Wanda came to in the desert. It was dark, and a bitter cold was starting to set in. Ahead of her she saw a mountain crackling with blue tendrils of electricity. She felt a slight nudge on her mind to go towards it. She obliged, knowing the sensation to be a sort of homing device of the Dream Sprites'. Looking up she sighed. It was just like Rorin to make her life difficult, she observed to herself. In the not so far off distance she heard a coyote begin to howl and shivered. She decided it was time to head toward the familiar tug at her consciousness.
As she neared she noticed that there wasn't any entrance, not that that surprised her. She twitched her wand and was inside the strange place, disguised as a potted fern. She watched as a man walked by her and headed for a desk in the center of the room. She reached out with her soul and felt for the entity, but there was no reply. Receding back into herself, she waited as more security guards passed her and went about their business. Every one she scanned and every one came up negative. Some time later, a second man came up to the desk and relieved the first of duty. She had come to the conclusion that it was some kind of customer reception area or something of the sort. She snorted.
Not much service out there for a building that had no entrance. She scoffed. I know I wouldn't shop here.
Suddenly there was a flurry of movement down the corridor that caught her attention, as well as everyone else's. From a small door a ways down the hall a exasperated male voice could be heard screaming.
"Ziggy!" it yelled. "You hone me in on Sam THIS INSTANT!!!!"
"I am working on it as fast as I can, Admiral," a pleasant female voice said. It sounded slightly peeved, and seemed to come from nowhere. Wanda honed in on the female voice as best she could from her location, but got nothing. Grunting, frustrated, she decided to go for a more direct approach, and possibly get farther into the building to investigate. She transformed herself into a medium height woman with pink hair and a very curvaceous body. She walked up to the desk she had been observing for the past hour and leaned against it, letting her feminine charms get her as far as possible with the guard. What ever this place was, it obviously wasn't visitor friendly.
"Hi," she drawled when the guard looked up at her. "Could you help me with something?" The guard punched a button and began to speak into a mike before she even got the chance to say more.
"Admiral Calavicci," he said as monotonously as possible while still being respectful, "your...guesÂt...is here." He spat the word guest like she was an escort or something. She narrowed her eyes and was about to bark at him for it, when the door she had heard the voice from earlier opened. A short little Italian in a brightly coloured and extremely grotesque suit stepped out huffily.
"Can you not see I'm..." he stopped as he saw Wanda and eyed her up and down. It made her sick. "Hey babe." He moaned. She ignored him and began to search for her friend in him. As her soul touched his mind, she felt the jolt of Nana's presence, as well as a crushing suffocation she couldn't explain. She began to physically gasp for air and fell to the ground, severing her link. The man quickly came over and helped her up.
"Are you alright?" he asked with genuine concern, though not wholly unmixed with lust.
"Yes," she replied, primly straightening herself out. "I'm fine. I need to speak to you..." She was cut off by the ominous female voice as it came on again.
"Admiral, you are needed in the Imaging Chamber," it said sweetly yet urgently. The admiral swore under his breath.
"Hey, look," he said as he stepped away from Wanda. "Can we talk later maybe; over dinner or something?"
"I really don't have that sort of ..." Wanda watched as he disappeared into the room he had exited out of. "...time."
Al stormed into the Imaging Chamber and readied himself to appear next to Sam. He was rather upset about being torn away from the babe in the lounge. But if Ziggy said he was needed, he was needed, and probably for something serious by the sounds of it. He hadn't really been thrilled with being called away from his friend in the first place, but Sam had seemed to be doing fine on his own, and the real trouble wasn't even going to be starting soon according to Ziggy's observations. He punched some keys on the handlink agitatedly, but gave up when it returned nothing.
"What's wrong with Sam?" he asked as he was transported to the location. Ziggy didn't answer. Al didn't care much when he saw the view. "Oh God," he swore. Before him was Sam, bloody and still, on the floor of the church. He was wearing his robes for confessional, and judging by the ragged holes in the screen between the two booths, he had been shot by the confessor. A wound on his scull was gushing his vital fluid like mad. Al nearly broke down and cried. Several people were standing over his friend, trying to revive him, but none of them noticed Al; no one could see him.
"Don't die on me, Sam," he ordered, panic rising in his voice as his desperate helplessness began to take over.
Nana watched as the images ran into his subconscious. She recognized the woman in the thoughts even without the connection the fairy had made with her. She had tried to rein some of the poison back so Wanda wouldn't get hit with it, and had succeeded in containing almost all of it, but the pink haired woman still got hit hard. Nana shook her astral head and sighed before leaving. Her other charge needed her desperately at the moment.
She watched the images flit by in her current Dreamer's head and read his memories as they passed her to be entered in his short term memory. She sighed; why did he always have to chase skirts at the most inopportune times? She saw the familiar pattern of events that meant they were going to Sam. She waited patiently until she saw the unfamiliar scenery to where her second Dreamer lay. He was wearing a confessional gown, and was bleeding badly from his left temple. She felt the pain rip through Al and was almost thrown out by his mind. She looked down at her arms and saw the skin beginning to turn green. In desperation she sent thoughts of Sam standing up, holding his head, and saying it had only grazed him. It seemed to work, as her skin returned to its normal pale colour. She watched as he knelt beside the Leaper and tried to pick him up. With one last wave of reassuring thoughts, hoping it would sooth his fears and feelings of helplessness.
"Don't die on me, Sam," she heard him say.
"He won't," she whispered into his psyche. She felt it relax, and the acidic hurt that had washed through him start to abate.
As soon as Al was calmed, she darted into the second man's body. She sifted at light speed through his mental barriers, hearing Al's furtive prayer to God to let his friend be alive, and stopped when she reached a little boy, cuddled in a corner. She could feel the hurt and confusion surrounding the boy, among many other emotions. He looked up at her as she neared; tear streaked face full of fear and torment.
"Please don't make me go," he begged. She smiled at him softly and took the guise of his mother. She was never really sure what she looked like when she did this. It was so hard to find anything in the poor thing's mind. She bent in front of him and smiled.
"But Samuel," she said softly, "your friend needs you. You don't want to leave Albert all alone, do you?" The boy shook his head mournfully as Nana pulled him into a reassuring hug. "Don't worry," she cooed.
"But it hurts out there," he whimpered.
"I know," she sympathized. "But you're scaring Albert. He thinks your dead, honey, and it's making him hurt inside. See?" She waved one arm in the air, still holding him with the other; the events outside unfolding before them. The young counterpart of Sam stared at it for a minute. He began to sob again as he watched the tears in Al's eyes start to brim. Nana felt the emotions in his mind start to change to compassion and love for his friend.
"Are you ready to help him?" Nana asked softly after a minute. The boy nodded solemnly, never taking his eyes off of the image of his friend.
"Will you be with me, Nana?" the boy asked as he pulled away.
"I'll only be as far away as Al," she promised. Then she stood with the boy and kissing her fingertips, she crossed herself and closed his eyes. "Peace be with you," she whispered. "Awake."
Wanda sat in the waiting area nervously. She chewed her lip as she thought of Timmy.
"Please," she prayed, turning her face to the ceiling, "Don't let anything happen to Timmy." Suddenly the door opened behind her, and the Italian man came out again. She watched anxiously as he came toward her and smiled.
"I'm sorry," he said charmingly, "I didn't get your name earlier."
"Wanda," she blurted without stopping to think that it might seem like a strange name to him. She covered her left hand with her right, and formed a wedding ring there, hoping to scare him off a bit. She uncovered her hand and held it up to him to kiss, as in old school manners. He looked at the ring for a second, but didn't seem fazed as he bent down to kiss the proffered hand.
"My name is Admiral Calavicci," he returned. "But I take it you didn't come to talk to me." Wanda started.
How did he know? She wondered to herself. Then it dawned on her.
"Nana?" she asked tentatively.
"Yeah," the admiral replied, grinning ear to ear. "Sorry I just had to! Don't worry, he's sleeping." Wanda looked confused, but agreed anyways. Nana laughed. "Let's get him to bed," she said, "Then we can leave. I know you must've come for help; you always do." With that in the way of an explanation she walked to a second room and motioned for Wanda to follow. Inside the room, Calavicci's body slumped on to a cot against the wall, and curled up in dreamless sleep. Wanda was suddenly aware of a second consciousness brushing her mind. Almost instantaneously Cosmo was floating beside her. He smiled and grabbed her hand.
"Well," Cosmo said. "Let's go!"
A/N Okay, I've never actually seen the first ones yet, or any of them that show just WHAT project QL looks like, but I'm guessing it's the funky electric blue mountain in the beginning of every episode, am I right? Also, since I haven't seen the end of the series and how that all works, this is DURING the series. No where in particular, just somewhere. It doesn't really matter for this fic, anyways. But if you really insist on a place, I kinda last minute decided on the episode where he's a priest and he gets shot in the confessional booth (no, duh! If you read this far, you noticed that already). Sadly, most of my info about what goes on in the actual building comes from fanfics I've read. When I find out the truth for myself I will edit what needs to be. Also, I promised I would explain all the funky messed up junk I've been writing and not explaining, and it will be in the next chapter I swear!
