"Urrgh..."
Dr. Xhargreg was no stranger to unexpected meetings. But for some reason, everytime he finished a meeting with the Overseer Council, his stomach always churned. Apparently, being the smartest person in the Andromenoid Galaxy Cluster had its pros and cons. Everyday, he was grilled to the bone with questions about the nature of the universe, life, and everything else.
"Hey Dr. Xhargreg!". Lily's cheerful voice filled the hallways. For some reason, Xhargreg felt annoyance everytime he ran into Lily. To be precise, Lily ran into him. It had been that way for 2 years.
"What do you want?", Xhargreg spat. For whatever reason, Lily seemed oblivious to the doctor's state of mind. That was her key quality. She could be ignorant of practically anything until someone gave her the full context. For people like Xhargreg, who rely on insinuation for their daily dose of sarcasm, Lily was a stain they couldn't remove from their lab coats.
"I just wanted to say that the neon sign in the R.A.S.C corridor isn't working. Would you mind checking it out?" Lily cheekily said. "Fine", the doctor said, giving up. Apparently, if he couldn't do sarcasm on her, it would be useless to argue.
You see, Xhargreg is the lone member of a now extinct humanoid race known as the Gellan. The Gellans lived in a Galaxy Cluster not far from our own, aptly named the Gellan Cloud. This cloud was unique because all the excess brainpower of everyone in the Universe gathered there because the gravity of the resident black hole was extremely intense. This intensity was so extreme in fact, that it was able to attract concepts. This was the only instance of a black hole which spat out everything it consumed. Due to this continuous loop, every planet in the system was showered with pure, unprocessed brainpower.
Of course, the atmospheres of the planets nearby shielded their lands from the brainpower, but only for a little while. The electrical discharges of the brainpower storms were too much for any ozone shield to handle. Eventually, the atmospheres gave out, and with them, the protection they provided.
As the brainpower ravaged the lands of the Planet Kíłj, the hydrogen atoms started to change. They started to gather, to build, and to think. They had become alive.
True enough, the hydrogen atoms started to become sentient. In a way, they were the first conscious indestructible beings. But this immortality did not change anything. As atoms, their actions were greatly restricted. They had 4 options. The first was to merge with other elements, destroying their sentience and reverting themselves into simple elements once again. The second option, and the most entertaining one was to wait to be blown off the planet surface, eventually being sucked into the black hole, and enjoy a free ride back home, and repeat it endlessly. The third was to jump off a cliff, hoping to catch a ride on top of a brainpower cloud and die, and finally, just keep living forever.
This option restriction did not do well for the sentient atoms. They tried to wage war, in hopes of an entertaining death, but to no avail. The kind of death that was considered a luxury was when a batch of anti-hydrogen atoms on vacation arrived. No sooner had the anti-atoms landed on the ground, the hydrogens forced themselves onto the antimatter, giving themselves immense pleasure and an explosive death, the resulting annihilation causing a miniature nuclear explosion the size of a throw pillow. If they had hands, they would've clapped.
All this repeated for a long time, until eventually, a human body plopped onto the surface. Inspection of the body (Not that they were able to back then) revealed that the body was jettisoned off from a Pirate Scout doing routine surveillance of the system. The hydrogen atoms were overjoyed. By the time the body landed they had already constructed a mini-society, made out of the efforts of hydrogens that decided to use the nearby elements as walls (when you're an atom, you can build with anything). They didn't know it was a body yet, but they new that foreign matter meant new elements to work with. One atom volunteered to explore. Entering through a pore, the atom had just entered, when suddenly, a bolt of brain electricity hit the body. The resulting chain reaction gave the body revival opportunity, but without consciousness it would die unaware. But there was a consciousness. The lone atom was the groundwork of the body's revival.
In a flash, the atom suddenly became integrated with the body's brain. In short, the atom was given a body. To the atom, it felt a flurry of new sensations that it had never felt before. Hunger, thirst, pain, but most importantly, sense. Now equipped with the proper tools, the atom, or rather, the living being, became the first Gellan. The sheer brainpower it had gave its eyes the ability to see fellow atoms (A trait which eventually died out). As an atom blessed with all the brainpower in the universe (99% of all brainpower present is emitted by humans), it knew what it was. Standing there, on the planet Kíłj, was a being that knew it was human. However, as Kíłj was never meant to support life, the body decayed quickly. But this did not mean that the atom did as well. As the body wasted away, the atom inside was preserved, and with it, the knowledge of the universe.
With the knowledge now available, the hydrogen atoms raced to the peak of the planet, using the clouds as their transport (They had learned to memorize the patterns. As atoms, they were very light, and the brainpower they possessed made them big enough until they no longer fell through the gaps of electron clouds).
And of course, with their luck and calculation, they managed to catch a solar flare that brushed against the planet, singeing the planet's surface. Fortunately for them, this meant that they would be able to forge themselves, with the help of nuclear combustion, a new chance of gaining a new body that would be able to live on Kíłj.
And so, the nuclear forces did their part, and in doing so, happened to forge the exact same elements that were required to create a human's physiology. This, combined with the ability of the atoms to remove unnecessary traits (The flare did not affect their consciousness, and therefore they were able to remain active throughout the entire forging) through the process of patching up detrimental genes, were able to create bodies immune to the effects of the searing heat and at the same time able to live on gases that weren't oxygen. In a sense, they were the most refined genetic engineers of their time.
Gone were the atoms. In their place stood their predecessors, the Gellans. They were the smartest race in the galaxy cluster, and possibly, the whole universe. They made their own society, complete with technologies far advanced than anyone else's. The fact that metals continuously bombarded the planet made their task all the more easier. In less than one year, they had already built their own fully-functioning spacecraft. In less than a decade, they moved to spacestations, drawing their power from the endless amount of brainpower present around them. But they were eventually found out. The Vortexians were (and possibly still are) the most destructive and most benevolent alien race in the galaxy. They would drop their own technology onto other planets, and beam with pride whenever a race prospered under their technology. But as soon as they met the Gellans, their priorities shifted.
They would not stand for a race that was far more advanced than them. They gave the peaceful Gellans two choices. Either surrender their technology to the Vortexians and trade it for the former's technology, or be destroyed. As a race that valued knowledge over anything else, the entirety of the Gellans disagreed. This angered the Vortexians. Overcome with jealousy, they mercilessly nuked Kíłj. Only Xhargreg survived, as he was on an expedition off-world. That day he had discovered a previously unknown plant species. Eager to share it with his parents, he raced home, only to be greeted with the charred fragments of what used to be Kíłj. The Vortexian were already warping out, and paid no attention to the lone pod.
Xhargreg wept that day. He cursed himself for not being there for everyone. Disappointed at himself, he placed himself under self-induced exile, vowing to regain all knowledge that his race lost, and only accepting death once he would be able to ensure the extinction of every Vortexian, even if he had to tear each one limb from limb. And so, Xhargreg joined the Renegades, as he knew they were actively opposed against the ways of the Vortexian.
"Look, I know you've had a bad day." Lily's sentence caused the Doctor to snap out of his stupor. For the first time, he felt Lily's voice comforting. But then, the events that had happened to him eventually faded out into nothingness.
"Well, if you'll excuse me, I have a neon sign to repair.", Dr. Xhargreg said while grabbing his coffee. "Say... where's Reaper?". "Oh, she's assigned to Salvage something. She should be doing it right about now, I think." Lily said cheerfully.
But while all was calm now, a tragedy was waiting to happen. And where else should it happen? After all, I think we're forgetting something...
Oh wait. Crap. That's right! The Salvaging Room!
(Yo! AT here! What did ya think of this chapter? The Gellan backstory was good, no? Well, either way, hold on to your seats cuz the next chapter's gonna have even more action! What will Mr. H.D.R have up his sleeves? FIND OUT, NEXT TIME, ON REAPER: THE NOVEL!)
*idk put some epic "to be continued music here"
(In all seriousness, smash that vote button, leave a comment, and follow to read more! Your reactions are super valuable to me! Until next time)
P.S541Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwzneCKo7sy
I wonder if I should start comment requirements... Maybe 2 comments and I'll continue? Thanks!
