"Listen," Skull tries, slowly sliding off the couch beside Verde. "You know as well as I do that I'm just going to shake it off after, so there's no real point-"

Reborn stands and grasps Verde's shoulder beside him, toxic green electricity dancing along Reborn's limbs and even lighting up over his back.

Reborn's back, which Fon just pointed out has an almost exact imprint of Skull's face, from unset makeup when the stuntman hugged Reborn from behind earlier that day.

"No, no, no," Skull babbles, leaping up to his feet, not wanting to be either stabbed with a flame hardened hand or electrocuted. "Use Rain. Rain!"

"You want Rain?" Reborn hisses, advancing. "I'll make it rain blood."

Skull scrambles back, ducking behind Lal and Viper's loveseat as Reborn moves around the coffee table, the green slowly crawling over the hitman's fingers as an indestructible glove.

"Can I do that?" Verde asks with interest.

Reborn immediately stops and turns to Verde, far more interested in explaining the science than smacking Skull around. He knows how to wash makeup out of his suits anyway; this isn't the first time Skull's hug has made a mess.

"I've seen you use the coating effect before," Colonnello points out to the scientist, perched on the couch arm where Skull had been sitting.

"I meant stealing flames," Verde corrects. "Is it only a Sun ability or can anyone learn it?"

Reborn holds up a hand and the crackling electricity is isolated to his palm, disappearing from the rest of his body. "This is me continuously activating your flames, so only Sun users can do it this way. It lasts a couple of minutes, maximum, even if I hold onto it."

Reborn drops the Lightning flames. "However, there are a few other ways depending on your control. The easiest is probably taking in a 'flame store'. Your body conducts your flames best so cells can act as storage, which can then be passed through things like saliva, blood and I haven't tried frying up some juicy steak but I'm sure that works too."

Reborn skips right past that cannibalism reference and lights up a hand as demonstration, weak blue fire swelling up like he was cupping a handful of water.

Colonnello raises an eyebrow, curious about Reborn 'taking in a flame store'. "Is that mine or Lal's?"

Reborn pulls one of Colonnello's rifle bullets out of his pocket. "I took it just then, it's got your signature," Reborn admits. "It wasn't enough to do more than change the colour."

Colonnello pats his pocket. "Why do you have…"

Reborn tosses it back with a smirk. "Just to see if you'd notice." He shrugs. "There's a third way to steal flames, which is…" Reborn flickers a glance to Skull. "Flame tagging, as most of you know, is one person taking on an imprint of another's flames. It's meant to be an insult, to prove who's stronger, but the foreign flames can be used."

Skull is listening in fascination. "Can I do it?"

Reborn smiles, not at all nicely. "Sure. Come here, I'll share some with you. Just push your flames up to the surface."

Skull skitters closer and Reborn grabs his hand before Lal manages to lurch off her couch to stop it. Gold sinks in under Skull's skin and ends up being soft flickers when the stuntman summons his violet fire.

"Aww, it's so pretty!" Skull says happily, showing his hand to people. He turns around and sees Lal with wide eyes in a frozen lunging pose and tilts his head to the side, confused. "Did you want to trade too?"

"Trade?" Reborn asks with a growing horror. His palm flickers with Cloud when he tests. "Oh for-! Skull, I just got rid of-!" Reborn hunches over with hands on his knees and makes a muffled screaming noise at the ground.

Skull's eyes go wide. "Did I hurt you?"

Colonnello is giggling in the background while Viper can't seem to breathe properly. Fon has hidden his entire face behind a large sleeve and Verde is recording everything with his fancy high-tech glasses.

Reborn breathes in deeply and straightens up. "Lal. Come. Let's share."

Lal makes a run for it but Reborn has longer legs. He tackles her down and Colonnello only manages to pull the hitman off after she's already been tagged.

"You little whore!" Lal screams, scrambling off the ground and latching back onto Reborn.

"Who the fuck even cares?!" Reborn wails, nails digging into Colonnello's arms and pushing sunshine up the blond's sleeves while Colonnello desperately tries to shake him off. "What does it even matter anymore?! I want to be a fucking rainbow, give it to me!"

No one escapes unscathed.

Skull enjoys the little playfighting and Verde is entirely willing because he wants to study this phenomenon. Colonnello is sort of upset because he knows tagging is meant to be an insult but doesn't care otherwise, while Viper gives up caring after getting yellow and blue because they might as well go in head first at that point.

Lal is pissed that Reborn attacked her so after infecting him she calms down, and Fon was very gleeful when he was doing the tagging but everyone noticed halfway through and worked together to pin him down to return the favour.

They all end up slumped on couches or just flopped on the ground after the mad scramble.

"World's greatest," Colonnello sighs from where's he's slumped against Lal's knees on the ground. He's looking at the beautiful fire that races along his arms in brilliant, shifting colours. "The rainbow. The Arcobaleno."

"Don't start with that," Reborn deadpans, curled up tight on one end of the three-seater couch, but he also can't stop looking at Colonnello's new fire.

Viper smirks from beside Reborn, Verde on the other end. "How many famiglias are going to freak out when they see what we've done to each other?"

Reborn stares off into the distance. "Timmy will cry. Shamal is going to lose his shit."

Fon smiles up at the ceiling, splayed out on the ground. "I'm a disgrace. I can never go back to China."

Lal slides a glance at the martial artists. "You could have stayed out of it but you ran around tagging everyone. This is on you."

Fon says nothing but he does look rather satisfied.

"Um," Skull says nervously where he's sitting next to Fon's feet. "So how do I...control this?"

They all look over to where Skull is trying to discreetly snuff out very quickly growing Storm flames that flare out from between his fingers.

There's no communication necessary, everyone just makes a run for it.

"Oops," Skull squeaks and then the living room disintegrates.