Target X.

Laura Kinney X-23 Genetic Twin of The Wolverine.

[kingroans]

[ladypool]

X-23 #7 [2005]

[evangelinehedley]

                     Evangeline actually sighed in relief when the girl agreed on going to her apartment with her. She quickly took her arm and let her lean on her. ❝I am, uh, Arthur. It’s a pleasure meeting you, although certainly it’s not the best situation.❞ She tried to chuckle, but Evangeline was incredibly tense and anxious. ❝C’mon, this way.❞ Evangeline didn’t want to run, she knew her legs were far too wide for the other girl to keep up in her situation, but at the same time she didn’t want to take forever to get to her apartment. ❝Almost there.❞ She whispered as they crossed the street and then finally reached her building.                     They took the elevator to her floor and once they arrived, Evangeline fumbled with the keys for a while before managing to open the door. ❝Here, lie here.❞ Evangeline said as she let the woman for a moment to throw all the pillows that were on top of the couch to the floor. ❝I’ll  go catch my first aid kit, okay? I’ll bring you some water too. Do you need or want anything else?❞ Evangeline asked, ready to do anything the girl asked.

[targetx]

Laura let out a small grunt at the phrase ‘not the best situation’ but there was a faint bit of humour in the sound – or as much as Laura would ever be able to muster. She didn’t have much of a humour; there’d never been any joy in her upbringing after all. She let the other lead the way, trying to walk mostly by herself but finding herself unwittingly leaning her weight onto the gentleman aiding her. Genuinely, Laura couldn’t remember the last time she’d heard a reassuring whisper – or so she told herself. No-one had offered her comfort of aid since her mother and even then, that too had been tainted by the fact her mother had let the men in white coats hurt her. No. This was the first time Laura had encountered aid that was genuinely pure in intention.

“Thank you,” she managed to murmur as she came to lie on the couch, a twinge of guilt running through her as she realised how blood would spoil the furniture. She watched as Arthur moved around and she shook her head, holding her hand up to stop him. “Don’t need first aid kit,” she told him, lifting up her shirt to show her skin stitching itself back together.

[willwoodhq]

[Open Starter]

[willwoodhq]

“I believe him to be quite fond of my money as well. It’s tragic that some people don’t realize that there’s more to life than collecting pieces of paper.” But then again, you’ll never hear a poor person spit out this kind of philosophy, and Dorian himself dreads the thought of a life devoid of the fine pleasures which suit him so well. However for him, personally, money is just a gateway to all kinds of pleasure and power. Fine arts, garments and women cost money. Buckets of it.

The man cocked his head slightly, demonstrating curiosity about what she just said. She just goes where he goes? “It seems more of an oath than a relationship.” Dorian considered the possibility that she could be trying to show a more facetious side. Probably not, as she seemed actually distracted about the whereabouts of that unsufferable little man.

Perhaps having him kicked out was a bad idea. “Very well. As host of this gathering, I insist in accompanying.” And quite honestly, make up any excuse to getting out of this party, even though it was his home already. Who would’ve guessed that the american kids would be so clean and prude? Not that it is a bad thing. It’s just boring when they don’t even know how to party to begin with.

“I think I see your consort over there.” He pointed with his glass of champagne as security carried the man away. Oh, he so hated making a scene. Sadly it seems that the situation would require one. “Let this man in peace, please.” Dorian asked, only once, with a regal tone and in a volume that just sufficed for him to be heard and seen by the security men that were about to throw Mr. Masters out. In the same regal manner, he approached the principle of commotion and gave his warmest smile towards Masters, lining up the rugged lapel of his suit in the process.

“I am so incredibly sorry about this inconvenient. They must have confused you with another person I’m not very fond of and whose name isn’t worth a mention.” Dorian then handed him a business card, assuring Masters that he had a professional meeting with him first thing in the morning, if that’s what he so badly wanted. 

With one glaring condition. 

A dance with his fair lady.

[targetx]

“Isn’t that what most relationships are? Oaths? A promise to one another?” Laura challenged with a raised eyebrow. Not that she knew anything about relationships. She’d never witnessed a truly happy one, she’d never participated in one and she never would. That was not the life she was destined for and that was not a life was deemed herself worthy of. There was too much blood on her hands. She may have acted under orders but they were still her sins to bear.

She would have much preferred to go find her client alone but instead, she just inclined her head politely and turned to go and find him. She could smell him even before Dorian pointed him out and seeing the way the guards manhandled him brought out a little bit of Laura’s instinct. Her lip curled upwards to show sharp teeth and fists clenched at her sides as she resisted popping her claws and doing the job the she had been hired to do – kill anyone who touched the banker.

She remained on edge even as Dorian calmed the situation. Her eyes remained firmly on the guards; green eyes studying them so she could get them later when everything was done. The scenario may have been eased, returned to a normal pleasantry – albeit fake pleasantry – but that didn’t stop her from recognising threats. She could even feel Masters’ expectant eyes on her, as if he was waiting for her to make the strike but she wasn’t foolish enough to do it so publicly. Especially not when his business cravings were being sated by the host of the party.

It was only when she heard the condition to which the agreement was made that she snapped out of her trance. Her aggressive look was switched for a confused one and her fists slackened. She blinked a couple of times as she looked up at Dorian, a quizzical look coating her facial features.

Naturally, she knew how to dance. It had been part of the education but she didn’t enjoy it all that much. She didn’t like the idea of dance partners. She’d much have preferred dancing freely by herself to music that was too loud to hear over – something she could drown everything out with.

Nonetheless, she knew her role. Do as you’re told. That was always her role, the faithful pet who jumped when her owner said jumper or asked how high?

“Lead the way, Mr Gray.”

[cluckadodledoo]

[wulfofkarstark]

‘Nothing in this life is fair and questions get people killed.’

He could feel it, the slow cracking of his heart. Bleeding heart, some called him. Her words hit him like a blow to the head and for a moment, he was disoriented. Maybe she was right, maybe nothing was fair, but the moment he thought that, he knew he would be lost. Life was horrible, wonderful, tragic, breathtaking, beautiful. It was so much and yet so simple at times that it had overwhelmed him. Somewhere in time, it had overwhelmed this young woman, and it had taught her that life was only cruel. That it only took and kept on taking, never offering anything up in return. His expression softened, the harsh line of his jaw relaxing.

“Life is just that, life,” he said carefully. “It’s fair and unfair. It can be anything it wants to be. Just like we can.”

Reader didn’t know if his words meant anything to her or if she even cared. Even then, he refused to believe that whatever programming the soldiers put her through had made her cold. He couldn’t believe that about anyone. Maybe she thought he sounded pathetically hopeful. The fact he couldn’t read her bothered him. As they nearly circled each other, he had to wonder at the lack of claws. He had seen them skewered clean through a man, but with the Inhuman, she kept them from sight. His hope rose high in his chest and pressed on his ribs, keeping him in a vice grip. She could have ended it quickly and tore him apart, but she didn’t. She hadn’t even gone after his yappy dog. His hope would never be lost and he smiled again.

Turned out his breath could be lost, though, her elbow lodging close enough to his solar plexus to take it from him. Shit. He took in quick, light breaths as he fought to steady his breathing. He stumbled back, mouth gaping, and worked to refocus his thoughts. Forey’s worried barks cut through the cotton-like sensation in his ears and he found that reassuring. Stability returned to him and he touched his staff to the ground with a loud tap.

“If you wanted me to stop talking,” he breathed out once he reconvened with respiration. He tilted his head with a cocksure smile. “You could have just asked. I might’ve done it. Maybe.”

He didn’t know how well joking would go fly in a makeshift battlefield, but he sure as hell wasn’t above trying it. That’s Anything to get a response from her, aside from a fist to the face or a foot to the throat. Fighting got a response out of her, that much he was aware of, and he spun his staff fully to the side before slamming it down between them. His body followed through the motion and he lowered to the ground in a bow stance, for once equal with Forey’s line of sight.  He didn’t want to think about what had been unfair to her or what had bloodied her world view. Help. Understanding. Hope. Whatever he could imagine, if he even could. He refused to believe that he couldn’t. His endless optimism was both a gift and a curse at times.

“What’s your name, anyway?” he asked casually, not having moved from his position. It was a ridiculous one to take, with bullets and insanity going on, but he wasn’t paying attention to that. His focus was on her. “Figure we might be here awhile, might as well get to know each other, right? Call me Reader.”

[targetx]

Just like we can.

Laura had never had a chance to be anything but what she had been made to be. Her life had been made from her from the day men in white coats had decided they wanted to clone the Wolverine. Even then, she had failed at that. She wasn’t a clone, she was a genetic twin. They’d wanted a male but instead they’d ended up with her - a female version but equally as deadly – if not more so because she also had gotten such a pretty face from her Mother. She was the animal they wanted while being able to capture grace, beauty and seduction all at the same time and yet, she was still treated like a rag doll, thrown around and beaten into submission and most of the time, she let them.

There was nothing she could be but this. This savage, this feral with a need to kill and even the times when she didn’t want to kill, she was forced to through chemical means. It was all she knew and it was all she would ever know. As enticing as his words were, as much as she wanted to believe them, there had not been a single day in her life where she’d been made to believe otherwise when it came to her fate. A few words from a blind stranger wasn’t going to change that.

“You wouldn’t have stopped,” she retorted, remaining on one knee as he bowed over and they came to be eye-level with one another. Though as she spoke, there was the faintest of smiles tugging at the corner of her lips. His perseverance was endearing to say the least.

She kept her gaze on him, green eyes filled with a mixture of conflict. She could have struck him and ended this now but part of her didn’t want to. Unfortunately for her, he wasn’t the only one to notice her hesitation. The fact he wasn’t dead yet could have been overlooked by her handlers had it not been for the fact the familiar shine of Adamantium wasn’t extended from between her knuckles.

Her lips parted, about to speak and state her name. Laura. She would have said, she would have given him the name her Mother gave her but before she could say a thing, she heard a finger pull a trigger. In a split second, her hand was coiled around his staff, just above his own hand and she was launching herself back onto her feet and turning to shield him. In a battlefield, for the first time since her Mother’s death, she was making a choice to defy a kill order. For once, she stood in the way instead of dealing the blow and as soon as the bullet ripped through her skin, straight through her back and into her stomach she let out a quiet ‘unngghh’.

She was used to pain. A bullet was nothing and it’d heal soon enough.

“You should have left,” Laura managed to murmur, doubling over but still holding onto Reader’s staff to keep herself from dropping to her knees.

“X-23,” came a familiar coo of a female voice. A woman made just to keep Laura in check, a woman with indestructible skin, making it impossible for Laura to harm her. “What have we said about playing with your food? Although, he is a pretty one. Who knew the runt had taste?”

Laura made no retaliation to the taunts, just instead let out a defeated groan, almost a pleading one as if begging to be left alone.

[littlemagicfeather]

insp.

[inthenameofsephiroth]

[wulfofkarstark]

Reader clicked his tongue and shook his head. He wasn’t disappointed in her, but rather the people that thought it was in their power to give orders. He couldn’t say much since he had orders of his own. That being said, they were more like guidelines instead of strict orders that he had to oblige. Help the Inhumans. Guide them to the right place. To him? It meant helping whoever he could, not just Inhumans, when necessary and when he had the power to do so. In reality, he always did, especially when reality wasn’t much to him in the first place. He didn’t know who the clawed girl was or where she came from. It didn’t matter. Help the Inhumans everyone.

“Maybe you should,” he shot back, lips pursed. Her stilted answers made him anxious, but he wasn’t going to stand down. “Maybe you should question all of it, that’s the great thing about this place. We can question all of it and it’s fair game.”

Her short-lived laugh made him smile some, even if it was bitter and sarcastic. She could still laugh, could still find humor in some things. The people who had given her orders didn’t take that away from her and even if he didn’t know her from Adam, he wasn’t feeling up to having them take anything else from her. They had taken her free will and made her into some…killer? Assassin? And from all he could tell, she looked younger than him despite the age in her eyes. Good and evil were took black and white for his tastes. Everyone had a little bit of each in them that they were capable of, but whoever had given her the orders came as close to evil as he could imagine.

Reader wanted to know her story, to know what kind of plot twists had led from her birth to where she was now. Spattered with blood and with the intent to kill. He looked briefly to the soldiers on the sidelines and his jaw went taut, his smile going dry. If, when, he survived this, he was going to give them some hell. Forey yipped and his attention shot back to the girl running at him. Her slide caught his feet and he stumbled back, knees hitting the concrete. He was quick to get back up and swing his staff at her shoulder to distance them before pushing forward. His dog paced uncomfortably to the side with a growl and his teeth bared, but he made no move to join. 

“You’ve got orders to kill, yeah?” he grunted with a swing. “Screw them. I’m not going to let you kill anyone here, so looks like it’s me and you. And I’m not going to make it easy for you.”

He made to hook his staff behind her leg and bring her down. As long as she had her attention on him, everyone else could try and make it out. He had hope.

[targetx]

There was a very brief second where Laura faltered, her mind flashing back to memories of things she’d done that she’d rather have forgotten. Those things occurred because she had dared to question, she had tried to escape. Her own mother had met an end at her claws, her mother having been coated in a scent that forced Laura to kill even when she didn’t want to. The corners of her lips twitched, threatening to curve downward as a lump formed in her throat. Rarely did the clone of Wolverine find herself wanting to cry but whenever she did, it had usually been promoted by a flashback. As quickly as the sadness washed over her, it was gone. She’d long ago learned how to cut her emotions off from the world – it was one of her many expert skills.

Part of her, however, wanted to bellow at him. To angrily yell and ask if he thought she hadn’t already tried but her rational mind reminded her that not everyone knew her story, that not everyone was aware of the horrors she’d been subjected to. Instead, she just let out a huff of air through her nose.

“Fair game,” she bit back, “nothing in this life is fair and questions get people killed.”

Though her eyes remained on the man, she could hear the dog growling at the side lines. Never again would Laura hurt an animal but it called to that feral nature she had inherited from The Wolverine and almost instantly, a growl of her own rumbled up from the base of her throat, teeth baring too as she turned to look down at the dog – the guttural sound a warning for it to stay put. It was odd how such a sound felt more natural to her than actual words, even with all the grace trained into her, she was still what they had wanted her to be; an animal, ready to tear at people’s throats with her teeth and her claws.

Her arm came up to deflect his staff and her she danced closer towards him again, turning so that she was side on from him and yet all the while, her claws still remained sheathed within her forearms. While this man may have been a nuisance, making it difficult for her to complete her mission, she was intrigued by him. For Laura, that was probably the most dangerous thing in the world; curiosity. It was the only potential thing she had left that could lead her astray. She had no-one to live for, no-one to fight for but oh, she had so much about the world to learn and his determination to stop her was almost admirable and admiration – even as slight as it was – was an unknown feeling to Laura.

Dropping to one knee as his staff caught her leg, her instant response was to throw her arm up, bent at the elbow and aiming for his gut.

[ilikethewayyousoundinthemorning]

Octavia Blake — 3x10 Fallen

“To stop me you’re going to have to kill me”

[shesablake-deactivated20160706]

i shall stand fierce.

[alecsizzy]

[targetx]

▄

▄ = telling them a joke

It’s safe to say that X-23 isn’t amused with the masked man’s joke. If getting her job done means working with him, so be it but the fact he doesn’t shut up is just exhausting. She even tried stabbing him at one point, hoping to just get him out of her way but much to her dismay, he also had a healing factor. Great, just great. She could have probably tolerated him if he said something useful or something that didn’t make him sound like a child but oh no, he just kept babbling on about things she didn’t know of or didn’t care about. And the look he gave her through his mask - because, his mask was oddly expressive - when waiting for her reaction to his joke. Like a hopeful child waiting for praise but she was just the disappointed parent that gave him an unimpressed look.

“Do you ever shut up?”

[targetx]

↱ (from Illyana)

↱ = being lost with them

Laura has zero idea how she’s ended up in a situation like this; ending up lost with a complete stranger. It seems to be happening more often than not these days. Since destroying The Facility and coming the New York, she’s conversed with more people than she’s ever had to before in her life. She’s not entirely sure how she feels about it. Initially, seclusion had been forced upon her but now, she realised she favoured it. She was less likely to end up in scenarios like these if she was alone. 

“Are you positive that you have no idea how to get back from here?”

[targetx]

♘

♘ = stabbing them

Why her handlers thought it was a good idea to send her after Namor is beyond her. There’s nothing strategic or clever about it, there’s nothing to gain but failure. Or maybe that’s why they did it. Maybe they’d found out about her unauthorised trips out of the base, found out about her talking to people about things she shouldn’t have been talking about...It’s a set up to punish her, she should have known that from the start but who is X-23 to question? She has no choice in her missions, she just obeys and that’s all she’ll ever be able to do because choice is not an option for her.

It’s not until a blade enters her gut that she’s 100% sure this is a failed mission. The only retaliation she makes is to spit the blood that gurgles up her throat and into her mouth back at him. Green eyes are filled with anger but it’s not entirely aimed at him even if he has managed to wound her. There’s little point fighting him with her claws because if this is what her handlers wanted, she’s been taught to accept it without question and that’s what she must do.

[targetx]

≡

≡ = offering a place to stay overnight

“Do I look homeless to you?” 

It’s Laura’s instantly response upon being offered a place to stay the night. Granted, by all rights she is homeless. The place where she rests her head is not her home and there’s nowhere she she calls home but she has a place to return to, a bed and even if that is with HYDRA, it’s somewhere. Perhaps it’s the fact she’s completely disheveled, her clothes are a mess, her hair is a mess or maybe it’s the fact she’s been sat all night in this launderette but not actually washing any clothes. 

She’d rather have sat here all night than return to her ‘home’ but she doesn’t want anyone’s misplaced charity either. The red head is just trying to be kind, Laura is aware of that but Laura is also the kind of person who trusts no-one. She barely sleeps at the HYDRA base, there’s not a chance she would sleep in a stranger’s house.

[targetx]

☂ = giving them their jumper to keep warm

She’d just finished a mission on an offshore boat and the last thing Laura expected when she resurfaced at the docks was to come face to face with a dog. Let alone one she’d seen before. Her hands are on the edge of the dock, waiting to hurl herself back onto land but instead, her movements slow and she climbs out slowly as not to make any sudden movements that might provoke an attack. Not that she couldn’t handle a dog but she’s not fond of killing animals.

She straightens up and as she has to hold her uniform to herself because it’s riddled with bullet holes and threatening to fall apart. Her eyes finally leave the dog and settle on his owner and it’s like he’s been stood there waiting for her. Had he followed her this whole time? It’s safe to say, the young mutant is confused and that confusion only grows as he wraps his jumper around her. 

Laura has always been a person - does she qualify as a person when she has no soul? - of few words and as usual, she’s speechless. But for once, it’s not because she’s expected to be quiet, it’s because she doesn’t know what to say. She realises something as simple as giving a jumper to keep her warm is the kindest gesture she’s ever received and she doesn’t know how to process the combination of sadness and gratefulness that revelation fills her with.

After minutes of silence, she hangs her head because she’s just returned from a full massacre. She doesn’t deserve kindness, she believes she never will. Especially not from someone she’d actively fought last time they’d encountered one another.

“Thank you...” She finally manages to murmur, pulling the jumper tightly around her because healing factor or not, she feels the cold just like anyone else.