Cerebra's Files

Old Lace

Affiliation: Runaways
Alternate-X Versions: None
Codename Etymology: Pronounced ōld lās [From Old English eald, Latin laqueus "noose"];
Powers & History: Old Lace is a velociraptor who was genetically engineered in the 87th century to respond to its owner’s (Arsenic) mental commands. Arsenic’s parents had it made for her to give to her when they died, to protect her from whoever managed to kill them. However, she found Old Lace before that and used it to fight them.

Old Lace can be made to obey others if Arsenic tells it to, but otherwise it responds only to her commands. The dinosaur has an empathic connection to its owner, so that they feel each other’s pain. Old Lace’s only real purpose in life is to protect Arsenic, but Arsenic loves her dinosaur dearly and reacts violently to any attempts to separate her from it, to the point that she would probably risk her life to protect Old Lace rather than the other way around.

Old Lace has also shown the tendency to act on its own without prompting from Gert or others, such as the time it attacked Topher before any of the others knew he was a vampire, or when it jumped Nico during an argument with Gert. After M-Day, Old Lace went missing, leading the Runaways into conflict with the X-Men over the care of Bruiser, but Emma Frost eventually found Old Lace and the teams parted ways amicably.

During the final conflict with the new Pride that was led by a younger Geoffrey Wilder, Chase was taken captive by Geoff and about to be sacrificed when Gert and Old Lace arrived. She managed to talk Geoff out of killing Chase, but he stabbed her instead. Old Lace collapsed from its empathic connection to Gert, and since it would have died with Gert, she transferred her connection with OL over to Chase, who now has control over the dinosaur.
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