Yeah…today's my 315th birthday…
"Guys?...GUYS?" I called out as Sneha and Hilaria led me…somewhere. I was blindfolded, you see, and they weren't telling me what was going on.
"It's your birthday, we have to surprise you!" declared Sneha. "Cheer up. You get presents!"
"A nice present you could get me is either one of you updating," I grumbled. "Are we there yet?"
Yes. Yes we were, as I soon found out, because I was plonked down on top of the bar and the blindfold was ripped off. Wincing against the light I saw…nothing. The place was completely empty. "Truly all my birthday wishes have been realized."
"Where the hell ARE they?" yelled Hilaria.
"That depends on who gave them the directions, and who they are," I said pleasantly, knowing full well that both of them had horrible senses of direction.
Neither of the two had the chance to answer, because at that moment we heard a rumbling sound, getting louder, louder…and the bar door exploded. So did some of the actual bar. The party was here.
"Friggin' finally," muttered Hilaria. "Everyone SHUT UP!" Nothing happened, and the talking continued.
"Who did you invite, anyway?" I asked. It looked like…just about everyone.
Most of the MPS was there, and when I say most I mean Draye, the Zafetard, Tinkerbelle (Kontra), Night, Azulcat, Bat and Envy. Also there were a moderate amount of characters from various media, including…um…hang on, there were a bunch of them…Murtagh, Orik and Arya (I like her now because she has character development) from Eragon, Soifon, Yoruichi and Renji from Bleach, Temari, Konan, Sakura and Kiba from Naruto, Darth Vader and Obi-Wan from Star Wars, and Ron and Hermione from Harry Potter.
"Huh," I said. "Sneha, come here for a sec." She complied. "It's my birthday."
"I know that."
"Why isn't Sasuke here?" I asked.
In that moment several crickets could be heard. "Crap," said Sneha. "Do you mind that much?"
"My birthday is ruined. I'll never smile or wear anything but black again," I deadpanned. "Just give me my presents."
"Who wants to go first?" asked Hilaria.
Dead silence.
"Characters first! Characters first!" yelled the MPS as one. Draye pushed Ron and Hermione forward.
"We got you a wand!"
"Okay," I said, "but I'm a Muggle, so thank you for this useless branch. It's very pretty, though." The characters blinked, and then went away.
The Eragon characters came next. "We got you, um…"
"We?" I interrupted. "Does nobody believe in individual presents anymore?"
Arya narrowed her eyes. "Well fine then, we won't give you a present at all."
Draye smacked her forehead. "Emerald, you can't mouth off to everybody."
"But…but it's my job to be a bitch to people…" I protested.
"But," interrupted Azulcat, "If you keep it up you won't get any presents at all." That shut me up.
What actually was really surprising was that nobody got hurt (badly) through the rest of the gift-giving process. No fights were started, no blood was spilt…at least up until Tinkerbelle decided he didn't like being called Tinkerbelle and drove his fist through a window in frustration.
"Huh," said Night. "You know, tonight's been pretty tame, I was wondering when something would happen." Tinkerbelle—oh fine, Kontra—just had this absolutely murderous expression on his face as he looked around at the rest of the bar, daring anyone to comment.
"I hope you know you're paying for that," said Bat. Kontra threw up his hands in frustration and left.
"And now that the violence has started, it's just gonna get worse from here on," observed Zafe.
"Personally I find it disturbing that nobody's died yet," commented Sneha.
"Yet," I added.
"Uh, guys?" called Hilaria from where she was looking out the broken window. "I think we might have a problem."
"Oh yes," agreed Azulcat after she looked. "Hundreds of lit candles set in various places in the street would generally be considered a problem. How many are there, anyway?"
"Wow," said Draye. "That's a lot of candles." Indeed, the street outside the bar was covered in candles. Around 300 of them. All on fire.
"What I want to know most is WHO PUT THEM THERE?" I yelled, looking at each of the characters assembled in the bar.
"Don't look at us, we were here the whole time!" yelled Renji in response.
"It was me!" said Roy Mustang, appearing out of nowhere.
"You realize you could have burned down the entire street, right?" asked Night.
"Well, serves you right for not inviting any of us," said Ed, also appearing out of nowhere. "Speaking of streets, where the hell is this bar, anyway?"
Well of course nobody quite knew how to answer that. "It isn't… 'anywhere'…" said Draye hesitantly. "It's kind of just…here."
"Okay, well, enough theoretical stuff: Roy, why are these candles here?" I asked yet again.
"Well…it's your birthday! There are 315 of them!" he said enthusiastically.
"Wonderful, now please put them out so we don't all get sued for burning down the street?"
"If he burns the bar, I'm making Kontra pay," Draye muttered to Zafe. "We can say it happened when he broke the window."
"Look, Roy, I appreciate the sentiment, and I'm as much of a pyromaniac as the next MPS member, but could you please down the fire hazard?" I pleaded.
"Oh, fine," he grumbled. But as he move to extinguish the candles, there was a sudden gust of wind. And all the fire from 315 candles was directed towards the bar…
And the next morning, Kontra found a large-ish bill taped to his front door.