In a quick desperate attempt to save her life, Lyannah caught Lanius' bumper sword with her hands and stood up on her feet with a rush of adrenaline. "I… kneel… to no one!" she screamed, throwing Lanius' sword away.
Lyannah charged at Lanius and leapt at his face, kneeing his chin with enough momentum to push his him back. Then again, throwing a long, straight punch at his face, forcing him back even more and leaving him reeling. She cracked his metal helmet and stunned him long enough to unleash her wrath.
Lyannah threw uppercuts and hooks galore at Lanius, deepening the vertical crack of his helmet - every punch to his face opened the evil behind the visor. She ended it all with a reverse roundhouse kick to the side of the face. With him dazed enough, she clutched his waist and threw him over her back, before quickly standing firm on her small feet.
Lanius may have landed on his head; he too recovered quickly on his feet, unconvinced from Lyannah's speed he rushed at her, throwing his weight into a straight punch. Lyannah guided away from his fist and threw one right into his gut. So powerful it was it winded him to the point he had grunted and briefly took a breath.
She refused to give him a chance and threw barrages upon barrages of punches at his chest and face, unrelenting in anger screaming, "Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die!"
As rabid as she was before, Lyannah rammed her broken fists at Lanius' face and stomach, tearing the skin from her knuckles from the excessive force. The last of her strength finished him off with a powerful double-punch to the upper torso, smashing through his armour plates and dealing the full damage. The adrenaline-induced rage Lanius threw to the ground far out of her reach; barely able to grasp the fight.
Using all her adrenaline, Lyannah launched herself into the air, soaring down masses of momentum into a brutal haymaker down upon Lanius, which ended with the impact of a mushroom cloud of dust. She hit something hard as a rock so it must've been him. She was sure of it. It had to be him.
At the point, the dust settled, Lyannah's rage monster within was all tapped out, completely out of breath and on her knees. Her hands were bare-boned, broken and bloody again; almost unusable. Her ears were ringing. Lanius was gone after the impact of her haymaker.
Blood bled from her open bones, mocking her; her mighty haymaker struck dirt and rendered her knuckles destroyed. The white bones in her hands exposed to the open air, seeing them that pale white under twisted, bloody flesh made her sick to her stomach.
Out of nowhere, Lanius flipped at Lyannah into a straight kick, she was able to divert some of his strength away, but the force crushed her arms into her chest. Her limp body flew towards the edge of the cliffside. The lack of breath, Lyannah couldn't even speak, couldn't wipe the blood from her mouth with her bloody hands.
Lanius flexed and shrugged the pain he hardly felt. "That the best you got?"
Lyannah beat the ground in a fury. "I cannot lose!"
"Then try harder." Lanius chuckled, backflipping vertically up the rocky mountains behind him. He beckoned for Lyannah to follow him.
Lyannah mustered up as much magic she could. With a golden shine between her crooked fingers, the open wounds on her hands and torso sealed over in seconds. The sensation shot through her in an instant rush, drowning out the pain from her internal damage as her wounds healed.
"There we go..." she breathed. With a quick thought, an idea emerged. The black ring she wore felt colder. She stood and tendrils formed from her shadow wrapped around her and then she was gone, her own shadow consumed her.
She stepped out of her slow-forming shadow behind Lanius and in an instant, using psychokinesis to cast her sword yet again, she took a firm hold of her beloved sword. Lanius was able to adapt to her abilities and quickly turned around to face her, but Lyannnah's ebony sword was coming at him.
As Lanius' went to grab Lyannah, she had twisted around to his grasp and thrust her sword into him. Her sword pierced through Lanius' hand, armour and heart, right down to the hilt. His blood was warm when it poured out like a faucet, gushing all over Lyannah's forearm.
That was the rush her old friend Deena was on about, the life in spilling it all over her body and blade. Lyannah didn't enjoy the taste of blood as she did, but the adrenaline in pouring it from a worthy adversary was more than enough to get her excited. Only it wasn't regular blood she spilt, felt like warm water.
Despite the well-placed thrust, Lyannah was shocked to see that her sword did nothing to phase Lanius. He had his left arm at his side and just stood there, with his other hand stapled to his chest.
"Come on!" she exclaimed. "That's gotta hurt!"
Lanius clutched her hand, twisting it away from her sword, glaring at her as the pain he inflicted brought her to her knees. Her sword was still resting between where his ribs should be. It was so close, within her reach. "You're tougher than you look." Lyannah pried her dagger from his arm, dug and gouged it back into his wrist that clutched hers - several times to no effect. "You're sly; I'll give you that," he dryly said.
Lanius ripped his hand from her blade without a flinch, splitting through his hand. He clutched her hand, the one holding the dagger. He guided it towards her and forced it back at her face, but there was moderate resistance against him. Even with his untapped strength, she was resisting well. "It's pointless to resist. Give up." He aimed the tip of her dagger at her face; it gleamed in conjunction with her green eyes.
Lyannah kicked, tossed and turned madly, trying to break free of his clutches, being on her knees it was hard to project the willpower to do so. Snarling with temptation, she drew her breath. "Fus ro-"
"Not this time," Lanius sneered, breaking her wrist with a single sharp flick of his hand, tearing the tendon in her wrist. Only her skin and flesh kept her right hand attached to her limb; the worse feeling she ever felt in years.
The dislocation and breaking of Lyannah's wrist were lots of pain, couldn't help herself by yelling and crying in agony, instead of utilising her Dragon Shout. With teary eyes and a slight cringe, she was losing the will to go on. The constant pain wasn't worth fighting for, especially in a fight she might lose. For the first time in her life, she might not only lose; she will die.
Lanius felt Lyannah's grip was loose from the dislocation; she still had her knife in hand, so he forced her dagger at her face. With only a sharp second to save herself, she managed to itch her head away from the dagger's tip; it wasn't enough
Lanius let go of her other hand and thrust the dagger at her harder than before, though her blade, thankfully, only gouged into her collarbone and not her neck. He backhanded her face in and kicked her back away from him and the cliffside, a short sprint away.
Lyannah took a deep breath, tearing her dagger from her collar and took quick consecutive breaths. Wasn't used to using her left hand. She got back on her hands and knees and noticed something yellow on her bloodied dagger; it had the same texture like water, yet it smelled of blood. Like real human blood, only yellow and scraggy.
After taking a stance with her dagger in hand, Lyannah was concerned about her actual odds. "By the Nine, his blood is... yellow? What the fuck are you?!"
Lanius shrugged to Lyannah's open nature and slid her sword out of his chest. "I'm the future of mankind."
She snorted and spat blood. "One future I don't want to be a part of... How do you not feel pain? You should be dead!"
"Death is only a minor inconvenience to me," Lanius replied, walking to her, bloody sword in hand. "This little game is starting to drag. Time to die, child."
Lyannah reached into her pouch and pulled out three steel daggers, throwing them at Lanius. He shielded his face with his arm; the blades shattered on impact from the armour on his triceps. "Steel won't cut it," Lanius mocked.
"He's… right," Lyannah admitted, wiping the dripping blood of her mouth. "Fo kra diin!" she shouted.
Like a far unrelenting forceful shout, this one had mighty gout of ice that formed a wall of shards, jutting out at the velocity unheard of. Though the voice of absolute zero matching a thousand blizzards nothing to harm Lanius; it hardly slowed him down.
Lanius shrugged off the ice. "Surviving an Arctic tundra is child's play."
Lyannah was conflicted on her next shout. Another sprint could launch her off the cliffside; her next shout had to be aggressive rather than defensive. It was time to mix things up a tiny bit, Lanius was still running her down with her sword.
She never tried such a volatile shout before, but there was a first time for everything under desperation, and she was running out of ideas. The idea came from Deena, so it's hard to tell if she was telling the truth at the time or just giving mixed signals. She was a genius so...
Lyannah went for it. She relaxed her shoulders, took a deep breath, and she shouted, "Wuld qah diiv!"
Lyannah was no longer where Lanius buried his sword; it swung straight into the ground firmly with all his force. It wedged deep into the ground; he had a hard time prying it out, despite using both hands.
Lyannah stopped at the tip of the cliffside, with her sprint coming to an end. Mixing up Dragon Aspect and Whirlwind Sprint, she charged herself with the significant power of a dragon at her disposal. Her eyes shone bright red, and her clothes had a glowing crimson aura, complete with transparent horns and a tail. The flames from her figure danced in the light wind.
She conjured a master level destruction spell with her hands, summoning a long icy spear of no less than a metre and fired it at Lanius while his back faced away.
The ice spear was pulsing with an electrical charge and sparked so hot against the ice it started to engulf in flames in the air. Lanius turned around, but not quick enough to stop the ice spear from piercing through his armour, the ribs and out his back.
The intense heat of the electrical burn and ice coursed through his body and dropped him to his knees. The cavity was a large one as more blood dripped around his knees.
"Full of surprises, aren't you?" he grunted, with a chuckle. "In the beauty of the universe, there's always some magic out there."
Lyannah took a slow breath of relief, summoned her sword back into her left hand and went in for the kill. "Time to finish you for good!"
Wasting no time, Lyannah brought her sword down to Lanius' head, in a shock, he intercepted her sword hand and stood up, firm and vigorous, lifting her off her feet again. Her sword was dropped out of confusion. Beating and kicking at him with her free limbs, she couldn't harm him, he just took it all with no flinch, glaring at her.
"Like all the humans, you're so naive - falling for a mock surrender. You're no better than they are. Why fight for them?"
Lyannah was confused and angry; all the damage she dished out was all in vain. Pissed off was an understatement, insulted to the highest degree. He just shrugged off all that damage with a chuckle.
"By the Nine! Why won't you die?!" she yelled harshly, like a child who didn't like how the game was playing out. "I gave it my all…"
"An artificial implant replaced my heart years ago; it's connected to my A.I. core," Lanius claimed, jamming a needle into her neck and extracting a blood sample from her into a syringe. "I'm an organic machine if anything else. So very senseless of you. Beating down your adversaries isn't always going to work. There's more to fighting than punching people to death; you never go for the kill, when you can go for the hurt."
He sharesDeena's ideology; she sought conquest and was willing to do anything for it. I wish she were here right now. If anyone can kill him, it's her. Lyannah suppressed the pain in her neck and mumbled, "You fuckin' psycho... You'd be one of those types, wouldn't you?"
He stared closely into her eyes. "Indeed, and proud of it. This chitchat has been nice, but now that I have a sample of your DNA I don't need your services anymore. Which means I can kill you and breed my own Dragonborn hybrid, or at the very least use it to make myself stronger.
"You upgrade with blood?" Lyannah spat in Lanius' face. "Like that's going to work, fucker!"
Lanius wiped his face clean with slight grief. "Well, I use it to enhance my abilities. Trust me; it'll work. Blood holds a lot of power with the rich information it holds. Alas, before I bury your battered body, I'm gonna show you some real magic."
Lanius threw Lyannah away back to the tip of the cliffside. She recovered reasonably fast, but without her sword, she was weak. Lyannah's ring felt cold again; it was intense, which meant that she was dying. With too little magicka, she had to use another source of power - her own life. The worst trade deal, but she was still always willing to learn.
Lyannah fired off sharpened black shadows from her ring, and though they all missed Lanius, one grazed across his right shoulder - it cut through his metal armour to his surprise. She smiled that necromancy was working as intended for once. She swept her arm wide, firing a salvo of black arrows, two of which got through Lanius' armour again.
Then more and more shards slid uselessly into the open air and missed almost completely as Lanius picked up his pace. The novelty wore off quickly. A few shards of darkness a second couldn't land with her target disappearing and appearing from thin air.
She witnessed Lanius' movements evading her projectiles, but what she saw were short acts of teleportation, very short distances almost as if he could move at the speed of light or a blink. He was blinking... Something she never even thought possible. To be in one place, then another in the time of the shortest blink. Hence, blink.
She couldn't land a shard on him - firing several of them a second - he just never stayed still long enough for her shadows to strike; she was getting visually concerned and stressed with the inhumane nature of his blinking. He was making things considerably more difficult.
With a sharp twist of his body, Lanius launched Lyannah's sword at her, piercing through her left shoulder, cropping her efficiency. In agony, she dropped flat to her knees, pulling her sword from her flesh and bone, though it was at the time her Dragon Aspect ran out and left her weak and battered. The timing was nothing but unacceptable.
There was no strength stand back up; her crippled hand couldn't hold her weight. The extra strength and resistance vanished along with the dragon within. Even if she had the power of necromancy, Lyannah had to be calm to use it.
And that's hard when there's a sadistic warmonger trying to kill you. Couldn't just wave a ring around and use it, there was a link, a connection. In all things, a calm mind prevails, even in magic.
Lanius held Lyannah by her throat, she was completely tapped out and knelt limply with no challenge left in her. "What's the matter? Can't feel your arm? As much as I'd like to chain you back in my tent, I feel you're too much trouble to keep alive. Goodbye, Dragonborn."
Lanius threw Lyannah clean off the cliffside, the speed and trajectory she went had her land on Lanius' tent, crashing it down - that was unintentional. He flexed and relaxed his muscles. The sensation brought a breath of fresh air to Lanius. She was the perfect warm-up for the final climax of the day.
Lanius spent some time looking for his bumper sword and then stood at the cliff's ledge to watch upon the carnage below, cherishing the moment of victory. Down below, David and his group were gradually being forced back by masses of praetorian guards; their close combat prowess pushed all their oppressors back. David and company were losing the fight, even in spite of tearing the legionaries to shreds with their weapons.
Twisted and mutilated body parts of his soldiers littered the field below. Blood formed pools and covered patches outside the central campsite, almost creating a trail leading back out - a bitter retreat. David, Cass and Boone were scattered and scuttling away from his soldiers.
None of that bothered Lanius in any way; he was so close to wiping out the N.C.R.'s attack. He knew it was only a matter of time before he kills General Redfield and takes Hoover Dam. Humanity will kneel in mere days after his elevation into Godhood, and the N.C.R. would be the ones to grant him that.
Though his men died in horrible ways by the hands of his enemies, having their flesh torn from their bones with heated gunfire, Lanius didn't care. For every one, there was two. Lanius wasn't a fool; he had more waves centurions and praetorians ready to be deployed. Though William and Lyannah were out of the fight, General Redfield was nowhere to be seen amongst the others.
From the top of the hill behind Lanius stood Redfield in a foul mood. "Lanius!" Redfield yelled.
"General… It's so good to finally be blessed with your acquaintance, here on the day of this battle." Lanius turned around to face Redfield. "I'm so glad Vulpes didn't hurt you too much to make it here. I trust you gave him a warm welcome."
With angered hesitation, Redfield raised his BAR at Lanius. "I gave him the hard goodbye, yes. I knew it was you that sent doghead to my fuckin' war room."
"That would be Caesar's doing. I wish it were me to send him on a suicide mission, though, I hate him almost as much as you do," Lanius admitted, pacing in a circle with Redfield. "How he would surpass me is profoundly pathetic. How could he even match my skills, let alone leading authority?"
Redfield pivoted with Lanius in a circle, keeping him locked in his sights. "That's the problem. After today, no one will surpass you. For your disregard for the Mojave and its people, I'll see to it that you die!"
"Let's skip the drama, shall we?" Lanius unsheathed his bumper sword and stretched his arms. "All beneath the flag of the bear exist only to test the strength of the bull. The west will fall as did the east, and all the tribes too weak to resist. All of the Wasteland will bear the mark of the Legion."
Redfield slowly lowered his weapon in sudden realisation. "You can try to take the west, but moving your armies there could run the risk of losing the east. You can't hold both."
Lanius stopped abruptly in his tracks. "Caesar made his mistakes trusting my predecessor with control of his armies; Graham was too weak and gullible to satisfy the Legion's hunger. As you can see, I am leading the Legion on a more ambitious scale; which will only add more to our cause."
"Slavery has no place here in the modern age!"
"Hundreds of civilisations before us disagree with you, Redfield."
Redfield and Lanius quickly raised their respected weapons with their stances. "This ends now, Lanius." He was the first one to start firing on the Legion menace.