“And Joseph has won his third match!” called the referee upon Tuptup’s spear cutting across Eyegloo’s eye. The lightning elemental advantage had made this battle easier than his first two matches. “With that, Joseph has secured himself a place in the finals. A fantastic effort today.”

  “Good work, mate,” said Aurin, picking up his Tuptup and setting him on his shoulder. The hairy lightning beast barked happily as it placed his hands on Aurin’s head.

  The tamer approached his opponent, Benny, and shook his hand. “That was a real beating,” sighed Benny before shaking his head. “That’s the way it goes, I suppose.”

  “It was a good battle,” said Aurin, not wanting to be too hard on his opponent. “At least you can relax now and enjoy the show.”

  Benny gave an awkward smile and headed back to his bench. Aurin realised in hindsight how the words he had just said sounded. Had he been told that after an important match, he would have taken it personally. Feeling foolish, he turned and waved to the crowd as he walked back over to Luna.

  “One more to go,” she squealed, coming up behind him and massaging his shoulders once Tuptup jumped back onto the floor. “You’ve got this, my brave knight.”

  “Brave knight?” asked Aurin with a raised eyebrow.

  “I thought it sounded encouraging, no?” she giggled.

  “I’ll take it. The brave knight and his tail-shaped lightning sword. Here to vanquish the many dragons of Granville Hall.”

  “That’s the spirit,” said Luna, throwing a fist in the air. “Bring honour to all of Bretonia with your fighting prowess.”

  The two started laughing, attracting a few strange glances from the tamers sitting on the bench nearby.

  “Can you imagine if you unleashed Shamtile here?” muttered Luna. “The tournament would have been over two hours ago.”

  “Or Zeera,” replied Aurin quietly. “He’s an unevolved Minakai too.”

  “You’d be disqualified because he’d tear the building apart if another Minakai took a cheap shot at him. It’s probably safer having the random egg rule in place.”

  Luna sat back down and Aurin headed over to the bench. The next battle was between a tamer called Marcel, who was using a Feathrus, and another tamer named Leah who had hatched a Dolissile. As one of the more powerful unevolved Minakai, the Dolissile had made quick work of the competition, but it was evident that Leah was struggling to control it.

  The battle began and Leah ordered her Dolissile to charge full-speed ahead. Aurin noted how its full-speed paled in comparison to his own, something that Marcel’s Feathrus used to its advantage. It swerved out of the way and the Dolissile skidded to a halt, almost crashing into the far war.

  It sped past Marcel, aiming for his Minakai a second time. His Feathrus soared along on a summoned wind towards the wall and Dolissile charged, but Feathrus pulled upwards and flipped out of the way, batting its grey wings to propel itself upwards. Dolissile crashed nose-first into the stone and then hit the ground.

  Before it had the chance to float back up, Feathrus wailed as it beat its wings, conjuring up a razor-sharp wind that cut into the cybernetic dolphin’s metal plates. It emitted an echoing screech of pain before rolling over in defeat, leaving Marcel as the victor and the second of the two finalists of the Egg Randomiser Tournament.

  The audience cheered for him and Aurin clapped along politely. He was still watching Marcel’s Feathrus to see how it moved when it wasn’t under pressure. He had to analyse everything he could about the little monster as he needed to be prepared for anything, even if it didn’t consider his Tuptup a threat.

  “It’s one of those cool, calm, and collected Minakai,” said Auring to Tuptup. “You’ve given a great showing so far, and I reckon you can take it. You just need to be mindful of it pulling something sneaky or trying to bait you in like how it did to the Dolissile. Don’t worry, after this battle, I’ll make sure we take some time during our Bretonia tour to stop and train you properly. Alright?”

  Tuptup gave Aurin a big, toothy smile and then licked his arm.

  “Lovely,” he said quietly while shaking the dripping saliva from his sleeve. In Tuptup’s defence, Aurin had to regularly clean his own Minakai’s dung at the ranch, so a glob of saliva seemed like nothing.

  After the referee gave both Aurin and Marcel’s Minakai a berry to make sure they weren’t going to suffer from any lingering injuries from their previous battles, they took their places at opposite ends of the arena. All eyes were on the two as they stared at each other, just waiting to be counted in.

  “And here we have it,” said the referee, “the final match of the Egg Randomiser Tournament. On behalf of Sir Arthur Ashmore, I would like to offer commiserations to those who have been knocked out so far, but we certainly have two fierce contenders left standing for the finals.”

  Sir Ashmore nodded proudly and gave a thumbs up to both Aurin and Marcel.

  “Tamers ready?” asked the referee.

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  “Ready,” confirmed Aurin and Marcel.

  “Three. Two. One. Battle!”

  As Tuptup launched his lightning strike, Feathrus sent an intense blast of wind at him. Ending his attack early, Tuptup leapt out of the way and the remnants of the wind knocked Aurin’s hood down and sent his sunglasses flying off his face. He hurriedly tried to catch them, but it was much too late.

  Marcel’s jaw dropped and he held up his hands to the referee. “Stop the battle!” he called out.

  “Is there a problem?” asked the referee with a shrug.

  “You’re damn right, there’s a problem,” said a furious Marcel. “I know this guy! He was the one who fought Tobias at the National Championships and almost one.”

  Aurin’s heart sank. Here was this same argument from the Battle Carriage all over again. The entire point of him entering a tournament like this was to prevent accusations of unfair competition.

  “So?” asked the referee. “He’s using a Minakai he hatched today, same as you.”

  “Well, I won’t battle him,” spat Marcel. “I demand a refund. And anyone else who battled him should get one too because this is blatantly unfair. He’s a top national contender.”

  Sir Ashmore stood up and walked onto the battlefield. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Marcel,” said The Collector. “If I recall correctly, you were also competing in the National Championships last month. You made it through to your second match, did you not?”

  “Yes, but that’s very different from almost defeating the National Champion. The guy has a Zeera and Breminia! There’s a level of skill difference here that the rest of us can’t compete with.”

  “I lost against Tobias, remember?” asked Aurin. “And my Breminia was defeated quickly too.”

  “No, I’m out,” said Marcel, walking away. “This is ridiculous.”

  “Booooo!” cried Luna from the sidelines, trying to drum up some jeering from the crowd, but it had little effect. Everyone was too busy murmuring among themselves about how fair it was letting Aurin compete here.

  “I’m sorry about this, son,” said Sir Ashmore, walking over to Aurin. “The only fair way to handle this is to award you the victory, considering your opponent forfeited.”

  “I wanted to fight,” said Aurin. “I knew people would react this way, Sir Ashmore. It’s the whole reason I tried to hide who I was. It hasn’t even been two weeks since my battle with Tobias and this isn’t the first time I’ve had this sort of reception.”

  Sir Ashmore nodded understandingly and then put a finger to his chin. “Say,” he said, “I have an idea. I’m something of a tamer myself, if you hadn’t heard, so how about I step in and battle you. If you win, you claim the victory. If not, then everyone gets a refund at my own personal expense.”

  The crowd seemed excited at this proposal and the tamers looked more than receptive to the idea.

  “I’m in,” said Aurin, looking to his Tuptup. “Right?”

  Tuptup barked and hopped up and down, eager to get the show on the road.

  “Young lady,” said Sir Ashmore, gesturing to Luna. “You’re Aurin’s girlfriend, are you not?”

  “Um, yes?” she piped up.

  “Please follow me to the egg room and you can be my witness of fairness. I will hatch a brand-new egg and this will be my first battle with this new Minakai. Does that sound fair to you, Aurin?”

  “Yes, Sir Ashmore,” he replied.

  The Collector and Luna headed into the corridor and returned a minute later followed by a small Tormech which trotted along behind Sir Ashmore. It looked broader than a typical Tormech, but that potentially made it slower and Aurin knew that would be to his advantage as long as it didn’t have full control over its element yet. The last thing his Tuptup needed was to be hit with a metal elemental attack.

  Once Sir Ashmore had taken his spot and given a nod to the referee, the battle was counted in. “Three. Two. One. Battle!”

  Tormech charged forward as Tuptup launched a zap of lightning. As the fizzling energy soared through the air, Tormech did a somersault and weathered the blast with its shell, catching Aurin completely off-guard. He glanced to Luna who gave him a wide-eyed nod, signalling that this was indeed a freshly hatched monster.

  “No way,” muttered Aurin, amazed at the level of control The Collector had over his Tormech.

  Tuptup bounded toward his opponent, keeping his wide eyes focused on the tortoise in case there was any trickery afoot. Sure enough, as Tuptup drew close, Tormech spat a metal spike from its mouth that the bounding beast had to roll out of the way off to avoid an early end to the battle.

  Each time Tuptup came close, the Tormech found a way to repel him. Sometimes it was a headbutt, sometimes it was launching another small spike, but Tormech had taken only light scratches and seemed surprisingly unfatigued while Tuptup was evidently starting to tire. Aurin knew that had his Minakai had the chance to train, he would have been able to keep going for much longer, but how was the Tormech in such good shape? Had it been a lucky hatch or did Sir Ashmore know something he didn’t?

  “We’re going to need to go for broke, Tup,” called Aurin. “Full power!”

  Tuptup roared as his hair stood on end from the electricity flowing through him. He changed towards the Tormech and leapt over another hurled spike before unleashing a powerful jolt of electricity. The tortoise flipped itself onto its front legs and let it hit its shell, but it was powerful enough to send him flying across the battlefield where he spun and then skidded to a halt.

  Aurin’s tired Minakai ran as fast as he could manage toward his prone foe, who was trying to climb to its feet. Even though its shell had taken the brunt of the damage, Tuptup’s attack had severely weakened the turtle. As the blue beast bit his foe, Tuptup bit back and the two wrestled on the ground, trying to fell each other and claim the victory.

  Before long, the two were struggling pathetically on the ground, both Minakai too spent to keep going. Their ability to cast magic had reached its limit and they could barely move. At that point, the referee stepped in and was about to call the battle as a draw when Tuptup jabbed his sharp tail into Tormech’s throat. The small attack was enough to finish the job and end the battle.

  “And Aurin is the winner!” announced the referee as the crowd all clapped.

  Some of the tamers had been looking forward to their refund and were less enthused, but they were impressed Aurin could defeat a local hero with a Minakai he had hatched that very day. Luna was standing and whistling, trying to drum up as much support as she could.

  “Well, that was quite the show,” said Sir Ashmore, walking over to Aurin. “Very impressive handling of that Tuptup of yours.”

  “Likewise for you and that Tormech,” said Aurin. “You didn’t even have it for five minutes and you were able to command it so precisely.”

  “It wasn’t always this say,” said The Collector with a smile. “You know as well as I do that it takes a lot of time, effort, and grit to get to this level of skill. The people here can see you’re strong, sure, but it’s people like me who appreciate the steps along the way.”

  “Thank you, Sir Ashmore.”

  “Say, Aurin. I suspect we’re kindred spirits, so perhaps you would like to visit my manor tomorrow and see my collection for yourself? You, of course, can bring Luna with you if she would like to come.”

  “You mean that?” asked Aurin, excited at the prospect of seeing a collection of hundreds of Minakai, including foreign ones.

  “Tell me where you’re staying and I’ll send a car to your hotel after breakfast.”

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