[Two years ago]

The world flashed and Tessa suddenly found herself in a small room surrounded by other people. She blinked blearily, wondering if this was some kind of dream. She'd just been sleeping, hadn't she? Weird dream though. Why was she surrounded by girls? Why were most of them naked or half-dressed at best? Who was the blue chick up front? Said blue chick waved her hand, and suddenly all of Tessa's bleariness evaporated as she was jolted to full consciousness. As the room suddenly erupted in a clamor of shock and confusion, Tessa realized this wasn't a dream! Where was she?!? What was going on!?! She noticed the other girls from the squad around her, looking like similar thoughts were going through their minds as well. Where were the guys? Where was Greg?!?

"Quiet!" The blue woman demanded, a shock of power erupting from her, quieting them all down. "I'm sure you're all confused, and you have the right to be, but please keep quiet until I have finished my explanation." She continued in a calm, almost bored tone, as if she gave this speech all the time. "You have been taken aboard the manaship Quistolarc as recruits for the Mage Republic's war against the Demon Empire. You have been chosen because you exhibit the ability to wield mana. Do not worry about the unchosen remaining behind. They have been taken care of, and once you fulfill your duty to the Republic, you may rejoin them if you so choose. For now, your duty is to train your bodies and mana until you reach the minimum requirements to qualify as a mage. You have two years until we reach the battlefield. Make them count."

"You kidnapped us from our homes, from our families, to force us to fight your war?!?" One of the women shouted out incredulously the moment the blue woman finished.

"We have recruited you to fight a war for yourselves." The blue woman retorted. "The Demon Empire wages war on mana itself! The moment your planet awakened and you forged your connection with the mana, you became their enemy. Their prey. One way or another, eventually you will have to fight them. Would you rather do it now, when we can train and support you? Or would you rather do it after they defeat us, and you are on your own, without any training or support?"

There were a few grumbles and complaints thrown around, but no one actually had an argument against that. Obviously it'd be better to face an enemy with support, rather than without it. They just didn't appreciate being forced into it. "Why didn't you simply ask us whether we wanted to fight?" Someone else spoke up.

"And who would you like us to ask?" The blue woman countered, raising an eyebrow. "Your civilization had collapsed and you had split into thousands of small communities. Should we have gone around and asked each and every individual if they were willing or not? We do not have that sort of time. We do not have the leeway to indulge in politeness or tolerate stupidity and stubbornness. This war is for our survival, just as much as it is for yours. You will train. You will fight. And hopefully, once this is all over, we can all go back to our homes and live the peaceful lives we've always wanted."

*

The aliens had separated the groups by sex, for obvious reasons. They all lived in a large group, no single rooms. So, the first thing Tessa did when the blue woman, Sergeant Lapodala, gave them a moment of free time was rush over to the guys dorm to find Greg, and she wasn't the only one. At least half the women were looking for men, and the men were rushing over to look for them as well. However, while many of the women found their partners, many didn't, and unfortunately Tessa was one of them. She found Victor, Jake, Carlos, Fredrick, and Patrick, but Greg was nowhere to be found!

"They couldn't have left him behind! He was one of the most powerful people in the safe zone!" Tessa exclaimed in a panic.

Victor shrugged helplessly. "I don't know what to tell you. I looked everywhere. He's not here. You know he isn't exactly subtle either. If he was around we'd know."

"But why wouldn't they take him!" Tessa reolied. "He could be an entire army on his own! If they were going to recruit anyone, it would be Greg!"

"Maybe that's the problem?" Casey interjected. "Greg is way too powerful. There's something funky going on with his abil- er, mana. Maybe he's in a special program or something."

Tessa hesitated. That- that sort of made sense, right? There had to be something special going on with Greg. He literally was whatever his smoke was. "Then… where do you think he is?"

Casey shrugged helplessly. "Another section of the ship? Maybe a different ship altogether? However, if there's one thing I'm certain of, it's that we don't need to be worrying about Greg. He's going to be okay no matter where he is. What we need to worry about is us."

Tessa sighed, nodding in agreement. Worrying about Greg was pointless. She just hoped he wasn't causing trouble somewhere. For now, she needed to focus on the task in front of her.

*

"Mana is a force of will and imagination." Sergeant Lapodala began to explain. "Mana naturally fills gaps and satisfies needs. If you don't fill your needs on your own, the mana will fill your needs for you, and as it does, it will respond to your will and imagination and change you. Feeling scared and defenseless? The mana will grow scales to protect you. Want to run and hide? The mana will change you into something faster and harder to see. I'm sure you have seen examples of this. However, as the mana fulfills your needs, it also adjusts your nature to make you more and more compatible with mana itself. Therefore, allowing the mana to fulfill your needs is necessary, but it must be done carefully. You must learn to control your mind, to control your will, and focus on maintaining your true self." Sergeant Lapodala brought out a strange, wristband-like object. "This device will test your concentration. As long as it glows blue, your concentration is stable. If it glows red, your mind has wandered, and the device will deliver a small shock. Your goal is to keep the device glowing blue for an entire day before you can begin adjusting to the mana."

Everyone collected their wristbands, placing them on their wrists, all of them flashing red and blue at random intervals as people's minds wandered, causing short yelps as people kept getting shocked. Sergeant Lapodala moved on to teaching them tricks to help them keep their minds focused, helping them meditate on their true nature, to figure out who they truly were, and to keep that image in their minds at all times. The beginning of that was to study their ability, or as Sergeant Lapodala called it, the natural expression of their mana. Everyone was born with an innate nature, and when they released mana, that nature was expressed. So in order to find one's true nature, it was important to study your ability and figure out where it came from. You couldn't just take the ability at face value either. For example, Carlos's ability to create barriers might make people think he was defensive, but if you truly studied it, you'd find that it came from Carlos's innate desire to protect. On the other hand, Meredith's healing ability seemed caring, but in reality it came from an innate desire to make others dependent on her.

Tessa frowned as she considered her ability. Where did her ability to shapeshift come from? A desire to be who others wanted her to be? She shook her head. Her father had always expected her to be this perfect little princess, and she hated it. She didn't want to be who other people wanted her to be, she wanted to be who she wanted to be. She paused. She wanted to be whatever she wanted to be! She didn't want to be limited by anything! The world was full of possibilities and she didn't want to be kept from any of them. Was that her innate nature? Not to change for others, but to change for herself? To always be who she wanted to be, no matter what that was? Tessa let out a slow breath as her wristband began to glow a bright blue. It didn't matter how she changed, because no matter who she became, she could always change to who she wanted to be.

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

Once the wristband maintained its blue color for an entire day, it broke, and they were allowed to begin acclimating themselves to the mana. Unlike Earth, where the mana was in the atmosphere, on the ship they needed to actually eat something infused with mana. They began to be fed mana rich food and drinks, and the more they showed they could handle, the more they received. They quickly felt their powers grow, becoming more potent. Tessa could shapeshift faster, Casey could form larger and hotter fireballs, and Victor could do more and more before people began to notice him, which no one was happy about.

Once their mana pools grew to a certain extent, Sergeant Lapodala began to teach them mana control. The key to being a mage was learning how to take the natural expression of your mana and shift it to create a different effect using spells. When shaped into specific patterns, the mana would naturally shift to create certain effects. However, due to the unique nature of each mages mana, these patterns needed to be adjusted to be more efficient. Your pattern needed to operate at at least ten percent efficiency before you could say you had learned the spell, making it a tier one spell and every ten percent efficiency after that would increase the tier of the spell by one.

Once they were able to manipulate their mana, all their time was spent either practicing spells, making them more and more efficient, or sparring with each other. Just because they had the mana, it didn't mean they knew how to use it, and the best way to learn was by fighting each other. The spars were brutal. With access to healing magic, every spar was an all out brawl, and the only limit was to avoid using anything that could cause instant death.

Sergeant Lapodala also informed them of the requirements necessary to qualify as a mage. The first was that they needed to know at least three spells at tier one. The second was that they needed an attack that could pierce through an inch of steel, which could be used in less than ten seconds. The third was to have a defense that could block an attack that could pierce through about an inch of steel, which could be created in less than ten seconds and maintained for at least half an hour, while not preventing movement. Once they met this criteria, they would officially qualify as rank one mages. To qualify as rank two mages, they would need three tier two spells, be able to pierce two inches of steel and defend against it, and be able to hold two different spells at the same time. For rank three, they again needed three spells at an appropriate tier, the attack and defense doubled, and they needed to be able to hold three spells at once. And it kept increasing like that, until rank nine, after which you would be an archmage.

Tessa did the math in her head, her eyes widening as she realized just how powerful mages could get. Rank nine mages could pierce through over twenty one feet of steel! She couldn't even comprehend the amount of power that would take. How much force had to be behind it all. The spells were the easy part at that point. The difficulty was growing your mana pool to the point where you could actually support that level of power. To do that, you needed time. Thankfully for Tessa, her innate mana gave her an advantage there. Growing your mana pool was all about letting the mana adjust your body to accommodate it better, and since her body was innately adjustable, her mana pool grew faster than normal. Being younger also helped, since the older you were, the harder it was for your body to adjust. On the other side, her innate mana didn't help her with her attack or defense, so she needed more efficient spells and a larger mana pool to do the same as someone with an innate mana ability that would help would need, so it kind of balanced out.

Once they'd been on the ship for a month, the aliens began to organize tournaments for them. The better they did, the better resources they got for the next month, moving into better areas of the ship, until the next tournament. Tessa was convinced Greg had ended up in some special program on some other ship, so she pushed herself to keep doing better and better. She didn't want to fall behind to the point that she was an afterthought for him. She wanted to be his partner, not some accessory he brought around to show off. At first she did okay in the tournaments, not winning, but not doing terribly either, just well enough to get to the next level, but the more work she put in, the better she did, until she was winning every tournament. She qualified as a mage just three months into the journey, and by the end she was a tier three mage! She was one of the strongest mages on the ship, just shy of the top ten. She was sure Greg would be stronger, because of course he would be, but she wouldn't be embarrassed to stand by his side. That is, until he descended onto the stage of the ship with a deranged expression.

*

Greg poofed into smoke and rushed towards Tessa. She was real! She was alive! He didn't care how or why, he just needed to hold her, to be with her, to talk to her, to everything with her! However, before he could get anywhere near her, a mana barrier appeared around him. "No!" Greg cried as he transformed back to his human form. "Let me out! Let me out!" He pounded on the barrier, but it refused to budge, which slightly surprised him. This form was much stronger than it had been. He'd spent a few… somethings learning how to take the different parts of all his forms and combine them together, making him even stronger than he'd been on Earth. Not strong enough to break the walls, obviously, but he thought he'd at least do something to a random energy barrier.

"Colonel Evans, you know this creature?" Greg turned to see a group of blue people staring at him with a mix of curiosity and disdain.

"Yes, sir!" Tessa replied sharply, jumping up on stage to stand next to Greg. "He- He's my boyfriend. From Earth." She turned to Greg. "How did you find me? Or did you just go to all the other ships?"

"Other ships?" Greg asked, frowning as he looked between Tessa and the blue people.

Tessa blinked. "You were on another ship, right?" She asked hesitantly. He couldn't have been here the entire time, right? If he had been… why hadn't he found her?!?

Greg shook his head. "No, I was just outside." He replied, pointing his thumb towards the sky. "And I'm also in the trash compactor, but I'm kinda stuck." He poked at the mana barrier again. "This energy shit really fucks with my smoke, and it is everywhere."

Tessa paused as she processed what he'd said. He was outside? The ship? And what did he mean by trash compactor? There wasn't anything like that on the ship! Unless- Tessa's eyes widened. "You were in the transmutation chamber?!?" She asked incredulously.

"Is that what you call it?" Greg cocked his head. "Eh, it's wherever they dest-" Greg was suddenly silenced as one of the blue people cast a spell.

"That's enough!" A blue man stepped forward. "We will need to… question this-"

"Hey! I was talking!" Greg interrupted the man, glaring at him after briefly turning to smoke to get rid of whatever he'd done to him. "Stupid aliens kill-" He was silenced again, as the alien cast another spell, but a quick poof and he was back to talking less than a second later. "-ing everyone and trapping me in a damn tra-" "-sh box for… shit, how long was I-" "-in there?" Greg frowned as everyone stared at him in disbelief. He hadn't exactly been talking loud, but the stage was set up for a speech, so his words had been transmitted to the entire crowd.

Another alien, a woman this time, stepped forward, waving his hand and creating a different mana barrier, a completely black one which blocked Greg off so no one could hear or even see him anymore. She shot a glare at the other alien, before stepping forward to address the crowd. "This man is clearly insane. I do not know what he's been through, but it is clear it has been a harrowing experience and he requires-" She froze as a cloud of black smoke shot across the sky, landing next to Tessa and turning back into Greg.

"I am not insane!" He protested, crossing his arms petulantly. "Believe me, I wish I was. Would have made the trip a lot more inter-" Another black bubble covered him.

The blue woman frowned at the two bubbles for a moment, trying to process what she was witnessing for a moment, before shaking her head. She could deal with this strange creature later. Right now, she had to pacify the humans. "As I was say-" She froze again as another black cloud appeared.

"I can do this all day, lady." Greg announced as he reformed. The other half of his smoke had burrowed into a mountain, dissolving whatever it needed to send another Greg this way. He turned to the crowd. "The aliens-" Another black barrier surrounded him, but more smoke was already pouring in, turning into fairy Gregs that flew over the crowd shouting 'The aliens wiped out humanity!' over and over.

The woman scowled as she watched helplessly. What was this freak of nature?!? Why was it ruining their plans!?! She glared out over the crowd. "The Demon Empire is coming!" She amplified her voice, drowning out the Gregs. "Be prepared, for they will show you no mercy! From now on, you're on your own!" She declared, before she made a signal with her hand and all the aliens disappeared.

The barriers around Greg disappeared as well, and all his smoke condensed back into one as he turned to Tessa, who was still frozen in shock. "So… what have you been up to?"