(Untitled)

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Some days you get good news, and some days you don't, and the other day was one of those days for Ellen. She's aware that, timestop or no, she needs to get back to her world and trying to find the northern Vault that Paladin Hoss told her about, but... well, the thought of going back and finding who knows what is currently putting the shivers up

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[im_so_sari]

"What'cha working on?" says the pigtailed eight-year-old approaching Ellen's table. (She's also got new clothing, in the form of a blue baseball cap with the word "Paradoxes" stitched across the front in white.)

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Fixing some guns I got from some space aliens," Ellen says, putting down the tube of epoxy and looking up. "Hi, Sari."

[im_so_sari]

"Oh cool. Real aliens? Were they robot aliens or giant bug things or what?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Little green men," Ellen says, indicating something only marginally taller than the top of Sari's ponytails. "In silver spacesuits, although only a few of them wore helmets. They had robots on their ship, but the robots were just drones."

This conversation's probably going to get interesting very quickly, but... well, she'll have to see where it leads.

[im_so_sari]

"Like from those cheesy old conspiracy theory websites??"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Cheesy old what now?" Ellen says, blinking. "These were a lot like the ones in the old movies, but real. Not just short men in rubber suits."

[im_so_sari]

"Y'know, the people who claim that aliens are always abducting people and taking cow parts and stuff..."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Oh. Well, these did abduct people," Ellen says. "They'd been at it for a few hundred years, in fact; I found a recording on their ship from someone who'd been taken from Salem Village. And there was a samurai warrior in cryo-storage, but the poor man didn't speak any English, and I don't know Japanese, so I couldn't ask him just when they kidnapped him. I don't remember seeing any cow parts, though."

[im_so_sari]

Blink.

Blink.

"You went on their spaceship???"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"It wasn't my idea," Ellen says. "I was trying to track down this very odd radio signal, and I found this crashed saucer-thing, and just as I was getting close enough to investigate there was some kind of teleporter beam. I woke up on the ship after that."

No need to mention the first time waking up.

[im_so_sari]

Sari looks even more boggled. "Dude. You got abducted?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Ellen spreads her hands a little helplessly. "I didn't mean to! It just happened!"

[im_so_sari]

"Well, duh, nobody means to get abducted... right?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Well, no, I would hope not," Ellen says. "It's not a very pleasant experience. The aliens take all your things and their idea of food is worms and tentacles."

That should be unpleasant enough to imagine without having to bring surgeries into the picture.

[im_so_sari]

"What, all of it??"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Well, I still had my underwear, but..."