The Escape from Arête Laboratories, also referred to as the Rocket Incident,[2] was an evasion plot from the OrgoCorp facility Arête Laboratories conducted by Rocket with the intent of freeing himself and his friends in Batch 89. In the attempt, he violently scarred the High Evolutionary's face in a despair-filled rage for killing Lylla, resulting in his other friends meeting their demises as well. However, the grief-stricken and regretful Rocket successfully piloted a spaceship to exit Counter-Earth, starting off his criminal career.
Background[]
High Evolutionary's experiments, Batch-89
During his attempts to create the "perfect society" a man known as the High Evolutionary accumulated and experimented on many earth animals to forcefully make them more human-like, in Arête Laboratories on Counter-Earth. Specifically, Batch-89 are random animals forced to have cybernetic implants to enhance their intelligence and do human things alongside their natural animal abilities. These animals, Subject 89Q12 an otter, 89A95 a walrus, 89L06 a rabbit, and a raccoon, 89P13 bonded together, later naming themselves, Teefs, Lylla, Floor, and Rocket, who during their down-time, imagined life on Counter-Earth when High Evolutionary finishes his experiments and free them from the Laboratory.
High Evolutionary's teaching Subject 89P13
Fascinated by Rocket's more advanced thought process, High Evolutionary began to personally teach Rocket to see his intelligence in progress. Eventually, High Evolutionary personally showed Rocket his recent batch of experiments, Batch-90. Showing off him rapidly evolving a turtle into a Humanimal with a specialized chamber, High Evolutionary, explained that for some reason the creatures were more violent, as the turtle devolved into an animalistic rage, before High Evolutionary killed them by igniting the pod with fire. Rocket, however, saw and pointed out that the problem lied with the filtration systems, intrigued High Evolutionary had Rocket escorted back to his cage as him and the recorders looked into the problem.
High Evolutionary and his Recorders show off Batch-90
High Evolutionary yelled out for 89P13, waking Rocket and the rest of Batch 89 causing the Recorder Vim to apologize as High Evolutionary had been acting like this as he escorted Rocket into the Humanimals chamber. Once there, High Evolutionary began to interrogate Rocket on how he, someone that he himself made knew the issue with the Evolutionary chamber, showing him a new attempt to evolve 3 animals into Humanimals. High Evolutionary said that he asks because it now works, as the new Humanimals passively waved at Rocket.
Excited over the success, Rocket asked if this meant that Batch-89 could finally enter Counter-Earth. However, High Evolutionary laughed stating that Batch-89 looked like mistakes made by children, revealing that they were never supposed to go to the new world. High Evolutionary then stated that he was going to extract Rocket's mind from his head, preparing to extract Rocket's specialized skills to implant into future experiments, asking for the recorders to put 89P13 in his cage to prep the surgery. Vim confused asked what was to happen to the rest of Batch-89, which High Evolutionary non-clamantly told them to incinerate them, to Rocket's disbelief.[1]
Escape[]
Being thrown back into his cage, Rocket immediately began to put together all the scrap pieces he acquired over the years and assembling them into a skeleton keycard. While Rocket did this, Floor asked if Rocket's absence meant that they were about to head off to Counter-Earth, but Rocket kept quiet, not wanting to tell them the dark reality. However, Lylla put it together and in denial, said that it couldn't be true, but Rocket admitted that they were supposed to be killed. Rocket completed the keycard and said that instead they would head to the hangar and use a ship to bust out of the Laboratory.
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Despite his wavering, Rocket used the keycard on the card slit on his and Floor's cage. Successfully the card unlocked the cage to the Batch's joy and unease. Now free, Rocket silently walked on all fours to make it to Lylla and Teefs' cage, making sure no one was around. Making it to the cage door, Rocket immediately used the card to unlock their cage, freeing Lylla.
Lylla is shot by High Evolutionary
As Lylla and Rocket hugged over Rocket's success, Lylla proclaimed how great it was to have friends. However, Lylla was interrupted and fell from a gunshot wound, allowing High Evolutionary who had just shot Lylla to confront Rocket, knowing that he would try to escape. As High Evolutionary reported the escape and called for backup, Lylla dying from her gunshot wound stared at the "sky" before passing away. Despaired over his closest friend's death, Rocket started to cry out in sadness while Teefs stayed in his cage, as Floor begged for Rocket and Teefs to leave, annoying High Evolutionary. Tired of Rocket's crying, High Evolutionary proceeded to scream out in mocking sorrow, before proclaiming that Rocket won the "crying contest" and moved forward to put Rocket back in his cage. However, now enraged, Rocket tackled High Evolutionary and used his claws to heavily scratch High Evolutionary's face, heavily scarring him and writhing in pain, as Floor continued to beg that they leave now and Teefs begged Rocket to stop. As Rocket continued tearing into his creator's face, some of High Evolutionary's guards arrived and attempted to fire on Rocket, however the missed, allowing him the opportunity to grab High Evolutionary's blaster and shoot and kill all the guards.
Still reeling from shock, Rocket turned over to Teefs and Floor only to see that the guards' blasts had shot and killed them, to Rocket's shock and sorrow. Despite this, Rocket proceeded to run from the High Evolutionary's guards to Arete Laboratories' hangar and steal a ship and fly out of Counter-Earth, fulfilling his promise to his friends, but all alone instead.[1]
Aftermath[]
Due to his experience, enduring the High Evolutionary's experiments, and the murder of his closest friends, which he blamed himself for, Rocket with his newfound freedom, hardened himself into an infamous bounty hunter, regularly pushing most people who got to close away, so they could not remind him of his loss. Eventually, though, Rocket opened himself, slowly with Groot and later the Guardians of the Galaxy, becoming like a family although still be a bit standoffish.
Meanwhile, due to the injuries he sustained from having his face torn apart by Rocket, High Evolutionary made a prosthetic mask to hide his deformed face, and gave himself the ability to manipulate gravity to repel future attacks as he continued his experiments. Eventually, when High Evolutionary learned that another of his creations the Sovereign were wanting revenge on the Guardians of the Galaxy, which Rocket is a member of, he decided to rush the development of Adam Warlock to apprehend Rocket, only for the unexperienced Sovereign to fatally wound Rocket instead, causing him to go into a coma.
As the Guardians sought after any information to help save Rocket as they fought against Adam, the Sovereign, and High Evolutionary's men to prevent Rocket from enduring further experimentation, Rocket remembered his time on Arete Laboratories, and the death of his friends. Eventually, as Star-Lord tried to deactivate a kill switch on Rocket to fix his wound, Rocket briefly flatlined, causing him to briefly pass onto the afterlife, where he met up with Lylla, Teefs, and Floor. However, despite Rocket wanting to go on, Lylla stopped him and reassured him that he still has a purpose with the living, which coincided with Peter Quill resuscitating Rocket, allowing him to finally save him.
Rocket saves the other animals within Arête Laboratories
Eventually, Rocket and the Guardians defeated High Evolutionary alongside rescuing every other animal High Evolutionary had yet to experiment, making up for the other disastrous escape, and allow Rocket to become the hero he refused for his life.[1]