With a grunt, Viviene brought her hammer down on the Barroth's head, shattering the brute wyvern's crest. Momentarily dazed, the creature stumbled around, allowing me to send my kinsect to assault its partially severed tail. Upon recovering, though, it turned its attention to me, roared, and charged.

Perfect.

As the dinosaurian creature barreled toward me, I threw a shock trap onto the ground. Then, just as it was about to hit me, I rolled to the side, pulling out my tranq rifle. Unable to stop itself in time, the barroth continued onwards, and subsequently found itself shocked into immobility. A few shots later, and the beast was down for the count.

Suck it, you overgrown lizard! You won't knock me out this time!

….I think I just said that out loud. Vivienne was giving me an funny look.

Briefly, I watched over the sleeping brute wyvern, before deciding to try my hand at some artistic work. Most of the Commission kept research journals, and the two of us had been encouraged to get our own for writing anything useful we acquired. Already, I'd filled in a few pages, and I only planned to add to it as time went on.

It'd been two weeks since we'd arrived in the Monster Hunter universe, and now the Commission was starting to trust us with more difficult tasks, such as taking donw tougher monsters. I'd already captured a Tzi-Tzi-ya-ku, Great Girros, Pukei-Pukei, and even a Dodogama, so I'd seen most of what the New World, but there was still so much I had yet to do. I hadn't even brought down a Tempered Monster yet, though in all fairness, I still had a lot of work to do.

Oh, and a fun fact: apparently a couple of Zorah Magdaros had decided to imitate their older cousin and migrate to the New World. I didn't even know why - with Xeno dead, they shouldn't be heading here unless they were old and dying, yet the head researcher said all of the ones we were seeing were juveniles or adults in their prime. Seriously, what the hell?

That was a question for another day, though.

"So, you finish up the paperwork for this while I get some last minute preparations done?"

"...Eh, sure. That's fine with me."

"Good. I hope you haven't forgotten what today is, my former pawn."

"Not making that mistake again."

Smirking, Viv whistled, then shot out her slinger at the arriving Mernos. Despite my best efforts, I grinned, before beginning to work on the forms that needed to be filled.

Yeah. As if I'd forget my birthday again.

XXXXXXXXX

When the last of papers were completed, I went to the outskirts of Astera and opened up a portal. I still didn't know how people knew about other worlds around here, but I didn't want to give them the wrong ideas, so this was for the best. Plus, I didn't want anyone snooping around where they weren't invited.

When I exited the hole in space and time, I was greeted by a horde of my followers, children both biological and adopted, Viv, and some of her company. A mountain of presents was off to one side, whilst a nearby table was filled with all sorts of refreshments: besides came, there was ice cream, cookies, a fair amount of chips, soda, water, and, watched over by one of Vivienne's subordinates, a few bottles of alcohol.

Oh yeah, I'm now twenty one. I can legally drink...well, in the United States, at least.

Getting through the singing of Happy Birthday and the cape was a trivial affair. After that, though, came the gifts, and some of those were rather surprising. Sure, Ayatans and rare crystals were expensive, but there were other things that caught me off guard. Arcane enhancements? Toroids And Sentient Cores? MONSTER PARTS?! Where had they gotten those from?

I didn't ask that, though, and fortunately Viv never bothered to answer that, so I did not have to worry about it.

After all of the gifts were unwrapped and categorized for later usage, it was time for fun. Humorously enough, Viv has decided to start the rest of the celebration with a piñata, of all things. Filled with ah candies, including a few sour ones for me - whilst I wouldn't mind a piñata, I wanted my guests to be able to enjoy it with me.

...Wait, was the piñata's eyes moving? And why did it look so familiar?

Where had I seen this cartoony dragon before...oh.

I looked the piñata in the eyes.

"...your sacrifice is appreciated."

The Dragonache stared at me for a moment, then smiled.

A moment later, I brought down the bat, and the piñata exploded into tiny pieces.

XXXXXXX

I lazily belched as I righted myself. The Guests were starting to leave, and I felt the need to at least say farewell.

We'd spent hours playing games, both video ones and physical ones, as well as watching movies and reading stories. A couple of sports game transmissions had been bootlegged from other universes for today, so those had also been of interest. Overall, a nice day. The fact I had downed three bottles of beer and didn't have a noticeable blood alcohol content was also a plus.

"So, enjoy your special day?"

I turned to face Viv, who was busy cleaning some crumbs off her dress.

"Yeah, I did. Just so you know, I'm coming off a sugar high, so don't expect me to be eloquent."

"Eh, I don't mind. So, enjoy being an adult?"

"Yep. Got to drink, bet, and smash open a living piñata. Celebrated my age and got to let my inner child out. Maybe the only thing that would have made t better is if I...lost some of my remaining innocence, but that's really a tertiary goal for me."

"Oh, I see. Still annoyed about being a virgin?"

"A little."

"Well, funnily enough, I was actually thinking about solving that for you today."

"Really?"

"Yeah, really. It wouldn't be too hard for me to create a minion to satisfy your...carnal needs."

"Why didn't you, then?" I managed to get out before I loudly bleached. Too much sugar and alcohol, I suppose.

"I don't actually know what your preferences for what you want to tap."

"...wait, what?"

"I don't know what you would want to 'do'."

"...You."

"Huh?"

"If we are talking in regards to physical attraction, then I would most definitely do you."

Viv stared at me for a moment, before turning crimson with embarrassment and vanishing, eager to whack herself with a memory erasing hammer.

Hey, I never told you about that.

Well, even you occasionally drop your mental defenses.

Briefly, I stared at where my former ROB had stood, before breaking out in a laugh.

True, Viv was in sights amongst the things I was willing to tap, but I wanted to enjoy that pleasure with someone whose personality I liked. A creation with no mind could not do that, and Viv wasn't really on that category. At all.

I'm serious.

Shaking the exhaustion off of me, I opened a portal and headed to my personal quarters. Time to go to sleep.

XXXXXXXX

AN: Read and Review! This is Flameal15k, signing off!