Herbert West: Health-Checker..?! [OPEN]

[reanimator]

Such trivial ordeals to be dealt with. A hundred, no, a thousand different things that he could be, that he should be doing with his time. Vital research to be made, notes to be taken, deceased individuals to check and cross-check with other deceased individuals whose notes had been taken before that. That girl, too, she would need to be properly studied. Such a fresh specimen, almost completely undamaged as far as tissue structure goes, the time between the application of the reagent and the time of death was almost impeccible, too, and her reactions..! But no, he was to be denied the importance of his work, at least for now, at least for this. He would endure it, at the very least, for the sake of his research. That was why he had come to this abhorrent place, after all - for the sake of his research. Having nowhere else to go for new ideas and new methods, this place, this school of a different kind than that which he was used to, had opened its doors to him as a new venue of approaching his studies into the--

"Doctor?"

--an annoying thing broke his train of thought, where was he? What was he thinking again? Ah yeah, his research. The resources of this place were certainly up to par, and they had been willing to allow him no small amount of leeway in his studies and giving him access to the various higher tiers of notes and research topics that were relevant to his own focus--

"Um, I'm sorry, but.. Doctor?"

"What? What is it?" he snapped back at the voice, finally turning his gaze to the young student, looking at him with flushed cheeks. It seemed she was flustered somehow by the presence of his stethoscope upon her chest, only partly covered by her sports bra, even though he hadn't even held it to her exposed skin for more than perhaps a minute or two while he'd been composing his thoughts. Truly the hormonal shamings of pubescents were the worst to deal with - as if such simplistic clinical conduct was something to feel embarassed by! He wanted to scoff, to sneer at the girl, but instead he forced a somewhat disdainful smile her way as the girl flinched beneath his sharp tone.

This was the price he had to pay for his research. The level of access he had wanted was restrictive only towards those with a staffer's position at this school, and so he had allowed himself to be hired. Initially they had wanted him to teach, but knowing full-well the small amount of patience he'd have for these cringeworthy adolescents, oozing their hormones and primal instincts all over the place, he had instead opted to head off the clinic. It was far more preferable. Less work than what one would find in a hospital, to say the least, granting him enough spare time to indulge in his own wants for a while - at least until the next loser of a brawl, or a failed mission was dragged in and he had to patch them up.

"Was there something you required, miss?" he softened his tone, but did not let up on the small amount of disdain lingering in his voice as he spoke to the student, as the girl shook her head, evidently put on the spot by his first reaction to being interrupted. With a shrug, he instructed her to put her shirt back on, and gave her a clean bill of health.

Today was a mandatory health checkup for the student body, as well as some of the teaching staff.. he groaned after the girl had left, finding himself inwardly loathing this day for being a change to the usual norm of his clinic duties. By now he would have made so much headway and yet here he was.. checking heartbeats and taking blood samples.. With a sigh of bitterness, he called out to the door, "Next patient!"

[theron]

The mandatory physical was, from what he'd heard, something of an irritating gauntlet for all involved -- students and teachers alike. For one thing, it was notoriously impractical; having two or three, sometimes as few as one teacher doing the screenings for the entire student body tended to... well...

Theron had only look behind him to see the effects. There was a line of students straight down the hall, going as far as the eye could see. Everyone was getting irritated, but everyone was also nervous, too. To hear the upper classmen tell it, the school had a knack for picking the creepiest staff members to do the yearly physical. For a year or two the famed Prof. Stein had apparently been the one doing the health checks... but after the incident on the moon he'd dropped out of Shibusen activity altogether it seemed -- that, and apparently there'd been so many complaints that the school had considered replacing him in that capacity anyway. The big question on everyone's mind was, who this year? The rumor mill had been in full churn for several weeks leading up to this day: Nygus, Sid, Spirit, Marie, Boyle, and Azusa had all been bantered around as potential candidates with various levels of enthusiasm and dread from different students on each possibility...

... but apparently, if the rumors floating up and down the line were to be believed, it was none of the above. This year's health examiner was, by all accounts of those who'd already been in and done, someone they didn't recognize -- slightly short man with glasses and a nerdy look about him... and a creepy aura, apparently. The new clinic head, perhaps?

In any event, Theron was next in line... and the look on the face of the girl who'd just exited the infirmary was not encouraging. She seemed somewhere between creeped out and humiliated.The young d'Metreon let her pass before approaching the door himself, mentally rehearsing half a dozen lies he'd come up with on the off chance he was asked to explain his numerous scars.

Stepping inside, he came face to face with the man everyone had been whispering about for almost an hour.

[reanimator]

Face to face would perhaps not be the best way to describe the first meeting between the young student and the man currently seated in the office chair, flipping through page after page on a clipboard whilst meticulously checking off and circling this and that. In fact, the man hadn't even raised his head to look at the new arrival, though it'd seem as though he was aware of the boy's presence, primarily due to the calm, but frigidly spoken "Name, student ID number, date of birth and current supervising tutor."

The line was spoken with so little emotive interest poured into it that it could be nothing short of repeated ad nauseum for the man. This person did not give off the impression of a doctor, however.. usually, doctors would give off an air of professional empathy, a basic sort of bedside manner. This man, if he even had these qualities, was making absolutely zero effort to sustain a lasting dialogue or rapport with his students. Instead what sat there was a chilly and distant person, more concerned with his analytical staring at the notes he'd been taking than making anyone else around him feel comfortable. The fact that the previous patient had left looking like she'd just been humiliated would no doubt be starting to make a whole lot more sense to the young boy's own analytical awareness.

Internally, West was begrudging this entire experience. He'd been here for an hour or more, and there was still no sign of this abysmal health check being over with any time soon. Student after student after student, so many with their meager and pointless questions and worries over hormonal shifts and personal dramas. He'd borne witness to these petulances all throughout his own student years when forced into the occasional interaction with his peers. It was not pleasant to know that such mediocrity was potentially a common practice.

The silence filling the air was oppressive. It seemed as though the bespectacled man had absolutely zero intentions of voicing anything further until the boy had performed exactly the deed he had requested of him, as in the meantime West utilized the seeming lull in all of this to continue working on his notes.. pushing back the student healthcare forms on his clipboard in order to begin putting down further insights and possible theoretics on paper whenever he had the chance. He'd figured out by now that most students here seemed to need a good while to get whatever nonsensical peevishness out of their system before allowing due process to take place. He'd exploit that gap, making use of the very little time they afforded him to continue his work wherever he could..

[theron]

Ah, so this, then, was the new, seldom seen head of the clinic -- Theron had caught the occasional rumor about this man in passing but never actually seen hide nor hair, until now, at least. That didn't mean, of course, that he was completely ignorant regarding Dr. Herbert West -- the young d'Metreon had been raised, after all, under such strictures as 'knowledge is power, ignorance is weakness'; it was habit for him now to "study" Shibusen's staff for the purpose of heading off any unforeseen... complications.

"Theron Bradford d'Metreon. D226578. December 5th, 1997. Prof. Davian Boyle."

And since he hadn't had any opportunity to observe Dr. West in person, Theron had turned to that chaotic wealth of information that so fascinated the minds of modern society: the Internet.

"Doctor Herbert West. I read your thesis on the bio-transitive origins of the human soul online; for how well composed your arguments are it's really disappointing that they're not more widely published. In fact, it took quite a bit of effort to find any information on you at all." Theron's tone was carefully neutral, his eyes fixed on West, watching for reactions, signs both subtle and overt. "But, as they say, genius is seldom recognized within a generation... doubly so, I suppose, when one breaks with convention as much as you have."

[subject113]

Almost every Student was lined up outside of the infirmary, waiting for their turn to face Herbert West, the Professor who had begrudgingly taking post as head of the Health Clinic. Even 113, who had been at his side for a few weeks now, did not understand the man, but that was not a concern she needed to have, or one that should be addressed. She owed the man her second life, and would more than likely never question anything he did, as one who believes in God does not question His motives. It was almost the same.

113 made her way down the long white corridors of the Academy, other students would stare at her. The pale grey face, stitched and heavy-eyed, was becoming a more common sight for the people of Shibusen, but still a surprise to some, and still uncomfortable for others. The undead-girl paid no attention, she was grateful for her life, and the opinions of others did not bother her as it would most people. The gloomy girl dressed in some Victorian-Steampunk attire, would otherwise fit in fine. It was also in knowing that she lived with the Professor Herbert, and was his Weapon Partner that made people all the more weary of her. No one went near his Laboratory, at the edge of Hook Cemetery, less so than Steins.

She had no classes, and no need for Health Check. West tracked her health with unrelenting accuracy, frequency, and tedium. He was her first successful human subject, after all. Completely functioning, aware and almost perfect. Of course he would track her with Eagle eyes. Passing the line of Students, 113 got to the door of the Health Clinic. Taking hold of the handle, she knocked, almost gracefully, with the back of her hand, before opening the door and entering, ignoring the few confused Students, who still weren't quite sure about who she was.

Inside, there was the newer Student, and her own Meister, West.

The girl shut the door behind her quietly, before bowing slightly, as much as the compartment where her stomach used to be would allow, anyway, before she stood up, passed a dead gaze to the Student attempting conversation with West in what she could imagine to be a feeble go. She looked away after a moment and turned to West. "I have no more classes today, Professor, so I thought it'd be best to come back here. If there is anything you need me to do, just say. If not I'll just take my usual place." Was all the girl said, in a soft, yet monotone, voice, before awaiting a reply from West. Her usual place, of course, would be to go back to West's Office, and sit with her brain, kept there in a Glass Jar.

[reanimator]

"Theron Bradford d'Metreon. D226578. December 5th, 1997. Prof. Davian Boyle."

He wrote down the details as they were given to him. Pausing ever so briefly to give a silent sneer at the name of the professor that he had written on the clipboard. Boyle. A sentimist, if there ever was one. Ever clinging to his inconsequential tinkering of archaic devices, as if such meager machinery could ever uplift humanity to a level of evolutionary superiority. Inventors such as that man made him detest the waste of humanity's potential - well, perhaps save for the inventor of the unbreakable plastic, truly one of man's few durable inventions. The boy was talking. He paid it very little heed up until,

"--I read your thesis on the bio-transitive origins of the human soul online; for how well composed your arguments are it's really disappointing that they're not more widely published. In fact, it took quite a bit of effort to find any information on you at all."

He looked up from the clipboard for a brief moment, eyeing the boy with no small amount of scrutiny. The child had done his research. That, at best, was a more admirable attempt than he'd expect from any of the other dregs in this place, certainly. However..

"Mister.. d'Metreon," he paused, as if sampling the foreign tastings of the boy's clearly non-American nationality through his name. His facial expression was somewhere between restrained detestment and a snide, cynical look of derision in the face of someone that he clearly thought was his intellectual inferior, "I fear that you have misunderstood my work, given that you have decided to paint its conclusive evidence with the misguided insinuation that it somehow validates the existance of the so-called 'human soul'.." he adjusted his spectacles. Oh, how he desired to tear this boy apart on the spot, to crush his feeble intellectual misgivings with his proof, "While there is some evidence of an energy that circulates the human body, it is little more than bio-electric matter that suffuses the figurative essence of cognitive reasoning - not some fantasy of a human soul. Quite frankly I am.. insulted.. by your choice of wording, and your assumption to--"

*Click*

"I have no more classes today, Professor, so I thought it'd be best to come back here. If there is anything you need me to do, just say. If not I'll just take my usual place."

.. but, alas, to do so would needlessly draw out this inspection, as the arrival of his assistant disrupted the beginnings of his tirade against the youth. He cleared his throat a few times, looking over the list of things for him to go over on the clipboard as he decided to get the main thing out of the way first, "Bring me a fresh vial and a hypodermic needle from the cabinet, One-Thirteen. And don't dally with it." He decided it would be best to give the girl some exercise in moving around and assisting him - he could take notes on one of the papers further down the clipboard, if nothing else.

[tokoz]

As the Doctor busied himself preparing for the inspection, the door creaked open on it's hinges, as a tall and extremely skinny boy in a fedora walked in, a bored and apathetic expression on his face. He pulled out a piece of paper, and glanced at it breifly.

"Dr. West? I was told to drop off these New Student Medical Records to you. Here." The boy idly swung up his arm, proffering a folder. He was obviously bored, and thinking about other things, as he had not once focused on a single thing in the room, not even the Doctor. Even now, he was flippibg through a book with one hand, the other holding the folder out, generally in the recipent's direction, but not quite enough for it to be handing it to him.

The boy currently slouching in their direction is wearing a light black jacket, and long cargo pants, covered in pockets. His shirt is a deep green with a white reverse Silouhette of a man wielding a spear. His long brown hair is tied back in a ponytail, and his ice blue eyes are staring at his book, flicking back and forth as he continues to read at a rapid pace.