//------------------------------// // The Watson has been doubled! // Story: Sour's on the case! // by AppleJTZ //------------------------------// Indigo tapped her foot on the sparkling floor of the empty hallway. “What’s taking her so long?” she moaned, tightly clenching a bottle of orange juice in her hand as she stared down the staircase. “She was supposed to be here ten minutes ago!” Opposite to the stairs Lemon was sitting on the sill of the window, kicking her legs through the air. “Chill, Gogo” she told her impatient friend, causally bopping her head to the melody from her headphones. “The longer she takes the longer we can relax.” She leaned out of the window by a notch, just so much her hair was hanging slightly in the air. “Just sit down and kick back a little!” Indigo grunted. “I don’t wanna kick back, I wanna kick some pudding thieves right into their…” She then paused as she heard footsteps coming up the stairs. The two girls watched as first a cherry-red ponytail came into sight, followed by a female face looking down at something, which turned out to be a notepad as the rest of her body appeared. As she took the last stairs the girl looked up, smiling widely at Lemon and Indigo. “Good, you’re here already!” Sour said happily, smiling even brighter when she saw the bottle in Indigo’s hand. “And you brought the juice!” Sternly Indigo glared at Sour Sweet. “What took you so long?” she asked. Putting a hand into her pocket she pulled out her phone, showing Sour an SMS. “You wanted to meet us here ten minutes ago!” “I’m a busy detective”Sour replied, still smiling. “I had other things to do, other places to be – you know how it goes.” “You got lost?” Indigo asked, crossing her arms. Sour’s smile dropped. “This school is friggin’ huge, okay?” Lemon jumped off the windowsill, pulling her headphones off her ears and hanging them over her neck. “Alright, let’s go fetch some pudding!” she declared. “What should we do first?” Sour held out her hand. “First, I need something to drink. Being brilliant dries the throat.” With a sigh Indigo tossed the bottle over to her. “By the way, why did you want both of us to come along?” she asked. “I thought you wanted to avoid searching in a group.” Eagerly Sour snatched the bottle midair. “Well, the more the merrier, right?” she chirped while opening it. As she raised it to her lips she mumbled to herself: “Also, none of you two is smart enough to be my Watson on her own.” Holding the bottle to her mouth she let the orange juice flow into her throat, greedily swallowing it. The both sour and sweet taste tingled her tongue, each gulp sending a wave of refreshment through her body. While she was drinking like a dried out dromedary Sour walked over to the window. Gasping in satisfaction she took the bottle off her lips, putting it on the windowsill with a smile. As Lemon and Indigo stepped beside her she leaned her head out of the window and looked downwards. Below her was the loading zone of Crystal Prep Academy. The door to the cold store was located right beneath the window to her right. Letting her gaze wander to the distance she saw the huge area of forest behind the school, spanning almost to the horizon. “Okay, let me fill you two in on where we currently stand” she said to the two assistants at her sides. “So far, it seems the thieves snuck into the cold store while nobody was looking, took the pudding inside it and then escaped through the back door. They probably went into the forest to hide their loot. Sugarcoat and I tried to find clues about their identity and the whereabouts of the pudding, but all we found was an empty plastic bottle.” Indigo raised an eyebrow. “Sugarcoat? I thought Sunny was helping you?” Beside her Sour heard Lemon giggle. “Did you manage to annoy both Miss Fancy and Sugarbabe away?” the green-haired girl asked in a mocking tone. Throwing a glare to each side Sour snorted, before setting her sights on the trees again. “Anyway, I thought maybe looking at the place from above might reveal something to us we couldn’t see from down there.” With a sceptic look on her face Indigo gazed over the vast area of forest behind Crystal Prep Academy. “You really think by staring at it from up here you can find something you couldn’t down there?” she asked, sounding doubtful. Sour winked at her. “With the help of a pair of smart and competent assistants, sure!” “Hey, you think this is snot?” Lemon asked, poking a yellow stain on the windowsill. The two other Shadowbolts glared at her, before turning towards each other again. “Flattery isn’t gonna make me stand here and stare into nothing, Sweet” Indigo told Sour, determinately folding her arms in front of her chest. “Then how about I formulate it as a challenge who of us will be the first to find a hint to the pudding?” Sour suggested, smirking slyly. A wide grim formed on Indigo’s face. “Now that’s more like it – CHALLENGE ACCEPTED! I’m gonna show you who’s the smartest and most competent of ‘em all!” she declared, pumping her fist into the air. As she raised her arm her elbow brushed the bottle on the windowsill, knocking it over. The three girls leaned their heads out of the window, watching it land on the asphalt and bounce around before rolling over the loading zone. As it was still open it left a trail of orange juice on the way, being completely empty by the time it hit the pavement. Sour looked with sharp eyes at Indigo, who smiled sheepishly back at her. “Oops.” Rubbing the bridge of her nose Sour mumbled something under her breath. “Never mind” she said after a while, raising her gaze and looking over the forest. The canopy wasn’t really thick, the trees standing relatively far apart with a lot of bushes being mixed into them. “Let’s just see if we can find something suspicious in the forest” she stated, trying to sound optimistic. “Maybe we’re lucky and they didn’t bring the pudding too far in. We might spot it looking out behind a bush, or find some other clue that could point us to their identity.” Fake snoring caused her to drop her smile again. “Boooooorrriiiiiiiiing” Lemon moaned into her ear, slumping her arms. While Sour looked at her in annoyance Indigo smirked deviously towards Lemon. “Then how about we spice up the challenge?” she proposed. “First to find something gets the pudding of the losers!” Immediately Lemon perked up. “Deal!” she exclaimed, also grinning Sour turned her head left and right, gawking at her assistants. “Hey, this is serious detective work, not a game!” she yelled. A cocky grin on her face Indigo put an arm over her shoulder. “So you don’t want a chance to win more pudding?” Leaning closer to Sour’s ear she whispered: “Delicious cherry pudding with cream on top?” Sour glared at Indigo, before saying with intensity in her voice: “Your pudding’s mine.” Eagerly all three girls raised their heads out of the window, staring at the forest. They let their eyes wander over it, carefully taking in every single bush and tree several times. Occasionally one of them would grow excited for a second when they believed to see something, until they found it was just a squirrel or bird. As time passed their bodies slowly began to slump, while their determination diminished bit by bit. After a subjective eternity (roughly ten minutes) Sour dropped her head on the windowsill, letting her arms hang outside. Lazily the master detective was gazing once more over the forest, her brain feeling like it was about to melt from boredom. “Pudding!” Lemon suddenly shouted. Immediately Sour straightened herself. “Where?!” she asked, hectically looking over the trees. Lemon pointed into the sky. “There!” Sour followed her finger, and frowned. “That’s a cloud.” Confident, Lemon stemmed her hands into her hips. “Yeah, and it looks like pudding!” After running a palm over her face Sour sweetly smiled at Lemon. “You really have a very vivid imagination Lemon! Now could you focus on looking for REAL pudding again?!” she scowled. Looking at the cloud Indigo tilted her head. “Besides, that cloud doesn’t look anything like pudding” she said. “Course it does!” Lemon insisted. She pointed at the top of the cloud. “There, the whirly part on top is the cream, and the fluffy ball beneath is the bouncy stuff!” “We’re not looking for jelly” Indigo reminded her. “And even if, that cloud doesn’t look bouncy at all!” Sour blinked. “Um, girls?” “Well what kind cloud does look bouncy for ya?” Lemon asked, sounding somewhat offended. Leaning out of the window Indigo searched the sky. “There!” she declared, pointing at a roughly ring-shaped cloud. “This is a bouncy cloud.” Lemon squinted her eyes. “The one that looks like a doughnut?” “It’s a trampoline!” Indigo yelled at her. Gabbing Lemon’s green mane she pulled her over to her side of the window, past a startled Sour. “See? If you look at it from this angle, the cloud behind it looks is stretched inside the ring, just like a trampoline.” Lemon looked at the cloud with one eye closed. “Looks more like some of the filling of the doughnut was squirted out” she eventually remarked. Carefully Sour cleared her throat. “Um, girls, I hate to interrupt this reeaaally interesting conversation, but-” “You see nothing but sweets in the clouds, sugar-brain!” Indigo shouted, staring at Lemon with furrowed eye-brows. “Doughnuts aren’t sweets!” Lemon snapped at her. “They’re pastry!” Indigo crossed her arms. “Your head’s still full of sugar.” “And your head is a football filled with hot air!” “At least I didn’t blow out my brain with junk music!” “Hey, don’t you dare call my music junk, or-” “Junk music, junk music, junk music!” “You wanna start a fight?” “You wanna start a fight?” “You wanna start a fight?” “You wanna start a fight?” Crossing her arms on the windowsill Sour placed her head on them, moaning loudly over the bickering of her assistants. Defeated she looked down the walls of Crystal Prep Academy. Around the windows the bricks were completely overgrown by vines, like a green frame. With the ongoing fighting of her Watsons in her ears Sour rolled her head to the side. She let her gaze wander over the thick network of vines and leaves as they went to the next window, and then further to the edge of the school, where they made a turn downwards to their roots in the earth. With a sigh she was about to lift her head, but then abruptly stopped. Halfway between her and the next window, she noticed something very small seemed to be stuck in the vines. Surprised she leaned out of the window again, squinting her eyes as she curiously stared at the object. Next to her Indigo and Lemon were still arguing, having gone from saying “You wanna start a fight” over and over to throwing more and more absurd insults at each other. “Wanna-be punk!” “Soccer-sucker!” “Hallway zombie!” “Pep-rally dork!” “Fuzzy head!” “Blue hedgehog!” Her fist clenched Indigo rolled up her already rolled-up sleeves. “Alright, that’s it! You better get ready to investigate Sour, cause the pudding theft is not gonna be the only crime at Crystal Prep today!” For a moment she and Lemon glared furiously into each other’s eyes. Suddenly the look on Lemon’s face turned into one of surprise as she stared behind Indigo. “Hey, where is Sour?” she asked. Indigo turned around, seeing Sour was gone. Confused she and Lemon looked around the empty hallway. Seeing they were the only students Lemon scratched her head while Indigo stemmed her hands against her hips. “Now that’s great” she muttered. “Because of your cloud nonsense, Miss genius decided she’s better off without us.” Lemon shrugged. “Fine by me.” She grabbed the headphones around her neck, about to put them back on her ears. Suddenly she stopped. “Hey, you hear that?” Indigo gave her a questioning look, until a noise caught her attention. It sounded like rustling leaves, and was coming from outside. Looking out of the window Indigo first stared at the forest behind the school, but quickly realized the noise was closer. Turning her gaze to the side she looked at the walls of Crystal Prep Academy. The sight she was met with made her widen her eyes so much in shock they almost popped out of her skull. On the vines below the window Sour was climbing along the façade of Crystal Prep Academy. Grabbing them with her fingers while pressing her feet into the thick network of leaves she moved along the walls of the school, towards the window of the next classroom. Indigo and Lemon watched their friend cling on to the fickle plants. After staring dumfounded at her for a while Indigo shook her head, scowling furiously at Sour. “What the heck are you doing?” she yelled at her. “And can we join you?” Lemon asked, receiving an elbow to the side from her Co-Watson. Sour either didn’t hear or listen to them as she kept climbing towards the mysterious object. Once it was in arms-length she reached out her hand for it. Despite its small size it was stuck rather tightly in the vines. Sour grit her teeth, groaning as she forcefully pulled at it. With a loud snap the vines around it broke apart. Sour’s arm jolted back, nearly causing her to lose her balance. Horrified Indigo and Lemon watched her lean back, looking like she was just about to fall from the second all the way down on the asphalt. Luckily her other hand and feet clung tightly to the vines, and she quickly grabbed them with her other hand again. She sighed in relief, alongside Indigo and Lemon, before slowly making her way back to the window. When she was in reach Indigo immediately grabbed her arms, she and Lemon helping her get back inside. “That was totally dumb and reckless!” Indigo scolded Sour once she was standing next to them in the hallway again. “You could have broken your neck, or worse!” Sour showed Indigo one of her biggest smiles. “Sorry for making you worry, mom” she “apologized”, before raising her hand holding the small object. “But I saw this stuck in the vines, and figured it might be a clue.” Indigo lifted an eyebrow, looking at the object Sour held to her face. “A button?” she asked, staring a little incredulously at the small blue dot between Sour’s thumb and index finger. “You risked your head for a button?!” Sour held up her nose. “You did dares with higher risks for less.” “And what does it mean?” Lemon asked, rubbing the back of her head. “I’m not sure” Sour said, stroking her chin as she walked up and down the hallway. Raising her gaze she stared at the ceiling. “Maybe after hiding the pudding in the forest the thieves were late for class” she speculated. “They didn’t want their absence to raise any suspicions, so they climbed up the vines to get to class in time.” “And one of them got stuck with a button in the vines and it was ripped off!” Indigo finished the train of thought, smirking as she pointed with her index finger at Sour. Sour threw and caught the button, confidently looking at her assistants. “Exactly!” Turning back to the window Indigo looked at the forest. “But if they were really late for class, they could have taken the pudding pretty deep into the forest” she said a little frustrated. “Or maybe even beyond it.” Sour nodded. “Possible. Still, we are one step closer to catch those pudding thieves!” She took her phone out of her skirt and checked the time. “Class will be over soon. Perfect!” Putting the phone back into her pocket she pulled out her notepad, and began to search through it. Once she found what she looked for she took out her pencil, made some more notes on the page and then ripped it out. “This is a list of possible suspects and witnesses” she said as she handed the piece of paper to Indigo. “Meet up with the others and show it to them. Once the bell rings and the students leave their classrooms I want all four of you to find everyone who fits the descriptions of the lunch lady or misses a button on their uniform and bring them to Twilight’s old laboratory.” Indigo took the page from her hand, exchanging a questioning look with Lemon. “Twilight’s old lab?” she repeated. “You wanna do some crazy experiments on them?” Lemon asked. “Of course not!” Sour calmed them down. “I’ll just need the space.” “For what?” Indigo asked. “As an interrogation room!” Sour replied, a dark gleam in her eyes. Turning around she said a lot more softly over her shoulder: “And by the way, since I was the first to find a clue you two owe me your pudding♥” Indigo and Lemon watched Sour as she happily skipped down the hallway, humming a cheerful tune to herself. Once she was out of sight they exchanged a glance, before smirking at each other. “First at the chemistry lab!” Indigo declared, putting her foot on the windowsill. “Ready whenever you are!” Lemon replied, already grabbing the vines with a hand.