“No mercy!” Aurin ordered Shamtile.

Before the two Zodiac Minakai could react, Shamtile slammed each of them against the wall with a boulder. He conjured a rock cage around the Vinewolf and Flaround, then pelted them with more rocks until they were out cold. They were banished from the tower a second later, leaving the two Zodiac members dumbstruck.

“One day, Aurin,” spat the man.

“You’ll be sorry,” muttered the woman, her lip curled into a frown.

With that, they disappeared from the tower in a flash of light.

“Those two are constant pests,” tutted Luna.

“And still a pair of weaklings even with fully evolved Minakai,” added Aurin. “You would think they would have thrown in the towel with monster taming at this point.”

Kyle nodded, but he looked pensive.

“What’s wrong?” asked Aurin.

“We know now that the Zodiac Squad have guardians posted in the tower in case anybody does enter to try and stop Taurus. This won’t be your average tower run.”

“Taurus saw this coming,” said Luna, summoning Innogon to her side. “I think we should all keep a Minakai out in case we’re forced to battle three on three.”

“Indeed,” said Kyle, summoning Hogannon. “Shamtile carrying us through the early floors sounded good in theory, but we sometimes forget that the higher ups of the Zodiac Squad are much better planned than the grunts.”

“Like how they outmanoeuvred our infiltration and blocked off the tower?”

“Yes…yes, perhaps we should have seen something like this coming after all of that.”

Aurin stepped forward. “In any case, let’s start climbing. We’re very far behind as it is.”

“Right,” said Luna and Kyle in unison.

The three tamers and their Minakai charged through the first floor. They avoided whatever roaming Minakai they could and stayed out of the rooms as much as possible, fearing whatever traps may be hidden in the floor tiles that could end their run early. They aimed straight for the elevators, not caring for riches, eggs or anything that would aid their tamer goals, all they cared about right now was making a break for Taurus.

They conquered the first ten floors with ease and in record time, but they knew that the effortlessness of their climb so far would not last. Now that they were on double digit floors, the wandering Minakai were already proving to be tough and there were a few close misses with traps.

“Eee!” squealed Luna, pulling Innogon out of the way of a jet of flame that erupted from the floor tile he had wandered onto.

The little blue drake looked up at her innocently and smiled.

“You don’t understand, Inno,” she said to her Minakai, shaking her head. “We need to be extra careful this time. We aren’t playing a game; we aren’t training and we aren’t having fun today.”

Innogon cocked his head to the side and smiled. Shamtile ran up to him upon Luna setting him down and rapped his knuckles on his friend’s head, squealing and growling at him. Innogon opened his mouth in shock and recoiled before turning to his tamer and nodding his head while roaring furiously.

“You get it now, right?”

Innogon nodded even more vigorously, ran around her feet and leapt onto her back.

Upon landing on the thirteenth floor, the three tamers found themselves face to face with a group of three Zodiac Squad members. Two of them wore the standard uniform and stood beside a Windjinn and a Minasma, but the third member was different. His mask bore the image of a vase from which water flowed, spreading to the left and right of his mask. Coiled around him like a snake was an unusually long-tailed Splashard.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“You must be Aquarius,” said Aurin, eliciting a smile and a nod.

“And you must be Aurin,” said the Zodiac elite. “I’m surprised to see you here, I must admit. Truth be told, I thought it was just Master Taurus’s flight of fancy that you would be able to make it through the barricade outside, yet…here you are.”

“Here we are,” said Luna as Innogon jumped off her back.

“And who are you?” asked Aquarius.

“Who am I?” replied Luna incredulously. “What do you mean? You know perfectly well who I am.”

“He’s trying to rattle you,” muttered Kyle, seeing Aquarius’s smirk. “Don’t let him bait you to anger, Luna. He wants you to make mistakes.”

“So, Aquarius, are you going to move out of the way or are we going to have to send you packing?” asked Aurin.

“You already know the answer to that, Aurin,” said Aquarius. “And, oh, what glory it will bring me to be the one who keeps you from reaching Master Taurus. I think a promotion and a pay rise will be in it for you two lads, what do you reckon?”

The two grunts chuckled heartily, nodding in agreement.

“Enough stalling,” said Aurin, pointing towards Aquarius’s Splashard. “Attack!”

Shamtile charged forward as the water demon removed itself from its tamer and conjured a wall of water to meet the dashing lizard. Shamtile burst through, encased in rock and shattered the stoney shield, sending its sharp shards straight through Splashard.

The water elemental absorbed them into its body and send them down to its tail. It flicked its tail through the air, throwing the shards straight back at Shamtile who brought up a wall of his own to take his own redirected attack.

As Shamtile and Splashard faced off, Innogon spat a water jet at the Minasma, who spat back a much filthier one in return. The two streams of water collided, each struggling for dominance as the users exerted more and more effort to overpower the other, neither willing to concede an inch.

Hogannon raised his cannon arms and fired bursts of fireballs at the Windjinn who weaved through the air, swirling its way past the fireballs before beating its wings and conjuring a razor-sharp wind that trimmed the hair from the top of Hogannon’s head as he dove out of the way of the stinging gust.

“No time for games,” said Aurin, holding up his tamer and focusing his energy into a blue summoning stone embedded within. “Pressure cannon!”

Steambot appeared in a flash of light and immediately erupted with his powerful cannon attack. The mighty burst of water, tore Aquarius’s Splashard in two. Shamtile conjured air-tight stone cages around each section of the severed water elemental and hurled one towards Hogannon who blasted it to pieces.

As the lower half of Splashard flew towards Innogon, the little drake dove out of the way and let Minasma’s attack collide with its teammate. As the brown ooze halted its water jet, Steambot threw his entire body weight onto the Minakai and crushed it thoroughly, banishing it from the tower alongside its tamer and leaving only two Zodiac members remaining.

Windjinn charged towards Shamtile who was about to throw the other trapped half of Splashard into a wall, forcing the masked lizard to duck and lose focus. Splashard broke free and sought out its lower half, recombining and becoming whole once again, but now found itself outnumbered.

“Panchi!” ordered Aquarius, summoning the blue warrior Minakai to the battlefield as Windjinn was struck by the combined water jets of both Innogon and Steambot, eliminating it from the battle and sending its tamer out of the tower along with it.

Panchi summoned a small whirlpool and dropped inside it to avoid a barrage of fireballs courtesy of Hogannon. The purple-haired pugilist reappeared behind Hogannon and delivered a flurry of blows to the large, orange pig’s back before Shamtile lobbed a rock at its head. Dazed, Panchi was unable to dodge a point-blank shot to the head from Hogannon.

“Yield!” demanded Aurin as the Hogannon threw Panchi into Splashard, knocking both Minakai into the wall.

“That’s not going to happen, Aurin,” said Aquarius, visibly angered at what was happening to his Minakai.

“Are you sure?” asked Kyle, summoning Wingbloom and Snowlem to his side.

“You’re done,” added Luna, also summoning her remaining Minakai—Frocean and Angee—to intimidate the Zodiac elite.

“Dishonourable,” spat Aquarius.

“Your group started all of this,” said Aurin, shaking his head with contempt. “We’re just making sure it ends today.”

The eight Minakai unleashed their attacks on the helpless Splashard and Panchi, who were both ejected in a flash of blue.

Even with the top half of his face obscured by his mask, Aquarius’s disgusted sneer was visible. “You will lose,” he said, his voice filled with contempt. “You cannot stand against Master Taurus.”

Upon uttering his final word, he vanished from the tower, sent outside to rejoin his comrades.

“Any injuries?” asked Aurin, turning to the Minakai, all of whom shook their heads.

“Hogannon,” said Kyle, “don’t tough it out. You took a couple of hits.”

Kyle’s fiery pig snorted in discontent, but he nodded and tapped on his back with one of his cannons. Aurin summoned Sunny who floated over merrily and weaved one of her healing spells, which eased Hogannon’s pain and brought him back to full strength.

“Good job, Sunny,” said Aurin, patting the wispy egg on the head, eliciting a squeal of glee at being praised.

“Let’s thin the herd a little,” said Kyle, looking towards the army of nine Minakai. “The last thing we want is a crowd stomping around and a loose trap hitting everyone at once.”

“Good idea,” said Luna, raising her tamer glove.

“See you all later,” said Aurin, as the tamers dismissed Steambot, Sunny, Frocean, Angree, Wingbloom and Snowlem.

“One elite down,” said Luna as the Minakai vanished.

“Not to mention the ones outside,” said Kyle.

“And they could be on their way up after us,” said Aurin, “so let’s keep going.”