Spider-Man/Muppets Fanfic: The Spectacular

[muppetwriter]

BTW: Very much liked how you introduced April in this last chapter. But a jumpsuit? Doesn't she wear a yellow trenchcoat instead?

No, it's a jumpsuit. In the first live-action movie from the 90s, she wore a yellow trenchcoat at the beginning of the film. But in the cartoon series, she always wore a jumpsuit.

 

[The Count]

Hey... Seeing as how it's Friday the 13th, the day of bad luck... Thought I'd give this story a fiendly little bump in the night. Maybe Peter'll have the unknown misfortune of joining with the mass of black living goo in the next chapter? At any rate, I certainly hope we get an update soonerishkibbible.

 

[muppetwriter]

Haha! I wish I could say that it will and I have it coming today, but our story hasn't reached that far yet and I'm still trying to get at least a couple of more chapters released for "The Silver Crystal" before I continue on with this tale.

In the meantime, everyone check into the "What's Next...?" thread for a very important announcement.

 

[The Count]

Well... Since a couple of more chapters for Silver Crystal have been posted... Is there a chance this fine fabulous fanfic could get updated soon too? Please?

 

[muppetwriter]

I've got a couple of more chapters coming for "The Silver Crystal" that get down to the meat of the tale. As soon as I finish them, I promise I'll get back on this one.

I'll be going away on a family outing real soon, so if I won't be logged in or posting anything in a number of days, it's mainly because I'm out of town. During the trip, I'll be working on more chapters for this story and "The Silver Crystal" to post as soon as I return.

I promise these stories will be completed before the end of this year.

 

[The Count]

Sounds good MW. Just jonesing for some more great fanfic from my fave authors, and nagging to get them to finish their stories usually works... At least until their stories are indeed finished. But post when you can, looking forward to it.

 

[muppetwriter]

Sorry this one took a long time to get in, but I finally got it done for everyone to read. Enjoy!

Chapter Eight​

Peter was given a ride in Lori’s Porsche back to the hospital where Harry Osborn had been kept, along with Sean, Edward, and Stanley, who were heading back to the Happiness Hotel on the way there with Lori herself. While they were passing through Times Square, he was frustrated by the situation in which he now found himself. However, his frustrations seemed to have eased as they passed by a JumboTron screen high above with news scrolling across it. There was footage of Spider-Man and Kim Possible leaving the site of the crane incident, with people waving excitedly at their departure, and the words, “Web of Heroes to Receive Key to the City.”

This was wishful thinking on the part of Scrooge McDuck and the city administrators. No one had contacted Peter about such a thing since, naturally, they had no means of doing so. They might’ve contacted Kim and Ron every now and then (and even Mickey Mouse, despite the fact that he left temporarily to focus more on Hollywood and his magic), but they wouldn’t have done it without Peter there—he was the greatest asset to their team. He heard and read about the intended ceremony in the local news, which were mostly announced by April O’Neil. The mayor said that they were going to make this presentation, and their hope was that Spider-Man would see fit to accompany his teammates and join in on the festivities. If he didn’t, the key would be donated to the Museum of New York and be put on permanent display.

Peter hadn’t bothered to call and say he’d come; the chances were that every crank in the city was doing exactly that already—especially a few or so occupants at the Happiness Hotel who weren’t aware of his secret like Kermit, Fozzie, Gonzo, Lori, and Sean were—no doubt hoping some sort of monetary reward came with the honor. In fact, he’d more or less decided that he would not show up. As Peter Parker, he was seeking ways to bring in regular income. But being Spider-Man wasn’t about chasing wealth and fame. Still, with Jameson’s latest mad-on about Spider-Man and being so anxious to prove the web-slinger a menace, Peter couldn’t resist the thought of Spider-Man being lionized by the very public to which Jameson wanted to criminalize him.

Peter continued to go back and forth about it as he and the others went to the Happiness Hotel, where Jenny paid a visit after dropping Rizzo off there, both still a bit shaken after their encounter with the flying taxicab driven by Ryan. She came there with a large package that was sent to the diner, only minutes after the startling phenomenon, claiming to be a new designer dress that she hoped would be accepted by Lady Holiday’s modeling agency just so her and her father could pay off the expensive mortgage hanging over the diner by Rachel Bitterman.

Jenny did not once have the chance to open the package, because she was so anxious to join Peter, Sean, Lori, Stanley, Fozzie, Gonzo, Rizzo, and Kermit in visiting Harry Osborn at the hospital. Taking the Electric Mayhem’s bus there, they arrived to see Harry preparing to check out. He still looked a little unsteady, even weak, but the hospital had pronounced him fit to travel and decreed that bed rest in his own home was the best thing for him.

Hospital policy insisted that Harry be brought to the hospital doors in a wheelchair, and his friends (especially Peter) were only too happy to oblige. It felt good for them all to be relaxing with such an old friend. The more time had passed, the more Harry acted like his old self, the more convinced Peter, the Muppets, and the Thomas siblings were that maybe the worst really was past them.

Though the Electric Mayhem bus was parked right near the front doors, Harry’s limo driver was waiting for him. It was decided upon Peter that he would accompany Harry in the limousine, while the others took the Electric Mayhem bus to follow. The ride over to the town house was amazingly carefree. Harry and Peter reminisced about their time in high school, and how Peter had bailed Harry out when it came to science. When talk turned, as it invariably did, toward Norman Osborn, Harry was fairly restrained. Peter supposed that was natural—the poor guy was trying to cope with so many losses at once.

Once they arrived, Peter and the others helped Harry through the main foyer and into the small elevator that would carry them to the penthouse floor. Harry inserted the key that would bring them up there, and the elevator shuddered slightly before it wheezed to life and hauled them to the top floor. Bernard, Harry’s butler, was waiting for them, and he opened the ornate gate that blocked access to the penthouse itself. Everyone stepped off the elevator. Jenny hovered near Harry’s elbow just in case her friend was seized with momentary weakness.

“Welcome home, Harry,” Bernard said as he stepped aside. “Thank God you’re all right.”

Harry nodded slightly in acknowledgment while Bernard relieved Harry of his small suitcase. “Thank you, Bernard.”

“Yes…Thank God indeed.” A nearby voice said, and everyone looked past Bernard to see two people that were all too familiar to Jenny, Sean, Lori, and the Muppets—Rachel Bitterman and Nicky Holiday. Both of them descended down a flight of stairs to stunned and frightened looks on the faces of Sean, Lori, Jenny, and the Muppets. Neither Harry nor Peter knew whom either of them were, but have heard a few rumors. “Hello, Harry. How are you feeling today?”

Harry looked strangely at Rachel as he replied. “I’m doing fine.” He then motioned towards Bernard and asked, “Who is she?”

Before Bernard could answer for Harry, Fozzie stepped forward and spoke up. “Never mind who she is! Somebody call the police and have them arrest the guy she’s with!” Fozzie was pointing directly at Holiday as he demanded that, and the jewel thief knew that the jig was up.

“Oh, Fuzzy.” Rachel finally said. “What is it that you have against Quentin?” The eyes on Jenny, the Thomas siblings, and the Muppets nearly bugged out in reaction to what Rachel said. They often got Quentin Fitzwaller confused with Nicky Holiday, seeing as how the two looked so much alike despite their different upbringings (Nicky became a manipulative thief while Quentin became a law-abiding security guard). But seeing “Quentin” standing side-by-side and even arm-in-arm with Rachel Bitterman was a total surprise. “Can a girl have an old boyfriend be with her during a visit to see her one and only nephew?”

“Nephew?” Peter and Harry exclaimed.

“Boyfriend?” Jenny, the Thomas siblings, and the Muppets shouted, outnumbering Peter and Harry in the shouting limit.

Holiday was a little bewildered himself, even though he was given specific instructions by Rachel to come back from his search for Flint Marko and join her in her visit to see Harry Osborn, hoping two faces from his recent past will help bring him back to the way he was before his accident. All Holiday had to do was stand where he was and look like Quentin Fitzwaller (not talk like him, which would’ve been impossible since he never met the man before), wearing normal, uncomfortable white socks other than the usual rainbow-colored ones and showing off a friendly smile that began to hurt his face.

“Yes, Quentin and I were once an item, back when he was working at Walt Disney World.” Rachel explained, as she and Holiday approached the group. “Since then, we’ve been a little apart from each other, but that all changed three years ago when we started dating.”

“Dating?” Jenny exclaimed, finding it very difficult to believe someone as nice and fair as Quentin Fitzwaller would have a relationship with a greedy, heartless woman like Rachel.

Harry was too focused on another subject that she brought up in her statement. “I’m sorry. But did you say that I was your nephew?” He asked that question with a confused expression, holding his hand up to his head in reaction to the slight headache he had. “I don’t seem to have ever heard about you in my whole life.”

Rachel was very quick to answer. “That’s because Norman never had the time to tell you about his family history. You see, I am his sister. I once went by the name of Rachel Joan Osborn and had a wonderful relationship with my brother, before our father saw more potential in him rather than me and shunned me from the family. Soon after high school, I went to college here in New York City under the name that most of you know me as today: Rachel Bitterman. And after I got my degree in accounting, I had risen up to become the banker I am now. Just as soon as I heard that Norman died, I had to find you, Harry. I had to let you know that you weren’t the last living Osborn.”

Rachel’s story sounded somewhat convincing to Harry and the others, even though it also sounded like something a common moneygrubber would make up to become heir to a fortune. But if there was any proof that she was telling the truth, it was Bernard, who spoke right after she finished explaining herself. “You have admitted several times that she was the long lost relative you and your father had been searching for, Harry.”

“Oh, please.” Lori muttered, and though she might’ve been speaking out of turn, the others were pretty much having the same thoughts, especially Fozzie, Rizzo, and Jenny. Even if Harry hadn’t lost his memory, the whole aunt-nephew relationship he supposedly had with Rachel still would’ve seemed highly unlikely and just a lame excuse from Bitterman to gain more money from Osborn’s fortune.

“Whether it sounds pleasant or not, Miss Thomas, Harry is legally my nephew,” Rachel said, “And you can expect to see us together a lot in the future.”

“The heck you say.” Sean said as quietly as he could to avoid attention.

To break the tension that had been building up in the room, ever since Holiday and Bitterman walked in, Bernard quickly changed the subject by picking up a large package that had the exact dimensions of Jenny’s package, which had been sitting near the front door, and approached Rachel with it. “Where shall I place your mail, Miss Bitterman?”

Rachel could hear Lori chuckling nearby after Bernard asked that question, but dismissed her immaturity by focusing on the object that the Osborn butler had brought before her. “Set it whatever you want, Harold.”

“It’s Bernard, Madame.” He corrected her with a low sigh.

“Whatever.” She remarked, as she walked with Holiday to where Harry stood, wrapping her free arm around with his left. “If none of you mind, I’m going to show my nephew around a place that he apparently has no recollection of.”

Before Harry could walk a few more steps away from him, Peter immediately spoke up. “Uh, before you go…I brought you a homecoming gift.” Peter shrugged off his backpack and removed from it a large, round, crudely gift-wrapped object. Rachel just rolled her eyes at it, while Holiday was trying to keep himself from laughing in order to stay in character. Harry took it from him and opened it, but the smile on his face indicated that he knew what it was before he even unwrapped it.

“It’s your old ball,” he said, and sure enough, it was. A battered, slightly under-inflated basketball with the name “Parker” scrawled on it. “Thanks, buddy.” He dribbled it a few times, then tossed it to Peter in a reasonably good pass. It seemed like another pleasant moment that the two haven’t had in a while, until Rachel Bitterman stopped it all, fearing it would keep Harry from remembering the fact that Peter was supposed to be his greatest enemy.

“Perhaps Harry should catch up on his rest, like the doctor ordered him to.” She suggested. “Lord knows we don’t want him losing any more of his past memories.” She said that with a grin on her face that seemed too sinister for Jenny, Rizzo, and Fozzie not to notice.

“Uh, okay.” Harry obliged, before turning his attention back to his friends. “I guess I’ll see you all later.”

As he was being lead out of the room by Rachel and Holiday, Peter realized that he was still holding his gift. “Hey, buddy! Don’t forget this!” He bounced the ball back toward Harry, but it had bounced past him and smacked into a pedestal supporting an antique vase that looked to be from the Ming dynasty. Peter and the others were horrified as they saw the pedestal tilt from the impact and the vase begin to fall. They were too far away to do anything about it short of leaping all the way across the room or—in Peter’s case—firing some weblines to intercept it.

Harry, however, moved quickly…far more quickly than he should have been able to. Instantly he grabbed the ball to prevent it from bouncing around and hitting other breakables while, at the same time, snagging the falling vase out of midair with the other hand. Amazed at his prowess, Harry stared at both the ball and the vase, and then at his friends. “Wow! Did you guys see that?”

They most definitely had and Peter, the Thomas siblings, Kermit, Gonzo, and Fozzie were extremely uneasy over having done so. The last thing they needed was Harry wondering why he could move faster, and with greater strength, than ever before. But, in the case of Rachel Bitterman (who watched Harry’s prowess with glee next to an equally impressed Nicky Holiday), it was exactly what she needed to see in order to confirm her that there was still a lot of the “Goblin Formula” left within Harry.

Quickly Peter, the Thomas siblings, Kermit, Fozzie, and Gonzo did the best they could to hide their growing anxiety. “Guess you still got the moves, eh, Harry?” Kermit said.

“Unfortunately.” Lori muttered.

“I guess so.” Harry said, carefully placing the vase on the pedestal, before waving goodbye to them.

Soon after Harry, Rachel, and Holiday were out of the room, Peter and the others began to head out themselves. Before Jenny was halfway into the elevator, she remembered that her package had been left sitting on top of a desk in the room they were just standing in. Going back to pick it up, she realized that now there were two packages sitting there that looked exactly the same—hers and the one for Rachel Bitterman. As she tried her best to determine which one was the one that she brought with her, Rizzo’s voice echoed from within the elevator, calling out to her.

“To heck with it.” She uttered, picking up the package that looked familiar to her the most and rushing back to the elevator to rejoin her friends.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~​

In an alleyway outside the Broadhurst Theater was a parked taxicab with a front end that was charred and barely recognizable. Standing near the vehicle were five men, all were black suits that were stashed under the floorboard in the backseat. Three of these men felt more than comfortable to be back in the familiar black suits, while the other two were either highly confident or deadpan. Ryan, the taxicab driver/C.O.V.N.E.T. agent who was the only confident one in the bunch, was as giddy as a schoolboy wearing his uniform with his fellow C.O.V.ies.

“Oh, man! This is so freakin’ awesome!” Ryan exclaimed. “I can’t wait to see the looks on the guys’ faces when they see me bringing the Agent K. Edgar Singer back to C.O.V.N.E.T.” He eased his excitement long enough to ask one important question. “Are we at war with Plumbers now?”

Singer reacted to the name of the organization like a bad disease, his gaze moving instantly away from the cufflink that he was straightening and towards Ryan. “What?”

“The guy back there who chased us was a Plumber.” Ryan said. “I recognized the equipment they use. It’s not as powerful as what we have back at C.O.V.N.E.T., but it’s effective enough to rival it.”

“What in the hey-ho are Plumbers?” Bobo inquired.

Ed hesitated only a moment to answer his question. “A secret government organization just like ours that also deals with extra-terrestrial, paranormal, and other situations that not even the F.B.I. or C.I.A. could handle in hundreds of years. They have a much better location for their base, too. We have cement factories, whereas they have Mount Rushmore.”

“C.O.V.N.E.T. had once worked with them during the discovery of a Chimera Sui Generis known as Vilgax, who was worth more to C.O.V.N.E.T. than the Plumbers.” Ryan added. “We wanted to study him in order to understand the secrets of the universe, while the Plumbers just wanted to be rid of him for good, suggesting that he was largely responsible for the various incidents they dealt with. Soon after our partnership was broken, the Plumbers hunted down and defeated Vilgax, leaving us to continue finding the truth of the universe.”

“And that’s exactly what I believe I’ve found.” Ed said. “I don’t know exactly how or even why I know about this, but there’s a substance more powerful than any we’ve ever encountered. A symbiote—a living alien organism that bonds with another living organism in order to survive. I don’t know much more about it than that, but it does seem to have a name that keeps ringing through my mind…Venom!”

Bobo, Butch, and Clyde could recall hearing that name during the time Ed was in an unconscious state. “That was what you muttered in your sleep, sir. Something about Venom and symbiote…I didn’t know whether you were dreaming of a snake or a parasite.”

“Something on the terms of both, Rentro.” Ed remarked. “If we don’t stop Venom, I fear that our entire planet could be at risk of extinction.”

“Then we should get back to headquarters right away and warn the others.” Ryan suggested.

Ed shook his head negatively. “I’m afraid there’s no time to convince Luft or anyone else of my secret knowledge. We have to get out and find Venom right now—just the five of us.” Bobo, Butch, and Clyde swallowed hard, with thoughts running through their minds of another vicious, dangerous alien being that they would have to face in order to save the world. “Agent Ryan, your cab has just the equipment we need to track him down, capture him for brief study, and annihilate him, am I right?”

“Yes, sir.” Ryan acknowledged.

“Then get it ready.” Ed ordered. “The suit that I was wearing minutes ago could prove useful as well. The fabric on it seems sturdy enough to act as a shield against Venom’s power of symbiosis. Not to mention, the tracking device attached to the gun that came with it.” He then took the gun out from inside the taxicab and removed the device from it, gazing at its alien controls, which he was surprisingly able to understand within a few seconds. “I’ll just set it to find anything cold, black, fluid, and living and that’ll bring the time spent on our search down to a minimum.”

Ryan nodded bravely and boldly to Ed’s plans, while Bobo, Butch, and Clyde had been very fretful of their first mission back as C.O.V.N.E.T. agents. All the three of them wanted was to be part of a decent job that paid enough money to buy all the jalapeno sandwiches from Pete’s Diner that they wanted. But if they were to at least try and get Ed Singer’s memory back on track, they had to help him stop whatever it was that came to Earth with him.

“Nothing shall stand in our way of this mission, men.” Ed stated, just as they heard a chorus of cheers, applause, and whistling from the sidewalk located across from their location. The men turned to see a crowd of people looking upward, and as they followed their gaze, there was Spider-Man webbing his way across the skyline. In the distance they could hear sirens wailing, signifying that he was off on another mission of mercy. “Not even him…whoever he is.”

“Spider-Man?” Clyde said. “Maybe he can help us. I mean, he helps everybody else, doesn’t he?”

Ed turned his glare away from where Spider-Man had been swinging and focused it on Clyde, who seemed very intimidated by it, clutching onto Butch as he stood behind him. “If you really have been with C.O.V.N.E.T. as long as you and your friend claim to have been, you’d know the first and most important rule of being an agent: Never trust anyone outside the organization…especially if that person is a no-good Plumber! Understood?”

Clyde nervously nodded his head in agreement. “Y-Y-Y-Yes, s-s-s-s-sir.”

END OF CHAPTER EIGHT​

 

[The Count]

Simply super... Loved the ride through town as Peter's doubting himself, that's where the heart of the story lies. Harry displaying some goblin formula effects... Nicky passing himself off as Quenton... Why am I afraid Jenny picked the wrong package? And the part that Ryan and the COVees have is very thrilling...

Wonder if you've seen the new Ben-Ten episodes and know about the movie next Friday. Thanks MW, please post more soon

 

[The Count]

Simply super... Loved the ride through town as Peter's doubting himself, that's where the heart of the story lies. Harry displaying some goblin formula effects... Nicky passing himself off as Quenton... Why am I afraid Jenny picked the wrong package? And the part that Ryan and the COVees have is very thrilling...

Wonder if you've seen the new Ben-Ten episodes and know about the movie next Friday. Thanks MW, please post more soon

 

[muppetwriter]

Yeah, I've been watching the new episodes. I watched the one last week at the hotel I was staying in at the Universal Studios resort when Ben and Grandpa had deaged to four and ten courtesy of a sample from the Fountain of Youth. And last night's episode was a treat when they attended the wedding of a Tennyson relative and his alien fiancee.

I am looking forward to Secret of the Omnitrix next Friday. I hope Cartoon Network puts black bars at the top and bottom parts of the screen to give the movie that cinematic effect like they had with Good Wilt Hunting. I'll definitely be taking notes for future stories that I'll do with Ben 10 involved.

I'll have more story up soon, whether it be "The Spectacular", "The Silver Crystal", or my "Legends of Disney" tale. In the meantime, I'm going to head over to the Friends and Family forum soon and post a thread for the pics I'd taken at my recent Florida vacation. They're really funny (especially my Kim Possible one).