A lazy day of lying in the sun was not in the forecast for Team Mystery Island, however. Nearly the moment they’d spread out their towels and blown up a beach ball, an impromptu game of “beach Yooyuball” started up, with Tulay throwing the first pass and careening toward a makeshift goalpost of two palm trees. It wasn’t long before they were once again swept away in the tides of competitive spirit – nor before they were joined by perhaps the most competitive Yooyuball player in all of Neopia.

Lor Benneveldt was the first one to spot the bright yellow eyes of Elon Hughlis watching them from the waves when he dove into the ocean to catch one of Selmon Woulf’s “overly-enthusiastic” passes. “Long time no see!” he greeted the tentacled Acara, who had been absent from Team Maraqua when Mystery Island and Dacardia had visited them on their flying Yooyu. It was that memory that prompted Lor and the rest of his team to invite Hughlis to join them in their casual game of beach Yooyuball… to reportedly “frustrating” results.

“He swam circles around us,” Lor Benneveldt said later, while Tulay Ada had some more colourful words to describe the game. While not a direct quote, she expressed her unhappiness with Elon’s attitude, and how he left them all laid out on the sand with only the parting words, “Wow, you couldn’t even beat me on my own. Maybe you should hang up your jerseys and make this vacation permanent, since you don’t stand a chance against a five-man team.”

“His attitude may have been awful, but he did remind us of something with that ‘vacation’ remark,” Volgoth commented when asked about Hughlis’s words, stroking his chin thoughtfully. “We were supposed to be resting, but all we ended up doing was playing Yooyuball. Hughlis may take the game too seriously, but we did, too. Perhaps we’ve… forgotten how to relax, a little. Yooyuball is meant to be fun, but not if it’s exhausting us.”