Recompile

[Albert Wesker]

He didn't have a heart to hammer in his chest, but as his eyes snapped open, gazing only upon an empty field, every process in his system was running on high, his entire body alert and ready to break into combat. He didn't know why, and that unnerved him more than anything else. He couldn't really...remember much of anything. It was very much like waking up fresh from being recompiled and restored after a deletion. Unaware of what was currently going on, still tense from the violent end had brought the deletion on in the first place, and without clear recollection of much of anything. It was all too unsettling, more for its familiarity than anything else, as it meant that he had died...again.

Slowly, surveying the serenity of his surroundings and the lack of any perceivable danger, the tension in his bearing faded away, being replaced with a deep-seated tiredness. More than just the physical, though he couldn't exactly feel that anyway, it was a feeling of being drained. Exhuasted, like he hadn't had a chance to enter rest mode or restore his energy in a long, long while. Without clear recollection as to why, that was even more worrying.

Relaxing his posture to a more neutral one, Colonel tried to start walking, unsure of where exactly he was going to go but not wanting to just stay put standing there, either. He made it all of two steps before he buckled under his own weight, crashing down to the ground. He grit his teeth, bracing himself with his left hand. Why? Why was he so exhausted and out of sorts? His diagnostics weren't picking up any physical damage to his internal systems, and his exterior plating was undamaged, as well. So why...did he feel like this? He could barely find the strength to support himself.

An idea occurred to him, and his eyes narrowed as he pondered over it briefly. "....power distribution...run diagnostic," he muttered through clenched teeth. There was a low hum, as the diagnostic briefly ran and the results were collected before being displayed on his internal HUD.

DIAGNOSTIC REPORT:
Several errors found.
Power Distribution set to Combat setting.
Heightened output to make up for damage.
ERROR: Indicated damage not found. Damage listing:
-- Ruptured plating: left arm
-- Shredded wiring: left arm
-- Shattered gears: left arm
-- Ruptured plating: both legs
-- Ruptured plating: central torso
-- Ruptured plating: right side torso
-- Heat damage: entire framework
-- Shattered plating: Colonel Saber
-- Destroyed System: Colonel Saber
-- Shattered Plating: Left leg
-- Destroyed appendage: left leg
-- Shattered plating: right leg
-- Shattered plating: head
-- Destroyed system: head
Damage report inconsistent with current damage analysis.
Encrypting and storing damage report and error logs....
Done.
Re-routing power to Standard mode.....

With the greatly concerning damage report outlining some hint of just why he was so exhausted — rerouting power to compensate for that level of damage would wipe out his reserves in a matter of minutes, at best — Colonel felt some semblance of strength return to him, as power was routed back to all of his limbs in equal measure. It was still a chore to get up, and he staggered under his own weight as he did, but he managed it.

"...what...the hell happened..." was all he could manage to say, staring blankly ahead at the peaceful, empty landscape that stretched away before him. What had he been involved with to mangle him so severely before he'd been destroyed? It had been almost as bad as the beating he took dealing with Megaman, or the Cybeast... Almost. And now he was here, with nary a clue as to what he'd been involved with, and only the vaguest sense of what might be going on at the moment.

And on top of everything else, he had woken up in some eerily unsettling landscape without a single distinguishing landmark as far as the eye could see. Things just got stranger and stranger.

[Albert Wesker]

With no small measure of wariness, Colonel started forward. He had no specific destination in mind, as he had no real idea where he even was to have any destination to plan for. But standing around definitely wasn't going to get him anywhere. At least aimlessly wandering he might find something to clue him in as to just where he was. And right now, in his frazzled, out of sorts state, any clue would be better than the whopping none he had at the current moment in time.

It took him several minutes of aimless wandering, in a mostly straight direction — quite an accomplishment, given the general unsteadiness and meandering shamble he was forced to walk at — before he noticed it. A human might have felt it as the hairs on their neck standing on end, an oppressive feeling suddenly weighing on them. He just felt it as a sudden shift in the air. A subtle one, and one that, had he not already been so thoroughly on alert and borderline paranoid about the otherwise serene surroundings, he might have missed entirely. But it dawned on him, crawling across his awareness slowly, but insistently, until he was forced to acknowledge it.

He slowed to a halt, squaring his stance for the most steadiness he could get out of his weakened body at the moment. He swept his unblinking, pupil-less eyes across the scene before him, noting that only the appearance of scraggly bushes, and some trees in the distance, were the only changes from the empty grasslands of just moments before. Had they been there before? He was virtually positive that last time he blinked there hadn't been a river there at all, much less....any....

His eyes snapped back to the river, peacefully running along not even ten paces to his left. It had most definitely not been there before. It didn't exactly stand out, but it was hard to miss in the otherwise nigh-featureless plains, and would have been all but impossible to miss. And yet he was positive it hadn't been there, not even ten seconds ago. But it clearly stretched back the way he had come from, to the horizon behind him, and onward to the horizon ahead of him, as well.

"What...what in the world...?" he muttered, voice strained as he tried to give emotion to this strange, absurd string of conflicting input running through his logic circuits. It just didn't add up. It was certainly absurd, and confusing, but not what had drawn his attention. It wasn't the source of the uneasy feeling which had only grown steadily stronger, amplified by the impossible landscape he had seemingly stumbled into unknowingly. He felt very much like he was being watched.

Or followed.

He closed his eyes, a very human gesture, as he tried to calm and slow down his thought processes to study them more closely. The less rampant and chaotic they were, the easier a time he would have making sense of it all. He knew only a few things so far, none of which really added up. He had woken here, systems routed to combat and survival, with a damage report suggesting he had apparently been put through a metal grinder, or worse. He couldn't recall a damn thing, prior to his waking, beyond vague impressions and half-thoughts. He was in the Omniverse....this wasn't the first time he had died while here. He'd been doing...something. The aftermath of fighting a dragon...? No...no, that wasn't it. Something else. It was...

Something growled behind him, and instantly every danger alarm in Colonel's systems went off. He knew that growl. He would recognize it anywhere.

Colonel was a soldier. He was trained to never run from anything. Only in the interest of retreating to a more advantageous position, or escorting noncombatants, was he ever permitted to flee. But in that instant, with a very human 'fight or flight' reaction pounding against the forefront of his thoughts, he broke that programming restriction.

And he ran.

[Albert Wesker]

He was barely a full stride into his mad dash away from danger, before a hauntingly familiar sound set the entire surreal landscape to shaking, and set his audio receptors to ringing worryingly. An earth-shatteringly loud roar, pure bestial fury making itself known, impossible to ignore. There was no way that something like the Cybeast could possibly be here. No way that Omni would summon something with such a singleminded focus, and hunger, for destruction. All Gregar and Falzar did was destroy and battle each other. One was as bad as the other, and for all the destruction they caused when opposing each other, the devastation that had been wrought before the second's creation to oppose the first was unquestionably worse.

The Cybeasts were inherently destructive and dangerous, and couldn't be allowed to run rampant. Which raised only one question, aside the fear that gripped Colonel as he ran with all his strength, away from the pounding, grating treads of the massive beast behind him: Why was it here?

Would Omni summon something this monstrous? Volvagia had been one thing. The soldier navi had seen firsthand what kind of devastation the great dragon unleashed when its anger was roused. But from what he knew, it had been a problem only for the great brood it generated, as the wyrm itself had been idle for a time, but...it was worrying to consider something like the Cybeast being here. Even more worrying that he was suddenly all but dropped in its lap like he had been, with nary a clue as to where he had been before to wind up in this predicament.

"Don't run. Face your demons."

The voice echoed in his mind, and it was familiar. Achingly, despairingly familiar, but he couldn't place it for the life of him. But it drew him to a halt, his stride slowing until he planted himself solidly on the ground. Facing the something as strong as the Cybeast head-on was a very poor decision. It was a miracle he'd even managed to hold his own against one of them the first time, and he'd been at full strength, then. In his current condition, so frazzled, clueless, and with his reduced strength in the Omniverse, the number of outcomes it could have was quite small indeed.

And all of them were bad.

But it didn't stop him from wresting control of himself away from the fear still urging him to flee and turn around to face the gigantic beast bearing down on him. His saber flared to life, lifting to point in challenging at the gargantuan cyber wolf. It growled at him, fire flashing in its maw, ordering him to run; flee, so it could hunt him down and destroy him. So that it could relish playing with such an insignificant little thing a second time. Colonel's unblinking eyes narrowed, his expression adopting a cold, soulless cast. "....no."

[Albert Wesker]

Slowly the glowing blade of his saber rose, coming to rest pointing at the colossal wolf bearing down on him. The crazed cyber beast only stared back at him, something akin to confusion reflected in its eyes. It growled again, throwing back its head and letting out a howl, shaking the ground as fire blazed from its maw, lightning splitting the sky. An awesome display of power, and one that was clearly intended to terrify and send anyone in the vicinity running in fright.

Colonel did exactly the opposite, and sprang forward, sword blade flashing as he struck at the great beast's now exposed throat. It was a futile effort, but it was the perfect display of defiance. He struck true, and the blade left a jagged gash across the cybeast's hide, shearing off one of the myriad spikes that formed a mockery of fur. The cybeast took offense to that, and one massive paw whipped round, catching the soldier navi just as he touched down from his leap, hitting him with such force there was a crumpling of metal to announce the impact.

He bounced and rolled pathetically over the grassy field, leaving a trail of scorched, disturbed earth in his wake, and splashing down in the river as his momentum ran out. Sparks leapt from the jagged tears in his armored exterior as he slowly sank to the bottom of the flowing water. There was something seriously wrong. The cybeast was strong, but it shouldn't have been that strong. To inflict so much damage in one blow, even in his current weakened state... It was impossible. Beyond all expectations and calculations. It was what he had feared, and more. He was quite literally helpless against this demon from his past, try as he might to put on a brave, defiant front and fight back against it.

It was....

It was a nightmare.

[Albert Wesker]

He settled heavily into the muck at the bottom of the river, looking up at the sunlight weakly gleaming through the water. There was no elegant way out of this. As things stood, he was going to die again. He couldn't hope to win in a direct fight, and the chance of getting away was slim, especially after that pulverizing blow he'd just taken. It wasn't really a question of fight or flight, at this point, so much as which way he'd prefer to die.

And as Gregar's head loomed into view over the surface of the water, it was looking like his decision was about to be made for him.

The water almost seemed to shake, the vibration shaking him to his core as the great cyber wolf roared its fury and presence to the empty heavens. And then a torrent of flame erupted from its maw as it lunged into the river, throwing up clouds and walls of steaming mist as it boiled away the waters, bathing the battered navi resting pathetically at the bottom of the river in what felt like liquid fire. Water turned brown, streaked with electric blue, stained with shredded steel and spilt fluids as it boiled away, and jaws closed on him, wrenching him from the muck back into steaming, open air.

Hurled haplessly through the air, Colonel saw a flash of sunlight, a blur of green grass, and a gleam of red as Gregar's eyes locked on him. A glimmer of white, and massive fangs closed on him once again with a crunching screech of protesting metal. Like a dog chewing on a toy, it mangled the soldier navi, crunching and gnawing on him.

"Fight."

There was no point in fighting against something this overwhelmingly powerful. It was just toying with him, and quite literally eating him. How was he even supposed to fight this thing at all? It would be all he could muster to even put up an effort and resist it at this point.

"Then resist."

But why? Why put up the effort when it was hopeless? Why make an effort that would amount to less than nothing? A few extra seconds before dying again weren't going to matter.

"Giving up means you lose."

Sometimes loss was unavoidable.

"Losing means you fail."

Failure was just another possibility.

"Failing means you let down the ones who believe in you."

What did that matter, at this point? There was no one around to believe in him. He'd lost anyone like that when he sacrificed himself to destroy the Cybeast, back in his home world. The last, desperate act of a soldier program, utilizing free will he'd been denied for so many years. But there was no one he had to worry about letting down anymore.

"I've known you to be many things, but never someone to just give up. And never someone to tell a lie."

There weren't many people out there who had ever talked to him like that. The words were like a slap in the face.

"If there is only one outcome available, then fight anyway. Make that outcome take as long as possible to claim you. If you give up and just accept it, you can't really call yourself a soldier."

A losing battle, with the only outcome as dying again...fight it anyway.

Sputtering and flickering, slowly the arm bearing his saber lifted. He had strength enough for one good strike before he was too broken and mangled to manage working his limbs properly anymore. Best make it count. Be defiant to the end. "Sorry...I was weak."

"We all have our moments of weakness."

"....yeah. We do." His saber flared to life, energy drawn from other sources where it wasn't needed — like his legs, at the moment — to power his last, defiant blow. "Thank you...for reminding me, Iris." He lifted his gaze, staring into the glaring, red pool of Gregar's eye as it finally took notice of his movement.

The cyber wolf glared at him impassively, the question all but written on its face: What are you going to do?

Colonel answered violently. "Screen...Divide!"

The blade of emerald lightning carved right through the pool of red, sending a shower of sparks in all directions as the cybeast howled in both outrage and agony, throwing its head back and tossing the soldier navi into the air. It roared in fury as Colonel came tumbling back down, and spread its jaws wide, releasing a torrent of flame.

Colonel never hit the ground, as his vision slowly faded to white.

And he woke up.