“Ah, who cares. It won’t help us here,” said Dustin, turning back to looking around.

  His mind drifted, as they continued on, to the thought of getting off this planet and settling down somewhere. He would have to figure out how to get back to human at some time, but that wasn’t important right now.

  “What’s that?” asked Olivia, pausing next to him.

  Dustin looked in the direction she was pointing, and noticed movement. Small creatures were running towards them, not to attack, but in terror.

  “What are they afraid of?” she asked.

  “I don’t know, but it may be time to go ahead and figure out how to do some modified evolutions.” He looked at his PED and started pushing a couple buttons.

  (HOST WISHES TO INITIATE MODIFIED EVOLUTION. STATE REQUESTED EVOLUTION COMBINATION.)

  “I want to keep my scale plates, but I want them to become the crystal skin. I don’t want to look like a walking gemstone like the originator of the genetic material.” Blowing out some air, he was glad he could remember some of those words.

  (INITIATING EVOLUTION: CRYSTAL PLATES.)

  Dustin watched in fascination as the scale plates went from a dull olive green to a pale off-white pearl color. There was still the green around the edges, where his joints were, but overall, he was much easier to see.

  (EVOLUTION COMPLETE)

  “Woah, what did you do?” asked Olivia, walking around him, and reaching out to touch one of the plates.

  “I used the upgraded PED to make crystal plates instead of skin.”

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  “You can do that?” asked the crystal prince, also coming to investigate.

  “Only because I’ve upgraded the PED’s so many times.”

  “But how?” he asked.

  Dustin opened his mouth to answer, and stopped. Behind the creatures that had been running towards them, he saw a sight that took his breath away.

  “I figured it out!” exclaimed Olivia happily examining her crystalline plates.

  “Oh, God!” he finally managed to whisper.

  “What?” she asked, turning to look behind her, just as the swarm of giant bugs engulfed them.

  They were huge, with legs everywhere, had rainbow shells that shimmered in the light from a pearly white all the way through the spectrum to a dull black.

  Dustin curled into a ball and screamed as they crawled, spat, chewed and ran over them. At one point, the tip of a leg was shoved into his mouth, and he stopped screaming, afraid he might throw up if it happened again.

  “Dustin, they’re gone,” said Olivia, grabbing his arm.

  Breathing hard, he stood up shakily. “We have got to get off this planet!”

  “Those bugs are the least of our problems!” cried the prince, picking himself up off the ground.

  They all turned to look at the things that were approaching now, and he was surprised to see they carried spears and clubs. The men looked like walking lizards, and his first thought was that they had copied his evolution pattern. It took him another minute to realize they were beings that must live on this planet, and they were hunting the bugs that had just run by.

  “I don’t imagine, they’ll just go by?”

  “They eat whatever they can catch!” said the prince, terrified.

  “What are you so scared of? They can’t eat you?” said Olivia.

  “No, but it still hurts when they boil you in oil!” he said, with a shiver.

  The lizards attacked at that moment, with growls and roars. While the crystalline plates prevented them from cutting and piercing their skin, Dustin discovered very quickly, that it didn’t keep them from bashing them with their clubs.

  Olivia was dodging the blows and slashing with her claws. With the crystal covering them, she cut every time she came into contact, but a few scratches weren’t enough to drive them off. Dustin started grabbing them and biting them. As long as his teeth could break through the skin, they would die. Or so he hoped.

  The first one he bit, bled a lot, but never started convulsing. He merely kicked him away and swung his club to try and bash his head in, but missed when he rolled away.

  Spitting, he shot back to his feet.

  “I fucking hate this planet!” he screamed, driving his fist into the lizard’s face. The first hit, stunned it, but the second knocked it down. The other two hundred rushed in to get in on the action, and he grinned. This would be fun.