10. Pieces of the Self

. . .

Nebula watched for the right moment to suit her purposes. They were watching closely down on Earth by now, but they were also busy and had their eyes set on specific signals. She and her stolen starjammer transport would slip right through all the bands and energy waves they thought they knew about. The real trick was being damned sure neither the Chitauri nor the Sakaraans now joining in on the harrier sky-fights picked her out and dropped a note to the family business about her presence.

She shoved hard on the stick, spotting some rough snowbound terrain peeking along the clouds as she dove her own tiny vessel underneath an arriving spine-like grey-steel craft. Dropping low enough to the ground to mask any energy trace the invaders could pick up, she shrugged off the small flutter through the village at the sight of her. Their fear would get lost in the noise of the real fight about to start above them. Nebula glanced quick at the display tracking the situation behind her, saw seven of those gleaming yellow Corp ships drop into the fray. Three of them immediately went for a shielding position over the townsfolk she'd just passed and she snarled a little. Wouldn't buy her a lot of time if the locals somehow got their ear about the ship that didn't fit. They probably wouldn't. One alien invader was going to be pretty much like another for the people in the sticks. They might sniff her tail off their yells, but they had no idea what she was up to.

The ship plunged into a canyon leading south just as the screams of more arriving aircraft cut through the sky. Domestic craft. Locals. If she looked up, she'd probably see their combat logos on the rig. The stylized white bird she'd seen when researching the place. An 'eagle' or whatever. The kids. She grinned, nothing pleasant about it. "Good luck dying."

She didn't actually care if they died or not – cannon fodder, that was all these defenses were going to come to in her opinion. Feed the beast till Daddy showed his face. Then she would do her part. Not to save this planet's ass, because who gave a rip about any of these small worlds? But to see his kicked. Now that, that she'd show up for in a new dress.

The starjammer picked up speed as she guided it adeptly through Earth's lower atmosphere, just shy of going supersonic. Her goal was another fifteen, twenty minutes away. The lush, reclusive little country with maybe just enough bite to get what she wanted done.

Her grin grew wider.

. . .

Irani Rael bobbed her knotted back platinum hair as she signed off on the final order to move the Infinity Stone in Nova Corp's safekeeping from the transport vessel she'd kept hidden in deep space to the new holding mechanism set inside the titanium-hard rock core of a lifeless planetoid just on the edge of their galactic rim. Thousands of light-years away from where she now stood, the primary C&C office on Xandar. "Proceed," she said to cap off the formalities, then lifted her head to observe the procedure herself via the live transmission feed.

As she watched, sixteen uniformed Corp officers marched in careful, strategic unison out the back bay of the transport vessel. More already lay ahead to secure the route. The feed filled with the soft hiss of their environmental masks going live. She folded her hands behind her sharp blue jacket as they double and then triple checked their surroundings to ensure no infiltration units had managed to slip in ahead of them.

"Signaling an all clear," murmured her assistant softly. The pink young woman was following a digital feed from the distant team, the nuts and bolts of defensive information filtering through her before giving the highlights to the Nova Prime. "The Infinity Stone is inert. No unusual power reads as they access the new storage facility."

"Good," said the Nova Prime, giving the word a confidence she didn't feel. Loki's information indicated this method would be the safest in the short time, from keeping it in transit to baffle tracking, to virtually burying it in a cage while Thanos focused his ire on the distant blue planet. Loki had made no promises as to the long-term efficacy of the idea, and she hadn't disclosed to him any specifics on what they'd done.

Something didn't fit right, a seed-pearl of discomfort jammed up underneath her instincts. She wasn't able to focus on the transfer long enough to hunt it down, however. Another of her assistants came up in a hurry with the latest skirmish reports from Earth. She studied his face and gave his report for him. "The attacks are picking up speed."

"Yes, ma'am. Three more in the last hour, two of them over the northern European coast. All hands holding fast, but unless the next phase is soon, we're looking at multiple team exhaustion in ten hours. Less if they escalate further."

And then that planet is a snack, waiting helplessly for the warlord to come pull the Mind Stone for himself. She didn't state the obvious aloud, simply gestured at him to forward the reports on to Director Coulson on site. That man had optimism in job lots; seemed confident that they'd come up with something to counter the advance. Bless his little human heart. For his sake, she hoped he was right.

A soft beep from the console below. "Small power reading." The girl frowned. "Not our stone."

Rael spread her hands on the silent console next to her, bending down to read the information for herself before glancing at the transfer feed. They saw nothing, still announcing an on-site all clear. She shook her head and looked at the scrolling data. "Can you pinpoint it?"

"Could be a pulse from a local star. Instruments are being sensitive enough." Small pink hands flew across the console. "Unusual, though. Never seen anything like it. Almost unreal."

"Keep tracking it." She returned her attention to the feed as motion caught her eye. "Transport, report?"

"Transfer almost complete. Forward team is sealing the cage in twenty seconds."

"Anything out of order?"

"Negative, ma'am. If we'd ever done anything like this before, I'd call it textbook." The officer had a hint of pride in his voice. Not unearned. Still. Something tickled at the back of her mind. An urge to grab the comm with both hands and shriek into the line to open the damn thing back up, grab the stone they'd only just placed, and run like hell.

She shook it off as irrational.

. . .

Loki's gloved hands slipped into time-phase as the cage around the Power Stone started to seal, the Corp guardsmen standing with pride in a job done quickly and well. The solid titanium cage was of no concern; with Reality's ability tapped just the slightest – all he dared, and even that much frightening in its implications as the red flow of its dominion threatened to slip his control at first - his fingers dipped through the metal as if it were liquid. It would hide further what he was about, if the cage seemed to hold no tampering. He palmed the sphere Quill and his unlikely little team had managed to corral Ronan's former prize with as if it were nothing more than a stolen watch, and then the hidden cave at the edge of equally hidden space filtered away again into the sepia tones of frozen Time.

His face was tranquil as he stepped away from the now-empty container and the time-locked guards, though his mind was far from it. All the thefts stung him to complete; each betrayal necessary in the short term yet now he understood too heavily the consequences of each. The costs incurred against the trust he'd fought so hard to earn. At least those that needed to know, knew and understood. He held on to that.

The worst was still to come. He allowed a soft exhale and then drifted away easily through time, back to where Death waited for him. She would walk alongside to the fourth stone, the last one he needed to gather. As she had promised.

. . .

The silvered mechanical men stepped aside to let Nebula pass, their pockmarked robot eyes within the anonymous steel masks scanning her with each casual step she took down the deep green line that would guide her to Latveria's throne room.

The metal men thought to threaten her at first as she broke the country's border, claiming their loyalty to their king and maker and insisting that they could do her lasting and fatal harm. It was charming; the first one she'd destroyed a good sparring match but not much more than that. No trouble tearing out its inner explosive unit before it tried to take her with it. The rest stepped back as they saw more plainly what she was and the weapons she'd brought with her. The weapon that she was. As their king saw her, really. Each set of those metal eyes merely an extension of his.

She walked with her bare blue head lifted high and a small but fangy smile on her lips, a princess of war arriving in a foreign land. The smile faltered at the one who greeted her first before allowing her to pass deeper into the throne room.

Beyond the woman, half-metal herself and given a blank, eerie face, she saw him. The green-robed sorcerer king, the technopriest, Victor von Doom. That was a vision she'd expected; the fully armored man resting with a noble's lazy ease in his great chair, legs spread under an emerald tunic as he held a goblet in one silver hand. Not her. That was new.

The cyborg woman took another step towards Nebula and bowed once, deeply. "I am Lucia von Bardas, factor and representative of my great king." Her voice was almost a thing dead, the only life in it was found in the fervent last word. A small chill went up Nebula's back when the face came up to meet her own. "I ask with all due respect for your introduction, so I may present you properly."

"My name is Nebula." She looked past the woman and directly at Doom, at least liking the way her own voice seemed to vibrate in the hall's still air. "I am a daughter of Thanos."

Lucia looked sharply at her as the king sat in unreadable silence. "Do you come to my lord to deliver threats?"

"I came to deliver Thanos." She still refused to look again at von Bardas, at the scars along the woman's face where she, too, had been remade. At the silver eyes that no longer looked quite real and held no life. "But maybe that isn't valuable here." She half-turned, as if to go. Part of her wanted to, instincts crawling into startled life.

Doom leaned forward, but did not speak. It was enough to make her pause, despite her new misgivings. What had he done to the woman before her?

It's not as if I care, she snapped to herself, remembering that she was Nebula, and she answered to and feared no one. One monster is as good as another. Who cares how he treats his things? I'm not swearing servitude to another jackass, I just want to kill the wannabe God that made me.

At night, before the murder dreams started, she would fall asleep remembering the whirr of the surgeons Thanos liked best. The murder-medics. She stole a glance at Lucia's reshaped face and saw nothing there. This was not a woman that dreamed any longer.

"We watch the skies as the grey beasts attack," said Lucia, toneless. "We watch and we make preparations, for all this has been foretold." She looked back over her shoulder and for a split second Nebula saw a real emotion there. Worship.

Something flopped over in her stomach before she swallowed it back down and committed to her plan. "Well, their master is coming. Not long now, either. The Corp is tiring and they won't and can't send much else to back up the local kids. They're gonna have their own big problems once he finishes rolling over the planet. But if your prophecy says you need to step up and take a crack at him yourself, the window's opening. I can get you through it."

Lucia opened her mouth, then closed it as the sound of stirring came from behind. The dark head bowed again, her hair knotted back tight and elegant. Nebula could see the silvery trails of the woman's circuitry as it ran along the human's neck and down into the rest of her body. Not as elegant as what ticked along inside her own skin. It looked effective enough.

"We are interested in what you have to say." The sound of the goblet clinking softly against the armrest of the throne. When Nebula glanced towards Doom, she saw his fingers steepled before him as he considered her. Pinpoints of light glinted inside the mask, the only hint of his eyes and thus his mortal flesh. "Lucia? Pour our welcome guest a drink."

"We don't have a lot of time for dinner parties." Nebula folded her arms against herself, reasserting her attitude. "Tick tock."

"There is always much to learn over a meal, and so, always worth its payment in time. Stay. Speak. We will listen, of course, and then we will... consider what we may offer in return for your gift."

Gift? She tried to not scoff outright. "Money's always good. Gold is damn near universal. The promise of the head of Thanos himself? Now that, big guy, that will buy you some serious shit."

The steel mask regarded her with silent disapproval as von Bardas whisked herself away to set the table. "Negotiate later. You are in Doom's domain, and we fear little. You will speak. And we will set our course once the stars are right, as gods and kings must."

The unease returned before she set her jaw. This was the bet she was taking. So long as Thanos went down – well, maybe they'd kill each other. That put the grin crawling back on her face. Something to consider. Maybe do this cruddy little planet an extra favor while she was at it. "Good point." The mask still regarded her. The hell with it. Play along. Stroke the ego. She shrugged. "Your majesty."

The green folds of his robe curled in on themselves as he inclined his head graciously. All royalty and approval again. She skipped the curtsy, but when he rose from his chair to stride towards the long table to join her, she allowed a tiny bob of her head. Like Lucia had done.

For her part, the rebuilt Lucia von Bardas looked on silently. Waiting for her next command.