AUTUMN DAYS

DISCLAIMER: Things happen. I can't guarantee that I will always not own all the characters in this story, however, at this time I certainly don't (own them). However, if my evil plan to steal Nintendo does work, I shall have full rights! None of you will be able to stop me then!

Chapter 11

"Right," said Zelda. "That's why I called you."
"Wow," said Link, "I never would have guessed that we were consuming everything that quickly."
"Yeah, well, we are," said Zelda.
"The last bag of coffee beans," said Link.
Zelda nodded solemnly.
"So what happens now? Is this it? Are we going to rot away here without our caffeine-fuelled energy drives?"
"Possibly," said Zelda, "but first, let's worry about who gets this last piece of treasure."
"We'll have to devise a fair way of giving our remaining coffee to everyone," said Link, cottoning on.
"Exactly."

"You WHAT?" said Kirby.
Fox groaned. "I. Ate. An. Apple. Just – an apple. One – apple. Not. Two. Only. One. Apple."
"YOU ATE AN APPLE?" screamed Kirby. "The apple was mine; it was all mine! I shall have my revenge!" He grabbed a lollipop and zoomed out of the room, neglecting to return.
"Do I want to know?" said Samus, strolling in as she read a magazine (it was about female serial killers (and how they managed to elude capture for long amounts of time (not that I'm implying anything about her here))).
"Probably not," said Fox.
"Right, then," said Samus. "Uh… Fox, do you have a spare Arwing or something lying around?"
Fox became suspicious. "This wouldn't have anything to do with you having excess explosives on hand, would it?"
"Oh, no," laughed Samus, trying to work out how many missiles she could spend blowing up Fox, realising that at most she'd be able to use about 256, and trying to work out what to do with the rest of her reserves.
"Well," said Fox, "I don't think I have any here. You could try Captain Falcon's race car, though. He'd like that."
Fox and Samus exchanged mischievous, conspiratorial glances.

"Well, at least I have an F-Zero car," proclaimed Captain Falcon. "Beat that, birdbrain."
"Watch it," said Falco, fingering his laser blaster of death.
"Yeah?" said Peach. "Well I have a fingernail collection! So I beat you all!"
"That's not impressive," said Mario, "that is-a disgusting. Now as-a for me, I have all the Mario merchandise ever!"
"Wow!" All the others whispered among themselves in amazement and awe. Obviously the plumber was a highly-dedicated Mario fan!
"Hmm…" said Captain Falcon, "well, have you ever won a grand prix which involved anti-gravity?"
"I'm still angry at you for stealing my G-Diffuser," said Falco. "Can I shoot him for that?"
"No," said Peach, who knew a lot about sensible behaviour. She then pulled off all her clothes and attempted to make out with Falco's blaster while eating as many tins of cupcakes as possible.
"Hmm…" said Falco, "I have the world record for being a jerk!"
Everyone else clapped: this was quite an achievement indeed.
"Hey," said Link, entering with Zelda and Kirby. "I have an important announcement to make!"
"What?" said Falco. "We're out of cauliflower?" He smirked snidely, and started preening his feathers out of force of habit (and also because he didn't have any of that miracle keratin potion).
"Worse," said Link, "we're down to our last bag of coffee beans."
The screams that ensued drove every last person in the Smash Mansion into that room.

Okay, almost every last person. I will concede that the kids didn't really care too much about coffee or anything, so once again they were left sitting together in a small room, trying to decide how best to wreak mayhem upon the rest of the unfortunate Smashers in as little time as possible. But sadly, after about ten minutes or so worth of pondering, they could not come up with any method of doing so.
"I give up," said Nana. "Forget the whole chaos and mayhem thing; let's go make a pipe bomb."
"PIPE BOMB PIPE BOMB!" said Young Link, who had gotten high on sugar.
"Why?" said Ness, who considered this to be a fairly chaotic, mayhem-inducing idea, at least if one really thought about it for about two seconds.
"Uh…" said Nana, "because… because… righteous cause… rebellion against our exploiters… unfairness… parity… send a message… in the name of freedom and great justice… all our bases are belong to them… section 2?"
Silence.
"SEE? HE CHEATS!" said Nana, pointing and waving at Ness, who, in frustration, of course, 'accidentally' psychically threw Nana into a broom closet. "Cheater…" she murmured quietly.
"If we were to build a pipe bomb," said Popo, "what would we do with it?"
Young Link shrugged. "I dunno… maybe slip it into Bowser's shell?"
Ness shook his head. "We've done it before; he's on to us."
"Okay, how about… how about we use it to explode the kitchen?"
"So that we all starve to death?"
"Point taken." Young Link frowned. There had to be a way of doing this; why shouldn't they be able to blow stuff up? Samus and Bowser blew stuff up all the time, so obviously there was a way to do it. But how…?

"Sharing the coffee beans won't make anyone happy," said Marth, "seeing as there's so few. Is there anything we can do?"
"No," said Theau Thor. "You'll just have to rot away as slowly and painfully as possible. And Marth, I'm killing you off first."
Everyone looked at him weirdly.
"What? He deserves it after last week's little Labrador incident…"
Everyone continued to look at Theau Thor weirdly.
"Why are you-? Oh, oh. Fine. I don't exist. I'm just a cameo appearance of… uh… wait! I'm not telling you my real identity! Never! And it certainly wouldn't have anything to do with taking the 'au' out of 'Theau' and moving it onto… I've said way too much." And tiki- sorry, The auTh- sorry, Theau Thor vanished in a puff of smoke (it was ice cream smoke).
"What the heck is ice cream smoke?" said Link.
"Isn't that like… duh?" giggled Peach, who liked giggling.
"Seven!" said Mario.
Everyone laughed at this highly intellectual joke.
"That's not funny," said Fox, who was suddenly run over by Pikachu in a steamroller. "This is because I was killed. I do not like being killed."
Theau Thor returned. "TIHS HAZ GOTN WAAY OWT OV HNAD."
"Fine," said Jack.
"Who the heck are you?" said Link.
"Point taken."
Everything went back to normal, which, of course, was impossible, as there is no such thing as normal and if there was the Smash Brothers would not qualify as such in any imaginable respect. So: everything went back to the level of believability that it had had about two minutes ago. See? Better!
"Right," said Link, "I've come up with an interesting idea. This is how we're going to decide who gets the remaining bag of coffee beans: we will have an amazing Super Duper Quiz Show Edition!"
"What?" said everyone else, because they weren't completely sure whether they had imagined that or Link had gone absolutely stark-raving mad.
"We," said Link very slowly, "will run a small game show, of which the winner will be given the final bag of coffee. This is a fair, logical process."
"That's not fair!" said Captain Falcon. "What about people who are no good at answering even simple questions, like… like… like me?"
"Uh," said Link, "okay, it's a moderately fair process."
Mewtwo then said, "But what about vastly superior and much more intelligent beings, such as me?" He said this very humbly, because Mewtwo was a very humble psychic Pokemon.
"Okay," said Link, "how about this: at the end of every round we kill off the most intelligent person in the room, prompting people to try to achieve a careful balance of correct and incorrect answers. After this, all rules are inverted such that the final answer will always involve cheese. If the final answer is possibly not goat heads, we then change into extra-time mode, where we kill off the fattest, juiciest person in the room and grind his or her body to beans so that we can use him or her to make coffee, allowing for the same, highly caffeinated feeling with a slight aftertaste of guilt and disgust."
"I liked the game-show idea better," said Bowser. "I actually had a freakin' clue what you're talking about while we were still considering that."
"Okay," said Link, "perhaps we could just burn the beans so that nobody gets them. That way we avoid the inevitable coffee envy and other evils like… like people trying to turn other people into coffee beans, even if that was what I just suggesting and may I very quickly plug our upcoming story, '25'? It's extremely exciting and the plot twists will be sensational and we'll probably publish it in exactly three months so be sure to look out for it. Another good reason we should do this is, because of the precedent of Kirby stealing the-"
"I did not steal that fridge!" said Kirby. "The cookie jar did it!"
"Right. We believe you. Okay… and QUIZ SHOW TIME!"

A few minutes later…
"Okay," said Link. "First question! The group of famous people who regularly get together under Master Hand's direction for friendly fighting competitions are known as…?"
Blank stares all around.
"Anyone?" said Link.
Captain Falcon raised his hand. "The Sayger Awl-Tsars?"
"Nope," said Link. "Zelda! Deduct him five points."
"Already on to it," said Zelda, waving a clipboard to reinforce this fact.
Nobody else tried to answer.
"Okay…" said Link, "it's three words. First word is Super…"
"WE'RE ALL BURNING!" screamed Kirby, inhaling his own eyes.
"Second word is Smash…"
Luigi raised his hand. "Is it-a Super Smash Sorority?"
Link paused, his eyes wide. "Any particular reason you choose that word, Luigi? And it's wrong."
"Just a guess-a," said Luigi, shrugging.
Link sighed. "Third and last word begins with B… they're called the Super Smash B… Br… Bro…"
"Super Smash Brothel!" yelled Marth and Roy at the same time.
"NO!" said Link. "IT'S NOT A BROTHEL! WE ARE NOT A BROTHEL! WE ARE DUBBED, THE 'SUPER SMASH BROTHERS'! Am I stuck in this mansion with a bunch of COMPLETE NUTCASES?"
"Uh," said Kirby, raising his hand, "is the answer 'Bradley Buxton'?"
"No!" shouted Link, his face turning red. "I just told you that the stupid answer to the stupid question is Super Smash Brothers, Kirby! Shut up, okay? Okay?"
"Do you get five points?" said Kirby.
And Link wept.

"Pichu, chu chip!" "Look, I'm wearing sunglasses!"
Pikachu and Jigglypuff smiled feebly. "Pika, chik…" "Wow, that's…"
"…jig iggle pig." "…that's very nice, Pichu."
Pichu, the poor thing, really believed that his two friends were being sincere, and consequently strutted around the room, showing off his sunglasses from different angles! That was rather cute, was it not?
"Pika pi." "No, it was not."
Oh. Well, I do suppose I can tell you what they were thinking about, instead. Pichu was thinking about how his sunglasses made him even more cute and attractive to those people who are suckers for cute little Pokemon. Pikachu was thinking about how he hated sunglasses so much and whether or not it was possible to lose Pichu's glasses in such a way that it looked like a complete accident. Jigglypuff was wondering about the calcium content of the sunglasses, because Jigglypuff wanted lots of calcium in her diet for strong healthy bones, even if she was a balloon Pokemon and had none.

Meanwhile, Nana and Ness worked silently and efficiently to create the most explosive pipe bomb that the world would ever see. Young Link watched in silence, occasionally nibbling on a piece of metal because he wasn't sure what metal tasted like and if it tasted good he wouldn't mind eating some more.
"How long do you think it will take?" said Popo.
"As long as it needs to," said Ness and Nana simultaneously. Nana glared at Ness. "You stole my words. You cheat. You cheating cheat."
"You two are just evading the question – how long are we going to spend making the bomb? This is getting boring! I want mayhem!"
Young Link nodded sagely. "We all want mayhem deep down in our hearts, but we must learn to listen to the wisdom that is patience."
"You're copying Zelda's little speeches verbatim," said Nana, "and I don't even need to use mind-reading, cheating powers to work that one out." ("I do not cheat," protested Ness.)
Young Link nodded. "Yeah, well, I guess being stuck with Link and Zelda all the time makes them rub off on me."
"Well, they'd have to rub off on you," said Popo, "because you have to mature to become Link in about seven years' time, and obviously giving yourself a positive circular influence would explain how it happens quite plausibly."
"Yeah," said Ness, "because as Zelda and Link educate you, you can then progress to become a better person, who, in seven year's time from your point of view, will work with Zelda to educate your younger self, currently you."
"I hate this time-travel nonsense stuff!" said Young Link. "Why doesn't anybody call me by my name – Link?"
"But it's confusing when there are two people with the same name."
"Is big Link me?"
"What?" said Popo.
"Am I Link?"
"I think that one day you will be him and he once was you."
"What's the difference?"
"Heck, I don't know!"
"I feel a distinct sense of déjà vu," said Young Link.
"Maybe it's related to SD-3," said Ness. "You know? Giant conspiracy?"
"Oh, for crying out loud," said Theau Thor, materialising before them, "can you just lay off the Summer Days references for once? Do you know how hard it is to shake off the bad reputation I earned for writing that? Well, let me tell you: it's real hard!"
"Uh," said Popo, "theoretically, isn't it your fault that we happened to plagiarise your first and worst story ever? You know, you being the auth- sorry, Theau Thor and all?"
"Well-"
"-and aren't you as a cameo a throwback to a certain story?"
"LAY IT FREAKIN' OFF ALREADY!" shouted Theau Thor (in capitals!). "At this rate, it's going to look like I'm trying to encourage people to read that train-wreck of a story. Listen, everybody! I am not trying to get you to read certain stories! This entire conversation is not a plug for Summer Days!"
"So, what is this conversation?" said Ness.
Theau Thor fumed. "I'll be back. And I'm not letting you go off all nice and merrily. Oh, no, you're staying here. I think I'll make this chapter a two-part one. Serves you all right for being so rude to me, the autho- Theau Thor!"
Theau Thor used his magical powers of randomness to turn all the doors and walls of the room to stone, and then magically vanished, leaving only a flock of rabid parrots in his wake.
"We so need a new author," said Popo.
"Pipe bomb," said Nana pointedly.
They went back to work on that explosive little number, as they had nothing else to do.

"Okay," said Link, calming down. "I think all the major veins in my head have exploded, so I'm nice and CALM now."
"Good," said Zelda. "So – back to the quiz, everyone!"
And so the next round of the coffee bean quiz began!

Come to think of it, if this is a two-part segment, I ought to stop just about n-