One day a few years ago, I was looking for water bugs and those little round things with lots of legs when I saw a rock that was moving! It was wiggling back and forth and bouncing up and down. Something was under there! I decided to lift up the rock. Who knows! It could have been a giant water bug! It was something I had never seen before. It was white, it had lots of shiny teeth, and two big bugged-out eyes. The weird thing was that I didn't see any feet anywhere on it. The only words it said was "Num Num". I wanted to know what it was.
The "kid found a Numnum under a rock" part of Supernum's origin has been consistent ever since I first came up with the story of how Supernum got started, which was a while before I wrote this story down -- it was one of those things that had been bouncing around in my head for a while before it found its way into a story. This one, like many of my elementary-school era stories, starts off with an immediate contradictory statement that doesn't just clash with other stories but with itself -- Numnums have never been known for saying nothing but "Num Num," and in the very next line of this story...
I was surprised when it said "You're Eddie, aren't you?" The thing (I later decided to call it a Numnum) asked me if I wanted to be something called Supernum. I agreed to be Supernum, whatever it was. It gave me a big coin which was as big as the palm of my hand. "O.K. Eddie, to turn into Supernum, just say this: It's Time For Nums!" I said the words and suddenly, my head started to change. It felt like my ears were popping and I was sneezing at the same time. I got used to it soon, because it lasted about 10 seconds. My body changed a lot. I was turning taller, skinnier, and I felt a lot stronger than before. A cape actually grew out of my back. My black Reeboks turned into black boots with a Num symbol on them. I was Supernum! "Come on, Eddie! You're Supernum! You have to fight bad guys!" said the Numnum. "FIGHT BAD GUYS!" I thought. "I can't do that!" But the Numnum took me through the warp to Nummorro anyway.
...yep, saying a whole lot more than just "Num Num." I'm not sure where the idea of Numnums just saying "Num" over and over came from, but it wasn't present in any of my older stories or anything since. I know it couldn't have been Pokémon-inspired, as at the time I wrote this I was not aware of Pokémon at all, like most people who weren't living in Japan (and heck, depending on what year I actually wrote this in, the Pokémon anime -- source of the "saying their names over and over" thing -- may not have even existed yet.) Either way, the whole "Numnums saying Num" thing is abandoned seconds after its introduction, which is probably for the best.
And that description of what it feels like to transform into Supernum is really weird, looking back.
The Numnum took me to see Nummy, a Numnum that had arms and legs. I also noticed he wore a hat with "Numnums Rule Teachers Drool" sewed on it. He showed me how to use all of my cool attacks, like the Num Bomb and Num Zzzter, and my Numnum Sword and Num Gun. He gave me a tour of his restaurant, Nummy's. The food was great. He had all of my favorites, like ravioli, and a new favorite, roasted kirbymeat. It was kind of like chicken and turkey mixed together with some tasty spices. Being Supernum was like being a Power Ranger without any other guys helping you. But I didn't know who (or what) I was up against. Something came through the door. It was a Barney! I had recognized Barneys from a stupid TV show my sister used to watch. And from what I already knew, Barneys were bad guys.
The phrase on Nummy's hat is a little odd here -- "teachers" has to be a reference to the Alligator Teacher, but when put in such a general way it sounds really, really weird. I guess I was moving away from portraying the K'hyurbhis ("Kirbys" at the time) as being always bad back then, so I had to come up with something else to put on his hat... and apparently just an N or a Num Power symbol didn't come to mind, oddly enough.
I turned into Supernum and got ready to fight the Barney. My attacks were fully powered. I yelled "Num Bomb!" and an orange fireball came out of my Numnum hands. As soon as the blast hit the Barney, it started to explode and disappear. I had beaten my first bad guy!
Just as Supernum had beaten the Barney, Killer Kirby, who had helped his father, the Kirby King, send the Barney, was furious about the new Supernum beating his best Barney. Killer Kirby was not the first one to know about the Barney being killed by Supernum: Christy and her gang of bad guys had also heard and were already planning an attack on Nummy's.
I seem to recall that the original version of this story simply saying that Killer Kirby sent the Barney, rather than that he helped his father send the Barney (which was "his best Barney" apparently)... but it looks like I went back and added in a mention of the Kirby King later. Apparently there may have been a point in time where I was going to ditch the older stories (such as How Julia Saved Fat Free Willy) and then I changed my mind and threw in a mention of the Kirby King from that story here as a way of showing that the older stories were still "canon."
There's also a mention of Christy and her gang already being established bad guys living on Nummorro at this point, and I'm pretty sure that part wasn't added in later -- so apparently it was only How Julia Saved Fat Free Willy that I was debating over removing from the timeline at one point. The mention that they were "already planning an attack on Nummy's" seems to be leading toward the story of The Numnum Club, where they do indeed end up gathering up the whole gang and coming toward Nummy's.
"Little Kirby!" yelled Killer Kirby. "That Supernum beat my Barney, and I want you to make a bad guy to kill him!" yelled Killer Kirby. Little Kirby heard him and started making a bad guy right away. He put some water in a big pot, added gator tails, stirred in some instant yuck mix, dropped in home-made yuck food, and put in some Killa juice and bad guy making muck. Killer Kirby sniffed the mixture and told Little Kirby to add more yuck mix. He sniffed it again and said "Nice and yucky, just like yuck food should be!" Little Kirby positioned the bad guy maker so if he turned it on, it would blast a laser directly into the middle of the yucky mixture and turn it into some kind of bad guy.
This seems to be the first story to mention "Little Kirby," who was Killer Kirby's minion who helped out with the process of making bad guys. This was a character that had been bouncing around in my head for a while but just never made it into any stories prior to this one -- kinda like the idea of Eddie finding a Numnum pinned under a rock and rescuing it from the beginning of the story. The Power Rangers inspiration here is pretty obvious -- they always had some lesser villain who made the monsters-of-the-day, and Little Kirby is that guy for the Supernum stories.
I have no idea what "Kihlah juice" would be, by the way. Juice infused with Kihlah energy? Some kind of liquefied form of Kihlah energy itself? I dunno.
But Killer Kirby accidently hit it and moved the bad guy maker so it hit the side of the pot and bounced into the yucky stuff, turning it into a blob of yuck with eyes and a mouth. It had turned into Yuckow Food! Killer Kirby was not happy with the bad guy he had made, but he still sent it down to Nummy's to attack Supernum and steal all of the food.
But Nummy smelled Yuckow Food coming and called for me. I jumped through the Num Warp and fell through the other side in the dining room of Nummy's. I knew I had to turn into Supernum again to beat the Yuckow Food, so I picked up the Num Coin and said "It's Time For Nums!" I started to change again. My head turned into Supernum's head, and I got taller and skinnier. This was the second time I had turned into Supernum, but I was still very surprised.
Killer Kirby being kinda clumsy despite being insanely powerful seemed to be a recurring theme in these old stories, between this bit and the way he accidentally brought down his own castle in the Thanksgiving story.
And sending a Yuckow Food to steal food from Nummy's is probably not the best plan, considering that Nummy's food is known for being yummy and Yuckow Foods are poisoned by contact with Yum... XD
As soon as I got over turning into Supernum, I noticed the Yuckow Food was just in front of Nummy's. It smelled like my school's green beans and dog poop mixed together. It was very yucky. It was so yucky, I almost threw up. Then I had an idea! If it was that yucky, something yummy would kill it! I told Nummy to pass me some ravioli. He tossed a big bowl over to me. I caught it and took a ravioli out of the bowl. I threw it straight at the Yuckow Food. It quivered a little bit. I threw more raviolis. It melted a tiny bit. Its eyes blew up like balloons and popped. I threw the whole bowl at it. The Yuckow Food started to explode, so I pushed it out the door and closed it tight. SPLUT! I heard it explode. I had beaten another bad guy. I went home to rest, but I knew the Kirby King and his son, Killer Kirby, would be back and he would have a tougher bad guy.
...I'm not sure why Supernum just throws food at the Yuckow Food rather than blowing it up with another Num Bomb, since Num Power attacks should work just fine on Yuckow Foods... but oh well. I think this is the only time the smell of a Yuckow Food is described, also -- and yeah, it sounds pretty damn yucky. XD
And that's the end. That last sentence makes it pretty obvious that this story was edited to include the Kirby King later on -- rather than saying that they would send a tougher bad guy the next time, it just says "he" (which was clearly intended to mean Killer Kirby in the original version, and I only went back and changed "Killer Kirby" to "the Kirby King and his son, Killer Kirby" without updating the pronoun used afterward to a plural form.) Whoops!
