A WEEK LATER

Five of them, tails swinging, claws slashing, aiming for a single target while shrieking in that signature ungodly tone that Raimeh usually did. They attack simultaneously, trying their hardest to squash him to bits but he moved too fast, nimbly weaving his way through the jungle of tails and claws- ducking one, deflecting another, side stepping as the armoured tail zipped past him.

The raimeh stop attacking with their limbs and switch to firing spine projectiles. He avoids them with ease, snatches one off the air and returns it with even greater force. It finds its way into the head of a raimeh, instantly ending its life.

One of them jumps at him and swipes with its left claw. He drops the ground, flat on his back to avoid it, going under the monsters belly. He props himself with his hands on the ground and kicks it into air. As it flies, he catches it by the tail, swings it hard and smashes it against another raimeh. The spikes from each raimeh impale the other, dropping the enemy count to two.

Before any of the raimeh left can react he moves in a flash, stomps the head of one of them with his foot, separating it clean from the body. And for the last one he fires a blast of mal energy at it, obliterating everything but its tail.

All the while Yuga fought, the man named Kirveas was watching from a short distance, seated on a large rock.

A week and four days ago while on his search, Kirveas had found this young man. His appearance was unusual and he spoke in a very rare language, which drove Kirveas to think he was some kind of otherworlder at first, but shortly after he discovered the young man wielded drive. A trait only ever identified with humans.

He said his name was Yuga and claimed to have no memories beyond that. From what Kirveas could tell, he wasn't lying. Yuga was oblivious to basic information. He hadn't even known what a voyager was despite being one himself.

Yuga asked Kirveas to train him, which Kirveas agreed to so he could observe him further. He said he'd display something impressive and in his time watching yuga he'd learned some interesting things.

It had just been a week since he started training Yuga. And in that time he'd gone from barely surviving a fight with one raimeh to effortlessly taking on five of them. That was nothing short of “impressive”.

The raimeh were weak, very weak in fact but they’d normally be a threat to a voyager only probably a few weeks since their first sail.

He would only ever give an explanation once and Yuga would pick it up immediately, showing remarkable results in a very short time. All their lessons were focused on basic physical enhancements and Yuga had grown in every respect. Speed, strength and sensory ability. At this point he could detect raimeh from many meters away. Their number, sizes and even the differences in strength.

In addition to that, he'd even gotten better at things Kirveas hadn't taught him. Yuga was now capable of perfectly performing mal control to a small degree. Talent like his was.... rare*

He'd encountered something quite peculiar here in the course of his search. An odd looking young man with an appearance like no other, found himself in a planet like Lehrone without any memories and possessed talent that was nearly unheard of.

Who or what exactly was he? What else would he learn about this man named Yuga?

"How did I do this time?" asked Yuga, walking away from the deceased raimeh.

"You’re quicker than last time.” said Kirveas. Last time being several hours ago.“The next spot is-"

"No, I'll stop here for today. And I think we should move on from hunting raimeh, it's too easy now." said Yuga.

"Yes, we're done with the raimeh, I already have something in mind."

"Ok." said Yuga. "We'll start when I get back. For now, I'm off to explore." And with that, he starts walking in the opposite direction from Kirveas.

"Do as you wish." replied Kirveas.

There was a chance Yuga didn't plan to return at all, and Kirveas hadn't seen everything he wanted yet. No matter, he could easily find the young man when he wanted to.

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Yuga trods through the snow with no destination to guide his steps. It was still early into the day and having just finished training it was a bit relieving to just take a casual walk.

The past week had been filled with training and not much of anything else. Which was good for Yuga because it gave him something to do.

He felt much stronger than before. If he could guess, he was tens of times stronger than a week ago. How strong did voyagers get? At least he knew he wasn't as strong as Kirveas yet. Kirveas hadn't made any displays of his strength since he killed that first raimeh but Yuga could feel it. The large difference in their power.

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How strong was Kirveas? More importantly, who was Kirveas? Yuga still knew nothing about the man, where he came from or why he was here. Kirveas never spoke on anything beyond training and that amounted to very little talk. But it was odd enough he took his time to train someone he'd just met. It was fine anyhow, getting trained was enough.

He needed training to get strong enough to survive these dangerous snowlands. One important reason for that was that he needed to explore the land around him. A week and half later, he still hadn't any tangible memories and as time passed he'd bothered about it less and less. But what he could learn about was his surrounding and so he set out to see what the place was like.

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.

.

Hours had gone by and the day was over. The sun was nearly set now, half of it already sitting below the horizon. Yuga was sitting on the snow, taking a rest from a day of aimless walking.

Yuga spent the entire time moving towards to anything he might've found interesting. He didn't find much of anything but tried having fun in his own way. From exercising Mal control to obliterate rocks to hurling the pieces to see how far they'd fly but he got bored of both and moved on.

In his journey he didn't encounter a single soul or human settlement, only snow, trees and the strange creatures of Lehrone. Some creatures felt familiar in form and others were just strange and otherworldly.

Overall he was a bit more familiar with the terrain. It would soon be time to head back.

It was a really long way from where he left Kirveas. He could go anywhere from here, freeing himself from a potentially dangerous situation. However, he decided sticking with Kirveas was still a good idea for now. Having a teacher and a guide was convenient and if his choice proved to be wrong in the future, he'd just have to deal with it. Somehow.

Just nearby where Yuga sat was small cluster of exotic looking trees. The trees were deep blue colour from stem to branches and had leaves of many different colours. Something felt off about the place. There wasn’t any wild life he could see or sense but there was something he could feel besides the trees, from one of the trees. Something different.

Yuga approached the black sheep tree. It looked completely normal, not much different from every other tree there. Was something hiding in it? No, all he could sense was the tree but it just felt slightly different. He inspects the tree next to it and notices something very odd. Both trees are exactly the same. Their shape, size, scars, down to the very last vein on each of them. He scrambled up and down both trees searching for any differences at all but he found none.

That’s not normal. His instincts were telling him trees didn't have clones of themselves in nature and just right beside them too. So this one that feels weird is a fake? How do you get fake trees?

He decides to check it out. He breaks the branch of the real one and sap just oozes out. That’s normal, what about the “fake one"?

But as he attempts to hit the fake one, the tree vanishes out of sight and he’s startled for a moment.

It vanished. An illusion? No, I can still sense it. He could tell it was still there. He scanned the snow where the tree once was but all there was, was snow. But there’d been a fake tree maybe fake snow was possible too. He fires a very small blast of energy at the snow and a bird flies out of it, up into the sky. A bird now.

Yuga crouches, building up tension in his legs and launches off the ground at incredible speed. He shoots high into the air, to the altitude of the bird in the sky and tries to grab it. He catches it but it vanishes again. What is it now, the air? Yuga thinks as he falls back to the ground.

As he falls, he sees the air reform into a bird and it flies away. Yuga returns to the ground with great force and snow around him explodes in a wave. He quickly gets up and continues his pursuit on land.

It flew for several miles and Yuga trailed close behind, making sure to never lose sight of it. It eventually drops into a tree and transforms into a small animal. A rodent with large round ears, bead black eyes and colourful fur riddled with bright red, green and orange. It scurries down the tree and runs out into a small patch of green grass. The only one you’d see for miles.

It paced back and forth across the grass and after a minute it stopped. It swung its little head as it scoured the area as if checking if someone was watching and then finally relaxed, not noticing Yuga who was nearby behind a tree, observing it.

Did that creature live on this planet too? Then maybe all around the planet there were fake trees and fake objects hiding in plain sight. It transformed to different things at will, trees, animals and even the air. What else could it turn it into?

After confirming it wasn’t followed the creature changes form but this time into something more abstract.

Is that what it really looks like?

The creature was now a mass of a blue, gas-like substance, roughly spherical and about three feet in diameter. In its center was a dark yellow core that glowed and pulsed at a constant frequency. It had no parts for movement and simply hovered slightly above the ground.

Yuga comes out from his hiding spot and slowly approaches the creature. The creature notices him approaching and drifts back, it’s yellow core now pulsing at a higher frequency as if in alarm. He stops just before the creature, staying still so it doesn’t get scared away.

The pulsing calms down and it approaches Yuga slowly. All the living things it turned into were colourful, maybe it liked colourful things. With that in mind, he had an idea on how to attract it.

Yuga wills his colourful hair to change tone. It took a lot of concentration to pull off and didn’t last for long but he tried anyway. He changes the colour from torquoise to light green to a deep blue and then made it a flash of different colours.

The creature seemed fascinated with the display and floated around speedily in excitement.

How did it see? It didn't have eyes.

It circled round and came back to him and then it did something Yuga found a bit jarring. It transformed again, growing larger in the outline of a person. It grew flesh and skin to wrap it up. It formed a face and grew hair on its head that was different shades of blue. It had changed itself into a perfect copy of Yuga.

Yuga stood speechless staring at the clone of himself. From his hair to his skin colour, down to every last scar. It also copied the clothes he wore. Thankfully. It was eerie. Very cool but eerie.

He stretches his hand forward and runs his fingers over its face. His face. It was warm to the touch just like his and blood flowed beneath the skin. It wasn't some illusion or anything but a perfect recreation of Yuga.

"I have really cool hair." Yuga noted. He takes his hand off the creature and it changes back to gas form. "What else can you change to.....?"

He points up to the clouds and immediately, the entire area is filled with thick white mist. Then it changes back, awaiting another order.

"Finally, something fun around here."