Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble

     But the game of Faerie Bubbles was created for none of these reasons. It is based on a tale passed down from eons ago, a tale telling of a hardly innocent Flotsam who just happened to be in the wrong place at the right time.

     This Flotsam's name was Flow. Flow always behaved when her elders were around, but once she was alone with her friends, she suddenly became a spark of mischievous energy. This mischievous side of her led her and her three friends to a cave not too far away from their school in Maraqua.

     "I can't believe we were finally able to get away from that stuffy Mr. Octo. He's such a Zaptwig in the mud," said one of Flow's friends, a Blue Koi named Beryl.

     "Yeah, well, he may have eight arms but he's only got two eyes!" replied Deria, a Purple Jetsam.

     "I don't know...maybe we should go back before he realises we're gone," came the worried voice of Menny, a Green Acara.

     "Oh, you're such a scaredy-Kougra, Menny," Flow said, swimming into the cave and investigating the walls.

     "I don't think there's anything interesting here, Flow. Let's go back," Deria suggested after looking around a bit.

     "Yeah, this place is really boring. Let's go," agreed Beryl.

     "You go ahead. I just want to look around a little longer," Flow said, gesturing for her three friends to go on without her. As she heard them swim away, she took out her Flashlightfish and shined it on the walls. At first, all she saw was algae and the hard stone of the cave walls. As she went deeper, however, she noticed that the walls were becoming smoother and smoother, as if something had rubbed against them constantly. Soon, she realized that she had gone so deep inside that her Flashlightfish was the only light she had. Shivering, Flow decided it really was time to go back. She was just about to turn around when her Flashlightfish suddenly turned back into a fish and darted away from Flow.

     "Wait! Come back!" she screamed, looking frantically about for it, but it was of no use. Her only light source was gone, and she was completely in the dark, with no idea of knowing which way led to the exit and which way took her deeper in. She cautiously swam in one direction and soon collided with a wall.

     "Ouch," Flow, muttered, backing up and rubbing her fin where the collision had taken place. She heard a faint clicking noise in the distance.

     "What was that?" she asked to the darkness, getting no response. She decided on a new path and had just begun to swim when light suddenly filled the cavern. Flow lifted her fins up in front of her eyes to block the sudden glare of intense light, and then slowly dropped them to discover that she had accidentally opened a doorway into a largish area full of balls.

     They were of six different colors and scattered all about. She picked up a red one that looked like it had a flame inside of it. Thinking that perhaps it could act as a torch, she searched about for a stick to perch it on. Finding none, she tried to get the flame out of the ball. Flow tugged, scraped, smacked and even bit at it, but nothing seemed to work. Frustrated, she through it against the wall. It did not break, as Flow had hoped it would. In fact, it didn't hit the wall, thanks to the water. It gently floated downwards and laid to rest on top of many other balls, touching five of its similar red balls.

     Flow watched as a great popping noise sounded and the six red balls disappeared, along with most of the balls surrounding them. The only ones left were five or six bluish balls, which floated to the cavern floor and ended up in a pile. Suddenly, with a great POP!, they too vanished. A great shift occurred in the balls, sounding as if a wave had passed by Flow. She turned around and saw, to her great surprise, that all the blue balls had vanished. She couldn't spot a single one of them.

     "This is just too weird," Flow muttered, but nonetheless grabbed three of the green balls that seemed to have a little leaf inside. She then took a fourth and bashed it against them. Suddenly, around ten random balls appeared in front of Flow and floated to the floor of the cave.

     "Wow," Flow breathed, and proceeded to try the other balls. She found the bright yellow ones turned the ones surrounding it all one color. When she tested the deep purple balls, she saw that they all turned a different color. Flow leapt back in surprise when she tried the white ones that looked like they had little clouds inside of them. Just combining four of the balls made around thirty or forty appear in the cave.

     "I like this one," Flow said to herself, and eagerly started bashing the white ones together. Soon, there were tons of bubbles in the cave for her to play with. After a little bit, however, Flow decided that she tired and wanted to go home. She gathered one of each of the balls in her fins and looked around for the doorway. In her fun, however, she found that the balls had gotten so numerous that they blocked the way out. That also meant that Flow would soon run out of water, but she never realised that.

     Flow decided to take action. She dropped the six she had in her arms, making sure that they didn't do any of their special abilities. Then she grabbed a blue ball, which had reappeared after her creating spree. She soon found three other blue balls and arranged them so they were all touching each other. Flow then took the blue ball in her fin and dropped it onto them.

     "That takes care of the blue ones," Flow said as it floated downwards. Then, with a mighty popping noise, the blue ball connected and all of the blue ones disappeared. The balls sunk a little lower, colliding with each other, and Flow heard many pops happen as they did. Some more balls appeared, some disappeared, and some changed color. Flow zipped up to the ceiling as the pops continued. When they finally quit, she realized that she was going to have to be more careful.

     "A little at a time," Flow reminded herself as she started grabbing red balls and making little explosions here and there.

     "This is going to take too long," Flow muttered. "I need a way to get rid of a lot at once. Oh, duh," She then said, smacking herself in the forehead with a fin. She soon took the yellow balls and started making things change color. Soon, she had a sea of blue in front of her.

     "Uh oh," Flow said to herself, holding the last three balls she could find, which were all yellow. "How am I going to get rid of all the balls now?"

     Flow looked around the cave again, convinced she had missed something. All she could find, however, was a little rainbow-like ball and one that looked as if it had a Nova trapped inside of it.

     "Here goes," Flow said, tapping the Nova one against the yellow balls she had. With another large POP!, the yellow ones disappeared along with the little Nova ball.

     "Please, please, please let this work," Flow prayed as she let the rainbow ball drop into the sea of blue ones. As it twirled and twirled ever so slowly, Flow felt her stomach flip and flop all over the place.

     Then, at last, it touched the balls. It abruptly turned blue, and then the balls started to glow. Flow watched in amazement as they all vanished with one huge POP! The doorway was clear, and she could go home. She did a little dance in happiness before realising she still had no light source to light the way out.

     A giggle sounded from behind Flow and she whipped around. Floating there were six different faeries, each of them smiling at her happily and stretching out their limbs.

     "Thank you, child, for freeing us from these ridiculous bubbles," the Fire Faerie of the group said, wrinkling her nose at all the water around her.

     "You mean you were trapped inside those balls?" Flow asked, still in awe at seeing not one, but six faeries at once!

     "Yes," the Light Faerie explained. "The six of us were feuding about something, something absolutely trivial. So trivial that I can't even remember it now. All of us turned on each other, eventually, and to make a long story short, we made a big mess up in Faerieland."

     "So the Queen banished us inside of these little bubbles. She said that perhaps we could work together and find a way to free ourselves," the Air Faerie continued.

     "She also gave us three copies of each of us to try and work it out. But, I don't have the time for puzzles," the Dark Faerie said.

     "And, so," the Earth Faerie continued, pointing at the Dark Faerie, "she just bashed herself into all three of her balls and it all snowballed from there."

     "But, we're free now, and we've learned our lesson. And before we return to Faerieland, we'd all like to help you out a little bit," the Water Faerie said with a kindly smile.

     Flow gazed in awe as each of the Faeries bestowed her with something different. The Fire Faerie gave her the ability to conjure a little flame when she needed it.

     "It will keep you warm and light the way. And if there's no way out, then just blow it up," she said with a wink.

     The Water Faerie gave her the ability to create whirlpools.

     "They help you relax after a long day," she explained with a smile.

     The Earth Faerie gave her the ability to move rocks out of the way, for "when the obstacle can't be moved otherwise".

     The Air Faerie granted her the power to blur her body in case she got into trouble.

     The Dark Faerie reluctantly gave the child the ability to see in the dark.

     Finally, the Light Faerie granted her the ability to harness the power of the sun to dry something.

     "It only works on land, of course," she advised.

     With a final good-bye, the Faeries suddenly vanished, each in their own little way. In their places lay one bubble that represented their powers. Flow picked them up, and found her way out of the cave with the Night Vision she'd obtained.

     She went on to create the game we know now as Faerie Bubbles, and was naturally the best in Neopia at it during her time.

The End