Dero has it pretty good. A high-ranking office job, power, and the respect of his peers. His life takes a sudden change at the presence of some mysterious magic, though, and he begins to realize that things may never be the same.

This is technically connected to another series I'm writing that isn't so much based on Transformation. The other story takes place centuries after this, making this sort of a prequel. It only recently came to my attention that people really like transformation sort of things: Like, REALLY like them. I always thought they were written so long and detailed because it was relevant to picturing the character or something. I was going to cut this out of my other story entirely, until I realized that there was an entire, untapped audience of people who might enjoy it. So... well, enjoy :)

If anyone reads down in the description this far, I'm wondering is there a difference between "Transformation" and "TF"? They're listed as different categories when submitting the writing, but I thought TF was an abbreviation. I want it labeled correctly, of course.

Anyway...

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This is a prequel and you can find the original story here

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Through the window, the sun was shining. The air was fresh. Pleasant blue grass bowed with the wind around the sides of the building, many stories below.
Dero sighed and pushed back in his chair, putting his hind paws up on the desk. It was beautiful outside, and he was stuck in here.
There was a polite knock on his office door.
“Yes..?”
The door opened to reveal another dragon. In contrast to his gray scales, she was a light green color, her belly and wings pale. “’Morning, sir.”
He flexed his own pale wings behind him. Then he realized his hind paws were still on the desk, and quickly put them down, sitting up straight in his chair. He still hadn’t woken up for the day.
She hid a smile, but it was transparent to him. She was the Gemian species of dragon, radiating her emotions for all around her to feel. “I’m sorry to disturb you, Dero, but there’s an incident downstairs that requires your attention.”
He stared blankly. “Downstairs? What downstairs could possibly require my presence?”
She hovered in the doorway as she felt his confusion. “Well you see, someone broke the door to the copy room.”
Dero waited for her to go on.
“So, uh, we need someone to get it open.”
“Okay…?”
She averted her eyes. “The door is made of Eemian steel.”
Oh.
Satisfied with her message, she turned to go.
“Wait, Arrabelle. How is that my problem?” He leaned back in his chair. “There’s three other Darkals that work in this building.” Any Darkal dragon could use a bit of magic for that; he was the highest ranking, he had more important things to do. “Why don’t you get someone else?”
“No one else has shown up yet,” Arrabelle stammered. “Sorry. We just— I wouldn’t have bothered you, except that everyone needs the copy room right now.”
Dero sighed deeply. “…Fine.”
He followed her down the stairs rather than the elevator. The elevator was packed this time of morning with people going upwards, not down. The building slowly came alive as dragons filed in for work. He passed the Faerian species, the Eemian species, and more Gemians than he could ever count. No other Darkals right now, of course.
He supposed he was lucky that there were other Darkals working here at all. His species tended to be far and few between. It was nice to have at least a few acquaintances he could relate to.
“Here.” She exited the stairs onto a much lower floor, far closer to the ground than it was to his office. Neither of them were out of breath, being a Gemian and a Darkal, but Dero was feeling increasingly annoyed. Worse, he knew that she could feel it. And it wasn’t really her fault.
They finally stopped in front of a door. Two Faerians in maintenance uniforms were outside, one leaning his stocky, red-scaled body on the wall beside it, the other with his back and folded wings pressed to the opposite wall. They glanced at the Darkal with guilty expressions.
“We did our best, sir, but with Eemian steel, our tools don’t—”
The Darkal waved them away. “Just give me a second.” He put his paw on the doorknob, trying to sense the problem inside. After a moment, he said “The latch is bent. Someone must have slammed into the door too roughly.” Probably an Eemian with their massive strength and size. “Let me just…”
After several moments of small, magic manipulations, the latch was more or less straightened, and he pushed open the door.
“Get some better tools and fix that.”
The Faerians nodded shyly. “Yes sir.”
Dero turned and peered into the room. The air was stale, the window on the far side dirty. He frowned. “Do people even use this room?”
Arrabelle was peering in behind him. “We have a new office setting up on the same floor, so we really need this copy room. I don’t know when the latch broke, but now—”
Dero interrupted her by striding into the room and throwing open a window. He was hoping to disperse the stale air, but all it did was stir up dust, and he covered his snout. “Well, it’s fixed now. Anything else while I’m down here?”
She flattened her ears shyly. “I don’t think so, Dero. Thanks for—”
She was cut off as the floor suddenly buckled beneath them.
Dero stumbled. “What the fu—”
The building shook again, tiny cracks appearing in the walls and floor.
Arabelle was staring at the floor, eyes wide, radiating terror.
Dero coughed as it stirred up more dust. “What is that?”
She was speechless, unable to answer.
The building continued to quake, more intensely now.
“Arabelle, let’s get out of here.” He took her paw, but she didn’t move. He grabbed her shoulder and steered her towards the door. “Come on! Out!”
They nearly fell over as the trembling increased. He hooked her around the waist, practically dragging her, and they shakily launched themselves down the stairs a few at a time. There was no way they were going to deal with an elevator. They weren’t suicidal.
Outside, Dero looked up, expecting to see bright sunlight, maybe some dust from the building or ground stirred up to obscure it. What he saw instead, he couldn’t comprehend right now: The sun was black. Eclipsed.
“Dero, I…” Arrabelle suddenly buckled over.
He was afraid maybe she’d breathed in too much dust. “We have to get farther into the open!” He tried pulling her along, but she was barely moving her legs, too rigid, probably with fear. He was drowning in his own fear and couldn’t tell. This wasn’t at all how he’d been expecting his morning to go.
There was a field of blue grass a ways out from the tall, modern office building. Arrabelle suddenly collapsed, gravity pulling her out of his arms. She hit the ground face-down.
He paused to help her, but realized the air was filling with mist. Not dust, but mist. It was incredibly faint, almost hard to see amidst the dust, but he realized that everything looked like a very thin, very translucent veil had descended around them.
He saw Arrabelle lying on the ground. He reached out for her.
Suddenly, a rippling pain traveled through his back.
Crack.
He dropped to his knees and a hoarse cry of pain was forced out, uncharacteristic of him. It hurt so fucking much.
He was suddenly pushed forwards by the force of his own body, catching himself as he fell with his hands in the blue grass, while it felt like his spine was breaking apart. It pushed upwards, arching, his muscles stretching. He wanted to scream again but couldn’t; he was breathless.
There was another crackling noise as his spine suddenly straightened, pushing him off his knees so his hind paws were against the ground, putting him now on all fours. He couldn’t stand up, though, the pain in his back transferring to his hind legs and feet. Something between a whine and a scream escaped his throat as the bones in his paws popped. He managed to move his head downwards to see something peculiar; the bones were elongating. His toes were stretching farther from his ankles. What is happening to me—
The thought was cut off as his shoulders buckled, almost dropping him face-first to the ground. His arms stretched out ahead of him as the shoulders readjusted their position, the pain next traveling up to his wings. Suddenly, their entire surfaces felt prickly, and then began to burn.
As the pain focused there, he drew his forelegs back under his chest, his fists balled up, his head down over them and breathing hard, little whimpers clawing their way out of his mouth.
His wings burning harder, he felt the urge to stretch them, rather than drawing them in tightly and defensively. The burning intensified and he growled. As he pulled back his lips and bared his teeth, he realized something was in the way of closing them again. He slapped a paw to his face, still sore in his shoulder, to feel a fang coming out on either side that his lips couldn’t slide over. What the fuck.
Suddenly, everything stopped. Everything. Stopped.
All of the tension left his body, his muscles giving up, and he flopped weakly the rest of the way to the ground. He was sore, everything hurt, but he had a startling moment of clarity that the ground had also stopped shaking. The sun wasn’t quite back out; there was still a weird mist in the air, now making the atmosphere thick and hazy. Everything looked slightly muted, but only if he took the time to notice. There weren’t any smells out of place. The haze was a barely-there white that could almost be missed, although it had grown a bit of a pink tinge.
Gathering what little resolve he could muster, he weakly lifted his head to look around.
The office building was a fucking mess, and the view of the city extending behind it even more so. He suddenly remembered that he hadn’t come out here alone. He looked over to where Arrabelle had fallen in the grass, but had to move his wing to see behind—
He was jolted by the sight of a massive wing covered not in the fine fur of a dragon’s wing, but covered instead with almost metallic-looking reddish feathers. He tried to scramble away from it, only to realize… he was it. It was his wing.
He slowly pushed himself up, moving his wings gingerly, staring at it and wondering if it was real. He reached out to touch it, caressing his own wing softly. The feathers still looked metallic up close, although they were actually lightweight and soft to touch. He bent one a little, seeing the edges razor sharp, although there was no resistance to the bend and it retook its shape perfectly as he let go.
What. The. Fuck.
Dero remembered that he was looking for Arrabelle. He clawed his way up from his knees, almost losing his balance for a second as he swayed on his newly elongated feet. His black claws came farther out of their sheaths, planting into the soft dirt. He looked at his forepaws; they, fortunately, seemed about the same, although he noticed his claws bigger there, too.
Glancing around him on all sides, it became apparent that Arrabelle was simply no longer here. He stumbled forwards, almost feeling like he needed to re-learn how to walk, wishing there was something in the flat field for him to lean on. He kept his wings outstretched, not trusting the huge folds of razor-sharp feathers to lie against his back, as he made his way back to the building.
Built with more modern technology than most of the inner city, the office building being on the outskirts, it was actually still intact despite cracking and crumbled in some places. He could see through the shattered windows that the power was off inside. Very slowly, he was eventually able to grip the side of the entrance—well, what was left of it. The sliding glass door had burst, littering the ground with shards. He hoped none of the slivers were small enough to get past the scales on his feet.
Entering, he finally saw other dragons around; several Faerians were flopped on the floor. One of them was groaning. He didn’t bother to look at them as he passed, making his way directly to the stairwell so that he could finally collapse over the railing. He clung to it for dear life, finally having something to support his body against, catching his breath.
Well. Time to climb.
It took an excruciatingly long time pulling himself up the stairs, much more slowly than the last bazzilion times he’d done it as a normal Darkal. He needed to figure out what was wrong with him. Find a healer. Something.
He didn’t see a single other dragon on the stairs on his way up. He figured that if he could get to his office, Arrabelle may have returned there, as well as be able to make some calls. He thought bitterly to himself that he could sure use a few fucking answers right now. The power of his frustration propelled him forward where his bodily strength began to fail.
Flinging himself out of the stairwell, he was once again forced to catch himself on his forepaws so he didn’t face-plant on the floor. His claws skittered a little on the tiles. He glanced up to still see draconic bodies around him, a few finally propping themselves up, curled or stretching in pain. He pushed himself back up, afraid that if he stopped now, he might end up joining them. Everything hurt. It would be so easy to give up right here.
He kept going, passing wrecked walls, navigating wrecked floors, and pausing frequently to lean on chairs and desks to get used to his own feet. He didn’t pay much mind to the scant amount of dragons still occupying the floor, not quite understanding what he saw. He realized only one thing; there wasn’t a single Gemian among them. It was as if they’d all fled at once, disappearing completely as the building and ground crumbled. No wonder all the floors seemed so empty. He was beginning to fear he wouldn’t find his assistant here.
Finally, panting with exertion for the first time in a long time, he burst into his office. He saw that someone was already there, but it wasn’t Arrabelle.
A tall dragon was turned away from him. Dero was immediately greeted by a huge pair of wings, the same exact texture and color as his own. Light glinted off the metallic-looking feathers as the dragon turned around to face him. Dero caught a glimpse of the dragon’s sharp shoulders, the dragon’s unusually thick and long black claws, and the fangs escaping either side of his mouth; Dero couldn’t help himself. He stumbled backwards as a short scream escaped his maw.
Perhaps more surprisingly, a short shout of surprise also escaped the dragon in front of his desk. He stumbled back, his hip banging hard on the corner as he caught himself, accidentally knocking a stack of papers Dero had been meaning to get to onto the floor.
Dero clung to the doorway a moment before he suddenly realized, “Dirvi..?”
The other Darkal was breathing hard, but his eyes finally widened with recognition as well. “Dero?”
Dero looked him up and down. “What happened to you?”
Dirvi was staring at him in horror. “I could ask you the same thing.”
It finally dawned on him as his heart dropped to his stomach; that’s what he looked like, too. It had happened to both of them.
Dirvi was looking a bit pale in the face. “Oh my Vaugh…”
“What happened?” Dero interrupted. “Does anyone know yet?”
Dirvi shook his head. “I showed up to work today, and everything was normal. But as I was going up the stairs, everything just…”
He didn’t have to finish. Dero nodded. “I ran outside with Arrabelle, but I can’t find her anywhere now.” He stared at his desk behind Dirvi, and took a step towards it, lurching as he struggling to find his balance again. “That’s it, I’m making a call to the emergency line. I don’t know how many dragons are hurt in here, but we clearly need a bit of help. And I need to know what happened. Now.”
Dirvi moved aside, but was already shaking his head. “I tried that. But there’s no signal, it’s as if all the satellites just suddenly stopped working at once.”
Dero paused. “What? How? They’re all around the fucking planet.”
Dirvi fidgeted nervously. “I don’t know.”
“Well, fortunately, I keep a little something for backup.” Dero reached into his desk and withdrew something that he hadn’t used in quite a while.
“Is that a walkie?” Dirvi scoffed. “What are you, like a million years old?”
“Shut up, it might be saving our lives right now. You should be grateful I’ve hung onto it.”
Fortunately, the thing was still alive, lighting up and hissing with static as Dero searched for a station. It was a while before he settled on a station that seemed to be active. He wasn’t sure that there would even be signals nearby, the technology pushed out of the way by newer technology over the centuries, but had been hoping against all odds that emergency personnel may have kept one open. For emergencies like this.
“Hello?” said Dero, hoping that someone might be there to help him. He waited nervously, wondering if his voice would even cut through the static buzz. This thing was old as hell.
Finally, blessed by luck, a voice answered back. “Hello? Did someone say something?”
“Yeah,” Dero growled back. He leaned forward over the desk, one paw pressed into it as he supported himself. “I need a bit of help over here.” He took his thumb off the button to listen for a response.
“We’re a bit busy…” There was a moment of crackling. “Okay. What do you need?”
Dero clenched the walkie more tightly with his mounting anger at the whole situation, and demanded, “Well for one thing, a couple of answers.”
He glanced out his office window, where the pleasant light and fresh air of morning had been replaced by a half-covered sun and swirling fog.
He leaned into the walkie and growled, “What the fuck just happened to Glitara?”