19. Chapter 19

AN: Got another chapter for you guys, and a fun little announcement. Archetypal now has a tvtropes page. I'm equal parts shocked and delighted. I've never had a tvtropes page made for something I've worked on, and I'm reasonably certain Auto hasn't either, so it's really cool that people not only liked this story enough to set it up, but that there also seems to be some pretty dedicated people putting the time in to fill it out. I've been having a blast reading it over, it's a lot of fun to see the story through other people's eyes. Thanks to everyone who's putting time into that page.

Imagaco: Lincoln needs to be relatively close, but doesn't need to touch them. He wasn't touching Leni when he Genre Shifted with her.

MrChubbySnorlax619: We have something planned for Martial Arts Lincoln, yes, definitely looking forward to seeing that bit play out.

Also, thanks to anyone who's wishing us well, and doubly so to the people who stuck around for that weird problem with that happened during the last update. Always makes us happy to see you guys enjoying our story.

"Loooooorrrrrriiiiiii Loooooooooooud!"

The girl in question started in surprise, momentarily forgetting that she was soaring hundreds of feet above the ground, causing a brief moment of panic and indecision as her internal compass struggled to rationalize the free form environment she was currently freaking out within. Finally managing to right herself once more, heart pounding rapidly within her breast, Lori let out a quick sigh of relief, then turned to the source of the disturbance.

"You back on Earth now?" Asked Carol Pingrey, floating alongside her, clearly amused by her distress. "You haven't said anything in a while, wanted to make sure you were okay."

"I'm fine, Carol." Lori replied, wincing slightly. "Sorry, I guess I'm just a little distracted. Not exactly the best state to be in while we're on patrol."

"I understand." Said her companion, as both girls slowed to a stop, as if by some unspoken agreement. "And just how is your kryptonite doing?"

"My...what?" Asked Lori, haltingly, genuinely confused.

"Kryptonite." Carol repeated, as if her meaning had been obvious. "It's an expression referring to a superhero's weakness. Referring, of course to the most famous example of—"

"I know what the expression means, Carol." Lori interrupted. "I'm confused by the context here."

"Oh." The other blonde smiled broadly. "I was talking about your brother, Lincoln, who is clearly your kryptonite. Hence my use of the expression."

Lori swallowed heavily, her mouth suddenly dry as a desert. "I-I don't know what—"

"Geeze, lighten up, Lori." Carol giggled, slapping her friend on the shoulder. "It's fine. But lately you have been spacing out like that, a lot, and it usually ends up being because you're thinking about Lincoln."

"Which!" The amazon held up one hand, forstalling any more interruptions from Lori. "Is totally understandable. Given what Lincoln went through the other day, of course you're going to be worrying about him. I was just asking, in the form of what was supposed to be a joke...how's the little guy doing?" She adopted a warm smile. "Seriously, I haven't heard anything since the day of the attack."

"Oh." Lori allowed herself to relax a bit, her leotard-clad form drifting gracefully in the wind. "He's fine. Better than he should be, all things considered. But Lincoln's a strong kid, he's never given himself enough credit on that front." She turned away, frowning. "I guess I'm more worried in like...the general sense. I feel like I should have been there for him. Should be there for him, you know?"

"Ever the big sister." Carol chortled. "You're like that for all your siblings, but Linc's the one who gets it the most."

"It's not just me." Lori protested, weakly. "We all worry about Lincoln. He only got his Archetype recently, and before that...well, he needed protecting."

"Seems to me like you think he still needs protecting."

Lori fumbled for an answer, only to shrug weakly. "I..." She began, hesitating. "I want to protect him. I know I shouldn't feel that way, I know that my job is to protect everybody, that's what heroes are supposed to do. But he's my..." She took a deep breath. "He's my...little brother. And I don't want him to ever have to go through something like that again, if I can help it."

"...Although." Lori added, a moment later. "It might be that Lincoln might not need me as much as he used to. By all accounts, he did pretty well for himself back at the mall."

"That tuxedo." Carol murmured, sighing happily.

"Y-yes." Annoyance with her friend's reaction warred with her own embarrassment, as a vision of Tuxedo Linky popped into her mind's eye, unbidden, flipping all kinds of switches inside her. "But I was more talking about all those Soulless he took down. All by himself, apparently."

"Yeah, that too." To Lori's surprise, Carol's grin only deepened, and instinctively Lori found herself moving away from her friend. That was a familiar expression to the superheroine, it was the way people got when they were trying to look down her top. The fact that it wasn't directed at her, for once, was nearly as strange as the fact that it was plastered upon the face her normally prim, proper, and extremely photogenic friend.

"Carol?" She asked hesitantly, as the other girl began to quietly giggle to herself.

"Carol!" Lori barked, snapping her fingers impatiently—

KATHOOM

—And immediately regretted it. She'd put a little too much oomf into that, and the resulting sound was more akin to a thunderclap. The weather station would undoubtedly be swamped with angry phone calls soon enough. Still, it seemed to have the desired effect. To a normal person, Carol would have appeared to have been immediately snapped out of her stupor, her face now wearing the angelic, serene smile she was known for. Lori wasn't exactly normal though, she'd seen the girl compose herself at speeds beyond what the human eye could typically follow. More importantly, she'd seen the way Carol had frantically run her arm across her mouth before setting back into her currently relaxed stance. It was...somewhat disconcerting.

"Everything okay?" She asked, not certain she was willing to close the distance just yet.

"Never better." Carol replied, pleasantly. "But since you brought up Lincoln...I was wondering if I might be able to...borrow...him?"

Lori's mouth opened, then closed. This repeated several times. Finally, she settled upon how to best approach this matter.

"You want to...borrow, my brother?" She said, slowly.

"Just for a couple days." Carol replied, nervously pressing her index fingers together.

"The time frame wasn't a concern." Lori retorted. "Though now it kind of is. But I'm gonna need you to elaborate a bit on what 'borrowing' Lincoln entails."

Carol gave a nervous titter. "Well, you know how Amazons aren't just an Archetype, right?"

Lori nodded warily. "Yeah, you've brought me to the Island a few times. You're a sovereign nation that just happens to have a lot of that particular Archetype."

"That's actually by design..." Carol replied, clearing her throat. "But yes, Amazon culture does produce Amazon Archetypes, more often than not. But since only girls are born with the Archetype, it means our population tends to skew female. So while it's not required, it's strongly encouraged for Amazons who leave the Island to help diversify the gene pool by...uh, occasionally bringing back...potential...male citizens?"

A very stony silence followed. "Carol..." Lori began, speaking very slowly. "I'm going to need you to be very careful with the next words that come out of your mouth."

The amazon opened her mouth to reply.

"Keeping in mind that I have heat vision." Lori growled. The other girl promptly closed her mouth.

"Good." Lori nodded approvingly. "Now I'm going to need you to assure me that you didn't just ask permission to use my little brother to diversity your gene pool."

"Any chance 'Super Persuadable' is one of your super powers?"

"No." Lori replied, dryly. "But I've still got that heat vision."

"Joking! It was a joke!" Carol began waving her hands emphatically. "Look, it's not like that, honest! But I've been off the Island for a long time now, and my parents are upset that I haven't been pulling my weight. I just need to bring a guy home with me so it looks like I've been making some progress."

"You're one of the most gorgeous gals in the city. How do you not have a stable of guys chomping at the bit for an opportunity like this?"

"Seriously?" Carol rolled her eyes in annoyance. "You of all people should know how hard it is for girls like us to get a date with someone who doesn't just see us as a hot bod in a tight costume. Or worse, isn't so terrified over what we can do that they can't even talk to us. Remember the time you had to push the planet out of alignment to save us from that giant asteroid?"

Lori frowned as that particularly unpleasant memory resurfaced. "People were too intimidated to talk to me." She admitted. "I didn't even do the heavy lifting on that one! The world governments got a bunch of wizards together and made the planet weightless for a while. I just happened to be the only hero who could get in position fast enough to move the stupid thing! But..." Her lips quirked upward as warmth began to spread through her. "I ended up riding it out by holing up at home till the next big crisis hit. Lincoln kept me company, we mostly played video games and watched bad movies."

"Precisely!" Carol gestured emphatically. "Lincoln's a nice guy with a good head on his shoulders. And I know he won't take advantage of the situation. Come on, Lori. Please?"

Memories of spending time with her little bro faded, quickly replaced by irritation and suspicion as Lori's big-sister instincts kicked in once more.

"And what exactly would he have to do, on this little trip of yours?"

Carol shrugged. "Hang out in a nice hotel suite for a couple of days. A couple of meals with my parents. And..."

"And?" Lori prompted.

"...aaaaand put in some face time with anyone else interested on bidding for his engageMENT" Carol squeaked in surprise as Lori suddenly appeared in front of her.

"I thought he was going to be your fake boyfriend!" Lori growled, pointing one accusing finger at her increasingly distressed friend.

"He is!" Carol protested, a happy smile briefly blooming on her face before abject terror asserted itself once more. "But eligible guys are at a premium on the Island, so it's customary to let other interested girls have chance to...you know, check out the merchandise and make a case for themselves. And not gonna lie, Lincoln's gonna hit a few very popular check boxes with the girls on the Island. I mean, have you seen the footage of his fight?" Without waiting for a reply, Carol began fishing around in her cleavage, producing her phone a few moments later.

"You know, Leni makes great phone cases you can just strap right onto your costume." Lori said as she drifted closer to her friend, patting her own for demonstration. "It's way more convenient."

"And I would love to talk about getting a few of those from her." Carol nodded emphatically. "But first, check this out!" Lori leaned over Carol's shoulder, curious. On her phone was what appeared to be amateur footage of Tuxedo Linky taking on a horde of Soulless. The video was shaky and frequently lost focus, but that was undeniably her little brother, tearing through Husks with style and grace.

"Wow." Lori murmured.

"Yeah." Carol nodded her agreement, briefly biting down on her lower lip. "This thing's got a zillion views already, and it's only one upload. There's tons of them out there. If Lincoln's performing like this when he's thirteen, think about what a monster he'll be when he's older." The other blonde let out a happy little sigh, her eyes glazing over for an instant, before she regained her composure.

"So...yeah. Linc's probably gonna find himself with more than a few bids once word gets out. But it's totally consensual! He won't get pushed into anything, I swear!"

"He'd better not!" Lori spat. She paused momentarily, her brow crinkling in confusion. "Wait, why would you bring a guy home just so you could hand him off to another girl?"

"Polygamy's common in our culture." Carol replied, shrugging. "Ostensibly its to help keep birth rates up, but nobody judges when a bunch of gals just want to be happy together. My moms both shared my dad before he passed away, and the three of them were really happy together."

"Oh." Lori felt her anger begin to cool, surprised by the frank admission. "You've never told me that. Or about your dad."

"He died a warrior's death." Carol added. "Shattered pelvis."

There was a sound vaguely reminiscent of breaking glass. "Pardon?"

"Apparently they wanted me to have a little sister."

"That's a thing?" Lori raised one trembling hand to her mouth, horrified. "And you want me to send my little brother off to...that??

"Hey, I thought I'd get a little solidarity out of you." Carol admonished her. "After all, a strong gal like you is going to run into the exact same problem if you're not careful."

Lori began to whimper as visions of her little brother's potential deaths began whirling through her mind. Some of them caused by her. Which was a whole other issue she wasn't quite equipped to deal with. Fortunately, before she could freak out too badly, Carol leaned close and wrapped her arms tightly around Lori.

"There there, Lori." She cooed, rubbing soothing circles into Lori's back. Immediately the eldest Loud girl found herself melting in her friend's strong embrace. It was strangely comforting. "Dad's case was a freak accident. Amazons have been working on this issue for generations, we've got it down to a science. There's techniques, stretches you can do, all kinds of stuff I'd be happy to show you."

"S-show me?" Lori asked, her face feeling strangely flushed all of a sudden.

"W-when you need it, obviously." Carol replied, releasing Lori from her grasp. "I mean, it's not like you'll need to worry about that right now." She hesitated, ever so slightly. "Right?"

"Not...not right now. No." Lori nodded, haltingly.

"W-well there you go." Carol giggled nervously. Then, she stopped. Her eyes going wide. "Hey! What if you came with us!"

"W-with you and—"

"Gaaaah!" Lori's ears perked up as she heard a familiar cry of distress far in the distance.

"—LINCOLN!" Lori shrieked, her sisterly instincts kicked in, redirecting her body towards the sound of the cry before she was consciously aware of what she was doing.

"I'mnotentirelyonboardyetbutwe'lltalklaterCarol!" Lori called back to her friend as she rocketed away.

"All...alright then." Came Carol's voice, Lori's super hearing picking up her fellow blonde's voice as easily as if the girl was still standing next to her. "Tell Lincoln I said hi!"

Lori fought down the violent, angry twitch that threatened to overtake her body. She knew from personal experience that it was not conducive to a safe, high speed flight. Besides, she'd have time to worry about an island full of half-dressed, brother stealing harpies later, right now she had a job to do!

CRASH!

It was only moments later that Lori crashed through the exterior of the Loud house (she'd fix it later. Super Wall Repair for the win!) coming to an abrupt stop as she scanned the compound for her target. There! In the kitchen! Her enhanced senses relayed the form of her little brother, thrashing in distress as an intruder pinned him to the ground.

CRASH!

One more wall she'd need to fix, but now there was nothing standing between her and her prey! Lori blaster forward, unreasonably fast, gripped the intruder by the scruff of their neck with one hand, and hoisted them up into the air!

...and then let out a long, exasperated sigh.

"Literally what are you doing?" Lori asked dryly.

"Getting reacquainted." Came the irritably chipper voice of Sam Sharp. "How's it going, Lori?"