7. Chapter 7

AN: Sorry for the delay folks. I won't go into it, but things happened that kept me from getting this chapter out as fast as I'd have liked to. Finally managed to get this one done, so hopefully the next one is a bit more timely. Anyway, hope you enjoy the chapter.

"Alright." Lincoln said with a little shrug. "You've convinced me, I'll hang out with Leni today." He favored his older sister with a bucktoothed grin. "Maybe it'll be fun."

"Yay!" Leni swept up Lincoln into another hug, albeit a short lived one. "Don't worry Linky! I promise, we're gonna have so much fun today!"

"Speaking of which..." Lori gestured towards Lincoln's clock. "It's getting late. We should all probably get going." She was right, apparently time did fly when you were having fun.

"Okay, I'm gonna get changed." Said Leni, leaping to her feet. As she did so, Lincoln turned to Carol, swallowing nervously. He was the host of this little gathering...technically, and it seemed like he should say something...appropriate before they dispersed. "It was lovely to see you." Or, "Have a nice day." Some kind of minor pleasantry, at the very least, and yet...nothing came to mind. Carol turned to Lincoln, a small expectant smile on her face, and still no words came forth. That was distressing.

"Lovelllyyyyy Leniiiiii..." Oh good, a distraction. Lincoln turned to he disturbance and saw Leni speaking very slowly for some reason. She stood in a wide legged stance, her left arm curled up against her body, hand clenched into a fist, and her right arm held across her body. On a clock face, she would be pointing to eleven' o'clock. As she spoke, she slowly rotated her right arm in a lazy arc, finally stopping at the one o'clock position. This was...really weird, even by Leni's very eccentric standards. For the life of him, Lincoln couldn't figure out what exactly it was his big sister was—

"Leni no!" Lori cried out in a panic, bouncing out of her chair. "You can't do that in Lincoln's ro—"

"Change!" Leni shouted, not heeding the elder girl's warning. She punctuated her exclamation by punching upward with her left arm while simultaneously pulling back her right arm, essentially swapping the position of both limbs. For a few heartbeats she simply stood there, holding the strange pose.

"Lincoln!" Lori cried desperately, pivoting in his direction. "You need to shut your—"

WHUMP

Lincoln's world exploded into a kaleidoscope of dazzling lights and colors, equal parts befuddling and terrifying in the suddenness of the transition. He tried to open his mouth to scream, but found he was unable to. Several, panicked moments later, he realized that this was because he was already screaming, he simply couldn't hear it over the bombastic orchestral music that was blaring from...somewhere, presumably.

Eventually Lincoln's vision adjusted to the point where he was able to make out shapes amid the dazzling display. Lori and Carol could be seen more or less where they'd originally been standing, though the former was part-way into the motion of running over to him, frozen in place. A quick attempt to move his own body revealed that he was similarly frozen. And there in the middle of the room was Leni. Floating several feet off the ground and...spinning. She just...spun there, as the lights shimmered around her and the triumphant music played on.

Things remained this way for what felt like at least several minutes, Lincoln and the two older blondes frozen in place, while Leni spun in a circle. It was certainly impressive that she was able to keep it up for so long, a lesser person would have almost certainly gotten sick from constantly spinning at those velocities, but Leni was apparently made of sterner stuff. An odd thing to be impressed by, admittedly, but Lincoln's joints were starting to cramp up rather painfully, and he was desperate for any kind of distraction.

"Okay." Lincoln thought to himself. "I can definitely see why Lori didn't want Leni to transform in my room, this is extremely annoying. But I still don't understand why she tried to tell me to close my...what, my eyes? Why would I need to close my eyes? Yeah, the light show was unexpected, but it didn't take that long for my vision to adjust. Seems a little alarmist to—"

That was the point where Leni's clothing exploded off of her. Underwear and overwear alike had been banished to the ether, obliterated down to the smallest atom, leaving the blonde bombshell still spinning in the middle of his room, but now with the totality of her loveliness on full display.

"..." Thought Lincoln, as he tried to process this new development. Being smothered against Leni's luscious curves on a daily basis for most of his life had given Lincoln a pretty good idea as to just how...uh, healthy, she was, but apparently nothing could quite prepare one for the sight of actually seeing it on display. The more analytical part of his mind, somehow still functioning despite an otherwise complete and total shut down of all cognitive functions, noticed that certain parts of her body remained quite bouncy, implying that she was still affected by physics even in spite of the supernatural chicanery at work. He wondered if Lisa knew about this, seemed like the sort of thing she'd be interested in.

Mercifully (perhaps...), at this point tendrils of light began to reach out from the shimmering display around them, and began to wrap themselves around Leni's body. Her arms, her legs, her...waist, and finally her...c-chest. The tempo of the music began to quicken, coinciding with an increase in the velocity of Leni's spin. All at once, the song came to a crescendo, the twirling blonde came to a stop, and the surrounding lights blossomed into a blinding white radiance. When the light faded, Leni was once more standing on the ground, fully clothed in her trademarked form-fitting, sea-foam green dress and holding her sparking wand in one hand.

"Lovely Leni!" She shouted, striking a pose where she twirled her wand with one hand, and held out her other hand, her index and middle fingers forming a V. "Yay!"

Lori and Carol's body's sagged wearily, with Lincoln's following suit moments later as whatever invisible force that had been binding them finally released the trio from its hold.

"And that..." Carol wheezed. "Is why magical girls have designated changing areas."

"Is that Leni!?"

Lincoln winced as a shrill, high pitched voice cut through the air. His senses, already fatigued by Leni's little display were especially vulnerable to the verbal assault, and from the way Lori and Carol reacted in kind, they probably weren't doing much better. If anything, they were probably feeling it worse, super senses were absolutely a liability in this case.

Lola Loud dashed into his room, and looked around eagerly. The younger girl was still dressed immaculately as always, her long pink princess gown still pristine and her sparkling tiara not the slightest bit askew, in clear defiance of how hurried her entrance had been.

"I heard theme music! Did I make it in time?"

Lincoln was about to respond in the negative when he noticed a large, expensive looking digital camera clutched in the girl's tiny fists, each one trembling with barely contained excitement.

"Firstly, No, you did not." Said Lincoln, holding up one finger. "Second, what's the deal with that?" He gestured toward the device in question."

"Darn it." Lola pouted, and stamped her foot in outrage. "Next time I'm going to just stomp on that stupid turtle." Lincoln felt one of his eyebrows raise quizzically, but he was uncertain if he wanted to follow this particular rabbit hole.

"Lana's pet turtle." Lola clarified, having apparently noticed his expression. "He was blocking the doorway to our room, and I refused to touch his dirty, icky shell. But he wouldn't move, so finally I ended up having to kick him out of the way."

"You kicked a helpless turtle?" Lori asked incredulously.

"He's fine." Lola waved dismissively. "He pulled back into his shell just in time. Last I saw it was bouncing around the hallway. It'll stop eventually."

"Right..." Lincoln drawled, gesturing at the camera once more. "So..."

"Oh, right." Lola brandished the device. "I always try to record Leni's transformations. As an aspiring magical girl myself, it's of the utmost importance that I learn to transform myself." She frowned. "It's so annoying that I haven't been able to figure it out yet. I've tried hiring musicians and special effects artists to help me out, but it never seems to work properly."

Lincoln shot Lori a covert glance, and she immediately replied with an emphatic shake of her head. As with his own case, nobody could truly know what their Archetype was until the day of their indexing. But sometimes there was enough evidence to make an educated guess, and nobody other than Lola thought for a second that the girl with a penchant for dressing like a princess, and an odd knack for commanding other people to do her bidding was going to turn out to be a magical girl in the end.

"I'm sure you'll figure it out eventually, Lola." Leni said, giving the younger girl a sympathetic pat on the head. Alright, Lincoln mentally corrected himself, nobody other than Leni. But she was optimistic to a fault.

"Maybe I should start by getting naked." Lola muttered to herself, stroking her chin thoughtfully. "That part seems important."

"And that's where you make your exit." Lori muttered, gently prodding pink-clad girl towards the door. Fortunately, she seemed too lost in her own thoughts to put up any resistance, and it wasn't long before she had left peaceably, and more or less of her own volition.

"Speaking of changing, Lori..." Carol prompted, tapping her wrist for emphasis. She wasn't actually wearing a watch, doing so would be impractical with the rather large, metallic bracelets that were clamped around her wrists, standard amazonian battle gear and one of the few accoutrements they wore that actually looked like it could survive a fight, but her meaning was clear.

"Right." Lori nodded. "Give me a sec."

WHOOSH

Lincoln was fairly certain it hadn't even taken that long. Somewhere within the span of a single heartbeat, Lori Loud, his bedraggled yet strangely alluring older sister was nigh instantaneously replaced by Lori Loud, superhero extraordinaire. Lincoln started in surprise as he felt a light jab to his ribs.

"Keep looking at your sister like that, and I'm gonna get jealous, Linky." Carol murmured, suddenly very much in his personal space, her perfectly formed face only inches away from his own. Lincoln opened his mouth, attempting to evoke some sort of response, but none was forthcoming. Then, much to his surprise, the older girl leaned forward gave him a quick peck on the cheek.

"Geh?" Lincoln inquired. Words suddenly seemed like such a distant concept now, far beyond the grasp of his primitive mental faculties. Carol simply gave him a wink, and proceeded past him. Lincoln found it very hard to refrain from following her with his gaze, even from behind there was something alluring about her. It might have been the long, toned legs attached to her slender, willowy waist and her perfectly round and toned rear. It almost certainly had something to do with the fact that she wore even less clothing than...uh...that other lovely blonde girl. Shoot, her name was on the tip of his tongue—

"Come on, Lori." Carol called back. "We've gotta go." And with that, she leapt out the window, quickly soaring into the sky.

Lincoln gulped loudly as Lori was suddenly in his face, her eyes narrowed in annoyance. Much to his relief, the older girl took a deep breath, doing all kinds of interesting things to the vast expanse of cleavage she had on display, and when she was done, she seemed calm again.

"Be good, Lincoln." She said, sternly, and before she'd even finished speaking the words, Lincoln was already nodding emphatically, years of Lori's sisterly guidance kicking in to ensure compliance. "And also..." She leaned down and pulled him into a quick hug. "Be safe, little bro, alright?"

Lincoln was touched, by this display, both literally and figuratively, and tried to return the embrace as best he could, what with his arms pinned to his sides as they were. "I will, Lori." He responded. "I promise."

"Good." Lori released him. "Also, one more thing..." She leaned down once more and moved in close. Lincoln reflexively squeezed his eyes shut, expecting...something. What he got was the sensation of his sisters soft lips gently pressing against his cheek. Lincoln opened his eyes, but Lori was already gone, the breeze left by her departure the only indication she'd been there to begin with. Instinctively, he began to reach for the spot on his cheek, still warm and wet, but he stopped himself. Something inside him telling him to just enjoy the sensation for as long as he could.

"Come on, Linky." Leni grabbed him by the arm and began to gently pull him towards the door. "We'd better get going too! We've got a big day ahead of us!"

It was funny, Lincoln thought, mulling over the last few minutes in his mind. He couldn't say for certain, but it certainly felt like Lori had kissed him in the exact same spot Carol did. Also...

"Uh, Leni?" Lincoln asked, digging his heels into the ground.

"What's wrong, Linky?" The older girl asked, looking perplexed.

"I still need to get changed."