Servants in Remnant

Genius is often... Eccentric?

A Grimm prowled in a cage, growling weakly at everything around it.

The cage itself was nice, what one would expect to see in a zoo. Grass, trees, and water. Steel walls on three sides, with one thick glass wall.

Despite this, the Grimm eventually slowed down his prowling, growls growing weaker. His eyes occassionally glowing green, small veins beneath his fur pulsing the same color. And then it lay down, the green fading, and the Grimm started decaying rapidly.

Silence reigned for several seconds, before a shout of anger could be heard, followed by a fist slamming into a control panel.

On the other side of the glass stood a man in a gray coat. White, unkempt hair, with a robotic eye and arm. Dr. Merlot, former owner of Merlot Industries, and the man responsible for the fall of Mt. Glenn.

And currently the man glaring at the decomposing corpse of the Grimm. Taking a few deep breaths to stabilize himself, he took a recorder out and started speaking into it.

"Test C096: Subject B231 was injected with Serum 32c on Tuesday, 15:00. The date and time is now Thursday, 20:07. B231 had been delivered to the facilities soon after capture, and was injected as quickly as possible. It showed signs of deterioration as soon as one hour after administration. The serum showed signs of affecting the facial region, as well as the nerves in the trapezius muscles before death."

He took a deep breath, running his hand through his hair in an aggravated manner before he continued.

"It should be noted that Serum 32c had also been given to subject B230, and yet B230 lasted a full 58 hours longer than B231, and the serum infected 76 percent of the body. B230 and B231 were nearly identical outwardly, and were injected in the same locations. No discernable differences between them. More testing will need to be done. End of test C096."

He put the recorder away and set about giving out orders for the robots to collect another Grimm. For a moment, he let himself regret the destruction of his Mt. Glenn operations. He would admit that he had been too greedy, and tried to experiment on too many Grimm too quickly. He had been focused on getting results, and when the Grimm overran the city he was forced to relocate his base. So much data had been lost in the evacuation...

Now he was more careful. He had relocated on an island he found, and primarily employed droids from an Atlas contact he had. Not everybody spurned his research, and some people in the Atlas military were willing to assist so long as he shared his research, which was an easy promise to give.

The problem he was running into was the results he was getting were inconsistent!

Grimm could never be captured for long, that was a fact that everybody knew. If they remained captive for too long, they would die. Unfortunately, he needed them captive in order to run his experiments properly!

Back in the city, they documented variances of course - that was inevitable. But here, they were displaying a pattern that went against all projected outcomes. If he didn't know any better, he would have said that they were mocking him. A specimen would last a short time before death, the next a long time, the one after that short, then long! Once again, variances did occur here and there, yet those were oh so few. And he had been recording these results and documenting them over the course of years!

He had made advances of course. A few Grimm had actually made it through the full infection - An old Deathstalker made it through the entirety of the procedure, as well as a Beringel that his robots were able to capture before they were destroyed. These successes helped him gather data, which in turn kept his suppliers happy. Yet those successes were few, and he had been at this for years.