As he had expected, his time with the Sanguist was less than stellar. Oh, he did make some astounding progress, but to say he was uncomfortable would be an understatement.

In his time as a researcher he had experienced many strange collaborations, but from his experience one should not judge too harshly on those, as it was common for those to produce the most useful results.

Here? He wasn’t quite sure that he would compare this situation with his previous experiences.

For the most part it was quite productive. With his theories and his previous research he was able to quickly nail down the main issues. The problem was that there was no real way to test those issues without subjecting the majority of his test subjects to life ending scenarios.

And while he didn’t care much for the animals in question, they were an important resource, and wasting them like this, with no concrete understanding on how to proceed would be wasteful.

So for the first few days of his work he was forced to act slowly and meticulously, double checking his notes and making sure that each experiment was actually useful.

Each time he did settle for any specific set up, he made sure to pick the specimen most fitting for that particular experiment, making sure not to waste any of his quite important resources.

And his diligence was quickly awarded. While he was a long way before he would make concrete breakthroughs, he at least started to figure out the best specific uses for each subject stage.

Unsurprisingly, subjects who were at the early stages of mana induced ferality were quite similar to their normal counterparts, only displaying minor differences to typical specimens of their respective species. That meant that for any experiment at that stage he didn’t need to pay too much attention to the specific state of the subject, or the circumstances in which it would find itself at the beginning of the experiment.

Subjects who were about half-way through the transformation were a little harder to nail down, often swaying heavily between reactions, although even this was helpful information. From repeated attempts at the same setup he quickly figured out that the most important factor in these scenarios was the age of the specimen in question, as well as the direct precision of the Sanguist who was assisting him. If they were sloppy, so were the results.

That was true for all the experiments, however in this stage it was particularly true. There seemed to be some kind of connection between the stage of the subject and the method of influencing it.

He wasn’t quite sure why that was, there were no obvious connections between the two, nor was there any difference he could observe if he isolated the magic entirely.

The last group consisted of subjects who were already far further along their natural life span, and in that case results were highly erratic with no clear indication of what exactly influenced the results.

He also noted that this last batch was the most influenced by the Sanguists antics.

By this point the Sanguist had started to act quite suspiciously. More and more often he saw them shivering underneath their robes, he wasn’t quite sure, however since the temperature was quite pleasant in the lab, he disregarded them possibly being uncomfortable because of temperature differences.

Another thing he noticed was that more often than not the subjects seemed to be quite hostile towards the handler in specific, and him as well, although while they definitely looked at both of them with feral eyes, they were actually incredibly docile in the way they acted.

Not sure what exactly to make of that he noted it down and decided to keep an eye on things. Hopefully this was just a side effect of the experiment…

Yet, despite his focus on the experiment he wasn’t naive enough to disregard other explanations. So he also kept a close eye on the Handler and the Sanguist, trying to make out any irregularities in their behaviour.

It took him a few days, but eventually he noticed that each time the Handler interlocked his arms, the Sanguist seemed to tense up. It was very subtle, and he would have entirely missed it if he wasn’t paying any attention.

However, noticing it, and making sense of it, were two different things, and while he had a few theories in his mind, he wasn’t really sure what to make of this.

His chance came when a sudden alarm started to blare in the complex, startling both himself and his two guests greatly. What surprised him even more was when the Handler told the Sanguist to “Remain where it was” before bolting out of the room.

Once more Clive was uncomfortable with the way the Handler referred to the Sanguist, but it wasn’t like he could say anything.

… Or could he?

Clive wasn’t a people person, nor was he interested in getting involved into this weird situation, but he was quite pissed off with the way the Handler interacted with the Sanguist.

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“You good?”, he asked, only realising afterwards that he had even spoken the question out loud.

Mentally berating himself with getting involved with things that had nothing to do with him he continued with his experiments. Not that it made much of a difference, the Sanguist didn’t answer, nor did they react in any way to his question.

Better like this, I guess… he thought to himself and continued his preparations until the Handler returned.

The man in question didn’t explain himself, just carried on as if nothing had ever happened, and so they continued with the experiments.

This repeated for a few days. They worked together, the Handler left for some reason, always leaving the same command for the Sanguist, before he returned roughly ten to twenty minutes later.

On the fourth day it took him nearly an hour to return, which had left Clive with quite the conundrum, considering that he was done with his preparations early on, but he also didn’t really know how to continue without the Handler, as the Sanguist didn’t seem to listen to his commands.

It did spur his suspicions about possible human experiments, as the thought of the Sanguist having received some kind of psychological programming to only listen to specific people would be a very good explanation of what was going on, but he reasoned with himself that that was an extremely pessimistic and biased explanation.

So he tried to cope with the situation, but on the fifth day the Handler left multiple times, eventually leaving Clive with the Sanguist alone for the third time. By this point Clive was honestly quite pissed off at being repeatedly interrupted in his experiments, especially since the Handler had left mid way through the fourth experiment of the day this time around.

With a frown he turned to the Sanguist.

“Okay, listen. I don’t know what the hell your deal is, but I’ve got a job to do, so if you could please help me out here a little until he returns that would be much appreciated.”

Truth be told he didn’t expect much, but after a minute of hesitation the Sanguist did as he asked them to.

With a sigh of relief he continued with his work, quite excited about the possibilities of the current experiment.

“Ah, I see… Okay, could you perhaps order Subject 7 to remain where it is, while I administer the second dosis? If things go well we might have our first breakthrough, which would enable us to control juvenile ferals without any issues or perceived suffering on their part.”

As he had been doing ever since they started he continued to narrate the entire process for the records, just to make sure he didn’t forget anything.

Strangely enough it seemed to help the Sanguist to get used to the processes. By the time the Handler had returned they were in the middle of the next experiments, and while the Sanguist was only marginally more helpful, Clive got the feeling that they were a lot more curious this time around.

It all ended of course when the Handler walked over to the Sanguist and started beating them while berating them with all they had done wrong in his eyes.

“Hey, Hey! Stop that, you fucking brute! You are interrupting my experiments!”, Clive yelled, trying to separate the two.

“It disobeyed my orders!”, the Handler shouted, while trying to punch the Sanguist again.

“Yeah, they did because I asked them to because your lazy ass vanished for the better part of an hour! Either you calm down or get the fuck out of my office, or I will go ahead and report to the Leader that you are preventing my work, how does that sound, eh?!”

Truth be told Clive wasn’t exactly sure what his pull was with the man in charge, but he was tired of the Handler’s antics. He just wanted to continue to work, and he was denied that.

After a moments thought, the bigger man relented and let go of the Sanguist.

Looking down at the person in question, Clive had for the first time the opportunity to look underneath the hood, which had slid backwards a bit, revealing dirty, but unmistakable red hair. It was quickly hidden by the hood once again as the Sanguist got up.

“You alright? Can you continue?”, he asked, semi concerned. He didn’t care much for the Sanguist specifically, but he also couldn’t shed the feeling that there was something important going on.

A slight shift of the hood signalled a nod, so he nodded in turn and returned back to his work.

After this altercation the Handler surprisingly largely left them alone to work, although he did continue to monitor the Sanguist with a strict gaze beneath his mask.

On the eighth day, the Handler had just vanished from the room a few minutes prior, Clive was startled out of his work by a weak voice ringing out from behind him.

“Thank you…”

He turned around, finding the Sanguist standing where they usually did, gaze lowered.

“Pardon?”, he asked, not sure he even heard the words correctly.

“Thank you… Thank you for not treating me like the others do…”, the voice repeated, unmistakably female.

Clive wasn’t quite sure what to say to that. “Uh… You’re welcome, I guess? I don’t really care much for you, I just want to get this done and get home. So, let’s continue?”

A part of him complained in his mind that he was much too direct and terse, but he also couldn’t really give any less of a shit. He did pity her to an extent, he also couldn’t help with whatever situation she was in, nor did he want to get involved with the entire thing either.

He was paid to do his job so he would do so, especially if he got these kinds of resources.

… But that also meant that he should at least care a little, no?

Clive wasn’t a good man, but he also had his rules, and if he started to see her as some kind of lab equipment, was he really better than those assholes who used people as experimental subjects?

With a deep sigh he returned to his work, these were the kinds of thoughts he didn’t want to deal with, they were the entire reason he usually didn’t involve himself with stuff like this in the first place.

For the remainder of the day he tried to be marginally more friendly to the Sanguist, even thanking her on a few occasions, although he convinced himself that those were just spur of the moment things that didn’t mean anything.

Surprisingly enough everything became more calm over the next few days, with the test subjects no longer displaying any hostility towards him, although they still were very hostile towards the Handler.

That wasn’t his problem, however, so he ignored it. Despite the strange situation he was enjoying himself and his work once more. He just hoped things would continue like this. If they did, he might be done quicker than he had expected.