The Other Titan | 2

7|

Gamora stood silently staring at the emptiness of her fathers ship. She was worried about Ori, worried about Nebula. Where were they? Were they even safe?

Thanos came into his throne room, a bowl in his hand. He looked at his daughter and gave the bowl to her.

"Thought you might be hungry."

Gamora looked at the contents inside the bowl and chucked it at her fathers throne. The bowl shattered spraying the contents everywhere.

"I'm not hungry." Gamora looked at her father's chair. "I hated that chair."

"So I've been told." Thanos sat in front of his daughter. "Even so, I hoped you'd sit in it one day."

Gamora looked around the whole room. "I hated this room, this ship..." she turned to her father. "I hated my life!"

"You told me that too." Thanos said. "Everyday. For almost twenty years."

"I was a child when you took me." Gamora said.

"I saved you." Thanos replied.

"No. We were happy on my home planet."

Thanos looked at his daughter and stood up. "Going to bed hungry? Scrounging for scraps? Your planet was on the brink of collapse. I'm the one who stopped that." Thanos smiled. "You know what's happened since then? The children born, have known nothing but full bellies and clear skies. It's a paradise."

Gamora crossed her arms over her chest. "Because you murdered half the planet."

"A small price to pay for salvation."

Gamora shook her head. "You're insane."

"Little one," Thanos started. "It's simple calculus. This universe, finite. It's resource, finite. If life is left unchecked, it will cease to exist." Thanos sighed. "It needs correction."

"You don't know that!" Gamora yelled.

"I'm the only one who knows that." Thanos replied. "At least, I'm the only one with the will to act on it." Thanos walked over to Gamora and placed a hand on her shoulder. "For a time...you...had that same will, as you fought by my side, daughter."

Gamora shrugged off his hand. "I'm not your daughter." She said coldly. "Everything I hated about myself, you taught me."

"And in doing so, made you the fiercest woman in the galaxy." Thanos walked a bit away from Gamora. His back turned to her. "It's why I trusted you to find the Soul Stone."

"I'm sorry I disappointed you." Gamora said.

Thanos motioned for Gamora to follow him. "I am disappointed. But not because you didn't find it." He led Gamora into a small room. "But because you did. And you lied." Lights suddenly turned on and showed Nebula held above the ground. Certain parts of her were a few inches away from her body.

"Nebula!" Gamora ran over to her sister and looked at her. What had they done to her?

Gamora turned to her father. "Don't do this."

Thanos walked over towards Gamora. "Sometime ago, your sister snuck onto this ship to kill me."

Gamora grabbed her father's arm. "Please, don't do this."

Thanos continued. "She very nearly succeeded. So, I brought her here... to talk." Thanos nodded his head towards one of his guards. They pressed something on a screen and a loud noise rang throughout the room. Nebula's robotic parts moved further from her body and she screamed.

"Stop! Stop it!" Gamora screamed.

Thanos stopped.

"I swear to you, on my life... I never found the Soul Stone."

Thanos pressed a button and began to access Nebula's memory files.

Nebula showed up in front of her sister.

"You know what he's going to do. He's finally ready, and he's going for the stones. All of them."

"He'll never get them all." Gamora said to her sister. "He can't Nebula. Because I found the map to the Soul Stone, and I burned it to ash. I burned it."

The memory file went away.

"You're strong." Thanos said. "But I never taught you to lie. That's why you're so bad at it." Thanos began to torture Nebula again. She screamed louder this time. "Where's the Soul Stone?!"

"Vormir!" Gamora lowered her head. "The Stone is on Vormir."

"Show me." Thanos asked.

Gamora was now in deeper than she'd hoped to be. She just hoped she'd make it out alive.