(And I'm back. Here I am with another chapter for you all which introduces us to another ally of Lincoln's who will prove to be very helpful in time.)
Approximately fifty years ago located at an old military base, a scientist and his assistant were about perform an experiment with the army as an audience behind safety glass.
The general spoke to the scientist who was working some kind of archway, "You sure this thing is gonna work? Your time machine has cost the U.S. Government a pretty penny, doctor."
The scientist answered in an English accent, "The Chrono-logger is hardly a time machine in the sense of a vehicle, but rather a subatomic drill designed to bore a tunnel in the fabric of space-time. As to cost, I think the alleviation of untold human suffering throughout history is ample justification, General."
"It'll also give our red buddies overseas a thing or two to think about." the general whispered to his soldiers, before they dawned safety goggles.
"But to answer your first question, there is only one way to find out." The scientist said dawning his own goggles.
As a man started activating the machine, he spoke to the scientist, "You're certain we're safe, doctor?"
The scientist answered him, "I'm not certain of anything, Hugo, but the chrono-magnetic field we've generated should protect us."
"Doctor, I- I'm frightened." Hugo said sounding scared.
The scientist held a bag up, "Have a gumball. It'll calm your nerves."
Everything seemed to be going well, that is, until the machine started to go haywire and started pulling everything inside it, including the professor. Then suddenly, the shadow of an unseen creature was seen and heard growling by the general and his soldiers.
Fifty years later in present time, Luna who was driving her car through a desert with Lincoln in passenger seat, and Lynn and Lisa in backseat. They were currently approaching a familiar military base.
"Why are we doing this, again? I'm sure it's probably nothing." Lynn told her sibs with skepticism.
"Doesn't sound like nothing," Lincoln answered, "Weird noises, unearthly lights, rumors of weird creatures out here?"
"Yeah, Margo's cousin isn't really reliable." Lynn countered.
"Ain't that the truth," Lincoln agreed, "Pop-Pop said this used to be a big military base back in the '50s. Some kind of research facility." the car stopped, and everyone got out and looked at the base's walls.
"Yeah. Must've been some pretty serious research," Lynn said, "Check out these walls. Fifty years later, and there's still no way in."
"Then what do you call those?" Lincoln motioned to the side.
The sibs saw two giant holes in the wall, "How did we miss those?" Luna asked.
"Well, siblings, it looks like this calls for our investigation." Lisa spoke up.
They got back into the car and drove through one of the holes and looked around seeing the base was totally wrecked, "This place looks messier than Flips." Lynn said.
"Didn't think that'd be possible," Lisa said before taking notice of the holes in the base, "Did anyone else notice that some of them are vaguely person-shaped?"
"Maybe something, I don't know, burned through the wall." Luna suggested.
"Like what?" Lynn asked.
"The same thing that burned these weird trails everywhere. Look." Luna said, as they looked down at the ground.
They could see several big long trails all around the base grounds going in an odd pattern. Lincoln spotted a small winged skeleton in one of the trails, "Guys, this is... Or used to be a bird, and this is a lizard skeleton."
"Completely fossilized." Lisa gasped.
"And they're not the only thing." Lynn motioned ahead to am old phone booth with the bottom part of it burned through to reveal the ground underneath it.
Lisa inspected it, "It's like someone turned this slate into sand just by standing on it."
"Probably on hold." Lynn suggested.
"Dude, don't go Luan on us." Luna warned her sports sib.
Lincoln inspected the trails in the ground and where they lead to, "The trail goes to the police station, then to those- I guess they're apartments."
Lynn spoke up, "Just to review, someone stood here a million years ago and then walked to those buildings that were built fifty years go?"
"You are not helping." Lincoln scowled.
Lisa voiced her thoughts, "Given our experience, one thing that these could be signs of serious Stinger activity, but they could be wrong."
"Why's that?" Luna asked.
"Because that is not a Stinger." Lisa motioned to something.
They looked and saw a blue, black, and white vibrating creature heading right for them. The three sisters pulled out a Plumber's blaster each.
"Well, this should be worth the gas." Luna said.
Lincoln activated the Omnitrix and transformed, "Chromastone!"
They all started to chase after it as the creature scrapes a building, causing it to fall on them. They managed to get out of the way and noticed the creature was gone.
"Disappeared." Chromastone said before changing back into Lincoln.
Lisa spoke up, "At least the building it destroyed wasn't the library."
Luna looked at Lisa, and spoke dryly, "You really love the books, don't ya Brain Box?"
Lincoln rolled his eyes, "She's saying we have to research, find out what that thing is. All we know so far is that it's looking for something here on the base."
Soon they found the library, and Lisa was looking up some old files on an old computer, "These films are really corroded, but it looks like this base was built for some kind of time experiment called "Project Paradox." she looked at a picture of the scientist.
"Who wouldn't pick the desert outside Royal Woods to do top-secret research?" Luna asked rhetorically.
"They built it here because of the huge quartz deposits." Lincoln noted.
"Quartz? Time? Maybe they were trying to build the world's biggest wristwatch." Lynn suggested.
Lincoln and Lisa sighed, as the boy spoke, "You have more ample free room in your head than you did four years ago."
Lynn scowled, "Hey, I know what that means now!"
"Lynn, dial it back." Luna shushed her.
Lincoln checked the article and looked at the scientists picture, "His name's been censored. Whoever he was, his paradox theory was the basis of some kind of experimental tunnel through time."
"Fascinating." Lisa gasped while intrigued.
When they investigated the lab, they saw it was in shambles, but the Chrono-logger was still standing, but had the same trail leading to it.
"Check it out. That thing has been here too." Lynn noted.
"Only one trail," Lincoln noticed, "It either came in here and vanished... or it was born here."
"Born here?" Luna asked not liking the sound of that.
They heard a loud rumbling sound and figured it might be the creature. Lincoln quickly reactivated the Omnitrix and transformed, "Swampfire!" he went in and grabbed the source of the noise, "Gotcha!" he suddenly saw it was just a man, but not any man. It was the scientist from the article.
"Swampfire. That takes me back," the scientist began pleasantly, "Or is it forward? It's so hard to tell, Lincoln. Have we met?"
Swampfire set him down and asked in confusion, "How do you know my name?"
"Have we met yet, I suppose the question was." the man answered.
The girls came over and saw him, "Hey, it's that dork from the photo, the paradox guy." Lynn gasped.
"You haven't changed at all in fifty years." Lisa said in shock.
"Oh, considerably more than that, dear girl. Gumball?" the scientists offered.
"No thanks," Swampfire replied, "Who are you? What's your name?"
"You just read my file. I was rather hoping you could tell me. It slipped my mind several hundred years ago."
Lisa double blinked, "Did he just say "several hundred years"?"
"Did you just say..." he suddenly saw the man was gone, "Hey."
Suddenly the man was standing by the exit, "By the way, you didn't happen to see a space-time anomaly around here, did you? About ye big, incredibly destructive, virtually unstoppable? No? I must've been thinking of another moment. Ta-ta!" he walked out.
Lynn chased after him only to discover he vanished again, "Where did he?"
"He's out there." Luna motioned out the window where they saw the man leaning against a telephone pole.
"He's obviously connected to that creature. We need to talk to him." Swampfire told the girls.
"Oh, yeah, we'll talk. Right after the pounding!" Lynn announced as she blasted the wall.
The man disappeared behind the pole, and reappeared inside a small building. Lynn, clearly in a fit of rage, shot the door down and scoured the whole building looking for the man. It proved fruitless as he appeared outside with the others.
"Was I in there?" he asked humorously.
The man ran off and Swampfire blasted through another building chasing after him. Only for the man to reappear behind them, "That was public property, you know."
"This can't be possible." Lisa said flabbergasted.
"How does he move so fast?" Swampfire asked in disbelief.
"You mean, how do I move so quickly?" the scientist asked now across the street, "It's called 'walking'," he suddenly appeared next to Lynn, "Strolling, really."
Lynn grabbed the scientist by the coat, "That's better."
"Easy on the jacket. It's 1200 years old. Anyway, thanks." he said.
"Thanks? For what?" Swampfire asked.
"Well, I had a feeling if we made a loud enough racket, he'd show up." The man's feeling proved right as the creature from earlier appeared again.
"Finally, something we can hit." Lynn said eagerly.
"Oh, I really don't think that's a good idea." the man answered in a warning.
"Who cares what you think?" Lynn asked rudely, as she and Luna tried to stop it.
Lisa watched the trails appearing where the creature was moving and it dawned on her, "Those trails. They're not burn marks. They're aged. The creature accelerates time."
The scientist smiled, "Very good, Lisa."
Swampfire suddenly realized something, "Wait, if the creature accelerates time of anything it touches, then... Lynn, Luna don't do it!"
"Not so fast, ugly!" Lynn shouted, as they tried to punch the monster, but it seemed to have aged their hands along with the rest of their bodies.
As the siblings raced tocheck on them, the man started running off with the creature on its tail. Swampfire changed back to Lincoln, who looked at his two older sibs who were old ladies, "Oh, God!" he gasped, "Just touching that thing aged them sixty or even eighty years," he helped Lynn up, "We've got to get them to a hospital."
Lynn woke up, and got out of Lincoln's hold, "What are you doing? Get your hands off me."
"Come now, aged siblings, we're gonna get you some help." Lisa told the elderly girls.
"What do you mean, "help"? I'm gonna kick that thing's keister!" Luna declared until something snapped, "Oy! My hip."
"Are you ok?" Lincoln asked in concern.
"Well my hip is killing me, my legs ache. And what's up with these shoes? Is it too much to ask for a little support?" Luna asked crankily.
"Interesting. Subjects appear to resemble irritable, short-tempered, elderly women." Lisa deduced.
"Why are you whispering?!" Lynn shouted.
"In other words, aside from the gray hair and wrinkles, they appear to be pretty much the same as always. Come on, little ladies," Lincoln helped them along and took the car keys from Luna, "I'll be taking those."
"What do think you're doing?" Luna demanded.
"I think I'm about to drive your hot rod." the boy replied, as Lisa spoke.
"I think it's for the best, seeing as this is an emergency. After all, both you and Lynn are nearsighted, arthritic, your reflexes are shot, and above all, Luna, you're trying to unlock a cactus." Luna realized she had tried putting her car key into a cactus and answered.
"I meant to do that!"
And so after helping their sibs into the car, Lincoln started the vehicle and Lynn lamented, "There goes my dreams of being in the major leagues."
"And there's no way I can face Sam like this." Luna added.
"Quit your bawling. We'll figure something out. We always do." Lisa promised.
When Lincoln backed out he accidentally hit a couple of trash cans, much to Luna's ire, "My bad!" he said sheepishly.
"It's not a bumper car, dude!"
"Suddenly the creature crashed through a building coming right towards them, "Drive, Lincoln! Drive!" Lisa cried.
Lincoln backed up away from the monster and started drifting to drive forward. Soon the creature touched the car aging it into a rusted broken car.
"No! Not the car! Not my baby!" Luna cried.
Lincoln spotted a makeshift ramp up ahead, "We're not out of this yet. Hang on!" he drove the car onto the ramp and they landed on top of a building, escaping the creature, "And he sticks the landing!" he declared victoriously.
The cars wheels suddenly came off, and Luna spoke to him angrily, "And is never driving my car again!"
"Heh. Sorry." he answered with a nervous grin.
When they exited the car, they saw the scientist checking his pocket watch, "Where have you been? You were supposed to get here six seconds ago. Or it this thing running fast?"
"Who are you, anyway? What are you doing here?" Lincoln questioned
"What is that creature?" Lisa inquired.
"Can you fix my car?" Luna asked.
"You got any hard candy?" Lynn finished.
"There's something different about the two you. Is it your hair?" the scientist joked to the elder siblings.
"Yeah, we're dyeing it all over now, and we also got real old!" Lynn snapped.
"Don't talk to me about old. I walk in eternity."
"Well, you better start running in eternity, smart guy!" Lynn threatened him.
The scientist pondered, "Hmm. You might slow us down. I need to fix that. We'll come back right over there." he motioned to a spot.
Lincoln and Lisa looked to where he was pointing and that man was walking with Luna an Lynn who were reverted back to their appropriate age, and that their older selves were gone.
"Now that's more like it." Lynn kissed her arm muscles.
"You girls are looking much better." Lincoln said.
"Thanks," Luna leaned into him, "Still not driving my car," she spoke t the man, "Alright, Professor, if you wouldn't mind fixing my car."
"How exactly do you expect me to do that? I'm a time traveler, not a body shop. Regressing a car would break all the chronal laws of space-time and-"
"Ok! Enough!" Lincoln snapped, "I want answers- now."
The scientist looked amused, "Same old Lincoln Loud. You're even more like yourself now than you were in the future, which, for obvious reasons, I can't really tell you about."
Lynn spoke to her brother, "You want me to hurt him, cause I will."
Lincoln sighed and calmed himself, "Okay, let's start this over. What can you tell us Professor... Paradox?"
Paradox smiled, "Paradox. Quite a nice ring to it. Oh, yes, that'll do. That'll do very nicely. I'll tell you my story in a way you can understand - with a beginning, middle, and end. We'll start in the middle." his pocket watch emitted a flash back allowing them to see the base from the past.
"The base was built entirely because of my ingenious theory - a time tunnel utilizing the properties I discovered in quartz crystals which would allow us access to past and future events." Paradox narrated.
"Yeah, well, for a genius, looks like you blew it." Lynn burst his bubble.
"You don't know the half of it. Some tiny miscalculation on my part destabilized the experiment and ripped a hole in the fabric of reality. I was hurled into the event horizon. I must've spent 100,000 years there. I didn't age or need to sleep or eat. Just exist."
"Sounds pretty boring." Lincoln said.
"At first I went mad, of course, but after a few millennia, I got bored with that, too, and went sane - very sane. I began to learn. I now have total understanding of the space-time continuum, allowing me to travel anywhere and any when I want, within reason." He closed his pocket watch and put it back in his coat.
"Fascinating. Pray tell, where is this time machine?" Lisa inquired.
"He doesn't have a time machine, Lisa," Lincoln corrected her, "He has a map in his head."
"Exactly. I know where all the shortcuts are. I've spent a dozen lifetimes crisscrossing the time stream, making it a better place." Paradox boasted.
"And how does that pay?" Luna asked.
"At the moment, not even in job satisfaction," the group was suddenly brought to the lab, "You see, I recently discovered that some kind of extradimensional creature is going to wreak havoc across the universe."
"So? Way you talk, you take on monsters like this all the time. Why is this one so bad?" Lincoln asked.
Paradox began drawing diagrams, "Because unlike the thousands of foes I faced before, this... extradimensional creature came into our plane of reality the moment my experiment went awry."
"In other words it's your fault?" Lynn asked with a scowl.
"This creature hasn't been lurking around here for fifty years. We would know about it." Lisa noted.
"Time is like a river," Paradox explained while drawing a diagram, "It moves, flows, and bends. I accidentally set off a depth charge in that river. The creature I released was blasted fifty years through time to your present, doing this to your future." he scrabbled the diagram.
"All this thing is doing is messing up an old army base. Why is that a problem at all? Why not just leave it alone?" Luna asked.
"That's a better question for the man on the moon." the professor answered.
"What? Who's the man on the moon?" Lincoln wondered.
"I am." Paradox answered, as the sibs realized they were exactly where Paradox said he was.
"Guys, we're on the moon!" Lincoln cheered.
"No, we're on the moon in your distant future." Paradox corrected him.
"What?!" Luna asked in shock, "How are we not suffocating"
"Or instantly freezing to death?" Lisa put in.
"Good question. Not remotely the point, though. Imagine what the Earth would look like in 200 years, say, with that time monster wandering all over it, aging everything that crossed its path to dust."
"I don't even want to think about it." Lincoln feared.
"For those of you with no imagination, the Earth is up there." Paradox pointed up.
They looked up, and saw the earth that was dark and brown, "Oh, jeez." Lynn gasped.
"My God." Luna gasped.
"By Darwin's beard." Lisa gasped.
"You brought us to the worst possible version of the future." Lincoln gasped.
"No. Should I fail to stop that creature, this is your best possible future." Paradox warned the sibs who were worried.
"Not a pretty sight, is it?" came a familiar voice, as they saw another Paradox.
"What are you doing here?" Paradox asked his Parallel self.
"I'm allowing myself to feel the full impact of my failure." he answered.
"There's two of him?!" Lynn asked in shock.
"Relax. He's a parallel paradox." Lincoln explained.
"Young Lincoln has an innate sense of transtemporal metaphysics, which will serve him well in his future - or should I say "past."Parallel Paradox told his other self.
"And I drive good too." Lincoln boasted.
"Hardly," Luna replied, "And more importantly, we can breathe on the moon in the future, but you can't fix my car?" she asked Paradox who ignored her and spoke to his Parallel self.
"What should I do?"
"Well, obviously not what I did. But whatever you do, you better do it quickly. Time is running out." Parallel Paradox warned him, as they returned to the base in their own time.
"Why come back here? Why don't we travel back in time and stop the time experiment from ever happening?" Lisa suggested.
"The experiment that releases the creature also un-sticks me in time, and that must happen because...(chuckles) in all modesty..."
"You save the world dozens of times." Lincoln gasped.
"Hundreds, actually," the professor corrected, "In fact, on one occasion, you and I worked together to save the entire univ- never mind. It should be here any..."
They overhear loud rumbling and knew that the creature was back, "Let me guess, right on time?" Lynn asked Paradox who nodded and spoke to Lincoln.
"You could set your watch by it."
Lincoln nodded and quickly went hero, "Jetray!"
Jetray took it to the sky and started shooting energy beams at the creature but with no effect, "Not even my energy beams can phase it."
Paradox reached into his bag and pulled out some gumballs. He threw them at the creature who started slowing down.
Jetray landed before them in surprise, "They hit it? Doesn't everything age into oblivion as soon as they touch it?"
"Gumballs last a really long time. Look under your desk at school. Now, get back!" Paradox warned him.
Once the creature started moving again, Paradox jumps in front of it to protect the others, "Professor, let go! He'll age you into dust!" Lisa cried.
Paradox struggled to hold the creature in place, "I exist outside of time. Well, I can still feel the eons passing."
Jetray changed back into Lincoln who got an idea, "Paradox, take us back to the accident – now."
"But I told you!
"Just do it! Trust me!" Lincoln ordered.
Having no choice, Paradox took the Loud sibs and the creature back fifty years ago to when the accident occurred.
Lincoln turned to his sisters, " Girls, the lab. Quick!" he turned to Paradox, "You just keep that thing occupied."
"K-keep it occupied? I'm a time-traveling hero. I don't keep things occupied."
Lincoln and his sisters entered the lab and made themselves discreet from the scientists and soldiers.
"You sure this thing is gonna work? Your time machine has cost the U.S. Government a pretty penny, doctor." The General asked Paradox from before.
"As to cost, I think the alleviation of untold human suffering throughout history is ample justification, General." Paradox answered.
As the sibs remained hidden, Lincoln was pondering something, "Why would it use the phone?"
"What?" Luna asked.
"The creature. It tried to use the pay phone. Then it went to the police station, then the dorms. It didn't act like some unfathomable transdimensional creature. It did everything a normal person would do..."
Lisa gasped and started catching on, "If they suddenly found themselves in an abandoned military base. I see what you're going with this." Luna and Lynn were unfortunately slow on the uptake.
Once the machine was activated, Lincoln noticed Hugo stumble onto the controls, causing it to go haywire, "Look there. The assistant."
Everything, including the scientist, was being sucked into the time portal and Hugo was hanging for dear life and Lincoln knew he had to help Hugo.
As he moved forward, Lynn called, " Linc, you'll get sucked in along with him!"
"I need to put on a little weight," Lincoln activated the Omnitrix and quickly transformed, "Humungousaur!"
Everyone was surprised to Humungousaur, including Hugo, who was almost sucked in the portal. Humungousaur quickly grabbed Hugo and spoke to him, "Trust me. This beats the alternative. Girls, blast it." After getting out of the way, his sisters open fired at the Chrono-logger causing it to close in on itself.
Back outside, where Paradox was about to crash into a building, he stopped in the nick of time and looked to see the creature was none other than his old lab assistant, "Hugo! Of course. If it were a snake, it would've bit me."
The Louds approached with Lincoln smirking, "Just in time."
"But don't look so smug. I would've figured it out eventually." Paradox argued.
"You had 100,000 years!" Lincoln reminded them, as they were teleported back to the present.
"Well, I have to admit it. I'm impressed. All those centuries trapped in the Event Horizon, and it never occurred to me that the accident wasn't my fault. You're much smarter than people give you credit for." Paradox commended Lincoln.
"I have my moments." he boasted.
"Whatever happened to your assistant?" Lisa wondered.
"I lived my life." came a voice.
The group saw approaching was Hugo fifty years older, "Hugo! How are you?" Paradox asked joyfully.
"Well, you look the same, and I haven't seen you in fifty years." Hugo answered.
"Well, I haven't seen you in a 100,000 years, but you don't look that bad. How was your life?" the professor asked.
"Good, a good life. But I'm - I'm sorry about the experiment. I ruined everything. I never got to time-travel." Hugo said dismally.
"Would you still like to?"
Hugo's eyes lit up, "Yes. I'm not afraid anymore."
"Glad to hear it. How about I give you a behind-the-scenes look at eternity?" Paradox opened a portal and both he and Hugo entered.
"At least he's got company now." Lisa said happy for them.
"Oh, and thanks for stranding us out here in the middle of nowhere!" Luna shouted.
"Sorry about your car, Lunes," Lincoln apologized, "Come on. It's gonna be a long walk home."
"Or maybe not. Take a look." Lynn pointed over.
They looked and saw Luna's car brand spanking new, "Oh, my precious!" Luna ran to the car and hugged the hood.
"It looks like new." Lynn noted.
"It doesn't just look like new," Luna replied, "It is new. It's factory-new from thirty years ago. Paradox, I take back everything I was about to say about you."
Lincoln spotted a note in the windshield wiper, "Luna, try to keep in mind that if this car comes into contact with anything else from 1976, it will explode like antimatter. Enjoy! Paradox."
Luna looked concerned, "He's kidding, right? That's some kind of time-travel joke, right? Isn't it?"
"Try not to think about it too much. Let's just head home. We a lot to tell to the family about what happened." Lincoln suggested. All of them entered Luna's car and she drove themselves back home.
"I'll tell you this much, that Paradox guy is quite the loon." Lynn said.
"I found him to be quite pleasant." Lisa admitted.
"And he did fix up my car." Luna added.
"I can't get over what he said," Lincoln began, "It almost sounded he side me and him are destined to save the universe."
"He did say he wasn't permitted to tell you." Lisa reminded her brother.
"I know. And I also have a feeling we're gonna be seeing more of Paradox down the line." the girls were curious and couldn't deny Lincoln was onto something.
(And there you go. Lincoln and three of his sibs have met Professor Paradox who will indeed be of great help to the Louds down the line. See you all next time.)