It began on a normal June day, in a not so normal house in the suburbs of Royal Woods.
The Loud House was much quieter than in years past, owing to the absence of half of the siblings. Lori, Leni, Luna, Luan, and Lynn had all moved out of the house one after the other and scattered to the four winds, leaving behind only six siblings to make up for the silence.
And they did a fine job of it, going by the noise coming from the living room.
Thirteen year olds Lola and Lana were currently arguing over whether to watch a beauty pageant or Monster Jam and wrestling for possession of the remote. Not much had changed in their dynamic except for the addition of a few swear words they picked up on the schoolyard.
"We always watch your stupid princess shows!" said Lana, giving a yank on the remote.
"This isn't any princess show, dumbass, it's the Miss Teen USA Pageant! It only happens once a year and I'm not missing it!" Lola yanked back.
"But the MonsterJam Finals are on right now!" Lana whined.
"I'm not missing my show for your shitty monster trucks!"
"Hey! Monster trucks aren't shitty!"
"Yes they are! Shitty shitty monster trucks!"
"Fuck you!" "No, fuck you!" "No, fuck you!"
Nearby sat the youngest Loud, Lily, with a disposable camera, giggling and snapping pictures of the teenage twins and their quickly escalating brawl. Every Loud had their talent, and it seemed the eight year old's was for photography. Lily never went anywhere without her trusty Kodak camera, and she was building up quite the portfolio of her family life.
Upstairs, away from the chaos of the living room, Lucy Loud sat alone in her room, nose buried in her black diary and writing another piece of morbid poetry. 'Unknown is my pain-'
The goth paused and sighed. What rhymes with pain? Drain, rain, gain, brain... Ah, she had it. She took her pen to paper again.
'Unknown is my pain. The terrible shadow, the dark stain.'
Next door, in the former storage closet, Lincoln Loud sat hunched over his desk scribbling down notes from a biology textbook.
After Lynn had left Lincoln was finally able to get his own room and boy did he enjoy it. His sisters never enjoyed the extra space to walk around, to store his clothes and comic book collection, to just live in like he did. Recently, however, he was forced to move back into the old closet.
The hormonal twins were getting worse than ever. More fights, nastier fights, shouting and roughhousing with each other late into the night and eating up the family's sleep. Lincoln, ever the peacemaker, decided to sacrifice his new bedroom and give it to Lana so they wouldn't have to share anymore. He was happy to help, but he was happier to finally get some sleep.
Lincoln paused in his work and checked the clock, swearing under his breath. He had to be somewhere soon.
Which brings us to the room left of the stairs and left of the bathroom, Lori and Leni's old room, now under new management.
The current occupant had renovated the room completely, changing it from a modest bedroom into a laboratory that would make old Doctor Frankenstein proud.
Beaker filled shelves covered the walls, notes, blueprints, and tools lay scattered all over the floor, a mountain of spare parts filled the corner, and old inventions were spilling out of the closet. And in the center of it all knelt the mad scientist, welding together the last hinges of her latest menacing machine.
She lifted the welding helmet covering her face and coughed from the fumes. She reached into the pocket of her over-sized lab coat and withdrew a tape recorder, holding it to her mouth.
"Lisa's Log, Entry 5475. I've just completed the assembly of prototype QMH and now await test subject to...err, test it." her nose crinkled at the smell. "Odor produced by welding is unpleasant, recommend acquiring artificial fragrance to conceal it." Sniff. "Perhaps Febreze."
Lisa Loud ended the recording and sat on her cluttered bed with a sigh.
With construction complete now all she had to do was wait. Waiting...was uncomfortable, waiting forced her to think, to visual those mental blueprints and go over them, picking apart every last detail down to the smallest detail over and over again until she felt like a spike was being driven into her cerebrum. For the smartest eleven year old on the entire planet, inaction was enough to drive her mad.
Lisa did not like waiting, she liked doing. But here she was, forced to wait for her test subject to arrive. What could she think about besides the scientific minutiae of quantum energy? This particular machine she was working on today was the result of a recent trip to the movie theater. Ah, that should sufficiently occupy her thoughts.
One week ago Lisa elected to see the new Ace Savvy movie with Lincoln. Just as he was pulling out of the driveway in Vanzilla Lisa leapt on top of the windshield.
"Gah!" He screamed as the van lurched to a stop.
"Brother." Lisa spoke with her face pressed up against the glass. "I heard you are going to see the new Ace Savvy movie. Please take me with you."
Lincoln rolled down the driver's window and stuck his head out. He looked at her, at a loss for words.
He finally settled on "Uh, okay, sure. Get in." Lisa slid off the windshield and climbed into the passenger seat.
"You could have just called me. I would have turned around." Lincoln said.
"Distracted driving is the number one cause of car accidents." she retorted.
Vanzilla pulled back out and started off to the Royal Woods Cinema.
The genius sighed and leaned back in her seat. "Thank you for taking me along, brother." she said.
"No problem. I didn't know you liked superheroes, Lis." He made a right turn at the traffic light.
"I don't, but I'm currently lacking any experiments to keep me occupied." Lisa explained. "The film's premise sounds...interesting."
Lincoln shrugged and smiled. "Maybe this movie will make you a fan?"
The movie, 'Ace Savvy: Origins', told the story of how Detective Spade Nifty obtained superpowers after touching an alien artifact he found during an investigation into illegal arms dealing. Spade, under the pseudonym 'Ace Savvy', then proceeded to start fighting crime with his new superpowers and restoring truth and justice to Casino City. The writing was cliched, the effects were passable, and the science...
As the sibling duo walked out of the theater discussing superhero trivia, Lisa decided she made the right choice.
"So who created the extraterrestrial artifact from the beginning?" she queried Lincoln. Her brother was quite the expert in all things relating to comic books.
"That's explained in Ace Savvy vs the Cosmic Cabal, when the Gorbulans invade Earth. Rumor is they're adapting that story next." he said sagely.
"Hm. I think I'd like to see it." said Lisa.
They entered Vanzilla and took a second to relax. Lincoln looked over at her. "So...you liked the movie?"
Lisa nodded. "It was sufficiently entertaining, however I do have several problems with the 'science' of the film. For example-"
"Oh no." Lincoln covered his ears. "I'm not letting you ruin superheroes for me."
Lisa smiled.
She wasn't lying, she did enjoy the film...just not in the same way Lincoln did.
Lisa enjoyed it the same way a food critic would enjoy dissecting what was wrong with a bad dish, she enjoyed picking apart everything wrong with the science behind the superpowers and theorizing possible solutions to make them actually work. That trip marked the start of the next in a series of experiments revolving around Science-Fiction she was conducting. It became almost a game for her, to take the greatest ideas of George Lucas and Gene Roddenberry and prove them to be completely and utterly impossible(or at the very least impractical).
Teleporter? Only feasible over a very short distance, and the energy requirements were astronomical(the local power grid was out of commission for two weeks following a test trial).
Lightsaber? Too bulky and heavy, very cumbersome to use. Also, had a tendency to explode.
Artificial Intelligence? Initially promising until it gained access to the internet. Instead of an increase in intelligence it actually suffered a two standard deviation decrease.
Faster Than Light Space Travel?...Still a work in progress. She didn't have the budget for those kinds of experiments.
Now: superpowers. Of course Lisa was aware of the concept and its popularity, but she never gave it sufficient thought until that trip to the cinema. It was put in the same mental space as magic or world peace; childish fantasy, nothing more. But now her attention was fixed squarely on this new field of fake science.
The question she had to answer was 'how could you actually give someone super powers?'
In the film, Ace Savvy gained superhuman abilities when he made contact with an extraterrestrial artifact, causing Ace's cells to be 'ionized with 10,000 REM of neutron radiation'. She didn't even need to conduct an experiment to know the idea was ridiculous. Neutron radiation was the most hazardous type to the human body, owing to its increased penetration compared to alpha and beta radiation. With 10,000 REM he should have experienced rapid cell degradation, organ failure, not to mention damage to cerebral blood vessels...
Ace Savvy should have been dead before he hit the floor.
Could there be another form of energy that could mimic the fictional effects of neutron radiation, i.e. give a subject superhuman abilities? There were many possibilities but some were impractical, many were dangerous, all were too expensive for her current shoestring budget. After a sleepless night of brainstorming the solution became obvious: quantum energy.
Lisa sat up from her bed and found herself absentmindedly running another diagnostic check on the QMH.
Quantum energy, that is the energy from the space between dimensions, was cheap and easy to access(she could tap into the multiverse with parts from common household appliances) and altered reality in strange, unpredictable ways. Therefore, if the human body were exposed to large amounts of quantum energy its DNA could theoretically mutate to grant superpowers!
But that was all in theory. Lisa could hypothesize what would happen until her brain started smoking but it would all be pointless if she couldn't conduct an experiment. This particular experiment required a human test subject.
Naturally, she chose Lincoln.
Lisa heard a knock on her door.
"Enter." she called over her shoulder as she ran another simulation on her computer. She turned to see the door opened and her only brother enter the lab. White hair, clear blue eyes, and a friendly smile. Lincoln was eighteen now, and despite the deeper voice, broad shoulders, and a substantial increase in height he was still the same goofy, honest dork he was when he was eleven.
He was always Lisa's go to test subject. Whenever she needed someone he'd instantly volunteer, no matter what he was doing he'd drop it all for her, a fact she greatly appreciated.
"Hey Lis." Lincoln greeted her. "You said you needed help with someth-" he paused, looking at the machine behind her.
"Lisa?"
"Yes, brother?"
"What did you do to the old fridge?"
The Quantum Molecular Harmonizer was fashioned out of a refrigerator, parts from several scavenged microwaves, and an old miniature dark matter reactor she had lying around. Not her highest quality invention, but with recent budget cuts(following the aforementioned town blackout, her parents showed her no financial mercy) she had to make do. By her estimations it wouldn't affect the experiment's results in any significant way.
She explained all of this and the goal of the experiment to Lincoln, who looked as bewildered as always. "You want to give me superpowers?"
"Yes." said Lisa, wincing at the harsh shh sound of her 's'. Her lisp wasn't as bad as it was when she was four but she still slipped into it from time to time, especially with those damned s's.
Lincoln looked at the Quantum Molecular Harmonizer suspiciously.
"So...what do you need me to do?" He asked.
"Simply stand in the harmonizing chamber-" "You mean the fridge?" "-yes, the refrigerator, stand inside it and your deoxyribose nucleic acid will be exposed to large amounts of quantum energy, theoretically granting you superhuman abilities."
Lincoln blinked. "My what will what now?"
Lisa sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. She loved her family, really, she did, but their idiocy could be annoying sometimes.
"Stand in the fridge and I'll zap your DNA with super energy, which should give you superpowers." Lisa explained to him slowly.
"Oh, okay. Is it going to hurt?"
"No." She hesitated. "It shouldn't, in theory."
Lincoln shook his head and sighed. "Lisa." He knelt down to her eye level. He's gotten so tall.
"Look, after what happened with the teleporter maybe we should take a break from experiments for a little bit." He said.
"Nonsense, I've taken steps to make ensure that type of incident won't happen again."
"Lisa…" Lincoln looked torn as to what to say. The little mad scientist was growing impatient. Why was he being so resistant? Shouldn't he be jumping at the chance to be like his hero?
"What's the issue? Don't you want to have superpowers?" she pressed him.
"Superpowers would be cool." Lincoln chuckled before growing serious again. "But with your track record maybe it's a little too dangerous. Mom and Dad don't like you doing human experiments for a reason."
"My track record?" Lisa felt like she was just slapped in the face. "The vast majority of my experiments are overwhelming successes."
"Really, Lis?" said Lincoln skeptically.
"Yes. Are you implying otherwise?" She crossed her arms and gave him a frigid look.
Lincoln shook his head, exasperated. "Do I have to list them?"
"Please do." Lisa said coldly.
Lincoln held up a finger. "Remember the time you made a weather machine that almost caused another Ice Age?"
"I didn't see you complaining about a whole month of snow days."
Lincoln snorted. "Okay, you got me there. What about when you contaminated the lake with growth hormones?" Up ticked another finger.
"The fish grew ten to twenty times larger, just as I intended. The fishermen should have been happy to catch such large fish."
"Happy? Lisa, the giant fish almost ate all of the fishermen! They had to bring in harpoons! Harpoons, Lisa!"
"I fail to see your point."
Lincoln was starting to get visibly annoyed. "Trapping Lily on the moon?" he asked, three fingers up now.
"She volunteered to collect mineral samples, and anyone could have made that conversion error between liters and gallons when loading up the rocket fuel."
"If it wasn't for Elon Musk, NASA, and the Russians she would have been stuck up there!" Lincoln threw his arms up in frustration.
Lisa scoffed. "I kept telling everyone I could make another spacecraft, that it would only take a few hours, but no, mother and father had to panic and call the government."
"The zombie outbreak?"
"Brief and easily contained."
"The space elevator?"
"That would have worked if I didn't run out of parts."
"The nuclear mousetrap?"
"Successfully exterminated the entire rodent population in the Cooper family's house."
"Because the explosion completely destroyed it! The FBI almost arrested you for nuclear terrorism!"
Lisa looked down at her feet. Okay, maybe she went a little too far on that one.
"Listen, Lisa." Lincoln grabbed her by the shoulders, firmly. "That's the problem. You do all of these experiments because you can, you never stop to think if you should. And when they backfire we all have to deal with the consequences. Why do you think no one else wants to be a test subject for you?"
That thought caused Lisa to freeze. No, that couldn't be it. But it made too much sense. Lucy would just ignore her, Lily and Lana would always politely decline and say they had something else to do, and Lola...
"T-that's not the case." she excused. "The others are simply preoccupied with other activities whenever I ask, that's all."
Her big brother stared at her for a few seconds, a far away expression on his face. Lisa didn't like it.
"You know I'm going to college soon, Lis, and I'm scared." he finally said.
Lisa breathed a sigh of relief. "You should not be afraid, according to your current grades you should perform well in your classes-" "Not about school." He shushed her. "I'm scared about you. I'm scared about what you're going to get up to when I'm not here to look after you."
"W-what do you mean?" Lisa stammered.
"What if something happens to you when I'm off at college?"
"What? Nothing would-"
"Come on, we both know how dangerous your experiments can be. If I wasn't there for some of them you might not be here right now."
He was right, he was always there for her. Ever since her first experiment at the age of two (0001: highly explosive concoction synthesized from common household chemicals) he was there by her side, helping her, protecting her from the dangers she created.
"You're right." Lisa admitted.
Lincoln leaned in closer, his voice growing quieter. "I need you to promise me something. No more experiments after I'm gone."
She gaped at him. "N-no more...b-but-" "I know it'll be tough for you, God, I know, but if anything goes wrong and I'm not here-" Lincoln's breath hitched, and his grip on her shoulders tightened.
"I could never forgive myself if that happened. So promise me, please." he finished.
Lisa was horrified by the idea. Promise to give up her greatest joy in life? That was like telling a bird not to fly, a painter not to paint, a cell not to undergo mitosis. To stop what made her Lisa Loud? And to have that maddening static haunting her for the next seven years? She couldn't possibly….
Lisa met Lincoln's eyes. Blue, so deeply blue, and full of concern for her.
….she had to try. For her brother's sake. With an IQ over 300 she could easily find something else to do, she could suffer a few years without any experiments. After everything he did for her it was the least she could do.
"Very well. I promise to cease further experiments after your departure, brother." she said.
Lincoln exhaled, like he just had a great weight taken off his shoulders. There was that smile again. "Thanks." He pulled her in for a hug, which Lisa reciprocated. They held each other for a few seconds and parted.
An awkward silence filled the room before Lincoln sniffed the air and gagged, covering his nose.
"What's that smell?" he asked. "Welding fumes." answered Lisa simply.
"That can't be good for you, you should probably open a window or-" "Would you still like to assist me with this experiment?" she asked him suddenly.
Lincoln looked taken aback. "Seriously? After the deep talk we just had about why you shouldn't be doing these things anymore?" He seemed disappointed.
"The agreement we made begins once you leave for college, which will not take place until August 20th." Lisa pointed out.
Lincoln smiled slightly. "You got me there, but I can't right now, sorry. I really got to study for my finals next week." He stood up to leave before Lisa blocked his path. "Finals? Perhaps I can assist you with your studies in return for ten seconds of your time?"
Another smile, Lincoln shook his head again. "Thanks, but I should be fine on my own." He moved around her and started heading for the door.
No no no no no, why was he leaving? The experiment wasn't finished yet! If he left now the formulae and theories would keep buzzing around inside her head all night and she wouldn't get any sleep again.
The last time the urge was this bad was when the family went on a camping trip when she was was without any of her equipment in the middle of the forest when the inexplicable urge hit her to build a railgun. She didn't know why, but she just had to. The laws of motion and energy were visualized, variables, formulae, and blueprints swam in front of her eyes.
For two days and nights the static filled her head. She couldn't walk, couldn't talk, couldn't eat, couldn't even breath without that damned static choking her. On the dawn of the third day she finally gave in and tried to construct a railgun out of wood. The results were...messy.
Lisa needed to do this, she need to do it right now.
Lincoln started walking before she grabbed the back of his polo and stopped him with a small tug. He looked down at her confusedly.
"Please, brother." Lisa said, gazing up at him with her bespectacled eyes. That was rare for her. She never liked to beg for anything, whether it be from her parents, her teachers, or her siblings. It was too embarrassing to lower herself to act like an actual powerless child.
For a second Lincoln wavered. "I don't think I should-" "Please..L-Lincoln." she had to have sounded desperate then. "I-I just need to test this one theory. I just need to see if quantum energy has any effect on human DNA. It will only take ten seconds, please~?"
Lincoln looked torn. Lisa knew that if there was anything he hated more than the idea of getting his cells irradiated it was making his little sister cry.
"Alright, fine. Ten seconds." he relented.
"Yes!" Lisa cheered before schooling her features back into her usual neutral look. She cleared her throat and gestured to the repurposed fridge. "Enter the harmonization chamber, please."
Lincoln shook his head. "I feel manipulated." He bent down and climbed into the frid- er, the harmonization chamber. It was just like the inside of the old fridge, except without any shelves or food and with the walls covered in what looked like little white Christmas lights. Lincoln squinted at the harsh artificial light before Lisa closed the door, trapping him inside.
The little mad scientist returned to her computer and typed in a series of commands preparing the QMH for activation. She stopped before entering the final command and looked up at the chamber. "Ready, Lincoln?" Lisa called.
"Uh, yeah, ready!" came his muffled response.
Lisa nodded to herself. "Initiating quantum harmonization." She pressed enter.
The QMH hummed and started vibrating in place. Then after ten seconds, true to her word, it stopped. The door opened with a ding and Lincoln tumbled out.
Lisa stood over him with a clipboard and pen. "Good, you weren't disintegrated."
"Disintegrated?!" Lincoln bolted up.
"Calm down, that was a joke. There was never any danger of disintegration." Only a 3.6666% chance, nothing statistically significant. "How do you feel?" she continued.
Lincoln slowly laid back down. "Fine, fine. It just tingled a little."
"Do you taste anything metallic?"
"Uh, no."
"Any ringing in your ears?"
"No."
"Are you experiencing any fatigue?"
"No. Actually, I feel pretty good. Like I just took a really nice nap." Lincoln yawned.
"Fascinating." she scribbled on her clipboard. Lisa finished and pointed to a weight set in the corner with her pen. "Let's test your physical capabilities." Lincoln went over and dragged the rack to the center of the room.
"Please lift the largest weight." Lisa gestured with her pen again. Lincoln read the label on the plate.
"That weighs a hundred pounds!" he protested.
"Yes. What better way to test to see if you have super strength?"
"Fine." the test subject grumbled and stooped down to pick it up. He grabbed the edges and struggled to lift before he let go. "I can't do it."
"Try again." Lisa urged him.
Lincoln sighed and stooped down again, putting his back into lifting the plate off the ground. He managed to lift it an inch off of the rack before dropping it with a clatter. "Phew. Nope, no super strength." Lincoln decided.
"Hmm." Scratch scratch went her pen on the clipboard. "Perhaps you've manifested some other kind of power?"
A trip on the treadmill revealed no superspeed, the target dummy was left unharmed by any laser beams or fireballs, and a quick game of chess showed no superintelligence or psychic abilities. Lincoln was still a completely normal boy. He had no demonstrable superpowers whatsoever!
Lisa starting writing frantically. Where could she have gone wrong? The science was there, the theories were sound. It was pure quantum energy that Lincoln was exposed to, she controlled for any other variables- "Uh, Lisa?"
Quantum energy was too unpredictable in how it behaved. Maybe more trials would be needed? Would repeat exposure increase the chances of superhuman mutation? How else could she meas- "Lisa?"
She'd have to take several DNA samples for study, and maybe conduct some X-Rays. CAT-scans too? Perhaps a whole physical was called for? A bone marrow sample would- "Lisa!" Lincoln interrupted her thoughts.
"Yes?" she said without looking at him.
"What's that sound?"
"Hm?" she finally looked up from her clipboard, hearing a small rumbling sound. A quick glance identified the source attached to the QMH, shaking violently.
"Oh, that's simply an old dark matter reactor. I repurposed it to work as...my...power...source." Lisa's eyes widened. In her haste to build the QMH she had forgotten the cardinal rule of cosmic energy science: never mix quantum energy with dark matter, because it causes weird shit to happen.
"That's not good." Lisa started to slowly back away. "I recommend a hasty-" The world exploded in pure light.
"LISA!" a silhouette grabbed her and shielded her from the blinding new dimension. And Lisa Loud dreamt of static.
Author's Note:
Here's a little something. I've never seen any good Lisacoln stories so I thought I'd give it a shot and mix it with a little bit of superheroism.
Leave a review if you like what you've read.
Next chapter should be up in the next week or two, but no promises. College comes first, sorry.
