Chapter VII: Thunderstruck

As the the day slowly crawled on, and the house somehow remaining quiet, some were taking in the uncommon silence with grace. In her room Luna Loud calmly strung her electric guitar, not bothering to play any actual melodies. She was just absentminded over what was happening to her siblings. The events that occurred on this day were playing in her head like a film roll. Her family, the people she cherished more than anything, were succumbing to a change unlike anything she'd expected. It was like something straight out of a science fiction movie.

Her sisters had powers. Well, almost all of her sisters. She and Lily and with their brother were still technically normal but that word would soon have a new definition in this house. Luna was honestly intrigued of getting a superpower like her siblings, in fact she was fully expecting herself to get one soon considering she was one of the remaining who still didn't. The young rock star in the meantime was using her music to keep herself calm in the midst of this newfound dilemma that her family faced. She had already called her friends to cancel practice tonight in the garage, much to Sam's disappointment, but Luna knew that it was a smart decision. She'd merely used the outside rain as her excuse. For now it was just enjoying the brief moment of tranquility while it lasted.

"Hey Luna!"

So much for that as her sister appeared before her in a flash of yellow light. Luna didn't know whether to be surprised or not that she was getting used to it already.

"'Sup Luan," Luna stopped strumming to speak to the warping comedian, "How's the house going on? Everyone still kicking?"

"Everyone's alright for now," She responded, and listed what was currently happening with her fingers, "So far, Lola and Lana are downstairs watching a movie, Lincoln's in his room drowning himself in his comics, no doubt trying to find out what power he might have. Lori's still talking to her friends and attempting to be rational without going into another panic attack, and Lisa's running some more experiments in her room. Everyone else is doing their normal routines."

"So," Luna said, "kind of like how things are usually in this house."

"Yeah, pretty much." Luan shrugged and walked over to her desk and sat down at her desk. She turned her swivel chair to face her sister and asked her, "Though how are you holding up, Luna? This whole situation we're in right now is pretty out of this world."

"Yeah, no kiddin' dude. I'm fine, by the way. Just keeping myself busy and thinking about what kind of power I'll get. Maybe I'll get something that makes me shoot lightning from my hands, or something like that." Luna admitted, keeping it real with her prankster sister. Luna had learned to share her moments with Luan ever since they became roommates, and the years had forged a powerful bond between the two. After hearing what Luna said, Luan walked over to her sister's side and put a hand on her shoulder as she sat down next to her.

"I guess you're kinda anxious about what power you'll get, huh?" Luan said. "I can tell. You're more strummed out than normal."

"Yeah, pretty much. I mean, it sounds radical to have a superpower, don't get me wrong, but we saw what Lana and Lola did. What if I get something worse than that? Something that could wind up doing something really bad." Luna wondered. While she was excited to potentially wield something out of an action comic, it still worried her that it might end up doing more harm than good. The thought of wielding something she couldn't control and getting people hurt weighed heavily on her mind.

"I get that you're worried that you'll hurt someone Luna, but you remember what Lincoln said. As long as we keep ourselves calm and learn to control our powers, we have nothing to fear." Luan responded, making sure she made her point by putting a hand on her sister's shoulder for comfort.

Luna let out a sigh.

"Yeah, I guess I'm just overthinking things again. Force of habit. Sorry about that, Luan."

"Hey, I don't blame you. You don't need to apologize, you're just looking out for everyone. That's what makes you you! And you never know! You could get something totally awesome, like my power!" Luan demonstrated by vanishing again, and returning with a pop-tart package in her hand moments later. "See? You could always try to figure out if you've got one while we're pretty much in house lockdown."

"How would I do that?"

"I wish I could tell you, but I honestly don't know. Seems like you're going to have to find out yourself. Later!" Luan warped away, leaving Luna alone in her room again.

"Find out my own power, huh?" Luna scratched her chin as she gave it some thought. Surely there was some reasoning behind Luan's words. She wasn't familiar with the whole aspect of superpowers outside of the Marvel movies that she and her friends would go see. But Luan did have a point. She might as well try to find out while they were on Lori's lockdown. Thinking of such stuff reminded her of Lincoln and his hobbies, which suddenly sparked an idea in her head.

"Now, if I were Lincoln, what would I do?" Luna wondered out loud, strumming her guitar. "Better yet, maybe he can help me out."

KRA-THOOM!

Luna practically jumped out of her skin when a sudden crash exploded from one of her sister's rooms. It was loud enough to rattle the entire house. And by the sounds of things, it was Lynn and Lucy.

"Dammit Lucy!"

"Lynn, I am so sorry."

Luna went out to see what the commotion was, and left her room to take a trip to her younger sister's. She wasn't alone as Lincoln, Leni and Lisa were there too, watching the events unfold in front of them as the goth and jock got into another argument. Lynn was standing dead-center of the room, dressed up as a hockey goalie while Lucy was on her bed surrounded by open books and candles. From the looks of things, and the brand-new scorch mark on the ceiling, Lucy must have been testing her powers.

"You made me incinerate my hockey stick you Sith lord wannabe!" In Lynn's hands was said burnt-up hockey equipment, now little more than kindling. The charred wooden tool sprinkled ash as Lynn shook it in her hands in frustration.

"Alright, what's going on here?" Lori marched on in, her sisters and brother giving her space as she became the house tyrant again.

"Lucy spooked me with that dumb magic of her's and I burned my favorite hockey stick!" Lynn tossed the ruined equipment on the floor.

"I didn't mean to. I was attempting to cast a different spell but got distracted by Lynn hitting her puck across the room. Again." Lucy pointed to the dents in the wall as she gave her side of the story to her elder sister, who pinched her nose in frustration. Lori wasn't having any of this today, and was certainly not in the mood for their arguments.

"Okay, that's it! No more sports," she pointed at Lynn, "and no more spells," and then at Lucy, "for either of you! Learn to control yourselves and your powers by doing something else that doesn't threaten to literally destroy the house! Okay?" Lori crossed her arms, feeling the mounting frustration starting to build up from keeping her siblings in line.

"Sure." Lucy responded as she closed her books.

"Fine. Whatever you say, Mount Lori," Lynn mumbled to herself a little too loud, and felt a shadow cast over her along with two stomps that shook the room. It was Lori, who had decided to use her own power to make herself ten feet tall as she quite literally loomed over her sporty sister, face etched in a deep, powerful scowl. Lynn gulped, cursing her big mouth.

"You wanna say that again, candlestick?" Lori boomed with her enhanced voice thanks to bigger lungs.

"Nope! I'm good!" Lynn squeaked as she quickly smiled up to her big sister to avoid her wrath.

"Smart girl," Lori shrunk herself down to her normal height and left the room, "Now I literally don't want to hear anything else today! So keep. It. Down!" And with that announced she marched back to her room with Leni in tow, and slammed the door behind her.

"Looks like our eldest sister has already accomplished a good amount of control over her own ability," Lisa said as she giddily wrote down what she saw on a notepad, including Lynn and Lucy's newest incident and retreated back to her own room, "Quite interesting. Oh, I just can't wait to see just what else we can do with these things! Such fascinating days are ahead of me!"

Lincoln himself was about to turn around and return to his comic horde to get more reading done. Luna saw that her brother was right there, and there was no better timing for her to ask than now.

"Hey Lincoln?" The white-haired boy heard his rockstar sister call his name, "You mind helpin' a big sister out?"

"Sure Luna, what's up?" Lincoln asked.

"I was talking to Luan earlier about finding out what kind of power I might have, and it kinda got me thinking. You're the family's big comic fanatic, think you can give a hand?" She asked. Luna knew that Lincoln had a massive expanse of knowledge regarding comics and other related stuff, so he was bound to know something that could help her out. If she really wanted to get some in-depth smarts about what kind of hidden superpower she might have, then her brother was the best person to talk to. For Lincoln, this was something he'd wanted to do since these things started happening. His sisters asking for help on superpowers? That was a chance that he wouldn't miss for the world.

For Luna, she watched as Lincoln let out a huge gasp, his eyes growing huge and twinkling.

"Would I?" Lincoln cried out, giddy as can be. He raced back to his room and came out almost immediately with a strong kick to his door and with a massive stack of comic books in his hands, "Let's get started, Luna!"

"Sweet."

...

"Alright, that didn't work out. Maybe we can try another way?"

"Forget it dude. Whatever my power might be Lincoln, it's trying really hard to keep itself hidden."

Any sort of revelation that Luna was hoping for when she brought Lincoln to the game had disappeared. For the past half an hour or so they had tried every idea that Lincoln could pull from his comic books, and even with the countless examples that they offered the two siblings still couldn't bring out whatever power that lay inside of Luna. The rockstar was beginning to feel a little hopeless at this point. She was certain that if it didn't come out now, it was only going to reveal itself when it wanted to, and that could be at any time. The thought of her body suddenly showing off her superpower in front of her friends, her parents, or worst case scenario her girlfriend did not resonate well with Luna Loud. Who knows what kind of disaster would follow.

It also didn't help that she had fully expected to gain her power when she asked for her brother's help. Luna had been excited to have a secret superpower, but it seemed like fate didn't seem to share her disposition. Or perhaps she was a dud, the one without powers.

But Lincoln still remained optimistic, probably because he both hated seeing his sister so despondent over something that he felt so passionate for, and feeling like he didn't want to let his big sister down. The white-haired boy frowned at the sight of Luna laying on her bed, comics strewn all around her as she stared up at the ceiling. He walked on over to her, putting down his copy of Justice League of America on her dresser and clambered over to Luna, sitting down right beside her head.

A quick gaze to his face showed that he still wore a buck-toothed smile, but Luna wasn't in a very cheery mood.

"C'mon Luna, we can't give up now! We're so close! I can feel it!" He said to her, and Luna huffed out her nose.

"You said that before we attempted to pull a He-Man pose, Linc." Luna said back, still remembering that stupid shout her brother told her to say.

"But it could have been the one! We have to keep trying!" Lincoln shook his sister's shoulders, but Luna was unconvinced.

"Look Lincoln, I get that you're excited about your fam getting superpowers, but we've been at this and haven't proved anything."

"Luna-!" Lincoln whined, but his sister was quick on the draw.

"Bro, I'm done. Let's face the music here, Lincoln. We've tried everything we could to see what kind of power I got, and so far I've got nothing." Luna responded, looking as dejected as she sounded. She sat back up, sitting on the edge of her bed as she turned to face her brother. "Thanks for the help little dude, but right now I think I'm done for the day. Sorry for buggin' ya."

Lincoln frowned, realizing that Luna had pretty much thrown in the towel. As much as he hated it, he knew that Luna could only go on for so long without any results before she would eventually call it quits. And he honestly didn't blame her. He could only imagine how disheartened she felt.

He proceeded to gather his comics up and walk out the door with them in hand, but not before he turned around to face his sister.

"Hey Luna, just so you know, I'm always here if you want me to. Catch you later." He solemnly said, and left her room closing the door behind him. Luna let out a sigh and leaned over to grab her guitar when she spied something strange on her cabinet. It was one of Lincoln's comics. He must have accidentally left it behind.

It was an edition of Thor, the cover art showing the Asgardian prince flying through the skies. The cover art was drawn really well with lots of vivid colors.

"Huh. Lincoln must've forgot this one." The young rock star said, and compelled by her curiosity and recently reading comic books with Lincoln, she picked it up and began to flip through the pages.

The moment she began reading Luna realized just how Lincoln and his friends were so engrossed with comic literature. It was filled to the brim with cheesy action and quotable heroics. Some pages she got a laugh out of, and others that made her internally cheer. There was one scene, however, that really got her attention. In it Thor had lost his hammer to a terrible foe, but against the odds he still continued to fight on without it and emerged victorious with a mighty punch. Thanks to Lincoln showing just how vast the world of comic books really was she had slowly grown to like this sort of entertainment, and now here she was, reading a comic book for fun just like her little brother. She chuckled, imagining herself as Thor in battle wielding incredible powers and battling terrible foes. God of Thunder, indeed. But that title didn't stand for Luna.

"Goddess of Thunder. Now that's more like it." Luna mumbled to herself, now in a better mood as she put the comic book down and reached over towards her guitar. Maybe some R'n'R with some comics was just what she needed.

She wasn't expecting her imagination to become reality when small arcs of lightning danced between her fingers and the brass strings, crackling in the open air for a brief, stunning moment. Luna let out a gasp, instantly retracting her hand in surprise. Slowly she gazed down to her hand, and in it were roiling coils of bright white lightning dancing on her palm. To her shock, it wasn't hurting her in the slightest. And had she noticed from the mirror there were also thin volts of the same lightning beaming from the sides of her eyes.

Luna knew exactly what was going on. She couldn't help herself but let out a laugh that held both relief and astonishment.

"Holy smokes," Luna excitedly said, "T-This is it! Ha ha! I've got one! Looks like I'm joining the powered-up sister club!" She stood up to get a better look at her powers. The same thing was going on with her other hand, and when she put them close together they made bigger volts that arced along her arms like a power line. As she was admiring her newfound powers, she heard a knock on the door.

"Hey Luna?" It was Luan, surprisingly, and she sounded slightly morose, "I passed by Lincoln a while ago, said you were feeling kinda down. Mind if I come in?"

"Sure thing!" Luna responded, but then got another idea. "Wait, could you get Lincoln for me? I wanna tell him something." Like how his idea actually kind of worked.

"Alright, one sec." Luan said back, unknowingly leaving the excited Luna to prepare revealing herself to her bro, who would no doubt be awestruck to see his sister. Luna couldn't help but let out a giggle, hiding her mouth behind her hands as she decided to make it a surprise. She willed her power off, and the electrical bolts dissipated. And just in time as the door opened and in came Lincoln followed by Luan. The young lad was taken back by seeing his sister acting so vibrant since the last time he was in here she was rather morose.

"Luna?" Lincoln asked, wondering about her mood change, "Are you okay?"

"Little bro, you have no idea!" Luna responded, leaning down to her brother, "Check this out!"

She thrust her arms out, hoping to show off her powers and 'wow' her brother and sister. Their faces would have been priceless.

Instead, nothing happened. No volts, no static, no sign of what she believed what was finally her power revealing itself.

"W-What?" Luna practically whimpered, and she tried again. Still nothing. Her mood and face instantly fell. Had she done something wrong, or was it just a figment of her imagination. Lincoln and Luan watched with confusion as Luna frantically shook her arms and shouted with fury. "Oh, come on! It was just there a second ago! Why the hell aren't you working?!"

"Um, Luna? What's not working?" Lincoln asked, wondering what Luna was trying to do with her arms.

"My powers, dude! I've got one!" Luna responded, and the two of them were certainly surprised especially Lincoln. Luna pointed towards the comic book on her bed, the copy of Thor that Lincoln had accidentally left in her room before her powers revealed itself. "I was reading your comic book earlier before you two came in, and then there it was! I had lightning dancing all over my hands, but now I can't get it work!"

Luan scratched her chin, both she and her brother taking a look at Luna's arms. Nothing out of the ordinary.

"I don't see anything Luna." Lincoln said.

"As electrifying as that sounds, perhaps you were just imagining things." Luan reasoned, and Luna gaped at her sister. "I can attest to that. The first night when I got my power with Lynn, I thought I was daydreaming. Maybe you're doing the same thing."

"What?! No way dude, I swear it was right there-!"

"Look Luna, I know you feel bad for believing you wasted my time with comic books, but you don't have to try and make something up to make me feel better." Lincoln said. In all honesty he was glad to have shown Luna his huge comic collection. It was small amount of bonding between siblings. Speaking of which, Lincoln made his way over to pick up his lost piece of literature. "You were reading Thor? I knew you were a Marvel fan."

"I'm telling you dudes, I'm not making this up!" Luna was now on the verge of freaking out. It was bad enough that her power was now playing dead, but now her siblings were acting like she was crazy. Of course this would happen to her, she gets her powers after all this time and then all of a sudden it doesn't function when her siblings are nearby, making it seem like she was crying wolf. It made her want to take her guitar to a wall.

"Maybe we can get Lisa." Luan said. "She's got that supervision of her's, doesn't she? Maybe she can take a peek inside and see what's up."

Lisa! Of course! Luna immediately got a sense of excitement. Her super-smart little sister would definitely prove her right!

"Hang on, I'll get her!" Luna shouted, aiming to prove that she hadn't been lying. If there was anyone to prove that she wasn't insane, it was Lisa.

"Wait a second Luna, Lori said we-!" Luan said, trying to stop her sister from being a victim of Lori's wrath. But instead Luna ignored her and went straight forward. She could deal with Lori. After all she had powers now, and she was going to prove it!

Turns out she didn't have to. One step was all she took. A single bound towards the door. In that moment, as if in slow-motion, Luna's legs suddenly began to shoot out small electrical bolts, glowing their bright white and crackling with energy. Lincoln and Luan barely had time to react when Luna became a purple blur shooting across the room, diving out of the way as their rockstar sister inadvertently became a supersonic bulldozer. The gust of air that followed her momentarily made them shield their vision as the sounds of splintering wood and plaster followed, and putting down their arms revealed that Luna had plowed through the door in front of her, continuing on to the wall on the other side of the hallway and leaving behind human-shaped holes.

Luna, lying upside-down with her rear planted against the wall and floured with dust, lay dazed on a small pile of rubble in Lori and Leni's room. The two of them looked down in complete surprise. They had been minding their own business when Luna literally crashed into their abode. Lori had been trying to use her power to fit into her XXL sweaters while Leni was reading about ancient sculptures from a book given to her from Lisa. Neither of them had expected this rather unexpected visit.

Lincoln and Luan peeked through the hole in the door to where they could see Luna lying there, both of their minds thinking the same thing.

Looks like she wasn't lying.

"Holy crap Luna!" Lori cried out. She hurried over and knelt down to check on her younger sister right as Lincoln and Luan entered the room, both of them still in disbelief at what happened.

"Did you see that?" Lincoln asked, shock in his voice.

"How could I not see that?" Luan said back as she made her way over to her roommate and knelt down next to her. Luna's dizzy, wide eyes looked right back up. Luan asked a simple question while putting a hand in front of her to test how bad Luna clobbered herself with a wall. "How many fingers am I holding up Luna?"

"Ehhh... Hmm..." Luna tried to focus her quadruple-vision on one of the Luans spinning in front of her, and managed to say, "Eight?"

Luan currently held two fingers, her pointer and middle, which made sure when she counted with her own eyes.

"What happened?" Lori demanded, righteously annoyed with their siblings entering her room unannounced and also wrecking her door.

"I don't know! She just... fwoosh! Right out the door!" Lincoln replied as stumped as could be.

A couple moments passed before anyone spoke up again.

"Lisa?"

"Lisa."

...

"How are you feeling Luna? Any better?"

"Other than I felt like I put my head through a wall, which I actually did? Peachy, sis. Just peachy."

"Just asking, Luna." Luan said to her cranky sister as she sat down next to her. Luna was currently resting on Lisa's bed with an ice pack on her forehead along with some band-aids to help ease the bruising.

It didn't take long for the rest of the family to hear about what happened to Luna and the wall. Lori had nearly thrown another fit over having to deal with more broken things in the house but Lincoln and Luan assured that this was not directly Luna's fault for smashing through the hallway. Plus Leni had been kind enough to use her power to fix both doors, something that she figured out she could do. The eldest sister did drop her anger towards Luna after hearing her younger brother and sister, but was currently sitting down on one of Lisa's lab chairs deep in thought. Leni was right beside her, telling her that Luna was going to be okay now that Lisa was doing her "science-y" stuff.

Speaking of the little scientist, Lincoln alongside Lana and Lola were watching Lisa work at her desk, and every couple of seconds Lisa's eyes would shoot out something. A lime green scanning ray one moment and then a thin yellow laser that beamed right into the hair sample from Luna. She had recovered it from a piece of wood that belonged to their door. Her logic-directed brain analyzed and studied the little strand, even with her brother and sisters looking over her shoulder.

"Find anything yet?" Lincoln asked.

"If I had an answer for the first time you asked me that, I would have given it to you." Lisa responded. "So far, I have not yet determined what caused our elder sister's intense form of locomotion. I will grant you the reason when I have found it."

"I say it's super speed." Lynn stated. Lincoln and Luan turned to face her. "What? It makes sense. You two saw how zoomed straight through the wall, kinda like the Flash!"

"I don't think it's super speed Lynn," Lincoln said, "I saw lightning coming out of her legs before she... did her thing."

"Same here." Luan added.

"Well what else could it be?"

"Eureka!" Lisa shouted quite loudly. The siblings faced the young scientist, who had her fists raised to the air. "Pardon my shouting, but I have achieved discovery!"

"I take it you found what Luna's power is?" Lori asked.

"Indeed my eldest sibling, I have. Take a good look at this hair follicle. Notice how there appears to be a small electrical current coursing around it?" Lisa asked as she held the piece of hair in front of her siblings, who leaned down to take a look, even Luna stood up to stare at it. A tiny lightning arc danced across and the siblings gasped. "This is what Luna's power is. She has the ability to utilize and create intense electrical currents within her body, similar to powerful thunderstorms that occur across the planet."

"But that doesn't explain how she ran so fast!" Luan argued.

"But it does actually," Lisa said back, "Thanks to her power, Luna can generate incredible amounts of energy into her extremities, which is how she unintentionally ran at such extreme speeds. Because of this, and thanks to Lincoln's comic books, I have named this ability supercharge." With Luna's power revealed, that left only Lincoln and Lily to potentially have their powers. In the afterglow of this discovery Luna raised up her arm and allowed her power to flow, causing lightning bolts to shoot out from her skin. The rest of the siblings watched with awed eyes.

"So cool!" Lana gushed while leaning close, then realized that water and electricity don't mix and stepped back to prevent being shocked.

"You're like a living lightning rod, sis." Lynn added.

"Looks like that Thor comic rubbed off on me in more ways that one, little bro." Luna patted Lincoln on the head with a smile on her face. "You helped me out after all. Thanks for that, dude."

Hearing that instantly made Lincoln's day ten times better.

"No problem Luna."

However before they could get further, their good moods were cut short when Lori decided that it was time to talk. Her family was undergoing something literally out of this world and they had to make sure they kept themselves safe and smart.

"Okay guys, while I literally enjoy these nice moments, we have to have a serious talk about what's happening to us." Lori walked to the front of the sibling group to speak to her sisters and brother. "It's obvious that staying in our rooms isn't working. We can't go on like this otherwise we're just gonna knock the house down. We have to learn to keep these things we have down to a bare minimum. I say we all meet up in my room for a Sibling Meeting so we can have some clue on how we can manage that. Agreed?"

"Agreed!" They said back, and headed for Lori's room for the next step to controlling their powers.