Remnant of the Key

by lyokoMARVELanime

Adopted from FandomBard12. Four Keybladers meet four huntresses while on a quest to recover a lost friend. Now, their destinies shall become intertwined as they fight against darkness of both Remnant and beyond. The question is, just what else will come from this meeting between the two?

19. Rough Waters of Fear Part 1

AN: Okay, check one. Check two. Check three, four, and five. Check everything off, because at long last, we are back, and I am alive!

[audience applause]

Yeah, sorry this one took so long guys, but it has been crazy busy for me the last few months.

Ruby: What've you been doing all this time?

AN: One word: life. It gets you all wrapped up in everything that time just slips away from you before you know it. Of course, it doesn't help that this latest stop on the tour of the worlds has ended up being even longer than I originally predicted it to be. So much so...I've had to split it into two chapters.

Sora: So this isn't even the whole Caribbean adventure?

AN: Nope. Just the first half. Don't worry though, the second half is almost done. I'll get into the details of how much I've got left of it to write in the ending note, but for now, I've made you all wait long enough, so let's run through our now regular Studio Fandom ads and get this chapter started.

If you haven't already, please check out our YouTube channel "Studio Fandom". It's the best place to get updates as to what I'm doing with my writing stuff at the time along with various other content. And if you want to look at some pretty cool artwork, we've also got a DeviantArt page now "studiofandom", so check that out too, when you get the chance.

Speaking of the YouTube channel, one of the most recent episodes of Studio News also already announced this, but I'll say it here as well. We're looking for voice actors for the Remnant of the Key Reading Series video. For more details on what to do to sign on and/or qualify, go check out episode 8 of Studio News for full details. Now, on with the show!

I do not own anything from either the Kingdom Hearts or RWBY franchises, or any other franchise mentioned in this story.

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Chapter 19: Rough Waters of Fear Part 1

City of Vale, Remnant

While Teams RWBY, JNPR, and SLVR were off on their little tour of the worlds, things back on Remnant seemed to continue on like normal for the most part. The only difference was the odd Heartless that had started popping up every now and then ever since the Breach, but with Aqua, Terra, Naminé, and Xion keeping an eye on thing in Team SLVR's absence, no one was too worried. Still, some people felt it necessary to go into town and keep a look-out for any signs of trouble, mostly in the case of the local huntsmen or even the various students who were looking to kill time before the Vytal Festival Tournament started, and that was part of the reason why one particular team from Haven were currently strolling around town right now.

It had not taken too much convincing on Sun's part to get his teammates to help out in Vale, especially since most of them were still a little sore about missing most of the action from the Breach, and he was happy to say they had done quite a bit in helping to keep the Heartless out. Sure, most of the time all they got to do was just calling up one of the Keybearers currently on Remnant, but there were still some times when they came to blows with the dwellers of darkness. Just do them a favor and do not ask Xion to clarify how much of their stories were highly exaggerated tall tales. Sun and Neptune did not want their buddies to find out what she could do if she ended up getting mad over the details they would typically tell people.

Speaking of the two, at this very moment, Sun and Neptune were actually taking a casual stroll through the city, both to keep an eye out for Heartless and as a way to just chill for a bit. They had started out with Scarlet and Sage tagging along too, but after a few hours of not finding anything, the other half of their team had decided to call it a day and go back to Beacon for the time being. Neither boy had complained too much, since they were finally getting to explore the city without any drama, missions, or explosions, and it was such a nice day outside right now that finding a reason to complain would be hard even if they tried. That changed quickly enough.

Apparently it had been raining a little bit the previous night, because there were still some noticeable puddles all along the sidewalks and streets, and while Sun was not too bothered by them, Neptune was doing everything he could to steer clear of the small bodies of water. Sun was a little annoyed but then again Neptune had not gone for any of his usual, extreme reactions to water so far, so he just let it be. He had spoken too soon though, because the next puddle they saw in the street ended up being one that a car went racing over, kicking up a small splash as it passed and making Neptune jump up onto Sun's in fright. Having gotten used to such a reaction, Sun had no trouble keeping his balance after his partner jumped onto him, but used to it or not, Sun felt he could no longer let this go on, because freaking out over a small splash from a little puddle was just ridiculous.

"Dude, seriously? You've gotta get over this," Sun told his friend.

"Get uh…Get over what?" Neptune nervously brushed off, acting like he had no idea what Sun was talking about. It did not take long for him to remember he could not hide anything about his fear from Sun, even without his best friend glancing between him and the nearby puddle. "I'm working on it, okay?" he then tried to insist.

"Oh really?" Sun questioned. "The last time we had something to do outside while it was raining, you refused to go out unless you were completely covered in a shell of umbrellas."

"I mean, yeah, but…" Neptune started to argue, only for Sun to cut him off with another point for his argument.

"We've sometimes caught you showering while still dressed. Sure, you've done it a lot less often than you did when we all first met, but you still do it," Sun continued on.

"Alright, I can feel where you're coming from with that, but it's not like this has been a serious problem," Neptune attempted to deny once again. Too bad for him, Sun had a point that proved him wrong.

"And let's not forget about the pool incident," Sun reminded him.

"It wasn't that bad! Sage managed to save the guy in time," Neptune protested.

"The dude still nearly drowned, Neptune. I mean, I get that your fear means you probably don't know how to swim, but you could've at least thrown him a line or something instead of just sitting up on the lifeguard stand while it happened," Sun shot back without a second thought.

Hearing this last argument finally did Neptune in, because he could definitely see Sun had a point. More than that, if Sun was getting this serious about something, he knew it meant they had to deal with it. So he finally sighed and admitted, "Okay, maybe I do need a little help."

"A little? Neptune, you know I love you like a brother, but dude, there's no other way to say it. You've got a serious problem," Sun informed him with a no-nonsense tone. A tone Sun hated having to use on anyone, mind you. "What if we end up fighting on a water-based battlefield in the tournament? What're you gonna do then? Jump over to the enemy's side? Or even out of the arena entirely?"

"Okay, okay, I get it, but what do you want from me, Sun? I've tried everything to deal with this, and nothing works. Besides, you know it's not that simple for me," Neptune argued.

He had Sun there, and the monkey Faunus knew it. "Yeah, I do get it, buddy, but you can't just keep letting the past hold you down like this. It's not healthy for anyone, especially when we're trying to become huntsmen. You know, the defenders of the world? A world which does include a lot of water?"

"I know, I know. You've made that very clear, but I just…I can't just…" Neptune struggled to argue, only to come up short in finding the words. In the end, he had to circle back around to a previous point. "Look, it's like I said before, I've tried everything in the world I can think of, and even some of the things you've thought of, but nothing has worked. What else can we possibly do?"

"How about something out of this world?" someone behind the boys suddenly suggested. Too bad for her, she was someone that the duo of dorks were currently very afraid of.

"AH! NO XION, PLEASE DON'T HURT US!" Neptune begged as he strengthened his hold on Sun while his partner squeezed back in equal fear.

"WE WEREN'T DOING ANYTHING BAD! I SWEAR! WE'RE INNOCENT, MISS XION, MA'AM," Sun quickly followed up.

On the inside, Xion was a little amused over how the two boys were still so afraid of her after the "talking to" she gave for leaving Teams RWBY and SLVR during the fight with Torchwick a while back, but on the outside, she gave them both a flat look in order to hide her secret smile. "Guys, calm down," Xion coolly told them. "I'm just taking a little walk around the city. I'm not here to interrogate you two or make you stop doing something stupid." She then took in their current positions and added, "Although, from the look of things, I can't help but wonder…"

"No, no! We're not doing anything stupid," Sun assured her, but he then had to look back over to his friend and quickly remembered why Neptune was currently clinging to him in the first place. "Well, I'm not. Neptune, on the other hand…"

"What was it you were saying before?" Neptune interrupted before his friend could give her any ideas.

Xion simply shrugged the interruption off, thinking she would learn the details later, and replied, "Well I overheard you guys saying you had tried everything you could to deal with something here on Remnant, so I just thought I'd suggest you try something on another world. You guys do know about other worlds after all, and you know several people who can take you to them, so why not take advantage of that?"

That got Neptune to finally climb off Sun, amazed to hear what Xion was suggesting. "You'd really do that? Take us to another world to help with my problem?"

At this point, Xion grew a little sheepish as she had to confess, "I mean, I would if I could, but right now, I've got to keep an eye on things here with Aqua and the others. I'm sure the guys would be up for it, but that depends on exactly what the problem is."

Sun was just about to open his mouth and blurt it out for everyone to hear, until Neptune slapped his hand over the blonde's mouth and nervously requested, "Can we talk about this somewhere private? It's…kind of personal. And a little embarrassing."

Xion studied Neptune for a minute, and then turned to Sun to see if she could glean any sign of deceit in this. When Sun just nodded back to her with a serious expression, she realized that Neptune was not exaggerating, and then agreed to Neptune's condition. "Okay, come on. We can talk in Roxas's team's dorm. It's not like they're using it right now."

"What do you mean by that?" Sun asked while Neptune just gave her a curious look. Not surprising, since they had not heard about the world traveling trip Team SLVR had taken Teams RWBY and JNPR on.

"I'll explain on the way," was all Xion said on the matter.

"Okay, sure," Neptune shrugged, willing to take that answer for now. He did have one last request of her though. "Hey, can you also promise me something for when we tell you?"

"What?"

"That you won't laugh. Please," Neptune begged.

Xion stopped to turn back and give the blue haired boy another flat look, and replied, "Neptune, after the whole Paladin incident, I highly doubt anything you two could say or do would ever make me laugh."

---

A few hours later when the three had arrived in Team SLVR's dorm room and Neptune had told Xion about his fear, the girl ended up eating her words and laughing her butt off at what the boys told her. "Oh come on!" Neptune complained as loudly as he could over Xion's chuckles. "You promised you wouldn't laugh!"

"I-I said that…haha, I didn't think anyth-thing you guys said or did hahaha, would make me laugh," Xion corrected while attempting to get herself under control.

"It still counts," Neptune grumbled.

"Okay, okay, whatever you s-say," Xion placated, not really able to argue any points right now. She finally cleared her throat to better kill off her chuckles and said, "Sorry, but you have to admit, it's kind of funny. I mean, your name is Neptune, dude."

"So? That's not my fault. My parents were the ones who named me," Neptune argued.

"Then explain why your weapon has a trident mode? Because last I checked, you had made that thing yourself," Xion challenged.

Neptune had to admit she had him there, but he was not going to give her the satisfaction. "Look, can you ask the guys to help us or not?"

"Please say yes, because I'm not sure how much more any of us can take," Sun pleaded. He did not want to admit he was probably the only one on their team at the end of his rope, but he did have a strong suspicion the other two would agree with him all the same.

Xion could tell the whole thing was really bothering Sun, but she did not want to get his hopes up too high on the off-chance Sora and the others said no. So, she opted for a reasonable middle ground. "I can try calling to see if it's possible, but I can't make any promises," Xion told them. "For all I know, they could be dealing with a dangerous Heartless right now."

"Hey, as long as you can at least ask them," Neptune assured her.

Xion nodded in response, and then gave her Gummiwatch a few quick taps. A second later, a ringtone sounded from the watch, prompting Xion to call out, "Xion to Stealth Gummi. Do you guys copy?"

A few more rings came from her watch before an image of the stealth gummi's cockpit blinked into being on the screen, showcasing everyone seated inside for the three to see. "Stealth Gummi here. We read you loud and clear, Xion," Sora responded. "Is everything okay back on Remnant?"

Sensing that Sora was asking out of worry for her and the others, Xion did not hesitate to placate those worries right away. "Yeah, everything's okay here. A few small Heartless problems here and there, but nothing we can't handle. How about you guys? Is the patrol going okay so far?"

"Not too bad, but it could be going a little smoother," Lea admitted.

"We've already had to take a couple of detours from our travel plans to deal with a few Heartless problems on a couple other worlds, and so far, we've only managed to hit two of the worlds we had planned to visit," Roxas clarified.

"Hey, that's not so bad, and it's not like you've got to rush things. I mean, you've only been gone for about a week," Xion assured them.

"And a week away from you is a week too long for me," Roxas smoothly informed his girlfriend with a loving smile.

Xion could not help but smile in return, her cheeks turning a bright red until Ventus pulled them back on track. "So if everything's okay over there, why the sudden call?"

"Yeah, we only just got back from dealing with a problem on Holiday Hub. Is another world in danger already," Jaune questioned.

"Uh…where?" Xion questioned, not recognizing the name Jaune just mentioned.

"He's talking about the world where Halloween Town is located," Roxas clarified. "Apparently, that's the world's real name."

"Huh. How about that," Xion mused aloud. She put it aside for now so she could explain the situation to the others. "Anyway, no, there isn't another world in danger, at least as far as I know, but I do have a couple of people here who might benefit from going to another world with you guys."

Sun and Neptune took this as their cue to step into the conversation. "Hey guys!" Sun waved from over Xion's shoulder. "How come you didn't tell us you were going on a cool, world-crossing adventure?"

"Sorry Sun, but somehow, I get the feeling this was meant to be a Beacon kids only trip," Blake apologized on behalf of the group.

"Yeah, pretty much," Sora shamelessly admitted. "I mean, you guys are cool and all, but considering part of this is meant to be training for the tournament, we didn't want to give you guys too many extra advantages."

Sun and Neptune could understand that a little bit, but now they had to hope this matter could go beyond any school rivalries. On the other hand, none of these guys ever seemed like the type to put that sort of thing ahead of helping friends with problems, so there was no harm in at least asking. "Well, maybe you could make an exception in this case," Sun asked. "Because this is a pretty big deal."

"Why? What's the matter?" Ruby asked, sounding a little worried.

Neptune felt like he should take point on the explanation from there, but when he did speak up, he still had to request, "Before I say anything, can you guys promise you won't laugh?"

The twelve friends on the other end of the communication shared a brief look before Sora finally said, "We can only promise to do our best."

---

It turned out, the team's best only managed to keep Weiss, Blake, Roxas, Sora, Pyrrha, and Ren from laughing, and even then, some of them seemed to be struggling to keep it in. Nora, Ventus, Ruby, and Yang on the other hand had all burst out laughing the second Neptune had revealed his phobia to them. The only ones who did not seem to be amused at all were Jaune and surprisingly, Lea. Not that it did anything to make Neptune feel better.

"Seriously?! You guys promised you wouldn't laugh!" the blue haired boy complained.

"Y-yeah, I-I know. Ahem. Sorry," Ventus hastily apologized.

"I don't understand though. Your name is Neptune," Ren pointed out, repeating Xion's early point.

"Again, I didn't name myself! That's my parents' fault! Why does everyone think my name should have any influence on how I feel about water?" Neptune whined.

"Dude, you can't blame us for the confusion. I mean, we'd all probably react the same way if Ventus told us he's afraid of flying or something," Yang pointed out. A quick glance to one of the others ended up making her amend her statement a little. "Well, maybe not Weiss, but my point still stands."

As interesting as it was to see how red Weiss turned from Yang's comment, Xion was a little more focused on at least one of the only two who had not laughed. Jaune, she had a few good ideas for, but the other one definitely surprised her a little. "I'm surprised you're not taking a few shots at him, Axel," the girl managed to comment before someone else could say something.

Lea just shrugged in response and said, "Hey, I can't really make fun of him when I'm afraid of water, too. That'd be just wrong on my part."

"Well if you guys are all done laughing at my bud, is there anything you can do to help him get over his fear? Because it's getting ridiculous," Sun asked once again.

While most of the group seemed a little uncertain as to how helpful they could be, Team SLVR definitely looked like they had an idea or two up their sleeve based on the looks they were sharing. Sora was the one who confirmed this when he turned back to them and said, "I think I know just the place for dealing with your fear, Neptune. Just give us a couple of minutes to stop by Remnant and pick you guys up, and we can head there right away."

"Aw yes!" Sun cheered.

Neptune let out his own relieved sigh and said, "Thanks Sora. You guys too. You have no idea how much this means to me."

"You can tell us about it after we've beamed you aboard," Ventus informed him, much to the other three's surprise. "What? Did you think we were going to go through the whole process of landing on Remnant and taking off again when we're only going to be stopping by long enough to grab a couple extra passengers? We're just going to teleport you guys onto the ship once we get in orbit of Remnant."

"Gotcha. So is there anything we gotta do on our end?" Sun inquired.

"Aside from getting your weapons, all you need to do is just stay somewhere out of sight so no one sees you suddenly disappear in a flash of light," Sora informed them. "Maybe just hang out in our dorm room with Xion until we arrive or something."

Sun and Neptune both nodded in response to this, and then bade the team goodbye for the time being before going to retrieve their weapons. Right when Sun was about out the door, he caught a glimpse of Xion telling everyone else goodbye, and then blowing Roxas a kiss with a loving smile. "Talk to you later, Roxas."

If Sun were still close enough to see the screen of Xion's Gummiwatch, he would have seen Roxas blow a kiss to her in return and reply, "I'll be waiting, Xion."

Xion let out a happy sigh after hanging up, prompting a sly smirk out of Sun. "Wow," he breathed in awe. "You guys really care about each other, huh?"

Hearing his comment made Xion turn a curious look onto Sun. "Of course we care about each other. We're dating," Xion pointed out. "Wouldn't it be weird if we didn't care about each other while dating? Or even if we didn't care about each other after everything we've been through."

"Yeah, sure, but this looks like a lot more than just caring about each other," Sun remarked, pausing only to give a brief air of suspense. "I think it'd be more accurate to say you two really love each other."

"Well, yeah. Again, after everything we've been through," Xion started to say.

"No, I mean as in you two are so in love with each other," Sun repeated. Judging by the blush now coloring her cheeks, Xion had finally caught on to what he was suggesting. "Have you told each other yet?"

Xion saw no reason to answer that, so instead, she retorted, "Don't you have something to do before the guys pick you up?"

Even though he raised his hands in surrender and hastily backed out of the room to get his weapon, Sun still had a sly smirk on his face all the while. Despite how flustered he had left her, Xion did still smile a bit at what Sun had implied: that Roxas was in love with her. Sure, they had been dating for a little over a year now, and it was obvious that they liked each other a lot, but neither of them had gone as far as to say those three little words just yet. Just the thought of doing so made her a little nervous. What if she said it but Roxas was not quite ready to say it back yet? Then again, Sun did say she and Roxas were clearly in love with each other, and others have made similar comments before, so maybe…The idea certainly made Xion smile just a little bit more at the possibilities.

---

A few minutes later, the stealth gummi had come into Remnant's orbit, and as soon as they received word of Sun and Neptune's readiness, the team fired up the teleporter to bring the boys aboard. Upon arrival, the two were greeted by Ruby, Sora, and Jaune, all of whom were smiling widely at seeing their goofball friends on the ship.

"Welcome aboard the stealth gummi, Sun and Neptune," Sora greeted like a proper captain. "How are you both feeling after your first teleport?"

"A little weak in the knees actually," Sun admitted.

"Oh…I don't feel so cool," Neptune groaned. Lucky for him, someone was ready and waiting with some barf bags, and he happily took one. "Thanks Jaune."

"Don't mention it," Jaune replied, knowing just how serious teleporter sickness could be for someone. "Apparently you get used to the teleporter trips after a while."

"And you do," Sora confirmed. "Now, how about we head up to the bridge so we can get going?"

"Lead the way, Sora," Sun agreed, only to stumble a little as he tried to step forward. "Just give me a minute. I think I should've brought me sea legs with me."

"I don't technically have sea legs, and I'm thinking I should've brought them too," Neptune grimaced while keeping the barf bag close at hand.

Sora just smirked knowingly in response to Neptune's comment, but otherwise kept any signs of what he was planning hidden from the boy and allowed the two to take their time with adjusting. Once they were able to move without stumbling or feeling sick, the three team leaders led their newest passengers up to the cockpit and assumed their regular seats. Ventus had already made it a point to add an extra pair of seats for the two boys, so they did not need to worry about a lack of seating options before getting underway again. With everyone now seated and buckled up, Sora punched in the coordinates for their destination and turned the ship away from Remnant. To their surprise, Sora did not put the ship into warp right away, but instead, kept flying at normal speed.

"Hey Sora? Any reason why we're not at warp speed yet?" Ren inquired quizzically.

"Yeah. The warp gummi's low on energy, and if we want to get Sun and Neptune back in a timely manner, we're going to need to get at least halfway there at normal speed before warping the rest of the way," Ventus explained on Sora's behalf.

"How long will that take?" Pyrrha asked, feeling a little worried for how much time they would spend flying.

"Just a couple hours," Roxas assured her and everyone else after studying the map data. "If we flew all the way there from Remnant at normal speed though, it'd be a full day's travel."

"A full Remnant day, or…" Weiss inquired, trailing off at the end only because she was unsure of what other kind of measure would be used here.

"Yeah, a full Remnant day," Roxas confirmed for the heiress.

"So what do we do in the meantime?" Sun asked, not entirely sure how these guys normally passed the time when flying between worlds.

"Just relax, enjoy the flight, and hope we don't get attacked on the way there. Of course, that last one is probably not too big of a concern now that old man Xehanort's bit the dust," Lea easily replied.

Right when he had finished speaking, everyone felt the ship shake after getting hit by something, and it was not long before alarms started blaring in response. Luckily, no one had been thrown from their seats, but the four Keybearers were quickly working the controls and checking readouts in frantic worry.

"Damage report!" Sora demanded.

"Armor integrity is still holding strong, but shields are down to ninety percent," Roxas reported.

"Multiple hostiles currently within visual and weapon's range, and more inbound," Ventus informed the group after checking the scanners. Another quick look allowed him to confirm what enemies were targeting them. "All Heartless ships."

"The Heartless have spaceships?!" Nora exclaimed in surprise, which the others all shared completely for once.

"More like a special variety that is specifically suited for fighting in interspace," Lea clarified, already priming the main weapons to fire as soon as he had a Heartless in his crosshairs.

Roxas on the other hand, had a very different set of words to give. "You just had to say it, didn't you?" he told his best friend. "You just had to go and say something that would jinx us. You literally willed all of this into existence."

"How is this my fault?! Better yet, why do you guys always blame me? You're gonna give me a complex at this rate, so please, tell me why," Lea asked of his friends.

"Because you're the one who always jinxes us," all three of the other Keybearers replied at once.

Even if Lea did have a response for that, he would not have been able to give it due to the ship being hit once again by the Heartless. "Shields down to eighty seven percent," Roxas reported.

"Will someone please shoot back?! I can't fly this thing and fight them at the same time," Sora demanded as he turned the ship every which way that he could to avoid flying into the Heartless ships or getting hit by another enemy attack.

"Just waiting for your signal, Captain," Lea replied, firing up a few more weapons to fire at said moment.

Sora just nodded in response, spun the ship around in a quick barrel roll, and then held it steady for when Lea began taking shots as he shouted, "Fire main laser cannons!"

All at once, the starry sky before them lit up with flashes of multiple laser projectiles shooting out from the ship's main weapons, and nearly every one destroyed a Heartless ship in little to no time at all. Several more probably would have fallen to the subsequent shots Lea made, but Sora could not keep the ship sitting in one position for too long, as evidenced when he had to make a sharp turn away from some incoming enemy attacks. Luckily, the next round of weapons that Lea unleashed did still take out a good number of enemies, even if some of them were not direct hits, so they were able to shake off a good number of their pursuers.

Even with Sora's expert flying and Lea's weapon's barrage, the Heartless were still able to get in a few hits of their own, and the others could not help but grow a little more nervous every time Roxas reported on the status of the ship's shields. Eventually, Ruby found herself unable to keep sitting still and took control of some of the weapons. This proved to be quite a relief for Lea, because with Ruby watching their backs, he was able to concentrate on shooting the enemies in front of them. Before long, he had even deployed some Teeny Ships to act as backup, and left control of those to Jaune, Yang, Nora, and Blake. Yes, you read that right. Four people were flying the Teeny Ships, and that would be because there were four such ships being deployed. Sora was just as surprised as you probably are right now, after having to make do with only two such ships in all the past models, but he ignored this new detail for now and returned his focus to flying the ship. Of course, some of the others did still wonder about a few things.

"Uh, I thought you guys said this was a stealth ship. As in it could turn invisible? Can't you just use those stealth systems to shake them off and get us out of here?" Sun questioned, voicing a thought that had only just recently occurred to most of the other people on board.

"In case you haven't noticed, Sun, we are practically locked in a kill box! Even if we did turn invisible right now, all it would take is one hit from any of the Heartless currently on top of us, and they'd know exactly where to shoot! Besides, the stealth system wouldn't work against the Heartless anyway," Sora explained while twisting, turning, and pushing the steering controls in every direction he could to avoid getting hit by enemy fire. When he finally managed to get them in a position where he could relax on his defensive driving, he turned to his fellow Keybearers and asked, "Would it?"

Lea had just blasted another Heartless ship into oblivion when he joined Roxas and Ventus in turning flat looks on their leader, but the redhead still ended up being the first one to respond to Sora's question. "Man, you NEED to read the damn manual!"

"The ship's stealth system is highly experimental, but it was mainly designed to hide the ship from both the naked eye and from anyone who doesn't have access to gummi block technology. Even a place that has tech as advanced as Atlas, if not better wouldn't be able to track the Stealth Gummi without at least knowing exactly how gummi block tech works. That's why the stealth system wouldn't be able to hide us from another gummi ship or from the sensors used in places like Radiant Garden or Disney World," Roxas explained to the group.

"Uh, don't you mean Disney Castle?" Sora asked of his former Nobody.

"No, I mean Disney World," Roxas repeated.

"I think he means Disney Town," Ventus corrected.

"No, I mean World," Roxas insisted. "Believe it or not, that place is made up of more than one town and the castle residing in it. If anything, Disney Town is like the capital city for the entire world. There are other places on said world like Duckburg, Saint Canard, Mouseton, Spoonerville…"

"Okay, okay, we get it. This is all very fascinating, Roxas, but maybe you can tell us more when we're not being shot at during a space battle?" Yang interrupted, blasting another Heartless with her Teeny Ship.

"Oh, right. Sorry," Roxas apologized before turning back to his computer. "Teeny Ship pilots, better be extra careful. Some of you have already lost half your shields, and the armor integrity on those things isn't nearly as good as the stealth gummi's."

"We're doing our best, here, but there's just so many of them," Nora replied while maneuvering her ship away from another assault. "Are you sure we can't just turn invisible and get away?"

"What did I just say about how the stealth systems work?" Roxas grumbled. "The Heartless ships are basically gummi ships in their own right, so even if we did try to use the ship's stealth mode, they'd be able to find us either by blasting us or through their own senses or sensors."

"Even if we wanted to try using them, we actually run a much bigger risk in doing so, because we'd have to shut down our combat shields, leaving us with only the bare minimum of shielding. As in the kind of shielding we would need if we needed to land on another world, and I think I speak for everyone when I say we want those to remain as intact as possible," Ventus added on.

Another explosion rocked the ship, and this one would definitely have thrown someone from their seat if they were not wearing their safety belts. All the more reason why Ren felt the need to make his own worries clear in his voice when he asked, "Is there anything we can do?"

"Ven, give us some more power to the shields and engines," Sora ordered.

"I'm giving her all she's got, Captain," Ventus replied as he started to work a little more frantically to keep their shields up while their engines either kept or gained more power.

"All she's got isn't cutting it," Sora retorted. "We need to get to the warp point if we're going to get through this."

"Well unless you can just snap your fingers and make some extra shields appear in front of us so I can transfer power from them to our rear shields and engines, I don't know what else I can do," Ventus shot back a little heatedly.

Listening to this back and forth between the two boys may have worried some of the others, but it also gave Weiss an idea. "Ven, get ready to do that power transfer," she said while raising a hand out in front of her. "I'm going to try something."

"And what exactly would that be?" Ventus inquired of the heiress. He did not want to sound like he did not have any faith in Weiss, but she was asking him to send a lot of power away from a very pivotal point of the ship's defenses on little more than a hunch.

"Just do it! Trust me," Weiss insisted.

Ventus did not have time to argue, so he did as Weiss asked and transferred a majority of the forward shields' power to the rear shields and engines. Right when he had finished, Sora ended up flying into the path of an attack he would not be able to avoid in time, prompting everyone to brace for impact. When the attack hit, the resulting explosion did rock the ship quite a bit, but to their surprise, they remained completely intact. Sure, a few sparks flew out from a console or two, but that was the worst of it from the latest hit.

No one was really sure how they survived a direct hit to their bow like that, and even Roxas could not give them much explanation after checking over the ship's damage reports. At least, not until they looked up at the viewport and saw several large and very familiar white glyphs spinning around in front of them. A glance behind him to the only one who could have made such a glyph allowed Sora to see Weiss smirking proudly as she continued to concentrate on keeping her semblance going.

"Nice fast thinking, Weiss," Sora praised the girl.

"I'll say," Ruby agreed. "If we weren't in the middle of a battle right now, and I wasn't dating Sora, I would so kiss you."

"Please don't. I need to concentrate," Weiss ordered, even if her smirk remained intact.

"How long do you think you can hold those glyphs?" Ventus asked of her.

"Not sure. I've never had to use them on something this big before, or even for such an extended period of time," Weiss admitted.

"Just hold it as long as you can," Sora told her before looking back to Roxas. "How much further to the warp point?"

"Checking," Roxas informed him, and after a brief pause, he had an answer. "Five clicks and counting."

"Alright, hang on everyone. I'm gunning it," Sora announced, and a second later, the Stealth Gummi had shot forward at full speed.

After Sora had opened up the ship to full throttle, the Teeny Ship pilots and two gunners ended up frantically working to try and keep up with his pace to ensure they did not fall too far behind, and to ensure as few Heartless as possible were able to get behind them, be it at all or for as short a time as possible. As he kept up his fast-paced, frantic flying, Sora listened closely as Roxas counted down the distance to their warp point, waiting until the moment he heard Roxas say three before ordering for the Teeny Ships to be recalled. He did let the four get in a few last shots before rejoining the small crafts with the main ship, but he still insisted that they all get the Teeny Ships aboard right when he heard Roxas announce they were two clicks away.

It started to seem like hours as they fought through the remaining Heartless with just the Stealth Gummi's weapons, and some of them started to think the last pause in Roxas's countdown went on longer than all the rest. Luckily, the wait ended up not being as long as it seemed, but they all still breathed in relief when Roxas finally announced, "We've reached the warp point! World coordinates locked in now! Course is as clear as it's ever going to be!"

"Hang onto your Scrolls, people. Going to warp now!" Sora hollered right at the moment he activated the warp controls.

Instantly, the stealth gummi vanished from the battlefield in a blast of light, and the team all breathed sighs of relief over finally getting away from such a dangerous situation. Out of all of them, Weiss's sigh had been the heaviest of all, but given how she seemed to slump over a little after dismissing her glyphs, they figured it had to be equal parts relief and exhaustion. No one could blame her of course. After what she just pulled off, Weiss had every right to just fall asleep in her seat, and they all made sure she knew that with every voice of praise sent her way afterwards.

Ventus took it a little further than just words of praise. He got up from his seat, walked right over to Weiss, and planted a kiss on her cheek, much to everyone's surprise. "I guess that's two I now owe you, Weiss," he grinned at her, even as his face started turning red.

"Oh, uh, yes, I suppose it is," Weiss nervously stuttered as her own blush started coloring her cheeks.

"More like one we all owe her," Neptune corrected, interrupting the moment and reminding the pair of everyone else's presence. "That was really cool."

"No kidding," Ruby agreed. "We should probably see about trying to practice that a little more in the future, though. Just in case."

"Oh please. How often do you think I'm going to need to use my glyphs like that? Let alone on something as big as the stealth gummi," Weiss questioned.

"Hey, like the old saying goes: better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it," Jaune pointed out.

For once, Weiss could admit Jaune had a point, and decided that it probably would be wise to practice using her glyphs in such a manner at some point soon. She was about to ask her teammates and the others to help her with finding a time to do so, when the ship dropped out of warp just a short distance from their destination. A quick glance out the viewport allowed them to see that the world in question looked a lot like a skull with several tentacles extending out from beneath and the side of it, while a sword was wedged into the jaw, and a pair of sailing ships seemed to be crashing through waves on top of the skull. The final piece of the world's design was a pirate's hat hanging off of the skull, but upon closer inspection, some of the group saw signs of the skull's head doubling as a map not unlike ones used by sailors or even pirates seeking treasure. In short, it did not look anything like some of the last few worlds they had visited, and something about the vibe of this one also felt really odd to them. Not necessarily in a bad way, but it was still quite curious.

After a few more moments of studying the world below them, Sun finally asked the question. "Sora, what is this place?"

Sora simply smiled in response before waving a finger and saying, "Ah-ah-ah. Sorry guys, but this time, you're not going to find out the name of this world until we're down on the surface. So, head on down to the teleporter, and I'll meet you there once I've parked the ship in orbit."

The eight from Remnant all looked to the other Keybearers to see if they would offer any additional information, but Lea, Roxas, and Ventus all proved to be just as tight-lipped as Sora was being on the matter, and simply led the way to the teleporter. They continued to remain in the dark even when Sora finished parking the ship and joined them at the teleporter, but upon arriving on the surface they quickly figured out at least one reason why they were keeping quiet. When the light from teleporting down had faded away, they were all squinting their eyes in an effort to block out a very bright sun while the sound of waves greeted their ears. The latter of these two things made Neptune tense up without pause, but before he could blindly scramble away from the source of said sound, everyone's eyes had adjusted to see just why they were hearing the waves so clearly.

It turned out their landing site was the beach of a small island, and glancing both left and right allowed them to see just how small the island was, because the beach started to curve around just a few feet away from where they were standing. Realizing he was surrounded by water on all sides made Neptune scramble for the middle of the island before anyone could blink, much to everyone's disbelief and Sun's tired resignation, but there was one other thing that they started to take note of: the most recent change in their attire.

For the most part, Sun and Neptune's outfits remained unchanged, save for how the material was changed to be more along the lines of something sailors and/or pirates would wear. The only other exception was in how Neptune's goggles were replaced with a headband and Sun now wore a bandanna over his head. Upon examining their own attire, the others found they had similar costume changes. Many of them just had their usual outfits switched out for a pirate equivalent and had small additions added on, like in the cases of Nora, Yang, and Weiss, while the others had a few more noticeable ones. The most notable change for Jaune and Pyrrha was in how both of them had lost their respective armors. In place of his usual armor and hoodie, Jaune now wore a pure black sailor's shirt with a white, sleeveless vest over the top, and in exchange for her Olympus-like armor and red sash, Pyrrha's outfit had changed into a tight-looking dark brown shirt with gold lacing and detailing, over which she wore a puffy white shirt, black pants, and a long, dark red skirt that was held in place by a gold-colored belt. Of course, both of them still had their usual weapons, but only Pyrrha seemed to retain even one piece of her regular attire, namely her usual circlet. Another notable change in a person's attire came from how Ren's hair had been let down from its usual ponytail, but otherwise, his outfit was still very similar to his usual style. Similarly, Blake's bow had been completely removed freeing her cat ears out into view. Out of all of them, only Ruby seemed to have gone through the most changes, as her attire had been switched out for a white dress shirt, black pants, a brown belt, and a dark red bandanna. The only thing that remained unchanged was where she kept her precious scythe and her long red cloak. Zwei of course, remained unchanged, though his fur did look a little more damp, like he had gotten wet very recently.

As for the Keybearers, they all had taken on various different pirate stylings of their own. Each of them wore dingy white undershirts and a hybrid of seaboots and their usual footwear, but that was where the similarities stopped. In the case of Ventus, he still kept his usual armor and badge, but the latter was now pinned to a dark green vest, which he wore over fine silk waistcoat that was colored similarly to his usual jacket, while a green headband was wrapped around his head. Roxas was of a similar attire, though his vest was most black, while his waistcoat was a faded white color, his headband was a grungy grey color, and his pointed cross emblem had been pinned to his vest in the same place where Ven's badge had been. Lea probably took the prize for most drastic, since his outfit included a pair of khaki sailor's pants, and a dark red, sleeveless coat that came down to his knees. Around his waist was a blue sash, on which there was a pin in the image of his chakrams. Finally, his flaming, spiky hair had been pressed down within a dark red bandanna, completing his look.

When the others turned to Sora, they were finally able to get a good look at his new Caribbean attire, and had to admit, everything from the leather coat to the captain's hat covering both his bandanna and spiky hair suited him perfectly. It was almost as if the world itself were declaring Sora the captain of any and all voyages he set out on from the second he set foot on the shores of this island. Seeing Sora in his current outfit and each other in the obvious pirate garb certainly helped to put a few clues together on where they had landed, but they still felt it necessary to ask just to be certain.

"Sora, where are we?" Ruby inquired.

"And why are we wearing these…these…rags?!" Weiss demanded right after.

Sora looked a little insulted over the second question. "Weiss Schnee! These are NOT rags! They are customary sailor's wear. Or more accurately, customary pirate's attire," he pointedly corrected her. Not that it seemed to make Weiss feel too much better, but Sora did not really care about that one way or another. "And as for the questions of where we are and why we're wearing them, well, both answers are very simple."

"They are?" Ruby asked.

"Aye, they are," Sora growled in his best pirate voice. "My friends, 'tis now a pirate's life for all of us, because we've just set sail in the Caribbean!"

The others were a little bewildered by Sora's sudden need to talk like a pirate, but they mostly chalked it up to Sora being his usual, playful self. Though, there was one thing in what he said Yang had to point out. "I think you're forgetting something a little important for the whole 'set sail' part."

"More to the point, how's this place supposed to help Neptune with his fear of water?" Sun asked them, not quite getting what the Keybearers were planning. "If you're hoping to try and get him out on a boat at sea, then you're a bit out of luck. Trust me, I've tried before and ended up getting blasted with a lot of Lightning Dust for my troubles."

"Hey, doesn't mean a little exposure therapy can't still work," Lea shrugged. "Besides, not only are we already here, but the only sure fire way of getting around a majority of this world is to go sailing."

"And before anyone points out the teleporter on the stealth gummi, let me just remind you all that only four people here have both access and authority to use it. So unless he wants to stay up in that tree and on this island, Neptune's gonna have to get on a boat with us, and we're not leaving until he has," Ventus pointed out.

"You can't make that happen! We still have to be back in time for the tournament," Neptune shouted down from the tree he had climbed up to better stay clear of the water.

"Time flows differently on this world compared to Remnant, Neptune. We could stay here for days, weeks, or even months, and barely any time at all will have passed back on Remnant," Roxas called back. In truth, he did not know the exact time difference between the Caribbean and Remnant, but he did know it was very considerable considering all that had apparently transpired between Sora's last couple of visits. More importantly, Neptune did not know the exact time difference either, and he was counting on that when he mentioned this detail.

When Roxas's words started to fully register in his mind, Neptune quickly went pale over the realization they brought him. The others would be able to wait him out, and the only way he could leave this world, or at least this island was to give into the Keybearers' demands and get on a boat heading out to sea. He still tried to think of another way around this, but in the end, he slunk down from the tree and back over to the beach with the others. He still maintained a fair bit of distance from the water, but he made it clear he was not going to try and fight this for much longer when he looked at Team SLVR and said, "I am not going to like this."

"Hey, you'll be thanking us later, dude. Guaranteed," Lea promised.

"Somehow I doubt that," Neptune quietly grumbled.

Seeing as Neptune was no longer trying to avoid getting on a boat, Ruby decided to bring their attention back around to the matter her sister had mentioned earlier. "Um Sora?"

"Aye, what ails ya, Miss Rose?" Sora asked, still using his pirate voice.

"How are we going to sail anywhere if we don't even have a boat?"

Sora's smile dropped a little, but he kept his composure a little better this time around when he next answered. "First off, we're not taking a boat. We're sailing on a ship. There's a difference."

"Oh really? And what would that be?" Weiss asked, skeptically.

Sora was just about to answer when Ventus suddenly rushed over and slapped a hand over his mouth. "No, no, NO!" Ventus ordered. "Do not start that again. I don't care how big of a time difference there is between here and Remnant. You will not keep us all here for ages on end just to explain the differences between a ship and a boat, do you hear me Sora?"

"Yes, now can you take your hand off my mouth now?" Sora mumbled through his partner's palm.

The others all just stared at the two for several seconds, wondering why this weirdness had just happened, until Roxas looked to them all and said, "He's an island kid, remember? He knew how to sail long before he learned how to drive, and as such, they tend to be a little sensitive when people don't use the right terminology for the various sea-faring vehicles."

Everyone seemed to accept that, and once he had gotten Ventus off him, Sora continued on with what he had been about to say before. "At any rate, we don't need a boat when we have a mighty vessel to carry us over these waters. One that is magnificent, powerful, grand, and huge-ish…"

"And nowhere in sight," Nora interrupted.

"Just give me a minute, ye impatient landlubbers," Sora grumbled, and he started riffling through all of his pockets. It took him a few minutes, but eventually, he did manage to find what he was looking for, and he produced a small whistle typically used certain sailors. After taking a deep breath, he blew into the whistle as loudly as he could, prompting the others to flinch a little, while Sun, Blake, and Zwei all covered their ears as best they could in attempt to block out the loud noise.

"Seriously? Again with this?" Blake demanded once Sora had ceased use of his whistle.

"Sorry. I didn't think it'd be too big of a problem for you guys," Sora apologized.

Before anyone could give any other comment, the ground suddenly began shaking beneath their feet, and the waters lapping at the beach began to ripple and bubble, indicating something big was about to surface from beneath the waves. It seemed crazy to think that though, given how shallow the water had to be in their current location, but then again, it seemed pretty normal for crazy things to happen around their Keyblade wielding friends, let alone on other worlds. This time proved no different, for a moment later, a huge ship suddenly burst out from the water, landing in the waves before them with a powerful splash. At first glance, it did not seem like too much, though it did seem to have a large number of cannons, red and black sails, and a pair of arrows mounted on either side of the bow and pointed outwards. Taking all of this in along with how the flag it was flying had Sora's crown emblem printed on it, and it soon became a little more clear just how special this ship could really be.

Sora let everyone take in the majesty of the ship he had just summoned out from the sea before he turned to his friends and declared, "Mates, say hello to me own personal pirate ship, and one of the most powerful ships to ever sail these waters: the Leviathan."

"Whoa," was the most anyone other than the Keybearers could manage for a while. Even Neptune had to gaze up at the ship in awe, if for no other reason than simply how Sora had summoned it out of the water with a little whistle like he had.

"How did you get something like this?" Blake eventually managed to ask.

"A combination of things. Mostly a little deal with an apparent sea goddess and a lot of crab collecting," Sora replied, making everyone stare at him in both wonder and confusion. "Long story. Point is, this vessel had served me well in the past, and now, she shall serve us just as richly in our quest today: a quest for adventure, and helping our poor friend to brave the sea and conquer his fears."

"Somehow, I doubt that," Pyrrha as she turned to see Neptune trying to sneak away unnoticed. Not very well, one might add.

Sora immediately set to work the second Pyrrha drew everyone's attention to the blue haired boy again. "Alright Vasilias, ye scurvy little guppy, listen and listen good," Sora growled in his pirate voice, now channeling a little bit of his old friend from this world. "As of now, you only have one of three ways off this little spit of land. Firstly, you brave yer fears and set sail on me ship with this crew of most honest and true pirates…"

"Please don't call us that," Weiss naturally requested, prompting eye-rolls all around.

"Secondly, you swim for it which in effect will see you braving yer fears in a much more stupid manner," Sora continued like he had never been interrupted.

"And the third option is that I stay here until you decide to just send me back to the stealth gummi?" Neptune guessed with a hopeful smile.

"No, don't be ridiculous, mate. We already went over why no one's doing that for you just yet," Sora quickly denied. "The third option is that we just leave ye here all by your onesy with not but a pistol with a single shot."

"Why would that be all you'd leave me with?" Neptune nervously asked.

Before Sora could answer that, the other three Keybearers raced over, with Ventus slapping a hand over his mouth, stopping him from talking once again, Roxas putting him in a chokehold to better ensure his silence, and Lea hastily giving Neptune a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "Hahahaha, he's kidding, Neptune. He's kidding!" Lea quickly promised. He then shot a look back Sora's way as he growled, "He IS kidding."

"Of course I'm kidding!" Sora huffed as he managed to shove his other two friends off him. "Sorry. I can admit, that was a bad joke, and I might have gotten a little too into it there. But seriously Neptune, I wasn't joking about those first two things."

Neptune could tell Sora really was being serious about making him choose between the ship or swimming, but he was still determined to find another way out. "Are you sure there isn't some kind of compromise we could work out?"

Hearing this nearly drew a tired sigh from Sora, but he did manage to hold it back when he had a new idea. "Alright Neptune," Sora started. "How about this, you can stay up in the crow's nest for an hour, well away from the water, but only if you come down to help out on deck, even if it's just something as simple as swabbing it. Savvy?"

Neptune actually consider getting on the boat upon hearing this, but he did have a question. "Where's the crow's nest again?"

This time Sora did not hesitate giving the other boy an annoyed look. "It's that basket up near the top of the ship. You know, the one where someone who shouts things like 'land ho' would sit?"

"Oh," Neptune nodded, suddenly feeling like an idiot for asking, but not to the point where he did not try to bargain. "Three hours?"

"Half an hour," Sora countered.

"Two hours."

"A minute."

"Okay, okay! One hour."

"Deal."

"Deal."

Clearly Neptune was not much of a haggler, but no one seemed to mind all that much right now. With all this silliness dealt with, Sora turned on the pirate act once again and turned to his friends. "Alright ye bilge rats! We aren't sailing anywhere just standing around in the sand. All hands on deck! Hoist anchor and prepare to cast off! Make way for adventure and bring me that horizon!"

Everyone quickly hurried to board the Leviathan, mainly because Sora's pirate accent made his orders seem a little more intimidating somehow, but Jaune could not help looking to Ren and asking, "He does remember most of us don't know anything about sailing, right?"

"Do you think that will really matter all that much? Even if the ship isn't magic, I get the feeling Sora's going to make sailors out of us before we know it," Ren told his team leader.

"Nay, I won't be just making sailors out of ye sorry lot, Ren. When I'm done, I'll have made you all into fearsome pirates," Sora corrected, surprising the two with how he just appeared at their side like that. "Now get up on the deck and secure the rigging!"

The two boys of Team JNPR picked up their pace right after, but Weiss stopped short in boarding the ship to ask Sora a question she could no longer hold back. "Sora, are you going to be talking like that the whole time we're here?"

"First off, that be Captain Sora to you, Missy," Sora growled, still using his pirate voice. When Weiss just leveled him with another look, he immediately dropped it and replied, "And kinda sorta. It'll most likely be more of an on-and-off thing."

Unsure if she would be able to live with that or not, Weiss just placed a hand to forehead and sighed, "This is going to be a long visit."

---

Everyone was very glad the Leviathan was a magic ship capable of sailing with little assistance from its crew, because otherwise, they would have just been drifting in the water for who knows how long. Sure, one or two of them did seem to figure out a few things pretty quickly, while others already knew at least a little bit, but overall, the only real sailor in their group was clearly their captain, so why would they not be thankful to have a ship that could do most of the hard work of sailing for them? It did not stop Sora from getting everyone up to speed on what was needed to get the ship sailing though, because, as he put it, "just because the ship can sail by herself, doesn't mean you scabrous dogs get to slack off." Ruby thought her boyfriend's whole pirate act was cute the more she heard it. Weiss just grew more and more annoyed by it. And everyone else…well, they were either undecided or simply neutral for the time being.

Out of everyone though, Neptune seemed to have garnered the most attention after his hour in the crow's nest. The very second his allotted time was up, Sora put him to work doing whatever task he could think of. Whether it was swabbing the deck like he said, securing the rigging for various items on the ship, or even the most menial of tasks, Sora had Neptune doing it with little pause. At first, Neptune did not really complain too much, outside of asking if he could get an extension on his time in his high vantage point, but as soon as he had finished his task, he immediately took off back up to the crow's nest for another hour. This pattern continued on until Sora finally gave him more than one task to complete, and Neptune soon found himself doing more things after finishing with his assignments without Sora saying anything. In fact, he barely even spared the ocean a single glance as he worked, but instead just focused on his work until it was all finished. Even then, he did not return to the crow's nest, but instead, joined the others in sharing a meal below deck.

Later that same day, Sun came up to stand alongside Sora and Ruby, the former of which was currently manning the helm while humming a catchy-sounding tune, and watched as his friend helped Jaune, Pyrrha, and Blake with fixing some of the ropes on the main sail, not looking the least bit bothered by his watery surroundings. "I don't believe what I'm seeing," Sun commented. "All those times I've tried getting Neptune on a boat, and I didn't think he'd ever fold. And yet here he is, not only on a ship, but helping to keep it sailing and not even looking the least bit worried about the water."

"Aye, that be one of the many beauties of sailing, me lad. When yer out at sea, you can't be bothered to worry about yer fears, but on whatever task needs to be doing in order to keep your vessel ship-shape," Sora attempted to explain to Sun, exercising his pirate voice once again.

Luckily, Sun was one of their friends who was starting to find Sora's pirate act almost as entertaining as Ruby, so he just grinned and chuckled in response. "In other words, you're helping him deal with his fear by giving him something else to worry about despite being out on the water, huh?"

"Exactly, matey," Sora confirmed with a grin. Of course, as nice as it was to see Neptune starting to improve with his fears, Sora knew this was only one step in getting the boy to better conquer them. Right when he was starting to brainstorm on what his next move could be though, Ruby tapped his shoulder.

"Pardon me, Sora–Oh! I mean, Captain Sora, sir?" Ruby asked.

"Aye, what ails ya, First Mate Ruby?"

Just before Ruby could ask her question, Lea suddenly shouted, "Whoa! Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hold on a minute! How come she gets to be first mate? I'm calling favoritism! Favoritism I say!"

"Ya can call whatever you like, Mister Firebrand, so long as ye don't act on it. Otherwise, I'll have yer gizzards pinned to the mast," Sora called back to the fiery redhead.

While Sora's threat had successfully shut Lea up, albeit with some grumbling on the latter's part, Pyrrha looked decidedly worried about how quickly Sora had made such a threat against his friend. Seeing as she was close to someone who could likely best answer, she turned to Roxas and asked, "He is joking, right?"

"Most likely," Roxas shrugged. Seeing as Pyrrha did not look entirely reassured, he then added on, "Hey, we told you guys that Sora really likes this world, and part of that means he gets really into the whole pirate thing. Of course, it is pretty easy to tell he's just kidding around when he starts making threats like that, usually."

"Usually?" Blake repeated with worry.

"Well to be fair, there are still bad guys on this world. And Heartless."

The two girls just nodded in response and returned to what they were doing before, finally leaving Ruby to ask her question. "So where exactly are we going, Captain?"

Sora crossed his arms for a brief spell and then answered, "I don't know."

"What?" Ruby asked.

"What?" Sun, Blake, Pyrrha, and Roxas all repeated soon after.

"WHAT?!" the others all shouted right after this, having overheard what Sora said.

"Relax you guys. Being a pirate isn't all about just finding treasure at any old destination. It's about the freedom of sailing the seas and discovering whatever adventure awaits beyond the horizon," Sora declared proudly.

Everyone just stared at Sora for a bit before Ventus finally deduced, "You were planning on just having us sail around at random in order to help Neptune with his fear of water, weren't you?"

"More or less," Sora admitted. "Still, I kinda thought we'd run into something else by now."

"Like what?" Nora inquired.

"I don't know. A random ship, some Heartless vessels…Maybe some of Luxord's remaining Gamblers; just anything really. It's usually right around this point when we run into some event going on here," Sora elaborated.

The others all hummed in thought after hearing this, but all contemplation was put to rest when Weiss suddenly shouted, "Ship ahoy! Off the port bow!"

All at once, everyone scrambled to locate the ship Weiss had spotted, but even after scanning the area she had indicated several times over, they could not see anything at all. "Weiss, are you sure you saw a ship?" Ren called out to the heiress. "There's nothing out there."

"What're you talking about? It's right over there, where I said it was," Weiss insisted.

When Sora turned to Weiss so he could tell her otherwise, he immediately got a good look at where she was pointing and figured out why they could not see anything. "Weiss, that's not the port bow. That's starboard bow."

"What's the difference?" Weiss questioned, obviously not getting it.

Sora could not stop himself from slapping his forehead in exasperation, but still explained to the clueless heiress. "Aside from being two completely different directions? Starboard is to the right side of the ship, and port is to the left! Just like the bow is forward and stern is the back. Port equals left, starboard is right, bow is front, stern is back! This is among the simplest of simple sailing knowledge!"

"Well I'm sorry. I'm not a sailor, let alone some ne'er-do-well pirate," Weiss snapped in return.

Sora merely rolled his eyes before pulling a spyglass out of his coat and examining the area ahead for the ship Weiss had spotted. When he found the ship in question, his frown deepened a little more, indicating he now had something to add to his grievances of Weiss's report. "Okay, since Ven's going to throw a hissy fit if I go into the whole rant, I'm going to summarize it for you all," Sora began to tell the group at large. "A ship is a very large sea-faring vessel, like what we're all currently sailing. A boat, is a very, very small one. That out there is not a ship but a boat, and more to the point, it is what we sailors typically refer to as a dingy. Now take note of this, because there are only three reasons why someone would be sailing the ocean in a dingy: one, they are very desperate and have no other choice; two, they are incredibly, almost insanely brave; and three…because they themselves are a little dingy."

Sensing the level of annoyance Sora was giving off, the others were a little hesitant to ask him anything else, but Nora still managed to do so anyway. Not surprising, given Nora tended to be a bit more recklessly brave than anyone else in their group. "So which one do you think this guy would be?"

Sora merely raised a finger in the universal sign of one moment, and then raised his spyglass up again to study the person aboard the dingy. Everyone else could not help but watch on with baited breathes, worried about just what Sora would report, until finally, a smile broke out on his face as he lowered the spyglass at last and pocketed it once more. "That answer Nora, really depends on who you ask. Me personally, I'd tell you it's the greatest pirate who ever lived," Sora proudly declared. He then hurried back to the helm while shouting, "Raise sails to half-mast and prepare to come to full stop! And one of you scabrous dogs get a rope ready! We're about to welcome an old friend aboard."

Everyone quickly began scrambling to carry out the young captain's orders, save for Jaune who had to stare after Sora for a minute in wonder and ask, "Where did he get that spy-glass from?"

"He's got a whole bunch of sailor/pirate things in that coat of his. We think they're all part of this particular form change, at least for Sora," Ventus shrugged in response. He did not have any better answers than that, so they left it at that and proceeded to find the rope Sora requested.

Soon after, they had pulled up alongside the dingy Weiss had spotted in the water, and after Sora shouted a welcoming call to the little boat's occupant, they tossed the rope down to him, allowing the sailor to climb aboard. When he did come aboard, his boots gave a loud thud as he touched down on deck, and everyone was surprised to see Sora had allowed an obviously real pirate aboard the ship. Not only that, but the guy looked like he might be a little drunk, making Ruby and Yang think he would get along great with their uncle if they ever met, but all of that fell to the wayside when the pirate stepped forward with a confident, swaggering gait as though he owned everything around him.

"Much obliged for the hospitality mates, but I'm afraid that I'll be commandeering your fine vessel now. Afterwards, I'll be picking up a crew in Tortuga, and proceed to raid, pillage, plunder, and otherwise pilfer my weasely black guts out," the pirate informed the gathered crew, making them all pause and wonder if they should be worried about this so-called "friend" of Sora's, be it for his sanity or his health. Did he really think he would be able to take their ship all by himself?

Before anyone could pose that exact question, Sora let out a joyous laugh and declared, "Come on, Jack. I doubt you'd really want to take over an old friend's ship after he and his crew went to all the trouble of lending you hand."

"Ah, Sora. I should've known this was your strange vessel from the start. Few others would willingly let a pirate such as myself aboard without any concern or worry," Jack happily greeted while marching up to Sora and exchanging a handshake with the boy in question. "It's been far too long, hasn't it?"

"Aye, it has. The Brethren Court's battle with the Dutchman and Becket if I remember right," Sora confirmed, channeling just a hint of his pirate voice.

"Oof, that is a long time ago, now," Jack winced a little. "And yet you look right as ever. Almost makes me think you may have found the treasure which I and a few other parties are currently seeking."

Before the exchange could go any further, Weiss decided to somewhat rudely interrupt. "Sora, do you know this…vagabond?"

Jack turned about to the heiress after hearing her question and replied, "First off, young lass, I'd ask you to keep in mind that I am a pirate. I don't even know what that means. Secondly…who are all of you?"

Hearing Jack's question prompted Sora into the latest round of introductions. "Everyone, I'd like you to meet one of the greatest pirates who ever lived: Captain Jack Sparrow." Jack gave a quick bow with a broad smirk as soon as Sora had finished, most likely happy that Sora remembered the "captain" part. "Jack, meet my new crew of most honest and true pirates."

"What did I say about calling us that?" Weiss demanded, but otherwise went ignored as Sora proceeded to list out all their names.

When Sora finally finished, Jack took a moment to look over his crew as if judging them and their worthiness as pirates. Turns out he had been doing exactly that, because he did not hesitate in voicing his opinions on their pirate status. "I must say, Sora, this new crew is certainly much bigger than the one you normally sail with, but I can't help but wonder if there's any real truth to their claims as pirates." His eyes eventually came to rest on Roxas and he added, "You though, look vaguely familiar. Have I threatened you before?"

"Why in the world would you ask someone that?" Pyrrha questioned.

"Probably because it's the most likely way he would recognize someone," Jaune pointed out to his partner.

Roxas on the other hand just took it in stride. "No, I'm just…something of a distant relative of Sora's."

"Oh. Of course," Jack accepted. "I suppose that goes for your brother as well?"

"We're not related," Ventus and Roxas commented at the same time.

Jack did not seem too thrown off by the response. He just waved it away and proceeded on with his critiquing of the crew. "You seem a little too bright and cheery, but definitely have the makings of one who seeks adventure and thrills," he commented to Yang.

"I mean, you're not wrong," Yang happily shrugged, even as Jack moved to the next person in the line-up. He had to pause a little though when he laid eyes on said person.

"I don't know why, but something about you makes me a little nervous," Jack commented to the hammer-wielding ginger.

"Hey, so long as you don't do anything to make me mad, I won't break your legs," Nora promised with her usual grin.

Now Jack was really nervous, and just had to ask, "And what would constitute such a retaliation from you?"

"Most likely? Either eating my pancakes or hurting Ren. Or really just any of my friends, because it's not like Ren and I are together. I mean, we are together, but not together-together…"

"I get the point, lass," Jack interrupted before Nora could go much further. He then turned to Ren and stated, "You look like you would fit right in with the pirates from the South China Sea. Does the name Sao Feng mean anything to you?"

"Uh…no," Ren admitted.

"Oh, well good then. That means you aren't here to collect the money I may or may not still owe him. I mean, it wouldn't do him much good since he's dead now, but you know how some people can be," Jack rambled on. His next three subjects really gave him pause before he finally started on the one boy among said three. "You look like you'd be better suited as a cabin boy in the king's navy at best."

The others all glanced between Jack and the teammate he just somewhat insulted before Lea finally asked, "Jaune, are you going to take that?"

"He's not entirely wrong," Jaune begrudgingly admitted.

"You seem far too nice to hurt a fly," Jack carried on, having moved to Jaune's partner after him. "I mean really, you look like you'd be better off as a stay-at-home wife, or some other form of fair maiden."

The first response Jack received was Pyrrha's sword going right to his neck as the redhead glared at him and stated, "I assure you, Captain Sparrow, I'm more than capable in a fight."

No one would deny that, but at the same time, they felt like Jack did have a little bit of a point in saying Pyrrha was a little too nice. There were times it seemed like her catchphrase was "I'm sorry," but none of them were going to mention it while she had her weapon out. She soon holstered Miló again, but to their surprise, she then turned around and slapped Jack hard enough to make him turn around and face Sora.

"Not sure I deserved that," Jack muttered, and Sora was very thankful that Pyrrha did not seem to hear him. Then again, she was probably tensing up along with everyone else as he turned his attention to a certain heiress. "You most definitely look like the furthest thing from a pirate."

"Thank you. Finally, someone sees…" Weiss started to say.

"If anything, you look more like a spoiled, governor's daughter who likes to pretend at being a pirate," Jack finished.

"Excuse me?!"

"Uh-oh," Ruby whispered while the others either started to slowly back away from Weiss and Jack, or rubbed their ears to clear out the ringing in them.

"Frankly, my dear, I've had more than enough of my fill of governor's daughters attempting to play at being a pirate, so I suggest you find yourself a different ship, and sail back to whatever estate full of fanciful things and money you may have," Jack continued on, not sensing or just not caring about the danger. "More to the point, these clothes certainly do not suit you at all, it should be a dress or nothing. I happen to have…no dress on my boat."

"You…you…vulgar, immature, inebriated, uncouth rapscallion of a poor excuse for so much as a decent human being, let alone any kind of human!" Weiss shrieked, drawing Myrtenastor in one quick flourish, and everyone was certain she intended to do more than just threaten Jack with it like Pyrrha had. Hence why several people were quick to jump over and grab hold of Weiss right when she was about to lunge. "No, let me go! Let me at him! I'm going to slice him into the tiniest of tiny pieces! I'm going to eviscerate him into oblivion! I'm going to make him burn with every last piece of Fire Dust I have on me, and then get more Fire Dust so I can use that on him too!"

"Hey, Ice Princess!" Lea suddenly shouted, sounding very upset when he did and drawing all attention to him. For a brief moment, everyone thought Weiss had said something to set him off again like she had back when they first found out Blake was a Faunus, until he opened his mouth again. "Setting people on fire is my thing. Yours is freezing them. Stick to your thing."

Now Jack looked a little offended and declared, "Sir, you would dare to allow such a horrible thing to happen to a fellow pirate like that?"

"After those last comments…Yeah, pretty much," Lea nodded.

Jack mulled that over for a little bit, barely paying much mind to the others' efforts in calming Weiss down, until he finally said, "You may be perhaps the one person I can most easily believe to be a pirate since I came aboard."

"Weiss, it's okay. Just calm down. He didn't mean anything by it," Yang attempted to soothe her teammate, with very little success.

"Then let go of me so I can show him how to watch what he says," Weiss demanded.

"Weiss, no," Ruby pleaded.

"Weiss, YES!" the heiress retorted.

"Okay, now you're sounding like Nora. That should be a sign of how worried you should be about yourself right now," Ventus interrupted as he wrapped his arms around Weiss's middle. "Just take a breath and calm down, okay? Please?"

This time, Weiss did as requested, and seemed to cool off a little bit. "Okay. Okay. I'm calm now."

"You good?" Yang asked, finally releasing her hold on Weiss's sword arm.

"I'm good," Weiss confirmed.

"Okay, then just put the sword away, nice and easy," Ruby gently coached.

"Right. I'm putting the sword away now," Weiss assured her partner, holstering Myrtenastor as requested.

"Just let the pirate captain be," Ventus continued on.

"Right," Weiss agreed, feeling the others slowly letting her free from their grasp, with Ventus gently pushing her away from Jack. It did not last, because the second they had all relaxed, Weiss had spun around and raced towards Jack with an angry growl.

"Wait, Weiss!"

"No, no, no, no, no, no!"

"Look out!"

It was too little too late, because by the time Jack had turned to see why those three were freaking out, Weiss had already reached him, and slapped him so hard he not only spun back around, but was sent sprawling across the deck. The others were thankful that her retaliation had not been as bad as it could have been initially, but it was still painful to watch Weiss hit Jack as hard as she had. Suddenly they all became a lot more hesitant to make Weiss mad again anytime soon, some more so than others.

Jack on the other hand seemed none the worse for wear, even if he was a little wobbly as he stood up again and admitted, "I may have deserved that."

"Ya think?" Sun rhetorically asked. "If I were you, I'd steer clear of Weiss for a long, long time after this."

Jack turned to offer up a retort, but stopped short upon taking a good look at Sun. He continued to stare for a little longer before he finally trudged over and asked, "I don't mean to alarm you mate, but are you aware that you seem to have a tail?"

"Uh, yeah. That's cause I'm—"

"Cursed!" Sora interrupted after hurriedly rushing over to cover Sun's mouth before he could finish. "He was cursed by…by a sea witch's treasure. Him and the entirety of his old crew were cursed and now all have a random animal feature along with heightened senses."

Most of Sun's muffled questions and complaints seemed to go unnoticed as Jack looked from the blonde boy over to Blake, studying them both for a little while before asking, "And might I assume the mysterious, darkly clothed lass over there was part of his old crew as well?"

"Um…" Blake hesitated to answer, but from the glance she spared the Keybearers, it seemed pretty obvious how they wanted her to answer. "Y-yeah. Yes, I was. I'm now part cat because of that same…sea witch's curse."

"Sea witch's treasure's curse," Roxas whispered.

"Sea witch's treasure's curse," Blake hurriedly corrected, while mentally groaning over how ridiculous this excuse was. "He's never going to buy this," she could not help muttering to herself.

She was in for quite the surprise, because even after giving it some thought, Jack merely shrugged and said, "That makes sense."

"It does?" both Faunus could not help but question, even if one of them still had his mouth covered shut by Sora.

Ruby took it upon herself to remind her teammate, "Blake, Sora's told us that he fought undead pirates who turn into skeletons in the moonlight, a giant sea monster, and people who had made a deal with the devil and got turned into fish people while on this world. All of which happened while hanging out with this specific pirate. I'm pretty sure he'd believe anything at this point."

"…Yeah, okay," Blake conceded, knowing Ruby had a point and seeing no ground to argue with.

Meanwhile, Sora had finally uncovered Sun's mouth after making sure the Monkey Faunus understood his near slip-up, allowing him to properly converse with Jack again. "You both have my deepest condolences, mate. I know just how annoying curses can be, but answer me this: just what sort of animal tail is that? I mean, those ears on the lovely lass are obviously cat-like in nature, but I can't really figure out what sort of tail that's meant to be."

"Uh, duh, I'm part monkey," Sun proudly declared.

To his surprise, Jack flinched back with a hiss once he heard his answer, and the pirate captain then placed a hand on Sun's shoulder as he said, "And now you also have my deepest sympathies."

This left Sun bewildered even after Jack had moved on to continue silently roaming about the ship and studying the crew, namely Zwei. Seeing Yang go on to explain the corgi's presence to his old friend, Sora quickly shuffled over to Sun and explained, "It's nothing personal, Sun. Jack's just had some bad experiences with monkeys."

Not much else was said on the matter, and some of them did get a small chuckle out of seeing Jack spare particularly worried looks in Weiss's direction before doing everything he could to ensure there was reasonable distance between them, but eventually, Jack had ended his survey of Sora's crew, save for two people. One of which being the blue-haired boy currently cowering up in the crow's nest again, and the other he was about to get introduced to in response to his next question. "Well lad, as odd as this motley crew of yours seems to be, I can't help but notice none of them are your mates Donald and Goofy," Jack said to Sora. "So, who among this lot would be serving as your first mate?"

"That would be me. First Mate Ruby Rose, at your service," Ruby proudly declared with a snap salute.

"Favoritism," Lea coughed.

"Again, you can call whatever ye like, but it still won't be changing anything," Sora informed the redhead, his pirate voice going up once again.

Jack just gave the two boys a curious look and asked, "What exactly does favoritism have to do with anything here?"

"Because my little sister is also Sora's girlfriend," Yang explained, much to Ruby's blushing embarrassment.

That seemed to catch Jack off guard, and he quickly made his way over to Sora once again. "You're sweet on your first mate?"

"Aye," Sora confirmed.

Jack nodded and then asked, "Didn't you once tell me you had those certain stirrings for another young lady?"

"Uh stirrings?" Sora repeated, not sure what Jack meant.

"Yes, you know…stirrings," Jack repeated, apparently uncomfortable with the thought of another word.

"Do you mean feelings?" Sora questioned.

"No, not feelings. More like… Alright, feelings, damn you," Jack admitted.

"It's a long story," Sora replied, hanging his head a little at the brief memory of Kairi.

Jack must have taken notice of this, because he nodded and said, "I see." He then placed a hand on Sora's shoulder and stated, "Lad, let me give you a piece of advice. If you love two people at the same time, choose the second one, because if you really loved the first one you wouldn't have fallen for the second."

"Jack, no offense, but you are the last person I'd ask for relationship advice," Sora flatly told the pirate captain. "Besides, I already went through all that drama and ended up choosing Ruby in the end."

"Alright then. Never mind," Jack shrugged like it did not matter one way or another. He then spared another look at Ruby, clearly judging her like he had the others, and since some of his previous judgments had not ended very well, the others felt they needed to intervene before he could open his mouth.

"So what are you doing all the way out here anyway, Sparrow?" Blake inquired, being the quickest to act before his judgment of Ruby could be voiced.

Jack just turned to stare at Blake and said, "You know, there should really be a 'Captain' in there, lass."

"The question is still the same either way," Ren calmly pointed out.

If he was upset with his words being so casually brushed off, Jack did not show it, and instead proceeded to tell his tale. "You see mates, after the last time Sora and I met, my first mate, Gibbs and I had gone into town while we were docked in Tortuga. During that time, our old friend Hector Barbossa made off with the Pearl, leaving both myself and Gibbs behind."

"You mean you lost the Black Pearl to Barbossa again?" Sora sighed with exasperation.

"Unfortunately, but I cannot begrudge my crew too much. They did keep to the code after all."

"What code?" Ruby questioned.

"The Pirate's Code. If a pirate falls behind, they're left behind," Jack explained.

"Of course pirates would have a rule like that," Weiss grumbled under her breath.

"Thankfully this time 'round, I did not have to watch Barbossa sail away with my ship in the aftermath of a mutiny, because I've had enough of that particular bit of the code," Jack continued on, most likely ignoring Weiss's comment. "What Hector did not know was that while he absconded with my ship, I absconded with his charts."

"You mean the same charts that helped you figure out how to get us all out of the Locker?" Sora recalled.

"Aye lad, and it revealed many more secrets than just those," Jack proudly declared. "As I'm sure you'll recall, the last time you were here, we had been chasing the Dead Man's Chest, which held the heart of Davy Jones. I doubt I need to remind you of what one can do with that little black box."

"No you don't," Sora recalled. "Stab the heart in the chest, and you can live forever. But the downside was that you had to become the new captain of the Flying Dutchman so the dead could be ferried into the next life, and you could only go ashore once every ten years."

"A tall price to pay, certainly. I do not envy William's fate, but at least he has his bonny lass always waiting for him and keeping the chest safe," Jack confirmed. He then brushed aside the old memories to get back on point. "Of course, there are other ways for one to live forever, and Barbossa's charts revealed the path to one such way. My friends, I am currently seeking the Fountain of Youth."

Any and all anticipation the others might have held for an incredible treasure capable of granting eternal life died the minute they heard Jack identify said treasure. Sure, it was nice to imagine, but of all the things the pirate could be after that was it? Only Sun was brave enough to speak his mind on the matter. "Isn't the Fountain of Youth just a myth?"

"Yes, but many things are considered as such. As it turns out, a few of them are very real. The curse of the Aztec Gold hidden on Isla de Muerta being one such thing, Davy Jones another. As it turns out, the Fountain is just as real, and I'm not the only one after it."

"Oh yeah? Who else is?" Yang asked.

"I doubt many of you would know most of them, but Sora will certainly know of one. Our old friend Hector is currently searching for the Fountain with aid from the King's Navy," Jack revealed.

"The King's Navy? You mean, Barbossa's no longer a pirate?" Sora questioned, feeling very lost now.

"I can't say I blame you for your skepticism mate, because I never believed it for a second. If anything, he's only keeping up that little act so as to get at the one who caused him to lose the Pearl," Jack revealed.

"And who would that be?" Lea questioned.

"Only the most fearsome of all pirates to ever sail the seven seas. The one pirate all other pirates fear. The captain of the Queen Anne's Revenge himself: Captain Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard," Jack revealed.

Something about that particular name and the way Jack said it made everyone grow a little nervous all of a sudden, and Nora could not help but admit, "I think I just got some chills up my spine."

"I'd be worried if you hadn't, luv. Blackbeard's reputation is well-earned after all," Jack pointed out. "I myself recently came face-to-face with him after a little run-in with an old flame. I would actually still be a prisoner aboard his vessel right now had I not found a way to escape when I had. Unfortunately, Blackbeard's not so willing to let me slip away, and he's determined to find the Fountain of Youth as well, so there's little doubt in my mind he'll be on the trail."

"How would he know how to find the Fountain, though? Did he steal your map or something?" Jaune asked.

"No, Mister Gibbs stole my map. Luckily, I memorized those charts quite well. Unluckily, Blackbeard forced my hand into giving up information on the path he would need to take in order to reach the Fountain," Jack clarified.

"So he's going to end up finding it and live forever? That really doesn't sound good," Pyrrha commented. The others had to agree; the idea of such a pirate being able to live forever terrified them far more than what Jack had already said about Blackbeard.

"Not to worry. Blackbeard doesn't have all the keys to using the Fountain just yet. And even better, he doesn't know about a few shortcuts which we can take to beat him there," Jack revealed. "I was actually just in the midst of sailing along one such shortcut when you lot stumbled upon me."

"And you were just going to try and find this Fountain all by yourself? While racing against the pirate who stole your ship, this Blackbeard person, and…who's the third party exactly?" Weiss questioned.

"The Spanish," Jack filled in as simply as you please.

"And the Spanish? How in the world did you think you could ever pull off something like that alone?" Weiss finished from earlier.

"Luv, you seem to be forgetting one very important thing," Jack confidently decreed. He then spread his arms wide and proclaimed, "I'm Captain Jack Sparrow, savvy?"

His words only served to befuddle Weiss all the more. She could hardly believe someone would be so foolhardy as to try and take on what she assumed were three different armies alone, let alone three armies that were likely being lead by such dangerous pirates and/or sailors. Of course, a second later, she glanced over to her partner and some of the other people on this ship she called her friends and felt it necessary to reconsider those thoughts. A feeling that grew when Sora made his next decision.

"Jack, count us in. No way we're going to let you face this alone," Sora declared.

"I appreciate that, mate, but you don't know what you're getting into. Blackbeard alone makes this far more dangerous than any voyage you've joined me on before," Jack cautioned.

"So what? I wasn't scared of any of the other monsters and bad guys we fought, and this Blackbeard guy doesn't scare me now. Besides, how far can you really get in that little dingy, let alone on a ship like the Leviathan without a proper crew?" Sora pointed out.

Jack chuckled in response to this. "Right you are, Sora. Alright then, you're all hired. Prepare to make sail right away."

"You heard the man, ye landlubbers. Open sails to full mast and prepare to sail," Sora ordered, summoning out Wheel of Fate so he could raise it high as a signal for the ship to set off.

"Aye-aye Captain," Ruby saluted in return. "You heard the man, people. To your stations and be ready for all manner of terrors that await us in the seas ahead."

"Uh, couldn't we just say we did and sail for the nearest island instead?" Neptune asked. He was ignored by almost everyone.

Sora then turned to ask Jack for their heading, only to find his friend heading below deck for something. "Uh Jack? Would you mind telling us what our heading should be?"

"In just a moment, lad. First things first. I'm feeling rather parched, and luckily, I stored a few of my best drinks on your vessel last time I was aboard," Jack informed him, disappearing below deck before Sora could stop him.

The main reason why Sora wanted to stop Jack was actually one that made him a little worried, both for the pirate and two particular members of his crew. "Ruby? Weiss? What exactly did you say you did with those particular crates you found below deck again?"

"We threw them all overboard. Why?" Ruby innocently replied.

Her answer ended up being a rather panicked Jack racing up from below deck and over to them not even five seconds later. "Not good! Not good! Sora! Your ship's been ransacked! They took all of it!"

"What?!" Sun, Neptune, Ren, Blake, and Nora all gasped in horror.

"We've been robbed?!" Jaune and Pyrrha exclaimed right after.

"What did they take?" Yang asked.

"The most important thing for any pirate to have," Jack informed them.

"The treasure chests Sora found and stored here?" Neptune guessed.

"No, worse," Jack denied.

"The treasure maps?" Jaune guessed.

"Even worse than that," Jack informed him.

"It's not something essential for sailing the ship, is it?" Weiss asked, now very worried.

"Worse still. It's the rum!" Jack bemoaned. "They took all of the rum! It's all gone!"

Just about everyone adopted deadpan looks when they heard that; hardly believing Jack was making such a big deal out of an alcoholic drink. At least, that was the thought for most of them. Sora just sighed in tired resignation, having suspected this might happen as soon as Jack mentioned wanting to get a drink, while Ruby and Weiss had much different reactions. "No one stole your precious rum, Sparrow," Weiss revealed. "We found it."

"You did? Well where is it?" Jack excitedly asked.

Sora shot both girls a pleading look, silently asking them not to answer, but it went unnoticed as Ruby once again gave a very innocent reply. "We threw it overboard."

"You what?!"

"You heard her. We threw all of those horrible drinks overboard, and now it's all long gone," Weiss repeated.

"It-it's gone?!"

"Yes, the alcohol is gone," Ruby stated proudly.

"Gone?!"

"Yes! That's what we said! Three times! The rum is gone," Weiss irritably snapped.

Jack could still hardly believe what he was hearing. "Why is the rum gone?!"

This set Weiss off once again. "One, because it is a vile drink that turns even the most respectable people into complete scoundrels. Two, we are all underage! Why would we have any use for something that we're not legally allowed to so much as possess, let alone drink?"

Jack just looked at Weiss like she had grown a second head. "What kind of pirate are you? It shouldn't matter how old you are if you want to drink rum. I was drinking it since I was your ages, maybe even younger."

"That explains so much," Sora muttered to himself while his fellow Keybearers just nodded in agreement.

"So I ask again: why is the rum gone?"

While Weiss and Ruby either grumbled under their breath or rolled their eyes, Yang could not help but note aloud, "I get the feeling you and Uncle Qrow would be very good friends. Or at least really good drinking buddies."

Jack would have asked Yang for a little more info about her uncle had Sora not intervened. "Sorry Jack, but there will be no rum on this ship. Just get used to it. Besides, we don't really have a lot of time to stop and get a drink, remember? The Fountain of Youth awaits us, so if you would be so kind as to provide our heading?"

The pirate captain just agreed with a simple nod and then followed Sora up to the helm, his hand already reaching for his compass by the time they were at the foot of the stairs leading up to said deck. It was not long afterwards that Sora was steering the ship in the direction they needed to head, and everyone started to feel their excitement growing. Understandable, since they now had an actual goal to sail towards.

---

Even with a set heading, it was still taking quite a while for the crew to reach their destination, and in that time, Sora, Sun, and Ruby did everything they could to make sure Neptune spent as little time in the crow's nest as possible, while simultaneously putting him to work on tasks that would better help him combat his fear. They had him swabbing the deck, checking over the cannons on either side of the ship, and at one point, Ruby even pulled him below deck to check on a possible leak in the hull. It turned out to be a really small, easily patched up one, but the second Neptune caught sight of the puddle on the floor, he high-tailed it back up to the crow's nest so fast, Ruby almost thought he had a speed semblance like her.

Sun had not been too surprised Neptune had suddenly become much more difficult, having dealt with his best friend's attitude towards water for so long, but he was impressed with how determined the others were at helping him to conquer said fear. Normally, people would have given up by now and just dropped it altogether, but then again, considering four of these people fought monsters with magic, key-shaped swords, along with how they were currently sailing the seas on another world, Sun probably should have realized normal had set sail for these people long before this ship had. Besides, it was not like that was the strangest thing they had seen since coming to this world.

The strangest thing had actually been Jack Sparrow, or more accurately, Jack's compass. Shortly after Jack given Sora their new heading, Ren happened to stumble upon the pirate captain while he was double-checking the compass and saw something very wrong with it. A problem he quickly alerted some of the others too. "Are you leading us to the Fountain with a compass that doesn't point north?"

"You say that like it's a problem, mate," Jack all but confirmed.

"Wait, what?! How can you lead us anywhere if your compass is busted?" Jaune demanded.

"The compass works just fine, lad. You don't need to worry," Jack assured the young knight.

"But you and Ren just said it doesn't point north," Jaune reminded him.

"Aye, but we're not trying to find north, now are we?" Jack countered with a knowing grin. He easily realized Jaune and Ren did not understand the meaning behind his words, and from the look of Ventus, Yang, and Sun, who had all just arrived on the scene, they did not get it either, so he decided to give a little demonstration. "Tell me something, Juan…"

"My name is Jaune."

"Whatever," Jack waved off as he closed the compass and then placed it in the boy's hand. "What is it that you want the most?"

Once he was sure the compass was firmly in Jaune's grasp, Jack flipped it open, and they all watched as the compass spun around a little bit before fixing itself onto a certain point. Seeing that the arrow did not remain fixed on one position for more than a few seconds only served to irritate Jaune though. "I don't see how that would explain anything other than how this thing is obviously busted," Jaune informed Sparrow. "It's just telling me that North is back that way."

Everyone watched as Jaune's arm moved along with the point of the compass, until Ren saw the direction his team leader was indicating also lead towards Pyrrha. Even as she climbed the ladder up to the deck they all currently stood on, Pyrrha remained firmly fixed in the position Jaune pointed towards, and it all started to make a little more sense to him. Just not in the way that Sparrow was probably hoping for, but right now, it did make sense to him, and he had to mention this to his friend. "Uh Jaune?"

"What?" Jaune asked as he looked up from the compass, still pointing at Pyrrha without even realizing it. When Ren directed his gaze to what he had been pointing at the whole time, Jaune stole a few more looks between the compass and his partner before catching onto his friend's meaning. "Oh. Yeah, that makes sense."

Pyrrha could not help furrowing her brow in confusion, wondering why everyone suddenly became so interested in her, until her eyes found Jack's compass and realized it for herself. "I'm sorry," she instantly apologized.

Now it was Jack's turn to be confused. "Why in the world is she apologizing?"

"Yeah, Jack, Pyrrha has a special power over magnetism," Sora explained from his position at the helm, much to Jack's confusion. "You know, the thing that makes normal compasses point North? Yeah, Pyrrha's power can make them point towards her if she wanted to, sometimes without even realizing it apparently."

"I honestly thought I'd gotten past that phase with my Semblance," Pyrrha muttered, only to backtrack when she heard what Sora said next.

"In other words, having Jaune be the guy you use to showcase your compass's power was not really the best choice," Sora shrugged.

The others were now confused, but Jack certainly seemed to get the gist of what Sora was implying. "Ah, in that case, I'll have me compass back now, if you please," Jack informed Jaune as he snatched the compass away. He then turned his gaze about the gathered group before deciding on one of the other blondes currently standing before him. "Ah, Ben."

"It's Ven," the wielder of Wayward Wing corrected, but he seemed to have gone ignored as Jack carried on like he had not said anything.

"What's say you give it a go?"

Ventus just sighed as he took the compass in hand and opened it up. "I don't really see what this is going to prove," he started to say as the compass's dial spun around for a little bit. "If Pyrrha's Semblance really is messing with it then it's just going to point right back…in a completely different direction."

"What?" the others all gasped before huddling around him to see for themselves, Pyrrha even going so far as to make sure she was not standing in the line of the compass's arrow just to be certain. Sure enough, just like Ventus said, the compass was not pointing at Pyrrha. Even after the redheaded gladiator had moved, the arrow still remained fixed away from her.

"Like I said mates, we're not trying to find North. The compass leads you to whatever it is you want the most, be it in a certain moment, or in general," Jack explained for them.

Feeling curious after hearing Jack's explanation, Yang looked to where the compass was aimed right now, and could not help the teasing smirk making its way onto her lips afterwards. "Don't think we need a magic compass to tell us how badly Ven wants our resident Ice Queen," she stated.

Ven's face went crimson at the implication, but when he saw the compass was in fact pointed towards Weiss, all forms of protest died in his throat, even as he snapped the compass closed again. He then beat a hasty retreat before any further teasing could commence, handing the compass off to Jack again as he left, but no one failed to see how his path took him right over to Weiss after he departed. Most of the group just continued smiling after him knowingly, while Jack just flinched back a little in fear and confusion. He could hardly understand the appeal Ventus found in the Schnee heiress after that slap Weiss had given him earlier, but he figured it was best to just leave it alone. He had no desire to incur any further wrath than he already had from the white haired girl.

After learning about how the compass worked, everyone soon wanted to give it a try to see what it ended up pointing to for them, assuming it did point anywhere at all. No one was surprised when the compass pointed towards Sora once Ruby got to try it, nor when it pointed at Jaune on Pyrrha's turn. In fact, the only ones more obvious than either of those two were Ren and Nora, but both of them had quickly shut the compass again and passed it along to someone else before anyone could get a glimpse to confirm what they all already knew. Blake was a little confused when the compass swiveled in multiple different directions, but it did start to settle after she had retrieved a book from her bag. When she looked up to see where it pointed, she could not help smiling a little when she realized it was pointing at the various positions of her other three teammates, but the fourth direction made her cheeks go red when she saw it had landed on Sun for a brief time. Lea could not help but grin when he saw his results from holding the compass, since it had landed right on Yang, but the rest of Team SLVR ultimately passed on trying out, stating that they already knew the answer to that question.

There was at least one strange one during the compass-passing, namely when Yang tried it out for herself. She had fully expected it to either focus on Lea or her sister, since they were the two most important people in her life, but it turned out she was only half right. It did focus on Lea for a little bit, but when the arrow turned again, she was surprised to see it ended up pointing to Blake. Yang could not help but feel a bit confused by this, and had to give the compass another couple of looks just to make sure she was not imagining things. She had not, because the thing still swiveled between her boyfriend and her partner. Eventually, Yang just handed the compass back to Jack, saying she did not think it worked all that well for her, and carried on like nothing happened. For once, Jack kept his thoughts to himself on the matter, and instead just watched her go on about her day in silence afterwards.

Only Weiss and Neptune passed up on the opportunity to try out Jack's compass, the former saying she did not want to touch anything that belonged to Jack if she did not absolutely have to, while the latter kept himself busy with other tasks or just stayed up in the crow's nest for as long as he could. Then again, Sun did not ever seem to get a chance to try, but only because Jack seemed to be keeping him at arm's length. Not to the same extent as Weiss, mind you, but there was some notable hesitance on Jack's part whenever he was around the Monkey Faunus. The reason behind said hesitance…do you really need to ask? Eventually, the fun did come to an end along with their journey across the sea, because they soon caught sight of a small mountain formation not too far from a beach.

"Land ho! Land ho! Please tell me that's the land ho we've been waiting for," Neptune shouted from the crow's nest.

Sora rolled his eyes at Neptune's eagerness to get away from the water, and then turned to silently ask Jack if this was in fact their destination. After a quick glance at his compass, Jack smirked and replied, "Aye it is lad. This is where our path to the Santiago begins, and there, we will find the silver chalices of Ponce de León."

"Wait, what? I thought we were going after the Fountain of Youth," Nora recalled, voicing everyone's confusion aloud.

"Yes, but finding the Fountain is meaningless if we don't have all the items required for the ritual one must perform to use it, and Blackbeard doubtlessly has at least one of these items already. If we are to secure it from him, we need some leverage, and that's where the chalices come in," Jack explained.

As interesting as this was, some of the group was a bit more interested in something else Jack had mentioned just now. "There's a ritual for the Fountain of Youth?" Pyrrha inquired. "We can't just drink the water in it and be young forever?"

"Oh please. Things are only that simple in fairy tales, luv. This is the real world; there's always a whole slew of things one must go through in order to get what they want," Jack corrected with a scoff.

"So just how does this ritual work?" Weiss asked.

"Ah, an excellent question, one which I only just recently learned the answer to during my brief stay aboard the Queen Anne's Revenge," Jack revealed, though Sora could not help but notice how his friend had briefly winced when he did, and he doubted it had anything to do with Weiss. "It requires the following: water from the Fountain of Youth, the tear of a Mermaid, and the silver chalices of Ponce de León. With them, you may take all the years of life from another."

The others had been nodding along in simple understanding right up until that very last sentence. Even Sora had been caught off guard when he heard it, and as a result, the ship shook a little as he accidentally sailed them a little too close to the shallow waters near the beach. "Sorry. My bad," Sora called out from the helm.

Ruby just waved her boyfriend's apology aside and let him move the ship into a good position to drop anchor. She was a bit more interested in what Jack just told them. "Could you repeat that last part again?" she asked of the pirate captain. "I'm not sure I heard you right."

"That makes two of us, because it sounded like he said the Fountain of Youth gives extended life to a person by taking it away from someone else," Sun commented.

"Afraid you heard right, mates, because that's exactly what I said. The ritual for using the Fountain requires a sacrifice or victim if you would prefer," Jack confirmed. When he saw how everyone had started giving him judging looks, Jack immediately realized what they were all likely thinking and insisted, "Come, come, mates, do you really think me that selfish of a man? I may go to great lengths in order to survive, but I'm not so cruel as to force another person to die for me, let alone in such a horrible manner. My desire to find the Fountain greatly lessened when I found out as well, but unfortunately, we do still need to find it."

Though reassuring to hear Jack would not want anything to do with something so terrible, the others did flinch a bit at the reminder a far more despicable pirate was currently after the Fountain of Youth. Still, their curiosity about how the Fountain worked was sufficiently peaked now, right to the point where Neptune even came down from the crow's nest and asked, "So how many years would the Fountain transfer from the victim to the receiver?"

"Supposedly, all the years that a person had lived and could have lived if fate had been kinder," Jack replied. "Not a pretty picture to think about it, is it?"

"I can think of worse ones, like the picture of Blackbeard getting his hands on the Fountain. So let's stop gawking and get walking, you cack-handed deck apes," Sora growled in his pirate voice.

"How many of these pirate nicknames does he know?" Ren asked, only to get shrugs from everyone who could possibly answer him.

"Where are we heading, Jack?" Sora asked.

Jack swaggered over to stand by the deck rail alongside Sora, and explained, "There's a cave passage just a short distance from here and it acts as a straight shot to the Santiago. Afterwards, we need simply board the ship, secure the chalices, and then move along the path to a position where we may cut off Blackbeard and take the mermaid's tear from him."

"You make it sound so easy," Blake could not help noting.

"Of course. Anything sounds easier than it actually is. The trick to actually pulling it off is knowing how to find the opportune moment, and also knowing when is the best moment to do something incredibly stupid," Jack told the group. "Now, if we're all done talking about this, let's get on with it, shall we?"

"Aye, let's," Sora agreed, and he quickly led everyone down off the ship and onto the beach. Of course, no one was surprised that Neptune would do everything he could to avoid the water as he disembarked from the Leviathan, but they still rolled their eyes at him all the same. Jack found the boy's behavior odd, but cast it off when he suddenly recalled one last piece of information he needed to share with everyone.

"Right, I almost forgot. There is a chance that the main passage could be blocked, assuming anyone else does know about this shortcut, but luckily, there is an underwater passageway that leads around it. A bit of a swim, mind you, but considering you lot are with Sora, I doubt that will be too much of a bother," Jack informed them.

"Uh, but the chances of having to do that are still really low right? I mean, it's not like anyone besides you knows about this path, right?" Neptune nervously asked.

"Gibbs might. He stole Jack's map, remember? Who's to say Barbossa didn't find some way to get to him?" Ventus reminded the blue-haired boy.

"Very true, mate, but I doubt Gibbs would have done anything under torture. If anything, he made sure Hector would have no choice but to keep him alive, King's Navy charade or not," Jack assured them all.

Jack's assurance did little to ease Neptune's worries. "You know what? I think I'll just wait for you guys here. On the beach. In a place that is both dry and well away from any water. I mean, there's not really much point to all of us going is there?"

"Just come on, Neptune," Sun growled at his friend, proving once again how done he was with his friend's fear.

"We all have to face difficult trials in order to overcome our problems sooner or later," Ren wisely advised, but Neptune did not seem too willing to listen, or just did not hear him. He was currently too busy trying to grip something in a panicked attempt to keep from going into the cave.

"No, no! No more water! Please! No more!" Neptune cried.

The others merely watched this continue, with only Team JNPR following along right after Sun had started dragging Neptune towards the cave. Team RWBY eventually joined them in the trek as well, with Lea, Roxas, and Ventus doing so right after, but Sora ended up having to hang back with Jack for a minute when the pirate gave him a quick tap on the shoulder.

"What's the blue haired lad's problem, exactly if you don't mind my asking," Jack inquired.

"Apparently, he's afraid of water. I thought taking him out to sea might help with that a little, especially around here, but clearly it's going to be more to work to break him of this fear than I thought," Sora enlightened the pirate.

Jack glanced between Sora and the head of their pack where Neptune was currently being dragged along by Sun, before he commented, "He's named after the god of the sea and he's afraid of water." When Sora nodded to confirm, he almost expected Jack to laugh, but to his surprise, Jack's only reaction was a thoughtful hum and saying, "That's interesting."

As strange as Jack's reaction to learning about Neptune's fear might have been, Sora could not think about it too long. Not when they had much more pressing matters to contend with, so he and Jack quickened their pace until they were at the head of their group, and proceeded to better lead the team to their next destination on this treasure hunt.

---

No one on the team had been expecting a long hike when they arrived in the Caribbean, but here they were, hiking through the woods in a quest to find the Fountain of Youth. Despite all of Jack's reassurances, most of the group could not help but wonder if this really would lead them to the Santiago, but Sora seemed to believe him. Then again, Sora did have a tendency to believe just about anything, so it ultimately came down to taking Jack's word with a grain of salt. The only good news was that they had not stumbled upon anything to set Neptune running for the hills again yet, but they knew that was going to change once they got into the cave.

Eventually, they did find the cave entrance and quickly descended inside as fast as they could, hoping that Jack really was the only one to know about this shortcut. Unfortunately, it seemed that someone else did know about this path, because about halfway through they found their path forward blocked by large boulders, just as Jack had suspected. Judging by the surroundings and faint signs of scorch marks, it was pretty clear it did not end up this way due to a natural cave-in, or even all that long ago. With little other choice, the team turned around to locate the underwater passage Jack had mentioned, with a reluctant Neptune being dragged along by both Sun and Ren. As it turned out, the opening into the passage was quite a fair distance away from where the blockage was located, so by the time they finally did reach it, nearly everyone on the team was worried for a new reason.

"Are you sure this will lead to the other side of the rock wall?" Pyrrha asked Jack.

"Positive. Like I said, it is a very difficult swim, and there may be one or two air pockets along the way to make things a little easier, but otherwise, it leads right to where we need to go," Jack confirmed.

"One or two air pockets won't nearly be enough for anyone to make a swim like that, even if it is a straight shot. They'd end up drowning before they even got halfway there at best," Weiss protested.

"For once I agree with Weiss. Maybe we should just go back and try our luck at blasting our way through the rocks," suggested Yang.

"Oh sure, you can do that if you'd rather be buried alive," Jack countered.

"Yeah, I love blasting and smashing as much as the next person, but even I'm not that reckless," Nora told the group at large, and when Nora is against the idea of blasting and smashing something, you know it is a bad idea.

"Well what else can we do? Just dig our way through? For all we know, that could take even longer than turning back and going the long way around, and who knows how far ahead Blackbeard and the others will have gotten by then," Jaune pointed out to them.

More and more ideas got passed around the group on how they could tackle this roadblock, when suddenly a loud splash made everyone turn back to the lake leading into the underwater passage. It did not take much to figure out what had caused the splash, as Sora soon popped back out of the water and shook his head with a proud smile. "No one said we all had to swim through the passage," Sora informed the group. "I can lead some of us there, while the rest of you start digging through the rocks on this side. Maybe the cave will be a little more stable for us to blast at it from the other end."

"Um, Sora, as much as I like that idea, there's still the matter of just how far you'll have to swim in order to get through the passage. We know you can do a lot of incredible things, but even you can't hold your breath but for so long," Ren pointed out to the spiky haired leader of Team SLVR.

"Who said anything about holding my breath?" Sora questioned smugly.

"Oh what? Are you about to tell us you can breathe underwater now?" Weiss fired back. When Sora just quietly smirked in reply, Weiss almost felt all semblance of self-control leave her to the point where her jaw nearly dropped in astonishment. "Of course you can breathe underwater. At this point, I really shouldn't even be surprised."

"Somehow, I feel like that goes for anything our resident Keyblade boys can do," Nora pointed out to Weiss.

"I mean, to be fair, Ven and the others did tell us it was possible to do that back on Corona when they were teaching us wall running," Ruby reminded them both.

"Right, so I'm sure this is all very fascinating, but need I remind you all, we are on something of schedule?" Jack told the group.

Sora nodded in response before looking back to the group, trying to figure out who would most likely be able to get a handle on this magic skill quickest. "Let's see…Ven and Roxas should be able to learn this power pretty quickly, given the situation they were in when I first learned how to do it, and I think Ren could probably pull it off, maybe Blake too, but as for the rest of you…Hmm, I'm not sure."

"Yeah, I'm actually going to pass on learning this one, thanks," Blake quickly denied.

"Don't tell me you're scared of water, too," Roxas begged of the Team RWBY ninja.

"No, but unlike the rest of you, it's a lot easier for me to get water in my ears, and can be harder to get it all out of them," Blake pointed out, wiggling her cat ears to better prove her point.

"Oh, right. Sorry," Roxas sheepishly apologized, having not realized that until Blake brought it up.

"If Blake's out, then I'll go in her place," Weiss offered.

"Are you sure, Weiss? You didn't exactly have the easiest time learning wall running," Ventus reminded her.

"I'm positive. Besides, I just know a certain dolt is going to try regardless of what anyone says or thinks, and I can't be the best teammate she's ever had if I leave her to do it alone," Weiss informed him.

A quick glance over to see Ruby bouncing in place with excitement over the prospect of learning another magic power served to prove Weiss's point, but then again, no one really needed any proof to begin with. After Ruby and Weiss, no one else either volunteered or was picked to join the impromptu swim team, and with Sora's selected group settled, the others all turned to make their way back, only catching a few early snippets on Sora's underwater breathing lesson. Out of everyone though, Jack was most interested in Neptune's reaction to his old friend's offer, but to his surprise, the blue haired boy remained adamant against doing anything involved with water, so now he was a little more curious about the boy's fear.

"You know, in my experience, many folks fear water because they're worried they'll drown, but when Sora offered you the best way to avoid said fate, you still turned your nose up at it and ran away. Makes me suspect that there's more to your fear than you're letting on to your mates," Jack said to the blue haired boy.

"I'd really rather not talk about it, but if you want to laugh then go right ahead. Just about everyone else already has," Neptune tried to brush him off, but as the pirate had often said to many others before, he was Captain Jack Sparrow.

"Just what sort of reason would there be though? It feels like it's right at the tip of me tongue," Jack pondered aloud, albeit in a somewhat playful, almost teasing manner.

"I said I don't want to talk about it," Neptune insisted.

"Ah, there it is! It's because you're afraid of what the water will do to others, isn't it?" Jack guessed.

"No—well, kinda, but—look it's a little more complicated than that, okay? I just…bad things happen to other people when I get near water, so it's better for everyone if I avoid it at all costs. I don't care what you or anyone else thinks about this. I can't so much as get near water," Neptune insisted.

Jack's smirk was washed away like the tide when he heard that last remark. "I'm not judging you, lad. If anything I'm just wondering if you really understand."

"Understand what?"

"That in life there's only one set of rules that should really matter to you: what a man can do, and what a man can't do. For instance: you can either accept that water is something you will have to contend with in one way or another, or you can't. But a vast majority of the world is made up of water, boy, and you'll have to square with that if you truly intend to adventure on as a pirate someday," Jack explained for him. Neptune was just about to retort again, when Jack cut him off with another bit of wisdom. "Now me for example, or a few, I can help you deal with your fear by throwing you into that little pond back there and possibly letting you drown."

"What?!"

"Let me finish, boy," Jack insisted at Neptune's shocked exclamation. "I can do that, but I can't fend off Sora's wrath alone, never mind that of the rest of your mates all by me onesie. Another example: I can also sail on to another prize and forget all this nonsense with the Fountain, but I can't get the prize I desire most without facing Blackbeard again, savvy?" Jack then patted Neptune's shoulder as he stated, "So what you need to ask yourself is can you face your fear when it matters most, or can you not? Because I guarantee on a voyage such as this, the chances you may have to do so are very high."

"I…I just don't know," Neptune sadly admitted.

"Best figure it out then, mate, because while many treasures can be considered priceless, only you can decide which ones truly are. And as strange as it may be to hear this from a pirate like meself, not all treasure is something that glitters in gold," Jack advised, and he hurried on to the front of the group again, leaving Neptune to think on what he said.

Jack was not wrong when he commented on how strange it was to hear a pirate give that remark about treasures, but it was everything else he said that gave Neptune pause. He had been doing everything he could to avoid water for most of his life due to his fear, and he honestly thought that was for the best. Sure, Sun, his teammates, and even the few professors who knew of his fear had often stressed the necessity of facing his fears before, but Neptune could not recall anyone putting it in a way quite like Jack had. At least, not as far as Neptune could remember, because if they had, Neptune probably would not be thinking on the particular rules Jack had mentioned to him as hard as he was right now.

"What a man can do and what a man can't do, huh?" Neptune muttered to himself.

---

AN: So there you have it. The first half of the team's latest visit to the Caribbean, the first half of the quest for the Fountain of Youth, and the first half of the team's attempt at helping Neptune conquer his fears. Originally, when I first thought of splitting the adventure into two chapters, I had considered leaving things off after they had reached the Santiago and met Barbossa, but that would have left very little content in the second half, so you'll get to see what happens from this point forward in the next episode...I mean, chapter.

I'm sure you all noticed the RWBY Chibi references at the start. I mean, what better way to kick off the whole reason for Sun and Neptune's inclusion in this chapter than that? Plus we got to see the boys getting another Xion scare. Hehehe.

Xion: What can I say? I'm just full of sneaky surprises. Also, is there a reason why you included that little bit about me and Roxas at the beginning there?

AN: I just felt the need to add a little Rokushi fluff. It's been a long time since we last saw anything going on with you and Roxas, so it seemed like the right time to add in this little subplot. And don't worry, they'll be saying those three little words before you know it.

Weiss: Um, excuse me. What about some of the other ships in this story? We've mostly seen nothing but Roseheart and GoldenFlame lately. Sure, you've sprinkled in a little bit Windchill here and there, but what about the others?

AN: Well in case you haven't noticed, it's a bit difficult to do much with Blacksun right now since Blake and Sun are literally worlds apart at the moment. I am trying to give everyone their fair shake, as seen when we saw what happened when everyone was trying out Jack's compass, but some ships are a little easier to focus on than others.

Jaune: Speaking of Jack's compass, was it really necessary to have me be the first one to try it out?

AN: Dude, the joke had been made in the comments of that one RWBY Chibi episode well before now. All I did was take it a little step further. In short, yes.

Also, on the matter of things that had to be included, the gummi ship battle was definitely one of them. After all, what's a Kingdom Hearts journey without at least one gummi ship battle? That was a pretty big reason why I had it set up so the Stealth Gummi's warp drive needed a recharge period; so that the kids from RWBY would get to experience the space battles for themselves. And hey, it did lead to Weiss getting a little kiss from Ven. What do you suppose Aqua will say when she finds out about that?

Windchill: [blushing fiercely] It was just on the cheek! It doesn't have to mean anything!

AN: Uh, excuse you two? Who do you think you're telling this to? I can have it mean whatever I want it to mean, and I say it means that we're getting closer to Windchill finally becoming official. Just gonna need one or two more things to happen, and then boom! Ven and Weiss are official.

Speaking of, I hope everyone took notice of all the other little moments and such that I worked into this chapter, because I couldn't resist adding them in, and why should I have? It was all great stuff that deserves time in the spotlight.

Now on the matter of Part 2, as I said, it's almost done. I just have to write out the battle at the Fountain of Youth, the aftermath, and Sun and Neptune's return to Remnant, and the whole thing's done with. So keep your eyes on this story, because I'm aiming to have that out as quickly as I can. I have no intention of leaving you guys on a cliffhanger for too long.

So, that's a wrap for now, and normally, I would answer some reviews that were posted last chapter, but this time around, I'm probably going to save them for when Part 2 comes out. That, and this chapter's already pretty long as it is, so Imma movin' this thing along to the end, and before that Onto the Preview!...

As Neptune ponders Jack's little bit of wisdom, the team continues on to the Santiago, only to find Barbossa lying in wait for them, and the silver chalices already gone. In order to retrieve the chalices and get ahead of Blackbeard again, the team is forced to split off from the two pirates and attempt traversing a special shortcut to the Fountain's entrance. It's a little hard to tell what ends up being worse though: the cave passage full of booby-traps or the dangerous pirate waiting for them on the other end. In this final stretch of the race for the Fountain, many truths will come to light, many battles will be fought, and our heroes will be caught dead in the middle of all the chaos. How are they going to get out of this one? Well, best batten down the hatches for the storm ahead and be ready to sink or swim, next time.

Once again, be sure to check out my YouTube channel "Studio Fandom" and the DeviantArt page "studiofandom" if you haven't already. Always looking for more followers and subscribers on both.

And don't forget, we are looking for voice actors for the Remnant of the Key Reading Series video. For more details on what to do to sign on and/or qualify, go check out episode 8 of Studio News for full details. And as always...

Please read and review, and may your heart be your guiding key for your landing strategy.