Quantum Scrambled Eggs
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Chapter 1

The wind whistled through the trees, rustling green leaves and causing the warm summer sunlight to dance on the ground below playing softly on the figure sleeping there. Birds sang happily unaware of the human intrusion into their territories. It was for this reason that all the birds suddenly cut their chattering to see the sudden disturbance they felt rather than saw.

If one could actually see things through a natural alpha-state they would see blue lightning suddenly cascading around the figure of the sleeping human arcing in odd flowing paths until it faded back into nothingness.

Some of the birds looked down in curiosity while others thought it best to flee the area. Still others decided that it was nothing worth worrying about and continued their musical calls and responses, blending it with the tuneless music of the nearby brook and the harmony of the breeze as it played with the leaves.

The figure groaned for a moment and put a hand to his head, trying in vain to keep the world from spinning and looked around when it finally did. He was in a small forest clearing; evidently he'd made camp there, because off to the side was a small fire-pit stacked with wood ready to be lit for cooking. The blanket he was currently sitting on seemed to be sturdy, yet it was obvious that it was well used. Sitting right next to the blanket was a small traveler's pack…

It all fit together, but something was missing.

"Who am I?!" the figure yelled to the skies. It seemed to echo three times thought the trees shouldn't have let it echo.

Apparently he had no clue as to who he was… well, he could figure it out. Reaching out a hand, he grabbed the travel pack and emptied the contents onto the blanket. Perhaps there would be a clue among the items.

The food, most of it canned, probably some sort of military rations, he set to the side. That eliminated two-thirds to three-fourths of the items. There were several maps, which a quick glance over revealed that besides not knowing who he was he didn't know where he was either. Sighing he set them aside as well. Then his eyes fell on a small flattened piece of metal, he wondered what it could be used for before placing it back in the travel-bag.

The last item he examined was a book, a medium-sized and rather nondescript leather bound book, almost like one that might be used for a diary. Opening the book he started reading. He gasped when he came across a name, a whole list of names actually… this was definitely a clue… and it certainly indicated that his family name was Gabriev.

"Well, I thought I heard you yell," a voice behind him said, startling him so much that he jumped, almost dropping the book. "I got the doc, but he'll be a while."

"Who are you?" he asked the newcomer wearily, eyes darting to the bow casually slung over one shoulder and the long needle-point dagger strapped to his right hip.

Laughing, he replied, "Take it easy G-Man, it's just me… Yeal." Then he saw the look of complete lack of recognition on the other's face and sighed. "I guess that hit to your head earlier was as bad as I thought, maybe worse… I've heard of things like this. Losing memories, I mean."

"Ok… Yeal." The one referred to as G-Man scrutinized him rather intensely. "I guess you know me, even if I don't know you."

Gourry thought to himself as he half-listened to Yeal 'So, who is this guy? I don't think he means me any real harm, he could have jumped me while I was reading… So, I guess he's ok. Though I wish he'd stop calling me "G-Man". It's annoying.'

Yeal nodded and chuckled a bit. "I'm glad you're being reasonable, Gourry. I mean we've been together for almost three years now and it'd be a shame to let a little thing like a hit to the head ruin our friendship."

"You hit me in the head!?" Gourry screamed almost hysterically.

Yeal laughed so hard he had to wipe tears from his eyes, "Oh, Gourry… You sure haven't forgotten how to tell a joke." Yeal barely got out before bursting into laughter as he gasped out

"I-I warned you - about - about - that goblin…" Yeal said as he collapsed and tried to bring himself under control. Yeal looked rather embarrassed and apologetic as he sat down away from his companion.

"I don't see what's so funny." Gourry mumbled to himself, and scratched his head.

"You ducked into the blow instead of away from it." Yeal said almost bursting into uncontrollable laughter again.

Gourry sighed. It wasn't funny from where he stood, but then he started to imagine the scene… there he was fighting and a goblin jumps at him from behind and to the left wielding a club, Yeal yelling out a warning… only to have Gourry duck into the blow.

Gourry chuckled, it was kind of funny.

– – – – – – – – – –

The gnarled hand clutching the large irregularly shaped rock arced down smashing forcefully into Gourry's skull.

"Gah!" Gourry jumped up, obviously surprised by the doctor braining him.."What was that for!?" Gourry yelled at the small grey-haired man he towered over.

"Well…" The doctor began as he stroked his long grey beard, "I once heard that the secret treatment of someone who lost their memory due to a blow to the head was to repeat that blow."

"Yeah? Look at this! Look!" Gourry held his hand up, covered with blood from the profusely bleeding head wound. "I don't think you know what you're doing, you old quack!" Gourry angerly spat, as he replaced his hand trying to stop the bleeding.

"Well, I, you… Argh!" The doctor huffed, wheeling about and heading to his horse. "Fine!"

"Whoh! Doc, calm down, calm down." Yeal said trying to placate the irate physician. It's a general rule that calling a doctor a quack, under any circumstances, will offend them. "He didn't mean it. He's just angry…" Yeal tried to cover for Gourry, but as he said it he realized that it wouldn't be enough, "about losing his memory, that is!" Yeal finished, thinking it a good way to redirect the doctor's attention. "I mean, a memory's a pretty important thing to a man."

"Ehh." The doctor paused as he grunted non-commensally.

"What man wouldn't be angry if his memories were taken from him?" Yeal asked, trying to play on the doctor's pause. "All his experience, his work, family and friends. Gone. Just like that."

The doctor spun around shaking visibly with anger.

"And what about winning your first fight? Drinking your first beer? Girls?" Yeal said cutting off the doctor's angry retort. "All the things that make a man."

"Well, I suppose." the doctor said, albeit through clenched teeth. "I suppose I can go and look though my library at home…"

Yeal relaxed, calming people wasn't his specialty, and he felt better now that he'd managed to keep the doctor from storming off with his down payment and not curing his friend.

Things were cut short by the distinct feminine scream of absolute terror. Now this was what Yeal had signed on for… saving beautiful damsels in distress. Well, the money too, but that was beside the point.

My daughter!" The doctor gasped as he spun back to his horse and mounted with all the haste he could manage, just before clutching his chest gasping "Arg, My heart!" and falling off the other side.

"Come on Gourry!" Yeal shouted as he ran off towards where the scream had emanated..Yes, the doctor was having a heart attack, but times like these called for decisive action and priorities. And beautiful women always ranked higher on Yeal's priority list than old men. "Doc, you'll have to treat yourself, Gourry and I'll save your daughter."

– – – – – – – – – –

Gourry and Yeal trotted close behind the poor kidnaped damsel, or at least they did according to Yeal. Gourry was less sure, not to mention there was a nagging feeling that something wasn't right, though he couldn't, for the life of him, figure out why things didn't feel right.

Then with a rumble rising from deep within his bowls Gourry knew what it was. He needed to take a crap. Badly.

A few minuted later Gourry emerged from the wood-line feeling much better. "Ah, that feels better!" Gourry said cheerfully.

"I didn't need to know that." Yeal replied somewhat dryly, then added under his breath "Or smell it."

"What?" Gourry asked, failing to notice how several of the trees behind him were going through the autumn motions of having their leaves change color and fall off.

"Nothing, let's just go!"

Gourry shrugged and followed Yeal. As it turned out he wasn't wrong, they weren't far behind the kidnapers at all. In fact they were amazingly close, closer than they knew, as they burst into a clearing where the kidnapers had made camp.

Yeal fell into the camp area after stumbling over a protruding root that he did being too intent on the kidnapers. Sprawled out on the ground and gasping for breath Yeal got a good look at the kidnappers as the four men closed in on him. Two were big and hairy, with thick-bladed swords strapped to their sides they didn't seem quite like ape-bears. The other two looked to be brothers, well dressed, and probably robbers of another sort, politicians or lawyers.

"Well well, what have we got here?" One of the ape like men said with a chuckle.

"I think it's someone who wasn't invited." The other answered drawing his sword and holding it high above his head heady to bring down with maximum force. "I just knows we doesn't like uninvited people barging in all uncivilized like."

Hiding in the dense bush just outside the clearing Gourry looked on… 'Okay, here we go! We can do this!' He told himself, though it wasn't exactly full of confidence. He took a breath, eased his sword out of its sheath, and started counting mentally, 'One, two…'

"Three!" Gourry shouted as he jumped out of the bush and caught the big man's sword just before it would have struck, deflecting it at the last instant… following the path of the original arc with his eyes as he used the forward momentum of his rather massive body to body-check the ape-man. He observed that the strike would have landed a good eight inches away from Yeal's ear had it gone uninterrupted.

Gourry continued his surprise assault with a underhanded swing of his sword to the first man and a kick to the wrist of the second as he reached for his sword. He wasn't in a good spot, in fact directly in between two enemies in close-quarters combat is a really bad place to be. So Gourry tried to side step and get the two in his field of vision without leaving Yeal undefended.

"Quite enough of that!" one of the politicians said in a commanding tone.

"Is that any way to treat guests?" the other asked as he adjusted his tie and a flower pinned to his jacket. "I mean I did hire you to protect me from the bandits that prowl these forest roads, but these folk don't seem like that sort to me… besides," He smiled and straightened the coat, "We do need witnesses for my wedding!"

"Wedding?" Yeal gasped, finally able to catch a little of the wind that had been knocked out of him.

"Why yes! Today is the day I marry that fine doctors daughter."

"I'm confused." was all that Gourry could manage, things were just a little too strange. And they were getting stranger by the moment.

The doctor flew into the clearing mounted on his old grey horse, dismounted and gave the finely dressed man a warm embrace. "I'm not too late am I?"

"No! No, not at all. How could we have the wedding without the father to give the bride away?" he replied laughing and smiling, "Now why don't you go get her?" he excitedly urged the older man on.

– – – – – – – – – –

The wedding was short and sweet. The other well-dressed man turned out to actually be the other man's younger brother, and also the Reverend that they wanted to marry them. Yeal caught the garter and one of the ape-like men the bouquet.

There was cake and ice cream for everyone after the ceremony, though Gourry didn't see where it could have come from, it just seemed to appear out of thin air.

As things wound down, Goury found himself thinking about what had happened. The recent events still puzzled him. "What happened? I thought we were chasing kidnappers Yeal?"

Yeal looked up from his cake, wiped his mouth with a napkin, missing a large crumb on the side of his mouth. "Yeah… I thought so too."

The daughter laughed from across the table, "I was just surprised when Danny literally swept me of my feet riding that large black horse of his."

"But what about the Doc's heart-attack?" Gourry asked, still not convinced everything was okay.

It was the doctor's turn to laugh, "That was just my heartburn acting up my boy!" He started to take another bite, then added on, "This here heart's as strong as any of you young whipper-snappers'."

"Now, if you two are through " the Reverend held up a crystal glass and proposed a long and heartwarming toast to the bride and groom.

– – – – – – – – – –

Yeal and Gourry made their way out of the forest along a road that wound in between the gentle slopes of the plains. The doctor hadn't been able to find anything to help Gourry and they had decided that they would take a troll extermination job. Gourry couldn't see it so much as feel that something was going to happen soon, so he tried to keep a sharp eye out despite Yeal's protests that they would be safe until they entered the troll's territory.

Author's Notes:

Well, here we go, off to a slow start but a start nonetheless. I chose Gourry for the starting point here for several reasons, one of which was to explain why he seems so clueless in the series (Don't worry, we'll get there.) and several other things I noticed about him, as well as wanting to write some of the series from his point of view, thought that'll only be a bit of it and not the whole series. (You guys don't want to read a rewrite of the whole series from his point of view, you want new and exciting stories right?)

So speaking of new (and exciting) stories, I suppose I should say that this story's start is going to follow Gourry around prior to the opening of the Slayers series a bit, and into the series probably up to the Shabrandigo encounter. Then we jump, it is a story somewhat loosely inspired by Quantum Leap after all.

Special thanks to William B. who helped me iron out the basic story and premise, pointed out several flaws, and gave lots of helpful suggestions. In fact, after discussing it with him I decided to forgo the short one-page intro, as it seemed to be a bit too absurd… and that I'd have to maintain that level of strangeness throughout the entire series. No, instead I decided that I should start out on a bit of a more serious note, starting everyone at the same place as "myself", having no clue what's going on with him, what's happening around him, or why any of it's happening at all. These will be revealed (at least to some degree) during the course of the story.

(Although I have to say that calling Slayers more serious than the intro I had written makes me stop and think 'was it really that bad' Maybe. When I regain my memory in the story and the truth of the origins are revealed you'll probably agree with him… if I don't clean it up a bit.)

Lastly, but not least, I want to make this story somewhat semi-interactive, meaning that Reviewers/fans will have some small amount of input. (e.g. beg me to go somewhere or not do something.) I have to say that Will gave me the great idea of going to the Sliders universe, which I will be doing on the third 'jump', probably.

If enough people bug me about it I'll post the original 'lost intro' in all it's corny glory, at the end of the story after it's all posted or perhaps put it into a dream or something.