Disclaimer: I own nothing that has to do with Pirates of the Caribbean or Vivziepop.
Chapter 8: The Curse of the Black Pearl
(As night falls, the Black Pearl sails across the vast ocean. It's prisoner, Charlie, stands alone in the ship's cabin until Moxxie and Millie enter with a dark red dress.)
Moxxie: You'll be dining with the captain, and he requests you wear this.
Charlie: (firmly) Well, you may tell the captain that I am disinclined to acquiesce to his request.
Moxxie: (smirks) He said you'd say that! He also said if that be the case, you'll be dining with the crew... and you'll be naked.
(He and Millie giggle. Charlie angrily takes the dress from them and they stop.)
Moxxie: (disappointed) Fine.
(They leave and Charlie begins to strip her clothes to put the dress on. She then hears some funny noises and gets the feeling that she's being watched and looks around the walls. Outside, Moxxie and Millie crouch down against the wall and Millie peeps at Charlie through a hole in the door.)
Moxxie: (whispers) Give me a go, give me a go!
(Millie moves aside to let Moxxie get a look at Charlie. He snickers at the view of her. Millie takes another turn and unintentionally looks in with her wooden eye. Charlie looks closely at the door and spots Millie's wooden eye through the hole. She backs up against the door and gets out of view. Millie doesn't see her because of the eye she's using.)
Millie: (complaining) I can't see nuthin'!
Moxxie: (rolls eyes) You're an idiot.
(Charlie then sticks a metal rod through the hole and pokes Millie's wooden eye out.)
Millie: Ow! Me eye!
(It rolls down the deck and she scrambles after it.)
Millie: Don't let it drown!
(Her eye is stopped by a foot stepping on it. Millie looks up and sees Vortex.)
Vortex: (smirks) If ye like, I'd be happy to nail it in place.
Millie: (nervously) That's all right, sir. Thank you.
(He presses his foot down on it and it bounces out. Millie keeps chasing it as some other crew members carry trays of food into the cabin. Charlie, with the dress on, watches them set the food and light candles on a long table. Captain Pentious enters with his pet monkey that leaps onto a small swing. The crew exits leaving the captain alone with his prisoner. He looks at her and admires the dress.)
Pentious: (politely) Maid or not, it suits you.
Charlie: (glares) Dare I ask the fate of its previous owner?
Pentious: Now, none of that. Please, dig in.
(Charlie sits and starts to eat slowly and in small bites.)
Pentious: There's no need to stand on ceremony, nor call to impress anyone. You must be hungry.
(Charlie knows she's starving and starts snarfing the food down. Pentious just watches her instead of eating himself like he wishes he could do what she's doing but for some reason can't. He pours some wine in a chalice and hands it to her.)
Pentious: Try the wine.
(She takes a swig of it and continues munching. Pentious hands her a green apple.)
Pentious: And the apples. One of those next.
(She stops eating and notices both him and the monkey are staring at her like they're anticipating for her to eat the apple.)
Charlie: (skeptical) It's poisoned.
Pentious: (laughs) There would be no sense to be killing you, Miss Turner.
Charlie: (insistently) Then release me. You have your trinket. I am of no further value to you!
(Pentious takes out the medallion and gives her a serious look.)
Pentious: (solemnly) You don't know what this is, do you?
Charlie: It's a pirate medallion.
Pentious: This is Aztec gold. One of eight-hundred-and-eighty-two identical pieces they delivered in a stone chest to Cortez himself. After conquering the Aztecs in the living world, he entered Hell and continued to wage war upon the Aztec demons. This gold was blood money paid to stem the slaughter he wreaked upon them with his armies. But the greed of Cortez was insatiable. So the heathen gods placed upon the gold, a terrible curse. Any mortal that removes but a single piece from that stone chest shall be punished for eternity.
(Charlie is intrigued by his storytelling, but doesn't think he's actually serious.)
Charlie: I hardly believe in ghost stories anymore, Captain Pentious.
(Pentious stands up and continues to talk excitedly.)
Pentious: Aye! That's exactly what I thought when we were first told the tale. Buried on an Island of the Dead what can't be found 'cept by those who know where it 'tis. Find it, we did. There be the chest, inside be the gold, and we took them all! We spent 'em and traded 'em and frittered 'em away…on drink and food and pleasurable company.
(He leans down towards Charlie and speaks softly again.)
Pentious: The more we gave them away, the more we came to realize the drink would not satisfy, food turned to ash in our mouths, and all the pleasurable company in the world could not slake our lust. We are cursed pirates, Miss Turner. Compelled by greed we were, but now we are consumed by it.
(The monkey starts screeching. Pentious goes over and pets him to calm him down. When he's not looking, Charlie sneakily takes a knife from the table and hides it. He turns to her again.)
Pentious: There is one way we can end our curse. All the scattered pieces of the Aztec gold must be restored and the blood repaid.
(The monkey runs off with the medallion as the captain keeps talking.)
Pentious: (grins) Thanks to ye we have the final piece.
Charlie: (concerned) And the blood to be repaid?
Pentious: That's why there's no sense to be killing you... Yet.
(Charlie becomes horrified. Pentious holds out the apple to her again.)
Elizabeth is horrified. Barbossa holds an apple out to her.
Pentious: Apple?
(Charlie jumps up and smacks it out of his hand. She wields the knife and he goads her into attacking him. She runs from him to catch him off guard but he appears in front of her and snarls. He grabs her and they struggle briefly before Charlie stabs him in the chest with the knife. Pentious appears completely unaffected by it and easily pulls it out. Blood is on the knife but isn't spilling from his chest.)
Pentious: (mockingly) I'm curious. After killing me, what is it you're planning on doing next?
(Charlie is shocked and runs out of the out of the cabin. She stops on her tracks as she comes face to face with the ship's crew working at their stations, but they're all in the form of skeletons like their skin and organs have completely vanished. She screams in terror as she's caught in a capstan some of the crew is turning. She rotates with it and sees others doing work like hammering weapons, scrubbing the deck and sailing the ship and they're all undead skeletons.)
(She jumps away from the capstan but falls in a cargo hatch and lands on sail that more pirates are holding below. The bounce her on it and lift her up above the deck. Another pirate swings on a rope and catches her. She screams as he growls right in her face. They land on the upper deck with the ship's wheel between them. He tries to grab her and she spins the wheel to knock him back. His head comes loose and he adjusts it back in place. Charlie is disturbed and runs down the steps and hides under them. Then the monkey suddenly drops down in front of her holding the medallion. He is also a skeleton and screeches at her as she screams again. She runs back to the cabin where Pentious grabs her and turns her attention to the moon in the night sky.)
Pentious: Look! The moonlight shows us for what we really are! We are not among the living, and so we cannot die. But neither are we dead!
(The crew gather around in front of them. Moxxie, Millie, Vortex, Travis, Baxter and all the others are undead, animate skeletal beings. Pentious turns her around so she faces him again. She backs up out of the cabin.)
Pentious: (somberly) For too long I have been parched of thirst, and unable to quench it! Too long, I have been starving to death and haven't died! I feel nothin'... Not the wind on my face, nor the spray of the sea... nor the warmth of a woman's flesh.
(He reaches for her and the skin on his arm disappears and turns skeletal as it comes out from the shade and into the moonlight. Charlie flinches at it. Pentious steps into the moonlight completely and becomes a skeleton himself.)
Pentious: (menacingly) You'd best start believing in ghost stories, Miss Turner. You're in one!
(Charlie stares at him in horror as he pulls the cork out of wine bottle with his teeth, spits it out and pours the wine down his jaw and soaks his rib cage. Charlie rushes past him and back into the cabin. Pentious throws the bottle to the side and it shatters. He shuts the cabin doors, turns to the crew and laughs maniacally. The crew laughs as well.)
Pentious: (aggressively) What are ya looking at? Back to work!
(The crew resumes their positions. Alone in the cabin, Charlie huddles in a corner and trembles in terror.)
And now the truth of infamous haunted ship is revealed. In the movie, the story behind the cursed gold was that the Aztecs paid the conquerer Cortez to stop conquering them. Since this version takes place in Hell, the lore behind it has been changed to Cortez going to Hell after he died and conquering Aztec demons that pay him to back off.
In the world of Hazbin Hotel/Helluva Boss, you can die a second time while in Hell so you're not really immortal automatically. Therefore, a curse that makes you unable to die can still exist.