Doctor Balmer

"They keep getting sick anyway, why delay the inevitable?"

- Doctor Balmer, as quoted by Doctor Phage

Dr. E. M. Balmer is an embalming machine turned fry cook in Awful Hospital.

Description
Balmer's primary job is to be an embaming and preservation machine in the morgue, purging them of all living beings. He does, however, offer the natives of decomposing bodies artifical preserves where they can go to continue living while he sterilizes the body. He also goes as far as to deceive Fern into getting an exhuviator that he could then use to make every patient in the hospital uncurable and send them all to the morgue, where he would turn all of them to real estate. However, most of them refuse, preferring to die in their homeland than extend their life artificially, and Balmer so ruthlessly wants to stop all decay that he would kill them. He views bodies as little more than opportunities for interzonal business. He even considers selling Fern after doing this, as he would no longer have a user for her. However, before he has the change to succeed in doing this, Flipper enters the scene and impales Balmer with its snout, dropping the exvironator into a large tub of embalming liquid and then dropping themselves both there as well. This results in the two fusing to become Balphin. In this fused state, Balphin still has Balmer as the original brain, but with a lot of Flipper's abilities as well as the exvironator's lust to consume all, as well as the ability to use a "carcino-ray" attack and make dolphin fetuses. This fusion is considered to fit in with the Slobs more than a regular fusion would, ironic given the danger Slobs pose to Balmer's operations and his desire to eradicate them. When in his form, he no longer sees the need for preservators and desires to eat the world itself. He has an insatiable lust for everything in this form. Thankfully, the exvironated embalming tube is able to grow Fern's allies, and this allows them all to grow in size and defeat this behemoth. Before perishing, he apologizes for not having devoured Fern sooner, and mentioning that Fern would rather be devoured prematurely than be inevitably fated to face him, whoever he may be. He is eventually brought back with a different body as a fry cook. This body admittedly laments its new position but poses very little of a threat, despite wanting to pose a big threat. In terms of personality, he seems very similar to Doctor Phage in the fact that he views himself as the most intelligent being to exist while being a dimwit, arguably more of a dimwit than Phage himself. His malicious intent is far more apparent however. In addition to this, Balmer and Phage seem to have an intersting and muddied love-hate relationship.