In retrospect, it was probably a mistake to let the single least friendly- or sane, for that matter- person I know handle diplomatic relations with our first visitor from another planet.

It was Chelsea who dragged in the first extraterrestrial visitor, and I really do mean 'dragged'. She had the grey-skinned… girl? I think? (Were those… horns sticking out of her head?)... by the back of her shirt, and, though I couldn't see her eyes behind her pointy red glasses, I had a hunch she wouldn't be happy about it once we'd pried off Chelsea's iron grip and let her breathe again.

Chelsea is a tall, wiry girl with Irish ancestry, and the curly red hair to prove it. She spends most of her time working on the wiring and mechanics in our makeshift home; she's really very good at putting things together. In her free time, she likes to read mystery books, or do complicated puzzles. By herself. She won't ever let anyone else help.

Chelsea, you see, doesn't have a real talent for making new friends. She's intelligent enough when she's being rational, or working on something, but that doesn't stop her from scaring most people off from even trying to be her friend. She's a little bit… standoffish, at times. The rest of the time, she's completely paranoid. She's our resident conspiracy theorist, and she can get carried away easily. The first time she heard Bug's name, she spent the next few hours checking all of her stuff for surveillance devices. She still isn't entirely convinced of his innocence.

Bug, it should be noted, isn't fond of Chelsea. This is because Chelsea has a history of periodically erasing the memory on all of his devices, convinced that somewhere, somehow, he's plotting her untimely demise. We finally managed to get her to promise to stop after she permanently disabled his phone from calling anyone; she'd finally managed to incur MY wrath. That phone was a gift, dang it! It was expensive, too. She may be suspicious of Bug, but she knows very well that I'm the one she'd have to deal with if she ever actually hurt him, and I can be fairly vicious when I'm angry. After that little incident, I sort of became a roadblock for her insanity; she can't convince anyone of her suspicions without going through me first.

"Jam! We've been invaded by aliens!" She yelled as she saw me. She brandished said alien at me as she said so, like she was presenting evidence at a trial.

"Aliens? Plural? You've only got the one…" I probably shouldn't have been being sarcastic at the moment, but it was hard to feel threatened properly when the invader in question was being dragged around by the scruff of her neck. "Alright, who's this? Let her breathe, Chelsea."

Chelsea looked horrified. "What?! No! She could be dangerous!" Her yelling was bringing attention from the others. Bug appeared from around the corner, confused. "What's up with all the yelling? Does she have a reason this time? Or did she find a suspicious pattern in the ceiling tiles again?"

He took in the scene. "...Who's that?" He then realized (based off of unfortunate personal experience) that Chelsea had likely half strangled the alien by now. "Ye gods, Chelsea, don't kill her! Let go!"

Between my and Bug's efforts, we managed to release the stranger, and we held Chelsea back as the strange girl caught her breath.

"J3GUS, WH4T TH3 H3LL?!" She yelled. I had been right- she wasn't happy. Busy as we were restraining our dear friend Chelsea, we couldn't stop her from dashing back outside, retreating back to whence she had come through the portal that had so rudely eaten our pool.

"See, now look what you've done! She's gonna come back any minute with an army of space invaders, and I haven't even got my pistol since you confiscated it! We're doomed!" Chelsea wailed. Bug and I shared an exasperated eye roll. I decided to take charge. "Hey, could you go round up the others? We need to figure out what all that was about," I said, not trusting Chelsea with the task. "And Chelsea here may be right about them attacking us, considering she just tried to strangle a teenage girl and all. I'll stay here and restrain Chelsea in case that girl or any other aliens come back."

Bug nodded and dashed off to rally the troops. Chelsea folded her arms and glared at me, muttering under her breath about alien invaders. I heard voices outside; I didn't recognize them. I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do about that. Part of me, I'll admit, wanted to take the easiest option and let Chelsea scare them off.

We were about to receive guests, with only myself and Chelsea, of all people, here to greet them. I interposed myself between Chelsea and the door. Yes, that a little risky on my part. Chelsea is fully capable of causing people who get in her way serious injury. On the other hand, she could cause an intergalactic incident if I let her have free reign. I did NOT want to give her a clear shot at the new people.

Yeah, in retrospect, I really should have just bopped her on the back of the head at the very start.