Demon of Delmane 3

Entering the lab, the two would notice that Simon was a lot less organized than Mark was, papers with various formulas strewn everywhere and chemicals haphazardly placed here and there. In addition, they saw cages and aquariums filled with reptiles of various shapes and sizes along one wall of the room. Closing the door behind them, Simon walked around ahead of Sable and Kimba,
"I apologize for the mess, I don't get many visitors."
"It's fine, my house tends to looks this way from time to time." Sable replied, picking up a random vile to examine the contents.
"I won't doubt it." Simon said in an initiated tone before snatching it away from him,
"And if you don't mind, try not to touch anything, the last thing I need is some bumbling oaf ruining one of my experiments." He put the vile back where it was and Sable threw his hands up,

"Hey, no harm no foul, in my line of work; ya kinda have to be curious about stuff."

Simon walked up to the detective with his hands behind his back,

"Yes, well I would be too curious about that if I was you, it's highly acidic hydrochloric acid, and one drop would eat right through you."

"Maybe if you had a label on it, people would be more hesitant of picking it up then." Sable crossed his arms, looking down at the scientist with a smirk, which only made Simon more irritated.

"Like I stated before, I'm the only one in this lab most of the time, so I usually don't have to worry about morons harming themselves."

The two glared at each other with narrowed eyes, the tension between them could be cut with a knife, but then Kimba spoke up,

"So um Simon, what kind of experiments are you working on?" She asked, giving the doctor a kind smile, hoping to defuse the two strong-headed humans. Simon looked at the lioness, returning a smile,

"I'm glad you asked." He motioned her to follow as he walked over to an aquarium with a small green gecko in it,

"Now watch carefully." He lifted the lid off as he picked up a nearby syringe that had a strange yellow liquid in it. He then reached in and grabbed the gecko, pulling it out of its home and with surgical precision, Simon inserted the needle into it, the small retile squirmed some, protesting being jabbed with the sharp instrument. Injecting the liquid, Simon removed the needle and placed the gecko back in the aquarium on a small branch.

"What did you do to it?" Kimba asked, looking at the poor thing, obviously not liking that such things would be done to something that has no say so in the matter, but then something started to happen, the gecko started to change. Its body slowly got bigger as a row of spins grew along its back and claws grew from the tips of its wide toes while its tail grew longer and striped. Kimba gasped at the sight as Simon put the aquarium lid back on.

"What I injected it with was a serum I'm currently developing, a gene manipulating isotope mixed with animal DNA, in this case iguana DNA, which alters the host's genetic makeup, making them into an artificial hybrid of any animal they desire."

"So like gene splicing." Sable spoke, having taken a seat on a nearby stood, waiting for the doctor to stop showing off, and Simon let out a little chuckle, glancing over at him,

"Seems you're not as much of an imbecile as I thought, but yes, like gene splicing, but in a more complete manner, though not quite yet." He placed his hand on top of the aquarium,

"This little guy here will be back to normal come tomorrow, I've yet to figure out how to keep the body from rejecting the serum, so it only lasts a few hours."

"Is that so?" Sable responded, thinking to himself,

"Let me ask you somethin', has this serum ever been used on humans or even hybrids before?"

At that question, Simon gave him an odd look, as if he was trying to read the defective's intent,

"No actually, it is not deemed safe yet for human and hybrid trials, though I would like to get the kinks ironed out before that happens, does that make sense?"

"Yes, but the reason I ask is because of this." Sable reached into his pocket and pulled out the red scale, showing it to the doctor,

"You see, I found this at a murder scene not too long ago, we had Mark take a look at it." He then got up off the stood and walked up to Simon, holding the scale out to him,

"He told us that it was off a hybrid, though the DNA structure was nothing he'd before, but he couldn't tell us what species they are, but he said you could tell us, though if there's anything else you could say about it would be greatly appreciated."

Upon seeing the scale, Simon's body language suddenly changed to be more defensive with his arms behind his back and jaw clenching. Seeing this, Kimba couldn't help but wonder about Simon's sudden change in mood,

"Is something the matter, doctor?"

Simon looked over to her with another chuckle as he tried to relax himself,

"Why, nothing at all, just have some other things on my mind, and I would be more than will to have a look at it." Simon said, looking back at Sable and taking the scale then taking it over to a computer that was similar to Mark's. Placing it into a tray, he hit some keys on the keyboard and looked into a microscope,

"Ah yes, this is very much from a hybrid, no doubt about it and I see the anomaly in question." He looked up from it to look at Sable,

"But I see nothing unusual about it."

"The hell are you talking about?" Sable responded, a little taken back by Simon's statement,

"Mark told us that this was something he's never seen before, how can you be so sure that this is run of the mill?"

Simon stood back up straight, facing the detective,

"Yes but if you don't know, Dr. Denver doesn't deal with hybrid DNA every day, but I do and I can say for a fact that the person you are looking for is nothing out of the ordinary."

"Well I've known Mark for a long time now, and has helped me on several cases in the past, so I'm more willing to believe him than someone I just met." Sable replied while tilting his head down, looking at the doctor from under the brim of his hat.

"Sable." Kimba tried to intervene before this went any further, but Simon held up his hand to her,
"Mr. Crosshairs, I am a man of great integrity that prides himself on his work and the knowledge he knows, and Marcus knows this, that's why he brought you here when he couldn't give you the answers you need, but yet you want question abilities." He walked up to the detective, extending his hand,

"Now I know he got off on the wrong foot, but I really do want to help you any way that I can, so can we let bygones be bygones?"

Sable looked down at Simon's hand for a moment before reaching out to grab it,

"Yeah sure, whatever." Sable reluctantly shock his hand, he didn't need to be making enemies with someone that could help him, but still, the way he acted before with the scale seemed odd.

Letting go of Sable's hand, Simon turned around to go back to his computer,

"Now that we have that out of the way, was there anything else you need, because I would like to get back to my work."

"Well, the original reason we were brought here was because we would like to know what species the person that scale belongs to, seeing as how we have nothing else to go on, that might help us narrow things down." Sable replied, propping himself up against a counter.

"Is that so?" Simon went back to the microscope, looking into it,

"That should be easy enough to figure out, but I'm afraid I won't be able to find that out right now."

"I thought you said you knew your stuff, doctor?" Sable said in a teasing tone to which Simon gave a chuckle,

"That I do, detective, but I am not a walking encyclopedia, I have to go through my database of samples to find a match

Sable was a little confused by that,

"But shouldn't your computer be able to do that for you, Mark does it all the time?"

"That it can, but computers tend to be wrong a bit too much for my liking, so I like to do it myself."

Sable looked at Simon for a moment before shrugging his shoulders,

"Fair enough, guess we'll let you get to work then, come on Kimmy." Sable motioned to Kimba and the two turned for the door.

"Yes, please do and I'll get back to you as soon as I come up with a match." Simon crossed his arms, happy that the detective was leaving, though he wished the lioness would stay a little longer. Sable opened the door for his partner to leave first before turning to look back,

"Good deal and hey, if I have anything else hybrid related, you'll be the first I come to."

"You do that." Simon gave a smile and Sable returned a smirk before walking out and closing the door behind, then he and Kimba headed for the elevator.

Simon's smile quickly faded as the door closed, that was close, and he almost let himself get found out. That was when a voice spoke out in the back of his mind,

"My, wouldn't it be a shame if they found out your little secret."

"Your actions are not my own." He replied, looking around the room,

"Yeessss, but they won't know that, you'll just be some mad man for them to catch."

"I won't have to worry, that'll be the last time you come out." Simon took a seat to look through one of his books,

"Oh I doubt that, you're nothing without me Simon, and I saw the way you were looking at that lion girl; perhaps she would be easier to get than the last one." The voice let out an evil laugh as Simon put his head in his hands, what has he gotten himself into?

In the elevator, Kimba was looking over at Sable while he looking on, lost in thought,

"You know, that wasn't very nice how you acted in there." She jabbed at him and he glanced over,

"In where?" He asked with his hand on his chin.

"You know where, in there with that doctor Simon." She snapped, he was a smart man, but sometimes Sable acted just plain dumb.

"Oh there, well he started it." He replied as the doors opened to the first floor and he stepped out before her, making his way to the front doors,

"Besides, didn't you see how he reacted to the scale when I showed it to him?"

Kimba caught up, walking beside him,

"Not exactly, I was kinda busy trying to keep you two from going at each other's throat."

"I don't know why, but the way he looked was in shock, like he'd seen it before." Sable then opened a door and held it open for Kimba to walk outside.

"I think you're thinking too much into it, Sable, it's too early to be thinking about that kind of stuff anyways." Kimba stated looking back at Sable as he walked out of the building to follow her,

"Yeah I guess you're right, but still, it was strange." The n the two made their way over to Sable's car,

"In the mean time, we should be getting back to head quarters to see if they have any leads for us yet."

Kimba nodded and they got in, driving off to hopefully to make some headway on this case.