The surprise Lori had in mind for Lynn and Lily, seemed to be a trip to the park, one that Lynn was all too familiar with as it used to be where she would come to train and work on her own cardio whenever things got too stressful at home.
"I'm not gonna lie, I was kind of expecting you to take me to the batting cages, or the bowling alley." Lynn confessed, having anticipated their oldest sister to try and cater to the aspiring sports star especially, the brunette was laying in the grass, basking in the gentle autumn sun.
"I thought it'd be better to bring you here, I know you like to relax here the day before a game." Lori responded, being sat under a tree with Lily sitting in her lap, out of all the ideas the oldest Loud could come up with, this was the only safe one that she could come think of, she had been worried about what might happen if Lynn stressed her body out. It made Lori scared of when her little sister would return to being her overly active self, once she got allowed to play again.
"I told you she cares about you." The maternal split personality said, the auburn-haired girl sighed, putting her arms behind her head as she attempted to remain relaxed. The few Loud sisters had been more or less spending their time talking, just enjoying the early day together for the last few hours.
"Is everything okay with you and Lincoln?" Lori inquired; she had not realized it until she began to think deeper on it, but the one she expected would have been the most supportive in that family meeting last night out of all of them, was Lincoln, due to just how tight of a bond Lynn and their only brother shared, yet during that entire confession from Lynn about her split personalities, the white-haired Loud had remained completely silent until he made his announcement about going to Leni's.
"He no longer sees us as his sister, and is going to be traumatized for life, we may as well just kill ourselves to save everyone the trouble of dealing with our mistakes and give him back his freedom..." The depressed split personality sighed out; Lynn shook the headache off as she activated the device on her side to give herself a jolt of agony, hiding the short burst of agony from Lori, the sporty Loud was becoming adept at hiding her pain.
"I screwed up, Lori... And I'm not sure I can make things right again." Lynn replied with her honest thoughts, she had been thinking about how to make things right with Lincoln since she first received news of what the obsessed personality did, the aspiring sports star could not think of anything however. There was a moment of silence between them, Lori wanted to talk more openly, but Lily made that hard to do.
"Hey, Lily, can you go get us something to drink?" Lori asked their youngest sibling while taking out her wallet.
"Okay!" Lily nodded; she knew what her sisters liked to drink, she was given a few dollars before she headed off to the nearby vending machine, times like this made Lori glad their youngest sister was the living embodiment of innocent.
"What happened Lynn? Did one of the voices hurt Lincoln...?" Lori hesitantly asked, as much as her mind did not want to admit it, that would explain why their brother went to Leni's, as well as why the confession was taken out of secrecy, the oldest Loud sister could only hope it was not too bad.
"They hurt us both... Now I'm pretty sure he hates my guts, and I don't know what I can do to make it right." Lynn explained her plight as vaguely as possible; she needed advice of any kind; she wanted to try and fix things between her and Lincoln, desperately so, even if it was seemingly impossible. The silence between Lori and Lynn felt deafening, the oldest Loud sister trying to gather her thoughts or think of a way to help, it was not like she could force them to get along, but the way Lynn was describing it made it sound like Lincoln was scared of her outright.
"Do you remember last year, when Lola and Lana had their worst fight yet?" Lori tried to start, seemingly changing the topic, the 5th oldest Loud quirking an eyebrow while trying to recall, it only took a second for that memory to spring back, though she did not think the two situations were too comparable given how hugely they differed in both their circumstances and actions.
"Oh, yeah... Lana had the worst day at school, and when she got home, she found out that the night before Lola had accidentally thrown out her new expensive screwdriver set that dad got her." Lynn continued recounting the incident, the reason the Loud sisters often called it the worst fight however, was because there was no shouting, there was no hitting, there was nothing but a broken and upset Lana who refused to say anything, it was the kind of fight that implied the person was no longer willing to do anything further, like they had given up on the person they used to fight with.
Lori nodded, looking over to make sure Lily was still not back yet, the littlest Loud seemed to be having a problem hitting the higher up buttons on the vending machine, that was keeping her distracted long enough.
"Lana didn't talk to Lola for a whole month, no matter what Lola did, it didn't matter, but do you know what fixed it?" Lori asked, Lynn actually did not know the answer to that at all, it seemed like one day the two had made up with seemingly no effort from the family at all.
"Lola never stopped apologizing, every day she would say she was sorry, sometimes she would bring a present, other days she would do Lana's chores for her, at one point she even tried learning about machinery so she could help Lana fix Vanzilla!" Lori exclaimed, it was a depressing thing for the Loud house to witness the twins in that sorry state, their parents couldn't force them to get along when they weren't even fighting, Lincoln tried to help, sadly all of his plans failed and Lola refused to rely on him any further, the only advice anyone else could give was for the spoiled twin to apologize.
"Just keep apologizing, huh?" Lynn repeated, holding a hand over her eyes and thinking on it, she doubted Lincoln would forgive her, even if they were both victims of the obsessed personality that had been in her mind, that did not mean she couldn't try to apologize further, even if the situations were drastically different comparatively, the brunette sitting up after a moments consideration.
"You're right." Lynn sighed out in agreement, Lori blinked at that reply, she rarely heard that from her sports loving sister, usually the brunette would scoff at it.
"You're really growing up." The maternal split personality proudly hummed; the auburn-haired girl rolled her eyes, she just hopped back onto her feet, stretching, they could see Lily coming back now, carrying the three drinks in her arms.
"Can you take me to the mall? I want to buy a game for Lincoln." Lynn requested from Lori while taking her drink from Lily, getting reminded a lot of how things used to be in the Loud house, everyone doing favors for their oldest sister to earn rides to places when their parents were too busy.
"I never thought I'd hear you saying that you want to buy a video game in my life." Lori lightly laughed, Lynn looking embarrassed with a slight crimson appearing on her face, she was in agreement with her oldest sister on that, the three starting to make their way out of the park.
"Do you really plan to go straight back into all of your sports?" Lori had to ask, it sounded crazy that someone who had a fractured skull would go straight back into every activity they could the second they were given permission; in Lynn's case, her benching would be officially done as of Wednesday.
"I need to, my body is getting restless and working out doesn't do much for it." Lynn responded, all the built-up energy and the desire to compete again were starting become prominent in her system.
"Admit it, you enjoy beating down the competition! It feels great to run across a field, hitting a homerun, beating someone in a wrestling match, it feels great to be on top!" The aggressive split personality chimed up within Lynn's head, her dome was sore, Lynn had to ask herself internally if she really did only play sports to feel superior over others, she was always competitive by nature, but she never viewed it as being a terrible thing, even if the 5th oldest Loud knew she went overboard sometimes.
"I really need the distraction." Lynn confessed in addition, her efforts at self-therapy to relax had good effect, yet nothing long-lasting. She kept updating her diary every night, she tried interacting more with her family now, but the brunette wanted to get back to doing what she loved most, playing sports. The three beginning to arrive back to Lori's car, the oldest Loud pausing after opening the driver's side door.
"Look I get it, just promise me you won't overdo it, alright? It isn't healthy to force yourself back into things." Lori exclaimed while helping Lily into the backseat, she was not able to deny though, her younger sister had changed a lot in these last near couple of weeks, it was rather terrifying to witness, like those split personalities had begun to change who she was as a whole.
"I won't make any promises, but I'll try." Lynn could only reply while taking her seat in the passenger side, the brunette missed when she was not so fragile mentally, the aspiring sports star hated it, like every day she was closer and closer to falling apart, even with one of the split personalities now seemingly gone.
"I can tell you; all Lori can see us as now is that we're nothing but a little glass doll, waiting to shatter..." Dismal Lynn declared; the 5th oldest Loud wanted to use the gadget Lisa gave her to silence the depressed voice, she found herself freezing upon realizing it did not work.
"Is the pain from Lisa's gadget not enough anymore...?" Lynn fearfully pondered, biting her lip as her shoulders slumped when she laid back in her seat. The aspiring sports star considered turning the pain it could give to max, yet she was too scared to do it in front of Lori, Lynn knew that there was no way to hide the pain it would cause.
The only thing Lynn could do now, was just listen and try not to show the affect the voice was having on her, the longer she listened to the depressed personality though, the more Lynn found herself believing the words in her head were true, when the sporty Loud looked to her oldest sibling, she could see Lori's eyes held nothing but sympathy, the college student taking her attention away when starting the car, thinking their time together this morning so far had gone rather well.
"Lori's suddenly being nicer to us than ever, trying to bond with us, all so she can feel better about herself, soon our parents will be doing the same just to make themselves feel better for betraying us." The depressed split personality continued, the sports loving Loud's head was beginning to throb as her heart was beginning to beat faster, she held one hand on her face, covering her left eye. Lynn hated that she felt in agreement with it.
"Even though they know that we're nothing more than a monster... And the only one who never looked at us differently when they knew the truth, we've scared off." It continued, referencing what the obsessed split personality had done to Lincoln, the 5th oldest Loud kept her gaze towards the window, not wanting Lori or Lily to see face right now while she was taking a mental beating.
Lynn could not shake the ever increasing feeling that the split personality was completely correct, she closed her eyes while letting her head rest against the window, trying to drown out her thoughts with a short nap between the car ride from the park to the mall.
Lynn's mind wandered in her sleep, she found herself walking through a forest in the late night, it felt like her body was moving on its own, the familiar sound of the party in the near distance ringing out, the leaves crunching underneath her feet. The brunette found herself stopping when someone came into view up ahead, keeping her grip on the tree she held onto while peeking around cautiously.
Lynn was unaware of the devious grin creeping on her face, seeing Chandler throwing up like he had gone overboard on the liquor, she felt her body moving against her will yet again, like the aspiring sports star was forced to watch every step of the way. She reached down and scooped up a handful of dirt from the ground, stepping closer to the party king of their school.
"Ugh, I thought I could handle more than that." Chandler coughed while wiping his lips, he had come out here to gather himself just so he would not look like a lightweight in front of his party guests, that was when the sound of someone stepping behind him caught his attention, when he turned around however, he suddenly was met with a face full of dirt that filled his eyes. "Agh! My eyes! What the hell?!" Chandler cried out while gripping at his face.
Lynn did not respond, that sheer aura of anger was radiating out from her, she grabbed Chandler by the throat and slammed him against the tree he had been losing his dinner beside of, he could not see as he felt a hard punch go across his face, only to then be followed up by a knee being dug into his crotch at full force.
"Hrk!" Chandler gasped in agony, the grip on his throat tightened before he was swung around, being thrown the opposite way, causing him to collapse to the ground, his entire body was in agony, the party king could not run due to the sheer pain in his lower body.
"Look, I don't know what I did to you! I'm sorry! I'll do anything!" Chandler cried; Lynn stepping over to him, keeping herself near his legs, she raised her right foot up and brought it down in full force onto the side of his left kneecap, there was a nasty crunch that rung out upon the impact, Chandler screamed out in pain, his cries being drowned out by the loud music that was blaring from nearby.
Lynn stepped over to his right arm, going down on one knee to pin the limb down by the forearm, she grabbed his hand with a grin, grabbing his middle finger and beginning to pull it backwards, very far, ignoring the overwhelming screaming coming from the one she was hurting.
This process was repeated for each individual finger, but by the time the last one was done, Chandler was unconscious from the sheer pain. Lynn stood over his knocked-out form; she stretched and let out a satisfied breath, the brunette looking at her phone to see that it was nearly 4am.
"I better get home." The voice of Lynn-Sanity could be heard speaking to themselves as they began to walk off in another direction, needing to return to their bicycle so they could get home before their absence was noticed. Lynn saw vague flashes in her mind, brief images, of her body under the obsessed personalities control, tearing out blank pages in her diary, writing a letter meant to startle Chandler into making her his bodyguard, sneaking into the school one late night and shoving it in his locker, those same images kept repeating over and over again.
Lynn suddenly was awoken when feeling herself being shaken awake, she looked around in terror seeing Lily looking at her worriedly from the open passenger side door. "Lynn, okay?" Lily asked, that was when the auburn-haired girl realized she was sweating a lot, yet she felt terribly cold at the same time.
"Lynn, hey! Are you alright?" Lori questioned while on her cell phone, the oldest Loud had been trying to talk to their mother about Lynn, the sports loving girl had been asleep for a half hour after they had arrived to the mall, the college student did not take notice until she had parked the car and tried to wake Lynn up, only to get no response despite her best efforts.
"She's awake now Mom, I'll call you back." Lori hung up, stepping over to her younger sister, Lynn grabbed the roof of the car and yanked herself out from the vehicle, stumbling a little, she tried to shake it off, there was this overwhelming feeling of rage in her body that she could not describe, it was seemingly not aimed at anyone, that dream felt so real to Lynn though that it scared her.
"Yeah, I just... I had a bad dream." Lynn panted, she felt Lily hugging her waist in an attempt to comfort her older sibling, the brunette reached down and rubbed her youngest sister's head, starting to feel herself calming down, Lynn swore that Lily was the only thing helping her resist the aggressive split personality.
"Did I nearly lose control...? What was that?" Lynn mentally asked herself, she could tell that Lori was not buying the nightmare response, like it was a convenient excuse at best, the oldest Loud had been terrified when she could not get her little sister to wake up at all no matter what she did.
"Was it the voices again?" Lori asked, that ticked off a nerve in the 5th oldest Louds head, like what the depressed split personality had said was correct. As if the second Lynn would say 'yes' it would result in an emergency trip to the hospital, it felt extremely insulting to Lynn.
"Voices?" Lily parroted while tilting her head, wondering what it was they were talking about.
"It's nothing Lily, just something I've had bad dreams about." Lynn insisted while forcing her youngest sister to end their embrace, the sports loving girl glaring to their oldest sister, Lori froze in fear, seeing how angry her sibling seemed to be, as if Lynn's irritation levels had been gone through the roof now out of seemingly nowhere.
"I'm going to go get that apology gift for Lincoln, then I'm going home, you can quit worrying about me after that." Lynn declared, it was clear from her tone it was not a suggestion, rather a decision, Lynn forced herself to step away upon feeling that overwhelming urge to bite her older sibling's head off.
"I told you so. She's just here to babysit us because mom and dad asked her to..." Dismal Lynn's voice echoed in the Highschool girl's head.
"Yeah, you were right, now shut up." Lynn grumbled under her breath, trying to distract herself from the random rage that felt like it was making her blood boil. The thing that had caused this anger was that dream, mostly because it more felt like a memory, there had been nothing short of hatred throughout that entire nightmarish memory.
"Did I do something wrong...?" Lori asked herself, the college girl had thought the three's bonding time had been going rather well, now it was like Lynn hated her guts out of nowhere, the oldest Loud sister was scared she had been trying too hard to make things work now and had somehow crossed a line she was unaware of.
Lynn had been able to get herself to calm down after a brief stroll through the mall, she did text Lisa telling her about how the device was not working on the depressed split personality any longer, Lisa's reply insisted on not turning the nerve irritation tool up any higher, due to the risk of causing true damage to the aspiring sports stars nerves.
Now she had a new problem facing her however, she was in a game store, trying to find something she could give Lincoln as an apology present, with zero clue what he liked. The brunette felt embarrassed not knowing something as simple as what kinds of games her brother liked, Lynn had an idea come to mind, she took out her cell phone and dialed Clyde's number.
"Hey Lynn." Clyde answered warmly.
"Hey Clyde, is this a bad time? I kind of need your help." Lynn asked, it almost felt awkwardly alien to her being in the video game store, even more so when she realized there was a disturbing number of plush toys based on various game characters that felt like they were staring into her soul.
"If you think I can help, sure!" Clyde more than gladly agreed, Lynn had to ask herself if she had really made him that happy the other night, it had been their first date, the aspiring sports star had not mustered up the courage to say she was not feeling any desire to go on any further dates with the glasses wearing boy.
"I need your help on two things, one is Lincoln, I'm trying to buy a game for him, but I have no idea what he likes." Lynn stated what it was that she needed help with, she thought it was best to tell him about her refusal on dating him when they next met at school, although the brunette was dreading Monday increasingly with each passing hour, the only solace the 5th oldest Loud had was in the fact that the obsessed personality was not rearing its ugly voice still, that brought her incredible relief.
"Oh, he was really excited about an RPG that was coming out two months ago, I don't think he was able to get it because he needed the money to get a new bike. I'm pretty sure it was called tide of knights." Clyde explained what he recalled off the top of his head, he did not recall his best friend ever talking about buying it as well, the Mcbride boy could not remember any game his friend had played or purchased recently, outside of what they played at the arcades they visited.
"What's the other thing you need my help with?" Clyde requested, assuming it would be another inquiry about Lincoln, not that he minded.
"Do you know what happened to Chandler, exactly? I need to know." Lynn hesitantly forced herself into asking, unable to get what she had seen in her sleep out of her head. The auburn-haired Loud was able to find the game that Clyde had pointed her towards over the phone, she hoped it was the right one at least.
"Lynn, please don't beat yourself up over this, it sucks what happened to Chandler, but there was nothing you could do about it. You could've gotten hurt just as badly as him if you had been involved." Clyde tried to comfort the sporty Loud, he knew she did not handle failure of any kind well, failing to protect someone from being grievously harmed was something he imagined the sporty Loud was beating herself up over.
"Clyde, just... Please, tell me." Lynn repeated her request, she appreciated his concern for her, yet hearing how much Clyde cared for her only made the guilt in her heart all the heavier.
"At some point he stepped away from the party during the night, I don't know why, no one noticed he was even gone until the morning after, they found him in the woods and... It was bad." Clyde found himself pausing at recalling the grizzly details that he had heard from the others at the party, Lincoln's best friend was horrified when he saw the picture someone had taken of Chandler being loaded into the ambulance, it had spread online like wildfire.
"Whoever attacked him, they did a number on him, they shattered his knee, and dislocated all of his fingers, they don't know who did it either because the attacker practically blinded him when they shoved dirt in his eyes before he could see them." Clyde finished the explanation with what he recalled there, Lynn's heart was racing as she listened intently, paying for Lincoln's gift and simply taking it so she could leave the store immediately.
"Thanks for telling me, Clyde." Lynn thanked the black-haired boy, that was enough evidence for her, she had attacked Chandler, except this assault seemed far more vicious than the fight with Brandon and Tyler.
"Awe, is the cat outta the bag?" Lynn-Sanity laughed, the 5th oldest Loud sibling trying to ignore the throbbing in her head.
"Stay safe out there, Lynn. I'll see you Monday." Clyde wished her the best before hanging up, instead of putting her cellphone away, Lynn kept it up to her ear.
"What did you do?" The aspiring sports star demanded from her aggressive split personality, trying to pretend she was talking on her phone to feign an act of normalcy while still in public.
"Did what you wanted, dealt with a jerk that no one will care gets hurt. A fight's a fight." Lynn-Sanity answered, sounding rather bored from this conversation.
"No, that wasn't a fight, that was a cowardly attack!" Lynn hissed with venom in her voice. "Only total cowards fight like that!" She continued, if her dream was actually the exact memory of just what the aggressive split personality had done, then all the brunette saw was the living embodiment of dirty fighting, one of the very things she detested most.
"Why give a chance to someone you know can't win? Besides, I only did that because you wanted me to keep things secret, you should be happy, we got to alleviate some of that restlessness welling in us." The aggressive split personality responded, the sporty Loud trying to just focus on making her way out of the mall.
"Because the only reason you fight dirty is when you're scared you won't win." Lynn could only say in response to Lynn-Sanity, though that was when a small realization struck her, she lost control of her body in her sleep, again, but it wasn't to the obsessed personality, which as far as she could recall, had been the only one able to do that before the incident with Lincoln.
"Wait, if you took me over, does that mean the obsessed one is gone?" The 5th oldest Loud questioned, finding herself pausing by the fountain, the sound and view of the trickling water was rather relaxing compared to the rest of the stress of the day thus far.
"I guess? It sure seems like they're gone. Which is a shame, they really helped us set Chandler up, I wouldn't have been able to get that letter in his locker without them." Lynn-Sanity replied, she swore hear them shrugging uncaringly, Lynn put her phone back in her pocket, she felt an odd sense of happiness at the moment, despite the bad news of what had happened to Chandler, and the unnerving realization that two of the voices in her head had collaborated again without her knowing it. The sports loving girl took out a quarter from her pocket, flicking it into the fountain before continuing on her way.
"I need to talk to Lisa." Lynn thought, at this point she gave every piece of information she learned from or about the split personalities to her 2nd youngest sister, the genius was the best at coming up with possible theories behind the other Lynn's motivations. Though now Lynn had a different fear, being taken control of by any of the other three personalities in her sleep instead of just the one.
Lori was relieved when Lynn returned in a much better mood, the tension appeared to be gone yet the sporty Loud seemed to no longer want to have any heart to hearts with her oldest sister, the 5th oldest Loud instead pretended to be distracted with talking with Lily, Lori saw through it very easily, yet decided to not push her luck.
"It was nice hanging out with you, thanks for the ride to the mall too." Lynn thanked her oldest sister as they pulled into the driveway, Lily was the first one out of the car, heading straight inside, though before the sporty Loud could get out of the car to follow she felt Lori grab her left wrist.
"Lynn, hang on a sec." Lori requested her overly active sibling to settle down momentarily, Lynn reluctantly sat back down, yet refused to look directly at her oldest sister.
"Look I'm sorry if I upset you, I just don't know how to handle this... It's like I got told I have another 3 sisters that I don't know anything about." Lori tried to apologize, assuming the reason Lynn was upset with her was due to how she reacted, the oldest Loud sister could not deny, the mere concept of this situation terrified her, she was still trying to wrap her head around it all.
"Did Mom and Dad ask you to watch me?" Lynn asked out of nowhere. "Tell me the truth." The brunette plainly demanded, she wanted the truth, the answer the college student gave would decide on how Lynn would interact with a lot of her sisters in the near future.
"No, they didn't ask me to watch you..." Lori sighed out, understanding why Lynn would be infuriated if that had been the impression she received.
"They told me how bad you had been feeling lately, I was planning on spending time with you the first chance I got before that family meeting." The oldest Loud sister claimed in her defense, it did sound rather farfetched to believe, something too convenient, Lori wanted to try and offer advice to Lynn if she needed or wanted it, the news on the split personalities changed a lot of the plans she had on that.
"She's lying to our face." The depressed personality chimed up; the aspiring sports star did not know what to believe, Lynn's paranoia was increasing, both towards herself, and those around her.
"Well, it was nice to spend time with you." Lynn said, even if the words came out as rather forced, the aspiring sports star taking the bag with the apology gift in it before getting out of the car, needing to go talk to Lisa straight away. Lori sighed, remaining in the driver's seat while holding her head, glad her sports loving sister believed what she said at the very least, Lori did not want their relationship to be strained any further than it currently had been.
When Lynn stepped inside the house, it seemed rather empty currently, it wasn't too surprising given it was a Saturday. She could see Lana working in the garage on repairing Vanzilla, Lily was with Lola in the kitchen.
"Lynn? Hey! There you are." Luna's voice called out from upstairs; Lynn looked up to her older sister, internally groaning, she just wanted to focus on her own issues for the moment, not whatever was going on with the aspiring rock star. Lynn was starting to understand how Lincoln felt now, wanting to mind their own business yet being bothered by their family constantly.
"Hey Luna, is something wrong?" Lynn asked while climbing upstairs, she could tell that Luna was only just getting over the hangover she had been dealing with all morning. The aspiring sports star remembered she had to tell her older sister about her split personality problem still, but she did not think right now was the best time, assuming their parents had not already informed Luna of it.
"Is that a game?" Luna quirked a brow taking notice of the bag Lynn held and the contents within, first a bag with dresses in it, now games, the guitarist was finding her sibling's purchases increasingly weird and out of character lately.
"It's for Lincoln." Lynn replied, it was obvious that Luna was unaware of Lincoln's absence from their house as well, though before the sports lover could say anything further, she saw the Mick Swagger fan take something out of her pocket.
"I meant to give you this last night, but uh... I lost track of time." Luna sheepishly grinned, handing over a small bundle of cash to Lynn, who could only stare at it in wide-eyed surprise.
"Wh-whoa now, what's this for?" Lynn asked, it was about 500 dollars from what she could tell, mostly assembled from 20s. She felt Luna put a hand on her shoulder, that confident smirk made the sporty Loud increasingly nervous.
"I know that it wasn't free to fix our instruments, I made Lisa tell me how much it cost." Luna declared; she had this expression that was mixed with extreme gratitude and pride, like she could not believe Lynn had sacrificed so much just to help her, it made the 3rd oldest Loud wonder if Lincoln had been rubbing off on their sporty sibling.
"I didn't want you to feel like you owed me anything." Lynn rubbed her arm nervously, only to be pulled into a tight hug by Luna. The brunette breathed a sigh of relief that Luna's hugs were nowhere near as strong as Sam's were. "Wait... Does that mean you won?" Lynn asked in disbelief.
"You bet dude! It was kind of surreal, actually." Luna proudly declared with a fist pump, it was still fresh in her mind when her band was declared the winners of the music competition, the four of them standing on stage, being cheered for and just staring in disbelief, only to then be given their prize money, it had turned out to be far more than any of them anticipated, even when evenly divvied up.
"Ah, so that's why you came home drunk. Well, congrats! It's great you won." Lynn congratulated her older sister, putting the money away in her pocket for the time being.
"It wouldn't have been possible if it weren't for you, Lincoln, Lana and Lisa. Speaking of Linc, where is the little dude? I haven't seen him all day." Luna attempted to inquire, having not seen her only brother at all today, she had to pay him back as well, while Lincoln had not made any large financial sacrifices like Lynn, the white-haired teenager had been working as the band manager for free all these years, the guitarist felt she owed him a real check for his hard work.
"She's going to hate us when she hears the truth. Lincoln was like her son." The depressed split personality said, the aspiring sports star felt her head twinge in pain, she tried to tolerate it.
"He's staying at Leni's for a while..." Lynn looked away from Luna, breaking apart their embrace.
"What?! Why?" Luna gawked, it was out of nowhere for her, though she was aware she had missed a family meeting when she woke up this morning and saw the dozens of texts on her phone, she had mostly missed them due to being out late celebrating with Sam Sully and Mazzy.
"Because we hurt him." Dismal Lynn sighed. Lynn considered it momentarily, someone that would not treat her different for her split personality issue, she genuinely considered keeping Luna in the dark on this matter entirely, she shook her head, reminding herself it was entirely hopeless to try and have more secrecy than she currently maintained.
"The girl's as flat as a board and denser than a rock, she didn't care to come to the family meeting, why should we waste our time on her?" Lynn-Sanity rhetorically asked.
"Go ask anybody, that's what the family meeting was about last night... I need to talk to Lisa." Lynn responded, throwing the bag with the game in it onto her bed before heading for the younger Loud's room. Luna wanted to try and force her to talk, yet the rock loving Loud could tell she had hit a nerve, she guessed it was time to go interrogate those that were around in the house currently.
"Lisa?" Lynn poked her head into the younger kid's room, seeing her genius sister trying to pour some liquids into a beaker for her latest project.
"Greetings Lynn, one moment please." Lisa kept her back turned for a moment until the liquids finished pouring into the beaker, the child prodigy pushing her chair away from the workbench afterwards, turning to her 5th oldest sister while taking the safety goggles off of her eyes.
"I got you an appointment with a doctor Deacon this Tuesday." Lisa stated while returning her safety equipment to their proper place on the nearby shelf, Lynn closing the door and locking it behind her.
"Wow, that was fast... How'd you manage to pull that off?" Lynn asked, she hoped this psychologist was actually good, she couldn't imagine many reasons why she would be seen so soon.
"I tutored his second son a year ago when he was struggling with college, he owed me a favor." Lisa replied, she hated calling in favors with those she was associated with in the medical field, but for a family member the child genius would give up a lot more if it meant helping them. "He's known for going farther for his patients than many psychologists, and for having creative treatment methods. He's exactly what you wanted." The 2nd youngest Loud sister declared, sounding happy that she was able to get Lynn in to see this psychologist.
"Also, about your test results..." Lisa tried to change the topic while reaching over to her desk, only to be spun back around in her chair by Lynn to face her once more.
"Hang on, before you try to drown me in science speak, I need to tell you something." Lynn interrupted, she did not know what the blood tests were for, yet right now the sporty Loud felt what she had experienced today was a tad more important.
"Uhm, well that's fine I suppose." Lisa did not argue against it, thinking the test results were probably best left for last.
"The obsessed voice is gone." Lynn tried to get straight to the point, she sounded excited like she had gotten complete confirmation on it now.
"I've already reached that conclusion. But, tell me, what's given you that certainty?" Lisa quirked while adjusting her glasses, she sounded just as confident as her 5th oldest sister on the obsessed personality being most likely gone, Lynn was confused now.
"Because, I lost control again the other night... Lynn-Sanity, the angry one, it took me over and went after Chandler, after the obsessed one set him up." Lynn elaborated further, it took the child prodigy a moment to process how that was an answer at all, though she understood the reasoning rather quickly.
"Ah, I understand. If the only thing that had been preventing the others from taking over your body while you were slumbering was the obsessed one, then it makes sense that with it gone the other three split personalities now all have an equal chance to seize control." Lisa spoke the conclusion out loud, now it was pretty obvious. Although instead of looking happy about the news like her older sister, she seemed uncertain.
"How severe were Chandler's injuries?" The bespectacled girl questioned, the aspiring sports star looked nervous or uncomfortable to answer that.
"His knees shattered, and every finger on his right hand was screwed up, the only reason I even know is because I saw it in my dream. Except it wasn't a dream, it was like my memories were catching up to me." Lynn elaborated further on just how badly hurt Chandler was, as much as she disliked the party addicted boy, he did not deserve that kind of punishment.
"How are you so sure that personality is gone though?" Lynn questioned, wanting to know what made Lisa so confident that the obsessed split personality was gone.
Lynn watched as her second youngest sister took a small file off her desk, holding it out to the sporty Loud. The High school girl took the file and opened it, seeing a medical document that did nothing other than confuse her to no end.
"Gee thanks Lisa, can you tell me the results in English?" Lynn sarcastically replied, she saw Lisa motion her over to the closest bed available, which was Lisa's. The sports loving Loud took said seat, there was a tense pause in the atmosphere, as Lisa tried to think on the best way to word this news.
"Lynn, you're most likely going to breakdown and lose control when you hear this news, before that I regret to inform you that I won't be able to permit you any further use of the nerve irritation tool either." Lisa began while trying to hesitantly get to the point with what she wanted to say, it was apparent that the child prodigy was scared of how her older sister was going to react.
"Aw come on, you can just make it hurt more, can't you? I know I'm relying on it a lot, but- OW!" Lynn gasped in pain when Lisa suddenly ripped it off her side with little warning, only to then rip the wiring out from it in an attempt to destroy the device.
"Lynn, I tested all 3 vials of your blood, the first one was inconclusive again... The other 2 were positive." Lisa leaned back in her seat, her gaze faltering to the floor while Lynn was trying to ignore the pain in her side now from the sudden painful removal of the tool.
"Positive for what?" Lynn requested her younger sister get to the point; the sporty girl wondered if it was Lisa searching for some other cause behind the split personalities that she was completely unaware of.
"You're pregnant, that's why I was running the blood tests..." Lisa took the folder away from Lynn, her sporty sister staring in wide eyed horror. "That hypothesis about the guaranteed connection that the obsessed personality desired? I believe we found it." Lisa added, keeping her hands on her lap as she waited for the reply.
Lynn was staring into space, she was not even able to take a breath with how stunned she was by the news, the 5th oldest Loud's heart was racing faster than she ever had felt it before, her head started to feel like it was being split in two, like a spike was being driven as deep down into her brain as it could go. The room was far from silent to Lynn however, the voices in her head were going off all at once.
"Isn't this great?"
"We couldn't even bother to steal a condom from Luan's room? We really are idiots..."
"Eh, who cares? It's just a kid, just pretend it's an extra training weight."
"We can show our affection to something for once!"
"We don't deserve this... Lincoln's going to kill us when he finds out, if mom and dad don't kill us first."
"Our coaches are gonna kill us long before them."
"Lynn?" Lisa fearfully spoke; she saw a trickle of blood starting to come from Lynn's nose, the 5th oldest Loud reaching a shaky hand up, her vision was blurry from the tears welling in her eyes, to the point that she was now seeing double, she felt some of the blood on her lip with her finger, looking at the crimson on her fingertips.
"Li...sa?" Lynn managed to only get her younger sister's name out, before attempting to stand up, only to wind up feeling everything shift around her, forcing the sporty Loud to collapse into the floor. Lisa immediately rushing over to her older sister.
"Lynn!"