DC: A New Beginning-Chapter 49: Mera (Extra)
**Mera’s POV**
My name is Mera, and I am the Queen of Atlantis. My husband is named Arthur, and he is the King of Atlantis.
In fact, when I first met him, he wasn’t even considered an Atlantean yet.
He was just a young man who lived by the sea with his father and had an extraordinary talent for swimming.
No, it wasn’t just extraordinary. He was born to live in the ocean because half of his bloodline is Atlantean.
Moreover, it’s royal blood as his mother was Atlanna, the Queen of Atlantis.
Of course, for certain reasons, Atlanna is no longer the queen, and her other pure-blooded heir, Orm, is about to become the new king of Atlantis.
I, by birth, am meant to marry the next king, but I don’t like Orm.
It’s because Orm has openly stated more than once that once he becomes king, he will not hesitate to wage war on the surface.
"Thousands of years ago, the surface rightfully belonged to us Atlanteans."
Orm’s eyes burned with undisguised ambition.
"But now the surface belongs to humans, and we could easily continue living in the sea, with no conflict between humans and us."
"No, they are slowly taking over our land."
I know that Orm is talking about the countries on the surface.
Their technology is very backward, and they’ve made a lot of industrial waste that they can’t get rid of.
To save money, some people choose to dump this waste into the ocean. Whenever Orm talks about this, his face always shows clear disgust.
"We developed clean energy technology and very powerful magic thousands of years ago. We should take back our land and lead the backward humans to a better future."
I know I can’t persuade Orm, but fortunately, I still have enough freedom before marriage.
Therefore, I could only try to avoid him, avoid Atlantis, and even avoid the ocean.
Then I met Arthur.
A "land-dweller" who could be fully qualified to compete with Orm for the throne.
Arthur’s eyes always maintained a lazy calm, completely different from Orm’s ambition and anger. He may not be likely to become a competent king, but he could definitely bring peace.
I began to get closer to Arthur and told him that if he wanted to, he could rid himself of that identity as a land-dweller at any time.
He could go from being the son of a lighthouse keeper to a member of the royal family of Atlantis.
However, Arthur laughed.
He rejected me without hesitation.
"I won’t become the King of Atlantis. I just want to live a good life on land for the rest of my days."
Then a lot of things happened.
A lot that the once bright and cheerful Arthur became quieter and quieter, and found himself increasingly stuck in circumstances beyond his control.
Arthur’s superpowers grew stronger and stronger. He joined the Justice League, and with my help and the support of the Justice League, Arthur defeated Orm and became the King of Atlantis.
I knew Arthur still didn’t want to be the King of Atlantis.
He would always look upward from the ocean floor as if his gaze could pierce through the dark water to see something on the surface.
However, certain things had bound Arthur, holding him firmly at the bottom of the sea, pressing him down onto the golden throne where he would never smile again.
"Peace between the ocean and the surface." 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖
"The people of Atlantis need his leadership."
"A king must bear a king’s responsibilities."
I had told him those things, his friends had told him those things, and even Orm had said to him.
Looking at everything that had been dug out and dismantled from the treasury, Arthur’s brow stayed furrowed for a long time.
He was deeply displeased, but still managed to suppress his emotions for over ten minutes. He turned to me and told me that no other Atlantean could know about this matter.
"Batman does this kind of thing all the time."
Arthur said this to me with worry that, as the Queen of Atlantis, and for his dignity as king, I might go looking for someone to hold accountable.
"Last time, Wonder Woman found a bunch of listening devices in her apartment and went to confront him about it. The two of them had a huge argument and nearly had a falling out."
Arthur was trying very hard to make the whole thing sound funnier than it was. He was concerned and also eager to see my reaction.
I placed my hand on his arm, resting my head on his shoulder, using my actions to show that I would always support his decisions.
"Don’t forget, you’re not the only Justice League member in this family. I’m part of the League too."
Arthur squeezed out a smile, then turned to look at the listening devices. I could still hear the anger he was still holding down beneath his voice.
But I also know my husband. He’s someone who thinks about the bigger picture.
"We should put these away for now. Next time I go to the Watchtower, I’ll pretend to be furious and throw them down in front of Batman. It’ll be a good chance to yell at him too."
That was until an urgent guard rushed into the palace hall. The guard said they had found something terrifying in the underground city of Atlantis.
When Arthur and I arrived at the scene, the place was packed with Atlanteans, with not a single gap in the crowd.
There were ordinary residents, guards, ministers, and even some highly respected scientists.
Everything seemed so strange and coincidental.
The young man named Viktor, who had been "playing around" with Arthur for a few hours, had caused constant shockwaves.
These vibrations led to structural damage on the ocean floor in a certain spot.
It was precisely during these few hours of Arthur’s reckless antics that the entire population of Atlantis couldn’t get any rest.
So, when the structure above the cave collapsed, almost half of the city’s people ran to see what had happened.
After seeing the King and Queen arrive, the crowd instinctively made way.
Arthur walked seriously into the massive fissure in the ground with several scientists who had already gone down to investigate.
Suddenly, I fell into a deep panic.
Ignoring the objections of the ceremonial officials beside me, I rushed into the sea floor crack after them.
The previous structural collapse had caused some seawater to bypass the magical barrier, seeping through tiny cracks in the seabed into the natural cavern.
It was pitch black, with only the voices of my husband and a few authoritative scientists echoing in the distance.
"How powerful is it?"
"At least enough to affect all of Atlantis."
I could feel the water around me slowly going cold and still. The trident in Arthur’s hand suddenly began glowing with a steady golden light.
"Is there anything else?"
"Your Majesty, the technology used here looks familiar. It resembles Black Manta’s work."
I hurried forward, loudly covering up the murmurs behind me.
"Black Manta has always held a grudge against Atlantis. We need to quickly disarm and dismantle at once. Tomorrow, King Arthur and I will go to the Justice League—"
The old scientist furrowed his brow.
"It’s already been disarmed once, but some additional modifications have been added to it that I’ve never seen before."
Before I could say anything more, Arthur suddenly raised his trident.
The authority of the Seven Seas gathered in his hands.
Even though the cave wasn’t fully filled with seawater, the stone walls surrounding the underground cave were damp.
In the soft, drizzling sound, every water molecule was like Arthur’s eyes, ears, mouth, and nose, and every tiny plankton was like his hands and feet reaching out.
A cluster of small creatures pried loose a stone, and a small device fell into Arthur’s hand.
It was painfully familiar.
Just a few minutes ago, Arthur and I had been discussing how to deal with such devices.
In the darkness, Arthur’s figure swayed, and his trident came down heavily to steady himself.
I don’t know how I walked out of that cavern.
I think Arthur doesn’t know either.
The people of Atlantis rushed forward. They all knew how dangerous the things inside were, and the look of fear spread from person to person.
"Your Majesty!"
"King!!"
A little girl was pushed to the front.
"You’ll protect us, right?"
I watched my husband kneel and gently ruffle her hair.
"Yes, I will."
...
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