Lanius turned around. "This is a nice surprise."
David aimed the Redeemer and got ready for a serious scrap. "You ready to die?"
David's power armour was bloodied and damaged from the constant Legion attacks, left only with a pocketful of ammo for his minigun, it was more than enough to help empty the rage. The shoulder plates were chipped, and the chest piece was giving away. David spun the Redeemer's barrels and kept his distance, wits and instinct.
Lanius tilted his head. "You have my attention..."
Once the hail of lead began to spray, Lanius unsheathed Sally and shielded his body from harm's way, while pressing on the advance to David. The lightness and sharpness of Sally could rip David open like a can of tuna, struck some sense of fear on the unknown prowess it held, amplified further with the speed Lanius was coming at him. It seemed all he could do is spray and pray until the Redeemer runs out of juice or overheats - whatever happens first.
What a surprise, David thought in horror.
The Redeemer jammed up mid-spray. That was the first time it had ever done that to his startled eyes; this allowed Lanius to make the first strike. David to ducked quickly and shifted behind Lanius' back; he needed time to sort out his minigun. Weapons jamming mid-fight was a death sentence.
David was able to get the Redeemer in working order with a quick adjustment of the overheated barrels. Lanius had already brought up Sally and spun it in a circular motion, shielding his body. David knew better than that, he bought his time and waited for Lanius to let down his guard, though the thought may be fearful it was all David could do.
Lanius got in close to David, close to hacking him to a pulp within an arm's reach. David couldn't risk getting too cocky with Lanius swinging Sally around everywhere, after every swing the chance of him slicing his face open increased. Even after some well-timed dodging, Lanius landed a thrust that caught David's shoulder.
The pain sent David's adrenaline soaring high, numbing it entirely. He let it all out and used his Redeemer to beat Sally from Lanius' hand with a right swing; then whacking at his face. It was working better than David had expected; he was pushing Lanius back consistently.
When Lanius broke through David's attacks into a chokehold, David grabbed Lanius' hand, paying close attention to the wrist. David felt irritation when he used his amplified strength to crush Lanius' wrist.
With the modified strength of his power armour, David was able to force his will to loosen the tight grip on his neck. Lanius hardly felt the pain once David crushed his left hand. Lanius kicked David's stomach fiercely out of spite; this sent David skidding back. David's Redeemer had cooled down enough to spin up again, but Lanius was hot on his tail with Sally in hand at blistering speed.
With Lanius deflecting his gunfire, David couldn't breach his guard, even firing at Lanius' exposed feet and shins failed to faze him or his speed. For someone to wield Sally to the manner he was, David was able to avoid Lanius' strikes and swings; even parrying a few with his minigun.
Lanius clutched David's shoulder and bashed his head in with Sally's hilt several times; every pummel started to fracture his helmet a tiny crack. After the sixth beating, David shielded his face with his Redeemer and swatted away Sally, irritating Lanius, then hit back at his face with the Redeemer's butt.
Lanius grabbed David's Redeemer by the rotating barrels and applied so much pressure he crushed a handful of barrels, rendering it unusable. He ripped it from David's hands and threw it away, Lanius crudely punched his chest in below the ribs, robbing him of his breath before he could retract his eyes from the red minigun.
With David coughing up the contents of his last supper being of canned beans and instant mash, he couldn't block Lanius' colossal straight punch, in which stored enough mass to flatten him. David's constant muffled cursing inside his battered helmet was almost audible as his world started to fade to black.
From behind, Lanius clutched David's shoulder and threw him far out to the dirt, softening him up to pound on more. David didn't even have time to collect his thoughts, let alone get back on his feet, Lanius was already kicking him into the dirt. With the strength and fury of the kicks and stomps, David's structural integrity was dropping.
Lanius growled with utter confidence and stomped on David's face, resting his boot on the bridge of his helmet's nose. Pressed his head into the ground." How does it feel to be crushed under my boot, profligate?"
"Oh, it feels a bit like this!" David cried out with his limited breath, grabbing Lanius' heel and forces him to tumble over him.
The recovery of the two was phenomenal, Lanius, of course, was much faster and was quicker to grab David's shoulders than he was vice versa. A solid headbutt and a straight punch to the face, David was on his knees, backhanded into the dirt again.
David unsheathed his combat knife and desperately ploughed it at Lanius, missing his head by an inch and gouging through his wrist. He blocked his face with his right forearm and let the knife's tip pierce his metal armour. Lanius grabbed David's helmet and forced him into the ground with massive velocity, bashing his head into the dirt.
The pain was quick, but David heard every crack and crumble inside his helmet as Lanius' built pressure on his head - everything was fading to black. Felt like his head was going to explode like a tomato from Lanius' big, meaty hand.
With one hand behind his back, Lanius threw David into the air, soaring well above his head. Despite the weight of his power armour, David landed and into Lanius' grasp like it was nothing. The juggling of his mass, when David hit the dirt again, it was with a hefty thud, disturbing the ground and throwing out his back. It was hard to focus juggled around like that.
Lanius sighed disdainfully and unholstered two fresh revolvers and shot at David like a rabid animal. High calibre .45-70 Gov't shells skimmed, fractured and punched through David's power armour, all across his face and neck - scattering his thoughts.
Lanius swapped between revolvers instead of reloading; he had a few loaded Ranger Sequoias holstered in an arm's reach and discharged as many shells possible at David. Totalling almost up to twenty rounds in quick succession, Lanius never seemed to run out of hot lead.
David collapsed onto his face. It was more of a struggle to stay conscious than on his feet; taking a nap would be just grand in his eyes - a comfy bed to sleep the pain away. David dropped on his hands and knees, bleeding profusely from the aching wounds around his chest area.
"Is that the best you got? Pity..." Lanius mocked, raising David off his feet by his shoulder. "Now… let's see the look in your eyes before I squeeze the life out of you."
Lanius disconnected David's helmet from his power armour and cast it aside to see the man behind the mask. A brief period of awkward silence later and Lanius hardly moved. To his eyes, David was the painful reminder of Lanius' old life, an ancient relic from his past, David may not know it, but he does.
Lanius' tone of voice was bitter then got gradually more and more irritated as his chest puffed out. "David...? David!?" Out of sheer rage and fury of a thousand supernovas going off at once, Lanius threw David with all of his might, launching him right over the cliffside, crashing down on his tent.
From down below on Lanius' tent, amid the confusion, David regained consciousness on top of Lyannah; she looked very peaceful with her relaxed posture and free-flowing hair. In a word, she was beautiful. There was something about a woman sleeping that felt nice on the heart; only she wasn't sleeping.
Apart from nearly crushing her with his weight, Lyannah was a mess. The wounds all over her made David's skin crawl. Bleeding gut, broken hands, battered face, it was disgusting to see a woman treated that way.
"Lyannah!" David tried trying to revive her with his best efforts, shaking her, CPR and even praying, nothing worked. "Lyannah, please wake up. I need your help… Please…"
Lanius stepped to the edge of the cliffside, staring down at David with folded arms. "So, the prodigal son has returned. Our meeting has been a long time coming, David..."
"Lanius!" David shouted, standing up to Lanius, ending his fruitless revival of Lyannah. "How the hell do you know me?!"
"I am surprised you had forgotten about me so easily after you fucked me over during that day of the accident, and ripping us both from our native timeline!" Lanius calmly shouted down.
"No… No… No!" David cried, freezing with a sudden impact of traumatic deja vu. It was him. "Y… Y-You can't be..."
Lanius discarded his helmet, bearing his face for David to personally witness. The left side of his head was replaced with machinery, from his jaw to the top of his skull. Heavily damaged organic face, deep scars ran under his eyes, and the blood-red crimson colour of them was all too hard to miss. What was more noteworthy was his thin yellow blood, leaking from his wounds.
There was only one person David knew that fit the bill. "So it is you… Shit..." David muttered in fear, freezing on the spot. "Dorian..."
"What's the matter, David? You look like you've seen a ghost," Dorian mocked, cracking his knuckles. "It's been twenty-four years; I've been waiting for this moment for twenty-four years! Now I can finally make you pay for the damage you caused me!"
"Caused you? Caused you?! You were there with the Nexus! You attacked Beverly!" David raged, pointing at Dorian with much content. "It was all Umbrella's fault!"
"You think you destroyed the Nexus? You merely destroyed the transformer, not the Nexus itself!" Dorian stated. "Just shows how little you know about the actions that conspired back then." He paced across the cliffside. "I was only there to protect the Nexus Transformer from Verkraft Industries. You ignored my warnings; now, you will pay for your lack of vision."
[Speech 72/100] David coughed blood and brushed his face. "Even with the damage that's been done, it's all in the recovery of our actions… here and now is all that matters. Redemption for our endeavours can make things right-"
[Failed] "Are you proposing we redeem ourselves?" Dorian chuckled. "I have nothing to prove. Look around you..." Dorian mocked, showing David the hazardous Wasteland around. The scorched yellow skies, the death and betrayal down below. The day was taking turns for the worse by the minute. The wind sang to his ears; it sounded of evil and decay.
"The new world is a barren, hostile, violent breeding ground for greed and corruption," he continued, "I love it! The Legion accepts me for who I am all anew, and I'm free to do anything I want because all who oppose the Legion's will is doomed to fail! Right now, this will all end the same way it started: just you and me. Without your father, what hope do you have against me?"
"I really hate to admit it, but he is not wrong," David muttered to himself.
Dorian put his fractured metal helmet back over his shaped hair and unsheathed Sally from his belt. "Best make peace now. Your time is over!"
"Working for the Legion is low, even for your standards. Umbrella, Neo-Umbrella, now the bloody Legion." David whipped out his slung M4 and aimed Dorian, fighting the deep urge to give up. "Could you be any more of an abomination!?"
"You think I work for the Legion? I am the Legion; I fucking deserve no less! You have no idea what I've been through just to stay alive! Fuelled only by the singular hatred I have for you, to one day make you pay for you did!. You may have forgotten about me a long time ago, but I never forgot about you."
David took short breaths and lowered his aim with a slight thought of conscience. Could it be my fault...? "No one should be blamed for the sins of their past, but this time, I'm going to make it all right - even if it costs me my life!"
Dorian stepped down from the cliffside, dropping his heavy mass with a loud thud. He walked towards David and began flourishing with Sally. Sally skimmed the air and whistled. "The first Wesker to take responsibility for his actions, how noble, but entirely stupid."
David fired his M4 all over Dorian, the blistering speed he manoeuvred made it hard for David to land a single sound, and the constant inhuman blinking made it near impossible to focus. He'd never be in the same place twice and shift between bullets.
At the last blink, Dorian threw his clenched body at David with similar mass and power of a cannonball, throwing him on his back again. That's what Dorian does, lands a double dropkick on the victim's chest.
While he was down, Dorian heaved Sally down at his face. David rolled out of the way, and quickly onto his feet. David reloaded and shot furiously at Dorian's backside while he had difficulty wedging Sally out of the ground; it was barely scratching him. The bullets impacted but failed to draw blood, like shooting a German bear with a BB gun.
Dorian had just ripped Sally from the ground and swung it David's general direction; Dorian's perfect positioning of Sally, caused some of David's bullets to graze dangerously close to his left eye and temple. The sudden shock halted David's gunfire to cover his face with, an inch to the right was far too close for comfort.
Dorian swung and hacked Sally at David while he was distracted, so distracted after the first few swings David naturally countered a swing at the wrong possible time. Forgetting that Sally can cut through steel like butter, David's M4 was cleaved in two. Before the next swing, he got in close to Dorian to catch Sally's hilt.
Dorian punched David's face, breaking his nose and then twisted his body to swing Sally into his abdomen, slicing through his power armour. Following the wedge between, that's where he drew the most blood. David clutched his stomach and cursed so hard, which just came out in gibberish.
The pain felt gritty like having a power saw revved slowly into his flesh. Sally was known to cut through almost anything, but it wasn't always swift. That pain ended when Dorian kicked his chest in.
While David was ripe and ready to be finished by Sally, all he could do is to shield his face with his hands and hope for the best, slowly waiting for his inevitable demise. He couldn't give up, but to die, knowing he did everything he could... David didn't care if he died or not.
Suddenly, a woman in black shielded David, her elegant black blade saved him from Sally's edge, while it was just inches away from his face. It was none other than Lyannah.
"Remember me, Lanius?!" Lyannah yelled as she locked blades with Dorian.
"Dragonborn?"
Lyannah used her blade to lift Sally away from David's head, and with her strength alone, she threw Dorian back a few steps. "Wasn't I enough for you?" She felt around her bleeding gut.
"Don't flatter yourself, child. You were never enough to satisfy me."
"Then how about two for the price of one?" Lyannah stretched out her left arm and fired a fistful of shadows at Lanius, turning him right around and losing Sally in the making.
David had only caught his breath. "You're alive? I thought you were-"
"Don't act so surprised," Lyannah interrupted. With a short glance back, she offered her hand for David to help himself up on his feet.
"Seriously, I thought you were dead."
"You overthink too much, Agent." David wielded Sally from the ground and stood by her side. "You just about ready to finish this fight?"
David loosed up his shoulders. "Like you even had to ask."
"I suppose the two of you can provide me with a decent fight." Dorian unsheathed his bumper sword from his back. "Saves me half the trouble and gives you a sporting chance, that's for sure." He pointed at David with his sword. "And you say I lack honour."
Lyannah peered to David. "Does he ever shut up?" she asked mutually.
"I'm afraid not"