Apocalyptic Returning

Chapter 12: Fragments of Genesis

"Before we go on any longer, there's a question I want to ask you." Jay announced. Sitting across from Boss at an old wooden table, he found slight annoyance in how Boss rested his legs on the table. "What...was my father like?"

"A far better leader than you." Boss answered almost instantly. "Although, I'll attribute that to the fact that your father was forced into a war where even the slightest sign of weakness would get you killed. One of the reasons he assigned Arazia over there as his personal bodyguard. Like how you have Zaraph."

"He quickly adopted the ideal of, the ends justify the means. Without them, I doubt he'd have made it far. His Infinium was...eccentric, far less organized, like a pack of stray dogs." Bos raised his katana and let it rest on his shoulder as he reminisced. "They were the only group that had ever made me fear for my life."

"And that's mostly because the exosuit users of the past were far stronger than those of today. Exosuit users your father was able to effectively lead throughout most of World War Three. But as all things do, it came to an end. Here's the part of your father's story that Hellman or Arazia probably never told you."

"By the time World War Three had started, your father was already twenty-seven, which was around one-hundred and fifty years ago. As you know, there are drugs and experimental procedures to extend one's life and slow the rate at which they age."

"Wait, wait wait. What the hell are you going on about?" Jay interrupted. "My father only died around twenty years ago." The gears on Jay's head began to turn as he went over all this new information. "Are you telling me he was one hundred and fifty when he died."

"For as brilliant and fearless your father was, there was only one thing that he ever feared. Death." Moving his feet off the table, Boss sat properly at his seat now. "His fear of death led him to subjecting his body to experiment after experiment in hopes of finding the secrets to immortality."

"It was all because of that stupid little shit!" Arazia added angrily. "Did nothing but feed him lies and manipulate him."

"Someone manipulated my father?" Jay asked confused. "Who"

"Cane, the one who orchestrated the war between Infinium and Mariquel. As you know, the beginning of World War Thee marks the start of the age of exosuit users. The first half of World War Three mostly consisted of the world major powers fighting with each other and exosuit users forming their own groups together."

"It was during that time when I first created Apocalyptic Returning, your father created Infinium and Sternum created Mariquel. Then after fifty years passed, came the second part of World War Three when Cane began to manipulate both organizations into fighting each other. That is when World War Three truly began."

"The war between Infinium and Mariquel would have happened eventually even without Cane's interference." Arazia informed. "Sternum is the textbook definition of a narcissist. He believes the world was created for him to conquer and so he created Mariquel to do so. But your father didn't like that."

"Your father had his moment of cruelty, but in the same intensity he feared death, he believed in freedom. Which is what Cane used to incite him into a war with Sternum."

"I don't understand, I've searched through Infinium's archives of World War Three for years." Jay said with a bit of excitement in his voice. "And I've never come across information even mentioning some of the things you're talking about."

"It's a past we all would be better off with if left forgotten." Boss declared.

"Okay" Jay accepted. "But there's one thing I don't understand." He said, causing Boss to look up from the table at him. "How was Cane able to do everything you said. There's no way one person has the ability of doing everything you said he did."