The next day...

Lori woke up to see Leni giving her a malicious grin, with a closer look at her lower body revealing she had the red friendship bracelet on her arm. Lori also saw she was wearing the pink friendship bracelet on her arm too, and worst of all, she couldn't take it off.

"L-Leni, what happened?!" Lori asked, sounding genuinely terrified.

"Oh please, don't tell me you're trying to play innocent now," Leni said with a cackle. "I found your friendship bracelets, and I remembered you brought them for a reason. I figured you wanted to give them to our siblings."

And then, Leni leaned forward and whispered, "Jokes on you: I already did it."

Lori tried to attack afterwards, but her punch stopped right in front of Leni's face, with her strength lowering down until she felt her fist too heavy to keep up. It' almost as if she was being forcefully weakened so as to make something possible.

"W-What is the meaning of this?!" Lori asked before showing her bracelet to her sister in desperation. "Leni, please, take this thing off!"

But Leni just smirked and grabbed Lori's cheek. "Oh please, I haven't even had my fun with you yet."

Leni got up, followed by her pulling Lori up, and then pinned her against a wall as she cried, "L-Leni, j-just hear me out, if this is about something I did to you, then there are better ways than using the bracelets!"

"Lori, Lori, Lori..." Leni chuckled, with a hint of exasperation. "This isn't just about me and you, It's about all of us. All of our siblings. Every single one of them."

Lori just raised an eyebrow as Leni then grinded her knee against Lori's crotch, almost as if she was getting ready to kick it.

"Ever since you got a sister, you acted like a bossy little brat. You have been determined, to make sure all of us believe that you're above us, whenever we started to go out of control. And that would be fine, if you kept it at that."

And then, her voice grew hostile as she grinded harder.

"But you didn't stop just there. You continued to boss everybody around, even when we were perfectly calm. And then, you had the nerve, the audacity, to join up with the enemy. To become Cristina's puppet, and help her with whatever plan she has going on. Do you really think you will get off so easily?"

Leni then punched Lori's face hard enough to give her a black eye.

"How did I figure it out, you ask? Please, how else would you get brainwashing friendship bracelets?"

Lori quickly tried to explain herself, "But I'm only doing this-"

But Leni quickly punched her mouth shut, causing her to bite her tongue in the process. "You're only doing this to exert more control over all of us, nothing else! You are a sucker for power! If something gave you the chance to show you are the dominant, then you would take it, disregarding the consequences!"

And then, she finally did it: Leni kicked Lori in the groin, sending a shiver up Lori's spine as she couldn't help but shed tears of agony. Not that Leni minded, after all, this was her one and only chance to vent against the girl who treated her and many others like servants for so long. No time to share Lori's pain, not at all!

"L-Leni..." Lori stuttered and caught her breath as Leni released her, letting her slide down and land on the ground. She shivered and tried to hold back her tears. "I'm-I'm sorry, okay? For everything I did. For being such a... bossy bitch. But, I... I just don't know what to do..."

Leni crouched and met Lori face-to-face. "What are you talking about?"

"In a family as big as this, it's hard to stand out from the crowd," the blonde cried as her voice got breathy, with some whimper and sobbing thrown into the mix. "You and the others are covered, but I... I have nothing to stand out. If it wasn't for my phone obssession, or my relationship with Bobby, you would always forget me, just like how everybody forgets about Lucy all the time."

Leni instinctively looked around, almost as if she was expecting Lucy to pop up at any moment.

"But, the truth is... I'm just doing everything for our sake. For the family's sake!" Lori exclaimed, catching Leni's attention once more. "I know, Cristina's plan is messed up and has brought us nothing but trouble, but I honestly believe it's the best case scenario!"

But that wasn't enough for Leni. "Then tell me: what is her plan?"

Meanwhile, with Luna and Luan...

Luna, with the brown bracelet, and Luan, with the purple bracelet, slowly woke up and the bracelets almost immediately took their effect on the girls.

"Huh, I'm noticing a lack of animals in this room!" Luna exclaimed, before looking out the window and spotting a puddle of- "Mud!"

And then she jumped off the window and landed on the puddle, with Luan coming to see her soon afterwards. And as soon as she could confirm it was Luna playing in the mud, she shrugged it off, went to her guitar and started to play it like an absolute pro.

Well, she was taught by Luna after all.

One can only wonder what Lincoln and Lisa would say about the sight.

Speaking of Lincoln and Lisa...

Lincoln, wearing the white bracelet, woke up and soon noticed something peculiar: Lisa, wearing the lime green bracelet, sleeping next to him with a sleeping mask.

"Ugh, hoodies... white jeans... socks with sandals!" the little genius said in her sleep.

"Lisa?" Linc asked.

This woke up Lisa, who immediately shouted, "Ah gosh, I'm blind!"

And then Lincoln took off her sleeping mask. "Oh, like, good morning, Lincoln!" Lisa chirped. "Thanks for giving me the ability to see again!"

And then Lisa fell asleep again. "Did Lisa just act like Leni?" he pondered. "What's next, Lucy acting like Lynn and vice versa?"

Yeah, regarding Lucy and Lynn...

Lucy, wearing the sky blue bracelet, spoke with somebody on the phone. "And I'm like, literally amazed by what they say about it!" she said, sounding annoyed in a less emo-tional and more emotional tone than usual. "I mean, my poem is literally the deepest poem in that whole club, and yet they still I'm not dark or edgy enough, can you believe it?"

And then, Lynn, wearing the dark green bracelet, made some calculations while writing something on a blackboard. "This is a troubling revelation indeed," she said with a lisp. "I sure hope Lana and Lola haven't been affected too badly."

Cue Lana and Lola...

Lana, wearing the gret bracelet, sat on her bed, with her baseball cap covering her eyes as she read a poem. "Dark as night, shiny as coin, my life has reached the apex of torment, and nothing will make it worse, not even the most dangerous of thunderstorms."

And then Lola, with the yellow bracelet, popped out of nowhere and sprayed her twin sister with a fake flower in a way similar to rain. "Sorry to rain on your parade!" the diva said, giggling at her joke. "Get it?"

"I spoke too soon," Lana thought.

Later, at the Living Room...

Lincoln, with Lisa clinging at his leg, walked downstairs and met with most of his sisters-minus Lori and Leni-who all stopped what they were doing and turned to look at him.

Alongside their shivering, their blushing cheeks and seemingly forced smiles, Lincoln could also see that Luna was dirty, Luan was not scared of the guitar, Lola had a flower on her dress, Lana's eyes were covered, Lynn was in the middle of an analysis and Lucy was holding a phone.

"Okay, so most of you clearly changed to act like somebody else," Lincoln remarked, scratching his head. "But what about Leni and Lori?"

As if on cue, both teenagers went downstairs, with Lori looking at herself on a mirror while Leni played with a football. "It's such a hard job to look so majestically fabulous!" Lori exclaimed.

"Hey, who wants to play some ball later?" Leni asked, raising her football.

Lincoln, clearly disturbed by the event, turned to Lynn and asked, "Lynn, what's going on?"

"According to my calculations, it seems that our changes in behavior can be traced to these friendship bracelets," Lynn explained, before showing her bracelet. "They, like the VR helmets, seem to have the primary purpose of rewiring specific parts of the brain to recreate behavior patterns into different patterns that wouldn't otherwise be seen in the affected."

"What?" everybody asked.

"They brainwash the user into acting differently than they normally are."

Everybody went "oh" in realization. "Well then, let's take them off!" Lincoln suggested.

But no matter how hard he tried, Linc couldn't take off the bracelet. "They also have built-in systems to prevent anybody from manually removing them," Lynn added.

"And how do we get rid of these things?!" Lincoln desperately asked.

"That I managed to find out as well, and it turns out to be rather easy to accomplish," the sports fan remarked, rolling her eyes. "All we need to do is be ourselves."

But Lincoln, understandably, had no idea what she was talking about, "Wait, what are you-"

And Lynn soon clarified:

"In order to get rid of these bracelets, we must be ourselves. That means we must fight against their influence, and act how we usually do to such an extent, that the bracelets will short circuit and be rendered powerless. Only then will we be able to go back to normal."

"Huh, sounds easy enough," Lincoln remarked as Leni kicked the football straight at Lynn.

However, just as Lynn tried to kick it back, her bracelet sent a shock all across her body before forcefully making her dodge the ball, wait until it hit the floor, then grab it and return it to Leni.

"Okay, so it sounds easy but it's hard to do," Linc said before looking at his own bracelet. "Now, what does my bra-?"

And then, the sisters surrounded Lincoln with goo-goo eyes.

"Uh oh."

At the Santiago Household...

Ronnie and Cristina seemingly discussed about the plan when Ronnie's phone rang. She immediately answered it, and saw it was Lincoln calling, "Hello?"

"Ronnie, I'm coming to your house, my sisters are chasing after me!" Lincoln exclaimed from the other end. "But it's not what you think! I think they're infatuated with me! Just open the door, I'm coming!"

The duo went to the nearby window, and saw Lincoln running towards the house while a goo-goo eyed sisternado followed him. Upon seeing this, Cristina bolted to upstairs as Ronnie went to the door and opened it, letting Lincoln inside before closing the door just as the sisternado came closer.

The resulting clash between the sisternado and the door caused the sisternado to explode back into it's component sisters, who all fell unconscious as Lincoln closed all the nearby windows as he caught his breath. "Thanks, Ronnie," he told the girl. "I don't know why or how, but my sisters became attracted to me after I put on this white bracelet!"

"Sadly, I do know how and why that's the case," Ronnie thought, even though she said, "Oh, well, that's an interesting... uh, issue?"

"Yeah, and a pretty big problem as well," Lincoln sat down on the couch. "And worst of all, I can't take off this thing!"

Ronnie watched as Lincoln tried to take off the bracelet, only for it to remain stuck on his arm. "Now, I do know how to get it to short-circuit, according to Lynn all I have to do is be myself, but I'm already myself, so I can't do that!" Lincoln whined. "Ronnie, what would you do?"

"Well, first of all, I would not bother my best friend with questions regarding stuff I'm not even aware of," Ronnie answered as she sat next to Lincoln. "And second of all, I would at the very least try to explain what's going to my friend, who most definitely has no idea what's going on."

"I wish I could do that, but I'm just as confused as you," Lincoln answered. "Even with what you told me about Cristina and her plan, I just don't see how using these bracelets fit into it."

Ronnie flinched, almost as if she was worried. "What makes you think Cristina is involved with the bracelets?"

"Forced changes of behavior plus equals Cristina being behind this," Lincoln summarized.

And he was definitely onto something.

"Okay, how about we don't focus on that right now?" Ronnie suggested. "I mean, uh, you need to take a break from all the weirdness that must have happened, and since it seems you can't be near your sisters without driving them crazy, they can take a break too."

Lincoln, not really feeling up to discovering what was Ronnie's deal, shrugged and got off the couch. "Maybe you're right, my sisters and I need a break from this mess," he remarked.

And as Ronnie wrapped her arm around Lincoln's shoulder and patted him in comfort, she couldn't help but feel like Lincoln would soon become a pain in her butt.

Meanwhile, with the sisters...

The Loud sisters got up and dusted themselves as they soon realized where they were. "Huh, what are we, like, doing in the Santiago household?" Lisa asked, scratching her head.

"All I remember is a single light appearing in the black void that is my life," Lana answered, blushing with a smile.

"It's just as I feared," Lynn remarked before taking out a couple of notes. "I first only thought of this as a possibility, but it seems that, just as our bracelets change our personalities, Lincoln's bracelets also change us into feeling attracted to Lincoln himself. The longer we stay close to him, the faster we turn into mindless Lincoln lovers"

"What could that mean?" Luna asked as she rolled around the mud.

"Maybe Lincoln could know," Lola said, right before adding, "Or should I say, Lin-could know?"

And as she giggled and the rest of the sisters-including Luan-groaned in frustration, Lola added, "Get it?"

Which was followed by Luan attempting to giggle, and then promptly being shocked by her bracelet. And she wasn't the only one shocked, as she figuratively shocked her sisters, with Lynn in particular looking pretty pleased.

"Good, Luan, that was a nice attempt, but you will have to try harder in order to go back to normal," the forcefully smart athlete remarked. "And now, we have to go back home. The more far away we are from Lincoln, the better we can attempt to not only turn ourselves back to normal, but also give Lincoln some breathing space."

And all the sisters agreed, and followed Lynn back home as the athlete made some further calculations. "Okay, so if we want to return back to normal, we're going to need help," she told to her sisters. "We need to find some guy that knows how we tend to act, but who is not Lincoln, so we don't end up going goo-goo eyed for him."

And then they all thought for a bit...

At the McBrides...

Clyde heard the door being repeatedly banged, and opened it to find... a pizza delivery guy outside. So he paid the guy, took the pizza, closed the door... and reopened it when he heard it being knocked again, with the Loud sisters standing outside this time.

"Hi, Clyde!" they greeted in unison.

"Hi, I was expecting you," Clyde replied. "Come in, I got some pizza."

The sisters immediately went inside at the mention of the pizza, and Clyde put it down and allowed the girls to eat it whole as he leaned against a wall and said, "So, a little bird told me that you got some bracelets that made you act differently than usual."

"How come Walt seems to be more than happy to literally give people all sorts of information except us?!" Lucy complained, throwing her arms into the air.

"Yeah, I figured that Lucy would end up acting like Lynn, not like Lori," Clyde said, sounding slightly disturbed at the fact. "Although, I do have to wonder, who put the bracelets on your arms?"

"Didn't the little bird tell you about that, too?" Leni asked, and was immediately shocked by the bracelet.

"No, that was one of the things that they decided to leave out of the information they gave me," the boy sighed. "But I guess I shouldn't try to ask you stuff you know nothing about. Have any of you found out how to undo the changes?"

"We just have to act like ourselves to an extent that the bracelets will short circuit," Lynn answered before trying to swallow her pizza slice in one go.

"And how long did it take you to figure that out, Lynnsa?" Clyde chuckled.

"No time at all, 'cause you see, I have Lisa's intellect for a reason," Lynn remarked, right before being shocked by her bracelet. "Anyway, can you help us deal with this issue?"

"Well, I'm not exactly sure if you're going to agree, but I had an idea that might help us resolve this little problem," Clyde then sat next to the girls and explained, "It's still in the planning stages, so it might not work, but we could make an obstacle course and make you go through courses representing what you truly like, and as you try to complete it and act like yourselves, the bracelets will eventually short-circuit."

"Hmm... It's plausible..." Lynn remarked, scratching her chin.

"Okay, so, can you help me build it?" Clyde asked.

The sisters exchanged looks, and then promptly nodded in return. "One question, though, why do you have plans for these handy?" Lisa inquired. "I mean, even if the bird told you about our problem, it would take you, like, a long time to come up with such a plan, don't you think?"

"Do you want to be cured, or not?" Clyde replied.

The sisters begrudgingly nodded. And then Clyde took out some tools.

"Then let's get this started!" the boy excitedly exclaimed.

Back at the Santiago Household...

At Ronnie's bedroom, Cristina frantically looked around for a place to hide as she heard Ronnie and Lincoln coming to the room. "Hey, Lincoln, I have to clean up my room, how about you go back downstairs and wait until I'm done?" Ronnie suggested, sounding slightly nervous.

"Sure, why not," Lincoln replied.

And soon enough, Ronnie barged into the room, slammed the door shut and barked at Cristina, "Are you still out in the open?! If you don't want Lincoln to squeeze every single bit of information out of you, then I suggest you hide somewhere and quick!"

The redhead looked around some more, and finally decided to hide in the closet. "Why do I get the feeling this is more appropriate than it looks?" Ronnie asked while looking at the reader.

Then she quickly cleaned the room and whistled for Lincoln to come in. Once he went inside, what he saw was the closet closed shut and Ronnie, standing next to her bed with a nervous smile and her arms folded.

"So, what do you think?" Ronnie asked, looking left and right.

"It's a nice room, I guess," Linc replied as he walked closer to the girl. "Now, Ronnie, there's something I would like to discuss with you."

And then, both kids sat down on the bed and Cristina leaned closer to the closet door, hoping to hear what they were going to say.

"Listen, sometimes I can't help but feel that Cristina will hurt everybody to reach her unfathomable plan," Lincoln started, twiddling his fingers. "And that gave me an idea... what if she tries to hurt you and me next? What if she tries to make our relationship be burned to ashes, and then force us into relationships we want no part of?"

Ronnie flinched at the question, mostly because she was surprised Lincoln had reached such a conclusion. Granted, taking into account of the stuff that happened before, it was just a matter of time before he reached such a conclusion, but why did he had to reach it this early?

Sadly enough, Lincoln continued:

"I mean, don't take it as me being pessimistic but... seeing what she done to my sisters," and then he looked at his bracelet, "And what she has done to me... I can't help but be worried about us. Our relationship. What do you think?"

At this point, Ronnie fell silent as she tried to think of what to say next. On the one hand, she couldn't tell Lincoln about the plan, nor could he discover she was working with Cristina on it. But on the other hand, he did raise a pretty good point, and Cristina did seem like the kind of person who would go to the extremes to achieve her goal...

So she did the next best thing: she hugged him.

"Don't worry, Lame-O," Ronnie said in a reassuring tone. "If that ever ends up being the case, I'll make sure to give Cristina the biggest, harshest beating she's ever received in her life."

Lincoln's frown slowly turned into a smile as, for once, he actually felt like things were going his way. As if he could trust Ronnie, not that he had no reason to trust her before, but with all that's happened, his mind started to fill with doubts. Oh if only he knew...

But nevertheless, he returned the hug as he replied, sounding hopeful for once:

"I hope so, Ronnie."

-Next Chapter Preview-

"So, Cristina's mother, huh? How did a halfway decent woman, at least from the look of it, gave birth to such an annoying, obnoxious little brat like Cristina?" Leni pondered out loud. "Anyhow, what is so important that you need to speak to me? Can't you wait until my other sisters are finished with their business, or even better, call them instead?"

"No, because you are explicitly in Cristina's plan!" Mrs. Johnson snapped.

The teenager's eyes grew wide for a moment, before she narrowed them in contemplation. So the little redheaded brat had some use for Leni after all.

"I'm listening," Leni answered.