Yup, another one.
	Don't worry, this one's clean.

HTG
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Early afternoon; Smurf Village: 

	"...smurf!" Farmer Smurf grunted as he dragged the blanket covered
object in the cart towards Papa Smurf's home, "This thing is _heavy_!"
	"What'cha got there,Farmer?" Hefty asked as he headed home from
Handy's workshop.
	"T'be honest Hefty," he responded with a worried glance towards
the tarp, "I wish I knew.  Found it out by the far end o' the field
earlier. 
	"Tis not like anything I've ever seen," Farmer continued as Hefty
peered under the cloth, "would rather have Papa Smurf figure it out than
try t' toy with it or leave it for th' Smurflings t' find." 
	"Yea...." Hefty muttered, slightly awed at what he saw. 
	"Lemme give you a hand with this." he continued as he braced
himself against the other end of the cart and pushed. 

******

	"Oh my smurf!" Papa said upon seeing Farmer's discovery laid out
on a hastily cleared workbench. 
	"You know what it is Papa Smurf?" Hefty asked as the Smurf
Patriarch examined it while Handy and Smurfette followed the two into the
lab. 
	The thing was, aside from the odd vented hump on the back, the
same general shap and proportion as most humans but apparently covered by
shaped plates of some hard substance with a more flexable material at the
joints.  One arm was shaped much like a slender (female?) human's, but the
other was a longer and thicker cylinder with five fingers surrounding a
large hole too dark for anyone to see into; in addition, both legs below
the knee were solid columns which widened and divided in one direction to
end in oddly hooflike feet.  The head was unlike anything that any smurf
had ever seen; the bulk of it comprised of a slightly elongated sphere
with long fins mounted behind it and no visible trace of a face as they
knew it.  The reflective surface of the creature was painted either dark
grey or a blue slightly darker than the smurfs' own skin and trimmed with
both white and a brilliant red. 
	"I have no idea Hefty," Papa Smurf finally concluded, "it has the
look of human armour but... this is scarcely larger than _us_." 
	"I know Papa Smurf," Handy said as he flet the armour, "and I've
_never_ seen any metal like this before." 
	"Shhh," said Smurfette as she placed an ear to it's chest, "I
think something's alive in he-" 
	"Papa Smurf," called Brainy from behind a stack of books being
lugged down from the attic, "here are the spell books you
werAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!" 
	"What's _your_ problem, Brainy?" Hefty grumbled as he dug brainy
out of the pile of tomes at the bottom of the stairs. 
	"W-w-what _is_ that?!?" he stammered as he straightened his
glasses. 
	"Maybe we should ask her when she wakes up." Smurfette observed. 

******

Mid-afternoon; Papa's Lab; Smurf Village:

	Smurfette stood over the still figure while Brainy watched warily
from the other side of the room.  Hefty and Handy had left after exausting
themselves and ruining several tools in futile efforts to force the armour
open and Papa, after magically determining that whoever what in that shell
was quite unharmed, had started digging though his archives in the next
room trying to find the spell that he _did_ detect on the sleeping form. 
	#Who _are_ you?# half of the Village Smurf's female population
thought as she ran her fingers over the helmet, #Where did you come from? 
Somehow, I think it was more intresting than...eh?#
	"Papa Smurf said don't touch it, or we'll both get into trouble." 
Brainy noted from the corner as Smurfette fingered the hidden catch. 
	"He also wanted to know _who_ was in here." she countered as she
pressed the release. 
	Suddenly, the opaque forward dome slid up, revealing a slightly
tinted bowl of glass(?) that revealed the unconcious woman's face. 
	#She looks human,# Smurfette thought, #but her cheeks and eyes... 
they look like that traveller from the east we helped a few years ag-OH!#
	Her last exclamation escaped her lips as the eyes she was studying
suddenly snapped open.  As the reddish eyes locked onto her face Smurfette
saw a mixture of disorientation, shock, confusion, fear, and finally anger
race though them.  She barely had time to contemplate stepping back when
the less mechanical-seeming of the stranger's hands grabbed her by the
throat.

******

(Cue Soundtrack: Kon'ya wa Hurricane (Instrumental) by the Smurf Orchestra)

	BubbleSmurf Crisis:
		A new tale of the Knight Sabres

	Coming soon from Loof Lirpa Publishers. ^_^