Sonic and his friends belong to SEGA. The pirates belong to us.

Chapter 3: Enter the Pirates

Sonic had never believed one could literally die of boredom until he had been in his room on a cruise over WATER for THREE WHOLE DAYS all because of his "friend" Amy. The only time he came out was for meals, and even then, Sonic would stand as far from every side of the boat as possible.

Each day felt longer than the one before and Sonic became thoroughly convinced that if the water didn't kill him, boredom would.

Up on deck, Amy, Tails, and Knuckles were enjoying a fantastic vacation. They each got massages, played games, ate their favorite foods and were, all in all, having a great time.

Still, Amy couldn't get past the fact the Sonic wasn't even trying to enjoy himself. She had tried everything to get him on deck: scolding, threatening, tempting, pushing, shoving, etc. But nothing, NOTHING was going to get Sonic out of his room.

"Tails," Amy said as she looked out across the waves.

"Mmm-hm?"

"I'm worried about Sonic. He can't stay in a room all day. He needs to run. Besides, he isn't himself."

"Amy, Sonic is afraid of water, of course he's not himself!"

"I know, I'm just worried, that's all. Sonic never goes a day without running, but now he's in his room constantly. I wish they had some chilidogs here. That would get Sonic out of his room, don't you think, Tails? Tails? Tails?!"

Tails pointed out to the waves, "Look. I think I see a ship."

"Tails, we're on the ocean, of course you see another ship!"

"But with black sails?"

Amy looked out at the boat. Tails was right; the sails were as black as night. Worst of all, it was headed straight towards them.

"What on Mobius is that?" Amy asked, completely mortified by the black sails.

"They're-"

"Pirates," Knuckles interrupted. Tails and Amy looked at him in surprise.

"What? Living on an island floating in the sky for most of your life doesn't mean you don't know some things." Knuckles looked seriously out at the boat.

"This is bad."

Sonic, on the other hand, was sitting below deck and had no idea that there were pirates. He was, like he had been for the past three days, sitting in his room with the curtains pulled tightly over the window, his back to the window, the light on. He was sitting on the bed, hugging his legs and rocking back and forth. He looked like a prisoner who was awaiting a death sentence, or one that was about to go insane.

"Only four more days, Sonic, only four more days," he mumbled to himself over and over again. His legs were twitching; he hadn't stretched his legs for a long time. He rocked so hard that he fell off the bed.

"Oh, who am I kidding? I'm going to die..." he moaned, lying on the floor. He really wasn't himself. If you went from running around in the open air on solid land most of your day to shutting yourself up in a small cruise cabin, not seeing the sunlight for the whole day, surrounded by your worst fear, you wouldn't be yourself either.

A loud banging came from the outside. "Sonic!"

Not even bothering to get up, Sonic mumbled, "Tails, I told you to go away..."

"No, Sonic, this is serious! There's trouble up on the deck!" the voice called urgently.

"Tails, if this is some kind of trick to get me out of my room again..."

"No! For real! There are bad guys!"

"What?" Suddenly alert, Sonic uncurled from his ball and picked himself up off the ground. He opened the door to find a scared-looking Tails standing outside. "What bad guys?"

"Up on the deck! Pirates! They're starting to come on to the deck, and they're attacking the ship!"

Sonic put on his "are-you-serious" face. "You're not kidding? This sounds too stereotypical..."

Tails shook his head, frustrated that Sonic didn't really believe him. "If you don't believe me, go up for yourself!"

Without another word, Sonic rushed off, up to the deck, leaving Tails still standing at the door.

Sonic had expected to find a pirate ship sailing close by and the whole crew looking out over the side of the boat at it, or at least something like that.

That wasn't what he saw. The whole deck was covered in a mass of screaming people, all trying to get away from the pirates that were ALREADY ON BOARD! This was nothing like what you expect in normal pirate warfare, where everyone has swords and is battling across the deck. It was more of a pirates-totally-defeating-helpless-tourists scenario.

The passengers ran across the deck, mostly screaming and trying not to get hit by other wailing, panicking tourists or by the pirates. Sonic spotted Amy and Knuckles. They were both trying to fight off pirates at the other end of the ship. Amy had her hammer and was swinging it back and forth menacingly, daring anyone to face her. Knuckles, at a lack for anything better, had found a broomstick as his weapon (which was promptly split in half by a nearby pirate).

Tails came up on deck. "Told you."

"This is awful!"

"Yeah, I know."

"What do we do!?"

"I don't know! My plan was to get you!"

"I don't know what to do!"

"You fight Eggman all the time!"

"This isn't Eggman! This is a band of pirates!"

"What's the difference? They're still bad guys!"

"They fight on WATER! I don't do WATER!"

"We have to do something!"

Sonic thought for a minute. "I guess we just try and fight as many as possible." Sonic watched as one of the crewmembers ran past with a pirate on his tail. "…Seeing as the crew will be absolutely useless."

"Good luck," Tails said before charging into the mayhem.

"I hate this vacation," muttered Sonic as he followed Tails.

The "plan" worked...for the first few minutes. But after a while, Sonic realized that the pirates were just going to keep getting up again. And the tourists were more of a nuisance than anything. The pirates had the advantage because while Sonic was trying to hit the pirates while avoiding the tourists, the pirates didn't care who got hurt in the process. Sonic wasn't much of a person for plans. He usually just ad libbed. But this wasn't working, so a plan was in order.

Amid the ruckus, Sonic, after a few minutes, finally managed to get the group together.

"Okay, team. This is not working. They are kicking our butts."

"Well, what are we supposed to do?" Amy asked. Everyone looked at Sonic.

"I don't know! That's why I'm asking you guys!"

Knuckles spoke up. "We could just smash them down."

"In case you haven't noticed, Knucklehead, that's what we have been doing. And they just keep getting up again."

"We could set a trap," said Tails.

"That's a good idea. Get them all in one place," Knuckles said. Sonic nodded.

"Yeah, but what if a tourist sets it off? Or Sonic, since he's always running around?" Amy interrupted.

Sonic frowned. "I hate to admit it, but Amy's right. We have to get the tourists out of here, before the pirates sink this thing."

"So, get the tourists off the boat?" Tails asked.

"Yep. You and Amy guide them to the lifeboats. Knuckles and I will try to hold off the pirates so they don't try to escape with them."

"What else?"

"Uhh..." Sonic was stumped. He usually didn't think things through that far when fighting. "That's it for now. We think of something else later."

Surprisingly, everyone agreed. Except for Amy. She was still happily dazed from Sonic saying she was right.

"If there are no other questions, then let's go!" They all dashed off in different directions, Tails pulling Amy by her wrist.

"It's okay, just get on the boat! Quickly! Go go go!"

It took quite a lot of calming people down, shouting, and pushing, but Tails and Amy managed to get at least some of the tourists in the general area of the lifeboats.

"Don't they have some kind of procedure for this type of thing? One that doesn't involve everyone screaming and running around?" Amy shouted to Tails.

"I would think so, but I guess they weren't prepared for pirates to come! They only supposedly exist in the stories!"

"Well, they certainly exist now!" Amy said, exasperated. These tourists were acting like startled cattle, and it was frustrating. "I hope Sonic's okay..."

Meanwhile, unlike Amy, Sonic was too busy to be worrying about anything. He ran up to the top of the crow's nest.

"Hey, slow-mo's, over here!" Sonic shouted to the pirates, making funny faces at them. "Nyah nyah nyah-nyah nyah, you can't catch meeeee!"

The pirates in the nearby area looked up and growled. "Making funny faces at us, are ye?" one of them shouted at him.

"Yeah, that's right!" Sonic pulled another stupid face at them.

"Okay then..." The pirates put their cutlasses in between their teeth and shimmied up the mast. Within a minute, they were right below him.

"Umm, okay..." Sonic panicked a bit. He hadn't thought they would have been that fast. But he kept his cool and taunted them again. "But you still can't catch me!" He looked around for some kind of escape plan. He locked his eyes on a rope with a weight on the end. Perfect.

The pirate at the top of the mast climbed into the crow's nest and swung his sword in Sonic's direction. Sonic, with his famed lightning-fast reflexes, dodged the attack, and the pirate cut the rope.

"Thanks!" Sonic shouted at the pirate, using the rope as a swing, smirking at him. The pirates growled at him again.

He swung over the deck. He spotted Knuckles, fighting off a small group of pirates. "Hey, Knuckles, did the idea that your pointy fists work better than a broomstick finally get through that blockhead of yours?"

"Shut up, Sonic, I'm a little busy!" Knuckles shouted back, throwing a punch straight into the jaw of a pirate.

Sonic swung farther over the deck and saw Tails and Amy still trying to get the tourists off the ship. "Hey guys, what's up?"

"Sonic!" They both waved at him.

Sonic swung over to the front of the ship, higher up than the rest of the deck. Surveying the fight again, he grinned. This was actually the most fun that he'd had on this vacation so far. It was great to be moving again.

"YAAAAHHHHOOOOOO!"

This newfound courage gave Sonic a boost of pure adrenaline. Amy, in the midst of hassling passengers, couldn't help but smile at Sonic, the REAL Sonic.

But just as everything seemed to be headed in the right direction, things began to turn south VERY quickly.

The first problem was that Amy and Tails ran out of lifeboats on one side of the ship. Thus, they would have to get all the passengers through the battle and over to the other side. Not good.

Sonic and Knuckles wouldn't admit it, but they were both running on adrenaline and nothing else. They were tired, so tired that if the adrenaline wasn't driving them on they would already have been taken.

The first few lifeboats had been rescued by various ships and helicopters, but nobody on the mainland knew where they were coming from. The escaped passengers were too freaked out and stressed to talk about anything, so any hope of help arriving had vanished. It was just the pirates and our heroes, battling it out in the middle of the ocean.

Tails and Amy began to panic. What were they going to do? They decided to take small groups of passengers across to the boats, which worked pretty well, but was slow-going.

Sonic and Knuckles were beginning to panic, too. Well, Knuckles was. Sonic was having the time of his life. This was what he did best, but he did have to admit, he was getting tired. And for a speedy, blue hedgehog that can run for thousands of miles at hundreds of miles an hour, that was saying something.

Quite a while later, all the passengers had been evacuated, so Amy and Tails could join the fight. And a lucky thing too. Sonic and Knuckles were running at their wits' end. Sonic was dodging the pirates' attacks quite easily, but he couldn't do this forever. The pirates kept popping up everywhere. It seemed that every time one went down, another one would come up from below the deck, seeming to glow with energy…

Below the deck… They had some source of energy below the deck...

The realization hit him like a pile of bricks. If he could get to the source of energy, and shut it down, it would make things a whole lot easier…I gotta tell Tails…

Unfortunately, this realization caused him to lose track of what he was doing, which gave the pirate that he was fighting a chance to smack him really hard in the face with the side of his cutlass.

Sonic flew across the deck, smacking his head right into the other side, breaking a bunch of crates in the process. He now had a huge lump on his forehead, as well as a long slash on the side of his face from the pirate's cutlass.

"Well, this is just great," he said to himself, struggling to get up as the pirate smugly came forward.

Across the deck, Amy was busy battling another pirate, but she wasn't too occupied to not notice Sonic being smacked in the face. Her Sonic. Being smacked. In the face. By a pirate.

She was filled with rage. How dare they hurt him? She crashed her hammer down on her opponent's head with such force that it was an instant knockout. "Sonic!" she called. She saw the pirate stalk up to Sonic, who was lying somewhat helplessly in a pile of smashed crates. "No!"

"Any last words?" The pirate flashed his mean, crooked smile at Sonic.

"I-" Sonic stammered, trying to think of something clever, like he usually did when stuck in situations like these.

"I've got some words for you, buddy! Get away from my Sonic!" A flash of pink and red, and then the pirate was down, out cold.

"Sonic! Are you okay?" Amy rushed over to Sonic, helping him to his feet.

"I'm fine, Amy. Thanks for the save," Sonic said.

Amy frowned, looking at Sonic's bleeding face. "Are you sure?"

"I'm fine, Amy, don't worry about me. Gotta go," Sonic replied, dashing away. "I think I know a way we can stop these guys!"

"Okay!" Amy called back. "Be careful!"

She sighed. He looked so dreamy and heroic when he ran like that…

"Tails!" Sonic called, screeching to a halt.

Tails hit another pirate over the head with his wrench, knocking him out. "What is it, Sonic?"

"I think I know a way to stop the pirates!"

"Really?" Tails looked hopefully at Sonic. Any plan was better than no plan.

"Yeah! So, you know how we've been beating them down, but each time, another one just comes up from below the deck, right?"

"Yeah…"

"Have you noticed how they seem to be glowing with some sort of energy?"

Tails thought for a minute. "Yeah, they do! Is there some kind of source of energy down there?"

"That's what I think. Now, I'm going to try getting down there, to shut it down. Then we'll be able to take them down! Can you cover for me?"

"Well, I'll certainly try!"

"Thanks, buddy!" Sonic ran off again, this time in the direction of the pirate ship.

Tails watched him run off. He certainly hoped this would work…

For whatever reason, Sonic was easily able to sneak onto the pirate ship without much notice. The pirates were too busy running around, fighting his friends on the cruise deck.

Perfect, he thought. After letting another group of newly refreshed pirates past him, he snuck beneath the deck. He ran down the hallway, and turned into another room. Now I just need to find where they keep their-

"Whoa," he said aloud. This was totally not what he had expected.

Unlike all of the other rooms, this room, in the very middle of the ship, was all white and high-tech inside. It didn't seem to fit with the rest of the dank, dirty, rooms.

The now-vacant room had multiple upright pods, each one able to fit a single person. So this was how they got their energy. There must be something powering it… He turned his head around, looking for it. Gotta be here some-

There it was. At first glance, you wouldn't notice it, thinking that it was part of the wall. But after spending hours, days, and years looking at powerful machinery, Sonic was getting to be quite good at finding powerhouses such as these. Having broken thousands upon thousands of Eggman's machines, Sonic knew that the easiest way to break in and find the source was to find a weakness.

Wow, this is really complicated stuff. If I were a weakness in the shell of a powerhouse, where would I be?

There. His eyes locked upon a small weakness in the hard shell. One that the ordinary person wouldn't have noticed, one that he could tell was the spot where it had been opened and closed by many hands and a few markings that signified that hooks had scraped the side as well.

He backed up. A homing attack would work quite well at that spot… He ran in place for a minute to get his speed up, jumped, and attacked the spot. A loud sizzling noise issued from the machine, blowing him across to the other end of the room.

"Well, that could've gone a whole lot better," Sonic commented. "That really burns." Of course, there had to have been some kind of defense to the door, one that the pirates could get past safely that Sonic couldn't. "Maybe I should've let Tails handle this…" He turned his head to the side. But his attack had worked all the same. The door, all banged up and burned, was lying next to him. "Now that the door's opened, it shouldn't be too hard to—"

His face fell when he saw that there were a lot of humming, electrical wires inside. "Couldn't have made this easy, could ya?" The source of power was inside, but how to get in? If he touched the wires the wrong way, he'd electrocute himself. "I really should've asked Tails to come along."

He gingerly moved the first wire out of the way. And a second. And a third. He realized that these wires were all wide. The ones that seemed to sizzle with energy were the thin ones. Unfortunately, there were a lot of those. He picked his way through the wires like trying to pick a rose from a bush of spiny thorns. Eventually, he got to the middle. "Whoa," he said again.

The source of energy was a Chaos Emerald.

"How the heck did they get a hold of one of these?" he murmured. The Chaos Emeralds always disappeared right after using them, and he had used all seven of them just a few days ago, when he blew Eggman's place sky-high. Sometimes they turned up in funny places, but he never could've expected it to be on a pirate ship.

"There's a first time for everything, I guess," he said. The Emerald was attached to several thin wires. He noticed a small switch on the side next to it. "Wonder what happens when I do this?" he said, flicking the switch.

The machine's humming slowed. Sonic touched one of the wires just to be safe. It was still pulsating with energy, but not enough to electrocute him. He yanked the wires off of the emerald and pulled his hand quickly out of the machine. The machine stopped whirring entirely, and the whole room got darker, traditional lantern lighting kicking in. "Gotcha," Sonic whispered, holding the green gem in his hand.

"And I've got you," a voice whispered from behind him.

Sonic slowly turned around. He was face to face with the pirate captain.

A/N: Review please!