Stage 3: Circus Park

While I was off dealing with my problems, Shadow had his own thing going on: "Where's that damn fourth chaos emerald?"

By this time, Shadow'd found three chaos emeralds: Two while we were in Westopolis itself, and one at the end of Lethal Highway, after I left to chase the tank. Shadow decided that he needed them whether he trusted Black Doom or not. He knew how powerful they were, and he wanted to see what he could do with them.

His aimless wandering searching for them eventually lead him north of Westopolis, into what was apparently a landfill. Shadow had a pretty sensitive nose, though, and nothing unpleasant was coming from the place. Actually, the only smell he could pick out of the landfill was popcorn.

He was a little hungry, although honestly he would have preferred a banana or something, but he decided to investigate. Climbing the hill, he gasped as he crested it. Stretching out for the length of the "landfill" was an amusement park, lit up in green and orange under the deep blue Westopolis sky. Even at the top of the hill he could see a logo painted everywhere, a little round face with a giant moustache.

Eggman has this thing for amusement parks. The Floating Island, first, and now this. Eggman was building an amusement park right outside of Westopolis. In fact, trying to stop it was why Tails and I had been in town in the first place, before I'd noticed Shadow and gone off to check on him. As a matter of fact, when I passed out near Glyphic Canyon, I still had Tails' sack lunch with me, banana and all.

So Shadow was standing there, pondering what the point of this place could possibly be, when suddenly a whirring noise got his attention. He turned and looked to see a little blue and yellow plane flying toward him, low in the sky… Not the Tornado-1, but the Tornado-3, Tails' personal plane. Even as Shadow stood on the hill, he could see the fox inside, biting his lip. Tails began to weave through the air carefully as he passed overhead, but something from below hit the plane, and it began to go down. As it fell, Tails screamed from inside, a terrified noise that sent a chill down Shadow's spine. He fought not to see the little girl's face, focusing instead on the sparkly glint that went spiraling out of the plane.

"That chaos emerald!" Shadow muttered, resolving to himself to find it. If that meant helping the fox… then so be it.

He raced down the hill, into the amusement park, past droves of stout orange robots brandishing lances. Shadow was a little annoyed with this whole thing: Black Doom being vague, me being a little more judgmental than I probably shoulda been, the difficulty of finding the emeralds, fighting off anything in his path. More than that, Shadow was annoyed with the state of his memories. Ever since he'd woken up in that pod, he had no recollection of his past. All these people seemed to know him, but he didn't know himself. All he really knew was that he didn't know, and that he wanted to make someone pay.

It wasn't long before he found Tails, knelt down by his shattered plane, tinkering at it with a wrench. Tails' twin tails, the source of his nickname, were swishing in the air behind him as he angrily worked on a nut.

"Oh no, I stripped it!" he sighed. "Not like there's anything to put back together, anyway." As Shadow's footsteps crunched behind him, the little fox's ears perked up. "Sonic, is that you?" Did you bring my lunch? I'm really hungry and that ice pack is only going to keep it cold for a couple more hours…"

"Why can't anyone tell the two of us apart?" Shadow sneered.

Tails' tails froze mid-air, his back stiffening. "Sh…shadow?" he asked.

"Who the hell else would it be? Eggman?"

Tails turned around, looking at Shadow with wide blue eyes. "Shadow. I didn't… I didn't know you were in town. I uh…" He gulped, his eyes narrowing slightly as they settled on Shadow's hands. "I like your gun."

Shadow looked down at it. An mp5 semiautomatic he'd lifted off a soldier on the highway, although it was short on ammo now. As far as he knew, and he knew right, Tails was really fond of most kinds of weaponry, so something about Tails' complement rung hollow to him. Still, he didn't have time to deal with some nerdy kid criticizing his choice of firearm. He scoffed.

"Shadow, have you… have you heard from Sonic?" Tails pleaded as Shadow collected his thoughts. Shad had never heard the kid sound quite so worried, and it made him feel a little bad for him.

"He's chasing some alien spacecraft out by the bridge," Shadow huffed, trying not to sound compassionate. "I'm sure he's on his way back here by now."

Tails nodded sagely, his little voice squeaking as he assured, "I'm sure he is! Well, um… anyway, Shadow… Sonic and I were just about to explore Eggman's new amusement park. We think if we can stop him from getting rings off the black market, we can put a dent in his plans to build robots and weapons. We figured a good way to start would be seeing how we can do for rings in this place. We think he might be funding his operations by gambling."

Shadow nodded. He remembered someone telling him about that, maybe it was me, maybe it was Rouge; he didn't know. Still, the park looked like an interesting diversion from the aliens, and something about those big blue eyes made him want to protect the little fox. Plus, it would help him find that fourth emerald.

"Well then. Let's see."

Tails started walking away from the wreckage of the plane, and Shadow followed him for a second before speeding ahead. Shadow could feel the little fox hot on his trail, almost looming behind him as they raced down the corridor installed in the park, seemingly for his benefit. It felt familiar, running down a narrow corridor with someone who could never keep up, but still dreamed of trying. He glanced back, and as a green light from one of the games caught in the reflection of Tails' left eye, it sent a chill down Shadow's spine. Familiar, but why?

As they passed through, Shadow couldn't believe all the strange sights he was seeing. He'd seen the little orange robots before, somewhere. He knew that much. What he didn't recognize, however, were some of the other robots. There were orange robots that seemed to be on springs, flopping around ineffectually as they passed. There were clown like bots on round balls juggling clubs, occasionally tossing them at everything that moved.

One of the orange robots with a small yellow gun set its sights on Tails, and the fox leapt into it, grunting. Seeing he could take care of himself, Shadow stopped to watch one of the clowns dance around the area on a large rubber ball, tossing clubs into the air with a smiling face and catching them easily. As he saw Tails pluck the gun out of the robot's unmoving hands to his right, the clown tossed a club to the left of Shadow, grinning.

"You're not a very good juggler, are you?" Shadow quipped.

Suddenly a hand grabbed Shadow and yanked him away from the club, which exploded before his eyes. It took him a second to look over at Tails, who was staring at him, eyes ready to water. Shadow fought a shudder: why did he care what happened? And why was the fox holding a gun from one of those robots by the barrel and not the handle?

"Be careful, Shadow. If Eggman's robots throw it at you, it probably explodes."

"I'm sure I could have taken it. What's the point of this place, anyway?"

"I think Eggman thinks it's funny. I think maybe he didn't have much of a childhood…" Tails shrugged.

"I think it needs to go down."

"I don't think it's wise to get close to that thing,"

Shadow reached over and grabbed the gun out of Tails' hands, taking it in his left. He raised it to the robot and began firing, popping the ball on which it walked. Another pair of shots and one hit a club, detonating it. The robot exploded into a pile of scrap. Tails' jaw fell open.

"I didn't expect that from you," he murmured.

Shadow narrowed his eyes, glaring at the fox. "What do you mean by that?"

Tails gasped, recoiling a little, leaning back. "Oh, I don't mean anything I just… you…" He looked away. "You're here! Helping me with Eggman! I never expected that."

"I'm not helping you with Eggman. You're helping me blow things up. Besides," Shadow murmured with a grin, "I don't often find company who appreciates a good weapon."

Shadow kept walking, hopping onto an elevator shaped like a circus barrel, red with white stars. Tails followed him.

They kept on like that all night, destroying robots and playing the games. There was a shooting range with balloons; Shadow was surprisingly good at it, and Tails could hold his own. Shadow couldn't beat Tails at the turret version, though; he was impressed to hear the little fox gush about how well-designed Eggman's turret were after the game was over, and they talked about how much Tails wanted to see the latest model of turret GUN was installing in some of their airships. They walked across tight ropes, jumped through flaming hoops, and smashed a lot of robots.

As the sun started to rise, Tails smiled and sat down. "Wow, Shadow. That was really fun! Busting up all those robots… playing all those games. I sure am lucky to have you as a friend."

"Friend?" Shadow scoffed, looking down at Tails. The blue eyes that stared back at him made his chest feel tight; for a minute, he was looking up at a girl instead. He shook his head. "That's a strong word. You're less annoying than Sonic, though."

Tails nodded. "You and he… don't really get along, do you?"

They were interrupted by a nasal screech shouting, "TAILS!" Both both turned to look behind them. Floating there before them was a small gray pod with a screen on it. A little man was gesturing wildly on the screen.

"Eggman! I can't even see you on that tiny little screen," Tails recovered, turning his gaping expression into a laugh. "How's the budget?"

"Shut up! And Sonic! How nice to see you both here! Do you think you could perhaps cause less problems elsewhere before coming to pay me a visit?"

The little man on the screen was fat, round, and bald. You know Eggman. It's hard to miss him. And even though Shadow could barely make out any details of Eggman's face, something about the way he was standing, about the arch of his back, made Shadow uncomfortable. He could almost remember someone looking like that…

"Sonic's not here," Shadow sneered, crossing his arms over his chest.

The tiny little head on the screen tilted back slighty, hands coming together, finger steepling. "Ah! Shadow. How wonderful to see you again. It certainly does explain a lot. Do you think you could do me a favor, for old time's sake, and get the GUN robots who likely followed you in OUT OF MY HAIR?"

"But Eggman," Tails informed helpfully, "You have no hair."

Shadow chuckled at the joke.

"Quiet, Foxboy! Look, Shadow, I'll make it worth your while. I have cotton candy?"

Shadow rolled his eyes and shot the pod in the screen. As it flashed with one last burst of electricity, he noticed something glint on edge of the hill leading out of the park behind it.

"Aww come on, Shadow! I was having fun making fun of him." Tails bit his lip again. "What did he mean, GUN robots who followed you?"

Shadow shrugged, walking up the hill on the edge of the park. "Oh, I stole a soldier's bike on Lethal Highway."

Tails ran after him. "Shadow… where are you going?"

Shadow knelt down on the side of the hill and started reaching around in the grass. He could almost see it glittering. After a moment, his gloved fingers picked up soething cool. He pulled his hand out, revealing a chaos emerald, sparkling beautiful white in the rising sun.

"My emerald!"

"Not anymore. It's been fun, Tails. I think there's another emerald over at that island." Shadow smiled. "Be seeing you."

"Shadow! What are you doing?!" Tails shouted.

Shadow turned away.

"This is.. this is bananas! Don't you understand what's going on?"

He ignored the shouting as he ran.