The three-headed dragon flew over the ocean. His growls and roars resonated across the storm clouds that gathered around him as lightning, natural and not, flashed across his scales and the clouds.
Long ago, he had once come from a planet similar to this one. A world full of life, both large and small, and with an atmospheric composition similar to this planet.
In that world, he was the king. The Alpha.
Unfortunately, those days now only existed in his memories. Their world nothing but a barren wasteland the last time he saw it. Destroyed by invaders they knew not where they came from or where they went after destroying his planet's biosphere. He only knew that they moved onto another planet in his homeworld's solar system to consume it whole as well.
That was why they had come to this world, to start anew and to once again reign over the lesser creatures that do not deserve the title of Alpha as they did.
But, once again, he failed to realize the true threat by underestimating this world, just like he had underestimated the invaders that came from space to their homeland. The same invaders whose ship he stole to stow away from the planet and arrive here to reign once more as a king.
The beast snarled as he sensed the presence of the Lizard and their Symbiotic partner, the Moth, chasing after him. Their radiation tempted the dragon to just stop and take them on so that he could feed on their delicious energy.
Yet, he knew that doing so would mean a fight that he would probably not survive. Especially since he knew from experience that these two are rarely alone in a truly worthy fight.
And sure enough, the moment he sped up his flight, he sensed the Lizard and Moth speed up as well, followed by two other energy signatures that dwarfed them all.
The Big Lizard and the Big Whale. He knew them. He remembered them quite well from the time when he was imprisoned in the ice by that white lizard.
Yet, he also felt doubt as he kept checking above him, looking to the void beyond the sky, yet failing to find his biggest problem.
The Sky Snake. The one whose radiation is mixed in with the Moth, just like the Big Lizard's is mixed in with the Alpha Lizard. The biggest headache that he had ever faced on this planet, even more so than the Alpha Lizard and the other Titans.
Them, he was confident he could at least challenge and maybe eke out a win if he got lucky. But the Sky Snake and his two 'siblings'? He had no delusions of victory against them.
That was why, the moment he woke up from the ice, he fled without hesitation, knowing that his awakening would attract the attention of those three and probably lead to this permanent end this time around.
And sure enough, the moment he escaped, he felt them move as one towards him, converging from across the world.
The monster suddenly ducked on instinct, barely avoiding a beam of atomic energy, carrying that familiar radiation signature from the Alpha Lizard, aimed at him from far behind, probably from nearly a hundred or so miles away given how weak the beam felt. He probably wouldn't even have felt any pain from that attack even if he did not dodge, but he did not become the King of his ecosystem by being reckless, so he took no chances and dodged it anyway.
Snarling, the beast started flowing into and out of the storm system surrounding him, hoping to hide his frame within the darkness and make it difficult for his pursuers to target him.
It hurt his pride to do this, but he knew better than anyone that should he stop now to fight it out with them, he would either die outright or get frozen in ice again for who knows many eons.
Soon, after hours of flight, he spotted land in the distance. Given how different the air felt and the seawater tasted in his mouths, he had long since realized that the world had changed a lot during his slumber, but he hadn't realized how much until now.
Structures of metal and stone stood tall in the air, as if challenging the rightful owners of this planet. Tiny, insignificant insects crawled across these structures, sending waves of disgust through his mind.
As he got closer and closer to the land, he felt the air change again, filling his multiple sets of nostrils with the scent of chemicals, smog, and pollution, making him growl once again in anger.
He knew this scent better than anyone. After all, there was once a species on his own planet that thought itself the master of the world and its inhabitants, including the dragon.
A hubris that those insignificant creatures paid the price for when the three-headed dragon destroyed their race in a single week, reducing their civilization to insects hiding behind rocks just to survive the wrath of the being they had provoked.
Later on, when the invaders destroyed his homeworld, these insects died out completely. Not that the dragon cared about them, but this artificial scent in the air reminded him of those times.
As the dragon approached the land, he spotted these insects in the distance, scattering in all directions, probably knowing that their doom was at hand.
At least, that is what he thought, until several bolts of plasma and beams of laser impacted his body from two different sources.
The beast screeched in anger at the provocation, feeling the slight sting of those weapons and taking it as an insult to his pride.
His three heads snapped to the source of the attack, spotting colossal beings of steel towering over the ocean shores. Their arms and cannons were still extended towards the three-headed dragon.
Then, those arms lit up with energy, followed by another volley of lasers and plasma impacting the dragon, which enraged him even more.
The dragon flapped his wings, flying higher and higher into the air before rearing back his three heads. His ancient power coursed through his body before concentrating in the back of his throats, ready to unleash his devastating gravity beams that once reduced an entire civilization to ashes on his home planet.
Yet, before he could fire, he felt the world invert, as if gravity itself was reversed around him.
The dragon flailed helplessly as his charged breath attack erupted, missing its mark completely and going off into space harmlessly. The dragon, on the other hand, kept flying off from the Earth, heading straight for the vacuum of outer space.
It was then that the dragon saw a sight that terrified him to the core.
The Sky Snake, the damned king of this world's skies, stared down with a strange expression on its face, silently floating in the orbit of the planet. And right by its side, a colossal being of black and red, glowing with unnatural power, floated. Its skeletal form dwarfed the three-headed dragon with sheer size and pressure as it waved its hand lazily, making the three-headed dragon float helplessly into its grasp.
A feminine voice resounded in the beast's mind, speaking with intent and words that the beast could not recognize.
"Alright. Enough of that, little bird."
"...Actually, he is more of a Dragon than a bird."
The female tilted her head questioningly as the Sky Snake transmitted relevant data about mammalian, reptilian, and avian lifeforms to her, along with human mythological context. The skeletal creature took a mere couple of seconds to process all that information and then nodded in understanding.
"I see. I am still not good with this language after all."
"No worries. You have a long time to get used to it, should you choose to, that is."
"I do. I wish to know more about this world, after all."
And so, the three-headed dragon, King Ghidora, was reduced to a mere prisoner again in the hands of an entity that he could not even begin to comprehend, right after escaping his previous imprisonment caused by another female in the past whom he couldn't comprehend even back then.
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