Chapter 15: Beneath the Pale Moonlight Part 2
Lincoln and Lucy gave each other a perplexed look before turning back to look at their apparent adversaries. The grips on the girls' weapons tightened as the glared back them.
"I can't believe you never told me..." Lucy said. Lincoln snapped his head back to her. Beneath the emotionlessness of her tone a lacing of sorrow could be felt, "When were you planning to bite me? I've been waiting for-"
"Oh knock it off, we know what you BOTH are," Lola growled, "Now we can do this the easy way or the hard way. And we prefer the hard way."
"...we do?" her accomplices asked. Lola slouched forward as her eyelids lowered.
"Ugh, you two really need to learn how to sound intimidating," the beauty queen sighed.
"Oh I know how to sound intimidating," Lynn told her as she stood her weapon up to lean against it, "But this just sounds like unwanted trouble you're asking for."
"Uh...guys?..." Lana said.
"Honey, you obviously haven't been in the competitions I have," Lola replied flicking her hair at the older girl, "You need to get the bear to show its teeth before you display your dominance. Only then will you know that you've beaten-"
"Guys..."
"Or...you just cut off the head before it makes a move," Lynn spat back.
"Like they're doing?" Lana asked. Lynn and Lola's eyes widened as the girl made her first shots. Having taken the opportunity in the group's self-distraction, Lincoln and Lucy had already gotten a halfway across the room by the time the liquid had begun splattering around their feet. Knowing there wouldn't be much time before it caught up to them, Lincoln grabbed Lucy's wrist and pulled her behind the couch where he proceeded to wrap his arms around her and roll across the floor into the room beyond it. Hastily Lola and Lynn followed Lana in her pursuit. Be it through her unwavering focus or having had the most investment in their efforts, the more boyish of the twins took to their targets' heels the quickest and by the time they'd reached the backside of the couch her affiliates had their weapons brandished and readied. Their eyes flipped from side to side in their search for the missing Louds. From all they could tell they'd disappeared.
"Great, this is one of those "you can't see em" things isn't it?" Lynn muttered.
"That's only when you look at them in the mirror you dolt," Lola sighed.
"Will you guys hush? I'm trying to find em!" Lana hissed. More out of curiosity than obedience, the two quieted and watched the girl's methods. With focused alertness she sniffed at the air. First a couple of short sniffs and then a more drawn out inhale that she seemed to gulp down once it'd slid through her nasal cavity. After a few more sniffs her eyes blinked open and her pupils slid towards their parent's bedroom. Looking to the others, they nodded to each other and slid up along the wall of the living-room. Even if no one quite knew what the hand-signals Lana gave meant, the makeshift hunters had the implications down enough that they snuck into the room with each tilt she gave of her hand. Once Lola and Lynn were through Lana checked around and gave one last tilt signalling her own entering of the chamber.
Fortunately for them, with their father preoccupied with the cooking and their mother making use of the garage for some peaceful writing, the three pursuers had little objection towards the investigation of the oldest family members' normally restricted room. Their search through the drawers and closet was thorough, though they were a bit more delicate given the territory they were in. After all, none of them wished for any scolding or punishment for the strange intrusion should evidence be left for their guardians to find, and their quiet was something to be admired with how close one of the parents already was to the room. One little clatter was all it'd take for their father to become curious. Even so, Lana did her best to inspect even the remnants of what had remained carved out of their parents' old secret bathroom behind the walls of the room using her ears and knocks from her knuckles, but nothing fed back the location of their prey. Their scent was in the room, but the trio could not find them.
"Do it now. I'm ready," Lucy prodded from where she huddled beneath her brother at the bed's underside. In confused hesitation, Lincoln looked down and sighed at the sight of his sister bending her neck towards him.
"Lucy, I'm not a vampire..." he groaned. The girl tilted her face up towards him but dropped it back down as such resumed the presentation.
"You don't have to lie "my love", I will allow you to take me," she pleaded, "after all, should you start the conversion it will allow me to make the claim more meaningful on this night should he choose to accept the ever coveted fate of immortality-"
"Luce! Do you honestly think YOU wouldn't have caught onto me being a vampire by now if I were one?" Lincoln pointed out. Thinking for a moment, Lucy let her hair drape back over her exposed neck.
"...but...their must be some reason they made that claim when we got in," she reasoned, "and I know I'm not one. And if you aren't-"
"Look, I don't know why they're doing this or what this is about, but we NEED to get out of here and get ready," Lincoln said. He pulled up the covers near them to get a look at the door but flung them back down over their hiding spot as he noticed a pair of feet walk by them.
"With them on our tail?" Lucy murmured. This was just what they needed on such an important night.
"Hey...we're going to that dance...don't worry..." Lincoln assured her. Lucy snuggled into his constricting form as she felt his cheek rub into the side of her head. She may not have seen how the chances might shift in their favor, but she enthralled herself with what little comfort she could get from her "partner".
"Alright, let's see how well this device works," Lola's voice said. Tensing, Lincoln and Lucy looked for an escape. A break in the patrol of their hunters. Something. But all they could find were the feet of their sisters at every side of the bed. Lucy bit her lip. Whatever Lola had just activated had made a soft humming noise, no doubt a device absconded from Lisa. The heat-reading visor that Lola had procured from her deal-making however wouldn't get much use before another signal pulled their attention back to the closet. Under the threat of the entire week of training possibly being for nothing Lucy's body refused to let themselves be undone. Grabbing a shoe from the edge of the bed's underside, Lucy twisted her body to get a good view of the still-open closet and tossed it as quickly as possible at it. Had anyone seen it they probably wouldn't have even known what they were looking at with how fast it had blurred by, but what mattered was the sound that it'd made. With how it hit the wall of the closet and bounced around between it and the interior of the opened doors, it made just enough of a ruckus that all three sisters dashed straight over to it. Lincoln pulled Lucy back into his embrace and rolled them out from under the bed and back into the living room while their predators looked over the inside the inside of the alcove they'd followed the sudden noise to.
It didn't take long for the misled girls to double back and poke into the main room of their parents' chambers again, but by the time Lola had picked up the heat signatures of their departed siblings they were already on their way to the steps.
"Thanks dad, we'll keep that in mind!" Lincoln said giving him a thumbs-up as their chasers popped into the living room.
"I'm sure it'll be to die for," Lucy added. Noticing the other girls, she joined Lincoln in his jaunt towards the second floor which the three other Louds soon charged towards as well.
"Oh girls, dinner will be ready in about fifteen minutes!" their dad told them happily.
"Smells good!" Lola complimented.
"Aw man, Charles is gonna want some so bad," Lana said giving him a thumbs-up as she passed.
"Can not wait!" the younger Lynn said licking her lips as she followed them up the steps. Left to his project, the older Lynn stepped back into the kitchen. Before he could dip the ladle back into the broth however his brows jumped and he shot a concerned glance towards the living room.
"...were they in our room?" he blinked.
Lucy felt the soreness of her feet building back up as they raced up the stairs. With all the running they'd had to do to make it home in the hopes of having time to prepare for the Ball, her muscles had practiced enough to get more used to the physical activity than normal. That wasn't to say it was welcome though. The prolonged chase only delayed their objective even further, an objective that they had worked towards throughout the entire week. Why were they being chased? What did their sisters want? Why did they think that they were vampires?...well okay, why did they think LINCOLN was a vampire? Sure their "hanging out" might have been a bit prominent throughout the last week, but what had they done that might have incited such suspicion? And why did it have to be on that night?
Whatever questions flooded Lucy's head would have to wait, for as they hit the top of the steps, the oldest of the commotion reached their footing and swung her blade. Noticing the shine of the object, Lincoln pulled Lucy downwards letting the weapon fly right over their lowered heads and sink into the wall. As Lynn put her foot on the wall to try and give her some leverage to pull the object back out, Lincoln gawked. They were actually trying to HURT them! Whatever paranoia had overtaken the three sisters had risen an unforeseen danger for he and Lucy. But Lincoln wasn't ready to let himself and his "partner" die. Not after all that they'd been through. And with the ordeals they'd dealt with together, he was sure they had more than enough experience to outwit the three opponents. Lynn and Lana may have fought alongside each other against them before, but just as with what he could remember of that instance he was sure Lucy and him could win out in that one. They'd battled their way through a crypt of zombies together!
As Lana spun into the scene and let off a volley of shots from her gun, Lincoln pushed Lucy to the side. Their bodies hit the wall on either end of the corridor making soft "thunk"ing noises in the boy's efforts to save their scents from that of the garlic juice that flew past them. Reviling the substance, Lucy ducked and rolled along the floor as the shots came closer to her. The more physical threat however had begun to approach them after finally having retrieved her blade from the inside of the wall it'd been lodged into. The white and black-haired children looked around wildly for an escape and at almost the same time their eyes fell on their way out. Pulling their attention down from the upper part of the wall behind their attackers, Lincoln and Lucy nodded at each other. The only obstacle they truly had was the sharp object nearing them. It may have been stupid to attempt to get beyond that, but they didn't have many choices. Adrenaline overriding the fear, Lincoln jumped forward but stepped back as Lynn took the bait. He'd "fought" with her more than enough to know how to avoid some of her attacks if he kept his composure enough, and as expected she'd swung right at where he'd been.
Taking Lucy's hand he ducked her past the taller girl. Realizing their maneuver, Lana took aim at the approaching duo but received a kick straight into the wall from the foot Lucy connected with her jaw. In the commotion, Lynn had tried for another swing at the pair, but again they ducked below the swipe of the blade, and as they came back up Lincoln, who'd locked his hands beneath Lucy's foot, launched his black-haired companion at the upper part of the wall they'd been eyeing. Lucy's body acted on its own as it dove into her ever-desired ventilation system. She lowered her body back down out of the vent to grab Lincoln as Lynn made her final swing at him which he gladly jumped over to grab onto his escape. Lucy pulled with as much might as her legs would allow, and with surprising speed she managed to slide her brother into the vent alongside her leaving their pursuers to look on in annoyance.
"God damn!" Lana grunted as she rubbed her jaw.
"Those little..." Lynn muttered as she stabbed at the vent with her spear. They could get up there, but the fleeing pair had an unfavorable headstart, and at least one of them knew the ventilation system better than anyone. Who knew if they'd be able to catch up to them.
"Girls, relax," Lola smirked as she took off her heat-seeking goggles and pulled one of her projectiles into view, "I got this."
The crawl of escapees echoed throughout the vents of the house. Had anyone been listening they'd might have wondered if some sort of raccoon had gotten in. Had the one that most frequented the vents had time to recognize the noise they left in their wake she would have been ashamed at her less-than-stellar stealth. The threat that had chased them though didn't leave her time to bask in her usual silence. They had to put as much distance between themselves and their psychotic reprimanders as possible. As a light "tink"ing sound bounded towards them however that became less far less doable.
"Lincoln, watch it," Lucy said putting her hand out to stop him. He'd almost fallen straight into a hole in the vent they were crawling through which seemed to just stretch into shadows below. To set an example, she pressed herself up along the side of the vent and crawled along the rim of the hole's opening. "That leads to-" Whatever the girl had been saying was silenced from the blinding light that shot out from the spherical object that'd bounced into view and exploded between them. For a moment Lincoln wondered if they'd been killed. The weightlessness certainly lent itself to an idea of the afterlife, but as the brightness died into powdery sparkles, he could tell just why his body felt so air-bound. He was falling. As was Lucy. Whatever had been thrown between them had hit them with just enough surprise that they must have fallen straight into the hole. Lincoln could make out the rush of each segment of the metal chamber around them as his hearing began to return and wherever the shaft that they were falling through led they were coming up on its end. Fast. With Lucy either unconscious or still recovering in front of him from the shock, Lincoln swam down to her in the fall as best as he could. The journey may have taken mere seconds, but it felt like minutes as he fought against the air current. Just before they could reach the bottom, Lincoln finally got his hand around Lucy's wrist and pulled her into a tight embrace.
With dull thud, a cloud of ash erupted from the furnace in the basement. Its hatch billowed open allowing the two children to fall through and slide onto the floor. Having fully regained her senses, Lucy whipped her head around. Due to the darkness of the basement most people wouldn't have been able to see, but her eyes adjusted quicker than many with how perpetually hidden they were. Realizing what had dampened her fall, Lucy rolled off of Lincoln. Getting no response from his closed eyes and splayed mouth, Lucy put her ear to his chest. It took a second, but his heartbeat did play for her. Hoping to snap him out of whatever stupefaction he'd let her body know him into, she pulled him up to her eye-level and shook him. All that truly accomplished was flailing his loose head about, but at least she could feel his breathing whenever his mouth drew close to her.
"Oh come on, where are they?" she heard a voice echo. Turning her attention to the furnace she realized the danger they were still in. After whatever the girls above had used to stun them, they'd taken the chance to try and catch up to them by crawling into the vents themselves. "They aren't down that way, and they aren't at the bend!" Lucy was more alone than she'd felt all week in the presence of her incapacitated accomplice. "Well the heat signatures end here. They're around somewhere so find them!" Lola's shrill voice cut through the metal. Frantically, Lucy darted her head around to find an escape. It'd only be a matter of time before their followers had realized where they'd gone. As the voices congregated around the shaft leading to the furnace, the goth's eyes came to rest on a window towards the ceiling of the basement.
"Get moving..." a voice murmured to her. Looking back to her brother she could see his barely visible pupils poking towards the same spot through his cracked eyelids. Looking back to the window, she nodded and proceeded to drag his body towards the wall.
"Sorry," she told him as she propped him up against it. Lincoln shrugged. He knew it wouldn't be too comfortable, but he was ready for the friction. Using his shoulders as a step-stool, Lucy elevated herself up to the window's height and flung it open. Once she'd crawled through she grabbed hold of the neck of his shirt and yanked him through it. Once the window had clacked shut, she found a somewhat heavy rock and shoved it in front of the potential opening before moving back over to where she'd placed the boy against the outside wall of the house under the patio they'd emerged beneath. The rock may not have ensured their safety forever, but it would add on even more time to their sisters' search than they'd already chanced upon when they'd been knocked into the basement. With swift delicacy, Lucy ran her fingers across Lincoln's limbs, body, and head. Since he gave no winces or reaction to whatever pained areas may have laid beneath his skin, she could only assume that he'd just gotten a bit roughed up in the fall. Still, to take the brunt of it for her...that couldn't have been the most pleasant impact to endure, nor was the merciful act lost on her. He may not have given much of a reaction to her fingers, but he let out a surprised grunt as she squeezed her arms around him. Sighing, he stroked the back of her hair and nuzzled against the stands that pressed into his throat.
"Sigh...Lincoln...I'm so sorry," Lucy murmured into his shirt.
"Hey, it's alright," he comforted as he ran his fingers across the back of your head, "It's not your fault."
"It is..." Lucy groaned, "Lana got creeped out by us on Friday, Lynn's been after us all week, and Lola got weirded out by your "gothism" yesterday." Lincoln's eyes lifted in realization. When the younger girl put it like that, their perceived vampirism made slightly more sense. "It's my fault...if I hadn't talked you into this they wouldn't think you'd be acting weird and-"
"Lucy stop," Lincoln said. A wetness lined her lower eyelids, but the girl looked up as the hand running across her scalp came to a stop. She did her best to try to hide the guilty glow of her face as she looked up. "It is not your fault. I agreed to this," he reminded, "And like I said, we are going to that dance."
"But you-"
"Are fine," Lincoln told her shaking her grip off for evidence, "Just...a bit shaken up from the fall is all. I should be okay to move now." In the glimmer of the setting sun, their faces glistened with orange and yellow through the weaving shadows of the supports of the patio. After a spell of silence, Lucy's shadow moved up into Lincoln's. The coloring of his face hardly mattered with how the sun bled across it. Barely making a sound, Lucy's lips pulled back from his cheek and she rested her own cheek against it.
"...I'm sorry," she told him. Lincoln found it surprising how hard it was to form words to respond with under the wave of intensity that the kiss sent through him. At the same time however, it bubbled an unprecedented boast within him. Pride and confidence welled through his body from the surprising intimacy of the girl's apology. Sucking in a refreshing breath, Lincoln closed his eyes and blew it from his nose. He pulled Lucy back from him with a firm smile as he reopened his vision.
"All we gotta do is get to my room and get that suit," he surmised, "from there on out it should be smooth sailing."
"But Lynn and the twins-" Lucy started, but was cut off by a deafened clamor of footsteps on the basements stairs that sounded from the window next to them.
"Have just left the first and second floors free," Lincoln pointed out. The boy and girl huddling beneath the patio looked to each other once again, Lincoln's smile now a grin. "You ready for one last adventure?" he asked. Hearing a series of bumps and clangs from the window near them, Lucy's body crawled. She didn't have much time to make her decision, but no matter what reservations she might have had only one option presented itself as the answer. Knowing there was not much choice to be made, she looked to Lincoln's face and gave a stern nod. Nodding back he pushed himself up from the wall and followed Lucy in her crawl to an opening in the patio's support. By the time the window they'd been near had started to rattle they were already back in the house. Initially Lincoln just waltzed right in, but a hand from Lucy halted his progress. With their threat lurking directly below their feet they couldn't just jump about carelessly lest they summon the danger directly to them. No, they had to move quietly, and for that Lucy's wordless guiding pulled him into her subtle footfalls. More versed than ever in the bounce of the movements, Lincoln's steps joined her's in their noiseless slink to the stairwell once he'd caught on to what she was doing.
"Oh, Lincoln, Lucy. D-" their father said upon spotting them but stopped once he saw the fingers that they put to their mouths. Clearly annoyed at the disturbance he'd caused with his unexpected intrusion to their quietness, Lynn Sr. gave them a bashful grin and shrugged his shoulder. "Sorry," he whispered, "Dinner will be in eight minutes." Their scowls flipped to faces of excitement as they gave him a thumbs-up. He shook his head with happy approval as they continued just as silently up the stairs. He was surprised at how well adept to creeping around with Lucy Lincoln was, but it was nice to see the oft forgotten child getting some company in whatever she was doing. What they were doing however would prove to be far easier than their previous attempt with the removal of their siblings from their path. Once they had reached the second floor, they became more carefree in their movements since the first floor likely masked their run enough from the ears of the Louds searching the basement.
"How are we gonna break the news to dad?" Lincoln asked, "I mean he's gonna expect us at the table, especially since he JUST saw us."
"Don't worry, I'll write him a note," Lucy said as they darted for his door, "You got pencil and paper in your room?"
"Does Ace Savvy carry a spare deck of cards?" Lincoln smirked. Getting nothing but a blank stare from his companion he coughed. "That um...that means yes-"
"Groan, I got that," Lucy murmured causing Lincoln to look to his side in embarrassment.
"Still...kind of want that fish. Smells really good down there..." he mumbled.
"Lincoln, you're the one that just gave that just convinced me to keep going outside," Lucy said as they reached his door.
"Right..." he sighed grabbing the doorknob. Determination brimmed back through his body as he squeezed the handle. They had a job to do. It'd been what they'd been working towards the entire week and to let that fall through, especially after the consoling he'd given the girl next to him, would be quite a betrayal...no matter how good dinner smelled. "Alright, I'll get my suit, and you get that note written and-shit!" Lincoln hissed cutting the plan short, "You still gotta get a dress right?" Lucy looked down at herself as the question filtered through her ears.
"...fuck," she mumbled. In the string of issues delaying their retrieval of Lincoln's outfit she had completely neglected the acquisition of one for herself. Of course she could go in her normal outfit, but like how she'd dismissed the idea of Lincoln's more casual goth dressings from the previous Friday for the upcoming event she herself would be the one to draw attention to the subpar display if she arrived in her usual attire. "Sigh," she mumbled. With each bound forward they made, there seemed to be another travesty to block the path to their success. "I'll...I'll think of something," she told him.
"Right," Lincoln nodded hesitantly, "One thing at a time..." Lucy nodded back as he pushed the door open and slid inside. Followed soon after by her, Lincoln hopped over to the coat rack in his closet of a room and started flipping through the copies of his normal clothes while the black-haired girl dashed over to his desk to retrieve her writing materials.
"Sigh, I can't think of more complex wording under this pressure. What rhymes with fish?" she asked as she poked her lip with the pencil she'd found. Lincoln shot her a dumbfounded look.
"Lucy, just write a normal message. We don't have time for poetry," he told her, "Who knows when those three will come back up here. We just need to jot something down to tell dad we won't be here. Once I get my suit we'll work on getting something for you and then we're gone-" Lucy and Lincoln's eyes dilated as they heard the click of his door. Immediately the spun around to see a tall girl holding it shut.
"You two literally aren't going anywhere," Lori glared at them as she folded her arms over her chest. Lucy and Lincoln gawked at the teenager. Where had she come from?! Lynn, Lola, and Lana may have been more of a danger to avoid, but she seemed to have known exactly where to wait for them! And the view of her made their hearts sink. She may not have had weapons, but she knew exactly where to strike and how to counter them. In one of her hands dangled a blackish coat and pants. She had Lincoln's outfit! In one fell swoop she'd practically dashed their efforts. "You two are you going to sit right on that bed explain what you've been up to," she ordered pointing to Lincoln's mattress, "NOW!" Lincoln and Lucy gulped. Hesitantly the two looked to each other. They were out of options. The suit they'd been after was now in the hands of the oldest and most intimidating sibling of the entire household and it'd only be a matter of time before their previous pursuit caught up to them in the stalling she now provided. Their options depleted, Lincoln and Lucy squinted at each other and did the only thing they could think of. They attacked.
"What the fuc-! OW! Wha-?! STOP!" Lori cried as the two younger children launched themselves at her and began to tear at her limbs and body. Lori's collision with the door behind her vibrated a good portion of the second floor of the house. In their cornered predicament, Lincoln and Lucy beat against her with all their might. Lori's cries of alarm dulled into grunts of frustration and pain as she began to slide further towards the floor. Being the older of the two, Lincoln's jabs tended to deal more immediate aggravation but Lucy's strikes, while less impulsive, felt more crafted and precise. For whatever physical prowess she lacked when compared to her male partner she more than made up for with her knowledge of the human anatomy. Lori could swear that she'd felt a crack in one of her joints from the way that Lucy had struck the appendage. But Lori was not one to go down easy. Lola may have displayed an insane amount of agony when she got mad, but neither Lincoln nor Lucy came close to instilling the kind of worry that that young girl did. Feeling infuriation more than anything from the unexpected physical resistance, it only took one swift punch from the older female to throw Lincoln back with the crack that her fist gave his jaw.
It wasn't until Lori had gotten up that the younger girl clinging to her leg realized her solo effort as she saw Lincoln trying to get back to his feet from where his hand tried to pull himself back up next to his bed. Feeling the weight dragging on her, Lori flailed her leg about trying to shake the dark-clad girl from her, but that only resulted in further constriction from the vice-like limbs that'd been wrapped around it. Lincoln shook his head about to readjust his wobbled vision and instantly tried to stumble back into the fray at the sight of his companion's situation. Swinging more wildly, Lori bounced around while Lucy did all that her restrained position could allow and opened her mouth. Letting out a wail, Lori jumped up and down as the younger girl's teeth that sank into her thigh. Almost at once Lori fell to the ground in a kneeling position to try to beat at the wannabe-vampire with her fists. The pounds to the head that Lucy received didn't last too long however. In a blow that sent stars sailing across her vision, Lincoln smashed his fist into Lori's cheek spinning her around. Lucy finally let go with her brother's rejoining to the fight and rolled across the floor until she hit the wall opposite of the door.
Her vision spun, but she could make out the figure of her brother opening the door. Spotting the clothing that he had grabbed, she followed the signal his head gave and darted out into the hallway as Lori began to climb back to stability. Lucy was about to fling open the door to her room to look for a proper outfit of her own, but the growing voices that had congregated towards the bottom of the steps jerked her advance to a stop. Lincoln's mouth joined the wince of her own as they saw Lori get to her full height and scowl at them. Her growl had already left her mouth by the time she'd shot from the doorway of the boy's room.
"I'm telling you! That was Lori!" Lynn's voice insisted from below, "We made our move and now they're making their's! We gotta take them out before-"
"Lori? Are you okay up there?" their father called. Lucy backed up closer to the stairs where Lincoln stood as the girl in question charged at them. They backed up even further as they caught sight of their previous predators gathering at the bottom of the stairs where their dad watched with concern. Frantically the outnumbered pair looked the hall over for some means of escape. ANY means of escape. But all their eyes fell upon was the one passage they'd used to get away in their previous chase. Though wary given their last experience with the tunnel, Lincoln threw Lucy up at the vent which she instantly bent back down to pull him through. As he disappeared into it Lola, expecting the repeated maneuver, lobbed another of her grenades after them. But she wasn't the only one taking note of the deja vu. Without even giving the item a chance to land, Lincoln stabbed his leg downward kicking it back the way it came as the sound of the charging parties collided at the wall he and Lucy had managed to slip into.
"I'm gonna snap your necks!" Lori's voice yelled after them as the explosion of the flash grenade echoed from the entrance to the ventilation system. Like caterpillars under a flock of birds, the escapees crawled as fast as their limbs would carry them through the vents. The amount of noise they made didn't matter. All that they cared about was finding a way out. Some exit. Some way to make it back to Lucy's room without the others noticing. Once they'd heard the clatter of another few pairs of hands from where they'd come however they cared little for where they ended up. After passing the hole to the basement, Lucy pulled Lincoln around a bend in the system and the two fell through an opening and onto a dresser that bounced them to the floor of the room of another pair of siblings. Staring back at them were the two brunettes of the higher age group. Luna let off a single strum that she'd been holding back after the startle of the younger siblings' entrance while Luan pulled her ear away from the door she'd been pressing it against.
"Dudes, what is going on out there?" Luna asked, "The whole house is in an uproar."
"Lincoln! Lucy! We're gonna find you so you may as well get out here!" Lynn's voice called. The teenage roommates looked at the children before them.
"...well, you two sure know how to "bring down the house"," Luan laughed, "But seriously, what's going on?"
"Sigh, we don't have time for this!" Lincoln grumbled, "Look, we're gonna need you to help us get to Lucy's room."
"Sigh?" Luan repeated quietly. That mannerism...whatever was going on it was related to whatever they'd been doing with each other the previous Friday.
"Brah, do you really think that's such a good idea?" Luna asked, "It sounds like a freakin' hurricane out there."
"Come on guys please!" Lincoln pleaded, "Look, we...ugh! We're so close!" While questions did remain about just what exactly was going on Luan's expression displayed a modicum of pity for the desperation that the younger kids displayed. Lincoln's verbalness was pretty telling in his anxiousness, but Lucy had opted instead to sit on the ground with her knees drawn up to her face. Whatever was going on...it was serious.
"...kay brah, I think we can work somethin' out," Luna smirked as she strummed her instrument.
"Wait what?" Luan asked, "You're just gonna help? I mean I want to too but...what is this all about?"
"Luan, please just-!"
"No!" she spat cutting Lincoln off, "I wanna know what's going on! I helped hide...whatever THIS was last Friday."
"And you think that makes up for what all you put him through before that?" Luna murmured as she got up and approached the door.
"W-What do you uh-"
"Dude, you're talkin' to someone that has a brain in their head," she sighed pushing her roommate to the side and grabbing Mr. Coconuts. Lincoln's eyes jumped as Luna's deductions hit him, but not nearly as much Luan's did at the sight of her comedy-partner dangling from her more careless sister's grip.
"Alright sure! Fine! I owe him but...come on..." Luan whined grabbing Luna by the arm, "Are you honestly telling me you aren't curious? At least leave Mr. C outta this!" Looking to her arm, Luna rolled her eyes and turned the knob of the door. "Luna please! They're right here! We can just have them answer one little-"
"Nope," Luna shrugged as she attempted to pull the door open. The comedian's grip remained firm though.
"Okay, but you can get something else!" Luan requested.
"Sacrifices brah," Luna said excusing her choice of distraction. With how noisy it was out in the hall, they probably didn't have much time left to help in the stalling. Lola and Lana were on their way back out of the vent by the time Luan and Luna's door opened. With the Lynns tending to the various blonds, none of them seemed to noticed the blur of wooden parts in a blue suit fly from their side of the hall into the room of the eldest sisters.
"OW!" Leni's voice yelped alongside the wooden thud that sounded from the room. Immediately the girls in the hallway threw their heads towards the source of the noise and charged into the room Mr. Coconuts had landed in. "Oh hey guys what are-AHHH!" Leni cried as they flooded her living quarters and threw her to the side. Flashing them a thankful thumbs-up, Lincoln grabbed Lucy's hand and pulled her into the now vacant hall. Her job done, Luna smiled and shut the door to begin making her way back to her bed.
"Did you really need to use Mr. Coconuts?" Luan grumbled.
"At least he's good for something," Luna chuckled, "And hey, he just made me laugh, so that should be a win for you." The brace-wearing teenage glared at the musician's "comedy" as she picked up her guitar and began strumming again.
"I can not believe you did that," Luan huffed crossing her arms, "You didn't even think about it! I mean...look at how they've got the others! Should we really not have given more thought to what side we're on in this?"
Her brows kneading, Luna paused her recital to shoot her own glare at the jester. Luan gave a wide cringed from the rare amount of distaste that her roommate was showing her.
"What side we're on?" Luna murmured, "Brah, you decided what side you were on when you had Lincoln clean up your mess. Now suck it up. You just want to see what those two are up to. You get the answers if they let you. If not you ain't earned them." Luan's face seeped back down into a competitive glower. As the sounds of chaos waged on in Leni and Lori's room, Luna brought her guitar pick back towards her instrument. Its strums barely plucked though before she stopped. Luan's hand falling to the handle of the door had wavered the bounce of her arm.
"Brah...let it be..." Luna said.
"I'm just going to...see if they...need help..." Luan tried to propose. Even if she had the intent of assisting them, Luna's eyes lined with disapproval at the clear ulterior motive she carried.
"Just drop it sis..." Luna murmured. Luan didn't care how little her expression hid her curiosity for the agenda of the younger Louds. The temptation was too great, and she too neglectful of her roommate's insistence. After all, what did she know of the extent of her efforts in helping the two throughout the week? Sure Luna may have had an idea, but she hadn't seen how eagerly the younger duo had pushed for her aide. After what all she'd done for them, surely she was owed some iota of information. Benny had said to do what she thought she should, and that's what she was doing as she turned the knob. Before the door could fully leave the frame however it snapped shut from the guitar that was chucked at it and got stuck between the ground and its handle. Vainly Luan gave the board a few tugs, but it wouldn't budge. It'd been pinned shut. Luan directed her glare back towards Luna who got to her feet with an equally insistent expression of anger. The sun blanketed their shadows on the wall behind them as they opened their mouths and charged at each other.
"Ugh. Seriously Lynn?" Lucy grumbled as she tugged at the door. How that girl had even gotten the jockstrap she'd wrapped around the doorhandle tied well enough to a spike that she'd driven into the wall to keep it from moving was beyond her. No matter how much she tugged and pushed at her bedroom door though, the thing just wouldn't open. It was like it was glued shut. "Come on..." she grunted giving the board another shove with her body, "Move you...son...of...a...bit-"
"Lucy stop," Lincoln said.
"Sigh..." she said as she felt his hand grab her shoulder.
"No, stop..." he repeated. Taking a glance at him she realized where he was looking. Down the hall towards the room of the oldest siblings. Fearing the inevitable noise herself she also peered to Lori's room. The voices within were getting louder. Lucy looked to Lincoln for support but instead of receiving his expression she was forcibly pulled to a door across from her's. With how quickly the crowd seemed to be heading to the exit of Lori and Leni's room there was no time to pick and choose where to hide. One of the nearest ones available would have to do. Just as Lucy saw Lana's foot step back into the hallway she was pulled through the door that Lincoln had flung open. Based on the murmurs they could hear when they pressed their ears up against the door after they'd shut it the crowd hadn't noticed them, though their tampering didn't fare as luckily.
"Yeah...they were definitely here..." Lynn muttered.
"How can you be sure? It just looks like the same jockstrap you wrapped around it for if they tried to get in," Lana's voice asked.
"Girl, I know my jockstraps," Lynn spat, "And that...that one's been messed with." Muttering something under his breath, Lincoln turned and put his back against the door. He hung his head as he slid down it to the floor.
"Groan, Lincoln...sigh..." Lucy murmured as she did the same until her head came to rest on his shoulder.
"Don't worry...this is just a little...setback..." he sighed running a hand through his hair, "There's other rooms with dresses and-"
"That are black?" Lucy scoffed. Lincoln twisted his mouth to the side in defeat. She did have a point there. "Besides...how are we going to get to things with them all scowering the halls now? Their numbers keep growing. Who knows where dad is and the others will rip us to shreds...we can't...how are-"
"Hey..." Lincoln said wrapping his arm around her shoulders, "...it's okay...it'll be alright..." In worry and frustration, Lucy lowered her head further towards his chest and rubbed her face into it. Her anxiousness may have been skyrocketing, but his cradle provided an unmatched level of comfort. They may not have known how they were going to get a dress for her, hell they didn't know how they were even get out of the house, but as long as he was there all of those fears were able to be pushed to a distance for the girl.
"As much as I'd love for you two to fuck up another of my experiments, I'm gonna have to ask you to leave," a more saliva-filled voice requested causing the two to jump. Looking towards the interior of the room, Lucy could see just where they'd ended up. Towards the back wall of it stood Lisa cranking some knobs and levers as she flipped through portals to other universes at the terminal she'd operated when they'd been flung into that other world days before. The older girl winced at the memories of the accident. The young inventor may not have given them any visual attention, but the room's other inhabitant happily shook her rattle at them from her crib.
"Sorry Lisa we're...kind of in a jam right now," Lincoln apologized. He'd practically forgotten about the young Loud in their chase through the house. Thankfully she seemed to be amongst the ones that posed no problem to them.
"Well if you would kindly take that "jam" elsewhere," the genius reiterated, "I'm still trying to find just where you dolts ended up that day and I need to focus." In the ramblings of the young girl's disservice to them, both intruders had been looking around the room. Once they'd moved their attention past the happy baby that'd been goo-gooing greetings to them their mood began to shift. They may not have realized it, but the room they had stumbled into...held quite a bit of potential assistance compared to most other rooms. Sure there were objects they could throw or hit someone with all over the house, but no other room contained as sophisticated of machinery as the one they now huddled inside of.
"Well we'd be happy to leave if we weren't in danger of getting killed or anything..." Lincoln murmured.
"Not that we mind death..." Lucy added earning her a jab from Lincoln's elbow.
"Oh, trust me, you'll have LOADS of fun," Lisa muttered recounting the fetal position the other sisters had had her in that night.
"Or...you could lend us a hand..." Lincoln suggested popping up next to her. She turned to the side but that only resulted in staring into Lucy's own unsettling grin.
"Gee, you two sure like getting help," she scoffed, "That day off wasn't enough for ya?"
"Lees, we're about to get killed out there," Lincoln stated. Rolling her eyes, she shrugged her older siblings' arms off of her and returned to her fiddling at the terminal. Disheartened, Lincoln's gaze dropped to the table at the center of the room. Scattered across it were all forms of knickknacks and doodads, but none of them were available to them. And even if they were, it's not like he or Lucy knew anything about how to operate such equipment. There had to be something lying around though that would be simple enough to understand the controls for. Desperately his view continued to scan the room until eventually it came to rest on the portal. That swirling vortex of color that had pulled Lucy and himself into that other terrifying world. That's what Lisa was after...but how could that work in their favor?
"Why are you even looking for that world?" Lincoln wondered aloud.
"Because Mr. Forget-The-Camera, you didn't get any footage," Lisa sighed, "And it would be nice to get a view of it, especially since it's one that was so adamantly affected by our own."
"Well if we'd known you'd want a way back we could have probably gotten that world's coordinates from their Lisa," Lucy theorized, "she only gave us the one to ours on the wristband she gave us." Lisa's eyelids lifted as her tinkering stopped. Lucy and Lincoln took a look at each other and stepped back in fright. Having completely forgotten to mention the wristband the other Lisa had given them when they'd left that world they had no idea how their one was going to react to the withholding of such information from her, nor what she would think of for their "error" of not asking for the coordinates to that world.
"...you...have something...from that world?..." Lisa asked slowly. Lincoln bit his lip as he looked to Lucy but the girl shrugged. It's not like they could really hide the forgotten object's existence now if it were a problem. Slowly Lincoln nodded his head. For a few seconds he didn't know whether to back up more or not. Lisa just stared at him, but eventually a large smile grew. "Oh thank the lord!" she cried, "if you give that to me I can just decompile the thing and-"
"Whoa whoa whoa there Einstein," Lincoln said putting his hand out to the excited toddler, "You think we're just gonna waltz down to my room and get it? We need protection out there. Now you got anything to help us out or are we gonna die before we can get it to ya?"
"Do I have "things to help you out" he asks," Lisa laughed. The short Loud hopped off her terminal and skittered over to the table Lincoln had been inspecting earlier as her mood completely reversed from when they'd entered. As Lucy and him approached, Lisa lifted a remote control from the various objects littering the table's surface and pressed a few buttons on it. Almost immediately the room tingled with a light rumble. Any worries that the guests might have had of the siblings outside hearing the noise were soon quelled by the reveal of the device that the quakes heralded. Lincoln and Lucy took a step back as the bipedal machine lurched forward from its shadowy corner of the room as Lily clapped at it. Standing before them was a humanoid robot about six feet tall with quite a wide chest. Where two tentacle-sprouting spheres should have been instead dangled wide mechanical arms, though the monitor-faced "head" still remained.
"You like?" Lisa said smartly, "introducing the Assistant-Bot 7800!" Lincoln gulped staring into the reflective surface of the blackened monitor that watched them. "Turns out I probably should've just kept working til I got to this design for it," Lisa explained walking over to her desk and picking up some parts from the model she'd sent to help rebuild the school earlier in the week, "That 5200 one was a piece of crap." Uneasily, Lincoln gave the hulking figure a smile. Once Lucy had gotten done inspecting the finer details of its metal plating she noticed her brother's expression and looked back to the robot.
"...you okay?" she asked.
"J-just some...bad memories..." he murmured, "I mean the last time it got hacked and-"
"Oh don't worry, I built in precautions for if that ever happened again," Lisa assured them. Lucy and Lincoln gave each other a suspicious glance, but they were in no position to complain. After all, how could they refuse a giant mechanical bodyguard with the assailants that lurked outside? "So about that wristband..." the short girl inquired.
"Well first we're gonna need to make some pitstops," Lincoln told her, "think that it can manage to get through say...four other sisters in the hall?" The question nearly had the young scientist rolling on the floor with laughter.
"Manage them?" she chortled, "Lincoln it can destroy them. You've got nothing to worry about as long as you just tell it to protect you." Lincoln and Lucy's pursed lips spread into wide grins. With their nervousness of the machine evaporating from the claim, they put their hands on their hips and turned their beaming faces towards its monitor.
"Hey Assistant-Bot," Lincoln called. The screen turned to him. "Protect us and take us to Lucy's room to get a dress," he requested. With a nod, the robot put its arms forward. Lincoln felt a wave of sheer terror wash over him as it wrapped its fingers around him, but the lift he was given was surprisingly delicate. The ease with which he was hoisted to its shoulder filled him with a sense of excitement and security and as he looked to the girl that was put on the other one he knew that she shared the same glee of confidence that he did. They had found their answer. Gripping the entity's head they readied themselves as the plates of its chest unfolded to reveal some sort of cannon-like device. Lisa's brows fell to her eyelids as the object began to heat up and light the wall in front of them to make an entrance wide enough for it to get into the hall.
"...eh it's a small price to pay for science," Lisa shrugged. She could probably get the damaged infrastructure repaired by the end of the night.
"I'm telling you, it came from this side of the hallway," Lana grumbled, "Now all we gotta do is look through every room and eventually we're going to-"
"Whoa, hold it squirt...you hear that?" Lynn asked cupping a hand to her ear. The younger girl narrowed her eyes as she concentrated. It was low, but she could definitely pick up some sort of frequency that was building. And it was coming from the side of the hallway she'd been directing them towards.
"It's a good thing those brats weren't in my room," Lori grumbled as she finally made her way back into the hall after searching her quarters, "They're already dead when I find em, but they'd be even more dead if they messed my shit up."
"Not that our actual intruder was much better," Leni commented as she joined her roommate in the hallway. Looking back she glared as Luan's doll winked at her.
"Girls, I'll be right back to help with search, but the food almost burned. I gotta take care of things down here first," their dad's voice called.
"As long as it's cooked. I'm starved," Lola called back. Lori couldn't believe the sight before her. She may have been as invested as they in their attempts to catch the white and black-haired members of the family, but their choice of "weaponry" was not all comforting. Homemade flash grenades? Garlick Gun? A fucking knife? She couldn't believe the absurdity that the younger girls had been hunting their targets with. Lincoln and Lucy may have needed to be dealt with, but whatever they believed their ordeals to be was just ridiculous based on what they were using to attack them with. Whatever that agenda was though they had to find out, and for that the most logical step to take would be a partnership.
"Alright you lot, listen up," Lori announced, "I don't know why you morons have decided to go Guerrilla Warfare on Lincoln and Lucy, but if we're gonna find them we have to work as a team. Now I know that-"
"Lori shut up!" Lana hissed. The older girl blinked a couple of times before bending the brows into a glare.
"I'm sorry, but like you literally have no right to-"
"LORI!" Lana said a bit louder. The older girl was about to give another retort, but something inside of her decided it was best to follow the order once both Lana and Lynn had put their fingers to their mouths. Curious as to the cause of their actions, Lori focused her ears and listened. Almost immediately she could pick up the hum from the other side of the wall in front of them. "Can't you hear it?" Lana asked.
"Hear it?...I can feel it..." she murmured quietly. As the wall before them began to glow and turn bright red they jumped. Lori may not have known just what it was that was on the other side, but she knew who's room was in front of them, and what danger looked like. "MOVE!" Lori screamed. Partly startled by the suddenness of the command, Lynn and Lana jumped to the side that Lori just as the wall before them cracked. The sound of rushing wind and tinkering debris wafted across the residents of the hall from the force of the blast that shattered the wall separating the hallway from Lisa's room. Lynn hacked up a good chunk of drywall while Lana waved streams of burnt air out of her face. From where Lori had landed, she propped herself up by her elbow and looked back to see a sleek shiny metal structure jut out from the hole that had been made and land on the floor before her. A set of whirring noises sounded from the hip joint of the machine as its body emerged and dragged its other foot through the smoke the billowed out from the hole. Through the plumes that had begun to fade, the three sisters that weren't on Lori's side could make out the grins of the boy and girl that sat atop the mechanical being's shoulders and took a step back.
"I knew Lisa was on their side!" Lola growled, "And after I'd promised her time off in working on the Pagaent Judging equipment to get those goggles!" Lana and Lynn however held more cautious demeanor towards the appearance of such imposition.
"Dear Lucy, I do believe that we have very little left standing in our way," Lincoln commented. His emotionless voice sent shivers up the group's spines. With the smirk he beamed down at them it was like he'd become an imitation of the sister that clung to the other side of the robot's head. Lana's eyes widened. It was exactly how he'd acted that last Friday night! Even Lola's sturdiness faltered under the repeat of her own experiences with the jarring personality switch.
"It certainly seems like that," Lucy nodded just as happily. Their former predators bounced backwards as the robot took another step towards them. Whether by the quaking of the second floor or the responsibility of sustenance, their father pulled his head out from the opening to the kitchen downstairs.
"Kids! I got things under control down here! The food's saved! It'll be ready in about three minutes!" he hollered.
"Thanks dad!" everyone called back cheerfully before returning to their previous positions of threat and fear. But Lynn wasn't one to show fear. Pushing resistance against her body's reaction, Lynn pulled her bat into view and charged at the machine. Before either Lana or Lola had time to realize what the older girl was doing the robot turned its body and smacked its outstretched hand into her slamming her against the wall. Lynn groaned from where she fell to the floor as the machine took a step and smashed her weapon under its foot. With their most lethal attacker dispatched Lincoln and Lucy shook with excitement as they looked at each other. But Lynn wasn't the only one that'd refused failure. Spurred by the defeat of her longer-running partner, Lana let out a war cry and began firing at the metal figure. Unfortunately for her her ammunition did little other than coat the thing's legs in a new aroma. The type of shots didn't register to the machine's analysis programs however. All it could tell was something was shooting at it, and with the danger that potentially put its passengers in it adjusted the situation to remedy that. Lana's shots came to a stop as she noticed the machine raise the arm that it had smacked Lynn with and her eyes went wide as she heard and saw the hisses of steam shoot out from its wrist. With a scream she leaped to the side to avoid the body-part that shot at her and embedded itself into the door and wall at the end of the hall behind them.
"DUDE! That's my room!" Lincoln cried as the fist reeled back and l clacked into place at the wrist of the robot. Whatever objections the boy might have had fell on deaf audio receptors. What mattered was that it had caused the girl attacking them to drop her firearm. All that remained was the pink one who now just stared in shock at the reversed roles of her and her prey. As the robot took another step forward, Lola pulled out her final flash grenade but the aiming of the being's fist caused her to halt her movements. She just stayed frozen in the fear of the daring machine. All at once Lincoln and Lucy had turned the tables on them and now they were at their mercy. And likely going to have their blood drained for it. At least their fate would have been sealed had another attack not turned the robot's attention away from her. Searching for what had clanged against the thing's back, the Assistant-Bot turned around to see Lori about to chuck another piece of drywall at it. Immediately it reached out and grabbed her. She squirmed and fought against the impossible grip as it lifted her into the air. Lincoln and Lucy's grins fell a bit from the seething glare she gave them. There was no fear to her expression, just anger.
Whatever the Assistant-Bot would have done to dispose of its incapacitated cargo remained a mystery as everyone's attention shifted to the door across the hall from Lori's room which banged open spilling the brown-haired teenagers within onto the floor.
"Luan! Mr. Coconuts was like totally rude to me!" Leni chastised to the girl that rolled around on the floor beneath her roommate, "he thinks it's just fine to like jump right into me when I'm lying down!"
"Just drop it girl!" Luna growled at the comedian she'd pinned to the floor.
"I will not drop it!" Leni said back, "if you had a guy just-"
"Come on! It's not fair!" Luan cried, "You've been hearing what's going on out here! What could they be hiding that's so damn important?!"
"That ain't our business!" Luna yelled. Luan let out a couple of cries as she fought the restraints but it was no use. The rockstar simply had her beat. Her struggling however did point her attention towards other possible means of escape. Spotting the machine that had caused such an explosive ruckus while she and Luna had been fighting each other, Luan grinned. The build may have been different, but the "head" of the machine had remained the same. And she knew full well what the purpose of that "helper" was.
"Hey Assistant-Bot!" she hollered, "Can you help me out?" Even Lincoln and Lucy watched as the machine tilted its "head" forward to look at her. For a moment a pit formed in their stomachs. Had they just lost control of their servant? A newcomer stepping into the battlefield however held much more severe worry for the situation. Lisa tugged at her hair as the Assistant-Bot analyzed the jokester. She hadn't expect Luan, of all people, to make a request during the commotion. The comedian though was ecstatic from the look of worry that her captor gave to the reacting machine. Luan may not have been the most physically empowering member of the family, but her craftiness was unmatched. But to her misfortune, the same manipulation wouldn't work a second time. Once the Assistant-Bot had processed the request an image flashed onto its screen displaying Luan's face before a red circle with a line going through it plastered over it.
"Meddler's interference detected," the machine stated in a mechanical tone startling the siblings gathered around it. None of them had ever heard it talk before. In their surprise, Luan and Luna glanced at each other unsure of just how to respond to the denied request. Based on the way Lisa was freaking out behind it however their worry began to rise. That unease culminated as a series of what appeared to be ammunition-storage units tipped with rocket-launchers and particle beam weaponry sprouted from its back and aimed at the house-clown. "Rectifying issue," it said as the pupils of Luan and Luna's eyes shrunk.
On the sun-waned Friday evening Girl Jordan kicked her legs from where they dangled on a picnic table next to Flip's convenience store. After two weeks of harrowing defeats at the hands of the Louds she had felt the need to alleviate her senses a bit. It'd taken all of two seconds to decide on getting a Flippee once she'd departed the school grounds. They may have been cheap, but for the children of that community it was a holy grail of delight, especially after such devastating wipeouts. She'd tried to distance herself from the thoughts of that white-haired boy, but he stuck in her head like a sting from a bee. That look of glee as he knocked her out of the race. Her slurping become more ferocious as she dwelled on the image. That should have been her doing that to him! Just as she began to feel the pricks of the frozen beverage tickling her brain, Girl Jordan eased her sucking and took a breath in through her nostrils to try and calm the oncoming freeze.
"You'll get me back for this at gym!" the words repeated in her mind. Oh, she absolutely would. The ends of her mouth curled with thoughts of revenge. She could see the boy now, crawling to get away from the next attack after the first dodgeball had knocked his feet out from under him. That day...that would be glorious. Excitement overtaking her, Girl Jordan took another sip of the Flippee. To his credit Lincoln seemed to have improved. That time away from school felt as though it'd heightened his abilities with how effectively he and his sister had taken her out in that race a few hours back. Not to mention the antics they'd been up to when the school itself had been transformed earlier in the week. Her sipping slowed back down from the vague memories of the incident. As with her classmates, the details of the incident had faded, but the general idea still clung to her head. And she did remember that rather dashing look that Lincoln had had when he'd saved her. She blushed as she almost accidentally inhaled some of her drink. Sure he may have caused some irritation, but even Stella had to admit some appeal for him. If nothing else the wild occurrences he and his family could cause were always a ride to get wrapped up in.
Girl Jordan's eyes twitched as she felt a sting crawl up behind her eyeballs. Groaning, she put her drink on the table and clutched the sides of her head. Apparently that last sudden suck had been just enough to ignite the brain freeze she'd been hoping to avoid. Seething some manner of words, she rubbed her temples. The mind-splitting headache was yet another travesty she could attribute to that freckle-faced boy. That chip-toothed go-getter. Her anger may have bubbled at the thoughts of her defeats, but the more she hung on his taunting face, the further distanced her headache seemed to become until eventually it dissipated entirely. With a sigh, Girl Jordan shook her head and picked the Flippee back up. She stopped before it touched her lips to contemplate how sensible delving back into it might be after her cranial dilemma, but the call of the sugar was too much. To her surprise it didn't take long for her to stop drinking once she'd started though. Not from having emptied its contents or from the threat of another brain-freeze. No, her stop came from an outside intrusion. Her body rattled lightly as what sounded like a distant explosion could be heard. Alongside a few kids that were making their way to the sidewalk, she looked to the sky to see a small stream of smoke billowing from some unseen building beyond those that blocked its view a bit of a ways off. From the location it drifted from she had a pretty good idea of what family had caused it.
"Meh...I'll stay out of that one..." she shrugged getting back to her drink.
Through the smoggy black smoke and particles of wood and plaster Lincoln Loud fell, his screams muted by the rush of noise that had encompassed the family members that had been standing in the path of the Assistant-Bot 7800. The length of the decent felt as though it drifted by in slow-motion. For what felt like tens of seconds his eyes swerved around to get a better look at the falling objects that surrounded him. His head reacted just quickly enough to pull to the side for a better examination. As the smoke began to swathe away he could make out the bodies of two older sisters clinging to each other in the distance. Looking to his other side, amidst the shattered pieces of the Assistant-Bot's upper torso Lucy dropped with Lori not too far behind her. Lincoln barely had time to turn his head frontwards again before his body began to curl. By the time he hit the ground below it had bent just enough to roll across the soft grass of the front yard.
Knowing the hail that would follow, the boy looked upwards and rolled out of the way in time to avoid the main portion of the ruined robot smashing into where he'd landed. A few planks of wood clattered around him as Luan and Luna bounced across the ground in a tight embrace a few feet to the side. As quickly as he could, he snapped his head towards where he'd predicted Lucy would land and to his relief her static grip on the forearm of the shoulder she'd been seated on had dulled her blow enough that she seemed rather unharmed in her landing. Likewise, Lori was already attempting to remove herself from the cushion that the grip of the machine's hand had given her impact. Lincoln however wobbled to his feet for a different reason. His suit. Seemingly undamaged, it lay limp in the dusk-drenched grass of the Loud House's front yard. Taking note of the same object, Lucy fell from her perch once it'd stopped spinning and joined her brother in a dash for the clothing item. Their unacquired dress for Lucy was forgotten in their race. All that mattered with the incapacitated participants around them was getting back the suit that'd been separated from them in that moment. Even with the calamity they had just endured, the two couldn't help but smile at each other as they neared the suit. And then they were pulled back.
"HEY!" Lincoln yelped as he was yanked into the air.
"Lincoln! Lincoln!" Lucy cried emotionlessly while she flailed about trying to reach for her brother. The pair panicked and squirmed for only a few moments in the positions Lori's freed grip suspended them in. With how far apart they were held from each other and from the body of the one that dangled them, neither Lucy nor Lincoln could make any swipe at the oldest of the Loud siblings. They could only watch in utter terror as the rest of the family that hadn't been ejected from the house in the Assistant-Bot's explosive denial of Luan's request filed out into the yard.
"Good going Lori!" Lana cheered as she cocked her gun.
"Yeah, just hold em like that!" Lynn growled approaching with the end of her bat that still had the knife attached to it.
"Lynn, put that away," Lori ordered. The younger teen blinked at her in confusion.
"Okay, I know you're new to this whole thing, but those two are-hey!"
"I was looking for this!" their father said as he glared at his namesake.
"Dad, you don't understand! We finally have them!" Lana whined as she shot off a squirt of the garlic juice from her gun. Lucy pulled her body upwards in fright allowing it to pass by where her body had been. "If we can't make them see reason then we don't have much choice!" she exclaimed. The dad just looked at the group in confusion.
"Oh my god! What happened to the house?!" his wife's voice asked. Lynn Sr. spun around in fright as Rita emerged from the garage to see what the noise had been about.
"Well if dad would give us back the knife then we could finish this whole business and explain it to you," Lola scoffed.
"Knife?" Rita blinked. Her brows lifted as she noticed the kitchenware that was strapped to what remained of Lynn Jr.'s bat. "...what's going on here?..."
"That is what I would like to know," Lori spat. Lincoln and Lucy cringed as the oldest Loud sister held them to either side of her face and flipped her scowl between them, "How's about you tell EVERYBODY here what you two have been up to this past week?" Their expressions only worsened as they noticed the eyes of the other family members zeroing in on them. Even Luna held a reluctant interest as she and Luan approached, unable to defend the pair of younger Louds under such an overwhelming crowd.
"What they're doing is trying to take over Royal Woods," Lana declared. Everyone but her two comrades looked to her with just as much confusion as Rita had had when she'd joined the party. Lola would have rather not have chipped in, but Lana and Lynn's prior influence forced her to remain steady in her position. "We've been gathering evidence," Lana continued, "And once we saw the way Lincoln's acted all emotionless throughout the last week at times and how he kissed her hand it was obvious." Lori shook her head at the information and gave a gawking glower to her captives. Lincoln and Lucy practically jumped at the dispelled information. How she had any knowledge of their more intricate practices they had no idea.
"They're vampires," Lynn concluded. Lucy and Lincoln shared their own stupefied expression. "All emo and crap," Lynn nodded, "and who else but the mafia kisses the hand of a leader like that? Obviously she's the ringleader of some vampire gang and getting him ready to help with the infection of the town. And then, bam. There goes the neighborhood." Though blushing at how ludicrous the claim sounded, Lola nodded in agreement. Lincoln could only continue in his disbelieving baffled look at them. His view changed to that of the girl held up next to him as shuffling noises from her caught his ears.
"What are you doing?" he hissed spotting the pad that Lucy had seemingly materialized and begun writing on.
"Just getting this down," she replied. Upon recording the final bits of the trio's "idea", Lucy pocketed the information for future reference. The rest of the attendees viewed the group of hunters with even more varying degrees of uncertainty.
"...you LITERALLY think they're vampires?" Lori mumbled in disbelief.
"Hey, we don't wanna have to do this. They're our brother and sister. But we can't just let them roam about draining the life out of people!" Lynn shot back, "We need to get them before they become a threat!" Luna and Luan exchanged a suspicious look. Even the rockstar would have been lying if she were to say her interest in the mystery wasn't growing.
"Sigh, Lynn, we're not vampires," Lucy grumbled, "If we were do you think we'd have been caught so easily?"
"That was EASY?!" Lincoln gaped.
"Oh, don't worry, I know you aren't vampires," Lori muttered pulling them up to her eye-level again, "So how's about you explain this kissing-the-hand, constantly whispering to each other, and doing-everything-together shit then?" Lincoln and Lucy gulped.
"Oh they're vampires!" Lana growled taking aim with her gun, "And we are going to stop them!"
"Is that my firearm?" Lisa asked in annoyance.
"Brat, if you don't aim that away from me in literally five seconds-"
"Did I miss the Martians?" Leni asked cutting off her roommate as she finally found her way outside and picked up Lincoln's outfit.
"We need to save Royal Woods!" Lynn insisted.
"Just hand em over!" Lola screeched.
"The food is ready!" their father yelled.
"What are you two doing?!" Lori screamed at her captives.
"Goo goo gaga!"
"We're going to a dance!" Lucy said as loudly as her vocal chords would let her. She may not have had nearly the range that the rest of the family had when it came to noise, but when she spoke any octave higher than normal people tended to listen, and with their focus on the two siblings that dangled from Lori's hands the others' voices silenced once they'd noticed her's about to spill out. Lincoln opened his mouth in a mixture of concern and shock, but with the information revealed he could do nothing but look to the ground in dismay.
"...say what?" Lana asked after a moment of silence. The entire family inched away in some capacity from the unexpectedness of the information and even Mr. Grouse choked on the popcorn he'd been eating as he watched the scene from his upstairs window. The response had been nothing that any of the family members had been expecting. While some of the more invested participants did have their skepticism about the odd claim, their suspiciousness had to fold when they saw the surprising look of discontent that Lincoln gave the ground. Whatever anys' thoughts were of the issue that the two odd Louds had been conspiring for paled in comparison to the baffling supposed truth. If they had been making up an excuse, even Lily had to give a surprised head-tilt. Their faces and postures however lent credence to Lucy's reluctant confession. There were no more signs of resistance from them. They were defeated.
"...hold up hold up hold up!" Lynn exclaimed as she approached their dangling figures, "The fuck do you mean? What "dance"? No! This-...this is just some...trick!" In her desperation she looked the captured children over, but the only signs they gave were those of embarrassment and disapproval. Lincoln shifted his eyes away once her's had moved to his. If they weren't telling the truth, they clearly believed that they were. As realization set in Lynn backed away from the revelation that faced her. "But-...wha-...DANCE?! What are you talking about? What about the whispering to each other? The sneaking around together? The creepy Lincoln crap? The-"
"It was us getting me trained..." Lincoln grumbled. Various siblings looked to each other for answers, but all they could do was wait for more information. The only one seeming to content in the revelations was the sibling that held them above the ground.
"Trained to be a vampire...right?..." Lana suggested hoping for at least some confirmation to her suspicions. Lincoln gave her an incredulous look and opened his mouth, but before he could speak Lucy's own face caught his eye. It hung with regret and shame. For many it was difficult to read a person without seeing their eyes, but given how close they'd become over the past two weeks Lincoln could see the blatant discomfort on face towards his near reveal of his role in their agenda. She wouldn't have blamed him or held it against him to make something up. He knew that. But their secret was out and with their confession his simplest option was the most honest one, no matter what awkwardness it brought.
"Training to...be her...um..." Lincoln murmured. Nervously he poked his index fingers together. "...boyfriend..." An ominous spell of shocked silence swept over the family. While some of the siblings jumped at the word, only one made substantial movement. As the others processed Lincoln's faction of the information, Luan broke into a mad dash for the front door of the house. The most offended members of the family were the two original ones that had taken to hunting them. Lynn looked the two over in awestruck disgust as she backed up to her former comrades while Lana viewed them with disbelief. She may have taken some astonishment to their proposed dealings, but she sagged more with the disbelief that her investigation, her entire reason for pursuing them, had been completely disproven. Even Hopps popped out from her pocket to give the pair a face of disturbed fascination. Lola took a step away from her "comrades" to try and distance herself from the red-handed conspirators, but she still made sure to reserve a portion of shock for their brother and the goth that swayed in the breeze that swept past them. One of the only ones that didn't seem to double back from the surprise was Lori who glared at the two. As parents looked to each other in the bizarreness of the sudden ordeal that family had become wrapped up in, Luan darted past them and took a sip from the glass of water she'd gotten as she bounced back into place next to Luna before spitting the shocked mouthful into her recovering face.
"You two...are going...on a date?..." Lynn asked. Her skin shuddered from the discomfort that enveloped the group, though the faces of the interrogated youths simply went red.
"Well-n-not an actual one. Obviously!" Lincoln sputtered. Irritated by the pestering, he struggled until Lori finally dropped him and Lucy to the ground. "Sigh. She's just been training me to be her boyfriend for this upcoming ball because we're trying to make this other goth guy there jealous so that HE will go after her," Lincoln explained as he dusted his shirt off, "Once that's done it's over." Lucy straightened herself out as well, though she looked to the boy as he spoke that last sentence. She knew he didn't mean that it would be the termination of their relationship, but for some reason it...swam a sense of unpleasantness through her throat. The few other sisters that had processed the information however had begun to develop rather different faces. Even with their lips bit, a number of them couldn't help but burst out into laughter. The intent of their "intimacy" had alleviated most of the disturbed assumptions that their family had had, but also contained an extra effect. As with any love-fueled "quest" by a sibling, most of the others had felt the need to give their reaction to what they perceived to be a rather dubious operation. Lucy and Lincoln may have held a bit of surprise from the sudden bouts of hilarity, but their mocked union urged them more to slink up against each other in embarrassed support.
"Y-you think...that you can just win a boy over like that?..." Lola laughed hysterically, "THAT is why you've gone all "Creep"lin the last few days?"
"I might have had trouble with Benny, but at least I didn't fall "fangs" over "wings" for my brother to get him!" Luan joked.
"Hahaha! You guys are funny!" Leni stated pointing at the reddened "couple". The entire group gave her a disappointed glower from the underwhelming remark, though if Leni realized the dissatisfaction she sure didn't show it. Shaking her head at the dimwitted blond, Lola stepped forward.
"Darling, if you wanted help on bagging a boy, all you had to do was ask. Now come on, let me show you-"
"NO!" Lucy snapped. Lola instantly fell backwards from the rejection. Seeking his support, Lucy curled up against Lincoln's body. His skin may have pricked with anxiousness from the stares that surrounded them, but he held his arm around the smaller girl's body. "No..." she repeated more quietly, "I remember full well how your guys' help with Rocky turned out. The ONLY one that actually helped was Lincoln. He's the one that set things up for me and him. ANY time you all try to help with a crush it just goes up in flames. Even he did a lot better when we all just told him to be himself when he met Stella." Blushing, Lincoln smiled down at the pale girl, an expression that she returned. "I'm...fine with...him..." she said. A number of the girls felt some degree of offense to the accusations, but as they thought about it they realized there truly wasn't much they could argue against given their track record.
"Aw..." an older female voice cooed. The group turned in surprise to the previously quieted parents to see their father brimming with tears while their mother clasped her hands together. "Honey g-get the camera," she stuttered, "Lucy-"
"Lucy's going on a date!" Lynn Sr. finished giddily as spun around and tore back to the house for the piece of requested equipment.
"Well not a real-...date, but...mmm..." Lincoln couldn't help but smile under the joy of their parents as he looked down at Lucy. While Lynn still held wariness to the proposition, most of the other faces around them had started to soften once their goal had been stated. As Lola got up to begin dusting her dress off however, the two viewing the looks dripped towards a less pleasant expression. Lucy and Lincoln hadn't expected the unparalleled sense of relief that came with the truth that had been forced out of them, but at the same time while the two had felt an unusual amount of eagerness for the notions of the fake "courting" once the family laid their ears on it, another problem presented itself. And it was a problem that seemed to end the notion entirely. Actually "going" on the "date". "...will we even make it at this point?" Lincoln sighed. The ambition fleeted as he fell to the ground to sit. Though she wanted to encourage some hope for their predicament, Lucy had nothing to give herself. The hand she put to his back lent some hollow support, but she took her spot next to him just as sadly.
"It won't be long before the bus that would take us out towards the woods gets here...there's no way we can get cleaned up and pick stuff out for me to wear in time with all that's happened..." she admitted rubbing her cheek against his, "...SIGH...I'm sorry Lincoln...I had looked forward to this night for so long..."
"Me too..." he sighed. He looked at her too late to catch his wording and instead joined in her accepting blush. "Y-ya know...cause you kind of got me real interested in helping you and all that it's...well...hehe...heh...sigh..." he murmured. As soon as his stammered elaboration faded so too did his lighter demeanor. In their misery, Lincoln wrapped his arm around Lucy and they tilted their heads to the ground. Even Lori had to feel some resentment towards their denied efforts. Everything they'd done, their entire two weeks of endeavors and training had all just ended in failure. All they could do was sit staring as their preset goals slapped them in the face and drove off into the night. The father of the family was surprised to see such depressed expressions upon his return. There was no way that he could snap a good picture of the "lucky couple" with the way they sat. As the seconds passed towards that ever approaching limit to their unreachable departure, the sisters around them began to join in their sorrow. One by one they realized just what they had done. Though most still would have appreciated some insight towards the conspiring that Lincoln and Lucy had thought they'd been keeping secret, a wave of remorse was impossible to rebuff from the guilt-ridden siblings. Lincoln and Lucy may have unnerved the more studious members with their growing closeness, but they had struck the couple on the night that those two had been working towards. And, for however deserving their pursuers might have felt retribution was towards their insurrecting agenda, their remorse for the situation that they'd unknowingly escalated burned with consideration until one of them stepped forward.
"It's not time for the dance yet is it?" Lana asked meekly. She almost couldn't talk with how choked her voice was given her instigation towards the events of that night.
"Sigh, it wouldn't matter," Lucy told her, "There's no way we're gonna be ready in time."
"Not with that attitude you won't," Luna told them, "How much time you got?" Lincoln and Lucy blinked and looked to each other. Were...they actually...encouraging them?...after all that had just happened?
"...p-...probably...fifteen minutes?..." Lucy murmured.
"That should be ample time," Lisa concluded. Lincoln and Lucy lifted their brows as they looked around the ring of family, each second that passed painting another's face with a smile. No matter how forced some of the expressions may have been, all of the ones looking back at them offered their support to the delayed mission.
"Yeah, don't get all "broken hearted" because of us," Luan laughed hoisting one of the Assistant-bot's dismembered fists into the air, "We can still lend a "hand"!"
"B-...but you guys just-"
"Hey it ain't our fault you two looked like you were gonna destroy the entire town," Lynn huffed cutting Lincoln off as she hoisted him and Lucy to their feet, "But since you got this whole thing goin' on and with the misunderstanding it turned out to be...well bro you ain't got much options other than to accept our help if you wanna get ready in time." Her roommate and her brother couldn't believe what they were hearing. Even their most vicious attackers were offering aide to them, and it was true. Under the circumstances they truly did have no choice. In disbelieving relief, they relented and nodded to their family. There was still hope. It was small, probably even a fraction of a sliver. But it was hope. With the devastation concluded the rekindled family made their way back to the front door of the house to begin to repair the setback that had been caused to Lincoln and Lucy's agenda. And as Mr. Grouse wiped tears from his eyes from where he'd been watching, the only unenthusiastic sister lagged behind in the yard a few moments more. Though slightly alleviated to have gotten answers, her concerned gaze still watched under the emerging moon as the brother and sister she'd worked so hard to apprehend entered the house. Hand-in-hand.
"So...when were you gonna tell me about the bus we were supposed to take?..." Lincoln murmured out of the side of his mouth.
"Sigh, Lincoln I'm sorry. I wasn't expecting we'd have to fight a god damn war against the entire house," Lucy grumbled, "if everything had gone as it should have we'd have been ready in no time and I would've let you know as we were preparing. Just didn't think it was that important until just now."
"...you know you can say you just forgot about it," Lincoln smirked. Blushing, Lucy shot him a glare.
"Exasperated groan, Lincoln, do you honestly think I'd forget about something so mino-"
"You forgot about the dress," he reminded. He spared himself the look of her embarrassed visage as his eyes rolled towards the mirror in the bathroom to view his own expression of continued victory. "Though it won't matter at all if those girls don't get to work on us," he admitted in annoyance as he looked around, "I mean you said we only had about fifteen minutes out there. How exactly do they intend to "freshen us up" after all that in this amount of time-"
"Like this," a more confident voice answered. Lincoln and Lucy let out yelps of surprise as they were hoisted into the air by their collars. In an impossible gesture, Lynn snapped the clothing downward and jerked it up again. The resulting momentum ejected her two younger siblings right out of the confines of their clothes leaving them blushing in shocked mortification. Once they'd realized what had happened they threw their limbs across their undressed bodies. Lynn however had little interest in waiting for them to recover. As soon as she'd tossed their clothes to the side she put a hand to each of their backs and shoved them forward toppling them through the curtains of the shower and straight into the warm tub that had been prepared for them. The first to emerge was Lincoln who gasped for dear life at the air he'd broken into but within seconds his head was shoved back beneath the surface. In his time below Lucy managed to make her own verbal "gasp" as she attempted an escape from the suffocation only to be met with a similar fate. The process of emerging and being shoved back down continued for what felt like hours in their struggle to stay alive as Lynn coated their bodies with all manners of shampoo, soap, and conditioners between their breaches of the water. By the time they were finally allowed to explode out across the arm of the bathtub Lincoln and Lucy gaped and wheezed gulping as hard as possible to yank air down into their shriveling lungs.
"You two," Lynn commented wrapping their younger bodies in a pile of towels and dragging them towards the door, "Really need take some breathing exercises. If this were the gym you'd have hell on the strokes in the pool."
"Well we're not at the gym! We're attt-AHHHH!" Lincoln cried as Lynn put them to either side of her and spun him and Lucy each into one of the two rooms surrounding the bathroom. He was unsure if his lunch was still in his stomach when he landed rather roughly in the chair that'd been set up for him in Luan and Luna's room. "W-wha...wha?..." he mumbled as his eyes spun in their sockets.
"Dude, ya with us?" Luna asked. After a few more snaps of her fingers in front of his eyes they readjusted their positioning and he shook his face to recompose himself.
"WHAT WAS THAT?" he yelled.
"The spin dry cycle!" Luan winked earning her a distasteful look from their patient, "Aw, now cheer up! Oh wait, actually, don't. Your girl wouldn't like that. She's pretty "batty" after all!" Along with the usual irritation that the "comedian" brought, Lincoln also lowered his face to his hands to hide the teased nervousness of the fun she poked at his and Lucy's "relationship".
"Brah, look this way," Luna ordered. Ignoring whatever cooperation he might have given, she grabbed his jaw and began looking his face over. "Uh huh...uh huh..." she nodded. Every so often she'd slick down a strand of his hair or rub off some soap that remained from Lynn's primal cleaning methods. Out of the corner of his eye he could just barely make out Leni tending to the cleaning of his outfit in the corner of the room. Once Luna had jerked his face to the other side he could see Lana leaning against the wall of that side of the room. Realizing she had his attention, the younger girl rubbed her arm and stepped forward.
"Hey uh..." she coughed and kicked the ground, "Just wanted to say mmm...ya know...sorry about the whole-"
"Trying to murder us thing?" he murmured through the fingers that gripped his jaw. Lana's cheeks reddened as she looked to the side. "...eh, we should be used to that by now this week," he shrugged. Lana stared at his dulled expression for a few seconds before it turned into a more lighthearted one. It may have held some resentment towards the stalling that he and Lucy had had to endure from their pursuit, but it was more accepting towards her than she'd have expected after her role in the assault. Finished with her inspection, Luna pulled Lincoln's head back to face her. He let out a gruff exhale as she plopped a black punkish wig down on his head and put her hand on his shoulder.
"Brah, I just wanna tell ya, I-...I'm pretty easy-going," she confessed, "Ya know that love. But this...thing you got. You...Lucy...don't mess it up ya hear?" Lincoln was surprised at the seriousness with which she talked. He could only assume that the "orders" were some sort of joke, but the look on her face said otherwise. "Brah, I ain't dumb. I may not fully know everything you guys have gone through in the past week or so," Luna continued and pushed her face closer to his as she lowered her voice to a whisper, "but I do know she cares about you. A LOT. This may all be an act, but...don't lose what ya got alright?" Pursing his lips, Lincoln swiveled his eyes around for in thought. He might not have understood everything Luna was trying to convey, but he nodded his head. The concern may have seemed silly to him, but he did know he had no intention of harming what he and Lucy had built up. Whatever happened afterwards may have been less within their control, but he would certainly welcome the continuation of his content interactions with Lucy.
The goth however had been receiving just as flustering a rundown as her brother. Within the bustle of the room across the hall from Luna and Luan's, Lucy sat swathed in an apron that had become littered with dark shades of nail polish. She didn't need to turn to see that Leni had been hurriedly filing through various pieces of clothing from the confines of her and Lori's closet in her search for proper dressings for their guest. Had she had more time, Lucy likely would have been beside herself with prideful flustering from the help she'd been receiving. She wasn't used to so much aide being given to her, and so willingly at that. It hadn't been since her sisters' last attempt at helping her woo a boy that she'd had such assistance. But with the company she had, it was hard to display those feelings.
"And so I said to him: Boy, you look DASHING in that get-up. And he said to me: Me? Look at how you fill that dress out. But then-" Lola continued to rattle off as she slicked on more coats to the nails she'd been tending to.
"Uh huh. Oh yes. Quite. Uh huh. You don't say," Lucy repeated on loop to give some form of acknowledgement to the chattering pageant-expert. With how versed she had become in her adequate responses it wasn't hard for Lucy's reluctantly participating mind to wander. She couldn't believe what the others were doing for her and Lincoln. It may have already been too late for their actions to matter, but god damn if they weren't trying. And for all she knew they might actually get them setup in time for their departure. Crazier things had happened with the family in the past. She knew firsthand how quickly they could operate under times of stress and with the right amount of cooperation. Whether or not it'd be enough, her admiration for their turnaround was astounding. Ever since they'd gotten home they'd been hunted, attacked, and literally nearly killed by their sisters, but once things had been set straight they'd fallen to their side. And for however disturbing or amazing that was, that was how the Loud House worked. When push came to shove they helped each other out. It may have take some time to fully adjust to the calamity that had torn through the house on that eve, but in those moments they were allies.
She sighed inwardly as Lola filed off some chips from along the edge of her nails. They may have been lending their assistance now, but her original ally, her...partner...he was being prepped for the oncoming impossible-to-reach event just as she was and she could only imagine what types of pained expression his adorable face must have been making if her treatment was as trying as it was. She hardly noticed herself press her now black-lipsticked lips inward to coat them with a lining of saliva during her latest default response to Lola's gossip. While it was unbelievable to have the help they were now receiving from their mostly former attackers, Lucy knew whom the majority of the credit should go to. She didn't know if Lola noticed her blush as her eyes slid towards the entrance to the room nor did she care. Her care for everything that Lincoln had done, everything that he'd given up and endured to get to this point with her, her...love for him was too great to try to hide. In the flood of Lola's endless talking she paid no attention to the shift in the corner's of Lucy's mouth. The goth knew that her sisters' involvement was necessary now if they wanted any shot at achieving their goals, but Lincoln...he had been there no matter what...he would have been there had their preferred secret been kept as such. It may have been his compliant nature or his own care for her, but whatever the reason he had stayed on course to be her "partner"...to be her...boyfriend...
Lucy's mind snapped back to reality as she noticed clearer objects than normal approaching her. Instinctively she grabbed hold of Lola's wrist to keep her hand from moving the bangs in front of her face any further.
"I-...j-just was gonna...apply some um...eye-eye-...eyeshadow..." Lola grinned innocently. She may not have realized the smile Lucy had had as her ramblings to her patient had gone on but she definitely caught eye of the deepening scowl her mouth now wore.
"Move the hair and you lose the hand," Lucy threatened. Her own mouth shrinking, Lola jerked her hand back and gave her a nervous laugh.
"R-r-...right..." the blond's quivering voice replied, "N-now then...is her dress ready?" Lucy's clenched her teeth together as her chair was spun in place to face the taller blond that occupied the room. Beaming a grin, Leni pulled her handiwork into view.
"Does an orange eat rabies?" she replied. Lola and Lucy didn't even register the nonsensical analogy with the dress that was staring back at them.
Stumbling out of Luna and Luan's room, Lincoln did his best to dust off his returned outfit and slicked the hair of his wig back into place as best as he could. The only thing he couldn't seem to even out was that odd crinkle he felt in his back pant-leg that seemed to have stuck in it from the night before. All things considered he'd been ejected back into the hall more elegantly than he'd anticipated with how fast the operation seemed to be moving. What he wasn't prepared for however was the girl that was shoved back into it with him. Once she'd been thrown back into the corridor he took a step back. His mouth dropped a bit and his eyes went wide. His first scan of her figure was quick and abrupt, but the next few...took their time. Slowly his eyes traveled up and down the clothes that'd been draped around her body. His sensibilities left him under the imposition of the stylings of the same designer that had bestowed him with his own outfit. Lucy's however...it wasn't some workshop on a Halloween costume. Lincoln certainly wouldn't bash what he'd ended up with as it was better than anything he would have gotten at the mall. But Lucy's? The way her shoulder-pieces flared out from the corset-like structuring at the abdomen. The dress that plumed out beneath the waist-piece that it led into. The red detailings and inner dress showing at the bottom of the skirt. The black elegant evening-gloves It was...breathtaking.
"Lincoln?...you alright?" Lucy asked once she realized the boy had no intention of acknowledging her.
"You're...beautiful..." he drawled. Blushing furiously, Lucy cracked her head to the side. No matter how much she might try though, a wide smile spread itself across her reddening face.
"Oh-um-y-y-ya-you a-re t-too..." she replied with as default an answer as she could give. There was no way to think under the crushing pressure of his compliment. As with him though, she soon attempted to rectify her effected state, though her repairs of the fidgets were more due to the oddness of her response as opposed to the boy's one towards his intensive staring. "Er-I mean you're handsome," she coughed before attempting another go, "I-I mean you l-look good. I mean not that y-you aren't h-handsome I-"
"Well I d-didn't m-mean beautiful!" Lincoln blurted attempting to backpedal, "N-not that you aren't! I mean-I-"
"Y-you just-th-that suit! It's um-"
"The dress really makes your features pop and, b-but not that um-"
"-and th-the cuffs-"
"-y-your gloves-" Lincoln stuttered. Realizing the circles they were verbally spinning in, he put a hand up to stop the joint flustering. Lucy took in a breath after seeing Lincoln inhaling his own. Their systems reset from the filtration, they opened their eyes back up. "...let's try this again," he smirked, "Hello. My name is Lincoln Loud."
"Why good evening my dear escort of the night, I am Lucy Loud," she replied holding out her gloved hand. Delicately Lincoln took the appendage in his own. They shared a smile as they felt the syncing reestablish itself between themselves. They would have probably played on their performance a bit longer but with the looming threat of time against them, an arm popped out from behind each of their heads and pried their lips apart.
"Alright Lees! Let em have it!" Lynn hollered. Lincoln and Lucy could hardly tell what was going on with how their upper faces had been tilted towards the ceiling, but the heat that spread forth from their opened mouths hinted at what the targets of the machine that had popped out of Lisa's room were. Lincoln and Lucy flailed about helplessly as the laser that shot at them scraped at any debris that may have clung to their teeth. It only took a few seconds, a far cry from the more studious operations of their mother's line of work. Once it had been done however a lingering sense of heat swam through their mouths while they nursed the cheeks that Lynn let go of.
"All whitened up and ready to go," Lisa informed as her machine hummed down.
"Gee..." Lincoln muttered still rubbing at his face.
"Thanks..." Lucy finished. As they pulled everything back into place, a flurry of hands grabbed at them and forced them towards the stairs which they were soon carried down. They were lucky to have so much assistance to keep them on track, but it would have been nice to have had some sort of breather between the pit-stops. Almost as if to give them one, the sisters that hurried them to the front door deposited them right into a standing position that they seemed to have no intent of interfering with any longer.
"Oh my god, honey come quick. They're ready for their date!" their father said springing up from the couch.
"Oh this is soooo exciting!" their mom added appearing from the doorway to their parents' room. They both held wide toothy grins to the black-cladded children as the father produced a camera from behind his back.
"Mom, dad, it's not a REAL date," Lincoln grumbled smacking his forehead.
"Maybe not, but it is a happy event," Lynn Sr. replied as he lined up his shot, "and any of those we can get for Lucy we need evidence of. Now say "dang it"!" Glancing at each other, Lincoln and Lucy rolled their eyes and put their arms around each other's waist and shoulder.
"Sigh. Dang it," they muttered emotionlessly. The group of siblings at the staircase may have looked on in pride, but the conjoined dullness of the personalities still sent a disturbing wave across them.
"And now one with your natural hair color," their father requested. Giving a more normal sigh, Lincoln slid the fake feature off and positioned himself for another snapshot.
"Awwwww..." Their parents cooed as they doted over the pictures they'd gotten. While the oldest members of the household looked their trophy over, Lincoln pulled his disguise back on and joined Lucy in looking around the room. Neither of them had expected to have been ready to start towards their triumph after the travesties that had threatened their day. Thanks to the chaotic dealings of their siblings however not only were they ready, but they stood at the doorway to their victory more prepared than ever before. Not only were their interactions something that they'd no longer have to worry about keeping hidden, but they were now dressed and cleaned grander than either of them could have hoped to present themselves on their own. With some fraction of remorse, the brother and sister looked over the rest of the siblings present.
"...sigh," Lucy said. She had her issues with offering any satisfaction for the people that had so viciously endangered their cause, but after their speedy recovery of the plans they'd tried to destroy she knew that Lincoln was in agreement that they should have some parting words. "...we're sorry for not letting you guys in on this earlier," she told them, "we just...didn't want you to...ya know..."
"Fuck it up," Lincoln finished with a more direct tone. Lucy gave him an unsure look, but the smile from his painted her's with the same.
"Well that sure didn't stop us," Luan joked. The group murmured with a ripple of laughter, but the unease of their embarrassing reactions towards the perceived threat to the town ensured that the joyous noises didn't last too long before they died down. It wasn't everyday that such a misunderstanding overtook the house. Vying on the memories, Lana coughed and kicked the ground.
"I know I said sorry earlier, but...yeah...I...got a bit...carried away..." she said rubbing the back of her head. Lincoln may have given her a small sympathetic smile, but if Lucy had any bemusement for her she didn't care to display it. Not wanting to the be only one red-handed, Lana elbowed her twin and her taller brown-haired conspirator to get some words from them.
"I don't know why you're dragging me into this. It wasn't my idea," Lola shrugged as she walked off to the side of the group. Lana and Lynn shot her a look of offended disbelief. Since the blond had resigned that though left only the brown-haired member to offer up any repentance. And she did not care to.
"Look, all I'm gonna say is that you guys...you..." Lynn murmured as she tried to keep from looking at the younger kids in front of her. Lucy and Lincoln tilted their heads forward eager to hear what choice of words she had for them. "...ugh! Alright fine I'm sorry," she growled as Lincoln and Lucy slinked back into position with snickers running along their lips. "Oh go ahead and laugh Ms. date-my-own-brother," Lynn spat as she took a threatening step towards them and put a finger up to Lucy's chin, "but I swear, if you hurt him you answer to me. Got it?" The two younger siblings before her shook their heads hesitantly and gave each other a confused glance. Neither of them had any intent of physically abusing the other, but the way Lynn had made the threat made the wording seem more...personal than it should have been.
"But remember, it's a date. Live a little!" Luan added in contrast, "Don't be afraid to "dig" into his "grave" a bit!" Hotly Lucy blushed. They definitely appreciated the help, but the necessary "advice" from the sisters did its best to bring the forgotten awkwardness of their mission back to the surface.
"But if you break her heart!" Lola spat jumping forward and glaring at Lincoln. Fearing some sort of attack from the growling tike, Lincoln put his hands up in front of himself for defense. After a few seconds though the growling lessened to silence leaving just a glaring face to take with him. Again Lucy and Lincoln shared their unease with each other. They had no idea what the extreme mixed signals from the group meant. At least they didn't until the most relaxed of them came forward.
"Brah, you two are goin' on a date," Luna explained putting a hand on her hip, "It may not be an actual one, but it's still a date BETWEEN two of our siblings. We're gonna give both of ya both sides of what comes with that." Lucy and Lincoln rolled their eyes atop the relieved smiles they put on. As if to drive the statement home, Lily waddled forward from where the parents stood and smacked her fist into her hand before giving them a delighted wave. It may have been a ridiculous "ritual", but it did provide them with a surprising sense of care. Lincoln jumped slightly as he felt Luna's hand land on his shoulder. "Remember what I said brah," she told him. He gave an embarrassed grin from the kiss the older sister put on his forehead. Lucy felt a crawl run along her arms at the sight of the motion. "Oh don't get all flustered," the guitarist said having apparently noticed her tense body, "You know the rules. He's our brother. You gotta share." A mad blush glowed from the goth's face as the sisters gathered at the stairs laughed. She feared she may just stay stuck in her embarrassed fixture forever, but the hand Lincoln put to her back helped ease her back to her senses. The others didn't notice the smile that Lucy put to his side in their jovial chuckles.
"Oh I can't believe this!" Rita gasped excitedly as she and her husband fell to the floor hugging the two, "they're going to a dance!"
"Our little kids are-are-are growing up!" Lynn Sr. cried strangling the black-haired girl.
"It's...a...fake...date..." Lincoln reiterated slowly as their siblings' laughter escalated.
"But still a date!" Rita sniffed pulling back to a crouched position over the two.
"And I can't remember the last time I've seen Lucy smile this much!" Lynn Sr. added. Immediately the girl in question tilted her head away from the adults. "Now be sure you stay safe on the way there. Don't talk to any raccoons and only get directions from ghosts if they look trustworthy."
"Sigh, we know dad," Lucy grumbled.
"And Lincoln, be sure to protect her if anything happens," their mom ordered, "And don't worry, I'm sure however it goes you two are going to have a fun time."
"It's about getting that guy for her. Not about having fun," Lincoln reminded.
"Well not with that attitude it's not," their mom smiled at them. Shaking his head he turned to change his attention to the sisters that had helped prepare them for the upcoming event. Most of them had begun to ease off from the laughter. Well...aside from Leni who just seemed stuck on whatever inane detail she thought must have been funny. One sibling that Lincoln's vision held on for longer than most however was the one that had given him advice. Noticing his gaze, Luna shifted her eyes to Lucy and brought them back to him to give him a wink. He didn't know why, but the suggestive action lit up his face a bit which he turned back to their parents to keep from their sisters' gaze.
"Well, this has been fun, and we can't thank you guys enough, but we should really get going," Lincoln said a bit more loudly than he'd intended. Catching onto the urgency of their departure, the group quieted down. The couple hardly had time to react before the whole group congregated on them in a massive hug. After giving their own back to them, Lucy and Lincoln broke out of their grip and reached for the door.
"Have fun!" Leni called after them.
"Knock em dead!" Lynn Jr. said.
"Mind your step in the dances!" Lola told them.
"Don't be afraid to get dirty!" Lana added.
The suggestions and good-byes followed them even as the door began to shut. Luna however just grinned at the hands that the white and black-haired children held. As if to block the voices, Lincoln and Lucy slammed their backs up against the door once it'd shut behind them and they spent a good fifteen seconds giving breaths of relief. The affection they'd been shown had been more welcome than the hostilities they'd been given earlier in the day, but the severity of either was overwhelming.
"What a weird family..." Lincoln sighed. Having caught her own breath, Lucy grinned at him.
"I'll say," another voice commented. Startled, both kids looked to the left of the doorway to see the only sibling that hadn't helped get them ready leaning against the wall. Lori hardly gave signs of amusement to the two in the arm-folded gaze she possessed.
"Oh...h-hey Lori," Lincoln tried to greet, "I know you probably wanna say your goodbyes but we really should get-"
"Nah, the others can do that but all I wanna say is...well..." she murmured. Lincoln and Lucy's faces became cross from the hesitant mannerisms that the older girl displayed as she approached. "Just...you two are BROTHER and SISTER," she said as she put a hand on each of their shoulders, "Just...remember that, okay?" Her audience shared perplexed faces from the odd sendoff she'd decided to give them.
"Uh...yeah?...we know that?" Lincoln responded.
"We're not Leni Lori, I don't think our memories are that bad," Lucy informed. Lori's eyes went to her head thinking of how to make her point more prominent but before she could open her mouth again the goth continued. "Either way, we really need to get going," she said. The teenager was taken by surprise at the hugs the two felt inclined to give her, but settled into an embrace of her own around them.
"We'll see ya later!" Lincoln exclaimed taking hold of Lucy's hand. More happily than Lori had expected her to be, Lucy grinned as she bounded off the front steps of the house with their brother and waved to her. All Lori could do was watch with a concerned gaze as she gave a slow wave of her own to the children.
-end of segment-
