I do not own The Loud House. All rights belong to Nickelodeon.

Chapter 10

**Future Lincoln**

Lincoln collected everything he was going to need for his time travel. It was a long trip backward in time after spending so much time traveling forward.

"So, explain to me again what your plan is?" Sonya asked.

"Now that I got more power crystals, I can travel backward in time to the past. Before, I could only travel forward. The last time I tried to travel reverse in time, it almost killed me," Lincoln explained.

"And these power crystals are the same as the one that got you your future vision powers in the first place, right?" Eddy asked.

Lincoln nodded and explained, "Yes. I was with my best friend, Clyde. We were collecting gems at a gem mine at this river in the mountains. Clyde and his dads were going on vacation, and he invited me to go with him, so I did. I found a small cave by the creek, and there was this glowing crystal. When I picked it up, it stopped glowing. At the time, I thought it was glowing because of the flashlight, but that wasn't the case. It turns out these power crystals come from a faraway moon. Its planet exploded and sent the power crystals throughout space, and a few landed on Earth."

"And when you picked up that power crystal, you absorbed its energy, right?" Sonya asked.

"Yes. The power crystals have all sorts of different powers and can evolve with their host to create new powers, such as seeing the future and traveling to it. I've spent years traveling through time and space collecting power crystals to evolve my power to travel backward in time. However, in doing so, I've absorbed other powers, as you can tell, but now I finally got it, and I can at long last travel backward in time."

"Yeah, but why? I mean, you got it made here. Your hideout is a fortress. You have gunships, shitloads of money and gold, powers that make you invincible, and a reputation where you are feared throughout the galaxy. Why travel backward in time to change all this?" Sonya asked.

Lincoln looked at her and Eddy. He sighed while rubbing his eyes and the bridge of his nose. He clenched his fists and made his muscular arms flex revealing rock-hard muscles.

"Because . . . because I want my family back," Lincoln answered.

"The same family that was horrible to you?" Eddy asked.

"Yes! The same fucking family that was horrible to me! Look . . . I know how to fix this. I know how to change everything and undo what happened. If I do this right, my past self will see that deep down inside, my family actually does care about me. I just have to get them to bring it out. If my past self sees it, sees that love, my past self will go down a different path, and he won't end up like me. A ruthless killer with only two friends in the whole universe," Lincoln explained.

Sonya and Eddy looked at each other.

"We're your only friends?" Sonya asked.

"That's right. This hideout, the money, the mountains of dead bounties in a galaxy that fears me is all I have . . . and it's fucking miserable. I'd give all this up for one day to be happy with my family," Lincoln said.

Sonya and Eddy sighed.

"Okay, then take this then," Sonya handed him a device that looked like the neuralyzer from Men in Black.

"What's this?" Lincoln asked, looking at it.

"It's a memory sweeper. You can erase people's memories if they see something. So you don't have to kill anyone that has you compromised," Sonya answered.

"Thanks."

"And here. Take my green pipe. The white leaves will make your lungs feel better. I heard you coughing last night," Eddy said, handing him his fancy green pipe.

"Thanks, guys."

They got together in a group hug. Then Lincoln concentrated with his hands held up. They began to glow along with his eyes. A portal emerged in front of him. Lincoln took several deep breaths before walking toward it. He took one last look at his friends and nodded. They nodded back before their deadly friend was gone.

Lincoln traveled through a swirling tunnel of light until he landed in a grassy field at night. He switched his goggles to night vision as he looked around, and everything looked like Earth. It all looked familiar. He made his way through some bushes and trees until he saw a sign that said 'Royal Woods Park.'

Lincoln half chuckled to himself, "I can't believe that worked."

He made his way to his old home, 1216 Franklin Avenue. The house he grew up in his whole life . . . and was kicked out. His eye twitched as unwelcomed memories resurfaced in his mind. He mentally pushed away all thoughts of anger and hatred to focus on the task ahead of him. He switched to his X-ray vision and found his younger self sleeping in his room. He held his hand up and concentrated his powers. It worked better than he thought. He was able to see into his mind.

"That's good. Hopefully, you won't see my mind as I'm trying to fix your life," Future Lincoln said.

He looked over and saw the sisters having a sibling meeting. They were looking through past Lincoln's sketchbook. Future Lincoln used a feature on his gauntlet with his earpiece to listen to their conversation. They were talking about how to spend more time with him.

"A date with Lori and Leni, huh?" Future Lincoln asked, "Let's see if something dramatic will bring them closer together. Nothing brings family closer together than a near-death experience."

The next day as they went to the mall, Future Lincoln approached a truck driver and punched him hard in the chest to stun him. He placed him in the driver's seat with his foot on the gas pedal – he used the memory sweeper to erase his memory before having him drive off. As predicted, his younger self saw the truck coming in his visions and ran out to save Leni from getting run over. Future Lincoln watched from afar on a rooftop.

"I knew that would work! Way to go, little me. Sorry Leni," Future Lincoln said to himself.

He watched Leni cry as she squeezed her little brother and expressed how much she loved him. Future Lincoln looked through a light orb and saw the vision change to his sister Leni defending Lincoln from the rest of the family.

"One down. Let's see if we can get the rest of the family to side with me," Future Lincoln said.

**Young/Present Lincoln**

Lincoln slept soundly but had another future premonition dream. This time it was Lana. Lincoln saw visions where she was at one of her alligator wrestling matches. After she wins wrestling gators her size that she can handle, a big angry bull gator breaks out and terrorizes the place by attacking people. Lana tries to run away from it, but the gator bites down on her leg and pulls her away. As she's screaming for her dad to save her, but he's sitting on top of a truck shivering and cowering as he's holding his head. Lincoln got chills thinking back to how the visions showed the bull gator doing a death roll, ripping Lana's leg off before moving to devour its prey – there was so much blood. He could hear her screams of pain in his head and see the look of horror on her face.

Lincoln felt light-headed and pale. As he felt sick, he felt something come up from his stomach. He rushed across the hall to the bathroom to get to the toilet, making it just in time as he puked. Once he got what little was in his stomach out and flushed, he shivered and cried softly. After a while, he took several deep breaths to calm himself but still felt awful.

"Lincoln," Lucy spoke as she appeared out of nowhere.

"Ah!" Lincoln gasped as he was spooked.

He looked up to see Lucy standing at the doorway in her pajamas. Lincoln relaxed as he sat against the wall.

"Sorry Lucy, I uh . . . I threw up. Maybe something I ate was bad. I don't know," Lincoln lied.

Lucy wasn't convinced as she crossed her arms.

"What did you eat?" Lucy asked.

"I can't remember. Maybe a candy bar or a bad breakfast bar. Either way, I needed it out of my system," Lincoln said, getting up.

Lincoln went to the sink to wash his face and rinse his mouth.

"You're hiding something, Lincoln," Lucy stated.

"What makes you say that?" Lincoln asked without looking.

"You haven't been your usual self lately. You even seem miserable."

"I've had a lot to deal with lately, Lucy."

As Lincoln was about to leave the bathroom, Lucy stopped him by putting her hand on his chest.

"You're not telling us everything. You're lying, Lincoln," Lucy stated.

"Lucy, that's not what—"

Lucy placed her finger on his lips.

"Lincoln, we're your family. I'm your sister. You can tell me anything," Lucy said.

Lincoln stood there silently, letting the thoughts race through his mind. What if he didn't tell his whole family? What if he told just one sister? Who would it be? Lucy believed in supernatural stuff like ghosts and spirits. She's the most likely to believe Lincoln about his future vision powers. The question is whether or not she'd keep it a secret.

However, before Lincoln could say anything, their mother called, "Kids! Breakfast!"

Lincoln looked back at Lucy as she looked at him.

Then Lincoln whispered in her ear, "Later. Somewhere private. Only you. Don't tell the others."

Lucy nodded.

Lincoln sat down and munched on his cereal and toast with his sisters. Then their father walked in. He had a bandage over his nose, and the skin around it was purple.

"Lincoln?" Lynn Sr. spoke.

Lincoln looked up from his breakfast with a low glare in his eyes.

"Listen, I uh . . . I owe you and Leni an apology. I'm sorry for getting carried with the whole mascot idea. We weren't thinking about how it could affect you," Lynn Sr. said.

"Aw, it's okay, Dad. As long as you learned your lesson," Leni said.

Lincoln rolled his eyes. Of course, she would forgive him.

"Lincoln?" Lynn Sr. asked.

Lincoln groaned, "Yeah, okay. Just don't do something that dumb again."

"Promise."

Lincoln continued to eat his breakfast.

"So sport, Lana's going to compete in her alligator wrestling match today," Lynn Sr. said.

Lincoln was about to eat a spoonful of cereal but froze when those last four words reached his ears. For a brief moment, he saw Lana getting attacked by the big bull gator and heard her screaming. Even though it was only for a few seconds, Lincoln got a cold chill that gave him goosebumps.

'That's today?!' Lincoln thought.

"And we were hoping you would come with us," Lynn Sr. said.

"Yeah, bro, you can be there to cheer me on!" Lana stated excitedly.

"Uh—alligator wrestling? Are you sure you want to do that? I mean, you and I could do something fun together, Lana. We could play in the mud, or we could find new lizards or frogs or bugs for you to capture. Maybe we could go to the junkyard and find new stuff to weld and make a metal statue figure," Lincoln suggested.

"That's sweet of you, Lincoln, and I would love to do all that with you, but this alligator wrestling match is gonna be huge, and I wanna show my stuff!" Lana replied confidently.

Lincoln quickly grabbed her arm, "Lana, these are alligators. There's a reason why they survived the K-T Extinction and the dinosaurs didn't."

"The what now?"

"Over a hundred million years have not made them less dangerous. More than a thousand people die every year from crocodile and alligator attacks. They're absolute killing machines, Lana—a half-ton of cold-blooded reptile fury with a bite force of twenty thousand Newtons and stomach acid so strong it can dissolve bones, hooves, and even skulls."

Lana raised an eyebrow and tilted her head, "You know I've wrestled these beasts before. Trust me, Lincoln, you got nothing. Come with me, and I'll show how I show them gators whose boss."

After a long pause followed by a heavy sigh, "Okay."

Lana cheered before hugging Lincoln. They finished breakfast before heading out. Lana had a confident smile, while Lincoln looked like he saw a ghost. Lincoln's mind was racing through as many options as possible to change this event from happening. He needed to know how many alligators would be there and which were big bull ones. While brainstorming, he didn't notice all his sisters staring at him as he left with Lana and their father.

"I'm not the only one who saw that, right?" Lynn asked.

"Yeah, he was fine at first, but then the mention of Lana's alligator wrestling, and he looked like someone told him there was a bomb under the table," Lori said.

"Bomb?! Where?!" Leni squealed.

"Not a literal bomb. It's a figure of speech, sis," Luna explained.

"Oh."

"Although, I am inquisitive about how Lincoln knew all those facts about alligators and crocodiles. Plus, I'm quite surprised he knows what the K-T Extinction is," Lisa said.

"I mean, he could have looked it up on the internet like anyone else," Luan shrugged.

"Maybe, but something still feels fishy," Lola said.

Lucy sat silently as they continued discussing their thoughts about Lincoln's behavior. She kept her promise not to tell them that Lincoln was going to speak to her in private, but felt conflicted about it.

'Whatever you're going to tell me Lincoln, it better be answers of what's going on with you. If only you knew how worried we all are,' Lucy thought to herself.