One day Fat Free Willy was sitting outside talking to Julia and Little Num. Just then, the Kirby King attacked! Following him were Killer Kirby and 3 Bad Kirbys! Killer Kirby led the attack, and the 3 Bad Kirbys fiercely attacked Fat Free Willy and took him away to Kirby World. "Uh-oh, now I have to save Fat Free Willy all by my self..." thought Julia.
Yep... "Fat Free Willy." As in, like Free Willy (the orca whale) but... fat. Apparently there was a (very brief) period of time when I wanted to add a fourth species to the Numnum/K'hyurbhi/Blurby trio and for some bizarre reason my 7-year-old self hovered around the idea of using land-dwelling orca whales for a while, calling them "Willys" after the whale from the movie. And at the time, I would sometimes give characters names that were just their species and an adjective (such as Fat Num and Blubbery Blurby), so the first named member of the species was... "Fat Free Willy."
Also, this paragraph is a pretty good indication of the absurdly fast pace that my old stories usually took. Stuff happened instantaneously with little or no detail -- it was just "this guy showed up and did this!", pretty much. It gets a bit better at times (fight scenes in particular get expanded a bit in later stories), but for the most part all of my elementary-school era stories work like this.
As mentioned in my intro paragraph, this story went through a few revisions before getting to its current state. One of those was changing the villain's species -- originally there was an evil Numnum King, but in the rewritten versions he's a Kirby King instead (and yeah, this was definitely from the time when K'hyurbhis were called "Kirbys" and looked like white-with-red-feet recolors of the character of the same name.) Even later versions added Killer Kirby into the story, making him the son of the original Kirby King -- even though I hadn't even made him up yet when this was first written.
Foofoo and Coocoo chased Julia until she was in the Kirby Desert, out of breath. Just then, Roastado, the the king of Roastiso Island, came to help her beat Coocoo and Foofoo. He threw the Roaster Ball at Coocoo, knocking him all the way to Africa. Simba was watching them, and when he saw Foofoo approaching Roastado, he yelled out "Roastado! WATCH OUT!" Roastado heard him, spun around, and tossed his Roaster Ball straight at Foofoo. "They both have Roaster Balls!" shouted Coocoo. "Ooooh-Noooo!" yelled Foofoo. Both of them ran away from Julia and Roastado.
Abruptly, Julia is chased by some of Killer Kirby's minions -- Foofoo and Coocoo, who this story depicts as two specific individuals with those names even though "Foofoo" and "Coocoo" have always been the names of entire species too. In the original version, rather than mentioning the desert, Julia is said to have been chased all the way to "Kirby World," which the story was unclear as to whether it was an actual separate world or just another continent called a "world" -- much like how the different levels in Mario games are "worlds" despite being part of the same kingdom (that's probably the reason behind that oddball naming, actually, since I was definitely playing a whole lot of Mario games around the time this was written.) As I'm writing this, I notice that the first paragraph actually still mentions "Kirby World" -- it's only after that when it switches over to referring to the Kirby Desert instead. Even when I went back and edited these stories later on in the elementary school years, I tended to miss things that should've been changed here and there, which made things get a little jumbled up over time.
And speaking of Mario, in the original version of this story it was that Italian plumber who showed up here rather than Roastado, who I hadn't even made up yet at the time. This also makes a little more sense of Coocoo's claim that both of their opponents are throwing fireballs -- in the original story the source of the fire was one of Mario's Fire Flowers, which he very well could have given to Julia as well.
The really impossible part of this, of course, is Coocoo somehow being knocked all the way to Africa by an attack. Even though they are currently not on Earth at all. And yet somehow Simba (yeah, from The Lion King) is able to be heard all the way from Africa to Nummorro. I'm really not sure what the heck 7-year-old me was thinking when writing this part of the story.
Just then, Little Num saw a bottle of Pika Cola in the air. He didn't know it, but the bottle was on Fishin' Lakitu's fishing-line. Lakitu knew he would try to eat it. Little Num bit onto the line, and Lakitu pulled him into his home in the clouds.
And yet another Mario reference. Specifically, a Fishin' Lakitu, which only appeared in Super Mario World (which I'd recently played around this time.) Also present is yet another case of something being changed in later revisions of the story -- originally the drink on the fishing line was Dr. Pepper, and later it may have been changed to a spoof name like "Dr. Parupoo"... but in the version of the story I currently have, it's Pika-Cola (the only drink made with real Pikachu) instead. That means I was still going back and editing these stories as late as 1998 (after Pokémon became a thing in the United States), though only for minor changes like these as I'm pretty sure the older stories would look a bit different if I had rewritten them entirely by that point.
Also, I only just now noticed that Little Num was never stated to have followed Julia before this point in the story. Whoops!
Just then she noticed the Killa Castle. It was right in front of her. She knew it was where the Kirby King kept Fat Free Willy. But she didn't know how she would beat the King. Just then, she saw Yuckow Food. "Uh-oh, I have to beat Yuckow Food and I forgot the honey and the yum!" thought Julia. It's a good thing Julia brought her Cute Kirby Communicator, because just as Yuckow Food saw Julia, Supernum came, with his hands full, carrying a pot of honey and a jar of yum. "Just what I need right now." thought Julia. "Give it to me, Supernum!" yelled Julia. "Here, take it, Julia." said Supernum. Julia grabbed the honey and the yum, and dumped every last bit of it onto the Food. It melted into a quivering blob of jelly. "Thanks, Supernum. You saved me from the Yuckow Food." said Julia.
Just like Coocoo and Foofoo before, here's a case of "species name as individual name" (which annoys the heck out of me now) with the Yuckow Food that suddenly attacks out of nowhere being called... Yuckow Food. This part of the story actually references an even older story that I don't have a surviving copy of; it was simply titled Beat the Yuckow Food and involved elementary school kids trying to fight off a Yuckow Food that had invaded their cafeteria. Eventually, after trying several things that failed horribly (like trying to get one of the kids to eat it), they manage to kill the thing by throwing honey-mustard on it, which works because yuck-based creatures can't stand yummy food. I remember that it was supposed to be honey and mustard, but in the absence of the individual condiments they had to use already mixed honey-mustard instead (which still worked.)
Originally it was a pot of honey and a jar of mustard, but at some point I replaced the mention of mustard with Yum, a Nummorrian sauce/food made from the leaves of the yummaguri plant. I guess I had decided that having mustard (which is made from an Earth-native plant) on another planet wouldn't make a whole lot of sense? Another change was that Supernum didn't show up in the story at all originally -- in the earliest versions of this one, it was Eddie in his regular human form who showed up here, not Eddie in Supernum form. That makes his inability to fight off a Yuckow Food without throwing yummy stuff at it make a lot more sense, along with his apparent inability to fight the Kirby King later on in the story.
"Let's go inside the Killa Castle!" said Supernum. "Let's go." said Julia. They went into the castle. Just then, they saw Mario running out of the castle, toward the Yum Food Cafe. "The Kirby King has your friends Fat Free Willy and Little Num!" he said. "And he's got my Magic cards!" said Supernum. Just then, they heard the Kirby King. "Hahahahaha! I will eat the Nums and Willys, then I will get the Alligator Teacher out of jail, and finally, I will take over Nummorro! Then I will eat all of the Mortal Kombat 3 characters!" said the Kirby King.
And here's Mario's random (re)appearance, which seems completely out of nowhere in the current version since Mario hasn't appeared before now. Also present is the reason for Eddie/Supernum's sudden involvement in the story -- the Kirby King has stolen his Magic: The Gathering cards... for some odd reason. This was another thing that changed from one version to another; in the oldest version it was a Sega Genesis game system that had been stolen, only changing to Magic cards later on. There's also the first and only mention of "Willys" as a species, a concept that was pretty much immediately dropped shortly after this story (though Fat Free Willy himself would eventually reappear in a sequel that I no longer have a copy of.)
And there's a random reference to another video game right there at the end -- the Kirby King threatening to eat all the Mortal Kombat 3 characters. This story was originally written during the time before Mortal Kombat 3's release, and at the time I was mildly obsessed with the Mortal Kombat series so it occasionally was mentioned in stories I wrote back then (I still have a copy of another really old one that involves a Numnum and a K'hyurbhi playing one of the games in an arcade.)
There's also a reference to another story I wrote around this time (or maybe just an idea I had in my head that never made it into writing? I can't remember for sure) which ended with the Alligator Teacher -- main villain of the stuff I made up during 2nd grade -- being sent to jail, apparently on Nummorro (which would make sense as I doubt an ordinary Earth jail cell could hold her for long.) Apparently the Kirby King planned on breaking her out for... some reason. As with most things in these old stories, it's never explained why.
"We have to stop him!" said Julia. "But how?" "We'll get Scaled Wurm out of my Magic cards!" said Supernum. "But we've got to get your Magic cards out of the Killa Castle first!" said Julia. "Did you say Magic cards?" said Mario, "I hate Magic cards!" he said. "Hey, Mario!" yelled Supernum, "Taste the Yum!" he said as he threw the Yum into Mario's mouth. Since it was a Magic Yum, it turned Mario into a Raging Mario Magic card. "Oops! Wrong Yum!" said Supernum.
And here's a part that makes no sense at all after the change that replaced the Sega Genesis with Magic cards. Mario hating Sega stuff was a reference to the "console wars" of the early/mid '90s where it was always Sega vs. Nintendo... and in the original version the Yum was a "Sega-Yum" which transformed him into a Game Gear system. I'm not sure what throwing a Yum into Mario's mouth was supposed to accomplish to begin with, considering that the one that transforms him was the "wrong Yum"... but again, not a lot in these old stories makes sense. There's a lot of others where stuffing Yum in a monster's mouth randomly kills it even if it's not a yucky-food-based one, for example. I guess maybe eating something yummy would distract Mario from his random outburst about hating Sega (or Magic cards) and calm him down?
This and the part that follows also make a lot less sense with Supernum being present rather than regular Eddie. The idea of a normal human being less capable of fighting the Kirby King than, say, Sonic or a wurm is understandable... putting Sonic or a wurm above the level of Supernum just because, on the other hand, seems a little off.
Then Supernum and Julia went to the top floor of the castle. They saw the Magic cards. But the Kirby King was guarding them! The Kirby King easily knocked Julia down, but Supernum was ready for him. When he lunged at Supernum, Supernum jumped for the cards. "Oh no! Not Scaled Wurm!" yelled the Kirby King. Then Supernum pulled out the Green cards, and Scaled Wurm jumped out and ate the Kirby King. Then Julia unlocked Fat Free Willy's cage and Little Num's cage.
Though, technically, with the lack of description in the story, it doesn't ever actually say that Supernum couldn't have fought the Kirby King on his own -- he just made getting his stolen stuff back a priority, and was perfectly able to dodge the Kirby King's attacks while Julia couldn't. Obviously, Sonic the Hedgehog wasn't going to eat someone so in the original version where he appeared, he did a spinning buzzsaw-type attack that cut the Kirby King in half instead.
Also, this is the second time Little Num randomly shows up somewhere unexpectedly -- apparently the Fishin' Lakitu from before had been working for the Kirby King, though the part where it had appeared made it sound like it just dragged Little Num up into the clouds rather than taking him somewhere else.
When Killer Kirby heard about the Kirby King being killed, he was both mad and very sad. The Kirby King was his dad, so Killer Kirby really wanted to get back at the goodguys. He couldn't send a badguy, because Supernum would just use his Num Power attacks on it and destroy it. He also needed to find out who Supernum really was. But he decided to wait until he had finished training with the Great Thingaroo before he attacked Nummorro again.
This part at the very end was added on later than the rest. Actually, there's not one but two additions here -- the initial "Killer Kirby's reaction" part was added in what was probably the third revision of the story (after the Numnum King became a Kirby King, possibly in the same version that changed the Sega Genesis/Sonic to Magic cards/Scaled Wurm), while the mention of the "Great Thingaroo" at the end was added much later on, probably around the same time I changed the Dr. Pepper bottle to Pika-Cola. I'm guessing that sometime in the late-'90s, I realized how weird it was for Killer Kirby to not actually make any attempt to go after Supernum and company at this point, so I added in "training with the Great Thingaroo" to explain that -- apparently he wasn't powerful enough to fight Supernum yet at this point, and only after completing his training did he become the near-unstoppable Killer Kirby seen in most other stories from the elementary school time period.
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