19. Explosions and Illusions: The Fighting Duo Platzen and Der Wahn

They continued down the hall as the sound of Rion and Herstring clashing echoed. Continuing down, Danaka continued yelling directions. As they ran, they saw the audience of the fight leaving in a hurry. Word must have gotten out of the escapees.

"Where they are leaving from, turn there." Danaka said.

As they turned, the door slammed shut. On them and those who were trying to escape the commotion. Doren pushed through the people in rich robes. Finding the door, he slammed his fist into it.

"What now?" he asked turning to Danaka.

She grinned spreading her feet apart. "We break it down." Her fist slammed into the ground as spikes of floor rushed to the wood doors. The spikes penetrated the wood, but the door didn't budge. As the spikes retracted, the light from the next room showed through.

Danaka put her fists together as the ground separated under the door. It gave way and collapsed into crater she made. The seats in the arena were all empty besides the couple of audience members that got trapped. None of them got hurt when Danaka was breaking the wall.

While the ground began to close once again, arrows shot out from the broken door. Danaka lifted an arm up, the ground following upward. The arrows bounced off and fell. Before she released the hold of the ground, two explosions shattered the pillar.

Sending the four back, the smoke from the explosion covered the area. This time a dozen audience members lay on the ground, groaning out in pain.

"Ohhh, feisty ones aren't we?" a voice asked from the thick cloud.

"Ahh, yes they are." a female voice followed. "Shall we escort them back to their cells?"

"I do believe we should. The Boss would want us to."

From the smoke emerged two figured. One was tall and curvy. The other was short and round. Both were dressed in the same style clothing. Black shirts, pants, and shoes. They wore red sun glasses and a red tie.

Their accent wasn't familiar to any of them. They stood still and stiff looking directly at the four escapees in front of them. The tall one took a step forward and snapped her fingers. All around the four, orbs began to glow.

"These are bombs." the tall one said, "You touch one, it goes off, the rest follow. That wouldn't be good for you." She pointed at them and the orbs began to inch toward them.

Bastille looked at Danaka and grinned. "Flaming Turtle?"

She grinned back at him and grinned back. "Flaming Turtle."

Bastille held a flame in the palm of his hand. He threw it in the air as Danaka pulled the ground around them into a shell. As the flame fell, Bastille threw his arms out. The flame extended around them on all sides and pushed through the orbs. There were no explosions, like the tall one said.

As the flames died down and the Earth shield fell, the duo clapped their hands. They started walking to the group, steps matching each other's.

"Platzen," the tall one started, "I think we should turn it up."

"I agree, Der Wahn," the short one said, "they must have a death wish." Platzen out on of his hands up as the other shown once again. "These are the real bombs. And if you decide to try your trick again, well, you will all surely die."

"Except maybe fire boy." Der Wahn snickered.

Once again the four were surrounded. Unsure if it was a trick, they stayed close together. But they didn't have time to sit back and wait. They needed to get going and figure out the quickest way to find Meko and destroy the arena.

"Doren, Katrina," Danaka said watching the duo as the kept getting closer, "I think Bastille and I will be able to take care of these two."

"We'll hold on," Doren tried to start talking. The Earth under him sprouted around Doren and Meko. Like a bullet, they shot past Platzen and Der Wahn in makeshift caskets.

Once pass the door and stopping amongst the chairs, the Earth that covered them turned to dust and flew off. Doren helped Katrina up and they jumped into the arena. Through one of the entry ways they would be likely to find Meko. They both separated, Doren going to the North gate and Katrina to the South.

Bastille raised his hand into the air. A disc of fire formed in the palm and he tossed it at Platzen and Der Wahn. Snapping a finger, Platzen made the disc explode. Der Wahn started off in a Sprint towards Bastille and Danaka.

Danaka stomped the ground, making a stone pop up from the concrete. She punched it and sent it soaring to Der Wahn. She stepped out of the way as two clones appeared on both sides of her.

Exact replicas, it was impossible to distinguish which of the three was the real one. As they got closer, the clones disappeared. The clone on the left was the real Der Wahn. She threw a kick at Danaka, but she blocked it with her forearm. Danaka pushed her foot off, grabbing ahold of Der Wahn's calf. Danaka spun her towards Bastille who delivered a fist full of fire into her stomach.

Der Wahn was sent tumbling across the ground. Once Platzen had gotten closer, he began snapping his fingers as explosions began rattling Bastille and Danaka. The two jumped away, but in separate directions. Bastille grabbed the ground, and shot fire from his palms and blew out the bottom of his shoes.

He connected his shoulder into Platzen and drug him until they crashed into a wall. Now in the wall, Bastille began delivering punch after punch. Once settled down, he looked down at Platzen who was no longer there.

Laughing was heard behind him. Bastille turned around to see Platzen well and still untouched. Der Wahn picked herself up and giggled.

"As long as I'm conscious, I can make clones of us as many times as we want." she said.

Platzen looked at Bastille, closing one of his eyes. He aimed a finger and shot a blast at Bastille. Unable to move away in time, Bastille was hit with a blast that sent him through the wall and to the outside of the arena.

"Bastille!" Danaka yelled. She stomped one of her feet as the dirt and dust began to form around her. What was like armor covered her. Charging like a bull, she stomped her way to Der Wahn and Platzen.

In a panic, Platzen turned, snapping his fingers. With a direct hit, he grinned, thinking that had must hurt her. Out of the smoke, she came sprinting to them still. When she was a toss away, Danaka jumped into the air, crashing into the ground. The seismic wave from Danaka made the two fall over.

In a steady motion, Danaka tightened her hand and threw a punch through the air. The concrete shot Platzen into the air. It was the real Platzen, who crashed into the ceiling above them.

From the impact, he coughed up blood and began to fall straight down. As he was falling, Danaka punched straight up. A pillar of concrete spiraled up right under Platzen.

Platzen shot an explosion out of the palm of his hand and sent him away from the spike. He rolled on the ground and continued to lay there, catching his breath. Der Wahn had made a handful of clones that surrounded Danaka.

They all began speaking at the same time, "I've become so well in my ability, I'm able to make my clones actually make contact with their targets."

As they started in closer, Danaka stomped her foot through concrete. Forcefully, she spun her body, kicking up the concrete into a wall of dagger that shot to all the clones. Each one disappeared except for one that was gagging and coughing on her blood. She looked at Danaka straight in the eyes through the spikes. Finally she stopped moving.

"My love!" Platzen yelled, "You killed her, you monster." he got his large body up off of the ground. Using an explosion from behind him he fired himself straight at Danaka. Getting ready to attack, something crashed through the wall.

Before Platzen could get close to Danaka, Bastille landed a fiery knee into the side of Platzen's head. Danaka watched them here off and crash into the ground. With Bastille on top, he held one hand on top of the fat throat of his enemy.

"Ring of Fire!" he yelled as a flame picked up around Platzen's neck. It engulfed his entire skull, melting his face away. Screaming for it to stop, Bastille stood up and brushed his clothes off.

He looked up at Danaka who released her earth armor. The spikes fell back into the ground and she ran over to him.

"Thank the Gods you're safe." she cried wrapping him in a hug.

"Me? I'm glad you can hold your own." he returned the hug and held her in his arms.

Danaka looked down at her hands after the hug and noticed all the blood and chunks of flesh that were left over. In a horrid tone, she looked up at Bastille. "Are... Are you okay?"

Bastille put one of his thumbs up. After the last bit of adrenaline wore off, he noticed the pain set in. The amount of blood he lost from the explosion right on his back began taking over. He fell to his knees and held his head.

Danaka caught him and tried to hold him up. Bastille had passed out by this point and lay limp in her arms. With tears forming at the corners of her eyes, she began to panic.

"Please, no. Bastille don't leave me. We will get you patched up right away." she said scrambling to gather bits of clothing she had left over. As she began to patch him up, the blood along his back began standing up.

"I see those two morons weren't able to take care of the job." a voice came from one of the halls. Danaka turned and saw the familiar faces of Rion and Herstring. Only Herstring's head was in Rion's hands.