The Professor

The Professor (real name: Timothy A. Epistimonas) is a character in Dark Deception: Unchecked Limitations. He serves as a supporting character and the final boss of Experimental Extinction as well as a returning character in Dark Deception: Journey of the Girl in Red.

Appearance
The Professor resembles a young man with golden hair with bangs. He wears a black shirt with lime rhombuses, grey pants, lime shoes, a white lab coat, and goggles. Despite his fairly human appearance, his eyes are black with glowing pupils and he can change into a variety of forms.

During the fight, the Professor jitters frequently with glitchy static throughout his body when not attacking the player, jogging in place, or twitching his limbs jerkily. When he utilizes his Needle Bolts attack, his head expands from behind his mask into a huge, malformed blob with multiple eyes and a circular, toothed mouth. His arms and legs also contract and resemble the same substance as his head. He only has two eyes and vertical, narrow teeth in his enlarged head when he utilizes his Claws of the Demon, Grab & Smash, or Blow/Suck You Away attacks.

Personality
The Professor is psychotic and nihilistic, having little to no regard for the outcomes of his experimentation. He often bursts into fits of maniacal laughing and rambling on weird topics. He has stated that at this point even HE doesn't exactly know what he is doing, but is completely fine with it. At one point in life, the Professor once attempted to mix human DNA with monsters in order for them to directly survive aberrations and rise above, as depicted in one of his pictures. That being said, he is normally shown to be intelligent and very professional.

Despite this, the Professor speaks with genuine affability and even admits he feels sorry for Doug for the situation they came into. The Professor is a curious soul who wants to see majestic things happen in the name of science and exhibits absolutely no fear of demons such as Malak. The Professor is indeed perverted but has a healthy and loving relationship with Kashigiri, so much so he absolutely goes berserk when Doug accidentally "killed" her with his rocket launcher (although she thankfully survived due to her sheer invulnerability). Prior to his escape, while being schizophrenic and on medication, the Professor was otherwise relatively rational and level-headed, and was dubious and concerned about Kashigiri's research and containment, fearing that conscience would not be enough to stop her, in contrast to his colleagues' enthusiasm. However, as time passed while he was isolated in the facility, he became progressively mad and became obsessed with Kashigiri herself, using it as a source of logic.

In Dark Deception: Journey of the Girl in Red, the Professor is talkative and friendly at first, although his main motivation in befriending Platini seems to be obtaining her help in surviving the nightmare. He frequently second-guesses his own decisions and is not especially assertive, always trying to persuade Platini to go along with his plans rather than demanding that she do anything. Despite his general indecisiveness, he shows initiative in seeking out Platini to act on his own masterminded plans. He is patient and, when his actions lead to unpleasant consequences, he is quick to take responsibility and apologize - although usually as a lead-in to asking Platini to go along with another of his plans. Being Platini’s assistant throughout the Unholy Realms, he tries to help her as much as he can, although his intelligence is often brought down by his lack of common sense and poor socialization skills, forcing him to take rash and judgmental decisions.

Powers
The Professor is exceptionally smart and is especially skilled in experimenting with living beings. Due to this, the Professor can twist and shape life into whatever shape he pleases. The Professor is also skilled in hand-to-hand combat as well as outwitting his opponents mentally. The Professor's main power is his inhuman strength, as he is roughly ten times stronger than the average human and thousands of times more durable. The Professor can also shapeshift, growing new limbs, expanding and condensing his body, changing the properties of his own biology, and mimicking other creatures. He also shows a preference for throwing syringes, enabling him to kill and/or incapacitate his opponents, as well as to shapeshift and teleport him everywhere he wants by injecting them into his chest.

The Professor possesses unimaginable amounts of knowledge of the angels, demons, gods, and anomalies that the 'Multiverse' is home to. Due to this, a lot of the Professor's experiments are anomalies and very dangerous.

Behaviour
In his boss battle, the Professor will use a wide variety of attacks in which the player must survive all of them. During the fight, the Professor will shapeshift into nightmarish forms to indicate which attack he'll use. In Phase 1, the Professor's moveset consists of: At 50% health, the Professor will quickly swallow a few pills, one with a happy face, ramping up the speed and effectiveness of his attacks. Although he retains his explosive and smoke bombs, most of his remaining attacks are replaced by new ones. In Phase 2, the Professor's moveset consists of: During the boss battle, the player must activate their Telekinesis ability to retrieve the Professor's kill bombs and toss them back toward him as a form of retaliation. A total of 7 (9 in Infernal Mode, 12 in Hard Mode, and 14 in Lunatic Mode) explosive bombs must be thrown at the Professor in order to beat him.
 * Bomb Voyage!: Leaps into the air and throws bombs all around the place. These bombs seem to be made out of the same material making up the mutants. The Professor can throw two types of bombs; stun bombs and kill bombs. The stun bombs are small blobs that explode into a poof gust and can stun the player. The kill bombs are large writhing masses of black flesh with green eyes on them. Upon contact with the floor or player, they will explode and kill the player. This ability plays an extremely important role in defeating the Professor, as the player must snatch one of these bombs with their Telekinesis ability and parry them back at him to deal any damage. Throwing the stun bombs back at the Professor will instead cause him to become enraged
 * Gust of Gastro: Throws a smoke bomb that disorients the player's vision and movement, before pulling out several attacks from all directions. Staying in the remaining cloud for too long will cause the player to suffocate. It is highly recommended to use the Invincibility Shield ability to protect yourself from the cloud.
 * Extend: Extends one of his arms and punches with it as a long-range attack. While extending the arm looks black and mutated. It can slightly bend, so distance yourself from the Professor's front as much as possible.
 * Smash: Extends one of his arms and enlarges his hand into a giant black fist before slamming down on the ground creating a shockwave. Both the punch and the shockwave kill the player
 * Pursuit: Runs after the player with two long black arms stretched out underneath his coat. He is at the same speed as Agatha, meaning that the player should rely on the combination of both Speed Boost and Teleportation to outrun him.
 * Drop Kick: Exactly what it sounds like, he will jump into the air and drop-kick the player. The player must dodge or they will be fifty shades of f*cked
 * Needle Swarm: Summons a barrage of needle projectiles that will either target the player or fire at an array around him. This is normally used in conjunction with his teleportation ability and explosive bombs. There are two variants to this attack, the first being six needles being fired rapidly from a single point and the second being ten needles being fired rapidly but from random locations. The needles from both variants fire to where the player was, so moving in one direction is good enough for both variants. Alternatively, the Professor will instead summon multiple needles in random positions around the room that constantly home in on the player until they collide with the environment.
 * Needle Ring: Call forth nine needles in a ring-like formation, with the set of four coming after the set of five, but moving away from the end of the arena where the Professor is not. After the first set of five needles fires, the second set of four needles will fire shortly after. When trying to determine the trajectory of the needles, it can be difficult to avoid them because they don't home in on the player.
 * Rain Down Those Needles: Summons six needles, each of which is fired in tandem with its corresponding needle on the opposing side of the arena, and shoots them in the direction the player was standing in. As an alternative, the Professor will call forth an additional nine needles that aim diagonally toward the opposite end of the arena from where the player is currently located, with only the middle needle aiming directly down. These needles do not follow the player's movement.
 * Claws of the Demon: Summons a group of levitating shadow claws that move across the arena in a wave-like pattern from left to right, and the hands will turn around twice before the attack ends. Alternatively, the Professor may summon 5 rows of shadow claws that fall slowly from the top of the arena, which are telegraphed by flickering indicators on the ground, and two rows of seven red hands that move slowly horizontally in opposite directions. These shadow claws, upon being summoned by the Professor, will accelerate toward the player after a few seconds.
 * Teleport: Before teleporting or using any attack, the Professor will grab the syringe in his side and briefly transform himself into a black blob. If he does this before using an attack, he will change appearances to indicate which attack he'll use.
 * Blow You Away: Teleports to the left or right side of the arena, followed by shapeshifting into a writhing mass of screaming black flesh that'll blow the player at a pair of slamming red fists on the other side of the arena. This can be dodged by moving away from the Professor.
 * Suck You Away: Teleports to the left or right side of the arena, followed by shapeshifting into a writhing mass of screaming black flesh as inhales through his nose, sucking the player towards him before eating them alive if they reach the Professor’s mouth. This can be dodged by moving away from the Professor.
 * Smackdown Smash: Teleports to the bottom center of the arena followed by smacking the ground horizontally with one of his massive fists and then slamming the ground vertically with another, both in the direction he is facing.

After throwing all of the explosives on the Professor, one of the bombs inadvertently knocked over the machinery and apparatus, starting a fire and prompting the Professor to shout, "IT'S A DISASTER!" "NOOO! NOOO!" Several chunks of rubble eventually fall from the ceiling, killing him instantly and destroying the whole lab as a result of the tremendous pressure. However, if the player doesn't attempt to kill him and must survive for about 4 minutesinstead, the Professor will eventually get tired in the same way as his wife. After apologizing for his actions, he then sarcastically congratulates the player for being worthy of the "ring piece" and bids them farewell. Doing so will also unlock an achievement as well. The player can come back to this nightmare to find the Professor who can then serve as an NPC vendor, selling moon charms. Considering the fact that the Professor is actually still alive as shown in JOTGIR, it's quite possible that the latter option is canon.

In Lunatic Mode, the Professor will generate a transparent energy shield that will deflect most of the projectiles that the player throws at him, including his own bombs. The Nullification ability is required to defeat him.

Shop
The Professor sells the following items:
 * Night Vision Goggles (150 Sun Jades)
 * Natural Attractor (300 Sun Jades)
 * Solid Stealth (300 Sun Jades)
 * Super Strength (100 Sun Jades)
 * KILLER QUEEN: BITEZ ZA DUSTO (600 Sun Jades)

Dialogue
The Professor can be interacted with:
 * About the MDE Organization: The MDE Organization is an agency run mainly by humans but with its authorities mainly consisting of lizard people. The MDE stands for 'Multi-Dimensional Exploration', which is the goal the agency has of researching and trying to understand the Universes all around us. A long time ago I proposed an idea to them and they did not take it lightly. Apparently what I was doing was "disrupting balance" and "against the safety regulations", but nothing in life even matters! I took my stuff and got the f*ck outta there, got myself a new lab, a new shirt, a nice wife, and experimented on a lot of things. I even turn humans into abominations just to troll those guys! As for now, they cannot reach me here, but it's only a matter of time before I move this place somewhere else.
 * About Kashigiri: Ah yes my wife, she's cute, she's thicc and she's strong. In fact, she saved my ass on various occasions! The secret to her is that she once was a small black blob inside a meteor the Organization found. She was contained and studied by broke out when I escaped. She grabbed all the personnel, tore them apart, consume their flesh and grow to the point her real form is a giant mass of black flesh the size of a skyscraper! And yet she condenses it into her current 'human' form. I guess that explains why she got so much cake if you know what I mean...
 * About Me: You, Doug Houser, I pity you truly. You grew up raised by an abusive parent and then became an abusive parent yourself. Then you realised two wrongs don't make a right and you're trying to fix the mess you landed yourself in! Guilt is not a pleasant emotion, so either completely hide in insanity or face the problems yourself! Maybe after you've achieved your goal of restoring your family maybe we can meet up again and toast to your new life! I'll be waiting for that day...
 * About the Head Surgeon: I'm surprised the old man didn't violate you. He's a primitive scumbag who disguises his love for bloodshed underneath his curiosity for science, he doesn't mean a single thing he says! He always has to lust over those Nurses even when he can just kidnap one, put her in his basement, and f*ck her right in the p*ssy so hard you could call him a 'Cat Killer' but nOoOoOoO he has to treat EVERYONE around him as insignificant toys for him to play with. I've even been considering turning him into a living blob of cancer with his consciousness degraded to instincts only!

Upon completing Mascot Mayhem and Bearly Buried, the Professor will have the following new dialogue options:
 * About the Giggle Giggle Duo: TBA
 * About Stephen R. Hamstrong: TBA
 * About Jocelyn: TBA
 * About Papa Bear: TBA
 * About Auntie Bear: TBA
 * About Xenophore M.E.U: TBA
 * About Lich of the Stars: TBA

Playable Data
The Professor acts as a supporting character who is capable of boosting the DPS of other characters as well as his own. His maximum HP is 95% of Platini's and his attack power is 105% of hers. With his twisted experiments and biological-based attacks, he excels at controlling the battlefield and inflicting status effects on his opponents.


 * Gimmick: Bio-Enhancement - The Professor's gimmick revolves around his ability to enhance the DPS of his allies. He has the power to buff his teammates through his pills, temporarily boosting their attack power and speed. By using his moves and landing attacks, The Professor accumulates "Mutagenic Energy," which he can spend to activate his bio-enhancement abilities. Once activated, the affected allies gain increased damage output and improved mobility for a limited time. The Professor's own attacks also become more potent during this state. Careful management of the Mutagenic Energy is crucial, as the more energy spent on bio-enhancements, the less available for The Professor to use his own attacks. This encourages a strategic playstyle that balances support and offense, with The Professor working to maximize his allies' damage potential while still utilizing his own unique moveset to maintain pressure on opponents.

Light Attacks

 * Jab (Light): The Professor sprays a noxious chemical in front of him, dealing continuous damage to opponents caught in the spray. While airborne, The Professor surrounds himself with a swirling cloud of toxic gas, damaging opponents in his immediate vicinity.
 * Forward Attack (Light): The Professor extends his mutated arm, striking opponents with a powerful melee attack that leaves behind a lingering effect, causing additional damage over time. While airborne, The Professor extends his arm forward, launching a projectile made of corrosive acid.
 * Up Attack (Light): The Professor releases a burst of toxic gas above him, damaging opponents and creating a lingering cloud that inflicts poison on those caught within it. While airborne, The Professor unleashes a burst of mutagenic energy above him, damaging opponents.
 * Down Attack (Light): The Professor transforms his lower body into a slimy substance and slides forward, tripping opponents and leaving them vulnerable to follow-up attacks. While airborne, The Professor descends rapidly, crashing into opponents with a body slam, leaving behind a pool of toxic residue.
 * Dash Attack (Light): The Professor charges forward, engulfed in a cloud of toxic fumes, damaging and poisoning opponents in his path.

Heavy Attacks

 * Jab (Heavy): The Professor infuses his fist with mutated energy and delivers a powerful punch, launching opponents backward. While airborne, The Professor spins in mid-air, creating a whirlwind of biological projectiles that damage opponents.
 * Forward Attack (Heavy): The Professor unleashes a barrage of acidic projectiles from his mutated arm, showering the area in front of him and damaging multiple opponents simultaneously. While airborne, The Professor extends his arm, transforming it into a long tentacle to strike opponents in a wide arc.
 * Up Attack (Heavy): The Professor creates a volatile chemical reaction beneath him, causing a burst of bioenergy to erupt upward, damaging and launching opponents caught in the explosion. While airborne, The Professor creates a mutated growth on his head that rapidly extends upward, striking opponents above him.
 * Down Attack (Heavy): The Professor slams his hands into the ground, causing a wave of contaminated energy to ripple outward, poisoning and damaging nearby opponents While airborne, The Professor slams downward with great force, creating a shockwave upon impact that damages enemies below him.
 * Dash Attack (Heavy): The Professor charges forward, ramming into opponents with his enlarged shoulder, dealing heavy damage.

Special Attacks

 * Neutral Special: Mutagenic Blast - The Professor charges a concentrated ball of mutagenic energy in his hand and then releases it as a projectile, which can be charged to increase its power and range. Upon impact, the blast explodes, dealing damage to opponents caught within its range. This attack has a chance to afflict opponents with a temporary debuff, such as reduced defense or slower movement speed. The Professor can only hold up to 3 grenades at a time, with one replenishing every 10 seconds. This attack has limited range compared to the rest of the other characters' special attacks and will despawn after a certain distance. Afflicted enemies takes 35% more damage from all incoming sources and are highlighted in green, while attacking them will also heal the Professor for 50% of his maximum HP per target hit.
 * Side Special: Pill Popper - The Professor throws a random pill, which seems to be made out of the same material making up the mutants, creating a cloud of lingering gas that inflicts nearby teammates or enemies with different status effects (either a buff for the teammates or a debuff for the enemies). This ability can be used strategically to enhance a teammate's combo potential or turn the tide of a battle. There are three 3 different pills that he can throw to inflict different buffs/debuffs that can stack with each other, which consists of:
 * Speed Booster: The Speed Booster pill increases both the Professor and his teammates' speed, makes them airborne while performing aerial attacks, shortens the delay between each of their light attacks, and increases the distance of each of their heavy attacks. When thrown at enemies, it will greatly slow down their movement and attack speed by 3 seconds. They appear as large writhing masses of black flesh with blue eyes on them.
 * Explosive Armor: The Explosive Armor pill gives him and his teammates an aura that periodically activates that deals damage if enemies are close enough. When thrown at enemies, it deals a significant amount of damage and knockback, launching them backwards. They appear as large writhing masses of black flesh with yellow eyes on them
 * Adrenaline Boost: The Adrenaline Boost pill increases the Professor and his teammates' attack power for a short duration, allowing them to deal increased damage.. When thrown at enemies, it breaks their armor resistance and causes all incoming attacks to deal an additional extra damage for 10 seconds. They appear as large writhing masses of black flesh with red eyes on them
 * Up Special: Mutant Ascension - The Professor morphs his limbs into a pair of mutated wings, allowing him to ascend rapidly into the air. While ascending, he damages opponents in his path with sharp spines that protrude from his back. This move grants The Professor vertical recovery and can be used for surprise aerial attacks or to escape unfavorable situations.
 * Down Special: Timothy's Special - The Professor lays down a Mutant anemone-like flower that roots into the ground and creates a hazardous area on the ground, which is indicated by a green ring surrounding itself. When an enemy enters the ring, it becomes entangled and is pulled toward the flower, inflicting continuous damage over time. When an enemy is attacked in this AoE a lime burst is created dealing an additional instance of 50% damage. Heals the Professor for an estimated 10% of his maximum HP every second per snared target. Even after an entangled enemy is killed, it will continue to heal the Professor until the flower expires.

Ultimate Attack

 * Genetic Abomination: The Professor injects himself with a powerful serum, temporarily enhancing his strength and speed, granting a boost to his attacks and movement. After this, one of his black arms will extend and enlarge its fist before slamming into the ground, unleashing an AoE explosion that deals 300% damage and stuns nearby enemies momentarily for the duration of the ability.

Aside from being a playable character, the Professor will also frequently appear in every Hidden Nightmare entrance. He requires an arbitrary number of Sun Jades from Platini's collection depending on her current level before granting access to the Hidden Nightmare portal, requiring the player to gather a set number of Heavenly Souls before continuing their quest. Despite exploiting Platini in this way, he does appear to genuinely care for Platini's well-being, or at the very least her continuous capacity to supply him with Sun Jades to pay for his research fees.

Trivia

 * The MDE Organization is based on the SCP Foundation.
 * The Professor's last name means 'Scientist' in Greek.
 * The Professor's backstory is heavily based on a story made by Clark Titor for his headcanon AU of the Trevor Henderson mythos.
 * The Professor is meant to be a direct parallel to the Head Surgeon:
 * The Head Surgeon is sickly and old while the Professor is young and handsome
 * The Head Surgeon is a psychopath while the Professor is psychotic (There is a difference between the two)
 * The Head Surgeon is left at the mercy of the player while the Professor is a true Karma Houdini
 * The Head Surgeon puts up a fake affable personality while the Professor is genuinely friendly
 * The Head Surgeon is themed around the old plague doctors while the Professor is themed around futuristic mad science
 * The Head Surgeon disguises their crimes as 'surgical treatment' while the Professor is loud and proud about his biological tomf*ckery
 * The Professor's theme has Plague Knight's leitmotifs in it.
 * The Professor is slightly based on Albedo from Genshin Impact
 * The Professor is the first NPC to serve both as a boss and as a vendor
 * The Professor suffers from Pediophobia (fear of dolls), which is based on the phobia of the lead developer of dolls
 * That being said, however, he doesn't mind teddy bears (like Mama Bear and Trigger Teddies), it's plastic/porcelain human-looking ones that scare him
 * The method for defeating the Professor, in which the player must reflect his bomb projectiles back at him, could be heavily inspired by Wheatley from Portal 2 and the Devolverland Expo boss fight.
 * Originally, the method for defeating the Professor was going to be very similar to Agatha, Joy Kill's rematch, Albardiu, Painbow, Larith, Kashigiri, and Chuckles the Clown's rematch on Mascot Mayhem, where the player has to dodge all of his attacks until the timer finishes. The developer scrapped this idea late in development since it was too repetitive.
 * However, this method was eventually brought back in a new update as a "sparing" feature, which also includes a new achievement for doing so.
 * The Professor has also had a grudge against Santa Claus ever since he was a child; on Christmas day, instead of giving him twelve cases of Uranium-238 as he'd asked, Santa gave him a present overflowing with socks.
 * The Professor's favorite video game franchise is Portal.
 * According to 'The Wacky Misadventures of Lucky & Friends', the Professor has a science TV show Timothy's World of Otherworldly Experiments, which is similar to Bill Nye the Science Guy, which requires the people in the audience to pass several tests just to sit and watch.
 * The Professor is something of a celebrity on his homeworld, and was once described as "someone without whom the entire world dissolves into chaos." He is well-renowned throughout the world for his contributions to human science and has made breakthroughs in every scientific field, from genetics and neuroscience to disease research and engineering. He also played an important role in the rapid advancement of cybernetic augmentation, artificial intelligence, interdimensional travel, and energy weapons, allowing him to win several Nobel prizes.
 * Originally, the method of defeating the Professor boss battle is that the player must survive for about 4 minutes, similar to Agatha and Painbow. This was ultimately changed in later updates to provide the player with more challenges and something to do. Another reason is that it was too repetitive.
 * Him, Platini, and Stephen R. Hamstrong are currently the only bosses in Unchecked Limitations who congratulate the player for defeating them and being worthy of the ring piece.
 * Unlike his wife, the Professor absolutely hates any and all furries in existence, likely because of a traumatic experience in which he almost got transformed into an anthropomorphic wolf once. He once appeared at a furry convention where he's shapeshifting as a "furry" enthusiast through his mutant powers. Before being apprehended by the local authorities, the Professor murdered almost two dozen convention personnel and guests, more than any other single occurrence to date. The mangled victims were discovered in a variety of locations throughout the hotel, including inside a mattress, hanging from a shower curtain, and as the main course at hotel dinner. Some of the attendants also disappeared from the incident, possibly to be experimented on by him.
 * This is obviously a reference to a part of SCP-953's backstory.
 * The Professor believes in a conspiracy theory that Queen Elizabeth II was actually a blood-drinking, flesh-eating, shapeshifting extraterrestrial lizard person for some reason. This theory was later debunked when he realizes that the REAL Queen Elizabeth II actually died in September 8, 2022.
 * The Professor's role in Journey of the Girl in Red as an NPC is somewhat similar to that of Mr. Stick from Pizza Tower.

Lore
Prior to the events of the game, the Professor worked as a member of the MDE Organization, an agency tasked with containing or eliminating harmful anomalies in the Multiverse that could disrupt the natural balance as well as researching and exploring the dimensions composing it. This Organization consists of mainly humans and lizard people but also anomalous entities trying to maintain balance. The Professor was one of the humans in the foundation, working as a researcher. However, at some point in time, the Professor proposed the idea of bioengineering humans so they could directly survive anomalies and rise above. Since the Professor already experimented on himself when he presented his findings which were forbidden without permission from the three sisters, the other members of the organization tried to arrest him and find a way to 'fix' him. When this happened the Professor just broke. This event was also influenced by the Professor encountering a strange anomaly on the field and was the only one exposed to a certain effect it had. Due to all this, the Professor went rogue and took all his research with him.

The Professor began a rampage of experimenting and left trails upon trails of disgusting abominations created from human flesh and blood. With him, he also took Kashigiri, an entity the Organization was researching that, during the time of his breakout, escaped its containment and grew to what it is now. At some point in time, the Professor experimented on a memetic traveling anomaly the Organization was not familiar with and built his own laboratory inside that anomaly out of reach from the agency. All the MDE Organization can do now is track down its experiments and contain them. During the events of the game, the Professor found a way into Malak's domain and went through the nightmares to find new sources that he could use in his biofoolery. The Professor took samples from the monsters without being noticed and was only caught when Doug Houser caught up to him.