Aurin stared at the ornate bronze key with wonder, excited to get to use the seemingly mundane item that would open the door to the wildest of magic. He added it to the string around his neck, where it joined his other key that opened the doors to Harmony Tower.

“I’m so excited!” yelled Luna, unable to contain herself. Aurin’s Spikruption and her own Angree jumped a mile. Angree began yelling incomprehensibly, while Spikruption snorted and puffed smoke from his nostrils. Luna apologised as Aurin chuckled at the Minakai overreacting.

“Our first trip into Ludonia Tower, are you ready for it?” asked the young man.

“I’m ready,” confirmed Luna, as the two departed from the shop at the base of the tower. Spikruption almost broke the doorframe on the way out, prompting a disgruntled shopkeeper to yell after the large dinosaur. It was only Aurin’s fast reactions that stopped the dinosaur from smoking up the shop in retaliation.

Aurin and Luna walked up the stone pathway towards the tower. It was in a large courtyard and well-protected by guards who were there to ward off any malicious actors; it was something Aurin would have liked to see in Hazelton at Zodiac’s height, but it was less of a concern these days.

“Hold up there,” said one of the guards, raising a hand. “Form an orderly queue over there.”

Aurin and Luna glanced to the side and could see that tamers were being funnelled in slowly. It was certainly a very popular tower. He never had to wait to go into Harmony Tower. The two tamers joined the back of the queue.

“A queue?” barked Aurin.

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” said Luna. “It’s a busy tower, so they’re probably staggering people, so we don’t all enter into the same instance.”

“I wonder if the difficulty scales based on how many tamers enter at once?” posed Aurin.

“That couldn’t be right, could it? There are towers in remote places that people dread going into.”

“That’s a good point. I didn’t really think that idea through much,” said Aurin before turning to his Minakai. “It doesn’t matter that it’s such a feared combat tower, we’ll storm through the floor. Isn’t that right, Spikruption?”

Spikruption roared loudly, startling a group of tourists who were taking photographs of Ludonia Tower. They suddenly started taking pictures of the dinosaur, who shot small burst of flame into the air; he was evidently enjoying the attention.

“Alright, come on forward,” said one of the guards. “You two are together?”

“Yup,” said Luna, keen to start exploring.

“Stand by the doors and use the key. I see you have Minakai, so I doubt I need to talk you through things.”

Aurin and Luna walked up to the door while Aurin pulled the string with the keys out from under his shirt. He was momentarily distracted by a group of three tamers spawning behind him, having been ejected from the tower forcefully. They were arguing with each other about whose fault it was that the Elephrock knocked out all of their Minakai.

“Key!” exclaimed Luna hurriedly.

“I know!”

Aurin put the key into the hole and turned. The doors began to open and the familiar swirling vortex appeared before them. They could feel themselves being pulled in and took a step forwards. The tamers and their Minakai disappeared from sight and fell through space, landing with a flash on the chessboard patterned floor of Ludonia Tower.

The two looked around. “It…doesn’t really feel different, does it?” asked Luna, slightly disappointed.

“Say that again when we see Minakai that we haven’t met in Harmony Tower before,” remarked Aurin.

The tamers headed down the corridor to the left, seeking their first challenge or, even better, their first loot. It was a quiet walk with only Angree’s occasional grunts to break the silence; the Minakai was looking to punch something and new better than to attack the humans or Spikruption.

“Tamers already, eh?” came a voice from the corridor ahead. A young man with black hair and a cold smile emerged from the shadows.

“Didn’t I see you in the queue outside?” asked Luna, squinting to see him better in the dim light of the corridor.

“Perhaps you did,” he said with a sly smirk. “The name’s Vaughn. Now which one of you shall I battle?”

“He’s all yours, Luna,” said Aurin, shrugging his shoulders.

Luna nodded and Angree stepped forwards, beating his chest and yelling furiously. Vaughn grabbed an orange summoning stone on his neck and summoned his Minakai from within, a Pyrofly. The segmented orange insect flew towards Angree using its wings to steer and a flaming thruster from its behind.

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Angree screamed violently and punched the Minakai out of the air, knocking it to the ground. It flashed a reddish-orange light and vanished. Vaughn’s mouth hung open, while Angree jumped up and down victoriously.

“I fancy a battle,” said Aurin to the young man, “what other Minakai have you got with you?”

“I think I’m good,” said Vaughn backing off awkwardly.

“I hope this guy didn’t qualify for the national championships,” giggled Luna.

“If he did, then it’ll be a very disappointing tournament,” said Aurin. “He wouldn’t have gotten halfway through the Harmony tournament with a performance like that. Your Angree is tough…but a single punch?”

The two walked ahead, taking a different path from Vaughn, and found their first room. They picked up a few silver coins each, but there was little else to speak of. They pressed ahead, dealing with many familiar Minakai on their way to the elevator.

The second floor passed much the same way as the first floor, except this time Aurin battled a pair of tamers at once using his Spikruption against their Feathrus and Chull. It was as easy a victory for him as it was for Luna. He knew it was only the second floor, but he was starting to feel very underwhelmed with Ludonia Tower.

“Third floor already,” he said as the pair landed in a flash of light.

A Totempo charged down the corridor immediately, forcing the two tamers to dive out of the way. Angree tired to tackle it head-on, but was knocked down, leaving Spikruption to struggle against the mighty earth-elemental.

“That’s more like it,” said Aurin excitedly, climbing to his feet and helping Luna up.

“A Totempo on the third floor? That escalated quickly,” she said.

Spikruption and Totempo rammed their heads against each other, their horns colliding. The red dinosaur was far tougher and forced the statue back against the wall. In a fit of desperation, Totempo summoned a barrage of rocks from the sky that collided with both Minakai.

As Spikruption recovered from the blow, Angree leapt forward and grabbed onto the Totempo’s neck. The puppet-like nature elemental relentlessly bashed his fists against his opponent, enlarging the cracks in the creature’s already cracked body. Spikruption finished the battle with a heavy ram into Totempo’s chest. It disappeared in a flash of brown light, back to wherever it called home.

“Is this one of those ‘be careful what you wish for’ moments?” asked Luna uncertainly.

“Are you serious? That was great!” said Aurin, his excitement back at full capacity. “Let’s keep going.”

Luna couldn’t help but laugh at how over the top he could be about Minakai battling, and the took their first proper foray into the third floor.

The floor was certainly a step up in terms of difficulty. There were a few unevolved Minakai, but there was almost as many evolved Minakai; a rarity in Harmony Tower. It often wasn’t until the fifth floor before they started appearing back home. The rewards didn’t seem to scale up much to compensate, it seemed to be a tower that challenged tamers who truly wanted to be challenged.

“I need to get an egg before we leave the city,” said Aurin. “It has to be something I can’t find easily in Harmony Tower.”

“We don’t find eggs all that easily in Harmony Tower in the first place,” said Luna.

“That’s not entirely true. We find plenty, a lot of the time we just end up losing them in unlucky runs.”

“Okay, that’s fair. I think we’ve lost six or seven eggs between us?” pondered Luna. “When I say it out loud, it doesn’t seem so bad.”

“We’ve kept twelve, right? We got Shamtile and Innogon as gifts, and you bought Spritzard as a Dripper. That’s not too bad a haul after a year, considering half the time we spend with our Minakai we’re training at the ranch.”

“Didn’t you and Kyle find three eggs in that one run over Christmas?”

The two were so engrossed with their conversation that they didn’t even hear the click of the trap in the corridor. A puff of smoke burst out from the device and Angree unwittingly inhaled it. His already serious face suddenly turned manic and he delivered a forceful punch to Spikruption’s neck.

“What happened?” asked Luna, spinning around.

“Berserk trap!” shouted Aurin, pointing to the mechanism on the floor. “Do you have any of your remedies?” he asked.

“No, they’re all back in Hazelton,” lamented Luna as the two Minakai began tearing into each other. “Don’t hurt him, Spikruption!”

“Quick, banish him,” urged Aurin.

“What if he comes to?”

“What if he doesn’t come to quickly enough?”

Luna held up her tamer glove and willed her green summoning stone to activate. Angree was banished from the tower, right as Spikruption tried to clamp down on his comrade’s neck. Once he realised Angree was gone, he turned to stare at Luna with daggers in his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” said Luna.

“Don’t apologise,” said Aurin. “It’s not her fault, Spikruption. It could just as easily have been you triggering the trap and I would have sent you back.”

Spikruption snorted angrily, but Aurin patted him on the side to try and calm him down.

“When will it be safe to recall Angree?” asked Luna.

“It won’t be until we leave the tower or find a cure in here,” said Aurin. “Don’t forget, he’s stuck in limbo until we either bring him back or we’re out of here too. As much fun as it would be to send him to Kyle in this state, that’s not what happens unless he's out cold.”

Luna sighed and raised her hand, summoning her Dogember into the tower. “Sniff out any traps you can, okay?” she said to her Minakai, who barked excitedly and ran in circles around her feet; he had missed his tamer the last few days.

The two tamers continued through the floors, collecting treasure as they went and battling a tamer every single floor. On the sixth floor, Spikruption fell to a Minasma after being beaten down little by little in each of his previous battles. Aurin summoned his Leonite to replace him.

It had been a notably difficult tower run, entirely changing the two tamers’ perception of the tower from their first impression. If Harmony Tower had been this difficult, their record would be at least a few floors lower than it was.

“Look at that, our luck is turning around,” said Aurin, running into a seventh floor room to grab an egg.

“Careful!” warned Luna, more wary than he of traps.

Aurin apologised as he stashed the egg in his bag, his delight at finding an egg having gotten the better of him. “I hope it’s something rare,” he said.

“Perhaps it is,” came a familiar voice as a blonde-haired man walked into the room. “Hello, you troublemakers. It’s been quite some time, hasn’t it?”

Before the duo and their Minakai stood Frederick and his own Leonite. He had a smug grin on his face as he stared at his wide-eyed enemies.