AN: And that's that for this current arc. Sorry it took so long, but as I've already explained, I've been going through some stuff. The chapter's longer than I usually do, hope that makes up for it :).
I'll probably be putting this story down for a while now. This arc ended up a lot lengthier than I'd planned, and there are other things I've been wanting to write. Probably be a while before I come back to this story, but I did put a little teaser at the end to hint at what comes next.
Thanks to everyone who's been sending me well wishes about my current situation, its gratifying to know that people who only know me through these silly stories I write are still concerned about my well being, and it makes it that much more rewarding to write stuff like this, knowing how much you guys enjoy it.
Speaking of, a wonderful fan has made tvtropes pages for both me as a creator, and Earth's Mightiest Mortals as a story. So if you're into that kind of thing, go check em out. It's super cool for me that there are tvtropes pages now for several of the stories I've worked on, which is exactly several more than I'd ever expected to have, hehe.
"Leni, watch out for the—!"
"I see it, Linky." His sister gently chided him. Giving him a wink of reassurance, Leni Marvel rocketed forward, seafoam green streaks being left in her wake as she charged straight at an oncoming rooftop. As the distance closed, dangerously so from Lincoln's perspective, Leni pulled into a tight spiral and effortlessly weaved to the side, circumventing the obstacle with minimal movement, and almost no loss of forward momentum. In spite of nearly getting pancaked between a metaphorical rock, and a nowhere near soft enough Leni, Lincoln was impressed.
Something he'd found fascinating was the way the girls had taken to their new powers. Despite all being roughly equal in terms of their raw capabilities, each one had found themselves acclimated to a different aspect of the power granted to them by the Living Lightning. Lynn had acclimated to her incredible strength near instantaneously, quickly learning to exert the monstrous power she wielded with a surgeon's precision. For Lucy it had been the Wisdom of Solomon, being able to incorporate the boundless knowledge it granted so seamlessly that Lincoln could scarcely tell when she was using it. And Leni, to his surprise, turned out to be a magnificent flier.
"I still can't believe how good you are at this." Said Lincoln, shaking his head in wonderment as they quickly left the rooftop behind.
"It's just easy," Leni replied with a shrug, inadvertently pulling him tighter against her plush, feminine figure, which had only grown more lovely after being blessed by the Lightning's power. "It's not like driving a car. Cars are so big that it gets hard to remember like, how much car there is, you know? And there's so much stuff to keep track of when your driving. And you can't just stop driving to take figure it out, because then people start honking and yelling at you, and dad starts crying, and Lori's like—"
"Leni." Lincoln gently interrupted her.
"That's right." The older girl agreed. "She's like, 'Leni! That's not what the mirror's for!' And I'm like—"
"Leni." Lincoln repeated, a bit more emphatically this time. Thankfully, this time the blonde seemed to take the hint.
"Sorry. " The older girl tittered nervously. "Anyway, up here it's just me. I just move where I want to move. It's easy."
"Trust me, it's not." He corrected her, remembering some of Lynn's more disastrous attempts at flying. "You're just really good at this."
"Aw. Thank you, Linky." Leni cooed, nuzzling him affectionately. "I'm trying my best."
A beat of silence.
"Although..."
Lincoln's smile froze, just a bit. "Yes, Leni?"
"We were making way better time when I just flew through the buildings."
Lincoln resisted the urge to groan aloud. "Leni, we've been over this. You can't just smash through other people's buildings."
"But it's fun," Leni whined, pouting. "And it's way faster than flying around them. And when I fly through things, you hug me really tight, and it feels nice!"
"Because it would only take one wrong angle for me to get pancaked." Lincoln thought to himself. Rather than saying as much, he reached for Leni's arm and gave it an affectionate squeeze. "Look, Leni, I know we're trying to help Becky, but it's no good if we smash up the city in the process. That's not what heroes do."
"I guess." Leni nodded her reluctant agreement as she deftly maneuvered around another rooftop. "I just...think..."
As the skyline yielded to the sprawling city streets below, Leni trailed off mid-sentence, her flight speed abruptly reduced to a slow crawl.
"Wow." The blonde murmured, quiet awe evident in her voice. Given the situation, Lincoln found he couldn't blame her.
"Yeah." He said a moment later, swallowing loudly. "That's a lot of Becky."
It had been one thing to see Becky on tv. While Lincoln knew, academically, that the things he was seeing were actually happening, the medium removed the immediacy from the equation. It may have been real, but it was happening somewhere else, and in that respect, there was a degree of distancing that kept the situation from feeling as real as it might have.
Physically being in the titanic teen's presence did away with any such notions. This was happening, and...it wasn't looking good.
Towering over downtown, quite literally larger than life, Becky was a far sight from the disproportionately large image she'd been on television. Even at their current elevation, he and Leni were only about shoulder height to her. With Leni's costume as flashy as it was, it was likely that Becky would have had little trouble spotting the airborne siblings as they approached, had her attention not been otherwise occupied.
Around the giantess swarmed a veritable fleet of helicopters. Lincoln felt a brief trill of panic, worried that the military had managed to beat them to the punch. Upon closer inspection, however, he realized that these weren't military vehicles at all. Far from it, the logos printed on their sides identified the aircraft as news choppers, many from stations he didn't even recognize. And suddenly the situation seemed so much stupider. And yet, so much more...expected.
"GET OUT OF MY FACE, YOU STUPID BUGS!" The giantess thundered, swatting at the assembled aircraft. Fortunately, the response seemed to be more out of irritation than any actual desire to cause damage, and the vehicles in the most danger of being victimized by her giant hand easily darted out of the way of the oncoming appendage. "AND DON'T THINK I CAN'T SEE YOU, CHANNEL 63! STOP ANGLING SHOTS DOWN MY TOP!"
Sensationalist journalism in a nutshell. So very, very expected. Even so, for the moment at least, it seemed like the situation was about as stable as it was going to get...
"AAAARG!" Almost as if prompted by his thought process, Becky wrapped her arms around herself and let out a strangled cry of pain. So raw was her anguish, that Lincoln's heart immediately went out to the girl. He turned to Leni, intending to urge the older girl into bringing them closer, but apparently, her thoughts mirrored his own. Gone was her ditzy, affable Leni smile. This Leni looked resolute and determined to come to her friend's aid. She tucked Lincoln close to her body and angled herself, clearly intent on launching the duo forward, however...
"NOT...AGAIN!" Becky groaned, suddenly throwing her arms wide, and very narrowly missing a few helicopters that had been trying to maneuver around her. As she did so, her already gigantic body surged upward and outward, her enlarging limbs tearing apart the street she stood on and carelessly smashing into buildings that were unfortunate enough to be occupying space that was now being claimed by her new mass. After what seemed like an eternity, the process finally stopped, and Becky sagged forward, breathing heavily with her limbs hanging limply at her side. By Lincoln's best estimation, she was roughly half again the size she'd been only moments earlier.
"Correction." He said, clearing his throat. "That's a lot of Becky."
"Totes." Leni agreed, nodding numbly.
"LOOK WHAT YOU IDIOTS MADE ME DO!" The redhead roared, her eyes flashing with anger. She took one thunderous step forward and swiped hard at the cloud of helicopters that were now quickly trying to disperse in her wake. Unlike before, however, she immediately followed up the strike with another, and then a third, now punctuating her swings furious growls. The gravity of the situation quickly became apparent. Becky was no longer trying to simply shoo away her tormentors, now she was fighting back. Her movements were significantly more sluggish than they had been previously, suggesting that she was still adjusting to her new size, or perhaps still dealing with the trauma of her most recent growth, but that handicap would only last for so long. There weren't combat pilots she was dealing with, sooner or later Becky was going to get a hit in, and then she would find herself every bit the monster they believed her to be.
"Linky!" Leni urged. Lincoln winced in pain as the blonde squeezed him a bit too hard. "What do we do? She's gonna hurt someone if this keeps up!"
"I'm thinking." He muttered, trying to take stock of the situation. "It looks like they've finally taken the hint and are trying to get away. Problem is, Becky's really hard to get away from right now—"
"RAAAAAAAARG!"
"...and, a little single-minded at the moment." He added, gingerly touching his ear. Yeah, that was definitely popped now. That girl had a set of lungs on her.
"Maybe we could distract her," Leni suggested. "Get her to focus on something else long enough for those news people to fly away."
"A solid plan." Lincoln agreed, nodding his approval. "But how? She's the size of a building, and then some! What can we get that she'll even notice at this point? Let alone fixate on long enough for those helicopters to escape?"
The question was semi-rhetorical. Lincoln was largely thinking out loud, as he tended to do when he was brainstorming, he didn't seriously expect Leni to just pull a fully formed plan out of thin air. Still, it surprised him when several moments passed and he'd received no reply at all from the older girl.
"Leni?" He called out, squirming in his sister's grip, craning his head backward as he tried to see what was going on with her. As if sensing his intent, Leni flipped him around so he was looking directly at her. Lincoln opened his mouth, intending to voice his concern, but the words died on his lips. Leni was staring at him, eyes squinted, her lips pursed, appraising him with an intensity that he rarely saw from her. Lincoln wasn't afraid to admit that all that attention focused on him was just a tad bit unnerving.
"Everything okay, Leni?" He asked, desperately wishing she'd at least blink. Finally, the older girl responded.
"Yeah, Linky." She said, nodding slowly. "I think we do have something."
Before Lincoln could ask what that something might be, Leni took two fingers and poked them into the v-neck of his polo shirt.
"Just gotta make one quick adjustment first..."
Becky's world was pain and rage. Not necessarily in that order, and in rapidly varying amounts, but there was consistently a great deal of both. In the span of a few hours, she'd gone from a statuesque, but otherwise ordinary teenager to something out of a monster movie, and the experience had been terrifying, exhilarating, and then intensely frustrating, exactly in that order. Being forced to smash through the roof of her car while it was in motion because her stupid feet were suddenly too big to be taken off the accelerator had been a panicked and hasty decision and one that she almost immediately regretted in spite of the fact that she'd likely prevented a nasty car crash in doing so. Sorrow at seeing her precious vehicle crumbling around her had been tempered by the thrill of seeing her shapely frame effortlessly punching through her steel prison like so much paper. When she'd finally burst from her confinement, all eyes on her inhumanly large form and the literal car-nage she'd wrought, tearing the last remnants of the vehicle asunder with her bare hands and sending shards of metal and glass flying everywhere, Becky had found herself laughing in delight. At that moment, she'd felt powerful. And looking down upon the rapidly shrinking onlookers, unable to tear their eyes away from her, she'd felt invincible.
That feeling hadn't lasted for long. If the situation had stabilized there, Becky would have written off the whole experience as a net positive. But it hadn't.
At ten feet tall, Becky had been feeling pretty comfortable with her new stature, brushing off the car remains still clinging to her person as easily as one might brush off some errant dust. At twenty feet, she was feeling considerably less certain in herself. Simply moving about without causing property damage was becoming difficult, and the onlookers milling about her legs were starting to look distressingly frail. It was some consolation that her clothes were growing with her, but she quickly found herself wishing that she'd had the opportunity to change into anything other than her stupidly skimpy party costume before this whole debacle happened. Or at the very least, that she hadn't made the bone-headed decision to kick off her shoes before hopping into her car. And the situation had only continued to escalate from there, in every sense of the word.
The bigger she got, the more attention she drew, and the more attention she drew, the more anxious she felt about what exactly it was that was happening to her, and that anxiety only seemed to feed the process. Worse still, while she initially found the sensation of growing to be extremely enjoyable, there quickly came a point where each growth spurt was accompanied by searing pain, which seemed to increase in intensity the larger she grew. She'd been trying to get a grip on herself, trying to keep it under control, but people wouldn't just leave well enough alone.
The sheer amount of suffering brought on by that last growth spurt had left Becky dazed, her thoughts muddled by the ungodly amount of pain she'd just experienced. But through the fog that currently clouded her mind, there was one simple conclusion that she, even in her current state, was still able to grasp.
Those tiny, buzzing things had done this to her. And they needed to pay.
It wasn't long before a semblance of rationality tried to reassert itself, imploring Becky to stay her hand. Reminding her that these were people, after all, but she paid it no heed. She wanted to smash the tiny things, to grind them to dust between massive hands. To teach them the errors of their ways. She'd come close numerous times, but fury lent her purpose, not proficiency, and her now even larger body was infuriatingly slow to respond to her commands. Finally, it seemed her moment had come. The insects had erred, too many attempting to flee in the same direction at the same time, forcing them to waste time avoiding each other instead of her. While some had been lucky enough to be positioned in such a way that they could easily disperse from the swarm while using their fellows as cover, they were very much in the minority. Becky closed the distance, raising one massive paw, relishing in the opportunity to finally exact her vengeance.
And then, something stayed her hand. A scent on the breeze, a whiff of something...strangely familiar, and oddly pleasant. Despite her instincts urging her to continue the hunt, Becky instead began looking around, desperately trying to find the source of that strange, pleasing odor. It seemed so close, almost right on top of her. How could it continue to elude her so?
Then, she heard the voice.
"Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeckyyyyyyyyyy!"
It was fainter than she was used to, but Becky was intimately familiar with the shrill, high-pitched squeal. She whirled around, now having a better idea of what she was looking for. And then, she finally found it.
A tiny figure floating near her breast, frantically waving something bright orange at her. Becky leaned down to get a better look, her eyes widening as recognition dawned upon her.
"Leni!" She gasped, finally identifying the undersized, smiling blonde girl. And there, held tightly in her hands was..."Lincoln!?"
"Becky!" Leni cried out joyfully, "You're normal again!"
She took a moment to consider her words. "Well, mostly normal, anyway."
"Leni, you're flying and wearing a cape." Becky deadpanned. Nevertheless, she felt the edges of her lips quirking up into a smile. "Which you are totally pulling off, by the way."
"Right?" Leni gave a demonstrative twirl, allowing the garment to flap dramatically in the wind before she returned to her original position. "It's totes perf! Can you believe Linky made it for me?" She asked, thrusting the young boy clutched in her hands towards Becky.
Which explained nothing about the flying. Also, fantastic of Leni to explicitly address the thing that Becky was desperately trying to avoid paying attention to.
It had been...difficult, for Becky to come to terms with the fact that she had a crush on a boy several years younger than her. She hadn't intended, for it to happen, it just sort of did. Leni was her best friend and Lincoln was that friend's brother. Given how close Leni was to her family, it was inevitable that Becky was going to meet and spend time with him. And that's all it was, initially. She'd pass Lincoln in the hall, or strike up a conversation with him while she was waiting for Leni for one thing or another. The two of them turned out to have quite a few common interests, which probably said more about Becky than it did Lincoln, but they quickly went from acquaintances to actual friends. It was nice to have someone to talk to about Ace Savvy comics, or the latest episode of ARGGH. It was nice to be able to have a conversation with a boy who spent the whole time looking her in the eye (when vantage permitted). And when Lincoln told her she looked pretty, it was nice to feel like the compliment came from a place of honesty, and not as a carefully calculated strategem to surgically separate her from her panties.
The attraction wasn't physical in nature, at least not on her end, she'd teased the white-haired boy enough times to know for a fact that he liked the way she looked. It was more ephemeral than that. Lincoln was an earnest, honest, and caring guy, and Becky enjoyed the way he made her feel when they were together. It was those qualities that had led Becky to find herself far more fond of the boy than she'd intended to be. And, after a long, thoughtful examination of the issue, it was those qualities that had convinced Becky that it might be worth seeing what kind of guy Lincoln grew into.
So it was profoundly embarrassing that even though Leni had been talking non-stop for several minutes now, Becky had found herself incapable of tearing her eyes away from the younger Loud, still being proffered by his older sister.
The Louds tended to be a good-looking bunch. Something from their mom's side of the family, she suspected. Lori and Leni had been certified heartbreakers for years now, and she had little doubt that Lincoln would be joining their ranks when he got older. At least, that had been her presumption, and one which she had been counting on. The sole Loud boy was quite charming in his own way as it stood, and with age reinforcing those charms with experience and certain...physical enhancements, she'd suspected that she would need those years to mentally prepare herself for the hormonal onslaught that a pubescent Lincoln Loud was almost certain to become. Apparently, she'd been even more right than she'd suspected.
Lincoln, still squirming in his sister's grasp, was decked out in his traditional Linconian garb; jeans, and an orange polo shirt. It was an ensemble that was...quaint, but one she was hoping he'd grow out of eventually. What differed from the norm, was that there was a large gash running straight down the middle of the garment, nearly splitting the shirt in two, transforming the polo shirt into something more closely resembling a vest. One look at his face was all it took to confirm that Lincoln was clearly uncomfortable with his state of dress, and it wasn't hard to see why. The tattered shirt left Lincoln's chest exposed to the world, which was very much off-brand for the boy. And that was quickly being proven a shame, because the view was glorious.
Becky had seen Lincoln shirtless before. Not in a weird way, just when he was modeling some of Leni's more esoteric fashion creations, or when Becky had accompanied the Louds to the pool, both public and that adorable inflatable affair they'd sometimes set up in the back yard. To say nothing of the boy's well-known preference for reading comics in his skivvies, which she'd walked in on more than once. On those occasions, Lincoln had possessed exactly the kind of doughy, pasty physique that she would have expected from someone who spent most of their time playing video games and reading comics, and more power to him for that. This was not that Lincoln.
"Chiseled" wasn't quite the proper word to describe what she was staring at, but it was in the right ballpark. There was a leanness to Lincoln that hadn't been there before, a definition that bespoke a physicality far beyond that which she'd come to know from the relatively sedentary Loud over the years. And, it was difficult to tell, given the massive size difference between the pair, but if she squinted, Becky was fairly certain she could see the makings of a six-pack on the clearly growing boy. She could vaguely recall Leni complaining emphatically about how Lincoln was frequently absent from the house these days, spending a lot of his free time out and about with Lynn. If this was the result, then she was all for it. Might even need to buy the sporty Loud a steak dinner as thanks for her efforts.
The sight...stirred something in her. She found herself desperately wanting to take her finger and gently rub it on the blushing boy, let her sense of touch fill in the details that her eyes were incapable of conveying. And, if it looked like he was enjoying himself, maybe start working her way lower and see where things went from there...
"Becky?"
Lincoln's voice cut through the haze of hormones that was clouding Becky's thoughts like a knife through butter. Upon coming to her senses, Becky noticed that she was a lot closer to Lincoln than she had been previously, the boy staring up at her with his eyes wide as saucers.
"Whatcha doin', Becky?" Lincoln asked, his tone surprisingly calm in light of his body language. Becky made to respond but then realized that Lincoln wasn't looking directly at her. Following the boy's line of sight, she realized that what he was actually staring at was her left hand. Which was in the process of reaching towards him, her thumb and index finger arranged as if preparing to deftly pick up something small and delicate.
"Oh...you know." She replied, trying to sound nonchalant. "Just...trying to work out this...hand cramp, I've got." She flexed her fingers and rotated her wrist a few times to demonstrate. Thankfully, before she could make things even more awkward, Leni intervened, tucking Lincoln protectively against her side with one arm, and flying up to Becky's eye level so she could address her directly.
"Becky!" Leni shouted, waving her free arm to draw the larger girl's attention. "You've gotta hurry up and get small again!"
Becky let out an involuntary sigh of frustration, immediately wincing when the impromptu blast of air very nearly knocked over the much smaller sibling pair.
"I'd love to, Leni." She growled, trying very hard to keep her voice level. "But whatever's happened to me didn't exactly come with an instruction manual!"
"Can't you just...not be big?" Asked the blonde, her usual brand of ditziness suddenly seeming a lot less endearing that it usually was.
"No, I can't, Leni!" Becky snapped. "And it's not like I haven't tried, but I have no idea what I'm doing here! And every time I try to do someTHI—AAAAARG"
Becky's eyes squeezed shut and she let out a gurgled cry of pain as agony coursed through her body, a sensation which was far too familiar to her by this point. The experience was mercifully brief, but when she was able to open her eyes once more, the world was noticeable tinier than it had been only moments prior.
"...That." She groaned, shaking her head in frustration. "That keeps happening."
"It's okay, Becky!" Leni's voice suddenly resounded right by her ear, causing Becky to start in surprise. And then immediately regret doing so, as the impromptu movement caused one of her legs to encounter an extremely short-lived bout of resistance. She couldn't even bring herself to look down and see what it was. At this size, anything she could feel herself destroying was going to be way too expensive to even think about replacing.
"What do you think, Linky?" Becky exerted as much control over herself as she could, and resisted the instinct to turn in the direction of the voice. At this point, moving only made like more difficult. Nothing broke when she stood still, so that seemed like the safest option. For now, at least.
"I'm thinking her emotional state is triggering the growth spurts." Came Lincoln's voice. An image of the pale-haired boy whispering sweet nothings into her ear forced its way to the front of her consciousness, and Becky immediately fled her cheeks begin to redden. Again, she fought to exert her willpower over her stupid, uncooperative body. Blushing simply wasn't an option at this point. Not just because she couldn't afford the distraction, but also because she was worried that it wouldn't stop at her cheeks, and she was showing off way too much skin to even entertain that possibility!
"Maybe if we can calm her down, she'll shrink back to normal." Lincoln continued, thankfully seeming oblivious to Becky's inner turmoil, in spite of the fact that her heart was pounding so hard that it had to be registering on local seismographs at this point.
"I-it's a good plan, Linc." Becky replied, haltingly. "But I'm not exactly in my happy place right now. K-kinda difficult to get a hold on this thing right now."
"Oh." Leni's chipper voice wafted into her ear. "I think I can fix that. Becky, hold out your hands!"
Becky waited a moment, expecting some kind of elaboration, but nothing seemed forthcoming. Still dubious, but not exactly having any better ideas, she slowly raised her hands, and flipped them around, palms held outward.
"Like this?" She asked, hesitantly.
"Totes." Leni assured her. "Now just hold them like that for a sec..."
To Becky's surprise, a Leni-colored streak rocketed into view and encircled her outstretched hands, forming a tight circuit around them. Becky felt her hands being pushed together and she surrendered to the movement, choosing to trust in her friend's judgment. Once they were touching, Becky's clasped hands jerked backwards and into her chest. Far, far harder than she was anticipating, to the point where Becky wobbled backwards, very nearly becoming unbalanced by the sudden movement.
"Leni!" She barked, looking around for the seafoam-green streak so she could issue a proper reprimand.
"Sorry." Came Leni's voice, once again at her ear. "Didn't mean to push so hard. Anyway, we're done now. Check it out!"
Becky's brow furrowed in puzzlement as she looked down at her hands. "What exactly did you...do?" That was when she saw it.
There, clasped between her enormous hands, pressed tightly into the literal valley that was now her cleavage, was an even tinier Lincoln Loud, now waving nervously at her.
"...Oh," Becky uttered, the urge to blush now intensifying by magnitudes.
"Leni?" Becky asked, inwardly groaning at how shrill her own voice sounded now. "What? And also, why?"
"It's my super amazing trick for dealing with anxiety." Leni crowed, sounding extremely satisfied with herself. "Whenever I'm really nervous about something, I find Linky and I hug him really tight, just like that. And then I feel totes better."
"But what if I break him?" Becky pleaded, unable to tear her gaze away from the tiny, incredibly looking frail boy currently being engulfed by her breasts.
"I trust you, Becky," Lincoln shouted. From her vantage, his voice was little more than a squeak, barely audible to her ears. Even so, he didn't sound like he trusted her all that much.
"Don't worry." Leni continued. "He gets like that. Don't worry about anything else, just focus on Linky, and breathing."
A beat of silence.
"And also, make sure he's breathing. He gets upset if he can't, and that makes everything way harder."
Unusual advice, to be sure. But she'd already allowed Lincoln to get to second base with her in the most unusual way possible, so its not like things could get any weirder. Taking a deep breath, Becky tried her best to ignore the sensations of the distressingly tiny world around her and focused solely on the boy clutched in her arms. Even smaller than he usually was, desperately trying to put on a brave face even though he was clearly unsettled by the extremely precarious position he was in. All it would take was one errant squeeze from her, and pop, no more Lincoln. A fact that he was certainly aware of. And still, even under those circumstances, he smiled. For her sake. And in spite of everything that had happened, Becky found herself returning the gesture. What could she say, the kid had a hell of a smile.
Becky let out a sharp gasp as a pleasant tingling began to suffuse her body. The sensation persisted for a while, nothing more than a feeling, for what seemed like the longest time. Then, finally, she felt it working. The tiny bundle of Loud in her arms suddenly just a bit larger than it had been. She mastered herself, closing her eyes, and focusing on that sensation. It seemed like an eternity, but finally, it happened again. And again. And then...it was like she was falling.
It was a strange feeling to plummet downward while being fully aware of the fact that your feet were firmly upon the ground, the wind rushing around your ears while no movement is actually taking place. In spite of her instincts urging her to do otherwise, Becky kept her eyes squeezed shut, unwilling to leave anything to chance, refusing to allow anything to interfere with the process. Finally, it stopped. For the first time in quite a while, Becky's world was completely still.
Hesitantly, Becky opened her eyes, still afraid of what she might see, but incapable of waiting any longer.
Downtown Royal Woods. Its streets torn and shattered. Its buildings crumbling, and in extreme states is disrepair. But it gladdened her heart to see that she was no longer looking down upon the scene. She was herself again, finally. Still dressed in that stupid leopard-print costume, but nevertheless at her original height once more. And there, still held tightly to her bosom, was a very relieved looking Lincoln Loud.
"You did it." He said, his voice hoarse. It occurred to her that he might have been screaming for the entirety of their trip down to the ground.
"Thanks to you." Said Becky, tightening her grip on the boy and nuzzling her face against his.
"C-come on." Lincoln protested, blushing brightly as he tried to wriggle out of her grasp. "I didn't do all that much!"
Well, in for a penny, in for a pound.
"You did plenty, Lincoln Loud." And to show that she meant it, Becky turned the boy's head so that he was looking her in the eyes, and after one last brief moment of indecision, darted forward, pressing her lips against his own.
"Becky!"
That cheerful greeting drew the redhead's attention to her aching, oxygen-deprived lungs. Even so, it was with great reluctance that she broke the kiss. She took a moment to admire the gasping, but otherwise delighted-looking boy in her arms, and briefly considered going back in for seconds. However, a flash of green out of the corner of her eye reminded her that the ruins of downtown probably weren't the best place to be working through her long-repressed romantic issues.
Looking to the sky, Becky saw a smiling Leni descending from on high, still clad in that odd-looking, but really snazzy superhero outfit of her's. That was something that was still going to need explaining.
"Leni." She greeted the girl, nodding in her direction.
FWOOSH
A flash of green, and suddenly Becky found herself in one of Leni's trademark bear hugs. Which felt even more bone-shattering than it usually did. As she stood there, writhing in pain, trying not to cry out, it occurred to her that she'd never let go of Lincoln. Glancing down just a bit, poking out from betwixt her and Leni, was a small tuft of white hair. A few moments later, a hand managed to squirm its way out of the prison of female flesh and form itself into a thumbs-up position. Apparently Lincoln had managed to survive the impact. Finally, Leni loosened her grip, and Becky allowed herself to drift backward, though her momentum was quickly arrested. Trying to figure out why, she quickly realized it was because she was still firmly holding onto Lincoln. And from the other side, Leni was doing the same. She gave an experimental tug on the white-haired boy, but he remained firmly in Leni's grasp. Looking back to her friend, she could see that Leni was still smiling, though the other girl's eyes had noticeably narrowed.
"Sorry, you had to see that, Leni." Becky apologized, meeting the other girl's gaze. "I was just...you know, really grateful to Linc here. Wanted to show my appreciation."
"That's fine with me, Becky," Leni replied. "If Linky's happy, then I'm happy. And I could tell that Linky was really happy."
Becky's eyes began to drift downward, almost of their own accord, but she forced herself to keep her gaze locked with Leni. "You...wait, really?"
"Of course." Leni nodded. "As long as you're okay with sharing."
Suddenly, Leni yanked Lincoln back towards her, very nearly pulling Becky along with him, and planted her own, very unsisterly kiss on the boy's lips. As she stood there, awkwardly holding one arm of her crush while he was being made out with by his very enthusiastic sister, Becky found herself wishing she could be a little more surprised by the situation. But she wasn't. Leni had always been fond of her brother, after all.
Finally, Leni released her hold on Lincoln's lips, and the boy fell limp, looking for all the world like he'd had the life drained from him.
"Wow." He croaked, struggling to sit up, but seemingly lacking the strength to do so. Smirking to herself, Becky stepped forward and gave him a hand up, surreptitiously reasserting her claim on the boy as she did so.
"I didn't warrant a 'wow'?" She asked playfully.
"Y-you did." Lincoln quickly replied. "Honest. But oxygen was a factor."
"I'll try to be more mindful of that in the future." Becky giggled, reaching out with one arm and pulling both Louds into a side hug. Leni apparently approved, as she joined the press of bodies with gusto.
"You...uh, you sure you want in on this?" Lincoln asked. "My...situation has been...complicated lately."
He glanced Leni's way, and reddened slightly. "That's actually a brand new development if you can believe it."
"I don't think it's as new as you think." Becky corrected him. "But when you say complicated, well..."
She took a quick breath and focused. A moment later, her body surged outward and then abruptly stopped. She glanced down as the now awestruck Leni, now about half her current height, and swept both Leni and her even littler brother up into her arms.
"I think I'm equipped to handle 'complicated', now." She chuckled, leaning down and planting a kiss on the boy's cheek.
She briefly toyed with the idea of going further but froze as the telltale sound of an emergency siren wafted in on the breeze.
"Except for that." She corrected herself, glancing around nervously. "That's probably the wrong kind of complicated."
"Agreed." Said Lincoln, glancing Leni's way. "Leni? I think this is a job for you."
"Sure thing Linky!" The blonde nodded. She shuffled around so that she now had one arm wrapped around Lincoln, and the other around as much of Becky's midsection as she could manage. Becky made to ask her what, exactly she was planning, but then—
"Up, up, and away!"
Her heart lept up into her throat as she quickly found herself rocketing up into the sky once more. And this time, without the benefit of having her feet firmly planted on the ground.
"Leni!" She shrieked as the city below them rapidly vanished. "At least let me shrink back down first!"
Lisa Loud sat back in her chair as she suddenly as the news feed being broadcast into her lab suddenly lost all relevancy to her. She'd been watching the situation downtown unfold with great interest. It wasn't often that the scientist found herself blindsided like this, and here it had happened twice in a single day. First, that the little bauble she'd agreed to examine at her colleague's behest, purely in the interest of being able to call in that favor at a later date, had turned out to actually have some sort of otherworldly properties. And second, that her older brother appeared to have some connection with the rise in metahuman activity that Royal Woods had been experiencing as of late. Fascinating developments on both fronts, and ones which Lisa would need to continue observing going forward. A shame that her only data thus far came solely from what she'd been able to ascertain from the news media's reporting of the event, but she hadn't had the foresight to put her own surveillance measures into place to keep tabs on Becky. An oversight on her part, and one which she did not intend to repeat.
In fact, it occurred to her that she could take steps to correct that oversight right here and now. After all, it wasn't like Becky was her only test subject. Perhaps it was time to check in on her other errant project.
"Computer." She said aloud. "Initiate surveillance of subject DC-SG-252. Street name, Carol Pingrey."