So sorry for the delay everyone! Yes, I have a new fandom (you must all go and watch Supernatural!) and yes, this story is suffering a little because of it but I WILL keep posting. I have a plan!

I’ve decided to set this between the two Pirates movies for two reasons – one, I don’t think we need to rehash the original again and two, I don’t want to spoil anyone.

Thanks for your patience everyone :) Appreciated!

A Darker Road – Chapter Six:
Yo Ho!

Sora was starting to think his newest acquaintance was… oh, how should he put it?

Insane?

Yes. Insane was the best description.

“Have you been at my rum?” The man was looking at Sora as if he was preparing to accost him and dig through his pockets.

Sora blinked, backing up a step. “Uh… no. I just got here.”

The man peered around. “I don’t see a boat… except mine, which is on the other side of the island so I can’t actually see it but I know it’s there.”

“Okay…”

Yeah, definitely crazy.

The man focused again, his dark eyes sharp. There was definitely a spark of something far more serious to this guy, something hidden beneath the flamboyantly crazy exterior. “Got a name boy?”

“Sora. And you are…”

“Captain Jack Sparrow. Now that we’ve made ourselves acquaintances, I suggest you look sharp and help me find the rum.”

“No, wait, there could be Heartless or Nobodies here. We should look for them!”

“You’re not making any sense,” Captain Jack said, pointing at Sora as if he needed to remind the boy of who he was.

Sora debated trying to tell the Captain just what the Heartless and Nobodies were but one, he figured he wouldn’t get too far without being able to point at a real life example and two, the man had already trundled off down the beach, one arm held up as if to balance his bizarrely poised gait.

“So, um, what else do you do?” Sora asked. “You know, other than looking for rum.”

Captain Jack turned and looked at the boy, his expression one of both appraisal and that of someone who had received an insult. Sora could feel the man’s stare burning into him and he struggled to meet the heavily outlined eyes. “Boy,” the Captain eventually said. “Ain’t it obvious?”

Sora took a breath, thought for a moment, and decided, “No, it’s not.”

Jack twirled his hands until both his index fingers pointed squarely at his own chest. “I’m a pirate.”

“A pirate?” Sora’s eyes lit up. “Cool!”

“Rather hot actually.” And Jack gestured at the blistering sun and the endless blue sky.

“So you’ve got a ship?”

“Of course.” Jack staggered around a bit, turning a few circles before heading into a small grove of palm trees. He seemed to have a course in mind. “The Black Pearl. She’s a beauty.”

“And you sail around finding treasure?”

“As we pirates do, yeah.”

“Awesome. Hey, mind if I tag along? Only I kinda got stuck here and I’d be pretty bored if I got left behind and…” And Sora sounded like an overexcited five-year-old but right now he really didn’t care.

“Can you sail?”

“Uh… sure.”

Jack shrugged. “What do I care? Could always use another pair of hands and… ah ha!” He jumped up and down a few times before stepping to one side, grabbing a rope Sora hadn’t noticed and pulling hard. A large plank of wood came up and revealed a shaded bunker beneath. Jack disappeared inside “Rum-runners. Finest men to sail the seas!” He saluted the absent rum-runners with a glinting green bottle.

Five minutes later, Captain Jack had successfully raided the rum cellar, pulling out bottles and kegs and passing them to Sora, who eyed the contents curiously. “Is this stuff good?”

“Good? Good? You’re a strange lad!”

“You’re pretty strange yourself,” Sora replied with a grin.

“Guess you’ll make a good addition to the crew then. Now.” Jack paused to take a long swig of rum. “You,” he told the bottle, “are the only love for me.”

Sora felt as though he was intruding. “Um…”

“The ship is this way!” Jack began marching towards the trees once again. Then he stopped, turned, gave a sheepish grin and tottered off across the sand. “This way. Move it lad, and don’t you lose a single drop of rum!”

Sora figured he couldn’t be getting into trouble any worse than usual. “Aye Captain.”

---

Kairi was still looking around as if she expected the castle to be ripped away and revealed as a fraud when Yuna grabbed her arm and shook it excitedly.

“You gotta come see the thing me and Marlene found!”

Marlene and I, Kairi mentally corrected. “I… maybe I should tell someone about… me… first.”

Yuna didn’t like that idea. She was too excited. “It won’t take long, right Marlene?”

The other girl nodded with a smile. “Right!”

Kairi stood up, her legs shaking a little but holding her up nonetheless. “Okay. Show me what it is and then I need to tell everyone that I’m safe. Tifa must be worried.”

Yuna and Marlene, both of whom seemed utterly oblivious to the impossibility of Kairi’s arrival, each took one of her hands and began leading her down one of the castle’s numerous hallways. The two girls were chatting and bouncing, but their excitement failed to infect Kairi. She was still in shock, her mind unable to accept that she was back at Disney Castle when she’d fallen off a ship travelling through space.

And the voice in that place…

Castle Oblivion. What was there? What was so dangerous about it? Kairi had to admit the name was anything but inviting but still…

“This way!” Yuna’s cheerful voice broke through Kairi’s troubled thoughts. She realised they were entering the throne room. The two little girls had a definite path in mind. Yuna let go of Kairi’s hand and skipped ahead. “Marlene and I were pretending to be princesses when we found it!”

“And it’s really, really weird!” Marlene said, her dark eyes sparkling as she looked up at Kairi. “I bet you’ll like it too!”

Yuna had reached the throne. She slapped something under one of the armrests and hopped back as the whole carpeted stage began to shift to the right. Kairi’s eyes went wide with amazement despite her shock. “Should you be doing that Yuna?” she asked nervously.

“Aw don’t be scared Kairi,” Marlene said as she took off down the stairs that had been revealed. “It’s really cool, promise!”

Yuna hurried over to reclaim Kairi’s hand and together the pair followed Marlene. The stairs led to a massive, pearly white underground chamber. Kairi was amazed that somewhere so huge existed beneath the castle. In the centre was a huge, glass ball with golden light flickering and sparkling. It was beautiful, it’s glow bouncing off all the walls and leaving them to glitter endlessly.

“There’s enough room for my entire house in here!” Kairi gasped, grinning in amazement. “Wow!”

“Oh silly, it’s not the room!” Yuna giggled. “Look over there!”

The girl pointed to where Marlene waited next to a set of doors that stood unsupported off to the side of the glowing light. “Can you help us get them open?” Marlene asked. “Yuna and I tried but they’re too heavy for us.”

Kairi nodded. “We’ll try together, okay?”

So while Kairi held onto both handles, the younger girls took one each. The doors were ridiculously heavy but with lots of tugging, the trio finally began to drag them open.

Bright white light broke out from beyond. Kairi didn’t have time to process how impossible that should’ve been, because she was walking forwards without really ever making the decision to do so. She didn’t know if Yuna and Marlene were following. She didn’t know anything until the light faded away and Kairi was standing exactly where she had been before…

…Only the door was way bigger…

“Kairi?”

A familiar stranger stood behind her, a baby nestled sleepily in her arms. The young woman was dressed in something that could have been a kimono, only it had less material and seemed to be more comfortable.

Kairi just knewwho she was looking at. “Yuna?” Then she gasped and clapped her hands over her mouth. Why was her voice so high? And why was she looking up at Yuna? “Wh-what’s… something’s wrong.” She looked around but they were exactly where they had been before, standing in the massive chamber beneath Disney Castle’s throne room. And yet something was different, not only with Yuna but with herself also. Kairi could feel it, feel something slipping and sliding around inside her. But whatever it was, she couldn’t seem to grasp it and make it stop.

“Whose baby is that?” she asked.

Yuna smiled. “Can’t you tell?” Her voice, so much older and calmer and yet still distinctly Yuna, held a laugh. “It’s Marlene.”

Kairi cocked her head, her red hair tumbling across her face. “Marlene? Who’s that?”

“You don’t remember Marlene?”

Kairi shook her head, unaware that her memories were slowly fading.

Yuna knelt down. “Kairi, you’ve gotten a lot younger. I wonder if that’s why you’re forgetting things.”

But it was already too late. In the blink of an eye, Kairi had regressed to childhood. One finger held to her lips, she swung from side to side as she peered at Yuna and said, “I’m Kairi and I’m six. What’s your name?” The tiny version of Kairi looked around. “Hey, have you seen my friends? I think maybe I got lost."

---

The crew was glaring at Sora with expressions varying from downright disbelief to sly malevolence. He had helped Captain Jack store the rum below decks before one of the crew, speaking for all, demanded to know who the new kid was.

“Looks like a landlubber if ever I saw one!” the man said, his grey hair restrained. A ripple of agreement was shared among the rest of the men. The speaker ran a hand through his beard. “Is this ‘ere boy worthy of the Pearl?”

“For now Mister Gibbs, yes, he is.” Jack was headed for the helm, a compass held in his hand. “Set him to work!”

That was how Sora found himself in the hold, with a bucket and a chisel, working all kind of nasty sea-creatures off the wood before they ate it away. The hold was cold, wet and stank of salt and dead fish. Sora had a raging headache within ten minutes but he was doggedly working and ignoring the teasing that the other crewmembers occasionally threw his way from the other decks.

Well, Sora mused as he dropped a large snail into the bucket, this wasn’t very piratey.

Sora wiped a hand over his forehead and immediately regretted it, replacing the sweat with salty, gooey, green gunk that stank to the high heavens. “Ugh, gross.” His romantic notions of piracy were rapidly sinking behind the sheer nastiness of life aboard a ship.

But it could have been worse, Sora supposed. He could have been made to swab the decks in a storm.

Time went by, the ship cutting through the bumpy seas a little unevenly and often casting Sora to the ground when they hit a particularly large wave. Bursts of raucous laughter often accompanied such tumbles. Sora was apparently the greatest source of entertainment onboard. He couldn’t believe he’d lost his sea legs. Life on an island meant lots of sailing but over a year of minimal boat usage had left him…

“Landlubber!”

Sora sighed. “Yes Mister Gibbs?” He hadn’t realised the man was standing outside the hold’s door.

“Me and the lads’ve been thinkin’.”

Uh oh. “Is that safe?” Whoops.

“Aye lad, it be safe.” The tone held dangerous amusement. “See, we think you should stay in here ‘til yeh learn how to keep yeh legs beneath ye.”

The unmistakable sound of a bolt being drawn across the door sounded out.

“You don’t need to do that.” Because the deeper Sora got into the wriggling, seething mess, the less steady the contents of his stomach seemed.

Mister Gibbs just laughed, his voice echoing as he walked away. “We’ll be makin’ port in the mornin’ lad,” the man called back over his shoulder. “Don’t ye be redecoratin’ the helm before then!”

Sora muttered scathingly under his breath about pirates before returning to his unpleasant job.

More time went by. Sora was seriously regretting ever leaving Destiny Islands behind again. There he got to sleep as long as he liked and eat Mom’s cooking. He traded that for this, the bottom of a ship where everything was slimy, wriggling and stinking so bad Sora could taste it in his mouth.

Maybe rum would get rid of the dead fish taste?

Sora didn’t get a chance to try. Instead, he let out a horrified and embarrassing “Yaaaaaaaaaah!” when something thudded onto his shoulder. Heart racing, Keyblade appearing instinctively, Sora watched as a tiny monkey hopped off his shoulder, landed on the ground and began chattering at him in unintelligible noises.

Sora let out a shaky sigh and Oathkeeper faded away. “You nearly gave me a heart attack little guy!” He said, smiling in relief. He hunkered down. “Well, you’re kinda cute huh?”

The monkey let out a hiss and pulled a vicious face. Sora drew his hand back quickly, blinking past his shock. “Okay, not so cute. Pirate monkey huh? Guess they sent you to make sure I don’t jump ship.”

Sora sighed and got back to his grimy job, his bucket almost full of weird, shelled creatures he didn’t have names for. The monkey alternated between watching from the rafters and jumping all over Sora to both annoy and distract him. Sora groaned as he swatted the overly obnoxious monkey away again. “This wasn’t what I signed up for.”

So the appearance of seven Shadow-type Heartless was actually a relief. Sora vaguely thought ‘Be careful what you wish for’ but right now, he would embrace just about any distraction from his gross job.

Even if it did mean he had found himself on another world infested with the Heartless.

“Guess my job’s just never done.”

The monkey went running with a shriek, disappearing into the rafters and taking whatever path it had used previously to get into the hold. Sora was already fighting, Oathkeeper smoothly swinging despite the cramped space. The seven soon fell, their power far too weak to stand up to Sora.

That was when their bigger cousins arrived. And they were nasty, moving in rapidly and working in a team to surround Sora from below. They dove into the floor, ran circles around him and leapt up at the last moment. Sora was taken by surprise a few times, receiving two nasty gashes on his legs. He needed to take these things down fast, but they moved in and out the floor so fast that Sora barely had time to get in a few hits before they were gone again. He didn’t want to use magic in such a small space, especially when the hold (and the entire ship) was made out of wood and it was the only thing separating him and a very deep sea. It was bad enough that burning oil lanterns provided the light. Sora was very conscious of how he had to avoid knocking those over.

But the bigger Shadows (Neo-Shadows, Sora decided, because he’d heard the word Neo and its meaning from Red and thought it was cool), kept coming, their numbers replaced almost faster than Sora could take them down.

And no one was coming to help.

A particularly huge wave beneath the ship tossed it upwards and sent Sora sprawling. The Keyblade fell out of his hand, disappearing into the darkness of the hull.

A Neo caught Sora’s chest, wrenching him off the rocking deck and tossing him into the air. He smacked into the ceiling and fell back down, landing so hard that the wind was knocked out of him.

“Ow, ow, ow…”

Sora, feeling the bruises he had surely acquired, winced as he pushed himself forward, flipping over to avoid another attack and lunging as far forward as he could, intent on reaching…

…wait…

Sora just concentrated once and the Keyblade flashed back into his hand. He gave a sheepish grin. Why did he always forget he could do that?

Sora cast Stopga and Curaga simultaneously. The Stopga didn’t stop the powerful Heartless for long, but it gave Curaga time enough to take full effect. Then Sora was ready, fighting with all his strength. He forced one of the Neo’s back until it crashed into a shelf full of rum bottles. One lancing blow to the chest took it down. Four to go. Sora saw a black shadow out the corner of his eye, knowing he’d never have enough time to fight off the entire attack but moving nonetheless. He could save himself from a more serious injury at the very least.

A gunshot suddenly rang out. Sora’s would-be attacker fell, lowering the Heartless’ total to three. Sora looked to the door and saw Captain Jack, a smoking pistol in his hand.

“Seems like a spot of bother ‘eh?”

Without looking away from the man, Sora slashed to the right with Oathkeeper, catching a Neo above its legs. “They’re called Heartless. If you don’t stop them, they’ll steal the hearts of everyone aboard this ship.”

“And that would be decidedly unprofitable, considering I need more than my onesie to sail the seas for all the treasure I could ever want.”

“The treasure you want Jack?”

The Captain stepped aside to reveal Mister Gibbs. “Oh, well, treasure for us all of course. Got plenty of room in the holds!” Jack threw up his arms, twirling his hands for extra emphasis. “Treasure for all!”

“How about we focus right now on the Heartless?” Sora said, spinning around to block a slash.

“Right you are lad!” Mister Gibbs charged with a cutlass, cutting into a Neo Shadow and leaving Jack to finish it off with another shot. “Off with ye all, filthy dogs! We won’t be havin’ no stowaways on the Pearl!”

“Especially ones as bizarre as these fellas,” Jack observed, he and Gibbs double-teaming a second Heartless. “Not aboard my ship. We won’t be having any trouble not caused by rum.”

Sora finished off the final Heartless, catching his breath as Oathkeeper faded away. “If the Heartless are here, they’re probably all over the world. People are going to be in danger. We need to help them!”

Captain Jack gave a sigh. “I don’t think he understands the definition of pirate.”

Gibbs laughed and reached for a small flask tucked in his belt. He knocked back a mouthful with a satisfied gasp. “Well then, I say we leave ‘im in ‘ere ‘til he learns what piratin’s all about.”

“What? Hey, wait, you can’t…”

“Wonderful idea Mister Gibbs!” And with that the two men left and bolted the door again. “Oh, wait…” Jack returned and threw in two more empty buckets. He also grabbed himself two bottles of rum. He gave Sora a stern look. “You’re not to touch the rum boy. I get the distinct feeling that putting hairs on your chest would be detrimental to the future of…” Jack pondered. “…the future of my rum stock. And no one wishes to meddle with my rum.”

Sora nodded, more than a little perplexed. “O-okay…”

“Ah!” Jack looked at Sora expectantly.

“Huh? Oh! I mean,” Sora stood to attention. “Aye, aye Captain.”

“Good lad. Now,” he picked up the full bucket and eyed the contents warily. “Nasty critters. Be sure to clean off the creepy crawlies.”

“But what about the Heartless? We need to…”

“Ah, worry not.” Jack was back outside, closing the door. “We’ll worry about that bridge after we’ve burnt it.”

And Sora was locked in again, unable to use the Keyblade because it unlocked locks, not bolts.

He pouted as he looked again at the piles of squirming sea urchins and snails and all kinds of other gross sea-related things.

“I promise to let you put a bell on me Tifa,” he muttered.

TBC…

I hope Mister Gibbs in-character. I don’t have the film here to reference his speech so I’m going by memory.

Next time, adventures in Port Royal!

Thanks for reading everyone.