There is a saying, "That which doesn't kill you makes you stronger." I think this is not true in general. For example, I have been breathing for many years, and that has neither killed me nor made me stronger. Reading this sad tale will not kill you (I hope), but it may make you helpless with sobs, which is certainly not going to make you stronger. And the experience of the unlucky Parr children, being carried along by a raging stream on a toboggan, was making them miserable and numb with cold, so they were not feeling very strong either.
"Dash, isn't there any way to get us to shore?" Violet asked.
"I tried paddling with my feet, but the water makes them too cold to move fast," Dash said.
"We've got to get back up there," Violet said. "Those two evil people who were working with Count Buddy have carried our parents off in a net, along with those poor Snow Scouts."
"Gloomb," said Jack-Jack, which meant, "I'm afraid it's too late. The eagles have already flown them away."
"We know where they're going," said Dash. "To the Hotel Derrière, to burn it down. If we can get there before they do..."
"But how can we?" asked Violet. "We don't know where it is."
"We have to find out," Dash said.
"And what about Quigley? He's being swept away by the stream too, and he doesn't even have a toboggan."
"Don't worry about him," said Dash. "He'll cut down a tree branch or something with his blast-finger and use that to get to shore."
"I hope he's all right," said Violet anxiously.
BONNGG! The toboggan struck something that was sticking up out of the middle of the stream. It was a metal tube with a piece of glass at the end of it. Within, they could see someone's eye looking at them.
"A periscope?" said Dash. "What would a submarine be doing here?"
With a huge splash, the submarine surfaced beneath them, lifting the toboggan out of the water.
"Are you friend or foe?" came a booming voice through a speaking tube.
"Friend!" called Jack-Jack. It was the only sensible answer.
"Password?" asked the voice.
Violet thought for a moment, and decided on the motto they had seen on the archway of the ruined V.F.D. headquarters.
"World, be quiet -- hear?" Violet said.
The hatch of the submarine opened. "Enter, Incredibles. And welcome. Aye!"
As they climbed down, the voice boomed out confusing instructions. "Watch your step, Aye! Watch your manners, Aye! Watch the birdie! No, I'm not taking pictures now, am I?"
At the bottom of the ladder stood a large masked man wearing a wetsuit. On the front of the suit was a superhero logo of three arrows pointing in a counterclockwise circle.
"Greetings, Incredibles! Aye! I'm Captain Widdershins. Aye! You may not have heard of me by that name, because it's a new one. Aye! I used to call myself Splashdown."
"Hi, I'm Violet and these are my brothers Dash and Jack-Jack. I've heard the name Splashdown somewhere before."
"Jedmode!" said Jack-Jack, meaning "Josephine Edna Mode!"
"That's it!" Dash said, "She said you died because of a cape."
"My cape caught in a vortex at sea, aye. But I didn't die. That which doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Aye! I discovered a new power that day. The vortex was pulling me down underwater, spinning me clockwise faster and faster. Aye! All of a sudden I found I could make the water move counterclockwise and I canceled out the vortex. Aye!"
"What did you do then?" Violet asked.
"I swam away. I can breathe underwater, but that's not a new power. I've always been able to do that. Aye! In honor of that escape, I gave myself a new name: Captain Widdershins."
"Why Widdershins?" Dash asked.
"Because it means counterclockwise. You knew that. Aye?" Widdershins asked.
"I didn't," said Dash.
"Why did you let everyone think you were dead?" Violet asked.
"I saw bad times were coming for supers. Aye! Lawsuits were starting and there was talk of banning us. So I went into hiding; I didn't hesitate. That's my motto: He who hesitates is lost!"
"Or she," said a woman's voice.
The Parrs turned and saw a young lady of about fifteen. She was also in a wetsuit with the Widdershins logo, and her mask was shaped like triangles around her eyes.
"Aye, or she," said Captain Widdershins. "Violet, Dash, and Jack-Jack, this is my stepdaughter, Stratogale."
"I don't use that name anymore," she said. "Call me Fiona."
"Josephine Mode mentioned you, too. Another cape accident," said Violet.
"My stepfather contacted me secretly, asking me to join him in hiding," said Fiona. "To throw the authorities off track and give me a head start, we hired a stuntwoman to wear my costume with a rocket belt and appear in public as me. She was flying alongside a plane, waving to people, when her cape was sucked into the jet engine and she was killed instantly."
"You can fly?" Dash asked in admiration.
"Aye," said Fiona. "Though there's not much use for it in a submarine."
"That's cool! What else can you do?" Dash asked.
"I'm strong," Fiona said. She lifted Captain Widdershins easily with one hand, then set him down again. "And I can talk to birds. Tweet-chirrup! That means 'I like you a lot' in robin."
"Woow!" said Jack-Jack, meaning "Wow!"
"Wait a second," said Violet suspiciously. "You say you were active as a super before they were banned. That was fifteen years ago. You're not that old!"
"Once we were in hiding," Captain Widdershins said, "We went on an undersea expedition to find the lost city of Atlantis, something I've always wanted to do. Aye! We explored deep into uncharted waters..."
"Did you find Atlantis?" Dash asked.
"I'm not sure what we found," Widdershins said. "Maybe one of its defenses. Aye! All of a sudden, we were miles from our last position with no memory of how we got there. Not only that, but fifteen years had passed in an instant without aging us at all! Aye!"
"We learned from the radio that everything my stepfather had feared had happened: supers were banned," said Fiona. "Since there had been no sign of us for fifteen years everyone was sure we were dead, and that was exactly what we wanted."
"Then, just recently, I tried sending a message in the old V.F.D. codes. Aye!" said the Captain. "I found there are still a few of us working underground. They gave me a new mission. Aye!"
"Missoon?" asked Jack-Jack, which meant "What mission?"
"To find the sugar bowl!" said Widdershins.