"Ugh, what's so special about today again?"

"Just follow me and you'll see."

Vivienne, you may be my friend, but I do not like secrets being kept from me!

"Eh, then you should have remembered what today is!" she exclaimed, before dashing into a dining room near the Extinction's bridge.

Sighing, I followed and-

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"

I blinked, surprised by the sudden outpour of light and sound...wait, today's my birthday?

…Apparently it is.

….Wow, I forgot about my own birthday. That's...kinda embarrassing.

'But not unexpected, given the circumstances.'

Thank you for being quiet about that, Viv.

Her snickering in response was actually kinda cute...as was her flustered reactions to my thoughts on her acting cute.

But I digress. Anyhow, in addition to my children, the party guests included the Tenno, Asaru, Viv herself, and Cassidy. Each of them had prepared me a present, to my immense surprise.

Also, it appeared that someone had made me a cake. Given their expressions, and the fact that both could read minds, it appeared Vivienne and Cassidy had been the ones to prepare.

More trivially, it was an ice-cream cake - cookie dough, to be exact.

Oh, and it was delicious, but that isn't really that relevant.

After all the guests had finished singing to me (childish, perhaps, but I enjoyed it), and the candles were blown out, the gifts were given. Those from my children and Cassidy were hand made crafts, be they paitings, sculptures, or simple things likes bags and pictures, but all held some sentimental value in my heart.

The ones that I received from Asaru and the Tenno, though, were a bit more surprising.

Asaru's gift was rather large, and I initially assumed it to be a SHIV or something like that.

Instead, unwrapping the container revealed not a war robot...but a suit of psi-armor. Tailor made psi armor, to be precise.

"I...I don't know what to say to this."

"You've worked with XCOM for some time now. You're practically one of us already. Consider this an official offer to join."

"..Thank you."

Putting the gift away, I turned to the Tenno.

First to give a gift was Cyreesia. Pulling it out, I found myself staring at an Ignis Wraith.

"For all that you've done for us, you deserve this, at least."

"...Thanks."

"You're welcome."

Carefully laying down the Flame Thrower, I turned to Etran, who held a much smaller gift. Taking and opening the gift, I found myself staring at a void key.

"It leads to our dojo," spoke Etran, answering the question that had been forming in my head. "Like it or not, you're a Tenno now...and that means you'll need a clan to work with."

"...Is this an invitation?"

"It is."

"Well, I accept it."

"Good. I look forward to training with you."

Laying the gift down, I turned to the final one that needed to be opened - Viv's. I was almost the size of a chair, but givne that the container marked the contents as fragile, I assumed it was far heavier. Carefully, I removed the box, ready to examine my last gift.

As the covering came off, I found myself staring at an interesting statue. It consisted of a man standing over a beast he had slain.

What made it so special?

The man in question was me. The beast, meanwhile, was clearly the Coleohim I had recently bested.

"You won a great battle, might as well remember it."

I'm pretty sure some people would be ashamed to give someone a hug because they gave you a gift you really, really liked, unless that person was family/a close friend.

I am not one of those people, as Viv can attest to.

XXXXXXX

AN: And thus this part of the story comes to an end.

Don't worry, the real story has only just begun.

Oh, and I apologize for all of the Christmas and Birthday chaptes - I just kept trying to do those until I finally got one that matched up with the actual dates. There'll be one more pair, and then I'll relegate them to when appropriate.

With that out of the way, Read and Review! This is Flameal15k, signing off!