Thinking was hard. Breathing was hard. Marcus had struggled out of the Bunker without much of an idea as to what he was going to do. 'Intel', Starden had called it. Such a simple, yet weighted word. Within it was the implied threat that if he came back too soon, and with something that wasn't noteworthy, the general would either kill him on the spot or shove him back into the wilds. And boy was he in the wilds.
It had taken a solid few hours for Marcus to finally move from the bunker entrance. He'd mechanically shoved his way through the other defensive layers until he stood in the disguise lobby for the PBB. There was a strange disconnect, after the years he'd spent in the bunker and the fact that he was back on the surface. That was especially bad when everything looked absolutely normal. Marcus spent yet another hour running his hands on what could only be mundane grass, ungnarled trees and colorful flowers that brought tears to his eyes. This was the sight he wanted his Carla to see. For Ronan...
To say that Marcus had his emotions under control would have been one of the biggest lies the no-longer-youngest Metier could have told himself. The sun was creeping its way over the trees by the time he realized he was covered in leafy pulp and almost every flower in his vicinity was nothing more than a paste between his fingers. His breath came in ragged gasps and it was only through muscle memory that he drank any water at all; Ava, especially pregnant, was hell on your physical fitness regiments. It was one of the reasons Carla and her got along so well.
"I wish you were with me," Marcus sobbed, hands trembling as he struggled to put the cap back on. Like a puppet, the man rose and headed east in what he vaguely recalled was the closest bit of 'civilization'.
--+--
When night fell, Marcus didn't stop. The moon was bright enough to banish the deepest shadows, and he had hardly a direction to follow. The streets were abandoned, just like the houses. After the third empty building with rotting signs of a struggle he'd stopped checking. He had seen a strangely glimmering palm tree, but he knew Wildwood was the closest town to where the Bunker had been built and opted to head north.
A chill crept through his body as the eerie sounds of the forest picked up. His life full of human sounds, at the very least underlined by the hum of the HVAC of the bunker, clashed with the untainted nature around him. And nature wanted him to know he was encroaching on their turf too.
He drew too close to a tree when a pair of gray blurs dove from the tree on the side of the road. A confluence of things led to his first contact with not quite standard earth life. Marcus had spent years looking over his shoulder while sabotaging Starden's efforts. He'd kept a rigorous physical regimen, supplemented by the regularly irregular fistacuffs he threw at the corrupt green shirts. And lastly, even before coming to the bunker, he'd been an avid disliker of any squirrel that ate from his bird feeder.
So, when the dog sized creatures attempted to take a piece of him... he took a piece of them. Lightning fast punches, augmented in no way than a regular human could manage, landed on the heads of both the creatures. One bowled him over with its sheer mass, but Marcus extracted himself at the cost of a bloody gash before stomping on the necks of both creatures with the ruthlessness only someone who wanted to strangle someone else could. The flying, abnormal squirrels were halfway through the tirade of curses Marcus had to give out when their bodies crystallized. The not-quite-so-angry-but-still-weeping man stirred with confusion before the world darkened the moment his feet landed in the glittering cloud the squirrels had dissociated into.
--+--
Nature seemed to hate Marcus Metier. He wasn't even attributing that evaluation to the fact that his wife was dead, his son left orphaned and him banished from the home he'd started to build in the ashes of a fallen world. He was sure nature hated him because every creature that glanced at him felt some unnatural urge to throw itself against the bulwark of his rage.
After that first night unconscious, Marcus' thoughts had been... transient. Just like his body, really. Where once he'd had arms, now he had sand. Where once he lacked a goal, now he had a purpose. Of sorts. Something had called to him, from the dark, and had he not listened he was sure the coyote gnawing on his ankle would have continued on to more vital parts. So, he continued to grind himself through the wilderness as he followed the call that spoke of power in his sleep. With each day that passed, the call drew strong enough that he could hear it even in his waking hours. It spoke of his advancement to something more if he just reached a bit further.
Marcus was sure, in retrospect, that if he'd not stumbled upon the buzzing rock --the crystal-- then he would have lost himself entirely.
It was a dark few moments when his no-longer-flesh-and-blood hands grasped the crystal, pushing the whispers in his mind back only to reveal he was no longer just human. His arms were only a sandy approximation of the limbs they once were. His legs were mostly the same in shape, but his knees seemed capable to bend omnidirectionally somehow. It was a subtle shift, but something coursed through his veins and he was pretty certain it was no longer blood. Or at least just blood.
When the moments passed, he roared his fury at the sky, spooking a flight of birds into the air from where they'd been getting ready to pounce on him. Not even his voice sounded the same, a strange warble added to his throat. Despite those changes, and the fear that something had somehow taken over his mind, he had his own path forward-- not the one whispered to him in the dark.
His liberator was a chunk of a Metier Crystal. It was barely larger than his fist, but it seemed to be growing larger in sliver-thin increments. Marcus wasn't sure how he noticed such a minute change, but he had bigger concerns. Starden could not deny him. He would see his son again!
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
--+--
His mother would never be able to say he didn't knock before entering. His not-fists hammered into the wall between the exit tunnel and the Bunker with a steady staccato of SOS. There had been one... mishap on his return to the Bunker as it failed to recognize him. He'd been forced to leverage his new limbs to force his way through the locks but the last gateway had avoided all his probing attempts. Thankfully Marcus didn't have to wait long in the crystal illuminated concrete prison.
Unsurprisingly, he was met by every one of the guns they could field in the Bunker. A spike of utter wrath almost crumpled Marcus' composure when he saw the true residents of the bunkers taking a knee on the front while Starden's men hovered to the back. Upon seeing the returning Metier, Dale jumped to his feet and nearly tackled Marcus. With his new... adaptations he was able to side step Dale before interposing himself between the fool and the guns. There was a whole lot of shouting that followed that until Ingrid Metier bulldozed the whole situation when she strode through the militant lines and grabbed a hold of Marcus' face. Her eyes were watery and her hands shaky, but her voice was as steady as he'd ever heard it. "My son."
--+--
Things went surprisingly smoothly from there. Marcus was placed in quarantine, Starden asked more questions than Marcus felt inclined to answer and he got to see Dale holding his son through the plexiglass observation window of his confinement. The problem arose when he let go of the Metier Crystal. The whispers grew louder, more insistent, but less... targeted. As if they couldn't find him, wherever he was. It was a severe problem.
Alan and his mother were practically salivating with the results their tests were producing. There was a frantic rush to try to save Agatha as her due date loomed like a guillotine. That, in turn, translated to less and less time with the Crystal. The strange transience of his thoughts began to creep in around the edges. Missed meals, focusing on the whispers instead of the person attempting to speak to him. Marcus could feel himself slipping, and it scared him more than even Starden's threats.
The General was a monster, tried and true. But... What if he became one as well?
Marcus was fairly certain his mother knew. Despite how much he'd changed, and how much he presented himself as unchanged with the liberal use of looted long sleeve shirts and thick leather gloves, she knew him. The sheen of madness could hide his plan no better than the broken beakers he'd tried to sneak past her when he was a teenager. An open, and honest, book she'd called him. So, he'd told her his intentions and she'd wept for him.
--+--
Marcus was a wraith in the 'night' of the bunker. The only thing that marked his passage the gentle caress of wind-blown sand on stone. Amorphous fingers picked the old world locks with ease. Indurated fists and eroding elbows reaped the lives of Starden's men. Their bodies barely left blood stains as the Metier absorbed their very essence into himself for power. Marcus pocketed the rainbow of orbs dropped from each person, his shapeless fingers itching to crush them in his hands. He felt filthy, and cleansed, at the same time. Like any vengeful angel should, he left Starden for last. Him he grasped tightly in his sandy limbs. The two locked eyes as Marcus made sure he met an ignoble end, choked like he'd been doing to the Bunker.
"I will not suffer your injustice," Marcus spat, the last words the man heard before parting.
--+--
He really thought about it. He thought about it hundreds, thousands of times. He also knew he could not stay.
As freeing as revenge on the military had been, Marcus knew he could no longer remain in the Bunker. The whispers were almost constant companions, and while he was getting better at pushing them from his mind without a Metier Crystal... all it took was one slip. With the powers the surface had bestowed him, snuffing out innocents would have been trivial. And so, he found himself staring at the babe asleep in his arms. If it was possible, Ronan looked more comfortable in his shifting sands than in the rocker that had been prepared in the Bunker's nursery.
"Alright little Ronan, let's get you a baba, eh? Those nice new mommies are more than eager to sha-- Jesus!" Elias jumped as he turned the lamp in the room on to reveal Marcus cradling his son. "Marcus? I thought Ingrid had you under observation."
"She did," Marcus said quietly, rocking his Ronan gently to lull him back to sleep after Elias' outburst.
The popular vote for leader of the non-militant survivors gave Marcus a strange look. "Okay... All better?"
Marcus Metier didn't answer, instead he handed the child in his hands to Elias. He hardened his heart as much as he could while walking away from his own flesh and blood. No... not as I am now I'm not. For a moment, he dearly wished his new body could cry. "I need to leave. It's not safe for you all here with me."
"Your mother can figure something out," Elias said, taken aback by the words.
Marcus huffed, the ghost of a smile tickling at his mouth. "I'm sure she would, but probably not before I lose it. I already did, just tonight, as a matter of fact. The surface is dangerous, and it made me dangerous. Something is up there, and I suspect it isn't the crystals that we need to worry about."
"W-what are we supposed to do?" Elias asked, the man who often was an immobile foundation shook as he held on to the newborn like an anchor.
"Mom or Alan will give you the answer," Marcus said, turning away from his son. Before he vanished past the doorway, he gripped the frame hard enough that the stone yielded and added itself to his mass. For all that power felt intoxicating, it wasn't worth the price he'd paid. That his family would pay. "Please, don't tell him about me."
"But Marcus--"
"No. I trust you all, you'll figure something out. What I did here today is not something Ronan or the other children should know. The surface is not to be trifled with, Elias."
--+--
That was the last anyone saw of Marcus Metier. The following morning revealed a dozen beds marked by sand and blood. Ingrid didn't cry, even if the rest of the Bunker fell into a panic. Her actions were unerring, taking the unborn lives as the priority. Agatha didn't make it, and neither did Ingrid in the end, but Ava squeaked by death's door. Despite these losses, or perhaps because of them, the people of the Bunker doubled down on the rearing of the children.
When Alan had cried, upon seeing Daniela's face, they all knew Marcus was right. They knew they could survive the surface, but no one dared risk it. The Bunkerites hunkered down, bent the resources that had been meant for many more people to the benefit of the survivors and carved out a marginally better existence. Nevertheless, there were discoveries to be made and time marched ever forward... until the next step was taken by the children of tragedy, in search of a future.