“Floor seven and we have a full team of Minakai,” said Aurin, proudly. He and Luna touched the elevator orb, pulling a tired Shamtile and Rabbafat along with them onto the seventh floor.

“Yes, but we’ve had to run away from a lot of Minakai,” said Luna, reminding him that it hadn’t been an easy start. She pointed at Rabbafat. “Look at her, she’s exhausted!”

Shamtile had caught his breath quite quickly, but Rabbafat had fallen flat on her back and was heaving up and down. It almost looked as though she was sleeping. In fact, she was sleeping.

“Give her a few minutes,” said Aurin, realising what had happened. “She’s our muscle for this run.”

Shamtile waved his arms and screeched a warbling screech.

“You’re never the muscle, Shammy,” said his tamer. “You’re the magic and the heavy hitter, but you’ll be the first to admit that you struggle unless you’ve encased yourself with rock.”

Shamtile was about to roar at Aurin, but the magical lizard realised that his tamer was correct. He sat down and start juggling pebbles that he conjured while waiting for Rabbafat to wake up.

Minutes passed, but the rotund rabbit remained sleeping. The three poked and prodded her, but she refused to budge. Once, she even grabbed Shamtile and threw him across the room to stop him bugging her. Luna, fed up with her Minakai, summoned Tadpool in her place and dismissed her.

“Okay, enough standing around here,” she said, beyond ready to push ahead. Tadpool hopped from foot to foot, glad to finally have a chance to challenge Ludonia Tower himself.

Shamtile wandered over to the bipedal frog and hopped on his back with his pile of juggling rocks in his arms, with one in his hand ready to be thrown at whatever enemy he next laid his eyes upon. Aurin and Luna couldn’t help but laugh at the strange formation their two Minakai were in.

The group marched through the tower, tackling Minakai after Minakai and collecting plenty of coins. It was exhausting work, not made easier by the entanglement trap that Tadpool had stepped in, forcing Shamtile to hop off his reluctant mount and begin fighting properly again to defend his friend as a Gittup started firing lightning at Tadpool.

“Rock wall!” ordered Aurin, and Shamtile protected Luna’s Minakai with a thick wall of stone. Shamtile charged forwards to fight the Gittup by himself.

“Don’t be a sitting duck,” said Luna to Tadpool, “use your range.”

Tadpool used his icy powers to bring a rain of icicles down from over the wall, distracting the Gittup while Shamtile backed off and began lobbing rocks at the blue beast. It fought back, emitting an intense shockwave that knocked down Shamtile’s wall and shattered every icicle and stone that was hurled at it.

“He’s going straight for Tadpool,” said Aurin. “Smash right into him.”

Shamtile leapt into the air and encased himself in stone armour, then slammed down on the Gittup’s head. It fell onto its stomach and its eyes rolled around in its head. Tadpool stared it straight in the face and breathed a wave of freezing air on it as Shamtile threw off his armour and bounced out of the way. The Gittup disappeared in a flash of light, leaving the Shamtile and Tadpool victorious.

Aurin and Luna congratulated their Minakai on a battle well fought and continued to the next room, where they ascended the elevator to the eighth floor. The next couple of floors were filled with difficulty as Shamtile was knocked out by Spritzard and then replaced by Dolissile, while Tadpool was defeated by a Volcarrow and Luna’s own Spritzard took his place.

On the eleventh floor, the two tamers became wide-eyed with excitement when they spotted an egg in the third room they walked into. Luna charged for it immediately, but a gust of wind rolled the egg out of her reach.

“I saw it first,” said a snivelling voice as a bespectacled tamer with black hair approached. His Skrow flapped alongside him, the perpetrator behind the gust of wind.

Luna looked at him and stubbornly shook her head. “Not a chance, it was within my reach until you tried to steal it from me.”

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“It’s not anymore,” said the young man. “I’ll happily fight you for it. You don’t look like you would be much of a threat.”

Luna simply glanced at Spritzard and her Minakai charged at the man’s Skrow while encased in swirling water. The undead bird was slammed against the wall of the room and banished from the tower instantly.

“That was a cheap move!” called the man, while Aurin chuckled. He knew how fired up Luna could get when she was angry.

“Splashard!” called the man, summoning the evolved form of Spritzard.

Spritzard and Splashard immediately began shooting jets of water at each other, while splitting their bodies to avoid the attacks before recombining once they had the chance. The Splashard’s attacks were notably more powerful, but Luna’s Spritzard had been trained well enough that it was holding its own against what should have been a more powerful opponent.

The man suddenly drew out a yellow crystal and unleashed the spell at the same time as his Splashard attacked Spritzard. The Air Crystal sent out a powerful razor wind before shattering. It sliced up Spritzard, who tried to pull herself together, but the heavy blast of water from Splashard. Spritzard was disoriented and the man’s Splashard seized its opportunity and finished the job with a heavy punch from its gelatinous fist. Luna’s Spritzard was done, and she had no usable Minakai left.

Aurin immediately stepped up with Dolissile, who burst forward and sliced into the Splashard with his fins, and eliminating it almost immediately after it had defeated Spritzard. The man dropped to his knees and yelled in frustration as he was banished from the tower, no longer able to claim the egg for himself.

“Why am I still here?” she asked, looking confused. Aurin pointed at her glove, and she looked down at Rabbafat’s summoning stone. “Of course!”

“It’s handy having a sleeping Minakai in reserve sometimes,” joked Aurin, while Luna picked up the egg. She tried to hand it to Aurin, who refused to take it. “No way, this one’s yours.”

“You won the battle in the end.”

“He didn’t play fair by using a crystal against Spritzard. I think you’d have taken him if he hadn’t pulled that sly little trick.”

Luna smiled and nodded, placing the egg in her pack.

“Now let’s keep going,” said Aurin, but he suddenly whipped around as Dolissile was picked up by an Anacondice and slammed into the wall by the icy snake. Dolissile was ejected from the tower and Aurin immediately summoned Spikruption who sank his teeth into the Anacondice and breathed fire, burning the snake intensely.

The snake vanished as quickly as it appeared, and Luna dropped to her knees. “This tower run has gotten too intense,” she sighed. “Can we get out of here? I don’t want to lose this egg.”

Spikruption snorted smoke, shooting a frown at Luna. He was clearly unimpressed at being summoned into the tower all the way from Hazelton, only to get five seconds of action.

“Sorry, bud,” said Aurin, “you’ll be at the top of the list next time, alright?”

Spikruption grunted begrudgingly as he, Aurin and Luna were warped outside by Aurin’s Orb of Return.

Aurin and Luna made their way to Professor Socrates’s laboratory, while riding on Spikruption’s back. He wouldn’t easily fit on the underground and Aurin felt bad for disturbing him, so he carried them along the footpath the whole way, snarling at other tamers’ Minakai as he passed them.

“Do you know what would be a good idea?” asked Aurin.

“Tell me,” said Luna.

“A lane on the road can be used by Minakai.

“Wouldn’t that just slow things down?”

“How so?”

“Spikruption isn’t going fast and imagine if a Minakai like your Dolissile was trying to get past. It would devolve into chaos quite quickly. They’re not really comparable to cars.”

Aurin laughed. “Well, there goes that bright idea.”

The two arrived at the laboratory and greeted Professor Socrates.

“Ah, you two are back?” he asked, looking pleased to see them. “Are you looking to use the incubator again?”

“Yes please,” said Luna with a wide smile, holding up five silver coins.

“Go right ahead,” said the Professor, glancing out the door at Spikruption who remained outside. “Is he one of yours?”

“He’s mine, alright,” confirmed Aurin. “How did you know he was a male so quickly?”

The professor chuckled. “If I had a silver for every time I was asked that question, I would never need to apply for a grant again. There are subtle differences between male and female Spikruption. The sheen of their scales, the length of their protrusions, and so on. If you ever encounter a female, stand them side by side and you’ll see what I mean.”

Aurin turned to Luna. “Kyle would have just told me that he could tell and left it at that.”

“Probably,” agreed Luna as she loaded her egg into the incubator and pressed the button.

A forcefield surrounded the egg and it began to glow yellow, informing the duo that whatever was about to reveal itself was an air elemental. This would be Luna’s first air Minakai and Aurin briefly wondered if it would be a Chull, like he once had before he evolved it into his Skrow. He quickly learned that he was wrong as a grey, feathery sprite appeared.

“Ah, a Feathrus,” said Professor Socrates who wandered over to inspect the hatching. “A little shorter and lighter than average, but I’m confident in saying that this one is a male.”

Luna picked up her Minakai and held him up. “Another boy on the team.”

“Your Spritzard and Rabbafat are both female,” said Aurin. “It’s not exactly unusual odds.”

“All of your Minakai are males. It is unusual odds that among our collective seventeen Minakai that there are only two females.”

“I guess so,” said Aurin. “I never really thought about it much. What’s the big deal?”

“I’m completely outnumbered!” cried Luna, as she unwittingly squeezed her Feathrus too tightly and his eyes began to burst from his head.