Authors Note: Once again let me just thank you all for the support, considering the fact it's nearing 5000 views already, I was honestly worried no one would like anything else I wrote after A Brothers Debt. I'm glad to see that isn't the case, though I am aware that multiple members in the community are miffed with me, mainly over how often I update. Either way I hope you enjoy this chapter, take care all!
Lincoln was tired, but he managed to make it back home, going around into the side garage door with Lynn's bike rolling beside him. When he got inside, he rested the bike aside and closed the door.
"Lincoln! Welcome back," Lisa greeted him. Lincoln went and took a seat over on a nearby step ladder, drained from the long fight.
"Hey, Lisa… sorry for taking so long… I kind of collapsed halfway home," Lincoln apologized. He had ridden the bike as long as he could, but sadly his legs gave out on him, and he crashed into a bush. He had given up riding it from there and decided to walk the rest of the way home.
"Well that's only natural. You were probably surviving off adrenaline alone throughout that entire confrontation," Lisa reassured that his body just needed time to regain its own energy after the event.
"Oh, yes… and also…" Lincoln felt himself get sprayed once again by the water bottle. He guessed this was just Lisa's method of being passively aggressive. He understood why she was mad with him.
"Sorry for taking the Guardian Project without asking… you were asleep and I was worried since no one else was able to fight those Xeran guys," Lincoln apologized, feeling bad for the theft, but it was quite the anxiety raiser to just sit there and watch the ever growing chaos in the city that all attempts to stop had barely done anything to slow it down, let alone stop it.
"If you were dead, I'd be a lot more infuriated… but we can at least confidently say that the Guardian Project is a success for only its early phases," Lisa tried to look at the positive side as she threw the spray bottle aside. She took the gauntlet off from his forearm and returned it to the workbench.
"Yeah! I felt like a hero throughout all of that," Lincoln replied, "I can't wait to tell everyone else about…"
"Lincoln Loud! You are not a hero. You were simply the first person who responded to the situation and successfully halted it. But hear me out; we are not telling anyone anything," Lisa angrily dug into her brother for what she saw as his idiotic movements. Lincoln smiled, walking beside her to the workbench, picking up his little sister and hugging her.
"Heh… sorry for making you worry, Lisa," Lincoln apologized. The child prodigy wrapped her arms around his neck, not hiding how upset she was from being greatly worried. Watching her brother get assaulted like that was terrifying, but the guardian suit did its job of protection well.
"That and I might have caused thousands of dollars in property damage when fighting Zeggfor," Lincoln added, confessing that maybe it would be better to keep things more secretive. Lisa sighed while she was put down.
"I did kinda almost make a mistake on top of that…" He looked over himself. The injuries he sustained were primarily scratches, but there were a good few baseball-sized bruises on his chest.
"What do you mean?" Lisa wondered out loud, wondering if he was referring to destroying the majority of that jewelry store, "I watched most of the fight, and frankly, just because your body was the thing that was crashed through that roof, it doesn't exactly make you responsible."
"I…I almost stole some of the jewelry there," Lincoln nervously looked down at the ground beneath them. He almost took advantage of a store's damaged security, all for what probably would have been a frivolous waste of time and disappointment, a still broken heart, and maybe a black eye from Ronnie Anne.
"Oh… well, the important thing is that you did not proceed with those negative intentions. I understand you feel a lot lonelier without Ronnie Anne, but sincerely if you don't try to move on, it will only affect you worse in the long run," Lisa explained, more so praising him for not acting on the evil urges. Even one minor thing like that would ruin many heroes and their reputation.
"Wait… you knew about me and Ronnie Anne?" Lincoln was surprised. He had kept his relationship with Ronnie Anne secret from his entire family for obvious reasons. All the meddling though was ridiculous, her older brother Bobby was also dating Lori.
"Lincoln, I may have more distractions than most, but I'm also far more observant… not to mention that you kept having the same bruise on your upper left forearm for five months straight. That can only happen from taking a playful punch, over and over," Lisa explained. Lincoln looked down at his arm. There barely was any trace of the bruise left. Ronnie Anne would call him Lame-o constantly and bashfully hit him in the arm. It was just how she showed her affection with him, or how she used to.
"If science doesn't work out, I'm sure you'll pass as a great detective," Lincoln claimed, not reluctant anymore to confess to her that her hunch that he used to be together with Ronnie Anne was correct. Lisa could tell how depressed he was over it. He had been trying his best to not show it and get over it, but it was a lot harder than he ever expected.
"My appreciation for the compliments… I have to ask, why didn't you go through with stealing the jewelry? You had cut communications off with me when you exited your guardian mode," Lisa doubted that it was as simple as just not wanting to commit a crime. To her, her brother was one of the most confusing members in the family because of his constant planning, but then no one was normal in the Loud House.
"I couldn't… 'cause it's not the type of thing a superhero would do," Lincoln sheepishly answered. The child prodigy adjusted her glasses, feeling bad for scolding him so harshly earlier like their mother would have.
"Here. Guess you better give this to Lynn," Lincoln held out his red curved tip star. Lisa however closed his hand around it.
"I can't, even if I wanted to. The Guardian Project is military designed. It has several fail safes and also has an anti theft measure to it," she let out a frustrated sigh.
"Anti theft measure…?" He confusedly repeated, hoping she would not give him a headache by giving a lot of scientific specifics about it all.
"Yes, Lincoln. It registers the DNA of the one who activates it first… and if I'm correct, you were the first to wear the guardian suit," Lisa explained. Lincoln gave a sheepish smile. He knew what it now meant for him.
"So… I'm the Fire Guardian for good then?"
"Ugh… yes, my dear brother, you are the one and only guardian… I suppose that makes you a superhero," Lisa claimed. Lincoln didn't know how to feel. On one hand, he had wanted to take the burden away from his sisters by taking over the Guardian Project himself, but he had stolen it to get into this position unintentionally.
"Thanks, Lisa… Sorry again about taking it… was there any bad damage done to it from the fights?" Lincoln questioned. They both looked at the guardian gauntlet resting on the workbench, his genius sister hooking it back up to multiple wires from her laptop again.
"Thankfully, it appears not. …I suggest you look into taking fighting courses like karate for an after school activity," she recommended. Lincoln pocketed the red star and began to leave the garage with her to let the computer analyze the gauntlet, in order to make sure it was not majorly damaged.
"Why's that? I beat that Xeran group, didn't I?" Lincoln replied, confusedly.
"Lincoln, if science has taught me one thing… err… to put it in Layman's terms, you can cut down a tree and remove the stump, as well as the roots, but it will still leave behind dozens of seeds to make more in its place, some of which will most likely grow larger than the original." Lisa tried to give her best example metaphor that he could hopefully understand.
"So you're saying this is just the beginning?" Lincoln asked, his super genius sister nodding. He certainly knew why she felt anxious for it now. He had no choice but to keep up with the secret identity for now.
"There you two are!" Lori chimed up, Lincoln and Lisa saw her, "I was just coming to get you. The pizza's finished."
"Oh, that's great!" Lincoln smiled, he and Lisa glad to have a late lunch over no lunch at all. The three made their way to the kitchen, where midway they then noticed everyone else gathered in the living room, again focused on the television.
"What's occurring?" Lisa requested while they joined the group.
"Oh, the riots back on the news again. It's over, but what ended it is weird," Luan answered, tossing the remote to the oldest sibling and letting her raise the volume.
"It seems nearly all the people that had been assaulted have been able to make a full recovery, myself and my beloved crew included… but it's not thanks to the authorities' efforts, but to a supposed masked individual that everyone describes as a hero," the news reporter, the one who had been attacked on camera earlier by the textoth, spoke. She seemed to have energy to last for days now.
"…guess I did get seen…" Lincoln thought. He wondered what happened to that journalist he saved, when he then realized he had told her his full name and announced his title as a guardian after saving her, "How is it that I always manage to screw up a lot of things…?"
"Oh dear," Lisa murmured.
"Thankfully, our eye in the sky did get some footage of this hero and their actions. Let's view it now," the reporter continued, as the camera changed to the view from a helicopter that had arrived early in hopes of getting good footage of the SWAT teams fighting the textoth.
"I'm screwed… screwed like a broken light bulb," Lincoln watched the footage of him standing there after he had finished morphing. Steam was coming off his body after the morph. He was relieved it recorded only the real part of the battle itself, not the part where he initially confronted them.
"As you can see, after being bested, these… things, turned to dust," the reporter continued on, "Police are investigating, but as it stands, the only thing we know is that our journalist, Jessica Blakesten claims the man saved her and claims to be a 'guardian'. Therefore, it only is natural to dub this individual Guardian Red."
"Yep that's her," Lincoln groaned, recognizing the picture of the journalist he saved, and the name Jessica Blakesten. She was infamous for stalking and harassing famous individuals in Royal Woods, and would go to insane lengths to do it. He was wondering why she did not expose his identity though, Jessica made it sound like he had met her in his guardian form.
"A guardian?! That is so cool!"
"Did you see him fighting them? That was so awesome, especially that explosion behind him!"
"That was a really 'heated' battle."
"How do you know it isn't a girl?"
"What was that rainbow stuff coming out of the monsters?"
"They looked strong enough to suplex them all!"
"I'd love to meet their fashion designer."
Lincoln just heard all of his sisters rambling back and forth. He felt very embarrassed to hear the praise. Lisa felt great at the compliments of the suit's greatness.
"Let's take the chance to get the pizza while everyone isn't fighting over getting their slice," Lori suggested, not caring about this supposed superhero on the news. She really could care less about a lot of things the news reported on.
"Sounds good," Lincoln and Lisa agreed, and they made their way back to the kitchen. Still, the new guardian felt like someone was talking about him specifically, and not his disguised hero form either.
"I get the feeling that Zeggfor guy is going to put me high up on his nemesis list."