"You're the one their hunting" Will realized as he looked Jack up and down. "The pirate" he spat.

"You seem somewhat familiar" said Captain Jack "Have I threatened you before?"

Aggie raised an eyebrow at that.

"I make a point of avoiding familiarites with pirates" Will told Jack.

"Ah, well then it would be a shame to put a black mark on your record" Jack nodded "so if you'll both excuse me..."

But Will-being the brave and stupid boy he was-grabbed a sword from one of the walls and pointed it at Jack threateningly.

"Do you think this wise, boy?" Jack asked him "Crossing blades with a pirate?"

"Give that some thought before you answer, William" Aggie reminded her friend.

"Aggie, he threatened Elizabeth" Will reminded her, not taking his eyes off the crafty pirate. 

Jack smirked slyly as he ran his hanger sword along Will's sword. "Only a little..." he replied cheekily.

Will began to attack but Jack blocked it, they began to parry as Aggie stepped back.

"You know what you're doing, I'll give you that" Jack told Will "excellent form, but how's your footwork?" Jack moved a few steps around. "If I step here..." Will followed Jack's movement precisely, Jack attacked and Will blocked it. "Very good" Jack said "and now I step again."

"Ta" Jack said, heading for the front door which he was now free to use.

Will threw his sword into the wooden door latch, just barely missing Jack's nose. It was now impossible for Jack to pull the door latch up and escape. Jack yanked on the sword, jumping in place as he did.

He turned to face Aggie and Will. "That is a wonderful trick" he admitted to Will "except once again you are between me and and my way out and now... You have no weapon!" He grinned.

Quick as a flash Aggie grabbed a red hot iron poker from the fire and threw it to Will. Fiona the donkey whined and started to run the machines again.

Things were heating up, Aggie ran over to sit near one of the machine, cheering for Will and trying not to get beheaded.

"Go Will Go!" She yelled "Kick his pirate booty!"

"Luv" Jack called over to her, blocking Will's attacks "booty means valuable cargo, it has nothing to do with me rear end!"

"Oh, I know" Aggie said "I was just looking for something clever thing to cheer."

Jack huffed and rolled his eyes.

"Aggie, get out of here!" Will yelled, swiping at Jack. "You are much too young to see this!"

"Don't worry, Will!" Aggie said "I've seen bloodshed before!"

The two men froze in their fighting positions and turned to stare at the young girl.

"But you're six!" Will exclaimed.

"Where could you have possibly seen bloodshed?" Asked Jack.

"Doctors office" Aggie shrugged "Some guy sat next to me with a really nasty gash on his leg!"

Will raised his eyebrows and Jack furrowed his, then they shrugged and continued to fight. They jumped onto the machine Aggie sat beside.

Jack stared around at all the finely crafted swords. "Who makes all these?" He questioned.

"I do!" Will said proudly "and I practice with them..." he ducked as Jack threw a broad ax at him. "...three hours a day!"

"You need to find yourself a girl, mate!" Jack said.

"That's what I keep telling him!" Aggie said as Will swiped at Jack with his sword.

Jack blocked the attack and said "or perhaps the reason you practice three hours a day is because you already found one and otherwise incapable of wooing said strumpet! You're not a eunuch are you?"

Aggie was amazed that Jack could see all that just by looking at Will. Most of it was true, but what was a eunuch?

"I practice three hours a day so that when I meet a pirate I can kill it!" Will yelled as he and Jack jumped off the machine and continued fighting, stepping onto a wooden cart.

The cart came lose and they had to balance on it as they fought. Will hooked a knife into the broken chains on Jack's left wrist and embedded the knife into the wooden beam above. Jack was now fighting singlehandedly.

Jack stomped on a loose board which came up hitting Will in the face. Jack swung up, using his full weight to try and get his left hand free. Seeing his chance, Will ran back onto the cart just as Jack got free and fell back onto the cart, launching Will up to the rafters. Jack got up and found Will above him and smirked.

Will cut a weight sack loose and catapulted Jack up on the rafters as well.

Aggie giggled looking up as Jack and Will fought on the rafters. Jack eventually lost his sword and swung back down. Will followed him, but Jack fought dirty... quite literally  because he threw dirt in Will's eyes. When Will finally regained sight, Jack had his pistol aimed between his eyes.

"You cheated!" Will said.

Jack grinned. "Pirate" he reminded him.

Suddenly they heard navy guards trying to break down the front door of the blacksmith shop.

"Move away" Jack demanded.

"No!" Will said bravely.

"Please move?" Jack asked desperately.

"No!" Will said "I cannot just step aside and let you escape!"

Jack cocked his pistol. "This shot is not meant for you..." he said sadly.

Will and Aggie furrowed their eyebrows in confusion. Then they heard the sound of glass breaking and  Jack crumbled to the floor. Behind him stood Mr. Brown holding his now-shattered bottle.

Norrington and his men broke down the door and raced in to collect the now unconscious Jack Sparrow.

"Excellent work, Mr. Brown" Norrington congratulated the wrong man. "You've assisted in the capture of a dangerous fugitive."

"Just doing my civil duty, sir" Mr. Brown slurred.

Aggie rolled her eyes.

"Well, I'm sure you'll all remember this as the day Captain Jack Sparrow almost escaped" Norrington quipped.

"And was captured by Comma-core Norrington!" Aggie grinned "Right, Jamesy?"

Norrington shot her a warning look as some of his men snickered. Aggie's grin fell off her face.

"Take him away" Norrington ordered his men to haul Jack to the prison.

"AGATHA!" Someone at the entrance of the Blacksmith shop screeched. A few of Norrinton' s men jumped at the noise.

Miss Thiskle came into the blacksmith shop and snatched Aggie by the arm, keeping a tight hold as she dragged her back to the orphanage.

                         ☠💀☠

That night as all the other kids at the orphanage ate their dinner, which consisted of tasteless mushy oats, Aggie sat in her bunk looking out her window at the sea. Though you could barely see it with all the eerie fog that clouded the harbor of Fort Charles.

No less than three hours earlier, Aggie had been chewed out by the evil and angry Miss Thiskle.

Miss Thiskle had pointed a raw-hind leather strap at Aggie, which she used to punish any child that got out of line. But Aggie was sure she was the only child that ever got punished by it. 

"There is a filthy, disgusting little worm at the end of this strap!" Miss Thiskle had shouted as she pointed it at Aggie.

"Which end?" Aggie got six lashes with the strap and sent to bed without dinner for asking that question.

Now here she was sitting all alone in her bunk in the dark, with a red and sore bottom. It even hurt for her to sit down now!

Aggie was bored, so bored, in fact, that it gave her a headache. So she tied her bed sheets together, shimmied out the window and climbed over the wooden lattice fence. To most kids this would be a challenge, to Aggie it was a daily ritual.

It was a dark night in Port Royal, the moon and stars were clouded over leaving very little light. For Aggie this was a good thing, she was least likely to be spotted by Miss Thiskle at this point. Now if only she wasn't scared of the dark...

Aggie opened the door to the local prison and looked over where some of Norrington's guards were asleep on the job.

Port Royal's finest, hard at work Aggie thought, sarcastically.

She hopped down the stairs to where the prisoners were kept. She liked to hear stories from them, most of them had been around and some were even sailors. It was the closest she would ever get to being on a ship.

"Hi, Scrapper!" Aggie greeted the dog that held the key to the prison cells in his mouth.

He wagged his tail as Aggie petted his head.

"Oi!" Came an all too familiar voice "What are you doing here?"

Aggie looked up to see Captain Jack Sparrow sitting in a jail cell.

She placed her hands on her hips. "You said that at the Blacksmith shop too" she said "Is that the only way you know how to greet a lady?"

"I know a lot of ways to greet a lady?" He smirked.

"I'm only gonna say this nicely once more: I... am... SIX!" She stomped her foot angrily.

As she brought down her foot a loud bang shook the prison.

Aggie looked down at her foot. "Did I do that?" She asked, slightly scared.

"I know those guns" Jack said standing up on the bench he was sitting on and looking out the window. "It's the pearl" he breathed, mesmerized by the sight in the harbor.

"The Black Pearl?" Asked one of the prisoners in the cell beside Jack's. "I've heard stories" he said "she's been preying on ships and settlements for near ten years, never leaves any survivors..."

"No survivors?" Jack said "then where do the stories come from, I wonder?"

Aggie eyes widened in worry for her friends. Elizabeth was at the Governor's mansion all alone and Will was probably going to try and fight off the pirates himself! And if those pirates fought as dirty as Jack, Will would be killed!

"Ye alright there, Luv?" Jack asked, glancing over at her worried expression.

"Did you bring them here?" Aggie asked quietly.

"Eh?" He asked.

"They're here because of you, aren't they?!" Aggie shouted "You lead them here! And now this whole town will suffer because of you!"

"Me?" Jack asked "I didn't lead those filthy, ungreatful menaces here! I haven't a clue what they're even doing here!"

"You promise?" Aggie asked, blinking back tears. She hated the thought of everyone in Port Royal getting slaughtered by disgusting pirates.

"Cross me heart and hope to go sober" Jack made an X on one side of his chest.

Aggie smiled and resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

"Speaking of which, you don't have any rum on you by any chance?" Jack asked her "I'd love a final drink before I swing from the gallows tomorrow."

Aggie furrowed her eyebrows. "What's rum?" She asked.

"You don't know what rum is?" Jack asked, unbelievably.

"Is it like Rumplestilskin?" She asked, remembering a fairytale Elizabeth once read to her.

"Aye" Jack lied for the sake of argument "Just like Rumplestilskin..."

"Oh" said Aggie.

Suddenly a cannon ball blew a hole in the wall of the prison cell next to them. The four other prisoners escaped through the hole it made.

"My sympathies, friend" one prisoner said to Jack "you've no matter of luck at all!"

"Luv, do ya think you could hand me the keys?" Jack asked Aggie "Since you're so chummy with that mutt?"

Aggie looked at the prison dog. "It doesn't matter how much he likes me" she said "Scrapper never gives the keys to anyone. Besides I'd get into trouble if I did..."

"So?" Jack asked.

"So! No one's going to adopt a girl who makes trouble" Aggie quoted Miss Thiskle.

"I would" Jack told her.

"You're just saying that so I'll try and get you the keys..." Aggie sighed.

"I'm serious" he said truthfully "Believe me, I know what's it like to be alone in the world especially when everyone in said world thinks you're a menace."

Aggie smiled, she was actually starting to like Captain Jack.

Then something crashed upstairs and the prison dog ran off, then a guard came toppling down the stairs knocked out.

Two pirates came down the stairs and looked around.

"This ain't the armory!" One said angrily.

Aggie hid behind the corner, scared of what they would do to her. She peeked out as they began talking to Jack.

"Well, well, well" said Kheoler "look at what we have here, Twigg, it's Captain Jack Sparrow." He spit on the ground near Jack.

"Last time I saw you, you were all alone on a godforsaken island, shrinking into the distance" said Twigg "his fortunes aren't improved much."

"Worry about your own fortunes gentleman" Jack said bitterly "the deepest circle of hell is reserved for betrayers and mutineers..."

Koehler's hand snapped out and grabbed Jack's throat, as it did it past through a beam of moonlight shining into the prison cell. Aggie's eyes widened, not just because the pirate had Jack by the throat but because Koehler's hand had turned to pure bone in the moonlight.

"So there is a curse!" Jack said amazed "That's interesting!"

"You know nothing of hell!" Koehler growled menacingly.

He released Jack's neck and left the prison with Twigg trailing behind.

Jack watched them go with a thoughtful expression on his face. "That's very interesting..." he said to himself.

"Are they gone?" Aggie asked.

"Aye, Luv" Jack said.

"They make me uncomfortable" Aggie said.

"Don't let them intimate ye, Luv" Jack shook his head "they're just a bunch of unwashed barnacles with foul mouths."

"And weapons" Aggie added.

"That too" Jack nodded.

"Can I stay here for the night?" Aggie asked "I'm don't want to head back to the orphanage with all that going on?"

"You're scared?" Jack asked her, smirking.

"No!" She said "I'm just-"

Another blast from the ghostly ship's cannons made Aggie jump. She crouched down next to Jack's cell, covering her ears and muttering a song.

"Yo-ho, Yo-ho, a pirates life for me. We pillage, we plunder, we rifle and loot, drink up me hearties, Yo-ho! We kidnap and ravage and don't give a hoot, drink up me hearties, Yo-ho..." She sang low and quickly.

"What are you doing?" Jack asked, staring at her.

"Singing" Aggie answered.

"I know that part" Jack rolled his eyes "But why are ye doing it?"

"It helps calm me down" Aggie explained.

Jack raised a brow "So you are scared?"

"Am not!" Aggie said "I'm just... worried for everyone's safety!"

"Oh, of course!" Jack said sarcastically.

"Can I stay here with you or not?" Aggie asked.

Jack sighed "Might as well, I need the company or I'll lose me mind in here!"

"This morning you tried to commandeer a ship, swung around in the air on a rope and ran from the royal navy" Aggie reminded him "I'm pretty sure you've already lost whatever you had for a mind!"

"You're a very shrewd child, aren't you?" Jack asked her.

"I'll let you know when I figure out what that word means" Aggie grinned as she curled up on a bench across from Jack's cell.

AN: Comment and vote, mates!