Titans Resistance #27

Now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates.
Life on the Mississippi

The only rules that really matter are these: what a man can do and what a man can’t do. For instance, you can accept that your father was a pirate and a good man or you can’t. But pirate is in your blood, boy, so you’ll have to square with that some day.
Pirates of the Caribbean


“Do you want to talk about it?”

Rose looked at Terra out of her good eye. “Depends why you want to know.”

“Two reasons,” she said, as she ship pulled away from the pirate anchorage. “First, because we're friends. Second, because maybe it will help me understand what you mean by being 'strong' better.”

Rose thought about it. “Yeah...okay. Bear in mind, this isn't a story I tell just anyone. Not even my own crew, those that weren't working for my dad at the time. Let's go below.”

Rose led Terra to her own quarters and closed the door behind her. “I was twelve years old. Already learning dad's trade; and certainly enjoying every minute of it. He just wasn't....there as a father, really. But that's not the point, not right now.

There have been pirates who didn't go along with dad down the years, of course. But by their very nature, they didn't want to form a counter-organization. Sometimes in the old days, pirates would band together to form temporary fleets, but that was as far as it went. And one formed now, to fight him.

They eventually lost, of course. But they had it in mind to make him back down.”

“They took you as a hostage?” Terra shuddered.

“Kinda. They started to. But they didn't get very far....”



“CATCH THEM!” Deathstroke roared. “They're not getting away with her. I don't care if we have to chase them into Markovian territory!”

The Pirate Lord was in a real bind. He couldn't open fire on the enemy ship without risking Rose's life. He had sunk the other two, but he didn't dare target the ship she was on.

The rival pirates were counting on that; they were hoping that they would lose him or that he would run out of fuel, and they would get away.

But they were not going to get away. Deathstroke wouldn't allow the possibility to even exist.

A much younger, haler Wintergreen had his eye to the periscope, his mouth a tight line. He valued the girl almost as much as her father did, having served her old man since his escape from the US Military.

Suddenly, Deathstroke frowned. “They're...turning? Slowing??”

Wintergreen paled. “Sir....she just jumped overboard.”

“WHAT?!?”

“Not fell, wasn't thrown, jumped. A clean dive.”

Even as his heart filled with dread, Deathstroke grinned a fierce grin and pumped his fist. She was brave. But would she even survive the fall into the water?

Evidently she had. “She's making a swim for it,” Wintergreen reported. “My God, sir. She got hold of her blades again, somehow. That's how she got free.”

Deathstroke grinned. “That's my girl.”



Rose's blades still had blood on them; even the water hadn't washed all of it away yet.

They were putting down a boat behind her. She knew that. She didn't care.

This was a mistake...

She wasn't trying to get back to daddy's ship; she knew she didn't have the stamina for that. But the reason she had made a break for it and dived over the side in the first place, was because she had seen one of those tiny islands. An atoll maybe. The sort poor souls got stranded on; just a thin strip of beach and a couple palm trees. She would make a stand there; fight off any of the fools before Daddy could catch up.

After one got past the foolhardy risk of diving off the side of the boat in the first place (she was lucky not to have broken any bones), the plan was essentially sound. The problem was, the enemy was going to catch her before Deathstroke could close the distance. That in and of itself didn't bother Rose overmuch; she was sure she could fight them off.

But she was weary, tired and by the time she washed up on the island, cold and miserable. The pirate foes, on the other hand, had rowed along in a boat.

She stumbled out of the waves, rolling up the beach. She had held on to both weapons, but now she was tired.

Three men closed with her.

“You can't win, idiots,” she snarled. “Deathstroke will be here in less than five minutes. What will you do then?”

“Have fun with you first,” on of them sneered in a Caribbean accent.

She lunged and spun with the lethal grace of a dancer for which she would become renowned. One of them went down almost immediately, beheaded; the other two yelped and dodged back. One was cut on the arm, one on the leg, both were bleeding.

“Surrender now, and daddy may let you live. Maybe.”

They moved in again.

“You idiots really just don't learn, do you?!” she cut the arm off the right hand one, and he fell and writhed on the sandy beach...but the left hand one grabbed her blade...and yanked it away.

Rose screamed in shock and rage. And slashed at him. He parried clumsily; once, twice, three times.

Then they both went for the killing blow. She got him through the heart....and he stabbed into her eye.

She screamed.



When Deathstroke got there, Rose was on her knees...not sobbing, but cursing in rage.

When she looked up at him, he flinched back in horror.

“Wintergreen, destroy their ship!” he roared into his communicator..

The Sweet Lilli opened fire with a full barrage, and tore the enemy ship in two; it would sink in mere minutes.

But Deathstroke paid no attention to that now. He gathered his daughter into his arms. “We'll clean and disinfect the wound, and give you one of my spare eye patches,” he said soothingly.

She cursed and raved into his chest armor, and finally...finally began to sob, to cry out of her one remaining eye.

As he held her, Deathstroke looked down and noted that the pirate whom Rose had cut the arm off of was still twitching. He had lost a lot of blood, but he would survive.

Deathstroke was pleased by this. It would give him the opportunity to make him suffer.

For a long, long time.



Terra stared at Rose for several long minutes before she found her voice. Certain elements of her friend’s personality were becoming clear to her.

“No wonder you didn't like Robin disarming you,” she finally said.

“Yeah,” Rose answered. She wasn't crying. There wasn't even a gleam of wetness in her eye. She only looked cold and stern.

Terra hugged her.

Rose stiffened for a moment, then hugged back.

Terra let go.

“Right,” Rose said, visibly putting on a business like facade, “Let's get back to work. I plan to hit Markovian shipping hard and fast, and you know a thing or two about them, even now, yes?”

“Yes, of course. Rose....”

Rose looked back at her. “What?”

“Thank you for confiding in me.”

Rose smirked and some of her normal spirit returned with a gleam in her eye. “I haven't even told you about my half-brothers yet.”

“What!?”

But Rose had left the room.



Rose stalked past Anarky, sitting and moping on the deck.

“Oh, cheer up,” she told him. “Anyone would think something bad happened to you.”

“Well, a bad girl happened to me,” he agreed.

She laughed. “I shall choose to take that as a compliment.”

He shrugged. With his mask on, it was hard to tell what he was thinking, but he seemed in a better mood than before. She briefly put a hand on his shoulder before moving on.

“The wizard is standing just behind the prow,” Wintergreen reported sourly.

Rose looked, and almost laughed. Deriven was letting the spray foam over him, it was getting his fancy robes wet.

“Watched the Titanic film too many times, I see,” she said, by way of greeting.

Deriven took so long to answer for a minute she thought he was being rude. But finally, he said, “I do not recognize the reference,” in a puzzled tone of voice, still looking out to sea.

“Popular culture must be one of the things you need to catch up on,” she said. “What are you doing up there, anyway?”

“Trying to contact the Atlanteans psychically,” he answered.

“Really. Any luck?”

“Not so far,” he admitted in a frustrated tone of voice.

“Well if you can stop astral projecting, or whatever, for a moment, you can come down and get ready to help us fight some Markovians. I trust you can use your powers to great Dungeons and Dragons effect?”

“Again, I do not understand the reference,” Deriven said, finally turning to look at her. He did not blink in the sea spray. “But if you mean, can I use my powers offensively against your enemies, then yes. I have before,” he reminded her.

“Wow, we definitely need to give you a crash course in pop culture,” Rose said, amused and amazed in roughly equal measure. “Need to talk to Robin about that when he rejoins us.”

Deriven shrugged as he stepped down lightly from the prow. “If you say so.”

“We're coming up on a Markovian merchant flotilla,” Wintergreen reported. “But they do have two armed warships.”

“Good, the Empire is growing slightly less stupid.” Rose smirked.

Deriven frowned. “How is that good?”

Rose grinned. “Because I like a challenge.”

Deriven raised one eyebrow. “I'm not sure I understand.”

“Rose is a fighter,” said Terra, coming over to them with Anarky in tow. “She lives for this kind of thing.”

“Ah,” Deriven nodded.

“You know, for someone so powerful, you seem a bit ignorant of Earth,” Rose said to Deriven.

The mage shrugged. “Hard to keep track of all the details of the world when I and my predecessors were separated from it for so long.”

Further conversation was derailed when the crew started shouting....the Markovian flotilla was in sight.



While it was true that the flotilla had armed protection, there were also sailors whose only job was to crate goods from here to there. Rose was briefly worried that Anarky—and more importantly, Terra—might have a problem with that.

Her concern was misplaced. Anarky saw them as greedy servants of the Markovian elites, and Terra understood—however unhappy she might be about it—that the financial aspects of the Markovian machine had to be stopped as surely as any other. She might not like killing the unarmed sailors, but she would do it. She went up several notches in Rose's estimation.

Green Lantern and Argent joined them on deck. Normally Rose wouldn't take on a defended flotilla with just her own ship—but then, normally she wouldn't have some of the Titans with her. Of course, they had helped her against an enemy strike force already, as Deriven had mentioned.

Without need for discussion, Green Lantern shielded the Sweet Lilli, and Argent formed an arc of silver which she rode upon, Rose and Anarky climbing on behind. Terra flew along on one of her rocks. Deriven merely floated along, his robes billowing outward in the sunlight.

The sunlight reflecting off the choppy waves affected their vision somewhat, but then, that was as true of the enemy as it was of them.

With Lantern shielding the Sweet Lilli, that vessel could take on one of the enemy escort ships on its own. Rose and her little strike force headed for the other.

Deriven was the first to strike. He hurled a fireball at the enemy ship. It exploded on impact, denting the hull and sending sailors and marines flying.

But the enemy was far from finished. Three cannons opened fire.

While Argent could protect herself with her powers to an extent, it was nothing like Green Lantern's she could not shield that extensively; her powers were more purely offensive.

None of them were struck directly by the cannon fire, but the explosion was close enough to knock Argent, Rose and Anarky into the water.

“Go on!” Terra shouted to Deriven, who merely nodded. She floated down, dodging another cannon shell as she went, and plucked a spluttering Rose and Anarky from the water. “Argent!” she screamed. “Where's Argent?!”

“I don't--” Rose began, coughing and spluttering.

Argent came up out of the water, screaming in rage. With one sweeping gesture, she hurled more than a dozen daggers of silver energy at the enemy craft. Two of them found enemy soldiers and killed them; the rest slammed into the hull and through it, doing further damage inside.

Rose grinned like a predator. “See that, princess? That's strength!”

“That's unfocused rage,” Terra answered. “Any of us can do that.” She gestured and a chunk of rock from the sea bed ripped into the hull. “Focus is more important.”

Rose shook her head. “Focus is something you learn as a kid. Anger is more important.”

“Anger is inborn,” Terra sighed. “Focus makes anger work.”

“Speaking of focus, debate later!” Anarky shouted.

Terra lifted both them from the waters and followed Argent, who was closing with the enemy vessel.

Deriven, closer still, gestured casually, and some sort of brown gas enveloped the deck. Soldiers and marines fell over, gagging. Terra could see their skin wither in the brown smoke.

“Clear the air a bit, would you?” she asked Deriven politely. The mage nodded, not taking his eyes from his task, and gestured. A path cleared, and she dropped Anarky and Ravager onto the deck. Rose grinned, unsheathed her weapons, and charged after the survivors, screaming battle cries and threats.

Anarky looked up at Terra, shook his head, and went the other way. Terra sighted, and brought up another rock as a personal shield. Just in time; a cannon blast tore it apart. Flinching back slightly, she targeted those cannons with her next boulder.



Argent had come around to the other side, and was hurling more silver blades into the hull. There was a crack behind her, and a bullet zipped past, scoring a bloody line over her shoulder as it went. She whirled, and saw a sniper on one of the merchant ships. She stabbed an accusatory finger, and her next silver bolt went right down the weapon's barrel. It exploded in the man's face, and he died screaming.

She turned again to see Terra smashing the ship's cannons with her rocks. Deriven had summoned a pack of wolves, which were prowling and growling over the deck. The others seemed to have this ship under control, and the Sweet Lilli had engaged the other escort vessel. That left the three merchant vessels, which clearly had armed soldiers and marines.

Nursing her wounded shoulder, Argent reflected that this wasn't a real surprise either. The Markovians were many things, but one thing they weren't was tactically stupid. The mere fact that they only sent two escort ships should have been a warning bell in and of itself.

A marine was setting up a tripod on the merchant vessel's deck; to Argent's unpracticed eye, it looked like a missile launcher. Sighing, her earlier rage spent, she got back to work.



While Argent had done a great deal of damage to the escort ship and Terra had crushed its weapons, it was still essentially seaworthy. Leaving Deriven to clean up on the deck, Rose led Anarky and Terra below.

Rose looked back to see Terra had a few pet rocks with her, floating after like obedient children. She was tactically sound; Rose had to give her that. But Terra didn't seem willing or able to understand that you had to eat life with shining teeth. It was too bad, really. The day would come when her former countrymen would exploit that weakness, and when they did Rose would mourn her loss. Until then she would enjoy their friendship, flawed though it was.

She gave no further thought to the matter, at least for the moment. Anarky was at her side, and nodded to a closed reinforced door ahead. In contrast to Terra, Lonnie was coming along nicely. She rather suspected he would be much more pliable after this.

The door he had indicated had no special reason to be defended in such a way. Rose had lived on ships most of her life, and knew a special security modification when she saw one.

“The door is likely trapped,” she said softly. “If we use charges or just bash our way in, we'd find a nasty surprise waiting for us. Terra, would you?”

“Of course,” Terra said. “One side, please.”

Rose did as directed, backing up as well, and indicating for Anarky to do the same. There was no telling what was behind that door, but if it was rigged with explosives they had best get out of range.

Terra's first rock badly dented the door but did not bust it; it did not explode. Rose frowned; had she been wrong?

Then the second rock impact, punching a hole right through.

There was a pause, then they began to move forward...

...until something came climbing out of the hole in the door they had made....



Argent was enjoying her attack on the merchant ship a little too much.

She was shredding the deck with wave after wave of sharp-edged silver plasma. She didn't have a sadistic streak as such, but she felt it was right and just that Markovians should scream in agony as they slowly died, after what they had done to her personally, to her family, and to her people.

Not sadism, but good old fashioned revenge.

Then Deriven cried out to her.

“Argent! There's something below the surface!”

“Your Atlantean friends?” She called back.

“Not hardly. I think it's another Markovian ship! I can sense it!”

“A submarine....great.” She peered down into the water. “Can you help me aim?”

“I'll try....watch out!!”

She had no time to ask watch out for what, nor any need.

A missile came erupting up out of the depths, aimed right at her face.....

To Be Continued![/b]