Aurin and Luna stood outside a Minakai merchandise shop called ‘Monster Planet’ and dismissed Dolissile and Flaround, only to replace them with Shamtile and Innogon. The two larger Minakai would not have fit and, as long as the smaller Minakai were on their best behaviour, they should be able to keep a low profile.

  “Don’t touch anything,” Aurin warned Shamtile. “Not a sock, not a t-shirt. Nothing. Are we clear?”

  Shamtile threw his hands in the air and spun around, signalling his agreement.

  “Same goes for you, alright?” asked Luna, poking Innogon in the forehead. “No riling up Shamtile, no spitting water for fun. Agreed?”

  Innogon nodded and let out a yapping roar before smiling widely at Shamtile.

  “Alright, away you go,” said Luna, banishing him straight back to Hazelton. “I think I’ll fly solo this time…besides the pair of you.”

  Shamtile held up his hands and danced merrily as though relieved to not be the one getting in trouble this time.

  Aurin, Luna, and the masked lizard walked inside the shop and their gaze immediately fell upon a large table where boys and young men were gathered around. They walked over to see what was happening and saw two of the young men sitting down and holding cards in their hand. On the table before them were further cards, all depicting Minakai or various items that Aurin and Luna had seen in the tower or in the many Minakai-related shops they’d been to.

  “A card game?” asked Aurin, cocking his head to the side. “I remember seeing packets of cards back in Buckstone a few years ago and thinking this would never take off.”

  “It’s a good thing you’re not in business or merchandising,” remarked Luna, putting her arm around him and resting her head on his shoulder for a moment. “It’s alright though, you’re a talented tamer and that’s how you’ll keep making your living.”

  Aurin frowned. “There’s nothing I can’t learn,” he said sulkily and wandered up to the counter to speak to the sales assistant. “Excuse me.”

  “How can I help you?” asked the bespectacled man, leaning forward with his hands clasped together.

  “This Minakai card game…what is it?”

  “You haven’t played before?” asked the man, looking befuddled.

  “Nope.”

  “Not even bought a pack of cards out of curiosity?”

  “I’ve been busy taming real Minakai,” replied Aurin, nodding to Shamtile who started hopping up and down so that he could be seen by the sales assistant.

  “You’re from out of town,” nodded the man. “I understand.”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “Look, kid. Real Minakai are expensive here and there are precious few ranches to store them. If you hadn’t noticed, Skyburrough is a technology focused town and we don’t have a monster tower for dozens of miles. It’s not feasible for us all to have monsters of our own.”

  Luna nudged Aurin in the robs. “Sorry,” he said. “I wasn’t trying to be rude.”

  “It’s fine,” said the man, smiling and waving his hand. “My name’s Tate. You wanted to know about the card game? I’ll tell you. It’s called Minakai Battle Cards and it’s all the rage these days. You collect a bunch of cards, plan a strategy for your deck, and build it so that you can compete against others. There are plenty of real tamers who play it too, myself included.”

  “Alright, Tate,” said Aurin, reaching into his jacket and pulling out a handful of silver. “My money where my mouth is. How much for my first pack of cards?”

  “A half-silver will get you a pack. Ten silvers will get you a starter deck.”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” said Aurin, placing a single silver coin on the counter. “A single pack will do for now.”

  Tate gestured to the shelves behind him. “Pick your series,” he said. “We’ve got the new set, Eiranth Wanderers, we’ve got Raging Inferno, we’ve got Legends of Bretonia—”

  “Legends of Bretonia,” said Aurin, picking it solely because he liked the name.

  “Good choice,” said Tate, passing Aurin his packet and a half-silver of change.

  Aurin took the card pack and looked at the artwork on the foil packet. It depicted a watercolour illustration of an Arusom standing beside a tamer who looked remarkably like…

  “Tobias?” asked Luna, looking at the pack.

  “It is!” said Aurin, much louder than intended. “And his Arusom. This is surreal.”

  “Why’s it surreal?” asked Tate with a raised eyebrow. “Tobias has his own tamer card in a few different sets; it’s customary for National Champions and a few of the more notable tamers across the land. He’s useful in quite a few strategies, you know. Especially if you’re running a dragon-type deck built around the Grakadon line.”

  “Did you watch the National Championships this year?” asked Aurin with a grin.

  “Not this year, no. We had a few big card tournaments going on.”

  Aurin’s face fell. “Never mind,” he grumbled and tore open the pack to see what cards he would get.

  He looked at the first of his five cards. The first card he obtained was a Budescent. The artwork showed it relaxing in a flower field and there was an attack written underneath called ‘Whipping Vine’ with the number thirty beside it. He turned it around for Luna and Tate to see too. Not wanting to be left out, Shamtile hopped onto the countertop and sat down cross-legged.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  “Not a bad start,” said Tate. “It’s uncommon in rarity, but you can’t play it without first having a Petalcub. Next?”

  Aurin put the Budescent to the back of the pile and revealed a card depicting a Gorun sitting on a podium in a museum as though it had been mistaken for a rare mineral. He chuckled as he looked at the artwork, not paying much attention to the card’s stats.

  “Gorun is weak in itself,” said Tate, pointing to the hit points and attack underneath the art. “You want to play his evolutions to maximise his effectiveness. Gorungra is definitely his stronger form.”

  “Let’s agree to disagree on that,” said Aurin.

  “No, I’m telling you. Nobody plays Gorunze in a deck.”

  “Well, maybe they should.”

  “They’d lose.

  Luna chimed in. “He has a Gorunze and is taking this personally.”

  Tate nodded. “I see,” he said, looking to Aurin. “You shouldn’t get emotional about cards, my friend. The stats are the stats. I’m sure your Gorunze is plenty powerful.”

  Aurin frowned and moved Gorun to the back of the pile. “Ah!” he exclaimed, looking at the Solar Shard card he had drawn.

  “An essential in any deck using the order elementals,” said Tate. “If you have a fire, water, wind, or earth-focused deck, you’ll need this.”

  “Now there’s something that matches real life,” said Aurin, flipping over to his fourth card. “A Healing Herb! Nice.”

  “Eh, it’s one of the worst healing items in the game,” said Tate with a shrug, making Aurin snarl and flip over to his last card.

  His eyes widened as he saw the shimmering artwork depicting a Zenoman emerging from a spaceship and abducting a cow from a barn. It had one hundred hit points and an attack called ‘Flurry of Blows’ that dealt thirty damage multiplied by four. Surely, it would have been quicker to write one hundred and twenty—there must have been a catch.

  “Now that is a nice find,” said Tate, looking impressed. “Zenoman is one of my favourite Minakai, I have to say. He looks cool and he’s got some great card variants.”

  “Oh really?” said Aurin with a smirk. He reached into his bag and pulled out a cream-coloured summoning stone.

  Luna slumped onto the countertop and put her forehead in her palm, trying to hide herself from her boyfriend’s embarrassing antics. She winced as a light flashed and Zenoman appeared in a shop. Much to her surprise, Tate let out an enthusiastic cheer.

  “No way!” called the sales assistant. “You’ve got one of your own? My man, we have to have a battle!”

  “I didn’t know you were a tamer too,” said Aurin excitedly. “Can we battle here in the shop?”

  “Heavens no! We can go into the alley out the back. Occasionally we run battles here if we have the interest for it.”

  “Let’s do it.”

  “Mike!” called Tate to one of his colleagues. “Watch the counter for me, I’m heading out for a battle.”

  “Again?” sighed Mike. “That’s the third one this week. Fine…”

  Tate shrugged and led the way to the back door. He opened it and allowed Aurin and Luna to proceed through first before closing it behind himself. The alley was much dingier than the clean streets of Skyburrough, but it was far from filthy; it was more worn than anything, not accurately reflecting the doubtlessly regularly renovated city.

  Aurin walked several yards down the alley and took his place with Luna coming up beside him. Tate waited closer to the door, but just far enough away that he wouldn’t cause accidental damage to it. The stone brickwork was much more easily repaired than the door.

  “What are your preferred rules?” asked Tate.

  “That depends on how experienced you are,” said Aurin, cocking his head to the side as he tapped on the summoning stones in his tamer glove one by one.

  “Relatively,” replied Tate, not giving Aurin any clearer insight to the sales assistant’s battling capabilities.

  “Shamtile, do you want to take this one?” Aurin asked the lizard who performed an enthusiastic pirouette while waving his arms above his head. “Alright, that’s my Minakai settled. Shamtile will be my only one and you can use three in any order or, if you prefer, all at once.”

  “You’re that confident?” asked Tate, sounding mildly offended.

  “Card games may be your thing, but battling is mine. I’m that confident.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  Tate reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out three summoning stones that he had no glove for. Shamtile hopped in front of Aurin and flexed while Tate held up his hand, summoning three Minakai into the alley at once; Chull, Scarelit, and Chlost.

  “All undead monsters,” Aurin muttered to Shamtile, who nodded. The masked lizard already had a good read on his opponents just from looking at them and noting that not a single one of them had evolved.

  “If you’re so great, let’s see what you can do,” said Tate confidently. No matter how tough his opponent was, three against one gave him great odds; he was assured of that.

  Aurin smiled. “You heard him, Shamtile. Luna, count us in?”

  “Right,” said Luna. “Begin!”

  As the undead Minakai moved to spread out as much as they could within the confines of the alley, Shamtile raised his arms and summoned a barrage of boulders that rained from the sky and struck the Chull. To his surprise, the ghostly Scarelit and Chlost were quick enough off the mark to make themselves incorporeal and avoided being flattered like their teammate, Chull. The black bird squawked and rolled over, taken out much earlier than its tamer would have liked.

  “Lucky,” muttered Tate, starting to sweat. Who was this guy who had waltzed into the shop, thinking he knew everything there was to know about Minakai?

  “Take your time,” said Aurin, watching Shamtile who had pressed one hand on the ground as he waited for his foes to solidify.

  Suddenly, they vanished from sight, rendering themselves invisible. Shamtile was not especially worried, knowing that they could not remain that way forever or they’d pass out from exhaustion and lose by default. No, they would reappear in moments.

  A flurry of fire burst from above and Shamtile leapt out of the way and retaliated against the now-visible Scarelit with an accurately flung stone spear. The spear pierced the pumpkin-headed ghost’s head and it let out a wail of pain as it tried to pull the spear free. Its efforts were in vain and it fell to the concrete before falling unconscious.

  “Agh,” grunted Tate, now sweating profusely. With a single Minakai remaining and his opponent looking cool and collected—not to mention having not exerted himself at all—he knew he was in trouble. There was nothing else for it but to go all out. “Attack!”

  Chlost appeared from behind Shamtile, but a whip of the lizard’s arm and he knocked the ghostly white sheet backwards. He spun around and coated his fists in stone before pummelling the Chlost further until it spread out across the ground whimpering, unable to fight any longer.

  “Woah,” said Tate, wiping his forehead with his sleeve. “Alright, you got me good. I don’t know what else to say…”

  “Thanks,” said Aurin, beaming. “Maybe they’ll make a card of me someday.”

  “Heh. You’ve got the talent for it, but you’d need to be one of the most known tamers in the tournament circuits to do that…I never did ask your name.”

  “Aurin.”

  Tate let out a snort. “Ah,” he said, realising who this stranger who had wiped the floor with him was. “You’re that Aurin, aren’t you? Just my luck.”

  “I’m that Aurin alright. I thought you didn’t watch the National Championships this year, Tate?”

  “I may not have watched it, but I still hear things. Half the guys in the shop watch it, so I’m surprised nobody recognised you. Maybe they will make a card out of you yet.”

  Luna shook her head. “Please don’t inflate his ego. He’s getting to be big headed enough as it is.”

  “Don’t!” Aurin warned Shamtile, who was ready to squash his tamer’s head. He long-understood the human phrase, but he found Aurin’s reaction amusing.

  Upon banishing his Minakai, Tate opened the door to the shop. “Maybe you can give me a few pointers before you head off?”

  “Happily,” said Aurin. “How about you teach me how to play a game of cards?”

  “If you’ve got the time, we’ve got cards, board games, and even a few computers to play the battle simulators if you feel like it.”

  “I suppose I can give it a try,” said Aurin, walking through the door.

  “You’ve changed your tune,” remarked Luna quietly.

  “I’m open to giving new Minakai experiences a try.”

  “It’s because you got a rare Zenoman card, isn’t it? You think you can be the best at battling, cards, and even virtual battles, right?”

  Aurin didn’t say another word as Tate followed them through the door.

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