Marvel-11: World Inside Out

Obviously, the scientists weren't going to wait fifteen years, so someone created a contraption that artificially accelerated the activation of the mutant gene that had been dormant until then. Laura was seven when they tried it on her. Her life, which had never been full of happy moments or love, got a hundred times worse after that.

One of the most horrifying incidents was when they pulled out her retractable claws, coated them in adamantium, and surgically implanted them back. At least they were smart enough not to subject her to the same procedure Wolverine underwent. First, they knew that a little girl would hardly survive the painful and traumatic process of coating her bones with adamantium. Second, she was still growing, and doing something like that would have kept her stuck in a child's body forever.

Right after that, Zandi Rice — the bastard who hated the girl with a passion — called in Kimura from another lab. The red-skinned bitch was given the role of "trainer" for X-23.

I couldn't deny the logic behind this move. Kimura wasn't a mutant; she was more of an idea fixed in the minds of the local authorities: a super-soldier. The red skin she had was the result of some experiment, and it was so durable that it easily withstood adamantium blades!

This was truly an unbelievable achievement! As far as I know, even the skin of creatures like the Hulk can be cut by Wolverine's claws. But here's this second-rate psychopath with what is almost absolute invulnerability!

Kami-sama! I want that skin, and I will get it! To hell with everything!

"Help me," I ordered my companions and immediately threw a throwing knife toward the opponent.

She didn't even bother dodging, calmly watching as the sharp steel bounced off her body with a clang. Gunshots from Ino's side only made her lazily yawn.

"Is that all?" Kimura sneered, speaking with a condescending tone.

Toad rushed forward, launching her tongue. The hit forced the red-skinned woman to step back, but that was it. She clearly thought she controlled the situation. She was slightly cautious of me, as she didn't understand how I had incapacitated the subject of her training so quickly, but she still believed her skin would protect her from any harm.

Maybe, for Laura, she truly was an almost unbeatable opponent, but there's a lot of crap in the world that's impossible to prepare for. There's no such thing as absolute defense or ultimate weapons. Even if I didn't have mutant abilities, I'm sure I would've found a way to kill her. After all, she still needs to breathe, right?

Still, what I needed now was to distract her and get closer. Toad did a perfect job of that. The fight between the green-skinned and red-skinned women was short. Morty was indeed a formidable fighter. During my time with the Sisterhood, I had trained well. She wasn't quite up to Blade's level, but she wasn't too far behind. Nevertheless, Kimura wasn't a pushover either. She had not only impenetrable skin but also a lot of strength.

Toad was knocked back, landing on her back, and I immediately took her place, flicking my kunai to nick Kimura.

"Haha! You still don't get it, do you?" she laughed. "I'm invincible."

"Really?"

I asked and charged forward again, aiming for a piercing strike. She simply tilted her head back toward the ceiling and continued laughing in the best Orochimaru tradition. Well, what a fool. I had hoped it would be a little more interesting; I even wanted to play with her a bit longer. But such arrogance had to be punished without hesitation.

I released the kunai's handle and touched her bare shoulder. As always, she was immediately jolted by the contact. If she had known what was coming, maybe she could have broken the contact and jumped away. But the shock was too much. So, I calmly stepped closer and firmly grabbed her shoulder.

"What are you doing?" Spot asked, frowning, as my physical contact with the red-skinned woman didn't break after thirty seconds.

"I'm absorbing her, what else?" I shrugged calmly. "I can't pass up such an opportunity."

And it was true! Who in their right mind would pass up such a gift from fate? There was undoubtedly a price to pay for this action, but in reality, it wasn't that high.

If we're talking about the moral side of things, my conscience would be clear. Kimura was a monster, and I'm not talking about her abilities. Not at all. She was even more twisted than Masquerade. Although her malice manifested in a much more human way.

Sometimes, you come across people who are made for the profession of executioners and torturers. In their childhood, they blew up frogs through straws, in their teens, they beat stray dogs to death with sticks, and as adults, they became full-fledged maniacs. Of course, I'm exaggerating, but still.

Kimura was a prime example of one of those twisted bitches. Now that I was absorbing her abilities and memories, the picture was becoming a bit clearer. All of it stemmed from bad upbringing and "good" government agents. Her foster parents, two women who had lived together after losing hope of finding a man, were moral trash. One didn't care about anything except her drugs, while the other had obvious sadistic tendencies.

They took the little girl in when she was still very young. Apparently, there were a lot of orphanages in this world that only housed girls. Many women, after a certain age, develop the desire to become mothers and have children. A boy, of course. Some of them go crazy when, after forty, they somehow manage to get pregnant but end up having girls. There's a whole range of psychological disorders in this world based on reproduction.

But that's not the point. When Kimura grew up, she became so embittered that she somehow caught the attention of the agents of the Facility — the name of the scientific and manufacturing organization that ran the base we were on.

They trained the girl to be a hired killer and secret agent. Her final exam was the murder of her own mothers. And I must say, she didn't hesitate for a second. Moreover, torturing and prolonging the death of her foster family gave her genuine pleasure from the blood on her hands.