“When men speak ill of thee, live so as nobody may believe them.”
― Plato
‘Hold up there, buddy,” Giant’s body stilled its rush, halted by Ven’s words. The cathedral doorway towered above, obsidian and gold interwoven into complex mosaics. “The lightning inside is different… sharper.”
Ven squinted through his Giant’s eyes, into the blinding luminance of the thunderous temple's interior. Solid sheets of micro-thin electricity, white bolts edged in distorted purples and golds. His consciousness stepped forward and took control of the Giant’s body.
“Let me drive for a bit…” Ven formed a layer of aura around their skin, pitch black armour that left them more shadow than anything else. Separated from the world, Ven stepped forward and past the threshold of the door. “So much power!”
His fingers trailed through the curtains of lightning, slowed by the sheer volume of strikes against his protected skin. Its purity rivalled the energy of his system, but geared toward ruination instead of growth. Every inch of his body was under assault, weighed down by an electric rain.
It lasted for fifteen steps, before he moved beyond a hard divide. Seated before the open door, cross legged and surrounded by an oasis of calm, was a translucent skinned man. Veins, filled with stationary blood, sparkled like gemstones. Even his silent heart was on display beneath crystalline ribs.
“Dead… no, frozen… or in some kind of stasis,” Ven circled the oversize humanoid, eyes of truth activated in full. “But… what ARE you?”
He shook his head and dispelled the runes behind his pupils. This being had a near perfect body, designed to channel and contain vast amounts of energy, yet it was devoid of power. It sat in an ocean of lightning, starved for energy to the point it barely seemed alive.
“I wonder…” Ven glanced at the bubble around them, the only space he’d encountered on this floor where lightning held no sway. Hand extended, Ven formed a web of shadow around the stationary man. “Let’s see if this barrier is your doing, or your prison.”
One pull was enough to raise Ven’s eyebrows. The man was heavy, nearly rooted in place by a vast weight that didn’t match his size. Ven rolled his shoulders and reinforced his aura, a billow of shadows that devoured the force that held the figure in place. One inch at a time, the crystalin man slid toward the bubble's edge.
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“Let’s see if I’m right,” A final tug and they were both under the electric rain. For a moment the world was unchanged, sheet after sheet of lightning peppered both his aura and the crystal being’s skin. “I guess…”
“I’M FINALLY FREE!!!”
A sourceless bellow rippled through space, joyous and crazed. A strange suction tilted Ven toward the body in his grasp, while a burst of raw force shoved his aura away. Lightning straightened to perfect lines, aimed toward the translucent figure’s heart.
“A TRILLION, TRILLION YEARS… WASTED IN AN INCORPOREAL CLOUD!” The man’s fingers twitched, while his expressionless face twisted in a frown. Ven hunkered down, enveloped in layer after layer of his aura as the being became the centre of an electric vortex. “WHEN I FIND THAT TITAN, I’LL RIP HIS CURSED SOUL APART!”
Ven stepped back as the lightning concentrated further, compressed under the man’s transparent skin and layered between the walls of his cells. A glance out the cathedral door showed even the lightning within the realm travelled toward them in a rush.
“TURN ME INTO A COG IN YOUR MACHINE, WILL YOU?” Diamond carved eyes snapped open, filled with murderous wrath. “NO ONE BETRAYS INDRA AND LIVES!!!”
Wrapped in a solid orb of shadow, Ven released a sigh. The Titan’s reputation was certainly a mixed bag. Worst of all, hated or loved, it generally reflected back on Ven as the only other ‘Titan’ in existence.
“HMMM?” Indra squinted at the lightless spot that was Ven’s position. He rose in a flash, surrounded by the remnants of the lightning ocean. “YOU DARE TO BE HERE WHEN I AWAKE, TRAITOR TO THE CAUSE?”
Thick bolts of emerald and blue coiled around the enraged gods fingers, poised to fall upon Ven’s head. A twisted ball of frustration surged from the depth of his heart, a wrath of his own that brought clouded skies to every world in his inner realm. The runes on his Giant’s skin, different from the script on his true body, lit a deep crimson.
“I’m sick of people holding a bunch of ancient bullshit over my head,” Ven straightened his back and condensed his aura into armour for a second time. Back lit by the runes, blood red light that harvested the energies they touched, he took a step toward the taller man. “I AM NOT THE TITAN, AND I DON’T ANSWER TO YOU OR ANYONE ELSE!”
The runes on his skin fused into his aura, an eruption of red-black light that staggered Indra back a step. His crystalline skin cracked, fragmented and pulled toward Ven by an impossible absorptive force. Space folded inward, layers of reality shaved free and consumed by the unnatural glow.
“You are not the Titan, but you share his blood…” Indra ran a hand over his damaged skin and the broken lines vanished. He dispelled the lightning from his fist and squinted his electric eyes at Ven’s runic armour. “But, you are right, you don’t answer to me… it seems that I have you to thank for my freedom?”
“That’s right,” Ven took a deep breath, an attempt to steady the chaotic emotions in his heart. Even after the Giant’s ‘evolution,’ the combination of their powers was a test of his willpower. “Care to explain how you know the Titan, and why he separated your spirit from your body?”
“No more than you would care to explain why you share his blood,” Indra snorted as he stretched his long unused body. “How about we agree to go our separate ways, I won’t hold you accountable for your ancestors actions.”
“You’re welcome to leave, if you can,” Ven shrugged and let his runes and aura fade away. They took the Giant’s animal rage with them and returned clarity to his thoughts. “I’ve never encountered someone in here that could get out on their own.”