6454/Milano Tales: What My Little Nebs Knows

Milano Tales: What My Little Nebs Knows
Date of Scene:	04 June 2021
Location:	Q-Ship, Hyperspace
Synopsis:	Nebula ends back where she thought she'd end up. Back in the control of her father Thanos. Will her scheme to save Gamora hold up? yes, yes it will.. but at a great cost. Thanos now knows where an infinity stone is.
Cast of Characters:	Nebula, Elektra Natchios

---

Nebula has posed:
    No one ever finds Thanos' fleet and his capital ship because he rarely leaves it in regular space. With the ability to remain motionless in hyperspace he has the perfect ability to remain hidden. The swirls of purple flicker around in the dark realm with the faintest stars peeking through from time to time.

    Ronan the Accuser had done his job. Quickly and efficiently and only destroying three settlements to achieve it. Nebula had taken months and months and months. Bring back Gamora. It was simple. Alive was preferable, but bring her back.

    Ronan expected a fight when he found Nebula and Gamora, they were travelling together on a small ship named the Milano with a crew of criminals and social rejects. A ravager class vessel. Why, he does not know.

    Instead, he found Nebula having completed her mission. Perfectly timed with his arrival. With the dead body of Gamora in storage and Nebula in a cell he flew straight back to Thanos. After the third jump he had simply disappeared and the Milano could chase no further.

    Now, Nebula is stowed on Thanos' Q-Ship and Ronan can rest knowing he is once again in Thanos's good graces.

Elektra Natchios has posed:
The Q-Ship is a dark, insidious place. Long hallways, dark, dimly lit. Technology all over. It's even darker down at the cells level where Nebula now is. Yet in many senses it's also home. A familiar place. One of great pain, but isn't pain love?

Thanos hasn't deigned visiting in the first day. Oh no. Not even on the second. In fact, how long has it been now? Time passes in a different manner in the Hyperspace, no cues as to which day it is. Hours, seconds. They go by, just hoping to draw the next breath. Instead of Thanos it's been Ebony Maw the 'Master of Ceremony'. One of Thanos's top henchmen. Nebula could almost be proud if only Maw wasn't known for both his telepathic and kinetic powers. He has been working them on the cybernetic woman so far, his telekinesis breaching through those firewalls to give the man access to memories, insidiously so..

A great number of cables are connected to Nebula, for even as Maw works so do they record what they can get out of her memory banks, creating some kind of timeline to understand what happened. Thanos wants answers.

Yet eventually he is there. She knows it before the man actually steps in. That weight of his presence when arriving. One that silences a room, one powerful step seen and then a voice.

"Daughter."

Just a single word, both giving that lifeline, that this is indeed her father here but at the same time full of his contempt for the outcome of this mission. Disappointment.

Nebula has posed:
    Like a rag doll, her ability to move disable, she must endure the days of torture by Ebony Maw. Tormenting her body is one thing - she's grown up with the horrors of her body not belonging to herself. Despite the blocker on allowing her to move her arms and legs, they do twitch from time to time as errant signals make it there.

    If she could get herself down from this forced posture she would, but she cannot. It's the inability to fight back as the telepath digs in to her mind again and again. She was laughing when Ronan took her in to custody, but she's been singing the songs of screams on and off since Maw got to her.

    Guttural groans escape her lips as she hears the heavy thud thud thug of her father foot steps. There was one certainty in her memories - she knew she was taking too long and would be punished. It seems she took her time because the punishment would be inevitable either way.

    "It is done father," she says filled with the normal amount of disdain and rage he's come to expect from his most troubled daughter Nebula.

Elektra Natchios has posed:
"Is it, now." Thanos replies, voice heavy and clearly doubting what Nebula is saying. But that has always been his way. He makes his way fully in, large arms resting behind his back and his gaze pensive while he traverses the room so as to give his daughter a look-over.

"I am the one that knows when it is done. Not you. Never you." Delivered without a hint of rage, just that serene manner of his. The one that knows he won't be denied, or stopped. He speaks facts, without room for doubt.

"Tell me what you did." Thanos then finally says. Is he giving her a chance to come clean? Or what is the game here? He moves to stand right next to her, so she can just catch a glimpse of him from the corner of her eyes but not seen him totally.

Nebula has posed:
    A mission report? He wants a mission report after Maw has been ripping at her mind for days?! sweating profusely and shuddering as she glances at his juuust in line of sight body she scowls.

    "I did as you commanded. I learned that my sister was on a ship called the Milano. They favoured criminals for their crew, so I allowed myself to be arrested by the Nova corps," she begins.

    "There I lied to a big dumb one called Drax who .. really hates you," there's a small smirk, "and used him to escape. This gave us the credentials to meet the Milano crew. I told Gamora I had escaped you."

    "This ship was filled with exceptionally dangerous people. I had to devise a method for disabling each of them before I could get Gamora away. She ...liked it there. Dancing. My sister was weak and pathetic," she says drawing on her emotions as a way to tell a kind of truth.

    "When the time was right, I killed the entire crew and put my pathetic sister out of her misery. I am your greatest daughter, as you always wanted me to be. I am the best," she says with an outright sneer. She was just doing what daddy taught her to do...

    "You did not need to send your thug Ronan after us. I had everything under control," she insists. She's Nebula, of course she's covering for something, lying about something or many things. The evidence fits the story at least.

Elektra Natchios has posed:
There is a method to it. First beat it out of the prisoner. No questions, just harsh punishment and telepathic intrusion. Do they know all she is telling them already? Ah, but the devil is in the details and after so many days perhaps they are waiting for slip-ups.

Or maybe that's just how the love of a father is.

Thanos listens. Silent. Unmoving. Unbreakable. He takes it all. Is it so easy to lie to him? Ebony Maw continues to stare though. Watching, sending those insidious whispers that brush on the side of Nebula's mind, trying to find more, bringing up those memories as she tells them.

"Dangerous people." Thanos' voice again. "Perhaps to someone that had not been trained by me, shaped by me. Created by me."

Images appear on the screen. Oa, Krypton. They pass rapidly. "You could had taken them in any of these places. Take advantage of their distraction. But no, here you are. With excuses. You wanted to be the best..."

"But even in death your sister beat you." Such regret on his tone. Why can't Nebula just be better? If only she was she could had her father's love, couldn't she?

Nebula has posed:
    If he wanted to get Nebula angry it's succeeding. Shouting back she declares, "I WON! I BEAT HER." It's true. The real Gamora may not be dead but she could have been. Nebula won. Her face twitches in anger and she grits her teeth. "I did take my time and I _enjoyed_ it father," she says with pride and annoyance.

    Just the kind of emotions that let Maw dig deeper inside. She's hiding something. Of course she is. She was trained by Thanos to resist this kind of days long torture.

    And there it is.. when she was visiting The Collector before she had herself arrested by the Nova Corps. Sitting on a shelf as if it were a most harmless thing in the world. Nebula's eyes flick to it and she clearly sees it, focuses in on it too.

    An infinity stone. An orb containing one of the universes most powerful items, glowing subtly purple despite its containment. She could have told Thanos long before she made her way to the Milano but she attempted to hide it instead. Probably so she could go back later and claim it for herself.

    "I am your best daughter and I proved it!," she says as her body shudders and she stops to catch her breath. Thanos's little puppet on a string. Wind her up and she sings beautifully.

Elektra Natchios has posed:
If there is someone that has learned to pluck those chords on Nebula that's Thanos for sure. The man again listens in silence, the rage and pride simply hitting that wall that he's always had to be immune to that annoyance. Irrelevant. It's all about going deeper, finding out more... and ... what is that?

Thanos takes a few steps forward, ponderously slow, his eyes on the monitors. He is not looking at Nebula now but instead his eyes are on the screen. Only part of it is visible, the side of a shelf ... The image is fuzzy, and it does look familiar to Nebula. But where was it?

Ebony Maw looks at Thanos with a small frown, then back to Nebula. Clearly something is afoot.

"Child of mine." It takes him perhaps a minute but he indeed speaks up again. "Have I not been fair to you? Harsh yes, yet life is not a right but instead it must be taken. With both hands. I have made you what you are. My one daughter who survived..." he lets out a sigh, "And you decide to betray me like this? Why did you hide it?"

What exactly is he talking about? But a glimpse of a stone is seen on that monitor. A very peculiar, familiar stone.

Nebula has posed:
    The cost of Gamora's life. The guilt is written all over her face and inside her mind. She is trying to hard to hide it by glaring and snarling in defiance. But it's not the truth inside her. She can see the memory they have found, the one she tried so hard to keep from them.

    The half truths have always been the best way to lie to father. That has never changed. Laced with enough emotional truth.. "I wanted to get it for you myself, I wanted to show you its power. I would have too, but I had to find my sister first."

    She can't exactly slump, but mentally she is slumping. Mask the bigger lie with a truth father really wants. She had truly hoped it would not have come to this. What's one more toy for father anyway? he was going to end up with it in his possession eventually.

    "I can still go get it for you father. Have I not proven myself?," she says and shuts her eyes tightly.

Elektra Natchios has posed:
There is just that moment in which Thanos looks at Nebula in a thoughtful manner. Is there something more under all that machinery he so lovingly grafted onto the woman? Yet in the end the stone prevails over the 'love' he has for his lost daughter. For one is dead. The other ..., perhaps salvageable. And the stone is just so easy to reach now...

"Perhaps that is your strength. Even in deceit you can bring me some joy." he re-approaches Nebula, his large hand resting atop her head. So easy it would be to just crush it... But instead he says. "Maw, start preparing her for a reset. We will make sure to solve these ..., faults." he smiles at last. Such an harsh but also fair father.

"And let Ronan know he has a new destination to go to. He'd better not fail me." his eyes then back down on Nebula.

"Nor you."

Nebula has posed:
    The rage within her when Thanos declares another 'reset' is like candy to Maw's telepathic mind snaking in to Nebula's brain. "NO!," she cries out not in the rage but in the sudden panic, cold shivers shooting down her body. She fears it more than death itself because every time it is done it feels like a small death.

    --- Many months ago
    (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUhXcpdUyno)

    Nebula is sick of being fathers puppet. She's particular sick of Gamora getting away with whatever she wants to do. Why not her? why can't she just ... leave. There will be consequences for Gamora when she is brought home but they won't be anywhere near as bad as the ones she has suffered.

    Rumor has it Gamora has been seen at Knowhere. Nebula can't find her here now but she did find the Collectors headquarters. She knows what she wants from him, but to get it is going to be tricky. Whatever she sees her father will eventually see.

    Her eyes catch sight of an infinity stone... shit. Just exactly the kind of thing she never wanted to lead her father to. Casually her hands palm a memory scrambler device behind her where she herself can't see herself taking it. She needs to erase what she saw.. but.. she could hide so much more.

    --- Several months later

    Nebula sits in her room listening to that awful music Quill players from Earth. Silly Terrans and their outward displays of joy. She gets up to go yell at him again and pauses in the door way instead, seeing Gamora dancing with Peter. Her sister is.. happy here.

    --- Knowhere

    Pressing the button to enable the memory scrambler she turns down an alley way and enters the black market. Eyes are upon her, she is known. They are scared for their lives but they also want to make money. "I need you to print me a copy of this persons body," she says and places a data chip down on the table. Her eyes sweep over the weaponry on display, "And that. I need a custom version of those fake bullets. I need some deaths to look... very very real."

    --- Milano

    A box is delivered on to the ship, much like many other boxes. This one is special though. She presses the memory scrambler button again and then opens it up. A body kept in status, a perfect copy of Gamora. A gun and special bullets.

    A rare sight.. Nebula smiles.

    --- The day has come, Ronan has caught up to them. She carefully hides the memory scrambler device behind the edge of her bunk and loads the special gun. This memory is for dad. She steps in front of the mirror and lifts up the gun, "I'm going to kill them all." She smirks just a touch and turns to leave her room... (what comes next is in +scene 6200)