Mikau: Hello! Today is my brother's birthday. Let's all sing 'Happy Birthday' to Jordan! Lol…Okay, I really like the first half of the chapter. I've really missed writing in Ivy's POV, so I really loved this chapter. Though, I tend to be more poetic in my descriptions and stuff when I write in Thorn's POV. This chapter also features a guest appearance by our favorite Devil: Lucifer! Yes, I couldn't help it.

Disclaimer: I don't own Shaman King.

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Happy Birthday

"Happy Birthday to me…" I sang gloomily, pouring a gray liquid into a test tube. I didn't really pay much attention to what it was I was mixing. It might have been silicon. "Happy Birthday to me…" Next I picked up a greenish vile labeled 'Krypton'. "Happy Birthday dear Ivy…" In went a tiny amount of what could have been Argon. "Happy Birthday to you." A single drop of Phosphorous somehow got into the mixture and it caused a small explosion.

Glass went flying everywhere, and some sort of gas wafted into the air, making me cough; luckily I had on protective goggles so I didn't get glass particles in my eyes. Unfortunately the rest of my body wasn't covered very well in my green capris and black tank top. I pulled off the glasses, letting my hair drop into my face, and started picking the pieces of glass out of my skin. I didn't feel any of it, and I didn't start bleeding.

I glared down at the wretched body I was trapped in. It wasn't like a real body at all. I didn't feel pain, my heart didn't beat, and no blood ran through my veins. It was worse than being dead. To live in a corpse was beyond Hell.

Speaking of Hell, "I can help you." A seductive voice from behind me cooed.

"Leave me alone. How many times must I say 'no' before you get it?"

"Ivy-koi, it makes me happy just to hear your voice; I'd be content to stay here and listen to you tell me 'no' for the rest of all eternity." A hand snaked its way around my waist, and slowly pulled me backwards until I was pressed up against the owner's body.

"Don't call me that Lucifer!" I grabbed his arm and threw him over my shoulder into a lab counter.

He crashed head first into the counter, and all of the glass vials and instruments on top of the counter. "God, Ivy you're mean." The young man slowly brushed off all the glass shards.

I took a minute to gaze longingly at him. Well, in truth I was looking at him, but I was really thinking about the person he was impersonating. At the moment, Lucifer looked exactly like Hao. Long brown hair down to his waist, dark brown eyes gleaming with some mischief or another, and that endearing little smirk in place, playfully positioned on his lips. The Devil was even dressed like my former husband: star disc earrings, no shirt, floofy star adorn pants with belts hanging off of them, even fingertip-less gloves with stars on the backs. The only thing he lacked was the poncho.

"I hate you." I spat at him as he managed to get to his feet.

"It's because you love me." He smiled slyly.

"It's because I love him." I corrected.

Lucifer's smile lessened considerably. "I could be him. I look like him, I dress like him, I love you like he loved you, I could even sound like him if that would please you," The demon's voice deepened to match Hao's pitch. "but you still refuse me."

"I don't want you. I want the real Hao." I turned on my heel, and started reassembling the crumbling laboratory.

"Come on Ivy, you know I can help. I can get you your old body back. I can fix you up good as new. I can give you your life back and give you your husband back. I can turn back the clock sixteen years. Say yes, and I'll make it so that you never left Hao in the first place."

"Oh, sure," I started sarcastically. "All I have to do is sell my soul to the devil!"

"Only for the rest of eternity." He followed me around the lab right on my heels, trying to persuade me.

"No."

"Oh come on Ivy! You know you want to. Sleep with me!"

"No!" I threw a vial of potassium at him.

He just barely dodged in time. "Please sleep with me?" He tried again.

"N-O. NO! Besides if I did sell my soul to you, Hao wouldn't want me when you were finished." I tried to reason with him, but there was no doing.

"He doesn't want you now either, so what's the difference?" Lucifer appeared in front of me in a little puff of red smoke sitting on top of a counter.

"Don't say that." I could feel the tears start to fall, and the rain outside picked up.

"It's true."

"How is his new wife anyway?" I let the tears flow freely, not caring that Lucifer saw everything.

"Pregnant."

"Again? Isn't that like the fourth time now?" I unconsciously wiped the same spot on a near-by counter top repetitively with a hand towel.

"Fifth." Lucifer corrected me evilly. "Obviously he's doing fine with his new wife. The fact that they love each other madly is a bit self-evident by looking at her constantly expanding and deflating waistline."

"What's her name again?" I asked off-handedly, pretending not to care too much.

"Anlita." A slow smile crept onto his face. He new he was wearing me down slowly.

"I still can't believe he only waited six years before remarrying." I sighed. "Maybe he wasn't as in love with me as I thought."

"Actually, he only waited five years before getting married to Anlita. The good news is that Hoshi and Thorn just love their new mom." I winced slightly at his words. I had pretty much given up all hope when Lucifer had told me about Hao's second marriage only a few years after my departure. "Well, Ivy, my offer still stands as always until you decide to take it, but I have to go at the moment because I think your nephew needs to have a talk with you. He should be coming down the stairs in a few seconds. Oh, and by the way, I think that that explosion did something to your hair and eye color." In a flash he was gone just as quickly as he had come, and I was reminded of how much I hated how similar his exiting techniques were to Hao's.

"AUNTIE IVY!" Sure enough, my nephew Hana came leaping down the stairs faster than his feet could carry him. He stopped only when he saw the blown-up state that the lab was in. "Ivy?" He raised an eyebrow at me as if he was unsure of my identity. "Is that you Ivy?"

"Yes, of course it's me!" I frowned slightly. "Are you feeling okay, Hana?"

"I'm the one who should be asking you that. What did you do to your hair! And your eyes! Though it does look amazingly hott on you…" Hana stopped in mid babble to stare at me.

I picked up a near-by hand mirror and surveyed the damage that the mini explosion of chemicals had caused. I nearly dropped the mirror when I saw my new appearance. "Oh. My. GOD!" My hair was waist-length, and metallic silvery in color instead of my usual semi-highlighted brown color. My eyes too had changed pigment, and now in place of my raven's-wing colored pools, my eyes looked like murky sea water: a weird mix of some blue-green color. It was different…way different, but it looked good on me, however much I preferred my original appearance.

"Wow…this will take some getting use to. We'll have to make a new corpse for me as soon as Faust gets home."

"Ah, speaking of Faust," Hana started. "He's not here, and there's this girl—"

"Ohhhh….how cute! Have you told your mother yet, or am I the first one you came to for advice?" I abandoned my quest to clean the lab in favor of conversing with my sister's son.

"I told Mom already; she said to get you." He filled me in.

"Well, I've already given you all the advice on girls that I know of…just do what I told you, and she should be yours in no time." I smiled warmly as a faint blush arose on Hana's cheeks.

"No, Ivy. She's gorgeous and everything, but I don't want to date her; she's hurt. There's a girl upstairs, and Faust isn't here to treat her. Anna told me to come and get you because of your medical experience."

"Ohhhhhh…sorry…I thought you meant that 'there was a girl' as in 'in your life' or something. What's wrong?" My tone suddenly became uninterested. I really didn't feel well enough to play doctor even if I had been hurt enough times to know a little something about medicine. I turned my back to him and went back to cleaning.

"I-vy! You should show more interest than that! The poor girl could be dying for all I know!" Hana roughly spun me around and glared down at me. The boy stood a good few inches above me. He was about even height-wise with Yoh.

"That's not my problem. Call a real doctor." I was in no mood to do anything for this girl. I was too spacey, and would probably just make it worse.

"Are you completely heartless, Ivy?"

I could feel the heat rising off of my skin, and the flames forming in my eyes. I could hardly control my rage as I punched him right in the stomach. Not hard, but enough to sting for a while. "No, I do have a heart, but it just doesn't work right. It doesn't pump blood because I have no blood for it to pump. My heart doesn't beat, I don't bleed, I'm hardly even human anymore! All I can do is cry, and today is the first time I've cried in a long, long time! I'm a monster! An inactive heart does me no good! All I want to do is go home to my husband and children, but I can't even do that! I hate this body! I hate living like this! I just want to die and get it over with!"

"IVY!" The pleading look in my nephew's eyes snapped me back away from my insanity.

"I'm sorry." I turned back around and buried my face in a Chemistry book. "Two Hydrogen…and one Oxygen." I picked up the corresponding vials and started to mix the ingredients.

"Her name is Thorn. She has dark brown eyes like yours, and her hair is your color brown with a little crimsonish coloring from Hao." Hana placed a reassuring hand on my shoulder.

"What?" My hand slipped and I accidentally added too much Oxygen. I ignored the failed experiment, and looked directly into Hana's eyes.

"The girl upstairs…The one that I want you to treat. Her name is Thorn. Mom said that she's wearing your old boots too…I thought that maybe you'd like to meet her."

"Which room?"

"First door on the left when exiting the kitchen." He barely had the words out of his mouth before I had washed the chemicals off of my hands, grabbed my first aid kit, and was half way up the basement stairs.

I burst in the room to find my older twin hovering over the bedside, trying her best to be helpful.

"Anna?" I hesitated in the doorway, not sure if I should go completely in the room or not. Hana quickly caught up to me, and stood behind me in the doorway.

"Ivy! What happened to you! You look nothing like 'Ivy' anymore!" My sister stared at my new silver hair and blue-green eyes, unable to blink.

"Yeah, well that's what happens when you mix chemicals at random. What about this girl? Is she…?" I took a ginger step into the room. Hana pushed past and gazed anxiously down at the body in the bed.

"See for yourself. She's got your eyes and features. I think she might be…anyway, she's a little beat up, and her fever is ridiculously high. She needs your help whether she turns out to be your daughter or not." Anna took me by the wrist and pulled me into the room.

I took one look at the girl and I knew that she was my daughter. There was no way that she couldn't be. She looked just like me…sort of…there was a lot of Hao in her too. The moment I first set sight on her, I felt a strange pang in my chest. It was something I hadn't felt in a long, long time…a heart beat. Just one, but I was certain of what it was. My fake heart had beat. Then it stopped. Thinking I had just imagined it, I abandoned my thoughts about the heartbeat, and immediately set to work treating the various bumps, bruises, and fever.

"Well?" Hana peered over my shoulder, glancing down at Thorn.

"She'll be fine." I assured him.

"That's not what I meant, and you know it. Is she, or is she not your daughter?"

"I haven't the foggiest." I lied, but the smirk on my face reveled my true thoughts.

"She is, isn't she?" Hana's smile brightened. He had always wanted to meet my children, and now he was getting his chance. "Don't lie to me Ivy, I can read you like a book!"

"Fine." I conceded. "I'll admit, she does look like me, she is wearing my boots, and her name is Thorn, so this leads me to the fact that she is my daughter."

"I knew it! I can't wait till she wakes up, and we can introduce the two of you!"

"No." I shook my head. "Don't tell her. Call me Valerie…I don't want her to know how I'm related to her. I'll pretend to be Anna's cousin; she never has to know." A slow smile rose to my lips. "Is that okay with you, Anna?"

"Whatever you think is best. I just hope you know what the hell you're doing 'Valerie'." My sister looked away from me and to her own son.

"Thank you."

"Why!" Hana exclaimed, flinging rainwater onto his mother. I smiled when the drops that flew at me didn't dare touch my skin. It was amusing to watch the little droplets cower in fear of their master.

A knowing smile overtook my face. "You spoke with her: she probably hates me."

"She didn't speak of her mother. She seemed really angry when she said she didn't have one." Hana puzzled.

"Exactly. See, she's already disowned me, and she hasn't even met me yet. She has a bias opinion of 'Ivy', so give me awhile to win her over as 'Valerie'. Then we'll see how she handles the news that I'm her mother. Is that okay with you Hana?"

My nephew thought about it for a moment before nodding his consent.

"Good. Now go get changed out of those wet clothes. Once you're done changing, bring me one of my red tank tops, and a pair of my black capris. Her clothes are soaked, and she looks about my size. After you're done with that, tell everyone else about calling me 'Valerie'. No slip ups, okay?"

"Right."

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Mikau: Okay, someone asked me if I thought that Thorn would be as long as Ivy. I'd have to say probably not. I'm only expecting 20-25 chapters tops on this story. Thank you all!

Thanks to: Knux33, MaiValentinefan, LisaTheHedgehog, Andrea Nefisto, ChibiAzn3, glitter galz, HAO-Addictive, Hemila-Rose, morgan000, your-wOrst-nightmARee, DarkPisces33, WiNdScArBaBe, Danny, and Kiva Kyoyama.

To MaiValentinefan: Even I don't know who Manta married…she's not a Shaman though, and she married him for his money. About your name problem: First off, I think the story sounds really great! The Dao-shi idea is awesome, and I'm really looking forward to this fic! I think her name should be Terra that or maybe Shane…or if you like, Shauna. Chrissy also sounds good. Sorry if you don't like any of the names, I'm really tired, and don't really have any inspiration at the moment. I'll probably come up with something genius later.

To glitter galz: you could add me to msn, but I'm never on to talk to, or anything. Sorry!

To hannah: I'm not suppose to respond to reviews because it's against the rules now, glad that you like all the OCs. Anyway, Tamao is only semi-insane (I have no idea why Takei would do that to her, but I'm just going by the manga.), and Chocolove is in jail for the crimes he committed (all the people he murdered) while he was the leader of SHAFT. He turned himself in at the end of the manga. At least that's what I think happened, I read it in French, and my French is horrible. They really need to get the manga translated into English faster.

PLEASE REVIEW!