Meanwhile, as Avgi and Esca continued their fun duel, the Blazers were busy pointing both their hands out and standing in formation, eyes squeezed shut as they impatiently bought time to recover their vision. The blinded poser guards were far away by then, far enough away to be untouched by any streams of fire they threw out.

Eventually, they could all start to see through showers of floaters and blurriness. The guards began to approach as soon as they could see, running at the Blazers and leaping in formation, a great wave of smoldering flames rolling out from under them as they split off in pairs and landed by the sides of the joint attack.

Blassandra was at the forefront, between her parents, and detected an attempt at a pincer coming their way. However, as the war party group split off, an opportunity opened up. "Let's go for the left ones!"

The Blazer's fists swirled with infernal might. Both duos were running to close the royal trio off, but that trio sprinted to close off one duo's options.

Through the blurriness, an extra blur burst from one of their targets. The royals heard a sort of swishing noise, as well as a residual sizzling. Blassandra realized that the blur was coming for her specifically, and she quickly flung her fists up, a massive trail exuding from them and forming a burning wall. However, the sheer amount of water that descended upon her was no little splash.

Gallons upon gallons of boiling liquid extinguished her defense, and poured over her body, steam erupting from it as the sizzling reached a crescendo, accompanied by a seize of weakness as Blassandra gargled out an attempted roar. She couldn't feel a lot of pain, and that was the problem; she could hardly stay upright. The water had rapidly cooled her body to a crippling, numbing extent.

The king and queen were shaken by the weak sounds of their daughter's sudden lack of vitality, quickly raising both fists up and slamming them into the ground. Fissures split in the already-cracked ground, plumes of heat shooting out and consuming their enemies before they could run out of the way. They dashed from the geysers, joining the cacophony of pained snarls while frantically waving away the flames.

Once there were no embers sticking to their armor, the orange highlights that plagued the impostors began to shift. As the water-flinging troop revealed their true element, the light coming from their armor turned sapphire blue. The troop they were paired with glowed grey. They seemed to bounce back quickly from even such a potent attack, running back at the royalty while drawing ropes from their backs. The ropes seemed hidden in their armors, and were pitch black, glistening with every color of the rainbow.

Chaos Elemental binders… Do they want to capture us? They both held a similar conclusion in their minds, getting ready for their next move.

“Bee yuu! (Behind us!) Gee-dee! (Get down!)” Blassandra weakly groaned out, still remaining leaning on one knee. Her hair was severely darker than usual, and her greying skin hardly held a dim glow.

WIth their abbreviated signal, the king and queen quickly hit the deck, and Blassandra fell over, as a surge of branched off lightning bolts streaked above their heads, and found targets beyond them. Those targets became the most electrically-conductive enemy, and the enemy next to them. The blue and grey-glowing armors jolted and collapsed, letting go of their ropes as they echoed out jittery non-words. Despite conducting the shock, the prismatic rope wasn’t affected.

“Why-gee-tee! (You go there!)” After pointing forwards, the Cinderqueen gave her order to her husband, before jumping up to her feet and whipping around. Now glowing white and electric blue, the enemies that unsuccessfully flanked them were at a loss. Knocking their own allies unconscious by mistake was a worst-case scenario, and it gave the royals an opportunity. The sheer amount of electric charge the blue armor brought seemed exhausting, judging by the way they slumped forwards and huffed. Taking this as an opening, the queen flicked two fingers in their direction, a small band of sparks whizzing through the air in a flash and hitting the ground between their legs.

A blazing explosion then sent the troop hurling five meters into the air, the person under the armor reflexively going limp so as not to break anything upon their inevitably-harsh landing. The armor next to them was also blown away, landing on a shoulder and violently sliding through the ground.

The king and queen rushed towards the duos before they could recover, pulling their rainbow ropes from their possessions and pinning them down for apprehension.

At that time, Avgi and Esca were trading blows with metal and steel, while rapidly shifting elements. With every shift, a burst of energy swelled from them in a gargantuan radius, changing the ground and air for thirty meters in any direction. He gained white hair, as an icy aura froze the ground and brought cold winds, and he swiped for her thighs with an icy weapon. Turning fiery and returning the surroundings to a scorch worse than any other point in the Blazer Kingdom, she jumped back to avoid the slice, and lunged back in for a hot swing diagonally down his torso. Quickly electrifying and ripping sparks across the surroundings, Avgi thrust his sword back up to parry, before carrying the momentum, spinning around hardly any slower than lightning itself, and whipping the crackling edge into Esca’s waiting sword. Her blade was covered in a layer of stone that sent sandy dust everywhere, and forced their eyes shut for a brief instant.

They paused as Avgi’s lips opened. “You know, that armor’s kinda unfair for how nice it looks!”

“Why don’t you get some, yourself?” Esca resumed, pushing away the edge and chopping down at Avgi’s shoulder.

He quickly stepped aside, striking down at Esca’s blade to keep it pinned to the ground. More dust exploded, but his eyes remained open, sparks destroying any debris that would have hit them. “I probably should! But my tunic is woven with the toughest stuff, from the greatest armorers around!”

Her sandy eyes narrowed, this time with envy. “That’s the real unfair part! I can't get my hands on stuff like that!” She kicked away Avgi’s sword, her steel greaves taking a minimal nick from the edge, and taking on a charge that she hastily shook off. “None of the clothes I make are shock-absorbant! They're always... Shock-creatant!”

He returned to guarding at range, starting to step sideways to circle Esca. “You’ve got me wondering something. Why crash a party to get to me?”

She raised her blade at her shoulder, slowly circling Avgi as well. They began to orbit each other, watching intently while sparing little focus to speak. “Because I felt it would be too boring without us, of course!”

“Ain’t that so! You certainly succeeded at spicing it up, for me at least!” He shook his head, sass building up. “But I still can’t let you win! Not here, not anywhere!” He lunged in, swinging down at her head and being blocked.

Esca lingered. “Then why don’t you come at me with all you’ve got?”

“Maybe I will. But maybe I’m not doing that to make you bored, and make you overstep.” Avgi pushed the sword down further, as she pushed back.

Her own sass snapped back. “Ha! You’re mad, aren't ‘cha!?”

As they continued casually swinging their rods of death and leaving elemental scars in the area below, they both took glances at their allies. In the distance, the king and queen had all four guards tied up and laying at their feet, as the doused Blassandra clumsily stumbled over to the smoldering bar to sit down. The king and queen were beginning to run towards Avgi and Esca.

Esca immediately disengaged upon realizing the situation, running at breakneck speeds across the plains to reconvene with her arrested allies.

“BLAST!” Avgi was a step behind in following her, the two crossing several meters every second on the way to rendezvous.

Their sprints both leaned low, dashing with their chins not one meter from the ground. When he felt he had the right opportunity, he went to sweep under Esca’s feet with his blade, attempting to trip her over. Unfortunately for him, Esca was waiting for that, and leapt from the ground, passing over the sweep, and lobbing her body far above even the royal pair.

When she landed before her people, her blade moved like a whip, vanishing with every lash as her people’s arms and legs were freed once more. She turned to Avgi, and dramatically bowed. "This is where we must take our leave. It was fun, Avgi, but I can’t be dawdling with my people lying battered and defeated!”

"Sounds good to us...  Now get outta here!" He lunged forwards, raising his sword over his head intimidatingly. Esca didn’t react to the gesture at all, relaxedly bringing her greatsword behind her back and clipping the hilt to a small strap on said back. Her impostor guards turned to walk with her, away from the reception, and away from Avgi and the Blazers.

The Volking was somewhat confused at the exchange, raising one hand to the casually-retreating band of foes. However, he lowered it back down. “I am glad they backed off, but… Aren’t they still able to fight?”

Avgi shook his head, smiling secretively. “Let’s just say she doesn’t like to overstay her welcome.” Then, he turned over to the bar. “Blassandra, you alright?”

She was slumped against the counter, drooling thick tar. “Jush gotha sid dun.”

Not wishing to waste time, the king headed for the bar. “We must go. Burnandra, will you look for the real guards and bartender?”

The queen nodded, starting off on a path around the foot of the mountain, as the king picked up Blassandra in his arms. “I must say... That is a terrifying crater. The Chaos Elementals truly are respectable...”

The ground where Avgi and Esca clashed, for a thirty-meter radius all around, was an elemental mess. What used to be grass was simultaneously grown, burnt, frozen, withered, and petrified. It sparked with rainbow-colored electricity, fire, and dust, and glowed as well. It filled the king with an impressed dread to watch the omni-dangerous area that seemed also nigh-permanent.

On the other hand, Avgi looked at it fondly, like a new memory made.

“Why not make it a tourist landmark?"