Captain N:

Totally Tetrisized

Written by Dorothy Middleton

Novelized by David Hartline

At the Palace of Power, Simon Belmont and Captain N were playing a riddle video game on the television in the living room. They sat on the couch; Simon was player one, and Kevin was player two. The game asked in a monotone voice, “Where do you study to become a vampire?”

Simon pressed the button on his controller, much like a Jeopardy contestant. “A ghoul school!” he replied. On the screen, there was a schoolhouse with a bell. The words “Player 1” were blinking on the upper left side of the screen. When Simon provided the response, the bell rang, and a yellow, disgusting ghoul popped off the holographic screen and made an ugly noise. “One more, and I win, Mr. Lame Master!” he told Captain N with a cocky grin.

Kevin did not like the way this game was going. He had missed just one question, and that put Simon in the lead. The only way he could win was if Simon missed the next question. On the screen, a bald head with protruding spikes appeared. “What do you call the little white things in your head that bite?” the game asked.

Kevin pressed his response button and stood up. “Your teeth!” The head turned into a set of teeth that snapped shut. “Eat your heart out, Mr. Vampire Hunter!” he told Simon as he sat back down.

Princess Lana, the beautiful ruler of Videoland, entered the room went to the couch the two young men were sitting on. “Are you two still playing that riddle game?” she asked them. “It’s been hours!” She leaned on it with her elbows.

“Yeah!” Kevin said, looking up at her. “It’s so cool!”

A peaceful country scene appeared with a bridge spanning a flowing river. “What do you call a river that’s too big for its bridges?” the game asked.

Simon hit his response button and stood up. “A flood. It’s a flood!” The game made a buzzing noise. “I won!” he said, going to the screen. “I’m the Riddle King!” Unfortunately for his vanity, the river splashed out of the holographic screen and soaked him! “Ook! Ugh!”

Kevin and Lana laughed. “Congratulations, Simon!” Lana said. “You’ve just been crowned!” She resumed laughing.

Suddenly, though, the screen image became static, and the mayor of Tetris appeared in the static. “Hey!” Kevin exclaimed. “That’s Mayor Squaresly!”

“Tetris. . . trouble! Lyle. . . gone!” the blocky mayor said in a quaking voice, many of his words interrupted by the heavy static.

Lana gasped. “Lyle? Oh, no! My brother’s in trouble again!” she cried, looking at Kevin. “We have to go to Tetris immediately!” She ran out the open door as Kevin stood up.

Simon was sitting on the floor. He got out his cordless yellow hair-dryer and began blow-drying his blonde hair. “Count me out,” he said. “I’ve had enough hair-flattening experiences for one day.” Captain N reached down and pulled the vampire hunter along with him.

Kevin, Lana, and Simon arrived on Tetris, but it was not like their first visit had been. Usually, Tetris was bustling with activity; now, it was dark, and no one was around, except for the three heroes. “Where is everybody?” Kevin asked quietly. “It’s like a ghost town.”

Lana pointed to her right. “Look over there,” she said. “I don’t remember that castle being here before.” It was a tall, leaning blocky castle, but it just did not fit in with the rest of Tetris. A bridge spanned a moat in front of the castle.

Simon shivered. “This place is giving me the creeps!”

“I know what you mean,” Kevin said. “It feels like somebody or something is watching us.”

Kevin was right; somebody was watching them! The nefarious Puzzle Wizard was using his monitor in his castle to watch them. “Hm! Who are these jokers?” he asked himself in his deep voice. “I thought I got rid of all those Tetris troublemakers.”

As he watched, the trio walked down a dark road. They stopped when they heard a feminine voice from behind them call, “Somebody help!”

“Who said that?” Simon inquired nervously.

“It came from over there,” Kevin said, “down that alley.”

Simon restrained Kevin. “Stand aside, Captain N!” the vampire hunter instructed vainly. “Watch a real hero in action.” The vain Castlevanian ran blindly to the alley.

“Captain N!” the flat Puzzle Wizard said, forming a fist with his left hand. “So, this is the Game Master I’ve heard so much about. Well, let’s see him figure out this puzzle!” The wizard appeared to be made up of puzzles; he had a hat, and he was round-shaped two-dimensionally, unlike others on Tetris. He pressed a button on the right armrest of his chair with his right thumb.

Simon did not pay attention where he was running until it was too late; a rectangular wall formed from Tetris-blocks, and he gasped just before he crashed into it! He fell on his back.

The Puzzle Wizard laughed cruelly, his upper face separating temporarily from his lower face! “This stuff really cracks me up!” he laughed.

Simon moaned and sat up just as Kevin and Lana caught up with him. “Simon, what happened?” the princess asked. “Wasn’t this a street a minute ago?”

Kevin examined the area. He felt the wall with his right hand and turned to his friends. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this game.”

Feeling his aching head, Simon asked, “You’ve got a bad feeling?”

“Hm, hm, hm, hm, hm, hm! You haven’t felt anything yet,” the Puzzle Wizard said.

The trio turned around and walked towards the Chamber of Tetris, the tallest building in the land. “I think we’d better find Mayor Squaresly fast,” Kevin said.

“But what about the voice that called for help?” Lana asked.

“Whatever it was, I don’t hear it anymore.”

After they walked by a wall, a pink T-block, a green Z-block, and a blue reverse L-block appeared. A hand from the Z-block covered the mouth of the feminine T-block, shushing her cries. These blocks and several others came off the walls and descended to the N Team!

Lana gasped. “The blocks are falling! Look out!” As Kevin began to draw his Zapper, though, she stopped him. “No, Kevin! Don’t! They look like. . . they’re alive!”

As the blocks fell towards them, Kevin said, “Hurry! Get to the Chamber of Tetris! It’s the safest place. . . I hope.” The trio tried to run through the rain of Tetris-blocks. “Everybody think touchdown.” They separated.

Kevin narrowly avoided getting bashed with an L-block. A group of blocks joined in front of him to try to block him, but he used his Power Pad to jump over them. . . and he landed on an ornery red Z-block! It was like a bull, with a gold ring through its “nose” and ears on top of its “head,” and it tried to throw him off.

Lana almost ran into an orange L-block that crashed in front of her, and she was almost rammed by a red L-block that slid quickly towards her. She leapt onto it.

Simon screamed as he narrowly avoided getting squashed by other blocks, and he came back to the wall that had nearly broken his neck before. He used his whip and knocked out a square-block; he leapt through and fell onto the L-block that was carrying Lana! The Z-block that Kevin had landed on tossed him onto the head of the L-block as it was going over an arc in the road, but the end of the line came quickly as the L-block smashed into a square-block. The three heroes were propelled off the L-block, and they rapidly fell towards the ground. Simon opened his square parachute, and Lana and Kevin grabbed onto his legs. They floated without further incident to the Chamber of Tetris.

As they entered the Chamber, Kevin remarked, “We should get extra points for that fifty-yard leap!” They stopped before a large, perpendicularly-constructed robot that stood before them. It appeared to be of the same square construction as everything else on Tetris.

“Uh, oh!” Simon said nervously. “I hope that’s not their leader.”

As the robot growled at the N Team, several animate Tetris-blocks came up behind them and blocked their exit. “This is what I call being stuck between some blocks and a hard case,” Kevin remarked.

“They’ve got us surrounded!” Simon cried.

The robot and the blocks continued growling, until the operator of the robot came to his senses. “Jumpin’ right angles! You’re the N Team!” The operator came out of the left side of the head of the robot. It was Mayor Squaresly! “Whew! I thought you’d never get here!”

“Mayor Squaresly!” Kevin exclaimed. “Are we glad to see you!”

“Ha, ha, ha, ha! Not bad,” the Puzzle Wizard laughed. “Not bad at all! Too bad the game’s not over until all of Tetris is under my thumb.” He used his right thumb to turn off the screen he had been using to monitor the N Team.

“You mean this Puzzle Wizard has completely taken over Tetris?” Kevin asked Squaresly, who was now sitting on the left foot of his robot.

“Perpendicularly speaking, yes,” the dejected mayor replied. “He tetrisized anyone who fought back.”

“What about my brother, Lyle?” Lana asked quietly.

Squaresly shook his head. “He went to challenge the wizard and never came back.”

“Oh!” Lana cried, burying her face in her hands.

Simon knelt before her. “Don’t worry, Your Sadness! Simon Belmont will find him,” he told her softly.

Squaresly’s hat popped off his head and spun around. “You mean we have to go to his. . . castle!?”

“Well, ah. . . maybe you should stay here and guard the Chamber, Your Honor,” Kevin suggested.

“Oh, ho, ho! Quadrilateral idea, Captain N! I and my Tetris titan will square off any intruders!” Squaresly said as Lana, Simon, and Kevin entered a blue warp to the castle. Suddenly, the left arm of the robot came loose and fell on the floor next to the mayor! “Yaah! Hey! Wait for me!” he cried, running through the warp. As he passed through, his hat fell off; he reached back and grabbed it just before the warp closed.

The four knelt behind a pillar next to the bridge in front of the Puzzle Wizard’s castle. “If you ask me,” Kevin said, “this looks a little too easy.”

“So who asked you?” Simon said rudely. “Why look a gift bridge in the mouth?” Simon boldly started to cross, and the other three followed him. Suddenly, several nasty Tetris blocks rose up at the beginning and quietly approached the N Team.

Kevin looked back just as one red L-block was reaching out to grab Lana’s ankle! “Lana! Behind you!” he exclaimed.

Lana did not notice until the block grabbed her left leg. “-Gasp!- Unhand me, you blockhead!” She kicked back her leg, knocking the block backwards, and causing all the blocks to fall down. The last block fell through the hole in the bridge to into the moat.

“Way to go, Lana!” Kevin cheered, slapping a high-five with her. “Let’s hit it.”

The doors slid open to grant the four entry. When the doors closed, the lights came on. “Welcome, N Team!” the Puzzle Wizard greeted. “I’ve been expecting you!” Hands came out of the walls and took Kevin’s orange Zapper and Simon’s brown whip. “You won’t be needing those.”

Lana clenched her fists and stepped over to the Puzzle Wizard. “I demand to know what you did with my brother, you. . . you putrid puzzle!” she said with disgust.

“That’s for me to know and you to find out,” the wizard said. He indicated the square room, with identical red blocks. “Be my guest and take a pick.”

The short Mayor Squaresly was hiding behind Kevin. “Are we going to be your next victims?” he asked, quivering with fear.

“Ha, ha, ha, ha! Oh, that would be rude! Since I’m a sporting puzzle, I’ll give you one chance to save yourselves. All you have to do is answer one little riddle. Are you game?”

The wall to the right of the N Team slid open. A woman was standing next to a vertically-held green square spinning wheel with red numbers from 1 to 8. “No problemo for the Riddle King!” Simon said egotistically, stepping up.

“No, Simon!” Lana said. “I don’t trust him.”

“What’s not to trust?” the wizard asked. “If you win, you go free. If you lose. . . Don, tell them what they’ll get if Simon loses.” He indicated a television screen above his chair.

“Well, Puzzle Wizard,” Don said, “if Simon loses, we’ll take him and his friends first-class to spend the rest of their days as block-heads on the Tetris wall of their choice! Back to you, Puzzle Wizard.” The screen showed two mean Tetris blocks taking the four, bound in ropes, away, and the next screen showed Kevin as a yellow Z-block, Simon as a blue four-bar, Squaresly as a white and blue square-block, and Lana as a pink reverse L-block in a wall!

“-Gulp!- Yipes!” Simon said nervously. He was beginning to have serious second thoughts about this.

“Simon Belmont,” the Puzzle Wizard announced like Bob Barker, “come on down!”

Simon laughed nervously and tried to back away, but he was stopped by the mean-looking red L-block that had tried to grab Lana. “Okay, okay!” He went to the wheel, which the woman spun.

“Round and round and round we go,” Puzzle Wizard said as the wheel spun. “Where it stops, it pops!” When the wheel stopped, it flashed, and words in red writing appeared on it.

“If you take two apples from three apples, chop them into four squares, what do you have?” Don asked.

“Is this a trick question?” Simon asked nervously. “I have, uh, fruit salad. No. . . applesauce. No! Apple pie!”

“Simon, you’re thinking too hard!” Kevin said quietly, holding up two fingers of his right hand. “Just put two and two together.”

“Four? No, wait; it’s two! Two! I have two apples!” he finished as the buzzer sounded.

“It’s two all right,” the Puzzle Wizard said. “Too late!!” He brought his right index finger down on a button on his armrest; a ray-gun, the wizard’s Tetrisizer, came out of the ceiling and turned Simon into a blue four-bar!

“Simon!” Lana cried.

“I’m angling out of here!” Squaresly cried. But as he ran to the door, the Tetrisizer’s ray caught him and turned him into a blue square-block.

Kevin turned angrily to the wizard and took on a challenging stance. “Riddles are for amateurs,” he said. “I’d like to see you win a real mind-game.”

“You dare to challenge the Puzzle Wizard?” the wizard asked, resting his right elbow on his armrest and resting his chin on his right hand as he thought.

Lana ran over to her boyfriend and put her hands around his right arm. “Kevin, I can’t lose you, too!” she said desperately.

He held up his left thumb. “Hey! I’m the Game Master, remember? I never lose.”

“Then let the game begin!” the Puzzle Wizard said. He pressed another button in his armrest with his right index finger. Kevin was encased in a glass rectangular cage, and a small monitor indicating the number of Tetris lines came out of the floor. “You have one minute to get twenty-five points.” Kevin looked to the ceiling as Tetris blocks started raining down, and he immediately started moving the blocks to score lines.

Meanwhile, Lana investigated the wall in search of her brother. “Oh, I’ve got to figure out which one of these blocks is Lyle.”

At the start, Kevin scored three lines. “I’ll have you beat in no time,” he boasted.

“Why don’t I help you speed things up?” the Puzzle Wizard suggested wickedly, willing to see Captain N get flattened. He fingered another button, and the blocks started falling more quickly. However, Kevin appreciated the added challenge. . . and he racked up more points this way!

Lana continued to scan the wall. Two pairs of eyes stared back at her from the wall. “-Gasp!- It’s no use; I’ll never find him!” Suddenly, she saw an emerald ring glint at her from one of the blocks! She gasped again. “That’s Lyle’s ring!” She took off her crown and began trying to wedge her brother’s block out of the wall. “Oh, Lyle; if you’re in there, please, try to help me! It’s our only hope!” She was succeeding in trying to wedge the block out; and when it was halfway out, the emerald in her crown reacted magically with the emerald in her brother’s ring, and the magic restored him! The two siblings hugged each other.

Meanwhile, Kevin was nearing the end of his minute, and he had four lines left to score. . . and he was just primed to score a Tetris! He was standing between a column one Tetris square wide. “Feeling the squeeze, Captain Nuisance?” the Puzzle Wizard asked. When the four-beam popped out of the ceiling, Kevin used his Power Pad to leap out of the column and land safely on top of the other blocks. He placed the four-beam where it was supposed to go, and the four lines disappeared just in time! The wizard laughed maliciously to himself the whole time.

“All right!” Kevin said victoriously as the glass cage disintegrated. “I won!”

The Puzzle Wizard rose and pointed at the Game Master. “Prepare to join your fellow blockheads!”

“Hey, wait a minute! We had a deal!”

The Tetrisizer came back out of the ceiling. “Deal with this!” the Puzzle Wizard shouted with glee. Kevin gasped in horror at the double-cross as the wizard laughed malevolently.

Lana began to approach Kevin, but Lyle stopped her by saying, “The power of our two stones worked for me. Maybe it’ll work for Kevin!”

The Puzzle Wizard’s Tetrisizer fired at Kevin, but Lana and Lyle brought their crown and ring together. These fired a ray that intercepted the Tetrisizer’s ray and diverted it to its owner. “No!” the wizard screamed as his puzzle parts separated and disintegrated into video-dust.

Back in the Palace’s living room, Kevin was standing behind the couch, and Lana was standing to the left. Her brother was sitting near her, while Squaresly was to Lyle’s right. “Your Royal Roundness, we can never thank you enough,” the mayor of Tetris said.

“Yeah, thanks, sis,” Lyle said. “You, too, Captain N, and. . . hey! Where’s Simon?”

Lana giggled. “The doctors say it’s going to take a little longer for Simon’s squareness to wear off.”

“Until then,” Kevin said, “we’re using him as a doorstop!”

Simon was still a blue four-beam, and he was propped up against the door. “Very funny, Captain N!” the vain vampire hunter said.