“Good day, fine sir and beautiful lady,” called Gardner, waving to Aurin and Luna as he made his way up the ranch path. “Did I miss another thrilling training session?”

“I wouldn’t call it missing much,” said Aurin, as Skrow flew down and perched on his shoulder after a victorious battle against Luna’s Rabbafat.

“Hey!” shouted Luna.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” said Aurin.

“How did you mean it?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes I just say things.”

Gardner chuckled as he approached. Aurin had only seen him once since they returned from Ludonia as the plant and nature specialist had been travelling around Ludonia again.

“How was your trip?” asked Luna.

“Fantastic,” he said, looking very enthusiastic. “I checked out another couple of towers, fought plenty of other tamers and seen lots of Minakai I’d never seen in person before.”

Aurin started to get excited too. “What Minakai did you see?”

“Frilleaf, for a start,” said Gardner. “Naturally, a nature elemental like that is right up my street. It packs quite a punch too, so I’ll have to get one for my own team eventually. The other really cool one was a Bakugon.”

“Bakugon?” asked Luna. “Isn’t that what Tobias’s Grakadon evolves from?”

“The very same! It’s much smaller than I imagined, but I suppose it’s like your Innogon, right? It starts as a small drake then evolves into a mighty dragon.”

“There’s a reason those two species are called counterparts,” nodded Aurin knowledgably.

“Do they now?” asked Kyle, approaching. “I suppose you’ll have to get one and put it to the test against Innogon then.”

“Innogon will beat him for sure,” said Luna.

“Most certainly,” chuckled Aurin. “I don’t think I could hatch anything and be able to beat Innogon right away. He’s far too well trained.”

Luna smiled slyly at the compliment but didn’t say anything. The humans spent the next short while catching up on everything that had happened on Gardner’s trip while the Minakai ran into the pens to have their lunch. Aurin was a little jealous of some of the things battles that Gardner described but he was focused on Harmony Tower. He would build his team’s strength through ascension and worry about other tamers later.

“…and that’s when I finally got to battle one,” said Gardner.

“One what?” asked Luna enthusiastically.

“A foreign Minakai.”

“Which one?” asked Aurin, wondering if it was one of the monsters he had seen in passing during his time in Ludonia. He had yet to have the pleasure of battling one.

“It was a Terrastag,” said Gardner.

“A what?” asked Luna.

“It’s in the name, Luna,” said Kyle. “It’s a beast-type earth elemental. What makes it special, however, is that it’s one of the few Minakai that can only reach that form if it’s a specific sex.”

“What’s his female counterpart called, Terradoe?” asked Aurin, laughing at his own joke.

“Yes,” confirmed Kyle.

“Oh.”

Kyle laughed and then continued. “She’s a lot more docile but you wouldn’t want to mess with one that’s trying to protect her eggs. That’s when the gloves are off. Terrastag, however, is quite dangerous all the time.”

“Too right,” said Gardner. “The Terrastag gave my Wingbloom quite the walloping. Fired a barrage of boulders that knocked him right out of the sky, he did.”

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“Alright, be honest,” said Aurin. “Could it have beaten Shamtile in a one on one earth battle?”

Gardner paused to think for a moment. “I think so, yeah. He was a tough one, that’s for sure. Not that Shamtile isn’t tough but the tamer I fought was a veteran. Said he’s competed in national tournaments himself back before he retired from professional Minakai battles.”

“That settles it,” said Aurin. “Once I’m through with Harmony Tower, I’m going abroad and fighting my way across the world.”

“Steady on there,” laughed Kyle. “You’re just shy of the halfway mark for Harmony. Don’t get ahead of yourself just because you’ve heard about something new and shiny.”

“It’s a long-term goal,” said Aurin.

“Halfway?” asked Gardner.

“Yes, I managed to make it to floor twenty-four before…well, a few old friends are showing up more frequently.”

“Zodiac?” asked Gardner, looking as though he’d seen a ghost.

“Two new elites have reared their ugly heads,” said Aurin with a solemn nod. “They call themselves Pisces and Virgo. Pisces is a tough one, I can’t lie. Virgo on the other hand, I don’t know what to make of him.”

“Him?” asked Gardner, looking puzzled. “Isn’t the symbol for Virgo a woman?”

“That’s what I said!” exclaimed Aurin. “Didn’t seem to bother him though. He let it slip that Zodiac are trying to restore something from millennia ago.”

“What does that mean?” asked Gardner.

“Beats me,” shrugged Aurin. “I figured Zodiac hadn’t been around for that long, so to hear him allude to something from thousands of years before now was strange.”

“I’m telling you, it’s something to do with the towers,” said Kyle. When Aurin had told him about his encounter with Virgo, Kyle had come up with a wild theory.

“What do you mean?” asked Gardner.

“The towers have been around for millennia,” said Kyle. “We don’t know how long for exactly or who it was that built them, but we do know that many different people have tried to control them. People have tried blowing them up, others have tried breaking out from the inside. You name it, humanity has tried to experiment on them, but to no avail. The tower itself can be quite punishing to those who do try and mess with it. I would wager that someone in Zodiac has a beef with the towers themselves and wants a piece of its magic.”

Gardner wasn’t sure what to make of this theory. “That’s…believable? But it doesn’t exactly tell us much.”

“Well, no,” admitted Kyle. “It’s just an overarching theory I have and if we can find out more to back it up, that’s great. If we can’t, then fine, I’ll be wrong.”

“I don’t care what their reasons are, I’m going to put a stop to their plans,” said Aurin defiantly.

“Just as long as you don’t get yourself hurt,” said Luna.

“Or my ranch burned down again,” added Kyle.

“Anyway,” said Aurin, ignoring them. “I can’t wait to see more foreign Minakai. I feel like I missed out by not getting to fight any at the tournament.”

“There were some competing in the tournament?” asked Luna.

“Yes,” said Aurin and Gardner in unison.

“Why did neither of you mention this before?” asked Luna.

“I didn’t know you didn’t know,” shrugged Aurin.

“There weren’t that many,” said Gardner. “The eggs tend to be quite pricey to import so most people from Bretonia just stick with Minakai they can find here.”

“And don’t forget the fraud side of things,” said Kyle. “Without an Identifying Glass, you can’t prove that an egg contains what someone says it does. I got scammed by that once when I was a young boy, fresh into my tower adventures. I bought an egg from some dodgy fellow who told me it was a Saskid but then it hatched into a Piggun.”

“Wait, that Piggun wouldn’t happen to have evolved into your Hogannon, would it?” asked Luna.

Kyle chuckled but didn’t answer. Aurin suspected that it had. Kyle never really talked about where he got most of his Minakai from, but it was amusing to think that he got ripped off only for the Minakai from the bad deal to become one of the powerhouses of his team.

The telephone started to ring in Kyle’s house and it was only thanks to a window being open that anyone could hear it.

“Aurin, go answer that,” said Kyle.

“Why me?”

“Quickly, before it gets cut off.”

Aurin ran inside and lifted the receiver to his ear. “Hello?” said.

“Ah, I’m glad it’s you who picked up,” came a familiar voice.

“Conrad?” asked Aurin, not having spoken to him since he last showed up at the ranch with Klaus. Aurin was still a bit bitter about the underhanded investigation the two Minakai Guardians had conducted on him.

“Yes, it’s me. Have you been well?” asked Conrad.

“As good as can be expected,” answered Aurin.

“You did well in the national championships,” said the Minakai Guardian. “I caught a couple of your matches.”

“What do you want?” asked Aurin.

Conrad fell silent for a moment, likely expecting a more receptive Aurin. “I’ve got an update for you on the presence of Ethruki in Hazelton.”

“Oh?”

“There’s been another reported sighting of one in Harmony Tower on the thirty-sixth floor.”

“Thirty-sixth?” asked Aurin.

“Yes,” said Conrad. “The tamer who got defeated wasn’t too pleased about getting taken out at such a high floor so he sang like a bird when we Klaus and I went to question him.”

“And what did he say?”

“Long story short, the tamer in control of the Ethruki was a man with a bull mask.”

“Taurus.”

“It seems so,” muttered Conrad. “On top of that, apparently Taurus only used Ethruki after losing his other two Minakai to the tamer. Taurus was having a very difficult time controlling it and only won by sheer luck in the end.”

“Did the tamer say anything else?” asked Aurin.

“No, nothing important,” said Conrad. “I just thought you should know. Watch yourself.”

“Thanks Conrad,” said Aurin just as Conrad hung up.

Aurin wasn’t sure what to make of this news. On the one hand, it was good that the Zodiac Squad had an Ethruki that they could not master, but on the other hand Taurus was powerful enough to reach the thirty-sixth floor without having to rely on a third Minakai. Aurin knew that if they met in battle right now, he didn’t stand a chance against the Zodiac leader.