The mysterious N you'd been talking to definitely knew their stuff, all it took was some emails and pictures of L sent to him to have him intrigued and agree to help. You expected a wise old man or something, a tech expert graduate from a top university. So when you walked in the door to his house, you were shocked to find him a mere 14 year old boy.

Near as he was called, had quite the collection of persacoms all helping around the house as if they were older siblings. Parents? Nowhere to be seen. He says he does have adoptive ones, but they work during the day and hence, weren't there at the time. Even though you found it a little strange this small 14 year old boy was trusted alone in an expensive house with tons of persacoms, you figured you'd not judge the strange ways of the family and just accept the help from him.

"He's amazingly crafted..." Near muttered, examining L from head to toe, taking in all the details.

"You think he's a custom? Everyone else I've asked says so" you asked.

"No doubt about it, he's definitely a custom. No persacom on the market has a slouch or eyebags like that, someone made him from scratch"

L allowed the smaller boy to look in his eyes, ear ports, the chords and plugs he had. All while not making a fuss and staying well behaved, L was rather used to people poking around with his tech by now.

"I think it's safe to say everything from the skeleton to the hair rooting was done by hand, I don't know a single brand that makes persacoms like him. And with such a complex AI, he must be programmed from scratch too" Near explained.

The kid was clearly extremely intelligent for his age, despite how small he was and his oversized pyjamas swallowing him, his brain was clearly massive. All that knowledge has to be stored somewhere.

"He has a password that I can't get past, he doesn't know it either so I haven't been able to get into his files. You think you could?" You asked.

"I can definitely try, I'd love to know what he's made from as well. I've never seen a persacom like this" Near replied.

He checked L's chords and ports again, making sure they were compatible with his persacoms.

"He seems to have a universal port so anything the right shape can plug into him. This shouldn't be too hard, L can you sit down for me?" He instructed.

L nodded, sitting on the nearby sofa.

"Matt, can you run a scan on him and try to break past the password?"

A persacom in Nears collection stepped up, he had red hair, wore stripes and his ear ports were painted to match the stripes on his shirt. The top red and bottom black. He wore goggles around his neck, and stood much taller than Near.

"I'll back everything I find up onto my hard drive so you can transfer it to your computer" he replied.

Matt sat beside L, taking a chord from his ear port and plugging it into L's.

"Matt's my most tech powerful, I designed him specifically for hacking and programming so if he can't break past it, then no one can" Near explained.

Matt being a full size custom gave you some hope, Rem was too small to handle such a big task, but hopefully Matt could.

"Ready L?" Near asked.

"Ready!" L replied, eager to crack that password as well.

"Commencing scan..." Matt said, the two persacoms entering said mode and a blank look coming over their faces as they tried to exchange data.

While Matt attempted to break through L's password, you decided to take the time to ask Near a few questions. After all, being 14 and so smart must make life rather interesting.

"If you don't mind me asking... why have you made so many persacoms? Is it just a hobby or do they all have jobs around the house?" You asked.

"Both. They all help with day to day tasks since the property is so big, and I wanted to make them all custom because I just never really clicked with any of the ones on the market... they're all pre-programmed to be a certain way and have generic personalities. I wanted a unique one" he explained.

Unique they definitely were. Matt was made for technology based work, and had a red and black grunge theme to him. There was a persacom helping with the tasks around the house that had longer blonde hair and all black ear ports. He wore head to toe black, a punk like aesthetic to him, and his speech patterns were a bit tough love. There was also a girl persacom you'd passed who was helping with the chores, she had her hair in pigtails and wore paint stained clothes. She seemed to be an art based persacom made for decorating and creating.

"How many do you have?" You asked.

"3 fully functional ones at the moment, I'm working on more. Matt, Mello and Linda. I'm trying to get my first one, A, up and running again. He malfunctioned a while ago and needs some repairs, I wasn't as experienced when I made him so I'm not surprised he eventually malfunctioned" Near explained.

"Woah, you could make a job out of this or something. You're so good at it, I'm sure people would pay a lot for customs" you replied.

"That's what my foster dad has been telling me, maybe when I'm older I'll do something like that. For now I'm good with my own customs... in truth I think I'm so precise about the way I make mine because I want them to feel as human as possible. Like... older siblings, a family. I never had any, and now I'm adopted I guess I just wanted to complete the family feeling..."

You had noticed that each of his persacoms had a very distinct personality, it made them feel alone more genuine and human than an off the shelf persacom. It was kind of sweet he cared so much for his customs to make them into sibling figures. But also a bit sad that he never had a family up until now, and felt the need to make one by any means necessary.

He was about to continue, but a sudden thud caught you both off guard and you turned to face the source. You were shocked to find Matt slumped over and collapsed half off the sofa, shut down.

"Matt? MATT!" Near exclaimed, getting up and rushing over to make sure he wasn't broken.

He picked up they persacom, checking for any damage.

"Oh thank god, he just went into surge mode... that's insane, L must have a super computer in him if he can make a full size persacom have a power surge" Near said, booting up Matt again.

You got up and walked over to L, who seemed completely fine and came out of scan mode perfectly normally.

"Are you all there? In tact?" You asked him, checking his chords. Luckily this time they didn't explode.

"L is ok, no data lost" he replied.

That's so strange, how can he be so powerful that a whole full size persacom can't hold his power?

Matt sat back up, seeming a little dazed.

"You ok Matt? No data lost?" Near asked.

"I'm ok, I automatically saved progress before I surged. Should I log the surge?" Matt replied.

"Yes keep track of that. Could you access him?"

"No, I tried to break the password but before I could even crack the first letter I surged. He has too much power for my computer to handle"

You and Near just starred at the two persacoms, confused. What on earth was L made of that caused him to surge a whole other persacom?

"Sorry Matt, L didn't know you'd get surged" L apologised.

"It's alright, no one knows just how powerful you are. It's worth a try" Matt replied.

It was small things like that which made him seem all the more human, the fact his AI could understand when he's caused a mistake or problem and knew to say sorry even though you'd never taught him too. Once you taught him what sorry meant, he was able to figure out how and when to use it.

"Matt can you just sit back and record the surge for me? I'll have Mello take over" Near asked.

"Alright, I'll document the surge. Thank you for letting me re-process" Matt replied.

Near called in Mello, having Matt sit at the desk to document his power surge. Mello came in, seeing Matt processing a surge made him realise what had happened.

"You're not gonna make me surge too are ya?" He joked.

"No, there's no use trying to connect you to L when we know he's too powerful to access with our technology. I need you to scan his appearance though, and see if you can find anything similar on the internet. Maybe somewhere super deep in a forum the original owner posted about him" Near replied.

"Yeah alright, you owe me"

"I made you"

"I'm the one doing all the research around here"

Mello was a rather impressive persacom as well, he interacted with Near like a teasing older brother despite being a program in a robot body. He and Matt seemed rather human as well, although there was still a digital flare to them that reminded you they were persacoms.

Mello used the cameras in his eyes to scan L's appearance, front, back and sides, using it to scale the internet for anything that might even barely resemble L. A model type, a reference picture, a data dump, anything.

"You're one big mystery aren't you L? A very impressive one too" Near complimented.

L tilted his head, taking a moment to understand what Near said.

"Impressive?" He questioned.

"Yeah, it means... actually can you look for definitions of words?"

L took a moment to search for the definition of the word, the familiar electric hum he made when processing emitting from him.

"Impressive: evoking admiration through size, quality, or skill; grand, imposing, or awesome" L stated.

"That's right. If you can just look up the meaning of things, why ask about it every time?" You asked.

"Because L wants to know how (y/n) views it, that way I can understand you and help you better" he replied.

"That's incredible... he's learnt to ask his owner for their point of view so there's no miscommunication..." Near muttered, admiring the complexity of L.

Mello perked up, having run through a scan of the internet and coming up with a result.

"I've found an image, it's a 90% match to L visually" He said.

Near was quick to pick up his laptop and pull a chord from Mellos ear port.

"Send it to me" he asked.

Mello sent the image into Nears laptop, and he opened the file to see what the match was.

"No way... (y/n) look at this"

You looked over his shoulder down at the screen, a full size image of a persacom that looked almost identical to L was shown plugged into god knows how many wires. He was curled up, wore a body suit if some kind and looked to be a prototype.

"That has to be him... where was this posted?" You asked.

"The data says it's on a persacom collectors forum, posted several weeks ago with no caption or other attachments. The account is anonymous and hasn't been uses since" Mello explained, running through the images data.

"That looks exactly like him... it has to be him..." Near muttered, zooming in on the picture for more details.

You beckoned L over, and he came up to you to look at the screen as well, holding onto your arm to get in closer.

"L do you recognise his image, or the place it was taken in?" You asked.

There it was, that nagging deja vu... he'd definitely seen this before but he had no idea where or how. Although there was something odd about the picture, it looked like him but... it wasn't him. He could just tell, that wasn't him. The persacom was very similar, but not quite the same.

"Image not learnt... location... not learnt" L said.

"What? But... it looks just like you..." you replied.

L just shrugged, he didn't know what to tell you. He did feel a familiarity, but he just knew that the picture wasn't him.

Wherever this image came from, it was definitely the place that made L. Even if that one in the picture wasn't YOUR L, it had to have been a prototype or something, it was too similar to not have something to do with L.

You looked at L, then back at the picture. It had to be connected, you just knew it.

"Near we need to find out where this picture came from..."