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The Australian Outback is one of the most interesting, if one of the most secluded areas, on the planet. It is full of different biomes, ranging from a desert to a wooded forested area to simple plains. In the Australian Outback, many creatures live in secretive spots, away from the eyes of humans and their technological society. Some of these creatures, like the koala and the kangaroo, are well-known, but their own little circles of society are not very well documented in the wild.

Chester was reading about the koala bears in his tourist guide when he got separated from the group. That tended to happen to Chester whenever he'd read anything with such deep interest. He was very aware of his tendency to lose track while reading, and in this particular case, he had found himself way off track from the tour guide or his group's path. Now, he was deep in the forest in some armpit of the Outback, wondering when he'd stumble out of the trees into the more picturesque, reddish surroundings of Uluru and capture its stunning sunset. So far, however, luck was not on his side.

Silently, he cursed to himself about his ability to be distracted. Chester had a thing for biology and especially foreign biology. Being from the United States, Chester had never been to Australia, let alone the southern perimeter of the Outback, and as such, all the creatures there were unfamiliar and intriguing to him. He swore again, already getting off-topic with his escape from these woods.

Overhead, the world was beginning to enter its final stages of daylight, and the brilliant golden sunlight overhead already had turned the eucalyptus trees a rather strange greenish color. They seemed to glow, abnormally and brilliantly, in the late day light, and Chester wondered if he would find a road or something to save him before nightfall.

It was then he began to realize that he was not hearing any noises in the woods. He'd been too deep in his reading before to notice that the deeper into the forest he went, the quieter it became, but he certainly noticed it now. The wind didn't rustle the leaves, the birds did not sing their exotic songs, and the other, larger animals, did not call to him. Chester was honestly getting worried.

When he stopped to tie his shoes, he heard something that definitely was not his own movements. Chester poked his head up and looked around, hoping to hear the sound again. His head snapped to his left as he heard the sound again, closer, and he readied himself with fear taking over as he thought perhaps it was a predator. After all, the Australian continent had the largest number of poisonous and deadly animals anywhere on the planet. Anything and everything could kill you if it had the chance.

To his surprise, it was a koala. This koala was gigantic in shape, with its head damn near scraping the lower leaves of some of the branches of trees far above Chester's own height. Its robust size was strikingly abnormal as well, indicating the leader of the pack, an Alpha Wolf if Chester was to simplify it to a different species description, and yet strangely it looked inviting. The strangest thing, aside from its gigantic size, was the fact that it had deep, fiery orange eyes. It appeared to just stare at Chester.

He stood up and looked around, trying to find a way out of the woods then. His purpose had been renewed and his fear also began to push him to find a new way out of the forest before something bad could happen. Sounds filled the forest in increasing numbers, and Chester realized that his position was being surrounded by more animals, potentially koalas, but also possibly something else. As he looked around, Chester saw an increase in the koala population.

Strangely, the population was made up of an interesting mix of the species. Many looked to be normal koalas, but some, like the first one he'd seen, were gigantic, strangely colored, and some appeared to have markings beyond comprehension, almost like tattoos or other tribal markings. It unnerved Chester to no end, causing him to try to find his way out of the woods as he turned and began to run.

The moment he smacked into a large tree, however, Chester was sent sprawling to the ground and his vision blurred as he ran out of breath in his chest. For a long minute or two, he laid on the ground, unaware of his surroundings or his own place on the ground. He let out a gasp of pain as his head suddenly gained the welt from the impact, and he writhed on the ground, wishing he had some sort of way of relieving that pain.

Fumbling in the darkness, Chester felt around, looking for anything that he could find to make his escape once again, but his body was unable to fully function with the pain in his head and the wind out of his sails. Finally, Chester began to become aware of a soft spot in the dirt, a mound of some sort, and he crawled up onto it, feeling instantly tired and out of energy from the running and a bonk on the head. His senses dulled, he could only feel the soft warmth of the dirt mound, still resonating from the heat of the hot Outback day.

He rested his head on part of the mound and to surprising results, it felt like a comforting pillow. Heat was helping his head to feel better, but it was making him tired as well. He turned in for the evening on the spot, unaware of his pursuers no longer hot on his trail and unaware that his warm mound of a bed was sentient.

The sentient mound waited until Chester was asleep before making any sudden movements. It let out a dumb noise, laughter of the deepest sort, and slowly slid Chester down, down, down into an opening in the mound, a pouch reserved for marsupials. Pouches were one of the key differences in marsupials versus other mammals, and indeed, marsupials were hardly qualified as mammals because of the pouch and other differences. This particular pouch was huge, more than large enough to hold Chester within it and still have room for him to breathe comfortably.

What Chester did not realize was that this mound was part of the biggest koala of the tribe, the largest creature of the forest, and the oldest one of the group. He was covered in markings, orange like the sunset, and he had a goal: to grow his tribe even more. Chester had just entered the pouch of this creature, and the magic within was set to help the large koala make sure that Chester became part of the tribe.

It had been slow at first. At first his ears began to grow larger, stretching in all directions as they repositioned slightly on his head, making his head seem smaller by comparison as they grew larger, rounder. Soon, they had stretched to match the entire length of his head and were well on their way to being almost as big as his head on either side. As Chester slumbered, the changes continued, adjusting his face as well, making it grow to keep up with his ears in their newly proportionate state, but facial features were shifting as well.

His nose began to thicken and take on an oval shape, the shape that almost similar to a bird's beak while keeping a leathery, orange texture. His nostrils turned up slightly, but unlike most creatures it stayed in a rather humanoid position, rather than going in any direction facing forwards. While that was happening, his eyes shifted too, becoming a bit beadier in their shape, smaller than a human's on his head, but still large enough to easily see with. The eyes transitioned to a green from his normal brown before shifting all the way to a light blue color, unseen in his slumber.

His body fared no less better as the changes picked up speed. His svelte, trim frame became extremely rounded, pudgier. His belly started first, growing a round, ball-gut shape, and tearing his shirt from his body all on its own. The chest followed suit, growing out to heavy moobs that sagged over his round, hefty gut, and Chester grunted as his body's limbs followed the shifts outwards and downwards, becoming fatter and chunkier as well. While the changes continued to shift over his body, making it fatter, it was also making him taller and wider too. Soon he enlarged inside the pouch, taking up more and more of its space as he outgrew his 5'8" frame and became 6', then 7', then 8', and finally stopping just under 9'. His weight had ballooned up over 500 pounds in that time, seeming to grow with him.

As Chester grew, other changes befell his rapidly transforming body. He stirred in his sleep when the thick pelt of fur grew over him. At first it was grey and white, like any normal koala bear's might appear, but soon orange stripes picked out of that fur to reveal themselves. It became a solid block of brown with stripes of orange on this block that extended from his mid-bicep, over his shoulders, down his back entirely, and ending just at his knees. His mane of hair around his neck obscured the top of his orange block of fur, a puff of grey and white to further accentuate his koala heritage. From the mane of fluff, a second section of the orange striped brown reached over his neck, up the back of his head, and down over his face. As the fur reached the top of his head, his mane of long brown hair turned stark white.

His feet and toes shifted as the changes began to slow, further shifting his body from the human he once was. There was a light split between his ring finger and middle finger on each hand, and while some might have suspected that his fingers would shrink and become three instead of five, Chester kept all five of his fingers. His toes, however, did convert to three digits. All of his newly changed paws held gained deep orange claws.

As a tail popped out from behind him, a crease pushed out on his rotund middle, giving him a distinct pouch for his new marsupial body. Usually, only females contained pouches, but this tribe of koalas had all been different, and now that Chester undoubtedly fit into the tribe with his large self, he had to have one as well. The pouch was similar to the one he slept in.

When he awoke, Chester was greeted with the morning sunlight through the forest trees overhead. His new koala body had been separated from the pouch he'd happily slumbered in, and in his own pouch slept a normal-sized koala, comfortable and safe. He patted this new body of his, taking it all in. Part of him wanted to panic, knowing it was not his body, and knowing that something simply wasn't right with any of this. On the other hand, it was warm, comfortable, and judging by the other koalas staring him down in the forest clearing, he seemed welcomed into the tribe.

Chester, now a large koala with unique orange patterning, sat up in the clearing, not wanting to disturb the koala that filled his pouch, and he blushed, feeling not only welcomed but needed by the tribe. That sense of need gave him a new purpose of sorts, and he couldn't help but think that he had to stay.

He was happy here. He twitched his ears, however, as he heard the sound of something moving in the forest, and just out of sight, he could hear a couple of people walking, looking for what he had assumed was another human. Perhaps they were looking for Chester himself. He grinned, pulling himself to his feet, and then rubbed his paws together, and started for the new noises in the distance.

After all, surely they'd be comfortable if he kept them safe and warm inside of him.