Selection From
DARKNETIZED!
The Brilliant Adventures of Captain FlashLight Junior Novel
Artwork by Parker Ott
CHAPTER
ONE
DarkneBob!
The
midnight streets of Filament City stretched out in all directions. Street lamps
lined the sidewalks, glowing through the mist, and a neon CLOSED sign flickered
in a store window. All was well. But not for long.
The
sound of a speeding vehicle grew louder and louder, becoming a full RRROOARRR!
Screeching
around a corner came the Broken-Bulb Cycle, a three-wheeled dragster with a
cracked light bulb for a cockpit. Rattling and shaking, it sped down the street
and off into the darkness.
Around
the same corner, a brilliant beam of light came sweeping into the street,
followed by the silvery flying flashlight known as the SkyLighter. With a WHOOOOSH
it flew past and disappeared into the night, its sharp beam cutting through
the fog.
In the
Broken-Bulb Cycle, the short, frizzy-haired professor known as Low Voltage
gripped a remote control and yelled out commands. “Faster, faster, faster,
Bulbus!”
“I
could go faster, faster, faster Boss, if I had some pizza, pizza, pizza,”
replied Bulbus, Low Voltage's huge henchman and personal driver, his stomach
growling in agreement.
“Uungh!”
snorted Low Voltage, “Keep driving! We've almost got them now...”
In the
sleek SkyLighter, our hero, Captain FlashLight, gripped the wheel. A gleaming
CF medallion was centered on the shiny blue vest of his LumaSuit. Around his
waist he wore a belt of Lumatronic—but rather normal looking—flashlights.
“We've
almost got them now, Blinkie,” he announced to his faithful LumaDog, outfitted
with a mini-LumaLight on his helmet and goggles over his doggie eyes.
“Ruff!”
replied Blinkie.
“Cap,
be careful,” cautioned the pretty, dark-haired girl in the seat next to
Blinkie, “it could be a trap.”
“A
trap, Neoni?” asked the too-confident hero, “Oh, I'd know if it was a trap.
We'd probably come to a sudden dead end or something.”
The
SkyLighter whipped around the corner and came to a sudden dead end or
something. Mechanical legs slammed down from the underside of the ship, skidded
along the pavement and brought them to a halt.
“It's a
trap!” the Captain concluded, “Uh, oops.”
“I
didn't see this on the charts, Cap,” said Neoni as she studied the dashboard
screens. “There's no construction scheduled here, yet we're surrounded by walls
of steel girders.”
“There's
no wall behind us,” announced the Captain, “we can back out, right NOW!” He
looked in the rear-view mirror, and then... KER-SLAMM!
“Bad
batteries!" he exclaimed, his way of saying Oh, no! "The final
wall ker-slammed into place behind us—we're walled in.”
Blinkie
turned to his master and barked, “Ruff-ruff!”
Cap
translated: “Big wall?”
“Ruff-ruff!”
He
tried again: “Tall wall?”
“Ruff-RUFF!”
“Oh.
Let's GO! Good idea, my LumaDoggie!”
Captain
FlashLight and Blinkie exited the ship on light-beam elevators and walked into
the deserted street. There was no sign of the Broken-Bulb Cycle.
“Dark-doers
beware! It is I, Captaaaaaaain FlashLight!”
His
words echoed away into the silence.
Hero
and dog looked at each other, waiting.
Suddenly,
walls of glowing green plasma shot up along the frames of the girders and boxed
in the entire block, followed by a plasma-wall ceiling that locked into place
high above them.
As Cap
glanced around him, he saw the watery shadow of the Broken-Bulb Cycle on the
other side of the wall in front of them. The wiry voice of Low Voltage spoke
through a megaphone.
“Good
evening, Captain FishBite.”
“FlashLight,”
our hero responded, unsmiling.
“Allow
me to introduce my little friend,” Low Voltage said slowly, “I call him...” He
paused for effect. “DarkneBob.”
Slurping
through the green plasma goo came a six-inch tall blob-man, made of sparkly
purple and black darkness. He walked with slow, squishy footsteps.
Captain
FlashLight smiled. “My enemies just keep on getting smaller.”
“Do not
judge DarkneBob by his size,” snarled Low Voltage, “he always eats a...light breakfast. It makes him grow big and strong...”
Another
voice spoke on the megaphone. “Boss, I eat pizza for breakfast, and I'm really
hungry,” said Bulbus.
“Oh,
and one more thing,” added Low Voltage, ignoring his henchman's comment,
“everything he touches turns to darknesssss!”
Cap
grabbed FlashLight #1, his Shine-Shield, then pointed and fired it at the
DarkneBob. A glowing sphere of Lumatronic Light formed around the blob-man,
locking him in a translucent bubble. Not a problem.
The
DarkneBob quickly expanded to a blob-creature over nine feet tall, stretched
out his blobby arms and popped the bubble.
“Bawb!
Bawwb!” he yelled, then picked up a heavy dumpster and hurled through the air.
Cap and Blinkie tumbled out of the way as the darknetized dumpster smashed
through a store window.
Next our
hero fired FlashLight #5, the Lasso-Light, releasing a rope-like laser beam
that wrapped around the creature, tying it up tightly.
“LIGHTastic!”
Cap said, flashing a smile.
“BAWWB!”
roared the DarkneBob, squeezing through the lines, but suddenly sliced into
pieces that fell to the street. Then each piece of Bob slurped and slithered
upwards, forming a hundred or more full-sized Bobs standing all around them.
“Bad
batteries!” shouted the Captain.
Taking
his turn, Blinkie jumped up and turned in circles, firing his LumaLight in
every direction, blasting the Bobs to bits, which splattered against the four
walls of green plasma.
Slowly,
bits of Bob came sliding across the plasma, moving from all directions to form
one monstrously huge Bob, a giant with his head almost touching the
plasma-ceiling above him. A thundering voice shook the ground:
“BAWWWB!”
“Bob is
back, Blinkie,” said Captain FlashLight, “bigger and badder than ever!”
Blinkie
barked “Ruff!” to say “Right!”
In a
show of power, the DarkneBob reached for an abandoned car, darknetized it, and
crushed it into a twisted chunk of metal, which came hurling at Cap and
Blinkie.
Our
heroes dodged it and ran back toward the SkyLighter as Bob bent down and raised
his fists to smash the ship before they could get there.
Inside
the ship, Neoni gripped the wheel, hit the power and blasted off. Bob slammed
the pavement, just missing the SkyLighter, then stomped down on Cap and Blinkie
but they flipped away as the big foot fell and the street around them iced up
with black and purple darkness.
Backed
up against a window, the Captain turned to his LumaDog. “There's no way to hide
from this guy, Blinkie!”
The
SkyLighter zoomed past the DarkneBob's face. He swiped at it but slapped his own
face, growing even madder.
“BAWWWWWWWB!!!”
Neoni
circled down and flew low to the ground, passing over Cap and Blinkie who
grabbed the back fins and held on as the SkyLighter soared upward, swinging
around behind Bob and heading for the plasma-ceiling at full speed.
She
fired the forward LumaBlasters, exploding a circular opening directly in front
of them. A perfect shot!
But the
ship yanked back as Bob's fingers wrapped around the Captain's boot. Our hero
smiled, knowing the LumaSuit could not be darknetized. Then Bob pulled hard,
dragging him down, and pulling the ship with him. Cap groped for his
Laser-Light, pulled it up and fired directly at Bob's face.
But,
since all his FlashLights look identical, he pulled his Rocket-Light by
mistake. It rocketed out of his hand and plunged into the DarkneBob, sinking
through his face and into his brain (if he has one). The creature toppled
backwards as the SkyLighter soared through the opening and into the starry sky.
As the
ship flew away, Cap grabbed his Laser-Light and fired a thin, white-hot beam,
following along the edges of the topside of the plasma-ceiling. The ceiling
ripped free and fell to the street below, landing with a thunderous crash,
flattening the DarkneBob and causing the four plasma-walls to collapse, one at
a time, into the center.
This
exploded the Rocket-Light in the DarkneBob's brain (if he has one), causing the
creature, and then the whole structure to implode, explode, and vanish into
nothingness.
The
SkyLighter zoomed off as the Filament City police sped around the corner and
came screeching to a halt in the middle of the street. Two officers with
identical Irish accents sat in the front seat and scratched their heads.
“I know
I heard a loud explosion, Officer Plank.”
“Aye, and I heard it too, Officer Lipton.”
“Well,
something musta' happened here, and no doubt.”
“Aye,
and I be a-wonderin', where's Captain FlashLight when ya need him?”
Watch videos at the official Captain FlashLight website
Hear the Captain FlashLight ElectroHop Remix at rodsounds
Darknetized Facebook Banner 1
Artwork by Parker Ott
Darknetized! Facebook Banner 2
Artwork by Parker Ott
Sketches for vehicles, by Rod, 2007
Junk-parts model of SkyLighter by Rod, 2008 or so
© 2014 Filament City Media
