No More Question Marks

For those of you who don't know or don't remember (...I'm guessing that's most of you, as there are very few people I'm still in contact with from the time period when these characters and concepts were originally made up), back in the day I had a set of characters known as the "Question Marks," mainly because I didn't ever come up with a "real" name for them as a group and I wrote their names using nothing but question marks (so, say, one's name could be ??? and another would be ???? and yet another would be ???????), only coming up with regular names for a few of them later.  After a while the name stuck.

The Seventh Question Mark, one of the few
to end up with an "armored" design rather than
the "pale-colored baggy clothes" type that most had.

Anyway, the Question Marks were aliens (who looked pretty much like humans, but actually belonged to three different species: the Kaa'ans, the Iklaians, and the Rhogavians) who were the result of some experiment that caused the powers of past aliens (their ancestors maybe? it was never made clear, though the past Question Marks usually looked a lot like the present generation) to be infused into a bunch of newborns over a period of time, and most but not all of those newborns ended up sent off to various other planets (but mostly Earth) to grow up, with the goal of the experiment apparently being... just to see how that would turn out.  Some mad scientist stuff right there.  Some of the Question Marks ended up being good guys, others ended up evil, and still others ended up being such minor characters that it was hard to guess which side they'd have been on if they'd gotten anything more than a passing mention (one was captured and killed by Master Fartbean so that his powers could be extracted and given to Fartbean's second cloned "daughter," for example.)  Their powers were kind of random early on, but in later versions they ended up with a standard list of powers with only so much room for variation among the individuals; eye beams were a universal thing, almost all could create an energy weapon of some sort (with the possibility of upgrading it to a solid form by condensing the energy down introduced in the late 2000s) and generate protective barriers, and they all had some degree of superhuman strength and other standard superpowers like flight and enhanced speed.  Most of them had at least one unique "thing" they could do that the others couldn't -- the Third Question Mark's energy absorption and electrified barrier, the Seventh Question Mark's attacks (and barrier) having mirror/reflective properties, the Tenth Question Mark's paralysis-inducing blue goop, the Fourth Question Mark's ability to transform into a giant mutated purple cat, and so on.

Kat's barrier, which hurts anything that touches it.

 The Question Mark concept can be traced back to the character of Kat Yuzan, originally just "?" in a really old RPG Maker 2000 game titled "Crappy RPG."  Shortly after that she became "???," and after the high school years I referred to her interchangeably as both ??? and Kat (her last name came years later as the result of a dream, where an old man lying in a hospital bed kept saying "her last name is Yuzan.")  Around 2002 I came up with several other Question Mark characters, namely the Fourth (also known as Kara) and the Ninth and Tenth (who never had "real" names.)  Toward the end of the high school years I added the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Question Marks, who also never got real names -- the Fifth specifically was stated to not even have another identity, while the Seventh kept her personal life and Question Mark activities separate and as a result never revealed her other name to anyone.  At some point I ended up drawing all of the Ten Question Marks, but only those mentioned above ever had any real role in any of my stories.  Of those who were important in one story or another, only the Tenth Question Mark was male.  All of the remaining (unimportant) Question Marks were also guys -- the Eighth was the one that Master Fartbean captured, while the First and Second only ever showed up in random drawings.

An old drawing of the full group -- though when drawing it
I apparently used the Eighth's design for the First, the First's for the Second,
and the Second's for the Eighth.  Whoops!

Several of them were major characters in the Crappy World: Zyorudenu comics I came up with in the later high school years; the Third and Fourth Question Marks were recurring characters on the good guys' side (though never really the focus of any storyline), while the Ninth and Tenth were villains of one story arc... though now that I think about it, I can't remember for sure if the battle with the Ninth Question Mark was actually shown or if it happened off-screen while something else was happening elsewhere while other (non-Question Mark) characters were in focus.  The Fifth Question Mark would've been the villain of a later story planned for the Crappy World series, which I can only vaguely remember any details of at this point.

...

Skip ahead to 2016, and... yeah, I've pretty much decided to throw all of that stuff out.  The whole Question Mark concept will no longer be present in the 40 Nherbis as they currently exist in my head (and in various stories/games set in them, such as Okédoké and Fnrrf Ygm Schnish: Alleghany Hell School.)

Mostly, this is because having the Kaa'ans, Iklaians, and Rhogavians all out there means three entire species of aliens who just... look like humans, sometimes with wacky-colored hair.  I already removed one species of "human aliens" in the past couple years by deciding that the Zwoobans were in fact not another species, but actual Earth humans that had ended up on the planet Zwoobah around 10,000 years ago (they had fled from Earth through a Num Warp portal in order to keep themselves from falling under the influence of the ancient Lord of Moronism named Ma-Du Veyaddhu.)  The idea of aliens that pretty much just look like humans doesn't really fit with the rest of the 40 Nherbis, so I'm trimming a few out here and there.

Here's what's changing, at least as of right now:

1. No more Question Marks.  The characters who were formerly Question Marks may or may not end up being reused in one way or another.
   
   • Third Question Mark -- Kat Yuzan would be a pretty big empty space to fill, and I've had more than a few dreams where she ends up with a design change or new power of some sort, so I figure she's more likely to stick around than the others.  I'll probably stick with the idea of her stumbling across Kukabo (the Ninja Cockroach) and training with him, but as a human she couldn't really learn Kukaru-style ninjutsu too well (its special techniques rely on Kihlah, which humans do not have), so... not sure how that'll go.  Her weapon of choice was always an energy-sword, so maybe her using an actual-sword could work.  Of course, if I ended up making her a Zwooban (or part-Zwooban) rather than standard Earth-variety human, then she would have Kihlah energy inside her and Kukabo might be able to teach her a few things...
   • Fourth Question Mark -- Kara will still be present in FYS:AHS as a random NPC early on (and optional boss battle later, when her transformation into a giant mutant cat is triggered), but it's likely that she will rapidly fade away from importance after that rather than popping back up here and there.  She'll probably never meet Kat since both of them being Question Marks is the whole reason they ever interacted at all before.
   • Fifth Question Mark -- No idea what I might do with her.  Her entire storyline in the Crappy World comics revolved around Question Mark lore, so to keep her around at all I'd probably have to change things up pretty drastically.
   • Seventh Question Mark -- As much as I like her design and powers, I've really never done anything with this one!  I think she was planned to show up in a later series of Crappy World comics, but I never actually got to those.  Not sure what'll happen to her.
   • All the rest -- Extremely unlikely to ever make a reappearance, though I suppose I could always reuse their designs for a completely unrelated character...
2. No more Kaa'ans or Rhogavians period.  The planet Iklai has built up its own significance over the years (it's the base of the internherbi Council of Iklai, which monitors the activities of various dangerous elements such as the Lords of the Great Duh, the Rupoo, and their followers), but I literally never came up with any details on Kaa'a or Rhogav.  Their species were pretty much interchangeable too, with the only difference being that Rhogavians tended to be taller and Kaa'ans tended to have weird hair colors like red and blue.  The Iklaians and their planet will remain, but...
3. ...Iklaians are now kitties.  Their true forms are kitties, to be specific.  I'm basically mashing the Iklaians together with the Uoo-Harasan cats, which were oddly-colored cat aliens that had psychic powers and the ability to take on a human form (though they would involuntarily revert to cat form if exposed to moonlight or certain forms of radiation.)  Iklaians now have pointed ears and slit-shaped pupils when in human form.  Now any Iklaian could end up in a "giant mutant cat" form, rather than that being a special Fourth Question Mark thing... though that would only happen if they end up with a pair of Radioactive Kitty Ears on their head, of course.
4. Iklai now has two moons.  It has to have at least one moon for the Iklaians being forced into cat-form by moonlight to make any sense, after all.  These moons' names will be Kaa'a and Rhogav, so the old planet names will still end up being good for something after all.
5. Uoo-Harasa is now an Iklaian city.  Originally the "Uoo-Harasan cats" were named so because they lived in the city of Uoo-Harasa on some unknown distant planet.  Might as well reuse the name for an Iklaian city, right? Not sure whether to make it their current capital city or an ancient-ruins type place, but either way kinda works.

The Realm of Heck

This is one I've been planning on writing up for a while now, as the ideas have been bouncing around in my head ever since... probably around the time I was writing my Señor Death comic (spring of 2013!) and have been developing more and more as time has passed since then.  So without further ado...

Welcome to Heck!

Yep -- that does indeed say Heck.  The Realm of Heck is one of many "sub-nherbis" connected to one or more of the 40 Nherbis; whereas a full nherbi is roughly in the same size range as what humans would call a "universe" (in fact, "the universe" as humans know it is actually the 40th Nherbi), a sub-nherbi can be many, many times smaller.  Heck is quite large for a sub-nherbi, being at least as vast as a decent-sized planet, and for good reason: the Realm of Heck is the place where those assigned to keep track of the afterlife's records dwell, and those records are not limited to a single planet, solar system, galaxy, or even a single nherbi.  The "accountants of the afterlife" who live and work in Heck are responsible for keeping track of the living and dead across all of existence, a job which requires billions of workers focusing on their tasks day by day.

Heck's entire expanse takes the form of a vast, rocky underground cavern, lit mostly by mysterious orbs of colored light placed in the populated areas.  These orbs are likely magical in nature, perhaps created by the Heckspawn of centuries upon centuries ago in order to make the place easier to traverse -- though Heckspawn do tend to have good night-vision, not all of them are equally gifted in this area and some probably would have difficulty getting around if not for these lights.  In areas outside of population centers, light sources include bioluminescent fungi growing on various surfaces and the occasional eruptions of the energy known as "Heckfire," which looks much like normal fire but tends to have skull-shaped patterns flickering about within its flames and has a tendency to ignore the laws of physics from time to time, sometimes being capable of burning underwater or in the absence of any obvious fuel source.  Heck has no native plantlife, but plenty of fungal lifeforms have taken root here, most notably the enormous spiky purple structures that grow up from the ground as Heck's equivalent to trees (seen in the background of the picture above.)

Populated areas in Heck consist of massive rock formations that have been hollowed out to form Heck's equivalent of high-rise apartment buildings and offices.  These buildings are remarkably similar to human society's equivalents, though they are generally cleaner and less prone to falling apart (though this may be at least partially the result of how much magic is being used in and around them, reinforcing the structures as well as cleaning and repairing them.)  Almost everything in Heck is carved out of the stone that makes up much of its landscape, sometimes even all the way up to the furniture in a building -- there's no worry of tables or cabinets being knocked over or moved out of place, as they're literally growing up out of the floor or permanently fused to the wall!  Some other materials (such as various metals and glass) are sometimes used, though wood is incredibly rare, partly due to the absence of trees of any sort in Heck and partly due to the occasional flares of Heckfire that would be likely to destroy wooden furniture.  Oddly enough, paper is abundant despite the lack of trees (or any other plantlife) with which to make it; it's possible that Heck's "paper" is in fact made from one of the various fungus species growing there, or even created magically in some way from other materials.

Heckspawn

The native population of Heck, commonly known as "Heckspawn," are an unusual sort of beings who can take many forms.  It's unclear whether they are ordinary living beings or something else, hovering in an odd border region between spirit and mortal, or between living and dead (or that which was never technically "alive" in the first place.)  By human standards they live extremely long lives, though the exact lifespan of a Heckspawn is unknown.  Though their exact appearance will vary wildly from one region of Heck to another, Heckspawn can generally be categorized as one of three basic "types"...

...as shown in the picture above, which shows a small group of Heckspawn headed off to (or from) an ordinary day at work.  The three types are as follows:

Skeleton-type Heckspawn:  Probably the most widely known among those few humans who are aware of their existence at all, skeleton-type Heckspawn resemble the skeletons of various living beings, though they were born as skeleton-type Heckspawn -- rather than having any actual connection to the living creature whose skeleton they resemble -- regardless of how they may appear.  Males and females are almost identical, and it's possible that there is in fact no physical difference between them at all.  In regions of Heck tasked with monitoring planets where humanoid species live, these Heckspawn usually resemble humanoid skeletons (fairly short ones, in most cases, with few ever reaching heights of more than 5'08"); in areas watching over a very different world with little or no humanoid life, they will take a different form.  Some say that tales of the god Gatadz in ancient K'hyurbhi mythology were actually inspired by the sight of a Heckspawn -- perhaps even a Grim Reaper -- who looked like a skeletal Numnum.  Quite a few Grim Reapers from around the world have been skeleton-types, a fact which has given rise to the popular image of the Grim Reaper in human culture as a scythe-wielding skeleton wearing a hooded cloak.

Devil-type Heckspawn: This variety of Heckspawn is fairly consistent from one region of Heck to the next, taking on forms that are (usually) short and squat with red skin, horns, and often wings and pointed ears and tails.  In some regions, hooved feet are common; in others they may have different sorts of feet instead, or more than just two feet (and legs), or even no feet at all -- a Heckspawn with a snake-like lower body or even just a wisp of semi-solid energy (similar to the "tail" of a genie) in place of feet has been reported from time to time.  Unlike the other two varieties of Heckspawn, devil-types have fairly distinct visual differences between their males and females, including facial features, body shapes (particularly the presence or absence of breasts), and the size of their wings -- males usually, but not always, tend to have tiny vestigial wings that can only be used for brief fluttering without the aid of magic, while females often have a full-sized pair of wings that is fully capable of propelling them off the ground if needed.  Devil-type Heckspawn seem to enjoy management positions more than day-to-day research or accounting, and as a result few of them ever venture outside of Heck and even fewer end up becoming Grim Reapers -- going out into the field every day and actually doing work (and maybe even having to fight, on rare occasions!) would seem exhausting to most of their kind.

Shadow-type Heckspawn: The most mysterious of the three varieties of Heckspawn, shadow-types have entirely black bodies which are not entirely physically "there" at all times, allowing them to do a variety of strange things that other Heckspawn cannot -- flattening themselves down into a shadow on the floor and "oozing" under doors, for example.  The only constants in their appearance are their glowing eyes and clawed hands (and perhaps feet, if they even have feet), with their body shape varying wildly from one region of Heck to another.  They most often wear hooded cloaks as seen above, at least when they take a humanoid (or even remotely close) form, though it's not unheard of to see them wearing something else or even nothing at all.  As with skeleton-type Heckspawn, it is virtually impossible to tell males and females apart and it's possible that they do not even have two separate sexes the way that humans would understand them.  Though not as commonly as with skeleton-types, the shadow-types do produce a steady supply of Grim Reapers from among their ranks.

Heckspawn of all three types are naturally inclined toward magic use and have developed their own style of magic that has similarities to both that of the Burijeoo (focusing on elemental-manipulation spells) and the magic used by human wizards (focusing on utility spells that can come in handy in various situations.)  The Heckspawn style seems to take most of the strengths of both of the two styles while leaving the weaknesses behind -- unlike human magic the use of "magic words" or long, drawn-out rituals is all but unheard of, and unlike Burijeoo magic there is no need to focus one's attention on just one or two elemental categories in order to avoid spreading one's power too thin.  On average, shadow-types are the most magically-inclined of the three types while devil-types are the weakest; in terms of physical strength this hierarchy is reversed, with shadow-types having very little and devil-types having the most despite their shorter stature.  None of the three types is especially notable when it comes to strength, however, with even most of the tougher devil-types falling far short of the level that creatures like the Numnums or Blurbys are on.

 Grim Reapers

The most notable Heckspawn are the Grim Reapers, who are responsible for venturing out into the 40 Nherbis and taking records of the living and the dead firsthand rather than serving the rather unglamorous (but also less dangerous) duties of "the accountants of the afterlife" back home in Heck.  It is the Grim Reapers who provide Heck with its data on the outside world(s), sensing the presences of living and dead beings and sending back reports on the current status of each individual as each day goes by.  Each Grim Reaper covers a certain area, sometimes as tiny as a single small country and sometimes as vast as an entire planet, or even an entire solar system.  On Earth most Grim Reapers cover one or several countries (depending on land area and population), while rumor has it that Nummorro has been watched over by a single Grim Reaper at most points in history due to the longer lifespans, little or no overpopulation, and less frequent warfare of its inhabitants.  It's likely that Earth, with its dozens of Grim Reapers, is the exception rather than the rule -- most planets populated by intelligent lifeforms do not suffer from such rampant overpopulation and clashes between (and among) its species, after all.

The process of becoming a Grim Reaper is a long one, and one that includes an extensive period of training both in the use of magic and in learning the ways that life and death are supposed to operate when nothing is skewing the balance to one side or the other.  Though Heckspawn do have a bit of a head start in this training, not all Grim Reapers are Heckspawn -- over the years some members of other species (such as humans) have occasionally managed to find their way into a Grim Reaper position one way or another as well.  While most of a Grim Reaper's duties include relatively peaceful tasks such as keeping records of the living and the dead (and reporting those records back to Heck) and giving the souls of the deceased advice on how to properly move on if they happen to find themselves "stuck" in the world of the living after death, from time to time a Grim Reaper may have to take a more active role in making sure the cycle continues without delay or interruption.  One situation that calls for drastic measures is the case of souls being bound to the living realm by some outside force (as opposed to being held back by the weight of their own past deeds and distorted mindsets that they have not yet repented for); this was the reason that Señor Death, the Grim Reaper of Mexico, ventured far north of his usual region in 2008.  Another situation where a Grim Reaper is authorized to become personally involved is the case of an individual extending their lifespan through unnatural means, such as by siphoning the life out of other beings and transferring it to themselves or by having power and extended life granted to them by various evil beings such as Lords of Moronism or even the Rupoo.  In these cases a Grim Reaper is authorized to end their target's life by force, though this option will only be taken if it becomes clear that the target cannot be reasoned with.  Some individuals from history and legend who ended up living unusually long lives may in fact have been magic-users who had managed to make an especially convincing case to the Grim Reaper assigned to limit their lives to a reasonable length, particularly in cases where their method caused little or no harm to others in the process.

The position of Grim Reaper comes with great power, most notably much more powerful magic than that of an ordinary Heckspawn -- though most of this power is the result of intense training and study (and experience in the field over the decades or centuries they have held their job) rather than simply being granted to the individual upon reaching the position.  Powers that are granted to a Grim Reaper as part of their job description include being able to sense the presence and status of people native to their assigned region, being able to peer into the memories of those they watch over in order to better explain to them what past mistakes might be holding them back from the afterlife now, and even near-instantaneous teleportation between any two points within their region.  This teleportation technique comes with a shadowy aura and a fwuum sound, causing the user to sink into a pool of shadowy energy on the ground and reappear from a similar shadow elsewhere.  Shadow-type Heckspawn have been known to use a lesser variation of this as a normal magic spell, but only Grim Reapers are capable of transporting themselves hundreds or even thousands of miles this way.

Along with enhanced magic and various powers related to the job, all Grim Reapers are provided with at least one weapon known as a "Reaper Scythe," though these weapons are not necessarily scythes.  These weapons are generally infused with magic that makes them cause more damage to living beings, with the intent being to make the process of the Reaper claiming the lives of any who disrupt the cycle of life and death as quick and painless as possible.  The Reaper Scythes of each individual Grim Reaper have their own individual characteristics, and while some are passed down from one Reaper to the next over the centuries, others are shattered when a former Reaper retires or passes on and magically recreated by the incoming Reaper each time so that they will always take a form more fitting to their current owner.

The one disadvantage of the Grim Reaper is that, in order to encourage them attending to their duties and not wandering off and busying themselves with other things, they will begin to grow weaker and weaker every moment they spend outside of their assigned region.   For Reapers assigned to a very large area this is not a major problem, but Reapers on Earth could quite easily find themselves with depleted powers just for venturing a few dozen miles too far in one direction or another.  This limitation is not absolute, though with enough time even the mightiest and strongest-willed Reapers will begin to suffer from its effects -- when Señor Death traveled as far north as Alaska in order to free the captured Mexican souls held there to power a giant robot, for example, he was required to push himself beyond his usual limits just to keep up with the level of power displayed by his allies El Garbanzo, Señor Rialgo, and Schnee McBoobs.  At the beginning of their trip, when he left Mexico along with El Garbanzo and Señor Rialgo, he had been holding back a significant amount of his true power just to allow them to keep up with him.  As all Grim Reapers must return to Heck from time to time, this restriction does not apply to them within that realm -- only when they wander to other countries (or planets, or galaxies, or nherbis...) beyond their assigned jurisdiction within the mortal universe.  There is even an annual Grim Reaper convention held in Heck where all Grim Reapers who aren't currently too busy with their jobs are encouraged to return home and interact with their comrades; Señor Death was known to attend one such convention following the events of the year 2008, as did the Grim Reapers of southeast Asia and various other regions of Earth.

Flight of the Bloodmobile, Chapter 11

I wrote this ages ago (way, way back in 2010 along with the rest of what I had finished of this story), but for a long time I never uploaded it anywhere since it didn't have a title, and then it just kind of ended up getting forgotten about for a while.

But I recently found this story and read over it again last week, so now, after 4 years since the last chapter of Flight of the Bloodmobile appeared online, I present... Chapter 11! (Chapter 12 is also coming soon... 13, maybe if I ever get around to finishing it. XD)

Stuff I wrote when I was a kid -- How All This Numnum Stuff Started

Well, it's taken a while, but now I've finally made it around to the last of the old Supernum stories I wrote in my elementary school years (between 1994 and... maybe 1996 or 1997ish? I'm not entirely sure.)  This story is basically an "origin story" for Supernum, but despite that it was actually one of the later stories I wrote -- it might've even been the last Supernum story I wrote during the time when I was writing a lot of them, though I know I did write another one later on, when I was in middle school.  Anyway... here it is!

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!

Stuff I wrote when I was a kid -- Julia and the Big Bad Beetleborgs

This is one of several stories featuring Julia and also mentioning her in the title, and out of the bunch it's probably the one I wrote the latest -- unlike every other Supernum story it includes Zoombinis, which I was not aware of until my 5th grade year if I'm remembering right.  The others, of course, included How Julia Saved Fat Free Willy (posted on here) and another story I can't remember the title of, which if I'm remembering right was only Julia-related in being a sequel to the previously-mentioned story.  It actually revolved more around Upchukk the Blurby, who made his first appearance in that story.  Unfortunately, I no longer have a copy of this one, so I don't remember many details about it either -- all I know for sure is that several different Yuckow Foods were present along with a bad guy named Michael with a heavy-duty war machine called the "Dorkmobile," which Upchukk managed to stop by Blubber Slamming the controls and causing it to go haywire.  Also, I'm pretty sure Fat Free Willy got kidnapped again, because back then I probably wouldn't have realized how stupid the "same thing again with different levels" formula (see: Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2, the various Yoshi's Island sorta-sequel games, etc.) actually was.  At least elementary-school-age me put forth enough effort to come up with a new villain rather than recycling lame ol' boring ol' Bowser over and over -- he's not even entertaining outside of the RPGs, and even in them he's funnier when he's not forced into the taking on the main-villain role that he's not really suited for unless possessed by some other being or powered-up with some super artifact.  His antics when forced to team up with the Mario Bros. are infinitely better than anything he's ever done as the Designated Bad Guy.

...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.

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.

Stuff I wrote when I was a kid -- The Nummiest Thanksgiving Ever

At one point, I started writing Supernum stories that took place around major holidays and were overall at least loosely themed around that holiday (usually with a "Killer Kirby tries to mess up that holiday for everyone and sics a set of holiday-themed monsters on Supernum" pattern to them.)  This was, as far as I can remember, the first one of these stories that I wrote.  As you can probably guess from the title, it's the Thanksgiving-themed one.

Killer Kirby was sitting in his castle one day, not doing anything but laying around. Then he got an idea! He could use Thanksgiving-type badguys to roast Supernum like a Thanksgiving turkey. The first one he made was the ThanksDumming Turkey. He was completely impossible to beat unless Freeze was used on him. He also made three others: Stuffing Stinko, Gravy Ghost, and (his favorite bad guy) Mashed Potato Monster. He sent the bad guys to the backyard of Eddie's house. He sent them the night before Thanksgiving so they could ruin Eddie's Thanksgiving dinner. Then Killer Kirby made 3 extra bad guys in case the other 4 got killed.

Oddly enough, it seems that this one actually features a bit of a change in the status quo from my oldest stories -- whereas Killer Kirby was "trying to figure out who Supernum was" as of How Julia Saved Fat Free Willy, now he's fully aware that Eddie is the one who can transform into Supernum and sends batches of monsters directly to Eddie's house.

A lot like Supernum Meets Commander Keen, this one randomly capitalizes a chunk of one of the villains' names -- in this case, the D in Thanksdumming Turkey.  Also, apparently the monsters are sent out "the nigh before Thanksgiving" rather than on Thanksgiving night... so did they wait around overnight and only attack on Thankgiving day, or what?

ThanksDumming Turkey immediately attacked the house. Eddie heard him attacking and rushed outside. "It's Time For Nums!" Eddie said. Just as soon as he said that, he began changing into Supernum. Supernum easily knocked off ThanksDumming Turkey's attacks, but nothing even scratched ThanksDumming Turkey. Then Gravy Ghost came. Supernum was overpowered by the two bad guys and ran. While he was running, He put some Numnum Land Mines on the ground. Both of the bad guys stepped on them, but only Gravy Ghost was hurt. Gravy Ghost stopped chasing Supernum. ThanksDumming Turkey slowed down, but  he didn't stop.

...apparently not, because "Thanksdumming Turkey immediately attacked the house."  I guess I just got things a little mixed up as to exactly what day Thanksgiving dinner took place on when I was writing this -- I must have gotten it mixed up with Christmas, since there's both Christmas Eve (where my family usually had Christmas dinner) and Christmas Day (presents.)

Also, it seems like Killer Kirby's minions are getting stronger and stronger over time -- in previous stories Supernum didn't have any trouble fighting multiple opponents at once, but here just two of the Thanksgiving-themed monsters would be a bit too much for him to fight at once.  This is also the first (and only) appearance of "Numnum Land Mines," and they're not the last odd random gadget that Supernum will end up using in this story...

When Supernum was far away enough from the bad guys, he stopped running and threw out all of the mines. He turned on his Numnum Scanner and scanned the bad guys as they came near him. He discovered that ThanksDumming Turkey's weak spot was Freeze and Gravy Ghost couldn't stand Zzzters. Supernum programmed his Num Gun for Freeze/Zzzt and aimed at the bad guys. ZZZZzzzzz! A few minutes later, ThanksDumming Turkey was a pile of turkey cold-cuts and Gravy Ghost was a bowl of gravy. Suddenly Stuffing Stinko appeared. Supernum scanned him and said "Numnum Smash!" A few seconds later, Stuffing Stinko was a pile of stuffing. Turning back into Eddie, Supernum picked up the gravy, turkey, and stuffing, put it on a plate, and said "My mom will love this!"

...such as the "Numnum Scanner" which reveals the bad guys' weaknesses, for example.  Also, I'm pretty sure Thanksdumming Turkey's weakness to ice-based attacks is based on the way that turkey starts to smell absolutely disgusting after it's gone in the fridge for a little while.

I'm not sure exactly when this story was written, but I think it might be one of the only stories to feature both the "random gadgets" style of Supernum fighting and the "Num Power energy attacks" style in the same fight.  The Num Gun and its various settings (which in this story are elemental-based rather than anti-Barney, anti-dragon, etc. like in their previous appearance), land mines, scanners, and Numnum Smashes.  Also, the Numnum Smash actually has an appropriate level of destructive power in this one rather than just... knocking things backward... like in Supernum Meets Commander Keen.

When he got home, he put the food on the table and everyone ate. Eddie ate turkey, Julia ate turkey, Mom ate turkey and stuffing, and Dad ate turkey, stuffing, and gravy. Just as they were about to leave the table, Killer Kirby's back-up bad guys and Mashed Potato Monster came crashing through the window. "What.. are those.. things?" said Mom. Eddie didn't have time to explain. He turned into Supernum and calmed down Mom. Mom couldn't beleive it! Her son Eddie was the only person who could stop Killer Kirby and his bad guys! The back-up bad guys were: Cranberry Creature, Dressing Dragon, and Lima Bean Leprauchan. Eddie gave the Sign Of The Numnum to Julia and soon they both were turning into Supernum and Julia Dragon. Supernum went after Cranberry Creature while Julia Dragon chased Lima Bean Leprauchan.

And here's probably the first appearance of Eddie's entire family in any of these stories.  And of course, right when Thanksgiving dinner is about over, Killer Kirby's minions crash the party (by literally crashing through the window.)

This is also the first appearance of the Julia Dragon as a Supernum-esque transformation for Julia rather than just a random monster.  I think this might actually be the only story where the Julia Dragon makes an appearance, oddly enough, though she was going to be involved in a battle against Killer Kirby at some point (this was mentioned in a comic I started but never finished when I was in the later elementary school years, but never actually written down or anything.)  I'm not entirely sure what the "sign of the Numnum" was supposed to be, but my first guess would be a hand motion that resembles a Numnum opening and closing its mouth.  Also, I consistently misspelled the word "leprechaun" throughout this entire story. >_<

Another odd detail present in this story: Eddie's mom apparently knows about Supernum and Killer Kirby, but not that her son is Supernum.  No reaction from Dad though, oddly enough -- did he already know somehow?  But yeah... between this one and the Christmas-themed story I wrote later, it appears that Killer Kirby is a known figure on Earth in the later Supernum stories -- these two actually make it sound like he has a castle located on Earth now, rather than just the one on Nummorro where he was originally based.  Apparently at some point -- probably after the whole "sealed away at Camp Shenandoah" thing? -- he decided to target Earth rather than Nummorro.

Dressing Dragon, having a chance to grab some lunch for Killer Kirby, grabbed Mom and flew toward Killa Castle. Dad chased after the dragon in his stinky car. Mashed Potato Monster decided to help Cranberry Creature. Just as Supernum was about to beat Cranberry Creature, Mashed Potato Monster showed up. Mashed Potato Monster was one of the toughest bad guys Killer Kirby had ever made. Every time Supernum hit him, a piece would break off and grow into a full-sized Mashed Potato Monster. And Cranberry Creature was helping him!

Apparently Cranberry Creature isn't anything special, as Supernum only seems to be having trouble with the Cranberry Creature/Mashed Potato Monster combination due to Mashed Potato Monster's ability to regenerate whole new Monsters from random chunks of potatoes that got knocked off by attacks.  Also, Eddie's dad is driving to Kihlah Castle.  Yep, these stories definitely seem to have Killer Kirby having a castle somewhere on Earth rather than just on Nummorro.

Supernum called for Julia Dragon, who had stopped chasing Lima Bean Leprauchan when she saw that Mashed Potato Monster was going to help Cranberry Creature. Julia Dragon roared as she charged at Mashed Potato Monster. Supernum could fight Cranberry Creature while Julia Dragon distracted Mashed Potato Monster. Soon Cranberry Creature was a pile of smushed cranberries. Then Supernum went back to Mashed Potato Monster only to discover that Julia Dragon was eating him! "Yum yum, try these mashed potatoes." said Julia Dragon, her mouth stuffed with potatoes. "Uhhh.. no thanks." said Supernum, nearly throwing up.

Yep, Cranberry Creature didn't last long -- he must have been the weakest of this group, as the story doesn't even feel the need to mention Supernum using some special technique or Num Gun setting to finish him off.  Also, the Julia Dragon has the unusual ability to eat yucky food despite not being one of the bad guys -- pretty much everyone else in these old stories was unable to eat yuckfood without getting sick, hence Supernum's reaction here.

Lima Bean Leprauchan and Dressing Dragon were the only bad guys left. But where were they? Supernum turned on his BadguyMapper and looked for them on the map. He found Dressing Dragon. He was flying away from Dad's car, which was so far past the speed limit that if the police weren't so scared of Dressing Dragon, they would've arrested Dad.

And here's another odd random gadget, the "BadguyMapper," which seems to be somewhat redundant with the Numnum Scanner mentioned earlier (unless the scanner just can't scan beyond a certain range or something, I guess.)

I think this might actually be the first of my stories to do the "one thing going in one place, meanwhile something else is going on somewhere else" thing, albeit very briefly.

Back at Eddie's house, the good guys couldn't find Lima Bean Leprauchan anywhere. Julia Dragon's well-developed dragon sense of smell picked up the smell of lima beans. She knew immediately that it was Lima Bean Leprauchan. Supernum jumped on her back and told her to follow the smell. They were soon deep in the woods behind Eddie's house, where Lima Bean Leprauchan's trap waited for two good guys. Click! Something had wrapped around Julia Dragon's front legs. "I'm in a trap!" roared Julia Dragon. Supernum got out and saw that it was not just one trap. Two tentacle traps had wrapped around Julia Dragon's front legs! Getting out his Num Army Knife,  he cut the tentacles, releasing Julia Dragon.

They couldn't find Lima Bean Leprechaun anywhere... even though they have a device that shows you exactly where the bad guys are?? Weird.

Anyway... apparently the Julia Dragon's sense of smell can pick up on the smell of lima beans from a looong way away even though Supernum's mapper for some reason wasn't able to find him anywhere.  And here's the appearance of another random gadget, which I'm pretty sure Nummy was mentioned as using in another story -- the "Num Army Knife," which is basically just a Numnum-themed version of a Swiss army knife.  Why he couldn't just use the regular ol' Numnum Sword to cut some tentacles, I'm not sure, but there it is.

Lima Bean Leprauchan jumped out from behind a tree. "Ha Ha Hee Hee! You slow wimps will never catch me!" he said. There was no way that they could. Everyone knows that dragons can spit fireballs, so Eddie gave the Sign Of The Numnum to Julia Dragon, who understood and spit three fireballs at Lima Bean Leprauchan. The Leprauchan dodged the first one, but he was fried to death by the other two. Now only Dressing Dragon remained, so Supernum got out a Num Warp and warped to Killa Castle, where they would wait for Dressing Dragon.

Apparently the Lima Bean Leprechaun is really fast, or something.  But not fast enough to dodge three fireballs in a row.  Also, Num Warps seem to be described as an object here ("Supernum got out a Num Warp...") rather than just portals that can send you to pretty much anywhere else instantly.  I'm not sure exactly how they were intended to work back then.

Soon Dressing Dragon came flying by with Dad's speeding car behind him. Dad threw a spare tire at Dressing Dragon, who dropped Mom. The car's brakes screeched as Dad tried to stop. Finally Dad stopped the car. But Mom was falling out of the air and away from Dressing Dragon. Supernum caught Mom just before she hit the ground and put her in the back seat of Dad's car. Then he went after Dressing Dragon while Julia Dragon guarded the car. Dressing Dragon suddenly noticed that his lunch was no longer between his claws. He flew toward Dad, ready to eat him, but Supernum grabbed Dressing Dragon's tail and pulled hard. "YOW!" roared Dressing Dragon as he knocked off Supernum.

Eddie's dad is apparently capable of driving at high speeds and flinging a spare tire out the window (high enough to clobber a flying dragon, and with enough force that it'd make said dragon drop the one he was carrying!) at the same time.  Though apparently he's not strong enough to actually fight Dressing Dragon, that's still pretty impressive considering that most regular ol' humans wouldn't be able to do anything against any of these monsters.

Just when Dad was only inches from being Dressing Dragon's dinner, Julia Dragon bit into Dressing Dragon's leg. "Mmmmm! You taste good, Dressing Dragon!" she said. Dad ran for the car, got in, and slammed the door. Dressing Dragon was really mad at Julia Dragon for messing up his meal. But since Julia Dragon was equal in size to Dressing Dragon, eating Julia Dragon would be impossible. Several tail whacks later, Dressing Dragon was nearly dead. Then Killer Kirby showed up, towering over Supernum, Julia Dragon, Dressing Dragon, and Dad's car.

Apparently eating food-based monsters was a defining feature of the Julia Dragon in these old stories -- first eating Mashed Potato Monster and now chomping on the Dressing Dragon's leg.  She's also apparently a good bit stronger than said food-based dragon, as all it took to nearly kill him was a few tail thwacks.

 "Dressing Dragon!" he said, "Why does it look like you need HELP? You are supposed to be a bad guy! You were supposed to EAT THOSE GOOD GUYS!" Then Killer Kirby yelled "KILLA!" and a zzzt shot out of his Shicker. Dressing Dragon began to grow. Soon he was the same size as Killer Kirby. "Ha Ha! Try to beat my Dressing Dragon now!" said Killer Kirby "EAT GOOD GUY!" roared the Dressing Dragon as he stomped toward Supernum. "Uh oh.." said Julia Dragon. "Well, the bigger they are, the harder they fall." said Supernum, getting out his Numnum Sword. He tied a rope to the sword and tied the other end to Killer Kirby. Then he threw the sword at Dressing Dragon and used the rope to climb up toward the Dragon's head.

And of course, since I watched a lot of Power Rangers back when I was writing these stories, Killer Kirby now has the ability to enlarge his monsters to humongous sizes.  And finally the Numnum Sword makes an appearance... even if it is just as a makeshift grappling hook to climb up onto a giant food-dragon's back.  On the topic of size-changing, Killer Kirby himself seems pretty inconsistent in these old stories -- I usually described him as being twenty feet tall even back then, but when writing it seems like I wasn't entirely sure how big that was... so sometimes he seems to be much bigger than that.

And speaking of Killer Kirby, his lines here are... really dumb, looking back.  Not sure what the heck I was thinking when I wrote this.

Then he got out his Num Gun and programmed it for "Dragon Destruction", the anti-dragon setting. Julia Dragon bit Dressing Dragon on the toe to distract him and Supernum blasted the Dragon with his gun. At first, the Dragon shrank. Then Dressing Dragon melted into a mushy blob and exploded. "AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGG!" said Killer Kirby. "MY BAD GUY!" he yelled as he went back into the castle. He tripped when the sword-rope stuck into a wall. The castle came crumbling down as Dad's car drove home with a Dragon, a Num, and a lot of dressing.

And now the anti-(critter type) settings on the Num Gun, as previously mentioned in The Numnum Club, finally make a return appearance! Apparently they're pretty effective, as one shot from the "Dragon Destruction" setting not only reverts Dressing Dragon to his usual size but causes him to melt and explode into a giant pile of dressing.

Which is the same thing as stuffing, which had its own monster earlier (Stuffing Stinko)... so apparently that must've been Killer Kirby's favorite Thanksgiving-y food. XD

And here's Killer Kirby accidentally destroying his own castle by tripping.  Yep.  It's no wonder nobody ever wanted to get in a fight with this guy considering how much destruction he can cause entirely by accident.  I'm not sure why he always just went right back into his castle at the end of these stories rather than attacking (though in most stories other than this one, the good guys don't actually end up at the castle where he is so the question doesn't come up), but I guess in this one at least he could've been heading back in to prepare for a fight, then the tripping and castle-destroying happened so Supernum and company were able to escape while he was distracted.