Chapter 8: Valentine's Day From Hell

"Emerald! Open up!"

I sighed and ignored the pounding on my door. Why were they even here? Yes, it was Valentine's Day, and yes, it was the day we should have been pulling pranks at the bar, but still. If I didn't want to talk, I didn't want to talk.

"Emerald, we have an army out here. You can't stay in forever!"

Maybe if I ignored them long enough they would go away…

They went. I smiled happily and went back to my computer. That was when the sound of shattering glass broke through the serene quiet of my day.

"Holy shit!" I gasped, jumping up.

Lying at my feet next to a broken window were Draye, Silver, Azulcat, Michelle, and Sneha (HinduGoddess, she has one FMA story up…from now on she will simply be referred to as Goddess.

"Why?" asked Goddess.

"Hey, we all have weird names, so will you."

"Um…" Michelle raised a hand.

"Your name is too long."

"CALL ME SNEHA, DAMMIT!" And that settled that).

"Anyway, why didn't you talk to us, Emerald?" asked Draye.

"Me and my cosmopolitan here just wanted to spend the day moping in misery." I displayed the pink alcohol.

There was a collective 'ooh.' "Wow, Emerald," breathed Azulcat. "A Cosmo…"

We rushed to the kitchen. "Okay," shouted Sneha, "Who took all the vodka?"

A nervous giggle rang out. "YOU!" I screamed. Zafe ducked as a cocktail glass hit the wall where his head was.

"Zafe, what are you doing here?" asked Draye.

"Well, you weren't home so I figured you would be here."

"Who…?"

"Oh, Zafe is my cousin," Draye explained to Michelle and Sneha. "Anyway, where's the chocolate?"

"You shall never have my chocolate!" I screamed, blocking the pantry door.

"I beg to differ!" screamed a hyper Wrath, diving into my stomach and effectively getting me out of the way.

"Where did you come from?"

"Where do we ever come from?" asked Anakin as he and a storm of characters appeared in my house. He didn't wait for a reply, instead grabbing Draye and dragging her off somewhere.

The authors blinked at each other. "What should we do?" asked Silver, nervously eyeing the characters that were crowded around the chocolate.

"What else," said Hilaria heroically, "than rescue our dear friend Draye?"

"…" was the response.

"Nah, let's go eat chocolate," suggested Azulcat.

"YEAH!"

"But can we finish our Cosmos first?" whined Zafe. "I need to get Draye drunk so I can blackmail her."

"You," stated Sneha, "obviously do not know your cousin as well as you pretend. Draye getting drunk is an almost daily occurrence. And if you want to get her drunk, find her first."

"Okay! Let's go find Draye!" said Silver.

We marched off. On the way, we were stopped by Izumi and Envy.

"Will you help us sacrifice Ed?" they wanted to know.

"Sacrifice him to WHAT?" asked Azulcat.

"The Valentine's Day devil!" said Gluttony. "He breaks couples up and then he takes their chocolate! We want to stop him!"

Collective 'ooh.'

"Gluttony has a girlfriend, Gluttony has a girlfriend…" we sang.

I blinked. "Doesn't the V-Day devil only like burnt offerings?" They nodded. "You lit a fire in my house?" They nodded again. "Here, take Zafe instead," I said brightly.

They nodded thoughtfully. "Taking one so close to an author might work," said Izumi.

"What? No! Why me?" Zafe protested as he was taken away and strung up over the bonfire.

We found Anakin in a closet. Draye was blindfolded and screaming bloody murder. "He tried to rape me!!"

"What? Dude, that's illegal," said Michelle. "On two counts! One, she's a minor—"

"IN WHAT UNIVERSE?" screamed Draye.

"—and two, you're married, making it adultery," she continued. Anakin punched her in the face and started kissing Draye.

"Bastard!" she screamed.

"Oh no you DIDN'T," gasped Michelle. She immediately kicked Anakin where it hurt. He doubled over in pain, muttering a storm of curses. Draye stood on top of him and jumped up and down. In moments he was out cold.

"Serves him right," stated Azulcat.

I looked around. "Yo, Eragon! Get the fuck out of my room!" Eragon was standing in the doorway of my room, talking to someone. Rather, he was begging.

"Please, Arya! Please!"

"No, Eragon! I will not go on a date with you!"

Poking my head in, I assessed the situation: Arya was in the middle of the room, furious. Eragon was futilely attempting to become her boyfriend.

"OUT—OF—MY—ROOM!"

Arya stepped on Eragon's foot as she stomped out. Eragon ambled after her.

"Hey, what'd you do with Zafe?" asked Draye.

"Sacrificed him to the V-Day devil," replied Sneha. "Emerald, can we finish making our Cosmos yet?"

"No…the kitchen is swamped with Naruto characters, and I'm sure none of you have any desire to meet a certain sugar-high, orange-clad ninja."

Silver shuddered.

Yeah…I don't really have a reason why I screwed up and didn't put this up on time. I totally forgot, until Draye was like, don't you have to put up Valentine's Day? And I was like, shit, so here it is. But then I was in Cancun and I was scrounging for Internet access there (the hotel made you pay) so I could only put this up now. I mean, I still had to write the darn thing!

The Anakin scene comes from chapter two, when Anakin winks at Draye. The whole thing was her idea.

Zafe is Draye's cousin, he and I have a he-wants-to-be-friends-I-want-to-be-enemies relationship. It's much too fun to argue with him to be friends. His account on here is 'fullmetal jounin,' but don't read his stuff, he has one story with one chapter that he hasn't updated since he posted it in October. HEAR THAT, ZAFE? UPDATE, DAMMIT!

Michelle is HughesHanajimaHilariaHypocrite which is much too long, so we all call her HHHH of just Michelle.

If you don't know what a cosmopolitan is, you suck.

Azulcat: Well, of course they were in there! It was OC night!

Draye: "I have done nothing to be thanked for this night." That's a line from some movie or a book, I forget which.

HHHH: stuff it; she can be in the next one.

COMING UP NEXT—THE OC'S ARE PUNISHED!