A large crowd had gathered in the center of St. Martin, waiting for the ceremony to begin in which a new bank was to be opened to the public. The bank itself was of an Italian design, but the Union Jack adorned the front to symbolize the pride of the British Empire.

"Today," the magistrate of the island began, speaking to the crowd of people from his podium, "we dedicate the Royal Bank of St. Martin, the best and purest banking system in all of the Caribbean!"

The crowd began to applaud and cheer in response, and the magistrate instructed two soldiers to open the doors of the bank for the public to see. Inside lay a vault of tremendous size sitting right in the center of it.

"Our new vault is five-inches thick, weighs an imperial ton, is composed of steel-"

Carina stopped paying attention after that. She could care less about a bunch of self-righteous bureaucrats congratulating themselves for doing practically nothing. And she scoffed at the people who stood there and cheered while the British were putting in a bank that very few people would be able to use, except for the wealthy merchants and politicians that made their way through here. In fact, while her forte is the sciences, she knows enough about politics that none of the several forms of securing the rights of English citizens really mattered as long as a king were in charge. Even the American colonies up north were dissatisfied with the reign of King George, despite their mutual alliance in the war against France and their native allies. In her mind, she believed that the true principles of freedom lay within one's mind as opposed to the direction of a centralized authority.

She doesn't even know why she showed up. Mr. Woodhull had given her the day and there was nothing else going on.

Walking away from the crowd, Carina suddenly remembered that tonight was the night. If her calculations were correct, a blood moon would be coming that evening, and according to the diary a clue would reveal itself, bringing her one step closer to the Trident of Poseidon.

Unfortunately, she would need a watch in order to make the proper calculations when the time came, and she didn't have one with her. So, she stopped in front of the building that belonged to the local astronomer, knowing that he would have a watch in his shop for sale. When she came to the door, though, Carina saw a sign that said that the owner had closed the shop to attend the opening of the bank, in addition to a sign on the right-hand side that said "NO DOGS AND NO WOMEN" in bold lettering.

Carina sighed. She knew that if she went in, she would probably be arrested if she were caught. But at the same time, she realized that if she didn't, the trail to finding the Trident of Poseidon would go cold again, and she couldn't stop now, not when she was so close.

"Here goes nothing," she said.

Carina took a deep breath, and walked through the door.

"Good citizens," the magistrate continued his speech, "no man, no army can ever rob the gold of St. Martin!"

As he concluded his speech, the crowd began to cheer again, whereupon the magistrate gave the owner of the bank permission to open the vault for the public to see the riches inside.

When the door opened, the crowd hushed with an audible gasp at what they saw, and the bank owner ran back outside. There was a man sleeping inside the vault. He was wearing a big, brown overcoat, with corresponding pants and boots of the same color. Under his coat, he wore a white shirt with a dark blue vest over it, and had two sets of buckles holding his sash and his various effects. On his belt was a sword that sat in its scabbard on his left, two pistols tucked in his front, and a compass tied to the area right next to his sword. He had a peculiar mustache and goatee combo, in addition to his long mane of dark brown dreadlocks being wrapped together on his head by a red bandana. His face and hair were beginning to show signs of age, but he was still relatively on the young side. He had a number of scars adorning his face, and in his hand he held a bottle of rum that was half-empty. He was snoring very loudly.

"Pirate!" an old woman in the crowd shouted after observing the man's appearance. The crowd gave off another audible gasp at the realization.

The man then started to stir in his sleep, chuckling lightly and uttering "Pirate... heh..."

Suddenly his eyes snapped wide open as he quickly stumbled his way out of the vault, shouting "PIRATE!"

He collapsed onto the ground in front of him, his fall lessened by the pile of rope that had come out of the vault along with him. Still holding on to the bottle of rum, he got up slowly as he struggled to gain his balance, muttering incoherent words and phrases. When he could get himself to stand on two feet, he looked ahead to see the gigantic crowd in front of him.

"Oi, that's Jack Sparrow, that is!" a man from the crowd spoke up, and a couple of people gasped at the name.

"I think you left out a 'Captain' there, mate," Jack managed to get through in his drunken state, "Now, this may seem a peculiar request, but could someone explain to me as to... to why I'm here?"

Behind the bank, there were twelve horses tied together, and they were pulling on a structure that was holding military-grade rope to it. The rope itself was secured tightly to the horses, and it extended back through holes in the rear of the bank and was secured tightly to the vault itself.

"Marty," Joshamee Gibbs called over to the dwarf, "Why hasn't Jack come back yet? Doesn't he know we're on a bit of a tight schedule here?"

"Dunno," Marty replied, "But we need to do this real soon."

Gibbs and Marty then went to make sure the horses were secure along with Pintel, Ragetti, Mr. Cotton, and his parrot.

A platoon of Redcoats had rushed to the front entrance of the bank, muskets in hand as they formed two rows of firing lines. Upon seeing this, Jack's eyes widened as he quickly tried to find a way out of this scenario.

"No, no, wait! It's coming to me! I just need a moment to clear me head!" he said, and then he popped open the top of his bottle of rum and began to chug it down.

"Make ready!" the officer in command ordered his troops, and the first line kneeled while the second line stood behind them.

"Present!" he ordered again, and the soldiers began to aim their guns right at the pirate.

Suddenly, the sound of moaning came from behind Jack, and a woman began to rise from the bottom of the inside of the bank vault.

"Hold your fire, goddamn you!" the officer barked, "There's a woman inside the vault!"

As this was occurring, Gibbs and the crew heard the commotion and were preparing to make a quick getaway with the horses.

"Here's hoping the captain can deliver this time," Pintel said grudgingly to Ragetti as they mounted the rear horses.

"Agreed. It's about time I've gotten a new bloody eye," Ragetti complained.

Back to the scene in front of the bank, Jack turned around and saw the woman running out of the bank, trying her best to cover herself in her indecent state. As she ran out, her eyes widened as she made eye-contact with the magistrate.

"Frances?!" the magistrate asked in shock, and the woman ran away from the scene.

Jack, still drunk beyond all sense, was beginning to piece things together finally. He saw the rope on the floor, the holes in the back, the open bank vault, the bottle of rum in his hand, and remarked the magistrate's wife that had shown him quite the time the night before, and he figured it out.

"I've got it now!" he turned to the crowd, grinning like he had won something, "I'm robbing the bank!"

"Open fire!" the officer shouted, and in a half-second Jack uttered, "Oh, bugger."

He dropped to the floor just as the Redcoats began to open fire, musket balls flying past his head as he ducked for cover.

Gibbs gave the order to the rest of the crew to get the horses moving after they'd heard the gunfire, and began to spur the horses as hard as they could. The rope was secure enough to the bank vault that the horses were able to pull it along with ease, but once the vault made contact with the rear wall, it would hardly budge. Gibbs and the crew worked the horses as much as possible, but what ended up happening was instead of the vault breaking through the wall, the vault's force caused the foundation of the building to break away as the horses were now dragging away the bank itself.

Jack peeked up to see the building moving, perplexed as to how this happened, and quickly got to his feet as the Redcoats were reloading their muskets. He bent down to pick up his leather tricorn hat that was laying on the ground, and placed it on top of his head as he addressed the soldiers, saying "Now that was definitely not part of the plan!"

Suddenly, Jack felt something seize his right leg, and he fell face-first onto the ground and let out a grunt. He felt himself being dragged along the ground at a high speed, and he quickly managed to turn himself to see that the extra rope that was lying on the ground had been caught around his ankle and was dragging him along with the bank.

"After him! Don't let him get away!" the officer ordered, and the British soldiers gave chase after Jack and the bank after they had finished reloading.

Gibbs and the crew continued to press on, despite the fact that they were now dragging an entire bank down the streets of St. Martin.

"Hey," Ragetti began, "when Captain Jack said we'd be robbing the bank, I wasn't aware that we'd be robbing the bank!"

"We've been alive long enough to see that nothing ever goes according to Jack's plan," Pintel responded.

"RAWK! Sailor in the brig! Sailor in the brig!" Mr. Cotton's parrot squawked.

"Whoa!" Jack shouted out as he continued to be dragged along the ground. He saw the bank was crashing into the sides of buildings and objects on the sides of the road, and he had to swerve himself to avoid the debris. After narrowly avoiding a broken barrel that almost hit his head, Jack realized that he was still holding on to his bottle of rum. Realizing this, he began to chug it down again, despite the situation that he was currently in.

As he was drinking, he felt something small and hard smack against his forehead, and he looked ahead and saw that several gold coins and British pounds were pouring from the open vault.

"Oh, not good, not good, not good, not good!" Jack panicked, putting his bottle in his coat and attempting to catch as many of the coins as possible. As this happened, he heard the sound of gunshots and craned his head back to see the British soldiers shooting at him while running. Those gold coins that spilled from the vault that Jack didn't catch ended up be picked up by the populace in the street behind them, and Jack smirked lightly, knowing that at least he had made other people richer.

Jack then hoisted the rope that he was being dragged by and attempted to pull himself towards the vault, hoping to shut the door in time so that some of the gold inside would be saved. He couldn't take another failure. Not again.

Carina had continued to peruse through the store, still looking for the watch that she needed to conduct her calculations. She was undeterred at the sound of gunfire, thinking that the guards were in pursuit of some bandit or the like. It took her some time before she found what she needed, a silver watch that would allow her to keep proper track of the time. At the moment she picked up the watch, she heard the sound of a door creaking and turned to see that the owner of the shop had returned from the ceremony much earlier than anticipated.

"Bloody pirates ruining everythi-" he began, but stopped as soon as he saw Carina standing in his shop holding one of his pocket watches, "What the bloody hell are you doing in my shop? Women aren't allowed in here!"

"Uh," Carina stammered, placing her arms at her sides, "I know that this looks really, really conspicuous, but I'll tell you what. I will pay double whatever this watch is worth on account of you selling it to a woman, and you keep silent about my being here."

"The sign not only says no women allowed," the owner fumed, "but you deliberately broke into my shop while I wasn't here! You're a thief!"

"Please sir, I beg you to reconsider!" Carina pleaded, "I need this watch in order to complete my calculations! I'll even pay triple."

Her eyes widened when she realized what her choice of words were and how it sounded to the owner, for he rushed over to his desk drawer and pulled out a pocket pistol.

"Witch!" he cried out, his hand shaking as he thumbed back the hammer, "There's a witch in my shop!"

"Oh goddammit," Carina muttered, raising her hands in the air as the owner continued pointing his gun at her, "I am not a witch, I am an astronomer. What is witchcraft about a woman appreciating the sciences?"

"Help! There's a witch in my shop!" the owner continued to cry out.

Carina rolled her eyes at the man's stupidity.

Gibbs continued to lead the crew through St. Martin, waving his hand to the sides to signal any innocent bystanders to abdicate the road.

"Clear a path!" he shouted, "Get out of the way!"

Several civilians started to get out of the path of the pirate crew, and Marty and Mr. Cotton spurred their horses even harder. Gibbs looked to the right-hand side to see a balcony that was far enough out into the street that it would make contact with the bank.

"No, no, no, no, no!" he shouted out, but the bank had torn the balcony down and bits of debris started to fall on the crew.

"Stop! Stop, stop!" Ragetti called out, bits of rock falling on his head and knocking his eyepatch off his head.

Behind them, Jack had finally managed to hoist himself up to the bank vault, and put whatever coins and pounds he had managed to scavenge into the vault and closed the door. Breathing a sigh of relief, he began to try to climb his way to the top of the moving building so he could make it to Gibbs and the others in the front.

"Hard to starboard!" Gibbs shouted, noting the sharp right turn coming up, and he and the others darted the horses to the right while trying to accommodate for the massive weight of the bank. Jack had managed to make it halfway up the side when the bank started to swerve to the left, and he screamed when he saw a building coming dangerously close to him. The bank crashed against the building, causing Jack to lose his grip on the building and tumble down onto the ground in a nearby alleyway.

As soon as he stopped rolling, he stood right up, and looked all around him, asking aloud "Where's my bank?"

After failing to locate it, he pulled the bottle of rum out of his coat and continued to drink from it, wandering out into the street. He paid no attention to the Redcoats running past him, and in turn they paid no attention to him because they were focused on going after a bank and not a hapless drunk.

He heard someone calling out from inside one of the buildings, shouting out "Someone help! There's a witch in my shop!"

With no real sense of direction, Jack wandered through the door, and saw the shopkeeper pointing his pistol at Carina, and the two of them looked at him in surprise. Jack looked from the owner, whose hands were trembling greatly, over to Carina, who still had her hands in the air.

"So sorry, am I intruding on something?" Jack began.

"A pirate!" the owner shouted again, "There's a witch and a pirate in my shop!"

"Well, it's your lucky day!" Jack said with a drunken grin.

"I need help!" the owner shouted yet again, "A witch and a pirate are robbing my store!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa there, mate," Jack began, "I don't know what this lovely lass may have done to upset you, but I on the other hand have no interest here. I'm just trying to find me bank."

"You're trying to find what?" Carina asked, bewildered. But Jack chose instead to continue to drink from his bottle. Without a moment's notice, the owner fired his pistol, and the bullet struck Jack's bottle, shattering it and causing what was left inside to spill out onto the hem of Carina's dress.

"My dress!" Carina exclaimed.

"My rum!" Jack shouted, and suddenly he glared daggers at the owner. He pulled out one of the pistols in his belt and pointed it in the owner's direction, who whimpered at Jack presenting his weapon. Quickly, he ran out of the door of his shop, shouting out "Witch and pirate in my shop! Witch and pirate in my shop!"

"That was my last bottle," Jack complained, watching the owner take off down the street towards a group of Redcoats.

"You idiot!" Carina shouted, "Now he's going to get the guards to come after us! I don't know about you, but I'm not prepared to hang!"

"Trust me, love, I can speak from experience that it's not all that bad," Jack said, holstering his pistol. As he did, he looked at Carina's face, and he thought he saw something. He didn't know what it was, but it was something.

"Have we met before?" Jack asked her.

"No, because I don't make it a habit to associate with drunken pirates," Carina bluntly responded.

"Well, goody-goody," Jack sarcastically replied, "Now, have you happened to see me bank?"

Without warning, a loud crash sounded from behind Jack, and he turned around to see that the bank had crashed into the side of the store, ripping away the walls and shattering the windows.

"Found it," Jack remarked, and Carina's jaw hung open at the madness.

"What in the name of-" Carina began to speak, but Jack grabbed onto her wrist and yanked her towards the rear entrance of the store. For a split-second, she was about to berate the pirate for touching her, but those thoughts were cut short by the sounds of gunfire and musket balls hitting the area where she was standing not but a moment ago. Jack burst through the back door, and then let his grasp on Carina's wrist go as they began to run their way through the back alley.

"Oh God, they're shooting at me! They're shooting at me!" Carina panicked. How did she get herself into this mess?

"Were you part of the plan?" Jack asked, thinking that nothing at this point would surprise him.

"I'm not looking for trouble!" Carina responded.

Jack did a double-take at her while he was running, and then said "What a horrible way to live!"

They saw that more Redcoats were chasing after them, with two coming dangerously close. Quickly, Jack shoved Carina into the alleyway on the right, and with lightning speed drew both of his pistols and shot the soldiers down. He holstered them and followed Carina down the next alleyway, climbing up a nearby ladder that led onto a roof. Once they made it to the top, Jack kicked the ladder to the ground, hoping it would buy them some time for them to put some distance between themselves and the Redcoats.

"How on Earth did you manage to steal a bank?" Carina asked Jack as he took out a cartridge from his belt and tore it with his teeth.

"The plan was to steal the vault from the bank," he said, ramming the cartridge in with a ramrod, "but one thing led to another, and... well the plans that we plan hardly ever go according to plan, savvy?"

Carina was about to reply how that didn't make sense, but she heard the shouts of the soldiers down below. She knew that they didn't have long before they made their way up here, and there didn't appear to be any avenue of escape.

"We're trapped up here! What do we do?" she asked, hoping that the pirate had some idea.

As Jack holstered his pistol, he looked down the other side and saw an unattended hay cart just sitting there, with a full bale of hay and drawn by two horses. He suddenly got an idea.

Grabbing hold of Carina's shoulders, Jack looked her in the eye and, with a devilish grin, said "Sorry about this, but you need to scream."

"What are y- AAAAAHHHHHH!" Carina screamed as Jack pushed her off the roof. Fortunately, she landed safely in the bale of hay, and the horses began to spur at her voice.

Facing back up to the rooftop where she saw Jack, she called out "You filthy pirate!"

"No need for name-calling, love!" Jack shouted back at her, "Besides, this is the day you shall always remember as the day Captain Jack Sparrow saved your skin!"

Carina, angered at this lowlife thug, attempted to shout back a response, but she was too far away for him to hear her. She had to keep her head down anyway since the British soldiers had begun to shoot at her, but luckily enough none of the shots hit her, and the horses were too fast for the troops to keep up.

Jack chuckled, knowing that they'd attempt (and fail at) chasing her, giving him an opportunity to escape. He saw Gibbs and the crew dragging the bank from around the corner. Quickly, he ran along the rooftops of the building, making sure that he would jump on top of the bank at the precise moment. Eventually, his path intersected with the bank's, and Jack leapt across the gap and fumbled as he landed on the bank's roof. Jack got up and attempted to balance himself on the moving bank, looking down and seeing Gibbs and his crew continuing their advance.

Gibbs looked over his shoulder to see Jack standing atop the bank, and then he looked forward, seeing an archway in their path. He pointed at it with his finger, yelling "JACK!", causing the pirate to look ahead to see the upcoming bridge in their way, seeing that there wouldn't be enough clearance for the bank to get through.

"Oh bugger," Jack said.

The bank came in contact with the bridge, and Jack leapt for dear life off of the bank and onto the bridge. He then jumped off the bridge, hoping to avoid the debris of the crumbling bank, and coincidentally landed right on top of the vault, now liberated from the confines of the bank that was now a pile of crumbling debris covering the path of the archway. The Redcoats had no way to give chase now.

Jack laughed, as no one could get to them and he and his crew made it out in one piece with the vault.

"All in a day's work, I suppose," Jack said to himself, smiling. But deep down, he knew that for all of his successes, two setbacks were soon to follow for each one. All of his life, he had gotten lucky time and time again, but eventually that luck would run out. One day.

He just didn't know when.

A/N: Thank you for reading, guys! I hope you enjoyed! Sorry for the delays! Read and review! Updates coming soon!

- Spent