The next day came sooner than expected, and as the sunlight filtered through his bedroom, Lincoln turned around, opened his eyes… and saw Rosie staring at him with a little smile.

"Good morning, Dad."

Lincoln jumped and fell off the bed, rubbing his head as Rosie got off the bed shortly after.

"Okay, be honest: of all the rooms you could've chosen to sleep in last night, why did you pick mine?!"

Rosie stood up, stretched, then looked out the window as she answered:

"Mom and Dad used to let me sleep with them when I couldn't sleep well."

At that, Lincoln's shock and anger changed to concern and sympathy, and he promptly put a hand on his future daughter's shoulder.

"Don't worry, Rosie. I know it must be daunting to travel to another timeline to try avert tje disaster of your own, but we'll find a way to make this trip worth it."

"I get to see Mom and Dad safe and sound and help them prevent things from going wrong," Rosie smiled slightly. "I'd say that makes this trip totally worth it."

Lincoln flashed a little smile, then patted Rosie's back.

"Okay, now, how about you leave so I can change clothes?" he suggested. "Or would you rather change clothes first?"

"You're funny, Dad," Rosie chuckled. "Why don't we both just change here already?"

"Because I feel uncomfortable changing clothes around my future daughter."

"Potential future daughter."

Lincoln rolled his eyes. "Yeah, that."

"Dad, grow up, seriously," Rosie folded her arms. "I barely even have any curves for you to peek at."

"That's not-look, I'm not in the mood to discuss this, just tell me if you want me to leave or not."

"I'd rather just change already," Rosie shrugged while she lifted her shirt.

Lincoln wordlessly walked to the door and left the room, leaning against the door and sliding to the floor as he groaned.


One change of clothes later, the duo sat on the couch and got ready to do a video call on a laptop. Darcy had gone home last night, so there was only one more loose end to discuss…

"Greetings, brother," Lisa remarked from the screen. "Do you need me for something?"

"Hi there, Aunt Lisa!" Rosie greeted.

"A Future Child?" Lisa rolled her eyes. "No wonder the Head of Timelines told me they were busy today."

"Lisa, you're the Head of Designation," Lincoln remarked, ignoring the previous comment. "Don't you know what the first user was designated as?"

The tiny scientist shook her head. "The first user disappeared from the face of the Earth before the Index System was completed. In order to properly designate her now, we'd need to have her return to Royal Woods for a blood test, scan test, and the same registration procedure everyone else does."

Lincoln snapped his fingers. "Dang it."

"Don't worry about it, Dad, it wouldn't have helped anyway," Rosie said, patting Lincoln's back. "When the end of the Index System happened, the first thing to go was the Designation System, so that anybody who could fight would do it without taking pesky little things like law into account."

"That would definitely sow chaos, but desperate situations require desperate measures, I guess," Lisa replied. "Now, remind me, who exactly participated in the initial attack against the system?"

"All of the Antagonists currently living in the Badlands, and some Trainerbots that were reprogrammed to-"

"Wait, did you say… Trainerbots?" Lisa inquired nervously.

"Well, yeah," Rosie raised an eyebrow. "Is there something wrong with that?"

Lisa adjusted her glasses and sighed. "Something… something came up. I'll talk to you later."

The call ended soon after, and Lincoln closed the laptop while Rosie sighed.

"She meant to say that it was a problem."

The pair screamed and hugged each other before turning around, seeing Lucy standing by the door.

"Oh, it's just Aunt Lucy," Rosie sighed. "She's just as sneaky as my timeline's version, dang."

"Lisa requested all of us to come to a training room to test the robot's capabilities," Lucy confessed as she walked closer to the duo. "We don't know why, but the Head of Development is planning to reintroduce them to Royal Woods."

"The Head of Development?" Rosie asked. "They haven't resigned yet?"

"The one in your timeline resigned?"

"Yeah, but they did so before the Trainerbots were reintroduced. And they also had nothing to do with their reintroduction."

"Well, guess that's another thing to ask Lisa when we get the chance," Lincoln stated, closing the laptop. "Right now, we need to go somewhere else…"


A short trek later, Lincoln and Rosie found themselves at a Detention Center, where the pair were scanned before being allowed inside.

"Why are we going to this detention center?" Rosie asked as the duo stepped in. "Wasn't the one where that old man works at the one where the riot happened?"

"Bud Grouse is that man's name, and yes, you're right," Lincoln answered. "But there's a big difference between this and that center: this is the one where your aunts are staying at."

"How many times have we had this conversation already, Bobby?"

The father-daughter duo walked deeper inside and found Lori talking with a Hispanic guy behind a glass wall.

"Bobby?" Lincoln blurted.

"Hey, Lincoln!" the guy remarked, waving his hand cheerfully. "What a surprise to see you here!"

"Dad, who's that guy?" Rosie asked plainly.

"That's Bobby, Lori's boyfriend."

Rosie's eyes widened and she faced the oldest sister in disbelief. "You're dating an Antagonist?!"

"First of literally all, Bobby isn't an Antagonist, he's a Neutral," Lori sighed. "The reason he's here is because he got into trouble from a Cliche mishap."

"Cliche mishap?"

"He used his Cliche without meaning to," Lori sighed. "Now he's gonna stay here until he has trained his Cliche to the point he can control it."

"How's he gonna train?"

"By using the Antagonists as targets."

Rosie and Lincoln both narrowed their eyes in disapproval.

"Hey, I didn't make the rules, okay?! What are you even doing here, anyway?"

"We came here to talk to Lynn and Lola," Lincoln answered.

"They're a few booths down, now go."

The pair obliged, and after some more walking, the duo found Lynn and Lola in their cells, the former taking a nap, while the latter played with a ball.

"Hey," Lincoln remarked. "Would you like to talk for a moment?"

"Eh, I got nothing better to do," Lola answered before freezing the ball in place. "You up, Lynn?"

"No, I'm napping."

Lynn opened one of her eyes and flashed a cocky smile. Then, she got up, and walked to the booth alongside Lola, grabbing a phone as Lincoln and Rosie did the same.

"So, where are Stella and her friends?" Lincoln asked.

"They went home once the riot ended," Lynn answered. "They said they found something like a bug in the systems, but they weren't in the mood to go into Any further detail."

"And the riot?"

"It was contained, but it was rather… bizarre."

"Bizarre how?"

"The inmates weren't acting like themselves," Lola said. "Not only were they far more reckless than usual, which is saying a lot for some of them, but their eyes were glowing and they wouldn't shut up."

"Wouldn't shut up?" Rosie asked. "About what?"

"It was a bit hard to tell, since so many people were talking at the same time," Lynn sighed. "But the majority kept bringing up something about a Ragnarok, or Walpurgisnacht, or something."

"And the rest, when they weren't shouting about random crap, they were saying how the end was near," Lola added. "They were probably trying to be ominous, but for the most part, they were just annoying."

Lincoln and Rosie couldn't help but exchange worried looks at the remark...


And after a few more questions, the two left the center.

"My theory that things go faster in this timeline is gaining weight," Rosie hummed while scratching her chin. "The Detention Center riot happened in my timeline too, but that was months away from now."

Lincoln paused. "What happened after the riot?"

Rosie remained silent, but her frown intensifying made it clear that whatever the answer was, it was troubling to her.

"Hey, Rosie?"

"Yes, Da… Lincoln?"

"I've been wondering: you're my and Tabby's daughter, but you haven't mentioned anything about siblings," Lincoln scratched the back of his head. "So… I was pondering… um…"

Rosie lowered her eyelids. "If you're trying to ask me if I have any half-siblings from you fucking and impregnating the other girls, then yes, I do."

Lincoln winced as an intense pain struck his chest. "Ugh!"

"Dad, what happened?!"

"Your answer was so blunt it physically hurt me!"

"Oh, so nothing major then," Rosie shrugged. "Alright, take a rest, and then we can discuss travel."

Lincoln tilted his head. "Travel?"

"To your school, duh!" Rosie replied. "We're gonna pay Mom a visit!"