A Silverwash Story

There is a sizable ship drifting through deep space that few individuals are burdened with the knowledge of. And even fewer are eager to visit. The ship is almost abandoned most days, claiming the occupancy of only a single permanent resident. Others dwell on the ship from time to time, though they rarely do so willingly. The HLV Epernay had been built for a single purpose, and it wasn't hospitality.
One such rarely compliant tenant rested in one corner of a cluttered laboratory, sulking. Not that he had much else to do.

Eckelson burbled to himself from within his tank. How long was that loony Ermine going to take? His constant tests and prodding might not have been driving Eckelson up the wall so much if he had the good decency to leave a TV on while he was in here. That...Rene, had seemed a little too eager to take the job when Lorraine approached him with the details. Completely reconstituting the physiology of a heavily mutated kyroptian was quite an undertaking, even with the generous commission Kwillit was offering. He had accepted on the simple condition that he be allowed to retain a sample of Eckelson's biomass for study. It hadn't seemed like such a hard bargain at the time, after all, Kwillit certainly had a lot of himself to spare, but now he was starting to have his doubts. All he knew was if he came out of the oven with a chunk missing from his leg, or worse, slightly shorter, he would have to renegotiate their contract. When you barely cleared a meter while standing, every centimetre counted.
Taking a little physical reminder of this ordeal with him wouldn't be a new concept. Eckelson Kwillit couldn't brag a perfect record from his life as a thief. Sometimes jobs went south, sometimes he misread a situation or otherwise things just leaped out of his control. The particularly terrible examples usually left a mark of some sort, physical or other wise. There was a Kark phrase that he had familiarized himself with: “Ever Scar Leaves a Lesson, Every Lesson Leaves a Mark”. Until recently nothing he'd ever bumbled his way into had ever been quite bad enough to leave him a hugely mutated ball of green sludge that digested everything he came into contact with. But some jobs were more trying than others.
 Kwillit slapped at the glass in frustration with a dripping arm, watching his half-formed limb splatter against the clear surface and the viscous green tint slide away with a minor hum. The tube had been the ermine's idea, if only to stop him from chewing through the hull of the ship and anything else within arms reach. A floor to ceiling cylinder of transparalloy re-enforced with ion shielding. This was the kind of tech normally used to bounce laser fire off of starship view ports, and now all that kit was being used to keep Kwillit in one place. His biggest protest came when the concept of being sealed inside was brought up, but it proved ultimately necessary. The initial surge of panic at the thought of self-imposed confinement had departed, and now he was just bored. Certainly the most high-budget prison that Eckelson had ever occupied, but by no means the first....

**********************************

The fluid mass of questionably edible  substance flattened on to the tray, meeting the edges of it's compartment a little too quickly for Eckelson's liking. He wondered how in the Matron's name he was supposed to eat this with a fork, but decided not to hold the cafeteria worker vacantly staring at him from behind the shatter proof sneeze guard to blame. Taking his ugly pittance of a meal with him, Kwillit ambled out of line to find a seat inside of the cramped eating quarters. He settled down  at a distant table, which played host to only a ragged looking cochran and an ermine that seemed to be preoccupied entirely with getting his food into his mouth. Matron knew what had gotten the normally close knit Ermine to leave one of their own rotting in some backwater holding tank, but that was barely the Kyroptian's business.
Kwillit sat down heavily, a bit of the nourishing goo he had been served sloshing up and speckling his ragged blue shirt. He wiped at it in annoyance, glancing around the room. No one in here was wearing any find of uniform or jumpsuit, which he supposed was a good sign. Kwillit  had only recently become old enough to be tried as an adult, but if he had been detained by an official facility, that could spell big problems for him. But this was just an overhyped drunk tank. Corporate owned mining colonies like the one that he and Penny had shacked up on usually had short term “Detainment Centres” to stuff any undesirables that the local security force picked up for any number of transgressions, from public indecency, disturbing the peace, theft or occasionally just looking the wrong way in the wrong place.
Kwillit scowled as he ate his slop. It figured that the one time he hadn't been responsible for a local theft  was when he'd get pinched. “Suspicious behaviour at the scene of the crime” was a funny way of saying “Being a nearby Kyroptian”
He massaged his ears in frustration. At maximum, a place like this could only hold him for 72 hours without probable cause. His little sister, Penny knew the procedure for this kind of thing. By now, she hadn't heard back from him and that meant that in three days, she would be waiting for him at their designated rendezvous point. Eckelson was sure that Penndrana could do three days, and that meant so could he.

************************************
The sound of an opened door stirred the blob from his reveries. The scientist he had put his life in the hands of tromped in, not even glancing in Eckelson's direction as he busied himself with some kind of centrifuge device in one corner of the room. Every once in a while Rene would address Kwillit, usually asking him a series of questions about his circumstances or occasionally to administer some tonic or formula that the blob's body would inevitably breakdown and absorb, to no effect. But usually he would just disregard him, busying himself in his work and occasionally mumbling to himself. Right now he was trying to rework a base genetic template of Kwillit's DNA from fur, blood and skin samples that he had gathered from his ship. The thought of this robotic, twitching ermine poking around The Bad Penny made Eckelson's viscous flesh crawl, but it was yet another issue that he would have to put up with while in search for a cure. Whatever the cost, whatever the indignity, it was worth it if it meant getting back to his old self again. If he didn't, the only work Eckelson could look forward to would be at the bottom of a garbage disposal.
“Internal make up not adding up. Rogue element” Rene mumbled “Unaccounted for....reoccurence should....replication.....impossible with current assets require a hmmmm.....have you ever been subjected to other morphic compounds?”
It took Eckelson a second to realize that the last question was directed at him. “Morphic?” he bubbled “Ah...y'mean, stuff that changes a bloke” He thought, his body fizzing slightly with recollection and an only too familiar tingle dancing at his brain. “There were....when I met Siltwater, she had these darts that....blew people up. Some kinda gas or something and I...” He trailed off.
“The incapacatory rapid sub-dermal sublimating agent.” Rene rattled off as a new, slightly unnerving look entered his eyes. “Yes, I aided Lorraine with that. Should still have samples. Were you exposed?”
“Yeah...” Kwillit mumbled.
Rene feverishly approached Eckelson's tank “May require larger test sample. Adopt thesis....no. Wouldn't....no. Thalium bonding agent....silicate delivery compound to assist the polymerization reaction....” Rene began to list off a complicated chemical formula to himself, one hand tapping against the side of Eckelson's tube. The blob shrunk into himself, not enjoying this newfound attention. Inside of this prison, he was absolutely at the ermine's mercy. He couldn't help but wonder if the promise of the 75% of his fee awaiting the completion of the job could abate this unstable scientists's fixation with experimentation.
Rene's tapping abruptly halted, and he fixed Eckelson with a shaky glare. There was something cold and terrifying in the pit of his eyes that made the Kyroptian shiver. Rene fidgeted slightly. One hand plunged into the pocket of his lab coat, bringing out a small tin that he opened and scooped up a small handful of what looked like pills. He shovelled the mess into his mouth and drew a shaky breath. Finally, he looked away, making for the exit and panting heavily. As he left, one of the dozens of automated drones that Eckelson had seen swarming around and maintaining the ship hovered in, busying itself with cleaning up the mess that it's master had left behind him.

Kwillit burbled in relief when he was entirely sure that Rene was gone. Being directly under that man's microscope was disconcerting at best, and genuinely terrifying  at worst.
What was it with him and Ermines? Kwillit didn't enjoy subjecting another species to the kind of prejudice he usually had to put up with, but with ermines, it was always trouble....

*************

Kwillit was halfway through his tasteless prison food when he heard another, heavier figure sit at his table, and engage the ermine he had roosted next to. A Skink by the sound of him. The Kyroptian's ears twitched in their direction involuntarily, and the discussion abruptly died off.
“You listening to something, asshole?” The ermine growled. There was a saying among colonials: “No secrets with a Kyroptian” Their over sensitive hearing often picked up surrounding conversations even through walls, often making other species paranoid about potential eavesdropping, even if the nearest Kyroptian was across the room and they were speaking at a whisper.
Kwillit remained silent.
“I don't like you sitting at my table, dridd” The fuzzy accuser continued.  That...was actually a new one. Eckelson scanned his mental urban dictionary for the myriad of disparaging slurs that he was familiar with being inflicted with and came up empty. He wasn't sure if the convict was insulting his race, his appearance or his background, but an insult was an insult. This cretin could probably make life hell for him in the 72 hours that Eckelson had to spend in his presence, and backing down now would probably only encourage him. Kwillit glanced up and offered the ermine his most disparaging scowl.
“My table too” He grunted. “Don't like it, eat somewhere else”
His vision returned back to his food just as something fluid and white landed in the middle of his plate with a splash. His eyes darted  back up to the ermine, who was showing his teeth without smiling. Eckelson had no idea where his tormenter had conjured that gob of liquid from, but the effect was made clear. This wasn't going to end well.

************
There was commotion aboard the ship. An intercom crackled off some automated reminder and Kwillit spotted one of the ship's drones buzz by. What felt like hours passed, then he heard approaching voices.
“...been working in here mostly. I hope you stay for the demonstration of the latest protein extrapolator that you sent me. Filled in a few gaps myself last night.” The Ermine scientist looked distracted, more so than usual at any rate. He pawed at his coat, wiping  an errant chocolate stain off of his paw. He glanced backwards, beckoning in the figure following him.
Strolling through the door behind him....Oh, hell.
Lorry.  
Kwillit sunk down into himself, his mass bubbling slightly in embarrassment. With any luck,  the Protean would just think he was another science experiment and pass by the relatively innocuous tube of sludge. On top of everything else, he REALLY didn't want her to see him like this.
“And thank you for the visit Lorraine” Rene noted as he finished up his latest stream of technobabble. A softness had entered the Ermine's voice that Kwillit hadn't been privy to. The edge in his eyes wasn't completely gone, but blurred enough to give him a more tender expression. “It's always- Always good to see you again”
Lorraine looked slightly confused by this, but her face melted into understanding. “You actually invited me Rene, remember? Said that you'd made a breakthrough”
Rene sniffed and inspected his datapad “Right. Yes, on the schedule. Sorry Lorraine, sometimes I get a little...”
“It's okay Rene” Lorry offered a curt smile. “I know. But I am interested in what you've figured out. Would this happen to be about our- ah- mutual client?”
Eckelson churned within his capsule as he realized they were talking about him. Neither of them had even glanced in his direction, so it was more than likely that Lorraine didn't know that he was even in the room, and Rene clearly didn't care.
“Yes, yes” Rene remarked “Thank you. I made a recent discovery and managed to nail down an approximation of the hormonal cocktail that the subject was dosed with.”
“The subject?” Lorraine raised her brow.
“The- The Kyroptian. His mutation is fascinating, and complicated. Most likely next to impossible to replicate, though I doubt that will stop me” Rene double checked his notes. “I've managed to work together a decent genetic template that should hopefully target the mutated chromosomes, eat away the excess tissue and convert it back into standard Kyroptian DNA. The subjec-yroptian should be completely restored once I reformat my sequencer.”
“Great news!” Lorraine laughed. “I'm sure he was thrilled when you told him”
Kwillit was simultaneously furious and elated. Of course the Ermine hadn't told him. To him, Eckelson was just a sample on a slide. Why share news that big with your own damn patient? But the news that there might finally be a solution to this mess was a hefty weight off his mind. This nightmare was nearly over.
“Where is he by the way?” Lorraine inquired, glancing out the door and into the hallway. “Off sulking in some dark corner?”
Rene passed through the portal, reading through a scrolling file “Excuse me Lorraine, must double check a few things that cannot be left to drones. The subject is right over there” He gestured absently towards Kwillit's tube as he left. The door slammed shut, leaving the tub of quivering, featureless slime alone with Lorry, who was staring straight at him.

Oh Matron, no.

Lorraine Siltwater. Of course, after their off colour meeting on Mijharr, Kwillit had done a little digging. An IGPD-licensed bounty hunter with a knack for lateral thinking and affinity for tech was one thing, but a lone Protean with an odd fixation on...physical incapacitation and a reputation for having a few screws loose was quite another. She was exactly the kind of trouble that the kyroptian didn't need in his life, but time and again he found himself drawn back to her. He had reached out to her looking for a cure to his condition, and she had been “nice” enough to point him in the direction of Rene LaLique and make the introductions after a generous 15% finder's fee had gone through. He shifted, folding on himself. This kind of thing never happened before he met her. People weren't turned into balloons or bowling balls by weird custom weapons, or puffed up into spore pods by the fauna of some distant planet. It was like some weird, other world that he'd been dragged into that sent chills up his spine every time he thought about it. And not always in the bad way either, which seemed even more unsettling. He felt at his own mass, churning and pushing against the boundaries of his confinement. There was just so much of him  now, much more weight to throw around than he'd ever had in his life.  If there was anything he would claim that he would miss if he was ever restored to normal, it would be the sheer bulk that this transformation had granted him. That, and maybe the feeling of his huge, gelatinous belly taking up so very much of his biomass, if he had to be perfectly honest. He could appreciate having that sort of size, the kind of heft that would be pretty useful in a fight, once upon a time.

*************

Kwillit rose to his feet. Blood pumping in his ears. He could take this twerp. Easily. He didn't know where the fuzzy little bastard got off picking a fight with the only guy here even approaching his size, but  maybe if he laid him out, he would get a little breathing room for the rest of his time here. Maybe this would even mean a modicum of respect for once in his life. The Ermine was already standing, circling the table and fixing Kwillit with a hard stare. One hand was idly swinging at his side, the other clenched into a fist. Eckelson glanced across the room, making sure that the guard next to the serving area had his attentions elsewhere. This little thug probably wanted to play the intimidation game a bit longer, drawing out the tension before he made the first swing. Kwillit decided to make it for him.
The Kyroptians arm darted out like a snake, catching the Ermine across the jaw and sending him spinning. Kwillit winced as his hand exploded with pain. He had been eager to end the fight quickly and that had been the hardest he'd ever hit someone. The ache in his fist was suddenly joined with a hard impact to his gut that made him wheeze. The ermine had stayed on his feet and rebounded with a low hook below Eckelson's ribcage.  Kwillit reeled, but wasn't able to get his hands up soon enough to block his opponent's open hand from slapping hard against one of his large ears. The blast of impact sent his head reeling and he staggered backwards, blinking away the stars of this sudden discombobulation with a high pitched ringing invading his brain. Kwillit had been counting on being faster than the ermine, but this assumption was starting to turn against him. The Kyroptian began to sense that he had made a grave mistake. He lashed out blindly, still disoriented from the attack to his ear and hitting nothing but air. His stomach met another punishing fist and he doubled over. The ermine was yelling something, the other voices too, but the ringing in Eckelson's head had barely subsided. He charged forward, ramming into the ermine and smashing him into the table. He got one of his hands free and started to lay into his opponents gut, being rewarded with the sounds of pain and loss of breath. Kwillit saw a leg begin to rise, but was in no position to move out of the way as his face collided with an upward knee. He reeled backwards, the clearly more experienced ermine keeping pace with him.  He felt hard fingers gripping the back of his head and his momentum reverse. Kwillit's arms felt slow and heavy, he couldn't stop himself as he was pushed forward and the edge of the table came rushing up to meet him.
Eckelson's  snout exploded in agony and blood, stinging his eyes alongside sweat and tears. Darkness crept in the corners of his vision and he flailed at the next rain of blows that came down on him, to the dull roar of the crowd.  He felt as though he was falling past his body and silence mercifully over took his brain.  

******************
Eckelson remained silent inside of his tube, waiting for Lorraine to leave.
“Kwillit?” The protean asked, tapping at the glass like a bored child at the zoo. The mass of goo remained inert.
“Didn't realize you were this far gone...” She remarked, wincing slightly.  “Shame, you were a pretty good looking guy before all this”
The blob simmered, but did not outwardly react.
“I suppose it all works for the best” Siltwater continued. “I mean, I wouldn't be too eager to show my face after a disaster like the one you pulled” She was leaning with her back on the tank, clearly enjoying herself.
“I mean look at you, all jammed up in here like toothpaste. You know, I couldn't ask for a better silver platter” She tapped one of the myriad devices on her belt. “All bundled up like this. It would be a cinch to just ship you off to the IGPD and collect your bounty.”
Kwillit felt a bubble of panic rise through him, which popped on his surface. At once he felt a fresh rush of helplessness at his imprisonment well up within him. She wouldn't...
“Of course, who would believe me? 'Here you go boys, one of your most wanted thieves, in convenient liquid form! Just put him next to the non-perishables!' I'd be laughed right out of the station.” A brief chuckle escaped her lips, though it sounded slightly forced.
The Protean glanced behind her at the pool of slime. It shifted ever so slightly, but remained still. Lorraine hesitantly licked her lips. “Well....guess you can't hear me” She shifted herself off of the glass, then paused, glancing back.
“Poked around your ship when I got here. Guess you weren't in any position to lock it when you got here”
A few more bubbles popped the surface of the slime, the only indicator of a reaction.
“Don't worry, didn't leave any surprises or anything. I suppose you've had your fair share.” She sighed. “Pretty slick set up you got there...not a lot of mess. Hardly any knick knacks” She paused, noticing the bubbling, but continued pushing. ”Met a thief or two before you, and they always have these dumb collections. Little valueless things or treasures they aren't keen to part with. I guess you aren't the sentimental sort.”
She gave him one last look.
“Kwillit?”
The blob fought the impulse to explode at her and remained unresponsive.
Lorraine sighed. “Get well soon buddy” she remarked, stomping off and letting the door to the lab slide shut behind her. She'd been lying about the bounty, of course. Kwillit may have had a file at IGPD, but not enough probable cause to ever issue a warrant. The Kyroptian kept an incredibly low profile, and Lorry could only wonder at what someone had to give up to completely drop off the map like that.

****************

Hazy perception trickled back into Eckelson's mind. His face and body were still a mess of pain, and he was fading in and out of his surroundings. Two large hands here gripping either wing, dragging him forward down a corridor. His face was still dripping blood onto the floor beneath him, leaving a smeared trail as his body was pulled over it. Consciousness left him.

Kwillit awoke again, his head throbbing, to a completely dark room. To any other species, this might be disconcerting, but the nocturnal Kyroptian only had to let out a slightly hoarse sonic call and let the dimensions of the room reverberate back to him. Then he started to panic. The room was tiny, barely three meters square and completely seamless, save a thin bedding mat and a door that was nearly flush with the wall. His thoughts were clouded by the pain of his broken face, but his lodgings made themselves perfectly clear.

Solitary.

Eckelson fought distress. The walls were already starting to feel tight around him, but he couldn't let himself give in to claustrophobia. He stretched out the membranous tissue of his wings in an attempt to alleviate the fear, telling himself that at the very least, there was enough space to accommodate his wingspan. He wasn't completely confined. This didn't mean everything he was afraid of. For all he knew, he had been brought here for his own protection. The last thing he remembered was being beaten pretty savagely.

In a fight that he started

Kwillit pushed the dread down, instead focusing on the fact that he was still bleeding heavily from an undressed wound. He touched the long gash on his snout gingerly, wincing at the pain. It was wide, but not deep and from the feel, his snout hadn't been broken. His face was bleeding freely, and lacking any kind of medical gear, Eckelson eventually removed his own shirt and held it against the wound, stemming the flow somewhat. His head drifted backwards against the stone wall as he stared up, fighting the sting of coarse fibre against opened flesh as he let his thoughts grow hazy.

Time passed at varying speeds. Sometimes reduced to a crawl by the pain of his injuries, sometimes what felt like hours dropped away as his thoughts blurred. Sleep came and went, and the only real punctuation to the silence was when he would occasionally, painfully, peel away his makeshift bandage from the slowly clotting open wound  and reapply a comparatively clean area of his increasingly bloodied shirt to the raw flesh.

He wasn't sure how long it had been before a tiny window opened in the door, and the grunting face of a Kark peered in on him.
“Ye'r awake” He sniffed. “Glad Y'aren't dead. Corpse'd be a little too much trouble, even some kype street trash like you”
Eckelson let the insult slide, reminding himself of how he got here.
“Meals'll come twice a day” The Kark continued. “Toilet's in the corner, it'll be collected with yer second meal” he paused, as if consulting a script that the procedure was printed on “Ye'll be released into general holdings at the end of the week”

“Week?” Eckelson rasped, feeling his blood run cold. “No, no. I'm only being detained for observation! Y'can only keep me here for-”
“We c'n DO whatever we damn well PLEASE t'violent offenders like yerself” The Kark retorted sharply. Eckelson didn't need to look his way to know that he was grinning. “Uncooperative, ill b'haved subjects like yerself need to be kept off th' streets fer the safety of ev'ryone else”
The Kark paused, letting off one more comment before he let the window slide shut.
“B'have yourself, n'you'll be up fer release at the end of th'month, if we feel like it”
“No!” Eckelson leapt forward. “Y'don't understand! I-” His protest died in his throat. What could he say? That he had someone waiting for him? Who? He couldn't implicate Penny, and now....now she was alone. He had failed her. She'd be waiting for him for hours, days maybe, but he couldn't reach her. How could she take care of herself? Where would she go without him?
He pounded his head against the locked door, accepting the pain of his split face as they mixed with stinging tears. Stupid, STUPID! Three days! That was all he had to do! But he'd let his ego get involved, let himself get angry and now he was locked away from his sister for a month, with no way of reaching her. He bitterly sobbed in the cold, cramped space. His wound bled freely, open and burning.

The week slogged by hour by agonizing hour. By the time he was released, the light of the outside world was as blinding as it ever was. Finally a medical technician got a look at his face, applied antiseptic and stitched him shut, but an open gash left alone that long would assuredly leave a scar. A long, diagonal one across his snout.
He touched at it every day, as a reminder of how he'd gotten it. The rest of his time in detainment was a bad as he feared, but not the worst indignity he'd ever faced. The Ermine that had pummelled him was released during his time in solitary on a work order, leaving Kwillit to keep his head down for the rest of his sentence and take the disrespect, insults and abuse in stride.
After finally being let out, in nothing but his sullen clothes and bloodstained shirt, it took Eckelson weeks to finally track down Penny. She had survived just fine without him, and had actually been on the verge of heading off world before he caught up with her. She had believed he had died, or disappeared.
Their reunion was tearful and loving, but something had changed between them. Eckelson could give no good excuse for his absence beyond a need to prove himself to a stranger. Penny had become self sufficient just as her big brother failed her, and now, she was starting to drift away. In the coming months, they would start to walk different paths. She would insist on finding honest work just as Eckelson started taking better and higher paying larceny jobs. She grew up quickly, and outgrew him. Eckelson told himself it was for the best. It had become clear that anyone who relied on him beyond a contract was inevitably making a mistake.

*****************
Kwillit yelped as his tube suddenly moved of it's own accord, hefted up by a concealed mechanical clamp and lifted through the doors of the laboratory. He glanced at the slightly distorted hallways that passed around him, occasionally glimpsing the shapes of some locked off area or bustling automated production area. The crane machine pushed him through another set of sliding doors and set the viscous thief sloshing within his container again. He was getting more and more jumbled from the constant rattling and his own senses began to collide with each other as the sensory organs formed from instinct collapsed, sending random bursts of light, sound, taste and otherwise through his body. Suddenly a gust of fresh air alerted his only constant sense, touch, that the top of his capsule had been opened. Eckelson nearly surged out immediately if the entire chamber didn't suddenly tilt on an axis and sending him sliding out of what had been his his jail cell for the last few weeks like a wad of loose jello. He splashed into a clear, faceted chamber and barely had reformed his head and limbs before a nozzle above him unleashed a jet of pink fluid that blasted his half-formed features apart, churning him like water in a hot tub. This new chemical...stung. Actual pain, or really, any reaction to outside stimuli beyond mild satiation had been a stranger to Eckelson ever since he had become this blob. So, this seemed to be a good sign. This formula was either working, or it was going to kill him. Forward progress either way.
The chamber began to heat up all around him as a slow, dawning sensation of reduction began to over take the roiling body of the mutated thief. He bubbled and writhed as his body felt as though it was coming apart, pieces of him growing numb,no longer listening to mental commands and simply floating freely within his larger bulk. They began to fizz and rise to the surface. He felt as though he was boiling. Vaguely through the faceted surface of the tank, he could see two hazy figures. One was larger and white, hunched over something metallic. The other was smaller and black, with the occasional hint of drab green. Eckelson tried to reach out and slap a limb against the glass, to try to communicate that something was happening to him. A stiff-feeling arm collided with the glass, providing a startling rap and the sensation of hard impact. He looked at the limb, which was still translucent, but a lot more solid than he remembered. He gave another firm rap at the glass and began to thrash slightly with limbs that were feeling more and more defined every second. The fizzing gas and steam composed of expelled biomass began to cloud the tank, replacing the bulk of Kwillit's shrinking body with white smoke. Eckelson felt his backside collide with the bottom of the vat and he tried to smile despite the pain and disorientation. He could feel the impact in his bones and the compression of his muscles. It was working.
Eckelson flexed, feeling the membranous tissues of his wings extend and flap through the smoke-filled air. He felt tight all over, like his skin (Skin! He had skin again!) was being stretched out by his own body. The layer of slime still coating him began to condense like vapour on glass and solidify, each drop planting itself as a new hair as his fur coat began to come back in. He revelled in running a hand across his arm, the all-too-absent feeling of a million tiny strokes as he rubbed his fur this way and that.

The sense of tightening finally relented as the ground tilted forward and a blast of air blew across Eckelson's body. Kwillit yipped, trying to find purchase on the frictionless surface as he collapsed onto the cold floor of the lab amidst a rush of steam that curled around the room. His body crumpled in a tangle of newly formed limbs, leaving one of his wings splayed out awkwardly. The fact that he even had joints to sprain and bones to bruise was a welcome addition as far as Eckelson was concerned. He shakily stood up on the floor of the lab amidst the steam, taking deep, slightly wet breaths into his reformed lungs and shaking on legs that hadn't supported his weight in weeks. He was cold, damp, and he realized as both Rene and Lorraine looked him over with mixed amounts of fascination, curiousity and bemusement, completely naked.
Kwillit nabbed a nearby datapad, preserving his modesty as best he could with it as Rene merely grunted and started taking notes while Lorry burst into a bout of snickers. So much for salvaging his dignity.

The initial check over was satisfactory. Rene had taken most of the necessary readings during the process and found the results satisfactory. Original genetic code had reasserted itself, all results dictating that no dormant reactions were lingering in his gut, all of the organs were well formed and in the right place “more or less” and chances of a potential relapse were, as he put it “Relatively slim”. Eckelson had is own checklist to run through. Wings; intact and flexible. Hearing; clear and sharp again for the first time in what felt like forever. Voice, speaking wise, as raspy as ever, but his call was as clear and audible as he could remember. Height;...unchanged. Still short on the galactic species list, still tall for a Kyroptian. Other areas where length was factor? Satisfactorily similar. He breathed a small sigh of relief.
After the medical once over was done, Eckelson was left to himself to change. Kwillit stood naked in the small restroom, looking himself over in the mirror. Two ears. Two legs, no extra bits as far as he could see.  He drew a hand up to one of his large, pointed ears, relishing in the delicate sensitivity of it between his fingers that he had gone for too long without. He paused as he pinched near the base. His earring was gone. He supposed that he had eaten it along with the rest of his equipment during the transformation, but he couldn't seem to kind the piercing hole...
He resumed his scan. Six pretty fingers on each hand, attached to two arms. Hair was a bit short, but that would grow. Two eyes, still that bright green that he figured made him look wildly dashing....but what lay between them threw him off. Eckelson's hand reached up, tracing at his face. His clear, unmarked face,
His scar had completely disappeared. In it's place was smooth unbroken skin and fur, like it had never been there at all. Kwillit idly recognized that his tattoos were gone as well. All of the ink he had accrued over his career, every piercing or mark. Everything he hadn't come out of the womb with was gone, wiped away. He was completely fresh.
Kwillit looked back up at himself with a hollow sense of loss. He had gotten that scar when he was just a kid. He'd grown up with it, adjusted to it, accepted it as part of his visage alongside his nose, eyes and mouth. Now, the more he looked at himself in the mirror, the more alien the face looking back at him seemed to be.

Eckelson dressed himself in the clothes that Rene laid aside for him, clearly scavenged from The Bad Penny's drawers. He gave the scientist a simple thank you, sensing that the stocky ermine had lost interest in his specimen and that he was just waiting for Eckelson to quickly complete his payment for services rendered. As Rene shuffled off, mumbling something about polymers, Eckelson stood alone in the small lounge area, back on his own two feet and tapping at his snout. He sighed at the feeling of smooth fur under his fingers, wondering what his next step was as one of the ship's drones cautiously hovered behind him. Rene had clearly been informed to Eckelson's line of work and had left him with a watchful escort to insure that nothing found it's way into his pockets on the way out the door.
Eckelson grunted, his mind shifting back to a material mindset. He had to repurchase most of his gear, reestablish contact with his clientele network after such a sustained absence and...
Then it was back into the life he supposed. Back into the shadows and silence that he thrived in. Is that what he had been so eager to return to?
Eckelson tapped at his snout again.
His feet had begun to move of his own accord, and he found himself on the way towards the shuttle bay. He quickened his pace and evolved into a jog. Maybe it was time to learn a new trick.
As he broke into a run, Eckelson hoped that Lorraine Siltwater hadn't left yet.