26. Chapter 26 - Book II

AN: I wasn't planning on finishing this chapter this week, but I ended up really enjoying Kings of the Con, and that gave me the inspiration I needed to move forward with this. It was a pretty fun episode, though I'm glad I did my own take on the whole Ace Savvy convention thing long before this became an actual episode (stop stealing my ideas, Nick! Or at least steal the Loudcest ones!). I wasn't totally onboard with how it wrapped up, it didn't sit well with me that the kids allowed the judges to divide them the way they did. Also, now the Full House Gang is the Full Deck? Did I miss something? Seems like they just sort of retconned that in with no explanation, but whatever, it was still a funny episode, and it was a lot of fun to see the girls actually buy into their own superhero identities. I'd like to see more of that.

I decided to try something a little different with the structure of this chapter. Seemed funny in my head, but it was a little awkward to actually write. If it doesn't work, I just won't do it again. Anyway, enjoy Book II.

Lincoln Loud stirred, the fog of sleep fleeing as consciousness returned. It was at this point that two things became very apparent . The first, was that he was surrounded by the frowning faces of his older sisters. The second, was that he was incapable of moving. The latter point was concerning, but waking up paralyzed wasn't an uncommon occurrence in the Loud House, so he chose to address the more immediate concern.

"Morning girls." He greeted them, trying to keep his voice level as he craned his neck around, taking in his surroundings. "Lori, Leni, Luna, Lynn, and...Luan?"

"Hey Linc." The girl in question responded, giving him a short wave of greeting.

He blinked in surprise, unsure how to process the sudden appearance of his long absent sister.

"It's good to see you again." He said at last, favoring her with a small smile.

"Aw shucks, Linc. I didn't know you cared." Luan replied, her jovial tone offset somewhat by the slight reddening in her cheeks.

"She just got home from the hospital." Lynn interjected, clearly unamused by the interplay between the pair. "Mayonnaise overdose. Mom said the doctors had to surgically remove bags of the stuff from her."

Luan flushed considerably redder, glaring daggers at the younger girl. She seemed to be ready to retort, but unwilling to do so in the face of an increasingly smug Lynn. Finally, she took a deep calming breath, and reached within her skirt pocket. The tension seeming to leave her body as she withdrew a small, wrapped sandwich from it's confines. Which was immediately smacked into the the far corner of the room by a very irritated Luna.

"Dude, seriously?"

"What?" Luan asked, rubbing her sore hand. "Did you expect me to quit cold turkey?"

The ensuing groan from the assembled siblings was so forceful that it caused the windows to rattle. And yet, had he been pressed on the subject, Lincoln would have confessed that it felt like a strangely welcomed return to form.

"So what are we doing?" He asked, after the moment had passed. "Are we going to catch up with Luan? Maybe find out what recent events have been like from her perspective?"

Luan looked overjoyed at the prospect.

"What? No!" Lori shouted, brutally stamping out the younger girl's happiness with her flat refusal. "Luan ate a bunch of sandwiches and got sick. There's literally nothing to tell."

The other girls nodded in agreement, looking puzzled that he had even suggested it.

"Oh my gosh, guys! Luan's back!"

All except Leni, that is.

Luan, for her part, looked peeved at the severity of the rejection, but didn't contest the logic behind it.

"...Oh." Lincoln replied. "Alright. Then what are...we..." He trailed off as he began looking around.

"Everything okay, Linc?" Lynn asked.

"Yeah. It's fine." He assured her. "It's just...I don't see Sam anywhere. Lately she always seems to be around for stuff like this."

As if prompted by his response, a loud knocking resounded from his bedroom door.

"Come on guys!" A familiar voice wailed from the other side. "Let me in!"

In unison, Lincoln's remaining sisters all looked at Luna expectantly, who immediately broke out into a cold sweat.

"S-sorry luv!" The purple clad-rocker called back. "Sisters only!"

Lincoln chose not to draw attention to the raven tressed face that was currently peaking out from his ceiling vent. He managed to catch the intruder's eyes with his own and gave her an emphatic shake of his head, silently pleading that she would take the hint. Thankfully, it appeared his message had been received, as the face quickly disappeared back into the darkness. Lincoln, relieved, let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. He was going to have to have a talk with Maggie about her new...proclivities.

"...Right." Lori said, clearing her throat to draw her siblings' attention. "Now that we've got that settled..."

Lori paused, glaring around the room as if daring some new interruption to present itself. As before, Lincoln chose not to draw attention to the fact that Lucy had both somehow snuck into the room, and was currently setting up a rather large folding chair in the far corner of the room. He figured that if she wanted her presence to be known, she would have said something.

"I'm going to need you to tell us what happened at the convention." Lori concluded, giving him a pointed look.

"Um, weren't you guys there for that?"

"Oh! Oh!" Leni exclaimed, waiving her hand in the air. "Luan wasn't there!"

Another frown from the resident clown.

"Very good, Leni." Lori said dryly, giving her younger sister a congratulatory pat on the head. The sheer delight radiating from Leni forestalled any further commentary from the peanut gallery.

"What I meant..." Lori continued, "...is I need you to tell us about the part we weren't there for."

Lincoln screwed up his face in concentration, running through the events in his head.

"After the stage collapsed." Lori prompted. A less observant person might have missed the brief look of worry that flashed between Lynn and Luna. Luan, for her part, merely looked curious.

"Oh. Alright then." Lincoln replied, thinking back to a few days earlier...

Well, the stage collapsed.

"Yes Lincoln. We know that part."

"I think she's wondering how you got away from the stage, little bro."

Oh. Right. Lincoln thought back to the events leading up to the collapse. There was Lynn, single handedly wiping the floor with a literal army of people twice her size...

"Heck yeah, I was!"

He himself had tipped over and hit his head. Limbs still bound by his own rope work, and consciousness swimming. And only a short distance away, Luna and Sam were...

"Talking! We were having a totally normal conversation about totally normal things!"

...Sure. They were talking. They were absolutely not having an incredibly impressive sword fight only a few feet away from his prone body.

"Aw, really? Because that sounds totes more exciting."

Anyway, there he was tipped over, ground shaking around him in the midst of brutal violence and...spirited debate, when the stage collapsed.

"Lincoln..."

...And that was when he was rescued.

"How convenient."

"Would you rather he'd had a falling out?"

Ugh. So somebody apparently grabbed him in the nick of time, and then he blacked out.

"WHAT!"

"Dude, calm down!"

"Don't you tell me to calm down-"

But only for a little bit! When he woke up, he found himself being tended to by Carol Pingrey of all people.

"Hey Carol", he said.

"Hey yourself, Linc." She replied, giving him a warm smile.

"Aww. That's totes adorbes."

"That did not actually happen."

But it did happen. Carol Pingrey, one of the prettiest and most popular girls in town was nursing him back to health.

"Come on, Linc. Next you're going to tell us you fell for her. Get it?"

"You okay Luan? You're twitching more than you usually do..."

Then Carol laid one comforting hand against his forehead.

"Or" She went on, her lips quirking up in a sort of half smirk, "...should that be, 'Clincoln'"?

"Why did she say that all...dramatically? Like it was a big, important reveal of some kind."

"I dunno. Did Carol not know about Linc's comics? Were we supposed to be aware of this?"

"Lori. You're doing that thing again. That thing where you, like, breathe really heavy. I'm gonna do that thing you told me would help."

"Ow!"

"Yay! I helped!"

Guys! Seriously, do you want me to tell the story or not? Now where was I? "Hey Carol." And then...oh, right. Clincoln.

"Um, I guess?" I replied, sort of confused.

Then we just sat there in silence for a bit. I probably should have said something, but I wasn't sure how you respond to something like that. Finally, Carol threw me a lifeline.

"I...um." She faltered ever so slightly. "I was kind of expecting that to be a little more...weighty? I guess?"

"Should it have been?" I asked. "That's the name Clyde and I use for lots of stuff."

Seeing as it's kind of awkward to have a conversation where only one person was lying on the floor, I decided to try and sit up. Thankfully I managed on my own, albeit with some slight discomfort. It was at this point, that I noticed Carol was in costume herself. As the High Card.

"Pfft. What a loser. Ow! Leni, what was that for?"

"I was helping."

I was shocked at the implications here. This was Carol. Pingrey. Cosplaying as one of my characters.

"Why do you keep saying her name like that!"

"Easy Lori, deep breaths..."

"See something you like?" She asked playfully.

"N-no!" I stammered, embarassed that I'd been caught staring. "I mean, yes! I mean..."

"See, now that sounds like Lincoln."

"Totes Linky."

"I was just surprised at your choice of costume." I said, trying to push past this newest bit of awkwardness. "I don't want to presume, but...do you read my comic?"

"Yeah." She said with a small chuckle. "I'm a pretty big fan. I'd actually come here hoping to...met you."

"But we have met." I pointed out. Now she was the one who looked confused.

"We spent almost an entire day together. Remember? We ate pizza, we went to the comic book shop. You tried to convince me that ACU Ace could beat Pre-Crisis Ace in a dance-off."

"He could!" She shouted. Then immediately reddened at her own outburst.

"And you're allowed to believe that." I conceded, taking this as a good sign. "Then you destroyed me in mini-golf!"

"Y-you weren't that bad." She said quickly, clearly trying to spare my feelings.

"I got more balls in the parking lot than I did on the green." I said, with no small amount of self-deprecation. "Lori said that should have been literally impossible with a putter."

Then things got quiet again, and I was worried I'd said something wrong.

"You're right, Linc." She giggled, mercifully breaking the silence at last.

"Of course I am." I agreed, not quite sure what I had been right about, but happy all the same.

"I guess I've been making this kind of...weird, haven't I?"

I had been going to tell her she was being silly, but before I got the chance, she reached out and grabbed my hand with her own.

"My name's Carol." She said.

She smiled at me. I mean, Carol always smiled, she's a really nice girl. But there was something different about this one. It seemed...lighter? I guess? Unburdened. Whatever this was about, it was clearly important to her. So I decided to play along.

"Well, I'm still Lincoln." I quipped, giving her hand a shake. "But it's still nice to meet you, Carol."

"And then what happened?!"

The assembled Louds all jerked in surprise at this latest outburst. Lincoln glanced around, trying to determine the sound of the voice, but it was still just them in the room. Even Lucy had disappeared at some point in the proceedings.

"Sam?" He called out, uncertain.

"I'm still here!" She called back. "I've been listening the entire time. The walls here are pretty thin. I bet I could put my hand right through this thing."

"Put gloves on first." Lynn suggested, "That wood splinters like crazy."

"Finish the story, Lincoln!" Lori ordered, significantly more irate than before. "What happened next?"

"We just talked." Lincoln said, shrugging. "After Carol got over whatever that weird hangup of her's was, she became a lot easier to talk to. Turns out we have a lot in common.

"Was there...anything else?" Luna asked, cautiously.

"Oh. Well actually, Carol really wants to see that new Ace Savvy movie that's coming out. But she's too embarrassed to go by herself, so I offered to go with her."

It was probably my imagination, but it felt like the temperature in the room suddenly dropped several degrees.

"You...offered to take her to a movie?" Lori asked.

Lincoln was about to respond in the affirmative, but there was something about Lori's tone that seemed...off. Maybe it had something to do with the weird looks he was getting from the rest of his sisters, but every instinct was screaming at him to proceed with caution.

"I..." He began, carefully considering his words. "Agreed to go see the same movie that Carol was going to see. At the same theater as her."

"And..." He continued, "If circumstances permitted, I agreed to sit with her."

The girls exchanged strange looks between themselves, as if silently communicating with one another. At several points, they would even turn to look at the door, before resuming their unspoken conference.

"Alright then, ladies." Lori said at last, climbing to her feet. "I think we've got everything we need here."

His other sisters followed suit. Apparently their impromptu meeting was over. Lincoln was relieved, though uncertain as to why. Still, there was one more problem that needed to be addressed.

"Um..." He ventured nervously, fearful of provoking the wrath that he had seemingly avoided by a fairly narrow margin. "Before you guys go, could one of you please untie me?"

Another round of looks passed between his sisters and the door. This time, of puzzlement.

"Uh, dude? None of us tied you up."

"Then why can't I move?"

"Probably because you literally have the worst sleeping posture." Lori scoffed, rolling her eyes. "Seriously, we're going to need Lisa to make you a brace or something.