Fighting the Fuzzles

      Jollan looked around the corner, squeezing the ray gun in her hand. The alarm overhead beeped loudly, and a voice came through a nearby speaker.

      "Attention! Fuzzles are currently attacking the recreation deck. Please move down to the hanger and take cover until further notice."

      Making sure the coast was clear, she quickly ran out of the Space Battledome arena and towards the stairs. There was a loud gurgling noise behind her. She spun around and saw a bright pink Fuzzle coming at her. With bad aim and a quick reaction time, she shot the ray gun at the Fuzzle and completely missed. The ray bullet bounced off of the wall and ceiling. It shattered a glass lamp on the wall beside the Fuzzle. The creature, now frightened, took off in the other direction towards Grundo's Cafe. As she breathed out a deep sigh of relief, she made her way down the stairs to the supply deck. She hoped her colorful disco print wouldn't attract the attention of any more Fuzzles.

      She quietly went down the long flight of stairs to the supply deck below. As she looked around for any signs of a Fuzzle hiding in the shadows, she saw someone behind a stack of wooden crates. It was her best friend Tirlene, a biscuit Tonu. Tirlene saw her and motioned her over to the crate. Jollan quickly dived behind the boxes beside her, looking around nervously to make sure a Fuzzle hadn't followed her down the stairs. She clicked the ray gun back onto her belt.

      "How did they get in this time?" she asked Tirlene.

      Tirlene shook her head.

      "I don't know. I heard they might have come in through an open delivery door upstairs, but who knows. Last time it was because someone left the laundry chute open. There's not as many as usual, but they're still stealing all of our stuff. And now all of our ray guns are gone, and our battle supplies are missing as well," Tirlene replied.

      "Well, now what do we do?" Jollan asked. "We can't just let them take over the Space Station!"

      "I don't know...last time I heard someone had spooked them out of the Space Station, but I don't remember how. Maybe we could try doing that again?"

      They looked around at the boxes in the room in search of something that would be useful to scare the Fuzzles. All they saw were stacks of crates containing Orbiting Eclairs, Tenta Biscuits, Galaxy Drinks, and Gundox 4000 battle supply oil. Nothing was a "scary item".

      "I think we're out of luck on the "let's frighten the Fuzzles" idea," said Tirlene sadly.

      "Wait, I have an idea!" exclaimed Jollan. She quickly ran over to the Galaxy Drink crate and ripped it open. There were around one hundred neatly packaged bottles inside. She picked one up and shook it as hard as she could. As the carbonation built up inside, she kept shaking the bottle and suddenly the top exploded off with an extremely loud "pop"! The noise echoed off of the metal walls and ceilings, and they heard a few squeals from the Fuzzles upstairs.

      "I think you've found our answer!" Tirlene told her.

      "Let's take a crate of these and take them downstairs to the hangar. If we can get everyone to open one at the same time, perhaps it will be loud enough to scare away the Fuzzles!," said Jollan.

      The girls both grabbed one side of the crate and quickly made their way down to the hangar. They tried their best to keep out of sight so the Fuzzles wouldn't try to attack them. As they arrived at the door, Jollan noticed it was locked. She knocked on the door loudly.

      "Everyone, open the door! I know how to get the Fuzzles away from here!" she as loudly as she dared.

      A robot Grundo opened the large metal door.

      "Get in here and talk, we don't want the Fuzzles to know where we are hiding!," he whispered.

      Jollan and Tirlene quickly went inside and placed the crate on the floor. Jollan closed and locked the door behind them. As she looked around the room, she saw there were about twenty Grundos inside, all huddled together in a corner next to a large purple spaceship.

      Jollan grabbed a bottle of Galaxy Drink out of the crate and held it up for everyone to see.

      "This is how we can get the Fuzzles out of here!" she explained to them while shaking the bottle. "All we need to do is shake all of these containers, run up the stairs, and have them explode! The loud popping noise might just scare the Fuzzles out!"

      The top popped off and the bottle exploded everywhere, making such a loud, echoing noise in the hangar that everyone to cover their ears. Jollan wiped the soda from her face and smiled.

      "That's a great idea! Fuzzles hate loud noises!" an eventide Grundo called out.

      Jollan and Tirlene passed two bottles of the Galaxy Drink out to each of the Grundos.

      "Ok, here's the plan. The Fuzzles are still on the recreation deck. We need to run up there, and have everyone shake their bottle at the same time. The explosion should be so loud in the large room that it will scare them back out of the way they came in. Then, we can figure out how they got in here in the first place!" said Jollan excitedly.

      "But won't that hurt our ears?" asked a spotted Grundo towards the back of the group.

      Tirlene walked over to a table next to the space ship. She fumbled through a small drawer and pulled out a large bag of earplugs.

      "Luckily we use earplugs when working on the engines of the ships because they're so loud. Everyone take a set!" Tirlene said. She passed the bag around.

      After everybody had placed in their earplugs, Jollan opened the door and looked around to make sure that the coast was clear.

      "Everybody follow me!" she called out to them.

      They rushed up the stairs to the recreation deck. They spotted a few Fuzzles eating food stolen from the cafe, and the rest of the group was playing with some of the weapons they had stolen.

      "Shake one of the bottles now!" Jollan directed. The carbonated bottles started to fizz and whine, and with a loud "BOOM" all twenty-two bottles exploded at the same time. Soda flew all over the walls and floor, and Jollan's clothes were soaked. It was so loud the Fuzzles screamed in fear, dropped the weapons, and rushed towards a small open hatch in the wall next to the Gormball area. So far, the plan was working out perfectly.

      "Now shake another!" Jollan yelled at them. With another boom, the Fuzzles scurried through the hatch back out into space. The Fuzzles were finally gone!

      The group cheered at Jollan. The robot Grundo went over to where the open latch was and secured it shut with a large slat of wood.

      "Thank you for saving our space station," he said to Jollan and Tirlene.

      The disco Nimmo and biscuit Tonu smiled at the group of Grundos.

      "No problem," Jollan said. "We're just glad we figured out the perfect soda-lution!"

The End.