“Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest! Yo, ho, ho, and a bottle of rum!”

Damon Gray was stumbling around on the deck of the Black Rose. He tipped back the bottle of rum and sang drunkly.

“Drink and the Devil had done for the rest! Yo, ho, ho, and a bottle of RUM!”

He stopped singing when he heard bells clanging. Nearby, there was a dark and creepy prison. Several men were strung up in gibbets and were having their eyes plucked out by ravenous birds. A prisoner being forcibly dragged in screamed all the harder as the doors shut behind him.

On the rocks just below the prison, a few men were up to ghastly work. They took rough coffins made of unmatched wood and tossed them into the churning foam of the waves cresting against the rocky crags.

A bird settled on a black coffin and started pecking at it. It jumped into the air when a ghostly plasma blast came through the wood. Feathers went flying everywhere and the body of the crow fell into the water with a small plop.

The glowing hand which had fired the shot came up through the hole. After a while, a head popped out the hole and began breaking off more wood so he could get out.

“Hmmm,” he muttered. He broke off a particularily long piece of wood from his coffin to row himself towards a dark silhouette of a ship.

Damon Gray held out his hand to help his captain onto the ship, but instead a piece of (rather splintery) wood was jammed in his hand as Captain Danny Phantom, famous in legend and song, but mostly legend, stepped onto the Black Rose.

“Didn’t exactly stick to the plan?” he growled.

Danny waved Gray off as he headed towards his chamber. “Impediments showed up, resulted, were conquered.”

Gray looked annoyed that that was the only answer he would be given despite the blatent change in the plan.

“Did you get it then? What you went in for?” he had to ask. They had drawn lots. Gray had lost.

“Mmm hmm!” Danny said as he whipped out a cheerfully waved a piece of vellum. He was suddely met by the entire crew blocking his way.

“Erm, Captain, the crew, including myself, were anticipating something a bit more…scintillating,” Gray said reluctantly.

Danny looked at him.

“After l’Ille de la Mort went under, taken by the sea, including the treasure…,” Gray stammered

“And the Royal Navy chasing us to all ends of the earth…,” a crew member added

“And that typhoon!” another named Mark cried out. The whole crew burst into a torrent of angry complaints. Danny waited for them to quiet down.

“Scintillating, you say?”

“Aye, scintillating!” Gray said.

“Is that how you feel?” he asked. “That dear old Danny is not supplying your wishes as my crew?”

The crew began to regret saying anything and shuffled, hemmed, and hawed. One of the braver ones spoke.

“Let us see what is upon that vellum.”

Danny nodded and pulled it out again. Just then, the OTHER Danny showed up screeching wildly. The monkey swung through the air, bits of skin and fur flaking off his undead body as he stole the vellum and went sailing over their heads.

Danny shot his gun and the bullet hit its mark square on the monkey. It dropped the vellum and scampered on its merry way.

“You know that don’t hurt it,” Gray said in annoyance. Danny nodded cheerfully. Gray sighed. Mark ran up to the vellum and shook it open.

“A key?” he asked in confusion.

“Way better!” Danny smiled. He stretched the vellum so that the whole crew could see it. “It is a drawing a key!”

The crew was looking mutinous again.

“Gentlemen,” asked Danny. “What is the purpose of a key?”

“To…unlock stuff?” one said tentatively.

“And whatever this key opens, inside we’ll find something scintillating? So we’re off to find whatever is opened by that key!” Gray said glad there was once again a sort of sense to Danny’s thinking.

“…No,” Danny said smiling. He grinned. “Would there be a purpose in finding what it is that has the need to be unlocked with first finding that key that will open it? So why would we go looking for what has the need to be unlocked, which we don’t have, without first getting the key what unlocks it!” Danny smiled as if this were common knowledge.

Gray blinked. “So… we’re off to find this key!”

Danny dropped the grin. “You make absolutely no sense.” He then swaggered happily off.

Gray turned to Mark. Mark looked at Gray.

“Lately the Captain seems to be acting weird… er,” he added as he realized that there was never a moment when Danny was not acting weird.

“Something has Danny Phantom irked. And by God, whatever promises Danny Phantom trouble promises trouble for us all!