Earl Lascovitz

Dr. Earl Lascovitz
Species	Human
Gender	Male
Allies	Figlio di Armechio
Factions	Order of the Great Beings
Status	Deceased
Home Reality	Original Universe

"I still feel his fingerprints in my mind. What he did to us... what we did to him... was unspeakable..."

―Dr. Earl Lascovitz regarding Mazkertis

Dr. Earl Lascovitz was a human psychologist with a Polish-Hungarian accent who was hired by Figlio di Armechio to conduct unethical psychological experiments on Mazkertis under the supervision of the Order of the Great Beings. Decades after the cancellation of the project, Lascovitz decided to take his own life rather than suffer the wrath of Mazkertis's revenge when he learned that the wizard had been freed from custody.

History

Questionable Ethics

In 150,033 CMT, Dr. Earl Lascovitz was hired by Figlio di Armechio (under the jurisdiction of the Council of the Great Beings) to conduct psychological experiments on one of their Class-X Offenders, Mazkertis, in order to determine the wizard's true intentions in attempting to rewrite history in the Dark Mirror Universe one year prior. On September 9th, Lascovitz's first day on the project, the doctor performed several basic tests on Mazkertis to build a psychological profile of "Subject 08". Mazkertis's initial behavior led Lascovitz to suspect that the wizard suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, but further evaluations indicated post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). After Figlio conducted several pain tests on Mazkertis, Lascovitz and Figlio left an empty notebook in Mazkertis's cell and instructed him to write his thoughts in it overnight.

On September 10th, Lascovitz retrieved the notebook from Mazkertis's cell and found that the wizard had filled 50% of the pages with magical inscriptions, another 40% with vivid descriptions of his nether cell and his emotions, and the remaining 10% with repetitions of the phrase "THE KESTORA MUST PAY, █████ WILL DIE". Lascovitz sent the pages that contained magical inscriptions to a laboratory for analysis. Because there had never before been a formal scientific investigation on the effects that prolonged interdimensional imprisonment had on the human mind, Lascovitz began to consider that the location of Mazkertis's nether cell - the Void - was contributing significantly to the degradation of his mental state. However, while Lascovitz spectated a formal examination of Mazkertis's physical injuries, he noted that most of the physical wounds that Mazkertis had sustained in his battle against D-Klak and Zev Raregroove one year earlier had since healed (save for his vocal chords) and returned to superhuman levels of efficiency.

Lascovitz was forced to summon two shock troopers to subdue Mazkertis when the wizard snapped the neck of a guard while being escorted back to his cell. This violent outburst made Lascovitz concerned for his own safety, but he remained curious about Mazkertis enough to want to continue with the project. He requested the presence of armed guards during his sessions with Mazkertis, and asked Figlio to leave another blank notebook in Mazkertis's cell, but to instruct Mazkertis to write a maximum of ten pages a day and a minimum of one page a day.

By September 13th, another violent outburst from Mazkertis left Lascovitz certain that imprisonment in the Void had torn Mazkertis's psyche apart. In a psychology session that same day, Mazkertis communicated with Lascovitz and several other spectators telepathically, giving simple answers to routine questions about his identity and motives. Lascovitz was hopeful that Mazkertis's newfound willingness to communicate meant that the staff could soon advance to the second phase of the project: interrogation. Lascovitz even told Figlio that he was almost certain that Mazkertis would, in time, answer anything with the right amount of persuasion under the right methods. On September 25th, Lascovitz performed a psychological evaluation of a guard who reported that he had been plagued by nightmares since coming into contact with Mazkertis. Lascovitz determined that the guard was no longer mentally fit to perform his duties and recommended an extended vacation.

Lascovitz almost went insane when Mazkertis telepathically entered his mind once, but managed to wriggle out of Mazkertis's mental grip and survive the incident with his sanity intact. Following this event, Lascovitz was authorized to take a sabbatical once every few months. Figlio implied that Lascovitz left the project within a few years of this event, but Mazkertis claimed that the cruel experiments on himself continued under the direction of Figlio for almost fifty years.

In 150,081 CMT, Figlio visited Dr. Lascovitz to warn him about Uterio di Armechio's intent to declare war on the universe.

Death and Legacy

By 150,084 CMT, Dr. Lascovitz had retired to a peaceful cottage on Pasaje where he was visited by Figlio di Armechio, who Lascovitz greeted with a warm welcome. Lascovitz explained to Figlio that his family still visited him often and that he had taken up painting as a hobby in his retirement, showing off a beautiful painting of a woman dancing in the rain. However, Lascovitz's cheerful demeanour vanished when Figlio revealed that his visit concerned Subject 08, causing memories of the "unspeakable" things that Lascovitz and Figlio had done to Mazkertis decades prior to resurface. Lascovitz was distraught when Figlio told him that Mazkertis had been set free, clarifying that he had come to warn him before Mazkertis found him and exacted revenge. Lascovitz reasoned that he did not think that Mazkertis ever hated him, but Figlio replied that Mazkertis's mind was warped and that his opinions had since changed. However, Figlio offered Lascovitz an alternative to suffering Mazkertis's wrath: a pistol, which he placed on the table. As Figlio bid farewell to his old 'friend' and left, Lascovitz committed suicide.

At around the same time, Coro recovered the Subject 08 experiment logs from the Great Archive on Mordor and gave them to Klak at his request. It was then that Klak learned about the unethical experiments performed on Mazkertis and Dr. Lascovitz's role in the project.

Lycos later suggested to Ynot that he should find and talk to Dr. Lascovitz in his country cottage on Pasaje if he wanted to learn more about Mazkertis. Ynot took Lycos's advice and flew to Pasaje in the Cabana Prime. Once Ynot had located the cottage, he and Sasuken teleported down to talk to Lascovitz, but they entered to find the doctor's corpse slumped over the kitchen table with the gun still in his hand. The two horrified Makuta immediately left the cottage, and Ynot ordered Vultran to teleport down and perform a forensic examination in case Lascovitz had any recent visitors that had left DNA evidence. Vultran complied and swabbed the entire cottage, using the forensic technology in his lab to determine that it contained DNA traces from two beings: Lascovitz and a Dachori who Ynot guessed was Figlio. Ynot used a communicator to contact Figlio and arranged to meet him on Judoon later that day. The Makuta Anima reached Judoon two hours before Figlio and laid a trap for him: when he arrived, the Anima burst out of the ground and teleported him to the Zone of Shadows, where Ynot confronted him about the DNA evidence they had that linked him to Lascovitz's cottage on Pasaje. Faced with overwhelming evidence against him, Figlio came clean about why he had visited Pasaje.

On Day 12 of The Mazkertis Paradox arc, Mazkertis used "Earl Lascovitz" as a fake name when he met Misaki Raregroove on Jurai, one of the few full human names that his fractured mind could recall.

On Day 55, Klak revealed to Mazkertis that he knew of the crimes that Figlio and Dr. Lascovitz had committed by experimenting on him all those years ago and offered Mazkertis his help, but Mazkertis insisted that vengeance was the only way to heal himself. On Day 76, Sefer Yetzirah also revealed to Mazkertis that she too had been briefed on the Subject 08 experiments and the roles that Dr. Lascovitz and Figlio had in them. In response, Mazkertis expressed satisfaction that both were dead; one by suicide and the other by Mazkertis's own hand.