AUTUMN DAYS

DISCLAIMER: If you really believe that I own any of the characters here besides Theau Thor, you have problems. You really have problems.

Chapter 12

Last time: the Smashers were trapped in the house! The kids were trapped in a room! Everyone else fought a fierce battle of wits to obtain the final jar of coffee beans! And the author CORRECTION Theau Thor started running around making this story even more random than it already was!

Now…

"Okay," said Link, "it's time for us to start the next round of the coffee quiz!"
"Let's go!" said Bowser.
"Okay. First question: what is my name?"
Everyone jumped up and started shouting at once.
"Everyone, calm down," said Link, "okay. Kirby was first, so Kirby, what was your answer?"
"Uh… is the answer 'Bradley Buxton'?"
"Who the- what the- no, Kirby, the answer is not Bradley Buxton."
"Oh," said Kirby, looking mildly disappointed.
Samus jumped up and down on the spot, accidentally breaking a lamp. "Oops…"
"Samus!" said Link, "your answer is…?"
"Wha-? Oh, is it 'Link'?"
"Why, yes it is," said Link, breathing a sigh of relief now that he knew that he wasn't the only sane person in the building.
"Well, then," said Samus, "do I get five points?"
"Yes, you do," said Link. "Zelda! Mark it down."
"Already done," said Zelda, reaching in her royal handbag for some scones. She hesitated. "Does anyone else want some royal scones with apricot jam?"
"I do! I do!" said Kirby.
"Anyone aside from the obvious?"
Link sighed. At this rate, they would all starve to death before they worked out how to distribute the last of the coffee.

"Must… finish… pipe bomb…" muttered Nana as she attempted to shove explosives into a tube with a pick-axe. (Try it, kids! The Lon Lon Cow says that it's safe!)
"Why don't we try getting out of here first?" said Popo, watching Ness and Young Link trying to chisel through the doors, which had randomly been turned into stone.
"Quiet, slave dog," said Nana.
"Look, I'm sick of this 'slave dog' thing, okay?" said Popo angrily. "I've tried and tried to tell you before, but once again, I am not your slave dog!"
"Oh, yeah?" said Nana, smiling strangely.
"Uh, whatever you're about to do, don't," suggested Popo hopefully.

They didn't hear Popo's screams from through a locked door, but wow were those Smash Brothers having a good time with the quiz.
"Okay," said Link, "two more questions this round: first, Peach's dress is usually what colour? Yes, Peach?"
"Uh… purple?" said Peach.
Zelda subtracted 5 points from Peach's score.
Mario raised his hand. "Her dress-a is pink."
"Yes, that's correct," said Link tiredly, "five gold st- sorry, five points for you."
Everyone clapped appreciatively, as obviously this had been a very hard question. That is, if you had no memory whatsoever, and were completely blind, and couldn't hear Link chanting "pink, pink" under his breath constantly.
"Nice," said Zelda, "Mario, Samus and Fox are doing quite well."
"Right!" said Link. "Last question for the round: Fox is what kind of anthropomorphic animal?" (I like long words.)
"Uh… a Bradley Buxton?" said Kirby.
"Ooh, let me guess, is he a fox?" said Bowser sarcastically.
"Good work!" said Link. "Careful, I might ask real questions next round…"
"Uh oh," said Kirby.

"Right," said Theau Thor, materialising before the kids yet again, "I've finally worked out what's wrong."
"And what is that?" said Nana, trying to squeeze more liquid hydrogen into the pipe bomb.
"The problem is that I haven't killed you all off yet."
"But why would you want to do that?" said Ness. "It is us kids who get you all your reader attention."
"It is?"
"Now it is," said Ness, nodding in a way he hoped was sagely.
"DEATH TO THE SMALL!" screamed nobody in particular.
"Uh, I'll have to think about that," said Theau Thor. "Meanwhile, because I have full literary control over the world, I shall turn your precious pipe bomb into a club sandwich." He giggled, because he was really quite insane, even if his grammar was exceedingly good.
The pipe bomb turned into a club sandwich.
"Wow," said Young Link, who was surprised that he had seen this coming.
"Wow," said Popo, who was surprised that there existed a club sandwich larger than him and Nana combined.
"But my pipe bomb," said Nana, who really missed their pipe bomb.
"Oh, well, we can't do anything about it," said Ness. "I mean, it is the author-"
"Theau Thor," snarled Theau Thor.
"-Theau Thor's decision whether or not we ever finish the pipe bomb."
"So do we?" said Nana hopefully.
Theay Thor considered that, then shrugged. "Uh… that's secret information."
"You haven't worked that out yet, have you?" said Young Link.
"Back to the quiz!" said Theau Thor, ending the paragraph.

"Right," said Link, "Bowser, Mario, Fox and Samus are now in the lead. I'll now ask each of them a question each, several times. These questions are worth 15 points either way."
"Exciting," said Kirby. "Is the answer Bradley Buxton?"
"Kirby," sighed Link, "who the heck is Bradley Buxton?"
"Bradley Buxton?" said Kirby, raising his hand.
"KIRBY!" shouted Link.
"Yes?"
"Why do you keep saying 'Bradley Buxton' in response to my every question?"
"I like that too," said Kirby. "What? Oh. Well, Bradley Buxton, as you ought to know because you're a potential consumer, is the newest designer brand of candy and/or lollies! You won't believe the range of all-natural products they have to offer anyone! It's like a dream come true for any single or married, old or young, male and/or female individual!"

NOTE: Bradley Buxton lollies are made from 100 natural ingredients, including bile, mould, and road kill, as well as everyday minerals such as vitamins B and C, stainless steel, ivory, and keratin.

"Wow, that was an infotainment experience!" said Kirby wonderingly.
Marth shook his head. "That instance of product placement sucked even more than I suck Roy's censored censored censored whenever you all censored are unavailable to be censored among other things, such as censored!"
"It's that bad?" said Kirby, confused.
"Yes, it is!" said everyone else, because they didn't understand the wonderful innovation that was the feel-good whole meat grain powder protein health vitalising buzzword known as Bradley Buxton's.
"Oh," said Kirby. "I feel a bit disillusioned and homicidal. I think I'll go eat someone alive. Someone like Yoshi."
Yoshi cried because he was about to meet his fate.
"This entire story is tasteless," said Theau Thor. "I'm still not quite sure why I decided to write it. I rather fancy that if I just stopped altogether, everyone in existence would be a lot happier. Just my two cents. Back to the quiz!"
Everyone whispered excitedly, as the next round was about to begin.
"Bowser!" said Link. "Does 'De Island De Bowser' exist?"
"NO!" shouted Bowser. "It's no such thing! It's a cheap publicity stunt pulled by a couple of low-grade Fungi Kingdom tourist operators hoping to draw in unwary travellers! I do not own or live on any such place as 'De Island De Bowser'! Do you hear me? All lies! All lies!"
"Correct," said Link meekly, as he was aware that Bowser's flaming breath and razor-sharp claws had missed him by millimetres during that very happy little speech. Very happy it was.
"Woo!" said Bowser. "I get fifteen points!"
"Yes," said Link. "Remember, not answering is the same as getting it wrong, so you might as well have a go. Mario! You're next."
Mario fidgeted nervously.
"Mario, what is Samus' last name?"
Mario froze, and started to think quickly. He nearly panicked; he hadn't heard the name for ages! What was it, again…?
"It's Smith," whispered Samus.
"Smith-a!" shouted Mario. "Samus' last name is-a Smith!"
"No," said Link, "I'm afraid you're wrong. Fifteen points from you. As this is a special round, Fox gets the question as well. So, what is it, Fox?"
Fox got really confused because he was supposed to know Samus' name because he was supposed to be infatuated with Samus and then he got really confused and then because he was so confused he started thinking of other rather hot (literally, of course; what do you take me for?) people such as… ooh la la…
Everyone waited with bated breath.
"Is her name Samus Munroe… I meant Phoenix… I meant Krys… Thornt… pass?"
"You lose fifteen points as well," said Link. "I'm afraid this means that Bowser is in the lead, Samus is second, and you and Mario are now back to fourth and fifth place what with Falco squeezing in third."
Everyone muttered among themselves; Falco looked oddly smug.
"So, Samus," said Link, "for fifteen points, what is Samus' last name?"
"Aran?" said Samus.
"Correct!" said Link. "You are now five points ahead of Bowser just like a moment ago! Speaking of which, we'll now quiz the top four again. That's Bowser and Samus, Falco, and… uh… I don't like Fox… and Mario."
Fox scowled, but then got attacked by a rabid Pichu, and collapsed to the floor screaming.
"Bowser," said Link, "what are you wearing besides the shell on your back?"
"Nothing!" said Bowser indignantly. "My shell is all the-"
Marth and Roy made meaningful noises, glancing at all the females in the room, as well as Yoshi, who then said "Arararararararar," presumably because they thought that he wanted to be friends with Bowser, or perhaps because Fox was now rolling around on top of Yoshi's head.

"So," said Theau Thor, "if you're really so clever, Nana, why don't you use the pipe bomb to blow open the walls and escape the room?"
"Because you turned my precious bomb into a sandwich?" said Nana angrily, trying to stuff explosives into the sandwich, but with little success.
"Are you blaming me?" said a harassed Theau Thor. "Because I won't stand for it. Don't make me introduce the rofl pony as a character…"
"You wouldn't!" said Young Link, shocked.
"What do you mean?" said Nana. "Who's the rofl pony?"
"Ever watched that game show on HTV?" said Young Link. "The one where all those teams race around the world without co-hosts?"
"…the show which they filmed three millennia ago and finally started to air and the one where we got kicked out because Popo sucked?" said Nana.
Young Link thought of saying something in Popo's defence, thought better of it, and nodded. "Well, the most recent episode had this extremely annoying character called 'the rofl pony', which stood around and looked weird."
"Yep," said Theau Thor. "And I'm proud to say that for once, I had nothing to do with an absolutely awful idea. You hear that, certain people named Hoogiman? All your writing is awful. Absolutely awful."
"Agreed," said the kids in unison, because they felt really strongly about the subject, too. Obviously Theau Thor didn't make them say this. Obviously this is what the characters would always say.
"Right!" said Theau Thor. "Now, for helping me flame a rival, you can have your pipe bomb back!"
The club sandwich turned right back into a pipe bomb.
"Yay!" said Nana, who was very pleased about this turn of events.
Theau Thor then said, "Yes, well, I'm bored with writing about you. Let's see how the quiz is going."

"So," said Link, "the top four are, in alphabetical order: Bowser, Falco, Mewtwo and Samus. Let's see how we go! Everyone else: you suck; you're all out. You four have your scores reset to zero."
Zelda nodded. "Got that. Scoring changes now. One point for a correct or incorrect answer, but you can't go below zero. Lowest score is out."
"To whoever can answer this-"
"Bradley Buxton's all-natural gummy bears?" said Kirby, eating Yoshi.
"-and this round is timed; we have two minutes-"
"PICHU CHU CHI PICH CHU!" "TIME IS RUNNING OUT!"
"-the first question is, who am I? Born in the-"
"Link," said Samus.
Link sighed. "I suppose you're correct. I am Link. Next question – who am I talking about? Born in the Mushroom Kingdom, raised by royalty, and used to being served with the best service imaginable, this person is the epitome of the racist stereotype for blond-"
"-Peach?"
"Correct," said Link. "Mewtwo and Falco, you'd better be careful."
"I will," raged Mewtwo. Mewtwo rages a lot.
"Next question: what is four minus four thirds plus four fifths minus four sevenths plus four ninths minus four elevenths, etcetera?"
"Pi," said Mewtwo.
"Yes," said Link. "Obviously I didn't deliberately ask such a hard question so that Mewtwo would have a chance of winning. Of course not. Next – the pink anthro feline who stole a ship and painted it with glitter is called Katt…"
"Monroe," said Falco with a weird expression on his face.
"Okay," said Link. "If I'm not mistaken, you all are tied on one point."
"Yep," said Zelda, nodding and swiping a few coffee beans while nobody else was looking.
"So," said Link, "is this the end?"
"No," said Zelda. "I'll ask one more question, and whoever out of you for gets it right first earns the right to win the coffee beans."
Everyone gasped. What was Zelda doing? And what kind of question would she ask that was so difficult that the person who answered correctly would most certainly deserve to win the coffee beans?
"Save it for later," said Link, "I want to see this through to the end."
"Fine," said Zelda.

"Nana and Popo seriously need character development," whispered Ness to Theau Thor.
"Don't talk to me about character development. I get enough character development playing Space Invaders."
"There is no character development in Space Invaders. You've never played it, have you?"
Theau Thor decided that he wanted Ness to shut up. Ness shut up.
"So," said Nana, "can I blow stuff up yet?"
Popo shook his head. "We should try to improve th-"
"SHUT UP, SLAVE DOG!"
Theau Thor used his literary powers to turn Popo into a slave moose (to annoy Nana) and then went back to arguing with the other two.
"Moose… but he's a slave dog… not a slave moose…" Nana was nearly in tears. "I wanted a slave dog! This is a rip off! I want my money back!"
"You never paid anything for Popo!" said Young Link.
"I don't know why I even bothered with this side story," said Theau Thor. "This sucks. I'm going back to the quiz again."

Back at the quiz, Falco was stammering in shock. "You… you can't just tell me that I can't have it… they're my coffee beans! My coffee beans!"
"I'm afraid you're out of the running," repeated Link. "We asked a few tough questions, you answered less than everyone else, and so you lose. Loser."
"You can't call me a loser just because I lost – oh, wait. You can." Falco sat down to reflect upon this new, interesting thought.
"So," said Link, "right now, Bowser is on 5, Samus on 3 and Mewtwo on 2. Get it? Mew-two? And he scored 2?"
Nobody laughed.
"You're just as funny as me!" said Peach.
"NOOOO!" said Link, who didn't want to have anything to do with Peach, although, admittedly, having an equally bad sense of humour wasn't nearly as disturbing as having an equally bad level of intelligence.
"Keep on going…" said Bowser impatiently.
"Okay!" said Link. "Let's reset the scored. Next person to get a question wrong is out; if the other two are both 2 or more points above you, you're out in that case too. Passing doesn't count as getting it wrong. Let's go!
"Bowser, what is the first name of Princess Toadstool?"
"Easy," said Bowser. "Peach."
"It is?" said Peach, who had only just realised this. "My name is Peach!" she squealed in delight. "I know my name!... what was it, again?"
Link nodded. "That's 1-0-0 to Bowser. Mewtwo, what would a Pikachu evolve into?"
"Raichu," said Mewtwo confidently.
"Yes. We would also have taken 'Gerbilman' as an answer, though I'm not sure why. Samus! What is Fox's father's name?"
"Uh… is it… no. Pass."
There were a lot of boos and hisses from the crowd, soon followed by a lot of missiles being fired at those people. Those people wisely shut up.
"Bowser!" said Link. "Fox's father's name is…?"
"Er… James?"
"Right. Mewtwo – and may I remind you that if you get this right, Samus is out of the running and we begin the last round – how many nervous nuclei do Metroids have?"
"Two? That's not my answer… hm… accursed mortals… I pass, you vile despicable and quite inferior creature of filth," said Mewtwo pleasantly.
Samus breathed a sigh of relief.
"The answer is?" said Link, looking at Samus.
"Three."
"Wow, we're all really surprised that she knew that," said Bowser sarcastically, which was very funny because Bowser was funny.
"Okay!" said Link. "That's 2-1-1, still Bowser's favour. Bowser, what is the name of the male Ice Climber?"

"Popo," said Ness, "are you a moose?"
"Okay," said Theau Thor, "I suppose that this doesn't make much sense within this particular story universe." Popo turned back to normal and was immediately whipped by Nana.
"Now to use our pipe bomb to blast open a wall!" shouted Nana in triumph. "I'm doing this because it's absolutely necessary!"
"By the way," said Theau Thor, "I'll just make a wall disappear so that you can escape." He did.
"Curse you," muttered Nana.

"Samus!" said Link. "What is the majority of the surfaces of Aquas, Aqua Star, Big Blue, and-"
"Water."
"Correct. 4 all. Bowser! How many Mario brothers are there?"
"Two," growled Bowser.
"Mewtwo! What colour are the eyes of a Wigglytuff?"
Mewtwo thought about this. While he thought, a Wigglytuff ran into the room singing and was promptly eaten by a pink puffball. Disturbingly, that pink puffball wasn't Kirby.
"Pika pi…" "Cannibal…"
Jigglypuff shook her head very innocently, and Pichu playfully tried to bite Pikachu. Pikachu got rabies from Pichu this way.
"Green," said Mewtwo.
"Correct! Samus, the Triforce has how man-"
"Three," interrupted Samus.
"This is intense," muttered Zelda, who was working furiously to keep the scores up to date while everyone cheered on.
"Bowser!" said Link. "What act of spontaneity destroyed Gigyas?"
"Pass."
"Mewtwo?"
"Pass."
"Samus?"
"Pass."
"It was praying," said Link. "Bowser, were you the one who stole my Master Sword last night?"
"Pass."
"Mewtwo?"
"Yes?"
"Nope," said Link, "I'm afraid the Master Sword wasn't stolen by Bowser, but instead by Kirby."
"Curses," said Kirby. "And I would have gotten away with it, too, if it wasn't for you pesky grownups and your dog-"

"Slave dog," corrected Nana.

"-anyway," said Link, "Mewtwo is out. It's down to Bowser and Samus. Zelda, you may now ask your impossible question. No penalty for wrong answers, just first correct wins."
"Okay," said Zelda, clearing her throat.
Everyone waited with bated breath.
"Who do I have a secret crush on?" Zelda immediately gasped. Why had she said that? She didn't mean to say that! She was supposed to ask how many licks it took to get to the centre of a Bradley Buxton lollipop!
"Link," guessed Mewtwo.
"Yoshi," said Samus.
Yoshi thought that Samus was talking about her next victim, and consequently started crying again.
"Wrong," said Zelda quietly.
There was a brief moment of silence.
Everyone wondered who it could be.
And for a moment, everything was calm.
Every single person in the mansion started screaming out their names or friends' names with the possible exception of Peach who didn't have any friends and didn't know her name, and it sounded awful.
"CAPTAIN FALCON! GANONDORF! LINK! ME! HIM! HER! EVERYONE! PEACH! PICHU! THE MALE ICE CLIMBER!"
Zelda completely broke down and started crying.
Donkey Kong took advantage of the chaos to grab the bag of coffee beans. He whirled around to make his escape only to find the tip of Link's sword jammed against his throat.
"Don't you dare," hissed Link.
"IS IT MARTH?" shouted someone.
"NOO!" screamed Zelda. "Don't hurt DK!"
"Why not?" said Link.
"IS IT YOU?"
"Because," said Zelda, "I love him."
DK squirmed free and looked at Link. The two men said at the same time, "Are you serious?"
Looking at Link and realising what she had said, Zelda stammered, "No! No! Of course not! No…" She broke down and cried even harder.
"IS IT THEAU THOR?"
"You know, that would be cool," said Theau Thor wistfully. "Maybe next story."
"She doesn't love me after all," said DK to himself. "My life is worthless!" He broke down completely as well, and wept.
"DO YOU LOVE BRADLEY BUXTON?" shouted Kirby.

"I like chaos," said Theau Thor. "Really, I do. Unfortunately, I've been called away to do some random thing or other… stupid Orwellian joy-camps. Well, until then, may you fantasize about everyone falling in love with me, uh, because I say so? Meh. I think I'll stop here. Please review; please review, and also try to review this if you can. Reviews would be appreciated, because I like reviews. Thanks for all the support and everything, and see you in a couple of weeks… reviews… see you then!"
Okay, maybe two-and-a-half weeks. What's it to you?