The next thing I knew, the med-pod was opening, and I was dropping to all fours on the deck. As I was puking up the alien coffee from earlier, I collapsed onto my side next to the puddle, panting and heaving. “what…what… the fuck!? just happened to me? I feel nothing but PAIIIINNN!!!!” I whimper-yelled at Elli. She takes more than a few minutes to respond, and when she does it’s with trepidation in her voice. Not to mention she’s back inside my head again, but this time it feels like instead of an ice pick being slammed into and trough my skull only when she actively interacts with me, her presence in my head is constant and makes me feel like I’m snuggled in a huge, heavy blanket wrapped around me like a burrito in front of a roaring good bonfire in winter would.

Her answer to my stuttered query is thus: “When you dove into my mental embrace and started frantically pushing all the warmth and acceptance you could at me, I took it as your approval to proceed with the soul-bonding, I have no idea why you’re like this right now, so all I can do is say that I’m sorry this is happening. I never knew this was what would happen when you were released after such an ordeal, the best guess I can make is that I may have let you go too quickly maybe?” As I lay there contemplating her statement, the agony in my lower chest/diaphragm area started to abate rapidly, as the pain died away it was replaced by a similar warm feeling to what was engulfing my mind. This new sensation felt GOOOODDD, it felt STRONG, more so than anything I’d ever felt before or even heard of.

I tried to sit up and felt a strange tightness in the back of my neck, when I felt at it, I noticed the muscle under the skin felt thicker than before. Rightly worried, I asked Ellyallia about it figuring it had something to do with our new bond, but just as I thought about asking her she answered, “don’t worry about that it will dissolve on its own in a few days as its broken down by your body. It’s simply a mass of my own flesh, more specifically my stem cells, your body will break the mass down and the cells will disseminate throughout your body’s various systems in order to improve their efficacy and durability at a base genetic level.” Oh… shit. Oh fuck, that’s, well that could be well, I don’t know just yet.

Ok, so I’m bound mind, body, and soul to a living spaceship and probably just became some sort of inhuman, mutant freak that will be hunted by his own people for the rest of my life. Well, it’s not like I had anything holding me here on earth anyways, so I can just grab a few things for the road and head out to space with my new um…. ship-waifu? Ya ship-waifu works. Out to space with my new ship-waifu and just never look back.

Although with how these kinds of stories usually go, she’s probably being hunted by some evil organization hellbent on her destruction for some stupid reason of their own hubris-making. So, of course, Ellyallia squeaks up, “ummmm……. Well, I guess I don’t have to explain this bit then? Um…ok, well they are an illegal black ops mercenary group and they built my shell. They were testing it in a lesser known velmak spawning nebula that is located a good distance off the nearest star-way route when they were captured by my mother. She didn’t realize who they were nor would she have cared, they had a ship and she needed a shell for her newborn daughter, me.”

“So, your mother stole this ship-shell from what’s essentially space terrorists and gave it to you, at which point you came to find me and now we are both being hunted by said space terrorists?” I asked. “wonderful. Alright then, do we need to worry about them right now or do we have time?” when I ask this, a holographic map opens up in the middle of the medbay showing the milky way galaxy. “this is where we are over Earth,” Elli states while a flashing dot appears near the rim of one arm of the galaxy. “this is the velmak spawning nebula where I was born.” A new dot appears on the opposite side of the map.

“the velmak, as living organic beings have no need of fuel for our warp drives as we can pull aether straight from the astral plane to power our drives and reactors. Because of this, we can travel without concern for resupply and refuel unlike normal ships. Given the distances involved, the ‘space terrorists’ as you called them will take an estimated six months minimum to even arrive in this system let alone prepare any sort of action against us here on your homeworld.” Ellyallia announces. “we do not need to worry overly much about them just yet although we will need to soon enough.”

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I nod along and push up onto my knees and slowly stand up shakily. “ok, if that’s the case then I say we start preparing for our escape from Earth back to whatever passes for galactic civilization. They can’t get us if we’re beyond their reach. These guys obviously were developing some sort of super ship meant to spearhead some bullshit revolution or whatnot against some perceived evil that doesn’t really exist or some dumb shit like that. If they really are coming all this way just to try to keep this ship a secret, then it stands to reason either they or what they were mucking about with were/are illegal.”

we talked about what was coming, our future together, and many more topics over the next 2 weeks while we adjusted to our new normal. After almost a month after Ellyallia had originally kidnapped me off the street, I was teleported back down to the surface. (on a side note I was terrified and exhilarated when I discovered my new wife had a freaking teleporter!) We were both worried about my absence causing us troubles in the future, so we decided to get my Earthly affairs in order before we were forced into abandoning Earth for possibly the rest of our lives. I decided that if I was going to be living a new life, I needed a new wardrobe. So roughly a week before I returned to my life on Earth, I went to a few local pawnshops and sold some precious metals like gold and platinum for quick cash; with the proceeds from that endeavor in hand, I went to a tailor and got a dozen simple suits, coats of various lengths, and a few hats. Yes, even a couple of fedoras *sigh*. I also bought various style holsters and sheaths for the numerous knives I scavenged from Elli’s armory. I had decided that I would have only a single pistol style plasma thrower I kept calling a blaster and it was going to be a unique piece which would take a few days to fabricate.

A few days later, Elli dropped me off near the school that morning before first period as the plan was to simply ignore the time-gap and just resume my life as it was in hopes that eventually everyone would just let it all fade from the fore in time. Elli was worrying that I’d be dragged in for questioning by men in suits, whereas I my side was summed up with ‘everyone go MEH’; but what actually happened was we were both right. I caused quite the commotion when I called the teacher out for skipping me on role call which led to me being dragged down to the principal’s office almost immediately. The principal spent over an hour screaming at me about skipping school for a month without notice and for refusing to say anything other than I was married now and was planning a wedding once I got the money for it in another month or so. That got her to shut up. Ha!

I thought I would be in the clear once I dealt with the school, but how wrong I was. The principal was finally winding down when two walking CIA spook stereotypes waltzed in like they owned the place, which honestly, they very well might have. They never even got a word in edgewise though; by they even closed the door I was up and past them. I heard shouting from the goons and a shriek from the principal as I hauled ass out of the office and back to class while laughing my ass off the whole way. the government thugs gave up before they even got out of the office fortunately for me.

I got to second period shortly after the bell rang, and when I walked in, I saw many shocked faces and even a few credit chits being passed. HEY! Where’s my cut?! Seriously? Ok well whatever. “well, where have you been?! Huh?!” the old hag teacher sneers at me. “finding love and getting married. Neither are anything you’ll ever experience with that attitude.” I quipped back at her. Lots of ooohhhhsss around the room at that. A few seconds later, “WHAT THE FUCK!? DID YOU JUST SAY YOU’RE MARRIED!?” comes from the back of the room. I turn to see who was freaking out and sure enough it was Eugene ‘Butch’ Wilkens, my lifelong bully. Time for some sweet revenge.