41. Chapter 41 - Epilogue

Lincoln Loud was pacing. He'd been told on numerous occasions that there were healthier, more effective ways to deal with nerves. But he was a grown man, and here, in the privacy of his home office, he was entitled to indulge himself a little. Even if it didn't actually accomplish anything, moving around felt like something. Energy was being expended, gears were turning. Sitting around, while nervous, just made him that much more aware that time was passing, often agonizingly slow. Speaking of which...

Lincoln glanced at digital display on his desk. Good, the linear progression of time was still a thing. He sighed, and ran one hand through hair in irritation. Lincoln had been prematurely white since the day he was born, but now, in his 40's, his hair had lost the alabaster sheen of his youth. It was dull, and grey, attributes he jokingly claimed to strongly identify with these days. The girls were always quick to admonish him for doing so. Sam and Lynn were always especially quick to reassure him that he was still "sexy", and would often offer to demonstrate that right then and there. It was...problematic, when they both happened to be in the same room at the time. God help any bystanders who happened to be around. God help the children, in particular.

Lincoln busied himself with examining the video phone. He tested the connection, the monitor, and the sound quality. After all, there was no point in putting himself through this torment if the equipment wasn't even working. Video calls becoming a standard business practice were the sort of thing that would have delighted his childhood self, eyes wide with wonder at how far technology had progressed, and how far it could go. Adult Lincoln was considerably more lukewarm on the subject. For one thing, it just added another layer of formality to the proceedings. Previously, one could conceivably coast through a business call while disheveled and comfortable, perhaps propped up by a steaming cup of coffee in extreme circumstances. That was supposed to be one of the prime benefits of having a home office. Now there was the added spectacle factor, one needed to be dressed and groomed for the occasion.

Thankfully, his sisters were always willing to lend their expertise when circumstances allowed. Leni and Lola were always especially eager to lend a hand. He suspected this was partially because pair viewed the exercise as an elaborate game of dress up, not too dissimilar to the way they'd played in their youth. Still, they had careers, social lives to manage, children that still needed to be reined in, even those on the cusp of adulthood. But they always made time for him, and Lincoln, without fail, always found himself profoundly humbled that such amazing women continued to make him one of their top priorities. The feeling was mutual, of course, and he would gladly drop everything for them if the situation was reversed, but that never stopped him from feeling so blessed for the women in his life.

Lincoln grunted in satisfaction as the aging monitor hummed to life. Lisa had been pestering him to upgrade for years, but Lincoln had always held onto that tiny, childish hope, that a new innovation in communications was just around the corner. Commercialized telepathy, laser messaging, teleporting carrier pigeons. Literally anything that wasn't just a less convenient spin on technology that had been readily available through the smart devices of his childhood. A stab had been made at introducing Virtual Reality conferencing into the market, but when all was said and done, it was an even less convenient, and significantly more expensive variation of of video calls. Naturally, the fad had quickly faded, only still being used by the excessively rich or stupid.

"Greetings, elder brother. How goes it?"

Lincoln smiled ruefully and pressed two fingers against his right temple, opening up his own line of communication.

"Still waiting." He thought back. "Much as I appreciate the concern, would you mind staying off the brain phone for the time being? I'll let you know when its safe to talk again."

"Of course. I should be departing shortly anyway. Luna has requested that I refrain from teleporting directly to her events, so I will be resorting to more mundane transportation."

There was a moment of palpable hesitation.

"You will be...joining us, this time?" It wasn't quite phrased as a question but it, still came across that way.

"I will." He replied, nodding in affirmation even though he knew she couldn't see him. "Preparing for this pitch has been trying on all of us, but regardless as to how things shake out in this meeting, I'm going to be there. And I'm going to make it up to you guys, I promise."

She chuckled. "I assure you, none of us hold any ill feelings towards you. But...I have no doubt you will try regardless. And I look forward to it."

There was an embarrassed cough. "It seems Darcy has been trying to get my attention. I should take my leave. I will...see you later, then."

"Count on it." He smiled to himself. "Love you, Lisa."

"I l-love you too. Lincoln."

Lincoln shook his head in amusement as he felt the connection cut off. Girl invents direct brain to brain communication, only fails to completely revolutionize the field of telecommunications because the technology would destroy any semblance of competition in the industry. And she still couldn't say those words without blushing like a school girl.

Lincoln was abruptly pulled from his thoughts as his video phone began beeping. Incoming Call, read the monitor.

He dived for his seat, gave himself a quick once over, hoping he was still presentable, then took one last deep breath to steady himself.

Show time, he thought to himself as he accepted the call.

Lincoln was used to being intimidated by large groups of people. The Loud family had grown exponentially over the decades, and characteristic among its women, even those who were not Louds by birth, were pride in one's abilities, and an ardent refusal to back down from a challenge. That was the reason why, whenever a large portion of the family could assemble for a gathering of some sort, precautions needed to me made. Riot gear, stasis pods, a one-way teleporter to Lisa's Martian detention center, and a meticulously curated seating chart were all essential to ensuring that things went smoothly. It said something about the situation, and the women in his life, when Lynn's suggestion of installing an on-site octagon for the purpose of settling disputes, actually reduced the injuries to Louds ratio on an annual basis.

This...was somehow more frightening than any of those times, even including that incident when Lucy had gotten her hands on that cursed chainsaw (metaphorically speaking, Ronnie had been the one unfortunate to actually lay her hands upon the occult artifact.)

Lincoln found himself staring at a large group of men and women of a variety of ages, though most skewed towards the older end of the spectrum. All were immaculately dressed in business attire, and all looked extremely intimidating. One in particular caught Lincoln's eye, a hawkish looking man situated towards the center of the group, perhaps a few years Lincoln's senior from the look of things.

"Mr. Loud" He cordially, but coldly greeted Lincoln, not one to mince words.

"M-Mr. Streamovtiz." Lincoln replied, momentarily losing his composure for the briefest of instants. He hoped it might go unnoticed, but from the way the other man's eyebrow tilted upward, he suspected this wasn't the case.

"...Yes, well..." Streamovtiz cleared his throat before gesturing to someone off camera. An aide, presumably, swiftly stepped into frame and placed a small folio on the table. "I should hope that you realize the gravity of my decision to hold this meeting with you myself, Mr. Loud. Normally I would delegate such duties to one of my underlings. However..." There was an odd glint in his eye, one that wasn't especially reassuring. "I have since taken a personal interest in this matter."

"I take no small amount of pride in the fact that Streamflix is an extraordinary popular multimedia platform with an incredible reach, in terms of viewership." Lincoln nodded in acknowledgement. The man was actually underselling things a bit. With the death of broadcast television, streaming media had taken its place as the centerpiece of entertainment, and Streamflix was so prolific that it effectively held a monopoly on the market. He remembered Sid being inordinately proud of her Streamflix brand shoes, which ensured that she could watch her shows even on the go. He also remembered the resulting hospital visit, when she'd been so engrossed in whatever she was watching that she'd forgotten to look both ways before crossing the street. Thankfully, the girl was nothing, of not resilient, and she was back on her feet in short order, no worse for where.

Rumor had it that Streamflix was working on a method of streaming entertainment directly into your brain. Normally he'd find such a notion quaint, but laughable, but it bothered him how nervous Lisa would get when the topic was brought up, usually finding a reason to excuse herself shortly after. To put it lightly, the man's arrogance was well earned.

"The board." Streamovtiz gestured to his cohorts. "Have reviewed your proposal, and we believe a consensus has been reached. There only remains one matter left to discuss." He now reached for the folio before him, and began to flick through it. "That, being, the rather interesting...procedural history of your property. Perhaps you would care to enlighten us as to why an independently published comic book has such a robust legal background."

Lincoln swallowed audibly. He had been hoping to avoid getting to deep into this topic. "I believe my attorney has already spoken to your legal team at length."

"She has." Streamovtiz nodded in acknowledgement. "I had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Pingrey-Loud myself. A lovely woman, but..." His lips drew back in a thin smirk. "You'll forgive me if I require a bit more detail on the matter."

Lincoln began lightly drumming his fingers under his desk, hoping the sound wouldn't be picked up by the microphone. This wasn't unsalvageable, he just needed to explain his case in a concise, professional matter.

"Well, I'd gotten my start in comics at an early age. My friend, and future business partner, and I submitted out first issue for a contest held by our favorite publisher—"

"—That would be Marvelous Detective Comics" Streamovtiz smoothly interjected, clearly attempting to demonstrate that he was already familiar with the situation, to at least some degree.

"The very same." Lincoln nodded. "We won the contest, and the characters we'd created for that issue were so popular that we decided to keep on making our own comics. We'd felt that there was a lot more that could be done with the characters, and there was clearly a fan base who wanted to see that happen."

"While we were kids, things were fairly simple. We mostly published our work online, though requests for printed issues started becoming more common as time went on. But the product was, made by amateurs. Money we made in the fan space was almost incidental, most of it going right back into our production costs. It was a hobby, basically."

He cleared his throat. "The problems started in college. After years of playing around with this stuff, we decided we wanted to get serious. We wanted to make this our livelihoods. But complications arose when..." Lincoln trailed off, trying to find a diplomatic way to contextualize the situation.

"When you realized that you didn't own your own creations."Streamovtiz chuckled. "You don't need to sugar coat it, Loud, this stuff is public record."

"Heh." Lincoln scratched the back of his head, embarrassed. "You need to understand that it was a difficult time for us. We'd a good chunk of our lives developing this comic, putting our hearts and souls into it. It..." He took a deep breath. "It was a product that was very important to us."

"We were aware that our comic, at the time, incorporated elements from MDC's Ace Savvy franchise. We loved Ace, it was a very clear source of inspiration for our own work. We had thought that, since our comic largely ran on our own original material, that we could just relaunch the product without those elements, and everything would be fine."

"And then you were served with your first cease and desist notice." Streamovtiz said, flicking through the folio as he did so. He clucked his tongue in satisfaction, and, with a short flourish, produced a copy of the document in question.

"Yeah..." Lincoln grimaced. Even all these years later, it was still frustrating to remember how much that hurt. How betrayed he'd felt.

"MDC had required our parents to sign some legal documents before they could publish that first issue of ours, way back when. They'd assured us that it was all standard, boilerplate stuff. Frankly, we were just a couple of dumb, excited kids at the time, we couldn't care less. Turns out, we'd signed away the rights to The Full House Gang, the characters we'd created. It hadn't been an issue previously, MDC never used those characters beyond the one issue, and our little fan-made comic probably wasn't worth going after. But, once our product seemed to have legs, seemed to have the potential to turn an actual profit..."

"The hounds came, braying for blood." The older man cackled, seeming to be very amused by the situation.

"They did. The better part of the next decade of my life was spent embroiled in legal battles." Lincoln reached into his desk and pulled out a small bottle of water. He held it up to the monitor, in askance, and upon receiving a nod of affirmation from Streamovtiz, took a short drink to freshen his parched throat.

"It was a difficult time for us. We'd consulted several attorneys for advice, even ended up retaining counsel to represent us. They'd all agreed that we'd had a decent case on our hands. MDC's ownership of the characters wasn't as iron clad as they were pretending it was. The problem was that they had the money and resources to drown us in procedural muck. The court sided with us, more often than not, but that didn't mean much when MDC could just churn out another motion for us to respond to. Our legal fees were piling up fast, and there was only so much leeway that our counsel could give us when it came time to pay the bills. I don't think I need to tell you that court costs aren't cheap."

"They are not." Streamovtiz replied flippantly, with the air of a man who'd employed those exact same tactics in the past. Then, a change came over the man, his demeanor softened somewhat, his expression growing more thoughtful. "So then, why put up with it?" He asked. "You were undoubtedly offered settlements. Which, though a pittance relative to the value of your intellectual property, were likely to be a substantial sum, given the circumstances."

Lincoln reached a little ways past the phone, and pulled back a framed picture, briefly running his fingers over the protective glass, before turning it around so it could be seen by Streamovtiz and his group. It was a promotional image for his comic, one of the first he'd done as a professional artist. High Card, Eleven of Hearts, Night Club, Joker, Strong Suit, Eight of Spades, Queen of Diamonds, Royal Flush, Card Counter, Duce...and the Card Sharp. Characters had come and gone over the course of his comics development, but these had always been his principle characters. The ones most special to him.

"I couldn't just let it go." He said, his voice growing thick with emotion. "These...characters, they've been with me my entire life. They mean everything to me. The thought of someone taking them from me, just so they could rot in a vault for all eternity...or worse, turning them into a corporate tool, promotional material for the very corporation who'd stolen them from me, I just couldn't let that happen."

"I see." Streamovtiz replied, neutrally, stroking his chin contemplatively. "Well, in hindsight, it seems your gamble paid off, so to speak. The matter was ultimately dropped, both sides bearing the burden of their own legal costs." His eyes glinted with curiosity. "May I ask how that came about?"

"A veritable deus ex machina." Lincoln chuckled, sparing one last fond glance at the picture before returning it to its rightful place. "Bill Buck, creator of my favorite super hero, the corner stone of the very company that was trying to crush me. He ended up saving me."

"I'd met Mr. Buck shortly after winning that contest. As a fan, it was a pretty big moment for me, but it turned out to be to be an even bigger deal down the line. Even though he had retired from creating comics while this was all going on, word of this case eventually made its way to him. MDC had been trying to keep the thing under wraps, but years of constant litigation between a major comic book publisher and a couple of nobodies are going to attract attention, and eventually people started to take notice. I was shocked to find out that Mr. Buck still remembered us after all those years. Our characters especially, apparently they'd really struck a chord with him. He pulled some strings, got legitimate settlement discussions rolling with impartial arbitrators, and eventually we were able to put the matter to rest."

"Just like that?"

"There were...caveats. Concessions that needed to be made. MDC had invested a lot of time and money into this case. The expenditures were meaningless to them, but the case had made its way into the public eye, and MDC needed to save face." Lincoln grimaced, remembering how harsh the final negotiations had been. "While we were paying our own costs, which still ended up being a tremendous burden on our families and ourselves, MDC required a flat, sizeable payment as a 'show of good faith', us publicly acknowledging that we were at fault, so to speak. They also secured a percentage of any profits we made off the property for the first few years of production, and..." He let out a soft sigh. "...they took the name."

"For what it's worth, I don't believe they were able to make much use of it."

"No." Lincoln smiled ruefully. "Their own Aces Wild title was pretty much dead in the water from the start. Fans of our comic read it for the characters, and since we managed to hold onto them, it was basically just another Ace Savvy title. And since we had to remove Ace from the lineup anyway, the name would have needed to be changed anyway." He shrugged. "Taking our name was just a power play. One last twist of the knife. And...it worked, for a while. But you can't live in the past forever, right? We stuck it out, paid our dues, and in the end our perseverance paid dividends."

"And yet you could have lost it all." The older man observed. "All for want of a nail." Streamovtiz reclined back in his chair, motioning to another one of his aides, who fetched him a bottle of water for himself. The corporate man drank lightly, seemingly pondering Lincoln's words.

"Why do you think he did it?" He asked at last, a bit of his previous candor now lost.

"Mr. Buck?"

"Indeed." The older man straightened up, looking Lincoln straight in the eye. "You survived this ordeal by pure serendipity. This man barely knew you, owed you nothing, and still he stuck his neck out for you. Put his own reputation on the line." There was that glint again. "Why do you suppose he did it?"

"I...actually asked him about that." Lincoln said, unwittingly letting out a short, embarrassed laugh. "It seemed so unreal to me that the man who instilled a life long love of superheroes in me, something that would ultimately shape my life, would turn out to be my own personal superhero. He said..." Lincoln's voice faltered slightly, remembering the conversation.

"Yes?" The businessman leaned forward expectantly.

"...He said that the corporate machine is anathematic to the artistic process." Lincoln held up his hands defensively. "His words, I swear." Streamovtiz chuckled, and motioned for Lincoln to continue.

"He told me that, for a creator, the price of success is that your creations, the things you hold most dear, are eventually going to end up in the hands of other people. People who don't share that same love for them. They will twist, and purport your creations to their own ends. And that, while there is a joy in seeing something you played a part in creating bring happiness to other people..." Lincoln gestured to himself. "Kids, just like we were. There comes a point where that thing you made...just, ceases to exist. And once it does, it never comes back." He cleared his throat. "He said that he saw something in us, in our work, that he wanted to protect. And I will always be grateful to him for that."

"Is your 'Commissioner Spade', character an homage, perhaps, to your benefactor?"

"A-among other things." Lincoln said, reddening slightly. He'd hoped there would be no need to elaborate on the history of a certain pale haired police commissioner, who was extremely...ahem, involved with the exploits of the city's greatest super heroines.

"Interesting." Mr. Streamovtiz neatly folded his hands in front of him and stared off into the distance, an odd look in his eye. The silence stretched out far longer than Lincoln was comfortable with. At last, however, the man spoke.

"I believe we're done here." He gestured vaguely, and in unison, almost as if rehearsed, the assembled board members rose from their seats, gathered their things, and began to shuffle out of the room. "Mr. Loud, if you'll indulge me a for moments longer..."

"Of course." Lincoln nodded, not feeling like he had much of a choice. Soon, the room was completely vacant, save for Mr. Streamovtiz and a pair of his aides. At the behest of some unspoken signal, one of the black suited men went to stand directly outside the room, while the other closed the door securely behind him. It was not until privacy was ensured, that Mr. Streamovtiz spoke again.

"Here's what's going to happen, Loud." The business mogul took another sip from his beverage. "I'm going to be meeting with my investors later today. I'm going to tell them at length, that this..." He waved the folio at the camera. "Is worth our time. There's going to be push back. They will insist that we take some...creative liberties with the material. Homogenize it until it becomes safe and easy to market. But by the end of the day you are going to be producing your show, and you're going to be doing it your way."

Lincoln didn't know what to say. "Just like that?" He asked, with no small amount of trepidation.

"Indeed." Streamovtiz nodded, a smug smile making its way onto his face. "In truth, I had already made the decision. This..." He gestured around the now empty meeting room. "Was all just theater. And satisfying a bit of my own curiosity."

"T-thank you, Mr—"

"No thanks are necessary." The older man cut him off "I can recognize a worthwhile investment when I see it. If you really want to pay me back, give me a worthwhile product I can sell."

"I will." Lincoln promised.

The other man looked as if he was going to stand up, signaling the true end of the meeting, but stopped himself at the last moment. "Actually...there's one more thing you can do for me."

"Anything." Lincoln said, though he immediately regretted how eager he sounded. Fortunately, the businessman didn't acknowledge the faux pas.

"I'd like a sample of your art for my own personal collection. Naturally, you will sign it, and..." With this, the corners of the man's mouth tilted up ever so slightly. "...you will address it to 'Walter'."

"W-Walter, sir?"

"Indeed." The man's face softened, and a genuine smile settled onto his normally taciturn features. "The Card Sharp was always my favorite."

The meeting now over, Lincoln double, then triple checked the video phone, so as to be absolutely certain the equipment was fully shut down. Then, his energy expended, Lincoln collapsed into his desk chair, and let out a long sigh of relief. It had been an arduous, uphill battle, but he'd done it. The Full Deck had well and truly made it.

Lincoln gentle spun his chair one-hundred and eighty degrees. This office was where he came to create new things, but it was also where he came to remember the many wonderful things that had already come to pass. To that end, he and his loved ones had put together the Memories Wall. The name was a bit of a misnomer, as some of the more sardonic girls were quick to point out when the opportunity arose, the "wall" was actually comprised of the entire back half of the office. And, with things proceeding the way they had, it was likely that he was going to have to install another wall to keep things going. No small feat, the existing monstrosity already gave that end of the office a distinctly non-euclidean air, but it would be worth it.

There was an entire wall devoted to nothing but prom photos, the oldest at the top gradually proceeding towards the most recent at the bottom. The early ones were the most...frantic, of the bunch. The relationship he and the girls had agreed upon had been fresh at the time, and they hadn't quite worked out all the logistical complications. Taking Lori, Carol, and Becky to the same prom had been...difficult, to say the least, each girl not especially happy that his attention needed to be split three ways. But they'd worked it out in the end, and that night...the end of that night, in particular, ended up being something truly special.

Thankfully, they'd managed to learn from their mistakes, and subsequent years went considerably more smoothly. Sam and Luna's prom had some hiccups, mostly due Sam's very loud, very...overt, and enthusiastic appreciation for both her dates, but they'd made it work, and a lot of what he'd learned that night would ultimately help him prepare for Lynn and Maggie's prom. His own year was, perhaps, the most troublesome. They'd decided, after some deliberation, that going with any of his current girlfriends (years later the term still made him blush, just a little, jeeze) would make things unnecessarily complicated. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on who you asked), it turned out there were several girls from his own year who were more than happy to fill in. He considered himself very lucky and Ronnie and Sid's prom had take place on a different date, and at an entirely different school...

That was the point where things would start looking a little less...wholesome to onlookers, and it was no coincidence that subsequent photos found themselves much closer to the ground. Lucy's prom was fine, just a big brother taking care of his sweet, shy little sister...and her friend. But slow dancing with the twins at their prom had raised more than a few eyebrows. And by the time he had to endure the embarrassment of taking Lilly to her prom, a man on the verge of thirty dancing with a girl nearly half his age...well, Lincoln was very much prom'd out. Still, he didn't regret any of it, not a single moment.

Lincoln's eyes turned to other treasured moments immortalized by his little display. Lori and Carol (begrudgingly) sharing their LPGA trophy, him being unfortunate enough to have to hold the thing as each tried to grab more than the other. Luna and Sam on stage at their first sold out concert. Luan on the set of her talk show, just after the taping of the first episode. Lynn's first title fight (and subsequent victory), Lucy's first book signing...just an endless deluge of memories. All those little steps that he and the many special women in his life had taken together.

"Dad?" A soft voice pulled Lincoln from his reminiscing just as his eyes had landed on a magazine cover, commemorating the day Samzilla had saved the world from an rampaging robot ("World's Biggest Rock Star Gets Bigger", the tagline read. He spun his chair towards the door, and there she was.

She was a beautiful young thing. Slender in build, but not without the womanly curves that were so characteristic of the Loud women. Her long hair, prematurely white just like her old man's, was still bright and vibrant as the first snow of winter, save for a pair of bangs that framed her face. One streaked teal, and one purple.

"Um..." She fidgeted, slightly, causing Lincoln to wince. The girl really took after her father in some of the worst ways. "You all ready to go? Moms said I should pick you up. You know..." She laughed nervously. "Make sure you make it on time."

"I'll be right there, Suna." He promised, and with that, the girl excused herself, very narrowly avoiding dashing her face against the door frame.

Lincoln shook his head fondly as he watched her leave. He'd had a pretty wild life, an amazing life, all things considered. He'd shared countless, fantastic adventures with an incredibly group of beautiful, irreplaceable women, all of whom loved him far more than he deserved. And through them, he'd been blessed with a great, many, wonderful children, who he loved with all his heart.

But...there was something that Sam had once said to him. And even though he would never admit to it, he knew, deep down inside, that it was absolutely true.

The white haired babies really were the cutest.

End.

And that's it, folks. Sort of. Thanks for sticking it out this long.

So, I guess its time to explain my plans for Aces going forward. Writing this story has been some of the most fun I've ever had. As much as I'd like to keep it going forever, stories need to reach their conclusion, and as I said in the previous chapter, I had a very specific story that I wanted to tell with this fic, and I have accomplished that.

That said, it also occurred to me that Aces is more than just a story to me at this point. I've taken more than a few liberties with some of the characters I've used here, Sam being the most obvious, and I enjoy writing them, and there's a lot of things I still want to do with these characters that I wasn't able to accomplish in the main story. Because when you're writing an ongoing narrative, continuity becomes an issue, and that ultimately limits what kinds of stories I can tell with these characters. Characters can't have meaningful development that outpaces the plot, because that affects the way they interact with other characters. I can't, for example, tell a story where Lincoln has a meaningful, romantic experience with one of the girls, because that would entail repercussions with respect to the greater narrative. By the same token, I can't write anything especially lewd with these characters, as many, many people have been requesting basically since day one, and keep that in continuity because it affects the plot. Also because I have zero experience writing lewds, but that's a whole other thing I'll need to address at a future date.

Obviously, I could just...you know, keep writing TLH fanfiction, and I intend to do just that. I've come to enjoy writing these stories, I've made a lot of wonderful friends while doing this, and I've got lots of ideas for new stories to write in the future. But, it occurred to me that while I could, say write a Sunacoln story in which Lincoln and his two gal pals go on a fun little road trip, as Luna and Sam try to get their music careers off the ground, I would ultimately have to retread a lot of the ground that I've already covered in Aces Wild. And if I'm writing the same Sam that I, and so many of you have come to enjoy, I am, for all intents and purposes, just writing another chapter of Aces Wild, but with extra steps. I think Nightie Night does a pretty good job of demonstrating this, as it's essentially an Aces story in everything but the name, which I'll likely change for that very reason. So it occurred to me that, if I still want to tell stories that are, essentially just future installments of Aces, but without being hamstrung by the need to maintain a cohesive narrative, why not just do that exact thing.

So now, Aces essentially exists in two parts. Chapters 1-40 are the main story, and they, theoretically, give readers a complete narrative experience. If I was to never post another story ever again, people could still read Aces, and walk away having read a complete story. Everything that happens within those chapters is now set in stone, forever. But Lincoln and the girls still have their whole lives with which to have stupid, wonderful, and wacky adventures. Hence, this epilogue, which is intended to both give a little extra closure to the main story, while also dropping hints about future stories I intend to write.

Essentially, Aces is now a setting, the Acesverse, if you will (but only until I can come up with a better name, because that one's dumb), and when the mood strikes me, I will continue to write stories built off this framework I've already established, with these iterations of these characters I've grown so fond of, and the presumption going forward is that everything from this point on will serve to form a vaguely cohesive timeline to fill the nigh infinite span of time that exists between chapters 40 and 41. Basically, I'm gonna use what I've already built here so I can keep write one-shots and short stories.

To be honest, I can't give much of a timeline as to when I'll actually be doing this. As much as I love Aces, I've spent almost a year of my life working on this thing, updating on almost a weekly basis for most of that time. Frankly, I'm kinda burnt out on this story. So I'm going to take a break from Aces and write other things. People have been asking me to update Gigant, for one thing, which I'd really like to do, and I have other stories in the pipeline that I've wanted to take a crack at, but haven't been able to because of how demanding its been to write Aces. But rest assured that I will return to this little sandbox that's so near and dear to me, and pick up where I left off. I might have an April Fools story in mind, and I might be able to expand Nightie Night into a few more chapters, we'll see how things go.

Aaaaaaand that's it. For reals this time. Thank you all so much. Again, I'm so humbled by how overwhelmingly positive people have responded to this story, and I hope I'll be able to write something you find even half as enjoyable in the future. If you haven't already, favorite or follow my profile if you want to be kept up to date on Aces stuff, because future installments will be posted as their own separate stories. Thanks again everyone.