Author's notes

Welcome back! Well, I almost met the deadline… Almost.

Christmas is around the corner and we've been kinda busy shopping. I'm going to have relatives visiting during that time… Not something I exactly look forward to (especially if three of them are under 10 and have the personality of a spoiled demon), but hey, it's Christmas.

Shoutouts:

flutterlikeanangel: Oh don't worry, I'll fix that.

Back to the story.

---

Sonic and Rainbow were making their way towards the Cake's bakery while happily walking side by side each other. It was just a peaceful and relaxing day, with the two simply enjoying each other's company without a care in the world. Rainbow had her wing stretched out, letting the hedgehog hold the tip of her feathers.

"I wonder how unicorns and earth ponies do this," Sonic suddenly said, interrupting the peaceful silence between them, "It's not like they can hold hooves without tripping."

"Eh," Rainbow sighed, disappointed that the silence was broken, "I heard Unicorns do this strange… Magic connection through their horns when walking together."

"What about Earth ponies?"

"In a casual relationship; nothing at all." She answered. After a second of searching through her memory, she smirked, "But I've seen mares and stallions rub up against each other in public like cats."

That earned a chuckle from the hedgehog. With a mischievous smirk of his own, he sidestepped and pressed his side against the pegasus body. She playfully shoved him away, laughing with him.

"Watch it, we don't want to make too big of a scene when we get inside. When ponies are watching, we're just friends; so no touching."

It was a good thing the property around Sugar Cube Corner was nearly deserted, "I'll try my best…" He gave her a playful smirk, "You're tempting."

That earned a stern, but relaxed glare from Rainbow as she pushed the double doors open, "Think of Amy's hammer slamming your face when she hears about us."

The two was met by a wall of shuffling ponies that scattered throughout the dining room. They could barely see the reception desk that rest at the back of the bakery, not to mention that every table they immediately saw was occupied by at least two ponies. There was also a short line that cut right through the heart of the crowd, standing right in front of the cash register as Ms. Cakes hustles to fill out orders.

"Man, this place is busy." Sonic said, trying to pitch his voice higher than the noise of other talking ponies around him, "I didn't know she gets this many customers during the day."

"We must have came during lunch hour." Rainbow explained, "I'm going to fly up and see if I can find a table."

She carefully flapped her wings and hovered to the ceiling. While Sonic was trying to stay out of everyone's way, Rainbow immediately zipped out of his view.

"Sonic!" She yelled over the crowd, "Over here!"

He almost immediately spotted the pegasus. She was sitting right by a window, waving her hooves frantically to get his attention. Sonic gently pushed his way through the crowd, earning a couple of grunts from a couple of unlucky ponies, but the hedgehog was repeatingly excusing himself every second he was moving. After a few minutes of struggling, he finally managed to reach her seat, and he plopped himself down as soon as he could.

"Man, we were lucky!" Sonic commented as he situated himself.

"As soon as those two ponies left I zipped right to it!" Rainbow boasted. There was a small menu on their table and the two proceeded to read it, "What are you having?"

---

Knuckles was sitting near a table with three orders of Sundays at his side. It's only been a couple of minutes since he arrived, but Rarity should have been here by now. He expected Applejack to be here a little late because of work. He had the whole conversation figured out, knowing exactly what he was going to say to the two.

"Hello, dear!"

He looked to his left and saw Rarity trotting towards him through a clearing. The crowd around them was beginning to settle down, with a few ponies beginning to leave the Bakery, but the crowd was still dense.

"Why hello, my lady!" He cheerfully greeted. He never thought he would use those words in the same sentence.

"You know, we could have made reservations at a different establishment," She began to take a seat in front of him, properly adjusting herself, "This place can be hectic during lunch hour."

"Yea, but no one can beat Pinkie's treats."

Rarity nodded, "True."

The two began to make small talk with topics ranging to the weather to the later gossip that tickled the mare's ear. After fifteen minutes, Knuckles quickly glanced at the clock hanging above the kitchen door. Applejack didn't exactly hint at the exact time she would be here, but she's not a mare that likes being late either.

"I always thought of how I'm going to expand my business," Rarity continued, "I found this abandoned building in trottingham that would be just perfect to set up a second boutique, but I run into a series of problems I can't answer. I don't know anyone that's willing to take the offer of managing the second boutique, not to mention that my income isn't nearly as sufficient enough to keep it running."

As any wise man would do, he simply nodded his head while giving her a half interested look, even though he's only picking up half of the conversation.

"Can you take up a loan?" He asked, picking up that last part and going with it.

"Um…" She sheepishly looked away and a small blush formed, "My credit isn't exactly… Adequate… Especially when my mother handed me my first credit card."

Knuckles chuckled, "I'm not surprised."

Rarity gave him a dead panned glare, "I take offense to that."

"Sorry," He apologized as he playfully threw his fists in the air, "But you're weren't the only teenager that blew their finances out the water. You should have heard Amy's story when she used her first credit card many years ago. Bought a freakin house with her first purchase; her parents liked to ringed her neck when they saw the bills!"

That earned a hearty laugh from the unicorn, "And I thought buying several cases of precious Jewelry was bad."

As the two continued to chat, Knuckles quickly checked the clock. Every minute was slowly ticking by; not nearly as fast as he thought it would.

"Applejack has been just absolutely distraught with me for a while now."

Knuckles just picked that sentence up and tuned.

"I honestly don't know what's gotten into her," She continued, "Every time I tried talking to her she just waves me off and trots away. I can't remember anything I've done to wrong her, and I can't talk to her because she just pushes me away."

The echidna winced, "Yeeaaa… About that."

He began to explain from the very beginning, from the time all the way back from Fillydelphia to now. Rarity gasped when he brought up the dairy, and a small blush formed on her cheeks upon hearing the story.

"My… My word," She sighed, "How in Celestia's name did you remain this clueless? Any teenage fowl would have picked that up!"

"I'm sorry!" He almost shouted in shame, "Listen, I spent most of my days guarding the Master Emerald, not trying to score with women. You'll be clueless too if you've spent your childhood on a floating island."

Rarity let out a quite groan, rubbing her head with her hoof as she tried to think, "Okay, then why did you bring me here? You just managed to have Applejack come to Sugarcube Corner and you thought having me here will sooth this mess."

"Let me explain myself," He began, "I didn't want to cause any rivalry between you two. If I broke up with you and date Applejack, then you would have been jealous of her… And I thought maybe if I could bring you two together, then we could have worked something out."

Rarity's face turned stone cold, "You wanted two lovers to fool with, right? "

"No! It's nothing like that!" He immediately refuted, "Well, not what you're thinking. I could spend equal time with both of you; I would be as much as a boyfriend to you as I am right now, just with Applejack too. You two can share!"

The mare facehoofed, "Knuckles, that's… No. Applejack is too conservative to accept a shared date, and I would be too jealous to go along with it."

"Then what am I supposed to do?" He nearly wailed, "You two are such good friends to me, I don't want to choose between the two of you."

"You should have come to me as soon as you've heard of her crush towards you," Rarity explained in a motherly fashion, "But now… Now we have to-"

"Whut's going on here!?"

The two shot their heads and found the Farm pony standing just beside the table, staring at the two while gritting her teeth with a face as red as a baby's smacked bottom.

Oh, crap.

---

"Cadance; it's not like I don't trust you with this." Shining Armor, trying again to reason with his wife as they trot closer to the bakery, "It's just… What if you were to screw up?"

"For the last time honey," She patiently addressed him in a sing-song voice, "I am the Princess of Love. I'm perfectly aware of the mistakes I've made in the past, and trust me; I'm going to be sure not to mess up again."

It was just pointless, the Captain knew it was absolutely pointless.

"And try not to argue with your wife, sweetie," She added before suddenly softly spanking his flank with her tail, giving him a lustful smile and a wink, "It'll set a fowl tone when we get back home."

The captain immediately hushed. There was no way he could hide the blush on his face, and she can see it as clear as day.

"Just let your princess do all the work."

She began to plan as she approached the window. It wouldn't be smart to simply walk through the front door with everyone inside, she would simply draw too much attention to herself, not to mention that Twilight would be surprised to see her. She only needs a clear line of sight for her magic to work.

As she and Shining Armor peered through the window, they immediately saw Tails and Twilight seated towards the back of the dense crowd. Twilight was having a happy conversation with him, but he was shifting in his chair uncomfortably as he talked.

"Aw," She whispered, "This is just too cute!"

She continued to observe for a minute as Shiny approached from behind. He already felt her signature magic being channeled, locking onto the fox.

"I shouldn't have to do much," She mumbled, "He just needs a little push."

"Please be careful how much you're pumping in that horn." The captain whispered, "You don't know your own-"

He suddenly felt something bump behind him as a filly rushed underneath his back hooves. It wasn't much force, but it was enough to tumble him forward. His chest staggered onto Cadance's flank, surprising her as she shot her magic through the window.

"Shiny!" She scolded.

"Sorry!" The captain shouted, turning his head towards the running kid, "Watch where you're going!"

The two turned their attention towards the window. Tails, who was shifting in his chair as he tried to talk to Twilight, suddenly froze as his eyes gazed upon the unicorn, as if he became a statue.

Then his eyes became heavy as he continued to stare at Twilight, panting, taking in deep breaths as he began to lean over the table. The unicorn was beginning to back away as she looked into those predatory, lustful eyes.

"Not again," The captain sighed.

"Should we go in and reverse the spell?" Cadence asked, still watching the scene before her.

The fox suddenly reached his hands out and leapt for her, just short of catching her as she jumped back with a shrill. Candace and Shining immediately bolted towards the door.

"This is the LAST time you're using that shipping spell!"

"Stop calling it that!" She shouted back, "It's a compassion spell!"

---

Rainbow and Sonic was laughing as they took another spoonful of vanilla Ice cream to their mouths.

"Okay, so I suddenly found myself captured by GUN soldiers, with several of their men pointing their guns at my head as we on board their jet. Let me tell you, I got lucky when I got on their plane; I had to go through several armed guards before I got to the cockpit. The best part of it was when I was sure it was clear, I casually grabbed the spare parashoot. There was a guard taking a nap and just woke up as I was approaching the door. He drew his gun at me, but was very hesitant to fire, so I decided to have a small discussion with him about his job. He was just complaining about his salary as I suddenly waved him goodbye and jumped off. The look on his face was priceless."

"I can't understand how these guys got you mixed up with Shadow," Rainbow chuckled, "I mean with Luna, he was running away from her in cover of night through a dense city, and the artist sketching him was doing her best from her description, but GUN-"

"They had freakin camera footage of him!" Sonic whaled, "When they finally got me, I asked one of the soldiers if he knew the difference between black and blue. He shrugged his shoulders and said, and I quote, 'Well, we only know one who can control Chaos Power, and that happens to be just you'. How can you put logic behind that? GUN knew about Shadow to begin with!"

"I'm glad we're not ruled by your leaders," Rainbow said, still laughing from the ridiculous story, "No offence, but they sound pretty stupid."

"You don't even want to know," Sonic chuckled, "A politician's stupid is contagious."

Rainbow took another bite from her ice cream, "How did you escape from them when you was captured the second time."

Sonic sighed, "I was rescued. My friends set out to find me and Amy managed to get a security card to my prison cell and bust me out," He shook his head, "Not before threatening me to promise being her boyfriend first."

"You're kidding."

"I know," Sonic continued, "She didn't stick to her threat, thank Chaos."

"She's crazy," Rainbow huffed, "Now I see why you're so set on avoiding her."

"It's not like I don't like her," He stated, "She's a vital ally to the team, not to mention that she's a close friend to us. She saved our butts countless times in battle."

Rainbow pondered a bit, "I know you've probably did this before, but have you or any of your friends tried to talk to her? Maybe tell her that you're not interested?"

Sonic shook his head, "I tried. I, Tails, Knuckles, even some of the relative friends back on our planet has tried. She has completely convinced herself that she's in love with me; nothing can tell her other wise."

"You can't just sit there and take that, Sonic," Rainbow said, "You have to stand up for yourself."

She watched him as he gave him wide, alarmed, if not fearful eyes, "Have you ever seen Amy's temper?'

She shook her head.

"I've seen her slam through a thick steel door with nothing but her hammer… She sometimes chases me with that thing when I was late for one of her dates. You think I should tell her that I'm 'dumping' her so I can freely go out with you?"

Rainbow recoiled from his question, but to Sonic's surprise, she remained firm, "You can't let her bully you. You have to remind her who she is to you and what you are to her. A close friend who has stuck with her through thick and thin through your adventures… Nothing more, nothing less. If she can't accept that, then she has no business hanging out with you."

He fell silent, lingering on her words as he scooped another spoonful of ice cream.

"It's not like you'll ever accept her, why drag it along?"

"Easier said than done," He quietly answered, hanging his head down a bit.

He stood from the table, "I'm going to get something to drink. You want anything?"

The pegasus took in a deep breath and sighed, "Sonic, I'm not going to let you drag this along. Sit back down."

"I'm coming right back-"

"I don't care," She firmly said, "Sit back down. I'm going to help you, fuzzball; you can face it now and get it over with, or run away and let it continue to haunt you. Your choice."

After a second long pause, he hesitantly sat himself back down on the chair. Rainbow stared at him with determined eyes for an awkward minute before leaning over, "Kiss me."

Sonic froze for a second as his mind processed those two words, "What?"

"You heard me," She persisted, "We're going to make our relationship public, and we're going to do that by doing what couples do… Now kiss me."

He glanced around, conscious of the thick crowd, "What about the others? Can we just go get Amy and-"

"It doesn't matter what others think," She blankly told him, "I think she's perfectly aware that you're not interested. Now show me that you're not scared of her, and kiss me as you have behind that waterfall."

Sonic shook his head, "It's not me I'm worried about. She'll attack you if-"

Rainbow suddenly lunged her front two hooves forward and wrapped them around Sonic's back, pulling him in and planting her lips square on his. She held the kiss for a second before breaking it and staring at him with determined eyes.

"I'm not scared," She growled, "Now kiss me again."

With newfound courage set in his heart, he pulled her in and kissed her right back. They held it there, embracing each other over the table and pulling each other as close as they could.

"You better git away from im, you two timin' horse!"

The two lovers broke the kiss when they heard a very familiar voice shout throughout the backery. When they shot their head towards the direction of the voice, they found a crowd hovering over the spectacle.

"AJ," Rainbow and Sonic suddenly heard, not mistakenly Rarity's, "Please, calm down."

"Shut it!" The cowpony shouted, "Ah know exactly wut's goin' on! You're goin' to use him as you use Spike! Ah ain't goin' to sit on the side lines and let that happen! Git away from him!"

"Now you listen here!" Rarity snapped, standing from her seat, "Spike was more than happy to help me, and I would never believe that such a thing would even cross your mind!"

"Yea, ah bet you completely kicked tha little dragon on the side when Knuckles came in, right!?"

"No!" She shouted back, stomping her hooves, "Spiky is still my friend, and how DARE you bring him in this!"

"Oh yea? When wuz the last time you let im' inside your home!?"

Rarity was about to shout her answer until she caught her breath. She recoiled a bit in shame when the answer came to her mind.

"That's right! Ah never expected anything better from you!"

"Least I don't go screaming like a little baby in public when I see my friends dating someone I like!"

Rarity was immediately met by a full tackle by the enraged Applejack. Their war cries echoed throughout the entire building, with hooves swinging wildly as they tried to gain an advantage over another.

Sonic and Rainbow stood straight up and tried to get to them, but the crowd instantly surrounded the fight; blocking them like a round wall.

"Move!" Sonic shouted, "That's our friends in there!"

Just before Rainbow was about to flap her wings and simply fly over, they heard another scream. They turned around just in time to see Twilight galloping from one end of the building to another with Tails running after her with outstretched hands with his tongue sticking out like a wolf. They saw the doors burst open with Shining Armor and Cadance galloping inside after them with their horns charged.

With a clearing, Sonic was about to sprint after the two while Rainbow flies to calm AJ and Rarity, until his eyes glanced at the window.

He felt the fear of death grip his shoulders.

"Rainbow."

"Yea?" She answered as she began to flap her wings.

He only pointed, and as she followed it, saw Amy standing several feet away from the window. She just stood where she stood, blankly staring at them with wide eyes.

"How long has she been standing there?" Rainbow whispered.

Before the two knew it, she charged with her hammer swinging over her shoulder.

"OH, MOTHER OF-"

The window shattered as the Pink hedgehog smashed in with her hammer over her, airborn and dropping right towards Rainbow Dash with a high pitch scream.

"AAAAAHHHHHH!"

---

Author's notes.

If it wasn't for my internet, this would have been published sooner.

I'm going to try my best to get up and get at it again. I already have some idea how to write the next chapter.

Deadline: two weeks, if not three.

Have a very merry Christmas everyone! See you after the holidays!

Harry

---

Just because it's close to Christmas, I want to give a little known fact about the birth of Jesus.

Everyone has seen the plays, right? You know, Marry cradling the baby with Joseph beside her, along with the three wise men showing up offering gifts and worshipping their soon to be savior. Believe it or not, the wise men didn't come right at Marry's birth. They showed up a year or so later after Jesus was born (no later than two years)… In fact, Marry and Joseph were no longer at the stable when the Wisemen appeared. There may not have been specifically three wise men that visited Jesus!

This misconception is brought on by this scripture.

"Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came Wise men from the east to Jerusalem."

Mathew 2: 1

Portrays the plays, right? Wrong.

Most plays show the shepherds along with the wise men, but it was just the shepherds that were there during Jesus's birth. The star that marked the location of Jesus appeared after Jesus's birth, not before. The wise men had to follow that star to find him.

When Jesus was born, Marry and Joseph had time to move into a house, get the baby circumcised, and get somewhat settled down before the wise men showed up. That stable wasn't exactly comfortable.

And the number of wise men. I'm not for sure where the number three came from. I guess when the plays were going on hundreds of years ago, three would signify a crowd… And that somehow was misconcepted as three later.

Interesting, right? I can also go into detail about the wise men prophesizing the life of Jesus without even knowing it, but I just wanted to point that out. :)

Again, Merry Christmas!