“No, Arium!” scolded Aurin as he tried to grab Shamtile’s mask. Shamtile, normally well behaved, snapped and punched Arium in the face with a rock-encased fist. The little alien began to tear up and ran into a corner near Kyle’s house to sulk.

“He’s not behaving any better today?” asked Luna, walking up the ranch with Innogon prancing merrily along side her.

“He follows my orders for a short while, then does his own thing,” lamented Aurin. “I don’t think he likes me, but he’s obedient when given a direct command. Once he’s done what was asked, he’ll start picking fights with the others for no reason.”

“Does Kyle still find it funny?”

“Not after he threw a bag of feed in the water,” said Kyle, grimacing.

“You would think that would be helpful,” Aurin told Luna, “but it was feed specifically for plant Minakai and not aquatics. It made a Doripper go on a frenzy and try to eat your Dopefish.”

“Is he alright?” asked Luna, using his summoning stone to bring the goofy blob to her side. She breathed a sigh of relief when he appeared and bounced dopily on the spot.

Aurin glanced over at his Arium who was throwing firewood across the yard with his telepathically controlled fist. “I’m at my wits end already. I’m considering getting Desparee to just tie him up with vines and leaving him in a pen by himself.”

“Desparee won’t be able to keep that up forever,” said Kyle. “It’ll slowly drain him and Arium will just start causing more chaos in revenge. I say take him to the tower.”

“To teach him some discipline,” said Aurin, nodding.

“No, to get him away from here and out of my hair for a while.”

“Surely Jimmy’s Arium wasn’t this badly behaved?” asked Luna.

Kyle also glanced at Arium with a look of rage as one of the logs he was tossing around landed on his roof. “This isn’t a species thing, it’s a this-Arium thing. I say smack him around a little until he learns his place. Teach him to respect you.”

“Is that the right approach?” asked Luna. “Maybe you could try and explain to him why he needs to behave and that it’ll be much better for him if he does.”

“Or,” said Aurin, “I could explain it to him while Shamtile smacks him around.”

As frustrated as he was, he didn’t mean it. He knew he had to find a way to get through to Arium rein him in and battle was the best way he could think of. The bigger and tougher Minakai would crush him in battle with ease, so Snippet was the best contender. They would be fairly on par without breaking each other.

“Alright,” said Aurin, pulling out two of his summoning stones and teleporting both Arium and Snippet to him. “You two are going to fight against each other until you’re too exhausted to fight anymore. Got it?”

Snippet snipped at the air in agreement but was suddenly pushed over by Arium’s floating hands.

“You wait until I give the order to begin!” snapped Aurin, his patience wearing evermore thing. “Both of you stand at opposite ends of this field.”

Aurin led his two Minakai to Kyle’s makeshift battlefield and stood at the edge while his Minakai spread out and took their places. Arium’s fists were wildly shadowboxing as Arium himself stood there calmly. Snippet on the other hand was scuttling from side to side, snapping his claws with his large black eyes looking at Arium as though he was a piece of string to be cut.

Shamtile, Innogon and Luna wandered over while Kyle got back to work. Aurin knew that all three of them were cheering for Snippet but only Shamtile was being overt about it. He had had enough of his newest teammate and got along quite well with Snippet.

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“And begin!” said Aurin.

Arium flung a fist across the battlefield with its mind and Snippet slapped it aside with a metal pincer. Aurin immediately noticed that Arium’s attack was much slower than Jimmy’s Arium and wondered if it was capability or experience? Snippet didn’t have to worry about reacting to the attack at all as it was so obviously telegraphed.

Snippet scurried forwards and kept slapping the fists out of the way before tackling Arium to the ground. Arium used a hand to pull Snippet off, holding him in mid-air and slapping him with the other hand. After a few slaps, Snippet caught a hand with his pincers and squeezed, cutting into Arium’s hand.

Much to Aurin’s shock, the little alien sat down on the ground and cried, pulling both of his fists back to his sides. The alien bawled his eyes out even harder than he did when Shamtile had retaliated against him earlier.

“What…what do I do?” asked Aurin, looking at Luna. The only Minakai he had seen dry before was Desparee, but nothing could comfort the eternally depressed plant.

“He’s basically a newborn,” said Luna, switching to a very soft tone. “Comfort him.”

Aurin awkwardly walked up to Arium and patted him on the back. “There, there,” he said uncomfortably while Luna dragged her hand across her face. “Don’t cry, little buddy.”

“What was that?” she asked.

“I don’t have any experience with babies,” he said. “And besides, he’s not a baby, he’s a Minakai. Spikruption is barely a year and a half old and he’s a giant dinosaur that can rip trees from the ground, not exactly a toddler in human terms now, is he?”

“Don’t be silly, that’s very different.”

Aurin didn’t see how. “Why am I being silly? Half my team were hatched and then fighting the very same day. Why’s Arium so different?”

“His species must be special,” said Luna. “I think Kyle’s wrong this time.”

“They’re all Minakai at the end of the day,” shrugged Aurin.

Luna shook her head and picked up the still upset Arium and rocked him back and forth while Aurin, Shamtile, Snippet and Innogon stared at her. Not one of them made a sound, all far too taken aback by the bizarre situation.

“You’re okay, right?” asked Luna gently, putting Arium down. She held one of his floating hands and they walked over to the pens together.

“Just what…what is going on?” asked Aurin, while the three Minakai gave shrugs, screeches and snips. “Good. I’m not the only one who thinks this is weird then.”

The four lingered in the field for a while then walked over to Luna who was feeding Arium some nuggets of Minakai food she’d lifted from a sack on the way past. She was tossing it in the air and he was catching it with a hand then bringing it down to his mouth. When he saw Snippet, he began sniffling again, terrified of his teammate.

“Did you hold back on your punch earlier?” Aurin asked Shamtile in a hushed voice, who nodded. “That explains it, Snippet really did cut his hand deeply. I wonder if Arium hands are extra sensitive because they’re so connected to its mind?”

“See?” asked Luna, a smile across her face. “He’s alright now. He’s learned his lesson.”

Kyle strolled over and stared at the calm Arium in confusion. “Why’s he behaving so well for Luna?”

“I’m not sure,” replied Aurin. “Motherly instincts, I guess. He got himself injured and she comforted him.”

“That’s unusual. I think you’ve found the new oddball of your team.”

“I always thought Steambot was the weird one back when he was a scared little Microbot, but he’s been fine for a year now. I guess it’ll just take some time to break Arium in too.”

Luna beckoned Aurin forwards. “Come toss him his food, he’s having fun.”

Aurin took a few of the nuggets and threw one into the air. As soon as Arium’s hand caught it, his hand spun around and threw the nugget at Aurin’s head.

“Cut that out!” Aurin shouted.

“Don’t yell at him,” scolded Luna as Kyle laughed, finding Arium funny once more.

Aurin left Luna to deal with the rebellious Minakai and wandered off with Shamtile, before realising that Snippet had vanished.

“My washing line!” Kyle called out, hurrying over to the back of his house where Snippet had cut the cord and left all of the clean clothes lying in the dirt.

“It looks like I have two oddballs,” said Aurin, seeing Kyle’s mood shift once again in real-time.

“Take both of them to the tower and don’t come back until they’re under control,” said Kyle, pulling Snippet away from a pair of boxers he had just cut up.

“Those were mine!” Aurin called out as Snippet moved towards a sock. “You’re wanting the attention now that Arium’s causing trouble, aren’t you? Maybe Luna’s right and you are both just like children.” Aurin turned to Shamtile. “I’m very glad that you and most of the others weren’t this crazy.”

Shamtile gave a warbled shriek and waved his hands on the air, doing one of his erratic dances. He conjured a ring of rocks that spun around him like a hula hoop.

“Perhaps crazy was a bad choice of words,” muttered Aurin as he dragged his two Minakai back over to Luna, Arium and Innogon. “Let’s go,” he said to Luna.

“Where to?”

“The tower. We’re going to work on discipline and self-control.”

“Okay,” said Luna, “it’ll be a good chance for Spritzard and Tadpool to have a workout.”

“Let’s hope they don’t get as jealous of the attention that Arium’s getting as Snippet and Innogon.”

“Inno? He’s fine,” said Luna as Innogon launched a water jet right into Arium’s face, sending the golden Minakai into floods of tears once again.