The hunters had been patrolling the area for the past three hours. He had to give it to them, they were definitely persistent. The embers from his fire were still smoldering from where he had cooked the leg and some eggs. They were in his hollow with him, safely put away from the prying eyes of the hunters.

To keep them from finding him, he had scattered pieces of meat all over the place, and the ensuing rush from all the foxes that lived in the area completely hid his own footsteps. He was actually a little impressed with the number of three-tailed foxes and bone foxes that had shown up. Even the six-legged silver and green lizards had managed to grab a few morsels, but they were too timid to fight the foxes over them.

The bug swarm hadn’t made it as far as his clearing, so there were still plenty of leaves on the trees and debris around the entrance of his hollow.

Settling down to sleep, his stomach full, and nothing to currently bother him, he drifted off.

-Dreaming:

-“Dude,” he was on the phone with his friend. “She did what?”

-His friend was talking about his girlfriend. Said she was great. No. No way in hell…

“No, stop,” he mumbled, but it wouldn’t.

-“You want kids? When was that a thing?” She had on that crimson red lipstick he liked.

-“Come on, babe, you know I’ve always wanted kids.” He held her to him, wanting nothing more than to kiss those bright red lips.

-“Well, how many are you thinking?” Maybe this would work out.

-“As many as we can, why?” He leaned in for a kiss.

-“No. I don’t want to ruin my body for any brats.” She pushed away from him. -Was that really what she said?-

-“What?” He was putting the phone down, from talking to his friend, the one she cheated with just last week. -I don’t remember that…did I have a friend?-

-“I’m pregnant!” she screamed, adding in several curses, as she glared at him She was fuming and there was that crazy look in her eye that meant she either wanted to try something kinky, or he was about to get hit.

-Dodging her swing, he stepped back with his hands up.

“Stop, please,” he turned, trying to wake up, knowing what was coming next.

-She threw a balled-up piece of paper at him and he caught it. The words blurred but he knew what they said. -Do they really do abortion confirmations??-

-The fireplace loomed up, large in his vision, as she swung at him, hitting his chin, and almost breaking it. Not enough vitamins.

“No!” It wasn’t going to stop.

-He swung, returning the favor, but only to give a black eye, not anything else.

-She was falling.

Jerking awake, Dustin crashed his head against the tree trunk above him and cursed.

“Damn it! Why is it every time?” his words were soft, but he could feel someone approaching. The steps were light, but the ground told him, and he believed it.

Not waiting for the hunter to get a shot, he exploded out of the hollow, and wrapped his arms around it. He sunk his teeth into its neck, and then let go, letting the hunter fall to the ground.

“PED, can you use anything from this PMS to improve yourself?” he asked, picking up the device as soon as the hunter stopped spasming.

(ADDITIONAL PROCESSING WILL ALLOW FURTHER FUNCTIONS TO BE AVAILABLE.)

“How do I go about adding it to you?” He was all for it having more functions. Maybe it would be able to eventually return him back to a normal human.

He sat for the next hour, meticulously dissecting the PMS from the Josagn hunter, and adding pieces to the PED on his arm. Outside, he could hear the monsters of the forest fighting over the corpse.

Suddenly, just as he was closing the PED, there was an explosion of dirt and leaves in his face. Tentacles flew out of the hole, and he found himself entangled. Whatever this thing was, it was dragging him out into the open.

Biting the closest tentacle, caused all of them to let him go. Breathing hard, he snarled at the hunter that was standing in the opening watching him, pointing its arrow in his direction.

“You will make a fine specimen.”

“Suck my dick!” he snarled, jumping at it. The arrow hit his shoulder, but bounced off.

Right before he hit it, the hunter’s eyes opened wide in surprise. He bit it on the arm, and jumped back. Straightening up, he turned to look at the two other hunters behind him. They were standing on top of his home, pointing dart guns at him. Chuckling, he turned to face them. The plates on his skin wouldn’t let those darts do a bit of damage. They seemed to know it too, as they looked at each other before leaping for their bikes.

Dustin was able to get one by the leg, and wasted no time biting it, but the other managed to get on its bike and escape. Jumping on the other bike, he chased after it. On one hand, he couldn’t let it get back and tell stories about him, that would send even more of the bird-brained idiots, and on the other hand, there might be a space ship he could use to escape this hell hole.

He checked the fuel gauge and found it interesting that it was almost empty, just like the last one he had gotten onto. If they were traveling together, they were changing their tactics, which meant everything he knew about them could be wrong. Also, if his bike was almost out of fuel, the other guys bike would be too.

Sure enough, the bike ahead of him started sputtering and dying. The Josagn grabbed something out of the pack on the side of the seat and shoved it into the fuel tank port. It stopped sputtering and straightened out. Not waiting for his to start sputtering, he felt on the side of his seat, and sure enough, there was a pack. Grabbing a handful of tiny pellets, he shoved them into the port and watched his fuel gauge climb back almost to full.

“Handy,” he growled, grinning.