Title: There's an alien lizard taking a nap on our spaceship's windshield

Summary: Reborn is said alien mentioned in the title. I don't think you need more information than that.

Background: Sci-fi aliens


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"You need to come see this!" Skull cries out when he bursts into the common room on the Arcobaleno spaceship.

No one reacts past Mammon tossing out some poker chips in response to Fon's raise.

"Um, hello?!" Skull splutters. "Get up, guys! This is not a drill!"

Lal sighs and places her cards down. "Fold." She turns in the high-backed chair to face the ship's pilot. "Listen, Skull, not to be rude but literally no one cares about your new high score."

Colonnello snickers. "Captain's orders, Skull. No one's allowed to care."

"I never said no one was allowed to care," Lal corrects the mechanic. "But this is the fifth time this month. At some point it gets annoying."

"It's not about the game," Skull whines and flops his hands at the people sitting at the round table. "It – it's – just come and look."

Verde whips around in his chair with a frown on his face. "How about you stop wasting our time and just tell us what you think is so damn interesting, and then we can decide if it's worth the effort of getting up or not."

Skull stares, clearly not able to find the words.

Everyone turns back to their poker game, where the ship's supply officer has suddenly gained several more piles of chips that they should not have.

"There's an alien lizard taking a nap on our spaceship's windshield," Skull finally just blurts out.

There's a sudden stampede of people rushing to the command room where they all stagger to a halt once they see what's on the glass.

The Arcobaleno ship is angled like two bisecting arrow heads. The point is where the command room is, while the middle is the common room. The north end is bedrooms, east is training room, south has supplies and west has the medical and science equipment set up.

The command room is set up so that the front of the ship can be seen through the window and it slopes gently upwards to span the entire ceiling.

There is a humanoid lizard lying on it's side near the base of the window, arms arranged under its head, long legs curled up slightly, and thin tail flopped over the alien's waist.

The scaled body looks smooth and it's pitch black, only the lights of the control room making the alien stand out against the backdrop of space.

Lal glares at Skull. "How long has that been there?"

"Like ten minutes!" Skull cries. "It walked across the window then just lay down and went to sleep!"

"Ten minutes?" Fon echoes, incredulous. "What were you doing for ten minutes before you came to us?"

"I tried to shoo it off," Skull admits and makes a little shooing motion with his hands like he's trying to usher child outside to play.

"Jesus. Fucking. Christ," Colonnello deadpans. "Who the hell let you into space, Skull?"

Verde walks closer to get a better look. "How is it still alive in a vacuum?" he muses to himself. "It must be a space faring race. Unless the scales are a protective suit?"

Mammon smirks. "Since we don't have a windshield wiper, who's going out there to get rid of it?"

"Not it!" several voices yell in unison.

"Not it," Fon tries, just a bit late.

Lal waves off the others who peer at Fon with pity in their eyes. "We're not sending out our medic."

"He's also a martial artist," Colonnello points out. "So if the alien tries to lay face-hugger babies in him then he's got the best chance out of us all."

Verde raises an eyebrow. "None of the hundreds of aliens we've met have tried to lay babies in us."

Skull points at the scientist. "Exactly. We're long due for a classic alien to pop up."

"Plus none have been humanoid in nature," Lal chips in, not for the stupid baby argument but for this alien possibly being a danger.

"It's moving," Mammon observes.

Everyone abruptly shuts up to watch the alien shift around onto it's back, it's tail flicking around lazily to tap against the glass. The alien hauls itself up into a sitting position and looks around into space.

Then it glances over it's shoulder and visibly startles at seeing everyone. In a split second the alien is crouched low on all fours, further down the front of the ship so that only its eyes and up are peeking through the window.

"Skull," Lal begins. "Did it see you move before it went to sleep?"

"Well… no."

Fon takes a step closer but the alien's fully black eyes go wide and it quickly crawls away to the underside of the ship.

"Wo~ow," Colonnello drags out. "What a little bitch."

"Really?" Lal deadpans.

"I mean," Colonnello continues. "I was all ready to be terrified of the thing but it sees Fon and immediately fucks off."

"It had a nose and mouth," Verde mutters, patting his pockets to find a tablet he can use to take notes. "I didn't get a good look at it's hips, but the tail was prehensile. Ears were hidden by the hair. The way it moved indicated human ligaments and joints, but it seemed comfortable crawling…"

"We should leave it," Fon recommends. "It's not violent, and it would be mean to shove it off into space."

"It's clearly fine with space," Lal contests. "It must have some way of moving since we sure as hell didn't have it when we left the Famiglia."

"The Famiglia is pretty big," Mammon argues. "But no, I think it might have been that asteroid field a while back. It could have been piggybacking on a rock, decided our ship looked more comfortable, and then hopped on."

Lal hums, contemplating what the best course of action would be. "Alright, it seems harmless. If it's not gone by the time we reach the new planet then we have to get rid of it. I'd feel a bit bad if it burned up on entry."


The next day Skull and Colonnello are lazing around in the command room, eating popcorn while watching the movie projected onto the glass.

Right up until Fon steps into view and just walks across the front of the glass without a spacesuit like nothing is wrong. Fon then sits down on the glass and stares at Skull and Colonnello.

Colonnello slowly reaches for the radio and dislodges a small speaker from his desk. "Hey," he says quietly into the device, his voice being transmitted all over the ship. "Uh, does anyone know where Fon is right now?"

"I'm here," Fon replies after a moment. "Is something wrong?"

Skull snatches the speaker. "I think I see your twin."

"Did Kyouya split off from the Vongola again?"

"Does he still need a suit to survive in space?" Skull replies. "Because if so, it's not him."

Fon enters the command room first and stares, quickly followed by the others, who also stare.

"Huh," Mammon mutters. "I always knew Kyouya was a bit of a weird one."

Verde, curious as always, walks right up until he's practically pressed against the glass. Kyouya peers back and blinks. It blinks both its inner clear eyelid, which goes sideways, and then it's normal eyelid shutters closed.

"So the lizard is a chameleon," Verde states.

Lal frowns. "We are never letting that thing onto our ship. Also, no one is to go outside. We're leaving it alone."

The Kyouya impersonator suddenly seems to ripple, like the skin was painted onto thousands of butterfly wings that flicker closed, only to open again with the face of Verde, glasses and all.

Colonnello purses his lips. "I really want to show it a picture of a porn star."

Lal jabs him in the ribs hard enough that he doubles over with a wheeze. Fake Verde seems to realise it's not getting anywhere with the face it's using and crawls off again.

Only an hour later and Boondock Saints is interrupted by a man stepping onto the front of the ship, dressed in the light blue t-shirt of the rocket scientists like Colonnello plus the basic dark grey cargo pants used as the uniform for all explorer teams like the pants Skull is wearing.

The man swaggers up to the glass, skin a lovely olive tone like Verde's, black hair swept back like Lal except without the short ponytail, two locks of hair hanging down before the ears like Mammon though these are half curled, and finally almond shaped eyes coloured a soft charcoal like Fon.

The man then sits down cross-legged on the glass and appears to act casual, looking around like he has nowhere else to be and this is just a daily thing for him.

Lal, who's in the command room but is actually doing work and writing up a report instead of slacking off like Colonnello or Skull, immediately states, "Just ignore the lizard."

"That is a very difficult thing to do," Colonnello admits.

Skull taps around on the wrist brace and turns up the opacity for the movie until they can no longer see the lizard.

This new version of the lizard hangs around on the glass for a few days, changing outfits occasionally depending on who it sees first. It seems to like Verde's clothes, black slacks and a button up shirt.

They get used to it pretty quickly.

Skull chatters at it even though it certainly can't hear anything through the thick glass. Colonnello uses a laser pointer to make it crawl around the ceiling of the room. Mammon takes pictures of it and tries to sell it to their creepy black-market friends back on Famiglia.

Fon likes to go through some tai chi with it because the lizard will follow along, it's tail stretching out to keep balance on the trickier moves. Verde takes notes on everything it does, almost obsessively recording it.

Lal just watches it warily.


About a week and a half after finding the lizard, the occupants of Arcobaleno gather in the common room around the huge table that serves as their gambling station.

Lal currently has the holograms taking on the vague topography of the planet they're going to land on. They're going to touch down a fortnight from now so they need to be making plans for where they're going to set up base.

The sliding doors around the common room are set to open and close with each person entering. They used to stay open but then everyone in the ship can hear Mammon loudly counting their money after winning a bet so as a rule the doors stay closed.

One sliding door swishes open softly.

Everyone hears it, since only Lal is talking about the grassland of the planet, but no one pays it any attention. That sound is a daily constant whenever you enter or exit most rooms so it's all background noise.

"What do you think?" Lal ends with, looking up from the map.

She gets multiple sounds and mutters of agreement.

"Yep," Skull chirps again, except the voice comes from the other side of the table to where Skull is.

Fon and Verde very slowly turn to face the person standing between them.

"Yep," the lizard chirps again, mimicking Skull's voice exactly, right down to the faint Australian accent the pilot got from spending a few years there. "Yep, yep."

Everyone slowly starts backing away from the man who looks like an Italian model.

"Yep," the lizard continues, taking in the room with wide black eyes.

Once the humans gather safely in the corner of the room, near an exit, Verde starts muttering about the lizard's vocal chords and mimicry.

"Not the time, Verde," Lal hisses. "Who the fuck let it inside?"

"Why would any of us let it in?" Mammon snaps back.

"Nyofuslet," the lizard barks out in Mammon's pissed off voice, apparently picking out sounds it hears at random and assuming that they make a word.

The supply manager jabs a finger at the alien. "Don't you copy me, asshole."

The lizard blinks innocently. "Asshole."

"Great," Fon sighs. "It's already learnt a swear word."

The lizard putters around the table and then sits down, tail awkwardly wriggling around until it finally just flops over the backrest. The lizard starts touching the holograms, making the view zoom in then out then spin around. It also picks up then puts down several pens and sheets of paper scattered around.

While it does these things it continually flicks glances over to the humans as if checking something.

Skull squints at it. "Is it just me or is the lizard trying to act like what it thinks a human does?"

"That's so cute," Fon murmurs quietly.

The lizard finally stops playing with things and sits still, watching them while trying to not make it obvious that it's watching.

"We know you're not a human," Skull calls out. "How stupid do you think we are?"

"Stupid asshole," the lizard says in a mix of Skull and Mammon's voices.

Colonnello clears his throat like he's definitely not smothering a laugh and looks at Lal pleadingly. "I know you said we can't keep it but it did just call Skull a stupid asshole so I feel like it's an honorary member of the Arcobaleno already…"

Lal ignores the blond and turns to Fon. "Get rid of it."

Fon hesitates but walks over to it. The lizard stands up and grabs a coffee mug, which it presents to Fon when the man is close enough.

"Thanks," Fon says with a smile when he takes the mug.

"Yep," the lizard says.

"Yep," Fon responds.

The lizard's tail starts swaying.

Fon looks over his shoulder, expression gleeful. "He's wagging his tail," he tells the others in an awed tone.

"Don't give it a pronoun," Lal says flatly. "Just chuck it out of the airlock."

"It's not causing trouble," Verde murmurs. "And look, it has no trouble breathing oxygen. Does its biology not need the assistance of gases to function in homeostasis?"

"Let me get this straight," Lal begins. "You all want to keep an unidentified alien, who is obviously intelligent enough to break into our ship, as a pet?"

"Yep," they all state.

"Yep!" the lizard chimes in.

"You have no say in this," Lal tells the alien as if that string of sounds means anything.

"Stupid asshole."

"Airlock," Lal snaps at Fon. "Now."

"He doesn't know what he's saying," Fon argues quickly.

"Yep."

"Oh no," Skull groans. "We've taught him the three worst words in the Italian language."

"Speaking of," Mammon begins. "We should all switch to English now so he doesn't get confused when I sell him to – tell him to, uh, say hello to the, uh…" Mammon trails off. "I've got nothing."

"Didn't even bother trying to cover that, huh?" Colonnello questions.

"I just think you know me well enough to not care when I say shit like that," Mammon admits.

"Shit," the lizard copies.

"No more swearing," Fon announces.

"No."

Fon glances at the lizard. "Go back to saying 'yep'."

"No."

Everyone turns to Lal, who is the main force of discipline. Lal just throws her hands up. "It's your pet, don't look at me."


"Guys!" Skull cries in glee, skidding into the room.

He's followed by the lizard who crawls in along the ceiling.

"Listen, listen," Skull says and gestures at the lizard.

The lizard twists gracefully as it drops from the ceiling and blinks at the room full of humans. "I am a hooman," the lizard says.

Fon coos.

"No," Verde says sternly. "We are teaching it proper Italian."


A short but sturdy scaled bear roars as it chases Colonnello through long grass, along the edge of a cliff.

The blond is still strapped into most of his climbing gear, weighing him down as he vaults over giant fallen stone pillars, an interesting sign of higher intelligence and thus the reason Colonnello climbed the cliff in the first place.

He chances a glance over his shoulder and tags the gap in plates under the creature's knees as a weakness. Colonnello was too far from his gun when the creature attacked and he really doesn't want to test it in close combat when it's like twice his size, but if he needs to he can try the knees.

"How you going?" Skull asks lazily through the ear piece.

"Suck my dick," Colonnello pants, the space suit too well made to fog up but he's blinking sweat out of his eyes because it's too damn humid and that cuts down his vision anyway.

"If you make it back alive, consider it done," Skull laughs. "Don't worry, Fon's almost there."

Colonnello does spot a hint of Fon's red space suit as the martial artist hauls himself over the edge of the cliff, having come from the ship sitting down below.

Reborn follows, back in his lizard form. He spots Colonnello, glances at the bear thing and then spits out a yellow ball of fire that skims past the blond.

Colonnello is thrown to the ground from the force of the explosion behind him and groans into the long grass.

"Well," Fon says.

"I swear to God," Colonnello begins. "If you say Reborn is cute one more time…"

Fon just says nothing.


.

Other story lines within this one:

1. Mammon gets Reborn a collar, which is great because they lose him a lot.

2. Reborn ends up on the Vongola, in his human form, and Tsuna never questions the man's credentials until Verde comes to take him back.

3. Dino is hysterical upon realising that the Arcobaleno have caught themselves a pet Star Parasite.

4. Named after the fact that Reborn usually flies into a star and slurps up all that molten fire for food. His kind have been known to consume an entire star within weeks.

5. Reborn also eats a lot of corpses. That is a thing that happens.

6. The Arcobaleno see no problem with any of this.

7. Leon is a human and Reborn immediately loves him.

8. Reborn does lay weird alien eggs, and keeps trying to give them to Leon. It's oddly adorable.