Arcobaleno: Lives of Lies
I do not own Katekyō Hitman Reborn.
Chapter: Verde
Verde was smart. Beyond smart. Ludicrous intelligence. He made Darwin and DaVinci look like grade schoolers. But Madness and Genius walk hand and hand. Nobody knew this quite like geniuses themselves. Verde had two idols. The first was Einstein. The second was Machiavelli. He had heard of them and understood who they were by the age of three.
He followed some of their steps, trying to follow his idols like other children. Einstein didn't talk until he was eight? Verde didn't speak a word until he was ten. Machiavelli knew Latin? Verde spoke Latin, much to the frustration of his parents.
It took Verde the first ten years to learn about Atoms, Gravity, Space Time, Anatomy, Mechanics, Biology, Genetics, Mathematics, Languages, Geometry, Physical Science, Social Science, Psychology, Formal Sciences, Chemistry, Earth and Life science, Computer Science, Law, Judicial Law, Forensics, Theoretical science, Hacking, Statistics, and so much more.
There was no limit to what Verde knew. He could dissect the most complicated machines in a glance. He knew exactly how many grams of pressure were needed to break a spine. He knew martial arts through reading about them. To him, he didn't need to actually train his body, because he KNEW how to move simply by observation and illustration. All he needed was the information.
By the time Verde was fifteen he held five hundred patents to his name. He had set up an information system that assembled all of the governments information together in one. He had access to EVERYTHING every government under the world had access to. He sent himself a few million dollars and resolved to pay of his debt double fold. He left a very obvious trail through all of the governments files and computers. He didn't care that they quickly knew who he was. It only took five hours of work at a laptop for Verde to pay off his theft to the government triple fold.
The governments were not happy. Verde didn't care. They couldn't touch him, because he was protected by their own laws. He didn't expect them to break their own laws. It was breaking a rule in the game!
For to Verde, life was but a game. And he had been handed the omnipotent power the game could bestow. Intelligence. He was simply to smart for the governments to catch though. He always had eight escape plans. So he gave the government the slip. Verde sent his Parents on an all expense paid trip to a Fuji resorts for the rest of their lives. He changed his files about him so that no connection between them and him could ever be found. He didn't want to the only people he had to protect to get involved with his game with the governments of the world. (Most of them were after him.)
He loved his game. It allowed his him to be ruthless. He could go anywhere and do anything due to his knowledge. He had no limits the rules he set for himself were simple. If you get caught and can't get away, you lose. If you die, you've lost. If you let your parents or anybody who will have a reason to be protected by you get hurt or caught, you lose. You must try not to involve the innocent.
Verde had more fun in those days than he had in his entire life.
It ended when he turned twenty. He had gotten bored of his game because the governments stopped trying to catch him. So he settled down in a lab he built in Italy and built. Verde built everything and anything. He built a time machine. He built a teleporter. He built a cloning device. Verde could build anything. So he built it all. You name it; he had a device for it. However, there was only one of him, and since he knew at a glance if his machine worked or not he did not test many of his devices.
There was no purpose to some of his devices. The teleporter took the fun out of travelling, so he destroyed it, and stored away the design where no one would ever find it. The next teleporter he built was outrageously massive and took more power than was reasonable to work. That design also floated in the sky. It was more fun than his personal handheld teleporter. He still never used it.
His time machine was fun, but utterly useless. Verde knew better than to fiddle with the past. He did not want to see the future, for he already knew what it would look like. Pointless. He built a bazooka that sent the person it was used on into the future, smuggled it into the tech vault of the famous Bovino family and let them take credit for something way beyond their time. He enjoyed his little pranks that could potentially change the world. He liked to listen to his whims.
Why was he like this? He understood the fine line between sanity and madness. He was confident the line was not there, in other words. Einstein acted like a little kid to prevent his minds from darkening into something horrible. It was simple really. Act innocent, and the minds will change to reflect it. Verde was like that for a long time, but he got bored of it. As it turned out, insanity was much more fun.
Power had gotten to him, he was fully aware of it. But it was okay, because he had earned and made all this power for himself. No one else had helped. He built by himself. He was thus in the right, and not merely spoiled. Even when he bought himself a highly illegal rare species of Caiman that was not supposed to be available.
At some point he started getting bored again. So he set out to do the impossible. Learn everything in the world. He was fully aware it was impossible, for new things always happen to change it, but he was bored and needed direction. His mission was direction. So regardless of how it would turn out, he set his sights back on studying.
He grew to be twenty five. He began to worry slightly about his life span. So he built a machine that would transfer his consciousness into another body. He didn't like that one, so he built a machine that would reconstruct him should he type in a certain code. He was positive that was a good trick for immortality, but he could do better. He built a philosophers stone. Meh, there was probably a better way than relying on a potion every month. He slowed down the growth of his cells so that he would be immortal. He didn't like that one either.
He quit immortality after achieving several different routes to it. It took the fun out of the game. He would let himself age. If he ever got close to dying he'd just clone himself and leave his legacy to his mini-me. Wasn't like the cloned Verde would be any different than him, he had fixed that flaw shortly after it was built. Cryogenics were weird and he didn't like the possibilities of errors.
Verde turned down immortality. He recognized everything needed to die. He figured it was just one of the rules to the game. He would die. Didn't mean he would lose the game if he did it right though.
So Verde kept at it. Inventing, mass producing, ruling parts of the world behind the scenes. He was having fun. But he bored of it, just like he bored of everything before. Nothing could hold his interest for long. A short while back madness had gotten boring too, in fact. So he went Sane. Very Sane. Then that got boring. Right now he was insane instead of mad. Only he knew the slight differences.
Verde always was too smart for his own good.
And so Verde was bored out of his mind with nothing to do. He had read everything he wanted to. Tasted the greatest foods. Mastered every science and revolutionized it all. Done everything once. It was about that time he lost his innocent façade. He turned to combat. He saved it for last. He wasn't sure what he would do when this lost his interest, but he had quit planning for anything else.
He also received a letter. It just showed up in his European lab one day. The cameras had recorded a figure wreathed in electrical static drop the letter off. Verde was intrigued. He had not been intrigued since he was eighteen and his cousin had introduced him to video games.
That felt like so long ago.
The letter was simple, but totally in traceable. The letter itself held a mystical energy that prevented it from harm. He was sure nobody but him could possibly have noticed the strange energy. He had put it under a laser and tried to pick the atoms that made the page apart but nothing he built could scratch it. During the process he realized it was rather odd for a grown man to be trying to destroy a letter that clearly was indestructible, so he just decided to read it.
He travelled to Italy. He arrived at a small lodge at the bottom of a mountain. Inside the lodge were six other individuals. He recognized three of the people present, but then he used the technology built into his body and clothes to figure out more.
The thin man in the black suit and a fedora was Hitman. Not much information was in his file, only a long list of victims. There was a list of tactics that revealed the only way Hitman had left to kill someone was through balloon related deaths. Verde snickered. Hitman had no background info at all in other words. The common internet search revealed him to be the second most wanted man in Italy, eightieth most wanted man on a global scale, and the best assassin the world had ever seen. Verde was intrigued. But, he'd find out more later.
The man (A quick scan informed him the person in front of him was male) in purple was Skull, the best stunt man in the world. Verde frowned when he read his file and list of accomplishments. How had he done it? By all means these things revealed he should be dead. How was he cheating the game? Verde attached a small bug to Skull. It would tell him that Skull had the ability to use Cloud flames to pack his body with powerful cells with amazing defensive quality. Verde smiled, having figured out the mystery before him. Skull sweat dropped and backed away from the mad scientist. Little details were useless. Like that Skull was born on August 8th.
Verde observed Fong for a while. He was a genius in his own right, but not in the way Verde was. Fong had no life but his martial arts. Verde studied his body secretly. Fong was defiantly rewriting some biological limits of the human body, but none were so outstanding to make Verde delve deeper. Verde did not have eyes for Fong once he found out as much as he could.
Verde studied Lal Mirch for a short time. She was a definition perfect soldier. Her training meant she could wield anything. Survived a grenade blast in close proximity with little harm. She was a teacher of eighteen squads, and her squad was the strongest in COMSUBIN records. Riveting back story. He would read it over coffee sometime.
Viper. At least, he suspected the figure in the coat was the infamous Viper. He had once spent a whole week on the individual known as Viper. There was so many strange accomplishments. Yet there really wasn't any data. An interesting paradox that drew Verde in. He would figure out those secrets soon though. He launched a nano technology robot onto Viper. It didn't respond. He tried again. Same result. Viper made no move, so Verde assumed the figure had not noticed. Reborn didn't even have a clue. Verde withdrew his attack. No one was any wiser for it.
Luce was another enigma. She could heal seruis alements with herbs and roots. She was a shaman woman, who could predict the future. Her clan was always very protective of the Trin-ni-set. Verde could fathom a guess she knew what was going on here. Verde himself had some speculations about what was going on here too. Rainbow. It wasn't very well documented, but it had happened before. Arcobaleno. That was the prominent theory in Verdes mind.
He went outside and laughed for a long while. It probably didn't make him look any better in the other's eyes, but Verde was never the type to care about what others thought of him. He knew humans rejected instinctually what they didn't understand. He had reverse engineered his own mind to be attracted to what he didn't understand. When he did, it became boring and Verde needed a new toy.
Their mission was to travel up the mountain. Verde dropped sensors everywhere he went up the mountain. The closer to the top he got, the stronger the unidentifiable energy level got. He got more exited. He was ecstatic by the time they were half way up. Several weak pieces of tech on his body needed repair after he had accidently shocked them with his powerful lightening abilities.
It was about that time he observed two things. A small rock fell off the path behind them and rolled down the mountain side. Verde studied everything about it and decided there was no way it could have fallen without an external force. Second, his sensors picked up a human figure following them up the mountain side. There was no sense of stealth to the man (Who he identified though his tech to be known as Colonnello) so that meant he didn't know who he was following.
Verde used his technology to research Colonnello. He found that he was an excellent soldier, but he was a bit unstable mentally. He was most likely following Lal because the two were smitten for each other. (The report from the general he had discovered seemed to stress this fact for some reason.) He deemed Colonnello to be uninteresting. He ignored the group when Hitman pulled his CZ75 1ST pistol on the man. He did not find their exchange all that interesting, so he was the one who got the group moving again.
He continued to research the seven people around him on his travels up the mountainside.
When he reached the top Verde was surprised at the sight of the masked man. This was the figure who had managed to steak into his European base in the dead of night? He did not seem all that special to Verde. He ran a scanner over the Masked man. The scan came up to reveal there was nothing there. A hologram? No, that would still present certain energy traces. The figure in front of the eight was a phantom.
When they transformed Verde was surprised by the pain. Verde had not felt pain since he was nineteen, when he used nano technology to turn off his pain receptors. He knew what was dangerous and what wasn't. There was no reason for pain, when his mind thought faster than his pain travelled. (fun fact: Pain travels at .61 m/s)
So when he felt the pain it surprised him, since he had been without it for so long. But, he was no stranger to pain after subjecting himself to strange chemicals he had made in his lab that he could not identify. Nothing major to him. The tohers around him all showed signs of extreme stress though. 'Fascinating, I wonder what method of torture the masked man is using on us?' It was then he noticed he was shrinking. For all his intelligence the only thought that ran through Verdes head at that moment was 'WTF?'
When the process was over Verde immediately began to run scans. He rattled of facts aloud. "Heightened scenes. Faster reaction time. Slowed pulse and pain reception. A slight impairment in judgment that results from shrinking in size. Easily correctable. Increased blood pressure. Increased tolerance of extreme conditions. Increased vision levels. Increased Blood- oxygen levels. Increased resistances to poison and sicknesses. Scratch that, unaffected by sicknesses. Extremely fast cell regeneration rate. Immortality by permanent cell regrowth and maintenance. Substance decrease in height. Resistance to hallucinogenic drugs and mist flames." (Verde runs a hand over his chin in absent thought, then looks surprised) "loss of hair follicles."
"Ladies and Gentlemen, we are currently stuck as two year olds. I have identified no mental damage has occurred from the process. I suggest you do not attempt to break this curse, as it appears to be impossible." Verde announced to the seven people who had been listening to his thoughts.
Verde left them to heir thoughts. They asked questions to him every once in a while and answered them without really giving them a second of attention. He was elsewhere right now.
Verde was thinking. He was thinking philosophically, which was something he hadn't had to do in a long time. He had long ago come up with personal answers to the questions that cannot be decided on. But this transformation meant he was going to need to adjust his answers.
He had finally remembered where he had seen this particular energy before. 'The energy currently coming from his pacifier around his neck was a type of deep space phenomenon. He had eventually decided it was the energy used to create the big bang. It was will, in a form of energy used by the planets themselves. It radiated out of the Mare rings and the Tri-ni-set of the Giglio Nero family that Luce was the leader of. So she DID know this was going to happen? Oh well, that's not important anymore.
'What's important is what we now all are. We are peacekeepers. Not in action, but by simply existing. While we exist and live our bodies will sent out waves of energy that could be used to heal the planet under our feet. It is a type of extreme natural life energy, but not bound to a living organism. That energy resided in the pacifiers, used their Arcobaleno bodies to emit on a world wide scale, and healed the planet and kept sanity for all living creatures.'
'If the pacifiers are using our bodies to send out energy that means our entire bodies are able to send dying will flames anywhere in our bodies. I could harness this to run several things. Interesting. I was handed the most interesting toy the universe has ever come up with. The proper course would be to inform the other six who own functional pacifiers that they are now responsible for the balance of planet earth. As long as they live everything will be okay here.'
Verde looked up. Colonnello was comforting Lal. Luce was rubbing her stomach, seemingly understanding something he was not interested in right now. Lal was tearing up. Hitman was on a rock and looked lost. Fong was meditating. Skull was pacing and mumbling to himself. Viper was futilely trying to life the curse while using mist flames.
Verde made a snap decision in that moment. 'They aren't ready. If I told them that they were now solely responsible for the health of the planets it might wreck their minds. In the interest of preserving future specimens I will tell them at a later date or let them figure it out on their own. It would be healthier mentally for now. Perhaps I should manipulate a few facts? Yes, that seems like the best thing to do.' "Everyone. Do not remove your pacifiers. They are batteries that give off energy we need to survive. If you remove one it would kill you after a short period of time without it being on. Try not to remove them for any reason." Verde announced to the group. They nodded their thanks and continued their activities.
Verde observed. 'That's not a lie, but it's not the truth either. If they wear those pacifiers 24/7 then it will keep the earth in healing, so it will prevent them from dying in the long run. But also, they could not survive themselves if separated for more than a year from their pacifiers. If I make it sound like they'll die in maybe a day or so, they'll be reluctant to take them off and fight harder to protect them. Two birds with one stone. Machiavelli would be proud.'
Lal asked to be inspected. Verde gave her some scan results. "You're pacifier does not emit the same energy constantly like ours does, but the energy is there. If you were to tap into that energy it for a long period of time it would regress you back into infant stage. However, if you do not use the power you should grow at a slow rate. I estimate it would take you fifty years to grow to be twenty. However, the longer you go without using your power the quicker you would grow. If you truly went fifty years without using your power you would become eighty. If say, you avoided using your power for five years, you would become about…. Twenty three. But you would also lose all your Arcobaleno benefits."
"I encourage you to use your power a little bit every once and a while, and it will keep the power of Arcobaleno energy strong within you." Verde told Lal. She nodded. Colonnello shot Verde the nastiest look he could and Verde backed off quickly. He had never seen a dark look in those blue eyes before, and it was one of the few things that he could say honestly scared him.
It was about that time Verde turned to studying the pets everybody had but Lal. His own Caiman had somehow been teleported here by the masked man. Upon questioning nobody but Hitman and himself had possessed a pet prior. They ran off the same energy as they did, but appeared to take the energy in waves and amplify it. Ah, so that's how it was broadcasted, through their pets! It made since. The pets were able to exist as long as the Arcobaleno did.
Skulls octopus could change size easily, a trait real octopi had.
Verdes Camion was a lazy thing and did not appear to have any powers.
Colonnello's seahawk was strong enough to pick up and carry around Colonnello.
Luces squirrel was unatrually fast, but that appeared to be it.
Viper would not let him near his pet.
Hitman refused to let him dissect his Chameleon when he saw it shape shift. Touchy sun Arcobaleno.
Fong's monkey did not appear to do anything, until it got sick of Verde prodding it with his advanced scanning arm and snapped it in half. Verde was surprised, as the arm had never been broken by any specimen before, and thus he had not brought a spare. Ah well, he'd get it later.
They travelled down the mountain together. They all bonded a little, and Verde gave them a list of seventeen of his twenty bases around the world. They were welcome to show up and stay as long as they liked, although he would want to experiment with them.
Afterwards they split up. Verde had never been so happy. The universe had seen it fit to give him fascinating toys that he would never tire of playing with. The universe had seen him fit to exclude from death.
He had never been so curious of what came next.
