The torchlight flickered in the abandoned warehouse. The gathered crowd was reverently waiting. There no pushing, or flaring of tempers as normally expected in a crowd of such size. A child the back broke stillness.

"Mommy, mommy. It the lady going to talk?"

"Soon now baby. soon."

"Mommy, I love the lady."

"We all do sweetie. She is the light we cling to."

The figure stood in the center of the stage, the druid robes she wore engulfing her small frame. The hood hiding any trace of a face, she scanned the crowd and began to speak.

"My friends. More and more of you find yourselves here day after day. Why do you come?" No one spoke. No one felt the right to intrude on her. "Come now. You know why you come. I’ve spoken to you. We’ve shared bread and water, water tinged with salt. Why do you come?"

The child was the only one to speak. "To hear the lady."

"Out of the mouths of babes." She answered. "Why do you come?"

A young man stepped forward. "We come for news. The Word of Salvation."

"Very good. We all seek it and here we reach for it. We are all outcasts and in pain. Outcasts not of our own choosing. We were born special, with gifts from God. For that we are feared and hated. We are mutants. We are all gifts of God to the world.

"Speak my name. Words have no power coming from shadow. Only when coming from the light do they exist for us. Say my name."

The mother spoke. "Dagger."

She threw back her hood and the warehouse exploded with light.

Cannonball sat on the roof of the building. He threw stones down, twenty-six stories later they hit ground. The sound echoed through the ruins of the city.

Sam Guthrie was completely alone. He preferred it that way. No one counting on him. No one to save. No one to fail. No one to lead. No one to love.

Cannonball threw himself from the roof. No screams, no tears accompanied him. At the second floor he ignited his power and flew away into the night.

Dagger stood on the stage. The weariness in her face robbing it of its vitality. At 43 she was still strikingly beautiful, but there was a haunted look behind her eyes. Dagger lived with ghosts, too many of them. She spoke again.

"Some say the mightiest of us fell from grace succumbing to his own inner demons, waging war across the globe. Magneto." The crowd sucked in its breath. "But there was one mightier still."

Someone from the crowd asked. "Xavier?"

Dagger shook her head. "Not the Xavier. Although he was powerful and lead by example. He preached with his dream of unity. Not all dreams come true.

"No, I speak of another. A mighty warrior who could have brought the world to its knees but didn’t. He chose instead to fight for the world. For it. Time and again he answered the call, fighting for the people who would just assume see his death.

"He is who we follow. His honor, his nobility, his willingness to fight for his beliefs. We tread in his footsteps. The world was his ocean, we swim after him. One day he shall return to us. One day the first son will return to lead us to salvation.

She bowed her head and concentrated. She no longer threw light like knives as when she was young. Her concentration forced the light coalesce into a form. The form of a man with pointed ears and winged feet.

The crowd began chanting "Namor. Namor. Namor!"

Dagger smiled

President Gyrich sat behind his desk, staring impotently at the stacks of paper. A knock at the door was followed by the entrance of his chief of staff, who threw a dossier onto Gyrich’s desk.

"Henry, the Namor followers do pose a threat. It’s all in the file. We need to deal them then Henry, and fast."

The President roared to life knocking papers left and right. "Damn it John. They’ve built a religion around the man. The Bill of Rights man. I want to wipe them off the earth. But I do that and I’ll be the first president removed from office. Besides without their precious fish these weakest of mutants are nothing. And no one’s seen him since Atlantis was destroyed. John, we do nothing."

Dagger sat alone on the stage. The congregation had left returning to the abandoned buildings they called home. For a moment she looked as she had years before, with the shadows wrapping around her.

"Step closer if you want to speak with me." She said.

A man appearing to be in his early thirties approached her.

"How did you know I was here?" he asked.

"The shadows have been my home longer than I care to name. They tell me things. Now what do you want to talk about?"

"I know where Namor is."

The ice and cold stung Daggers face. The wind howled, biting into what little warmth remained in her. The wind blew her companions coat aside. For the first time in three weeks they had been traveling, she caught sight of a long and dangerous looking sword. "James, why do you carry that sword?"

"It heightens my sense of security. Why don’t we stop for the night." They stopped their ascent of the mountain and found a cave that gave some relief from the harsh wind. Dagger pulled the wood they had gathered from below out of her pack and built a stack of it for a fire. Light exploded from her fingers and the wood began to burn. They ate their dried meat and sat in silence. After a time, Dagger finally spoke.

"Why a sword? Why not a gun?"

James leaned against the wall of the cave and took a long time before he spoke.

"In my village the war with Magneto never touched us… that is until he set off the electromagnetic pulse over England that plunged it into darkness. When the bullets ran out we fought with whatever we had. It was chaos. The neighboring villages attacked us for our food. This sword is all I have left of my family. I pulled it from my father’s dead hand and have carried it ever since."

"I’m sorry." Dagger said. "I never realized it was that bad over there. But you don’t sound English."

"Scottish actually. Nowadays it’s almost as bad being from the isles in America as it is being a mutant." James leaned forward, the firelight dancing across his face. "I’d like to ask you a question now. Why is Namor so important to you?"

"To start he’s the last of the three great mutants. Magneto, Xavier, and the Sub-Mariner. He’s the last link my people have to the past and our promise of the future. With the passing of Xavier we have no good figure in the public eye. More and more people only remember Magneto and the evil he did. We need Namor to lead us back into the light as only royalty can. But it’s more than that."

The years fell away as she spoke. The present gave way to the past and Dagger relived every moment.

She rose from the street, her left arm useless and twisted at her side. Bodies lay all around her. All fallen fighting those siding with Magneto. The blood ran down her forehead into her eyes. Her eyes burned as she screamed.

"Cloak! Cloak! Where are you?" Wiping the blood from her eyes, Dagger turned to her left to see an ebony clad form lying unmoving in the street. She rushed to it. "Cloak. Cloak." There was no answer. She cradled the broken body against her breast with her good arm. Tears stained her face and blood ran into her eyes. She cried, utterly alone.

"Why have you abandoned me? All of you. I didn’t even know you. Mutant street people fighting for your freedom. I don’t even know you. Why have you abandoned me?"

"Because none of you were worthy!" A voice called from above.

Dagger looked up and screamed: "MAGNETO!" She threw her light knives into his chest driving him back. "Monster. Butcher." A rage grew in her heart. She would be the one to slay the beast. She knew it.

Magneto flew closer, laughing. Shrugging off Dagger’s blows. "Now is the time you die little Dagger." He chuckled.

Dagger screamed "No!"

Two hands clamped on Magneto’s shoulders and threw him aside like a rag doll. Dagger looked into the bare chest of Namor the Sub-Mariner. Magneto looked at Namor and flew off.

The Light of the fire brought out the tears on Daggers cheeks. When she spoke her voice came out something like a sigh. "After that Namor cradled me in his arms like a baby. I haven’t known peace like that since. His presence was that powerful, that overwhelming. And his compassion. In the middle of a war at the height of a battle, he found time to help me. He’s the best of us." She leaned in close to James, letting each of her words drip into his ears. "That’s why we need him. Prince Namor of Atlantis, the Sub-Mariner, the Avenging Son is hope."

James stared into Dagger’s eyes feeling the intensity there. "We should get some sleep Dagger. We’re almost at the top. Once we get there, we’ll find Namor."

They crested the rise. Dagger’s fingers were cracked and bleeding. James’ breath fogged around his head. They stared at a plateau. At the end of the plateau was a cave with an old man sitting in the snow before the entrance. He had long white hair and a flowing white beard. He was clad in rags. This man paid the intruders no mind.

Dagger and James cautiously approached the man in the snow. They were five feet in front of the man when Dagger spoke.

"We’ve come in search of Namor the Sub-Mariner: Prince of Atlantis."

The man stood. He reached into the snow beside where he was sitting and out came a massive pike. The man spoke with a voice that threatened to smash the mountains to dust.

"Search no more. You have found Namor." He swung the pike around, pointing it at Dagger’s chest.

"You have one minute to tell me why you have come and then you go back the way you came."

He smiled wickedly.

"Only a lot faster."