Chapter 20

Nami was seven again.

She was sparing her father, as she often did when she was younger. From the moment he could put something heavy in her hand, and the moment she was stable on her feet for more than a second, her father had started her training. His reasoning being that she was living in a world where there were dangers at every turn, and assassins who wouldn't have any qualms about taking out a young girl.

"Faster!"

Nami obliged as the swings were ramped up. The real blade swung and sang, a strange symphony under water. Her father was a ruthless teacher, holding nothing back. He never even used practice swords, having the mindset that she should have a deep fear for a sharp item pointed at her in an enemy's hands early on.

Nami cried out as the blade sliced her cheek. Not deeply, but not shallowly either.

Her knees buckled and she collapsed, heaving and tired. Namor stood above her, his hair flowing in the invisible current of the water.

"You're weak." He spat. His fingers relaxed, the sword in his hand floating to the ground.

"Please…." She whispered. "Please, let me try again. I'll do better this time!"

"You're so pathetic." Namor reached down with his large hand and grasped her hair, yanking it up. She couldn't do anything but shut her eyes, clench her teeth and feel the pain in her scalp. "OPEN YOUR EYES!"

Nami obliged, seeing her father's furious face through her tear-blurred eyes.

"A strong leader never begs. For anything." Namor snarled once again before dropping her. She stared at the ground as her father stormed out.

She grew until she about four years older in a blink of an eye.

Glancing up, she found herself in a cavern, decorated simply with mourning décor and small candles. The walls held depictions of ancient Atlanteans, painted by humans who didn't know what lay before them. Nami stood up to her feet, her eyes growing misty when she saw what lay before her.

Her father, dressed in his finest armor and draped in a shawl to hide the damage done to him by Phoenix, lay motionless on the slab of stone that jutted out of the cave wall.

"Father…." she whispered, feeling like a scared child all over again. Tears streamed down her face. "I'm sorry that I couldn't protect you. I wasn't strong enough."

She turned around, ready to walk out of the little mourning cavern, only to stop. Her name was whispered on the wind. Her stomach twisted as she turned around, hesitantly, eyes going wide at the sight of her dead and mutilated father sitting straight up. There was horror that grew in the pit of her stomach as the sheet fell away, revealing that half of her father's harsh face was missing.

You are weak… the corpse hissed. Because of you, Atlantis is no more the empire that it once was. But it is now only a handful of its people with only a sniveling, weak girl to lead them.

Nami shook her head in the negative, trying to deny the thoughts that rushed through her head, an echo of her own thoughts that she had throughout the years. She was no longer ten as more corpses joined her father's.

She was sixteen and surrounded by the people who she had lost during her reign as Queen.

Her Mentor, Cyclops…. He stood right next to her 'father', his shades all askew.

Mystique…...the elder shape shifter holding on to her walking stick with her gnarled hands, and her pale eyes watching her closely.

Wolverine…. her head of the security, ancient looking but no less well suited for combat.

Nightcrawler…her closest confident and Adelina's mentor, his tail swishing back and forth with agitation.

All of them, her closest confidents since she took the throne, entrusted to them by her father. Every decision, every battle plan and every move made was done so with their firm and steadfast loyalty and counsel. And yet…. here they stood, echoing her father's words.

She was poorly chosen, a mistake that had been in desperation and lack options.

She abandoned her people for a fruitless mission. A queen that should've stayed behind with her people to die, like a good ruler.

She was a weak heir that had been deserving of a life of a peasant from the moment she was born, but circumstances had dictated otherwise.

She was someone that didn't deserve her crown.

She had failed everyone.

Her father.

Her mother.

Her people.

Her mentor.

Her Council.

Her friends…

"Adelina…..." she whispered as the winged girl appeared. Her body didn't show any signs of a painful mutilation, but she was white-eyed and rigid in her movements. A sign that she was under the control of Phoenix. "No….my friend-"

"You failed, Tsunami." The girl spoke, but not in her own voice. Nami had heard that voice only a few times during life, during a few brief encounters with the possessed mutant that she was very lucky to have survived. "We…...are powerful and absolute. You have lost, your majesty."

"As long as I have blood flowing through my veins and my heart beats inside my chest, I haven't lost anything. Not yet."

Her friend made a gesture with her hand, towards the group of people that surrounds her. A smile, very much unbefitting the sweet friend that has been at her side for nearly all her life, appeared on the girl's face. "Look around you, my dear. Your own council goes against you. You cannot lead with a tyrannous grip, my lady queen."

"You have no right to speak my name!"

"Or you'll do what, exactly? Because, I seem to recall that while you fled like a coward, I obliterated your armies. Destroyed your fortresses. Desecrated your holy lands. All within a single day. And all without a single thought. I have taken control of the entire earth, at long last, while you hide away in the past."

Nami's heart was shuddering in her chest, suddenly feeling the weight of the world on her shoulders.

"You control nothing but a pile of ash!"

"That may be…But you're allies plotted against you from the moment you took the crown. They whispered words of treason against you."

Flashes of times when her friends and council would hide in the back corners of the bases, and in rooms when she wasn't present, whispering doubts and hesitancies against her orders.

Doubt settled in her stomach heavily, a horrible feeling that wouldn't go away very easily. She shook her head to clear her mind and to dismiss the doubt that started to move upward from her stomach toward her mind. The words of her friends, easily manipulated into meaning something else, started to echo her mind.

I'm not sure that she is ready….

Stop.

She hesitates…. that's not good…

Stop it.

She will bring our downfall…

That's enough!

She's not ready. She'll never be ready.

She is too weak to bear the Crown of Atlantis on her head.

Adelina laughed with Phoenix's evil cackle before disappearing into a puff of smoke. Nami tried to run, to escape the unseeing faces of the visages that belonged to her friends and family. But chains shot out of the ground, wrapping around her waist, her ankles and her wrists. They held her in place as the words rose to a crescendo. There was no way that she could reach up and block out the words, the thoughts given voice. With each word that echoed around her, Nami's resolve crumbled slowly.

Finally, she gave up fighting.

Collapsing to her knees, she just sat there, listening with broken hearts and broken spirits.