About bloody time, eh? Thank you to all who reviewed and were patient with me. And, to answer PoisonousAngel's question, I'm not a Sparrowbether. Amy was just joking when she was talking about them.
Onwards, no?
"You're pulling too fast!" Pintel yelled.
"You're pulling too slow!" Ragetti retorted. "We dont want the Kraken to catch us."
They were making their slow but sure way towards the shore of a small tropical island. Elizabeth and Norrington sat in awkward silence next to one another. Amy was nestled on the floor of the boat with her legs over the side, the toe of one boot just dipped above the surface of the water.
"I'm saving me strength for when it comes." Pintel growled. "And I dont think it's krah-ken, anyways. I always heard it said kray-ken."
Amy looked up at Elizabeth and Norrington as they rolled their eyes at each other. Amy pushed herself up on her elbows and looked out at the sea. There wasn't a single disturbance on the rhythmic pattern of waves. Even so, she thought, there's a huge squid-type thing somewhere out there...and hastily withdrew her foot from the water.
"Krocken's how it's pronounced in original Scandinavian, and Krah-ken's closer to that." Ragetti was telling Pintel, as Amy turned her attention back to the conversation.
"Well we aint original Scandinavians, are we? Amy?" Pintel turned to Amy, apparantly for back up.
"I couldn't give two flying Hippogriffs." Amy said, sitting up properly and crossing her legs.
There was a pause. "But it is Krah-ken." She added.
Ragetti grinned and Pintel made an angry "Hmph." noise. None of them said another word until they had reached the sandy shores of Isla Cruces.
"Guard the boat, mind the tide." Jack told Pintel, Ragetti and Amy. "Dont touch my dirt."
Amy stood with her hands on her hips for a second, watching Elizabeth's, Jack's and Norrington's retreating backs. Then she let out a short laugh.
"Not bloody likely." She muttered and took off at a run to catch up with them.
None of them were surprised as Amy came zooming up to them. Jack, who had been expecting it, handed Amy a spade, wordlessly.
The four of them wandered for what seemed like hours, through shallow water and across sandy hills. None of them were particularly talkative; they all seemed too focused on the task at hand.
Amy stopped walking as Elizabeth turned round in the opposite direction once again. She walked a few strides, then turned again.
Amy held down a grumble of frustration as Elizabeth stopped once more. She was boiling under the hot sun in her pirate gear and the nasty sunburn across her cheekbones wasn't improving her temper. She attemped to shade her face by rearranging her hair, which had become notably blonder since being in the caribbean.
"This doesn't work." Elizabeth said suddenly and Amy brushed her hair out of her eyes to look at her.
"And it certainly," She continued, sitting cross-legged on the sand and tossing the compass away from her slightly, "Doesn't show you what you want most."
Jack weaved his way towards her and looked at the compass which was lying on the sand. Amy peered over his shoulder and watched the compass needle spin, pointing to where Elizabeth was sitting.
"Yes, it does." Jack said. "You're sitting on it."
Amy snorted and Elizabeth turned to look at him.
"Beg pardon?" She asked.
"Move." He said, shooing her away from the spot and pulling Amy backwards a bit. He indicated to the patch of sand with a little whistle and Norrington started to dig.
It was a long and tedious wait. Jack , for some bizarre reason, was meditating a few feet away from where Amy was building a sand castle. She sighed impatiently every few minutes.
"If you're so bored," Norrington said to her, "you could come and do something useful like help me, Amy."
"No, Amy's quite comfortable here, thank you." She said, not looking up. "Besides, you're doing a spiffing job."
"Do I detect a note of sarcasm?"
"Oh, nooo, not at all." Amy said sarcastically.
Norrington stomped in the spade a little harder out of annoyance and a loud THUNK replied.
Amy frowned and stood up, stumbling a little in the powdery sand. She tapped Jack on the shoulder as she passed and his eyes snapped open.
All four of them peered into the hole and saw the vague outline of something large and square buried in there. They brushed off some of the sand and hoisted the chest out of the hole.
Amy tossed the spade to Jack. He rammed it at the chest and broke the lock and chucked the spade away again, narrowly missing Amy who let out a little indignant yell.
She quickly forgot about it as Jack opened the chest. Dropping to her knees beside Elizabeth, she took out a handful of papers from the chest.They all appeared to be letters.
"That's a lot of post." She muttered, picking at the wax seal on one of them.
Jack lifted out a smaller chest and rested it on the side of the larger one. They all leaned towards it as one.
THUMP THUMP.
Elizabeth recoiled. "It's real." She said quietly.
"You dont know that." Amy said. "It could be...an imp with a ...drum..."
"You actually were telling the truth." Norrington said to Jack, ignoring Amy.
"I do that quite a lot." Jack replied. "Yet people are always surprised."
"With good reason!" Said a voice.
They spun around to see a soaking wet Will walking up to them.
"Will!" Elizabeth gasped. "You're all right, thank god!"
"Wow, enter the imp." Jack muttered to Amy, as Elizabeth rushed over to Will and kissed him.
Norrington looked away and Amy cleared her throat.
"Let's keep it PG, loves. This is Disney." She giggled at them.
"How did you get here?" Jack demanded.
They had finally broke apart.
"Sea turtles, mate." Will replied. "A pair of them strapped to my feet."
Amy beamed at Will for giving a non-sensible answer for a change.
"Not so easy, is it?" Jack smiled.
"But I do owe you thanks, Jack." Will said. "After you tricked me onto that ship to square your debt with Jones..."
Elizabeth gaped. "What?!"
"What?" Jack said in a highpitched voice, then glaring at Amy as if she had said it.
"What?" Amy said innocently.
"I was runited with my father." Will carried on.
Amy went and closed the large chest's lid and sat down with the Dead Man's Chest in her lap.
"Everything you said to me...every word was a lie!" Elizabeth growled, striding towards Jack.
"Pretty much." Jack replied.
"Oh, come on!" Amy sighed. "You really believed him? 'an unfortunate series of circumstances that had nothing whatsoever to do with me'?"
Elizabeth glared at her but didn't say anything.
Amy snorted.
"Did you know I have the word gullable tattooed on my forehead?"
Jack peered at her, as if looking for a tattoo but then drew his attention to Will who had knelt down in front of the chest in Amy's lap and brought out the key and a small dagger.
"Oi." Jack said to him. "What are you doing?"
"I'm gonna kill Jones." Will answered simply.
Amy withdrew slightly, her hand covering the keyhole as Jack pointed his sword at Will.
"I cant let you do that, William, because if Jones is dead, who's to call his terrible beastie off the hunt, eh?"
Will looked defeated and backed away from the chest.
Amy stood up quietly, her arms still around the chest.
"If you please..." Jack said quietly. "The key."
Will suddenly snatched Elizabeth's sword from her and pointed it at Jack.
"I keep the promises I make, Jack. I intend to free my father. I hope you're here to see it." Will said.
Then, Norrington drew his sword and pointed it at Will.
"I cant let you do that, either. So sorry." He said.
Amy raised one eyebrow at the triangle of swords.
"I knew you'd warm up to me..." Jack said brightly but Norrington switched his aim to point his sword at Jack while Will pointed his sword at Norrington. Jack pointed his sword at Will to complete the triangle again.
Amy rolled her eyes.
"Lord Beckett desires the contents of that chest." Norrington continued. "I deliver it, I get my life back."
Amy pulled a face at the mention of Beckett's name. None of them seemed to notice that she had the chest.
"Ah, the dark side of ambition." Jack said.
"Oh, I prefer to see it as the promise of redemption."
Elizabeth let out a little shriek as they started swordfighting. It started with just the clashes of the swords but was turning nasty rapidly as Will got kicked to the ground.
Elizabeth rushed to his side.
"Get the chest from her and guard it!" Will ordered, pointing to Amy and rushing off again.
There was a pause.
"NO!" Elizabeth screamed.
Amy laughed as she watched Elizabeth tear after them, screaming hysterically.
Amy bit her lip, shifting the weight of the chest from one hand to the other. It was time to choose her options. She had the power. The key was useless without the chest and she could choose who to give it to.
Norrington was clearly out of the running. No way would she give Beckett control of the sea. That just left Will and Jack.
She turned her gaze towards the still swordfighting men in the distance.
Will definately had a more noble reason, saving his father from eternity with old squid face. But then again...he had run off and left Will when he was only little. And it's not like she was sentencing Will or his father to death if she didn't give it to him, whereas with Jack...he would certainly be dead if she didn't hand it over. She drummed her fingers on the lid of the chest and bounced slightly on the balls of her feet.
Turning her head slightly, she could see Pintel and Ragetti running towards her, evil grins on their faces.
"Jack, it is, then." She muttered, and set off at a run away from them.
Clutching the chest to her with both hands, she zoomed across the beach. Her boot caught on a petruding rock and she fell flat on her face in the sand.
"Ow, bugger." She wheezed, putting a hand to her ribs where she had fallen on the chest. Stumbling back to her feet, she took off again in the general direction of a sheltered jungley bit of the island. Focusing on her where her feet were pounding, Amy was shocked when she looked up to see she was about to run into a tree. Weaving out of its direction and into the jungle, Amy didn't stop running until she was completely out of breath. She doubled up, trying to catch her breath but the sound of childish giggling made her straighten up. Pintel and Ragetti crashed through the trees and came to a halt in front of her.
Amy held the chest to her and stepped backwards a bit, as their hands went to their swords. Then suddenly, Elizabeth appeared. She scowled at the three of them and reached for her sword...but it wasn't there. She grinned in an apologetic way but Pintel and Ragetti drew their swords and advanced towards her, apparantly forgetting that Amy had the chest.
"'Ello, poppet." Pintel said.
They were interuppted however, by an axe embedding itself in a tree next to them. The four of them looked around to see Jones's crew heading straight towards them.
Amy didn't waste a second. Spinning round, she ran faster than she had ever run in her entire life. Each breath she took was a sharp pain in her side but she didn't stop. The yells and roars of the monsters behind her told her that she was still ahead. She turned around to see just how much further she was away from them, when she ran headlong into someone, knocking her off her feet. Terrified that she had just run into one of the fish-people, she scrabbled around the jungle floor for the chest handle.
Her heart leapt as she heard a familiar voice.
"Watch where you're going, will you?"
"Jack!" She gasped. She took the hand he offered her and he hoisted her back on her feet.
"I have...chest..." She wheezed, holding it up by the handle.
Jack grinned.
"Good girl." He said, taking it from her. "Knew you would see sense."
"Whatever this is," Amy said, "It's not sense. Running through the jungle being chased by sushi-people to give a bloody pirate a chest with a heart in it."
Jack wasn't listening. He placed the chest on the ground, knelt beside it and inserted the key.
Amy flopped down beside him. As the key turned, the heart-shaped lock emitted lots of clunks and clicks. Jack's eyes widened as he opened the lid.
"Wow." Amy breathed as she caught sight of the still beating heart in the chest. Jack reached in and took it out, smiling slightly as he held it in his hand.
"That's gross." She said quietly.
Roars and yells told them that Jones's crew were approaching rapidly.
"Time to go." Jack muttered, shoving the heart in his shirt. Amy slammed down the lid of the chest and made to pull out the key but Jack yelled for her to leave it as he took her hand and lead her away.
With the amount of running Amy had done, her legs felt like a cross between lead and jelly making it difficult to run through the shallow water but Jack pulled her along. They skidded to a halt at the rowboat.
"Jar of dirt!" Jack blurted out wildly, unscrewing the lid of the jar and tipping out its contents. He shoved the heart in which made a horrible squelching noise on the side of the glass and began shoving the dirt back inside.
"Jack!" Amy yelled as a fish person raised his sword behind him. Jack dodged out of the way and lunged at Fishy with one of the oars. Amy could see Elizabeth trying to fend them all off with two swords and, she had to admit, was doing quite well. Pintel was madly whacking one in the face with the chest that he had picked up where Amy and Jack had left it. Then something happened that made them all stop fighting for a second.
A huge waterwheel had come crashing out of the jungle and rolled a short way into the shallows. It lost momentum and fell on its side with a huge splash. Amy saw two figures appear from inside it. The one Amy recognised to be Norrington was heading towards her for the boat.
She was about to make her way towards him when a slimy, barnacled hand grabbed her shoulder. Amy gasped and ducked out of instinct as a rusty sword whooshed over her head. She kicked out at his legs and the fish person fell face-first into the water.
"Jack, a little help here!" Amy called to him, laying on top of the fish monster to stop him from getting up. Jack splashed over and thwacked at the fish's head as hard as he could which seemed to subdue him.
Before Amy could thank him, Jack was already immersed in another battle.
Amy looked back and saw Pintel and Ragetti attempting to make a getaway with the rowboat. She ran over to it and launched herself into the boat, as if hoping that would stop them. It didn't but thankfully Will put his hand out and stopped the boat. He raised his sword at them. Pintel and Ragetti reached for their own swords but then realised Elizabeth had them both so they grabbed a fishnet and an oar.
"C'mon, Turner!" Ragetti yelled.
Amy, not wanting to get in the middle of this, quickly leapt out of the boat. She soon realised that this was a mistake, however, for the fish men, were advancing in on them. She turned back to see Will with the chest in his hands. Her eyes widened. She spun around to alert Jack but a loud THUNK told her that Jack had already dealt with him.
When she looked back, Will was slumped over the edge of the boat, unconscious and Elizabeth was rushing to his side.
"Leave him lie!" Roared Jack. "Unless you're planning on using him to hit something with."
Amy's heart thumped. She had a horrible feeling that she had forgotten a crucial part of the story but she couldn't remember what it was.
"We're not getting out of this." Elizabeth said.
"Not with the chest." Norrington replied. "Into the boat!"
Amy didn't need telling twice. She flopped into the boat as Norrington picked up the chest.
"You're mad!" Exclaimed Elizabeth.
"Dont wait for me." He said before sprinting back towards shore, the chest under his arm.
Amy scratched her head...it was something to do with Norrington...
"Uh, I say we respect his final wish!" Jack said.
"Aye!" Agreed Pintel.
They all clambered into the boat. Amy helped Elizabeth haul Will's limp body onto the floor of the boat.
"Go, go, go!" Cried Amy, whacking both Pintel and Ragetti on the head with a spare oar in turn.
The boat set off away from the chaos of the island, back towards the Black Pearl.
Phew! That was exhausting. I'm guessing just one or two more chapters after this. We're moving on quickly.
Until next tine! Oh yeah, please review!