True Deceit

Chapter 70: Janus

Okay, okay. So I realise that it has been more than... (let me just run the numbers again) Ah! Nine months since I last added a chapter on this. But I guess I'm back, we'll see how this goes. My writing style has changed a lot since I last wrote this, and there are probably some things I have forgotten about this story that are important. Hope you enjoy, if you're still here. Thank you especially to snake_sweater for the motivation!

Janus felt a terrible sensation run down his skin, spreading across his face and chest until every inch of his body was covered sickly green scales. A lively forked tongue flickered and buzzed inside his cheeks, and in the base of his jaw he could feel vibrations diffuse into his blood. 

Patton retreated a few steps, scanning the threating reptilian he could hardly recognize as his love. His voice cracked. "J-Janus?" 

Janus's eyes, both yellow and slit, were picking up a menagerie of colours across the room. He could see Patton's torso in a brilliant white, his external limbs in a warm yellow and the vacant space around him in varying shades of green and blue. He jerked the gloves from his finger tips and observed his hands, which radiated heat and light beneath their blistering scales. "Thermal. Everything is thermal. It's like I'm looking through an infer-red camera." 

"How is it?" Forgiveness coaxed him with a sickening grin. "Janus has the ability to sense his surroundings like a snake, seeing the world in infer-red and feeling the vibrations through the ground." 

The snake clenched his teeth and let out a loud hiss, pressing his dexterous spine against the furthest wall and smothering his ears with his palms. "God, it's like I'm at a pride parade!"

Patton ran a hand through his cyan hair, feeling two furry lumps extrude from his skull. He pulled the locks apart, revealing two soft mouse ears which twitched and fumbled with dread. From his rear a long bendy tail protruded from his skirt. Field mouse wasn't just a nickname anymore. He really was a field mouse. 

Janus felt Patton's pulse through the floorboards and into his ears, a world of energy alive in chest. The snake glanced up at forgiveness with flickering eyes and a few stray tears. "I've been in the grandest form my whole life, haven't I?"

Forgiveness let out a corrosive laugh. "With a fist full of blisters on your face and a rogue eye? I'm honestly surprised you didn't realise you were different from the other sides. Venegance must have cursed you to be be partially in grandest form indefinetly in order to segregate you emotionally and physically." 

Janus was going to yell but his throat felt hoarse, so he simply hung his jaw open to display two arched fangs which dipped out of his gums. Logan winced as he remember what those same fangs had done to him, milked for venom and the stabbed into him by syringe. Only now they were bigger and capable of biting into his flesh. He fidgeted with his tie, unaware of the forcefield that surrounded him. Virgil slipped past the magical barrier, shielding himself behind Logan's abilities as he saw Roman spread his hawk wings. 

The snake stared back at the bird of prey. Roman extended a feathered wing to touch the snake scaled face, but a cleared throat from Forgiveness convinced him otherwise. 

"I wouldn't do that if I were you, Prince Roman. Your feathers are a deadly weapon with a razor sharp tip. The more fearful you are, the more sharp they come." 

"I'm not afraid of him." Roman scoffed with a royal wave of his hand, his sweat rolling down his palms. 

There was no need to reply to the obvious untruth, hence the spirit ignored the comment and began to search for his next victim to transform. His eyes befell Virgil, who looked all the more vulnerable beneath Logic's protective shield. Forgiveness summoned a lighting bolt in his hand, ready to stab it through his chest. "Come out, minion. It's your turn to enter your greatest form." 

"Hey, you can do me next!" Remus demanded. Forgiveness wrinkled his nose with disgust at the bearer of intrusive thought, ignoring his intervention. 

"No thank you, revolting side," Forgiveness mused. "I want you next, 'Anxiety'. If you want me to treat you like anything but a lowly servant, show me some spine." 

Logan glanced over to Thomas, who was obviously struggling to cope with the flurry of emotions, before bending down to Virgil's who had his head smothered by his hood. Logan refused to fall to pressure liked he'd done so many times before, taking a deep breath before cupping his shoulders. "Virgil? You're going to be okay. Focus on me, not him." 

"I'm scared," Virgil trembled, his fingers clutching his forearms. "I can't help it, Logan. I'm Anxiety." 

Logan took a deep breath. "I don't know what is like to be anxiety, to be the embodiment of what Thomas's faces every day. But I know you can do it. I know because you are brave. You were brave when you ran from Janus to join the light sides, and you were brave when you took a risk to help Thomas meet Niko, and you were brave when you came to us for help when you began self harming. Bravery is not the absent of fear, but the action in which we face fear. So when you face yourself, in the grandest form, I know you will be okay." 

Virgil stumbled to his feet, his eyes never leaving Logan's. He was reminded of Logic, the counter to fear, intrusive thoughts and deceit. Logan was his rock. He was everyone's rock. Their would be no Thomas without Logan. 

Logan exhaled slowly, lowering the forcefield and allowing the spirit to cast his magic. On cue, Virgil was penetrated with a lightning bolt to the chest. 

Wow I speed wrote that haha :D