013

Davy Jones

"Let him have another cannonade," I called as the ship was pummeled, no longer resembling a sailing vessel, but more of a floating wreck. I was not happy. That girl had somehow snuck into my compartment while I slept and stolen the one thing in the universe that could threaten me. And where had she gone? No one knew.

The entire vessel had been checked over three times, the only thing I could find was a missing boat, one of the rowboats we didn't even use very often. This suggested that she had probably escaped in the night with it. Thus began our journey to find and capture her.

Unfortunately, that had not gone to plan. We found a vessel in the area, but she could have run off with, but my crew had already boarded and searched it. There was no evidence that she had ever even been aboard at all. I'd only proven that the East India Company's ships were easily destroyed, something I already knew.

With a sigh, I shook my head, taking up a pipe and smoking it, thinking. I had let my anger guide my actions so far, but now I needed to think more quickly. She had not signed a contract with my crew yet, which meant I couldn't track her. The same went for the key. So, I had to think. Where would they go?

Obviously, I knew that if they wanted my key, they wanted the chest it opened. They wanted my heart. Turning to one of my crew, I said, "Set sail for the island of Isla Cruces. We need to beat them to the chest before they can cause any problems."

"Yes, Captain!" the crewman said, getting to work and setting the ship's sails, turning us around. The wreck would sink on its own time, and though I would have liked to bring on any of its crew as my own, I didn't have the time. I focused on what I needed to do—get to the island. But the real question was how and who was aligned against me?

Obviously, Jack was probably involved. I doubted she would steal the key unless it was part of his plan. But was he perhaps also in league with anyone else? I knew that he was one of the Pirate Lords, so perhaps one of them was involved. Doubtful. The majority of them were off doing their own things. They were a herd of cats that didn't really herd. So, no, it was not the Pirate Lords moving against me. Perhaps Fine, though…

Fine, after all, was Tanya's teacher, so it was concerning that she might be involved. That could be a problem. Supernatural forces going at each other in a heavy fight. Well, I'm not sure what will happen, but I doubt either one of us will win. Whatever land we're fighting over will be sunk beneath the waves. Her powers and mine did have a tendency not to interact very well.

Would she be moving against me, though? Her plans were always more esoteric than mine, seeming to hold a special hatred for the moon above all else. I mean, she's much, much older than my own existence. It's hard to say. Does she perhaps think that taking control over the Flying Dutchman will give her the ability to strike out against the Moon? Hard to say, unlikely but not impossible. She had strange magic, stranger than even my once love, and claimed to know the start of the world and the first language, whatever that's meant.

Shaking my head, I looked at my crew, wondering if perhaps one of them had helped Tanya with this plan. It seemed unlikely that someone could sneak into my compartment; there was always a guard. The man in charge of watching the door last night claimed he hadn't seen anything enter my room. He was currently experiencing a bit of keelhauling for his failure, but he'd be returned to duty soon enough.

But that still left the opportunity that someone else had taken action to help her, perhaps giving her an idea of where the key was, or some other effort to undermine my crew.

It was not a good feeling to be suspicious of your own crew, not a good feeling at all. But who would risk a thousand years of damnation to help this girl? No one here had any connections to her as far as I could tell. Hmm, I'd have to speak with some of the crew I did trust, have them keep their eyes open for anyone acting suspicious.

If someone had helped her in any way, I would make them suffer, that was for sure. No one betrayed the Dutchman, no one.

Perhaps I should unleash the Kraken to hunt down Jack. It would find him eventually. Though there was always the problem that Jack could already have the heart. If I was not fast enough, then if I unleashed the Kraken and the Kraken ate the heart, well, I would die eventually. I would rather not think about that.

Walking back to the quarterdeck, I looked over the side. The ship was making good speed, the water breaking as we went. Where could that girl have gone now? Damnable magic.

If she hadn't made it to that vessel, which was the most likely option, and where would she have gone? Or had she been killed in the first few volleys, and my key lay at the bottom of the sea? Well, I'd mark this area on the captain's map, and in the moment, I'd go back and check when I had the time. Something I normally have plenty of. But if Jack was making a play for that chest, well, time was of the essence. As much as it was most likely unbreakable without the key, there was always the chance that they could find some way to break in and get to the heart and destroy it.

And I would not let that happen.

Jack

"So that's the island," I said out loud as I looked out from the Black Pearl at the approaching landmass. It was nothing special, looked like it had been abandoned for a long time now but otherwise a reasonable piece of Caribbean land that had most likely been forgotten by anyone who had ever seen it.

Most likely the reason the captain of the Dutchman had decided to use it; after all, what better place to hide something than in a place that had once been populated, so there would be plenty of other treasures for people to go looking for?

Although I did note there was, I guess, a small possibility that the Dutchman had probably once called this port home. After all, the Captain had once been human, and there was no definite story that the Dutchman had started as a European Dutchman and not a Caribbean Dutchman.

Turning to my crew, I said, "All right, we don't know exactly where this chest is on the island, but we do know it is here. So, we're going to break up into three teams. One will stay here with the ship and make sure that no one steals it. Gibbs, you can handle that, correct?"

"Aye, Captain," Gibbs said with a nod.

As I turned and continued, "The second team will be led by me and Young Will Turner here. Commodore Norrington will also accompany me on the island, and a smaller group will secure the landing and make sure no one interferes with our return. This should, I think, work. Correct, everyone?"

There were lots of agreements, and slowly, as the sun dipped towards the horizon, people disbanded. I moved over to a boat, Turner and the commodore joining me with not much fanfare. We began sloshing our way to shore. It wasn't very deep water, but it was, enough to slow us down if we weren't using the boat. Soon enough, we arrived at the deteriorated dock that had once been part of a town. As I pulled myself up onto it, checking the wood to make sure it was good, I noticed one thing that was odd and caused me to raise an eyebrow: there was a boat that looked a little too in use.

It was nothing more than a paddle boat, not something that could make a great distance across the seas, but there was no larger ship nearby. So, I raised an eyebrow and felt a slight confusion; something was wrong, that's what my instinct told me. I also knew that there wasn't much choice. Checking the boat, I made sure it wasn't something from the good captain of the Dutchman, and for the most part, I could confirm that anything that came from the Dutchman was always warped by the sea life that lived in it. This was still in good condition, as far as I could tell, with a royal blue trim along the side, but otherwise, nothing serious. I ran that description through my brain, trying to see if I remembered anyone using such colors for piracy, but I couldn't recall, although it did speak of a Frenchman to me.

They tended to use blue in their colorations.

Shaking my head, I turned back to Will and said, "All right, let's see." I held out the compass so he could get us a better bearing. "Let's find this item so we can be on our way and get you back to your darling."

Will touched the compass for long enough for us to get the bearing and the direction of the Dead Man's chest, and we were off, marching up the hill towards a rather rough side of the island.

As we progressed, I noticed a few things, and Will called them out. "Is it me, or does this path look a little bit more well-tread than it should be?" I nodded. Someone had been through here, cutting a path. Now, who could that be?

'The only one who should be looking for the Dead Man's chest is me. Was there someone else I wasn't aware of out there?' I thought. Not very reassuring.

It was at that moment as we moved around a rise, I turned a corner, that found three rifles pointed at me, and a lot of rapid French being yelled. I held up my hands. I wasn't nearly as fluent in French as I would have liked, and they weren't speaking it with clarity either. Perhaps one of the more inland French dialects, I thought. The three individuals were wearing military uniforms, though they looked rather ripped up and beaten, as if they'd been here for some time, and they were saying something about who we were and what we were doing here. It was a reasonable request. I tried to clear my throat, but the commodore spoke first. Apparently, he had a good capability to speak French. Of course, he did.

They spoke quickly between each other before the three men lowered their rifles. I turned to the commodore and said, "What's this all about, commodore?"

He looked at me before sighing and shaking his head. "They're members of the French Royal Army. Apparently, they came to this island to help some aristocrat in their search for something, possibly what we're looking for. Why they're searching for this thing, they don't know. All they know is the aristocrat is cursed, and they want off the island as quickly as possible."

"But we could do that," I said, clearing my throat, and spoke the best French I could. "I, Captain Jack Sparrow, can get you off this island for no fee, if you point me in the direction of this aristocrat so I can avoid them."

The three shared a look and nodded in agreement, saying, "Oui," in French, I believe.

They pointed up the road they had come from, and I nodded, pointing back the road, saying, "There's a ship down there. Just tell them Captain Jack Sparrow sent you, and they'll let you aboard." The three men nodded and moved on, passing us. I looked to Will and said, "Check the bearings again," as I held up the compass. He did, and after a moment, he nodded in the direction that the aristocrat lay.

"So, this aristocrat has some sort of information on the Dead Man's chest as well, interesting," I said, "You have no problem fighting the French, right, Commodore?"

The commodore let out a laugh before saying, "The only thing worse than a pirate is the French, at least that's what the English Navy's normal standard of approval is. I think it's the other way around. I have no problem fighting the French."

"Hmm, oh, it's good to know that us pirate souls are number one in your heart as villains of the sea. Personally, I have to wonder if it's the Spanish; they tend to do some rather crazy things. But that's a story from another time," I said, walking down the road, noticing a stone watermill up the path as we kept going. The first signs of an encampment appeared; it looked like a small camp of about ten or so people, and it seemed they had been digging all around this field searching for something.

Staying in cover, we quickly observed that their guards were not paying close attention to the area around them. The majority of them were busy helping with the digging.

"Are they digging in the right place, though?" I asked, rhetorically, as I had Will check the compass.

Will shook his head, saying, "I think we can go around them."

"Let's do that," I said as we moved on, quickly skirting their camp to the left and going a bit deeper into the woods before emerging onto a beach on the other side of the island. Will checked the compass again as we moved along, and soon we found a beach that matched its description perfectly.

"This, that's where we dig," I said with a smile, handing over a shovel to the others. We got to work and quickly dug down deep, finding the missing chest. We pulled it up out of the sand and set it down, looking at each other, uncertain about what to do next. We all leaned in to listen; there was a rhythmic thump-thump of a heart inside.

I smiled and held out my hand. Will took it, and I was about to offer one to the commodore when he pointed a sword at my chest.

"You've betrayed me." I said rather stoically, though I knew he would probably do it. The commodore had plenty of reasons to turn on me; now he had access to the heart, and no doubt the East Indies Company would pay greatly for such a thing.

"Sorry, Jack," he said with a smile that said he wasn't sorry, "but I have an opportunity here to get my commission back, and I'm not going to waste it on a pirate who hasn't shown himself to be more than that."

"Well, that's disagreeable," a familiar voice said as the cocking of a flintlock came from behind the commodore. I tilted my head, and Will did the same as we looked beyond him, seeing Tanya standing there with a pistol. She looked a bit wet and worse for wear but alive and with a sly grin on her face. "Drop the weapon, Commodore."

I heard a deep sigh from the commodore as he lowered the weapon. Tanya moved forward and lightly whacked him over the side of the head with the butt as she ripped the sword from his hand, saying, "I said drop it, next time follow orders and maybe you won't get thrown out of your goddamn Navy."

I shook my head before saying, "Well, how have you fared?"

"I just had a sleepless night of crazed fish people trying to find me as I played a full-size person's game of cat and mouse. Never want to do that again. Oh, by the way, the Dutchman is here and I expect will come around the corner on that shore soon enough, and attack with the fish mutant army to kill us and take the treasure." Tanya commented as she kept her pitol pointed at the commodore .

"Ah' Wonderful," I said, shaking my head. "Then perhaps we should be moving on," I said, turning and grabbing the treasure chest, as i was looking toward the woods, where the path we had just come from, and feeling my gut tighten a bit.

Standing across from me were about forty French soldiers, their rifles raised but ready, along with their commander, his sword naken in his hand. They seemed to be waiting for his orders.

"Tanya, get your explosive bullets ready," I said as the men were eyeing us, not attacking for now but blocking our escape.

"Well, I guess that's the end of that; the French get the treasure," the commodore said with a grin that told me he was happy to screw me over.

Sighing, I turned, wondering what would happen next, only to have a surprise from behind. These soldiers made way for a woman in a long blue dress, her long hair whiter than anything I've ever seen. I noticed that she had a blade at her side, hidden under what was a longer than necessary sleeve. She approached and smiled as she saw us, nodding her head before saying, "Well, now, this is a surprise," in a very French accent.

"You must be one of the many pirates of the Caribbean Sea who have taken to meddling with things you do not understand, no?"

"I refute that statement," I said matter-of-factly, smiling as I tried to give her my best smile. She was a rather nice-looking lady, very refined.

I heard an annoyed noise from Tanya but ignored that since well, turning up the charm might get us out of this.

"Hmm," she said before adding, "Well, whatever your goals are, please hand over the treasure. It took me decades to put this puzzle together. I'm not going to hand over my prize to some random pirates who step on my land."

"Your land?" I said, confused. She smiled, saying, "I bought it from the Dutch. They abandoned it decades ago because the place was cursed and wasn't very productive. I knew the truth of the matter, so I just grabbed it up with a little bit of wealth from my allies within Bavaria."

"Oh, hell," Tanya said, taking a more fighting stance. "A member of the Illuminati, watch out! They're magic."

"Illuminati?" the commodore said, looking at her confused, "Fine says about half of them are gender-bent to be female, supposedly being a woman means you can use magic better or something."

"Ahhh," the white-haired woman said, nodding her head as if she understood everything all at once. "Quite interesting to run into one of you here. I thought that priestess to the gods would have kept her puppets closer at hand."

Surprisingly, she let me go for a bit," Tanya said before adding, "Now that we know who each other are maybe you should back off; we know what we're dealing with here. We're not surrendering this chest, and there's about to be a problem coming over the horizon."

"Hmm, no," she responded, "Collecting this chest is the first step towards freeing the world of its failures and defeating the ancient gods who cause our suffering, so I will not be letting you run off with that chest. We need it for our operations."

I raised an eyebrow before saying, "This is all very big and all, but I'm more focused on the small things. I need this thing to prevent my soul from being strapped to the Dutchman, so we won't be handing it over."

"Small-time thieves," she said, shaking her head before smiling and saying, "I could offer you another option if you hand over the chest. Hecannot take what has already been taken, Transfer your soul to a perfect body, and you would join us, and Davy Jones could no longer lay his hands on you."

"A perfect body?" I said, looking to Tanya, who smiled and said, "She means turning you into a girl."

"Ha ah, no, no, I'm good. I have my chest, and I don't intend to hand it over. So, do you mind just stepping out of the way or..."

Before I could finish, a cannonball landed off to our left. We all turned to see the ship, the Dutchman, sailing into view, and its fishman landing party emerging from the sea heading right for us.

"Great, you wasted our time," Tanya said, turning and bringing her pistol to bear, firing off a shot at the oncoming amalgamations. The explosion was quite therapeutic as one of the chimeras went flying and smashed into a tree.

The white-haired woman drew her sword and immediately tried to attack me. I blocked it with the Dead Man's chest, only to have the commodore draw his own sword and swipe at me from the other angle. Tanya grabbed her blade and blocked that. The pair of us defended ourselves as Will drew his own blade.

Then, instead of using her shield spell to protect us. Tanya shouted for us to get down, we all dived to the ground, as the sounds of muskets rained down, like angry bees flying above us and into the oncoming hybrids.

This was followed by the shouting of orders for the French behind us. Davy Jones' crew had stopped as the bullets hit them, seeming to take a moment to recover before starting to charge again.

In that moment, I grabbed the chest and started running, with Tanya behind me and Will behind her.

"Come back here, you pirate!" the woman called, standing up and running after us, the commodore running right next to her.

The Dutchmans' crew continued their charge after that, though they were hit by another round of French musket fire, and they turned to charge the Frenchmen who were already in the process of fixing their blades.

What happened after that, I don't know. The sounds of battle faded away as I became more worried about getting back to the ship as fast as possible and avoiding a fight with anyone else.

The French woman, somehow - somehow, I couldn't exactly understand it, looked as if she simply jumped over me, landed in front of us, drawing her blade in a motion that would have pierced my chest if I hadn't raised the Dead Man's chest to block it. I unsheathed my blade and tossed Dead Man's chest too, while going on the attack, fighting her to try and clear the way.

But she was, even when hampered by a dress, a skilled swordswoman, parrying my feint easily and drawing a pistol midway through the fight, firing it off. Thankfully it wasn't aimed at me, it did hit a shell-headed man who turned a corner and got his brains blown out, painting the nearby tree with its gray matter.

"Thank you," I said, before trying to drive her off the road again with three swift blade strikes of my reprise that she responded to with a riposte that ended in an envelopment.

"Since we're going to fight, I'll do you the honor of knowing my name. I'm Saint Germain," she said, backing off and drawing her blade into a vertical guard.

Taking a similar stance, I said, "Honor to meet you, Saint Germain. Never heard of you, but maybe you've heard of me. I am the one and only Captain Jack Sparrow."

She blinked before saying, "Wait, the Captain Jack Sparrow?"

"Oh no, his ego is going to inflate," Will said as I smiled.

Gibs

"There's a lot of shooting going on over there," I heard as I looked at the island. Our crew had been firing for the last hour. It seemed like nothing but constant shooting and explosions were happening on the island, which really indicated something horrible was going on. But hey, there wasn't much we could do. Well, there was something we could do. I had run out the cannons and passed out all the arms. I had a cutlass and two pistols on my belt, with a musket ready on my shoulder, but so far, I hadn't seen what was coming.

Sighing, I was glad that I was on the ship and not out there. After all, here, at least, I was probably protected from whatever chaos was happening on the island. Dealing with some of the craziness that Jack dealt with was, to be frank, a bit too crazy for my taste. I think I was getting a little too old for this.

Shaking my head, I looked out to the sea, wondering where the Dutchman was and if it was coming. Or perhaps the Kraken, or instead the French ship of the line heading directly at us.

"Two arms!" I called, alerting everyone to the situation. Quickly, men realized the threat, seeing the French battleship moving at its slow pace toward us.

Men got to work, turning the ship and making ready to trim the sails.

"So, what's the plan?" Ragetti asked, looking at me with his one eye. I shrugged before saying, "Well, the plan is to get away from that," pointing at the pirate obliterator, the ship of the line that was coming on at a slow but steady pace.

"What about Jack?" his mate Pintel asked, Ragetti responded, "We'll fire off a shot once we get going, alerting them to the change in our direction. Hopefully, they'll be able to reach us before any more chaos finds its way here."

The pirate nodded, and they got to work. Soon, the Black Pearl was pulling away from the abandoned town, moving westward along the coast, generally in the direction of the ongoing fighting we had been hearing for a while.

I watched the coast, hoping that Jack and the others would appear, really hoping that they would be okay. Then, I watched a spinning giant wheel come flying over a cliffside and land in the water just down the way from where we were heading.

"What the hell just happened down there?" someone called out, voicing everyone's thoughts. We all looked on as Jack popped out of the wheel, followed by Will, Tanya, and others who were defending him from the Commodore and some unknown woman in a dress that looked like it had seen better days.

Several nautical-chimeras came running over and jumped from the cliffside, crash-landing on the rocks instead of hitting the water, and I couldn't help but wince. They laid there for a moment before picking themselves up and slowly moving toward Jack and the others as they ran down the coast towards us.

As I watched, several of what looked like Frenchmen, also looking worse for wear, appeared at the top of the cliff and started firing down at the fish-monsters. They seemed to be good shots, putting some of them down. However, it was likely not permanent since these creatures were bound to the Dutchman's wheel, and the will was that of the captain.

Speaking of the Dutchman, here she came around the coast, directly in front of us. Her bow chasers began to fire away, just barely missing us by a few yards.

"Prepare to return fire!" I called, knowing that this was about to turn into a ship fight. As the cannonballs of a broadside went flying right past us and hit the Dutchman. Turning, I looked and saw that the ship of the line had turned away from chasing us and was opening fire directly on the Dutchman.

Looking to a fellow pirate, I said, "Strange allies today, I guess."

"Isn't it always?" Pintel said, scratching his bald head before getting to work loading the guns.

I could see Captain Jack swimming for the ship, followed by Tanya who just lifted off out of the water, with a small chest and grabbed Will by his shoulders, flying in an odd corkscrew motion, she brought him up and over to the Black Pearl. They both landed there, breathing heavily. Looking over the side, I saw Jack struggling, and I saw the commodore raising his pistol, aiming directly at Jack's back.

Pulling the musket from my side, I took aim and fired, hitting him in the shoulder, possibly in a lung. I couldn't tell for sure since he was in the water. This gave Jack the time he needed to be brought aboard the vessel. Breathing heavily, he said, "Thanks, Gibbs." He looked back before saying, "Okay, out of the frying pan," and he looked towards the ongoing battle between the French ship of the line and the Dutchman, which were giving each other a good hell of a lot of damage, "into the fire."

"We'll be fine, Jack," I said, holding up the chest. "We got what we came for." Once we were clear of the ongoing battle, everyone crowded around as he put it on a table and opened it. We all blinked at the empty chest in confusion.

"Isn't there supposed to be something in there?" Will asked.

"It was here. I checked. But I mean, the chest was changing hands quite often, but I mean the only one who had the key was Tanya, right?" Jack said, looking to Tanya. She shook her head, saying, "The French woman got her hands on it for a moment. I remember that. But she never got her hands on the chest."

Will nodded and said, "So, I got the key back from the commodore before I tossed it to Jack."

Everyone blinked and then looked toward the island.

"Fuck," was the resounding realization of our response.