*Dances across an impromptu stage that just appeared out of nowhere.*
I'm in a good mood! And this story is making me so happy! Of course, it's starting to draw to a close now....*cries* No! No thinking about ending! Think about happy chapters and adventure and...and....reviews!
I haven't quite reached 200 yet...*sighs* I thought that would be neat, to have 200 reviews on chapter 20, but alas, it seems it was not to be. Maybe it's cause I only give you about 24 hours to review on a chapter? Meh.
Ecila: I don't think he's so "yucky" as slightly deluded....:D And thank you so much! And will Jack be alright? Mwa ha! Now we get to find out!
AndriJ: Aww....afraid not, luv. It was a good try though! Maybe you can be 200! And I'm glad you like it!
Spontaneousxhumanxcombstion: It is a beautiful story, even? Aww.....thank you so much! And I thought it was fun to stick that poor love-sick soldier in too! I've never used AOL, but it sounds like you weren't having much fun with it, and yet you miss it! Go figure. I'm like that all the time. Good stuff, then!
Seductive Gypsy: Ack! Slow? Maybe I should spice it up and make this chapter good and exciting! Thanks for the advice!
Andi Horton: Aww...I thought I'd heard that quote somewhere before. Meh...it was Lyssa I heard it from, so Lyssa gets quoted. Thank you so much, though, for being my most faithful reviewer! And updates today? *happy rum dance* I can't wait!!! *huggles* And you actually got a day off because of the hurricanes? *jaw drops* We got tons of rain (SNOW tonight!!! Augh!) But we never got any time off...*pouts*
completeopposites: Thanks! I'm glad you liked it!
Oil Pastel: Give into the Dark Side, Pastel. When you read something funny, laugh hysterically at the top of your lungs. And when people look at you weird, laugh at them. :D On a slightly more serious note (aww, who am I kidding? I'm never serious!) I'm glad you actually think it's funny. I try.
Saiyan-girl-cheetah: Thankies! Yeah, I was most proud of the background, but hey, I drew the whole thing with a mouse! I'm happy that you like it so much - don't worry, I'll keep on updating so you can keep on reading!
Mandamirra10: Apology accepted. I understand completely. Now go read and enjoy!
Dara Maeko: Thanks! Boy, people like hugging me for some strange reason....weird. *huggles, then bounces along with you* Whee!
Ellina: Sure, Rebecca is the main character in Lyssa2's PotC story - go check it out, sometime! *falls on the floor from a running tackle-glomp* Oof! Yay! I am loved! *tears* Switching bodies will be fun then...I'll get to tackle-glomp YOU! Mwa ha....and yes, I would have to agree. But did you also notice that they all are rather....um....skeletal? *snickers, then realizes she holding a Jack Skellington doll instead of a Jack Sparrow doll* YIPE!
Now. I thought this scene was too short. So I made it longer. Mwa ha.
Yes, that's right, Disney. You refused to give me my pirates, so I am forced to add to/delete from the storyline so that I can pretend I own something. I still don't. But I do own Heather! And you can't have her! MWA HA!!
Yes. I am lame. No sue.
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I was banking on having the element of surprise. After all, by now, Jack and Barbossa should be fighting (though it would make it handier if they hadn't even got to that point yet) and Will was sure to soon start defending himself. The fact that Christine hadn't been on the Black Pearl worried me, but I really, really hoped that she wasn't going to do anything...stupid.
Sword in hand, I leapt out of the rowboat the moment we reached the shore, splashing through the last couple inches of water, and headed, warily, for the cave. A sudden roar of fury and the clash of steel on steel made me wince. Tightening my grip on the sword, I rounded the corner - and very nearly smashed into the back of a pirate.
He let out a yelp of surprise - but I think that may have been, because, when I ran into him, my sword had been out. And it quite effectively had lodged itself in his ribs.
Wincing, but not too stupid to pass up a prime opportunity when it showed itself, so I jerked the sword up as hard as I could, grimacing at the disturbingly satisfying sound of crunching bones.
The pirate wailed with what I had to assume was pain, stumbling forward, so I stuck my foot on his back, and pushed forward, pulling my blade out, though it came out with such force that I stumbled back, caught off guard. The scream of the mildly injured pirate had, unfortunately, drawn the attention of every other pirate in the room, save Barbossa and Jack, who I could see towards the rear of the cave, fighting for their immortal lives.
The few pirates left turned towards me, their attention distracted from the Captains dueling, which unsettled me more than a little, but it was precisely the distraction Will had been looking for.
Snatching a sword, he managed to strike one of the pirates near him hard enough to sever a hand, which fell into the moonlight, flailing like a live thing. That pirate let out a hellish shriek, and suddenly Will was fighting - again - for his life. There was a small, feminine shriek beside him, and my head spun from the pirate I had been watching nervously, to spot Christine, backed against the coin chest, eyes wide, what looked like blood splashed across the bodice of her dress.
Survival instinct - not survival for myself, but that weird survival instinct that anthropologists interestingly correlate in savage tribes, noting how these people seem, strangely enough, to forget about their own well-being when other members of their tribe are in danger - kicked in.
Breaking away from my previous target, I charged towards the mound of treasure. I raced past Elizabeth, who had found herself a large, heavy golden pole, and was swinging it like a vicious pike, and then Will, who was being backed by a skeletal pirate down the treasure mound. But on the very top, beside the stone chest, Christine was clinging to the stone with white knuckles, one of the pirates standing over her, sword at her throat. "Barbossa's been keepin' ye all to himself," he growled, one hand moving forward as though to snatch her arm. "I think it's time he shared, see?"
Before Christine could move, I let out a rather feral yell, and slammed my sword down towards his reaching arm.
He pulled it away - unfortunately, and swung his own sword, connecting solidly with my blade. "Here to take her place, are we?" He leered, and I snarled.
"Christine, hide. Now. Or better yet..." I paused, moving the sword to block a thrust. "Grab something sharp and pointy and start stabbing pirates."
"Can do," she squeaked, and I heard the scrabbling sound of someone sliding down a hill of coin. Sensing that my friend was - temporarily - out of danger, I struck out at the pirate myself, wanting to 'do unto others before it is done unto me'.
It probably would have been good if I knew what I was doing. If I had taken fencing lessons, or practiced three hours a day like Will, or, heck, even have held a sword that wasn't actually a cardboard Christmas wrapping paper tube before. And while I was at it, it would have been nice if I had of had armor instead of an over-large Redcoat uniform, and it might have helped if I had been, like my opponent, unable to be killed.
I wasn't, and didn't, and hadn't, so I was forced to resort more primitive methods of attack, like kicking his feet out from under him, and swinging the sword like a maniac.
I decided that it was actually a good thing that the sword was as heavy as it was - it meant that I had to exert less energy, and could just let momentum do it's job. I was also highly grateful for the semi-comfortable boots they'd given me, because I was having to do a lot of fancy footwork, and it would have been impossible in those stiff, buckled things I'd had before. It was as I was dancing around the chest that I felt a shift, and the sudden chill of cold metal sliding a little further down my chest.
Risking a glance away, I looked down, and felt my stomach sink. The old string that I had tied the medallion to, the string that had lasted so well through this entire madcap adventure, had finally broken. I prayed that it would still remain around my neck, but as I continued to lift my arm and swing for all I was worth, I could feel the cold steel slide further and further down. As I made a desperate pirouette to avoid the blade, the cool metal touch was suddenly gone, and there was a distinctive tinkling sound.
As I swung back around the chest, I looked down. There, laying on top of the other cursed coins, lay one with a distinctive blue string strung through it. Half of me was sighing with relief - now I was rid of it, and I wouldn't have to worry about it, and there was no way I was going to pick that thing back up! The other half, though, was screaming that that coin was the only link I had to whatever had happened, and for all I knew, I would never get home without it.
I didn't know what to believe. Did I want to risk the curse, even if that was the 823 coin, and technically not part of the story at all? Or did I just want to risk never getting home?
I winced as the pirate's sword struck mine, and my hands shook as I tried to push him away. I needed to think, darn it, and I couldn't with this lout attacking me!
An explosion suddenly rocked the cave, knocking treasure asunder, and sending my attacker's head snapping around as he tried to figure out what had happened. In the space of seconds, I glanced to the right, to see Jack and Barbossa still fighting, then to the left, where Christine was desperately trying to fight a pirate off with a jeweled scepter she'd found.
I didn't want my best friend to have to live her life like this. If I had any chance of being able to bring her home, I had to use it.
Making up my mind, I turned enough to snatch the yarn off the pile, taking the medallion with it, then charged down the hill, catching Christine's attacker off guard as his head parted ways with his shoulders, and went careening off into the moonlight, where it lay opening and closing its jaws.
Christine gaped at me, at my bloody sword, then at the body without a head, which had now fallen to its knees. "That...was disgusting," she gagged.
"Yeah." I had to agree, though, and I probably wouldn't admit it, the feel of my sword severing the neck had felt disturbingly good.
Will, meanwhile, I could see out the corner of my eye, had done nearly the same thing as I, only with the pirate on the hill that I had been fighting before. As that skeleton fell to the treasure littered earth in neat halves, he reached his hand out, catching something golden in it.
And then, cutting everything else short, a shot rang out over the cave.
We all spun towards the source. Jack stood, smoking pistol in hand, pointing it at Barbossa's torso. Barbossa lowered the gun he'd been holding aimed at Elizabeth a moment before, and laughed. "Ten years you carry that pistol, and now you waste your shot."
"He didn't waste it," Will said coldly, and we all turned to see him holding his hand over the chest. Opening it, two blood-stained medallions tumbled out, turning over and over, then tinkling into the other coins of the pile.
Barbossa dropped his sword, clattering against the stones, and put a shaking, pale hand to his chest. He frowned in concentration, touching the wound, the hand coming up dry. "I'm not dead," he whispered, sounding shocked.
"But all the medallions..." Elizabeth whispered, and my own blood ran cold. My hand strayed to my pocket, dipping inside to remove a single gold medallion, a piece of yarn dangling from it.
"Not all the medallions," I whispered, and terrified of what I might see, slowly reached my hand out into the moonlight spilling in a pool only inches from where I stood.
Christine let out a horrified gasp, but I could not find the energy in me to muster any kind of response. My hand wasn't shaking, my guts weren't wanting to expel everything in them, my eyesight wasn't even blurring. Instead, my vision was crystal clear as I stared at my own bones, my own shredded and decaying skin.
Blinking, I stepped forward, feeling no change, but looking down and seeing that I could see through my clothes, which were hanging off me in ragged tatters, and then, oddly enough, through my rib cage. I could see my own spine. I tried to blink again, but I no longer had eyelids. I tried to lick my lips, but those, too, were gone. Instead, I ran my rough tongue over the teeth and bones that were all I had left of my jaw.
Turning to trust my other hand back into the shadows, I felt disgusted, finally, when I saw that my left hand, in the light, was skeletal, and my right, in the shadows, was whole, healthy. That was just wrong. Very, very wrong.
All this, though, had taken place in a matter of seconds. Time had seemed to freeze, horrified expressions turned towards me, but my response was simple. Letting my sword slide out of my whole hand, I made sure to catch my fingers, my palm, my wrist on the blade, startled that the slicing open and bleeding of flesh did not hurt. Transferring the medallion to my now blood-slicked hand, I tossed it - and Will, shaking himself from his shock, caught it.
There was no moment of reflective silence befitting the end of a ten year curse, no poetic words to signify then ending of an era, nothing to suggest pomp or ceremony. Only the dull sound of a gold medallion clinking against eight hundred and eighty two of it's brothers, and a sudden gasp of pain from an old pirate captain.
"I feel...cold." He whispered, then, a moment later, Barbossa's eerily staring body collapsed to the floor. An apple rolled out of his hand, bouncing across the treasure strewn floor to land at Christine's feet.
I felt no different. Is this what it feels like to be cursed? I wondered, suddenly light-headed and not so sure on my feet. Will and Elizabeth still stood, side by side, beside the stone chest, Christine had stooped to pick up the apple, Jack stood beside his first mate's body...but I couldn't move.
Now the world was starting to blur before me. Now I felt cold. Now I felt cursed.
My feet fell out from under me, sending me sprawling forward onto the stone and gold covered floor, some precious-stone encrusted item digging into my ribs. There was sudden sound beside me, and I made no protest as hands roughly flipped me over onto my back, letting my head loll on it's side. A hand touched my cheek, turning my head to face upwards, and I found myself, rather to my surprise, staring up at Jack's face. "Are you alright?" He was demanding. "Heather?!"
I blinked. I was quite unable to respond. My tongue felt like it had turned to lead, and oddly enough, my right arm was beginning to feel very cold, and appeared to have lost all feeling.
That same arm was grabbed suddenly by someone, and as I stared up at the moonlit cave roof, I could barely hear babbling voices frantically discussing it. Something about blood loss, and shock...I seemed quite unable to understand.
I did understand, however, that the curse must have been lifted a moment later, for while still cursed, I had felt no pain. Pain suddenly flared through my right hand and up the arm as someone wrapped something around it, which I discovered after turning my head a little, was the scarf belt Barbossa had worn around his waist. Funny - I'd thought it was yellow - it seemed to be turning red at a rather rapid rate.
Something was settled on my head, sinking around my ears, and I turned my eyes upward, catching the odd glint of gold from somewhere above my head. Forcing my mouth and tongue into action, I managed, "What...?"
There was warm breath in my ear, and Jack's voice, whispering, "You did amazing, luv. You deserve to be rewarded for that."
And then someone's arms were under my knees and shoulders, and I was slumped against a vested chest as they carried me out of the cave, away from the large red stain that had spread across the ground. I forced my head to tilt back, looking up at the face of my rescuer, and found myself to be pleasantly surprised that the chin I was looking up at had a forked and braided black beard.
"Just drop us off at my ship." The chest I was leaning against rumbled as its owner spoke. "AnaMaria will...will be able to help her. We have to stop the bleeding."
"Jack..." Elizabeth's voice floated into my ears. It seemed to catch, then whispered, "There isn't a ship to go back to, Jack."
Silence, then the chest slumped a little, and a voice whispered. "Oh."
Then he moved again, and I whimpered as my non-bandaged hand bumped against the edge of a boat. That hand was lifted, set tenderly in my lap, the boat rocked a little, and then began to move.
"I'm sorry, Jack," Elizabeth's voice returned to my ears.
"They done what's right by them." Jack's voice seemed lost, almost, and the last thing I heard before the darkness that had been encroaching on my senses finally claimed me was his voice.
"Can't expect more than that."
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Mwa ha! How's that for yet more plot twists?! Yes, I am evil, why do you ask?
Review! There's a shiny new 200 number waiting to be sitting there in the story description, folks! You could even flame my horrible "I stole all the glory for myself!"-ness if you want. Is that what I did, anyway? *looks at story while scratching head* Meh. You tell me.
There. I have ranted. You review.