Hello everyone, intern Ash here again, hope you have been doing well. I have been fine, though due to what has been happening in Atlas I have a hard time keeping in touch rest of the staff. Seems the arrival of a cool whale has been keeping everyone busy (but I do hope we won’t be getting a giant Grimm monster in Vacuo ourselves).
I wasn’t the only one having a hard time reaching the vytal_news headquarters. A few days ago I had been contacted by a member from the scientific community for an interview. This was a surprise as not only am I not a scientist, but the person in question was Doctor Merlot – a criminal that was presumed dead for a while. The connection was very choppy and full of static but I was able to get enough for an interview.
For those not in the known, Doctor Merlot was the owner of Merlot Industries from Mountain Glenn. The company specialized in robotics, Grimm deterrents and even their capture. However rumors say that later Merlot Industries started experimenting with captured Grimm, which could have be cause for fall of Mountain Glenn all those years ago. After that the company and its owner disappeared, though there was hearsay that he had resurfaced few years back, only to disappear again.
The chat with Merlot was rather short as the Doctor was keeping an eye on if his location was being back-traced by the authorities. Once he noticed any attempts, he’d quickly cut the call. Here is the transcription of the interview:
“Greetings, Doctor Merlot, why have you…”
“… Hello?! Hello?! For what reason can’t I possibly hear you?”
Merlot fidgets for a bit on his end until he finally finds the ‘on’ switch on his speakers.
“Greetings, Doctor Merlot, is everything OK there?”
“It’s pronounced MER-LOU, child. Ahem. My apologies for that – the reception’s not too good in the underground, and this revolutionary trans-continental non-tower-based transmission system is a bit finicky.”
“Why have you contacted vytal_news for an interview?”
“Because nobody in the Vale News Network would answer my calls! I believe that they got blown up by those White Fang goons. I tried the Atlas Eye, but it appears it’s down due to whatever is happening in Atlas. Trust me, you were literally my last choice.”
“Ouch! Okay, let me rephrase that, why have you contacted the media for an interview?”
“I recognized that whippersnapper Ruby from the global broadcast and wanted to share some grievances about what she said. Pfft, Salem did this, she did that! It’s nonsense!”
“You’ve met the legendary hacker Ruby Rose in person?”
“A few years ago she and her team raided my laboratory. Can’t recall when exactly – I don’t really keep track of how much time passes. I have more important things to worry about, like creating gorgeous Grimm that could be considered art and climbing the ranks on Amity Arena.”
“Are you angry that Ruby’s team destroyed your lab and is now showing up on a global stream?”
“What?! No, I destroyed my base myself. They actually helped my research by testing my mutated Grimm. In a way, I consider the annoying brats to be distant work associates. Like an intern, but with more guns and less dying.”
“What did you mean by ‘grievances’?”
“It’s because of that poser Salem she mention!”
Doctor Merlot’s face became quite red with anger at this point. Either that or he was showing an apple – hard to tell with this connection.
“Oh, look at me – I control Grimm! That hag just sends the poor things to be slaughtered! There is no science, no art to what she’s doing – it’s a disgrace to anyone who could be considered the God of Grimm like myself.”
“So you have some beef with the person Ruby described in the broadcast?”
“Salem thinks she’s so great now that a bunch of teenagers are fighting her and her Grimm – I did that years ago and nobody made a worldwide broadcast about me! She doesn’t even have a doctor’s degree! I know – I checked!”
“Are the rumors of Grimm experiments at Merlot Industries real?”
“Of course they are real, dear – I tried sharing my knowledge with Remnant and build a better tomorrow for everyone, but ignorant masses keep suppressing my advancements. Here, take a look at these beauties!“
Merlot proceeded to send me images of his Grimm creations. It took a while to download. Unfortunately the quality turned out poor and I believe he might have sent me a picture of a panda by mistake.
“I see the promise within the Grimm – something this poser Salem does not. It grinds on me so much that she just uses them without concern. Did you see how she crashed the poor whale onto Atlas?”
“So you expressed dislike of this Salem figure. Is there anything positive you could say about her?”
Doctor Merlot lets out a long sigh thinking deeply.
“At least I commend her for not trying to rush the Atlas defenses by trying to overwhelm it with numbers. Sneakily destroying the shields was a decent plan – so at least she has some brains in her head. But if she is as powerful as it was said, then why doesn’t she improve her children? If nature can’t make a beast this deadly, you must do it yourself!”
The video flickers and Merlot gives a concerned expression.
“Well, my apologies, dear, I’m afraid I need to cut this interview short – it seems the authorities are trying to trace my location.”
“Wait, before you go, doctor, I wanted to ask you a couple of quick questions. How did you survive the explosion on your island?”
“I scattered many collectable figurines around the island – I knew the kids and their attention spans could not resist gathering all of them, which gave me more than enough time for my getaway!”
“Final question – any future plans to one up Salem?”
“Well I have been experimenting with combining Grimm. My main goal is to infuse them with intelligence, maybe even make one that could talk. I’d like to see her top that! Hopefully one day you will be able to test my creations on the field as well, miss Ash.”
Doctor Merlot then ended the interview with a long maniacal laugh.
I needed some time to recover over that indirect threat to my life and the fact that his name is pronounced weird. I later tried contacting Doctor Merlot back by calling the same ScrollShare account, but I had no luck. I do hope that whatever he is making next, there will be huntsmen and huntresses nearby to deal with. And who knows, it might end up a better tomorrow for Remnant after all!
Below I am sharing some of the images that I got from Doctor Merlot – just in case any of you encounter any strange Grimm and would like to know if you are dealing with his creations.
Can’t say I entirely agree with Merlot here. I mean, did anyone see the Triassic Land franchise? Sure, everything after the original film was crap, but my main point is that, just like Dr. Ham in the first film, we’re asking ourselves “Can we?” instead of “Should we?”. I’m putting down some money that one of these days, Merlot’s experiments are going to escape and wreak havoc throughout the world.
First Triassic Land was so cool! Sad later ones got so bad and were about making cool monsters, forgetting original theme.
As for Dr. Merlot, hope it won’t be as bad as in the movies, as it is we – huntsmen and huntresses – who will have to deal with it.
[…] “Those are not subspecies dear! Those are lies spread by the uninformed and supporters of the poser Salem!” […]
Note to anyone who can actually distinguish a thing from those photos besides neon green: the ‘bamboo trap’ strategy you may have heard about only works on those strangely stunted Ursae. The others will mockingly use it as roughage while they much your teammates.
Thank you for sharing this info! Now my team just need to figure out where to put all of this bamboo