The van drove along through the old European countryside, its eclectic group of seemingly entirely contradictory passengers all in this for one reason - the chance to make a small fortune with each discovery. The "History Hunters" as they were called prowled the countryside for old bunkers and abandoned, undiscovered by proper authorities military locales - especially from the second World War and the Cold War. Theirs was a group with many connections and numerous businessmen on their call list who wanted, for one reason or another, the kinds of things they could discover.
Leading the group was the American Martin Hollingswerth, a WASP with a college degree and a passion for exploration. He was very into calisthenics and crossfit, boasting a muscled body that complimented his light brown hair, handsome facial features, and fashionable appearance. He wasn't that bulky, but he was fine with that mostly. He was the man in charge of the contacts - growing up in wealth had given him a number of people safe to do business with and trust in such operations. Why he needed the additional wealth when his dad was due to pass down so much money? No reason - he simply enjoyed the adventure.
Next was the Icelander Lucky Blyden - a stoner, a lady's man, and expert on several areas as far as history. He was not quite the stupid stoner most of his peers thought he was. Long blond hair, pretty facial features, and a thin, slim body gave him a slew of lovers - mostly women but some men purely for the experience. Lucky's computer was what pointed them in the direction of the current prize. As critical as Martin was of Lucky's drug use and habits, he was indispensable.
The muscle was Owen Bolton, a British Skinhead who most would say definitely didn't belong. Completely shaved smooth head without a bit of stubble, icy blue eyes, with a brawny, powerfully muscular build and a very questionable tattoo on his chest, Owen contributed edgy jokes, mean rhetoric, and beating the shit out of far less scrupulous scavengers. This was a surprisingly competitive business, after all. As awful as he could be, there were few better street fighters also amenable to participating in this. Owen dressed in a black tank top, a strange solar amulet around his neck, black jeans, and steel toed boots that hurt to be kicked by.
The tech support was Scottie Rios, half Hispanic on his father's side and a former nerd presently attempting to become a more muscular, capable specimen though struggling in this. His wavy black hair, brown eyes, natural tan and lean build was poorly suited by a logo t-shirt, a long coat he thought looked "cool", sunglasses even when indoors, and thick, heavy pants. Scottie was eventually going to be a handsome man...but that day was not today. Though he didn't share it, he was a gay man with a rather troubled libido - rather than try for Lucky (whose skinny body turned Scottie off), Scottie privately found the problematic skinhead tremendously attractive.
It is in this that the group's dynamics contributed to a tense atmosphere in their drive toward a bunker in the French countryside.
Martin preferred to spend his romantic evenings with prostitutes and stripper girls, being seemingly resolutely straight. On top of his business, he was quite a sex tourist. What he preferred was sex in a room with mirrors. Such that the preppy could see his impeccably well toned body flexing and tensing during sex.
Lucky found Scottie attractive, even through his questionable fashion, and was quietly wondering if Scottie might be straight. Meanwhile, Owen knew to a significant degree that Scottie pined for him - and despite his protestations his reason for his disgust was his antipathy with Scottie's developing body. Keeping it much more urgently to himself, Owen swore if he was to "go queer", it would be for Martin. Strong, toned, muscular and glorious Martin. He knew his fellows back home would beat ten shades of tar out of him if they knew, but Owen enjoyed men as well as women. On top of the money, Owen pined for Martin - because he represented everything the young, troubled bigot thought was glorious in a man.
Unbeknownst to Owen, Martin simply tolerated him for his usefulness and ability to fight off less scrupulous scavengers. He'd already decided he found the skinhead repulsive personally for his many, many readily shared views.
"We should at least..." Martin broke the silence, "Be reasonably alone on this one. Nobody else according to Scottie and Lucky seem to know about this one." Martin glanced at the purported locale and swore it felt like driving into a mystery film. A rumored bunker located past an obscure entrance in a hillside, difficult to get to...with rewards their contact swore would make a tidy profit.
"Shit," Owen chuckled, "So I don't get to beat up any degenerates. Boring! Boring! Can we at least get the last couple guys we ran into back in here!" A quick flex of his bicep, and Owen slapped the arm rest in front of him. "Bunch of beta males. But when that one...when that one popped out beyond the corner, remember how Lucky fucking squawked?"
"Ahh fuck you, Owen," Lucky leaned back in his seat, "Sure they weren't that scary to you, but you weren't the one he popped out in front of."
Scottie for his part kept quiet and swore that as dumb as Owen could be, as offensive as he could be...one day Scottie wanted to feel that smooth head and those hard muscles. You're lucky you're good looking, Owen. I swear, someone broke his nose a little bit, and he still looks good after.
Owen for his part chuckled, "Grow some balls, man. Might help with how skinny you are."
"Ladies don't just like beefcakes like you, Owen," Lucky responded, "Sometimes they like a man with a bit more of a delicate touch."
"Women----pfft, women don't know what's good for em!" Owen scoffed, "Men should be like me or Martin here..." a quick clap on the shoulder that made Martin groan under his breath from exasperation. "Buff, masculine, examples of---"
"And we're here." Martin cut him off, the van stopping at the end of the road. From here, they would need to move on foot toward the hill in question. Honestly, Martin thought to himself, I wouldn't be surprised if for all his talk about "homos", Owen is a case of doth protest too much. While he thought it out of his preconceptions, he had no idea the inadvertent accuracy of that thought.
As the four headed off in the direction of the bunker, Martin began looking for any signs of activity around the area. If there was any hint of other people looking into these kinds of things, he'd know to hold back from moving too boldly. Yet it seemed like this area was untouched except for some rustic old items likely from the war era.
It was relatively rare to have a good job without any competition. After all, these days people were out for as much money as they could get. People were feeling the squeeze...well, unless they were rich folks. Then they hired four disparate weirdos to go digging in bunkers.
"Not feeling like a really dangerous spot, eh Martin?" Owen ruminated.
"Not really. Seems we were the first ones here." As Martin stepped through some branches and bushes, he found himself wondering what force left this bunker here. The French, trying to hole up while a coked up mad dictator went storming through Belgium? The Germans, heinous shits holing up to try something esoteric? Maybe it was even an Allied bunker from the Cold War, testing some stuff out while, miles upon miles across an arbitrary wall, some commies did the same thing...
Lucky looked around as they got further along, noting the trees seemed to get a little...deader. The foliage was not thriving thus far. And he didn't feel the need to point out the obvious omens. But as ominous as they were, he needed the money.
Eventually, they found the hill - a brown, cresting hill that seemed to have precious little in the way of grass. Only the hardiest weeds seemed to grow here. Scottie spoke up, "Guys I don't think I need to mention---"
"Cowering is for degenerates! Let's go!" Owen belted out, even though he was himself feeling a shiver coming over him. He felt better in a group, knowing that if anything happened at least they had strength in numbers.
Martin stepped up and found a hatch along the side of the hill, and, applying his prodigious strength, pulled the entry way open. "And in we go." He took the first steps inside, and was followed in short order by Lucky, Owen and a nervous Scottie.
As soon as they were inside it took a minute for their eyes to adjust to the darkness. The inside of the bunker was bitterly dark, the floors dusty in most places but strangely no dust settled in the main chambers - only in hallways. The only light coming from incidental cracks in the ceiling and damages to the roof, through which specks of light came through fractured layers of rock. Uneasy steps inside followed by glances around the place. No easy identification by means of any insignia. In fact, there seemed to be an odd sort of writing on the walls, in language none of the boys recognized.
"What the fuck...?" Scottie murmured as they walked.
Numerous hallways proceeded down toward now empty rooms. A mess quarter of some sort past a pair of small hallways leading to what looked like either miserably small living quarters or somewhere to keep something.
Still no identifying insignias---at least, until the boys found the first carcass. A man lying in a corner, wearing a French Army uniform circa 1936. Martin had some experience retrieving uniforms so even in its weathered condition he recognized it - and didn't react quite as much as he would've earlier in his career, "Looks like a French guy..."
"What the shit!?" Scottie went looking down a hallway, and evidently found something, "Found a German guy. Uhh, Owen?"
The skinhead went running down the hallway, and upon looking at the body - slumped as if dead in the midst of sleeping - Owen cupped his chin, "Going by the double lightning bolts, yeah...wait. A dead Frenchie, a German, neither in any combat stance...ey, uh, Lucky? This seems weird." Now, he wasn't exactly the thinking sort. But a peacefully dead looking French guy and then a German body in here... it was all looking rather odd.
"Yeah, I found another body too," Lucky walked over, looking a little spooked, "American. Probably Cold War Era."
"...The fuck is going on here? Whose base even is this?" All three wondered aloud.
"Hey guys!"
The sound of Martin shouting rattled them from their spooked contemplation.
All three came running to see Martin had opened up a new corridor in the bunker, with what looked like a still going strong red lightbulb in the ceiling of the new corridor. A corridor that had not likely been opened in decades. With a functioning light. In a place where none of the other lights worked. Scottie murmured as Martin started walking down the new hallway, "...Something fucky's going on here..."
"For once, nerd boy, I concur," Owen whispered back.
Before long, the four of them stood in a large chamber, vast and without the dust that covered the walls and floors of the other hallways and chambers. The walls had even more of that strange language across the surface, the whole of the walls black in color with the language stark white. The chamber was lit up by four more red lightbulbs, bathing the area in an odd ambiance none of the young men liked. There was a central pedestal in the middle of the room, on which rested an octogonal device, black with golden trim. Whispers and gasps of awe from across the group;
"Holy shit..."
"Oh Good God..."
"Gott im himmel..."
"I think we found our item, guys..."
Eager to get what they came for and desiring to have this strange, exquisite treasure besides, Martin stepped forward and took up the item in his hands. "Dude! What if its---" Lucky shouted, but his warning was too little too late. Martin had already taken up the device in his hands, clicking something on the bottom as he did...and as he held it so, he watched it slide open. Bright red scripts seemingly made of holographic script emitted from the inside of mechanisms he could never have understood. Numbers - four of them at a time, sometimes three, flowed out from the device. Occasionally there'd even be a letter next to the number.
Martin - ensorceled by the device - couldn't help himself. As 121B flew by on the device, he raised one hand from holding the device, and pushed his finger through the number. All at once, Martin felt a sudden pulsation of strange intertwined pleasure and pain both at once, causing him to drop the device.
"Holy fuck! What was that?" The others only realized they were watching enrapt when the light show ended.
Right when Lucky and Scottie ran forward, leaving a frozen in place Owen to mutter to himself, Martin raised a hand, an awkward smile crossing his face as he sank to a knee, "No---uh, no need...no need, I'm fine, I'm---I'm fine...really fine." By the time they paused in motion there, they could see Martin looked like he was sweating. "Too fine..." Followed by a chuckle. Scottie noted with some repressed allure that Martin was---Martin was somehow excited after that. There was a telltale bulge in the leader's pants.
Martin outright cooed as he pressed a hand on his crotch, trying to calm himself down but only managing to excite himself further. The others - realizing what was going on - couldn't manage to say anything nor stop him, an awkward response setting in. Owen on the other hand saw the young man groping himself and gulped - not wanting to move for the fact that he was despite himself very much enjoying the show.
As Martin tried to cool off, he said to no one it seemed in particular, "Whew---Whew it's hot. I---I gotta get some of this stuff off..." Almost as if justifying it to himself and possibly to his faith. This was then followed by Martin stripping off his upper garments, his pants, and even his boxers. Right in front of his coworkers, seemingly completely unaware of their continued presence as he responded to outright being able to see his hot, needy erection by bending over, crouching - and furiously beating off.
"What the shit is he---?"
"What the fuck, man?" Lucky and Scottie both glanced at one another, and honestly both wondered when the profane comment from their skinhead associate would come. But Owen was now nursing an erection himself, biting his lip and hoping nobody saw it due to the ambiance and his heavy jeans. This was like real, live porn - and despite publicly saying he was No Fap, Owen loved his porn.
Though not enough to publicly beat off like Martin was.
"Dude---dude stop---come on, what're you---?"
"I FUCKING NEED THIS! DON'T INTERRUPT ME!!" Martin's only acknowledgement of Scottie and Lucky came in the form of that defiant roar, followed by returning to his need. But as he did, the three onlookers wondered. They could see something changing in Martin as he moaned, groaned and chased that elusive, still so far off release.
His skin was turning more olive toned, his features strengthening, his hair shifting from light brown to brown to black. Any hint of body hair - even at the crotch - was shaved clean off. His muscles, already a testament to his agility and strength in the course of calisthenics and crossfit were bulging, empowering, growing larger, bigger, stronger. Pressing out more, but in the process some tone at his midsection was lost. His was becoming a body more suited for old military service. Powerfully built, but not necessarily for those modern agility courses.
Martin grunted and groaned, unconscious of anything save his desire.
A few scars and bruises formed across his body, not from any sort of bullet or bayonet, but rather from olden swords. His eyes stayed their color, but his features turned more weathered - even though his age did not change, his lived experiences (at least those of the body he now inhabited) were much more severe than those of a modern twenty-something.
A glance at the floor saw Martin's clothes shifting. His shirt and all turning into a set of silver scaled armor with red flourishes of underlying fabric. Any of his personal belongings twisted, elongated and shifted - turning into a broad shield and a powerful gladius sword. His pants shifted and turned into a fine tunic, his shoes turning into sandals.
"I'm---I'm---urgh---ahh---YES!!" All eyes darted to him again as one last bout of muscular growth surged across Martin's body and the desperately lustful young man sprayed his seed in the air all at once, stumbling up from his crouch not long after - and awareness returned before long. It did not take long - maybe seconds - for a blush to dart across Martin's newly more mediterranean tanned cheeks. He grabbed up his tunic and armor, wearing them almost second nature to cover his indecent manhood. He knew immediately how to put on that armor. Another oddity.
"Holy---Holy shit what the hell was that?" Martin still remained, well, Martin, but everyone - standing there stock still and shocked - could tell the nature of what had happened to him. He looked every ounce the image of a Roman Legionnaire, possibly the very same sort that would've been marching through here in even more ancient times. His hair now sporting curls and upon his face was a telltale Roman look, an aquiline nose.
"You uh...you're different, Martin. Real different." Lucky admitted that was the most bizarre and sudden thing he'd ever seen.
Owen, still blushing and trying to deny his own erection, said in as harsh a tone as he could, "That---that was sexually degenerate---I---I uh, I can't believe---can't believe you just did that. Right in front of me." Owen's thoughts betrayed his real reaction, Holy shit he got even hotter, scheisse...scheisse! My ex-girlfriend would kill for an ass like that.
And Scottie for his part was divided between finding the whole proceeding hot, and realizing this was a baffling, impossible occurrence. "You're a fucking Roman. A Roman Legion---"
"No---no fucking way---" Though as Martin spoke, he paused when he heard himself speak more, he registered an odd Italian accent to his English. Somehow older and odder than any Italian accent he'd heard across his life, in the whole time spent traversing through Europe. "What the hell did that fucking thing do to me?"
All four looked at the device, now closed on the floor. It seemed as soon as it did that to Martin, it closed back up. Lucky then gingerly walked forward to pick it up. Martin took a step forward as Lucky hoisted it, "You don't know what it'll---" But there was nothing. No opening. No holographic red lights.
"Seems you hit something on it that activated it," Lucky stated.
"Let's---Let's just get the hell outta here and get me some clothes from this century." Martin stated, starting to lead the way out the way they came. It didn't take long for the four to make their way back out. Owen noting with some satisfaction that Martin seemed to be carrying himself...differently. More militaristic. Lucky and Scottie were more wary of any perceived shifts in their friend, however, and decided to inquire further once they were away from the place.
No answers whatsoever about what that place was, or why any of that happened, or how any of those war dead got there. But none of them were eager to return. Who knew what else was down there, if something like that was made.
Lucky found himself looking at the muscled up Martin, and found himself feeling at least a little curious. That did look like it felt pretty good. He still held the device in one hand. Noting it seemed made of some peculiar metal. Nothing - not even getting dropped by Martin - seemed to dent it.
Owen found himself awkwardly glancing at the device, and then at the newly formed Roman Legionnaire. Martin had been masculine before, but now he just seemed to radiate a feeling that incited a sense Owen knew he should not indulge.
Scottie was actively considering trying out the device himself - despite the dangers and the fact they needed to deliver this thing for money. If it---if it changed Martin, with so few issues and only making him a little more urgent he guessed, maybe---maybe it could help Scottie finally end up masc enough---! He turned to look at Owen and asked, "What do you think of it?"
"I'm...I'm not despoiling my pure body." Owen scoffed and looked away. As far as he was concerned, he was good enough. And for all of what else he was, he didn't feel much inclination to meddle in such mysticism. It had a way of backfiring on its users.
Yet as they drove into town to get Martin new clothes...