"Who is it?" Susan asked nervously as they rowed as quickly as they could back to the Pearl.
"Sao Feng, one of the nine pirate lords." Barbossa answered.
"I take it he is one of the more disagreeable lords who throws his two shillings in only if he ends up the highest bidder." Edmund remarked.
"You just summed up the entire Brethren Court, Edmund." Jack chuckled. "Every pirate lord is out only for the benefit of himself and his crew."
"Aye. Like a pack of vultures." Reepicheep said, from standing on top of Barbossa's hat.
"Eh, more like juvenile scamps at the sight of a disposed smoking pipe." Jack corrected him.
"This ought to be good." Peter rolled his eyes.
They heard men shouting loudly as they drew in closer. As they climbed up to deck, Elizabeth and several members of the crew were being held back by their arms. Edmund's face fell in dismay when he saw Elizabeth in her predicament. "Get your hands off her!" He ordered, drawing his sword. The men laughed at him and two of them grabbed him from behind.
"Edmund!" Lucy cried.
"Release him!" Susan demanded, aiming her bow at her brother's assailants. Sao Feng came up from behind and lowered her bow.
"I think you will find that rather futile, miss." He told her. Susan glared at him. Barbossa finally appeared, with Jack shyly huddling behind him for safety. Peter got in Barbossa's face.
"You said he was one of the pirate lords!" Peter hollered. Once again, fraternizing with these pirates had gotten them into another mess. Barbossa merely turned up his nose, squinting down at Peter then addressed their distinguished visitor.
"Sao Feng? You showin' up here is truly a remarkable coincidence." Barbossa greeted nonchalantly.
"Tell your men to unhand Prince Edmund, or suffer the consequences!" Peter demanded to Sao Feng.
"Prince?" Sao Feng scorned.
"They be the high kings and queens of Narnia itself." Barbossa explained. "They have no bearings on the gathering of the Brethren Court. Ye can let the whelp go." Edmund scowled at being called a whelp, again. Sao Feng nodded to his men. Edmund shook his head at them in annoyance as he stepped protectively between his sisters. Reepicheep still stood on top of Barbossa's hat.
"You harm these kings and queens, my lord, and it is Aslan you will be answering to!" Reepicheep threatened to Sao Feng.
"So, you have stooped down to allying with rodents now, eh, Barbossa?" He teased. Barbossa flicked the mouse off.
"He don't speak for me. He squeaks so loud it almost sounds like talking." Barbossa said.
"I do not squeak! You big..." Reepicheep squealed.
Sao Feng leered at Jack. "Jack Sparrow," he whispered. Jack smiled sheepishly and crept out from under Barbossa."You paid me great insult once."
"That doesn't sound like me." Jack grinned. Sao Feng slapped him hard, right in the face. Jack groaned and rubbed his throbbing nose. "Shall we just call it square, then?"
Will barged into the crowd. His first thought was to protect Elizabeth. "Release her." He demanded. "She's not part of the bargain."
"And what bargain be that?" Barbossa asked.
"You heard Captain Turner! Release her." Sao Feng ordered his men. Edmund sighed in relief.
"Captain Turner?" Jack cringed. Everyone else gaped.
"Aye. The perfidious rotter led a mutiny against us!" Gibbs growled.
"Will?" Peter's jaw dropped.
"I need the Pearl to free my father. That's the only reason I came on this voyage." Will said firmly.
"Why didn't you tell me you were planning this?" Elizabeth asked him, shocked.
"It was my burden to bear." Will sighed.
"He needs the Pearl. Captain Turner needs the Pearl. And you felt guilty." Jack eyed Elizabeth. Then he glanced at the crew. "You and your Brethren Court. Did no one come to save me just because they missed me?" Gibbs and Tia Dalma rolled their eyes at each other. Marty, Pintel, Ragetti, Cotton, even Barbossa's monkey raised their hands, as did Lucy. "I'm standing over there with them!" Jack announced smugly. But...Sao Feng clenched him by the scruff of the neck.
"I'm sorry, Jack. But there is an old friend who wants to see you first." He smirked.
"I'm not certain I can survive any more visits from old friends." Jack gulped.
"Here is your chance to find out." Off in the distance, Beckett's ship the Endeavor was seen approaching. Soon as they neared beside the Pearl, Beckett's men took over the ship and Jack was taken to chat with the evil lord himself.
The guards outside Beckett's office shoved Jack inside. He rolled his shoulders from their rough hands and glanced around uncomfortably. "Curious. Your friends appear to be quite desperate, Jack." Beckett said in his infamous slithering voice."Perhaps they no longer believe that a gathering of squabbling pirates can defeat the Flying Dutchman. And so despair leads to betrayal.
Jack said nothing. He half-listened and started snooping through the canisters and boxes. "But you and I are no strangers to betrayal, are we?" Jack eyed the "P" pirate branding on his wrist. "It's not here, Jack."
"What? What isn't here?" Jack asked quickly.
"The heart of Davy Jones. It's safely aboard the Dutchman, and so unavailable for use as leverage to satisfy your debt to the good captain."
"By my reckoning, that account has been settled." Jack corrected him.
"By your death? And here you are." Beckett remarked skeptically.
"Close your eyes and pretend it's all a bad dream. That's how I get by." Jack teased, grimacing at Beckett's portrait, but imitating the stance to see is it did him justice.
"And if Davy Jones were to learn of your survival?"
On board the Pearl, Beckett's soldiers were armed and guarding at every station so that no one could slip an escape from the ship. Barbossa was very irritated. Mercer, Beckett's right hand man, was in charge. Will berated Sao Feng for double-crossing him in taking ownership of the Pearl.
"Perhaps you'll consider an alternative arrangement. One that requires absolutely nothing from you but information." Beckett offered Jack some cheri.
"Regarding the Brethren Court, no doubt." Jack said. "In exchange for fair compensation? Square my debt with Jones," Jack gulped down the alcohol, then took another drink, "ack! Guarantee my freedom?" He hicupped, momentarily losing his voice as the whiskey went down his throat the wrong way.
Beckett shook his head impatiently. "You were saying, Jack?"
Jack coughed to regain his volume. "I was saying...ack! Square my debt with Jones-ack! Guarantee my freedom?"
"Of course. It's just good business." Beckett said casually.
"Were I in a divulgatory mood, what then might I divulge?" Jack asked curiously, though he figured he already knew.
"Everything." Beckett whispered. "Where are they meeting? Who are the pirate lords? What is the purpose of the nine pieces of eight?"
The Black Pearl sailors along with Peter and Edmund were shackled. Susan and Lucy were not bound, but were ordered to stand at attention with Mercer's men guarding them. Peter was furious and glowered at everyone. Why had he ever agreed to do this? Mercer then claimed possession of the Pearl, much to Sao Feng's displeasure. Mercer simply explained that Beckett would not give up the only ship on the ocean that could outrun the Dutchman. He smirked and walked away, leaving Sao Feng there stewing, mentally considering whose throat on deck he was going to slit."Shame they're not bound to honor the code of the Brethren, isn't it?" Barbossa gloated at Sao Feng. "Because honor's a hard thing to come by nowadays."
"There is no honor to remaining with the losing side. Leaving it for the winning side, that's just good business." Sao Feng growled.
"The losing side, you say?" Barbossa arched his eyebrows.
"They have the Dutchman. And now the Pearl! What do the Brethren have?
"We have Aslan on our side." Lucy told him. Sao Feng pffted with his lips.
"Really, little one? I do not see Him." He scoffed.
"We have Calypso!" Barbossa boasted. That got his attention. Sao Feng blinked in disbelief.
"Calypso?" Peter frowned.
"Can't be!" Susan whispered.
"The sea goddess." Edmund explained to Peter. "But I can't imagine how we've got her, or who she is!"
Sao Feng looked skeptically at Elizabeth. "Calypso?" He laughed. "And old legend."
"No." Barbossa smirked. "The goddess herself, bound in human form. Imagine, all the power of the seas brought to bear against our enemy." Tia Dalma looked at Will and Elizabeth, as if she realized what they were contemplating. They appeared ignorant of her identity. "I intend to release her, but for that I need the Brethren Court. All the court." Barbossa said firmly to Sao Feng.
Jack was still spinning his own web to tangle Beckett up in, and so far the wicked ambassador was more than gladly taking the bait, not realizing he was being very cleverly manipulated. "You can keep Barbossa. The belligerent homunculus and his friend with the wooden eye, both. And Turner,especially Turner." Jack rolled his eyes. "The rest go with me aboard the Pearl. And I'll lead you to Shipwreck Cove, where I will hand you the pirates and you will not hand me to Jones. Bloody fair deal, don't you think?"
"And what becomes of Miss Swann?" Beckett asked off hand. Jack's face hardened instantly and he stopped his happy-go-lucky facade. This was last question was bad news, and Jack couldn't imagine what Beckett would want Elizabeth for!
"What interest is she to you?" Jack asked slyly, his voice thick with suspicion. Beckett only grinned deviously.
"And one more thing." Beckett said.
"Mmm?"
"How do you suggest we disperse of the Pevensie children, huh, Jack?"
Jack's shoulders went rigid. The Pevensies? What the heck? What on earth could Beckett possibly find in them that would be useful to him? Jack said firmly, "They do not enter into this. They're just kids, wonder-lust children, seeking adventure. Know nothing of this whole rigmarole doing with the Brethren Court and whatnot. Way over their heads, mate. After all, they're just kids. I lead you to Shipwreck Cove, deliver the pirates, and me and my crew sail away on the Pearl, and return the young waifs to their home to live happily ever after. Savvy?"
"What are you proposing, Captain?" Sao Feng huffed at Barbossa.
"What be acceptin', cap'n?"
"The girl." Sao Feng gazed at Elizabeth.
"What?" Elizabeth asked.
"No!" Edmund protested. "You have no right."
"I have every right. I'm a pirate lord!" Sao Feng snarled.
"Jack. I've just recalled, I've got this wonderful compass, which points to whatever I want. So for what do I need you?" Beckett asked.
"Elizabeth is not part of any bargain!" Will declared protectively.
"That's right!" Edmund added. Outside of his sisters, he'd never met or known a woman like Elizabeth, save for in the movies! She was intelligent, she was beautiful, she wasn't afraid to jump in and do what had to be done. She held true to her scruples, yet lived for adventure almost as dangerously as Jack Sparrow did. She walked and carried herself verbally with a strong sense of honor and decency despite her carefree lifestyle out at sea. Edmund had never met a girl like her, and he found himself quite attracted to the rebellious but faithful side of Elizabeth.
"Out of the question." Barbossa waved them off.
"It was not a question." Sao Feng said.
"Points to the thing you want most." Jack explained to his adversary. "And that is not the Brethren Court, is it?
"Then what is, Jack?"
"Me! Dead." He muttered.
"Done!" Elizabeth announced.
"What? Not done!" Will gaped in horror.
"You got us into this! If it frees us, then done!" Elizabeth argued.
"D-." Beckett cursed. "Although, if I kill you, then I can use the compass to find Shipwreck Cove is it, on my own. Cut out the middle man as it were." He stepped toward Jack with a pistol aimed at him.
"Elizabeth. They're pirates!" Edmund told her.
"I have had more than enough experience dealing with pirates!" Elizabeth told him defiantly.
"Then we have an accord?" Barbossa smirked. Sao Feng was delighted.
"With me killed, you'd arrive at the cove, to find it's a stronghold...nigh impregnable...able to withstand blockade for years. And then you'd be wishing, 'oh, if only there was someone I had not killed inside to ensure that the pirates come outside." Jack taunted.
"And you can accomplish all this, can you?" Beckett replied cynically.
"You may kill me, but you may never insult me! Who am I?"
Beckett gaped, utterly lost.
"I'm Captain Jack Sparrow." A blast shook the ship, making it rumble.
Jack quickly shook his hand. "Done!" He smiled and ran to the doors but two soldiers appeared and he swung the doors in their direction and ran the other way outside. The Pearl was firing on the Endeavor, the crews were battling it out. Beckett followed Jack out onto the deck. He watched as Jack put the loop of one of the mast ropes around a cannon hole. Then he threw the other end over the beam. Beckett noticed one of his porcelain soldier figures standing inside the cannon's hole. Jack blew on the light stick for the cannon.
"You're mad." Beckett stated, bewildered.
"Thank goodness for that, because if I wasn't, this would probably never work." Jack said nonchalantly, and lit the cannon which was geared to aim right where Beckett was standing! He moved out of the way just in time. The rope lurched up in the air, and Jack was tossed onto the Pearl, hollering. The crew watched him fly through the air and rushed up on deck, looking down into the water for any sign of Jack.
Then Barbossa glanced upwards and gaped in surprise. Honestly, he shouldn't have been surprised at all. "And that was without a single drop of rum!" Jack boasted proudly, as he stood perched up near the Pearl's lanterns. Barbossa shook his head, very irritated.
"Jack! You're safe!" Lucy cheered. Edmund sighed with relief. Peter just watched.
Jack hopped down and strode right toward Will. Pintel and Ragetti each clapped his shoulders. "Send this pestilent, traitorous, cow-hearted, yeasty codpiece to the brig." Jack snarled, glaring darkly at Will.
"But..." Lucy tried to protest.
"Captain's orders, luv." Jack interrupted her and stomped away.
"He's got to be the rudest, most deceitful pirate I've ever met." Susan scowled.
"Double-crosser." Peter huffed.
"Well, Will did try to take possession of Jack's ship." Edmund pointed out. Susan and Peter gave him pointed looks. "Just pointing it out."
"Poor Will." Lucy hung her head.
"Ahh, do not lose heart, Your Majesty." Reepicheep said, perched on her shoulder. "I do not believe that Will Turner is truly in bad blood with the captain, but that he locked him up to relieve a gnawing sense of frustration."
"Which ship do we follow?" Beckett's captain asked.
"Signal the Dutchman to track down Sao Feng." Beckett commanded. "We follow the Pearl. How soon can we have the ship ready to pursue?" The captain heard a creaking noise behind him and looked to see one of their beams fall to the deck. Beckett didn't even look back.
"Do you think he plans it all out, or just makes it up as he goes along?" The captain gaped.