Aurin gathered himself and walked out onto the battlefield as Kyle approached the centre. It was game time and both tamers knew that they were not going to have an easy run of it. They stopped and shook hands as the crowd cheered for both of them.
“Nervous?” Aurin asked the rancher with a grin.
“Me? Never,” said Kyle.
“That’s a yes.”
“Once we’re through today, you’ll considering pulling out of the national championships in case you end up drawing me.”
The pair both laughed as they walked to opposite sides of the battlefield and took their positions. As much as they could joke with each other, the laughter stopped now. This battle would require full focus and the first one to slip would be the one to lose.
“The moment has come, folks,” boomed the announcer’s voice. “Both tamers are ready to go, are you?”
The crowd shouted their confirmation and demanded the match be counted in.
“If you say so! Three. Two. One. Let the finals begin!”
Aurin and Kyle both threw their hands forward, sending bursts of light onto the battlefield. From an orange-brown light appeared Shamtile, who was already waving his arms, and from a yellow light appeared Wingbloom, who took to the skies immediately.
Shamtile closed the distance and raised a pillar from the ground, bringing him up to Wingbloom’s height as the bird-like plant beats his wings to conjure up a mighty wind. Before the wind could truly take hold, Shamtile launched a series of boulders at Wingbloom, all of which missed as Kyle’s Minakai weaved past them.
“It’s a trap!” called Kyle from far below, but Wingbloom.
The air elemental looked around and saw the boulders hovering in the air around him. Shamtile clapped his hands and the rocks quickly converged, striking Wingbloom across his entire body, but a spin and a burst of air knocked half of them away before they could do too much damage.
Wingbloom then generated a huge gust behind himself and charged for Shamtile who stood atop his pillar. Shamtile lowered himself back to ground, but Wingbloom was much faster than he was. At the last second, Shamtile covered himself in stone armour and braced himself for the hit. He was knocked from his pillar and back to the ground, but the fall wasn’t as bad as it would have been ten seconds prior.
He threw off his armour and leapt back to his feet, ready to keep fighting, even as Wingbloom’s blasts of razor-sharp air elemental energy soared through the air. Three thick stones walls later and the energy had lost all momentum and dissipated.
“On the offensive again!” Aurin ordered Shamtile, his knuckles white and his jaw sore from all of the clenching he’d been doing as the battle raged.
“It won’t matter,” muttered Kyle, knowing that as strong as Shamtile was, Wingbloom outclassed him. Wanting to end the round quickly, he called out to his Minakai. “Go supersonic!”
Heeding his master’s command, Wingbloom twirled in the air like a drill and sped towards Shamtile who was forced back on the defensive.
“Use your new technique!” Aurin ordered Shamtile.
With a terrifying screech, Shamtile focused an immense amount of energy and erupted another wall from the ground. This wall, however, was not of rough brown or grey stone. This wall was made of cloudy diamond and, try as he might to pull away, Wingbloom was torpedoing straight for it.
Kyle’s Minakai collided with the diamond as Kyle watched on in shock. How or when Aurin had mastered this advanced technique, he had no idea, but it was enough to win. Wingbloom lay spread out on the ground, panting heavily with a badly injured face. With a heavy heart, Kyle banished his favourite Minakai back to the ranch where his other monsters would take care of him.
“I’ve seen a diamond wall precious few times in my life, folks!” boomed the announcer. “What a twist from Aurin that was, wasn’t it?”
Aurin smiled in satisfaction. He and Shamtile had been working on that move for months, learning that it was possible from Tobias back when they were training together. The only flaw was that it required a lot more energy to pull off than a regular stone wall and Shamtile was already having to fight hard against Wingbloom, and Aurin was certain that Kyle would notice how exhausted the masked lizard was.
“Make it quick, Snowlem,” said Kyle, summoning his star ice Minakai to the battlefield.
Snowlem flashed in and gave a big coaly smile before conjuring a snowstorm to obscure Shamtile’s vision. Without the energy remaining to burrow down, Shamtile summoned a stone spear in his hand and waited for his foe to emerge through the thick waves of billowing snow.
Kyle’s Minakai leapt towards Shamtile with a spear of his own, this one made of ice. Shamtile thrust his forward, but Snowlem bashed it out of the way, shattering both spears. With Shamtile out of steam, Snowlem lifted him high overhead and hurled him into the air. He watched Shamtile fly high and then launched a barrage of large hailstones from his wooden hands, pelting Shamtile relentlessly until Aurin’s Minakai hit the grass, unable to stand any longer.
“You did good, mate,” said Aurin, banishing Shamtile to the ranch to be treated by Sunny. “Leave the rest to us.”
In a burst of blue light, Steambot appeared and let loose an eruption of water from his pipes, catching Snowlem off guard and knocking him across the battlefield. Caught so unexpectedly, he let his focus lapse and the snowstorm vanished, leaving only a thin layer of snow upon the grass which was quickly melting on this hot day.
With no desire to give his opponent a chance to recover, Steambot sent a mighty tidal wave across the battlefield, sweeping Snowlem further away, but Kyle had a counter already thought out. Snowlem froze the water-logged field, leaving the once green grass as a sheet of uneven ice.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“It won’t be that easy,” said Aurin. “Turn up the heat, Steambot.”
Steambot’s pipes vibrated as they boiled water, making him look like a giant, steaming teapot. Snowlem took the opening and hurled an icy boulder across the battlefield, smacking Steambot’s metal torso, but Steambot took his new dent like a champ and leaned over, unleashing a burst of scalding water on the battlefield, thawing it out and giving himself a clear path to storm down.
As he ran, Snowlem conjured icicle spears in each hand and hurled them at the charging behemoth, but Steambot smashed them aside with his fists. Nothing was coming between him and his target, at least not until Snowlem summoned an icy wall to give himself a chance to catch his breath.
“Blast it apart!” ordered Aurin.
Steambot continued running while hunched over as his pipes shook. He unleashed a pressure cannon that was intense enough to blast a large hole in the wall, which flew back and knocked Snowlem down. Steambot forced himself through the wall, but it was already dissipating as Snowlem climbed back to his feet.
As Steambot threw a punch, Snowlem encased his own hands in ice and punched straight back. The two pummelled each other, sending splashes of water and waves of snowflakes everywhere. The pair were so focused on their hand-to-hand battle that they could not gather enough concentration to use their elemental powers. As Steambot punched, Snowlem kicked. As Snowlem headbutted, Steambot elbowed. The two were tiring, but Aurin knew that Steambot had more stamina left than Snowlem. And if he knew it, Kyle knew it.
“Everything into this one,” said the rancher. “Joint manoeuvre!”
Snowlem took a nasty punch to the face as he neglected to block in favour of grabbing onto Steambot’s torso. He channelled as much of his icy energy as he could into freezing the water within Aurin’s Minakai.
“It’s nice to see these two hugging it out, folks,” remarked the announcer. “But really, what’s Kyle up to? Whatever it is, it doesn’t seem to be working.”
Kyle’s eyes narrowed while Aurin smiled at him from across the battlefield. The younger tamer knew that in a hand-to-hand match, Steambot would outmatch Snowlem, so his Minakai was under strict instructions that if he was fighting Snowlem, he had to maintain as much hot water inside him as he could should Kyle try and freeze him.
Snowlem was struggling as he tried to freeze the hot water. Still flexible, Steambot threw a double elbow into Snowlem’s back, breaking his grip. Snowlem grabbed Snowlem by the wooden arms and spun him around in circles before releasing him into the wall. Before the dazed Snowlem could even look up, he was hit be another pressure cannon and knocked out of the battle.
“I don’t believe it,” said Kyle with a slight chuckle upon seeing Steambot throwing out victorious poses to the cheering crowd.
The rancher threw out his hand, summoning his last Minakai into battle. When his burst of steely-grey light vanished, a silver and gold metallic with glowing red eyes flapped in place. Kyle’s Techwing unleashed a magnetic force, throwing Steambot onto his back. And with a beat of his wings, Techwing sent an assault of shrapnel at the supine water elemental.
Already beaten down by his fight with Snowlem, Steambot struggled to get up. All it took to finish him off was a red-hot laser blast from Techwing’s glowing eyes. He sprawled back onto the ground, motionless and Aurin sent him back to the ranch.
“What a final, folks!” called the announcer. “Aurin and Kyle are both down to their final Minakai, so it’s neck and neck. Only one of these incredibly strong contenders can come out on top and I couldn’t even guess who it’ll be.”
“Not the pairing I hoped for,” muttered Aurin under his breath as he threw out his own ball of grey light that materialised Gorunze on the grass.
His bronze golem stood braced on his four blue-green legs with his topaz nails as sharp as razors. It would be a struggle to bring Techwing close, but Aurin knew that he would find a way. At close-range, the steel bird would be no match for Aurin’s bronze beast.
Sensing what Techwing was about to do, Gorunze hardened his skin and weathered the red-beamed laser blast. He returned fire with a yellow laser from his own eyes, but Techwing was quick enough to dive out of the way and then take to the skies, keeping far out of melee range of Gorunze.
“Head for the centre,” Aurin ordered and Gorunze complied, running to the middle of the battlefield while keeping his eyes focused on Techwing who stayed aloft and out of reach. “Magnetism, full power!”
Gorunze harnessed his elemental energy and tried to pull Techwing in, but he reversed his polarity and was instead repelled. Gorunze switched his own polarity to pull him in, but Techwing switched just as quickly. While Kyle’s Minakai was focused on keeping away from Aurin’s, Gorunze shot a laser blast as a distraction.
Techwing swooped out of the way and Gorunze turned on his magnetism. There was a split second that Techwing remained perfectly still as the pull and push was even, giving Gorunze the chance to shoot another laser beam and clip the metallic bird’s wing.
In the distraction, Techwing was dragged down and Gorunze shot laser blast after laser blast, trying to cripple his opponent. Kyle and his Minakai were too savvy for this and Techwing spiralled out of the way and took to the skies again before Gorunze could gain any ground, but this showed Aurin that he had a path to victory.
Techwing switched things up and went on the offensive, launching a barrage of steel spikes at Gorunze who zapped each of them out of the air. While Gorunze was defending himself, he didn’t notice Techwing’s eyes glowing redder than ever as he charged an immense laser.
Upon the final spike being obliterated, Techwing unleashed his attack. Knowing he couldn’t dodge in time, Gorunze retaliated with a beam of his own and the beams—one red, one yellow—collided, but did not dissipate. There was an intense sparking of orange where the beams met that slid up and down the opposing forces.
“Everything you’ve got!” called Aurin. “You hit him with this and he’s done!”
Gorunze powered up his laser beam, but he was starting on shaky ground with Techwing’s red line of energy being much closer to him than Gorunze’s one was to Techwing.
“Agh,” grunted Kyle as the orange convergence started to move towards Techwing. He was regretting his Minakai hurling so many spikes and expending himself. “Full power!”
The ball of orange slid back and forth, but grew ever closer to the centre. When it finally crossed the centre, both tamers could see the likely outcome. In a bid of desperation, Techwing dropped, taking the force of the beam to his wing while shooting further spikes at the exhausted Gorunze.
Too slow to react, he was pierced by three spikes and collapsed in a heap, knocking him out of the battle. Techwing crashed into the ground and the crowd waited with bated breath to see if either Minakai would move. Both tamers watched intently to see if there would be a stir from their monsters or if the match had ended in a draw.
“Caawwww,” came a metallic call from Techwing who slowly moved the wing that managed to avoid the laser.
“It’s all over!” cried the announcer over the crowd. “Our local rancher has just become the winner of the third Hazelton Tournament. And what a nail-biting finale that was, I need a handkerchief to wipe my forehead.”
Aurin and Kyle walked to the centre of the battlefield. The younger tamer was impressed by how strongly Gorunze had performed against an aerial opponent of his own element, but he knew that it would be an uphill battle upon seeing Steambot fall to Techwing.
“That was far too close for my liking,” said Kyle, shaking Aurin’s hand. “I didn’t think I would even need to use Techwing in this battle.”
“You continue to underestimate me,” said Aurin with a grin.
“Or maybe I overestimate myself. Whatever the reason, you were excellent. A different team line-up and that might have been it for me.”
“Noted for Ludonia.”
With a laugh, the pair walked over to the tamer box to await the battlefield being cleaned up and Lord Kensington to award Kyle his prize. Aurin would have been lying if he had said that he wasn’t disappointed, but he would turn that into fuel that would drive him to the top at the national championships. There was still one more month to prepare and he wasn’t going to waste a second of it.