003

Tanya

Keeping a pair of pistols close at hand, I watched over the cursed crew from the back of the ship. Jack and Barbossa had been snapping at each other for a good 30 minutes as we attempted to catch up to the Interceptor.

"All the work to bring me the one, and you didn't even think to make sure your crew wouldn't betray you," Barbossa taunted.

"They did not betray me. They kept to the code. They didn't realize that I'm alive, I'm sure of that," Jack defended himself.

"Ha! Yes, the damnable luck of Jack Sparrow, saving him once again. Believed he was marooned with his enemies."

"Ah, but I have a friend," Jack said, looking at me with my supernatural powers. "I'd say my luck is pretty good, don't you think?"

"It seems to be rather lucky indeed," Barbossa admitted with a shake of his head.

"Can you two please stop sniping at each other?" I finally said, shaking my head. "I don't know how much longer this voyage will go on, but it's getting extremely tempting to just blow a hole in the bottom of the ship listening to you complain about your past faults and mistakes."

The two shared a look before shaking their heads together. "Listen, girly," Barbossa said, "we have a history of problems, and we're going to continue to complain to each other."

Hmm, how long is that history? From what I've heard, Jack Sparrow came into Tortuga with nothing but the Black Pearl and picked up the crew from there."

"That's what the story goes as," Jack said, "at least that's how I tell it."

"Ohh, so you're going to cut out the whole part where we served together for a couple of years. Well, I guess it makes better sense to be a fool betrayed by trusting others than a fool betrayed by trusting your first mate," Barbossa said with a shake of his head.

"Yes, that fits better for the story if we had just met, and I learned a lesson from that whole affair," Jack replied.

"U huh. Well, that's good to know, I guess," I said with a shake of my head before asking, "Let me guess, you know Fine as well."

"Ay, hell of a woman," Barbossa nodded, then added, "I was actually going to offer some of the gold to her after I betrayed Jack. As recompense for making Jack late for that whole arrangement they had. I bet you know, getting cursed and having to spend the rest of eternity searching for magical objects is kind of a priority. And something tells me Fine would not take kindly to being a skeleton."

"Ha, probably would have pulled out the whip," I said with a shake of my head.

"Yeah, that's something I don't want to experience again," Jack said as he pulled out a telescope and looked ahead.

"So Jack, are you going to tell me the name? Or are you going to leave me hanging until the last possible moment?"

"Patience, first mate Barbossa. You'll have your Turner soon enough," Jack teased.

"Hmm, said something like that a couple of times before. 'You'll have your share, then you'll have your share,' and what would happen? We'd end up in some damn fool adventure that left us with no profit beyond the minuscule amount we could drink away."

I raised an eyebrow before saying, "Oh, is that a common issue with him?"

Barbossa looked over at me and smiled, saying, "Oh, you have no idea. Every other operation he tried to run fell apart because he was more interested in the adventure and exploring options along the way. Sure, he had good luck and the fastest ship in the sea. He could outrun any issue. He could have done what we had done for the last 10 years, raiding towns and cities with low security, grabbing as much food as possible and leaving, but he didn't."

"Well, that's not fair. We made quite a bit of profit here or there, and we had fun," Jack interjected, obviously trying to interfere in what Barbossa was doing. I mean, I was no fool. I could see what he was trying to do. I'd initiated it after all.

If Jack didn't seem like a good person to give me the money and resources I wanted, well, I knew what Barbossa had at his beck and call—an island full of gold. More than enough to buy an island here in the Caribbean and set up a nice little outpost to start building up potential revenue sources.

Getting the best deal out of my two potential bosses was for my benefit after all, and I held all the cards, really. Jack was depending on my muscle to be able to overcome their invincibility, after all.

"Let's be square, girly. How much is Jack paying you?" Barbossa asked.

"Officially, nothing," I said. Unofficially, "I'm going to be getting a portion of the wealth he's trying to build."

"That's a bad deal, considering what I know about his attempts to build wealth," Barbossa said as he looked at Jack.

"I think it's a good deal, in fact," Jack defended himself. "After all, I can find quite a lot of wealth out there without having to fight too dangerous of battles, I believe..."

"But it doesn't matter how dangerous the battle is as long as you're profitable in the end, Jack, and you are not profitable. What do you think the crew was so willing to throw you overboard and start over with a new captain? They've heard stories about how your escapades always went sour in the end. Really, it took a bit of convincing for them not to add a little bit of weight to your feet. Wish I'd been that convincing with Bill," Barbossa remarked.

Jack shook his head, looking out into the distance lost in deep thoughts, probably trying to determine what he could have done to prevent the disaster he was currently in.

"Hmm, well, you're rather convincing on this whole matter of switching sides. That's what you're trying to do, after all. But there does seem to be some karmic force that seems to engineer the bad luck that left you cursed. Going against Jack, switching sides, is a form of mutiny, and I know my luck would play towards that karmic force. So, I think I'll stay on Jack's side on this mission, no offense," I said as nicely as possible.

"Hmmm, none taken. And I'm taken, though just keep in mind you've been warned. Jack's not the best employer," Barbossa cautioned.

"I think I do an absolutely wonderful job," Jack retorted.

"Mutinied against would say otherwise," I pointed out.

"Didn't you just say that a karmic force worked against them from mutiny?"

"Yes, but it doesn't mean that you were a good boss. That just means the universe has an amused funny bone that deals with traitors."

Jack looked annoyed, but he said, "Alright, alright, oh there's the boat."

All eyes turned towards the front where, in the distance, we could barely see a dot starting to grow.

Barbossa raised his eyeglass before coughing and saying, "They're running. Find the ship you found there, Jack. A little low on the cannon count, but fast enough."

"Well, thank you, Barbossa. I thought about giving it to you in our deal, but I've already promised it to the crew."

"You make a lot of promises, Jack. Hope you can keep them."

"Well, of the two of us here..." Jack was about to begin his spiel about not being a mutineer, so I interrupted.

"Please, do not snipe at each other."

"Spoilsport," Jack said, looking over the side as a piece of debris flew by in the water. The ship was moving at a good pace, so he was able to quickly catch on that there were a few other pieces.

"Looks like," he said, "they're dumping off all the excess gear."

"Trying to make themselves lighter than," Barbossa said, "good effort. Make yourself lighter and harder to catch if it wasn't the Black Pearl."

"Extend the sails," Barbossa ordered, and his crew got to work rigging up more sails to catch more wind, increasing the speed by a small bit. But that small bit was probably more than the Interceptor could hope to match, and as I viewed it, the ship got closer and closer.

One of the pirates from the front of the ship called out, "Sir, looks like they're preparing their guns."

Barbossa turned to Jack and said, "If they open fire on the ship, the deal's over. I don't care about your hired protection. We need this ship to get the job done, and I will not have her sunk because we don't open fire in return."

Hmm, well yes, I guess that is a point. Perhaps there's another way we can deal with this, some other pathway to a peaceful resolution. "Tanya, you have flight capabilities. Why don't you fly up over there and tell them to slow down for us?"

I blinked before saying, "Are you sure about that, Jack?"

"Trust me. If they were going to kill me, they don't know which one they want out of the whole crew, and I don't know which one will be forthcoming with that information."

"Hmm, alright," I said skeptically, causing the pistols that had been floating to either side of me to go into their holsters, devoting the energy to flight. I jumped off the side of the vessel and sped forward towards the Interceptor.

William Turner

"They're still gaining on us," Gibbs said as the vessel gave every little inch of power she had to try and escape the oncoming Black Pearl.

"We're going to need to fight," I finally said.

"We'll be dead long before that," Gibbs pointed out. "She's got more guns and more range. She'll come alongside us and rake us before we can even start firing back."

"Maybe we could use the anchor to force us to quickly turn, Elizabeth," I offered.

Gibbs thought for a moment before saying, "That would bring us right up into range with them. Quickly, we would need to do a lot of damage and hope to slow them down, and maybe just keep on going. But I don't care. This will work."

Before I could try and formulate some way to convince him, a member of the crew called over from the back of the ship.

"Sir, something's coming." Turning, I saw something flying at us with unusual speed, too big to be a bird.

I was even more confused as I saw someone casually land on the back of the ship, brushing off their arms as they did.

"You know what they say, 'Keep to the code.' It doesn't mean lie about everyone being dead, will."

"Tanya," Gibbs seemed shocked before he turned to look at me with a bit of anger. "You lied."

"Jack told me to get to the ship. You never asked where he was," I said. "He fell behind, you made an assumption, I just went away." Not exactly true, I hadn't exactly gone out of my way to clear up the confusion, but I had hoped to get far enough away that we would be back in Port Royal before it became a real issue.

Shaking her head, Tanya said, "If I was a true pirate, I would ask the crew to throw you overboard like your father was, with an anchor around your feet."

The threat was carried out with a look of disdain, as if I was trash to her, but she calmed down and said, "Thankfully, I'm not a complete pirate, so all you'll get is this," and then she smashed me in the gut with her fist. For someone with such a small frame, she had a lot of muscle in her arm, and I had to grab onto the side of the railing to prevent myself from toppling over.

"Anyway, Jack and Barbossa have come to an agreement. We hand over a little bit of blood, Barbossa hands over his ship once they're cured, and they get him another ship. It's a better deal than nothing."

"I thought Jack was saving his last bullet and a pistol to kill Barbossa," I asked, getting Tanya to stop.

"He never told me that part of the plan. I'm going to assume he's either loosened up on that idea or, well, things are going to get real ugly real quick."

Struggling up, I said, "They're pirates. The plans are probably the backbone of each other the moment they're not looking."

"Yes, I'm aware of their profession. I've had to endure it for the last 10 years," Tanya said matter-of-factly before adding, "Don't worry about it. It's all under control. We just need to stop the ship, so get to work on that."

One of the men started to move towards the rigging, and I called out, "Don't stop the ship." He stopped and looked over.

"If we stop the ship, they'll simply board us and take what they want. They're pirates. They have no honor, and they're going to screw us over," I said.

"Says the man who left a man behind," Tanya pointed out.

"That's different."

"No, not really," Tanya said, stepping up towards me. "The only difference between you and them is that they're honest and that humanity is capable of evil deeds. You're trying to separate them as some sort of subspecies. They're not. They're people who took a different path, one that you don't agree with, that I don't agree with, but they had to take."

"We can still fight them off and-"

"They're undead. They're not alive and not dead. I'm not really sure how that all works, but either way, they can't be killed. All you can do is severely injure them, but by nightfall, they'll be completely healed and coming for you. They probably can raise the Black Pearl from the bottom of the sea with enough work. So don't make assumptions that somehow you're going to escape. You either work with them or you don't, and they'll give you the worst deal possible. And right now, the worst deal possible is taking you back to that island and slitting your throat. Considering your unrequited feelings for Miss Elizabeth over there, I think you'd rather just go back to the island, cut your hand, let your blood get on the gold, cure that damn curse, making them as mortal as you, as me, and so they can finally settle old scores they probably had for a decade and move on with your life."

I sat there before Elizabeth came up to my side, saying, "She has a point, Will."

I looked at her and then nodded, saying, "Alright, bring the ship to a stop. But if this goes wrong, I blame you." I pointed a finger at Tanya.

She shrugged, saying, "Blame me if you must, but I'm just trying to make sure everyone comes out of this alive."

Tanya nodded her head approvingly as the crew got to work, quickly bringing the sails and slowing the ship down, turning. I watched the Black Pearl get closer and closer, fear rising in my gut as the ominous vessel caught up.

You sure Jack's got this under control?" I asked, not trusting this one bit.

Tanya leaned against the banister, saying, "I have this under control, and if I have this under control, Jack's got this under control. You just need to follow the damn plan, and everything will be just fine."

"So, what is the damn plan? What exactly do they want?" I finally asked, wanting some answers for all of this, at the very least, before they arrived.

"They want your blood because your father was a member of their crew, and they need your blood in order to end the curse. Not a lot of it, according to them, just enough to return the gold," Tanya explained.

I leaned against the banister myself, saying, "Then my father really was a pirate."

Tanya looked at me, saying, "That was in question. Yes, your father was a pirate. I don't know what economic pressures forced him into that career. For instance, I'm a pirate at this moment, but I don't particularly enjoy the fact that I'm currently a pirate."

"Whatever big images of your father being a good man you might have in your mind, they're probably true. He just didn't know what he had to do to be a good man."

Elizabeth came to stand next to me, trying to comfort me as I watched the Black Pearl get within shouting range, while members of the pirate crew cheered as they approached alongside.

The Black Pearl came to a stop, and a board was extended. Barbosa and a few other pirates walked across the board, looking around until he spotted Tanya and approached her.

"Where's Jack?" Tanya asked as he came up, observing the ship with some interest.

"He's in the cabin looking at some maps," he replied before asking, "So, which one of these is the one?"

I was about to speak up myself, but Tanya spoke first, saying, "Jack didn't come along. That seems odd. As for the one, I think we'll keep that secret for now, you know, until we have the whole situation dealt with and you return to the living."

Barbosa nodded his head, and a monkey swung in from the right, landing on Tanya's shoulder.

"What?" she said in confusion before the monkey reached down the front of her shirt and pulled out what looked like some sort of clockwork device, snapping the chain as it jumped off to the left.

Three shots rang out from Barbosa and his guards, forcing Tanya back. A strange energy-like field appeared before her. But before she could respond, a cannon from the Black Pearl ignited, and she was gone.

I went to grab my sword, but Barbosa pointed another pistol at me as more pirates rushed onto the vessel, taking the largely disarmed crew of the Interceptor hostage.

"No, no, boy, you can stay right there," he said. "Wouldn't want to hurt you or the missus. We're going to assume you're the one, after all. I would think whoever she was willing to lie for would be the one she's closest to when we cut up."

"You killed Tanya," I said.

"Unfortunately, in terms of circumstances. But the fact of the matter was, well, I didn't want to give up the Black Pearl. I couldn't backstab Jack as long as she was there, so she had to go first."

"You're a monster," Elizabeth called from behind me, which brought a smile to Barbosa's face.

"Perhaps, but I'm the monster with two ships under my control now."

"Hey, Jack said we'll get the ship when this is over," someone called.

"Jack is no longer in control of the situation," Barbosa responded. "But as long as you remain faithful to me, you might still be able to work this shift once we've removed the curse. Being an admiral sounds rather neat."

Turning back to us, he said, "Come along. I may have betrayed Jack and her, but I have no reason to betray you. A little bit of blood from here, and this will all be over."

"What about Jack? What are you going to do with him?" I asked, which brought a smile to Barbosa's face.

"Oh, there's a fate that he deserves," Barbosa said. "You'll see."

With that, the two pirates closest to Barbosa moved forward, grabbed us, and started pushing us across to the Black Pearl. A few more pirates from the Black Pearl came over to the Interceptor, probably to maintain control of it. Elizabeth and I were led below deck, where we were stashed in a jail cell.

"They'll probably take us home, right?" Elizabeth asked. I shrugged, not really sure what to say. Everything had been one betrayal after another, so it was very likely we'd be betrayed again before this was all over.

Jack Sparrow

Well, here I am again on this cursed island. I sat on the beach, looking out as the two ships got further and further away. Everything I had planned went up in rather annoying smoke.

Damn monkey, I thought a mage would have more common sense than to be taken by surprise by an undead animal. Then again, I guess I was a rather disarming creature. Poor girl, smashed up across the deck. She must have been turned to jelly and lost to time. Would have thought the shield would have protected her if she still had access to it, but obviously...

The sound of splashing and coughing caused me to look over to the left, and I saw a familiar blonde-headed woman rising out of the sea, looking absolutely furious.

"Oh, so you did live. Where have you been?"

She looked over at me, annoyed, before saying, "Unconscious. That's what happens when you get hit by a cannonball at 100 miles an hour."

"Aye, I can see that," I said with an approving nod before adding, "Well, in case you haven't noticed, we lost the ships."

"Yeah, yeah, I noticed that," Tanya said, annoyed, reaching into her pocket and pulling out the little medallion.

I raised an eyebrow at that before saying, "Going to call your mom for help?"

Tanya looked at me, annoyed, before saying, "We're on a desert island. I think we either call for help or die here."

"I thought you could fly."

"Needed that thing I had around my neck. How did they even figure out I had that?"

Jack thought for a moment before saying, "Probably just luck. Most mages or wizards, or whatever you want to call them, have some sort of object on them. Your hands are always preoccupied, so it must have been on your person. Perhaps he saw the strand around your neck. Maybe the monkey just got lucky."

"Either way, you don't need to call for help just yet," I said, picking myself up from the sand.

"Oh, and why is that?" she called, stumbling out of the surf after me as I moved further onto the island.

"Well, while we were out cold, old Barbosa recognized this old island, the same one he dropped me off on 10 years ago. So, of course, he threw me off on this one."

"Oh great, you have more back hair nests stashed somewhere," Tanya called as she followed behind.

"I don't have that," I replied before saying, "not exactly." I tapped the ground with my foot, listening for anything off. After a few taps, I heard it. Reaching down, I got my hand under the edges of a hidden false roof and pulled it up, revealing the underground storehouse.

"This island was used for rum runners. They stored their stuff here, and they didn't want me on it. I was more than willing to keep it a secret, so they just helped me get off the island."

I slipped down into the underground area, looking about, and then I said, loud enough for Tanya to hear, "Looks like they've been out of business for a few years, or at least haven't used this stockpile. Unfortunate, but there's still a possibility to get found. Plenty of rum to pass the time away before we need to worry and call your mom to come pick us up."

"Haha," Tanya amused as she walked down the stairs into the rum room. "At least we have shelter. Oh, what's that?" She headed over and picked up an ax, smacking it a couple of times to make sure it was strong.

"It's an ax, what do you want me to say?" I said matter-of-factly, not really seeing why that was important.

She popped her head out of the hole again and said, "What do you think? We've got out there, seven palm trees."

"I guess, why?" I said, not really seeing what she was proposing. Right on her hand, along the edge of the blade, a dull blade at that, she muttered something, and it started to glow.

She headed up out of the tunnel, and I was a bit confused, so I followed after her.

She lined up her ax to one tree and started chopping it down, remarkably considering the ax was so rusted over. I would have figured it would not have been able to do the job, but after seven hits, the tree fell over.

"What are you going to build, a raft?" I asked, popping a cork on one of the rums and downing a bit of it.

"Not exactly," she said. She started cutting it up more until it was in equal parts. Carefully, she moved the pieces over into the sand, near the edges of the green part of the island, stacking them up until there was a rather large pile of wood. She came over to me, grabbed the alcohol out of my hands, downed a good chunk of it, and snapped her fingers over the hole, lighting it on fire.

"What are you doing?" I asked before she tossed it at the pile of wood, igniting it to some extent.

"So, Elizabeth is the daughter of the governor, right? Which means the entire Royal Navy is out there looking for her."

I nodded as Tanya moved over to the next tree and started cutting it down as well.

"Which means there's an entire Royal Navy looking for anything odd on the ocean. I'd say a pillar of fire at night or a pillar of smoke in the morning."

I nodded before saying, "Yes, but that will get us arrested if the Royal Navy shows up here."

"Oh, it'll get us arrested, sure. But we're the only ones who know where Elizabeth is, right?"

I smiled, getting where she was going. "You're suggesting that we light the fire, party with some rum, and wait for pickup, then tell them where to go to get their wee princess."

Tanya nodded, or at least that's what it looked like before saying, "We have limited daylight hours, so I'm just getting to work cutting down as many of these trees and getting them into shape now. But I'll join you in having a little bit of drink once the night is on, and all we have to do is throw an extra log on the fire every once in a while."

"Hmm, sounds like a plan. You do that, and I'll get the rum ready," I said with a smile, fully planning to drink myself into unconsciousness. Who knows what else would happen tonight? Whatever comes in the morning will come, and we'll see if her plan works out. Worst comes to worst, break that little shrinkage, and I'd have to deal with Fine...

It was bound to happen sooner or later. I had a good run.

Besides, perhaps you look kindly on the fact that I would protect her latest protege/daughter. Maybe, yeah, maybe I should just get myself so drunk that I don't feel myself being turned into something unnatural.

Whistling, I moved into the storehouse and started bringing out several bottles of some of the best-looking rum. Some of the worst-looking ones were stashed on the edge of the other side, closer to the fire. Yes, rum was rum, but it might be worth using the bad rum to create extra smoke if we ever saw a ship going the wrong way.

Tanya

I yawned and felt my brain hurting at the same time. It took me a bit to even remember where I was. After the betrayal of Barbosa, which I wouldn't let him get away with, that monkey was dead meat as far as I was concerned. I had worked myself near unconsciousness cutting up the trees on this island, with only about two left, and I hoped we wouldn't need those. I didn't remember what happened after that, well, not the exact details. Jack offered me some hooch and I just started drinking because there was nothing better to do but watch the fire burn.

What happened after that, I wasn't sure, but getting up was troublesome. It felt like something or someone was lying nearly on top of...

I opened my eyes and realized why I felt like there was someone nearly lying on top of me.

Jack and I apparently slept right next to each other, having apparently nothing better to do or anything better to keep us warm.

That was concerning because a few of my shirt buttons appeared to have been loosened in the night. I didn't remember exactly what happened.

Hopefully, we just had platonic cuddling of drunk people. But if not, well, that was annoying.

Taking a breath, I slipped my arm out from underneath him, digging the sand out so it was easier, and then got up, brushing myself off.

Jack appeared to be fully dressed. It was probably just platonic cuddling between drunk people. So with that concern assuaged, I turned towards the fire, noticing it had died down but was still going. However, there was a good column of smoke going up into the sky, which was a good sign. Walking over to it, I quickly grabbed some more firewood and threw it on the pile, taking one of the embers from last night and smashing it over the wood so it would ignite the newer wood better.

I didn't know if I should be concerned about the glass in the fire, but we were just camping far enough away that it probably wasn't enough of a concern. I cracked my neck and turned to look out at the island and the sea beyond it. It was going to be a glorious day. The sun was rising and not a cloud in the sky. And... tilting my head, I saw what I thought was a large ship. That brought a smile. Hopefully, it was the Royal Navy. That would be key to getting back at Barbosa. I doubted the Spanish Royal Navy or the Dutch Royal Navy or the French Royal Navy would give a damn, but if it's the English, there was a chance.