(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.)
If you guys noticed my PM missing from my profile, it's because I turned it off. No, this is not an April Fools prank, though I sure wish it was. You're all no doubt wondering "Why?" The reason for this is because as of late, I had been getting non-stop private messages from "artist" saying almost the exact same thing, claiming that they want to commission my stories into comics or art through collaborations.
If you ask me, this is all starting to smell like nothing but a load of scams. I am very sorry that it has come down to this. Please try to understand, I didn't want to turn off my PM. I mean, I REALLY didn't want to. But seeing how it is, I have to play it safe just in case so that I don't get scammed out of my wallet. Once again, I am very sorry.
- Chapter Twenty-Nine -
In a Loud Galaxy Far, Far Away
I swallowed a hard lump as I held my lightsaber, my fingers coiling tightly around the hilt, pointing the glowing blue blade out in front of me to keep my attacker at a distance. The towering figure garbed in black, Darth Vader himself, stood over me like an immovable statue, his red lightsaber poised at the ready, his mechanical breathing echoing in my ears, the lifeless black eyes of his helmet staring down at me like they were piercing directly into my soul.
In quick flashes of movement, Darth Vader swung his lightsaber down at my head.
Without even thinking, I instinctively held my own saber up, blocking his attack. But he didn't stop, unleashing one blow after the other with me backing up in retreat and parrying every strike he tried to send my way. I knew for a clear fact that this black-clad monstrosity was strong. But to truly experience it for myself in person was something new entirely. In a fast motion, I narrowly dodged the incoming swing of his red lightsaber, missing my head by a few centimeters. It was only a matter of time until we both ended up out onto the narrow sensor gantry of Cloud City's reactor shaft.
The air around me blew about in all directions, causing my white hair to flutter wildly and Vader's cloak to fly around, making his presence so much more intense. I kept my guard up as Vader sent out another barrage of attacks with his lightsaber, red and blue blades clashing against one another and missing their intended targets, as we moved further and further towards the end of the gantry.
To my growing frustration, whenever I tried to land a blow of my own, Vader seemed to easily block it without a whole lot of effort, swiftly wielding his crimson blade in one gloved hand. I swung my lightsaber down into an arch with the intent of hitting him in the head. But he grabbed my weapon's hilt with his other hand. For a short moment, we struggled for control, but I was quickly losing strength as his helmeted face was inches close to mine, his soulless black eyes peering deeply into my own.
With a great strength I had never felt before, Vader shoved me forward, knocking me down on my back against the floor of the reactor shaft's sensor gantry. Before I could have the chance to get back up, my terrible opponent aimed his blade down at me, the tip of his glowing crimson blade inches away from touching my face. I could already feel the great heat that it was radiating. All it would take was once careless move, and I would be a goner. I nearly caught a hitch in my throat as Vader's lightsaber kept me pinned to the floor.
I was breathing hard, a cold sweat running down my face.
"You are beaten," he gloated triumphantly, his voice low and inhumanly mechanical yet filled with so much evil behind it. "It is useless to resist. Don't let yourself be destroyed as Obi-Wan did." Hearing this monster say my master's name almost sent me into a rage, instilling within me a new sense of resolve. I swiftly knocked Vader's blade away to the side with my own and got back up. I promptly dodged as Vader swung down, his crimson blade cutting apart a steel handrail, sparks flying about in front of us like little fireworks.
I seized this moment to let out a swing of my own. But like before, Darth Vader easily blocked it. He then swung horizontally in an attempt to cut my head off. I ducked just in time to find my opening and I jabbed the tip of my blue lightsaber against his shoulder, nicking off a small piece of his armor in the process. He let out an agitated groan as he staggered backward for a split moment, clutching onto where I had attacked him.
Good! I have you now! I thought with the intent of finishing him off for good. All it would take was one blow with my lightsaber and I would defeat one of the greatest villains in the galaxy. This is for Obi—! But I was too slow to react as I became stricken with fear for a split second as Vader suddenly lunged forward at me with a hissing battle cry, his small injury completely forgotten like it was nothing but a small inconvenience.
I ducked once again as the Dark Lord of the Sith swung his blade out in an overarching vertical swing, cutting off another piece of the gantry while he did so, sparks flying about like a swarm of fireflies. Finally, the both of us had reached the end of the gantry, and I was the one pinned against the steel handrail. Exhausted, my entire body spent, I tried to ignore these things as I was determined to put an end to this duel despite the obvious fact that I was severely outclassed. I thrusted my lightsaber out at Vader with the intention of piercing him straight into his chest.
I realized too late how big of a mistake I had just made, for Vader easily parried my attack, knocking my blade to the side and swung his own lightsaber upward with blinding speed that made me too slow to react. In that instant, I felt a terribly burning pain which I had never felt before in my entire life, screaming to the top of my lungs as I clutched onto the stump where my right hand used to be, my lightsaber now gone, having fallen down the reactor shaft. I fell to my knees, still clutching onto my terrible cauterized wound.
Just like that, I went from a brave Jedi warrior to a scared little child. I gazed up at Vader who loomed above me like a menacing shadow of evil, his mechanical breathing now at a steady pace, red lightsaber held in one hand. I was now firmly at his mercy.
"There is no escape," he said, his black eyes peering at me. "Don't make me destroy you."
My heart pounded almost out of control in my chest, fear taking a further hold of me.
"Lincoln...," Vader went on, deactivating his lightsaber with a hiss, "you do not yet realize your importance. You have only begun to discover your power. Join me and I will complete your training. With our combined strength, we can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy!"
"I'll never join you!" I growled in refusal, pinning the seared stump of my left hand underneath my right arm.
"If you only knew the power of the Dark Side," Vader continued. "...Obi-Wan never told you about how strong a nightmare can truly be!" I glared hatefully at my enemy.
"He told me—!" I froze before I could finish my sentence. My face fell into confusion, my brows knitting closely together. I blink a couple of times.
Wait a minute... I thought. Vader didn't say that in the movie...
A skin-crawling chuckle was heard, and it came from my black-clad enemy. It grew louder and louder to the point of becoming a maddening cackle, and it echoed throughout the reactor shaft. My eyes slowly widened. I've never heard Vader do that before. There was never a moment in the original trilogy where he let out the most terrifying laugh. Then I noticed how deep it got. So deep that it started to sound a lot less human and more like a demon.
Finally, Vader stopped and gazed back down at me.
I struggled to get back up to my own two feet, but somehow, I slipped and nearly ended up falling off the ledge of the gantry. I quickly grabbed the ledge with my other hand in a desperate attempt to save my own life. Just like that, I was left dangling in the air, the very bottom of the reactor shaft long and unseeable. I gazed back up to see Vader still standing over me, his gloved hands slowly reaching up to grab his helmet.
"That's right, Lincoln!" he exclaimed in a taunting manner. "I am your worst NIGHTMARE!" I stared up in utter horror as Darth Vader, the Dark Lord of the Sith easily removed his helmet from his head, letting it fall down to the steel floor of the gantry. My eyes bulged to their full capacity, fear taking further hold of me like never before. Freddy Krueger's leering smile grew across his burnt face, revealing his yellow-stained teeth.
"Surprise!" he bellowed in that signature deep voice of his before belting out another mad cackle.
Instinctively, I looked down and saw a series of fire growing from the bottom of the reactor shaft. It quickly got so close to the point where the flames were licking at my feet. I could scarcely hold on to the ledge of the gantry, realizing that I was losing strength very hurriedly. Krueger activated his red lightsaber again, and with that same evil grin, he raised the blade above his head and swung it down at me.
I let out a scared yelp as I made the mistake in instinctively letting go of the ledge.
"NOOOO!" I screamed to the top of my lungs as I fell down through the reactor shaft, consumed by the surrounding hellish flames...
Tuesday, August 3rd...
I shot up from my bed with a desperate gasp, a cold sweat forming around my face. After calming down and then registering that I was now back in the real world, I flopped against the mattress again and massaged the bridge of my nose with a very tired groan.
"Why me?" I muttered. "Why me?" I let out a deep and frustrated sigh. Curious to know what time it was, I glanced over to my alarm clock, seeing that it was now close to seven oh-four, my usual morning schedule. Since I was now good and awake, I might as well get it done and over with. I tossed aside my blanket and jumped out of bed. After having grabbed my towel and loofah, I walked outside my bedroom and headed straight to the bathroom.
Seven minutes of a refreshing shower time had gone by in a flash, and I found myself already done, drying my hair and my entire skinny body off before heading back out over to my bedroom, and I combed my hair the way I wanted it to be. I took the time to pause for just a short moment and I suddenly caught the undeniably familiar whiff of cooked bacon. I knew right away that Dad was already starting to make breakfast again downstairs. Seeing that there was no time like the present, I got into my cleanest pair of socks and Star Wars-themed underwear.
And since I was in a certain mood for a certain aforementioned epic space opera, I scanned through the very bottom of my dresser drawer and managed to pull out a fairly worn copy of the novelization of Return of the Jedi, which I was only more than a third of the way through from finishing. I sat in the middle of my bed cross-legged, and I opened the book to a page I had marked, allowing me to pick up from where I had previously left off.
Like I'm going to let Freddy ruin one of my favorite franchises for me! I thought.
I was five pages in until I eventually got to the part where Luke just started fighting Darth Vader aboard the Death Star. I was really sucked into the story that I almost lost track of the time. Even though I already knew what was going to happen since I had seen the movie close to a hundred times at that point, it still made reading it in novel format no less fun. Just when things were about to get interesting, Dad's voice suddenly call out from downstairs.
"Breakfast is ready, kids! Come and get 'em!"
Tossing aside my book, I jumped out of bed and hastily changed into my clothes. For that Tuesday, I wore a pair of gray-blue denim shorts as well as my usual favorite pair of Nike Bruins. Deciding that I wanted to mix it up a little bit, I put on a white ringer shirt with the poster for Star Wars nicely printed on the front. Specifically, it was of the original 1977 movie, which would later come to be known a lot more famously as Episode IV: A New Hope.
I then suddenly heard a loud rumbling coming from outside in the hallway, like a stampede of elephants. I opened my door just in time to see my sisters starting to race down the stairs all at once. I managed to follow closely behind them, worried that there wasn't going to be any breakfast left for me if I didn't haul it immediately. The girls and I made it to the dining room, got into our respective seats, and we bowed our heads to pray.
After a collective "Amen!", we practically ravaged the dinner table filling our plates with almost one of everything that was within our reach. As we were two and a half minutes in, as I ate away at my plate of scrambled eggs, I heard Mom and Dad start to talk amongst themselves, and what they were saying immediately made my ears perk.
"Are you still thinking about yesterday's conversation, Lynn?" Mom asked. Our father looked at her with an admitting smile and let out a small chuckle.
"I can't help it, Rita!" he said. "The whole idea of a cellular phone like that sounds just so ding dang good!"
You're not alone there, Dad! I agreed mentally.
"It definitely would make our lives a whole lot easier," Lori commented before taking a large bite of her waffles, "even though it all sounds like something right off the set of a science fiction movie."
"I wonder if they might also record videos like our camcorder?" I heard Lana wonder absentmindedly before she stuffed two strips of bacon into her mouth, causing Lola to glare daggers at her in disgust for her utter lack of good manners.
"Do you think someday VHS tapes might also get replaced or something?" Lynn asked nobody one in particular from her spot at the table next to me. Our parents looked over at her direction with furrowed and confused brows.
"Replace VHS tapes?" Dad questioned his thirteen-year-old female namesake. "With what exactly?" Lynn coolly shrugged her shoulders.
"Pfft, I don't know! Some type of disk maybe?" she replied as she took a swig of her brown glass of orange juice.
"Oh, I totally think that'll happen!" Luna exclaimed from her spot next to Leni.
"What makes you say that, Luna?" Mom asked.
"Well, for one thing," Luna began, "they're already replacing cassettes tapes with compact disks at this point! I know this for a fact because Sam, Mazzy, Sully, and I were over at the mall just a few days ago looking around Camelot Music, and we noticed that quite a lot of albums from our favorite bands were formatted into the above-mentioned disks. Seriously, we found only a small handful of cassette tapes in the whole store."
"You know, I kind of been seeing that too lately," Luan piped up. "It's starting to make me think that if they can replace cassettes with that, then who's to say the same thing can't happen to video tapes sometime later in the future?"
"What's your take on this, Lisa? What do you think?" I asked my five-year-old scientific genius for a little sister, stabbing my fork into a piece of bacon.
"Hmmm..." Lisa hummed, stroking her little chin, appearing to be deep in thought. "I will admit that I find such an idea to be most intriguing. However, I honestly do not believe that the compact disk would be the one to do so considering it was specifically manufactured for listening to music, audiobooks, or helping children learn Spanish. And if they were to genuinely replace video tapes with this brand-new piece of hardware in mind, then I believe that it would fall under the more logically appropriate name of... a video disk, perchance?"
"A video disk?" Leni said out loud, captivated in full childlike wonder. "Wow! That sounds, like, totally futuristic!"
"Hmmm... Video disks, eh...?" Dad muttered, now very fascinated. "Not going to lie, that sure does sound like a pretty cool idea." Mom, on the other hand, only chuckled in amusement, clearly still finding everything that we said hard to believe.
"Lord knows when that'll happen," she quipped before taking another sip of her coffee. "And until they actually do get around to making these 'video disks'—as well as that new cellular phone—I'm just gonna stick with the technology we have right now!"
"Oh, come on, Mom!" Luan reasoned. "No need to be so hung up about it. Hahaha! Get it?"
We all groaned annoyedly in response to our comedian for a sister's bad joke.
"Yes, Luan! We get it!" Lucy grunted from her location, irritation creeping up in her near emotionless voice.
We continued on with our breakfast in silence from then on until there were no leftovers found on the table. We did our usual routine, cleaning the dishes to save our father some of the workload. After we were finished, I went out to the living room, and I heard a couple of loud honks coming directly from outside. I opened the front door to see a gray-blue 1970 Volkswagen Transporter parked right up against the curb in front of our house.
"Who is that?" Dad asked, walking over to the front door. He stopped dead in his tracks as soon as he recognized the van. He then walked over to the stairs and shouted in a clear and bellowing voice, "Hey, Luna! Your ride's here!"
"Oi! Mornin', Lincoln!" a deep voice yelled out to me in a bit of a cockney British accent. I quickly recognized the man to be none other than Chester Monk, better known as "Chunk", Luna and her band's roadie I mentioned a long while ago. He was a grown man who appeared to be at least somewhere close to his mid-thirties. He had a bit of an ape-like physique, and his nose was large with a big bronze bull piercing that hung from his nostrils. On his head was a purple checkered newsboy hat and he had a dirty blond-haired wavy mullet that reached down to his upper back.
He wore a sleeveless white shirt with Van Halen printed on the front and a black leather vest with fringes, as well as a pair of dark blue jeans, black Doc Martens boots, and brown leather wristbands. On his left bulging arm was a large and outlined tattoo of a heart with crossbones. To my little twelve-year-old eyes, the guy was nearly big as an ox. An ox who happened to also be British. I came down the wooden stairs of my house's front porch and approached the van and waved back at the roadie who sat behind the wheel in the driver's seat.
"Good morning, Chunk!" I replied energetically to him, stepping up to peak into the passenger window. "How are you doing?"
Chunk let out a good-natured laugh and then he said, "I'm doing alright so far! Had meself a good and hearty English breakfast, I did!"
"Been to any fun gigs lately?"
"Oh, you know all the gigs I attend are always fun, little bruv!" I then backed up a bit and watched as the side door of the Transporter slid wide opened very smoothly and easily, and then one by one, Luna's bandmates climbed outside onto the curb, Sully, Mazzy, and—
I felt my arms sag like a couple of boneless noodles and my legs instantly turned into jelly when a certain teenaged girl with blond hair and a blue dyed streak that went along her bangs came outside, blue worn denim jacket and everything. Sam smiled warmly when she made eye contact with me, causing my little heart to skip a few beats, a jolt of electricity coursing through my entire skinny body.
"Morning, Lincoln!" she said in a perky tone.
I quickly found myself swallowing a lump that appeared out of nowhere in my throat as I returned the gesture to my teenage crush.
"Uh, y-yeah. You t-too, Sam," I greeted back nervously with a forced smile. "Y-You guys here to p-pick up Luna?"
"Yep!" Sully confirmed jovially. "We're off for band practice!"
"Gotta get ready for tomorrow's gig at the Red Herring, you know?" Mazzy added, her brown curly hair covering the top half of her face like always.
"We were planning on having the show over at Bangers & Mosh," Sam explained to me. "Luna did tell you what happened, right?"
"U-Uh-huh... I-I heard..." I replied with a nod of my head, remembering the conversation at Giovanni's three days earlier all the while trying my darndest to get a grip on my composure.
"Real bogus, man," Sully commented somewhat grimly, crossing his arms. "Stinks that it's closed right now. All because of one failed health inspection. But hey, let's try and look on the bright side; we at least still got a gig to do. I'm just really glad that part hasn't changed. Like they say, 'The show must go on', am I right?"
"Oh, totally!" Mazzy agreed.
"Hey, guys!" I heard Luna shout from the front door before excitedly running through the front yard, her loaded guitar case hanging from her back.
"Hey, babe!" Sully said as he embraced her and planted a soft kiss on the side of her head. The two lovebirds parted and then Luna and Sam did their secret best friend handshake. Funny enough, Clyde and I had a secret handshake of our own which was vaguely similar, something we came up with around two months after the met for the first time. And with that, Sully and Mazzy mounted back into the Volkswagen Transporter with Luna following after them. As they were doing so, Sam remained standing and that same cute smile of hers grew even further.
"That's a cool shirt, dude!" Sam complemented. My speedily beating heart had nearly skipped when I heard that.
"Oh..., y-you like it?" I asked shakily.
"Of course, I do!" she replied with an amused giggle before lowering her voice to whisper in my ear. Being so close to the love of my life like that made me all the more nervous to the point where my heart sped a lot faster than what was humanly possible. "Between the two of us..., I just so happen to be a Star Wars fan myself!" Hearing her say that made my eyes bulge in surprise, like I had just learned about the greatest thing in all of existence.
"Wait—really? Y-You actually like Star Wars too?" I asked in total bewilderment, after pulling away and looking her straight in her beautiful eyes. To answer my question, Sam wordlessly unbuttoned her blue denim jacket, and she opened it wide enough to reveal her white shirt which had the poster for The Empire Strikes Back printed nice and clearly on the front. I couldn't believe my own two eyes. I felt like my head was going to explode into confetti all over the front lawn from learning this new information.
"S-Sam, I... I had no idea!" I muttered. Sam giggled one more time.
"There are many things about me that you don't know, Lincoln," she stated, quickly buttoning her jacket back up. "I do plenty of other stuff besides just playing and listening to rock music all day. I like reading comic books, watching Indiana Jones, and going out to the arcade. You do remember when Simon and I hung out with you and Clyde back at Gus' Games & Grub three months ago, right?" Funny enough, I actually still remembered even after a long while. I mean, it's honestly hard not to forget about the outrageous number of high scores she easily racked up on OutRun.
"Oh, that is so awesome!" I said in excitement; all forms of nervousness having dissipated in an instant. But then, I watched as Sam's smile turned into a little frown, which sort of confused me. She pulled me in close again, and in my ear, she whispered, "I'd rather we keep the whole Star Wars thing just between us, okay? There are people out there who think its lame and nerdy. If word got out in my school that I'm a fan, I'll never live it down."
Star Wars may had been a massive cultural force—no pun intended—back in the 1980's, and even though being a big fan of the franchise was not at all inherently a bad thing, it was unfortunately viewed by certain social groups as something only made for little kids and nerds. Around that timeframe, the 80's was experiencing quite a shift in popular culture which leaned heavily towards other things like heavy metal, pop music, and action movies, which were a whole lot more conventional than something "uncool" and "nerdy" like Star Wars.
This made a lot of people hide their fandom as they got older, especially when they became teenagers, out of fear they'd be laughed at and made fun of if ever found out. Peer pressure at its worst. At one point, I had believed everybody loved George Lucas' illustrious trilogy. Unfortunately, I soon learned the hard way that this wasn't the case in the form of my bitter arch-rival, Chandler McCann, when he found out my friends and I were fans, and he never stopped poking fun at us for it since then. That was the kind of ridicule I would never wish upon anybody, least of all the girl of my dreams.
"So, can I trust you not to tell anyone? Not even Luna?" Sam asked me, a pleading look in her pretty eyes. "I know she and I are really close friends, and we share a lot of the same interests, but I still strongly feel like she wouldn't understand." It wasn't exactly unknown to me that none of my sisters were fans of Star Wars the same way as I was back in the day. They always told me it was "lame" or "not their thing". I gazed up at Sam and then smiled, understanding exactly where she was coming from. Like I was ever going to say no to the teenage girl I was madly and secretly in love with.
I mean, let's be real here, how could I?
"Don't worry, Sam," I proclaimed. "You're secret's safe with me. That's a Loud's promise."
"Thanks, little dude!" she said, her cute smile retuning on her equally cute face, as she gently ruffled my hair.
"Hey, Sam? What's the hold up?" Mazzy called out from the Volkswagen Transporter. "Hurry up and let's get a move on!"
"Be'uh wrap it up, luv!" Chunk added. "We go'a get going roit now!"
"Er—coming!" Sam stammered, then turned to me once again. "Be seeing ya, Lincoln!"
"Yeah... Be seeing you too." I spoke.
And with that, she climbed back up into the van and slid the side door all the way shut. I watched as after Sam got into her seat and buckled up, Chunk revved up the ignition, and the roadie carefully eased his gray-blue Volkswagen out from the curb while Luna and the band waved at me. I remained where I stood, not moving a muscle, and watched them disappear down the road with a big and goofy-looking grin displayed on my face. I blissfully sighed as my little twelve-year-old brain became clouded with nothing but the heavenly images of my beloved Samantha.
It's not very often you learn that your childhood crush is a closeted Star Wars fan.
She's totally the Princess Leia to my Han Solo, I thought happily as I walked back over to my house. She just doesn't realize it yet. It was actually pretty funny because back around those days, I always identified more with Luke Skywalker. Without uttering a word, and with the full intention of keeping Sam's secret for as long as I lived, I made my way back upstairs to my bedroom, still hungry for more of that very familiar galaxy far, far away...