“What the hell?” She had jumped off the bike, and was falling towards the trees below.

She’s crazy!

Angling the bike to go back for her, he saw her land in the water and sped up. There were those lizard fish things, and the giant squids…his mind was rushing through the list of monsters that might be there to kill her, and he didn’t even know her name yet!

Flying over the water, he saw her struggling with the squid. Cursing, he realized she didn’t know about her killer bite yet. Jumping into the water, he swam down very fast, thanks to his amphibious evolution, and reached for one of the tentacles.

They were soon at the surface, where she was sputtering and gasping for air. Before she could fully catch her breath, he saw several of the lizard fish things swimming their way, and started swimming back to shore. He didn’t see his bike anywhere, and assumed it was long gone. He was more annoyed then angry. There should be another bike at his camp, and more aliens would always come along.

“What are you, let me go!” she growled, fighting his attempts to drag her to the shore.

“Fine,” he said, letting go of her. “Those things coming for us, will enjoy the snack. Mind if I have your PED?”

She glanced at the things swimming towards them, and started trying to dog paddle to shore. He stared at her for a moment, wondering if she was serious, then shaking his head, grabbed her hand and dragged her to shore.

She scrambled up, backing up to a tree. He snatched her arm, pulling her away from the reaching tongue of the slow-moving camouflaged sloth.

“You have to be careful, everything wants to kill you,” he said, pointing it out to her.

Licking her lips, she looked at him. “Except you.”

He opened his mouth to respond, then shut it, thinking carefully about that. He eyed her up and down. She still looked hot, even as a lizard girl. Nodding, he said, “Yeah, except me.”

Turning to head back towards his camp, he didn’t bother to see if she was following him. If she had a brain, she would. He wondered who she was, and what she had done to get banished here.

Glancing at her briefly, he said, “The last time I fought that squid, I didn’t have the scaled plates I have now. It can leave some nasty needles sticking in you.”

“How long have you been here?” she asked, keeping up with his fast pace.

“Maybe three days?” he said, thinking about it.

“Only three days?!” She looked at him, then down at herself. “What have you been doing?”

“Surviving.” His answer was deadpan.

She was quiet and he was glad. It meant she was thinking. He would have to dig out the burrow to make room for her, but that would be alright. He had been needing to do that anyway. He was actually looking forward to seeing how good she was in bed. And he was tired of hitting his head on that damn log when he woke up.

“You must have killed someone,” she finally said. He turned to say something and pushed her to the ground as a couple of those brown bats flew past.

“Get off me!” she growled, baring her sharp teeth.

He looked around to see that the bats were gone, and climbed up. Offering her his hand, he was amused when she ignored it.

Shrugging, he continued on his way. He was starting to recognize trees, they weren’t far away now. He frowned as he thought about whether something had eaten his food or not.

“I have to survive here for a whole year. This place is awful.”

“No, you have to survive here, until you get off the planet. There’s a difference.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Who was sentenced to this planet for a year?” he asked her.

“I was, and I’m assuming you were?” she ventured.

“Wrong. The human that you used to be was sentenced here. You’re not that human anymore.”

“But my PED kept track of that, they can see that I used to be that human.”

“And how long do you think the battery will last in that PED of yours?” he asked, moving some branches out of the way to gaze into his clearing. It was clear, surprisingly. The bike was still there, and the PMS from the hunter he killed, but it looked like the second hunter had been dragged off. He would have to hunt that PMS down, or wait for another hunter to come by.

“These things are powered from our evolution changes. As long as we keep changing, their batteries don’t die.”

“Really?” he asked, turning to her in surprise. He didn’t know that.

She looked at him funny, but didn’t get a chance to say anything, because he spied the heat signature of something really big heading their way. Something bigger then he had ever seen before.

“Time to hide from the monsters. Ever hide under your bed before?” he asked, shoving her into the burrow as he kept an eye on the approaching monster. He couldn’t tell what it was yet, through the trees, but whatever it was, he didn’t want to meet it.

Grabbing the PMS on the ground, he shoved himself into the burrow with her, and hastily shoved debris in front of the opening. It was tight in there, and he found himself looking her in the face.

The scaled plates that covered her body, just like his, were a drab olive color, but as he watched her turn away from him, he noticed some of the plates were turning a bright, almost neon, blue. And for some reason, that was a huge turn on for him. Peeking outside, to distract himself from his raging hard on, he almost peed himself.

The neon orange head of a huge lizard, with forward facing teal eyes, was right in the opening. He could feel its breath flowing over his face as it was breathing, and realized it was tasting them! The razor-sharp teeth were only about a foot in front of him, far too close for comfort, and judging from the size of those clawed feet, this thing would have no problems digging them out of the hole they were in.

He found himself scrunching even further into the hole. If he pushed her out, would it eat her and go away, or would she just whet its appetite? Licking his lips, he suddenly realized he had a poison bite. Could he bite it before it killed him?

A huge purple tongue slowly escaped from the mouth, dripping saliva on the ground, and he sprung forward, biting the tip off. Scooting back into the burrow fast enough to avoid the beast’s contractions, he spat the piece of tongue out and shoved it in his port.

For the next minute he fought all of his willpower to not scream and gag.

(GENETIC MATERIAL ACQUIRED. ANALYZING. POSSIBLE EVOLUTION OPTIONS: ENLARGED BODY MASS, UNIVERSAL DIGESTION, JACOBSON’S ORGAN)

“What is jacobson’s organ?” he finally managed to ask in his head. The thing outside reminded him of a giant dragon. Spitting to the side, he noticed her staring at the thing in shock.

(JACOBSON’S ORGAN ALLOWS HOST TO TASTE AIR)

What the hell would he need that for? Tasting the air sounded stupid, and he definitely didn’t need to be bigger. He was plenty big enough, thank you.

“Go for universal digestion, that sounds interesting.”

(EVOLUTION INITIATED)

“You bit its tongue,” she whispered, finally turning to look at him. “And it died.”

“It was a horrible french-kisser.”

Not looking at her, he felt the ground. There was nothing else around, at least nothing moving, so he started crawling out of the hole. Maybe it was time for another cookout. Looking at the thing, he was surprised to see it had six legs. Yep, definitely time for a cookout.

“Who are you?” she asked as she joined him by its side.

“Dustin Lafelle,” he said, crouching down to butcher it.

“Dustin, the Lady Killer?!”