Drink Up, Me Hearties

[Mickey Mouse]

“MORE ALE!”

The shouts of Bilgewater’s more colorful denizens filled the front room of the Lusty Wench. The stink of the freshly-docked crew of the Annabelle wafted into the noses of the tavern’s diligent workers as they prepared for what was sure to be quite the busy night. Some of the waitresses, if you listened closely, might be heard whispering about how disappointed the sudden burst in business made them; they had been expecting a quiet evening, and perhaps an early break. When the Annabelle showed up at port by surprise, however, around dusk, all hopes for a night off had been squelched.

The pirates had just completed a successful mutiny. Their captain had always had a penchant for adventures that got them more trouble than booty, and they had recently decided that they’d had about enough of that. They needed gold if they were going to be able enjoy more of life’s finer pleasures—and that was what being a pirate was about, right? Fucking women and drinking booze. Aside from plundering and sailing the high seas, what would a scurvy buccaneer rather be doing?

The celebration had been going on for hours, now; the sun of the Vasty Deep had long since sunk past the horizon line of the verse, and newly-minted captain One-Legged Bruce (complete with wooden peg-leg) had long since lost his impulse control.

“Ow!” one of the wenches squealed as he smacked his hand hard into her ass. “That’s not cool, mister,” she scolded him, shooting daggers at the pirate captain with her eyes. He laughed heartily, not paying any mind to her warnings, and grabbed her by the skirt, pulling her onto his lap. She struggled. “Let go of me, creep!”

“Aw, honey, come on, just give the cap’n some sugar,” Bruce pleaded, puckering up his lips for a kiss that wasn’t going to come.

The wench broke free of his grasp and very quickly reared her hand back, bringing it down and slapping the captain’s face in one quick, fluid motion. The reddish handprint left on his face disappeared as his entire countenance turned scarlet with fury. He cracked his neck, looking up at the girl. “You really shouldn’t ‘ave done that,” the man growled, standing up and quickly reaching out, grabbing her by the throat. “Now, you’re gonna pay.”

He released her, tossing her onto the wooden ground. She let out a yelp, trying to crawl away from him, but she couldn’t escape; he slammed his peg leg firmly on her ankle, snapping the bone and keeping her squarely within his grasp.

“I am One-Legged Bruce, captain of the pirate ship Annabelle,” he screamed at her, quieting the entire tavern down. “Do you know what I did to the last measly little person to cross me? Do you?” He fumed so much that he began to foam at the mouth a little, some of his drool dripping disgustingly onto the ends of the waitress’ short skirt.

The crowd of pirates and other customers of the Lusty Wench had gotten eerily quiet as Captain One-Legged Bruce lorded himself over the scared girl. In the silence, the sounds of her almost-silent sobs could be heard despite the fact that she had her face pressed against the nasty floor of the tavern. “Well?” the peg-legged captain grunted, “Do you know what I did?” The trapped girl shook her head frantically, trying her best to get the gruff pirate to take his attention off of her. “Mills, tell this bitch what I did to the last man who crossed me.”

First Mate Farley stepped out from the gathered crowd. “Well, you marooned him,” he piped up, “banished him from his own ship and left him on a tiny little island to die, y’did.”

“That is correct,” Bruce removed his peg leg from the woman’s ankle. One of the bartenders rushed over and helped her onto her feet, though one of them now proved completely unusable. “Marooned him, left him with no food, no water, just a bit of rum for the road. Took his ship and made myself captain.”

“And gave it an awful new name.”

All eyes turned to the doorway. In it leaned a rather lanky man with long, dirty-looking dreadlocks. He looked, to the naked eye, like the quintessential pirate: quite unclean and unkempt, with a long, brown, leathery coat over one of those puffy shirts and a black vest and matching pants. This pirate, however, still had both his legs—and decorated them with some nice-looking boots. Scattered throughout his dreads and his facial hair were some rather beady-looking pieces of accent jewelry. Overall, his style could be called eccentric. The wench and her bartender friend had no idea who he was, but judging from the crew of Annabelle’s shocked faces, he wasn’t exactly a new character in their story.

“Seriously, Annabelle?” the unfamiliar pirate quirked an eyebrow, and then, his voice getting low: “That girl’s never going to bed with you, matey.”

“…Jack?” First Mate Farley was the first to speak.

“Oh, good, ol’ Fire-Breath,” Jack smirked, standing up and sauntering over toward the Annabelle’s first mate. “You get those chompers checked out yet, mate?”

One-Legged Bruce was, perhaps, the most shocked to see the man. Jack placed a hand on Fire-Breath Farley’s shoulder, in a sort of ‘no hard feelings’ gesture, and then turned his attention to the peg-legged captain. “Not happy to see me, Brucie?” he smiled. For a few moments, the captain was at a loss for words. Eventually, he finally regained his ability to speak, but could only produce one sound.

“…h-how?”

“Mate,” Jack pursed his lips as if the answer should be obvious.

“You were stranded on that island with nothing but a bottle of rum,” Bruce spat, finally finding his voice once again, “There’s no way in hell you’re standing here right now.”

“And yet,” the dreadlocked pirate said, “Here I am.”

Bruce sucked in a nervous breath.

“Honestly, mate, I dunno why the bloody ‘ell you didn’t just shoot me,” Jack shrugged, stepping away from Farley and crossing clumsily—but with remarkable purpose—toward the peg-legged pirate, “I mean, I am a measly secondary. Isn’t like I would’ve come back, y’know?” He leaned toward Bruce, getting his face altogether to the other man’s. “But you went old-fashioned,” he continued, nodding, “Respectable, I must admit. And it probably would’ve worked, on any other man… but, Brucie, you forgot one thing.”

A beat. Bruce raised an eyebrow.

“I’m Captain Jack Sparrow.”

A shot rang out, and Bruce collapsed in a heap on the ground of the Lusty Wench. Captain Jack Sparrow lifted his pistol up and blew the smoke off the end of the barrel of the gun. Behind where Bruce had once stood, the injured girl and her bartender crutch looked at him.

Jack eyed the bartender. “I’ll take a glass of rum, mate.”

The bartender locked eyes with the pirate captain nervously. “Um… sorry, sir, but we’re currently out of rum—”

“Of course,” Jack interrupted. He turned in frustration to the rest of the tavern.

“Why is the rum always gone?!”

[Mickey Mouse]

Jack Sparrow dug his sword in between the planks of the wooden crate, and yanked.

With a resounding riiiiiiip, the side of the box separated from the rest of it, and with another couple of jerks of his makeshift-crowbar, the pirate captain tore the box open. A couple of loose bottles of rum rolled out, smashing on the ground at his feet and covering the man’s boots in the heavenly liquid. Jack stepped back, throwing out his hands.

“What a waste,” he mused to himself, “whoever packed these is a bloody dolt.” He reached in and grabbed one of the bottles of rum packed more neatly. He popped the top off of it and pressed the bottle to his lips, finally tasting the drink he’d been craving since his good-for-nothing crew had marooned him on that tiny desert island. “Ahhhhhh, yes,” he sighed after a few hearty gulps. The liquid warmed up his throat as it spilled down into his stomach; he licked his lips as he removed the bottle from his mouth.

The pirate captain plopped down on top of a nearby crate and took another swig of the rum. Luckily, Bilgewater had a reputation for being an exporter of the heavenly elixir, and that meant Jack had known exactly where to find it—getting ready to be loaded up onto one of the very few straight-and-narrow vessels that docked in the largely pirate-centric port. He might’ve felt a little bad taking the stuff from the good people of the trade ships, but, well…

He was a pirate. And pirates stole shit. And besides, he needed rum to live.

Captain Jack Sparrow had often tried to trace his rum addiction to his source, but since he had been “born” into the Omniverse he’d had trouble remembering details of his life. Of course, some might argue that even before, his memory was… damaged, but that wasn’t true at all. He was Captain Jack Sparrow, after all, best goddamn pirate on the high seas.

“Uhm.”

Jack’s dreadlocks bounced as he turned his head to see none other than Fire-Breath Farley standing at the end of the dock. The former—current? Jack hadn’t decided—first mate stared at his bootstraps, not daring to look the Captain in the face.

“Farley, mate,” Jack slurred, already a little bit buzzed, “what can I do for you?”

“I—uh, I…”

“Spit it out, ol’ Fire-Breath,” Jack leaned forward, pressing his lips to the bottle again and sending another swallow of his elixir of life down into his belly. “After all, you’ve got a dentist’s appointment to catch, don’t ya, mate?”

Farley’s face flashed red, but since as he angled it so far down Jack couldn’t tell if he had been angered or embarrassed. Either way, the Captain didn’t care—nobody was going to take his ship from him again, not after the display he had made inside the Lusty Wench. Nobody in their right mind would challenge him again lest they wanted a bullet through their chest, too, just like good ol’ Brucie had right now.

“Well, it’s just, uhm,” the first mate stammered, raising his eyes to meet Jack’s, “…it’s just a few of us were wondering if maybe you’d—uh, y’see, Bruce threatened us, y’see—”

“Oh, I get it,” Sparrow nodded, “Big Bad Brucie’s dead so now you’re hoping that Good Ol’ Captain Jack Sparrow’s gonna let you back on his ship, eh? You’re bankin’ on me kindness, hm?” He stood up, taking a second to gain his balance, and then stalked toward Fire-Breath Farley, his voice low. “Now, Fire-Breath, why would I do a thing like that? Out of the kindness of me heart? Hm, hm, hm…” Jack placed a finger to his lips, turning away from Farley and pretending to consider the situation rather heavily. Of course he would let them back on the ship—he needed a crew, and after escaping from that God-forsaken desert island and murdering One-Legged Brucie, he had no worries about any of them getting the bright idea to try and mutiny again.

“I s’pose,” he hummed, “I could let ya back on.”

“Really, sir?” the first mate brightened up immediately, raising his eyes up to meet Jack’s as the pirate turned back around. “Oh, thank you, sir, you won’t regret this, sir!” Farley spun around and started to run off to share the good news with the others.

“Oh, Farley,” Jack called after him, “Just—that’s Captain, savvy?”

Farley blinked a few times. “Yes, Captain, right. Thank you, Captain!” he placed a little emphasis on the last word. Jack couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic.

He didn’t really have time to scold the boy, though, as within seconds he had disappeared into the streets of Bilgewater, off to rally Jack’s new-old crew to set sail and start plundering and pillaging. Perhaps, this time, the crew’s minds would find themselves more conducive to going on the voyages that he wanted to: finding Omni.

The quest for the mysterious god of the Omniverse had consumed Jack ever since he’d heard of the little bugger. Sure, of course, the pirate captain was only a secondary—though who the bloody hell had summoned him here he had no inkling—but that didn’t mean he didn’t have some stake in the puppet-master who ran all of these shenanigans. The red bandana-wearing pirate had some goals for his life in the Omniverse, and part of that meant subverting the inevitable death cursed upon secondaries. Primes, of course, respawned forever until Omni got tired of them, but Captain Jack Sparrow had been forced to avoid death instead of throw himself right into danger as he liked. He missed the immortality the Aztec gold had granted him in his home world—perhaps, if he could just find his way to Omni, he could manage to convince the little man to let him have a taste of it here.

Besides, he was Captain Jack Sparrow—the Omniverse needed him around forever, if he did say so himself. Who else was going to rise to fame as the scariest pirate in the Deep?

The wacky captain turned his attention back to the box of rum. His bottle was almost empty, and that just would not do. As he sauntered back over to the stack of crates, however, he heard a shuffling up on one of the trade ships nearby.

“HEY!” the voice of one of the Deep’s less piratey sailors shouted from atop the vessel, “Get away from that cargo, you mongrel!”

“Sorry!” Jack yelled. He dropped his almost-empty bottle on the ground.

It shattered, spilling the last contents on the dock. But Jack Sparrow had already grabbed two more and started sprinting off the docks and back towards the Black Pearl.

[Tearen Wover]

Blue Flame Island.

As a young girl, she had been told to stay away, that it was a bad place with bad people. Pirates...Criminals...Outlaws. As Millie looked at the main port city, however, she couldn't help but laugh. The town wasn't the grubby, poorly built slum-town people had made it out to be. Sure, it didn't have the polished perfection of the Imperial port district on Costa Del Sol, but it was actually pretty well kept. The buildings were made from polished white stucco, and there were even nice little grassy areas.

As the smuggling vessel she had bartered for passage on pulled along side one of the long wooden piers, Millie helped lash the boat down and quickly disembarked before anyone could pester her for payment. She was immediately taken aback by the local populace. For the most part, there were dressed in old-timey looking clothes, with flintlock pistols and shit. What was the deal with that? Millie looked down at her own attire; the worn and weathered heavy assault armor. Sure it was painted grey, but it still drew a lot of attention. Not as much attention as Negotiator, though. It was a thing of beauty in her eyes; a greased, perfectly maintained Imperial gatling blaster. To passersby, however, it was an omen; she could see it on their faces. Was she an Imperial spy? Inspector? Something else?

...Well...fuck 'em. She didn't have anything to prove other than her utter superiority. As she sauntered into town, she was amused by the local populace. These were the rough and rowdy men of the seas she was supposed to fear? Most of them were flabby, malnutrutioned and diseased. Millie was a little under half their height, but she was solid muscle and easily weighed just as much. Fuck, she could literally smell the cirrhosis in them, black teeth and all. Shaking her head in bemusement, Millie went off in search of something worth her attention. A heist...an adventure...anything.

It wasn't long before she found trouble. She had seated herself inside a local tavern, Negotiator close at hand, and had ordered herself a water, much to the bartender's chagrin. She gave it a hard look when he presented her with a filmy glass filled with cloudy liquid. No wonder these people were walking obituaries. Millie reached into a pocket on her belt and pulled out some small white tablets. She popped them into the filthy water and all the sediment and impuritied immediately sank to the bottom. Better living through chemistry, indeed.

"Wot, our water ain't good enough for ya, Imp?" came a gravelly voice from behind her. Millie grinned and turned around on her seat.

"...Uh...no dude. It's a fucking sewage. I'm sure you don't mind though."

The man was quite potently taken aback, aghast that a female would dare speak to him that way.

"Okay ye ripe, wee lass. Lemme show ya some local 'ospitality then!"

With a bold stride forward, he grabbed Leviathan by the wrist and pulled her upward, close to his body. Clear assuming he had the advantage in strength, he spun her around and reached between her legs. Obviously it was armored in that area, but it wad the principal of the matter.

"Lil nubiles wot like yeself don often come 'round. How's aboutggggaaauughhhhahuuaha!"

He screamed loudly as Millie crushed his hand between her thighs and threw him over her shoulder, onto his back. He hit the ground with a loud thump, and her boot was immediately on his neck. He looked up at her with wide yellow eyes.

"Haagghh *cough*."

"Truer words were never spoken. Tell me. Where can a real sailor get some work around here?"

She let her boot off of his trachea for a moment.

"Heehacck...KILL THIS WENCH!" he shrieked. Millie sighed and abruptly snapped his neck with her heel. Three other men stood up from a nearby table with scowls on their faces. One pulled a gun from his vest and let off a round right into her torso. The soft, large bore round simply ricocheted off of her armor into the ceiling.

"My turn."

Millie yanked Negotiator from the floor and spun it up as the men surged towards her. One closed the distance quickly, and she smashed his face in with the rotating barrels before unleashing a barrage of red hot death at the other two. The bolts of plasma lanced straight through their squishy guts and into the wall behind them, shattering windows and other glassware nearby.

They crumpled to the ground, smoldering and limp. A moment passed before the rest of the patrons ran screaming from the bar. Millie quickly snatched up all of the money in the four dead men's pockets and dumped it on the equally vacant bar before waltzing out, humming an upbeat tune.

Clearly, the inner town was for drunken losers. If she wanted to sail, the docks would be the best place to go. Leviathan made her way down to the jetties and slowly walked along the rows of sailing ships. None of them really caught her interest. That one was too prissy, that one was too fat...she continued looking for another twenty minutes before spotting one she liked.

"Well hey there, gorgeous..." she murmured to herself, approaching the vessel in question. It was pitch black and medium sized. It looked like it maybe used to be a freighter, but it had been streamlined and an extra mast had also been grafted on. The ship's name was emblazoned on the portside forecastle.

"Black Pearl..." she said, running her fingers along the ebon black wood. She smiled to herself. She wanted this boat...or at least to be on it.

"Oi! G.I. Joan! What're ye doin to my vessel?" came a drunk sounding shout from her left. She leaned backwards and peered around some nearby barrels.

"Oh, nothing. Just inspecting your caulk." she said with a vicious, toothy smile. The grimy looking fucker wobbled backwards for a moment, a bottle of rum sloshing in his weathered hands.

"Ah...so she's a sea wench, is she? Well, I'm captain of this ship. Captain Jack Sparrow, to be quite precise...but I'm not so sure as I'm privvy to the likes o'you. Eh?"

He took a long drink of rum.

"Wot makes you think you and yer loved one are salt-licked enough to be gracin' her decks with your feminine wiles...or...milds...as it were?"

Millie frowned.

"The name is Leviathan. I've got more salt in me than a hundred men's balls and enough time firepower to shoot the sun out of the sky, and I'm not so 'privvy' one you myself there, Cap'n. So lemme ask you, what makes your ship worth my time?"

[Mickey Mouse]

“Leviathan, eh?”

Jack Sparrow surveyed the woman up and down. She didn’t look like any of the other scallywags in the port city of Blue Flame Island. Rather, she more closely resembled one of those bastards from Costa del Sol that always tried to rain on his parade. Still, she looked distinctly rougher around the edges than those stormtroopers, with their pearly white suits of armor. And to say that she came packing some large firepower would be a definite understatement. Jack didn’t know if he had ever seen a gun that large.

The captain gulped down some more rum, finishing off the final bottle he’d taken from the boxes over on the other dock. Removing the bottle from his lips, he belched a little bit. The rum-soaked breath wafted into Leviathan’s face, and she stepped back, her face wrinkling at the smell. She coughed a few times, which Jack thought was rather dramatic.

“So I’m s’posed to tell you why Jack Sparrow,” he clarified, tossing the empty rum bottle into the ocean. Leviathan’s eyes followed the trash as it splashed amongst the waters, and the pirate captain thought he might have caught a glimpse of judgment. Yeah, he littered, but of course he littered—he was a goddamn pirate, after all. “Well, the question is, lassie,” he waved a finger in the air before deflating into a shrug, “why not Jack Sparrow?”

“Because you’re filthy,” the girl spat back almost instantaneously. Jack frowned.

“Right in me heart, that one,” he pouted, putting on a pitiful expression and laying a hand on his heart. “Well, if you’re so high and mighty, perhaps you wouldn’t enjoy a trip on my ship. I certainly don’t think I’d enjoy you, savvy?”

And with that, Sparrow slunk past her, heading toward the ramp up onto the Black Pearl. Behind him, Leviathan steamed, upset at having been tossed aside so quickly. After a few large, clumsy steps, the pirate turned around to add one last dig. “Oh, and missus,” he called. Leviathan glanced just barely over her shoulder. “Next time, if you’re not planning on being polite, kindly keep your nasty fingers off my ship.”

That was the last straw for the armored woman. She spun around, slinging her big huge gun up and letting off a round of scary red energy blasts in Jack’s direction. The captain threw himself against his ship, the blasts speeding just barely in front of his nose. For a second, his eyes remained petrified in their new, widened expression.

“I should’ve expected that,” he nodded, detaching himself from the Pearl’s exterior.

“You’re fucking right, you should have expected that,” Leviathan growled, still holding up her rather oversized weapon. “Negotiator doesn’t do well with rude people.”

“Negotiator?” Jack quirked an unkempt eyebrow, “That’s the name of—rather ironic, don’t you think?” He leaned forward, but she didn’t seem to be in the mood to discuss semantics. He waved it off. “Listen, dear,” he said, stepping back toward Leviathan and placing a few of his grimy fingers on the tip of her huge weapon. Slowly, he pushed the tip of it down so that it wasn’t aiming at him anymore. “Perhaps we got off on the wrong foot?”

Leviathan scowled. “Perhaps.”

“Well, allow me to make amends,” the captain smiled a toothy smile, showcasing his gross teeth to the lady, “If the lady with the big gun wants to join my crew, I see no reason why she shouldn’t be welcomed with open arms, eh?”

The woman’s grip on Negotiator loosened ever so slightly. She cracked her neck menacingly. “That’s much better.” Jack nodded.

“Well then, it’s settled!” he clapped once, trying his best to put on an air of excitement, “Why doesn’t the lady go grab her things and I’ll have my foul-breathed first mate set you up a nice little cabin on the ship’s starboard side?” Leviathan seemed to be pleased by this. Her scowl slid into a small, if still slightly dissatisfied, smile, and she lifted Negotiator up, leaning it on her shoulder. With a curt nod, she turned to head back into town and pick up any last minute supplies she might need.

Happy to be free of that situation, Jack watched her walk away. As she reached the end of the dock, she turned to peruse the Pearl once again and reached out to touch the side.

“Okay, um,” Jack called out, “actually please don’t touch the ship, savvy?”

* * *

Jack rushed into the captain’s office at a break neck speed. “Captain?” First Mate Farley inquired, looking up from the maps.

“We’re leaving,” the pirate captain ushered the first mate up from his desk, “Now.”

“Now?” Farley said, flabbergasted.

“Yes, now, did I stutter, mate?” Jack placed his hands on Farley’s shoulders and spun him around, shoving him towards the door of the captain’s office. “Get the crew ready and ship out, before she gets back, savvy?”

“She?”

“It doesn’t bloody matter, just go!”

Jack pushed the little man out of the office and slammed the door behind him. He straightened his leathery coat. Surely Farley could get them out of port before the bitch got back—then he would’ve dodged that bullet, surely. He turned, walking over to the desk that had belonged to him once before; unfortunately, as it were, it had most recently belonged to One-Legged Brucie, and the mess on it made it all to evident. Not really one to especially plan out his routes, Jack made quick work of the maps strewn across the desk, rolling them up and sticking them in whatever random holes he could find.

Once they’d all been put away, the pirate turned his attention to the captain’s hat sitting idly on the desk. He let out a sigh of relief. “Ah,” he exhaled, “I’ve missed you.”

Slowly—almost ritualistically—Jack lifted the three-pointed hat up off the table and slid it onto his own noggin. Captain Jack Sparrow’s stylish ensemble was finally complete once more. “Ah, yes,” he nodded, “Much bett—”

“CAPTAIN!”

Jack burst through the door, looking out onto the bridge of his ship to see First Mate Farley being held up by his collar. At the end of the arm holding him captive was, of course, the bane of his bloody existence, Leviathan. Her head looked over at the captain, and within seconds, ol’ Fire-Breath had been dropped to the wooden floor of the ship’s top level.

“Ah, Jack Sparrow,” she started, “your first mate here just tried to tell me I wasn’t welcome aboard. I assured him that wasn’t the case. Oh, sorry, I meant Captain Jack Sparrow.”

Jack’s expression melted. “Bloody hell.”

[Tearen Wover]

"So there Captain Morgan..."

"Captain Sparrow..."

"Yeah...where are we going?"

Jack narrowed his sleep deprived eyes at the girl. It wasn't such that he hadn't had sailors of the female persuasion aboard his mighty vessel before, but this was the first one who didn't seem entirely beholden to his utterly indomitable wiles? Or was he kidding himself? Probably not. Surely not. Still, her question begged for deception. After all, it wasn't as if he had even told his own crew that he was trying to sail to the ends of the Omniverse...to the fabled Void, whatever that meant. Void of what? Sense? Time? Rum? Obviously the people who had been in charge of entitling these eldritch destinations clearly lacked any real sort of gravitas when it came to giving them their legendary designations. Regardless, the lie...

"No destination, luv. We sail for glory 'n riches. Northways. We're sailing north." Jack said, nodding to himself and taking an adroit swig of rum.

"If that doesn't fit to your fancy, then kindly feel free to shove you and your lovely plastic bosom off of my ship, eh?"

Leviathan scowled at first, but then her face broke into a twisted, toothy grin.

"Is that a challenge?"

"...eh?"

"You think I can't handle what you can throw at me?"

Jack pointed at her and offered a bright grin.

"Precisely! You may have a gun approaching the volume of me own cannon, but that doesn't mean anything to me when it comes to the business of pirating."

"Ever heard of Behemoth?" Leviathan snapped, shifting the weight of Negotiator from one arm to the other. Jack's face blanched. Yes. Yes he had heard of the dreaded Death Pirate. The man who had claimed a hundred vessels or more, killed their crews and taken them for himself. Rumor had it he hung them like trophies from the ceiling of his lair, and that he had the eyes of a killer serpent.

"...No!" Jack said, offering a bright smile again. This threw Leviathan for a loop, because it basically negated her boasting rights. Jack Sparrow saw this in her and decided to press the offensive.

"Furthermore!" he said, snagging a nearby rope and hoisting himself up onto the railing of the ship. He calmly and easily walked towards Leviathan along the rail, swilling his rum all the while.

"Any blithering lubber can dance the samba fore and aft, but I don't see much evidence as to you havin' any sort of real sea legs. And...!" he said hopping off of the rail and drawing his cutlass. He approached very close to Leviathan, pointing the weapon towards he and resting it on her shoulder.

"I'd care to see how you fare in the most noble art of privateering. Tell me, my bonnie lass, have you ever held a blade to another man?" Jack said. Leviathan's dejected scowl turned into a seething visage of rage. She did not like being bested, especially by uneducated alcoholics. She slapped the sword off of her shoulder using an armored wrist.

"Swords are for people stuck in the dark ages."

"Well then, tell me what happens when a strapping buccaneer such as meself comes at you with a blood debt? Like so?" Jack said, suddenly lunging towards Leviathan with an artful thrust. Leviathan let the sword trace a line up the curvature of her armor and leaned in towards the pirate captain, pinning his arm under her left armpit and delivering a swift kick to his gentleman's affair. Jack's eyes went cross and he slumped to the deck. Bad enough, it was, to take a blow to the tow line, but this bint was wearing heavy armor to boot. Jack's crew, who had since gathered around to watch the exchange, cringed and muttered in masculine sympathy.

"Right! Well! Good show!" Jack said, leaping back on to his feet with a slight swagger. A soft, strained sound escaped his throat as he tried to stand steady on the rolling deck.

"So I can be on your fucking crew or what?" Leviathan snapped, getting tired of the needless grandstanding.

[Mickey Mouse]

Frustration bubbled up inside the captain of the Black Pearl. At this point, he had tried everything to get this crazy bitch away from his ship: sneaking away, being down-right rude to her, and trying to assert his dominance. Thus far, none of those options seemed to be working. No matter what he threw at Leviathan, the woman jumped back up, surmounting his challenges one right after another.

…and, well, if he were being honest, that was exactly the type of crew member he needed for such an important expedition.

He pursed his lips. “…why the hell not?”

Leviathan’s stony demeanor cracked a smile. She nodded curtly, and Sparrow turned around to head up to the top deck. First Mate Farley collected himself and rushed toward Jack. “Sir—sir, you know it’s bad luck to have a woman aboard—”

“Fire-Breath,” Jack spun around to face his first mate, “that scurvy lass has the biggest gun I have ever seen in me short little life, and she just mopped the floor with your foul-smelling face. Besides, I’m the captain, my crew, bugger off.” And with that, he turned and traveled up to the top deck, placing a greasy hand on the wheel.

For a few moments, Jack Sparrow surveyed his crew, already bustling with activity below. First Mate Farley had started to fire off orders—hoist sails, prepare to ship out, etcetera—and the little guys had started scurrying around the deck, preparing the Black Pearl for her first voyage since he had regained his captaincy. Amidst all the chaos, Leviathan stood still, just glancing around at everyone. She seemed, for the first time since Jack had met her, just a little bit lost and unsure of her place. The pirate stepped forward, gripping tightly onto a rope and leaping up onto the railing that saved anyone from falling off the top deck. He held on tightly, keeping his balance on the banister like a true professional.

“Alright, ye dirty bastards!”

His voice carried across the entire ship, and the crew—Leviathan included—turned to look up at their captain. A smirk crossed his face. He liked being in charge.

“Firstly,” he boomed, “I’d like to welcome our newest compatriot, Leviathan. Now I’m sure you gents are going to be very nice to the little lady, but if you’re not… well, I’ll let her take care of you. She can handle herself.” Down below, the small smile that the armored lady wore grew just a little bit wider, though she tried to shield it from Sparrow’s view.

“Secondly!” he continued, “I know we all got off on a bit of the wrong foot last time—don’t ask me how I know, just had a feeling—” the group chuckled just a bit below “—but I’d like to start off better this time by telling you exactly what the bloody hell is going on, savvy?” Any crew member that had continued trying to complete their task during the former part of Jack’s speech quickly stopped what they were doing and gave the greasy captain their full attention. “Y’see, mates,” Jack started, his voice getting a little softer, “I have lofty ambitions for us. Ambitions that aim to make us the greatest pirates in the Vasty Deep. In the whole bloody Omniverse.

“The road will not be easy. It will be fraught with terrors the likes of which none of us—yes, not even me, perhaps—have ever seen. But when we reach the end of our journey, it will have all been worth it. Every struggle, every insurmountable odd that we surmount, every crew member that nobly gives their life to the cause… everything will pay off.” Hushed whispers erupted across the crowd. Leviathan remained silent, staring up at Jack. He crouched down on the rail, as if to tell the crew a dirty little secret.

“Not all of us will make it out of this alive,” he warned them, “but all of us will make it out of this legends. Gents—and lady—you can be sure that when Captain Jack Sparrow reaches his goal, the Black Pearl will not only be the most feared pirate ship in all the verses, it will be the most powerful. That I promise.”

A voice piped up from the crowd.

“So what the fuck are we doin’?”

Sparrow’s eyes flitted over to the little crew member—a teenage boy whose name he couldn’t think of at the moment. Probably just a deck-swabber, but nonetheless, an important cog in the machine that was the Black Pearl.

Jack kept his eyes locked with the boy’s. “Very good question, son…” He stood back up, surveying the crowd. “Gents…” he started, and the crew waited with bated breath.

“We’re going to find that little white bastard,” he nodded, “We’re gonna find Omni.”

Activity burst forth from the crowd as they got excitable, trying to comprehend the weight of that statement. So that was what all of his crazy schemes had been about—he was trying to find Omni, the creator of the Omniverse and general master of their fates? Yes, Jack Sparrow answered inwardly, yes, it was. Now, he would not reveal to them the true root of his desire to find the glowing, smiling god, but at least now they knew the end goal.

“Gents,” he called out, waving his free hand to get their attention. The crew grew silent once more, and Jack began to hum. “Yo, ho, yo, ho… A pirate’s life for me! We’re devils and black sheep, we’re—”

“REALLY BAD EGGS!” Everyone, a shout.

Jack stepped back, off the railing. He finished, almost to himself: “Drink up, me hearties, yo ho.”

“Alright, you scallywags,” he smirked, leaning over and glancing at every single crew member in turn, “Back to work! Let’s get the bloody hell out of this shit hole!”

“Aye, aye, captain!”

[Tearen Wover]

As the Black Pearl began to embark, Millie did her best to assist with the matters of sailing as best she could. Behemoth had told her a little bit, and shown her the ropes, in a more literal sense than not, but she was far from a real sailor.

Regardless, her god-likr intelligence allowed her to learn at an amazing pace. Every movement, every flick of the wrist, was like a carefully calculated maneuver. She never made a single misstep, and had almost perfect retention...which made the crew a little suspicious. Had she been leading them on? Had she beguiled Captain Sparrow in some manner? Empire tricks? Who knew?

In addition to this, Leviathan's prickly nature did not mesh well with a team environment. It didn't matter how insignificant something was; she would try to outdo everyone else. After doffing her armor, she was much lighter on her feet, and even started to do some rigging work. As she sat on one of the booms for the topsail, an older man clambered up next to her. The sun was coming up at this point, and Leviathan had a distant look on her face.

"That sort of look in a young woman's eye...I seen it before." the old crust-buckey said, pulling a flask out of the inside of his pants and taking a swig. He held it out with a strong, yet shriveled arm towards the girl, but Leviathan waved it away.

"What about it?" she snapped, keeping her gaze fixed on the rising sun.

"Well, ol' Shiver Shin Sam, that's me, knows a storm brewing when he sees one, he does." the old man said with a wry grin. Leviathan shot him a deadly glare.

"And?"

"Well, lassie, I seen the way ye've been goin' about the Pearl. Can't let a body get the best o' you for any measure. That's the sign of some pain, says Shiver Shin."

"Are you some kind of pirate shrink? Because if not, you need to back off." Leviathan growled. Her gritted teeth flashed in the new daylight, and Sam let out a wistful sigh before moving to clamber up into the crow's nest.

"Nay, lass. I am but a humble watchman...but I sees more'n just gulls and clouds. I sees people. If'n you feel the urge t'speak sometime, ye'll have me ear." he said, his voice gradually getting lost in the whispering winds that blew through the thick canvas. Leviathan turned back to looking at the sun. Fuck him. Fuck everyone. No regrets. No looking back.

...and still...still she felt something in her chest. A tightness, some sort of biting anxiety. She didn't know why and it was burning her up. Leviathan knew it couldn't be because of anything from her past life...that had all been wiped. Right?

...

Well, the sun certainly wasn't offering any solutions. Leviathan made her way back down to the deck and towards a small little space she had made for herself under one of the jolly boats. She kissed Negotiator good night and laid back, against a pile of rope, slowly drifting off to sleep...

[Mickey Mouse]

Night set on the Black Pearl as it left Bilgewater behind, sailing into open waters with no sense of what direction it might be headed in. For his part, Captain Jack Sparrow could not fall asleep—he sat at his desk, poring over maps and charts and his compass that didn’t work, trying his best to think of a course for him and his crew to take. See, that was the thing about trying to find something that had never (or at least very rarely) been found—oftentimes, clues were nowhere to be found, or they were few and far between. Jack held out hope, though; conceivably, Omni was not unreachable. He just had to figure out where to even start looking.

Outside his cabin, a storm raged.

Loud claps of thunder broke the Captain’s concentration as he weighed the pirate vessel’s options. The storm rocked the ship, and a little part of Jack’s mind tugged at him to make sure the night crew took good care of the Pearl; sometimes, he feared his affection for the ship crossed over into obsession. He struggled to care, though—the Black Pearl had been with him for the greater part of his life in the Omniverse, and before, so why not make sure she was always in tip top shape?

A particularly noisy bang lit up the skies outside the cabin. It sounded, vaguely, like the lightning had crashed into something more solid than sea water. Light flashed in the windows, almost blinding Jack for a split second, and he decided, at last, to make his rounds on deck. Clumsily removing himself from his work, he swaggered through the door and out into the storm.

Rain pelted him from above, beating against him like he was some abusive man’s poor wife. The crew, for their part, were struggling to keep everything steady in the midst of the storm, and in that moment, the captain missed the seasoned pirates that he might have found back home, in the Caribbean. Sure, these guys looked pretty good at their jobs, but odds were most of them had only recently been summoned into the Omniverse, so they hadn’t really had time to perfect the art of sailing, or pillaging, or plundering, or anything pirates did. But they were all he had, so they would have to do.

He began shouting orders as the storm started to overwhelm his crew, trying his best to rein in the extreme chaos that had erupted after that last crack of lighting. Luckily, it hadn’t struck anywhere on his ship—but if it hadn’t hit the Pearl, then what solid thing had it set aflame?

In the distance, Jack saw a tiny little orange light careening on the surface of the ocean. He climbed up onto one of the railings of his ship and, balancing masterfully, pulled out his spyglass to get a closer look. Through the telescope’s foggy glass, he could see a ship burning vigorously, with a bunch of small boats paddling quickly away from it and towards the Black Pearl. In the darkness, he couldn’t make out the creatures on the little boats, but they seemed to be waving for help.

Goddamn it, why did he have to be such a nice pirate?

“Alright, lads, time to play rescue!” he shouted to the crew, “Everybody get our asses moving in that direction, savvy?” He pointed toward the shipwrecked creatures. The Black Pearl began to turn, making moves toward saving whoever these people were.

Jack took a position near the wheel as the tiny boats approached his monster of a ship. First Mate Farley led a bunch of crew members in the efforts to pull the group of tiny little beasts on board. They all looked vastly different from one another, the little buggers—they looked, vaguely, like humanoid animals of some sort, for the most part. Jack traced his memory, wondering what they could be, but Farley beat him to it.

“Captain, it’s a party of Pokémon!” he shouted, and the dreadlocked captain raised his eyebrows at the word. What the hell was a Pokémon? He’d seen them before, sure, but still had little idea what they were. The only thing he knew about the creatures were that there were two major factions of them in the Vasty Deep: Cinnabar Island, a peaceful haven for misfits and random creatures of all sorts, and something called the Pokémon Liberation Front, which from all the tales Jack had heard were quite violent.

The poor creatures looked too pathetic to be members of the Liberation Front, though. They all wore extremely sad faces and—

In that instant, the Charmeleon at the head of the pack reached into the pouch of his vest and pulled out a derringer pistol, wrapping his tail around Fire-Breath Farley’s wrist and pulling him close, digging the gun into the side of the first mate’s head. The other four Pokémon in the party also quickly unloaded weapons much more impressive than anything the crew of the Black Pearl had on hand.

“We’re taking over this ship.”

Bloody hell. Where was that bitch with the big gun when you needed her?

[Tearen Wover]

She was snoozing.

Leviathan had finished her ship's duties a while ago and taken it upon herself to indulge in some R&R. After all, someone in peak physical condition such as herself needed to get an appropriate amount of rest to let her body repair itself. Oh sure, some of the deck hands had accused her of being a lazy Imp, but when it came down to it, the proof was in the punching. Currently, she had secreted herself away inside of her favorite jollyboat, the tarp snugly fastened over the sides as the ship pitched violently in the storm. For all of the thundering lightning and rain, Leviathan actually found it quite soothing, especially with the firm, reassuring weight of Negotiator pressed against her side.

So, it was actually the absence of noice that caught her attention. The ship had seemed to hit a slightly less patch of sea, and she couldn't hear anyone yelling about stowing the topsails or...clubbing the...rudder....or whatever. This prompted the hunky girl to peer out from under the tarp of her boat bed. It looked as if suddenly there were some pokémon on board. Weird, but that didn't really...oh aaaand the lizard pulled a gun. Outstanding. Millie had heard of the Liberation Front before. Even though they were too wussy to attack Costa Del Sol itself, you heard about the occasional murder or two attributed to them. They didn't look all that intimidating in person; buncha squidgy looking marchmallow freaks. Still, if living with Behemoth had taught her anything, it was that things could get horribly violent very quickly. She'd have to be smart about this.

What the crew needed was a diversion, but nothing that seemed to be a direct retaliation to the Liberation assault; they were expecting that. Leviathan quickly devised a plan and nodded to herself. There was a thirty-nine percent chance of this working; good enough odds in her book. With careful movemens, she grabbed one end of her rope-pillow and fed it out through the tarp and over the side of the Pearl. Fastening the other end to an oar well, Millie quickly slipped through the opening and began to let herself down the rope along the side of the ship.

She was glad she wasn't wearing her armor, because otherwise this would have sucked. Dangling precariously, several meters above the waves, Millie waited for a flash of lightning to swing her form back towards the hull of the Pearl. With a desperate snatch, she grabbed the ledge of a cannon well and let go of the rope. She let out a deep grunt as she pulled herself up with one arm while opening the cannon hatch with the other.

The gunnery deck was poorly lit and mostly empty, but the important part was that it was dry. Leviathan quickly grabbed an entire barrel of black powder and stumbled over to the stairs. Navigating the ship as it tossed and turned while holding thirty pounds of weight was not intuitive for the muscular girl, but her sheer strength managed to see her to her next destination; the galley.

In the dim light of the kitchen, Millie rifled throuh creaking cabinets and moldy drawers, trying to find her prize. She repeatedly uncorked and opened flasks, sniffing them carefully.

Rum...rum...rum...rum...ah! Vinegar!

Leviathan then took the stopper out of the powder keg and poured some, haphazardly, on to the floor. The god-minded girl then poured the entire jar of vinegar into the powder keg, followed by packing the stopper hole full of a chunk of rock salt. Satisfied, Leviathan carried her makeshift bomb back up on to the gunnery deck and tossed it out of the gun well, hearing it splash into the cold, frothing sea a moment later.

Her heartbeat accelerated to its peak, hoping beyond hope that this would work...if it did, Behemoth would be proud. Millie could hear the sound of increased shouting on the deck right above her head, and the sound of loud stomping.

C'mon...c'mon...

And then it happened. The sound of a momentous explosion, though dull within the bowels of the ship, sounded off. She could hear everyone freeze, and chuckled to herself, imagining their confusion. What was that? Cannon fire? It had come from behind the Pearl. Was there another ship here?

"C'mon you idiots, now's your chance..." she murmured.

[Mickey Mouse]

Boom.

Captain Jack Sparrow’s attention immediately reverted to the Pearl at the sound of the huge explosion within the darker chambers of his ship; all of a sudden, the threat of some murderous Pokémon boarders seemed like a minor annoyance.

“What the bloody hell?” he scurried toward the door to the below decks. Charmeleon released Fire-Breath Farley, preferring instead to aim his gun at the good Captain. The lizard-like creature stepped in Jack’s way, placing his sights squarely at the pirate’s chest. For once in his life, Sparrow longed for the cursed Aztec gold that had gotten his crew into so much trouble back in the Caribbean. If the lizard shot at him, he’d surely die.

“Not so fast,” the creature hissed. “Somebody, go check and see what the fuck that was.” He glanced over at his four compatriots. The Kadabra wielding the big rocket launcher separated himself from the pack, approaching the trapdoor. Instinctively, Jack tried to move to stop him, but Charmeleon’s pistol raised once again. “I said stay here, Dreadlocks.”

“Actually, in all technicality, you said ‘not so fast,’” Sparrow quipped, but the Charmeleon’s snarl quickly lessened his desire to engage in any more sarcasm. “But really—it’s just—that big thing, in my ship,” he gestured lazily at the rocket launcher, “I’m afraid it’ll hurt her.”

“Good thing this isn’t your ship anymore,” Charmeleon shrugged, waving the Kadabra on. The psychic Pokémon opened up the trapdoor and made to go down the stairs.

Immediately, the door burst open in the creature’s face, knocking it back into the Charmeleon. The pair of Pokemon stumbled and fell, the Kadabra admirably holding on to the rocket launcher as it tumbled to the ground. Jack’s nerves went on high alert, but luckily nothing shot off. He breathed a sigh of relief, then turned back to the trapdoor to see Leviathan clambering out, dragging Negotiator behind her in one hand. She lifted it up and seared through Kadabra with one squeeze of the trigger, painting the top deck of the ship with the Pokémon’s blood. She leveled her gun at the other three.

Jack’s motley crew of pirates, their confidence renewed, whipped out their blades and pistols and aimed them for the heavily armed trio of Pokémon that remained. The captain, meanwhile, picked up the derringer pistol that Charmeleon had dropped and lorded himself over the lizard.

“This is always my ship, savvy?” Jack said, examining the gun. “Kinda small, don’t ye think, mate?” the pirate frowned, dripping with condescension.

“Fuck. You,” Charmeleon growled, opening up his maw and releasing a jet of hot, hot flame in Sparrow’s direction. The Captain leapt back, the heat unbearably close to his immaculate beard, and stumbled into Leviathan, sending the pair of them tumbling down the stairs into the lower decks. Above them, the absence of Negotiator had sent the whole top deck into a tizzy. The pair, now tangled in a mess at the bottom of the stairs, heard the Pokémon open fire.

“You fucking moron,” Leviathan grunted, shoving Jack off of her and hurrying back up the stairs.

“You’re the one who blew something up inside my ship!” Jack protested, but she paid him no mind. The Captain watched her not-so-womanly form lug the big gun back up to the open air, but he did not immediately follow; first, he slipped his hand in the pocket of his coat and pulled out a tiny compass that appeared to not work.

He examined it quickly, then a smile slipped onto his face. “That’s interesting,” he muttered to himself, “…that’s very interesting.”

The captain unsheathed his sword and hurried up to join the fray.

[Tearen Wover]

Leviathan stomped back up the creaky wooden steps, already slick with rain, firing Negotiator haphazardly in all directions. She didn't really care who she hit right now; she just needed a clear area to start clearing a perimeter. If someone was dumb enough to stay in the line of fire while the gatling laser was blazing, well, they had earned their death.

In accordance with a continuing desire to live, pokémon and pirate alike dove in every direction to get out of the way. Millie smirked to herself, her dark features illuminated by the red light blaring from the muzzle of the immense weapon. All of a sudden, Negotiator was yanked from her grasp by an unseen hand. Leviathan whirled around in fury, only to see her prized posession levitating into the awaiting hands of the Kadabra. Leviathan let out a savage screech and barreled towards the bushy-tailed psychic. It's eyes widened with fear, but was comforted as a nearby Carnivine snatched at the raging human girl with a vine whip attack.

The fly trap pokémon opened its oozing maw as Leviathan was dragged across the deck. The girl's eyes widened, but just as she was about to become brunch, the vines were severed at the stumps by a quick, graceful slice from Jack's sword. The captain was in a fight of blades with...who the fuck knew what, Millie didn't know all that much about these stupid animals. At any rate, the Carnivine was now standing on the deck, yowling stupidly and trying to rapidly regrow its vine arms.

Millie quick propped her self up into a three point stance and tackled the leafy beast head-on, pummeling it to the ground. The sharp, teeth-like barbs on its face cut into Millie's own rage-twisted features as it ineffectually gnashed and spat at her. The human girl did not let up on her assault of brutal punches until the blasted thing no longer had a twitch to offer.

By this point, Leviathan, despite her battle rage, was curious why Negotiator hadn't offered any of his insight into the tossing and turning deck. She whipped around, rain diluting the oozing blood on her face, searching for the fluffy yellow bastard that had taken him. She saw the dumbass fiddling with the myraid buttons and levers on the weapon's console, trying to figure out which one made it fire.

The kadabra looked up at Leviathan with a strained look on its otherwise serene features as shook and jiggled every knob on Negotiator, and yet, nothing seemed to work. Finally, he tossed the machine to the side and whipped out a pair of...fucking spoons? Seriously. Leviathan began to laugh, but suddenly she was tipped on her head by more psychic power.

Getting tired of these ESPer shenanifucks, the girl knocked over a nearby barrel of deck sand and kicked it at the stupid monkey, causing the kadabra to momentarily jump out of the way. This split second gap in its attention allowed Millie to lunge, prone, over to where Negotiator lay and pull BOTH the primer AND the trigger, sending a burst of red death lancing through the psychic's drenched, saffron coat.

Millie quickly hauled herself to her feet and laughed.

"...and THAT-" she was cut off by an ear splitting cracking sound, and the world seemed to flash. The girl staggered forwards, he body numb. Had lightning just struck the ship? Leviathan looked around warily, and saw that the charmeleon was pointing his gun at her. It wasn't one the useless, large bore flintlocks that the pirates used. It was a modern, efficient, deadly hand magnum. Millie grew aware of a heaviness in her chest and looked down to see blood trickling out of the side of her armor.

Oh...

Well then...

Focusing her pain, Millie brought Negotiator to bear on the red lizard. The pokémon fired off another round from his gun. This one too connected with Leviathan's body, but it hit one of the curved armor plates and deflected off into the stormy sky. Growling, almost inaudibly, Millie unleashed her remaining ammo on the charmeleon. He was a fire type, so obviously the superheated plasma was not very effective...but it was harmful enough that it caused the scarlet lizard to slowly back up against the railing of the Black Pearl, dropping his weapon so as to shield his body from the worst of the assault.

When the Liberation Front squad leader opened his eyes, he saw her. Leviathan. She towered over him, her braided locks soaked and enwreathing her dark face. A flash of lightning illuminated her eyes; they seemed to flash with an inner light, like a predator in the night. In desperation, the pokémon sucked in a breath to try and murder this...human terror. It was to bo avail, as she summarily grabbed him fully by the throat, stunting the forlorn inhalation. With calculated deliberation, Millie slowly hefted the charmeleon up over the railing with a single hand. They locked eyes once more, before Leviathan released the fiery low life into the sea.

A flaming breath of anguish heralded the lizards doom, which was followed in an instant by a splash of sea spray and steam.

...

"That's three for me Jack, how you doin'?" Leviathan said, whipping around with a beaming smile. This was getting fun!

[Tearen Wover]

Millie frowned at the lack of response from the Captain, and strained her eyes in the precipitous darkness in an effort to locate the shaggy miscreant. She took a step forward and winced, doubling over in pain as the shallow bullet wound in her abdomen reminder her of its presence. It was even more unexpected when she sank to the deck on one knee, with the edges of her vision going blurry. Oh god...no. The armor should have protected her better than this! She couldn't be about to...oh god...

...

...except, no. That wasn't what was happening. To Millie's own perception she was fading into unconsciousness...but what was happening on the outside was far more sinister. There was screaming...a terrible pitched screaming that permeated the deck. Everyone froze and looked to its source. It was the crazy human girl, but it was not another mere battle cry. Something was happening to her. The seams of her metallic armor were splintering as her bodg contorted and warped into abominable shapes. She keelee forwards and retched loudly as a multitude of writhing tendrils burst from her unhinged jaw, each one shrieking with its own, spine toothed mouth. The horror was indescribable, an aberration of the Omniverse whose own wretchedness was thrown into start contrast by the vicious lightning and pelting rain that framed the dour scene. Some of the pirates began firing on the creature, determined to slay the abomination. There was no sense in believing that, just because the wobbling mass of feelers and warped appendages had sprung from the young body of one of their new crew mates that it would spare them its wrath. The Pokémon of the Frontier began assailing the monstrosity in kind. All at once, some sort of trunk, or spine of some sort extruded itself from the popping, clicking exoskeleton that was the beasts back. Grafted inside the mass of writhing flesh was an object of cold, hard metal. The Negotiator.

The sound was best left not described as the energy cannon tore into the collected assailants with feral intent, even as the slithering mound flopped messily off the deck of the Black Pearl. It slid into the ocean like a greasy wad of offal, the red hot glow of Negotiator sinking quickly into the nameless depths below, and in a following instant, The Leviathan was gone. All was silent, save for sea and storm...

[Mickey Mouse]

Well, here was a sentence Jack never thought he would say: the Pokémon were just too strong for him.

Well, that, and the sheer shock plastered on his face after seeing Leviathan transform into, well, a literal Leviathan. What the bloody hell had happened to the girl? One second, she’d been bragging about how many kills she’d made—albeit to no one, as the captain had ended up quite far away from her in the scope of things—and the next, tentacles had started popping up out of her like daisies.

Seriously, he had seen some weird things in his days, but nothing would compare to the shit he’d seen since arriving in the Omniverse. This whole entire universe seemed to conspire towards the strange. Jack may have had an affinity for weird things, but even he had almost been overwhelmed.

Beat back by the shockwaves of a very angry Raichu, a stunned Jack found himself tumbling off of his perch on the higher deck. He fell fast and hard, slamming into the wooden planks below. The impact sent his brain into a tizzy not unlike one he may have contracted from drinking too much rum, but combined with the pain of a ten-foot fall, he found himself much more unable to curb its effect. For a few moments, he squirmed on the deck, the warriors of the Pokémon Liberation Front gathering around him. His eyes fell to the edge of the boat—his only option for escape.

If he could just get up.

He rolled in the direction of the sea, but stopped in his tracks as an orange claw reached over the side of the ship and dragged itself aboard.

What? the pirate captain thought, flabbergasted, …but Leviathan killed that creature. I watched ‘er make ‘im walk the plank. Nevertheless, the Charmeleon yanked itself up onto the deck, and then pushed itself upright. The flame on its tail still burnt, which could only mean one thing: it hadn’t fallen quite as far as the sea monster bitch hoped.

“Jack, Jack, Jack,” Charmeleon smirked.

“That’s…” the dreadlocked man sputtered, holding up a finger limply, “…that’s Captain Jack, Jack, Jack to you, mate.”

Charmeleon snickered. “It’s about to be Dead Jack. How does that sound?”

The pirate pursed his lips. “Not too good.”

“Mhm,” Charmeleon grinned, marching toward Captain Jack Sparrow and reaching down to pick up the nearest gun. Slowly but surely, the lizard encroached upon the pirate and lifted up the weapon, pressing it squarely into the man’s forehead. “Any last words, Sparrow?” the Pokémon asked.

Jack looked up and met Charmeleon’s eyes. “Parley?”

The lizard’s expression dropped. “…shit.”

* * *

Charmeleon led Captain Jack Sparrow and First Mate Farley—the only other surviving member of the Black Pearl’s crew, save Leviathan—down a dimly lit hallway. The pair had been blindfolded the entire time, so they had no idea where the crew of roughed up Pokémon had taken them, but wherever it was, it certainly was ominous. Jack only wished the Black Pearl carried this sort of ambiance with it. Perhaps he needed to hire a better interior designer.

At the end of the hall, the orange-skinned lizard jerked the blindfolds off of the pirates and they found themselves staring at a large set of rustic-looking double doors. If his hands hadn’t been tied up snugly behind his back, Jack may have been tempted to run his fingers along the wood.

“Is that mahogany?” he asked genuinely, but Charmeleon’s sour expression implied he had no intention of answering. “Bloody hell, just looking for new facing for me ship.”

“You’re never seeing that schooner again,” Charmeleon hissed, his eyes narrowing at the pirate. Jack sighed. That may have been what the lizard thought, but the pirate had more confidence in his abilities than that. He’d been separated from his lady love many times before, but he always managed to make it back in one piece. If he had to find a turtle and use it as a raft, he would go that far.

Slowly, one of the doors opened and an Alakazam peered out.

“He’s ready,” the magician said to the lizard. Charmeleon nodded.

“The Warlord will see you now,” the orange-skinned creature said, beckoning them into the hall. Jack stepped through the opening of the door, but one of Charmeleon’s claws blocked Fire-Breath Farley from entering. “Just the Captain.”

Jack and Farley shared a worried look, but eventually, the Captain knew he had to continue forward. He turned around and began his trek again, slowly seeing the creature at the end of the long hall, positioned on a rather large chair. It seemed to be… a sort of anthropomorphic turtle, and Jack’s mind immediately imagined using it as his raft; though he imagined it wouldn’t come quietly. Flanking it to one side was Alakazam, and on the other, a gargantuan creature that Sparrow didn’t recognize. It looked like it had been to the gym too many times in the past few months.

“Who’s this motherfucker?” the turtle squawked.

“Jack Sparrow, a pirate,” Alakazam replied.

“Captain Jack Sparrow!”

[Proto Man]

The fuck is this?

Wartortle looked down at the shackled human as it was shoved down to its knees at the base of his throne.

“What the fuck is this garbage doing in my throne room?” The Turtle Pokémon demanded, glancing to the junior office who had dropped off the prisoner.

Charmeleon smiled faintly and reached into Captain Jack’s pocket.

“’Ey, mitts off the goods!”

The Captain’s protests were met with a blunt impact to the back of his head as the lizard grabbed the compass from the pirate’s pocket and tossed it at the feet of his leader. With a puzzle expression on his face, Wartortle stood up from his throne, and it was then that Jack noticed what material from which the chair was made.

“Bone? Huh, why have I never thought of that? How you get it to stick together so nice, mate?”

“Shut your mouth, Homo sapiens!” The turtle barked as he looked down at the compass. Clawed fingers closed around the lid and lifted it up, revealing a very old-looking compass that seemed to twirl of its own accord. Wartortle snickered as the wooden ‘needle’ came to a stop.

“You know what that does, Warlord?” Alakazam inquired as a smile spread beneath the Psychic Pokémon’s large mustache.

The leader of the Liberation Front flashed a smile filled with fangs as he glanced over at his lieutenant. “Of course.”

From his spot on the floor, Captain Jack Sparrow chimed into the conversation. “S’been broken since I got to this place, mates.” Wartortle knelt down and let the pirate watch the compass needle fidget back and forth, eliciting a pair of wide eyes from Jack Sparrow. “How’d you do that?”

“Spoilers,” Wartortle growled as he smacked the compass shut and stuffed it into his pocket. “Anyway… get rid of this filth. Go lock him up in the hold and then make sure he winds up in the dungeon.”

“With pleasure,” Charmeleon muttered before smashing his elbow into the base of Jack’s neck.

[Mickey Mouse]

Captain Jack Sparrow awoke in the deepest, darkest dungeon he had ever laid eyes on. Not that he could really lay eyes on this one, either—it was too bloody dark for even his well-trained eyes to make anything out.

“…’ello?” he called into the nothingness. “Anybody out there? No? Right-o.”

A faint orange glow appeared across the room, behind what looked to be a doorway. Ever so slightly, it creaked open.

The flame on Charmeleon’s tail flickered just bright enough for the lizard to be recognizable to the pirate. His pointy teeth bared in a menacing smirk, Wartortle’s snarkiest lieutenant stalked toward the bars separating Jack from the rest of the completely unlit chamber.

“Good morning, Captain Sparrow,” he hissed.

“Is it morning? I can’t really tell—y’know, ‘cause I’ve got no windows?” Jack cocked his head, “…and thank ye for calling me Captain.”

“You’d like windows?” Charmeleon’s brow quirked curiously.

“If’n ye don’t mind, of course,” Jack quickly added, “Seein’ as I’m your prisoner and what not.”

“I’m sure you would like windows,” the lizard pursed its lips, “But you see, the boss man has a thing against Homo sapiens. So you won’t be afforded any of the traditional amenities normally given to a prisoner. He’s decided that you’re going to suffer in all of the worst ways imaginable, in fact. So I’d get comfortable here in the dark. You know, as much as you can, Jack.”

“Ey, mate, I don’t know what sapiens means, but you can be sure that I’m definitely not homo—” Jack began, but was quickly silenced by a plume of flame dancing between the bars. If he hadn’t jumped back as quick as he had, he may have been scorched himself.

The pirate slunk back into darkness, a scowl crossing his face. Just beyond the wall of his cage, Charmeleon’s obnoxious little snicker echoed in the cavernous chamber.

“See you later,” the lizard Pokémon whipped around, heading for the door. Captain Jack Sparrow felt his stomach tie itself up in a knot. How the hell was he going to get out of this one? It wasn’t like he could use a turtle raft to escape from a pretty impenetrable-looking cell. The walls of the chamber were made of some pretty formidable-looking stone, and without his weapons, he didn’t have a prayer in the world of trying to break through them. Hell, even with his weapons, he didn’t think he’d have much of a shot. Why was Wartortle so keen to keep him locked up, anyway? Suddenly, memories of the incident just before he’d been knocked unconscious flooded back into the captain’s brain.

“You know what that does, Warlord?” the wizard Pokémon had asked.

Wartortle’s turtle lips had curled into a devious smirk. “Of course.”

“Oy, mate!”

Charmeleon spun around just as his claw reached for the door handle, obviously irritated that Jack had interrupted his triumphant exit. “…what?” he asked irately. Jack scurried up to the bars and poked his nose as far as he could through them.

“…what does that compass do, exactly?” he asked, and the lizard Pokémon scowled. “Ah,” Jack continued, the realization hitting him, “you don’t know.”

He supposed it was a good secret to keep. For his part, Jack didn’t exactly know what the compass did, but he’d begun to get his suspicions. And if Wartortle was keeping it even from some of his most highly ranked operatives, well… it was certainly the key to quite the risky venture. Charmeleon did not enjoy the knowing grin that was now plastered on Sparrow’s face, so without another word, he spun around and slammed the door, leaving the pirate in total darkness.

So the compass didn’t point north. But it did point somewhere.

Fin.