18. Chapter 18

AN: Well, this chapter probably won't be showing up here for a while, if ever. But w/e, here's some AN's anyway.

Imagaco: At this time Lincoln would not be able to genre shift multiple archetypes at once. But once he has some practice under his belt, who knows? Me. I know. But I'm not gonna say :)

Really happy to see people are still stumbling across this thing and finding it enjoyable. Makes it that much easier to push out new updates.

Having safely stowed away Lincoln's lab coat in an air-tight, timeproof capsule that would forever preserve the garment exactly as it was until she had further need for it, Lisa settled down at her work station. She hadn't been able to learn much more about her brother's strange abilities, but there was undoubtedly a wealth of inference, if nothing else, that could be had from the data she had acquired. Granted, the processing of said data was going to be quite the job in and of itself, but Lisa made the impossible possible on a regular basis. This was simply a matter of spending the time required, and right now Lisa had nothing but time—

CRASH

—Correction, Lisa had nothing but time. Now, she wasn't so sure. Sighing to herself, the young scientist spun around in her chair. There standing in her door way was a very chipper looking Lynn Loud

"Heya Lisa!" The older girl greeted her. It was only at this point that Lisa noticed the large pile of scrap metal before the athlete, which hadn't been there previously. It seemed safe to assume that Lynn's depositing those materials was the cause of that earlier disturbance.

"Lynn." Lisa said tersely, pinching the bridge of her nose in annoyance. "I've told you many times that I can't 'science' your random debris into anything useful. So I'd appreciate it if you'd kindly remove it from my presence and let me get back to my—"

"Uh, actually..." Lynn interjected. "That's your stuff. Was your stuff. Before it was junk."

"Why would you have anything of mine?" Lisa asked, puzzled. Then it hit her. "Wait, are those my training dummies? The training dummies I built for you?"

"Heh...yeah." Lynn affirmed, scratching the back of her head nervously.

"The unbreakable training dummies I built you?"

"You definitely called them that, yes." Lynn mused, nodding her head in agreement.

"This!" Lisa gestured emphatically at the pile of scrap. "This is physically impossible. The alloy I constructed these dummies out of was made from a cocktail of the strongest metals from a variety of different dimensions! I called in a favor from a colleague to have the materials esnsorcelled against this exact occurance! Look! There are entire runic constructs still intact on some of these pieces! Mere fisticuffs should not be sufficient to cause damage on this scale!"

"I find it's best not to question my own awesomeness." Said Lynn, shrugging in a manner that might have conveyed modesty had it not been for the enormous grin plastered across her face.

"Indeed." Lisa seethed. Much as she wanted to carry on, this clearly wasn't going anywhere productive. Lynn was clearly just another impossible thing in a world full of them. The scientist breathed deep, then exhaled, counting the seconds as she did so. Finally, she felt calm enough to continue.

"Fine." Lisa muttered motioning to the far corner of her lab. "I'll fix them. But kindly clear the entryway so no one will hurt themselves on your...handiwork."

"Can do, sis!" Lynn chirped. The older brunette snatched up the wayward pieces of scrap metal and ventured further into the lab, towards the area Lisa had indicated.

"Just be—"

CRASH

Lisa sighed in annoyance. "Careful. I was going to say to be careful."

"Done and done." Lynn replied, dusting her hands off with a satisfied air, as if Lisa hadn't spoken at all. Well, at least now she'd presumably—

"Ooooh!" Clearly, she'd spoken too soon. Lisa spun around and found the martial artist examining the chemicals she'd put out for her experiment with Lincoln.

"Hey, Lisa!" Lynn called out, crouching down so she was at eye level with one substance Lisa knew to be quite volatile. "Which of these do I mix to make an explosion? Preferably a red one!"

"None of them!" Lisa shouted back, discretely sliding her one hand towards a large, red button on the underside of her desk. A small label with the word "PAIN" written on it resided near by. "I still have need for those materials. Kindly leave them be."

"Fiiiine." Lynn grumbled. Mercifully, the older girl stepped away from the table and made her way back to Lisa's desk. "Whatcha got there?" She asked, peering over Lisa's shoulder, squinting at the screen and scratching her chin thoughtfully. Lisa had to hand it to her, Lynn almost looked like she could understand the data on screen. Almost.

"Just some readings I took from Lincoln earlier." Lisa replied, turning back to her monitor. "We are attempting to suss out the nuances of his strange abilities."

"Ah. Yeah, I figured as much." Lynn said, nodding sagely.

"And how would you know that?" Lisa asked, playing along. To her surprise, the older girl leaned over and pointed at one particular graph buried amid the sea of data.

"That right there." Said Lynn, tapped the screen. "That's Lincoln's Aura."

"Excuse me?" This was not how Lisa envisioned this conversation going.

"His Aura, Lisa." Lynn scoffed, rolling her eyes. "Geeze, keep up."

"I am keeping up." Lisa growled. "I just have no earthly idea what you're blathering about!"

"Aura, Lisa." Lynn repeated, as if that explained everything.

"Stop saying—" The scientist abruptly ceased her rant as the older girl spread her fingers wide, and placed cupped her hands in front of her chest, looking as if she was holding an invisible basketball. Lynn took a sharp breath inward, and to Lisa's surprise, a small, crimson sphere of energy appeared between her palms.

"Aura." Lynn said again, considerably more smug this time. She began to toss the ball back and forth from one hand to the other. "Or ki. Or Qui. Chakra, chi, whatever. People call it a lot of things, but it's the energy that's naturally generated by the human body. Everyone's got it, and martial artists like me use it to fuel all the awesome stuff we do."

"I...see" Lisa murmured as Lynn began balancing the sphere on one finger. "Is that safe?"

"Totally." As if to demonstrate, Lynn cupped the ball in one palm and slammed the other on top, causing the sphere to disappear entirely. She then spread her hands apart, shaking her now empty palms as if to say "Ta dah!"

"Interesting." Lisa turned back to the graph Lynn had previously indicated. "And this here represents Lincoln's?"

"You might as well have put a name tag on it." Lynn replied confidently. "Everyone's aura is unique, and I've been feeling out Linc's since we were kids. I'd know it anywhere."

"Fascinating." Lisa chewed her lip thoughtfully, then began tapping on her keyboard. A second set of data appeared on the screen. "What about this one."

"Hmm." Lynn hemmed to herself as she studied that screen. "That" She pointed at a similar looking graph. "That looks kinda like Lincoln. But it's...different. It's like there's other stuff mixed into it."

"That would be Leni." Lisa replied, deriving no small amount of pleasure from the look of shock and...panic(?) that briefly appeared on Lynn's face. "These are the readings I took after their little outing the other day, when Lincoln managed to activate his Genre Shift ability for the first time."

"O-oh." Lynn's face reddened ever so slightly. "That thing he did with the tuxedo? Leni showed me the pictures."

Lisa turned away from her sister. "Indeed." She said, letting out a slight cough of embarrassment. Lisa had gotten to see the genuine article before he'd changed back, as well as the copious amount of pictures Leni had taken of her own volition. They had been rather flattering. Lisa had taken it upon herself to make copies. For reference.

"If this." Lisa tapped her keyboard once more, causing both data sets to appear side by side. "Represents an unaltered Lincoln, as you say it does, that seems to support my theory that genre shifting allows Lincoln to adopt the characteristics of other archetypes." She paused to ponder this revelation. "Lynn, if I were to take a scan of Leni, would you be willing to me lend your...strangely relevant expertise on the matter?"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Lynn muttered disinterestedly, waving one hand dismissively, her face scrunched up in concentration. She seemed deep in thought, which was...unusual, to say the least, for the normally action-oriented girl.

"Hey Lisa." Lynn said at last. "So Linc doing that thing with Leni turned him into a magical boy, right?"

"Not quite. See, an Archetype is intrinsically tied to a person's—"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Lynn interjected, cutting her off. "I'm sure there's a lot of technical mumbo jumbo I'm missing. But Lincoln turned into a sharp dressed, Soulless slaying machine specifically because he was with Leni, right?"

"That is my theory, yes." Lisa replied, nodding slowly.

"So hypernetically speaking—"

"Hypothetically."

"Right, that." Lynn nodded absentmindedly. "In theory, that means Lincoln could turn into different things with different girls, right? Like, lets say this girl was a kick-butt martial artist, which everyone knows is way cooler than a magical girl, Linc would also turn into something way cooler. Right?"

Lisa winced, but reluctantly nodded. "That is my working theory. Yes."

"Iiiinteresting." Lynn began to rub her hands together, with barely repressed glee. "Better get cracking on those training dummies, Lisa. I have a feeling we're gonna need a lot more." Before Lisa could respond, Lynn dashed out of the room, cackling to herself.

"Oh dear." The scientist muttered to the now empty room. That didn't bode well.

Lincoln looked himself over in the mirror one last time. He knew it was pointless, he'd already gotten as groomed as he was going to get even before going to Lisa's lab, and anything beyond his usual outfit was just going to look weird. So, short of transforming into a magical, tuxedoed hero (...a possibility that he gave some serious consideration to before dismissing it), this was about as good as he was going to look. And that was fine. It was just Luna and Sam. All he'd needed to be was himself. Luna literally had a song about that very subject. One where the message was about allowing one to be true to themselves by bathing in the blood of their enemies, but the lesson was still applicable. At least, he was reasonably certain it was.

He supposed it was the difference in status that left him so unnerved. This wasn't something he was unused to. Lori was essentially a celebrity, and one who could pile drive him into the sun with little trouble should the mood take her. Leni was also a celebrity, and of a much more traditional variety than Lori. Carol was also...err, well, maybe that wasn't such a good comparison. Something about the statuesque blonde left him tongue tied, maybe he just had a type? Tall, blonde and buxom wasn't exactly a niche appeal, he supposed girls like Carol just had that effect on guys.

"A...CHOOO!" Lori blinked in surprise, then winced as she noticed that the park beneath her was suddenly missing a lot of its leaves. Super Breath definitely had its downsides sometimes.

"Stupid sneeze, sneaking up on me like that." She grumbled, scratching her still tingling nose. It was at that point, when she realized that Carol had adopted the exact same pose.

"Huh, you too?" Both girls said in unison.

"A...chooi" Leni winced as a tiny sneeze, really more of a squeak, suddenly exploded forth from her delicate nose. "Gross." She thought, as she reached into her purse for a tissue. That was when she noticed that everyone on the crowded street around her seemed to be looking directly at her. Intently so.

"Uh..." The blonde began, fumbling for words that could possibly address this strange occurrence. But before she could say anything, the crowd erupted into whoops and cheers.

"Well, whatever makes people happy." Leni mentally shrugged, and bowed for her adoring public.

Lincoln grunted in irritation as his hair refused to conform to his desires. Fine then, he'd just go with the turkey tail. As usual. As he made his way downstairs, Lincoln's mind turned back to his earlier musings. So, Carol being the gorgeous anomaly that she was, that left Lori and Leni, neither of whom he'd ever had problems feeling comfortable around. Other than competence wise, of course, he was well acquainted with feeling inadequate compared to his much more talented sisters. But he'd never felt uncomfortable around them as a person. Lincoln loved his sisters, metaphorical warts and all, and he knew they feeling was mutual. He supposed the problem was that Luna was the only member of his family who wasn't around all that often. She and Sam were always off going exciting places, meeting exciting people and doing exiting things. It gave the girls an air of mystique that just wasn't there with his domestically located sisters, even as fantastical as their abilities were.

And it was particularly annoying because Lincoln knew he shouldn't feel that way. Luna Loud adored her only brother, she'd made that abundantly clear on numerous occasions. Sam too, and not just because he happened to be her girlfriend's brother. Lincoln, Luna, and Sam had been fast friends, long before the girls had even begun to entertain the idea of stardom.

"Lincoooooln!" Called a much younger Sam, circa 9-years old or so, looking much the same as she did in the present day, just considerably less...robust in certain areas, and lacking her penchant for the color cyan. "Come over here!"

"Coming!" An equally downsized Lincoln scurried into the room, having learned that when girls were shouting at him, it was usually best to just go along with it. "Hi, Luna." He said, waiving at his big sister. Her presence wasn't a surprise, she and Sam were inseparable. "What's going on?"

"W-well..." Luna began, haltingly. She stopped, mid-sentence, then looked to Sam meaningfully. The blonde rolled her eyes in irritation, but seemingly received whatever message Luna was trying to send.

"Luna and I wanna play house." The Sharp girl announced, her voice brooking no room for argument. "And we need you to play with us." Lincoln groaned quietly, knowing better than to voice his displeasure.

"Fine." He grumbled. "Who's going to be what?" Maybe they'd let him be something cool this time, like a superhero or something.

"Luna and I are going to be the mommies." Sam said, gesturing to herself and his sister. "And you're going to be our husband."

"But we always do that!" Lincoln protested.

"And that's why we're gonna do it this time too." Sam replied, grinning. She reached over and yanked the boy close. "Now come on, first you've gotta marry me and Luna before we can start playing."

Lincoln found himself blinking furiously as the memory faded from his mind. That couldn't possibly how those play dates had gone. Could it? No, no. He must have...inhaled something in Lisa's lab, or something...surely..

Lincoln was pulled from his thoughts as a strange tingle began going off in the back of his mind. Danger! His instincts began screaming, but before he could act on the impulse a great weight slammed into him from the side.

"Gaaaah!" Lincoln cried out as he toppled over, crashing into the ground. He likely would have continued, potentially moving onto something more articulate, but the force of his body slamming into the ground knocked the wind out of the boy, momentarily leaving him stunned. As Lincoln's oxygen deprived brain struggled to feed him relevant data, two things suddenly became very apparent to him. Aching backside aside, the world was suddenly very soft, and pleasant smelling. And also...cyan?