The Iridescence had been a prize from the get-go, a cherished behemoth rescued from almost certain oblivion. Vershaft was still uncertain as to how Dragomir had actually gotten his hands on it. The scrapheap tale could have been true, but academy knowledge had taught him the odds were roughly sixty-four million to one. 

Crewing it, working on it, and fixing it, however, had been a chore. Jansen helped, but Dragomir's appointment to officer had come with broken code enough to keep programmers busy for decades - and wiring complicated enough that even talking about it had to be redacted lest the wrong people overheard. That the ship still lived after the demise of its builders was worth a fortune when whispered into the right ear. The crew - mostly formerly military, cheerfully poking fun at the 'egghead' graduate - grated on him. His fellow buteo had been of comfort; different though they were, having someone who at least talked in a language he could understand was one of the few ways he could feel normal. Dragomir himself respected him, but Vershaft was one of dozens, and the luminari had little time.

He despised it sometimes. But...

But he remembered how the grating military types had cloistered around him the instant a firefight had opened, had two had bundled him off when negotiations looked sour and fingers had traced over blasters. No fight had broken out, but the first thought was to make sure the 'fragile' bird wouldn't be an easy target. Dragomir had listened at length when he'd groused about the ship's incompatability issues and numerous software failures - the fallen empire had always favored style over substance - and knocked sense into him with a fatherly approach that had been missing at AGATE. The brash militaristic atmosphere ground at his patience, but the camaderie it fostered was undeniable. The genuine concern beneath the unending banter reminded him that while the contracts they took on could be harrowing, they would be there.

Just as they were now. 

The Iridescence' hyperflash drive - used to power its infamous EMP blast - had long been the biggest thorn in Vershaft's side. The odds of finding an equivalent power source for less than twenty million credits were infintesimal (one in ninety-seven million, he had calculated). But they had anyway - aboard the Hegemony, one of the capital ships of the Borromos conglomerate. Theft was insane, but theft was the only option when the odds of ever finding another was nil. Everything could have gone wrong. Everything *did* go wrong. Dragomir had planned it as perfectly as suicide could be planned, but even so, a backup alarm system installed by a paranoid engineer had been their undoing. 

Now Gareth was dead and four others were bleeding out, and the soldiers were still closing in. Dragomir was holding while the others had gone to try to bring up the station's defense systems onto their side, but it was six versus sixty in the meantime. They had needed twenty minutes. They had perhaps twenty seconds. 

Dragomir had told Vershaft to go with them. Maybe he was hoping to spare him from almost certain death. Perhaps because doing something more useful than plinking at a battalion with a pistol might have felt better. But he had stayed anyway. 

The beak clenched tight enough to crack. The instincts, however, muted, licked lips in the back of his mind. 

Never again, he'd told himself, many, many times. The months he had spent running from Baklarov had seared away much of the appeal of what the monster ofered. But now he was angry. Angry that the culmination of his work had come down to this insane mission. Angry that Borromos had put them into this situation in the first place. Angry with himself, for holding back. What pride was worth the deaths of the comrades that had done so much to keep him alive? Word would spread, likely back to AGATE at some point, if he changed in public.

Angry that he had cared enough about that to hesitate. 

"I'm going up." He grunted, steely. Dragomir's head snapped back, his mouth opening to shout something about staying where he was before the glimmer of recognition alighted in his eyes. A grim nod. 

The talons clenched, and the changes sprang almost too easily. They shouldn't have. But for once, he and the monster were on the same page. The sizable claws growing, then cracking, jolted large. Feathertips unraveling into simpler fur as the eartips grew., the tailfeathers curling into a tube for the extending tailbone. Musculature building upon his slight frame as his uniform creaked in protest. He panted for breath as the monster sang in the back of his head. Old instincts, never quite forgotten. Never quite relinquished. He remembered the last siege, when blaster bolts had turned into singed hair and bruises rather than giant holes in his body. The dozens that had fought him and died for it. Horror, that had haunted his dreams. 

They would do so again. But Dragomir and the others would live. And that was worth the change.

"HHHhh...HhHRrHHH...HRRRHHGGHH..." The tongue came free, brushing over softening beak and lengthening fangs. His spine rippled as the back of the uniform ripped open, the tail thumping, hitting the steel beneath his elongating paws. A snarl, as his fingers gripped into the front of the jacket, tearing it free. Growth surged, and he towered behind Dragomir. The luminari was nearly two feet taller than he was normally, but now they would see eye to eye. And then less, as the monster urged him on. A snarl as he took his first step on still-arching paws. Lucidity bumped against instinct, and he clenched his jaws to concentrate. There still had to be a Vershaft after this, too. 

<There will be>, the monster told him. Reassuring. He wanted to hate how reasonable it sounded. But the lust for battle was coming.

"Bring up the smoke, we can take 'em before they-"

He didn't wait. No pithy conversation this time. No banter. No mercy.

The legs coiled and sprang, sending him nearly twenty feet over the barricade and into the first half-dozen soldiers. The claws sank deep, and the jaws followed soon after. How soft and pathetic they felt. How fragile. 

How he'd missed the hunt. 

Dragomir was shouting something in the background, but he no longer listened. He was back in his element, doing what nobody else could do. The shame and self-hatred would come later. 

For now, he was the protector.

Keys wrote this fantastic story to work with this version of Vershaft, whom you've probably seen before!  I really like how the story and piece came out, there was a lot of effort all around (except from me, lol)

I'd also like to thank Shiro for not murdering me and changing the color after it was done.  I'm gonna be diligent to make sure that doesn't happen again though.

Art by Shiro
Story and Dragomir by Lunarkeys
Vershaft is mine