The moon didn’t particularly enjoy being looked down on, but for Wynn it made an exception.

It was generally understood that a meek, feeble scribe of her caliber was inevitably bound to Sector I forever. With a simple recipe of anko, soymilk, and coffee grounds, this was no longer the case. She wasn’t quite sure if she had manifested a literal or figurative beanstalk, but in any case the spell granted her access to a place she’d once only been able to stare upwards at; the agriculture district.

And it was packed. Seasoned shoppers haggled with conviction, hyperactive youth ignored their guardians’ pleas to cease horseplay, and bored employees sought out as many time-wasting menial tasks as they could. What caught her eye most was the myriad of distinctive creatures occupying the countless nooks and crannies of the farmer’s market. Bordering on the cliche, beasts came in all shapes and sizes, their unique talents working in harmony to keep the gears of society turning…

Wynn snapped back into reality, making sure she had everything on the list as she approached checkout. Milk, flour, eggs…should last us about the month. Am I forgetting something? The merchant at the counter incredulously mugged the pendant around her neck. “Can you even afford all that?”

“H-huh?” Wynn followed his eyes to her chest. Shit! Carrying a moonstone around was an instant indictment, at least in the eyes of the particularly intolerant. Taken aback, she instinctively casted Obfusca, a spell of invisibility. Usually, when you wish to disappear, you don’t mean literally.

The shopkeeper muttered something under his breath about thieves, which snowballed into murmurs of suspicion that rolled through the crowd. When the hubbub was joined by clatter of metal footsteps, Wynn had no choice but to abscond from the scene, goods in hand.

There was no shortage of royal guards posted up at any given moment, and you couldn’t go far without seeing one- even if they couldn’t see you. As the spell’s effect began to fade, they tracked her down with relative ease.

“Shouldn’t you know better at your big age? That’s a one-way ticket to the palace.”

Wynn sighed and hung her head. She simply couldn’t find the voice to speak up for herself. The guards simply shook their heads and ushered her onto the back of a large flying beast. With four bright eyes and a toothy smile, it was oddly adorable in a way that you almost couldn’t tell it was a tool for subjugation.

Hidden by advanced cloaking technology, six translucent rings floated in the atmosphere of Earth’s moon, housing the inhabitants in miles of densely built city. Together, they formed the Lunar Gates, governed by Twilight Palace at the very top.

Arriving at the mighty spire piercing the kingdom’s outermost sector, Wynn was walked through what felt like the longest hallway of her life, held in magic-dampening restraints. Finally, they came about an immense, gaping chasm.

“W-wait, I…!”

“...Sorry, just doing our job.”

Truth be told, when it came to what was beyond the void, the guards were just as clueless as she was. Though they did not loosen their grip, resigned sympathy sparkled in their eyes as a huge bell was struck, resonating through the abyss.

----------------------------------------

“You threw her into the pits?!”

A young man questioned the pair of guards standing before him. His thick eyebrows furrowed, a deadpan stare seemingly plastered on his face. Piercing gold eyes clashed against his dark skin, and a lazily held-together bun kept most of his long locs tied up, the rest cascading downwards. More than anything, he looked…bored with everything.

“Prince Lunaire, we…”

“Just call me Lu.” he interrupted.

“...She was doing-” she looked around and lowered her tone. “Magic! In public! Kids could’ve seen that, y’know?”

“Whatever. I’ll process the report when I get the chance, or something.” He dismissed the guards back to their posts and continued into the palace hall. His father had already left for Sector V, and much of the royal staff was swamped with morning busywork. That left him alone with…

“Rise and shine, darling!”

His mother, the queen of the moon.

Umbra Yogh was a sumptuous sort of woman that carried with her an exquisitely suffocating presence. Perfect hair and skin adorned with top-of-the-line cosmetics, she wasn’t afraid to show that she was, in fact, the queen. Lu often wondered how his dad found himself breathing the same air as her to begin with.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

“Did you learn that saying down there?” asked Lu, gesturing to the blue planet in the distance.

“Don’t be naive, Lu-Lu,” Gotta stop letting her call me that. “Such phrases originated here with us lumens. Eventually they trickled down to the people of Earth, but I’ve never been and frankly don’t plan on it.” A grimace grew on her face ever so slightly. “Quite a common figure of speech, that one, though I wish it didn’t reference the sun.” The queen punctuated this thought with a sharp exhale, as though to snap back to her initial demeanor. “How has your morning been so far?”

“You need something? You never talk to me this early unless you do.” Lu’s had over two decades of living with this woman to sharpen his schmooze radar.

“Nonsense! Can’t a mother greet her own son from time to time?” Raising an eyebrow came so easy to him he didn’t have to command his face muscles. And a crease had developed on the right side of his forehead. “Fine. We’ve discussed this before, though, remember? It’s a…”

“I know, I know, project of utmost importance,” he grumbled as she led him to the royal laboratory. Thanks to the facility being kept under wraps, he’d still only been in there a handful of times over the years. He nodded at a gangly man with foggy glasses who he hadn’t seen in ages. Despite so much time passing, Dr. P looked the same as ever. He didn’t seem all too chatty today, though; he silently took his work to the ground floor of the lab as Lu stared on pensively.

“Queen Umbra!” A young, fidgety researcher approached. “We just finished synthesizing the egg last night.”

“Excellent! Lu has volunteered to be the host.”

I have?

He’d seen beast eggs before, but this one was different from all the rest; it was a vibrant violet, unlike the usual bluish-black.

“Alright, your highness, please submerge your hand into the solution,” Lu dipped his fingertips in. “Erm, liiittle deeper,” He rolled his eyes, but followed through. Lu remembered the stories his dad told him about this sort of thing from back when he hung around the Beast Rangers. The standard for bond glyphs is right below the palm, but you can get ‘em pretty much anywhere on your body. “Now, we’ll need you to hold onto the egg until it hatches. Can you do that for us?”

“I guess.”

“May the moon illuminate your path, Prince Lunaire.” said the scientists with a bow as he turned to leave. How hard could it be to take care of a little egg?

“I almost forgot! Take one of these, dear,” Lu’s mother slid him a thin handheld device, shaped like a crescent moon (as most things around here were). “You did keep the last one I gave you, right?”

Nah.

“This index contains all the information you’ll need to know about beasts. I meant to upgrade you sooner, but I wouldn’t settle for anything but the latest edition!” Lu shrugged. It was all just more junk to haul around at the end of the day.

----------------------------------------

Of course, falling from such a height didn’t pose any significant danger, given the gravitational properties of the moon. What really scared her was the mystery of what would be waiting for her at the end. She finally landed in what looked like an arena, flooded with spectators. In the center of the audience, she recognized…the president of the Milky Way Beast Rangers?

Three important-looking figures sat just below him, eyeing her carefully. She saw them trade whispers as an enormous, amphibian creature with six legs and matching eyes was brought into the room. Wynn pulled out her pocket bestiary to identify it; the small screen read…

HOPHEX. BIOMA-class beast with SPIRIT affinity. These beasts broadcast psionic waves to navigate, due to their ironically poor eyesight.

“How’d she get her hands on one of those? Looks like a pretty old model.” Wynn saw the selection of weapons hanging against the wall, presumably put out to defend herself against the beast. Instead she drew a short blade, typically used for carving wood. It was crafted by her father, a skilled artisan from what she could remember. This shady, underground gauntlet seemed like a place with no rules, so she deduced magic was fair game. Duplicus multiplied her arsenal twofold.

“Think that’s why they threw her down here?”

“Whatever the reason, it really looks like she knows what she’s doing.”

Wynn had no idea what she was doing. The beast came bounding towards her at full speed, surprisingly agile for its size. Like a deer in headlights, Wynn stood with her feet planted on the ground. The crowd responded with confused and concerned mumbling. Before it could make an impact, she gathered all her might and courage, managing to hoist herself up over the beast’s large frame just in time to land on top of it. From here, she was able to examine it more thoroughly! Average-sized Hophex, male. Healthy foot webbing, adequately trimmed tail…clouded psionic receptors? That won’t do. He was too focused on fighting to clear his mind, and soon became restless once unable to see.

Wynn was gonna have to apply her caretaking know-how to the max. She drew her blades and prepared to strike his thick hide in a large ‘X’.

“This might hurt a little, sorry…”

Focusing a snooze spell in her left hand and a healing spell in her right, she pressed her palms together and they combined to form Sedato-Remedias, soothing both his temper and the wound in one fell swoop.

“She’s kind of overdoing it with the magic, don’t you think?”

“I’m surprised she knows beasts take medicine through the bloodstream.”

The spell's effects quickly caught up to the Hophex, who grew drowsy and teetered from side to side. Wynn maneuvered to steer clear of his girth as he fell to the floor with a thud, fast asleep. Applause filled the arena, but she kept her head down as they cheered.