“Come on, come on,” urged Aurin as Kyle walked deliberately slowly from his house with the egg incubator in his hands.

“The more you order me to hurry up, the slower I will be,” said the rancher with a smirk. “Maybe I’ll just hatch the egg tomorrow…”

“You wouldn’t dare,” said Aurin with a scowl.

“Nah,” laughed Kyle. “I want to know too.”

He set the incubator on the ground and Luna passed him his prized egg from the tournament. Kyle carefully set it upon the incubator and pressed the button. The forcefield activated and the egg began to glow before cracking and emitting a steely-grey light. The form of the Minakai within the light was oddly small and round with a long nose, but from its back emerged an almost vapour-like glow, leaving Aurin confused.

As the grey faded, he realised what Minakai the egg had contained. The spectral Minakai bore a solid mask and its form was purple and gaseous with a small trail flickering from behind; it was an undead metal-elemental called Maskmet. Aurin had faced its fully evolved form, Titamet, when training with Tobias in Briarwood.

“Very nice,” said Kyle, tapping a fingertip on Maskmet’s mask. “I’ve never trained a Maskmet before and I don’t have a strong array of metal elementals.”

“How many Minakai do you have?” asked Luna, putting a finger to her chin.

“Never enough,” joked Kyle.

“Nice dodge there, Kyle,” said Aurin with a stupid grin on his face.

“You are always free to walk through the ranch and see if you can remember which are mine and which aren’t. For now, we’re all opponents and I won’t be reminding you until after the championships are over, Captain Second Place.”

“It was close!” barked Aurin. “You were an inch from losing.”

“But I didn’t lose, did I?” winked Kyle.

“No…” muttered Aurin, determined to have his revenge against his friend.

Luna shook her head in exasperation. “Why can’t you two just be nice to each other?”

“We are nice to each other,” said Kyle, to which Aurin nodded. “Good friends can tear into each other and laugh it off, right?”

“That’s right,” laughed Aurin. “Besides, it’s fun to mock each other relentlessly.”

“I just don’t understand you boys sometimes…” sighed Luna. “Anyway, I’ve got plenty of Ludonia preparation to do and that begins immediately.”

“Immediately?” asked Aurin.

“Immediately,” confirmed Luna, holding up her tamer glover. “I’ve got lots of work to do and maybe even a couple of evolutions to perform.”

“Evolutions would be a good idea,” said Aurin, reaching into his pocket and making sure he had a Solar Shard handy.

Luna summoned Innogon to her side. “Ready to go, Inno?” she asked the blue drake, who jumped up and down excitedly while yapping.

“Go?” asked Aurin and Kyle in unison.

“We’re competitors, aren’t we?” asked Luna. “High stakes and all that, right? Well, I’ve been devising a training plan to make sure that I can pulverise you two when we inevitably fight again. It’s an intense regime and I’m sticking to it, but that means I won’t be around Hazelton for the next week or two.”

“Next week or two?” asked a shocked Aurin.

Kyle raised an eyebrow. “If you’re sticking to your training schedule, then you would surely know if it’s one or two weeks.”

Luna rolled her eyes and gently squeezed her forehead. “It’s two weeks, alright? I’ll be gone for two weeks. Honestly, Kyle, you don’t need to be so pernickety about these things.”

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“What can I say?” shrugged Kyle. “I just love winding the pair of you up and defeating you in Minakai battles.”

“Hush!” scolded Luna.

“Where are you going?” asked Aurin curiously, this being the first he had heard of any such training plan.

“Top secret, my sweet,” said Luna, tapping him on the cheek with her palm and sticking out my tongue. “Don’t worry, all will be revealed after I’m the winner of the national championships.” She gave Aurin a hug and patted Shamtile on the head. “I’ll see you all soon. There better be no slacking with your own training!”

“I wouldn’t dream of slacking,” chuckled Aurin. “Take care, alright?”

Luna and Innogon waved farewell as they headed back down the ranch path and out of sight. Her departure felt very sudden, but Aurin trusted that she had a solid plan in mind and didn’t want to miss the final battle of the Hazelton tournament before leaving.

“What’s your training plan, Kyle?” Aurin asked the rancher.

“I’m going to call in a secret weapon to make sure I’m whipped back into top fighting shape,” said Kyle. “You think I was tough today? Just wait until you see me at my peak power level.”

“I bet that secret weapon is Hunter, Tobias or Clarke.”

“Don’t even start guessing because I’m giving nothing away, my friend. You, on the other hand, have already given away your game plan. Vai’s expecting you tomorrow, you know that?”

“Yep,” said Aurin. “I’ll be setting off in an hour or two.”

“Are you going to ride on Skrow?”

“I am, but I need to take care of something first.”

“Well, while you do that, I’m going to start feeding the Minakai. I’ll let you away with cleaning out just your own pen today.”

“Much appreciated,” said Aurin, clapping Kyle on the back and walking into the pens with Shamtile hopping along beside him, waving his arms enthusiastically. The masked lizard was very much looking forward to training away from Hazelton, even though he had a miserable time of it training in snowy Briarwood.

Aurin stepped inside his pen where his Minakai were waiting. Steambot and Gorunze were resting up and looked surprised to see Shamtile with such high levels of energy after the intense battle no more than two hours ago. They, however, had not had the earth elemental’s secret recovery food—a banana milkshake.

“Team,” said Aurin to his team of fourteen, “you have all made me very proud. We’ve secured our place in the national championships two years in a row, and it’s thanks to your efforts. The competition this year was very tough and you all pulled through, so thank you.”

The Minakai were all brimming with enthusiasm and elicited a cacophony of calls. Even Dolissile joined in with an echoing whistle.

“We’ve got a month until we stand before the crowd and fight with all of our might. I have no doubt you all remember Tobias, but to be honoured with a true battle against him, we need to steamroll our competition along the way. I don’t believe we’re ready yet, but at the end of these four weeks, we will be.”

The Minakai roared, howled, squealed and screeched in agreement, determined to give their maximum effort.

“Quetz,” said Aurin. “Flap your way over here, please. You have earned a reward for all of your hard work recently.”

Quetz fluttered her wings and landed in front of Aurin, hissing with excitement as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a Solar Shard. He leaned down and pressed the magical evolutionary shard onto her sleek scales and watched as she glowed a deep yellow.

The sky serpent’s body lengthened and became thicker while her fangs protruded longer, now much sharper than before. Her wings thickened, enlarging to the size of her body, and grew more feathery. As the glow faded, the one red ring around Quetz’s tail became three red rings.

“Feeling strong, Quetzel?” Aurin asked his newly evolved Minakai.

Quetzel beat her wings and took to the sky, pirouetting on the way back down and conjuring up a gust of wind to test her strength. Most of Aurin’s lighter Minakai toppled over, while the heavier ones braced themselves.

“That sounds like a yes to me,” chortled Aurin. “I’m going to pack up and then we take to the skies, alright? I’ll be riding on Skrow, but you can follow alongside.”

Aurin and Shamtile left the pen and headed towards Kyle’s house. Aurin ordered Shamtile to retrieve the Zeera egg from its underground hiding place while Aurin headed inside and hastily threw some clothes into his backpack. He knew he should have packed the previous evening, but was too excited for the battle.

“Good enough,” he said, slinging the backpack over his shoulder and walking back outside.

He dropped his pack on the porch beside Shamtile who stood watch over the Zeera egg, looking continually left and right to make sure nobody dared approach. Aurin grabbed a shovel and headed into the pen to clean up his monsters’ dung. He made very quick work of this, wheelbarrowing it off for compost, and headed back to Shamtile with Skrow and Quetzel by his side.

“The egg good and safe, mate?” Aurin asked, to which Shamtile nodded and waved his arms furiously. “Good job. If Quetzel doesn’t mind, you can ride on her back.”

Quetzel cooed and hissed in approval and Shamtile immediately leapt onto her, wrapping his arms around her neck. Aurin stuffed Zeera’s egg inside his backpack with his clothes and put both straps over his arms. He then climbed onto Skrow, who beats his wings and took to the skies.

Aurin and Shamtile flew above the ranch on Skrow and Quetzel, watching it shrink beneath them and the Minakai living there becoming nothing but multi-coloured dots upon the grass and in the river. The four headed west, flying past the mountain and heading towards the western valleys where they were due to meet Vai the following morning.