I don't have time to be doing this. I am doing it anyway. Have a present.
(When Viper complains about things that aren't money, Colonnello knows something is wrong with the world.)
xxxx
Colonnello blinked when his phone went off, casting a quick glance at his latest batch of trainees to make sure none of them were in immediate life-threatening peril as he answered without having checked the screen. Not many people called him, though, and the island security used the radio, so he was expecting either Lal, Iemitsu, or Reborn.
"Hello," he greeted, neutral in case it was Iemitsu or Lal in a bad mood, but feeling his lack of pre-answer identity check could be excused by the fact that he was actually working.
"Colonnello," a familiarly flat voice replied.
Colonnello blinked again, honestly startled and not quite sure he was hearing right. "... Viper?"
"You've met the Decimo."
It wasn't really a question, but before the Mist had fallen in with the Varia, the miser had been an unaffiliated information broker. Just because any brokering was now done in Varia-approved ways didn't mean Viper wasn't still going to horde any and all information it was possible to gather.
"Yes?" Colonnello asked warily, wondering what was going on.
"He's impossible," Viper stated, an odd tone to the words. "Xanxus has already declared for him, and that is... understandable, and under the circumstances, expected. Unfortunately, that means he can requisition my services without having to pay the usual fees."
Um. Okay?
"... and?" He was kind of scared to ask, because that was the closest he'd heard to respect from the Mist Arcobaleno, for all that it sounded like complaining as well. He knew Xanxus got away without fees, but Xanxus was not only Viper's Sky, he was a Wrath. That made the exception pretty much a given, but the other Varia still had to pay out the nose for anything up to and including passing the salt.
So why exactly was the cute little fluffball (who admittedly ran the training course really well, but, hey, Reborn as a teacher) ranked in alongside Xanxus in the 'no fee' zone?
Viper made an indescribably annoyed sound, "He's having me go over Korea's funding with Reborn. Decimo's crazy underlings conquered and merged two countries for him, and he's making me run the numbers! He says he can't trust his idiots not to make things worse and he doesn't have time to do it himself, and he needs his Storm brat to keep the Sora on track so they don't do something even more crazy!"
Colonnello thought that over from about six different angles and couldn't come up with a better response than "What?"
Viper made an aggrieved sound, "Why does he have to be Xanxus' Sky? Why couldn't he have picked a different Sky to be Transcendent at? The mythological menagerie is already nuts; I don't need to have Decimo's cultists going out and acquiring countries for him! Unifying Japan's Yakuza and the Triads was bad enough! Now he's a newly unified country's monarch! He's fourteen!"
That was... one way to get an explanation. Which. It felt like a 'where's the camera?' moment, but... this was Viper. When Viper messed with minds, it was either for a profit or in self-defense. Or on orders, if Xanxus was the one giving them, although Squalo had only been given minimal fees while the Varia Boss had been incapacitated for an extended period.
Which meant this probably wasn't a joke.
Which in turn meant the world had just tilted sideways and done a jig.
"Um..."
"We barely have the security handled for his instatement as Decimo tomorrow! If something goes wrong, Xanxus is going to break everything, and whatever he misses Reborn will blow up! We don't have time to deal with setting up new governments! How does Decimo attract these things!?"
"... Viper?" Colonnello was completely out of his depth. He had never heard that much emotion from the Arcobaleno Mist ever, and there hadn't been a mention of money past the second sentence. A rant not about money was frankly terrifying.
"You're coming tomorrow," Viper informed, suddenly flat-voiced again. "I don't care if I have to ask Bermuda to get you. You are coming, and you are acting as additional insurance, and you are going to protect Tsunayoshi, and you're probably going to end up as his third Rain but I don't even care. I will hunt down Verde and drag him myself if I have to. That will be all of us, and someone will have to be either insane or just stupid to try anything."
The line clicked before Colonnello could come up with a response, and he was left with a number of answers that led to about three times as many questions.
... So, Reborn's complaint about Tsuna being 'impossible' some months before was starting to make even more sense, and apparently seconded by Viper.
Also, who the hell was 'Bermuda' and why did the miser Mist say the name like he should know the person?
(He refused to even think about the rest of it. His brain was spinning enough just from Viper's tone, he didn't want to try and unravel the content. Besides, he had to make sure none of his current trainees killed themselves or each other.)
xxxx
Viper/Mammon is such a pain to write. I'm not ready to try a from-Viper's-POV quite yet, so this is the closest you'll get for a while. Also, I'm fully intending to follow canon's 'Viper's gender is a mystery' thing, since nowhere is it ever said whether the Arcobaleno Mist is a he or a she. However, I also don't want to use 'it' or 'they', which makes writing the Arcobaleno/Varia Mist is kind of complicated. Ah, well. I try.