Hello people! Sorry it's been so long. Welcome to what is likely to be the final instalment! As usual, I don't own RWBY, Pirates of the Caribbean, or How to Train Your Dragon... that much hasn't changed. Sadly. Oh, and an early happy new year! I hope you don't wake up tomorrow feeling as bad as poor Jack...
Jack awoke feeling possibly more awful than ever before.
His head pounded. His throat was dry. Breathing was a little tricky. His hands were tied awkwardly behind his back.
Worst of all was the nagging feeling of absence at his left hip – the lack of his sword.
He decided to open his eyes.
He'd never regretted a decision more.
The bleary deck of an old, mossy ship swam into view, practically rotting beneath his legs. His eyes confirmed that his sword was gone. Even worse, his chest was constricted by coils of mould-spotted rope, and he recognised that the cylindrical shape pressing into his back was the mast of a ship.
He was tied to the central mast aboard the ship of Davy Jones himself, the shepherd of souls now consigned to the bizarre otherworld of his own locker.
Bugger.
It was a start, at least. And while buggery was probably on his list at some point, Jack needed an escape plan.
Think, Jack, think.
Jack noticed the unfamiliar shape of the collapsed bronze telescope in the big top pocket of his white shirt; the weight pressed painfully into the right side of his chest. They'd taken his sword, but clearly whoever had searched him hadn't realized the telescope was a threat.
However, he had absolutely no way of getting to it.
What's it matter anyway? There's no rum, and that's far more important, Jack thought. I wonder if Qrow has got out of that cage yet? I wonder if he's been sold as a pet?
Jack chuckled.
At least he saw me get kidnapped. And neither Torchwick nor the parasol girl know he was in the room! Ocean almighty, I'm going to slap those two bilge-rats so hard when I next see them, Jack grumbled to himself.
No, Qrow would certainly be alert. He would be getting help. Qrow would let Ruby, Blake, Yang and the princess know what was going on.
All he had to do was wait here, pretending to be unconscious so Jones wouldn't kill him (he knew that man's penchant for monologuing), and help would arrive.
That's right. That's the noble solution. That's what any sailor worth his salt would do, Jack assured himself. Qrow will be getting help right now… I know it.
Qrow was asleep.
He was curled up in a bird cage, hair peeking through the top bars where it rested painfully in the back left corner.
An annoyed parrot ruffled it's feathers in the very little space left in the cage.
"DON'T BOTHER THE ANIMALS!" it shrieked into Qrow's ear.
"HOOOOOOOLLLYYYYYY S" – Qrow woke with a start, flinging himself away from the alarming shriek, losing his balance and knocking the cage to the ground with a deafening crash, panicked wing flaps and puff of feathers.
Still, the cage door was closed.
"What on earth is going on?"
The shopkeeper stormed in to see a middle-aged man with red eyes locked in the parrot cage.
"…How did you even get in there?"
"Don't ask, just open the damn thing. I've had a rough night," Qrow muttered.
"You're not the only one," the shopkeeper grumbled, opening the cage door.
Qrow turned back into a crow, fluttered out of the cage and elongated back into human form. He stretched.
"Argh, that really screws up your back. Sorry about all that. What was I doing here again?" he asked.
"You were drunk," the shopkeeper sighed.
"I'm always drunk," Qrow replied.
"You went to the antique shop with that other odd-looking guy" –
"Jack!" Qrow exclaimed. "He's been taken."
"Yeah. Now get out of my shop. I have your mess to clean up."
Qrow didn't need to be told twice. He took off out the door and down the street (literally).
(Then he realized he didn't need to fly or run all the way to Beacon. That would be silly. He got out his scroll and phoned Ruby).
All Yang heard was Ruby's high, worried voice say "Oh no! What are we going to do?" before she rounded the corner into the dormitory, grey eyes wide. She was hanging up a call on her scroll. Blake closed her book and Weiss turned from her desk.
"What is it?" she asked coldly. Yang recognised the signature harshness in Weiss's voice that she always used to conceal concern.
"Jack's been kidnapped! Well, he's not a kid, so middle-aged-napped, pirate-napped maybe, but you know what I mean! He's been taken by Neo and Roman! Qrow just told me."
"Why didn't Qrow do anything about it!?" Weiss snapped.
"He said he was… trapped in a bird cage?" Ruby mused. "Line was bad. He probably didn't say that.
Anyway, it was supposed to be our responsibility to protect him!"
"There's no use wondering what could have been," Yang said. She'd jumped off the bed and was putting on her boots, packing her scroll and shoving a cartoonishly big pile of ammo into her bag from under her bunk bed. "Where is he now?"
Weiss was dialling a number on her scroll.
"I don't know! Qrow doesn't know!" Ruby exclaimed.
"Headmaster? Yes, this is Weiss Schnee," Weiss said in her perfectly proper accent, holding her scroll in one hand and pulling on one of her high-heeled boots with the other. "Of course it's important. It's a red alert! Mr Sparrow has been kidnapped by Roman Torchwick and an accomplice – Neapolitan."
She paused. "They were out in the town yesterday night. Where might he have been taken?"
Weiss's face grew increasingly worried as she listened to Ozpin's reply.
"Oh," she said simply, lips pursed. "The orders have been understood, Headmaster."
Weiss hung up.
"Ozpin says it's the strange ship on the horizon. That's where he's been taken. Furthermore, there are Grimm sightings out in the water, all around this ship. The Grimm seem… they seem to be taking orders from somebody on the ship. We've been ordered to go and fight – kill the Grimm, recover Mr Sparrow – with Team JNPR. Ozpin and Glynda are getting there as fast as they can."
"Team RWBY assemble!" Ruby shouted.
"Assembling!" Yang shouted, trying to fit even more ammo in her bag.
"Yang, that's too much ammo," Blake said, putting a gentle hand on Yang's as a few stray bullets rolled out from under the bed.
Yang grinned. "Nope, I think what you're clearly trying to say is: 'Yang, you need a bigger bag'."
"Jack Sparrow!" Davy Jones announced accusingly, a deathly pale, tentacle-like finger pointing directly at his prisoner. The whole crew had gathered around. A few smirked or chuckled cruelly, eyeing the helpless, sleeping man tied to the mast.
"You terrible, backhanded scourge upon the ocean! What a cheater, a traitor, a…"
Davy Jones trailed off, as Jack hadn't moved or responded at all to this summons. He tried again.
"Jack Sparrow!" he announced grandiosely, pointing once again.
Nothing.
"Louder, perhaps, Captain?" the one with the shark head asked.
Jones looked at him, nodded, and bellowed: "JACK SPARROW!"
He still didn't move.
Davy Jones looked around, sighed, then shuffled his feet.
"Alright men," he said. "All together now. WAKE UP JACK!"
"WAKE UP JACK!" the entire crew bellowed.
Reminds me of a kid's show, Jack thought, again demonstrating his perchant for knowing things he shouldn't know, trying his utmost not to giggle.
"Maybe he's dead, sir," another crew member said.
"I'll go and check," Jones sighed.
"No! Not the tentacles!" Jack shrieked, eyes boggling. He tried to wave his arms around to express his dissatisfaction with that idea, but discovered he couldn't. "Look mate, whatever beastie you've got in store, keep your dirty great tentacle face away from me."
"Ouch," one of the crew members said in a whisper at the back.
"Jack Sparrow!" Jones began, "You terrible, backhanded" –
"I think you mean blackhanded," Jack corrected, "Because of the Black Spot you put on it. But don't blame me for that. You're the one that did it."
Jones's forehead was lined with confusion. "No, I did mean back"-
"Of course, that led to me getting eaten by your great big evil beastie," Jack continued, "And that wasn't really all that much fun at all, to be honest" –
"Now hold on" – Jones began.
"I mean, imagine it. You haven't been eaten by a big beastie. Certainly, you were drowned in a giant whirlpool. But you're a sailor. You're THE Davy Jones. You're supposed to be able to at least swim" –
"Shut up!" Jones growled, tentacle-beard writhing. "This was supposed to be MY monologue! Besides… lots of sailors can't swim," he added.
"Whatever the case, it is time for me to take my revenge! Yes, your friendly Davy Jones, Will Turner, my successor, sails upon the seas of light. But I live on in the locker, the seas of the dark… and I will destroy you for once and for all!" Jones exclaimed.
All around him, giant Grimm reared from the ocean. There was one like the Kraken, certainly, but there was also what looked like a giant black and white dragon and a giant black jellyfish with tentacles zooming downwards into the deep sea.
"Which beastie is it today, then?" Jack asked faintly.
"Oh, the one that kills you shall be my new Kraken," Jones explained. As the shark-headed crew member cut Jack's bonds, Jones threw him his sword –
"You're about to fight a battle one against fifty-four, Jack," Jones intoned. "If I were you, I'd surrender yourself to the Kraken."
"Hem hem. Make that fifty-four against twelve!" Jaune exclaimed, swinging down from the rigging.
It was truly inspiring until he hit the main mast and slid down it face-first.
"Fourteen, if you count both of my gauntlets," Yang said, cocking them both. "And you should."
Then she began to open fire on the Grimm from the top of the rigging.
How they'd all got up there, Jack didn't know, but suddenly it was raining super-teenagers with brightly-coloured hair. Nora sailed through the sky, landing on the jellyfish Grimm, whacking it with her hammer and shouting "DIE, EVIL PANCAKE!"
"En-guarde!" Weiss exclaimed, drawing her rapier against five of the crew members. She was soon lost in a thicket of rusting blades, darting like a white bird in and out.
Speaking of birds, Qrow had face-palmed at Jaune's entrance before swooping from the mast and landing on-deck. He threw Jack a few ruby-coloured cylinders – "These should help you out."
Then he ran to the edge of the ship and leapt off, scythe unfolding, soaring through the air towards the Kraken.
Jack took out the telescope, pressed the button, opened the cap and shoved the red cylinders inside.
"What are they?!" Jones was spluttering, staring at the strange gatecrashers.
"On my side," Jack answered, before shooting at Jones. Explosions of ruby-coloured sparks and fire burst out of the brass telescope. Jones was blown backwards.
The green-haired guy, Ozpin, was here too, Jack noticed, attacking the water-dragon, Blake was swinging around the ship using long black bands as anchors and Ruby was on-deck, fighting the crew with a girl who was wearing Greek armour.
"Bumblebee!" Yang yelled from the top of the rigging. Blake's black bands wrapped around Yang's waist and swung her off the rigging towards the Kraken in a big arc, Yang firing at it all the while until the bands deposited her back on the rigging.
"White Rose!" Ruby yelled, and Weiss's strange white glyphs formed at one end of the ship. Ruby turned to a red blur, zooming up the ship, hitting the glyphs and bouncing back, knocking anything in her path off the ship.
"Break His Legs!" Yang yelled. Jack looked around to see whose legs were about to get it, but instead Nora flew through the air and hit Yang with her hammer, knocking her off the rigging and down to the deck. Jack was about to rush to her assistance, but she was already getting up with a pained grin – her clothes slightly singed and hair flaming, she punched the nearest crew member into a wall with the strength of ten men.
"Bird Brain!" Qrow yelled. Jack looked around, wondering how he could attack the Grimm.
"That's you!" Qrow hollered and Jack found himself catapulted into the air, courtesy of gravity dust from Qrow's scythe.
"ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Jack screamed, wilding firing at the Kraken as he soared towards it.
"Good job Jack!" Ruby cried from somewhere.
Jack pressed the second button on his telescope and it extended into a bronze staff with blades on both ends. When he landed atop the slimy, roaring Kraken, he knifed it with his staff. It shrieked, and he lost his footing, boots covered in slime, falling towards the ocean depths.
"QROW!" he yelled.
Instead, a white circle of glyphs formed beneath him, and as he hit it, Jack was bounced into the air again and towards the ship.
"ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
"And that's what you call Iceliner," Weiss said with a haughty smile as Jack crashed at her feet.
"Thanks, love."
Things were going well. The three Grimm were taking serious damage, half of the crew was unconscious, Yang didn't even remotely look as if she was running out of ammo and Jaune had finally come to. So naturally, that was the moment when:
"AH HA HA HA HA!"
Roman, Neo and two other figures had appeared at the top of the rigging. Roman, of course, was the one cackling in a truly melodramatic manner.
"It seems your luck has just taken a turn for the worse, Hunters!"
"How do you all keep getting up there without anyone else noticing?" Jack said to himself.
"Get off there, rich toff!" Yang said and blasted Roman off the rigging (she'd picked it up from Jack).
The other two figures were green and grey, and both had short hair. The green one looked kind of like a pirate, which made Jack a little nervous. They joined the fray and disappeared in a flash. Neo jumped off the rigging too and floated down on her parasol, then began to fence Weiss with her umbrella.
All of a sudden, the black sea dragon reared for the ship. The wave it caused nearly upturned the boat.
"NOT MY SHIP, YOU BEAST!" Jones said, awakening from his coma, drawing his sword and shaking it at the monster. "YOU TAKE ORDERS FROM ME!"
It lurched down with jaws open towards the ship.
"Screw it," Roman said. He began to fire into the dragon's mouth with his cane.
"We're supposed to be helping the Grimm!" the pirate-like girl yelled.
"Well, I don't fancy dying today, dear, so Cinder's going to have to take 'no' as an answer," Roman called back. "You and Mercury help hammerwoman and kitty-cat with the jellyfish, Neo – help the good witch with the octopus."
"Wait, wait, so we're not fighting each other?!" Weiss exclaimed.
"It's not that we're not fighting each other, ice queen," Roman announced, barely audible under the sound of gunshots.
…"It's that we're all prioritizing the extinguishment, or in some capacity cancellation, of the three large beasties that surround our comparatively small ship," Jack explained, shooting the dragon too. "Pirate logic."
"He's got it," Roman nodded. "Roman Sparrow!"
How is everyone adlibbing these team attack names, and how do we all instantly know what to do? Jack wondered briefly, continuing to fire his own weapon straight ahead at the dragon, before Roman fired a shot over his shoulder. It bounced off the bronze of Jack's staff to the right, hitting the Kraken.
"One down!" Nora exclaimed, soaring through the air and landing back on deck. The black-and-pink-haired one, Blake, Mercury and the pirate-girl followed.
Sure enough, the jellyfish was dissolving in a giant puff of black smoke.
"Just a sec," Yang's voice yelled, and then, with a final eardrum-tearing scream, the Kraken also sunk back to the depths. She, the stern one with glasses and Neo landed back on board. Neo leered at Jack's piece of eight. Jack gave the 'I'm watching you' finger gesture. Neo stuck her tongue out at him.
"Aaaaaaaannd… That's three," Ozpin finished, somersaulting over the dragon's hulking body as it dissolved.
In the silence, all the combatants stared at each other awkwardly.
Ruby was the first to put away her weapon. Ozpin followed. Then, slowly, everyone else followed suit, until they were all standing there, perfectly unarmed.
"Well, this has been an interesting time," Jack said.
The second to speak was Davy Jones.
"And who may y'all be, hmm? Storming aboard my ship? Attacking my men?"
"We are the hunters and huntresses of Beacon," Weiss said. "It's our responsibility to protect the town, and those under our care."
She gestured towards Jack.
"Miss Schnee is quite right," Ozpin said, sipping his coffee, which had seemingly materialized out of nowhere. "I know you understand this to be your land, Jones, but you are no longer in possession of the heart. You no longer have the authority to command a Kraken. You have made your peace with Calypso… And Jack now languishes here, in your locker, on a quest for a map it is unlikely he will ever find. Mr Sparrow knows of his shortcomings. Does he not?"
"Oh yes, my comings are very short," Jack assured Jones, who did not seem convinced.
"You have won, Jones," Ozpin said gently. "Go peacefully."
Jones thought about it for a moment.
"Arghh," he grumbled, "I'll go in peace. But you, Jack Sparrow, must never darken my deck again!"
"I shan't be darkening any decks," Jack muttered appeasingly.
"Good. Now get off my ship! All of you!" he spat. "I have men to attend to."
"Great! Drinks all round!" Jack exclaimed. He thought for a second. "If we can get back to the bar. How did you all even get here?"
"Fired off a cliff," Ozpin said shortly, sipping coffee.
"Even you?"
"Yes," Ozpin confirmed.
"Even them?" Jack asked, nodding towards Roman, Neo, Mercury and the pirate-like one, who huddled to one side of the deck.
"Them too," Ozpin confirmed.
"Well, how are we going to get back?" Jack asked.
"Swim," Jones suggested bitterly.
"It'll be easy. There's plenty of canons," Yang said brightly.
"Load them in!" Jones said.
"Wait!" Jack exclaimed, but was seized by Jones and Ozpin.
Struggling, he could see Roman being manhandled by Neo and Mercury, Nora and Ruby frogmarching Weiss and Yang cheerfully jumping into a canon of her own accord.
They shoved Jack, chuckling, into a canon.
BOOM!
The first person had already shot off towards the coast. Judging by the posh, high-pitched scream, it was probably Roman.
BOOM!
"YAHOOO!" Yang yelled as she soared into the sky.
"I personally think" –
"Fire!" Jones commanded.
BOOM!
"ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Jack screamed as the explosion nearly deafened him.
"LANDING STRATEGY!" Qrow yelled from somewhere.
Jack had still had no idea how to do this. So he aimed for Roman.
Crunch.
"OWWWWWWW not agaaaaaaain," Roman moaned as Jack bowled him over, into the grass, trying to neaten his bright orange hair.
"I suppose this is the point where I give you a cheeky wink and say something quippy while pretending I haven't got internal bleeding," he gasped.
Jack slapped him.
"That was for kidnapping me."
"…I probably deserved that," Roman muttered.
Jack kissed him.
"…And that was for everything else."
Having thus made a How to Train Your Dragon reference and this a slash fanfic, Jack leapt up and ran away.
"Haven't you forgotten something, Mr Sparrow?" Roman called, dangling Jack's piece of eight. He threw it to Neo.
"Oh come ON," Roman began, but was promptly hit by Qrow.
"Not enough rum for this," Jack muttered into the grass.
"So," Weiss said, "That's it then?"
"Yep," Yang replied. "Jack's no longer under the protection of Beacon. He's going to continue his search for a strange map. He asked me if I wanted to be part of his crew… I said I'd consider it in a few years."
"Bars are so noisy," Weiss remarked, turning up her nose and sipping her drink. "How old are we? Old enough to be in a nightclub?"
"I dunno," Yang said, "But Jack did say drinks all round, so here I am. Where is he anyway?"
"I think I saw him trying to dance with Qrow and Nora," Blake said, sitting next to them.
"I thought I saw him kissing Roman Torchwick in a corner," Ruby added, also joining them, "But it was pretty dark, and that's completely silly! That would never happen."
"Whatever the case, sounds like our funny pirate friend is having fun. Want to dance?" Yang asked.
"Sure," said Blake.
"Let's have a dance-off with Team JNPR!" Ruby said excitedly.
"They're going to win," Weiss said grumpily.
"Don't think like a loser Weiss! Come on!"
Yep, I decided to jump aboard the ship Roman Sparrow in the end because why not? Stranger things have happened, on stranger tides. Have a nice day!
