Joshua's eyes fluttered open.

And pain immediately shot to his head.

Immediately shutting his eyes tightly again, Joshua fought against the pain and tried to sit up. Looking out towards the sea, he gasped.

It was night. He'd been out for a long time.

Feeling his head he felt a large bump on the back. He had just fallen into the sand…how did he get such a big injury?

Joshua then noticed the boats.

Maybe eight of them total, they had been carelessly left on the shore, as if someone had gotten out as soon as they hit land and left without a second thought.

"The pirates," Joshua realized with horror. They had attacked the town.

Turning around slowly, Joshua looked at Tortuga. With a gasp, he looked at what now remained of his town.

Huge fires were billowing in practically every building. Some had been destroyed completely. Flames were everywhere, except for the pirates had burned away all of the houses by the dock.

Getting up, Joshua walked as fast as he could to the rest of the town – his legs hurt too, and he suspected the pirates had beat and kicked him for fun when they had come ashore.

The rest of the town wasn't faring so well either.

Joshua passed the well, and saw that the mayor had been taken hostage. He was wearing his pajamas, and tied to the well's rope instead of a bucket. Continuously dunking him, the pirates laughed and cheered.

"Speak up ya bilge rat! Where be the treasure?" one pirate demanded.

"Do not tell him Carlos! No no no no!" the mayor's wife cried from above in a thick Spanish accent. Joshua looked to see that she was watching all of this from a second story window, still wearing her bedclothes. Groaning, one of the pirates shot at the woman, and she quickly closed the shutters to deflect the shot.

"No! No! Por favor!" Carlos pleaded vainly, gurgling the last words as he was plunged into the well once again.

"Be brave Carlos! Don't listen to him!" his wife cried, opening the window shutters carefully.

"By gum, he'll talk, or else! Ya hear?" the pirate demanded.

This made Joshua pause. Treasure? There was a treasure hidden here in town? But his thoughts were distracted by a high pitched scream coming from a few blocks away. Rushing towards the sound, he found that something even worse was going on.

"That's right, take a wench for a bride!" a pirate with a long black beard yelled. He was wearing a large black hat with a skull and crossbones on it; it was the captain.

"What be I offered for this winsome wench?" the captain asked. The 'wench' in question was a plump woman with brown hair with a look of fear in her eyes.

"We wants the redhead!" the other pirates cried, with some annoyance. Joshua saw that there were other women lined up…Chastity included.

But Chastity, unlike the other frightened women, was showing off, waving at pirates and jutting her hips out.

"We wants the redhead! We wants the redhead!" the pirates chanted again. Joshua rolled his eyes.

"Figures," he muttered as he began to sneak around the 'auction.' But he suddenly heard a familiar voice.

"Get your hands off me!" a woman cried as she was brought up to be shown to the other pirates.

Joshua spun around. It was Amy!

Struggling against the captain's firm grip, she looked at him and the pirates with disgust.

"This wench is a fine one! Oh, let's say, start at five?"

"I'll pay five!" one pirate yelled out from the crowd.

"Do I hear six? Who'll make it six?"

"Six it be!…Six bottles 'o rum!" another pirate cried out, who was obviously drunk. Amy gasped and glared at the pirate.

"I'm not spongin' for rum! It be gold I'm after!" the Captain shot back angrily. Turning to Amy, he smiled slyly. "Now, where be that fascinatin' little old treasure, eh?" Joshua couldn't hear any more of this.

"Let her go!" he yelled from the back. All of the pirates turned to look at him.

"I mean…uh…" he said, looking at all of their disgruntled faces, "Unhand her, you bilge rats! Off with ye, avast!" Joshua said, trailing off at the end. He had wanted to sound menacing, but now looked just the opposite. The pirates burst out laughing.

"You think ye can stop all of us, landlubber? Ye be but one man, and have nary a weapon to fight with!" the captain yelled.

"Oh, he's not alone," Amy muttered. Suddenly breaking free of the captain's grasp while he was distracted, she jumped away from him and punched him in the face.

He grabbed his nose as she jumped down from the platform to join Joshua.

"Are you alright?" Joshua asked worriedly.

"I'm quite alright now," Amy said with a wink.

The pirates were surprisingly easy to take out, perhaps since most of them had consumed dangerous amounts of alcohol. A simple punch in the face from Joshua or kick in the groin from Amy seemed to do them in. Soon, all of the pirates were down except for the captain himself.

"Now now, can't we just settle this like civilized gentlemen?" he asked Joshua with a smile. Amy, however, went up and slapped the captain in the face.

"Oooo," he said, winking at Amy and touching his cheek.

"I," Amy fumed, "am not a gentleman." She glared at him for a second, and walked back to Joshua.

"Now now, we didn't WANT to destroy your beautiful little town," the captain said, "But that mayor of yours just wouldn't tell us where your loot is kept."

"So that meant destroying our town and killing innocent people?" Joshua asked angrily. The captain merely smiled, and spoke in a slight rhythm:

"We kindle and char and enflame and ignite,
Drink up, me 'arties, yo ho!
We burn up the city, we're really a fright,
Drink up, me 'arties, yo ho!

Yo ho, yo ho a pirate's life for me!"

"That one's a classic," he said with a grin, "Ever heard it?"

"Leave our town. Now," Joshua said. He quickly reached down and grabbed a gun from the nearest unconscious pirate. Joshua aimed it at the captain, his hand shaking slightly.

"Oh, is that the game we're going to play?" the captain drawled. And with astounding speed, he pulled out his own gun, cocked it, and aimed it at Amy.

"I'm sure my reflexes are just as fast as that there bullet," the captain taunted. Joshua lowered the gun in frustration, and the captain withdrew his.

"There we go. Now, where be this treasure of yers?"

"We don't know of any treasure," Joshua said. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed something: Amy was slowly lowering herself to the ground. Joshua tried not to look at her; he knew she had a plan.

"Sure ye do – all towns have treasure of sorts!" the captain bellowed angrily. Amy slowly stood back up and saw that she was holding something tightly in her hand – one of the pirates' rum bottles.

Suddenly, the captain drew his gun again.

"Now tell me where the treasure is, or I'll-"

CRASH.

The captain stared at Joshua with a confused look on his face. Then he fell to the ground.

Amy stood behind him, holding a now broken glass bottle in the air.

The two locked eyes, and a split second later, rushed into each other's arms.

"Nice," Joshua said, hugging Amy tightly.

"Thanks for that," Amy said, referring to her rescue, and laid her head on Joshua's shoulders.

"Oh, sure, SHE gets the man," whined a voice from behind them. They both turned to see Chastity sitting on the platform, complaining loudly.

"I was going to be next, you fools! Now I'll never get to 'sail the seas' with a pirate!"

Joshua and Amy stared at her for a minute, laughed, and walked away together. Joshua began to quietly sing.

"Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me…"