AN: Because this is a Loud House story about Lynn in which the concept of luck is explored, I am legally required by federal law to mention that I have never seen No Such Luck and have only read like two of the infamously plentiful NSL fics all the way through, and I'm pretty sure they weren't even some of the most well known ones. So this wasn't written in response to No Such Luck or its reception amongst the fanbase or anything like that. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this story.
When Lynn stepped up to bat for the first softball game of July, she did so in a suit of armor. Not one of chainmail and steel plates, of course; she wore her red and white Royal Woods Squirrels uniform just as the rest of her teammates did, with a few small variations. No, hers was a far more powerful shield.
It was one made out of luck.
She had spent the prior two weeks gathering them: every charm, token, and symbol that she could think of. If she was a force to be reckoned with before, when all she had were her pre-game rituals and lucky jockstrap, then now she was unstoppable.
Some were much easier to find than others. For example, her cricket. Lana already had to collect them anyway, along with mealworms and other insects, to feed her many pet amphibians, so obtaining one was simply a matter of going to her little sister's room and reaching into the cardboard box that Lana stored the bugs in to pick one out. She felt rather like an old god, vengeful and uncaring, as she made the decision of which lucky creature would be spared having to be gulped down the gaping maw of Hops the frog.
After careful consideration, she plucked a grasshopper that was juicy and fat from that writhing mass of countless legs and translucent wings and held it in her grip, taking care not to squeeze too tightly lest its exoskeleton shatter. It now sat in the dugout in a glass baby-food jar with holes poked into the lid, one that Lynn emptied of its contents and filled with grass and leafs for her new pet as a sort of makeshift terrarium. Originally, her plan was to tie a rope around the jar and sling it around her waist as she went to bat, but she thought better of it. There was no way it would be able to survive all of the sliding from base to base she was sure to do on that day. Instead, it would have to wait in the dugout, where it could emanate good fortune like radio waves.
Her nazar and horseshoe as well were simple finds. The glass pendant of blue and white and black, designed to ward off the evil eye, was simply laying in wait in one of Lucy's drawers, one that was full to the brim with magick paraphernalia like witch hazel and shattered robin eggs and what looked suspiciously like a small doll made in Lynn's likeness. It now hung across her neck, as did a horseshoe stolen from Pop-Pop's nursing home in the outdoor recreation center. It was uncomfortable, that large slab of metal pressing down on her chest, and as she walked to home plate every step sent that black iron medallion thumping painfully into her ribcage. It would be worth it, though, when she hit her first of what was sure to be many home runs.
Still, her most powerful charms came with the heaviest tolls, like her lucky rabbit's foot. After promising to never dutch oven him again, agreeing to do his chores for a month, and utilizing her infamous "puppy dog eyes," Lincoln very reluctantly agreed to let her have Bun-bun's left leg. It was either that or take one off of Luan's magic show rabbit Gary, which even Lynn knew would be much too cruel to go through with. Besides, Bun-bun's foot would be infused with Lincoln's sentimental love, which Lynn figured would make it twice as lucky. With the delicacy of a surgeon Leni snipped the appendage from the rabbit's body, sewed a checkerboard patterned prosthetic she'd made to the stuffed animal as a replacement, attached the old leg to a keychain, and looped it around Lynn's wrist.
It broke her heart, having to tear apart something her brother loved so dear, but she just kept telling herself that she'd make much better use of the leg than Bun-bun ever could. It wasn't like the stuffed animal could get around on its own anyway without Lincoln's help. With a thankful kiss to Bun-bun's felt cheek and a warm hug for her brother, Lynn set off for her ultimate prize; a four-leaf clover. It took her hours of searching high and low through her backyard and the vast fields of Ketchum Park before she finally found it, and her arms and legs still bore scratches from crawling through thorny brambles in search of it, but she knew she would be rewarded in the end. It now fit inside her pocket, safe and secure in the sleeve of a hard plastic baseball card holder. The shamrock alone was lucky enough, and when used in conjunction with her other tokens and rituals, she was practically a hero of legend. A modern day king (or, in her case, queen) Arthur.
And if her lucky charms constituted her armor, then her bat was her own personal excalibur.
She stood at home plate and did as she always did before she could swing away with any sort of confidence. She spun in a circle five times, twice clockwise and thrice counterclockwise, ignoring that the opposing team probably thought she was mad (her own team was long used to her superstitions, and so watched without a care). Every time her foot made contact with the ground, she felt a subtle pressing into her heel; it was the penny she picked up that morning and placed into the sole of her cleat. See a penny/pick it up/all day long you'll have good luck, as the old rhyme went.
The ceremony complete, Lynn looked out at her competition and stifled a laugh. A motley crew of rag tags, the Huntington Oaks Marlins were the kind of underdog team that, were Lynn living in a cliche sports movie, would surely end up winning the day. But this was no movie. Looking bored and unfocused, most of them stood as if they had wandered onto the diamond by mistake, fanning themselves with their gloves in the hot sun and swatting away in alarm at the crane flies that hovered in the air, not knowing that the insects were harmless. Even without her lucky charms, beating them would've been an easy task.
Poor Francisco never stood a chance.
He stood on the pitcher's mound with his hat pulled low over his eyes, tufts of his ink-black hair peeking from beneath the brim all sweat drenched and glimmering, though the brim couldn't completely hide the light shade of red that bloomed on his cheeks as soon as Lynn stepped up. Whether it was a sunburn or because he was blushing she wasn't sure, though she hoped it was the latter. Lean and muscular, he was easily the most capable looking member of the Marlins, not that it would do him much good. His handsome face was contorted in an expression so determined and serious that it was as if he thought his team had a chance of taking hers' on. It was kind of cute. How she almost hated having to send him crashing back down to earth, but she knew she could make it up to him.
In her mind's eye she saw it; he'd be sitting in the bleachers after the game, and anybody who didn't know him as well as she did would think he was perfectly fine. But she noticed so many things about him, things that she found so adorable; how he'd bite his chapped lower lip with his chipped tooth whenever he was upset, how he'd fiddle with the strap of his catcher's glove when he was nervous, how he'd scratch at his left shin (never his right) with his spiky cleats when he was feeling dejected.
In her fantasy, he was doing all of those things.
Such a good sport, trying to hide how disappointed he was that his team lost. She had learned to be a good sport too, and a gracious winner. Even though her first instinct would be to gloat in his face, she'd quell that urge and instead sling her arm around his shoulder and tell him that there was no shame in being second best to her, that he had put up a good fight, and that even if he had lost the game he was still a winner in her book. Then, still high from victory, she'd pull him in and plant a quick kiss to his cheek (maybe his lips, depending on how daring she felt) to show him that she meant it.
What better way was there to follow up on the love letter she had slipped him at the start of the summer and confirm without a shadow of a doubt that she was its author?
Together, they'd sit in the bleachers to watch the sunset and to look out at the lightning bugs that would hover over and illuminate the baseball diamond once it was dark. A perfect end to a perfect day.
All of these fantasies played out in her mind in an instant before she returned her focus to the task at hand. Gripping her bat firmly, she got into her stance and prepared herself. The crowd had gone mostly silent, most likely out of awestruck respect for such a legendary ball-player. All except for one voice, louder than all the others. It belonged to Leni.
"Hey batter-batter-batter hey batter-batter-batter suh-WING!" All of a sudden her voice cut out as no doubt Lori was explaining to her that she was supposed to taunt the opposing team, not Lynn's, and sure enough, a moment later Leni called out again, "Oops, sorry Lynn! Swing whenever you want!" Lynn smiled. Classic Leni.
Lynn and Francisco stared each other down across the forty-six feet from home plate to pitcher's mound like twin samurai in an ancient battlefield. The drama of it all was undercut slightly when a noisy rumble escaped Lynn's stomach. Her lower gut was a typhoon, and while at least twenty percent of it was simply butterflies in her stomach from staring at her crush for so long, the other eighty percent was from the spicy meatball sub she had eaten two days prior and that had been laying in wait ever since. It was a sound theory, one that Lisa would've been proud of; If it was bad luck to bomb the bowl the day before a big game, then it was only logical that it should be double-plus good luck to refrain from using the bathroom for two days before a big game. Sure, it was horribly uncomfortable now, and her teammates loudly protested, but that would just make it all the sweeter when she finally did rush into her bathroom to do her business after her victory. Crude as it was, she had to admit; there were few better feelings in the world than a post-game deuce.
After what seemed like an eternity, finally Francisco wound up his throw, standing for an instant on one leg like a king heron, and pitched a devastating fastball like a bullet.
Lynn swung a little too high. "STEEE-RIKE ONE!" the umpire yelled.
No matter. She still had two chances left. She took a deep breath of that scorching ballpark air and calmed herself. Another pitch came, this time a curveball, and again her bat hit nothing.
"STEEEEEEEEEE-RIKE TWO!"
One shot remained, but still Lynn's confidence didn't falter. If anything, she reasoned, it was good that she had two strikes. Francisco was probably feeling awfully proud of himself now, as getting even two strikes on Lynn Loud was a rare accomplishment for even the best pitchers. Lynn had no objections to the thought of her crush's self-esteem getting a boost, even if it came slightly at her expense. As long as her bat made contact with the ball during the next throw, then she could still say her lucky charms were working their magic.
He pitched a third time, and the sound of the baseball cracking against wood echoed through the field as loudly as Fourth of July fireworks. A tremor like that of one of Luan's hand-buzzers multiplied one-thousand-fold shot up Lynn's arm as she watched the ball soar into the air towards the scoreboard. She wished that it was night, so that when that ball inevitably smashed into the screen the resulting sparks could be clearly visible to everyone.
To thunderous applause she started to run to first base, not bothering to sprint. She wanted to savor this moment for as long as she could; the taste of victory, the adulation of the spectators, and the knowledge that all of the trouble she had gone through to collect her lucky charms had payed off. She was Lynn Loud Jr: athlete, warrior, champion, and above all else, winn-
"YOU'RE OUT!" the umpire called, and all of a sudden everything came crashing down. Panicked and confused, she searched the field for how this new development was possible, and that's when she saw that her "home run" had run out of steam long before it could shatter the scoreboard. The ball was now held in the glove of some outfielder who Lynn didn't recognize, a girl who looked as surprised as Lynn did that she had managed to catch it.
Lynn did not throw a fit. She simply walked back to the dugout in disbelief, wondering how her tokens could've failed her and desperately coming up with a new game plan. Perhaps she would, after all, tie her cricket around her waist as she had originally planned. Yes, that must've been the reason she hadn't scored a run. Come to think of it, she should probably spin around seven times (seven was a much luckier number than five, after all) before going up to bat again, just to be on the safe side. This out was just a fluke, a freak occurrence, a minor setback that would not be repeated.
Next time it was her turn to bat, she'd show them all how lucky she was.