The Not So Deadly Deathclaw

When Richard awoke, he knew only darkness.

He could see nothing but pitch black for as far as the eye could see, or not in his case. When he tried to rub at his eyes, he found that he couldn't move either of his arms, in fact he couldn't even feel them despite knowing that he should definitely be able to move them right about now!...noooow...now?

Nope, nothing , the man thought

Well then, maybe the legs?

Nothing...either, the hell?

Still seeing and feeling absolutely nothing, Richard began to slowly lose his cool as his heart began to beat faster and-

wait...why can't I feel my heart beating. And my voice? I-I can't talk! ...Oh this is just complete bull-!

With his latest discoveries having been made, the man had decided (with all the careful and collective consideration of a mature adult) to throw reason and maturity into the void and dive straight into a bitch fit. And what a bitching bitch fit it was. He yelled, cursed and thrashed about in the blackness of empty space with the ferocity of a dozen toddlers and a swearing capacity that would make even the saltiest of sailors cringe. And despite not having literally anything to thrash about with, he was sure that at the very least the mental image of himself going completely bat-shit ballistic brought some semblance of peace to his pissed off soul. Yes, it seemed that after realizing just how fucked the situation he found himself in was, Richard would most likely remain in his state of silent destruction for all eternity, till his soul cracked in two and the last cells of his physically-nonexistent brain were burned away by the scorching heat which radiated from the nuclear-fueled fire that was his internal bitch boy set loose.

It was, for lacking of a better term, sad that all this lasted for about thirty seconds.

After having expended all his mental energy and reducing the tire fire of his emotions to that of a few grumbling embers, Richard resigned himself to simply floating, or at least he thought was floating, through the void that surrounded him in complete silence. It was in this quiet state of quietness that Richard soon found himself reflecting on all that had happened up until now. He thought back on his life and the many things that came from it. He remembered his first day of High School and the day he graduated from it,. He remembered the day he was accepted into his chosen college, the four years of endless work and house parties followed by graduation. He remembered when he was accepted into one of the biggest weapon manufacturing plants in the country and the years of office work he had to do before he was able to rise to the easy-living position he had managed to snag before the world back-flipped right back into the stone age. Even thinking back to the day he purchased Diablo from the pet store left a aching pain in Richards chest, despite lacking one at the moment.

So, this is how it's going to be, Richard thought, left alone in a void, with nothing to do but relive old memories, until I either go crazy or my consciousness fades into absolute oblivion.

...

...

Fuck.

It was at that moment that Richard suddenly felt the cold embrace of reality envelope him as he came to the chilling conclusion that yes, this was what the afterlife was really like, and yes, he was probably going to remain in this void until at some point he just stopped existing, and yes, things just couldn't get. Any. More. Worse.

...

Huh, really, nothing?

...

Damn, well at least I tried. Now, what should I do for-

Suddenly, there came a burst of light that was so sudden and unexpected, it made Richard mentally jump before falling on his physically-nonexistent ass. While wishing he should have just kept his mind's big mouth shut, the light meanwhile was seemingly trying its damnedest to impersonate the sun with just how damn bright it was. If he didn't know any better, Richard also could have sworn the lighthouse bulb he was staring at was blinking, flaring brighter (if that was even possible ) for a second before returning to its normal yet barely tolerable level of blindingness, almost as if it were calling to him.

Hmm, so my choices are to either die in this void, or go towards the bright ass light...you know what, Fuck it, I'll take my chances with the overcompensating spotlight. Besides, what's the worst that could happen, I die?

Resolving himself to what was likely the best (and only) option to go out on his own terms, Richard floated towards the light like a moth drawn to a flame. And for what was the second time that day, that Richard found himself once again enveloped by another blinding light.

When Richard awoke once again, he felt like shit.

And not like your average 'damn, what did I do last night?' kinda feeling-like-shit feeling, but more along the lines of 'how am I even functioning?' kinda feeling. It was the kind of feeling where upon waking up, literally everything in the body had to be rebooted, senses in all (just to make sure that you were actually alive and all that).

What first came back to Richard was his sense of hearing, which consisted of hearing an insufferable ringing noise that lasted for a full minute before slowly dying to complete silence, only to be replaced by the faint beating of his heart, followed by several other noises that he couldn't immediately identify, or just didn't care to register right now.

The next sense to return to Richard was his sense of feeling, and oh was he feeling something alright. Besides a heavy sourness that seemed to envelope his entire body, Richard also felt the cold and very solid floor of whatever he was currently sprawled across.

Then came his senses of smell and taste, which for as far as he could tell, weren't picking up anything too interesting smell-wise, but damn was he hankering for a drink.

And now finally, the sense he was saving last.

After Richard had taken a few moments to ready himself, along with a few deep breaths that seemed a bit deeper than expected, he slowly, ever so painfully slowly, opened his eyes to...to...more darkness?

Blinking a few times, Richard looked around to find only darkness greeted him in all directions. well great.

'Well great' Richard thought, 'and here I thought things were going to be looking up for me. Couldn't I have been dropped anywhere but in the fucking ground?'

After looking around once more, Richard couldn't help but sigh (rather heavily in fact) at his current situation, but rather than start up the bitching earlier than expected, he opted to instead actually do something about it. That something meant that he had to first get off the floor.

'Well, here goes nothing'

Fighting through the soreness, Richard tried to move what he thought were his arms under himself before in one motion pushing himself up and immediately regretting it. Yup, ceiling to the back of the head was not what Richard was hoping for.

'Ow, fuck!' Richard inwardly, and surprisingly outwardly growled as a hand instantly went to massage the area of contact. Once He was kinda sure the pain was sorta gone, most likely mixing with the just bearable soreness that still racked his body, Richard decided to switch gears and resorted to the tried and true method of "feeling around in the dark like a blind dumbass." Suffice to say, this method actually worked wonders for Richard since he wasn't bumping into shit and was actually making progress by going...somewhere. Well the bottom line was that he wasn't constantly bumping into shit and in Richard's book, going somewhere was definitely better than going nowhere.

Going somewhere ended up being a slow, blind shuffle through a long and winding tunnel, most likely deep underground if the noise of shifting earth and his luck had anything else to say, and it felt like several minutes of going somewhere went by before the soreness of Richard's body finally dulled to that of a few aches here and there, though wherever here or there was had yet to be determined as his mind was fixed on more pressing issues. For example, once Richard had stopped feeling only pain, he began feeling other things. Somewhere along his journey through the unknown, he had began hearing a noise, like someone was dragging something heavy. That didn't seem right. Then after shuffling in the dark some more, he found that the dragging stopped when he did and started up when he pressed on. That was not alright. Turning around Richard couldn't really see anything and again had to rely on feeling around for anything that may have been the cause, yet as soon as he spun around to check, he banged something along the tunnel's walls and man did it sting, and also thud apparently. Feeling around for it, he was then awarded with feeling a long something that as he followed it along, ended at what was essentially his back. It took him only a few seconds to put two and two together.

'...I have a tail.'

...

Suddenly, Richard all but threw himself to the floor as he began to vigorously touch himself all over, and after checking his entire body, he had made several more startling discoveries.

He found that he had a number of spikes, maybe two dozen or so of varying sizes and curves (?), that where located throughout his body, from small ones that ran along his tail or seemingly sprouted from his arms and legs and up his lower back to a cluster of larger ones that dotted the upper half.

'So that explains the occasion scratching.'

He also found that his hands had been switched with claws.

'Or I just have really long fingernails?'

And his ten little toesies had been reduced to six claws, three on each foot with one on each side even raised up where the big toe would've been.

'Raptor feet...honestly that's actually kind neat.'

Also a mouth full of razor sharp teeth and a pair of curved horns too.

'Hmm, not sure now I feel about either of those.'

Well, considering all the evidence currently present but yet to actually be physically seen by Richard, there was only one logical conclusion to be drawn from all of this.

'Not only was a dropped into the deepest pitch black pit in Hell, but I was also turned into some sort of demonic hellspawn as an added bonus to my eternal suffering.'

...

'Or i'm just going insane from lack of oxygen and or dehydration.'
...

'Man I really want to drink something.'

On that final thought, Richard continued shuffling down the tunnel, tail now raised and hunchback mode in full effect as he pressed forward. It couldn't have been less than two minutes before Richard found himself groping at a wall which impeded any further progress he'd make going forward.

'Son of a bitch.'

With a another heavy sigh, Richard began feeling up and down the walls until he managed to find a breach in the wall to his left, one which (if his monster hands were feeling up correctly) was just big enough to accommodate his abnormal bodily features (by which he was referring to the huge ass spikes on his back), but only if he could move the rest of the way on all fours.

'I swear, this damn hobbit hole better be leading me somewhere good,' Richard mentally grumbled. Falling down to his knees, Richard began the slow process of moving through the smaller tunnel doggy-style (not that kinda doggy-style). Moving forward on all fours was at first bizarre and degrading for Richard, being the bipedal boss he once was. Yet, as he continued, he found it even more bizarre that this way of getting around, at least for now, actually felt somewhat natural to him, though the reason why that made sense had yet to be determined. After dogging it for what may have been an odd amount of minutes, Richard could finally see a light at the end of the tunnel, well it was more of a faint bluish glow, but damn it all if seeing something after potentially hours of seeing nothing didn't set the light-starved man into a full on gallop.

'Finally, something!' Richard thought joyfully. With a burst of sudden energy, he shot out the dark and cramped tunnel and into...an open and less darker cave.

'Sigh...well, fuck it, at least I can actually see now.'

And did he ever. Richard found himself in what looked to be a large underground spring, complete with a large open space, numerous rocks of varying sizes scattered about, pockets of subterranean vegetation like fungus and actual glowing mushrooms, and at the center of it all, a large pool of sparkling water just begging to be slurped up.

'Water!'

Still on all fours, Richard made a beeline to the water's edge, where upon arrival to his own fountain of refreshment, promptly dunked his head into its cool, watery depths. A solid thirty seconds of ungodly shlurping and lapping noises followed before Richard decided to come up for a gasping breath. A pleasant sigh escaped Richard as his thirst was finally quenched. Wish of not drowning himself but also not dying again from dehydration fulfilled, Richard now set his sights on the water's surface, watching the ripples dance across it until they began to clear, returning the pools's surface to a near perfect mirrored clearness. A mirror which allowed Richard to, for the first time since waking up, finally see himself. Himself. Itself.

...Holy-

'AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!'

"ROOOOOOOOARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!"

A clawed hand suddenly slap-covered a toothy maw as the echo of a deafening roar shook the cave to its rocky roots, sending small bits of the ceiling to come crashing down or splashing into the pool below it. Even as the ghost roar faded and the cave settled, several long minutes of utter silence went unopposed as a now slightly trembling clawed hand remained over a definitely quivering toothy maw. After those several silent minutes were up, the claws reseeded and the maw was now posed over the reflective pool.

At that moment, Richard should have been staring at what was definitely, undeniably, without a doubt, his own reflection. The very same reflection that he woke up to every day, what he saw every day whenever he got up, went to the bathroom, or just before he was heading off to bed. The reflection that he grew up with and, up until recently, should have died with.
What he was now seeing was NOT the reflection of the grown ass gamer business man that he was, but of a...of a...

"Rawrar?" ("A deathclaw?")

Blinking, Richard watched (and heard) the reflection of a genuine meat-shredding, claw-swiping, dinosaur-roaring, no-fucks-giving, absolute-beast-always-looking-for-a-feast, deathclaw say (or at least tried to say) what he had just said.

"Roa." ("Whoa.")

After several hours worth of breathing exercises, light napping and just a small (not really) amount of glowing mushrooms (which tasted kinda like blueberries) consumed, Richard was now relaxed enough to fully appraise his demonic features without further bat-shit-crazing. Leaning over the pool, fear and anxiety was replaced with renewed interest and curiosity as he took in everything he could, even doing a few spins for good measure. From twisting his entire body in order to admire the shark-fin looking spikes that jutted from his back, to running a claw along the scales and heavy looking plates that made up his brown crocodile-like hide. Even a lightly swishing tail wasn't left unchecked as Richard unconsciously wagged it along the pool's edge. He then got down low to better examine his face, figuring right off the bat that he wouldn't be winning any 'good looks' contests anytime soon.

He looked into the pool to see a solid yellow eye staring back. A pair of curved horns that were honestly more akin to a pair of high top heels that had been glued to his head were also of considerable interest to Richard as he idly traced a single claw along one horn's curve. Opening his mouth just slightly also threw him for a bit of loop as two dozen or so jagged, razor sharp teeth practically shined back at him, though closing his mouth wasn't any less calming as he had no skin or scales to cover the organic blades, leaving them exposed for the world to shiver at.

Funny enough, when he looked at his reflection again, Richard had noticed that a pair of his lower teeth were parted below a pair of smaller, flatter teeth, just enough to actually create a noticeable gap in the front of his mouth, just below his nose. But just when he was about to trace the opening with a claw, he instead jerked his head back when a long forked snake tongue slithered through the gap to greet him. Blinking, he left his tongue hanging and was for whatever reason reminded of a dog, or even a bit more close to home, Little Diablo when he was on one of his particular warpaths.

'Damn, sure wish the little guy was here with me, two badass lizards versus the world, we would've been unstoppable.'

Looking around, Richard had spotted what looked to be a larger tunnel on the other end of the pool, one which he hoped would lead him outta here.

'Whatever, I'm sure the little guy's fine, probably raising hell in Lizard Hell or something...heh, yeah right.'

And with that little scene playing out in his head, Richard exited the cave and braved the darkness once again. Despite feeling a bit down after leaving the comfort of the glowing mushrooms, Richard was given a sudden surprise when the absolute darkness that he was sure he'd be stumbling through for whoever knows how long actually began to lighten up, allowing him the ability to at least see a few feet in front of himself.

'Huh, maybe it was something in those mushrooms?'

Whether due to mushroom magic or an abundant amount of time spent wandering through the dark, Richard was grateful nonetheless as he pressed forward and not long after leaving the cave did he spot the bright glow of actual sunlight, which grew brighter as he continued forward, now motivated by the prospect of finally getting out of the ground. With one last burst of speed, Richard exited the cave and after a brief moment of rubbing at his eyes, opened them to a truly shocking sight. Standing at the edge of a cliff, there was a sloped drop twenty feet below where a great forest stretched almost endlessly for as far as Richard could see. Above him, a blue sky with fuzzy white clouds greeted him just the same.

'Whadoya know, and here I thought I was actually in Hell,' Richard thought while taking in a deep breath of air that was surprisingly lacking in the lung-poisoning department. 'No lava lakes or pits of the screaming damned, no shiny golden gates, and not even a hint of air pollution too...just where the not hell did I end up?'

With claws on his hips, Richard took in another breath of air, surveying the sea of green before him. This was it after all, a fresh start, a new life to be lived...as a deathclaw.

'Oh this is going to be good,' Richard thought, and on that note, he decided to start off his new life with a literal roaring proclamation that sent birds and various other woodland creatures scattering.

"Look out World, cause your newest Apex predator has just arrived!"

It was about midday when warm sunlight pierced through the large stained-glass windows of Canterlot Castle. Oddly enough, it was in the royal dining hall where the warm rays of the sun seemed to shine just a bit brighter and the atmosphere just a bit more livelier. Yes, it was in this dining hall, which was quite possibly one of the most, if not the most important room in the castle. The reason for its importance? Why it was the very room where one of the two co-rulers of Equestria frequented the most, and it was at this particular time that Princess Celestia, ruler, teacher, and divine equine embodiment of the very sun itself, sat leisurely at the end of a long dining table, finishing the last bits of her salad before a maid pony collected the empty plate and proceeded to the nearby kitchen. After a sip of tea brewed to near perfection, the white alicorn sighed with great satisfaction.

"My, that salad was truly wondrous," Celestia mused, "and now, to complete this delightful little lunch."

And with that, a golden glow encompassed the alicorn's horn and not a second later was a there a soft pop before a slice of banana-flavored cake, previously pilfered from the royal cake reserves and placed upon a plate bearing the cutie-mark of the Princess of sweets (oh and also the sun too), was now set before its respective end-bringer. Yet strangely enough, just as Princess Celestia was about to partake in her delectable desert, she suddenly stopped, blinked, and to everypony present's utter shock, actually pushed the plate away from herself. There was even an look of hesitation that set upon the princess's features, which in itself was an extremely rare sight to see come from the ever-always calm and collected princess, before she popped the cake away. And if there ever was a more shocking or unnerving thing to ever hear come from Princess Celestia in all of Equestrian history, it had to most certainly be what she said shortly after banishing away her beloved cake.

"How strange, I...suddenly lost my appetite."