Maybe he'll even show up to a class or two. Who knows.

[mach_n_roll]

So this is Smash Academy, huh...

[The tablet is already transmitting, but it seems that it's being held upside-down by someone looking out over the campus green... from about twenty feet above it, on top of the fountain, to be exact.]

Pretty cool. A guy could get used to campus life here!

[Okay, NOW the view lurches and rights itself as its owner lifts it to talk, and the grinning fuzzy face of a cobalt-blue hedgehog fills the screen.]

Hey guys! The name's Sonic; Sonic the Hedgehog! And it looks like I'm a student here now! Cool to meet you guys! Oh hey, if there's a... [he rustles a wad of disorganized papers, looking them over.] Marie, watchin' this? Guess what? I'm your new roommate!

[EDIT: Action]

[So Sonic eventually found the paper with his room number in the wad of forms and pamphlets he'd received, and after an afternoon of zipping around campus eventually made it up to BE-15 to meet his new roommate.]

Knock knock! [Knock knock.]

Comments

[voltecpower]

[Is that? Is that Mister Shadow? It sure looked like him. At least, through the blurry filter of cyberspace, it did... Did he finally return from wherever it was he disappeared to? Pulse needed a closer look, and a closer look he got, poking his spiky helmet right out through the tablet screen, his blue eyes just a few inches away from the two green ones, scanning the strange anthropomorphic hedgehog's face.]

Oh... Sorry. I thought you were someone else.

[He sadly slipped back behind the screen as though submerging into water, though he was still partially visible behind the static.]

[mach_n_roll]

WHOA!

[He almost drops his tablet when Pulse emerges from the screen, but keeps both his grip and his balance, fortunately.]

Sorry, but you give pop-up messages a whole new meaning when you do that! Who'd you think I was?

[voltecpower]

Hm? Oh...

[His image appears clearer on the screen, although the rest of the screen contents are still obscured by static.]

When I saw you, I thought you were a hedgehog who goes by the name Shadow.

[He tilted his head in thought.]

...Maybe you know him? You and Shadow look very similar. But then you're also hedgehogs... Is he your brother?

[mach_n_roll]

Shadow? He was here?

[That made sense, sort of. If GUN knows about this world, he'd be the first guy they'd chuck through the portal to check it out.]

Nope, he's not my brother, though I get that kinda thing a lot. Is he still around? I haven't raced him in a while. That could be a lotta fun.

[voltecpower]

He disappeared several months ago... I'm not sure where he's gone. There's no trace of him anywhere on the network here. Then again, he never did leave a lot of footprints to begin with.

[Thoughtful pause.]

Race? What sort of vehicle do you use?

[mach_n_roll]

[Sonic smirks.] That sounds like Shadow, alright. Maybe he'll show up again, who knows.

What vehicle? Pfft, my own two feet are faster than anything out in the parking lot OR the auto shop! Shadow's the only guy who's even come close ta beating me!

[voltecpower]

I hope you're right about Mr. Shadow.

...Your feet?

You just... run?

[Hmm.]

Could you please show me?

[mach_n_roll]

You want a demonstration? Sure!

[Showing off is what he lives for! He hops off the fountain and takes off in a steady thmpthmpthmp of a jog, the landscape traveling slowly past the camera as he holds it out as though THIS were the speed he was boasting. He's even making exaggerated panting noises! Then he turns the camera towards his face, grinning:]

Hahah, 'syke!

[Then there's a dull BOOMPH, both on the speakers and outside, and then that landscape he was showing Pulse is... just not there anymore. It left in a hell of a hurry, and was replaced by the rest of the campus who seemed to be just as much of a blur as the courtyard was!]

[voltecpower]

[If you had ever felt what it was like to be a peregrine falcon, holed up in a capsule that was traveling at sub-light speed and having no control over your situation, you would perhaps know what Pulse was going through at this moment.

Limited by the processing speed of the screen he was situated behind, this was one of the rare moments where Pulse was even subjected to a motion blur, normally able to discern his surroundings clearly due to his senses being heightened in an accelerated state where he was in control of his own speed, and now he understood where such a term originated from.

And he didn't like it one bit.]

G-g-gyaaaah! Aah! AAAAAAAAAAH!!

[In a moment, he was also going to learn where the term 'dry-heaving' came from.]

[mach_n_roll]

Whoa whoa whoa whoa--!

[By the time Pulse threatens to blow pixels, Sonic has realized something's wrong slides to slow his momentum, kicking up no small amount of sod as he does so. He peers down at the screen.]

You okay? Hold up... you're actually IN there, aren't you? Ahahah, sorry about that!