Villain Ronan

Once upon a time, in the darkness between the stars, there sailed a great and terrible warship called the Dark Aster.

It was a ship of black metal and dark purpose, commanded by a warrior named Ronan the Accuser. Ronan was a Kree — a people who believed their empire deserved to rule the entire galaxy — and he was their fiercest champion. He wore armor the color of midnight, and he carried an enormous war hammer called the Universal Weapon that hummed with terrible power. When Ronan spoke, whole fleets obeyed. When he pointed his hammer, planets trembled.

And Nebula stood at his side.

She had been assigned there by Thanos, placed aboard the Dark Aster as an enforcer, a deputy to Ronan's cold commands. She stood straight in her blue skin and clicking metal parts, watching Ronan command his army with ruthless certainty. He never doubted. He never asked why. He decided, and the universe bent to his will.

Nebula had seen that certainty before. In Thanos. In every powerful figure she had ever served. And standing in the dim light of the Dark Aster's command deck, watching Ronan point that hammer at a galaxy that had done him no personal wrong, she felt something new stir in her chest.

Not fear. She had never really felt fear.

Something quieter. Like a question she was not yet ready to ask out loud.

But she set it aside. There was a mission. Thanos needed the Power Stone — a shimmering orb locked away on the deserted planet Morag — and Ronan had promised to retrieve it. In exchange, Thanos would use the Stone to help Ronan destroy a world he despised: Xandar, home of the Nova Corps, gleaming and golden and full of people who had nothing to do with any of this.

The Power Stone was found. It was captured. It was beautiful and terrible, the color of a dying star, vibrating with force enough to crack planets in half.

And then the Guardians of the Galaxy arrived.

Star-Lord, scruffy and brave, with his beloved music player clipped to his belt. Gamora, fierce and green, who had once been Nebula's sparring partner aboard the Sanctuary. Drax, enormous and tattooed, who wanted revenge and found something better. Rocket, small and angry and secretly brilliant. And Groot — dear, gentle Groot — who said only three words and meant all of them.

Nebula faced her sister in the skies above Xandar.

They fought through the air and through the towers, crashing and grappling and giving everything. WHAM. CLANG. The golden spires of the city blurred past them like a dream. Gamora fought like water flowing around stone. Nebula fought like metal striking metal. Neither one gave an inch.

But in the end, Ronan had the Stone, and the Stone was enough to end everything.

He raised it high above Xandar. The sky cracked with light. The ground shook.

And then Peter Quill did the most ridiculous, extraordinary, impossible thing. He reached out and grabbed the Power Stone.

One human hand. One Infinity Stone. The power should have unmade him entirely.

But Star-Lord was not entirely human — and more importantly, he was not alone. Gamora took his hand. Rocket took the next hand. Drax took the next. Groot curled his branches around all of them.

Together, the five Guardians contained the Stone's power — and turned it, blazing and roaring, straight into Ronan.

KRAKOOM!

The Dark Aster fell. Ronan was gone.

Nebula tumbled through the burning sky, caught a fragment of falling hull, and rode it down to the surface of Xandar. She landed hard. She stood. She looked around at the shining city still standing against the sky.

She had been on the wrong side.

She knew it with a certainty that rang through every metal joint, every circuit, every piece of her that Thanos had ever replaced.

But a wrong choice you acknowledge is a door you can close. Nebula walked away from the wreckage of the Dark Aster, alone, her boots crunching on the golden streets of Xandar.

The question she had set aside on Ronan's command deck was waiting for her now, patient as starlight.

She would answer it. She was sure of that now, surer than she had been of most things.

She just needed a little more time. And time, at least, was something the galaxy had plenty of.