Chapter 2

  Date Unknown, Time Unknown, Place: Planet Savra

  Planet Savra is a planet slightly smaller than Earth's moon, with a daytime temperature average of 250°F and a nighttime low of 220°F. The terrain is the same all over the entire planet, with nothing but a hot and arid ochre-colored surface, and grass, a rare sight, is hard and rough to the touch, almost always a dead yellow color. Planet Savra's sun shows no mercy, even while being the same size as Earth's, yet approximately 0.58 AU away from the planet.

  The planet's moon is ? the size of Earth's moon, with a distance of 30,000 km away. With such conditions, the nights are short-lasting, taking only a few hours to pass under the harsh conditions of the planet. To the average human, or even most alien species, such a place wouldn't just be inhabitable; it would be suicide to even attempt to walk on the surface. So, what kind of monstrosities would be able to not only survive but thrive on such a planet?

  None other than the Ragnarr, an alien species of large physique and red-scaled flesh, looking as if a human and a dragon had a baby. They also have teeth the size of daggers and some with sharp, jagged horns. They have flat snouts, contrary to most Earth reptiles, and are also bipedal. Despite having this similarity to humans, they are anything but. On their fingertips are sharp obsidian-colored claws, as well as on their toes. The lucky and strong manage to keep their tails, some even having their own pattern of black spikes on top of the thick red appendage.

  Despite having brains slightly larger than humans, it is their large number of connections between their brain cells that makes the species rather intelligent and fast-adapting. Yet, despite this very fact, they remain a rather barbaric species, similar to that of the Stone Age, minus the tools. But when you have claws sharp enough to cut steel and muscles powerful enough to turn that cut into a severing of steel, Stone Age tools become not just inadequate but useless.

  The Ragnarr create offspring by mating similarly to how mammals do, as they have similar reproductive organs. Yet, despite this, when the female goes into heat, the egg is already created in the womb, and during the mating process, the male fertilizes it. Afterward, the egg is laid. Despite having the qualities for high intelligence, they maintain a barbaric lifestyle. One might be confused by these two contradictions. The answer? Complete and utter brutal violence.

  Suddenly, two scaled fists clashed against one another, sending a shockwave powerful enough to cause earthquakes. The larger Ragnarr then grabbed the smaller one's arms by the shoulders, holding him still before sinking his sharp teeth into the smaller one's neck, like a knife piercing butter. The smaller Ragnarr roared a prehistoric sound, yet one filled with pain. But before he could put up any further resistance, his arms were torn off from the shoulders, sprays of blood coming from the stumps.

  Despite Ragnarr scales being incredibly resilient, their teeth are even more so, with their natural impressive and superhuman strength aiding them in anything physical, from running and jumping to punching and tearing. The Ragnarr are kept at an evolutionary standstill. Some would say that with no other food source on the planet, they had no choice but to cannibalize their own species to survive.

  But they would be mistaken, as Ragnarr can go long periods of time without eating and much longer without drinking. In fact, their thirst is nearly non-existent due to the dry planet's natural nature. Quenching what little thirst they have by gulping down the blood of another Ragnarr is only natural to this species. So why do they battle or feast upon each other when they could go a long time without doing so? Battling is a common and natural occurrence, similar to how a human might breathe or blink their eyes.

  The Ragnarr have a natural thirst for violence, experiencing an irregular and even supernatural spike in dopamine when engaging in conflict. In simple terms, it feels amazing to do so. Yet, this very process of killing and mating to keep their species alive remains in balance—or so it should have. However, there existed two members of this species much larger and stronger than the other Ragnarr: a male and a female. They had been around much longer than the others of their species.

  "Much longer" being no more than months or even weeks, but the time to grow stronger—even if only slightly—was monumental and invaluable in growing stronger nonetheless. The two Ragnarr had bred in a dark cave, away from the heat and potential battle, with the female laying the egg rather quickly. The pair left the cave quickly, as if neither the mating nor the egg laying had ever happened. However, this very egg was laid in a nest of dead bushes and thorns.

  And, as if by accident or fate, one of the materials found inside the nest was none other than a grey stone with a glowing red insignia. After only a couple of weeks, the egg began to shake and hatch. Before bursting through the shell was another Ragnarr, but this one had two large, thick horns sprouting from his forehead, his eyes an azure blue, different from the usual brown and green.

  His scales were pitch black, darker than obsidian, and a thick black tail to match. He didn't even make an effort to crawl and began to walk out of the very cave. His eyes adjusted to the light, and his body adjusted to the extreme temperature almost instantly, as if it never needed to adjust at all to begin with.

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  His gaze locked onto the battle before him, Ragnarr on Ragnarr, some a distance apart, feasting on their forced victory, and others trying to get to the same stage, even battling for the previous victory feast. Because he wasn't paying attention, a red-scaled Ragnarr approached him from the side, stopping 10 feet away before clenching his legs, leaving a crater where he once stood before closing the gap.

  His clawed hand aimed for the black one's throat. On instinct, the black-scaled Ragnarr placed a punch to the other's chest—a sad excuse for a punch by any professional boxer's standards, yet a million times more effective. The upper torso of the red-scaled Ragnarr burst upon impact, blood painting the cave as well as the dead yellow grass and the infant Ragnarr's body. In that moment, he knew, in his own primitive way, he wasn't just special—he was a god.

  Date Unknown, Time Unknown, Place: Planet Savra

  Only ten years had passed on the planet, as well as in the black-scaled Ragnarr's life. They have a natural long lifespan, aging rapidly at first, but once hitting what would be referred to as adulthood by humans, they begin to age slower. Yet, this luxury is normally not known among the species due to their violent and belligerent nature. The black-scaled Ragnarr had grown exponentially into a thick-muscled beast.

  His height was now closer to 12 feet, and his weight close to 600 lbs, mostly muscle. Around him were thousands of corpses belonging to the Ragnarr, some of which had already begun to show bone, serving as proof of the black-scaled Ragnarr's earlier feasts.

  He wiped his mouth with the back of his scaled hand, the crimson blood more smudged than pushed away. When satisfied from his feast, he stood from his crouched position to take in the scenery: thousands of corpses belonging to his very own civilization. A sight that would make any other Ragnarr feel pride. At first, it did. But as time grew on, he began to feel regret—this violent urge to harm and destroy going unsatisfied.

  He began to travel around the planet, completely out of the ordinary for the species, and gained momentary happiness in finding the new and strong of his species. Yet, the fate of all he encountered was the same, ending with a full stomach and extra corpses gone to waste around him.

  He roamed the planet, repeating the cycle for weeks, which to the Ragnarr felt like months. When it started to really add up to years, he had already made a large loop around the planet, having memorized the majority of it by his now-developed memory and half by experience. The species was in decline and going extinct, the black-scaled Ragnarr's lust for battle being quenched temporarily every now and then, before the battles began to last shorter and shorter.

  The amount of meals and opponents growing fewer and fewer, over 150 years had passed. The black-scaled Ragnarr's feet, for once in a long time, had halted. He stood in front of a rock almost perfectly shaped for sitting. Ragnarr do not sit; they do not stop moving. Yet, with the species' extinction, what else would he do?

  He then squatted down until his behind met the stone, his back hunching slightly. He placed his right knee on his thigh, resting his chin in his palm to accompany the motion. For the first and last time, the Ragnarr felt something none of his species had—overwhelming strength, a long lifespan, a healthy, strong brain, and worst of all, boredom. He stared at the ground for a while, what felt like hours, but in reality was most likely days.

  He then sat up from the stone and walked into the very same cave where he had once been hatched. Not remembering anything of his birth, yet underneath some thorn and dead bush was a glowing stone—grey in color with a red insignia that pulsed in his grip. He turned it over as if studying it before his brain gave a hard pulse inside his large skull.

  It was curiosity. Yet, this simple thought of "What is this?" led to his intelligence increasing. He sat down on the cave floor with a thud, continuing to study the object in his large clawed hand. That one thought of What is this? led to questioning What am I? Who am I? And worst of all, Why am I? In the following years, he remained in that same cave, studying the stone in his hand.

  Date Unknown, 500 Years, Place: Planet Savra

  The black-scaled Ragnarr was fast asleep, snoring in his cave, with the glowing stone still in his grip. Unbeknownst to him, there was the hum of a space shuttle landing on the planet's surface, a couple hundred miles north. The bottom of the shuttle's door slammed down onto the planet's surface with a loud sound, dust being flung into the air.

  Just then, three green-skinned Glarsians walked down the ramp. They wore high-tech space suits and had blue tentacles for what was supposed to be hair. They had two pairs of yellow eyes, and the rest of their bodies were relatively similar to humans. Naturally bipedal in how they carried themselves, they had mouths but never made any attempt to use them. The one in the middle turned to look at the one to his left.

  The one on his left met his gaze. He looked way younger than the Glarsian in the middle, and though his mouth never moved, the male on the right spoke in an enthusiastic and excited tone. "Oh, how I'm utterly ecstatic about our expedition commander! It took a bit of convincing, but I'm glad you brought me along."

  The taller, more aged Glarsian rolled his eyes, but the smile on his lips betrayed him. He then patted the Glarsian's glass dome of a helmet in appreciation. "Don't mention it, Exil, and it only took so long for you to convince me because I wanted it to be a safe expedition." He leaned downward slightly until their faces met behind the glass dome helmets and flicked Exil's helmet before speaking.

  "Just try to keep up, Exil. I promised your mother I'd have you home for the holidays. Who knows what she would do if anything happened to her precious baby boy?" He teased before wincing and grunting with an "Ow" as a sharp crackle was heard in his head. The woman on his left, arms crossed, spoke.

  "You intend to mock Exil the entire time, Virex, or are we actually going to get shit done?"

  Virex rubbed the glass dome around his head as if he could rub his actual head before speaking through the telepathic connection they shared.

  "Yeah, yeah, we got an expedition to carry out on this planet, but uh... what was the file name again? I completely forget, and the scanner is still in the ship. Mind running back and grabbing it, Sulari?"

  Sulari glared, sending another crackle in Virex's head, making him wince before she turned away.