Sonic EGX (Book 1)

by Will of Radiance

Episode 6 Enter the CMC

Monday 7:15am

"Yaaaaaaaaawwwwwwn!!! Man. Barely got any sleep last night." Silver complained.

"Same here." Sonic agreed with him, struggling to keep his eyes open.

"That's what you get when you throw yourself off the top of a hill." Shadow reprimanded him.

The three mobian otherworlders were standing at the bus stop that was about 100 yards away from their apartment complex. The breeze was chilly and the sky was a pink tinted dark blue.
Sonic and Silver were still rather beaten up from their rigorous training regiment from yesterday. Their arms were still very sore, and they still had a few bruises on their face.

They had been waiting for the bus for about ten minutes. Already Sonic was getting impatient as he tapped his foot impatiently.

“This is taking forever, I’d rather walk there myself.” Sonic protested drowsily.

“It took us an hour to walk from the school to here, I doubt you’ll make it in time.” Silver replied in the same drowsily manner. This just cued a tired grunt from Sonic, who was apparently too tired to say anything more.
Shadow then heard the sound of the bus coming down the street from around the turn in the road.

“’Bout time” Shadow mutter to himself, just like Sonic and Silver he too was annoyed with having to wait for almost fifteen minutes for the bus.

Zzzzzzzzz

Shadow heard snoring next to him. He looked back over to Silver to see that he had dozed off to sleep. With the bus about to arrive, he gave Silver a slight nudge to wake him up.

“Snort! Huh!? Wha-!.” Silver spazzed out a little from being awaken suddenly.

“You awake?” Shadow asked him. Silver’s eyelids were still heavy, but he was more or less awake.

“Uhhh.......kinda” Silver replied, still drowsy.

“You want me to pinch you?” Sonic added wryly, despite still being drowsy.

“No thanks. I’m good.” Silver replied as the bus stopped in front of them. The bus door opened revealing the bus driver.

“Canterlot High?” He asked them. The three all nodded in unison. Shadow was the first to step onto the bus.

"Let's sit in the back. Don't want to attract to much attention." Shadow told the others.

Inside the bus, Sonic noticed that the seats looked increasingly degraded the further back they got, with the front seats looking relatively normal, and the back seats looked more downtrodden with the cheap leather looking cracked, and immature graffiti on the back of the seats.

“Hmm....comfy” Sonic remarked sarcastically. They sat down in the back, just as the bus started moving. Sonic and Silver sat on the left side of the bus, with Sonic sitting next to the window, with Silver sitting near the center. Shadow sat on the other seat across from them. Sonic leaned his drowsy head against the window waiting for the bus to get to Canterlot high, trying to fight the urge to fall asleep. Shadow did the same, only against the opposite window, and he was not at all tired. The composition of Sonic and Shadow looking out the windows away from each other perfect encapsulated the state of their relationship.

As the bus progressed towards the school, the bus stopped to pick up more students who sat in the seats in front of them. While they got a few weird looks from some students, they mostly just kept to themselves.

"Zzzzzzzzzz POP!" The snot bubble coming from Silver's nose burst, awakening him.

"WAH! wha-!?" Silver exclaimed as he woke up suddenly. "Hey! How long have I been asleep!?" Silver asked frantically. This cued the other students in the front to shoot them wierd looks again.

"Relax. We've only been on the bus for fifteen minutes." Shadow replied. Silver sighed with relief.

"Sheesh. Am I that tired?" Silver said to himself, noting how heavy his eyelids were and how sluggish he felt. "Damn it! I should've never followed Sonic in his stupid training regiment!"
The bus then made another stop.

"Ugh! Come on already!" Sonic complained impatiently.

"Shut it..." Shadow said in a deadpan tone. Cuing a bitter grunt from Sonic. Silver looked down the bus, and noticed no one was entering the bus.

"Hm? Is anyone even entering?" Silver raised an eyebrow.

"Three! Two!! One!!!" He heard three young female voices chant. Then all of a sudden three girls rushed onto the bus in unison.

"THE CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS ARE HERE!!!" The three girls all cheered pumping their fists into the air. Only one of them was was facing the wrong way as the rest of the girls. The bus was silent, with all of the students looking at them awkwardly.

"Eh? Scoot! You're facing the wrong way!" Sweetie Belle reprimanded her friend.

"Yeah! Straighten' out would ya?" Applebloom added.

"Eh!?...." Scootaloo noticed that she messed up their introduction. She proceeded to turn around by making little hops. Once she was facing the right way, she motioned for them to do the chant one more time.

"Ok. One! Two! Three!" She chanted.

"THE CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS ARE HERE!!!" The three chanted once again. But also once again, the bus remained silent.

"Take a seat will you? Don't wanna keep the bus waiting." The bus driver told them.

"Awww!" The three complained that their intro didn't impress anybody. They trudged to the back of back of the bus with a sad and disappointed look on their faces.

Scootaloo looked up breifly and saw the three otherworlders at the back of the bus. She raised a suspicous eyebrow, having not seen them before.

"Hey, who're who those guys?" Scootaloo whispered over to Applebloom. Applebloom just shrugged her shoulders.
All the seats in the front and middle were taken so they had to go sit in the back. This wasn't anything new to them, for the bus always picked them up last.

"Um....say Sweetie Belle." Scootaloo inquired to Sweetie Belle. "Rarity's your sister isn't she? So why don't you go to school with her instead of walking all the way over to the bus stop with us?" Scoot asked. Sweetie Belle didn't respond at first, and had a solemn and sad look on her face. Scoot and Applebloom looked over at her, their concern for her growing.

"It's......well.......complicated." Sweetie Belle finally replied. Scoot and Applebloom were rather confused with her answer, still having inquisitive looks on their faces. Sweetie Belle sensed that they were trying to pry into her personal family business.
"Sigh Look I'd rather not talk about it. Ok?" Sweetie Belle told them to knock off the meddling.

"Well.....were here if ya ever need to talk, alright." Applebloom put a caring hand on her shoulder. Sweetie Belle couldn't help but smile.

"Thanks." She thanked the two.

The two took their seats, opposite the seat Sonic, Shadow, and Silver were sitting. Scoot, who was sitting to the left of Applebloom and Sweetiebelle, couldn't help but be somewhat curious of the three newcomers, as she kept glancing over at them. She didn't know exactly what made her curious about them. Maybe it was their hairstyles? Whatever it was, they gave off a different vibe then the other students on the bus.
Despite her best to not look like she was eying them, Shadow could tell that she was suspicious of them even without looking.

"Ugh! Are we really that noticable?" Shadow let out an irritated sigh.
Shortly after they sat down, the bus started moving again. Scoot still couldn't help but be curious about the three new students sitting across from them. Eventually her curiosity boiled over, causing her to turn to Silver and ask him a quesiton.

"So.....you guys are new huh?" She asked him. Silver was rather hesitant to ask, for he wondered why this random kid was suddenly taking an interest in them.

"Um......who wants to know?" Silver replied, trying to sound dismissive of her. But Scoot wasn't going to have any of it.

"Hmph! The Cutie Mark Crusaders! That's who!" She boasted, to the chagrin of Sweetie Belle.

"Scoot! I.....wouldn't accociate with them just yet." She whispered over to her.
Scoot was confused, for she didn't see any discernable reason to be suspicious of them.

"Why not?" Scoot asked her. Sweetie Belle motioned to whisper something to her. Scoot leaned over to hear what she had to say.

"From what I've heard, the blue haired one picked a fight with Scourge, trashing several lockers in the process." Sweetie Belle relayed. This made Scoots eyes dialate with excitement.

"Really!? That's awesome!" Scoot cheered, a feeling of satisfaction flowed over her upon hearing that Scourge got some retribution.

"Shhhhh!" Sweetie Belle and Applebloom shushed her.

"What? It is awesome." Scoot retorted back, in a quieter voice. Sweetie Belle let out disappointed sigh at how Scoot didn’t get the bigger picture.

“Let’s just say, troublesome types attract more trouble.” Sweetie Belle whispered back. Scoot just rolled her eyes in annoyance.

Silver looked over at the three girls, hoping that they weren’t too suspicious of them. He leaned over to Shadow to say something to him.

“Ya think their on to us?” Silver whispered. Shadow let out a quiet grunt, annoyed that so many people had their eyes on them.

“Just keep interaction with them to a minimum. We already got our hands full with those other girls” Shadow relayed back to him.

“Right.” Silver replied.

Sonic wasn’t really paying attention to his brothers little exchange, for his minds was dreading having to endure yet another day of sitting in class, and possibly getting taunted by Dash.
Letting out a sigh, he just waited until the bus reached Canterlot high.

Location Canterlot High

The bell sounded as students flooded from the busses toward the school. The CMC pushed their way passed the crowds students as they made their way towards the school’s doors.

“Hrrgg! Ahhhh!” Scoot stretched as she stepped out of the bus. “Not looking forward to trigonometry today.”

“Why’s that?” Applebloom asked.

“I’m getting the results for the quiz I took on Friday. Suffice to say, I don’t think I did very good” Scoot said with dread. She could envision a giant red letter F looming over her.
Sweetie Belle sigh with annoyance, for she could tell what Scoots problem was.

“You know, if you had actually studied the material you wouldn’t have as much trouble with those quizzes.” Sweetie Belle told Scoot in a slightly condescending tone. Scoot let out an annoyed grunt.

“Well how do you know that didn’t I study for it?” Scoot acused them. Sweetie Belle wasn't impressed with Scoot's rebuttal.

"Well if the results of the test aren't evidence enough, then explain why you texted me about the latest episode of Griffonball at 11:00 last night?” Sweetie Belle caused her. Scoot fell silent, knowing that she had just been checkmated. Applebloom looked at Scoot with prying eyes, a smug grin growing across her face. Scoot began sweating, desperately trying to find an out.

“Hey squirt! Hows it goin?”

“WAAH!!” Scoot yelled in surprise as she heard a familiar voice behind her. She looked behind her to see Dash. She let out a sigh of relief for Dash managed to take their attention away from her trigonometry quiz.

“Oh! Hey Dash. Nothin much.” Scoot replied.

“Say I didn’t see you at P.E. for a few days. What’s with that?” Dash asked her. Scoot was about to speak, but Sweetie Belle spoke first.

“I pulled her aside for some additional studying.” She interjected. “Of course we’ll see the results of that soon, won’t we.” she leaned towards Scoot with prying eyes. Scoot rolled her eyes as she thought she was free of the looming F grade she was about to receive.

“Heh. Quizzes huh? They suck.” Dash sympathized with Scoot.

“Tell me about it” Scoot seconded Dash’s sentiment, cuing Applebloom and Sweetie Belle to roll their eyes in annoyance. Then Dash noticed Sonic, Shadow and Silver just as they entered the school.

"Say, was a certained spikey blue haired dude on the bus with you?" Dash asked her.

"Yeah. Why do you ask?" Scoot replied back.

"Well, let's just say he and I have a little competition going on." Dash explained to them .

"Really? Is he gonna try and beat you? Like that'll ever happen" Scoot asked, scoffing at Sonic's attempt to beat Dash.

"Um, Were going to head to class. You can tell us more about later, okay Scoot?" Sweetie Belle said to Dash as she grabbed Scoot by the collar and dragged her to school.

"Wha-? Hey! Lemme go! I wanna hear the rest of the story!" Scoot protested against Sweetie Belle forcefully dragging her to school. Dash smirked for she was rather amused at how Scoot was being dragged off.

"Well, I'll tell you about it after school! Okay squirt!?" Dash waved goodbye as she watched Scoot getting dragged off off to school. She giggled a little at Scoot's predicament before going hiking up her backpack and going off to class.

2:00 pm

It was P.E and the students were already stretching, preparing for the mile long run around the track. Sonic himself felt too cocky to even stretch, for he felt that his training over the weekend had reinvigorated a little bit of his former stamina.

"Sigh You never learn do ya blue boy." A cocky voice next to him said. Much to his annoyance, Dash was once again next to him.
"I mean seriously you're not even gonna stretch? Lemme guess your gonna sprint all out at the beginning again?" Dash condescendingly told him.

"Heh, What happened to all those words of encouragement?" He replied sarcastically. Dash got finished stretching her legs, and then she suddenly got up in Sonic's face with a pouty scowl on her face.

"Listen here, newbie. If you even think for a second that I'm gonna let up because I told you to try and beat me, I'm gonna make you eat so much dust, you're gonna like how it tastes!" Dash lectured him, further leaning into him, forcing him to lean backwards.
Sonic kept a rather disinterested face. He began to think that he was getting used to Dash being like this.
"Hmph!" A pouty Dash returned to her starting position.

"Well, I'm sure everyone else here must love how it tastes." Sonic snarked back at her. Dash didn't even bother responding to his comments.

Silver, who was next to him, was listening in to their whole exchange. He was tempted to comment, but he just let out a sigh when he realized it wasn't worth it.

"Ya know, if I didn't know any better, I'd say Dash likes your bro." Applejack leaned over to Silver with a wry smile on her face. Silver double taked at her comment.

"Ha ha ha you're hilarious." Silver fake laughed. The idea actually almost made him laugh. The sound of Coach Armor's whistle suddenly sounded.

"Okay people, you know what to do!" Coach Armor told the students, cuing them to get into their running positions.

Sonic and Dash exchanged a brief glance, their competitive spirits flashing for a brief second before they both nodded and got into their running positions.

Meanwhile, Scoot, who was at the other end of the line noticed Sonic and Dash get into their running positions. She still didn't know what Sonic and Dash's bet was, and was still eager to know.

"Okay, 3....." Coach Armor began counting down.

"Oh shoot!" Scoot forgot she was supposed to run too.

"2......1"

Sonic and Dash prepared to race once again. After a short pause, Coach Armor blew his whistle cueing both Dash and Sonic to burst ahead of the crowd. Scoot watched as Sonic was matching Dash's pace. She almost couldn't believe that someone could match Dash in terms of speed. However she then realized that in her moment of awe, she forgot to actually start running herself.

"Oh crap!" Scoot said as she frantically started running, trying to catch up to the crowd.

5 minutes later

"Pant Pant Pant Dammit!" Sonic swore loudly as he took repeated gasps for breath. Unfortunately, he started to run out of breath on the last lap around the track, causing him to fall behind and come in fourth place. While it certainly wasn't as bad as last time, the fact that he still lost, stung at his pride. He looked over to see Dash celebrating her victory. He rolled his eyes angrily and stormed off towards the school.

"Uh, Sorry man. Maybe next time?" Silver tried to cheer him up. Sonic said nothing as he sulked towards the school, and threw the school doors open angrily. Silver let out a disappointed sigh, rather frustrated that Sonic was still being a bad sport.

"Whoa!" A curious Scoot said as she watched Sonic storm off into the school. "Your bro really wants to beat Dash huh?" Scoot asked Silver excitedly.

"Yeah, Unfortunately." Silver replied sadly.

Scoot ran into the school after Sonic. Luckily he didn't get too far so it wasn't long before Scoot caught up to him.

"Hey man!" Scoot called to him. Sonic kept walking, not even turning to talk to her. But Scoot wasn't going to let him ignore her that easlily.

"Hey. I just want to say, you're real cool for wanting to dethrone Dash." Scoot praised him. Sonic was rather surprised at her comment.

"Heh. Finally some respect around here." Sonic felt his pride get a little better, but still not enough to get rid of the sinking feeling of defeat that still lingered.

"That so?" Sonic finally responded to her.

"Yeah! Although I doubt you'll ever do it-" The slight smile on his face immediately faded as the small bit of hope he got was shattered.

"Geez. Thanks for nothing kid."

"-I can definately respect the drive it takes to try and do something like that."

"What, you president of Dash's fan club or something?" Sonic snidely commented.

"Am not!!" Scoot retorted immaturely.

"Pssh. Yeah sure kid." Sonic snarked back. Sonic rolled his eyes in annoyance, for he felt that he souldn't be wasting his time anymore talking with her.

"Look kid, I appreciate the encouragement but you better not but in on our races alright?" Sonic warned her callously. Scoot felt rather insulted by his response.

"Hey! I'm not gonna 'Butt' in on anything." Scoot retorted again. "And just because I'm a fan of Dash doesn't mean I-eh!?" Scoot was interrupted when Sonic abruptly turned and started walking away.
"Wha- HEY!!! Don't freaking ignore me!!"

"Uh, yeah that's cool kid, I'll smell you later." Sonic snarkily waved off her pouty complaining. Scoot just stood there fuming with childish rage.

"Hmph! No wonder he and Dash are going at it. They're almost identical!" Scoot commented on Sonic's abrasive personality.

"Sigh I better go back and talk with Dash, I want her to tell me about the be- Oof!!" Scoot was interrupted again, when she bumped into someone as she turned around.

"Hey! Watch where youre- uh?" Scoot fell silent as the anger in her stomach was instantly replaced by terror, as she looked up and saw that the person she bumped into was Scourge, who was giving her a utterly terrifying death stare from behind his shades.

"Oh crap! It....it's him" Scoot paniced as she backed up slowly.

"The hell's your problem brat?" Scourge spoke in his grizzyly threatening voice. It was enough to make Scoot start shaking.

"Uhhh......uh....nothing." She said meekly as she continued to back. But she gasped as she felt her back press against the lockers behind her.

"Doesn't sound like nothin'" He replied dismissively. He began slowly approaching her. Scoot began panicking more as she looked for a way out. But she was too scared to move.
"You gotta problem with me brat?" Scourge asked her a loaded question. Scoot got the dreaded feeling that she was in for a bad time no matter how she responded.

"Uh...uh...look I-I-I-I...didn't..." She chuked nervously as she tried to convince him to leave her alone, but she kept studdering. Scourge didn't budge an inch, and proceeded to crack his knuckles. Scoot's heart nearly stopped at the sound of his knuckles cracking.

"Crap!! Someone.....Please!" Scoot begged for someone to come along and help her.

"Hey!" As if someone had heard her prayers, a voice called out from her left telling her to stop.

"What!?" Scourge said as a person came inbetween him and Scoot. Scoot looked up and saw Sonic standing in between her and Scourge, a wave of relief sweeping over her body.

"Grrrrr......it's you blue rat!" Scourge spat at him. Sonic kept his cool despite being called 'blue rat', which he hated.

"I believe I said before, If you want someone to pick on, pick on someone your own size." Sonic stated. Scoot looked up at him, admiration shining in her eyes.

"Wow! He's so cool!"

Unfortunately, Sonic's words were not enough to scare him off. A crude smirk formed on his face as
Scourge approached Sonic.

"And I believe I said, 'mind your own bucking business!'" Scourge replied in kind, anger coursing through every syllable in his voice.

"Hmph!" Sonic let out a little chuckle. "Then make me....moss head." Sonic taunted him.
The two had their eyes locked with each other, both of their fighting spirit was eager to burst at any second. Then suddenly the doors to outside opened, Applebloom and Sweetie Belle entering and immediately seeing what was going on.

"Scoot!!!" They both exclaimed. Sonic and Scourge looked to see them in the doorway. Sonic recognized them from on the bus earlier.

"Hey what's going on-gasp!" Dash joined the other two and saw Scourge and Sonic staring down each other.

"Oh great! Just what I need. " Scourge sighed exasperatingly. He turned back to Sonic, still giving him the stink eye.
"We'll do this another time." He said spitefully. Then he walked off, his threatening aura still lingering as he walked down the hallway.

"HEY!!" Dash suddenly yelled out. She began walking after him. "You can't just bully my friends and get away with it!" She yelled at him down the hallway. "Get back here!-huh?" She was stopped by Sonic who grabbed her arm as she walked past him.
"Huh? What the hell are you doing!? Why'd you stop me!" Dash yanked her arm out of his hand.

"Oh don't bother with him. Besides, you heard what he said. He and I still have a score to settle." Sonic explained. Dash raised an eyebrow, confused by what Sonic meant.
Sonic then got closer to her and gave her a slightly threatening look.

"So leave fighting him to me." Sonic said. Dash remembered that Applejack gave her a similar look at one point, she immediately interpreted it as, 'Don't but in on our fight. While she definitely wanted to get back at Scourge for picking on Fluttershy, she couldn't help but respect a fight between two men.

"Heh. Whatever I guess." Dash shrugged her shoulders. "But I hope your speed soon matches that confidence of yours." Dash smugly flipped her hair as she walked pass him.

"Pfft! What's that supposed to mean?" Sonic retorted. She looked back at him giving him that same snark filled look that annoyed him so much.

"Heh. Because I know mine does Blue boy!" She smugly proclaimed before strutting down the hallway. Sonic was fuming internally, so much that Scoot could feel the heat on her face.

"Keh! Just wait! You'll be eating my dust before you know it Skittle Hair " Sonic retorted back. He turned around to see Sweetie Belle and Applebloom with innocent eyes.

"Uhhh....you need something?" He asked them.

"Oh thank you so much for protecting our little Scoot!" Sweetie Belle thanked him from the bottom of our heat.

"Yea! If ya hadn't come along, who know what would've happened." Applebloom thanked him alongside Sweetie Belle with big innocent eyes.

"Tch! Hey! I don't need protecting!!" Scoot protested angrily at them unintentionally humiliating her.
Sonic was slightly embarrassed at their immense praise, scratching the back of his head

"Oh don't say that Scoot!" Sweetie reprimanded her. "Now come over here and thank him!" She grabbed Scoot by the arm and dragged her over to thank Sonic.

"Uh...heh heh. Look you don't need to thank me I just-" Sonic tried to prevent them from dragging Scoot into this out of embarrassment.

"Ummm.....eh....Th-Thank you...." An embarrassed and slightly humiliated Scoot thanked him. Sweetie Belle nudged her to continue. Scoot made an irritated face before she continued.
"....f-for.....uhh...." She continued meekly.

"Uh Sure cool kiddos. I'll catch you later." Sonic not wanted to deal with the embarrassment anymore decided to just turn tail and leave them. The three were rather offended that he shrugged of their gratitude, especially Sweetie Belle.

"Tch! Hey! Don't just shrug off our show of gratitude. You.....big....blue...uh....oaf!!" Sweetie Belle railed at him, angrily waving her fist at him. Sonic snickered a little at her 'insult'

"Pfft come on kid. Scourge's roast game is better than yours" Sonic internally commented on her subpar insult as he walked off.

"Grrrrrr!!!!" Sweetie fumed as she cluctched her yellow skirt angrily. "Hmph! I take back what I said. That blue oaf is not worthy of my thanks!" She stamped her foot poutily. Applebloom and Scoot looked at Sweetie Belle with confusion, unsure of whether to agree or to disagree with her.

4:00 pm

The CMC were walking to the bus stop after school let out. Scoot was looking at her trigonometry exam with extremely depressed eyes, primarily focused on the giant F at the top right corner written in red ink. Sweetie Belle on the other hand was eyeing her own trigonometry exam. A satisfied smile was on her face as she eyed the big A+ on ther exam.
Applebloom had a rather dissapointed look on her face looking at the B- on her exam. Scoot glanced over at her two friends, a wave of jealousy washed over her as she saw their test scores.

"Pssh! Look at you, with you're A's and B's." Scoot mumbled to herself spitefully. Sweetie Belle unfortunately heard her mumbling and wasn't about to have any of it.

"Sigh What did I tell you. You don't study, you don't pass." Sweetie Belle said disappointingly. Applebloom took this opportunity to stick her tounge out at Scoot. Sweetie Belle however noticed Applebloom taunting Scoot and wasn't about to have any of that either.

"And Applebloom! That's the fifth B- in a row!" Belle reprimanded her. Applebloom gave her an annoyed look.

"Wut er you? Our mom or somethin'" Applebloom complained.

"Well, I'm just saying. If we are a legitmate group we should all at least have matching grades shouldn't we?" Belle inquired to the two.

"Screw that! Whoever invented these grades system outa be arrested!" Scoot angrily threw her papers on the ground and began stomping on them.

"Eh Hey! Don't do that!" Sweetie Belle ordered her to stop. Scoot however ignored her and continued stamping on her paper's in anger.

Meanwhile, Rarity, Twilight, and Sunset had just exited Canterlot high and were on their way home.

"Hrrrg!! Oh man! Today was long!" Sunset stretched her arms and legs.

"Yawn You can say that again" Twilight agreed as she stretched alongside Sunset. She herself was more tired than usual. She did another long research session for information about the emerald in the library by herself today, despite fearing that the person who attacked her a week ago would appear again.

"What do you two think about going out to eat? We haven't done that in a while." Rarity suggested.

"Oh most defiantly!" Spike poked his head out of Twilight's backpack, hearts in his eyes staring at Rarity. Twilight's then felt her stomach growl.

"Sigh Okay okay..." Twilight lifted Spike out of her backpack. "We did a lot of hard work today. So let's treat ourselves." Twilight said cheerfully.

"Then it's settled!" Rarity said.

"Oh say uhh.....isn't that your sister over there Rarity?" Sunset pointed over to the bus stop. Rarity and Twilight looked over to where Sunset was pointing and they saw the three cutie mark crusaders waiting at the bus stop.

"Oh! Sweetie Belle!" Rarity called out her sister's name and went over greet her. Twilight and Sunset followed her. Scootaloo, Applebloom, and Sweetie Belle noticed the three coming over to them.

"Oh! It's Rainbow Dash's friends!" Scootaloo said. Sweetie Belle sneered a little when she saw Rarity.

"Hey you three! You headed home!?" Twilight asked them.

"Pretty much." Scoot replied.

"Well, we were about to go out to eat. We were wondering if you would like to come with us." Rarity asked.

"Oh? Sure why not!" Scoot said excitedly.

"Yeah!" Applebloom agreed with Scoot. "What about you Sweetie Belle.?" They both turned to Sweetie Belle, who was acting rather nervously.

"Uhhh......no thanks..." She said. The whole group double taked.

"Huh? Why not?" Scoot asked. Rarity retreated a little, a slight expression of guilt on her face.

"Ummmm......I.......have homework to do." Sweetie Belle made an excuse. "So......I'll see you girls later." She proceeded to turn around and walk to the bus stop. Twilight, Rarity, and Sunset sensed that something was wrong with her.

"Uh...Say Rarity are you and your sister....uh..." Sunset wanted to inquire about their relationship, but hesitated to for fear that she might be insensitve. Rarity let out a sigh, wishing that she didn't have to deal with this in front of her friends.

"It....it's nothing darling. I'll go talk to her." Rarity told them as she walked over to talk to Sweetie Belle. Twilight, Sunset, Scootaloo, and Applebloom all exchanged a glance with each other as they all wondered if Sweetie Belle was okay, and if Rarity was getting along with her.

Sweetie Belle tried to ignore Rarity as she walked up to her. Rarity followed her to the bus stop, wanting to at least have a little talk with her little sister. She hesitated before she talked though, for she knew that talks between her and Sweetie Belle usually turn sour.

"Um....you know, there's such a thing as being too vigilant with your studies Sweetie Belle dear." Rarity said in her most pleasant voice possible. Sweetie Belle didn't look at her as she stopped at the bus stop, scowling as she didn't want to talk to Rarity right now. "So why don't you take a break and have some fun with us." Rarity smiled, hoping that she would reach Sweetie Belle somehow.

"No thanks." Sweetie Belle said coldly. Rarity felt a wave of saddness creep into her heart. She was ashamed of herself that she wasn't a better older sister in the past.

"sigh Sweetie Belle, look.....I know back then, I wasn't the best big sister but....." Rarity struggled to find the words to continue. Sweetie Belle's expression slowly went from a scowl to a meloncholic face, for she knew that Rarity was trying to reach her, but unfortunately she couldn't let go of the past that easily.

"Sigh" Sweetie Belle finally turned to Rarity to talk to her. "Rarity, don't think you can just decide to be a good sister and expect things to be okay between us." She explained calmly.

"I know, but I can at least try." Rarity replied.

The other's watched as Rarity and Sweetie Belle talked. Scootaloo and Applebloom's concern for Sweetie Belle continued to grow more and more.

"Uh...ya think that we should go talk to her as well?" Applebloom suggested to the others. Twilight went and put a hand on her shoulder and shook her head.

"I think this is something Rarity and Sweetie Belle have to figure out." Twilight told her.

"But!.....Sigh I suppose you're right." Scoot wanted to go talk to Belle, but she ended up agreeing with Twilight, for trying to interfere would probably make things worse. The group saw Rarity and Sweetie Belle walk towards them.

"Um.....good news everyone." Rarity said to the group. Everyone noticed that Sweetie Belle still looked pretty down.
"Sweetie Belle has agreed to join us!" Rarity smiled as she gave everyone the news.

"Oh that's great!" Scootaloo cheered. Twilight, and Sunset were both relieved at the news as well.

"I knew you would come around Belle!" Applebloom said happilly as she hugged Sweetie Belle.

"Uhh...heh heh. Yeah. Sorry about eariler." Sweetie Belle faked a smile.

"Stupid Rarity. You just had to go and bring up Scoot and Bloom didn't you. " Sweetie Belle fumed internally for Rarity unintentionally guilt tripping her.

"But Sweetie Belle, even if you don't enjoy being with me, what about your friends!?" She remembered Rarity saying to her. But she didn't want to appear heartless in front of her friends, so she kept her grudge inside.

"Alrighty then. Where should we go then?" Twilight asked.

"Wings! Wings! Wings! Please!!" Spike popped out of Twilight backpack again, drooling at the mouth.

"Spike. You had wings yesterday." Twilight told him. "And you made quite a mess as well." Twilight reprimanded him.

"Eh. I can't help it." Spike said wiping some drool off his mouth. Sunset was looking on her phone for places to eat.

"Eh, how about the usual cafe then?" Sunset proposed casually.

"No problem with that!" Rarity agreed.

"Eh. Yeah sure I guess." Sweetie Belle replied.

"Sure!" Applebloom and Scootaloo agreed along with her cheerfully, pumping their fists in the air. With that, the six girls headed out. Sweetie Belle in a way wanted to be happy, even with Rarity around. But unfortunately, her past experience with her sister when she was younger kept her from accepting this happiness.

"Say Sweetie Belle. Are.....are you happy?" Rarity asked her in a rather uneasy tone. Sweetie Belle didn't know how to respond. She wanted to portray her honest feelings, but she knew that wouldn't make things better.

"Y....yeah....I guess....." Sweetie Belle said, unsure if she meant it or not.
Rarity smiled. Even if it wasn't much, at least she managed to connect with her little sister in some way.
Rarity proceeded to take Belle's hand. Belle let out a little gasp of surprise, as her older sister grabbed her hand.

"I'm glad...." Rarity said to her. Sweetie Belle looked into her sister's eyes, they were filled with compassion, not contempt like she remembered.
A small but genuine smile appeared on Sweetie Belle's face. She thought that maybe she could get along with her older sister, even after those hard times.
The two sister's then went to enjoy the rest of the day with their friends, with their hands in each other's grasp.

Meanwhile a little ways a way, Shadow was spying on them whilst sitting on the steps to the school while pretending to read a book he borrowed from the library. While he knew that he couldn't grab the chaos emerald from them as they are now, he still felt the need to keep an eye on them. Unfortunately, today seemed pretty uneventful apart form learning that Sweetie Belle is related to Rarity.
"Well. This was a waste of time." He said to himself. He stowed the book in his jacket, got up and went back into the school to look for Sonic and Silver.
"Now where are those idiots." Shadow annoyingly referred to them, thinking that Sonic was probably up to no good again.

"Alright, you ready?!" Silver called out.

"Ready!" Sonic shouted back.

"Okay. 3, 2,1.......GO!!!" Silver yelled as he swung his hand down. Sonic immediately burst from the starting line and sprinting around the track. In almost fifteen seconds he was almost half way across the track.

"Sonic! Slow it down a little, you'll use up all your energy!" Silver called to him from the bleachers. Unfortunately, Sonic didn't hear him and he continued sprinting all the way around. Silver let out a sigh of dissapointment as he slumped back on a seat behind him. In almost thirty seconds he had already finished one lap around the track, with no sign of stopping.
Silver just sat back as he waited for the inevitable to happen.

As Sonic made halfway around the track for his second lap, that's when the fatigue set in.
"Pant Pant Pant Pant Dammit! Pant! Not again!" Sonic swore under his breath as his lungs began straining and his heartbeat began skyrocketing. He stumbled over the finish line for his third lap.
Silver had counted four minutes right now. He had to count in his head for he didn't have a watch or a phone. Sonic had asked him to keep count of his time as he wanted to beat Dash's time of four minutes and thirty seconds.
Unfortunately by the time he was half way through the third lap he was at four minutes thirty seconds, barely able to sustain a slow jog. As he went into his final lap, he was at four minutes forty five seconds. Sonic was panting so loud that Silver could hear him from the bleachers.
"Uh.....I don't think this is working for you." Silver commented. Sonic wanted to snap at him, but he was too tired to even speak. He eventually trapsed across the finish line a fourth time, panting his lungs out and covered head to toe with sweat.

"Pant Pant Silver! Pant Pant Whats the time!?" Sonic shouted to Silver between deep gasps for air. Silver recounted the time he kept track of in his head.

"Let's see......." Silver thought for a second. "I'd say......six minutes and ten seconds." Silver relayed to him. Sonic stompped his foot angrily as he heard Silver tell him his time.

"DAMN!" Sonic swore angrily.

"Geez. Don't shoot the messenger man." Silver mumbled under his breath.

"Sonic! Silver! The hell are you doing!?"

"Yeeep!" Silver jumped in his seat, he looked over in the direction of the voice and saw Shadow staring up at him from bottom of the bleachers.
"Oh Uhh....Sonic asked me time his run. He really seems hellbent on beating Dash." Silver relayed to him. Shadow rolled his eyes in annoyance.
"Seriously Faker? Were looking for the chaos emeralds and you're obssessed with a petty rivalry?" Shadow glared at Sonic angrily as he caught his breath. But he vented all his anger out with a sigh, as he decided that arguing with him would be a waste of time. He noticed that the sun was going down.

"Let's head back." Shadow told them. "Were gonna search the town tonight. If were lucky we might find one. "

"Hmm?" Silver was confused at Shadow's proposed course of action. "But what about the emerald that those girls have?" Silver asked.

"It's too risky to try and take it from them. So for now, we look for the others. We'll devise a way to get that one back later." Shadow explained to him. Silver thought about his plan for a second.

"Well, to be honest. Wouldn't it be easier to just come clean to them? I mean, admittedly there's something strange about those girls." Silver explained. Shadow let out another dissapointed sigh as he has to explain why this course of action isn't right again.

"Sonic asked me the same thing. I can't trust the resident's of this place to keep a secret, even if they are strange like us." Shadow replied, not wanting to talk about it. Silver was rather annoyed with Shadow's stubborness, then he remembered that he and Shadow saw a strange artefact fall out of Twilight's backpack.

"B-But what about-" Silver tried arguing back.

"No buts. We stay clear of them. We've associated with them too much already." Shadow interrupted him. "Now let's go." Shadow started walk to the front of the school

"Pant Pant Pant Hey What'd I miss?" Sonic asked as he walked to the bleachers covered in sweat.

"Sigh Oh Shadow's just being his usual self." Silver snidely told Sonic.

"Heh. Being an obnoxious buzzkill? Typical" Sonic joked along with him.

"I heard that!" Shadow yelled at them from across the bleachers.

"EEEP!" The two jumped in surprise.

"Eh....let's go." Sonic decided to not waste anymore time and follow Shadow. Silver shortly followed suit.

6:00 pm

Back in their apartment, the three were sitting around the coffee table in the middle of their small living room. Shadow had placed a map of the city on the table, which he had aquired from downstairs. He was going over the most likely area's where they would find one. He also had a newspaper on the table to look for any abnormal articles containing any hints.

"Alright, so what's our game plan?" Silver asked. Shadow was perusing through the newspaper while checking various points on their map. Sonic on the otherhand was just casually laying back, not looking particularly interested in what they were doing, much to their chagrin.

"We've checked the school enough, so I say let's check this area." Shadow pointed to the shopping district. Silver looked at where Shadow was pointing.

"The shopping district? What makes you think we'll find one there?" Silver asked.

"There's a chance that the merchants there probably found one of them and are trying to sell it. It's just a hunch, but without my chaos sense fully active it's the best we've got." Shadow explained.

"What if somebody does have it? Are we gonna try and steal it?" Sonic proposed, still laying back on their cheap couch.

"Sigh No. Last thing we need you going to jail." Shadow snidely chided Sonic.

"Hey!" Sonic protested. Shadow ignored his protest and sat back down as he continued his explanation.

"If somebody does have it, at least we'll know that it is indeed here. From then on we'll proceed to keep tabs on it." Shadow continued to explain.

"Well, I guess that would be the worst case senario. Best case would be that find one that's been untouched." Silver added. "What do think our odds are Shadow?" Silver turned to Shadow. Shadow scratched his chin as he thought about their situation. Sonic tapped his foot impatiently as he waited for Shadow's answer.

"I'd say twenty percent we find one untouched." Shadow answered. Sonic let out disspointed sigh. He sat up as he aired his thoughts on their situation.

"This is gonna be hard, you know, balancing school life and finding the chaos emeralds." Sonic noted. "What happens if we have to stay late, like if one of us gets detention or somthing?" Sonic asked.

"Nobody said anything about this being easy. However that means we should take full advantage of our free time, especially the weekeends." Shadow explained. "And in the mean time, find a way to get our powers back."
This managed to get Sonic's attention. He smirked as he thought about how once he get's his powers back he's going to cream Dash at her own game. In the mean time, he'll continue training to get fast enough to beat Dash as he is now.

"Okay. Sounds good to me." Sonic sat up in his seat, confirming his involvment with Shadow's plan. Shadow turned to Silver to see if he's on board as well.

"Well, I don't know of any other places to look so, let's do it." Silver replied.

Satisfied with their responses, Shadow was confident in going ahead with searching the shopping district.

"Alright. We search the shopping district tonight. We have a few hours left in the day so let's make the best of it. If we don't find anything we'll search tomorrow." Shadow explained to them. Sonic got up, with a satisfied smile on his face.

"Alrighty then. Now then, TO THE MALL!!!" Sonic shouted triumphantly, completely with a trumpet course and fanfare. Shadow and Silver looked at Sonic with the most awkward expression.

"Uh......yeah. Love the enthusiasm." Shadow half heartedly completmented Sonic's sudden bravado.

7:30 pm

Sweetie Belle was licking her two scoops daquri ice cream that Rarity had bought for her while holding Rarity's hand as they walked through the mall. She had a giddy and innocent smile on her face as the last three hours some of the best she's ever had. The group initially were just going to have dinner, however they happened to meet up with Pinkie Pie, who convinced them to spend some time at the arcade. Afterwards she treated everyone to desert at the mall's bakery.

"Whoopie! I beat my high score on Transformers: Duelists!" Pinkie cheered. Scoot gave a rather annoyed look at Pinkie.

"Well, that's because you beat all of us over and over." Scoot complained, still angry at Pinkie for abusing the mechanics of the most cheap character in the game.

"Yeah! Isn't that character banned!?" Applebloom protested along with Scoot, clearly angry about losing repeatedly as well, proceeding to angrily lick her three scoops of apple sorbet with three slices of granny apples.
A smug grin grew on Pinkie's face, clearly not having any of their whining.

"Well in tournaments she is, and you never said we were in a tournament." Pinkie slithered right up in their faces, making her wide smug grin ever the more apparent. "And after all, you know the old saying, 'don't hate the game, hate the player." This only served to irritate Scoot even more.

"Oh yeah! Well, that doesn't me- "

"Uh....by the way, are you gonna eat that?" Pinkie pointed to Scoots large eight scoop tall ice cream.

"Huh? Whu-? Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!" Scoot panicked as her eight scoop tall strawberry-lemon ice cream began toppling to the side. She tried frantically to balance her ice cream, but she was too late as her ice cream tumbled to the ground. However instead of landing on the ground, the six scoops landed squarely in Pinkie's mouth.

"Whu-?" Applebloom said, flabbergasted at how Pinkie was able to move so fast as to catch the ice cream in her mouth. The rest of the group looked at her with confused bewilderment. Pinkie proceeded to eat the four ice cream scoops that landed in her mouth in one gulp, quickly standing up and letting out a small burp afterwards.
"Never let any ice cream go to waste!" Pinkie proudly proclaimed, rubbing her belly satisfyingly before skipping down the main drag of the mall with glee.
The CMC looked at the remains of Scoots ice cream, which consisted of a measly one and a half scoops. Sweetie Belle and Applebloom exchanged a brief glance before breaking down in laughter, leaving Scoot to sulk at the meager remains of her ice cream.

Twilight looked at their whole exchange and couldn't help but giggle. Then proceeded to take a bite out of her blueberry crepe. Beside her Sunset was eating a churro, and Rarity was drinking an iced coffee. Pinkie had appeared to have already eaten as she skipped in front of them.

Then out of the corner of her eye she spotted a few familiar faces.

"Oh Hey! Dash, Fluttershy, AJ!" Twilight waved to the three as they walked into the center of the mall.

Dash was checking her text messages when she heard Twilight's voice. They saw three girls looked over and saw Twilight and the other's waving to them.

"Heh, well what do ya know?" Applejack said. The three walked over to join their friends.

"Hey Dash!" Scoot greet her.

"Hey squirt. So, what are you guys doing here?" She asked them.

"Oh, with recent events being really hectic and everything, I just decided to relax a little." Twilight explained.

"Heh, going out on a school night? That's unlike you Twilight." Fluttershy commented.

"Yeah, well what are you all doing here then?" Twilight asked them back.

"Oh, Applejack needed to pick up some things from the grocery store, and I needed some deodorant so I decided to tag along." Rainbow Dash explained. The group all turned to Fluttershy, expecting her to share why she was here. It took her a few seconds for her to realize that they were expecting her to say why she was here.

"Oh! M-me now? I-I was at the flower store. It's for my biology homework." She said

"Hmph, what? Are you gonna whisper to them and find out their secrets or something?" Dash teased her.

"N-no." Fluttershy said meekly. Applejack stepped next to her to back her up.

"Hey hey. Lay off her alright Dash." Applejack defended her. Dash shot Applejack an annoyed look.

"Pssh whatever."

"Well, now that were all here, what should we all do now?" Twilight asked all the girls. Sunset checked her watch for the time.

"Well, we have an hour an a half before 9:00. We could do one more thing before we go." Sunset told them. The girls all took a moment to think.

"I know! Eh-" Pinkie suddenly shouted, only for her to trail off. The girls waited with anticipation of what she would say. "Wait no we already did that." She mumbled to herself. The girls kept thinking on what to do.

"Oh whatever, let's just take another round at the boutique shall we?" Twilight suggested, for she couldn't be bothered to think of anything else to do. Sunset shrugged her shoulder's seemingly not having any objections.

"Oh yes, yes! There was this cute new cardigan I wanted to try on!" Sweetie Belle said excitedly. But she knew that Applebloom and Scootaloo were here, so she wanted their opinion.

"Is....that okay with you two?" Sweetie Belle asked her two friends.

"Sure. No problems here." Scootaloo replied.

"Yea. We stick together!" Applebloom enthusiastically said. Sweetie Belle's eyes sparkled with excitement, she began bouncing up and down eagerly.

"Oh can we go sis? Can we go?" She turned to Rarity, her innocent eyes as wide as a baby's. An ardent smile grew on Rarity's face as her little sister begged her to go.

"Oh why not? This is our girls night out after all." She knelt down to her.

"Oh yes! yes! YES!" Sweetie Belle jumped for joy at her answer. Twilight giggled at Sweetie Bell's giddiness. She then turned to Sunset to get her opinion.

"So, what do you say Sunset?" She asked her.

"Well, were girls am I right? That seems to be a good default I guess." Sunset inquired.

"You make a good point Sunset, but I wouldn't know about those two." Rarity replied to Sunset, gesturing over to Applejack and Rainbow Dash.

"Ey. Wut are you implying?" Applejack lightly protested.

"Eh, I don't really care. I could use a new pair of sneakers anyways." Dash remarked nonchalantly.
Twilight turned to Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie.

"What about you two. You down for one more run at the boutique?" Twilight asked them.

"Sure, I-I guess." Fluttershy answered in her usual meek tone. Twilight then turned her eyes to Pinkie.

"Oh! I. AM. DOWN!!" Pinkie said as she flopped on the floor. "Literally"

Twilight smiled as she got the confirmation of all her friends, but she still felt that she was missing someone.
"Oh!" She suddenly remembered. "Hey Spike!" She shook her behind a little, shaking her backpack with Spike inside.

"What the-! Ow!" The girls heard Spike getting jostled in her backpack. Spike then popped his head out of the small unzipped opening in her backpack, his eyes rolling.

"I was asleep. What is it?" A drowsy and irritated Spike mumbled.

"Hee Hee. Sorry. We were going to stop by the boutique before we headed home tonight. Just wanted your opinion. Spike was silent for a moment, confused by her question.

"Uhh.......I'm a dragon. What would I need from a boutique?" Spike said sardonically. Twilight had a blank expression as she realized how absurd her question was.

"Yeah, fair point." She said before she and the other girls burst out in laughter.

"Well, do whatever, I'm just gonna go to sleep in here okay?" Spike answered them tiredly. "Oh and no shaking the backpack!"

"Hee Hee. Okay Spike, sleep tight." Twilight chuckled wholesomely, before lightly pushing a tired Spike back down into her backpack and zipped up the backpack. Swinging her backpack onto her shoulders, she turned to the rest of the main 7.

"Alrighty then. We all going to the boutique before we go home?" Twilight asked the girls. All the others, nodded in agreement.

"Okay then. Let's go!" Twilight spurred them on.

"YEAH!!" All of the cheered.

The doors of the mall swung open, letting a brisk draft in. Sonic, Shadow, and Silver stepped into the mall, ready to begin their search for any sign of the chaos emeralds.

"Alright guys. You know the drill. Just act like a normal patron, and look for any sign of the chaos emeralds." Shadow reiterated their plan to them. Silver and Sonic looked at the various shops lining the mall's walls. There was a numerous selection of shops, from boutiques, to electronics stores, and candy store. At the main drag at the end of the corridor, there was a bigger entrance which lead to the big general store in the middle of the mall.
Silver was looking with much curiosity, while Sonic didn't look particularly interested.

"Now do you remember what I told you two?" Shadow asked them to repeat something he told them before the entered.

"Yeah yeah, don't talk to anyone, and meet back here in one hour and thirty minutes. You happy?" Sonic repeated what Shadow said to them earlier, with a annoyed and snide tone.

"Yes. But don't give me that faker. This is serious." Shadow reprimanded him lightly. He turned to Silver, who was observing the shops from afar.
"Silver!" Shadow raised his voice slightly, causing him to jump in surprise.

"Ah! Wha-? Yes?" Silver stuttered a little as he answered Shadow.

"You understand?" Shadow asked him.

"Oh? Yeah of course." Silver answered him quickly.

"Good. Let's go." Shadow wasted no more time talking and walked forward into the mall. Sonic breathed a sigh of relief, now that Shadow was off his back. He was about to wander off to the video store nearby, when he heard Shadow raise his voice again.

"And Sonic!!" Shadow yelled back at him. Sonic winced in surprise a little at Shadow's yelling. He looked back over at Shadow to reluctantly hear what he has to say.
"Don't cause any trouble. And don't slack off" Shadow told him before he walked off. Sonic rolled his eyes in pure unadulterated annoyance.

"Gee, where have I heard that before?" Sonic snidely thought to himself. Then he walked off to browse the video store nearby.

With that, the three took off in separate direcitons to begin their search. For thirty minutes the three searched the stores. Sonic was causally checking the stores, but only the one's that interested him, which was mostly the video stores. He was bored out of his mind, so he mitigated it by watching the movies on the screens until he got bored. However at one point he got so engrossed in one movie that he forgot why he was here in the first place. Shadow had to come over and grab him by the ear.
Silver, while occasionally stopping to look at something that interested him, tried to stick to the task at hand. Though he did occasionally lose track of what he was doing, meaning he had to occasionally snap himself out of it and get back to searching.

Sonic passed by a jewelry shop. Then he had a flash of knowledge.
"Hmmm......this might be a good place to look." He said to himself, feeling confident in his intelligent conclusion. So he stepped inside, with it's black marble tile floor and it's ivory white walls giving a very posh and high class feeling.
Observing the customers, it was mostly rich looking people with fancier cloths than the rest of the mall's customers, making him stick out like a sore thumb. He decided to keep his search in this store brief and quick. He began observing the jewels inside the glass cases. He could already feel the other customers shooting him dirty looks, for how he didn't fit in.
He did his best to ignore them and continued searching.
In the cases Sonic found your usual selection of jewelry, from small diamonds to medium sized diamonds, Pearl necklaces to gold plated watches, and bracelets adorned with diamonds to necklaces imbedded with emeralds, all of which had extremely high price tags. However he saw no sign of any large glowing emeralds.

"Ugh! It was a good guess I suppose." Sonic let out a disappointed sigh. He could still feel the customers giving him dirty looks, so he decided to make himself scarce.

"Excuse me sir. Are you having difficulty making a selection?" The store clerk asked him. He turned to see the store clerk, who was neatly dressed in suit and bow tie, standing behind the cash register. Surprisingly he wasn't giving him a dirty look unlike the other customers.
While he remembered what Shadow told him at the entrance, he figured that it couldn't hurt to at least ask one person. Sonic slowly walked up to the check up desk to talk to him.

"Uh......yeah." Sonic replied. The clerk put on a earnest smile.

"Well, I'm sure I can find something fitting both your occasion and your......well......status." The clerk began speaking before Sonic could speak.
"So, what is the occasion? A dinner party? A family Reunion? A wedding perhaps?" The clerk asked him. Sonic was rather embarrassed at the last option.

"Uh....no no. I'm looking for something specific. If you know what I mean." Sonic told the clerk.

"Oh so you want to look at our catalogue?" The clerk asked him.

"Uh I guess." Sonic replied.

"Well, no problem then." The clerk slipped beneath the desk to grab something. A few seconds later he placed a rather hefty sized black binder, which the clerk opened, revealing all of their selection, some of which Sonic didn't even see in the store. The prices in the this binder were even higher than a lot of the prices in the store. It started to overwhelm him a little.

"So.....What kind of jewels are you looking for?" The clerk asked him. Sonic was still in awe of the utterly absurd prices some of these pieces demanded, and he didn't hear what the clerk had to say.

".....Sir?" The clerk spoke to him. Sonic realized that the clerk asked him something.

"Huh? Oh! An emerald." Sonic spoke to him. The clerk then quickly flipped through the pages until he got to the emerald section. Once again the prices nearly blew Sonic's mind.

"Now! Feel free to browse and pick out something. " The clerk told him.

Sonic didn't feel like wasting any more time in this store so he decided to break the news to the clerk.

"Uh....no. Look I'm not looking for jewerly. I looking for an actual emerald." Sonic told the clerk. The clerk's smile faded as he looked at Sonic with utter confusion.
"It's about this big." Sonic gestured with his hand the approximate size of the emeralds. "They come in seven different colors. And they glow like crazy. They're kind of hard to miss." Sonic explained to the clerk. The clerk's expression was now an annoyed frown. Sonic felt rather uneasy. Did he accidentally offend him?
Suddenly, the clerk closed the binder shut with a loud thud causing Sonic to jump slightly.

"Sir. This is a jewelry store not a kindergarden daycare story hour. Go take your childish stories elsewhere please." The clerk coldly told Sonic before he put the binder away and began attending to other business. All Sonic could do was just stand there blankly, fuming on the inside.

"Pfft fine! This place is too pretentious anyways." Sonic muttered to himself angrily before he stormed off.

As Sonic stomped out of jewelry store, he saw something in the corner of his eye. He looked to his left and doubletaked when he saw Twilight and her gang heading down the mall hallway.

"Twilight?" What's she doing here?" He asked outloud as he moved behind one of the large planters in the middle of the straight to prevent them from seeing him. However his air of curiosity vanished and was replaced with annoyance when he saw Dash amongst the group.
"Ugh! It's her." He sulked. He also noticed the three younger girls he met earlier today with them as well. Looking at their expressions they all seemed to be just shopping and not doing anything worth paying attention to.
"Hmm, they don't seem to be doing anyting suspicious. Still I should probably go tell the others about it." Sonic thought to himself. He then discreetly turned around and began walking in the opposite direction away from the girls, going to find Shadow and Silver.

Meanwhile, Silver had unfortunately lost sight of his original goal and was browsing a videogame store. He had taken a game case off the shelf that read "Griffin Ball D: Ultimate Fighters 2". As fun as it looked, he let out a sigh of disappointment as he remembered that he had no money, and no console to play it on.
He put the case back on the shelf and wandered into another part of the store. There were a few demos available, but they were all already taken by either kids or other gamers.
However as he was about to wander to anther part of the store, he felt a sharp pain in his ear as someone pulled on his earlobe hard.

"Ow Ow OW! Hey! Hey!"" Silver exclaimed as he nearly lost his balance as he was pulled to his left.

"I can't leave you two alone for a second can I?" Shadow reprimanded him as he pulled on his ear, attracting the attention of some customers who looked at them with utter confusion.
Shadow let go of Silver's ear lobe as soon as they were outside the store.

"Geez Shadow! That hurt!" Silver protested as he rubbed his aching ear.
Shadow let out a sigh as he shook his head in disappointment at Silver apparent lack of commitment.

"Don't tell me you've forgotten our mission here already." Shadow reprimanded him. Shadow got up closer to Silver as he wanted to make his next point explicitly clear.
"Remember. Our priority is to find the chaos emeralds. Nothing else. Understood?" Shadow spoke in an intimidating inflection. Silver gulped as Shadow's red eyes stared into his soul.

"Yes sir." Silver replied meekly.

"Good." Shadow reaffirmed. Then out of the corner of his eye he saw Sonic approaching them.

"Yo!" Sonic greeted them.

"Find anything?" Shadow asked him to report his findings. Sonic shrugged his shoulder and shook his head.

"Nothin' so far." Sonic reported. "Even the damn jewelry store had nothing."

Shadow and Silver let out a sigh of disappointment. Shadow then scratched his chin as he thought of their next course of action.

"We still have a lot of the mall to search, so we need to double our efforts." Shadow elaborated to them. "Especially you." He snarkily gestured to Silver.

"Okay I get it. Geez" Silver replied.

"Oh. And another thing." Sonic continued. Shadow and Silver listened to what he had to say. "Those girls are here."

Silver eyes lit up with excitement suddenly.
"Wait! So, Rarity is here!" Silver shook Sonic by the shoulders. Sonic had a look of complete bewilderment at Silver getting excited over a girl.
Silver then realized that he made himself look really embarrassing in front of Sonic and Shadow.

"Oh uh.....so....what are they doing here." Silver composed himself and got back on topic.

"From the looks of it, it looks like they're just shopping. Doing girl things ya know." Sonic relayed what he saw to them. Shadow thought for a moment on how the girls appearance in the mall would affect their search.

"Well, as long as we don't make ourselves stand out too much then they should be much of an issue." Shadow explained to them. "And I'm sure you remember. Don't talk to them."
Silver rolled his eyes at that last statement.

"In any case. We should stick together from now on. Wouldn't want them to catch one of us by ourselves." Shadow continued explaining.

"sigh Yeah I guess." Sonic said in a rather uncaring tone.

"Alright let go." Shadow turned and beckoned them to follow him. Silver and Sonic followed suit as they continued their search for the chaos emeralds.

Meanwhile the main 7 and the Cutie Mark crusaders were making their quick stop at the boutique. Twilight, Fluttershy, and Sunset were trying on new shoes that they had taken an interest in. Applejack and Rainbow Dash had already bought what they wanted and were waiting outside. Pinkie was checking out the brand T-shirts, while Rarity was with her little sister trying out the new cardigan that Sweetie Belle had mentioned.

"Why! It looks wonderful!" An elated Sweetie Belle said as she twirled around in it. Rarity was holding her cheeks at how cute Sweetie Belle was being right now.

"Well. Am I cute big sis!?" Sweetie Belle turned to her older sister with her arms outstretched so that she could see her whole frame with the cardigan on.

"Why you look simply adorable!" Rarity lauded how cute her sister looked, cuing a happy giggle from Sweetie Belle as she twirled again.

"Sheesh. They said that five times already." Scootaloo and Applebloom were waiting nearby for them to finish.

"Can we get it please?! Oh please, please, please!" Sweetie Belle begged her sister to get it for her.
Rarity checked the price tag. She was expecting something reasonable, but then she double taked when she saw that the price was a whopping 45$.

"Uhhh. Hee Hee. I'd love to sweetie, but um. It's a little on the expensive side right now." Rarity told her. Sweetie Belle's smile faded.

"Aw, b..but Rarity!" Sweetie Belle turned pouty. Rarity was in a rather difficult situation. She really wanted to prove to her little sister that she cared for her, but the cost of that was dropping 45 dollars on a cardigan.
She sighed as she thought about how to go about this situation.

"Now, now....It'll be hear when we come back okay?" Rarity said in a calm, motherly voice. "We'll wait till it goes on sale. Is that alright darling?"

A pouty Sweetie Belle took a moment to think about her proposal. As much as she wanted this cardigan, she did have to admit, it was pretty pricy.

"Promise?" Belle asked Rarity. Rarity smiled and held out her pinkie finger. A smile returned to Sweetie Belle's face as she interlocked her pinkie finger with her older sister's.

"Promise." Rarity replied. While still somewhat pouty that she didn't get what she wanted, Sweetie Belle was confident that she could trust her sister.

"Okay!" Sweetie Belle replied cheerfully. Rarity let out a relieved sigh. She managed to regain and keep her sister affection.

"Alright. Now why don't you change out of that. We should be heading home soon." Rarity checked the time on her phone. Sweetie Belle went to change, while Rarity went to regroup with the others.
She happened to notice Scootaloo and Applebloom who were waiting nearby and decided to inquire to them a little.

"And did you girls need anything?" Rarity asked them.

"No. Were cool" Scootaloo replied.

"Thanks though." Applebloom thanked her.
After breifly checking in on Sweetie Belle's friends, she went over to regroup with the main 7.

Twilight put a pair of loafers she had tried on back on the shelf and then she checked her watch, which read 8:30 PM.

"Oh dear! We better get going soon." Twilight said to Sunset and Fluttershy.
Sunset was about to try on a new skirt.

"What!? Aw....can I just try this on really quick?" Sunset bargained with Twilight. Twilight sighed, who was she to deny a girl to see how she looks in something.

"Alright. Go ahead." Twilight told her.

"Thanks!" Sunset rushed into the changing room to quickly look at how she looks.

"You finished Fluttershy?" Twilight turned to Fluttershy who had just walked out of the changing room next to the one Sunset entered.

"Hmm? Oh! Yes, of course." Fluttershy replied.
Twilight then noticed Rarity walk up to them.

"Twilight dear. It's 8:30 now. We should get going soon." Rarity informed Twilight who was already aware of the time.

"I know Rarity. Were just waiting on Sunset." Twilight replied. "Is your sister and her friends done with their shopping?"

"Oh Sweetie Belle is still changing. They won't be long." Rarity confirmed to Twilight.

"Sigh Thats good. I want at least a little time to work on our assingments." Twilight breathed a sigh of relief. While she enjoyed her time at the mall with her friends, she still had the thought of her school assingments in the back of her head.

"I know it's a school night. But there's nothing wrong with treating ourselves every once in a while." Fluttershy commented.

"Oh for sure. I definately needed a break. Especially with this emerald thing going on." Twilight noted. "Hopefully, now that I've rested up. I can work harder to figure out where this emerald came from."

"Say. You don't happen to know where Rainbow Dash and Applejack went off too?" Rarity asked, looking aroudn the store for the two.

"Oh! I think they're waiting outside." Fluttershy pointed to the entrance of the shop.

"Hmph! At least they're being patient." Rarity commented on how the least patient ones of their group are being suprisingly patient.

Twilight's backpack on the ground rustled a bit as Spike climbed out of Twilight's backpack and stretched for a little.

"Sheesh! What is it with girls and clothes? You spent almost a whole hour talking about shoes." Spike expressed his annoyance at their girly interests. Twilight and Rarity weren't having any of it.

"Well excuse me that we ladies put in the effort to make ourselves appear pretty and feminine!" Rarity reprimanded him.

"Yeah! And besides! What do you know?!" Twilight joined in on Rarity's scolding of Spike. Spike however wasn't phased by their reprimanding.

"Uh....what do I know? I haven't worn clothes in my entire life." Spike said in a deadpane tone. Twilight and Rarity's scowls dissappeared as they comprihended his statement.

"You have a point, I guess." Twilight replied, cuing Spike to smugly scratch his ears.

Meanwhile, Sweetie Belle stepped out of the changing room and went to go put the cardigan she tried on back on the hangers. However as she put it back, she saw someone familiar in the corner of her eye. She looked out the window and caught a glimpse of Sonic as he exited a antique shop that was opposite the store that they were in.

"Sonic? What's he doing here?" Sweetie Bell said to herself.

"Hey. Belle. You about finished? Were about to leave." Scootaloo called over from nearby. Sweetie Belle didn't answer, which only irritated Scoot for she thought that Belle was ignoring her.

"Ey Belle! Ya hear us?" Applebloom called to her. This time Sweetie Belle heard them.

"Hmm? Oh! I think I saw Sonic here?" Sweetie Belle told them.
The two were confused.

"Sonic? Why's he here?" Scootaloo asked. Sweetie only shrugged her shoulders in response.

"Well, everyone needs to get out sometimes I guess." Applebloom commented.

"Hey girls! Were going now!" Rarity called over to them.

"Were coming!" Sweetie Belle called back.

"Say, think we should follow him? There's still some questions I wanna ask him"" Scootaloo proposed.

"No. We shouldn't pry too much. They just got here after all." Sweetie Belle shot down her idea. She pressed her nose against the glass as Her eyes followed Sonic as he walked from the store, noting that Shadow and Silver were in front of him and wondering what they were doing here as well.

"Maybe they're here about that new movie that Twilight and her friends starred in." Scootaloo suggested.

"Nah. They don't look like they're that up to date on current trends." Sweetie Belle said.

"True. I mean look at them. Especially those shoes." Applebloom commented on their appearance. Scootaloo snickered at her comment.

"Yeah. Especially with Shadow. What are those supposed to be? Hover boots?" Scootaloo continued with Appleblooms taunting of their appearance, cuing both of them to burst into laughter. Sweetie Belle let out a chuckle at their joking and went back to observing Sonic and co. She watched them as they rounded a corner and out of her sight.
She let out an annoyed grunt as they left her sight. She was about to rejoin her friends, however she double taked when she caught a glimpse of Shadow again, who had just came into her vision from the left.

"Wait wha....?" Sweetie Belle slapped her face against the glass again. Scootaloo and Applebloom wondered what she was looking at now.
"S....Shadow? But......I though he..?" A confused Sweetie Belle said, as she had just saw Sonic, along with Shadow exit on her right. However Shadow didn't appear to be with Sonic and Silver. She looked closer and she noticed that despite almost looking like Shadow, this person lacked the red highlights that Shadow's hair had despite the similar hairstyle.

"Who......is that?" Sweetie Belle thought outloud. Then suddenly as the mysterious Shadow lookalike stopped in the middle of the hallway directly in front of Sweetie Belle's vision. A sinking feeling of dread crept into Sweetie Bell's stomach as she looked at him.
Then suddenly the Shadow lookalike suddenly jerked his head towards her, cuing a sharp gasp from Sweetie Belle.

"Wha...What the...!!" A frightened Sweetie Belle said as she began trembling in terror as the lookalike's sickly green eyes stared into her soul. Upon looking more closely, she also realized that the person didn't have a mouth! Scootaloo and Applebloom were now getting very concerned about Sweetie Belle.

"'Ey Belle. You alright?"" Applebloom asked as she got in closer. Sweetie Belle was paralyzed with fear as she had no idea what the Shadow lookalike was going to do.

"Hey. If you're not okay then say something will you." Scootaloo and Applebloom walked next to her. However Sweetie Belle didn't seem to respond.
Then suddenly, person suddenly teleported to the glass in front of Sweetie Belle, causing her to see his horrific eyes up close.

"I see you." A demonic voice came not from the person but from inside Sweetie Belle's head. Sweetie Belle broke out in a cold sweat and was trembling even more as she was completely paralyzed with fear. Then suddenly her mind briefly flashed with horrific images of her friends and sister laying on the ground in a pool of blood.

"AAAAHHHHH!!!!" Sweetie Belle screamed as she fell backwards her hands over her eyes.

"SWEETIE BELLE!!" Applebloom and Scootaloo exclaimed.

"Oh no!" Rarity exclaimed as she heard her little sister scream and rushed to her side.

"Huh? What's going on!?" Twilight and the others wondered what was wrong.
Sweetie Belle was trembling as she let out little whimpers of fear.

"Belle! Belle!!" Scootaloo shook her lightly. "What happened!? Talk to us!" Scootaloo began sweating and panting heavily as she worried deeply for her friend's safety.

"Out of the way!" Rarity commanded as she rushed to her sister's side.

"Sweetie Belle! Sweetie Belle!! What's wrong!! Please tell me!!" Rarity held her little sister in her arms as she trembled. Eventually, Sweetie Belle stopped trembling and removed her hands from her eyes. She opened her eyes an saw her sister holding her. Tears formed in her eyes as she embraced her sister and broke down sobbing.

"Sob OH RARITY!! I SO SCARED!!"" Sweetie Belle cried as she sobbed into Rarity's chest. Rarity held her sister close as she comforted her.

"It's okay your sister's here." Rarity soothed her little sister. The rest of the main 7 looked over to see what was going on.
"Now why don't you tell us what happened." Rarity calmed told her sister. Sweetie Belle wiped the tears from her eyes as she prepared to tell Rarity what she saw.

"Sniff Rarity. T....Th...There was a person. And.....I......I saw......." Sweetie Belle dreaded describing the last part of what she saw. Applebloom looked over at the window Sweetie Belle was looking out of.

"Uhh....Belle. We didn't see nobody in the window." Applebloom said.

"Sniff Huh?" Sweetie Belle replied.

"Yeah. There was nobody. You were just looking out the window at nothing. Then you just screamed and fell backwards." Scootaloo added what she saw to back up Applebloom's statement.

Sweetie Belle's expression went from crying to completely bafflement. Rarity was also confused at what they said.

"I....Is this true?" Rarity asked the two. Applebloom and Scootaloo nodded. Rarity looked back at her sister, questioning just what happened to her.

"Wh....What? You.....you two didn't see him?" Sweetie Belle asked her two friends who both nodded once again. Sweetie Belle refused to believe that was the case.
"How! He was right in front of me! And you're telling me you didn't see him!?" Sweetie Belle suddenly stood up and walked up to her two friends. "Are you two blind or something!?"

"No! Why would we lie!?" Scootaloo retorted back. Sweetie Belle had an utterly dumbfounded look on her face. She knew what she saw, but if she had no way of proving what she saw if they claimed that they didn't see anything.

"But...But....I...." Sweetie Belle scratched her head in complete bafflement. "I know I saw something. You gotta believe me!"

"Okay okay calm down. Now why don't you tell us what this person looked like." Twilight intervened and was willing to give Sweetie Belle the benefit of the doubt.
Sweetie Belle, while dreading having to recall the person's face, she figured that maybe talking about it would calm her nerves.

"Well, you know that person Shadow you've been talking about. It looked like him, except he had.......had...." Sweetie Belle struggled to get the next part out. "....he had green eyes and...and no mouth." She finished explaining.
A shiver went down Twilight's spine as Belle finished, for her mind instantly went back to the time she was approached by an erriely similar looking person in the library.

"Well sorry Belle. We didn't see nothin'" Applebloom replied. Sweetie Belle was at a loss for words, then she turned to her sister, hoping that she would believe her.
Rarity tried to think of something to say to calm her little sister's mind.

"Sweetie, I wasn't even there. I'm sorry." Rarity told her. Sweetie Belle just remained silent, with the same dumbfounded expression on her face.

"Um....I hate to interrupt, but I think we should get going right now." Twilght said to Rarity. Rarity didn't answer for she was still contemplating the validity of Sweetie Belle's statement.
"Rarity?" Twilight asked her.

"Just hang on. We'll come soon." Rarity finally replied to her. She concluded that if what Sweetie Belle saw was true, then it would be best if they left and discussed it later, for the person she saw could still be around.

"Sweetie Darling." Rarity spoke to her sister. "We'll talk about this at home. So we should leave."
Sweetie Belle, who was still shaken by her experience, nodded in agreement. The image of the person's sickly green eyes still lingered in her mind, which she couldn't unsee no matter how much she tried to not think about it.

"Right, let's go." Rarity told the three. The CMC all nodded in agreement and they followed Rarity outside the store.
While Scootaloo and Applebloom didn't see anything in the window, Sweetie Belle's description of the person she saw still unnerved them.

"Maybe the guy is invisible." Applebloom whispered to Scoot.

"Geez don't make this even more scary." Scoot whispered back.

As the rest of the main 7 hurried out of the store with the CMC, Rainbow Dash and Applejack took curiosity in what happened.

"Say, what the heck happened in there? Everythin' alright?" Applejack asked.

"Sweetie Belle said that she saw a creepy person in the window." Applebloom told her older sister.
"Problem is, me and Scoot didn't see anything."
This only served to make Applejack and Rainbow Dash more confused.

"So wait, only she saw it?" Applejack asked. She and Dash looked over at Sweetie Belle, who looked like she had the color scared out of her skin.

"Well, she does look like she's seen a ghost. " Dash commented in a somewhat sarcastic tone, trying not to appear insensitive.

"Girls, I appreciate your concern, but I wouldn't talk about this right now." Rarity told the two.
With that, the girls started to head home, with Sweetie Belle clinging to Rarity as they walked through the mall. Twilight looked at the two sister with worry. She remembered Sweetie Belle's description of the person, and she could've sworn that it was the same description as the person that attacked her in the library.

"Is that person really Shadow? What does he want with us anyways?" Twilight thought to herself. The rest of the main 7 were also a bit on edge, especially Rarity, whose concern for her sister's safefy made her almost skittish. Twilight knew that whoever it was, it had something to do with the emerald. With this in mind she knew that she needed be on her guard even more. Not just for herself, but for her friends as well.

Shadow looked at the time, which read 8:55 pm. It was going to be a long walk back to their apartment so he figured that they should get going.

"It's getting late. Let's head back." He told Sonic and Silver.

"So far we haven't found crap." Sonic complained. "How much of the mall did we search anyways?"

"By my guess, maybe one fifth. Thats not counting the stores that we don't think would sell emeralds." Shadow replied. He looked towards the entrance which was at the end of the mall hallway. Not wanting to waste any more time he urged Sonic and Silver to follow him to the entrance.
However as they walked, he suddenly stopped when he saw the main 7 and CMC come walk around the corner.

"Wait." Shadow stopped Sonic and Silver. They both stopped beside Shadow as they knew to not attact their attention. Luckily for them, they didn't seem to notice them. Shadow looked for another way out of the mall. His eyes eventually focused on the maintanence door across from them.

"This way. We'll take the maintanence door and leave from the back" Shadow pointed to the maintanence door. "Hurry!" Shadow prodded them on. Shadow, Sonic, and Silver made their way to the maintance door, which upon Shadow opening it, lead to a much narrower hallway.

"You sure this will lead outside?" Silver asked.

"I'm sure. Now come on." Shadow replied. The three then proceeded to enter the maintance door.

Over with the main seven. Sweetie Belle, who was still clinging to Rarity, looked back and managed to catch a glimpse of Silver as he walk into the maintance door. While it perplexed her, she was still too shaken by what recently happened to think about it too much.

The three otherwolders finally got outside, the cold air hitting them like a wave as they entered into the back alley of the mall.

"Brrr....it's cold. Come on let's get back home." Sonic shivered as the cold air washed over him. Silver, who was also shivering, vigourously nodded in agreement. As the two headed back in the direction of their temporary home, Shadow paused for a moment and looked back at the mall they had just exited. He recalled that just before they went into the maintanance hallway, he felt a strange, and ominous presence. He didn't know what it was, however something in the back of his mind was telling him that he had sensed this before. Whether or not he remembered sensing such a presence, it felt sinister and evil.

"Hey Shadow! You coming or not!?" Sonic called over to him from down the alley way. Shadow then went to rejoin Sonic and Silver, however he couldn't get the thought of that presence out of his mind.
Just what was it? Or who was it? And why did it feel so familiar? These questions unfortunately yeilded no answers right now as this sinking feeling of dread created a pit in his stomach. He proceeded to carry this feeling all the way back to their apartment.

TO BE CONTINUED

Author's Note:

Well hello again. It's certainly been a while. Like I said, I'm not giving up on this story. I wish I could update this more, but between personal life and other hobbies, I'm just not getting around to writing (Again procrastination is a hell of a drug.)

Anywho, I hope you all enjoy this latest chapter. See you in a few months.......or years......idk.