At the Loud house, Lynn Loud was getting ready to start her daily training routine the only way she knew: Sitting on the couch, eating a large meatball sandwich, while watching television. Sure, it may not work for 95% of humanity, but it worked for her, no matter what those jerks at the school said, dang it!
"Hey, Lynn!"
The athlete gulped down her meatball sandwich in one swift bite before turning to the voice calling her name. The voice turned out to belong to Lana Loud, her younger, fellow tomboy sister, who was holding a rolled up piece of paper.
"Oh, hello Lana," Lynn casually greeted as she got off the couch. "What do you need?"
"I found this treasure map that leads to a note, that will then lead to another note, and so on and so forth, until I'm potentially led to an amazing treasure!" the tomboy answered, with Lynn rolling her eyes at the redundancy. "I was wondering if you could come with me to help me find it."
"Well, I could do it, but I thought you would be far more comfortable doing it with Lola instead?" Lynn answered with a shrug. "I mean, you two are twins. It would certainly be a no-brainer that the best partner for an adventure like this-or any adventure for that matter-would be each other, right?"
"Lola's busy doing one of her beauty pageants," Lana somberly revealed. "It just started, too, so there's no way that she's coming back anytime soon. Besides, we never really get to hang out together, remember?"
"Lana has a point, either I'm too focused on my training routines or Lana's too busy with her playing in the mud or with reptiles to really hang out together," Lynn thought, scratching her chin as she pondered what to say next. "Well, Lana, you know-"
And then the plumber stated, "I challenge you to help me find the treasure!"
"Curses, my only weakness! Being challenged!" Lynn jokingly thought before getting off the couch and stretching. "Fine, you got me, let's do this treasure hunt together. What's the first clue?"
Lana read said clue out loud:
"For the next clue to reach the treasure, you must go to this place: Where music plays for your ears' pleasure, but the humor's hit or miss."
Lynn snapped her fingers, "Luna and Luan's bedroom!"
Lana raised an eyebrow, prompting Lynn to explain:
"Where music plays for your ears' pleasure" references how Luna's music is pretty good, as long as she isn't blasting it at full volume. "But the humor's hit or miss" should be fairly self explanatory."
Lana's lower eyelids went up, almost as if she was even more confused than before.
"Oh come on, that's the simplest way to explain it!"
"No, I'm not confused anymore, I'm just surprised you even managed to come to that conclusion," Lana rolled up the map and lifted it. "Anyway, It's a good idea! Off to Luna and Luan's bedroom!"
Lana ran off to the room, while the slightly upset Lynn folded her arms and followed her.
Luna and Luan's bedroom...
Once they were there, they separated and looked all around the room: Lana went to check the beds, while Lynn checked Luan's stage. And of course, for the most part, they couldn't find anything.
Hey, it wouldn't be a fun treasure hunt if the clues were out in plain view, right?
"Okay, the beds are clear," Lana said before jumping off the upper bed.
"So is Luan's stage," Lynn muttered.
Lana turned and saw why Lynn was muttering: She was covered in pie filling and feathers. "At least, from what I could find that weren't obvious prank setups. I swear, Luan must have some sort of addiction."
"And you found that out just now?" Lana asked with worry. "Ugh, where could that next clue be?"
"Okay, let's try to do something different," Lynn said as she shook off the pie filling and feathers. "We looked at the obvious places, but we have to look closer, look at some more subtle hiding spots."
"But seeing how we're dealing with Luna and Luan, there could be over a dozen hiding spots, specially in Luan's case!" Lana nervously pointed out.
However, Lynn apparently didn't listen, since she promptly walked to Luan's Mr. Coconuts puppet and slammed her fist inside him, causing Lana to wince.
"Lynn, good lord, at least look before you put your fist in there!" Lana shouted before she looked away from the scene in disgust. Seriously. "I mean, I'm into gross stuff and all that, but that's way too much for me!"
Lynn promptly took out a note from Mr. Coconuts' inside, and saw it was the next clue to the treasure. "Aha! I knew there had to be something fishy inside Luan's puppet!"
Lynn tried to hand the note to Lana, only for the blonde tomboy to vehemently refuse it.
"Oh no, don't even think I'm gonna take that!" the plumber remarked, folding her arms. "You took it out, so you should read it."
So the jock read thus:
"The next clue you're looking for, is hidden in this mistery: The room that reeks of misery, but hides a glorious victory."
Lynn didn't say anything, in fact, she seemed to be waiting for Lana to say something, which she did.
"Is something wrong, Lynn? You have no idea what this could mean?"
The jock answered thus:
"Well, first of all, I'm still angry at how you understimated me. And second, and the primary reason I'm keeping quiet, is 'cause I think it's fairly obvious what the clue's talking about. You should be able to figure it out on your own."
"Hmm... I know, we should look in your and Lucy's bedroom!" the plumber guessed.
"Correct!" Lynn clapped a bit, then put her hands on her hips. "And how did you come to that conclusion?"
"Uh, "reeks of misery" references Lucy's gloomy attitude, and "hides a glorious victory" could mean that wherever the next clue is, then it's probably hidden inside a trophy of some kid."
Lynn affectionately brushed Lana's hair. "Wow, my little sister's getting smarter! At this rate, you might even surpass Lisa!"
And as the duo headed off to look at that bedroom, Lisa could be heard shouting "Nonsense!" from afar.
Lucy and Lynn's bedroom...
Yet again, the first thing the duo did when they arrived was separate to look for the next clue: Lynn went to check Lucy's side of the room, while Lana went to check on Lynn's side of the room. Perhaps Lynn checking her own side would be too obvious?
"Okay, Lynn, you know this part of the room better than I do," Lana said as she looked at Lynn's bed. "Where do you think I should start looking?"
"Try my trophy case, while I check under Lucy's bed," the athlete answered, suddenly growing furious as she added, "And I swear, if she decided to hide another monster she summoned in there, I'm going to tell mom!"
Once she looked under the bed, however, all she saw was a picture of Lucy, with blonde hair and a pink dress, which her sisters picked up to help her win Rocky's affection. Upon seeing the picture, Lynn couldn't help but wince, and so she took the picture and started to tear it apart.
"Yeah, I'll just go ahead and destroy this with extreme prejudice," Lynn tore the picture to pieces, and even beyond, until there was nothing left but dust. "Might as well erase anything that would bring back memories of that... Incident."
And then Lana walked to the jock. "I already checked your trophies, and I didn't find the clue in any of them."
"What?! Maybe you didn't look close enough!" Lynn hopped onto her bed and started searching. "Alright, we're going to switch, I'll look at my side of the room, and you'll look at Lucy's side."
Lana just rolled her eyes and started to look, only to feel something odd under Lucy's pillow. And once she lifted it, she could see that it was a small trophy shaped like a poem, which quickly caught both the plumber and the jock's attention.
"Is that a trophy?!" Lynn exclaimed as Lana grabbed and took a closer look at thing. "What's a trophy doing under Lucy's pillow?"
"Best Gothic Poet 2017," Lana read the words on the plate the object was attached too. "Do you think that answers your question?"
"Oh right, now that you've read that, I remember that Lucy entered a Gothic literature contest for the best Gothic-type story people could write," Lynn remarked, scanning the trophy with subtle pride. "But she told most of us that she lost that contest. Why would she lie to us?"
"I think you may have something to do with that," the plumber got a look from the athlete, then explained thus:
"Lynn, everybody knows how you're the most competitive in the family: Whether it's a game of softball, or something as simple as a board game, you always end up becoming super determined to win it at all costs, to the point you'll refuse to admit it was your fault that you lost. Need I bring up the board game nonsense from a couple months back? It's very likely Lucy wanted to avoid inquiring your wrath, since you don't seem to like anybody getting trophies besides you."
"T-That's nonsense! I'm nothing like that!" Lynn vehemently stated, flailing her arms up and down. "I mean, some of our other sisters have trophy cases, right?"
"Didn't you throw a massive hissy fit whenever mom put up a new trophy case, though?" Lana casually pointed out, causing Lynn to freeze in place. "And then threw another one for every single trophy they got?"
If Lynn was frozen in place before, this time she was outright stuck inside ice. However, she did recover fast enough to sigh and say, "Okay, you have a point, how about you read the note already?"
Lana took out the note and read thus:
"The very next clue, is in a very bad predicament: For it's in a room, that may be in the middle of an experiment."
Then she complained, "Aw, this one doesn't rhyme as well as the last ones."
"I think the clue's talking about Lisa and Lily's room," Lynn remarked, scratching her chin. "I mean, Lisa's the first thing that comes to mind when it comes to experiments, so-"
"We need to go to their room, I know," Lana rolled her eyes. "Do you think it's such a good idea, though? Maybe Lisa's in the middle of one of her experiments right now?"
"That's not likely, since I remember her saying she had to go somewhere today," Lynn put her hands on her pockets. "Maybe some college to give a lecture, or some other building that would need a prodigy like her."
Meanwhile, at Darcy's house...
Lisa and Darcy sat at the couch, their eyes glued to the television as they were watching something befitting for a pair of toddlers: Blarney the Dinosaur.
"I love this episode," Darcy chirped.
"I find this episode enjoyable too," Lisa nodded. "I've heard stories that the show went downhill during the second season, though, and this is a season two episode, right?"
"Yeah, but it's actually not that bad for the most part," Darcy answered, waving her hand in a dismissive way. "Just avoid seeing "Reunion Ruckus" or "Lucky Locket" and you'll be fine."
Back at the Loud house, at Lily and Lisa's bedroom...
"Yup, she's definitely busy doing something important, that's just how she is," Lynn remarked as she and the plumber looked around the empty room. "Now, let's look at every inch and corner we can, and then get out of here as fast as we can."
"Why the rush?" Lana smirked. "Are you scared?"
"Lana, we're in Lisa and Lily's bedroom, and you know what kind of weird stuff Lisa likes to experiment with," Lynn answered as she started checking Lily's crib. "I just want to make sure we don't stay here for so long, we end up seeing something horrific."
"Now that you mention that, it really would be a good idea to find the clue as quickly as possible," Lana spoke while checking Lisa's documents. "We're gonna have to look extra carefully, though, the clue might be very well hidden."
The duo split up, and begun searching: Lana searched the documents, and Lynn checked under Lisa's bed. And though Lana had a right idea to look with the documents, she soon found it wasn't foolproof since there was several dozen paper documents for her to look at, with most of them being filled with words she didn't even understand.
"I found it!" the jock exclaimed in relief as she took out a note from under the bed.
Lana threw the papers away and ran to Lynn. "Really?!"
"Oh, no, wait, no, it's just her to-do list," the athlete deadpanly spoke. "The first thing on the list is to find a way to get the score even with Lily in board games, the second is to find a way that'll help us all learn our lessons, and stupid stuff like that. Ah well, let's keep looking."
And so the search continued. Will Lynn and Lana manage to find the next clue for the treasure hunt? Find out in the next episode, of Loud House Z-!"
"Found it!"
Oh, nevermind.
"Are you sure you got the right note this time?" Lana asked, folding her arms. "The last one you got wasn't what we were looking for, and you finding another note right afterwards is a bit suspicious."
Lynn smirked. "Well, how about I read it out loud?"
And so she read:
"To get the next clue, first you must find: A great communication spot, where livies a really dense mind."
"Lori and Leni's bedroom?!" Lynn and Lana exclaimed in unison.
"Well, I guess this treasure hunt was fun while it lasted," Lana said, saving the note on her pockets. "How about we go look for something else to do? I got some board games we can play."
Then, with surging determination, Lynn stated:
"No."
"No?! What do you mean no?!" Lana panicked. "Lynn, we can't go to Lori and Leni's bedroom and reasonably expect to come out of there alive!"
Lynn sighed. "You want to get that treasure, and I want to try and spend some time with you-"
Lana raised an eyebrow. "Didn't you want to beat my challenge or something?"
"Yeah, that too, and we're not going to back away just because we're scared to go into Lori and Leni's bedroom," Lynn proclaimed. "I mean, if we could come out of Lisa an Lily's bedroom unscathed, then certainly we can do the same with Lori and Leni's room!"
The plumber looked at the ground and shrugged, "Eh, I guess It's worth a shot."
The duo entered the dreaded bedroom, with the young plumber clinging to the athlete's leg, trying to stay calm as the cold atmosphere made them feel threatened.
"Lynn, are you scared?" Lana asked.
"What? Me? Scared? Not at all!" the jock boasted.
Lana promptly pointed at Lynn's shivering legs. "Then why are your legs shaking like jelly?"
"Oh, uh, that's because of the cold temperature!" the athlete answered with a nervous smile. "You see, I did some exercising earlier today, and some of the sweat remained with me, and due to the cold, the sweat kinda... I dunno, froze or something, and since most of it was in my legs, they're freezing cold!"
"Let's move on before you start digging too deep."
"Yeah, good idea."
And so, the duo took a couple more steps inside... Only for Lynn to step on something. Fortunately, it wasn't the limb of a pretzel-ized victim of Lori, or one of Leni's homemade clothes, but a piece of paper.
Close enough! Time to get the heck out of there!"
Once the duo were out of danger, they took a moment to catch their breath, and Lynn promptly read the note:
"This is the penultimate clue, it's all or nada: where the reptiles rest, and the devil wears prada."
"My and Lola's bedroom," Lana immediately stated, saving the clue on her pocket. "The instant the clue mentioned the devil, I knew it had to be related to Lola."
"Alright then, to your room!" Lynn proclaimed, putting her fists on her hips.
"What makes you think you can just ground me like that?"
"I mean, go to your room with me so we can look for the next clue!"
"I know, I was just messing with you!"
The duo bolted to the twins' room right away, with a good deal of relief too. They had just gone to Lori and Leni's bedroom and survive to tell the tale! Okay, so neither Lori or Leni were there, but still, they went there and got out just fine, that's what counts.
So the duo went to the twins' bedroom, which despite being the living room for the terrifying beast known as Lola Loud, it was definitely a lot more bearable than Lori and Leni's bedroom. At least in this room, the pair didn't feel like their very lives were threatened just by being there.
And just like in that bedroom, Lynn and Lana didn't need to look everywhere to find the next clue. It was basically hanging on the wall, and read:
"Go to the backyard"
"Wait, that's it?" Lynn complained. "We went all over the house just to be told that?!"
"Well, we needed to find this note first," Lana argued. "And besides, the journey is what matters most of the time, not the prize."
"But still, judging by this note, if we had gone to the backyard all along, we would've immediately found the treasure, right?" Lynn sheepishly scratched her chin. "Come to think of it, I can't believe I didn't think of that earlier."
"I can believe it," Lana scoffed. "Anyway, to the backyard!"
The plumber got on all four and ran to the backyard as fast as she could, while Lynn put her hands on her pockets and followed her, feeling both annoyed and exhausted from all the back and forth. So, once they were there, the girls found a surprise: Lola standing outside, with a sandbox right in the middle of the backyard.
"Oh, is that sandbox new?" Lynn asked, scratching her head. "I don't remember there being one of those here before, where did it come from?"
"I convinced mom and dad to set this thing up, in order to give you a little prize," Lola answered before striking a pose. "And guess what? This is the treasure you were looking for! All thanks to Lana!"
Lana lifted her arms in joy, but Lynn was mostly confused.
"So, wait a minute, you set up this entire treasure hunt, just so I would end up spending time with Lana?" Lynn turned to the plumber. "Why didn't either of you just ask me in the first place?"
"'Cause every time I tried before, you said no or otherwise gave me an excuse for why you couldn't do it, even when it was clear you had nothing to do," Lana folded her arms and looked away. "I just wanted to hang out with a sister that wasn't Lola, and I had grown tired of being rejected by you."
Lynn promptly asked, "Then why didn't you try to ask one of our other sisters?"
Only for Lana to bitterly mutter, "They were all just like you, they didn't want to hang out with me, whether they were busy at the time or just didn't want to do it."
"And so, in a very rare moment, I felt sympathy for my sister, and I helped her set all of this up so you two would finally do something together," Lola added, putting her hands on her hips. "And we decided to test our plan with you, because it was about time you stopped focusing so much on sports and exercising, and instead focus on spending time with your sisters!"
"Wait, I just thought of something: Why didn't you just ask Lincoln to hang out with you?" Lynn pondered, scratching her hair as Lana started to shiver. "He rarely does everything that could be considered important, so-"
Suddenly, the plumber snapped:
"I didn't want Lincoln, I wanted you!"
And as Lynn recoiled in surprise, Lana somberly continued:
"Lincoln almost always being available doesn't give you the right to never even consider doing anything with me! You never even give it a thought or anything, you just shrug it off as if it didn't matter to you. It's almost as if you cared about sports more than me."
"L-Lana, I didn't mean to make it look like that!" Lynn replied, trying to comfort the girl. "I just thought that whatever you wanted to do, we could do it later."
"But you never ask to hang out with me later, so how's that any different?" Lana sniffed.
"I think you two need some time alone," Lola stated as she took her leave. "See ya later."
Once the diva was out of sight, Lynn turned back to look at Lana sulking at the tree, in a fetal position. This sight made the jock feel emotional, which was just to be expected after what the girls just went through, so she walked to Lana and sat next to her.
"So, I guess we need to talk, don't we?" Lynn nervously asked, putting up a smile.
Lana's answer was blunt:
"Maybe, but I'm not sure I want to talk about sports right now."
The jock looked away and scratched her head, not sure on what she could, or should say next. That is, until she got an idea:
"Listen, Lana, I'm sorry that I made you feel that way, you know? I always thought you would be-"
"Lynn, shut up," Lana hissed, catching the athlete off-guard. "I've been trying for too long to get your attention, I put all of my effort into this little scheme, and it didn't even work! I'm just going to say it: I give up on trying to spend time with you!"
Lynn gasped in horror: One of her sisters, giving up on her? Specially the one she just spend a lot of time with running around the house?! She couldn't stand for this!
"Lana, take those words back!" the jock barked, though with desperation evident in her tone. "You know that the only thing that breaks my heart worse than giving up on something after giving it my all, is somebody close to me giving up on something after they try their best to achieve it! Specially because I caused you to give up!"
Without warning, the tomboy plumber shot a glare at Lynn, and stated:
"That's exactly why I'm giving up in your face!"
Lana went back to her fetal position, and seeing that her younger sister didn't want to be bothered by her-and for good reason-Lynn just stood up and walked to the sandbox. Hey, just 'cause she and Lana wouldn't be playing anymore didn't mean that the sandbox deserved to go to waste, right?
But then, something unexpected happened: Lana turned to look at Lynn playing alone at the sandbox, and promptly walked to her and offered her some tools to play with, like a cube, a toy shovel, and stuff like that.
"I thought you said you had given up on trying to play with me?" Lynn asked as she took the tools.
"That's right, I've given up on asking you to play with me," Lana looked away. "But, I never said the same about you asking me to play with you, but obviously, that's just-"
"Lana, would you like to play with me?"
The plumber flinched, and turned around to see Lynn giving her a little smile. The tomboy smiled herself, and holding back her tears, she just nodded before sitting next to Lynn and starting to build a sandcastle with her.
"I'm so sorry for acting the way I did, Lana," the jock said with a sincere tone.
"The best way you can earn my forgiveness is helping me build an amazing sandcastle!" the plumber replied as she built the base. "One that's as big as me!"
"Haha, why stop there?!" Lynn shrugged. "Let's make it as big as Lori!"
"Yeah! With alligators guarding the entrance!"
"And cannons at the top of the tower to defend it from the mythical wyverns!"
Hours went by as the duo continued to talk about their sandcastle, which they continued to build to the best of their ability, up until the sun was setting in the horizon. By the time they stopped, the sandcastle... was nothing spectacular. In fact, besides having an "L" printed on the "door", it looked just like every other small sandcastle.
And yet, neither of the girls seemed to mind.
"Ah well, we tried our best," Lana shrugged before gently hitting Lynn in the shoulder. "What do you say we go inside and call it a day?"
"Sure, but do you mind if I ask you something?" Lynn replied, earning a confused look from the plumber. "Would you like to play with me again, Lana?"
The plumber smiled and chirped, "I'd love to!"
And so, the duo got out of the sandbox, shook off the sand like dogs, and walked back hom while Lynn wrapped her arm around Lana's shoulder, with their sandcastle left behind for all to behold. And in front of the castle was its name:
"Fort Lynn & Lana"