Amethyst Angel Adventures: Birthday Challenge

Amethyst Angel Adventures: Birthday Challenge (formerly The Cube) is basically the story, written by KhaosOmega, of Anise tackling the Mario Party 4 story mode. Because of the story title, Anise takes the challenge on her seventeenth birthday, which coincides with said game's story mode. No minigames are shown, though Bob-Omb Breakers is mentioned in a chance run-in with the rest of XQ's ZK3 trio. Also, both Daisy and Waluigi believe the challenger is some random bananahead (according to Waluigi) using one of the game's eight playable characters (Waluigi suspects Luigi).

Trivia

 * This is the second foray into the Mushroom Kingdom for Anise in the official chronology, following Amethyst Angel Adventures: 1000
 * At least as the titular Amethyst Angel, for she had done two during breaks in Rune Angel Wing combat, plus a third aiding her teammates inbetween the final battle with the Will and the beginning of the chronology proper.
 * The fact that Anise finds her identical twin sister Adrienne in the XQ hideout confirms that this story takes place after Amethyst Angel Adventures: Colosseum
 * Also, Anise locates the twin sister of Kaelynne Sakuraba, known for the hairband Anise has on in this story, after a chance encounter at the hideout with newly-recruited Rune Angel teammate Lily Cielena Stewart (formerly under a different name, changed in order to gain a spot in the GX anti-crime group)
 * The fact that the rest of XQ knows that it was Anise's seventeenth birthday, via Kaelynne running into Rico Sakuraba (with the almost-immediately-recruited-afterward Lily at the time) confirms the KhaosOmega side story Zeos X GT 24 takes place after this story (Lily's recruitment into XQ is shown in Galaxy Angel II Chaos Adventure's seventh chapter)
 * This was changed via the removal of GA2CA in favor of Amethyst Beginnings as the official prequel to the chronology, with Lily gaining a roster spot about a year before this story takes place as part of the change. Rico, now renamed Arielle, gains her own spot at the same time.
 * After XQ's 2039 expansion the day of Jet's 48th birthday Arielle essentially becomes listed as being part of both divisions, but she only qualifies as a Rainbow Angel when certain relatives are allowed to be classified as such (qualifying through that stipulation by way of her older sister Maranda); Lily stays in the now-Hollie-led Main Division until 2304 when she gets given the Prime Series spot vacated by ZVE's Takara's shift to Series 500 (the purple-haired girl having initially joined in 2124).
 * This story was originally titled 'Amethyst Angel Adventures:  The Cube', but was switched for 'Birthday Challenge' to better accomodate the plot of the story.
 * Mario Party 4's Story Mode is a birthday-themed one, hence the title change. The old title was a reference to both the Party Cube inside which the events happen, and the Nintendo GameCube for which Mario Party 4 was released.

Gifts Acquired

 * The first gift Anise acquired, after winning at 'Toad's Midway Madness' (an amusement park-themed board) and then the subsequent duel against Toad, was a pair of hanging earrings based on those worn by Daisy. Daisy went with a hanging version viewing it as the type Anise preferred.
 * At the time hanging earrings were XQ's main choice; it wasn't until 2126 that hoop earrings (the main earrings of Shantae, who became an official Rainbow Angel - Jet's harem had received its own XQ division in 2039 - at that point) became just as popular.
 * Gift number two for Anise, following her victory at the casino-themed 'Goomba's Greedy Gala' board and subsequent duel with Goomba, was a Wario-made device for further upgrading her Emblem Frame. Anise quickly targeted Wario here because, being greedy, a gambling theme was right up Wario's alley.
 * Anise's choice for targeting Wario specifically was the same reason Let's Play group TheRunawayGuys chose Wario as the AI for their first Faire Square bout in their Mario Party 6 LP.
 * Following her victory at the haunted house-themed 'Boo's Haunted Bash' (where Waluigi made the assumption the player was a random bananahead using Luigi) and subsequent duel with Boo, Anise acquired a portable wrist TV from Waluigi as her third gift. Luigi himself wasn't active on that board; Anise would've targeted him instead due to the Luigi's Mansion series.
 * After winning at the beach-themed 'Koopa's Seaside Soiree' (where she had a chance encounter with her ZK3 teammates) and subsequent duel against Koopa, Anise acquired a special red fire gem from Mario as her fourth gift. Fire being Mario's main element and the beach-inspired map (not to mention Rochelle's main element being fire) may be why Mario in particular kept getting the short end of the stick.
 * Gift number five, acquired after winning at the adventure-themed 'Shy Guy's Jungle Jam' and subsequent duel with the Indiana Jones-themed host, was a Zeos XD chip for her Chrono Eclipse Cannon (she put the chip in a pocket of her miniskirt as she wasn't wielding the cannon at the time) from Luigi. This map (as well as Pirate Dream from Mario Party 5) has a theme Anise, being a treasure hunter herself, knows especially well.
 * As a final gift, after beating Bowser (who tried to get involved as an enemy), Anise acquired a special Zelix copy of Mario Party 4 (with a create-a-player mode) from Peach, who decided to get it after an encounter with a Super Saiyan 3 Jet.