The next day, Maggie found the crew laying around on the deck. The heat in the Land of the Dead had increased rapidly and the Pearl's water supply was low... much too low.

"No water..." Pintel said, looking at his empty canteen. "Why is all but the rum gone?"

"Rum's gone too" Mr. Gibbs confirmed grimly.

Maggie sighed and went to see her father who was seated near the helm, trying to make head's or tail's of the ancient Chinese charts the gang had acquired in Singapore. They were supposed to tell the reader how to get to the Land of the Dead and back. But the charts were written in what seemed to be riddles and gibberish.

"Anything yet, Daddy?" Maggie asked her father.

"It's still complicated, Luv" Jack answered, placing her on his lap. "Do you know anything about this? First it says Sunrise sets, Flash of green and now it's saying Up is down?"

"They might be connected some how" Maggie suggested.

"What do you mean by that?" Jack asked her.

"Sunrise's don't set, they go up" Maggie said "But if a sunrise did set it would have to go down. Then it would become a sunset."

"But how does that help us get back to our world?" Jack asked.

"I don't know!" Maggie shugged "You're supposed to be the smart one! Figure it out!"

"I've been trying, but--" Jack paused "What'd you mean 'supposed to be'?"

Maggie snickered.

Jack smirked "You are an evil little person!"

"Am I as bad as you were at my age?" Maggie asked.

"Don't flatter yourself, Luv!" Jack scoffed.

Maggie giggled and ran off to play on the main deck.

Jack rolled his eyes and continued to study the charts. But even he couldn't understand the riddled instructions.

"Up is down?" Jack repeated "Well, that's just maddeningly unhelpful. Why are these things never clear?"

"Clear as mud, Jacky!" Came a tiny familiar voice.

Jack jumped "What? Eh?"

Suddenly a tiny version of Captain Jack was hanging off one his dreadlocks on his left shoulder.

"Stab the heart!" The Tiny Jack told him.

"Don't stab the heart, Daddy!" Came another tiny and even more familiar voice.

"Come again?" Jack asked.

Now a tiny Maggie has joined in on the conversation, emerging from the jungle of large dreadlocks to stand on Jack's right shoulder.

"The Dutchman must have a Captain!" She cautiously reminded him.

"Well, that's even more than less than unhelpful!" Jack told her, deep in thought of both options.

"Sail the sea for eternity!" Tiny Jack reminded him of the rewards of being the captain of the Dutchman.

"I love the sea" Jack smiled at the thought of living forever and sailing the sea's for eternity.

"What about port?" Tiny Maggie asked him.

"I prefer rum, rum's good!" Jack told her.

"I mean making port!" Tiny Maggie explained "Because if you do stab the heart we only get to make port once every ten years! That means no rum or salty wenches for ten whole years!"

"You have a point" Jack told her.

"But you'd get to live forever!" Tiny Jack reminded him of the benefits.

"Yeah... Forever with only so little rum and no wenches and no Maggie!" Tiny Maggie pouted sadly.

Jack stared at her confused. "What do you mean no Maggie?"

"The Dutchman must have a captain!" Tiny Maggie reminded him "A captain! Meaning only one person can put there heart in the chest!"

Jack thought about it. "That's right..." he said.

Tiny Jack shrugged "But think of it!" He said "The immortal Captain Sparrow!"

Jack grinned "Oooh! I like that!"

"Hmph!" Tiny Maggie huffed "Fine! Don't say I didn't warn you! But come sunset it won't matter!"

Captain Jack's eye brightened with an idea.

"Not sunset!" He said, finally understanding the charts "Sundown! And rise! Maggie was right they are connected... up!"

Jack suddenly lept up from his seat.
"What's that?!" He shouted running to the rail.

"What is that?" He asked himself, squinting out to sea. "I don't know? What do you think?"

"Where?" Gibbs asked, confused.

"There!" Jack cried.

Maggie peered up over the rail. "I can't see anything!" She said.

Captain Jack scooped her up and held her as he rushed to the opposite starboard side.

Everyone soon joined in, wondering what on earth was going on?

Jack suddenly rushed right back to the port side. Elizabeth soon joined them, looking over the rail with the rest of the crew.

"What is it?" She asked.

All she got as a response was a weird yodel-like noise from Jack.

"He's rocking the ship?" Pintel noticed.

"We're rocking the ship!" Gibbs chimed.

Barbossa looked up from the charts. "Aye!" He smiled "He's onto it!"

"All hands together!" Barbossa yelled to the crew "Time it with the swell!"

"This is the best piggy-back ride ever!" Maggie cheered as she held onto her father's back.

The entire Black Pearl was tilting back and worth at nearly a horizontal angle. The crew now had to run from one end of the ship and grab the other end's railing to avoid tumbling completely overboard.

Soon everyone grabbed ahold of the starboard side and struggled to hang on as the deck slipped out from under them. It was working! The Black Pearl was flipping over completely!

Maggie clung to her father's backside tightly, wrapping her legs around his upper abdomen.

"Now up..." Jack said, as the ship was nearly submerged in water. "...is down!"

Everyone took a huge breath as Black Pearl's railing finally went below the surface.

Maggie squinted her eyes below the dark blue waves. She looked around at her friends and crewmates, they all looked kinda funny when they were holding their breath. It was weird, yet eerily quiet and peaceful underwater.

Maggie watched as Will slipped from the railing, but luckily grabbed a hold of a rigging line. She turned her head the other way and saw that Pintel and Ragetti had somehow managed to tie themselves to a mast. Maggie rolled her eyes at them.

Sometimes I swear the only way those two could be any smarter is if they died and came back as turnips! She thought to herself.

Maggie raised an eyebrow as a tiny orange clown fish swam by her face. Maggie raised an eyebrow as the little fish stopped and placed a quick fish kiss on her nose, before swimming away.

Did I just find Nemo? Maggie thought. (AN: Sorry, I couldn't resist putting in a Disney reference! 😆)

Suddenly a flash of green illuminated from above the waves and the crew began to feel the Black Pearl was being sucked lower beneath the waves. Captain Jack's plan had worked, the power of the green flash was actually pulling the Black Pearl through two dimension's, out of the Land of the Dead and back to the Land of the Living.

The Black Pearl rushed upward and finally breeched the surface like a whale crashing through the waves.

The crew layed sprawled out on the deck, breathing heavily and coughing up water.

"Maggie?" Jack turned his head to glance at her. "Ye alright, Luv?"

Maggie sat up and peeked through the curtain of soaked hair that was hanging over her face.

"Let's do that again!" She laughed giddily.

"Let's not and say we did!" Jack told her, smiling.

"Blessed sweet westerlies!" Mr. Gibbs breathed "we're back!"

The crew looked around and realized he was right. They glanced at the horizon what was once a sunset the Land of the Dead, was now a sunrise in the Land of the Living.

Suddenly Barbossa pointed a pistol at Jack, causing Gibbs, Will and Elizabeth to point their pistol's at Barbossa. Jack points a second pistol at Will. Causing Will to point a second pistol at Jack. And Jack points another second pistol at Elizabeth, in retaliation...

...even the monkey pointed his own tiny pistol at Cotton's Parrot!

"Parley?" The bird squawked.

Maggie- who didn't own a pistol -pulled out a slingshot and aimed it at Barbossa, from where she stood beside her father.

Everyone looked at each other, realizing that they had all been planning to get back at one and other for something this whole time. Now here they were in the middle of a four way stand off. It was actually kinda funny!

Everyone was thinking the same because they all started to laugh, lowering their pistol's.

"Alright then!" Barbossa snapped, everyone going back to being serious. "The brethren court is a-gathering at Shipwreck Cove. Jack, you and I are going and there'll be no arguing the point."

"I is arguing the point!" Jack told him "If the pirates a-gathering, I'm taking a-pointing my ship the other a-way, savvy?"

Elizabeth pointed her pistol at Jack. "The pirates are gathering to fight Beckett and you're a pirate!" She told him.

Jack moved his pistol to point at Elizabeth as Will pointed his pistol at Jack.

"Fight or not, you're not running, Jack!" Will told him.

"If we don't stand together they'll hunt us down one by one" Barbossa told Jack "until there's none left but you!"

"Rather like the sound of that" Jack grinned "Captain Jack Sparrow, the last pirate."

"Aye" Barbossa gave him a hard look. "And you'll be facing Jones alone and how does that figure into your plan?"

"Still working on that. But I will not be going back to the locker, mate" Jack smirked "Count on that."

Captain Jack pulls the trigger on Barbossa... but no bullet came out? Nor did a loud bang? Just a click and a small spritz of water.

Everyone else checked there pistols, same thing.

"Wet powder!" Gibbs confirmed.

"Aww, tough break!" Maggie pouted "I want to see some blood and gore!" She looked down at her loaded slingshot. "Well... mine doesn't need gun powder!"

She quickly aimed and fired a stone at Barbossa's boot.

"OWWW!" Barbossa howled in pain.

Maggie and Jack snickered at him.

"Ye filthy little gremlin!" Barbossa glared at her.

☠💀☠

Will unrolled the charts in front of everyone as they plotted there next course of action.

"There's a fresh water spring on this island" he pointed to a nearby speck of land on the map. "We can resupply there and get back to shooting each other later!"

"You lead the shore party" Jack told Barbossa "I'll stay with the ship!"

Barbossa glared at him "I won't be leaving my ship in your command!"

"Why don't you both go ashore and leave the ship in my command?" Will asked.

Jack and Barbossa both have him a look.

"...Temporarily, of course" Will told them.

"Why don't all three of you go ashore and leave me in command of the ship?" Maggie asked.

"NO!" The entire crew shouted.

"Fine!" Maggie mumbled "I didn't want to sail with you brain dead bottomfeeder's anyway..."

Barbossa went to the rail and looked through his telescope.

Jack walked up behind him and looked through an even bigger telescope!

Barbossa gave him a look that said really?

Then Jack and Barbossa watched as Maggie pulled a large briefcase over beside her father. She then opened the case and after hearing the clicks and clacks of metal, Maggie held an even longer telescope in front of her.

She glanced over at Barbossa and her father's confused faces and stuck her tongue out as a way of gloating.

☠💀☠

Maggie, Jack and Barbossa arrived on at the island with the rest of the shore party, loaded up with canteens of all shapes and sizes. Upon arriving on shore, Maggie noticed that the island had black sand. But once she looked up from the ground she noticed her father and Barbossa looking at something up ahead on the beach.

The Kraken. The once mighty and feared giant squid now layed beached on the shore of the black sand island. It was dead, that much was certain and yet, as Maggie walked up to the giant beast and looked into it's huge lifeless eyes, it made her think...

Of course, Maggie wasn't a giant squid, but it wasn't till now she noticed a pattern similarity between the Kraken and herself. Up until a few months ago, the Kraken was a living creature that roamed the deep sea with the freedom to do as he pleased and eat who he pleased. Now his time was up, here the Kraken layed on the beach. Dead with his eyes still open staring at the world be once knew, but was no longer a part of.

Maggie was more or less the same. About two months ago, she was living aboard the Black Pearl with her father. She was free to run around and play with her father. She didn't have to worry about any enemies or supernatural stuff getting between them. But now thing were changing so fast and Maggie felt... well, stuck. She wanted the world to be like it was, she wanted everyone to be happy. She wanted to be Elizabeth's friend again and watch her and Will get married and be together. She wanted Davy Jones and his grimy bottomfeeding crew to dry up on the sand! And most importantly she wanted her Daddy to be at the helm of the Black Pearl, asking her which part of the horizon they should explore next.

The similarity between Maggie and the Kraken that scared her the most, was that if the Kraken could go from having a happy life under the sea to an untimely death sprawled out on a hot beach, could that be the next step for Maggie? Could Maggie's life go from great to bad to worse?

All these thoughts ran through little Maggie's head as she stared into the Kraken's cold lifeless eyes.

Suddenly she felt a hand of her shoulder. She looked up and saw Captain Barbossa, giving her a half smile.

"Miss Maggie" he said "Why don't you go help the crew look for that water spring? Ye know those blokes are dumber than they look."

Maggie forced a small grin and nodded, running off into the jungle with the crew.

As soon as she left Barbossa walked up next to Jack.

"Still thinking of running, Jack?" He asked him "Think you can outrun the world? You know, the problem with being the last of anything, is by and by there'll be none left at all."

"Sometimes things come back, mate. We're living proof, you, me and... Maggie" Jack reminded him, his voice trailing off.

"Aye, but that's a gamble of long odds, ain't it?" Barbossa told him "There's never a guarantee of coming back, but passing on, that's dead certain."

"I have to try to keep going, Hector" Jack told him "for Maggie's sake."

"I know you love her, Jack" Barbossa said, suprising both of them with how soft his tone had become.

"It just baffles me as to how she got so big and so smart, so fast" Jack smiled "one minute she was smiling up at me for the first time, the next she's swinging around a sword and threatening grown men like a professional pirate."

"I know" Barbossa padded his shoulder "I remember the day she was born, that long gruesome twenty-three hours it took to bring her into this world. I should know I was the one that delivered her."

"That's right" Jack mused "but only because we were in the middle of the Caribbean Sea with no doctor or midwife aboard the Pearl."

The two pirates chuckled remembering Maggie's birth fondly. It was as wild as the life Maggie lived now.

Jack voice went back to being serious. "Summoning the Brethren Court, is it?" He asked, reluctantly.

"It's our only hope, lad" Barbossa told him.

"That's a sad commentary in and of itself" Jack stated, knowing the Brethren Court wasn't going to be much help.

"The world used to be a bigger place" Barbossa sighed.

"The world's still the same, mate" Jack told him "there's just... less in it."

The shore party soon joined together at the water spring, but once they go there they were shocked to find a dead body floating face down in the stream.

"Talk about doing the dead man's float" Maggie mumbled, poking the body with a stick.

Barbossa took a quick sip of the water and spit in out.

"Poisoned" He stated "fouled by the body."

Pintel grabbed the body and turned it over. There was a wooden fid driven right through his eye.

"Hey!" Pintel said, recognizing the man. "I know him! He was in Singapore!"

"Captain!" Marty called to them.

"Hey!" Ragetti yelled to them from the beach. "We've got company!" He pointed out last the reef, where the Black Pearl was anchored... and right beside it is a Chinese fighting ship.

Suddenly the sailors that accompanied the crew from Singapore, brought out there weapons with and pointed them at the Black Pearl's crew. Clearly, Tai Huang and his men had double crossed them all.

Maggie stayed close to her father and looked up at him, giving him a 'What now?' look.

Jack glanced around at the mutinous gang and pointed to Barbossa. "He's the captain!" Jack tattle-taled.

Both Barbossa and Maggie rolled their eyes at that one.

AN: And thus ends yet another chapter! Hope you enjoyed it! Don't forget to drop me a comment and a ☆!