A/N: Okay, corrected a major mistake in this chapter. Jack Sparrow cookies to whoever can tell me what it was! But guess what? That means you have to review!
Meanwhile, my one year anniversary is coming up on F . F . NET so PLEASE somebody enter my fan art contest! Drop me a line telling me your working on it anything! If you're interested, check out my profile for the rules.
peace, love and lipgloss,
Mlle.Fox
The anchor of the small fishing boat was lowered and Barbossa called everyone into his cabin. Elizabeth kept glancing uneasily at Arabella. Did that tattoo mean she and Jack had once been lovers too? Why should Elizabeth keep her thoughts on a man who obviously bunked anything with a pulse? Because she had to admit to herself that Captain Jack Sparrow was one heck of a good kisser. And Elizabeth had killed him. She was brought back to the present when Barbossa asked them,
"So...any of you ever heard of the Devil's Triangle?"
"Aye..."Gibbs said before crossing himself and spitting."I've heard of it...an unnatural stretch of open water, deep as it is wide...no underwater mountains or coral beds...but ships keep getting lost there all the time. Lost to the Triangle till Judgment Day."
"Aye...but did you know that within the Triangle...there is a portal?" asked Barbossa.
"A portal? As in...to Hell and beyond?" asked Ragetti, his newfound pious ways making him nervous.
"Not quite...actually, the so called Devil's Gate...is simple a place that if you sail into it...the portal can take you anywhere you want to go..." Barbossa told them.
"How do you know this?" asked Will.
"It's a strange thing to die Young Turner...You hear everything, see everything and for a moment all the secrets of the universe are yours. I learned of the Devil's Gate true calling in my death...and I've learned who on this Earth yields the map to find it. A man whose used the Gate to sneak up on unsuspecting ships andleaves no prisoners alive for long." Barbossa said.
"Who's that?" asked Pintel.
"Captain Sao Feng...a Chinese pirate." Arabella spoke up.
"Ruthless, cunning, deadly...a match for any man...which is why I've brought in the only person who could match him...because she was a woman." Barbossa told them.
"You've faced this...Captain Feng before?" Will asked the redhead.
"Once...long ago..." Arabella said rubbing a hand across her midsection.
"Where does his ship make berth?" asked Marty.
"Singapore." Barbossa admitted.
"Singapore! That's..."Elizabeth started standing to her feet.
"On the other end of the world, Miss...which is exactly where we told Tia Dalma we'd go to save Jack." Barbossa countered her.
"Besides...we're in luck...this time of year, Feng likes to sail into the Caribbean. Using the portal I imagine...With any luck he'll bring his island." Arabella said.
"He has an island?" asked Pintel.
"He wanted to be a pirate king over his own pirate paradise...so he took the remains of ships he had scuttled and built for himself a floating island...It serves as his fort and prison. And every year he lets only a select few pirates of the Caribbean dock at his port. The map to the Devil's Gate will take us to wherever we want to go..." Arabella explained.
"Including Davy Jones Locker..."Will said with realization. Arabella nodded,
"And if we want the map, we need to sneak into Feng's island."
"But how?" Elizabeth asked.
"By taking Sao Feng...a prisoner..." Arabella answered.
"Likes to string them up and fly them as kites!" Barbossa quipped.
"DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES!" squawked Mr. Cotton's parrot. Arabella cast her eyes to look at the man and bird a moment before directing her cool gaze back to the group.
"So we take Sao Feng a prisoner...then what?" asked Elizabeth.
"Then said person will sneak out and into Feng's private gallery, take the map and get out." said Barbossa.
"But how will they get out without being seen?" asked Ragetti.
"That's where I come in. I traded a few things with Feng over the years, smuggled things for him. He'll let me into his confidence and give me free reign in the fort. I'll make sure the prisoner escapes." Arabella told them.
"And what about Feng? Surely this pirate king has an army to command?" asked Gibbs.
"Aye...but if there isone thing that Sao Feng cannot resist is a good ol' fashioned pirate's auction. We come up with a few fake trinkets said to have magical properties...Feng and his men are distracted from sneaking thieves. And I'll make sure the prisoner knows the layouts of Feng's fort inside and out." Arabella explained.
"But who will be the prisoner?" asked Pintel.
"I will." said Will standing.
"Will no!" Elizabeth protested. Then she shrank back at the look Will gave her, somewhere between scolding and anger. Will looked Barbossa square in the eye and said,
"I'll go in and get the map."
"Very well Mr. Turner! Now Pintel, Ragetti...go below and see how much shot we have. Mr. Marty, take Cotton to the hold and fetch me a large trunk. Gibbs, stay here and we'll go over the coordinates. Mr. Turner, why don't you and your lovely lass go on deck and raise the anchor? We don't have a moment to lose." Barbossa ordered taking command. Everyone nodded, and all but Gibbs and Arabella left the cabin. Once they were alone on deck, Elizabeth followed Will to the capstan.
"Will? We need to talk." she told him.
"Help me start turning the wheel." Will told her. Elizabeth sighed and began to push on one of the pegs with Will. Finally she spoke up as she pushed,
"Will...I have something I need to tell you..."
Will hesitated,
"I already know."
Elizabeth stopped, her face going pale.
"You know?"
"How could you do it Elizabeth? Did you even think of anyone but yourself?" Will asked hotly.
"I was thinking of everyone! The kraken was after Jack not the ship! If I didn't shackle him to the mast we would all be dead!" Elizabeth shouted. Will blinked in surprise,
"You what?"
"I killed him Will...I sent Jack to his grave..."Elizabeth said tearing up. Will's eyes darkened,
"Is that why you kissed him?"
"You...you saw that?" Elizabeth asked in a whisper.
"That is what I was speaking of before! But now I find this! I don't even know you anymore Elizabeth!" Will shouted at her.
"Did you even know me at all? Do you know that I secretly loved our adventure on the Isle De Muerta? That I loved the freedom, the ships, the fighting, the..." Elizabeth shouted at him.
"Bloody hell Elizabeth! This is not a game! People get hurt doing this! This is a matter of survival! If they could choose most pirates in this world would go straight if they knew they could eat for the rest of the their lives!" Will shouted at her waving his hands about. With a look of pride and spite, Elizabeth countered,
"Not Jack..."
Enraged at the man's name, Will fumed,
"No...Jack's a rare breed...But he still knew in the end survival was more important than freedom. And you took that away from him. I was ready to blame Jack for stealing you away...now I know you are the only one I can blame." He tried to stomp off, but Elizabeth stepped in front of him,
"Wait a minute! I may be at fault for the kiss and killing Jack...but the reason Jack wanted to survive was freedom, to get away from Davy Jones...Never forget that Will Turner...Aren't you tired of always being the noble hero? Of living life by the rules and playing it safe? Answer me Will...would either of us be truly happy living a safe domestic life on land when we could live...truly live...on the seas?"
Will got right in her face, pure anger burning in his eyes,
"Perhaps not. But now we'll never know will we?" And with that, Will sidestepped her and went below deck. Elizabeth sighed and put a hand to her temple trying to sooth away the growing headache, when her ears picked up the sound of a match being struck. In her peripheral vision, she saw a dull orange glow to her right and she turned her head. There, standing under the ladder puffing on her cigar...was Arabella. And her chestnut eyes were glaring in cold fury at Elizabeth Swann
"Jack!" she yelled as the East Indian militia dragged him into the private office in London. Manacled, he struggled against his captors and his bonds when he saw her tears flowing down, her red hair limp and dirty, her chestnut eye bruised from where someone had slapped her. She was not manacled, but held back by two men.
"BECKETT! I will tell you this only once...release her!" Jack spat at the short, well dressed gentleman standing by the fire. The man in the white wig was poking the fire with an iron poker as he said casually,
"Look out the window Sparrow...at least your lovely lady is not nearly as damaged as your other lady." Jack glanced out the corner of his eye, but as shock seeped in, he turned his head fully to the scene in the harbor. There was his ship, the Wicked Wench, going up in flames.
"Jack...please...I'm frightened..."his fiancée begged him as she sobbed.
"I gave you a simple job to do Sparrow. All I asked was that you bring me that compass. But you had to go and keep it for yourself. What do you have to say for yourself?" Beckett asked looking up at him. Jack grinned,
"Couldn't resist Mate!" One of the guards gut checked Jack, making him double over in pain.
"JACK!" she yelled trying to get to him.
"Strap her to the table..." Beckett ordered the guards holding the lady. She struggled, trying to drag her feet, but they slammed her onto her face, making her lay still, tying her wrist down with rope, holding her down by the waist.
"JACK!" she cried.
"Now Jack..."Beckett started bringing the poker from the fire revealing it to be a branding iron, "I'll give you one last chance to tell me where the compass is buried...Or else..." Beckett moved her hair aside, his finger lingering on her neck. Jack growled in outrage and struggled to get near him.
"Don't tell him Jack...no one like him needs that kind of power..."she whispered.
"OR ELSE JACK...she will be condemned to share YOUR fate! What do you say Jack?" Beckett asked him looking slightly manic. Jack looked to his love, who nodded and gave him a small smile. With a twinkle in his eye, Jack smile smugly at him and said evenly,
"That's CAPTAIN Jack Sparrow to you Cutler Beckett...and don't you forget it."
Beckett smiled wickedly before saying,
"Very well then...hold her still..." She struggled as Beckett ripped open the buttons on the back of her dingy yellow gown. Jack watched with fury as Becket rang his finger down the length of her spine, before circling a spot on her lower back. He raised up the hot poker and pressed it into her flesh. She screamed at the top of her lungs.
"Arabella!" yelled Jack in concern. She began to sob as Beckett pulled away, no longer struggling, simply lying limp on the table. Jack tried to toss his captors off to go to her, but they merely grabbed him again, slamming him back against the wall. One man pulled his right arm out. Holding Jack's wrist, one man pulled his white shirt sleeve down his forearm. Taking his iron brand from the fire once more, Beckett advanced on Jack saying in an authoritative voice,
"Jack Sparrow and Arabella Morgan...be it known that from this day forward...ye have been found guilty of piracy and therefore shall now and forevermore be known by all...as pirates...sealed by a pirate brand...by order of the East India Trading Company, His Majesty King George the Second, and the English Empire." He pressed the brand into Jack's forearm. Jack shouted out once in pain. Then he opened his eyes to see the upside down letter 'P' glowing red in his tanned skin.
Jack woke up slowly to the sounds of lapping waves and his memories. As he sat up he began to get his bearings. He was in an underground cave of some sorts, sitting on an isolated rock the waves weathering the rock smooth. There was light coming from somewhere, because it caused the waves to reflect off the caves walls and all over him in an eerie blue.
"Jack..." whispered a sing song voice. Jack got to his feet, caution in his eye.
"Jack..." came another voice in a different direction. Jack whipped his head around, his beadings hitting his face,
"Who's there?" he demanded.
"Jack...Jack...Jack...Jack Jack...Jack ...Jack JACK...Jack...Jack Jack Jack...Jack!" called many different voices echoing in the cave. To his wonder, a feminie head popped up from under the water. Jack locked eyes with her. She was pale, her skin tinted green, her hair red and matted wet against her head. Her neck had gills, and her ears had a point like a fish fin. Her eyes were all black and to his amazement, she had one set of eyelids like a fish that blinked from the corners of her eyes, and then she blinked again using her more human eyelids. Or rather, it was more like she fluttered her human eyelids in flirtation as she cooed,
"Jack..." Then one by one, more and more of the same looking creatures poked their heads out of the water around him. Some with green hair, some with blue. Some hopped up on the distant shoreline and the surrounding rocks, exposing their claw like hands and their red, green and blue fish tales. They were mermaids. Then Jack heard a low rumbling and he took a sharp breath of surprise when a large coral throne rose from the water. On the throne sat three female creatures. There skin was tinted gold, and they had large silver eyes. There hair was like a humans, blond, burnette and redhead respectively, but they were woven with seaweed, coral combs and seashell beadings. They had tails like the mermaids, but with long fins like Japanese goldfish and they were dressed in old sails and lost gold jewelry. The burnette, with hair black as night smiled at Jack and said in a soft voice like an echo,
"Welcome Jack Sparrow."
Jack cleared his throat and stood to his full height,
"Captain...Jack Sparrow if you please Milady."
"You are not frightened?" she asked.
"Not terribly...after all...I've been here before...what was it? Twenty years ago? But last time I didn't have the honor of meeting you...Miss Siren..." Jack said. The Siren smiled,
"Then what my mermaids tell me is true. You are the Sea Fox. Crafty and cunning as he is handsome." Jack grinned,
"Really? Well Luv, I'm flattered...Any chance you'll tell me which one of these Scaly Tails said such things?" He winked at a group of mermaids who giggled together. The Siren smiled before saying,
"You may act like a great seducer of females Jack Sparrow..."Jack opened his mouth."Captain Sparrow..."she corrected before continuing, "But there has been but one woman to truly claim your heart hasn't there?" When Jack didn't answer, the Siren responded to the pain in his eyes, "The same woman you saved from my mermaids all those years ago...The same woman who's freedom you bargained from us in exchanged for yours. It's time to collect Jack Sparrow." And with that, she tossed him a smooth black stone, an onyx.
"Collateral...collateral...collateral..."chorused the mermaids. Jack tried not to look at the mermaid chorus, because if memory served him, they could turn into ugly, terrifying sea beasts with tentacles, covered in barnacles, the total opposite of their current radiance. His mind raced quickly. How to get out of this one? How? Then if came to him. He shrugged and smiled,
"If you wish...after all what you girls have cooked up for me has got to be better than what Ol' Davy Jones had wished for me." The mermaids screeched and the Sirens roared, their hair blown around by an supernatural wind, their silver eyes burning red.
"Davy Jones? That thief!"
"Oh you've met?" Jack said cordially.
"He stole the powers of the sea from us! Him and his sorceress love! It is only fitting his woman betrayed him and he's been cursed...So...you bartered the freedom you gave us to him? In exchange for what?" the Head Siren asked.
"My ship...the Black Pearl. And I bartered said freedom because I knew I had already promised my freedom to you and your Scaly Tails. Figured Davy Jones couldn't hold me to my promise. Guess I was wrong. Maybe he does have all the powers of the seas." Jack commented.
"No he doesn't!" roared the blond Siren her scales and gills flapping out.
"Silence!" ordered the Head Siren. She looked coolly at Jack as he folded his hands before him and commented looking up to the ceiling,
"Well there's nothing you can do about it is there? You girls can't go topside else you'd fight Jones on your own...I'd do it for ye...but I don't have the freedom to do so...ah well. Ladies! Who's up for a game of Post Office?" The mermaids giggled as Jack looked around rubbing his hands together.
"Wait...you'd destroy Jones for us?" asked the redheaded Siren. Jack smiled.
"Well he did send a terrible beasty after me, tried to kill me and enslave me...and did I mention he sunk my ship? I'd be happy to get Jones for ye...for a price." The Mermaids chattered for a moment before the Head Siren raised her hand to silence them.
"Name your terms Captain Sparrow."
"I will destroy Davy Jones and his cursed crew in exchange for my freedom and my ship the Black Pearl raised from the depths of the seas." Jack said.
"You're freedom is enough for destroying Jones. For your ship you will destroy Davy Jones lost love as well." The Head Siren told him. Jack furrowed his brow,
"His love? She should be dead by now!"
"She's not...She used her dark magic and the powers of the seas to stay alive. So you will destroy her." she answered.
"Any idea where she is? A name maybe?" asked Jack. The Siren avoided his eye,
"Since we lost the power we have a hard time knowing all about the world."
"Then I'll have to work fast then won't I? After all...since Davy Jones heart is probably in the hands of the MORTAL East Indian Trading Company by now, a bunch of humans dedicated only to profit, greed, and conquest, it will only be a matter of time before they rule the seas. " Jack told them.
"Man cannot control the seas. They don't have the physical ability nor the soul for it." The Head Siren said.
"I know that and you know that...but they don't know that! 'Sides...using Jones to control the seas for them...they have a heck of a shot at it...Here..."Jack tossed them the stone."Collateral. Do we have an accord?"
The Siren smiled, showing off her pointed teeth,
"We have an accord. But you will need help Captain Sparrow. So we shall send you to the place where help will find you."
"Where's that?" asked Jack growing fearful.
"You'll see..." chorused the Sirens and Mermaids before breaking into a cackling collective laugh. Then before Jack knew it, the rock he stood on submerged in the water, pulling Jack down in a whirl pool before he could cry out.
The bell of the Lady Virgina rang out in a cry of alarm. Norrington was roused from his sleep, and he pulled on his boots, not even bothering with his wig and his coat. He found his crew on the deck, looking over the railing. His first mate, Rodgers stomped up to him and said,
"The night watch has vanished Sir."
"Vanished?" asked Norrington in confusion.
"Aye...the woman...Anamaria...they sent her down to me to ask about the sails...when she came back topside...they were gone...Or so she says..." Rodgers said, his green eyes narrowing in suspicion.
"What are you saying man?" Norrington asked.
"I'm just saying Sir...all but one man...er...woman from a watch is left? How do we know she didn't cause them to disappear? Or if she's some sort of bad luck?" Rodgers asked. Norrington glared at the man,
"I have seen far worst things at sea Mr. Rodgers. A woman bringing bad luck is the least of our concerns. Send her to my cabin...I wish to speak with her." He stomped back to his quarters, lighting the oil lamps and candles as he went. Soon a knock came to the door. Norrington turned and his breath caught in his throat. He had to admit she looked lovely bathed in candlelight. Her creamy brown skin glowed almost gold. He cleared his throat, reminding himself she was a sailor under his command. He looked at her like a Captain should and told her,
"So you found the watch missing?"
"Aye Sir. Came back from seeing Mr. Rodgers and I found the crewmen missing. I knew they couldn't have gone below, or I would have seen them. But Sir...it's the strangest thing..." she started her brow knitted together.
"What is it?" he asked. She looked at him uncertainly,
"Before I went to ring the bell, I heard a chorus of voices singing...they were terrible, ungodly voices...no angelic choirs...I wasn't affected...but I think the crew was..."
"You're not talking of mermaids are you?" Norrington asked incredulously.
"It would explain why I wasn't affected...they only go after men don't they?" she asked.
"So I've heard..."Norrington said thinking it through. After all he had seen in the last two years...it wouldn't hurt to be cautious of the old legend of temptresses of the seas. It wouldn't hurt at all.