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"YOU" cried the captain, hatred etched on his face, "MY ARRRRRRRRRRCH NEMESIS!"

"YOUR arch nemesis?" Jessie replied, utterly disdainful, "And here I thought that I was the one who'd been kidnapped and stuffed in a locker at the bottom of the ocean. Would you mind telling me what on earth I've done to you that would merit this - this - this MONSTROUS display of - what is this?!" he despaired, gesturing around, "You're prancing around on a children's play boat! Where did all this fruit come from?! Cressa, why do you have a hook hand and two eye patches?!"

"THAT GUY SOUNDS LIKE JESSIE," said Cressa. With a strangled cry of frustration, Lorika lunged at her and yanked down her patches. "EEP! Oh, it IS Jessie! Hi Je- UHBWUH?! THERE'S TWO OF THEM?!"

"Thank you for keeping us all up to date on the breaking news, Cressa."

Still trailing seaweed and saltwater, Jessie climbed onto the boat, seething. "Who the HELL are you and what the hell do you want?"

"METHINKS THE BETTARRRR QUESTION IS, WHO ARRRRRRE YE, YE SCURVY BLUDGAAAAARBAG?"

Jessie's hand went to his temples in annoyance. "Oh, but of course, because we look identical, you're going to play the 'how can you be sure that I'm not the real Jessie' card. Except we don't look identical, do we? You ******** it up."

"What's he talking about?" Cressa whispered to Lorika. Rika's face, however, was transforming as comprehension broke over her at last.

"Cressa... which eye is Jessie missing?"

Cressa blinked, looking at her as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "His le-"

She gasped, and looked at 'Cap'n' Jessie in astonishment and revulsion - for the pirate's left eye was clearly intact. He was not Jessie's double - he was more like his mirror.

"That, and when have you ever known Jessie to wear blue?"

Cressa raised her arm and pointed accusingly at the doppelganger. "IMPOSTER!"

"Arrrr, ye done figgered me game out, ye savvy scallywags," said the strange pirate who most definitely was not Jessie. As his exposure as a fraud impended, he seemed to grow smaller, almost. "...But that don't mean I be givin' up wi'out a good old fashioned fight."

"If it's a fight you want, it's a fight you'll get!" Jessie cried, for even though he was unarmed and unarmoured, he wasn't afraid of any parasite that skulked across the earth.

And then the world turned upside down.

It was time to use that goddamn pirate monstrosity's own sword against him. Holding the pink tentacles at bay as they reached up to catch at her, Cressa 'lifted' the boat as it sped over the crest of the shiny golden - path? Whatever it was - and flung it straight at the creature's awful maw.

"Oh, Jesus!! Rika - JUMP!" Jessie screamed, pulling her over the edge and abandoning ship. If it was a choice between the pink tentacles Cressa was successfully fending off or the toxi-looking, pustulent things coming out of the monster's mouth, pink tentacles definitely seemed the safer option.

The boat soared into the gaping darkness and vanished. Sorry, kids - no more pirate adventures on the playground. Cressa caught her two companions in the air and yanked them into her bubble of safety. "Now that THAT'S out of the way, this thing is in for a whole new world of pain! A magic place it never knew!"

She flexed her casting fingers and sent off a few overzealous sparks. Just a few metres away, the tentacles licked uselessly at her shield. "How many pieces shall I blow this b*****d into? TWO HUNDRED TRILLION? SOUNDS GOOD TO ME!"

True to her word, the beast shattered and disintegrated into dust. For a few moments, everything was still, and Cressa was triumphant - but then, it reformed itself, good as new and just as annoying as ever.

Incensed further, Cressa fell on her backup plan - fire. However, as soon as her fireballs left the safety of the shield, they turned into giant floating pigs, which the tentacles immediately caught and dragged down into the fleshy depths below.

"Realm of chaos, Cressa."

"DAMN IT, CHAOS SUCKS WHEN I'M NOT CREATING IT MYSELF!"

"Regular weapons and magic won't work here," Jessie said, his expression turning stony. "...We need the potato."

"GASP! The POTATO?!"

"The potato."

"...The potato?"

"The potato."

"What is the potato?"

Jessie looked at her sharply. "The ultimate weapon, made for use during just these circumstances. Without it, we might be helpless here."

Reverently, Cressa produced a potato and held it out for him to take. He took aim...

"WAIT!" Cressa cried. He stopped. "...Do you think you could yell FUS ROH DAH when you throw it? That would be soooo epi-"

Jessie rolled his eye and threw the potato, ignoring her request. ("Awww..!") It sailed across the writhing gap between them and the beast, GOT STRUCK BY LIGHTNING ON THE WAY, turned into a ball of yarn and then back into a potato, and then finally zig-zagged into its great mouth.

The eye in the middle of its "forehead" bulged, and the world around them began to dissolve as the monster, their captor, choked to death. Death by potato inhalation, baby.

"I JUST WANTED TO BE LIKE CAP'N JAAAACK!" it wailed in the throes of death, "TELL ELIZABETH I LOVED HER!"

One final shower of confetti and rubber chickens, and it was all over.