Alliances

Amy fell to her knees when the cage was unceremoniously dropped down to the deck. "Hey, you could do this a little more carefully, you jerks!", she complained loudly, crawling back to her feet and glaring at the two Sky Pirates who'd set the prisoners down.

"Silence!", Captain Plunder growled when another of his mates opened the door. "Come here!"

"You still haven't heard us! We came here to negotiate about teaming up against Robotnik!", Amy protested when she and Porker were dragged towards the front of the ship.

"Amy… maybe this isn't the right moment…", Porker whispered, nervously watching the pirates' actions when two of them took a hold of him and started binding him. He struggled then, but uselessly.

"Leave him alone, you…", Amy shouted, writhing in the grip of the pirate holding her.

"It is all up to you what happens to your friend…" Plunder's ghost companion grinned. "Tell us where the rest of your little party is and…"

"What do you mean, the rest of our little party?" Amy frowned. "At our base of course…"

Plunder's head snapped to her. "No, they're not! The blue lubber isn't home and his two tailed flying mate isn't either. Without anyone to get some goodies from, you are of no use to us. You will tell us now where your friends are."

"And if I don't?", Amy gave back.

"Then you'll watch your friend here being keelhauled now…" The captain waved at the two holding bound Porker and they lifted him without any visible strain to hold him suspended over the water.

Amy gasped. "You… can't do that! You could kill him!"

The pirate holding her leaned towards her ear. "That was the idea, cutie…"

Amy grimaced at the smell of the pirate and struggled, her elbow aiming for the guy's belly as she tried breaking free. She must have aimed well, the pirate gave a choked sound of pain and let go of her.

Whirling to dive through the lined up pirate gang, the pink hedgehog cast about for anything useful as a weapon. If she'd just had her crossbow! Without anything to defend herself, she stood no chance against all these guys!

…. Weapon… weapon… come on…

Her eyes lit on an oversize tool leaning against the planks the second a couple of hands reached out to grasp her. No time for any more thoughts, Amy's hands fisted around the long stick of the giant hammer the pirates had used to slam some woods into the ground to hang up stuff the evening before. It didn't matter… as long as the thing was capable of smashing pirates as well…

Putting in all her strength, Amy span around, the head of her oversized melee weapon connecting with the legs of one of her persecutors who gave a howl of pain and went down, holding his limbs.

Amy stood straight again, swinging the hammer. It was lighter than it looked; sure, carrying to took all of her strength, but once it moved it seemed to lose its weight. The pink hedgehog grinned. "Don't worry, Porker, I'm coming!"

"Wow… that looks ugly," Sonic commented, gesturing towards the almost black wall of clouds approaching the Floating Island.

Knuckles just nodded as a cold gust pushed against him. The two were standing on a small cliff near the top of the center volcano; one of the places that allowed the best view over the island. Knuckles had to admit that view wasn't very promising. The clouds covered half of the sky ahead, single columns towering so high up their tops flattened out, and the dark color clearly showed there was a lot of content to be released onto whatever land was unfortunate enough to be near them.

Angel Island was near. Knuckles could sense the island's direction of movement as a slight tingle in the ground itself, as a subconsciously noticed part of the Master's energy field interfusing everything around.

"That looks like TONS of rain!", Sonic remarked, pouting. "Can't we go around it or something? You can steer that island of yours, can't you?"

Knuckles gave a half nod. "Yes, I can steer the island, but no, we can't move around it."

"What?"

The guardian turned to the blue hedgehog. "Generally, the island floats without my interference by the power of the Master Emerald. The Emerald decides where it moves. I do not completely know how it decides and what causes it to choose. I know some of the criteria. For example, during the past days it slowly went lower."

Sonic raises an eyebrow. "It did?"

"Yes. It does that regularly, everytime the plants need water, the water level in Hydrocity sinks too much or the creeks would start to run dry," Knuckles explained. "It usually floats slightly above the cloud layer. Now we are slightly below. We will stay here until there has been rain to refill the island's reserves. In cases of emergency I could change this interval of course, but as the guardian it is within my task to keep everything on the island in a good condition."

Sonic was silent for a moment, thinking this over, then shrugged. "Okay, point. As a desert this would look stupid I guess."

Knuckles blinked in irritation and turned to look over to the clouds again. A bolt of lightening flashed through the dark grey structure. It looked a lot like some days to stay inside somewhere…

"Knux?", Sonic interrupted the echidna's pondering.

"Knuckles," the guardian mechanically corrected while slightly slapping Sonic across the head.

"Hey!", the blue hedgehog complained. "What was that for?"

"What do you want, hedgehog?", Knuckles asked, ignoring him.

Sonic rubbed his head, but a grin made its way to his lips. "I'm hungry."

Knuckles sighed. Again? "Do you have any form of daily routine, hedgehog? You woke me this morning barely after sunrise saying you wanted breakfast. Yesterday, you went all upset when I woke you at almost midday. We just had food. You cannot possibly be hungry again."

"I'm always hungry. Always. Well, I'd get some food by myself, but you told me not to, 'cause of the poisonous stuff that grows on your freaky island…" Sonic shrugged. "Besides, did no-one ever teach you that dining is an important social activity to do with other people?"

Knuckles groaned and reached to slap the hedgehog again, but Sonic had already jumped out of the way laughing. "Come back here, hedgehog, and I'll teach you about some 'social activities'…"

Sonic turned over his shoulder, spines waving in the wind, and grinned. "Catch me then!"

"Argh…"

If it hadn't been for the panicked scream, Amy would have missed the splashing sound from the front of the ship.

"Porker?", she called, head snapping away from yet another pirate being brought down by the hammer's brute force. When she got no reply, the pink hedgehog advanced towards the place she knew the suddenly way too silent pig.

"Where are we going so fast, Pinky?", a fat Sky Pirate demanded stopping in front of her, quickly joined by another one.

Amy bit her bottom lip.

"Get-"

The hammer swung to the right, smashing into the man's round torso.

"-out-"

A series of steps as though she were dancing brought Amy closer to the second opponent.

"-of-"

She lifted the dragging weight of her weapon off the planks to her feet, leaning backwards to balance her stand as she swung the hammer leftwards.

"-my-"

Earning a growl of pain, Amy pulled the hammer out of the falling body, jumping past two moaning heaps to both sides of her path.

"-way!"

Running up a stairway as fast as the heavy load would allow her; the pink girl reached the place she'd been standing not two minutes ago.

Captain Plunder, his ghostly friend and a third pirate were leaning over the railing wobbling with laughter. "These bubbles… hehehe…", Plunder howled.

"I wonder when he'll run outta them…", the ghost brought out, still laughing madly.

Amy gritted her teeth. "You! Get my friend back up here!", she shouted, causing the three pirates to turn around to give her a bewildered look.

"Oh, give me that, you'll just hurt yourself…" Captain Plunder grinned and reached out towards her.

"Or you will be hurt, unless you get Porker back here! Now!" A glare going from one Sky Pirate to the next, Amy lifted the hammer above her head.

Tails dangled his legs on the table he sat on, watching Sab pace the room. Back and forth, back and forth, back and-

"I'm not sure if we can be of help, Tails," she said abruptly stopping to whirl around and face him. "It has been quite a while since we've fought. We all were tired of war. We've lost too many friends already."

"Don't you see? Robotnik has teamed up with the Drakon Empire. They're very powerful, and all of them want Mobius. Robotnik wants to make it a robotized junkyard and the Drakons are after the chaos energy and do whatever it will need to get their hands on it!" Tails jumped off the table, namesakes twirling nervously. "We know they've destroyed a lot of things in the past already just to get access to the Chaos Emeralds. Neither Robotnik nor his allies will care for Mobius' civilization!"

Sol stood up from where he'd been sitting on a chair to lay a hand on Tails' shoulder. "You've told us enough already about how serious the situation is, and we all understand it. We just have to think through the decision very well, you understand that?"

Tails forced himself to nod.

"Leave us alone for a moment and we'll discuss everything, okay?", Sab said, stepping beside her partner.

Tails nodded again and slowly walked to the door. Once outside the hut, the young fox now started pacing as well. Suddenly he understood why Sonic did these things. Why Sonic walked circles in rooms everytime he was forced to wait for something. Usually, Tails was very patient. Well, at least a lot more patient than his big bro. But right now as it had turned out a small part of the Flock still existed, that he suddenly saw the opportunity to get more allies than he'd originally dared to hope he'd get, he couldn't wait for them to think over every piece of information he'd given them. Tails wanted an answer, and he wanted it now.

Unfortunately for the fox, the Flock took their time. It felt like forever until the door opened again and Sol gestured for Tails to come back inside.

Anxiously the two-tailed fox looked between the group. They exchanged glances, and Sab took a slow breath before speaking. "You got an alliance, Tails."

Now Tails could hardly hold back jumping about. He had his job done. A first step.

"Faster!" Amy grinned devilishly down on Captain Plunder lying flat on the planks of his ship. "This thing is heavy and I'm sure you don't want me to drop it on you… again…"

Defeatedly Plunder lifted his head halfway. "You heard her! Hurry up!"

"Yeah… her friend could lose some weight, you know…", one of the other pirates noticed leaning into a rope running over the railing.

"Stop insulting my friends or I'll get mad at you!", Amy called over at him.

"Oh my…", the pirate muttered and pulled harder. A few moments later a spluttering Porker Lewis was put down on the deck, untied and put on his feet. "You fine, mate?"

The pig coughed. "I… guess so…", he gasped.

"Good!", Captain Plunder remarked. "Then tell the pink lady here to put that hammer down!"

"I'm not through with you yet…" Amy smiled.

"What else do you want?", the Sky Pirate captain groaned.

"A contract. You join us to fight off Robotnik's newest scheme."

Plunder grimaced. "What can we get out of that contract?"

"Save your home planet," Amy said simply.

The pirate frowned. "Nothing else…?"

"Oh, you know, this hammer is pretty heavy, my arms are hurting and I could just happen to accidentally drop it on your head…" The pink hedgehog smiled sweetly.

Plunder sweatdropped. "Okay. Everybody heard it. These mates got a contract with us."

Amy stepped away from him and lowered the hammer to lean onto it. "Clever boys."

While the Sky Pirates moved away from her as fast as possible without making it look like too much of an escape, Porker walked towards Amy, staring between her and the retreating 'new allies'. "What did you do, Amy?"

"Oh, I told them my opinion…" The girl giggled. "You know, I could get used to this form of combat…"

Porker gaped at the large hammer. "How could you hold it for so long?"

Amy grimaced and massaged her arms. "I'm wondering about that myself…but… it's way more fun fighting than with a crossbow… it's just too heavy… maybe… I could get myself a lighter one. And then –"

"Then we'll all have to hide from you once you get mad," Porker finished for her.

Amy laughed. "You better be."

"Amy? Thank you."

"You're welcome." She smiled. "I guess we can head home now. Mission accomplished."

Porker nodded. "Yes. All turned out well in the end, but I gotta admit I'll be happy to be out of here again."

"Sure you are." Amy leaned the hammer against the railing. "You know what? There is just one bad thing about this…"

"Um… I guess I'll get over being almost killed by a crazed set of Sky Pirates…" Porker Lewis tried a smile.

"No, I meant that Sonic didn't see me dealing with all these guys, Silly!" Amy giggled.

"Ah. Sure." Porker shook his head and turned to leave the ship.

"You are leaving already, mates?", Captain Plunder interjected before the two freedom fighters could get far, creeping back out of his hideout at seeing Amy had put away that dreadful thing of a hammer.

"We got a lot of things to prepare, yes." Porker frowned. "You aren't the most hospitable folks anyway, are you?", he added scoffing.

"Oh, no bad feelings, lil' mate! We're sailing on the same wind now!" Plunder tipped the brim of his hat with his hand-replacing hook. "We'll bring you home."

Amy and Porker exchanged a glance, and the pink girl looked up at the Captain strictly. "No tricks."

Plunder quickly shook his head. "We wouldn't betray you, Milady!"

Porker smiled inwardly. Two more good things… the pirates had learned some manners… and he would see how they got their flying ship out of this cave… The pig smiled.

Speedy's note: And this people is how Amy got her hammer. Well, at least that's my theory on it ;)