I don't own the Loud House.

Welcome back to another chapter of this story. I'm pleased to announce that I'll be posting a picture of what Ace looks like in his normal base clothes and what he looks like in his Hero Costume. It doesn't come into play yet but I can't wait to show it off anymore. I'll be posting a link to the picture on my twitter so look for it there. It took me a couple of weeks to finish it. Next week I'll be uploading the picture of what Lori looks like in her Hero Costume so look forward to that along with chapter 3.

Someone also asked if they fuck. The answer is wait and see ;)

Please go and check out Stupor Heroics by The Siege Perilous, he's a very talented writer and way more hilarious than I could ever hope to be. I try to pay homage to his style of writing in this chapter but I don't think I do him justice. All I can do is try haha. Enjoy.

Stupor Heroics: Incursion

Chapter 2

A couple of years had passed since the Loud Sisters had agreed to join the special government program, known as the "Strategic Hero Initiative and Encouraging Logistics Department", that had been made in response to the emergence of Metas throughout the world. In that time, the Loud Sisters had learned a number of things, among them was the reason for their actual training. Or at least, Lori learned the truth.

XXXXXXXXXX

A couple of months after their training had started, Lori was lying on the ground breathing heavily. She was covered in sweat and her muscles were aching. She had just finished expelling the last of her energy towards the sky and then had to do hand to hand training with Ace. The older man had wiped the floor with her and he was clearly disappointed with her performance.

"Get up, Lori. We're not done yet!" He ordered. The older man was wearing a black tank top and camo pants. And while she was sweating, he had yet to break a sweat.

"F-Fuck you!" She spat. Panting, she looked over in his direction and gave him the finger. "I'm done."

"You're done when I say you're done, Loud. Now get back up."

Growling, Lori attempted to use her powers to float but her body briefly flickered before she fell back down. "I…can't!" She yelled. "I don't have any power left."

Ace bent over her and grabbed her by the collar. "You don't need power, Lori! You need to have guts! Now dig deep and get up!"

But despite his urging, Lori couldn't force herself to get up. She just glared at him as she continued to pant, her body refusing to even hold herself up. When it became clear that she wasn't going to keep fighting, Ace let her fall back onto the ground.

"God damn it…" She heard him mutter as he walked a few feet away. "God, we're so fucked."

"What's your problem, Ace?" Lori asked him, hoping to understand why he was pushing so hard. And it wasn't just her, a couple of weeks before he had pushed Lynn until the younger Loud had passed out from exhaustion. "Why are you so hellbent on making us go all out?"

Ace was quiet for a few moments before he turned to look at her. Despite his face being covered with a mask, Lori had learned to read his moods based on his body language. The older man was tense, partly due to frustration with her progress and partly due to impatience. It seemed like he had expected them to be further along by that point.

"Because you're not ready for what's coming, Lori." Ace finally said with a sigh. He made his way over to her and sat down next to her. He looked down at her prone form for what felt like hours but it was only a few moments. His shoulders slumped and for the first time, Lori got the impression that Ace felt as old as he looked. "You and your sisters can't fight what's coming."

"And what is coming?" Lori pressed him. She felt like for the first time, Ace was going to be honest about why they were really training so hard.

"What I'm about to tell you stays between us. Got it? Your sisters cannot know about this. I'm trusting you." Ace said, his masked gaze locked with her eyes. She could feel this sudden weight in the air as if what he was about to discuss had to do with the fate of the whole world.

"I promise, Ace, I won't tell a soul." Lori swore.

Ace continued to stare at her for a few moments before he sighed once more. "I'm from the future, Lori."

Lori didn't know what she was expecting to hear but that had clearly not been it. "W-What?" She asked, confused.

"I said that I'm from the future. Your future, to be precise." Ace repeated.

"Like from the future, future?" Lori asked, still unsure if she had heard him correctly. "Like ten years from now?"

"More like 40." Ace said with a chuckle. "I'm 56 years old."

"W-What!?" Lori was shocked to say the least. "How the hell does a 56 year old move much less fight like you do!?"

"You have super powers but me being old and still kicking your ass surprises you?" Ace asked and even though she couldn't see it, she was positive that he had raised his left brow at her.

Lori blushed. "Okay, okay, but how is it possible that you're from the future? I mean, how is that possible?"

"In a word, Lisa." Ace told her. "Your sister is the reason that I'm alive today."

"What happened in the future? Why did she send you back?" Lori asked. She hesitated for a moment before she also asked. "A-And what happened to me?"

Ace sighed and laid down on the floor, his gaze locked with the sky above. "In about 5 years, there's going to be an alien invasion. They will come for the Earth's resources and despite our best efforts, humanity will be enslaved. You, along with the rest of the Earth's heroes, fought bravely against the invaders but sadly it wasn't enough."

"You mean I…" But Lori couldn't bring herself to finish.

"Yes. You along with countless others died that day." Ace continued. "Within a year, the world was conquered and what remained of humanity was forced to work as slaves to harvest the precious metals that they needed to build their weapons of war."

"But you said that you came back from 40 years in the future, right?" Lori asked. "How are you still alive if I…if other heroes died?"

"Luck mostly." Ace chuckled. He looked to his left towards Lori. "I wasn't born with powers so my skills were strictly human based. I trained in every weapon known to man, I learned about explosives, studied strategies, and learned everything that I could about the aliens. Everything that I learned helped me survive each of my fights against them."

Ace sat up and ran a hand over his scared forearm. "Each of these scars is proof that I survived an encounter with our enemy and lived to tell about it." He then reached up to his mask and ran his fingers through his hair. "At one point, I ran into Lisa, your sister. She had survived the initial invasion and had been captured by the aliens. She was too smart for them to kill and sought to use her. When I found her, she was only too happy to return the favor to her captors."

"What did they do to her?" Lori couldn't help but ask.

But Ace just shook his head. "Some things are better left unsaid. But Lisa did use her genius to make me a better fighter." Then to her surprise, Ace extended his left arm away from his body. Then the sound of a million little something's quickly came from his arm and in an instant, the familiar white with gold trim round shield appeared. On the surface of the shield, the red spade with a large black 'A' on the center was proudly displayed. Ace had used that shield to attack and defend against them enough times that Lori had a healthy amount of fear and respect for it. "She implanted cybernetics within my body so that I could store and use nanobots for things like this."

"So you're a robot?" Lori asked, her mind still trying to wrap her head around the fact that he was a time traveler.

"Nope. I'm still human. I guess you can call me a cyborg but I still age." Ace explained. "I don't have powers but I can use certain abilities that I've been reluctant to use against you girls."

"So you do have powers then." Lori accused.

"Not really. I can't use them like you can. Each of my abilities has a recharge or cooldown time so I can't spam them like your energy blasts." Ace informed her. "Even summoning my shield can only be done once every few minutes."

"What else can you do besides make this highly durable and annoying shield?" Lori asked.

"That's for me to know and for you to find you." Ace said as he flicked her forehead.

"Ow. You're a jerk, you know that." Lori said as she rubbed her forehead.

But Ace only laughed. Then he sighed and looked down at his shield. "The reason I keep pushing you girls so hard is because we, that is your government and I, know what's coming to our planet and we're doing everything we can to prepare for the inevitable. We have a time limit and you girls are sadly not where you need to be in terms of training."

"If our government knows what's coming then how come no one is talking about it? You'd think that news this urgent would be shared with the whole world so that we can all make plans." Lori asked him.

"Lori, do you honestly think that people would take the news of an incoming alien invasion well? There would be rioting all over the world. No, only the governments know and those in NATO have all agreed to work together to prepare. This isn't the only program of its kind. We're just one of many, many divisions that are spread out throughout the world."

"What about the countries that aren't in NATO?" Lori asked.

"They were informed and showed evidence of a potential threat from space. They refused to join our joint efforts and when the day comes, if they can't defend themselves then so be it. We can't worry about those who don't want our help."

"Isn't that contrary to what being a hero means?" Lori asked.

Ace smiled, though she couldn't see it. "It is. But when it comes to war, you protect your home first. Then you save the rest. Once we have the aliens on the run, we can send aid to those countries who were too stubborn to believe us."

Lori was silent for a moment as she thought about what she had learned. There was one more pressing question that she wanted to ask. But at the same time, she was too afraid to ask for it. The truth was a powerful thing and Lori had learned that it wasn't always the best thing to reveal it. For example, all of their sisters had feelings for their only brother, feelings that no sister should have. And it was the admittance of those feelings that led them to battle it out in their home. Sure, that wasn't the only reason they fought. There were a lot of things that led up to that moment but chief among them was the fact that they all loved their brother in an unhealthy way. Because ultimately they were all fighting to the right to be with him, it felt. And that's why none of them stopped even after the house had been destroyed.

But despite her feelings, Lori knew that she couldn't just change who she fell in love with. When her heart chose her brother, Lori hadn't been disgusted or appalled. No, she was thrilled! She had known that her brother was special to her from the moment she held him in her arms. But their parents had sat them down early on and explained to them that they couldn't marry their brother. It had happened after Lynn and Luna had gotten into a pretty bad fight when Lincoln was 2 years old. And they had fought because they both wanted to be the only one to marry Lincoln. After that, Lori tried her best to forget her feelings but she hadn't been successful.

But that wasn't the problem right now, no, the problem was that Lori wanted to know who this man was. He had come from the future, or so he claimed, and yet Lori believed him. She had no reason other than the fact that he had been her teacher for the last couple of months to even trust him yet she did. She trusted him completely and that scared her. Ace was still a stranger, she barely knew anything about him, she had never even seen his face. Yet she trusted him, a part of her even felt drawn to him which was weird. She chalked it up to him being her teacher/captain and thus she had grown accustomed to look to him for guidance and orders. But a part of her, a small part of her, had her suspicions.

"Ace…" Lori began, earning a curious glance from him (she guessed). "I want to ask…who…" The question was on the tip of her tongue, she almost asked it. She wanted to know who he was. But she couldn't bring herself to do it. She was too fearful of the answer because either way she felt like the answer would devastate her. So she changed her question. "W-Who do you think will be the strongest of us physically?"

And as they continued their conversation, Lori wondered if she would ever learn his real identity.

XXXXXXXXXX

Another thing that happened during their time training was when the Loud sisters got curious about what Ace's face looked like. During dinner one night, Lola and Lana were staring intently at the masked man who was having an animated chat with Leni about her powers.

Ace had yet to remove his mask and when he picked up his spoon and brought it up to his mouth, the twins refused to blink less they missed the moment when he showed them his face. But to their surprise, the spoon passed through his mask and when it came back out, the spoon was empty of its soup. Angry, Lola slammed her fists on the table earning a concerned look from Lynn.

"You okay, Lola?" The slightly bigger sportier Loud asked. As her powers began to grow, Lynn found that she did too. She was now as tall as Luan and she was loving how muscular her body was beginning to look.

"Haven't any of you noticed that Ace never removes his mask? Like ever?" Lola asked them as she pointed towards the older man. "He even wears it when he eats, look!"

Lynn, Luan, and Lucy all looked towards the masked man where he sat with Leni, Lori, and Lisa. They watched as Ace raised his bread roll and to their surprise, the bread passed through his mask and when it came back out, there was a bite clearly taken out of it.

"You're right." Luan said with a sound of acknowledgment. She didn't really seem to care though and she went back to her meal.

"You seriously can't tell me that none of you are curious?" Lola asked while Lana nodded. "Lana and I have been trying to see what he's been hiding since we got here!"

"Any luck?" Lucy asked, her curiosity now peaked.

"No…" Lana muttered. "This guy is too good. He seems to know when we're trying to sneak up on him."

"To be fair, neither of you are very stealthy." Lynn told them.

"But I am." Lucy announced. She glanced over at the masked man and after a moment, she nodded. "Very well. I shall discover his secret and report back to you tomorrow."

"It's not going to work." Luan warned them. But they were all invested now and Luan knew that nothing she said would get them to stop.

That night, Lucy used her skills and powers to hide in the shadows as she followed the masked man back to his room. Much to her surprise, none of them knew where Ace actually slept so she had no choice but to shadow him to find his room. She followed him around the base for about 30 minutes before he turned a corner and then he was gone. Confused, Lucy stepped out of the shadows only to find herself getting hit with a paper airplane. Unfolding the paper, she saw that Ace had left a note for her. It was a picture of a chibi version of his masked head with a speech bubble that said 'nice try'.

"Dang it." Lucy muttered, her mission having been a failure.

The next morning, Lucy showed up to her sisters' table empty handed.

"I told you." Luan said, her expression smug.

"Can it, Luan." Lynn said. Now she was invested since Lucy had failed. After all, if he could out stealth Lucy who basically was the shadows then he was obviously a challenge. And Lynn Loud couldn't resist a challenge. "Look, obviously you need someone of my caliber to handle this mission. Let me spar with him and during the fight, I'll reach up and pull his mask off. After all, he doesn't know how much better I've gotten."

"This won't work either, Lynn." Luan warned. They had all seen Ace spar with Lori, who was much stronger than any of them. Even with her powers, Ace pushed Lori to her limits and she was left panting by the end. A feat that wasn't easy to accomplish.

"Do you think that you can actually do it?" Lola asked. She was tired of them always failing, she wanted to see what that man was hiding.

"Trust me." Lynn said confidently.

After breakfast, Lynn challenged Ace to a spar. A couple of weeks after their training began in the Strategic Hero Initiative and Encouraging Logistics Department (that was a mouthful), Ace had informed them if they were feeling confident in their control of their powers that he would be more than happy to show them just how wrong they were. Needless to say, only Lynn challenged him on a weekly basis since she took what he said as a personal insult.

"Looks like someone is feeling froggy." Ace said. There was a loud offended croak coming from Lana's shoulders as Hops crossed his arms. "No offense." He added quickly.

"I just want to finally wipe that smirk off of your dumb face." Lynn said as she cracked her knuckles.

"You do see that I'm wearing a mask, right?" Ace pointed out as he aimed a finger at his mask. "You can't see my smirk or my dumb face."

This made Lynn growl. "I can hear in your voice, you prick!"

"Alright then, if you want some then come get some." Ace said as he extended his right hand towards her and motioned for her to bring it.

The Loud sisters in attendance all stayed a healthy distance away and watched intently to see if Lynn could really unmask the masked man. Starting off, Lynn slammed her fists on the ground and sent a directed earthquake in his direction. The ground trembled from the force of the impact and chunks of the battleground broke apart and rose and sunk towards Ace. The masked man waited until the shockwave of earth was 10 feet away from him before he ran towards it. Using his incredible agility and acrobatics, he jumped and leapt toward the dangerous terrain as he closed the distance between them.

With a smirk, Lynn crouched down before she launched herself at the masked man. With surprising speed, she appeared above him and made to grab him only to miss as he twisted in midair. When he landed, extended his left arm away from him and his familiar round shield appeared on his arm. And while none of them could see his face, they could all tell he was grinning.

The two continued to fight, Lynn attempting to smash the man into submission but much to her frustration, that shield of his was able to absorb the impact of even her strongest punches. Lynn, having been small and scrappy most of her life, knew how to move lightly on her feet and that always helped even out the playing field between them. Sadly, Lynn had one major weakness that Ace knew all too well. And that was that Lynn's body burned through calories like a brushfire through a forest. She hadn't packed enough fuel in her body that morning and had been hoping to end it quickly with her new speed.

But as she began to slow down, Ace was still able to keep on fighting. He ducked underneath a swing of her and came up with a shield uppercut, knocking flat on her ass from the blow. Then before she could get up, Ace put a boot to her throat and held his shield an inch from her face.

"Yield." He ordered. The man wasn't even breathing heavily which served to pissed Lynn off so much.

"F-Fuck you…" she gasped even though she knew that she had no choice.

After that, Lynn was given a hearty meal to replenish her strength and they continued their training for the day. At lunch time, Lynn was forced to endure the smug look from Luan.

"I don't want to hear it, chuckles." Lynn muttered while Lucy patted her arm in an attempt to comfort her.

"I wasn't going to say anything." Luan said but it was obviously a lie.

"If you're so smart then why don't you do it, huh?" Lynn asked her, pointing her fork towards her older sister.

"Are you asking for my help?" Luan asked, clearly enjoying the younger girl's frustration.

"No! I don't need your help." Lynn snapped.

"I do." Lola said, shooting a silencing glare towards Lynn. "Please, Luan, help us finally uncover that man's face. I'm dying to know what he looks like!"

Luan took a moment to consider it. "I'll do it….buuuuuut, I want something."

"What do you want?" Lana asked.

Luan turned towards Lynn. "I want Lynn to get down on her knees and beg."

Lynn shot to her feet. "Oh fuck you, its on!"

But before she could lunge herself at Luan, Lucy wrapped her Shadowstuff from within her cloak to hold Lynn back and forced her to sit down. Seeing as how the sporty Loud was too proud for that, Luan decided to ease up on them.

"Okay, okay, hows about we just say that you all will owe me a favor that I can call in at any point in time from now until forever from this life until the next and so on until it's been completed, deal?" Luan asked them, extending her hand towards Lola.

"That's oddly specific." Lucy noted.

"And can we refuse the favor if we don't like it?" Lana asked.

"Nope! That's why it's called an owed favor." Luan said cheerily.

"And do we each owe you one or do we all owe just one favor?" Lola asked.

"Each of you would owe me one." Luan clarified.

"I don't know…" Lynn said, still glaring at Luan. "What guarantees do we have that you will even pull this off?"

"Because unlike you amateurs, I know how to use misdirection to get what I want."

The four younger Louds shared a look before they nodded. "Fine." Lola agreed as she shook her older sister's hand. "But if you fail then the favors are null and void, got it?"

"Of course." Luan nodded. "A pleasure doing business with you."

After their afternoon classes, Luan got busy with her plan and as dinner came around, she was gleefully awaiting to see the results of her labor. Everyone began to enter the cafeteria and as Ace walked in with Lori, Luan set her trap in motion. From her hiding spot in the ceiling, Luan used her powers to send an electric shock through the metal frames and fry the sprinklers. The fire alarm sounded off once with a distorted cry before it failed to play again. The sprinklers began to fire off and Luan was watching with bated breath to see Ace have to remove his mask in order to dry it off. At least that's what would normally have happened.

What Luan failed to take into account was that they were in the Strategic Hero Initiative and Encouraging Logistics Department and it was a government building. A very high tech and valuable government building with an advanced fire prevention system. Instead of water, a very thick and quickly expanding foam was released from the pipes that she thought held water. The whole cafeteria was soon submerged with a white fire retardant foam. And Luan couldn't see where Ace was or if he had even taken off his mask.

"Dang it." She muttered.

Luan soon found herself being scolded by Lori, of all people. Her big sister was covered head to toe with white foam and clumps were clinging to her frame in random places.

"Do you have anything to say for yourself, Luan?" Lori demanded as she placed her hands on her hips. "What you did was not only irresponsible but also highly dangerous! One of the younger kids could have died!"

Luan wisely decided to shut up. Thankfully, Lynn powers allowed her to eat virtually anything and convert it to calories for her body to use. Luan had seen Lynn eat a rusty lead pipe because Lana dared her to. And right now, Lynn was slurping up the mess that she had made.

"What could you have possibly been thinking about when you pulled such an stupid and childish prank?" Lori asked, this time bending over so as to look Luan in the eye.

Deciding that honesty was the best policy, Luan came clean. "I was trying to get Ace to remove his mask to see his face." Luan told her. "I honestly thought that the sprinklers would release water and that he would have to take his mask off to dry it. I didn't know about the foam."

Luan heard her sister release a heavy sigh. "You did this so that you could see underneath Ace's mask?"

Luan nodded. "Yes. I'm sorry."

Lori was quiet for a moment. She'd be lying if she said that she wasn't also interested. After all, she'd been dying to know since she first met him. And now that she knew her sister's reasons, Lori felt some of her previous anger fade. With another sigh, Lori just shook her head. "Okay…I get why you did it. But you understand why this literally cannot happen again, right?"

"Yea." Luan nodded.

"Okay. Just…go to the other showers near the entrance of the training fields. Your little stunt made all of the water in this sector become foam so we literally can't use the plumbing in our rooms until they flush out the system." Lori then waited for her sister to leave before she placed a hand on her chin. She was still curious about Ace's face. But she also knew that it would probably be impossible to see it. That man was as crafty as he was skilled.

After going to her room to get some clean clothes, Lori went over to one of the spare showers in the gym. While her sisters were going to use the showers near the training fields, Lori preferred to take a bath. The gym was the only place that had a hot tub and desperately needed one after the day that she had. She entered the changing room, stripped, and took a quick shower in the stalls next to the hot tub. One had to be completely clean before they were allowed in the tub. Once she was clean of all of the foam, Lori made her way towards the hot tub room and opened the door.

"It's occupied."

Lori froze. Standing in the middle of the hot tub was none other than Ace. The man was currently knee deep in a large Japanese style onsen bath that had steam rising from its surface. He seemed to have been making his way towards his towel which lay on the edge of the tub neatly folded a few feet away from him. And he was facing in Lori's direction. Did Lori also mention that Ace was standing in the tub?

Her face turned crimson as she continued to stare, unable to look away from the sight in front of her. They had all known that Ace had many scars but seeing him naked, Lori finally knew just how scarred his body was. The man had seen a lifetime of war and it was both amazing and terrifying to see. But that wasn't what caught Lori attention, no. You see, there were two things that Lori had suddenly been made aware of. The first was his…Ace Jr. though calling it junior was clearly an understatement. The second, and the one that broke Lori free from her trance, was the fact that Ace was still wearing his freaking mask!

Breaking free of her stupor, Lori glared at him and was about to shout at him for wearing a mask while taking a bath when she noticed that he was staring intently at her. She stopped for a moment and glanced down at herself. And then let out a startled cry. She glowed brightly before literally bursting through the door to escape the room. She couldn't believe that she had basically flashed him!

XXXXXXXX

After that awkward moment, Lori and Ace agreed to pretend that it never happened and they never brought it up again. Though Lori couldn't help but think about it from time to time, much to her shame.

During those two years, other metas had also been allowed to join the Louds on the military base. The Strategic Hero Initiative and Encouraging Logistics Department ramp up their recruitment drive once it was proven that metas could be trained as heroes. And that had made abundantly clear when Lori made her debut as the first government sanctioned super hero when she saved a bunch of people from disaster.

End of chapter.