Artificial 7: Genesis Requiem

Chapter 48: Failure

Narration: A few hours' worth of hiking and mild flying via aura even though the twins wouldn't call it flying,
they were,
in fact, flying.
The few Legates that came with were welcomed into the base where all the lights were out,
major horror movie vibes all around, and Nero let's go of Natalie as he aims two guns.
One at Natalie just in case they do something funny and another at one of Legates as just in case they pull something.
Poor Natalie cried on the twins and Selena and tried talking between sobs but couldn't say anything hardly other than she was scared.

Selena gives Natalie to Kenneth as Natalie screams, cries,
and throws a tantrum over Selena and the twins going with Nero The Abyss. Minutes later,
in the infirmary section of the base.
The twins were bound by shadow chains to two chairs,
and Selena chained to a different chair in the corner of the room.
It was dark with only a desk lamp as the only light source, and even then,
it flickered here and there.

Nero brings out a rolling tool chest with a trey of torture tools and begins to go to work on Chase first,
running a scalpel across his skin and Chase being forced to hold his healing factor back so much so that the scalpel can draw blood.
Seeing as Chase didn't give Nero the reaction he wanted,
he grabbed a drill and stuck it into Chase's thigh in hopes he would scream but to no avail.

Finally,
Nero tried some other tool to clamp down on Chase's toes and slowly rip them off,
one at a time.
Still no screams as the twins gave Nero a board look.
"So, Doctor not so scary. Where's Genesis? I would have thought he'd want to finish me off himself?"
Selena taunted as Nero tried more tools and growled at the lack of screams. "Brother and I had a disagreement. He believes I will fail, and he doesn't want to stick around as just in case."
Selena busts out laughing as Genesis is doing what she predicted he'd do.

"Hahaha! So he abandoned the shop? Wow, I figured he'd run when he started losing. He always was the type of guy to never bite off more than he could chew. Unfortunately for him, the price was too high for the success of his plan. Anyway, I'd hurry up and kill those two cause this is getting quite boring, just sitting here mocking you."

Veins begin to get visible around Nero's forehead even though he looks visibly calm on the surface.
"So.... if you're going to kill us, can you get on with it? Geez, you can't even kill someone properly. No wonder you guys suck and are easy to kill."

Sora says with the right amount of sarcasm to get one of the bat like wings on Nero's back to grab a gun from his side holster and put a bullet in Sora's feet to shut her up.
"Yeah, torture doesn't work on us. We got a date with Satan, and you know how the Demon King hates to be kept waiting. Come on, chop chop!"
Chase taunts.
Adding his own flavor of comedy to the situation and hand and Nero had enough,
causing the blade on his mechanical bat wings to decapitate the twins.
Both their heads hit the floor as he breathed slightly quicker.

"There! You're dead! Are you happy now?! Now then, Selena Mendez. Do sing a wonderful song of screams, won't you?"
Nero asked as he picked up a
drill and a blow torch.
The twins have a black energy shoot out of their necks and reattach the heads as their wounds heal shut and that dark energy begins to flood the room as only Nero's purple aura lit the room and the twin's energy snuffed out the light from the desk lamp.

Nero turned around as he felt something byond a mere Demon,
and in that moment,
the desk lamp came back on as his shadow was the only thing to be seen on the walls as his screams filled the room, and for a second,
the shadow looks like his body was ripped in half by dragon like claws.
The twins make a slurping noise as they suck up half of Nero The Abyss's soul like a noodle followed by a soft ah noise.

The shadow chains disappeared from Selena's hands, feet,
and chair,
and she looked at Nero's dead body as his hair was bleach white,
eyes rolled to the back of the skull,
jaw dropped,
and his body was fully intact and not ripped in half.
Selena and the twins returned outside to Kenneth waiting for them,
and Natalie throws herself at Selena, burying her head in Selena's neck,
and everyone goes back to London, where the twins tell the Pope what transpired while Selena paid Anton a visit at the hospital.

Seth hugged Natalie and told her that it's all right and that momma and daddy weren't going anywhere.
The doctors told Selena they tried to slow Anton's heartbeat down,
but to no avail,
and then the twins walked in,
where Chase lines his fingers to Anton's hearts and punches him hard enough to make the heartbeats return to normal.
"SIR! YOU COULD HAVE KILLED HIM! ARE YOU MAD?!"
Chase brushes the doctor off.
"Eh, he'll be fine. Look, do you see the heart monitor?"
The calms down but only after giving Chase a lecture about making things worse and broken bones and whatnot.

That evening,
the twins were called to Shimura's building,
where the Pope resided,
and the Pope put Selena on patrol duty and the twins on finding survivor duty. Chase got with his girls and kids,
got his kids to stay at Shimura's building while Reina, Morgan,
and Belladonna followed.
Hours later,
at night time,
the twins heard the sound of a baby crying,
so Chase lifted the mansion wall and saw three Demon Realm Majins.

Chase squats down to the father in his Demon Form,
and he smells Chase.
"I smell........ another Majin on you....... please, take our baby and raise her........ please?"
The man died gripping Chase's shirt,
and the baby cried louder as the mother likely died way before the father.
Chase picked up the baby and sniffed her as he realized who this was.
"Hey, Morgan, come here. I found baby Akiza."

Morgan rushes over and sees a pure pink skinned baby Akiza with pitch white hair and pure red eyes.
Morgan holds the baby and lets her listen to Morgan's heartbeat,
causing her to calm down.
"I feel bad for her parents....... she won't know who they are..... and they won't be able to experience being a parent." Morgan makes a saddened expression. "Yeah...... but I'm not about to deny a dying man his last request."
Everyone turned in for the night,
and the next day,
when Seth heard Anton wake up,
he brought him in for a hug,
and the two had lots to talk about. Meanwhile, elsewhere.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN INGRID LEFT?!" Genesis yells as he lights the room him, Futaba,
and AJ are in on fire.
The sprinklers put out the fire,
and Genesis starts fuming with quickened breaths.

"I mean exactly what I said. After you struck her for her trying to help, I had the chance to talk to her in private while Doctor Futaba gave you a look. I told her about life and finding your own sense of self and asked her if there was anyone she could turn to and gave her a nudge towards certain people. It took her a few days, but she packed up and left."

Genesis manifests his souls as a cyberpunk robotic/mechanical rapier, and magic forms the blade at AJ's throat. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't end you where you stand!" Genesis demands in a slightly calmer tone.

"Because I'm not afraid of dying. Killing me won't relive you of your pain and frustration. It'll only be a temporary fix at best, and when the Exorcist comes knocking on your door, you'll wish you had every means available to stop or stall them. If you're so keen on summoning this Armageddon Demon, I can't think of no better solution than the London stunt we did. With that many souls, it'll be a matter of time before the souls begin the fight. Artificial pure good souls and artificial evil souls fighting, I can't think of anything better than to wake it up prematurely."

AJ replies and suggests,
causing Genesis to just nod.
Back at the hospital,
Seth sat in a chair while Anton sat on his bed,
where they talked for hours.
Seth wanted to know the son he didn't know he had,
and Anton was all too happy to tell Seth all his good memories and bad.

Telling him about how Selena raised him to be a tool of revenge and instructed him the way she was trained.
Hardly
ever giving him praise,
and his Seth is the only moral support he had.

"I miss my parents, but all the years I lived with mom, I love her far more than I do my real mom. She's done so much for me and was patient with me to come out of my shell. She watched nature documentaries with me, asked me about the books I read, and would listen to me talk about anything and everything."

Seth just listened as his son told him more about things like doing workouts with Selena or learning how to shoot a gun from her,
and on occasion,
she shared an earbud with him so that they could listen to the same audio book. Seth smiled, nodded,
and let Anton get this talking spree out of his system before mentioning one other important detail.

"I forgot to mention something. I was so busy yacking about everything that It slipped my mind. I have a half-brother who came from a different timeline. His name is O."
Anton says the name,
but everything fades to black as the next chapter begins to open.