The sheer amount of people located in the dining area was a surprise to Apophis as he entered the area, following Krobb to the lower deck and level of the ship after leaving the slumber area with the rooms to sleep in on the Dark Aster.

"This here is the consumable deck where all the food and drinks are located," Krobb explained as he led Apophis into the large area where many others were eating breakfast.

"So this is the Nagain that joined us," A man with a metal plate on his head said."It must be something for Ronan to bring him aboard," He commented, studying Apophis appearance.

"Don't mind, Korath; let's find you a spot to sit and eat. Ronan will come to get you when he ready to train you," Krobb said, finding Aopohis an empty spot at the far end of the table, away from most of the others here.

Apophis nodded as he sat down at the spot he was led to, and while Krobb went to grab him some breakfast.

"Here you go, kid, eat up," Krobb said, placing a bowl of yellow and pink mush fruit sauce."It is Lunar fruit mixed with Yoro Root sauce. If you don't like it, then I'll get you a bowl of crispy."

"No, this will be fine," Apophis replied, picking up the spoon and eating the sauce he was given for breakfast.

"Figure you like that better than what was cooked for breakfast today," Krobb stated, sitting with the rest of the older crew on the other side of the table.

Apophis simply shrugged his shoulder, seeing he didn't really look at what the others were eating for breakfast. When he walked, he entered the consumable deck with Krobb.

Apophis was about to finish up with his fruit sauce. That was when he heard his name being called.

"Apophis come here, boy," A male voice called out to him.

He looked up from his empty bowl to see that the voice was coming from Ronan, who was signaling for him to come on over to him.

"Yes, Ronan, sir," He said, getting up from the seat and walking over to Ronan.

"You need better clothes than this for training, so come along with me so you can put on the clothes I pulled out of the storage room," Ronan said, leading Apophis off to get ready for training with him.

"Understand," Apophis said as he followed Ronan's lead closely and silently.

Ronan looked over at Apophis, seeing his expression, and could tell that he would become a worthy assassin seeing how serious he seemed for his age.

The walk leads back to Apophis's bedroom.

"Your clothes are inside your room on the bed. Get changed and grab the weapon I gave you," Ronan commanded."I will be waiting for you out here," He said.

Apophis opened the door and entered his bedroom, where he spotted a dark green baggy jacket and matching pants and put them on after taking off his pajamas. Once he was changed into the clothes for training, he grabbed the small weapon off the shelf where he had left it last night and walked towards the door, opening it.

"I see the clothes are a bit baggy on you, but that's fine. There just training wear for now," Ronan said, looking over the outfit that Apophis was wearing."Now time to start your first day of training, boy," He said, looking back at Apophis following him.

"Alright," He said, following Ronan to the training location.

Apophis followed Ronan into a surprisingly large area that resembled an outdoor field on the Dark Aster and was impressed with how much effort it took to create this room.

"This is where you will be doing most of your training, and occasionally, I will give you training missions to help prepare for an actual mission when the time comes."

"Yes, of course," Apophis said with a nod.

"We begin with stamina training," Ronan said."Leave the chain mace next to me. We will get to that later; for now, run down the fake dirt pathway."

Apophis put the mace down next to Ronan and made his way toward the dirt pathway, and got into a running position.

"Now Go!" Ronan commanded loudly.

Soon as he heard the go, he started running as fast as he could down the artificial dirt pathway. Ronan kept track of his speed as he watched Apophis running down the path and then running back to the start before coming to a stop.

"Your speed is not bad for your age and size," Ronan stated."Now run again until you can no longer see how long you can go until you are out of stamina."

Apophis ran down the path and back to the beginning four more times and was halfway through the fifth time when he started breathing heavily from lack of stamina.

"Take a breather. You lasted four rounds of running and a total of twenty minutes of running," Ronan said, watching Apophis holding his knees as he attempted to catch his breath.

After a couple of moments of catching his breath, Apophis was ready to continue with the rest of his training for the day.

"Now that you have recovered your breath, let's work on your physical strength," Ronan said."We start with a basic climbing on that cliff-style wall behind me," He pointed at the gray wall behind him.

"Sure, I can do that easily," Apophis stated, walking over towards the wall and climbing up to the top.

"Keep climbing until you feel your can't climb up any longer," Ronan commanded.

Apophis kept quiet as he remained focused on climbing up the cliff wall until he fell down on his back, losing his grip as he felt a burning pain in his arms.

"Well, you almost made it halfway on the first day, so not bad," Ronan said, looking down at Apophis on the ground."Get up, and we practice for a bit, learning how to use that mace. Once you are older, you get a bigger version of this one."

Apophis stood on up and picked up the chain mace as Ronan instructed him on how to use it and began practicing using it for another fifteen minutes of training until he was dismissed back to his room for today.

It had been four days now since Apophis had started training with Ronan. He was working on his aim with his chain mace as he swung it by the chain and hit the targets Ronan had placed for him.

"Your aim improved, but you need to add more power," Krobb said from behind Apophis.

Krobb was overseeing his training today while Ronan was away, meeting up with Thanos to pick up Nebula and Gamora, who will be training with him for a week until returning back to train with their father.

"He right. You need to add more power into your swing," Ronan voice was heard as he entered the training area.

Apophis turned towards him as he held his mace to his side and saw two females next to him. The first girl was about two years older than him. She has a dark green skin tone with odd pattern markings on her face. She also has black hair with punk tips pulled into a ponytail and dark brown eyes. She was wearing a loose black shirt and loose gray shorts.

The second girl seems to be the same age as him. She had the most beautiful dark blue skin with stripes of purple. Her hair was a beautiful blonde, with slightly past her shoulders, and a beautiful sliver. However, he noticed that her left arm was made of metal connecting to her hand. She was wearing a pink jacket and matching pink pants.

"Apophis, this is Gamora," Ronan said, pointing to the green skin girl."And that one is Nebula," He said, pointing to the blue skin girl.

"Hey," Apophis greeted with a nod staring at Nebula for a few moments finding her to be interesting.

"Apophis, you can stop for today," Ronan said."However, please stay and watch. It should help you learn."

Apophis nodded and sat against the wall as Krobb left the three young aliens with Ronan. Apophis didn't know what it was about Nebula, but he could not take his eyes off her as he watched her training with Gamora and Ronan.

Hey readers!

The fifth chapter is here and published. I'm slowly making my progress with writing and devolving this story. It has been an enjoyable time planning and writing this story out. I believe that she most likely had hair before her brain was replaced. She either had blonde or dark blue hair based on some of the different versions of her I have seen in shows or comics. I decided that the blonde was a better look, in my opinion, and I could see her with sliver eyes before they were replaced with her new black eyes. Nebula is also two years younger I know from their relationship she seems like a younger sister, but I wasn't sure how much younger, so I decided to make her at least two years younger than Gamora.

Anyway, I believe I have this be the last chapter before jumping into where there older and following Guardians The Galaxy vol 1 movie. This arc here was an excellent way to get to see a bit of the main character's background before he grew up to be an Assassin.

Thanks for reading.

Word Count: 1620