(The Loud House and all other Nicktoons related brands/titles are legally owned by Nickelodeon)
(Spider-Man and all other Marvel related brands/titles are legally owned by Marvel and Disney)
(The following is a work of fanfiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the writer's imagination or are used fictitiously. All statements, activities, stunts, descriptions, information, and material of any kind contained herein are for entertainment purposes only and should not be relied on for accuracy. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.)
- Issue #09 -
Fifteen Minutes of Fame
Sunday afternoon. 6:25 P.M.
It was one thing to watch a highly rated American television show known as "So, You Think You've Got Talent?" at the comfort of your own home in the living room with the rest of your family. But watching it on television was absolutely nothing compared to how Lincoln was feeling right now when he was actually there in person, as one of the four competitors on the show. It was quite a huge crowed tonight. Lincoln could not recall the last time in many years where he had seen such a number of people in one setting.
Well, except for the times where he attended a Mick Swagger rock concert or two with his sister Luna over at the Royal Woods Arena. Thanks to his enhanced sight, he could see that there was not a single dry seat within the theater that wasn't already taken. The entire place was packed to the brim, every single ticket had been sold out, be it from paying for them through the means of the internet or in person at the booth just outside.
And all these people came from almost every corner of Royal Woods to watch the same thing; to see the one lucky winner in the lineup of contestants win the four-thousand-dollar prize. As he watched some of the other competitors after him do their own performances right there on the stage, be it singing, comedy stand-up, dancing, and athleticism, Lincoln could already tell that he was going to easily mop the floor with these clowns. Sure, they may be good, but they were not that good.
But then, his mind started to wonder off. Instead of the competitors who displayed their own unique talents to the applauding and cheering crowd before them, Lincoln could not help but feel like he was instead watching his own sisters out there. Always easily showing off their skills to the world, always easily proving that they were the best at everything they did, while he stood far away on the sidelines, left behind with nothing. Lincoln's face glowered.
Not this time, he thought as he pulled down his mask.
After he returned backstage to his temporary dressing room, Lincoln stared down at himself in front of the mirror with such intensity that he had almost given himself goosebumps, forgetting only a fraction of a second or two that it was just his own reflection looking back at him. He ruffled his white hair and tapped his fingers anticipatingly on the counter. He took in a slow deep breath as a means to calm his nerves.
"Okay, Lincoln," he muttered quietly, trying to amp himself up. "This is it. This is your moment to shine. The chance you've been yearning for a long time now. You can do this, man. There's an entire audience out there waiting to see you in action. They just don't know it yet. And on top of that, the entire world is watching too. You are going to give them the best show of their lives. And after that, the road to stardom." His concentration was suddenly broken when he heard a loud knocking coming from outside his dressing room's door.
"Hey, web-head!" a man's voice called from the other side. "Are you ready?"
"Uh, y-yeah, ready as I'll ever be!" Lincoln called back with a mild stammer.
"Good, cause you're the last performance!"
"Gotcha!" Lincoln said. With this, he took one final look at himself in the mirror, a smile growing across his face. He drew his aviator goggles and red ski mask over his head.
"Show time." he muttered aloud.
Meanwhile...
Rita walked into the living room from downstairs, and she noticed that her husband and ten daughters were seated around the coach, staring at the television screen. She looked over and then smiled, realizing what show it was they were all watching. She shrugged her shoulders. Might as well join them since there was nothing else to do today. With that, she sauntered over to the cushioned chair on the right side of the coach, right after picking up Lily from the floor next to Lisa and setting the five-year-old on her lap.
"So, who do you guys think the winner's gonna be?" she asked the group.
"They haven't revealed it yet, honey," Lynn Sr. answered, his eyes still glued to the screen. "But I've got a good idea who it will be."
"I'll bet it's gonna be that dude from yesterday," Luna added almost excitedly. "It's gotta be him. I can feel it."
"Yesterday?" Rita asked, turning to face her rock n roll loving daughter.
"Didn't you hear about it, Mom?" Lynn asked her mother, seated closely to her dad. "There's some guy in a red and blue costume swinging around the city." Rita blinked, her mind trying to register what the seventeen-year-old female jock had just told her.
"Swinging around the city?" she asked, almost finding that a little hard to believe.
"You heard her right, Mom," Lori chimed in, standing from behind the coach. "This guy's all over the internet. People also said that they saw him literally shoot ropes from his hands and climb up walls like a spider." Rita furrowed her brows. Lori knew that expression, and to help give her proof, the eldest Loud sibling showed her mother a recorded video of the costumed individual that somebody had posted online.
And sure enough, it was the costumed figure in question, landing perfectly on a streetlamp on his hands and feet. And then, the video showed the figure throwing up his hands and these gossamer-white ropes shooting out from his hands. He used them to pull himself forward, propelling him through the air with such speed that he was nothing but a blue and red blur. Rita could not believe her eyes. This was so unreal. But then, she had a thought.
"How do you all know these videos aren't fake?" the mother questioned.
"They're not fake, Mom!" Lana half exclaimed. "We swear, they're real! People even saw him walk inside and out the Royal Woods Theater the other day! He's the reason why we're watching the show right now. We think he's competing for the four-thousand-dollar prize money! Heck, they even recorded him doing these rad acrobatic moves while in the air!"
"Sounds like this costumed weirdo's a real show off if you ask me," Lola commented, as she combed her long blonde hair. Lana turned and glared at her twin unamusingly so.
"You wanna be the pot or the kettle?" asked the ten-year-old mechanic. Before the young pageant queen could snap back at her twin sister, Leni, who sat down next to her father's left, spoke up to grab their attention.
"Can you two, like, talk about costume parties some other time?" the airheaded seamstress asked, totally misinterpretation what Lana had just said. "The show's about to come back on."
"Leni, that's not what she—" Lori spoke. But then, she was cut off when the show had abruptly returned from a commercial break. The live recording camera panned over to an applauding audience, cheering and raising their hands in enjoyment, followed with dramatic jazz music, and then the screen switched over to a well-dressed man, close to his mid-thirties, with a fashionably cropped head of blonde hair, and he had the most shiny-looking smile that just screamed Hollywood. This man was none other than the host of the show himself, Roderick Kingsley.
"And welcome back to 'So, You Think You've Got Talent?'," he announced, holding the microphone close to his handsome face. "Here, where people of all ages show off their most amazing talents in the hopes to win and go home with four thousand dollars as their prize!"
"So far, we have seen the first three contestants give it all they've got!" Kingsley continued. "One made us laugh, the other made us cry, and the third made us all dance our hips off!" But then, Kingsley paused for dramatic effect.
"However, there is but one final contestant whom I think you all may find to be quite fascinating." And then the screen switched to a different image, showing a silhouetted figure emerging from the darkness, the colors of red and blue revealed stark light that shone behind him. The Loud family found themselves being pulled in from the growing excitement. Lynn knew right away that it was him. The costumed guy himself. There was sense of doubt within her teenage mind.
"No one knows who he is," spoke the show's host, in a low and dramatic voice. "Nor do they know where he's from. Only that he had shown up out of nowhere, just the other day, in such a fashion no one had expected. Truly, he is nothing like what anyone has ever seen before. Some say he is an alien from outer space who came here to Earth from a dying planet, while others rumor that he was lab experiment gone wrong. However, he himself claims that he was bitten by a radioactive spider."
"Come on, Kingsley!" Lynn Sr. pleaded. "Just get to it already! We want to see him!" And then the tv screen switched back over to the front of the stage, the audience now hidden in the darkness of the theater.
"Ladies and gentlemen!" Roderick Kingsley continued. "Put your hands together and give a warm welcome for the one..., the only..., the terrifying..., the deadly...!"
"JUST GET ON WITH IT, DUDE!" Luna shouted at the tv screen.
"... the Amazing Spider-Man!" The crowed clapped and cheered excitedly. And then, right before their very eyes, a red and blue costumed figure suddenly emerged from the darkness of the ceiling above, carefully gliding down on a white rope all the while hanging upside down. This sent the audience to a near wild frenzy, as they all screamed much louder and with even more excitement than the last.
And so, the aforementioned costumed character further glided down on the white gossamer rope closely to the ground until he was now close enough to safely vault himself to his feet, now standing right on the stage, displaying himself in full view of the cheering and screaming audience and the three judges themselves: Clinton King, Michelle Jones, and Ned Leeds.
"That's him!" shouted Lynn, pointing at the screen. "That's the guy!"
"Cooool!" Lana ogled.
"Wicked," Lucy muttered drearily, a big smile on her face.
"Like, eww!" Leni almost exclaimed disgustedly. "There's a big black spider on his chest! Somebody, help him!"
"Leni, relax," Luan said to her sister, trying to get her to calm down. "That's not a real spider. Try and look closely at it. It's just black spray paint."
"...Oh," Leni muttered, but then tried to brush it off humorously. "Pfft, I knew that."
"Sure, you did, Leni," Lori muttered sarcastically, rolling her eyes.
Lincoln smiled as he spread his arms out, drinking in the adulation that poured directly from the cheering crowd, the spotlight from above the second-floor balcony of the theater shining down upon him. He had not even preformed any of his stunts and tricks yet and already they seem to love him. Now that he thought about it, the audience did seem to have cheered and clapped and such for the other players after him, but they were not with such craziness like he was seeing right now.
They felt more mechanical, almost like some kind of teleprompter was telling the audience when to clap and not. Right when he himself appeared on the stage from his web, every single patron within the theater screamed and cheered as loud and wildly as they could, even going so far as to stand up and raise their fists into the air. Guess these people must have seen the videos of the red and blue costumed guy on the internet the other day and wanted to actually see him in person, to see what he looked like now that he was not swinging at full speed across the city.
So, that would mean I'm the reason this place is packed to the fullest, Lincoln thought. Wow. I am really on a lucky streak right now.
"Alright," Clinton King said into his microphone, his voice booming nice and clearly throughout the theater. "Why don't you tell the audience who you are?" Lincoln nodded his head.
"Well, Mr. King! I am very glad that you asked!" he answered the judge proudly, before striking a dramatic pose. "I am the Amazing Spider-Man!" Right when he said his alter ego's name, the full crowd went wild once again, even louder that it had almost shook the entire theater, and then they had calmed down again.
"And what is it that you can do?" Michelle Jones asked into her own microphone.
"Well, Mrs. Jones!" Lincoln said. "As my name implies, I can do whatever a spider can! What that means, my dear audience, is that I have the ability to crawl around on almost any surface, walls, ceilings, you name it! I even have the proportionate strength of a spider, meaning I can lift fifty my own weight! And I kid you not, I even have the power to generate webs out of my wrists!"
"And what is it you're hoping to do with these powers, Mr. Spider-Man?" Ned Leeds asked into his microphone. "Like, what is it you hope that they will lead you to?"
Lincoln slightly froze for a second. He knew what it was he wanted to say, that he wanted to be greater than he was before. He remembered saying those very words to his family and friends. How long would it take for them all to put two and two together and immediately figure out who he is? The more he thought about it, the less confident he was starting to become now. But then it quickly returned when an idea came to him. Maybe could tell them. It just depended on what words to use.
"It's, uh, funny you should ask, Mr. Leeds," Lincoln began. "I biggest hope is that they will lead me to great opportunities in the future! Stardom, entertainment, just anything that will help me make it big!" With that, the audience clapped and cheered encouragingly, which made Lincoln feel very good about himself. The crowd relaxed again and fell back into total silence.
"Good answer!" said Clinton King. "Alright, web-head! Go ahead and take it away, whenever you're ready!"
"Thank you, Mr. King!" Lincoln said. He then cleared the throat and then raised both his hands up as a means to address to the audience. "I just want everybody in the room to know that what you are about to see is absolutely real! There are no trick of the cameras involved here! So, just sit back, relax, and remain as calm as possible!"
Lincoln looked down at the judges table and he noticed that Mrs. Jones as she gently pushed her unopened bottle of water in front, closely towards the edge of the table. Lincoln looked at her in the face. "Show them," she mouthed her words with a big grin on her face. "Show them what you showed us." Right away, Lincoln knew what she meant, and he smiled back.
"Now, before I begin," the Loud teen said. "I'm a little bit thirsty! Mrs. Jones, do you mind if I have little sip of your water really quick?"
"By all means," she nodded her head. And with that, Lincoln threw up his right hand, and then, THWIP! A silky gossamer strand of webbing shot out from his wrist, the other end grabbing the bottled water on the judges table. This action caused a large number of the audience to gasp in surprise. Lincoln yanked on the web, pulling the water to his direction, and he caught it perfectly in his hand. Thanks to his enhanced hearing, he could here exactly what these people were saying.
"Did you guys see that?" someone whispered.
"How on Earth did he do that?" another asked.
"Those can't be real webs," one of the contestants from earlier muttered from backstage. Lincoln smiled, knowing that he now had these people's full attention. He lifted his mask up to his reveal only his mouth and took several large gulps of water until it was now half empty. Satisfied, he carefully placed the bottle on the floor of the stage, and the costumed teen addressed the audience once more.
"In case you're all wondering," he said. "I am not wearing wrist-mounted web-shooters! This web-strand is real and organic, straight out of my wrist! See?"
Lincoln lifted his right arm up, as if he were about to give an oath, and he pulled down the sleeve of his blue tracksuit, revealing nothing but bare skin. With that, he pressed both his ring and middle finger against his palm, and another web-line shot out. This time, it went straight up into the ceiling, causing another gasp from the audience. Lincoln chuckled under his breath. Man, were these people easily impressionable or what? He yanked on the web-line, and the webbing stretched and pulled him up into the air, like a bungee cord.
"Wow, look at him go!" someone in the audience exclaimed. Lincoln held on tightly to the web as if he had stopped in the middle climbing a rope back in gym class. He dramatically waved his hand out to the crowd.
"What do you think of that, Royal Woods?!" the Loud teen shouted happily. In response, all of the people in the audience shouted excitedly, their hands clapping so wildly their palms were beginning to turn pink. "Here's a little something I know you guys are gonna like!" Lincoln then arched his legs back and forth until he started to swing from side to side like he was on a jungle vine.
He had succeeded in gaining enough momentum to swing even farther to the left side corner of the stage and he let go of the web, sending him flying towards the wall, disappearing into the darkness, and clinging his fingers to the surface. Quickly, the spotlight operator changed the direction of the spotlight, aiming the large ray of light right on Lincoln, allowing everybody to see him better. They all just could not believe their eyes. He was actually sticking to the wall.
No suction cups, no special type of Velcro-made gloves, nothing He was clinging to the side of the wall with just his feet and bare fingers. With such speed, he scurried over to the far-left side wall of the theater itself. And then he crawled up until he was down stuck to the ceiling above, the camera and the spotlight followed him everywhere. The people in the audience further gasped and stared at what they were seeing. There was no way this could be real. No way at all.
In a red and blue blur, Lincoln jumped down with inhuman grace from the ceiling and his feet landed on the iron rails located on the front of the second-floor balcony, in front of the people who remained in their seats totally mystified by such a fantastic spectacle. Lincoln then suddenly did a backflip, landing once again back onto the iron rails. Let's see if we can amp it up a little, he thought with a big grin on his face. He bent both his hands down until they were close to touching his feet.
But it was not his own feet that he was trying to touch. He then hoisted his legs up until he was now doing a handstand on the rails, and then on one hand. And then finally, on the tip of a single index finger.
"Like what you see, folks?!" he said to the audience. The people clapped responsively with such excitement and whistled a few times, trying to egg him on to do more, which he oh so happily obliged. He vaulted his feet back down onto the rails, and then from there, he ran across the iron bars to the other right side of the theater, not even once did he lose his balance. He had full coordination of his entire body.
He shot out another web-line that stuck itself to the ceiling, and he began to swing around the theater, right above the peoples' heads. In midair, he performed double backflips and front flips and then he slid across the iron rails that led back down to the stage like a skateboarder. And then, with a single web-zip, he found himself back onto the stage, raising his hands up to get more cheers from the crowd. Everybody jumped and roared wildly with enthusiasm, raising their hands up. Lincoln could not believe it.
They loved him. They actually loved him. Even the judges themselves stood up from their own seats and were whistling and applauding him. And heck, to Lincoln's further surprise, the other competitors from behind the stage were cheering him on. It was awesome. The whole lot was just so awesome.
The Loud teen was so moved by all of their positive responses that it almost brought a tear to his eye. Finally, he had reached his long-awaited goal, to be become greater, to become that special somebody just like his sisters. It felt so good to have the spotlight shine down upon you for once. From here, he looked down and saw the half empty water bottle that was close to his feet, exactly where he had left it before. He turned back to the audience.
"And now!" he shouted, picking up the bottle. "For my next trick...!" He then swiftly turned around and faced the far wall of the stage. With grace, he tossed the bottle high up into the air. He waited for the right moment, as the bottle started to fall back down, gravity taking control of the situation. With excellent precision, when the bottle had about a meter close to the stage floor, Lincoln drew up his hand and shot a single web-ball like a gunslinger.
The web-ball hit the bottle perfectly, sending it flying to the opposite wall of the stage and the adhesiveness of the web stuck it to the wall. This sent the entire audience into a near riotous frenzy. Now this is what you call show biz, Lincoln thought.
"Nicely done, web-head!" Ned Leeds said into his own microphone. "But I am still curious about one thing. You claim that you can lift fifty times your own weight, correct?"
"Correct indeed, Mr. Leeds!" Lincoln confirmed.
"Well, it would seem that you are in luck!" said Mrs. Jones. "For the sake of this performance, we brought in someone I think you might be familiar with who can help you demonstrate the power of your strength!" Lincoln looked at the female judge a tad bit confused.
"Someone?" he asked.
"Yep!" Michelle Jones stated. "And believe me, he is really looking forward to meeting you!" Suddenly, the lights dimmed down, creating a great sense of moonlighting all around the theater. Lincoln could not help but feel just a little bit put off by this abrupt action. And then, from the corner of his eye, he noticed a giant silhouette thumping down his way from the back of the stage, a figure that was wide, tall, and growled like an angry gorilla.
"Standing at six-feet-nine-inches tall!" Roderick Kingsley's voice boomed across the theater. "Weighing in at three hundred pounds of pure muscle, he is one of America's greatest wrestlers of all time, and the winner of five consecutive wins in the ring! Please, put your hands together and give it up for Crusher Hogan!"
The lights turned back on, revealing the silhouette to be a giant burly man, his long black hair and massive chest glistening with sweat, and his face was covered by a thick black beard, and was dressed in a stylized black wrestler's outfit. Veins rippled in his thick arms and neck. Lincoln looked at him almost wide-eyed. Of course, he had heard that name before. Crush Hogan happened to be one of Lynn's favorite wrestlers. She would always get excited whenever she saw him walk down that ramp on those wrestling shows that she liked.
Lincoln never thought that he would see the day where he would actually meet the one and only Crusher Hogan himself in person. The Loud teen eyed the judges.
"Uh, s-should I be a bit worried here?" he stammered a bit.
"Don't worry, web-head!" called Clinton King. "All you're gonna do is lift Hogan up into the air! You're not actually going to fight each other!" Lincoln suddenly felt a large meaty hand resting tightly upon his shoulder, causing him to gaze up at the side and see the smiling bearded face of Crusher Hogan looming over him like a giant black shadow.
"Relax, kid," assured the towering goliath in a richly deep baritone voice. "You claim that you're as strong as a spider, right? So that means this should be easy for ya. After watching what you did earlier, I think you've got this in the bag, no problem." Lincoln chuckled and then nervously swallowed a lump in his throat.
"Hehe, right," he stuttered a little bit. "No problem at all." Truth be told, Lincoln never did find the time to test exactly how strong he could lift a heavy object with his bare hands. He had been so busy trying to figure his other powers that it had flown right passed his head. He must not let this deter him. He had not come all this way to fail now. He will do this, with utmost confidence, and he will lift Crusher Hogan with ease, even if it might break his back.
Crusher then backed up a few paces from Lincoln's location, and then he got down into a crouching position, he large hands out ready to attack. "Now, just relax, shorty! I'll try to make this as painless as possible!" he bellowed. From there, the people in the crowd began to cheer Lincoln on. They shouted a loud, "You can do it, Spidey!" and also, "Show that meathead you've got this!" and then the entire audience followed suit. This was all the encouragement Lincoln needed as he steeled himself for what was coming. The teen lifted his hands up and beckoned Crusher tauntingly.
The wrestler grinned brig and then he let out a mighty battle cry as he charged head on at Lincoln's direction like a bull in a Spanish bullfight. Using his spider-sense, Lincoln ran and then jumped over Crusher's shoulders, leaping into the air and landing on the other side. Confused, Crusher turned around to face the Loud teen. But before he could even get a single word out.
He found himself being quickly lifted up into the air. He looked down and saw to his shock that the scrawny little masked marvel was holding him up with only both his hands. But the thing was that Lincoln was showing no sign of straining his muscles. He held Crusher Hogan up with not a single bit of effort, and the wrestler could have sworn that he saw the outline of a smile underneath Lincoln's mask.
"Let's make this a little more interesting!" Lincoln shouted. Now carrying Crusher over his shoulder, Lincoln moved over and then crawled up to one side of the stage until he now reached all the way up to the ceiling above. Crusher let out a frightened yelp and covered his eyes fearfully.
"Okay! Okay! Put me down! You made your point!" he cried out.
Granting his wish, Lincoln crawled back down to solid ground, maneuvering the wrestler back to his feet. Crusher Hogan, knees wobbling like gelatin, bent down and then gratefully kissed the floor in relief. After that, the immense roar from the crowd had gotten so loud in the theater that nobody could hear their own voices or hear themselves think in their heads. Lincoln turned back around to face the constantly moving ripples of spectators, breathing in the sweet and savory feeling of fame and success.
I wonder how my family is enjoying this?
Here's a little something you should know about my portrayal of Crusher Hogan. I modeled his appearance after the late professional wrestler, "Macho Man" Randy Savage, who played the fictional wrestler character Bone Saw McGraw from the 2002 Spider-Man movie. Pretty cool, huh?
And also, the host of the show, Roderick Kingsley, he was also another one of Spider-Man's enemy. He would also become the Hobgoblin, after Ned Leeds in the Spider-Man comics.
Don't forget to send me your reviews and tell me what you all think could be improved.