rice forced Kinney to act as the surrogate mother for the child, telling her that they'd never be able to find anyone else.
When the child was born she was labeled X-23, due to the fact that she was the 23rd try. From the moment of her birth X-23 was trained to be nothing but the perfect weapon. Everyone at the Facility were given strict orders to not treat X-23 as a person, their goal was to strip X-23 of all her humanity. Dr. Rice was particularly cruel to X-23, he projected his hatred of the original Weapon X onto the child. He made sure that nobody treated her like a child, including her “mother” Dr. Kinney.
Kinney attempted to use her limited time with X-23 to help her to retain some of her humanity. She would stay in the cell with X-23 and read her Pinocchio. Kinney knew that Rice couldn't catch her reading the child a fairy tale, so she hid the book inside of book called “The Art of War.” But Kinney could offer her little else, when X-23 tried to lay her head on Kinney's lap, Kinney was forced to tell her to sit up. Kinney knew that Rice was watching and that X-23 couldn't be seen doing things like that. Despite her best efforts to give X-23 some sort of comfort, X-23 still barely spoke and never showed emotions.
Dr. Rice was eager to complete the project but, they knew that X-23 would never survive the procedure unless her X-Gene had activated. Once her X-gene activated her bone claws would pop out and she would her healing factor would activate, that would help her to survive the adamantium bonding process. Rice wanted to find a way to speed up the process so that she'd mature faster, Kinney disagreed with this idea saying that there was no point in speeding up her growth and that it was dangerous to do so. Her pleas fell on deaf ears though, as Doctor Sutter gave Rice the go ahead to do whatever he could to speed up her growth. At the age of seven Rice exposed X-23 to extreme levels of radiation, hoping that the radiation poisoning would activate her X-gene. Rice was right, the radiation activated her X-gene and X-23 was able to heal from the poisoning within a day.
The moment X-23 healed Rice decided to coat her claws in adamantium. Without the aid of anesthesia, Rice removed all 6 of her bone claws, pulling them out, sharpening them, and then coating them with adamantium. He then put the claws back into X-23, during the entire procedure X-23 didn't display any emotions. She didn't scream, she didn't complain, she didn’t cry, she just took it silently and helplessly.
X-23 healed exceptionally well from the procedure and her training continued. During this time she was introduced to her “handler” Kimura. Kimura had been designed to counteract everything that X-23 could do, this meant that X-23 couldn't harm Kimura in anyway. Kimura was designed with one purpose and one purpose only: to control X-23 and punish her if she disobeyed. Rice introduced Kimura to X-23 by telling X-23 to kill Kimura, X-23 attacked Kimura but quickly discovered that she couldn't harm the woman. Kimura beat X-23 down, gleefully smiling as she knocked X-23 to the ground. Rice then told Kimura she could leave, Rice explained to X-23 that Kimrua was made just for her to make sure she never failed or disobeyed.
At the Facility, besides Kinney, there was one other person that treated X-23 like a child, one other person that actually showed her love: her Sensei. Unfortunately treating X-23 like a child was against the rules and Rice decided that he would test his new “trigger scent” on X-23's Sensei. The “trigger scent” was a chemical that Rice had been working on, he'd conditioned X-23 to go into a berserker rage whenever she smelled that particular scent. Rice put the “trigger scent” on one of the swords that Sensei used during his training with X-23. On the day that was meant to be her graduation day from his teachings, X-23 was triggered by the scent and went into a berserker rage. She killed him and then came out of her rage. When she saw what she'd done she fell to the ground, visibly upset that she'd just killed one of the only people in the world who had ever treated her well. This is one of the first times X-23 ever shows emotion.
Three years later X-23 was sent on her first mission, the victim was chosen with a coin toss. Sutter wanted it to be someone that was high profile and nearly impossible to get to, so that he could show the world what he'd created. The victim chosen was Presidential candidate Greg Johnson and his family. An envelope was slipped under X-23's door containing the information she would need to kill him and a stop watch set to go off after 22 minutes. The stop watch was how long she had to complete her mission. Every mission X-23 went on after this would have a stop-watch with the time she had to complete the mission programed into it.
X-23 dressed up as an injured girl that needed leg braces to walk, that was how she got past the metal detectors. The police and secret service all took pity on the injured girl and let her by without a hassle. She then went up to the secret service and innocently asked to see Mr. Johnson, they refused her and then she began to cry. Mr. Johnson's wife happened to be walking by and saw the little girl, she realized that having her husband take a picture with a handicapped little girl would make a great photo opportunity. So, she brought the little girl to Mr. Johnson and called her two sons over, together they stood in place to take a picture. When the flash went off X-23 killed the Johnson family and everyone else in the room.
Captain America was called in by SHIELD to go to the Presidential rally after SHIELD received a tip about an assassination attempt on the Greg Johnson. When Captain America arrived nobody was alive, save one handicapped little girl. He helped her to the ambulance, then X-23 killed the medics escaped. Captain America realized that he'd had the assassin but let her escape.
The entire mission was set up by Sutter as an advertising ploy to demonstrate X-23's skills to potential bidders. X-23 was sold to many bidders across the world, she killed royalty, mafia, assassins, and anyone she was asked to. One mission had X-23 impersonating the niece of the crime-lord known as the Kingpin. This mission involve killing someone that the Facility considered “exceptional” and thus they used the trigger scent on X-23. The man Kingpin wanted dead was a man that went by the name of Fade, a deadly assassin who could go completely invisible. X-23 killed him and his head was delivered to the Kingpin. The trigger scent was only used when X-23 couldn't be trusted to kill someone or when her target was “exceptional” like Fade. Meaning a target that had advanced abilities that would make it exceptionally difficult for X-23 to kill them.
For three years X-23 was the perfect killing machine, she followed her orders exactly as she was given them. Still, sometimes Kimura would punish her, it didn't matter that X-23 had completely her mission or that she didn't disobey, Kimura just enjoyed torturing her. X-23 didn't care though, she had no friends, no family, and no outside contact. Her life was only about killing and being abused, the only person that she cared about, and the only person that cared about her, was Dr. Kinney. Due to her upbringing X-23 was left extremely emotionally stunted, she never grew emotionally.
During one mission Rice accompanied X-23, going with her and soldiers on a dangerous mission to raid an AIM facility. AIM was the Advanced Idea Mechanics, an organization made up of brilliant scientist who were dedicated to gaining power and then overthrowing all governments by using advanced technology to defeat them. Rice made it back to the helicopter before X-23, and order the pilot to take off. X-23 still had time to finish her mission and get back to the helicopter, but Rice, wanting revenge for his father's death, left her. As X-23 approached the helicopter, Rice looked down and said “goodbye Weapon X.” He left her surrounded by AIM soldiers thinking she'd die there and he'd get his revenge against Weapon X, the monster who killed his father.
However, X-23 managed to survive and she somehow made her way back to the facility. When she returned she didn't speak about what happened, she never told anyone what happened. (How she made it back and why she chose to return to the Facility is never explained.)
Shortly after this, Kinney discovered scars on X-23's arms. At the time she thought that someone else had injured X-23, but she eventually discovered that X-23 had done it to herself. She was engaging in self-injury to deal with the emotions she felt, emotions that she simply didn't understand. She'd never been taught how to deal with emotions or even what feeling was, so the strange things she felt was something she couldn't handle.
Kinney took X-23 out once, to help her find her niece Megan, who had been kidnapped. X-23 was easily able to find and rescue Megan, but the unauthorized mission infuriated both Rice and Sutter. Rice then used this opportunity to get Sutter to give Rice full control of the program. Rice told Sutter that he was ignoring his family and being forced to spend all his time dedicated to the program, Rice pretended to be worried about Sutter. He told him that he didn't want to lose another father to the program, that Sutter had raised him from the time his real father had died and that he didn't want anything to happen to him. Sutter believed Rice and signed the project over.
Rice then secretly ordered X-23 to kill Sutter, his wife, and his son. X-23 quickly murdered Sutter and his wife but was unable to kill the son. She let the child go, demonstrating that she still possessed a small amount of humanity and was capable of feeling something. Rice had also ordered X-23 to burn the house down so that it would look like the family died in a fire. When X-23 returned Rice ordered her to never speak about this mission again. X-23 obeyed, obeying was all X-23 knew how to do.
After that mission, Rice fired Kinney, saying that he didn't need her anymore. He showed Kinney a room full of pods that contained female clones that would be exactly like X-23.Rice touched Kinney on the face and, unbeknownst to her, put the trigger scent on her. He then told her to visit X-23 for the last time, knowing that X-23 would kill Kinney. Kinney realized the full extent of the horrors she'd helped to create so, she gave X-23 her last mission. She told X-23 to kill Rice and destroy the pods. X-23 killed Rice and destroyed the pods, and then escaped from the Facility to meet up with Kinney. But, before they could leave X-23 was triggered by the scent on Kinney. X-23 went into a rage and murdered her mother. Before Kinney died she gave X-23 a letter, she told X-23 that her name was Laura and that she loved her. Laura curled up beside her mother as she died and begged her to not leave her alone.
The letter explained to Laura that Kinney took full responsibility for all the murders X-23 was forced to commit. It stated that it hadn't been X-23's choice to do those things, she was born and raised to be a killing machine, the ones who were truly responsible were her, Rice, and Sutter. The letter told X-23 that she was a child, not a weapon.
After that Laura traveled to San Francisco to find Megan and Debbie (her mother's sister), the only two people she knew outside of the Facility. For twenty-two days she just observed the family before she finally approached them. Debbie recognized her as her sister's child and took her in. Megan was around the same age as Laura and Megan became Laura's first friend. For the first time in her life Laura had a somewhat normal existence, she went to school with Megan and hung out with her, enjoying the things she'd never had. It seemed like Laura might have a chance to live a normal, happy life.
Despite her happiness, Laura's emotional damage was extremely evident while around other people. Her first day of school had her at the principal's office twice, and ended with both her and Megan suspended. When Laura arrived for her French class she was late, so the teacher decided to ask her if she knew anything about speaking French. Laura responded, in French, with “yes”. He then proceeded to ask her to demonstrate her skills for the class, Laura responded by reciting the protocols for international information gathering. These protocols included bribery, and how to properly torture someone to get information. She was sent to the principal's office.
After that, she corrected her biology teacher about how much blood there was in the human body, she told the number he'd said was wrong. He asked her if there was anything else she wanted to share with the class about the human body, so, Laura then explained that there were twenty-six ways to kill a person without leaving signs of an attack. She was sent back to the principal's office.
These were the things Laura had been taught at the Facility. While most kids learned to ask where the bathroom was in French, Laura learned interrogation protocols. While most kids dissected frogs in biology, Laura learned how to kill someone. To Laura, there was nothing wrong with explaining these things to the class, she had no way of knowing that things like that were considered inappropriate to discuss in public.
The principal began to yell at both Megan and Laura, astonished that they'd ended up in the principal's office twice in less than four hours. The principal became irritated when she thought that Megan and Laura weren't listening and asked them if they were even paying attention. Laura then repeated everything the woman said, including her mannerisms. The principal then suspended them both.
Laura didn't seem bothered by this at all, but Megan was. When Megan made the statement that her mom was going to kill her, Laura asked what kind of training her mom had. Showing, once again, just how emotionally damaged Laura was, she took Megan's sarcastic comment seriously. Megan responded to Laura's question by saying they might as well just run away. Again, Laura took her seriously and said okay. Together they stole the principal's car and spent the day together.
It was the first time Laura had ever had a truly happy day, where she laughed and acted like a somewhat normal teenager. The two went to Six Flags, the movies, and a Dazzler concert among other things. However, this normalcy was very short lived as it's revealed that Debbie's boyfriend, Desmond, was an agent for the Facility. He'd been sent to get X-23 to kill Megan and Debbie and then bring her back to the Facility.
One night while Laura and Megan were out together, Desmond stayed at their home and began his plan to get X-23 to kill Debbie and Megan, and then to bring her back to the Facility. He made tea for Debbie, who was sick in bed, and put the trigger scent in the tea. He then “accidentally” spilled the tea on Debbie, knowing that Laura would go into a rage when she caught the scent and then kill Debbie. He called Megan and Laura and asked them to pick up some medicine from the store, he estimated this would take them 20 minutes, plenty of time for him to get out of the house before Laura arrived and caught the scent. However, Megan didn't have any money and Laura had left hers back at the house, so they returned home early.
Megan opened the door just as Desmond was coming by, which caused the tea to spill onto him, bathing him in the trigger scent. Laura went into a rage and attacked Desmond, killing him. Megan tried to get Laura to stop but Laura didn't acknowledge her voice at all. Megan ran up to her mom's room, grabbed Debbie and ran to the bathroom, rinsing the scent off of them. This caused Laura to come out of her berserker rage.
Laura knew that the Facility was coming for her and that Kimura would be with them, she told Debbie and Megan that they were going to kill her. Laura took Debbie and Megan down to the basement and told them to stay there. She went up to the house and killed all the agents that were entering the house. Kimura arrived and snapped Laura's neck and then dragged her down to the basement, so that Laura would be forced to watch as she killed Megan and Debbie. Kimura handcuffed Laura so that she couldn't fight back.
Laura refused to allow anything to happen to Megan and Debbie to die, they were the only people left that cared about her or that she cared about. She refused to just sit back and watch them die. Laura cut off her own arm to break free of the handcuffs and then fought Kimura again. She knew she couldn't win, but she still had to try. Laura was able to handcuff Kimura to the radiator and then escaped with Megan and Debbie. Once they were out of the house, Laura blew it up.
She knew Kimura would survive it and realized that as long as she was with Megan and Debbie, they'd never be safe. She knew the only way to keep them safe was to separate. She created fake passports for them and gave them locations to safe-houses where they could get money and then she left them. When they said their goodbye's Megan gave Laura a locket, she'd put a picture of Dr. Kinney on one side and a picture of her on the other side. It was extremely hard for Laura to do and when she said her final goodbyes to Megan she began to cry, running off so that she wouldn't have to face them as they walked away.
Laura had no relatives left, no friends, and nowhere else to turn, she was completely alone and utterly lost. The only thing she could think of to do was to find Wolverine, the man whose DNA was used to create her. She spent days camped outside Xavier's mansion waiting for an opportunity to approach Wolverine. She knew exactly how many telepaths there were and that she could only move in closer when they were focused on something else. Finally she made a mistake and Wolverine picked up her scent. He left the school and Laura followed. She attacked Wolverine with the intention of killing him and herself.
Laura thought that both her and Wolverine needed to die, they were both weapons and they needed to be stopped or more and more people would keep dying. Wolverine told Laura that she could kill him, but he wouldn't allow her to kill herself. He told her that Kinney had sent him the same letter she gave Laura, so he knew everything that had happened to Laura. He told her that nothing was her fault which caused Laura to break down, telling Wolverine that they'd force her to kill her own mother. She felt like the only way to make everything stop was to kill Wolverine and herself. Logan told her that she hadn't had a choice up until now, he gave her the letter and told her that she knew what the Facility wanted from her, but now she had a chance to learn what her mother wanted from her.
It seemed like Laura was going to accept Wolverine's offer to stay with him at Xavier's mansion, but their talk was interrupted by Captain America, who had come to arrest Laura. Captain America took Laura in for questioning, Matt Murdock (aka Dardevil) served as her lawyer during the questioning. Captain America wanted her to answer for the murders she'd committed, but Matt Murdock insisted that she wasn't responsible. He said that the letter absolved her of any guilt and that it wasn't fair to keep her. However, Captain America had a personal investment in the case because he'd previously let Laura get away. He felt like all the murders that happened after that were on his shoulders and wanted to bring her to justice. He ignored Matt and took Laura to hand over to SHIELD.
Along the way Captain America realized that giving her to SHIELD would mean she'd just be used as a weapon for them. So, he let her go and told her to go find Wolverine, he'd know how to help her. X-23 then heads to New York City, instead of going to the Xavier Institute (it's never explained why), where she's taken in by a pimp named Zebra Daddy. That's where she'll be taken from.
The Facility planned to recreate the original Weapon X, unfortunately they couldn't find a subject that could survive the adamantium bonding process. The project was headed by Doctor Martin Sutter and his protege Doctor Zander Rice, the son of Doctor Dale Rice who was murdered by Weapon X during the first program. After realizing that they couldn't get a subject that would be able to survive the bonding process, Dr. Sutter decided to contacted the world renowned geneticist, Dr. Sarah Kinney. Kinney was asked to create a clone of Wolverine, unfortunately the only bit of genetic sample they had from Wolverine was damaged and Kinney couldn't salvage the Y chromosome. Both an X and a Y chromosome are required to create a male child, with only an X chromosome it was only possible to create a female child. Realizing this, Kinney suggested that they create a female clone, Sutter however, had no interest in creating anything but an exact match to the original, so he denied her request.
Kinney believed that her idea was the only viable option they had, so she secretly went ahead with her plan. She failed at creating a stable embryo twenty-two times before she finally created a healthy embryo that could produce a female clone. She took her findings to Sutter, who at first, was furious with her for disobeying his orders, but Kinney explained that they would have to wait years for her to be able to create a viable male embryo. Sutter realized that this was an opportunity that he couldn't afford to pass by, they had a viable embryo and with it they could go ahead with his project. Dr. Rice strongly opposed the idea of going ahead with the project, but Sutter gave Kinney the go ahead. He told her and Rice to begin the search for a surrogate mother. Furious with the decision, Dr. Rice forced Kinney to act as the surrogate mother for the child, telling her that they'd never be able to find anyone else.
When the child was born she was labeled X-23, due to the fact that she was the 23rd try. From the moment of her birth X-23 was trained to be nothing but the perfect weapon. Everyone at the Facility were given strict orders to not treat X-23 as a person, their goal was to strip X-23 of all her humanity. Dr. Rice was particularly cruel to X-23, he projected his hatred of the original Weapon X onto the child. He made sure that nobody treated her like a child, including her “mother” Dr. Kinney.
Kinney attempted to use her limited time with X-23 to help her to retain some of her humanity. She would stay in the cell with X-23 and read her Pinocchio. Kinney knew that Rice couldn't catch her reading the child a fairy tale, so she hid the book inside of book called “The Art of War.” But Kinney could offer her little else, when X-23 tried to lay her head on Kinney's lap, Kinney was forced to tell her to sit up. Kinney knew that Rice was watching and that X-23 couldn't be seen doing things like that. Despite her best efforts to give X-23 some sort of comfort, X-23 still barely spoke and never showed emotions.
Dr. Rice was eager to complete the project but, they knew that X-23 would never survive the procedure unless her X-Gene had activated. Once her X-gene activated her bone claws would pop out and she would her healing factor would activate, that would help her to survive the adamantium bonding process. Rice wanted to find a way to speed up the process so that she'd mature faster, Kinney disagreed with this idea saying that there was no point in speeding up her growth and that it was dangerous to do so. Her pleas fell on deaf ears though, as Doctor Sutter gave Rice the go ahead to do whatever he could to speed up her growth. At the age of seven Rice exposed X-23 to extreme levels of radiation, hoping that the radiation poisoning would activate her X-gene. Rice was right, the radiation activated her X-gene and X-23 was able to heal from the poisoning within a day.
The moment X-23 healed Rice decided to coat her claws in adamantium. Without the aid of anesthesia, Rice removed all 6 of her bone claws, pulling them out, sharpening them, and then coating them with adamantium. He then put the claws back into X-23, during the entire procedure X-23 didn't display any emotions. She didn't scream, she didn't complain, she didn’t cry, she just took it silently and helplessly.
X-23 healed exceptionally well from the procedure and her training continued. During this time she was introduced to her “handler” Kimura. Kimura had been designed to counteract everything that X-23 could do, this meant that X-23 couldn't harm Kimura in anyway. Kimura was designed with one purpose and one purpose only: to control X-23 and punish her if she disobeyed. Rice introduced Kimura to X-23 by telling X-23 to kill Kimura, X-23 attacked Kimura but quickly discovered that she couldn't harm the woman. Kimura beat X-23 down, gleefully smiling as she knocked X-23 to the ground. Rice then told Kimura she could leave, Rice explained to X-23 that Kimrua was made just for her to make sure she never failed or disobeyed.
At the Facility, besides Kinney, there was one other person that treated X-23 like a child, one other person that actually showed her love: her Sensei. Unfortunately treating X-23 like a child was against the rules and Rice decided that he would test his new “trigger scent” on X-23's Sensei. The “trigger scent” was a chemical that Rice had been working on, he'd conditioned X-23 to go into a berserker rage whenever she smelled that particular scent. Rice put the “trigger scent” on one of the swords that Sensei used during his training with X-23. On the day that was meant to be her graduation day from his teachings, X-23 was triggered by the scent and went into a berserker rage. She killed him and then came out of her rage. When she saw what she'd done she fell to the ground, visibly upset that she'd just killed one of the only people in the world who had ever treated her well. This is one of the first times X-23 ever shows emotion.
Three years later X-23 was sent on her first mission, the victim was chosen with a coin toss. Sutter wanted it to be someone that was high profile and nearly impossible to get to, so that he could show the world what he'd created. The victim chosen was Presidential candidate Greg Johnson and his family. An envelope was slipped under X-23's door containing the information she would need to kill him and a stop watch set to go off after 22 minutes. The stop watch was how long she had to complete her mission. Every mission X-23 went on after this would have a stop-watch with the time she had to complete the mission programed into it.
X-23 dressed up as an injured girl that needed leg braces to walk, that was how she got past the metal detectors. The police and secret service all took pity on the injured girl and let her by without a hassle. She then went up to the secret service and innocently asked to see Mr. Johnson, they refused her and then she began to cry. Mr. Johnson's wife happened to be walking by and saw the little girl, she realized that having her husband take a picture with a handicapped little girl would make a great photo opportunity. So, she brought the little girl to Mr. Johnson and called her two sons over, together they stood in place to take a picture. When the flash went off X-23 killed the Johnson family and everyone else in the room.
Captain America was called in by SHIELD to go to the Presidential rally after SHIELD received a tip about an assassination attempt on the Greg Johnson. When Captain America arrived nobody was alive, save one handicapped little girl. He helped her to the ambulance, then X-23 killed the medics escaped. Captain America realized that he'd had the assassin but let her escape.
The entire mission was set up by Sutter as an advertising ploy to demonstrate X-23's skills to potential bidders. X-23 was sold to many bidders across the world, she killed royalty, mafia, assassins, and anyone she was asked to. One mission had X-23 impersonating the niece of the crime-lord known as the Kingpin. This mission involve killing someone that the Facility considered “exceptional” and thus they used the trigger scent on X-23. The man Kingpin wanted dead was a man that went by the name of Fade, a deadly assassin who could go completely invisible. X-23 killed him and his head was delivered to the Kingpin. The trigger scent was only used when X-23 couldn't be trusted to kill someone or when her target was “exceptional” like Fade. Meaning a target that had advanced abilities that would make it exceptionally difficult for X-23 to kill them.
For three years X-23 was the perfect killing machine, she followed her orders exactly as she was given them. Still, sometimes Kimura would punish her, it didn't matter that X-23 had completely her mission or that she didn't disobey, Kimura just enjoyed torturing her. X-23 didn't care though, she had no friends, no family, and no outside contact. Her life was only about killing and being abused, the only person that she cared about, and the only person that cared about her, was Dr. Kinney. Due to her upbringing X-23 was left extremely emotionally stunted, she never grew emotionally.
During one mission Rice accompanied X-23, going with her and soldiers on a dangerous mission to raid an AIM facility. AIM was the Advanced Idea Mechanics, an organization made up of brilliant scientist who were dedicated to gaining power and then overthrowing all governments by using advanced technology to defeat them. Rice made it back to the helicopter before X-23, and order the pilot to take off. X-23 still had time to finish her mission and get back to the helicopter, but Rice, wanting revenge for his father's death, left her. As X-23 approached the helicopter, Rice looked down and said “goodbye Weapon X.” He left her surrounded by AIM soldiers thinking she'd die there and he'd get his revenge against Weapon X, the monster who killed his father.
However, X-23 managed to survive and she somehow made her way back to the facility. When she returned she didn't speak about what happened, she never told anyone what happened. (How she made it back and why she chose to return to the Facility is never explained.)
Shortly after this, Kinney discovered scars on X-23's arms. At the time she thought that someone else had injured X-23, but she eventually discovered that X-23 had done it to herself. She was engaging in self-injury to deal with the emotions she felt, emotions that she simply didn't understand. She'd never been taught how to deal with emotions or even what feeling was, so the strange things she felt was something she couldn't handle.
Kinney took X-23 out once, to help her find her niece Megan, who had been kidnapped. X-23 was easily able to find and rescue Megan, but the unauthorized mission infuriated both Rice and Sutter. Rice then used this opportunity to get Sutter to give Rice full control of the program. Rice told Sutter that he was ignoring his family and being forced to spend all his time dedicated to the program, Rice pretended to be worried about Sutter. He told him that he didn't want to lose another father to the program, that Sutter had raised him from the time his real father had died and that he didn't want anything to happen to him. Sutter believed Rice and signed the project over.
Rice then secretly ordered X-23 to kill Sutter, his wife, and his son. X-23 quickly murdered Sutter and his wife but was unable to kill the son. She let the child go, demonstrating that she still possessed a small amount of humanity and was capable of feeling something. Rice had also ordered X-23 to burn the house down so that it would look like the family died in a fire. When X-23 returned Rice ordered her to never speak about this mission again. X-23 obeyed, obeying was all X-23 knew how to do.
After that mission, Rice fired Kinney, saying that he didn't need her anymore. He showed Kinney a room full of pods that contained female clones that would be exactly like X-23.Rice touched Kinney on the face and, unbeknownst to her, put the trigger scent on her. He then told her to visit X-23 for the last time, knowing that X-23 would kill Kinney. Kinney realized the full extent of the horrors she'd helped to create so, she gave X-23 her last mission. She told X-23 to kill Rice and destroy the pods. X-23 killed Rice and destroyed the pods, and then escaped from the Facility to meet up with Kinney. But, before they could leave X-23 was triggered by the scent on Kinney. X-23 went into a rage and murdered her mother. Before Kinney died she gave X-23 a letter, she told X-23 that her name was Laura and that she loved her. Laura curled up beside her mother as she died and begged her to not leave her alone.
The letter explained to Laura that Kinney took full responsibility for all the murders X-23 was forced to commit. It stated that it hadn't been X-23's choice to do those things, she was born and raised to be a killing machine, the ones who were truly responsible were her, Rice, and Sutter. The letter told X-23 that she was a child, not a weapon.
After that Laura traveled to San Francisco to find Megan and Debbie (her mother's sister), the only two people she knew outside of the Facility. For twenty-two days she just observed the family before she finally approached them. Debbie recognized her as her sister's child and took her in. Megan was around the same age as Laura and Megan became Laura's first friend. For the first time in her life Laura had a somewhat normal existence, she went to school with Megan and hung out with her, enjoying the things she'd never had. It seemed like Laura might have a chance to live a normal, happy life.
Despite her happiness, Laura's emotional damage was extremely evident while around other people. Her first day of school had her at the principal's office twice, and ended with both her and Megan suspended. When Laura arrived for her French class she was late, so the teacher decided to ask her if she knew anything about speaking French. Laura responded, in French, with “yes”. He then proceeded to ask her to demonstrate her skills for the class, Laura responded by reciting the protocols for international information gathering. These protocols included bribery, and how to properly torture someone to get information. She was sent to the principal's office.
After that, she corrected her biology teacher about how much blood there was in the human body, she told the number he'd said was wrong. He asked her if there was anything else she wanted to share with the class about the human body, so, Laura then explained that there were twenty-six ways to kill a person without leaving signs of an attack. She was sent back to the principal's office.
These were the things Laura had been taught at the Facility. While most kids learned to ask where the bathroom was in French, Laura learned interrogation protocols. While most kids dissected frogs in biology, Laura learned how to kill someone. To Laura, there was nothing wrong with explaining these things to the class, she had no way of knowing that things like that were considered inappropriate to discuss in public.
The principal began to yell at both Megan and Laura, astonished that they'd ended up in the principal's office twice in less than four hours. The principal became irritated when she thought that Megan and Laura weren't listening and asked them if they were even paying attention. Laura then repeated everything the woman said, including her mannerisms. The principal then suspended them both.
Laura didn't seem bothered by this at all, but Megan was. When Megan made the statement that her mom was going to kill her, Laura asked what kind of training her mom had. Showing, once again, just how emotionally damaged Laura was, she took Megan's sarcastic comment seriously. Megan responded to Laura's question by saying they might as well just run away. Again, Laura took her seriously and said okay. Together they stole the principal's car and spent the day together.
It was the first time Laura had ever had a truly happy day, where she laughed and acted like a somewhat normal teenager. The two went to Six Flags, the movies, and a Dazzler concert among other things. However, this normalcy was very short lived as it's revealed that Debbie's boyfriend, Desmond, was an agent for the Facility. He'd been sent to get X-23 to kill Megan and Debbie and then bring her back to the Facility.
One night while Laura and Megan were out together, Desmond stayed at their home and began his plan to get X-23 to kill Debbie and Megan, and then to bring her back to the Facility. He made tea for Debbie, who was sick in bed, and put the trigger scent in the tea. He then “accidentally” spilled the tea on Debbie, knowing that Laura would go into a rage when she caught the scent and then kill Debbie. He called Megan and Laura and asked them to pick up some medicine from the store, he estimated this would take them 20 minutes, plenty of time for him to get out of the house before Laura arrived and caught the scent. However, Megan didn't have any money and Laura had left hers back at the house, so they returned home early.
Megan opened the door just as Desmond was coming by, which caused the tea to spill onto him, bathing him in the trigger scent. Laura went into a rage and attacked Desmond, killing him. Megan tried to get Laura to stop but Laura didn't acknowledge her voice at all. Megan ran up to her mom's room, grabbed Debbie and ran to the bathroom, rinsing the scent off of them. This caused Laura to come out of her berserker rage.
Laura knew that the Facility was coming for her and that Kimura would be with them, she told Debbie and Megan that they were going to kill her. Laura took Debbie and Megan down to the basement and told them to stay there. She went up to the house and killed all the agents that were entering the house. Kimura arrived and snapped Laura's neck and then dragged her down to the basement, so that Laura would be forced to watch as she killed Megan and Debbie. Kimura handcuffed Laura so that she couldn't fight back.
Laura refused to allow anything to happen to Megan and Debbie to die, they were the only people left that cared about her or that she cared about. She refused to just sit back and watch them die. Laura cut off her own arm to break free of the handcuffs and then fought Kimura again. She knew she couldn't win, but she still had to try. Laura was able to handcuff Kimura to the radiator and then escaped with Megan and Debbie. Once they were out of the house, Laura blew it up.
She knew Kimura would survive it and realized that as long as she was with Megan and Debbie, they'd never be safe. She knew the only way to keep them safe was to separate. She created fake passports for them and gave them locations to safe-houses where they could get money and then she left them. When they said their goodbye's Megan gave Laura a locket, she'd put a picture of Dr. Kinney on one side and a picture of her on the other side. It was extremely hard for Laura to do and when she said her final goodbyes to Megan she began to cry, running off so that she wouldn't have to face them as they walked away.
Laura had no relatives left, no friends, and nowhere else to turn, she was completely alone and utterly lost. The only thing she could think of to do was to find Wolverine, the man whose DNA was used to create her. She spent days camped outside Xavier's mansion waiting for an opportunity to approach Wolverine. She knew exactly how many telepaths there were and that she could only move in closer when they were focused on something else. Finally she made a mistake and Wolverine picked up her scent. He left the school and Laura followed. She attacked Wolverine with the intention of killing him and herself.
Laura thought that both her and Wolverine needed to die, they were both weapons and they needed to be stopped or more and more people would keep dying. Wolverine told Laura that she could kill him, but he wouldn't allow her to kill herself. He told her that Kinney had sent him the same letter she gave Laura, so he knew everything that had happened to Laura. He told her that nothing was her fault which caused Laura to break down, telling Wolverine that they'd force her to kill her own mother. She felt like the only way to make everything stop was to kill Wolverine and herself. Logan told her that she hadn't had a choice up until now, he gave her the letter and told her that she knew what the Facility wanted from her, but now she had a chance to learn what her mother wanted from her.
It seemed like Laura was going to accept Wolverine's offer to stay with him at Xavier's mansion, but their talk was interrupted by Captain America, who had come to arrest Laura. Captain America took Laura in for questioning, Matt Murdock (aka Dardevil) served as her lawyer during the questioning. Captain America wanted her to answer for the murders she'd committed, but Matt Murdock insisted that she wasn't responsible. He said that the letter absolved her of any guilt and that it wasn't fair to keep her. However, Captain America had a personal investment in the case because he'd previously let Laura get away. He felt like all the murders that happened after that were on his shoulders and wanted to bring her to justice. He ignored Matt and took Laura to hand over to SHIELD.
Along the way Captain America realized that giving her to SHIELD would mean she'd just be used as a weapon for them. So, he let her go and told her to go find Wolverine, he'd know how to help her. X-23 then heads to New York City, instead of going to the Xavier Institute (it's never explained why), where she's taken in by a pimp named Zebra Daddy. That's where she'll be taken from.