Maggie let out a small sigh of satisfaction as a resounding crunch erupted from underfoot. Until now, she'd never been in a position to enjoy being big before. This was only the third occasion where she'd gotten to use a dark seed, and the first two had both been marred by the presence of Lincoln's terrifying sisters. So much so, that when Darkness had rolled out the QTs and started letting them handle the fighting, Maggie had been more than happy to leave them to it. Superpowers were cool on paper, and the power that came from her enhanced size was certainly alluring, but Maggie held strong personal beliefs about not getting punched in the face if it was at all possible. Especially if it was by Luan. The clown girl had a mean right hook for someone who apparently spent most of their free time doing comedy shows.

This time, however, things were different. For one, there were no angry Gigants on the prowl. Maggie was a big fish in a small pond, and she was finding that she rather enjoyed that arrangement. For another, she was nominally the hero in this scenario. Albeit reluctantly, and largely because her boyfriend would be devastated if a bunch of randos got injured in the world's stupidest death trap. She didn't particularly care about the people on the Ferris Wheel, but she did care about Lincoln, and just thinking about him being sad...well, Maggie would do anything to prevent that from happening.

But mostly, it was because she'd spent the entire day at this stupid theme park. And while she loved spending time with Lincoln, everything else about their outing had only served to remind Maggie about why she hated theme parks so much. And now, large and in charge, as she was, she in a position to vent some much-needed frustration.

CRUNCH!

Take that, overpriced merchandise booth!

SMASH!

So long, stand selling popcorn that doesn't taste anywhere near as good as it smells!

KABOOM!

See you in hell...obnoxiously loud Princess Pony stage show with surprisingly volatile sound equipment!

Maggie took a moment to admire the technicolor flames that were quickly spreading across the remains of the now flattened stage, the sight causing a brief, pleasurable trill to ripple through her body. Yeah. Sometimes, it was good to be big.

"Lincoln!"

After enough time passes, certain behaviors become programming. Lincoln Loud loved his sisters very dearly, without exception. And in the past months, he'd been subjected to situations far more terrifying than anything he could have imagined prior to when things both strange and otherworldly had become a regular part of his life. Nevertheless, when Lincoln heard Lucy's low, monotone voice, and he knew that Lucy should not be around, his instincts would always take over, and his reaction was always the same. He screamed—

"Aaaah!"

—and he lept. From the day Lucy had spoken her first words (in the dead of night, having first crawled under his bed, of course), this had always been the way of things.

...Which wasn't to say that the result was always the same. Here, on this particular occasion, for example, gravity was being unusually lax in its duties. When something went up, it was supposed to go down, but Lincoln's journey into the sky had quickly gone from ascent to just...cent. No movement at all, as far as he could tell, he was simply hanging there. It was hard to say for certain, as an all-encompassing blackness had engulfed the world, rendering him incapable of seeing what was going on. Academically, he knew this loss of sight should be terrifying, but he just couldn't bring himself to panic. There was a pleasant scent wafting into his nostrils, and a familiar softness smothering his face. Lincoln didn't know what was going on, but his body told him to be relaxed, and he couldn't formulate a cohesive enough dissenting argument to protest.

"Linky!" Cried a second voice as a slender pair of arms wrapped around his midsection and commenced squeezing. Ah, well that explained everything. It was just a matter of craning his head upward, shifting his body so he could breach the surface, and—

"Hello, Leni." Lincoln greeted the older girl, blinking slightly as he managed to rise above the blonde's prodigious bustline and was once again introduced to sunlight. Leni's response was to coo, happily, and squeeze him even tighter.

"I missed you!" She shouted, tightening her embrace so much that Lincoln was reasonably certain his bones had been turned to diamond. Still, he held out, knowing he only needed to endure for a little longer. Finally, Leni's grip loosened, the older girl letting out a satisfied sigh as her entire body sagged just a little.

"Sorry Linky," Leni giggled, peering down at him. "But you've been gone all day and I was just so happy to see you...and me?" Leni's voice gained an uncertain lilt as she caught sight of Lincoln's doll. "Why am I down there?"

"Long story." Lincoln chuckled, slipping out of Leni's embrace. "And we don't really have the time to get into it right now."

"That said," He continued, turning his attention to Lucy, who'd apparently had the good sense to avoid getting caught up in the Leni hug, "Not that I don't appreciate you guys being here, but...why are you here?"

"We were—" Lucy began.

"Not following you!" Leni interjected, giving Lucy a conspiratorial wink.

"Which tells me everything I need to know," Lincoln concluded, rolling his eyes. "I don't even know why I'm surprised."

"To be fair, your girlfriend is rampaging through the park." Said Lucy, gesturing to the titanic figure in the distance.

"She's not—"

CRUNCH!

"Rampaging! She's saving—"SMASH!

"Those people...on the...Ferris...wheel." Lincoln explained, his voice progressively losing conviction with each tremor that violently rocked the ground.

Lucy's expression didn't outwardly change, but Lincoln could still sense the skepticism radiating off her. "She's grinding her heel into that wreckage—"

KABOOM!

"Sorry, flaming wreckage, and cackling."

"She's very enthusiassssss, wow, I can't even finish that sentence." Lincoln threw up his hands in mock surrender. "Okay, look. Maggie has her quirks, but her heart's in the right place."

SKREEEEEE

All three Louds clamped their hands over their ears as the sharp squealing of metal against metal rang throughout the park grounds.

"The evidence suggests otherwise." Lucy opined once the air had cleared. She may have been yelling a little louder than was strictly necessary, but it was honestly hard to tell with the ringing in his ears.

"Actually," Leni interjected, appraising the giantess in an uncharacteristically discerning manner. "I think Linky's right."

"That wheel's looking a lot more lopsided right now." Lucy deadpanned.

"Because she doesn't know what she's doing." Said, Leni. "But I think I can help her out. If you'll give me a boost, Linky."

Lincoln shot the older girl a grateful smile. "Thanks, Leni. I really appreci—MRF!"

Before he could finish, Leni swept him into a passionate embrace, kissing him so forcefully that, for a moment, he'd forgotten what he was supposed to be doing.

Initiating energy transfer. Seven droned dutifully, breaking Lincoln from his Leni-induced stupor. A not so subtle reminder that there was still work to be done.

Lincoln mastered himself just long enough to open the conduit to Leni, and then the energy began to flow...

Maggie winced, suddenly feeling considerably less confident than she had been a few moments earlier. She'd rolled up to the Wheel O' Cheese pumped, and ready to quickly wrap this thing up so find a nice section of the, almost certainly empty by this point amusement park, where she could stretch out and have some quiet time with her boyfriend. Then, things started getting complicated.

It wasn't until she was actually standing before the runaway ride, that Maggie realized she hadn't actually come up with a plan to stop it. She'd just sort of figured a solution would present itself, but the time to act was now upon her, and nothing seemed forthcoming. When she was hopped up on dark seed energy, Maggie's skillset was largely limited to smashing things and blowing things up. The former would just be counterproductive, and while blowing the wheel into disconnected chunks would almost certainly put an end to the "crisis" (Maggie instinctively provided the air quotes for her own thought process), she couldn't guarantee the safety of the passengers with that method. And Lincoln would probably get mad, so...obviously that was out. Unfortunately.

The idea to simply cut the power to the ride occurred to her, but was almost immediately thrown out when she noticed that the metallic frame of the wheel occasionally crackled with small arcs of lightning that were the same shade of black as her outfit. Maybe she had been a little hasty when she'd so quickly dismissed Mr. Darkness as the cause of this. Then again...

She looked around. Nothing within her sight besides empty skyline, her own trail of destruction, and a tiiiiiiiny white-haired speck in the distance, which she absentmindedly waved at. If this had been Darkness' doing, there almost certainly would have been a second part to this plot. At the very least, an angry QT or two on the prowl. Since there wasn't, it seemed reasonable to presume that he'd be okay with her putting a stop to this...

"Yahtzee!" Darkness proclaimed.

"We're playing UNO!"

It seemed to Maggie, that the simplest solution would be to just grab the wheel. At this size, she was pretty dang strong. Probably way stronger than some stupid wheel with a punny name. She'd grab the thing, hold it in place to stop it from spinning, and that would leave the passengers free to get off. Easy peasy.

SKREEEEEEE

Unfortunately, not only had the wheel not stopped spinning. At all. But the metallic frame had immediately begun to buckle as she wrapped her fingers around it. Thankfully, Maggie'd had the sense to let go the second things had started going south, but now, not only was the Ferris wheel now wobbling back and forth as it spin—

"aaaaaAAAAAAAArrrrrrrrHHHHHHH!"

—The panicked cries of the terrified passengers were now rising and falling with the motions of the now even more defective ride. Maggie was uncertain if this was an improvement or not. Regardless, she'd kind of been banking on that whole, grab the wheel plan. And now that was clearly not going to work, she needed to figure something else out.

"Need a hand?" Asked a friendly voice, speaking directly into Maggie's ear.

"Gah!" But Maggie was already in motion, flinging herself to the side, trying to get some distance between her and the mysterious new arrival. At she descended, she dug the balls of her feet into the ground, leaving deep gashes in the earth below her as she skidded to a stop, but also allowing her to quickly pivot and face her attacker, already preparing for the attack that was certain to come.

She wasn't expecting to come face to face with a comparably gigantic blonde girl wearing a big, friendly smile.

"Please tell me Lincoln didn't somehow make that doll come to life." Maggie deadpanned.

"What do you want...uh, Leni was it?" Maggie asked already feeling anxious about the situation. Her track record for Gigants showing up and smacking her around was 2 for 2 so far. Well, technically it was 1 for 2 since her first outing had Fiona take all the heat from Lincoln's other, much crazier blond sister. But a 50% rate was still too high for her liking.

Compounding that, was the fact that Leni was taller than her. She was already prettier than Maggie, and anyone with eyes could see that Lincoln was smitten with the girl, the way he'd treated the doll that barely looked like her was evidence of that. Her having the audacity to be taller, when Maggie herself currently made many buildings seem small by comparison, just made for a very frustrating cherry on a mountainous dessert made entirely of insecurity.

"Can't you just give me one thing?" She seethed internally, desperately wishing she could explode the other girl with her gaze. Unfortunately, Leni was still there, smiling and waving.

"I thought you might need some help." Said Leni. "So here I am."

"I'm—"

"aaaaaAAAAAAAArrrrrrrrHHHHHHH!"

"—fine," Maggie muttered, glaring at the still wobbling Ferris wheel.

"That doesn't look fine."

"Oh really?" Maggie sneered. "And what does it look like to you?"

"Well, it looks like you didn't account for the velocity of the spinny thingie."

"Right" Maggie scoffed, throwing up her hands. "I didn't account for the..." She trailed off, running the older girl's words through her head again. "Wait, the what now?"

"The velocity of the spinny thingie." Leni gestured at the wheel demonstratively. "See, when you're big like we are right now, you're like, really strong, right? So it seems like you can just grab the thing and make it stop."

"That's what I—" Maggie began, but Leni just pressed onward.

"But see, the thingie is still moving, because it's running on its own power. And when you grab it the way you did, every other part is still moving. So what happens is, it's trying to move while you're holding it. It doesn't know that you're way stronger than it, so it keeps on trying to go like it's supposed to, and it ends up hurting itself. That's why it's all wobbly now."

Maggie looked between the smiling girl and the Wheel O' Cheese. "That...actually kind of made sense. " She said, cautiously. "I think. How the heck did you figure that out?"

Leni shrugged modestly. "I've been doing this for a long time. Like, one time I tried grabbing this train that was gonna go off the tracks, but it like, bounced straight up. And I screamed and let go of it, because it kinda looked like a snake, and those are totes scary. But then Linky reminded me that it was a train, not a snake, and I managed to catch it just in time." She began tapping her chin with one finger, thoughtfully. "I think Lisa said that it's because of that one law. You know, the one about the cookies? But that didn't make any sense to me, because what do cookies have to do with trains and rides? Science is weird sometimes."

Maggie's mouth opened and shut a few times as she tried to formulate a response. "Yeah. Science is...super weird, sometimes."

"Totes."

"So how do we stop the wheel?"

"The what now?"

"The—" Maggie caught herself and took a moment to take a quick, calming breath. "The...spinning...thingie."

"Oh, easy." Leni daintily stepped around to the side of the Wheel o' Cheese, couched down, and motioned to the center of the wheel. "See this part here? That's where all the moving is coming from. So if you take one side, and I take the other, and we both grab it at the same time, we'll stop the whole thing from moving. See, it's just like this one time when Linky and I were—"

"Got it, grab the thing," Maggie shouted, hurrying to the opposite side of the wheel, not wanting to sit through another one of Leni's anecdotes, and definitely not another one that involved Lincoln.

She peered through the whirling metal frame at the blonde girl standing across from her. "So what, we go on three?"

"Sure." Leni nodded. Then she froze, her eyes crossing. "Wait, was that the three? Like, when you said 'three', is that when we were supposed to—"

"Three!" Maggie snapped, lurching forward. She could see the schtick coming a mile away, and refused to play any part in it. Thankfully Leni, presumably used to people telling her what to do, mirrored her movements with surprising proficiency, quickly matching Maggie's timing and laying her hands upon the wheel with perfect synchronicity.

Maggie held her breath, waiting for something, anything to go wrong. For the metallic frame to finally tear itself asunder. Or to crumble under the combined pressure from the two girls. Or even to sprout legs and begin to cackle maniacally, spontaneously transforming into some kind of Ferris Wheel-themed monster for them to fight. But none of that happened. While she could feel the metallic innards of the Wheel o' Cheese vibrating with alarming frequency underneath her fingers, the structure held firm. The wheel had stopped, and nothing had broken. Even the screaming had stopped. For the moment, it seemed like they'd actually pulled that off.

"That...actually worked." Said Maggie, more than a little awestruck as she looked to her partner. "I might be in shock."

"Told ya," Leni replied. "Easy as cake. Now we just have to rescue all the little peoples."

"Yeah." Maggie nodded. "All we have to do is...huh." Maggie began frantically looking around, feelings of dread and frustration beginning to pool in her stomach in equal amounts, as she noticed the suddenly very obvious flaw in this plan.

"Hey, Leni?" She asked, trying to keep her voice level. "If both of us need to hold onto this thing to keep it from moving...how do we actually save the passengers?"

"Oh! Uh..."

"I don't think they thought this through." Lucy opined, peering at the still struggling giant girls off in the distance.

"I guess not." Lincoln agreed as he began to pat himself down.

"Seems like they might need an extra pair of hands."

"I think you're right." Lincoln perked up as he finally found what he was looking for, the pocket containing his phone. "Thankfully, they've got the situation contained for now. Maybe I can call one of the other girls, get them down here, and—"

Whap

As Lincoln began to reach for his phone, a small, pale hand darted out and slapped his hand away. Lincoln looked at Lucy, perplexed, but the younger girl simply stared back at him. Cautiously, the Loud boy began to reach for his phone again—

Whap

And the scene repeated itself.

"Lucy!" He snapped. "What the heck are you—" Before he could finish his thought, Lucy's hand darted out a third time. On instinct, Lincoln began to pull his hand away. This time, however, Lucy caught his hand with her own. Then she adjusted her grip and gently pulled Lincoln's arm downward. It took Lincoln a few seconds longer than was probably necessary before he realized that he and Lucy were now holding hands. He turned to the younger girl in askance, and in response, she gave his hand a squeeze, the faintest hint of crimson darkening her pale skin.

"Lucy, are you sure about this?"

"I'm...sure, big brother," Lucy replied, haltingly, nodding her head slowly. "I think it's time I stopped sitting on the sidelines."

Lucy dipped her head and lowered her voice. "And besides..."

Lincoln waited patiently for Lucy to continue, but she just stood there, staring at the ground. Finally, he circled around and knelt down in front of her, putting himself roughly level with her downcast gaze. "And what, Luce?"

Still in Big Brother Mode, Lincoln was completely unprepared when Lucy sprung into motion, clasping his face in her hands and meeting his gaze head-on.

"And besides..." She growled, her eyes almost certainly flashing behind her raven-colored mane. "If you're going to date a quiet, moody girl, it should be me!"

Before Lincoln could respond her lips were already upon his, kissing him with every ounce of force her tiny body could muster.

Initiating energy transfer. Seven intoned. It may have been Lincoln's imagination, but the device sounded significantly smugger this time. However, before He could dwell any further upon that thought, his world exploded into blinding white light.

Still blind, Lincoln felt the now all too familiar sensation of rising up off the ground and abruptly falling back down. Save for Leni, for whom the transformation process had long become routine, and who knew exactly how to keep her grip on Lincoln throughout the entire process, it was extremely commonplace for him to be dropped at this point. Content in the knowledge that he was more than durable enough to weather the fall, he simply went prone and allowed gravity to do its thing.

Which, is why he was genuinely surprised when something slid underneath him and immediately arrested his fall. Lincoln blinked rapidly as his vision began to return, and it wasn't long before he found himself staring into the smiling visage of his li—err, younger sister, now sporting the trademarked visor and scarf of her Gigant sistren.

"DON'T WORRY, 'BIG BROTHER'" The leviathan boomed as she continued to lift him up into the air. "I'VE GOT YOU".

The newly minted Gigant Black straightened up, drawing herself up to her full height, and gently deposited Lincoln on her spandex-clad shoulder. As Lincoln steadied himself, he turned and gave his sister an exasperated look.

"I could hear the air quotes." He deadpanned. "Do you need to say that so sarcastically?"

Lucy gave him a wry smile and gently patted him on the head.

"YES." She replied, clearly relishing the reversal of their usual roles. "YES, I DO."