Unsacred Responsibility Chapter 4 - One And The Same Thing

Parker always buried two men.

The first month she traveled with them, they came across the corpse of a Terran, an aged individual wearing a battered suit of gold and red. When they saw the corpse of that man, Parker would stop, wave his hands, and create a grave, six feet deep, putting the corpse below, and covering it with sand. Sometimes, they would find varying versions of that man, all dead. Some would have cores in their chest; her scanners identified some of them as being made of palladium, whilst others were made of an element she had never known existed, but some had no cores at all. On occasion, Parker would take the core; at other times, he would bury it with the man, and at other times yet, he would engrave little words on it and leave it atop the grave.

The words, always, were: Proof that Tony Stark has a Heart.

The second man he always buried was a man wearing a pitch black suit. That man, with dark hair and dark skin, that one, he treated more solemnly. Stopping for long moments in silence, crossing his arms over his chest, and whispering words in a language she could not understand, before he buried him. Her scanners identified the material made of those black suits as vibranium, rare and versatile. Parker never stripped the man of his suit. Parker didn’t let her strip the man of his suit. 

Parker beat her after finding out she had snuck back to strip the man of his suit.

Thrashed her, soundly, as though she were a hapless child in the hands of a malevolent adult. Not with magic, nor spells, which she had falsely believed up until that moment was his sole means of offense, but with his bare hands and seasoned combat expertise. Had it not been for Mantis, covering her body with hers and pleading on her behalf, doing what she could to tame the heinous madness captive within him that Nebula unwittingly unshackled.

It was a dead man, and the vibranium could be of use to me. That was her reasoning. A reason she’d never been chanced to verbalize before Parker’s slaps deformed her face, and his hands segregated her body from her spine.

Had said spine and face not been replaced with robotic parts, she would not have emerged from that encounter still lingering in the land of the living. Whether Parker had been aware of that detail or had not cared for that detail, Nebula could not say.

Later, as Mantis soothed him to sleep, and as she sat in front of an open flame again under the darkness of a starless sky, still fixing the damages done, she asked the woman, quietly and softly, “Why does he care so much about a dead man’s belongings?” 

“Why not?”

“It makes no difference. They’re dead.”

“You’re right!”

“I am?”

“Yes!”

“So why does he care so much?”

The woman had looked at her and asked, again, “Why not?”

Nebula had cursed herself for expecting a serious answer out of the ditzy fool. Yet, it was to this same ditzy fool she owed her life. It was this same ditzy fool who acted as the beauty taming the savage beast, and it was this same ditzy fool, whose warmth balanced out Parker’s taciturn, one-note, empty, dry, coldness on the long stretches of sand and dust and rubble they travelled.

Just as Parker was not sane without her, Nebula doubted that if it were only her and Parker, she would be able to stay sane either.

“Why does he bother burying them at all?”

Mantis gently stroked the sleeping man’s head.

“He doesn’t do it for them.”

Nebula did not understand what that meant, and, as tired as she was, she did not care to seek further explanation. 

By the time the ditzy woman went to slumber, cuddling together with Parker, Nebula stayed awake, her body capable of functioning on long hours without sleep, her mind far away, and her task set before her, making constant repairs and constant adjustments.

Watching the ditzy fool sleep so soundly nauseated her. No, the ditzy fool always nauseated her. There was something about her that Nebula found innately repulsive. A weakness. A softness. An unashamed embrace of femininity. Those were things she was not given allowance as a Daughter of Thanos. To nurture, to care, to foster, and support were said to be traits instilled by a mother’s love, and Nebula could only ever remember a Father’s punishment. A father’s expectations. A Father’s judgment. 

A Father’s disappointment.

Sleep claimed Nebula with great difficulty, as it did, and always did. Before her brain was replaced, she seldom dreamt, and after she had come to these lands, she always dreamt. Of her dreams from before, she could scarcely remember. Yet, few stood out. Dreams of a time before Thanos took her, of a faint, fading face, of a voice, of warm hands, of a mother, a woman, a person, someone who birthed her. Parker had said, once, after she had awoken in cold sweat, upon yet another session of screening her mind for the location of the Mutant, that dreams were windows into the lives of one’s multiversal selves, into the lives of the countless versions that lived and breathed.

Those dreams where she and her sister frolicked hand in hand in a field of flowers, those dreams where she fled together with her, to distant lands beyond the reaches of the galaxy, whispering promises of eternal sisterhood, those dreams where she would find the head of the Mad Titan impaled upon a sword, and bath in the radiance of a cheering, rejoicing, grateful universe…

Nebula came to hate all of them. 

For dreams were windows to lives she could see but not attain, and thus all dreams were salt rubbed into the festering wounds of an acrid reality. 

By dawn, or what passed for it, she awoke to the sound of moans and whimpers, the ditzy woman and Parker, doing it again, as they often did. Heavy, calamitous breaths, harsh, rough grunts, wet, heavy smacks, all accented with raspy, needy moans.

Nebula did not know why it surprised her, the first time it happened; the first time she awoke to see the ditzy bug woman’s breasts swaying and her underwear clinging to her ankles. The two were close, of that she had gleaned, an odd pair, more than lovers, but less than soulmates. Awakening to the sight of a physical incarnation of their connection had been… unsettling.

As unsettling as the ditzy woman’s invitations.

There had not been much of that, or any of that, to be seen in the years she spent being molded into a weapon by her father. She had little experience in the matter and doubted her sister, Gamora, had any either. When she was flesh, she had not known the tender touch of flesh, and as she was, she would never know the tender touch of flesh. Those desires, those yearnings, were taken from her, as was bone, as was brain, as was ear, as was lung, as was tissue, as was meat.

Their morning romp would take two hours, sometimes three, sometimes four, and had she knowledge of what was average for a Terran, it would have been the first sign that a thing was different about Parker’s physiology. As it was, Nebula had never spent time around Terrans before Parker, and were it not for the memories in her mind they searched constantly, she would be woefully ignorant of that abnormality.

“Peter…!”

Their romps always ended with the woman’s high-pitched moans, with her cries for his name, before the two sweaty bodies would disentangle. Nebula regretted the first time she had made eye contact with the ditzy woman after a romp. The intensity of her lust-drunken countenance had stupefied Nebula. Surely, it couldn’t be that good, the insidious thought had come. As it did, so too did a wretched curiosity, one that allowed her gaze to stray, and forever etched into her synaptic drive the image of the long, hard thing that glistened and dangled between Parker’s legs.

After their romps, the camp was cleared, and their journey would continue. The ditzy woman, all but glowing and shining, would smile at her, poke her cheek, talk of being worry and stress free, and tell her with a straight face how spreading her legs and riding Parker could also make her stress free, slowly stoking Nebula’s desire to strangle her. 

That desire, she would never let happen. If harm were to befall the ditzy woman by her hand, death would be the most merciful fate she could envision compared to whatever horrors Parker would unleash on her. 

“We’re about ten hours out,” Parker said. “Once we find it, it’ll make our journeys easier.”

They were travelling east, and had been travelling east, following a lead they had found in the memories of a Variant of her that had been sent here not too long ago, one that was relatively close by. The Variant had been sent to retrieve an orb containing an Infinity Stone from one Peter Quill on Xandar, rather than her sister, Gamora. She had, predictably and efficiently, found it, killed the foolish man without sparing words on him, and taken his ship. Just as she flew into Xandarian space, ready to commence a jump point and hand the orb to Ronan the Accuser, those Terrans in black, those Agents, appeared and left behind a device on the ship. Parker informed her that it was called a Reset Charge.

Nebula grew to hate those Terrans, more and more. From what she gathered, any timeline where she was successful, any timeline where she did a thing that was in her best interests, any timeline where she outshone her sister, or did better than her sister, or was favored over her sister—

They never allowed any of them to exist.

Nebula loved her sister, Gamora. Though not related by blood, adoptive as they were in the pact of sisterhood, she loved Gamora. A twisted, perhaps broken, perhaps even one-sided love, but she did love her sister. This love, she found, had to exist because in the many, many, many memories they scoured where it did not, those versions of her were prevented from seeing another day.

She had wanted to vomit, to heave and retch, as that information, the ramifications, settled, but her stomach was a fine-tuned machine, and she could not physically expel a meal from either orifice. She could not physiologically relay the depths of her revulsion, and could instead only laugh, and laugh and roar and laugh.

Mantis, the ditzy woman, had been the one to calm her. A touch, light, and gentle, accompanying the glow from her antennae. 

“It’s okay.”

She had told her, holding her hand with a tenderness Nebula did not know how to accept, or how to reciprocate.

“It’ll be okay.”

As they travelled, Nebula shot a dry glance to the ditzy woman, who was being carried on Parker’s back, chittering about one thing or the other, as he nodded, and hummed, and occasionally shook his head, either with exasperation or amusement.

Nebula paid attention to the ditzy woman’s smile, her voice, her laugh, and on occasion, she remembered that comforting warmth, that touch. Then, she recalled her expression again, the one she wore after her romps, and the images set something uneasy into motion in Nebula’s well-oiled, purposed machine of a body.

It was something alien and something foreign, and Nebula had neither the words for it nor the ability to understand it.

And feelings Nebula could neither explain nor understand—

Nebula suppressed.

=====)+(=====

“We’re here.”

They had stopped, only once or twice in their many hours of walking, for Parker to make a few checks, cross-checking her synaptic drive for geographical similarities, data, and information. They were relying on the information from her collective network as not only a guide, but also as a tracker, to find and trace locations where Variants of her had been before they ultimately went insane or perished. 

During their short rests, he’d fixed the damages he had done to her body in his beating, repairing them all with almost casual indifference, altering a few wirings to remove redundancies and even exploits she was not aware existed. 

Nebula did not understand how Parker, as a Wizard or Warlock, which he called himself, was so technologically savvy. She had asked him. The answer, he told her, was that once advanced enough, magic and technology were one and the same thing. 

Nebula did not believe it. 

When they arrived at their location, they clambered over a tall hill overlooking a crater and saw it, the target below. Half-buried amidst dust and sand was an M-Class Spaceship, an M-Ship, one Nebula was aware was common to those in the Ravager Clan. It was the same one that had belonged to that Peter Quill whom her Variant had killed. It was the same one that her Variant had stolen.

Now, it was here, in the Void. Her Variant had only managed to clamber out of the ship and make it a few steps, glance about the area, before the overflow of information took her mind and made her go insane, wandering about, confused as to which ‘Nebula’ she was, not sure as to what was real, or what was false.

That Variant had not made it far before she was killed, a stray attack, something, striking her in the head. Now that they had arrived here, Nebula understood what it was that killed her Variant.

Down below, not far from the ship, was a massive encampment of soldiers. Some were pale and white-skinned, others were dark-skinned, but all of them were long-eared, and all wore black armor. They numbered over several hundred, if not more. Nebula had never seen a race of these aliens before and had no knowledge or memory of their existence in her database.

“Dökkálfar,” Parker muttered. 

Slowly, she turned to Parker, Parker, who, as always, had a near-omniscient knowledge of everything, every creature they encountered, every being, every person. 

“What are these creatures?”

“Dark Elves from the Dark World… Svartalfheim,” Parker said. “One of the Nine Realms; a world under the dominion of Asgard.”

“Asgardians, I know. These… elves, I do not.” 

“King Bör, Father of Odin, massacred nearly all of them thousands of years ago because they were in possession of the Aether, the Reality Stone, and wanted to use it to destroy the universe,” he shook his head. “I’d be surprised if you’d heard of them.”

Again, Parker surprised her. How does he know any of this? She pushed the question to the back of her mind and instead gently reached for her sister’s blade. “There are too many of them to face head-on. What is the plan?”

“Plan?” Parker chuckled. “There is no plan.”

“Peter says plans are only needed against the Mutton,” Mantis nodded.

“Mutant, Mantis. Against the Mutant.”

Nebula scowled. “I thought we were here to get that ship?”

“The Milano,” Parker said. “Yes. We are.”

How do you know the name of—

“I’m simply going to get rid of those Elves.”

Parker reached into his pockets and opened his palm. Nebula saw, within it, a vial containing a series of tiny, toy miniatures, missiles, all of them, having the words Stark Industries emblazoned on the side.

“With toys?”

“These aren’t toys,” Parker said. “They're Jericho Missiles that have been shrunken down. And they’re my material component.”

Parker crushed the vial.

“Sixth Level…”

Parker pointed with his index finger.

“Magic Missile.”

The tiny missiles in his hand vanished. Nebula saw, the next moment, a head of one of the Dark Elves explode as though it were a grapefruit crushed between fingers. One after the other, a series of pops rang out. Chaos and confusion became the leitmotif of the day, and bedlam and disorder fell amongst the camp of elves. The Elves barked indecipherable words her universal translator failed to grasp and scattered in varying directions, shooting at air, slashing at nothing, unable to understand or fathom from whence death came.

She, too, did not understand it until she did. They were shrunken, the missiles were shrunken, and they had multiplied and were entering into the ears, the nostrils, the space between eyeball and eyelid, before their detonations commenced, from the inside.

A chill ran down Nebula’s spine as elven heads exploded back to back, and Parker’s finger swayed as though he were a music conductor; screams emerged, blood and brainy flesh splattered the ground, and the reek of fear came as the overture to Parker’s symphony of death presented to an audience of three. 

Moments after, there was total silence. The air was wet with the stench of blood, of urine and feces, and the ground was strewn with the headless corpses of hundreds of elves. The ease of the massacre provided an odd lump in Nebula’s throat, one that had her staring at Parker with words she could not say. In the time they had travelled together, Parker had exclusively only used that Web spell of his to stop and slow creatures they hunted for food, covering their nostrils and suffocating them, and this was the first time she had seen him do anything of this scale, more so, with such…

Ease.

Not even her father, not even Thanos, could have massacred an army of hundreds with such ease.

“What are you waiting for?” Parker called. “There should be a working shower on the Milano.”

Parker, with Mantis on his back, walked forward, and Nebula hurriedly followed after. They stepped past the corpses, and her feet would occasionally step on elven brain matter and blood. She stopped at the sight of one of the weapons some of them wielded, weapons they had not had the chance to fire because they had not known who attacked them, or weapons they had fired blindly, in desperation and panic, before death.

“Are these ones lootable?”

Parker turned back to her. There was an odd expression on his face. Perhaps surprise that she asked, or appreciation, Nebula did not know.

“Yes,” Parker chuckled. “Yes, they are.”