Amogus
Raising a small army of children was a daunting task, even for a family as extensive and experienced as the Louds. Add in the hardships that came with the many 'eccentric' personalities and borderline (as in almost entirely felonious) criminal activities that the secretly inbred second generation frequently engaged in- and the adults were well due a break.
Fortunately, with the kids getting a bit older now and the more responsible of the bunch willing to help out- the older Loud generation was blessed to have Halloween night off for once.
And what a night it had been…
The kids were in by nine, safely shepherded through their trick-or-treating by Lyra's keen eye and a bribed Leia's 'persuasion'. Satisfied by his most responsible (if a little overly strict) daughter's diligence and certain that Leia had enough dirt on the rest to keep them in line, a relieved Lincoln Loud gratefully left the running of the house in their probably capable hands and allowed himself a rare night out with his own sisters and whatever friends and family could withstand a generation's worth of Loud in an enclosed space.
Now, after an hour at the bar, where he, Bobby and some of the other men in the family caught up and got happily tipsy over stories of what antics their kids had gotten up to when they thought the grownups weren't looking. Then a few more hours relaxing with the girls and enjoying some childish fun (read, Loud Shenanigans) at a club Luna had rented out (both because it was musical and because Luna loved to show off her money) with the whole gang- the collective Loud adults were genial and satisfied with their night of 'catching up'.
Luna had even promised to pay for the damages to the club- so they weren't even getting sued this time!
But all good things must come to an end, and while all eleven of their generation were squashed into Vanzilla out of nostalgia, for most of them the Loud House was no longer their shared home but a stopoff to maybe spend a night before collecting their offspring. By the next morning they would return to own lives elsewhere, following their already departed partners to their disparate homes across the state and country.
It was bittersweet, but they'd gotten a night together and the bonds of their family ran too deep and strong to be broken by simple distance. They'd grown up close, and they'd always be part of each other's lives by virtue of affection (which if anything was easier to maintain now that they weren't battling over toilet privileges anymore), shared circles and the fact they had upwards of twenty children together thanks to Lisa's mad schemes.
…
Yeah, the last one was probably the most important-
"Hey, Guys?" Luan's curious voice broke the still-slightly drunk man from his ruminations as they drew up to their old house. "How come the lights are still on?"
Lincoln rubbed his eyes to be sure, but Luan was quite correct- despite the fact that they were now well past one in the morning; the lower story windows of the house were still lit up behind the drawn curtains.
"Maybe Lyra stayed up for us?" Luna suggested. "She could be *burp*, doing something to welcome us or I dunno…"
Her voice trailed off; her mind obviously still half-submerged in an ocean of liquor that she'd imbibed.
Alas, Lincoln's own brain was not nearly so soggy as to not sense shenanigans incoming…
"No," Lincoln sighed, letting his suspicions slip out. "Lyra never stays up past eleven- it's messes up her sleep… something's gone wrong."
Lynn snorted as best could in her sleepy daze. "Yeah, whatever Dude. She probably just left the lights on or something- not everything some big disaster in the…" she yawned. "Ahh- making. Let's just get to bed and deal with whatever tomorrow, 'kay?"
"Not before we all get a few cups of water in first," Lori, at the wheel and firmly sober lest Leni had become an easily influenced designated driver to the legendarily 'rambunctious' drunks the Louds tended to become after 'getting smashed' (as Luna would say). The slightly grumpy (for she loved a sip as much as her siblings) woman continued with her insistence. "Unless anyone wants to try their luck with a hangover and the kids in the morning."
A shudder ran through the car, as the combined cacophony of their children's 'morning routine' put even their own adolescent rampages to shame.
"Yeah, yeah- drink, piss, go to bed, got it." Luna shrugged, then rested her head against the cool glass. "Think the kids got the mattresses out for us?"
"Depends if they played nice or not," Lynn guessed. "You know how it goes, one spark and the whole lot of 'em go for each other's throats. That plus there's what, fifty crammed in the house at the moment? I'm leaning towards a shitstorm flyin' out the second we open that door."
"It's more like forty," Lori tiredly insisted as she drew up into the driveway. "I'm sure Lyra handled things well."
"Yeah, that's waaay better than fifty." Lynn yawned. "Whatever- just gonna hope those weren't famous last words."
Alas, while Lori would have many words to bluster yet- Lynn's hopes were still dashed.
For upon entry into their childhood home, the Loud siblings were greeted not by their expected cacophony, nor a prim and proper child proudly preening with adult pretences to present them with a house of sleeping progeny, but a dreadful silence.
Broken by a little splash as Lincoln numbly stepped forward- and a soft thump as the sweetheart sister of his generation fell into the well trained arms of the eldest.
His shoe bottoms were dyed a sticky red from the pool of blood, a little one- but one of many in the gruesome scene the adults filed into.
The carpet and floor were stained red with blood and entrails.
The walls were similarly splattered where fine sprays of blood had dusted them, and throughout the dining and living rooms chunks of meat that were clothed the torn remnants of their children's clothing sat cooling in puddles of blood and viscera.
And as they trudged through the horror, around the flesh and blood where they could, and ignoring the odd leg draped over a chair here and hand still stiffly clinging to a wall corner there- they found culprit of the massacre sitting the middle of the living room carpet.
Still sucking down a hand as they approached, the bloody and green-eyed form of one Lulu Loud turned to her progenitors.
And then gave a friendly wave.
"Lulu…" Lincoln fell to his knees. "Why?"
Meanwhile Luna's shellshocked eyes spotted a soaked brunette curtain in the corner of the room, seemingly covering a lump of something round. With weak legs and a belly of dread she stumbled over and pulled it up both hands.
It separated from the semi-congealed liquid underneath with a sickening squelch, and as she turned it around Luna expectations were sadly realised.
The decapitated head of her first daughter was held between her fingers- Lyra's expression forever locked in despair as her sightless eyes bore into her mother's with a question.
What question?
A simple one, that was answered as something bright and irregular caught Luna's eye. Disturbed as she was, she couldn't help but notice that, half covered in a pool of drying blood and with a cracked screen was a tablet. A sudden thought occurred to her, and the musician careful placed her daughters remains in one hand as she scooped out the ruined tablet.
Sure enough, the bright colours and distinctive shapes called out to her- an unmistakable memory of times long gone by. Hours spent thinking and scheming and backstabbing for fun.
And of a game that was supposed to be forbidden after the last incident.
But it didn't matter now.
The mystery was solved.
"Heh," Luna dryly laughed, and turned to the rest of the room.
"Oh Luna…" Lori gasped as she saw Lyra's head in her mother's arm. "I'm sorry."
Lincoln ignored them both, ignored everyone but his last child covered in the remains of his others, and repeated his whisper; "why? Why did you do this…"
"… It's fine Brah. We just had ta' figure out what went on." Luna gave a broken smile as she flipped the tablet to show the rest of the. "An' from the looks of things…"
Lulu blinked, and smiled up as she swallowed the hand, a sickening crunch coming from the bones as they were crushed by her throat.
"… It looks like the kids just went and played a That Game again." Luna shook her head. "S-stupid kids just couldn't keep their 'ands off it after we told 'em not to."
Lori's eyes widened as she recognised the pictures on the screen. "Wait- you mean-"
"Looks like Lulu was 'ere was The Imposter this time." Luna sighed, and then dropped the tablet- one of many already ruined in the debris- but disguised among the bloody wreckage if one wasn't looking specifically for them.
Lincoln's ears pricked at the sound, and his eyes narrowed. "Lulu… not again-"
Alas for Lincoln, Lulu was indeed The Imposter and really liked being praised for being good at playing games with her brother and sisters, she had waited a good long while to be found out and she already feeling a bit bloated. So, she just smiled and issued one (perhaps slightly slurred from all the pressure in her tummy) word;
"Amogus"
And then she exploded.
More blood and viscera splattered across the room, covering the already ruined furniture and carpet while desecrating anew the clothes and memories of the parents in the room. Leni had the misfortune of being startled awake by the sound, but the sight of madness took care of that quickly enough and she promptly slumped back into dreams.
Lincoln, being at ground zero so speak, was less lucky. Instead, the man's front was dyed red and some other colours that really shouldn't have been in a human body.
"Dang it…" he sighed and blinked open his eyelids- having barely closed them in time to avoid getting an eyeful of Lulu.
Alas, he very quickly caught sight of something perhaps a little worse (or better, all things considered).
Before Lincoln, and in clear and casual defiance of several laws of physics were the nude and gore-covered forms of his many children. The lot of them were in a slimy pile, each and every one of them whole and seemingly unharmed if not for the thousand-yard stares borne by all save Lani. Whose head was presently situated under someone's backside and looked more annoyed than anything else.
The room remained silent for a moment, then Lori shook herself and sighed. "All right Ladies, I think we've all been here before. Go get yours and clean them off before the screaming starts- Lincoln?"
The man looked at her, face bright red and eyes filled with regret.
"Get a garbage bag and start collecting the kids' 'leftovers', we'll get Lisa's incinerator working tomorrow."
The man numbly nodded and got his knees while everyone else (save Leni, who was able to evade clean-up duty in the land of dreams so Liena and Lyle were dealt with by Lori instead) went to get the showers running and keep their personal progeny from breaking down. It was easier than one might expect, after decades of dealing with Lisa's nonsense this kind of thing really wasn't too far from the norm anyway.
"Mom…" Lyra's eyes locked onto her mother's again as Luna pulled her from the pile. "God said you need to cut back on your drinking again. Your liver isn't getting younger."
"Yeah, yeah I heard it the first time," Luna grumbled, and pulled her daughter's wrists enough for the teenager to slip free from the pile with a shlorp. "C'mon, let's go find Lems before he suffocates or somethin'."
"So, kids, did you have fun!?" Lily chirped to her own daughter, gripping Lani by the armpits to pull.
"Mother," Lani's stared up balefully. "I was eaten alive and spent three hours dead. Can't you take this seriously?"
"Weeell." Lily exaggeratedly thought to herself. "I thought I might, but I think you've been very silly tonight so I might as well be silly too!"
"Silly!?" Lani blustered, "how so-"
"I know you well enough to see your prints all over this." Lily sharply replied with a sudden sternness. "You and I both know you probably got this started for some reason, but I'm going to let this go and just rib you just a little bit because it really backfired on you again- unless you want tell us that someone else is responsible for getting out Among Us again?"
Lani scowled and remained silent.
"Wonderful!" Lily's voice returned to her usual good cheer as she started walking to the kitchen. "Now I think you're stuck good, so we're going to have to butter you up! Don't go anywhere!"
The young 'demon' clicked her tongue in annoyance but could do little but huff.
Lupa meanwhile had been long since freed, and while her mother worked to try and pull Loth from her prison of limbs- she found herself staring at her own face.
Her lost head was one of the few that was intact, neither partially destroyed or outright eaten by Lulu after she'd gotten too into the game again. All in all, Lupa had to say it was a pretty surreal experience.
And intact or not, she couldn't quite tell what expression she was wearing when she'd died.
Fear?
Surprise?
Something else?
"Y'know, the being dead thing actually isn't so bad. It's basically just like a dream when you get back." She mused, then she leaned down to fish around the remains of her black and yellow hoodie. A quick smile crossed her face as her fingers found what she wanted, and a moment later she had a cigarette and lighter in hand. "But this shit-"
Her hands were suddenly empty, and she yelped in offense as she saw her father pointedly throw her beloved ciggies into his garbage bin- already filled with a few limbs, gore and Lyra's old head.
"You know they're not good for you." Lincoln shook his head.
"Oh, come on Dad!" Lupa practically squawked. "I just got a fucking reset!"
"A good reason to start good habits then." Lincoln pointedly grabbed Lupa's own discarded head and stuffed it over the lighter and cigarettes. "And you know the rules about swearing and lighting up in the house…"
While Lincoln lectured the peeved Lupa, and the others gathered their children- one Lisa Loud was doing the same with her own.
Hers process, however, required a bucket and a variety of mops, tongs, rubber gloves and the odd spoon.
"I am well aware of the persuasive capacities of your Sibling Units S-12," the scientist reprimanded the swivelling eyeball currently sitting atop the puddle of gore within the container the short woman was carting around. "However, this is the fourth 'Amogus' incident within six months, I would hope that you would have learnt the value of discretion when indulging your less rational Sibling Units."
The eyeball seemed as repentant as it could convey, which honestly wasn't very much but a woman of Lisa's abilities could understand nonetheless.
"I appreciate being caught up in the enthusiasm of others Lulu," Lisa sighed, calmly picking up the last bit of Lulu's large intestine (ignoring the sparking) and dropping it in the bucket. "However, as your Paternal Unit could tell you from any one of the many incidents in his own childhood, a mob of siblings is only as intelligent as its most intellectually lacking member, and quite often even less."
The mix of gore squished in response, almost defiantly.
"Well, I-" Lisa pursed her lips. "Well, it seems that someone needs a timeout."
A quick scan confirmed that the last of the viable material had already been retrieved, so Lisa pointedly walked over to the 'naughty corner' in the dining room and plopped the bucket there.
"I estimate approximately seventeen hours for full unassisted reconstruction," Lisa curtly determined. "If you stay put for the next six, I will add enough protein powder and some honey oats to speed along the process. Otherwise, you can stay here and consider the full extent of tonight's events and your part in them for the full period."
The eyeball looked down, then up at Lisa again, seemingly conciliatory.
And again, Lisa's incredible intellect and familiarity with her offspring allowed her to interpret the intent of the communication.
"… It has been a very long day Lulu and I would appreciate my bunker's bed thank you very-"
The green eye's pupil grew larger, and a lone lachrymal gland started secreting.
The scientist remained stern for a moment, but as the secretion grew to a full bead of fluid, the facade cracked and her lips twitched.
"Oh, very well," Lisa huffed, and pressed a button on her watch. A beam of green shot out and in instant a well-made sleeping bag materialised in the air, before landing and rolling itself out next to the bucket- complete with a somehow perfectly fluffed pillow. "But no more 'Amogus' young lady, my incinerator is meant to be for assorted chemical waste- not your leftovers."
A/N: Thanks for Nuuo for a read-over.
