Midnight...
Leni, leaning against a wall, watched her sleeping sisters while occasionally looking at her glowing bracelet. And then, once the bracelet stopped glowing, she went forward to Lisa, grabbed her and walked to the door as Lori woke up. "Leni, what are-"
But Leni quickly said, "Would you kindly go back to sleep?"
The teenager fell asleep in an instant, and Leni left the room afterwards.
A bit later, in a pitch black room...
A single light turned on to reveal a sleeping Lisa sitting on a chair. Not that she remained asleep for long, since she soon woke up and saw Leni nearby, with a stern frown and her arms folded.
"Good midnight, Lisa," the teenager said, narrowing her eyes. "We have something to talk about."
"Leni, can't it wait until the morning?" Lisa whined, and this immediately got on Leni's nerves. "I mean, I understand if you can't wait for too long, but how about you wait until the early morning or-"
And then Leni smacked the wall with her fist, shutting up the scientist. "I have waited long enough, and you have ignored me for far too long as well," she sternly stated. "We will discuss your apathy towards a particular topic right here, right now!"
Leni snapped her fingers and the lights turned on, revealing they were in the Loud House basement, with a bunch of blueprints hung on the walls. "These are all blueprints. For machines," Leni said as she took some of the blueprints and showed them to the genius. "An intelligence enhancer, an attitude corrector, a humor analyzer. Do any of these give you any ideas?"
Lisa scratched her chin in contemplation... then promptly stated, "No, what am I supposed to get from this?"
Notably angry, Leni threw the blueprints away, grabbed Lisa by the collar of her shirt's neck and pulled her towards her, until they met face-to-face. In that instant, Lisa could see in Leni's look that a great repressed anger had been unleashed, but she couldn't understand why.
"You're supposed to get what you should have done since the very start you became a genius!" Leni snapped. "You're supposed to get that these are the stuff you could have worked on earlier, but which you decided to ignore to follow far more pretentious goals! You're supposed to see how you could have made our situation better, how you could've helped the family, and how you, didn't, do a damn thing to help us!"
And then Leni threw Lisa over to a table, breaking it in two. Surprisingly, outside of a pain at the back of her head, Lisa looked relatively fine. "L-Leni, what are you talking about?!" the small scientist inquired as she got up and Leni approached her. "I mean, I get that you're trying to say something, but I don't know what that is!"
Leni stopped in front of Lisa and chuckled. "Ha, the genius of the Loud household still has no idea what I'm talking about? And here I thought I was the dumb one," and then she leaned closer, "Speaking of which, how did it feel, Lisa? To act like me? To be seen as me? To be me?"
The little genius flinched, almost as if she had an idea of what Leni was asking. Nevertheless, the scientist refused to respond, and instead she gave Leni a defiant glare.
This didn't stop Leni from adding, "You know full well what happened: these bracelets change our behaviors but they don't erase our memories of them. You remember acting like me. You remember how Clyde said you even sounded like me. How did that make you feel?"
And Lisa continued to refuse to respond. So Leni continued, with a tone of restrained anger, as she went to a nearby shovel and picked it up.
"Well, that's how I feel every day. That's how I have to feel every day. Because I'm the dumb one of the crowd, and I can't change that, no matter how hard I try."
And then, she turned to Lisa with a furious glare.
"But you could change that, right?"
Lisa backed away, and immediately hit a wall as Leni approached her with the shovel. "You always had the ability to change a person for the better. You always had the potential to change an intolerable jerk into a charming individual. You could have even turned the Louds from the obnoxious pariahs of Royal Woods to decent, or even respectable people."
And then, she stopped and firmly stared at the scared genius.
"But that isn't what you did, is it?" and she lifted the shovel, her glare growing more and more enraged. "No, you did something different. You did something worst. You did the worst possible thing a person with your abilities could ever do..."
And as she swung the shovel down, she yelled:
"You did nothing!"
Luckily, Lisa dodged the shovel and managed to grab an equally large shovel as a weapon, though it was very clear she had a hard time holding it.
"Why didn't you ever wonder what you could do to help us?!"
She struck again.
"Why did you never attempt to make us more tolerable?!"
And again.
"Why did you allow this to happen in the first place?!"
And then, she struck so hard, Lisa's shovel was sent flying away until it landed on top of a pile of weaponry. "Even when it was clear you thought things would be better if we acted different... you stood at the sidelines and did nothing about it! Even when you expressed desire to change us for the better, you never did anything about it! And for that, I can only ask... why?"
"I know what you mean, but I can't just use my family like they were nothing but guinea pigs to me!" Lisa spat, tears streaming down her cheeks. "It wouldn't be morally clean or responsible!"
Leni just chuckled, "You. Slimy. Hypocrite."
And then she swung her shovel again and sent Lisa flying to a wall. She then slowly walked to her, dragging her shovel on the ground as she said:
"You're a scientist. Since when does your kind care about morality? Since when do you care about hurting the ones you love in order to achieve what you want?"
"I'm not a generic mad scientist, Leni! Yes, I used to experiment on you, but I don't do that anymore!" Lisa spat in defiance, making the teenager stop. "I won't, and I will never, fall to the deep moral depravity that scientists tend to show! And if I have to fall into such depths just to be considered a scientist... then screw science!"
Leni looked legitimately surprised for a moment, but she soon figured something out:
"You're saying all of this because the bracelet is making you say it, don't you?"
And then, just as Lisa got the idea, Leni kicked her in the face. "And here I was thinking I was talking with the real deal, when I was talking to the disgraceful imitation all along."
And then she kicked the girl again.
"I practiced what I was going to say, you know? What I would tell you so that you would know how it could have been, had things been different."
And then came another kick, this time aimed at Lisa's gut.
"But now, It's all been wasted on you."
And even after all that kicking, and despite bleeding from her mouth and nose, Lisa stood up and glared back defiantly.
"At the very least, since you seem to be stronger than the average 4-year-old, I can at least vent on you as much as I want!"
Leni kicked Lisa and sent her rolling to the pile of weapons where the scientist's shovel stood upon. Luckily, shortly after she hit the pile, Lisa recovered her consciousness fast enough to see she still had a chance to win.
And as the teen slowly approached, Lisa grabbed the shovel and struck the teenager once she was close enough, causing the duo to fight once more. This time, however, Lisa managed to put up a decent fight, as she managed to clash shovels with Leni before she swept it under her feet and then sent her flying with a smack until she crashed into a nearby wall.
As she slide back on the ground and she grabbed her legs, Lisa cautiously approached as she said, "I have done mistakes. I want to ammend for them. But, even if you're angry because of what I never did, even if you just wish to vent, nobody deserves... this!"
Leni smiled as she seemingly accepted Lisa's apology, and she got up and dusted herself... with one hand, while she continued to hold the shovel. This certainly caught Lisa's attention, and it made her back away a little.
"You're right, Lisa. Nobody deserves this..."
But then she lifted the shovel and got ready to strike again.
"Nobody but you!"
But just as she attacked, Lisa swung her own shovel and struck Leni in the cheek, hitting her hard enough to make her drop her shovel and crash into a wall, where she slid and slumped on the ground, too damaged to move.
With that done, Lisa ran to Leni's aid-holding the shovel just in case-and then saw Leni was... sobbing, crying even, as her smacked cheek showed a bright red shovelprint in it. Not only that, Leni genuinely sounded defeated this time, no tricks up her sleeves this time it seems.
"All I wanted was to convince you to help us, to use your brain for something that you should've tried to improve from the beginning: Our family," Leni sadly mused, shedding a pair of tears. "You have an amazing intellect, Lisa, but whenever you have the chance to use it for us, you just brush it aside and focus on other stuff."
The scientist was rendered speechless. "Don't you see how you could wind up helping everybody, Lisa? You could make Luan tell better jokes, you could have Lynn learn when to play and when to be serious, you could even make Lola a lot more tolerable, but you never thought about it, did you? We were never your priority, weren't we?"
Lisa looked away, feeling both regret and uneasiness now that she know what Leni wanted all along.
"But what you don't realize... is that we need you, Lisa," Leni added. "Only you can make us realize we could be so much more, only you can help us achieve a state that will benefit all of us. But if you don't help us... if you won't help us... then nobody else will..."
Lisa shed a couple tears as she stated: "I will help! Once this entire ordeal is dealt with, I'll get working in making our family better as soon as I can!"
Leni was taken aback by the statement. After having been ignored for so long, someone finally listened to her. Nevertheless, Leni couldn't take any chances, so she started to say a familiar sentence:
"Would you k-"
But she stopped. She couldn't end the sentence. She legitimately couldn't end the sentence. This was the first time someone actually heard Leni and didn't brush her aside mid-sentence or ignore her altogether. Doubly so because the one listening was Lisa, Leni's complete opposite in nearly everything other than gender.
And so, shedding some more tears, Leni lifted her arms and said, "Come here, sis."
Lisa, however, wasn't so quick to forgive the blonde, specially after the fight they just had. "I think I'll just sleep over here," she answered as she settled down on the wall opposite of Leni.
The teenager, though saddened, did recognize it was her fault her little sister didn't want to sleep with her. So she closed her eyes, nodded in agreement and soon fell asleep while Lisa watched her, and the little genius slept as well once she verified Leni really was asleep.
Next day, at the school...
A tired Lincoln walked across the hallways until he spotted Clyde among other of his "friends" talking about something. He went closer to them and got Clyde's attention, "Clyde, there's something I have to ask you."
"What is it?" Clyde asked, sounding partially worried.
"This morning, when all my sisters returned from the sleepover, Leni and Lisa were missing," Linc explained. "Then, I found them at the basement, bruised and bleeding. Do you know what happened?"
"Well, I don't know what to tell you, because I didn't hear them leave or anything," Clyde shrugged.
And as the boys continued to talk, Cristina watched from afar, her eyes looking just as tired as they were at night. In fact, she almost fell asleep before she slapped herself back to reality. And then she was approached by Ronnie, who put a hand in her shoulder and cheerfully greeted, "Hi Cristina, what's up?"
A long moment of silence passed before Cristina answered, sounding both tired and worried at the same time:
"Ronnie, I'm afraid there's something I want you to do for me."
"Great, she's talking again," Ronnie thought. And then she realized what that meant, "Oh no, she's talking again!"
And then, the duo turned around and saw Lincoln with Liam, Rusty Spokes, and some of his classmates. Clyde was among them, and he definitely looked a lot more worried than usual, almost as if he was hoping nothing bad would happen.
"Do you see Lincoln over there, with his friends?" Cristina asked, her frown turning into a forced smile as she added, "Those aren't friends. The only friend he has is Clyde, and he won't be able to do anything about what's coming next."
Ronnie glanced between Lincoln, Clyde and the classmates, but no matter how many times she did, she couldn't see what Cristina was talking about. "Wait, what do you-"
And then, the redhead snapped, "Would you kindly beat Lincoln within an inch of his life, right in front of his "friends"?"
Ronnie's eyes turned bright green as she answered, "Yes, Cristina" in a deadpan tone. Notably, she started to cry as she walked forward to Lincoln, all while Cristina maintained her pained smile as she watched the scene unfold.
First, Ronnie got close to Lincoln. Unsurprisingly, the guy was pretty surprised to see her. "Ronnie Anne? What do you need?" he asked.
And then, almost as if on cue, Ronnie formed a fist and punched Lincoln hard enough to break his nose. And while initially shocked, everybody but Clyde soon started to laugh as Lincoln grabbed his broken nose.
"Geez, Lincoln, you suck at dodging!" the kid with a teenager's voice said.
"No, not this again! Cristina, why do you have to force me to sit through all of this again?!" Ronnie thought in horror.
"Ronnie, what the heck?!" Lincoln howled in pain. "Did I do something to you or something?"
"Dude, of course you must have done something to her!" one of Lincoln's "friends" said. "She wouldn't have attacked you otherwise."
"And once again, they think he's at fault for me hitting him."
And then Ronnie kicked Lincoln right in the family jewels. While this made everybody-even Ronnie and Cristina-cringe and wince, the mocking soon continued regardless. "Can we consider Lincoln a girl now?" one of the kids asked.
"Forget considering him a girl, he's never getting a family as big as his own now!" another kid giggled.
"Dude, don't you act like that's a bad thing," the guy with a teenager voice scoffed.
"Damn it, you guys, why do you have to be such assholes?! Why didn't Cristina told me to beat you all up instead!?" Ronnie thought, showing off her fangs.
"Ronnie, I-I don't know w-what I did, but I'm s-sure we can discuss it non-violently!" Lincoln argued, sounding slightly terrified of whatever was coming next. "I'm not going to fight you, so please, stop doing this!"
"Shut up and take it like the man you are, or used to be, Lincoln!" one of the boys ordered, with the other boys-minus Clyde-nodding in agreement.
And then, Ronnie Anne grabbed Lincoln by the collar of his neck and pinned him against a wall. "R-Ronnie, please, I'm begging you, stop this!" Lincoln pleaded, tears streaming down his cheeks.
"I want to, Lincoln, I want to stop, but I can't!" Ronnie thought as she shed tears and muttered enough strength to turn to Cristina, who just continued to look in apparent apathy. "Cristina please, make me stop before I go too far!"
"Just a bit more," Cristina thought as Ronnie turned back to Lincoln. "The boys must show their true cruelty before this can stop."
The tomboy formed a fist and got ready to punch Lincoln again. But just as she threw her fist at him, she stopped right in front of his face and tried to pull it back, with the punch constantly looking like it could wind up hitting Lincoln.
"I need to resist! I need to resist! I need to resist!"
But in the end, Ronnie simply paused before she tightened her hold of Lincoln, followed by her punching him as hard she could while Cristina thought, in regret and in disappointment,
"I'm sorry, Ronnie, but resisting won't do you any good."
Ronnie repeatedly punched Lincoln, giving him a black eye, some broken teeth, and eventually some blood came out of his nose as the girl's uninterrupted barrage of punches was accompanied by the cruel laughter and mockery of Lincoln's "supposed" friends, except for Clyde, who covered his ears and closed his eyes.
"What a wuss!"
"Pathetic!"
"And to think I thought Lincoln wore the pants in his relationship!"
"I guess the rumors were true, Lincoln was actually Ronnie's punching bag all along!"
"That's kinda fitting for him, actually!"
Finally, just to signal the beating was over, Ronnie headbutted Lincoln hard enough to drive him unconscious. Once she released him, the girl saw Lincoln slide down the floor and saw the aftermath of the beating: A bleeding broken nose, a black eye, broken teeth, messy hair, all that stuff could be seen in the ravaged boy that was Lincoln Loud.
And, forced or not, it was thanks to her that Lincoln looked like this.
The breaking point came soon afterwards when a boy grabbed Clyde's arms, presented him to her, and then said:
"Hey, how about you beat up this guy next?"
And in that instant, Cristina walked forward and snapped her fingers, breaking Ronnie out of her trance. "Okay Ronnie, that's enough," the redhead stated as she went to the unconscious boy and lifted him. "You may beat up the boys if you want, I have to take Lincoln to the nurse."
"Hey, baby, you saw Ronnie beat him up, right?" one of Lincoln's friends said. "How about you ditch that loser and come with some actual boys, like us?"
"Ronnie, you have my permission to turn these boys into pseudo-girls," Cristina stated, making her anger at the boys very clear as Clyde went to her. "And do it as painfully as possible."
And as the redhead gestured Clyde to come with her, Ronnie gave the boys an angry look as they laughed. Once she verified she wasn't kidding by cracking her knuckles... the laughter continued, this time sounding even more mocking...
"Oh come on, we're four-ish against one," said one of the boys. "What can a tiny little girl like you do to us?"
"Allow me to show you!" Ronnie growled with a grin.
And then, she leaped forward as the boys continued to laugh...
Sometime later...
Clyde ran back to Ronnie Anne, breathing heavily as he ran. "Dang it, I need to become more athletic!" Clyde thought as he forced himself to go on. "I just hope I get there before Ronnie-"
But once he arrived, what he feared became true: He was too late. Ronnie had blood in her cheeks and hands, and the boys were nowhere to be seen. But there was a trail of blood nearby, leading to a nearby hallway where regretful cries could be heard.
"R-Ronnie?!" Clyde asked in shock, catching the tomboy's attention. "W-W-What happened?!"
The tomboy didn't respond at first. Instead, she looked at her own bloodied hands before stating in a stern tone, "I made the mockers pay."
"D-D-Don't tell me-" Clyde stuttered, getting an idea of what happened.
"Yes, I beated the boys just as harshly as I beat Lincoln, so they would feel the pain the felt during the beating," Ronnie answered, thinking that's what Clyde thought.
"Oh thank gosh, I thought you killed them or something!" Clyde exclaimed, taking a deep breath.
And then Ronnie scratched her hair in contemplation. Looks like he accidentally gave her ideas.
"N-Not that you should do it!" Clyde quickly clarified.
And yet, Ronnie couldn't help but still think about it, if only as a last resort...
And then, at the infirmary...
Lincoln slowly woke up and found himself at the nurse's office, laying on a bed with his sisters-all his sisters, mind you-by his side. Not only that, he was heavily bandaged: head, chest, stomach, limbs, a good deal of his body was covered in bandages.
"What happened?" Linc asked, looking around with worry.
"Apparently, Cristina took you all the way here after Ronnie beat you up and told the nurse to help treat your wounds," Lori answered, with a hint of utter disgust at Ronnie when she mentioned the tomboy's name. "She said you should be fine for a while, as long as you rest well."
"And until then, we'll be here, right by your side!" Lisa reassured.
"Um, you never told us about that," Lana remarked.
And as the sisters started to argue on what to do, Lincoln could only think:
"Why did Cristina help me?"
-Next Chapter Preview-
"I may have lost Lana, but I still haven't lost Lincoln," Lola said as she walked to her desk. "you hurt him. You beat him up. That alone should have earned you his hatred. His rage. I bet... he wants you to be dead right now."
And then, she opened the desk and took out a knife. And not a toy version of it, oh no, this one was the real deal, which made Ronnie back away. "And now..." the diva said, her reflection shining in the blade.
"W-Wait, what was that doing in your desk?!" Ronnie asked.
"And now!" Lola turned to the tomboy and slowly approached her, showing a demented smile. "Now, I can get revenge for him! I can avenge the beating you gave him with your death!"
