The chamber was dark beyond any natural darkness. An essence of doom seemed to exist like an hovering presence within it. This was due totally to the room’s one occupant.
Clad in a black silk suit with a long blood red necktie, he was a man seemingly of middle years, his face still showing signs of handsome distinction despite being marked with the results of lifetimes of extreme unmitigated evil. His hair was long and dark, and his face was decorated with a thin moustache and goatee. Most of all, his pale eyes shone with an absolute hypnotic glare.
“It is mine,” he said, his voice tinged with utter madness. “It is mine. The Lens is mine, and its power will now be mine to command.”
He was peering at an object on the table before him. It was a clear metallic disk, hoary with unspeakable age yet still impressive of appearance. As he watched, a glow began to emanate forth from the object, a glow of a scintillating orange hue.
“It is the power,” he continued. “It is the power that I shall use to take command of all!”
As he spoke, the light from the lens increased, soon filling the chamber with a dazzling spectrum of orange, blue, and red energies -- accompanied with a sound like unto a military trumpeting.
“It is the power of the Neon Knights!” announced the man. “It is the power that I -- Magister Don Wingus -- shall use to take my rightful place as ruler of the Universe!!”
With this, the evil Don Wingus let forth with a peal of utterly insane laughter. …
My name is Doctor Daniel Rumanos. I carry within my blood the heritage of the mysterious Watchers of Algol, the most intellectually advanced race in all of the known galaxies, whose technology is so sophisticated it appears as magic to lesser beings.
Whilst most Algolites live in elitist seclusion from the rest of the Universe, I am an operative for an organisation known as the KOSMIKOS. Assisted by the wonderful Miss Millie Drake, I protect Earth from all manner of menace. I am -- The Daemon-Star!!! …
“The Neon Knights?” enquired Millie Drake, a look of wonder on her lovely face. “Who are they? It sounds familiar somehow, but I can‘t really remember.”
“You may have found some reference to them in one of our ancient Algolite texts, hmmm?” I replied. “The Neon Knights were the peacekeeping force of the GN-z11 Galaxy -- the first galaxy to come into existence after the creation of the Universe.”
I was wearing my usual finery -- including a frilled poet shirt, purple velvet suit, jungle boots, sunspecs, panama hat, and one of my favourite opera capes -- as I drove my specially modified canary-yellow Edwardian roadster (affectionately known as “Lizzie”) through the suburban streets on that overcast afternoon.
My companion, Millie Drake, is an exceedingly beautiful young lady; petite and perfect with enchanting violet eyes, chestnut hair, and sun-kissed skin. The powder blue dress she wore only served to highlight the wonders of her slender teenage figure.
Kit-10, our mobile personal computer that resembles a small mechanical cat, had stayed back at headquarters to perform a systems upgrade.
Millie and I had recently been summoned back to New York City by Kit-10, who had received information on a case requiring our immediate attention. We had been to Allentown, Pennsylvania to visit our two adopted daughters, Tova and Zohara, at the Hebrew school they attend there. It was now imperative that we return to the NYC area to investigate a certain robbery -- forsooth, a robbery of eldritch portent and paranormal danger beyond all sane imagining.
“So this Lens thing that was stolen once belonged to the Neon Knights?” enquired Millie.
“It is believed so,” I affirmed. “You see, the Lenses were a form of psychic technology developed by the Knights to focus their own mentalist abilities through their armour. They were made of a certain transparent psyche-sensitive metal found only in that galaxy. After the early galactic wars ended, over four billion years ago, our own Aeternusian ancestors, who were allies of the Neon Knights, gathered up the Lenses and had them deactivated and destroyed so they would never fall into the wrong hands. However, it has always been rumoured that one of the Lenses had been lost. It seems that it found its way to Earth, and has recently been in the collection of a certain Mr James Padavona, an antiquarian residing in the New York suburb of Westchester. Mr Padavona’s home was burglarised two nights ago, whilst he was away with his family vacationing in Cape Cod. Only the Lens was stolen.”
“Will someone actually be able to use the Lens?”
“It is possible, my dear Mills, if the person is indeed someone possessing an high level of mentalist power. Fortunately for our investigation, our systems back at HQ have been able detected a certain energy signature of the type associated with the Neon Knights emanating from another dwelling in Westchester. Hence our travelling here today. We can…”
“Oh my gosh!” Millie Drake suddenly shouted. “Look!”
I looked behind us at what my companion was indicating. It was an huge mass of scintillating light, glowing and flashing blue and red, and headed in our direction.
“By the Triple Star!” I swore. “It is the power of the lens itself… and it is headed directly at us!!”
Then, as quickly as it had appeared, the mass of energy suddenly vanished.
“Daniel, what happened to it?” questioned Millie Drake.
“That was simply a subsidiary of the Neon Knight energy that someone is evoking near by to us, hmmm?” I pondered. “The actual power will be far more potent.”
We parked the car and got out on a residential street. I then reached into my jacket pocket and took out the transonic mezuzah, then utilising it to scan the area.
“According to the transonic,” I said upon looking at the resultant readout before returning the device to my pocket, “the Lens energy is emanating from over there.”
I indicated a large private house across the street. There was a sign outside of it saying “For Sale” along with the telephone number of a real estate agent. Millie and I crossed the street and approached the property.
“So the person who stole the Lens is using this unoccupied house?” asked Millie.
“So it appears,” I replied. “We must confront them and stop this outrage before it is too late for the sanity of this world!”
The front door was unlocked and we entered the house. It was dimly lit, but Millie and I proceeded cautiously on through several rooms before entering the correct one. Upon a table that had been set up in its centre was the very Lens of the Neon Knights itself -- and behind the table was a man in a black suit. Of course, I recognised the man immediately. I recognised him as my oldest and most dangerous enemy -- the renegade Algolite who has become the most wanted criminal in all of Time and Space.
“You!” I said. “Don Wingus. I should have known. So you did escape from the Scimitar of Saladin.”
“Greetings, Rumanos and Miss Drake,” sneered the malefactor. “I have been expecting you. You are just in time; just in time to witness my supreme triumph. For it is now that I shall achieve my greatest victory; it is now that I -- Magister Don Wingus of Daemonia -- shall use the Lens of the Neon Knights to conquer the Universe!”
“Wingus, you madman!” I countered. “The power of the Lens is far too dangerous. That is why our ancestors wanted it destroyed. You cannot control it.”
“Oh, but you are so wrong, Rumanos,” he returned. “You are so wrong, for I have already brought the powers of the Lens under my control -- powers that is shall use to establish myself as ruler of this planet, and in time of the Universe itself!”
With this, the energies from the Lens of the Neon Knights suddenly burst forth, a dazzling display of extreme power that began to flash orange and blue and red around the chamber, along with a noise as of trumpeting.
“Do you see, Rumanos?” exulted the wicked Don Wingus. “Do you see? It is the power of the Neon Knights, and it is mine to command!!”
I indeed wonder if it is at all possible, my dear friends and most indulgent readers, that you are even able to comprehend the extreme terror, forsooth the total ungodly horror that we were at that time experiencing. There we were, the lovely Millie Drake and me -- Doctor Daniel Rumanos. There we were, facing the evil intergalactic criminal known to eternal infamy as Magister Don Wingus. There we were, as the power of the Lens of Galaxy GN-z11 flowed forth around the chamber -- a potentially deadly force that the wicked Wingus intended to use in his mad scheme to conquer the entire Universe!
“Do you see the power, Rumanos?” repeated the utterly mad Don Wingus. “Do you see it? It is the power of the Neon Knights, and I shall use it to establish my rule over all!”
The pulsating power of the ancient alien Lens then continued to grow in brightness and intensity. Soon the entire chamber was filled with its scintillating glow.
“Daniel, what can we do?” Millie queried.
“Worry not, Mills,” I replied, removing the transonic mezuzah from my pocket. “This moment has been prepared for.”
Turning my device to a certain setting, I raised it to-wards the powers flowing around the room. Then I activated it.
A whirring sound was heard from my transonic instrument as the setting turned on. At first there was no discernable effect, but within a few moments a definite change was beginning to occur.
“Daniel,” whispered Millie Drake to me, “the energies seem to be changing somehow.”
“Quite so, love,” I told her. “Watch!”
As we looked on, the dazzling energies of the Neon Knights seemed to reverse the direction in which they were rotating. Within seconds, with an enormous trumpeting sound, they started to rush all together to-wards the form of Don Wingus!
“What!” he suddenly cried out in confusion. “What is happening? Rumanos, you meddling pest -- what have you done?!”
“Well, you see,” I rejoined. “The Kosmikos of Algol knew that there was a chance that the missing Lens would turn up again, hmmm? To counter this, a portion of the technology used by our ancestors to deactivate the Lenses was included in certain gadgets carried by some Kosmikos Agents. I have therefore used this to cause the powers to be drained back and go safely out of this reality -- whilst taking you with them, Wingus!”
“No! No no no no no! You cannot do this to me! I am Magister Don Wingus! I am the rightful master of all creation! I am… ! I am… ! I… ! I… ! I… !”
With this, the energies of the Neon Knights surrounded Don Wingus and, within mere moments, vanished from the chamber along with him. All was then quiet.
I then scanned the area with the transonic before returning it to my pocket.
“It is finished,” I announced. “The powers of the legendary Neon Knights have now faded completely out of existence. The ancient Lens has no residual energy left, so it will be safe to return it to Mr Padavona’s antique collection.”
“But what about Don Wingus?” enquired Millie Drake. “Is he really gone?”
“He was psychically linked to the power when it ceased to exist,” I explained. “His evil self has now entered the realm of nothingness and is no more -- this being a fitting tribute to the legacy of the Neon Knights!”
***** DANIEL RUMANOS AND MILLIE DRAKE SHALL RETURN
