Skeleton Keys, Chapter 12.1

Chapter XII:  Live, Love, and Plunder

"Land ho!" Jack called from the crow's-nest.

"Har-har, it's about time, too."  I ran to the bow rail of the ship, looking out to the new land in front of it.  It looked almost like planet Earth, except there was much, much more water than land.  Islands, miniscule compared to the sea, dotted the seascape like chocolate chips on a cookie.

Goofy and Donald came up and stood on either side of me, following my gaze to the new world.  "What kind of world do you think it is?" Goofy asked.

I grinned, bearing white teeth as white as sea foam and my eyes still set on the world.  "A world of adventure; I can feel it in my bones."

Suddenly, a thought struck me.  "Goofy, if you're here, then who's steering the ship?"

All three of us immediately turned around.  With nothing holding it secure, the helm of the ship was spinning out of control!  "Goofy!  Hold her steady!  Stay on course!"  Goofy immediately ran for the flailing wheel, struggling to secure it.  "Donald!  Assist Goofy!"

I kept my eyes forward, the blue-green sea coming ever closer.  Beneath my feet, I could feel the ship start to settle down as Donald and Goofy stabilized the helm.  As I looked on, I soon realized that wasn't the only thing that needed fixed.  "Drop anchor!  We're coming on too hot!"  Almost immediately, Jack scampered down the rigging and stole down below to the anchor winch room.  He released the winch holding the anchor in place, the weight of the anchor dragging behind us and steadily ripping the chain off of the winch.

When the chain stuck fast, the whole of it was flying behind our ship; the hook of the anchor snagged a loose asteroid orbiting the island world.  Our ship jerked slightly with the added baggage.  The bow of the ship rose with the asteroid anchor pulling it back.  This ploy of mine seemed to have little effect on our speed, though, and we continued to sail towards the new world, hull-first instead of headlong.

The island world came ever nearer to our ship, becoming a wall of water looming endlessly in front of our ship.  I looked over the edge and noticed our hull starting to glow a bright shade of orange.  We were burning up upon entry!  "Jack!  Donald!  We're burning up!  Change positions and freeze the hull before we lose it!"

My orders were sought to immediately, Jack coming up from below and joining Goofy at the helm.  Donald skedaddled down to the anchor room and leaned out the porthole, charging his wand.  He pointed his wand at the center of the hull and shouted, "Blizzaga!"  A humongous crystal shot out of the wand, lodging itself right where Donald pointed it.  The crystal solidified and spread itself all over the hull, leaving no plank uncovered.  Now, as we descended, the ice took all of the heat instead of the wood of our hull.  And because Donald had applied such a thick layer, the ice would last until we landed in the ocean.

…Which we did in about three minutes.  

Our whole ship shook from bow to stern, but that was expected after the speeds we had been going.  The meteor anchored to us splashed right behind us.  We all got shaken to our feet and fell to the deck.  I got up from my bracing place, slightly shaken now, and bellowed, "Damage report, men."

Goofy got up from in front of the helm and dazedly replied, "I'm okay."

Jack held up his skull over the railing and replied, "Same here."  He stood up and reaffixed his skull, awaiting my next order.  

Donald came back onto the deck, a sullen look on his face.  "I'm okay too, but the ship's not.  The force of impact crumpled the bow.  The ice is heavily cracked, and that's the only thing keeping it on."

I groaned with the news and said, "Well, we'll have to put into port somewhere to get it fixed, and soon.  The sun's going down."  I was right in this last fact.  On the horizon on our port-side, the sky shone a reddish-orange with fringes of yellow and pink.  Soon there'd only be dreary blackness, hard to see any natives to this land.

"I'll see if I can scout out an island," Jack offered.  He leapt down to the deck and climbed back up to the crow's nest, taking up the telescope he had there.  Looking through it, he scanned the ever-darkening horizon.  He caught sight of something lingering on the starboard-side.  On closer inspection, he realized that it was an island with lights:  civilization!  "Land ho!  Starboard side!" Jack triumphantly hollered with his skeletal grin.

I revealed a similar grin as I looked out in the direction Jack pointed a bony finger.  "Full speed to starboard!  Unfurl the sails!" I happily commanded.

"Aye, aye, sir!" the crew answered in unison.  Goofy spun the helm to his right, and the ship's prow drifted until it was pointing right at the island.  Jack leapt through the rigging and between the masts like an energetic monkey, slicing the ropes that kept the sails furled.  They dropped down gently, almost ghost-like.  Jack secured the sails to the spars on a return trip.  The sails billowed fully out as the wind caught them, carrying our ship to the island.  

Our ship cut through the water like a knife, despite its injury; but I cringed as our ship bounced over the waves generated by this generous wind, mostly on behalf of the same injury.

With our ship going as fast as it was, we reached the island shortly after nightfall with little trouble.  We carefully anchored our ship at the dock and stepped onto its semi-rotted planks.

We looked around in stupefied awe at the sights and sounds around us.  Torchlight illuminated a vast complex of buildings, all of these decorated by people, hideously dirty and unkempt people.  The ladies we saw were dressed in vibrantly colored dresses or in the same filthy rags that the men wore under vests and rough leather jackets.  The air was alive with laughter from these hysteric drunks, each person holding at least one bottle in hand.

One of these strangers walked up to us, a slightly portly fellow with a filthy white shirt with no sleeves or jacket on.  A smile was on his face, even as he took a drink from his bottle.  "Welcome to Tortuga, lads!" he said.  He walked right by us, shattered the bottle on his head, and continued to walk down the dock, laughing his head off until he fell into the sea with a splash.

"Okay, weird."  We walked off of the dock and made our way through this port of drunken men and even more drunken women to look for someone with more sense in their head than cents in their pockets.  Finding either proved difficult, both of the qualifications dampened by rum; the smell of it lingered with everyone we talked to.

When we figured it to be about midnight, we decided to give up our chase; we had talked to about everyone here, and no one could point us in any sensible direction to a shipwright.

"I'm getting hungry," Jack moaned.

I nodded and replied, "Aye, same here.  Let's find some decent lodging."

Donald and Goofy nodded in agreement.  They too were feeling winded.

We sleepily staggered through the port to a bar overlooking the dock just as we felt a light rain start to drizzle.  There was plenty of action here even at this hour, whether it was men drinking or talking over some matter at a table or just laughing their heads off.  

Donald and Goofy meandered up the stairs along the left wall in search of a room to sleep in while Jack and I walked up to the bar on the far wall.  The bartender was busy cleaning a glass when we sat at a pair of stools.  He was probably the only surly and sober person in the bar.  He eyed us with his good eye, the one not covered with an eye patch.  "Can I 'elp ye?" he asked in a gruffly grave tone.

"Aye.  A loaf o' bread and a drink, if ye wouldn't mind."

"Sorry," the bartender replied.  "All o' our beverages are alcoholic, and ye definitely don't look eighteen."

"It ain't fer me; it be fer me friend here."

The bartender eyed Jack, spat into a spittoon behind the counter and commented, "'E seems too dressed up fer dis town.  Where's 'e from?"

"Halloween Town."

"Well, dat explains a lot," the bartender said with a sigh.  He stopped cleaning his glass and filled it with several ingredients from behind him.  He also brought up a loaf of fresh bread from the cabinet right below the drink.  He handed the food and drink to us and started to clean another glass.

I broke the bread in half as Jack took a swig of the drink, handing half to him and biting my half.  It was surprisingly tasty; even Jack thought so.  I took another bite, my eyes drifting around the room.  My eyes finally settled on two gentlemen seated at a table in the corner on the other side of the bar from the stairs.  One of the men had his blue vest-covered back to me, but the other one I could see perfectly.  He was wearing a sandy-tan vest over a full-sleeve shirt in pristine condition.  His dark-brown hair was hastily pulled back and undone in places.  His mouth was drawn up in a sullen frown underneath a short moustache, his eyes just as dejected as they stared into the flagon seated in front of him.  The other man seemed to be speaking to him, but he didn't appear to be listening.

"So, what's yer story, m'lad?"

I turned back to the bartender, bewilderment obvious on my face.  "What now?"

"What's yer story?" he repeated.  "Why are ye so down?  Did yer girl dump ye?"

Out of the blue, another man joined us on the bar.  He was obviously slammed beyond belief, grog or rum probably making up a majority of his swollen gut.  "I remember me girl," he said deliriously, more to himself than to us.  "She was such a pretty thing; makes me wish I didn't bet 'er in Liars' Dice."  He broke out into sudden laughter and toppled over on his stool.

In answer to the bartender, I replied, "No, me girl didn't leave me.  Not even death could separate us."

"How so?"  The bartender seemed more interested now, but only mildly.

My eyes grew partially glassy as I remembered my girlfriend back home, Emily.  "She had been dead fer o'er a hundred years when we met, but she proved perfect in every way.  Her beauty in its prime, immortalized forever…"

"It seems that ye've been dipping into the grog lately," the bartender snorted.  "Dating a corpse, indeed."

I immediately stood up at this comment, a flare of fury in my eyes.  Several of the men throughout the bar paused what they were doing to watch what unfolded, including the two that had aroused my suspicions.  "Are ye calling me a liar?" I sternly asked the bartender.  

A sneer crossed his lips as he drew a dagger from behind the counter.  "I ain't callin' ye fer seconds!"  He thrust the dagger right at my ribcage.  "Join yer girlfriend in hell, ye arrogant brat!"

I drew my sword in an instant, the dagger nailing the flat of the blade.  Using the momentary recoil his hand felt, I struck the small sword to the floor.  The whole action I had pulled single-handedly, allowing me a bite of my bread to finish it off.

Outraged by this, the bartender threw the glass he had been cleaning at me.  I managed to just barely dodge the glass by ducking backwards.  The glass continued flying until it struck one of the men not interested in our bout full in the back of the head.  The whole bar went dead silent as the glass shattered and fell to the floor in pieces.  He and I stood straight up at the exact same time, his eyes angrily fixed in my direction.  "Who be de bilge rat dat threw dat!?" he roared.

I side-stepped his gaze nervously and pointed to the bartender.  "He be."

The angered man growled as he drew a pistol from his vest.  

"Now see 'ere, Johnson," the bartender objected.  "Just because I allow guns in me bar don't mean I allow 'em being shot!"

"Git yerself a new rulebook, den."  Johnson pulled the trigger, and the bartender lifelessly slumped to the ground.  A bottle pierced by the bullet dribbled its contents onto the bartender, the rum mixing with his blood.

Another of the men, seated under the stairs, instantly leapt to his feet when he realized what had happened.  But, he didn't stare at it with fear.  Instead, he smiled at the situation.  He drew his sword, threw his head back, and screamed, "Free drinks fer everyone!"  With these words, every man or woman in the bar ran for the counter, guns and swords drawn and all empty hands reaching for a bottle.  In their mad frenzy, they hacked and slashed at anyone that got in their way; hardly anyone broke away from the group without at least one fresh wound.  

Jack and I, being in the center of the conflict, received practically the most punishment out of any of them.  Well, that wasn't exactly true in Jack's case, but it was in mine.  Sword after sword nicked my arms and upper torso as I was jostled around through the mass of rum-lusting scoundrels.  Finally, after an extremely hard and deliberate slice to my back, I lost it.  With my sword still drawn, I spun around in a whirlwind motion, blade held like an assassin's dagger.  A force of darkness that I called up threw everyone that I sliced over the rest of the crowd and clear to the wall, no matter which direction they flew.  

The crowd around me forgot all about the drinks.  Everyone surrounding the clearing that I made eyed me menacingly, cutlasses and pistols held offensively.  An occasional rotten tooth-exposing grin leered at me from the mass.  I was far from intimidated.  I returned their glares, my eyes shifting to a violent purple.  An aura of darkness flared up around my sword.  Some of the men backed off, but a majority of the men held their ground.  Johnson took one of the recently emptied spots, looking at me with a lazy anger.  "What right does a whelp like ye, barely old enough to carry a blade, 'ave to deny me and me pirate crew rum?"

"I ain't denyin' ye backstabbin' bungholes squat," I coldly replied.  I leapt backwards, away from Johnson and over the counter, and landed right next to the bartender's corpse as I grabbed a fresh rum bottle off of the shelf.  "In fact, why don't ye 'ave some fresh booze right now?"  I threw the brandy bottle right at him with as much force as I could.

All eyes watched the bottle as it flew right at Johnson.  He stared at it unflinching, a smug smile on his face.  He drew a cutlass using his non-trigger hand as quick as a flash and slashed the bottle in a cyclone motion similar to mine.  The bottle was struck as if by lightning, shattering it.  Johnson licked some of the rum off of the blade of his sword, still with that smug smile.  As he looked at me, he said, "Yo ho ho and a bottle of- hey!"  His face grew furious as he realized that I wasn't there.

He was about to give an order to find me when he felt a tap on his shoulder.  He turned around and felt a cold steel barrel pressed into his forehead.  A figure was standing right there, holding a gun to his head, a figure that looked exactly like Johnson, except there was only black; no details stood out at all from the figure, save his eyes; they had no color whatsoever.  Neither did Johnson's face as Johnson himself looked at it.  "What… are ye?" he stammered.

The figure said nothing.  Its only response was a pull of the trigger.  Johnson's last utterance was a scream before the figure drilled a bullet through his brain, point-blank.  He fell to his knees, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he collapsed at the feet of the figure.  To everyone's fear and awe, the figure vanished without a trace on the spot.

The men in the group huddled together, quaking in fear.  All of them wondered what would happen next.  They got their answer when a bottle of rum was thrown right over the group and shot by a pistol.  The bottle exploded, shrapnel scattering onto the crowd.  Now the men were miffed.  Someone in the group must have pulled that little prank, and they intended to find out who the only way they knew how:  like pirates.

A humongous brouhaha erupted in the midst of the men in the bar, punches shattering jaws and cutlasses and pistols bringing blood into the fracas.  No man was spared.  They were all so preoccupied in getting revenge on the joker that they misplaced four figures:  Jack, the two men seated at the corner table, and me.  The two men weren't anywhere in the fray.  They hadn't charged when the drinking frenzy was called either.  Instead, they had taken refuge behind the bar counter as soon as a man landed on their table from the fight, looking for the mysterious stranger that started this bar fight.

Instead, they found Jack behind there.  He also wanted no part in the brawl and had hidden behind the counter.  Right now he was swigging from a bottle of rum, his back to the fighting.  He seemed to be under no influence as he said, "Who might you two be?"

The two men looked at each other, obviously puzzled.  The man in front turned back to Jack and replied, "That's not important now.  Where is your captain, the boy?"

Jack smiled at the two men as he said, "Oh, he's right…" He paused as he patted the ground next to him on his left.  He was quite puzzled by this, or the lack of feeling anything except floor.  He reached out farther, growing gradually more worried.  "He was right here, right beside me."

The first man took a closer look at the scene Jack was searching and noticed something odd:  there were fragments of a shattered bottle right under Jack's bony fingers.  He reached over and picked up one of the shards.  He held it close to his face and inspected it.  He then handed it to the man behind him, saying, "What do you make of that, Mr. Gibbs?"

The second man, Mr. Gibbs, also held it up to his face, noticing the dark blue color.  He licked the smooth inside of the shard and sniffed it.  A grave expression shadowed Mr. Gibbs hardened face as if a flame blew ominously out.  "This rum bottle I knew personally," he said.  "A part o' Jack's private stock of rum, it was; I'd know that scent anywhere."

The unknown man looked at him, eyes widened.  "Are you sure?"

Mr. Gibbs simply replied, "Aye."

Suddenly, a dagger flew over the counter and landed right in the back of the already dead bartender.

"I don't think we're safe talking here, Will," Mr. Gibbs spoke up.  "I say we go to our room."

"Agreed," answered Will.

Jack, not knowing what they were talking about with his private stock of alcohol, decided to go with them as well.  They stealthily snuck to the stairs that luckily started right next to the opening of the bar by Jack, the men still brawling bearing them no notice.  They made it to the top of the stairs while dodging a few wayward bullets and cutlasses.

Just when they reached the top, they saw a person dressed in a black robe with a hood that shaded his face.  He was dragging something (or someone by the looks of it) around the corner into a hallway; these were presumably the bar's sleeping rooms.  They barely had a good look at the face of either of them, but judging by the size of the one being dragged, they instantly knew who it was.

Will drew a sword from his side quietly.  The whole blade was a startlingly smooth weapon with uniform steel, the blade being at least two-and-a-half feet long.  Will silently signaled for his two allies to follow.

They followed the trail of the hooded stranger to the corner of the hallway.  When they peeked around the corner, however, neither one could be seen.  All of the doors were shut, not even a light coming out from under the door cracks.  Mr. Gibbs angrily sighed.  "It seems we're dealing with one o' them shadow stalkers," he groaned.  "Mark my words:  it'll be a miracle if we find him again."

Jack scowled at the words but kept facing down the hall.  "I don't think that'll be necessary."  On closer inspection of the hallway even from his concealed position, Jack noticed something that the others didn't:  a small flash of light from the corner of a door, third on the left.  Jack slid over to the glittering object from his hiding place and beckoned for the other two to follow him.

Jack smiled as he held up the object:  a ring with a sapphire in it.  "He's in this room," he whispered.

That's all Mr. Gibbs needed to hear.  He backed away from the door, bent down like a linebacker, and charged at the door full throttle, giving a roar of rage as he did so.  The door practically snapped off of its hinges with the force Mr. Gibbs threw against it.  With the door open, Jack and Will ran into the room.

All three of them confronted the hooded figure, who was now standing over his victim; his hand was outstretched over his victim's heart and his back was against a closed window.  The figure had frozen still when he heard Mr. Gibbs shout out.  Now he had a sword pointed at his throat, pointed at him by the man who asked, "What were you about to do to him?"

The figure didn't answer.  Instead, he drew back his hand and leapt backwards, crashing out the window in a shower of shards.  All three of the would-be captors flew to the window, looking down to the ground below; but the figure was gone, vanished into the night.

…

Only his cape hid the frightened figure from view as he fled down an alleyway.  He looked over his shoulder, the broken bar window and the three people fading specks in the distance.  He turned his eyes forward again as he entered the jungle on the edge of the port town.  He continued to run along a little-used jungle path.  A stray branch hooked the figure's hood and ripped it back, revealing a head of brown, spiky hair.  The figure ignored it and continued running until he came to a small clearing.  He stepped in the middle of it, holding his hands on his knees and panting as he looked over his shoulder again.  Still no one came after him.  The figure let out a wheeze of relief.  

Suddenly, someone else appeared in the clearing in front of him.  The black-clad figure turned towards his new guest, a scowl on his face.  "What are you doing here?" he said.

The other person smiled, a cold, unfeeling smile.  "Oh, come now, Sora, if you continue to use that tone of displeasure with me, I may be tempted to show displeasure towards you."

Sora cringed when he heard this, the arms of his black vestment quaking.

"Now, what's the status of the situation?"

"Your target's heart has been heavily consumed by darkness; there's hardly any light left to call it a twilight heart.  Also, I've found his weakness.  He's got a girlfriend back on Earth.  From what I gather, she's none other than the Corpse Bride.  Finally, Michael's been on a massive recruitment drive lately; however, he still only has Jack, Donald, and Goofy with him."

"That should put us to a slight advantage.  I'll alert our ally in this world; he should have the foresight to send his pet to intercept our guests before he recruits anyone else, especially here."

Sora cringed again, but he held it enough so as not to have his guest notice.  "So, what do you want me to do now?"

Sora's guest seemed to think about that for a second before saying, "I'll return you to Hollow Bastion before I alert Davy Jones and collect an unwitting ally."  With a wave of the stranger's hand, both of them vanished into the open night air.

…

"Ungh, what happened last night?" I groaned, rubbing a sore spot on my head.  I sat up, throwing the blankets on top of me off.  I looked around; my eyes were still a bit fuzzy.  It looked like there were three other men in the room with me.  Two were on the floor, their heads resting together; one was kneeling at the bed, his bone-white head resting on his hands.  I yawned as I rubbed my eyes, giving my surroundings another, more focused, examination.  I realized that it was Jack sleeping beside me on the bed.  I also realized who the other two men were:  they were the two men from the corner table last night.

What those two were doing in this room, I didn't know; what I did know was that these two were trouble.  My sword arm instantly went for the hilt of my blade.  My hand grasped empty air.  A little discomforted by this, I rummaged under the sheets.  No luck there, either.  I buried my head under the sheets and frantically crawled around, still looking for my sword.  I still couldn't find it.

I poked my head out from under the covers; and I felt cold steel hover right over the back of my neck, brushing by my hair.  A voice said from beside me, "Glad you're up. We'd like a talk with you."

I turned my head, not quite seeing the face of the man with the sword, and said, "I'd be happy to oblige, if ye'd take that sword away from me."

The swordsman reluctantly pulled the sword away and sheathed it.

Thankfully, I crawled out of the bed sheets and sat on my pillow, taking my first real good at him.  He was still wearing the same outfit from the previous night.  But, his eyes weren't dejected like they were before; now they were keenly focused, watching me suspiciously.  "Who are you?" he asked me.

"The name's Heilmann, Captain Michael Heilmann o' the Jolly Roger."

"So you're a pirate?"

"Aye."

The swordsman looked at me quizzically and speculatively.  "You seem a little young to be a pirate captain."  

"And who do ye think ye be," I shot back, "judging me by me age?"

"Will Turner," he replied, a touch coldly.

"Okay, Will, now that we 'ave introductions out o' the way, what did ye want to talk about?"

"First, let's actually complete our introductions.  Who would that be?"  He pointed to Jack when he said this.  

"That would be Jack Skellington."

Jack immediately lifted his head and shook himself awake.  "Did someone call me?" he yawned sleepily as he looked around.

"Didn't I see a dog and a duck come in with you as well?" Will asked.

"Aye. They would be Goofy and Donald, respectively."  

I leapt off of the bed and rounded it, my eyes never leaving the man on the floor.  "Who would this guy be?"

"That would be Mr. Gibbs," Will replied as he followed me.  As he passed Mr. Gibbs, he gave him a light kick to his side.  Mr. Gibbs let out one last snore before sleepily standing up, rubbing his eyes and following us.  I beckoned for Jack to follow and led all three of them out the door.

As soon as we were out the door, Will asked, "Now can we head to your ship?"

"Not yet," I replied.  "We still have to find Donald and Goofy.  I ain't leavin' without me entire crew."

"I don't think it could only take six, err… 'men', to crew any one ship in these waters," Mr. Gibbs warned.  "We'll need some more crewmen as well, at least two."

I thought about that a second before replying, "Only if they be friends o' yers; I don't want strangers to any o' us on me ship."

We walked farther down the hallway, until Will stopped us.  When I turned around, his hand was on the doorknob right next to him.  "Our goal is right here," he explained.  He turned the doorknob and led through the door.

Inside this room, there were two beds.  However, only one of these beds was actually full.  There were four men inside the room, two on the bed and the other two on the floor.  Mr. Gibbs strode further into the room and bellowed, "All hands on deck!  Front and Center!'  All of the men immediately sprang awake, scampering into a straight line before Mr. Gibbs.  

I sized up the men from the sidelines.  These pirates were an odd bunch dressed in traditional pirate garb.  The first one was an older man wearing a purple bandana.  The one next to him was a slightly shorter pirate with a semi-bald head and long, gray strands draping past his shoulders.  The pirate next to him was taller even than the first with a head full of shaggy, dirty-blond hair.  The final pirate in the lineup was the shortest out of any of them, almost shorter than Donald.  Despite his height, he barely had a single hair, and these were only in his short goatee.

Mr. Gibbs eyed the first pirate and asked, "Cotton, where's yer parrot?"

Cotton turned around and pointed out the window.  At that exact moment, a parrot with bright blue and yellow feathers flew through the window and smacked the third pirate right in the back of the head.  When it did, one of the pirate's eyes fell out!  The pirate immediately dived for the eye with a yelp.  He held it before him and, after rubbing a little spit in it, squeaked it back into place.  It was only after this spectacle that I noticed that his eyes didn't match.  

The parrot landed on Cotton's shoulder, looked around, and said, "Anchors aweigh!  Anchors aweigh!"

Mr. Gibbs nodded in acknowledgement, turned towards me and said, "This be our crew."  He pointed to each pirate in sequence giving each of their names as he pointed to the corresponding pirate:  "That's Cotton and his parrot, that's Pintel, that's Ragetti, and that's Marty."

"And a fine crew ye 'ave fer yerself," I happily replied to Mr. Gibbs.  "A fine bunch o' sailors."  I turned around and beckoned for them to follow me back into the hallway.

As we walked further down the hallway, I kept my ears perked up, awaiting a familiar sound.  We were almost at the end of the hall when I did hear it:  the all-too recognizable sound of my two companions snoring.  I turned the doorknob of the door I heard the noise behind; surprisingly it yielded.  I signaled for the rest of the group to stay behind as I awakened Donald and Goofy, turning on my heel and creeping into the room.

The sight was no different than the one aboard the Jolly Roger.  Goofy was curled up on his side on one of the beds, his feet sticking over the end none the less.  Donald was sleeping on the other bed in the room, clutching his wand like a child clutches a teddy bear.  I couldn't help but slightly shake my head in mild friendly annoyance.

I walked between their beds, my eyes shifting from one to another and back again.  When I stopped, I lifted my fists over the corners of the beds and bellowed, "Rise and shine, fellas!"  I slammed my fists down like a pair of meteors, shaking my companions off of the beds and onto the floor.

They scrambled to their feet, looking right at me sleepily.  "Is it morning already?" yawned Goofy.

"Aye, it's been like that fer an hour, now.  Come, we 'ave an entire world to explore!"
Donald groaned and hobbled around his bed, griping, "But our ship is damaged.  And we don't have the skills or tools to fix it."

"Correction, we didn't," I contradicted with a sly smile.  "Now we do.  I, 'befriended,' one o' the locals and gathered a crew."

"Well, then, what are we waiting for?" Goofy exclaimed.  "Let's set sail!"  He enthusiastically ran for the door, but froze on the spot when he saw the pirates gathered there.

I stepped behind him and, noticing the reason for his abrupt stop, said slightly awkwardly, "That would be our crew."  I led Donald and Goofy through the door and exchanged the introductions.

When we were properly introduced, Marty asked, "Now can we head to the ship?"

"Aye," I replied.