Stuff I wrote when I was a kid -- Deck the Halls With Hungry Numnums

As mentioned in the Thanksgiving story's post on here, "Turkey Day" wasn't the only holiday to get its own Supernum story during my elementary school years.  There were also stories for Christmas (the one you're about to read), Halloween (barely started and never finished; I remember that Killer Kirby was going to get inspiration for new monsters from a Cthulhu Mythos book in that one, but I don't think I ever wrote more than the introductory paragraph), and Easter (which I wrote much later than the others -- maybe when I was in middle school? -- and unfortunately I no longer have a copy of it since only the older stories ended up on the floppy disks I eventually found them on many years later.  I do remember that it involved Barney as the villain, delivering baskets of chocolate bombs to kids' houses rather than actual candy, along with a gang of Easter-themed monsters which included "Gas Basket" and "Rotten Egg" among others that I can't remember now.  It was titled "The Easter Barney.")

Like the Thanksgiving one, they all pretty much follow the same "Killer Kirby tries to mess up this holiday by sending themed monsters" pattern.  But this introduction's gone on long enough.... here's "Deck the Halls With Hungry Numnums: A Numnums Story for Christmas." (Yeah, the full title as given in the original file is that long. XD)

     'Twas the night before Christmas and on Nummorro,
      No Numnums were stirring, not even Snoro,
      When out of the castle came a "KILLA" and a clatter,
      Nummy rose from his bed to see what was the matter,
      He saw Killer Kirby, BlackBeard Santa was near,
      And on the roof there were eight Monster Reindeer.

This one starts off with a parody of the "Night Before Christmas" poem, because of course it does.  I'm pretty sure this story may have been one of the first to be modified to use "Nummorro" rather than "Numnum Land," but I don't think it was originally written with the term Nummorro in use -- the first line flows better if you say "...and in Numnum Land" rather than "...and on Nummorro."  So I figure the mysterious "Snoro" mentioned in the poem went by a different name originally, though I can't remember what it might have been.

Not mentioned in this story: Monster Reindeer.  Not mentioned in this introductory poem: a second evil Santa Claus monster besides Blackbeard Santa (who again has the odd capitalization seen with Slambosh, Yummerplet, and Thanksdumming Turkey in other stories.)

Well, that's kind of what happened, but let's see it from Supernum's point of view...
It was the night before Christmas, but everyone was excited. They waited for their presents and some little Numnums actually stayed up all night and searched for presents. Even Eddie was awake. He knew that somehow Killer Kirby would try to mess up Christmas. Eddie set up bad guy traps which only sprung on bad guys (he didn't want to trap Santa!)  In the Killa Castle, Killer Kirby was planning on how to mess up Christmas (for Eddie and the good guys.) He decided to use two of his new bad guys. The new bad guys were: Toothless Clause and BlackBeard Santa. They would capture the real Santa and turn the presents into Creatures. Then the fake Santas would deliver Creature Presents to people so the Creatures could eat the people.

Apparently Numnums celebrate Christmas according to this story.  Yeah, I was a little kid who really hadn't thought things out too well when it comes to how alien species would work (they wouldn't celebrate not-even-2000-years-old human religious holidays, for one thing. XD)

Also, I consistently misspelled "Claus" as "Clause" in this story, as seen with the name "Toothless Clause" here.

There's actually a bit of a story behind Blackbeard Santa and Toothless Claus -- it's not just as simple as "little kid version of me came up with evil Santa monsters," oddly enough.  They were based on "evil Santa" monsters that a couple of my classmates in elementary school claimed existed and were hiding out in some room under the stairs of one building of Clifton Forge East Elementary School.  Specifically one of them claimed to have opened a door to... I think it was the boiler room or a storage room?... and ended up having to run out of there because this evil Santa was coming after him.  I'm still not sure if "Blackbeard Santa" and "Toothless Claus" were intended to be the same entity or not, but since both were mentioned sometimes back in the day, I used both names for two different evil-Santa-clone monsters in this story.

As soon as Toothless Clause landed at the North Pole to capture Santa, the elves sent an alarm to Nummy, who sent an alarm to Eddie, who warped to Nummorro. Nummy, knowing that Supernum would need extra help fighting these bad guys, gave him a new, shiny, red Num Coin with a big, white N on the front and a Numnum on the back. Just like his old coin, only with different colors. "How can this help?" asked Supernum.

"It will give you new, better Num powers." said Nummy. Supernum used it and his cape turned red and so did his suit. Then a belt grew around his waist. Then a santa hat appeared on his head and the N's on his cape and on his shirt turned white and the circles around them turned green.

Apparently Santa's elves are in contact with the Numnums.  Which I suppose makes more sense than a lot of things in these stories -- someone who's outside normal human society having contacts with aliens isn't too unbelievable, and how else would someone be able to get around to every kid's house in one night without using Num Warps?

Also, this story introduces a new Num Coin which seems to be vaguely Christmasy-themed, which apparently gives Supernum a pretty significant boost in power.  It's also the first time I ever actually described Supernum's Num Armor (specifically, the location of the N markings in circles on it), though for some odd reason I referred to the upper part as his "shirt" even though it's always been intended to be armor.  Those Ns are now Num Power symbols, which are basically identical to the Khurbyish letter representing the N sound.  So in a way, he still has Ns on his suit... just not in the English alphabet. XD

"So what? It's a new suit. So what does it do?" asked Supernum. "Well, why don't you try them out on the Test Bad Guy, you know? The one you couldn't beat before?" said Nummy. Supernum did, and he was surprised that now he could beat the Test Bad Guy. "My Numnum Sword is stronger, my Numnum Smash is bigger, and I can lift twice as much as I could before!" said Supernum, tilting Nummy's house to pour out what was left of the Test Bad Guy. "Go knock the beards off those fakes." said Nummy as Supernum warped to the North Pole.

Apparently Nummy has some sort of robot(?) test dummy thing which can be set to ridiculously high levels of power, considering that apparently there was one Supernum couldn't beat before.  Also, Supernum is strong enough to lift an entire house -- and the image I've always had in my head of this scene has him lifting it with one had, not even having any difficulty with it.  I think this might be the first of these stories that describes the extent of Supernum's superhuman strength.

I still really like Nummy's last line here before Supernum heads off, which is rare for a line of dialogue in these old stories since most of them are really bad. XD

As soon as he finished warping, he noticed he was surrounded by some snowmen. He walked up to one and Kirbys popped out of the snowman. Then more Kirbys, some of them holding spears, popped out of the others. Supernum was surrounded by Kirbys! He got out his Numnum Sword and started slicing one of the small ones. But then a big one disarmed him and he was without a weapon. He took the spear from the small one and used it to pop the big one and several others. Now there were only two Kirbys left: the biggest ones. He jumped over the first one's Spit Missile and popped the second one with the spear. Then the spear broke. He kicked the other Kirby and it rolled a few inches. Then he kicked it into some freezing water. Soon it was a Kirbcicle.

I find it a little strange that Supernum has this much difficulty fighting regular ol' K'hyurbhi thugs despite just getting a power boost.  A big one just randomly being able to disarm him like that doesn't make much sense, and why would he need to borrow one of the smaller ones' spears when he could just clobber the others with his bare (okay, gloved) hands?  Eh, let's go with "little kids suck at consistent writing" as the explanation here, nothing else makes any sense.

He walked towards Santa's toy shop, hoping that he would get there before Toothless Clause did. He opened the door. The place was wrecked. Broken toys were everywhere and ripped elf clothes covered them like blankets. Digging through the wreckage, he found Mrs. Clause. Her glasses were cracked from all of the toys that were on top of her. "H-h-h-help! Creat-creat-creatures attacked here! They st-st-stole all the presents and kidnapped Santa!" she said. "Where can I find any of the elves?" asked Supernum. "D-d-dig through the st-st-stu-stuff!" said Mrs. Clause, still shaking with fear of the Creatures. Supernum did and found a few elves. Their clothes were torn and some of the elves had scratches on their skin. "We tried to stop those Creatures, but nothing w-w-w-w-worked!" said an elf. "I know. I'll get Santa back." said Supernum.

Some of these old stories seem to use "Creatures" as a term for Killer Kirby's creations, and this one in particular even capitalizes it a couple times.  Also, apparently it was only Toothless Clause who did the Santa kidnapping? Not sure what Blackbeard Santa was up to during this.

 He warped to Killer Kirby's newly rebuilt castle. By the time he got there, he saw a pile of reindeer steaks. That's why he didn't see any reindeer at Santa's toy shop. He entered the castle. A guard pushed him away. "Can't you tell that no bad guys are here right now?" he said. Supernum warped to the first house Santa visits every year. Santa was there, but he was  being tied to a tree by Toothless Clause and BlackBeard Santa. "Stop that you morons!" Supernum said. BlackBeard Santa turned around and saw Supernum.

This story seems to follow shortly after the Thanksgiving one, as Killer Kirby's castle is described as being "newly rebuilt" (it was destroyed at the end of that one when he tripped over the rope with the Numnum Sword tied to the other end and smashed into it.)  And rather than being transformed into "Monster Reindeer" as the poem spoof said, the reindeer were instead transformed into reindeer steaks, which Killer Kirby and/or his minions presumably ate later.

Then both of the fake Santas charged at Supernum. Supernum ducked between their legs and ran over to the tree that Santa was tied to. Cutting the ropes with his Num Army Knife, Supernum released Santa and warped him to his sled. Then Supernum got some flying Numnums to replace his reindeer. Santa flew off in the sled, led by eight flying Numnums. One of the Numnums' eyes glowed red. Santa called him Poodolph the red-eyed Numnum. Just as Supernum looked back at the fake Santas, Killer Kirby appeared. "YOU RUINED MY PLAN!" yelled Killer Kirby. Killer Kirby lifted up his Shicker and said "KILLA!" A few seconds later, a zzzt flew out of the Shicker. The fake Santas began to grow until they were equal in size to Killer Kirby. "HA HA HA!" said Killer Kirby, "HOW ARE YOU GOING TO STOP THEM NOW, NUMNUM?"

Apparently the fake Santas are quite large even before Killer Kirby embiggens them, as Supernum is able to duck between their legs in order to get behind them and get to where Santa is.  And here's another appearance of the Num Army Knife -- this really must have been written pretty soon after the Thanksgiving story, because normally the random Supernum gadgets don't make multiple appearances in these stories.

Supernum's Num Gun didn't have a setting for fake Santas, so he decided to see if his new powers would let him "size up"  with the bad guys. He was amazed to see that he started to grow as big as the bad guys! In the distance he saw an old friend that he thought was long gone: Super Big Num! He thought that Super Big Num had been destroyed in an earlier battle, but somehow his new powers had brought Super BigNum back to life!

And here's the first actual appearance of the Super Big Num -- basically a giant robot Numnum -- in one of these stories.  The Super Big Num was going to show up (and be destroyed) in The Return of the Coraudos, but I never actually finished that story.  Originally this story mentioned that Super Big Num had been destroyed "in the battle with the Coraudos," but at some point when I gave up on Return of the Coraudos entirely I changed it to "in a previous battle" like what the currently-existing version of the story says.

Super BigNum bit Toothless Clause's arm. Supernum got out his Num Gun, put it on top of Super BigNum,  and flipped a switch on his Num Coin. Super BigNum charged at BlackBeard Santa with the Num Gun blasting lasers in all directions. While Super BigNum was killing BlackBeard Santa, Supernum got out his Numnum Scanner and scanned Toothless Clause. His weakspot was Zzzter! Getting a Zzzter Launcher out of his invisible pocket, he launched two Zzzts at Toothless Clause. Both of them hit Toothless and killed him. As Supernum shrinked and Super BigNum disappeared, Santa and his Numnums were delivering presents to Eddie's house. And at Killa Castle you could hear Killer Kirby shouting "I'VE BEEN GOOD, SANTA! I'VE BEEN GOOD!" as Santa completely bypasses the castle.

It seems the "embiggened" Num Gun can be attached to the top of the Super Big Num's head, as the giant robot Numnum has no gun-type weapons built in.  Also seems like the Num Coin has some sort of auto-fire switch for the Num Gun built into it, oddly enough.  And here's yet another random gadget that never appeared in any other story -- Zzzter Launchers! Pretty sure they were only mentioned here so Supernum had a way of using a Zzzter attack without the Num Gun since it was being used by the Super Big Num at the moment, as I don't think I had come up with the full list of Num Power attacks (which included a Num Zzzter) that he would later have -- only Numnum Smash, Num Punch, and Num Kick make appearances in these older stories (though there was an "origin story" for Supernum written in the later elementary school years that mentioned at least one other one besides those three -- I'll probably post that one here in the near future.)

And apparently I didn't know the word "shrunk" back then, as I wrote "shrinked" here instead.  Whoops! XD

And... yeah, that's it.  Not much of a fight at the end, though I suppose considering that Supernum got a power boost in this story it wouldn't make much sense if a couple of evil Santa clones had put up much of a fight.  It just seems weird considering how the brief clash with some random K'hyurbhis early on took about the same length of time to finish, I guess.