Everyone was led back to the cafeteria for lunch by their individual James clone. They all sat down, already frustrated, exhausted, and done with the whole thing. "Why is everything so fragile?" Knuckles asked and took a bite out of a now slightly crushed apple. "I'm just tired of continuing to do the same thing. One can only run the same track so many times before it gets boring."
"At least you can get your powers to work." Blaze grumbled. "Yeah, well, at least you weren't all startled by loud noises every five seconds." Silver slumped over. "Let's stop comparing." Shadow growled. "Because I win worst training." Rouge jumped out of her seat. "None of you got pushed off the school." She said and smirked at the flabbergasted faces of her peers. "Rouge wins." Sonic speedily spoke, earning agreements from those around him. "How high?" Shadow asked. "About 10 feet." Knuckles let out a whistle. "How are you not broken? Did you fly?" Rouge sat back down. "I did not. But there was a lot of padding in the area. I also only got pushed off once. Then I asked for the carrot."
"What carrot? I do not understand." Knuckles mused. "It was a reference to something James said earlier." She explained the carrot and the stick reference. "And now I would really like to get my hands on that emerald. It's the biggest gem I've ever seen." Knuckles scoffed. "I guarantee that it isn't the biggest."
"You should see the emerald Knuckles and Tikal and the guardian of in their kingdom. It's huge! It's bigger than Knuckles himself." Knuckles facepalmed. "What?" Sonic asked. "Don't tell the jewel thief ya dimwit." Knuckles growled at his friend. "I am not a dimwit." Sonic defended. "Agreed." Shadow smirked. "You're an idiot." Sonic looked at them both in offense. "I am none of the above!"
"Do you prefer moron?" Silver teased. "Do you prefer smartass." Sonic fired. "Okay, that's enough of that." Blaze said and stood up, marking the end of the conversation. "Students, report to the library." An announcement came on. Everyone quickly ate the rest of their lunch and began the walk to the library.
They were all arguing, over what, no one could tell you, as they walked in. James watched for a second before letting out a loud whistle that got everyone's attention. James took a big inhale before he got the backlash from what he was about to do. "It is clear to me that the six of you don't get along well, would I be correct?" Each student voiced their agreement for their statement. But then they each started to express how it wasn't their fault. "You're all to blame." James told them. Effectively shutting all of them up. "Which is why you're all going to play..."
"If it's trust falls, I call Knuckle's as my partner." Sonic quickly said. "You don't play 'trust falls'." Knuckles told his friend. "But it is a team building exercise."
"If you would let me finish." James told them. "You're playing killer bunnies." He handed Blaze the game box. "But why?" Silver asked. "Team bonding."
"By pitting us against each other?" Rouge skeptically asked. "It's a kid's game. It doesn't matter who wins or who loses, it's a game. It's supposed to be fun. Play a round and then you can all go to bed." James told them. The all looked at each other. They found a table and set up the game.
"HA! Your bunny gets taken by the mother ship." Sonic teased Shadow. Sonic wasn't even the one who was taking Shadow's bunny. That was, in fact, Rouge. "Shut up, faker. At least I have a carrot."
"I had one, but Blaze took it."
"Would you stop it." Silver asked. "Just for that, you have to feed your bunnies 5 cabbages and 5 waters, each." Sonic said and placed the card from his run deck. Silver looked at the card flabbergasted.
James watched from off to the side. "Maybe this was a bad idea." He said to himself as Knuckles accidently broke off a piece of the table when he got another unfortunate event.
By the end of the game, the group seemed to like each other less (if that was even possible). Rouge had won with carrot number 9, but Knuckles swore up and down that he had had the carrot before they started flipping through the carrots that it wasn't. He said that Rouge had taken it and started a fight between the group. Whether Rouge had taken it during the game or not remained a mystery and would forever remain so (she did).
The next morning did not go much better. Sonic got faster by only a few seconds. Rouge couldn't get more than a few feet in before falling to the ground. Knuckles broke ten iPads. Blaze still couldn't get the torch to light. Silver dropped a large number of items and insisted that he had aged ten years with the number of heart attacks James had given him. Shadow had had no success. And they still didn't like each other very much. Rouge insisted she and Shadow were friends, but he said he only tolerated her. Knuckles and Sonic were friends, as were Silver and Blaze. Rouge and Blaze seemed to be forming some kind of relationship. But nothing else changed.
Nothing changed in the first week, and James was starting to become concerned. At this point in time, the situation and forced other groups to form some kind of bond, no matter how thin and rocky it was at the start, but nothing was changing in this group, no matter how many games he sat them down and made them play. Not only had he made them play killer bunnies, but there were also rounds of phase ten, go fish, funglish, codenames, qwirkle, up and down, clue, and Mario Kart. None of which helped. He didn't see forcing them to talk out their feelings going much better, but he did have one other idea.