Joshamee Gibbs had once owned warehouses.
Proper ones. With thick wooden doors reinforced by iron bands. With locks that cost more than most people earned in a year. With ledgers so meticulously maintained that clerks whispered about them in awe. There had been men—respectable men—whose entire livelihood depended on listening carefully when Gibbs spoke and nodding at exactly the right moments.
There had been chairs. Comfortable chairs.
Now, Gibbs was elbow-deep in greasy, lukewarm water, scrubbing plates that smelled like old meat, stale alcohol, and bad life decisions, while a bar owner twice his size loomed over him with the permanent expression of someone who had never once trusted another human being.
"Scrub," the man barked.
Gibbs scrubbed.
He scrubbed with the quiet, seething rage of a man who had fallen very far, very fast.
"That boy," Gibbs muttered under his breath, rolling his sleeves up even higher as soap foam sloshed over the rim of the basin, "is going to be the death of me. Or worse."
He scrubbed harder.
"Financial ruin."
The plate squeaked under his grip. Somewhere in the distance, a mug shattered. Gibbs ignored it. He had once had servants to wash dishes for him. He had once not even known where dishes went after meals. They had simply… vanished. Now here he was, thirty-five years young, paying for food with labor because his captain—his captain—had sprinted out of the tavern yelling something about destiny, kings, and treasure, while very deliberately forgetting to pay.
Gibbs sighed.
A deep, weary sigh filled with regret and soap bubbles.
A cannon fired.
The sound slammed into the alley behind the bar like a physical force, rattling shelves, knocking bottles loose, and sending a tremor through the ground that traveled straight up Gibbs' spine.
A heartbeat later, screaming followed.
Not one scream. Hundreds.
They rolled through Loguetown like a wave, overlapping voices filled with panic, anger, terror, and far too much enthusiasm. The kind of screaming that only happened when everything had gone very, very wrong.
Gibbs froze, hands still submerged in greasy water.
"…Why do I feel like it's him behind it," he said quietly.
The bar owner opened his mouth to yell something about breaking dishes.
Gibbs was already leaning toward the alley exit.
What he saw was not an orderly panic.
A stampede. A collision of bodies and flags and weapons all crashing together at once. People ran in every direction, some toward danger, some away from it, most directly into something worse. Marines charged with rifles raised, boots pounding in unison. Pirates clashed with pirates, blades ringing as if today had been collectively agreed upon as the perfect time to settle grudges that had been simmering for decades.
Smoke drifted low over the streets.
Gibbs blinked once.
"…Why are pirates fighting pirates?"
A Marine tackled a man who may or may not have been guilty of anything at all. Another Marine was immediately taken out by a chair thrown by someone who had clearly only come to watch the execution and was now emotionally invested in the chaos. A cannonball crater smoked in the distance, the stone around it glowing faintly.
Then Gibbs saw him.
Tall. Blond. Wearing sunglasses like the world wasn't actively collapsing around him.
The man moved calmly through the chaos, hands raised lazily, as if strolling through a market instead of a battlefield. Thin, nearly invisible strings snapped through the air, slicing pirates and Marines alike with horrifying precision. Bodies fell apart mid-charge. Men screamed once and stopped existing in any meaningful sense.
Gibbs swallowed.
"What in the hells is happening today?"
A scream cut through the din.
High-pitched. Panicked. Unmistakably stupid.
Gibbs' head snapped to the side.
A young, long-haired, tanned idiot came sprinting down the street, arms flailing wildly, shouting something about injustice, misunderstandings, and definitely not deserving this treatment. His hat was gone. His shirt was half untucked. His face was alight with the unique terror of someone who had finally realized consequences were real.
Two Marines chased him, rifles raised.
Gibbs stared.
"…Captain?"
Jack Sparrow barreled past a pirate swinging a cutlass, tripped over a fallen crate, somehow rolled cleanly under the blade, popped back up, and kept running without slowing down. The pirate cursed and turned—straight into a Marine officer lining up a shot.
Jack screamed.
The Marine fired.
The pirate went down.
Jack blinked once, pointed behind him, yelled "Sorry!" and kept running.
Gibbs dropped the plate he was holding.
It shattered.
"Right," he said calmly. "That's my cue."
He grabbed his flintlock from where it rested against the wall, snapped it up—
Click.
Empty.
Gibbs closed his eyes for half a second. "Of course."
He bolted into the street.
The chaos was worse up close.
Jack skidded around a corner, narrowly avoiding a sword strike from another pirate, only to stumble directly into a Marine officer aiming a rifle at his head. Jack yelped, ducked, and the Marine fired on instinct.
The bullet took out a different pirate who had been mid-leap.
Jack whipped around, drew his cutlass, and swung.
It was not a good swing.
The Marine stepped aside easily and smashed the butt of his rifle into Jack's jaw. Jack staggered back, stars exploding behind his eyes, and promptly collided with someone solid.
Very solid.
Jack slowly looked up.
The blond man from earlier looked down at him.
He smiled.
It was not a friendly smile.
Jack froze, brain screaming warnings far too late. He raised a finger and pointed shakily at the Marine. "He did it."
The Marine officer went pale, dropped his rifle, and raised his hands. "I—I didn't—"
Strings shimmered into existence.
There was a wet sound.
By the time the blond man looked back down, Jack was already gone, sprinting away with renewed terror and impressive speed.
The man laughed softly. "Fufufufu…"
Jack nearly ran straight into another fight when a hand grabbed the back of his collar and yanked him off his feet.
"AAAH—!" Jack screamed. "KIDNAPPING! I'VE BEEN KIDNAPPED—"
Smack.
Smack.
Two clean, solid slaps across the face.
Jack stopped screaming.
Gibbs held him firmly, eyes blazing with fury, fear, and something dangerously close to relief. "Breathe."
Jack blinked. "…Oh. First mate."
"We are leaving," Gibbs said.
Jack nodded instantly. "Yes."
They ran.
Gibbs dragged Jack through side streets, ducking flying debris, shoving him behind crates as Marines thundered past, yanking him back by the collar whenever Jack got distracted by something loud, shiny, or historically significant. At one point Jack waved cheerfully at a pirate being arrested. Gibbs physically turned his head away.
They burst into the docks.
Pandemonium.
Ships collided. Crews cut lines too early. Marines fired warning shots that hit absolutely nothing helpful. Someone screamed about destiny. Someone else was on fire and did not seem especially concerned.
Gibbs stared at the chaos, chest heaving.
"…We're doomed," he said.
Jack looked at the Black Pearl—still there somehow, battered and ugly and unmistakably theirs.
He smiled.
"I knew it'd wait for us."
Gibbs closed his eyes and cursed every life decision he had ever made.