"Why'd you do it, White Rose? Why!?"
Armsmaster could only look on in despair as the Rig slowly sank into the ocean. Years of work. Millions of dollars. Dozens of enhanced coffee makers. All gone in the space of minutes. The rest of the Protectorate, nay, the rest of the parahumans in the city lay defeated around him. While her mental state could be best shown by a particularly thin slice of Swiss cheese, it was universally accepted that White Rose was a monster in a fight. When she finally broke and started actively going after people, it was only a matter of time before the powers in the city pooled their resources to take her out. The Triumvirate had refused to send aid, citing a "lack of need."
How blind they had been. How blind they ALL were.
"I'm glad you asked, Armsmaster," the crazed cape said, voice far too calm and too quiet to fully drown out the sound of snapping bone. "But first, let me ask you something: how frequently do your plans go right?"
The silence was deafening.
"What?" he asked.
"You heard me. How frequently do things play out like you expect them to?" White Roses waits for a few moments longer before turning her head to the side and pointing to Kaiser. "What about you? How frequently can you get what you want?"
"I'm not sure what precisly you're asking about," the nazi said before yelping in pain as a needle of bone punctured his arm. "It's about fifty-fifty!"
"And you, Coil?" White Rose said, turning to the thin man in a body suit. "How good are you at forethought?"
"Every time but this one," he hissed. When White Rose lifted a hand menacingly, the hiss became a plea. "I do not boast. Literally every plan I've actually tried to execute has succeeded."
"He's telling the truth," Armsmaster said, voice slightly surprised, interfering before the villain's brains could be pureed. "My halberd indicates that he believes that statemnet to be true."
White Rose lowered her hand. "Impressive. To both of you," she said, gesturing to the now-bleeding nazi. "You managed to have most things go your way. Please, tell me how frequently you think I get what I want?" A note in her tone kept anyone intelligent from answering.
"Fuckin' never?" Skidmark said. Hookwolf's hand flew to Rune's eyes, just as Miss Militia's flew to Kid Win's, preparing to shield their innocent souls from the sight of death.
"You're damn right!" White Rose shouted, throwing up her hands in ecstasy. "Finally, someone understands!"
Another silence.
"What?" Velocity asked. When the rest of the Protectorate members looked and him incredulously, he shrugged. "I mean, I think it's literally impossible to get nothing you want."
"You'd think so," White Rose said dangerously, walking to the crippled speedster. "Let me tell you what my past few years have been like."
"I lost my mother. Complete accident, could've happened to anyone. Dad goes a little sad and stops being a good dad, so I go off to summer camp. I come back and my best friend has dropped me for some bitch who can't read a damn book to save her life and won't stop ranting about predators and prey. Then I get powers-" most of parahumans present shiver, save for a certain Ward and two members of the Protectorate "-but does that solve shit? Nope. Instead, I go out, trying to be a hero, thinking I'll ruin into some nice, unambiguous criminals, like Nazis, sex slavers, or drug dealers."
"Drug dealers are drug users who end up in the business to feed their own addiction you dumb cunt!" Skidmark interrupted, ignoring the rapid hand movements from Squealer. "They're fuckin' criminals mainly becuase of unlucky personal shit, while pimps stem from systemic/societal factors related to treatment of women and nazis are more likely to come from well-balanced families with beliefs entrenched by generations of tradition! Don't compare those three groups of scum-cucking shits!"
"Your reasonable-sounding points are not important!" White Rose shouted, waving her hand aside. "All I wanted was a little catharsis! Instead, I got a fight with Lung, which I tried to run away from. Then he tried to chase me down, I had to kill him, and would you look at that, apparently the ABB have another psychopathic cape that wants to kill everyone! No flowershops for White Rose! No peace! No stepping away..."
"You could have joined the Protectorate and been transferred," Dauntless interrupted before receiving a boot to the face.
"Only interrupt with sensible points!" White Rose said. "Where was I? Ah, yes, Bakuda. After dealing with her, maybe, just maybe, I could've expect a little peace. But noooooooooo, instead, on my opening day, where I'd finally have a chance to make some honest money, what happens!?"
"Leviathan," Vista whispered, staring with entirely too much admiration at the bone-covered cape. "You caught him with a pillar of bone, forced dozens of capes to work together, and sent the Endbringer to Pluto!"
"But not before it destroyed my shop," White Rose said, her gentle whispers nearly inaudible under the sudden spike in broken bones. "No, there can be no happiness for White Rose. None at all."
Another silence, punctuated by the growth of bared spines over the restraints on the nearby capes, who suddenly became far more concerned with the mental state of their captor.
"That," White Rose said, breaking the silence, which suddenly was silent, the crack of breaking bones dying off entirely, "is why I've decided to become a pirate."
The shock in the room was palpable.
"What." This time it was Clockblocker speaking up. Dean noted the absolute lack of emotion in his teammate.
"A pirate," White Rose stated, in the peculiarly calm tone only the truly insane ever achieve. "I won't have to obey any laws, I can go wherever I want, and no one can mess up my plans if I don't have any." She nodded. "Actually, that was the reason I gathered you all here today."
"What." Clockblocker's tone had not changed. Dean noted a spike of pure fury in his teammate.
"You see, I want to be a Pirate Queen. For that, I need a crew," White Rose said, as if talking to a child. "So, who would like to stop planning things out and live a life on the high seas, away from machinations, clean living, and disappointment?"
"Fuckit, I'm down," Hookwolf said, shredding his restraints and standing up. He turned to Stormtiger and Cricket, who's own manacles of bone had detatched. "Guess we're pirates now."
"Will I get to kill people?" Brandish asked, drawing shocked looks from the rest of New Wave.
"Sure, why not?" White Rose said.
"Bye kids," the ex-lawyer said, transforming into a ball and escaping her shackles. "Amy, I never loved you-" "called it" "-and you're too much work Vicky."
"Can I join?" Vista asked, drawing faces of surprise and horror from the Protectorate members and a shake of the head from White Rose.
"I'm afraid not," White Rose said. "You have to be fifteen or older to join the crew of the Broken Dreams." The pout Vista leveled could have earned her a Master rating, but the Changer was resolute. "No one younger than me may join."
"Well, if you use the right pronouns, I'm in," Circus said, earning a betrayed look from Coil. They shrugged. "I see the way the wind is blowing."
"Anyone else?" White Rose asked. When the silence stretched on she shrugged. "Ah well, I wanted at least one Tinker, but a crew of five will do for now. Maybe I'll pick up a few more people later. Onwards, mates!" she finished, walking towards the shoreline, bone stretching out in front of her and forming a galleon of epic proportions, with a crying skeleton as the figurehead. "All aboard!"
Once the six capes were on the massive ship, water began to spew from below as massive paddles of bone clove the water and propelled the gargantuan craft. Sheets of bone weave unfurled from three separate masts, so fine as to appear like paper, and caught the wind. Soon, the ship was out of sight, and with it White Rose, now known as the Calcium Queen, Duchess of the Seven Seas, departed from Brockton Bay.
After a few moments of silence, one brave soul asked the question on everybody's mind.
"How the fuck are we supposed to get out of these?"