"What did you expect it to look like?" Maria asked softly, her soft blue eyes flickering up to look at the other.

Shadow huffed, pushing his long bangs out of his face. "Less cliche." He was of course referring to the boarding school before them. It was a large stone castle, but somehow less... menacing. It was in fact buzzing with life and bright colors, althought this made no difference to the man pushing the girl in the wheel chair. "I feel like we're going to Hogwarts."

"You sort of are, aren't you? That's why we're here." She said, pushing on the wheels of her chair in attempt to move. Shadow continued pushing her chair, moving the pair closer and closer to what Shadow would refer to as hell.

Amy followed closely behind, pushing what might be close to a baggage cart. Shadow looked over his shoulder at her to confirm she was moving with them (the cart held not only Amy's bags, but Shadow and Maria's). She was, but somehwat struggled. "Amy, I push the cart if you want to take Maria." He said in his careful, low voice.

The girl pushed her light pink hair behind her ears and smiled, saying, "Oh, no, I don't trust myself with another person in my care. You go ahead, I've got this."

The man didn't insist; he knew any such attempt would have been fruitless. Instead he navigated into the grand entrance hall, making quiet conversation with his sister. "This place is supposed to be for the elite." He joked. "What are we doing here?"

Maria laughed, answering, "You are the elite, Shadow."

"By who's standards?"

"The headmaster's, apparently. Besides, have you ever met anyone else who can do what you can with a chaos emerald?"

"Supposedly the prince can do it, too." He muttered darkly, occasionally looking over his shoulder to confirm that Amy was following. She was such a sweet girl. Shadow supposed he took pity on her, at least at first. Ever since she'd grown up a bit, he found he enjoyed her presence more and more.

She developed a bit of a crush on him, he thought, a few years back. He rationalized it to be his own fault; the one time they'd had sex, he'd initiated it, but it was more of an experiment that anything else. Ever since, thought, he hadn't quite led her on as much, and he assumed the feeling to have disappated.

"The prince? You mean... Oh, lord, what's his name..." Maria bit her lip as Shadow stopped, looking around for where they were to go.

"Sonic." Shadow replied, a bit of harshness in his voice. He'd never really met the man in question. Sure, they'd spoken a few times, but never really met.

He wheeled her towards room assignments, looking to find where the group was to be. Amy bounced ahead of him to look at the list, smiling from to ear to ear. "Maria, they accepted our request to room together."

Maria sighed in relief; the poor girl was not a fan of strangers. Shadow had had no other option to room with a strangers, as there were no co-ed rooms available. He didn't bother to look through the whole list to find his roommate (the names were simply listed alphabetically, and the roommates were often not listed next to each other).

"Which wing are you in?" Shadow asked, looking to Amy.

"Um, the north."

"Ah, so am I. I'll accompany you to your room, then." He muttered, scanning to place for directions. They'd yet to recieve their scedules, but they could pick those up after getting settled, Shadow reasoned.

The trio went to the girls' room assignment and Shadow picked his things up off the cart (a backpack and one truck), deciding to carry them himself. "You two get settled, and call me if you need anything. You have my number, don't you Amy?"

The little girl smiled and waved him off, pulling Maria into their room. "Yeah, yeah. Get outta here, Shadow. We need to gossip about you."

Shadow rolled his eyes, but turned on his heels and left, needing no more permission to go. His room was not too far from their's; all his had to do was take the stairs to the second floor. Thankfully, Maria had gotten the first floor, considering she was in a fucking wheelchair. It took a lot of fighting to explain to them why she couldn't 'just take the elevator.'

He fumbled with his key to the door, but found it unlocked. He entered to see a man, a few inches shorter than he, stading with his back to the door, clearly trying to decide which bed he was going to take. He turned around to look at Shadow, then jerked his chin towards the twin beds on opposite sides of the room. It was a spacious room for a dorm, much to Shadow's surprise. "Do you have a presence?" The man asked, tilting his head to the side.

Shadow shrugged, but felt drawn to the right side of the room. "This one, I guess." he muttered, tossing his backpack down.

His roommate immediately moved his things to the left, beginning to replace the basic white sheets with his own blue ones. "Alrighty. I'm Sonic, by the way." The man called.

Shadow immdiately turned around and so did Sonic, expecting the other's surprise. Yes, now that Shadow thought, he should have recognized him.

The man before him had emerald green eyes, visibly clearly across the room. His short blonde hair hair blue tips to it, the only source of color on his body, considering his pale complextion. His uniform had blue accents wherever possible—thankfully this school had a very relaxed 'uniform'. No one was really sure what the uniform was exactly.

Which was nice, considering it allowed Shadow to wear all black. While the darker male wore black slacks and a plach button up shirt, Sonic wore a blue sweater over a white t-shirt, donning black slacks as well. Sonic's clothes, seemed to be... more high quality than anyone else he'd seen so far, but what else could he expect?

"By Sonic you mean..."

"The prince, yeah." Sonic said, offering a smile.

Shadow's lips twisted into a sneer and he turned to continue unpacking. "So what are you doing rooming wirh such a lowly creature as myself?" He hissed, putting his clothes away in his dresser.

Sonic narrowed his eyes, but returned to what he was doing anyways. "From what I understand, we're in the same program."

Joy. Shadow thought miserably. "Oh, yay. What's the name of the course, anyways? Isn't it supposed to be ridiculously glamorous?"

"Mastering Chaos Energy and the Emeralds." Sonic replied flatly. "It's not glamorous, it's just the name of the course."

"I don't need a class to know how to use chaos energy." Shadow muttered. It was true; the man had always had a talent for working with it. At this point, he no longer needed an emerald in hand to use it, although that was a much less reliable way to accomplish the desired effect. Practice makes perfect.

"Oh, I'm sure." Sonic rolled his eyes. "God, you're such a snob. Good to know you're so perfect, you don't have a single thing to learn."

Shadow's hands curled into fists and he spoke through gritted teeth, adding, "What are you doing here, anyways? What? Your mommy wouldn't hire you a private tutor, since you didn't want to go through the work to learn yourself?" He hissed, spinning around. "How dare you insinuate that I—"

Sonic turned to face his as well, his sweet face twisted into anger as well. "That you what? Are too proud to admit you have things to learn?"

"How dare you!" Shadow hissed. He was overreacting, of course, but the man had always had a certain distaste for authority. "I've worked for years to get where I am, by myself! What have you done, hm? You figured out that chaos energy existed and decided you had a talent for it?"

Sonic sucked in an angry breath, though that hadn't been so far from the truth. "Oh? You're the only one who should be able to work with it?"

"No, I just don't think people should be able to use it just because they decided they were special and had the money to go to this fucking school!" Before Sonic could throw out a response, Shadow grabbed his phone and disappeared, heading downstairs to get his schedule. Prick.