(The following is a nonprofit work of fanfiction and is outside of the original canon. All names, characters, businesses, places, events, and/or incidents of any kind depicted within this story are being used for entertainment purposes only.)
(The Loud House and all related characters were created by Chris Savino and all rights belong to Nickelodeon. Spider-Man and all related characters were created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko and all rights belong to Disney)
- Issue #08 -
The Great Debut
Saturday, 5:56 P.M.
The late afternoon sun loomed high above in the cloudless blue sky.
Lincoln scrunched his shoulders around as a means to loosen up the muscles underneath. He then craned his arms and stretched out his legs as far as he was able to make them as he stood closely near the ledge at the top of the highest building there was within the city. The mild late afternoon air brushed against him, but the wind could not penetrate through his costume. Funny... This did not feel so hard to do when he was web-swinging at the indoor skate park yesterday.
Except this was not an indoor skate park, he realized. This was the big city, with a much wider range of space and he was a lot higher from the ground—by five hundred and forty-seven feet that is. In spite of being so high up, he could still see a large multitude of cars driving down the roads, their horns honking at each other, the essence of human life teeming around the streets and sidewalks. If he remembered correctly, the Royal Woods Theater should be four miles from his location, at the south-west side of the city in the downtown district.
And that was where he needed to go. By car, it would take a long time to get there, depending on how high the level of traffic was, something Lincoln did not have the patience for right now. But if he were to swing there, it would only take a few short minutes, easy-peasy. With this in his mind, Lincoln took in a slow deep breath as he pointed his arms and hands straight up into the air, as if he were about to jump down into a swimming pool from a diving board.
The only major difference was that there was no chlorinated water to swan dive into, just the buzzling streets of Royal Woods City below. He nervously gulped down a lump in his throat.
"Well, here goes everything," he muttered to himself. "...Tallyho." And so, Lincoln made a little hop off the ledge, and he dove straight down, the pavement of the streets getting a lot closer and closer, until he timely threw up his left hand and a silky gossamer web-line shot out from his wrist. The sticky end of the web stuck perfectly to one close building, and Lincoln found himself swinging at a great distance, covering a lot of ground than he had originally anticipated.
He zoomed passed the cars and streetlamps that were just several feet below him. Thanks to his spider-sense, which acted as a perfect guide and giving him a much greater scope of his surroundings, he was now able to pinpoint exactly where to go, where to shoot his webs, and not have to worry anymore about theoretically crashing head-on into the surface of a building wall again.
A large number of the Royal Woods City pedestrians turned to his direction, staring up and having trouble believing the remarkable sight of what their own eyes were showing them. Some of them had shouted, "Whoa! Look at that!", and another one said, "Is anyone seeing this right now?!" as well as, "That can't be real! Is that an actual person up there?!" A large smile grew underneath Lincoln's red ski mask. Oh, these people have not seen anything yet.
And then, the growingly excited need to show off swelled within him as he swung up even higher into the air, and started to fall straight down again, all the while preforming some aerial backflips and three-sixty spins, clockwise and counterclockwise. With excellent precision, he shot out another thick line of web, catching a nearby streetlamp, and he immediate web-zipped in the middle of the air, landing on top of it. The second he did so, he shot two more web-lines, and he pulled them real tight, allowing them to catapult him upward like a slingshot.
This is awesome! Lincoln thought enthusiastically, adrenaline pumping through his mutated veins.
As he swung down through the city even further, he snatched onto a neighboring flagpole and spun around it to generate enough momentum to fly back up into the air again. With a few more swings or so, he landed flawlessly onto a lower building, perching himself on the tipped edge that pointed out into the city. Lincoln gazed down and saw that he was now in the downtown area of the city.
And down below, situated just across from him was the Royal Woods Theater. I really hope they're still doing additions right now. With another swing and a quick zip, he landed right in front of the theater, taking no mind of the people who just noticed him. Wasting no time, Lincoln walked right through the double doors. Right away after he did so, he was greeted with the warm smell of stale theater popcorn and hot nacho cheese. The rug was a dark velvet red, and faded beige was the color of the walls, where several posters of an upcoming play hung about.
Right ahead in front of him, situated between two doors on opposite sides, was a ticket booth. A grown man, close to his forties with short black hair garbed in a red velvet waistcoat, stood inside of the booth. He looked rather bored out of his mind as he jotted down whatever he was writing on a clipboard. Most likely the names of the auditioning contestants. Or maybe doodling to pass the time. As gently as he could, Lincoln knocked his fingers against the glass, grabbing the man's attention.
The man's eyes looked at him weirdly, a little bit put off by Lincoln's makeshift costume.
"I'm assuming you're here for the audition?" he asked the costumed teen.
"You know it!" Lincoln proclaimed. The black-haired man stole a quick glance down at his gold-plated wristwatch and looked back up at the costumed teen again.
"Count yourself a lucky guy," he said. "They're just going through the last two additions right at this moment."
"Well, you might want to think about adding another one, dude," Lincoln declared quite proudly. "Because I'd like to sign up for the show. And believe me, I've got something up my sleeves that are really going to rock everybody's socks off." The black-haired man mildly sneered and let out a little scoff.
"Oh, really?" he spoke rather incredulously. "And what the heck are you even supposed to be anyway?" Lincoln shyly twiddled his fingers for a second.
"Well, it's part of my act. Er, the costume, that is. Believe me, If I had discovered this show a lot sooner, I would have had some time to make something a lot more impressive." he simply explained. The black-haired man continued to examine him from top to bottom, that same incredulous look displayed quite so on his face.
"Whatever," he muttered, before handing out a clipboard in front of Lincoln. "Just sign right here." Lincoln waisted no time and wrote down his name – or rather, Spider-Man's name – on the very bottom of the clipboard.
"The judges will be right through those doors," the man informed. "Now, just follow me and I'll take you to 'em." Excitement further took over Lincoln.
"Oh, thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" he exclaimed. The black-haired man simply rolled his eyes in response. Before maneuvering outside of the booth, the man put a "We're closed" sign up against the glass window. And so, Lincoln followed the man inside through one of the doors, and he was immediately transported right inside the theater.
The place was huge. Lincoln saw that it was almost nothing but red velvet seats that lined all the way down closely to the stage itself which was located far away from his exact location. Directly above him was the second-floor balcony, containing even more rows of seats. It was almost like he had stepped right into a slightly smaller version of the famous Dolby Theater over in Los Angeles. The stage itself was rather large as well, expanding to be roughly one hundred and ten feet in width.
"Thanks for coming," a man's slightly bored voice was heard saying. "We'll be sure to give you a call."
Lincoln noticed down below at the front row near the stage were three people. One was a young woman with long brown hair tied into a bun, the other was a clean-shaven man nearing his forties with wavy blonde hair, and a third was bald headed and wearing black sunglasses. They must be the three judges. On the stage was a young woman, who bowed her head and walked off to the side and disappeared into the back room. Most likely one of the contestants.
"Hey, Clint!" the black-haired ticket booth guy called out to the bald man. "We got another one over here!"
Immediately, the three judges gandered over to their location, eyeballing straight up at Lincoln, who could not believe his own eyes. The bald man. Dear goodness. It was him. It was actually him. The one and only Clinton King himself, former talk show host and now famed tv personality. This man was described by many in the industry as the American Simon Cowell. And the other two people, Lincoln recognized as well.
The woman judge was Michelle Jones, music artist and tv personality like Clinton. And the blonde-haired judge was Ned Leeds, the host of his own podcast and entrepreneur. Didn't he use to be a reporter some time ago? Lincoln's heart began to beat rather nervously in his chest. One of the other judges looked at him weird.
"This should be good," Michelle Jones commented. The ticket booth man pointed onward towards the stage.
"Just head on down this way," he informed Lincoln. Lincoln held his hand up in small protest.
"Thanks, mister," he kindly said. "But I think I've got a much better approach." Before the man could ask what he meant by that, Lincoln had already jumped high into the air, flying straight ahead. He threw up his right hand and web-zipped forward until he came onto the stage, landing perfectly on his feet and standing right in front of the now stunned judges.
"Whoa!" Clinton King exclaimed, completely taken aback by what he just saw. Lincoln stood proudly in front of them, his hands resting on his waist.
"Impressive, huh?" he asked. For a short few seconds, the judges stared up at the teen before turning to each other in wonderment. Eventually, Clinton regained his composer and finally got down to business.
"Okay," he began. "What is your name and what is it you can do?" Lincoln smiled beneath his mask.
"Well, I'm very glad you asked, Mr. King!" he said enthusiastically. "My name is Spider-Man, and I can do whatever a spider can! I can crawl around on any surface, I have the proportionate strength of a spider and based on what you guys just saw me do, I can also create my own webbing!" King and the other judges looked at him strangely with raised eyebrows, unsure if what he had just said were even true. But then again, they just saw him shoot something that seemed to resemble a web. They needed better confirmation.
"Alright, kid," the female judge said. "Why don't you go ahead and demonstrate what you can do? Take it away whenever you're ready." Lincoln nodded his head, before eyeing an unopened bottle of water just sitting there down below on the judges table right in front of her. A little idea popped into his head.
"Why, thank you, Mrs. Jones," he said. "But first, I'm gonna need something to drink really quick. The swinging I did coming over here has left me mighty parched."
And without warning, Lincoln shot out a single thick strand, the end of the web adhering around the bottled water. The three judges yelped in surprise again, staring wide-eyed at the web. Lincoln yanked on the strand, pulling the bottle to his direction, and he caught it in his hand. He pulled up his mask to reveal only his mouth and nose, and he guzzled down the bottled water until it was now half empty. The judges looked at him, becoming even further taken aback by what they just saw.
"What the heck was that?!" Ned Leeds exclaimed in a deep voice. Lincoln flashed the judges a big smile.
"Like I said," he spoke to them. "I can shoot webs, just like a spider can do."
"Yeah, but—" Clinton King interjected. "How on earth are you able to do that?! Are you wearing wrist-mounted web-shooters or something?" Lincoln chuckled good-naturedly.
"I wish I could explain it to you guys," the Loud boy stated, setting the bottle down on the floor of the stage. "All I will say is that I was bitten by a very special kind of spider and then before I knew it, I started getting its powers and abilities. I know this all sounds like something right out of a comic book, but Heaven as my witness, it's the truth." Michelle Jones then looked at him curiously.
"You said you can also crawl up to any surface, right?" she asked. Lincoln nodded his head in confirmation. "Can you go ahead and demonstrate that for us really quick?"
"Can I?" Lincoln asked. "Pfft, I can do a whole lot more and then some."
With great agility, Lincoln jumped on over to the far-left side of the stage, his hands and feet sticking seamlessly to the wall, no problem, and then scurried on up to the ceiling far above their heads in seconds. All three of the judges could not believe what they were looking at. Even the ticket booth guy was staring in shock, totally speechless. How was this even remotely possible? No human being in the world could be able to do what this guy was doing. None that they knew of anyway.
"Incredible," muttered Ned Leeds, his eyes bulging in astonishment.
"And just to let you guys know," Lincoln shouted from above, sticking out his one hand at them, "I am not wearing any suction cups. What you are seeing is absolutely real, no tricks involved."
"How can this be?" Clinton King gaped, shaking his head in disbelief. "How are you actually doing this? How in the world is this even possible? I mean, I see it. But I'm having some trouble actually believing it!" Lincoln chuckled again, before shooting a single web-line onto the ceiling and then smoothly gliding back down close to the stage – all the while hanging upside down as he did so.
"Like I said, Mr. King," the teen said, reaching further to the ground. "I was bitten by a spider, and it turned me into this," Clinton furrowed his brows.
"But that's not even possible!" Michelle Jones doubted in unsureness. "Spiders can't do that, they don't just bite people and give them...well, super spider powers!" She turned to each of her fellow judges. "... Could they?" Lincoln shrugged his shoulders before nimbly landing back onto his feet.
"Well, apparently the one who bit me did," he stated clearly. All three judges stared speechlessly at him.
"Er, you also said that you have the proportionate strength of a spider as well, right?" asked Ned Leeds, clearing his throat to grab Lincoln's attention. "Care to explain what you mean by that?"
"Well, it is a known scientific fact that spiders are indeed strong enough to lift over fifty times their own body weight," Lincoln explained. "So, in other words, if a spider were to be, say, the size of a grown human being, that is how strong I am."
"So, basically that would mean you'd be strong enough to lift, I don't know, a three thousand pound Volkswagen beetle above your head?" Michelle Jones asked curiously, making sure that she understood him correctly. Lincoln nodded his masked head in confirmation.
"Yep, I'd say that pretty much explains it," he concluded. Clinton shook his bald head again.
"You can't be real," he muttered. "You just cannot be for real."
"Oh, I'm very real, Mr. King," Lincoln proclaimed. "And this is but a taste of what's to come. But that can only happen if you please, just please, let me be in the show tomorrow. I promise, you guys will not regret it."
Clinton sat down in his chair, rubbing his chin deeply in thought, clearly contemplating what he and the other judges had just witnessed. It was only for a few long seconds, but it felt like he was taking forever. Lincoln felt like he was waiting on bated breath, which was starting to become a reality. Please say yes! Please say yes! Please say yes! Ultimately, Clinton King gradually rose up from his corresponding seat, and a little smile grew across his face.
"Alright, kid," he finally said. "You're in. Just remember to be back here by five-fifteen tomorrow. No more than that." Upon hearing those words, Lincoln let out an excited yelp, jumping into the middle of the air and preformed a triple backflip.
"WOO-HOO! Yes! Thank you!" he exclaimed happily, after landing back onto solid ground. "Thank you so much! I promise, I'm gonna give you guys the best performance of your lives!" Mr. King chuckled warmly.
"Just take it easy, kid," he said to the teen.
"Clint, are you sure about this?" Michelle Jones questioned with a whisper, pulling the man aside. Mr. King shot her an appalled look.
"Yes, Michelle," he approved, nodding his head. "I am absolutely sure. I mean, think about it for a sec. It's been a long time since we've had something this exciting on our show. Do you know of anybody around the globe that can do exactly what this kid here just showed us?" That was when he further leaned in closely to them.
"And if you ask me," he whispered, "I think we might be looking at our four-thousand-dollar winner here. And this could very well help get our ratings back up. What do you think, Ned?" The blonde-haired judge rubbed his thumb against his chin in thought, before gazing back up at Lincoln. He then smiled and nodded at Clinton.
"Sure, why not?" he finally concurred. "I'm game for anything new."
"Then we're all in agreement here," King declared, before grabbing a clipboard from the judges' table and poised his ink pen at one side of the list. "What did you say your name was again, kid?"
"Just call me... the Amazing Spider-Man," Lincoln said almost dramatically. Clinton paused for a moment.
"Spider-Man..." the judge muttered slowly before writing it down on his clipboard. "Has a nice ring to it. Alright, kid. Go on home, get some rest, and remember to be back here by five-fifteen. No later than that. We'll have everything set up for you by then."
"I will be here, Mr. King," Lincoln stated excitedly. "You can count on that." And with that, he threw his hand up again and a web-line shout out, sticking to the ceiling. And then he swung his way up and above the rows upon rows of empty theater seats and back towards the exit, zooming passed the ticket booth man, and the three judges now watching him in awe from their table.
"See you tomorrow!" Lincoln shouted to them before vanishing out through one of the theater doors. After sprinting back outside and then swinging greatly across the city again, the Loud teen chuckled, the flames of excitement still burning within his heart like a giant bonfire. I haven't been this excited in such a super long time! Finally, everything is going to change! I'm going to be somebody! I know now what my future is! And its name is Spider-Man!
It was happening. After so long, it was ultimately happening. He was truly going to make a name for himself. When he gets that four grand, and when the world knows of Spider-Man's existence, things will never truly be the same again. And there was nothing on this earth that was going to stop him from achieving his long-desired goal.
Fortune and glory, here I come...
Later, back at the Loud House...
It was almost getting close to evening when Lincoln had returned home, back to 1216 Franklin Avenue. Along with the audition that had went down and having a Big Belcher special or two over at the Burpin' Burger as a means to celebrate, he had about lost track of the time. Hopefully, his family had not become too worried about where he was almost all day.
The very tip of the setting sun could still be seen as it was slowly disappearing off in the distant horizon. As Lincoln reached the front yard of his house, he could see through the curtains on the other side of the front porch windows that the living room lights were on. He hoped to Heaven above that they were all not waiting for him. He could faintly make out the voices that were spoken aloud from the inside of the living room. Just as he reached through the door, he heard Lynn's voice spoke up.
"I'm telling you, Lunes," the sporty Loud girl said in bewilderment. "This is crazy! Never seen anything like it!"
"I'm having a hard time believin' it too, sis," said another girl's voice. One that was all too familiar.
Lincoln knitted his eyebrows together, their conversation grabbing his attention. What were they talking about? Curious, Lincoln opened the door into the living room, and saw his sister Lynn, and the other girl, his other sister, Luna, sitting on the coach, and looking at Lynn's phone in complete astonishment. Luna Loud, third oldest and rock music fanatic of the Loud siblings, was a young adult woman of nineteen years.
Her brown hair was cut into almost a pixie-style, and she wore a paperclip earring. Her clothing consisted of a purple leather jacket, a black t-shirt, and pair of dark-blue jeans and boots. A white, double-buckled belt hung loosely around her waist, and she wore a pair of black fingerless gloves. Both she and Lynn faced the male Loud teen, and Luna smiled warmly at her little brother.
"Hey there, bro!" she said happily. "Awesome to see ya. Where've you been all day?" Lincoln smiled back at his sisters.
"Oh, you know. Just been walkin' around town is all," More like he was swinging around town. Lincoln took no pleasure in lying to his own family. But given his current circumstance, it wasn't like he had that much of a choice. The last thing he wanted was for all of them to possibly freak out that their own brother was now possibly a mutant freak.
"What were you guys just talking about right now?" the middle sibling asked them.
"Lincoln, didn't you hear?" Lynn asked, getting up from the coach and handing her cellphone over to her brother. "Check it out! People are posting videos of somebody in a costume swinging around the city near the downtown area! This guy's all over the internet!"
After hearing that, Lincoln immediately realized exactly what his jock of a sister was talking about. He tapped on the play button of the phone's touch screen, and it played a video of a certain costumed individual - Lincoln himself of course - swinging passed the streets in a quick blue and red blur. "Wow! Did you guys see that?" someone in the video exclaimed, pointing at Lincoln's - er, Spider-Man's - direction. Probably the person who filmed the video.
"Where'd you get this video?" Lincoln asked his sister.
"Clyde sent it to me on my Facebook page," Lynn explained. "He told me to show it to you when I get the chance."
"That's not all, bro," Luna added, pulling out her own cellphone. On the screen, the same figure - unknowingly their own brother - was preforming acrobatic moves while high up in the air, and then web-zipping towards another location with such grace and smooth momentum. Lincoln smiled a little bit. Man, I look pretty good.
"Huh... Seems like he's quite the showoff, if you ask me," he said, feigning ignorance. "Who exactly is this guy?"
"Not a clue, little bro," Luna said. "Nobody knows who he is or where he came from. It's like he just appeared right out of nowhere."
"Yeah," Lynn agreed. "And to top it off, look at what else he's doing. He's literally shooting ropes out from his hands. How is he able to do that? There's just no way he could be using grappling hooks. There just isn't. Someone in the comment section claimed that they even saw him sticking on one of the building walls."
"Wait, did you just say 'sticking'?" Lincoln asked, again pretending to be ignorant. Lynn nodded her brown-haired head.
"Yeah, bro," she confirmed. "He was actually crawling around on a wall, like he was a spider or something."
"Spider, eh," Luna interjected. "So does that mean those rope things were actually webs?" Lynn looked at her older sister.
"No way," she retorted. "That just ain't possible. People don't shoot webs out of their hands and crawl up walls like a spider can... Can they?"
"Like, eww!" another woman's voice suddenly exclaimed from the upstairs hallway. "Spiders are, like, totes scary and disgusting!"
The three Loud siblings gandered at the top of the stairs, and they noticed their sister, Leni, the second oldest - and the cheery yet air-headed seamstress - of the family, climbing down the stairs with a disgusted expression on her face. Twenty years old, Leni Loud had pale-blond hair with side-swept bangs and a pair of rounded sunglasses on her head. She was dressed in a pair of knee-length shorts, a pair of pink-colored slip-on sandals and a sea-foam green shirt.
She wore a pink bracelet on her left wrist and a set of diamond earrings. Following down behind Leni was another young girl, eighteen years old, brown hair tied into a ponytail, and she was dressed in a yellow plaid skirt and a short-sleeved white shirt. She had a cute little pink flower pinned to the left side of her shirt. This girl was none other than Luan Loud, fourth oldest sibling and aspiring comedian of the Loud family.
"Hey, Leni, Luan," Lincoln said to his other two other sisters. "You girls heard about this too?"
"Who hasn't?" Luan asked. "My boyfriend Benny showed me a video of that same guy walking inside the Royal Woods Theater earlier today."
"Hmm... I wonder what for?" Lincoln said, faking curiosity. "You think he heard about the show and went to the audition?"
"It sure sounds like it," Lynn concurred. A large smile became present on her face. "But if that's the case, I wanna see just what this guy can really do. And another thing, what do you guys think he looks like underneath that mask of his?" Luna shrugged her shoulders.
"Don't know, sis," the rocker said. "Maybe he just prefers to keep his identity a secret?" Nailed it right between the eyes, Luna, Lincoln thought. Luan's lips curled into a mischievous grin.
"A guy who dresses like a spider wants to keep his privacy," the aspiring comedian commented. "A recluse maybe? Hahaha, get it?" The Loud siblings groaned in annoyance from the bad joke.
"Yes, Luan. We get it," Lincoln grumbled, before stretching his arms up into the air. "Well, I'm gonna go take a little nap. If anyone needs me, I'll be up in my room. We can talk more about this spider-guy later." And so, Lincoln trotted up the stairs, leaving his sisters in the living room behind. Right as he reached the top of the stairs, Lincoln zoomed to the side, pressing his back against the wall, and he stuck out his ear, wanting to hear more of what his sisters have to say.
"I don't know about you guys," Lynn said. "But if this guy makes it into the show, I am so looking forward to seeing him on tv."
"Dido on that one, sis," Luna added. "If this dude wins, he sure is gonna go places. I wonder if he can sing?"
"I wonder if he knows any good spider-themed jokes?" Luan asked. "I could definitely use some new material for my stand-up back at college."
"I just hope he doesn't come anywhere near me," Leni squirmed. "Seriously, I like totes hate spiders."
"We know, Leni. We know," groaned Lynn irritably. After hearing all of that, Lincoln smiled big.
It felt really good to know that even before tomorrow, he was already becoming the biggest talk of the town. Er, at least Spider-Man was anyway. In the world of the internet, words gets around pretty fast. They had not seen anything yet. When tomorrow's episode of "So, You Think You've Got Talent" airs at seven, he was going to give the world the best show that they have ever seen in their lives, and then some. And then after that, Hollywood stardom.
Goodbye, Lincoln the Loser, he thought as he quietly headed straight towards his bedroom. Hello, Lincoln the Winner.
Pretty good so far, eh?
Fun fact; the three judges are from three different Marvel-related media.
Clinton King was the talk show host from the comic, "Spider-Man: Amazing Origins" that was released back in 2017.
Michelle Jones was named after the character of the same name - Peter Parker's girlfriend in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
And of course, Ned Leeds, the man who would eventually become another one of Spider-Man's arch-enemies; the Hobgoblin.
Don't forget to review and tell me what you all think. Have a wonderful January, and stay safe.