Lord Joyde The Madman: Heylo, everyone! How are you all doing?

The Following Night... - Lucius' Point Of View...

"H-..urgh.." I felt as if I had history's worst hangover pounding directly into my skull as my consciousness decided it was finally time to return to me."Easy there, sir. You've had a rough night." An unknown, male voice echoed from somewhere next to me but my hazy vision did not manage to detect anyone quite yet.

A mess of blurry shapes and horrid, implausible, dancing angles was all I could see. Dizzying colors, floating and flying all around me."W-..who are you?"

The dancing colors then seemed to shift in one particular place, all becoming white or teal. I did not need to truly see the person to know that this guy was a doctor."William, William Floyer. At your service."

I shook my head in an attempt to nod yet failed miserably."... and.. what would be your name, sir?"

My facial expression immediately switched to what was probably the worlds most obvious deadpan stare."Lucius, Prodigium."

"Aha. Alright, no need to get angry. Just a routine check is all." He snorted with amusement."What happened.. to me?"

William seemed to take in a deep breath as the colors in my vision finally managed to stabilize somewhat."Well, you had several broken ribs, a torn and dislocated shoulder, several milliliters of Raker venom coursing through your veins, a skull fracture, internal bleeding on just about every vital organ... oh and, we had to amputate your left leg."

I felt myself blink several times before something caught my attention."Past tense?"

He let out a cheery laugh, which made me grab my forehead with both arms."S-sorry, but yes, there's nothing to worry about. Ahem!"

Taking what looked like a datapad into his hands, the doctor began to speak."After seventeen hours in the Vitae Chamber we managed to stabilize your condition from just about dead to very close to dying. Not as safe as we would have liked but time was not exactly on our side so we were forced to perform surgery quickly, as usual." He let out an exhausted sigh.

Sometimes, I pity these men of medicine. Their lives aren't easy no matter what money-hungry fanatics might tell you."After managing to remove the broken bone shards out of your skull and graft it shut with a titanium compound, we hooked you up to several blood packs for around twenty minutes, sorry we really needed a coffee break, before amputating your leg. Once all that was done, we suddenly received donations from four entirely separate groups intent on seeing you fully recovered. We decided to not take any of their credits as we would like to have you choose who pays for your recovery but we did give you a nanite infusion in the end, despite numerous protests from yours truly."

"N-nanite infusion?..." I saw the doctor nod as my rather discolored left leg finally came into view. Completely white and just about see-through, it felt like I had been sleeping on it for days. Numb beyond numb... there was significant scarring next to my hip, indicating the place where the doctors decided to cut my previous one off, I guess.

Also, for some reason, the only thing I was wearing at the moment was a pair of omnithread shorts."Programmed, miniature machines with potentially dangerous intent." He seemed to spit into a nearby sink."Not my choice, but it was the only way to ensure you fully recovered. Time, like I said, was not exactly on our side."

Wait... why can I see my legs from here? I'm laying completely down...

.... where is my stomach?"What did they ... do.. to me?"

"The nanites first spent half an hour scanning your body for all potential resources and then, once we put you back into the Vitae Chamber, they just about completely reconstructed your body. You've lost around thirty to forty kilograms. We aren't really sure as we haven't weighted you yet, but the nanites did they job splendidly." He then pointed towards a bunch of machinery to my left, the teal coloration of everything around me reflecting painfully into my eyes as I turned my head."You are currently undergoing cyberflushing."

"... I take it that means you're flushing the nanites out of me?" William nodded somewhat somberly."How long is that gonna take?"

"Surprisingly, not much longer. Two hours at most should everything go well. I've put several prescriptions on your nightstand, you should get them once you're able." I rolled my eyes."Great... more fucking pills, as if my painkillers and antidepressants weren't enough."

"Well sorry, but you need them to help re-build your body properly. The nanites regrew your leg almost perfectly but they missed out on a couple nerves here and there. Nothing unusual really, bloody machines always make mistakes. Anyways, we've confirmed that your brain has managed to accept the leg just fine, which means there won't need to be any further treatments other than you just taking some pills. You really lucked out on this one man." He laughed again but my head thankfully managed to defeat the migraine before it began.

The haze is almost completely gone now."So.. how much did all this cost and who the hell paid for it?"

"Five thousand, three hundred and seventy eight credits. Oh and, nobody yet. However the contestants fighting for the check are: Mr. Wolfgang, A random collective of people from JusticeForEredea.net, Ore-Gore Incorporated and ... The Abrahamic Church." He spoke the last one with excessive disdain."The church?" I asked, faking confusion because I wanted to avoid potential bullshit.

"Oh? So you don't know why those religious freaks decided to help you? Figures, this is all just a game of fame for them. Good heart, my ass." He spat again as I continued, quickly changing the subject."Who is... Mr Wolfgang?"

The man appeared to blink.".. you don't know who the city governor is?"

"Look, judge me all you like, but I don't like politics or messing with the government." William let out a chuckle."That does not excuse you from being ignorant. Anyways, Mr Wolfgang was the first to donate money for your recovery, as he should. I mean, you did save the man's daughter. I hear that girl's been locked in the house for a couple months after this little stunt." He kept on chuckling as I blinked."I... did, what?"

"You don't remember the redhead who was with you when the Raker's attacked? Well, I can show you." He sat down next to me and took out his phone, opening up an app tilted DeaTube. He didn't even need to scroll down far or press anything into the search bar since I quickly found out what he was looking for.

Namely, a video titled: Homeworlder vs Raker pack! (warning: GRAPHIC!!!!!!).

I rose my hands to cover my head."Fuckin' hell..."

"Ye-heap! The girl you saved is actually a fairly popular DeaTuber going by the name Foxymoon. Her channel is apparently about her walking around in wild, dangerous forests while talking about *teenage issues* and how the world ain't fair and the government is shit to the younger generations. She currently stands at around seven million subscribers, which I think is basically the teenage population of the planet. And ALLLL of them saw you heroically, and quite brutally, save her while she was streaming." I let out a massive sigh as he turned on the video.

"Hello guise~, Foxymoon here! As you can see, I'm walkin' around th- *sudden crashing sound*.. what the hell was that?!" I didn't even need to watch it to know what was happening. She was close enough to hear the tree falling next to me. Thanks, Lu!

"Anytime, bro~, anytime!" He responded with all the general amusement I had come to expect from him by now."Now, this is the part that interests me the most." The doctor suddenly said and I had to turn to face the video. He paused it just as the girl approached me, clearly showing me bleeding from both my eyes and my ears."I don't think I need to tell you why I paused here. Thing is, we didn't find anything wrong with either your eyes or your ears. No indication that they'd even been bleeding..." He turned back towards me, fully expecting me to give him an explanation.

"What exactly do you want me to say? Maybe I breathed something in?" I faked confusion, causing the doctor to tilt his head and shrug."Maybe. Who knows if there's some kind of Hemorrhagic aerosol going around the forests... but if that's the case, why didn't the girl experience the same symptoms?"

"Dunno. I go there often so maybe its been building up over time?" Now this seemed to catch his attention as William nodded."Perhaps. I guess we'll have to send a team on site to know for sure."

William unpaused the video and let me watch through to the end in silence as I tore through a Raker with my arm, bit off a piece of my own shoulder and sucked out the blood."Oh yeah, you've also got a discolored scar on your shoulder now with your teeth imprinted on it." I turned around to look at the place I bit into and sighed."Just one more scar with a story on me."

The next scene of interest was me getting backhanded or.. back-paw'd, out of the way as the Raker matriarch showed up."How the hell did my neck not break from that?"

"Well actually, while your neck somehow survived, your spine was severely damaged from the blow and then you actually managed to break it in four separate places when you rolled out of the way. Don't worry, the machines did their job, although imperfectly." Oh.

"I guess that's why my legs wouldn't move." Great. To think I actually broke my own spine by rolling.

Fuck...

Maybe I shouldn't have gotten so fat."Yeah, no shit?" William laughed out loud for some reason. I guess this is all part of some insider, doctor joke?

Anyways, the video ended with the redhead speed-dialing the police and the hospital. The record of her chat showed that several people were suddenly spamming a link to the JusticeForEredea.net page which is probably how they managed to gather enough credits for my surgery so quickly.

Hmm... I guess I should let those teenagers feel good about themselves."Alright, I want you to use the money from Justice to pay for my surgery. However, on the condition that you also take my fathers money and then transfer it to my personal account."

William blinked in utter confusion."Your.. fathers, money?"

"Ore-Gore Inc." He blinked again, even more confused before his eyes widened."YOU'RE THE SON OF VITO-" I somehow managed to shut him up with a glare."A-alright. I'll do it. But... why first take the money and then transfer it to you?"

"If you guys transferred it directly to me, he would get suspicious and I don't want to cause your hospital trouble." The good doctor nodded in understanding.

As he should.

After all, my father's developed a rather peculiar reputation of being an absolute psychopath with very good standing with the Government of SOM. He's legit, but that does not mean people who fuck with him don't suddenly become prone to accidents.

Most of the time, he does not even have to take action himself. People who want to get on his good side are not exactly rare, after all.

Anyways..."Hey doc... you think I could take that with me after this is over?" I pointed towards the canister of nanites which were swimming in some kind of blue, almost crystalline solution. William quirked an eyebrow in confusion."I.. I mean, there's no law saying you can't and basically they are your property now so.. yeah, sure? But, why?"

"Well, I figure those fucks over at EARA have already confiscated the corpses of the Raker pack which means I can't get my paycheck... I'm a hunter y'see, if that wasn't obvious enough, so at least I'd like to have a trophy of sorts to remember this by." Now he was full on laughing.

EARA stands for Eredea's Animal Rights Activists organization, by the way."You mean, your new scars aren't enough? Okay sure, I'll see what I can do." With that said, the doctor finally put the dataslate back down and left the room after checking my status for one final time.

Then I closed my eyes and felt my blood rushing hotly with anger."Lu. You orchestrated all of this, didn't you?"

"Hooh, what gave me away?" Not even trying to deflect the blame, are you? Oh well."Earlier, in my mind, you said how the "murder of these animals", didn't give me any power so I kinda figured you summoned them there. I mean, Rakers may be vicious, but they don't just attack everything that moves as there's no such thing as an outright aggressive Raker, only defensive ones.. Some people even have their smaller variants as pets... granted, they also have their tails cut off."

"I see." Lu replied simply.

That's it?

All I get?

No apologies or anything?

"You are a dick, Lu." The eldritch monstrosity seemed to burst into laughter before the image of a thousand flailing tentacles formed in my mind."Actually, I am many, MANY DICKS, Lucius~."

....

I am not even going to dignify that with a response.

Slightly larger chapter this time!

Hmm, maybe this style of writing it better? 1.5-2k words per chapter instead of forcing myself to be 2.5 and above.

Anyways, read and review! And Good Morning/Day/Night to you all! ADIOS FOR NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!