3,313 confirmed cases. Lincoln Loud stared at that number on the toilet, his hands shaking his galaxy note 9. Possible 14 day nation wide quarantine on the horizon. He wasn't anxious or freaking out or anything, I mean he is the Man With A Plan, keeps it as cool as a cucumber. His upset stomach, stress dreams, aching pain in his jaw from clenching it too hard and constant migraines are totally normal. Or at least 'normal' for the de-facto Head Honcho of the Loud Kids.

I mean Luan is technically the oldest still living at home but she's been really busy trying to build up an impressive portfolio to get into Carnegie Mellon. Also she's been absolutely batsh- batpoopoo since The Joker came out. But that's another story. Oh, and Lynn's been really into speed skating, there's talks about her joining the USA Olympics team. Good for her.

So yeah, everyone agreed to have Lincoln take the Head Honcho circa May 2019's Sibling Meeting but his term didn't technically start until July due to the Leni Clause outlined in the Aunt Ruth's Timeshare Resolution of 2018. There is a way to work around this ruling through the outcomes of Lucy v. Older Siblings (3) but that requires arbitration of a third party that could compromise the power balance between Lincoln and Lucy through Great-Grandma Hariet. And Lincoln didn't want a repeat of the Great Halloween Debacle of Sleeping Bear Dunes. Don't let that cold demeanor fool you, Lucy is always vying to expand her domain.

I know what you're thinking: "this is all basic stuff!", but I gotta ensure we're all on the same page here.

The year is 2020, a new decade. It started out promising, Lincoln was able to work together with Luna and Chunk to spearhead a new music festival opening up in Hazeltucky, The HazeFest. He was even able to get Jack White (you know, Michigan treasure Jack White of that one band, The White Stripes) to headline! All it took was constant badgering, some blackmail involving a guacamole recipe, and a moving musical number about the importance of not forgetting where you came from.

All that went up in smoke as soon as Covid-19 rolled in, thankfully the local businesses didn't take too much of a hit and Lincoln was able to get the Hazeltucky city council to funnel those funds into disaster relief to ensure that everyone stays nice and safe during the coming storm. And Lincoln isn't even from Hazeltucky, in fact he kinda hates those assholes. All he's got to show for it is a signed guitar and the warmth of knowing he helped a community come together in a trying time, but that shit don't pay no bills.

Not that the Loud's are hurting that bad, Lori and Lisa saw the writing on the walls come February and shifted the more volatile investments into sure-shots. And Mom's talks with the movie producers about turning her book series into a movie came to a head and she made out like a bandit. Restaurants doing fine too! Lynn Sr. has been making more and more appearances on Food Network and there's talks on him competing to be the next Food Network star.

Of course with the parents being out of commission most of the time with their careers the kids have to pick up way more slack. With that comes certain freedoms, cusses freed from lips that were once stifled out of fear of mom and dad. But mostly fear of Lori. Things are just as chaotic as they were when Lori was here, there just wasn't an ego-tripping hormonal teenage girl in charge. This time it's a ego-tripping hormonal teenage boy with a chipped tooth and a debilitating caffeine addiction.

But all that new money rolling in don't mean jack-sh… jack-poopoo to Lincoln, he doesn't leave things to contingency, he won't sit on his hands idle because he knows if something can go wrong it will. And if something doesn't go wrong he better make something go wrong because he didn't do all that planning for nothing, goddamn it.

Lincoln might have problems.

He's got some fire in the irons right now, if you know what I'm saying. Gotta pick up the slack from HazeFest failing somehow.

Spring Break coming up, lots of parents off work with no where to go. Lincoln came up with the idea of a Spring Break camp, advertised it around the area boasting it as a clean haven away from the unwashed masses. Him and The Gang got all the legwork done, hired older kids and college kids. Liam's got some family upstate with some land that used to be a famous ski lodge. They slapped some new paint on, stockpiled some food and supplies, it's all set to go.

He got some bites, 36 concerned parents who perked up at the name of "Loud", they know about Lisa's Nobel peace prizes and have seen the Loud's perform miracles all in the span of 22 minutes (plus commercials). Of course all of this was technically illegal since he didn't really get any permits, but I mean it's technically private property, who gives a shit? Cops are too busy right now to care.

Now all he needs is a way to ensure that it actually stays clean and safe, not just for his sake but his families sake. Today he's about to find out if he's gotta return that money and eat a 4,000 dollar loss.

Don't ask where he got the money.

Worse comes to worst he and select friends and family take a nice little vacay upstate, wait the whole thing out.

Lincoln put his phone back into his pocket and wiped knowing damn well he didn't shit nothing, but he's got swamp ass cuz he's in total War Mode right now. He washed his hands for a good 60 seconds and took a look at himself in the mirror.

He's fifteen now, tail end of freshman year. Hair grown out a bit with a more defined part showing off his fuck-boi stud earring on his left ear. Black Eddie Bauer Legendwash T-shirt with a bright orange chain for a splash of color, Lana got that chain for him last Christmas because she's terrible at picking gifts, but he wears it anyway because he's a damn good big brother. He's got Abercrombie jeans on because his washboard ass needs all the help it can get, cuffed up at the bottom to show off his Hanes tube socks. Red Adidas skater shoes on even though he hasn't skated since he was 11 (that one time he picked it up with Clyde), he can still pop a kickflip after 6 or so tries so I guess that's fine (but he's on thin ice if you ask me). Looks a bit like his dad when he was Lincoln's age, a little bit on the skinny side, sliding into "awkwardly gangly" territory.

Finishing up his business he put on his grey sports coat and retrieved a lukewarm Redbull 8 oz from one of the pockets and cracked that bad boy open. Lincoln needs his Gamer Fuel, baby. He used to rock this baby blue seersucker whenever he was up on his Business Boy Bullsh-... BullPoopoo when he was 11, but he's going for a more subdued casual look instead. He's got paper to move and a town to save.

Approaching Lisa's (and Lily's) door he felt a odd pulsing feeling from the bottom of his stomach and nodded to himself, Lisa had the same thoughts rolling in her head. Lincoln knocked and entered, giving her space but also reinforcing his authority as a guardian.

"Hey, Lis' you getting the ol' Professora on the horn?", asked Lincoln. His eyes took a while to readjust to the bright fluorescent lighting of Lisa's side of the room.

"'Sup, Lincoln, that'll be a Affirmative. I've made some upgrades to the Multiverse Observer so, if my calculations are correct, we should be receiving an uptick of frames per second. Though the increase of deviation has the possibility of distorting the overall quality of the images, but the audio quality will be much more legible," Lisa replied, not taking her tired eyes from the device, "Now that the signal quality has been increased the L-verse feedback is much more noticeable."

Lisa was sporting a black Uniclo labcoat with a green vintage Merona cashmere turtleneck, baggy camo chinos and white Air Jordan's. Her shoelaces are untied, not because she has trouble tying them! She's already 8 years old, jeez. She's just got a lot of stuff on her plate, please be patient with her.

"The sound makes my tummy feel funny!", announced Darcy, waving to Lincoln, "Howdy, Lincoln! I'm working on my Spring Break homework. I'm almost all done with my workbook! That was supposed to take me all month!"

Darcy was sporting some bitchin' light up Rebocks and white capri pants with a floral and paisley patterned teal and pink blouse. Her Spring Break outfit, fly as all hell and the shoes match her Lisa Frank traffic keeper. Get styled upon, turbo-nerd.

"Glad to hear that you're keeping up with your homework, Darcy. When I was your age I usually put all that stuff off until the last minute!", Lincoln said as he went to ruffle Darcy's hair, but stopped at the last minute knowing there was a global pandemic going on that he totally wasn't freaking the fuck out about, "Me and Lisa have to go have a uh... Family Talk with a distant relative, Lisa is it cool if she stays up in here? The Gang is up in the War Room but there should be enough space if she needs to leave to work on finishing her sh- poopoo up"

"Hmm,", Lisa broke from staring at the screen to ponder for a moment, "As long as she stays quiet I don't think it should cause any problems. I waive my decision to you, elder sibling."

"Well…", Lincoln took a moment to weigh the pros and cons.

So, it's been established that other universes exist. When Lisa introduced and proved the concept of it to Lincoln when he was 11 it did kind of fuck him up big time. The existential horror of knowing that there probably is like a weird fucked up serial killer version of you existing out there gave him nightmares for a week. And if there isn't a fucked up serial killer version out there it's probably you!

But it's Darcy Helmandollar we're talking about, the worst possible multiverse Darcy is probably not that bad. Like maybe a Darcy that doesn't flush after using a public restroom on purpose would be evil!Darcy. She is only 8 years old, and pretty bright for her age from the influence of Lisa. It might cause her to grow up fast, or maybe she just won't care. I mean, being best friends with a child genius implies that you've probably seen some shit. Lincoln has seen Jimmy Neutron, and Sheen and Carl probably need some therapy. Also probably Jimmy.

"Yeah, sure, you can stay Darcy. We were just going to talk to an alternate universe version of Lisa, so keep it a lil' quiet. She can get a little bit testy sometimes," Lincoln announced.

Lisa raised her eyebrow at Lincoln casually admitting the existence of the multiverse but shrugged her shoulders, it was only Sunday so they haven't even begun to wreak as much havoc doing hood-rat scientist stuff. This will probably be the least crazy thing that happens this week.

"That's cool, I'll probably just be working on my fractions anyways, but if stuff gets like too personal, I can mosey on outta here", Darcy said while sharpening a pencil, "I know how crazy family can be, never wanting to get off the dang ol' phone."

All three of them shared a laugh in Lisa's room surrounded by paradigm shifting technology, things that could save the world or destroy it. The hum emitting from the antenna soldered onto Lisa's IBM ThinkPad was the sound of the universe collapsing and reforming at a rate of 2^16 yottabytes per second.

But what's crazier than all that is how family can get when you're on the phone, you know what I'm saying? Like you just wanna check to see how their trip to Disneyland went and then they go on and on about how "Sam is building up walls between us" or "Sam gets mad at me because I wear her dirty clothes out of the hamper" or "Sam thinks it's weird that I wake up in the middle of the night just to watch her sleep". All you wanna know is how the new Star Wars land is like but Luna won't shut the fuck up about Sam. Jeez, Lincoln knows they're married and all but maybe Luna should get a new hobby or something.

Anyways-

Lincoln took a moment to peep Lisa's new upgrades on the Multiverse Observer. He hated that name, wished it was something cooler like The Looking Glass or The Spyglass but Lisa wasn't one for romantic sensibilities, that's more Lucy's steez. The earlier model was a jury rigged LeapPad pilfered from Lily's old toys, a weird mass array of cables and exposed wires connected to a satellite dish donated from one of Lana's junkyard crawls. Looked and sounded like total Canis lupus familiaris feces, street name: Dogg-poopoo. Picture quality looked like the bastard mix of a tamagotchi and a non-euclidian etch-a-sketch, sounded like Vanzilla's blown-out speakers after Luna handed the keys to Luan.

Looks like the new model is Lori's old PS Vita that she used to play Otome games on back when she was a weeb in middle school. Lincoln raised his eyebrows at this, hopefully Lisa moved her saves somewhere else or the both of them will be human pretzels.

Be Auntie Anne's up in this bitch.

A hefty looking cable connected the Vita to Lisa's cherry Vintage IBM ThinkBook, Zach and Clyde spazzed out about it when Lincoln picked it up from Mr. Grouse's garage sale last month. He wanted to use it to play Age of Empires but the thing was bloated with so much spyware he chucked it off to Lisa to mess around with.

Soldered onto the back of the monitor is one of Lincoln's old ARRRGH! walkie-talkies with a odd pulsating red crystal embedded in the exposed front speaker. One of Lucy's crystals that she used to make in Mason jars in the attic, fun little arts and craft project, but if you sleep while touching one you'll have horrible nightmares. Lisa made her stop selling them on Etsy, she's still pretty sour about that.

And finally, connected by a 3.5 audio cord to Luna's old 20 watt Peavy guitar amp for some quality sound. If your idea of "quality sound" is total shit. But it's a big step up from the built in speakers of the IBM monstrosity.

Soon as Trump became El Presidenté the government grants became a little hard to come by. There were some creative differences. You know how it is in the Child Super Scientist racket! Real cut throat stuff, everyone knows the stories. Nowadays Lisa's gotta make due with scraps for her passion projects, maybe cut some deals with some unsavory characters, maybe commit some light warcrimes.

But it's 2020, baby. Poopoo or get off the pot.

"Niiiice! That's some real Kid's Next Door lookin' tech you got there Lis'", Lincoln said, giving her a verbal pat on the back instead of a physical one, not because he was afraid of the global pandemic wreaking havoc on the planet. "Don't think you were old enough to watch that one though, I remember watching it with Lori growing up. But in the Kid's Next Door the tec-"

Lisa cut him off, "Lincoln if you commence one of your pedantic tirades about children's cartoons this blasted plague will infect more people. Also, everyone knows I enjoy Foster Home For Imaginary Friends the most out of the cartoon renaissance, I find the character designs whimsical and imaginative. Please allow me to finish up my final calibrations, we will be good to go in about 30 minutes, so be on standby and don't leave the second floor", Lisa went back to working on the laptop, crunching numbers into a TI-55 calculator and scribbling on a Keroppi stationary pad.

Lincoln understood why she was a little bit snappy, of course a 10 year old would freak out about something small like a national emergency. Not Lincoln though, he was chill, just chilling in the doorway, white knuckling the doorknob. He took a moment to steady his shaky hand gripping his Gamer Fuel, don't want it to lose carbonation fast.

"Should I enact the Basilisk Protocol?" Lincoln asked.

Lisa sighed, Eistein, I can't have him freaking out like this. She looked into his eyes expecting them to be full of fear but was met a steely gave. Oh, he's in his little "War Mode" again, I suppose that's a little better.

"No need for theatrics, Lincoln. Save that for Luan.", Lisa dismissed, "You know Basilisk Protocol can only be enacted when all siblings are under one roof." Lincoln opened his mouth but Lisa went on, "-or inhabiting a 3 kilometer plot of land per the ruling of the outcome of the dreaded Luan's Lū'au, I did assist you with it's first draft, after all." Lisa shooed him away, "Now go ensure that the other siblings don't muck about and ruin my concentration. Lola and Lana have been fighting all morning since Meli arrived".

Darcy closed the door with a smile and a wave.

"Lincoln can be a real piece of work sometimes, but he is a good big bro. I can't imagine the kinda bullsh- bullpoopoo he's gotta deal with from bein' the only brother with 10 sisters." Darcy said with a sigh to Lisa as they both settled into their respective works.

"Einstein knows he's handling all of this better than Lori would be…", Lisa replied with a shudder, "I don't even want to begin to imagine what Luan would be doing if she were in charge."

It's me, Needlessly Meta, weird name huh? My parents were gen-Xr's so I'm kinda used to it. Anyways this is my first published fic. I'm working on something else with the Loud House that'll have to do with characters that show up a bit in this story. I had this idea for this fic yesterday and just slammed it out today. Hope you guys are staying safe out there, grandma gave me a call today and she told me her pastor said the cure for the Corona was to eat a banana. I ain't no doctor, and I sure as hell ain't no pastor, so maybe he knows somethin that I don't.

Anyways hopefully I'll be able to post more chapters sooner rather than later. Feel free to yell at me about characterization, grammatical and spelling errors in the comments. I feel like any time you write a character that's been established in another media you kinda inherently embellish and project upon it. If you want some reasoning on why I wrote this Lincoln to be kind of a douche it is probably a reflection of me, the author. The most you can do is work adjacent to contingency, the art has more autonomy than the artist.

Also this AU does not exist in the Loud House universe, it exists in ours (kind of, there is no Royal Woods in Michigan, just Royal Oaks). This is the reason I didnt use any weird ersatz naming bullcocky established in the show. I'll get into that later.

Anyways, gotta go, think my grandma's calling again.