The MARVELOUS Muppets: The Great X-Muppet Caper

[muppetwriter]

Oh, well, I'd already explained where I was going to go with this while I was working on "Hulk-O-Vision". I understand that Tony Stark has some "playboy issues" in the comics; but in my continuity, he's not the same guy that Marvel made him out to be in the comics. In my stories, he only fell in love with one woman and that was Scooter's (and Skeeter's) mother; and since then, he hasn't gotten involved with any other woman.

Hmmm... Will run the name of "Quill" by one of my best friends, who's a comic book afficionado. You might want to do a bit of searching and see if the Marvel Online Handbook/Encyclopedia's still up and running for more informed reference on the character.

This is what I'd found on Marvel's official site for Quill, whose real name is Maxwell Jordan.

http://www.marvel.com/universe/Quill_(Maxwell_Jordan)

I'll see if I can't find something more on him.

 

[The Count]

Well... It's not the womanizing I'd object to...
And I'll just run the name by my friend. Other than that, I hope for more story and less muffining soon.

 

[muppetwriter]

Here's a very long and action-packed chapter.

Chapter Eight​

“I’m glad you’d shown up, Sarah.” Frankie said, as she allowed the teenage brunette that was standing on their porch inside the mansion. “We’re just about to get on with the show.”

“I would not miss this for the world, Frances.” Sarah said, and Frankie cringed as she called her “Frances,” since she was so used to people (with the exception of Mr. Herriman) calling her “Frankie” over the past years. ‘But what can you expect with someone as high strung as Sarah,’ Frankie thought. “But I do wonder if my old imaginary friend will be attending.” That’s when Sarah and Frankie heard someone grumbling in frustration, and they noticed a small dwarf-like man walking by; his name was Hoggle, Sarah’s imaginary friend.

“I don’t really care for silly old puppet shows. Puppets are nothin’ but annoying things that’ll drive you insane, if you just look at ‘em for an hour.” Hoggle complained, but he had quickly changed his tone as he looked at Sarah. “However…er…since you’d shown up…ah…I guess I could make an exception.” Sarah just smiled at Hoggle, and Hoggle gave somewhat of a smile back to her.

“Hard to believe Hoggle has been your imaginary friend for only a year.” Frankie told Sarah. “We’re so used to keeping imaginary friends here who’ve been created by kids under the age of ten. It’s rare when we have a friend that was made straight from the mind of a teenager.”

“Everyone calls me ‘imaginary friend’, like I ain’t real!” Hoggle said. “Well, I am real!”

“Chill out, Hogman.” Frankie said.

“It’s Hoggle!!” He snapped, angrily.

“Whatever.” Frankie uttered. “What I’m trying to say is that just because you’re classified as an imaginary friend doesn’t mean that they’re saying you’re not real. If I’m here looking right at you and talking to you, then there’s no question that you’re a real person.”

“That’s right!” Hoggle exclaimed. “And I appreciate it if you remember that!” Frankie just rolled her eyes in frustration, while Sarah just kept on smiling. It wasn’t long before Sarah noticed another imaginary friend of hers that Foster’s had been keeping. A hairy creature that was even larger than Eduardo, with a shaggy head that had two big horns on it, passed through the foyer. When he saw Sarah standing by the door, he became very happy.

“Sarah!” The creature said; his voice was just as big and bulky as he was.

“Ludo!” Sarah said, and she walked up to the big, furry creature to give him a big hug. “I’m sorry that I’ve been away from you all for such a long time.”

“Ludo…lonely.” He said.

“I know. I know.” Sarah told him. “But I’m here now. We’re all together again. You, me, Hoggle, and…”

“Our fair maiden has returned!!” said a small, lively voice, and they turned their heads to notice Sir Didymus, a gallant mouse creature, riding on his sheepdog (who he named Ambrosious) down a flight of stairs and up to Sarah. “My lady, where have thou been? For a moment, I’d believed you’d be gone for an eternity.”

“Of course not, Sir Didymus.” Sarah said. “I’d never forget about my good friends from the labyrinth.” Frankie had known Sarah for a year, and since then, she had always brought up stories about a labyrinth that she met her imaginary friends in. At first, the stories intrigued her, because they sounded like something out of a fairy tale; but then she wondered if the “fairy tales” were real, and that she really might’ve met her so-called “imaginary friends” in this labyrinth.

“Hey, cool!” said Bloo, who had shown up in the foyer after his visit to the kitchen, noticing Hoggle, Ludo, and Sir Didymus. “When did these imaginary friends get here?”

“Uh, Bloo? They’ve been here for a whole year.” Frankie said. “How could you have not noticed them for so long?”

“I don’t know.” Bloo replied. “They’re so many imaginary friends in this place; I can’t keep up with them all.” At that moment, Mac and Gonzo arrived in the foyer as well, and Bloo went nuts over Gonzo again, just like he had been for the past twenty-four hours. “Hey, my blue brother! Ready for the puppet show?” Gonzo sighed; he was still making the Foster’s residents believe that he was an imaginary friend, just long enough to find a way out.

“Yeah, I guess so.” Gonzo said, as Frankie walked over to him and introduced him to Sarah and her imaginary friends.

“Magneto, I’d like you to meet Sarah and her friends—Ludo, Sir Didymus, and Hoggle.” Frankie said, and they waved at Gonzo, who waved back in return. Sarah couldn’t help but notice how depressed Gonzo looked and feel a little bad for him.

“Why are you so sad, Magneto?” She asked. “From what I hear, Foster’s is a wonderful place for imaginary friends like you. You should be full of joy.” If Gonzo wanted to ever get out of Foster’s, he couldn’t let his depression show; so he gave Sarah and everyone else a smile that was huge enough to show off his teeth and gums. “That’s much better.”

Gonzo really wished that his smile could be legit; he wished that there was something that could make him happy enough to have hope. And that’s when he noticed that particular something, as it crawled on the ceiling high above the foyer. Gonzo saw Spider-Man, who he believed came because his spider-sense warned him of Gonzo’s trouble. Spidey looked down (or up, from his perspective) at Gonzo and placed a finger over his mouth, signaling for Gonzo to keep silent about his presence, long enough for him to help. Gonzo nodded, but Frankie and the others had noticed his nod and also how he was looking up at the ceiling.

“What are you…?” Frankie asked, and they looked up to see what Gonzo saw, but they didn’t see anything.

“O…kay.” said Bloo, who was a little creped out. “Listen, Mages, I know the ceiling looks great and all, but there’s a lot of other great stuff to see here…like that puppet show!!!” Bloo screamed with joy, as he grabbed Gonzo’s hand and led him away to the assembly room, where the puppet show was being held in. After Frankie and the others had followed them in, they closed the door behind them and left the foyer completely deserted. Spidey had taken this opportunity to drop down from the ceiling and land in the center of the foyer. He walked over to the closed assembly room entrance and placed his ear against the door, hearing Mr. Herriman begin the festivities with a brief speech.

“Welcome, everyone, to the Annual Foster’s Home Puppet Show!” Herriman said, and everyone roared with applause. Spidey moved away from the door and looked around, trying to figure out a way to get to Gonzo, without anyone noticing him. But he had stopped planning thing out, when he heard a clanging noise from behind him, as if someone had dropped something metallic on the marbled floor. Spidey turned around and saw a small, metal ball on the floor, with the letters “S”, “H”, “I”, “E”, “L”, and “D” branded on the side of it.

“S.H.I.E.L.D.?!” Spidey uttered, just before the metal ball exploded, unleashing a powerful sonic wave that sent Spidey flying backwards, crashing through the door to the assembly room. His stunned body flew over the Foster’s residents and towards the stage, where Mr. Herriman was still standing. Herriman dodged out of the way, just in time for the costumed hero to crash into the stage. Everyone had mixed emotions of shock and joy, as they saw Spider-Man lying under a pile of rubble.

“I don’t believe it!!” Bloo shouted. “We’ve got a puppet show and Spider-Man! I don’t care what anyone says! We rock!”

Gonzo wasn’t sure if crashing into the room was part of Spider-Man’s plan or not, but he had taken the opportunity to escape from the mansion, while everyone’s attention was focused on Spidey. However, once he was near the doorway, a large group of heavily-armored S.H.I.E.L.D. agents blocked his path; they were all aiming their guns at Gonzo and the other Foster’s residents.

“No one move!” The lead agent ordered. “You mutants are all under arrest, by order of General Nick Fury and the S.H.I.E.L.D. agency.” The Foster’s residents were confused, when the agent classified them all as “mutants.”

“Mutants?!” Frankie exclaimed, right before Spider-Man leaped from the pile of rubble and clutched onto the ceiling. The S.H.I.E.L.D. agents spotted him and fired another sonic charge, which Spidey fired and attached a line of webbing onto. He whirled the sonic charge over his head and threw it back at the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, causing it to explode right in front of them. While the agents fell back from the blast, Spidey leaped over to the Gonzo and led him out of the room.

“Hey! Where’s he going with our new pal?!” Bloo shouted, angrily.

“Coco! Coco! Coco! Coco!” said an alarmed Coco.

“As much as I hate to admit it, you’re right.” Wilt told Coco. “It looks like Spider-Man’s kidnapping Magneto!”

“Well, if he thinks he’s gonna get away with it, then that web-head has got another thing comin’!” Madame Foster exclaimed. “Come on, everybody! Let’s go kick his spandex-clad booty!” The Foster’s residents charged out of the assembly room and went after Spider-Man, who was running up a flight of stairs with Gonzo.

“Kermit, Angelica, and Robin are waiting right outside for us.” Spidey said, and Gonzo was very surprised.

“They know you?!” He exclaimed. “Wow! I’m gonna have a lot of questions to ask them!” Peter Parker—the person under the mask—didn’t realize the mistake he had just made until that moment; Kermit may’ve known about his secret identity, but Gonzo hadn’t.

“Uh…we can escape through that window.” Spidey said, pointing at a huge window straight ahead of them. But before they could even get near it, several more S.H.I.E.L.D. agents crashed their way in and surrounded Gonzo & Spidey.

“You’re making this really hard, Spider-Freak!” An agent yelled.

“Is Fury’s patch over the wrong eye again?” Spidey bantered. “This isn’t Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters!”

“Don’t you think we know that, web-head?” The agent said, just as they heard some shouting nearby; they noticed the Foster’s residents marching down the foyer, like an angry mob going after a monster (minus the pitchforks and torches). Gonzo ran down the stairs and attempted to warn them about what the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were doing.

“You all have got to get out of here!” Gonzo said. “These guys think you’re some kind of threat to humanity.”

“The only threat that I see is the guy in the costume!” Bloo told Gonzo, and an imaginary friend whose whole body was just one big costume started weeping. “No, I’m not talking about you, Carl.”

“Bloo, you don’t understand.” Gonzo said. “These guys think you’re mut…” Before Gonzo could finish, another squad of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents busted through the front door, and they started to capture all of the Foster’s residents (including Frankie, Mac, Madame Foster, and Sarah) by using a powerful force field to contain them all. Gonzo, who was the only one that was spared, went back up the stairs and regrouped with Spider-Man. “It’s too late for the others.”

“You’re not out of frying pan either.” An agent said, and the agents on the stairs were about to capture Spider-Man and Gonzo, until a huge wall of fire separated the agents from the two. As the agents retreated through the window that they had broken, Angelica Jones had come down another flight of stairs, with her arms aimed directly at the wall of fire that she created. It was clear as day to Spidey and Gonzo that Angelica was really a mutant herself, and though she was at risk of being captured by the S.H.I.E.L.D. forces, she was still willing to help her friends.

“I’d better put this out before I burn up the whole mansion.” Angelica said, and just as she used her powers to ignite the flames, she used them to extinguish them as well.

“I don’t believe it.” murmured Spidey, as Peter Parker, watching someone that he had gotten to know for a few months express her true self before him. He remembered how her Firestar alter-ego helped him take down Doc Ock, and seeing Angelica use her powers as herself was quite a shock to him.

“Come on! Follow me!” Angelica exclaimed, and as she led Spidey and Gonzo to the west wing of the mansion, they were spotted by the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent that was head of the strike team that had captured the Foster’s residents. The agent turned to his team and started barking out orders.

“I need three to follow me upstairs!” The agent said, and he gestured towards the captured Foster’s residents. “The rest of you take these freaks back to the shuttle!”

“Hey! Who ya callin’ freaks, bud?!” Frankie shouted, angrily, and they were led out of the mansion by the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, while the team leader and three other agents had gone upstairs to pursue Spidey, Angelica, and Gonzo.

Spider-Man and his two mutant friends ran down one of the many hallways in the mansion, heading to the room that had the window Angelica, Kermit, and Robin entered through. It was very difficult for her to find the exact room that they came through, because there were so many different rooms in the mansion. Angelica wasn’t even certain if it was the mansion’s west wing that the room was located in.

“HELP!!!!!!” A familiar voice cried.

“Robin!” Spidey, Angelica, and Gonzo shouted, and they ran in the voice’s direction, as it continued to cry for help. After rounding a corner, they stopped dead in their tracks when they saw Kermit and Robin being led away by some more S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. Robin saw them as they had arrived, and the small frog attempted to cry for help again, until the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent that was carrying him had covered his mouth.

“What do they want with Robin and Kermit?” Gonzo queried, just as the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents that had been pursuing them had finally caught up.

“Hold it right there!!” The lead agent demanded, but the three didn’t acknowledge to that command. Spider-Man had fired some webbing into the eyes of one agent, Gonzo used one of his abilities to numb another agent’s brain and send him into some kind of daze, and Angelica created another wall of fire to slow them down. But the lead agent didn’t let that wall of fire get him; he leaped right through it, without getting any part of his armor on fire.

A panicked Spider-Man and his two mutant companions dashed into the nearest room, while the lead agent, realizing that the three were too dangerous to be captured alive, took out five detonators and threw them into the room. Upon entering the room, Spidey, Angelica, and Gonzo spotted a window ahead of them, and they immediately ran to it, as the detonators found their places in the room. Spidey and his friends crashed through the window, just in time for the detonators to explode, demolishing that entire section of the mansion. The three let out some terrifying screams, as they fell fifteen feet to some bushes below. When they hit the bushes, they stopped screaming and blackened out.

Back inside the mansion, the lead agent put on some type of state-of-the-art oxygen mask and walked into the caroled, burning room to see if the “threats” had been eliminated. He looked out the gigantic flaming hole that was made by the explosion, and he didn’t see a thing in the backyard area. The bushes that Spidey, Angelica, and Gonzo fell into had shrouded their appearance, leaving the agent to assume that he had annihilated them.

A moment later, after giving some medical assistance to the agents that were wounded in the raid and placing the captured Foster’s residents in their shuttle’s holding cell, the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents returned back to the warship that still remained in the sky. They were leaving behind a mansion that no longer had anyone in it, except for the three fallen heroes that lied unconscious in the back of it. Although, there was one more party that was an observer to the chaos that was caused over the mansion. It was an owl that sat quietly on the branch of a tree that stood in front of the mansion itself, watching the S.H.I.E.L.D. shuttle as it took off. Once the shuttle was out of its sights, the owl then departed from the tree and had flown in the direction of New York City.

END OF CHAPTER EIGHT​

 

[The Count]

Ah, haven't done this in a while...
1 Had me worried, though Sara was our friend... Relieved and rully excited it's Sara from Labyrinth and her friends.
2 Teenagers do create imaginary friends that are kept at Foster's, they're the Extremesauruses.
3 The only one calls Frankie "Francis" is Mr. Harriman, everyone else just calls her Frankie.
4 Sir Diddymus is actually a mouse, you can check with others on the boards.
5 When you have Blue refering to Gonzo as "Mages", do you mean "Magnus" instead?
6 Funny when Blue made Carl the Costumed Friend weep.
7 You might want to change it to say that Spidey and his friends crashed through the window just as the detonators exploded instead.
8 Is that owl a certain sax-player from the streets of New York City?
Rully great stuff... Hope for more when you can.

 

[muppetwriter]

1 Had me worried, though Sara was our friend... Relieved and rully excited it's Sara from Labyrinth and her friends.

Yeah, I was hoping that no one would be confused between the two. I decided to add Sarah into the story after watching both Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal a couple of days ago. I wanted to really look for some of those awkward characters that stood out from the basic Muppet characters that we've all grown up with (like Kermit, Fozzie, Piggy, etc.), because this is a story of characters that strange and just downright weird, much like Gonzo is.

2 Teenagers do create imaginary friends that are kept at Foster's, they're the Extremesauruses.

While I was writing that part, I thought about that one episode when Mac's older brother created that one block-headed imaginary friend named "Red".

3 The only one calls Frankie "Francis" is Mr. Harriman, everyone else just calls her Frankie.

Oh, man! I forgot that he does! I have to go back and change that!

4 Sir Diddymus is actually a mouse, you can check with others on the boards.

Really? 'Cause while I was watching his fighting scenes, I could've sworn he was growling like he was some type of dog.

5 When you have Blue refering to Gonzo as "Mages", do you mean "Magnus" instead?

Actually, I purposely made it "Mages", because I didn't want there to be too much of a similarity. "Magnus" was Erik Lehnsherr's middle name, and though it sounds like it could be a good nickname for the Foster's gang to use, I just think "Mages" is a little more crude and improvised in a way.

8 Is that owl a certain sax-player from the streets of New York City?

Actually, that's another Labyrinth reference.

 

[The Count]

OK... Yeah, Terrence did create Red to counter Blue... But if you remember from the tour in the original episode, Wilt explains that teenagers create imaginary friends, the Extremesauruses locked up in a scary part of the house.

As far as Sir Diddymus, from what I've been led to believe, he's a mouse... You can find about him at the Henson Database, just search for the link in muppet_dk's user profile or any of his posts.
Hope this helps.

 

[muppetwriter]

Before I started on the chapter, I looked up the movie "Labyrinth" on Wikipedia's website and it described him as a "fox-dog creature". But Wikipedia has been known to have misleading information (just look up some of what they're telling about "Spider-Man 3"), so since Henson Database says he's a mouse, then he's still a mouse in my story.

OK... Yeah, Terrence did create Red to counter Blue... But if you remember from the tour in the original episode, Wilt explains that teenagers create imaginary friends, the Extremesauruses locked up in a scary part of the house.

Yeah, I remember that, too. That was the first episode of Foster's called "House of Bloo's", and I would think that the Extremesauruses would come in handy for this story, since our S.H.I.E.L.D. friends didn't capture it.

 

[The Count]

Yep... Just hoping for more vonderful story when it's ready, wondering what new twists it'll take and what other characters will pop up.

 

[ReneeLouvier]

Oh AWESOME chapter MW! I just love all of this. I hate that the Foster's group got wrangled up though. That's just simply horrible!! I can't wait for more of it!

 

[The Count]

Hey Sean (MW)... Sorry for the off-topic nature of the post, but thought you'd like to know...
Like I said in your X-Muppets 1 story, WITCH's suffering the same season renewal withdrawal that affected The Winks Club. Well, TSF posted that WITCH Season 2 starts on 6/5/2006. Hope this helps.