29. Chapter 29

AN: Testing, testing. Alright, I think this thing still works.

So yeah, as you've probably surmised between me deleting the chapter announcing the hiatus, and posting this new chapter, Archetypal is back. More or less. Just for clarification, Auto has not returned, and I should probably delete that AN in the previous chapter to prevent any confusion on that point. He and I are still friends, he's just not into writing fanfiction anymore, and I respect that. Instead, I now have a new partner in crime on this story, who needs no introduction, but I'm going to give him one anyway. Its my good pal UnderratedHero, writer of classics like Requiem for a Loud, and his ongoing Heroverse series, which was so good that I flagrantly ripped it off and made it demonstrably worse. He's also a fantastic artist, but I think he needs even less introduction on that front. Every bit of cover art that is currently being used for my stories was drawn by Hero, and they make my stories look a thousand times classier. So he's a dude of many talents, and I'm thrilled that we're going to be working on this story together, I hope you guys are too.

And now, because I'm obligated to do so, I will permit the man to speak for himself.

Hello, I'm Troy McClure. You may remember me from such fanfictions as "Requiem for a Loud" and the "Heroverse" saga. I've been such a big fan of this story ever since it was created. Siege and Auto are two of my best friends, if not my favorite people in the entire fandom. They're extremely talented writers and I've enjoyed their work even before we started hanging out.

I've been witness to the behind-the-scenes of Archetypal for, uh, I think almost a year? It's been a pleasure seeing them coming up with the story, and a bigger pleasure being a reader and a fan of it. And I was lucky enough that, when Auto took the decision to move past fanfictions, I received both his and Siege's blessings to take his place and keep the story alive. I'm not a replacement by any stretch of the imagination. I'm simply coming in with fresh ideas to help Siege continue with this collaborative effort. And in a short amount of time, I'm happy to say that we've been able to settle down on some awesome ideas for the future of this story.

I will be taking charge of the Luancoln arc, which is funny (get it?), cause Auto basically left me with no roadmap and a carte blanche to do whatever I wanted with the seeds he planted. And hopefully you'll enjoy what I have in mind for it.

And that's that. Archetypal's back. Enjoy Hero's first chapter.

Sid Chang was many things, or at least she liked to believe she was.

She was an awesome cook, even though her specialty was pasta, specifically the kind that you just throw in the hot water and stand next to it until it's ready. She was great with robotics, even though the last bunch of drones she'd built had unionized and left her when she refused to give them paid vacations twice a year. She was a good friend, the kind that would even join a controversial school club that was supposed to fight social ailments but was borderline defamatory just because Ronnie Anne asked her to. She was all of that and more.

One thing she wasn't, though, was brave.

In her defense, she seldom needed to be brave. Her best friend was the toughest girl she'd ever met. Who needs to be able to stand up for themselves when you have a bestie that will walk towards the cashier and violently explain that you asked for NO pickles? Some people may think that Sid was over-reliant on Ronnie Anne, but she dismissed those ideas. As far as she was concerned, there was nothing wrong with having a best friend to rely on. Wasn't that the whole point of best friends? However, she would have to admit that sometimes she found herself lost when Ronnie Anne wasn't there to guide her, or to reassure her that everything was going to be fine.

Which led to her current predicament, with her lack of bravery playing against her as she was home alone. Or, well, technically at home with the Poltergeist that had been messing around in their house for the past week or so.

It had started innocently enough. Walking into a room and finding a book on the floor, far away from the shelves. Waking up in the morning and stubbing your pinky toe because the table was two inches to the right. Getting out of the shower and finding the words "NICE SHAMPOO, WHERE'D YOU GET IT?" written on the tarnished glass when there was no one else at home. Small things that could have been attributed to a zillion things —sometimes you just buy a magic mirror and then totally forget about it—, but wouldn't necessarily lead one to believe that there were supernatural elements involved.

Of course, even the most stubborn of Sids would have to admit that something was probably wrong when you walked into a room to find a house of cards building up itself, and then immediately had a shoe thrown at you when your loud gasp blew it up.

Sid and her little sister Adelaide had bunked with their parents that night, and the morning after, the family had contacted the Exorcist Guild to get their uninvited guest evicted. Unfortunately, Adelaide had a birthday party to attend, and both her parents had to leave for work, which meant she had to spend the entire afternoon by herself, waiting for the professionals to come help.

She was beyond jittery as she waited. She sat still on the couch, hugging her knees against her chest and being startled by the tiniest noise, throwing knives in the direction of any disturbance or sudden movements. Three of her mom's cat statues with moving arms had lost their paws because of it. It sucked for the Feng Shui, but on the bright side, her aim was getting better.

When there was a knock on the door, she jumped up and ran to it, happy for the help to finally get there. She couldn't wait for the poltergeist to be dealt with, and to see an Exorcist in action. She'd never seen one, and she kept wondering what they would look like. Were they like priests? Or maybe more like afterlife cops? Would they be ghosts themselves?!

Her expectations were subverted harder than with the latest Trek Wars trilogy when she threw the door open, and instead of a ragged, tough-looking adult ready to beat a spirit into submission, she saw a scrawny kid falling to the floor before properly introducing himself—

"Uh, Exorcist here, you said you were having ghost problems?"

—and realizing she knew him. Oh, she definitely knew him.

"L-Lincoln? What are you doing here?"

"Wait… Sid?"

For a while, none of them said anything, their eyes scanning each other in disbelief. Lincoln couldn't believe his bad luck. What were the chances that the random job Luan had been tasked to do and that he had taken over in an impulsive decision involved the best friend of one of his former best friends, who now was a founding member of an anti-him club?

Sid, on the other hand, was having trouble making sense of the situation. Why was Lincoln there, knocking on her door and introducing himself as an Exorcist? Why was he dressed like an edgy private investigator? Why did he have facial hair?! She knew he couldn't possibly be the one sent to help her, he wasn't of that Archetype, he was—

Realization dawned on her as Ronnie Anne's words echoed in her mind.

"AH!" She shrieked, jumping back and raising her arms to cover her eyes. "I-I'm not joining your harem, y-y-you pervert!"

"Wait, what?! No! No no no!" He said, his face turning red as he shook his arms frantically. "It's not like that! I'm just—!"

"You knew I was home alone with a ghost! You found out I would be here, scared and vulnerable, and you thought it would be the perfect time to make a move on me!"

"T-That's not true!"

"You even dressed up all sexy, with your fake beard to try to charm me!"

"I don't— Wait, sexy?"

"Surprise point-blank knife attack!" She yelled as she produced a knife from her sleeve and blindly threw it at him.

Fortunately, yelling the overly long name of her attack had taken the 'surprise' element out of it, and living with ten sisters had trained Lincoln's instincts to get a good ducking-down reaction time. He managed to avoid a violent shaving by a hair.

As soon as she realized what she'd done, Sid gasped in alarm and her blushing face paled as she ducked down next to Lincoln to make sure he was alright.

"Oh my God, Lincoln! I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to violently throw a sharp blade at you!"

"It's… alright," he said, looking at her blouse for any sign of another hidden dagger, but shaking his head when he realized he'd been staring at her exposed shoulders for a couple of seconds. Thankfully, she didn't seem to notice, her eyes busy scrutinizing his features with a mix of worry and curiosity. "But I promise, I'm not here to… t-to make you join my harem. I don't even have a harem!"

"Oh," she said, sounding almost disappointed. "But… then what are you doing here?"

"I'm… covering for my sister Luan," he explained, standing up, scratching the back of his neck, and looking away with a blushing face when she stayed down there, her blouse exposing a lot of collarbone from that angle. "She's an Exorcist and was assigned this case, but she had other businesses to attend to. So I'm her replacement."

"Oh. I guess that makes sense… Except it doesn't make sense!" She yelled, standing up to be at eye level with him. "You're not an Exorcist! You're a Harem King."

The way she whispered those words, with a poorly concealed layer of distrust, hurt him. Sid and he weren't particularly close, the foundation of their relationship being that they were both good friends with Ronnie Anne. The three of them had had their fair share of moments hanging out together, for sure, but he wasn't sure they would call themselves good friends. And yet, Sid had never been anything but kind to him, always giggling at his awful jokes and crazy antics, and being reasonably supportive.

He'd never thought he'd hear her being so openly judgmental about him. Then again, he'd already seen her starting a club that was clearly against him and his Archetype. He shouldn't be surprised. And on the other hand, he wasn't precisely open about the nature of his abilities, so he couldn't exactly blame her for being wary of him.

"I know. But my Archetype is…" he trailed off, at first trying to figure out a concise explanation of how Genre Shifting worked, but then realizing that even if he could convey it all properly, it was most likely going to be a fruitless endeavor.

Sid was Ronnie Anne's best friend, who hated his guts because of his Archetype. Sid was too kind to hate someone, but she was also extremely loyal to her best friend, so his presence there would only lead to trouble. She wouldn't want him there. Going there had been a mistake. Luan was going to be so disappointed with him...

"It doesn't matter," he said, sounding dejected and avoiding looking at her eyes. "I shouldn't be here. Sorry to bother you. I'll call for another Exorcist to help you out."

He tried to turn around and leave.

THUD!

He winced and blinked in surprise, rubbing his head. Next to his feet, a book bounced before hovering two inches over the floor, and then flying back into the apartment, finding its place in the bookshelf and quietly fitting in.

A second later, a high-pitched shriek almost pierced his ears, and Sid ran around him hiding, seemingly, from her own home.

"P-Please don't leave me!" She begged him, tightly clenching his trench coat in her fists, wrinkling it all over. "I'm by myself and I don't like ghosts!"

He looked at her scared face, with tears gathering in the corner of her eyes, and her lower lip pouted up like she was about to cry.

"I'm sorry I was so rude and threw a knife at your face," she apologized. "I don't know how your Archetype works, but if you can help me, please do it! Pretty please with a cherry on top?"

Well, he couldn't argue against a cherry on top.

"Alright, sure," he reassured her, smiling at her relieved face. "Let's go get rid of this ghost."

"So how do you get rid of a ghost?" Sid asked, sitting with her legs crossed on her couch.

"I'm… working on it," Lincoln replied, scratching his stubbled chin as he stood in the middle of the living room, completely clueless about how to proceed now that he was there. He expected his body to react on his own, for his eyes to glimmer with a silver glow and detect the presence of an evil entity, for his Holy Aura to damage all nearby creatures that had an evil alignment. Nothing happened, however, and to be perfectly frank, Lincoln felt like a mere cosplayer.

There was no instinctual driving force that beckoned him to perform a certain ritual or to guide him in the ways of the Exorcists. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on the sensations he felt when he tapped into Luan's archetype to borrow a bit of her power, that shock of energy that surged through him. It seemed to be there, he could almost touch it, but for some reason it felt like the more he tried to grasp it, the further it moved from his reach.

He felt a bit of sweat forming in his brow, and that's when he realized he'd been tensing his whole body. He let out a sigh and relaxed, his shoulders visibly dropping.

"Is… everything okay?" Sid asked.

"Yeah, uh, it's just…"

"Do you have performance issues?"

"No, it's not that, I—"

"Cause if you can't do it when someone's watching I can just leave and come back once you're finished."

He stopped to consider it. To be perfectly frank, it actually may be better if she wasn't around to watch him fail miserably as he had no idea what he was supposed to do. But he quickly dismissed those thoughts; he didn't need excuses, he needed to figure out how to make this work.

"It's f-fine, don't worry. So, uh, where does the ghost usually manifest?"

Sid shivered before pointing a finger at a door. "The first time I saw stuff moving on its own was in my room, and I've heard lots of noises coming from there."

"Alright. Do you mind if I go in there?" He asked, thinking that it might be better to go to the root of the problem. Maybe if the ghost manifested itself his powers would kick in the way they had in the past when he was in danger.

"You… want to go to my room," Sid pointed out, so slowly she almost spelled it out.

"Yeah, to see if I can get rid of the ghost in there."

"...in my room."

"...yes?"

He arched an eyebrow when he saw Sid's face gradually going from her usual pale tone to a red that rivaled Lynn's qipao. Her pupils seemed to be vibrating, and she gulped loudly. Finally, she stood up and silently began marching to her room like a toy soldier. He couldn't say for sure, but she seemed to be muttering under her breath.

"...room… alone… King…"

He followed her to the closed door, and his eyes lingered down to her black bike-shorts, which left very little to the imagination as it clung to her thin legs and her surprisingly shapely—

"Lincoln?" She asked, stopping right before the door and turning around to look at him.

"Yeah?"

"P-Please don't laugh," was all she said, before she flung the door open, and then proceeded to step once again behind him, shielding her body from her room.

A room that, as Lincoln entered for the first time, was much girlier than he'd assumed. The walls were painted with pastel colors and had flower stickers all over them. Christmas lights hung from the ceiling, the soft lights turned on to give it a sky-full-of-stars kind of vibe. A pink carpet surrounded the bed, which had multiple animal-shaped plushies lying on it.

"Hey, nice room," he mentioned, examining it. "It reminds me of my older sister's room with a bit of my twin sisters' thrown in it. Or, well, one half of the twins' room."

"R-Really?" She said, her head peeking from behind his shoulder. "Don't you think it's a silly room for an Assassin?"

"What? No, of course not!"

"But… one of the first meetings of the Assassins Brotherhood was at this one girl's room, and all the walls were covered in swords and scythes and those spiky-ball-thingies," she said, fidgeting with her fingers. "Isn't this too… not-assassin-like?"

"Hey, it's your room. You shouldn't have to worry about what it looks like or what other people think about you for it. I, for one, think it's cute. I'm sure you'll still be able to do a great job as an assassin regardless of what's in your room."

"Do you really believe that?"

"Of course."

She gave him a warm smile, and the two of them were starting to notice how close they were, to the point where each other's breaths brushed against their faces. But before either could dwell on it, the lights began to flicker, and an eerie glow turned their attention to the center of the room, where the air itself seemed to move in rapid circles, shaping up until a floating, ethereal orb of light manifested itself in front of the young pair.

Lincoln felt the temperature in the room drop cold. Before he could say anything, though, Sid shrieked and with her hands moving faster than Lincoln's eyes, she grabbed the .44 Magnum Revolver he carried on his belt and proceeded to fire a full round of silver bullets that hit the target. Or would have, if said target wasn't an immaterial orb of light that was unaffected by gunshots.

The two of them stared at the orb for a few seconds, inhaling the smell of powder, until Lincoln pointed at the almost perfectly aligned six holes in the wall.

"See? You'll do great as an Assassin!"

"...and then she told me there was NO WAY I would make her laugh, can you believe that? Or something like that. To be honest I was busy figuring out what was wrong with my Spotify, cause she didn't come up in my list of hottest singles of the week!"

The entire audience erupted in hysterical laughter, descending into a disarray of insanity. People were falling back from their chairs, spitting their drinks all over the people in front of them, punching the table with all their might.

Luan rejoiced in their laughs, feeling a sense of joy that she'd missed. Sure, she was a natural comedian, so laughter and happiness followed her everywhere she went. But for the past three years, ever since the Index had revealed her Archetype to be that of an Exorcist, she'd been finding fewer opportunities to go to comedy clubs to perform. It was hard enough, considering that most of her nights were spent in creepy manors, graveyards, and abandoned hospitals. It didn't help either that most business owners would frown when an applicant for a comedy show presented an ID that had her listed as an Exorcist.

"Sorry, not the profile we're looking for," they'd tell her.

"Wait! Please, let me show you this awesome ventriloquism routine I've been working on!" She'd say in a desperate attempt to convince them, as she started drinking a glass of water while presenting her favorite puppet, Mr. Coconuts.

"I ShaLL FeAst On THE soULs of ThE InnOCent", a combination of dozens of voices would say, much to her dismay.

Using her lucky puppet as a container for the essence of dangerous apparitions, poltergeists, orbs, demons, and specters that wouldn't kindly return to their home plane of existence turned out not to be a good idea for her act.

But there she was, performing for the first time in long, long months, and the audience loved her. Most of the audience, at the very least. There was one specific, pale-skinned, freckled emo girl shooting daggers at her, holding a clipboard so hard it seemed like she was trying to break it in half.

Luan was loving every second of this night.

"Yeah, yeah, she's a tough one I can tell, but I'm sure she'll be warming up to me before the night is over. And I know a lot about warmth! I consider myself quite the firefighter in bed, 'cuz I come in hot and leave people wet!"

The decibels in the room skyrocketed, her audience losing their proverbial mind at her jokes. She winked at Maggie, who finally managed to break the clipboard in two.

Oh, yeah, Luan felt ecstatic. This night couldn't be any better.

"I hope Lincoln's having a good time as well. He's a smart kid, though, I'm sure he's doing great."

"...so in light of all those eloquently detailed reasons, could you please, please leave Sid alone? Pretty please? With a cherry on top?"

The orb remained frozen in place, and with that, whatever morale Lincoln still had left his body.

For the past fifteen minutes, he'd tried everything he could to try to get rid of the ghost. He'd thrown Holy Water at it, only managing to dampen the floor. He'd tried to focus his energy to punch it off the air, only for his swing to go pathetically through it. He'd very sternly screamed at it to leave the Chang family alone, trying to put on a scary face. And when even that failed, he'd resorted to begging.

But not even a cherry on top could convince the orb to do anything. It simply remained in its position, immutable to his attempts at exorcising it. If that was even a thing he could do. Apparently, he couldn't, and he just knew that something must have gone horribly wrong during his Genre Shift with Luan. Unlike his transformations with Leni, Luna, and Sam, he had no real idea of what to do. He couldn't figure out how to use his powers if he even had them, and being in the dark like that stressed him out and made him feel useless.

He stared at the orb for a few extra seconds, waiting for it to do anything, to react to his actions. The orb only seemed to rotate a little, almost like it was tilting its head in confusion at him, and that was all he could take.

Lincoln let out a defeated sigh and turned to look at Sid with a pained expression. The girl, who was pressed in fear against a corner of her room and holding a knife in front of her with shaking hands, frowned in confusion when she saw his face.

"I'm sorry, Sid," he apologized, closing his eyes and lowering his head. "I can't do this."

The moment he officially gave up, his whole body began to glow. His hat faded away, his trench coat dissolved into motes of dust, and his facial hair fell off his face and disappeared before it touched the floor. The light dulled, and after a couple of seconds, a dejected Lincoln Loud, in his regular orange polo and blue jeans, stood in the room.

He didn't seem to notice, and if he did, he didn't make a comment about it and instead proceeded to let his body slide down until he was sitting on the floor with his back pressed against the bed frame. He crossed his arms over his knees and pressed his chin against his chest, obscuring his face from the rest of the world.

"Lincoln?" Sid said, lowering her arms and tentatively walking closer to the boy in her room. She stopped for a second when she saw the orb moving in the air, hovering down closer to Lincoln's face, its otherworldly glow dulling.

It looked like it was… worried. And Sid didn't like ghosts, but right then she was also worried, and since the spirit hadn't tried to harm them ever since they got there, she decided to risk it and get closer to him, kneeling in front of Lincoln and carefully putting a hand on his shoulder.

"Lincoln, are you okay?"

He wasn't, but he didn't say it out loud. How could he be okay? He was pretty much a confirmed disaster. He couldn't use his Archetype, not even now that he sort of had an idea of how it worked. Most people were somewhat or very much aware of what their Archetype was and how it worked by the time they were thirteen and got indexed. But even those that only found out their true nature at the ceremony were quick to figure out how to use their Archetype. After all, it was a part of themselves, it had always been for the entirety of their lives. Even if they weren't aware of it, once they knew what it was, they were able to master it.

He thought of Sid, who had found out about her Archetype at the same time he did, but she could already hide daggers in her sleeves and shoot a full round of bullets with pinpoint accuracy. What could he do? Nothing. Only steal energy from his much more successful and powerful sisters, and not even consistently.

He was the problem, that much was for sure. It wasn't Luan's fault. She was one of the finest Exorcists in Royal Woods. She'd even managed to trap the souls of powerful named Demons, like Abaddon and Conan O'Brien. She'd been willing to lend him her power for him to perform a simple exorcism, and somehow he'd messed even that up.

How, though? It turned out better than with Stella, but worse than with his other sisters. Didn't Lisa theorized that it had to do with how close he felt to the girl he tried Genre Shifting with? If that was the case, then there was no reason for the transformation to go wrong. He was as close to Luan as he was with the rest of his sisters. Yeah, maybe he admired Lori a bit more because of how much he loved her Archetype, and maybe he spent more time with Lynn since they were the closest in age, but he would never even entertain the idea that he felt closer to one sister than the rest.

Luan had been there for him his entire life, always cheering him up, always making him smile when he needed it the most. Before Lucy was born, Luan was his go-to sister to watch and play ARRGH!, which turned out to be hilarious in hindsight. He felt as close and loved her just as much as he did any other of his sisters.

So how did he manage to mess it up?

"Hey, Lincoln, come on, look at me," he heard her beg. And only because she sounded truly worried he gave in and lifted his head to look at her. "Hey, don't worry, it's okay if you can't banish the spirit to the shadow realm. I'm not mad. I'm sure it's super, duper powerful."

As if to prove her right, all the plushies in the room floated in the air around them like a fluffy tornado for a couple of seconds before gently going back to their original positions.

"Maybe," he conceded, "but your family hired an Exorcist, and what you got instead was a dumb kid that has the weirdest Archetype ever. I don't understand it, and I don't even know how to use it."

"Hey, come on now, don't say that. There are no weird or bad Archetypes, didn't you learn anything in grade school? Everyone's different, but there are no better or worse Archetypes," she explained, reciting almost from memory.

"Well, I'm the only one who has to deal with an Anti-Lincoln club." he spat out.

Sid recoiled, her hand moving away from him. The orb around them flared up in shock, rotating from one side to the other, almost like it was looking from Lincoln to Sid over and over again, trying to process those words. He saw her biting her lip and looking away with evident remorse, and he kinda felt bad about calling her out.

"It's… Ronnie Anne says it's not a club against you," she explained, rubbing her arm. "She says it's against polymorphy."

"Polygamy."

"Yeah, that too. She says it goes against our values, which are clearly better than any other set of values that exist or have ever existed anywhere else in the world. She says it's to protect girls, not to make you feel bad."

"Well, it kinda does make me feel bad."

A K-Pop magazine from her nightstand rolled up and hit Sid in the back of her head. She groaned in pain and gave the orb a nasty look. The orb had no face, but she seemed to sense a disappointed look coming from it, and she looked away, suddenly embarrassed.

"I'm not blaming you or anything," he tried to say, "but no one really trusts me. And maybe they shouldn't, but not because I'm some… s-some kind of pervert. Which I'm not!"

"You did drag Stella to a closet during gym class…"

"The point is that all these years I've only ever wanted to be more like my sisters, helping people and seeing them smile. But I'm not like them. They're cool, and strong, and can use their powers like total pros. Me? I can't even make a fairly amicable orb disappear."

Right on cue, the orb disappeared with a loud "PLOP!", like a bursting bubble, seemingly leaving Sid and Lincoln alone.

"But Lincoln, aren't you trying to… do more than your Archetype allows? You're supposed to be a H-H-Harem King, not an Exorcist. Shouldn't you be… you know… m-making girls like you or something?" She said, blushing hard and rubbing the hem of her blouse.

"I'm sure I would be awful at that too," he lamented. Sid seemed to be about to say something, but he continued talking. "But no, that's not what my Archetype does. Or at least that's not what I think it does. And that's the really scary part: I don't know what my Archetype does. So… maybe I'm the wrong one. Maybe everyone else is right. Maybe my Archetype is disgusting, and so will I—"

"Shut up!" She yelled, and Lincoln opened his eyes wide to see that she looked equally worried and angry.

"Uh, Sid? What—?"

"You're getting this all wrong!" She interrupted him, poking his chest with a finger. "Our Archetypes don't define us. It's what we do with them that does! And your Archetype doesn't change you. Lincoln, I've known you for a long time, and I know that you're a good guy. Maybe… Maybe we don't know what your Archetype does. But I know you'll figure out how to use it. And I'm sure you'll be just as good as your sisters when you do."

She furrowed her brow for a second, pressing a finger against her chin.

"Well, maybe not as good as Lovely Leni. I mean, she's kind of a—"

The rolled-up magazine hit the back of her head once again.

"Ouch. Okay, maybe I deserved that."

"Sid, that's… That's one of the nicest things anyone's said to me," he admitted.

"Well, it's true. Your Archetype is part of yourself, but you can choose how to use it. I mean, look at me! I was really upset when I realized I was an Assassin, but I talked with the Brotherhood and they assured me that there are a bunch of Assassins that use their Archetype to kill dangerous Tainted and Corrupted. And that's who I wanna be! I'm not a violent person, I couldn't murder other people, but I so wanna kill and stab and shred those Soulless like there's no tomorrow!"

Lincoln smiled at her enthusiasm, and when she noticed his smile, her eyes lit up with sparkling joy, and she offered him a hand.

"So don't worry. I'm not mad that you couldn't get rid of the poltergeist. You're still figuring out your Archetype. I'm sure once you do, you'll do great things with it."

With renewed motivation, he nodded.

"Thanks, Sid. You're really kind."

He accepted her hand and allowed her to help him stand up. The lights suddenly began to flicker, and the lamps went out, leaving only the Christmas lights that gave the room a soft, almost candle-like lighting. They turned around in confusion, and then both realized that they were still holding hands. He looked at it, she looked at it, they looked at each other, but they didn't let go.

"Sid, I—"

"Lincoln, I—"

THUMP!

Lincoln's polo was suddenly and violently pulled back, while at the same time, an invisible force shoved Sid forward. They both yelled in surprise and lost their balance, as they fell back onto Sid's bed. The boombox in the room turned on, and suddenly an eighties ballad started rocking through the speakers. Lincoln let out a groan, finding it hard to breathe with the weight of a girl on his chest and stomach.

"S-Sorry!" She said, stumbling as she sat up, trying to fix her hair, disheveled as it was after being hit with a magazine several times.

He let out a small yelp when she ended up sitting on his groin. She noticed and shrieked again.

"I-I'm so sorry, I'll get off— OFF OF YOU, I MEAN!"

"N-No, I'm sorry, I fell and I didn't—"

"Hey, Sid!"

The door to the girl's room flung open, and Ronnie Anne stood on the threshold, carrying a box of chocolates she was already tasting, licking her fingers clean with her eyes closed.

"Sorry I couldn't get here earlier, I had to help Bobby with a—"

She stopped abruptly when she opened her eyes and saw that her friend wasn't alone. Lincoln Loud was sitting on Sid's bed, with the latter straddling his hips, both of them blushing, with wrinkled clothes, messy hair, under beautiful lighting, and with a love ballad playing in the background.

The seconds stretched for an eternity, the silence between the three becoming almost unbearable. No one said anything, no one dared move.

To Lincoln's horror, Ronnie Anne's face began twisting into a mask of unbridled rage, her whole body shaking like she was a bomb about to explode. The box of chocolates fell out of her hands, and she had a murderous look on her face.

She opened her mouth, presumably to speak profanities—

—only for the door to close itself right on her face.