Welcome to Gaia! ::

"Awesome, thanks!" Hikaru smiled as the cake and ice cream were set down in front of her. "It looks really good!" Without another word, she started digging in, taking a bite of the cake and chewing it over. "Wow... it tastes even better than it looks!" she exclaimed, smiling brightly before starting to tear into the ice cream.

"No problem" she said before taking a bite of her cake. Man it was as good as it looked. She cooed and purred taking a bit of ice cream next. She giggled and smiled. She had to goto parties more often, they were alot of fun...and this time she didn't feel like a freak.

"Ria ain't such a bad school....lots of nice people." she said, supposidly to herself but apparently it came out loud but oh well. She turned watching people gather around the DDR machine again. Oh how she wanted to play but she was so shy around people.

"..mmm... such peacefullness-HWAAA!!!!" Ai's peace was broken when all of a sudden a wierd talking box, which was named Television, just spoke! And like, whoa! It was talking Ai, saying such strange words called Dance Dance Revolution?! Hmmm... what a wierd animal.. she said as she poked the TV, but she was suddenly and randomly to the wall. When she opened her eyes, she saw.. not one.. but two Kurai's! Two!

"My vision!!! This is horrible!!! Two Kurai's!!! MY WORST NIGHTMARE HAS COME TRUE!!" she screamed until she noticed something, her head hurts from being slammed to the wall just because these two idiots wanted to play this rather wierd game. They must pay!!

So, she grabbed two pieces of paper that was randomly on the floor and made two paper fans in .000283 seconds.. don't ask.. she just has super speed in making paper fans. Her eyes flaming as she stood in front of the TV with that special effect flame background.

"YOU HAVE MET YOUR DEATH!" with that said, Ai started to slap the two Kurai's faces with the paper fans in super speed, though this action from Ai seemed very rare.. usually Ai is calm and collective.. now she's like a fire breathing monster!

"we are the cartoon heros!~" Shouted the TV out as arrows came zooming upwards across the screen.

"No FAIR! I have Chains on! it makes it harder to move!" Tainted Kurai shouted out. "Are you kidding me? The chains make you balance more as a center of gravity, if you had them on your legs thats understandable!" Kurai shouted back at Tainted through his pifs of air and rapid leg movement, neither Kurai even looked at each other as they both concentrated on the TV straight ahead of them.

"DA DA DA DADADADA DA DA DA!" Kurai sang along with the techno-y chorus and such. "AIR AIR AIR!" Kurai yelled out as he jumped into the air. Suddenly A Ai popped up in front of the TV with two massive large paper fans.

"I sense pain." Kurai spoke as he saw the objects of paper. Tainted Kurai just rose an eyebrow. "Oi! Purple hair-ed idiot! get out of the way!" BUt he was answered with a firm smack on the face. "FREAKIN GURL!" Tainted Yelled out as he runned off the DDR mat twoards Kurai. Kurai screamed out as he was pelted across the back with a large paper fan SLAP. The 3 of them then chased about on the DDR mats.

"hey! She would be pretty good at DDR Kurai!" Tainted Kurai yelled out. "Look at those legs go!"

Hikaru turned back to Rivera, nodding somewhat solemnly as she clarified her explanation of the cards. She was sad to hear that so much hardship was apparently ahead of her, but also glad to hear that there was hope if she was able to make the right decisions. Taking another bite of cake, she chewed it over thoughtfully as she nodded back to Rivera, her smile returning as she swallowed it down.

"Well... thanks for the reading, then!" she said, clenching her fist with the plastic fork in it. "I've never let life get me down before, and I'm not gonna start now! BRING IT ON, DESTINY!" Hikaru called out dramatically, pumping her fist in the air and laughing.

"HMPH!" she said as she stuck her tongue at the two Kurai's and placed the two fans over her shoulders. Thats when she remembered.. that scrapbook she made for Makie.. she smiled sweetly to herself, as if her evil side went away, and looked more like an angel. She dropped her fans and walked over to the present table.

Noticing the panda bear faced wrapping paper, indicating that it was her present, she picked it up and walked back over to Makie, as she walked, she gave a snicker to the two Kurai's. "Hey Makie! I want you to open this now! I wanted to be here when you open it!" she said as she sat down on the floor somewhere nearby the wierd television.

"Here you go!" she said as she holded out the present for Makie, it is a scrapbook filled with pictures of Ai and Makie throughout the year, from the first day they met, till now! "I hope you really like it" she said somewhat uneasy, she doesn't know what Makie is going to think of it. Some people are arogant and would think its a piece of junk. Like last time, one time at South HQ she gave someone a scrapbook.

***

"What piece of crap is this?" said a girl with red hair and tanned skin as she scanned the scrapbook, it was her birthday, her 13th birthday exactly. She then glanced over at Ai waiting for a response.

"It-It-It's a scrapbook filled with pictures of us! I thought it would be a nice present!" she said with an uneasy smile, though she was somewhat scarded, thats when the girl grinned, "Is that so?" she said as she ripped the pages out of the book and threw them at Ai.

***

Ai placed her hands over her heart, she could feel her heart thumping quickly, what was she afraid of? Makie is not like that! She knows it, but.. why I do I feel this fear.. ? she thought as she heard the TV continue playing its DDR song thing.

Roxy gently pushed her way through the crowds and took in a sharp in take of breath when her gray eyes fell upon the beautiful machine. She almost cried as she slowly walked up to it and smiled when the lights began to dance. "DDR..." She walked up to the tv and hugged it. "My one and only true love!"

Makie watched the arrows go up the screen. She could never do that OR over shadow it for that matter. She would have to give them another hug just for competiting on such an INSANE level. Because heavy is just too insane for Makie to handle, so she really had to admire those who could do DRR on heavy mode. Or Oni mode or Challenge mode. It's all just too insane. Maybe a super hug for Tainted Kuri since he was dancing with extra weight on... Why didn't he just take the chains of...? Ah well... The point is a hug shall be the prize to both of them just for playing on heavy.

And you have to admire a guy who sings techno while playing heavy mode. So... Both Kuri's deserve super hugs! Which you really can't tell the difference between a super hug and normal hug unless you were hugged often and were hugged every single way possible. Makie could tell the difference because she often hugged others. Even if the reaction wasn't positive, she still hugged people. Her spirit never died.

Right before Ai began to hit the Kuris, Makie winced. She didn't know what to do. Friends fighting with friends. And the mats! Poor mats must be suffering so... Wait... I didn't say that... "A-Ai! S-Stop... P-Please...?" She asked. EVen though Ai didn't appear to like the Kuris, they, ironically, were Makie friends. Besides, the small brunette would never pick a side. It'd impossible. Very impossible.

Then another girl's chains became caught up with Tainted Kuri's chains... What a mess. At least Tainted Kuri's chains weren't alive, then it wouldn't be attacking the girl with her chains. According to Rivera, this girl was called Karien. Rivera and Kairen had such prettty names! Maybe they were related. Makie would still like to be a sister to Rivera though. That would mean she'd have 3 sisters! Misty, Ai, and Rivera. Makie was an only child so she was delighted if any one would call her a sister!

Noticing Ai stopped chasing the Kuris, Makie relaxed. But she wasn't heading towards Makie, she was going towards a table. The brunette waited patiently for her older friend, quickly glancing at both Kuris for a moment. Then Ai came back with a present wrapped in PANDA wrapping paper! Do you know what it reminded her of...? Oliver's yukata. Oliver's yukata had little panda faces all over it! So cute... It was perfect for him. Makie loved pandas... Anything furry really, and strawberries, and apples and oranges, and lots of pink and light colors... Okay, she'll like anything you give her, because anything you give her means that you've spent time picking it out just for the person, so it's special, even if it's not handmade. Although handmade presents are very special too.

When Makie took the preset, she carefully unwrapped the gift. The brunette could hear a little bit uneasiness in Ai's voice, but maybe she was just tired from chasing the Kuris. Anyways, unwrapping the gift, Makie found it to be a book of some sort. A book of what though...? Removing all of the wrapping paper, she could see the words Makie and Ai on the top. A book of Makie and Ai? The girl never saw that book in stores. How cool is that!? Having a book written with characters that had the names of you and your friend. That's pretty intense. So, being curious about what this special Makie and Ai book could be, she flipped open to the first page. There it had a picture of Ai and Makie at the summer festival with the words 'In the Beginning...' on the bottom. Makie was still confused though. Did Ai make this? With pictures of both of them...?

"W-What is this...? I-I've never seen o-one before..." Makie said, still looking through the pages, as if looking through her past. "H-How did you f-find a-a book with pictures o-of both of us... I-It's so c-cool..! D-Did you m-make this...? I-It's a-amazing..!" The brunette then closed the book and hugged Ai tightly. It appeared to be handmade, and it didn't look like it could be found in stores, but whatever the case, Makie loved it. It actually made her cry looking over the past times with Ai. Has it already been a year? A year since she met Ai? She arrived at Ria High after her birthday and went to the Summer Festival a few days later, so it must have been close to a year.

"I-I love it!" Makie said before breaking the hug and drying her tears. Her 13th birthday was by far the best, just because she had so many close friends to celebrate it with. And she never got to do this before, so it was kind of like her first birthday, you know? Your first birthday is always your best, and this birthday was her best. Too bad her parents and grandparents weren't here though. Grandpa was still alive, but... He wouldn't be here just for one day... Maybe the play, but he wouldn't be here for her birthday, he already sent her birthday money and a special letter. That was enough for Makie.

"I-I-It must h-have took you long to f-find this, Ai-onee sama..." She said, wiping away the last of her tears and turning around and smiling. "T-This is m-my bestest birthday y-yet!"