Lab Rat

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<title source="name"><default>

Lab Rat

</default></title> <image source="Image"></image> <image source="image"></image> <group> <header>Basic information</header> <label>Civilian name</label> <label>Alias(es)</label> <label>Gender</label> <label>Worm start</label><default>Unknown</default> <label>Post-timeskip</label> <label>Ward start</label> </group> <group> <header>Personal Status</header> <label>Status</label> <label>General location</label> <label>Family</label> <label>Relationships</label> <label>Occupation</label> </group> <group> <header>Parahuman Status</header> <label>Legal status</label> <label>Team(s)</label> <label>Previous team(s)</label> <label>Power</label> <label>Known classifications</label> </group> <group> <header>Media</header> <label>First appearance</label> </group> </infobox>

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“	That guy is crazy. At one point he made himself into some kind of photosynthetic lardass, so fat he took up two stories of a house. It’s the only reason they caught him in the end.	”
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Chris,<ref name="firstname" /> known as Lab Rat, is a Tinker<ref name="field_test"/> imprisoned in the Birdcage. He acts as a leader of one of the cell blocks.<ref name="intro">All in all, there were twelve cell blocks with leaders. That meant that there were eleven leaders with eleven lieutenants arriving. Acidbath, Galvanate, Teacher, Lab Rat and Gavel were leaders of the cell blocks on the men’s side of the prison. Lustrum, Black Kaze, Glaistig Uaine, String Theory, Crane and Ingenue were the female leaders. There were other cell blocks, but twelve was generally agreed on as a good number. It left room for discussion without too much chaos, and it left enough cell blocks leaderless that they had elbow room to do business elsewhere. - Excerpt from Interlude 16.z</ref>

Personality

Lab Rat is dismissive of the lives of others, willing to perform his experiments on humans that were isolated from society.<ref name="homeless"/> Even after being freed from his imprisonment, he asks for human subjects first, only resigning himself to work with animals after being refused.<ref name="animal_shelter"/>

He possesses a degree of self-hatred,<ref>He reached out to touch the screen, feeling a kind of dread. He didn’t want to be that. Him. Himself. He’d spent a long, long time not wanting to be himself, but now it was imperative. - Excerpt from Interlude 10.y II</ref> willing to risk his own well-being by performing experiments on himself.<ref name="homeless"/> Clockblocker mentions that the only reason he was captured is due to self-experimentation, with Lab Rat turning himself into a photosynthetic mass of flesh that took up two stories of the house he was in.<ref name="caught"/> Lab Rat does, however, value his own survival, preparing a device with the distilled essence of himself in case he were to die.<ref name="in_a_jar"/>

Relationships

Big Sister

The cause of Lab Rat's trigger. He resented the fact that people constantly praised her, calling her an 'angel' for looking after him and his brother when in truth she was a serial killer.<ref>Years later, he summoned the courage to tell his sister he knew. He’d expected to find some strength in it, to disarm her. Something. All he had achieved was to allow her to be less careful about what she did, on those days she found a hitchhiker or homeless kid willing to follow her to her home.

He couldn’t tell anyone, because he was already the delinquent by that point. She was the angel, the twenty-one year old who had taken custody of her two kid brothers, who put up with him when he’d acted out so much after their parents had died.
[...]
If anybody had ever really liked him, his little brother excepted, then they’d never let him know… and his little brother wasn’t around anymore. The last victim of the so-called ‘angel’, his sister. - Excerpt from Interlude 10.y II</ref>

Little Brother

The last victim of Lab Rat's sister. It is unknown how Lab Rat dealt with the guilt

String Theory

He maintained a complicated rivalry<ref name=rivalry>“What are you making?” String Theory asked, sticking her head between his elbow and his body.

He dug his elbow into her back, hard, and she squirmed her way out.
[...]


Now he was out, all of those notes in his head, and with a hundred ideas to pick from, he had no ideas.

Not that he’d tell this grinning runt of a woman.

“Better seen than heard.”

She smirked, and it was a really punchable smirk. She slouched and rather than straighten up to smile at him, she twisted her head so her chin craned up, looking up at him with overlarge glasses and a forced smile on her face.

Somehow more irritating than if she’d been looking down at him. Not that he would punch that punchable face. Maybe in the right situation, he could do something more creative. Take the right formula, the right form, and claw that face off.
[...]
He was thinking small and he hated that she was right almost as much as he hated her guts in general. Yet however much he hated her and however much she claimed to detest him, they ended up together, over and over again.

This- it had been her saying goodbye. - Excerpt from Interlude 10.y II</ref> of sorts with his fellow cell block leader.<ref name=darling/> Their relationship left a lasting impression on his successor.

Taylor

He genuinely terms her an Angel for helping him roll his flask into the sea,<ref name="death"/> a term he had resented since it had been misapplied to his sister.

Appearance

Described as 'the last person one might expect to be a Tinker'. He has a maw full of teeth crammed towards the front of his mouth while overlapping and sticking out of lower gums, accompanied by untidy mess of hair and thick brows. He is tall and broad-shouldered, but he has 'a bit of a belly'.<ref>String Theory and Lab Rat stepped out of the same portal. String Theory was short, shorter with her slouch, and petite, her dark hair tied back into a braid, her lips pulled back into a wide expression halfway between a grin and a smile. With her glasses, it made me think of a frog, or a small lizard. Lab Rat was the opposite, the last person one might expect to be a tinker. He had a mouth full of teeth that were screaming for braces, all crammed towards the very front of his mouth, overlapping and sticking out of lower gums. He had a mop of hair and heavy brows, was tall and broad shouldered, and had a bit of a belly. - Excerpt from Extinction 27.3</ref> He is later seen wearing a lab coat.<ref name="caught"/>

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. - 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.

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. - Excerpt from Venom 29.2</ref> with even water being a possible source.<ref name="needle">Pause… and then a prod.

A needle, piercing the skin.

A pressure, as something pumped into my body.

Heal me.

It wasn’t healing.

Flesh knit together, but it wasn’t healing.

The pain faded as quickly and dramatically as it had taken hold, but, still, I wasn’t healing.

Not exactly.

My thoughts became clearer.

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.

We’re eighty percent water, or whatever the number is, I thought. Resources have to come from somewhere.

Water was seeping into my throat, despite my efforts to keep my mouth clamped shut. - 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.

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.

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.”

“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?

“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.” - 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-” - 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.

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. - 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

Name/Description	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. 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. - 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. A claw. I raised my claw over my head, then drew it down violently, driving it into a crack. 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. 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. - 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. - 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. It beeped, then a light went on in the corner. The cape convulsed, his back arching. A moment later, transformations began, veins standing out along his arms and legs. “Another one,” Weld said. “Get me a spare.” 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. - Excerpt from Extinction 27.5</ref><ref>“It’s working,” Sanguine said. It wasn’t. I looked at him, confused. 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. - 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. - 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. - reddit comment by Wildbow.</ref> The contents of this jar eventually hatched a 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>

History

Background

Young Lab Rat was exposed to his sister's brutal serial killings. Unable to resolve this with otherwise 'perfect' behavior of his sister he started slipping into delinquency and borderline derangement. After a while, he confronted his sister, but it only made her more blatant and shameless about her murders, since he was too far gone to expose her and be believed. Eventually, his sister murdered his younger brother, presumably, resulting in Lab Rat's trigger.<ref name=II10.y/>

Lab Rat was working in secret to develop his formulas, testing them on local homeless and on isolated individuals when the homeless ran out.<ref name="homeless">Lab Rat, conversely, had worked in secret, developing formulas that could transform people into monsters. He had used formulas on the homeless, then when the local homeless ran out, started picking off individuals that were isolated, out for jogs in the early morning or new visitors to his town. It wasn’t clear just what he was searching for, in developing the formulas. What I found myself wondering was whether he’d been testing his work on his test subjects before using them on himself, or if it was the other way around. - Excerpt from Extinction 27.3</ref> He heavily contributed to the Parahuman Asylum population, since not every one of his victims was able to recover from experiments.<ref name="Asylum"/>

Despite his low-profile work he was able to reach the position of the second most wanted villain by 2003 and fought off PRT top teams thrice with moderate success. Eventually, he was caught mid-experiment and imprisoned.<ref>PRT’s second most wanted, 2003. Seventh most wanted if counting international threats. He’d fought the PRT’s headliner team three times. One win, two draws- he’d lost both those times, technically, but he’d gotten away, and he counted that as a draw.

Then they’d caught him, found him mid-experiment. He’d been a prisoner in a regular prison, until they’d grown lax.

Then the Birdcage. Baumann Parahuman Containment Center. Seven years of cameras and eyes watching his every move while he was contained. He could imagine the fingers tapping on the glass. Dragon handled the announcements, but he could imagine the other staff watching. No one woman could do all of the watching. A hundred eyes… - Excerpt from Interlude 10.y II</ref> His workshop was sealed.<ref name="animal_shelter">Defiant looked at Lab Rat. “Your old workshop is still there, sealed off.”

“No. I’d be spending more time cleaning up than working, and the samples would be dead, if you haven’t tampered with them. Something else. A room in a hospital would work. I can stay out of the way.”

“We’re not giving you access to humans,” Defiant answered, his voice hard.

Lab Rat frowned. “Animal shelter? With the animals still present?”

“Fine,” Defiant said. “Thirty-seven minutes. If you’re going to contribute, you should get started. Door, please. To an abandoned animal shelter on Bet.”

The door opened.

“Mm,” Lab Rat grunted. “I’ll figure something out.”

Then he was gone. - Excerpt from Extinction 27.4</ref> Later, after regular prison proved to be unable to properly contain him, Lab Rat was transferred to the Birdcage, where he became a cell-block leader and quite a moderating influence.<ref name="pacifier">He had no plans. Or rather, he had a hundred. He’d spent seven years thinking about what he would do when he had a chance, a real chance that didn’t use food byproducts and what he extracted when he performed procedures on his cell block inmates. The mentally ill, the suffering. Take from one, give to another, level out serotonin, reduce aggressive urges. Now and then their parahuman overseer would get upset at him for building up too much of a collection, demanding he dump it. Until then, he had some freedom.

He kept a cell block of people quiet, when they were of types who had no reason to be quiet, and in exchange, they left him alone six days out of seven. Another of the seven days was reserved for dealing with disputes and talking to other block leaders.- Excerpt from Interlude 10.y II</ref>

Lab Rat's country of origin is unknown, but he swears in a language Taylor is unable to recognize.<ref name="death">Lab Rat, who had apparently realized the futility of trying to move, wasn’t running at all, but was rearing back, a device the size of a baseball in his hand. He threw it, aiming to put it over the water.

Not enough. Lab Rat wasn’t one of those prisoners who’d packed on muscle in prison. The ball fell short, then started rolling slightly back towards him.

He swore in a language I didn’t know, started to run towards the object. Too slow. If he wasn’t going to make it over the edge and get to safety, he wasn’t going to reach the object.

My bugs hit the object as a mass, rolling it. It tipped over the edge. Lab Rat stopped.

The bugs around him caught one word. “Angel.” - Excerpt from Extinction 27.5</ref>

Post-Slaughterhouse Nine

As a cell block leader, Lab Rat attends the meeting where Marquis introduces his daughter. Though he stays silent throughout most of it he does provide information about the Birdcage before Teacher cuts him off.<ref name="hollow mountain"/> They, apparently, had low-burning rivalry.<ref>“He doesn’t trust me after the years we spent jockeying for power in the Birdcage, I cured some of his thralls, fucked with him a few too many times. He wants to pretend he’s objective and rational but he can hold a grudge.” - Excerpt from Breaking 14.12</ref>

Gold Morning

Lab Rat would spend seven years in the Birdcage before being released during the start of the event.<ref name=darling>Slouching, hands clasped behind her back, String Theory made her way over to Chevalier and Defiant. The petite, odd-looking woman glanced around, not speaking up, but waiting until Chevalier deigned to look at her. Lab Rat, behind her, looked more impatient. He wasn’t good at hiding his feelings.

“I’ll need a lab,” String Theory said. “Tools. My tools, if you can get them.”

“You can prep something in time?” Chevalier asked. He sounded surprised. “We expected the tinkers to take part in the next attempt.”

“I’m not an ordinary tinker,” String Theory said. She tapped her head. “I’ve had four years to think, plan what I’d build if I got out. All up here.”

“Me too, seven years of thinking,” Lab Rat said. “Need a lab. Not sharing one with her.”

“I wouldn’t let you, darling,” String Theory said, condescending. I could see Lab Rat’s lip curl, but I wasn’t sure if it was in irritation or amusement. - Excerpt from Extinction 27.4</ref> He is given access to an abandoned animal shelter,<ref name="animal_shelter" /> where he got a visit from String Theory.<ref name=rivalry/> After this meeting, he accessed the PRT storage for confiscated objects,<ref name=II10.y/> from which he produces a batch of little plastic cases the size of matchboxes,<ref name="caught" /> among other projects.<ref name=II10.y/> The matchboxes are designed to trigger a transformation when the wearer is hurt, temporarily removing the wounds from the subject, and it is this feature that manages to save Taylor's life.<ref name="matchboxes"/>

He himself did not benefit from the matchboxes, as he is killed by Scion's golden orb at the rig.<ref name="death"/> Before his death, he is able to throw a device the size of a baseball, containing 'distilled Lab Rat',<ref name="in_a_jar">Good question.
Distilled Lab Rat in a jar. In case he didn't make it. - reddit comment by Wildbow.</ref> into the ocean with the aid of Taylor's bugs. His final word is 'angel', thanking Taylor.<ref name="death"/> After his death, his transformation serums are used on Bitch's mutated dogs in the continued fight to stop the golden man's rampage.<ref name="dog example"/>

References

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