Spike grinned as he posed in front of a mirror. He wanted to look good for his first day of school so he put on some of the custom clothes Rarity made for him. Not the formal stuff of course as he didn't want to be TOO dressed up, just a white Power Ponies T-shirt and red jacket (open of course otherwise he wouldn't be able to show off the large print of the Power Ponies on his shirt). The red really brought out the purple of his scales.

Twilight had to order all his clothes as custom. With his dragon bone structure he couldn't exactly wear the mass produced clothes of his favorite characters, not when they were designed with ponies in mind. That was okay because Rarity's clothes looked a thousand times cooler and it was pretty awesome to have one of a kind shirts. Ponies (and Dragons) might spend most of their days naked but it was nice to wear something.

"Spike!" Twilight called, "Hurry up, you don't want to be late,"

"Coming," Spike grinned.

Truthfully it wasn't school that put him in such a fine mood. It was the fact that today marked the end of his grounding. Twilight, in her true Twilight fashion, completely over analyzed the whole school thing. She wanted to wait to send him until his grounding was over so he wouldn't feel like School was part of his punishment.

It also defeated the purpose of going if the only reason was for him to make friends. You couldn't exactly make friends when you weren't allowed to hang out after school. Plus Twilight said she wanted Spike to feel excited about school so having it start immediately after he got off grounding would make it seem like a reward, not further punishment.

Spike didn't know about any of that but he was excited about finally getting out of the castle. Now he knew how those poor dragons felt in all those fantasy stories where they had to stay locked up in a castle forever to guard it.

When Spike got downstairs he gave Twilight a quick hug as she gave him a bagged lunch filled with gem stones

Then Spike frowned, seeing who was waiting for him. When he actually got outside, he nearly ran fin first into the Cutie Mark Crusaders. Whom were waiting for him.

"Hi Spike," grinned Apple Bloom, Apple Jack's little sister. Rarity's little sister Sweetie Belle was with her and so was Scootaloo, the little disabled Pegasus Rainbow Dash had adopted. Spike never really talked to Scoot about it but he did understand. Spike was a dragon that didn't even have wings. He could understand what it was like to be a flying creature that couldn't fly.

"What are you guys doing here?" Asked Spike.

Sweetie Belle shrugged, "We figured we'd walk you to school."

"Errr, thanks but you really don't have to," Spike insisted, "I know where it is."

Sweetie Belle insisted, "Rarity says you should never let a boy walk somewhere by themselves. It's unlady like."

Spike rolled his eyes, "Wanna carry my books for me then?"

Scootaloo snorted back a laugh.

Spike smiled and started heading towards school with the Crusaders right behind him. It was a strangely silent and awkward walk. Usually the Crusaders were very chattie.

"Spike," Apple Bloom finally spoke up again after ten minutes of silence.

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry," Apple Bloom informed but for what Spike couldn't imagine.

"We're sorry," Scootaloo corrected.

Spike raised an eyebrow, "For what?"

Apple Bloom flushed in shame, "For never inviting you to our clubhouse."

Spike rolled his eyes, "It's fine."

Scootaloo insisted, "No, it's not."

Well Sweetie Belle said, "We never meant for you to feel like we weren't your friends."

Apple Bloom nodded, "We really do think of you as our friend, we're just pretty lousy ones."

Spike dismissed, "It's okay," thinking their sisters were making them say this, "I'm sorry I got you in trouble."

"This isn't about that," Insisted Scootaloo, "We aren't just saying this stuff cuz our sisters yelled at us. We really do mean it. We should have been better friends to you."

Spike sighed, "Look it's not like you were actually 'lousy friends'. I'm pretty sure you need to have at least one actual conversation to qualify as 'friends'. We never hang out without our siblings around, we've never-"

"That's going to change," Scootaloo insisted.

"What if I don't want it to?" Spike shocked the Crusaders, "I don't have anything against you gals but I don't want you to start hanging out with me because you got in trouble. Besides we have absolutely nothing in common. I'm a lot younger than you and I'm a major comic book nerd and you guys are WAY too active for my lazy butt to hope to keep up," and Spike really didn't want to hang out with ponies who were being forced to associate with him.

The Crusaders looked down with an odd look of shame well Sweetie Belle said, "We didn't realize we hurt you so much."

"You didn't," Spike assured, "Honestly I'm completely fine."

"Could we try please?" Scootaloo asked, "Like you said we weren't 'lousy friends' so much as we weren't friends at all but could we try to be? We'll do better this time."

Spike growled, "Fine you can tell you're sisters we're friends,"