The church was pitch dark. I sat up painfully, and tried to figure out what I should do. Before I could even think about getting out of there, I had to get my hands free, and find a way to light up the place so I could see. I didn't want to trip over anything in the dark, so I remained seated and tried to get my surprisingly handy ceremonial knife out of my pocket. "I can't reach it," I realized aloud. I took a second to silently curse Madison's thoroughness and mourn the loss of my sword. We'd been through so much together, though admittedly it hadn't been much use yet in this adventure.

Since the various keys I had turned out to not be sharp enough to saw through the ropes, my only option was the matches. I struck one behind my back - which no one should try at home, even me - and fed it with the only paper I could reach. That turned out to be a rough draft page of At the End of the Plank, as I noticed once I'd scooted around to examine my mini bonfire. I twisted to warm my hands over it. "It's a bit purple," I noted to myself conversationally. It made it feel less lonely in the gloom.

Then I noticed another glow, fainter and green, deeper within the nave. I struggled up and walked to the edge of light thrown by my own fire, dropped another page on the stone floor, and struck a second match. That lit my way to the pew where the glow came from, so I went to check it out.

When I saw, I groaned. "Oh great. LeChuck!"

The dread pirate scourge barely reacted to my approach. He sat hunched over, with his hands bound behind his back like mine. "Threepweed," he acknowledged with a listless glare.

I maintained a healthy distance, but he just kept moping there. Well, if he really wasn't going to attack me like usual, then I decided that I might as well try get some information. There was a lot I wanted to ask him.

First, a test in case it was all an act. "You fight like a dairy farmer!"

LeChuck expelled a gusty sigh. "You're the one milking the misery here, whelp." He went right back to his silent sulking.

Okay, so he really wasn't luring me in to run me through. On to the important stuff then. "Have you seen Elaine?"

"No." His next sigh was even gustier than before. "Who knows if we'll ever meet again."

Wow, this was bad. Not that I wanted them to meet up, but even I couldn't help but feel awkward with how sad he sounded."How did you get stuck in here?" Hopefully that'd distract him from moping.

"That accursed Lila - she chased me straight through the ancient coded door, right into that loud arm-waving salesman. He jumped out of the souvenir emporium and stuck a fish-stinking sack over my head. Then they bound me and imprisoned me here."

Now that he mentioned it, he did smell rather fishy. "Oh, I just thought that was your normal stink." His flare of anger reminded me that it was usually brimstone.

But Stan, huh? Why would he be conspiring with Madison's cronies? He'd been friendly enough when I last saw him, rushing off to a meeting and tossing me his keys. His keys to an impossible theme park, I realized, in front of a magically disguised Madison, all on a island where he was still a wanted man.

"I don't think that was actually Stan," I said aloud. "I bet it was Captain Trent."

I had couple more questions, but there was a particular one that I needed to get out of the way first. "I know I'm the last person who should ask this, but… are you okay? You just seem… less leChucky than usual."

"What do you care?" LeChuck retorted, eyeing me suspiciously.

"I don't," I assured him quickly. "I just don't want you saying afterwards that this adventure doesn't count. You know, when I find the Secret and you're leLoser."

"Don't test me, you mangy upstart!" LeChuck snarled, with a spark of his usual vengeful ire.

"There's the leAttitude we know and dislike," I said encouragingly. "I was afraid you were going soft."

LeChuck grumbled, but still slouched unthreateningly.

"After all," I continued, "you did say you wanted to be friends."

"What foolishness be ye blabbing about?"

"It's all right here." I stuck my hands in my pockets blindly and jostled a bit until the books came loose from the papers. I pulled the one I wanted out onto the pew, and craned my neck to read. "Let's see: 'don't get fired' - wait, that's the onboarding brochure, must have gotten stuck in there." I blew hard to turn the pages. "'…Give up terrorizing…' ah, here we go: 'Top of my list is apologizing to Guybrush and giving him a big hug.'"

"That was for April Fools - hey! That be me diary!" Quick as a striking snake, my nemesis darted forward and snatched my reading material.

"Hey! I wasn't done with that!" I frowned at him. "And I might need to burn some of those later!"

He bared a ghastly grin full of paper. "Finders be keepers, Threepweeds weepers," LeChuck jeered, though it was a bit muffled. He spat his stolen goods beside himself and eyed them critically. "If ye must burn something, ye can take those back." He nudged the now damp Plank pages towards me.

"No thanks," I said, staring at the spectral spit stains. "You can keep them."

"Arrr, I was such a fine figure of a pirate captain in my prime," LeChuck enthused while scanning his onboarding pamphlet. "Plundering and pillaging and setting records for villainy. But now - nothing but being tricked and trapped. When did it all go wrong?"

"At the start, probably," I said. At LeChuck's scoff, I insisted, "No, really. Think about it. Sure, you may have leveled up over the years - from regular captain to ghost to zombie to … whatever you are now - and maybe you could still set records by doing that, but it'll never help you with your goal. And that's the problem."

"And what would a pathetic fool like you know about it?" LeChuck sneered, but his green glow quavered anxiously.

"Plenty, since I'm married to her."

That set his spectral beard bristling and sockets blazing. Now he looked much more like his usual murderous self. I gulped; I'd come this far, no backing out now. "No matter what you've done to become more powerful, Elaine never chose you. And she never will. But you've never accepted that, and it's holding you back. And I think…" I took a deep breath, knowing it could possibly be my last. "It's because you're afraid to change."

LeChuck rose to his feet and stomped over. He loomed over me, terrifying in cold silence despite his bound hands. "I," he stated slowly, "am no coward."

"Then prove it," I challenged. "It might be hard, and take a while. It might feel like an ending, since your life revolved around winning her for so long. But mighty pirates aren't afraid of change or endings."

LeChuck stepped back, looking surprised. I was surprised myself. It's not like me to get all philosophical, but sometimes these things just come to me. Kind of like my little coronation speech about how everyone is a queen in their own way in Brrr Muda. I wondered how all my subjects were doing. Ah, they were probably fine. They'd probably set up a legislative branch to abolish the monarchy already.

Okay, I admit it: I was probably panicking a little. I really hadn't planned to say all that, and was worried about the consequences.

LeChuck broke the ringing silence. "You may have a point." Wow, I actually got away with that. I was starting to like this adventure's LeChuck a little more now; the old one wouldn't have let me get away with that except at sword point. "Don't think I don't see your angle in all this," LeChuck warned. "Elaine aside, I never liked you."

"No worries, the feeling's mutual." Some things are a constant, and nemesises… nemeses… enemy rivals are some of them. "But just for now, I think we should work together. We've both got a score to settle with Madison and her friends, and Elaine's still missing. Also, I'm starting to get an idea of why the pirate leaders keep letting us both go after the Secret."

"If it's that we both be needed to unlock it, then you're slow as usual, Threepweed." LeChuck's smugness was back in full force. "I'm in agreement. We work together - until the Secret is open. Then it's every man for himself."

I know it's what I wanted, but it felt a little too easy, not to mention familiar. "How do I know I can trust you?"

"I'd shake on it, but me hands..." He shrugged his massive shoulders.

"About that." I was really, really not looking forward to this, but I had no other choice. "I've got a knife in my pocket, but I can't get it out. If you use it to cut me loose, then I'll do the same for you. Then we can shake on it."

LeChuck's eyes glinted as he grinned. "Agreed."

This might be the part of my adventure that I enjoyed the least. I never thought the day would come where I'd willingly allow LeChuck within ten feet of me - much less with a knife in his hand. I held my breath when he pointed it at the small of my back - what if I'd just made the biggest mistake of my entire life?! - but in an instant, the knife had sawed through the ropes, and was placed in my freed hands. "Your turn."

I was still frozen to the spot, and could only respond with strangled noises.

LeChuck laughed uproariously. "Har har harr! All bluster as always, Threepweed! True, if things had been different, ye might not be in one piece right now. But don't ye worry, I'll end ye yet." He still chuckled as he turned his back towards me. "Pity for you that such puny weapons pose no threat to the undead such as meself. I wager you wished you were one too just now!"

That snapped me out of it. "No thanks." I cut LeChuck free, then stuck out my hand. "Alright, LeChuck. No crossies."

"Aye, no backstabbin' - until the Secret's revealed." He extended his hand and spat on it.

"Eugh. I mean, yes. Truce until then." I hocked up some spit and reluctantly clasped hands to seal the deal. We shook on it with a wary eye apiece on each other's free hand for any crossed fingers, but there were none.

"First order of business be to escape this confounded church," LeChuck said, looking about.

"One last thing before that," I interjected while wiping my hand off on my pants. I'd forgotten about my new shirt and got some shining ectoplasmic spittle on it. Yuck. "You gloated earlier that the chest had to be opened in the caverns below Monkey Island. Why did you take it out of there through the last doorway?"

"Because I didn't know it led out of the caverns, obviously," LeChuck answered. "And I didn't see any special ceremonial chamber on the way down, so I kept searching with that pestilential Lila snapping at my heels."

That checked out. "How did you find out all this stuff about how to open the Secret anyway?"

"That voodoo store down the way," LeChuck said. "The owner is an authority on those things."

"The voodoo lady?" She'd been helping LeChuck too?! "She's got a lot to explain."

"Aye, that she does. But so do ye, boy," LeChuck stared at my glow-in-the-dark outfit. "Where did ye be gettin' that shirt?"

"Oh, right." No point in hiding it. "I found the last key, and got it out of the Secret chest. Then Madison tried to steal it from me, but it won't come off. Based on her reaction and what you've just told me, I'm pretty sure it's a decoy. There wasn't anything else inside though."

"Arrr. Only you could mess up something as simple as unlocking a chest," LeChuck scoffed. "All the more reason to leave this accursed place so I can do it properly."

"We will do it," I reminded him. "And I'm working on that."

The gentle shine from my clothes' damp patches illuminated my way, so I started roaming the church. I checked the main doors first, of course. "They're locked." They had no keyhole from the inside - that couldn't be code compliant - but they did have hinges on the inside. I examined them. "Looks like the pins could be removed, if they weren't so rusty."

"Don't look to me," LeChuck retorted. "You're the greasy one of the two of us."

"I knew I shouldn't have washed my hair before setting out to find the Secret," I lamented. No way it would be greasy enough to help now.

I tried the other end of the sanctuary next. There were no other doors, just a bare altar. "Good times," I reminisced. (WARNING: MI 1 SPOILER)

"Remember when you almost married that monkey in a wedding dress?"

(END MI 1 SPOILER)

LeChuck began steaming like a boiling kettle, so I quickly moved on.

The stained glass windows were too high to reach, even with LeChuck's dubious help. There wasn't anything else on the walls, so I scoured the floors and pews carefully for something to help.

"Hey, what's this?" I picked up a crumpled scrap of paper lying on one of the benches.

"Some trash that fake salesman dropped from his pocket," LeChuck said dismissively.

"Trent's really got to stop doing that," I replied, straightening the paper out. "My pockets hardly ever drop things -

(WARNING: MI 1 SPOILER)

ever since you tossed me off the pier during our first adventure." The stickiness from the breath mints I was carrying had never worn off.

(END MI 1 SPOILER)

"Arrr, those were the days," LeChuck mused fondly.

"Right…" I examined the paper. It was torn out of a notebook, and had a messy list of words and groups of symbols, like this:

Fifteen - ふおうら

men - ピ愛らあつえせ

man - つはらええーはえあでえで もんケえよ

Yo - でお

ho - らえ

bottle - もうギ

rum - ギらおギ

"Hmm." Those symbols definitely looked familiar; I was pretty sure that I saw most of them floating around when Lila concocted her magic, and that I'd spotted them in other places also*. Other than that, I couldn't figure it out at all. It didn't seem to be any help to us now in escaping the church, so I stuck it in my pocket.

It looked like the front doors really were our only option. I tried everything I had on me - including attempting to set the door on fire and smacking it with some leftover fish, though I did draw the line on prying out the hinges with my ceremonial knife. Finally, it came down to the bag of popcorn I'd picked up off the street earlier. There was a puddle of grease collecting in a corner, so I dripped it over each of the hinges. After working it in with the sponge I'd found outside Stan's erstwhile Emporium, I was able to mostly remove the hinge pins from one of the doors. "Now all I need is the right leverage," I said aloud.

I saw the perfect solution right away. "Can you help me get that pew under this hinge here?" I asked LeChuck. He did, and with a combined pull, the door toppled over with a loud crash.

Finally free of our makeshift prison, we both ventured outside.

*A/N: Please imagine that the Japanese phonetic alphabet and one random kanji I substituted as a joke are actually those "magic" symbols from the game, for typing purposes :) No worries, no Japanese knowledge is required for this story!