Disclaimer: I do not own 'The Loud House' or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.
Awkward Hero
Chapter ten: Frightening Evolution
Some of the younger siblings of Lori Loud were wondering when their older sister would get back from hanging out with her friends. …Well, Leni and Lincoln were the only ones who were really waiting for Lori to get back. Luna was just curious as to what was keeping Lori occupied for so long, especially considering the fact that her nerdy older sister doesn't have enough friends to keep her out for as long as she's been kept out. Luan and Lynn were both occupied doing their respective things, Lucy was only waiting around for Lori to get back because Lincoln was doing so, and the twins Lana and Lola were both babies, and they had just been put down for a nap, so neither of them knew anything at all.
"You don't think that Lori forgot where we live, do you?" Leni asked her younger siblings that were with her.
"I highly doubt it, brah," replied ten-year-old Luna as she gently shook her head in the negative, "It's clear she just lost track of time."
"Don't worry," Lincoln said in a confident tone, "I'm certain that-" Lincoln was cut off when the front door opened and a girl that…vaguely resembled Lori walked in. She didn't wear glasses, she no longer had a unibrow more or less going (in fact, her eyebrows were now thin and respectable on a girl), her face was entirely clear, she no longer had the white heart-shaped earrings in her ears or the red little hairclips in her hair, and the collared sleeveless shirt she wore was now replaced with a light blue tank top. When her younger siblings who saw her enter the house looked surprised, Lori shot them a curious look.
"…What?" Lori asked, her voice instantly recognized by her younger siblings, "You all don't recognize your own older sister?"
"Lori?" Leni began in a surprised tone, "Is that, like, you?" As Lori closed the door behind her, Leni, Luna and Lincoln, with Lucy closely following behind the sole loud boy, came up to the oldest of their number. "Wow, you look totes different!" Leni remarked, "Did you, like, get a makeover or something?"
"Yeah," Lori replied, "Some new friends of mine wanted to give me a makeover." With a mildly unsure look on her face, Lori asked, "What do you think?"
"It's totes awesome," Leni replied in an enthusiastic tone, "Makes me wish I was there so I could have had a hand in your makeover!"
"Yeah, now boys at your school will think you look pretty," Luna remarked casually, "Maybe now you'll get a boyfriend."
"Lori was always pretty," Lincoln said as he turned to face his musically inclined older sister.
"What makes you say that, little dude?" Luna asked her six-year-old younger brother, a mildly incredulous look on her face.
"Because she is Lori," Lincoln replied, as if he thought his answer was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Looey," Lucy said, still having a bit of trouble with articulating given her young age.
"Hey Lori," Lincoln began, "Now that you are home, do you want to-"
"Hold that thought," Lori interrupted, holding her right index finger out to Lincoln in a gesture to convey that she wanted him to be quiet, "I just stopped by to pick something up before I headed back out again. My friends and I are all heading to Tana's place because she wants to show off the new dog that her family got. She says that it's the cutest thing ever!"
"Umm…okay?" Lincoln replied, more or less confused as he watched his oldest sister walk up the stairs to the second floor to head to her and Leni's room. About a minute later, Lori came back down the stairs, and without saying a word to any of her younger siblings, she was out the door again. "She…she's going to come back, right?" Lincoln asked, the barest hint of worry in his six-year-old tone.
"I'm…not sure about that, little dude," Luna replied as she, Lincoln and Leni continued to stare at the front door that Lori closed behind her as she left not ten seconds previous. Lucy wasn't paying attention to the door, so much as she was hugging her older brother, who she thought to be the most awesome person ever.
The following day, Leni was keeping an eye on Lincoln and Lucy as the two younger Louds were drawing on sheets of paper in the living room. Although the ditzy Loud sister was more than glad to watch over her younger siblings (Linky especially), Leni could not help but feel a bit puzzled; doesn't the task of looking after the youngest of the Loud siblings' number usually fall to Lori? Sure, Leni's pretty older sister said that she was busy with something, but even so, she always tried to make time for-
All of Leni's thought where interrupted when a loud guitar rift, clearly Luna's doing, came from the garage, startling Leni, as well as Lincoln and Lucy. Luna's guitar rift must have also startled the twins, because Leni began to hear a pair of cries coming from the bedroom upstairs that had been turned into a nursery for the twins.
"Doesn't Luna know better than to play her music when Lola and Lana are sleeping?" Lincoln had to shout to his older sister so he could be heard over the mix of Luna's music and the crying from the twins.
"She must have, like, forgotten that Lola and Lana were sleeping, Linky!" Leni replied, shouting for the same reason that her little brother was shouting.
"One of us should-" Lincoln began to shout back, but he stopped short upon seeing an irate-looking Lori stomped down the stairs and over to the front door, walking out the front door as well. A few seconds later, the loud music playing stopped, and Lori walked back inside, followed by an irate-looking Luna.
"What the bloody hell did you do that for?!" Luna snapped, a hint of the British accent she was trying to practice seeping into her tone. In response to Luna's snapping, Lori turned around quickly, the look of enraged irritation on her face making the ten-year-old budding musician take a step back out of mild alarm.
"How many times where you told to not play your music while the twins were sleeping?" Lori snapped angrily, "Do you know how long it's going to take to get them to settle back down and go back to taking their nap? How can you be so irresponsible, Luna?!"
"Look, I forgot that the twins were put down for a nap, alright?" Luna replied, trying to calm down (it wasn't by all that much).
"How can you forget?!" Lori nearly exclaimed, "They're always put down for a nap at this time of day! You need to pay more attention to the time! The last thing any of around here needs is for the twins to be crying nonstop because someone cared more about their interests than the fact that we have a pair of babies in this household that need to be taken care of!" Lori's tearing into Luna frightened not just Luna, who was the one receiving it, but Leni and Lincoln, who bore witness to Lori tearing into Luna, as well. Never before did Lincoln and Leni, or any of the other Loud siblings for that matter, ever see Lori so angry.
Giving her musically-inclined younger sister a serious glare, Lori said, "The next time something like this happens, I'm going to do more than just unplug the chords to your equipment. Do I make myself clear, Luna?"
"Hey, wait a minute," Luna began in a suspicious tone, "What's that supposed to-"
"DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR, YES OR NO?!" Lori bellowed, not only interrupting Luna in the process, but startling her, Leni and Lincoln all at once. What made Lori's behavior really unsettling was the visage of anger on her face.
Never did the younger Loud siblings ever see Lori so angry.
"C-crystal," Luna replied, her bluster having been torn down in the face of Lori's wrath.
"Good," Lori remarked, calming down a little. Pointing at Luna, Lori continued in a serious tone, "It's bad enough that your music startled me when I was talking on the phone to Megan. I don't need crying from Lola and Lana thrown into the mix either, especially since they're babies that can't help it." Lori then turned around and walked back up the stairs. When she was gone, Leni and Lincoln walked up to Luna. Lucy, as per usual, followed Lincoln.
"With all due respect, Lori has a point about your music being played when Lola and Lana are trying to sleep not being a good idea," Leni remarked to her musically-inclined younger sister.
"But did you hear that last part?" Luna replied as she regained her bravado. Pointing up the staircase, Luna continued in a tone of indignation, "She was more upset about her talk on the phone with her friend being interrupted than she was about me waking up the twins!"
"Well there was that time where mom scolded you because you played your music while she was talking on the phone," Lincoln said.
"Yeah, I'll admit to that," Luna remarked, "But there's a key difference between the time involving mom and the time involving Lori just now." Pointing up the staircase again, Luna continued in the same tone of indignation, "Lori, unlike mom, actually threatened me."
"Threatened?" Leni repeated, sounding like she wasn't believing what she was hearing.
"She said that she'd do more than just unplug my equipment," Luna pointed out, "If that's not a threat, I don't know what is!"
"Lori…must be having a really bad day, Luna," Lincoln defended, sounding somewhat timid, "You might want to cut her some slack."
"Yeah, you should ease up on her," Leni remarked.
"Pfft, whatever," Luna said, walking up the stairs to go to her and Luan's room.
After Luna had disappeared up the stairs, Lincoln turned his attention to look up to Leni. "Is…is Lori going to be okay, Leni?" the sole loud boy asked, sounding mildly concerned.
"Lori is just having a really bad day," Leni replied in as reassuring of a tone as she could do, "It's just like you thought, Linky." Gently ruffling the top of her little brother's head, Leni said, "There's, like, no need to worry." His fashionable older sister's words of reassurance, along with the affectionate gesture of her ruffling the top of his head, did a lot to lift Lincoln's spirits.
"Thanks, Leni," Lincoln replied, looking up to Leni with an appreciative smile on his six-year-old face. Lucy also looked up to Leni, although that was mostly because she was copying Lincoln. Even so, to have her little siblings, Linky especially, look up to her like this made Leni feel…Leni wasn't quite sure how to describe how she felt, but what she did know was that it was a good feeling.
Is this what Lori felt whenever Lincoln showed how he felt she (Lori) was the best older sister ever?
Later that afternoon, Leni was in the nursery; the twins were finally done with their nap, and were now playing on the floor. Thank goodness Linky came up with the idea of putting specialized hairclips in the respective hair of Lola and Lana; Leni would have otherwise been unable to tell which twin was which. It also helped Leni in making sure which plushy to give to Lola when the baby with the tiara hairclip began to get fussy.
"There we go," Leni said to the twins, "Now that you both have-" Leni was cut off when cries of complaint from Lynn came from the backyard. Is was loud enough that it caught Leni's attention; Lola and Lana both heard the cries of complaint from their athletic older sister as well, but neither baby did anything other than look confused. Curious as to what was going on, Leni, after getting Luna to look after the twins, went down the stairs, over to the door in the kitchen that led into the backyard, and went into the backyard itself. When she got there, she saw Lynn trying to get into an argument with Lori. "What's, like, going on?" Leni asked.
Pointing to Lori, Lynn said in a tone of complaint, "She took my soccer ball and threw it onto the roof of the house! Now I can't play soccer!"
"You have been warned time and again to not hurt the rest of us when we end up playing with you in the backyard," Lori said to the eight-year-old athletic Loud girl in a scolding tone, "You're lucky that Luan can handle getting hit in the side of her head with a soccer ball a lot better than Lincoln or Lucy." Confused as to what Lori was saying, Leni looked over and saw Luan holding an ice pack to the right side of her head. Luan was hurt enough that there were some tears falling down the side of her face, but she wasn't actually crying, per say.
"…Wow," Luan said through the pain, "Talk about a header." After chuckling a bit, Luan added, "Get it?"
"Wait a minute," Leni said, a bit surprised, and not in a good way, with what she was hearing. Turning to face Lori, Leni continued in the same tone, "Did you, like, seriously take one of Lynn's balls and throw it onto the roof?"
"Tell me, Leni," Lori began to say in a cool, casual tone, "Before I took the soccer ball and threw it onto the roof, was Lynn able to hurt the rest of our siblings with it?"
"Umm…yes," Leni said in an unsure tone, "But-"
"And tell me," Lori continued, interrupting Leni in the process, "Now that the soccer ball is out of reach, can Lynn hurt the rest of us with it?"
"Umm…no," Leni answered, realizing that Lori's actions had some logic behind it, "But that-"
"But nothing," Lori interrupted again, "Do you know how many times Lynn's hurt the rest of us with her sports stuff? The only way to keep it from happening again is to keep it away from her!"
"But that's not fair!" Lynn complained.
"Is it fair that the rest of us get hurt?" Lori snapped as she quickly turned to face Lynn, "Seriously, Lynn. Every time one of us plays with you, we end up getting hurt!"
"It was an accident!" Lynn snapped back.
Scoffing in a tone of disbelief, Lori said, "Really? All of the times were any of the rest of us play with you, and the person in question gets hurt, are all accidents?"
"Yes!" Lynn replied.
"Every single time, Lynn," Lori went on, "Every single time one of the rest of us plays with you, the person in question ends up getting hurt." Crossing her arms over her chest, Lori continued in the same tone of disbelief, "Us getting hurt whenever one of us plays with you is as accidental as me throwing the soccer ball onto the roof."
"That wasn't an accident!" Lynn snapped, "You threw my soccer ball onto the roof on purpose!"
"Exactly," Lori said as she gave her athletic younger sister a knowing, serous glare. The tone that Lori had just used, the glare she was giving, the idea that her last word implied, all of it made the sporty eight-year-old Loud sister take a step back, a look of being wounded on an emotional level plastered across her face. Walking past Lynn and Leni to head back into the house, Lori said with a hint on condensation in her tone, "Try not to have anymore 'accidents', Lynn, okay?" Lori closed the back door behind her, leaving Leni, Lynn and a still-hurt Luan in the backyard.
Leni turned her attention to Lynn, and saw the hurt look on the eight-year-old's face. "Lynn?" Leni said in a concerned tone, "Are you, like, okay?"
"Do…do you think I hurt our siblings who play with me on purpose?" Lynn asked, clearly looking like the idea of actually physically hurting her siblings intentionally upset her.
"Lori's…" Leni began, sounding like she very mildly didn't believe what she was actually going to say, "…Lori's just having a bad day is all."
"Well my day is really bad now," Lynn said in an upset tone, "My soccer ball is on the roof."
"Oh, come on, Lynn," Leni said, clearly sounding like she was trying to cheer Lynn up, "You don't need your soccer ball to have fun! You have other balls to play with!"
"…I guess," Lynn replied, still sounding a little pouty. Giving Leni a mildly unsure look, Lynn asked, "You wanna throw my football around with me?"
"Sure, why not?" Leni replied, her tone enthusiastic. Having another sibling agree to play with her made the eight-year-old athlete cheer up a little.
Leni did have a little fun playing with Lynn, but they merely tossed Lynn's football back and forth for about ten minutes. Lynn didn't put a whole lot of effort into any of her throws, Leni could tell. The sporty Loud sibling must still be bummed about what Lori did earlier, not to mention probably being afraid of hurting another sibling, only for Lori, in thinly veiled words, to accuse Lynn of having once again hurt a sibling on purpose.
Lori must be having a really bad day if she's acting as angry as she is. Leni wondered if there was anything she could do to help Lori calm down and become the sweet and loving older sister that she always knew her as. As Leni contemplated on this, she heard one of her younger siblings cry out. However, this occasion set a degree of fear into Leni's eleven-year-old heart, especially considering the fact that it was Lincoln who she heard cry out.
Leni ran up the stairs and over to her and Lori's bedroom, as she heard Lincoln's cry come from that general direction. When Leni got there, what she saw shocked her; Lincoln, sitting on the floor, was actually crying. Lori was standing over him, a clearly angry look on her face, not to mention a certain degree of annoyance seeping into her angry visage.
"How much clearer do I have to make it, twerp?" Lori snapped at the sole Loud boy, "Stay out of my room! The next time I catch you in here, I will literally-"
"HEY!" Leni exclaimed, getting the attention of her siblings that were in the hallway. Walking forward, Leni said to her older sister in a frim and disappointed tone, "Lori, I don't care how bad of a day you might be having! Doing this to Linky, or any of the things you've, like, done to our younger sisters for that matter, is totes not excusable! And why is Linky no longer allowed in our room, huh? You've never had a problem with Linky coming into our room before! Why are you, like, suddenly changing you mind right now, huh?!"
"Leni, this is literally the last thing I need from you right now," Lori growled as she rubbed the temples of her head, "I just had to-"
"Lori!" the firm voice of Rita, the Loud family matriarch, called from the first floor, "Get down here right now! Lynn just told me you threw her soccer ball onto the roof!"
Sighing in an annoyed tone, Lori muttered, "And now Lynn has to be a tattle-tale just because I'm keeping her from being able to hurt us with her soccer ball." Pointing to Lincoln, Lori said as she walked to the stairs, "Remember what I said, twerp." After Lori disappeared down the stairs, Leni turned to face where Lincoln was sitting on the floor. Walking over to her little brother, Leni bent over and helped Lincoln up.
"Are you okay, Linky?" Leni asked.
"Why is Lori mean now?" Lincoln asked, clearly looking like he was going to cry, "She…she never acted like this before."
"I…" Leni said, but she stopped short, gently shook her head. "…I, like, have no idea what to tell you about that, Linky." Gently throwing her arms around Lincoln, Leni drew him into a soft, warm, reassuring hug. "But what I do know what to tell you," Leni continued, "Is that not all of us have turned into meanie-pants sisters who like pushing the rest of our siblings around." The sole Loud boy, still emotionally conflicted due to his oldest sister's sudden change in attitude, turned to face Leni, buried his face into her chest, threw his arms around Leni so he could hug her, and began to cry.
The ditzy Loud sister was beyond heartbroken to hear her sweet little brother crying like this. It was, like, the single worst sound that Leni ever heard. She wanted this crying to stop, so she did the only thing she figured would work; she continued to hug Linky.
Lucy waddled up and threw her arms around Lincoln to hug him from behind.
END, AWKWARD HERO CHAPTER TEN
Author's notes:
…And here we begin to see Lori act like the kind of girl that most of us know her as. Anywho, I'm sorry if saying this will upset any of you, but the next chapter of this story (which will be chapter eleven) will be the last. It might be shorter than the average chapter length for chapters before it, as it will just be wrapping things up here. However, I do promise that the next chapter, as well as this story as a whole, will have a happy ending.