Chapter Two: Meeting the Pearl.
Last time on AFTHPTWTB:
Buncha stuff happened. Some new pirates showed up, and wonder of wonders, the captain's a chick! The pirates picked up a poor shoeless bastard who'd been starving on a tiiiny island, Jack spotted this new ship and decided to capture it and give it to Anamaria as a prezzie. And Norrington got laid, and also very drunk. Woohoo.
And now we return to your regularly scheduled COURSE FOR DISASTER!!!
On board the as-yet-unnamed pirate ship, the as-yet unnamed crew were going through the pockets of the unconscious and as-yet-unnamed-though-maliciously-nicknamed Poor Shoeless Bastard, whom they'd retrieved from his tiny island. Poor Shoeless Bastard, though none of them knew it at the time, was the spitting image of one Will Turner, blacksmith, only about 35 years old and very unwashed and starving. Think the hypothetical love child of Orlando Bloom and Viggo Mortensen. Anyway. He didn't have much of value in his pockets. There was a cutlass (in his pockets? Eh, sure. Why not. He's got cargoes.), but no cursed pirate medallions or anything like that. No living will, no MedicAlert bracelet, not even a treasure map. Which, incidentally, is what the captain was looking for. But she didn't find any map, so she was a little pissed off. Or maybe she was just always a little pissed off. Yeah. Anyway, I'm getting sidetracked here, so back to the story:
"You there. Poor Shoeless Bastard. Wake up." The captain said, nudging the unconscious man with the toe of her boot. The unconscious man brazenly refused to do so.
"Damn you, sir! Damn you straight to Hell," she sighed. "Tim, escort our new friend to my quarters. I'd like to interrogate him. ..and then perhaps make him my bitch."
"You already have me, Captain!" Tim whined.
"Quiet, Tim," said the captain, waving him away. But just then, stuff happened.
"Ship approaching, Captain." All heads turned towards where the first mate was pointing.
"Hmm. I would like to avoid any extra attention today, amigos." The captain said, still looking at the ship. "Tim, drag Poor Shoeless Bastard below deck and alert me if he wakes up. The rest of you, raise anchor and get the guns ready in case it comes to blows."
"Pickings must be slim in the Caribbean if we're being confronted by another pirate vessel, Captain." The first mate observed. Lievtenant Thom passed by and offered a suggestion.
"Shall we raise the colours, ma'am?" she snarked, eager for a fight.
"No, no I think they would see us as a threat then, maybe." The captain was pensive, even though technically her ship was a threat to this new one.
"Or maybe you've just lost your taste for blood, if you don't mind my saying."
"I do mind your saying, Lievtenant," said the captain, rubbing her right arm and staring at the sea. "And I find no change in my taste for….blood…" she began scratching the end of her arm, and this would have gone on for some time had not the first mate grabbed said arm and glared at her reproachingly. Also, there was a pleasant distraction in the form of a cannon blast. It missed the ship but, needless to say, scared the bejeezus out of everyone on board. Including the now not-so-unconscious castaway.
"It's the Pearl!" he gasped, struggling to sit up. "It's the Black Pearl, it is! Rat Bastard Barbossa, I'll kill ye!" he was of course quickly restrained by Tim, though he still made feeble motions toward the Pearl.
"Barbossa?" Thom said, looking now in horror at the Pearl. "I've heard that name tossed about before. We'd best not go picking fights with that sort." Her face was pale.
"I told you, didn't I?" the captain snapped.
"But now we'll have to fight them anyway!" Thom said, annoyed.
"Barbossa!!" the castaway yelled again in his hoarse voice.
"Get him BELOW DECK!" the captain bellowed. "Right. Ready the cannons, and raise the bloody flag."
Meanwhile, there was a fair bit of chaos going on aboard the Black Pearl. Anamaria was in the process of verbally abusing Gibbs for firing off the cannon too early when the illustrious Captain Jack Sparrow staggered below deck to ask what was going on.
"Whas goin' on, mates?" he asked expositionally. As if that's even a word.
"Gibbs took it upon himself to fire on MY SHIP," screeched Anamaria in her best screeching voice. "And he missed."
"Well I was making ready to fire on your order, Cap'n, but this blasted parrot started attackin' me!" Gibbs protested, pointing upwards. Said parrot was screeching (better than Anamaria, even!) and flying about in circles and generally making a nuisance of itself. Mr. Cotton sighed sadly and shrugged.
"It's vitally important to the plot!" the parrot squawked.
"So anyways, in all the commotion I fired the cannon to shut the damn thing up." finished Gibbs.
"My father's name was Antonio Andolini, and this is for you," said the parrot in a threatening voice. It then shat on Gibbs' head.
"Well, at least you missed." Jack pointed out with a limp-wristed flourish as he climbed the stairs to the deck. He then surveyed the scene before him: the target ship was staying out of range, but they had also run their guns out. And raised a flag.
"More pirates. That's interesting.." Anamaria murmured as she observed the banner.
"That's my line, wench." Jack pouted. Although he had to admit, it was an unusual sort of flag. A red wolf's head on a black field, with crossbones beneath. But even more unusual was the greeting being shouted to him by the other ship's captain.
"Oi! You there! I demand a word!" closer inspection revealed the speaker to be a tall, thin woman with a long black plait if hair.
"What?" Jack yelled, intrigued.
"Barbossa, you devil-worshipping miscreant! You fired on my ship and it is my duty as a Catholic to put an end to your unholy ways! And I want my bloody map!" the woman seemed quite fired up.
"Devil-worshipping?" Jack muttered to himself. "That's a new one."
"I didn't say he worshipped the devil!" a second female voice interrupted. "I SAID he was so evil that Hell itself spat him back out!!"
"Er…I'm not Barbossa, love!" Jack called across the distance between the ships in his patented placating voice. Or it might have been the seducing voice. There wasn't much difference between the two. The woman frowned.
"Look amigo, my map was stolen from the island of Tortuga by a Jack Sparrow-" and here Jack got a look on his face that most today would dub 'oh, shit.' "who apperantly was at odds with Barbossa, captain of the Black Pearl. And since word on the street is Barbossa left Sparrow to die, I ask again where my map is! You are the captain of this vessel, correct?"
"Yes, love. That's right." Jack was hastily forming a plan. "But I only just took over management of the Pearl. Barbossa, I'm afraid, has passed on." He doffed his hat in remembrance. And he also snickered under his breath.
"Well what's your name, then?!" the woman was fast growing frustrated.
"Turner!" Jack shouted back at her. "William Turner! And I'm sorry, but I haven't seen this map you're talking about, so I'll just be on my way now…"
"Well, are you sure you haven't seen it? Maybe you looked through his pockets or something?"
"No, no, sorry I can't help you. First week on the job, and all."
"Bastard." grumbled the woman. "Well, damn it, you still fired on my ship! I demand an apology or I swear on the Holy Virgin I will destroy you!" she shook her left fist in the air for dramatic effect.
"I apologise, dear lady, and swear on my good name that never shall it happen again." Jack took a little bow. The overall effect was quite condescending.
"hombre inútil estúpido." The woman muttered. "Well then, we'll both be on our separate ways. I have towns to sack."
"And I have rum to drink! What's your name, madam?"
"Calidori!" she yelled. "Captain of El Lobo Fuerte." Then said ship hastily sped off, as hastily as these things can speed off under good wind conditions. …ships of this kind aren't really all that fast, you know. Aaaand end scene!
In the rather large and spacious quarters of El Lobo Fuerte, more introductions were taking place. The now-awake Poor Shoeless Bastard had upon questioning revealed his name to be Bootstrap Bill Turner, also known as William. This sent Captain Calidori into a mad rant cursing the name of Turner, and how many damn people in the Caribbean have that name, anyway? After the crazed tirade had ended, Bootstrap then exposited that he'd been cursed by the Aztec gods, and sent to the bottom of the Caribbean by Rat Bastard Barbossa, the Man so Evil that Hell Itself Spat Him Back Out™.
"And so it only took about a week for the moonlight to turn me into my true skeletal form, so I ditched my boots and the cannon, and walked as far as I could to that little island, where I've been living for the past ten years. Only now the curse has been lifted, so I must sadly assume Barbossa found my dear son William (again Calidori shouted in unholy rage) and repaid the blood. Oh, woe is me! My poor William!"
"Señor, do you have a brother or something with your same name? Maybe, I don't know, a crazy drunk uncle? Because the man captaining the Pearl was not Barbossa and he claimed to also be William Turner."
"Drunk uncle, you say?" replied Bootstrap. "No, never had one of those."
"Excuse me for a moment," said the captain, and she walked out the door. Once outside, she turned to her Lievtenant. "Thom, you know more about the lore of the Caribbean than I. Is this Poor Shoeless Bastard's story even possible?"
"Improbable," replied Lievtenant Thom with a smile. "But given what he said about the curse, ma'am, I think that it definitely could be true. I wonder what happened to the rest of the cursed pirates though, if Barbossa's dead?"
The captain shrugged and returned to the room. She was met by a rather cheeky question from Poor Shoeless Bastard, who was starting to feel better since he'd been fed.
"So where's your hand, then?" asked Bootstrap bluntly. The captain glared at the table for a moment and ground her teeth.
"Well Mr. Turner," she said evenly. "It is most likely in Morocco where I left it, though I rather expect that it's been pickled, dried, ground into a powder, and is now being sold on the black market as a cure for impotence. Any more questions?"
"No, miss." Bootstrap replied in a meek tone.
Meanwhile in Port Royal, the formerly cursed pirates who formerly made up the crew of the Black Pearl were all being shot to death by a firing squad. This was of course against usual protocol for the execution of pirates, but Norrington had a massive headache. He was also in a hurry to plan how to deal with the new pirate threat. Governor Swann was persuaded to stop crying long enough to witness the executions, and then he promptly went back to his mansion and sulked. Also sulking was a young Lievtenant named Wilkins, who poked at the former-zombie pirate bodies despondently with his rifle. He really wished he'd been a part of the action-packed battle against the pirates, but nooo. He was left out, possibly because he hadn't slept his way into the Commodore's good graces yet. But that doesn't really matter at this point! Not at all!
So anyway, after all the executing was over with Norrington decided to de-stress by having MAD SEX with one of his trusted Lievtenants. I don't know which one. It was either Gillette or that one guy who kinda looked like Guy Pearce, so take your pick. Yeah. And Giselle the Hooker, who had hung around but didn't care to watch the slashy goings-on, was meanwhile skulking about the Commodore's house and stealing all the nice silver.
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Notes: Whookay, really anticlimactic ending for the chapter there, eh? I kinda hate this chapter since nothing very interesting goes on except more exposition. Yay for exposition! I promise more fun stuff in the next chapter. There's shooting! And even more stupid references to Robert DeNiro movies. ^_^.
Just to clarify: yes, Lievtenant Thom is a girl, and Captain Calidori is missing her right hand. That'll be explained more later.