All Six could see was blackness and then an intense numbness all over his body. He tried to open his eyes and when he did he was met with a red-tinted sky, or at least he thought it was the sky, it was hard to tell through the visor. Six paused for a moment, he should've been dead, shouldn't he? He remembers setting off the device and it went off, then nothing. Could his mutant abilities allowed him to survive the blast? No, that couldn't be it his atoms would've been scattered to the winds. Then why was he still alive? Was he in heaven? All of these questions rattled in his head and he decided to get up to see where he was. It was at this point he found he was unable to. He tried to bring his hands to his neck to unclasp the helmet and remove it, but when he did so his appendages didn't feel right. He lifted a hand to his face and noticed that it wasn't there but it was replaced with what looked like a hoof similar to those found on brahmin and big-horners.

Six's breathing hitched for a moment as he was stunned. He brought his arm into his line of sight he looked it up and down and noticed that underneath his pip-boy and duster was a layer of brown fur. Six pushed himself up which was awkward due to his new limbs. He began an examination of the rest of his body noticing that his torso and legs had changed along with his arms, he also notices the change in his eyesight, and all of his clothing morphed with him to fit his new body. Once his quick examination was finished he fell flat on his back only to realize he still wore his pack which for some reason he didn't notice before. sitting himself up he removed it which he found difficult due to his lack of hands. Once removed he looked through it to find that everything he had when he activated the bomb was there and nothing looked too different. with a sigh of relief, he looked around and what he saw made him even more confused, he saw green grass and trees all around him. Now he was even more confused and had even more questions, like why the hell was he some kind of animal?

He tried unclasping his helmet again but couldn't due to him having hooves, that was until he could feel the clasps as if he still had fingers when they touched the underside of his hooves. Six noticed some kind of pads on the underside that flexed when he wanted them to, using this to his advantage he unclasped the helmet slowly and removed it. He inspected it and was once again shocked when he noticed the strange shape of it. The helmet had some weird snout shape where the mouthpiece is and the visor was enlarged, it also had some sort of ear encasing shaped like dog ears. Speaking of which he realized that now with it off he could feel something pinned against his head, reaching up with one hoof he felt around where the sensation was and to his surprise, he felt his ear. As he guessed his ear along with his entire head had changed. The helmet also had a hole in the center of the cap above the visor.

He laid there for a few minutes until he was ready to try and get up. He turned over on his stomach and pushed upwards using what was now his forelegs and had his back legs under him to get ready to stand. When he tried to stand on 2 legs he immediately fell back down, his ext attempt would stand on all fours. He did the same thing as before but instead of pushing up with his forelegs full force he slowly pushed up on all 4 legs and succeeding. He wobbled for a bit until getting his balance.

"How can Rex stand and walk like this?" Six thought to himself as he attempted to stay standing.

Now that he was up he looked around and turned his attention back to the dense forest full of green trees, he'd only seen things like this in pre-war pictures in Jacobstown! As he examined the forest he realized that towards the north, or at least he thought it was north, was a visible clearing. Six decided to head towards the opening but first, he needed to learn how to walk on all fours.

At first, when he tried he'd wobble and fall but after a while, he got used to it and was able to slowly walk. Before he went off he equipped his pack once more, reequipped his helmet, and slowly but steadily walked towards the clearing. Halfway into his trek into the trees he notices some ruffling in a nearby bush which made him pause, a small white thing hopped out of the foliage, it had a pink nose and had what he assumed was long white ears. Six had no idea what this thing was but it seemed to be friendly enough to not be attacking him. After what felt like hours of staring at each other, it simply hopped away. Six let out a breath he had no clue he was holding in and looked towards the direction it went to, then continued his path. As he got closer he noticed the forest got less dense and more sunlight came through the leaves of the trees.

Six was surprised at how easy it was to get out of this forest, he was sure that at some point he would've been pounced on by some mongrel. He was a few feet from being out of the forest he heard some rumbling in the ground, the earth below him shook, something about this felt oddly familiar. It was at this point his perception kicked in and realized that he might have not been the only thing to be transported by the blast as he remembers the two tunnelers that were attacking him.

Just a few seconds later just as he expected a tunneler unearthed itself and thanks to the shade from the trees wasn't blinded from the sun. Six backed away from the beast and quickly examined it, the tunneler looked very different from what he remembered. Instead of its usual humanoid figure, the thing had also turned into a creature similar to his own. Instead of fur, it had its scales and at the end of its hooves were claws similar to that of a yoa-gui. Its head was that of a lizard and its teeth sharper than Six's knives. The protruding spines on its shoulders and the back of his head glowed dimly with its eyes in the shaded forest. These details were the only ones he could take before he was immediately pounced on by the monster.

Six fell to the ground as the tunneler pinned him there trying to go for the neck. If it weren't for his biotic upgrades Six was sure he would have been dead already, his arms trying their best to hold the thing back. As the tunneler continues its attack Six realized that although his forelegs were busy his back legs could be used, he aimed his back legs and pushed upwards kicking it away. Six inched himself away from the threat, the tunneler quickly pounced once more but this time he rolled to the side. He quickly took off his pack and took out one of his weapons, the first one he touched was the one he took out.

His hoof touched his saturnite fist and as he took it out he realized that unlike his other weapons the power fist was transformed to fit his hoof. Not wanting to let his curiosity blind him from the threat he set aside his questions and equipped the weapon. The tunneler was fast approaching and six prepped his arm to punch and hopefully knock it out. The beast pounced and Six trusted his arm out and the fist launched its metal brick using the pneumatic ram mechanism within the weapon. As the weapon and beast connect, the tunneler was launched backward giving Six a chance to get himself standing and run. Six began to quicken the pace he was used to and almost fell multiple times, he could hear the footsteps and sometimes the falling of the thing, it seems as if it also wasn't used to having to run on hooves feet.

When Six got closer to the clearing where the trees didn't block the sun, the pouncing threat's aim was getting worse. Six increased his speed and launched into the opening only to find himself rolling down a hill, the tunneler on the other hand, was blinded as soon as it got to the forest's edge and retreated into the darkness. Six cursed all the way down until he stopped near a riverbed, he was exhausted, his vision began to blur. Six decided to let his body become unconscious since he knew his healing factor would heal him in due time. The last thing he saw was a pair of cyan hooves approach him before he went completely unconscious.

Author's Note

Howdy folks, I hope you've enjoyed these first two chapters of Courier Blues. I plan to get a new chapter out at least in a week but I might procrastinate on it, so if I do Id like to apologize beforehand.