“And what about this one, what’s inside it?” asked Aurin, pointing at one of the eggs on the vendor’s stall.
“Ah, my friend,” said the vendor with a wide grin, “this one contains a very rare Minakai called Pyrite. You’ll never find one of these creatures here in Bretonia, let me assure you.”
Kyle gave Aurin the side-eye and Aurin nodded, then pulled out an Identifying Glass. “I’m interested but let me check the egg first. I’ve got to do my due diligence, after all.”
The vendor hurriedly snatched the egg up with a look of anguish on his face. “If you cannot place your faith in my wares, then begone with you!”
Aurin and Kyle laughed as they walked away. It had been clear from the start that the vendor was trying to rip them off and the pair warned a few of the other people nearby to be wary of them as they headed off to watch the pageant.
Aurin could see Luna standing nervously behind the stage with her Minakai trying to comfort her. It had been a while since she performed in front of an audience and, this time, it was something brand new. Aurin didn’t know what to expect from the pageant, but he had thought the Minakai would all be wearing costumes or something, but the majority seemed to be their normal selves with a bit of extra attention to grooming.
“What is a Minakai pageant?” Aurin asked Kyle.
“It’s a show,” replied the rancher.
“I get that, but what do they do at it?”
“It’s starting in a couple of minutes. Just watch.”
“You don’t know, do you?”
“Shut up,” said Kyle, but the look on his face told Aurin that Kyle had no idea what to expect from the pageant either.
The two stood in wait amongst the crowd with Aurin’s Minakai—Kyle’s Wingbloom was perched on a roof to make sure he didn’t block any views—until finally an official took to the stage. He cleared his throat and began.
“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. Welcome to the Tamer Day pageant here in Hazelton! For those of you who are new to these sorts of events, we’re going to have quite the show for you all, but first let me explain how everything will work.
“Our tamer will take to the stage with their Minakai and they will be assessed in three categories by our wonderful panel of judges; appearance, technique and style. Appearance speaks for itself, while technique is the control the Minakai has over its chosen performance. The final category, style, is what we in the business like to call the ‘wow factor’ where the Minakai has the chance to blow the judges away with its abilities.”
The official walked to the side of the stage and held out a hand as three individuals took to the stage. “Allow me to introduce our panel of judges for today. The magnificent Lord Kensington who sponsored this entire festival, the much-beloved Mayor Boren who put everything together last minute, and finally, the supremely talented Abby Marina, the current Miss Hazelton and a top contender in last year’s national pageant. Everyone, please give our judges a big hand.”
Aurin and Kyle’s jaws dropped as Abby took to the stage. Contrasting with the two men, she was youthful and beautiful with long sleek black hair and refined features. She wore a sparkling blue dress and was accompanied by an impressive-looking Splashard that twirled along behind her.
Once the applause died down, the judges took their seats at the side of the stage and the official remained at the centre of the stage. “Let’s get this show on the road, shall we? Please welcome our first contestant, Isla and her Coldbat.”
A young brown-haired girl of around fifteen walked onto the stage while a sleek Coldbat flew behind her. Everyone went silent as Isla took a deep breath. She drew her hand up in an arc and then pointed towards the audience, confusing Aurin and Kyle who still weren’t quite sure what was going on.
To answer their question, the Coldbat flew upwards in an arc, mirroring Isla’s hand movement while twinkling snow fell behind it. When it reached the far side, it shot an icicle towards the audience before zooming towards it before it came close to anyone and then shattering it with a kick. Tiny hail pebbles fell to the ground.
“Very good, Isla, very good,” said the official as the audience clapped politely. “Judges, what do you think? Ladies first, Abby.”
Abby smiled as Isla. “Your Coldbat has clearly been well taken care of and your technique was controlled, but the style was very basic. I think you could work on that. I give you a seven for appearance, a six for technique and a four for style.”
Everyone listened as the judges all gave feedback to Abby as Aurin stared dopily towards the stage. “Is that it?” he asked.
“I think so,” said Kyle.
“They only get about five seconds to do something fancy, and they’re finished?”
“It’s all about refinement, not power,” said Emily, approaching from the crowd. “It’s not the carnage of the high intensity battles that you’re used to.”
“I don’t think this for me,” said Aurin. “I like the carnage.”
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
“Me too,” said Kyle, thoroughly underwhelmed.
“You two just don’t get it,” said Emily with a giggle.
As more and more contestants took to the stage, Aurin was wondering if he could have entered Shamtile into the tournament and wowed the judges and crowd with some acrobatics and rock-dodging as most contestants were thoroughly unimpressive.
“Next up, we have Luna and her Dogember,” said the official.
Luna took to the stage, her face straining to hide the nerves. She paused for a second, glanced at Aurin in the crowd and then did a pirouette then pointed into the sky.
Dogember bounded along the ground, leaving a trail of embers behind himself and leapt into the air, spinning around as he did so. He shot out a jet of flame which created a fiery vortex in the air before dissipating. Dogember flipped over and landed elegantly on all fours before Luna.
“Now that was good,” said Aurin, clapping.
“Are you starting to get it?” asked Emily.
“No idea, but Luna is impressive as always.”
“Abby, tell us your thoughts,” said the official as the clapping subsided.
“Your Dogember looks every bit the part and is evidently treated very well, so I give you an eight for appearance,” said Abby, smiling at Luna. “The technique was top notch for the most part, but I did notice a slight falter as your Dogember jumped, so I have to give it an eight too. Style? I don’t know what else to say other than it was very good. Nine.”
Luna looked as surprised as the audience applauded for her. Lord Kensington and Mayor Boren gave her similarly high scores, very impressed with her.
“She’s one of my favourite kids in town,” said the mayor. “She was always going to go far…not to be biased.”
The contest continued and Hannah soon took to the stage, achieving a total score just behind Luna after her Chlost used a series of fading techniques to keep the crowd guessing. One of the last contestants to take to the stage was a woman named Joanna alongside her mighty Flaround. Dogember’s evolved form blew everyone away with a rolling wheel technique whose flickering flames took the shape of a hound before fading away; she got perfect scores across the board except for Abby who docked a single point for an awkward flick of the Flaround’s tail when in mid-air.
Once all of the contestants had finished, the top three were Joanna and Flaround in first, Luna and Dogember in second and Hannah and Chlost in third. Aurin, Kyle and Emily clapped particularly hard when Luna and Hannah’s names were called.
The crowd returned to wandering the streets before the next stage of the competition, the water race, and Luna and Hannah rejoined the group. Aurin heaped Luna with praise, saying that he was bored for most of it until she took to the stage, which made her turn red.
“Stop it,” she said, nudging his shoulder.
“No, it’s true,” said Kyle. “He started yawning at one point. Quite embarrassing, I have to say.”
Shortly after, everyone headed over to the river where the water race was due to take place. There were notably fewer contestants lined up here than for the land race through the town and Aurin only recognised a couple of faces in passing.
“I’m going to get a better view,” said Kyle, climbing atop Wingbloom and flying away. “Good luck, you two,” he called back to Aurin and Luna.
“Dolissile,” said Aurin to his cybernetic dolphin, “you have one mission, alright? Storm ahead and don’t look back. Win before they even have a chance to realise the race has started.”
Dolissile gave a small nod.
Luna clapped her hands. “Splashard! Keep on his tail the entire time. It’ll be hard to outpace Dolissile, but you can at least make him feel the heat.”
The contestants started lining up along a wooden bridge built hastily for this very race. Curiously, there appeared to be a finishing line just in front of the bridge. Aurin was positioned beside a tamer with a Doripper who was tickling the fierce fish’s chin. She was tall with an angelic face and had flowing black hair that ran down her back. She turned to Aurin with a smile.
“First competition?” the woman asked sweetly.
“No, I came third in the running race,” he replied. “How about you?”
“First and only. My name is Lorraine, what’s yours?”
“Aurin.”
“Good luck to you, Aurin.”
“You too, Lorraine.”
The tournament official who headed up the previous race spoke to the contestants and informed them that their Minakai are to race all the way to the buoy floating five hundred metres down the river, then circle around and head for the finish line—it would also serve as the starting line. The Minakai all received final words of encouragement from their tamers and swam up to the line, awaiting the starting pistol.
“Three. Two. One.” Bang and the Minakai were off.
Dolissile exploded forward, leaving every other Minakai in his wake except for the Doripper, who was shockingly close to him. Aurin had seen many of the species before and knew them to be quick, but this seemed unnaturally so…unless.
“Solee Berry,” he muttered to himself, glancing at Lorraine. Her sweet smile was replaced with a much more conniving look and suddenly Aurin realised who she was, but he remained quiet and returned to watching the race.
Up in front, Dolissile had circled the buoy with Doripper close behind him. The ferocious fish made an attempt to grab Dolissile with its sharp teeth, but Dolissile used his fusion fin technique to slice the roof of its mouth before it could clamp down properly. He burst forward, faster than ever and left the Doripper struggling to keep up.
Aurin’s Minakai blasted past the finish line and found himself unable to stop before reaching the bridge, so he launched himself over and flipped around a few times before splashing down at the other side, making the crowd all applaud and cheer for him. Dolissile wasn’t quite sure why they were so enamoured as he had only done it to kill his momentum.
The Doripper crossed the finish line in second place and about twenty seconds later, Splashard followed in third place with the rest of the contestants trickling in afterwards. Kyle descended on his Wingbloom and landed on the riverside, catching Aurin’s eye. The rancher gave his friend a nod, knowing exactly how Lorraine’s Doripper had been so unnaturally fast too.
“Well done, Aurin,” she said, turning to him with a much more strained smile. “That was a great race, maybe we’ll have a rematch if there’s one next year.”
“Thank you, I hope so too,” said Aurin. He resisted the urge to taunt her about how he knew who she was, as tempting as it was. It would have been foolish to say anything.
Lorraine departed and Luna wandered over. “Did she do what I think she did?” she asked Aurin.
“You realised too?” asked Aurin. “Twice as fast as it should have been.”
“I was the one who told you about Solee Berries, remember?”
“Of course…and I’m still saving my own for a special occasion. You know who she was?”
Luna slapped herself across the face. “She’s Pisces, isn’t she? I can’t believe I didn’t put that together. We’ll really make her pay in the brawl later.”
Aurin shook his head. “She says she’s not entering.”
“She may not be, but I would bet all of my silver on a Zodiac member being present.”
“I would be more surprised if there wasn’t at least a dozen of them,” said Aurin. “Shamtile and Innogon will be ready for them. All they need to do is make sure they watch each other’s backs.”
Luna nodded in agreement. “That’s right,” she said and the two headed back to the path to rejoin the rest of the group.