THE BRIGHT KNIGHT
By: Dan Bivens
Chapter 1
(AUTHOR'S NOTE: These events take place immediately after those of my story listed under COMICS: BATMAN entitled "The Heady Knight"---Dizzy Dan)
"Well, guys, what do we do now?" roguishly shrugged The Flash as he, Nightwing, Superman and, of course, Batman stood in the midst of a debris-strewn street in Metropolis mere minutes after their enjoined effort to drive away a super-villain calling himself Brainiac.
An inevitably victorious situation, thanks mostly to Batman and Superman.
"Well," groaned/grunted a still-tired/battered Nightwing, formerly Robin before the Batman advised Dick Grayson it was time to strike out on his own. "We could go grab some coffee…after we change back into less conspicuous clothing. Mine's in the Batmobile that I hitched a ride in after Batman activated its self-drive programming in order to speed it from Gotham City to Metropolis because of Brainiac."
"Mine's easily accessible, too," said Superman with a near-wink at his World's Finest partner-against-crime/super-villains, Batman.
"I can super-run back to my apartment in Central City, Missouri to change into my street clothes," said the Flash, then added arrogantly, "it's only around 1,000 or so miles. Should only take me two-to-three minutes. Tops."
The group grinned in regards to the World's Fastest Man's amusingly self-ingratiating tone and half-cowled face's smirk, only to cause him to ask in feinted innocence, "What?"
"And my clothing," finally injected the Batman, recalling, exactly, the instant, during Brainiac's earthquake-producing arrival, that both he, as Bruce Wayne, and Superman, as Clark Kent, rapidly eluded exposure so as to assume their costumed alter-egos inside the swank restaurant nearby, "is also easy to get at. I'll treat you all to whatever you want or need in a local five-star restaurant. Agreed?"
For Nightwing and Superman, who both individually understood the Caped Crusader's alter ego to be billionaire Bruce Wayne, such seemed acceptable. For the Flash…
"Why do I get the feeling, Batman, that your 'secret-identity'," said Flash, making funny finger quotes with red-gloved, yellow lightning bolt-encircled hands, "is definitely someone who can afford to treat someone whose super-speed powers always leaves him hungry enough to eat and drink his weight in expensive consumables? I'm in."
As to Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen, who'd covered, via her words and his pictures, the four-against-one super-battle Brainiac brought about in the midst of Metropolis…
"All right, Perry, will do," heaved Lois into her cellphone, which she'd just used to vocally deliver a basic story for The Daily Planet newspaper to include in their next issue. Then, snapping it shut, said to the redheaded, freckle-faced photographer readying his swiftly snapped pics for transmitting, "C'mon, Jimmy, the Chief wants us back A-S-A-P. Seems he wants to expand the story for a major Page One."
"Sure, Ms. Lane," said Jimmy Olsen with a smile, then, "but what about CK?"
"He can catch his own cab," she grumbled while whistling for a taxi to stop short. "If he thinks I'd consider including anything by him in my story, while I did the heavy lifting…he's got another think coming."
Even as the four just-joined super-powered friends, the Batman able to claim such with two of the other three and Superman at least so for the Dark Knight while the Flash felt like the new kid on the proverbial block, proceeded in their plans to resume civilian status…
At the Scientific and Technological Advanced Research (S.T.A.R.) Labs, Gotham City branch, one of the many genius-level scientific researchers was nearing an end to the development of a military article of clothing he'd worked on for years…
Dr. Arthur Light: thirty-something; average height and weight; thinning hair; above-average build, due to diligently spending several hours per week working out in the S.T.A.R.-provided gym wherein brand new, not-yet-released-to-the-public, exercise equipment was test-used; Einsteinian intellect, geared more for actual development and invention than mathematics-supported space-physics; never-been-married; no children, legitimate or illegitimate; no Life outside of S.T.A.R. Labs; socially clumsy, even anti-social to a large degree.
"Yes," said Dr. Light with widening eyes and growing grin. "Yes! I've done it. I've done it!"
Even as other resident S.T.A.R. geniuses, whom had Lives and were not the lest bit anti-social, reacted to the Eureka reactions of someone with whom they seldom associated…
Dr. Arthur Light lifted up the extra-special costume-like suit whose design, using the nano level of electronics controlled by a master microcomputer forming a waist-positioned belt buckle-like bulge, was of an understated "unitard" nature.
"The military's answer to actual invisibility," he said under his breath, grin firmly in place, eyes a little too large. "I'll be famous. I'll be a multibillionaire greater than Bill Gates. But it has to be tested."
After glancing around and considering potential test candidates, his self-centered precocity came to a singular solution.
"Who better," he said with a near-insane smirk, "than me?"
Minutes later, the unique unitard, a one-size-fits-all invisibility-promoting form fitting getup that he'd already dubbed PHOtonic MANIpulation for Combat (PHOMANIC), with an unconsciously included waist-to-chest symbol that looked for all the world like an upward-rising white over black "light energy" ending in a small star-like "light burst", was donned.
Stepping toward the pseudo-doorway of his large cubicle-enclosed science-laden atelier, Dr. Arthur Light activated his seeming super-suit…
…in order to vanish from view, quite literally, before laughingly deciding to head toward the chief scientist's office in order to more dramatically illustrate his extraordinarily developed "device" that, unlike many other's scientific attempts to achieve invisibility, had succeeded so completely.
"Wait until Dr. Garrison Slate sees…or, rather, doesn't see…my PHOMANICA suit," quietly considered an unseen Dr. Light as he proceeded past several sizeable scientific R-and-D cubicles wherein other mostly genius-level scientists dutifully toiled.
How could he foresee that one named Dr. Jacob Finlay, working with potentially deleterious chemical compounds in an equally egotistical attempt to create a superpower producing drug so that such as Superman, for instance, would not be so singular in existence.
The volatility of such suddenly exploded. Slightly injuring Dr. Finlay while permanently permeating the invisibility suit onto Dr. Light.
The end-result: Dr. Arthur Light, suddenly fully visible once again, was incapable of escaping a now bonded-to-body PHOMANIC black-and-white costume. But more than that, the chemical explosion apparently granted him a curious "super-power": to literally manipulate light for any purpose.
Something unconsciously used during a rage-filled instant of retaliation…
"Damn you, Finlay!"
…in the form of solidly deadly blobs of light sent forth from the quasi-insane scientist's hands. Brutally killing Dr. Jacob Finlay and utterly obliterating his cubicle of chemicals and equipment.
With a renewed widening of gaze and grin, Dr. Arthur Light proclaimed, "I am now Master of Light! I am truly…Doctor Light! Ha-ha-hahahaha-ha!"
END OF CHAPTER 1