Allies?
"What do you mean 'it's no suitable clothing'? Are you saying it doesn't suit me?" Hands on her hips, Amy Rose glared at Porker.
The pig ducked a little. "I n-never said so, Amy…"
"Then what's the matter? Tails, how do I look?" The pink hedgehog turned to the small orange fox.
Tails shrugged, casting a little interested glance over the piece of clothing in question, Amy's new dress. It was a bright shade of crimson, much tighter than the stuff she'd worn before, broadening around her hips to end just above the knees. Not quite in any age to care much about a girl's outer appearance, Tails just nodded briefly. "Not bad."
Porker took a deep breath. Out of all things, why did Tails have to say that? If a girl asks that kind of question…
Amy's cheeks turned a color approaching the shade of her new dress. "What did you say…?"
"D-d-don't worry, Amy, you look great in it," Porker intervened, bringing up all his bravery to step between the girl and the young fox before Amy had a chance to get Tails. "It's absolutely perfect!"
The anger quickly drained from Amy's face, leaving just a tint of redness behind as she blushed, brushing her hands over the dress, righting the skirt. "You think so? You wouldn't lie to a beautiful lady, would you?"
"Never!" Porker Lewis quickly shook his head. "You look wonderful."
Amy smiled dreamily, but then her head suddenly snapped to Porker. "Then why isn't it suitable?", she demanded, the tone she'd had before sweeping back into her voice.
Porker winced. Here we go again… Even skipping on the fact that a bright red dress doesn't go too well with pink fur and spines… "It's just… you know, we're going to search for the pirates... they might not be friendly… and… and..." The pig shifted, then thought he'd found the argument to get him out of this mess again. "You wouldn't want to ruin it in a fight, would you? It's brand new, after all…"
"Oh Poker, that's so thoughtful of you!" Amy smiled. "Sometimes I wish Sonic could be like that." Before Porker quite knew what happened, she had given him a tight hug.
"Amy…", the pig squeezed out, but the pink girl had already let go off him again.
"But you don't need to worry, I'll be careful. In fact, I'll wear it a lot from now on," Amy went on, "I'm sure Sonic will love me in this!"
Just out of Amy's sight, Porker watched Tails facepalm. Not mentioning that he agreed with the little fox and thought Sonic wouldn't give a damn what Amy wore at all, the pig tried one last time of reasoning. "But Amy, Sonic can't see you now…"
Amy shrugged. "He passes by many places, you never know where to meet him. Besides, some womanly charm can only help us, can't it?"
Porker sighed, swallowing the comment that the pirates certainly wouldn't care much more than Sonic. Comments generally weren't his style, he left such things to Sonic, or to Knuckles when the echidna was in the mood to give out some. Additionally, the short, half a sentence comment if Amy thought she was suitably dressed - as in practical - had backfired so badly Porker made a meta not to say anything like that anytime again.
Luckily for the pig, Amy had decided to end the pointless discussion by putting an arm around Tails and starting to walk out of the room with him. "We should be going, don't you think so?"
"Yes Amy." Porker nodded, glad to have this finished with… until he remembered where they were heading, and that he had only replaced one incarnation of evil with another one. But maybe the pirates really wouldn't be much worse than the last quarter hour…
At least Porker hoped so.
From the very beginning of the fight on, the outcome had already begun to show.
Sonic dived out of the way of a spiked fist aiming for him, the frantic jump ending in a little elegant belly landing on the grass. Quickly turning his head, the hedgehog watched Knuckles' punch go through thin air, the momentum too much for the echidna to hold his balance and the red guardian half rotated in mid-fall before flopping sideways to the ground not far from his missed opponent.
Had the quarrel started with a hot-headed exchange of words, it ended in utter silence. The insults and arguments had run out minutes ago already, the punches and kicks had stubbornly lasted a little longer.
Sonic rolled to his back, gasping, spread-eagled on the grass, stared up to the blue sky and pondered the last hour's actions.
It was clear it would end like this.
He hated to admit it, but they were even. His own moves, concerning both his dodges and attacks, were so much faster than Knuckles' reaction speed he couldn't miss. Knuckles on the other hand was so much stronger than him that once he got a grip on Sonic, after a small moment of lowered concentration or disturbance, it was hard for the hedgehog getting out of the echidna's reach; and one of Knuckles' small number of hits did the same damage as a series of Sonic's lighter ones.
Plus, Sonic found it had been a different fight than the ones he fought usually. A full force spindash hit, with the full sharpness of his quills used and scored with full speed would have cut the echidna's limbs off or something. But it was a fact that Sonic's most effective weapon for combat were his spikes. He had not used them. The wind of his running, flying kicks and fast hits, sure, but none of them was truly effective. Knuckles on the other hand… Sonic knew what those spiked fists could do. The echidna smashed rocks. A little blue hedgehog shouldn't have been a challenge to crunch.
They were holding back. Both. It had taken Sonic several minutes to work that out, an amount of time that seemed ridiculous for realizing something as obvious once you thought about it... He'd been angry, sure. Knuckles had been as much, but neither of them had meant to fight to the real end. He didn't hate Knuckles or something. No, he almost dared to consider him a friend, although he wasn't sure if that was a mutual thing; it was hard discerning the stoic echidna.
It had been a disagreement, a simple argument… leading to what these things had led to times and times before: a one hour fight during which not only enough blows had been exchanged to make the hedgehog feel as if he consisted of bruises more than anything else, but somehow each of them had found the chance to say everything that came to mind about the other one's annoying character traits.
It was always the same. Once the fight had gained its dynamics – and that happened incredibly fast – Sonic's face wore a smirk in spite of himself and in spite of the anger he knew had to be evident in the look of his eyes, and he knew how much that smirk got on the echidna's nerves. Knuckles on the other hand, as a contrast to the seconds preceding the actual quarrel, didn't shout his retorts to the hedgehog's taunts, he growled them out between ground teeth and the tone went with the look Sonic could see in his eyes, a sharp but very controlled aggression. Still, neither was out to kill the other or something. Suddenly, as he lay panting and reflecting on the matter, Sonic was stricken with an odd sense of how crazy this whole thing was.
Turning his head, he shot a glance at Knuckles. The echidna was sprawled on the grass similar to him, also seeming to lack the power for more than gasping. For a moment Sonic wondered if the fight had stopped because they were finished with each other or just because they were both too exhausted to continue. Right now Knuckles looked as crappy as Sonic felt, and suddenly the hedgehog noticed his anger towards the echidna had completely subsided, and now that it had, he found most of the things he'd been doing during the past hour had been rather foolish and stupid.
"Um… Knuckles?", he started, not sure if it was the time for talk at all.
"What?", the red echidna gave back without looking at him, but the deep tone in his voice wasn't anger or annoyance any more; it was plain grogginess.
Sonic cleared his throat. "What I said about… you being-"
"Forget it, Sonic," Knuckles interrupted him. "I said a lot of stuff I shouldn't have said, you said a lot of stuff you shouldn't have said, and we both got good answers to it, didn't we?"
Sonic's hand slowly moved over his aching rips. "Yeah, that's for sure."
Knuckles lifted his head to look at him. "I guess all of these things needed to be cleared up on someday."
"Maybe that's really it." Sonic smiled warily. "May I say one more thing?"
Knuckles raised an eyebrow, but nodded. "After everything before it can't really change anything, so shoot."
"You look horrible now, Knux." Sonic grinned. "A real mess…"
"It's Knuckles, hedgehog." The echidna frowned. "And do you really think you look much better off?"
"No." Sonic grimaced.
"See? That's what I thought." Knuckles sat up stiffly. "Come on, we'll retrieve the Chaos Emerald and I'll show you a place with fresh, cool water to get cleaned up and help with the sore spots."
"So... Peace? Just like this?" Sonic moved to crawl to his feet. "Friends now?"
Knuckles rose completely to his own feet and for a long moment just stood and looked into Sonic's sweaty, mud-stained face. Then he slowly gave a small nod. "We'll try it."
Sonic grinned. "Way to go, Knux!"
"It's still Knuckles, hedgehog."
"We should have told Tails to wait a moment," Porker mumbled. "If no-one's here we're stuck in the middle of nowhere…"
"Why should no-one be here? It's their hideout, their home base." Amy Rose pointed across the small bay that lay beneath the cliff they stood on. About fifty meters below, the brightness of a white sand beach snuggled up against the dark cliffs, small waves from the bay rolling out on it giving a rhythmic sound to hear even up here. "Besides," the pink hedgehog continued, "it sure is a beautiful place. If no-one is here to negotiate, we'll have to wait for them to come home and while we do that, we can take a swim and have a wonderful day at the beach."
Porker's jaw dropped. Here they were, all on their own, forced to face a group of dangerous pirates to convince them to join forces against a common enemy… and that girl thought about a day off at the beach. "Amy… we're not here for holidays…"
The pink hedgehog turned to him. "I know. But I am allowed to enjoy the view, right?"
"Of course…" The pig gave a small nod, secretly wishing he could think about holidays too. But since he had encountered Robotnik's new scheme, he seemed haunted by the mental image of armies of battleships coming for Mobius… and now that he and Amy were heading for the pirates' headquarters, he kept seeing himself keelhauled… or thrown into shark-filled water… or something like that.
Amy seemed utterly immune to this kind of worries; the girl was already descending the tiny path winding down the cliffs to the beach, casually hopping from one foot to the other, her quills swinging with the steps and the soft breeze from the sea.
Feeling he couldn't leave her all on her own, Porker hurried to catch up with her. The path turned into a set of stairs carved into the rock leading them to the middle of the wide beach.
Amy stopped when she reached the sand and turned to Porker. "Look over there! Those huts and caves have to be it!"
The pig nodded numbly. "S-sure."
Amy tilted her head. "Aw... come on, you're not scared now, are you?"
"They're dangerous. Unscrupulous! They've thrown Tails into a pit once!"
"Tails can FLY," Amy smiled relaxedly.
"They would have thrown anybody who can't in there as well!", Porker continued. "I'm sure they had no clue that Tails could!"
"What's the matter with you?" Amy folded her arms. "We've worked together with them before. They never killed one of us."
Porker took a deep breath. What tells you they won't do it now?, he thought, but swallowed the comment. Talking back to Amy was never a successful thing.
"Now come on, I'll look out for you, okay?" Amy smiled sweetly at him, drilling one of her quills between her fingers.
"Okay…" Porker nodded. "Let's get that over with."
"Right. I like you much better this way." The pink girl gave him a thumbs-up and started walking towards the huts.
The wooden buildings were cramped into gaps in the rock, concealing entrances to caves going deep into the stone. Coming closer the two freedom fighters found Jolly Roger fluttering with the soft wind on top of the center hut. Porker shuddered, his eyes unable to leave the picture of skull and crossbones moving with the breeze.
He could finally look away when they stood directly in front of the door, mostly because he couldn't see the flag anymore. The high cliff's shadow took away most of the warmth that had filled the beach on the sand and Porker shivered lightly, not entirely sure if it was the cool that made him feel chilly or the strange smell of moist wood and salt.
Amy knocked on the door. "Hello? Misters pirates? Anybody at home?"
Nothing moved on the other side of the door and Amy knocked again, harder this time. "Hello-ho?"
Porker shrugged. "No-one here. We can as well go home again…" He turned to leave, but Amy had grabbed his arm before he could get out of her reach.
"Where do you think you're going?" She grinned, still holding Porker around the elbow, and pulled on the door with her free hand.
To their both big surprise it swung open with a loud squawking noise, flooding their noses with a wave of damp reeking air from inside the room.
Amy grinned. "See? We can wait inside…" With that she dragged protesting Porker into the room.
Porker blinked to allow his eyes to get used to the dim lighting inside before daring a look round the pirates' houseroom. The small entrance had not given away the smallest idea of the dimensions of the room that lay behind. The wooden roof the two freedom fighters stood under gave way to the high ceiling of a wide cave; in front of them a few treads led down to sandy floor again; but the most unexpected thing lay in the center of the big cavern.
Lazily bobbing up and down in the middle of an almost round lake of turquoise water was the pirates' ship; sails hanging powerlessly down due to the absence of wind.
"Wow…" Amy whispered. "I wonder how they got it in here…"
Before Porker had a chance to answer, he jumped at the sound of metal scraping over metal, spun half round and –
froze, choking on his own breath as the cold sharpness of a saber's blade touched his throat and a powerful arm slipped around him with a grip of iron.
Amy shrieked. "Hey! What do you think you're doing?"
Out of one of the dark shadows around a tall, round figure stepped in front of Porker and Amy; long green cape swaying with his movements, the sound of his footsteps ghostly echoing through the room, a big hat half covering his face, allowing only a look at his long teeth and a pair of small, glittering eyes in the shadow the brim threw on his face.
"So, who do we have here? Stowaways?" Captain Plunder lifted his left arm, shifting his hat with the silver hook replacing the hand.
"If I am allowed to correct you, Capt'n," a half transparent form appearing at his side interrupted, "so far they haven't set a foot on the planks…"
"So what?" Plunder laughed wobbly, turning to the ghost. "Then they're intruders and no stowaways. They're keelhauled anyway."
"K-k-keelh-h-h…", Porker pressed out shuddering.
"Hey! We're no intruders! We came to negotiate!", Amy shouted, winding in the grip of the pirate holding her.
"Pinky's getting pert," the one behind her noticed. "How about if I tickle her a little…?" He playfully shifted his saber.
Plunder laughed again. "Alluring idea… But wait… don't we know each other?" The captain closed some of the distance to the prisoners.
Her nose wrinkling at the smell of fish coming from the pirate, Amy glared up at him. "Of course we know each other! We're the freedom fighters. You've worked with us earlier."
Captain Plunder regarded her closely. "Ah yes, now I see…" He turned to the ghost. "Remind me again… Was she the blue dude's girl now or not?"
The ghost rubbed his chin. "If I remember correctly the blue lubber said she wasn't…"
Plunder shrugged. "Whatever. But these two are blue dude's friends anyway. He'll give us all his Chaos Emeralds for them, don't you think?" He laughed, a raspy, hoarse sound that echoed through the large cave as his comrades joined in.
Speedy's note: The Sky Pirates were always some of my favorite Fleetway-exclusive characters. My all-time favorite Fleetway guy was Johnny... but they had to kill him. :(
The pirates are still funny. Anyone else remember the episode when they were in that lost pyramid on the Floating Island, ran away when they saw some ghost and in the last panel they're seen sailing off telling their friends how awesome and brave they are? :D