"Yo Ho, Yo Ho! A Pirate's Life for Me!"

As insane as the situation at Madison Square Garden was that evening, Alexis couldn't have imagined it to get any worse from that point, especially after the unusual phone call she received from the heavily concerned Christina Melnitz. However, it could not have been as strange as how dark and grey the sky was becoming upon their arrival at the firehouse headquarters.

But Alexis was too exhausted to spend any brainpower trying to figure it out, as it was joining just a list of things that were unexplainable – the "Terror Dog Attack" being number one, followed by the disappearance of Kimberly Venkman. She was certain that Sean Spengler would give her a thorough explanation once she returned, seeing that Spengler, Stantz, and Zeddemore should have arrived from their investigation by that time.

Unfortunately, when she, Louise Peck, and John Hardemeyer entered the building, they discovered that none of the three Ghostbusters were there. Only Christina was there all by herself, standing near her desk with a spooked look manifested on her face. As soon as she watched Alexis, Peck, and Hardemeyer arrive, she urgently ran to them and cried, "Y'all have got to follow me down to the basement! This is just beyond weird!"

Before Alexis could even bother to ask what it was, she was suddenly grabbed by the arm and led down to the basement so fast and so briskly that she feared her arm would be pulled clear off. It could not have been as hard as Louise and John being forced to rush after them, especially after running for their lives during most of the evening.

But the thought of exhaustion quickly left their minds, as soon as they saw the bizarre metal door that Christina had depicted in her phone call to Alexis, situated exactly where the Containment Unit should've been. The sight of it brought chills down their spines – it was nothing they had ever seen before, unless it was in a fairy tale (no matter whether it was an original or Disney-based). All of the insanity that occurred earlier that evening was completely erased from their memories at the moment they had seen the door.

"What in bloody blazes is that?!" Louise exclaimed.

Alexis was so agitated from this that she barely let anyone have a chance to answer Peck's question when she asked one of her own. "Where the heck is Spengler, Jay, and Dye?! They should've been back by now!"

Christina shook her head and shrugged. "They hadn't called in almost over a few hours. I'm startin' to think there could be somethin' huge happenin' here, and it's gonna take the whole team to stop it."

"Well, there's just one problem with that, Miss Arkansas," said the obviously frustrated Hardemeyer, "we're lacking a team as it is right now."

Melnitz glared at Hardemeyer. "I know that, hotshot! And for your information, I'm Virginian!"

Alexis chose to ignore the bantering between Christina and John and focus solely on the door in front of them, which should have been the only subject of their attention at the time. She slowly and cautiously approached it, looking into the inanimate eyes of the goblin creature, whose face was imprinted on the door. Within seconds, Alexis felt herself falling under an extreme trance – everything around her became blurry and soon started spinning.

It wasn't very long before Christina noticed the way Alexis was stumbling and grew extremely concerned. "Alexis? Hon, are you okay?" She quickly went to her side and grabbed her, making sure that she didn't collapse. Shaking her a little, she was able to snap her out of the trance she was in. "Maybe you need to rest for a while, sweetie. It's been a long night for you. Let Sean figure this out, as soon as he and the others get…"

"We have to go through this door!" Alexis suddenly demanded.

Louise and John exchanged a quick glance of fear, before Louise remarked in a voice that just about lacked British tone to it, "Say what now?!?!"

Even Christina had to wonder where this demand came from. "Okay, kiddo…you are definitely in need of rest right about now."

"Our friends and the recruits are past that door, Christy!" Alexis retorted. "I just saw them a moment ago, trapping in some sort of 'ghost world' that is beginning to merge with ours!"

John just scratched his head in confusion and said in a doubtful tone, "And you know this just from looking at the door?" A sarcastic chuckle emerged from the former aide to the mayor of New York, as he shook his head at the odd Ghostbuster. "Doesn't anybody make sense here anymore? I mean, didn't we already go on some other girl's precognition powers?!"

"It's not precognition!" Alexis snapped. "It's just a hunch, okay?"

"Well, I'm certainly not gonna risk my life on a hunch!" Hardemeyer declared. "You can just count me out of th…" He stopped as soon as he felt a strong grip come over his left arm, just as he attempted to leave the basement. It was Louise, once again showing how strong she could be when it came to disciplining him. But it only took the glare in her eye to make him change his mind on the matter. "Alright, fine…I get it! This is the only way we can prove our worthiness, right?"

Alexis smirked. "If you wanna put it that way…then, yeah, it is."

"Okay, Miss Embers," said Louise, with crossed arms and a skeptical look on her face. "How do you suppose we get past this monstrosity of a door?"

"If I were ya, I wouldn't even step one foot past dat dere door!" A deep, somewhat intimidating voice spoke out from behind them, followed by a series of heavy footsteps that were walking down the creaky staircase. When they turned, they were met by the bulbous sight of Pete in his black suit and tie that appeared messy, having quite a few stains on it. For a recently appointed representative of the Environmental Protection Agency, he was not coming off as too conservative. "'Cause these here premises are now under restriction by da E.P.A.!"

Louise shook her head at the pathetic sight before her – who apparently was her replacement for the organization. "You must be joking me with this."

"Yeah, dat's right, toots!" Pete coyly remarked. "Be jealous dat I've got da job that ya obviously was too chicken ta handle! And I'm gonna show ya right now how it's done by shuttin' down the Ghostbusters fer good!" He brisk past Peck and approached Alexis, as she continued standing near the spooky door.

"If you're planning on doing that by switching off the Containment Unit, you're a little too late." Alexis told him, before gesturing to the door. "This thing has apparently replaced it."

Pete blew a raspberry at the grotesque metal door. "Don't try and con me with yer supernatural mumbo jumbo, missy! Ya tryin' ta hide yer fancy little ghost-holdin' machine from me, so I won't hafta shut it down! Now…" Angrily facing the door, Pete began banging his huge, white-gloved fist against it, creating an eerie, hollow noise.

"…OPEN…"

BANG!

"…THIS…"

BANG!

"…DOOR!"

BANG!

On the final strike, something incredibly bizarre occurred – the eyes of the goblin imprinted on the door glowed green and unleashed a beam of light that struck Pete, causing him to vanish from the very spot he stood. The eyes of Alexis, Christina, John, and Louise widened in shock of the paranormal attack, uncertain if Pete had been destroyed. However, it was soon a matter not worth pondering over any further, as the goblin's eyes began shining towards them.

Alarmed by the looming danger, Alexis turned to Christina, wishing not for her to be in harm's way. "Christy, get out of here now!"

But Melnitz shook her head negatively in response. "I'm not leavin' y'all behind! We're gonna be in this together!" Right after Christina made her declaration, another beam of light shot across the room and struck Peck and Hardemeyer simultaneously, vanishing them both from the room just like Pete. It was then that Christina was convinced that Alexis's suggestion was right on. "Ya know, I never really did believe in any of that 'all in this together' junk. It's only good for lyrics to a High School Musical song!" And with that, she dashed out of the room as fast as she could.

Alone with the attacking door, Alexis detached the neutrona wand of her Proton Pack and aimed it directly at the eyes of the goblin, which was on the verge of unleashing another beam. Just as it did, Alexis fired her wand and counteracted against the beam. She almost appeared to be in some sort of tug-of-war battle with the beam, as her proton stream was bouncing off against it (and vice versa). But the beam soon proved to be too powerful for even the stream to overwhelm, and Alexis was forced to shut off her wand and allow the beam to strike her.

Alexis shut her eyes, shielding them from the immense flash of green that surrounded her upon getting struck. When it eventually extinguished, she opened them again to see herself on the deck of a full rigged ship, complete with groups of appalling, genuine pirates that were laughing, snarling, and even hissing at her. It was then out of nowhere that she felt pairs of hands clamp down on her arms. At first she believed it might've been the pirates, until the quivering sensation she detected in them convinced her otherwise.

Looking down she noticed how Louise and John were holding onto her, appearing extremely frightened and shaking like timid rabbits. Regardless of the fact that they were cutting off the blood flow in her arms, she was relieved to know that they had not been destroyed. However, it then begged the question of what happened to Pete, if all the beam had done was transport them to some kind of alternate dimension – which seemed to be just that from the sight of the swirling green and grey clouds above and the dark, foreboding islands floating around the traversing pirate ship.

Alexis's concerns of Pete were soon answered, just as she heard his illiterate voice conversing with some of the pirates on the ship and not sounding all that happy. "Listen here, ya wannabes! I know fake 'scallywags' when I see 'em! I used ta be one! Dey didn't refer ta me as 'Peg-Leg Pete' fer nothin'!"

"Shut yer trap, ya blubberous blob!" One of the pirates screamed at Pete. "Da captains will know what to do with ye and ye's friends very soon!"

Pete bellowed with laughter, with his huge, protruding gut wobbling disgustingly in conjunction with it. "Now I knows yer a bunch of phonies! Only nitwits would have more dan one captain for a single ship!"

The pirate's eyes were literally turning red in anger, as were the others standing around him and the rest all over the ship. They unsheathed their swords and pointed them straight at Pete, who was beginning to show signs of actual intimidation.

"Ye be wise not to refer to pirates in such a demeanor, fat one!" The pirate furiously exclaimed.

"And ye be wise never to threaten anyone associated with the new caretaker of the underworld." The voice didn't sound so anonymous to everyone on the ship, as its register was unmistakable. All heads immediately turned to where it sounded from, near the door to the grand cabin, and there stood the ship's dual captains – Hector Barbossa and James Hook. It was Barbossa who addressed his crew, as they lowered their swords from Pete. "Especially when that caretaker is our expected guest."

Louise scratched her head over Barbossa claim of one of them being this so-called "Caretaker of the Underworld." "What in blazes is he talking about? Which one of us is carrying such a title?" John shrugged his shoulders with confusion registered on his face in response to Peck's question.

However, it was answered just when Captain Hook approached Alexis, took off his hat, and bowed to her with half of a grin on his face. "Welcome to the Seventh Circle, my lord. We were told of your arrival here and set sailed across the borders between the realms as soon as possible."

Alexis almost felt herself becoming dizzy again, after the realization came upon her that the person whom Hook and Barbossa were referring to had been her the whole time, much to her immediate bewilderment. Could these pirates have mistaken her for someone else? Whatever the case might've been, she didn't have any time to figure it all out. Somewhere in that parallel dimension, her friends and the recruits were lost and possibly in great danger – and she (and as much as she hated to admit it, Louise, John, and Pete also) were the only ones who could save them.

For the time being, she was better off in letting the pirates believe her to be whomever they wanted, as long as she could find her friends and the recruits. In response to Hook's statement, she asked, "T-Told by whom?"

"Surely ye must know of yer own herald from the Underworld, me lord," said Barbossa, sounding very perplexed. "He wouldn't have alerted us of yer arrival, if ye had not first and foremost warned him of the Circle Holders' attempt of mergin' tha realms. If we be stoppin' it, then we must reach to our destination in time to stop tha one who be bringin' it." He then pointed to one particular island that was floating some distance away. "We soon be makin' berth on that land, which is where our adversary may be."

Alexis glanced at the island and nodded, only somewhat understanding Barbossa's proclamation. But regardless of whether she understood any of it or not, it was important for her to search for her friends and the recruits, as well as prevent the merger between the realms. She boldly ordered of the pirates, "Then that's where you may take us."

And as soon after she gave the word, Hook and Barbossa began barking out demands to their crew, having them do all they could to make their ship go faster to their destination. Alexis watched them all as they carried out their orders, looking like a real pirate crew if she ever saw one. If this was the "Seventh Circle" of where she could only imagine one to be, then she would need the assistance of these pirates from the Underworld to help her survive through it all. Because the three quivering morons with her sure as heck weren't capable to do so.