Zygote Extra Dimensional

Created by Aspect, a private military organisation, ZED is a modified clone of L-2425, the only true Label left in existence. His main job is to scout and report back information to his team, this information being mostly from terrorist organisations. He is a completely passive soldier, only ever acting in self-defence.

## Background

#### Prior to ZED's creation

Dr. Lustre Khemystri was the first scientist in Vyzera to come into full contact with L-2425. Lustre, similarly to her mother, had witnessed many different extraterrestrial sightings ever since they were young, and their fascination with the stars seemed to grow with them as they aged. Lustre studied astrology in university, but towards the end of her studies she became interested in biology, and therefore she was pushed by her parents to take a new course and study for a further four years after she had initially graduated in her studies of astrology.

Lustre eventually found herself working for the private military company Aspect, where she would put her qualifications into researching for the company. Lustre had the opportunity to work with various subjects at the facility, and due to her professional, yet kind nature, Lustre eventually became rather close to the chief of ethics.

Considering L-2425 was Lustre’s very first interaction with an extraterrestrial, it was much less than professional, and at the very beginning of their meeting, Lustre had no idea that L-2425 was from beyond the stars at all.

Lustre questioned L-2425 who had found himself inside of her home, asking if he were lost, making a clear assumption that he was a child. It wasn’t until L-2425 began playing with the voids between time and space right before her eyes, that she realized that she was dealing with something much more extraordinary. **NOTE:** *L-2425 uses a particular, unique language which consists of organizing photographs before himself to properly construct a sentence without the aid of sound. L-2425 accesses his huge range of photographs via his “inventory”, which is essentially a small pocketed void between time and space which he can open and close at will.*

L-2425 kindly introduced himself, before telling Lustre that he was only looking for a drink when he initially stumbled into her home and instead became fascinated with her whiteboard. The conversation continued, and the longer the two spent together that evening, the less anxious Lustre began to feel in L-2425’s presence.

From that evening on, Lustre would be visited by her extraterrestrial companion almost every night. Word of L-2425 would eventually get passed onto Dr. Gelb Schröder, one of Luster’s former astrology lecturers who began working for Aspect only three years before she had graduated from her biology course - Lustre of course, later began to work for Aspect too.

Dr. Schröder was soon to visit Lustre, and was eventually introduced to L-2425. Schröder suggested that Lustre should admit L-2425 to Aspect’s containment facilities, insisting that he should feel much safer there and would be completely out of harm's way. He continued by stating that L-2425 could potentially aid the company greatly in regards to research.

Lustre was a little hesitant at first, but when thinking through the reality of things, it was the best option for L-2425, even as a permanent relocation for their daily meetings.

The transfer to the containment facility went rather well, except L-2425 was almost impossible to contain. He wasn't stubborn, but he didn't like being contained, oftentimes seeking affection from Lustre at the most inconvenient times, or finding his way out of the containment chamber that he was situated inside.

For the most part to Lustre, researching L-2425 in a much more professional manner was closer to that of taking of her children at home than it was doing actual work.

Occasionally, the researchers would have to take samples from L-2425, which he usually sat like a lemon for unless it was to do with extraction of his mass. Extraction was comparable to that of taking blood via needle, which would seemingly frighten L-2425. Whenever L-2425 was afraid, he would usually do a disappearing act *(teleporting somewhere safe)* or would seek comfort from Lustre.

On the 11th of January, 1999, Lustre inconveniently fell pregnant with her third child and eventually had to take maternity leave off of her job. Lustre would head back into work occasionally in order to coax out L-2425, who would be far too afraid to spend time with the other scientists thanks to the extractions that he had to sit through so regularly.

Lustre worked as much as she could from home, but it was always a struggle considering her partner at the time was kindly to put it, awfully irresponsible. By the time Lustre managed to get back to working full-time, she was properly introduced to this incredibly complicated idea that the company had. Aspect would use the blueprints that they had already come up with in regards to cloning, in order to create a super-soldier of sorts from the DNA structure of L-2425, which was a huge step to take considering L-2425’s DNA was barely possible to understand as it was.

#### The Beginning of ZED

**Project: ZED** (***Z**ygote **E**xtra **D**imensional - a clone of a being not from this plane of existence*) was to take another two years of research in order to become a practical experiment, and a further two years of trial and error in order to make the project a reality. ZED was officially born in early 2003, and it was a joint decision between the chief scientist and the owner of Aspect that Dr. Lustre Khemystri would be the one to rear the little creature by hand, considering she had the most experience with L-2425, who was the closest in nature ZED, who was a modified clone of L-2425.

The project alone caused Lustre *a lot* of unneeded stress, although coming to work every day would help her to forget about her relationship which was essentially falling apart. Admittedly, the project fell on her so hard that she would struggle to take care of the baby. It was lucky that her daughter was so mature and understanding that she would take over cooking, cleaning and taking care of the baby a lot of the time, especially when Lustre was exhausted from work, or was working away from home.

ZED was rather difficult to raise from a young age, and most of his learning was achieved through observing and playing with L-2425 whenever he was granted his presence. The arrival and creation of ZED was always very exciting for L-2425, and although he was prohibited from entering ZEDs chamber and interacting with him face-to-face for a few months after ZED was newly created, they would always stare at one another through the glass.

The more ZED grew, the more he understood his position, and the easier it became to handle him and examine his physiology and neurology. Aspect hired soldiers to train him, and Lustre found less and less time for ZED, getting pushed further and further away from him as Aspect's former owner was made redundant and was of course replaced by a new face.

#### Lustre's Deployment

Lustre was later suddenly deployed overseas to do essential research in a new facility. The work was temporary, therefore Lustre had ordered Schröder to take care of her children whilst she was gone, considering her partner now out of the picture entirely. Radykal, Lustre’s daughter had just turned 18 and unfortunately, she wasn't finished with her education just yet, therefore there was no chance that she would manage taking care of the house alone.

Lustre did not want to leave ZED behind, but the work was essential, and despite how many times she was told that ZED would be taken great care of, she could never forgive herself for leaving him. ZED was like one of her own children, so letting go was painful, even temporarily. In the meantime, Lustre informed L-2425 that he needed to stay away from the containment facility until she was back on campus. There was no way in hell that Lustre trusted her new boss, especially due to the way he would treat the subjects at the containment facility.

The people who now had their hands on ZED were a mix of good, and bad people. Some were ex-employees from other facilities, others were freelance. But one thing for sure that happened, was that the rules of ethics were changed.

Scientists no longer had to form bonds with the subjects at the facility and new faces could come and go as they please. The rules began with sentient technology such as robotics, but eventually progressed onto more materialized subjects, such as ZED.

If subjects refused to carry out their tasks or were not good enough at them, programs of discipline were put into place for them. These programs were designed to get subjects to work harder or more efficiently than they were previously used to in the hands of the former chairman of the company.

ZED understood that his favourite researcher was overseas for the meantime and patiently waited for her return, but as the days went on, he began to lose hope. ZED would oftentimes bring up Lustre to his caretakers and researchers, but barely anybody even knew of her name. A lot of them already knew of L-2425, but their mission in regards to him was to capture and control, not to doo-dally and allow him to come in and chit-chat with ZED.

The more ZED worried, the more he would become distracted from his work, feeling distant and lonesome.

Unfortunately, the more distracted Zed became, the need for a discipline program would also increase. ZED was eventually chipped with a device capable of tracking him, returning him and shocking him as a form of discipline.

Something of which L-2425 lacked, ZED was capable of feeling emotion, but the facility deprived him of that valuable difference, and whenever ZED was made to feel, he was disciplined. Whenever ZED dozed off, walked a little slower than usual or sat down to solve a puzzle or play, he was disciplined harshly as a means to force him into becoming what the company intended for him to become at a faster rate.

#### Lustre's Death

On the 31st of October, Schröder paid a very brief visit to Lustre’s wing of the containment facility in order to visit Zed very personally. Visits to the subjects at Aspect were not permitted to those who worked outside of their field, but considering Schröder had some belongings to collect that belonged to Lustre, he was let through into ZED's chamber very reluctantly.

An awful act of terrorism upon the overseas facility of which Lustre had been transferred to took her life, and Schröder knew it would be wrong for Zed to never hear about it.

**SCHRÖDER:** *“I have unfortunate news in regards to your personal caretaker, Lustre.”*

**ZED:** *“I miss Lustre, she makes me feel happy.”*

**SCHRÖDER:** *“Lustre has unfortunately passed away, the information is classified, therefore I cannot share the details.”*

**ZED:** *"I hope she comes back to pick up the crochet doll I made for her. This time I made a doll for her daughter’s boyfriend, Lustre said that his name was Riptide."*

**SCHRÖDER:** *“You’re not listening, pay attention to me, ZED.”*

**ZED:** *“When is Lustre going to come back home?"*

**SCHRÖDER:** *“ZED, Lustre will not be returning to the facility.”*

**ZED:** *"What do you mean? I don't understand. I’m sorry for all of the times I’ve been upset, I promise the punishments have been helping, I swear I’ve been on my best behaviour!"*

**SCHRÖDER:** *“Lustre has passed away, ZED.”*

**ZED:** *"I don't understand what that means..."*

**SCHRÖDER:** *“She is dead.”*

#### Summary

Schröder left his job at Aspect in order to take greater care in raising Lustre’s children with the clear absence of any family members in the position to take them on.

ZED eventually became the soldier that he is today despite suffering from the trauma that Lustre’s death brought him, consistently disciplined by Aspect for openly showing his emotions. None of the researchers at the containment facility ever really found out what was affecting ZED’s behaviour so horribly, especially since he practically refused to talk to anybody besides Lustre, who was now gone. ZED’s copious amounts of study on death to try and desperately understand the true meaning of it never helped his mourning, either.

In short, most of the new faces around the facility were humans, and they were generally the ones who had the technology to shock ZED in the first place. There were anthropomorphs that did treat him well of course, but there were much less of those that treated him badly.

## Acquaintances

* BLUE
* 2425

## Trivia

* ZED is a modified clone of L-2425, the only true Label left in existence. Although Labels are practically extinct, they have the capability to reproduce asexually. Had L-2425 known he was able to reproduce this way, all of the hard work put into cloning him in the first place would have been made completely pointless.

* Although ZED may have a threatening appearance he is far from aggressive. ZED is a pacifist and even when working on the field surrounded by the enemy he will only ever use self-defence. The reasoning behind this is less to do with his job and more tied to the way he has been raised at Aspect. Signs of aggression on his side would only ever result in a controlled shock via his microchip, and these controlled shocks have resulted in ZED being too afraid to bring harm to even the enemy.

* Unfortunately, ZED does not get a lot of free time to himself. His work, training and research takes up almost the entirety of his life; but the times where he does finally get a break, he enjoys working on his crochet dolls. Dr. Lustre, the woman who raised ZED taught him how to crochet, and he continued to perfect this hobby even long after she passed away. ZED will oftentimes make very personal crochet dolls for his favourite workers, but the dolls aren’t supposed to leave the facility. In theory, the dolls which have been taken away from the facility still belong to Aspect.