A/N: Chapter 2 of Shadow Luck, as usual I own nothing since everything belongs to their respective owners. This one is mainly introspection about the Louds that will be playing a major role in this story. Not to say that the rest won't have a role, but the ones focused on here will have more significance.

Chapter 2

The denizens of the Loud House were many things. Hypocritical, brash, opinionated, and wild. But fist and foremost they were a loving family who cared for it's members unconditionally. That is not to say however that they were not idiots. There were numerous occasions where the only son of the family was blamed for something, be it something he didn't do, wasn't even involved in, or didn't have any evidence to convict him. He was always the one who got in trouble for no real reason.

And the Louds stupidly made this a common occurrence. Toilet's clogged? Well Lincoln just got back, and since clearly no one used it before then, and despite it not being clogged until right then, he must've somehow done it. Lincoln offers to go to the grocery store to get the groceries, and your ten daughters decide to go with him ultimately getting the family banned? Well despite the fact that he was doing so to get something, thus meaning that he would be on his best behavior and knowing of the girls' natural chaotic behavior, he must've done it. His sisters are the clear instigators? His fault. He wasn't even there? His fault. He wasn't even involved? His fault.

And while this time was technically his fault, the reaction by his family was just plain disgusting. Boarding up his room? Kicking him out of the house, and locking him out? The family was lucky that people were asleep or they would be facing child services. The good news was that Lincoln was gone so that no one could do such a thing. The bad news? Lincoln was gone. And it was this sight that made Rita Loud drop the bowl of Zombie Bran she had prepared for her only son after she opened the door to the backyard.

But let's rewind a little bit.

It was around eight or nine in the morning on a lovely saturday. A reasonable time to be up and prepare breakfast for the kids. Unfortunately for Lynn Sr. he had an angry wife to deal with, and her anger was very much justified.

"You were supposed to wake me up so I could take over!" She yelled at the cowering man. "Not continue to doze off after I wake you up and went to sleep!" To say the the matriarch was mad was an understatement. She was livid, and who wouldn't be? She had just woken up to not only discover that her husband was not only still in bed, but also to the realization that he hadn't even done his shift, or woken her up to take her next shift.

"S-s-sorry s-sweetie." Lynn Sr. said timidly. Unfortunately for him he chose the wrong words to say right now.

"Sorry? Sorry?" Rita shouted. "Do you have any idea what could've happened to Lincoln while we were dozing off in dreamland? He could've been kidnapped! Attacked by animals! And god forbid, murdered in our backyard! And all you can say is sorry?" She was fuming, with anger filled breaths rapidly entering and leaving her nostrils, and red in the face.

Lynn Sr. meekly nodded and further cowered into the blanket, only to be met with an unbelieving scoff from his blond lover as she stormed out of the room.

Somehow none of the kids woke up from this.

But that hardly mattered as the mother of eleven angrily stomped toward the kitchen, made herself a glass of orange juice to calm her nerves, and pulled out the necessary things to make a bowl of cereal. As she got everything her mood began to lessen, not to the point of being completely void of anger mind you, but to the point of being able to clearly think of a punishment for her husband. If anything happened to her baby boy he would pay.

As she poured the cereal first she took a brief glance at the box itself. Zombie Bran, the cereal Lincoln had wanted to get on the day he asked if he could take care of the groceries. And while she was thankful to her little boy for doing so, the fact that they were now banned from the store did tick her off quite a bit, and the resulting anger caused her to blame him in the process. In all honesty that wasn't her best moment, especially since she was painfully aware of her daughters' chaotic behavior and the fact that the oldest of them - who were supposed to be the most well behaved - were there too.

Needless to say that when she got over her anger she quickly put two and two together, she lifted Lincoln's grounding, apologized, and properly punished the girls. And while that strain on her relationship with her son was repaired when she took him to her job, she couldn't help but be ashamed that she had done something so stupid when the common sense of life with her family screamed at her what was so painfully obvious.

Rita sighed. And now she would have to reconcile with her son again, and after pulling one of the stupidest moves a parent could do. Lord, it would be a miracle if Lincoln forgave her for this. But upon noticing that the bowl was almost filled to the brim she stopped her lamenting, and put the box down, rolling up the breech in the bag, and closing it securely. After that came the milk, and the careful placement of the spoon to ensure that the dish didn't overflow. Upon seeing the dish she had prepared for her son she sighed in dejection.

"I have a lot to make up for." She said as she carefully maneuvered to the back door and opened it.

The sound of breaking glass and a scream worthy of an A grade horror movie was what woke the kids up.

He felt nothing, knew almost nothing, and desired nothing. All he knew was that the body that lay before him was that of a young boy with white hair, and black eyes. A boy he somehow knew. A boy who was hurt and, for all intents and purposes, was dead. Yes he had his pulse, but if one were to look in his brain they would find almost absolutely nothing. Next to no brain activity with only the automatic functions such as heart beat, nutrient distribution, digestion, organ operation, blood circulation, and the immune system working as if nothing happened. And even then it wasn't in the concrete land of the humans anymore. It now resided with him in the abstract realms of the Wraiths.

When the human woman screamed and dropped the bowl in her hands, sending its contents across the porch, he found that he felt something. A strange sense of satisfaction, an odd glee that formed from what appeared to be karma taking the reigns. But that wasn't possible, it felt and knew almost nothing. How could it feel satisfaction or glee? But that wasn't all, when the woman frantically ran about the small space of green he felt a sense of rigidness and dissatisfaction. As if her sorrow and suffering from the situation wasn't enough. But how could that be? She was clearly crying, clearly suffering, and clearly remorseful of what he assumed was the boy's disappearance.

But then again he was just born last night. But when a lone male and ten other females came out of the house asking what was wrong, and the black and grey one gasped upon seeing him, he took it all as a sign that he should leave. So, picking up the boy's body, he went to the side of the house, walked up the wall, and entered what he believed to be the boy's room.

Something told him that it shouldn't be as barren as it was though.

Upon waking up by a scream Lucy Loud quickly got out of her coffin and contemplated whether or not to be a little bit worried or completely worried that something bad had clearly happened. If it had anything to personally do with her siblings, like say losing an item, than she would be a little bit worried. But if it had anything to do with their parents in any way, then she had reason to be really worried.

"Ugh," Lynn said annoyed, "Lincoln probably jinxed something." She got up from her bed and headed downstairs as a fairly brisk pace as the other elder sisters ran downstairs to see what the problem was.

Upon hearing that accusation though Lucy felt as if whatever had happened did involve Lincoln. But not in the way Lynn thought, or in a good way. It couldn't have been if someone screamed bloody murder.

"Sigh," she said in her usual monotone, "thinking about it now, I'm an idiot." And she felt that she had every right to say that. Because if Lincoln was indeed cursed to be a jinx, then why did she blindly go along with it instead of consulting the spirits for the truth? Great Grandma Harriet would definitely have told her the truth if she had asked. But nope she, the supernatural expert of the family, had went along with Lynn's superstitions and partook in the kick out and lock out of her one and only brother. As she exited her room and walked down the stairs she continued to think.

Dark Lords above and below, slap her if she was correct that she was an idiot. Lisa did have a point on having too much trust in the supernatural, even if she herself didn't believe in the supernatural.

Upon thinking that thought of her brainiac sister Lucy stopped midway through the stairs. "Wait a minute," she said, "I'm the supernatural one, Lynn's the superstitious one, and Lisa's the scientific one." She paused for a moment to wrap her head around that. "How in the world did Lisa not run any test on this? Let alone fall for it?" She asked loudly as the realization of her family's idiocy surfaced.

Lucy slapped herself. "Great, first I make him miss his convention, and now this." She sighed. "Demons below I have a lot of making up to do. And apologizing. And maybe some truth telling just for good measure."

She went down the stairs, into the kitchen, and out the back door to the backyard. Pushing past her sisters to see what had happened. What she saw made her gasp. It was a grey being about Lincoln's height that looked almost exactly like him, except with black eyes with white pinpricks for pupils, black hair, and an openly exposed ribcage with a strange black substance inside it that was animating the entity.

Apparently it had heard her because it picked up Lincoln's body, moved to the side of the house with Lincoln's room, and vanished from sight. Looking back at her family, who had spread out about the backyard and started hollering for Lincoln, Lucy quickly deduced that she was the only person to see the entity.

As well as the only person to see the Shadow Man peeking out from behind the tree with an eerie smile and a wave.

Lori Loud wasn't that much of a crier, only really doing so when it involved her Bobby-boo-boo-bear or something happened in the family. But as her mother tearfully and shakily talked to the police officer on the phone downstairs to file a missing person's report, she cried like a newborn babe. And why shouldn't she? Her little brother was missing, ripped from the vicinity of the house in the dead of night not only because dear old dad neglected to take his shift, but also because they had put him outside like an animal in the first place. If you were to ask Lori what her relationship with her siblings was like, she would say that it was rocky at best. Especially her relationship with her one and only brother.

If you asked Lori then she would say that they've had their good times, but if you Lincoln then he would say that they've also had bad times. Using him as an ottoman was one such time on Lincoln's own accord. The thing is, unlike the superstitious Lynn who refuses to accept her faults, Lori did come to realize how stupid the whole situation was last night. Being the oldest did have it's perks, but it also came with it's lessons and experiences. Why did Lincoln seem like bad luck? Because he staged it to make it seem that way in order to get some time to himself. Something that she herself had done a couple times. Granted she pretended to be sick, but the basic fundamentals were there.

She probably should've spoken up when the idea to board up Lincoln's room was brought up. Or when someone, she forgot who but it was probably Lola, suggested that idea of putting Lincoln outside like a dog. She should've spoken up, but instead she was an idiot. Upon realizing that in the dead of the previous night she made a resolve to undo this whole thing, and teach Lynn a lesson about being a sore loser. It would take a bit of time, and would probably only work if Lincoln did something himself, but it would be a step to earning her brother's forgiveness. What she had partaken in was too much, even by the standards of their usual treatment of him.

Which is what brought the phone obsessed girl down another notch on the ladder of guilt: the overall treatment she and the others dish out onto Lincoln. When was the last time she or her siblings got punished? Lori honestly couldn't remember. When was the last time they returned the favor for Lincoln when he did something nice for them? She couldn't tell you. Why did it seem like Lincoln was the go to person to blame? She didn't know.

What was going on now was a far cry from when the white haired boy was a baby. She remembered feeding him mint chip ice cream, drawing with him, doing finger paintings, and playing peek-a-boo. Things were so much simpler back then, and all things that he wouldn't remember doing since he was a baby at the time. So they would have to make new good memories as he grew up. But with the introspect of this recent debacle, it dawned on Lori that, for all of the chaos of the Loud House, thinking of a good memory was a lot harder than remembering all of the bad and chaotic ones.

The bossiness, the prank-apocalypses, experiments, blackmailing, infestations, jump scaring, ear busting music, idiocy, dirty diapers, roughhousing, dutch ovens, and forced sparring. It was no wonder that someone would be done with it all in a week, if that. Heck, it was a wonder how Lincoln managed to keep it together after eleven years. Suddenly the moniker of being 'The Man with the Plan' took a bit of a scarier turn when Lori thought of WHY Lincoln would need to plan.

To be one step ahead, prepared for anything, and ready to take the chaos head on. If Lincoln were here right now Lori would definitely show more love and gratitude to her brother than she did before.

"But he isn't here." Lori sniffled. "Some nutjob walked right into the backyard and took him away." Upon her realization last night she wanted to work to strengthen her bond with Lincoln, to make good memories not just chaotic ones, and make it up to her brother for all of the shit the family had put him through. Especially with what went down last night.

But now that wasn't possible. Why?

"Because Lori Loud, and the rest of her family, were a bunch of superstitious, hypocritical morons." Lori growled as she pounded her fist into her bed.

Wasn't it her parents who said that they would never throw out one of their own children? And didn't she and the rest of the sister's say to Lincoln that they would never let their parents throw Lincoln out?

"God," Lori thought, "was Hitler this hypocritical?"

Well, what happened with Hitler ended with the death of billions. What she and her family did ended putting a child in danger of nature, sexual predators, kidnappers, traffickers, and murderers. Bit of a tough call since both are equally horrible for their own reasons.

Leni, who had been bawling her eyes out onto her own pillow, briefly turned her head to the side to breath a bit better. And in the window she thought that she saw a literal black man in a suit and top hat. But after a blink he was gone, so she just ignored it.

The Shadow Man watched as each member of the family took the news of their only son and brother was missing in their own ways. The most common of which was bawling their eyes out until their tear ducts went dry for the day. But he didn't care because it was all going according to plan.

"You're despicable." Said a voice from behind.

The Shadow Man turned with a smile as he met with one of the spiritual residents of the Loud House. "Hello Harriet, lovely day isn't it." It wasn't a question.

Harriet glared at the shadowy one from behind her hair. "You lied to my great grandson."

"Sorry to burst your bubble," said the Shadow Man, "but I never said one fib to that boy. Everything I said was the truth. I said that the deal wasn't illegal, bloody, or malicious." He chuckled at the scowl Harriet gave him. "I only said things about the deal itself, not what the deal was for."

Harriet's scowl went deeper. "Lucy will-."

"Already has the pieces," the Shadow Man interrupted, "she just doesn't know how or why. All she knows is that something brought her brother to the other side, that I have something to do with it, and that the wraith is in the house."

Harriet looked as if she was about to burst in rage.

"If your family had treated the boy better than I wouldn't have come here." He walked past her. "You can say anything about me to her all you want. But it'll never change the fact that I'm the only one who can give any skinny on little Linky." He let out a belt of laughter as he left.

Harriet turned away from Lincoln's door to where his bed once was, glaring at the glimmering black line that lead to the realm of the wraith that had taken refuge in her descendents home.

She sighed in worry, not for most of her family, but for Lucy and Lincoln. While she was disappointed in the both of them, she hoped that they would make it out of this alright.

A/N: Another chapter come and gone. Let me know what you think, and what you think is going to happen in the reviews.