Aurin stood outside Benedict’s Café with Shamtile waiting for Conrad. It was an especially chilly day as Christmas drew ever nearer, and he had wrapped his scarf tightly around himself. He checked his watch, seeing that it was still two minutes to midday, but his impatience was growing knowing that Frederick seemingly had a cosmic elemental Minakai on his team now.

“If he has one, it’ll be a disaster,” Aurin said aloud to Shamtile who looked up at his tamer in confusion. “If Leo has a cosmic Minakai.”

Shamtile nodded half-heartedly. Having battled against Tobias’s Mindadam, the masked lizard thought he may have been able to overcome the element that controlled space and time.

“It won’t be half as easy as you think,” said Aurin. “A single battle against Mindadam, which you lost very quickly, isn’t enough to prepare you. It took the combined efforts of the entire team to tire him out enough for Dolissile to deliver the final blow. If we have to—”

“Aurin!” called Conrad, rushing up the street. “I’m not late am I?”

Aurin checked his watch again. “No, it just turned twelve noon.”

“How have you been?” Conrad asked, reaching out a hand for Aurin to shake.

Aurin looked at him for a moment before accepting the handshake. If ever there was a time to let bygones be bygones, now was probably it. Besides, being standoffish when Conrad came all this way to speak with him wouldn’t have made him overly eager to share what he knew.

“I’ve been well,” said Aurin.

“Winning tournaments, I hear?”

“How did you know that?”

“We had someone participating to keep an eye on Frederick to see whether he would…well, we’ll get to that. Shall we order?”

Aurin, Conrad, and Shamtile headed inside and spoke to Benedict at the counter—Aurin ordered a cheeseburger, Conrad the shepherd’s pie and Shamtile a chocolate milkshake; something he had badly missed while staying in Briarwood. After taking their seats, they final had a chance to talk properly.

“I want to hear everything,” said Aurin.

“Fair enough,” said Conrad, nodding slowly. “We received word of a cosmic Minakai being seen in a town to the north called Merridale, so naturally, we were tasked with investigating to see if the user would cause any trouble with it.

“We sent a team out to the town and found a young blonde man, only a couple of years older than either of us, trying to make it follow his will. Needless to say, I was surprised that it was someone who was already on our radar thanks to what we learned last time in Hazelton.”

“Frederick,” muttered Aurin as Shamtile slurped his milkshake noisily.

“Frederick Alton, also known as Leo of the Zodiac Squad,” said Conrad. “The Minakai, Abysarex, was proving to be difficult for him to control, but he refused to hand it over to us. He summoned his own team to fight us and, much to our surprise, he also had command of a Minakai thought extinct; a Leofang.”

“He’s full of surprises, isn’t he?”

“Our hands were largely tied because our men overstepped the mark, legally speaking, and we had very little concrete evidence to identify him as the criminal known as Leo, so we were forced to let him go with Abysarex in tow.”

“If Abysarex was difficult to control, how did he manage to bring it back to Hazelton?” asked Aurin. “Surely, he has to be keeping the Minakai somewhere rather than having it follow him the whole way?”

“I couldn’t say for certain, but I would suspect he wore it down and hid it somewhere out in the countryside where nobody was likely to stumble across it, then summoned it here when he finally made it home. Wherever the Zodiac Squad are holed up these days, I would suspect that’s where Abysarex is…along with the Ethruki controlled by Taurus.”

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Just then, the two meals arrived and, to Aurin’s surprise, a second milkshake for Shamtile that he didn’t remember ordering. Shamtile snatched it away before his tamer could question anything.

“This Abysarex…how does it differ from Ethruki or Mindadam?” asked Aurin.

“Their elemental powers are largely the same, but their temperament is quite different. Mindadam is more docile unless provoked, Ethruki is a wildcard, especially if angered, and Abysarex is a powerful brawler that loves to fight. It resembles a lion—”

“Of course it does,” said Aurin. “That’s three cosmic Minakai to represent three of the Zodiac elites. A bull for Taurus, a lion for Leo and a horse for whoever may be the new Sagittarius. I take it there’s been no word on a Mindadam sighting?”

“Nothing,” said Conrad as he took a bite of his pie.

“What are we supposed to do now?”

“Klaus has given me permission to stay in town and monitor things for the time being. Having two members of a criminal organisation with cosmic Minakai is something worth keeping an eye on. I’ll check in with Detective Knot this afternoon.”

The two finished their meal and Conrad paid the bill for them. They talked very little the rest of the time, Aurin being too deep in thought and wild theories to give more than one-word answers to anything Conrad asked him. Truth be told, he was still sore about the Minakai Guardian’s deception.

“Thanks,” said Aurin upon Conrad paying.

“Don’t mention it,” said Conrad. “If you find out anything else, give me a shout. I take it I’ll still be able to find you at the ranch?”

“Yeah, not much has changed there.”

“Fair,” laughed Conrad as he walked away. “I’ll see you around.”

Aurin and a very full Shamtile headed the opposite way down the street, making their way back home. He had a lot to fill Luna and Kyle in on. The Zodiac Squad were now more dangerous than ever with their two cosmic Minakai. Aurin could only surmise that they wanted a third so that three of them could storm the tower at once with their powerful monsters.

“We’re in a world of trouble, Shamtile,” said Aurin, shaking his head. “The most we can do right now is keep training hard.”

Shamtile let out a warbled grunt, then patted Aurin on the lower back; he was unable to reach higher. They walked out of town and along the forest path. As they neared the junction leading towards the tower, a fireball suddenly smacked Shamtile on the back of the head.

“Whoops,” came Damien’s voice.

Aurin and Shamtile spun around and laid eyes on the pest of a tamer with his Hoofreeti standing beside him. Luna had told Aurin all about her battle with Damien a couple of weeks ago.

“Apologise to Shamtile,” barked Aurin.

“Was whoops not enough?” shrugged Damien with a vile smirk on his face.

“What do you want?” Aurin demanded.

“A rematch,” said Damien. “After how you embarrassed me at Tamer Day, I think it’s only fair.”

“Embarrassed you? You lost a battle, Damien. Get over it.”

“I was cheated out of a victory and I simply want to even up the scales.”

“You want a battle? Fine. Let’s go!”

Shamtile charged forwards, dodging fireballs from Hoofreeti. He encased his fists with stone and launched himself towards the demonic goat, who blocked with his tough hoof. Hoofreeti retaliated with a kick, but Shamtile dove underneath the ground and out of sight.

Hoofreeti held a cloven hoof to the hole in the ground and unleashed a jet of flame, trying to smoke Shamtile out. The little Minakai burst out a few feet away, disoriented by his sudden forced exit. Hoofreeti swung himself around and slammed a hoof into the side of Shamtile’s head, knocking him across the grass.

From the edge of the path burst a small black ghost with a pumpkin for a head and a flickering flame atop a wick. It smiled meaningly as it grabbed Shamtile and threw him into the air and roasting him with an eruption of fire. The Scarelit danced around excitedly, very pleased with itself.

“Dolissile!” called Aurin, throwing out his fist.

Dolissile charged forwards, colliding with Hoofreeti’s back as he aimed for the falling Shamtile. The demonic Minakai collapsed unable to fight, leaving Aurin’s Minakai outnumbering Damien’s.

“You dirty little…”

“You started this,” warned Aurin.

Damien summoned three more Minakai; a Fyrvern, a Hogannon, and a Volcarrow. Aurin in-turn summoned Desparee, Gorunze and Chopchop. The two tamers stared each other down as their Minakai all waited to be called to action. Finally, Damien laughed and banished his entire team.

“It was fun playing with you, Aurin,” he said, turning around to walk away. “Perhaps next time we’ll battle in the tower. I’m sure it’ll be you and the girl, whereas I like to travel in a group of three. We’ll see how you fare when it’s nine of our Minakai against your six.”

“And who are these friends of yours you’ll be bringing along?”

“You already know them well, don’t you?”

“So…you’re a member of the Zodiac Squad too then, Damien?”

“I would prefer that you call me Capricorn,” said Damien, reaching into his jacket and placing a goat-patterned mask upon his face.

He pointed his fingers at Aurin like a gun and pretended to fire and blow away the imaginary smoke. He then laughed, removed his mask and walked away as Aurin and his Minakai watched him. Once he was out of sight, Aurin headed over to Shamtile to make sure he was alright.

“That guy is rotten to the core,” said Aurin.

Shamtile grunted and screeched, angry to have been hit twice by sucker punches.

“We’re all going to need to be extra vigilant,” Aurin said, turning to Dolissile, Desparee, Gorunze and Chopchop. “I know he threatened jumping us in the tower, but he reminds me of Sagittarius. Even at the ranch, we can’t afford to let our guard down.”

The Minakai all expressed their agreement, knowing that their biggest battles were coming closer and closer.