31. Chapter 31

AN: Hey there, Hero here with a new chapter of the Luan arc. Glad to see that everyone seems to be enjoying this arc so far. I had a lot of fun writing this chapter, hope you guys enjoy it. What could possibly go wrong with Lincoln using Mr Coconuts?

As Lincoln stepped into his house, he wondered if life would keep getting more complicated, or if he'd peaked in anxiety at thirteen. Adults would surely not be going through anything as problematic and savage as the combo of puberty and middle school. Taxes, student loans, and all that nonsense he heard people in the movies complaining about were probably not even real. Old people were like the Ace Savvy fandom, they just liked to complain about everything. Things would only get better as he grew up and took on more responsibilities. At the very least, he genuinely hoped so. His body didn't seem to be physically capable of dealing with more stress, and he didn't have more hair to turn white as a response to it.

He closed the door and locked it, quickly taking his phone out to activate the Wi-Fi instead of running on data. He grimaced when he noticed he had no new messages and had to consciously take a deep breath and relax his grip on his phone. He didn't need to worry, everything was going to be fine.

The lack of news was the biggest weight on his shoulder right then, but it certainly didn't help that his day at school hadn't been the best.

He'd enjoyed a brief period of semi-popularity after his videos fighting as Tuxedo Linky circulated on the news and the internet. His classmates had been impressed and wanted to know all the details about his endeavor with Lovely Leni. Many were also interested in seeing what they could do to get Lincoln to hook them up with said Magical Girl. For a couple of days, he felt like people forgot that he was a Harem King and treated him instead like the King of the World. But then the novelty ran off, and when all they could get from him were vague and non-informative answers about how his Archetype actually worked, and with his inability to turn back into Tuxedo Linky to show off at gym class, most people had assumed that it had to be one of Lovely Leni's abilities, powering him up. Turning a perverted, scrawny kid into a handsome —he still blushed every time girls used that adjective on him—, powerful fighter.

Now, he was back at being the guy with the weird Archetype. His classmates didn't exactly hate him, but he ranked even lower than Chandler in the popularity polls. At least he could be ordered around if you were assertive enough. Lincoln? He didn't even have that going on for himself.

That's not to say some people weren't friendly to him. Tabby had figured out because of his last name that he was related to Luna Loud from The Sirens, and she would approach him now and then to talk about Luna's music and if he knew anything about their new album or how to get tickets to their concerts. Girl Jordan wouldn't go out of her way to talk to him, but she acknowledged he existed and would defend him if anyone openly made fun of him. Whether it was because she cared for him or because she had the Hero Archetype remained to be seen.

And then there was Stella.

Lincoln appreciated her, he did. Most of the time he ate alone at lunch, but now and then Stella would join him, perhaps sitting a bit too close to him for his taste. She would ask him about his day, and after he gave the usual "Kinda boring, not much to report" answer to avoid getting into details and bore her to death, the Dark Lord would go on a massive rant about her routine and everything she did since she woke up. Sometimes even starting before that.

"I had the most wicked nightmare ever," she'd told him a few days prior. "I foresaw my death."

"That sounds awful," he commented.

"It was!" She replied with the biggest grin ever.

"What happened?"

"I had finally taken over the school, spreading my evilness and establishing a theocratic fascist dictatorship with me at the top of the hierarchy," she explained like she was describing the most beautiful sunset. "And then she showed up! The Chosen One! Girl Jordan, with her mighty sword earned from a quest, returning home to fight me! My legions of doom fought bravely, but they were no match to her. She finally got to me, and our battle was legendary! I will save you the gruesome, gory details… but she cut me in half and tied my hands with my own guts right before she pierced my heart with her sword!"

"You know what, I think I'm done eating. Not hungry anymore."

"The last thing I remember before I died and my nightmare ended was looking at you, my right-hand man, and asking you to avenge me."

Lincoln frowned. "I was your right-hand man?"

"Well, yeah, who else would be? Chandler? I can't even get him to obey me!" She pouted. "You're my only friend, I have no one else to name lieutenant of the Hordes of Hell."

Lincoln felt sorry for Stella, realizing that they had more in common than he'd realized. He decided he should be more friendly to her. She probably spent just as many lunches eating alone as he did, maybe he could start looking for her so they could at least hang out more often.

"Besides, our blood pact wouldn't only benefit me," she mentioned, continuing before Lincoln could ask about what blood pact she was referring to. "You said you took powers from Lovely Leni, right?"

"Oh… so you believed me?" He asked, a tender smile escaping his lips when he realized Stella didn't think he was lying like everyone else.

"It made sense to me. That's what you wanted to do when you took me to the closet, right? Taking a bit of my power for you to use?" Her cheeks seemed to turn a bit red, but Lincoln didn't notice.

"Exactly! I'm so happy you understand!"

"So… you know… If you ever needed my Dark Powers of Hell…"

Lincoln almost jumped when he felt Stella's hand on his knee. He stared aghast at her.

"I wouldn't mind going to the closet and… finishing the ritual…" She trailed off, her face red with embarrassment. "Or the back of the school. Or under the bleachers. Or wherever you do it."

It took a lot to convince Stella that his powers didn't work that way, but even at the end of the lunch period, she looked like she either didn't believe him or refused to accept his explanation.

The silver lining was that he could at least stop feeling so lonely, finally having a friend in school, and that, unlike others, she didn't print three hundred posters of his face crossed out in red with "JOIN THE ANTI-HAREM CLUB" in bold letters. He'd take whatever small wins he could, at that point.

He walked up the stairs and was about to turn to his room when some speakers began blasting a catchy bubblegum-pop tune. He looked to his left and saw Lola standing in the middle of the hall, with an old school boombox next to her and with her twirling baton in her hands.

"Lola? What are you—?"

"TRANSFORMATION!" She yelled, interrupting him and throwing confetti and glitter in the air. Some of it got to Lincoln's nose and he began to cough.

Meanwhile, Lola began to spin in her place like a ballet ballerina, her every movement perfectly timed to the music. Her form and technique were superb, but as Lincoln's lungs recovered from a sparkling obstruction, he realized she wasn't dancing. She was just… spinning in place.

And she spun, and spun, and spun, until the song ended and she stopped to a halt, making an elegant pose, not unlike the ones Leni—

It suddenly hit him, and his heart felt equal amounts of amusement and pity.

Lola took a couple of deep breaths to recover from the physical effort, and then proceeded to point her baton at Lincoln.

"LOLA BLAST! MAXIMUM POWER!" She yelled, planting her feet and ready to face the recoil from her ultimate attack.

Which never happened, much to Lincoln's relief. Instead, she stood there for several seconds before her shoulder dropped and she gave up.

"Ugh! Why is everything so unfair?!" She complained, kicking the boombox off.

"What's wrong, Lols?" Lincoln asked, approaching her.

"I'm just tired of not being able to use my Archetype!" She said, sitting on the carpet floor and resting her elbows on her knees. "It's not fair! Everyone gets to use theirs and do fancy stuff! Why can't I use mine?"

Lincoln half-smirked, realizing his little sister was seemingly going through the same issues as him. And then his expression turned into one of worrying, realizing his little sister was seemingly going through the same issues as him.

"Don't feel bad," he told her, sitting in front of her and trying to give her a reassuring smile. "Everyone's different, you'll figure out your Archetype when it starts manifesting."

"But Lana's already doing her magic plumber stuff, shouldn't we both have our Archetypes activating at the same time?"

"Not necessarily. I know it's hard for you to get this since you've always been the best at everything," he jokingly said, nonetheless causing her to close her eyes, smile, and hum in approval, "but it's not healthy to always compare yourself to others."

"But what if my Archetype is there but it's not what I want? What if I'm wrong and I'm not a Magical Girl? What if… What if I'm a Bystander?"

She looked genuinely concerned and terrified at the prospect. And while Lincoln could absolutely relate, since he had shared those fears until the day he was Indexed, he wouldn't let his little sister go through that process.

"Hey, come on now," he said with a cheerful tone. "Look, we don't know what your Archetype is right now, do we?"

"Do you?"

"No, of course I don't."

"Then no, we don't know."

"But you do know that I love you and you're my favorite princess, right?" He said, bopping her nose with his index finger.

Lola smiled and her whole posture relaxed, her shoulders looking not as tense as before. "Of course, Linky."

"Not just me, but our whole family. And your friends, and everyone in town that goes to your beauty pageants. You're super successful, you're amazing and everyone loves you."

"I kinda am, yeah," she acknowledged.

"Then what makes you think that's going to change if you end up with a different Archetype?" He said, grabbing her hands and making them both stand up. "Right now you're awesome because you're Lola Loud. And one day, you'll know your Archetype, but you'll still be Lola Loud, and that's going to be enough."

He saw her face lighting up, her eyes glimmering with hope, and her grip on his hand tightening. She then jumped forward and wrapped her arms around him, pressing the side of her face against his chest. He closed his eyes and hugged her as well, brushing one hand through her golden locks the way she liked it.

"Thanks, Linky! You're the best!"

"I kinda am, yeah," he mockingly repeated, making her giggle.

"You're right, I'm still the bestest all around," she said, taking a step back and putting her arms on her waist. "I don't need an Archetype to feel good about myself!"

"Yeah!"

She then adopted a thoughtful expression. "But maybe the music was wrong, maybe that's not what I needed to transform. I should grab Lori's wand and see if that helps."

"You mean Leni's."

"No, no, the other day I found a purple one under Lori's bed, inside a shoebox. I wanted to try it out but the batteries had run out. Maybe I have some in my room."

And with that, she stormed off into her room, leaving Lincoln a blushing mess in the hall. He needed to tell Lori to take better care of… of her battery-drained wand… But he also didn't think that was a conversation he could possibly have without dying of embarrassment.

A few minutes later, already settled in his room and reading a comic, his phone chimed in with the sound of a new message, and he almost tore the pages apart as he scrambled to grab it from his nightstand. He sighed in relief when he saw the long-awaited message from Lynn.

"Fight just ended. Guess who has two thumbs and absolutely pulverized the big gladiator lady? ME, OF COURSE!"

The message had a picture attached to it, a selfie of a somewhat disheveled but otherwise healthy-looking Lynn, with at least twenty goons scattered and tied up on the floor behind her, and a grey-skinned, eight-feet tall lady completely knocked out as cops tried to cuff her hands.

Lincoln allowed himself to rest back against his pillow and wrote a reply with a relieved smile. "Awesome! Can't wait to watch the videos!"

In all honesty, he probably wasn't going to watch them. His big sisters had been fighting crime for years, but even after all this time, he hadn't been able to get over the immeasurable stress of watching them leave home or school to put their lives at risk on the front lines of the battle against Soulless and evil Archetypes. He knew better now than a few years ago. He knew Lori and Lynn were extraordinary powerhouses in battle, he knew Leni could take care of herself like no other, that Luna had Sam to watch her back, and that Luan was considered one of the best Exorcists in town. He shouldn't be as scared anymore...

But the truth is that he was. And even though he trusted his sisters and he tried to not make a big deal out of it, he worried about them. The idea of something happening to them terrified him. His sisters knew that, even though he tried to hide it. And that's how, a couple of years ago, they'd gotten into the habit of texting him as soon as they were done fighting. Just to let him know they were okay, that they'd won once again. It did wonders to him, since watching the live coverage of their fights was too much for him, but he still got progressively more worried the longer they took to text him.

A new notification rang, and he checked Lynn's new message.

"You're gonna see your big sister kicking some serious butt!"

He smiled, texted a laughing emoji, and picked his comic back up. But try as he may, he just couldn't get into the mood anymore. Not even Muscle Fish's adventures were enough to distract him from much more serious thoughts, his mind going back and forth between his conversation with Lola and the texts from Lynn.

Unlike Lola, he knew his Archetype. He had one, and he had a rudimentary but sufficient understanding of how it worked and what it allowed him to do. He'd been able to power Lori up to defeat a strong supervillain, and he'd fought alongside Leni, Luna, and Sam against Soulless. He knew he had the potential to be a powerful ally and to help them out.

But just like Lola, he couldn't activate it. Not freely, at least, and not efficiently. If he could, maybe instead of reading comics and worrying about his sisters he would be able to join the fray and do his best to ensure nothing happened to them. And yet there he was, dressed in only his underwear with a comic book on his lap.

"I would much rather have to worry about not being bitten by a Husk than worrying about them," he mumbled to himself, before letting out a sad chuckle. "But there's also a fifty-fifty chance I'd mess my transformation up, and they'd have to worry about me too."

He'd consciously tried Genre Shifting four times. One with Leni, one with Stella, one with Luna and Sam, and one with Luan. Two of them had been major successes, the other two had been complete failures. What if he decided to go help them, but his bad luck kicked in and he couldn't Genre Shift? It would be terrible for him, but it would also distract his sisters, potentially putting them at risk. He couldn't afford that, he couldn't allow himself to fail them.

Not like he'd failed Sid. She and her family needed someone to get rid of a ghost, an easy ghost according to Luan, an almost harmless floating orb. And he'd failed. Miserably at that. For all he knew, his failure meant Sid was still being tormented by that spirit. Sid, who was part of the Anti-Harem Club, yes, but she'd also given him quite the pep-talk the previous day. He remembered her smile, and her soft hands on his own. She'd always treated him with respect and was one of the kindest kids he'd known in grade school.

He sat up and began to dress up. He knew what he had to do.

And he knew how to do it.

"Hey, Linc!"

"Hey, Luan," he greeted his sister in the hall, looking at her outfit. "Where are you going?"

She had her miko attire, with wide, red, pleated trousers, a red ribbon on her ponytail, and a loose, white shirt that she insisted he called a kosode but that he kept pronouncing as koso-dee.

"I have a meeting with the Exorcists Guild," she explained. "Today's my training on miko practices. I'm gonna talk to my boss and bring up the gig at the restaurant and see if we can figure something out."

"That's awesome!" He said with a genuine smile. "Good luck with that!"

"Thanks. And it's all thanks to you."

She smiled back at him, and that's when Lincoln made his move. He opened his arms and walked into a hug with her. Luan seemed slightly surprised at first, but Lincoln had always been the cuddling type, so she reciprocated the hug.

"I'm sure you'll do great at the restaurant."

"Thanks, Linc. I really hope I do."

"The audience will love you, I've no doubts," he continued, stalling for time as he closed his eyes and tried his best to focus on Luan's aura. He couldn't at first, but eventually, he managed to sense something, a sparkling sensation that he felt from the top of his head to the tip of his toes.

He ended the hug and smiled at Luan.

"Well, I don't want you to run late to that," he said, letting out a fake chuckle as he focused on the energy he felt, not letting it slip away from his mental grasp. "See ya later!"

"Thanks! See ya!"

As soon as Luan disappeared downstairs, he rushed to her room, and once he was by himself, he whispered: "Genre Shift!"

Seconds later, his Exorcist form was on again, with the trenchcoat, his facial hair, and his pistol. He didn't feel any different than how he felt when he Genre Shifted the previous day —which, come to think of it, maybe wasn't that good of a thing—, but newfound determination ran through his veins.

"I'm not gonna fail you again, Luan," he said, tugging his gloves.

While the room was still technically Luan and Luna's, the fact that the latter spent most of the year away from home meant that Luan had taken over much of the space. Her physical gags and all the things she used for her routines were scattered around the room, but he went straight to the former closet, now turned into a shrine.

Lincoln gulped and, with shaky hands, opened the doors. He found cases with candles, different outfits for her exorcises, crosses, vials with Holy Water, wooden stakes —he could almost hear Lucy hissing—, and finally, in the middle of the sanctuary, Mr. Coconuts.

The puppet looked just as he remembered, nothing changed except for a couple of rectangle pieces of paper with some Japanese writing on them, taped to the doll on different parts of its wooden frame.

"It's ok… Luan said it's safe… She said the spirits are trapped. There's nothing to be afraid of," he said out loud, before stretching a finger and touching one of Mr. Coconuts' legs.

The moment he did, the puppet's eyes glowed red, and many voices spoke at the same time, like a thousand needles piercing his heart.

"THE skiEs SHAll rAin fIRE, AnD ThE seAS WILL beCOmE As BLooD!" The voices said, scaring the living heck out of Lincoln. "tHE riGHtEouS sHALL Fall BEFOre THE wickeD, anD ALL cReatIoN SHALL tREMbLE beFORE tHe BurninG sTANdaRDS OF heLL!"

"Luan said it's safe, Luan said it's safe, Luan said it's safe," he kept repeating like a mantra, as he grabbed the puppet with the delicacy of a jeweler. He could feel the air around him getting colder.

"God, I wish this came up with instructions so I know how to use it against Sid's orb," he thought to himself.

As soon as he thought that, the red glow of the puppet faded away and the voices were silenced. The puppet seemed to die for a minute, before a digital voice, like a text-to-speech bot, spoke out loud.

"This is your Soul Cage A.I., patent-pending," it said. "If you're familiar with how a Soul Cage works, say 'one'. If this is your first time using a Soul Cage, say 'two'. If you wish to release all souls trapped inside the Soul Cage, say 'what'."

"Wh—?" He reacted quickly and covered his mouth with a hand, almost dropping Mr. C to the floor. He cleared his throat and looked at the puppet. "Two."

"Tutorial mode activated. To use the Soul Cage and capture an evil entity, please get the containment device close to the entity in question."

Alright, that made sense. Lincoln sighed, and readied himself for the most uncomfortable walk of his life, carrying not only a demon-possessed ventriloquist doll but also a trench coat on an 86ºF afternoon.

The temperature turned out to be the least of his worries during the hour-long walk it took for him to go from his house to Sid's building. The Sun inched closer to the horizon with every step he took, casting long shadows and painting the sky with the most beautiful color palette, while the faintest cold breeze made his walk pleasant.

Or at least it would have been, if not for the intrusive thoughts that plagued his mind from the moment he left his home.

"Why am I doing this?" He heard himself think, so loud and clear he almost turned around to see if someone was talking to him.

He knew why he was doing it. He needed to make things up to Sid after the absolute dud he'd performed the day before. She didn't seem to be mad at him, she'd tried her best to calm Ronnie Anne down. Granted, she needed to keep working on her word choices, but her heart was in the right place.

And aside from Sid, he needed to do this for Luan. She'd asked him to do one job, a simple job, and he failed. And when asked about it, he couldn't even bring himself to say the truth. All because he wanted her to smile, he wanted her to be happy, and he didn't want his incompetence and inability to measure up to her and the rest of their sisters to sour her mood.

"What makes you think you don't measure up to your sisters?"

This time Lincoln stopped and turned around. He knew there was no one else in the street. He could hear his own voice and he knew it was coming from inside his mind. But even then, it felt alien to him, and he felt a chill running down his spine.

He shook his head and continued to walk, but the doubt was there, and his heart entered a state of turmoil. Negative emotions poured from his every pore. Inadequacy, insecurity, fear, anger, all aimed at himself.

"They're great, unlike you. They're powerful, unlike you. You keep disappointing them, you keep messing everything up. How can you keep them safe if you can't even understand your Archetype?"

His grip on Mr. Coconuts tightened, his fingers threatening to break the puppet's arm. He didn't know where these thoughts were coming from, but he couldn't argue against them. And the more he walked and the closer he got to his destination, the less his intrusive thoughts remained silent.

By the time he knocked on the door, his face had morphed into a somber expression, and every insecurity he ever held had surfaced beyond concealing. He gulped nervously as he waited, a pang of guilt hitting him when he heard Sid's voice calling "Coming!".

When she opened the door and faced him, he tried to smile at her, but he wasn't sure about how much of a good job he did. Sid's smile hesitated when she saw him, and her eyes quickly scanned him, taking notice of his attire once again.

"Lincoln?" She asked, closing the door to hide half her body as her cheeks turned red. "What are you doing here?"

"Hey, Sid," he said, clearing his throat and trying to stand straight with broadened shoulders. "I wanna apologize for yesterday."

"Oh. Oh!" It seemed to him that something clicked on her, and she opened the door wider, almost inviting him in.

He wondered what she thought he was doing there before that.

"You don't have to apologize for anything. I'm the one that should be sorry for making Ronnie Anne angrier at you."

"No, it's fine. It's not your fault."

"She just saw us at the worst possible time."

"Yeah."

"Not that it was bad!" She quickly corrected, almost afraid that she'd said something wrong. "It was great!"

"Uh…"

"I was having a great time. With you! But not, like, the way Ronnie Anne thought we were! Unless you—!" Moving faster than the eye could follow, she slapped herself in the face so hard Lincoln felt the recoil. She sighed and looked at him, suddenly calm and collected. "The point is you have nothing to worry about."

Well, he felt quite worried about the red hand-shaped mark on her face, but he decided it would be best to get to the point.

"I appreciate that, but you and your family called an Exorcist to deal with a ghost, and I'm here to make sure you get that taken care of."

"Aww, that's so sweet," she said, looking at him with glowing eyes. "But it's okay, don't worry, you don't have to do anything."

"She doesn't trust you," his own voice said, whispering into his mind. "She knows you'll just make everything worse."

"I won't fail you again," he replied, taking a bold step forward. Sid seemed surprised by his movement and step aside, allowing him access to her home. "I was unprepared yesterday, but now I have what it takes to exorcise your house. For real this time."

"Lincoln, that's very kind of you, but seriously, after you left we—"

A sharp RING! bell came from the kitchen, a sound Lincoln was all too familiar with thanks to his own cooking.

"Are your parents home?" He asked.

"Uh… not exactly…"

He noticed how Sid's hands were now anxiously playing with locks of her hair. He squinted his eyes, and emboldened by his determination to get this done and end her nightmare, he went to the kitchen.

"Lincoln, wait!"

He knew he was being rude by ignoring the pleas of the host, but the voice inside his head kept pushing him, taunting him, reminding him of how much of a failure he was. He wouldn't step back, not now, not when he had an evil entity to banish, not when an evil ghost had been haunting and terrifying a family for several nights in a row. With a scowl on his face and Mr. Coconuts held tightly, he walked into the kitchen.

The moment he stepped inside, he came to a halt, his jaw dropping. The glowing orb floated in the middle of the room with a miniature apron somehow tied around its ethereal midsection. Right below it, a metal tray with eight fresh home-baked muffins moved from the counter to the air, turning around like it was heading to the living room, but stopping right when it faced Lincoln.

The Exorcist and Orb seemed to have a Mexican standoff, both of them trying to assess the situation and make sense of what the other one was carrying and wearing. The seconds felt endless, and a falling needle would have been shushed for being too loud.

And then, within a moment, the tray fell to the ground, and a kitchen knife flew from the countertop straight towards Lincoln. He only had time to gasp in surprise, and his body didn't react in time.

Thankfully for him, Sid's assassin training paid off, and she managed to catch the knife inches before it sunk itself into Mr. Coconuts.

"Charlie! No! Lincoln's a friend!" She said, staring in shock at the so-far-friendly orb. "We don't throw knives at our friends!"

She winced and turned back to look at Lincoln with an apologetic expression.

"Sorry, I think he got that from me."

"Did you just call the orb Charlie?" He asked, finding that one detail to be the one that bothered him the most.

"What am I supposed to call them? Orby?"

"It's a ghost! You shouldn't name or give food to ghosts! They'll never leave your home if you do, everyone knows that!"

"Well, I'm not everyone!" She said, crossing her arms over her chest and pouting away from him. "I tried to tell you, Charlie's been good, they just wanted a home! We had a sleepover, I read them some books, they painted my nails, and—"

He was too focused on Sid to notice, but she caught some movement from the corner of her eye, and she grabbed Lincoln by his trench coat, making him duck just in time to avoid a roll of paper towels that tried to wrap him up.

"Charlie, stop!"

Mr. Coconuts' eyes glowed with blue light, and its mouth began to move on its own. "Evil entity detected. To capture its essence, please aim the Soul Cage at it and remove the red Ofuda on the back."

Lincoln glanced at the puppet, finding the red rectangular paper with Japanese writing on it.

Charlie heard it too, and the entire kitchen seemed to come to life. Glasses, towels, cups, and all sorts of enamelware rose in the air, and Sid barely had time to grab a frying pan before everything was launched at Lincoln and his puppet. Sid tried to deflect as much as she could, but Lincoln had to dodge and retreat to the kitchen to escape the onslaught of an angry cook.

This truly was Hell's Kitchen.

"Lincoln, I'm fine, really!" Sid said, glancing over her shoulder as she kept deflecting forks, spoons, and muffins. "You don't need to capture Charlie! They're super nice!"

"She's lying," he heard his own voice say, but this time it wasn't coming from his mind, it seemed to come from Mr. Coconuts itself. "She doesn't think you're good enough to do this. She still thinks you're just the Harem King, that Ronnie Anne is right. Prove her wrong! Remove the charm!"

"Lincoln, no! That's not true! I think you're awesome!"

"What would Luan say if you failed her again?" The head of the puppet twisted in a 180º angle, looking at him with its dead, wooden eyes. "She'll blame herself, she'll think she needs to keep doing these jobs herself because she can't even trust her brother. Are you going to let her dreams crumble? Will you make her live a life she hates?!"

The orb entered the room, and now the furniture around him began to shake as it hovered over the floor. Lincoln didn't know what to say, what to think, what to do. Everything was chaotic, everything felt surreal.

"Lincoln, do it!"

He gasped, recognizing Luan's voice.

"Do it for me!"

It didn't matter that nothing made sense. It didn't matter that he was confused. He felt overwhelmed with emotions, and at that moment, he just wanted two things.

One, for this confusion and chaos to end.

And two, most importantly, to make Luan proud.

Just as the cables from the TV were slithering closer to him, about to tie him up, he grunted and tore the red ofuda apart. The moment the charm was broken, a small explosion of red smoke sent him flying against the closest wall. He felt the air leave his lungs, and it took him a bit to catch his breath. What he saw then made his blood go cold, and he realized with dread and desperation that he'd done something terrible.

Mr. Coconuts hovered in the air, a red mist escaping from its open mouth like a geyser, filling the room with an eerie, bloody glow. A current of air seemed to be making the red mist circle around the room like a blood hurricane, and the wind howled with the sound of dozens of moaning voices. Sid was screaming in terror, covering her face with her forearms, and Charlie the Orb stood in front of her, creating what seemed to be a barrier of blueish air that deflected the red tendrils of smoke.

"Oh, no…" Lincoln said, standing up with shaking legs.

A terrifying laugh echoed inside the room. "The evil that was once vanquished shall rise anew!"

The lights seemed to dim, flickering like embers that struggled to stay ablaze in the face of darkness. More and more smoke kept pouring out of Mr. Coconuts, until at last, the puppet fell with a thud to the floor, bouncing in place before stopping, devoid of life and just as inert as it was created. The crimson fog kept cycling around the room, until it all condensed into a single shadow that stood tall and menacing, with four glowing orbs that were squinted in Lincoln's direction.

"You have just ensured the doom of this world," it said with a voice as loud and violent as thunder. "Your failure to tap into the hidden powers within your soul has freed me. And such power will serve me well once my essence surges through your veins."

With shaking hands, Lincoln took the pistol he carried and fired a full round of silver bullets, but they seemed to not affect the shadow of the demon, much to the evil's delight.

"No, no, no," Lincoln said, looking for something else in his trenchcoat. He waited for his archetype to activate, to tell him what to do, to take over his instincts as it'd done with Leni and Luna. For his body to move on its own and save him.

But this time, he was helpless. Hopeless.

With a roar, the shadow launched itself at Lincoln, who could only stand there and watch as claws of red smoke tried to close themselves around him…

...only for him to be shoved away from them. He rolled on the floor, but Charlie appeared next to him and forced him to stand up like a puppeteer.

"You saved me," he said, looking at the orb with gratitude.

But before he could properly thank the orb, an invisible hand moved his head to the center of the room, and Lincoln's heart stopped beating.

"SID!"

Right where he'd been standing but a second ago, Sid was now on her knees, squirming in discomfort and pain as the red mist gathered around her. Lincoln tried to run to her, but he crashed into the same blue barrier that had been protecting his friend.

He was left with no other choice than to watch as Sid's body began to change. Her fingers stretched and curled into scythe-like claws, her whole skin turned red as blood, two black bat-wings spread from her back, and her eyes glowed red, with an extra pair appearing right above them.

After a few seconds, the charming, kind Sid stood up in the middle of a red magic circle with a pentagram, her demonic form laughing with a voice that didn't belong to her, licking her lips with a forked tongue. She began to laugh and finally spread her wings and arms, looking straight at Lincoln with a wicked grin.

"At last, Diablo walks the Earth!"

Ever so slowly, a discarded K-Pop magazine was lifted from the floor. Lincoln knew what was coming, but made no effort to stop it from rolling up and hitting him hard in the back of the head.

He kinda deserved it.

AN: If you couldn't tell, I'm really excited for Diablo 2 Resurrected coming out in a few days.