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She peeked out once, then again, and a third time, only to jerk her head back each time like she couldn't believe what she was seeing.
After standing frozen in disbelief for a moment, she cautiously leaned out for another look… only to find that the corridor was now completely empty.
"Where'd they go?" She frowned, genuinely confused.
Then a voice echoed from above: "Told you, someone was definitely planning an ambush."
Another voice responded, "Okay, but how exactly did you know that from so far away?"
"This isn't the first time," A third chimed in. "You've got some serious precog vibes. Like, remember when you broke into the S.H.I.E.L.D. vault for the Tesseract? You walked a perfect path, zero security triggers, zero guard encounters. What's your secret?"
The voices sounded casual, almost like they were discussing lunch, not surrounding a would-be attacker.
The bald girl glanced upward and nearly lost it.
A section of the ceiling had been cleanly carved open, exposing a shadowy crawlspace. Multiple faces now peered down at her through the hole.
She blinked again.
Among the faces was someone she definitely didn't want to see, someone she'd hoped was light-years away.
A familiar voice called out, "Well, well… long time no see, sister. This is my sister, Nebula."
"What? She's with us?" Thor landed beside her with a thunderous thud. "Pleasure to meet you."
Steve followed, dropping smoothly from above. "We shouldn't linger here talking. But also… why is Gamora's sister aboard Ronan's warship?"
One by one, the rest of the team descended, like dumplings into a boiling pot. The last down was Spider-Man.
Dangling upside down by a webline, Peter tilted his head and studied Nebula with wide eyes. "Man, this trip has been wild," he whispered.
He'd seen all kinds of people, some even shaved bald by choice. But a cybernetically-enhanced, bald woman with technicolor implants on her face? That was next-level.
Nebula was stunned. Just seconds ago, she'd been alone and ready to pounce.
Now she was surrounded, from below, beside, and above. And hovering just overhead was a red-suited weirdo pretending to be a spider.
"Hi," Peter said with a grin, still hanging upside down.
Nebula's glare could've sliced through vibranium. She scanned the group, gritted her teeth, and drew her weapon.
Sitting atop a massive green figure in the center was a masked man, Arthur. Calmly, he extended a hand in greeting.
"Nice to meet you."
"Pleasure's all mine," She growled, and immediately opened fire.
"AHHHHH!!!" Hulk let out a thunderous roar as he batted away the blaster shots with one hand and lunged with the other. In one motion, he slammed Nebula against the wall like swatting a fly.
Nebula's body froze in shock. That was… not expected.
Arthur raised a hand quickly. "Easy, Hulk! She's not exactly an enemy."
"She's my sister," Gamora added, stepping forward. Her voice was low, measured. "I think it's time we talked."
"There's nothing to talk about," Nebula snapped. "Unless you're dead, I've got nothing to say to you."
That might've passed as drama in any other situation. But right now, Hulk was in the room.
It was his first time seeing another green-skinned being. She was smaller, but something about her sparked a strange, instinctive kinship.
That made her words… unacceptable.
With a low growl, Hulk pressed down harder. Nebula choked, coughing up something black, oil or blood, no one could tell.
"You can't talk to the green lady like that!" Hulk bellowed, face contorted in rage. His teeth bared, his expression feral.
"It's okay! It's okay!" Gamora rushed in, calming him quickly. "She… didn't mean it like that."
After that, Nebula didn't stand a chance. Whether physically or psychologically, she'd lost any edge she had. Resistance was no longer an option.
Hulk let out a final snort and dropped her. She crumpled to the ground, her body twisted and dented from the crushing grip.
Arthur rubbed his chin thoughtfully, then turned to Gamora.
"We'll deal with your family drama later. Right now, we don't have time to waste."
Gamora gave a firm nod in response, just as another towering figure elbowed his way through the group. Without a word, he raised a fist the size of a car engine and knocked Nebula out cold with a single punch.
She didn't even get the chance to speak.
Gamora blinked in stunned silence, her hand half-extended toward Nebula, only to find Arthur had already moved. He caught Nebula mid-fall and hoisted her over his shoulder.
"You two can catch up when we're not in a warzone," Arthur said matter-of-factly.
Gamora had no choice but to nod again, even as her mind reeled.
As they moved deeper into the ship, a bunch of off-duty heroes, clearly with nothing better to do, began speculating about the complicated relationship between Gamora and Nebula.
Even the most oblivious among them could tell: this wasn't just your standard sibling rivalry. There was history here. Pain. Maybe even something unspoken they hadn't come to terms with.
Gamora let out a weary sigh. They were no longer strangers. After all this chaos, battling Ronan's forces side by side, she realized they'd become something else.
Comrades?
Fellow survivors?
Maybe even friends forged in the crucible of shared near-death experiences.
Whatever they were, she no longer felt the need to hide the truth.
And so, as the group walked through the dim corridors of Ronan's warship, she opened up.
She told them how her world had been torn apart when Thanos invaded, reducing it to rubble.
How she was taken in, not adopted, but conscripted, by the Mad Titan himself. How he trained her, reshaped her, turned her into a weapon. And how, during that brutal time, she'd met Nebula, a girl who had once been bright, even beautiful, and watched her slowly be dismantled and rebuilt into the hardened machine she'd become.
She didn't hold back. She spoke with clarity and calm, the kind that comes only after long-accepted trauma.
By the time she finished, a strange silence had fallen over the group.
Everyone had a look. Not pity, but recognition. Resonance. Each of them carried scars. Loss. Burdens they never asked for.
Star-Lord's crew especially felt it. Every one of them had their own painful past. And Gamora's story hit home.
The Earth-born members glanced at Arthur, recalling how he'd spoken, more than once, about the threats Earth would face. They'd believed him, sure. Trusted him without question. But trust didn't equal understanding.
Now, with Gamora putting the horrors into words… Now, it all felt real.
Not theoretical. Not "somewhere out in space."
Real.
As her tale ended, the group buzzed with quiet curiosity. What would happen next between Gamora and Nebula? Would they reconcile? Could they?
But the moment passed as Arthur raised a hand, eyes narrowing ahead.
"Focus up. We've got movement, heavy numbers. Looks like Ronan's running out of patience."