No one really knew much about Verde. And he preferred it that way. Whenever they had meetings he would listen with half an ear to them while working on his computer. It was abundantly obvious the Lightning wasn't that interested with interacting with living humans. If anything, Verde abhorred being around people, or he certainly acted like it.

However the assumption their Lightning was very anti-social had to be adjusted when Reborn started to develop a habit of taking out his bad day on Skull, their cowardly Cloud.

The first time it happened, Verde had paid it no mind. The second time, he frowned but said nothing. However the third time Reborn went to punch Skull for something stupid he said, he instinctively ducked a head slap.

"That is enough. If you're going to take it out on someone do it to someone who will actually fight back. And that goes for the rest of you. I abhor bullying, and I detest it when such behavior happens in front of me without anyone saying anything. And you will not like the consequences of what I will do to you if I catch you at it again, Reborn," hissed Verde.

Something told Reborn picking on the Lackey as he had come to think of Skull, was going to be a very, very bad idea. At least while Verde was there.

Verde helped the surprised Cloud up, and then went to his bag and pulled out a jar with some unidentified remedy it in.

"Knowing Reborn he likely left bruises. Use this (he handed Skull a cotton ball) and lightly dab some of the balm on the areas where you see bruising. It'll help the swelling go down within an hour," he informed Skull, before going back to whatever he was working on.

Skull blinked, but did as told. He was shocked to find Verde wasn't kidding...he could barely tell Reborn had worked him over for something minor.

"Thank you!" he said with sincerity. Verde twitched.

"You can keep the jar. I make several batches of it anyway."

Fon gave a slow blink.

"Got any spares?" he inquired quietly. Bruises were annoying, but having healing remedies that worked was always a good thing.

Verde twitched again, not looking any of them in the face.

"I have several. If you're really that interested I can make small kits with certain herbal remedies that work almost as good as Sun Flames."

"Bullshit, no remedy works that well," said Reborn.

Verde turned to face him and smirked. It wasn't a nice expression, and they were reminded that the Lightning wasn't a fan of people. He openly admitted to seeing each and every one of them, including Luce, as an experiment.

"Dare to test it out? I always carry plenty of them on me," he said challenging.

Reborn's eyes glinted.

"How about this... I will refrain from healing anyone and we'll use your little remedies instead. If they can heal the wounds as well as I can I'll acknowledge your skills as a medic."

"Agreed. And I win you have to give up any form of coffee for a month. And that includes the candy variety," said Verde.

"That's evil," said Skull, grinning.

Reborn was a total coffee addict, to the point he would hunt some down if he hadn't had any in hours. It was hilarious.

However Verde knew people like Reborn. He'd never back down from a challenge, or else he wouldn't be considered the World's Best Hitman.

"And here's an additional part of the bet. If you lose and feel like you can't go another day without your precious coffee, you can opt out by apologizing to Skull sincerely and owing me one major favor," said Verde, eye's glinting.

Reborn sneered.

"You're on."

Verde inwardly smirked. Reborn had no idea what he was in for, and he planned to cheat like crazy to make the Sun suffer hell.

Withdrawal was nasty...caffeine withdrawal was worse.

Needless to say Reborn was slightly horrified when he discovered Verde's concoctions worked more effectively than most major pharmaceuticals. Like the bandages soaked in some sort of greenish liquid. Lal got a nasty cut from something, likely a large bullet or blade, and about five minutes after wrapping her arm the bandage worked itself loose...and the wound was completely healed. She still had to wash off the excess though, but the fact it worked so quickly and that she could soak more bandages in the liquid meant she was officially in love with it.

The contents of the jar were too oily and refused to stay put long enough to work, hence why Verde invested heavily in bandages.

Only Fon had an idea of what the concoctions actually were though.

He gave Verde an odd look.

"I know this scent. Squib?"

"Hardly," said Verde offended. "More like I have enough sense not to report what I'm actually doing to the idiots who run the country I'm living in."

That, and the one time he thought to bring it up with someone he thought he could trust completely he had to obliviate the uptight witch before she did something that caused him to kill her without regret.

Morals were annoying, and quite frankly he was more than happy to be rid of them after being liberated from several Flame Seals and more than a few potions that had been slipped into his food without his knowledge.

There was a reason he hated people, and being manipulated into dying was the biggest cause of it.

He still didn't understand why that woman started telling him off for trying to bring something to life. While he had never read Frankenstein or seen the many, many movies, he knew the gist of it.

He was not so stupid as to reanimate the dead. He was quite likely the only wizard in existence who bothered to have multiple contingency plans for a zombie apocalypse, for Magic's sake. The last thing he needed was to actually spark that particular nightmare off.

Besides, bringing the dead back to life was something for those who couldn't let the past go. He'd rather go full steam ahead into a future he couldn't see, than dwell on the past.

Reborn caved two weeks in, and gave Verde an evil eye for months after. He gleefully accepted the victory and plotted how to knock the Sun down a peg or ten.

Though if he really wanted to piss Reborn off he'd start stealing the man's kills just because he could. There was a reason he was the strongest Lighting and it had nothing to do with his ridiculous ability to manipulate his Flames.

"Welcome home, Master Verde!"

"Welcome, Master Verde."

"Sleep..." groaned Verde. He dropped his lab coat and bag on the floor, not really caring where they fell. He was dead on his feet and ready to sleep for a day at least. He didn't even notice when he blacked out from exhaustion, or note the pale figure who caught him and carried him into his room before settling him into the bed.

The light from the monitors revealed two figures, both female in appearance.

The first was a girl of undetermined age. She could be anywhere from her early to mid twenties. Her hair shimmered in the light, shifting from one end of the color spectrum to the next without a thought, though her eyes were a vibrant green like emeralds. Her skin was lightly tan, but was just a little pale. Her face was petite and had a distinctly noble look, and always seemed to be rather cheerful. She barely topped at five foot eight inches, and wore a light summer dress that was covered by a lab coat that bore the name tag "Haley Rose".

This girl was the reason Verde cut ties with most of his 'friends' in England and realized how foolish he had been to accept the faults of his closest "friends" without question. He never regretted the decision, because they had been holding him back since day one.

The second girl had short hair that barely reached her neck, which was pale and almost silver in color. Her eyes, like Haley, were a vibrant green but were a bit harder and more cold. Her skin was pale, and she was an inch or so taller than Haley. She was lithe, clearly someone built for speed rather than power and wore the same lab coat as the first girl. However on her shoulder was a golden colored bird that could mimic any song it heard and acted as the girl's constant companion. This was Miyu.

If Verde allowed anyone into his private labs, one might ask why he had two female assistants and didn't ignore them like he would his visitors.

The answer was both simple and complicated, and the entire reason he had chosen to make a fresh start in the underworld as an independently wealthy Lightning with no ties to any of the Familigias...and hadn't that pissed off a lot of people.

Haley and Miyu were sisters, but they weren't human, at all. They were A.L.F.'s, or Artificial Life Forms. And the source of why Verde's former female friend thought he was trying to bring the dead back to life.

Haley was the effort of almost three years of work after the war, an attempt to deal with the nightmares and memories of what he had gone through. Finally after several failed attempts to bring her to "life" or close enough to it that he could fool damn near everyone into believing she was a human, he decided to try something most would consider impossible.

He was Verde. He caused six impossible things to happen before breakfast and ate logic like candy.

Haley was powered by a mixture of magic and Lightning Flames...and no small part of help from Mother Nature herself.

Hey, bringing something to life with a lightning storm was traditional, and he even did the mad cackling and screaming "It's Alive! It's Alive!" just because it felt right.

Totally. Worth. It.

Even if he hid the video of the moment someplace he hoped to god no one ever found until he was long dead.

Haley was a mixture of advanced robotic technology only available on the black market (which was the reason he became known to the underworld in the first place...he saw no reason to give up such a useful resource even if making a name for himself was a pain in the ass) and synthetic skin. Everything about her was so realistic down to the "breathing patterns" and her blinking.

People tended to notice things like that and not blinking or breathing even a little was usually a big tip off.

Vampires had the worst luck blending in, even if observing them had helped him to avoid mistakes like that.

He wasn't welcome near the vampire covens anymore. Not that he cared... vampires were just one step above zombies.

The two girls were the only company Verde had in his personal labs. The place where he did research on things he didn't trust the rest of humanity with, like them.

No one knew of Haley and Miyu. Haley was practically his sister, and Miyu was the protector. The one he sent to deal with those who tried to kidnap Haley.

Miyu was the silent type. She calmly picked up the things Verde dropped and put them in the appropriate places. Namely the laundry and the medical lab so he could possibly restock the kit.

"Master Verde is working himself too thin," said Haley with disapproval.

Miyu said nothing, merely nodded in agreement. Alyssa, the tiny bird-shaped robot on her shoulder chirped and started trilling in a song to cheer them up.

It was pretty obvious this mission hadn't been pleasant. Verde threw himself into something he had started on his spare time when he was half asleep.

He was making a smaller version of the people he used up his "allotment of socializing" on.

Verde didn't like people, and he hated being social. Give him his lab and science. He could understand that. People were unpredictable, none more so than he was himself.

"Bad?"

"You have no idea. Reborn is impossible to work with and if I have to deal with Luce's insane schemes to get me to open up more around the others I'm going to inject her with a diuretic!" growled Verde.

Luce was a bubbly Sky who wanted them all to get along. Verde was very much against it, and as a result she seemed to make it her mission to get him to be more open around the others.

It was great entertainment for everyone but Verde and he was losing his patience with her. As if her insanity wasn't enough, she was also subtly trying to pressure him with her Sky Flames.

He got that Harmonizing with others was a "big deal" in the mafia, but he didn't like the idea of being attached to someone. Especially someone as annoying as Luce was being.

Strangely the same could be said for the others. Fon, being one of the few he could stand if only because he often brought unique tea to share with him, had commented on how it was strange that he had yet to feel "harmonized" with Luce like he thought he would be. Almost as if there were two Skies competing for the same Elements, and both were of equal strength.

Rare, but it happened. The fact that Fon had yet to figure out which one of them had such rare and almost certainly active Flames was a testament to how well they were hiding. Or they had no idea they had active Sky Flames.

"Tch. I'm going to go fly for a bit," said Verde crossly.

"Shall I open up the skylight?" asked Miyu.

"No, I need to vent a bit."

He had multiple methods of flying, but the one that drew the most attention for some reason was when he did it without anything to hold him up. It was times like those his eyes turned a vibrant orange like an agate.

After the second time he found himself stalked a few days after flying, he made a point to make it look like he was using some unknown device to fly.

A few hours of flying under the night sky, in an area where human habitation was so unlikely he didn't have to worry about any uninvited visitors showing up without having some warning, and he was in a much better mood. Enough so that he could work on his little project with a clear head.

"What are you going to name this one?" asked Haley with cheer. It was rare for Master Verde to follow through with actually activating her "little brothers and sisters", but she had a good feeling about this set.

Verde's eyes lit up with excitement, and Haley's hope that this set would eventually be awakened went up.

"Bones. The twins will be Stheno and Euryale, he will be Tao, followed by Soul, and finally Dere Tsun."

Oh how he was going to have a private laugh at Lal's expense if she ever found out the name of her miniature alternate. God knows he could use one.

Haley smiled. Master Verde seemed much happier since he started hanging around the other Strongest Seven, even if Luce annoyed him greatly. He didn't do cheerfully stupid.

Regardless of how much he complained, he did enjoy being around the others.

Three months later Verde activated the first of the set he had designed. By this point he had the act down to an art, and was merely waiting to awaken the others he had designed. He had an entire room full of those like Haley and Miyu, "sleeping" until he found a reason to awaken them. Most people would be creeped out by that room, but Verde didn't even notice it. It wasn't like they were floating in jars full of unidentified liquid, more like sleeping in stasis chambers.

Tiny black eyes blinked repeatedly before focusing on the man in front of him. It slowly pushed itself off the bed and looked at the trio before him.

"Your name is Soul. These are your older sisters Haley Rose and Miyu. I am Master Verde."

Soul stared at him, his mind slowly acquiring the data that Verde had installed. Mostly personality data he had accumulated by recording the others without them knowing. A calm smirk formed on his face.

"Understood, Master Verde."

"You have free run of the base, but you cannot go outside without Miyu escorting you. Haley will answer any questions while your programming properly boots up," said Verde calmly.

Most scientists had a habit of treating their AI as less than human, which lead to quite a few incidents when the AI got pissed and took it out on their creators. There were plenty of American movies on the subject, the most famous of which was the Terminator series.

Verde was not most scientists. He treated his robots better than he did people, and they were more like his children than anything. Well, except Haley and Miyu. He treated them like his sisters. As a result he had yet to have any incidents and his creations tended to act like mother hens, making sure he ate and got enough sleep when he wasn't on a roll.

Soul asked plenty of questions, and soon fell into step with the older girls. He also learned that sitting on a shoulder provided some very...interesting...views.

By the time Verde finished awakening the rest, all designed after his fellow I Presceti Sette...with the exception of himself and Luce, he had been around them for a full year.

He almost forgot what it was like to be around others and not feel the urge to leave or kill someone.

He was never telling them about their "toddler" selves though. He'd never live it down, he knew that for a fact.