Author's Note: Because who really wants to watch the Super Bowl tonight?

Only two chapters left, my friends! Thanks to all who continue to read and review as the adventure's end draws nigh. :)

Chapter Twenty-Four—Sword Fighting? Yeah, not Really My Thing

Jack Sparrow looked at his non-skeleton hand and—Amber could hardly believe it—gave the smallest of laughs. "Now that is interesting," he said weakly, pulling the coin he'd stolen from the chest out to look at it. He knew as soon as Amber did what had happened.

"Funny," he said, struggling to stand up and get back on his feet. When he'd managed, his non-injured arm covering the wounded shoulder, he tossed the coin in his other hand to Amber, who caught it, but just barely—she had to let Barbossa go to do it. "I even knew about that," he said, nodding at the coin. "I would take the one that don't curse yeh; the fake. Figures."

Amber looked at her souvenir medallion and wished she could shake off this feeling of guilt, like it was her fault Jack was hurt; she was genuinely afraid for Jack now, and even for herself. How stupid was she, stepping in front of Barbossa? Whatever sort of fatherly affection he felt for her, Amber knew he wanted Jack dead a whole lot more than he wanted her alive.

"Are you okay?" she asked Jack, her voice squeaky.

The pirate captain seemed to sway on the spot. "I've known worse pain," he managed to say, but just then Barbossa laughed.

He had recovered from his surprise and had pushed Amber aside roughly. "Outta my way, lass," he snarled, moving in on Jack. He smirked, raising the blade. "As so comes the end of Cap'n Jack Sparrow!"

"Not just yet, as much as he deserves it," a new voice said. Amber hadn't quite figured out who it was that had spoken when a sword came down, seemingly out of nowhere, on Barbossa's. "I can't let you do that," the speaker said, running their blade up and down his.

"Arr," Barbossa said, sounding like he was laughing. He turned to face his challenger, and in moments they were locked in a duel of their own. Amber could tell she was a female, but couldn't see her clearly, because of her own position and the fact that the woman was in the shadows. But it couldn't be Elizabeth, Amber could see her helping Will; and the figure looked to tall to be Jessie, so it couldn't be her—could it?

Looking around, Amber couldn't see Jessie anywhere. Where had she gone? Elizabeth and Will were quite alone in their pirate fighting, and Jack was standing by himself just a few feet away from her, cursing under his breath and trying to reach his fallen sword past the pain. Amber looked back at the fighter; matching Barbossa's every step. She was good. Jessie had never touched a sword. That wasn't her.

And yet...

"Amber! What's going—!" There was a large gasp, so loud Amber got the impression the maker of the gasp had wanted to scream instead. "What the heck happened to Jack?" Amber turned to look over her shoulder, and was relieved to see her best friend scrambling over to her, mud and water all down her front.

"Jessie!" Amber said, hugging her when she was close enough. "So you are here! I had no idea where you'd gone…"

"I fell," Jessie said, nodding at how dirty she'd gotten. "The others continued on. What happened?" she repeated, biting her lip frightfully and looking at Jack.

"He grabbed a coin—you know, to make him cursed—except, Jessie—he grabbed my coin." Amber's voice rose with every word; she was talking rapidly to get the story out fast, so Jessie had to really listen to understand her. "Barbossa placed into the chest when he put the other around Will's neck. So he didn't become immortal or anything, and Barbossa stabbed him—there, in the right shoulder—he was getting ready to stab him again when—when—" Amber stopped, and looked over to where the cursed captain was fighting. "I knew it couldn't have been you. Who is that, then?"

"Anamaria," Jessie said, weak with relief. It had been a close call, and extremely lucky Anamaria had been talked into by her and Elizabeth to come; imagine if she hadn't!

"Anamaria," Amber repeated, looking at the female fighter again. She grinned. "Of course! I can't believe you got her to come; but, hey, I'm not complaining!"

Jessie smiled. "Neither am I," she said. She headed over to check on Jack, who had regained his balance by now.

"You just had to go and get yourself stabbed, didn't you?" she asked, trying not to show she was worried. As she forced herself to look anywhere but at his wound, she noticed a gleam on the ground; it stood out amongst the rest of the treasure. She bent to pick it up, knowing it immediately. "Believe this is yours," she said to him.

Jack looked at the green emerald ring in her hand, then down at his finger. Must've fallen off somehow as he handled his wound and moved his hand. Teasingly, she put it in her pocket. "I'll keep it for you," she said brightly.

Jack glared, despite the paleness of his skin and the spreading redness on his shoulder. "Give it—" he began, but Jessie wasn't paying attention: she had looked over his shoulder and saw something that made her scream at Amber.

"Watch out!" she said, Amber turned just in time to duck the blow of a pirate previously aiming for her neck. When he connected with air, however, he stumbled and fell in the water; the girls took the opportunity to race past the fighting Anamaria and Barbossa and up to the chest.

Jessie took off her medallion and studied it, looking from hers to Amber's around her neck. "Do you think we should just drop it in?" she said, and threw it into the pile. She couldn't help herself; it was an impulse that needed to be quenched.

"No!" Amber hissed. "Don't do that!" Crossing her arms and rolling her eyes, like she always did when she felt Jessie had done something stupid, she sighed. "Pick it back up and put it in your pocket," she growled. "Yours and mine"—she touched the chain she had refastened around her neck when she got it back from Jack—"are the only things that might get us home."

"All right, yeah, yeah," Jessie said, standing on tiptoe to grab her medallion; the only one with a chain. She pocketed it and leaned back to look at Amber. "Happy now?" she said, faking annoyance.

Amber grinned. "Much happier," she said. "Hey, look!" She pointed to where Will and Elizabeth had a few pirates all lined up on a pole.

Will grinned at them when they approached, scooting over and making room for them to put their hands on the pole as well. "Push!" he cried, and all four of them shoved the men, an explosive in one of them, into the shadows, were they promptly exploded.

Then, Will, noticing something the other three hadn't, ran off towards the chest after that; Jessie sprang forward and grabbed the sword he'd dropped, not really intending for anything, but just the thought of holding it looked inviting.

From behind her, Amber shouted something she couldn't understand. Jessie turned in the other direction, searching for what had distressed her friend, with such rapidity that momentum took over the arm holding the sword; quite by accident, the blade found itself lodged into the chest of a pirate that had literally walked into it on his way to Jessie.

She screamed, and tried jerking the sword free from the man. She tugged too hard, however, and the man gave one last gurgle-like noise of pain, and fell to the floor. Maybe he wasn't dead, but he wasn't moving either; and to Jessie, right there in this moment, you had to be one or the other. She finally got the sword out, holding it limply in one hand, and backed away, her free hand covering her mouth in horror.

She looked significantly paler. "I just killed a man," she said weakly, trembling. Amber threw a comforting arm around her shoulder, understanding Jessie's feelings.

"You'll be fine," she said, trying to sound soothing but hoping a joke would cheer her friend up. "Anyway, he was a bad guy. So it doesn't count." She gave her shoulder a comforting squeeze.

"Girls! Watch out!" It was Elizabeth who was shouting now, racing towards them in a panic. Amber lowered her arm and turned around with a growl.

"Can a minute go by without someone else coming after us in here?!"

She stopped short when she saw the reason Elizabeth had been shouting: Barbossa, finally growing bored of fighting with the equally skilled Anamaria, had taken out his pistol and pointed at Jessie and Amber, so that Anamaria had to stop fighting as well. Elizabeth skidded to a stop just behind the two girls, breathing heavily. All three of them froze on the spot.

And then, the shot rang out. Jessie flinched, but it wasn't from Barbossa. In the midst of all that had went on, she'd forgotten, but now she remembered. "Jack," she breathed, looking around.

The pirate captain in question stood a little ways behind Barbossa, his hands bloody, his shirt bloody, his entire right arm and shoulder bloody. He was paler than he usually was, and he was panting heavily from the effort of not succumbing to the pain. But he had an oddly satisfied look on his face—because in his uninjured arm he held his pistol, smoking a little from the recent shot.

Barbossa merely laughed. "Ten years you carry that pistol, and now you waste your shot." He grinned as if it were the best thing in the world.

"He didn't waste it," a cold voice said. Everyone turned to see Will standing at the top of the coin pile, holding a bloody dagger and blood-covered coin. He released his grip on the medallion and it fell, as if slow motion, into the pile of coins. A satisfying tink echoed throughout the cave.

But something was wrong. Barbossa wasn't dead. Jessie's blood felt like ice, and she exchanged a frightened glance with Amber. What had happened?

"Jessie," Jack said breathlessly, and her eyes found him again as if pulled by a magnet. "Your medallion." Somewhere inside him, he found the energy to offer her a sarcastic grin. "If there's ever an opportune moment…now…now would be it."

Jessie felt like she had just been hit over the head with a club. Of course! She unfastened the chain from around her neck and gazed down at it. And then, terrified at the thought, she took one single step so the entire left side of her body was in the moonlight. When she saw the skeletal, decaying skin that was now herself, she wanted to scream. But Amber had just done that for her.

There was something so very wrong about this, she thought looking from her left hand, rotted and dead, to her right, covered in flesh, completely okay, still holding her sword. Surprised to find her hand steady, Jessie shut her eyes and held her breath, knowing what she had to do and dreading it. Feeling like her fingers were made of lead, she forced her hand open and let the sword fall from her grasp and clatter to the ground, but not before it caught on her fingers, her palm, her wrist. She closed her eyes and gasped at the sensation of the blade slicing her skin.

All of this happened in just a few seconds, however, though to Jessie it felt like hours had gone by. Jessie opened her eyes to see the looks of horror and fascination on everyone's face. Remembering what she was doing, Jessie hastily smeared her coin in the crimson red blood dripping from her entire right arm and tossed it Will, who wasted no time in dropping it into the chest.

And, then, finally Barbossa gasped. "I feel…cold." He barely had time to look down at the bloodstain spreading across his shirt before he toppled over, dead. An apple fell from his hand, bouncing and rolling until it landed at Amber's feet. She picked it up, looking from it to Barbossa and back again, but if she was pale, it was nothing compared to how Jessie looked.

She hadn't felt pain before when she had been cut—it was had been an odd feeling, and terrifying—but it was nothing at how this felt. Her arm was bleeding even worse than it had before, and her entire arm felt numb. Somewhere behind her she heard a clatter, and she turned her head to see Jack falling, looking as sickly as she felt. Anamaria and Will rushed over to him.

And then she was falling, too. Her legs just gave up holding her, and her feet slipped from underneath until she was lying on her back. She closed her eyes against the pain in her arm—why did she feel like she was falling asleep? Dimly, she thought she heard Amber's voice, and another voice—Elizabeth? But she couldn't hear what they were saying.

She could only think in short, painful phrases, and only one thing was running through her mind: Jack managed to stay awake for awhile…he'd been stabbed, too…but he's…a pirate…he had felt pain worse than his injury tonight. I've never…never had a wound like this. And so when the curse broke…my body didn't know what to do…

And then the dark of her eyelids suddenly got darker…and she felt herself slipping off to meet it…just for a minute…just for a minute…