AN:
Yeah, you guys get another chapter. I had reasons.
OldWorldVulture: Thanks man, I appreciate the feedback, both the good and the bad. "Fantastically, wonderfully ridiculous" might be one of the biggest complements I've ever gotten. As for the Sam thing, keep reading :)
Also, there's a fairly lengthy author's note at the end of the chapter. I highly recommend reading it. Or at least the TLDR at the bottom.
Hope you guys enjoy this, it was a lot of fun to write.
"Mghrpf." Lincoln articulated through the mysterious girl's fingers.
"Shh!" She admonished him.
"Stop being greedy Luna!"
*zap* *zap* *kapow*
"I'll still let you date him! I just need to properly vet you first! That's what good sisters do!"
"Graaaaaaaagh!"
Lincoln flinched at the surprisingly Lynn-like roar that had errupted from Luna's mouth. He suspected that neither girl would be paying them much attention any time soon.
"I know you have questions." Rasped the mysterious girl ("Miss-Terious", Lincoln noted to himself. Seemed like a good name to use for a future character.) "But we don't have much time. Take this, and free yourself."
With that, the girl reached around him with her free hand, and pressed something small into his own hands. Unable to turn his head, he resorted to feeling it out. From what he could tell, it appeared to be a small, spade shape object. Yeowch!
Correction: It appeared to be a small, extremely sharp, spade shaped object. Now likely covered in an indeterminate amount of his own blood.
"Cut yourself free, then get to safety." She instructed. "Nod if you understand."
Difficult as it was, bound and now gagged as he was, Lincoln managed enough head movement to satisfy his scary, apparently knife-wielding savior.
"Good." She said, removing her hand. She turned to leave, then stopped, seemingly hesitant.
"O-one more thing." She murmured. Lincoln opened his mouth to quietly inquire as to what that thing was, when the girl wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him into a kiss.
This...was not the kind of kiss he was used to. It wasn't the chaste peck on the cheek he was used to getting from his mom and younger sisters. It wasn't the deeper, longer variant he'd been getting from Leni as of late, or the confusingly affectionate variety he'd begun to share all too briefly with Ronnie Ann, before she'd moved away. This was a boyfriend/girlfriend kiss. The kind he'd seen Lori giving to Bobby. The kind that Sam had insisted he watch her give Luna, as he hid in a nearby closet.
Lincoln tried to process the experience. The feel of the other girl's lips against his own was...familiar. Refreshing. With a tinge of sweetness. It was akin to the feeling of coming home to your own, personal sanctuary after a long, grueling day. Warm, inviting, and invigorating. And there was something else there...
Just as Lincoln felt he was on the cusp of some kind of a breakthrough, the kiss was broken, Lincoln's body immediately began filling his desolate lungs with some desperately needed air. Right, breathing. That thing he needed to live. Kissing, he decided, was as fun as it was dangerous.
Once his air supply was replenished, and his vision stopped swimming, Lincoln looked around, hoping to talk to the mysterious girl a little more. But she was gone. Nothing but lingering warmth against his lips, and his still bleeding palm to indicate she was ever there to begin with.
Lincoln let out a soft sigh of disappointment. He'd just had his first kiss, and it was with a veritable ghost. Shaking his head, to clear his mind, Lincoln attempted to focus on making his escape, hoping it would distract him from thoughts of his mysterious benefactor.
...Only one problem, as he soon found out. While cutting his way to freedom seemed like a solid plan on paper, Lincoln's well tied bonds prevented him from manuvering his hands in a manner that would allow him to make those cuts. And with the, admittedly small amount of blood he'd just shed across his hands, it was unlikely he'd be able to untie the ropes as he'd originally planned.
"...Dang it."
Leni navigated the surprisingly empty aisles of the convention hall with a spring in her step. Things were going well for her. It had taken some tricky needlework, and her outfit nearly fallen apart more than once, but she'd manage to adjust the fit of her costume just enough so that she could breath without getting dizzy. She'd had to sacrifice about an inch of skirt length to pull it off though, which made her sad, because Linky really seemed to like that skirt. He couldn't take his eyes off it. She hoped he wouldn't be too upset.
Leni rounded the final bend and was delighted to see Becky hanging out at their table. Only Becky was dressed like Linky! It was like two of her favorite people in one!
Leni dashed up to her friend and gave her the biggest Leni hug she could muster, the kind that normally made Linky pass out and spill ketchup everywhere (Even when they weren't eating ketchup!). Much to her surprise, Becky remained as still and as resolute as a statue.
"Hi, Becky!" Leni chirped, giving her friend an extra hard squeeze.
"Hey, Leni." Said the other girl, short and to the point. Well, it was Becky, so tall and to the point.
Finally noticing the intense glare on her friend's face, Leni slowly traced Becky's gaze, realizing that there was a third girl here. It was Luan's friend! Margo? Maggo? Magoo?
"Hi, Margie!" Leni said at last, waving enthusiastically at the other girl.
"Maggie." She grunted in response, gaze still locked with Becky's.
"Gesundheit."
The gloomy girl let out something resembling a gurgle, but didn't allow herself to be distracted. Leni wondered what they could possibly be doing.
"I'm wondering what you could possibly be doing." Announced Leni.
"Nothing!" Came the unison response from both parties, neither moving in the slightest.
"...Okay." Leni responded, shrugging her acceptance. She navigated around the two girls, careful not to get in their way, and sat herself down next to her tiny bee-self. Hopefully Linky and the others would be back soon.
Lincoln had found himself in a bit of a predicament, one beyond that in which he had already found himself when fate had dashed not one, but two escape plans in a single stroke. Namely, that the stage beneath his feet was beginning to tremble with alarming frequency.
It could have been due to any number of factors. Luna and Sam's ultimate showdown of ultimate destiny was a likely culprit. Lynn's rampage certainly wasn't helping matters. While Lincoln was unable to see the fruits of his sister's labors with his own eyes, his was intimately familiar with what Lynnsanity in motion sounded like, and given the alarming frequency with which the screams of the fallen would coincide with the tremors worsening, he would bet good money on Lynn having found the edges and surfaces of the nearby stage to be a wonderfully convenient tool for dispatching her foes. Combined with the increasingly likely scenario that the stage had not been brought up to code before the start of the convention, and, well...
The stage was suddenly wracked by a tremor far more violent than any that had come before it. There was no time for what if's now, Lincoln had to get himself and the girls out. Now.
"Sam!" He called out. "Luna!"
It bothered him that he wasn't more surprised at the fact that neither girl was capable of hearing him, so engrossed were they in their duel. That was when Lincoln realized that unlike the tremors that had come before it, the previous tremor had never stopped. And it was continuing to grow in intensity.
"Girls!" He called out in desperation, struggling against his bonds with every ounce of strength his 11-year old frame could muster. Unfortunately, this didn't amount to much beyond rope burn being added to the growing list of minor injuries he'd suffered. Lincoln ceased his struggles as one last tremor violently erupted, knocking his chair over.
It occurred to Lincoln, somewhere between the point where he'd begun falling and the point where his head slammed against the increasingly unsteady ground, that his bonds had somehow burst apart during his decent. Any hopes he might have had of using this turn of fortune to his advantage were quickly dashed upon impact, as the air was forced from his lungs. And so, Lincoln lay there. Vision swimming, head throbbing, and desperately trying to breathe, even as he felt the shaking around him intensify in what was almost certain to be its final crescendo.
...And then a funny thing happened. Amidst the swirling, distorted world around him, one particular set of blurs gained a semblance of definition. A strangely familiar combination of white, blue, and blonde. The last thing Lincoln felt before his world went dark, was a comforting sensation of warmth, suffusing his body as the ground gave way beneath him.
Lincoln's eyes shot open as sharp pains coursed through his body.
"Aaarg!" he exclaimed, before quickly falling limp, the resultant motion causing him to dash his head against the ground. Again.
"Whoops." Came an embarrassed chuckle from somewhere above him. "Sorry about that, little guy."
Lincoln made the herculean effort that was required to force his eyes open, an instantly regretted it, letting out a soft moan as light pierced his sensitive retinas. He suddenly felt a strange kinship with Lucy.
"Easy, Linc" There was that voice again. "You had a pretty bad fall there. Two, actually. I've gotta check to make sure nothing's broken."
Lincoln gingerly opened his eyes once more. Wincing in pain as light began to fill his aching head once more, but now being better prepared to whether the storm. Lincoln grit his teeth as he desperately fought the urge to squeeze his eyes shut again, vaguely remembering some platitude of Lynn's about how things had to get worse before they could get better, or something to that effect.
Eventually his efforts were rewarded, and light soon gave way to colors and shapes, as the world around him gained meaning once more. The last, and most gratifying sight, being the beautiful blonde girl crouching over him.
"Hey, Carol." He grunted, trying to give her a weak smile.
"Hey yourself, Lincoln." She replied, giving him a warm smile as she laid one comforting hand against his forehead.
"...Or should that be, 'Clincoln?'"
Luna Loud was trying to lay as still as possible, so as to avoid needlessly antagonizing her aching body.
The ride home was a fairly subdued affair. With the. collapse of the stage, as well as any semblance of public order, Savvy Con had been forced to close down prematurely. This had made actually leaving the convention a fairly grueling ordeal, as the group had been forced to make their way through the veritable army of lawyers and paramedics who had been summoned in the wake of the incident.
Fortunately, nobody had been seriously hurt. The stage, as it turned out, had been mostly made of cheap, lighteweight materials merely painted to seem more substantial than they actually were. She and Sam had gotten the worse of it, having been at ground zero when the collapse happened, but it was the fall that had done most of the work. Still, somebody was almost certainly getting sued and/or fired for that boondoggle.
And thus, the Louds plus one found themselves trudging home. Tired, wounded, and eager to wash their hands of the day's events. Aside from Leni, naturally, who'd managed to stay out of the whole affair entirely.
After the days events, Lori and Lynn had been adamant that Lincoln wasn't to go anywhere near Sam for the foreseeable future. Luna was pretty sure they'd calm down eventually, but for the moment that left her and Sam with the back rows of Vanzilla all to themselves, and Lincoln up front, currently being fussed over by their sisters. Luna didn't envy the poor kid.
Sam let out a loud moan from her current position, draped across Luna's lap. This caused her to incur a short, but intense round of glares from the sporty and eldest sisters up front. This, fortunately, went unnoticed by the blonde, but Luna winced all the same.
"Em sorry, Lunes." Sam mumbled at last.
"...For what?" Luna muttered in a low voice, not wanting to incur any more of her sisters' ire. Those were the first words they'd exchanged in hours.
"Fer trying to steal Inkon." Came her slightly garbled response. "That wasn't cool."
Luna expected to be angrier that her girlfriend's apology was for something that, in light of everything else she's done, seemed pretty negligible, all things considered. And yet, the more she thought about it, the more she realized that this had actually been bothering her. A lot.
"...Why'd you do it?" She finally asked, curious in spite of herself.
"Couldn't help it. He said he loved me."
"He said he loved you like a sister. You daft bird."
"Sounds like love to me." Sam replied, grinning weakly.
That was the point where Luna's resolve broke, and the pair began to giggle softly, still mindful of the vehicle's other occupants.
Luna reluctantly began to stroke the other girl's hair. She was cute and funny. It just wasn't fair.
"Made you real mad, didn't it? Luna?"
Luna stayed silent, trying to pretend she hadn't heard the question.
"Why'd it make you so mad, Luna?" Bollocks.
"I dunno." She hedged, hoping the matter would drop. But it was clear from the look in her girlfriend's eyes, that she wasn't going to let this go.
"He...he said he loved you." She grumbled at last, surprised by how much it hurt to say those words.
"Like a sister." Sam reminded her. An infuriating grin on her face.
Luna squared her jaw, intending to end things there, but a quick elbow to her midsection quickly put that plan to rest.
"Talk, Lunes." Sam said, now looking Luna straight in the eye. "Feel your feelings."
Luna wanted to argue. To bring up her emotional walls once more, to deny what the blonde was clearly implying...but she was so tired. So very tired.
"..It made me angry." She admitted, the words tasting like ashes in her mouth. "The idea of Lincoln loving someone else."
"Even me?"
"Even you."
"Why?" There was that damnable question again. She knew the answer. She knew that Luna knew that she knew, but she wanted to hear the words from Luna's own mouth.
"...Because I'm in love with my little brother. And the thought of him loving another woman, any woman, just...kills me."
Luna wasn't sure what kind of reaction she was expecting those words to elicit, but being pulled into a tender kiss with the beautiful blonde draped across her lap, was pretty low on the list.
They parted, far too soon for Luna's taste, but that was the way it always went, wasn't it?
"Geh?" Luna articulated, eliciting another giggle from Sam.
"I needed to hear you say it, you doofus." Sam said, smiling in satisfaction as she made herself comfortable once more on Luna's lap.
"...Why aren't you angry about this?" Luna asked, once she regained control of herself.
Time passed. So much that Luna had begun to wonder if Sam had heard her. Then she spoke.
"Do you know what I see, when I picture the future, Luna Loud?" Sam asked, rhetorically. Regardless, Luna shook her head, curious where this was going.
"I see us." Sam continued. "I see me, and my beautiful wife. We're amazingly successful. Sold out shows every night, songs always at the top of the charts. We even have our own cereal."
"Sounds nice." Luna said, smiling at the mental image.
"It's just glitz and glamor." The blonde replied, waving her hand dismissively. "All flash, no substance."
"Because after our latest show, we head straight home, after party be damned. You know what's waiting for us there?"
Luna leaned forward, now thoroughly engrossed in her girlfriend's vision."
"We get home, send the driver off, and brace ourselves as we open the front door. Because a freaking avalanche of children are just waiting to swarm over us. Blondes, brunettes...and adorable little white haired kids."
Luna remained silent. Throat constricting as the image vividly played through her mind.
"Daddy comes out to meet us, and then ushers everyone inside. Its dinner time, but not till everyone washes their hands, us included. He doesn't have to, of course. We're mega stars, we could buy all the help we need. But the kids like Dad's cooking best. And frankly, so do we."
The pair lapsed into silence as Luna allowed herself to process the imagery that Sam had put forth.
"It sounds...amazing." She said, hoarsely. "But you know it can't happen, right?"
Sam took Luna's hand in her own, and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "I don't care about what can happen." She said. "My concern is, what do you want to happen, Lunes?"
Luna had expected to feel more...conflicted about her feelings. But to her amazement, she next words out of her mouth were the easiest she had ever spoken.
"I want that." She whispered fiercely, as tears began to build in her eyes. "I want all of that."
Sam beamed, clearly pleased at the response. She reached under her seat and withdrew her backpack, having somehow retrieved it from the chaos. From there, she produced three more items. A familiar looking binder, a stamp and ink pad. Before Luna could ask what she was doing, Sam stamped the binder with an incredibly satisfied sigh.
Task complete, she flipped the binder around to show to Luna. Operation: Samwich, it read, just as before. Now with a new addition. Complete, stamped in bright red ink.
"Then we're already halfway there." Sam said, her eyes shining with happiness.
Lori Loud let out a soft moan as she pulled into the Loud family driveway. The nightmare was finally over. Seemingly with one mind, the Vanzilla occupants began to file out of the vehicle.
"You four." She barked, pointing to her siblings. "Go inside and get ready for bed. Now!"
Mercifully, they obeyed with zero resistance. Satisfied, she turned to Sam.
"You, on the other hand, can go home. Now."She growled, eyes narrowing.
Much to her surprise, the younger girl complied without complaint. Albeit, looking entirely too pleased with herself. At any other time, Lori would have demanded an explanation, but she just couldn't bring herself to care. There would be time to put Sam in her place later. Right now, all she wanted to do was crawl into bed, and try to forget this day had ever happened.
She had just begun trudging towards the front door when her phone began to buzz in its holster, eliciting an uncharacteristically un-Lori groan from her. She seriously considered ignoring it. Her soft, non collapsing bed was calling out to her.
...But she wouldn't be Lori Loud if she let a phone go unanswered. So, with a sigh of resignation, Lori reached for her phone and checked her notifications.
It was a text. From Carol of all people. Lori winced, as she prepared to accept what could only be a well deserved tongue lashing. She had, after all, abandoned the poor girl once she'd gotten wrapped up in Sam's thing.
Lori's guess couldn't have been farther from the truth. Rather than hateful and well deserved lambasting, Carol had instead sent her a short, simple message.
"Hi Lori! Wasn't that convention the best? We should totally go next year! Btw, any chance I could get Lincoln's number from you? I'd meant to ask him earlier, but forgot, what with all the craziness."
At that point the message cut off, leaving Lori perplexed, but a second message popped up only seconds later.
"Sry, accidentally sent. But anyway, could I get Linc's number? I need to talk to him about our date."
Lori read the combined message over and over again, trying to process the words in front of her.
"Geh?" She articulated at last.
/
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To be continued...in Aces Wild: Book II
AN: Hey guys, hope you're still reading at this point. So I had planned to end this story arc like this for a long time now, and based on the reactions I've gotten from the friends I've run this ending by, I imagine more than a few people are ticked off at this point. All I can say is: chill. Story's not over yet :)
I felt like this was a nice, clean point to cut things off. Book II will begin a new story arc, and will likely be the final book in the story. But we've got a ways to go still, so dont worry about things wrapping up anytime soon.
That said, I need a little break. I've been updating this story almost once a week without fail since I started it. And while its been fun, its also been exhausting. So I'm going to take a short hiatus from this story to recharge my batteries, and to give me an opportunity to work on other things. I've got a partially finished chapter for a brand new story that's been sitting on my hard drive for a while now. And I've also been promising a friend for a long time that I'd take a crack at writing another chapter of Gigant, so we'll see how that goes. Hiatus probably won't be more than a few weeks. A month at most, barring unforeseen circumstances.
Thanks for sticking with me this long. I never could have dreamed that I could have written a story this popular, it's absolutely mind blowing. I hope you've enjoyed Book I, and I hope you enjoy what I've got in store for Book II. Feels like I'm beating a dead horse at this point, but I have a tumblr, siegeperil. Feel free to use it to stay up to date on what I'm working on, or if you want to ask me questions or whatever.
TLDR: Story's not over yet.
See you guys next time :).