"What do you think, Fossette? Pick one."

With the dog on the bed and them kneeling on the carpet, Viper set out the photos they had cut in front of him. After gathering and reading pamphlets and ads, Viper had narrowed it down to the three most ideal property.

Viper would just love the internet.

Unfortunately, the shared data bank had yet to get anywhere near to the point that it'd be useful to them (actually, the internet was like the Akashic Records, only less accurate and omnipotent but Viper could take that trade-off if it meant not being cold all the time.)

Viper watched Fossette play around on the bed with the chew toy they had acquired. So oblivious.

Unlike parallel/past, there had been no pet culling in Europe after the beginning of second world war broke out. There was no war here.

At least not the same one. There was almost always war.

There was a political war in Europe, but there had been no declarations and no drafting for soldiers.

As far as they were aware, bloodshed were reserved for the underworld, as it had always been.

Viper blinked and scowled, catching themself thinking of things unrelated to them again.

Honestly.

"Have you made your decision?" They reached over to scratch him behind his ear, pushing the scraps closer to him.

He sniffed at them, cocked his head to the side before licking one.

Fossette also then licked the next one with barely a pause but Viper had taken it as his answer and removed the rest.

"Great choice, Fossette." It was the largest one, more of an estate than a house, and near a beach with plenty of space.

Viper patted him and he wagged his tail, panting. All big brown eyes and pink tongue.

So cute.

They stood up, stretching, "Are you hungry, Fossette? I'm hungry too. Come on, let's have lunch."

Viper scooped him up, cradling the puppy in their arms. The hotel was pet friendly, one of those very high-end sort with some prominent customers, so they opted not to prohibit pets in case some VIPs threw a tantrum. By the way, they had taken a room with a price just below VIP.

Getting the leash from the bag Darren had given them, they fastened it on him and then put him down.

Fossette immediately headed to the door, yipping. Viper flicked a hand, unlocking it and then closing it behind the two of them.

The beagle was really energetic. Even with their size difference, because of the years Viper spent getting out of anything even remotely physically taxing and their own slight physique, they had to cheat a bit to keep a hold of him without stumbling.

And that was while he's still a puppy.

Viper observed him going up to objects and people, doing his own little baby bark. They took the stairs down to the restaurant on the ground floor.

Almost instantly, they spotted Luce and Renato by the door and Viper made a beeline to the last vacant space one table away from them.

Bad luck, alright.

Viper picked up Fossette, nodding at the waiter who gave them a high chair for him while they scanned the menu.

As they waited, they entertained Fossette, teaching him to hit their palms to match with their paws. The spaces between tables were far enough that no one could reasonably complain at them, so they set him his little plate and snuck some of the dog food from the suitcase still floating above them like a halo. The acoustic was also rather poor, so his barks didn't echo and the conversations around them were mere indecipherable babble to Viper.

Their meal -salad, fish and potatoes, and then a follow up chocolate dipped fruit dessert- arrived and Viper ate their fill.

They didn't stay longer than they needed to.

Standing up with their puppy, they turned and met hollow russet eyes.

Finally though, someone actually managed to side step them and avoid crashing into the Mist.

But this in turn made Luce bump into Fon.

"Ah! I'm sorry-"

Viper watched his and Renato's eyes meet.

Renata drew Luce closer to him and Fon passed by them, the interaction of all four of them lasting no longer than a split second.

Viper made small talk with Fossette, not bothering to let him go as they returned to their room.

Changing into something warmer -and therefore not publicly conspicuous since it was cold but America was hardly freezing yet and no one actually wore seven layered fur robes outside- Viper lied on their back, letting Fossette explore the room. Anything toxic had been put away, and Viper purposefully left curious things for him to play with. If anything broke, they could just pay for it and the wisps of Mist dancing around him would ensure that he would be protected from shards and anything equally harmful.

The ceiling had strings of brown roses printed into it, a silver chandelier in the middle.

Viper didn't ponder over fate often, if ever, but they really had to start questioning it right now.

They reviewed what they knew of the seven.

Verde -confirmed to be Delta-, twenty-five years old, born in May 2, 1915, and formerly Veronika Volodin. He had spent his earlier years in Russia, the first daughter of an affluent family with a younger sister and a younger brother. The younger brother had died of a Flame affliction, and as research in that area wasn't progressing too well, even as their family almost went bankrupt, in the end he still died. Presumably motivated by his brother's death, he'd dove headfirst into the Mafia where he'd proceeded to change everything everyone knew about Flames. From something almost superstitious and more of a hit and miss that was painstakingly recorded by famiglias and carefully hoarded, he'd compiled laws and rules to deal with it, pulling away the curtain of its mystique. Ever since, he'd branched out into multiple scientific endeavours, in particular making Flame technology serviceable even to non-Active. Viper had observed that he was rather whimsical when it came to his research, dropping something when he was bored, switching to something completely unrelated, or then returning to an almost forgotten research.

Luce di Giglio Nero, twenty-three years old and born in January 15, 1917 as the youngest child of the Giglio Nero Settimo. Her four older brothers and sisters had been killed -assassinated- by Hitler's faction, specifically Conrad himself in an operation lead by Lalima after they contrived against the man, though Viper doubted she was aware of that fact yet. Being the last and only one to survive, she was in hiding from their enemies.

Or so they had thought, evidently she had crossed paths with Renato.

Renato Sinclair, twenty one year old Vongola bastard, born in October 13, 1918. He'd turn twenty two in a few days. Born to the younger half-brother of Vongola Settimo, initially raised as a civilian, the death of his mother had him taken in by a Vongola associate when he was twelve. He was also a learned telepath. It was messed up, really, as he was essentially under forced servitude to the famiglia. Daniela couldn't afford anyone with Vongola's blood to go unaccounted, so it was either that or his death.

Lalima, twenty years old and born in February 20, 1920 in Pakistan, she had been inducted into a global government program with the objective to create agents to establish a department specifically against the Flame-centered crimes. They had undergone training and conditioning to activate their Flames (a study and operation Delta participated in). Later, she had been picked up by Hitler when she was fifteen and quickly climbed the ranks as his most trusted and most effective field marshall, doing his bidding. Currently, she was in a trail tracking down Luce.

Fon, also known as Feng, was the son of the late Hibari patriarch's daughter to another man, nineteen years old and born in March 3, 1921. He was the pet project of his Triad clan and his stepfather. Raised into their perfect assassin, he had gained infamy for his particularly potent Storm Flames and martial prowess. He had quite the giant reputation in Asia and it preceded him across the world. Something to note, was that he had a younger half-sister by his mother's husband, and then an older brother and a younger sister by his mother's lover. His mother's indiscretions was quite the subject topic at the time as she had been married into the Triads to establish an alliance with the Hibari family.

And a few weeks ago, there had been a skirmish between the Vongola Alliance and the Hitler faction that had caught his father, sister, and brother in the crossfire.

You'd have thought he'd have gone straight to Germany or Italy, not America.

There was also the concern of their encounter, brief as it was, he might've gleaned something of them.

Only Storms were naturally inclined to sensing Flames. By virtue, Storm Flames couldn't exist in the same space as other Flames, as they naturally destroyed anything in contact. And the Storm would be able to feel whenever their Flames reacted and were in the process of destroying something (even if they couldn't stop it) and that feature doubled as an alarm.

Viper curled to their side, snuggling into Fossette after he'd finished with his laps around the room.

Conrad Huber, eighteen years old -though twenty-one on paper- was born in July 7, 1922. He'd been raised by a father that had been all about hypermasculinity, signing his own underaged son into the army and just generally being an abusive piece of shit.

(Okay, so Viper might've taken an unnecessarily closer look into this one, but you couldn't blame them, he was the first one who'd ever made them feel so much warmth since Viper could recall.)

Fortunately, the guy died not that long ago in a very suspicious manner. By the doctor's accounts, the guy had been healthy if a bit malnourished and some problems with the kidney, but nothing that should've warranted him dying in his sleep like that (oh pssh, patricide? Viper wasn't one to judge).

Surprisingly, and a bit disconcerting, the Cloud Skull de Mort was the most mysterious. Viper, for the life of them, couldn't find anything on where he came from. As if for all intents and purposes, he'd just popped up in this world. All they knew of him was that at least in one sense, he was definitely immortal, dying almost hourly in his practices to perfect his stunts. They'd even taken the immortal part even further and looked into centuries past, maybe he'd just been into hiding previously, or even languishing in some random coffin before he founded the Circque Du Trio D'or and decided to become a stuntman.

Viper had found zilch.

A curious group of people. Diverse and truly remarkable.

Just recounting everything sent a shiver through them -fear or excitement, they weren't ready to look closer into that- and Viper was almost proud to be lumped in with such potentials, even if it was just in another world.

Of course, pride was different from joy and their vice was supposed to be greed, not pride, so it was easy to relish in it a bit and then set it aside.

Distantly, as they dozed off, they wondered what Fon was doing in America for.