...Okay, enough modern-Mario-kinda-sucks rant. Unlike the above-mentioned story that I don't have anymore, this one is unfinished -- I did at some point go back and add a little bit more to the end, but never actually got to a point where I added an ending, and so this one (unlike the rest) will cut off randomly at the last point I wrote rather than having an ending at all. Not even a lazy rushed ending this time around. Knowing that, read on if you want to see how ridiculous this one is...
One day, Julia was sitting around and watching her favorite show, Big Bad BeetleBorgs. Just then, the badguy alarm on her Cute Kirby Communicator came on! A badguy was attacking Numnummorro! She couldn't go to Numnummorro herself, so she called Eddie. But no one answered! So she decided to head for Numnummorro. She went out of the house and heard leaves rustling behind her, but she didn't stop. She should have looked, because a few minutes later, she was running from an army of Parupoos! The Parupoos chased her into a clearing surrounded by trees on all but one side. On the other side, a mountain blocked her from escaping from the Parupoos. It looked like Julia didn't have a chance. But over the constant mumbling of the Parupoos, she heard someone saying something. She listened closer, and heard someone saying "Beetle Bonders! Beetle Blast!" She didn't have to guess who said that. But how did the Big Bad BeetleBorgs get out of the T.V.?
This is the only one of my stories that uses "Numnumorro" for the name of the planet Nummorro, previously known as Numnum Land... and I'm pretty sure it's nothing more than the result of a lazy search-and-replace. You see, back in my mid/late elementary school years, two of my teachers attempted to enforce a ban on Numnums -- so any story that I had thoughts of turning in as a class assignment or even just sharing with fellow students during school hours had to be "censored" somewhat so that the presence of Numnums wasn't obvious. In stories where Numnums featured, this was accomplished by changing their name (first to "Muns" and then later to "Nurms.") Related terms like Nummorro and Supernum were also changed. Later on, after graduating from seventh grade and escaping from the grasp of both of the Numnum-banning teachers, I went back and reverted these name-changes back to their original forms. Of course, with me still being a little kid, I was too lazy to go through and change every mention of "Numnum" or "Num" by hand, so I fell back on the find-and-replace feature of whatever word-processor I was using at the time (this would've been the old "Write" packed in with Windows 3.1, I believe)... which led to some awkward accidental name changes to some stories. "Numnummorro" in this one is probably the best (maybe only surviving?) example of this.
This is one of several old stories that mentions the "Cute Kirby Communicator." This bizarrely-named device isn't ever actually explained in any of these stories, and I honestly can't remember what its origin was supposed to be... presumably it would've come from Nummy or someone else on Nummorro since it seems only those with ties to Supernum have them, but it's hard to even guess what elementary-school-age me was thinking.
Also, this story apparently serves as an explanation for the Beetleborgs being real despite also being on a TV show within the story's universe, which I suppose puts it sometime before Supernum Meets Commander Keen in the timeline. And, by extension, it also has to happen before The Search for the Red Num, since Killer Kirby makes an appearance in this one.
And of course, there's another "never-followed-up-on plot point" here -- just like in The Numnum Club. The "bad guy attacking Nummorro" bit is never actually mentioned again.
The Blue Stinger BeetleBorg stepped out of the trees and into the clearing, followed by the Green Hunter BeetleBorg and the Red Striker BeetleBorg. "How did you, uh, get out of the T.V.?" Julia asked him. "Flabber let us out so we could help the Numnums beat Killer Kirby." said the Blue Stinger. The Red Striker came over to Julia. "Hey Julia, I think we could use some Super Julia power to kick some Parupoo!" she said. "It's Time For Numnums! Super Julia!" Julia said. The Blue Stinger got out his Stinger Blade and shicked it all the way through one of the Parupoos, making it explode. All the Parupoos disappeared except for the biggest one. All three of the BeetleBorgs attacked the Parupoo with their weapons and killed it.
Apparently Flabber, despite being a fictional character himself, has the power to release the Beetleborgs from the confines of the TV and into the real world. Also, some more awkward changes here as every incidence of whichever Numnum-replacing term this one used back in the day ended up replaced with the full "Numnum" even in situations where "Num" would be used instead (such as "it's time for Nums!")
"Super Julia" is apparently not much of a transformation, as she doesn't actually help out in the fight with the Parupoos at all. This was actually intentional, from what I remember. I'm guessing that at least the starting bits of this story must have been written before the Thanksgiving story, as Julia has a much more powerful Julia Dragon transformation there rather than the "joke character" form known as Super Julia.
When the BeetleBorgs left, Killer Kirby came and captured Julia! "Let me go!" said Julia. But Killer Kirby didn't listen. He just warped to his castle in the Kirby Desert.
Once Killer Kirby got to his castle, he threw Julia into a cold, dark, damp room with nothing but a hard, uncomfortable bed and a small window in it. She looked out the window and thought she could see a small army of Numnums and Kirbys, followed by a few Zoombinis. She knew that they had come to save her, but it would take the entire Blurbyish Army and SuperNumnum to beat Killer Kirby.
And the Beetleborgs vanish just in time for Julia to be left alone, ready to be kidnapped by Killer Kirby. It's doubtful the Beetleborgs would be able to do much good against Killer Kirby, but they could have at least bought some time for Julia to escape or something. Just like how Commander Keen was only barely more involved in things than the other random cameo appearances in Supernum Meets Commander Keen (and actually had less of a role in the big fight scene with all the assorted bad guys), the Beetleborgs aren't really major characters in this story despite having their names in the title.
There's another awkward accidental name-change -- Supernum presumably changed to something like "Supermun" or "Supernurm" in the censored version, and then got distorted into "SuperNumnum" when I went back to using the term "Numnum" again. This is also the only mention of the Blurbys in adjective form in these old stories, using "Blurbyish" rather than "Blurbian" like I use now. This also establishes Killer Kirby's level of power pretty clearly -- an entire army plus Supernum is needed to definitively beat him!
Julia thought about how to help them. She thought for a while, and later she got an idea! Her pet baby Kirby could fit through the bars of the window and tell the Numnums, Kirbys, and Zoombinis where she was. She looked through the door (which was open, but had invisible zzzters all over it) to the room across from her room. There was a girl Zoombini with long hair, glasses, a pink nose and a spring for its feet in the room. Shortly after she saw the Zoombini, a Barney came near her room, turned off the zzzters, and brought in a tray of food for her. The food wasn't very yummy looking, but she saw a few things she thought looked, at the very least, edible.
Not a whole lot to say about this part. There's a Barney (back in the day I used "Barney" as a species name rather than the name of an individual purple monstrosity; now the individual would be "B'harne" while the species would be "Yenrab") working under Killer Kirby, and also a description of a Zoombini that pretty much matched the design I always tended to give at least one of them every time I played that game back then. Also, yet another "food menu" scene coming up!
Julia took the tray of food from the Barney, who gave her a menu. The Barney left the room, turning on the zzzters as it left. "Okay, let's see what's on the menu." Julia thought.
She looked on it and almost threw up. She saw things on the menu she would never even think of eating!
Menu:
roasted zoombini slices yuckow food
fried kirbys toasted Numnums
poo special green bean pizza
green beans yuck shiskabob
barfaroni deluxe Larfy Lettuce
And much like the one in The Search for the Red Num, there's a mix of things that sorta-kinda sound like food and things that are just plain gross. "Larfy" was a term I used to refer to gross, wilty-looking lettuce rather than fresh crunchy lettuce, by the way. It also sometimes referred to lettuce that had been infested with bugs, known as "larfies."
She decided that fried Kirbys would taste better than any of the other choices. She ate the fried Kirbys and left the rest for someone else to eat. But then she thought about that poor little Zoombini in the room across from her, and she felt bad about eating the yummiest food on the
tray and leaving the yucky things for everyone else. So she got out her portable Kirby roaster and roasted some small Kirbys that were in her backpack. She took the other kinds of food of the plate and replaced them with the Kirbys she had roasted.
And apparently Julia carries some (dead?) little Kirbys in her backpack which can be converted into tasty food with her portable Kirby roaster. Convenient when you need to replace piles of disgusting food with tasty fried Kirbys on short notice, I suppose.
While she waited for the Barney to come back, she thought about how to escape from the castle. In a few minutes, the Barney was back and it took the tray. "I thought there were more yucks on this tray. Hmmmm...." said the Barney as it walked away from her room, turning the zzzters back on. The Barney was going to give the Zoombini some food. The Zoombini had seen Julia taking off the yucky foods and replacing them with yum! Fried Kirbys were the Zoombini's favorite food, so as soon as it saw them, it began pigging out on Kirbys. When it was done and totally stuffed, it said "thankyoujulia for *BURP* givingmethefriedkirbys *BURP* sorrybutialways *BURP* talkthisfast". Julia could almost understand the Zoombini and said "When I get out of here, I'm getting you out too."
The Zoombini made a happy "WEE *BURP* WEEW!" and went to the back of its room.
And oddly enough, the nameless Zoombini is referred to as "it" repeatedly here despite being described as a "girl Zoombini" earlier on. I'm not sure why.
Julia saw the Numnums and Kirbys outside trying to get in. A Barney opened the door and said "WHAT! NUMNUMS! NUMNUMS AREN'T ALLOWED IN HERE! AAAAH!" The Numnums ate the Barney and went inside. The Numnums and Kirbys put the Barney skin on for a disguise. But the skin fell off. The Numnums and Kirbys were running from the Kirby Guards! "Get the Numnums!" said the leader of the Kirby Guards. "No! Get the Numnums AND the Kirbys!" said a smaller Kirby Guard. The Kirby Guards hadn't noticed, but the Zoombinis were outside trying to get the door back open to save the Numnums and Kirbys. They pushed and pushed, but the door wouldn't budge. It was locked!
Apparently Numnums have the secret technique of eating a Barney without damaging its skin in the process, making it into a convenient disguise. Unfortunately, said disguise falls off easily and the notorious K'hyurbhi Guards (the strongest group of the Hoi tribe's army... among the K'hyurbhis anyway) come after them.
I'm not sure how the door got closed unless the Guards shut it behind the Numnums-and-Kirbys-in-a-Barney-skin after they came in, but apparently it's closed and the Zoombinis are trying to open it, with little to no success.
Meanwhile, the Numnums and Kirbys were getting very tired of running from the Kirby Guards. "I'm slowing down!" said Nummy, a Numnum. "We are too!" said an exhausted Kirby. "We have to keep going!" said Nummy. Outside, the Zoombinis pushed with all their might. None of them could get the door open. Then a young Zoombini had an idea. He remembered a card game he played a few days ago. He got out his telephone and pushed zero. After a short talk with the operator about long distance calls, the Zoombini called a number and talked with someone. Then he hung up. "Here comes some help!" squeaked the Zoombini.
Oddly, Nummy is just described as "a Numnum" here despite being a pretty major character in other stories. And I'm not sure how a Zoombini operates a phone, as they don't have hands.
A few minutes later, the Zoombinis saw someone coming down the trail to the Killa Castle.
No one really knew who it was except the young Zoombini. He kept on squirming toward the Zoombinis. It was Scaled Wurm! He could smash the door! He came over to the Zoombinis and went past them. "SMASH!" The door smashed into millions of pieces. And Scaled Wurm wasn't even near the door! What smashed the door? None of the Zoombinis knew. But then they found out who it was: Crobombug! Crobombug was headed toward the Zoombinis. Then Scaled Wurm jumped out in front of them! What was he doing? He could get killed!
One moment "long distance calls" are involved, and just a few minutes later the one they called is already there. I suppose with Num Warps possibly being involved that's not too unrealistic, but it's still a little odd.
And of course, the Scaled Wurm makes another appearance here -- though this time apparently its appearance is not the instant-win it was in How Julia Saved Fat Free Willy. Jumping in front of Crobombug's attacks is apparently pretty damn dangerous even for a gigantic wurm that could eat the Kirby King, and surprisingly...
Crobombug charged at Scaled Wurm, but Scaled Wurm jumped out of the way. Crobumbug grabbed Scaled Wurm with his pinchers and threw him into the castle. "THUMP!" Scaled Wurm hit the wall hard.
...he actually manages to get a hit in on him here, grabbing him with his big ol' stag-beetle pincers and flinging him into the wall of Killa Castle. Of course, pretty much all fight scenes in these old stories are absurdly short (I could've probably done some work on the Kingdom Hearts manga, what with the "short, disappointing fight scene"-writing skills I had back then), so you can probably guess how things go in the very next sentence or two.
Scaled Wurm got back up, bared his powerful Wurm teeth, and ate Crobombug. Scaled Wurm wiped the muck off his teeth. "I think you might need my help, Zoombinis" said Scaled Wurm. Then they went in the castle.
Soon they were all in the castle, chasing after the group of Kirby Guards, who were following the Kirbys and Numnums. When they had nearly caught up, the Numnums and Kirbys ran into a door and lost the Guards! The Zoombinis started fighting the Guards but were soon killed. Then Scaled Wurm ate all the Guards in one big bite.
Yep, the Scaled Wurm kills off Crobombug right away. This last little paragraph at the end, after they enter the castle, is the part I'm pretty sure I went back and wrote sometime later than whenever it was that I started the story. It's not much, though -- it pretty much just removes the Zoombinis from the story (it didn't take long for me to decide to remove Zoombinis from my stories; this one and one of the "lost" stories were the only ones that included them) after showing that they're completely pitiful when it comes to actually fighting, and then has the Scaled Wurm being overpowered again, eating all of the Kirby Guards in a single bite.
I honestly can't remember where this story was going to go from here -- there's no way I would've had the Scaled Wurm actually be capable of beating Killer Kirby, and so far there's been no sign of Eddie/Supernum in the story at all. There's also been no mention of the Blurby army being on their way. Maybe that's why I never actually finished it -- because I couldn't think of how the heck to continue it from this point back then, either.
No comments:
Post a Comment