¤~Happy Twelfth, Ara-chan~¤
by Scrat with a G

Edited by Tempral Bouncer

a/n: This is something I put together for my friend Ara Moon's twelfth birthday, which is this Monday (June 3, I believe, unless I counted wrong). Hopefully, this will be a good birthday present! The characters involved are Ara (the birthday girl!), me (Scrat), and Tempral (as in Tempral Bouncer), plus some of the Pokécharacters, like Satoshi, Kasumi, Takeshi, etc. Here we go…

Ara Moon lay asleep in her bed. Her light brown hair cascaded across her pillow, and her hazel eyes were closed, fastened in a dream. The first rays of the morning sun streamed through her window. She stirred slightly and awoke. Yawning and stretching, she arose and went straight downstairs to her computer, not noticing the light on in the kitchen. She had to work on the next chapter of Never the Same.
She had just opened Microsoft Word and had barely typed one paragraph when she heard whispering and stifled giggling in the hall behind her. She turned around, but all she saw was a wisp of red hair vanish behind the doorframe and the adjoining wall as someone crept past. Convinced that she was hallucinating, she turned back to her computer and continued typing. About half a sentence later, she heard someone whisper, "Hush, she'll hear you!" Again, thinking she was hearing things, Ara continued working.
Ten minutes or so passed, and Ara began to smell something burning. A cloud of black smoke floated into the room from the kitchen. A male voice shouted, "HOLY FRELL!" Okay, this time, Ara knew she wasn't hearing things. She quickly saved, then traipsed upstairs to see what was going on, only she couldn't get all the way there. Scrat, Ara's friend and slightly insane fellow Pokéauthor, was standing at the bottom of the stairs.
"Scrat!" Ara exclaimed. "What are you doing here? Don't you live in Seattle?"
"No, only on days that end in Y," Scrat said. "But you can't go in there."
"What? Why?" Ara asked. "Scrat, are you burning down my house again?"
"No," Scrat replied. "And I told you, that wasn't my fault! It was all Aesta!" Aesta being Scrat's Flareon.
"Yeah, sure." Ara rolled her eyes. "So what are you doing in there?"
"Um… nothing… yet. Sit, stay." Scrat placed a hand on each of Ara's shoulder and forced her onto the stairs. "I'll be right back." A small purple Pokémon in the shape of a cat bounded in. "Tenshi, you make sure Ara doesn't go anywhere."
Gotcha, the Espeon replied using telepathy. She nodded and planted herself on the ground in front of Ara, watching her every move and twitching her tail suspiciously. Scrat disappeared back into the kitchen.
Ara and Tenshi stared each other down wordlessly for a few minutes, ignoring the swearing and loud banging noises coming from the kitchen, until Scrat popped back in, covered with burn marks and had a large cut above her right eyebrow. She was breathing heavily and there were several rips in her shirt and jeans. Ara looked at her friend, wide-eyed.
"What in the name of Serebii is going on in there!" Ara shrieked. It was more of an exclamation than a question.
"Was she good, Tenshi?" Scrat panted.
Didn't make a peep.
"That's good. Come on, Ara, you can come in now."
"I'm glad you've established it safe for me to enter my own kitchen," Ara said dryly. Ignoring her comment, Scrat grabbed Ara by the wrist and dragged her into the kitchen.
As they entered, a flood of people shouted, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ARA!" Smiling, Ara glanced around. Scrat was grinning, looking like she was about to explode with pride. Tempral Bouncer, a seventeen-year-old Pokéauthor, with brown hair covered up by a cap that read Got Narf? and wearing a light grey shirt with Department of Redundancy Department printed in big black letters, was standing front and center in the crowd, holding a large cake.
The circular ice-cream-cake was chocolate, with chocolate and vanilla ice cream in the center. In white frosting, someone had written on the top, Happy Twelfth, Ara-chan! Multiple fingerprints covered the otherwise untouched chocolate icing. Surrounding Tempral were Satoshi, Kasumi, Takeshi, Shigeru, and several other Pokécharacters, as well as Tenshi and her bishounen, an Umbreon named Akuma, and Aesta, Scrat's aforementioned Flareon. Ara turned to Scrat, who was still next to her, beaming.
"Scrat-chan, did you do all this?"
"Not all of it," she confessed. "Tempral helped with some of it."
"I burned the cake," Tempral admitted proudly.
"Yes you did," Scrat replied. Seeing the look on Ara's face, she quickly added, "Don't worry, we scraped off all the burnt bits. Very carefully…" She glared at Tempral.  Ara said nothing and nodded, only to humor Scrat.
"Let's go eat cake!" Kasumi suggested.
"I'm up for that," Satoshi agreed. Ara giggled as she saw Satoshi slip his hand into Kasumi's. Tempral led the gang into the living room. Everyone grabbed a seat, whether it was on the couch or on the floor. Tempral quickly lit the twelve candles that decorated the cake as Shigeru dimmed the lights.
"Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Ara!" At this point, Tempral quacked for some unknown reason, then resumed singing with the others. "Happy birthday to you!" everyone sang.
Shiawase na tanjoobi, Tenshi said.  Translation at the end?  Or not?
Ara looked around at everyone and closed her eyes before taking a deep breath and blowing out all twelve of the candles. She grinned as all her friends clapped. Tempral leaned over and began to cut the cake. Sizing up each slice, he offered the biggest one to Ara, who took it eagerly.
After everyone finished their cake (except Scrat, who was too busy glomping the sweatdropping and very scared Takeshi to eat), Tenshi announced that it was time for Ara to open her presents.
Wait till you see my present, Ara, you're gonna love it!
Should I be scared? Ara said telepathically to Tenshi.
Um… no.
Just that tone scares me, Tenshi.
Tenshi said nothing, only grinned and scampered off to help Tempral with the gifts. Ara rolled her eyes and turned to comment to Scrat, but Scrat was practically suffocating poor Takeshi.
"Scrat!" Ara exclaimed. Scrat looked up with a cat-getting-caught-eating-the-canary expression on her face.
"It wasn't me. I didn't do it.  You didn't see a thing.  You can't prove anything." She spoke at such a rapid pace that Ara could hardly translate what her hyperactive friend was saying into normal English.
"What are you doing to Takeshi?"
"Nothing."
"It doesn't look like nothing."
"That's okay. He likes it." She grinned.
"I'm sure he does."
"Help me," Takeshi squeaked, barely loud enough for Ara to hear.
"Scrat-chan, please get off of Takeshi. You're going to scar him for life," Ara said calmly.
"Already been taken care of!" Scrat beamed. Ara sweatdropped heavily. "Oh all right, all right…" She stopped huggling Takeshi.
"Good girl."
"Air!" Takeshi exclaimed. "Sweet, sweet air…"
Ara rolled her eyes. Tempral, Akuma, Aesta and Tenshi wandered back in, carrying the presents. They dumped them on the coffee table. Ara leaned over and selected a large one wrapped in red shimmery paper.
"This one's from Scrat-chan," Ara read off the tag. Scrat watched, her eyes glittering. "Stop that, Scrat, you're scaring me."
"Sorry." She blinked a couple times and her eyes returned to normal. Ara quickly tore open the package to reveal several pairs of flannel green plaid boxers.
"Boxers!" Ara cried. "Thank you, Scrat!"
"Look in the bottom of the box," Scrat said. Ara dug through the packaging popcorn to reveal a pair of yellow boxers with pink Sugar Babies logos scattered across the material.
"Sugar Babies boxers!"
Scrat grinned. "Jesse McCartney has Sugar Babies boxers. I have a picture." She whipped out a photograph and handed it to Ara. It was a close-up of Jesse McCartney's butt, and his jeans were sagging about an inch to reveal his yellow and pink Sugar Babies boxers.
You carry that around with you? Tenshi asked skeptically.
"Sure, why not?" Scrat shrugged, not seeing why this was weird. "Anyway, I figured that if Jesse McCartney has Sugar Babies boxers, then you should too!"
"Thanks, Scrat-chan," Ara said, smiling. She folded all seven pairs of boxers – including the "sexay" Sugar Babies boxers – and put them back in the box.
Eventually, Ara got all of the presents unwrapped. Besides Scrat-chan's boxers, Ara received a flamethrower from Aesta, a framed photo of her bishounen, Shaun, from Tenshi and Akuma, a mallet from Kasumi (which made Satoshi and Takeshi sweatdrop in fear), and an aerosol can of Writer's-Block-B-Gone and a Got Narf? hat of her very own from Tempral.
"Thanks, everyone," Ara said, hugging the photo of Shaun. That was when she noticed Scrat sneaking up behind Tempral. Ara was just about to warn him when she stopped herself, deciding that this could be good. Scrat crept up behind the unknowing Tempral and snatched his Got Narf? hat. Cackling, she scampered off.
"SCRAT!" Tempral screamed. "GET BACK HERE!" He picked up Ara's new flamethrower and chased after her. A moment later, Tempral strutted back in with his cap on his head and a grin on his face. Scrat followed Tempral, glowering at him and covered with more burn marks.
You'd think she'd be used to it, living with me, Aesta commented. Satoshi and Kasumi laughed.
Then, just like at LoSeR LeRoY's birthday party, the remaining cake exploded and everyone disappeared.

a/n: Happy birthday to Ara Moon from all of us! ^^

Disclaimer: I dun own Pokémon, although that'd be pretty cool if I did, no? Tempral and Ara own themselves. Ara owns Tenshi and Akuma, and I own Scrat and Aesta, as well as the leash on Takeshi. Oh yeah, and I own the exploding cake too.

-Guide to Japanese-
bishounen ~ hottie, boyfriend, etc.
shiawase na tanjoobi ~ happy birthday
Tenshi ~ angel
Akuma ~ devil
Satoshi ~ Ash
Kasumi ~ Misty
Takeshi ~ Brock
Shigeru ~ Gary

¤~HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ARA~¤

We Love You!