Chapter 8 - Wildfire

Courtney stands in the middle of a bridge, facing off against an army of hundreds, possibly thousands of elite military soldiers, as she holds her Phoenix wings out high and proud, ready to fight against the enormous horde of soldiers, all pointing guns at her. Vehicles holding heavy artillery, such as tanks all stay in the rear guard, all pointing at her as well, ready to fire at any moment.

As Courtney stands face to face with them, preparing for the worst as she waits for the enemies to make a move first, while the enemies also wait to begin her attack. Then finally, someone in the army of soldiers yelled, charging towards the Phoenix, signaling the start of their attacks, as every single gun, cannon, etc. is fired, the vanguard charges, as Courtney goes to fight back too. She charges at the crowd, dodging as many bullets as she can while blocking the others with her wings. She then reaches the first of the soldiers, using her wings to swat away multiple soldiers at once, slamming them onto others, or the ground, or just straight up throwing them off the bridge into the water, where they'll drown due to the heavy equipment they have.

She continues to fight through, when suddenly, the crowd in front of her clears up, as one of the higher-ranked officers walk up toward her,

"So, you're the legendary Solar Phoenix, huh?"

The officer says, as she reveals and introduces herself to her,

"I am the 3rd commanding officer under the general, Officer Mills, and I will be taking you on for this fight!"

She declares, as she then fully turns her body into metal, revealing her power to turn her entire body into iron.

The officer flexes her iron muscles, before charging at Courtney, tackling her down as she gets pinned down, the officer then starts beating the hell out of Courtney as she gets hit with the left, right, goodnight combo. But their battle ends quickly, as Courtney only has to wrap her arms around her, as she holds the officer tight. She then begins to overheat her body, causing the commanding officer to start screaming in pain,

"Ahh! Stop, let me go!"

She screams for help, struggling to escape as she feels her body slowly, painfully melting while all the soldiers around can only watch her melt to death.

Eventually, Courtney pushes off all the melted iron and burned clothing off of her, as she gets up and cleans herself off a bit. The beat up, bruised Courtney quickly heals herself, as she then stands there like nothing happened, preparing to face off against the horrified soldiers once again.

Courtney then lets out a battle cry at them, causing the entire crowd of soldiers to back off in fear. She then pulls out her wings once again as she begins to continue fighting, charging up one of her attacks,

"Emburst!"

Courtney yells as she blasts the army with a huge fireball, blasting them away and leaving them burning and panicking as they slowly burn to their agonizing deaths. She then charges at the crowd once again, physically tackling them, using her wings as a shield and battering ram, while also continuously burning them up.

"Eternal Flamethrower!"

Courtney yells out once again as she charges up an attack, before she then uses a powerful flamethrower attack, continuing to burn up the people around her, when suddenly.

"Rahhhh!!!"

Courtney hears a sudden battle cry behind her, as she turns around to see what it is. She then realizes, it's Gavin, running in, carrying a car door as a type of shield and battering ram as he charges through the crowd of soldiers, who're still distorted and panicking from all the fire around them as Gavin takes down a whole row, barely protecting himself from the bullets that are aimed straight towards him.

Before anything bad happens to Gavin, Courtney jumps in and wraps the both of them with her wings, blocking and incinerating any bullet or person that tries to interrupt them.

"Gavin! What the hell are you doing!?"

Courtney scolds Gavin angrily, as Gavin just stands there, worried for her,

"Courtney, I-I just wanna help, I don't wanna lea-"

Gavin tries to explain when Courtney cuts him off, slapping him in the face as Courtney separates her arms from her wings to not hurt Gavin. He then falls to the floor, about to tear up as he looks up at his angry girlfriend,

"Gavin, I told you to leave! You might get hurt... Or even die for god's sake!"

Courtney continues to scold Gavin, as she picks up Gavin by his collar, looking at him face to face as she stares at him with angry, yet concerned, pleading, and teary eyes.

She then suddenly gives Gavin a long, passionate kiss, before pulling away,

"I'm sorry Gavin, I have to do this..."

Courtney says to Gavin, as she opens her wings, before throwing him off the bridge into the water below.

"Wha... B-but..."

Gavin is left speechless, as he watches Courtney from below, looking down at him one more time before turning back and continuing her fight. Gavin watches hopelessly as he continues slowly falling down,

"C-Courtney..."

He says softly, as he tries reaching his hand out one more time, before crashing down into the water below.

After that, Courtney then turns back towards the soldiers, who were waiting for her behind her wings with guns pointed towards her. Her demeanor quickly changes to a more angry one after Gavin was almost killed back there.

She glares at the crowd of soldiers with a scowl, as more lesser ranked officers with powers suddenly show up, this time, one with wings and another one with retractable claws attacks, as they both charge at her.

The winged one flies towards her, punching her before flying back into the air, barely distracting her as the officer with the retractable claws tries to slash her. The two officers continue to work together, beating up Courtney as she loses focus, as the soldiers around them cheer them on.

Eventually, Courtney pulls herself together, as she grabs the wings of the winged officer, pulling him down as she then uses him as a human shield against the clawed officer, she then fails to stop himself as she charges at her, causing the death of her comrade, as she stabs him through the chest.

The clawed officer then steps back in horror as Courtney sets the body on fire, before throwing it off the bridge, Courtney then marches slowly towards the other officer, as she falls to the ground in fear, trying to crawl away. Courtney then holds her hand out into the air, absorbing solar energy as the veins in her body glow and pulse yellow, orange and red,

"You wanna know why they call me The Solar Phoenix?"

Courtney says with a coldblooded tone as she looks down at the terrified officer on the ground,

"P-please, spare me! I'm only trying to do my job!"

The officer pleads with her life as she begins to cry, as Courtney then aims her hand at the poor officer.

"Solar Flare"

Courtney says with a cold tone of bloodlust, as she then blasts the officer with a ring of the release solar energy, similar to a solar flare, causing that part of the bridge and its entirety to collapse, as the officer gets obliterated, some of the soldiers also gets erased, while others fall into the collapsed bridge, towards their deaths into the water below.

Courtney hovers above with her wings as she watches the moment unfold, as she then turns to the remaining army of soldiers, as they all begin to take their steps back in fear, as Courtney stands there, a powerful, terrifying red aura surrounding her as she glares at all of them with red, furious eyes.

The soldiers then start to scream and panic as they start to fall back, running away in fear, as Courtney then uses something she hasn't used in a long, long time... as she uses Aura Release. A powerful wave of energy then blasts towards and through the crowd of soldiers, paralyzing all of them and knocking them all into the ground.

She then transforms into a half-Phoenix form, as she crashes down onto the ground, making a grand landing, as she compresses her wings into huge, powerful, flaming arms as she then charges towards the terrified, panicking soldiers, still on the ground.

She starts to grab some of the soldiers one by one, punching them or slamming them with full force, burning fists as they either burn to their death after getting slammed, or burning to their death painfully in the water below. She also continues to blast them with flames if she can, while also breathing fire to add more effectiveness in taking them out.

Some of the soldiers manage to get up, some continue to run away, while try to fight back, but their bullets have absolutely no effect on the rampaging Courtney's impenetrable, flaming armor, as she then skewers a huge row of soldiers like a kebab, completely blowing a hole through them with her flaming arms, before violently using them as some sort of whip, brutally throwing them around and slamming them against the others before completely incinerating them.

Soon, she finally gets tired of using physical attacks, as she realizes the soldiers are still getting away from her, watching them continuing their attempt to run away, only managing to get a few dozen meters away,

"Don't think you'll get away..."

The blood lusted Courtney says with an angry growl, as she puts her arms up, absorbing even more solar energy, charging up her body as she also prepares to use up a lot of her normal firepower.

"Let's just get this shit over with."

She says as she finally finishes charging up with solar energy, as she puts her arms together and points it straight across the bridge,

"Eternal Flamethrower: Maxima!"

Courtney shouts with all her might, as she transforms into her complete Phoenix form, her flaming wings create a huge ball of solar energy and flames, and...

BOOM! WOOOOOSH!

An enormous blast of flames blasts through the bridge, creating a bright, blinding red light, as every soldier in the way gets incinerated into oblivion. The attack continues to raze through the city, as civilians still in their homes or in buildings watch as a great red flash covers them, completely erasing them as the blast continues clearing a huge path through the entire city.

Meanwhile, the crowd of civilians are still stuck in the middle of the city, kept guarded by the soldiers,, still standing where they are. The confused civilians are still wondering what's going on, as all they heard while they were there were gunfire, screams and explosions, when suddenly, panic occurs when a sudden earthquake can be felt. They all then look back as a great, bright, blinding red flash is seen in the distance, getting brighter and brighter by the second, as the air around them gets hotter as well.

;;The crowd starts to scream and panic, spreading around and stampeding as they try to get out of the way, but to no avail. The soldiers still kept them all in, trying to calm them all down despite the imminent danger, but in the end, there was no escape... there are just too many people, it's just too crowded...

The mayor then intervenes, trying to help to calm them all down,

"Civilians! Everyone just make a formation, we'll make it out of this!"

He tries to order the panicking civilians, but to no avail, as the mayor only stands watching in the chaos, as the people finally get past the soldiers. People get run over within the stampede, crushed under the weight of all the people panicking and running around, as the bright flash in the city's horizon continues to glow brighter and get closer.

"Oh, God... What did we do to deserve this? Why us? Why is this happening..."

The mayor prays to God as he looks at the skies above, praying for an answer, while he also waits for the sweet relief of death to come as the air continues to rise in temperature exponentially. The crowd of people sweat excessively, all their skin burns off as only the screams of despair become the last things to be heard, as the bright light finally reaches them, consuming the entire crowd. The blast obliterates all of them as it continues to clear out the city, finishing it's path through the entire city without any sign of settling down.

Meanwhile, back at the bottom of the river, Gavin tries to swim back to land through the river of bodies to try and get back to Courtney, when suddenly, he feels a great pressure upon him. He gets goosebumps, as the air around him seems to get hotter, he then looks up to see the bright light coming from the bridge,

"Is that... Courtney?"

Gavin wonders, as he quickly realizes what's going on. He quickly rushes to get out of the water as it begins to bubble, as fast as he can.

The water and the air's temperature continue to rise fast, as Gavin eventually manages to get out of the water in time. The bright light glows brightly in an immediate, exponential manner, blinding Gavin as the heat and shockwaves generated by Courtney's attack blows Gavin back.

He gets slammed onto a tree in a forest near the river, as the forest around him also slowly burns and gets blown away. Gavin sweats heavily as he watches the river's water boil and bubble on extreme levels as it even starts evaporating into steam.

He then gets up, quickly running back up to the bridge to check on Courtney before anything else goes wrong.