Captain N:

The Battle of the Baseball Know-It-Alls

Written by Calvin Kelley

Novelized by David Hartline

Captain N: “Bo Jackson may know baseball, but I know Mother Brain. When she takes over Videoland, the race for home is flying with foul balls! If we strike out, the N Team could wind up in the cellar. . . forever!”

On the batty world of Baseball, the N Team is facing their most awesome challenge: Bo Jackson, the team captain of the Videoland All-stars.

The scoreboard showed that the home team was the Videoland All-stars and that neither the N Team nor the All-stars had made any home runs yet. It was the bottom of the first inning.

Bo Jackson stepped up to the home plate and readied his bat. He wore a dark blue cap that had a red V on the front. He addressed Captain N, who was the pitcher. “Bo knows an amateur when he sees one, and I eat ’im for breakfast!”

“Okay,” Captain N replied, wearing a lighter blue cap that had a red N. “Eat this, slugger!” He tossed a curve ball that made Bo nervous. When he struck the ball, it went flying towards third base.

Simon Belmont, the member of the N Team assigned to home base, stood up. He was wearing a blue shirt underneath a red T-shirt. “Hm,” he said, lifting up his protective mask. He looked down at his black glove that had four toothlike projections and a red interior. “This calls for my special, super-deluxe vampire catcher!” It made crunching sounds the two times he closed his hand. After vaunting, he ran after the flying ball. Unfortunately, Duke, assigned near third base, also came running for the ball! Neither was watching where they were going, and Simon and Duke crashed together with a yip from Duke just before the ball landed in Simon’s glove! The ball landed and rolled across the third base foul line soon before it reached third base.

“Foul ball; strike 1!” the umpire announced.

Lying on his chest near third base, Simon reached back and removed his glove from the rear end of his pants. However, the pants ripped, revealing white underwear with red polka dots! Fortunately, that did not rip. Growling, Simon sat up, regarded his glove, and tossed it furiously on the ground. Duke’s head popped out of the protective pad Simon was wearing and proceeded to lick the vampire hunter’s face once! “Yeeuck!” He pointed his right index finger at the dog. “Next time, don’t be such a hot dog!”

When the ball had returned to him, Kevin tossed it into his glove a few times. In her royal box seat separated from the rest of the cheering cloud, Lana was standing up and waving a blue banner with a white baseball on it. “Come on, Kevin!” the princess cheered. “You can do it! Strike him out!”

On Metroid, however, Mother Brain was watching the game through her own monitor so that she would not have to put up with commercials. “Hee, hee, hee, hee! It’s almost time to strike you out, Princess Pea-brain!” she laughed in her heavy southern accent. She looked down to her two minions, Eggplant Wizard and King Hippo, who were busy trying to rewire the controls for a warp zone. “Haven’t you lunk-heads got that warp rewired yet?”

“Hoo! We’re almost done, Big Mama Brain!” Eggplant Wizard said as he held a green wire. “The N Team won’t know what hit ’em!”

“Neither will you, melon head,” King Hippo snapped as he held a red wire, “if you touch that green wire to this red one!” But then, he did touch the two wires together, frying himself and the veggie magician! “Yeeaow!” he screamed.

Mother Brain grabbed the two idiots with electric impulses and lifted them in front of her. “I don’t know which one of you dim-wits is dimmer: tweedle-dumb or tweedle-dumber!” She drew them away from each other a little, then thrust them together and let them drop to the ground.

“Strike three coming at you, Bo!” Kevin said.

“In your dreams, junior,” Bo replied, now irritated.

Kevin pitched the ball. This time, however, Bo, hit it high, and Kevin gasped as it flew over his head. Kid Icarus tried to catch it, but when it hit his glove, it just sent him spinning and continued in its original direction. “Whoaoaoaoicus!” Kid Icarus cried while spinning downward and drilling into the ground. The ball hit the high scoreboard, and suddenly the baseball field started to become unstable!

“Huh?” Kevin asked.

It turned into a warp, and Kevin, Duke, Mega Man, Kid Icarus, Simon, and Bo were sent away! Game Boy was making a red-alert sound while flashing “Alert” on his screen.

“My goodness!” Lana exclaimed. “What’s happening?”

Mother Brain and her two goons appeared in a hologram, Eggplant Wizard to her right, King Hippo to her left. “Yours truly is what’s happenin’,” the vain brain said, “now that I’ve warped those N Twerps inside Baseball World!”

“Yeah!” Eggplant Wizard said. “It’s so dark and nasty down there, they’ll never get out alive! Na, na na, na, na!”

“Without your precious Captain Ninny to help you,” Mother Brain announced, “Videoland is mine!” She laughed wickedly.

The team was in the cavern-like cellar of Baseball World. In the region where they were now, several balls appeared to be embedded in the walls. “Something tells me we’re not in Kansas anymore, N Team,” Bo said.

“Who cares about Kansas?” Simon demanded in panic, examining a wall. “Where’s the warp out of here!?” He had lost his face-protecting mask.

“Take it easy, Simon!” Captain N said. “First, we have to figure out where here is.” He had lost his baseball cap.

“There’s only one place this could be,” Bo said. “The cellar, where we lock up all our bad equipment.”

“They look pretty harmless to meicus,” Kid Icarus said, hovering near a wall.

One of the baseballs in the wall suddenly came alive! “Oh, yeah? Watch this!” Suddenly, several balls started flying out of the walls towards the good guys!

“Whoa!” Bo exclaimed. “I haven’t seen this many foul balls since the World Series!”

“I’ll hold ’em off,” Kevin said, zapping balls. “Everybody make a run for it!”

While the others ran off, Bo prepared his baseball bat. “The only run I’m making is a home run!” He proceeded to whack baseballs along with Kevin.

The others arrived at a two-way fork in the road. The one to the left went upwards. The other went downwards and over a wooden bridge suspended with ropes. “Which way?” Kid Icarus asked. Simon shrugged.

Kevin and Bo came running, leaving the foul balls behind. “Bo knows baseball, and that’s one game you always play right,” Bo said. “We cross the bridge.”

“Wait, Bo,” Kevin said. “I know video games. I say we go up to get out.”

Duke barked, opting to accompany his master.

“I’m with you, Captain N,” Mega Man said. “You’ve gotten us out of some mega messes before!”

“Not on Baseball World, he hasn’t,” Simon said, joining Bo and putting his right hand on his left shoulder. “I’m sticking with the man who knows.”

“For once, Simonius is right,” Kid Icarus said. “This is Bo’s world.”

“Well,” Kevin said, “good luck.”

“You, too,” Bo said. The two groups went their separate ways.

Meanwhile, at the Palace of Power, Mother Brain is wasting no time bringing Videoland to its knees.

“Now that Mother Brain’s queen, it’s your job to keep the palace spotless, Princess Lowlife,” Eggplant explained to Lana. She and Game Boy were standing in the throne room with Hippo and Eggplant. Eggy was down on the floor and scrubbing it with a toothbrush. There was also a bucket of soapy water. “See, you go round and round, like this!”

Lana was looking for a way to distract the two lackeys, which did not seem too difficult. “Ah, I’m not sure I understand. Could you show me again, Eggplant Wizard?”

King Hippo snatched the toothbrush from his companion. “Aw, let me show her!” He began scrubbing the floor. “You couldn’t scrub your back if it was in front of your face!”

Lana turned to Game Boy, to her left, and whispered in one of his audio receptors, “Come on, Game Boy. Now’s our chance to try and reach Kevin!” The word “Okay” showed on Game Boy’s face, and he and Lana slipped away, escaping the notice of Eggy and Hippo.

Hippo lifted the toothbrush to the light. “Hey!” the boxer shouted. “This is my toothbrush, rutabaga-breath!” With his left fist, he smashed Eggplant Wizard’s head down into his body, and several vegetables popped out of his collarbone before his head popped back up.

“You never use it,” the sorcerer of vegetables said.

“I was just gettin’ around to it!” Then, he proceeded to brush his teeth, getting suds all over them!

Suddenly, they heard the deep voice of their leader. “I thought I told you cabbage-heads to keep an eye on Princess Puny!” They looked up and saw Mother Brain.

“Uh, uh. . . we were just teachin’ her how to scrub the floor, like you said!” King Hippo said.

“Find her, before I scrub the floor with you sponge-heads!” She fried them each with an electrical blast before they ran off to find Lana.

In the cavern, Bo, Kid Icarus, and Simon heard a noise from an unknown source. . . a beeping signal type of noise. “What’s thaticus?” Kid Icarus asked as they were cautiously crossing the rickety bridge.

“I don’t know,” Bo said, “and what Bo doesn’t know can hurt him.”

At the end of the bridge, a couple of nasty flying baseball gloves laughed menacingly at them. They spat a highly acidic substance on the last plank of the bridge, causing it to melt! Simon freaked out. “Let’s make a run for it!” He turned around and tried to run, but his way was block by another glove. “Ah, on second thought, let’s run away from it!”

Bo swung his bat at the gloves, trying to hit them, but they quickly evaded each swing. Kid Icarus shot an arrow at one glove, but it shot a glob of acid at the glove and melted the tip off. Kid Icarus gasped. “I sure hope Captain N-icus is doing better than we are!”

Meanwhile, along the other path, Kevin, Mega Man, and Duke were near the top. “A couple more mega feet,” Mega Man said, “and we’re home free!”

Suddenly, though several fly-balls came along and barred their way. “Uh, oh,” Kevin said. “From the looks of those fly-balls, we’re not getting any free rides in this game!”

As the flying balls advanced, Mega Man fired plasma blasts at them. However, the balls merely swallowed the shots! Also, they spat fireballs at the trio. Kevin shot several, but their advance was relentless. “Fall back!” he cried. “These hotheads don’t know the meaning of fair play!”

Unfortunately, both groups decided to fall back, and they met at the fork at the same time, causing confusion. Kevin tried to fire another shot at the balls, but Simon bumped into him, causing his shot to go to the ceiling. Rocks fell from the point of impact and blocked off both paths of the fork entirely, saving them all temporarily but blocking any exit. The balls and gloves returned to their territories.

“Well,” Simon said, sitting on a rock, “I guess we got rid of them.”

“Yeah,” Mega Man added, “and mega sealed ourselves in!”

Bo was sitting, and Kevin leaning against the wall to his left. “We wouldn’t be sitting on this rock-pile if we’d stuck together,” Bo said.

“And whose fault is that, Mr. Know-It-All?” Kevin demanded. Bo frowned. Suddenly, a hologram of Princess Lana appeared! “Lana! What. . .”

“Ssh,” Lana said. “Just listen. I don’t know how long I can talk. Mother Brain has taken over the palace!”

In the Palace of Power, she was standing in front of the large communications computer. “She’s sealed all the warps out of Baseball World, but I’ll get you out of there. . . somehow!” Suddenly, a shot from behind hit the screen, cutting off the communication! Lana gasped and turned around.

“Oh, no you won’t, Princess Pinhead!” Mother Brain snapped.

“It looks like you win, Mother Brain,” Lana said, feigning submission. “The N Team was my last hope.” But secretly, she reached behind with her left hand and pressed a button on the computer’s control panel.

“It’s about time you wised up,” the villainous brain said.

“We’ve got to get out of here!” Kevin said. “Lana needs us!”

“We will, Kev,” Bo replied. “Only this time, let’s use our heads and some teamwork.” He and Kevin shook hands.

Suddenly, Duke started barking happily, as he was hearing something. “Atta boy, Duke!” Kevin said. “You found something!” Duke went to the new rock wall and turned back to his master. He barked several more times.

“Smart dog you’ve got there, Captain N,” Simon said with a shrug. “He led us exactly nowhere!”

Mega Man stepped over to the same area in the wall. “No, wait! My sensors are picking up something, too. . . a beeping, coming from. . . there!” He passed his hand over the wall, and they all heard the distinct sound of a warp!

“It’s a warp zonicus!” Kid Icarus exclaimed. This made everyone happy.

“Lana must have found a way to lead us home,” Kevin said.

They all stepped through the warp and emerged in an area that looked like a miniature baseball diamond. “It’s about time you got here!” a voice called. Its owner was someone whose entire body was a baseball card! However, his human-like features were his head, which was in the center of the card, his arms and hands, and his legs and feet. He wore a baseball cap. “I’m the Baseball Card King!” He stood up from his baseball-shaped chair and rubbed his hands together. “Mother Brain promised me I could, uh, heh, heh, stick it to you in stickball.”

“Sorry, pal,” Kevin said. “Play time is over. We’re out of here!” He and the others moved to leave.

The Baseball Card King laughed. “That’s a foul thing to say, particularly since the only way out of here is to. . . play ball!!” Several nasty wooden baseball bats came along, hissing, and they barred the N Team’s way. They had feet on the ends of their handles, arms on either side, mouths, red baseball hats, and nasty attitudes. “They’re the bats, and, uh, hee, hee. . . you’re the balls.”

“Guess it’s game time whether we like it or not,” Bo said. “Let’s make it a no-hitter!” The bats flew after the N Team.

“Sorry!” Simon cried, as he tried to avoid one bat. He pulled out a cymbal and guarded his face. The bat ran into it and disintegrated to video-dust.

One came after Bo, but he whacked it in two with his own trusty bat. One came after Mega Man, but Duke pounced on it. Turning around, Mega Man noted one sneaking up on Duke, and he turned his right hand into a saw blade and reduced this second bat to shavings, burying himself and Duke. Two came after Kid Icarus, but with flight maneuvers, he caused them to get tangled up in each other. Two came racing towards Kevin from either side, trying to sandwich him, but he pressed Up on his Power Pad to jump above them, and they rammed together. He got out his Zapper and fried each of them before he landed. These bats were reduced to shavings, as well.

The group reassembled. “Well, I hate to win and run,” Kevin said, “but Lana’s signal is coming from the end of the end of the baseball field.” The group ran to the end of the field, where the signal rang loud and clear from within a chasm. They stopped short of falling in. “There’s a warp down there. I just know it!”

“Are you kidding?” Simon demanded. “We can’t jump into empty space on what you know!”

“I know this is our only chance of making it home!”

They heard the Baseball Card King laughing behind them. When they looked, they saw a legion of evil baseball bats behind him! “Too. . . too bad you struck out!” he laughed. The bats hissed, making an ominous noise.

Bo knew Kevin was right about this. Also, he did not want to face all those bats. “Let’s go for it!” he urged. Everyone jumped in, Simon the last.

“It’s not openiiiiiiiiiiiiing!” Simon cried, falling. But the warp did open, and everyone in the group entered it safely!

In the Palace of Power, King Hippo and Eggplant Wizard had Mother Brain blindfolded and were guiding her to the throne room. “Now, don’t look, my main brain,” King Hippo said.

“Yeah! It’s a big surprise,” Eggplant Wizard said. They stopped, and he lifted the blindfold. “Voilà!”

When she saw the surprise, Mother Brain was delighted. “Oh! Mm!” It was a huge sponge cake with a gold crown on top!

“It’s my special sponge cake recipe!” Eggy said.

Mother Brain grabbed the crown with electrical impulses and put it on top of her jar, and she smiled.

“For she’s the evil bad queen, for she’s the evil bad queen, for she’s the evil bad queeeeeeen. . . which nobody can deny!” Eggplant Wizard and King Hippo sang, to the tune of, ‘For he’s a jolly good fellow.’

“Yeah,” Eggy interjected at the end.

Mother Brain was so happy that tears came to her eyes. “Ooh, I’m all misty-eyed! Really, boys, you shouldn’t have.”

Eggy and Hippo took this the wrong way. “We shouldn’t have?” they asked. They pointed to Lana. “It was her idea!” Lana was leaning against the wall with Game Boy.

“It was?” Mother Brain asked Lana. “Why?”

“You’ll see,” Lana said. “Right about. . . now.”

The same signaling noise sounded that had led Kevin and the others to the warp on Baseball World. A warp opened above the sponge cake, and the N Team fell onto the soft cake! The confection spread to Mother Brain and her lackeys and forced them up through the warp to Baseball World. “No!” Mother Brain cried. “Not Baseball World! I hate baseball!!”

On the communications computer, the N Team members and Bo were amused to see Mother Brain, King Hippo, and Eggplant Wizard fleeing from the denizens of the Baseball World Cellar. “Aah!” Mother Brain screamed. “Stop that, you bat-brains! Get away from me! Don’t you know who I am!?”

The N Team laughed. Kevin said, “Looks like Mother Brain is batting a thousand in that game!”

“So did we, good buddy,” Bo said. “So did we.” He and Kevin slapped a high five.