Ultraya: Revival

Chapter 48: Towards Dawn

"No reaction to that?" the researcher started to get cocky. "Well then Shadow Ability!" Elimiphlaren braced himself once again.

"Just kidding!" Sollikarr quickly fired another two blasts of solar energy: one from each rifle. The orange balls crashed into the spherical shield; Elimiphlaren was losing a lot of shield durability thanks to the researcher's antics.

"Whaddya say Mr Eliminator?" Sollikarr joked. "Third time's the charm?"

'Two can play at this game!' Elimiphlaren raised his hand towards Sollikarr. "Shadow-" he was interrupted by a volley of missiles, sent from a squadron of strafing Mylialta. His shield had shattered and a fifth of his health had been removed. Smoke obscured his vision.

"You know, we are currently fighting on the Tri-Carazstar!" Sollikarr appeared above him and swung one of his rifles, in hammer mode, at the Angel, knocking him off the side of the ship. He then jumped above and fired a powerful blast from his second rifle, sending Elimiphlaren crashing into the hanger.

There was a brief period of silence as the red-armoured Wyperian stood up and looked around the room: pilots and engineers pulled out their Sirbus handguns, soldiers waiting to board Heygrasaults equipped their Mulrias, and four turrets lowered from the ceiling; everything was pointing towards the dazed Elimiphlaren.

"Open fire!" Sollikarr commanded as he hovered over the entrance to the hanger. At once, all of the Alliance crew present unloaded their weapons. With no shield, Elimiphlaren was forced to expel as much fire as possible in an attempt to disintegrate the incoming bullets. This manoeuvre was largely successful, but it could only last so long. Sollikarr vented his remaining solar energy into one last blast from each rifle and fired upon his target. The energy beams cut straight through the wall of flames and knocked the Angel out of his hiding spot. Bullets pierced the top of his helmet, shoulder, lower torso, sides of his legs.

"Tsk, you're not the only one with projectile weapons!" Elimiphlaren deployed opened up his left shoulder and fired a barrage of micro-missiles. His right shoulder also opened to reveal two small calibre guns. Finally, he drew his MLRHD-C: a customised variant of the A.E.R. assault rifle. He focused the above armaments on the Alliance soldiers on the left side of the hanger whilst he spawned flames to deal with the right side. Despite earning himself a decent number of kills, he was still being overwhelmed and was forced to use his feathery wings to block the otherwise-fatal kinetic gunfire; his health gauge was going down at a terrifying rate.

'Damn it, what other options do I have?!' he panicked.

"Heh, no way out now, ay?" Sollikarr said to himself with a devilish smile.

"Shadow Ability: Thermal Glazing!"

"Oh crap!" Sollikarr jumped out the way of the attack... but it wasn't aimed at him; the attack instead struck Elimiphlaren, encasing him in a thick coating of fiery energy.

Soon after, Flaymaclaze flew into the hanger and used his powers to amplify the flames within the hanger, "Ria Ability: Focus Fire!" Screams cried out as the fires roared upwards and then collapsed onto soldiers, draining their health, reverting them to Human form, and then turning their bodies to ash.

Sollikarr looked around in shock at the melting puddles of metal that had replaced his comrades, "I'm gonna go ahead and assume you didn't miss with your Shadow Ability..."

"See for yourself", Flaymaclaze laughed. Sollikarr complied with the suggestion, looked towards Elimiphlaren, and flinched. The few remaining brave soldiers of the Alliance that were still firing upon him were doing so in vain; the glazing was acting as a shield whilst the fire damage had no effect on him.

Sollikarr grunted as the middle section of his shoulders extended upwards as well as the middle section of his lower legs extended outwards; all four of the sections revealed three missile tubes each. Twelve small missiles were launched at the pair of Angels; Flaymaclaze sent a wave of flames to intercept at the very last second. Bullets suddenly pierced the red armour of the Deltricia; more Alliance soldiers, ones that were more heavily armed, had arrived as back up and resumed their kinetic assault. Elimiphlaren prepared fireballs to deal with them.

'It's now or never', Sollikarr thought. "Shadow Ability: Solar's Carnage!" a golden sun appeared within his hands. The attack was aimed just below Flaymaclaze as a direct attack would catch his soldiers with the outer wave of destructive solar energy. The sun exploded into a beam and rings of energy arced in and out of the beam.

'Damn that's the real one!' Elimiphlaren pushed past Flaymaclaze. "Shadow Ability: Flames of Elimination!" he launched his own fiery beam towards Sollikarr's. The two orange abilities clashed into a struggle, each one trying to overwhelm the other. "What's going on?! My attack should completely negate yours! It reduces power to zero! That's what it does!"

"Not if I constantly supply power into it!" Sollikarr explained. The two attacks finally succumbed to the build-up in power and blew up in a golden explosion of blinding particles.

"At this rate, we're going to be done for..." Flaymaclaze concluded. His right arm started to glow, and a red contraption spawned out of thin air. It comprised of a trigger held in his hand and a long barrel that ran down the back of his arm. He pulled the trigger and from the barrel fired a small cylinder. He then released the trigger and the grey cylinder exploded, producing a precise, straight line of flames that drained a lot of health from the Alliance soldiers on the balconies overlooking the hanger. Flaymaclaze's weapon seemed to have no need to reload as it immediately fired a second grenade. This time when it exploded, the fire came out in a perfect circle and struck multiple targets once again.

'This must be his Delta Item', Sollikarr activated his scan visor. 'Hmm, 'Geo Fire'; a grenade launcher that can fire incendiary capsules that will explode into a chosen shape. Seems kinda random'. "What's the point in that if he can control flames anyway?"

"Because this doesn't require any effort!" came a snappy reply from Flaymaclaze as more grenades sprinted towards the researcher.

"Seems perfect for you then", Sollikarr mocked as he dodged the flames and took aim once again with his twin solar rifles.

"Oh please, we both know you are out of ammo!" Flaymaclaze spat.

"Oh? Then stay right there then", Sollikarr smiled innocently as two enormous blasts of energy hurled towards the pair of Angels; they were forced to shield up, but the blasts were too mighty, causing their energy barriers to shatter. "My Shadow Ability is a blast of solar energy; it charges my rifles at the same time!"

"Damn it all to hell!" Flaymaclaze grabbed Elimiphlaren's wrist and pulled him out of the hanger. "We're out of time! All A.E.R. forces, retreat!"

"About time", Sollikarr stowed his emptied weapons on his back and watched the birdies fly away.