Will knew he wasn't going to get any official help in rescuing Elizabeth.
Norrington wouldn't even spare him a small vessel to give chase with. It's not that Will thought he would be petty in response to his and Elizabeth's engagement, though Will wasn't sure the man had even heard about that yet; Will wouldn't put it past Governor Swann to keep it quiet until Elizabeth was safely back in Port Royal.
No, Commodore Norrington simply would not be willing to risk his men to save one woman. His sense of duty was too great to act so selfishly.
That meant Will needed help from elsewhere, and he knew just where to find it.
Ms. Harpin and her crew, of course! Cherry was strong and she had a ship. Who else could he rely on in this situation?
…
Jack sneezed inside his cell, startling the guard dog he had almost coaxed over to the bars. The dog backed away, taking the keys with it as Jack cursed his seasonal allergies.
…
Will hadn't gone down to the docks since Cherry's (not unwelcome) intrusion into his otherwise boring life.
When he did, it was not hard to spot the ship she had sailed into town on. It stood apart from the sleek professionalism of the navy's ships and the weather worn fishing boats. 'Impossible to miss,' Cherry had said, and Will had to agree with the sentiment.
As he approached, he noticed that the crew were out on the deck. The first two he noticed happened to be two of the strangest of the lot. A man with some sort of blocky armor over his arms wearing a blue powdered wig, and a very large man whose skin was entirely blue, with massive pointed teeth jutting from his mouth.
The rest weren't quite as odd as those two, but they were dressed in ways he hadn't seen before.
"Hello?" Will called out from the dock the ship was moored to. "Is Ms. Harpin here? If so, I would like to speak with her. It's rather urgent."
A young man, probably younger than Will himself, poked his head out over the railing. He wore a lazy smile and a straw hat on his head. "You know Cherry?"
"For two days now, for whatever that's worth," Will answered. "Is she here?"
"I don't know," the straw hat wearing boy said. He did not elaborate.
Thankfully, Will was saved from trying to politely interrogate the boy as Ms. Nico appeared shortly after.
"Cherry isn't here, William," Robin informed him.
Will tapped his foot impatiently. "Where is she, then? I can go find her, but I'm in a bit of a hurry."
He knew he could just ask them for help now, but he wasn't sure they would agree. They probably weren't bad people, and Cherry is nice enough. However, that doesn't mean they'll go out of their way to help a total stranger.
"She isn't in Port Royal," Robin revealed. "She stowed away on the pirate ship that attacked the city last night."
The hamster running on the wheel in Will's head tumbled to an abrupt stop.
"Huh?" Will articulated his well thought out question.
"Cherry went on an adventure without us?!" the boy in the straw hat seemed to misunderstand.
"Indeed," Robin inexplicably agreed with his nonsense, even adding on a sagely nod.
"Well, we have to go after them!" the boy in the straw hat declared, making Will perk up.
"They kidnapped Elizabeth!" Will piped up. "If you are going after those pirates, I implore you to take me with you!"
Will didn't receive the answer to his plea the way he expected. The straw hat boy's arm stretched at him and grabbed him by the shoulder.
"Alright," the boy laughed in such a way that almost had Will laugh as well, if the circumstances weren't so serious. "A friend of Cherry's is a friend of ours!"
Then Will was soaring through the air, before dropping down hard onto the… lawn?
"Oh, did I die?" Will asked aloud. After all, there shouldn't be any grass on a ship. The sensible assumption was that his head had cracked open like an egg and he was now in heaven.
"Luffy!" a woman shouted, before he heard an 'Oof!' from the boy. "Don't throw people around so haphazardly! What if he hit his head or something?!"
Will belated noticed that the sails and rigging were obscuring his view of the sky. He supposed it didn't make sense for those to be in the middle of a field in heaven.
An adorable creature stepped into Will's line of sight and used its hoof to spread his eyes open one at a time, shining a light in each as it went.
"He's probably okay," the creature squeaked in a voice that was just as adorable as his appearance. "Sit up slowly for me and tell me if you feel dizzy."
Will figured he must have hit his head, because he was currently hallucinating what was clearly the ship's doctor as some kind of semi-anthropomorphic animal. Will said as much to him.
The doctor giggled. "No, no, you're seeing me just fine. Unless you're seeing double, that is. There's only one of me!"
That makes so much less sense!
"I'm Tony Tony Chopper," Chopper held out a hoof, which Will took as an offer for a handshake. "You can call me Chopper… or Doctor if you like! Heheheh!"
"Turner D. William. You can call me Will," Will returned.
"Baaaah," a ram with golden wool trotted over.
"And, uh, who is this then?" Will asked, not really wanting to know the answer.
"That's Merry," Chopper introduced.
"If she, like, the ship's cook or something?" Will sure hoped not.
"No, silly, she's a ship," Chopper giggled, as if the suggestion was ridiculous.
It was ridiculous, but Will was already learning to throw his common sense overboard when it came to this particular crew of misfits.
"Ah, yes, I can see she's a sheep," Will nodded, relieved that at least that was one thing that actually was what it appeared to be.
"That too," Chopper added.
What the hell was that supposed to mean???
Will didn't dare ask. Better off not knowing.
A man with green hair and a scar over his closed left eye offered him a hand to pull him up. After a round of introductions, the green haired man, Zoro, gave him a solid look up and down his body.
"You a swordsman?" Zoro asked.
"Leave him alone, moss head! He's got a damsel in distress to save! He doesn't have the time to humor your nonsense," Sanji, the actual ship's cook, reprimanded him.
"Those swords must be pretty good if you bother to carry three," Will commented. The workmanship of the handles and sheathes were good, but he'd have to have a look at the blades to say for sure.
Zoro gave him a toothy smile and made a rude hand gesture at Sanji.
"Well, what are we waiting for?! Let's go!" Luffy (he is the captain? really?) insisted.
With that, the crew became a well oiled machine. Will wasn't a sailor, but even he could say that they were setting sail in record time.
He didn't know how they'd fare against pirates who don't die when you stab them, but at the very least they should have no problem catching up with a crew like this.