Skrow tore the Tadpool apart, sending the ice elemental back to where it came from. The undead bird cawed loudly, proud of his victory and Aurin gave him a nod of satisfaction.
“We’re only ten floors away from a new record,” he said to his Minakai. “I’m shocked you’re still as vigorous as you were when we entered.”
Skrow landed on the tower floor, his chest was heaving and making his skull and crossbones emblem rise and fall like the sails of a pirate ship.
“You’re almost as vigorous,” said Aurin, correcting himself. “Let’s try and keep a low profile for the rest of the floor, alright?
Skrow cawed—more softly this time—in agreement and flapped his wings, taking to the air to fly smoothly alongside his tamer as the pair headed cautiously around the corner and down the next corridor.
Aurin leaned around each and every corner, checking the rooms and hallways for any lurking Minakai. For the most part, the coast was clear, and where there were Minakai, he and Skrow headed in another direction in search of the elevator.
“There,” Aurin whispered to Skrow as he peered into a room from the shadows. “There’s a single Peekawe in here. It’s just sitting there on top of a pile of coins. do you think you can take him?”
Skrow gave a silent nod of his head and propelled himself into the room at the unsuspecting bird, knocking it off the pile of silver it was roosting on. The Peekawe screeched furiously but was met was a series of swipes from Skrow. Seconds later, it was booted from the tower.
“Great job,” said Aurin, stashing the now-scattered coins in his bag and then approaching the elevator. “Upwards to floor thirteen.”
Aurin and Skrow vanished in a flash of light and were magically carried up to the next floor. The two crept around many foes and forced their way through others, determined to keep going. They made it to floor fourteen, floor fifteen and then floor sixteen before Skrow finally succumbed to the hardships of the tower, being defeated by an explosive trap triggered by a wild Litehorn—a foe he wouldn’t have had much trouble with otherwise.
“Leonite, you’re up,” said Aurin, summoning his lion to the tower as Skrow and the Litehorn both disappeared. “We’re on floor sixteen. Five more to our record and six more to beat it. What do you reckon?”
Leonite roared and stood up on his back legs in excitement. He was ready for the challenge and he was determined to be the one who broke the record for his tamer. Now less worried about having to be cautious to reserve his Minakai’s strength, Aurin and Leonite pressed ahead.
“If you see an enemy, you pounce,” said Aurin.
No sooner had he said that did Leonite charge ahead and pull Vambra out of the air with his teeth. The flying eye struggled and slapped at Leonite, but the savage beast tore chunks from it and ejected it from the tower in seconds.
“I’m feeling good about this,” said Aurin, approaching Leonite to stroke his mane. “Let’s push it.”
Aurin and Leonite proceeded through the floor, ascending floor after floor. There were no tamers to be seen at this point, most rarely making it past the first dozen floors never mind to floor twenty-one like Aurin and Leonite did. The two were inches from a new record as they approached the elevator.
“Big moment, bud,” said Aurin. “And Luna isn’t even here to see it.”
Leonite growled softly, most of his energy spent.
“Something about shopping with Emily and Hannah. I wasn’t paying much attention to be honest. I’m telling you, Leonite, that Hannah girl doesn’t like me one bit. I don’t know what it is.”
The lion did not care for his tamer’s drama and walked towards the elevator himself, pawing at it to try and fore his tamer’s hand.
“You’re all business today, aren’t you? Fine, let’s get moving.”
Aurin touched the blue orb and was pulled to the twenty-second floor for the first time. He and Leonite landed, and both leapt into the air in excitement.
“Today is a good day, Leonite,” said Aurin. “Do you know this means we’re only a couple of floors away from reaching the halfway point? With each floor we go up, the Minakai will get tougher, but the rewards will be greater. Perhaps we’ll even see an Ethruki before the day is done?”
Leonite growled angrily and shook his head.
“Okay, maybe that’s a bit much. I know you’re tired,” laughed Aurin.
Aurin and Leonite walked along the silver and blue tiles that glistened in the faint light resting on the orange walls. It was a rather garish colour, but Aurin had long stopped paying much attention to the changing colours of the different tower floors. In his mind, they were all grey and only the Minakai and treasure were in colour.
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“Stop,” said Aurin, hearing a faint muttering from up ahead.
It was a woman’s voice, and it was muffled in the thick air of Harmony Tower. Seconds later, it faded. Whoever she was, she had moved along.
“Who else has managed to climb this high?” Aurin asked Leonite in a hushed voice, to no response from the Minakai. “A foolish question, I know. We haven’t seen another soul in some time so it must be someone powerful.”
Aurin and Leonite crept cautiously along, but the wild Minakai were getting tougher as they spawned in the rooms and corridors. It wasn’t until a particularly hardy Totempo that Leonite truly started to struggle. He felled it with his sharp claws, but he was panting for the rest of the floor.
“No sign of that other tamer,” said Aurin, approaching the elevator. “Maybe she’s been ejected already?”
The young tamer and his Minakai warped onto the twenty-third floor and Aurin took the opportunity of the momentary peace to rummage through his bag in the hopes of finding something that could rid Leonite of some of his exhaustion.
“Everything useful has been replaced by silver except for my Orb of Return and this egg,” he muttered. “Sorry, Leonite, you’ll just have to push through,” he said to his Minakai, but Leonite shook his head.
Aurin understood that Leonite couldn’t keep going this way and held out his tamer glove, summoning Steambot into the tower to join Leonite. He thought that if Leonite couldn’t get any proper rest then having someone to back him up was the next best thing. Steambot was of course very enthusiastic about this, dancing in a manner reminiscent of Shamtile. Aurin suspected that his masked lizard has been doing his best to confer his moves to the blue robot.
“Let’s get going,” he said.
With each Minakai that appeared, Steambot blasted them apart or crushed them with his mighty metallic mass. Leonite hung back, hopping in when Steambot found himself in a tighter spot and together they banished a dozen Minakai.
As Aurin rounded a corner and walked into a room, a sudden flash of light caught him by surprise.
“There!” he called. “It was that tamer, did you both see her?”
Leonite and Steambot nodded in agreement.
“I didn’t get a good look at her, but it had to be that girl. She had a big fish with her too, whatever it was. Maybe a Doripper?”
There was nothing else for it, to wait on this floor was to risk more Minakai approaching them. He touched the orb and ascended to yet another new record; floor twenty-four.
Aurin looked up ahead and saw the woman disappearing into the room at the end of the corridor before him. He chased after her with Steambot clinging to his side and Leonite slightly behind them.
“Wait,” said Aurin, as he entered the room. “Who are you?”
Upon seeing the woman and her Doripper, he already had his answer. She wore the familiar black and white uniform that he had grown to loathe. Adorning her face was a mask, but it was not patterned with stars. It bore two fish that swam apart with eye holes were the side fins would be. From underneath the hat she wore, her long black hair cascaded down her back all the way to her waist.
“Hello, Aurin,” said the woman in a sultry voice, caressing the large grey fish beside her. “I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure before.
“Pisces, I presume?” he asked, keeping his eyes firmly focused on her fierce Doripper. It grinned to show off its teeth and slowly waves its three sets of fins. It was a notably violent Minakai and far more powerful than its earlier Dopefish stage.
“Very astute,” said the woman. “I knew that it would be only a matter of time before we ran into each other, but to think that it’s almost halfway up the tower? You’re definitely a lot stronger than you were when you used to give Leo, Sagittarius and Libra all that trouble. Well, I should say the former Sagittarius and Libra.”
Aurin didn’t say a word, her reference to Sagittarius and Libra not being part of the Zodiac Squad was not a shock to him, it was more concerning that she had implied they had been replaced already. It was barely half a year ago they had been exposed.
“Am I not worthy of hearing you speak? Are you so rude that you would simply ignore someone who you’ve been the thorn in the side of for so long?”
Aurin smiled at her calmly. “What business do you have in Harmony Tower when your group already have an Ethruki?”
Pisces let a loud, fake laugh escape. “You really are a little snoop, aren’t you? What concern of yours is it about what Minakai we may or may not have? There are other tamers who possess Ethruki, so why should it bother you?”
“It is true then?”
“But of course!” she exclaimed, making Leonite flinch. “We are many so naturally we were able to pull together the resources to obtain such a powerful Minakai.”
“And what is it that you want with Ethruki?” Aurin asked her, his fists clenching involuntarily.
“Come now, little Aurin,” said the woman. She was shorter than he was, and it was intended as mockery. “Do you think you deserve to be privy to that information?”
“If you’re not going to talk, then perhaps this thorn will wedge himself deeper,” he said, as his two Minakai stepped forward.
Pisces shook her head, her hair rippling like a wave. “I don’t think these are fair numbers,” she said, holding up her glove and activating a blue summoning stone. Beside her, appeared a second Doripper that looked particularly ravenous.
“Attack!” ordered Aurin.
Steambot shot a heavy water cannon at his slippery opponents who slid out of the way, conjuring a wave of water beneath themselves to surf along on. The pair hurled themselves into the air, aiming for Steambot. One clamped its sharp teeth onto the robot while the other was grabbed in mid-air by an equally sharp toothed Leonite.
Leonite wrestled with the fish, getting slapped in the face with its tail and his side bitten by its razor teeth. As exhausted as he was, the lion kept fighting. Steambot grabbed onto his own biter and pulled, trying to yank its teeth out of its mouth if it was too stubborn to release its grip on his metal body.
“Enough playing,” said a suddenly stern Pisces.
Upon hearing her speak, the Doripper attacking Leonite shot a burst of water from its mouth Leonite’s legs, causing him to buckle and his jaw slacken. The giant fish pulled itself free and head butted the lion, knocking him over entirely. One more bite and he was finished, disappearing in a flash of light moments later.
Steambot’s foe was struggling to fight against the large machine, but its ally joined the fight. Aurin’s Minakai struggled as both Doripper bit through his body and bashed him with their tails. They didn’t need water to be effective here and it wasn’t long before Steambot took a hard hit to his screen and keeled over in defeat.
Aurin scrambled for his Orb of Return too late and he was banished from the tower and all of his items were left behind. The last thing he saw was a smirk and a wave from Pisces before a flash of light and then his head hit the grass outside of Harmony Tower.
He stared at the night sky in shock, realising that he had been inside for the entire day. He picked himself up in a hurry and made a mad dash for the ranch, hoping Kyle was still awake.