Artificial 7: Genesis Requiem

Chapter 50: Final Confrontation

(Artwork is done by AI. It is the final art for Terra Woods.)

Male Terra's POV:

One day after the interviews with Pope Rekture, Shimura, Selena, Himiko, and Belladonna.
The squad was called into Shimura's building,
where the twins stood by the Pope.

"Thank you for coming here on such short notice. As you all have seen, humanity will, without a doubt, be going to war with the Artificial race. However, despite humanity wanting to strike first, they await a report on behalf of the Artificial race. In short, they want an ambassador to reply to the interviews so that humanity can look like the heros of the world. So, while they wait for a response, we have just enough time to find Genesis and put an end to his madness once and for all!"

Pope Rekture shakes his fist as if he's rallying us.
Everyone but me, Seth, Selena, the twins,
and Female Terra bought his rallying speech or something.
All I did was give him a blank stare with no care in the world.
"And how are we going to find him?"
I asked, to which the Pope points at me. "Excellent question, I was hoping someone would ask. The twins here have Genesis's scent thanks to Selena fighting him. Right now, he's in hiding and licking his wounds from all his generals we killed. We will use that to find his real body and end him for good."

The Pope replied.
"I've already arranged a helicopter to pick you up at six. It'll be a twenty-three hour flight to and from Antarctica. Here are some special made uniforms for the trip."
Pope Rekture hands us all a bag with a winter uniform in it.
We all changed and hung around the place,
waiting until six.
I sat on a bench,
just looking at the ground,
and what AJ told me kept resurfacing every time.

How she was selected for a suicide double agent mission and how she told me before breaking the roof with me and Jin on it.
I looked up,
and I saw Ventus run over to Selena like a puppy that hadn't seen his owner in a long time.
"Miss Selena! Remember that one time the twins were asking Terra hard questions, and I wanted a hard question, but they couldn't give me one, so Terra asked me a hard one? Well, I made good on that promise and chose to sacrifice you for the safety of the citizens!"

Ventus rattled on.
Selena looked confused,
but then the twins reminded her of six years ago.
She smiles and gives him a head pat. "Wow, I'm surprised you actually stayed true to your word. Respect Ven."
Ventus smiled and took off running to another member of the team,
and when I saw the back of his head,
I noticed dark grey hair,
like a metal shade of silver.
The documents Jin and I found....... Ventus is reaching the end of his life span.

I looked at my hand as I could feel it tremble,
and I knew then that my life span wouldn't be too far behind him.
I take out my phone and pull up the camera so I can see my own hair.
Brown hair that started going down my back slightly with the front and middle of my hair spiked up and slicked back a little bit.
There is some dark silver grey hair,
but it was only noticeable with my hair being spikey.
Otherwise,
you wouldn't have seen it.

Time rolls around for the helicopter to show up,
and a familiar face greeted me to my surpise.
"Jin?! I thought you were dead?!"
Jin looked at me unamused as he sat in his spot.
"I thought so too, and then my Familiar saved my life while you fell to the bottom of the building. I trust that you know what will happen on this mission?"

I could read his mind without him having to say anything.
"Yeah...... search and destroy. AJ included."
Jin gives hmph as he smiles,
almost in a mocking like tone.
"Your answer is like the Gospels to my ears."
I didn't like his smile,
but we all sat down.
Once the helicopter took off,
Selena opened up about the Genesis she knew.

"Genesis wasn't always like this. In the thirteen years, I trained and worked with him. He was always this poetry loving guy. He'd quote it too much and often read more than he socialized, but on the few occasions he did, he always talked to me, Kenneth, Elain, and Himiko, just to name a few. He took training seriously, and Shimura taught him magic when his father didn't. I remember Genesis spoke fondly of his mother the most and hardly talked about his dad at all other than unrealistic expectations of magic lessons and mythology he studied. He genuinely cared for everyone, but one mission after that whole Super Soldier project. Everything went south, and he started talking to himself a lot more and would lock himself in the library for days and weeks at a time before coming out. We all believe he has split personalities and, well, after everything in these past six to seven years, he's done, I'd say he does. Especially when he wears his helmet. He's more brutal and evil, but when his helmet is off, he's back to a somewhat normal self."