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A Treasure of Time

Part 1

For Nataraj

By Draconicon

BOOM!

The latest explosion chased the red-suited mouse down the underwater hallway, fires leaping up around his boots and nearly catching his tail before he hooked the bend at the next intersection with his cane. He spun, pulling his hat back onto his head before pumping his legs that much harder to keep ahead of the explosions.

"This wasn't in the plan. Get the treasure, get back to the ship, and then -"

BOOM!

The next explosion came from underfoot, and only a sudden jump saved him from falling through the new opening that ripped through the steel beneath his boots. He swung himself forward, shaking his head.

"Timing. Explosions going off every six-point-five seconds. Next one is going off - Nnngh!"

He'd seen it coming, known it was coming, and he still barely got himself out of the way in time. The mouse hit the floor and rolled as a steel panel came flying out of the wall to his left, and he groaned as he pushed himself to his feet. He pressed his free hand to the white mask he wore, staring through the eyeholes as its onboard scanners built up a map of the hall that he still had to traverse.

It wasn't good. Explosions had ripped holes in the walls all along the tunnels, and anywhere that dipped down was already flooded. He winced as he struggled to his feet, jumping upwards -

BOOM!

"Like a conductor's baton," he muttered in exasperation as the next panel shot out beneath his boots, hitting the far wall. "Up, down, left, right, up, down, left, right."

He had another two seconds before the next explosion, and he used them to swing himself forward, running once more. The HUD from his mask guided him to the next turning, the flames and water arguing behind him over which one would be the force to claim the hastily-constructed tunnels through the underwater fields.

He dodged two more panels before he found a bulkhead, and he jumped through and slammed the door behind him. The mouse panted for breath as the explosions echoed behind him rather than in front of him for a change, and he rolled over on his back, slowly taking the mask off.

What was revealed was a white-furred face, with whiskers that were trimmed by flame and worse. His eyes squinted, taking in the harsh light of the tunnel again, and he grimaced as he shaded them. The five-foot mouse stared at the back of his hand as he slowly rolled over, getting on his hands and knees.

"This was a perfect plan. Go back in time, find the treasure before it got ripped apart by ye olde colonialism, and then get the hell out. Not..."

He grimaced as he looked out one of the rare glass points in the tunnel. He could just make out the sinking and rising column that was the island of Atlantis. It was half-sunk into the water, the tallest of spires still sticking out of the sea, but not by much. It was supposed to be falling down now, no longer supported by whatever mystical field had kept it above the waves for this long.

But that would have required things doing according to plan, wouldn't it?

He groaned as he dragged himself the rest of the way up, using his cane to take some of the effort away. It had been a long time since he'd had to pull off an escape like that, and he made a mental note to get back to training once he got back to his ship.

"Boss? You there?"

The communicator in his mask buzzed, and he sighed as he put it back on.

"Yes, Olag, I'm here."

"Great. Thought we'd lost ya there for a second. You okay?"

"Empirically and objectively, yes. In all other ways, no. Where are you?"

"Coming around the south-eastern exit. Where are you?"

Consulting the map in the HUD, the mouse shook his head. Not the best sort of route, he had to admit. There was a flooded section of tunnel between him and the south-eastern exit, but any other route would take him through raised sections that could start exploding at any given moment. He shook his head.

"Nowhere good."

"Want us to blow a hole in the wall for ya boss?"

"Much as I'm sure that our resident scientist would love to explore the possibilities of her new weapons, I'd prefer not to die from pressure."

"Good point. What's the plan?"

"Just get to the exit. I'll be there."

The mouse tapped the side of his mask again, rubbing his thumb along the top of his cane. It was tipped with a purple gem that glowed with an inner light, and he knew that there were ways through the flooded tunnel. He just didn't like them.

He glanced out the window again. Atlantis continued to rise and fall with the fluctuations of the treasure that he was supposed to have been able to steal, but apparently, there were a few pieces of information that historians had neglected to mention.

Such as the fact that touching the damned thing set off the most devastating wave of temporal distortions in history.

That was why all the bombs on the tunnels had started going off. The second that he'd laid hands on the treasure - an old sundial that, rumors had it, could have controlled time - it started pulsing, and just about everything started reacting as time went...weird. The timers on the bombs were one such thing, and the very explosives meant to cover their tracks and erase their presence from history had ended up being a near-deathtrap for him. He was just lucky that the wave was a solid wave that affected the bombs in that tunnel equally instead of completely distorting their timing at random.

Most of the time, he liked finding something weird. He didn't like it when the weird thing tried to kill him.

Another explosion from further on told him that the bulkhead wasn't going to be a safe place for long, and he sighed. Bringing up the map, he started moving, making his way to the south-east exit. He had a ride to catch.

#

After an escape that involved a dolphin, a torpedo, and an entirely unseemly amount of deep-sea eels, the mouse managed to bring himself to the bow torpedo tubes and swim inside. It had taken far too much additional physics fuckery to get him there without dying from the deep-sea pressure, but he'd managed it. A great metal sheet shut behind him, and the opening into the ship followed.

The water pulled him out as it spilled into the chamber, and the mouse gasped for breath as he tumbled through. He managed to keep from falling over, but only barely as he leaned against the wall.

His main officers were waiting for him. A rat, a tigress, a polar bear, the latter of which stepped forward and yanked him the rest of the way to his feet. He groaned, waving Olag away as he shook his head.

"I'm fine. I'm fine."

"Yeah, I'll believe that after medical confirms it, boss," Olag said, shaking his head. "Sollon, you see anything?"

The rat, dressed in a white suit of his own, gave the mouse a cursory once-over. The mouse glared at him through his mask, and Sollon shrugged.

"Captain Salla seems to be quite well-adjusted to the pressures of underwater travel, Olag, but if you insist, we will see him to the infirmary."

"Yeah, well..."

Salla waited for the polar bear to realize that there was really no way for his second in command to demand that he see the doctor without actually breaking protocol. The bear rubbed the back of his head for a moment before sighing and falling silent.

"That's what I thought," the mouse muttered, grumbling as he managed to get his sopping wet boots under him. "Did anyone get any readings off that explosion, Tatyana?"

"Yes," the tigress said in Russian. His mask translated it for him, almost entirely in sync with her. Almost. "It was more than a ripple through time. It was a ripping through it. There are currently at least six different holes in time between us and the island, and the island itself seems on the verge of falling into a hole in chronological existence itself."

"And how is that going to affect the rest of history?" the mouse asked, pulling his gloves off and holding out his hands. Sollon immediately set to applying new ones, and then began the process of taking off his suit jacket. "I can't imagine something that big falling from one time to another is going to do anyone any favors."

"That is the problem. There seems to be a semi-stable field around the island itself, one that's waiting for something to link up with it."

"Link - hold on, hold on." Salla waved the rat away, his white shirt half-unbuttoned as he looked the tigress in the eye. "Are you telling me that this thing...the island...could end up being a time machine all on its own?"

"Readings are as of yet inconclusive, but it is possible."

"...Great. Lovely. Go in to get a time-controlling sundial, create an island that can hop around like the new H. G. Wells machine. Well, if that's not a fucking Monday, I don't know what is..."

Salla rubbed his forehead, taking a few deep breaths as his officers started talking among themselves. Unsurprisingly, Olag wanted to take the strike crew in and see if they could push back to the sundial, see if getting it off the island would get the timeline back on track. Tatyana, on the other hand, was pushing for a chance to study it at a distance before committing any large numbers to taking the island. After all, for all that the island would have been broken down by colonizers eventually, they did have a great deal of tech on the island that would repulse most people from the shores, particularly in the current state of things.

Sollon, as ever, was the silent moderator, standing with his hands behind his back as he listened to them, storing up the information. Salla planned on talking with the rat later, sorting out anything that he missed.

But for now, he had to make a decision.

"Tatyana."

The argument stopped.

"Tatyana, you said that the field's looking to link with something, right?"

"As far as our readings say, yes."

"Could that something be a person?"

"...Theoretically, yes, but they'd need to speak a language that the sundial understands and that time itself can comprehend."

"But suppose we found someone interested in that. Could it link with a person rather than an item?"

"Yes, but I can't see where we'd find someone that could talk to an artifact AND time itself."

"Luckily, I do."

#

Nataraj was in the middle of his work shift - which mostly involved long-distance data-entry, at the moment - when there was a knock at his door. The lizard paused in his typing, then glanced at his phone, wondering if he had forgotten a food order or if there was someone coming around that he hadn't remembered.

Neither, but there was another knock at the door, anyway, and this time, it was quite a bit louder than the first time.

"No need to abuse my door," the lizard muttered, getting to his feet. "One minute! It's a pants moment!"

There wasn't another knock. Instead, there was a...pulse, for lack of a better word. Nataraj paused in the middle of reaching for the sweatpants that were on the floor, choosing instead to look around the doorframe of his bedroom. It was a straight shot from there to the front door, and what he saw nearly shocked the thought of pants right out of his head.

Standing just outside was a polar bear that more than topped seven feet, and a mouse that was barely five feet tall. The polar bear was dressed in nothing but a leather band around his chest and a loincloth, while the mouse was dressed head to toe in a red suit, with white gloves and a white mask. The bear had an axe in his hands, the mouse a cane.

And the door that had just been kicked off its door frame was floating in his hallway, held aloft by a strange pink light.

"Olag. I don't recall telling you to kick the door in," the mouse said, his voice vaguely hinting towards electronica from the mask. "We are here on a visit to request someone's help, not demand it."

"Yeah, well, the door had it coming," the polar bear said, stepping inside and grabbing it.

"And how, pray tell, did it have it coming?" the mouse asked.

"..."

"You've got nothing," the mouse said.

"I got nothing, Boss," the bear responded, shrugging as he fit the door back to its frame. "But hey, at least we're in."

"Yes, and you're freaking out the lizard watching us from the doorway."

How did he know -

Nataraj shook his head. The mouse wasn't looking at him, and somehow knew that he was watching the invading pair. Perhaps he should have been surprised, but after multiple visits from a rather magical dragon, he was starting to get used to the impossible and the weird. He was even starting to get on good terms with it, considering the fact that he had been able to deal with a demon visiting him a few times a month.

A mouse and a polar bear dressed as if they came out of two different eras wasn't that weird in comparison, now that he thought about it.

As the polar bear slammed his fist against the door a few times, somehow settling it against the frame once more, Nataraj finished pulling his sweat pants up. He had been bottomless while working, but guests demanded some form of clothing until they made it clear that they were fine without it.

Leaving his bedroom, the wide-bottomed lizard looked between the two intruders. The bear was bigger and a bit scarier, but the mouse was obviously the one in charge. He slowly walked up and held out his hand.

"Well, now that you've gotten introduced to my door, I guess I should introduce myself. I'm -"

"Nataraj. Unpaid but skilled musician, flirt, occasional polyamorous man, in and out of relationships for the last couple of years, currently dealing with a quarantine that has left you out of your mind and in a closer relationship with your guitar than any living being on the planet, and in the process of ordering six pairs of socks, two of which were pre-worn, and are currently more than likely imagining what my associate's feet taste like," the mouse said.

"...Well, that's just cheating."

"That's what I do." The mouse chuckled a bit. "Now, if you would invite us to the living - Olag!"

The mouse smacked the bear's hand with the jeweled tip of his cane, and the bear's slow reach for the door to the next room was stopped in its tracks.

"I said, let him invite us."

"Ugh. We don't have time for this, Boss."

"We always have time for good manners."

"Ya didn't have anything like manners when that woman chased us out of the Burger King down the road."

"That woman was the epitome of a shrieking harpy and she deserved having her car flipped into the river. Call it an idiot tax," the mouse said, tapping his thumb against the edge of his cane.

"...Petty," Nataraj said, chuckling. "I like you."

"Good. You'll be working with me for a while, if things work out. Now, living room?"

A few minutes later, they were all properly settled. The lizard had brewed some tea - coffee for the polar bear - and they were all settled down. The mouse's mask shifted open slightly at the mouth whenever he took a sip of his tea, but other than that, it stayed on. The lizard gestured at it.

"Do you ever take that off?"

"Not around other people," the mouse said.

"Why's that?"

"Oh, mostly superhero/supervillain logic. If you don't know what I look like when I'm in the suit, you don't get to recognize me when I'm out of it."

"I'm guessing you do a lot of stuff in the suit, then."

"Mostly crimes," the bear muttered.

"I will not deny that," the mouse said with a chuckle. "It's been quite the interesting life, though, and one that is well-suited to stories, but that's something for another time."

"So...you two are criminals?" Nataraj asked, slowly leaning back in his chair. "Should I be worried?"

"Not at this point in time," the mouse said. "After all, we have need of your services."

"I'm not really a musician for hire just yet, and I don't think I'm quite as much a whore to sell myself."

"...Not for that, though I'm sure my associate will keep the latter point in mind for later." The mouse chuckled. "No, we need a bit of help for an adventure that I seem to have accidentally kicked off. Time travel, stealing from an ancient civilization, a great deal of traps and worse. All waiting for you if you're willing to come along."

Nataraj blinked at the mouse, almost feeling as if he was hearing the pitch for a D&D session rather than a real thing. He slowly turned to the bear, pointing at the masked rodent.

"Is he kidding right now, or serious?"

"Wish he was kidding, but yeah. We got a problem, and we need someone to help us fix it."

"...What the hell were you two trying to steal?"

"A sundial from an ancient culture, ostensibly, something that would be able to control time." The mouse sipped his tea. "It turns out that it has a rather unkempt, uncouth idea of what controlling something actually means."

"That doesn't surprise me," the lizard muttered, rubbing the back of his head. "You're both serious right now?"

"Deadly," the mouse said.

"And you need my help? Specifically mine?"

The mouse nodded.

"Why?"

"Put bluntly, we need a bard, and more specifically, one that has an interest in the strange, the undefined, the weird, and - likely - the perverted."

"...Perverted?"

"Ah, got your attention?"

"...Maybe," the lizard said, smiling as he crossed his arms. "What kind of perverted are we talking about here?"

"That's something that you're going to have to find out, because, honestly, we don't know. With all the problems down there, you could be running into any version of a very, very strange culture, all of them with their own perversions. Some were worshipers of the deep, with an intense love for the tendrils and tentacles that could be summoned from them. Others were fond of the egg-layers, and sacrificed their captives to dragons to be seeded. Still others were worshipers of spirits, ones that would enhance their people and make them look as appealing as possible and - will you stop imagining it while I'm describing it to you?"

Nataraj cleared his throat, wiping away the bit of drool that had started forming at the corner of his mouth. He knew that he was taking it a bit further than he needed to, but it was still quite intriguing.

It had been a long time since he had taken a break from the more mundane parts of life, he had to admit, and it wouldn't be a bad thing to start filling in those gaps with something more interesting. Not to mention that, with the quarantine and all, it had been a long time since he had had the chance to get laid.

Well, that was actually a bigger consideration than the rest, he had to admit. He tapped his chin.

"Tell me, do I get to work with him?" Nataraj asked, flicking a thumb at the bear.

"He'll be your muscle, while you'll be the mouth."

"And who's the brains?"

"Me," the mouse said.

"You?"

"Yes, me. I'm the one that started this, and I'm the one that's going to fix it. I just need a couple of people on the ground that will be able to follow orders and do the things that I can't."

"...Who'd you piss off?" Nataraj asked, chuckling.

"HA!" The bear laughed, slapping his gut. "Oh, he got you there, Boss. Let me tell ya, scales. He pissed off everyone. All of Atlantis hates his guts right now."

"Atlantis?!"

The mouse sighed, pinching the bridge of his muzzle through his mask.

"Yes, thank you for spilling those particular beans, Olag," the mouse muttered.

"Sorry, Boss."

"Well, now that that particular cat is out of the bag..." The mouse laid his cane across his lap. "I'd be quite interested in having you be part of the operation to retrieve the sundial before it can do more damage. Are you interested in a quest that will likely involve a great deal of running, fighting, and - likely enough - fucking?"

"Well, now, you know, I think...I appreciate the offer, I really do," the lizard said, smiling. "But I honestly don't know if I can. I mean, there's so much to get done here..."

"..." The mouse just stared at him, levelly, and the lizard couldn't help but continue despite himself, wearing a smile the whole time.

"And it just wouldn't be right to leave the house without a gardener and a caretaker."

"And you would stand around here, waiting, knowing that the fate of the world stands in the balance?" the mouse asked.

Nataraj's smile only got wider as he heard the slight tone of mockery in the mouse's voice, combined with the raw ham that was already building. Oh, this was going to be fun.

"Oh, I couldn't possibly," the lizard said, leaning back and feigning regret with the back of his hand against his forehead.

"But you must!" the mouse said, standing up and holding out his hands desperately.

"Ah, you wound me! My responsibilities!"

"I speak of the world, and you speak of responsibilities?"

"My home!"

"Your world!"

"My duty!"

"Adventure!"

And as the ping-pong of ham continued, the bear just sat in his chair, watching, shaking his head, and sipping at his coffee until it ran out. Then, and only then, did the big guy grab them both by the backs of their necks and bonk their heads together. Nataraj yelped, rubbing his forehead.

"What was that for?"

"For chewing the fucking scenery," the bear muttered. "You in or out?"

"I'm in...as long as he tells me that I was hammier," he said, pointing at the mouse.

"I will do nothing of the sort. I could have kept going for another few minutes."

"And I could have kept going for hours. Do not underestimate me, oh conjurer of cheap tricks, for I am the Master of the Ham, the Wielder of the Cheese, and the Spinner of Yarns so jaw-droppingly groan-worthy that you will never again speak should I begin to tell you of them."

Nataraj stood tall and proud as he threatened the mouse with puns and worse, and both the criminals looked at each other, and then back at him, then back at each other. The bear sighed, slumping his shoulders.

"Alright, alright, Boss, you can stop looking at me like that. He's the one."

"Told you." The mouse chuckled. "Fine. You were hammier."

"...That's it?"

"I don't fight when I'm getting what I want. At least, not often." The mouse offered a gloved hand. "I have your name, but you didn't have mine. I'm Salla."

"Is that your real name or the fake one?" he asked as he took the mouse's hand.

"Whatever you choose to believe."

"Fine, 'Salla.' So...where are we -"

#

"- going - what the hell?!"

The lizard blinked as he realized that he was standing in a completely different room, one filled with little spider-bots that were crawling across the floor and ceiling, where a tigress was shouting at someone in Russian and he was the odd-man-out as Salla and Olag stepped down from some sort of plinth that they'd all appeared on. He followed them down, whipping his head from side to side in disbelief.

At first, the spider-bots freaked him out, but as they turned to him with anime googly eyes, they started to become markedly less scary. One even offered him a bottle of water on a spinneret of some sort, which he took with a little hesitation. He shivered, watching them leave, trying not to feel freaked out by them. They weren't bad, barely the size of a cat, but that was big for a robot spider.

"Nataraj!"

Salla caught his attention and he ran over to the mouse. The rodent gave him a push towards the polar bear, and the bear caught him by the shoulder.

"Olag's going to get you kitted out for the adventure. I'll give you two a couple of hours to get acquainted, but we're going through G.A.T.E.S. in four hours, so be ready for that. Once we're back in the proper location, we'll launch you two to the first part of your mission. So, use your time wisely."

"Uh, what are -"

"Olag, fill him in. I have to talk with Tatyana about some of the more recent developments."

"We going with the 'campsite' approach, Boss?" the bear asked.

"Yes, and the spawners."

Nataraj blinked, feeling a bit overwhelmed as the bear and mouse apparently planned out what they were doing next without explaining it to him. He tried to get a word in edgewise, but there was never a chance for it. He opened his mouth, only for the bear to drag him along, pulling him down a hallway that looked like the interior of a naval ship, but somehow wider than it should have been.

The lizard looked back the way they'd come, and then forward again, at the bear's big body.

"Um...so, you going to fill me in?"

"Yeah, yeah, once we get to the armory."

"Why not now?"

"Because the ship's about to change."

"...Change?"

"Yeah. Change."

"What does that -"

The bear tossed him forward through an open bulkhead door, and then followed. No sooner had Nataraj gotten back to his feet then he saw the walls through the door change, going from pipes on the wall to being across the hall from an open kitchen. He blinked, slowly pointing through the door.

"I...did I just..."

"Yeah, ya get used to it," the bear said, chuckling.

"...How?"

"You a fan of Doctor Who?"

"Yeah, but - wait, you know Doctor Who?"

"Captain explained it to me when I joined. Just think of it like the TARDIS if the TARDIS liked to change randomly."

So, they were on a boat that had Star Trek transporters, a TARDIS ability to change and expand, big guns like in the navy, and it was filled with people that were dedicated to pulling off different crimes.

Well, if that wasn't an adventure, he didn't know what was.

Nataraj smiled as he leaned against the wall, watching as the bear walked over to one of the lockers on the far side. He couldn't help but look the big bear up and down now that some of his confusion had been eased, finding a brand new distraction.

Haven't had a bear before, he thought, looking at the big guy, at the way that he could make out the white-furred balls that hung so low. They were just visible between the bear's thighs, and considering the way that Olag pushed himself, he imagined that the big bear's sac was fairly musky.

Looking further down, he could see that the bear obviously went barefoot fairly often, but his large feet still looked fairly smooth and rather shiny. He could imagine spending a fair bit of time under those, and he could just imagine how much attention he could pay them. And if the bear turned around, he planned to get a good look at that cock bulge, too; he remembered seeing hints of it back at his house, but nothing as definitive as he would have liked.

Wonder if he swings for other guys...

"Hey, Nat!"

The bear's snap of a voice pulled him back from his fantasies.

"Huh?"

"Come here. I want to see how you fit in speedos."

"Speedos?"

"Well, for you, it'd be a fucking thong, but gotta show off your assets somehow, eh?"

"Heh, alright."

Well, that answers that question...

"Let's get ya dressed, then we can talk how this works."

The End

Summary: After setting off a rather dangerous situation with Atlantis in the past, Salla goes to collect someone that can help them out with the island. That ends up being a rather familiar lizard.

Tags: M/solo, M/M, no sex, nudity, fantasies, foot fetish, series, time travel, pirates, criminals, lizard, mouse, bear, polar bear, barefoot, loincloth, theft, attempt, action,