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Fantasyland - Ep. 1

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Season 1: The Golden Age

Episode 1: Once Upon a Time…

Present Day:

The boy awoke with a groan, the back of his head throbbing. He lifted his left hand to rub his head, but quickly heard the sound of water splashing. The teenager’s eyes shot wide open as he leaned upward, finding himself surrounding by water. He let his legs kick underneath the water to keep afloat, his eyes darting left and right. He found himself in the middle of the ocean, miles upon miles of seawater stretching as far as the eye could see. Worse yet, it was near sunset and the teenager would be swimming in the dark in mere moments.

“H-how did I…?” The teenager stopped himself and tried to think.

He thought back to the last thing that he did. The teenager remembered getting dressed for dinner out and walking up to his bedroom door. The last image he could recall was his hand turning the knob before everything went blank.

“Man overboard!” the teenager heard a cry.

He whirled around only to meet face to face with a grand galley ship. It looked like it was pulled straight out of a naval history book, greatly resembling those of the British navy during the eighteenth century.

“Throw a line!” he heard another voice call out, somewhat soft-spoken compared to the gruffer one from a moment before.

A heavy rope was quickly tossed overboard near the teenager, who quickly swam to it and grasped the cord. He gave a mighty tug on the rope and soon quickly felt himself being hauled aboard the ship like a seafood catch of the day. Once he was able to, the teenager vaulted over the side of the ship and onto the deck, throwing aside the rope as he sat up against the railing. The teenager rubbed his eyes, trying to refocus his vision as two dark figures bobbed and wove in front of him before they gradually lighted up to show two faces.

“Are you alright?” one of them asked, the soft-spoken man from before.

“I’m fine. I’m okay,” the teenager replied.

The teenager patted himself and looked over his person. He was still wearing the clothes he was planning for dinner: a light grey button-up with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He looked down to find that he still had on his dark blue jeans and the brown leather boots on his feet. One look at his forearms showed that he still wore the brown leather cuff on his right wrist as an accessory. He’d check his pockets later, but, judging from the weight he could feel, it appeared nothing was missing.

“How did you get all the way out here?” the man asked.

The teenager looked around at his surroundings as he stood up. The deck was swarmed with a crowd of men and a single woman, all of whom were wearing period appropriate early eighteenth-century clothing. They were rough looking for sure, their skin appearing to be beaten by the sun and the salty sea air. There were a few peculiarities amongst this group, such as one older man having a parrot on his shoulder while the man next to him was a midget. The teenager sighed. Great, he thought, a pirate reenactment.

“I’m still trying to figure that out,” answered the teenager before turning back to the man. He paused.

The man before him was fairly young, roughly early twenties. His slick brown hair was pulled into a short pony-tail and his facial hair gave him the appearance of a older man despite his youthful looks. Like the others, he too wore period appropriate clothing, wearing a white shirt with a light brown vest. Hanging loose around his neck was a red and white checkered piece of cloth. Grey knee-length breeches and black leather shoes fastened with buckles completed the appearance of a man of humble origin. Yet, there was something about this man that struck the teenager, as if he reminded him of someone.

“You look familiar to me,” the younger man observed. “Do I know you from somewhere?”

“I don’t see how.” said the elder, raising a curious eyebrow at the teenager’s words. “I’m… I was just an apprentice blacksmith.”

“What’s your name?”

“My name? Oh, I’m sorry, my name is…”

“Will Turner!” Both the man and the teenager whirled around to find another man emerge onto the deck, bursting forth from the captain’s quarters.

The man looked extreme compared to everyone else on the deck. He wore a red bandana on his forehead with a piece of eight attached to it, covered by a faded leather tricorne hat. The distinctive look was further accentuated by his dreadlocked dark brown hair and goatee beard. His hair was adorned with all manner of beads and trinkets, no doubt gathered from his travels. He wore four rings on his fingers along with a shredded wristband on his right wrist. He had long sea boots on his feet and wore long, hard-wearing linen trousers. A knotted striped-red sash was tied around his waist, in which he stowed a pistol. A long brown coat covering a faded blue waistcoat and a torn white undershirt made up the rest of the ensemble.

The teenager couldn’t help but stare wide-eyed at the man as he spoke.

“Now then, what’s this you’ve dragged aboard my ship?” the man asked, his arms folded as he eyed the teenager before him.

“He was stranded out in the ocean, Jack,” Will answered. “I wasn’t going to leave….”

“Enough of that,” Jack interrupted. He then walked up to the teenager, his face coming in so close that that younger man could smell his breath. “You, what are you doing out here?”

“I could ask you the exact same thing,” answered the stunned teenager, drawing a confused look from both men.  

“Do you have any idea as to whom you are speaking to?"

“YOU TELL ME!" the teenager shouted before violently coughing into his arm.

"You've been out on the water for too long," Will stated. He placed a hand on the teenager’s forehead. "Good news is that you don't have a fever, but you do need to rest.”

"I'm fine, I just… I just need to think for a minute," the teenager replied, breaking away from the two men. He ran to the other side of the deck, pausing for breath.

"Something's… peculiar about that man,” whispered Will, eying the teenager closely.

"You're right,” Jack agreed. "Look at the way he’s dressed, it’s rather odd looking."

"You're one to talk.”

"Oy! I have class in me attire!"

"I'm only saying that he acts like he's seen a ghost,” Will hypothesized, turning his attention toward the teenager. “The way he looked at you?”

"I am a fairly notorious pirate, dear William,” Jack boasted. "The man must've heard of me over on the mainland.”

"Perhaps, but I don't know,” Will turned around to look at the teenager.

The teenager was still trying to figure out the situation, keeping a level head on the experience. Minutes passed as he looked around the ship as he clutched his head. Finally, he slammed his palms onto the railing and took a deep breath. He turned away from the ocean and looked at the two men.

“Alright,” the teenager began, appearing calm. “How much money did she spend on this?”

“What?” Will raised an eyebrow.

Pirates of the Caribbean, goodness gracious me!” The teenager walked toward Sparrow and Turner, looking them dead straight in the eyes. “She had to empty the Sebastian Group coffers but, boy did Serena pull out all the stops on this one. My God! She said she wanted to get back at me for last year, but this? This is pure evil even for her!”

“The boy’s gone mad…” the teenager heard a lone pirate mutter before whirling around to snap.

“‘I’ve gone mad’? I’m not the one being hired to dress up like pirates to punk a guy!” the teenager shouted. He started to look around the deck, expecting this ‘Serena’ to pop out at any moment. “Come on out, Serena! You’ve won! You got me good. Great joke! Don’t know how you got these people out of their busy schedules but I hope it was worth it!”

“A joke?” Jack was starting to look uneasy at the teenaged boy. No, the term ‘uneasy’ wasn’t the right word; it was downright annoyed. “How is Turner pulling you out of the water part of a joke?!”

“I said it before, you tell me,” the teenager said, his tone increasingly irritated as he walked over to the man. “Look, I’m tired and there’s a place I need to be tonight, ‘Jack’. Let’s wrap this all up so you can cash the check and I can go home!”

The teenager then attempted to tear off Jack’s dreadlocks, having assumed the man was simply wearing a wig as part of the ‘costume’. Jack yelped, catching the teenaged boy by surprise as the crew looked on gobsmacked. The pirate, now understandably irritated, quickly swatted the teenager’s hand away and moved to bring his sword out, blade pointed at the teenager’s chest.

“Piece of advice, lad,” A man offered.

The teenager looked to his right and saw who spoke up. He was one of the older pirates on the boat, slightly overweight with gray hair and white sideburns. He wore a teal vest with silver buttons, a white dress shirt, and brown boots. He remembered him quickly, one Joshamee Gibbs.

“Don’t ever upset Jack Sparrow,” advised Gibbs. “Gets into a bit of a tizzy whenever someone tries something that dumb.”

The teenager nodded slowly. He took a few steps back from Jack’s sword, his hands raised. His angry demeanor faded as his situation quickly dovetailed into a horrible dream. The teenager didn’t have to be up close to tell that the sword was real. The man before him honestly believed he was the genuine Jack Sparrow. Yet, how was that possible?

“Alright, I think I’m starting to understand now,” The teenager finally spoke up in a calm voice. “If it makes you feel any better, I haven’t exactly had a good day today either.”

"You think you’ve had a bad day?" Jack asked, his voice growing ever more irritated by the minute. He approached teenager again, his sword still drawn. “I have been running about the ocean trying to settle a rather nasty score! Not only that, I have to entertain this lovestruck fool in over his head than he’d care to admit. The last thing I need is an obnoxious little teenager on my ship!”

“Nasty score?” The teenager balked at Jack’s sentence. He took a quick look at the deck and quickly noticed that there wasn’t any sign of ebony wood. He looked all over the rest of the ship and came to realize not just where he was but when. “I know this ship. This is Interceptor, isn’t it?”

“That’s enough!” Will put his hand on Jack’s arm, forcing him to lower his sword. “He’s been in the water for who knows how long. He’s delirious.”

Jack looked over Will’s shoulder to get a better look at the teenager. The boy was still dripping wet from being in the ocean but, other than that, appeared mentally and physically sound. More so the latter than the former.

“Looks fine to me,” muttered Jack.

“Oh for God’s sake…” Will groaned. He shook his head at Jack, then turned around to face the teenager. “Let me apologize for the whole lot of them. They’re not used to normal civilians on their ships.”

The blacksmith outstretched his hand to introduce himself.

“As I was trying to say before, my name’s Will Turner, from Port Royal. What’s your name?”

The teenager looked at the blacksmith’s hand hesitantly. He then slowly outstretched his hand and shook the man’s hand firmly.

“I’m Warrick. Warrick Stokes,” the teenager returned. “I-I’m sorry about earlier, it’s just that, well, it’s all a lot to take in and I thought…”

“I don’t blame you,” replied Will. “I can honestly say I didn’t expect my life involving people like this. You probably know everyone by infamy.”

“More than you know,” Warrick muttered.

He gazed around the ship once more, eying the rest of the pirates on the deck. Out of all of them, Warrick could only recognize three: Gibbs, the midget Marty, and the mute Mr. Cotton and his speaking parrot. Everyone else he honestly couldn’t recall, which only confirmed his worse fears.

Warrick then shook his head in dismay. He knew that the longer he stayed on The Interceptor the longer it would take for him to find out the truth of his situation. For all he knew, this still could have been an elaborate ruse. By heading to land, he would see if he was where he thought he was. It was the only option left on the proverbial table. Warrick breathed a sigh as he turned toward Will again.

“Listen, I’m grateful for you all pulling me out of the water, but I can’t stay on this ship. Is there anywhere you can drop me off? I need to get back to land as soon as possible.”

Before Will could respond, Jack overheard the teenager’s words and confronted him.

“That, I’m afraid, is not an option!” the pirate said. “In case you haven’t realized by now, I am a wanted man on the mainland and I will not risk the chance of being caught. I only got out of jail two days ago!”

“You mean ‘broke out’?” deadpanned Warrick.

“Same thing!”

“You wouldn’t even have to go to an actual port. Just look for a nearby city, dock, then I hop off and you’ll be on your merry way. It wouldn’t be two minutes!"

“I’ve seen servants of the Crown take over ships in less than a minute!”

“It’s like trying to break up a fight between five-year-olds…” Will groaned, as he stepped between the two once more. “ENOUGH! I’m about to be at my end with you both!”

“He started it…” Jack pointed fingers. The blacksmith pulled Jack to the side of the ship, talking to him out of earshot of the teenager.

“Jack, something I’ve been wanting to tell you since I’ve met you: swallow your ego, alright?” Will asked. “Listen, we’re close to the Port of Corona. We could drop him off and you’d never have to deal with him again. All you’d have to do is put up with him for the night.”

“We wouldn’t even be near Corona if you had listened to me. As I explained, your precious maiden is south, not north toward the bloody damn continent!” the pirate retorted. “Besides, we are running on little time as it is.”

“So is Elizabeth, but I at least want to try and help that boy be on his way.”

“That’s all well and good for you, but in case you have forgotten, Mr. Turner, I’m the Captain of this vessel and I don’t have time to deal with him. Furthermore,” Jack paused, before looking over the blacksmith’s shoulder. “Where’d that mad bugger run off to?”

“Huh?” Will turned around, quickly realizing that the young man next to him had disappeared.

----

Warrick had quietly snuck off deck, away from the prying eyes of Jack Sparrow and Will Turner and into the captain’s quarters. If the impossible did pan out, that he was somehow in a variation of the past, he was going to need a map. While this were mostly out of necessity, a small part of him did have some curiosity about the boat, mainly actually exploring the thing. It’s not every day one found themselves on an actual pirate ship, even if one had seen something like this a dozen times at this point in their life already from movies.

The captain's quarters were very spacious. Four shelves were found on both sides of the room, two per side. There were three tables placed around with maps and charters scattered all around the top of each. A fourth table was reserved for dining, silverware already in place if need be. A desk was at the end of the room, with the windows showing the ocean behind the ship. An oval shaped bed was on the right side of the room, with red sheets and surprisingly well-kept pillows. Needless to say, Warrick was fascinated with the accommodations.

The teenager gave a casual glance at the silverware and glasses before he finally approached one of the tables. Various maps were astray, some even on the floor. One map in particular caught his eye. He crouched down, picked it up, and took a look at it. Warrick only glanced at it briefly, enough to know that it was a map of the world. He then folded the parchment and tucked it into his back pocket.

“OY!” Warrick spun around to see a livid Jack standing in the middle of the doorway. “What’re you doing in here?!”

“Just getting my bearings,” the teenager replied. “Since you’re hellbent on keeping me stuck on this ship for now, I might as well know where everything is.”

“You don’t touch anything in here! These are all my things! Well, not my things originally, but they are now!”

“Of course, I wasn’t trying to get you started up again,” Warrick apologized.

Warrick then proceeded to exit out the cabin room and back out onto the deck. He heard a loud door slam behind him, then saw Jack appear in front of him. The pirate then motioned the teenager to follow him below deck just as the crew was beginning to retire for the evening.

“Get this through your head, boy,” Jack said as he led the younger man. “As a… ‘guest’ on this ship, as it were, you are to obey my rules, stipulations, and other such agreements, understood?”

“I understand completely,” Warrick responded. “Your ship, your rules.”

“Really?” Jack stopped momentarily. He turned toward Warrick and gave him a confused look. “No arguments, no complaints? Simple as that? Aren’t you teenagers supposed to be rebellious or some trite like that?”

“You’re thinking about little kids. Besides, I’ve got bigger things to worry about.”

“Well, alright then,” Jack shrugged. He continued to lead the teenager through the bowels of the ship until he stopped in front of a door adjacent to where the crew’s hammocks were. The pirate opened the door, allowing the teenager to see where he was staying. It was a spare room, complete with a surprisingly intact mattress and pillow. It also had a few barrels and bags, making it a spare cargo room. “You’re staying downstairs in the cargo until I can sort things out in the morning.”

“What’s wrong with the crew’s quarters?” Warrick asked, slightly confused.

“You said it yourself, mate. My ship, my rules. No objections,” the pirate smiled, showing off his disgusting looking teeth. “If it’s any consolation, mate, you’re only here for one night. Corona and all that. I trust you can keep from causing too much trouble, savvy?”

“Savvy.”

Jack then turned around and left. As soon as the pirate was gone, Warrick turned his head and coughed into his arm, having accidentally caught a whiff of Jack’s breath. The teenager then walked over to the bed and laid down. It wasn’t perfect, in fact it felt like it was stuffed with something other than feathers, but it wasn’t unbearable either.

“At least I’m grateful I get a bed at all considering the stunt I pulled,” Warrick twisted and turned, trying to find a comfortable position to fall asleep.

Finally, Warrick was on his back, staring at the ceiling. He still couldn’t fathom everything that was happening. It had to be a hoax. Or maybe it was a dream? Warrick frowned then rolled onto his side, trying to sleep. Who knows? If this was a dream, he’d wake up in his own bed by the time he opened his eyes again.

----

Meanwhile, an annoyed Jack emerged from below deck, still rather steamed. Why did he have to put up with some fool of a teenager? He didn’t want to deal with him, especially when Hector Barbosa was on his mind. As he stood alone on deck, the pirate pulled out a bullet from his pocket and placed it on the railing, staring at it for some time. It was the bullet, the one that would kill his mutinous ex-first mate and reclaim his beloved Black Pearl. Nothing would stand in the way of having his revenge. Not the elements, not some teenager, not even…

“Are you alright, Jack?” Will asked. He caught the pirate almost by surprise, causing Jack to quickly pick up the bullet then place it back in his pocket before turning to face the blacksmith.

“I’m fine,” Jack said. “The sooner that boy’s gone, the sooner you can rescue your fair maiden and I get my Pearl back.”

“Relax, Jack, he’ll only be on here for the night and you won’t have to put up with him anymore.”

“Yes, for the night…” Jack muttered, breathing a sigh as he watched Will walk below deck to get some sleep himself. The pirate pulled the bullet out of his pocket again, this time only briefly, before he began to think.

----

Warrick let out a loud yawn as he woke up. He felt extremely sore, probably because of the mattress. He began to sit up straight, rubbing the back of his neck. No sooner did he open his eyes that Warrick was immediately taken aback by the scene before him. He was no longer in the Interceptor’s cargo room nor was he back in his bedroom for that matter. Instead, Warrick had now found himself in a dinghy moored in the sand, staring at the ocean before him. The teenager then looked over his shoulder, finding a heavily wooded forest alongside a deserted stretch of road yards ahead of him.

“How the hell did I…?” Warrick stood up as he looked around in confusion. He then saw a piece of parchment lying underneath the seat of the dinghy he was laying in. The teenager quickly picked it up and read the paper. It was a letter written in ink, which read:

Dear Mate,

Sorry we had to leave you all on your lonesome, but we have a busy schedule to keep. Plus, you did say we could drop you off anywhere. Perhaps we may meet again someday?

Yours Truly,
Captain Jack Sparrow

P.S. Will knows nothing of this. He'll be crossed when he finds out.


Warrick was furious. He crumbled the paper and cursed out the heavens as he tossed the parchment into the ocean before breathing deeply through the nose. He may have been screwed over by Jack, but at least he wasn’t stranded empty-handed. Warrick took out the map, unfolded it, and looked at it. The map itself wasn't very special, plotted out on faded yellow parchment. It was heavily detailed though, showing the entire world and its cities. What was fascinating about the parchment was the use of ink: some cities were slightly faded whereas others appeared darker. One area of the map, labeled Arendelle, looked as if it had just been freshly added.

"Okay, England, France, Spain, nothing out of the ordinary for an early eighteenth-century map,” Warrick noted.

He tried to see where Corona was, using his index finger as a guide while examining the map closer. Warrick never once heard of the city in his textbooks, but perhaps it was a city-state that used to exist before…

Warrick paused. As he was looking for Corona, he caught a glimpse of an additional location that didn’t belong.

“Agrabah?" observed a confused Warrick.

Warrick quickly found another one: Prydain. Then another one. And another. The teenager quickly began noticing a pattern: many of the locations that were in his map were fictional. He did note that even though some were real locations, they also served as settings for other stories beyond Jack Sparrow and Will Turner. It quickly became apparent that this wasn't just Pirates of the Caribbean.

“These are Disney movie settings,” The teenager thought aloud. A gust of wind blew the map from his grip, sweeping it away from him a few feet. And, yet, the teenager seemed too stunned to care.

The memories began to flood back into him. But as quickly as they came, Warrick forced those same distant memories down again. This was no time for remembering. He had always wanted to be a detective, first and foremost, and with it came the harsh realities of the world. He had to scrutinize anything and everything, question all that lay before him to solve all manner of crime that landed on his doorstep.

But then again? In the world he was from, from what he experienced over the past year, just about anything was possible, were it not?

The teenager shook his head.

“This is not possible. I know it’s not,” Warrick thought aloud. He quickly walked over to the map and picked it back up. He rubbed the bridge of his nose as he groaned.

Warrick patted his pockets, having neglected to do so earlier when he was first pulled onto Interceptor. To his relief, he pulled out his cellphone, with headphone string still attached to it, and his small black wallet. The phone was still fully charged, the seawater not damaging it as he had earlier feared. However, it didn’t appear to show any type of cellular signals in the area. The teenager groaned before putting both wallet and phone away and took another look at the map. He was still stranded who knows where, but he’d play along for now. From what he surmised of the geography, it was clear he was close to this ‘Corona’ that was his intended destination. Yet Warrick spied Paris was close, but further to the west than he enjoyed.

Warrick pondered his options for a moment before finally breathing a defeated sigh. He stepped out of the dinghy and out onto the beach, marching toward the road that would lead him east.
A ship's crew in a new world. Is this a dream, a hoax, or is it real? 
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