AN: Hello, everyone. First, I would like to thank everyone who has reviewed, favorited, and followed Rick and the Louds. It has been a worthwhile endeavor and I would like to clarify the future of this story. Also, I would like to apologize for the delay, mostly because of the guests I've had over the holiday break.
I intend to utilize most of Rick and Morty, which will include Meeseeks and Destroy, but with a few elements changed since I went through one of the darkest moments of that episode in chapter 2 and I do not feel comfortable going there again.
I also intend to use Scary Terry again, but that'll be in a later chapter and the only thing I'm saying about it is that Lucy will meet him. I'm not sure if Lincoln-Rick's family should meet the canon Morty-Rick's family, but I'll come to a decision about that later.
On a minor note: the implications of Charles' threat would have involved tubes tied, but he was also cruel enough to do something to their privates as well.
Lastly, consider this a belated holiday present and a warm welcome to 2017!
Now then, the adventure continues!
Rick and the Louds
Chapter 4: Love Hurts
Royal Woods Elementary School 8:00 AM
It was an average start to an atypical Monday for Lincoln, which was mostly because he wasn't dealing with the fallout of Rick's adventures or getting dragged on one again when he was supposed to be in school. It had only been a week since Charles left, but Lincoln and the others had done their best to recover from that.
As such, he was surprised when he approached his locker and felt the all-too familiar tug of someone's hands on his pants. Soon enough, he felt them around his ankles, which forced him to cover up and shoot an incriminating glare at the one responsible.
"Really, Ronnie?" Lincoln asked, somewhat incredulously, as several onlookers to start pointing and laughing at his misfortune. Lincoln blushed slightly as he pulled his pants back up.
Royal Woods Elementary School (Lincoln's Classroom) 11:30 AM
Soon enough, the lunch bell had rung, which allowed Lincoln and his classmates to leave. However, he fell when he left his seat, much to his confusion. It wasn't until he noticed his shoelaces tied together that he realized why it had happened.
"Oh, real original!" Lincoln declared, somewhat angrily to Ronnie as the onlookers returned to mock him.
Royal Woods Elementary Cafeteria 12:00 PM
After he'd finally gotten his lunch, Lincoln approached his usual spot and sat down, only to hear a whoopee cushion deflate, much to his slight embarrassment. He then pulled it out and shot a glare at the one responsible.
"Oh, real mature, Ronnie!" Lincoln angrily stated to Ronnie as the onlookers returned to mock him.
Royal Woods Elementary School 1:30 PM
The final bell had rung, which made Lincoln feel relieved that his horrible day was over, However, he had to retrieve his stuff from his locker first. He shifted a few glances prior to opening his locker, only for a mountain of garbage to collapse on top of him when he opened it.
As he dug himself out of the trash, the onlookers returned to mock him, only stopping when they noticed his angered expression upon exiting.
"Okay, that's it!" Lincoln yelled angrily as he approached Ronnie.
Franklin Avenue 2:00 PM
After he'd confronted his bully, Lincoln had walked home with Clyde after the bus had dropped them off.
Clyde was an 11-year-old African-American with freckles and black hair styled into an afro. He wore a set of circular glasses with thick black rims and blue-tinted lenses, black pants and a yellow-and-blue striped shirt with a white collar. He also wore black tennis shoes with three white stripes and laces on each.
"Whoa, you confronted that bully?" Clyde asked, fearful for his best friend's welfare.
"Yep. I said to meet me at 3:30 in front of my house so that we could settle this." Lincoln said confidently, adding an angered scowl at the end of it.
"Wait, you're going to fight?" Clyde asked, even more fearful.
"I'm not an animal, Clyde." Lincoln said, instantly calming down. He then formed a confident smile, which soon turned slightly less confident. "I'm going to do this diplomatically with a speech…as soon as I write it."
"Uh, looks like the bully left you something too." Clyde said as he pointed to the right side of Lincoln's hair.
Lincoln looked at him in confusion until he felt a mysterious piece of paper on his head. He attempted to pull it off, which revealed that it was held in place with used, but sticky gum. Lincoln braved through the pain and got the paper, but most of the gum was still in his hair.
"'Lame-o'." Lincoln read from the paper, which only made him form an unamused scowl.
Clyde briefly sniffed his hair and said, "Ooh, watermelon-lime!"
Rather than be freaked out by Clyde's behavior, Lincoln quickly composed himself and said, "I better not let my sisters or Grandpa Rick see this. Otherwise, they'll want to get involved and make things worse…the way they always do."
"Oh, what's the worst that could happen?" Clyde asked dismissively, only for Lincoln to shoot him an incredulous glare.
"The last time they all go involved with one of my problems, I wound up in the hospital for two weeks." Lincoln said seriously.
"Oh, yeah. How'd that happen again?" Clyde asked.
"They went overboard when I got a papercut. After I endured my sisters' home remedies, Grandpa Rick took me to a dimension to get a cyclops' healing tears, but I got crushed by one of the cyclops' fists before we could get them." Lincoln revealed, cringing from the memories of his physical trauma.
"Ooh, then you're probably right." Clyde said, agreeing with Lincoln. "Still, you've got to get that gum out of your hair. You need to look intimidating for that bully."
"Please, I was born intimidating." Lincoln said confidently, only to form a slightly disgusted expression as he touched the gum trying to remove it.
"You know, peanut butter will probably get that gum out." Clyde suggested.
"Good idea, Clyde. I'll see you tomorrow." Lincoln said as he arrived at his house and allowed Clyde to go to his.
Loud House 1st Floor 2:05 PM
As soon as Lincoln entered the house, he quietly closed the door and carefully stepped around some of Lily's baby toys, which were scattered since Lily had been in the middle of playing when he'd arrived. As such, Lincoln pled quietly to his youngest sister by shushing her, which she returned in kind with a smile.
With the last toy, out of his way, Lincoln sighed to himself in relief, only to notice Lori talking to one of her friends on her cellphone and only a few feet by his side. Lincoln darted by the stairs as Lori obliviously continued to talk.
"Wait, he wore cargo shorts on your third date? That's literally the worst thing I've ever heard." Lori snidely responded to her friend as she continued to trek around the house, and thankfully out of Lincoln's path.
Lincoln sighed in relief as he ran towards the kitchen to the fridge. As soon as he opened the fridge door, he attempted to find the peanut butter, only to hear Luna come inside. Not wanting his sister to notice the gum, he quickly opened the vegetable drawer and stuck his head inside.
"Hey, bro." Luna said, only to form a brief, quizzical expression when she noticed Lincoln's situation.
"Oh, hi Luna. What's going on?" Lincoln asked, trying to seem calm. It had apparently worked as Luna's expression faded into her familiar chill smile.
"Rad way to chill out." Luna inferred.
"Yeah, totally." Lincoln said, allowing her to believe her assumption.
"Hey, any chance you could snag me some pudding?" Luna asked, much to Lincoln's unease. Rather than risk Luna knowing about the gum, Lincoln strained to reach the shelf where the pudding was and handed it to her.
"Here you go, Luna." Lincoln said, relieved that she would leave soon.
"Thanks, bro." Luna said sincerely, oblivious as she left.
With Luna, out of the way, Lincoln smiled in relief as he could now focus on getting the peanut butter. Unfortunately, the gum had stuck to a head of lettuce in the vegetable drawer, which forced Lincoln to remove it. He was grateful that the gum hadn't left any noticeable residue on the lettuce as he spotted the jar.
"Finally, peanut butter!" Lincoln whispered to himself excitedly as he unscrewed the lid, only to find that it had been entirely scooped out. Lincoln grumbled to himself, "Why do people put empty jars back in the fridge?", before he angrily threw the empty jar into the trash.
Lincoln scratched his head, attempting to think of another solution. Serendipitously, Lori unintentionally provided him the answer as she continued to talk to her friend in the other room.
"Socks and sandals, too? Cut it out!" Lori replied, barely able to keep herself from laughing.
Lincoln mentally slapped himself as he snuck back into the living room and retrieved a pair of his mom's scissors from the nightstand by the fireplace. He then sneakily approached the stairs, only to see Luan come down from them. Unable to hide it any other way, Lincoln placed his gum-covered hair onto the wall, which apparently left Luan none the wiser.
"Hey, Lincoln, what do you think of this joke? 'If I were you, I'd go for the baboon'?" Luan asked, much to Lincoln's confusion.
"Uh, I don't get it." Lincoln replied, weirded out that Luan's joke appeared to have even less effort put into it than they normally were.
"Oh, that's just the punchline. I still have to think of the setup." Luan clarified as she obliviously left Lincoln to his own devices.
With Luan, out of the way, Lincoln ran up the stairs, which forced him to endure the whiplash from the gum, moments before he arrived at his room door. After he recovered from the unpleasant pain, he had his hand on the knob, only to hear Rick call for him.
"Lincoln! I need your help with [burp] some science stuff!" Rick requested, apparently drunk enough to start burping in-between his sentences again.
"Okay, just give me five minutes, grandpa!" Lincoln replied, wanting to get rid of the gum as soon as possible.
"Uh, this is kind of [burp] important, Linc!" Rick declared urgently.
"I will, Grandpa Rick! Just give me three minutes!" Lincoln bargained, moments away from entering his room.
"Lincoln, go help your grandfather!" Dante declared angrily, much to Lincoln's ire as he reluctantly abandoned his mission and discretely headed to the backyard, but not before securing the scissors in his back-pocket.
Knowing that Rick would also be a risk factor, Lincoln retrieved one of Lynn's discarded red baseball caps from the laundry basket outside hers and Lucy's room and placed it on his head.
Rick's Lab 2:10 PM
With the hat, Lincoln nonchalantly headed into Rick's lab and found his grandfather studying a complicated-looking map, only averting his eyes to see his grandson.
"Lincoln! I see you're trying a new look." Rick inferred as he noticed Lincoln's borrowed hat.
"Uh, yeah. What's going on, grandpa?" Lincoln asked, trying to get this done soon.
"You see Linc, I think that I've [burp] discovered an alternate dimension with things that'll h-h-help me with my research." Rick revealed as he aimed and fired his portal gun at the front door.
When the portal appeared, rather than it's solid-green middle, static appeared and deposited several dead men in suits and creamed corn before it disappeared.
"What the?!" Lincoln asked, confused and horrified by the sight.
"Oh, yeah. These are d-d-dead weathermen and creamed corn. They're like the static of dimensional travel. They [burp] only appear if the portal gun hasn't properly synched up with the destination." Rick revealed nonchalantly as he opened another portal that sent the weathermen and corn into another dimension.
"Kind of disturbing, but what do you need me for?" Lincoln asked.
"Oh, this time I-I just need you to move some boxes over there." Rick said dismissively as he motioned his hand towards his invention bookshelf while he studied the map. Strangely, the shelf had a new, metallic device in front of it.
The device itself was only slightly taller than Rick with a few spikes on top. It was dark blue and had yellow rings along its side.
Lincoln sighed to himself in resignation as he moved the boxes, but it was better than going on an adventure so soon prior to his confrontation with his bully. However, he was unaware that his hand had touched the device in the process, which instantly caused it to glow yellow and hum.
Rick had heard the humming sound and stopped his studying as his eyes widened at the sight of his glowing device.
"Holy crap, Lincoln! Run away!" Rick warned as the light glowed brighter. Lincoln gasped in fear as Rick shielded him and the light faded.
While Lincoln was relieved that nothing had apparently happened, his fears resurfaced when he heard a growling sound. Rick removed himself from Lincoln and pulled out his metal-gray laser cannon, motioning for Lincoln to stay behind him. Lincoln's eyes widened when he noticed that there was an actual dinosaur in front of them.
It appeared to be a velociraptor, only it was pure white in color, much to Lincoln's confusion. During one of his adventures with Rick, Lincoln had visited the Cretaceous period and never saw a velociraptor with that peculiar skin color.
"Grandpa Rick, what's going on?" Lincoln asked fearfully.
"Uh, you created a dinosaur, Lincoln." Rick said placatingly, attempting to keep Lincoln calm.
Suddenly, the velociraptor attacked the duo, which forced Rick to repeatedly blast the dinosaur to kill it. Unfortunately, the dinosaur had evaded every one of Rick's shots and clamped down on his laser cannon, only to break a few of its teeth in the process.
"Dodge this, you Cretaceous bastard!" Rick declared as he attempted to kill the dinosaur at point-blank range. Unfortunately, the velociraptor's teeth had damaged the barrel of the laser cannon, which now glowed red as it started to overload.
"Lincoln, we've got to bail!" Rick declared fearfully as he embraced his grandson and ran out the door, but not before he punched the dinosaur in the head with his brass knuckles, which knocked it out instantly. When Rick and Lincoln made it outside, Rick slid off his left coat sleeve and pressed a few buttons on his wristwatch that coated the entire lab in a metal-gray exterior.
Given Rick's penchant for explosions, he'd gone to the liberty of enforcing the house against several threats, although he'd bothered to do the same for the interior of his lab as well. Within a few moments, a muffled explosion came out from Rick's lab, which allowed him to lower the blast shields and to let Lincoln down.
Upon reentering, Rick found the fragments of his laser cannon on top of the dinosaur's ashes. Thankfully, the interior blast shields protected Rick's inventions and research, much to his relief.
"Well, that was a close one, Linc…" Rick trailed off as he looked at Lincoln, much to Lincoln's confusion. It wasn't until he noticed that in Rick's rush to save him, his borrowed hat had fallen off, which left his gummed hair exposed to Rick.
"Uh, grandpa…"
"Lincoln, what happened?" Rick asked in concern, cutting him off.
Lincoln sighed deeply; he knew that Rick was smart enough to deconstruct any lie he said, so he reluctantly told the truth.
"I'm…I'm getting picked on, grandpa." Lincoln said reluctantly as he looked down to avoid his grandfather's eyes.
Suddenly, Rick embraced Lincoln, which allowed the boy to look up and see a concerned look on his grandfather's face. "It'll be okay, Lincoln." Rick said sincerely as Lincoln returned his embrace.
Loud House 1st Floor 2: 15 PM
After Rick, had cut out the gum in Lincoln's hair, the duo went into the kitchen where Rick got a beer and Lincoln got an orange soda. They both drank their respective beverages as they sat down in the dining room.
"So, you've got a bully problem, huh?" Rick said, trying to make it seem lighter than it was.
"Yeah. I was planning on confrontation with a diplomatic speech. I just didn't want you or any of my sisters to know because I didn't want you guys to get involved." Lincoln revealed, somewhat sadly.
"Lincoln, we're your family. We're supposed to [burp] be able to have full disclosure when it comes to these problems." Rick said reassuringly as he sipped his beer.
"I know that it was stupid and immature, but I didn't want a repeat of what happened the last time you guys got involved." Lincoln replied as he did the same with his soda.
Rick sighed deeply when he remembered what happened. "Yeah, things got kind of crazy. You would've been in that cast for a longer time if I hadn't gotten those tears on my own."
"Again, thanks for that, Grandpa Rick." Lincoln said sincerely.
"I'd do it again and even a third time!" Rick randomly shouted and then formed a deadpan expression. "But that'd probably be it. I got my ass kicked two weeks in a row to get those tears."
"Yeah, by the end of it, you needed them more than me." Lincoln said, stifling a laugh, which Rick returned in kind.
"Yeah, good times." Rick said warmly and then formed a serious expression. "So, w-w-what's her name?"
"How do you know it's a girl?!" Lincoln asked incredulously.
"Other than your reaction, you've been avoiding pronouns on the subject." Rick deduced and then asked, "So, what's her name?"
Lincoln sighed deeply. "It's Ronnie Anne. She's in my class and always picks on me for some reason." Lincoln revealed and then asked, "So, what should I do?"
"Well, people that follow stupid double standards would say that she hurts you because she likes you and you should kiss her, but I've got a better idea." Rick suggested as the duo took their last swigs of their beverages.
With that, the duo threw their cans into the recycling bin and headed towards the living room.
Loud House 1st Floor 2:23 PM
Soon enough, Rick had assembled most of the Loud sisters, except for the slumbering Lily, in the living room. Since Rick was the adult in this situation, he'd decided not inform their parents, given Lincoln's concern of their involvement.
"Okay, so…you're probably all wondering why we're all here." Rick said, somewhat nervously.
"Uh, yeah. I was in the middle of practicing my pageant wave." Lola remarked.
"Don't worry, Pink Sunshine. You'll be doing that soon." Rick reassured.
"What's going on here, grandpa?" Lucy asked.
"Well, Sugar Bat, I'm going to need everyone to promise me you won't freak out." Rick requested, which caused most of the Loud sisters to form quizzical looks on their faces.
"Did you do something bad, gramps?" Luna asked.
"No, Pixie Cut." Rick replied with an unamused expression on his face, which quickly returned to its normal demeanor. "J-Just everyone promise me, right now."
With that, the Loud sisters said murmurs of agreement, which allowed Rick to fully compose himself. He turned to Lincoln, who gave him an affirmative nod, which he returned.
"Lincoln's got a bully problem." Rick said, which instantly caused all the girls to form concerned expressions.
"Wait, what?!" they all yelled incredulously.
"Hey, remember your promise!" Rick said sternly, knowing that they were on the verge of freaking out. Suddenly, they all calmed down enough to placate Rick, but they still retained their concerned expressions.
"Lincoln, where is this guy?" Lynn asked as she cracked her knuckles.
"Lynn, that's the thing…it's not a guy." Lincoln said, somewhat nervously.
"Is it one of those dogs in super suits?" Leni inferred.
"It's a girl." Rick and Lincoln said simultaneously, much to the shock of the remaining Loud sisters.
Suddenly, they all erupted in a cacophony of girlish glee and embraced Lincoln, much to his surprise, with the odd exception of Lisa.
"Normally, I wouldn't engage in this sort of activity but…" Lisa trailed off before she let out a tiny squeal and joined her remaining siblings.
"Okay, I'm letting that slide for now, but what's the BFD?" Rick asked.
"Well, duh! Lincoln, why didn't you tell us you had a girlfriend?" Luna inferred.
"She sounds so pretty." Lola remarked dreamily.
"Uh, what's going on here?" Rick asked, somewhat incredulously.
"Grandpa Rick, when a girl picks on a boy it only ever means one thing; she likes him!" Lori revealed as they ended their embrace with Lincoln to yell in excitement again.
"Yeah, that's probably not the case." Rick bluntly said when their cheering stopped. "What you're describing is a complete double standard."
"Oh, please. How does that qualify?" Lisa asked.
"Because you wanted to get payback on the bully when you thought that it was a boy, and now you're cool with it just because it's a girl?" Rick said incredulously.
"Well, that's how love works at around Lincoln's age." Lori stated.
"No, it's not. Y-Y-You think you know what's going on through this girl's head? That she secretly loves Lincoln and has some shrine to him and wr-wr-writes poetry about him? And that she can only express herself though violence to make sure no one else knows a-about her feelings?" Rick harshly inferred, which made the girls form sheepish expressions.
"Well, maybe not…" Lori trailed off, only for Rick to continue his tirade.
"And oh, I suppose you think that Lincoln's supposed to kiss her or something to prove it?" Rick asked sarcastically, before he formed an angered expression. "Yeah, like it or not, that's not how it's supposed to work! If she ever did any of the stuff I described before, she's a total stalker! Even worse, if it was reversed, Lincoln would be creepy instead of in love, because it's so freaking easy to have men as the bad people in relationships! Men are always the ones who have to be the abusers, the cheaters, and the stalkers because no one cares if a woman does the same thing!" Rick yelled, which instantly made the girls fall into a stunned silence.
"Grandpa Rick, we…"
"I understand where this is coming from, Honey Bunny." Rick said as he managed to calm down and looked her straight in her eyes. "It still doesn't make it right."
"So, what should we do?" Lori asked.
"Well, Lincoln had a good idea to talk to the b-b-bully, but we called this meeting to make sure you w-w-would all be on board with it." Rick explained.
"Yeah, that seems fair." Lisa said in agreement, which was followed by the remaining Loud sisters agreeing as well.
"Good, because I've got a bit of an insurance plan." Rick stated as he motioned towards the fireplace and turned some of the pictures on the mantel a certain way until the fireplace descended into a metal latch and was replaced by a large, tall silver case.
The remaining Loud siblings stared at the case in awe until Lincoln broke the silence.
"Grandpa Rick, what's this?" Lincoln asked.
"This is something I made in case something like this ever happened." Rick cryptically explained as he opened the doors on the case, which revealed five, metal gray paintball guns.
"Ooh, what are these for, grandpa?" Lola asked excitedly as she approached the case, only for Rick to prevent her.
"These are special modified paintball guns I made with some help from a friend in DARPA." Rick revealed as he slid Lola back to the rest of her siblings.
"What kind of modifications, grandpa?" Lisa asked, barely able to contain her excitement.
"Basically, the paintballs they shoot c-c-cause nausea and diarrhea upon contact." Rick bluntly explained as he held out one of the blue paintballs, much to the disbelief of the remaining Loud siblings.
While they continued their murmurs of disbelief, Rita walked in with a crossword puzzle that she was apparently doing.
"Kids, do any of you know a six-letter word for…?" Rita asked before Rick callously took one of the guns, loaded the paintball, and shot her in the shoulder. Suddenly, Rita began to vomit uncontrollably onto the carpet as her bowels noisily emptied. The instant nausea and diarrhea caused Rita to stumble as she reached the downstairs bathroom, experiencing the effects of the paintball the entire time.
The Loud kids were speechless by Rick's demonstration, mostly because he'd attacked their mother. However, Rick pulled out a set of Rita's clothes from a secret panel in front of the downstairs bathroom and some medicine for her. He knocked on the door and handed the supplies to a grateful Rita before he returned to his grandchildren.
"What? I'm n-n-not a total monster." Rick nonchalantly stated as he gave a paintball gun to Lori, Luna, Luan, and Lynn before he took the last one for himself.
"Wait, is this going where I think it's going?" Lynn asked, somewhat concerned.
"Maybe, but why would the King of Siam order fried chicken?" Leni wrongly inferred, which made the remaining Loud siblings and Rick facepalm.
"No, they're obviously going to keep a lookout for Lincoln to make sure his bully doesn't hurt him." Lisa inferred, which earned a respectful nod from Rick, which quickly turned into an awkward smile.
"Yeah, but we can't risk any of you guys knowing about this so…" Rick said as he pulled out a yellow handgun with several blue buttons on its left side. He then shot the gun at Lincoln, Leni, Lucy, Lola, Lana, and Lisa, which emitted a purple beam that knocked all of them out.
"Grandpa Rick, what did you just do?!" Luna asked, horrified.
"Relax, Pixie Cut. This is my Amnesia Ray." Rick explained as he cradled the unconscious Lucy, Lola, and Lana and set them on the couch. He continued to explain as he returned to safely put them in the Living Room. "I wiped out their memories of what just happened so that they don't try to stop us or use these guns. Now, we're free to stake out this girl and make sure she doesn't hurt Lincoln." He stopped at Leni and sighed deeply. "Ugh, I hate it when I do this to Leni."
"Uh, how come?" Luan asked nervously.
"It's a long story." Rick said quickly before he cleared his throat and nonchalantly changed the subject when he grabbed Lincoln. "The others will be out for about an hour, maybe two. Lincoln will wake up instantly when I use the Amnesia Ray on him again. Meanwhile, the rest of you need to get to your positions."
"Wait a minute. How do we know you won't use that thing on us when it's all over?" Lynn asked suspiciously.
Unexpectedly, Rick knelt to her eye level and looked at her sincerely. "Because I trust you guys, Lynn." Lynn stared at her grandfather in reverence before he embraced her, a display that made the remaining Loud sisters smile. Lynn failed to hold back a smile as she returned the embrace.
Franklin Avenue 3:30 PM
After he finished writing Lincoln's speech, Rick activated the Amnesia Ray and fired it at Lincoln, which instantly caused him to wake up. Although, he was somewhat disoriented as he stumbled a bit before reaching the front of the house, exactly where he'd told Ronnie Anne to meet him. Lincoln shook his head and looked around, only to see Ronnie Anne around the corner.
Ronnie Anne was a Hispanic-American 11-year-old girl with tanned skin, black hair tied into a ponytail, freckles on her cheeks, and two buck teeth that stuck out of her mouth. She wore a purple hooded sweatshirt, blue jean shorts, and purple shoes with long pink socks.
Lincoln's heart sank as he couldn't remember if he'd written his speech for her. He then looked in his back pocket and found the note Rick left for him. Lincoln smiled hopefully as he opened the letter, only for it to simply say, 'Just be yourself, Linc. Love, Grandpa Rick'. While Lincoln was touched by this, he was still a bit nervous when Ronnie Anne approached him with a bored expression on her face.
"Hi, Lame-O. What did you want to say?" Ronnie Anne asked.
Deciding to take Grandpa Rick's advice, Lincoln took in a deep breath and exhaled to prepare himself. He then looked at Ronnie Anne and said, "Listen Ronnie, I don't know what your problem is with me. You constantly pull my pants down, you tie my shoes together, and you do whatever you can to annoy me. My only question is: why?"
Rather than answer him, Ronnie Anne merely took out her cellphone and started to text someone. While Lincoln was clearly offended with her actions, he noticed that her purple phone cover had a depiction of Ace Savvy.
"Wait, is that an Ace Savvy phone cover?" Lincoln asked, somewhat excitedly.
"Yep. I stood in line for four hours to get this bad boy." Ronnie Anne replied, somewhat disinterested.
"Ronnie, I love Ace Savvy! A month ago, I tried to buy one of these, but they were sold out!" Lincoln said excitedly, much to Ronnie Anne's surprise.
"Wait, you love Ace Savvy too?" Ronnie Anne asked as she smiled brightly.
"You know it! Quiz me on anything!" Lincoln yelled happily.
"What is Ace Savvy's civilian identity and occupation?" Ronnie Anne asked excitedly.
"Melvin Saunders, and janitor for the Savvy Star Newspaper!" Lincoln answered quickly, which made Ronnie Anne nod in agreement.
"Who was Ace Savvy's first girlfriend and when?" Ronnie Anne asked.
"Juniper Carson, and in high school!" Lincoln answered.
"How did Ace Savvy first defeat the Card Countess?" Ronnie Anne asked.
"Trick question! Ace didn't defeat her the first time; One-Eyed Jack defeated her with Ace's Freeze Ray that he won in Issue #32, Snow Angels!" Lincoln answered, which made Ronnie's jaw drop in amazement.
"Whoa. I've never met another Savvy fan that knew that." Ronnie Anne said, visibly blushing. She tried to cover it up by returning to her tough persona, but Lincoln had noticed, which made him blush somewhat in return.
"You know, when my sisters found out that you were a girl, they thought that you were picking on me because you liked me." Lincoln revealed as his blush disappeared, which caused Ronnie Anne's blush to return.
"So, what do they know? It's y-you know…it's not like I think that you are kind of cute or anything!" Ronnie Anne badly denied as she started to play with her hair.
Lincoln stared at her in reverence before he confidently said, "That's too bad, because I think you are kind of cute."
If it wasn't obvious enough, Ronnie Anne instantly bled from her nose in excitement which she was barely able to keep from overflowing with some tissues from her left jacket pocket. Rather than risk Lincoln seeing her, Ronnie Anne turned away from him.
"Well, that's nice to know." Ronnie Anne replied, trying to seem cool after those revelations.
"I'm just glad that we found something we have in common. You're actually not so bad, Ronnie." Lincoln said sincerely as he put his left hand on her shoulder, which only made her laugh happily.
"Just try not to make this physical contact a habit, Lame…Lincoln." Ronnie Anne said as she quickly returned the hug and wrote something down on a sticky note that she slapped onto his back.
Before Lincoln could question it, Ronnie Anne left. While he seemed to think that it was only an act, when he removed the note, he couldn't have been more wrong.
"'Here's my number, L. You better text me. 555-0121'". Lincoln read aloud, which made him form a pleasant smile on his face as he headed back to his house.
Meanwhile, Rick and the remaining Loud sisters had watched his conversation from their respective hiding places and smiled brightly at Lincoln for resolving this in the best way possible.
"Well, well, well, grandpa. It looks like we were right." Lori said smugly through their communicators.
"Yeah, yeah. W-W-We got lucky this time. Let's just be glad we didn't fire any of these." Rick conceded.
"It's a good thing that Lincoln finally found a girl who likes Ace Savvy." Luna said happily.
"Yeah. I'm just glad it wasn't the Punisher!" Luan joked, which only caused the remaining Loud sisters and Rick to groan in exasperation.
"Let's get back inside, guys." Lynn said as they turned off their communicators and headed back to the house.
AN: And now time to recap.
Changing Heavy Meddle: yeah, this was mostly because of the classic double standard that was shown in the canon episode and one of the few things that I don't like in The Loud House. Also, I feel that having a mostly lighthearted chapter will be nice considering that at least the next two will involve more of Rick and Morty's dark elements.
Ronnie Anne's introduction and bonding with Lincoln: yeah, this was mostly because Lincoln will have moments where he doesn't have it as bad as he does in canon and he won't be as selfish. Also, I thought that it would be a nice moment between the two until her reappearance.
The dinosaur machine: yeah, that was based off a deleted scene from the pilot of Rick and Morty and I'm not entirely sure if I should even include it again.
The paintball guns: yeah, that was an original invention, but their ammo power and the mention of the DARPA employee is a shout out to one of the few elements I don't completely hate from Kick-Ass 2.
Rick's brief mention of Leni's exposure to the Amnesia Ray: yeah, this is something that I would want to expand upon, but one that I don't immediately foresee.
Lastly, I would like to apologize for the length of this chapter which is mostly due to the lack of Rick and Morty elements. Honestly, I couldn't really think of anything that could've worked well with Heavy Meddle, but I did it anyway to properly introduce Clyde and Ronnie Anne.
So, rate, review, and I'll be back with the next chapter as soon as I can.
Next time—Chapter 5: Meeseeks and Destroy