Viktor was standing at the receptionist's table to fill in the documents before legally discarging. Yes! Viktor finally achieved the impressive feat only achieved by two-year olds (in this world), WALKING!!
Almost an entire month of doing his best exercising and he could now beat a decaying grandpa with severe scoliosis. In a race, obviously. Well, Viktor was sure it wouldn't be too hard to beat up geezers like that either. He reckoned he'd just have to hit their spine with a baseball bat and watch them crumple up like a rice cracker.
"If you can just sign here..sir.." The middle-aged lady working at the counter looked a bit nervous while talking to Spiros.
Which was why the lady looked a bit taken aback when Spiros smiled at her and said, "Thank you." as he signed the spots she asked him to sign.
Being around this Spiros kid seemed like hanging around with an unstable bomb. He seemed to get his ego hurt easily and yelled A LOT. He also used to threaten a lot of people with his daddy's name.
He's only been visited by his dad 11 times. Once each year, roughly. His dad was probably an even bigger douche. He didn't even visit his son once....not even as he gained consciousness.
ooooh.... daddy apparently spent a lot of time around child #3, . She inherited the special ability....and the remaining 6 kids were ignored. Including child#6 of 7, Spiros. Poor douchebag baby Spiros.
He was about to be discharged, still wearing his hospital clothes...but there wasn't anybody in sight to pick him up. Oh well. Apparently his 'team' of carers and maids will be coming to get him outta here.
"Is that it?" He finished his signature and looked at the receptionist, to which she replied "Yes sir."
"Cool, cheers." Spiros looked around, expaserated. "I...have no idea when my team will come. Did they contact you again?"
"Sorry, sir. I'll call them again."
"Thanks. 'ppreciate it."
She smiled warily and picked up the phone to call Spiros' mystery team.
This was the time Spiros saw his nurse walking across the coridoor he was in. The lady with the spooky laugh that was rumored to have killed an old man- Chryseis. She looked really cute today as well, with her long blood-colored hair in a braid. She seemed to have changed her glasses' frame to something square-shaped and silver. She didn't seem to spot him.
Good. Spiros didn't know how to say goodbye. She wasn't around him, like, a LOT. About 10 minutes a day, most days. Some days, other nurses would help him instead.
But she did tend him back to health. Kinda. Agh. Doesn't matter. Hopefully she doesn't see him.
In classic life fashion, the thing he absolutely did not want happened to him. She saw him and waved excitedly. Then she slightly picked up the pace and walked
She came up to him and patted his shoulder. "Damn. You seemed to have healed up really well. You won't even need to come back for mobility training or anything."
"Oh don't worry." Spiros replied. "I'll probably be coming here a LOT in the future. I'll be sure to *specifically* ask for you." he made sure to keep his tone in a playful manner. It'd just be plain creepy to say something like that unironically.
"Okay bet." She replied genuinely, though. "You better do that. Or else....ten injections up your bum."
"You monster. How do you still have your job?"
"What can I say, I guess being the best nurse in the world or whatever, kinda helps." She shrugged her shoulder nonchalantly.
"Riiight. Like that one time you accidentally put the straw into my nos-"
"Sssh!" She stared at him, alarmed. Then whispered. "I'm already seen as a weirdo-klutz in my job! Don't tell anyone. Sh-shut up."
"Sorry. Ahem." Spiros stared at the floor. "Right. You definitely didn't do something like uhm..put a juice straw in the wrong hole or anything uhm....ok so uhmm.."
He noticed that the receptionist was apparently finished talking with whoever was going to pick Spiros up and was now staring at the nurse, Chryseis in shock.
"What are you doing?" she hissed, then looked at Spiros in an apologetic manner. "I'm so sorry sir. I'm sorry that this person-" She stared at the nurse in fear, like, why did you doom us?! "-is addressing you in such a casual manner. I'll be sure to report this to the higher authorities-"
"Woah, woah! No!" Spiros looked back and forth between the receptionist and the confused nurse. "She's my friend now. Woah. It's okay. Do not tell on her or anything, okay? Please?" Spiros told the receptionist.
"B-but.."
"Look. I'm not angry at all! What's the point complaining about her behaviour if her behaviour didn't hurt anybody? There's no sort of solid rule about acting a different way towards me, or anybody related to the well-borns, right?"
"Well..no...sir.."
"Ah, don't worry. She knows who to act in a normal manner around and who to act uptight with, right Chryseis?" He looked at her.
"Y-yeah. Of course. You're just the uhm...only exception."
"Yeah, exactly! And I don't mind!" Spiros turned back to the receptionist. "Don't make this a big deal. Please? For me? Please don't raise this as an issue."
"You don't have to plead, sir!!" The receptionist looked even more horrified. "Please don't do that! I won't raise this issue. I swear on my mother!"
Damn. People here really like swearing on stuff.
"Okay. Thank you." Spiros put his hands on his hips and sighed. Then he looked at his nurse. She looked a bit shook.
"Um. Sir. Your team should arrive anytime now." The receptionist replied, still having not calmed down fully.
"Got it. Thanks."
"Uhmm...it was nice talking to you.." the poor nurse looked shocked too. "I'm gonna go now." She promptly walked away.
"O-okay. Bye..." Spiros replied, but she had already gone too far to hear him.
Yeah. If someone else higher up saw her conversing in such a casual manner with Spiros, they'd probably freak out and do something silly to her.
All the well-borns -which Viktor thought was a goofy name for 'nobility'- had only two things in common. 1) They were rich and 2) They were all assholes.
And everyone else seemed to just cower and let the well-borns flop their meat around wherever they pleased. The only people that made them put their dick back into their pants was the oligarchy.
And they did seem to act a bit nicer around the well-borns with a patron god. Like Spiros' family. You wouldn't want to mess with people who have an ability/abilities with a free lifetime membership. (In Spiros' case, it seemed to be a two lifetimes- membership) Plus, they have a fucking God for backup if shit hits the fan.
Speaking of douchebags, he saw a group of ten people walk into the hospital front door- about 20 meters in front of him.
There were 4 women in this group, and all of them wore purplish-red suits with a black shirt underneath, which Spiros thought was way too try-hard-y. Come on, just wear a hoodie or something, dude. Apparently this is was his team of carers.
Well. Ego and display of power was really important with the well-borns. So anybody hired by them have to look the best too, he figured.
They walked in a hurried manner, with the same terrified look as the receptionist. The lighter red-and-blue embroidery about 5 centimeters in diameter of an old, eyeless woman with flowing red hair and war helmet in their suit jacket's chest made everybody around them stumble away from their way. This involves the Stratonis family. You can clearly see that the war goddess Enyo as their patron. Get the fuck out of the way.
The way the people moved out of this group's path reminded Viktor of how cars make way for an ambulance.
One of the women in the group locked eyes with Spiros and immediately had a look of regret. She led the group's way towards him. One by one, they all saw him and they practically aged by ten years. They unconsciously tightened their face, bracing for a hurl of verbal -or even physical- abuse. Wrinkles appeared on their forehead and between their eyebrows and one of the men in the back had his entire face go pale.
Holy crap, calm down dude!! Viktor wanted to ask these people if they still remembered to breathe.
They finally arrived and the group, hurriedly in front of everyone at the hospital who watched with a mix of morbid curiosity and fear.
Then a wave of unease went amongst the crowd. 'Oh fuck. He's a well-born? That too from a patron-god family??! But- he doesn't have the cloak and insignia on him! Why is he just standing there in front of the reception with hospital clothes on??!
"We. Are SO sorry, sir. Please believe us, we tried our absolute hardesttogettoyouontimepleasefogiveusimwillingtoacceptwahteverpunis-"
"Dude. It's okay. Chill out." Spiros replied, uncomfortable.
This apparently wasn't the right thing to say. His team seemed to freak out even more.
"Yo, I'm being serious!!"
No. They knew how much of a tyrant Spiros was. He was probably...uhh...only his sick mind knew how he was going to punish them...but it probably involved acting kind, or something.
"...ugh. Let's just go home. Come on." Spiros shook his head.
"O-okay. Sir. They..uhm...they..they made you stand at the reception like a commoner. Do you want to-"
"Uh. Absolutely not. I just wanted to stand. Let's just go home, come on." Spiros sighed and walked towards the exit. There was no point convincing them that he wasn't going to castrate them because they arrived late, or that he didn't want to put the entire hospital staff in jail just because he wanted to stand.
He didn't look behind, but he heard his team scrambling around him. He just kept walking as his team enveloped him and the people just got out of his way.
"Um...sir...if you don't mind-" a man's voice from behind him. He turned back and saw him holding a cloak. It didn't have a hood or anything. Honestly, it was more of a cape than a cloak, the color of congealed blood. It ran all the way from one shoulder, along his back, down to his calves and round his other shoulder. It had a thick strap with his patron goddess' symbol - The blind war goddess, Enyo connecting the two ends of the cape thingy, from one shoulder to the other.
And all along his thick cape was embroidery depicting war - Intricate, tiny patterns showing decaying bodies, dismembered limbs, broken heads, faces of fear. Giant armies at battle. Nukes. Bodies twisted in disgusting ways and weapons. A lot of weapons. All seeming to swirl around a central figure, doing a grotesque dance around the goddess, in the centre of the cape. Riding her chariot powered by four disgusting looking horses.
Yuck.
He put it on and continued walking out of the hospital.
And it was only about a minute after he had clearly left did everybody in the hospital breathe a sigh of relief. The man acted so normally, that they had absolutely no way of knowing that he was associated with the well-borns.
A man muttered to his wife, "....that was scary."
"Yeah." She looked around to make sure that nobody was close and quietly replied, "Well-borns are usually a bunch of entitled pricks...but this boy...he's different...." she had an almost happy look on her face.
"How so?" the man looked at his wife.
"Well....he's an utter dumbass." She said quietly. "Noble people are supposed to have class and elegance. He acts like a commoner. Does he not have any sense?"
"Yeah!" the man replied. "Did you look at what he wore?! What'll people think of him?"
"They'll think he's a bit slow in the head." The woman laughed. "We can probably make better well-borns than him."
"That would be nice..." the man had a dreamy look on his face. "Imagine all the food we can eat."
The woman patted his pot-belly and looked at him with one eyebrow raised. "You'll pop like a balloon, dear."
"Oh shut up."