1. Chapter 1 - Prologue

AN: So this is new. My pal LoudAutomata16 approached me with the idea of doing a collaboration, and I agreed, because he's a celebrated author in this fandom and publicly associating with me is by far the easiest way to take him down a peg. So we put our heads together and came up with a new story to write. I'm going to be hosting the story on my account, it is very much a joint venture. Auto did the lion's share of writing for this initial chapter, so everything that's bad about it should be credited to him, and everything that's good about it should be credited to me. Anyway, enough of my rambling, hope you guys enjoy this new thing we're doing, and we'll try to refrain from doing that hacky collaboration thing where we insert stupid conversations between ourselves into the authors notes.

LoudAutomata16: But Siege—

Shut up Auto! We're not doing that! I'm speaking for you!

It started with an explosion.

The scene of the incident was a sunlit coffee shop, nestled comfortably between a small bakery and a larger ice cream parlor along a brick road. Inside the shop, the air was filled with the smells of coffee and the sounds of chatter. Here, upper-class twits conversed with middle-class marks while the lowest class served them their lattes, their mochas, their espressos, their chai. One man, in particular, sitting by the large window, was stirring sugar into his coffee and, once he set his drink to the side to cool, grabbed his blueberry muffin and brought it to his mouth. Just as he prepared to take his first bite, he caught something outside, right out of the corner of his eye. He closed his mouth as he focused his attention on a thin pillar of dark smoke rising to the sky a couple of buildings over. The expression of confusion hadn't had the time to manifest on his face when it happened;

BOOM!

The ground shook as the explosion unleashed a noisy blast. Everyone rushed for the exit, spilling onto the street. Their heads were turned to the right, staring at a giant cloud of dust and smoke and debris. And as the dust started to settle, they saw people walking towards them…

...only their walking wasn't normal. It looked more like lurching—painfully unnatural. But it was only when they heard the low groans that they realized who these people were.

"Zombies!" a man cried.

"No, not zombies…they're Husks!"

The crowd turned and ran as the zombie-like Husks began stampeding towards them.

The muffin man from before was the first to trip on his own feet. He fell to the ground, his palms slamming painfully into the stone-laid ground. He turned his head around, giving him a horrific view of a Husk standing over him. As it started to reach down, he closed his eyes, praying that it would be quick…

But "it" never came.

He opened his eyes, and his jaw dropped. Where the Husk had stood, now there was a young blonde woman, clad in a form-fitting, cleavage-bearing leotard and red cape, hovering just slightly above the ground. Her fist was extended from her body, and the man followed it to see the Husk slammed into a wall. This woman had punched it, she had saved him.

Something clicked in his brain, and the name "Lori Loud," slipped from his mouth in an awe-filled breath.

The superheroine turned to him and smiled. "Are you okay?" she asked as she helped him off the ground.

"Y-yes, yes I am. Thanks to you. Oh, God...Mrs. Lori Loud, my children are such huge fans..."

"Yeah...listen, I'd literally love to see an autograph, but right now, I'm kinda busy." She gestured with her head towards the other Husks, who were already beginning to recover from their paralyzing shock.

"Oh, uh, right. Of course. Well, uh, thank you again for saving me."

Lori watched him dash off with a smile, deliberately ignoring how the man had taken one last glance at her bodacious chest before he turned. Her smile dropped instantly as another Husk ran towards her with a gurgling scream. She punched the ghoulish creature in its face and watched it fly away from the force of her blow.

She heard an impressed whistle. "That's gotta be at least fifty feet. Guess all that golfing really pays off."

"But Lori doesn't punch golf balls. Unless she does...ooh, is that a new way to play?"

Lori turned to find her sisters Leni and Lynn standing behind her. The former was clad in a frilly seafoam dress, with heart-shaped glasses sitting atop her blonde head and a star-studded wand in her hands; the latter was dressed in a body-hugging Chinese qipao dress, with her black belt wrapped tightly around her waist and her auburn hair worn in twin buns. Both had excited grins on their faces.

"Took you two long enough," Lori said.

Lynn held up a crumpled wrapper of a protein bar. "Sorry. I just saw these scattered about and figured I might as well fuel up before-"

"Where did you get that?"

"Umm...the free protein bar dispensary? Right up the street?"

Lori rolled her eyes, knowing full well that Lynn swiped that from the coffee shop in the confusion. She'd scold her later, but she was right: they were about to face off against a giant crowd of Husks, and Lynn needed the energy and strength.

"Okay, here's the plan," Lori stated, putting on her leadership voice, "Leni, help evacuate all the Bystanders. Cover for them, distract the Husks from them, whatever you can."

"Got it," said Leni. She tapped her boots with her wand, and they sprouted feathery swan wings. She took to the sky, and flew towards the frightened, stampeding crowd.

"Lynn, I need you to fight the Husks."

"All of them?" Lynn asked, surprised.

"All of them."

In spite of her surprise, Lynn punched her fist into her palm and put on a grin. "Awesome! I mean, I'm surprised you don't want to fight any for yourself, but-"

"I'm not going to fight the Husks because I'm going for the Tainted," Lori said. "I need you to beat up the small fry for me."

"What? I mean, sure, but...there's no Tainted."

"There is. I can...feel it."

Lynn opened her mouth to protest but quickly shut it. She knew Lori's super-senses could help her pick up on things that others couldn't. If she said there was a Tainted around, there was one around, and that was that. Drawing a deep breath, Lynn quickly dashed over to the nearest Husk, so quickly she left an afterimage. The poor creature didn't even have time to notice before her hand sliced through the air in a cleaving arc and hit the Husk right in its neck. Lynn didn't even wait for it to hit the ground before she jumped to the next one and delivered a roundhouse kick straight to the chest.

Lori was dazed for a moment, watching her sisters carry out their tasks. A warm feeling of pride filled her chest. She had to slap her cheeks to get herself to focus again, at which point she flew up into the air and began scanning the ground below for any sign of the Tainted.

Nothing...I should try X-ray vision.

Still nothing.

Hmm...maybe infrared?

She sighed as she still picked up nothing.

This is bad.

It was, because Tainted were far, far more dangerous than Husks. Husks were little more than walking corpses; they had little strength and almost no intelligence to use it. Tainted, on the other hand, were almost always bad news, even for someone like her. They came in a variety of shapes and sizes, and with a vast array of powers. Some were deeply intelligent, some were unbelievably strong, and some had superpowers of their own—like invisibility, which Lori suspected she was dealing with now.

Somewhere below, something stepped on a fallen metal beam. Lori's left ear twitched, and she glanced in that direction. She saw nothing.

Bingo!

She swooped down, fists in front of her, and felt them colliding into something. A howl of pain rose through the air as the Tainted's invisibility was literally beaten out of it. It stumbled to the ground, and Lori got a look at what she was dealing with. It was a thin, gangly creature, and every inch of its body was blacker than the night...all except for its white teeth, which it bared as it charged at her.

Lori dodged, but the Tainted's claw scratched her cheek. She hissed as she touched it, and when she saw the blood, she grit her teeth in anger. Her eyes began to glow red.

"Okay, you literally asked for this," she said in deathly rage.

With a mighty shout, two beams of fiery red energy shot from her eyes. The Tainted lifted its arms in a feeble attempt to shield itself, but nothing could withstand Lori's heat vision. The demonic creature cried out as its body was incinerated, leaving nothing but flecks of ash to fly away in the wind.

Lori collapsed to the ground, tired and sweating. She panted for a few moments and let some droplets of sweat drip onto the ground beneath her forehead before she stood up and did a little stretch. By the time she was done, Lynn and Leni were rushing towards her.

"O M Gosh, you did it, Lori!" Leni squealed as she threw herself at her older sister. Smiling weakly, Lori caught her in a hug but was careful not to squeeze too tightly. The last thing she needed was for a super-strong hug to result in a super-fast trek to the hospital. Again. Poor Carol…

"Thanks, Leni. Did you guys take care of all the Husks and Bystanders?"

Lynn nodded. "We took care of everything. Good thing too, because it looks like you need all your strength for that Tainted."

"No, it was one of the weak ones. I literally got lucky. I just...need to be more careful with my heat vision, that usually takes a lot out of me."

"Whatever you say...High Card."

Lori groaned. "Please don't remind me of that. It was stupid, I was in a comics phase, I thought I needed a secret identity..."

"Yeah, it was really secret. Who would've ever guessed that High Card, the young blonde buxom superheroine with flight and laser beam eyes would've been the same person as Lori Loud, the young buxom blonde who graduated from Archetype Academy with a display of flight and laser beam eyes?"

"Shut up, Lynn," Lori said, grabbing her younger sister and playfully (yet still painfully) giving her a noogie.

"Archetype Academy...hmm, why do I feel like that's important today?" Leni thought aloud.

"Huh, now that you mention it, that does sound familiar," Lori said.

"Yeah, it does," added Lynn as she wiggled out of Lori's arms. She put her hand to her chin, her brow furrowing as she thought about it.

Then they all remembered, and, in unison:

"Oh no...Lincoln's first day starts in ten minutes!"

Miles away, at the corner of a great crowd of people, a white-haired boy by the name of Lincoln Loud ignored his burning ears as he kept his eyes and attention glued on the phone in his hands. There was a live stream on the news, featuring his own sisters as they handled the delicate situation happening just uptown. He watched with awe as Lynn kicked and chopped at the Husks, as Leni shielded the Bystanders with her magic, and as Lori showed off her strength, speed, flight, and plasmic heat vision. His eyes were wide, and his smile was precociously boyish as he marveled at his sisters performing such amazing deeds.

Well, this is it, he thought as he put the phone back in his pocket. This is the first day of my journey to becoming just like them.

The importance of his setting was not lost on him—he was standing on the campus grounds of the legendary Archetype Academy, where all the greatest heroes were trained, including all five of his older sisters. In fact, they were all regarded as the best of the best, so expectations were high for him. He didn't know what Archetype he was going to end up embodying, but one thing was for sure: he would be happy with anything other than Bystander.

He shivered. If he was classed as a Bystander, then Lynn would never let him live it down.

Then again, it wasn't like she was even around. She was with their eldest sisters, miles away. Lincoln doubted that they'd be able to make it in time…

"Hey twerp, did we make it in time?"

"Gaaah!" Lincoln shouted as he spun around and found Lori, Leni, and Lynn. They were all dressed in their casual clothes, but the bigger issue was that they were...well, here!

"How did you...I was just watching you...the coffee shops..."

Lori smirked. "You're forgetting that I'm a Superhero, Lincoln. Fast enough to make it here in a second, and strong enough to carry these two with me."

"Hey, are you calling us fat?" Lynn demanded.

"You were the one who dropped everything to eat protein bars," Lori reminded her.

"It was fuel! For my kung fu! It's kung fuel!" Lynn sighed after her outburst, slumping her shoulders as she decided to give it up. She perked herself back up as she lunged for her little brother and wrapped her arm around his shoulder and messed with his light hair. "So how are you feeling, bro? You got those butterflies in your stomach yet? Man, I remember my first day. My stomach was so rumbly I had to drop brown babies at the swimming pool at least three times in one morning."

"Lynn, how could you?!" Leni screamed. "Babies can't swim! Hold on, babies, Leni's coming to save you!"

"It was a metaphor, Leni," Lori said, grabbing her sister's arm before she rushed off and did something stupid. "A very crass, gross metaphor from a crass, gross person."

"And that's why you love me," Lynn smugly said.

"I-I am a little nervous, yeah," Lincoln admitted in a low voice.

His three sisters eyed him with sympathy. "Don't worry about it, man, you'll be fine," said Lynn reassuringly. She patted his chest comfortingly. "You're a Loud, man. Louds always get the best Archetypes, and we do the best with them."

"It's true," Leni said. "You won't, like, be a Magical Girl like me, but you could always be a Superhero like Lori."

"If the Index lets me, that is," Lincoln said with a sigh.

"The Index doesn't let anyone do anything. It just reveals what's on the inside," said Lori. "And you know what's inside you, Lincoln?"

"Not my liver, thanks to Lisa," he grumbled.

"A good heart," Lori said with a warm smile, "and a strong soul."

"Y-you really think so?"

"I know so. So, for my sake, Linc...stand up straight and stop whimpered."

Lincoln chuckled, his skin flushing. He straightened his back and stood up straight, tall, and proud. "Thanks, Lori," he said.

His eldest sister's cheeks blushed a light shade of red. She seemed dazed for a moment. Then she realized that she was blushing, and turned away. "So, um, where's, uh, the rest of the family?"

Lincoln peered through the crowd, scanning in his right-hand direction until he caught sight of Lola's hot pink dress. She was standing with everyone else, and they were all crowded around his mother and father as they engaged pleasantries with Howard McBride (Harold was probably somewhere with Clyde, trying to calm down the anxious boy for the big ceremony). He pointed to them. "They're over there."

"We'll go with them. Good luck with everything, Lincoln."

"Yeah, good luck, Linky!"

"Remember: the swimming pool is your friend."

Did...did she actually do her business in a swimming pool? Lincoln thought as they walked away. I really hope not.

Swimming pools aside, Lincoln was glad he had that little talk with his sisters. He didn't want to say it out loud, but his sisters were inspirational figures to him. For the last five or so years, he had been enamored with stories of their heroism and courage and strength and...well, just all the cool magic stuff that they could do! He wanted so badly to follow in their footsteps, but unfortunately, he...well, he never displayed anything that might be called "super". Lori had been able to fly ever since she was a baby, Leni always had magic going on around her, and even Lucy, his younger sister, was already displaying signs of the Vampire Archetype...if her fangs and ability to sneak up on people could be classed as signs, at least. But for him...nothing. No flying, no magic, no fangs. Not even a frilly dress. Maybe he was just a late bloomer...or maybe he was just a Bystander.

He sighed. There's that doubt again.

He didn't have too much time to dwell on it, because right as he was about to go join his family, he felt a painful punch on his arm. "OW!" he howled as he rubbed his arm.

"You were looking dazed, Lame-O. Not a good look for a guy about to start school."

He turned to the source of the punch, and grimly said, "Thanks, Ronnie Anne. I'll keep that in mind."

Ronnie Anne Santiago was the toughest, roughest girl Lincoln had ever known (outside his family, of course). She was a childhood friend, though, from the way she treated him sometimes, you'd swear she forgot the "friend" part of that. So much punching, so many sandwiches down his pants...if this was how she treated her friends, Lincoln was glad he wasn't her enemy.

"But seriously, how you holding up?" she asked.

"I'm fine," he said, so robotic it felt rehearsed. "What about you?"

"I don't know. Guess I'm just still worried about my Archetype. I mean, I still don't even know how this whole thing works."

"Well, basically, there are these characters and symbols that are a part of our soul, and each of them corresponds to an Archetype like Superhero or Ninja or-"

"I know how that works!" Ronnie Anne snapped. "I just don't know how this ceremony is supposed to work. We get into the school, and then they make us touch these crystal balls and...why? I just don't get it."

"I'm sure the principal will explain it for us. Plus, didn't you get to see Bobby do this? Shouldn't you have an idea from that?"

The girl shook her head. "Mom didn't have enough money to send Bobby to school," she said. "It took both my mom and Bobby pooling their money together to get me here."

"Oh...I'm sorry to hear that."

Ronnie Anne waved her hand dismissively. "Don't be. Bobby probably would've been a Bystander anyway."

Lincoln hated to admit it, but she was probably right. Every human on Earth had an Archetype, but unfortunately, about 91% were of the Bystander Archetype: they had no powers, no skills, and even though Lincoln respected them (really, he did!) he wanted more than anything to have any other Archetype. But the crystal balls would show the truth today, at the big ceremony. If he was a Bystander, he'd be stuck learning nothing but math and science and grow up to work at a Pizza Hut...but if he was something else, if he was a Superhero or an Exorcist or a Hunter…

Please, please, please, let me just be a late bloomer.

"There's, uh, something else I wanted to tell you as well before the ceremony starts," he heard Ronnie Anne say. He turned to look at her, and she looked a little...different than before. Her cheeks were blushing now, glowing with a soft pink color. She had a little less bravado now, and her eyes were looking everyone but at him. She crossed her hands together, and her face scrunched up. Cute, but it wasn't anything like the Ronnie Anne he knew.

"R-Ronnie Anne?"

"I...I wanted to t-tell you...well, there's something I a-always wanted to say to you and...well, I just...this is hard, but..."

Lincoln watched curiously as she took a deep breath.

"Lincoln, I li-"

She was cut off by the bell's loud, sharp ringing. The crowd began to move, with the staff and new students going to the stage while their invited families and friends took their seats in the rows in front of a small stage. Lincoln and Ronnie Anne watched as a pair of pristine, milky crystal balls were wheeled out and placed on a table at the forefront of the stage. Lincoln's heart jumped at the sight of them. His future, he knew, lay in them.

"The ceremony's starting," he breathlessly said. Then he turned back to Ronnie Anne. "Right, you were saying something. Sorry, I didn't hear over the bell. What was it?"

Ronnie Anne stared at him with wide bug eyes. Her jaw seemingly dropped. "I...I..."

Then her face hardened, and she slugged Lincoln in his arm. "Nothing, I said nothing," she spat. "Let's just go to the stupid stage, get this damn thing over with."

She stomped away angrily, the ground seemingly shaking with every furious step. Lincoln watched her go with his head cocked at an angle. He was visibly confused.

"What was she so mad about?"

Lincoln made sure to sit far away from Ronnie Anne when he took his seat in the front row. He had Zach Gurdle sitting in the seat on his right, and Polly Pain sitting to his left. He looked down the right to see Ronnie Anne sitting at the end, with her friend Sid next to her. Ronnie Anne caught his eye, and gave him the dirtiest, angriest look she could muster. Lincoln weakly smiled and waved in turn.

Then he turned around and scanned the audience for his family. He saw them not too far off. His dad was holding an old-fashioned video camera, and when he saw his son looking in his direction, he pointed at the camera and beamed pridefully.

He won't be smiling like that when they announce that you're a Bystander.

"Shut up, brain," Lincoln whispered.

"Excuse me?" asked Polly.

"What? Oh, sorry, I said brain, not Pain. I would never tell you to...I'm an ally, by the way, just thought I'd note that."

Polly Pain scowled and looked away from him.

Two girls pissed at me because of things I said in one day...maybe that's my Archetype. Guy-Who-Pisses-Girls-Off-With-Dumb-Words.

Lincoln tried to comfort himself with the knowledge that such an Archetype didn't exist. On the other hand...well, you never know what Archetypes did or didn't exist.

A crackling at the mic interrupted his thoughts. His focus turned to the stage, where a bald, middle-aged man was standing in front of the mic podium. He looked incredibly unhappy to be there, and between his glowering demeanor and his stuffy blue suit, Lincoln could tell already that he was going to have to deal with a strict principle throughout his time at the school. He stifled a groan as the man muttered into the microphone. "Alright, alright, shut the hell up." When everyone quieted down, the man raised his arms into the air and began his speech.

"From the dawn of human civilization, the soul has been important to us. But different people deal with their souls differently. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the difference between the Soulless and the Archetypes. The Soulless don't care for their souls, and they either allow them to become spoiled and corrupted, becoming the evil Tainted, or they lose them and become the Husks. Frankly, I don't know which is worse. But none of us are either of those...we are all Archetypes, people with souls that guide us and our paths, from the Bystanders to the Heroes to the Demigods. We all have our part to play in keeping human civilization—the very soul of humanity—functional and to fight back against the threats posed by those who've gone astray, whether they be the zombie-like Husks, the demonic Tainted, or those Archetypes who would use their power for evil. Here, we train students from all around the world to fight those dark forces. We also train doctors, engineers, programmers, lawyers, athletes, and artists in every field...ladies and gentlemen, in-coming students, my name is Wilbur Huggins, and I welcome you to Archetype Academy."

The crowd burst into applause and cheers. Some enthusiastic members of the crowd shouted the names of the students. Principal Huggins waited patiently for it all to die down, and once the audience was settled, he pointed to the crystal balls. "Standing by me are the tools we use to divine your children's Archetypes. The Index, two crystal balls, Haqq and Kudra, which will tell us the Archetype of whoever touches them. These are ancient treasures, hailing back to the oldest mystical kingdoms of the Arabian Desert...and I would like to take a moment to thank my fellow instructors, Mrs. Johnson and Ms. DiMartino, for taking such good care of them."

Another round of applause. A middle-aged woman clad in a green sweater and a younger woman with a pink shirt and dress beside her stood up and took their bows.

"With all that out of the way, let the ceremony begin. Students, you will be called up in alphabetical order, starting with...Renee Alistair!"

Lincoln watched as a freckled, brunette girl got up on the stage and nervously approached the twin balls. She put one hand on each and closed her eyes. The balls started to glow, one emerald green and the other sapphire blue. Steam poured out from her palms, but she kept her hands steadying until a booming voice declared "SUPERHERO!"

The crowd applauded, and Renee, with a smile of both joy and relief on her face, practically skipped down the stage to return to her seat. Lincoln was happy for her, but at the same time, there was a twisting feeling in his gut. What if everyone who went before him got a great Archetype, and there was nothing left for him but Bystander? Sure, he knew that wasn't how it worked, your Archetype was a part of you whether you knew it or not, but fear rarely responds to reason.

So throughout the whole ceremony, as students went up and got their Archetypes, Lincoln sat nervously, slightly rocking himself, his fingers crossed tightly as he hoped and wished and prayed for anything other than Bystander. He was so wrapped up in his own terrified thoughts that he didn't even notice Principal Huggins calling his name until Polly Pain nudged him with her elbow.

"Oh...haha, sorry," he sheepishly said.

He got up and started walking towards the stage. The weight of the world seemed to crash down on his shoulders. He walked in a slow shuffle, his heart beating and his stomach-churning. His mouth suddenly felt dry, and his hands sweaty and clammy.

"Hurry the fuck up, kid!"

"Hey, that's my brother! Who said that, I'll rip your tongue out!"

Lincoln squeaked like a chew toy and ran up the stage to the twin balls. He stood in front of them and swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing. Before he put his hands on the balls, he glanced into the audience, and thankfully the eyes he met were Lori's. She was smiling, her eyes filled with pride, and when she noticed him looking at her, she blushed but then mouthed three encouraging words at him.

You got this.

He smiled back, weak but thankful, and finally put his hands on the crystal balls.

As his eyes were squeezed, only one thought raced through his mind: don't be Bystander, don't be Bystander, don't be Bystander, don't be Bystander, don't be Bystand-

"HAREM KING!"

Applause started but died within seconds as the name of the Archetype registered in people's minds.

Lincoln's eyes opened wide, just as shocked as anyone else. He could feel the atmosphere of the room had changed. Smiles turned into confused and worried frowns. Behind him, he could hear Mrs. Johnson turn to Ms. DiMartino and whisper "Harem King? That's...that's unprecedented! We've never had anyone with that Archetype before! What does that even mean?" Principal Huggins' eyes were wide, as were most of his fellow students'. Ronnie Anne's expression was mixed: half-dumbfounded and half-disgusted. Even Lori, and the rest of his sisters, looked uneasy with what the crystal balls had revealed about their only brother.

All eyes were on Lincoln—hundreds upon hundreds stared into his soul, and he was petrified. He felt that he needed to say something, so all he could do was blurt the first thing that came to his mind.

"W-well...at least it's not Bystander."