He was hungry.

That was all he knew. That he was hungry.

Then again, it was impossible for him to actually 'know' anything. Knowledge of any kind required a type of brain to hold memory of information, after all. And a brain was one of the many things that he did not have. But what he did have were three things: A functioning mouth, the instinct to feed, and the drive to continue persisting.

The ice of the shard melted away in the water, causing it to finally break apart and crumble away into the depths. As it did, it released the carbon-based lifeform that had been born from the material inside it. He was a simple cell organism, with a single flagellum for a tail, a beak-like mouth part, and a single eye to see the world around him. He was purple in color, no doubt a result of the comet that had hit the planet eons ago.

But the significance of its coloration was completely lost to him. All he 'knew' was that he needed to eat.

So, eat he did.

He wiggled his way through the water, his tail flagellum carrying him at a slow and steady pace through the dense liquid. He was very small, smaller than the large, plankton-like organisms that floated around him, making up most of the world that he could see it out of his single eye.

With said eye, he spotted a piece of green floating in front of him. With as much of a sensation akin to curiosity as a cell could feel, he swam over to the piece of green and consumed it with his mouth part. A disgusting sensation overtook his primitive senses, and he spat it back out as fast as he could. Instinct adapted to this event, giving his brainless being new 'knowledge' to aid him in the grand adventure called life:

Green was bad. Do not eat green.

Another piece of something floated by him, this one being red in color, and he turned to follow it. The trail of particles it left behind tingled delightfully in his sensory receptors, and he took a big, eager bite. This time, the sensation to ambrosia flooded his senses, and he eagerly swallowed down the tiny morsel of meat.

Red was good. He would eat red.

He would come to learn that he was not alone in the big wide world of the ocean.

Cells of all kinds filled the waters around him, each species as unique as the next, and all just trying to succeed in the chaotic game that was life.

Some were harmless, like the five-eyed Minnos, the smallest and meekest of all creatures. These, he discovered, were made of red and thus could be eaten when there were no floating red pieces around. These creatures ate the green pieces that he despised, so at least somebody was getting something from them.

Others were dangerous, like his fellow biting-mouthed cell, the Goldy. These were also made of red, but they had the same biting jaws he did, meaning they also ate red, and sometimes they would try to turn those jaws against him, thinking he was red. These could be trouble at times, but he could also turn his own mouth against them, so dealing with them wasn't that big an issue.

Then there were the giant things, like the black Chomper. These creatures were much bigger than he was. Some of them had the filtering green-eating mouths and would ignore him as he swam past, but others had the same biting mouth he did, only larger enough to snap him up as if he was a piece of red. These he avoided as best he could, which wasn't easy when your only means of escape was a single flagellum.

The solution? To Evolve and Adapt.

As time passed, the little cell began to change. Small changes over time, though how much time he couldn't tell. No brain, after all. First, he grew another pair of flagella near his end to swim even faster, making both catching the harmless things and avoiding the giant things much easier. He also grew a pair of long spikes from his front: these spikes were handy in both attack and defense, letting him pierce the tender bodies of his fellow cells with ease, breaking them apart into the small pieces of red to eat.

And the more he ate, the bigger he grew. Like clockwork, when he consumed enough red, he would suddenly grow in size until he was one of the giant things. His fellow cells became tiny things, ones that he could snap up in one bite. And the giant things were now normal things and easily fell to his jaws and spikes.

But as he would discover, there would always be a bigger fish in the sea. No matter how much red he consumed, no matter how much he grew, there were always more giant things to avoid. But that in itself was also a good thing; it meant that he would always have a source of food when he inevitably grew to become a giant thing like them.

More time passed, and with said passing he went through more changes; more adaptations to survive in the deep. Done were the days of being a single-celled organism; now he was a fully multi-celled organism with all the trimmings: he had grown another set of flagella, which gave him even more speed to hunt down prey and escape the giant things. He had also grown a pair of wing-like cilia that not only gave him more speed, but also gave him the ability to make very sharp turns, allowing him to turn on a dime when need be. And finally, a pair of poison sacs on either side of his body, which spewed out a constant stream of poisonous liquids that left a trail of death behind him as he swam.

Which was the predicament he found himself in today. A giant thing, a Jawhead, was chasing after him, its beak snapping just shy of his tail flagellum. The monstrous cell was a force to be reckoned with, undeterred from the hunt even as the poison path was slowly killing it.

For the first time in its existence, he felt something akin to frustration (as much as a brainless cell could feel) as he continued to flee.

Their chase ended up taking them through a school of Buzzys, a species of green-eating cells that had a large electrical bulb for a tail, almost resembling the abdomen of a firefly, which generated a field of electric energy around the cell for protection. Anything that crossed that field was in for a potent electrical shock.

Guess what both of them had just done.

A squeak of pain came from his jaws as he and the Jawhead were both zapped hard by the Buzzys' electrical tails, throwing him for a loop through the water. The Buzzys took one look at the Jawhead and, even though it was stunned and writhing in pain, fled as fast as their tiny flagella would take them. Thankfully for him, their shocks had diverted the Jawhead's attention, and he began to chase the little green-eaters instead, intent on getting payback for the agony they had caused it.

Good. That meant he finally had the chance to catch his non-existent breath and recover from the pain, preferably with a nice piece of meat. He spotted the Buzzy that had zapped him from before, its electric bulb now dim and inactive due to delivering the first shock; it would take time to recharge. Sadly for it, it would have had no time to recharge, as he swam in and used his spikes to gore the poor creature straight through its single eye. It died soon after. He let out a pleased little trill at this and began to snap up the meat pieces, recovering a bit of his health with each bite.

That's when he felt something…a vibration in the water. It wasn't that of another cell's body movements, or of the currents that often carried him through the world, but something less solid.

A sound.

And what was this sound? He looked over to the source to see another kind of cell that he had seen before. One that seemed to grow as he did, and be everywhere he was, regardless of how much he grew. It was one of the few cells that ate both green plants and red meat through a proboscis mouth. They were bright blue in color, had a single eye and a pair of cilia wings, but only two pairs of flagella for movement.

This lonely little cell gave off another cry of sound that vibrated through the water. A moment of silence followed, and it looked as if nothing was going to happen…then something did.

Another cry, from the distance, answered its call.

The little cell gave a delighted chirp as it turned in the direction of the sound and began swimming towards it intently. He watched as the sound led the cell to the source: another one of its kind, slightly larger from having eaten more in its lifetime. The two sea creatures cooed and trilled happily as they spun about in what was a primitive form of a mating dance before one laid a small, squishy egg. The other then deposited its own genetic material into the egg, and then the two went about their way.

He had seen cells of all kinds do this throughout his time in the ocean. Find a mate, make an egg together, and whatever comes out of those eggs would be the next generation of life itself. Sometimes what came out of the eggs was different than what had laid it; the progress of evolution at work. Evolve. Adapt. Survive. As it had always been and will always be.

And yet, he alone was the exception to this method of evolution.

He didn't find mates and lay eggs to change. He just changed overtime. In fact, he had never even seen another of his kind.

Not that he understood the situation; instinct didn't dictate loneliness, after all. Instead, his attention was caught by a passing Squiggly grazing on a patch of algae stalks, and the hunt was back on again.

Odd things happen to a planet if you give it enough time.

Planet Eunaxx was no longer the volcanic wasteland it once was. The raging torrents of lava and magma had cooled over the eons, solidifying into stone. The atmosphere had formed and began to produce constant storms as it stabilized, bringing torrents of rain and filling up the planet's deepest points with water, turning the few scarce bodies of water into massive oceans with thundering waves. Algae had floated up to the surface and washed ashore, where it started to branch off into forms of terrestrial plant life, dotting the landscapes in forests and bringing oxygen to the air.

And as for the special purple cell, something odd was about to happen as well.

He was now the genetic epitome of the seas, a fish-like creature that ruled the tidepool with biting jaws. The poison glands have been moved down to his tail, and in their place his own electric bulbs have formed. This, combined with another set of flagella and spikes, made him one of the most formidable creatures in the sea. Very little could hunt him, and he hunted everything.

He was in the middle of a hunt right now, in fact. Chasing down one of the infant Junior creatures: the first signs of infanthood developing in these cellular creatures, along with sexual dimorphism between the genders of the two adult versions: Maa and Paa, respectively. He had just eaten a Maa, who were laughably weak for a sea creature so evolved, and had turned his attention to their offspring next.

He was just about ready to bite down on the fleeing organism when their case took them right past a tiny Needle Buzzy; a distant evolutionary relative of the Buzzy, one with more electric bulbs. The Junior missed the tiny creature just fine, but the purple cell bumped right into it, prompting another electrical shock from the disturbed cell.

There was no pain to be had, thanks to its own electrical bulbs… but instead, something else happened.

Once dormant chemicals deep in the little fish-like creature started reacting. Electric signals started up and began to course through its head. And for the first time ever…

The purple cell creature had a thought.

Finally, after eons of evolution, he wasn't brainless anymore. Instinct was now accompanied by free will, no longer solely in charge of every action he took. He now had the option of choice. To choose what he wanted to do. But before that, instinct had one last course to guide him through.

A course that would take him and many others out of the water.

With a loud splash, he breached the surface of the water with a loud gasp. His newly-formed lungs took in air for the first time, and his four newly-formed legs kicked to keep him from sinking back into the depths. It took a moment for him to collect his bearings, and he shook the water from his head and the two horns that protruded from behind. The air was much dryer than the water, but his scaly, purple-and-golden skin was more than capable of holding in moisture. The fins on his back flexed as he looked left and right, as if trying to gain some form of grip in the air; they did look like tiny wings. His tail swished back and forth as he moved, the venom spitter at the end of it acting as a makeshift paddle to help keep him afloat.

All in all, he looked like a little dragon.

With his legs starting to ache from swimming when they were ready for walking, the mini dragon-like creature doggy-paddled to the shoreline and took his first eager steps onto the land. The sand scrunched delightfully between his toes, nice and warm from the day that was slowly coming to an end, and he chirped happily as he stomped about in play. A cool wind blew across the beach, and he shivered a bit from the cold; the light wasn't as bright as it had previously been, and thus the day was starting to turn into the cold of night.

He turned around and shifted his gaze towards the horizon; the great violet sun was starting to set, casting an orange and purple glow across the distant clouds.

The sun…the purple sun.

"No need to fear, Son of Akatosh. You're in the heart of our forest, and here you're among allies."

Like a bolt of lightning striking him from the heavens, the words suddenly exploded from deep within his brain, bringing forth a wave of noises and sights he only half-recognized. He stumbled backwards, nearly falling back on his rump, giving off a pained screech as he shook his head back and forth in a vain attempt to make whatever was happening stop.

If he had a mirror, he would've seen that his eyes were glowing a brilliant violet light, just like the sun.

"We're back, Spyro...we're finally back home! Nimh!"

Like a dying animal he thrashed about, crying out in mental anguish as his tiny, primitive brain was bombarded with words and images he didn't understand…yet at the same time, felt as if he did. There was something familiar about these visions coursing through his mind, as if he had seen them before. Were they not so painful to endure, he would've given them more attention.

But right now, he just wanted them to stop.

"You are a dragon, one of the mighty Akatosh. They are Rodentkin, mortal and fearful of all with sharp teeth…And a dragon's teeth are very, very sharp."

He bent down and began grinding his head in the sand, as if pressure would somehow stop the wave of thoughts being forced through his skull. He wanted it to stop!

He lifted his head and prepared to slam it against the ground, when-

"Thank you."

He gasped as the pain suddenly stopped at those last words. That one hadn't been like the others; there was something about that sound…no…that voice that didn't bring pain like the rest. Instead, it brought something else.

It brought…comfort.

His legs buckled under him, and he flopped over into the sand in relief. He lay there for a while, just panting for breath, reeling from the experience of mental pain that he didn't understand. The glow from his eyes slowly faded away as well, reverting back to normal. He didn't understand any of it and yet did at the same time; the sounds had been gibberish to his primitive brain, but at the same time he understood the words spoken. All the images were blurs of color and motion in his mind's eyes, and yet he recognized them as places and people he…knew?

It was all enough to give him another headache.

But then he focused on the final voice. The calm, gentle one that pulled at his insides in a pleasant yet longing way, and his mind settled into a refreshing calm. That would be the sound he focused on, he decided.

There was also something else about his recent experience that resonated with his very core. A set of sounds that tugged at his memory, more than anything he had ever heard before, even in these 'head-visions':

'Spy'. And 'Ro'…

…Spy and Ro…

…Spy Ro…

…Spyro.

Spyro.

That was him, wasn't it? Deep down, he self a sense of self whenever that word was repeated in his mind, as if it was referring to him.

Spyro.

He was a 'Spyro'. Whatever that was.

It was…pleasant to know. His own identity, what he was.

Then another voice cried out near him, and this time it wasn't from inside his head.

The creature now known as 'Spyro' lifted his weary, aching head to see what had made that noise; there, in the water just a few meters from the shore, he spotted another creature emerging from the water and taking its first breath of air, just as he had moments before. It was a peculiar-looking creature (well, every creature in this galaxy could be considered peculiar-looking); a semi-humanoid thing with three eyes, a proboscis-like mouth, fins on both its head and tail, the latter of which also ended in a poison sac. It was green spotted in color, with a blue back and belly, and red covering the lower legs.

The little creature shook the water off its head, just as he had done, before taking in the sight of the world around it, looking to the left and then to the right. He then briefly turned back to the sea and called out to his own. The ocean rippled at several points where more of his kind began to emerge from the water; the first then turned and swam to shore, followed by his mate, two pups, and another member of his herd, a total of five creatures, waddling up onto the beach and into the jungle next to it.

Or they would have gone into the jungle, had Spyro not been in their path.

The first creature blinked as he suddenly saw him and came to a stop just a few feet away from his position. He watched as one of the infants of the first creature bumped right into its parent, not expecting the sudden stop; this got the little nymph a scolding chirp from said parent. The leader paid little attention to the going-ons of its herd, staring at the dragon-like creature before it.

There was no malice in the creature's eyes or posture; just simple curiosity. Spyro stared back the same way, slowly rolling over onto his stomach and rising up on all fours; he found that he was slightly bigger than these creatures…

No…not 'creatures'. They needed a noise-something too; something to be called.

His brain started aching again as more alien 'thoughts' and 'words' flowed through it. The first that he settled on was 'Omni': he recognized the proboscis mouth as one that ate both plants and meat, hence the term Omni. The second word that came to mind was 'Raptor'; he wasn't entirely sure why. Perhaps from the way these creatures looked, on their hind legs with a tail? Who knew? Not him.

Omni…and Raptor.

Omni Raptor.

Omniraptor.

A little complex of a word for his primitive mind, as trying to think it all the way through made his small, animalistic brain confused. But this is what these new things would be known as from now on. They were Omniraptor.

And the leader of this pack of Omniraptor suddenly sang.

It was a bizarre sound, like the chirping of an insect mixed with a bird's tweet. Spyro stared at the little sea-spawn in confusion, not sure what was going on; the Omniraptor stared at him expectantly afterwards, shuffling in the sand with excitement in its movements.

Now Spyro's brain may have just gotten an overload of new information, and he may have had the choice of free will now that he had evolved from a tiny cell in the ocean, but the deeply-ingrained forces of instinct still played a strong role in his very being. And seeing another creature perform this action awakened something. And he knew what he had to do:

Sing back.

With a flap of his cilia wings, he lifted his head and sang to the sky. It sounded identical to the song the Omniraptor sang; a result of having the same mouth parts of the tidepool cells. But the Omniraptor looked pleased, nonetheless, nodding its head with approval. It then sang again, and Spyro followed suite with another song of his own.

This continued on for a few more rounds until they reached the end. At least to the point where instincts said that was enough; the little creature outright bounced with joy while squeaking happily, the rest of its pack all calling out in pleased-sounding chirps. Spyro's own tail began to wag with happiness as he looked about his newfound friends, eager to see what would come next.

Then they turned away and began to head up the beach towards the jungle again.

Spyro's fell quiet as he watched them up and leave without another sound; just when had thought he had found someone like him, they went on their way and left him behind. As an animal, he didn't feel emotion on a complex level yet, but he was in tune with his primitive ones just enough for his heart to sink when he realized he had been left behind and was now all alone. His tail drooped, and he felt a strange heat building inside him.

Then one of the Omniraptors stopped and turned to look back at him, giving him an expectant chirp. He looked up at the noise in a mix of sadness and confusion; the green creature stared at him for a moment before making a beckoning motion with its head; the universal signal to 'follow me'.

Spyro perked up, his sorrow turning into hope; were they inviting him to follow them? Still a little unsure, he began to climb up the hill and approach the Omniraptor. The Omniraptor gave a satisfied nod and chirp before turning to unite with the rest of its pack, his newly-made friend in tow.

Spyro, meanwhile, was elated as he could be at his lower level of sentience. He had found allies in this big new world out of the waves. Someone to count on when things got scary.

And that in itself made things feel a whole lot better, a strangely familiar feeling tugging at his insides again.