The red and blue glossy tiles of the fifteenth floor of Harmony Tower reflected the glowing light from the lanterns, making them glisten and sparkle. It was one of Luna’s favourite colour patterns to come across and she sat on the floor to rest after a rather eventful battle on the fourteenth floor.

“Are you still optimistic about reaching floor twenty?” asked Aurin, glancing at his tamer glove; Skrow and Spikruption had suffered particularly unlucky knockouts already.

“Yes,” said Luna. “We can’t have our final tower run be an underperformance.”

“Our final tower run in Hazelton,” corrected Aurin, then realising that even that wasn’t true. “And don’t forget that we’ll be back in a couple of weeks. You make it sound like we’re leaving and never coming back.”

Luna climbed to her feet. “I’ve never been away from home for so long. It feels different than my trip over Christmas because I was still with my parents. You’re used to being by yourself now.”

“I talk to my parents all the time.”

“On the phone, and you don’t talk to your brother often.”

“The curse of different time zones,” lamented Aurin. “It’s not because we aren’t close, it’s just difficult.”

“Exactly. This is difficult for me too. I want to cherish today before we get on the train tomorrow.”

Aurin patted Luna on the shoulder. “If you want to stay behind or leave early, you can; it’s only a three hour journey. You’re making it into a bigger distance in your head.”

“Maybe…”

Aurin looked over to their two remaining Minakai. His Gorunze stood patiently waiting while Luna’s Dopefish bobbed up and down on the ground making a horrid wet splashing sound as its moist body smacked the tiles. Why she summoned Dopefish instead of one of her stronger Minakai, Aurin could only guess, but he suspected it was because she would secretly miss the goofy fish being around.

“Our Minakai can be summoned from Kyle’s ranch in seconds,” said Aurin. “You can see them whenever you want and send them home whenever you want.”

“You’re right,” said Luna, smiling uneasily. “There’s just this conflict between my heart and head. I know it isn’t that big of a deal that we’ll be away for a few weeks, but it feels like one.”

“I know.”

Luna looked down the corridor. “Shall we keep going?”

Aurin was suddenly brimming with enthusiasm again. “Alright, let’s make the rest of this tower run count. Two eggs are waiting for us up ahead!”

The duo and their Minakai jumped back into the heat of the run, searching from room to room. Aurin found a Fire Crystal along the way—the magic crystals were items he had made good use of in the training leading up to the tournament—while Luna found an Identifying Glass that she could use on the next egg should she wish to know what lay inside.

“Would you sell the egg if it’s a Minakai you already have?” Aurin asked her.

“Nope,” said Luna. “I’m going to keep all of them. Would you ever sell an egg?”

“One day, I’m going to have every species of Minakai and every evolutionary stage of those species. I’ll only sell an egg once I’ve exhausted that line.”

“That’s a lofty ambition.”

“I always have lofty ambitions, you know that.”

Luna giggled. “Yes, that’s true.”

A loud stomping of stone on stone approached, followed by a Pottemp wandering into the room. The armless statue roared, ready for battle. Aurin and Gorunze stood back, deciding to let Luna’s Dopefish do something for a change. This was the first time she’d brought it into the tower, even though Aurin had convinced her to let it take part in their training over the last few months.

“Oh no,” sighed Luna, watching Aurin and Gorunze slide towards the wall.

“Throw him in the deep end,” chuckled Aurin as Dopefish stared gormlessly at Luna.

“What are you waiting for?” she asked the bloated fish. “Spurt!”

Dopefish turned to face his opponent but was hit with a head-on charge. The fish flew across the room and smacked the wall before rolling down and onto the tiles. His eyes were spinning as he spat a burst of water at the Pottemp; it landed by Luna’s feet, missing the wild Minakai entirely.

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The Pottemp looked at Luna, who scurried towards Aurin and Gorunze, as Dopefish bounced forwards. Pottemp stomped its foot, making the entire room shake, all the while Dopefish jiggled back and forth, unphased by the attack.

“Rainfall!” ordered Luna.

Dopefish looked to the ceiling, and suddenly rain began to pour from nowhere. Aurin and Luna crawled under Gorunze to stay dry while the water simply ran off the metal golem. Pottemp, however, was not having such an easy time. The water was weakening its stone body, little by little.

It ran forward and leapt into the air, aiming to stomp down hard on Dopefish. Luna’s Minakai rolled backwards and opened its mouth; the Pottemp landed inside. Dopefish breathed in and swelled up, engulfing his opponent, who pushed and struggled against Dopefish’s insides.

“That’s disgusting,” said Luna with a horrified expression while Aurin laughed uncontrollably. “Spit it out!”

Dopefish contracted and opened his mouth, firing the Pottemp like a bullet against the wall much like it had done to Dopefish before. Pottemp, however, was not so bouncy, and large chunks of the earthen dinosaur broke off, and it landed on the ground. Moments later, it vanished in a flash of brown light, securing Dopefish’s first victory.

“See?” said Aurin. “He’s not so bad when you get creative, right?”

Luna furrowed her brow. “I wish I could say that it was me who got creative, but I would never have thought of making him eat his opponent.”

“It’s nothing we haven’t seen before,” laughed Aurin. “This is the tower; we can be unconventional without having to worry about rules and clauses like in officially licensed tournaments.”

The two tamers pushed ahead, fighting their way through the next couple of floors. It wasn’t long before Gorunze found himself in trouble and Aurin harnessed the power of the fire crystal. He focused and unleashed the spell it contained within, shooting a fireball at a Melansprout. It was enough to give Gorunze the edge and win the battle, but the crystal shattered once the spell left it.

On floor nineteen, the tamers finally decided to call it quits before they were ejected. Both Gorunze and Dopefish were looking pretty battered, especially Gorunze who had carried them through most of the battles. It was time to leave so they used the Orb of Return and landed outside the tower in the early evening.

As the duo walked back to the ranch, they talked about what they had accomplished in Harmony Tower so far. Luna was slightly displeased that they had gotten quite close to their record of floor twenty one, but it didn’t bother Aurin. In truth, he hadn’t pushed for a record-breaking run in months while he was focused on tournament preparation. Once he returned from Ludonia, however, he was going all in once more.

“Welcome back,” said Kyle, spotting the two walking past the gates of the ranch. “A successful day?”

“Floor nineteen and we hit a bad spot, so we didn’t want to risk losing our spending money for Ludonia,” said Luna.

“Understandable. Any eggs or shards today?”

“Not a single one,” said Aurin, throwing himself down on the grass to bask in the dwindling sun of the warm summer evening.

He held up his glove into the air and summoned Shamtile from the field nearby; he couldn’t be bothered going to fetch him on foot. The masked lizard kicked his tamer on the leg, having been interrupted during his dinner, then ran off back to the pens. Sniggering to himself, Aurin summoned him again. Shamtile screeched loudly and ran back the field for a second time.

“What are the travel plans for the Minakai?” asked Kyle.

“We’re bringing Shamtile and Innogon on the train,” said Aurin with his eyes closed, very much relaxed. “We’ll probably set up a rotational thing and drag along a different Minakai each day.”

“That’s fine for Luna,” said Kyle, “but that may be harder with Spikruption and Gorunze. They’ll be too bulky to easily manoeuvre through the streets of the big city.”

“It’ll be fine,” said Aurin, waving a hand in the air in dismissal. “When my dad and I were in Ludonia, some folks just rode their larger Minakai through the streets. Shamtile can be our car for the day, seeing as neither of us can drive.”

“And what about when you need to take the underground trains?” asked Kyle.

“Hmm…alright, you’ve got a point.”

Luna laughed as Kyle dragged his hand over his face in exasperation. He had been pestering Aurin non-stop to put a proper plan together, but the young man had decided it was better to just show up and see what happened. He and Luna had their hotel rooms booked and as long as they had money, he knew they would be fine.

“You’ve packed everything you need, right?” asked Kyle.

“Yup,” said Aurin. “I’ve got spare clothes, plenty of silver, all my summoning stones will be going in the bag tonight, and…I think that’s it, to be honest.”

“Train tickets?”

“I picked up the first class tickets from the station the other day. It’s all good, don’t worry.”

“Why did you buy first class for a journey that’s not overly long?” questioned Kyle.

Luna wandered down the lane and into the pens as Aurin and Kyle’s bickering continued. She sat in front of the enclosure that was reserved especially for her Minakai. Dopefish, Tadpool and Splashard were recovering from their adventure in the tower today, while Dogember chased Rabbacat; Innogon was pestering Angree, who kept batting the little drake away.

“How are you all?” Luna asked her team.

A cacophony of roars, squelches, warbles and barks came from her team. Most of them wandered up to the fence, except for Innogon who sat and ate Angree’s food. He wasn’t so worried about not seeing his tamer for a while, knowing that he would be on the first leg of the trip.

“Can you all keep a secret?” she asked and was met with a resounding noise of agreement. “We’re not only going to venture into Ludonia Tower…I’ve signed us up for some battles while we’re away.”

Angree yelled loudly and beat his chest wildly, startling most of the neighbouring monsters.

“That’s right,” she said with a sly grin. “We’re going to be fighting in the Battle Underground. Make sure you’re all ready to go because I don’t know who I’ll be calling upon until I get there.”

Luna’s Minakai celebrated, excited to be getting back in on the action. She knew they were itching to start fighting more tamers, so it was the perfect treat for them. The Minakai had no idea what the Battle Underground was, of course, but that didn’t stop their enthusiasm from spilling out.

Luna walked back to Aurin and Kyle who were now arguing about the possibility of Klaus pestering Kyle while Aurin was away. She sat and watched the heated discussion before being swept off in a daydream of what was to come on her trip.