Editing Lab Rat (section)

==Abilities and powers==
Rat is a [[Tinker]] specializing in drugs that temporarily turn subjects into monsters while storing their original form.<ref name="power">Lab Rat '''Specializes in tinker drugs that turn subjects into monsters while storing their original state for when the transformation ends.''' - [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pgn9rgYutpBqJg1lSBP3NHnq9WK4ToLq9K4ys_I4cRc/htmlview parahumanList], bolded edit by Wildbow.</ref> The drugs trigger a transformation that draws in extra mass,<ref name="dog example">It wasn’t ''additive'' growth.  I could see how the dog swelled.  Lab Rat’s power had to tap into something to create the flesh.  Had used my blood and bone.  Except it was tapping into the same things that Rachel’s power provided.  Mass.<br/><br/>It was like a limiter had been removed altogether.  The can of worms cracked open.  Muscle, rippling.  Claw.  Horn and bone.  Calcified flesh.  Like water from a waterfall, tendrils and body parts raining down from the lump that clung, snarling from many different mouths, to Scion.  All one connected mass, incoherent. - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/09/21 Excerpt] from [[Venom 29.2]]</ref> with even water being a possible source.<ref name="needle">Pause… and then a prod.<br/><br/>A needle, piercing the skin.<br/><br/>A pressure, as something pumped into my body.<br/><br/>''Heal me.''<br/><br/>It wasn’t healing.<br/><br/>Flesh knit together, but it wasn’t healing.<br/><br/>The pain faded as quickly and dramatically as it had taken hold, but, still, I wasn’t healing.<br/><br/>Not exactly.<br/><br/>My thoughts became clearer.<br/><br/>Water churned where it came in contact with my blood.  Where my flesh closed together and trapped water inside me, the effect intensified.  It was soon the only pain I felt.<br/><br/>''We’re eighty percent water, or whatever the number is,'' I thought.  ''Resources have to come from somewhere.''<br/><br/>Water was seeping into my throat, despite my efforts to keep my mouth clamped shut. - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/08/24 Excerpt] from [[Extinction 27.5]]</ref> While the transformation can hold off injuries, it does not actually heal the subject. The subject returns to their injured state when the transformation stops.<ref name="matchboxes">Weld looked at me, and his eyebrows raised.<br/><br/>I opened my mouth to speak, and found I couldn’t.  My tongue was thinner, layered in something hard, and the sides of my mouth were odd.<br/><br/>I communicated through my swarm, instead.  What little of it remained, anyways.  Drones and buzzes and chirps.  ''“Lab Rat.  The boxes he gave us, they’re designed to trigger when we’re hurt, force a transformation.”''<br/><br/>“Might get a few more recruits,” Sanguine said, not looking up from the wounded.  He had hands extended to two different wounds on one individual, and was drawing blood into one hand and letting it snake out of the other, flowing into the wound.  Was he cleaning it?<br/><br/>''“His transformations are temporary.  Buying time.  He cut me in half, and I’m not sure I’m going to be in one piece when this stops working.”'' - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/08/24/extinction-27-5/ Excerpt] from [[Extinction 27.5]]</ref> There is no guarantee of complete recovery from experimental forms.<ref name="Asylum">“In the few years that Lab Rat was active, for every one person who went to the Asylum for one reason or another, there was a Lab Rat victim.  He tested his serums on people and not every single one changed all the way back. [...] You know how his Screaming Anxiety form kept screaming?  There was a woman like that.  Her mind didn’t exit that state, and she roared out cuss words nonstop.  All day, every day, without ever sleeping.  She had surges of strength that meant she couldn’t be in a regular hospital.  There was a man who boiled alive.  The bubbles would swell-” - [https://www.parahumans.net/2018/12/22/blinding-11-2/ Excerpt] from [[Blinding 11.2]]</ref>

Lab Rat's formulas are geared toward turning people into weapons, with hormones kicking into overdrive and priming their fight or flight instincts. [[Taylor]] noted that she was riding a tide of emotion (such as bloodlust and rage) and put herself in danger by trying to reach [[Scion]], even while she knew she could not affect the fight. She was unable to fight this effect even while she was aware of it.<ref>Rage bubbled inside me, but it wasn’t mine.  I’d experienced my own anger, I knew how it influenced my own body, how it was connected to my emotions.  This was something else.  Hormones kicking into overdrive, compelling my body to react.  Other parts of my body being ''designed'' angry, ''designed'' so they were primed for fight or flight, driving me to act and refuse to let me sit still.<br/><br/>Lab Rat’s stuff was geared towards turning people into weapons, making them take whatever forms he keyed into the formula and then act.  I knew it.  My awareness of what was going on wasn’t stopping it.  I was riding a tide of emotion, moving towards a fight where I couldn’t possibly do anything to stop Scion, putting myself in danger. - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/08/24/extinction-27-5/ Excerpt] from [[Extinction 27.5]]</ref>

However, he is also capable to work in a more subtle way, for example, keeping violent [[Birdcage]] inmates pacified.<ref name="pacifier"/>

As a Field Test Tinker, Lab Rat is only able to work himself to valid results by experimenting on his subjects (either others or himself).<ref name="field_test"/> He is an extremely fast worker, producing a full batch of his serums within 37 minutes with access to only an animal shelter.<ref name="animal_shelter"/>

===Known inventions===
{|class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed wikitable" style="width:100%"
!style="width: 25%;"|Name/Description
!style="width: 75%;"|Details
|-
|Transformation serums
|Very much the core of Lab Rat's work, as outlined above.<ref name="power"/> There are four examples of the results of ingesting these serums:
*Taken by Lab Rat himself, it transformed him into what [[Clockblocker]] describes as 'some kind of photosynthetic lardass, so fat he took up two stories of a house'.<ref name="caught"/>
*When injected with the serum<ref name=fitting>A girl with a bug costume.  Tinted lenses.  Either symbolic, given the recent conversation, or the universe mocking him.<br/><br/>He drew the equipment from his bag, then hesitated.  Something more fitting.  A bug in a box for the girl with the bug costume.  Maybe she would be more comfortable that way. - [https://www.parahumans.net/2018/12/11/ Excerpt] from [[Interlude 10.y II]]</ref> contained in one the matchboxes (listed below), [[Taylor]] transforms into a seven-limbed creature with at least one claw, covered in studs at regular intervals, very much like teeth.<ref name="seven_limbs"/> While the transformation is useful for climbing,<ref name="seven_limbs">I tested my right hand.  The flesh wasn’t tender.  It was ''hard''.  There were studs at regular intervals along either half, like teeth.  ''Very'' like teeth.<br/><br/>A claw.<br/><br/>I raised my claw over my head, then drew it down violently, driving it into a crack.<br/><br/>I was able to climb faster.  I reached the point where the concrete ended.  A shaft of four steel beams reinforced by criss-crossing beams set at diagonals loomed above me.<br/><br/>It was an even faster climb than the concrete.  My legs ended in points, and those same points slipped off of the metal beams, but I had seven limbs to work with.  Even if half of my limbs were reaching out for holds, I still had three or four solid points of contact I could maintain at any given point in time. - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/08/24/extinction-27-5/ Excerpt] from [[Extinction 27.5]]</ref> it is poor for swimming.<ref>My legs kicked, but they weren’t good legs for swimming.  I kept kicking anyways.  Something about the way they moved, they were designed so that the motions shifted my abdominal cavity, pumped it, forcing air in and out with the rhythmic activity. - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/08/24/extinction-27-5/ Excerpt] from [[Extinction 27.5]]</ref> Taylor noted she was unable to speak. Instead, there was something odd about the sides of her mouth, and she had a thin tongue with a hard layer.<ref name="matchboxes"/>
*Another subject of the matchboxes' serum manifested spreading scales around prominent veins instead. The full transformation is not shown.<ref>After a pause, he pressed it against one of the wounded.<br/><br/>It beeped, then a light went on in the corner.<br/><br/>The cape convulsed, his back arching.<br/><br/>A moment later, transformations began, veins standing out along his arms and legs.<br/><br/>“Another one,” Weld said.  “Get me a spare.”<br/><br/>Sanguine handed him another.  Weld applied it.  Scales were manifesting around the most prominent veins on the first one by the time the second patient started reacting. - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/08/24/extinction-27-5/ Excerpt] from [[Extinction 27.5]]</ref><ref>“It’s working,” Sanguine said.<br/><br/>It wasn’t.  I looked at him, confused.<br/><br/>His eyes were on the patients.  ''He’s talking about Lab Rat’s matchboxes.''  I looked, and I saw how the scales were spreading.  They were breathing easier. - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/08/24/extinction-27-5/ Excerpt] from [[Extinction 27.5]]</ref>
*[[Bastard]] is injected with the serum while also being exposed to [[Bitch]]'s power. This results in a transformation where the limiter, mass, has been seemingly removed. Bastard becomes one connected but incoherent mass, with muscles, claws, horn and bone, calcified flesh, tendrils and body parts raining down from the main lump, with many different mouths, snarling at [[Scion]].<ref name="dog example"/>
|-
|Matchbox-sized devices
|White little plastic cases the size of matchboxes, complete with straps,<ref name="caught"/> these pierce the wearer with a needle when they are harmed,<ref name="needle"/> injecting one of Lab Rat's serums and temporarily undoing their injuries.<ref name="matchboxes"/>
|-
|'Jar' of essence
|Not an actual jar, but a device the size of a baseball,<ref name="death"/> it contains distilled Lab Rat.<ref name="in_a_jar"/> Not exactly a clone,<ref>Not a clone, exactly. - [https://www.reddit.com/r/Parahumans/comments/3gbaru/i_think_i_missed_something_huge_spoilers_worm/ctyi959/ reddit comment] by Wildbow.</ref> the jar was meant for when things where unrecoverable.<ref>The jar wasn't supposed to be recovered. It was supposed to be for when things were unrecoverable. - [https://www.reddit.com/r/Parahumans/comments/3gbaru/i_think_i_missed_something_huge_spoilers_worm/ctyic47/ reddit comment] by Wildbow.</ref> The contents of this jar eventually hatched a [[Chris Elman|Replicent]], inheriting Lab Rat's memories and shard through a complex and extended follow-up process.<ref name=II10.y>[[Interlude 10.y II]]</ref>
|}