“I can’t believe it,” sighed Luna, her eyes filling with tears as she fed her tired and injured Minakai tonics of her own creation. “What are we supposed to do now?”

  Everyone felt exhausted as they sat on the grass of Kyle’s ranch, watching their Minakai rest. The ranch was surrounded by Kyle’s small army of Frogre, as it usually was, so they were safe for now, but they all knew it was only a matter of time before the wild Minakai spread out from the base of the tower.

  “What can we do?” lamented Emily, feeling a lot of regret at not having her own army of Minakai to rely on. She stroked her Petalcub as she slept peacefully, her green fur highlighted by the moonlight.

  “I don’t know yet,” said Kyle, shaking his head. “I don’t know if we can even get back into the tower through the door anymore.”

  “But we can reach the roof by flying towards it now, can’t we?” asked Gardner.

  “And then do what?”

  “I… I don’t know.”

  “We need cosmic Minakai of our own to reverse the damage,” said Aurin. “Conrad, do the Minakai Guardians have access to them?”

  “A couple of them,” said Conrad, “but to get clearance to use them would be difficult to say the least. When we say it’s to test out a theory about resealing the tower, they would probably just flat out refuse.”

  “We could always steal the Zodiac cosmics,” joked Gardner, laughing a little before trailing off. “I need to sleep,” he said, shaking his head and then staring at the sky.

  Aurin checked his watch and could see that it was almost two in the morning. “Yesterday, we thought we would finally be able to bring them to their knees,” he said. “We were going to infiltrate their base and find a way to stop them. Now look what’s happened…”

  “We need to stop wallowing,” said Luna, giving her last tonic to her Doripper. “It’s a bad situation, I know that, but we’ve been in bad situations before and come through. Remember everything that happened during the first tournament? Remember what it was like when we had the original Sagittarius and Libra breathing down our necks? We found a way.”

  Kyle nodded in agreement. “And, after everything, we still managed to find out where the second Zodiac base was. We were just outwitted, that’s all. There’s a way to fix everything; we just need to get our hands on the cosmics.”

  “Exactly,” said Emily, standing up. “There must be a way to convince someone in the Zodiac Squad that this was all a huge mistake.”

  “Are you suggesting speaking to Hannah?” asked Gardner, without looking away from the sky.

  “I think we have to try,” said Emily. “I know it hurts that she betrayed us, but Luna and I have known her for far too long and been through too much together for her to cut us off so easily.”

  “You’ll be asking her to turn on her dad,” said Luna. “He’s all that she’s got left after her mum passed away.”

  Wingbloom squawked from high up in the sky, signalling that the wild Minakai were finally making their way towards the ranch.

  “Shamtile,” said Aurin, “you’re up.”

  “Baku, give him a hand,” said Luna.

  The lizard and the drake rushed from the enclosures and erected stone walls near the path to funnel the wild Minakai away as best as they could. The tamers knew this was far from a foolproof plan, particularly with the ever-increasing number of escaped Minakai. Still, anything they could do to buy some time and let their Minakai replenish their strength had to be done.

  “Hold on for as long as you can,” said Aurin to Shamtile and Bakugon as they focused on maintaining their walls.

  “It looks like sleep is no longer on the cards,” said Gardner, sitting up.

  “Was it ever?” asked Jimmy.

  “I maintained a quiet optimism, but… no, probably not.”

  “So, are we settled on a plan then?” asked Emily. “We’re going to go and talk to Hannah?”

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  “I’m going to give my friend, Vai, a call,” said Kyle, standing up and heading towards his house. “If anyone would have any advice, it would be him. He’s a master of the mystical elements of Minakai.”

  “Mystical element?” asked Aurin.

  “Elements. It’s not a top-secret element that the world has kept quiet from you, Aurin.”

  “Bickering, even now…” muttered Luna. “In any case, yes. We should speak to Hannah and try to make her see some sort of reason. If I know her at all, she’s going along with all of this because she’s been told to. She wouldn’t truly want monsters breaking out of the tower. She doesn’t even like fighting with Minakai. Any objections?”

  “Nope,” said Gardner.

  “Not from me,” said Jimmy.

  “I don’t like it, but we’ll give it a try,” said Aurin. “What are we supposed to do about the ranch? Just leave the Minakai abandoned while we go galivanting across town searching for her?”

  “We bring our own Minakai,” said Luna. “The others will have to fend for themselves. Most of their tamers are already in town, so it’s up to them to sort out their own teams. We can’t be expected to sit idly here babysitting them, can we?”

  “Isn’t that kind of the whole point of this ranch?” asked Gardner.

  Luna frowned. “Not when there’s a crisis like this, Gardner. If the tamers don’t summon or collect their Minakai, they will have to take care of themselves for a while.”

  Shamtile screeched loudly, and there came an immediate crash following his call. The sound of tumbling rocks reached the group and they all sprang to attention, including Kyle, who dashed from his house. A horde of Minakai had broken through the wall, sensing that it was not simply a natural barrier, but something trying to keep them away. The group of wild monsters was led by a Treebot who barrelled on through like a tank.

  “Dolissile!” called Aurin, pointing towards the Treebot.

  Dolissile exploded forward, charging at unbelievable speed towards the armoured Minakai. The propelled dolphin collided with the Treebot, sending it flying over the treetops, but it vanished in a flash before it could land, so great was the damage caused by Aurin’s Minakai.

  “Follow suit!” called Gardner, sending his Vinewolf and Desparee in to help round up the rest of the Minakai. As tired and grumpy as he was, he would give it his all to send the escapees back to their own dimensions.

  “Stopod, help rebuild the wall,” said Luna.

  The Minakai all got to work eliminating their targets and fortifying the ranch as best as they could. Wingbloom struck from the sky while both Aurin and Jimmy’s Zenoman delivered an eight-fisted assault to the monsters daring to climb through the hole in the rock wall.

  Shamtile, Bakugon, and Stopod repaired the barrier once the Minakai were cleared away, but more were bold enough to try climbing over the top of the wall.

  “Glacibot!” called Aurin.

  “Frocean!” called Luna.

  “Snowlem!” called both Kyle and Gardner.

  The four icy Minakai charged towards the wall and were raised to the top by pillars of earth erected by Shamtile. All four stood tall and conjured a snowstorm upon the forest below, where the Minakai emerged from. They were slowed by the cold, and then beaten back as they were worn down. After a short while, they succumbed to the storm and vanished.

  It wasn’t long before the area was cleared once again, but it had tired the ice elementals greatly. If further waves appeared, it would only be a matter of time before all of the tamers’ Minakai were too exhausted to carry on. It did not help matters that their item supplies were far from limitless, with Healing Herbs alone running thin. Typically, everyone would have considered their supply of the green plants abundant for their needs.

  “You all did great,” said Aurin, and the other three tamers agreed. “Go back to your rest and we’ll find a way to put an end to this.”

  “If the ranch falls, then retreat to the mountain,” said Kyle before turning to the other tamers. “Has everyone got all of their summoning stones on them?” he asked.

  Everyone assured them that they had.

  “That’s good,” said Aurin. “No matter where our Minakai are forced to flee to, we can summon them back to our sides.”

  “If things get too bad, we can reattune the stones to another location,” said Luna.

  “Let’s make sure we don’t have to do that,” said Kyle.

  “Agreed,” said Gardner. “We’re going to fix this. I’m no longer cautiously optimistic; I’m fully optimistic.”

  Jimmy raised an eyebrow. “Fully optimistic?”

  “That’s right,” said Gardner with a wide grin. “The Zodiac Squad aren’t going to win. We lost the battle for the tower barrier, but we’re going to win the war against them.”

  “We are,” said Aurin. “Now let’s go get Hannah and we can—”

  Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.

  “A Cybuzz is approaching,” said Jimmy, looking to the sky.

  “No, it’s my phone,” said Luna, reaching into the pocket of her winter jacket. “It’s my parents.”

  “They’re probably wondering why you’re still out at half two,” said Emily. “Come to think of it, mine are probably worried too.”

  “Hello?” said Luna, answering her phone. “Yes, Dad, I’m fine. You don’t need to worry. Yes, I’m at the ranch. It’s been one of those—”

  Luna stopped abruptly, and Aurin could hear her dad’s voice through the phone. He sounded as though he was in a panic, but he wasn’t scolding his daughter for being out so late.

  “Alright, we’ll be there soon,” said Luna. She hung up. “We have another problem to deal with.”

  “Fantastic,” said Kyle as Gardner threw up his hands, no longer fully optimistic.

  “What is it?” asked Aurin.

  “The Minakai have made it into Hazelton already, and they’re running wild. People are scared and too many tamers and their teams were injured in the battle outside Harmony Tower.”

  “Change of plan,” said Aurin. “Hannah can wait. We need to make sure that nobody else gets hurt.”

  “Right,” grunted Gardner. “Let’s go.”

  Still exhausted, but with their vigour running high, everyone hopped on the back of a couple of their larger Minakai and stormed away from the ranch. They would not let their beloved town fall because of what the Zodiac Squad had done. They would defend it and the people with all their might.

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