32 Chapter 32 Twenty Cycles

Turning his head slightly, to look down at his arm, Dustin activated the leaf movement again, which caused twitching in his arm muscles, in a sporadic pattern. It made his arm, which was camouflaged, appear to rustle in a slight breeze. If he didn't know it was his arm, he could have sworn he was looking at some moss hanging off the tree behind him, rustling in a breeze. Dustin, twitched his head again, very slightly, not moving hardly at all, and watched as the prince moved off through the brush, towards the shuttle port station.

Thinking hard, he was trying to decide his movements carefully. If there really was something watching him, he had to be sneaky how he followed the prince. His upgraded PED allowed him to shift into anything he had acquired material from, but the prince knew most of its abilities. Dustin had assumed that the prince was who he had said he was, and didn't keep anything from him. That was stupid on his part, but there was no way of knowing the shit would be a spy.

All plans of exploring the waters of this world, went out the window. Could he trust anything that asshole had told him?

It would probably be better if he didn't. Thinking about his broken dreams and how things were so screwed up, he suddenly wondered about Olivia. Was she a spy, too, or another unfortunate, trapped in this farce? There was only one way to find out

Fluttering his wings, the camouflaged crystal scales shifted from greens to browns, and back again. He had looked forward to using them to help propel him through the water, like fins, maybe, but it was time to focus on what little he knew as truth. And the most pressing thing at the moment was to get off this damn planet, and to break through all the lies. He could play later.

Fuming, Dustin watched the figure of the prince move even further away. Once he was just out of sight, he started to think about all the different things he could turn into. Just in case there were drones, he needed to be able to follow him without being seen. Maybe, underground?

He had the genetic material from the ground tunneling worms, could he turn into one of them?

Why not?

"PED, initiate a complete change into the tunneling worm from the cave," he said thinking of how it had attacked while he was small and winged.

(INITIATING EVOLUTION)

The world around him suddenly went dark, as his eyes disappeared, and he became blind. Panic coursed through him, and he wanted to scream. What if something came and ate him? He was such a god-damn idiot!

Flee! With the fear coursing through him, of something about to eat him, he dug down into the ground, feeling comfort and relief washing over him, as the sensation of dirt encompassed him. He paused, happily wiggling his multitude of bristles, as all of the worries and concerns that had been plaguing him, receded to the simpler concerns of moving in the dirt.

He was a little hungry, and he could feel something moving not far away. The vibrations traveled through the ground, tickling his bristles, and sending a clear image to his mind, of something small enough to successfully capture. It wasn't even moving very fast. Tunneling slowly, so as not to give himself away, Dustin slowly stalked his prey.

-The fireplace was fake, there was a table covered in alien tech, waiting to be reverse engineered.

Dustin paused in confusion. What was that? The prey was just ahead, if he didn't hurry, something else might get it. He started to sneak up on it again.

-His screwdriver had some nasty black ick, the worst kind of ick, the kind that couldn't be scraped off with just the fingernails, but would need hours soaking in hot soapy water before being scrubbed with a miniscule file, late into the night.

Dustin paused again. He couldn't tell what was happening. As he sat there, the prey got ahead of him again.

(HOSTS INTELLIGENCE HAS DROPPED BELOW THE NECESSARY LEVELS FOR ACTIVATION. INCREASING HOST INTELLIGENCE BACK TO NORMAL.)

If he had eyes, Dustin would have blinked in confusion. He wiggled his forward bristles in an equivalent movement. What the hell?

Vibrations of something walking away from him, drew his attention. He was a little hungry and this body wanted to attack it. Could that be the prince? Was he really a tunneling worm? Chuckling in his mind, to himself, he kept his distance, moving slowly after the prince.

Something else, an above-ground creature, was stalking the prince, but when it got within a few feet, it paused. The prince never stopped walking, unaware he had almost been attacked. After a few moments, the creature moved off, possibly having lost interest in the prince.

Or had it. Could the prince have a weapon he was using on anything that got close, like a gun or something? He needed to know, for when he got close enough. Speeding up, he got within a few feet, when suddenly:

-His roommate was flushed, swinging a beer bottle at his head, but missing, and stumbling. Dustin watched his bright red hair, suddenly get coated in thick blood as it seemed to pour out of the wound.

What the hell? Where was the girl? Was there ever a girl? He paused, feeling the prince get further away again, and realized, every time he got close, he had a flash of dream. Could that be because this creature slept differently?

Rushing forward again, yet being careful not to leave a trail on the surface, he drew close to the prince.

-"We can't just throw him into a cell to rot. He's too important. We need his abilities."

-"We need to cover the death of the non-human. It will be difficult to smooth this over in the public eye if we don't spin this right."

-"I didn't kill him! It was an accident!" They refused to listen to him, continuing with their discussion on what to do with him, as if he wasn't even there.

This was a memory, not a dream. Excitement coursed through him. He needed to know more! It didn't take much to catch up, again, to the prince.

-"Twenty cycles, as payment for the death of one of your people, and he's returned to us, unharmed, none the wiser."

-"Agreed."