Here's something I wound up starting work on the Spacebattles forum under the username I have there. I had noted that a majority of stories in this pair of categories that utilize the Courier tend to have him be on the younger side of things, relatively. I decided to make one that instead went a different route, and make use of a Courier past the prime of things. Going to post all I have up on there, so this first set of updates will come out faster and may wind up being a bit longer than otherwise would happen.

The Courier awoke slowly from a deep sleep. Years ago, he would have been working in one of the Big Mountain laboratories for several hours, working on a new design or experiment with the brains. Now, the ancient force of time had worn him down, as it did to all things in existence. In a few years, all that would be left of the individual who shaped the entirety of the Mojave would be a brain preserved with the others in the ageing complex. Whether it would be the mechanical version or the organic was of little concern to the Courier. He had stopped caring a long time ago.

The Courier rose from the bed, wounds gathered from his long travels sending spikes of pain throughout his form. The acquisition of most were forgotten to the depths of time, save for a few. The locations where his hands were staked through by the Legion during a botched raid into their lands that ended with him crucified until a few rangers rescued him. The damage dealt to his torso that was dealt to him when he faced Rawr in one of his explorations of the divide and after he was hit by a chaingun. The chunk taken out of his left forearm by a tunneller from that same trip. The twin gunshot wounds on his forehead that had been with him since the beginning of his journey. None had killed him, with potential exception to the final, but they were certainly making the end of his life hell.

Heading over to the Auto-Doc, the Courier had the machine analyse his body again. It had long become habit and he didn't care enough to break it. The analysis came back as it always did, with the determination that he would be extremely lucky if he lived for five years. Even that number was considered questionable with the extent of the chems he had taken, the remnants of the poisons he had been inflicted with, and the radiation he had waded through. While he could potentially get one more year if his organs were replaced en-mass, he did not think that one year was worth it. He had lived a nice long life, and his mind would continue on afterwards. Might as well die with relative grace.

The Courier walked over to where his gear was. He had been given the request of clearing out a lab by the brains and to utilize an early prototype of the Transportalponder within. From what he had been told, a probe that had been sent out by a specific one had returned through emergency functions with some strange damage. As he was the only one who was mobile and had a high level of skill, they wanted him to go through it to determine where it went. As he tended to do with requests, he agreed and was equipping himself for going in. He had spent the prior night restoring everything to their maximum condition, and as such, the weapons would not break for a long period of time.

He dressed himself in the Elite Riot Gear that had saved his life on several occasions. He holstered the Sequia earned from his twenty-seven years of NCR ranger service on his right side and the Maria he had taken from Benny's corpse on his left. While they weren't the most powerful pistols he owned, both were the most dependable weapons he had used over the course of his travels. His Blade of the West, given the name not from the Marked Men of the divide, but instead for being the blade he had duel Caesar Lanius when the new Caesar had returned, was sheathed on his back, crossed over with the YCS/186. He lined the inside of his coat with ammunition, several throwing knives, and pocketed the Figaro. On his right arm, he equipped the Ballistic Fist, modified to allow him to be able to hold and use a gun with it equipped, and added he Pipboy 3000, Dr. Klein's Glove underneath, to left arm. The Courier finished by throwing an old Duffel bag over his shoulder, in line with the Blade of the East, that contained a few weeks worth of food supplies, a couple unmarked bars of gold for sale wherever he ended up, and a copy of the Emergency Transportalponder that was equipped to the probe. It would prevent him from using the YCS/186, but he could work without it and he would likely need those supplies.

After updating his Pipboy to have a list of everything he was carrying, the Courier exited the Sink and headed off to the Lab. When he had arrived, he drew his Sequoia as he entered the building. Heading down through the facility, he encountered a couple of Bloatflies, which he killed with Maria, and a couple Cazadores, which went down fast from Sequoia shots. Eventually, he reached the area where the specific Prototype Transportalponder he was looking for was located. Rather than the handheld variant that was usually utilized, this early variant was a large circular platform to stand upon that had a mechanism similar to the later Transportalponder facing down towards the platform. The Courier headed to the panel near the device and went through the procedures utilized to send off the probe, copying what was done from the video footage he had seen the prior night. Walking onto the platform, he waited until the device went off. After a couple seconds, the device activated, taking the Courier to the landing point of the Probe.

The first impression of the location the Courier had arrived in was one of darkness. It appeared that the location the probe was transported to was a few timezones to the east from Big MT. Activating the lamp in his helmet, the Courier noticed that he was within a forest with some strangely red coloured trees. He attempted to check his location on the Pipboy, but that proved to be unsuccessful, as it could not establish contact with the RobCo satellites. Deactivating the light and letting his eyes adjust, the Courier wandered around for a short time, before coming across an extremely shallow cave. It was more of an overhang than anything, but it would do for his purposes. Setting his equipment down, the Courier looked up towards the sky to attempt to get an idea of which hemisphere he had ended up within. That thought was rendered moot when he took notice of the moon.

'Three options. Someone was able to pull together a massive amount of resources to perform a strange task, the prototype sent me extremely far forwards in time, or the prototype could do more than could have ever been expected and has sent me to another world,' the Courier thought as he looked upon the shattered moon.