Greetings, you beautiful people! This is Exotos135, bringing you my newest long fic, Chains of Reality!
So, after I finished The Loud Sim Date (Don't read it, you won't be able to stomach it) I was kind of on hold on what I would do next. Should I make a sequel? Should I make something new? Well, this fic's existence should answer your question, but nevertheless, I got to work on this soon after I finished TLSD. Also, this story will only update on sundays. Probably not every sunday, but definitely sundays.
Now, before you move on to the fic, let me tell you this is going to be long. Probably only slightly longer than TLSD, but still quite long. I'm also writing by the seat of my pants, so if you have any ideas for the fic, that doesn't conflict with what I already have planned, then go ahead and suggest your ideas. And with that said, onto the story! And don't forget to read and review!
Songs referenced: None.
Chapter 1: A Mysterious Dream! Lincoln Looks for Answers!
"Do you remember... Lincoln?"
Those words made the boy wake up in a cold sweat, though he could immediately tell he wasn't in his room. Indeed, he wasn't even in his Royal Woods, Michigan anymore. He was currently in a floating piece of ground, surrounded by several other pieces of ground, with some strange artifacts in them.
The background was nothing more than a grey, clouded "sky" that had electricity surround it every once in a while, the only sound around was apparently quiet ambience, and there was no sign of any other living being in there.
"What is this place?" Lincoln asked as he got up and took a look around. "How did I end up in here?"
The boy jumped from his featureless platform to a similar one with a phone in the middle. He approached the object, grabbed it... And the location changed almost immediately; All but the platform Lincoln was on vanished from existence, the clouded sky went from grey to light blue, and the ambiance was replaced by constant ringtones, followed by a particular thing appearing above Lincoln.
It was Lori, or someone who looked like her, bounded and restrained by blue wrapping with a keyhole in the middle of it. "Lori?!" Lincoln exclaimed as he dropped the phone in shock, and the location turn back to normal and the platforms return.
"Huh, so when I grabbed the phone, this place changed?" the white-haired kid though in contemplation. "Let's see what happens if I grab anything else."
He jumped to another platform, with a football in the middle. He grabbed it, and, just as he predicted, the location transformed again; the remaining platforms vanished, the sky became crimson red, the ambiance was replaced by what sounded like a sports game, and someone who looked like Lynn was suspended above Lincoln, with the only difference from Pseudo-Lori being that her wrapping was red.
The boy dropped the football, and another platform jump later, Lincoln grabbed its object: a flower.
The clouded sky went from grey to yellow, and the quiet ambiance was replaced with constant, demonic laughter, and Pseudo-Luan appeared above Lincoln, bounded and restrained by yellow wrapping. She was also seemingly crying and laughing at the same time.
After dropping the flower, Lincoln went through a pattern: Go to another platform, grab it's object, see what happens and which bounded and restrained sister pops up. She was either dreaming about playing in a game, or practicing for one, but she was definitely moving in a rather spastic rhythm.
The next object was a tiara. Upon grabbing it, the sky became pink, the ambiance was replaced by pop music, and Pseudo-Lola was suspended above in pink wrapping. She was attempting to pull off some poses, but alas, her current position made that very difficult.
After that was a wrench. The sky became blue, the ambiance was replaced with a waterfall, and Pseudo-Lana was suspended in the air in blue wrapping. She was trying to break free from her restraints, to no avail.
Next was a bat-winged headband, for some reason. Funnily enough, the location barely changed once Lincoln touched the object; the sky remained the same, the ambiance remained the same, all that changed was that Pseudo-Lucy popped up, with her wrapping making it look she was... hanging around, if you get what I mean. She was completely motionless, but for some reason, she gave off a... Pleased atmosphere. She even giggled at random.
Next item was a guitar. The sky became violet, the ambiance was replaced with rock music, and Pseudo-Luna appeared suspended above him in violet wrapping. She was apparently singing, or maybe praying, something in a very quiet tone of voice.
Next thing was a pair of glasses. The sky turned dark green, the ambiance was replaced with mechanical noises, and Pseudo-Lisa appeared suspended above him in a gibberish-filled dark green wrapping. The girl seemingly used her mouth to write in her wrapping.
The penultimate item was... A blanket. The sky glitched and switched between violet, white and yellow, the ambiance was replaced by constant crying, and a seemingly armless and legless baby appeared next to Lincoln, right before she sprouted arms and legs and crawled to him. Needless to say, he dropped the object in an instant.
Finally, Lincoln went to a platform with another pair of glasses, though these ones were definitely more fashionable. He grabbed them, and while the sky turned seafoam green and the ambiance was changed by mall music, chains popped out of seemingly anywhere-from the sky, the platform, the glasses themselves-as the final sister popped out of thin air, suspended in light green wrapping...connected to a bunch of chains: One pink, one blue, one green, one dark grey and one lavender. No doubt this was Pseudo-Leni.
However, unlike the other sisters, who all had their eyes closed, Pseudo-Leni's eyes were open. Not only that, but she looked strictly at Lincoln, her stare following him as he moved around and he returned the stare.
"Lincoln... Do you remember me?"
The boy looked around for the source of the voice, all while Pseudo-Leni continued to stare at him.
"Lincoln... Look at my while I'm talking to you."
Again, the boy could only look for the source of the voice, while Pseudo-Leni narrowed her eyes in annoyance.
"Lincoln... I'm, like, literally above you."
It was in that moment that Lincoln realized something: Pseudo-Leni was talking to him. How was she doing that, he didn't know, but it was clear it was her voice speaking.
"It's good to see you again! Did you meet the rest?"
Figuring she was talking about the other pseudo-sisters, Lincoln nodded while forcing a nervous smile.
"We missed you... Did you miss us?"
The boy couldn't answer, mostly because a bunch of amorphous... Things popped out of the platform and approached him.
"Do you remember us?"
The amorphous things morphed into the sisters, who then proceeded to grab and restrain Lincoln, all while Pseudo-Leni continued to look at him.
"Do you remember me?"
Luckily, Lincoln soon woke up screaming, now back in his room in the middle of the night. He took a look around to verify he was back in the real world, and once he saw he really was back home, there was only one thing in his mind:
"What the heck was that all about?!"
And then Lori barged into his room, looking quite cranky herself. Maybe he shouldn't have said that out loud.
"Hey, twerp, your stupid girl-worthy scream woke me up from my beauty sleep!" she complained as she walked to Lincoln and made him look at her. "I mean, hearing you scream once is annoying, but twice is just too much! Listen, all of us-even the less pretty Louds like Lola-"
"Hey!" Lola whined from afar.
"Have to take our beauty sleeps if we want to both look good and not act cranky the ensuing day," Lori explained before narrowing her eyes and leaning forward to Lincoln. "So, tell me what the heck happened that made you scream so hard. I'll see if I can help you-and us-sleep properly for the remainder of the night."
Though hesitant for a moment, Lincoln eventually took a deep breath and explained his dream to her. "I found myself in the middle of some bizarre location: A bunch of floating platforms with items in them, seemingly lifeless, and whenever I grabbed one of the items, it changed appearance and revealed girls like you and the rest of our sisters, bonded and restrained by
Lori immediately flinched at the last part. "D-Did you... see some sort of Leni-like figure, suspended above you, bounded by light green wrapping?" she stammered, raising an eyebrow.
"Yeah, I did," Lincoln answered, scratching the back of his head and raising an eyebrow.
Lori covered her mouth and turned away, shivering as she did. "L-Lori, do you know something about that dream?" Lincoln asked, frowning in worry. "Please, tell me you know something!"
But all Lori did in response was turn to the door and walk away as she ordered her younger brother: "Lincoln, forget you ever had that dream, and don't even try to get it again. It's for your own good. And definitely don't go into my room to get any answers."
And she didn't even give Lincoln an explanation, she simply left the room and went back to her own. The boy grew curious about Lori's reaction, but going to Lori's room would be basically suicide, so it's not like he could find out more about it right now. So he fell asleep, determined to get some answers tomorrow.
The next day, Lincoln woke up and the first thing he did... Was do his usual morning routine. Brush his teeth, get dressed, nothing unusual. But then, he approached Lori-who was checking stuff on her phone-as soon as he could and caught her attention.
"Lori, we need to talk!" the boy vehemently stated.
"Oh wow, it looks like I got a friend request from "Distraction"! I heard they're a very popular person," Lori replied, solely focusing on her phone. "I might as well write to them thanking them for the friend request. Would you be a dear and bother Lisa while I'm busy with this super important stuff?"
Intentionally or not, Lincoln agreed and went straight for Lisa and Lily's bedroom. Even if Lisa did some sort of crazy experiment in the process, she was bound to be more helpful than Lori.
Once he went inside the room, Lisa was playing cards against Lily... And was apparently losing. "You cheating baby of an-" once she spotted the guy, though, Lisa immediately put on a stoic façade. "Oh hi, Lincoln, I was just trying to verify Lily's intelligence with a friendly game of cards."
"And how many times has she beaten you?" Lincoln scoffed, crossing his arms with an amused smile.
"3, and it's about to be 4," the genius begrudgingly confessed. "She's cheating your way to victory, I just know it!"
Then Lily blew a raspberry at Lisa.
"Well, whatever you're trying to accomplish, I need to talk with you about something," Lincoln said as he walked closer to Lisa. "Listen, last night, I had a bad dream involving the sisters, some weird alternate dimension, and a bunch of items-"
"Is that the reason why screamed like a girl last night?" Lisa nonchalantly asked, and Lincoln nodded while Lily giggled. "Hmm, what made you wake up?"
"Well, I grabbed a pair of fashion glasses similar to Leni's, and a girl similar to her popped up," Lincoln hesitated before he added, scratching the back of his head with worry. "She asked me if I remembered her, if I remembered her sisters, and then amorphous things shaped like them came out of nowhere and tried to do things to me! Also, a Lily-like figure was there for some reason."
The baby dropped the card she was about to eat.
"That certainly sounds both intriguing and perturbing," Lisa remarked, scratching her chin. "However, I can't really tell you anything about it. What you gave me is too vague for me to come to a logical conclusion."
"Figures," Lincoln said in disappointment. "Well, thanks for the help anyway."
With that said, Lincoln bid farewell to the duo and left as Lisa waved goodbye. And then he was grabbed by Lori. "Listen up, twerp, I told you to forgot about that dream for your own good," she hissed. "What makes you think that ignoring my warnings won't bring you trouble?!"
"Hey, it's not my fault!" Lincoln growled in return. "I asked you to give me answers since you seemed to know something about it, but you didn't give me anything!"
"Lincoln, I'm serious, forget you ever had that dream!" Lori demanded, slapping Lincoln in the cheek. And as the boy grabbed his cheek and shivered, Lori gave him a clear warning: "If you keep trying to bother everybody else with that dream, your butt's going to feel the palm of my hand next!"
She then dropped Lincoln on the floor and walked back to her room, all while she couldn't help but mentally regret what she did. It was a good thing Lincoln remained behind and didn't follow her, since he was spared of seeing her worried.
"I'm sorry for doing that, Linc, but you have to understand that purchasing answers concerning that dream will only bring trouble," she mentally said, looking at the ground. "So please, for everyone's good, for your own good, forget you ever had that dream."
Once she was gone, Lincoln seriously considered actually doing what Lori told him and forget about the dream. But then, he spotted a familiar object on the ground of the living room: It was the wrench from the dream. Well, it was Lana's, but it's the same thing.
So he approached it, grabbed it and gave it a look as he wondered what it was doing just laying on the ground. After all, Lana wasn't known for leaving her tools anywhere. She wasn't that irresponsible. So he looked for the girl and found her near the kitchen, trying to fix a toaster.
"Hey, Lana, you left your wrench on the floor of the living room," Lincoln told the girl while showing her the object. "Could you please be more careful next time?"
But once the tomboy gave the wrench a look, her answer was rather blunt:
"That's not mine."
"... W-What do you mean it's not yours?" Lincoln asked, taking a step back.
Lana promptly took off her hat, then took out a wrench from it. "I always have my trusty wrench right here in my hat," she explained. "I've never seen that wrench before. Whoever that belongs to, it doesn't belong to me, sorry."
The tomboy returned to work while Lincoln looked at the wrench in sheer disbelief. "If this isn't Lana's wrench, then who does it belong to?" he mentally pondered as he went back to his room.
Once there, the boy decided to try something out and went to sleep on his bed, still holding the wrench in his hand. And just as he suspected, he returned to the mysterious plane, though this time it looked more like when he grabbed the wrench over there. However, there was one thing that didn't fit:
Pseudo-Lana wasn't suspended above him. In fact, from where he could see, Pseudo-Lana was nowhere to be seen. That is until she dropped from the sky and landed right in front of him... Before she jumped and proclaimed "It's-a me, Lana!" with a goofy tone.
Naturally, Lincoln was left confused, not only from the introduction, but how this girl looked. She looked the same as regular Lana, except her shirt was red and she had a frog on top of her hat. And then she went to fix a nearby fracture on the ground.
"Uh, hi," he greeted before handing "Lana" the wrench just as she took out her toolbox. "I assume this belongs to you?"
"Aw, thanks a lot, mister!" "Lana" said as she took the object-without even looking at Lincoln-and hid it in her hat. "I was about to call "her" for help before you came in!"
That statement immediately caught Lincoln's attention. "W-Who is this "her" you're talking about?" Lincoln asked before he clasped his hands and started pleading. "I-I need to know! Please, tell me!"
"I'm sorry, mister, but I'm afraid that-"
Once "Lana" turned to look at Lincoln, however, she was left speechless. Her eyes grew bigger as she walked closer to Lincoln and grabbed his hand, all while the boy himself could only look around in discomfort. "Is something wrong?" he asked, forcing a nervous smile.
"It's you..." "Lana" answered, giving Lincoln a big puppy-dog eyed look.
Naturally, not only did Lincoln not know what the girl was talking about, but he was caught off-guard when she gave him a tight hug. "Lincoln!" "Lana" exclaimed, shedding tears as she tightened the hug soon afterwards. "Oh my gosh, it's been so long! I thought I'd never see you again!"
"Um... H-Have we met before?" Lincoln nervously asked as he gently broke the hug. "I mean, you do look like someone I know, but I don't remember personally meeting you before."
That response made "Lana"'s mood instantly turn sour as she said with pity: "Oh, right, you forgot about us when you were taken away," and then she suddenly cheered up. "But since you're here right now, wanna see some cool tricks I've been practicing in my spare time?"
"You got tricks?" Lincoln asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Well, I don't like to brag, that's my twin sister's job," "Lana" promptly took out what seemed to be a wrench-sword hybrid right out of her hat, which she put on as she gave Lincoln a wink and smile. "But I do have quite a couple of tricks up my sleeves! And my hat. Mostly my hat. Would you like for me to give you a demonstration?"
Just before he could give her an answer, Lincoln watched a portal open nearby and, not wanting to find out what would come out of it, he hastily answered, "Sorry, but I need to go-"
"But you just got here!" "Lana" whined, her mood turning sour. "Why do you have to leave?!"
Lincoln pointed at the portal and "Lana" flinched once she saw it.
"Oh, I see. Yeah, getting out of here is the smart choice," she remarked, tightening her grip on her wrench before she turned to Lincoln with a hopeful look. "W-Well, you'll come back soon, right?"
The boy looked at the ground, then approached and gently brushed "Lana"'s hair. "I'll try my best to do that, I promise."
With that said, Lincoln woke up back in the real world, and the first thing he heard was Luna calling for him: "Hey, Lincoln, come eat breakfast!"
"Coming!" Lincoln shouted as he got off his bed.
And as the boy headed downstairs, he looked at his hand... And saw that he no longer held the wrench. However, what caught his attention the most was the "dream" he just had: It simply brought so many questions to his mind...
"Just who was that girl, and why did she look like Lana?" he thought, narrowing his eyes.
-Next Time, on Chains of Reality-
"I don't know, what if Lori hears us?" Lincoln replied.
"Then whisper it," Luan said in a quite tone similar to a whisper. "That way, this is something between us."
After thinking about the suggestion for a moment, the boy nodded, then leaned closer to Luan's ear before whispering her about the dream:
"In my dream, I found myself in a dark location, in the middle of what seemed like a black void. The only thing other than me were a bunch of disconnected platforms, with objects in each of them, and the flower was one of them. Not only that, when I grabbed the objects, the other platforms disappeared and the place changed. But most importantly, I found what seemed like versions of you and the other sisters, suspended above me, bounded and gagged with wrapping, and with keyholes in the wrapping as well."
By the time Lincoln finished, Luan's reaction wasn't what he expected. As in, she wasn't shocked or horrified at the dream, but she looked outright baffled. "If I didn't knew any better, I'd say that you heard a particularly dark poem Lucy wrote," she remarked, brushing Lincoln's hair while forcing a smile. "But nevertheless, I wish you good luck in returning to that weird dream place."
"Thanks, Luan," Lincoln replied, giving the prankster a wink.