Another Like Me

Author's Note: Hey everybody! BoldBlue here again and guess what time it is? Yup, it's time to break out that Terry Bogard soundboard once again ladies and gentleman! Also, if you were wondering, in the previous chapter the 'boopinest' gag and the Pum Bloom idea were inspired by the hit Youtube series called Game Grumps, and I highly recommend you watch it if you haven't already! Now without further ado here comes the next installment of Another Like Me!

"Say Andy?" Kyo said as he saw the blond-haired ninja turn towards him. "I just realized, but isn't Mai usually with you two? I mean, she is pretty attached to you to say the least." The flame-wielding lad chuckled at the obvious understatement. Andy simply scratched his head in embarrassment as the rest of the group shared a small laugh at this as well, for they all knew that saying that the female Shiranui ninja was simply 'attached' to Andy was like saying a falcon punch was simply a brofist.

"Yeah I've been wondering that too!" Kensou chimed in just as baffled, "I mean usually everywhere you guys are she usually follows within the minute or so!"

"Well, between you and me guys, I had to convince her to stay behind because of...prior plans." Andy said, making the group, save for Terry, grow quite interested in what his plans were.

"What plans would those be?" Kensou said, scratching his head in thought as he tried to predict what sort of plan the younger Bogard brother could have had.

"Alright guys and girls, promise that what I'm about to show you, doesn't leave this conversation until I say so, got it?" He said with the utmost seriousness, making the group agree to keep his secret. "Well, then check this out!" He said pulling out a small box that seemed quite fancy, but the fanciness of the box was not what made everyone gasp in shock. Rather, it was the box's purpose that made everyone's eyes widen.

"Dude..." Kensou said bug-eyed at what was contained inside the box, "is that...what I think it is?"

"Well well Andy!" Kyo whistled, impressed by the display, "finally popping the question eh?" Andy smiled proudly and nodded, as the guys cheered and clapped him on the back, while the girls simply gushed at the event.

"I get to be the best man right?" Kensou asked jokingly as everyone laughed a bit at his question. Terry however, glared a little at the inquiry, but began laughing anyway.

"Hahaha- GET SERIOUS!" He told Kensou, who screamed in terror and hid behind Andy.

"Oh come now Terry was that really necessary?" Kyo asked the eldest Bogard incredulously.

"TAKE IT EASY!" The South-Town native held his hands up in defense.

"Oh all right, but anyways we should probably get moving!" Kyo said shrugging off Terry's response. As the group walked through the streets once more, Benimaru decided to speak up.

"So Kyo, where exactly did you say we were headed?"

"We're headed over to Kagura's place?"

"Why's that?"

"Well I figured that since her Yata mirror and my flames caused this, then maybe she'll know how to at least recreate the energy we had going before, and that will hopefully give us a lead on how to get Shingo back." Kyo explained as everyone else nodded, finally getting the plan. After that, the rest of the walk was relatively short as they neared Chizuru's place of residence. Once inside, the group greeted her and took a seat in her living room, which was spacious enough to fit them all surprisingly enough.

"Ah, it's good to see you all have made it!" The Yata mirror bearer greeted them all warmly after they had gotten settled.

"Good to see you too, but Kyo said you might know something about Shingo's disappearance?" Kasumi asked, always one to get straight to the point.

"Yes, and I believe that I have now figured out the cause of the disappearance!" The black-haired maiden answered. "You see, when Kyo's flame-imbued punch made contact with my mirror, it let out a burst of energy that normally wouldn't occur otherwise. This much you know, correct?" She gave glances around the room, making sure everyone was up to par with the situation. Everyone nodded in approval, and waited for her to continue. "Well the energy it gave off normally would have teleported the victim about a few miles away at most, but..."

"...But?" Rock Howard inquired, raising an eyebrow at her sudden pause.

"...but the energy was influenced by an outside force. At first I thought it was Orochi, but as I looked deeper into the matter, I realized that the energy was not of pure evil intent, like Orochi's would be. In fact, it seemed to have little intent at all..." The mirror user trailed off, obviously hitting a dead end in her trail of thoughts.

"Hey yeah, you're right!" Kyo said as he snapped his fingers in realization, "the energy seemed...chaotic if anything."

"Well whatever it was it doesn't sound like anything we've heard of before..." Goro Daimon grunted as he rubbed his chin in thought.

"Well then what can we do? If we don't know what caused it, how can we even get to Shingo then?" Yuri asked with worry.

"I'm not sure...for now, Kyo and I will look into this matter, and we'll call you back here again at the most in two days." Chizuru said. The group of fighters didn't seem to like being unable to do anything to help, but begrudgingly they all left one by one, except for Terry, who was starving by this point and gave out a cry of "ALRIGHT!". After the last fighter filed out the door Kyo spoke up in a quiet voice.

"You really think we'll be able to find out what happened to him Kagura?"

"I really hope so Kyo...I really hope so..."

~Another Like Me~

"So Applejack I noticed that whenever I asked about the difficulty of this job, you all smiled..." Shingo said with a bit of nervousness evident in his voice, "why was that?" Applejack smirked a little at his tone of voice and decided to tease him.

"Oh you'll find out soon enough..." she said with a small wink, "wouldn't want to spoil it now would I?"

"Uh, but that's kind of what I'm afraid of..." the stallion responded, her lack of spoilers not helping his growing hesitancy in taking the job.

"Oh don't worry, as long as you're fine with tree sap you'll be fine!" Applejack said in a reassuring tone.

"Oh ok...wait what?" Shingo did a double-take at that last part, but she would give no answers to any more of his questions, no matter how much he prodded her. Seeing this, he gave up on the subject and decided to ask about something else. "So what exactly do you guys do on the Acres?" He asked, curious to know what life was like on a farm, having come from the city setting himself.

"Well usually mah sister and brother and I take care of the orchard, making sure all the trees are healthy, and once the trees are in season we go apple bucking!" The orange mare explained.

"Apple bucking? Wouldn't you just pick them?"

"Shoot no! Bucking is much more efficient! You do it right, and all the apples come down off the tree in one try!" Applejack said, almost gasping in shock at Shingo's suggestion. "Anyways, I'll show you how we do it later, for now you've got a trio of fillies to take care of!" The mare said as she pointed a hoof to the acres, telling the blue stallion that they had finally arrived.

"Oh, I see, where are they exactly?" His question was immediately answered by the weight of a small orange filly jumping onto his head, and made him fall flat on his stomach in surprise. After he noticed who it was though, he grinned. "Hey Scootaloo how's it hanging?"

"It's been good! We've come up with a lot of crusading ideas that we want to try out with you today!" She said with much excitement in her voice.

"Wait, crusading?" Shingo asked confused as he gave a questioning look to Applejack, who simply mouthed "you'll find out" to him.

"Well I'll leave you to it Shingo. See ya Scootaloo!" The orange mare said giving a wave to the pair as she left to go do her work. Before she turned however her smile widened a bit, "and good luck."

"Oh I'm sure the girls will be fine!" The stallion said trying to wave off any doubts she had about the welfare of the girls.

"I was referrin' to you!" She said with a smirk.

"Oh..." And with that boost of confidence, Scootaloo excitedly ushered him into an area that was near the farm, but was a bit forested, so that one wouldn't be able to see it with out looking quite hard. Eventually, the duo came upon a club house that was quite secluded, and was obviously a secret that only Scootaloo and her friends probably knew about.

"Is this your clubhouse?" Shingo asked, impressed by the fact that three small fillies could have possibly built it.

"Yup, Applejack technically built it, but Applebloom fixed it up and Sweetie Belle and I contributed all the stuff in it!" The filly declared proudly. "Come on let's go inside, they're already waiting for us so we can start!" With that, the two trotted up the ramp and into the club house, which was modestly furnished, a few posters and doodles of different things on the walls, with a small chalkboard in the back, and a couple of windows around the room. Shingo saw that the two fillies he had met last night, Applebloom and Sweetie Belle, were on the floor, looking at a couple of papers that seemed to have a list of different activities on them.

"Hey Applebloom and Sweetie Belle!" Shingo called out as the fillies noticed that the two had come in.

"You mean 'Pum Bloom and Belle Hop' right?" Applebloom said jokingly, giving the stallion a mock glare.

"Sheesh that's a low blow!" Shingo said trying to sound offended, but couldn't hide his chuckle as the fillies burst into giggles as well. "Anyways, so what's all this about crusading I've been hearing?" He asked curiously, making the others's faces light up.

"Cutie Mark Crusader Explanations yay!" The three cheered as the they jumped up and gave each other hoof-bumps.

"Wha-" Shingo was baffled by this exclamation, and was about to ask, but he was cut of as Sweetie Belle started to explain.

"Well you see, Applebloom, Scootaloo and I never got our cutie marks!" She explained. "You see, since we all have blank flanks, all the other colts and fillies at school kind of make fun of us at school for being 'blank flanks.'" The small unicorn said, saying "blank flanks" in a mock insulting tone of voice.

"Oh yeah, just like Scootaloo told me before!" He thought in remembrance as he nodded for the filly to continue.

"Well since we all didn't have our marks yet, we decided to form a group that was dedicated to finding our special talents; that's when the Cutie Mark Crusaders™ were formed!" The filly concluded, smiling at both of her friends as she finished.

"Oh I get it! So I'm guessing that list is your activities for finding them then?" Shingo asked perceptively as the fillies nodded. "Alright then, let's get started!" He declared happily, making the girls cheer as well.

"Alright, so let's see what the first one on the list is!" Applebloom said looking at one of the lists.

"Cutie Mark Crusader Bakers hooray!" The trio cried out as Shingo still was confused as to why they did this, but shrugged and went along with them as they left the club house to their first item of business.

"Oh this doesn't sound so bad! What could possibly have had Applejack so skeptical about this?" He thought. This of course was probably the worst question to ask, as he would soon find out. (Click the link, it really adds atmosphere here.)

[Activity 1: Baking]

"Flour?" Applebloom asked, wearing a chef's hat and apron as she mixed the batter for the new pastry item they were working on.

"Check!" Sweetie Belle chirped, wearing the same thing and signified the recipe to continue.

"Eggs?"

"Check!"

"Blueberries?"

"Check!"

"Bananas?"

"Check!"

"Uh guys are you sure that the recipe for 'blueberry banana' cake has all this stuff?" Shingo asked as he looked over the list of ingredients. He himself was wearing a chef's hat as well as an apron that said 'I've heard of good bakers before, but this takes the cake!'

"A' course Shingo!" Applebloom said with a wave of her hoof.

"Yeah don't worry! It's ok, we've got this covered!" Sweetie Belle said, agreeing with her fellow crusader.

"It sure was nice of Pinkie letting us use the Cakes's bakery for this though!" Scootaloo said, the pink mare popping out of the nearby sink and giving her a 'hoof up' of approval, before disappearing once again.

"Still don't know how she does that!" The stallion thought, shaking his head as he chuckled at the pink mare's antic of the day. However, he stopped and gave a look of horror at the last pair of ingredients on the list, namely: baking soda and vinegar. He looked over just in time to see that the girls had just finished pouring an entire bottle of vinegar into the mixture, and brought out a box of baking soda. "No wait! Girls!" He tried to stop them, but it was too late as the fillies emptied out the contents of the box into the mix, which promptly began to bubble furiously at the substance that had entered it.

"Oh wow why's it bubbling like that?" Sweetie Belle asked the other two.

"I dunno..." Scootaloo answered curiously, eyes watching the mixture intently.

"Maybe the bubbles mean it'll be extra delicious!" Applebloom cried out happily.

"Yeah!" The trio exclaimed as they bounced eagerly in anticipation.

"Wait no get do-" Shingo tried to yell, but he was too late because suddenly the mixture exploded halfway through his sentence. The resulting explosion of cake batter left the room, and everything in it covered in a tasty, but sticky batter, which tasted of bananas and blueberries. "down..." Shingo finished his previous sentence lamely as Pinkie Pie opened the door, having heard the explosion.

"Oh sweet Celestia..." she gasped in shock, her eyes trailing around the room, from the cake-ridden walls to the batter-covered fillies and Shingo.

"Pinkie wait I can explai-"

"A room made of cake batter???" She said in awe as she happily bounced around the room, grabbing a hoof-full of batter and tasting it, making an 'mmm' of satisfaction. She then turned to address Shingo and the fillies, "this is the best idea ever! In fact, I'll have to go write this down in my book of party ideas right now!" The mare ran off, giggling happily at her new plethora of ideas that sprung up from this one incident.

"Well at least it can't get any worse..." Shingo sighed in thought as he licked some of the batter. "Man this really is tasty!"

[Activity 2: Bear Wrestling]

One quick shower later the group was ready, and hesitant on Shingo's part, to go to the next activity, which took place at Fluttershy's house.

"Remind again how you guys talked me into this?" Shingo asked in terror as he was sitting on a stool in the opposite corner of a makeshift wrestling ring, the Crusaders giving him a pre-match pep-talk. His opponent was one of Fluttershy's grizzly bears, and currently the yellow pegasus mare was on the other side of the ring giving the bear a massage, which it was enjoying greatly.

"Don't worry about that Shingo! Just dodge, and counter with the ol' one two combo!" Applebloom said, trying to boost the poor stallion's confidence.

"Uh Applebloom I think you're referring to boxing on that one." Scootaloo said as she corrected the earth pony.

"Heh, oh yeah!"

"Don't worry Shingo, we made sure to get him pre-match! We covered him in tree sap so he couldn't slip out of your grasp when you got him!" Sweetie Belle told him with pride.

"Wait huh?" He was about to protest, but the starting bell rang and the bear got up from the stool in the other corner.

"Don't be too rough on each other you two!" Fluttershy said to them, the bear nodded in response before baring his fangs at Shingo.

"Mommy." Was all Shingo could squeak out before the bear, fittingly, pulled him into a giant bear hug, but since the bear was covered in tree sap, not only did Shingo get his body covered in the sticky substance, but he also ended up getting a much longer bear hug than he originally thought. Ten minutes later, Fluttershy and the crusaders managed to pry him apart, revealing him to have fainted after his sappy experience, but the bear was perfectly fine, though still sticky as well.

[Activity 3: Ziplining]

After the crusaders and Fluttershy had brought Shingo back into the realm of consciousness the group once again set off. This time they were standing on the side of a tree that was on top of a pretty tall hill near Ponyville. Applebloom had set up a rope that was hooked to the tree, and as far as Shingo could tell led to one of the buildings in Ponyville.

"Are you guys sure this is safe?" The stallion said, eyeing the cable that they were hooked to warily.

"A' course! Even though the last time it broke, I worked out all the kinks this time!" Applebloom declared heartily.

"Yeah let's go!" Sweetie Belle cried out as she and the other two fillies jumped off of the platform attached to the tree. Shingo groaned, knowing he'd probably pay for this later and followed them. Much to his surprise the line actually held up, and as they picked up speed he found himself actually enjoying the rush.

"Man this is pretty aweso-" He was cut off as his face made contact with a nearby beehive, shattering it. Fortunately for him though, he was going much too fast for the angry insects to catch up to him, but his face still got covered in honey. "Well at least it's tasty!" He thought with a little bit of joy as licked some of the yummy substance off of his face. However, as they passed a cloud on the way down, he made contact with another larger, much more sturdy object. After his initial shock, it was revealed to be a pegasus with a blond mane and a gray coat.

"Oh my..." She said, looking at what she had just hit, and who she was also now traveling with, "I'm sorry! Are you okay?" The mare asked the stallion, who looked to be a bit dazed from the impact.

"Yeah, I think I'll be fine." Shingo said, the pain dulling a little bit as the mare giggled.

"Well, it's nice to meet you, I'm Ditzy Doo, the runner of the postal service in this town!" The mare grinned as she offered a hoof to shake, which Shingo was glad to meet.

"Nice to meet you Ditzy! My name is Shingo!" He said, and the conversation would have gone longer, but the two noticed what they were currently headed for: the top window in Town Hall. They saw that the fillies had made it in safely, and gave a sigh of relief, but as Shingo and Ditzy neared the window, an older mare that had a gray mane and glasses came to look out the window the crusaders had entered from, and screamed in surprise as she found two adult ponies headed straight for her. Ditzy had collided with the older mare, knocking her down and sending both of them to the ground. Shingo however, was left with nothing to hit, and as the rope ended his inertia actually carried him out of his harness and sent him careening straight into the desk into the other side of the room. Needless to say, he wasn't going to be awake for a while.

(Music stops)

~Another Like Me~

"Hey! Equestria to Shingo!" A voice cried out, making the stallion open his eyes slowly. The world was blurry, but he could tell that he had been moved to a different place than he was when he was knocked out. "Ah good you're finally awake!" As his vision finally cleared up he figured out he was in what looked like a hospital. He was also in a hospital gown and bed, which was embarrassing to say the least. He also saw that Rainbow Dash, the crusaders, and Ditzy Doo were there as well.

"Aw man what happened?" He groaned as he felt his head, which now sported a large bump.

"Well after we ziplined into Mayor Mare's office you hit your head on her desk, and got knocked out!" Scootaloo explained, but then added sadly "we didn't get our Cutie Marks though..."

"Wait, that was the mayor's office?" Shingo asked in fear, not wanting to get in trouble with any political officials already.

"Yeah!"

"Was she...upset about what happened?" He asked tentatively, not sure if he actually wanted a response.

"Believe it or not, she wasn't that angry!" Ditzy told him, making the stallion sigh in relief. "That's why she only gave you two weeks of community service for disrupting the peace, starting tomorrow!" She said, thinking that would make him happy.

"Aw man..." The stallion groaned in response, "doing what?"

"You'll be helping Ms. Cheerilee around the school for a couple of days at the school we go to!" Sweetie Belle said excitedly. "So we get to see you pretty much every day!"

"Well that doesn't sound so bad." Shingo said as he calmed down a bit.

"Yeah, and after school everyday, we can go crusade some more!" Scootaloo added happily. Shingo however, didn't respond, as his eyes began to twitch, and he fell backwards.

"Hey! He fainted again..." The orange filly said in shock as this statement made Rainbow Dash and Ditzy Doo share a grin between each other.