Chapter 12: The Stormy Night
6:30 p.m.

The sky is dark. Water pours down from the heavens and batter against the ground. The sky flashes with a blinding light. A thundering sound roars from the sky.

BANG

"AAAAAHHH!" screams Luigi, and he latches onto Mario tightly.

"Relax-a, Luigi. Da thunda won't-a hit you," Mario calms him.

"But I'm scared…"

Fox is watching the weather broadcast. The broadcaster is wearing a raincoat while out in the rainy field reporting the weather. "This is one of the most violent storm Onett has ever faced! It will last until late midnight, where it might get stronger and stronger! Please make sure you are prepared for any danger. Stay indoors and do not come out! Whoa!" When he has finished saying this, a cat gets blown across by the wind and smacks him in the face, and they two roll down the street together.

"Looks like it'll be noisy night today," says Fox.

There is a knock at the door and G&W opens it. Peach comes in with a tray of foods. "I brought you dinner!"

"Thanks, Peach!" says G&W.

-

A blue car drives into the apartment campus and parks under a small shed, running over the bicycles there. Captain Falcon steps out of the car and quickly rushes up the stairs to the second floor. By the time he reaches his room, he is dripping with rainwater. He steps inside and walks across the floor, leaving behind a trail of water.

Link is swinging a plastic sword around the air when he sees this. "Falcon! Don't come in wet like that!"

"Then how do you expect me to come in?" replies CF. "Who would've guessed the storm would be this big?" He goes into the shower room to take a quick shower.

Meanwhile, Marth and Roy are playing chess. "Check," says Marth.

"Oh yeah? I'll just move my bishop here and I'm saved," says Roy as he moves his unit.

Marth moves another unit and says, "Check again."

"I don't believe it! I'll just move this knight and once again…"

"Check," says Marth as he moves another time.

"WHAT!"

"It's checkmate this time. You lose."

"I don't believe it! There's got to be another away around!"

"It's hopeless. Your king is totally cornered and unable to escape. Just give up like a man."

"I won't accept defeat! I have one last plan!" Roy lifts up the chessboard and hurls it outside the window. "There! Now nobody wins or lose!"

"Hey! It's raining out there and expect someone to go out and retrieve it!"

Link is still swinging his plastic sword around in air, and he accidentally knocks down the TV.

CRASH

"Oops…"

-

Downstairs, the landlord is building a tower out of cards, and when the TV hit the floor, it created a mild tremor that made the tower tumble down. "Not again!" cries the landlord angrily.

-

Marth and Roy turn their attentions to him. "What have you done!" Roy yells at him.

"Sorry…" Link quickly puts the TV back up and checks it. The screen shows nothing but gray fuzziness.

"Now it's broken!" says Marth. "You should never swing a sword around indoors!"

"But it's raining outside and I can't go out!"

"Then do it when the rain has ended!"

-

Room 002 is facing a problem of… dripping waters.

Bowser is watching TV while holding an umbrella so that the water dripping down will not touch him.

Ganondorf is sitting at the table looking at the water dripping down, and because he is bored, he counts the number of drops. "40, 41, 42, 43, 44…"

DK is playing around with some toy animals. "Run, little giraffe! The lion is here! Little giraffe kick the lion! Yeah, the lion is kicked!"

Mewtwo is sitting in the corner with his eyes closed, thinking of who-knows-what.

As Ganondorf counts the raindrops, he feels something dropping onto his head. He looks up just in time for a drop of water to go into his eyes. "Ow! That's it! This madness must be stopped!"

"What can we do about it?" replies Bowser still with his eyes glued to the TV.

"I'm telling the landlord about it!" Ganondorf grabs an umbrella and walks out the room. He goes to the first floor and calls for the landlord.

"What is it?" the landlord asks him.

"Our room is dripping with water! Something must be done about it!"

"The roof is probably leaking. Sorry, but I can't do anything about it during the rain. Come back when the rain stops and I'll do something about it." And the landlord slams the door.

"You lack responsibility…" grumbles Ganondorf as he walks back to his room.

-

Room 008

Ness is throwing a baseball against the wall and catching it, and then repeating. "The rain… I would be playing outside if it weren't for this."

Young Link is at the table busy doing his homework. Kirby and Yoshi are licking up dinner's leftover. Nana is hugging a doll while curled up tightly, as she is scared of the sound of thunder. "Don't worry," Popo says to her. "It will all be over tomorrow."

"I'm scared… The lightning is so blinding and the thunder is frightening!" she cries.

"There's nothing to be afraid of. I'll protect you and make sure…"

And then the thunder strikes again.

BANG

"AHHH!" screams Nana, and then she notices Popo is gone. "Popo! Where are you?" She sees Popo cowering under a pile of cushions. "And you said you will protect me…"

Kirby sees the last piece of meat on the plate and opens his mouth to suck it in, but Yoshi whips out his tongue and takes it away. "Hey! It was mine!" Kirby yells at him.

Yoshi swallows the meat and says, "Finders keeper."

Kirby angrily hurls himself at Yoshi and they begin beating the crap out of each other. "Can you guys be quiet?" asks YL. "I'm busy with my homework here."

Ness is still throwing the baseball around, and because Yoshi and Kirby fight all the way into him and bumps him, he accidentally throws the ball at the window and…

CLANG

"Oh no!" cries Ness. Rainwater begins to spray in from the hole created on the window. "Something must be done or else the room will flood!"

"I'll handle it!" Popo runs to the window and blows cold air, forming an ice wall around the hole and sealing it. "There! But I'm afraid it won't last forever."

"So what do we do?" asks Yoshi.

"You did it in the first place! So you're responsible!" Ness tells him.

"But Kirby attacked me!"

"You took my food!" Kirby yells back.

"I have an idea!" says Popo. "We need sticky glue and a piece of wood."

"What are you going to do?" Ness asks him. "We have glue, but the wooden board we don't have." He looks out the window and sees a random piece of board lying there in the semi-flooded ground. "Wait, I see one."

Popo looks out the window and also sees it. "That'll work, but how do we get it?"

"Use my psychic power!" Ness concentrates his mind and the wooden board floats to their window. Ness quickly opens the window and pulls in the board. "Here."

"Good!" Popo dries the board and then puts glue around it, and then sticks it over the hole on the window. "There!"

"That's a good idea, but wait till the landlord sees it…"

"At least rain won't come in the meantime."

-

Room 003

"The rain is big and I cannot see across the condominium," says Jack.

"This sure is a problem," says Albert. "Mufus may very well sneak into the condominium at this chance. But if nothing can be done, then we might have to stop work for today."

Suddenly, Jack gets up and does a spin on his toes while tweeting like a bird. "What are you doing?" Albert asks him.

"Joking Syndrome," replies Jack.

"You don't have to do it all the time! Only do it when the others are around."

"Sorry, but I sort of got used to it and actually enjoys it…"

-

8:30 p.m.

Room 009

Falco is watching a suspenseful mystery movie about some mind-boggling case. It is coming to the climax and can't get his eyes off the screen. Reed, too, has his eyes glued to the screen. Fox is using his laptop. Dr. Mario is reading a book. G&W and Mario are playing card games. Luigi is sitting next to Mario, and he has earplugs in his ears so he can avoid hearing the loud thunder.

"I solved the case, captain!" says the man on the TV. "The murderer is…"

Suddenly, the electricity goes out and the entire place becomes pitch dark.

"AAHHHHHHHH! THE DARK!" screams Luigi.

"DARN IT! Just when we were at the most exciting part!" says Falco angrily.

"Yeah! Of all times, why the blackout now!" says Reed, annoyed. "Now we'll never know who the murderer is!"

-

Room 002

"Yes! Darkness!" says Ganondorf happily. "This is when I am most active!" He gets up and does a small dance.

"Pfft… I'll never find out who the murderer is…" moans Bowser. He was also watching the same mystery movie.

"This blackout will continue until the storm ends," says Mewtwo. "All we can do now is to sit in the darkness and wait."

"Has anyone seen my little rhino?" asks DK.

-

Room 008

The kids (including Yoshi and Kirby) are all sitting around the desk with a lighted candle on it. YL is still doing his homework. "I'm scared…" says Nana.

"Don't worry. I will protect you for real," Popo tells her.

"And you're going to freak out when the thunder comes again."

"I won't!"

"How much left on the homework?" Ness asks YL.

"Almost, just a few more numbers," he replies. "I hate my math teacher…"

"I understand you. My math teacher must be high on drugs when he gave that 3-page long homework."

"What do we do now?" asks Kirby. "It's so dark I can't see anything."

"The best thing to do is…" says Yoshi. "Sleep!"

"Right on! Let's sleep early!" So Kirby and Yoshi go to the second chamber, which is the place they sleep, and arrange their sleeping mattresses and plop down. Within a few seconds, they begin snoring quietly.

"Sleeping and eating is what they do best…" says Ness.

BANG

The Ice Climbers scream and hug each other tightly.

-

Room 007

"It's so dark…" says Samus as she shines the place with a flashlight.

Peach walks around in the darkness and calls Pikachu. "Pikachu, where are you?"

"Ow!" cries a voice.

Peach looks down and notices that she's stepping on Pikachu! "Oops! Sorry!"

"Never mind…"

"Can you do something about this? Surely your electricity can light up the room again."

"I'm sure I can do something about it." Pikachu fires a beam of electricity at the light on the ceiling. When zapped, the light begins to shine.

"It's brightening up!" says Zelda. But then the light goes to bright and bursts.

BOOM

"Sorry…" apologizes Pikachu.

"That's what happens if you surge it with too powerful electricity," says Samus.

-

Room 009

"Okay, go back to your room, Reed," says Falco. "There's nothing to do left, so we're just going to bed early."

"Fine…" Reed gets a lighted candle and goes through the hole on the wall. Since the wall is twice the size of before, he can fit through it without taking the door.

Falco arranges his sleeping mattress and lies down. "Oh boy… There's nothing to do besides closing your eyes and wait until you sleep."

"How come Fox's laptop is working?" asks G&W.

"That's because he uses battery," says Dr. Mario.

Fox is staring at the bright laptop monitor. The volume is turned up rather high, so the others can hear the sound. As Falco is about to close his eyes, he hears a sound saying, "I solved the case, captain! The murderer is…"

Falco shoots up from his bed and rushes to the laptop and bumps Fox away. "WOW! Why didn't you tell me you downloaded this onto the laptop?"

"Don't be in such a rush…" Fox tells him while rubbing his head, because he took a blow on the head when Falco pushed him away.

-

Room 002

Ganondorf is singing a happy song to himself. Bowser is looking bored. Mewtwo is still cross-legged in the corner. DK is using a flashlight to look around the room for his lost little rhino. "Little rhino, where are you? Come to me."

"It's in the upper-left corner," Mewtwo tells him.

"Onett Best Burger? You mean that hamburger fast food restaurant?"

"I said in the upper-left corner…"

"How did it get there? I never brought the little rhino there! In fact, the last time I went there was 2 months ago! I still have it with me yesterday!"

"Something should be done about your hearing…"

"Bering? It's at the Bering Strait?"

Suddenly, Ganondorf kicks down the bucket for catching leaking water. "Oops!"

"Ganon!" Bowser yells at him.

"It was an accident! The darkness is making me too hyper!"

DK comes searching for his little rhino toy and slips on the puddle of water.

CRASH!

-

And once again, the tremor made the tower of cards fall over. "ARGH!" screams the landlord.

-

12:30 a.m.

Susanna comes running towards the apartment. Though he has an umbrella, he is still getting wet and the force of the wind is so strong that he cannot balance properly with the umbrella. He got to the second floor and slips on the wet floor, and the umbrella flies out from his hand and into the stormy sky. "NOOOO! That is my most expensive umbrella!" screams Susanna. But knowing that he has no hope of finding it at this moment of time, he has no choice but to return to his room.

-

Room 008

Young Link has apparently fallen asleep at the table while doing his homework and the others are in bed. The Ice Climbers are huddled up next each other, as they both are afraid of the storm. The howling of wind and roaring of thunder can be heard even with the window shut tightly. However, Ness, Kirby, and Yoshi are sound asleep as if there's nothing.

"Don't be afraid, Nana," Popo tells his younger sister. "It'll all be over tomorrow morning."

"WA!" screams a voice.

The two shoot up from bed and say, "What was that!" They see that YL has wakened back up.

He looks around and says, "Uh? Just a dream…" And he plops his face down on the table again and begins snoring."

"Don't frighten us! Okay?" Popo tells him.

-

Room 009

Luigi is wide-awake. Even though he is sleeping in between Mario and Dr. Mario, he still has problem trying to sleep. Suddenly, a feeling comes to him, and he knows that the horror has come. He has to use the bathroom! He sits up and looks around. Mario and Dr. Mario are sound asleep besides him. G&W is next to the wall, but you cannot see him as he camouflages with the darkness. Fox and Falco are at the other wall sleeping peacefully. And then Reed is sleeping next to hole. Wait, Reed? He must've moved in here while everyone was asleep. Maybe he's scared of the storm too?

Luigi gently shakes Mario until he's awake. "Mario, please go with me to the bathroom."

Mario slowly opens his eyes. "Uh… Luigi… You scared…?"

"Of course I'm scared! It's so dark outside and the storm is so terrifying!"

Mario sits up and rubs his eyes and yawns, "All right… I also wanna go to da bathroom too…" So they two go to the bathroom together.

-

The hallway is very dark, but with Mario at his side, Luigi is not as scared. Mario waits outside the door while his younger brother uses it first, as the other toilet is still out of order. While Mario is waiting, he sees someone approaching him. Just then, the lightning flashes and temporally lights up the hallway. Mario sees a green monstrous face and screams. "AAAAAAAA!" He is so frightened that he bashes through the door and crashes Luigi into the toilet bowl.

SPLASH

"Mario! What's wrong!" asks Luigi.

"Um…? Did I scared you?" asks the green monster, who is actually Mr. Binko.

Mario is breathing heavily and recovering from the shock. "Yeah… A bit-a…"

"I'm sorry…"

-

Room 004

Roy still isn't sleeping. He is too worried about Lilina and thinks that she must be crying for him to be at her side. Then there is the loud shouting of Captain Falcon's dream talk, but Roy doesn't seem to mind. Soon, he decides to phone her, so he reaches for the phone and dials it (Electricity and telephone use different lines, so telephones can still be used in blackouts because it is the electric line that is cut off, not phone's.)

About 6 rings, and nobody pick it. Roy continues to wait. 10 rings… Roy begins to worry that she may be in trouble. After about the 20th ring, somebody finally answers. "Hello?" says the voice of Lilina.

"Lilina! It's me, Roy! I was so worried that you didn't pick the phone!"

"Yeah, yeah… I was deep asleep… What's your point?"

"I want to know if you are scared."

"Don't take me for a chicken, would you? I have the ability of thunder and why should I be afraid of this?"

"Oh, I thought so…"

"So stop disturbing my sleep, okay?" With this, she slams the phone.

"Boy, she's quite upset…"

"I WIN!" shouts CF in his sleep.

"Not again!" yells Link angrily.

"Would you mind keeping your voice down, Link?" Marth tells him. "I'm trying to sleep."

-

Room 007

Pichu wakes up and realizes that he needs to take the toilet, but like Luigi, he is scared to go out. He tries to shake up Pikachu, but Pikachu won't wake up. He goes to the ladies and tries to wake them up, but ends up getting kicked away by Samus.

"Ow… Now what do I do…?" the mouse Pokemon asks himself. He looks at the door to the shower room and thinks that he can just do his stuff in there. He goes to the door and realizes that the doorknob is out of reach. He can't keep it any longer, he feels like he's going to explode. "Can't take it…" He quickly runs under Peach's blanket and…

PSST

He crawls back out and feels much better. "Ah! That felt good!" So he goes to bed and sleeps.

-

3:45 a.m.

Everyone in the apartment is sound asleep already, and the storm is still going on. A large truck passes by in front of the apartment, but because the ground is wet and slippery, the truck's tires slip and crashes into a nearby building.

CRASH

The sound is so loud that all the residents of the apartment are shaken up. Everyone steps out of his or her rooms and asks what happened.

"What happened?" asks Captain Falcon.

"Man, can't I get a good shut eye?" asks Marth.

"A truck crashed into the building next door," says Mewtwo. "Though nobody is killed, there are many people injured."

"We should help them!" says Samus.

"You're going out in the middle of the storm to do this?" Bowser asks her.

"If it is to save lives, then it must be done!" She puts on a simple raincoat and runs out.

She got to the site of the crash and sees that the truck has fully drove into the building. The building is almost collapsing and there are some injured people lying around. There is no fire around as the rain put them out. "Hold on!" says Samus. "I'm coming to help!" She goes to aid the injured victims and tries to dig into the debris to look for more victims. "Ugh… These are too heavy…"

"Let us help!" say several voices. Samus turns around and sees the residents of the apartment all coming to help.

"If you suggest on helping, then we must help also!" says Fox.

"I will lend you my strength!" says Mr. Binko.

"Count me in! I'm not only pretty, but also strong!" says Susanna, flexing her muscles.

"At least there's something to do while waiting for the storm to stop," says Falco.

"Leave this kind of job to us!" says Albert. "We know best what to do when it comes to helping people!"

So with the help of everyone, they are able to save all the injured people and clean up the damage. Not long after that, the ambulance and police cars come and deal with the rest. The Smashers and the apartment residents are very proud of what they have done.

"We did a fine job at it!" says Ganondorf.

"It was good exercise for someone fat like me," says Reed.

"Once again, we Onett Pol… I mean… Anyway, I did something that has worth," says Albert.

"Hey, is your arm healed?" Dr. Mario asks him.

"Uh?" Albert looks at his arm and notices that he doesn't have the bandage on. "Oh! I forgot to put my bandages on and have not realize the pain!" Of course, he is just pretending.

"Hey Jack! It's been more than 10 minutes already," Yoshi tells Jack. "Shouldn't you…"

Jack hops around like a bunny while saying, "Boing, boing, boing!"

"Hey, has anyone noticed that the storm has stopped?" asks Marth. Everyone looks up and realizes that it has stopped raining and the wind has stopped blowing.

"It did! I guess Father Sky saw the good deed we did and ended the storm," says Zelda.

Everyone is happy that the storm has ended and that they did a good deed. Soon, lights start to appear from the windows of each house. "Light has returned! Yay!" exclaims Luigi.

-

The next morning…

Peach pulls up her blanket and notices a wet, smelly puddle on the mattress. "Hey! What's this!"

"Don't tell me you wet your bed, Peach," says Zelda.

"But I didn't!"

"Shame on you!" says Samus.

"I told you I didn't!"


END OF CHAPTER

This is without doubt the longest chapter in this story. Perhaps it's not too funny? I didn't have much idea besides a great big storm. Surely it's enough to keep you entertained for the moment, right?