“There’s nothing you can do?” protested Aurin.

  Aurin and Luna stood in the Hazelton mayor’s office with their Minakai, Mayor Boren and two detectives called Knot and Scarlett.

  “We’re a small town with limited officers,” insisted Detective Knot. “We’ve been trying to keep Zodiac under control, but they’re as slippery as they come. Harmony Tower keys only began appearing in the world three years ago, so Hazelton hasn’t had time to adjust to the influx of new people coming to see a brand-new tower open, never mind deal with these troublemakers.”

  Knot was a man in his early forties with brown hair that was starting to grey and light stubble on his sharp chin. His face was more wrinkled than it should have been, no doubt from the stress of his job. His partner, Scarlett, was a brown-haired woman in her late twenties who had a warm smile, but sharp eyes that darted about upon hearing even the faintest noise. The mayor himself was tall and broad, but he gave the vibe of someone much more laid back than his appearance suggested.

  “Kids,” began the mayor calmly, “I agree with you entirely that the Zodiac Squad need to be stopped. They’ve been growing more and more persistent, fighting people in the tower, kidnapping rare Minakai and stealing eggs...it’s terrible. Detective Knot obviously agrees too.”

  “I do, of course,” said Knot, nodding his head.

  “If you see anything else or have any more reports, please don’t be deterred from letting us know,” said Detective Scarlett in a soothing tone, placing her hand on Luna’s shoulder.

  “I became mayor of this wonderful town shortly after Harmony Tower opened,” said Mayor Boren. “The town has become a haven for tamers looking to enter one of the quieter towers in our fine country. It helps that it’s a combat-class tower so you know what you can usually expect. I’ve been making many improvements to the town to try and adapt to our new way of life here, but these things take time. Perhaps it’s my fault that I didn’t invest more in law enforcement at the beginning of all this, but please know that I’m trying to rectify that.”

  “There’s nothing we can do in the meantime?” asked Aurin.

  “I would suggest forming a team, building their strength and I would also urge you two to stick together when you enter the tower. That Innogon you have, young lady, is one I’m sure that the Zodiac Squad would love to have added to their arsenal of monsters. He’s attuned to a crystal, right?”

  Luna nodded as Innogon playfully blew a bubble from his mouth.

  “That’s good. If they don’t take your gem, you can summon him back to you.”

  “If you’ll excuse us, children,” said Knot, “we’ve got a few things to discuss.”

  Aurin and Luna thanked the mayor and detectives before leaving. Aurin was reluctant to show much gratitude considering they had been of little help, but they had taken the time out to speak to two teenagers they had never heard of. He knew that the Zodiac Squad’s existence wasn’t the fault of the mayor or the detectives, but he couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed that they weren’t able to do much to stop them, leaving everybody to fend for themselves.

  “Come on, Aurin,” said Luna, grabbing him by the sleeve and marching him onto the road towards the tower.

  “Are we going back into the tower already?” asked Aurin.

  “You heard them, we need to get stronger,” Luna said, not looking back to face him. “We’re going to Kyle’s ranch just outside of town. Let’s hatch that new egg of yours so we can start building up our teams.”

  “Who is Kyle?” asked Aurin, thinking the name sounded vaguely familiar.

  *

  “Kyle!” called Luna as she waved at a man carrying a large sack of food.

  They were at a large ranch just outside of town but down a different path from the tower. There were large fences used to keep various Minakai apart to stop them from fighting. The fences were protected by bulky white monsters wearing crowns of ice called Frogre. The Frogre were constantly patrolling back and forth, likely to keep the Minakai inside safe from the outside more so than to prevent them from escaping.

  “Hello there, Luna,” replied Kyle as he approached. He was a tall and well-built man in his late thirties, with thick black hair and a short beard.

  “Hello, Kyle. My name is Aurin,” said Aurin extending his hand to greet the rancher.

  Kyle shook his hand. “Welcome to Hazelton, Aurin. I’ve heard that you’re new around here.”

  Aurin looked puzzled. “I’ve only been here two days; how did you know?”

  “I know everything in this town,” chuckled Kyle, “even though I live all the way out here.”

  Aurin reached into his pack and brought out his egg. “I was hoping that you would be able to help me hatch this.”

  The rancher inspected the egg and smiled again. “You’ve come to the right place. Hatching eggs and looking after Minakai is my speciality.”

  Kyle went inside his house and came back a minute later with a small device that looked not too dissimilar from a hot plate. He set it on the ground and turned it on, placing the egg on top of it.

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  “This is a special kind of incubator we use for Minakai that rapidly speeds up the hatching process. When activated, they’ll hatch almost instantly.”

  Aurin glanced at Luna, then placed his egg on the incubator. Kyle instructed him to push the button on the side. Upon doing so, a small forcefield encircled the egg and within moments, the egg started to crack. A glowing red light burst from within and a small Minakai appeared. It was red, scaly and curled into a ball.

  “What is it?” asked Luna.

  “I think it’s a Hornber,” said Aurin uncertainly.

  “Yes, it’s a Hornber alright,” Kyle chimed in.

  The Minakai uncurled itself and stood up on all fours. It was a short, red dinosaur with a bone-like spike protruding from its head. It looked up at Aurin with its big red eyes and snorted out a small puff of grey smoke from its nostrils.

  “Hello there,” said Aurin, moving to pat Hornber’s head.

  The small dinosaur looked uneasy, but it allowed Aurin to touch it. The young tamer carefully avoided the spike and, after a couple of seconds, Hornber gave a warbled growl of comfort.

  “Did you hatch your Shamtile yourself?” asked Kyle.

  “No,” admitted Aurin. “I mean, I had him as an egg, but I’ve never seen an incubator like that before. My dad took me to a lab in Ludonia and they hatched him for me. I don’t think we have any incubators like that back in my town, Buckstone.”

  “I’m sure somebody does, but they probably don’t advertise it unless they’re running a ranch,” said Kyle knowingly. “It’s one of the few drivers of money in this business.”

  “Oh,” said Aurin reaching into his pack for some coins from the tower.

  Kyle shook his head and laughed. “I wasn’t trying to imply anything. I don’t expect any money for it. I’ll tell you what...how about a battle?”

  “Me versus...you?” Aurin blurted out clumsily.

  “I’ll play fair,” said Kyle with a smile. “I’ll use a couple of recently hatched Minakai that I haven’t trained much. If you lose, you can stay here while you’re in town and help me around the ranch. It may even help you get more familiar with Minakai up close rather than relying on what you read in books and see on the television.”

  “Sounds good,” said Aurin enthusiastically. “What if I win?”

  “If you win...you can still stay here until you find somewhere else. I’ll even give you a tamer glove and a couple of summoning stones that you can link your Minakai to. It’ll let you summon them to your side whenever you need them.”

  Aurin tilted his head, confused. “I win either way?”

  “Don’t question it,” whispered Luna, nudging Aurin’s ribs.

  “I suppose so,” admitted Kyle. “You remind me of a young me. I was a tamer before becoming a rancher. Are you ready to battle then? Your team of two versus one of my teams of two.”

  Everyone walked to a small grassy clearing in front of the ranch. Aurin’s Shamtile and Hornber were by his side, but Kyle’s Minakai were nowhere to be seen. Luna and Innogon stood at the sidelines, ready to cheer Aurin on.

  Aurin sent forth his newly hatched Hornber. Young Minakai are not like human infants. Minakai are born to fight and are ready for battle shortly after hatching. Aurin was confident that he would be able to lead his Hornber to victory.

  “Alright,” said Kyle, readying his glove. “If you’re using a fire elemental, I’ll use an earth elemental. Pottemp!”

  One of the gems in Kyle’s glove glowed an orange-brown and what appeared to be a statue appeared in the clearing in a flash of light. It was also a dinosaur of some kind, yet it was made of brown stone. It looked old and decayed, however, with both of its arms broken off. It did not possess eyes, rather it had two empty sockets where small glowing green dots rested. It was hard to tell if the dots were physical objects, but regardless of what they were, they allowed the Pottemp to see.

  Aurin thought that in the battle between the two dinosaurs, he had the advantage even with his elemental weakness. Kyle’s Pottemp didn’t even have arms. What was he thinking using this one?

  “Charge straight for it, Hornber!” called out Aurin.

  Hornber lowered his head and ran forward, aiming for Pottemp. Pottemp simply stood there with a goofy reptilian grin on its stone face. Hornber collided with the stone Minakai, who fell backwards to the ground, but Hornber was noticeably hurt. Whatever stone Pottemp was made of, it was tough.

  Kyle didn’t need to say a word. His Pottemp swung its legs and threw itself back to its feet. It leapt ten feet into the air and slammed straight into the ground, causing a shockwave that knocked Hornber over. It charged towards Hornber, aiming to do what Hornber had failed to do to it.

  “Get out of the way and hit him with a fireball!” yelled Aurin.

  Hornber wasn’t fast enough and Pottemp ploughed straight through him, sending Hornber through the air and crashing to the ground. He was too weak to fight on, so Luna ran over and picked him up to tend to him on the sidelines.

  “Shamtile, you’re up,” ordered Aurin and Shamtile immediately ran in to avenge his new ally. “Use your own rocks to crack it wide open.”

  Shamtile began waving his arms, conjuring forth stones and then hurled his barrage of rocks at Pottemp. As surprisingly nimble as it was, Pottemp could not evade all of the rocks and a particularly large one smacked it in the eye socket. Shamtile used this distraction to grab Pottemp by its rocky tail and spin it around. Shamtile rotated faster and faster, suddenly letting go of Pottemp and it soared through the air. It crashed down on its head with a heavy thud on the grass and stopped moving.

  Kyle gave a small smile and used one of the summoning stones in his glove to dismiss Pottemp. He raised the glove once more and a flash of blue light summoned forth a ball of a watery jelly-like substance with a small blue tadpole inside.

  “Spaqua, you know what to do,” said Kyle.

  Aurin was surprised that a supposedly untrained Minakai would know what to do. “Shamtile, it’s an ice elemental! There’s no elemental advantage for either of you here. Use your speed to outmanoeuvre it!”

  Shamtile dashed forward and Spaqua started spraying streams of solid, icy bubbles in his direction, but Shamtile was agile enough to duck and dive over the streams as he moved closer to Spaqua. As the masked lizard moved in to strike, Spaqua pointed downwards inside his jelly and sprayed bubbles into the ground, forcing him into the air above Shamtile.

  “Shamtile, he’s made an error. Pelt him with rocks!”

  Shamtile waved his hands in the air and conjured his rocks, hurling them upwards almost as rapidly as Spaqua had sprayed its bubbles. In the air, Spaqua was helpless and the rocks collided with it. The small tadpole fell to the ground, unable to right itself, and sprayed a powerful frosty breath towards the grass in a desperate attempt to slow the fall. Its sack of jelly lessened the impact as it hit the grass, but it was too wounded to fight on.

  Luna and Innogon jumped and cheered while Shamtile started performing a bizarre dance. Aurin breathed a sigh of relief. The stakes weren’t high, but he knew that he wanted to win.

  Kyle walked forward and shook Aurin’s hand. “Well done. Your Hornber needs a little experience, but that’s to be expected. You and your Shamtile are quite a good team already.”

  “Thanks, Kyle,” said Aurin with a smile. “For untrained Minakai, your Pottemp and Spaqua are tough.”

  “They’re untrained, but never neglected. All of my Minakai get attention, even if I don’t actively battle with them.”

  “I think that’s a good way to handle things,” admitted Aurin, feeling slightly guilty for doubting Kyle’s intent.

  Luna ran over and continued to jump for joy. “That was even more exciting than our Zodiac fight, Aurin.”

  “Zodiac fight?” asked Kyle, raising an eyebrow.

  “It’s a long story,” said Aurin. “What was it you said about a glove and summoning stones?”

  Kyle laughed as he led the way into his house, eager to give Aurin his prize and hear the two teenagers’ tale about their battle with the Zodiac Squad members.

  Aurin's Team:

  Luna's Team: